What is it about Lebanon, the Lebanese and their diaspora? This Middle Eastern nation, the home of splendid cedar trees mentioned prominently in the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bible, from which the ancient Phoenicians set sail, devoid of natural resources and surrounded today by enemies and a few dubious friends, has nevertheless produced many high-achieving people: Artists, intellectuals,
academics, scientists, businessmen, athletes and so on. A person I knew three decades ago, a Beirut native and a graduate of the University of Texas, put it this way: “We succeed because we are forced to live by our wits.” I focus here on one of them, the uncle of my high school classmate Melinda McKool.
Michael P. “Mike” McKool was born in 1918 in Mexico City. His parents, Charles and Filomena McKool, had immigrated there a few years earlier. This is as good a time as any to explain the very un-Lebanese family name. After leaving the old country, Charles and Filomena decided to change “Makhoul” to the more Western-sounding “McKool.” I am unable to resist the temptation to say it is a cool name.
They did not tarry too long in Mexico, moving to Dallas when McKool was quite young. Valedictorian of Dal-Tech High School’s class of 1936, he picked up a degree at George Washington University and came home—SMU—for law school. Naturalized in 1943, McKool enlisted in the Army Air Corps on July 24 of that year. He underwent training as a tail-gunner (rat-a-tat-tat from inside a B-24) in Texas,
Nevada and Idaho. Halfway into a mission over Nazi-controlled Yugoslavia on July 4, 1944, McKool’s plane malfunctioned; he said a Hail Mary, parachuted out and hoped for the best. Rescued by some American-loving Serb peasants, he and the other downed flyers walked 400 miles over a three-week span to an improvised airfield near Pranjani and were taken to safety in Italy.
With the war over, McKool passed the bar, founded his own firm and married Dallas native Elizabeth Raney (who had the unusual nickname of “Cracker”) in an eventful 1946. Specializing in property condemnation cases, he often defended poor blacks, browns and Whites. He had the political bug early on, seeking office several times—and always losing. By 1968, however, McKool had gained the confidence of Democratic Party elders and won election to the Texas Senate. No diffident back-bencher in Austin, he was a member of 18 committees in the 61st session and chaired three of them. A legislator of unusual tenacity and dedication, McKool authored the state’s voter registration law and fought to cap insurance rates.
He is probably best remembered for his 42-hour, 33-minute filibuster in June 1972, the purpose of which was to guarantee appropriations for Texans suffering from mental illness or mental retardation. 
McKool worked to prevent the contemplated demolition of the Texas School Book Depository—the edifice from which Lee Harvey Oswald committed his foul deed of November 22, 1963.
While mentoring future Governor Ann Richards and other young politicos, in 1974 he sought higher office—a seat representing Texas’ 5th district in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was defeated. Trying again in 1976 and 1978, he did not even get nominated and never ran again. McKool hid his disappointment but stayed involved, serving as chairman of the Dallas County Democratic Party. Some hard-core Dems were upset when McKool joined the nonpartisan Dallas Welcoming Committee for the 1984 Republican National Convention (a pro-forma re-nomination of Reagan and Bush), but he insisted it was the civic thing to do. There is no way in heck that would happen in today’s politically contentious atmosphere.
From the union of McKool and his wife came Mike Jr., Mollie, Matt and Mitzi, all undoubtedly magnificent, meritorious and majestic children. I would be remiss not to say a word about the former. A magna cum laude graduate of Notre Dame and UT Law School, he co-founded McKool Smith in 1991. What began as an 11-attorney boutique firm has grown into eight offices (Dallas, Austin, Houston, Los Angeles, Marshall [an intellectual property “docket rocket” in Texas’ odd Eastern District], New York City, Silicon Valley and Washington, DC) with 185 trial lawyers. McKool
fils has won some big cases, including a $9.4 million jury verdict on behalf of music producer Quincy Jones against the Michael Jackson estate in a dispute over royalties and breach of contract. He has been hailed by the Wall Street Journal, Texas Lawyer, the Dallas Bar Association, Legal 500 and too many others to name.
Our focus, of course, is his father. When he died on February 22, 2003 at the age of 84, the Texas Senate passed a resolution honoring and remembering him as a spirited man of humor and loyalty who fought for the underrepresented, who was a voice of reason and who gave unstintingly of his time and energy. It is entirely possible that at McKool’s vigil, funeral Mass and entombment in Dallas, these words of Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran were referenced: “Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”
10 Comments
I must admit your talent for writing articles about certain people,
I notice that you are documented in this regard, it is never too much to find out long-gone stories.
Write on and those interested will surely read with pleasure everything you write here.
Thank you, Elly….that’s just what I try to do!
I remember watching a movie on TV the title of which I don’t remember when I was maybe 10 or something. It was a black and white American movie. There’s one scene I still remember clearly from this movie as if I saw it yesterday; a business-suit-clad man reading the constitution of the US into a mic behind a huge lectern, wobbling from reading none stop for many many hours, his voice gone, exhausted and sleepy. I learned what he was doing was filibustering, and for some reason I, a young boy who couldn’t speak a word of English at all, remembered the word, filibuster; a word that had no business at all in a young boy’s life. Now that McKool’s filibuster was mentioned here, maybe the movie was about this guy McKool. As always, thanks you Richard.
What I failed to mention is that McKool’s 43-hour talking marathon was a world record at the time, one that has since been broken.
I really enjoyed learning about McCool. As you quoted, learning about what others have brought to Dallas would be great stories to write on . I’d be interested in knowing where the McCools home was located.
Melinda (niece) was our classmate…I was always under the assumption that McKool and his family lived in our district, but they were hard-core Catholics so they went to Jesuit.
Thanks for sharing this, Richard. I remember little about Mike McKool, the politician, and remembered nothing beyond that about this remarkable man, and it was fun learning about him. I had no idea he was Lebanese, but there have been many accomplished Lebanese immigrants to the US.
I knew very little about him until I started researching this story, other than his name being in the media quite often. How about that WW2 story?? walking 400 miles behind enemy lines!
Richard:
A wonderful, detailed, well-researched article that I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s an article that should be published in a magazine such as The New Yorker. He was certainly a remarkable man with great vision. Thank you for your efforts.
Thank you, Rex. I agree with you about McKool–what a man and what a life!
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