92 G234t
Keep Your Card in This Pocket *
Books will be issued only on presentation of proper
library cards.
Unless labeled otherwise, books may be retained
for two weeks. Borrowers fining books marked, de-"*
faced or mutilated are expected to report same at
library desk; otherwise the last borrower will be held
responsible for all imperfections discovered.
The card holder is responsible for all books drawn
on this card.
Penalty for over-due books 2c a day plus cost of
notices.
Lost cards and change of residence must be re-
ported promptly .
Public Library
Kansas City, Mo,
TENSION ENVELOPE CORP.
GARNER of TEXAS
GARNER
A Personal History
by
BASCOM N. TIMMONS
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK
9-8
GARNER OF TEXAS
COPYRIGHT, 1948, BY BASCOM N. TIMMONS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ALL RIGHTS IN THIS BOOK ARE RESERVED. NO PART OF THE BOOK MAY BE
REPRODUCED IN ANY MANNER WHATSOEVER WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION
EXCEPT IN THE CASE OF BRIEF QUOTATIONS EMBODIED IN CRITICAL ARTICLES
AND REVIEWS, FOR INFORMATION ADDRESS HARPER & BROTHERS
FIRST EDITION
H-X
JNO. N. GARNER
UVAI.DE, TKXA8
,./ TfUMjt
^
- - ~r-* ^*>
Facsimile o a letter from the
former Vice President to the author, Bascom N. Timmons
CO NT E NTS
Chapter I: SHORTSTOP WITH A FUTURE i
II: GAFFED SPURS 15
///: FRESHMAN IN CONGRESS 32
IV: GARNER MOVES UP 52
V: WILSON AND THE WAR YEARS 67
VI: GUERRILLA FIGHTER 87
VII: MELLON, COOLIDGE, AND TAXES 103
VIII: SIDE ROOM EDUCATOR 1 18
IX: MR. SPEAKER 131
X: KANGAROO TICKET 152
XI: YOU CAN'T DO EVERYTHING YOU
WANT TO 173
XII: MR. COMMON SENSE 193
XIII: THE SPLIT BEGINS 211
XIV: THE PURGE THAT FAILED 230
XV: STOP GARNER 246
XVI: "I WILL ACCEPT THE NOMINA-
TION" 26!
XVII: REFLECTIONS OF A STATESMAN-
CITIZEN 281
GARNER of TEXAS
CHAPTER I
Shortstop with a Future
JOHN NANCE GARNER, 3rd, Confederate cavalryman, rode
home to Texas in the early summer of 1865. In 1862 he had gone
off gaily to join General Joe Wheeler's cavalry; he had trans-
ferred to Magruder's forces to help drive the federal blockading
forces out of Galveston Harbor. Back under Wheeler's command, war's
end had found him with an isolated unit of Fighting Joe's disin-
tegrating army near the Louisiana- Alabama state line.
A hard, lean, unlettered six-footer, lacking a half-year of being
twenty-one young Garner headed home with nothing to his name but
the horse he rode in battle, his side arms, the uniform and the heart-
sickness of deep defeat. In this he was no different from 200,000 other
Confederates straggling to their homes at the same time, and in some
ways he was more fortunate than most of them. Texas, the most western
of the Confederate states, had been spared the ravages of the eastern
South. Grant had cut a swath of destruction on his way to Vicksburg
and later to Richmond. Sherman had been even more destructive in
his famous March to the Sea through Georgia. But Texas had not
suffered a major invasion, and Garner's home country the Red River
section had never felt the Yankee tread. The black soil there was rich
and inviting to returning veterans. And for Garner there was another
inducement to return home. He had a girl, Sarah Guest, waiting for
him at Blossom Prairie.
This was the second time young Garner had made the westward
trip to Texas. He did not remember much of the first journey. In
1851, as a six-year-old, he, with two brothers and three sisters, had come
700 miles from Rutherford County, Tennessee, to Blossom Prairie in a
covered wagon. His mother, widow of John Nance Garner, 2nd, was
the driver, the cook, nurse and the housekeeper of that traditionally
American trek.
Rebecca Walpole Garner had been born to better things than the
frontier life. A direct descendant of Sir Robert Walpole, of England,
Prime Minister and great parliamentary leader of the early 1700*5,
she had been gently raised in a cultured, well-off family, the Walpoles of
Tennessee. She married into a family as good as her own. The
Garners and the Nances both came into Tennessee from Virginia. Her
husband was Scotch in the male line and Welsh in the other. Both lines
went back into colonial times. The Garners and the Nances had done
the things that good Americans did in those times. They had fought for
the King against the French and for George Washington against the
King. They had found the way to education and business success. They
had moved west on the outer rim of advancing civilization. They were
not, however, persons without roots. Rebecca's husband was the second
John Nance Garner to be born in Tennessee and her son was the third.
The Tennessee background is an important fact in Garner family
history. Andrew Jackson had lived his adult life in this state, went
from there to the White House and came home to die there at the
Hermitage. Jackson's friend and hero-worshiper, Sam Houston; had
left the Tennessee governorship, led the fight to free Texas, defeated the
Mexican President, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, on the battlefield
at San Jacinto and become the first President of the Lone Star Republic.
On the way to Texas, Sam Houston in 1832 had proceeded through
the Territory of Arkansas over the old road from the Arkansas River
to Fort Towson, thence over Choctaw Trail, crossing Red River at
Jonesboro. Davy Crockett's entry into Texas in 1835, with a small party
of men, was through the Jonesboro gateway, and he spent his first Texas
night in Red River County. Many Tennesseans followed. Among them
were some of the Walpoles whose family fortune vanished in the finan-
cial panic of 1837.
Houston was President of the border Republic when the Walpoles
arrived and settled in Red River County. The rich-soiled area laid
claim to being the mother county of Texas for in it Stephen F. Austin,
father of Texas, had stopped for a while with his first group of colonists
in 1821. The Walpoles had done well in the new country. With her
husband dead and with little recovery since the financial panic of '37
had brought disaster to them, Rebecca Walpole decided to push west,
to make a new start with her little brood among her own people.
Described as a strikingly handsome woman, used to the best that
Tennessee offered, Rebecca Garner demonstrated in her new home
bordering on Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) that she could do a
man's and a woman's work. It is well she could. Many o the restless
men o that area had come back from the Mexican War and had gone off
again with the gold rush to California. Rebecca Garner needed not only
her own work and good management, but the work of all her children
in order to make a go of It.
^ Thus, her son, the Confederate cavalryman, had missed the educa-
tion and rooted life that all his American ancestors had known. The
boy's chance of an education would have been negligible at all events.
But he also had the handicap of bad eyes. The incentive to get into the
Confederate Army was so strong that he went 150 miles away to an
eye doctor for treatment. The doctor did so good a job that although
he lived to be seventy-five he never again wore glasses. He came home
from the war to a state which had been under six flags three in his
lifetime and now it was under none. This last condition as it turned
out, was to be worst of all. Proud Texas would spend the next five
years as a conquered country under Phil Sheridan's army of occupa-
tion and what was still more humiliatingunder carpetbag govern-
ment.
But the tall cavalryman was not the kind to sit around and rail at his
fate. He broke the rich, black,' waxy earth and planted a crop. He built
himself a mud-chinked log cabin and married Sarah Guest Their
first child was born there on November 22, 1868. It was a boy-child and
they called him for his father, John Nance Garner, fourth of that
name.
Grant had been elected President two weeks before. The Vice-Presi-
dential running mate of the old soldier had been Schuyler Colfax of
Indiana with whom the infant bom in the Texas log cabin was to
share the distinction of being the only men to serve as both Speaker of
the national House of Representatives and Vice-President of the United
States.
Grant's election raised new hope in Texas. Perhaps he could break the
[3]
deadlock between Congress and the President, precipitated by Triad
Stevens' desire to heap punishment on the South, and end the military
rule in Texas. But any hope that he could do that was short lived. The
great General had no aptitude for civilian government. By spring, con-
ditions were worse than ever. Commissioners elected by the Texas
Reconstruction Convention on March 11, 1869, drafted a memorial to
Congress to represent conditions in the unhappy land. The memorial
denied "the pretense that a marked decrease of lawlessness had become
manifest since General Grant's election to the Presidency."
"In fact," they wrote, "the assassinations in Texas since the election
of General Grant have averaged two persons daily."
Financial conditions were so serious that Elisha M. Pease, governor
by military appointment, proposed the sale of the part of the state lying
west of the Pecos River to the federal government in order to help ease
the impoverished condition of the rest of the state. The proposal was
not acted on and desperate conditions were to continue.
While the quarreling, the sporadic violence and the general agony of
political reconstruction was going on, ex-Cavalryman Garner was recon-
structing his own life and proving what a correspondent was to marvel
at, in the Manchester, England, Guardian: "In Texas no capital is
needed except the sweat of a man's brow. Labor alone can make a
man rich." Garner's forebears had given him neither money nor educa-
tion, but he inherited their gifts for energy and success. He was a hard
worker in his own fields, a good neighbor and a companionable fellow.
These things come naturally to a young husband who has been raised
in a hard-up household with an extremely capable mother and five other
children. Two years after the birth of his first child he was proving
that a man who did not mind hard work and who practices thrift could
make a living for his family even under the tragic conditions of recon-
struction. He had hired men to help him on the farm when they could
be obtained in the short farm-labor market.
The mart where he sold his cotton was the brightest commercial
spot on a dark business map of Texas. Jefferson was seventy-three miles
from the Garner farm. It was a port on Big Cyprus Bayou, then
navigable to a connection with Red River. All Red River County
farmers took their cotton to the prosperous city of Jefferson for ship-
ment to New Orleans and came back with loads of provender. Garner
[4]
was putting money in the bank. Texas came back into the union o
thirty-seven states in 1870 and that same year Garner started building a
real home for his family.
It was the most pretentious in that part of Texas. Picking a site oil
the hill crest two miles west of the log cabin, he built both for beauty
and comfort. More than a little ancestor conscious, he preferred the
colonial type of architecture. He engaged the best-obtainable crafts-
men to help him at the building. He bought choice lumber., hauled in by
ox wagon from Jefferson.
As the new house went up, it became the good-natured envy of the
countryside. The foundation was of hewn timber. Studding, inter-
spersed with oak logs, was pegged into place and locked with braces set
in notches cut into timber. An ornate entrance door, a carved winding
stairway leading to the second floor and a wainscotted parlor, two tall
red chimneys at either end of the house affording fireplaces both up
and downstairs, green shutters on the windows, all of these refinements
made the seven-room house a pioneer showplace and one of great
comfort.
Here it was that the ex-soldier's son John, they called him grew up.
He was conscious from the first of belonging to a family whom people
regarded as community leaders. Neighbors came to the sturdy white
house to get advice on agriculture, politics and local problems. They
had good times there. The boy John would say later:
"One of my earliest recollections is of my father's hospitality. When
father raised a full crop, he would buy a full barrel of whisky and bring
it home from Jefferson. If he raised a half-crop he would buy a half-
barrel. He was a man to keep things in proportion.
"It stood in an unlocked house. Any neighbor who cared to might
stop and have a drink if he wished. Some of them did and some did not.
So far as I know the idea was original with my father. I never saw or
heard of anyone else doing it."
Visitors not only drank the host's liquor, they played poker with
him. John would remember two out of his father's many poker-game
cronies. One was J. B. Whitfield, an ex-Confederate, who wore ruffled
shirts and correct neckties and cherished the aristocratic manner of the
old South. Whitfeld was the village storekeeper whose line included
everything from groceries, clothing, farm implements, patent medicines
[5]
to the men's-wear item six-shooters. The other was Dr. Bascom C.
Thompson, the community doctor, who liked to call himself the best
poker player in the vicinity until the elder Garner began to find
leisure for this pastime.
Whisky and poker, as social outlets for successful, well-adjusted men,
were not considered vice in those days. The boy John did not think of
them in such terms. Years later when he was Vice-President of the
United States, he got huge enjoyment out of the supposed insult by
John L. Lewis who called him a "labor-baiting, whisky-drinking, poker-
playing, evil old man."
The boy, too, heard plenty of swearing around his father's farm.
Rough language comes naturally to outdoor men. The rude words
rolled off the boy's consciousness like rain down the roof top. It had
the ring of neither profanity nor obscenity, and in times to come the boy
became one of the most proficient cussers in public life. His wife who
took his dictation became used to the future Vice-President's expostula-
tions of damn and hell. She once said: "After all, damn is a very
expressive word."
But there was something else that played a bigger part in Garner's
childhood. This was politics. It became a dominant factor in the house-
hold environment. When John was two, Texas regained statehood, and
from then on politics was tirelessly talked and practiced everywhere
he went. A state that had been under military rule and then carpetbag
domination naturally would be very conscious of government. The
Republicans still held the State House at Austin when he was six. When
he was eight there was indignant talk that Grant was seeking a third
term. This was unthinkable in Texas, especially in the Garner house-
hold. Andrew Jackson, as everyone knew, had tried to get a constitu-
tional amendment through Congress to safeguard the country against
just such a catastrophe. In the end the Republicans nominated Hayes,
The future Vice-President remembered this Presidential year 1876
because he was old enough to feel the impact of what happened. His
father was a sort of a pillar in Red River County now and a political
lodestar. The Republicans had been swept out of the State House and
good Texans like Richard Coke and Dick Hubbard were taking charge
at Austin. Texas had Maxey, a sure-enough Confederate general, in the
United States Senate. All this caused tremendous satisfaction to the
[6]
elder Garner. It looked very much as if the Democrats were going to
get their man, Samuel J. Tilden, in the White House.
Young Garner was to remember two things about that election year.
The first was that his father took him to a political rally at Coon Soup
Hollow. Two candidates for constable engaged in a joint debate. The
choosing of constable represented local self-government. The man
elected constable would be elected by that precinct only and would be
its highest elective officer. One of the candidates, thundering his plat-
form to the farmers of Coon Soup Hollow, completely enthralled
young Garner. He went away feeling he wanted to be an orator. The
other thing he remembers was the celebration of Tilden's election, then
the dispute over the result and finally the jolting decision of the Elec-
toral Commission putting Hayes in the White House and furnishing a
conversational marathon for Texas Democrats.
They were in for a bruising adventure in the next Presidential year.
This time there was more third-term talk. Grant and Elaine hooked up
in an historic deadlock at the Republican national convention and Gar-
field was the dark-horse compromise. The Democratic convention
nominated a man dear to Texan hearts. He was General Winfield Scott
Hancocka handsome soldier-politician in the great tradition of Jack-
son and Houston. Hancock Union general that he was had a wide
and affectionate acquaintance in Texas. He had succeeded Phil
Sheridan as commander of the fifth military district and had showed
an openhearted understanding of the Lone Star State's problems. Texans
thought of him as a man who tried to help them emerge from the dark
days of reconstruction. But Hancock lost to Garfield by a mere 7,000
votes, in a total vote of 9,000,000, the closest Presidential election in the
nation's history. The Democrats had gone down in two heartbreaking
Presidential elections.
He could remember another political incident of childhood. He was
thirteen then and Arthur had come into the Presidency at the assassina-
tion of Garfield. Men at the country store were discussing the tariff
and wondering whether the Arthur administration would undertake
revisions. Tariff in those years was the issue which more than any
other marked the difference between the Republican and Democratic
parties, the most discussed topic everywhere. Garner asked questions
about the tariff. In after years he was to participate in four major tariff
revisions and ask perhaps more questions about the tariff than any
member of the American Congress.
The childhood years were pleasant with the swimming holes, fishing
streams and turkey and wild-game coverts in the pecan groves, and the
wandering through the country with a bobtailed dog named Rover.
He had two brothers and three sisters by this timethe same size family
as his father had been raised in. But Mr. and Mrs. Garner apparently
decided that twice as many children would be twice as good. They
took on seven more to raise, and John's companionable instinct so
notable in future years had plenty to work on.
There were plenty of tasks to do. Farm people, whatever their finan-
cial status, toiled from sunup to sundown and did the chores in dark-
ness. Children plowed the fields as soon as they were tall enough to
reach plow handles. Young Garner performed all the work connected
with planting and harvesting and was assigned such tasks as milking
cows, feeding the farm animals. By the time he was twelve he often had
to forego school days to help with the farm, rising at four o'clock in the
morning to do two hours of before-breakfast chores by lantern light.
The family traits of energy and ambition left him vaguely unsatisfied.
He knew that his father, though in rather comfortable circumstances
now, had once been very poor and had always worked hard at physical
labor. He knew, too, that his father unlike the Garner, Nance and
Walpole forebears was not an educated man. He had had to make up
in vigor and wit for what he missed in polish and formal education*
John wanted money not just productive farmland to be sweated and
toiled over. And he wanted book learning the very best.
He got the money start before he had advanced very far toward an
education. One of his father's hired men, Francis Parker, shared a
room with John and was devoted to the pink-faced, blue-eyed ambitious
boy. Along came John's, eighth birthday and Parker decided to give him
five dollars as a present. But young Garner had his father's hotheaded
independence and Parker knew it. So he gave him no present. Instead
he promised him five dollars if he would pick 100 pounds of cotton. He
picked 108 pounds, took the five dollars, bought a motherless mule colt,
raised it, trained it and at the end of three years sold it for $150. He
promptly banked the whole amount. This first bank deposit made a
businessman out of young John Garner for life. It gave him a feeling of
[8]
independence. He was careful to retain that feeling of independence
all through the years.
As for the education, he began it at his mother's knee. Sarah Garner,
who epitomized the tenderness of frontier life just as the husband
epitomized its storming energy, was deeply interested in the boy having
an education. From her he obtained intellectual qualities and sensibili-
ties. She taught him the alphabet and other early lessons. He was
inducted further into the mysteries of education by Aunt Kitty Garner,
his father's spinster sister one of the six children who made the
covered-wagon journey to Texas. She was the family historian, the
keeper of souvenirs, old letters and word-of-mouth memoirs. Aunt
Kitty also had a shelf of books histories and the solid fare in Scott
and Dickens of nineteenth-century households.
At seven John had his first taste of formal schooling. He walked
three miles, morning and evening, to the old unpainted schoolhouse at
Antioch. The times were so hard in these reconstruction years, plus
the long Southern financial stringency which followed the panic of 1873,
that the schools seldom kept open more than four months a year. The
curriculum consisted principally of McGuffey's Reader and Webster's
Blue Blac{ Speller. E. L. Mowrey, his first teacher at Antioch, called
him the best pupil in the school and said he excelled at all school games.
Another teacher, F. E. Butler, said the boy's mind was huskier than his
body and he was not physically capable of prolonged application.
His health was better when he was next sent to boarding school at
Bogota several miles farther south. There he studied under stern old
Captain W. L. Rice. Captain Rice not only taught him history and
mathematics, he also confirmed him in a love of literature. On Cap-
tain Rice's shelves were the Bible, Milton, Bacon, Bunyan, Shakespeare,
Samuel Johnson, Gibbons, Voltaire the best library for counties
around.
Such books were about the only reading available. The Galveston
Weekly News had some circulation, but it came by stage coach over
a distance of seven hundred miles. The stagecoach and covered wagon
offered the only means of transporting people, mail and freight. There
were regularly operated stage lines from Clarksville to Jefferson,
Clarksville to Little Rock and Clarksville to Austin as well as other
Texas points, and some periodical journals came this way. But
[9]
schedules were not dependable. Muddy roads, swollen rivers caused
delays often for days, sometimes for weeks.
At fifteen, John was able to look further ahead in education. He
wanted to go where the teaching was the best. This involved leaving
home for a while. He still had the rnule money where it was safe and
drawing interest, and he was willing to work after school hours. He
went to his mother and told her of his plans to go away. He would
fend for himself.
"I don't wish to ask father for assistance," he said. "I don't believe
I will have to."
Soon afterward he set off for Blossom, in adjoining Lamar County,
which was known to have the finest school system in that section of
Texas. Two of the teachers were outstanding J. R. Walpole, a rela-
tive, and Henry McDonald Fletcher. John boarded with the parents
of Eugene Black, who later was to be his colleague in Congress and
still later a member of the Tax Court of the United States.
A railroad had been built now and the little town of Detroit sprang
up at the edge of the jack-oak timber line four miles north of Blossom
Prairie. Soon Detroit was a prosperous community and the Garners
moved to a bigger house there. The country was changing and now
Dallas had a population of almost 10,000 and was threatening Jefferson
as the trading center of north and east Texas.
At Blossom, Garner learned he could be paid for playing, as well
as working. The fierce pride of a small community was to aid toward
his education. Near by was Possum Trot and it had a baseball team of
strong country boys who had repeatedly humiliated both Blossom
and adjoining Coon Soup Hollow. The two communities merged
forces and formed a 'baseball team to wipe out the stigma. Townsmen
and farmers were willing to chip in to pay members of the team to do
plenty of practicing.
Garner played shortstop. At second base was Charlie Phillips and at
first base was John Hancock. The Garner-to-Phillips-to-Hancock trio
was to become something of a double-play combination. If Garner
wasn't the Honus Wagner of the team, Phillips was its Napoleon
Lajoie a very smooth performer.
Gamer was the youngest player on the team and while he was not
a particularly brilliant fielder or a fence-breaking hitter, he was its
[10]
"holler guy" and "spark plug" its star player because of his spirit
and hustle. Blossom imported a former professional baseball player
and paid him to teach Jeff Dickey, the Blossom-Coon Soup Hollow
pitcher, to throw a curve ball. Country pitchers in those days reared
back and threw toward the plate as hard as they could and no one
thought o trying to make the ball do tricks. Jeff Dickey could throw
hard and with his newly perfected curve all Blossom and Coon Soup
Hollow awaited with confidence the matched game with Possum
Trot.
Dickey's repertoire of curves and speed didn't work so well on the
day of the big game. He lacked control. His curve curved, but, accord-
ing to the umpire, it didn't curve over the plate and when he threw
his fast one, Possum Trot hammered it to all corners o the field. The
game was never finished. The two teams battled down to a ninth-
inning tie and when Shortstop Gamer was called out on what he
thought was a very raw decision at first base, he stormed at the
umpire, heaping invectives on the arbiter. A first-class riot of players
and spectators was underway and the game still remains tied. Garner
was to continue to play semiprofessionally at Blossom and Clarksville
for several years.
John had other jobs during his middle and late teens, both during
the school term and summer vacation. He clerked in his uncle's store
at Detroit and for a hardware store and a saw mill in Texarkana. He
continually added to the bank account.
Two things, he once said, gave him his ideas of prudent private and
public financial management.
"My father told me if I had a dime and owed no one I was solvent,"
he said. "Oran M, Roberts campaigned and won election as Governor
of Texas on a promise to conduct government on a 'pay-as-you-go'
basis. I was ten years old when Roberts stumped the state on that
issue. He became famous as a man who not only kept his promise
but reduced the public debt and lowered taxes."
At eighteen, Garner thought himself ready for college. Where would
he go? Texas had colleges, including the proud new Texas Univer-
sity at Austin, but he felt the strong family pull toward Tennessee.
He wanted to live for a while where his parents and grandparents
had lived. He wanted to take in some of the Houston-Jackson back-
ground he had heard so much about. Vanderbilt University, at Nash-
ville was at the very door of the Hermitage. He decided on Vanderbilt
and took the decision to his parents. Once more he told them he would
need no financial help. Mr. Garner, the old Confederate, smiled at his
wife and said:
"I think we will be proud of John."
The train ride to Nashville was his first. Fond hopes and big expec-
tations went with him when he left for Nashville. But no one ever
discovered how much, if at all, a college education would have
benefited this young man. He very soon found out that his pick-up
education had a lot of gaps in it. This in itself might not have stopped
him for he knew how to surmount obstacles by grinding work. His
real trouble developed when his eyes began to pain him. As if that
were not enough he soon developed symptoms of a lung complaint.
Finally, as Garner told it later, he went to a doctor:
"He told me I probably wouldn't live many years. I decided under
these circumstances the money I'd saved was worth more than an
education so I took it and went home."
It was an inglorious return almost as melancholy a westward trip
as his father had made at the end of the Civil War. But the son, like
the father, began anew. He knew he did not have the physical stamina
for the backbreaking toil of agriculture even if he had wanted to
follow that pursuit. He went into the law office of Captain W. L.
Sims and M, L. Wright.
The old-fashioned law office which became his alma mater was
better than a law degree to a lawyer who expected to practice in a
state with community property and many other laws of Spanish
origin, as Garner did. Sims knew not only the Anglo-Saxon system
of law, but he knew the sources of all the law which had been woven
into the Texas code the Jus Civile, the Partidas of Alfonso, the Re-
copilacion of Castile, the Legislation of Justinian, the Nueva Recopi-
lacion of the Indies and the Code Napoleon.
All these things Captain Sims patiently imparted to the intelligent
young law student. But while Garner was getting a maximum of
instruction and of labor he got a minimum of financial reward. The
latter he supplemented by playing baseball.
Some of Garner's functions in the law office were hindered by the
fact that he was not yet twenty-one. That was not a serious matter in
this friendly part of Texas. On his petition a judge issued a court
order which removed his disabilities as a minor.
At twenty-one, Garner was admitted to the bar and set up practice in
Clarksville. He used his first fee to buy an iron safe. But the con-
fidence outran the performance at first. For what seemed a long, long
time clients passed by his doorway. There was nothing of value to put
in the safe.
During these days of the doldrums, Garner made his first stab at
politics. He figured that he could fill out his income, earn some prestige
and gain some experience by becoming city attorney. He hurried down
to enter his candidacy on the last day of filing. There wasn't much
chance to get around and talk to the voters before election. He had only
one rival to beat, but that proved one too many. On election day
Garner found he had run a close second.
He had not been feeling well during the campaign, but he put off
seeing a doctor until the election was over. Then he got worse news
than the election news. The doctor informed him he had developed
tuberculosis and that he could not live unless he moved to a drier
climate. For Garner there was only one solution the solution the
Garners had always sought for their problems- go farther west. He
scouted around and learned of an opening at Uvalde in the ranch
country west of San Antonio. Uvalde had once been the intersection
of the mail routes to Mexico and the distant West.
For nearly half a century, it had possessed a reputation as a tough
place on the southwest Texas frontier. It had been infested with bad
Indians, bad Mexicans and bad Americans. The Canyon de Uvalde
afforded a natural defense and shelter and from it the savages had
operated. That is about all Garner knew about it, other than that it had
the reputation of being about the driest climate between Clarksville,
Texas and the setting sun. On that he made his decision. Garner relates:
"I decided to accept the offer to go there. I didn't know whether I
would ever get well or not. The way I was feeling I didn't much care.
I went to my father, told him of my decision and asked him if he had
any advice to give me.
" 'Only this, John,' he said, Tell the truth and be a gentleman.' "
[13]
la 1941, retiring as Vice-President after a distinguished career of
thirty-eight years in Washington, Garner could say:
"I don't know whether I lived up to the gentleman part or not, but
I have never told an untruth to any person. The man who will tell a
lie for his social, financial or political advantage either is a weak man or
a bad man. It doesn't pay off even temporarily. Seldom is there utility
in a lie, just futility."
But on that December day in 1892 John Garner merely thanked his
father and headed west.
CHAPTER II
Gaffed Spurs
JOHN NANCE GARNER reached Uvalde in the depression
winter of 1893. On the way out on a slow train from San Antonio
he was impressed with the roominess of the country. There was a
house about every five miles. As he approached the town to which
he was to bring national and international fame he counted his money.
He found that he had $151.60 of unencumbered assets, or any assets
at all.
"It was night when I reached Uvalde," he told me. "I gave a hacker
twenty-five cents to take me and my little trunk to the hotel. It was too
dark for me to see much of my future abode."
Garner was up at daylight for a sightseeing expedition around
the 2,5oo-population trading center of an area as vast as the state o
Virginia. It was at a time of year when the mesquite trees had shed
their leaves, the grass was brown and coarse with only scattered live oaks
to give a touch of life to the scene. He walked through the unpaved
streets lined with frame buildings which housed mercantile houses and
a sprinkling of saloons. Blacksmith shops and wagon yards filled in here
and there, along with abode huts for Mexican laborers.
"Hell's bells," he said to himself, "I'd rather be dead in Clarksville
than alive here." But as soon as the bank opened he went in and opened
an account with $150.
The signature he left at the bank was Jno. N. Garner, and that was to
continue to be his signature. Eventually he was to become sole owner
of the bank and to have banks in near-by towns.
From the bank Garner walked directly to the office of Clark and
Fuller and completed arrangements to join the firm. An itinerant sign
painter was passing through Uvalde and immediately the new shingle
CLARK, FULLER & GARNER went up.
The office of Clark, Fuller & Garner was on the second floor over a
saloon. The saloon was a sort of cattleman's club and the best place in
Uvalde to get acquainted. Garner dropped in a few days later and found
at the bar a rancher slightly worse for libation. The obliging young
lawyer an hour or so afterward offered to take the cowman to his hotel.
As they started out the cowman got a little mixed and thought it was
he taking Garner to the hotel. Garner paused to show his new-made
friend the spick sign of the firm of which he was junior member.
"Clark fullern' Garner," the cowman read. "Clark fullern' Garner,"
he repeated. "All I got to say is, if Clark's fullern' Garner I don't want
to meet him."
But the first addition to his bank account did not come from law
practice. There was a poker game among some cattlemen at the hotel.
The young lawyer was asked to sit in. He had no hankering to risk his
capital but the cattlemen were insistent. The game didn't last long, but
the next morning Garner put twenty-two twenty-dollar gold pieces in
the bank and Tully Fuller told him he had heard one of the participants
in the game say :
"That fellow isn't a lawyer. He's a slick gambler."
Actually, Garner was and would always be, not a slick gambler, but
a man with a shrewd sense of values. "I could make money on a rock,""
he once remarked casually. Bad* financial times never stopped him,
and they were very bad indeed in 1893. Grover Cleveland was back in
the White House after a four years' absence. He had rearrived there
just in time to catch the full force of a financial panic that had been
building up during some soft-money experiments by the Republicans
under Benjamin Harrison. Cleveland put the stopper on inflation by
hardening the currency weakened by the Silver Purchase Act of 1890
with gold. He also tried and failed to do something about the pro-
tectionist tariff which favored the moneyed classes against the agrar-
ians.
A case has been made by Henry Adams, shrewdest observer of
those days, to fix 1893 as the year in which America became finally
and positively a capitalistic nation. Adams wrote: "For one hundred
years between 1793 and 1893 the American people had hesitated,
vacillated, swayed forward and back between two forces, one simply
industrial, the other capitalistic, centralizing and mechanicaL But in
1893 the issue came on the single gold standard and the majority at least
declared itself, once and for all, in favor of the capitalistic system with
all its necessary machinery."
Garner, as always, was aware of the movement in national events.
But he was now facing the nearer problem of becoming a capitalist in
his own right. The division of the law firm's fees was to be Clark one-
half, Fuller one-third and Garner one-sixth. The junior partner rode
the judicial circuit for hundreds of miles in what was called the horny-
and-thorny or the cattle-and-cactus country. He brought in so many fees
that his percentage was increased.
He soon won a reputation around the courthouses as an effective
compromiser who could make a good settlement for his client out of
court, and also as a good lawyer before a jury. For riding by horseback
and buckboard over nine counties, carrying his bedding and often
sleeping on the ground at night, Garner made between $500 and $600
the first year. He got his health back and in the litde county seats, which
usually consisted of a courthouse, four or five stores and a couple of
saloons, he was getting an acquaintance which was to be very valuable
to him.
Not all of Garner's fees were in cash. His law firm accepted goats,
cattle, horses, wool and other chattels, and Garner became its trader to
convert these assets into cash. In settlement of one fee, he took a weekly
newspaper, the Uvalde Leader.
In addition to his law duties, Garner became editor, publisher and
reporter. His printer helped him gather local items.
"For a year, I wrote editorials which I hoped would mold public
opinion," Garner told me. Most of the editorials preached economy in
local government. When a vacancy occurred in the office of county
judge, which also meant county manager, Garner was appointed to the
vacancy and told to practice the economy he preached. The friendly
twenty-five-year-old county judge was re-elected and then his economy
got him into trouble.
Judge Garner was charged with the administration of the county
sick-and-poor fund. He had a distinct feeling that some of the Mexican
laborers were receiving too much money from the sick fund. Some
private sleuthing revealed that they were spending it for tequila and
whisky. So he purchased some harmless pills and the next Mexican
seeking money to allay an ailment was "doctored" by the Judge.
Several days later it was reported the Mexican had died and the story
was used against Garner with such telling effect that he was defeated
for re-election. After the election Garner met the supposedly dead man
on the street. His opponent's friends had kept the Mexican out of sight
until after the election. It was the first and last time Garner was
tricked in a campaign.
Being off the county payroll caused the ex-judge no financial pangs.
Much of his law practice had to do with cloudy titles and hazy
boundaries. Garner founded a firm to search and abstract titles. It
became an extremely profitable business and the firm is still in existence
in 1948.
Garner, while county judge, took the most important step in his life.
He met and married Miss Mariette Rheiner, daughter of J. Peter
Rheiner. Rheiner, a Swiss immigrant, partly owned and partly leased
a 34,000-acre ranch near Uvalde. He had married Miss Mary Elizabeth
Watson. She died when Mariette was an infant.
After graduation from a boarding school, the Columbia Atheneum at
Columbia, Tennessee, Mariette found life on the big ranch lonely and
went to San Antonio to take a course in a business school. Such a
thing for a girl of means was unheard of in those days, but Mariette
Rheiner, like the man she was to marry, had a mind of her own. The
young country judge was introduced to her on a train and eight months
later they were married by the Reverend George Morrison at the
Christian church in Sabinal, Their only child, Tully, was born Septem-
ber 24, 1896, and named for Garner's law partner, Tully Fuller, thus
breaking the line of John Nance Garners.
Mariette Garner was the ideal wife for the man she married. She
had good sense, a placid disposition and great faith in his future. She
immediately became and remained his confidential secretary.
Being out of office required a readjustment. Mr. and Mrs. Garner sat
down and inventoried their assets, and decided on the future. He was
approaching thirty. They had built a home. He had a law library and
was collecting the home library which was to make him one of the
best-read men in the nation. The proceeds from his. profitable abstract-
ing company he was investing in bank stock and real estate. He decided
he was content to settle down and grow with the country's growth.
Then something happened to make him change his mind. W. H.
Grain, the district's Representative in Congress died in Washington.
A convention was called in Corpus Christi to nominate a successor and
Garner was elected a delegate. By way of being forehanded he also
picked up the proxies of eight or ten other delegates who were unable
to attend.
It was a long-drawn-out convention with dozens of nominating
speeches. But Garner was anything but bored. He was learning from
these speeches what kind of man was wanted as Congressman from
Texas. Most of the nominating language, of course, was platitudinous.
It called for a Congressman who was honest, candid, forthright, fear-
less, wise, hard working, studious and patriotic. Gamer agreed. In his
own mind he felt that he could fulfill these superlative descriptions. He
decided then and there that someday he was going to Congress.
Rudolph Kleberg, an owner of the million-acre King Ranch, won
the nomination. This meant he would be in Congress for a long time.
Any Kleberg would be hard to beat for office. Nevertheless, Garner
went home to Uvalde and surprised his wife with the announcement :
"Ettie, I am going to Congress."
Just how he was to do it had to be worked out.
"From that day," Garner told me afterward, "I began to study national
issues. I had made up my mind I would never take a job for which
I did not have the equipment and the experience."
Garner always anticipated developments. Growth in population which
had been heavy in the 'po's was certain to give Texas at least one addi-
tional Congressman. Garner's experience as county judge gave him
insight into local government. The state legislature would be a good
training ground and enlarge his horizon by teaching him the practical
mechanics of legislation and how to deal with men and situations. He
ran and won a clear majority over three opponents. His preparation
for a legislative career was beginning.
Weighing 120 pounds he walked into the huge, new, pink granite
capitol of Texas on January 4, 1899. The Spanish War with its triumphs
and scandals had just ended. The conquest of the Philippines was about
to begin.
Garner's arrival was two weeks before the legislature was scheduled
to convene. He wanted schooling in his duties, acquaintances and time
to mature his plans for the session. Garner did not know a half-dozen
people in Austin when he arrived. But in two weeks the friendly, engag-
ing young man knew all the legislators and the key men in every
department. In anticipation of two hot fights which loomed ahead
insurance and railroad regulationhe began a study of trusts and
monopolies.
Garner started his legislative career by sponsoring two lost causes.
He backed for Speaker a man who had first-class ability but no chance
for election. He then came out for the adoption of a new Texas con-
stitution, knowing perfectly well that he could not win. But he was
voting and acting on principle, in line with the nominating descriptions
of an ideal lawmaker.
His first real service in the Texas House was as the maiden member
of the Appropriation Committee. Largely by Garner's doing, it became
known as the "Blue Beard Committee" where many pork-barrel bills
were summarily beheaded. This group handled 200 special appropria-
tion bills during .Garner's first session. Only four came out with the
pruning committee's recommendation for enactment.
This experience marked the beginning of Garner's forty-year fight for
economy in government. In his short life he had learned how hard
men worked to make the money that went into taxes. He hated to see
public money frittered away. His legislative district was far western,
sparsely settled and practically anhydrous. People were struggling to get
along in stock raising and were building their family lives for future
generations. There had to be, as Garner saw it, a good reason for every
dollar which the government took from these people's toil.
In the legislature another aspect of Garner's character began to develop
his hearty distaste for legislative trivia. He already believed in the
principle of fewer laws and sounder ones. For forty years perhaps his
most important service to American legislation was to act as a check
on the flood of unsound or unimportant measures that impede the
progress of the few vital bills before any lawmaking body.
One day a fellow-legislator proposed a resolution of sympathy for
the Boers in their war with Great Britain. Garner quickly moved to
refer it to the committee on federal resolutions, adding with quiet
[20]
to the struggle in South Africa.
Garner's first long legislative tussle was the insurance fight. The
growth of corporate enterprise had stirred the first mutterings against
the trusts. Texas, flourishing, but with a scattered farm population, was
a particularly rich field for the great Eastern insurance companies which
were taking huge sums out of the state annually.
Garner quickly got behind a bill to compel these companies either
to invest a large portion of their premium returns in the state or give
up their Texas business. The companies, alert to guard their interests,
quickly organized a campaign of protests along modern lines, only to
stimulate Garner's defiance:
"If the insurance companies doing business in Texas belong to a trust
either in or out of the state, I want to see them driven out. I believe
the common people of Texas want to see this bill enacted into law.
These telegraphic protests of my position have no effect on me. I shall
act as I deem best for the majority of the people, regardless of all else/'
This determination to protect the masses against exploitation by
powerful organized interests appears again and again on the Garner
record. But he never stooped to rabble-rousing half-truths. He relied on
a sound knowledge of economic facts ingrained by his business experi-
ence, on the habit of temperate study formed during his judgeship, on
his instinctive understanding of people and their problems.
This accounts for his attitude toward railroads at the turn of the
century. Unquestionably the railroads had been welcomed with open
arms and all possible inducements a few years before, but the Eastern
tycoons were now taking advantage of the country's need for trans-
portation to exploit the people and the states of the new West.
In a generation the railroad kings had evolved a system of rebates,
discriminatory rates and questionable bookkeeping that brought uncon-
scionable profits pouring into their coffers, and also brought the forma-
tion of the Texas Railroad Commission in an effort to keep railroad
highhandedness in check.
Garner was fixed in his conviction that business can be regulated
without strangulation. Common carriers and public utilities were a
great need in the developing new state. His own district, although
bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, had no water outlet and scarcely a
[21]
tenth of the rail mileage it needed. Actually, he thought, it was just
possible that Texas was more dependent upon the railroads than the
railroads were on Texas. The vast young state might be retarded in its
development for decades unless the railroads were encouraged suffi-
ciently to link the cattle lands and spreading farm areas with their
logical markets. He urged moderation but voted for measures to compel
railroads to handle freight unloaded by intercoastal steamships at Gulf
ports without discriminatory charges.
The legislature adjourned with railroad regulatory problems still
unsettled.
In his zeal for bringing the government closer home to the people
he had advocated that Texas divide itself into five states as it had the
right to do under its treaty of annexation with the United States. This
plan would have given the Texas area greater power in the United States
Senate and more votes in the Presidential electoral college. But the state,
proud of its size, reacted unfavorably. In Washington, Senator Joseph
W. Bailey thundered :
"You may divide Texas, but to which state will you give the Alamo?"
Garner's first legislative term in Austin had been a productive one.
He had lived legislative government. He was going to keep on living
it until January 21, 1941, the day he ended his public career. Among the
other things he had learned was that democratic lawmaking is largely
a matter of give-and-take and that much of this is done on a promissory
basis. Thus no legislator's influence is worth any more than his spoken
word. Garner said:
"Whatever it costs you to keep your word, the price is reasonable."
He went home from the session more eager than ever to make good
in the business of government. At nights he read history and studied
parliamentary law. He still played some poker, but his home work and
his mounting correspondence, even with Mrs. Garner's help, took more
and more time.
In June 1900, he was a delegate to the Democratic national conven-
tion at Kansas City which gave Bryan his second nomination as the
party's Presidential candidate. Bryan was snowed under by McKinley,
but Garner won re-election to the state legislature without opposition.
The railroad issue was still dominant when he returned to Austin.
At the head of the opposition to the carriers was former James Stephen
Hogg, father of the Texas Railroad Commission Act. Although out of
office for six years, Hogg kept up his fight for railroad reform and
regulation. In 1900, he asserted, the lines had issued 232,000 passes,
mostly to public officials. Hogg wanted the practice outlawed by a
$5,000 fine. This measure and some others came before the legislature in
package form, known as the Hogg Amendments,
The fight quickly became one of the bitterest ever staged at the
Texas capitol. Hogg desired to appear in person to fight for his re-
forms. But the opposition, recognizing the ex-governor's persuasive elo-
quence, built a barrier of obstacles.
When it seemed that the issue had reached an impasse which would
stall the wheels of legislation completely and leave a lasting bitterness
between the factions, Garner moved into the picture as a mediator.
Despite his admiration for Hogg, the Uvaldian was not convinced
of the wisdom and practicability of all the proposals. Some he favored,
some he believed would impede the development of the Southwest,
Hogg wanted them in a package, no compromise, all or none. Garner
never liked a take-all-or-take-none attitude, but was willing for Hogg
to have an opportunity to explain his sweeping demands.
"I am not for making a political punching bag out of the railroads/'
Garner said. "I think we can find a way to take care of the buccaneers
without hampering the developers."
He specified the parts of the Hogg proposals which he favored
and the parts he opposed. Then he introduced a resolution to invite
the former governor to appear before a joint committee of the two
Houses of the legislature. By adroit manipulation Garner won his
point. Hogg made his speech. Garner for the first time had distinguished
himself as an oiler of troubled water.
Later, while the amendments were before the House, the Speaker
suggested that someone capable of giving an objective view of the
issues be granted the floor. From both sides came cries for Garner.
The press reported his appearance thus:
"He is instructed by the people of his district to vote for the
amendments, but he is personally opposed to them. He argued that
the party mandate is binding and said that before he would violate
instructions laid down by his constituents he would resign.
"Asked, What would you do first, violate your oath to support the
[33]
federal constitution or violate the instruction of your people?' Mr.
Garner replied that the proposed amendments were not a violation of
the federal constitution; if he thought they were, he would resign
rather than vote for them."
Another correspondent reported:
"Mr. Garner was forced into making a speech on the question and
he made an able one. While personally opposed to the amendments,
he feels that it is a party demand and that he must support them.
"His speech pleased both the friends and the opponents of the
measure and was a great piece of oratorical and argumentative diplo-
macy of which Mr. Garner is capable."
The Hogg Amendments were defeated, although their provisions for
the greater part later became law.
For his part Garner emerged from the railroad war one of the
dominant figures of the legislature. He had a progressive label but
was a man whose personal friendship and political acumen was sought
after by all factions. A legislative writer of the period recalls that
"Garner was the one man in the House who made his points in open
debate without making enemies, who could separate political issues
and personal relations completely. He could, when he felt it necessary,
challenge his closest friends on the floor without marring that friend-
ship."
The fact that he had accepted instruction from a party convention
to support legislation which complete study had convinced him to
be unwise, had put him in an unhappy personal position. He decided
on a course of candor which would have been suicidal for ninety-nine
political figures in a hundred but became the winning card in the
Garner deck. Before he was ever elected to representative office again,
he would have an understanding with his constituents of the respon-
sibilities of a Representative.
In many instances the Garner of 1900 was seeing too far ahead to
win majority support. He foresaw, for example, the dominant part
mechanization would play in the American scheme and worked
earnestly to establish technical training in the schools of the state. He
failed and it was ten years before the courses were established.
Where regional matters were concerned he stood as the spokesman
for all that far-flung Western area. In his second legislative term he
[24]
appeared often in this role. Thus his demand for a state bounty on
ravaging wolves:
"The people from the thickly settled counties seem to think, or at
least act, as though west and southwest Texas were not a part of Texas,
except for purposes of paying taxes. We pay into the Treasury hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars, and when we come to the legislature to
ask for a small sum of money to protect our lives and property from
the ravages of wild animals, we are told that the state cannot afford
the expense and that we must protect ourselves. I submit that this is
unfair to those people who are struggling to make a living in that
section and at the same time prepare it for occupation by future gen-
erations."
By such legislation in the interest of stockmen at large, he had spread
the people's reliance on him far beyond the county to which he was
directly responsible. He had, in fact, won the attention and respect of all
politically minded Texans and prepared the way for his next step.
It is a political axiom that the more prominence a public figure
attains, the better target he makes for legislative and editorial brick-
bats. So it is more than an interesting fact that a study of legislative
records and Austin newspaper correspondence at the time fails to
disclose an uncomplimentary or disparaging shot at the Garner
record. This despite the fact that, with characteristic candor, he set
out to do what few men had attempted the carving out of his own
Congressional district.
Garner had not, as so many young politicians do, neglected bust
ness to put all his eggs in the treacherous political basket. He had sim*
ply superimposed the politician on the businessman. His law business
flourished during his terms at Austin, and between sessions, he added
to his ranch and bank holdings. In 1901, at the age of thirty-three, he
was a solid citizen with property valued at from $40,000 to $50,000.
He was fully equipped, financially and in experience, to move into
the national political picture.
The census of 1900 had confirmed the development he had foreseen
years before: that rapidly growing Texas was ready for redistricting.
Its population had shot up from 2,235,527 to 3,048,710 between 1890
and 1900. Garner felt he was ready for Congressional service. But
he had observed that large, thinly populated districts usually return
their man to Congress indefinitely, and had decided to work for a
reapportionment division which would place Uvalde in such a district.
He had made no secret of his ambitions. He thought he was the
best Congressional timber available and worked assiduously to win the
support of his colleagues for his proposal.
He asked to be and was made chairman of the committee on redis-
tricting and carved out a district for himself. Then he took the floor
and told his astonished colleagues that the bill he was asking them
to pass was framed by him for the express purpose of creating a Con-
gressional district in which he could be elected to Congress. Amazed
at the man's frankness, his colleagues gave him the district which
sixteen times elected him to Congress, one of those times when he
was being elected Vice-President of the United States at the same
time. This latter came about because Garner had been renominated
for Congress when his Vice-Presidential nomination was made. The
situation created a dual race.
Home to Uvalde with a personally created Congressional district
beckoning, he still had the essential accomplishment ahead. He had
to be elected. He announced immediately for Congress, the fifty-eighth.
To his regret so did a very able, distinguished and much more mature
citizen, the Honorable Joseph B. Dibrell, who had represented Uvalde
and neighboring counties in the state Senate for a number of years.
DibrelTs friends were numerous, including many lawyers and county
officials.
"I campaigned in a buckboard, driving a gray mare and a little
mule," Garner said. "I passed up most of the county seats on the
theory that the county officeholders, the lawyers and the politicians
were against me. Why should I let them know what I was doing?
But I did see nearly every other person in the district and most of
the people outside the county seats were for me."
If Dibrell had the support of the county machines, Garner had
not lacked newspaper support. Most of the newspapers in the dis-
trict were country weeklies. They were not particularly well edited,
brilliantly written or objective in viewpoint, but the most of them
were for erstwhile Uvalde Editor Garner.
Garner's ideas on certain fundamentals were well matured in the
thirty-fourth year of his life. On these issues the manner of his
[26]
thinking was illustrated in his speeches and platform in the second year
of the twentieth century. He highlighted fiscal problems as he was to
continue to do in thirty-eight years o service in Washington. On two
of them the then nonexistent income tax and the tariff which fur-
nished most of the revenue to run a federal government then costing
around a half-billion dollars annually his views were significant.
He said:
"I favor an Income tax as a means of raising revenue and regard
it as the most equitable mode of taxation. I oppose the raising by
taxation of more than is needed for the administration of the govern-
ment, economically managed. It is just as necessary to watch the
expenditure of the people's money after it is collected as it is to devise
means for taxing the people to produce revenue. I, therefore., oppose
centralization of government at Washington. It is a Republican prin-
ciple and contrary to all Democratic teaching. I favor local self-
government for the people."
He opposed the use of the tariff for any other purpose than to raise
revenue at the customs houses.
"I favor a tariff fairly and justly imposed and so levied as not to
discriminate against sections or industries," he said. "So long as it is
the policy of the government to raise revenue by tariff", and afford by
such tariff incidental protection, then I insist that the raw material
of the South and especially hides, wool and livestock, shall receive
the same degree of protection that may be afforded to the manufac-
tured articles. We must 'buy from other countries if we are to sell to
them. Therefore, the tariff should be competitive.
"The doctrine of free raw materials tends to make a free trade
South and West and a protected North and East, making unequal
the burdens of taxation and increasing the wealth of the last two
sections, and decreasing the wealth of the first two."
On labor he favored the right to organize and bargain collectively,
an eight-hour day for factory workers and other city workers where
possible, and a department of labor in the President's Cabinet, He
opposed compulsory arbitration because "the great danger in such a
system lies in the opportunity of placing improper persons in the
position of arbitrator."
On national defense he said:
[27]
"I favor a strong navy as strong as that of Great Britain which
will cause our flag to be respected and will help our commerce pene-
trate to all shores. I oppose a large standing army. Transportation
rail, vehicular roads and waterways which the country sorely needs,
is better for national defense than guns which quickly become
obsolete."
On other issues, he said :
"Trusts and monopolies restrict competition, increase prices, depress
wages and rob the consumers of the country. Those trusts which
control the prices of all articles necessary to the upbuilding of the
country should be dissolved. The tariff should be taken off commodities
controlled by them* and the market opened to the whole world.
"Irrigation of the western states should be by national action. If
we have the right to build levees along the Mississippi and we do,
because flood waters do not stop at state lines we have the right to
store the flood waters for reclamation of the arid regions.
"No territory should be added to the United States save for the
purpose of converting it into states whose inhabitants shall be citizens.
The Philippines should be given their independence.
"The Panama Canal should be constructed at an early date. It
can be a great factor in the development of our commerce.
"The tax on oleomargarine is class legislation of the most dangerous
sort, unjust and sectional in its intentions, and gravely detrimental
to the cattle interests and the cotton-seed interests of this country."
His fairness to an opponent was exhibited in a speech at Sabinal,
where his opponent Dibrell was scheduled to meet him in joint debate
but was unable to keep the engagement. An account of it in the
Sabinal Sentinel quoted Garner:
"It has been reported that Judge Dibrell is an enemy of organized
labor but he has told me that this is not true and I believe him. My
own position is clear on this issue. I do not want my opponent's posi-
tion misrepresented, I will never resort to trickery, untruths or half-
truths to win votes."
County after county went for Garner. The decisive one was Atascosa.
Garner carried it by 200 votes. When Dibrell's manager telephoned
the result over the single noisy telephone line into the county. Garner's
opponent withdrew.
In his announcement of withdrawal, Dibrell had said:
"My time has been completely occupied with business for over two
months and I have not been able to give my canvass for Congress any
attention. For this reason the opposition against me has virtually
secured my defeat."
The Devine News, a weekly, quipped:
"Senator Dibrell gives as his reason for withdrawing, the fact that
his business was so pressing. We imagine it was Garner who was so
pressing."
Dibrell tried again. In a second statement he said:
"Garner will make a great Congressman. The only thing urged
against him is his youth. It is no crime to be young. He has been called
a 'bantam rooster/ but he has two spurs, both gaffed, as anyone will
find out who runs up against him. No one is better able to speak
from experience than I am. He may not make a great oratorical dis-
play in Congress, but while an unwary antagonist is making a speech
Garner will know what he wants, will go out and work for it and
get it.
"He is as bright as a new made dollar and as clean as unsoiled linen.
I doubt if he has ever done anything that is not creditable to him or
ever will. It is not in the nature of the man/'
Garner was given an acclamation nomination at the Congressional
convention at Laredo, and the privilege of outlining his own platform.
James B. Wells of Brownsville, a veteran Texas political leader, had
been Garner's sponsor in the western part of his district. Pat Dunn o
Nueces, a rancher and principal owner of ii5-mile long Padre Island^
had taken care of the eastern part of the district.
Congressional candidate Garner and supporter Dunn met for the
first time in a milling crowd in the lobby of the Tremont Hotel at
Galveston, when the state convention met to ratify Congressional
convention nominations.
Garner, dressed for warm weather, wore a seersucker suit. He was
undersized and none too prepossessing, and in no way the physical
Congressional type Dunn pictured.
A friend introduced them.
"I didn't catch the name," said Dunn.
"Garner," replied the candidate.
"What, you are not John Garner?"
"I am," was the reply.
"And you are the man I am supporting for Congress?"
"Yes, sir."
Dunn shook hands none too warmly and went off to hunt up
Judge Wells.
"Judge," he said, "we have always been good friends. There is just
one understanding I want with you. The next time you ask me to
support a man, you are not going to get a commitment out of me
until I have seen him first/'
Garner still had a Republican opponent to defeat.
Politically the district was the most doubtful one in Texas. It had
thousands of Republican voters and the G.O.P. put forward John C
Scott, a shrewd, successful and leading Corpus Christi lawyer. Scott
was heavily bank-rolled by E. H. R. Green, son of Hetty Green, the
woman wizard of Wall Street. There were Republican newspapers
in the district and they hammered Garner.
Said one newspaper, rather ineptly named as far as Garner was
concerned, the Corpus Christi Crony:
"If Garner won out, he could never even ascertain at Washington
who wanted the postmastership at his own home town of Uvalde. If
Scott were elected he could obtain all the information at Washington.
Garner would be an outsider; Scott would be one of the gang."
And the Texas Sun said :
"Mr. Garner in the improbable event of his election would get nothing
from the government but his salary that he could be depended on to
"get with mathematical regularity, but how much good would that do
his constituents? It would take a big man, who as a Democrat could
get substantial recognition. It is absurd to imagine he would carry any
weight with the administration or influence with Congress or be of any
service to his constituents.
"The only way he could get into the Congressional Record would
be by hiring some contract writer to prepare a speech for him which
he could send to the Speaker by a page boy, with the request that it
be printed in the Record. This would be done as a matter of course,
but as to his getting recognition by the Speaker, nonsense. He would
[30]
never be heard from on the floor or in the committee rooms; he is
utterly too small from any point of view to accomplish anything''
Garner's final majority was six thousand.
He went to Washington, with one of the most unusual arrangements
with his constituency ever made by any Representative. It constituted his
idea of party platforms and representative governments and he let it
be known what his attitude would be if at any time he got a flood of
telegrams such as he got at Austin, during the insurance fight. He
outlined the agreement in a speech in Corpus Christi, during the
campaign.
"Most of the unpleasant situations which arise come from misunder-
standing," he said. "Therefore, I want a distinct understanding. The
convention which nominated me drew a specific platform on some
issues. On those there is an understanding between us. On other matters
which arise, I want to make my position clear. This is a representative
government. I want to be elected your representative and to serve this
district as long as I can be your representative. I propose to study legis-
lation and understand it to the best of my ability. I want the views of
my constituents if you elect me. But when a piece of legislation is in
its final form and comes up for a vote, you won't be there. You will
be down here attending to your business. I propose to make up my
mind on any measure and cast my vote according to what I think is in
the public interest."
The people of Corpus Christi liked that arrangement so well that in
1909 they presented him with a watch which he was still carrying in
1948. It bears the inscription:
To John N. Garner, from the people of Corpus Christi, in grateful
appreciation of faithful service.
CHAPTER III
Freshman In Congress
JOHN NANCE GARNER, Representative from the Fifteenth
Texas Congressional District, walked into the historic chamber
of the House of Representatives on November 9, 1903, and took
a back seat in a body then composed of 398 members.
President Theodore Roosevelt had called an extraordinary session of
the Fifty-Eighth Congress to approve his Reciprocal Commercial Con-
vention with Cuba.
Garner's first vote was to be on the selection of a new Speaker. Scot-
land-born David Bremner Henderson, at the end of two terms as House
presiding officer, had retired to his Iowa farm. The choice for his suc-
cessor was between two of the all-time greats of Congressional history.
The Republican nominee was Joseph Gurney Cannon of Illinois,
sixty-seven years old, and already a power in the House, chairman of
the Appropriations Committee. The Democrats had put forward John
Sharp Williams of Mississippi, nearly twenty years younger than
Cannon, the best-educated member of the House of Representatives and
perhaps the best debater of all the Democrats, then serving. There was
no doubt about the outcome. The House was Republican. Cannon was
elected, 198 to 167, with 19 not voting, and began his eight-year term, the
longest continuous one of any Speaker to that time. Williams became
minority leader.
The distinction of the members of the House in the Fifty-Eighth Con-
gress equaled that of any in American history, excelled any in the
twentieth century. It was the beginning of the short-lived golden age of
the more numerous branch of Congress. Its members were for the next
four decades to furnish more headlines than those of any House of
Representatives of all time.
[32]
Joe Robinson of Arkansas; Carter Glass of Virginia; George W.
Norris and Gilbert M. Hitchcock o Nebraska; Nicholas Longworth of
Ohio; J. Thomas Heflin of Alabama; William Randolph Hearst of
New York; Victor Murdock of Kansas; Arsene P. Pujo of Louisiana;
Ollie James and Swager Sherley of Kentucky; Andrew J. Volstead and
J. Adam Bede of Minnesota; Butler Ames of Massachusetts; Big Tim
Sullivan and Francis Burton Harrison of New York; Asbury Lever of
South Carolina; Morris Sheppard and Jack Beall of Texas and Camp-
bell Slemp of Virginia were some of the rookie Congressmen who faced
the dais for the first time and took the oath from Uncle Joe in his first
hour as Speaker.
The parade of future Congressional celebrities which accompanied
Garner over the threshold of history that day and the sitting members
already there had the makings of:
Three future Vice-Presidents: Sherman, Curtis, Garner.
Five future Speakers: Clark, Gillette, Longworth, Rainey, Garner.
Three Cabinet members: Burleson, Glass, Swanson.
Three tariff-bill authors: Payne, Underwood, Fordney.
An anti-trust-law author: Clayton.
An eight-hour-day creator: Adarnson.
The prohibition amendment and enforcement act writers : Sheppard
and Volstead.
The Federal Reserve Act architect: Glass.
And quite an assortment of names for the history books to come.
The Six J's and Sereno took control of the House when Cannon be-
came Speaker. Joe, Joha and the four Jims were the oligarchy. John
Dalzell on the Rules Committee was really Cannon's second in com-
mand. Jim Sherman, Jim Hemenway, Jim Tawney and Jim. Watson
carried out the orders. Sereno Payne was officially floor leader but
devoted himself principally to his chairmanship of the Ways and Means
Committee and tariff chores.
Cannon understood the place of the House in the government scheme,
made it respected and performed his duty to the House as he saw it.
Even with a popular President in the White House he could lift his
branch of Congress to its highest peak, prove that it need not be sub-
merged. He could tell Theodore Roosevelt, as he did, that "the House
[33]
could take care of its reputatioa and its dignity in its own way."
Garner was to have close friendships with nearly every one of the
topliners of the Fifty-Eighth Congress. With one of them, Nick
Longworth, a freshman from Ohio, he was to have perhaps the most
famous friendship of Congressional history.
The Cuban reciprocity bill passed the House in ten days, on Novem-
ber 19. Most of the Democratic party jumped the fence to support it.
Only twenty votes were cast against. One of those was the vote of John
N. Garner.
Garner in a statement said his opposition to the bill was in line with
the platform upon which he was elected.
"I can do but one thing vote against this bill," he said. "I told the
people of the Fifteenth District of Texas that I was opposed to trusts
and would do everything in my power to destroy them. Now to ask
me to cast my first vote in Congress for legislation to benefit two of the
most gigantic trusts this country has ever known is asking too much. It
is asserted that we are benefiting Cuba when we pass this bill, but every
man who reads the press of the country knows that the principal
products exported from Cuba to the United States are tobacco and sugar,
and that more than 90 per cent of each of these articles produced by
Cuba is controlled by the respective trusts."
He was to maintain throughout his public life that a platform
promise was a solemn covenant with his constituency.
The big names and big reputations of the members of the House o
Representatives in no way awed Garner. He told me:
"When they came into close range they appeared different to me
than they did before I got to Washington. I decided that in time I
might do as well as anyone there. I got just as ambitious as anyone.
