Garner's House

(See front cover) Texas last week rubbed out the one Republican patch on its huge and other wise Democratic Congressional map. By so doing it definitely handed control of the 72nd House of Representatives which meets this week for the first time, over to Democracy by a molecular majority. On that majority a stocky little Texan with fiery blue eyes and stubbly white hair pre pared to mount the rostrum to the stiff high-backed chair which holds the Speaker of the House and a power second only to that of the President. His name was John Nance Garner and for 28 years he had ably and shrewdly represented in Congress his State's 15th district, an area the size of New York State stretching along the Rio Grande from above Eagle Pass to Brownsville on the Gulf.

Solid Texas. What sent the Congressman of the 15th district up to the Speakership were last week's elective doings in the 14th district, running from above San Antonio to the Gulf at Corpus Christi. Until his death last month Republican Congressman Harry McLeary Wurzbach had, sheerly by personal popularity, carried the 14th around in his pocket for eleven years (TIME, Nov. 16). To fill his vacancy a special election was called. Democratic leaders raged in despair when six of their party rushed into the contest against one Republican. In far-off Washington President Hoover, nervously aware of the election's significance, called for the returns, studied them with downcast eyes. For him they spelled another defeat because a Democrat by the name of Richard Mifflin Kleberg was elected. The President needed no political statistician to tell him that this meant that the House, his legislative mainstay for the last two years, was now lost to him, that it would line up:

Democrats .........................................218

Republicans ......................................214

Farmer Laborite ...................................1

Vacancies ..............................................2

On paper the Democrats had a clear-cut majority of one against all combinations.

King Ranch. Congressman Kleberg's election delighted Democrats of the 15th district no less than it did those of his own 14th. It meant the Speakership for their "Mustang Jack" Garner. Besides, the Kleberg family are part owners of the immense King Ranch, largest single one in the U. S., which sprawls across 1,250,000 acres of Southeastern Texas and overflows into the Garner district. In 1925 Henrietta King, widow of Richard King, founder of this rural empire, died at the age of 90, tied her $25,000,000 property up in trust for ten years. A King daughter is Mrs. Alice Gertrudis Kleberg, mother of the new Congressman. After her is named Santa Gertrudis, the great ranch house at Kingsville where visitors are royally entertained, where meals are served at a soft, table by Mexican servants, where a feudal atmosphere still prevails. "Dick" Kleberg once tried ranching but gave it up to move to Corpus Christi, go into the cattle business, play good golf. Today the King Ranch, with its 100,000 head of livestock, its miles of plains and gardens, its oil wells, is managed by the new Congressman's brother Robert, who roams it from dawn to dark.

Jumping Ant The Kleberg election was not Mr. Garner's first intimation of the Speakership. That came last month after five special Congressional elections had given the next House a distinctly Democratic cast (TIME, Nov. 16). Mr. Garner was then on his ranch (infinitesimal beside the King) in Uvalde County. It was pecan-picking time and he had six acres of fine nut trees. The Garner telephone kept jangling with calls from newshawks who wanted to interview the Speaker-presumptive. Then & there Mr. Garner vowed that he would not publicly discuss politics, programs or policies until he was safely seated on the House rostrum --a vow he was still keeping last week. "Ettie, you go talk to those newspaper boys," he told Mrs. Garner, "and get rid of 'em somehow." Mrs. Garner at the telephone:

"Mr. Garner? Oh, he's out somewhere about the place. . . . Perhaps you could find him if you had a good horse. He jumps around like an ant. . . . Yes, we'll go to Washington in a few days. . . . No, we're entirely too busy getting the farm into condition to leave to discuss politics. Good-bye."

In Washington. Soon thereafter Mr. & Mrs. Garner went to Washington, took a small suite at the Raleigh Hotel on noisy Pennsylvania Avenue. He hustled up to the Capitol, unlocked his office, over the door of which hung the sign: "Minority Leader," his title in the 71st Congress. Now he was about to lead a majority and in upon him pressed Democratic friends, job-seekers, well-wishers, newspaper correspondents--and some Republicans to learn his plans. They all found his manner as genial, his handclasp as warm, his lan guage as blunt as ever. But the shadow of responsibility seemed to have sobered him.

