Epistles from Pap: Letters from the man known as 'The Will Rogers of Indiana' Part 8

As Ever,

RICHARD FAIRFAX--A BULL STORY WITHOUT PEER

July 20, 1936 Mr. B.C. Byers Macatawa, Mich.

My dear Mr. Byers: I haven't been in Indianapolis since I started the two little girls up into Maine to a girls camp, so unless I succeed in cooking up something, this letter will be a fizzle for news.

In May I bought a 16-months old Hereford bull, Hugh Fairfax by name, at the McCray Sale at Kentland. Since that time I bought a McCray-bred Fairfax Hereford bull from a Mr. Dillman at Waveland, and also traded an old Woodford Hereford bull to the Indiana State Farm for another McCray-bred Fairfax Hereford. So you see I am slightly in the bull business.

For your information, you knowing nothing about anything except railroading and good looking women, Mr. Warren T. McCray got his big start in Herefords after he acquired Perfection Fairfax, a Hereford bull that afterwards won the International Champions.h.i.+p, and was acknowledged generally to be the greatest sire of his day. He started the "Fairfax" fas.h.i.+on.

In getting the pedigrees of these last two bulls straightened out, I made four trips to Kentland. The trip prior to the last one found the ex-Governor in a petulant frame of mind. He called me "Senator" very formally, was easily irritated and gave this and that as an excuse for the delay. The truth is, I think, that his herd books have been kept in about the same condition as Joe C-- kept his desk in the Senate Chamber.

But my last trip was different. When I got there the old boy was in his office selling a Hereford to some young fellow from the north part of the state--I hope Lake County, because anybody from Lake County needs a tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. I stayed outside and eventually they came out.

"Why, h.e.l.lo, Mr. Andy," said Warren T. "How are you this fine day?"

It was hotter than Tom B-- ever got in a poker game.

I knew the old fellow had had a good breakfast, and that he had no doubt spliced me up a pair of pedigrees of some sort or other.

I just sort of imagine that when a herd book gets slightly mixed up, or time has elapsed and a given bull's heredity sort of lost in the hazy past, that those fellows quietly sit down and whittle out a pedigree that sounds about right. . .

Let me tell you a bull story about as he related it to me last Friday. This is Warren T. speaking:

"About 1902 or 1903, I wanted to branch out bigger, buy more land and become a Hereford leader for sure. . . Mr. -- was showing Herefords in Indianapolis. He had by far the best bull I had seen or heard of. His name was Perfection Fairfax, and he had a pedigree that read like the Lees of Virginia. . . The only way his owner would part with him would be to sell his whole herd of 37 cows too--for $17,000 cash. I brought him home to Kentland. He won the International Champions.h.i.+p and we both became famous in the Hereford world. The Fairfax strain took the country by storm.

His sons and daughters were sensations. He lived until he was past 17 years old, and was a virile breeder to the day of his death."

"Look up yonder on the knoll past the machine shop and the big barn. See that cement column up there? The boys here at the farm erected that monument, and old Perfection Fairfax lies right under it. He died in 1918. Old Perfection made breeders millions of dollars. Look up there on the wall to my right. See that oil painting? That is Perfection Fairfax. I had a famous artist paint that. See that long picture over there on the wall east of old Perfection? That is a picture of 32 of his sons I sold at one time to one breeder down in the Argentine. We had that picture taken the day they left the farm. They made me some money."

"What is the highest price, Governor, that you ever got for a bull?" I asked.

"The highest price I ever got was $25,000."

"Holy Nellie," said I. "Isn't that the highest price anybody ever got?"

"No," he said. "Do you want me to tell you about that? . . .It's a pretty long story but interesting. Along about 1915 Perfection Fairfax was getting old, and I decided I'd go out again and buy the best young Hereford bull on Earth. As I traveled and asked, I kept hearing about a Richard Fairfax, one of old Perfection's calves--a calf I had raised, and still owned his mother. He had been sold at one of my sales and wound up in Dakota--and it was always the same tale that he was not for sale at any price, whatsoever. Absolutely."

"I made up my mind I'd just take his owner off his feet the first shot. I'd paralyze him with an offer he'd not refuse. I didn't want to take a long wild goose chase for nothing away up there in Dakota. If he wasn't for sale at any price I'd soon know it. So I wrote a short letter to his owner. I wrote, 'I know there is no use sending bird shot after big game. If I come up and look at Richard Fairfax and like him, and find him to be everything I've heard about him, will you take $25,000 cash for him?' I figured that would bring him to his milk."

