Evening star., 1940-12-02
.LinneIight
Falls on
George
New Foreign Affcirs
Committee Head Is
Called q Mystery
BY JACK STINNETT.

by JAIN DllNNElIs
To his colleagues in the Senate,
he's the gentleman from Georgia;
to a lot Of politicians, he's the
mystery man of politics.; to per-
sons whose memories are short, he's
that euphonious delight, George of
Georgia"
AS recently as two years ago he
was a thorn in the side Of the New
Deal, but in official Washington
today and probably in the impor-
tant news dispatches for many days
to come, he is and will be spot
| lighted from coast to coast as chair
man of the Senate Foreign Rela-
tions Committee.
Senator Walter F. George, unsen-
sational, aloof and Of old-school pol
itics, is, at one and the same time,
the most difficult and the easiest
man in the Senate to write about.
Most difficult because he has al
ways skirted the rim OF anecdotal
activities that give, in paragraph,
the nature of the man. Easiest
because from youth he has pursued
a course that is almost completely
barren of those inexplicable ipcon-
sistencies which the column biog-
rapher must brush aside or build
from molehills into mountains.
In Senate Since 1922.
Senator George came to the Sen
ate in 1922. He could have come
few months earlier than he did, but,
with a gesture of Georgian courtesy,
he bowed out of the picture follow
ing the death of Senator Thomas z.
Watson in order that Mrs. Rebecca
L. FELTON,, an elderly and distin-
guished lady in the State, might
have the honor of being the first
of her sex to sit in the Upper House
Of Congress.
Soon after, in an election Mrs.
Feltol. did not enter. he dumb
founded the States politicians by
walking away with the vote-dumb-
founded them because although he
had held judgeships in the State for
IS years, he was not even thought Of
as a politician or a man capable of
piling up votes in the hurly-burly
of Southern senatorial race.
With the same quiet persuasive
ness that he used then and a fac
ulty for making influential friends
in every hamlet and city in his
bailiwick, Senator George has been
reelected with tick-tock regularity
even in 1888, when because Of
his devastating attack on the Su-
preme Court revision plan) he was
slated by the New Deal and Presi-
dent Roosevelt himself for the
purge"
Bygones Are Bygones.
His split with the administration.
according to intimates, has left no
scars, and his elevation to the new
all-important post of chairman Of
the Senate Foreign Relations Com
mittee, following the death of Sena-
tor Pittman, has caused no pains
at the White House or State Depart
ment. AS a matter of fact, his
brother southerner, Secretary of
State Hull, is one of his closest
friends and the Senator already has
informed the press that as chair
man he will continue to be as fully
in accord with the present foreign
policies as he has been as a senior
member of the committee.
George was born in Preston, Ca,
So years ago. Working as a farm
laborer. he made his way through
grade school and Mercer University
to an IL. D. degree He started prac-
ticing in Vienna, Ga, in 1901 and
six years later was elected circuit
Judge. He remained on various State
benches for IS years.
An Able Speaker.
If. today, the severe. patrician,
white haired gentleman from
Georgia has any outstanding char
acteristics. they are these: Ability
as speaker which, though lack
ing in political pyrotechnics, almost
always fills the Senate floor and
galleries with eager listeners; an
amazing memory typif1ed by the
time when he gave a reporter a 90
minute extemporaneous statement
and an hour later repeated it, word
for word, period for period, to other
reporters who had gotten wind of
the story; and dry humor that
frequently has a practical twist.