Robert Browning Allen, Sr.: A Legacy of Law and Politics in Texas (1870–1943)

Robert Browning Allen, Sr., attorney, judge, and state legislator, was born on October 16, 1870, to William J. and Cora Collane (High) Allen in Homer, Louisiana. The Allen family moved to Dallas, Texas, in 1873. Allen had two brothers, William R. and Clarence Louis. He graduated from high school in Dallas and from Southwestern University at Georgetown in 1889. He then attended the University of Texas at Austin to study law and was admitted to the Texas Bar in 1890, after which he began his practice in Dallas. On January 31, 1893, at the age of twenty-two, Allen married Agnes McCranie in Caliborne Parish, Louisiana. The couple had one son together in 1896, Robert Browning Allen, Jr., who worked as a lawyer alongside his father.

In 1894 the twenty-three-year-old Allen announced his candidacy for one of the three seats in the Texas House representing District 73. At the Dallas County Democratic Convention in the summer of 1894, he was nominated. Allen campaigned against “unwise and useless legislation” which he claimed had “throttled and hampered and crippled” Texas. Declaring his desire to “see this state unloosed, her great natural resources set free,” he vowed to do his “best to hinder and stifle everything that smacks of populism, classism and all the other isms that are afflicting this country.” In August Allen, who supported free silver, attended a heated meeting of Dallas Democrats in the city hall and debated the issue. Allen won his seat with a vote tally of 6,066, more than 400 more that the second-place candidate. In the Twenty-fourth Texas Legislature, Allen served on the committees on Claims and Accounts; Constitutional Amendments; Insurance, Statistics, and History; and a special committee on Civil Code. He was also the chair of the Roads, Bridges and Ferries Committee. As chair he brought forth the committee's positive reports on several bills, including three intended to create more efficient road systems in Fannin, Dallas, and Parker counties, which were passed by the legislature. Allen introduced five bills in the regular session, none of which passed. He also introduced a radical resolution calling for the adjournment of the legislature on March 20. If it had passed, the legislature would have been adjourned at an unprecedented early date. He cited the financial burden that the session was on the state, which was already suffering from the Panic of 1893.

Allen continued to participate in Dallas civic affairs. In 1896 he served as a delegate to a Dallas Commercial Club convention planning a semi-centennial celebration of Texas’s statehood. While in the legislature, Allen announced his campaign for Dallas County attorney. During his campaign, he traveled and spoke at various club meetings to garner support. He defeated incumbent John P. Gillespie in the county Democratic primary and received a 4,000-vote majority in the November election. In 1897 he brought a mandamus suit against Dallas City Judge Curtis Smith to permit him to prosecute all cases defined by the state penal code in the city court. Allen argued that it was the county attorney not the city attorney who had jurisdiction in such cases. Had the case been decided in his favor, it would have dramatically increased the power of his new office and affected the jurisdiction of courts in all Texas cities with populations greater than 10,000. During Allen’s first term as county attorney, he and Sheriff Ben Cabell took a firm stance against “whitecappers,” White people engaged in the organized use of threats and intimidation against Blacks. Allen sought and won another term as county attorney in 1898. In his second term, he maintained his law-and-order stance. He denounced the increase in “disgraceful homicides" in Dallas County and called on “every citizen” of the county to “strike hands with the officers of the law in a united and determined effort to put an end to the cruel war of destruction.” Urging Dallasites to “condemn the carrying of pistols,” he argued the need for “speedy trials and certain punishment” for violent offenders. In 1899 Allen was elected the founding president of the State County Attorneys’ Association. During this time, he also stayed active in the Democratic party.

In December 1901, after serving two terms as county attorney, Allen announced a campaign for lieutenant governor. However he pulled out of the race the following April, despite leading in the primary campaign, and cited the demands that his private business affairs made on his time. Throughout the first decade of the twentieth century, Allen worked as a lawyer but remained active in politics. In 1907 he campaigned for the controversial, conservative Democratic senator Joseph W. Bailey. Allen was elected to the State Democratic Executive Committee in 1908 and represented Dallas County.

Allen was a member of the Dallas Bar Association. By 1907 he had formed a law firm with William Lyne Crawford and James C. Muse, which became one of the most prominent firms in Dallas and practiced both civil and criminal law. Crawford, Muse & Allen dissolved in 1911, and Allen formed a partnership with Almonte Byron Flanary in 1912. They added Sawnie Robertson Aldredge, a future mayor of Dallas, to the partnership in 1915. This firm lasted until 1919, when it was dissolved. By 1921 Allen started a new firm with his son Robert Allen, Jr., G. Drummond Hunt, and Carl B. Callaway. J. E. Newberry replaced Callaway by 1923. In 1924 William Lester Crawford, the son of Allen’s former law partner, was arrested for manslaughter. In the 1925 trial, Allen was Crawford’s lead defense counsel.

Allen was a pronounced prohibitionist and advocated it on both state and national levels. In 1926 he chaired a Dallas club supporting the gubernatorial election campaign of Dan Moody. Rewarding Allen’s support, in 1930 Moody appointed him judge of the newly-created 116th District Court in Dallas County. Allen was elected to a four-year term on the court shortly after his appointment. As judge he received public praise for upholding the rights of women and children in domestic cases. In 1936 he sought election as the judge of the Ninety-fifth District Court. In spite of his reputation as a judge and attorney—he gained the nickname “Fighting Bob” because of “his energetic work as a trial lawyer”—he was defeated in the primary runoff.

Very involved in fraternal orders, Allen was a member of the Hella Temple Shrine and both the York Rite and Scottish Rite Masons. He was also a member of the Knights of Pythias, the Odd Fellows, and the Elks Lodge. Allen was a member of the Grace Methodist Church in Dallas for more than fifty years. He attended the annual conference for the Dallas district of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1933 and 1934 and served on the Resolutions Committee in 1934.

Robert Browning Allen, Sr., died on March 25, 1943, at his Dallas home. He died from a form of oral cancer that he had lived with for years. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Dallas.