White House Emissary. One of the first G. O. Partisans to call on him was Walter Newton, White House secretary who runs the President's errands to Capitol Hill. Mr. Hoover was frankly concerned about what the Democrats under Speaker Garner would do to his legislative program. Secretary Newton had been sent up to find out. As he entered the Garner office, his eye fell on a photograph of his Chief inscribed: "To John Garner, with good wishes in every possible direction except politics--Herbert Hoover."

"Hello, Walter, you old son-of-a-gun." was Mr. Garner's greeting to the onetime Minnesota Congressman. "How's the Chief?" "He's well." ''Well, tell him I send my regards. Tell him I wish him health and happiness--everything but success in the 1932 elections." Then the door closed on the conference.

Truce? Impossible! This meeting and others like it gave rise to press reports that President Hoover was seeking a political moratorium with House Democrats, was trying to develop a co-operative agreement on important economic legislation. Recalled was the high-flown Democratic pronunciamento of last year about nonpartisanship which was scrapped and forgotten a week after Congress began. But "Jack" Garner, almost at the pinnacle of power, was in no mood to bargain with the White House. Partisanship, to him, is the essence of politics as politics is the essence of government. When asked if he would endorse the President's legislative program, he fairly snorted:

"If Hoover wants to vote with me, I'll be much obliged to him. If you'll tell me what he stands for, I'll tell you whether I'll cooperate with him. . . . I've been asked repeatedly if the Democrats would enter into a political truce. . . . My questioners seem oblivious to the rather insulting character of such an inquiry, for it amounts to the implication that our Representatives are capable of sacrificing the welfare of the country to political expediency. ... I don't anticipate that any Democrat will oppose a measure plainly necessary for the industrial health of our people [but] the Democrats will insist that they shall be the judge of the wisdom and expediency of the enactments. . . . We have no reason to assume the infallibility of the Administration. Experience of the past two years pretty clearly demonstrates no such assumption is possible. . . . When the President offers a recommendation to accomplish a given result, the Democrats may have their 'own and what they consider a better process for bringing this about. . . . But my fellow Congressmen have in mind no policy of mere obstruction. If there is political advantage in demonstrating our ability to exhibit the President's impotence, we'll forego that advantage.

"We're on the eve of a presidential campaign. Naturally every time we oppose the White House incumbent and candidate for reelection, we'll be accused by his supporters of playing politics. If we are interested in bringing about the election of a Democratic successor to Mr. Hoover, he and his party are no less interested in accomplishing his reelection. There is no more justification for the contention that Democratic votes against Administration measures are dictated by partisanship than that the President's own recommendations are actuated by an equally selfish motive. . . .

"But as for a truce--why, that's impossible!"

Floor Leader. Next to the Speaker in power and prestige ranks the Majority Floor Leader, a sort of legislative quarterback who runs the team from behind the line of scrimmage. Congressman Garner had no sooner reached Washington last month than he discovered that the Democratic Leadership was badly snarled in sectional and personal rivalries. By seniority of service during the twelve years the party has been out of power more Southern Democrats than Northern Democrats have climbed to preferred positions in the prospective House organization. Numerically the two factions are about equal. Southern Democrats insist that they should get their full quota of good jobs. Members from the North clamor to set aside seniority rules for their own advancement on the theory that their States are essential to any Democratic victory in the nation.

