Governor Sholtz, middle, rode through Jacksonville with President Roosevelt in 1936.

The seers stood in puzzled awe in last year’s presidential election as they watched a little known rise up to confound the major candidates, the party pros and machine bosses, the infallible prophets of TV and newspaper, and all the conventional odds involving religion, region and financial resources, to win his party’s nomination — and the election.

But about 45 years ago, a Florida gubernatorial candidate performed a similar “miracle” against odds at least as formidable if not greater, when David Sholtz moved quietly out of his dark horse stable to stun the state’s powers and pundits and become Florida’s 26th chief executive in 1932 — and a New Deal protegé of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In a sense, Sholtz even “out-Cartered” Jimmy Carter because he had ethnic and regional image problems that would have hog-tied any mere tourist, much less a seeker of the state’s highest office, in that hard-shell Cracker and Bible Belt land that was so much of Florida in the l930s.

The son of immigrant parents, he was a Yankee (a Brooklyn, New York-born one at that), and a lawyer who had lived in the state (Daytona Beach) only 15 years. He was an honors graduate of that symbol of Eastern Establishment “pointyheadedness” — Yale, class of 1915. He was also of Jewish ancestry. (This latter fact injected an ugly note of anti- Semitism in the race, but it may well have tipped the scale against the odds-on favorite who injected it.)

Staggering handicaps enough — but only openers. Sholtz was a relative unknown in his first try for major office. He had no support from the old line political organizations or bosses and virtually no funds for media advertising. Above all, he was running against two powerful former governors of the 1920s, John W. Martin and Cary A. Hardee, who all pros agreed would easily be the run-offers. If these two sure bets were not enough, they were joined in the first primary by five formidable candidates — Stafford Caldwell, Charles M. Durrance, Arthur Gomez, Thomas S. Hart and J. Tom Watson. Sholtz was also strongly opposed in his own Volusia County with a clouty political machine bossed by Francis Whitehair.

Wiser wags and cynics smiled benignly if somewhat in disbelief at this genial, urbane, portly little upstart, as if to ask: What’s a nice little Yankee Jewish boy like you doing among these native son giants who will cut you up like so much fish bait? No one took David Sholtz seriously, except the unnervingly optimistic David himself. Even up to final election eve, state gambler odds against him were 200 to one.

He was the darkest of dark horses. But he would win the nomination by the greatest majority ever garnered in the history of the state to that time.

David was born in Brooklyn, Oct. 5, 1891, to Michael and Annie (Bloom) Sholtz, the father having immigrated from Germany at age 15. The elder Sholtz prospered in investments and real estate and moved to Daytona Beach in the early l900s and became active in business affairs there. David, after Yale, came to Daytona to live and took a law degree from Stetson University in 1916.

Still practicing law, he offered himself for the legislature that same year and, with strong grass roots support, won against the opposition of the local “Courthouse Ring”. But in World War I, he took a leave of absence and joined the Navy as an ensign, serving four years. In 1921, he resumed his Daytona practice and in 1925 married Alice Mae Agee. They had one son of their own and three adopted children.

Long active in local and state civic affairs, Sholtz was elected president of the Florida State Chamber of Commerce in 1927. While in this post, he not only developed a wide range of state interests but also nurtured a growing interest in government, along with some keen ideas on how it might best serve all citizens and not merely a few of the long-entrenched machines and special interests. And by now he had his eye on the only single post he knew that could help bring about such changes — the governorship.

However, by the time the elections of 1931 rolled around, the state needed more than a few changes. Already reeling from the heavy blow of the crash of the Florida Boom, the state was being drawn still deeper into the vortex of the great national depression. The state was by now in an unconstitutional condition of debt and these woes were compounded further in that 150 Florida towns were in default on their obligations.

The legislature itself, struggling for urgently-needed revenues, could engage in vehement and, yes, bloody debates over adoption of a then unheard of one-penny gas tax. The new rug on the floor of the Florida House was splotched with the blood of solons actually fighting over the tax and the session dragged into 100 days until a powerful west coast political boss, Peter 0. Knight, who had opposed the tax, sent 38 telegrams, (one for each senator), reading: “Pass gas, tax bill and come on home.” They did.