I concluded that, if I did not have as much talent as some members, I
could devote more energy to the job. I knew it was a long climb. So
for the first few years I just answered roll calls, looked after chores
for my constituents, studied, played poker and got acquainted.
"Instead of attempting to start right out making laws I decided to
get acquainted with men who were in the business of making laws.
Lawmaking is a high calling. I intended to try to stay for a long time
and I had no idea of trying to attract attention to myself by cheap
or trivial methods.
[34]
A vivid proof of the pride Texas was to have in Garner. This
was drawn when Garner had established his position and was
being considered as a 1932 Presidential possibility. (C. K. Berry-
man, Washington Star)
"I not only wanted to, without intruding, get acquainted with the
men who occupied the high place, I wanted also to get acquainted with
the men who began their service at the time I did. It was with these
men I hoped to work longest. I studied not only legislation, but espe-
, daily I studied men. They came from all parts of the country and
represented every variety of thought. If you knew them all, you knew
human nature and you very nearly knew the country.
"That first session increased my respect for competency and political
aptitude. I learned that ability unsupported by character is a dangerous
thing. You could tell who was solid and who was a false alarm by
watching them on the floor or reading the Congressional Record."
The salary of a Congressman was $5,000 a year when Garner began
his service and he intended to live on that if possible. Mrs, Garner
was insistent on that, too. She knew her husband faced two gauntlets
[ 35 1
in Texas the next year first a campaign under the newly enacted
primary election law and then Republican opposition in the general
election. She frankly doubted if he would be sent back to Washington.
They found for themselves one of the Washington boarding houses
of that day, conducted by Mrs. Lillie B. Creel on K Street, just across
from Franklin Park. The office building for members of the House
of Representatives had not been built and the Garners fitted up a room
in the boarding house and used it for an office. Mrs. Garner, as the
secretary, answered the mail.
Within two weeks after his arrival in Congress and within a day or
two after voting against the Cuban reciprocity convention, Garner went
to the White House to pay his respects to the redoubtable Theodore
Roosevelt, who recalled a hunting trip in the Uvalde area while he was
in San Antonio training the Rough Riders.
Garner suggested to the President that the Rough Riders ought
to hold their next convention at San Antonio and the President ought
to attend.
"The people in Texas like you, Mr. President," he said. "They
would show you a grand time. They'd do anything for you except vote
for you."
That was the beginning of a friendship between the President and
the young Texas Representative.
Garner had hardly got set in Washington before one of those duties
which a member of Congress must perform for his district came up.
The War Department was considering abandoning several cavalry
posts and the one at Brownsville, in his district, was one of them.
"Well,, that was part of my job I hadn't thought about," he said.
"I didn't know what to do but an older member told me to go see
the Secretary of War. I went to Secretary Taft's office. A clerk or
somebody asked me my name and my business. I told him but that
didn't seem to make any impression. I sat and sat. Finally I asked the
man if he had forgotten me. He said no, just wait. I waited and
waited. After a while he motioned to me and led me to a door. A lot of
people had gone through the door but none had come out. As I went
in, the man told me I could only stay a few minutes. I walked to
Taft's desk.
"Hardly looking up he asked me what I wanted. I told him about the
[36]
troopers and he said he would make a note of it. Before I could say
anything else, his secretary was ushering me through a side door.
"Ten days passed. I heard nothing from the Secretary of War.
But I heard plenty from my district. I had received so many telegrams
that I knew I would never come back to Congress if Brownsville lost
the cavalry. This time I went to the War Department and stood
outside the little door through which callers were dismissed. The first
time they opened that door and a man got put out, I grabbed the door
and walked in. Before the secretary could say anything I walked to
Taft's desk and began talking. I thought I was entitled to the courtesy
o an answer to my inquiry and I made this known in no uncertain
terms. I was so vehement that Mr. Taft looked up in astonishment,
and said, 'Young man, what's the matter ? Have a seat.'
"As I did, he swung his chair around and asked me what he could
do. He evidently remembered nothing about my previous visit.
" 'It's about the cavalry,' I said.
"'What cavalry?' he asked.
" 'The troopers at Brownsville.'
"'What about them?'
" 'You are planning on moving them and you can't move them. It's
a matter of economics to us.'
"'Economics, what has the cavalry to do with economics?'
" 'Mr. Secretary, it's this way. We raise a lot of hay in my district.
We've got a lot of stores and we have the prettiest girls in the United
States. The cavalry buys the hay for its horses, spends its pay in the
stores, marries our girls, gets out of the army and helps us develop
the country and then more replacements come and do the same thing.
It is economics, sir. It is economics.*
"Taft chuckled. 'I won't move the cavalry without talking to you/
he said, and I left.
"In a few days I was notified that President Roosevelt wanted to see
me. With some misgiving I went to the White House. He told me
to have a seat and then looked at me sternly and inquired:
" 'Young man, what is this I hear you have been telling my Secre-
tary of War?'
"'Nothing, sir, but giving him a little lesson in economics/ I
answered.
[37]
"'Now look here/ replied the President, 'the next time you are
giving any lessons in economics, you see me first. Why, don't you
know the word about what you told of the attractions has got around
and half the army is applying for transfer to Brownsville?'
"We both laughed and then he said: 1 called you here to tell you
that the cavalry will still patrol your border.'
"Taft never forgot the incident. After he became Chief Justice,
we met frequently at the Capitol and each time he would walk up,
take me by the hand, draw me close and inquire:
"'Well, John, how is the cavalry getting along?'"
In December 1903, Garner crowded into the tiny Supreme Court
chamber midway between Senate and House chambers to hear the
argument in the Great Northern Securities case. It had been for
months and would be for months more to come the biggest source of
interest and speculation in Washington and the country. It was one of
the great historical test cases, for the outcome would decide so many
thought whether the United States was governed from Wall Street
or Washington.
It was all such a conglomeration of James J. Hill and E. H. Harri-
man, the rail titans; of Great Northern and Northern Pacific and other
confused interlocking control and Roosevelt trust busting that the
average citizen had trouble in understanding it. Garner was especially
interested in this case. He was fresh from railroad legislative battles
in Texas and hoped for a decision that would preserve free competition
between the carriers, but would not hamper the building of new rail
lines which his state needed so badly.
Theodore Roosevelt was determined that the Northern Securities
Company should be dissolved. Taking all necessary precautions to see
that the government won he engaged in a tidy bit of court packing.
He talked with Lodge about the Supreme Court vacancy and was con-
vinced that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes of the Massachusetts
Supreme Court, held views coinciding with his. Holmes at sixty-one
thus began his long career on the highest tribunal. Roosevelt expected
a clear-cut seven to two verdict in his favor. When the decision came
down the dissolution of Northern Securities had been ordered, but on
this issue Roosevelt had squeaked through with a five to four victory
and Holmes was one of the four against him.
[38]
Even the five Justices who decided for the dissolution wrote a far
less conclusive decision than T. R. had expected. Garner considered the
decision a dogfall which left issues of regulation up to Congress.
On December 7, Speaker Cannon, sole dispenser of Congressional
committee favors, handed out the assignments. Garner got about
what a Congressional tyro could expect, a place on the Committee on
Railways and Canals.
The day the assignments were announced Garner dropped into
the hopper a bill providing a survey for an intracoastal canal, which
would eventually connect Brownsville and Corpus Christi in his dis-
trict with the Mississippi and Ohio, It was so adroitly worded that it
would have to go to his new committee instead of the Committee on
Rivers and Harbors.
Reporting on the matter, the correspondent of the Dallas News- said:
"In the committee lottery, which has just been pulled off in the
House, Mr. Garner drew that of Railways and Canals. It is said by
some of the ancient habitues of the capital that far back in the dim
and musty past, before American legislation commenced to grow
whiskers, the Committee on Railways and Canals had a meeting but
these dealers in Washington reminiscences admit that the report is
strongly tinctured with the vital attributes of fiction.
"Mr. Garner proposes to give the committee something like a shock
which Gabriel's trumpet will hand out to slumbering humanity on
the morn of resurrection by having a bill referred to it for considera-
tion. He has already introduced the bill and it now remains to be seen
just what sort of effect the assembling of this committee will have on
the sensibilities of Congress. If the committee is revitalized success-
fully, Mr. Garner will have accomplished much, but it is feared he
had disturbed the traditions."
The Galveston News, commenting editorially, said:
"Congressman Garner was appointed a member of the House Com-
mittee on Railways and Canals. Just to find out if such a committee
really existed, he has introduced a bill which must go to it for con-
sideration. Mr. Garner is always admirable in the beginning of a game
to find out exactly how it is played."
Some Texas papers attacked the intracoastal canal proposal as ridic-
ulous. But Garner said it was anything but that.
[39]
Appearing at a meeting at Victoria, Texas, to organize the Intra-
coastal Canal Association, he said:
"It may take fifty years to complete it, but it will be authorized and
completed from the Rio Grande to the Mississippi. It will be a protected
inland waterway and as such a national defense bulwark."
The periodical, Southern Industrialist, praised the intracoastal canal
project as a long-visioned one.
Representative James H. Davidson, of Wisconsin, chairman of the
Committee on Railways and Canals, was never more astonished than
when his clerk informed them there was a bill before his committee.
Davidson once had been a stern schoolmaster and he didn't like prac-
tical jokes. It was March before he got his committee together. It held
hearings and reported the bill unanimously. Then the committee went
back to its slumbers and played host to no more fledgling legislation.
The Garner bill after a legislative buffeting became law. Forty-five
years later, in 1948, the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, fathered by Gar-
ner, extended from the west coast of Florida to the Mexican border,
connecting midway at New Orleans with the vast inland waterway
system of the nation. It carried millions of tons of cargo annually and
had changed its Rio Grande to the Mississippi slogan to "from Mexico
to Maine."
A month after his arrival in Washington, Garner was perplexed by
the perennial headache of Senators and Representatives of that day,
insufficient supplies of field and garden seed, and he wrote to John
Moore of Seguin what he said was the first and last letter of apology
or explanation he ever wrote to his district. His letter to Moore said:
"The impression seems to prevail that the Secretary of Agriculture
will distribute, through the Congressmen, free seed to each farmer;
but from the enclosed letters you will see that there are only 220 bags
apportioned to each Congressman, and that it would be an impossible
matter to comply with the many hundreds of requests I have already
received.
"As you know, there are twenty-two counties in the Fifteenth Con-
gressional District, and the quota of seed allowed me only permits ten
bags to each county and I shall do my best to distribute it as equitably
as possible."
[40]
Congress and its duties were the whole life of Garner in his early
years there.
There was sparkle in the debates, extraordinary aura of excitement
on such occasions as when Bourke Cockran, the best Democratic
orator in the House matched against John Daizell, most redoubtable
Republican.
No speeches could arouse Garner's faculty of delight like those of
John Sharp Williams.
"Williams' speeches were polished and stately, and they were always
entertaining," he said. "You wanted to hear them and you wanted to
read them afterwards."
Once Garner acted as peacemaker between Williams and the acerb
De Armond of Missouri, both Democrats, when they were near to
fisticuffs in the lobby of the House.
"The three of us together were not as big as Ollie James of Kentucky
who looked on in amusement only a couple of steps away," Garner said.
Peacemaker Garner weighed 123 pounds at the time, while of the
gladiators, the belligerent De Armond weighed in at 124 pounds and
the bellicose Williams at 125.
During the session Williams grumbled because the House liquor bar
had been closed. It had been in operation since time immemorial. But
as Congress hurried to a March 4 adjournment, on March 3, 1903, a
rider had been attached to an appropriation bill expressedly stating
that "no alcoholic beverages of any character whatsoever shall be sold
within the limits of the Capitol building,"
It was, said Williams, "Sham and hypocrisy."
But Shoemaker's, a famous saloon, was close by.
Williams was keen as a minority floor leader. The G.O.P. had a
majority of only thirty votes. Williams could melt that majority away
unless Speaker Cannon and his lieutenants kept wide awake.
"Cannon and Williams that session were shining marks in the case
for the two party system," Garner said. "I doubt if a multiparty legis-
lative body could have developed two such men. One had a definite
majority behind him. The other had a cohesive minority. There was
responsibility. There were no blocs."
The poker games Garner played were generally with the biggest men
in the House of Representatives. They were useful in getting votes for
the few bills he sponsored, but principally as an insight into the char-
acter of the men with whom he played.
His first game with "Uncle Joe" Cannon occurred at the Boar's
Nest, a private club. A printed account of the game in a gossip
magazine o the day described it:
"There was a huge pyramid of white, blue, red and yellow chips in
the center of the table. From opposite sides the Speaker and Mr. Gar-
ner gazed on it with equal expectancy, everyone else having lost all
but a cursory interest in it. It came to a showdown. The Speaker
proudly displayed three aces and a pair of insignificant others. Mr.
Garner counted out four fours, and blandly inquired. 'Will that be
enough, Mr. Speaker?'
"'Sir,' replied the Speaker, 'any man who can do that honestly
honestly mind you has my profound admiration.' "
The chances for getting four of a kind are once in four thousand,
one hundred and sixty-five deals.
From then on Speaker Cannon and Garner were close friends. Be-
fore the end of his first term, on February 25, 1905, the House was
ready to consider a resolution to set aside a day to receive the statues
of the Texas heroes, Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston, in the
Capitol's statuary hall. Cannon looked over on the Democratic side,
ignored Burleson and the other seniors in the Texas delegation and
beckoned Garner to the Speaker's chair to preside. Joe Cannon may
have thought he was merely furnishing a pleasant episode for the
short and simple annals of a rookie Representative. But Garner had
another idea.
"When I left the Speaker's chair that day," he told me later, "I
had made up my mind I was going back as its elected occupant. That
night in my boarding hotel, I started studying parliamentary proceed-
ings. Thereafter, if ever before, I never wanted to be Judge, Governor,
Senator, President or Vice-President. I wanted to stay a member of
the House and, if possible, become its Speaker. So I studied and
watched Uncle Joe. I voted against him many times, but I rate him
the greatest of modern Speakers. He would have been that regardless
of the rules under which he operated, and which we finally amended
to take power away from him. He was greatest because of his char-
acter. He knew exactly what he wanted to do and exactly how to do it."
[42]
On January 5, 1905, Garner made the first remarks he ever made on
the floor of the House, questioning Representative Ebenezer J. Hill
of Connecticut, on a currency matter.
On January 30, he introduced a bill to levy an income tax by statute,
but when members of the Judiciary Committee told him they doubted
if such a law would stand a constitutional test in the Supreme Court,
Garner did not press his bill.
He thus ended his legislative record for his first Congressional term.
He was in no hurry to get his name before the general public.
The Presidential year of 1904 opened with much uncertainty and
speculation. Theodore Roosevelt blandly assumed that, as Presidential
incumbent, he had the Republican nomination buttoned up. But his
opinion was not shared in Republican cloakrooms. Garner said in a
newspaper interview in Texas that he did not believe one-fourth of the
Republican House members favored T. R.
Mark Hanna, the kingmaker, who enthroned the martyred McKinley,
was said to have his own eye on the White House. Certainly Hanna,
either in person or behind another candidate, could have made it tough
for Roosevelt. But the kingmaker died in February and from then on
the Rough Rider had a clear track to the nomiaation.
The Democratic situation was much more complicated. Bryan, who
had absorbed two successive defeats, announced he would not be a
candidate but would continue to fight for progressive ideas.
Garner had been elected as delegate to the Democratic national
convention at St. Louis. Many o Bryan's ideas appealed to Garner.
The Commoner was the active foe of the trusts, the Eastern bankers
and, in fact, every reactionary and oppressive influence in the nation.
Where they parted company was on soft money the silver issue. Bryan
was still trying to save the country from crucifixion on the cross
of gold.
Garner regarded as unjustified Bryan's attack on Judge Alton B.
Parker as "unfit for the nomination. 5 * Parker's most formidable op-
ponent was William Randolph Hearst and Bryan put Hearst down
on the list of acceptable Presidential nominees. Garner, who had twice
supported and once helped to nominate Bryan and who was a House
colleague of Hearst, considered that under all the circumstances
Parker was the best candidate for the Democrats. At the St. Louis
[43]
convention, therefore, Garner voted with the majority for Parker's first
ballot nomination.
As matters turned out, no Democrat had a chance, but Garner was
disgusted when the convention nominated eighty-one-year-old Henry
Gassaway Davis as the Vice-Presidential running mate. The fact that
Parker would not campaign and Davis could not, he felt had a large
part in Roosevelt's one-sided triumph over Parker.
Garner had no opposition for the Democratic nomination in his
district, but faced a Republican opponent and another hot campaign
in November.
His off-the-fioor activities for his constituents brought him new
support and the country weeklies with few exceptions rallied strongly
to his side. One newspaper which opposed him made an issue of
Garner's alleged dress in Washington.
Just before the election it printed this squib:
"A tale from Washington is to the effect that John Nance Garner,
who represents the Fifteenth Congressional District in Washington,
attended a swell ball at the White House recently without Mrs.
Garner, and danced the square dance with as many of the young girls
present as he could, going home early in the morning with his dress
suit still undamaged."
Garner, actually, up to that time had been to no> dance at the White
House with or without Mrs. Garner, and did not yet have a dress suit.
Garner's Republican opponent was J. S. Morin and his majority was
less than the election before. But the poll tax, in operation for the first
time in Texas, had cut the total vote down by ten thousand in
Garner's Congressional district.
Garner's defeated Republican opponent went to Washington and
Garner took him to see President Roosevelt. Roosevelt shook hands
warmly with both of them. T. R., after a landslide victory was in a
happy mood.
"I like you, Garner," Roosevelt said. "I like the way you fight. I like
to see men fight hard and when the fight is over shake hands and be
friends."
Morin told the President:
"Mr. President, from now on I am a Roosevelt and Garner man.
I want Garner to stay in Congress."
[44]
Morin back in Texas, said:
"Upon my arrival in Washington, I at once looked up Mr. Garner,
our Congressman, who very kindly showed me every courtesy in his
power, and I want to say that I firmly believe Mr. Garner is the most
influential among the Texas members. He is on excellent terms with
the President and all the heads of the departments. He has won the
reputation of getting what he goes after and he goes after everything
insight. He is the most valuable man, Democrat or Republican, that
this district can put in Washington."
Speaker Cannon again passed out the committee assignments and
this time Representative Garner got Foreign Affairs.
Garner's first act as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee
was to attend a dinner given to the Committee by Secretary of State
Root. After the dinner he said :
"As near as I have been able to figure out the chief functions of the
Committee on Foreign Affairs is to attend as many dinners and
banquets and do as little work as possible.*'
But he remained on the committee for eight years, attended its
meetings and rose to be its ranking Democratic member. With Secre-
tary Elihu Root he mapped out plans for discussion with Mexico on
an agreement or treaty for more equitable distribution of the flood
waters o the Rio Grande.
When Garner took his place at the extreme left end of the table in
the Foreign Affairs Committee, Nicholas Longworth took his seat at
the extreme right end. The hourglass gradually brought them closer
together at the table and deepened their friendship.
Longworth was a year younger than Garner, lacking a few days.
When Garner was leaving Vanderbilt University, after only a month
there, Longworth was entering Harvard. When Garner was reading
law in a law office, Longworth was in Harvard law school. The year
Garner entered the Texas legislature, Longworth entered the Ohio
legislature and they came to Congress together. They had made up
their minds for public careers at about the same time.
For a quarter of a century they were to be political foes and fast
personal friends. They were to stand at the end of their association as
the top Congressional leaders in their respective parties, one as Speaker
and the other as leader of the minority.
[45]
Both were intense partisans. Their differences and their acrimonious
political battles, in which no quarter was given, and their personal
devotion to each other became one of the best-known stories in
Washington.
Their widely divergent viewpoints first began to manifest them-
selves in the Foreign Affairs Committee and then on the floor of the
House. As they moved into leadership places in their party it became
their habit to meet every afternoon after Congress adjourned and
review the happenings of the day and the probable happenings of
the next day.
Their backgrounds were far different. Longworth came from a first
family of Cincinnati and Garner from the frontier.
"I think the very fact of our different rearing intensified our interest
in each other/' Garner said.
Longworth was the best-dressed man in Congress. Garner for years
was among the worst dressers.
Longworth was courting at the White House, shortly after he and
Gamer became acquainted. On February 17, 1906, the sunniest winter
day of that year, he was married to Alice Roosevelt, daughter of the
President, in the East Room of the White House. T. R. gave his daugh-
ter away in a ceremony performed by the Bishop of Washington.
The wedding was the biggest social event that had occurred in
Washington up to that time. The only other to match it in interest
was the wedding of President Grover Cleveland and Miss Frances
Folsom, in this same East Room.
Eight hundred guests princes, potentates, diplomats and prominent
Americans attended. A few of Longworth's close personal friends from
Congress were there. Among them were Mr. and Mrs. Garner.
The Alice-Nick romance had begun on a trip they had made during
the summer of 1905, as members of a party that accompanied Secretary
of War Taft to the Philippines.
Garner won re-election in 1906, with the Republicans putting up the
usual opposition. Garner followed his custom of making no campaign
other than an appearance or two and a couple of speeches. Even -the
one newspaper which had continued to oppose him apparently gave
up the fight against him. An editorial paragraph in it read:
"John Garner seems to be so well entrenched that he can bring home
[46]
to Texas this year that claw-hammer suit he wore to Nick Longworth's
wedding."
Whatever enthusiasms, energies and ideas Garner had in his second
term he did not spend them in speechmaking. He used the House
floor as a sounding board no more than in his first term. Once or twice
he engaged in colloquies, but his only formal remarks were made on
April 29, 1906, on the death of Texas Congressman John M. Pinckney.
He spent most of his time getting information on problems that would
confront Congress.
He was by now spending much of his time with members from
the industrial areas. The machine age he had seen coming was at
hand. He began to study and discuss in private the problems of in-
dustrialism. In his first campaign he had advocated an eight-hour day
for factory and city workers and a Cabinet seat for Labor. But he
frankly said he would make no tie-up with labor or any other element
of the population. In several speeches at home he warned of the
dangerous concentration of power that might lodge in big labor unions
as it certainly lodged in capitalistic combines. He described his posi-
tion as "middle ground" and said he would support any "proposal deal-
ing with labor I think wise and oppose any I think unwise." His
carefully thought out pronouncements pleased the labor leaders of the
day as did his vote for the Employer's Liability Law. In 1906, the
magazine Labor World took notice of him as follows:
"John N. Garner has ever been a friend of the working man, and
has given his unremitting efforts to all legislation that has for its
objects the furtherance of the interests of organized labor. He has
no sympathy with the ultraradical movements which tend to destroy
all the good that has been established by the sound and conservative
element, but tries to do all in his power to help along the movements
which have as their purpose the betterment of the masses."
He did not get much praise from the ultracapitaHsts and financial
overlords. He said in a Texas speech that same year that Rockefeller,
Morgan, Carnegie, Hill and Harriman were all Republicans and sup-
ported Theodore Roosevelt- in 1904, despite the fact that Roosevelt
was supposedly a trust buster and Alton B. Parker, a conservative.
"There is hardly a rich man who isn't a Republican and hardly a
[47] "
selfish interest which does not contribute to that party's campaign
funds/' he said.
Attacking the Republicans for starting and stopping in trust prose-
cutions, Garner continued to prod for full investigations of the beef
and steel trusts. Both were of special interest to his district. The beef
trust gouged his cattle raisers and the high steel prices retarded badly
needed rail construction in his district.
Back in Washington, for his second term, he had demanded that
the Department of Justice "seek by all honorable means the disin-
tegration of the so-called beef trust by which competition is stifled in
the purchase of the cattle of our prairies. I demand of the party in
power the enforcement of the anti-trust laws against what is known
as a combine, to control in selfish interest the cattle market of the
West and South."
On May 31, 1906, he introduced a resolution authorizing the Secre-
tary of Commerce and Labor to make an investigation of the costs of
iron and steel.
Mostly he preached economy. The cost of government was less than
half a billion yearly but Garner thought that too much. The Theodore
Roosevelt administration was running a deficit and Garner taunted
it for that.
If he was vulnerable, his weakness on governmental economy was
on transportation. He was for encouragement of any kind of trans-
portation, good roads, railways and waterways. His Congressional
district was larger in square miles than the combined areas of New
Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Delaware.
It was a new country, largely isolated. It had no hard roads, no water
transportation, inadequate railroads.
Transportation was so inadequate in his district that Garner found
it difficult to get over it. Another reason for his intense interest in
transportation was that as a youth he had lived in a country where
covered wagon and stagecoach were the fastest modes of transportation
and he knew all the inconveniences of being shut off from the world.
He introduced a bill for an appropriation of $10,000,000 for federal
aid a decade before such assistance was extended, and said in remarks
at the time:
"Let me make a prediction: The time is coming when the federal
Treasury will help build good roads/'
[48]
He got some federal buildings for his district. Of this he said:
"Where it is economically justified the government ought to own
the plant it operates in. Under these circumstances when the federal
government owns a nice building in a community it is putting its
best foot forward there. But I oppose $50,000 buildings in places where
rent on suitable quarters would be less than the interest on the invest-
ment. I opposed such expenditures even in my own district."
He made a speech on transportation in Houston on April 5, 190%
after the passage of the Hepburn Act. The new law he -explained had
as its purpose assurance against unreasonable freight rates.
"But the best regulation of all is water competition," he said. "When-
ever there is water competition there are cheap freight rates. I am
the friend of the railroads and want to see them so thread this South-
west country that no farmer will have to haul his product more than
fifteen miles, and no cowman will have to drive his herd more than
the same distance. Keep down monopoly, improve your waterways,
encourage the building of railroads and competition will help to solve
the rate problem."
Early in his career an incident occurred which he felt gave him for
a time an unjust reputation as a spendthrift.
He was quoted as having said:
"Every time one of those Yankees gets a hog, I want at least to get
a ham for my district."
Of all the misquotations chalked up against him, Garner thinks that
is the worst.
"Of course, I never sought an appropriation on any such ground,"
he said. "I never asked a dime of government expenditure that I did
not have figures to justify on economic grounds. The way this came
about is that I was making a speech at Pleasanton, in Atascosa County.
I was attempting to illustrate the futility of economy efforts if the
people looked upon the United States Treasury as a grab bag. I said:
Too often the disposition of the people is this: If a man from Massa-
chusetts gets a hog in an appropriation bill, they expect a man from
Texas will at least try to get a ham/
"I was surprised when a newspaper report had me advocating
Treasury raiding when I was talking of protecting the Treasury. Per-
haps I did not make a very strong effort to correct the misquotation.
[49]
I know of no case where a correction ever caught up with an erroneous
statement. I have always been content to let my voting record speak for
Itself."
Garner voted against a bill increasing salaries of Senators and Repre-
sentatives to $7,500 a year, Mrs. Garner remained as his secretary and
the extra $100 per month she earned in that capacity came in handy.
At the end of his second term in Congress, Garner and his wife
moved from their boarding house to the Burlington Hotel where they
kept house in an apartment.
He played poker less and less frequently and quit the late games
altogether.
"The last time I stayed late at all, I stayed all night," he said. "When
I got home Mrs. Garner was just getting up and starting breakfast. I
was ashamed of myself. Uncle Joe was seventy-three and should have
known better. I was forty and I knew better."
From then on. Garner was a nine-o'clock man in all things, with
rare exceptions.
But by now Garner was beginning to be thought of, both in Wash-
ington and Texas, as a Congressional fixture. "You can't get away
from Garner," a contemporary observer wrote. "When he throws his
arm around your shoulder and gets confidential, you are as helpless
as if you were under a hypnotic spell. He has a personality you cannot
resist. He could sell you a gold brick and make you rejoice in the
investment. There is a subtle and potent charm in the combination of
a homely body and a comely character. He is a virile man, one of com-
manding force to whom good looks could be of no service whatever."
As far as his own party was concerned he was entrenched in his
district. When he went home during a recess, the McAllen Monitor
reported :
"John Garner is home from Washington but not for the purpose of
fixing up any gaps in his political fences, for' there isn't room for a
mouse to crawl through, but to take a vacation."
Former Congressman Private John Allen of Mississippi visited the
cloakrooms, told of a trip to Garner's district and "uncontrovertible
proof that Garner was the best Congressman ever elected in Texas."
"I was down in southwest Texas," said Allen, "and I had a chance
to investigate Garner. I visited a rancher and spent the night. After
[50]
supper my host and his wife and I sat far a while and talked crops,
singing schools and politics.
" 'By the way/ I asked, just as if I didn't know, 'who is your Con-
gressman?' 'John Garner/ said the rancher, before his wife could say it.
"I pondered for a minute, and then asked, 'Well, who did you have
before Garner?'
"The rancher looked at his wife, and she returned the stare. Both
seemed to reflect a moment, and then said, almost in unison, 4 We
never had any before him.' "
[5*]
CHAPTER IV
Garner Moves Up
THE financial panic of 1907 marked the emergence of Repre-
sentative Garner from the narrow role of a local Representa-
tive into the part of a national legislator. He was to participate
in some manner in nearly every one of a sequence of great events
beginning then and crowding one another in the years to come. It was
in a small way at first but he was gradually to pick up speed, weight
and prominence in public affairs and in the public consciousness.
To some parts of the country the depression which followed the
financial crash in the middle of Theodore Roosevelt's second term was
minor, just one of a series of the "boom and bust" episodes of American
history. But in the newer sections of the country, where there had
usually been no boom, such crises were all "busts." This one hit Texas
hard. Like all new areas it felt itself a victim of dislocated capital.
Money for various reasons gravitated to Eastern banks. The Western
people were doing business or trying to under difficult circum-
stances. There was inadequate venture capital. When a rancher sold
his cattle or crops, the money headed East. When the rancher wanted
to borrow so as to buy seed, stock or capital equipment, he had to
seek funds or his local bank did from the big financial houses in
New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago.
Garner was acutely aware of the repercussions of financial panics
and succeeding depressions. The one of 1837 had swept away the for-
tunes of the Garners and Walpoles in Tennessee. The one of 1873
had brought harder times to the South trying to get along under
reconstruction and the one of 1893 had hit him just as he was strug-
gling to get started at Uvalde.
Garner came back from Texas in the autumn of 1907 hopping rnad
[52]
at what he believed was favoritism to New York in general and Wall
Street gamblers in particular because of government aid extended
mainly to that banking center in the panic.
In a hard-hitting statement the erstwhile friendly Texas Congress-
man called on Secretary of the Treasury Cortelyou for an explanation
why "quick aid was extended to stock gamblers in New York while
the rest of the country was left without a semblance of assistance."
Garner demanded to know the character of collateral upon which
Secretary Cortelyou deposited government funds in the New York
banks.
"In my opinion/' said Garner, "the Secretary of the Treasury has
been allowing these New York bankers to have money on securities
which they could not sell in the market. Congress and the people have
a right to know if this is true. Conditions in my state where banks
are finding it difficult to get currency for their daily needs, though
their vaults are filled with gilt-edged securities, are duplicated in other
states.
"New York banks have all the money now. They borrowed between
ten and fifteen million dollars from Texas banks not long ago at 6 per
cent. Now when the Texas banks want money to aid in the moving of
crops, the New York banks tell them that they can get it by paying
20, 30 or 50 per cent.
"It is hackneyed to cuss Wall Street, but no fair-minded man can
help resenting conduct which is directly responsible for the stringency
which is being experienced in other sections of the country."
Garner held long sessions with Representatives Carter Glass and
Arsene Pujo on the setting up of some sort of system to prevent the
concentration of money in New York City. Most of his conversations
were with Glass.
From the time they came to Congress, Glass and Garner had been
very friendly. Their names were next to one another on the House
roll call and they were about that close on other things. Their seats
were also close together. If Garner thought his first assignment on the
Committee on Railways and Canals was bad, Glass did not even do
that well. He was put on the Committee on Pacific Railways. Phys-
ically there was a resemblance. They weighed about the same and
there was little difference in height. Glass had red hair, and Garner
[53]
reddish sandy hair. Neither had had very good school advantages and
both were largely self-taught. They were constant companions in seats
along the first-base line at Washington baseball games. Both had
been baseball players when Abner Doubleday's national pastime was
very young.
The baseball games which Gamer and Glass saw were not very good.
Washington apparently had been put in the newly formed American
League so it would be assured of a permanent cellar tenant.
"It was as spavined a bunch of athletes as were ever held together by
arnica and baling wire/' Garner said. "We went out expecting them
to get beat and they seldom disappointed us. It was before the days
when the great pitcher Walter Johnson made them respectable. We
felt right at home. Washington was last in the American League and
Carter and I were on the bottom in the American Congress. Every
time they got beat it reminded us of how we got roughhoused on the
most recent roll call."
John Sharp Williams liked the bantam-sized newcomers from Vir-
ginia and Texas and set out to find better committee assignments for
them. Of the available vacancies Glass preferred the Foreign Affairs
and Garner wanted Banking and Currency. But in the juggling each
got what the other wanted. Representative Henry D. Flood of Vir-
ginia, who had two years seniority over Glass, also wanted the Foreign
Affairs Committee place, and two Virginians could not be put on the
committee. Glass, a newspaperman, found himself plunged into the
tricky waters of high finance. Garner, a cow-country banker and
lawyer, was tossed into the study of international diplomacy.
Up to the panic of 1907, if the pages of the Congressional Record
were the criterion, Garner and Glass were about the most inactive
members of Congress. Neither had made a formal speech on the floor
of the House of Representatives. Glass, despite his original distaste
for his assignment, plunged into a study of banking and currency. By
1907 he had a fair knowledge of his subject but felt that he was without
much influence in his party or in Congress.
Garner had remedial legislation of his own in mind but it was
evident to both him and Glass that no Democrat was going to author
successful currency legislation. From a party standpoint the Demo-
crats were worse off than when they began their Congressional service.
[54]
In 1902, Roosevelt had not been popular and the Congressional election
had been so close that a change of sixteen votes would have defeated
Cannon and elected Williams as Speaker. However, by 1904, T. R.
was a public idol and with his whopping victory over Alton B. Parker,
the Republicans rose to a majority of 104 votes in the House. This
was cut down to 58 in 1906,, and this was the majority at the time o
the financial crash.
Glass told Garner the Republicans would be forced to enact some
sort of banking and currency legislation. But it would be the handi-
work of Republican Chairman Edward B. Vreeland of his committee
and of Senator Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island.
Garner took the plaint of his farmer and ranchman constituents to
Vreeland;, John W. Weeks of Massachusetts, Henry McMorran of
Michigan and other Republican wheelhorses, but got little encour-
agement.
When the House convened in December, Garner laid on the Speak-
er's desk the first major bill of his Congressional career. The Garner
bill proposed a new form of legal tender to be called "United States
Currency Notes" and provided for their printing in the amount of
$500,000,000.
He claimed that his bill would give the currency supply o the
country an automatic elasticity and at the same time, he said, remedy
the much criticized provisions of the law which gave national banks
a great advantage over other financial institutions and individuals.
"The proposal," said Garner, "would amend the law so as to enable
an individual, or association of individuals, to deposit with the Secre-
tary of the Treasury United States bonds and receive therefor a special
currency to be designated 'United States Currency Notes/ just as
national banks are permitted to deposit such securities and Issue bank
notes for them."
On currency backed by government bonds, Garner proposed an
annual tax of 5 per cent and on currency backed by state, county or
municipal bonds he proposed an interest rate of 7 per cent. The heavy
tax was for the purpose of driving the currency out of circulation
when the stringency passed.
The Republican oligarchy, after some perfunctory examination, put
the Garner bill away in its most remote pigeonhole. Garner offered
[55]
amendments from the floor., during the House consideration of the
Vreeland bill, but Chairman Vreeland and his steam roller flattened
them. The Aldrich-Vreeland bill, passed in May 1908, in the opinion of
both Garner and Glass kept money control in the East where it had
always been. They would, as it turned out, have to wait eight more
years for the sort of financial setup they wanted.
Garner's vehement attacks on Secretary Cortelyou may have some-
what chilled the amicable relations which existed between the Uvaldian
and the White House. However, he still had easier access to Roosevelt
than any other member of the Texas Congressional delegation.
In January he went to the White House on some sort of business.
Roosevelt's anti-race suicide campaign was at its height. In order to
break the ice Garner took along with him a photograph of the family
of W. T. Bright, an Atascosa County constituent. There were fourteen
children in the group.
"You can see there is no race suicide in Texas," Garner told the
President. "I have brought you the picture of a constituent of mine
who is making good along the line you suggest."
Roosevelt beamed.
"Fine, fine/' responded the President. "What we need is more fam-
ilies like Mr. Bright's. We need more of them, Mr. Garner. Mr. Bright
is raising the right sort, too, I dare say."
"Yes," replied Garner, "I quite agree with you. It would be a great
help to the country if we had more families like that. I forgot to tell
you, Mr. Bright is raising them all to be good Democrats."
"Bully, anyhow," said Roosevelt. "Texas is great from any stand-
point but it has too many Democrats."
Before many months Roosevelt was behind a drive to unseat Garner.
It had been his desire to be the first Republican President to increase
his party's Congressional foothold in the former Confederate states.
Cecil Lyons, Republican national committeeman from Texas, con-
vinced Roosevelt that the G.O.P. had a good chance to replace Garner.
In 1908, for the fourth straight time,, there was a heavily financed
Republican effort in Garner's district.
Garner's six hundred miles of Texas-Mexico border had customs
offices, river guards and other ingredients of a federal machine.
[56]
When newspapermen asked Roosevelt about plans to defeat Garner,
tie President said:
"Well, Cecil thinks it can be done."
Garner's opponent was Dr. T. W. Moore of Seguin, who had op-
posed him two years before.
^ Texas newspapers did not agree with the President and the Repub-
lican national commiteeman on the prospect of sending Garner back
to private life. Said the Floresville Chronicle:
"It is said that Dr. Moore of Seguin will tackle John Garner again
this year. If the good doctor has any practice he had better stay home
and look after it, as our John will give him a worse drubbing this
year than two years ago."
Garner took no chances. He pitched his campaign on tariff, banking
and currency reform, and anti-imperialism.
He outlined his views in a letter to H. G. Wood of Seguin on March
3, 1908, in which he said:
"In my judgment the revision of the tariff is, and should be, the
leading issue of the coming campaign. The present protective tariff
has been the foundation of the great monopolies that have grown up
in this country.
"The closer you keep your government to the people the better laws
you will have. We need but few additional laws. What is needed is
better administration of the laws we have now. I am unalterably op-
posed to further encroachments by the federal government upon the
legislative field wherein the state can give all necessary relief.
"You will remember that in the campaigns of 1902-04-06, 1 contended
that it was not only unconstitutional and un-American, but disastrous
from a business standpoint, to continue our colonial policy by retaining
the Philippines. I still hold to these views. You will note that the
Philippines have already cost us more than $600,000,000 and the lives
of many soldiers without a dollar in return or prospects of a change
for the better.
"No law-created person should have an advantage over any God-
created person, therefore I am opposed to bank-issued currency.
"I do not believe in war except in behalf of liberty, or in defense of
a nation's honor, and would divert, if I could, some of the millions now
being used in great preparations for war to the better and more peace-
[57]
able purpose of improving our waterways and other internal develop-
ments that are being neglected upon the pretense that we have no
money.
"The money needlessly spent in maintaining our colonial policy in
the Philippines would have deepened every harbor and improved every
river in the United States.
"I repeat that it is not so many laws we need, but an honest effort by
honest officials to enforce them- make fewer promises but keep every
promise made."
In a joint debate with Dr. Moore at Sutherland Springs, Wilson
County, on September 5, Garner advocated the enactment of the
elastic currency bill he had introduced a few months previously, an
income tax, declared against postal savings banks, and for the first
time came out for the federal guarantee of bank deposits.
Moore hotly attacked the latter proposal.
"It is unfair to good banks," he said, "It will cause every man with
an itching palm and small conscience to plunge into the national
banking business. It will wreck our whole banking fabric."
Garner replied that postal savings banks would put the government
in the banking business and a carefully managed deposit insurance
fund on a national basis would pay its own way, end runs on banks
and still leave banking in private hands.
Garner was not a delegate to the Democratic national convention at
Denver, which nominated Bryan. However, he supported the Com-
moner in the election, though he originally had opposed the Bryan
nomination.
He favored Senator Charles A. Culberson of Texas, then the Senate
Democratic leader, for President and thought an ideal running mate
for Culberson would be John Mitchell, head of the United Mine
Workers.
In a statement in which he called Culberson, "a conservative who
is not reactionary and a progressive who is not radical," Garner asserted
"that forty years after the Civil War, the South which is the backbone,
thighs and sinews of the Democratic party should demand its rights
in the party."
In an interview in the San Antonio Express, he said :
"It is argued that a Southern man is not available for the Presidential
[58]
nomination. Who makes these standards o availability? It seems to
me that the failure of the South to insist on recognition commensurate
with the unfailing support it gives the national party is largely respon-
sible. I have heard Senator Culberson's availability discussed so often
and so seriously by influential Democrats that I no longer hold the
belief I once held that the nomination of a Southern man for President
is fantastic.
"There is more distrust of the idea of a Southern man for President
in the South than there is in other sections of the country. Unless the
South does stand up for its rights, its influence in the party councils
will become less and less until it reaches nil."
Generally, Garner was of the same views as Bryan, but he was
opposed to Bryan's proposal for government ownership of railroads
and to the sound money side of the monetary question.
"Most of the things that made Theodore Roosevelt popular were
in the Bryan platforms," he said.
Garner was re-elected to his fourth term on the day Bryan went
down before Taft for his third straight defeat.
In a way, Garner regretted seeing T. R. go- from the White House.
They had got along excellently for men of opposite political faiths and,
although the same kind of a White House welcome would extend over
into the Taft administration, Garner would miss the unpredictable,
hard-hitting Rough Rider. He said of T. R.:
"He was dramatic, spectacular, explosive, hasty and impulsive. Per-
haps he was the most theatrical of all our Presidents. The Republican
leaders in Congress never knew what he was going to do next. But he
was a dexterous politician and had a great hold on the public imagina-
tion. My personal relations with him were pleasant."
Roosevelt went out on March 4, and Taft came in on the worst
inauguration day in history. Three inches of rain fell on the previous
day. On inauguration day there was a heavy fall of wind-driven, soggy
snow. The Presidential oath was administered inside of the Senate
Chamber for the first time since the blizzardy day of Andrew Jackson's
second administration.
The inside ceremonies stirred to disappointed wrath thousands of
men and women who had dared the howling snow storm and gathered
around the outdoor stand at the east door of the Capitol. On that day
[59]
Champ Clark of Missouri, successor to John Sharp Williams as minor-
ity leader, called Garner to his office and told him he wanted to school
him for a place of command in the House leadership. His first recog-
nition was as assistant Whip.
Garner by now had become recognized as one of the best-informed
men in the House, had a reputation for level-headedness and resource-
fulness. His Congressional district was making less demands on him
and he began to tread the long path to party leadership in Congress.
There had been many changes in the Democratic House membership
in the six years Garner had been a member. Some of the older men
had dropped out and others had gone to the Senate.
There was a new crop of promising young Democrats, among them
James M. Cox of Ohio, afterward to be a Democratic Presidential
nominee; Cordell Hull, Finis J. Garrett and Joseph W. Byrns of
Tennessee; James W. Collier of Mississippi; Richmond P. Hobson of
Alabama and A. Mitchell Palmer of Pennsylvania. The Republicans
had matched them with such recruits as Frank O. Lowden and Martin
Madden of Illinois; John W. Weeks of Massachusetts; J. Hampton
Moore of Pennsylvania and Julius Kahn of California.
It was to be a memorable session with tariff revision and an attack
on Speaker Cannon and the House rules headlining it. The Repub-
licans had a working majority of forty-seven, but there was insurgency
in the ranks. Clark, a bold and audacious leader, intended to harass
the Republicans from the opening gong. Roosevelt had been able to
sidestep tariff revision. Taft was face to face with it. Clark's theory,
he told Garner, was that any tariff bill the Republicans enacted would
be unpopular with the country and might lead the way to the first
Democratic national victory in sixteen years if properly exploited.
Clark carried the battle to Cannon, his personal friend, on the open-
ing day, March 15, 1909, of the special session of Congress. "Can-
nonism," in fact, became a blazing issue between House Republicans
and Democrats. Clark demanded a revision of the rules under which
Uncle Joe allegedly practiced parliamentary tyranny. It was all wrong,
said Clark, "for a Speaker to make himself bigger than the whole 390
of us who are left."
Garner for the first time came into debate as a top-ranking House
member, backing Clark's arguments.
[60]
Later in the month he was in a good-natured, humorous exchange
with Sereno E. Payne, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee
and majority leader. Payne told the pestiferous Texan:
"Someday somebody is going to find out whereabouts in the sand
and chaparral that district of yours is and is going down there and
beat hell out of you."
Garner, remembering that Theodore Roosevelt had fondly hoped to
see a Republican elected in his district a few months before, replied:
"I concede that my district is overweight geograpically and under-
weight from a population standpoint. It has more animals than people,
but the people who are there are mighty good people. It is one-eighth
of the area of Texas and not difficult to find. In fact, I think a great
leader of the Republican party found where it was last fall."
Said the Gulf Coast Record :
"Though he does not weigh over a hundred pounds, John Garner is
as speedy as a paisano and as game and plucky as a javelina and we
would not trade him off for all of Sereno Payne's 300 pounds of
bowels."
Garner's duty as Whip was to know where the votes were for any
party measure. His first efforts in his new post were to line up votes for
the submission of the income-tax amendment to the Constitution. So
well did he do that when the vote was taken on July 12 not a Democrat
voted against submission of the amendment.
In the long-drawn-out fight on the tariff the Democrats were able
to do little other than harass the Republicans and hope to make an
issue for the Presidential election. The party steam roller pushed the
G.O.P. bill to enactment. Democratic efforts to make campaign fodder
were aided by President Taft, who went to Winona, Minnesota, and
in a speech, called the unpopular Payne-Aldrich tariff bill "the best one
ever passed in the history of the nation."
The Democrats, aided and abetted by the Norris-Cooper-Murdock
insurgents, now renewed the attacks on the House rules and Can-
nonism. The showdown fight came in what was known as the St,
Patrick's Day Revolt of 1910 a ninety-six-hour battle in which some of
the controls were finally wrenched from Cannon's grasp. Garner's part
in that caused no enmity between him and Uncle Joe however. A few
days after the big fight, Garner heard that the Board of Army Engi-
[61]
neers had rejected a pet project of his. For seven years Garner had
been trying to get a deep-water port at Corpus Christi. Its rejection by
the Army brass seemed to spell defeat. But Garner refused to accept
it as such.
He grabbed his hat and went down to the office of Brigadier General
William L. Marshall, chief of engineers, A Rivers and Harbors bill was
about to be reported by the House committee.
It was an unseasonably hot March day and Marshall, almost as big
as President Taft, was in his shirt sleeves and sweating. He listened
to Garner's argument.
Finally he got up from his chair and stood towering over him.
"Congressman," he said, "your arguments have been cogent and
convincing. I think you know more about it than the engineers. I will
be sixty-four years old in June, and I am going out of the Army. Some
of those young whippersnappers on the board haven't been paying
much attention to me. The tradition is that a chief of engineers never
overrules a board. But, I hereby overrule this one."
Garner couldn't wait for military channels. He stayed until Marshall
wrote out his ruling. He took it to Secretary of War Dickinson' and got
his approval. He went back to the subcommittee of the Rivers and
Harbors Committee and asked it to insert the item in the bill. Then
he went before the full committee. Here he ran up against an inviolable
rule. The committee could act only on printed amendments. Garner
went to the public printer. There was, he found, another rule. Nobody
but the Speaker could order such printing.
Garner, without telephoning, got in a cab and went to Cannon's
home on Vermont Avenue. Some cronies were there and Uncle Joe
insisted that Garner play poker. He sat in the game for two hours
while the cab waited and then told Cannon his dilemma. The Speaker
scribbled a notation to the printer and Garner went back to the Gov-
ernment Printing Office at midnight.
The next day the bill was reported to the House and passed with
the Corpus Christi item. His isolated district was on the way to a
deep-water outlet to the world. Garner had originally introduced the
bill on November 23, 1903, his thirty-fifth birthday. Twenty-four days
later at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright
made the first successful flight in an airplane.
In World War II at the deep-water port of Corpus Christi was
[62]
located the greatest naval air training station in the world, where
31,000 naval fliers were trained.
Garner had rejected a proposal to fortify Aransas Pass as an alterna-
tive to deep water.
"At this stage/' he said, ''improvements of waterways and water
transportation are of more importance than guns which will soon be
as obsolete as the Confederate cannons on court-house squares."
Garner had only negligible opposition from the Republicans in 1910.
His only important new platform plank was a more specific pledge of
efforts for economy in government.
Sessions of Congress were much shorter in those days than now. On
alternate years Garner had from March to December in Texas. He
continued to buy and sell land and engage in various other enterprises.
He at no time dabbled in oil or other quick-money plans. If land
which he purchased was not revenue producing for him he sold it to
someone who could make it produce.
"I imagine I signed more deeds than any man in Uvalde," he said.
In Washington the Garners lived quietly.
Mrs. Garner went to the neighborly teas which Mrs. Theodore
Roosevelt, and afterward Mrs. William Howard Taft gave from time
to time for small groups of women at the White House.
Longworth tried to interest Garner in golf without avail. The Texan
even turned down the walking parties which Longworth liked. Long-
worth's marching companions became known eventually as the "States-
man's Sunday Morning Marching Club." It took two-hour brisk walks
through Rock Creek Park.
"I stop at the entrance of Rock Creek Park/' Garner said.
The stopping place was the zoo. Garner went there almost every
Sunday. He had always been a great animal lover,
His strenuous outdoor exercise he postponed until he got to Texas.
Then he would spend weeks in the woods and on fishing streams.
The slashing Democratic Congressional fight oa the Payne-Aldrich
tariff bill, Cannonism and other issues paid off in 1910 in a turnover
of 113 seats. Two hundred and twenty-eight Democrats and 162 Re-
publicans were elected. A Republican House majority of 47 was trans-
formed into a Democratic lead of 66. In the Senate the Republican
majority was halved.
Speaker Cannon did not stand for the empty honor of being Repub-
lican candidate for Speaker. James R. Mann was put forward by the
Republican caucus and was defeated by Clark, 220 to 131. The Demo-
crats controlled one branch of Congress for the first time in sixteen
years.
Suave Oscar W. Underwood moved in as majority leader and
methodically went about the business of further dividing the Repub-
licans. The Democratic board of strategy resolved never to let up on
the tariff issue. It had been good enough to win the House and it
looked good enough for a winner-take-all House, Senate and Presi-
dency in 1912.
Garner, who had earned the friendship of Champ Clark in the fight
to democratize the House rules, by now was majority Whip and a top
lieutenant of the Speaker. He moved cautiously and tread on no
Democratic toes. There were still fifty Democrats in the House who
had been there longer than he had. In his own Texas delegation,
Burleson, Slayden, Henry, Stephens and Burgess, all able and influ-
ential men, had longer service. Some of them held important chair-
manships.
Garner took up more space in the Congressional Record during the
Sixty-Second Congress than in the four preceding. His political stature
increased perhaps more because of his opposition to pork-barrel meas-
ures than for any other reason. This fight to take the pork out of all
bills he began on the day Congress opened. He objected to lump-sum
appropriation and insisted on itemization of expenditures.
He lashed out at boards and commissions, taking a particularly hot
shot at the International Joint Commission as "a sinecure and sanctuary
for lame ducks."
He supported a proposal to abolish five regiments of cavalry on the
grounds that the cavalry which he a few years before had vigorously
supported was becoming outmoded as an effective Army wing. To
protests against this from his district, he replied that on such a matter
a lawmaker ought to use his judgment about what was best, and stand
or fall by his decision in the subsequent election.
Garner took a prominent part in the revision of the House rules
under Clark, voted for statehood for Arizona and New Mexico, com-
pleting the continental Union of forty-eight states, voted for the pro-
posal of a Secretary of Labor in the President's Cabinet, for free tolls
for American vessels in the Panama Canal, supported a bill for the
making public of campaign funds and for the impeachment of Judge
Robert W. Archibald of the Commerce Court for malfeasance in office.
Garner was constantly on the floor during the discussion of the
so-called pop-gun tariff bills which the Democrats sent to the White
House only to draw vetoes from President Taft. The issue was thus
kept constantly before the country.
Garner supported the appropriation of $60,000 for an investigation
of the money trust by the Pujo Committee and asserted "no $60,000
could be better spent than in investigating the money trust."
He was by now second ranking member of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, was a conferee on the Diplomatic and Consular
appropriation bill, presided over the House as a stand-in for Clark
during the consideration of much of the Democratic tariff legislation.
As the 1912 primaries in Texas approached, Garner had strong sup-
port as successor to Senator Joseph Weldon Bailey, who was retiring.
Instead he announced for re-election to the House.
Clark and Underwood both became candidates for President along
with Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey; Governor Judson
Harmon of Ohio; Governor Thomas R, Marshall and others. Garner
supported Clark. Texas went for Wilson and the Texas delegation
became a bulwark of strength for him at the Baltimore Democratic
national convention.
Garner made his last courtesy call on President Taft. The good-
natured President said to him:
"John, you have never asked a favor of me since I have been Presi-
dent. I would like to do something for you."
Garner remembered a newspaper editorial when he first ran for
Congress which asserted that he would have so little influence that he
would never know who was going to be appointed postmaster in his
home town.
"All right, Mr, President/' Garner replied. "Appoint a postmaster for
me at Uvalde."
Taft asked for his recommendation. Garner wrote on a slip o paper:
"John W. White."
President Taft sent the nomination to the Senate. It was the first
Democratic postmaster appointment made in Texas in sixteen years.
White was left undisturbed during changing administrations, serving
under Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover and Roosevelt until he
retired because o age after thirty years of service.
Of Taft, Garner was to say thirty years later:
"William Howard Taft was the perfect constitutional President of
all my time in Washington. But he was not rated a successful President.
I don't know whether that proves anything or not. There were other
factors. He came along when his party was jaded from successive vic-
tories and torn by dissension. Some men of high character and lofty
attainments have been failures as President. Some men of mediocre
abilities have been rated successful Presidents. He, of course, made a
serious blunder in his praise of the Payne-Aldrich bill. Taft never
tried to control another branch of government by patronage or other-
wise. He never overstepped his functions. It is easy for a President to
usurp powers. Franklin D. Roosevelt found that out."
[66]
CHAPTER V
Wilson and the War Years
WOODROW WILSON stood before a huge throng on
Capitol Plaza and at one-ten, on the blustery afternoon of
March 4, 1913, took the oath of President of the United
States. A Democrat occupied the White House for the first time since
Cleveland went out and McKinley came in sixteen years before on
March 4, 1897.
In an amazingly short address Wilson particularized the purposes
of his administration. He eased any fears that he intended to tear the
country apart economically with his declaration:
"We shall restore, not destroy. We shall deal with our economic
system as it is and as it may be modified, not as it might be if we had
a clean sheet of paper to write on; and step by step we shall make it
what it should be, in the spirit of those who question their wisdom
and seek counsel and knowledge, not shallow satisfaction or the ex-
citement of excursions whither they cannot tell. Justice and only jus-
tice shall be our motto."
And he ended with that never-to-be-forgotten peroration:
"This is not a day of triumph; it is a day of dedication. Here muster,
not the forces of party, but the forces of humanity. Men's hearts wait
upon us; men's lives hang in the balance; men's hopes call upon us
to say what we will do. Who shall live up to the great trust? Who
dares fail to try? I summon all honest men, all patriotic, all forward-
looking men, to my side. God helping me, I will not fail them, if
they will but counsel and sustain me."
Inauguration day climaxed a week of high excitement such as
Washington, then a city of 325,000 population, had seldom witnessed.
President Madero of Mexico had been assassinated a fortnight before
and war with Mexico seemed imminent. The battleships Vermont,
Nebraska and Georgia were off Vera Cruz. Pujo and the Democratic
members of his committee had completed the "Pujo Investigation"
and found that a "money trust" existed. To break it up Representative
Carter Glass, who was succeeding Pujo as chairman of the Banking
and Currency Committee, announced that legislation would be in-
troduced providing a Federal Reserve System.
"General" Rosalie Jones and her suffrage hikers "the Army of the
Hudson" had reached the Capital. "General" Jones, her Pilgrim's
cloak draped about her and staff in hand was greeted by Inez Mil-
holland, wearing a white broadcloth Cossack's suit and long white
kid boots. A pale blue cloak hung from Miss Milholland's shoulders,
on the cloak a Maltese cloth demanding a "constitutional amendment
to enfranchise the women of the United States."
The suffrage parade of March 3 had not been given sufficient police
protection and the marchers were subjected to disgraceful indignities.
Governor Wilson had arrived during the excitement. The reception
committee which greeted him, including Admiral George Dewey and
General Nelson A. Miles, drove him to the old Shoreham Hotel by a
little frequented route.
It had been a week end of unusual farewells by retiring Republican
officials. In his last Sunday as the nation's chief executive, President
Taft had occupied the pulpit of the Unitarian Church.
At the National Press Club, Mr. Taft had told newspapermen
good-by in a delightful talk in which he said he would "not mope over
the fact that he had been returned to private life by the votes of the
people." He said: "My greatest sin is procrastination and I like to
linger in the society of my fellow-man."
The retiring President exemplified the plight of a President going
out of office, especially one who had been almost continuously in
public office since his appointment as a state Judge in Ohio, in 1887.
He was proud of the Supreme Court, of which he had appointed six
of the nine members. He couldn't practice law, the only thing he knew,
because he had appointed 45 per cent of the federal judiciary: "That
wouldn't affect matters," he said, "but you know what would happen
if I won a case, what the man who lost it would say." But he did have
[68]
something to do when his %o 5 ooo-a-year job ended and he was glad of
It. He was taking a lectureship at Yale at $5,000 per year, and he re-
ported that Charles E. Hillis, who had been his secretary at $5,000
per year, had got a $20,000 job in New York.
"I leave office without bitterness toward anyone," Mr. Taft said. "It
is not worth while harboring resentments."
To Washington the biggest sensation of all was that Wilson, who
was to be second of the three-in-a-row golfing Presidents, had refused
to accept honorary membership in the fashionable Chevy Chase Club.
Taft and Wilson rode to the Capitol along a line of inaugural seats
for which Democrats had paid as high as twenty dollars each, through
crowds of women carrying yellow banners inscribed VOTES FOR
WOMEN, and men wearing hatbands saying WOODY'S A JOLLY GOOD
FELLOW. High-hatted and frock-coated men were everywhere.
On the stand where Wilson was to take the oath from Chief Justice
White was old Henry Gassaway Davis of West Virginia, Parker's
Vice-Presidential running mate in 1904, and now ninety years old; Am-
bassadors Bryce of England and Jusserand of France; Senator Kaute
Nelson, a bearded Viking from Minnesota and Senator John W. Kern
of Indiana, Bryan's 1908 Vice-Presidential ticket companion, wearing a
white vest and a white satin four-in-hand tie.
Congress, snarled in a filibuster, had remained in session all day
Sunday and Monday, and was still knotted at noon inauguration day
when President Taft and Governor Wilson arrived at the Capitol for
the inaugural ceremonies.
Two Taft vetoes were responsible in part for the Congressional
tie-up. He had refused his signature to the Webb-Kenyon bill, pro-
hibiting the shipment of liquor Into dry territory. He also tossed back
to Congress a bill exempting labor unions and farmers* alliances from
prosecution under the Sherman anti-trust law and sent with it a
message saying: "This provision is class legislation of the most vicious
sort.
Major General Leonard Wood, Chief of Staff of the Army, saw to
it that no such turbulent scenes as took place on the March 3 suffrage
parade would occur as the nation changed Presidents. Wood in Army
cape and on a skittish horse kept everything in order. Wilson rode
[69]
from the Shoreham Hotel to the White House between a double row
of students from the University of Virginia.
As Wilson finished his inaugural address, jubilant Democrats
swarmed onto Pennsylvania Avenue, and with governors and their
uniformed staffs. Union and Confederate veterans on foot, military
organizations and marching clubs, made up the longest, most colorful
inaugural parade that had ever before or has since gone up that his-
toric parade route. For nine hours they marched, in daylight past the
historic eyesores of lower Pennsylvania Avenue, and then the last of
them came along under festoons of special red, white and blue lights.
President Wilson had as his escort the Essex Cavalry Troop. The
Essex uniform was a dark blue coat with yellow trimmings; light
blue trousers with a two-inch stripe down the side. Each of the young
men in the troop owned his own horse, a thoroughbred.
The Vice-President had as his escort the Black Horse Cavalry from
Culver, Indiana, each of the sixty troopers on a coal-black horse with
tan saddle and gray blanket, bearing the Culver monogram in yellow
leather. The Culver uniforms were pearl gray with broad white cross
belts and rope trimmings.
Then came the cadets from West Point and the midshipmen from
Annapolis, the cadets in gray uniforms, cross belts and tall caps, the
midshipmen in black raincoats and caps, white belts and white
leggings.
