Epistles from Pap: Letters from the man known as 'The Will Rogers of Indiana' Part 9

Think of the many times it slipped to one side or the other and had to be retied. Think of the many nights it had to be unloaded, and the many mornings it had to be tied back on again. And lastly, my good folks, think of the joy it gave that little old woman up at Russellville--how she showed it to the neighbors; the care that was subsequently given it; the wonderful pleasure it gave her; and the proud feeling it secretly gave him. . . It was she who told their children the story of that little chair.

That, my friends, is the kind of heart throb we are gradually learning to ignore in these days of financial struggles. There are those among you, who by denying yourselves, have given your wives, sons and daughters saddle horses, pianos, automobiles and even farms--and at great sacrifice--and there are also those among you who have given your families their first iron stove, a candle mold, calico dresses, and perhaps a little straightback wooden chair.

Therefore, today let us go back. Let us forget the things to which we have applied ourselves too a.s.siduously, the things that modern conditions have forced us to adopt and strive for. For the day, at least, let us turn back to the days when you were young and this community was young: To the days when you courted and were courted in the c.h.i.n.ked log house before the stone fireplace; back to the time when catnip, tansy and peppers hung from the rafters; back to the days of the smoke-house with its pungent tang of hickory bark and corn cobs; when tomatoes were grown for ornament and thought to be poisonous. Let us again go down to the spring house and get a bucket of water to set under the gourd on the kitchen table. Let's stir up the fire in the fireplace, hang the pot on the crane or test the heat in the Dutch oven; carry the ashes out and put them in the hopper. Let's you and I and all of us go up and see how the dried apples are holding out, and then look the hams over to see if they have any worms in them.

Let us hie back to the days when all debts fell due at Christmas time; when mortgages were useless and practically unknown, and when every man's word was his bond. Let's eat a dinner of bacon, corn bread, milk and honey, and other wholesome things of those days, on the back porch or in the summer kitchen, while the younger girls shoo the flies off the table and the chickens off the porch. And then tonight, after supper, let's gather around the candle on the table, with Mother in the little chair knitting and mending with her hands, and rocking the cradle with her foot, while Father takes down the family Bible and piously reads a verse. Then, on our knees, and with heads bowed, let us hear that hallowed voice of Father, from whose nerveless grasp have long since dropped the working tools of life, rise in fervent prayer to Almighty G.o.d to protect us and keep us all safe from harm.

GRANDPAP'S BOURBON COUNTY BILL By Everett A. Mahrug

Pap took a pen name--his own rearranged in a "sort-of backwards"

fas.h.i.+on--to tell a story based on an ill-fated attempt by his grandfather, Jacob Durham, to form a new county, with Russellville as the county seat. According to family lore, Jacob intended to place the court house on a parcel of land he owned in the center of town, surrounded by other property he owned, including a store. Years later, Frank Durham gained sole t.i.tle to the "courthouse" property and deeded it to the town.

Grandpap, Jacob Mahrug, had come from Kentucky in an "early day", and located his new domicile equidistant from four surrounding county-seat towns. He laid out a new town and named it "Mahrug."

In the center of his town plat he carelessly left a large "Square."

As a boy back in Kentucky, Grandpap learned the blacksmith's trade, and followed that vocation for a while. . . At his new place of residence he started a general store, the first store in Mahrug. Both he and it prospered. He sold lots in this coming town. The town grew. He bought and cleared, and sold and rebought farm lands roundabout. He became a "Squire," and administered justice without fear, but probably with some favor. He journeyed on horseback to Cincinnati and Philadelphia to buy goods, transporting them overland by wagon from the closest navigable point in the chain of rivers. His store came to be the trading point and social center for miles around. He extended "store credit" anywhere and everywhere, and it was universally understood that Christmas Day was pay day. . .

In this environment, Grandpap started his family of four boys and one girl. . . He had the first carriage and the first piano in the county, even though Darter was the county seat and center of culture and population.

His mother back in Kentucky signifying her desire to visit him in his new home, he sent the carriage, the two older boys and three "hands" back to bring her to Mahrug in State. The trip took over two months, and she had to wait until the next summer to find weather and roads suitable to make the return home. Back in Kentucky, she advertised him and the new country so extensively that two of her neighbors bought enough land of Grandpap that Fall to make back to him all the expenses of her pilgrimage, and then some.

In somewhat less than due time, considering his status as an immigrant from another State, Grandpap got elected as a Democratic member of the House, in the State Legislature. Early in the first Session, he introduced a bill to substantially increase the Governor's salary. . . By a mere coincidence, it was referred to the Fees and Salary Committee, of which Grandpap was a member. It was unanimously reported favorably to the House by the Committee at its first meeting after introduction. Pa.s.sing the House and Senate intact, it was reluctantly signed by the Governor, and became law.

