Epistles from Pap: Letters from the man known as 'The Will Rogers of Indiana' Part 10

The Minority Floor Leader knew instinctively who they were and what they wanted. He followed his young Judas into the long corridor to face the four gentlemen he had expected to see. The conference was merely to pledge a mutual presence at, and arrange the minor details incident to, a friendly poker game in Room 232 of the Spencer Tavern at 8 o'clock that evening.

The whole thing took less than ten minutes, but the timing, with reference to the specific thing to be accomplished, was perfect.

When the two gamesters returned to the Senate Chamber, the Bourbon County Bill had pa.s.sed second reading without amendment, or offer of amendment, and the Senate was on another order of business.

Thus, was the second major leg of the Bourbon County Bill's flight negotiated safely. . .

The bill had been posted for third reading for more than two weeks. The Session was nearing its close. Senator Winker had purposely pa.s.sed several calls wherein he could have had the bill handed down for pa.s.sage. The times had appeared inopportune. He wanted to give the Governor and Administration authorities ample time to work on the recalcitrants. The bill was known to have stubborn opposition, and the Democrats a bare working majority.

Speaking generally, the Senate had shown itself in a surly mood lately. Several sharp clashes among the Majority members had accentuated that mood. They were not functioning smoothly. A wild idea to license the sale of intoxicants had just been fought out --and strange to relate, pa.s.sed--leaving some serious political scars in its wake. There was no personal liberty left any more.

The mere thought of a fool legislature trying to legislate what a Sovereign People could eat and drink was showing what the State was coming to. Many spoke of the "Oregon Country," where they still had a little liberty left. And as always happens under such circ.u.mstances, the Minority were all the closer knit and serene.

It was not their fight. They were not in the saddle. As a result of all this, several near-Administration measures had been killed summarily, and apparently for no particularly good reason. Just another quirk the legislature had about it.

Eventually there were signs of a change. The Legislative atmosphere cleared. The Solons became more tractable. . . The time was ripe.

The bill was called. The roll began. Something was wrong!

Senators here and there, who had been counted on to vote affirmatively were voting "no." The Minority member with the separate court bill voted, "Aye." The rest of the Minority seemed to be voting "no" solidly. Senator Winker glanced at the Minority Floor Leader. He wore an inscrutable look. No, on second glance, it was--sinister. Why? The Senator looked roundabout for the answer. It slowly dawned there were several Democratic seats vacant.

He rushed the Whip out to find and bring in the absentee brethren. Some came. Others could not be found. They might be in hiding. A tally was showing a considerably greater number of "no"

votes than "ayes". . .

A motion to "excuse the absentees" prevailed. . .

Grandpap's Bourbon County Bill was killed, by one vote. . .

Senator Winker plumbed the depths. Back of it all, he could not forget the fact, he had nine good Majority votes unaccounted-for in the tabulation--somewhere in the Legislative wilderness. . .

Next day the separate court bill met a similar fate--only more directly. The Minority helped do that.

The death of the Bourbon County Bill was a crus.h.i.+ng blow to Mahrug's future and Grandpap's dream. But it did one thing. It fixed, once and for all, his and our family politics, if by any chance our politics needed any stabilization. It is true that Uncle Ben turned to be a Republican during the Civil War. But that was to preserve the Union, and incidentally a considerable amount of U.S. Bonds he had acquired at most attractive discounts. Thereafter Pap and Uncle Ben studiously avoided all mention of politics until the first Cleveland campaign. By that time all of Uncle Ben's evidences of Federal indebtedness had been retired at par and accrued interest, and he was free to return to his first political love. . .

STICK WITH THE ARTICLES

September 8, 1936 Curtis Publis.h.i.+ng Company Independence Square Philadelphia, Penna.

Gentlemen: Please let me congratulate you on this week's Post--what reading the Sharkey, the Harding and the Dizzy Dean stories made!

I realize love stories must always have the big pull, but speaking for one who has reasonably recovered from that phase of life, surely there must be hundreds of thousands of your other readers who sort of skip love stories for the ARTICLES.

