Spicer declined to seek reelection as the chairman, but he had resisted intraparty calls that he resign before his term ended in August 1964.
[1] In the 1940 census, Spicer, then twenty-one, was listed as residing still with his parents in Wynne in Cross County, also in eastern Arkansas, where his father, then forty-six, was a pastor.
[5] In 1946, Spicer married the former Freda Cowell in Sydney in New South Wales, Australia, possibly while having been on military duty during World War II.
Spicer finished six percentage points behind the 1952 Republican congressional candidate, John H. "Jack" Joyce, an attorney from Fayetteville and a fighter pilot in World War II who in that campaign opposed the continuation of the Korean War.,[7][8] Spicer's fellow Republican, Ben C. Henley, a lawyer from Harrison in Boone County, also in northwestern Arkansas, ran that year against U.S.
At the time Spicer faced opposition in the central committee from Henry M. Britt of Hot Springs, the party's 1960 gubernatorial nominee against Orval Faubus and an attorney and later a judge of the 18th Judicial Circuit Court.
According to John L. Ward, a Rockefeller biographer,[12] Ham "could be – and frequently was – quite heavy-handed, excusing it in the name of building a two-party system.
Ham derided the intra-party rivals as "Post Office Republicans" who concentrated on local patronage over the rigors of running political campaigns in a traditional one-party state.
"[16] On January 13, 1964, Spicer wrote to John Paul Hammerschmidt, a businessman from Harrison, and Eugene "Gene" Holman of DeQueen to explain that he was aware of efforts underway to remove him from the chairmanship.
"[17] In 1963, the Arkansas Republican executive committee criticized Rockefeller's retaining of his own staff men to conduct a political drive.
A Little Rock businessman explained that the GOP under Henley and Spicer had been "sort of a small, closely held corporation here, and the members of the clan didn't want it to get too big.
Thomas Eisele, a veteran Rockefeller advisor and a U.S. District Judge in Little Rock, admitted that Ham had employed "ruthless tactics" against party conservatives.
Though Spicer preferred Goldwater, he suggested that to maintain unity the party send unpledged delegates to the national convention which met that year in San Francisco, California.
[citation needed] After two years as chairman, Spicer was succeeded in 1964 by Rockefeller's subsequent choice, John Paul Hammerschmidt, a World War II Medal of Honor winner.