The dressy Richmond Blues came in dark blue coats and white em-
broidered trimmings, shakos, silver epaulets and broad ermine-fringed
blue capes. There was a Zouave Company from Georgia.
Seven special trains had brought Charles F. Murphy and 1,200 Tam-
many Braves from New York. The Grand Sachem, the thirteen Tam-
many Sachems and McCooey, with his Brooklyn contingent, waited to
get into the parade. Tammany had taken verbal punishment at Balti-
more in the preceding Democratic national convention and it was to
take physical punishment here. From one o'clock until five o'clock in
the afternoon, it had stood in close rank near a lumberyard at North
Capitol and B Street.
Murphy had gone up and down the line cheering his Braves. The
great Tom Foley and his lo^er East Side Braves were uncomfortable
[70]
in their shiny headgear. Assemblyman Al Smith had laid aside his
brown derby for a topper.
The buffalo nickel was just being minted. The Tammany contin-
gent had pocketfuls o them and tossed them to urchins who admired
their sartorial elegance.
"The," cracked the florid Murphy, to The McManus, "tell the boys
to put their wallets in their inside pockets. Some of them look as if
their hips were dislocated."
And as dusk was gathering Murphy's men led by Chief Hollow
Horn Bear and seventy other real Indian chiefs in feathered regalia
and war paint came into line at the head of the civic organizations. It
was dark when the 1,200 Braves, every one of them with a silk hat
and gray gloves, swung around the Treasury Building and marched by
the new President, their hats off and placed dramatically over their
hearts.
Next day most of the marchers seemed to have remained in Wash-
ington looking for jobs.
The Republican split had caused one of the largest Congressional
membership turnovers in history. An audit showed 290 Democrats,
127 Republicans and 18 members of minor parties in the House. The
Senate stood 51 Democrats, 44 Republicans and one member of a
minor party.
Republicans from hitherto impregnable G.O.P. territory had been
replaced by Democrats. There had also been much shifting among the
Democrats. Sulzer had gone out to be Governor of New York; James
M. Cox to be Governor of Ohio. Ollie James., who had come to Con-
gress with Garner, was sworn in as Senator from Kentucky, but did
not take his seat. The chair at his desk was too small and he went to
a settee in the back of the Senate Chamber.
Wilson's Cabinet selections flattered the vanity of the House. Three
of them came from the House, none from the Senate. William B.
Wilson of Pennsylvania was to occupy the newly created post of Secre-
tary of Labor, which Garner had advocated in his first campaign tea
years before. Magenta-bearded William C. Redfield of New York
became Secretary of Commerce and Albert Sidney Burleson of Texas
took his never missing umbrella and his penchant for getting into
trouble and moved up Pennsylvania Avenue, to be Postmaster General.
Garner's two closest friends on the Republican side were leaving.
Uncle Joe Cannon, whose clean-shaven upper lip, stubby white beard,
always present cigar and husky voice were Capitol fixtures, had been
engulfed by the Democratic tide and at seventy-seven was going home
to Danville, Illinois. Defeat also had overtaken Nick Longworth in
Ohio.
"Nick," said Gamer, "had father-in-law trouble."
Theodore Roosevelt had enough popularity in Cincinnati so that
he cut into native son William Howard Taft, and gave Longworth's
district to Wilson and to the Democratic Congressional candidate.
Wilson's young men took over the executive offices the next day.
Garner called my attention to the youth of the Administration and
said he doubted if there had ever been one so balanced in age. Bryan,
his Secretary of State, was only fifty-two; Redfield, the oldest Cabinet
member was fifty-four; Houston, the youngest, was forty-seven; Mc-
Reynolds and Daniels were just fifty. And because William B. Wilson,
McAdoo, Garrison, Burleson and Lane were all forty-nine, it got its
reputation as a "Cabinet of 49ers." President Wilson was fifty-seven.
The oldest man connected with the Administration was Vice-President
Marshall, who was fifty-nine.
Garner was forty-four now. Instead of the 123 pounds he weighed
when he came to Congress ten years before, he now weighed 180, was
hard muscled and in perfect health. And, he was, he told me, looking
for a job.
The job he wanted was a place on the Ways and Means Committee.
The Ways and Means Committee is the fiscal committee of the House
and writes tariff and tax bills. Prior to the depression which began in
1929, tariff and taxes were the principal points of the division between
the two parties and men familiar with these two subjects became the
House leaders.
Ways and Means Committee members also choose, subject to House
ratification, members of the other standing committees. Garner wanted
a part in the writing of the forthcoming Underwood Tariff bill and
the first income-tax measure, but I am sure he wanted a beachhead to
work toward the Speakership some time in the future. Charnp Clark
was, of course, certain to remain Speaker as long as he wished and as
long as the Democrats stayed in power. Majority Leader Underwood
[72]
ranked next highest to Clark in power. The other two of the four
most influential were Claude Kitchin, a handsome six-foot 225-pound
North Carolinian, and Garner.
House leaders had other plans than placing Garner on its fiscal
committee, however. There were men who for one reason or another
they wished to reward with places on this committee. Garner was
offered instead the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
To most members of Congress it would have been an enticing offer.
Garner would have been the youngest major committee chairman in
Congress, with the most elaborate committee quarters. Andif he
had been interested in social lifeit is the social committee of Con-
gress. He had been on the committee for eight years, attended its ses-
sions faithfully and had risen to the ranking Democratic place on it.
But he thought of its chairmanship in terms of cocktails and canapes,
both of which he regarded as works of the devil.
Garner rejected the offer. He told the House slatemakers:
"I don't want the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
I want to go on a committee which* deals with domestic affairs, affect-
ing the American people."
He had to fight not only the House leadership for the place, but
also a newspaper campaign against him, conducted by the Washing-
ton Times. The newspaper was owned by Frank A. Munsey and had
been an organ of the Bull Moose party in the 1912 campaign. Munsey
said Garner owned more goats than any man in the world and, there-
fore, would have a personal interest in the legislation and "is anxious
to confer some incidental protection to the sugar, cattle, hide and other
interests of his state." Actually, Garner owned no goats. Privately, he
said: "Munsey is for the lowest possible duty on raw materials and
for the highest possible duty on manufactured goods and that is the
reason for his opposition to me." Publicly, he made no statement. The
friends he had made in Congress over the years stood him in good stead.
Out of the 266 votes in the Democratic caucus he polled 209 and went
on the Ways and Means Committee. But the charges Munsey had
made against him were destined later to add to the goat literature o
the nation.
Garner favored every one of the legislative proposals outlined by
Wilson in his inaugural address. The "new freedom" program suited
[73]
Garner in its entirety. The things Wilson said about tariff revision
Garner had said in his own campaigns. In arguing for the banking
and currency reform, which was to lead to the Federal Reserve System,
Wilson had used almost word for word the argument used by Garner
in urging a currency measure of his own six years before. Garner had
also offered and had rejected an amendment to the Aldrich-Vreeland
bill embracing the farm-credit proposals made by Wilson in his in-
augural address and he agreed with the Wilson anti-trust and labor
pronouncements. In spite of these things it soon began to look to
Garner as if, with his own party in full power for the first time in his
Congressional service, he was destined to have less influence with the
executive branch of government than when Roosevelt and Taft were
in the White House. He had no part in the honeymoon of the early
Wilson days.
Garner had more than the usual patronage trouble. He was devoted
to and favored the nomination of Speaker Clark for President, but
had enthusiastically lined up for Wilson after the party decision. But
some of the Texans who had stood by Wilson on all the forty-six
ballots at the Baltimore Democratic national convention, insisted
that Garner be denied patronage in his district. They apparently had
the ear of Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo and also Secretary of
State Bryan.
"I've got at least three applications for every post office or other job
in my district and each applicant has at least forty friends," Garner
told me. "They are making life miserable for me. I don't know
whether my recommendations are going to be followed or not."
The situation became intolerable to him. Garner was the House
Whip charged with bringing in the votes for Administration legisla-
tion. He presided over the House most of the time when it was in
Committee of the Whole considering legislation. He was helping to
frame legislation carrying out the party platform on tariff and tax
matters. He was bearing a heavy part of the Administration burden
in the House, but was being ignored by the Administration.
Garner went to the White House and bluntly demanded a show-
down o'n patronage. If he was going t6 dispense jobs in his district he
wanted to know it and if he was not going to, he wanted to know it.
He got no such good-natured receptions as he customarily got when
[74]
he had called to discuss matters with Presidents Theodore Roosevelt
and Taft.
"I got the worst dressing down from Wilson I ever got from any-
one," Garner said. He had an even stormier session with McAdoo,
but with the Cabinet member he gave as good as he got.
Garner left his warm session with Wilsoa uncertain of whether his
relations with the White House had been permanently impaired.
A few days later he went to a hospital for a minor operation. When
Wilson heard of it he sent a vase of flowers and a note wishing him a
speedy recovery.
It soon became evident that Garner intended to watch expenditures
just as closely as he had when his party was in the minority.
On April 21, 1913, Garner told the House that he had insisted on
economy during Republican administrations and intended to do so
under a Democratic one.
A deficiency appropriation bill was under consideration and con-
tained an item of expenses for a trip by Senators and Representatives
to St. Louis to dedicate the Jefferson Memorial.
Garner inquired of Representative J. Thomas Heflin of Alabama:
"How does the gentleman account for the fact that it takes $350
for each individual to go to St. Louis, stay one day and return?"
Heflin replied by paying a stirring tribute to Thomas Jefferson as
the father of American democracy. He said he had not had a chance
to check the reasons for the expenditure but that he was sure the
House would have every confidence in the members who had made
the check. Garner rejoined:
"I have no confidence in anybody who figures it will cost $350 for
a man to go to St. Louis for a day."
He soon pitched into battle with powerful colleagues of the Ways
and Means Committee oa another issue. Garner insisted on graduated
income-tax rates such as he had proposed in a bill which he introduced
in 19051 Chairman Oscar W. Underwood of Alabama, A. Mitchell
Palmer of Pennsylvania, Francis Burton Harrison of New York and
other members of the committee insisted on a flat rate to apply for all
Garner's capacity-to-pay plan won and the scale of rates ran from i to
6 per cent. The income-tax bill, which bore Garner's handiwork in
[75]
1913, yielded only $71,382,000 the first year. There were only 357,588
individual and 316,908 corporation returns.
In the first six months of the Wilson administration, Garner made
what was for him a record in- legislation in which his personal spon-
sorship was concerned. He submitted, in a bill and an amendment,
what might be called a Garner program for progressive farm legisla-
tion.
The bill provided for a bureau of marketing in the Department of
Agriculture. Its purpose was to furnish information to farmers on
markets for fruits and vegetables. Garner said that this was as much a
function of the government as the furnishing of weather reports, but
the proposal met a barrage of newspaper criticism.
The comment of the New York Sun was typical:
"Under triumphant bureaucracy," the Sun said in an editorial, "there
can't be too many bureaus. No doubt a market bureau is inevitable.
Indeed, some of us foresee the day when the food of every man,
woman and child out of arms in these United States will be prescribed,
weighed, measured, analyzed, cooked and fed into the individual
mouth by the placemen of the paternal government. Of course, the
bill has penalties.
"Oh, well, as government of the bureau, for the bureau and by the
bureau moves grandly on, about everyone who isn't in office will be
in jail."
That bill was Garner's one contribution toward setting up a bureau.
The Bureau of Markets was established.
His other legislative offering of the session was an amendment to
the Glass Federal Reserve bill providing loans to farmers in which
wheat, corn and cotton would be accepted as collateral. Garner had
offered such an amendment when the Aldrich-Vreeland bill was being
considered and it got short shrift.
In offering the proposal again Garner said the purpose was "to pro-
vide a rural credit system enabling a farmer to market his crop under
conditions not now possible." He pointed out that the cotton farmer
could borrow money on his cotton warehouse receipts, would be able
to meet his pressing obligations soon after his cotton was out of the
gin, thus being in a position where he could obtain the highest market
price for his staple, instead of being forced to dump it on a glutted
market every autumn when prices were down,
[76]
Obstacles thrown in the way of enactment of the banking and cur-
rency legislation (the Federal Reserve Act) irked Gamer.
He issued a statement saying:
"Ninety per cent of the people of this country demand the passage o
legislation reforming the currency system. If we are unable to legis-
late in answer to the people's demands we must confess our inability
to run the government. There are four kinds of people opposing the
currency bill, to wit: (i) Those who don't want the law to pass be-
cause under the present laws they have opportunity to disturb condi-
tions and cause panics; (2) Those persons opposed to the findings of
the bill and the legislation proposed; (3) Those men who are opposed
to the Administration and naturally fight anything the Democrats
propose; (4) The men who are opposing the bill because of the per-
sonal advertising such opposition gives them."
When the bill was brought in by Carter Glass for floor considera-
tion, Garner occupied the chair. When he ha4 gaveled the bill through
In its final form, Garner went down to the floor and warmly clasped
the hand of Glass. A dream both of them had had since the financial
panic of 1907 had come true.
The Democratic House moved on to the consideration of the Under-
wood Tariff bill, Republicans stubbornly fighting it paragraph by
paragraph. The feature that attracted most attention in it was the wool
schedule just as it had been Schedule K (the wool schedule) on which
the spotlight was turned in the Payne-Aldrich tariff.
In all tariff legislation previous to the Underwood bill, goat hair
had been classed with wool. But in the Democratic measure wool was
placed on the free list, while hair of the goat was retained on the
dutiable list at 10 per cent ad valorem. The ample-girthed Sereno E.
Payne arose in the House for one of the forensic efforts of his life. He
told the House "this bill taxes mohair while exposing shorn sheep to
the boreal blasts of free trade' because Garner had got in his handi-
work.
"There are about 3,000,000 goats in the United States of which about
2 ?999?999 are in Texas/' said Payne, by way of emphasis, although
actually there were Angoras in every state in the Union.
The Garner goat had been reviled in prose. It was to be immortalized
in epic doggerel. Before a packed House, the erudite Representative
[77]
J. Hampton Moore of Pennsylvania arose and recited with poetic
fervor, the bombastic verse of his composition:
Of all the creatures in the land,
Of pedigrees supremely grand,
There's none that do respect command
Garners goat of Texas.
The modest sheep may browse around
From Maine way to Puget Sound
But they don't count a cent a pound
With Garner s goat of Texas.
The noble steer may be of use
If freed from tyrant trust abuse;
But even that would be the deuce
To Garner's goat of Texas.
If you want wool, the wool is fair;
If you want hair, the wool is hair;
If you want meat, the meat is there!
That's Garner's goat of Texas.
So while you %icJ^ the wool off sheep,
And beef and mutton ma\e so cheap,
Protective tariff now will J^eep
The Garner goat of Texas.
Browse on, thou mild-eyed ruminant
Thou are the casual nexus
That binds protection to free trade
Thou Garner goat of Texas.
Oh, wondrous breed of Lone Star State,
Premier of wool and hair, thy rate
Of 10 per cent is truly great
Thou Garner goat of Texas.
[78]
As the laughter died down after what was admittedly the best piece
of goat poetry ever heard in the House of Representatives, Garner
went to the cloakroom to prepare his reply. He had never attempted
verse making. He could not answer verse with prose. He must answer
in kind. He returned in a few minutes and obtained recognition from
Speaker Clark. His speech in no way resembled Webster's reply to
Hayne. It was, in fact, perhaps the shortest speech ever made in the
House. In full it was:
"Mr. Speaker:
Hampie Moore is a hell of a poet
He don't know a sheep from a goat."
Garner, in fact, had voted for a tariff on wool during committee
consideration. His position was that as manufactured woolen articles
carried a duty the raw material also should. He had taken this con-
sistent stand in his six Congressional races. The committee voted him
down on wool. A principal reason for the committee going along
with him on the mohair levy was that most of the mohair that had
come into the United States originated in the Transvaal section of
South Africa and in Turkey. These countries had an absolute pro-
hibition against the exportation to the United States of Angora goats.
Before the complete bar to shipments from Transvaal was inaugurated,
an export tax of $500 per head was exacted.
After losing in committee on wool, Garner voted with his party
for the passage of the bill, because there had been a reduction of as
high as 180 per cent ad valorem on some kinds of wool garments and
substantial reduction on all woolen goods.
Newspapermen thankful to Garner for providing a reason for the
light interlude of Moore and Garner verse in an otherwise dull tariff
debate held a ceremony on the steps of the Capitol in which they pre-
sented him with a flag of "The Triumphant Goat" and invested him
with the 'title "Patron Saint of Angora."
Garner went through the grilling eight months of the special session
of Congress, with its tarifi, currency and other legislation, with little
recognition from the White House. Once or twice he heard that Pres-
ident Wilson had commented on his parliamentary ability. Garner
was presiding over the House gaveling administration legislation top
[79]
passage when he wasn't on the floor helping in its management. Even
in the face of White House cold-shouldering he had established him-
self more firmly than ever with his colleagues in the Congress.
The Democratic majority was more than halved by the election in
1914. Republicans like Cannon and Longworth were returned to their
seats.
With Underwood in the Senate, Garner, by 1915, was considered
the most effective member of the House. He was still doing business
off the record, however, and was little known to the country.
He was rated by Texas as a sort of a Lone Star Congressman-at-
large. No delegation came to Washington from Texas with an errand
to accomplish that did not want to see Garner as well as their own
Representative. He was known as a man who could get things done.
Garner actually traveled little over Texas never got far from the
huisache, mesquite and huajillo of the brush country. About the only
large town he visited in Texas was San Antonio, and this usually was
on the way to and from Uvalde. He attended no state political con-
ventions and had not attended a Democratic national convention since
1904.
In fact his duties in Washington took up so much of his time that
he said in Brownsville about this time:
"I have such a large district that it is almost impossible for me to get
over it. There are five counties in the district that I have never seen.
If I were to start out with the intention of visiting all the towns in my
district it would take at least six months."
He was no longer canvassing his district, franked no speeches home
because he made none. But there were always chores to do for a dis-
trict and Garner never forgot that the Representative who doesn't look
after the local things for a Congressional district ordinarily does not
stay in Congress to do things on a national scale.
Garner was a delegate to the St. Louis convention where the Wilson-
Marshall ticket was unanimously renominated for the 1916 race. Not
since the days of Andrew Jackson had there been such party harmony,
on the surface at least.
The Republicans raided the Supreme Court for their candidate, As-
sociate Justice Charles Evans Hughes. It was a nip-and-tuck election
one of great disappointment to Garner. For he saw the Democrats,
[80]
while winning the Presidency, lose their House majority. The Repub-
licans elected 216 members, the Democrats 210 and minor parties 9.
Champ Clark was again chosen Speaker by a coalition o Democrats
and independents.
Wilson's plight in the House of Representatives had been growing
more serious for two years. Postmaster General Burleson had been
attempting the role of liaison man between the Administration and
Congress for four years. He had made something of a mess of it even
with the Texas delegation. Burleson's trouble with his fellow-Texans
had started when he unsuccessfully pushed Thomas Watt Gregory,
afterward Attorney General, for Ambassador to Mexico. Most of the
Texans had favored Representative James L. Slayden, of San Antonio,
for the post and considered Burleson's action in bringing out a candi-
date of his own as an arrogant procedure. Now with more Republi-
cans than Democrats in the House it was certain Burleson would be
no further help there.
As war clouds gathered, Garner had voted for the National Defense
Act of March 23, 1916, and on March i, 1917, he voted to furnish
arms for American ships for defensive purposes.
Within two weeks after Wilson's second inaugural, war seemed in-
evitable. At eight thirty-five o'clock on the night of April 2, the Presi-
dent stood before a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber
and asked for a resolution recognizing that Germany was making
war on the United States, for the raising of an army of 500,000 men
and co-operation with the Allies in all ways that would most effec-
tively aid in the defeat of Germany.
All day long truculent pacifists had besieged the Capitol. A group
had forced its way into Vice-President Marshall's office and were put
out. They swarmed into Speaker Clark's office and groups went to the
office of every Senator and Representative. Venerable Senator Lodge
of Massachusetts engaged in a fist fight with one.
By night the pacifists had been cleared from the Capitol grounds.
Troops of the Second Cavalry guarded all approaches to the Capitol.
Policemen, secret-service men and armed post-office inspectors swarmed
through the Capitol building.
Wilson came down from the White House guarded by another
troop of cavalry. When he entered the House it was a scene the hall
[81]
had never seen before. Directly In front of the President and facing
him were members of the Supreme Court without their robes. Envoys
of foreign nations sat in a group on the floor of the House.
Vice-President Marshall and ninety Senators came in, nearly every
Senator wearing or carrying a small American flag. Wilson got such
a reception as Congress never gave him. It was five minutes before the
cheering ended and he could commence his speech.
Congress listened intently and with no interruption while he re-
cited the German crimes against humanity, his own and his country's
efforts to believe that the German rulers had not wholly cut themselves
off from the path which civilized nations follow. When he came to
the sentence "armed neutrality, it now appears is impracticable because
submarines are in fact outlaws when used as the German submarines
are used" attention deepened. Then he said:
"There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making.
We will not choose the path of submission."
At the words "submission," Chief Justice White dropped the big
soft hat he had been holding, raised his huge hands into the air,
brought them together and started another great volume of cheering.
Wilson did not pause at the end of his punch line: "The world must
be made safe for democracy." Only Senator John Sharp Williams of
Mississippi seemed to understand its import and he alone began the
delayed applause.
At 3:12 A.M., on April 6, the House voted 373 to 50 for the resolu-
tion Wilson had asked. One of the 50 was Kitchin. From the South
only three members had gone along with the House leader.
A few minutes before Kitchin had sat down after telling the House:
"Profoundly impressed with the gravity of the situation, appreciat-
ing to the fullest the penalties which a war-mad moment will impose,
my conscience and judgment, after mature thought and fervent prayer
for right guidance, have marked clearly the path of my duty, and I
have made up my mind to walk it, if I go barefooted and alone. I
have come to the undoubting conclusion that I must vote against this
resolution."
Garner's first problem after voting for war was a family one. The
next day, his son Tully was in his office.
"Son," Garner asked, "how do you feel about going to war?"
"I aim to go, Dad," Tully replied.
[82]
"Hell, it's not a matter of aiming to go. You are going," Garner re-
plied. "I couldn't have cast rny vote to send other boys to war., i I
hadn't known I was sending my awn. And just one thing more: Your
mother and I will want to hear from you every time you have a chance
to write, but promise you'll never ask me a favor. I might be in a
position to get it and I don't want to be exposed to temptation."
The defection of Kitchin, the party's official leader in the House,
at the beginning of the mightiest war in which this nation had ever
engaged was a body blow to the Administration. Immediate authority
was necessary to lend billions to the Allies while America itself was
arming. Congressional sanction was also necessary for enlarging the
Navy, erecting camps and cantonments, building ships, calling four
million citizens to military service and sending half of them overseas.
In addition, under the Constitution taxing measures could originate
only in the House of Representatives. A complicated tax system to
raise revenue had to be worked out and sweeping emergency tax bills
passed; authority to sell bonds and other legislation was necessary.
Wilson called Garner to the White House and asked him to become
liaison man between the President and Congress.
"I know you don't waste time on speeches and you get things done,"
Wilson told the Texan. "I think you have the respect and affection of
men of both parties in the House."
As Wilson's liaison man, Garner cultivated the original gift for
anonymity in Washington. The fact that he was acting as Congres-
sional adviser to the President was not known for some time. From
mid-April until August 17, it was not openly mentioned on the floor.
On that occasion Representative Wingo, Democrat, Arkansas, made an
inquiry of Mr. Garner "whom I presume for the time being is major-
ity leader de jure as well as de facto"
Garner himself never made a reference to his role of Administrative
spokesman. He conferred with Cannon, Longworth, Fordney, Mann,
Julius Kahn and other Republican leaders as well as with the Demo-
crats. In all that time he did not make a formal speech. Representative
J. Hampton Moore, Republican, Pennsylvania, said on the floor:
"I wish to pay a public tribute to the gendeman from Texas. He
seldom makes a speech on the floor and thus denies the public the
benefit of his wisdom, but in committee he is so adroit and skillful a
legislator that few can equal him."
Wilson, who originally had not liked Garner, was fond of him
now. He said the Texan was direct and never engaged in slovenly or
evasive thinking. Joseph P. Tumulty, Wilson's secretary, it was gen-
erally believed, had been the agent who brought Wilson around to
admiration of Garner and dependence on him.
"I regard Joha Nance Garner as the most genuine personality that
has come upon the stage of our national life in a generation," Tumulty
said. "He makes conquests over the hearts of men by the simple quali-
ties of honor, decency and fair dealing which make up the happy
blend of his nature."
Wilson asked Garner to come to the White House at least twice a
week and to be prepared to come oftener. Although Garner was to see
Wilson oftener during those drama-packed months than the Wilson
Cabinet did, few members of Congress and few people in the execu-
tive branch, other than Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo and Presi-
dential Secretary Tumulty, knew of it.
Garner would go to the White House by streetcar, enter Tumulty's
office and then go through the corridor to the President's private study.
Sometimes the conferences would last for several hours. One lasted
until one o'clock in the morning.
"Sometimes I would find President Wilson so fatigued and worn
that I was afraid he would not be able to keep on his feet. I would
try to cheer him up. I never knew whether he liked some of the rough
jokes I told him or not.
"He told good stories himself and was a master of dialect. He was
especially good on Irish stories. At times he would seem to be carrying
the whole war on his shoulders. On occasions when he would illustrate
a point by a story or a limerick and had a laugh we could transact
business much faster."
On one occasion Garner found Wilson almost ill from fatigue.
"Garner/' he said, "this job is almost unbearable. If it was not for
my faith in the old Presbyterian belief in predestination I don't believe
I could hold up much longer."
Garner made a pretense of not understanding Mr. Wilson's refer-
ence to predestination.
"Mr. President, I am the same way," he said. "I grew up in Texas
with the same kind of people you grew up with in Virginia, and I
am as superstitious as hell myself."
It got the relaxed laugh he wanted. Then Wilson replied:
"Garner, I think our 'superstition' will carry us both through."
Wilson, like all Presidents, wanted his legislation without delay.
"I would tell him that Congress wanted to provide all the money
necessary to win the war and would do so," Garner said. "Once I said
to him: 'Mr. President, the first fourteen years I was in Congress the
federal government never spent as much as three-quarters of a billion
dollars in any year. This war is going to cost us from $10,000,000,000
to $20,000,000,000 a year. Congress has never had any experience in
raising such sums. The problem now is to get it to thinking in such
astronomical terms. After the war the problem will be to get it out
of the habit of thinking in such terms. 5 "
A few days later on the floor of the House, during consideration of
a bond bill. Speaker Clark said:
"If the people conclude that this war debt is going to be piled so
high that it is not going to be paid in any reasonable time they will
not buy the bonds."
"Then," replied Garner, "we have got to confiscate wealth.'*
The approach of the 1918 election found an anti-Democratic tide
setting in. It was evident that the Republicans had an even or better
chance of carrying the House of Representatives. A group of Wilson's
advisers, including Postmaster General Burleson, advised him to make
a strong appeal for the return of a Democratic Congress. Wilson, they
felt, was entrenched in the hearts of the people. Burleson believed such
an appeal would make it possible for many Democrats to ride in on
Wilson's coattails.
Garner was dead set against the appeal He was anxious for the
Democrats to keep hold of the government. He had a feeling that the
people would resent Wilson's interference with their choice of their
Senators and Representatives. Moreover, the legislation required for
the conduct of the war had been enacted with Republicans and Demo-
crats standing shoulder to shoulder. He thought that not only would
the appeal be bad politics but would make the situation in Congress
more difficult. However, Wilson wrote his letter:
"My fellow country ... If you have approved my leadership ... I
earnestly hope you will express yourself unmistakedly to that effect
by returning a Democratic majority . . ."
It was a disastrous stroke. Quite probably the Democrats would have
lost anyway. But the Wilson letter made the downfall certain. The
Republicans elected 237 members o the House, the Democrats only
191 and the minor parties came up with 7 seats. The Armistice was
signed before the full returns had been tabulated.
The end of eight years* Democratic sway in the House and the end
of war meant many changes. Garner's liaison work ended. Wilson
went to Europe for the peace conference. Kitchin did not resume the
leadership. Champ Clark left the Speakership to become minority
leader.
Although Garner has steadfastly refused to make comparisons be-
tween the Presidents, his conversations leave rne no doubt he looked
on Wilson as the towering figure among Presidents who served while
he was in Washington.
"Wilson was the greatest intellectual aristocrat I have ever known,"
he said. "No President ever had a deeper philosophy of government.
His messages to Congress were the most statesmanlike of any I have
ever heard or read they lay over all others like a dollar lays over a
dime. Some of the great moments of my life were when he stood
before Congress. No President ever had Wilson's gift of expression.
His vocabulary was unsurpassed. He could always come up with just
the exact word or proper phrase. Wilson believed in open covenants,
openly arrived at. He dealt with the whole Congress not just a few
leaders."
Garner, who had never guessed a national election wrong, saw no
chance of the Democrats winning in 1920. He had served the first eight
of his years with the Republicans in control of the House and his first
ten with them in control of the Presidency. He had no desire to serve
in the minority again and decided to retire with his ambition for
the Speakership unfulfilled. He began the building of a home in*
Uvalde.
A situation in his district caused him to postpone the retirement for
two years. Actually he was to postpone it for twenty more years.
His party was swept out of power in a Republican landslide in 1920
and twelve years of G.O.P. rule began. Paradoxically, Garner was
later to consider that these twelve years were his most useful of all
his time in Washington.
[86]
CHAPTER VI
Guerrilla Fighter
THE Harding landslide of 1920 smashed the Democratic party
in the House of Representatives as well as all over the nation.
It left only four Democrats in the House who were there
when Garner came in, only 132 Democrats of any kind. There were
an even 300 Republicans and one independent. The Senate was not
quite so one sided, but the G.O.P. had a majority of 22 there.
The most grievous blow to Garner was the defeat of Champ
Clark in his Missouri district. The doughty old Speaker did not live
to go back to private life. He died in Washington on March 2, 1921,
two days before the end of his term.
Cordell Hull in Tennessee, Henry T. Rainey in Illinois and General
Isaac Sherwood in Ohio were among members of the House swept into
discard. New York City went Republican for one of the few times in
its history, tossing out all but a half-dozen of its usually large Demo-
cratic Congressional delegation. Even Texas elected one Republican
Congressman.
Garner, in a tiny minority, stood at the threshold of the four most
spectacular years of his Washington service. Yet he was to begin the
period in disappointment, deprived of the party leadership he felt he
had earned. Another event which would cause him deep disappoint-
ment was yet two years away. The denial of party leadership came
not through a caucus decision but by the action of one man.
With Champ Clark gone, the Democratic House organization re-
stored Representative Claude Kitchin of North Carolina to the party
leadership, which he had actually exercised from the retirement of
Oscar W. Underwood in 1915 to the beginning of the war, and
nominally held during the war. Kitchin's health was failing in 1921,
and he decided to attempt to recover It by leaving Washington for
a long rest.
The expectation was general that Garner as the second ranking
member o the Ways and Means Committee would automatically
carry on in the absence of Kitchin. But the North Carolinian did an
unexpected thing. He called a party caucus, explained the condition
of his health and said he was appointing Representative Finis J.
Garrett of Tennessee as acting minority leader while he was away
to recuperate.
Garrett was an eminent legislator, one of the party's best debaters
and a close friend of Garner's. There was no question of his popularity
or his ability. He had the respect of both Democratic and Republican
leaders. But his naming by one-man action surprised the House
Democrats. The reason was never given. One obvious conclusion to
draw would be that Kitchin resented the part Garner played as
Administration spokesman during the war after Kitchin had refused
to follow the President. Another reason, perhaps, lay in their differ-
ences over the tariff. Kitchin was virtually a free-trader. Garner had
been elected to Congress on a platform calling for protection for raw
material when the objects into which it was manufactured also
carried duty. With the tariff a leading issue between the Republicans
and Democrats then, as it had long been, Kitchin undoubtedly did
not want to entrust the leadership to one with Garner's views.
Garner made no public comment on the unusual action of the
ailing Kitchin, and plunged into preparation for the impending tariff
and tax battles. These two fiscal issues were to be the leading business of
Congress for the next two years. Garner, as ranking minority member
of the Ways and Means Committee, would have to carry the load
of them both in committee and on the floor.
Besides the eminence he was to gain for his handling of the tax
and tariff measures, these things within the next few years were to
happen to Garner:
The Ku Klux Klan was to make a supreme effort to retire him to
private life.
He was to make one of the most vitriolic attacks on a fellow-member
ever heard in the halls of Congress.
[88]
op
Garner as a House member and Pat Harrison in the Senate
were a tax team which wrecked Republican tax measures. (Reg
Manning, Phoenix Republican 5 1 Gazette)
He was to figure in speculation for the possible Democratic Presi-
dential or Vice-Presidential nomination in 1924,
He was to be near death.
He was to get two o the most remarkable ovations ever given a
member of Congress.
The depression in the farm and livestock areas which began in
1920, and continued for more than a decade, brought forth such relief
proposals as the emergency tariff and, when it failed, the McNary-
Haugen farm relief bill The emergency tariff was proposed in the
winter of 1921, with President Wilson in the White House.
Garner voted for the emergency tariff originally, but switched after
it had been amended to include manufactured goods. He charged that
"in order that relief be granted to farming and stock-raising sections
we must also vote to give the manufacturers of New England a duty
of from 25 to 2,500 per cent on goods coming from Central Europe."
President Wilson vetoed the bill after it had passed Republican
Senate and House and the veto was sustained. It was presented to
President Harding, and he signed it into law in May, 1921, The
Fordney-McCumber tariff bill hearings began in the Ways and Means
Committee in January 1921, and its final passage did not come until
September 1922.
With the Fordney-McCumber bill under consideration on July 9,
1921, Garner got up to put on the first of the floorshows he was to
give the House. It was a sultry day and the House Chamber had not
yet been air conditioned. Fordney had opened the debate the day
before. He paid a tribute to Garner and said Texas ought to elect him
for life.
The heat did not deter nor the Fordney compliment soften Garner
in his attack on the bill. He spoke for two hours, the longest speech he
had ever made and he was to show the members and the galleries
acrobatic gesticulation not seen since the heyday of left-handed Joe
Cannon. He had, next to Cannon, most members thought, the most
unusual manner of speaking. To him consideration of a tax or tariff
bill was high adventure. He spoke that day in the well of the House, as
he always did, standing almost up against the first row of Republican
seats.
His red face grew redder as he threw both arms out from his head
until they were extending full length with the palms facing one
another, raising and lowering his body from the knees in violent
contortions.
The bill abandoned the old plan of fixing tariff duties according to
the foreign value of the object. Instead, it included a new device known
as American valuation. Thus, before a rate could be fixed the
[90]
difference in the cost of production here and abroad would have to be
determined. Garner centered his fire on this provision. He said it would
create a tariff which would be prohibitive the highest in American
history.
Garner told the House that world conditions were so unsettled as
a result of the First World War that it was impossible to ascertain
differences in domestic and foreign costs. Seizing a straw hat, the
first object available, he defied any member on the Republican side
to tell what the rates would be under American valuation. None
could.
"I am not a free-trader," he said, "neither am I for a protective tariff
wall around this country that will impede the freedom of the commerce
of the world. We must do business with the world if we expect to sell
the excess of our farm production. The West has a lot of wheat to
sell. The South has a lot of cotton to sell. How can the world pay
for them? They have no gold. We have more gold today than we
ought to have under proper economic conditions throughout the
world. There are only three ways other countries can pay. One is with
gold, the other service, the other to exchange their goods for ours. We
do not propose that they shall pay us in service, because we expect to
carry our own goods across the seas in our own merchant marine, so
there is only one way they can pay us and that is to send us their
manufactured goods.
"If you make it so other nations cannot send us their products by
this American valuation proposal by putting in this clause and
estimating the value of their currency you will close all the customs
houses, and there will be no way we can sell goods. In my judgment,
the greatest economic blunder that could be made would be to put the
American valuation clause in even a moderate tariff bill."
It was Garner's first full-dress test as a debater on an economic
issue and the Republican leaders heckled him throughout his speech.
Longworth, especially, took keen delight in the process. Garner took
care of himself so well in the running fire debate with Republican
leaders as to win the unanimous applause of the Democrats.
Garner believed before the tariff debate had gone very far that
he had the Republicans in distress. He knew he could not prevent the
passage of the bill, but if he could delay it and dramatize its defects,
[9*]
he could bring Important modifications and he could make of it a
campaign issue which would pay dividends in increased Democratic
strength at the next election. The history o all tariff bills was that
while the public seemed apathetic during the discussion in Congress,
at the following election the party which had revised the tariff either
lost the House of Representatives or had its majority whittled to the
vanishing point.
On the fifth day of the debate, Garner played his ace. He moved W.
Bourke Cockran of New York into the debate. The last of the old-time
orators, Cockran was never better than that day. In the House of
Representatives there is usually not much decorum and little chance
for debate. But that day it was different. The great silver-crested head
and the commanding appearance of the old warrior stilled the House
tumult. Members' seats and galleries were filled. Here was a man
who had been a match for Choate and more than a match for Depew
and Bryan. He had been in and out of Congress since 1887,, in and
out of the Democratic party many times. No member of Congress
had Cockran's reputation for ingeniousness of thought, epigrammatic
brilliance of expression, fervent emotion, splendid voice and impressive
presence.
Cockran attacked the bill with all his glibness of tongue and floods
of sarcasm. He held the floor for hours, was given extension after
extension of his time. His great familiarity with American economic
history, of tariff bills and of financial panics, his retentive memory
charmed the House. He was to live less than two years and this was
his last big oratorical effort. Many believed it was his greatest speech,
but that was the way with Cockran. Any audience listening to him
always believed the speech he was then making was the best of
his life.
Garner was highly pleased at the reaction to Cockran's speech. The
Democrats were living up to their fine reputation as an effective
minority party. But the honeymoon of the minority hardly lasted out
the first fortnight of the tariff debate. On July 21, Kitchin, from his
sickbed at Scotland Neck, North Carolina, sent a telegram imploring
the Democrats to vote against every item of protection in the bill
Any other course, he said, was not good Democratic doctrine.
This was an assault on the position Garner had taken in all tariff
bills protection for the raw material if there was protection for its
finished product.
Garner lost little time replying to Kitchin.
"I have never criticized a Democrat for what I thought was want of
fealty to his party," he said. "I never strike a blow in the back whether
it is in politics or otherwise. I play the game squarely. I play it on top
of the table.
"I have taken the floor this morning for one purpose and one
purpose only, to again state my position on the tariff. After I have made
my statement, no gentleman in this House will misunderstand my
position; and not misunderstanding it, no honest man will misrepresent
it and no intelligent man will misinterpret it.
"There are but three points of view on the tariff. One is for free
trade, another is for revenue, while the third is for protection.
No one can name a fourth position.
"I am not a free-trader. I am not a protectionist. I must, therefore,
be a revenue-tariff man. I cannot understand a Republican who tells
me he is a protectionist and wants to protect what is in his district and
put what is in someone else's district on the free list. I cannot under-
stand a Democrat who tells me he is a Revenue Democrat, but says
he is going to levy 30 per cent on the clothes you wear, but admit duty
free the shoes you have on your feet. I cannot understand this reason-
ing; and it ought not be misunderstood that when you go to the
customs house as a Democrat you go not to get protection but to get
money to put into the Treasury.
"They tell me that I must not vote for a duty on cotton because it is
not Democratic doctrine. Where is your authority? Show me the
Democratic platform or the adoption of a caucus resolution, and I will
abide by it. But you ought not to say to me that I am not a Democrat
because, forsooth, I do not take your views with reference to what I
ought to do, when neither the Democratic platform, nor the Demo-
cratic caucus have ever spoken upon the question.
"My position is: tax one, tax all; free one, free all; protect one,
protect all; catch one, catch all. I ask you Democrats one question:
If you collect a revenue duty on woolen goods why not collect it on
wool? I ask you why you are afraid to put i per cent on shoes when
you put 40 per cent on hats in the Underwood bill.
[93]
"I think I have made myself pretty well understood. I am opposed
to free trade, but if I am driven to choose between the theory of Mr.
Fordney, protectionist, and the theory of Mr. Oldfield of Arkansas,
free-trader, with conditions as they exist in Europe and throughout the
world, we being a creditor nation to the extent of $15,000,000,000,
I tell you frankly I would go to free trade.
"I want to be consistent, I want to be just, I want to be fair and I
do not want to have to apologize to one man because I put this on
the free list and to another man because I put something else on the
tax list.
"So I would take you all and as your goods come to the customs
house, I would levy a rate of from i to 50 per cent. I would put the
highest duty on luxuries. I would put the next highest on comforts. I
would put the lowest on absolute necessities. I think in this method I
would have a scheme of custom collection that would appeal to every
honest man. When you say this is not Democratic doctrine, I want you
to be as frank as I have been. I want you to tell me where you stand on
the question."
Garner's forthright statement was listened to with the closest atten-
tion and he received a rising ovation from both the Democratic and
Republican side as he finished. The bill passed the House that day,
but merely the first round had been fought.
The Senate Finance Committee held the bill for nine months. The
Senate with a Republican majority of twenty-two took the view that
American valuation was not workable. It began to look as if the
Congressional election of 1922 would be held with the Underwood
tariff act still on the statute books.
During the twenty-one-month journey of the tariff bill through
Congress the Garners lived at Congress Hall, a hotel across the street
from the Capitol, where the new House office building now stands. In
the back of the hotel, on the first floor, was a room known on Capitol
Hill as Dinty Moore's. Here every evening many members would
gather for bridge or poker. Garner was one of the regular visitors.
Many of the members who participated were Western Republicans. In
this way Garner was up to his old tricks. He was keeping up his
friendships, not only with the Democrats, but the Republicans.
Gamer was also faced at this time with the decision of whether
[94]
or not he would seek re-election. In 1920, he planned to retire at the
end of two years. The two authors of the tariff bill were going out
of office: Representative Fordney by voluntary retirement; Senator
McCumber had been defeated for renomination in the North Dakota
primaries.
The thing that decided Garner was the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan had
mushroomed in the country. Some Texas members of Congress joined
it. Garner denounced it as an organization which had no place in
American life. It was at the risk of his political life. The Klan lost no
time in replying. It announced it intended to retire Garner to private
life. Garner accepted the challenge.
Hooded and white-gowned hosts gathered near his home, burned a
fiery cross and announced plans for defeating him. It sent him
threatening letters. Other than to make his position known on the
Klan issue, Garner made no campaign. He lost counties he had never
lost before, including Uvalde, but won re-election.
The tariff bill came back to the Senate late in August, after Garner
had won renomination. Ostensibly a compromise bill was to be
written by Senators McCumber, Srnoot and McLean, Republicans; and
Senators Simmons and Walsh, Democrats; meeting with Represent-
atives Fordney, Longworth and Green, Republicans; and Garner and
Collier, Democrats.
In writing what they thought was the final draft of the bill the
Republicans from Senate and House paid little attention to what
Garner and the other Democrats wanted and drew up the measure
to suit themselves. Among other things the completed bill placed an
embargo on dye stuffs and a heavy duty on fertilizer.
^ Garner had proved to be a first-class fighting man up to this point
in the tariff discussion. Now his ingratiating manner and clever
maneuvering were to bear fruit.
On September 13, Garner made the first of the forays he was to make
across the aisle to capture Republican strength. He moved to recommit
the tariff bill with instructions to abandon the dye embargo provisions
and place fertilizer on the free list.
Fordney made a plea for the bill as written. He told his colleagues
he was going out of public life and that was the last piece of legislation
he would present,
[95]
"I have prayed every night for wisdom to help me prepare the best
tariff bill on record," he said.
Garner paid a tribute to Fordney:
"He is a type unto himself," Gamer said. "I believe we will all agree
that if one had to select a standpat, dyed-in-the-wool, powder-burnt
and Chinese Wall tariff man in the House of Representatives, we
would select Joe Fordney. But if this tariff bill came after prayers, I
doubt if the gentleman from Michigan is going to get through the
pearly gates."
The Democrats were united behind Garner now. The vote came
after hours of acrid debate with Fordney, Longworth and Mondell
trying to stem the tide flowing against them. In a great mass desertion,
102 Republicans left Fordney and Longworth to follow Garner. By
a vote of 177 to 130, the bill was recommitted with a direct order from
the House compelling the committee to strike out the two objection-
able sections. As Speaker Gillett announced the result, the Democratic
side broke into rebel yells. Never before had a tariff bill been re-
committed. The stunned Fordney moved adjournment. Garner had
added this to his previous victory on the American valuation clause.
Next day in committee room Fordney said to Garner:
"You ought to vote for this bill now. Your picture is on every
page of it."
On the floor, Longworth said wryly:
"The gentleman from Texas is the greatest fisherman since Izaak
Walton. With the able assistance of the gentleman from Minnesota,
Mr. Knutson, who acted as basket carrier, Mr. Garner cast his line
across the line and hooked more than 100 Republicans. Let him take
what satisfaction he desires from it. He will never do so well on this
side again."
The tariff bill with the two Garner modifications became law, by
President Harding's signature, on September 21, 1922. Garner won
other victories with Republican support during the session.
He first forced the Republicans to shelve President Harding's anti-
tax-free security bill. Garner conceded the evil of offering tax-free
securities which he said often fall into the hands of tax dodgers. But
he maintained that the bill as presented by the Administration would
prohibit states, counties, municipalities, drainage districts and other
[96]
subdivisions of government from issuing bonds and would bring to
a standstill internal improvements.
"It is just as reasonable to say that the counties and states should
have the power to tax federal bonds as it is to say that the federal
government should have the power to tax state and county bonds," he
said.
Majority Leader Mondell, in laying the bill aside, gave Garner
credit for wrecking it.
When the Mellon tax bill of 1921 came in on August 2, 1921, Garner
attacked the proposal aS a "shifting of the tax burden to those least
able to pay." He sniped at the proposal of a cut in the highest surtax
rate to 25 per cent and brought about a House compromise rate of 32
per cent. The Senate came nearer to his views than the House bill
had, making it 50 per cent.
When the Senate bill came back to the House, Garner in a swift
parliamentary move called it up and tied the hands of the conference
committee by putting through a vote of acceptance of the Senate rate.
Again he raided the Republican side this time turning up 94 G.O.P.
votes for his proposal.
The 1921 tax bill also furnished Garner an opportunity to state his
views on taxation under the country's changing economic position and
lay the groundwork for his slashing attack on the second Mellon tax
bill two years later.
In his speech of November 21, 1921, Garner said:
"At the very outset of my remarks I think I ought to reiterate, if
I may, my personal position touching taxation, and what I believe to be
the position of the great majority of the Democrats touching the same
matter.
"In the first place, as I understand it, there are in this country three
well-defined positions concerning taxation. One of these positions is
that the government shall levy upon the masses of the people taxes
necessary to run the government. The advocates of this plan use as an
argument that after all the whole people must pay the tax; that
regardless of what method is used it sifts back to the masses, and
consequently many who are found holding this opinion are found
advocating the sales tax. It is their view that the sales tax is the
[97]
simplest way of getting the money which they say the people
collectively must pay anyway in the long run,
"There is another class of gentlemen who believe that all taxes
necessary to run the government should be levied on wealth, and that
there should be no consumption and excise taxes, which the public
in general would have to pay. These two classes I have just mentioned
are the two extremes. There is another class who believe that Congress
should collect from the masses and by that I mean everybody, rich
and poor, learned and unlearned, great and small, according to their
necessities, approximately 50 per cent of the taxes necessary to run the
government, and upon wealth the other 50 per cent.
"I do not believe it would be desirable or practicable to undertake
to get all the revenue necessary to support the government ffom those
we ordinarily term the wealthy class. I have as much respect for the
preservation of property rights as any man who sits in this honorable
body. I would never enact any law that would take away from the
citizen the incentive to accumulate wealth.
"I realize that capital for the most part represents the wages of
yesterday and that the wages of yesterday should be as safe from
confiscation as the wages of today, and we cannot abolish poverty by
destroying wealth; but while I would allow any citizen reasonable
opportunity and incentive to accumulate wealth, I would also enact
laws which would carry a reasonable part of the fortune back to the
people through an inheritance tax collected by the Treasury of the
United States. If I had my way I would have five taxes in this
country, and we could get sufficient revenue from those five sources to
run the government. I would have first a customs tax; second, the
post-office receipts; third a tax on tobacco; fourth an income tax
applied to individuals and corporations and fifth, an inheritance tax."
Garner had told me at the end of the debate on the Fordney-
McCumber bill:
"I think this will be the last tariff bill drawn along these lines
and debated along the lines we debated it. We are in a new fiscal
era and a new economic era and we occupy a new place in the world
picture. We are a creditor nation.
"The revenue yield from the customs houses in the future will be
negligible. Our fiscal problems will multiply. We will collect an
[98]
enormous tax from internal earnings, principally income. It can be
collected in a way to remake our society."
He made a somewhat similar statement in a House speech.
Garner's fight against the tariff bill in its final stages and against the
tax bill won the admiration of Kitchin. In the closing months of his
life he wrote many letters to Garner. The Texan prized them highly.
A few years ago when he destroyed all his papers the Kitchin letters
went with them. I think he regretted destroying them more than any
other of his papers.
On April 6, 1922, Garner made a vitriolic attack on Representative
Thomas L. Blanton, who, Garner said, had made a speech in Texas
displaying a whisky flask, leaving the impression that such flasks were
furnished free to members of Congress at the taxpayers' expense.
Representative Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky said that Blanton
went up to the stationery room in the Capitol and asked for a whisky
flask.
"They did not have it," Barkley said. "They advised him that they
did not keep them for sale. He then requested the stationery room to
order him one. The stationery room ordered him one. It was a pint
flask, covered with ostrich hide, for which Mr. Blanton paid in cash
at the time he got it, the price being six dollars."
Blanton had just concluded a tirade against the perquisites of Con-
gressmen when Garner asked to be recognized for ten minutes.
The following proceedings took place:
MR. GARNER. Mr. Speaker, and gentlemen of the House, in these
United States there are all kinds of liars [applause] there are artistic
liars, there are inartistic liars, and then there is the common, ordinary
liar.
MR. BLANTON. Well, I will hold the gentleman personally responsible
to me if he calls me one.
[The Speaker ordered Blanton to take his seat.]
MR. GARNER. Mr. Speaker, if I may have order I hope that the
gentleman [Mr. Blanton] will not leave.
A MEMBER. He has left.
MR. GARNER. Mr. Speaker, when I look over here and see this grand
old man from Pennsylvania, sitting here [MR. BUTLER], I know that he
is a truthful man, and you could not make him lie. [Applause.] When
[99]
I come over on this side and look at our distinguished leader [MR.
GAKRETT o Tennessee], every man in this House will testify that you
could not wring a falsehood from him. [Applause, all Members rising.]
But, Mr. Speaker, I have in my mind's eye I can not observe him
at this moment, of course but I have in my mind's eye an individual,
not a man an individual, a creature, who is as common and base a liar
as ever spoke a word of English in this country. I have in my mind's
eye, Mr. Speaker, a man who if he had the opportunity mark
my language; I want to stay within the rules of this House who
would if he had the opportunity place in the Congressional Record
the menu of the restaurant in this building where we get our lunches,
without the cost price of the different articles, in order that he might
make the people of Texas believe that you were getting your food
free of charge at the cost of the taxpayers of this country. I know a
miserable, cowardly creature I have him in my mind's eye at this
moment who would go to the stationery room of the House Office
Building, make inquiry as to the purchase of a whisky flask, and
when he found that he could not get it because they did not have them
for sale, would ask the superintendent to send to Philadelphia and buy
him one, in order that he might parade it in Texas as though it was
given to the membership of this House free of charge at the tax-
payers' expense. That creature, as I say, I have in my mind's eye. I
know this individual would charge you with nepotism in order that
he might parade his virtue in Texas, and at the same time have two of
his children on the pay roll of the Government.
Mr. Speaker, it is a harsh thing to speak about individuals, even
if they are only in your mind's eye; but I, speaking for myself alone
I say it with as firm a conviction as I ever spoke a word from
the floor of this House that I believe that individual, that creature
that I have in my mind's eye, would do anything in order to accumu-
late wealth or to place himself forward from a political standpoint.
[Applause.]
Mr. Speaker, I want to say one word for the Texas delegation. I
have not mentioned a name up to date, but I want to say to the mem-
bership on the Republican side of the House, because the membership
on the Democratic side already know it I speak the sentiment of every
Member of the Texas delegation when I tell you that we hang our
heads in shame and in humiliation every time BLANTON, of Texas, is
[ 100 ]
referred to as our colleague. [Applause.] I speak for the Democratic
Party here, I believe, the sentiment of every man in it, when I say
that we look upon him as a liability and a distinct injury to our party.
[Applause.] Ah, Mr. Speaker, I wish the rules of this House did not
prevent me from expressing the viewpoint of all Members of the
House. If I could only suspend the rules, Mr. Speaker, I would say
what is in the hearts of the Members. I would say now, if the rules
did not prevent me from saying it, I would say what 430 men believe
at this moment, that THOMAS BLANTON of Texas, is a discredit to the
House of Representatives and ought to be kicked out. [Applause.]
The Democrats made a gain of 71 in the races for the House of
Representatives in 1922. A new Mellon tax bill was on the way and
Garner prepared to attack it. But before Congress again convened,
Harding was dead and Coolidge was in the White House.
Garner knew Harding well as a Senator. But after the Ohioan went
to the White House Garner saw him only a few times.
"I think I had less dealings with Harding than any other President,"
he told me. "Of course he was in office for a shorter time than any
other President during my time in Washington. I went to the White
House several times with Congressional committees on legislative
matters. That was the extent of my White House relations while he
was in office.
"The executive scandals shocked the country. This shameful page in
American history should have resulted in Democratic victory in 1924,
had Harding lived. Harding's death and the national convention
spectacle the Democrats made of themselves, combined to give the
Republicans additional tenure."
But in what he regarded as a very dark Harding ledger, Garner
found these credits:
"Harding had four of the best Cabinet officers ever to serve at one
time in Hughes, Mellon, Hoover and Weeks, and he deserves the
thanks of the country for having appointed William Howard Taft to
be Chief Justice of the United States."
Garner refused to stand for the minority leadership when it became
evident Kitchin could not return to Washington. He supported Garrett
for the leadership.
In a statement he said:
[101]
"If the Democratic party Is to be useful to the country in. the
Sixty-Eighth Congress, it must be united and able to register full
strength. Anything that contributes to party division is hurtful, and
I am not willing, even remotely, to contribute to such division. There-
fore, in the interest of party harmony, I do not expect to become a
candidate for the minority floor leadership in the Sixty-Eighth
Congress."
But this was a great sentimental disappointment to him. Mondell
had retired from the Republican leadership and Longworth was slated
as his successor. But for Kitchin's action, which he could not have
upset without a party fight, Garner would have assumed the minority
leadership the day Longworth became majority leader.
CHAPTER VII
Mellon, Coolidge, and Taxes
REPRESENTATIVE Garner's spectacular and successful cam-
paign against the second Mellon tax plan began in the
Christmas holidays of 1923. The Texan opened it with a
slashing attack on the secrecy with which the Ways and Means
Committee was considering the measure. He charged, too, that the
Treasury was trying to coerce Congress to support it even before its
provisions were known.
The tax-originating committee of the House had taken a secret
Treasury draft of the proposed bill into its sessions early in December,
Almosj: simultaneously with the arrival of the Treasury product at the
committee room Senators and Representatives were deluged with
letters and telegrams demanding they "support the Mellon tax plan."
Through a committee leak on December 27, two New York and
one Chicago newspaper got the text of the bill. Garner insisted that the
committee make its provisions available to all, but the Republican
members voted him down and hastily adjourned. A day or two later
Chairman Green gave the bill out on his own authority. Garner
punctuated the holiday recess with blasts against it.
Garner by now was fifty-five years old and had twenty-one years of
Congressional experience behind him. He was familiar with all the
tricks of parliamentary jousting and in-fighting. He was adept in
timing a raid across the dividing aisle in quest of Republican votes,
knew how to pivot a debate to get the greatest benefit for his own
party and various methods of catching the Republicans off guard.
His party's strength was far greater than when by a swift parlia-
mentary maneuver he had forced a change in the rates of the 1921
Mellon tax bill. Yet Garner moved into the 1924 fight without any
great hopes of altering the Mellon plan in any major particular. For
one thing he knew that in the previous two years Secretary Mellon
had built up a reputation o financial infallibility. He was not sure
his own party would stand behind him in the face of the pressure from
home. But he felt the stakes were so high that he would make the
fight of his life.
He told me:
"This is the time to determine the policy of who is going to pay
the taxes. The crux of the fight is the surtax. The Mellon 25 per
cent maximum is at least 10 or 15 per cent too low."
From his own state of Texas, Garner got the first confirmation
of his claim that the public was endorsing the Mellon plan without
knowing its contents. Desks of Texas Senators and Representatives-
were piled high with telegrams demanding support of the Mellon
plan. When its provisions became public it was found that it proposed
to do away with the community tax device whereby husbands and
wives are permitted to divide their incomes for tax-paying purposes.
The privilege was then enjoyed only by Texas, and a-half dozen
other states. The Texans quickly reversed themselves and began
bombarding their Congressional delegation with demands to defeat it.
The Mellon tax bill was introduced on January 6, and the Garner
bill was dropped into the hopper at the same time.
The Mellon bill proposed maximum surtaxes of 25 per cent and
Garner countered with a 44 per cent ceiling. On tax reductions Mellon
proposed slices of 25 per cent on incomes under $25,000 and 39 per cent
on incomes under $200,000, while Garner proposed giving the smaller
income-tax brackets a major reduction up to 60 per cent. Those with
between $100,000 and $200,000 incomes Garner would give only n
per cent.
All during the first three weeks in January, Garner underwent the
heaviest fire of criticism of his life. Democratic as well as Republican
newspapers attacked his plan. One editorial asserted that "dangerous
mutilation begins when it [the Mellon plan] is departed from in the
slightest."
Garner could figure out a tax bill on his cuff and sometimes could
come nearer calculating the yields from a bill than the fiscal experts of
Big by Any Measure
When Garner received the first serious mention a Texan had
ever had as a potential President, a Dallas paper told a trinity
of qualifications. (Dallas Times Herald}
the Treasury could. The Mellon tax bill which he ripped apart and
rewrote was 180 pages of highly technical language.
Representative Ogden L. Mills of New York, later Secretary of the
Treasury, ridiculed the Garner bill, telling the House:
"You have heard of great musicians sitting down at a piano and
improvising a tune. Mr. Garner sits down at a table in this chamber
and improvises a tax bill and the House is asked to adopt it. If this
practice is to be followed in the future I would suggest that each
member of this House write on his cuff what he deems a wise measure
of taxation; the cuffs shall be handed to Mr. Garner, and with his
okay they shall be handed in at the Speaker's desk and then voted in,
cuff by cuff."
Garner took his plan before the Democratic caucus and came away
with every Democratic House member except one pledged to its
support. Meanwhile, his coup had started a free-for-all fight in the
Republican majority, dividing it into three mutually hostile sections.
One stood for the Mellon plan intact, a second group for a 40 to 50
per cent surtax ceiling and a third for 37 per cent top.
Garner by now was certain he had won the essential parts of his
program. He told me:
"When this tax bill goes to Mr. Coolidge for his signature it will be
our bill in all its essential features."
On January 23, the G.O.P. ran up a flag of truce. The Mellon bill
was down and out. Longworth admitted it. Chairman Green of the
Ways and Means Committee proposed to sit down with the Democrats
and work out a compromise bill. Garner refused. He wanted a House
roll call.
The next day, Garner arose to rub salt into the Republican wounds.
Especially, he taunted Longworth:
"You couldn't get the old Roman from Iowa, Bill Green [Chairman
of the Ways and Means Committee], to vote for 25 per cent," Garner
said. "So you stacked up the committee. Mr. Longworth was smart
enough to do that. He fixed it so Mr. Green can't do anything but
just sit there and laugh and pat his hands. That is as far as he can go.
Of course, he is a mighty good man. I get sorry for him sitting there
knowing that he is surrounded by Mr. Mills of New York, Mr.
Treadway of Massachusetts, and Mr. Tilson from Connecticut about
[106]
as hard-boiled an outfit as you could find, and Mr. Green, he can't
do a thing."
Garner's supreme effort came on February 21, when he went to the
House floor and asked members to deliver a knockout blow to the
Mellon plan. As he offered his own plan he received another of the
many remarkable demonstrations the House was always giving him.
The Democrats, united and aggressive, joined by a substantial number
of the Republican side, stood, cheered, gave rebel yells and cowboy
whoops when Garner called the Mellon bill unfair. A farmer, banker,
trader, legislator and lawyer, he spoke as one who understood the bill
from, the standpoint of them all.
On the roll call the House substituted the Garner bill for the Mellon
bill, 221 to 196.
In its further journey ings through the House and Senate the bill
underwent minor transformations and emerged with a 40 per cent
surtax ceiling, 4 per cent below that advocated by Garner, and 15
per cent above the Mellon plan. On all essential points Garner had
won the fight he did not think he could win.