As a staid country lawyer, I actually stayed at home Tuesday, September 1st, until after the Post had come to the house in order to finish the "The Way I Beat Joe Louis" story--and I've never seen, or expect to see, a prize fight either. I liked the unusual subject and the style of the telling of the tale.

Therefore: as a member of the probable great and unwashed minority, I trust you will increase the ARTICLES, although I'll be glad when the Election is over, and Mrs. Republican and Mrs.

Democrat can stop, and political stuff generally, although the recent Allen (or White) story on Landon was a masterpiece of shrewd political propaganda--and I'm no Republican, or Progressive, or Coughlinite, or Landonite, or much of a New Deal Democrat, by a h.e.l.l of a sight.

Very Respectfully,

IN THE WILD WEST

May 1, 1937 Mr. Henry H. Miller, Atty.

t.i.tle & Trust Building Phoenix, Arizona

My dear Mr. and Mrs. Miller: Back home again in Indiana, after a considerable of a sojourn for a Hoosier. The unsuspecting Public, viewing me as I flow up and down the main thoroughfare of Greencastle, little suspects that only lately have I reveled in orange blossoms, irrigated yards, camel-back mountains, Pima Indians, featherweight grapefruit, rattlesnake Pioneers and OVER-STUFFED lemonades. Said Public is not cognizant I have dined (and wined) at the Arizona Club with the flower of Phoenix Society, made a complete and minute survey of the entire northeast section of Phoenix and contended with a western sirloin at the Sip and Bite grand piano table, semisurrounded with nasal singers and aesthetic dancers who would find their acts uncomfortably chilly on an open air platform in the environs of, say, Duluth. And further, it does not know I have met the Great and Only S--, and been permitted in his office, from whence emanates 80% of the Arizona corporations, about all of which have probably lost money for the gullible investors.

After leaving Phoenix, my first stop was Los Angeles. Thence to San Francisco via "The Daylight," a beautifully-appointed train but woefully short in the extreme speed. Thence to Grant's Pa.s.s, Oregon, and two days with my erstwhile Putnam County political advisor, Dr. W A. Moser--his son, Dr. C. J. Moser and wife and three boys, about 7, 9 and 11, go to Tahiti for deep sea fis.h.i.+ng in June; the young Doc showed me his fis.h.i.+ng outfit, with reels about the size of the reel on my John Deere corn planter--Thence to Portland. Then Seattle, where my old "frater" at Indiana 32 years ago, Adam Beeler, has just gone off the Supreme bench of Was.h.i.+ngton (thanks to the Democratic uprising)--Adam drives a '37 Packard (which petered out on us about 30 miles from town), his wife sings all over the Northwest (exclusive of Democratic Conventions), his daughter is divorced, and none of them seems to be on relief--Thence to Spokane, to Wallace, Idaho, etcs., etcs, home. . .

Very Respectfully,

AND SHE'S GOOD LOOKING TOO

June 5, 1937 To Tri Kappa State Scholars.h.i.+p Committee Subject: Betty Broadstreet

Members of the Committee: Careless politicians and businessmen of easy integrity have tended to bring the present-day letter of recommendation into the cla.s.s of questionable literature, but at rare intervals each of us has an opportunity to make a recommendation whole-heartedly, and without the slightest mental reservation. Such is the subject of this letter, and I am happy to recommend Betty Broadstreet of Greencastle, Indiana, for the Tri Kappa State Scholars.h.i.+p. I do this freely and with the knowledge that I can forever remain at peace with my own conscience.

Your Committee wants facts. Upon investigation, I find from authoritative sources that Betty led her Cla.s.s all the time she was in High School. This school year she had sufficient credits for graduation at, or about, Christmas. Much to her credit she dropped out and got a job, to help continue her education in College. Last Friday night she graduated here.

