Folks in Red River County, Texas, where John Nance Garner was born, have never forgiven Uvalde, where he now lives, for getting the jump on them in starting a Garner-for-President boom in 1931.

John Nance Garner wasn’t one of them, though. Although he served as Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president during FDR’s first two terms, Garner didn’t always agree with the New Deal’s policies.

Last week Vice President John Nance Garner, as round and hard and brown as the pecans he grows on his ranch, packed up his starched collars and his cutaway, helped his quiet secretarial wife into ...