President Coolidge signed the bill on June 2, with a statement that
it was not "sound permanent tax policy."
Garner replied:
"A policy has been established as to who are going to pay the taxes
in this country. It will be little changed regardless of which party may
be in power at any time.'*
Garner's prominence in the Mellon tax-bill fight brought a boom
for him as either Presidential or Vice-Presidential nominee on the
Democratic ticket in 1924. It got no encouragement from him. He
favored the nomination of William G. McAdoo for President, and was
elected as a delegate from Texas, pledged to support the former
Secretary of the Treasury. He was not interested in the Vice-Presidential
nomination for himself.
Garner believed firmly that the Democrats were set to return to
power in 1924. The scandals of the Harding administration had
shocked the country and the Fordney-McCumber tariff bill was
unpopular. Garner believed, too, that the Democratic theory of income-
tax collection had a greater popular appeal than the Republican or
Mellon plan.
On the seventh day of the seventeen-day fighting, snarling Madison
Square Garden convention of 1924, Garner turned his delegate's badge
over to an alternate and went home. The ninth ballot had convinced
him the convention was hopelessly deadlocked.
I met him carrying his own suitcase through the lobby of the
McAlpin Hotel as he left. He told me he thought the Democratic
party had signed its own death warrant. It was the first time that the
proceedings of a Democratic national convention had been broadcast
and Garner felt that the party was making a spectacle of itself before
the country.
"Hell, this convention won't nominate a candidate in a hundred
ballots/' he said.
It was an offhand remark and he was merely expressing the hope-
lessness of the situation. But his careless statement proved accurate.
John W. Davis of West Virginia was nominated on the I03rd ballot.
Afterward Garner told me:
"If we had nominated McAdoo on the first ballot he would, in my
opinion, have been elected. Smith with a first-ballot nomination would
not have made as good a race as McAdoo, but he would have had a
better chance of election in 1924 than he had in 1928. If the Democrats
had not . disgusted the country in the convention there would have
been no La Follette-Wheeler ticket. Coolidge was not popular in the
summer of 1924. His great popularity came after his election that
year."
A dispirited Democratic minority came back for the short session
of Congress In December 1924. The Republican margin of eighteen
in the House had run up to sixty-four in the Coolidge landslide.
There was no business before Congress other than the regular annual
appropriation bills.
On February 15, Garner was stricken with pneumonia. For days
his condition was critical. The House watched every scrap of news
from his bedside. On March 4, Representative Luther Johnson, and a
few other Texas members of Congress went to the hospital and found
him improved.
"I know what you fellows think," Garner told his colleagues. "You
have been thinking you are going to get one of those free trips to
[108]
Texas on a funeral train. Well you are not. I am not going to die and
do you the favor."
Johnson went back to the Capitol and took the word to Long-
worth.
Longworth went to the floor of the House and said:
"There is a great leader of Democracy. I speak of one who has been
in the valley of the shadow, and nothing ever cheered me more than
the sure knowledge that he is on the way to safe recovery. I am about
to violate all precedents of this House, so far as I know, and I do
not believe the Speaker will call me to order when I ask three cheers
for Jack Garner. Are you ready?"
The entire House arose and gave three cheers. Speaker Gillett joined
in the demonstration of affection. Then Gillett said:
"This House in time becomes a pretty infallible judge of a mem-
ber's merit. It learns to appraise motives. It discriminates between the
modest men who with sincerity are- trying to render service and the
men who are working only for display and self-advancement. And it
is refreshing to note that although the home folks may often be
deceived by the fake statesmen who are always playing to the gallery,
yet here the sincere and industrious and modest man has his recogni-
tion and his reward. I would deem the genuine esteem and respect
and confidence of this body the highest tribute a man could earn."
In 1924, Garner obtained wide publicity when it was discovered that
for eight years he had not introduced a bill in the House of Represent-
atives. Of this the Baltimore Evening Sun said in an editorial:
"As a statesman Mr. John Nance Garner of Texas has his short-
comings. But in one respect the Congressman from Texas is unique.
For eight years he has not introduced a single bill in the House of
Representatives. Whatever the More Laws Association may think of
this record, however much the tank towns of the Lone Star State
may languish without post offices and government buildings, however
much the contractors may damn him for not giving them the
opportunity to dredge the upper reaches o some six foot creek, the
fact remains that the people of the United States owe Mr. Garner a
debt of gratitude.
"Mr. Garner has undoubtedly given some thought to the original
principles of the party of Jefferson. He knows, apparently, that some
of those principles are set forth in this sentence:
"That government governs best which governs least.'
"With that knowledge in hand Mr. Garner has charted his course.
It is tough on the pork barrel, but it is great stuff for the taxpayers "
Garner, in fact, introduced only four major bills in his Congressional
career. They were:
The income-tax bill, which was eventually made effective by a
constitutional amendment.
The currency bill of 1907, features of which were incorporated in the
Federal Reserve.
Federal aid to good roads, which was incorporated in the Bankhead
Federal Aid program in 1916.
The Public Works program, introduced in 1932, and vetoed by
President Hoover.
Speaking of this part of Garner's record, James F. Byrnes, former
Representative, former Senator, former Supreme Court Justice and
former Secretary of State, said in a Senate speech in 1941:
"Others will speak or write of John N. Garner, the Speaker and
Vice-President. I wish only to refer to John N. Garner, the legislator.
"I came to the House of Representatives in 1911. I am certain that
for at least six years thereafter Representative Garner withheld from
the Congressional Record all remarks made by him on the floor of
the House. If the historian looks to the bills that have been passed by
the Congress he will find few bills bearing the name of Mr. Garner.
He will find that few bills were introduced by him. There is a reason
for it. Shortly after I came to the House of Representatives, Mr. Garner
told me that it was his policy to encourage others to introduce bills. It
was his policy, whenever he had an idea which he believed, if written
into law, would promote the best interests of the nation, to induce a
prospective opponent or a doubtful supporter to sponsor the legis-
lation. When he achieved that, he knew his purpose was accomplished.
"While the Congressional Record will disclose few speeches made
by him and few bills introduced by him, those of us who served with
him know there is hardly a measure of importance which was enacted
in the last quarter of a century of his service in Washington to which
John Garner did not effectively contribute. The Congressional Record
[no]
will not show the remarkable influence he exercised upon the members
of the House and Senate during his long service. He was an efficient
legislator. He is a great American. As long as honesty, truthfulness
and courage are appreciated the services of John N. Garner during four
decades will be held in high regard by the American people."
From 1926 on, Mr. Garner's interest in the new men in the House
was heightened. He looked upon an election somewhat as a baseball
manager looks on a spring training trip, for the development of a new
Wagner, Cobb or Ruth. Out of the average seventy-five new members,
brought in by each Congressional election, he looked for two or three
possible outstanding men. He kept his eye on the new men in the
back rows. If they turned out to be good legislators he didn't much
care what party they belonged to. He thought a good line could be
got on them in their second term. He once told me:
"The most useful legislator I ever knew was not a member of my
party. His name was James R. Mann, and he was a Republican from
Illinois. He was the hardest worker and the most adroit parliamen-
tarian. But I like to think my party has furnished more good legislators
than the Republicans.
"Most times when men sit down around a legislative conference
table to work out a solution of matters of vital concern to their
country they forget to what political party they belong. I have often
urged intelligent compromise in legislation. Congress brings together
men with that difference in background and diversity of opinion so
necessary in a Republic.
"Men who have known how to compromise intelligently have
rendered great service to their country. The most constructive laws on
our statute books have been put there by intelligent compromise. That
does not mean that men have to abandon fundamentals or basic
principles."
Garner got a surprising amount of information on new Demo
cratic members. When Representative Graham Barden, a new member
from North Carolina, dropped in to see him, Garner said:
"I hear you will stand without hitching. I am glad of that. Out in
my country a cow horse wasn't worth a damn unless he would do that.
Most of the time there wasn't anything to hitch him too.'*
Garner was sixty now. His white hair and heavy white eyebrows
[in]
gave him a striking appearance. To a freshman lawmaker in his
thirties or early forties. Garner was a fabulous figure. He would give
a new member a word of encouragement by dropping in unexpectedly
at his office with a greeting:
"How are you, boy? Are they treating you all right here?"
He would seldom tarry long enough to sit down.
Most of the newcomers had heard of his reputation as the canniest
man in Congress and went to him for advice. He didn't force it on
anyone but gave it casually and tersely. Garner was never a political
drudge and had a sovereign recipe on how not to be a mere hack.
I once heard him tell Representative Lindsay Warren, then a fresh-
man member from North Carolina, and now Comptroller General of
the United States:
"You can't know everything well. Learn one subject thoroughly and
find out as much as you can about the others. Get useful information
for members of this House when you are going to speak. You can't
spend your time better. It's finer recreation than fishing. There is
nothing so useful or more thrilling than facts. Your colleagues here
want information and will listen to a man who has knowledge of his
subject. They ought not to have to give ear time to anyone else."
Some years before he had made a similar statement to Representative
Green of Iowa, during a tariff debate:
"The gentleman from Iowa/' said Garner, "undertakes to master
every detail of every schedule and every item and every paragraph
and every amendment in it, so that when it comes to the practical test
he knows less about the real merits of any particular schedule than
any man on the floor."
He told another newcomer, pointing to a newspaperman:
"That fellow reads all the newspapers. He tries to learn all the fine
points of his trade. If I was a new member of Congress I'd start
reading the Congressional Record every day and I would read com-
mittee reports.'*
Garner was as approachable as any man in Congress, but his manner
did not invite familiarity. He was not a first-name caller on short
acquaintance. The people he called by their first names he had known
a long time.
[H2]
When he began to pick lieutenants he picked them from all sections
o the country. When Garner's leadership duties began to take up so
much of his time he looked around for a good figure man for the
Ways and Means Committee. His choice was Representative Fred
Vinson of Kentucky, later Chief Justice of the United States.
"Vinson is a fast man with a stub pencil," he said. "I am a cuff
figurer. Vinson is more artistic."
Garner contended that while seniority might bring a man to the
top in Congress, longevity would not make him a respected leader.
"In Congress as elsewhere," he told me, "the richest plums go to
them who help themselves. Self-reliance, energy, sincerity and extra
effort given ability is the answer to Congressional success."
To a member of Congress who told him a certain course would give
him much publicity in his district, Garner said:
"Of course, trivial and sensational things will get you more publicity
than significant things. There was a crazy fellow here who had re-
porters assigned to cover him exclusively."
Garner's easy informal manner in addressing the House charmed
new members. In earnest debate he would forego the formal desig-
nations such as: "The gentleman from New York"; "the gentleman
from Arkansas"; and "the gentleman from North Carolina"; and
would address Representative Mills as "Oggie"; Representative Wingo
as "Otis"; Representative Doughton as "Bob." Sometimes he spoke
in colloquial language and he admitted at times that his grammar
creaked.
Garner never had any trouble finding a way to tell the House
anything he wished to tell and debate. Rules forbid a member of either
House or Senate from making derogatory remarks about a member o
the other body. Once when he wished to speak of the action of certain
Senators he said:
"I am now going to speak about 'Congressmen.' When I say Con-
gressmen' I mean men who serve both at the other end of the Capitol
and this end. A Congressman is a member of Congress. If you want
to designate particularly you must say 'a Senator' for a member o the
Senate and 'a Representative' for a member of the House. Now, I am
going to talk about 'Congressmen' who do not serve in this House.
I am satisfied that gentlemen here will understand who is who. 51
Garner kept up his fight against Mellon fiscal proposals all through
iie Coolidge administration. Longworth had succeeded Gillett as
Speaker. The Republicans held a majority of sixty-four in the House
after Coolidge's election in 1924, and of forty-two after the 1926 Con-
gressional election. But Garner continued his raiding tactics. In the
estate-tax fight of 1926, Chairman Green of the Ways and Means
Committee joined him.
Garner told the House it was a fair, just and equitable basis of
taxation.
"The estate tax is essentially a tax upon wealth," he said. "It operates
on wealth and ability to pay regardless of geography or state lines.
It is the question of exercising the right to levy a tax for the transfer of
property."
Garner carried the House along with him, but the Senate voted its
repeal. Senate and House conferees went into a tight deadlock. Presi-
dent Coolidge sent for Speaker Longworth to discuss the possibility
of the bill's passage with the estate-tax repealer. Longworth took
Garner with him.
"I yield to the gentleman I brought along with me/' Longworth
replied. "He knows more about what is going to happen than I do."
Coolidge asked Garner for the answer.
"You want an honest answer of course," Garner replied. "It hasn't
got as much chance as a snowball in hell."
Garner used poker terms in telling the House the result of the
conference with the Senate. He said:
"From the very nature of things when you go into a conference with
a body of equal power in enacting legislation you must take into
consideration their viewpoint as well as your own. In coming to an
agreement you must yield something on your side or else lay down
the proposition wholly that the other body shall take the House
provisions as a whole or they will have no law. The House conferees
did not do that as to all amendments, but in the course of the con-
ference they did do that in reference to one amendment, which was
that on the estate tax.
"Your conferees with all the earnestness of their souls endeavored
to reach an agreement. I wish I could have preserved in some way the
facial expression of the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Green, on one or
two occasions, because it seemed to break his heart to give in. I would
urge him to stay and he would stick but they would come around
to the same point and say : 'Gentlemen, we have done this and we have
done that, and we have done the other' but when we came down to the
estate tax finally, they made all kinds of propositions.
"We finally set the hand down and saidand I think I made the
statement 'Gentlemen there are 205 amendments in the bill; you can
yield on 204 and then leave the estate tax for us to yield on, but in
such case there will never be a bill, because we are going to have that
estate tax in the law or this bill will never become law/ "
The Senate yielded.
On other than fiscal legislation, Coolidge and Garner got along
excellently. Coolidge especially pleased him with the Russian statement
in his first message to Congress in December 1923. Garner was strongly
opposed to recognition of the Lenin-Trotsky regime. In the face of
strong agitation for Russian recognition, Coolidge told Congress that
the United States did not propose "to enter into relations with another
regime which refuses to recognize the sanctity of international obliga-
tions" or to "barter away for the privilege of trade any o the cherished
rights of humanity."
"Whenever/ 5 Coolidge said, "there appears any disposition to com-
pensate our citizens who were despoiled, and to recognize that debt
contracted with our government, not by the Czar but by the newly
formed Republic of Russia; whenever the active spirit of enmity to
our institutions is abated; whenever there appears work meet for
repentance our country ought to be the first to go to the economic
and moral rescue of Russia."
O his personal relations with Coolidge, Garner said:
"President Coolidge was very kind to me. I liked to have breakfast
with him. He would invite Longworth and me down. I was never late
and Nick was never on time. I had nice visits with him while waiting
for Nick to arrive. Sometimes he was humorously taciturn and some-
times he was garrulous. Coolidge was no innovator, but he suited the
mood of the country at the time he served. He seemed to have an
unerring judgement of people. He could spot a gold-bricker quicker
than anyone I ever saw."
["5]
But Garner said the helpings at the Coolidge table were not over-
generous and sometimes left him hungry. He said once:
"The sausages Coolidge serves .on the White House table are the
smallest I ever saw."
The Coolidge breakfasts came a couple of hours after Garner's
breakfast time. He got up at six o'clock in the morning both in
Washington and in Texas. He liked his meals finished before seven
o'clock. And he ate a generous breakfast. It usually consisted of fruit
and one or two lamb chops.
Garner's fight for the retention of the federal estate tax brought him
strongly financed opposition in 1928. The money. Gamer charged,
came from outside his district. A similar fight was made against
Republican Chairman Green of the House Ways and Means Com-
mittee, in his Iowa district. Both were re-elected.
Sid Hardin, Garner's defeated opponent in the primaries, made
charges of irregularities. Garner demanded the charges be investigated.
"If any evidences of irregularity are produced against me I will
resign," he said.
A House committee went to Texas to probe the charges. While the
committee was sitting at McAllen, Representative Carl R. Chind-
blom of Illinois, a Republican member of the committee, said :
"I am a member of the Ways and Means Committee. I sit on the
Republican side of this committee, and Mr. Garner sits on the Demo-
cratic side. I wish to state here that if this investigation committee
should find the slightest evidence reflecting on Mr. Garner, the entire
House of Representatives would be the most astounded body in the
world."
Hardin admitted he had no evidence and the case collapsed.
Garner now was to come into undisputed possession of the House
leadership.
Representative Finis J. Garrett announced his retirement to run
for Senator from Tennessee. Twice Garner's friends had urged him
to run for the leadership. He declined. He knew that Garrett had
stanch friends, too, who would resent such action. He had felt that
Garrett eventually would seek the Tennessee Senatorship and he pre-
ferred to wait for that instead of causing a breach in the Democratic
ranks.
[116]
Garner, all during Garrett's tenure as minority leader, had been
ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee and chairman o
the Democratic Committee on Committees which chose all Democratic
committee members. He would now be the Democratic nominee for
Speaker, would be defeated and would then assume full leadership
of the Democrats in the House.
CHAPTER VIII
Side Room Educator
ON APRIL 15, 1929, Nicholas Long-worth routed John N.
Garner for Speaker of the House in a landslide o similar
proportions to that by which Herbert Hoover had defeated
Alfred E. Smith in the preceding November. The vote was Longworth
267, Garner 164. The Republican majority of 104 in the House had been
exceeded only twice during Garner's service after the sweeps of
Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 and of Warren G. Harding in 1920.
Garner escorted Longworth to the chair and introduced him to the
House as "one of the most impartial and fair presiding officers that
ever occupied this exalted position. He is beloved by the entire
membership of this House regardless of political affiliation. He is a
great statesman, a real outstanding American."
Longworth replying, said:
"I have just been presented to the House as its presiding officer by
a man who received the unanimous vote of his party for Speaker,
thereby carrying with it as a necessary incident his elevation to the
leadership of the Democratic party in the House. I congratulate
you members seated on the east side of the aisle in your choice. The
gentleman from Texas and I entered Congress together twenty-six
years ago. That he is a better man than I, in the estimation of his
constituents, is made clear by the fact that his service has been con-
tinuous, whereas mine was interrupted by a vacation of two years, by
no means of my own motion. During all these years our friendship
has been continuously abiding, and our affection, esteem and respect
the one for the other is and has been, I am proud to say, mutual.
"Many years ago a distinguished Senator from my state, Senator
Foraker, coined a phrase exemplifying the activities and future of his
[118]
party. It was this: 'Vim, vigor, victory.' Under the leadership of the
gentleman from Texas I formally guarantee you the first two."
The House Democrats, when Garner assumed the leadership, were
torn as an aftermath of the preceding Presidential campaign. But
that was only part of the party's woe. Its representation in the Senate,
in the State Houses and even in the courthouses of the nation was at
the vanishing point. The Republicans not only made close to a
clean sweep north of the Mason-Dixon line but also carried four solid
south states.
That Garner, who had supported Smith enthusiastically in the
Presidential campaign, was the man best equipped to unify and get
out of his party in the House everything it had in it was rather
generally agreed. As Clinton W. Gilbert had said of him in Collier's
a few weeks before:
"Retirement of Finis Garrett of Tennessee makes John N. Garner
of Texas floor leader of the Democrats in the lower chamber and
Jack Garner comes very near to being the best all-around member
of the House.
"He does not excel in any one quality except, perhaps that of being
the best politician on either side. But he has more of the qualities that
go to make the ideal member than anyone who has been in the House
since Uncle Joe Cannon was in his prime.
"That does not mean that Garner is at all like 'Uncle Joe, who in
striped trousers and a plug hat might have sat in for the long, lean,
shrewd Uncle Sam of a generation ago. The time of Uncle Joe
Cannon is past.
"But Jack Garner has a touch of the frontier about him; of a
frontier that is conquered by tractors and dynamite and oil derricks.
Onion grower and goat raiser, he has wrestled with the soil of Texas,
He had experienced life in direct contacts. He knows men and speaks
their language.
"There is no member of the House on whose level he has not been
and whose language he does not speak. He is a common man who has
made his own money and is not stuck up about his wealth. He looks,
with his ruddy face and bristling gray hair, a little rough, quite
obviously of the first generation. That's a great advantage in Congress;
the members like to feel that the leader is one of their own kind.
["9]
"He has what few men who have made their pile havethe energy
to start off on a new career. Most men have only one career in them,
but perhaps Jack has several. He is as fresh at fifty-nine as he was at
twenty. At any rate, it is inconceivable that anyone could at any time
have been any fuller of energy and gusto than he is now. And energy
Is a wonderful quality; it is the great human magnet.
"All his forces are in action at once. He speaks a torrent of words;
he works himself into a passion. He is intuitive and sees things that
other men do not see. He senses ideas as they are generating and is
aware of situations before they have formed.
"His capacity for friendship gives him an understanding of what
is going on in the enemy's camp. He is a master of the wires that
center in the cloakroom."
Within a week after Garner became minority leader, Capitol in-
siders began to hear of a room in the Capitol where the Speaker and
the minority leader were holding momentous conferences and dis-
cussing the business of the new session of Congress. It finally became
known as the "Board of Education" and thus was written into the
history of the Capitol.
It really was the third on the list of the Longworth-Garner get-
together places. The first was the "Daniel Webster room," a room in
the Capitol catacombs to which reputedly the great Massachusetts
Senator at times had repaired when under the weather and there slept
until he felt better.
I personally knew something about this room. To it Messrs. Garner
and Longworth invited some of their congressional colleagues and
gave for me a farewell when I was leaving to go into the First World
War.
Later there was a place known as the "Cabinet Room." It was a
room on the third floor of the old House office building. Its furnishings
consisted of a roll-top desk, a few chairs and a long table piled up with
daily and country weekly newspapers from Garner's district. The
roll-top desk contained liquor. A faucet supplied what Garner called
"branch water."
Longworth was elected to honorary membership of this Democratic
"club" and paid it frequent visits. When Garner became Democratic
leader there were too many callers to enable the "Cabinet" to assemble
[120]
The 1930 election was so close the question of whether Demo-
crats or Republicans would organize the House of Representa-
tives was not decided until months later. Garner's political foe
and personal friend, Nicholas Longworth, had died in the mean-
time and Garner succeeded him as Speaker. (C, K. Berryman,
Washington Star)
in peace. The same was true of Longworth's office. So they obtained
the hideaway which first was whispered about as "the sanctum
sanctorum." But because it soon became known that Longworth and
Garner were conducting a school which taught, among other things,
the disadvantages of legislative deadlocks and filibusters and gave fine
points in the maneuverability of legislation, Representative John
McDuffie of Alabama gave it the name of "Board of Education."
Only men devoted to one another and each devoted to the principles
of his party could have met on such terms. The Longworth-Garner
friendship in length of durability was perhaps the most famous o
Congressional history. Walter Chamblin, Jr., chief of the Associated
Press House staff and the principal historian of the Board of Edu-
cation recalled that Andrew Jackson, Garner's idol, formed a similar
friendship with the rich and cultured Henry Livinston of New York,
but neither was a prominent member; both left the House after short
terms.
Sessions of the Board of Education usually started at four-thirty or
five in the afternoon and lasted until six. They usually opened with
a charge by Garner that the Republican organization was using steam-
roller tactics to crush the Democratic organization and a quarrel.
Then the legislative business at hand was discussed. Other members
interested in the pending legislation would be called in and heard,
usually briefly.
The couth Longworth had a fastidious distaste for detail.
Garner also wanted a quick summing-up. He would Say:
"Hell, don't tell me what the bill Says. Tell me what it does."
When an understanding was reached it was a precise one. Neither
the Texan nor the Ohioan would tolerate anything* hazy or vague
and there was never the slightest variation in the agreement between
the two.
Neither Garner nor Longworth believed a newspaperman would
violate a confidence. They transacted highly important business before
Chamblin as well as Paul Mallon of the United Press, William S. Neal
of the International News Service and others.
The first time I ever entered the Board of Education-, Garner was
unlocking it to go in. It had a few chairs, a davenport, a big round
mahogany table and a huge gold-encased mirror.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Oh, the Republicans have cooked up another nefarious scheme
and I am going to try to talk Nick out of it and save the people a few
of their liberties," he replied.
Inside, Longworth called Garner a "one man cabal" bent on
hampering legislation. Garner replied in kind.
Many members, especially those who had not been in Congress long,
heard all sorts of rumors about what went on behind closed doors of
the Board room. Some Republicans thought that Garner got the best
of Longworth. On the other hand, some Democrats felt that Long-
worth got the best of Garner. The truth is that neither really put
anything over on the other.
In the days of both the "Cabinet" and the Board o Education it
must be remembered Longworth always had a Republican majority
at his back. This majority, except for a few things such as tie
McNary-Haugen farm relief bill and the Mellon tax plan, seldom
wavered in loyalty. Longworth would often urge Garner, not to use
legislative stratagems to tie up bills. Garner would agree sometimes s
usually after having wangled in return something of benefit to the
Democrats. These sessions with their ultimate understandings made
for efficient legislation in the large and unwieldy House and thereby
benefited the country generally. Most matters between the parties
could not be settled by the Board of Education. Neither Longworth
nor Garner had any idea of back-alley trading. They merely sought to
expedite matters.
The only argument between Garner and Longworth, I remember
witnessing was in the days of the "Cabinet." J. P. Morgan had given
his London residence at 14 Princess Gate, on Hyde Park, for an
Embassy residence. It was valued at from $250,000 to $300,000 and an
appropriation of $150,000 was asked of Congress for repairs. Garner
attacked the proposal on. the floor and said it might be a violation o
the Lowden act which restricted the cost of embassies to $150,000.
"It does not seem to be very good public policy on our part to accept
as a gift from some wealthy American a property for an embassy
and then appropriate $150,000 or $200,000 or $300,000 to fix up that
building for an embassy. I do not believe the American people want
Congress to indulge in such performances."
Longworth favored acceptance of the London gift and was anxious
that this country own all its embassies abroad. In the "Cabinet'* Garner
called the London offer a "white elephant." Longworth said Garner
wanted ambassadors to live in "dugouts."
Afterward, I asked Longworth how the argument had come out-
"Oh, we got that settled," he replied, "and are working on one in
South America now. We're deadlocked on the plumbing. I want
running water and he is holding out for bowls and pitchers."
In reality, they had talked the matter of homes for ministers and
ambassadors since they served on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Garner alluded to it in a discussion of Longworth. He said:
"Being able to analyze any problem with sound logical reason and
then having the courage to maintain your position is evidence o
[123!
wisdom and character. Mr. Longworth had both. He succeeded in
preserving the chemical industry of this country, early in the war,
by his masterly handling o the legislation. We have frequent fights
about foreign embassies but he changed my opinion on that legislation
and won me around to his way of thinking."
The country had prohibition when the Board of Education func-
tioned. If a drink was taken at the end of a meeting it was called
"striking a blow for liberty." Longworth would then take Garner to
his hotel residence in the Speaker's car, which Garner called "our
car." On the way to the Capitol in the morning Longworth would
stop by Garner's hotel and pick up his political adversary.
The Board of Education granted an affiliation to an eating auxiliary
known as the La Guardia-Boylan Spaghetti Association, a joint
enterprise of Representatives Fiorello H. La Guardia, Republican, and
John J. Boylan, Democrat, of New York, and often Longworth,
Garner and others would attend the spaghetti parties.
At one of their first meetings in the Board of Education Garner
told Longworth that the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill, then under con-
sideration in the House, would beat the Republicans in the 1930
Congressional elections and that he would consequently defeat Long-
worth for Speaker.
"Put a ring around that date, December 7, 1931, if you have a
calendar that far ahead. That is about the date when the next Congress
meets. You'd better let me use the car with you. You'll want me to
let you ride when it is mine."
The Smoot-Hawley tariff bill would be the seventh general revision
since Gamer had become of voting age. There had been the McKinley
bill of 1890, the Wilson-Gorman bill of 1893, the Dingley bill of 1897,
the Payne-Aldrich bill of 1909, the Underwood bill of 1913 and tie
Fordney-McCumber bill of 1922. In three of them he had participated
as a member of Congress.
Garner said he felt about another tariff bill like Underwood's
cobbler. He related the anecdote told by Senator Oscar W. Underwood,
who participated in four tariff revisions, beginning with the Dingley
bill:
"Down in Kentucky there was a cobbler who unexpectedly inherited
a large sum of money. He locked up his shop and went out in search of
pleasure In all sorts of wild dissipation. Finally he spent all his money
and returned to his humble cobbler's bench. Not long afterward a
lawyer went to the shop and informed the cobbler that he had
inherited another fortune. He looked up from his bench and said:
c My God! must I go through all that again?' And that is the way I
feel about another tariff bill."
Garner stated the Democratic tariff position in a radio speech
in April. He opposed future general revisions. For future dealing with
the tariff he proposed a fact-finding tariff commission and revision o
any tariff bill at any time when facts showed it justified.
The sociability and joviality between Longworth and Garner did
not extend to the House floor. This fact was demonstrated on May
7 when Garner opened his attack on the tariff bill by accusing Long-
worth and Majority Leader Tilson of "quaking in their boots, fearful
of the tremendous power they have on their own side, afraid you
cannot wield or control it. With a majority of 104 in the House you
would deprive a minority of only 163 members opportunity o
offering amendments."
When the House took up the bill under strict rules prohibiting
amendments, Garner went to the floor with a speech intended item
by item to show its cost to the consumer.
"Striking direct at the werkingman, the farmer, and the small
businessman the real foundation upon which American progress
and prosperity has been established the Hawley-Smoot tariff,"* said
Mr. Garner ? "places an unjust and unnecessary burden of hundreds
of millions of dollars annually upon those already overburdened by
the gradual development of a tariff system which extends special favors
to the few at the expense of the masses.
"No greater fraud was ever perpetrated upon the American people
than the claim of proponents of the Hawley-Smoot bill that it is
designed c to protect American Labor/ a statement which the Re-
publican members of the Ways and Means Committee had the
audacity to insert in the title of the bill. Its real purpose is to exploit,
not to protect, and the millions of American workingmen^ as well as
the farmers and businessmen, are the targets against whom these shafts
of tariff exploitation are aimed.
* Cong. Record, June 6, 1930. P. 10665.
"It is extremely unfortunate that the average individual does not
have the time or the information at hand to ascertain with any degree
of accuracy how he will be affected personally. An excessive tariff can
be classified as an intangible tax which reverts to the protected Interests
Instead of the government. The formulation of a tariff bill has de-
veloped into a wild scramble on the part of many selfish interests to
secure the assent of Congress to the imposition of indefensible burdens
upon the consumers. The consumer has no definite knowledge of how
hard he is hit by this Intangible tax. He cannot ascertain the pro-
duction costs on the articles he buys nor the cost of distribution. In a
vague way he knows that the costs of the necessaries of life are
constandy mounting; that the already swollen fortunes of those favored
by excessive tariff rates are expanding; but he pays the extor donate
prices created by these indefensible rates and merely utters ineffectual
protest against the system which has placed an intangible and un-
reasonable tax upon practically every necessity of life.
"Almost every article the average American citizen wears, eats or
uses In his daily routine carries the tariff tax. Awake or asleep he Is
constantly adding to the profits of those Interests which are granted
a special dispensation through the tariff to exploit him. . . ."
Garner then proceeded with a speech that was for him uncommonly
long. In which he outlined the story of an American family from
morning to night of a normal working day, showing that almost
everything the family ate, wore or used was subject to a tariff tax.
His mastery of tariff schedules was demonstrated in this speech by his
quoting extemporaneously at least sixty-seven specific rates on articles
In common use, such as soap, rugs, razors, shirts, brooms, hats, cement,
linoleum, socks, oatmeal, brushes, silverware, china and tombstones.
Where Representative Sereno Payne of New York had been Garner's
chief adversary in the Underwood tariff fight of 1913 and Represent-
ative Joseph Fordney of Michigan, in the Fordney-McCumber bill of
1921-1922, this time most of his floor exchanges were with Represent-
ative Allen Treadway of Massachusetts.
Treadway, a huge, barrel-chested man, had a very large head. He
wore a number eight hat. In a bellowing voice he attacked Garner,
called him a low-tariff man in everything except mohair.
At the end of Treadway's one-hour speech, Garner asked for one
minute to reply. He said:
"The gentleman from Massachusetts has the biggest hood, the loudest
horn and the least horsepower of any machine I ever saw."
Garner continued to fight the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill during its
fourteen-months-long journey through Congress. He moved to re-
commit it and then voted against its passage. He left no such imprints
on the legislation as he had on the Fordney-McCumber bill. But when
President Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley bill on June 17, 1930,
Garner was sure the Democrats had a first-class issue for the 1930
Congressional campaign.
The depression continued to deepen. Garner's first move, intended
to put money into circulation, was the introduction on January 5, 19313
of a bill proposing to pay veterans of the First World War the cash
surrender value of their adjusted compensation certificates. There
were $1,250,000,000 of these outstanding, payable in 1945.
In a House speech he said that the soldiers needed the money and
that this amount of money put into circulation in depression times
would be of benefit to everyone.
"By giving the soldier the option of cashing his insurance certificates
now instead of waiting until 1945, you would be saving the govern-
ment not less than $300,000,000," Garner said. "I believe if all these
settlements were made at one time the savings to the government
might run as high as $500,000,000 .and you would be giving the soldier
a cash settlement at this time when he needs it.
"The soldier was allowed a certain sum based on his service. Instead
of paying him cash, Congress decided to issue these insurance certifi-
cates. What I have proposed is a fair settlement between the taxpayers
and the soldiers. I think you ought to settle on a sensible basis and
do it while it will benefit the country economically and thereby avoid
a more difficult problem in the future when money rates will be
higher. They are now lower than anywhere in the world, and money
is cheaper than ever in the history of any people. You can settle these
matters now and at the same time improve the economic conditions of
the country."
His bill was shelved.
The most widespread drought of American, history added itself to
depression In 1930, and the unhappy country went still deeper into
distress. Twenty-four states, including all the Southern states, the great
food-producing states of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Vir-
ginia and Pennsylvania and the Northwestern states of South Dakota,
Wyoming, Montana and Washington, were the principal sufferers.
A Republican-sponsored measure proposed an appropriation of $30,-
000,000 out of which individual farmers would be permitted to borrow
up to $300 each for the purchase of seed for a 1931 crop, fertilizer and
feed for work stock.
Garner urged that the bill be amended to allow the purchase of
human food also. Republicans, however, refused to thus enlarge the
scope of the bill and reported it under a rule barring amendments.
Garner went to the floor and castigated the Republican leadership
for passing such legislation under "gag rule." In the debate he gave
his position on relief, an issue which was to occupy the attention of
the country for the next eight years.
"Speaking for myself alone, if it ever comes to a point that starving
people must be taken care of, I will help take care of them if and
when absolutely necessary out of the Treasury of the United States,"
he said. "It is unconscionable to think that you may picture a situation
where a large percentage of the people of this country are starving
and that we, as members of Congress, cannot find a sound economic
policy that will help them out of the Treasury of the United States."
Garner, who had never contemplated such a thing as deficit financ-
ing, then gave his formula for raising money for relief.
"I will tell you what I can do, and I am giving you the figures of
the Treasury Department and not my own figures," he said. "If neces-
sary, I would increase the surtax on individual incomes of over $100,-
ooo, 5 per cent and get |io8 3 ooo,ooo. Every man and woman in this
country who has an income in excess of $100,000 ought to be willing,
temporarily, at a time like this, to contribute something to help take
care of the poor. A 5 per cent increase in surtax on incomes over
$100,000, would produce over $ 100,000,000 to the Treasury of the
United States, for feeding the poor of the country. It would take no
complicated legislation. It can be done in a resolution of six lines. Do
you tell me, sir, that there is something in your conscience, something
in the Constitution that would prohibit you from exercising your
right in this House to collect that money, if need be, to use in feeding
the poor of your city and your state?
"The Democratic party I believe, will never tolerate human suf-
fering in this country when we can relieve it. Picture the plight of the
poor man that borrows $300 yes; he borrows $300 and puts it in the
bank. It is placed to his credit to buy stock, feed, grain and fertilizer
for his farm. He has not a particle of food in his house. He has a wife
and children, and in order to get food for them he must go to the
Red Cross. The Red Cross replies, 'you have $300 in the bank.' He
says, 'no; I cannot use that for food. My mules are fat. My grain is
here to plant. Here is feed for the stock, but my children are suffering.
I must have food.'
"The resulc is, you say, you cannot give it to him. Why, gentlemen,
that is ridiculous. You make a fraud out of that farmer. You cannot
tell me human nature is such that if that man is loaned $300, for grain,
fertilizer and feed for his stock he will not use it for his children. You
cannot go against human nature, and the natural thing is for that man
to feed his family. You make a fraud out of him by telling him that
you will loan him $300, but he must put it in his bank and that he
cannot use any of it for his suffering children. You are just making
a liar out of him, because he must and will take care of his family first
and the prime purpose of borrowing that money is to protect his family
for the next year."
The big Republican majority of 104 voted Garner down again, but
it would be the last time.
The result of the 1930 Congressional election was so close that it
was evident that deaths before the beginning of the next session of
Congress might determine whether Democrats or Republicans con-
trolled.
From Cincinnati, Longworth sent a jocular query to Garner.
"Whose car is it?"
During the winter session of Congress they continued to joke about
who would get possession of the Speaker's automobile. It was still a
moot question on March 4, when Congress adjourned until December,
At the adjournment hour. Speaker Longworth addressed Congress
for the last time. The members arose in a great demonstration for the
presiding officer. Longworth said:
[!*>]
^'Perhaps this is the last time I will address you from this rostrum.
1 do not mean to Insinuate that 1 regard it as a probability, but I must
admit it as a possibility. The decision lies with none of us here. It is a
decision that lies with an All- Wise Providence. It is only an All-Wise
Providence who Is going to determine which o the great political
parties will organize the next House of Representatives.
"With whatever Providence may decree, I am abundantly satisfied.
I ought to be, for but three Speakers of the House In all history will
have had a longer term of consecutive service than I have had. I have
esteemed every hour here during my service of six years, without one
single exception. If I am to retire from office, I do so with profound
gratitude to my colleagues, not so much for elevating me to this, the
greatest legislative office In any legislative branch in any government
of the world, but more for the evidence of esteem aad confidence you
have had in me."
Longworth, although suffering from a severe cold, took part in the
vaudeville performance on the floor of the House after adjournment.
A piano was brought in and the entertainment lasted for an hour.
It was brought to a close with Representative Clifton Woodrum of
Virgina singing "Carry Me Back to Ole Virginny," with Longworth
playing the piano accompaniment.
When Longworth's cold hung on he went to Aiken, South Carolina,
in an effort to recover from it. On April 6, he took to bed. Three days
later he was dead of lobar pneumonia.
At Uvalde, Garner, his chief political foe and most intimate per-
sonal friend, said:
"I have lost one of the best friends of a lifetime. I knew him as a
man and as a legislator and he was the best type of each. His states-
manship was of the highest order. He was honest and courageous and
loved his country."
CHAPTER IX
Mr. Speaker
JOHNNY, Washington wants you on the telephone."
The messenger was Ross Brumfield, the only man who ever
called the future Speaker and Vice-President "Johnny."
It was a peaceful afternoon in Uvalde in October 1931. Garner
was examining his chuck box; he was preparing to leave on a fishing
trip with Brumfield. They had been outdoor companions for twenty
years. Whatever the season of the year when Garner got home from a
session of Congress he and Brumfield made an excursion to the wild
brush country near the Mexican border. On these outings Garner was
the camp cook. He prided himself on his culinary accomplishments
even more than on his fishing prowess. "Cowboy stew" was his spe-
cialty and he was painstakingly examining the contents of the chuck
box to see that he had all the ingredients of his favorite camping dish.
Garner wanted especially to take this camping trip. He couldn't
leave on the last train that would get him to Washington before Con-
gress convened as he had usually done. There had been fourteen
deaths of Representatives since the last election, an unusually large
number. Garner would either beat Representative Bertrand H. Snell
for Speaker or if Snell won, Garner would lead a minority of almost
equal size to SnelPs majority. Special elections would decide which
way it would be. If chosen Speaker, he would be the highest elected
Democrat in the nation and the field marshal of his party's legislative
forces. The depression was nearly two years old and deepening. He
would have to go to Washington early this time.
Garner never liked to talk on the telephone. Long-distance calls*
especially, he never accepted when he could avoid it.
Another messenger came with more definite information. President
Hoover was on the wire.
Hoover's voice was grave. For days he had been talking to long-
faced plenipotentiaries. England, France, Italy and other Allied debtors
were seeking postponement on the interest charges on their war and
reconstruction debts to the United States. They had told the President
of dire things that would happen to their countries if forced to make
these interest payments. In fact, they said, they just couldn't make
them.
Hoover was convinced that a moratorium was necessary that the
Interest would have to be waived for a time at least. He asked Garner
if he could be in Washington for a meeting of Congress leaders and
other high officials the following night. Garner could if an airplane
was available. Hoover told him one would be dispatched to Kelly Field
at San Antonio.
Garner went back and told Bramfield to unpack the camping out-
fit. Early the next morning he entered an open-cockpit two-man plane
at Kelly Field and that evening was in Washington. It was his first
airplane flight. He arrived beaming. A dozen newspapermen met him
at the Washington airport. He was the key man in whatever negotia-
tion took place at the White House. He was the nation's top Democrat
now and he had a united party in the House of Representatives be-
hind him. Hoover was the top Republican and his party was divided.
Garner stepped from the plane. He would answer no questions. He
was going to make no premature statement. As he parried questions
he accidentally pulled from his pocket a piece of paper. It was a note
Mrs. Garner had put there without his knowledge. It read:
"The spirit of the Lord watches over you and keeps you in perfect
safety. His Spirit is guiding, protecting and inspiring you in all your
ways."
Garner went to the White House for what might be the most mo-
mentous decision for his country, his party and himself he had ever
had to make. The President, worn and tired, did his best to smile.
Month after month the worries of the depression had added years to
his face.
Hoover made a stout argument for a moratorium. He felt that de-
pressed world conditions made this inevitable. Garner took issue with
the Chief Executive. Garner had sat in the Ways and Means Commit-
tee when the recommendations came in from the Debt Commission,
^^^s^Sg^/K r^>;^U;
>^SUJ^
^
When the votes were rounded up in the 1931 Speakership
contest there were three more Democrats than Republicans and
Garner was elected Speaker. (C. K. Berryman, Washington
Star)
scaling down the foreign debts. He had voted against every one of
these proposals. Especially did he oppose the English and French re-
funding schemes because he believed these countries had the ability
to pay. A moratorium he regarded as likely to be an effective cancella-
tion. Hoover was adamant. All the Republican leaders stood with
Hoover, except Senator Borah, chairman of the powerful Foreign
Relations Committee. He teamed with Garner. Secretary of State
Stimson, Secretary of the Treasury Mellon and Under Secretary
Ogden Mills backed up Hoover strongly. In the end, Garner said that
if the Democrats should organize the House and he became Speaker,
he would not oppose the foreign policy of the Administration. Since
unable to convince, he would not obstruct.
Conditions with worldwide depression and its multitudinous ills, he
felt, challenged more than Republican and Democratic principles;
they went to the foundations of representative government. Hoover
had two more years of his constitutional term to serve. Even if the
Democrats organized the House, the Senate was still Republican.
Never in peacetime had the nation faced a crisis that demanded more
nonpartisan and patriotic action.
Garner returned to Texas for a very short stay. He never made the
fishing trip. Instead, he sat down and attempted something he had
never before tried. He started writing a speech. In all his career Gar-
ner's House speeches had been extemporaneous. He believed at the
time that the Democrats would barely fail to organize the House, that
the Republicans would control it and that he would be minority leader.
Garner arrived in Washington on November n and in an interview
stressed the necessity of maintaining the financial integrity of the
country. The Speakership was still unsettled. Representative Harry M.
Wurzbach, the only Republican member of Congress from Texas, was
among those who had died. The district had gone Republican six
straight times. On the outcome in this district probably hung the
Speakership. In the special election late in November, Richard M.
Kleberg, a Democrat, won-. The Speakership for Garner now seemed
certain.
On December 7, 1931, Garner was elected the thirty-ninth Speaker
of the House of Representatives by three votes. One of his majority
came into the House chamber on a stretcher. Two more came in
wheelchairs. Never in modern times had there been so close a division
between the two parties in the House. If one or two members stayed
away or a Tammany Congressman took too long a week end. Garner
had no physical majority present on the floor.
Representative Snell, his defeated opponent, introduced Garner to
the House.
"The gentleman from Texas," Snell said, "by native ability, by out-
standing personality, by long service and a complete understanding
of the duties and responsibilities, is exceptionally well qualified to
fill that position and I predict he will make one of the great Speakers
of the generation. I congratulate him on having reached the goal of
his ambition."
[134]
Garner, replying, after expressing his thanks for the support given
him, said:
"It is customary for a member assuming this place to indulge in some
promises as to what he hopes to do as your presiding officer. I made
no promises to secure this preferment, and I make none now.
"The oath of office I am about to take carries with it the only promise
it is necessary for any American citizen to make, to assure the country
that he expects to devote his best efforts to its service. That oath of
office I am ready to take at the present moment and I ask the gentle-
man from North Carolina, Mr. Pou, to administer it."
Democrats flocked to the Capitol to congratulate Garner on his
election as Speaker. It was the first time in ten years the Democrats
had controlled any branch of government.
One incident of the day revealed how little any of us realized what
was ahead of the world. Representative Kleberg of Texas was sitting
in the Speaker's outer office when I came in. He was reading a syn-
dicated article written and signed by Adolf Hitler, in The New
YorJ^ Times.
On it was the headline:
CONSTRUCTIVE RULE PLEDGED BY HITLER.
FIRE WORKS NOT TO BE EXPECTED, SAYS GERMAN NATIONAL SOCIALIST
OF His PROGRAM.
Kleberg casually remarked:
"I wonder what this fellow is going to do?"
After the organization of the House, Garner still faced the necessity
o keeping a quorum. Tammany and other city Democrats always took
a long week end. A late train could be fatal to a roll call. Monday
morning was the dangerous time. If Snell should attempt some sort
of a coup with the majority of the New York delegation away, it would
sink the Democrats. Tammany Leader Curry promised to- keep the
New Yorkers on the job. There were negotiations with the Pennsyl-
vania Railroad and it put on a special Monday morning train, the
Legislator. It ran only one day a week and it got to Washington
well before the noon meeting hour of Congress. Members o Congress
and week-end visitors returning from New York made it pay.
There was still the risk that the Democrats could fail to keep a
physical majority on the floor. Garner was up against the greatest test
of his lifetime, to keep that slim superiority control o the House
and put though legislation. It required all his trading ability. It was a
day by day intricate process o compromising and balancing force
against force to maintain a lead In the House.
Garner formed an alliance with Representative Fiorello H. La
Guardia on some legislative matters. The man who was afterward
to be three times Mayor of New York supported most of Garner's
legislative proposals from 1931 to 1933. Garner either could not
pronounce or could not remember La Guardia's first name. To
La Guardia's great amusement Garner called him "Frijole/ 5 Mexican
name for bean.
"Prijole had about fifteen votes In his group," Garner said. "He
never made a promise he couldn't keep. He never overestimated the
number of votes he could deliver on a roll call I always knew just how
many votes he would bring in."
Thus reinforced, he went into the 222-day session of Congress which
authorized the government's great credit machine, the Reconstruction
Finance Corporation, budget balancing and other controversial legis-
lation.
Garner took the majority leadership to the Speaker's chair with him,
although the title went to Representative Henry T. Rainey. Rainey
possessed none of the qualities of leadership. In addition, he was
"loose-jawed." He gave out a particularly unwise statement on taxes
and Garner found it necessary to tell the country Rainey was speaking
only for himself and not the party.
Garner himself was more cautious of utterance than Calvin Coolidge
had ever been. Longworth had never had press conferences. Garner
met the press punctually at eleven forty-five. But he gave out no
premature Information. He would not mislead the press. When they
asked him a question he did not want to answer he would say:
"You can speculate all you want to. I have nothing to say."
Sometimes the Garner conferences were very lively affairs. Once
when he was vigorously explaining a legislative matter and trying to
light his ever present cigar at the same time, his hair caught on fire and
a newsman extinguished It.
He recreated the Board of Education but it was a Democratic show
j although Bert Snell came in regularly. But usually those who
gathered there were Collier, chairman of the Ways and Means Com-
mittee and Crisp, second man on the committee; Bankhead and
McDuffie of Alabama; Byrns of Tennessee; Warren of North Carolina;
Milligan o Missouri; Woodrum of Virginia; Prall of New York; and
Rayburn of Texas.
President Hoover believed that the program which he had outlined
would thaw frozen assets, expand credit and start money circulating.
The President attempted part of this through co-operation between
the Federal Reserve Board and large banks. In addition, Hoover pro-
posed the creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the
increase of capital to the Federal Land banks, to provide more money
to loan to farmers and additional rediscount authority for the Federal
Reserve banks.
Garner's biggest task was keeping his own party together. A party
that has been for a long time in the minority and schooled in the
critical opposition tactics of an anti-Administration force is not easily
converted into a responsible working unit, willing to take a unified
stand on legislation and accept the blame for it if it fails.
Garner well knew that the ten years the Democrats had spent in
harassing the Republicans in the House had developed sloppy party
habits. Failure to show up for roll calls was only one of them. Each
Democrat had voted in the way best calculated to help his standing with
his constituents. They faced a situation now where if they were to
succeed they must vote as a unit.
"It's hard to get these roosters to realize they can't any longer strut
around and crow when they feel like it," he said.
In the Board of Education, in the cloakrooms and in the Speaker's
lobby, Garner used all his persuasive power.
"You are at the controls," he told them. "You must remember that
you are in command and are no longer the minority party."
Garner had had more experience in harassing the Republicans than
any Democrat in the House. Had it been a time of prosperity, the
temptation to make life miserable for the opposition would not now
have been distasteful to him. The Democrats could have blocked
legislation, forced compromises, obtained concessions. But this was
no time for partisan antics.
Garner had made up his mind to support the Hoover relief program.
It was, he felt, the only patriotic course open. He felt, however, that It
was inadequate to meet the situation. The legislation which Hoover
proposed was pot through the House of Representatives with a speed
that amazed the White House.
To the moratorium on European debts. Garner had Ragon of
Arkansas attach an amendment setting out that approval of the
moratorium could not be construed as a cancellation of the debts.
Garner called In Byrns of Tennessee, chairman of the House
Appropriations Committee.
"Now, Joe/' he told the tall Tennessean, "don't increase a single
solitary Item in the Hoover budget. We are not going to sink the
Treasury further into debt."
He told Byrns and Collier:
"If there have to be huge appropriations or bond issues for federal
relief they must carry taxes to amortize them."
The Democrats put through one measure of their own, a bill to have
the Tariff Commission report to Congress, Instead of the President,
such changes it deemed advisable under the reciprocal clauses of the
tariff act. This would have placed on Congress the duty of making
such changes effective.
Garner predicted Hoover would veto It. This the President promptly
did. Garner never called it up again. There was no need wasting time.
Garner's management of his party and of legislation brought him
much praise. He got credit for tact and a sense of humor. Some little
things which he thought perfectly natural and hardly worth notice
added to his popularity.
He gave up the Speaker's automobile, partly because he felt he had
very little use for It anyway and partly to set an example of government
economy. When he was asked at a press conference if he did not
think the dignity lent by an official car was worth the small cost,
Garner replied:
"It doesn't take an automobile to make the office dignified. Ill lend
the dignity."
Sometimes Mr. and Mrs. Garner walked to the Capitol, sometimes
they went by taxi and sometimes the Speaker rode home In the rumble-
seat of his Secretary's automobile. He and Mrs* Garner went in a taxi-
cab to the dinner which President and Mrs. Hoover gave for the
Speaker and Mrs. Garner.
The Speakership brought additional mail to Garner. It swamped
Mrs. Garner and the extra clerical force that went with the office.
As the depression grew worse the Speaker's mail ran as high as
3,500 letters a day.
Garner knew his honeymoon would be short. He told me:
"111 be criticized for following Hoover and not offering a program
of our own and I'll be accused of sabotaging Hoover, Fm not going
to let it bother me. I've got skin as thick as cowhide."
Some Democrats were continuously asking him to break the truce
with the White House,
When press criticism began, Garner read, without seemingly being
disturbed, editorials that attacked him and cartoons which ridiculed
him. Usually he would write to the cartoonist for an autographed copy
of the cartoon.
He said in an interview:
"I astonished people here in Washington once by saying I was for
the welfare of the country first and that of the Democratic party
second. They didn't think I was like that, but I am. I am still that way,
and it's somewhat like accusing a man of treason to say to him, in
times like these, that he would try to block any constructive measure
simply because it comes from the other side of the political fence.
"This is election year and I know of some things we could do from
which we could derive some political advantage. But, as I see it,
politics is now a secondary condition. The welfare of the country is
of more importance than electoral votes for my party."
In February, Garner was irked by speeches of Cabinet members
taking full credit for the Republicans for all legislation. He thought
President Hoover should have rebuked them and should even have
called to the attention of the country the fact that the Democrats
were co-operating.
No such statement was made.
Just before Washington's Birthday the House put through the
Federal Reserve credit bill, the last of the Hoover emergency relief
measures the Democrats had promised to support, and Garner issued
a fiery statement.
"Co-operation between the two great political parties In effecting
emergency legislation Is a fine thing," he said. "When such issues as
BOW confront the country are up is no time for partisan politics. But
co-operation does not mean that one party to it shall claim the right
to have everything It asks enacted into law, to the exclusion of what
the other party deems necessary for the public welfare.
"The Democrats of the Senate and House have sought in every
way to clear the track for measures calculated to relieve the public
distress, and particularly to effect such savings in the cost of govern-
ment as may make it possible to balance the budget, with the minimum
hardship involved In increased taxes.
"Our course has met with approbation all over the country in fact,
nobody has ventured to criticize us with the exception of the Adminis-
tration which appears to regard it as a requisite not only that the
Democrats shall sign on the dotted line, but insists that the Ad-
ministration should have credit for whatever Is accomplished.
"Obviously the Democratic majority of the House subscribes to no
such interpretation of its duty. If we are going to be partners in the
enterprise of redeeming prosperity, in reducing the distress of the de-
pression, in effecting economies in government, in formulating measures
adequate to produce the revenue the government requires, we must
be full partners, taking our full share of responsibilities and participat-
ing in whatever benefits accrue political or otherwise."
The Democrats were ready to make some moves of their own, but
Garner was silent on his plans.
"A lot of chatter in the newspapers isn't getting helpful legisla-
tion," he said.
On February 16, Garner formed a Democratic Economy Committee,
headed by Representative John McDuffie of Alabama, and told it to
search for every way possible to cut government costs. Secretary of the
Treasury Mills went to the Capitol and told Garner that there would
be a Treasury deficit of $1,320,000,000 instead o the $920,000,000
originally estimated.
The Ways and Means Committee was already struggling with the
problem. Here Garner suffered a blow. Chairman Collier of the Ways
and Means Committee had a break in his health and was ordered out
of Washington for a long rest. He never recovered. Able Representa-
tive Crisp, second man on the committee, thus was given double work.
Every proposal for any kind of a new tax brought a protest from
somewhere. Crisp went to Garner and told him that in his estimation
there was just one way to raise the added revenue and that was a
manufacturers' sales tax. Crisp's sincere presentation convinced Garner.
Despite his dislike of the sales tax, the Speaker told Crisp to go ahead.
The three months of tranquillity among Democrats was about to come
to an end.
On February 22, the House gave Garner another of the spontaneous
tributes of affection it was always giving him. President Hoover had
addressed a joint session of Congress in celebration of George Washing-
ton's birthday. After the President had left and the Speaker rose to
adjourn the House, someone hollered:
"Hurrah for Jack Garner."
The entire House got on its feet and cheered for several minutes.
Three weeks later Garner had lost control of the House. When
Crisp brought in the tax bill with the sales-tax feature, the revolt was
on. Most of the Democrats, led by Representative Doughton of North
Carolina, refused to go along. They were joined by La Guardia of
New York.
When the debate was at its bitterest stage, Mr. Garner called me one
morning at seven o'clock and asked me to come to the Capitol and
discuss with him a poll he had heard I had made of the twenty-
one-man Texas delegation on the sales tax. I told him that one or two
of the Texans would vote for the tax, one or two were on the fence
and the rest opposed and that I doubted anything he could do or say
would change the situation. He remarked:
"Well, if I can't take Texas along on this I don't know what I
can say to members from other states."
By midday that day, the stampede was on. There was no way but
to let it run its course.
On March 18, he issued a statement to newspapers in which he said:
"There never was and there never can be a perfect tax bili There
never was and there never can be a tax bill pleasing to everyone
or, indeed, entirely pleasing to anyone. The supreme purpose of the
impending tax bill is to enable the government to balance the budget.
As the surest, soundest and most effective means to this vital end, the
sales-tax plan was adopted after prolonged and exhaustive discussion.
"If we permit the securities of the government to be impaired, all
securities will be relatively impaired. If the people lack confidence in
the financial stability of their government, they will lack confidence
in all forms of corporate and individual enterprise.
"It is, therefore, of the highest importance that the budget should
be balanced in order that the financial integrity of the nation shall be
preserved. That is the goal that must be reached.
"The emergency that confronts us is no ordinary one. It calls for
the sacrifice of individual theories to the paramount duty of rescuing
the national government from a condition which must be corrected
before there can be recovery from the existing depression. Theory
must yield to national necessity.
"No man can call himself a patriot who, in the face of so overwhelm-
ing a crisis, can give heed to his individual fortunes or to the view-
point of particular groups or sections. The general interest of the
country, as a whole, will be a safe guide to our feet in this vital matter.
"As for myself, I say now if the need be, I am ready to yield
temporarily every economic opinion I have ever had to reach that
goal the financial salvation of my country.
"Knowing as I do the high character of the membership of this
Congress, Republican as well as Democrat, I do not for a moment
doubt the goal will be reached."
But the House was completely out of hand. The bill was in process
of being torn to pieces, with $500,000,000 in revenue sliced off. Bond
prices and government security prices began to slip.
On March 29, Garner went to the Speaker's chair wearing a sombre
business suit instead of the formal day attire he usually wore. At the
end of the chaplain's prayer he called Representative William B.
Bankhead of Alabama to the chair and stepped down from the
rostrum.
The Speaker looked worn and tired.
"For one of the few times in his Me he had not been sleeping well
for nights," Mrs. Garner said.
Garner stood for a few moments talking to Representative Lewis W.
Douglas of Arizona. Then as the reading of the House Journal was
completed he walked to the well of the House and made the formal
[142]
motion to "strike out the last word." He was employing a hondred-
year-old device used by members to obtain the floor when the House
is sitting as a Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union,
considering amendments to a bill.
Garner intended to address the House as a Representative from
Texas, and not as its Speaker. But instantly Crisp was on his feet
asking unanimous consent that the Speaker have such time as he
needed.
Garner stood calmly in the well of the House, an arm resting on a
reading stand.
The House shouted unanimous approval of Crisp's motion. It
sensed one of those big moments that come only occasionally to
parliamentary bodies.
The crowd in the jammed galleries leaned forward. Mrs. Garner
came up from the floor below and, finding her seat occupied, took a
seat on the floor of the gallery aisle. Senators rushed over from the
other end of the Capitol and squeezed in wherever they could.
Garner began to speak in a low, earnest, conversational tone.
"When I was elected Speaker of this House," he said, "it was my
purpose then, and it has been my purpose all along, and it shall be my
purpose in the future, to preside over the House of Representatives
as impartially and fairly as my intellect will permit."
Applause broke the tenseness. Garner drank from a glass of water
on the table beside him. He was as calm as if discussing a minor
bill. He continued:
"In order to do that I felt it would be better if I did not enter into
general debate for fear it might become partisan, and, therefore, I have
refrained up to this time from taking the floor on any subject. But in
view of the fact that I had served eighteen years on the Ways and
Means Committee, had acquired some knowledge of taxation, it was
felt by some of my colleagues on that committee that I owed a duty
to the House to make some statement concerning the tax situation.
Yielding to that, I appear before you this morning to make what I
conceive to be a statement as to the duty and right of each member of
the House from my viewpoint.
"In October, the President of the United States requested certain
members of Congress to come to Washington to consider certain ques-
lions that he had in view to recommend to the Congress of the United
States, when it met.
"While here in Washington, there was a very grave doubt in the
minds of certain officials and members of the Administration whether
there would be a tax bill at the coming session. After ascertaining
this, I returned to my home and for the first time in my life undertook
to prepare an address to the House of Representatives, believing that
the Republicans would organize the House and that my Democratic
colleagues might elect me leader.
"I believed then as I do now, that it W 7 as the duty of our govern-
ment to sustain its credit and to ask Congress to balance the budget."
Again the House applauded.
Without a trace of emotion the high-pitched voice of the Speaker
went on:
"That speech will never be delivered because I was not selected as
minority leader, but happened to become the Speaker of the House of
Representatives.
"I arrived here on the nth of November, before the Congress met.
