Daniel James Moody Jr. (June 1, 1893May 22, 1966), was an American lawyer and Democratic politician. Originally from Taylor, Texas, he served as the 30th governor of Texas between 1927 and 1931. At the age of 33, he was elected and took office as the youngest governor in Texas history. After his two terms as governor, he returned to private law practice and continued to prosecute and represent various functions of the US government in his later life. Early life Moody was born on June 1, 1893 in Taylor, Texas. He was the son of Taylor's mayor, justice of the peace, and school board chairman, Daniel James Moody, who was one of the town's first settlers in 1876. His mother, Nannie Elizabeth Robertson, was a local school teacher when Moody married her in 1890. Moody Jr. was an alumnus of the University of Texas Law School and became a member of the State Bar of Texas at 21, in 1914. He began practicing with Harris Melasky in Taylor. During World War I, Moody served in both the Texas National Guard as first a 2nd Lieutenant and then Captain and also the United States Army as a 2nd Lieutenant. Public service In 1920, Moody served as Williamson County Attorney, a position he held for two years before becoming District Attorney in 1922. In 1923, Moody obtained an assault conviction against four members of the Ku Klux Klan for beating and tarring a white traveling salesman. The Texas Historical Commission wrote, "These trials were considered the first prosecutorial success in the United States against the 1920s Klan and quickly weakened the Klan's political influence in Texas." The Klan was very powerful in Texas, with an estimated 150,000 members in the state, including the national imperial wizard. Texas Klansmen included a US senator and the mayors of Dallas, Fort Worth, and Wichita Falls. The case was widely reported and gave him political momentum despite Klan opposition. After his election as Texas Attorney General in 1925, Moody conducted investigations of the highly-corrupt James E. Ferguson, whose wife, Miriam A. Ferguson, was serving as the governor of Texas. His investigation recovered $1 million for the taxpayers of Texas. In 1927, Moody defeated her in a runoff election and became the youngest governor of Texas. Suffragists' activism provided a major contribution to her defeat, as they rallied behind Moody and campaigned for him. The activist Jane