Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-09-11
Ashurst's Vocabulary
Delight 10 Colleagues
And Senate Visitors
Arizonun's Defeat Robs
Congress of 'Story-Book'
Orutor-L Legislator
BY AL TOOMBS.

The decision of the Democrats of
Arizona to retire Henry Fountain
Ashurst from the Senate will rob
Congress of one of its colorful
STORY book" orator legislator.
Senator Ashurst for almost a third
of a century has been filling the
Congressional Record with some of
the biggest words spoken On the
Senate floor. Erudite, witty, and
never inclined to use one word
where five would do, Senator Ash
, urst delighted the galleries and dis
mayed the official reporters of Sem
ate debate.
He proclaimed inconsistency as
his greatest virtue and took the
floor during the Supreme Court re-
organization battle to explain this
His opponents had derided him for
suddenly favoring the Presidents
plan-juSt few days after he had
denounced it.
My faults are obvious" he said.
There can be no doubt I have my
full share. I suffer from caCoetheS
loquendi, mania, or itch, for talk
ing; from vanity, morbidity and, as
is plain to every one who knows me,
from an Unborn, inveterate fair for
histrionics.
"Never Consistent"
But there never has been super
added to these vices of mine the
whitening, embalming vice of con-
sistency. Whoever in the public
service is handcuffed and shackled
by the vice of consistency will be a
man not free to act as various ques-
tons come before him from time to
time. He will be statesman locked
in prison house. the keys to which
are in the keeping of days and
events that are dead.
Never have I let what I said yes
terday blind me today. No Senator
can change his mind quicker than I
Senator Ashurst got his start in
politics at the age of 10, when an
Arizona sheriff gave him a job as
turnkey at a county jail. He spent
his time reading Blackstones Com
mentaries.
Before the year was out" he said,
II had a right to call myself Five
Syllable Henry and at the end of
the second year I could throw So
pound words clear across the Grand
Canyon. AS a matter Of course, I
went into politics.
Called Self Errand Boy.
When Arizona was admitted to
the Union in 1912, Henry Ashurst
AS matter of course-was sent
to the Senate. And as matter of
course, he was returned four times
He told his constituents:
L do not deceive myself that I
am in Washington as a statesman.
I am there as very well-paid er-
rand boy, doing your errands.
He told the voters that he realized
that his presence in the Senate was
not absolutely essential to the con-
tinuance of the Republic
When that realization first came
to me I was overwhelmed by the
horror Of it, but now it is a source of
infinite comfort"
He once joined in a filibuster
against bill dealing with disposal
of the waters of the Colorado. Most
Senators, filibustering, would have
resorted to reading anything from
telephone books to novels. But not
Senator AShurst
He talked without notes, the whole
night through, sonorouS sentence
after sentence tumbling from his
lips. AS dawn broke, he was wildly
describing the early inhabitants of
the Colorado River Basin.
Takes Defeat i'm Stride.
His fund of knowledge is SEEM
ingly endless. He can quote from
the classics or from history for hour
on end. But he does not pretend to
erudition.
There is not a member o. this
body who does not have the literary
qualifications to tell in IS minutes
all the knowledge he has about any
subject"
He delights in throwing the ste
nographers into utter confusion with
such unspellable gems as:
= In the early years of my career,
like a bifurcated, peripatetic volcano,
I travelled the United States speak
ing for low tariffs"
When he got the bad news today
he was philosophical
After ALL" he said, "29 years in
the Senate is long time. I willing
", tI,o