The newspapermen gathered in my office at that time, when it looked
as if the Democrats would organize the House and whatever I might
say might be interesting to the country. The first interview I gave was
to impress upon them and, I hope, to impress upon the country
and my colleagues the importance of maintaining the financial in-
tegrity of the Republic. I have from that time until this repeatedly,
before Congress met and before I was elected Speaker, maintained
that the highest possible duty that the House of Representatives could
perform for the people of the country during this session was to levy
sufficient taxes to sustain the financial integrity of the Republic.
"It was suggested by some of my colleagues, both in the Senate
and in the House, that it might be advisable from a party standpoint
and of the service to the country that the Democrats of the House and
the Senate get together and, so far as they could, outline a program
or policy which we thought would be to the best interests of the
country. In pursuance of that thought, Senator Robinson, leader of
the Democrats in the Senate, and myself selected what is known as
the Policy Committee. It was composed of ten members of the
Senate and ten members of the House. . . . That committee from time
f 144 I
to time had meetings in my office for the purpose o discussing what
was the best interest of the country as well as the best interest of
the Democratic organization of the House and Senate. On January 6,
of this year, after a two-hour session and a full discussion, that joint
committee unanimously decided upon this language as expressing
what should be the Democratic policy of the Senate and the House of
Representatives:
" It is of primary importance that the budget be balanced promptly. 5
"As I say, that was unanimously adopted by the Policy Committee.
I believed then, and I believe now, that the paramount duty of the
House of Representatives is to levy sufficient taxes of some kind, of
some nature, that will sustain the credit of this country in the eyes
of the world, as well as our own people. Later on the Ways and
Means Committee went to work with a view of bringing about that
desired end. . . .
"It was decided that the better policy would be to prepare a non-
partisan tax bill and present it to the House. In view of the fact
that the Democratic majority is small, we felt it would be difficult., if
not impossible, to pass in the House a partisan bill. In addition to
that, in the hearts of these men and in their conversations, they thought
it was the more patriotic thing to take into our confidence the entire
membership of the House in undertaking to pass this important piece
of legislation. . . .
"I mention the background to this, Mr. Chairman, and my Demo-
cratic friends especially, to meet some criticisms that have been directed
at me for advocating the policy of levying sufficient taxes to sustain
the credit of the government. In view of that background, I think I
had a right to ask the House, and especially the Democrats, to join
with us in an effort to levy sufficient taxes to take care of the obliga-
tions made by the Congress of the United States. The Committee on
Ways and Means went about its work in executive session and reported
a bill to the House. In the course of those executive sessions I was told,
and I think the membership of the House was told, that the committee
believed it impossible to find sufficient taxes which it thought the
House would indorse to balance the budget, unless it went to a
manufacturers' tax. My reply to that was that I have been opposed
to a sales tax ever since I had been a member of Congress, and I had
always, and always would be opposed to a sales tax. I am now
opposed to a sales tax; but, gentlemen, if I find it impossible to balance
this budget and restore the confidence of the. world and our own
people in our government without! some such tax I" would levy any
tax, sales or any other kind, in order to do that. I think more of
my country than I do of any theory of taxation that I may have, and
the country at this time is in a condition where the worst taxes you
could possibly levy would be better than no taxes at all.
"The Committee of the Whole House acted otherwise. I have no
quarrel with you. I have said on the- floor of this house scores and
scores of times, and I repeat it now, that I do not believe in rules being
applied to the House of Representatives that take away from it the
freedom of expression not only of your voice but of your vote. I
believe in freedom of expression; therefore I was unwilling to have
any gag rule, so called, applied to the consideration or this bill. I
wanted the members to have free opportunity to express themselves in
the Committee of the Whole, and you have had that opportunity.
You have expressed yourselves; you have arrived at a conclusion that
you will not have a sales tax; and, I repeat, I have no quarrel with
you because of it.
"I appeal to you, not only in the name of my party but my country,
that in view of the fact that there has been stricken from this bill
more than $500,000,000 of taxation, it is your duty, your paramount
duty, to help this House and this committee restore some taxes to this
bill in order that this country's financial integrity may be maintained.
"My only object in taking the floor was to make that one appeal.
Last Saturday, as well as yesterday, the people of the world realized
that Congress, in a gesture, had indicated that it did not Intend to
balance this budget. What was the result, not only among American
people but among the peoples of the world?
"As reflected through the New York stock exchange and other ex-
changes of this country, what did we find? We found the foreigner
selling the dollar. We found our exchange going down more than it
has at any time in the past twelve years. We found it renewed yester-
day, and we found that followed by a sharp reduction in U.S. securities.
What does that mean? It simply means that the one billion, eight
hundred million dollars of money belonging to foreigners who have
come to us with the idea that this flag not only protected the person but
protected property and who put their credits in the banks of our coun-
try, because they thought that was the safest place on the face of the
earth to deposit their wealth, have transferred their gold to foreign
vaults. When they heard around the world that there was some doubt
about this Congress balancing the budget, they immediately began to
withdraw their wealth, to sell American exchange and transfer their
gold to foreign vaults. As sure as I stand in the well of this House, I
believe that if this Congress today should decline to levy a tax bill there
would not be a bank in existence in the United States in sixty days that
Could meet its depositors. I believe that the shock to the nation, the
shock to the foreigner who is doing business with us would be such
that there would be a. financial panic such as has never been equaled
in this Republic since its organization."
The House again applauded the florid-faced Texan, who ia a kindly
manner was speaking to men with whom he had long had affectionate
association.
"This committee will bring in a program. I hope you will support it.
I do not want all the taxes that are in there. You cannot get just the
taxes you want. This committee is composed of twenty-four men from
twenty-four different states. I believe you will admit they are fairly intel
ligent. They are patriotic. They want to serve the country. They want
to serve you. They would like to bring in an ideal bill that could be
voted for by every member of this House, but it impossible to do it.
"So I appeal to you that if you do not like the taxes which the com-
mittee reports, will you not be good enough, will you not have states-
manship enough when you criticize it and ask to strike it out, will you
not have the manhood to substitute something in its place?"
The greatest applause of his speech greeted him here. Suddenly he
said, as the cheering died out:
"At the risk of being criticized, I want to give to the world and to
the country today, if I can, an expression of this House, so that the
world and the country may realize we are going to balance the budget.
Mr. Chairman, may I do an unusual thing? I may be criticized for it,
but I want every man and every woman in this House who hopes to
balance the budget and who is willing to go along with that effort to
try to balance the budget, to rise in his seat."
[147]
Almost the entire membership of the House rose.
His face flushed, Garner then asked:"
"Now, if they do not mind, those who do not want to balance the
budget can rise In their seats."
As none rose, he added:
"I think this ought to restore to the American people confidence in
our country.
"We may have differences among ourselves, but in our hearts we
are patriotic. We want to serve this Republic. This is a sensible Congress
and we can get sensible results.
"I again want to ask the charity o the House, and I am go-ing to say
to the membership that, with their permission, for the balance of the
consideration of -this bill, I hope to participate in it.
"I said to the gentlemen of the Ways and Means Committee yester-
day that I would not consider it any reflection on me or on my honor,
or integrity, or desire to serve the nation if the committee disagreed with
me about some of the taxes. That is a privilege. It is not only a
privilege but it is the duty of the members to express themselves.
"I am an organization Democrat. I never in my life cast a vote against
my own judgment except when I had to go along with the Democratic
organization. I have done that and I will do it again. You must have
organization. We have it through committees, and it is the only way
we can function in this House.
"Let me say to the Republican side that during the consideration of
this bill, while some remarks have been made by men in high authority
on the outside that ought not to have been made, the membership in
this House on the Republican side has been quite decent.
"I am willing to pay them that encomium because they are entitled
to it.
"Gentlemen, I just wanted to say these few words to you. Let me say
to the Democrats alone, do not become critical, do not throw brickbats,
let us be brotherly so far as we can. If one of us should disagree do not
point your finger at him and say he is not a Democrat. That is not the
thing to do and it is not helpful. I pray you on this side to be in a good
humor so far as you can. You are here to serve our country; and,
gentlemen, let us get through this legislation at the earliest date possible
in the interest of our country.'*
*,J AC tf'
Garner's election as Speaker in 1931 made him the highest
ranking Democrat in the nation. (Baer, Labor)
Garner had made the speech of his life, restored his leadership and
brought the House back to order. Backwoods evangelism had tri-
umphed.
Snell got recognition and promised to back up the committee. La
Guardia, who had been one of the most devastating of the wreckers,
told the House he would "stand by the committee and their recom-
mendations." He stayed by his agreement but he told the House in
another speech: "I am getting it going and coming in my district."
[ M9 1
Crisp outlined a new program. House and Senate passed a budget-
balancing program.
The next test came when Gamer brought In a relief bill of his own.
The major item In the Hoover program had been the Reconstruction
Finance Corporation. Garner said the R.F.C. was doing good work as
far as it went, but it needed Its activities enlarged and still other meas-
ures were necessary to fight the depression.
Employment conditions were becoming worse. Garner by early May
had become convinced that the Hoover administration's relief measures
were inadequate. He drew up a public-works bill of his own. He took
all the recommendations for federal works, such as public buildings,
rivers and harbors projects and other approved proposals, and lumped
them Into one big bill.
Each one of these proposals had been sent to the Capitol with the
endorsement of the Hoover or Coolidge administration. Garner felt
that If work were started on them at that time it would provide a
means of absorbing the unemployed and give an impetus to the heavy
Industries which would supply the materials. He figured up the total
cost of the projects and then estimated the rate tax which it would be
necessary to place on gasoline to amortize the cost.
Then Garner called a dozen House Democratic leaders together. In
the conference room were Majority Leader Rainey, Appropriations
Chairman Joseph W. Byrns and Representatives Warren of North
Carolina; McDuffie of Alabama; Woodrum of Virginia; Collier of
Mississippi; Crisp of Georgia; Rayburn of Texas; Bankhead of Ala-
bama; and Sullivan of New York.
He asked each for his candid opinion, walking around the room and
standing in front of each one as the answers were given. McDuffie
and Warren, two of Garner's closest and most devoted friends, said
they were not in favor of the proposition. Byrns said he couldn't quite
make up his mind about It. The others were all for It. Gamer smiled as
he summarized the results of the conference.
"There's Mr. Byrns, he is not quite sure on the matter yet. McDuffie
and Warren are against It. But well take care of McDuffie and
Warren. We'll call a caucus. Gentlemen, if a majority of you had been
opposed to this bill, I would not present it. But now I am determined
to do so."
[150]
At tie caucus Garner gave everybody a chance to say he didn't want
to be bound. Nobody accepted this opportunity.
The measure provided that the money should be expended as
follows :
i : One billion, two hundred nine million for a public-works program
to be expended on public buildings, mostly post offices, and highways,
waterways and flood control projects.
2: A billion-dollar increase in the capitalization of the Reconstruction
Finance Corporation to enable it to make loans to states, cities and
towns for public works.
3 : One hundred million dollars to be expended at the discretion of the
President.
It levied a tax of a third a cent a gallon on gasoline to pay for it.
President Hoover denounced the bill as the greatest pork-barrel
measure ever devised. It passed the House and Senate, but the President
vetoed it. A substitute measure embodying much of it, however, was
passed and became law.
The political truce was now at an end.
The two major parties were near the national conventions which
would nominate their 1932 standard bearers.
CHAPTER X
Kangaroo Ticket
AFAR as I know the first mention of John N. Garner as the
possible 1932 Democratic Presidential nominee was in my cor-
respondence to Southwestern newspapers after the 1930 election,
which had been so close that there was doubt as to whether the Repub-
licans or Democrats would organize the House and whether Longworth
or Garner would be Speaker. My mention was routine and not overly
vociferous.
While only one Speaker of the House, James K. Polk, became Presi-
dent or even received the Presidential nomination while In that high
parliamentary chair, every Speaker except the two foreign-born ones
Crisp and Henderson has figured In Presidential speculation. So my
dispatch merely chronicled that as leader of the minority or as Speaker,
Garner was sure to be a contender for the Presidential nomination.
As far as I could tell, if Mr, Garner ever saw the dispatch at all, his
reception of it was no more fervid than my report of his chances. He
never even mentioned It to me.
Speaker Longworth had come back to preside over the short session.
This was before the lame-duck amendment to the Constitution changing
the annual meeting date of Congress.
In the Board of Education, Garner bantered Longworth:
"I want to be Speaker and pay you back for some of the gag rules
you have put on me. It will be a great delight to sit in that chair and
watch you squirming down there on the floor."
A day or two later, I mentioned to Garner that Texas, which was
never famed for a paucity of state pride, was proud of his position
In the party and undoubtedly there would be a movement in his
behalf for the Presidential nomination.
He seemed uninterested. Instead he commented on the whacking
gubernatorial sweep in New York. Roosevelt had barely nosed in as
Governor in 1928, but in 1930 he had built up an unprecedented
Democratic majority by carrying upstate counties in hitherto rock-
ribbed Republican areas.
"I think the Democrats have a real political catch in this fellow
Roosevelt," he said. "He looks like the man for us in 1932."
His own chances he dismissed with this statement:
"No Democrat from Texas is going to have availability for his
party's Presidential nomination except under extraordinary circum-
stances."
I asked him how well he knew Roosevelt, who had been Assistant
Secretary of the Navy in the Wilson administration.
"I knew him hardly at all during the war," he said. "I knew a lot
of fellows in the War Department, but we didn't have any naval
bases on the Rio Grande and I had no dealing with anyone in the
Navy except Secretary Daniels, with whom I talked about some
appropriations."
After Roosevelt began to recover from his polio attack, Garner
said, he frequently came through Washington going to and from
Warm Springs. On these occasions he would stop at the Continental
Hotel, a medium-priced hotel on Union Station Plaza. He would
call Garner and Cordell Hull and, because Roosevelt was crippled
and unable to get to the Capitol conveniently, Garner and Hull would
go to the hotel and see him.
I asked what effect Roosevelt's physical condition might have on
his availability.
"For the Presidency you run on a record and not on your legs,"
Garner replied. "If he makes a good record with the legislature at
Albany this winter his kind of ailment won't hurt him as a candidate.
It might help him."
After Longworth's death and Garner's election as Speaker, there
was an occasional mention of the Texan as a Presidential eligible.
It was, however, an editorial in the Hearst newspapers, written by
William Randolph Hearst himself, which caused Garner to begin to
get real recognition as a Presidential possibility.
Garner had no advance information that the Hearst editorial was
coming. He had not seen Hearst since they served together in Con-
gress. From Ms standpoint it could hardly have corne at a more inop-
portune time. He had a tiny but cohesive majority. He was putting
through the Hoover relief program and the Democrats were deter-
mined to put in additional measures o their own if they regarded
Administration measures insufficient.
Garner enjoyed his daily press conferences. He liked snappy ques-
tions and gave tart answers. But the one that day was not so pleasant.
The first question was:
"What have you got to say about your Presidential candidacy?"
"I haven't got a word to say/' he shot back.
He shut off further questioning with finality.
'I haven't a word to say. I am trying to attend to my business
here. Now I'll talk about anything else you want to."
After the press conference I remained to discuss the situation about
the long, prominently displayed editorial privately with him. He was
worried and said further Presidential talk could do him and the party
severe harm.
"I have been Speaker less than sixty days," he said. "I have got a
tender majority of three. If I can stay close to the gavel I can get
along all right. The biggest single bloc of votes in there is controlled
by Tammany. It's more than a tenth of all the Democratic votes
in the House. They have got a Roosevelt-Smith split among them-
selves already. Smith has got support among Congressmen from other
states. The Maryland fellows are lined up for Ritchie. There are
Roosevelt people in nearly all the delegations. I don't want to jeopard-
ize our cohesion and the legislative program by a Presidential
candidacy of my own."
The Hearst editorial and subsequent news-column comment, how-
ever, brought Garner many pledges of support. Letters poured in on
him from former colleagues in Congress and many of the 1932 mem-
bers of Congress offered him their aid. He refused it and said tie
was not a candidate.
But if Garner's interest in his own Presidential prospects was
tepid, this was not true in Texas. By early February a whooping cam-
paign was under way for the state's first son ever to sit in the Speaker's
chair and who might go on to the White House.
[154]
<^TH EASTER PARADE ^3
A parade of 1932 Presidential candidates Franklin D. Roose-
velt, Garner, Governor Ritchie of Maryland, Governor Murray
of Oklahoma, Newton D. Baker of Ohio and President Hoover.
(Gregg, Denver Post)
Editorial discussion of Garner was widespread. The Philadelphia
Public Ledger commented :
"In Garner the Democrats think they have found another 'Old
Hickory.* Unquestionably there is a lot of tough, well-seasoned
hickory in Garner's make-up, for few men in public life so thoroughly
enjoy a fight as he does. But he has some other characteristics that
Jackson lacked, for instance, tact and ability to co-operate.
"Jackson, in Garner's patience-trying position would have treated
the country to a rare display of temper, bumped heads together, fought
a duel or two and plunged the House in turmoil. Much as Garner
loves fighting, common sense always tells him when to use salve in-
stead of blows."
By February i, it was evident to everyone that Governor Roosevelt
might win the race by default. Other than Roosevelt only Governor
Albert C. Ritchie o Maryland was making any effort toward getting
the nomination and Ritchie seemingly was making little headway.
On February 7, Alfred E. Smith came into the race in a statement
in which he said:
"So many inquiries have come to me from friends throughout the
country who worked for me and believed in me as to my attitude in
the present political situation that I feel that I owe It to my friends
and to the millions of men and women who supported me so loyally
in 1928 to make my position clear.
"If the Democratic national convention, after careful consideration,
should decide it wants me to lead I will make the fight, but I will
not make a preconvention campaign to secure the support of delegates.
"By action of the Democratic national convention in 1928, I am the
leader of my party in the nation. With a full sense of the responsi-
bility thereby imposed, I shall not in advance of the convention either
support or oppose the candidacy of any aspirant for the nomination."
To politicians there was no misreading the Smith announcement. He
was gunning for Roosevelt, the man who succeeded him as Governor
at Albany. Smith himself made no secret of the fact that he intended
opposing Roosevelt "to the last heartbeat" at Chicago.
Smith's announcement slowed up the hitherto runaway campaign
for Roosevelt. It meant that Roosevelt could never get a delegate
from Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island or New Jersey and
that two-thirds of the New York delegates would stand for Smith
until the end.
Fresh impetus was given the Garner campaign when on February
17 the two Texas Senators, Morris Sheppard and Tom Connally, in
a joint statement issued at the Capitol, announced that the name of
John N. Garner would be presented formally to the Democratic
national convention. In part they said:
"Without reflecting on any other Democrat whose name has been
mentioned in connection with the Presidency, we have no hesitation
in averring that John Garner by training and experience in national
affairs and by his wide grasp of national problems is the most highly
qualified of all those who are being mentioned as candidates in either
the Republican or the Democratic parties. Texas presents him to the
nation as a man grounded in the fundamentals of democracy, a
rugged and militant champion of the American people."
To a newspaper which wrote to him asking his views on national
questions. Garner replied:
"I have no intention of making a declaration with respect to any
question with which Congress does not have immediate concern.
I am not particularly interested as to how my determination in this
respect will affect my political future. I am confronted with a task,
a task involving greater responsibilities than have fallen to the lot
of the Speakers since the World War, and my sole ambition is to
discharge my duties in such manner that I may be helpful to the
American people in relieving the distressed conditions they are ex-
periencing."
Garner told Harry Sexton, a secretary in his office, to send the
same letter to anyone who made a request for his views.
He showed irritation whenever the subject of the Presidency was
mentioned to him. Once he said:
"I think you know me well enough to know that when I say any-
thing I mean it. I am Speaker of the House and devoting my time
to its duties. This is the first time the Democrats have controlled any
branch of government for ten years. If we do not function properly
between now and the Democratic national convention the Democratic
Presidential nomination won't be worth two whoops in hell to any-
body."
A few days later when he returned from a conference with Presi-
dent Hoover at the White House, he said:
"I always thought of the White House as a prison, but I never
noticed until today how much the shiny latch on the Executive office
door looks like the handle on a casket."
Garner was the best newspaper copy in Washington in those days,
When he went with Mrs. Garner to the Speaker's Dinner given by
President and Mrs. Hoover, it was the first time since Taft enter-
tained Champ Clark that a President had given a dinner for a
Speaker of the opposite political creed.
He almost forgot about it. Mrs. Garner telephoned from their
hotel to a secretary:
"Get him by the ear, if necessary, and bring him down here." Garner
was located in a policy conference in McDuffie's office.
Newspapers carried his picture entering the White House in a
full dress suit, the first time he had ever been photographed so
garbed. Next day his colleagues at the Capitol called him "Society
Jack."
One o the guests at the White House dinner was Henry Ford.
Another was Melvin Traylor of Chicago, whom Garner thought likely
to be the running mate of Franklin D. Roosevelt, if Roosevelt got the
Presidential nomination as Garner thought he would.
The Garner Texas campaign was headed by Mayor C. M. Chambers
of San Antonio. Chambers and Garner had been boys together in
Red River County. A statewide convention at San Antonio of Feb-
ruary 22 launched the Garner candidacy. Chambers stepped aside
and the Texas committee chose Representative Sam Rayburn in his
place. In accepting, Rayburn said:
"My interpretation of this action is that it named me only the
national representative of the Texas committee and not a national
campaign manager. Mr. Garner is not an active candidate for the
Democratic nomination for President and, therefore, there is no
national campaign manager."
Action on a front farther west quickly followed. A California group
announced its intention to place Garner in the primary there against
Alfred E. Smith, 1928 standard-bearer, and Governor Franklin D.
Roosevelt,
WiEiam G. McAdoo, Wilson's Secretary of the Treasury, in Los
Angeles declared for Garner:
"He is beyond the reach of those sinister and subde influences which
work unceasingly against the interests of the masses of the people.
He will know how to use the executive power to promote the common
good. Under Garner all elements of the party should be able to unite."
Garner's friends in Congress discussed the situation. They got
no help from him. He would talk to no one about it.
"He growls like an old bear when you mention it," said Repre-
sentative John McDuffie o Alabama. "If he is "not interested, why
should his friends be?"
But McDufSe and others of his friends kept busy anyway. They felt
that a primary election victory in a doubtful state such as California
would enhance his prestige in the House and raise his Presidential
stock, but a poor showing would help neither. The discussion was an
[ 158 ]
academic one for the Califoraians entered his name anyway, with
McAdoo heading the Garner slate.
The California primary came on May 4. Both the Roosevelt and
Smith camps had placed great store on the outcome there. If Roose-
velt carried it he would be less than fifty delegate votes short o the
necessary two-thirds of all the delegates and it would make his first
ballot nomination inevitable. The Smith forces depended on Cali-
fornia to stop the triumphant Roosevelt march through conventions
and primaries and felt it would furnish the setup for a successful
"stop-Roosevelt" movement. They believed San Francisco, where
Smith was prime favorite, would tip the scales for the Happy Warrior,
but the next day astonished Democratic politicians read this Associ-
ated Press news story:
"California Democracy swept John N. Garner from the gallery of
favorite sons in today's presidential primaries, giving him a sweeping
victory over Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Alfred E. Smith in the
contest for the state's 44 votes in the national convention,
"The final tabulations showed: Garner 211,913; Roosevelt 167,117;
Smith 135,981."
Other than in Texas and California, no effort was made for Garner.
He had discouraged every effort in his behalf. Thus, when the Chi-
cago convention opened he had the ninety delegates from the two
states, some second-choice support and a possibility of being the con-
vention's compromise candidate for President. In hand, he had the
Speakership.
A field of a dozen active or receptive candidates and favorite sons
were expected to face the barrier at Chicago, but only four were be-
lieved to figure as the possible nominee. These were Governor Roose-
velt, Speaker Garner, Governor Albert C. Ritchie of Maryland and
Newton D. Baker of Ohio, former Secretary of War.
Garner's friends believed the bitter division in New York helped
Garner's chances, especially as the Texan had handily defeated Smith
and Roosevelt in the California primary.
Before leaving for Chicago I called on Garner to talk the situation
over. I was enthusiastic because I thought the Smith-Roosevelt split
would give him a chance to run past both of them after a deadlock.
But Garner was still uninterested.
"I have no desire to be President," he said. "I am perfectly satisfied
right here in the Speaker's office. "I worked twenty-six years to get
to be Speaker. If we win this election I will have a comfortable ma-
jority to work with in the House. If we are on the political upswing
as it looks, I will have a longer tenure as Speaker than any other man
ever had.
"I have felt for several weeks that we have this election in our hands.
But we had the same kind of situation in 1924. Public confidence is
sometimes a delicate and fragile thing. It did not survive the rough
handling we gave it by making a spectacle of ourselves in the Smith-
McAdoo deadlock. It may not this time. An ugly situation can develop
at Chicago."
Then he told me in confidence:
"I am not going to deadlock the convention against the leader.
Roosevelt is the leader in delegates. He will have a majority, but not
two-thirds. Al Smith will have around two hundred delegates and they
will hold out until the last against Roosevelt. Ritchie will have some
and they will be against Roosevelt all the way. Senator Lewis will
not be a candidate and Cermak (mayor of Chicago, who later was
killed by an assassin's bullet intended for Roosevelt, in Miami) will
hide out his anti-Roosevelt votes behind Melvin Traylor."
I asked what he thought of Baker as a compromise if Roosevelt
did not win on the first few ballots.
"Compromise candidates don't win Presidential elections," he
replied. "Garfield was the last one who did, and he won in a very
close popular vote. Harding was not really a dark horse. Controlling
Republican leaders had him slated all the time and he had a nest egg
of around 100 votes on the first ballot. Besides, Governor White
controls the Ohio delegation, and I don't think he favors Baker. . . .
Traylor is a banker and this is not a good year for bankers." (There
was a run on Traylor's bank while the convention was on.)
"Roosevelt is both strong and weak. He seems to have practically
no second-choice delegates. He has got just about a third of the New
York delegates. Smith has the others, and nearly all from New Eng-
land, New Jersey and half those from Pennsylvania. . . . The stop-
Roosevelt men could, with a little help, deadlock the convention."
Naturally, Garner did not communicate his feelings to Governor
[160]
Roosevelt, James A. Farley or anyone else. If they had known his
attitude they would have been spared many anxious hours in the days
that followed. His plan was to watch events, be certain Roosevelt
was the man the convention wanted, and that no better man would
come to the top. But o one thing he was sure: as Speaker of the
House and consequently the highest elected Democrat in the nation
and presently the field marshal of the Democratic legislative forces,
he was not going to be responsible for a shattering of those forces.
Representative Sam Rayburn was in complete charge of the Garner
management at the Chicago convention. Assisting him was Silliman
Evans, then a Texas newspaperman. Rayburn played his cards with
skill, lined up with the "Allies," as the candidates opposing Roose-
velt were called, and made no commitments to anyone.
As had been foreseen, the rule requiring two-thirds majority to
nominate in Democratic conventions was the main block on the
Roosevelt road, but there was nothing the New York governor could
do about it. His attempt to change it brought such a protest that his
managers dropped the effort. The rule was a one-hundred-year-old
fixture in the party's procedure, and was supported strongly by the
solid South because it gave those states a kind of veto power.
Garner personally was against the two-thirds rule.
"The power it gives the South is a negative one," he said. "If the
South would stand up for its rights affirmatively, support a Southern
man for President when that man is more competent than others
instead of merely trying to veto there might be a time when capability
rather than place of residence would be the test of availability."
Before the 1936 convention the South did surrender the great power
the two-thirds rule gave it and subsequent nominations have been
made by a majority. The most persistent fight for its abrogation was
made by Senator Bennett Champ Clark of Missouri, whose famous
father was defeated by the rule, although he attained a majority at
Baltimore in 1912.
The convention met on June 27. The galleries were packed with
Smith rooters. The Cook County machine, under Cermak, had seen
to that. Roosevelt's name was the first to go before the convention.
When John E. Mack concluded the Roosevelt nominating speech,
[161]
delegates gave him a great demonstration, but the galleries hissed
and booed.
Senator Tom Connally was given a respectful hearing as he nomi-
nated Garner as "a Democrat without prefix, suffix or qualifying
phrase." A Texas band led a colorful parade. Mrs. Grace Hargreaves,
daughter of William Jennings Bryan, carried the California banner
and William Gibbs McAdoo held aloft the big California gold bear
flag. Will Rogers and a group of Oklahoma delegates carried the
Sooner State banner into the parade, although Oklahoma was in-
structed for Governor Murray. A few other state banners joined,
more in friendship than in support.
It was not until Governor Joseph B. Ely of Massachusetts, in one
of the most eloquent speeches ever heard in a national convention,
nominated Alfred E. Smith that the galleries really let go with all
they had.
Anti-Roosevelt groups attempted to adjourn at midnight following
the oratorical Niagara that characterized the nominations and the
seconding speeches, but the Roosevelt leaders insisted on a ballot.
They polled a disappointing 666 votes on the first ballot, 102 short
of the necessary two-thirds. At four o'clock in the morning another
attempt to adjourn was beaten down by the Roosevelt men, who
controlled the convention machinery as well as a majority of the
delegates. The second ballot dragged on until sunrise, with delegation
after delegation demanding that it be polled by the chair. Internal
fighting within the delegations was intense. It was an angry, sweaty,
fist-fighting session.
Delegates were asleep all over the place by the time the second
ballot was completed. Tempers of those still awake were sharp. Some
who went to the hotels to go to bed were brought back when there
were demands that the delegations of which they were members be
polled individually.
In a night packed with drama, the late James J. Walker, Mayor o
New York, played the part which is vividly remembered by men and
women who sat in the convention hall at Chicago.
Serious charges had been made against him as a result of the Sea-
bury hearing and the case had been sent to Governor Roosevelt, who
had the power to remove him from office.
Walker had left the hall under the Impression that Tammany Leader
John F. Curry, the chairman of the New York delegation, would cast
the New York delegation's vote 65^ for Smith and 28^2 for Roose-
velt, but the Roosevelt following in the Empire State insisted on a
showdown and Curry asked that the delegation be polled.
Walker, a delegate at large, did not answer to his name. A murmur
ran over the hall. Was Walker, whose fate was In the hands of
Roosevelt, ducking the roll call?
Just as daylight was streaming into convention hall, a small man,
who had apparently been waked out of a sound sleep and dressed
very hurriedly and had put on a coat without any shirt under it,
came hurriedly to the New York section and standing beside his state
standard demanded recognition.
Gray-haired, gray-mustached, austere Chairman Thomas J. Walsh,
hoarse from a night of trying to make his voice carry through the
din, faced the New York delegation, gavel pointing to the delegate,
and asked sharply:
"Who is it that desires recognition?"
The diminutive delegate replied just as sharply:
"Walker, of New York."
No further Identification was necessary, the convention hall was
suddenly silent for the first time that night.
"The Mayor of New York is recognized," Walsh said in the hush.
"Mr. Chairman," Walker said, "I hear that in my absence an alter-
nate voted on my name. May I ask the privilege of casting my vote
myself at this time?"
"The delegate has that right. We will receive the delegate's vote
now," Walsh responded.
"I desire that my vote be cast for Alfred E. Smith," Walker said
in a clear, firm voice, setting off a wild demonstration in the galleries
and even in the preponderandy Roosevelt delegate rows. (Later,
Walker resigned the mayoralty.)
The third inconclusive ballot was finished about nine o'clock in the
morning, a motion to adjourn was carried and the bleary-eyed weary
delegates went to their rooms.
There was lightning in the air after that third ballot, but no one
knew where it would strike. So- it was with a common fear of disaster
that the leaders went off for a little rest, and a lot o scheming and
trading.
"Governor Roosevelt is stopped!" declared former Senator James
Reed of Missouri.
"The balloting suits me fine/* said A! Smith.
On that third ballot the result had been Roosevelt 683; Smith 190;
Garner 101; Governor White of Ohio 52; Melvin A. Tray lor, Chicago
banker, 40; Governor Ritchie of Maryland 28; Jim Reed 27; Harry F.
Byrd 24; Newton D. Baker 8. To win, 770 votes were necessary.
Many Texans and others now believed that Garner had a real chance
to be nominated. One o these was Will Rogers, who was covering
the convention for a newspaper syndicate.
Rogers had something of the same relation with Speaker Garner
that Mark Twain had had with Speaker Cannon. Twain, when in
Washington, would take over Cannon's office and hold court; Rogers
did the same with Garner's office.
Rogers thought the Democrats were sure to win the election. After
Garner, his second choice was Owen D. Young. Rogers believed there
was a possibility that Arizona and Arkansas would go to Garner on
the fourth ballot.
Garner also had second-choice strength in Alabama, and Representa-
tive John McDufEe hoped to swing it to Garner on the fifth or sixth
ballots. As Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas were the three states alpha-
betically at the* top of the ballot, the three-way swing might have
started a stampede for Garner. These states, with Mississippi., Min-
nesota, Iowa, New Mexico and North Carolina, were voting full
strength under the unit rule which did not allow a delegation to divide
its votes for Roosevelt. But there were strong minorities in each,
fighting to break free and oppose the New York governor.
Representative Lindsay Warren of North Carolina, now Comptroller
General of the United States, was one of the Roosevelt floor managers.
Warren was convinced that if Roosevelt did not make it on the fourth
ballot he was through. Warren's second choice was Garner and he
canvassed his delegation in behalf of the Speaker.
Warren counted eighteen individual delegates as his pledges to
Garner, but here he was stopped for a most unusual reason. Dr. Hugh
Young, the famous surgeon of Johns Hopkins Hospital, was a member
[164]
of the Maryland delegation and working hard for Ritchie. Dr. Young
was riding the North Carolina delegation ceaselessly and had eleven
delegates lined up for Ritchie. The reason: Dr. Young had performed
serious and successful operations on eleven of the North Carolina
delegates.
"I think Garner would make a great President," gray-haired, dis-
tinguished Colonel T. M. Washington of the Tarheel State told Warren,
"But I may have to go back to Johns Hopkins and if I did Doc Young
might not admit me. He's that strong for Ritchie."
All that day Smith tried to reach Garner by telephone, but the
Speaker would not take the call. The Smith men thought this an inten-
tional snub, but Garner told me later it was not.
"I meant no discourtesy to Smith," he said. "I knew he was in a bitter,
last-ditch fight in which I did not intend to take part.. I decided it was
best for me to talk only to Sam Rayburn, Amon Carter or some other
members of the Texas delegation. There was no reason to talk to out-
siders. If Roosevelt had called, I would not have taken that one, either."
Smith wanted to tell Garner that Texas and California furnished
Roosevelt's only chance of nomination and that if Garner would hold
on Roosevelt would shoot his bolt.
In Washington, Garner analyzed the three ballots, state by state,
and called Rayburn in Chicago.
"Sam, I think it is time to break this thing up,'* he said. "Roosevelt
is the choice of the convention. He has had a majority on three ballots.
We don't want to be responsible for wrecking the party's chances. The
nomination ought to be made cm the next roll call."
Rayburn said he would canvass the situation and call back. He did y
late in the afternoon.
"I do not remember exactly what Sam told me," said Garner, "but
this is the impression it made on my mind: Conferences had been in
progress all day and Smith's bloc was standing firm. Roosevelt could
not break into other delegations, and Mississippi and some other states
were about ready to desert him. Feelers showed that California would
go to Roosevelt if I released the delegates. Texas would not, unless
I went on the ticket with the New York governor. They had to sell the
Texas delegates on the idea that Roosevelt, as governor of the most
populous state, and I, as head of one branch of the government which
[165]
the Democrats held, would be a winning ticket. If Texas and California
did not go to Roosevelt on the fourth ballot, Rayburn thought the con-
vention was in for a deadlock.
u l didn't like the thought of taking the Vice-Presidential nomination.
But I wanted another Madison Square Garden deadlock even less.
The party had been defeated before it nominated John W. Davis on the
10310! ballot in that long fight between Smith and McAdoo back In
1924. We had taken another licking in 1928. So I said to Sam, 'All right,
release my delegates and see what you can do. Hell, I'll do anything to
see the Democrats win one more national election.* "
Late that day Senator Pat Harrison- of Mississippi, who did not
know Garner Intended to release the Texas and California delegations,
met Silliman Evans at the stairway leading to the convention platform.
A tense crowd, expecting another wild night, packed every seat in the
great hall.
"Has Texas done anything?" asked Harrison.
"Yes, 17 replied Evans, "and so has California. We've voted to go to
Roosevelt."
"Good Lord! Mississippi's just voted to leave him!" Harrison ex-
claimed and rushed back to bring a quick reversal of that decision.
The Californians leaped jubilantly to the Roosevelt band wagon.
They had the honor all delegations like that of casting the deciding
vote and it had come to them unexpectedly. Under the Interpretation
of the California law only Garner could release them, and he had talked
only to Rayburn and no one In the California contingent knew the
action was imminent. McAdoo only a few hours before had said:
"California will stay with Garner until hell freezes over."
The Texans went sullenly to Roosevelt. Actually there Is some
question whether the Lone Star delegation ever voted to go to Roose-
velt. Texas had only 46 votes In the convention, but 180 men and women
were there to cast them, each delegate having a fraction of a vote. Only
105 of the 180 showed up at the caucus, and these voted to go to
Roosevelt, according to the tally given out, by 54 to 51. The vote was
taken amid great confusion. What If the 75 absentees had been present?
How would they have voted? At least some of them were anti-Roosevelt
to the last, were at the time working in other delegations for Garner
and never heard of the caucus. Garner had got u votes from Oklahoma,
[166]
bringing his total to 101. Other Oklahoma delegates were said to be
ready to come his way. But whatever the technical, or the actual situa-
tion, the convention floor record shows that Texas went to Roosevelt
with all of its 46 votes. Texas and California gave Roosevelt all he
needed. A flood tide of breaks from other states followed. Only the
Smith men stood out to the last.
When William G. McAdoo was recognized to announce that Garner
had released his delegates, yowls and howls and hisses and boos from
the galleries stopped all proceedings. Senator Walsh of Montana, the
chairman, had to call on Mayor Ceraiak of Chicago to quiet his friends,
which finally he did.
While the angry demonstration was at its height, Will Rogers came
to the press box and sat down beside me. He was low in spirit.
"Here I have been neutral all my life until now," he said, "and the
first time I come out for a man he throws his strength to a fellow with
a Harvard accent. No good can come to a Texan who does a thing like
that."
Garner, in Washington, slept through the night of turmoil. He did
not even listen to the radio. It was not until he saw newspapers the next
morning that he knew his released delegates had brought about Roose-
velt's nomination.
Garner was nominated for the Vice-Presidency by acclamation. No
other name was considered. But still, the Texans were not happy.
Texas had been an enthusiastic Woodrow Wilson state, a League of
Nations state, and many Texans resented Roosevelt's repudiation of
the League in his February 2, 1932, speech before the New York State
Grange. In this speech he had taken his stand "firmly and beyond
equivocation" against American participation in the League. So the
Texas delegates left Chicago with mixed feelings. They were glad to
have a Texan on the national ticket, but were disappointed that he had
the second place.
"It's a kangaroo ticket," said Archie Parr, a veteran Texas political
leader. "Stronger in the hind quarter than in front."
Roosevelt flew to Chicago to accept the nomination, but Garner
asked that formal notification be sent him by mail, and that the stale
ceremonies be dispensed with. This was done, and Garner wrote a
letter accepting the Vice-Presidential nomination.
"Be sure to put a stamp on that letter," he said to his secretary. "It is
not official business,"
Back in Washington after the convention debris was all cleaned up,
I talked with Garner about the charges that he had swapped his
delegates for the Vice-Presidential nomination.
"I have something of a reputation as a trader," he said, "and
that reputation would not be helped any by trading the second most
important office in the nation for one which in itself is almost wholly
unimportant."
"Then why did you do it?" I asked,
"I am a Democrat. I believe the country needs the Democrats in
power at this time. The convention was heading toward the 1924
situation when McAdoo had around 500 delegates and Smith around
300 and fifteen other men split up the remaining 250. If Roosevelt's
strength had begun to break up on the fourth ballot, as it would
have, I don't think any candidate could have got a two-thirds majority
until after so bitter a contest that chances of winning the election
would have ceased to exist. I did what I believed was best in the
situation. But when I give up the Speakership I will give up a place
wanted. The Speakership is a potent office regardless of who is Presi-
dent. If I am elected Vice-President my hands will be tied because
I'll be elected on the same ticket with the President."
The Vice-Presidential nominee opposed any extensive speaking
campaign for the party nominees in 1932.
He told Roosevelt at their first meeting at Hyde Park:
"All you have got to do is stay alive until election day. The people
are not going to vote for you. They are going to vote against the
depression."
He thought there was some advantage in Roosevelt making a tour.
He felt the Presidential candidate's public appearances would end any
talk that he was physically inadequate for the office.
He amused himself offering wagers that no one could pick any
combination of five states that the Republicans would carry. Although
they carried six, no one had the right combinations and he won all
his bets.
When Garner reached New York in the autumn he found that no
one from Democratic headquarters had talked to Al Smith. Garner
[168]
Garner loomed as a compromise candidate for the Presidency
in 1932, but rather than deadlock the convention he threw his
strength to Roosevelt. (Bateman,, Fort Worth Record)
called William J. Bray, who had grown up in the House cloakroom
and of whom Garner was very fond.
"Billy," he said, "if you'll find Governor Smith's office for me, I'll
go have a visit with him."
Bray said it would not be hard to find as he was in the highest
building in the world.
While Garner's entourage remained outside. Garner and Smith had
a long conference.
Smith afterward spoke in behalf of the Roosevelt-Garner ticket.
Garner made an appearance before a group of businessmen in
New York. He had been pictured in the East as a radical. When
Garner concluded, he had not only convinced them he was not radical,
but the diners gave him 120,000 for the Democratic campaign fund.
He was called to Texas during the campaign because of the death of
his eighty-two-year-old mother.
He appeared with Roosevelt, at Topeka, Kansas, and made one radio
speech himself.
When the Democratic national committee asked him to make more
he said that one per campaign was enough. A delegation composed
of James A. Farley, Frank C. Walker, Bernard M. Baruch and
Senators Swanson of Virginia; Pittman of Nevada; and Byrnes of
South Carolina, called on him and argued with him for three hours
that he should make speeches. Garner stuck to his decision.
"Let's go on the principle of Captain Bill McDonald of the Texas
Rangers," Garner said. "A riot was threatened in a Texas town and
citizens wired to the Governor to send Rangers. Then they went to
the station to meet the train. Bill McDonald got off.
" 'What,' asked the leader of the citizen's group, 'just one Ranger?'
" 'Well,' Bill McDonald drawled, 'there's just one riot ain't there?' ",
In his radio speech in which he discussed taxation and government
economy, Garner opened with a tribute to Nicholas Longworth. He
said:
"It was the proudest moment of my life when I became Speaker of
the House. The pride I felt in attaining what I regarded as the most
potent office in the government, with the exception of the Presidency,
was mitigated with a sense of the responsibility it involved. This
was particularly so because I succeeded a great Speaker and a great
[ I7 o]
man, my closest, dearest friend, Nick Longworth, a square-shooter
if ever there was one and a Republican as devoted to the principles
o his party as I hope I am to mine. We had our battles and there was
an intellectual pleasure, you may be sure, in fighting one another.
For Nick Longworth was a sportsman who played the game accord-
ing to the rules. He conducted his battles fairly and cleanly and
truthfully."
On the day Roosevelt and Garner carried forty-two of the forty-
eight States, Garner's Texas district elected him to Congress for the
sixteenth straight time. His nomination for Vice-President had come
after Congressional nomination filing dates had closed. Consequently
he conceivably could have been defeated for Vice-President and still
been Speaker and now theoretically had his choice between the Speaker-
ship and the Vice-Presidency.
Actually, despite the fact that it was not the choice he would like
to have made in the matter, his action was never in doubt. He resigned
from Congress effective at noon, March 4, 1933.
The depression which began in 1929 and continued all through the
3o's and into the 40'$, reached its depth between the November election
of 1932 and the inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the following
March.
As conditions grew desperate President Hoover, Speaker Garner,
Secretary of the Treasury Ogden L. Mills and Senate Democratic
Leader Joseph T. Robinson met at the White House and agreed upon
a plan which they believed would alleviate conditions and, especially,
would check bank failures.
Key to the plan was new taxes to make up an indicated deficiency
Jbetween income and outgo, and passage of the Glass bill. The Glass
bill did not guarantee bank deposits but provided a liquidating cor-
poration to speed up payment to depositors in closed banks. It also con-
tained other far-reaching bank reforms.
Garner, Robinson and other Democratic leaders conferred with.
Governor Roosevelt at Roosevelt's New York City home, 49 East
Sixty-fifth Street and discussed the plan. On leaving the Roosevelt
home Garner and Robinson told newspapermen of the agreement on
the budget proposals, which paralleled their agreement with Hoover.
Governor Roosevelt indicated to newspapermen he did not disapprove
the plan.
Garner called the proposed taxes "sound but painful."
Two days afterward the New Yor^ Times called the Roosevelt-
Garner-Robinson conference "inauspicious" and said "the conferees
cannot agree what they agreed on."
Actually Roosevelt a few days later told Garner he could not go
along on the tax proposal. Garner went to Hoover and said :
"For the first time in my life I find myself unable to carry out an
agreement. Governor Roosevelt is opposed to what we have planned,
and it is a waste of time to try any legislation to which he will not
agree."
Hoover said that Roosevelt's cooperation was necessary. He con-
tinued to- make proposals of various measures to Roosevelt up to in-
auguration day, but there was no meeting of minds between the out-
going and incoming Presidents.
Scores of banks closed their doors between election and inauguration.
A nation gripped in gloom greeted inauguration day.
CHAPTER XI
You -Can't Do Everything You Want To
NEVER did a man make a transition from a job which he
enjoyed to one he felt sure he would not like with such
fanfare. Garner marched straight across to the north side
of the Capitol to take the oath as Vice-President on March 4, 1933,
And he did not march alone.
Schuyler Colfax of Indiana, the only other man to have served both
as Speaker and Vice-President of the United States, had resigned as
Speaker the day before he took oath of office as Grant's first Vice-
President.
Garner, in contrast, gaveled the House over which he had presided
to adjournment and then, with Speaker-choice Henry T. Rainey,
Majority Leader-designate Joseph W. Byrns and Republican Leader
Bertrand H. Snell abreast and a convoy of more than 400 members of
the adjourned House and more than 150 members-elect, marched to the
Senate Chamber. While his legislative escort found seats, Garner
walked directly to the dais and took the gavel from Vice-President
Curtis.
"The House of Representatives and General Garner are going across
to take over the Senate," quipped Representative Loring M. Black
of New York, as Garner and his company moved through the cor-
ridors between the two legislative chambers.
The House had ceremonies and the Democrats presented Garner with
a watch. The retiring Speaker and incoming Vice-President made four
addresses during the day. Three of them were in the House and one
in the Senate, which was a record for Garner. The fact also that he
spoke as the presiding officer of both branches of Congress in one day
was a record which no man up to then or now had made.
[173]
In his first talk, In response to the announcement of Minority
Leader Snell that the electoral vote showed him elected Vice-President,
Garner said:
"I do not think it out of order for me to say publicly what I have
said privately 1 would rather remain in the House of Representatives.
I have enjoyed my service here. My ears and eyes and whatever intellect
I have may be over there, but my heart will always be in the House."
In his speech acknowledging the gift of a watch, he said :
"Many journalists and some unthinking people in the land berate
the Congress of the United States, especially the House. For the past
two or three years I have given some study to the political history of
this Republic, more so than I have all during my life heretofore. It
is my deliberate judgment that there have been as able men in Congress
in the last thirty years during which time I have served, as there have
been in any Congress in the history of the Republic. There are as able
men today in the House, in my opinion, as there have been in any
Congress in our history. That is not partiality on my part. They do not
stand out with the brilliancy they did sixty or seventy-five or a
hundred years ago because for the last thirty years we have been
living in a commercial age, in which we do not worship so much the
intellect, the character and the statesmanship of men as we do their
ability to accumulate the thing we worship today the almighty
dollar."
Snell then delivered the House's farewell to Garner. The Republican
leader said:
"No man has reached the elevation of Speaker of this House by mere
accident. He must have proven to his associates that he has character,
ability and experience. The present Speaker has so proven in marked
degree. During the period he has presided, he has added luster not
only to his own name, but to the House and to the country. He has
always presided with candor, fairness, firmness and dispatch."
Garner in reply gave another bit of his political belief. He said:
"I believe in partisanship. I believe in party organization. I believe
this country must be continued under the Constitution through political
parties, and I doubt whether there can ever be more than two effective
political parties in view of the fact that the premier [President] must be
continued for four years.
[ 174 ]
BroQWyu Eagla.
When Roosevelt aligned himself with the New Deal element
of the party, cartoonists depicted Garner as the Lone Rider of
the Democratic donkey. (Cassel, Brooklyn Eagle)
"In some way it is to be regretted that the Republican membership
in the incoming Congress will not be as large as in this. The best
proposition for the House of Representatives, could it be arranged that
way, is a majority of about fifty or sixty on one side, whether it
be Republican or Democrat. By this I do not mean to say that I am
not very happy, as a partisan and as a candidate for office in the last
election, that the Democratic party gathered in as many of the brethren
as it did. We are glad to have three hundred odd members in this
House. I speak only o an ideal House, whether it be fifty or sixty
Republican majority or fifty or sixty Democratic majority."
In his speech to the Senate, Garner took a good-natured jab at the
Senate rules which permit a Senator to speak to his heart's content
on any sort o irrelevant subject. He said:
"Senators, this is my first and possibly it may be my last opportunity
to address the Senate. I am particularly anxious to ingratiate myself
Into your favorable consideration. Knowing from some observation the
disposition of the Senate not to discuss any matter unless it is important
and under particular consideration, I deem it inappropriate to say more
than that I come as your presiding officer to co-operate, to be helpful,
to do the best I can, to help you conduct the proceedings of the
Senate."
Garner, never much of a worrier, may have been a little disturbed
about how the Senate would receive him. He was a House man and
had upheld the House end in many a stormy conference between the
two branches.
Between twenty and twenty-five of the Senators had been his col-
leagues in the House, including Robinson, Harrison, Barkley, Glass,
Byrnes, Sheppard, Connally, Norris and Tydings. Senator Bennett
Clark of Missouri, son of the Speaker Champ Clark, Garner had known
since Clark's boyhood.
But Garner, who had called the Vice-Presidency a "no man's land
somewhere between the legislative and executive branch," had been
asked by President Roosevelt to attend and participate in Cabinet
meetings. When presiding in the Senate he would be associating with
the legislative branch; when attending Cabinet meetings, with the
Executive. There was a chance that Senators with whom he had to
work would resent that divided function.
Of his immediate predecessors, Coolidge had been invited to attend
Cabinet meetings and did so spasmodically. Dawes declined to go near
one. Curtis did not go often. None of them had been more than
observers. Actually, Curtis looked upon his office almost entirely as a
social one. Garner knew he was not going to spend his time dining
for his country. Protocol and the snubs and countersnubs of Washing-
ton official society amused both him and Mrs. Garner.
Garner accepted the invitation to attend Cabinet meetings under
terms which he outlined:
"I decided that in order to carry out such a responsibility I must
make an agreement with the President-elect," he said. 'That agreement
included three things:
"In the first place, in order to serve the President and the country
in that capacity, I did not feel I should make a public statement. I also
suggested that we agree during my term in the Vice-Presidency and
association in the Cabinet that I would not make any recommendation
for public office unless I was asked for a recommendation.
"The third part of the agreement was that I would not make any
recommendation as to national policy unless I was asked."
Just before he surrendered the gavel as Speaker, Garner called in
newspapermen covering the House of Representatives for a final con-
ference. At its conclusion, he said:
"You have been coming in here every day. You have asked me a lot
of questions and you have printed a lot about me. There hasn't been
a more vociferous man in the country than I have been. I have been
carrying on about Republican mismanagement and the combination of
Morgan, Mellon and Mills sometimes throwing in Mammon for good
measure.
"Somebody had to do this. We have not had much organization and
no one in particular to speak for the party. So I took over the job and
used whatever ammunition I had ready. It is different now. Tomorrow
I am going over to the other side of the Capitol. I will always be glad
to see you, but don't ask me to talk. That is not my job any more. The
man who is moving into the White House will do the talking."
Between his nomination the previous June and inauguration, Mr.
Garner had told me why he considered the Speakership second only to
the Presidency in the American scheme of government.
"The Speakership is a place of great power and offers vast oppor-
tunity for usefulness/' he said. "The power of the Speaker, of course,
like all others under our form of government, should not be abused but
used only in the furtherance of good legislation. When his party does
not hold the Presidency the Speaker is its highest officeholder in the
nation. When his party does hold the Presidency his responsibility is
augmented. The Speaker can uphold the constitutional role of the
House. As the ambassador of the most numerous branch of Congress
lie can say as Speaker Longworth did to President Coolidge: 'The
House will not do what you want, Mr. President. I am from the House
and like yourself a constitutional officer.' In his parliamentary functions
and duties he must insure rigid impartiality between the parties. As a
political officer he is bound by the platform and declared policies of his
party. If the Speaker blindly follows the leadership of the President, if
he becomes the President's spokesman in the House instead of the
spokesman of the House at the President's office, he contributes to the
blending of the legislative and executive branches and the consequent
degrading of Congress.
"The Vice-President has no arsenal from which to draw power.
He has no offices to bestow^ or favors to extend. He can make power
for himself sometimes by his personality and ability. Only if by his
association with men they come to have friendship for him and faith
in and respect for his judgment can he be influential. He comes to the
place through a national election and not as the choice of the majority
of the Senators over whose sessions he presides. He may be the choice
of just one man the Presidential candidate. He may be the after-
thought of a convention worn out in a struggle over platform or weary
after a Presidential contest. It is a great and honorable office because the
Vice-President is the constitutional alternate of the President and stands
ready to assume that office if there is a vacancy. Normally the Vice-
President's only official duty is to preside over the Senate and those
duties are easily transferred to the President pro tempore or to a Senator.
He votes in case of a tie if he chooses to break the tie by an affirmative
vote. But if it does not suit his pleasure he does not have to vote even in
case of a tie,"
The bank holiday which greeted the new Administration called for
quick legislation, and here the new President and Vice-President had
their first disagreement. Roosevelt was against the guarantee of bank
deposits and Garner favored it.
As a matter of fact, their argument about this began shortly after
the election and continued intermittently for weeks. As President of the
National Press Club I sat between them at a dinner and heard their
first argument.
"It won't work, John," said Roosevelt. "You had it in Texas and it
was a failure and so it was in Oklahoma and other states. The weak
banks will pull down the strong. It's not a new idea, and it has never
worked."
Garner replied:
"You'll have to have it, Cap'n, or get more clerks in the Postal
Savings banks. The people who have taken their money out of the
banks are not going to put it back without some guarantee. A national
guarantee can be made to work. Depositors are not going to run on
banks which have a government insurance. It would be like making
a run on the government itself, and the people know that the govern-
ment coins money and issues currency."
In the absence of a national system Garner wrote a letter to his son,
Tully, personally guaranteeing every deposit in the two banks con-
trolled by him. His guarantee prevented any withdrawal of deposits
from his banks.
Garner had first advocated government insurance of bank deposits
in a joint debate with his Republican opponent at a gathering in
Wilson County, Texas, in 1908. Shortly after he became Speaker, he
urged Chairman Henry B. Steagall of the House Banking and Cur-
rency Committee to make a study of it and see what could be done
about getting a bill.
In April, two months before either the Republican or Democratic
national conventions, Steagall went into the Speaker's office and said
to Garner:
"You know, this fellow Hoover is going to wake up one day soon
and come in here with a message recommending guarantee of bank
deposits, and as sure as he does, hell be re-elected."
Garner replied:
"You're right as rain, Henry, so get to work in a hurry. Report out
a deposit insurance bill and well shove it through."
Steagall went to his office and prepared a bill and introduced it on
April 14. Five days later the Banking and Currency Committee re-
ported it out. Steagall then conferred with Speaker Garner and his
Alabama colleague, Acting Chairman William B. Bankhead of the
House Rules Committee. They decided to wait for a favorable time
for its consideration. On May 25 it was made a special order of the
day and passed after four hours' debate.
Thus at the time of the National Press Club dinner the bill was
already through the House and had been languishing in the Senate
for six months. Because of Roosevelt's opposition Democrats let it
die with the close of the session.
About the time of Roosevelt's inauguration, Garner told me he
hoped Roosevelt could be won over to the bank-guarantee proposal.
He talked to Roosevelt as the President-elect lay in bed at the May-
flower Hotel.
"I was on one side of the bed and Gus Lonergan [Senator from
Connecticut] sat on the other side," Garner related. "I told him I'd
get Tom Love [ex-Texas bank commissioner and an Assistant Sec-
retary of the Treasury and with Roosevelt a member of the little
Cabinet in the Wilson administration] up here to tell him why it
didn't work in Texas and as a state system elsewhere, but can be
made to work as a national proposition."
That disagreement between Roosevelt and Garner was amiable.
But Roosevelt remained unconverted. At his first press conference as
President on March 8, 1933, Roosevelt still opposed the plan. In the
Senate, Senator Vandenberg of Michigan attached a bank-deposit
guarantee to the Banking Act of 1933. President Roosevelt, still
opposed, wrote to the Senate and House conferees saying, "I must
again express to you my definite feeling that the Vandenberg amend-
ment must be rejected in toto." The conferees left it in and both
Houses passed the bill. The President signed it on June 16.
A long time afterward. President Roosevelt reviewed the success
of deposit insurance and recommended its extension.
"This record amply justifies the confidence which we placed in
deposit insurance as an effective means of protecting the ordinary
bank depositor," the President said.
When Garner read the statement he winked and said:
"I see Roosevelt is claiming credit for the guarantee of bank
deposits."
Robinson, Harrison and others in the Senate welcomed Garner's
assistance. He had legislative know-how and there was work enough
for all. As the party's legislative tactician he operated from three
offices, each office having a different purpose. In the Vice-President's
room, a work of marble, gilt and walnut, just off the Senate Chamber,
[180]
he held quick conferences, often just before roll-call time. This was a
single room; there was no clerk or stenographer there, only a police-
man at the door a six-foot-six, 300-pound giant, the biggest policeman
in Washington.
At the four-room suite in the Senate office building, Mrs. Garner and
the Vice-President's clerical force held forth. She had always been
his secretary and continued to be. He saw visitors there. He made no
appointments for a specific time. A caller went there and waited his
turn. He got to his office at seven-thirty in the morning.
"If you get up early enough you can see him, but you can't get up
early enough to persuade him/' Senator Pat Harrison said.
By ironic circumstances Garner was the first Vice-President to
occupy these luxurious quarters over which he had a heated argument
with Senator Smoot. When the addition to the Senate office building
was being planned, Garner as a member of the House opposed the
plans for an ornate Vice-Presidential suite, a private entrance for the
Vice-President and the so-called "Vice-President's Plaza." Smoot was
in favor of the plan.
The two men met on the conference committee called to resolve
differences between the House and Senate versions and argued at
length, with Garner contending it was too extravagant, but the con-
ferees voted him down and Smoot had his way.
The water from the tap in Garner's office was always warm., and
Garner explained it this way:
"It's been that way ever since Smoot left. He was so cold that he
just had to put one hand on the pipes in his office of a morning and it
refrigerated the whole building."
Garner had moved the Board of Education over from the House
side a week after he became Vice-President. The new location was in a
part of the old Supreme Court Chamber. It had been used as the
workroom for several Associate Justices and here many a learned
jurist had wrestled with his soul and his syntax in majority or dis-
senting court opinions.
For the use to which Garner put it there was nothing more formal
in the way of furnishings than a table, a few straight chairs, a cup-
board and an ice-water cooler. The chairs were purposely none too
comfortable. It could be a place of hospitality and felicity. Or it could
[181]
be what Senator Nathan Bachman of Tennessee called it: "The Dog
House." When it was used as a place to help a wandering Democrat
see the light, the sessions usually were brief. Conversion ordinarily
could be achieved in from ten to twenty minutes. A good deal of
the real business of the Senate was consummated there. After any ses-
sion a "blow for liberty" might be struck.
Members of the House came over to the Board of Education, too.
Some of the legislation from the first was pretty strong medicine for
the Democrats. This is a typical talk. Garner made it to a balking
Southern member of the House.
"Sometimes conditions in a country justify temporary violations of
deep principles of government. If there was ever such a time it is
now. I know that in grants of power you have the historical fact that
executives always surrender a granted power with great reluctance.
"Roosevelt is traveling one of the roughest roads any President
ever traveled. When there's war you have an enemy to shoot at. But
today we have deflation, unemployment and human suffering. The
last thing I would want to do would be to even lift a straw that would
hinder his progress. It looks [April 20] as if things are starting up.
Stocks advanced, wheat is up. For the first time in a long time there
is an optimistic market.
"Apparently the gods are with Roosevelt. From the way he has
started he can be one of our greatest Presidents. There is one thing
about the man: he has courage. There is another thing I have found
about him. He may think he is right, but if you can show him con-
vincing facts and figures, he'll change his mind. He isn't like my good
friend Carter Glass. No one can help but like that old rooster, but
once Glass gets a notion in his head, neither hell nor Woodrow Wilson
could change him.