Agreeing that the North should get the Floor Leadership to balance his own Speakership, Mr. Garner first induced all Southern candidates to withdraw from the field in the name of party harmony. That left two Northern Democrats contending for the job--71-year-old Henry Thomas Rainey of Carrollton, Ill, and 46-year-old John J. O'Connor of New York City. Congressman O'Connor was sent to Congress in 1923 as the personal representative of the late Boss Murphy of Tammany Hall. His own colleagues disliked him for his vanity and superciliousness. Southern members despised him for his "Yankee swagger," his aggressive Wetness. Undaunted by his unpopularity, Congressman O'Connor, as part of his campaign, arranged a first meeting between Mr. Garner and John Francis Curry, the present Tammany Boss. The two breakfasted together at 7 o'clock one morning fortnight ago at a Washington hotel. Said Congressman Garner later:

"I'd never seen one of those animals from Tammany Hall before. I couldn't see any horns or hoofs on him. I found out Curry was a very nice gentleman. He told me he's got a brother and lots of kin in Texas. . . . I like to see any outstanding man in politics. I'd like to see Mayor Cermak of Chicago--and have breakfast with him. But I'd rather he'd pay for it. I'm just that much of a Scotchman."

What Mr. Garner did not reveal was how he told Boss Curry that Congressman O'Connor did not measure up to leading a House majority. Boss Curry apparently concurred. That virtually clinched the selection of Congressman Rainey, Mr. Garner's candidate all along. They entered Congress together (1903) but Mr. Rainey was swept out by the Harding landslide of 1920, thus losing his seniority standing. At Amherst in 1883 he was heavyweight boxing champion; today he weighs 275 lb. A great mop of billowy white hair crowns his Roman head. He generally wears a flowing black bow tie. He farms in a farming district. His constituency was Dry and so was he until an Illinois reapportionment act this year added the Wet city of Quincy to his political domain. He is now reported ready to swing Wet if the reapportionment act withstands court tests. Conservative Democrats call him radical in his economic theories. He favors a low tariff, high surtaxes on the wealthy, no foreign debt moratorium, government operation of Muscle Shoals, recognition of Soviet Russia.

Committees. Less easy for Mr. Garner to solve was the tangle over Democratic committee chairmanships, growing out of the same North v. South rivalry. If the seniority rule were followed, Southerners would head 30 of the 47 House committees. Texans would become chairmen of such prime committees as Judiciary, Interstate & Foreign Commerce, Rivers & Harbors, Agriculture. To Mississippi members would go the prime jobs of Ways & Means, Military Affairs, World War Veterans. Alabamians would control Banking & Currency and Civil Service; Georgians, Territories and Naval Affairs; Tennesseeans, Appropriations and Merchant Marine; a North Carolinian, Rules. Only three major committees would fall to New Yorkers--Post Offices, Education, Immigration. A Marylander would head Foreign Affairs.

All last week Speaker-presumptive Garner shuffled and shifted committee lists in an effort to work out a scheme that the whole party could support at its caucus Dec. 5. What pointed up the bargaining politically was the fact that patronage worth $2,000,000 per year in wages for constituents was at stake.

Program. One of Congressman Garner's first declarations was that, if Democracy organized the House, it would accept full legislative responsibility and present a program of its own. What that program was, continued to remain his secret last week. Undoubtedly it would contain plans for farm and industrial relief. Prime uncertainty: taxation. Democrats in the House where such measures must originate, had no desire to sponsor a tax upping bill which might handicap them in the campaign. They much preferred to wait and see what President Hoover--who is, after all, responsible for Federal finance--would recommend. If he wanted an increase in taxes to meet the deficit House Democrats might give it to him--and the blame as well.

Minority. Almost academic last week became the Republican minority's squabble as to who should head what in the next House. Congressman John Quillin Tilson of Connecticut, last year's Floor Leader, and Bertrand H. Snell of New York, Rules Committee chairman, struggled for the empty honor of being nominated by the G. 0. P. for Speaker and then defeated by Democrat Gamer. Cheesemaker Snell, hard-boiled and reactionary when the Republicans are in complete control, went about last week conciliating and winning over Progressive votes to his candidacy with oversized promises of liberalizing the House rules. After eight ballots in a party caucus he won the Speakership nomination which meant he would be minority Floor Leader in the 72nd Congress.