"Very much to my surprise a prompt letter informed me that my offer did not interest his owner in the least. Richard Fairfax was not for sale at any price."

"So I looked elsewhere and forgot Richard. That was along, say in November. The following February, Johnny --, from Minnesota, came down to see me. He was a young breeder who had great faith in me and my judgment of Herefords, and had bought quite a bit of my stuff. Johnny was to stay all night and go home next morning on the 7 o'clock train. I noticed Johnny was listless as he looked over my herd, and I knew something was wrong--he wasn't there to buy."

"After supper we went into the library and talked Herefords and everything else from the weather to politics. Finally I looked at my watch and said: 'Johnny, I'm getting sleepy. You leave in the morning at 7, and it's 1 o'clock now. Let's go to bed.'"

"Warren," he said. "I've got something pretty big on my mind. I want your advice. It's Richard Fairfax. I know all about your offer. I know the whole story. But I'm about to pay $50,000 cash for him, and what I want to know is if you think I am crazy trying to buy him at $50,000?"

"Well, Johnny! You're the greatest Hereford booster I ever heard of. You sure are! I don't want to discourage you, and G.o.d knows I don't want to throw cold water on the Hereford business, but now that you've asked me, all I can say is that I quit at $25,000.

That's a terrible risk. Why, the bull might lie down and die tomorrow. $50,000 is a pile of money in Government Bonds, but it's an ocean full of money tied up in a Hereford bull."

"Well, don't throw up your hands until I get through, Warren.

I've been thinking about this thing for a long time and been getting ready for it. I can get him insured for a maximum of $25,000--everybody says Richard is the best young bull in the country, and remember he's out of your grand old Perfection. I've been quietly buying up all his sons and daughters I can lay my hands on. I own 65 daughters and 20-odd sons, so I'd be pretty well fixed for a June sale of sons and daughters of a $50,000 bull. I figure that the advertising a $50,000 buy would give is a big thing. The more I think, the bigger it gets: the highest price the world has ever known for a bull. No other price has even approached that figure. Every big newspaper from New York on west will carry it on the front page, and a picture of Richard and me along with the story. I'll get more free advertising out of that than I would with 50 years of paid advertis.e.m.e.nts in all the Live Stock Journals published. And I'll see to it that 'Bred by Warren T. McCray, Kentland, Indiana' goes under Richard's picture. You are going to have a sale in May. You bred Richard Fairfax. About everything you own is close kin to him. How would a $50,000 bull that you calved help your May sale?"

"Well, Johnny, I see the enormous possibilities. Still, $50,000 is SOME bull money."

"I'm not through yet, my good friend in need," Johnny said. "And here is where I have to have your cooperation if the deal goes. I only have $20,000 cash to put in Richard now. I figure that in an ordinarily good sale of Richard's sons and daughters, they would probably average $500 apiece. If I pay $50,000 for their sire and get the advertising I think I'll get, the 80-odd head really ought to double that amount--I'm trying to be conservative--But I can't go to my bankers and say, 'Gentlemen, I'm paying $50,000 cash for a bull, I have $20,000 and want to borrow the balance from you.' They would say I was plumb crazy, try to get a guardian for me and collect all I owe them, right now. You know bankers. There is no place in the wide world I can borrow that sort of money, except from you. You know that."

"Johnny, let's go to bed. I'll let you have an answer before the train goes."

Mr. McCray said he thought until 6 o'clock, then got up and got a hurried breakfast into Johnny and took him to the station. When the train got within about two miles of town, he said, "Johnny, go to Dakota and look Richard over. Examine him as you never examined a bull before. Find all about him--whether he has been exposed to any diseases; have three vets go over him piece by piece--Then go off and think for 24 hours. If you decide to buy, send me a telegram saying, 'The Republicans will win easily next election.' Buy him, get the $25,000 insurance, render up a short prayer and draw on me for $30,000--and the draft will be honored."

Within a week or 10 days, McCray told me, he got the prearranged telegram, then advertised his May sale as he never had before. He played up the $50,000 Richard Fairfax sale to the limit. The free advertising the sale got was far beyond his wildest thoughts.