"Now this bill you are talking about isn't going through as it was
proposed, I told the President it could not be justified economically
and he is not going to write a message on it.
"But, as to your vote, look back and see what happened to the
Democrats in the Senate who opposed Wilson on war measures and
on the League of Nations: Kirby of Arkansas; Vardaman of Missis-
sippi; Shields of Tennessee; Gore of Oklahoma and Hardwick of
Georgia. Since the Civil War the Democratic party has been principally
a party of opposition. The few times we have been in, the South has
been mighty proud to have a Democratic President. They want you to
support him where you conscientiously can, to yield something maybe
to do it in times like these when none of us know just what will work.
If I were you, I would vote with the President on this and everything
else I could if my conscience would let me at all.
"I think it is good politics and it is patriotism to do it. We are pass-
ing through a period of experimentation. No one knows which ones,
but on some of these things the President will be right and on some
he will be wrong. Remember he has been candid. On farm relief, for
instance, he said that he might be wrong; but, if wrong he would be
the first to acknowledge it. You can't help but admire a man like
that.
"Now suppose you are in a campaign. Your opponent asks you if
you voted for such and such a measure. You reply that you did not.
That statement that you voted against your party at a time like this
will carry more weight than all the arguments you can command.
On the other hand: suppose your opponent says you voted for this
measure and it has proved a detriment. You can say that you did
vote for it; that by a majority of seven million votes Mr. Roosevelt
was put in office. Then, go on and add that the President said fre-
quently that we were passing through an experimental state; that, in
view of this, you did not feel that you should do anything to embarrass
the Chief Executive.
"And here's the answer. If Roosevelt succeeds in getting this country
out of this depression, all hell couldn't beat you. If he should fail, you,
in the bottom of your heart, might feel that maybe your lack of sup-
port might have contributed to his failure. Whether it did or not
neither you nor anyone else could tell. Of course, it could be at-
tributed to you and others like you, who failed to support him. But
the fact remains that if Mr. Roosevelt succeeds in getting this country
out of the depression as I believe he is going to, your greatest cam-
paign asset will be your ability to say 1 put my shoulder to the
wheel and helped him all I could.' You are young enough to be
my son. If I had to campaign I would stake my chances on support-
ing the President."
Talks such as Garaer had with this young Representative were
never revealed. But if the Vice-President was publicly silent he was
privately vocal. The Administration consulted him about everything.
When he objected to a policy or a piece of legislation, he made his
objections in a salty way which gave no offense.
The one-hundred-day special session from March 9 to June 16
took up the sweeping recovery program. It was this special session
which gave Roosevelt broader powers than any peacetime President
had ever had. It included the power:
To establish control over all industry minimum wages, maximum
hours, regulation of production, etc., in N.R.A.
To set up a system of government licenses for business if necessary
to assure compliance with N.R.A.
To institute and direct through a Public Works Administrator a
$4,400,000,000 public-works program.
To invoke World War I powers to regulate transactions in credit,
currency, gold and silver even to embargo gold or foreign exchange
and to fix restrictions on the banking business of the Federal Reserve
System.
To eliminate old veterans' compensation plans and set up an entirely
new pension system.
To reduce salaries of government employees up to 15 per cent if
feasible.
To transfer, eliminate, consolidate or revise bureaus in the executive
branch.
To repeal by executive proclamation (when suitable) new taxes voted
under the Industrial Recovery Act.
To publish heretofore secret information re income-tax returns.
To inflate the currency by devaluing the gold dollar as much as
50 per cent, issuing U. S. notes up to $3,000,000,000 or accepting up to
$200,000,000 in silver in payment of Allied war debts.
To employ more than 250,000 young men annually in reforestation
(CCC).
To appoint a co-ordinator of railroads.
To appoint a Tennessee River Valley Authority.
Some of the ideas were revolutionary, but Garner was a man willing
to go a long way with a new idea. He had heard himself classified both
[184]
as a conservative and as a progressive. He regarded himself as a
progressive.
N.R.A. was one piece of legislation about which he had great
misgivings. He said:
"It is a moony adventure and I don't think it will work, but
I am willing to see it tried. You probably can put the big industries
under codes, but you can't manage the business of the whole country
from Washington. If it is not administered right it can become a mo-
nopolistic, cartelizing scheme."
Of the laws enacted, the Security Market and Holding-Company
regulations were his favorites. The Holding Company Act, he said,
would have been enacted by any administration in power in 1933.
A study of holding companies had been inaugurated by the House
Interstate Commerce Committee, headed by Representative James S.
Parker of New York, a Republican.
As justification for going along with some legislation, the wisdom
of which he was doubtful, Garner said:
"I sat in on conferences both at the White House and with Con-
gressional leaders on these bills. On some of them I got modifications.
When you do those things in party government you have to take
some parts you do not like. Party policy is the composite judgment
of the party obtained in elections, conventions, caucuses and con-
ferences. There must be discipline and responsibility and when a
program is decided on everybody has to fall into line."
Without making much ado about it, Garner began a process of
hurrying up the proceedings of the Senate. It is a body which has
always liked leisurely debate.
His speed plan was: After a bill had been read and before a
Senator had time to clear his throat, adjust his papers and call for
recognition, Garner in rapidly tumbling words would say:
"The question is: Shall the bill be erigrossed, read the third time
and passed. There being no objection the bill is passed."
Garner said his procedure was strictly according to the rules and if
Senators were not alert "that is their hard luck. It is a quick way to
do business. If a bill is pending and there is no objection to its passage,
why shouldn't the Vice-President say, 'Without objection, the bill is
passed.'"
A few times he received minor criticism for gavelmg through legisla-
tion so fast it took the Senate's breath. A few times he made tart obser-
vations from the chair.
Senator Huey Long, in the middle of a filibuster against N.R.A.,
called on the Vice-President to require that all Senators stay and hear
him talk. Garner who had no admiration for Long's oratory, shot
back:
"In the first place the Senator from Louisiana should not ask that. In
the second place, it would be cruel and unusual punishment."
Once Garner and Will Rogers were chatting in the Vice-President's
office just before the Senate convened. Senator Robert M. La Follette
came in and quietly asked to be recognized shortly after the Senate
convened.
A few minutes later Long stormed in and demanded recognition.
Garner made no promise to either La Follette or Long. After Long
had left, Garner turned to Rogers, and said:
"Will, sometimes I think the hearing in my right ear and the vision
in my right eye isn't as good as it used to be. Long sits on my right
and La Follette on my left. A man has to be fair in this job and bad
vision or hearing can handicap him. I may not be able to hear or see
Huey this morning."
When the Senate convened, both La Follette and Long were on their
feet asking recognition. La Follette mildly and Long fairly shouting.
Garner recognized La Follette.
At the end of the session Senator Borah broke Senate precedent by
putting in a resolution praising Garner's fairness as a presiding officer.
The Senate adopted it by a unanimous rising vote and gave Garner
an ovation.
Borah said:
"The session just closing has been a most arduous one, more so,
I believe than any I have attended with the possible exception of those
during the war period.
"I think I speak the sentiments of all members of this body when
I say that we profoundly appreciate the fairness, the impartiality and
the ability with which the Vice-President has presided over the
proceedings of the Senate at this session. To the end that we may have
this expression in permanent form, I ask for the reading of the resolu-
tion which is upon this desk."
[186]
"Resolved: That the Senate hereby expresses its profound apprecia-
tion of the vigilance, impartiality and distinguished ability
with which the Vice-President, Honorable John N.
Garner, has presided over the proceedings of this body
during the eventful session now drawing to a close.'*
Replying from the chair. Garner said:
"Senator Borah, Senator Robinson, members of the Senate, I hope
you will indulge me for just a moment to say that when I came from
the House of Representatives to the Senate to preside over it, I felt a
very great weakness, as it were. I was apprehensive that I could not
preside in the Senate as I had in the House of Representatives and I
am not so certain that I have been so successful here as I was in the
House.
"I do appreciate this expression of your confidence. I may have been
a little hasty at times, but on every occasion, Senators, I have under-
taken to protect the rights of each individual Senator. So long as I
shall preside over the Senate, I hope to be able to facilitate the
business of the Senate, but in doing so, I assure you that it will be
my desire to protect the rights of every Senator; and that is one of
the obligations of the presiding officer. I am appreciative of this
resolution and I wish you all health and happiness until next
January."
Carter Glass remained his intimate and his most frequent com-
panion at baseball games, Garner's favorite recreation. He called Glass
his private scorekeeper, but said he was an unsatisfactory one:
"Carter scores too many errors and not enough hits," Garner ex-
plained.
Garner nearly always had as many as three Senators with him at a
ball game.
"When there are three you'll notice there are usually two Republicans
and a Democrat," he said. "I am not going to get caught like Dawes
did."
During Dawes's term as Vice-President, President Coolidge sent
the nomination of Charles F. Warren of Michigan to the Senate to
succeed Harry Daugherty as Attorney General. Dawes was asleep at
the Willard Hotel when the vote on confirmation was taken and it
failed by a tie vote.
Garner, who was an afternoon sleeper, too, had a sleeping couch in
f rfa 1
the Vice-President's office. His explanation of this and two Republicans
to one Democrat at a ball game was:
"The ball park is about the same distance from the Senate Chamber
as the Willard Hotel One of Dawes's forebears rode with Paul Revere,
and if he couldn't make it with that kind of ancestry, I couldn't. One
of the Republicans I take offsets the Democrat on a roll call and the
other offsets me if it is a tie vote."
Garner in his eight years as Vice-President was called on only
twice to vote. In 1933, he broke a 42-42 tie on a Connally amendment
to an appropriation bill and in 1934, a tie on a motion of Senator
Borah to take up certain legislation in the Senate. As Speaker, he
cast a vote to break a 169-169 tie of an amendment to his own public-
works bill.
Once at a ball game, Senator Frederick H. Brown of New Hamp-
shire coaxed Garner into a ten-dollar bet. Garner lost. It was the
biggest bet he ever lost on a game and he didn't like it. Garner started
to pay off.
"I tell you what I would like to have you do," said Brown. "I'd
like to have you autograph this ten-dollar bill. I'd like to frame it and
give it to my grandson."
"Do you mean you are not going to spend it?"
"No, I want to frame it," said Brown.
"If I gave you a check would you cash that?" Garner asked.
"No, I would frame it," Brown said.
"Then I will give you a check instead of the cash," Garner said.
A Vice-President can shed his presiding duties by the simple act
of beckoning a Senator to the chair. Garner knew how to wander
around the Senate Chamber during a zigzaggy debate while someone
else presided and sit down in the seat next to a wavering Senator at
exactly the right time to come up with that Senator's vote on the
subsequent roll call.
Garner liked to give new Senators a chance to preside. Senator
Elbert H. Thomas, Utah, said:
"The first time I saw Vice-President Garner was just after my
election, I had never seen him before and neither had he seen me or
any of the new Senators who accompanied me. Yet he called each one
of us by name.
[188]
"It made us feel warm and friendly right from the start and it also
made us feel important in Washington, Two or three days later the
Vice-President handed me the gavel and told me to preside over the
Senate. He wanted the new Senators to become familiar with parlia-
mentary procedure and his method was to give them the job of
presiding as President pro tempore, while he went out for lunch or
a smoke.
"The parliamentarian took good care of us whenever a question
of procedure arose but it did make us go back to our offices and bone
up on parliamentary law and the rules of debate in the Senate,
which is what Garner wanted us to do."
One of Garner's close friends was Senator Jesse Houghton Metcalf
of Rhode Island, reputedly the richest man in the Senate. Garner called
Metcalf "Old Plute." Another close Republican friend was Republican
Leader Charles L. McNary of Oregon.
Once Garner went on an automobile outing with a group of Senators.
There were four cars. In the first was Senator Bachman of Tennessee.
On the Virginia-North Carolina line they were halted at a Japanese
beetle inspection station.
Bachman told the inspector to be sure to watch out for a car con-
taining an old man with white eyebrows, who would be riding in the
front seat with the chauffeur. He said he wanted to warn the inspector
in advance.
"The old man is mean as hell and he was bragging up the road
a way that he could put anything over on you inspectors. He's got a
trunk full of plants. He'll deny it, but do your duty and make him
open up the trunk."
Bachman drove off behind a barn to watch. When Garner drove up
he stuck his head out of the window and said he had no plants.
"Oh, yes/' said the inspector. "Well, I'll take a look anyhow." He
delayed the Vice-President a full fifteen minutes.
Garner made no comment to Bachman and told the other men in
the car not to mention it.
That night it was very obvious Garner knew who was responsible
for the trick. Bachman paid heavily for it in a poker game.
Senator Borah of Idaho spent a great deal of time in Garner's office.
'
Once Garner lamented the fact that he had not had more scholastic
and law-school training.
"If you had probably you would have been a -good constitutional
lawyer and there are too many constitutional lawyers around here now/'
Borah said.
When gold was taken out of circulation Garner lamented the fact
that he would have to break a long custom of sending a present of it
to a constituent, he said, giving the man's name:
"Bill carried a county for me the first time I ran for Congress.
No one thought he could do it. He is the father of seventeen children.
Each Christmas I have been sending him $50 in $2.50? gold pieces. He
needs it and I like to send it.
"The people I cherish most are those friends who supported me the
first time I ran for Congress. It has been the pride of my life that the
ones who supported me the first time have voted for me every time
since."
At the end of the record-breaking. loo-day legislative session, Garner
headed for Texas for his first vacation since President Hoover called
him to Washington, for the moratorium conference in October 1931.
Hugh Johnson had been appointed administrator a day or two before
and was setting up N.RA.
"I am going to get out of my hotel rooms and let some of the eco-
nomic midwives have them," Garner said. "A half-dozen of them are
sleeping in the lobby now waiting for me to get out."
In Texas, he made the most extensive tour of the states he had made
in several years. With him he had Postmaster General Farley, Jesse H.
Jones, Arnon Carter and Will Rogers. Rogers wrote in his syndicated
column:
"We went on out to the beautiful little city of Uvalde, where John
Garner lives. They had a little speaker's stand out at the field and we
ail made speeches. Garner the best one, for he was at home. He appre-
ciates his people and they appreciate him.
"You know Garner is quite a man.
"Lots of people might not realize what a capable man we have as
Vice-President. Do you realize he was the dominant Democrat of the
House of Representatives for twenty years? He engineered, or helped
to, every bit of legislation that went through Congress.
"Not a man living is as well posted on all affairs of this government
as Jack Garner. God forbid that anything should happen to our Chief,
but the fellow that thinks Garner couldn't carry on in great shape is
crazy.
"Nick Longworth told me ten years ago that Garner is the smartest
man in either the Senate or House. There hasn't been a shot fired that
Garner didn't know what the shooting, was about."
After the loo-day session of Congress, Garner thought there could be
a little more deliberation in the passing of legislation. He was not
wholly happy about the Wagner Labor Relations Act. He believed labor
legislation was necessary , but distrusted legislation that played favorites.
"The principal obligation of government," he declared, "established
in accordance with American principles and traditions, is to protect
all the people in the free enjoyment of the fruits of their labor and the
pursuit of happiness."
He continued : "It takes a good many laws to meet modern conditions
even under that philosophy. But the Wagner bill is one sided, makes
government a partisan of labor, and in its effort to stop the exploitation
of labor has in it the seeds of exploitation of capital. This, however, can
be cured by amendment. It will be tested in court, of course. So give it
its day in court and in experience.
"My ideal, and I think the ideal of all true Democrats, has been to
make the Democratic party an instrument of good government for all
the people. The first and chief task of the government is to establish
justice. The belief of my party has always been, as I understood it, that
a government is not just which has either favorites or victims. I don't
want the Democratic party to be an organized labor party or an organ-
ized capitalists' party, and this law can be administered in a way to
make our party the organized labor party."
To a Texan who wrote to him protesting that some acts of the
Administration were apostasy to Democratic principles, Garner replied:
"You can't do everything you want to, and I can't do half of what
I would like to do. You can't control everybody you would like to, and
I am in the same fix."
When the neutrality bill was pending, he told me:
"My position may be unpopular and I recognize the good motives
behind this legislation but I think international law and usages and
precedents are enough. I think a neutrality law will get us into more
trouble than it will keep us out of. No body of men can draft a law
that will cover every war threat. That being the case, it is better not
to have a law on the statute books that will fetter the hands of the
government in its relations with foreign countries."
Gamer liked the people he worked with in the Senate. Robinson,
Harrison, Barkley and Byrnes he considered the best combination of
legislative workmen he had ever known.
The Vice-President never seemed to be physically or mentally tired.
His good humor kept the Senate in good humor. There was a new
story or anecdote about him every week. His language was picturesque
but seldom as sulphurous as it was quoted.
Garner was what he was. One could like him or leave him alone. The
Senate liked him and he liked the Senate. He was doing very well in
the office he did not want.
[! 9 2]
CHAPTER XII
Mr. Common Sense
A FOR his role at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue from the
Capitol: Garner attended the Cabinet meetings at the White
House diligently and participated in the discussions. It was in
his capacity as an adviser to the President rather than the presiding
officer of the Senate that he had his second serious disagreement with
Roosevelt in the first four years of their association as President and
Vice-President.
This one concerned the advisability of the diplomatic recognition of
Russia. Roosevelt opened the subject rather casually as Garner was
preparing to leave for Texas at the end of the loo-day special session
of Congress. The general understanding was that Russia wanted "un-
conditional recognition" with the question of debts to the United
States, Comintern propaganda for the overthrow of the American
government and other questions to be discussed later.
The President of the United States has absolute authority in diplo-
matic recognition of other nations. But it was a question on which
Garner had emphatic views. It had arisen periodically ever since the
Wilson administration. Wilson turned the Soviets down flat. Harding,
Coolidge and Hoover carried on this policy. Four Secretaries of State
Colby, Hughes, Kellogg and Stirnson had washed their hands of the
recognition matter until Russia fulfilled a number of obligations, in-
cluding the cessation of agitation for the overthrow of the American
government by force.
Garner thought former Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, in
a letter to Russian Foreign Commissar Chicherin, made a correct
appraisal of the situation when he said:
"If the Soviet authorities are ready to restore the confiscated property
[ 193 ]
of American citizens or make effective compensation, they can do so.
If the Soviets are ready to repeal their decree repudiating Russia's
obligations to this country and appropriately recognize them, they
can do so. It requires no conference or negotiations to accomplish
these results, which can and should be achieved at Moscow, as evidence
of good faith. The American government has not incurred liabilities
to Russia or repudiated obligations. Most serious is the propaganda to
overthrow the institutions of this, our country. This government can
enter into no negotiations until these efforts directed from Moscow
are abandoned."
When Roosevelt broached the subject the Vice-President vigorously
opposed it. He reviewed his dealing with this problem both as a
member of the Ways and Means Committee considering the refund-
ing operations recommended by the War Debt Commission, and as a
member of the House. Garner had voted against the British, French,
Italian, Greek, Rumanian and other war-debt settlements because he
believed they were unfair to the American taxpayers. But they had
at least acknowledged the debts, he said.
Russia, on the other hand, not only had never acknowledged its
obligation to repay the net of more than $300,000,000 left of the Keren-
sky debt and the more than $400,000,000 in American private claims
for the confiscation of property. The Soviets actually had issued a
decree repudiating these obligations. Garner told the President that,
in his view, the Comintern was just as active in 1933 as it had been at
any time In the twelve years of its existence, and that the Russian
government was just as little disposed to acknowledge its debts. He
did not want to give such a regime the prestige of American recogni-
tion.
"I'd hate to see you get off on the wrong foot on this Russian busi-
ness," Garner told the President. "I'd bide my time on it. I think the
country and the bulk of the Democratic party are opposed to it. What
support there Is for it seems pretty tepid, and the opposition, includ-
ing the churches and some important people in the American Fed-
eration of Labor, are hot against It. But regardless of the sentiment
for or against it, I don't think it is right. If this outfit has kept its
word to anyone or done anything in good faith I have not heard about
it."
[ 194]
Garner gaveled legislation through the Senate so fast as to
amaze that body and the public. The Senate had a reputation
for being frostily aloof from Vice Presidents. (C. K. Berryman,
Washington Star}
Garner knew of no Democratic leader who was strongly in favor
of Russian recognition except Henry T. Rainey, who had succeeded
him as Speaker.
"My considered judgment," Garner told the President, "is that the
United States will gain nothing by recognizing them and may lose a
lot. Even from the dollar-diplomacy standpoint, I don't think it can
be justified. I don't think Russia has any ability to buy from us. We
would have to furnish the credit for any purchasing they did.
"I doubt if more than 2 per cent of the Russian people belong to
the Communist party. I think Kerensky and his followers were the
only hope the Russian people had for self-government or will have in
your or my lifetime. These Communists have established a stable gov-
ernment. There is no doubt about that.* But they have done it by one
blood purge after another, behind closed doors, and of which the
world has had very slim reports. I wouldn't be in any hurry to recog-
nize that sort of regime. Maybe the best way to get along with them
is to let them alone."
Garner left Washington convinced that Roosevelt was intent on the
diplomatic recognition and would find an opportunity for conversa-
tions with the Soviet government just as soon as possible. The Vice-
President thought it was LitvinofFs speech before the World Economic
Conference in London, a week or so before the conversation between
the President and Vice-President, that had rewhetted Roosevelt's
desire to recognize Russia. Litvinoff had said that under given con-
ditions the Soviet government "might agree to place orders abroad
in the near future in the sum of about one billion dollars."
The commodities Russia might take he listed as "ferrous metals;
materials for the textile, leather and rubber industries, machinery,
railway equipment, breeding stock, consumers' goods and new ships."
Billion-dollar orders didn't grow on trees in those deep depression
years, but Garner felt the whole Litvinoff speech had been a hazy
affair, and doubted whether any Russian order for goods would
materialize.
The Vice-President had no other opportunity to talk to Roosevelt
on the matter before he read in the newspapers of the October 10 letter
in which Roosevelt told President Kalinin of Russia that he would
like to end the "present abnormal relations" between the countries,
and added: "I should be glad to receive any representatives you may
designate to explore with me personally all questions outstanding be-
tween our countries."
Garner took special notice of the words "with me personally."
Kalinin replied on October 17, along the Russian line of "uncon-
ditional recognition," Whether or not he was a figurehead, Kalinin's
short letter was a very clever one. He had always held the opinion
that the situation between the two countries was "abnormal and regret-
table. ... I am glad to note you also have reached the same con-
clusion."
Kalinin said that there was no doubt that the difficulties, present
or arising between the two countries, "can be solved only when direct
relations exist between them; and that, on the other hand, they have
[196]
no chance of solution in the absence of such relations" (Italics added.)
Kalinin also said:
"I shall take the liberty further to express the opinion that the ab-
normal relations, to which you correctly refer in your message, have
an unfavorable effect not only on the interest of the two states con-
cerned, but on the general international situation, increasing the
element of disquiet, complicating the processes of world peace and
encouraging forces tending to disturb that peace."
Kalinin named M. M. LitvinofJ, People's Commissar of Foreign
Affairs, as his representative. Litvinoff was instantly ready to leave
for the United States. He arrived in Washington on November 8,
and had two conferences at the State Department with Secretary Hull
and lunch with President Roosevelt. On the following day he con-
ferred at the State Department, but from then on he seemed to be
following the terms of the Roosevelt October 10 letter to confer "with
me personally?
On November 10, Roosevelt and Litvinoflf talked for one hour
at noon and three hours at night. On November n, Armistice Day,
Litvinoff was with State Department officials for an hour or two. On
November 12, Roosevelt and Litvinoff had a two-hour night talk.
November 15, Roosevelt and Litvinoff conferred for forty-five minutes.
On November 16, they conferred for two hours and at ten minutes
before midnight agreed on recognition.
The sequence of the correspondence given out pointed to a victory
for Russia on "unconditional recognition." The first letter from Roose-
velt to LitvinofJ of less than one hundred words announced that the
United States had decided to establish normal diplomatic relations
with Russia. Litvinoff, in an even shorter letter, replied in wording
similar to Roosevelt's.
There followed, dated the same day, five letters from Litvinoff to
Roosevelt and four from Roosevelt to Litvinoff and also a joint state-
ment signed by both.
There were some strange paragraphs, such as the first one in Lit-
vinoff's opening letter to "respect scrupulously the indisputable right
of the United States to order its own life within its own jurisdiction
in its own way and to refrain from interfering in any manner in
the internal affairs of the United States."
[197]
Litvinoff, according to widespread reports around town at the
time, was almost defiant when in his relatively brief conversation
with Hull, the American Secretary of State attempted to discuss the
Comintern. At any rate, it is definitely known that LitvinofT: con-
tended that the Comintern had no government affiliation or backing,
and in his agreement signed with President Roosevelt did not mention
this progapanda organization and merely promised to "restrain all
persons in Government service and all organizations in receipt of
financial assistance from it, from any act overt or covert liable in any
way whatsoever to injure the tranquillity, prosperity, order or security
of the whole or any part of the United States."
LitvinofT: went back to Moscow without any agreement on the
$800,000,000 of United States claims for public and private debts
against Russia and no settlement on them has ever been reached.
President Roosevelt, happy at concluding the resumption of diplomatic
relations between the two countries, said in a letter to LitvinofT:
on November 22, 1933 which, incidentally, was Garner's sixty-fifth
birthday that "the co-operation of the two governments in the
great work of preserving peace should be the cornerstone of an endur-
ing friendship."
Garner's comment on all this was:
"It's all through and the dishes wiped as far as I am concerned.
I hope it turns out better than I think it will. Every other civilized
country in the world has given American citizens better protection
than Russia. It may open the 'Closed door.' " (Note: Garner was refer-
ring to the "closed door" as the "iron curtain" is now referred to.)
"If we have acquiesced in the Comintern and given it opportunity
to work unhampered in this country, we may be inviting trouble. This
outfit wants to pull down our government and every government in
South America and every capitalistic government everywhere. In time
of a depression such as this, when millions of people are out of work,
it looks like a poor time to invite in organized and disciplined
agitators."
Garner was inclined to think from the letters that the discussions
had been superficial and that the nine days between LitvinofFs arrival
on November 8 and the agreement on November 16 constituted undue
speed for negotiations of such consequence, although Litvinoff in
Berlin on his way to the United States had flippantly said that the
whole thing could be settled in thirty minutes.
Stalin, the real Russian leader then as now, appeared nowhere in the
negotiations for American recognition, nor did his chief deputy,
Molotov; Kalinin, nominal head of the state, appeared mainly in
the naming of Litvinoff as envoy. Garner believed Roosevelt, head of
state, should not have dealt with a Russian representative of secondary
rank.
The Vice-President did not accept LitvinofPs contention that the
Russian government had no responsibility for the Comintern, inas-
much as of the ten members of the Politboro, the Communist party
steering committee, two were the most prominent members of the
executive committee of the Comintern. These were Molotov, presi-
dent of the People's Commissars, and Joseph Stalin, then secretary
general of the party.
Garner never ceased to think the recognition of Russia was one of
the most fateful actions of our history, and that we may have bolstered
the Communists in a time of their great weakness.
Events of the following years did not change his attitude. To him
they were Tartars bent on conquest. Just after Russia's brutal moving
in for her part of the swag in Poland, after the German invasion,
he said to President Roosevelt:
"You haven't much choice, Cap'n. Either Hitler or Stalin would
conquer and subjugate the world. Hitler by force and Stalin by
chicanery, corruption, treachery and undermining."
But if Roosevelt brushed aside Garner's advice on Russia he did not
on Cuba. One day in 1933, during the series of uprisings which drove
President Machado out of the Cuban Presidential Palace and in rapid
succession put the De Cespedes, San Martin, Hevia and Mendieta
administrations in and out of office, Roosevelt called Garner at Uvalde
to get the benefit of the Vice-President's perspective and cool head.
Garner was out feeding his chickens when the telephone call came.
The President waited on the line while the Vice-President cornered,
caught and penned an obstreperous bantam rooster which was running
amuck.
After Roosevelt explained the situation, he asked:
"What do you think we ought to do, Jack?"
Garner replied:
Td keep out of Cuba."
"But suppose an American citizen is shot?" the troubled President
asked.
'Td wait and see which American it was, and how come he was
shot," Garner replied. "Then I'd try to handle it so no more were
shot I'd let them know mighty quick that I wasn't aiming to have
any more Americans shot and there had better not be."
Intervention, it turned out, was not necessary.
In 1935, Garner went to represent the United States government at
the setting up of the Philippine Commonwealth and the installation
of Manuel Quezon as its President. It was a particularly pleasant
mission for Garner. In his first Congressional platform in 1902, he
had favored Philippine independence.
At Victoria, British Columbia, he made an eight-and-a-half minute
speech, which his colleagues on the trip considered a long speech for
him. It was off-the-record.
The party went on to Japan, visiting Yokohama, Kobe and Tokyo.
Garner got information that the Emperor intended to receive only
him and not Speaker Joe Byrns, who was also a member of the party.
Garner insisted that Byrns go with him and to this the Japanese
reluctantly agreed.
In his conversation with the Emperor, Garner told him that the
Speakership was a more important office than the Vice-Presidency.
Both Garner and Byrns said they had no intention of taking their
shoes off when being introduced to the Emperor. He was the highest-
ranking American official ever to visit Japan, and as a representative
of this government he wanted to be received in the American way.
Word came back that the distinguished foreign visitors were not re-
quired to remove their shoes.
The Vice-President walked across the highly polished wooden
floors of the Emperor's palace wearing high-laced black shoes which
looked as if they needed shining. They were very dusty, for he had
walked to Meija Shrine with Mrs. Garner and other members of the
party. He wore a cutaway and striped trousers.
Garner made no speeches in Japan and the only formal event he
attended was a stiff luncheon given by Foreign Minister Koki
[200]
Hiroti for the Vice-President and the Speaker. The Foreign Minister
luncheon was attended by Premier Kiesuke Okada, War Minister
Yoshiyuki, Prince lyesato Tokugawa, Prince Konoye, President of the
House of Peers and other Japanese officials.
There were some unpleasant episodes. An automobile party of Rep-
resentative Bert Lord of New York was accused of taking a picture
of a fortified zone and was detained for questioning, and police on
another occasion took three cigars out of the pocket of Senator Tram-
mell of Florida, as he was reboarding the ship. These things nettled
Garner when he heard of them.
In China they met with such a wholehearted and cordial reception
in Hong Kong and Shanghai that Garner said:
"Now, these are our kind of people."
As the first Roosevelt term drew to a close, the President apparently
felt that Garner was selfless, referred to him as "Mr. Common Sense"
and found him versatile and useful.
Garner's conception that silence was the role the makers of the
Constitution had in mind for the Vice-Presidency did not work out so
well for him. He said:
"I can render better service for the country and this Administra-
tion if my name never gets in the paper."
Although he made no speeches his purported stand on every issue
was printed or gossiped.
Once he said:
"I think you newspaper fellows try to get at the truth by writing
things to see if 1 will deny them. You can't entice me. I never have or
never will deny or affirm such things."
And he did not deny anything when he saw himself quoted directly
on statements he had never made.
Roosevelt once asked Garner to break his no-speech rule and address
the annual luncheon of the Associated Press in New York. Roose-
velt said:
"Well, Jack, you only made one speech in the campaign and you
ought to make one nonpolitical speech during your term."
Garner replied:
"You know all my life I have been an independent cuss. I have my
own thoughts and views. So far as I know there is no conflict be-
[201]
tween us now. If, however, I should deliver an address, the first
thing the country would ask is: Does he speak for the President?
Any speech or statement I made would be searched to find a difference
between you and me."
Roosevelt agreed he was right.
Three universities offered him degrees of doctor of law in the
spring of 1933. Garner refused them and many others. He said to me:
"They have offered me the honor of these degrees because they
think I have some ability in legislative affairs. I do not wish to accept
them unless in so doing I can give a message or a philosophy, if
you wish to state it that way of my belief in the principles of govern-
ment. I do not think I ought to do that now."
Later he did accept two degrees. One was from Baylor University in
Texas, and one from John Marshall Law School in New Jersey. He did
not speak on either occasion.
Garner continued to attend the Cabinet meetings, when in Wash-
ington, all during the first Roosevelt term. Some he found interesting
and some so time killing and unproductive that he walked out at the
half.
At some of them Roosevelt was such a chatterbox that scarcely any-
one else got in a word. This amused Garner. Once he said:
"I'd like to have a computation on how much Roosevelt talks
and how much he listens. I'd imagine he utters five hundred words
to every one he listens to."
He thought the Cabinet members themselves as a rule did not get
to bring up enough of the important matters which they faced.
"With the Cabinet members generally I have pleasant relations,"
he told me.
Hull he had known and worked with and respected highly for
a quarter of a century. Swanson, with whom he had had very pleasant
relations in Congress, was ill most of the time after he went into the
Cabinet. Roper, also an old acquaintance, he regarded as able in
some ways but tiresomely loquacious. Dern, and later Woodring, he
admired for courageously expressing their viewpoint whatever it might
be.
For Farley his esteem was increasing all the time.
"Farley is not only a master mechanic in politics, but he is an able
[202]
public servant," he said. "I believe he is doing the best job in the
Postoffice Department of anyone I have known."
Miss Perkins, he thought, expressed a view on welfare matters that
was very useful but not adequate for the post she filled, especially at
a time of great growth in the ranks of organized labor and increasing
labor problems.
"In the economy effort at the beginning of this Administration," he
said, "she came nearer living up to the program than any other
Cabinet member."
He seemed to think that it was by unspoken mutual consent that
he and Ickes were not exactly buddies.
"I don't recall ever having had a conversation with Ickes," he said.
"We just speak or nod. We don't seem to hit it off."
Wallace, he thought, had crazy ideas and Morgenthau no ideas at all.
Morgenthau was a never ceasing source of wonder to him. He
wondered by just what method of sorcery one he regarded of such
meager abilities remained in the high post of Secretary of the Treasury.
Garner was an expert on taxation and fiscal matters and had occupied
the top Democratic post on the tax-making committee of the House.
After long dealing with such able Secretaries of the Treasury as
McAdoo, Glass, Houston, Mellon, and Mills, the helplessness of Mor-
genthau appalled him.
Besides his visual appraisal of Morgenthau at Cabinet meetings^
Senators would tell him how Morgenthau brought an army of assistants
in his appearances before the Senate Finance Committee and had to get
the answers to questions the Senators asked from them.
Once Garner said:
"Morgenthau is the most servile man toward Roosevelt I have ever
seen. I mean servile, not loyal. When he is called on in the Cabinet
meetings [the Secretary of State is called on first at Cabinet meetings
and then the Secretary of the Treasury], he speaks his piece and leaves.
It looks like he is afraid someone will ask him a question and he will
give an answer that will displease Roosevelt."
The Vice-President tried to joke and exchange pleasantries with
Morgenthau but gave it up because he "had no sense of humor." He
thought perhaps the phrase was "exactly twice too long."
[203]
Once when it was rumored that Morgenthau would resign, Garner
said:
"He won't. Even if he seriously wanted to his Papa wouldn't let
him."
The Vice-President got along very well with the brain trust although
he said he could not understand some of their imported words and
gaudy phrases. Raymond Moley he seemed to like best of all
"Moley speaks Ohio language and that isn't much different from
Texas language," he said.
"I like simple language. I never use anything but simple words my-
self and there are usually enough of them to tell what you have to say.
When a man is able to think of them in simple terms, some of these
large problems come down to the same size."
Another time, he said:
"Some of these professors have real competence and I admire com-
petence. Some of them want to experiment just for the sake of ex-
perimenting. In sound progress there is a lot to looking back and taking
advantage of experience. You can't disregard human experience."
Garner retained his strong influence in the House of Representatives.
Rainey had proved a weak Speaker and displayed jealousy toward
the former Garner House lieutenants, John McDuffie of Alabama;
Lindsay Warren of North Carolina; Fred Vinson of Kentucky; Sam
Rayburn of Texas and others. Rainey died in August 1934, and Joseph
W. Byrns of Tennessee, who succeeded him, failed to manage the
House business well, although he had previously made a good record
as Appropriations Committee chairman. Byrns, too, died in June 1936,
and was succeeded by William B. Bankhead, who died in September
1940.
Senate Majority Leader Robinson and Speaker Bankhead both con-
ferred with Garner continuously. He had the finest relations with both,
stepped on the toes of neither, and in no way encroached on their
power or prerogatives. Garner felt that he had been useful to an extent
and could be more useful in a second term when there would be more
permanent legislation and fewer grants of power to the executive
branch. His term as Vice-President generally had been pleasant. "The
job is delightful/' he said. "I like it. But it is almost entirely unimpor-
tant."
[204]
Another time he said:
"The Vice-President is a figure of slight importance with a tide
of great impressiveness."
After the Senate celebrated his birthday, and Senator Clark said
Garner had made the office of Vice-President the useful one the Con-
stitution makers intended it to be, Garner told a little group in his
office:
"There can be great Judges, great Governors, great Senators, great
Representatives and great Presidents. A Vice-President may move into
the Presidency and be a great President. A great man may be Vice-
President, but he can't be a great Vice-President, because the office in
itself is unimportant. In my judgment, the four most potent offices
in the nation are: The President, the Speaker of the House, the
majority leader of the Senate, and the Chief Justice of the United
States,
"In any of these four offices, of course, everything depends on the
nature of the man holding it," he said.
But because the Vice-President may at any time succeed to the
Presidency where Garner said "the powers are vast beyond imagina-
tion," he felt the Vice-President should be as carefully selected as the
President.
"No second-rater ever ought to be nominated for Vice-President,"
Garner said.
From a Democratic party standpoint, two capitalized words disturbed
him. The term "New Deal" began to be used with disquieting fre-
quency. Garner had never thought of the term new dcd in capitalized
form. He had merely thought of the Democratic party as the instrumen-
tality for providing a new deal to a depression-ridden country. He used
the term, when he used it at all, as Theodore Roosevelt's square deal
and Woodrow Wilson's new freedom had been used.
More and more 'New Deal annoyed him. It was exasperating when
officeholders, some of them political castoffs from other parties, began
to refer to the New Deal party. Men in high Administration posts
for the first time began to say they were New Dealers, not Democrats.
These New Dealers admitted to no Democratic party loyalty, regarded
themselves merely as coalitionists with the Democrats. Some of them
he thought were mercenary coalitionists.
The left wing New Dealers were proposing strange innovations,
not to bring recovery but to take the country down strange paths. The
spend and spend, elect and elect theory had not been expounded, but
it was on its way.
Afterward, Mr. Garner believed this group really began to gain
Roosevelt's ear after Louis Howe was no longer at the White House.
This little gnome of a man, Garner thought, exerted more influence
with Roosevelt than anyone had up to that time, although Harry Hop-
kins later had a similar relationship. After a long illness, Howe died
<on April 18, 1938.
His last words to Garner from his death bed were:
"Hold Franklin down!"
Garner's relations all during the four years with Roosevelt were
excellent. They saw each other often. Roosevelt made him a member
of his cuff-links club, a little group which sometimes played poker with
Roosevelt.
"I like to play poker with him," Garner said.
One night in a West Virginia lodge, Roosevelt and Garner played
most of the night.
But Garner begged out of most of the social engagements Roosevelt
proposed.
Both Roosevelt and Garner were well-to-do. There have been wealthy
Presidents and wealthy Vice-Presidents, but seldom if ever was there
a President and Vice-President at the same time so comfortably
situated financially as the two chief elected officers of the nation in the
time of its greatest depression.
Garner perhaps \vas the wealthier. He had gone to the little West
Texas town when he was twenty-two years old and by trading and
farseeing investment built up a fortune. Roosevelt's fortune had come
to him by inheritance.
Garner never did anything in bad taste.
To one rule Garner religiously held:
"I will not engage in anything for profit that is in the remotest way
connected with my government service."
To a radio sponsor who offered him a contract amounting to close to
$100,000 a year, he replied:
"I am not worth it as John Garner, and any value I have attained as
Vice-President of the United States is not for sale."
[206]
He never speculated in commodities, stocks or bonds.
"My reason was this," he said. "I occupy federal office. Congressional
or other governmental action might affect the value of such securities.
When the average citizen reads of an officeholder making money
through such dealings it disgusts him and tends to break down the
people's confidence in democratic government.
"There usually is nothing dishonest in such dealings, but it is a
mistake in judgment and shocks the public opinion. Royalty observes
deportment which officials in a Republic sometime neglect. It is called
noblesse oblige ?
During the depression, shortly after the Democrats came into power.
Garner told me:
"I've got $100,000 to invest. Steel stock is selling at 19. I know it is
too low and I could make $200,000 or $300,000 on a $100,000 investment.
But it will be because of government stimulus to business and I
cannot do it."
He invested the money in land. In 1948, he told me he had made
the $200,000 or $300,000 in land.
"Land is the best investment after all, I suppose," he said. "Anyway,
right now rural land is the best insurance against inflation and atom
bombs."
The nation furnishes no residence for the Vice-President. Mr. and
Mrs. Garner lived inexpensively in a three-room suite in the Wash-
ington Hotel, less than two blocks from the White House. Usually,
they ate in the coffee shop of the hotel.
The Garners entertained once a year for the President and Mrs.
Roosevelt. Roosevelt said the Garner dinners were the most enjoyable
events he attended. Once he stayed until nearly two o'clock in the
morning. Other than the Vice-President's dinner which the President
gave for him and the Gridiron dinners, given by a group of newspaper-
men. Garner accepted no bids to social events. The interminable
invitations which came to him and Mrs. Garner they declined.
To accept no invitations to dinners in a city with the largest per
capita of free-loaders anywhere in the world in itself constituted
Garner an anachronism.
The Vice-President saw nothing unusual in his desire to live just
as routine a life in Washington as in Uvalde. He was a good mixer
in any gathering and enjoyed himself when he went out. His greatest
[207]
pleasure was a small, spontaneous gathering. However, he liked to
go to his hotel suite after a day at the Capitol, play rummy with Mrs.
Garner for a while and have dinner alone with her.
When Garner was a member of the House, he and Mrs. Garner
attended the movies. But after he became Vice-President, autograph
hunters and other annoyances caused him to discontinue this.
When the depression was at its depth there were suggestions that
Garner be given Secret Service protection. It was pointed out to him
that Washington was full of people who might attack any high gov-
ernment official.
Garner sometimes facetiously called Secret Service men "constables."
When the guard was suggested, he said:
"I don't want those constables guarding me. There is not anybody
crazy enough to shoot a Vice-President."
Curiosity gazers he sought to avoid wherever possible. When he
first became Vice-President, he walked from his office in the Senate
office building. The twice-a-day walks through the Capitol grounds he
discontinued. Sight-seers, knowing his punctual habits, waited to
shake hands with him. He changed his habit and took to the subway
train which transports Senators between the Capitol and the Senate
office building.
But one custom Garner never gave up in his thirty-six years in
Washington. Whenever possible he went to the Washington Zoo.
"I like to go to the zoo because the animals don't talk/' he said.
Garner was held up to his colleagues by Dr. George W. Calver,
special Capitol physician, as a man who knew how to take care of him-
self in the midst of Congressional strains. Dr. Calver listed Garner
as a man who goes to bed every night at nine-thirty.
"Libel," said Garner, "it's nine o'clock."
Somebody asked him when he played poker. He replied that he was
a "retired poker player."
"Haven't played for seventeen years," he said. "Oh, I may play
penny-ante. But this: 'Bet-you-five-hundred 5 or 'bet-you-five-thousand'
business, I quit that years ago."
There was no doubt that the Democrats would renominate Roose-
velt and Garner in 1936. The Vice-President felt there was little doubt
about the election outcome and speculated on the Republican ticket.
Once he said to me:
[208]
"The Republicans used to do the politically smart thing most of the
time. If they get back the knack I would imagine they will give Her-
bert Hoover a Grover Cleveland try. [Cleveland had been renominated
by the Democrats in 1892 after being defeated by Harrison In 1888.]
He couldn't win, but he would carry more states than anyone else they
can put up. From an organization standpoint in a year when they
have little chance. Hoover would be their best nominee, because
even though he would lose, he might carry a number of other Repub-
lican candidates to victory." When Landon was nominated, he said:
"The Republicans have set the stage for a party debacle."
Just before the Democratic national convention at Philadelphia,
Garner said :
"Whatever have been his faults and his errors, Roosevelt has been
a good President for the country. He's got too much power. Some
power we have granted him is no longer needed. The other can. be
worked into the framework of the law. He has been matured by
four years in office. With good administration of the laws we have
enacted, his second term should be an Indian summer."
Roosevelt and Garner were renominated by acclamation at Phila-
delphia in July. Garner attended the convention. With Roosevelt he
accepted the nomination before a packed multitude in Franklin Field.
It was the first time he had ever faced so tremendous a crowd. On the
way to Franklin Field that night he told Mrs. Roosevelt o an
experience :
"I got up at six o'clock this morning and walked around the streets,"
he said. "That's about saddling-up time in Texas, but it's early here.
The only people up were policemen, cab drivers and night workers. I
talked to them and most of them are going to vote the Democratic
ticket, and none of them have done that before. We will carry Penn-
sylvania."
Mrs. Roosevelt thought he was too enthusiastic, so he made the
only bet he made on the election that year with her. It was for one
dollar and he won. The Democrats carried Pennsylvania, for the first
time since the Civil War.
Garner thought Roosevelt should not make a campaign. The reason,
as he saw it, for the Roosevelt appearances in 1932 were no longer
present. The country did not doubt the President's physical fitness
for office.
But he was eager for President Roosevelt to make a statement
repudiating Communist support in the campaign. Garner felt the
soft recognition of Russia was the one mistake of the first Roosevelt
term that would be hardest, if not impossible, to rectify.
Roosevelt made the repudiation in a speech. He opened his campaign
with It, before the Democratic state convention at Syracuse, on Sep-
tember 29. The President said:
"I have not sought, I do not seek, I repudiate the support of any
advocates of communism or any other alien 'isms' which would by
fair means or foul change our American democracy. This is my
position. It has always been my position. It will always be my posi-
tion."
However, the Communist support, such as it was, went to the
national candidates, apparently principally through the American
Labor party in New York. In the nation only 80,096 votes were re-
ceived by Earl Browder, the Communist candidate for President.
Garner made one speech by radio from Uvalde.
In November, the Roosevelt-Garner ticket carried forty-six of the
forty-eight states. The Republican party was pulverized. Garner was
so certain of the result that he did not even listen to radio returns of
the election.
On a cold, raw, rainy day Roosevelt and Garner were sworn in for
their second terms on the portico in front of the Capitol. It was the
first January 20 inauguration and the change from the time honored
March 4 date was inauspicious.
With the Senate Chamber ceremonies omitted, Garner took the
oath the second time from Senator Joseph T. Robinson. He answered
the oath with the words:
"I do."
That day Garner got an important piece of information.
Roosevelt told him he never would run again for public office.
Garner also gave Roosevelt some information.
"Neither will I," he said. "I am going to take my good wife and
do some traveling."
From their trip to the Orient in 1935, Mr. and Mrs. Garner had
come back with a desire for more travel.
Now in four more years, Garner felt, they could indulge that taste.
[210]
CHAPTER XIII
The Split Begins
VICE-PRESIDENT Garner probably got greater satisfaction
out of the 1936 victory than anyone. When he took over as
minority leader of the House after the 1928 Hoover landslide,
the Democratic representation in Congress was so small and the party's
influence in the nation so weak that there had been widespread sug-
gestions that the party abandon its historic name and reorganize as a
new party.
Now it was at a summit never before reached by any political party
in modern times. In the Senate there were 77 Democrats, 15 Republicans
and 4 representatives of minor parties. In the House of Representatives
there were 330 Democrats, 90 Republicans and 13 representatives of
splinter parties. Democratic governors sat in most of the State Houses
of the nation and Democratic legislatures were in control.
But in one way Garner feared the proportions of the sweep.
"Things may be, too one sided for our own good/' he said. "It
all depends upon the use we make of our victory. If we justify the
confidence of the country the Democrats might remain in power for
another quarter of a century. These next four years can be a period of
calm correcting and perfecting legislation and the Democrats have
never had one.
"Cleveland never had a working majority in Congress. Wilson lost
control of the House in his close race with Hughes and had to depend
on a coalition in the war years, and we had a Republican House in his
last two years. Roosevelt is started out on his second term with majori-
ties of unprecedented proportions in both Houses."
Garner's idea was that "amend, amend and amend" would be the
Administration watchword.
"We have passed a lot o experimental legislation and any experi-
mental legislation has to be amended in the light of the experience
with it," he said. "There was no ready answer to all problems and
everything could not be foolproof. I think now we can have sound
legislation and more coherent administration of it. We are not putting
out a fire now,
"Any party that comes in with a good working majority in Congress
does its best work in the first term. If it can keep a fair working
majority in its second term it can amend and correct.
"You cannot do everything in an eight-year term, but you can
do all the country can get used to. The solid, lasting things come with
gradualness. If you work too fast and don't let things settle down a little
the people get fatigued and you get reaction."
The Vice-President emphasized the need to translate some of the
emergency powers given to the President into carefully drawn legisla-
tion and some of them he thought could be repealed.
Garner told me he hoped the President would address himself to
reducing expenses and balancing the budget. Roosevelt had campaigned
on an economy platform in 1932. Garner thought the most effective
speech of his ticket mate's campaign and the one that clinched the
first Roosevelt election was the one he made from a stand built over
second base at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. In this speech Roosevelt
said:
"The credit of the family depends chiefly on whether that family is
living within its income. And that is equally true of a nation. . . .
But if, like a spendthrift, it [the nation] ... is willing to make no
sacrifice at all in spending; if it extends its power to the limit of
people's ability to pay and continues to pile up deficits, then it is on the
road to bankruptcy. . . . Taxes are paid in the sweat of every man who
labors because they are a burden on production and are paid through
production. . . ,"
In that same speech Roosevelt proposed saving by abolishing many
o the "innumerable boards and those commissions which, over a long
period of years, have grown up as a fungus growth on the American
government.*' He ridiculed the results of loans to "backward and
crippled" countries; he believed repeal of prohibition would help
toward balancing the budget without additional taxation, but he
[212]
Agaiu
Garner's influence in Congress was to rise to a high, level. He
was credited with being greatest legislative influence in modern
Congressional history with the exception of the two Speakers
of the House, Reed and Cannon. (F. O. Seibel, Richmond Times
Dispatch}
promised to prevent return of the saloon. And he said that no person
would be appointed to his Cabinet unless he promised "Absolute loyalty
to the Democratic platform, and especially to its economy plank. . . ."
Reduction in federal spending, he asserted, "is the most direct and
effective contribution that government can make to business. . . ."
In 1933, Roosevelt made his first, and also his last, economy drive
and Congress passed the short-lived Economy Act of 1933:
"I do not take our 1932 economy pledge as a deceptive promise to
win an election," Garner told me at the outset of Roosevelt's second
term. "Perhaps we could not carry out all our campaign promises. The
country's economy was unbalanced from 1933 until now, and our
program had to be flexible. But there is no reason why we can't balance
the budget now. You can repeal unwise or unworkable laws but you
can't repeal the public debt."
Roosevelt assured Garner that a real effort toward this end would
be made when they talked over the President's budget message. On
January 8, 1937, Roosevelt sent his message to Congress promising
"a layman's balancing of the budget" in the fiscal year 1938 and a com-
plete balance and resumption of payment on the public debt in 1939.
Garner was -disappointed, however, at the number of ifs with which
the President qualified the message.
A pleasant little personal episode showed the continued good rela-
tions between the President and Vice-President. The President's trip
to Buenos Aires jammed up the ten formal White House social
gatherings. If held, all would have to come within the first forty days
of the year. These and the Vice-President's dinner for the President
at the Hotel Washington clogged the White House social calendar.
"I'll tell you what I'll do, Cap'n, if it is all right with you: 111 skip
that dinner I have been giving for you," Garner proposed.
"Fine," Roosevelt responded. "I like the idea so much if it is all right
with you. 111 cancel my dinner for you."
"That's two of eleven eliminated," said Garner.
"I know you don't like to stay up late, anyway," Roosevelt said.
"So instead of these dinners 111 have you over to luncheon oftener."
But these happy relations were fated to undergo a severe strain and
all dreams of a tranquil second term abruptly ended. These were the
things that split the Democratic party: (i) Administration silence on the
sit-down strikes, (2) the spending program and the unbalanced budget,
(3) the Supreme Court enlargement bill, (4) Administration inter-
ference in the Barklcy-Harrison Senate leadership contest. (The
attempted purge o Democratic legislators, which widened the split,
was to come later.)
First portents of trouble came not from political Washington, but
from industrial Michigan.
The year 1936 was ushered out by sit-down strikes, a newly imported
strike weapon. Members of John L. Lewis' C.LO. Automobile Workers
Union occupied two Fisher Body plants of the General Motors Cor-
poration from December 30 to January 16 when they evacuated. Issu-
ance of writs of body attachment for their forcible ejection had beea
refused on January 2. The shut-down, sit-down strike spread to Chevro-
let, Cadillac-LaSalle, Pontiac and other plants. Six thousand sit-downers
took and held possession of eight Chrysler plants for nearly three
weeks.
Garner believed the C.I.O. came into being heavily infiltrated with
Communists. He thought there had been a rush of Communists to
several important branches of the C.LO. notably the Automobile
Workers Union.
While the country hotly debated the President's duty in the sit-down
crisis, the President and the Vice-President just as hotly debated it in
Washington.
At a session at the White House, the President, Vice-President and the
Secretary of Labor, Miss Perkins, discussed it at length. Garner told me
of part of the discussion.
"I said to Miss Perkins," he related, " 'do you think the sit-down
strike is right?*
" 'Yes, 5 she replied.
" 'Do you think it is legal?'
" 'Yes,' she answered,
"I asked the President:
"'Do you think it is right?'
" 'No/ he replied.
"'Do you think it is legal?'
<( No,' he replied."
Garner left a White House meeting under the impression that
Roosevelt would issue a statement excoriating the sit-down strike. But
the statement did not materialize. He heard that Wallace and Hop-
kins talked the President out of it, but did not confirm this.
There the matter stood one afternoon about five o'clock when
Garner and Robinson appeared at the White House to discuss the
legislative program which would be taken up immediately after
Roosevelt's second inauguration. It was almost eight o'clock when the
Vice-President and majority leader came out.
The first acrimonious exchange between Roosevelt and Garner
had taken up most of the three hours.
"It was the hottest argument we ever had," Garner said. "I told
him that I regarded the sit-down strikes as seizure of other people's
property in brazen defiance of the law; that the strikers were in
illegal possession of the plants; that it was not a strike for better
wages and working conditions, but a step in the fight of John L.
Lewis for personal and political power; that Lewis was arrogantly
expecting the backing of the Democratic party in his sitdown under-
taking as a pay-off for his support and campaign contributions.
"I asked the President what he intended to do if the state of
Michigan could not or would not enforce the law. What if the state
did not or could not maintain a Republican form of government as
guaranteed by the Constitution? I told him the country was entitled
to know what his attitude was toward this new and formidable
weapon. We went at it hot and heavy.
"When the President said, 1 couldn't get those strikers out without
bloodshed/ I replied: 'Then John L. Lewis is a bigger man than you
are if you can't find some way to cope with this.'
"Finally Joe Robinson broke in. 'You fellows are not getting
anywhere/ he said, 'and I think you ought to stop the argument.'
"I said: *A11 right I have made my argument. I will never mention
Lewis' name to you again.'"
Garner told me:
"After this, Roosevelt told me many times, 'Jack, you were right
about Lewis! 5 "
When he was leaving Washington at the end of his thirty-eight years
of public life. Garner said:
"I think that is the only angry discussion we ever had. I disagreed
with him many times and expressed my viewpoint as forcefully as I
could, but there were no brawls."
But Garner and Robinson left the torrid White House session with
this agreement :
The session of Congress would pass the appropriation bills, do a
little tinkering on legislation already on the statute books and ad-
journ. The whole thing could be done in six months, which meant
a June adjournment.
Garner made plans for a June vacation in Texas. The day before
inauguration, Garner told one of his callers, Gene Howe, newspaper
publisher, that he would be in Amarillo about the middle of June.
The Vice-President's son, Tully, had moved to Amarillo to engage
in the banking business, and both the Vice-President and Mrs. Garner
were anxious to visit their son and his family in their new home. But
the incredible civil war within the Democratic party was soon under-
way and growing in intensity.
Administration inaction in the sit-down strikes, which had spread
from Michigan to other states, was met in the Senate by a resolution
by Senator James F. Byrnes of South Carolina, condemning the new
labor weapon. The Byrnes resolution recited:
"That it is the sense of Congress that the so-called sit-down strike
is illegal and contrary to sound public policy. The Congress only
assumes to speak as to strikes in industries within the jurisdiction o
the federal government."
Byrnes went to Majority Leader Robinson and asked his support
for the bill.
"I am for it, Jim, but I will have to oppose it," Robinson said.
It was plain that the Administration was opposed to the resolution,
It was debated and finally came to a vote, being defeated forty-eight
to thirty-six. Among those who voted for the resolution was Senator
Harry S. Truman of Missouri. It was common knowledge that Garner
favored the Byrnes resolution.
But before the Byrnes resolutioa came to a vote, two other storms
broke: the new spending program and the court reorganization bill.
On February 5, fifteen days after his second inauguration, Presi-
dent Roosevelt handed Congress his court reorganization bill, less than
three weeks after he had told Garner and Robinson there would be
little other than appropriation bills for Congress to consider. Sud-
denly he had expanded his program to include the most highly con-
troversial piece of legislation sent to Congress since the turn of the
century. No one on Capitol Hill had even a hint the court bill was
coming.
"The first time I ever heard of the bill, or that Joe Robinson or
any of the others heard of it was when the President and Homer
Cummings [then Attorney General] read it to us in the President's
office," Garner told me that night. "It was all drawn to the last detail
and ready for Congress. I loaded my automobile with Senators and
Representatives and took them back to the Capitol. We were all so
stunned we hardly spoke."
President Roosevelt received the press immediately after the Con-
gressional leaders departed and explained the court bill in even more
detail than he had given the Congressional leaders. I remember that
I made notes on every piece of paper I had in my pocket, borrowed
all I could and even used the back of a Tulsa World pay check for
notes. Every reporter in the room was out of note paper before the
press conference ended.
The proposal was received coldly at the Capitol with few excep-
tions. One, Senator Carter Glass, received it hotly, declaring in an
unrestrained attack that the proposal was "frightful," "shocking,"
"brutal," "infamous," and "outrageous." Senator George W. Norris
unexpectedly called the proposal unwise. It was not until three days
later that Senator Henry F. Ashurst of Arizona, chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced the bill. Representative Hatton
W. Sumners, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, refused
to touch the bill, and its introduction in the House was from left-
wing sources. In New York City on the afternoon of the day President
Roosevelt revealed the plan, former President Herbert Hoover, not
thereto noted for being fast on his political feet, characterized the
proposal as "court packing" and the country quickly adopted the
term applied to It by the only living ex-President.
Garner said:
"If the President had told any Congressional leader in advance
about his court plan they would have tried to talk him out of it and
with something like the Sumners retirement bill there is no doubt that
Vandeventer and Sutherland, at least, would have left the court."
While Democrats at the Capitol stewed over the court reorganiza-
tion proposal, Garner continued to worry over the still unsettled sit-
down-strike issue and about signs that President Roosevelt intended
to continue heavy deficit spending. He said:
"We have tried everything in the economic cookbook and are at a
point where the country knows better what to do for itself than
Washington knows what to do for it. I may be an economic illiterate,
but I never heard of any other great nation trying to spend itself
into prosperity by going into debt."
Of the sit-down strikes, he said:
"Let the sit-down strike become established as an American custom
and recognized in law and it will change our entire theory of govern-
ment and of property ownership."
Garner never believed after the first few days of February that the
court bill had any chance of passage. If it got through the Senate
in any form, Garner thought, Sumners would sit on it in the Judiciary
Committee with the hearty approval of the House. The Vice-Presi-
dent's chief worry about the court bill was that it threatened party
harmony and party harmony he regarded as a very important
requirement of party behavior.
He was less concerned about the possibility of political control of
the court. After the bill had been amended to permit the addition
of only one Justice a year instead of six all at once, Garner said:
"Conceding that six additional Justices had been appointed at one
time, it might have been tough for a while, but the court would have
adjusted itself. That many men are certain to divide. No President
can control that court. Those black robes and life-tenure appointments
have their effect on men. I sometimes think it would be a better court
if the Justices went on the bench in plain everyday clothes. But even
in their robes some of them will always read election returns."
A month after he sent the Supreme Court reorganization bill to the
Senate, President Roosevelt at the party's Victory Dinner amplified his
plans to retire at the end of his second term. The dinner was held
on March 4, the old inauguration day, which had just been abandoned
under the Lame Duck amendment. He said:
"My great ambition on January 20, 1941, is to turn over this desk
and this chair in the White House to my successor, whoever he may
be, with the assurance that I am at the same time turning over to him
as President a nation intact, a nation at peace, a nation prosperous,
a nation clear in its knowledge of what powers it has to serve its
own citizens, a nation that is in a position to use those powers to the
fullest in order to move forward steadily to meet the modern needs
of humanity, a nation which has thus proved that the democratic
form and the democratic method can and will succeed."