At the next roll call, Grandpap introduced another bill which came to be known as the "Bourbon County Bill." Its purpose was aimed to accommodate the people around Mahrug with a nearer court house and closer county seat. Without trace of partiality, it would simply carve a new county out of the four existing contiguous counties to Mahrug, make Mahrug the county seat thereof, and give the new county the name of "Bourbon", (a name most likely suggested by scenes from Grandpap's nativity). True, it did provide for the bonding of the territory comprising the new county to procure funds to acquire land for and construct the court house, jail and other county buildings, and "other necessary expenses," but these things were naturally incident to the formation of any new county.

Through another coincidence, the Bourbon County Bill was referred to the County and Towns.h.i.+p Business Committee, of which Grandpap was Chairman. It was promptly reported favorably to the House by the Committee. After some delay and a little explaining, it pa.s.sed the House by a very substantial majority and went to the Senate for its action thereon. . . The Senate's County and Towns.h.i.+p Business Committee in turn named a subcommittee to "examine thoroughly into its merits" The subcommittee was composed of two experienced and dependable members of the Majority party and a Whig member who had a bill pending for a separate judicial court for one of his counties. . .

Within the next two or three days, Grandpap's Bourbon County Bill, in some mysterious way began to take on the ear marks of an "Administration measure." Therefore, it was not lightly to be cast aside. The subcommittee, in their earnest desire that justice and fairness be done, sought first hand and unbiased information and facts, wherever they could be found. . . and was soon ready to report. However to make a.s.surance doubly sure, it was deemed advisable to finish its labors by interviewing the Governor. . .

The Executive Chamber's heavily-upholstered, plush furniture and cus.h.i.+ons were done in deep red. The windows were heavily curtained in the same color. Prismatic gla.s.s pendants featured the oilburning lamp chandelier, with three circles of 8, 16 and 24-lamp capacity, the whole suspended from a liberally-adorned ceiling ornament by a gilt rod of considerable tensile strength.

The walls were patriotically hung with pictures of former Chief Executives in immense velvet-lined gilt frames of a uniform character, arranged chronologically. The majority portrayed a pioneer soul of stern and earnest demeanor. Some had struck a Daniel Webster pose, thus straining and disguising themselves.

Others had cherubic countenances, and were men such as slept o'nights. All wore magnificent whiskers. . .

The Governor's Secretary announced the Senate County and Towns.h.i.+p Business Subcommittee, and discreetly retired from the Chamber.

His Excellency, that stalwart adherent to Jeffersonian principles, slowly arose from his desk and greeted the subcommittee with outstretched hands. Following the usual formalities, they got down to business, and the subcommittee chairman asked the Governor his opinion on the Bourbon County Bill.

"Uh--m! Well, first let us see what your investigation disclosed.

What have you found out?"

"We find they're pretty much for it. I've talked to a good many, and so have these other gentlemen here, and about all we talk to, or see, want it. . ."

"Yes, I know! But is it geographically sound?" the Governor queried.

"Why-y, yes! They've never had an earthquake anywhere's around there that I . . . ."

"No. No!", interrupted His Excellency. "I mean do you find the country around there needing a court house at that particular place? Geographically speaking?"

"Oh--h, that way! Yes, I think it does. Mahrug is over 20 miles from the nearest court house. And as luck would have it, there's a 'Square' already laid out there in town, ready and waiting . . ."

"And what do you learn, Senator?" The Governor turned to the other Majority member of the subcommittee.

"I find they're all for it down there. Mahrug is over 20 miles from Darter, the county seat. Three big creeks separate them from it. You can't ford them in high water. And one or the other of them is nearly always high. They're all mud roads and hard enough to get over in dry weather, and when it's wet or raining you have to take to the sides. Nine months in the year you can't get over them, only on a horse."

He paused. The Governor was leaning forward in his chair, beaming at him.

"Go on, Senator!" the Governor urged. "You are stating some very salient and important facts. Those are what I want to hear if I am to be of any a.s.sistance. Facts that go to the very heart of the question! Go right ahead!"

The Senator was both pleased and encouraged. He wanted the Governor's good opinion. He desired to "stand in" with him. He had a little bill up himself that his County Chairman was interested in getting pa.s.sed. And if it got past the Senate and House he wanted the Governor's signature without any quibbling.

