The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1932-05-13
CHAPTER v
He Would Never Forget

"A glrl SCauQS IN C1e doorway OF
q rough, five-room cottage. The
spring wind, swooping over 800
miles of chaparral, ruffleS her
brown hair, darkens her gray eyes
to violet, tints her cheeks and
smiling mouth to ! deeper rose.
A baby boy bounces in her arms,
clutches at the flying hair. She
laughs, kisses the little fist.
From the room behind her
comes the smell of baking bread
the starchy fragrance Of freshly
ironed linen.
Beside the doorway spreads a
patch of spaded earth, spring
onions and radishes pricking
through the black soil in a waver-
ing line, The girl stoops down to
pull weed
It is all very simple. You would
not make a picture Of that. But
to the gangling young man Strid-
ing up the path, it is the loveliest
picture on earth.
Judge at n
The young man is 81 and a
Judge. But you'd never know it..
His gray-striped pants are baggy.
They look more like a cowboys
chaps than pants. His coat rides
up toward one ear-hiS collar
toward another.
And from somewhere northeast
Of his necktie, the round, red face
of the youthful Judge John Nance
Garner beams proudly upon his
missis and heir apparent. He
should worry about haberdashery
with sight like that to greet
him!
Haberdashery and all other
frillS had been the least Of his
troubles in those busy years. Ten
years before he had been a boy,
blowing. A lanky, clumsy. pen
niless boy drudging through the
grim round of ranch choreS-fac-
ing life with no assets save grit
and grin, two calloused fists and
a notion in his head. A notion
about people and power
Yet three years after. before he
was 81, he had passed his bar
exams, had persuaded the court
to let him become a practicing
lawyer, had had himself elected
county attorney! ..'
Can't Be Licked
His friends, the saloon keepers.
had helped put him in that
place. And his first official act
had been to turn around and
put them in theirs! Yet they
liked him and voted for him
still!
He was to go on performing
official acts like that to the end
of his days. And those he per-
formed them ON were to con-
tinue to like him.
You can't lick a guy like that!
And now he was GA success
ful lawyer, editor, owner of bank
stock and real estate, county
Judge, a husband and a father
"He had travelled fast. he had
travelled far"-what had the trav-
cling done to him? Had it
spoiled him as it had spoiled
thousands of enterprising young
sters before him? -
He was an ambitious boy. Had
ambition hardened into ruthless
ness?
Daring and Shrewd
He was daring. Had daring
racketeered into lawlessnesS?
He was shrewd. Had shrewd-
ness Slimed into sickness?
Had he become that thing we
call q politician and ceased to
be that thing we cali A Man. y.
forgetting the common touch
and the simple standards he
had known as q boy?
The answer lay therein that
little five-room cottage. . in the
garden he spaded after working
hours. ;. lay, even, in that rum
pied coat and these baggy pants.
He had not changed.
He had made his own fight
without fear or favor. He had
stayed his own without
compromise. But he had put up
o whale of a battle! And now
he was preparing to put up an
other. That old desire for-out!
was still with him. He was
going to go to Congress!
Now. how does a young man
get to go to Congress?
His Way Unique
There have been ways. The
least said about them the better.
John Nance Gamers way was
unique and startling and entirely
in keeping with his amazing ira,
dition. .
There were mountainous diff.
cultieS in the way. In the first