It was at about this time that reported Roosevelt-Garner differences
began to be printed and talked about.
When it had become evident early in 1937 that Roosevelt would
ask $1,500,000,000 for relief for the next year, Garner protested to
both the President and Relief Administrator Harry Hopkins. He told
Hopkins that there was no opposition to adequate relief appropria-
tions but there was a growing feeling in Congress and the country
that relief was becoming a way of life to a part of the population and
that some able-bodied reliefers were becoming perennials. He didn't
like the implications of W.P.A. officials referring to reliefers as
"clients."
The court reorganization bill was destined to have a six-month
party-splitting run in the Senate, In its earlier stages President Roose-
velt took two rather extended trips, one to Georgia and a fishing trip
to Texas and the Gulf. He also took several shorter ones to Hyde
Park. On his return from Warm Springs, late in March, he canvassed
the situation with Garner, Barkley, Bankhead and Rayburn and ex-
pressed a fixed purpose to see the proposal through to enactment.
On April 12, the constitutionality of the Wagner Act was upheld
by the Supreme Court, by a vote of five to four. Hughes and Roberts
were with the majority in this opinion. McReynolds, Butler, Suther-
land and Vandeventer dissented. Roosevelt's determination to fight for
the court bill deepened when the immovable four showed up in dissent.
On June n, after the acrimonious court fight had been underway
for four months and with no end of it in sight, Mr. and Mrs. Garner
left for Texas on the trip the Vice-President had announced in Janu-
ary, when he had thought the session would end by June 15. It was
the first time he had ever taken a vacation while Congress was in
session.
[220]
Garner thought he would enjoy the rest.
"My ears are buzzing and ringing," he said as he left. Both
factions in the court fight were using his ears to the full extent he
would permit.
After Garner had gone from Amarillo to his home in Uvalde,
he told me, he was amazed to see newspaper stories that the President
objected to his leaving Washington, and that a rift between them
was imminent as a result. He was sure that Roosevelt did not feel
this way for Roosevelt himself had just taken two extended trips
away from Washington. Later he was to hear from reliable advisers
that Roosevelt was very angry at him at the time, but, Garner told
me, the President never expressed his objections to him.
The debate on the court bill in the Senate opened on July 6, with
lacerating verbal exchanges between Senator Robinson, leading the
Administration fight, and opponents of the bill. Robinson knew that,
barring a miracle, he was fighting a lost cause.
But Robinson, who never fought with padded gloves, opened the
debate with all of his vigor. He pounded his front-row desk with his
freckled fist in an exchange with Senator Wheeler, leader of the
anticourt-bill bloc, and said:
"As one who is charged with some responsibility in this service, I
hope the questions at issue will be fairly and fully discussed, as I
know they will be; and, when that has been done, that those opposed
to the legislation will yield without putting the Senate to the incon-
venience and embarrassment of staying here long days and long nights
in a test of physical endurance.
"Much as it might surprise the members of the Senate," he added,
"I would probably come out of that kind of a test better than those
who are in opposition, at least some of them. I think I could endure
it longer than the Senator from Montana.'*
But off the floor that day Senator Robinson told me:
"I've got a hell of a job before me."
After a few days more of the agonizing oratorical struggle Robinson
was dead of a heart attack, leaving the court fight without a leader,
and the majority leadership vacant.
More than a month before Robinson's death, Justice Vandeventer
had retired, making a vacancy to which the Arkansas Senator was to
be appointed regardless of the outcome of the court fight. Robinson
[221]
had arranged a loan to buy a home across the river In Virginia.
The man who had been governor. Representative and Senator from
his state, three times keynoter at his party's national conventions, his
party's 1928 candidate for Vice-President and for fifteen years his
party's leader in the Senate, owned no home in Washington, and
lived in a modest apartment.
President Roosevelt attended the state funeral for Senator Robinson
in the Senate Chamber, but did not go with the funeral party by
train as he had done in the cases of Speakers Henry T. Rainey and
Joseph W. Byrns. Instead, he designated Garner to represent him
and the Vice-President left Uvalde for Little Rock.
The Vice-President returned to Washington on the funeral train.
Two things were under discussion on the ride back to Washington,
the court fight and the Barkley-Harrison fight for Robinson's old post
as leader of the Senate. Newspapermen gave the train party the in-
formation that Governor Herbert H. Lehman of New York, had
written a letter to Senator Wagner, coming out against the court plan.
Garner in a drawing room of the train, took off his coat, loosened
his belt and called a porter:
"Bring me some branch water," he said.
Before he reached Washington, he had talked to every Senator on the
train, and had an accurate line on how the vote stood on the court plan.
He had been noncommittal on his own attitude.
Both Harrison and Senator James F. Byrnes, in charge of his cam-
paign, were certain Harrison would win the leadership fight. By most
calculations Harrison had thirty-eight sure votes, a majority of one even
if Barkley got all the other thirty-seven Democrats in the Senate.
Garner, photographed sitting between Harrison and Barkley, de-
clared his neutrality. Then he told newspapermen, and allowed himself
to be quoted to the extent of twenty-four words :
"I shall not by the nod of the head, the wink of the eye or the use
of the vocal chord indicate any preference/*
Both the court and the leadership fights were to be settled within
forty-eight hours.
When Garner met Roosevelt the morning of July 20, after the train
arrived in Washington, Roosevelt asked him:
"How did you find the court situation, Jack?"
[222]
Garner replied:
"Do you want it with the bark on or off, Cap'n?"
"The rough way," Roosevelt replied.
"All right," Garner said. "You are beat. You haven't got the votes."
The President agreed to shelve the Supreme Court enlargement plan
and commissioned Garner to make the best settlement possible in the
interest of party harmony.
But Garner's efforts were to be complicated by the Barkley-Harrison
leadership contest. The White House Senate leader in the Franklin D.
Roosevelt administration, occupied a different role than under previous
Presidents. Senator Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island, for example,
who occupied that place in the Theodore Roosevelt administration,
regarded himself as the Republican Senate manager, just as Senators
Gorman of Maryland, and Culberson of Texas, his Democratic oppo-
sites, regarded themselves as minority legislative managers. Franklin
Roosevelt regarded the Senate leader as the President's lieutenant.
The court fight awaited settlement of the leadership contest. In the
Democratic caucus, Barkley defeated Harrison thirty-eight to thirty-
seven.
Roosevelt^ Garner and Farley all had agreed to keep hands off, treat-
ing it as a matter strictly to be settled by the Democratic members
themselves without outside intrusion. But at the last moment President
Roosevelt jumped into the contest on Barkley 's side, bringing pressure
on Senator Dietrich of Illinois, who had pledged himself to vote for
Harrison, and on Senator Bilbo of Mississippi.
Garner was told that the President had telephoned National Chair-
man Farley, asking him to get in touch with Mayor Kelly and have
Kelly put the heat on Dietrich. When Farley reminded him of their
agreement and refused, Roosevelt had Harry Hopkins do it. At Kelly's
insistence, Dietrich, who was a candidate for renomination and wanted
the support of the Chicago machine, shifted to Barkley. (Dietrich did
not, however, return to the Senate for another term.)
Bilbo had said that if Harrison would ask him to vote for him he
would do so. Harrison sent word back that he would not ask Bilbo a
favor for any office in the world. Bilbo voted for Barkley.
Garner was flabbergasted when he heard what had taken place. He
exclaimed to me:
[223]
"I could have decided that contest. Morris Sheppard [Senator from
Texas] came in here this morning and said: 'John, both Barkley and
Harrison are my friends. Tell me which one to vote for. I will vote
any way you say.' I told him: 'Morris, I ought not even talk to you
about this. It is a matter for Senators to decide. Roosevelt and Farley
and I have agreed to keep hands off.' "
Sheppard left the Vice-President's room, went to the caucus and voted
for Barkley.
Of Roosevelt's interference Garner said:
"It is an encroachment on the prerogatives of members of the legis-
lative branch no President of the United States ought to engage in."
Garner spent the rest of that day and the next in an attempt to arrange
as tactful a surrender as possible in a Senate where the Democrats had
been split almost exactly down the center in the Harrison-Barkley con-
test and was the same way on the court, with nearly all if not all
Republican votes against the court enlargement.
Garner was compelled to deal with Senators who had Roosevelt
beaten and knew it. In a last effort to save the Administration's face, he
appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and said:
"My loyalties are in this order: First, to my country; second, to my
party; third, to my President." He offered a plan which he said would
serve all three. The court enlargement opponents, secure in the knowl-
edge that they had the votes to kill the bill, refused his offer.
The Senate voted seventy to twenty to send the bill back to the hostile
Judiciary Committee, which meant its death. The vote carried instruc-
tions for the committee to report in ten days another bill dealing with
procedural reforms in the district and circuit courts, but the Supreme
Court section was out.
Garner jammed the watered-down bill through the Senate in a
fifty-nine-minute session on August 7. The House passed the bill on
August ii, and President Roosevelt signed it on August 25.
There were reports, apparently well authenticated, that the President
did not believe the Vice-President made the best settlement possible. If
that was his belief, he never told Garner.
At the close of his term, the Vice-President told me:
"He never indicated to me in any way that he was dissatisfied with
the way I handled the matter."
[224]
At another time he said:
"In my opinion the fate of the bill was settled by Senators on the
train coming back from Little Rock. Roosevelt made the most o his
trouble in Congress by changing his course after he had reached an
agreement. That was what happened in the court enlargement matter.
He sent it to Congress without notice after saying he had no legisla-
tive program other than outlined. It was not a matter of party policy,
for it was not in the party platform nor was it taken after consultation
with Congressional leaders who would have to put it through. Party
policy is not made by one man without consultation with elected
officials from another branch of government."
Discussing this matter further at the end of his term, Garner said
Roosevelt often changed his course without notice, to the consternation
of leaders who thought they were in agreement with him on a clearly
charted program.
"Even when the going was toughest I was determined not to have
a rupture with him if I could prevent it. When I was opposed to a
policy or a piece of legislation, I told him. Sometimes you could
persuade him. He was a charming fellow. . . . But he was a hard
man to have an understanding with. He would deviate from the
understanding.
"I have seen many stories about things on which we disagreed. But
the thing most frequently a bone of contention between us I have never
seen mentioned. He was constantly trying to influence me in the
appointment of Senate committees. He would suggest personnel for
conference and special committees. Of course, I had nothing to do with
the appointment of the regular standing committees of the Senate. But
he would say to me about the special and conference committees: 'Jack,
you ought not to appoint our enemies on these committees.'
"The issue of committee assignments did not become really embar-
rassing to me until the second term when the New Dealers began
noticeably to divide away from the Democrats on ideology. On the
investigating committees, especially, it was embarrassing to me. The
right of investigation is a sacred right and one of the highest duties
of the legislative branch. I tried to be very careful in the appointment
of these committees. I didn't want to appoint publicity seekers. If
these committees were conducted like courts they would not fulfill their
[225]
functions, but such committees must not overstep the bounds of
decency. The purpose of an Investigation Is to get useful Information,
not to give the third degree to witnesses. If the committee member
was a man of moral and intellectual integrity, intent on doing his
duty as he saw It, I never gave much attention to his party politics
and none to his shading within a party. I made up my mind I was
going to put on the committee men I thought had stability and
equipment for the task.
"A committee Is not going to run wild if the proper care is taken
In Its selection and it is the business of the man who appoints com-
mittees to know whom he is appointing.
"I told Roosevelt I would follow the Senate wishes as much as
possible on this. I had to treat the Senate with dignity. If I had not
It would have been up to the Senate to take the power of committee
appointments away from me. It should have done so. The Senate
never overruled any of my rulings. During the Wilson administration
it overrode Tom Marshall five times in one day."
To save a party smashup, the obvious strategy called for an im-
mediate adjournment of Congress, a cooling-off period and the con-
solidation of the Democratic party Into the semblance, at least, of an
orderly majority once more. But President Roosevelt insisted oa action
on still another proposal the wages and hours bill.
Garner thought Roosevelt's insistence on the controversial wages
and hours bill on the heels of the party strife over the court bill was
particularly inopportune. There had not been adequate study of the
proposal, and its effect on thousands of businesses was unexplored, he
said.
The strategy was agreed upon to pass the bill through the Senate and
send it to the House where the opposition to such legislation was
much stronger than In the Senate. This was done after the final enact-
ment of the diluted court bill. Congress adjourned on August 21, to
meet again November 15.
Of his own position, Garner said:
"In my first campaign for Congress in 1902, I advocated an eight-
hour day for industrial workers and for all other city workers where
It is possible. That was before the day of nominating primaries and I
wrote It into the platform of the convention which first nominated
[226]
me for Congress. I have never changed my position. I have always
believed in eight hours' work, eight hours' recreation and, if anyone
wants it, eight hours' sleep.
"I have always believed in collective bargaining and the right of
every working man and woman to the best possible wages. The wages
part of the proposal does not bother me so much as the hours. I am
not convinced that as a general proposition the men and women of
the country can do the nation's work in a forty-hour week. There is
a vast difference between forty-eight and forty hours.
"This is a mass-production country. We lead the world because we
manufacture things in the mass and sell them cheaply. Most of the work
of the country is done by machines, but even with all our machine-
power I am not sure the wage earners can do the nation's work in a
forty-hour week.
"We have always stressed the importance of making things mul-
tiply. From the time this nation was hewed out of the wilderness the
emphasis has been on production. If just one generation has non-
productivity preached to it or given to it by precept, the economy of
the country will be damaged beyond repair."
The wages and hours bill had a stormy voyage through the House
but legislative action was completed in June 1938.
Vice-President Garner came back for the short autumn session in
November 1937, in excellent humor. He found that the tempers of
Senators and Representatives were much better than when Congress
adjourned. But he found plenty of evidence, also, that the legislators
felt that if Roosevelt wanted to play rough with them they could play
rough right back.
Garner was determined to exert all the influence he had to keep his
President and his party going in the same direction.
"I like to feel that if I have contributed any one good thing during
my terms of public service, it has been in bringing men and women
together in combined effort to work harmoniously to a constructive
end," he said. "I long ago came to realize that men who think right
are not often far apart in their views."
Roosevelt and Garner talked over the President's relations with
Congress at a long luncheon at the President's desk. Garner came
away from the White House believing he had made some progress
[227]
with his suggestions on how to repair and improve these relations. He
told the President in all candor that there was an increasing feeling
in Congress that the Executive was by-passing it a great deal of the
time and that when he did ask for legislation he sent up prepared bills.
"Most of the members of Congress are men of good will," he told
the President. "By patience and considerate treatment you can get
legislation."
Garner told the President that too many people in the executive
branch were holding press conferences and propounding policies. He
was depicting a situation of which every newspaperman in Washing-
ton was aware. From 1933 up to this time in the fall of 1937, it was
difficult to get a news story at the Capitol Previously, the White
House had been a newspaper watch job. Roosevelt reversed all this.
Now, instead of Senators and Representatives being sources of news,
the legislators were more likely to get the news from newspapermen,
relayed from the White House.
"When I occupied office where I was compelled to deal with public
questions, I did not mind talking/ 5 Garner told the President. "The
newspapermen always treated me well, but I did not jeopardize the
legislative program by giving out premature information. I think you
and some Cabinet members are giving out premature information."
Roosevelt said he agreed that Cabinet members were talking too
much and he would curtail some of these press conferences, but not
his own.
"My press conferences are useful and good politics," he said. "You
don't realize what they have accomplished for the party. I have
headed off big unfavorable stories by making favorable stories that
top them. I've beat the opposition to the punch many times. I can
always beat them on headlines."
Roosevelt laughed heartily at Garner's rejoinder:
"Well, I think at least you ought to inform Congress and not your
press conferences on the state of the Union and transmit directly to
it your desires for legislation."
Roosevelt did promise one definite innovation. He set aside one
day a week, Monday, on which he would see Congressional leaders
to discuss the legislative situation. The meetings began in January
1938. They were attended by the Vice-President, Speaker of the House
and Senate and House majority leaders.
The legislative conferences, which continued until Roosevelt's death,
did not work out as well as Garner had hoped. He said:
"The legislative conferences were satisfactory to a degree only. He
talked the legislative leaders into a lot of things and we seldom talked
him out of anything permanently. He would come back in another
direction to accomplish his desires."
CHAPTER XIV
The Purge That Failed
HINTS that President Roosevelt intended to attempt a purge
of Senators and Representatives who had opposed parts of
his program began to be heard around the Christmas holidays
in 1937. By January it was the subject of conversation at every bar and
private cocktail party in Washington.
There had been reports immediately following the 1936 election that
the left-wingers had decided that the party was not big enough for
both them and the conservatives, and had blueprinted plans to- dis-
mantle the old-line Democratic party and set up a "liberal" party.
Among the leaders slated to walk the plank in the move away from
"comfortable old Democratic orthodoxy" were Garner, Glass and Robin-
son. Garner regarded the talk as some more pullulations of the left-
wingers and paid no attention to it.
There also appeared about this time a humorous newspaper article
saying Garner was to be set aside for the crime of laissez jaire and that
there was undisputable evidence that he was guilty of the crime of
believing two and two made four. Laissez jaire at this time was taking
a terrific pummeling. Everybody made an indignant speech against
it. The test of liberalism in extreme left-wing circles was hatred of
Laissez Faire and Serlor Franco of Spain.
Garner was, in fact, no believer in laissez jaire^ unless this philosophy
which he had stated in a public address could be so characterized:
"It is not the business of government to make individuals rich;
though, too often, has government been bent to that purpose. Nor is it
the function of an administration to direct the personal affairs of man-
kind, except insofar as it is necessary to place a bar against such things
as injury, loss or discomfort to others. Putting the government into
[230]
business is a violation of the nation's industrial and commercial fabric.
Government is a convenience of civilization by which a set of rules is
enforced on a community in the interest of order and justice."
Garner thought of himself as a progressive although he had mis-
givings about much of the legislation labeled progressive.
"I consider myself a Democrat without any explanatory prefix," he
once told me. "I think I am a progressive and I hope a sound progres-
sive. There is a vast difference between progress and makeshift. Pro-
gress is the product of time. Improvising is still improvising no matter
how dramatic you make it. When legislation is proposed I want the
proposer to tell me how he thinks it will work in practice, A sure-
footed progressive, as I regard it, is one who takes an action for a
purpose, knowing what results the action is reasonably certain to
accomplish."
It soon became evident that the reports of the contemplated purge
were not mere gossip. There was a ring of authenticity about them.
The President, it was said, preferred a liberal Republican to a con-
servative Democrat if need be, but that he was really intent on replac-
ing conservative Democrats with liberal Democrats.
Partial confirmation was not long in coming. At the Jackson Day
Dinner on January 8, 1938, which both Roosevelt and Garner attended,
Roosevelt said that he had bolted his party on its Presidential candi-
date on his first vote, casting it for Theodore Roosevelt instead of Alton
B. Parker. That wasn't the Garner kind of Democrat,
"Republicans sometimes are jolly companions," Garner said. "I have
wonderful friendships with Republicans any time except on a roll call,
any day except election day. On roll calls and in polling places I am a
Democrat."
Pleasant personal relations still existed between the President and
Vice-President. On February n, Vice-President and Mrs. Garner gave
their annual dinner omitted the year before for the President and
Mrs. Roosevelt in the Rose Room at the Washington Hotel.
This year all members of the Cabinet and their wives, except Secre-
tary of Navy Swanson, who was ill, were present. The other guests
included R.F.C. Chairman Jesse H. Jones and Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Wood-
row Wilson, Senate and House Democratic and Republican leaders and
a few personal friends such as Mr. and Mrs. Howard Chandler
Christy and Mr. and Mrs. Gene Buck. The President had such a good
time that he and Mrs. Roosevelt did not return to the White House
until long after midnight.
On April 8 the President took a crushing blow to the chin in his
effort to reorganize the executive branch of the government. So much
opposition developed that the proposal of two new Cabinet members
for the Department of Social Welfare and Department of Public
Works and the plan to change the name of the Department of Interior
to Department of Conservation was dropped.
But even these and other concessions did not make the measure more
palatable in Congress. The whittled-down version of the bill was fiercely
attacked. Speaker Bankhead and Majority Leader Rayburn sensing
the proportions of the revolt made the issue one of confidence or no
confidence in the President. Opponents thundered back that it was a
test of whether there would be further centralization of power in the
President's hands and further surrender of power by Congress. Despite
the fact that there were only 90 Republicans and 330 Democrats in the
House, foes of reorganization won 204 to 196. His own party adminis-
tered the Congressional defeat. One hundred and eight Democrats had
bolted, over their pleading Speaker and majority leader, joining 88
Republicans. No such mass desertion had occurred in either party since
the September 13, 1922, crossover when 102 Republicans followed
Garner in his motion to recommit and revamp the For dney-Mc Cumber
tariff bill.
The President and Mrs. Roosevelt gave a return dinner to the Vice-
President and Mrs. Garner and afterward Roosevelt and Garner dis-
cussed the purge.
"I don't think you ought to try to punish these men, Cap'n," Garner
said to Roosevelt, speaking of the Senators who opposed the court
enlargement bill. "On many details of party principles men disagree.
Some branch off in one direction and some in another. Men who oppose
you on one thing are for you on another and there is always a legisla-
tive program for which you have to find votes.
"I have a devotional affection for the Democratic party. I have
marched and fought for causes with some of these men. They are
Senators of the United States. The places they hold represent their life
achievements, their struggles, their ambitions, the service to party and
[232]
WKoWill Hold
The Congress elected after the "purge" is represented as being
one in which Garner's influence had risen while Roosevelt's
strength was at a low. (F. O. Seibel, Richmond Times Dispatch}
country. You may have reason to be provoked at them, but you can't
defeat the Southern Senators and if you defeat the Democrats in the
North you will get Republicans instead."
But Roosevelt was unconvinced.
Garner regarded the purge as unwise on two other grounds, he
said: the domestic and international situation. The nation was still
deep in the depression. The foreign situation became more critical.
Hitler moved into and absorbed Austria in March.
Garner said that if there was ever a time in which unity was needed
within the party and in the nation, it was now, and he believed Roose-
velt, on the advice of what Garner regarded as shortsighted New
Dealers, was leading the nation down the paths of division.
Reports again were widespread now that the President and Vice-
President were in disagreement. There was no doubt about their incom-
patibility over the purge, but Garner minimized their differences all
he could.
At the azalea festival at Charleston, South Carolina, in April, he
said, in response to questions about the split: "I sometimes disagree
with my wife and my friends but that does not take away my love and
affection for them."
Another time when both he and the President had toothaches the
same day, Garner said:
"See how closely we work together."
But there was no doubt now that the purge would be undertaken. In
a talk I had with him in his hotel apartment, the Vice-President wan-
dered just what standard of support or nonsupport would determine
the Administration's efforts to defeat legislators. First shining mark
of the purge, it was understood, was Senator Walter F. George of
Georgia.
George had voted for the Emergency Banking Act, N.R.A., A.A.A.,
T.V.A., relief bills, abrogation of the gold clause, the gold act, the
Administration silver bill, emergency air-mail bill, compulsory crop
control, regulation of stock exchanges, the commodity exchange bill,
Reciprocal Trade acts, the Wagner Labor Relations Act, Social Security
and many other Administration-proposed laws. He had opposed the
Administration on the St. Lawrence treaty, the Public Utility Holding
Company bill, the Guffey-Snyder Coal bill, the Wages and Hours law
and the Supreme Court enlargement bill.
There was little legislation at the 1938 session of Congress other than
completing action on the wages and hours and a redrafted farm bill.
Senators and Representatives were anxious to get away for their cam-
paigns. The President was anxious to devote his attention to purge
efforts. Congress finally adjourned on June 16. It could have got away
sooner but for the fact that the Republicans had only fifteen Senators,
not enough for manning the conference committees on routine legisla-
tion. To suggestions that he hurry, the Vice-President replied:
"We are going to give the minority fair play, so far as I am con-
cerned, no matter how long we have to stay here, I am as anxious to
get away as anyone is. I don't know what, with their small member-
ship, they can do about it after they see them, but they are going to
have a chance to look at the completed bills. I spent more than half
my time here in the minority and I have taken some pretty rough treat-
ment from the Republicans. I am going to give them the consideration
I demanded and sometimes did not get."
In July, Roosevelt started his Southern and Western trip to aid his
supporters and oppose those who had fallen into his disfavor.
On a torrid June 24, Roosevelt had delivered a fireside chat by radio
from the White House laying down conditions under which he said
he had every right to take sides in a party primary.
I talked to Garner about the purge before he left for Texas. He said
that his hopes of seeing the Democratic party made the permanent
dominant party had about evaporated.
"It is not the business of the President of the United States to choose
Senators and Representatives in Congress," the Vice-President told
me. "He won't succeed. The people of the states will regard it as Presi-
dential arrogance. These men stand well in their party. Their standing
is an accumulation of many years o work for their party and their
constituents recognition for the things they have done. The leader of
the party ought not to treat them as outcasts.
"They are elected men with responsibility to the people who elected
them. An elected officer has his own constituency and his own orbit. He,
too, was elected on a platform. He has a loyalty to the President, but it
isn't the same sort of blind allegiance some of his own appointees have*
[235]
Roosevelt seems to want men to do his bidding, whether appointed or
elected. You can't exact intellectual servitude from a self-respecting
Senator or Representative.
"The people who have been urging him to use the power of his
office to defeat these Senators and Representatives have never been
elected to office and most of them could not be. They owe their places
solely to Roosevelt and have no standing other than what their rela-
tion to him gives them."
Nor was the Vice-President impressed with arguments for a new
political alignment.
"It is not a question of making the Democratic party the progressive
party," he said. "It has always been the more progressive one. It is a
question of the Democratic party or a personal party a Roosevelt
party. It's risky business. When you build around a personality instead
of a party program and principles then your party is up Salt Creek
when that personality is off the ticket.
"I would like to see the Democratic p'arty remain so strong that it
would stay in power at least half the time. I am thinking of the kind of
party we will have when Roosevelt is gone, and spending stops. In my
opinion the kind of party Roosevelt seems to want to build up would
not survive the next election after he was off the ticket.
"This talk about dividing the country into two political camps one
progressive and the other conservative is all so much stuff. There
will always be agitation of this realignment, but in my considered
judgment, it will never come. If it did you'd find you'd have a radical
and a reactionary party and neither of these could serve the nation.
Each of the two parties is in a sense a coalition. Any party to serve the
country must be a party of all sorts of views, and through a reconcili-
ation and adjustment of these views you get harmony and a program
for good legislation and good administration. The country is neither
radical nor reactionary. A party has got to strike a balance.
"There are around forty-five million voters in the country. You've
got a bedrock of around fifteen million in each party who will never
scratch the party ticket and they serve a great purpose of stability. You
have another fifteen million who swing often or occasionally, or go
fishing or stay at home on election day, and these fifteen million serve
a great purpose, too. That is where you get your changes. No one can
[236]
figure a better system than that a third Democratic, a third Repub-
lican and a third independent. Most American people have the same
general ideas and concepts. Both the Republican and the Democratic
parties are more than eighty years old and are here to stay. No third
party has strength for more than. one election and this when special
conditions have given it a temporary following. The pendulum swings
from party to party on personality of candidates or on issues, but at
heart the country is always progressive and forward looking."
The President opened his July tour by speaking for Barkley in
Kentucky and Thomas in Oklahoma and both won. In Colorado and
Nevada he gave the deep freeze to Senators Adams and McCarren
but both won anyway. In California he spoke for McAdoo, but
McAdoo was beaten by Sheridan Downey, a newcomer.
The last stages of the purge efforts began with the march through
Georgia in August and continued through South Carolina and Mary-
land. But after much oratory and deep strategy the assaults of the
President on his foes was ineffectual; the brain-trust purge program
failed everywhere except in one New York Congressional district.
Not only had it resulted in practically total failure, it was to lead to
big Republican gains in the fall election.
The Republican party got up out of its grave to gain eighty-one
House seats, eight Senate seats and eleven governorships. Garner
deeply regretted the defeat of some of his close friends, Brown of
New Hampshire, Lonergan of Connecticut and Duffey of Wisconsin
among them.
The Vice-President returned to Washington in the middle of De-
cember after the purge that failed. Roosevelt had requested that he
come up early. He had just celebrated his seventieth birthday. He got
off the train, his muscles hard, his hair rumpled and his face still
glowing with summer tan. He distributed fat cigars to Senators who
came to see him, talked party harmony. He hoped Roosevelt would
assume leadership of the whole party. He had said:
"Roosevelt isn't leading the whole party, only the left-wing faction."
While he was away, the Texas Democratic state convention, made
up of 1,400 delegates, had unanimously endorsed him for President. It
was a nice honor, but Garner was not thinking in terms of White
House residence.
[237]
Garner, who once said he worked a ninety-hour week, spent about
the busiest day he ever had in Washington that day.
He saw numerous Senators, individually and in groups, National
Chairman Farley and President Roosevelt.
Senators talked to him about legislation to curb the President's
powers and about reports of Presidential plans to appoint radical lame
ducks to high executive offices. They fumed that relief funds had
been used to aid Roosevelt's friends and scourge his foes.
A group of Senators told him they wanted a chance to consider
and to either repeal or modify some of the "emergency powers" which
the President had been given over a six-year period. They were, for
the most part, powers which no President had ever had. Most of them
actually were legislative powers.
The President had discretionary power, with very slight limitations,
over relief, farm benefits and other funds. He could devalue the
dollar, issue three billion in greenbacks, decree the free and unlimited
coinage of silver, fix the value of silver at any ratio of gold he saw fit,
could operate a stabilization fund of two billions and the method of
his management was not subject to review, and he could prescribe the
rules and regulations under which gold could be acquired, transported,
melted or treated, exported or imported. He could suspend any stock
exchange for ninety days. He could raise or lower by 50 per cent any
tariff imposed by the United States.
Garner readily admitted that Roosevelt had been given powers
which perhaps he never should have had and which could be returned
to Congress now. He was for Congress recapturing these powers or for
the President voluntarily giving them back. These feelings, he said,
he would convey to the President.
He emphasized, however, that he felt that both the President and
Congress would have to make concessions. He wanted his party to
carry the political ball. He said he would use any influence he had to
prevent an alliance between "conservative" Democrats and Republi-
cans. Senator McNary, the minority leader, and Senator Vandenberg
of Michigan were reported to be promoting such an alliance.
"If I were in the place of McNary and Vandenberg, I would suggest
an alliance, too," Garner said. "The only people who would benefit
by it would be the Republican party. I have made some forays to the
Republican side to acquire votes but I never liked to have them come
wooing on my side of the aisle. The party isn't going to get anywhere
with Senators taking cracks at Roosevelt and Roosevelt taking swings
at Senators. It can only give comfort to the Republican party. We still
have a large majority in Congress, but it is not a New Deal majority."
Jim Farley came in for the longest conference he and Garner had ever
held. Garner occupied a political position in addition to the Vice-
Presidency. He was Democratic national committeeman from Texas
and vice-chairman of the Democratic national committee.
Farley was smarting under cavalier treatment he had received dur-
ing the campaign. Both he and Garner had opposed the purge, both
felt that Roosevelt's listening to the Hopkins-Corcoran group had
brought the party close to disaster, both feared the party's chances of
success in 1940 were being tossed away.
Garner then went to the White House for a blunt discussion with
the President. He unburdened himself in what was to be his last great
effort to get his President and his party together.
Roosevelt first talked about the election. One by one he computed
the Democratic losses and for each repulse he ascribed local conditions.
Garner disagreed with Roosevelt's assessment of the situation, but
told him that conceding he was right the facts of the Congressional
life would have to be faced.
"Eighty-one Republicans will sit in the House and eight in the
Senate in seats where Democrats sat and either supported or ac-
quiesced in legislation you proposed," he said. "Most Senators and
Representatives are not interpreting the results the way you are and
legislators sometimes perform in accordance with their interpretation
of election returns."
Garner said that the Democrats who had been successful were
overwhelmingly those classed as "conservative" and that with nearly
a hundred Democrats removed from the Congressional ranks, condi-
tions were ripe for a coalition. He urged the President to recognize
that he had lost legislators in the election and would lose more on roll
calls.
Roosevelt thought conditions were still so critical that he needed
his monetary and other powers, but was willing to see some restric-
tions written into methods of expending relief money.
[239]
Garner told the President also that some concessions would have to
be made on appointments requiring Senate confirmation. The Vice-
President said again that more leeway in writing legislation should be
given Congress and less prepared legislation sent up.
"The boys have started to read the fine print in them," he said jocu-
larly, referring to the bills sent up from the executive offices.
Later Garner was to learn that his errand at the White House that
day was fruitless. After an election which Garner, Congress and ap-
parently the country construed as a victory for the right, Roosevelt
turned further to the left. Gamer soon was convinced that the Presi-
dent wanted no peace with the party moderates and conservatives
and had no intention of considering their viewpoint in legislative
matters. That day, December 18, 1938, was the last long private dis-
cussion the President and Vice-President had in the White House
office. Thereafter when Garner saw Roosevelt it was in the presence
of the Speaker of the House and the majority leaders of Senate and
House or at Cabinet meetings.
The Board of Education had been dismantled by Garner months
before. Except for the wages and hours bill, no New Deal legislation
had got through in the second term. But the graveyard of New Deal
proposals was not in the Senate. It was in the House of Representatives.
Chronologically the relations of the two most powerful Democrats
in the nation, the President and the Vice-President, probably had
these divisions:
(1) The first four years when Garner, as legislative tactician, ac-
celerated the recovery program and actually had only one serious dis-
agreement with Roosevelt: the recognition of Russia, where he felt that
Lltvlnofif outmaneuvered Roosevelt and obtained a soft recognition
denied by the Wilson and succeeding administrations. These four
years ended with each having great affection for the other.
(2) The somber first two years of the second term, which saw the
party disagreements over such Issues as the sit-down strike, the Supreme
Court enlargement fiasco and the unsuccessful efforts to purge Demo-
crats who did not go along with his entire program. From these
Roosevelt and Garner emerged with less warmth than in their previous
relations.
(3) The last two years which saw them in almost constant
disagreement. The shocks to their amicable relations in these two
years came so rapidly that it was difficult to divide them. From
Garner's standpoint the reasons were: bigger-than-ever spending pro-
posals; use of relief funds for political purposes; what Garner thought
was Roosevelt's complete left-wing swing and the direction he was tak-
ing the party; Roosevelt's ever greater ambitions for personal power;
what Garner regarded as coddling of Communists and fellow-travelers
and their infiltration into the government; and disagreements over
executive nominations.
Events of the next few weeks after the December 18 conversations
gave a surface appearance of extreme cordiality between the President
and Vice-President. Between the time of his White House visit and
the opening of Congress, all pre-Congressional activity centered
around the Vice-Presidential suite. So many Executive department
administrators waited their turn outside his door that word got around
town that "Garner is the man to see." There was evidence that the
Administration wanted him to have full information on its proposed
legislative program and his frank opinion of its chances for success.
Anyone with a problem made a beeline to the Vice-President's
office in the Capitol. For days he gave himself over to such interviews
and attempts to reconcile conflicting viewpoints. His list of appoint-
ments grew longer daily. He saw not only Senators, Representatives
and Cabinet members, but everybody else of importance to the party
who wished the hospitality of his office.
Leading the trek to Garner's office was Harry L. Hopkins, who a
week before had resigned as W.PA. administrator and had received
a recess appointment as Secretary of Commerce. Senate confirma-
tion of Hopkins, an erstwhile business baiter, to his new station, the
business post in the Cabinet, was uncertain.
The appropriation Congress had made for W.PA. for the year had
been used up. Hopkins had been accused of using relief money to
influence elections and the Senatorial investigation had borne out the
accusations. At election time there had been 3,262,000 persons on
W.P.A. rolls, the peak that agency reached during its existence.
Henry Wallace came as Hopkins left and spent two hours discuss-
ing the bogged-down agricultural program. The country had raised
too much wheat that year; tobacco and rice farmers had refused to
accept marketing programs proposed by the Agricultural Department.
The session of Congress which opened on January 3, 1939, was
destined to give Franklin D. Roosevelt his roughest legislative ride.
Before it adjourned eight months later, on August 5, the President's
Influence with it had been reduced to nil.
In his Jackson Day speech on January 9, 1939, the President came
out for unity but his prescription for concord was that those who
disagreed with his policies cease their opposition or join the Republican
party.
He followed this by a series of appointments of New Deal lame
ducks to key positions. The appointments found a hostile atmosphere.
Touching off a series of explosions was the President's effort to punish
venerable Senator Carter Glass. Because of Glass's opposition to parts
of his program the President took his patronage away and conferred
it on Governor Price of Virginia. Glass was old now, but he indomi-
tably fought back. The Senate took Glass's side on a federal Judge
nomination and rejected It by a near vote.
The nomination which the Senate regarded as a defiance was that
of Thomas R. Amlie, radical lame-duck Representative from Wisconsin,
to be a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Immediately
both Houses of the Wisconsin legislature passed resolutions asking the
President to withdraw the nomination.
Amlle denied being a Communist but he had asserted that "capital-
ism is not worth saving." He advocated the scrapping of the capitalistic
economy of the United States in favor of a production-for-use system
in which a great central federal corporation would take over the con-
trol and operation of 75 per cent of the nation's productive machinery.
The Amlle nomination was finally withdrawn by the President.
Another point of disagreement between the President and Vice-
President at this time was amendments to the Wagner Labor Act.
When this law was passed hurriedly in 1935? it was agreed it would
have to be amended but that no step toward amendment would be
taken until the Supreme Court had had opportunity to pass on its
validity. The Supreme Court decision declaring it constitutional had
come down two years since and still nothing had been done.
"We had to have labor legislation," Garner said. "There is no doubt
some corporations were oppressing labor. All experimental legislation
[242]
has to be amended and the Democratic party, which is the friend of
labor, should amend this. There are features of this law which have
the effect of making this a government by bias. I don't want to
abridge any of labor's rights, but all people in this country should be
subject to the same laws. There should be no statutory exceptions.
The Wagner Act has been interpreted and administered in a way
to prevent normal discussion between employer and employee."
After their three-hour discussion on December 18, Garner thought
Roosevelt was agreeable to amendment and Barkley had indicated
as much after talking to the President.
But amendment proposals got nowhere. The House passed legis-
lation, but it was bottled up in the Senate Labor Committee and no
action ever was taken until the House and Senate passed the Taft-
Hartley act over a Presidential veto in 1947.
With his relations with Congress at an all-time low, Roosevelt
prepared to swing in behind a lend-spend, pump-priming, planned-
inflation program. The amount to be asked was nebulous but astro-
nomical in the first trial balloons sent up. It might, the intimations were,
reach $5,000,000,000.
Reports flew around that Garner was against the plan. He was. On
April 12, Roosevelt took notice of the widespread reports that there
were strong differences between the Vice-President and himself over
recovery methods. Edgy and irritated, the President told a press con-
ference that recently published stories of a dispute with the Vice-
President were falsifications out of the whole cloth.
The President was especially disturbed about the circulation of a
parable recited by the Vice-President.
"Down in our country," the Vice-President was quoted as saying,
"when cattle are grazing and taking on fat we don't bother them
too much and we don't scare them. We ought to have as much con-
sideration for human beings as we do for cattle."
Although this quotation did not get into circulation until April,
he had made substantially this statement to the President in the
preceding December. He was trying to illustrate his point that there
had been so many recovery methods started and stopped or switched
that the nation never got a chance to recuperate and come back to
health. He said that he believed if the people were left alone they
would begin to produce and get out of the depression.
The lend-spend bill was not sent to the Capitol until July. In its
final form it provided loans up to a limit of $2,390,000,000, and the
Reconstruction Finance Corporation was to be authorized to issue notes,
debentures, bonds and other obligations of a maturity not to exceed
thirty years. No one was left out of the planned-inflation largess. State,
county and municipal public works; tenant farmers; farm laborers
and sharecroppers; rural electrification and reclamation were among
eligible beneficiaries.
But when the plan finally appeared, one feature of it attracted more
attention than the recommended money outlay. The President said
in a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee:
"There seems to be no reason why there should not be adopted as
a permanent policy of government the development of maintenance
of a revolving fund fed from the earnings of these government invest-
ments and used to finance new projects when there is need of extra
stimulus of employment."
Garner saw in this bill a spender's paradise, with its provisions
for by-passing Congressional appropriations committees, the budget and
the Treasury a socialization of credit.
"This bill in some particulars is the worst that has come up here,"
he said. "It gives the President discretion to spend billions where he
wants to, how he wants to and when he wants to. It is another step
away from constitutional government and toward personal govern-
ment. No money ought to be spent except that which Congress ap-
propriates each year."
The federal government at that time had a charge account of
$38,000,000,000 and at that time Garner said he never had a personal
charge account in his life.
He told his close friend, John D. Ewing, Louisiana newspaper pub-
lisher :
"I never had a charge account and got no first-of-the-month bills
other than utilities."
The lend-spend proposal lost ground steadily. The Senate passed a
version of it. The House kicked it out. By a vote of 193 to 167 it
refused even to take it up for debate.
Stress now began to be put on national defense. Congress In its
appropriations granted all national-defense requests, totaling $2,000,-
000,000. As the fiscal year 1939 ended and emphasis began to be put
on expenditures for possible future war instead of for relief, there
were still 6,630,000 households representing 19,650,000 persons receiv-
ing relief or employment on federal works and even that was taking
care of only half of the unemployed.
At the last Cabinet meeting before leaving for home at the end of
Congress, Garner again urged the cessation of shipments of petroleum,
scrap and other war materials to war-like Japan. The President and
Secretary Hull doubted we could do it alone and were not sure that
Great Britain would act with us. The United States and Great Britain
had been acting in concert in that theater for two years.
"I never thought a white man ought to sell scalping knives to
Indians," Garner said of our exportation of these war materials to the
Nipponese.
Garner's political star rose in 1939, as the President's hold on
Congress sagged into impotency. The Vice-President was the man
the tourists wanted to see at the Capitol. He was the man the poli-
ticians wanted to see. He had risen to a place as a legislative factor
reached by only two other men in modern times, the two great
Speakers, Thomas B. Reed and Joseph G, Cannon. Although he
maintained self-imposed silence, "leaks" made him the symbol of
opposition to the course Roosevelt was taking.
The Vice-President by now was receiving hundreds of letters each
week telling him he was the hope of the country, urging that he
stand for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
[245]
CHAPTER XV
Stop Garner
JOHN NANCE GARNER abhorred even the idea of a third term
for any President of the United States.
But it was strictly an academic abhorrence at the time I first
heard him discuss it. He had no idea the issue would arise. Cer-
tainly he had no idea that he would be cast in the role of the only high
elected officer in the nation standing alone in an unsuccessful effort
to prevent a third-term Presidential nomination in his own party.
On any matter of public policy, Garner always had an explicit judg-
ment, not merely a casual notion. On the tenure of federal office-
holders his opinion was fixed and positive. He told me his views in one
of those Sunday evening gatherings at his hotel apartment in Wash-
ington which were sometimes heterogeneous, sometimes homogeneous
and sometimes very intimate affairs.
"I believe in life tenure for Judges, with retirement provisions ade-
quate to induce withdrawal from the bench of Judges of advanced
age, or disability,' 1 he said.
"I favor long service for members of the legislative branch, their
constituencies willing. The two-year term for Representatives and six-
year term for Senators gives their constituencies a chance to retire
them or continue them on the records they have made. In a body as
numerous as a legislative one only in extended incumbency can a man
gain leadership and be in position to render the greatest service.
"I believe in rotation in the office of President. The four-year term
cannot be improved on. No poor President ought to stay more than
four years and the best of Presidents should not hold on more than two
four-year terms. A President, any President, weak or strong, is in
position to exercise great power from the first breath he draws after
[246]
taking the oath of office until he leaves that office. No man should
exercise the great powers of the Presidency too long. My idea of a
President is that of a citizen of ripe experience and sound patriotism
who would fill this most powerful office in all the world for four or
eight years and then go back and be a citizen just as George Washing-
ton did."
His opposition to undue prolongation of the executive tenure and his
espousal of long service in the legislative branch was the result o
experience. During his service in Washington, seven Presidents had
occupied the White House. In that time also he had seen a complete
turnover in the Supreme Court and in almost the entire federal
judiciary; and there was not a face in the Senate which had been there
when he came to Washington, but three of his first-term House col-
leagues Norris of Nebraska, Glass of Virginia and Sheppard o
Texas had moved over to the Senate.
Garner realized as any student of politics does that a good politician
in the White House can always bring about his own renomination. He
said to me:
"You can't beat the head of the party in the White House for renomi-
nation if he wants renomination. There may be opposition to his re-
nomination, even the majority of his party may think it is unwise. But
how under our present system of nomination is the opposition going to
be effective ? He is the head of the federal hierarchy and thousands o
appointive and well-paid jobholders look to him for their own con-
tinuance in office. National, state and perhaps even county officeholders
ride into office on the strength of the head of the ticket. No candidate
can contest a President of his party, man against man. He must contest
the head of his party and the most powerful office in the world.
"Heads of party machines can oppose him only at their own political
peril. In these days of federal aid and subsidies it is easy to put relief,
farm benefits and other government largess in places where they will
do the most political good. All this is water on the wheel of the
machines which are expected to turn in majorities. The munitions of
these machines are jobs and money and nowadays it is federal jobs
and federally appropriated money.
"The President of the United States has a sounding board and
vehicles for making public opinion which are available to no other
[247]
official on earth. The whole people voting in an election may defeat
him, but for the renomination in his party there is just one effective
check against him and that is the self-restraint of the President himself."
Although he had twice received nominations at the hands of national
conventions and had been a delegate to four at Kansas City in 1900,
St. Louis in 1904 and 1916 and at New York in 1924 Garner believed
conventions had become less and less responsive to the wishes of the
rank and file and progressively more easily manipulated by a few men.
After the Madison Square Garden fiasco, which he left in disgust, he
advocated preconvention primaries, followed by state conventions and
a national convention.
He had said:
"No Presidential candidate in either party ever has fully used the
primaries there are. The tendency has been for the candidate to enter
only those primaries he is relatively sure he can win. I would like to
see a Presidential-preference primary held in every state in the Union
on the same day. All candidates ought to have to announce their candi-
dacies and enter all primaries. Even some clear-cut issues might be put
on the primary ballot for an advisory referendum.
"The primaries, of course, would not be conclusive. The national con-
vention would have to give weight to certain factors. A candidate whose
primary showing indicated his strength in key electoral states might
receive more consideration than one who had carried smaller or less
doubtful states. It is not likely that in a field of candidates anyone
could carry a majority of all the states in a primary. Then, there would
be the Vice-Presidential nomination and the platform and the adver-
tising which a convention gives to the nominees and the party's pledges.
But the delegates from the states would know the sentiment of the
people in the states."
The second term was at its midway point before he gave any thought
at all about either Roosevelt or himself being a possible Presidential
candidate in 1940. Roosevelt had told him immediately after the 1937
inauguration that he never intended to be a candidate again for any
public office, and reiteration of this intention by the President at the
Victory Dinner of the Democratic party on March 4, 1937, was taken
by Garner as the final word on the matter.
The Vice-President's first discussion with anyone on the direct
[248]
/"Move OUT OF THE WAY, dors? 1 - ,
I H011SE AMD BUG&Y DW5 ARE GONE)
v FOR. GOOD.
Garner In 1939 to k the lead in bringing about repeal of the
embargo clause of neutrality act, which he had opposed when
it was enacted. (C. K. Berryman, Washington Star)
question of whether Roosevelt might or might not run again was with
Harry L. Hopkins, and Hopkins brought the subject up on a visit
to Garner's office while his nomination for Secretary of Commerce was
pending in the Senate early in 1939. Hopkins was being assailed as the
nominee for the business post in the Cabinet on the grounds that he
was "anti-business." This bias Hopkins denied to Garner.
"Hopkins brought up the question of a third term for Roosevelt
and I told him if it was a possibility I was strictly against it," the Vice-
President said. "Hopkins said he was, too, and he didn't think Roose-
velt had any idea of running.
"Then Hopkins said: 1 would like to be President of the United
States sometime.' I asked him to tell me something of his background.
He related that his father was a harnessmaker and told me of his
youthful struggle to get ahead. I said: 'Harry, you have a right to
[ 2 49 ]
aspire to any office in this land, including the highest one. That is what
our institutions and our way o life guarantee. You've got a following.
I don't think so much of some of it, but you've got it."
When Garner related this conversation to me, I asked him:
"Did you tell Hopkins you would support him?"
"No," he replied, "but he might be better than Roosevelt in some
ways. There wouldn't be as much spending. Although he is just as
anxious to spend as Roosevelt, he wouldn't have much influence with
Congress. Roosevelt is persuasive and a hard man to resist."
Afterward, Garner told me that Marvin Mclntyre, one of Roose-
velt's secretaries, had told him he was sure the President had no inten-
tion of seeking a third term. Garner did not know whether Mclntyre
spoke from knowledge or whether it was conjecture, but he thought
Hopkins spoke from knowledge and Garner put full credence in it.
I suggested that Hopkins might have been feeling him out, but he
did not think so.
Support for Garner for President in 1940 first began to manifest
itself in 1938. In September of that year the Texas state Democratic
convention unanimously endorsed him as Roosevelt's successor in the
White House.
About the same time Senator Edward R. Burke of Nebraska said
Garner was his 1940 Presidential choice. Burke had once been strong
at the White House.
Some Western progressives had even urged Burke as the Roosevelt
running mate in 1936 if Garner retired. But Burke opposed the Supreme
Court enlargement bill in 1937 and incurred the enmity of the President.
The next move toward the Presidential nomination for Garner came
at his log-cabin birthplace on Blossom Prairie in December 1938. A
statewide gathering there launched a "Garner-in-i94o" boom. By this
time the purge had failed, the Democrats had suffered a severe loss in
strength in the November election and by all visible appearances
Roosevelt's political fortunes were in a feeble state.
From the date of the Victory Dinner in 1937, the preponderance
of public and private discussion had supported the feeling that Roose-
velt intended to retire. In July 1938, Governor Earle of Pennsylvania
suggested that the President be a candidate for a third term. When
reporters at the next press conference of the President asked him to
[250]
comment on Earle's statement, the President told them they had better
put on dunce caps and stand in the corner. These questions, however,
continued to be asked at nearly every Presidential press conference for
almost two years.
Garner was now in his seventy-first year. He didn't look it and said
he didn't feel it. He had no doubt of his physical fitness for any
task.
By January 1939, Garner was getting pretty hot as a Presidential
prospect. All the polls were showing him leading if Roosevelt did
not run. As Garner was adhering to the policy he announced on be-
coming Vice-President and making no statements of any kind, some
of my colleagues in the press gallery asked me if I knew what his
attitude was.
At the first opportunity I talked to him and asked him the direct
question : whether he would take the nomination if it came to him. His
reply I considered as being on the same basis as most of my other
conversations with him confidential and I so treated it.
In the conversation he said:
"I don't want to be President. I did not want to be in 1932 and I
don't want to now. I did not ask anyone to support me in 1932 and I
will not be in the position of asking anyone to seek a delegate for me
now, and if they follow my wishes no one will. But to answer your
question directly: It is all right to talk about General Sherman's
statement that he would not accept a nomination as President, if it
was offered or serve if elected. There was more in his letter to Elaine
than that. It is the great classic statement on why men who are
'soldiers by education and nature and fitted to render great service
to their country in military matters are not schooled in the practice
in which civil communities should be governed, why a military man
should refuse the office and why no civilian who has the qualifications
for the office can refuse it.
"The Presidency is the hardest job in the world and the highest
honor and greatest obligation that can come to any American. If you
have not connived in or abetted any effort in your behalf; if you
really do not care for the office and the nomination comes to you
because your party a*nd your country think you fitted for its duties, it
is your duty to accept and serve. But I don't think I will be nominated
and I don't want to be."
Garner said that he felt at the time that the nomination was
between Hull, Farley and himself and that left to its natural inclina-
tions the party would nominate one of them. He added he would
like to see Jesse Jones considered rather than himself.
"If I had the matter in my hands and nothing but the good of the
country and the success of the Democratic party to consider I would
choose between Hull, Jones and Farley for our Presidential candidate."
Of Hull he said:
"I think Cordell would make a good President. Roosevelt would
be more likely to support him than anyone who could get the nomi-
nation. I could support Hull with enthusiasm."
Of Jones he said:
"Jesse Jones I put at the top of the list of all administrative officials
during my time in Washington. More than anyone I have known he
rises above red tape. Yet he does things according to law. He has a
head full of sense and the confidence of the country. I think he would
poll more independent votes than any other candidate we could
nominate."
Of Farley he said:
"Farley is the greatest political organizer I have ever seen. There
would be opposition to the nomination of a Catholic President. But
as a candidate he would not have the handicaps of Al Smith. Pro-
hibition and Tammany would not figure in it as in the case of Smith.
Also the Republicans were in power when Smith was nominated and
the Democrats will go into the next election with the record of having
carried forty-six out of the forty-eight states in the last election.
Farley has not had the government experience of some others, but he
has grown. He is dependable in all things."
One of the most ardent Garner backers was Richard W. Norton, a
Texas and Louisiana oil man. Of all the Garner supporters, Norton
was the only one who from the first felt sure that Roosevelt would
seek a third term.
"Why, he is panting to run," Norton had been saying as early as
the autumn of 1938. "He is already running. That is what the purge
was all about,"
[252]
By March the Garner campaign had picked up real momentum. The
four months March, April, May and June saw the whole Democratic
picture more clearly drawn. The first Garner impetus came when
both Houses of the Texas legislature endorsed him in a statement which
declared in part:
"John Nance Gamer is hereby endorsed and put forward as a candi-
date for the nomination of the high office of President of the United
States, which we believe he would fill with ability and distinction."
Almost simultaneously former Governors Ely of Massachusetts and
Hodges of Kansas announced for Garner and a surprise Garner recruit
was Henry Ford.
"Jack Garner would make a mighty fine President," the automobile
manufacturer said in a newspaper interview. "He's got a mighty fine
record. He's on the spot. He knows what's going on. He's got the
experience. As things are, I don't think you could make a better
choice."
In March, the Gallup poll, asking the question: "If Roosevelt is not
a candidate, whom would you like to see elected President in 1940?"
got the following response from Democrats :
Garner 42 per cent
Hull 10 per cent
Farley 10 per cent
Hopkins 8 per cent
McNutt 5 per cent
Twenty-five per cent had no opinion or their votes were for candi-
dates other than the five listed.
On March 31, Raymond Clapper in a syndicated newspaper column
said:
"There is still time to stop Garner, but not very much. Garner now
has behind him for the Democratic nomination the same kind of
public momentum Alf Landon had for the Republican nomination in
1936 long in advance of the convention."
The Clapper story was a bugle call for the New Dealers, who were
always people to be impressed by a headline or a column item. The
"Stop-Garner" campaign began immediately.
A week later a preview of the 1940 Democratic Presidential situa-
[253]
tion among fifty leading Washington correspondents in
showed that seventeen believed Garner would be the nominee; Cor dell
Hull was the pick of ten of them, Roosevelt of eleven, with the others
scattering.
On the day the poll was printed, Garner said convincingly that
if he could do what he wanted to he would box up his souvenirs, ship
them to Uvalde and spend the rest of his days there.
"You get peace and quiet and a chance to think down there," he
said. "A man can tend to his chickens and go fishing and watch the
water flow by under the shade of the trees. Here everything is
turmoil."
In late April, Harry Hopkins announced from Warm Springs, after
talking to Roosevelt, that he was changing his residence from New
York to Iowa. If Roosevelt had any New Deal crown prince under
consideration as his favorite for the 1940 nomination at that time, most
politicians believed it was Hopkins. Garner himself felt this way, but
said that despite Roosevelt's own great popularity he could never swing
a Democratic convention to Hopkins.
Some politicians, however, thought the change of address might
mean he had Hopkins in view for his Vice-Presidential running mate.
The Constitution bars Presidential electors from any state voting for
both a President and Vice-President resident in the same state with
themselves; and New York electors could not vote for both Roosevelt
for President and Hopkins for Vice-President had both of them been
residents of New York.
In May the "Draft Roosevelt" plan was being pushed by left-wing
Roosevelt appointees. Hopkins, who a few months before had told
Garner he opposed a third Roosevelt nomination, was directing it and
Tom Corcoran apparently was second in command. Corcoran was
recovering from an operation at Johns Hopkins and Harry Hopkins
found it necessary to go to Mayo's, but they had plenty of assistance at
headquarters in the Interior Department.
On May 7, Charles Michaelson, publicity director for the Democratic
national committee, took occasion in a national committee release to
deny any feud between the President and Vice-President. All talk of the
"seething fury of their differences, is Republican propaganda," he
said.
[254]
Garner himself said to me about this time:
"So far as I know we are personally on good terms. He is a pleasant,
fascinating man. But you can have affable dealing with a man and
disagree with the way he performs as a public official. We are not in
accord on some of our theories of government. I have been disap-
pointed with the turn things have taken in his second term. He is
getting authority to spend too much money, he has too much power
and is continually asking for more. He has and wants to retain the
discretion to create boards and commissions and agencies which can
make laws or at least regulations with all the authority of law
and to do things I think only Congress ought to have the right to do.
"He has changed in office. He does not delegate. His nature is to want
to do everything himself. He does not take a long-range view and
continually improvises. There is great waste and inefficiency in adminis-
tration. Some of the things he does appear to me intended more to
create a favorable political effect for him than to aid the country.
There is no use to pretend personal relations with a man are as pleasant
when you disagree with him on policies as when you agree and are
working together in a common cause, but I don't think there is per-
sonal discord between us."
The May Gallup poll, at the end of two months of "Stop-Garner"
effort saw Garner jump to 50 per cent, a gain of 8 per cent.
On May n, Earl Browder, general secretary and 1936 Presidential
candidate of the Communist party, told the annual convention of the
Young Communist League in New York that the Communist party
would support President Roosevelt for a third term.
The Workers Alliance convened in a government building, the
Labor Department Auditorium on June 3. On June 6, it adopted a
"Stop-Garner" resolution and on the same day at the Capitol a Demo-
cratic special House committee, headed by Representative Woodrum
of Virginia, investigating Administration work relief, entered into
the record that Communists held a majority of the membership on
the national executive committee of the Alliance, that 90 per cent of
its dues-paying members were Communists and that Herbert Benj amin 3
secretary-treasurer of the Alliance had received a course of training in
Moscow for the hunger strike he led on Washington.
Cordiality among high Democrats was not increased when, on the
day following, Mrs. Roosevelt addressed the Alliance, was made an
honorary member and left the platform with an armful of flowers.
At the end of May the "draft-Roosevelt" movement was seemingly
making little progress. In Congress, Roosevelt was meeting rebuffs all
along the line except on appropriations for national defense. Most
politicians apparently felt that barring a war psychology, Roosevelt,
handicapped by the third-term issue, would be weaker than Garner
or Hull Many influential Democratic leaders privately were expressing
themselves against a third term, but Mayor Kelly of Chicago, Gov-
ernor Olson of California and Guffey and Earle of Pennsylvania were
openly for a third term*
Harold Ickes prepared an article for publication in the June issue
of Loo^ Magazine demanding that the President stand for a third term.
On its appearance the President in no public way rebuked Ickes for the
article.
Harry Hopkins at Grinnell, Iowa, whence he had gone to go through
the formality of changing his residence from New York, on June 16
issued a statement declaring for Roosevelt for a third term.
The Democratic membership of the Senate, if cloakroom conver-
sation and its past voting record was an indicator, was overwhelmingly
against a third term in 1939. The Senate in 1927 had adopted the
anti-third-term resolution sponsored by the younger Senator Robert
M. La Follette of Wisconsin. At that time it was believed Calvin
Coolidge might offer for nomination. The La Follette resolution read:
"Resolved, that it is the sense of the Senate that the precedent estab-
lished by Washington and other Presidents of the United States in
retiring from the Presidential office after their second term has become,
by universal concurrence, a part of our Republican form of government,
and that any departure from this time-honored custom would be
unwise, unpatriotic, and fraught with peril to our free institutions."
The roll call showed fifty-six Senators voting for the La Follette resolu-
tion. Twenty-four of these men were still in the Senate when the
Roosevelt third-term campaign was on. Among them were: George,
Gerry, Glass, Harrison, Ashurst, Barkley, Hayden, King, McKellar,
Neeley, Pittman, Sheppard, Smith, Thomas of Oklahoma, Tydings,
Wagner and Wheeler, Also still in the Senate were La Follette, author
[256]
of the resolution, and Norris of Nebraska, both of whom had sup-
ported Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936.
The Democrats had a long list of party positions against the third
term, including the very explicit one of 1896, which read:
"We declare it to be the unwritten law of this Republic, established
by custom and usage of 100 years and sanctified by the examples of the
greatest and wisest of those who founded and have maintained our
Government, that no man should be eligible to a third term in the
Presidential office."
The House of Representatives, in the only time the matter had
been squarely before it, in 1875, had voted 233 to 38 against breaking
the two-term tradition.