Governors sometimes vetoed bills. He had heard it said if you knew a Governor rather intimately, there wasn't so much danger of a veto. Governors were that way.

He cleared his throat and proceeded. "There is considerable litigation over around Mahrug, from what they say, from horse stealing on down. An apple jack still house down on Muskrat Creek causes considerable trouble. Most of it is only hand and club fighting amongst the boys and men there in the neighborhood, but there's coming to be more cutting and shooting lately. The authorities down at Darter are so far away they don't pay much attention to it, or just don't care."

"They are coming in from Kentucky and other places, and land trading is pretty brisk and on the boom, and every time they make a trade they've got to go to the county seat to get the deeds made. . . My investigation shows me the people down there want a court house, they need it, they ought to have it, and I say give it to them."

"That was a . . . most enlightening and instructive dissertation on the very meat of the question," said the Governor. "And you Senator?" He swung around a trifle to face the Minority member.

"Well," he began in a hesitating way, "Some say they need it and some say they don't. . . Some of the boys on our side say there's politics . . . ."

"We can't help what some of them say," interrupted the Governor with a slight frown of annoyance. "What do you say."

". . .As I started to say, our Floor Leader is dead set against it. The counties they're cutting this new county out of are kicking like bay steers," (He noticed the Governor learning forward) "but the people in the new county want it, no doubt about that a-tall . . . ."

"There you are!" triumphantly exclaimed the Governor. "That's it exactly! The people in the new county want it just like the people in one of your counties want a separate court. And the people in the counties it is being taken away from don't want it, just like the people of your other counties, from which this new court district would be carved, don't want your one county to have it. Don't you see these two bills are alike? One is about one thing and the other is about another, but the principle is the same in both?"

A dawning sense of the similarity of the two bills swept the otherwise expressionless face of the Minority member. The whole thing unrolled like a scroll. He resumed, "As I was saying, the people, down there want it. The community needs to be developed, and those people want a court house of their own. They need it.

That's why I made up my mind so strong when we first started out to help them get it. We're not up here for politics. The people don't send us here for that. They sent us here to do the right thing by them. I'm for the bill! Don't forget that! I'm strong for the bill. I've done a lot of talking over on our side. They can't bring politics in this thing while I'm around . . . ."

His Excellency arose majestically. He fondled his beard, adjusted his waistcoat, cleared his throat and began, . . . "This conference has been a mental stimulus for me. Your unerring logic has been a revelation. Your arguments have convinced me beyond the shadow of a doubt of the absolute merits of the bill. . . I glory in your decision to push, er, I mean pa.s.s, this bill. It must pa.s.s. You and I shall see to it. . . I am particularly pleased with the fearless and unwavering stand on the bill your Minority member has taken. As he has so well said, we are here not as partisans, but solely as the representatives of the people. G.o.d forbid that politics should ever enter Legislative Halls, or the Executive Chambers during my Administration! . . ."

His Excellency excused himself momentarily, and returned with a decanter and four ample gla.s.ses. Filling them generously, he handed one to each of the conferees, raised his own and said, "Let us drink in the old bourbon to the success of the new Bourbon."

The toast was enthusiastically drunk without the aid of water or other pollutive non-essential. . .

Following the findings and advice of the subcommittee, a general Committee Report recommending pa.s.sage soon followed, and was adopted by the full Senate, over a very scattered chorus of "No"

votes from the Whigs.

The bill had successfully hurdled its first major Senate hazard.

There still remained plenty of time for trouble. Second reading was in the offing. It was then that bills were open for amendments, which could, in one minute, absolutely undo almost a whole Session's hard thought and planning. Just such an amendment as the dour Minority Floor Leader had prepared. . .

The Bourbon County Bill was put in the direct and personal charge of Senator Winker. . . He was a "steering committee" of one. . .

He thought and planned. He cogitated and mused. The Majority Whip was a promising young fellow, a good mixer, and the Minority Floor Leader had taken a liking to him for some reason. The two had a habit of disappearing somewhere about the Spencer Tavern at night.

Senator Winker was cognizant of his Whip's ability, and somewhat familiar with his habits and a.s.sociates. He sought him out and had words with him. . . The Senator, having laid his plans and fortified himself accordingly, determined to hazard the Bourbon County Bill for second reading the next time that order of business came around.

According to rules, the members called various House Bills a.s.signed to them during an alphabetical roll call of the members.h.i.+p. . .

With his ear to the roll call, then approaching the S's, the Majority Whip strolled casually past the Minority Floor Leader's desk, and with a knowing wink, whispered to him, "Come out in the corridor a minute. Four of your friends from over in the House want to see you."