I have known this splendid young woman since early childhood. She has about all the qualifications any young American girl can have --honesty, health, ambition, modesty, neatness, gentility, industry and a mind that absolutely qualifies her to take a College education. All these are pretty hard to find combined in one person, but Betty, in addition, is positively a stunningly beautiful girl.

And so, in my opinion, she is exactly the type and character any father would be proud to say of her, "She is my daughter, that red-headed one over there with the blue eyes."

I therefore recommend her most earnestly for your serious consideration.

Respectfully,

MISTAKEN FOR DILLINGER

Greencastle, Indiana August 27, 1937 Mr. George E. Pitts United Paperboard Company 171 Madison Avenue New York, NY

My dear Judge:

The writer is the fellow who was in your office about three weeks ago consulting you concerning the transfer of some Paperboard stock, and for whom you so kindly and generously prepared an affidavit for the surviving widow to execute.

I thought you might be interested in the trials and tribulations of a hill-billy clean out of his environment, trying to make his way about town with a minimum of errors.

After inquiring of about every policeman in New York where 171 Madison Avenue was, my trusty grip and I eventually came to your door. . . And say! You folks aren't wasting the stockholders'

money on any elaborate waiting-room. There she was, 6 by 12, three chairs, one settee, one high-up electric fan doing a n.o.ble job stirring up that hot 7th floor atmosphere, three Sawmill journals and a 2 x 2 peep-hole, like the ticket window of the B&O R.R. here at Russellville, my old home town. The grip and I both got in, but every place I tried to set it down it looked like it would take up the s.p.a.ce for a second customer if he happened to come in just then.

A girl looked through the ticket window at us--especially the grip--and I realized my mistake. I had the knowledge that John Dillinger was raised about 30 miles southeast of here, and that he had sometimes carried grips, and that maybe she had gotten us confused. She asked what I wanted. I told her I wanted to transfer some stock and wanted to see the head of the Legal Department. She told me she could take care of the stock transfer. I started to explain, and she started to explain, so we both explained. Finally, either due to the alt.i.tude or the heat, or something, I was supplementing the fan with the new $7.50 panama I had just bought at Macy's in order to get a New York label to show my admiring friends when I got home, and I begged her to just let me see some official of the Company. She relented, and a first cla.s.s fellow came forth, not to the peep- hole, but right to where the grip and I were. I started to explain, and he started to explain, so we both explained. By that time I had the hat synchronized with the fan. Eventually, he got my idea--but the President was out, the Vice-Presidents were on vacation, and the attorney might get in around 3:30 p.m. or he might not, and would I wait or go out and come back later. If so, he would do his best to get a conference for me. I told him if I got out, I'd never find my way back, and that I would wait.

By that time my curiosity was at a maximum and I was wild to get on the other side of that ticket window, because I knew the place had to be lousy with red leather chairs, air-conditioning, ice water bottles, Chinese rugs and baled-up currency.

All things must come to an end. In due course I pa.s.sed the forbidding door and was ushered into your office--after first having my grip taken away from me and deposited at the peep-hole girl's desk. And that grip is an inoffensive grip. In fact, it was given me by the members of the Legislature one time when I was the alleged Floor-Leader of what was then G.o.d's Chosen Minority--the Senate Democrats. Since I left, they--the Democrats--have perked-up and now have a big majority themselves.

But, to be serious, I want to thank you for the way you handled my case. You certainly know how to size up a situation quickly. I realize big Corporations must use all reasonable precautions when it comes to transferring stock, etcs., but there's reason in all things. You have been almost more than fair in your demands. You are not our conception of what a New Yorker is, and especially a New York attorney. Why, my-G.o.d, man! We've always been taught to first come to a full stop before going up the ramp at Grand Central Station, and sew our modest currency rolls on the inside of our underwear.

I hereby extend you an invitation to come out and rabbit hunt with me this Fall, with the reservation that you furnish your own blister medicine and liniment. I'll furnish all board, bed, guns, dogs and ammunition.

Again, I thank you.

Very Respectfully

THE HOSPITAL NEEDS A CHECK-UP.