A newspaper report a few months after the third-term efforts
began said that twenty-eight Senators had pledged their support to
Garner and against a third term. There was no such group action,
although at least that many individual Senators encouraged his can-
didacy and many did pledge support. Garner had a big cheering sec-
tion of Senators, Representatives, Governors and other major office-
holders. They encouraged his candidacy to him in private, but most
of them remained silent in public.
Public statements expressing opposition to a third term or in sup-
port of other candidates rather than Roosevelt were made by Senators
Glass and Byrd of Virginia, Adams of Colorado, James Hamilton
Lewis of Illinois, Smith of South Carolina, Johnson of Colorado,
George of Georgia, Sheppard and Connally of Texas, Clark of Mis-
souri, Van Nuys of Indiana, Gillette and Herring of Iowa, Tydings of
Maryland, Walsh of Massachusetts, Andrews of Florida and Overtoil
of Louisiana in addition to the earlier statements of Burke, Logan and
McCarran. Senator Vic Donahey of Ohio, at least privately opposed
a third term.
In June, a Garner-for-President campaign committee, under the
direction of Texas Democratic State Chairman Eugene Germany and
Texas Democratic National Conimitteewoman Clara Driscoll, began
to function in Texas. Germany, in announcing the organization, said
that Texas would put Garner in nomination regardless of who else
ran. The "regardless" could mean no one except Roosevelt. To the
rabid Roosevelt officeholders this was less majesty. But Garner
[257]
backers said a Presidential candidacy required neither apology or
explanation. Both Germany and Miss Driscoll were at pains to say
that it was "strictly a pro-Garner and not an anti-Roosevelt move-
ment."
Garner told me he was beginning to think Roosevelt wanted the
situation explored and that if he could get the nomination in an
acceptable way, he would run. An "acceptable way" he described as
being without too much of a convention fight and the likelihood of
an even or better than even chance of winning the election. (After he
left office, Garner told me, piecing together all the information he
had, he felt that Roosevelt had made up his mind to run in June 1939.)
"You can draw your own deductions from his actions," the Vice-
President said. "I think you will agree that he does not detest the
idea of a third term. If he did he would call these people off. They
are on the federal payroll, under his direction, and they would dis-
continue their activity if he showed the slightest displeasure. I don't
think there is any public demand for him to run yet, but it can be
created by exactly the methods that are being pursued."
I asked him jestingly why he didn't ask Roosevelt if his previous
statement to him that he did not intend to run still went.
"There is no reason for that. Anyway, I don't see him alone any
more," Garner replied. "It is always either in a Cabinet meeting or
with the legislative leaders. He quit inviting me for luncheons at his
desk after the polls began showing me high up in the list of his pos-
sible successors. I am not responsible for that I'm not conducting
the polls but they've stopped my luncheon invitations."
In more serious vein Garner said he thought Roosevelt was a very
jealous man, did not like it because he thought the Vice-President was
popular at the Capitol and could not be very cordial with anyone who
had been so much as mentioned as the Democratic Presidential candi-
date.
After he went out of office, Mr. Garner told me that the invitations
to luncheon ceased more than a year before the 1940 Democratic
national convention. He said Roosevelt, however, continued his prac-
tice of giving the Vice-President Christmas remembrances through the
Christmas of 1939.
Garner and Farley had another talk about this time. The Vice-
[258]
President told me none o the details. Farley at the time had just
talked to Roosevelt and many months afterward revealed that Roose-
velt had again told him that he would not run for a third term. He
had sworn Farley to secrecy, the Postmaster General later said. Farley
went off to Europe after his confab with Garner. He thought perhaps
by the time he returned Roosevelt would make a statement taking
himself out of the race. Garner was beginning to doubt it very
seriously.
The torrid issue about this time was the Hatch act. This measure
authored by Senator Hatch of New Mexico, the late Senator Morris
Sheppard of Texas and Senator Warren Austin, recently the United
States representative on the United Nations, was the outgrowth of the
Sheppard committee's denunciation of W.P.A.'s use of relief funds for
political purposes in the 1938 election.
Starting out as a modest measure to prevent the exploitation of
relief workers by political bosses and candidates, it wound up as an
all-inclusive prohibition of political activity by federal employees. More
than a majority of the convention which renominated Roosevelt
and Garner in 1936 had been made up of postmasters, United States
marshals, internal-revenue collectors and other federal officeholders
or their close relatives.
Garner backed the Hatch bill and the Administration threw every
possible obstacle in its path. On July 12, the Garner campaign com-
mittee announced it would follow the principles of the Hatch act
whether it became a law or not.
The Senate in a wild thirteen-hour session finally passed the bill on
July 21. The President took the full constitutional time to consider it.
Administrative aids said he was searching for one good, unassailable
reason to veto it. Evidently the search failed. The President signed the
bill, but accompanied his signature with a unique message to Con-
gress interpreting the new law.
Garner told me at the time that while any President could renomi-
nate himself, any President would find difficulty in naming his suc-
cessor. He thought the Hatch act might prevent an officeholder's
oligarchy controlling Presidential succession by letting the President
name his successor-nominee.
The army of federal employees had increased from 563,487 to 932,654
[259]
between the time Roosevelt came in and the passage of the Hatch act.
Of these, 300,000 were outside the Civil Service.
Garner later admitted the Hatch act failed its purpose. It was soon
apparent that the federal officeholders' machine would select the dele-
gates even if the law prevented them from being delegates themselves.
Apparent violations of the law were winked at. Third-termers on
the federal payroll went on unmolested with their campaign. "You
can't write any law that will be enforced if the executive branch does
not want to enforce it," Garner said.
On July 28, John L. Lewis, appearing before the House Labor
Committee on amendments to the wage-hour act, attacked the Vice-
President as a "labor-baiting, poker-playing, whisky-drinking, evil old
man."
The attack was no surprise to Garner. He believed that Lewis had
been gunning for him since the Vice-President had urged vigorous
action against the then Lewis-headed C.I.O. Automobile Workers
Union in Its 1937 sit-down strike. Garner had also backed the Byrnes
resolution condemning the sit-down strikes.
Lewis at this time was very close to left-wing promoters of the Roose-
velt draft and although he was eventually to bolt Roosevelt's third-
term race at the time he attacked Garner he had access to the New
Deal inner circle. He also had tossed $500,000 into the Democratic
campaign jackpot in 1936.
Garner merely chuckled when reporters asked him to comment on
Lewis* Thespian performance. In his hotel sitting room he said:
"There has never been anything that caused me more happiness
than Lewis' outburst. I think the majority of the people will think
that anyone Lewis can't control is all right."
Then on the general subject of attacks and criticism he said:
"A public man is judged by his record and not by what people may
say about him from time to time. Criticism brings a public man to the
attention of the public and gives people a chance to analyze his
record. When the criticism has merit it is helpful. When it has no
merit it is of no effect."
CHAPTER XVI
Will Accept the Nomination'
HIS years of association with Franklin D. Roosevelt had not
convinced Vice-President Garner that the President pos-
sessed traits which would make him the best war leader if this
country entered the war.
As a matter of fact. Garner thought that if we were drawn into war
Roosevelt's desire to do everything both on the military and civilian
fronts might be a definite handicap to our conduct of it.
War talk was becoming general throughout the country in the mid-
summer of 1939 and I asked the Vice-President what effect it would
have on the Democratic nomination and if it would improve Roose-
velt's chances. At that time there were no announced candidates.
"Of course, it would furnish the needed talking point for the
people who are trying to win a third term for him," Garner said. "I
don't think war is inevitable. I have never heard Roosevelt or anyone
else say that it is. God knows, I hope we don't get into another one.
These European wars never seem to settle anything. They unsettle.
Every war there seems to create the necessity of another one. A war
now would be the most wasteful and costly in history. We would
probably have to do most of the fighting and pay most of the money
costs.
"I am against a third term whether there is war in Europe and the
Orient or not. There are many men of capacity in the Democratic
party. If war comes and we stay out of it our interest will be in bring-
ing about a just peace. Any President backed by the might of this
country can be effective in that way. If we go to war, whoever is
President, the nation will commit its total resources human, produc-
tion, money and credit to the effort and will fight it hard and bring it
to a conclusion as quickly as possible."
Roosevelt, Garner said, did not make good use of men in peace and
might have the same failing in wan
"He wants to be his own Secretary of State, his own Secretary of
the Treasury, his own Secretary of War and, especially, his own
Secretary of Navy now," he said.
The most extended talk I^ever had with Mr. Garner on the third term
occurred shortly after this, on August 4, 1939. He was preparing to
leave for Texas and was in the fine humor he always was when he was
ready to board a train for home. A delegation of Senators, headed by
Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri, had just presented him with a
wicker chair for use on his Uvalde sun porch.
"I've thought a great deal about this third-term situation and my
relation to It," Garner said to me. "The arguments against a third term
for any man are unanswerable. If Roosevelt runs I will oppose his
nomination in every way I can. If this campaign had not started in
my behalf I might find more effective ways to fight a third term. I
don't want to be President. I have had everything from my party I
have a right to ask or expect. I want to be of what service I can to it,
but as a private citizen.
"I had hoped Roosevelt would issue a statement taking himself out
of the race. This movement has been going on for months now. It was
started by and is still being fostered by job holders to whom Roosevelt
is a meal ticket. They are trying to bring about a situation where no
one else can develop strength or even aspire out loud until Roosevelt
makes his wishes known, and they hope to have things sewed up by
that time. They are trying to keep every other possible candidate at the
mercy of a man who has already had two terms. Whether Roosevelt
finally runs or not it is obvious now that the two-term tradition has
no force with him. If it did he would have smothered this campaign
for him.
"I would be against a third term on principle even if I approved
every act of Roosevelt's two terms. I would oppose my own brother
for a third term."
Garner pointed to a poll just conducted in California which had
shown that 60 per cent of those taking part had favored election of a
[262]
John L. Lewis in 1940 attacked Roosevelt, Garner and Paul V.
McNutt. (C. K. Berryman, Washington Star)
Democrat for President in 1940., but 64 per cent of them opposed a
third term.
"You can make a very strong case in the affirmative on whether
Roosevelt wants a third term by the record of this Congress," Garner
said. "Instead of surrendering some of the emergency powers granted
him, almost every Administration bill that has come in here at this
session has asked for more power to exercise and more money to spend.
"The rule against the third term has the sanction of history and has
been supported by an overwhelming majority of the people. The
Democratic party position on it has been so clear that it is unthinkable
that there will not be a fight for the party's traditional principle.
"If I have to make the fight I will do it and I don't expect much
help and I don't see any chance of success. You risk defeat on any issue
and on this one it is practically preordained. There are Senators here
who are as much opposed to a third term as they were to the purge,
but they cannot make their opposition effective. If they come out for
anyone else, even though Roosevelt is not an announced candidate, they
are classed as anti-Roosevelt and against the head of the party. Until
he announces his plans, all processes of the discussion and choice among
other candidates is subdued."
Great Britain and France declared war on Germany on September
3. On September 21, Congress met in special session to repeal the
embargo clause in the neutrality act. Garner, hurrying back from a
brief vacation, took a leading part in obtaining the repeal of this legis-
lation, which he had opposed from the beginning.
The war in Europe in no way slowed down the third-term campaign.
The President had asked for consideration of the embargo repeal
without discussion or consideration of party politics. In the midst of
its consideration Secretary of Agriculture Wallace sounded the clarion
call which thereafter was the main reliance of the drafters that the
war made it necessary for Roosevelt to run for a third term.
The Wallace statement, made at San Francisco, put four Cabinet
members behind the third-term drive. The others were Secretary of the
Interior Ickes, who had taken his stand in June and was presently
directing the drive; Harry L. Hopkins, who had also announced for
a third term in June; and Attorney General Frank Murphy, a July
recruit.
Also behind the draft movement now were: Mayor Kelly of Chicago,
Mayor Hague of Jersey City; Governor Olson o California; former
Governor Earle of Pennsylvania; former Governor Leche of Louisiana;
former Governor Trapp and National Committeeman Ferris of Okla-
homa, and Senators Guffey of Pennsylvania, Pepper of Florida, Murray
of Montana, and Smathers of New Jersey.
Understood to be against a third term, but not on public record, were
Secretary of State Hull, Secretary of War Woodring and Postmaster
General Farley. The other members of the Cabinet were silent.
The third-term pushers were now stressing the claim that President
Roosevelt more than anyone could be depended on to keep the war
In bounds.
Joseph E. Davies, former Ambassador to Russia, came out for a third
term. So did Ambassador to Great Britain Joseph P. Kennedy. Kennedy
was the first right-winger to join the movement for a third term.
[264]
Garner was more and more inclined "to believe that Roosevelt
wanted another four years in the White House. The Vice-President
said to me during the embargo repeal negotiations with Congressional
leaders :
"He didn't talk like a man who was coming to the end of his term.
He didn't say that war was inevitable, but he gave the impression
that if there was one he intended to run it."
Garner recognized how formidable Roosevelt had become on granted
powers, and felt that the rebuffs the President had received in the
regular session of Congress had not clipped his wings much.
"Congress has not denied him anything public opinion in the coun-
try wanted him to have and it has given him power, which in my judg-
ment, the country does not want him to have," Garner said.
"The President has got so much power that he can legislate whether
Congress is in session or not. Through regulations the executive depart-
ment of this government is legislating every day on things that affect
the lives of 130,000,000 people.
"Any man who had been President during this period of stress
when the government refinanced hundreds of thousands of city and
farm mortgages and rescued millions of bank accounts, would have
a deep hold on the people. Roosevelt has rung the changes and drama-
tized and personalized his action. He is the greatest advertiser the world
has ever known.
"This administration has got more money available for press-agent
purposes than Mark Hanna used to elect McKinley. Hanna got his
from, corporations. This comes out of the pocket of the taxpayers."
He said he thought the law of political self-preservation would keep
many men who were opposed to a third term from speaking out.
"But some of us can make it plain we are not going along. Maybe all
we can do is to make ourselves ridiculous. As far as I am concerned I
am willing to look ridiculous if I can do anything to stop it."
In November, Mr. Garner, who up to now had taken no part in the
campaign, said he would consider making a statement about his posi-
tion and wished to discuss the form of it with me. But when I arrived in
Uvalde he still doubted whether it was the opportune time to make the
statement, so I came away empty handed. He did discuss the situation,
but not for publication.
[ 265 1
He thought Roosevelt had persuaded himself that he was the only
man capable of filling the office of President. He said someone had to
oppose the third-term maneuvering. Hull and Farley, who with him
were the most talked-of possibilities, were in the Cabinet and hardly
could contest the nomination without getting out. (Hull later refused
to allow his friends to be active for him. Farley entered and obtained
primary delegates only in Massachusetts.)
He said that he would not be a stalking horse and if he did allow
the use of his name he would mean what he said about his candidacy.
We discussed the candidates, if Roosevelt did not run.
"Cordell Hull could win the election," Garner said. "Dewey, I think,
is likely to be the Republican candidate. He will carry most of the
primaries he goes into. He is able, but his youth and the fact that he
has never been elected to a statewide office will be against him in the
election. Taft has been in the Senate only a couple of years and has
had no time to make a record. Vandenberg might make the best
Republican candidate, but it doesn't look to me like he has a very good
chance for the nomination."
I asked him if he had ever had any disagreements with Hull.
"The only differences between us were on the tariff," he said. "Hull
favored a tariff for revenue. So did I, but I wanted a tariff that would
equalize the cost of production at home and abroad a competitive
tariff. The only cross word in our long association, I regret to say, was
spoken by me in the heat of a discussion of a tariff-bill conference
report.
"If I wanted the nomination I could contest with Hull and Farley
and whichever of us won we would remain friends."
In December, Eugene Lorton of the Tulsa World, for whose news-
paper I had been the Washington correspondent for more than twenty
years, visited Mr. Garner and telephoned me that Mr. Garner was
ready to make a statement. I went to San Antonio and met Richard
Norton and Roy Miller, leaders in the Garner movement. We drove
to Uvalde.
When Garner greeted us at his home his face was a tomato tan. He
had been out of doors most of the time since he arrived from Wash-
ington.
[266]
"You look like the original red-white-and-blue candidate," Norton
said to him. "Red face, white hair, blue eyes."
The Vice-President was dressed in morning clothes. A young couple
he had known all their lives were being married and were coming
over to get the blessing of Uvalde's first citizen.
He said he was willing to make a statement. We discussed two or
three drafts. Finally he took a pencil and wrote a forty-four-word
statement, said it was too long, but let it stand. The statement said:
"I will accept the nomination for President. I will make no effort
to control any delegates. The people should decide. A candidate should
be selected at the primaries and conventions as provided by law, and I
sincerely trust that all Democrats will participate in them."
Norton, Miller and I remained for lunch. The Vice-President then
changed to camping clothes, took the wheel of his automobile and drove
off on a fishing trip. His statement attracted wide and favorable atten-
tion in the press, but Democratic officeholders and professional Demo-
cratic politicians generally remained in their storm cellars.
In New York, Al Smith said:
"I think and always did think that two terms were enough for any
man. It's been a sort of an unwritten part of our Constitution since the
days of Washington. . . . It's kind o a tradition an American tradi-
tion.
"Garner's all right. . . . He certainly knows what's going on. . . . He's
been hanging around Washington most of his life and should know.
. . . And I'm reasonably sure he knows the mistakes of the last seven
years."
Smith said there were other men than Garner, worthy of considera-
tion, including Owen D. Young, Senator Byrd of Virginia and former
Governor Ely of Massachusetts.
The man in the brown derby continued :
"If you want a good, shrewd, able businessman to solve some o the
problems growing out of the financial and taxing mess, take Wendell
Willkie. . . . He's a Democrat, I understand, though I am not sure,
and he comes from Indiana. . . . Al Smith? Too old. . . . Yeh, I know
Garner is older, but he's had more outdoor exercise than I have."
At his first press conference in Washington after the Garner an-
nouncement, President Roosevelt was asked to comment on it and on his
[267]
own third-term aspirations. Mr. Roosevelt replied that he was too busy
with foreign and domestic affairs to talk about potential events a long
way off.
That long way, the seven months before the Democratic national con-
vention, was to be one of the most interesting and peculiar periods in
the history of party politics.
When Vice-President Garner went to the White House on January
3, 1940, his own declared candidacy for the Presidentcy was nearly a
month old and he was fast coming to the point where he believed that
Franklin D. Roosevelt was a full-panoplied candidate for a third term.
It would be the first time since the development of the party system
in this nation that a President and Vice-President who had twice
shared enormous electoral majorities would be arrayed against one
another for the party nomination.
The meeting was amiable enough, but they were not alone. Speaker
Bankhead, Senate Majority Leader Barkley and House Majority Leader
Rayburn also were in attendance. Their business was to discuss the
legislative program at the session of Congress convening the next day.
At a press conference that afternoon the President was asked to com-
ment on two articles that had appeared in the morning papers of that
day. One was that Roosevelt would push Cordell Hull for the Presi-
dential nomination. The other was a statement by Rex Tugwell that
Roosevelt definitely would not run for a third term and the New
Dealers would have to find a new leader. He declined to discuss either
report.
Hull about this time declined to allow Tennessee friends to put him
into the race, but left the way open for his choice as a compromise
candidate. Paul V. McNutt had announced he would not be a candi-
date if Roosevelt ran. Only Farley remained as a possible "no strings"
candidate.
Roosevelt had done an unusual thing in connection with the $100-
per-plate Jackson Day Dinner. He had asked Republican leaders to
attend. They declined. Roosevelt's speech, the vaguest he had ever
made at the traditional Democratic money-raising dinner, caused in-
creased belief he would be a candidate. An incident of the dinner was
the booing of Senator Hatch, author of the bill curbing political
activity by federal employees.
After the dinner, Garner said to me:
"Roosevelt made a very unusual request o rne tonight. He leaned
over to me and said: 'Jack, if anything happens to rne I have just one
request I want to make o you. I hope you will appoint "Pa" Watson
Ambassador to Belgium.' "
Watson, a brigadier general and former military aide to the President,
was at that time a Presidential secretary in charge of making appoint-
ments for Presidential callers.
Garner's popularity in all polls continued to increase. A January
Gallup poll showed that 58 per cent of the Democrats favored the
nomination of Garner if Roosevelt did not run. McNutt had risen to
second place with 17 per cent, Hull had 13 per cent and Farley 8
per cent.
As polls showed Garner's big lead, more and more state political
leaders called on him. One delegation was from Wisconsin, where the
first primary of any of the larger states is held. A poll there had
shown 65 per cent of the Democrats in favor of Garner.
William D. Carroll, the Wisconsin state Democratic chairman, was
a Garner man. He was anxious, however, to find out if Roosevelt
intended to run, was irked at the President's failure to make a state-
ment.
Carroll decided to wait no longer and on February 5 sent Garner
a telegram informing him a full slate of Garner delegates was being
entered in the primary ticket.
On the same day President Roosevelt said at a press conference
at Hyde Park that he was getting tired of efforts to sound him out
on a third term. He made known that when he had anything to say
he would say it.
"Your newspapers are very silly," the President said to the re-
porters, "because very obviously, when anything is said it will be at a
time of my choosing and not of their choosing."
A reporter said:
"We will keep on trying, Mr. President."
The President admonished the reporters to tell their editors they
were placing the reporters in "a ridiculous or immature position in
continuing to ask these questions."
On February 7, Garner bucked the powerful Kelley-Nash machine
[269]
by entering the Illinois primaries. Garner in entering Illinois had
made a sworn statement that he was a candidate. All interpretations
of the Illinois law up to this time were that a sworn statement from
the candidate was necessary before the candidate's name could be put
on the ticket, but Illinois officials ruled differently this time and
Roosevelt's name went on the ballot. Roosevelt had until February
24 to withdraw his name in Illinois, but he was on the high seas at
that time and his name stayed on. The President now was at least a
passive candidate in Illinois, Wisconsin and New Hampshire.
The Vice-President knew the cards were stacked against him and
now felt certain that the cues for the third-term campaign were com-
ing from the White House, and were being so manipulated that the
President could get the benefit of his party position without having
the handicap of the third-term issue.
"It in effect is a plebiscite on his record conducted in his own party
instead of a vote on an open candidacy," Garner said. "There Is no
risk to him. The country is kept guessing. It scuttles all democratic
processes. He can work this so the nomination will be worthless to
anyone else but himself."
Nevertheless, the Garner campaign committee, with Mr. Garner's
hearty consent, decided to contest California and Oregon. In his letter
allowing his name to be used in the California preference primary, he
directed an implied rebuke at Roosevelt for his continued silence.
His statement plainly indicated that, in his belief, the time had
come for Mr. Roosevelt to declare his intentions in order that Demo-
cratic voters might make a free choice among Democratic aspirants.
Garner said:
"I am sure you are actuated by the same thought and purpose
which caused me to announce my willingness to accept the nomina-
tion, namely a desire to be of service to our beloved country subject
only to the expressed will of the people.
"Free government is safe as long as the people have the right and
opportunity to choose their public servants. My candidacy is in the
hands of the people for their verdict at the Democratic convention at
Chicago July 15, or at the general election next November."
Garner's men said things began to get progressively rougher for
them as the state machines got what they regarded as Roosevelt green
lights from Washington.
Roy Miller, a close friend of Garner and an ardent worker for his
nomination,, told me in February:
"Some of the fellows who told me they were against a third term
as a matter of principle seem to be rising above principle now.
Between officeholders and people getting subsidies there are not many
people left to talk to."
"We get plenty of encouragement, but our encouragers stop there.
In one state this week I asked a lawyer what he was willing to do.
He said he could do nothing as his firm was handling H.O.L.C. and
F.H.A. business, which they might lose, and it would be unfair to his
partners for him to cause them the loss. Another businessman told
me his firm had some military supply contracts and he could not take
the risk of opposing Roosevelt."
In March, the campaign was proceeding in Wisconsin. It was a
particularly hard state to contest. Roosevelt had got his strength there
in his two winning campaigns from the La Follette Progressives and
in return had given them his support in their local and state cam-
paigns. The third-party Progressives are free under Wisconsin law
to go into either the Republican or Democratic Presidential primaries
as they hold none of their own.
The Progressives swarmed into the Democratic primary and despite
the good races put up by Garner delegates in the state outside of
Milwaukee, Garner got only three Wisconsin delegates and Roosevelt
twenty-three.
Roosevelt also swept Illinois in the primary the following week. In
California, where Garner had defeated both Roosevelt and Smith in
1932, Roosevelt had a one-sided victory, with only one of the state's
delegates going to Garner.
But some of the New Dealers still thought Roosevelt would not
run. Rex Tug well took this view in an article in LooJ^ Magazine in
June:
"Recent events in Europe's war make it more certain that Franklin
D. Roosevelt will leave office next January. These events seem likely
to make him emphasize more boldly the solid American commitment
to democracy, and, to do this with action, which means he does not
Intend to run."
Before the Democratic national convention met in Chicago, Garner
was not only certain that Roosevelt would be nominated but barring
a miracle would be elected. The Vice-President, who was never fooled
on any election, felt that the Willkie nomination at Philadelphia was
another "throw-away" for the Republicans.
"By all standards as political parties have applied them in this
country, Willkie is the least available of any Presidential candidate
nominated by either party in modern times," Garner told me. "He
has no record of either elective or appointive public service and no
record of high military service.
"He has been elected to no office at all nor received a preference
in any party primary. There is not a shred of ballot-box evidence
that he has any grass-root strength for he entered no Presidential
primary nor was he considered in any state convention electing dele-
gates.
"His utility background and his Wall Street law practice will be
against him with many independents and progressive voters. He is an
unknown quantity to the country from every standpoint . insofar as
public office is concerned. I know all about the telegrams, but tele-
grams don't come from polling booths. He is a former Democrat and
can hardly expect the enthusiastic support of the Republican organiza-
tion.
"Any candidate considered at Philadelphia would, in my opinion,
have done better than Willkie will this fall. There are twenty million
Republicans and last-ditch anti-Roosevelt Democrats and I doubt
if Willkie gets many more than those."
The Vice-President was surprised that as the Dewey and Taft
deadlock developed Vandenberg had not been the compromise candi-
date.
"A man has got to be what he is, and so has a party," he said. "The
Republicans are out of character without a Republican as their candi-
date."
I was elected a delegate at large from Texas to tr^e Democratic
national convention. Just before I left for the Chicago session, Mr.
Garner told me he wished me to serve as his proxy on the Democratic
[272]
national committee and to serve as his spokesman at Chicago i any
occasion arose for it. He said I was to take whatever action I thought
best in any case without consultation with him or anyone else.
There had recently been some talk and Garner had been felt out-
he did not know how authoritatively on whether or not he would
be agreeable to "making it the same old team" for a third time. If
that developed from any source to the point where it became a con-
vention floor matter, it was understood between us I was to go to the
Speaker's stand and tell the convention that Mr. Garner would not
again take the Vice-Presidency under any circumstances.
No action was ever necessary. The bewildered delegates waited
around until President Roosevelt named Henry Wallace as his choice
for running mate; they came near to rebelling at this point but finally
accepted him.
I was confronted with another proposal, however, about which
' I had not talked to Mr. Garner. The triumphant New Dealers were
making an energetic effort to bring about an acclamation nomination.
Some of our Texas delegates talked to me about it and said that in
view of the certainty of Roosevelt's nomination they felt it would be
best not to put Mr. Garner's name before the convention and hoped
I would see the situation in the same, light.
I told them I could not see it in this light; that Mr. Garner regarded
the precedent against a third term for any President almost as com-
pelling as a provision in the Constitution itself; that he had never
had any idea he could beat Roosevelt if Roosevelt wanted to run,
but that he had stood for the nomination and obtained delegates and
his name would go before the convention. The argument was then
advanced that he would be booed and that, in view of his long party
service and the high office he held, he should not be subjected to that.
My reply was :
"Mr. Garner in the last six months has gone through an experience
that is bound to have been very unpleasant to him. He has not winced
at "anything that has happened. A little booing would be a minor
matter. Anyway, if there is any booing he t won't hear it. He will
probably be asleep at the time."
Before I left Washington I had told the Vice-President that I would
[273]
talk to James A. Farley when I got to Chicago and I asked him if
they had had any agreement. He replied:
"There has never been any understanding between us that either
would aid the other. He is, of course, opposed to a third term, as I
am."
I went to the Stevens Hotel and saw Farley. He was not very busy.
Activity was across the street in the Hopkins third-term headquarters
in the Blackstone. I asked Farley if his name was going before the
convention. He said it was.
He asked me if Garner's name would be presented. I told him it
would be.
I asked him if there would be a roll call.
"There will be. There is going to be no acclamation without a
roll call. There are at least 125 delegates here who want to be recorded
against a third term and they will be recorded."
I asked Farley who was going to nominate him. He said Senator
Glass had expressed a desire to but that Glass was ill and he was not
sure he would be able to do so. He asked me who would nominate
Garner.
I told him Wright Morrow of Houston would nominate Garner.
On the second day of the convention. Chairman Barkley delivered
the long-awaited statement from President Roosevelt, in which Bark-
ley, speaking for the President, said he released all delegates and did
not desire the nomination.
Here occurred a remarkable demonstration presenting an entirely new
twist in conventioa mechanics. As Barkley finished speaking, a parade
started, principally not of delegates but of men and women brought
in by Mayor Kelly of Chicago. Hundreds of banners bearing the
inscriptions ROOSEVELT AND HUMANITY appeared. A huge picture of
the President was handed to Senator Barkley, who lifted it high above
the rostrum.
Above the din one voice rose: It screamed: 'We want Roosevelt!'
"America wants Roosevelt!" Then one by one it went through the
states from Alabama to Wyoming, with a cry for each of " wants
Roosevelt." This was a new one for the press gallery which had seen
about everything a convention had to offer. It started a search which
developed that Thomas D. McGarry, Chicago superintendent of
[274]
sewers, had rigged up an apparatus in the basement and attached it
to the loud-speaker system. The universal demand for Roosevelt, it
developed, was one man reading from script into the amplifying sys-
tem and reporters called it "the voice from the sewers."
Feeling was high against Garner and Farley for allowing their
names to be presented. With Wright Morrow, I went to the soft-drink
stand just outside the convention door. Morrow was wearing a small
Garner button on the lapel of his coat. As we started back through the
door a policeman stopped Morrow, reached for the Garner button and
said:
"You had better take that off you are liable to get hurt in there
wearing that button."
Morrow replied:
"I came here wearing that button. I have been wearing it all the
time I have been here. Texas is instructed for Mr. Garner who is the
Vice-President of the United States. I suppose you will protect me from
getting hurt if anyone jumps on me, for I am going to continue wearing
a Garner button."
The policeman replied that he couldn't be responsible and thought
Morrow ought to take it off. In fact he had it about halfway off while
he talked. Morrow told him to keep it as a souvenir, placed another
Garner button on his lapel and went inside.
When we got into the hall again we saw that every aisle was packed
by persons who were not delegates and who were let in without tickets.
Morrow and I went to Chairman Barkley to protest. We told him that
friends of Mr. Garner wished to stage a parade, that the Texas Cowboy
Band with four white horses had been brought to Chicago with the
Texas delegation for the purpose.
The harassed Barkley heard us, said he was alarmed at the size
of the crowd already in the convention, but called Edward Halsey,
sergeant-at-arms of the convention.
"We just want to do what the friends of any candidate do in a
national convention," I told Halsey.
Halsey pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket.
"I have just got this note telling me that not another person can
be admitted to the hall," he said. "It is a dangerous situation. If you
started a parade there might be a riot."
[275]
I replied:
"Ed, there have been a lot of fist fights in national conventions, but
no riots. If there is one here tonight it will be because this hall has
been packed by people who have no admission tickets. We have dele-
gates at an entrance door with admission tickets and they intend to come
in with a band which also has admission tickets."
In a few minutes Halsey came to us and told us that the aisles would
be cleared sufficiently to permit our parade, but asked us not to
bring the horses in.
"Well, we will concede that," Morrow said. "The horses do not have
admission tickets."
We held the parade and were surprised by the number of delegates
from other states who fell into line.
The booing which greeted both Glass and Morrow as they delivered
their nominating speeches lived up to all advance promises.
The end of the Garner candidacy came on Wednesday, July 17,
when at a six-hour convention session the platform was adopted, candi-
dates were placed in nomination and Roosevelt was nominated.
On July 22, Mr. Garner, who had remained in Washington during
the national convention, left for Uvalde. He made no statement as to
when he expected to return but he had stripped his office and hotel
apartment of all his pictures, mementos and personal belongings. He
had broken a record for the longest continuous service in the chairs of
the highest parliamentary bodies in the United States. His ten years
of consecutive service as a presiding officer was divided two years as
Speaker and eight years as Vice-President. He had gathered an un-
equaled number of gavels. They were of every size and every com-
position. One of them was so tiny it could be hidden in the palm of the
hand, another weighed several hundred pounds and required two men
to lift it. All were presented to the Texas State Museum at Austin.
The Vice-President returned in September, presided over the Senate
until Congress adjourned and remained a few days afterward.
I asked him what his feelings were toward the men who proffered
but never gave him support. He replied:
"It is inherent political nature of officeholders from Senator to con-
stable to want to be with the winner. Roosevelt was the head of the party
and a popular President. When they found out he was going to be a
candidate they acquiesced in his nomination or supported him. They
could not fight the head of the party and keep their political lives.
Nothing they could have done individually or as a group would have
changed the result. I know that twenty Senators favored my nomina-
tion. I never criticized one or blamed one of them for going to Roose-
velt."
On his last day before going home in the autumn he had a long
visit with Senator Glass. Pat Harrison and other colleagues came in.
They were not sure whether he would return for the January session.
Garner made no public statement during the campaign. In mid-
October he thought Willkie had a chance to carry New York, but no
chance in the decisive states of Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Cali-
fornia.
The retiring Vice-President returned in January to preside over the
Senate until the end of his term. He received the regular invitation to
the Cabinet meeting and attended.
Lend-Lease was under discussion at the Cabinet meeting. Author-
ship of the plan was mooted, but Arthur Purvis, head of the British-
French Joint Purchasing Agency here, was understood to have had a
part in it.
Garner had an expert background in fiscal and foreign affairs. He had
once been ranking member on both the House Foreign Affairs Com-
mittee and the House Ways and Means Committee. He did not object
to the proposal, had an open mind on it, but wanted information.
Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau, who was supposed to know
its details, was unable or at least did not explain them to the Vice-
President's satisfaction.
The proposal went to Congress after Garner left Washington. On
February 9, it got one of the greatest boosts ever givea a piece of
legislation. Wendell Willkie went to London, taking a letter from.
President Roosevelt to Winston Churchill.
Churchill, acknowledging the letter in a worldwide broadcast, said:
"Put your confidence in us. Give us your faith and your blessings and
under Providence all will be well. We shall not fail or falter; we shall
not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle, nor the long
drawn trials of vigilance and uncertainty will wear us down. Give us
the tools and we shall finish the job"
[277]
A few days before the end of his term, Garner was guest at a luncheon
given by Jesse H. Jones, William S. Knudsen, Pat Harrison, Bennett
Clark, Finis Garrett and other old friends.
He swore in Henry Wallace as his successor and took part in the
inauguration ceremonies. Numerous Senators paid tribute to him in
Senate exercises. Senator Austin of Vermont, later United States repre-
sentative on the United Nations, said :
"At the end of the second term of the Vice-President, I desire to
express the appreciation of the minority [Republicans] of certain out-
standing characteristics of this man, who seemed to be a combination of
Roger Williams and Sam Houston. His characteristics were positive-
ness, fairness, decisiveness, candor, loyalty. All these, which form the
foundations of everlasting friendship on the part of members of this
body on both sides of the aisle, were possessed by this unique character
to a degree which I think I have never observed in any other man."
The former Vice-President had enjoyed his service in Washington.
He was breaking many years of affectionate association.
"I have been here thirty-eight years," he told a group of friends who
called to bid him farewell. That is just one-fourth of the 152 years
of the life of this Republic up to now. I am going home to live to be
ninety-three years old."
I asked him if he thought Roosevelt's third nomination could have
been stopped by any sort of strategy. He said nothing could have
stopped it.
"But if I faced the same situation again I would try it. I would try
it against any President seeking a third term. I would know that I had
little or no chance for success, but I would take the long chance."
Then he said:
"Roosevelt will be a candidate for a fourth term if he lives. The next
time it will have less open opposition than it had this time. He will never
leave the White House except in death or defeat."
After Roosevelt's death he told me at Uvalde why he felt this way :
"Roosevelt would have run as long as he lived and was in office, tie
was ambitious. He wanted history to record him as the man who served
longest in the Presidency. He was afraid someone would undo his
work. But I think he would have had a better record and a more desira-
ble place in history if he had not run for a third term."
[278]
When I asked him if he regretted throwing the 1932 nomination
to Roosevelt, he replied:
"As a party man, if the same situation were presented to me again
as it was in 1932, I would do the same thing. Roosevelt made a good
President for four years and could have been a great one in the second
four. I wish I had not felt obliged by party loyalty to go on the ticket
with him, but I did. He needed a Joe Cannon as Speaker. That would
have been, a check on him.
"Theodore Roosevelt had Cannon to check him in all but the first
two years of his administration. I would have liked to play that part
in Franklin Roosevelt's administration. I think I could have talked
him out of a lot of things. That could have been my contribution. I
would have had no desire to dictate his decisions. I would not have
tried to tell him what he could do. But there would have been times
when I would have told him what he could not do."
I asked Garner for his estimate of Roosevelt as a politician.
"His political success indicates that he had the best kind of political
mind. But there are factors which make it difficult to evaluate his politi-
cal skill. He was on the crest of the wave and only two or three times
in our history has the other political party been so weak as during his
terms. How he would have fared under normal political alignments
can only be conjectured."
In the minds of most people Garner and former President Hoover
were pictured as irreconcilable antagonists. Surely no two men slammed
each other harder. But of Garner, Hoover said:
"John Garner knew how to play politics, and he was a master of
that game. But he is a true patriot, a sound thinker and absolutely
trustworthy in his engagements." In 1947, Garner said to me at Uvalde:
"I co-operated with President Hoover on some things. On some I
fought him with everything I had, under Marquis of Queensberry,
London Prize Ring and catch-as-catch-can rules. But I always fought
according to rules. My judgment may have been frail as to the proper
solution of the vexing problems, but my course from 1931 to 1933, while
I was Speaker, as in all my public career, put public welfare above
partisan advantage. I thought my party had a better program for
national recovery than Mr. Hoover and his party.
"I never reflected on the personal character or integrity of Herbert
[ 2 79 ]
Hoover. I never doubted his probity or his patriotism. In many ways he
was superbly equipped for the Presidency. If he had become President
in 1921 or 1937, he might have ranked with the greatest Presidents.
Those periods would have been more suitable to his talents. I think
Herbert Hoover today is the wisest statesman on world affairs in
America. He may be on domestic affairs, too."
[280]
CHAPTER XVII
Reflections of a Statesman-Citizen
JOHN NANCE GARNER at seventy-nine is having just the sort
of life he planned for himself.
As he sat on the sun-spangled glassed-in porch of his home in
Uvalde he told me:
"I have had a lot of fun since I came back here. I get just the
exercise I want, just the reading I want, just the amount of work I
want, just the association I want. But for the fact that Mrs. Garner
has been ill much of the time I think I could say that the seven years
since I came back here have been the seven happiest of my life. Had
Mrs. Garner kept her health we would have traveled some."
It took Mr. Garner a long time to get back to the sand-colored brick
house he built in 1918 in anticipation of retirement from -office, but
getting used to private life required very little readjustment for him.
He never wore Washington very thick. He regarded himself as a work-
man in the business of representative government and the national
capital was the place where he met similar workmen for discussion of
national problems and enactment of national legislation.
"Some people would stay in Washington if they had to live in trees,"
he said. "I always took the last train that would get me there for what-
ever business there was and I took the first train out when it was
finished."
But because he has no nostalgia for Washington does not mean that
he did not enjoy his long service there. For nearly forty years he had
stanch friendships with almost every outstanding personality in the
Democratic and Republican parties and with hundreds of other men
eminent in all pursuits.
His house is filled with mementos. The first Vice-President's flag ever
used was designed for him and stands in the wide entrance hall of his
home. The designer of the flag was Franklin D. Roosevelt.
His library is filled with books autographed by the authors, and
writers continue to send him more new books than he can read, but
he reads a great deal. Much of his reading is of the classics. Mrs.
Garner can no longer read and he reads to her daily. When I was at their
home in December 1947, he was reading Dickens' Tale of Two Cities
to her. Christmas presents came to them from all over the country.
"From the time I came to Uvalde more than fifty years ago my days
have been cast in pleasant places here, at Austin and in Washington,"
he said. "None of my days are lamented."
But he says being a citizen requires his full time.
"I threw all my energy into public life for forty years, now I need
all my energy for my duties as a citizen," he said. "My activities leave
me little time to think of the past. I can work nine hours a day and
usually do and I have a grand time."
The Garner town place is set among giant oak trees. The eight acres
of lawn are carpeted with rich San Augustine grass, known as "Garner
grass." It grows under trees. He tried his hand at making it grow under
the -shade of White House trees but failed and the bare spots are still
there.
Around the house are 180 towering pecan trees. Fenced off to the
rear are chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese.
Sometimes he receives visitors on the back porch and breakfast room
of his home. It has an oilcloth-covered table, an icebox and pitchers of
what he calls "branch water." The walls are covered with red, green
and yellow Aztec figures.
He lives at 333 Park Street and calls your attention to the fact that
it is Park Street not Park Avenue and the intersecting street is named
Mesquite. But that is jocular. He thinks there are good people on Park
Avenue, too.
"But right here is the United States of America," he says. "My neigh-
bors are people of sincerity and kindliness. No one lives in great luxury,
but they apply the essentials of sound living. All of them seem to accu-
mulate a few more things each year, to live a little better and have more
comforts. It isn't Utopia, of course, and they have their struggles, but
they get along. They are mighty good neighbors."
[282]
To these neighbors he is Mr. Garner, and to the older people he is
"the Judge." He was the Judge to them when he was Representative,
Speaker, Minority Leader and Vice-President. That is what he has been
ever since he was county judge of Uvalde county, a half-century ago.
Uvalde has a heavy Mexican population. Recently he suggested the
establishment of a boy's center and agreed to match a sum raised by
subscription in the city. With it the center was purchased and is in
operation.
Mr. Garner owns banks, business houses, residences, farms and
ranches. His ranches total 46,000 acres.
"I hope they don't bring in oil any time soon," he said. "That would
bring on a lot of things to pester me."
The former Vice-President occasionally goes on a fishing trip with
Ross Brumfield, local garage owner. But for the most part he is engaged
now in his "housing projects."
He has built ninety-one residences and business houses lately to add
to others he has been building for years. The percentage of Garner-
owned or Garner-built houses is so large that if Uvalde were New
York City it would be about half the houses on Manhattan Isle. It is
a great deal for Uvalde, which like every city, town and village in the
nation has a housing problem.
"I am trying to serve my nation by alleviating the housing situa-
tion and paying taxes," he said.
Sometimes a Uvalde citizen will point to one of the Garner houses
and slyly say: "That is another one of the houses that Jack built."
But no one in Uvalde is on informal enough terms to call him
"Jack." Those variations of "Jack," such as "Cactus Jack," "Chaparral
Jack" and the like were Eastern concoctions and even there they
were used to his back. Very few men had such easy informality with
him. Certainly very few people in Uvalde speak of him other than
Judge Garner or Mr. Garner. Even Mrs. Garner never called him" any
other name but Mr. Garner.
Mr. Garner got into the housing business without having given it
much advance thought. Eight or nine years ago F.H.A. built a
demonstration house in Uvalde but the follow-up was rather slow.
Someone suggested to the Vice-President that he ought to build some
[283]
houses. He had much vacant property and decided to try his hand
at it.
Then a story got out how he was doing a job at a great deal less
than the F.H.A. houses could be built for. The Vice-President said he
did not put on as many "doodads" as F.H.A. suggested. By "doodads"
he meant things his prospective renters or purchasers did not regard
as essential. He never liked "doodads" on appropriation bills or any-
where else. But the Vice-President said he merely built the houses
because people wanted them, their construction furnished employment
for idle people and idle money and he liked to be doing something.
"No architectural firm draws the plans. They are designed in a
spirit of neighborliness. The womenfolks who are going to live in them
furnish the ideas. The principal aim in their construction is that you
have got to please the womenfolks."
His housing venture includes business buildings as well.
These are usually leased for ten years. He pointed to one in a
brisk walk we took around the town.
"That one I let go for too little rent," he said. "But the fellow who
has it is a good man and will be successful. Ill up him ten years
from now."
As Mr. Garner is now seventy-nine, he would be eighty-nine at the
upping time. He says he does not want to live to be an old man, but
would like to live to be ninety-three.
"I was in public office forty-six years," he said. "If I live to be ninety-
three I will have spent more than half of my years in private life. I
would like to achieve that."
On appearances the former Vice-President won't be old at ninety-
three unless he ages fast from now on. He could pass for twenty years
less than the calendar shows. He certainly has no wrinkles of worry
or any other kind of wrinkles. He still never seems to be physically
tired. His high-pitched voice still has the same vigor. He comes to
a point with terseness and wastes few words.
Some people in Uvalde say:
"The Judge has made two or three fortunes since he got out of
public life."
They apparently don't mean he has made and lost them, but has
accumulated two or three times what would be considered a good
lifetime financial setup.
[284]
Garner got most of the things in life by his own shrewdness and
prudence. His parents supplied him with a log cabin to be born
in, which was a good political asset. The rest he principally did for
himself. Garner has not only made money for himself. He has helped
others to make it.
Because of the train schedule, Garner going home from Congressional
sessions would leave the train at San Antonio and drive to Uvalde.
His favorite driver was an Englishman. Garner's first loan to him was
$530 to buy an automobile o his own, and he continued his backing
in other things. Last autumn the man refused more than a million
dollars for the business he started on $530 borrowed from Garner.
He has taken most pleasure out of helping people get or save their
homes.
"The happiest thing about it is that I have never been in court
on a foreclosure or taken advantage of anyone's distress to make a
profit for myself," he said.
"I somehow think the man who contrives to get hold o a home
of his own or a little piece of land somewhere is a sounder individual
than the man who does not. After the Democrats came into power in
1933 I marveled at the scores of earnest men who came to Washington
to manage the problems of the nation and many of them had never
managed to own a home. They did not know what was wrong, but
they wanted to right it. There were some more cocksure who thought
they had their fingers on the solution of the problems. They left the
government service without solving the problems and left nothing
but their fingerprints."
When bank trouble began in the early 1930*5 there were two banks
in Uvalde. Garner from the first had wanted the accounts of little
people. The rival bank went after the choice accounts. But the day
arrived when there were few choice accounts. The other bank went
to Garner and suggested he take the bank over. He did.
With all his other activities, the former Vice-President in retirement
sees as high as thirty visitors a day at his home. The average is
twenty. Some of them drive a long way to see him. They don't
stay any longer than he wants them to stay. He is hospitable, but he
can send you on your way with great felicity.
To Texas outside his home town he is the "Sage of Uvalde" or
the "Squire of Uvalde." There is a state park named for him near by.
Anyone running for office likes to get a pointer from him. In the
Presidential election year, 1948, he has many national visitors, too.
He rises early, spends a couple of hours looking after his mail
and business matters. Formerly he walked downtown for a shave, but
his barbers, Fyan Nelson and Bill Gordon, have lost a customer.
"I never shaved myself in my life until last fall," Garner said. "I
always thought when I got a little time I would try it. I got an electric
razor and now shave myself."
The former Vice-President thinks if he had his private life and his
public career before him again he would not do anything differently
than he did.
"I never did anything by caprice," he said. "My acts usually were
done deliberately."
Once Mr. Garner gave some thought to writing his memoirs or
turning them over to someone.
"I have a record of about all the transactions of my life," he said.
"Sometime I might turn them over to someone and tell him to go to it."
However, he finally burned the priceless records.
"I had many offers," he said. "Some wanted to do this and some
that with the material. I didn't want to go through the files myself.
They were a mass of yellow and yellowing paper. I needed all my
own energies for present activities. So, I burned them. Under the
circumstances that was a good disposition of them."
Although Garner for thirty years did not canvass his district and
franked no speeches home, he had a reputation for spotting trends and
separating them from transient manifestations.
He once said to me:
"In my personal experience, I tried to represent my constituency,
but that representation had to fit in with what I considered the
national good. If I did not represent the views of my Congressional
district they had a chance to do something about it every two years.
"A Congressional district is sometimes a hard taskmaster. None of
them ever reach a point where they say: 'Just let our interests rock
along and go be a national statesman.' "
Once when a newspaper article said that Garner had a better prac-
tical understanding of legislative government than any other living
man, he commented:
286
"Actually, I am a plain businessman who has happened to have
long legislative experience as the representative of a conservative com-
munity. This experience has endowed me with a fair realization, I
hope, of the problems of government.
"I guess we'd hate to live in a world where no one loves us, and a
public man likes to have approval of the people. In the House of
Representatives the elections are so frequent that its membership
is responsive to the informed will of the people. Mature and informed
public opinion is one thing. Emotional fervor of uninformed people
is quite another. This emotional feeling sometimes manifests itself in
a flood of telegrams on a pending bill.
"There is just one reliable test that the public man should respond
to and that is a legal, secret and safeguarded ballot. I never paid
much attention to straw votes and haphazard tests of public opinion.
The unofficial polls go up and down, by the week or the month. The
people are not so mercurial. If they changed that fast then our
terms for elected officials are too long."
Garner is proud of the fact that everyone who ever ran for Congress
against him wound up supporting him. He said:
"They were political opponents, not enemies."
Garner in his long legislative career sounded no bugle calls and
never was in any torment of intensity over any measure. He just sat
down and worked things out with other men. I asked him the
qualities necessary for leadership. He said:
"The art of getting along with men is one of the greatest gifts of
statesmanship, one of the most important assets of the public man. It
consists of holding men to you by winning their respect and affection.
Then, if in addition a man has ability he becomes a very strong leader.
"Nature has something to do with it, of course. Just as an animal
may have some outstanding characteristics that others of the same breed
may not have; or as a particular race horse will have both speed and
staying qualities, so some men will have the natural qualities that fit
them for leadership. These can be brought out, developed and acceler-
ated by use and experience. Our elective system, with its local and state
offices, its state and national legislative bodies, provides an excellent
training ground as well as machinery for selecting the capable from the
[287]
other kind as they prove themselves. But, o course, the voters have
to do their part."
Dogmatic attitudes exasperated him. He said:
"I have every respect for an opinion contrary to my own provided it is
sincere. No man or party has a monopoly on good intentions or intel-
ligence."
Discussing a cliche that everyone advanced for anything they desired
an appropriation for, the former Vice-President said :
"There is, of course, such a thing as too little and too late. There is
also such a thing as too much and too quick. It doesn't hurt to allow
some situations to jell awhile."
He discerns the tricks of the propaganda boys. He said:
"The clamor of a vociferous minority many times drowns out the
voice of the submerged majority."
Garner spots all the build-ups used now as they were in his
earliest service to wheedle or snare an appropriation out of Con-
gress. There is little difference in technique. While there are no new
twists, the amounts are more inflated.
"Nearly always," he says, "there is an emergency threatening dire
results unless immediately relieved by adequate use of some of the
money belonging to the American taxpayer."
Garner can't remember what it was, but he thinks there was a serious
disaster threatening, unless relieved by an appropriation, when he first
arrived in Washington.
Not only does the former Vice-President not remember what the
first emergency was but he can't recall the last one or most of those
between.
"In my early days in Congress," he said, "a man would express his
undying devotion to the flag and wind up asking for a little appropria-
tion to dig out a bayou in his district. But in recent years it isn't Con-
gress that thinks up the plans for throwing money around.
"The cost of government the year I went to Washington was
$486,439,407. Any appropriation item that small now is merely interim."
Garner likes some things about career men in government. The fault
he finds with them is that:
"They've spent their entire lives spending appropriated money."
Naturally, a man who had a gift for government and knew the
practical art of government better than any living American will talk
about government, and Garner does.
"But I wish there was less government to talk about," he said. "The
best thing that would happen to the American people would be cur-
tailed government. The most affectionate, heartfelt wish I could have
for the American people is less government.
"We have come a long way from the thirteen former colonies on the
Atlantic seaboard and the original conception that almost the sole
function of the national government was to repel invasion and prevent
the states from raising trade barriers against one another. But in the
year 1948 it is still true that the country is governed best that is governed
least. The people know what to do for themselves better than the
government knows what to do for them.
"I never saw a federal official until I was fourteen years old. It was a
healthier, more independent country then. A boy of fourteen now
probably has seen more federal than local officials.
"Washington always has to have its kitty. Somewhere between the
taxpayer and the ultimate use to which his money is to be put Washing-
ton extracts roughly 15 per cent. That goes for what is call 'adminis-
tration.' The people get something back in services. The party in power
(whatever party it is) gets more jobs and a machine.
"As a citizen given the decision as to whether I would rather pay
high taxes and see the government debt reduced or whether I would
rather have lower taxes and a huge public debt, I would prefer to con-
tinue paying high taxes. The only trouble is that with a great tax
yield the government looks around for new ways to spend money
instead of reducing the debt.
"All bonds are payable in dollars. If we pay on the debt now we are
paying with dollars worth a half or a third less than they were worth
when the debt was contracted or which they will be worth again some-
time.
"If we pay off five billion a year we would have fifty billion paid
off in ten years. The people, once the custom of paying was estab-
lished, would insist on the yearly payment. Then if there was a de-
pression or some setback we would be better able to withstand it."
Garner takes a great interest in local government in his home
city and country. He thinks everyone should.
[289]
"If they did," he said, "they would get a better concept of the
American principle of government. You don't get the right perspec-
tive of national government unless you understand local and state
government. It is all interwoven. Some people who pass for pundits
in government think the national government is all important. They
are out of focus. If all the people had a comprehensive understanding
of government they would take some of it out of Washington and
bring it home where they could watch it. They would be rewarded
with smaller tax bills and they wouldn't have to pay for two million
civilian federal employees."
Partly from habit and partly from actual enjoyment Garner is still
a constant reader of the Congressional Record and believes that omnium
gatherum ought to have more subscribers.
He remarked that there is one thing of which there will always be a
shortage and that is capable public servants. He hopes capable men
will always give some time to government. Discussing Roosevelt
appointments, he said:
"Roosevelt appointed some very able men. He appointed some second-
rate men and some of his appointees were so bad as to be perfectly
astounding. His worst appointments were judicial, the one place
where he should have appointed the ablest man, regardless of politics.
Some of his appointments to the highest courts should not have
happened to a justice-of-the-peace court."
When Congress submitted the proposed constitutional amendment
limiting the President to two terms, I asked him his view on it.
"The states ought to adopt the two-term amendment, which Con-
gress has submitted," he said. "It is good Democratic doctrine. Andrew
Jackson in his second annual message to Congress recommended a
constitutional amendment limiting the term of Presidents.
"A President in his third and successive terms may not be a dic-
tator, but he is the first cousin or half-brother of one, and he will
perform like one. That is plain, unadulterated human nature.
"I'll go further. I wish it could be worked out so that we could
have only four or eight years of Republican administration and four
or eight years of Democratic administration at a time.
"More equal division between the parties would make for better
government in the South and would aid its industrial growth. The
South has become more and more a one-party section. The Demo-
cratic party has increased its strength in Vermont and Maine, but
the Republican party has not in Mississippi and South Carolina. The
Congressional district in which I live once polled a heavy Republican
vote. Now, it is negligible."
Garner still adheres to his long-held belief that the requirement of
a two-thirds vote to override an Executive veto gives the President
too much power.
"I have for many years believed that when the President vetoes
a measure it should be returned to Congress with the requirement
that not a mere majority of these present and voting, but a majority
of the total 96 Senators and 435 Representatives should be sufficient
to override. If after considering the objections of the President 49
Senators and 218 Representatives believe the measure should become
law notwithstanding the objections of the Executive, that measure
should become law.
"Project the present required two-thirds into terms of popular
votes. Out of forty-five million voters that would mean thirty million
on one side and fifteen on the other. There has never been any such
popular majority in our history."
Garner has lost none of his affection for Congress. Sometimes he
seems a little more of a House man than a Senate man.
"The House of Representatives is not the lower' House," he said.
"It is the most numerous, but not the lower. 5 In the most important
legislative functions of taxes, appropriations and the control of the
purse it is the originating and, therefore, the highest House."
"The Executive has too much power now [this conversation was in
1947]. Under our form of government Congress is the people's repre-
sentatives. The people are entitled to carefully worked-out legislation,
debated, amended and perfected by the people's representatives. We
have had too much legislation by Executive order."
He continued:
"I have been called a Congress man and I am. Congress has never
been the usurper in this country. The few times it has attempted it,
it has failed. It has erred more often the other way. It has granted
power to the Executive or has allowed him to usurp power to the
point where he could carry on personal government instead of gov-
ernment by accepted laws. At times Congress has sat by and watched
the courts legislate.
"Congress is sound. It has always been sound. Its weakness is on
appropriations. Leadership on government economy has to come from
the White House. If a President wants economy and will use his
Budget Bureau to that end he will get it. You have to have a Coolidge.
"I have never advocated a weak Executive. The Presidency of the
United States is the greatest office in the world. My belief has been
in Executive leadership, not Executive rulership. In party matters
when we have had a Democratic President I have wanted all parts of
the country and all factions of the party to have a voice in party,
policy. You have to have a leader. Time comes when the leader must
exercise his leadership, but it is always a good plan to see what is in
the minds of the rank and file. Sometimes the led have a better idea
than the leader.
"The President, through his appointive power and the Senate,
through its prerogatives of 'advice and consent,' have no more sacred
duty than in the selection of that branch of government which is
appointive the judiciary. The President, in making appointments
to the Supreme Court, should see that a political balance is kept. A
five-to-four division is most desirable. There should never be a wider
division than six to three.
"The men who founded this government believed in a republican
form of government. In a democracy one man can conceivably control
the government. It has always been a possibility and it is especially so
today when an individual occupying that office has at his command
so many vehicles for putting himself before the country.
"We do not have three hostile divisions of government, one for
law making, one for law executing and one for law interpreting. We
have a trinity of co-ordinated branches. The boundaries between them
are marked distinctly enough for anyone who desires to see them."
At the time of his retirement In 1941, Mr. Garner gave me an
intimate view of how he felt about his public service.
"I hope I may have been helpful in accomplishing some permanent
good to my country," he said, "I have tried to do so.
"Very few men have had so extended an opportunity. I am grateful
for having had the privilege of associating with and working with
[292]
hundreds o men, coming from all sections o the nation and repre-
senting every viewpoint, I believe I served with a total o between
3,000 and 4,000 Senators and Representatives. Most of them were men
of courage, patriotism and good will, of stability and dependability,
determined to do what was best for their country, according to their
lights.
"To my knowledge, I have never deceived a man or a woman in
my life. I have never been prodigal with promises, 'but I never made
a promise I did not have every reason to believe I could keep. I never
gave utterance to anything I did not believe to be the truth. I have
wanted people to know where I stood and sometimes I may have
carried this to the point of bluntness and unkindness.
"I never sought fame or glory. Both are transitory. I wanted only
to be a competent workman in the business of government. I have
had great love for and debt to my party and wanted it to be an instru-
ment of good, whether it was in the majority or the minority. Some-
times it has been more serviceable as an effective minority. My
considered opinion is that I had no more useful years than those in
the ranks of or as the leader of the opposition to the majority.
"I deplore demagoguery and the appeal to class animosity. It has
never seemed to me that permanent gain was achieved by too much
haste in settling solemn problems. I have seen no one possessed of
enough knowledge to cause me to think he was a bringer of the mil-
lennium. But I have seen this country steadily advance to startling
heights."
But home in Texas, Garner finds things just as absorbing as he ever
found them in Washington, He gets great joy out of simple things.
The Garner lawn is a bird sanctuary. Mr. Garner watches the
variety of birds which come to the birdbaths he has erected. The
ex- Vice-President also is a great animal lover, although he has no
especial favorite in the animal world. Once he found three motherless
kittens and cared for them until they were old enough to look after
their own affairs. He was proud of the achievement.
His son, Tully, lives in a house adjoining Mr. Garner's.
His granddaughter, Genevieve, now Mrs. John Currie, visits him
often and her two sons, John Garner Currie and Tully Robert Currie,
keep him busy on their visits.
[293]
Some years ago Mr. Garner was quoted as having said:
"Many persons think, no doubt, that I consider some act of my
political career as the outstanding achievement o my life. Far from
it. For many years I thought if a person had wronged me, I never
cared for that person any more or rested easily until I got even with
him. I realized my weakness and fought against it through the years
before I overcame it. I have nothing but the kindliest feeling for every-
one. That to me is my life's greatest achievement."
A few weeks ago I asked him if he still felt the same way. He re-
plied:
"Well, it has been a long time since I did anything in spleen. I
have liked most of the people I have met and tnost of the people with
whom I have worked. I have nothing but the kindliest feelings for
everyone. But," he added, "of course, I like some people better than
others."
[ 2 94 ]
Set in Linotype Granjon
Format by A. W. Rush-more
Manufactured by The Haddon Craftsmen
Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New
120511