John Nance Garner had two anniversaries last week--his 62nd birthday and his 36th wedding. He observed both by going to his office before 8 a. m., working until supper time. Since his birth into a poor family on a lonely farm in the Red River County of North Texas, "Jack" Garner has come far but changed little. He is, as he likes to repeat, a man of the common people. As a youngster, he was puny. He got little or no formal education. A touch of tuberculosis sent him down to the hilly ranges of South Texas where it is higher, drier. There he punched cows, hunted, fished, slept under the stars. Outdoor life brought him a robust, ruddy-cheeked vitality he has never lost. Nights he began reading law, at 21 was admitted to the Texas bar at Uvalde. For a while he was a local judge, then went to the State Legislature where he served four years.

On the theory that Southern Democracy would be materially strengthened if Texas was, as it constitutionally could be divided into four new States with eight new Senators, he rammed through a bill to that end only to have it vetoed. Even now he still agitates for this change (TIME, May 26, 1930). But monster Texas, proud of its size, only laughs at him, thinks such a reform is one of Jack Garner's best jokes.

When he first arrived in Washington as a Congressman, he was, he says, taken for "just another cattle thief from Texas" by the House leaders who assigned him to minor committees. His loud protest brought a transfer to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Beside him at the foot of the Committee table sat a dapper young Republican member from Ohio named Nicholas Longworth. They shook hands and thus began a great, understandable friendship of the aristocrat and the commoner. In those days House partisanship ran to blows and black eyes. The bloody shirt still waved but "Jack" Garner and "Nick" Longworth only grew closer together. "Nick" roseto the Speakership. "Jack" led the Democratic attack. Yet off the floor these two would link arms in the lobby, crack little jokes in the Speaker's office. Longworth's death brought sincere grief to Congressman Garner who now moves up into his friend's high seat. The Speaker's automobile--"our car" in their friendly joshing--has been sold and a new one will be bought for Speaker Garner.

Federal finance became Congressman Garner's legislative hobby. He got him self transferred to the Ways & Means Committee, rose to No. 1 minority position. His fiscal belief: the rich, being rich, should pay the heaviest taxes. In 1924 he tore into the Mellon tax plan, ripped it apart, forced it to be rewritten along Democratic lines. Ever since then the Secretary of the Treasury has been his particular target of attack. He has flayed the Treasury's tax refund system, charged that it favored G. O. P. contributors. A familiar House sight in recent years has been Congressman Garner before the rostrum, his body bent in the middle, his arms waving, his bushy eyebrows bristling, his face a bloody red, his high-pitched voice fairly denunciation of shrieking "Uncle out Andy.'' One of the good-natured ablest rough-&-tumble debaters in the House, a smart parliamentarian, an aggressive fighter, he was a perfect leader of the Opposition, to which position he succeeded Finis Garrett of Tennessee in 1929.

Society holds no lure for him. He wears grey suits, slightly wrinkled, and big blunt-toed shoes. Often he appears on the House floor in need of a shave. It was only by the greatest persuasion that Mrs. Garner induced him to order a cutaway ("one of those coats with half the stuff cut off") last month. He arranged to return it if not elected Speaker.

To Mrs. Garner, a tall woman with greying hair, he refers as "the Boss." During his whole Congressional career she has been his active secretary and stenographer. She collects the Garner pay check, pays the bills, finds the lost papers about the office. Together they arrive at the Capitol about informal. 7:30 a. m. Their home life is easy informal where "Nick" Longworth used to fiddle, "Jack" Garner sings cowboy songs. He is old-fashioned enough to read Scott while Mrs. Garner embroiders.

But only on his Texas farm is "Jack" Garner really happy. There from the sad dle he watches his cattle graze, inspects his hogs, takes a sick lamb up in his short strong arms to coax it back to health. What if his wife does fret because he spends too much on agricultural experiments? This is his fun. He speaks the homely language his neighbors all under stand. This week they were immensely proud of him. So were all other Texans. He was about to bring the Lone Star State its first Speakership. That was more than 29 other States could yet boast about.

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