Virtually all the big papers carried it both here and abroad.

Miss Busch, his secretary when he was Governor, and who was in Paris at the time, sent him a front page of one of the large Paris papers carrying the picture of Richard and Johnny.

McCray sold 120 head in his May sale. They averaged $3,636--the world's record for sales. He sold a full brother of Richard for $23,000 and a half-brother for $7,500. He figured the brother and half-brother didn't stand him out over $500, so if Johnny never was able to pay a cent of the $30,000 loan, he was still even, to say nothing of the additional prices the remaining 118 head brought.

Let the old ex-Governor close:

"In June, I went to Johnny's sale. Instead of $1,000, they averaged $1,750. Next day I came back with a $30,000 draft, plus interest."

How is that for a bull story?

Good luck to you, "Bull" Durham

THE PLAIN WOODEN CHAIR

"Old Settlers Day" address delivered at an annual celebration, undated.

Mr. Chairman, Revered Old Settlers and Visitors:

. . . Primitive man lived in trees, where he rushed to safety at the approach of danger. Directly, he learned to use a club and climbed down from the trees and fought his way to caves for shelter. From these caves he would sally forth . . . Eventually, men began to congregate and to band together, first as a family, then a tribe or clan and later as a nation, and in so doing they put in practice that great fundamental truth on which is based all progress: "In Union there is strength," exemplified in modern times by the bundle of sticks, so well known to some of us. . .

Our early Pioneers in Putnam County followed the rules of conduct prescribed by their predecessors in frontier life in Kentucky, Virginia and Ohio, and followed the lines of least travel resistance, generally along watercourses--by way of Eel River, up Big Walnut and Deer Creeks--and thus throughout the County. Once located, and having few and distant neighbors, and with communication more or less difficult, a barn-raising, log- rolling, quilting bee or spelling match was an event of some moment and not of such common experience as to be ignored.

As time wore on, roads were established; settlements became thicker; mercantile trade followed barter, and money began to circulate and to be offered and accepted in payment; wagons and buggies replaced saddles and saddle bags; railroads were built; newspapers and postal service became more numerous and easier; the telegraph and later the telephone annihilated distance; churches and school houses sprung up; the regular preacher took the place of the circuit rider; factory-made shoes drove out the "pair of fine boots"; power looms and hole-proof socks (in name only) routed knitting needles; and so on, until now Sears-Roebuck is trying to rout everybody and everything.

All these and many, many, more advances have been inaugurated within the memories of many of you here today. Those among the oldest of you have had the extreme good fortune of living within the period of the last 75 years or more, when greater progress along scientific lines has been made than was achieved in the 4,000 years preceding your time. Think of it my friends! . . .

What great good fortune has been yours!

What progress the future has in store I cannot know. Time only can tell, and time goes on, while you and I dwell here for comparatively only a day. And yet, if I were required to hazard my judgment, I should be compelled to admit I firmly believe you have seen more beneficial progress than will fall to the lot of any individual to be born in the future. . .

To you Old Settlers this day has been set apart by the folks of this community for your enjoyment and retrospection, and for our education and benefit. . . And when those of us here on the programme have finished, we want to hear you, by word of mouth, recall those early experiences that will forever be lost unless you impart them, that we, in turn, may hand them down to the generations yet to come. They will soon be most valued traditions. Books, paper, diaries and records have a most useful place, but some of the things of greatest human interest are not set down in the books or records--those little touches of color and everyday heart interest, those daily privations and abstinences--they never break into chronicle, and yet furnish a large part of our romantic history.

I have at home a chair--a plain, hand-made wooden chair with a wooden seat, with rectangular and cross red stripes, and on one panel in the back is a hand-painted bouquet of flowers in colors-- all showing the hand of a careful, neat and skilled workman.

Underneath the seat is a faded and torn paper label on which is printed "Black and Sons, Chair Makers, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."

Just a plain straightback wooden chair. A more elaborate one could probably be bought now for $2. And yet, my grandfather brought that chair to my grandmother for her parlor on horseback from Philadelphia to Russellville, in this County, some 80-odd years ago, piled high on top of a big horseback load of goods.

Think of the effort it took! Think of the s.p.a.ce it took away from profitable calico! Think of the many, many times on that thousand-mile horseback ride that grandfather looked back and felt to see if it were coming along with the balance of the load.