Evening star., 1933-10-08
BY BEN JAMES

BY BEN JAMES.
, - OMEWHERE in Washington. per-
haps packed in a dark drawer
! among the personal effects of
~ the Secretary of Agriculture, is
brass door knocker.
| The wind and the rain and the rapS
stubby fingers of forgotten Scot guests
made with it against an oaken door
have all but worn away the inscrip-
ton on the metal But you can still
read, family outlined, H. Wallace.
It came from an ancient farm house
| that stood, for almost three centuries,
on the moors of Ayrshire, Scotland.
/ When, a few years ago, the sturdy
home was raDed stained Bible and
some gold guineas were found within
its mud walls.
Ancestral Home.
It was the ancestral home Of fam
lily of farmers, who through the cen
turies have remained farmers. The
tokens given up by the home tell some
thing of the Wallaces Of old-social
beings, the elegant brass knocker
acknowledges that-the gold guineas
and the stained Bible locked in the
wall testify to thrift and deep religious
! convictions.
! No country squires nor rich dilet-
tantes, who play with the land. this
Scot family was for generations tillers
of the soil. In 1860 they migrated
from Scotland to North Ireland; and
/ then their search for better fields led
them to PENNSYLVANIA in 1892 The
traditions Of the Old World they car
ried on in the new, and the last three
generations of these God-fearing farm
ers have stepped quietly from the rich
loan to power.
Saga of the Soil
Here is a saga of the soil. Through
| 1t run grim threads OF hard life close
to the earth, love of the land. the
prejudices of a laSs-consclousness. the
courage of honesty and the sparkle OF
minds ever curious and speculatlng
! about a strange world.
| It is the story of a Middle Western
dynasty, three distinguished genera
tions of farm leaders For more than
! half century they have been molders
of agrarian opinion. Few phases OF
farm life in the Middle West escaped
/ the influence of the Wallaces. They
projected themselves into many fields.
religion and economics, sociology and
politics. In all of them the Wallaces
made pronouncements and were heard.
| AS editors and publishers Of Wal
lace's Farmer they welded their great
est power. AS teachers, preachers and
politicians they supplemented this in
! f1uence, always remaining farmers.
| Added to these formal measures of con-
| tact with Middle Western farm minds
was an amazingly wide personal &C
quaintance with all ranks and files Of
farm life. Henry Wallace, father Of
one Secretary of Agriculture and grand
father of another, was known far and
wide as Uncle Henry"
: Each a Crusader.
| Not a few presidential candidates
have looked askance at the Wallaces
when Middle Western States hung in
the balance Their original reasoning
and stern, Puritanical integrity formed
their personal decisions and kept them
! constant. Each generation OF Wallaces
was crusader on its own account.
| There was Henry Wallace. the founder
, of the Iowa house. In the face OF
rampant enthusiasm throughout his
district for William J. Bryan's free sill
ver he threw all the force of his
power against the Commoner and was
credited with no small part in the de-
| feat of Bryan in Iowa For this he
might have received the SecretarYshlp
of Agriculture Instead. he swung 1t
to his best friend, Jim Wilson.
| But the swath Henry Wallace cut
across the minds of agricultural Amer
! lea made him power to conjure with
| in Washington and established a back
ground from which his son. Henry O.
Wallace, emerged to become Secretary
of Agriculture in the Harding and
Coolidge cabinets.
Third Generation.
When the ghost of the forces that
had attacked the gold standard in 1896
mobilized in the Fall of 1882, the third
generation of the Wallaces was on the
scene. The representative OF this gen.
Grafton took the typical Wallace stand
, that is. stand predlcated upon MS
own personal beliefs.
But the position he assumed was
diametrically opposed to that Of his
grandfather, for Henry A. Wallace had
no use for the gold fetish" He broke
with the Republican party, threw his
| influence for Franklin D. Roosevelt and
once more Wallace won. Perennlally
Republican Iowa voted for a Democrat
and Henry A. Wallace found himself a
few months later, in the Presidents
cabinet with the same portfolio his
grandfather might have held and his
father had held before him under the
banner of another party.
| Parties have meant little to the Wal
| laces. They are class-conscious agricul-
turalists, and to them politics is but a
medium to achieve just share OF the
worlds goods for the farmer.
Marked for Fame.
The Wallaces' virile maintenance OF
| their family's heritage of useful lead
ership in their ancestral occupation
marks them for place among the
useful families of America who have
passed on courageous careers from
father to son. Perhaps no other single
| family in America has done more to
methods. to raise standards of living,
! materially and morally, and to shape
agrarian opinion into political power.
The way is net easy for the progeny
! of an illustrious man. The generation
! which inheritS a famous name is also
| legatee of intangible but positive handi-
| caps. The examples of great fathers
| to often cast a far-flung, glamorous
shadow over the earnest endeavors Of a
competent son, a shade from which
the heir IS often powerless to escape.
The sons and daughters of heroes of
war and peace in the majority of in
stances never emerge from the SNUG
security, wealth and position earned
| for them by their forebearS.
| Though the odds are against contin-
uous accomplishment, the Wallaces
through three generations have spoken
out in stormy times and have been
heard. And there are others in other
fields who continue to carry on tradi-
tion despite the obstacles that stand
in the way. There is the Byrd family,
heirs to a tradition of daring and
loyalty, which began with such ances-
! tors as Henry of Navarro and Richard
III and carried on through colorful
generations Of seigneurs of the land.
warriors, governors and patriots.