A mild Gov. Doyle Canton, fearful lest the state’s business-tourist image be tarnished, wrote to President Herbert Hoover to reassure him that everything was just fine here, thank you, and the state needed no federal assistance, even though in the city of Tampa alone, one- third of its people were unemployed and food riots were a daily threat.

Sholtz well knew the odds as the eight- man primary opened that spring, but not many knew the Sholtz personality. He had an infectious self-confidence but, moreover, he had an instinctive rapport with individuals of diverse background and he conveyed a feeling of sincerity to those he addressed. His law partner recalled him simply as “a kindly person with a sincere interest in helping people.” It was at least a refreshing change from the winking, nudging, phony croneyism and pandering in the “good ole boy” tradition of the day.

As a public speaker, he seldom used notes and this emphasized the impression of sincerity and genuine concern for individual needs. The urbane Yankee could in such manner convince the most skeptical Cracker that he, too, was against the rampant bossism of the day. Sholtz was an active Episcopalian by faith and when an audience in the panhandle Bible Belt asked what it meant to be an Episcopalian, the reply came that this was midway between a Baptist and a Methodist. The answer apparently satisfied both. Sholtz had no funds for radio, newspaper or billboard advertising and often had to go door to door to get funds for mailing a few campaign letters. But he relied mainly on a flat-bed truck with two loud-speakers which he drove from town to town over the state under a tireless schedule. And then came election day.

Martin indeed led the first primary with 66,940 votes. But no one could explain or understand dark horse Dave’s second place win with 55,406, and Hardee trailing third — and out — at 50,427. The soothsayers went into apoplectic daze and a grim Goliath Martin took a more sober look at this menacing David. It would be a bitter run-off primary.

The ex-governor pulled no punches as his machine laid pressure on not only the losing candidates but every old-line boss in the state. But a desperate Martin went even further. Whatever demonic urge moved him, once he learned of Sholtz’s Jewish ancestry (which Sholtz never denied) he began to inject a subtle tone of anti-Semitism into the campaign until finally he was elevating the evil smear into a major issue. He even wrote to Germany to get sworn depositions attesting to Sholtz’s Jewishness. He would win — at any price.

Meanwhile, Sholtz completely ignored these attacks and refused to show any anger against Martin. Instead, he smiled, shook hands and listened to people. He talked of the depression crisis, jobs for the hungry, opening schools and keeping them open nine months, free textbooks, and a reduced tax millage for small homeowners. He was serious, intensely sincere, and people listened. They were tired of the shopworn, Coolidge-type slogans of the old politicians as the depression grew darker and heavier. And, again, Martin may have won the winking tacit approval of the party regulars with his rabid smears but he underestimated the solid sense of fair play of those very Cracker voters he sought to inflame. Election night once more stunned the political analysts: Sholtz, 173,540; Martin, 102,805, the largest majority ever given a candidate in Florida history. Sholtz easily swamped his Republican opponent, W. J. Howey, in November.

Sholtz could say truthfully, as he did at his inaugural, that he owed no political obligations anywhere and that in setting the state house in order it would surely arouse the anger of “selfish interests” and “political racketeers” and their “chicanery conniving and attacks.” But he would “hew to the line and let the chips fall.”

The 40-year-old upsetter was known as “the New Deal governor” for his strong support of F. D. R. and his poiicies. In fact, his closeness to Roosevelt redounded strongly to Florida’s benefit as programs and critically-needed federal aid began to pour into the state. Sholtz first pushed for an auto tag fee of $5 and diverted enough funds to pay teachers in cash instead of script. He beat the powerful publishers lobby to make good a promise of free textbooks. He instituted needed reforms in prison camps and set up the highway patrol. I-fe made jobs a priority and cut relief cases by 75% in three years and moved an inherited deficit of $2,124,000 to a surplus of $591,000 by 1934. Other enduring achievements made at his impetus were a park service and conservation commission, the state citrus commission, a workman’s compensation act, a mechanics’ lien law, a social welfare board, a state employment service, pensions for the aged and blind and numerous other long-range improvements.

When he had finished his constitutionally-restricted one term in 1936, Florida had become one of the fastest states in the country in moving toward economic recovery.

But it all might have been otherwise if an affable New York Jewish lawyer had not looked over the odds — and the needs — and said to himself: “Why not?”