Feather in Hat

Huey ("Every Man a King") Long has been dead for three years and five months. Gerald ("Share the Wealth") Smith is forgotten. Father Coughlin ("Social Justice") still radiorates, but not so many listen as used to. Father Divine ("Peace, It's Wonderful!") still operates from Harlem his "heaven" across the Hudson River from Franklin Roosevelt's mother's place. Principal demagogues in the Democracy currently audible are Martin Dies (see p. 13) and Doctor Townsend (see p. 14).

Last week out stepped a new bidder for mass leadership. He is 54, florid, fleshy and fresh. He comes from the western end of North Carolina. His name is Robert Rice Reynolds. Called "Our Bob" by the homespun folks who vote for him, he is half-baked, has been in the U. S. Senate since 1932. This session two inspirations have made him more vocal than usual:

1) The emergence of foreign policy as a burning national concern. On this Robert Rice Reynolds considers himself an expert because he has toured the world extensively (efficiently sending postcards to his voters). His ambition to get on the Foreign Relations Committee was great enough so that South Carolina's Jimmy Byrnes, by fixing it, lured his vote away from the Administration's higher figure for WPA.

2) The success of Representative Martin Dies at rabble-rousing with his committee on Un-Americanism. Bob Reynolds admires Opportunist Dies. He has seized upon his issue of "isms" in the U. S. and, while liking Naziism better than Communism, he last week announced a new U. S. mass movement based on opposition to all foreign "isms."

Association of Patriotic American Citizens is what Mr. Reynolds called his movement. The button he will issue spells out VINDICATOR. A red-white-&-blue feather in the hat is a further insignia. Last week Senator Reynolds said he figured on 1,000,000 by June for a convention at St. Louis. He thought 5,000,000 would join eventually. Said he: "If I am selected to head the movement, I should be highly honored. This is a mass movement of Americans to restore America to Americans."

"Our Bob" is no relation to the tobacco Reynoldses. He comes from the vote-gettin' Reynoldses. Back home in Buncombe County his daddy was a court clerk. Uncle Henry was chief of police, Uncle Dan sheriff, Uncle Gus tax collector. When young Bob first ran for local office 28 years ago, he was smart enough to tell the voters that he didn't give a hoot for them, that he was out for a job and the money. They loved it. Prime dandy of the Senate when he is in Washington, he wears old clothes and drawls "No'th Ca'lina" when campaigning. But he poses in double-breasted suits and violent cravats for pictures which give the Tarheels vicarious pleasure. For his fourth wife he married an ex-Follies girl in Manhattan, took her home to Asheville, was with her when she died there in 1934. Bob Reynolds busted North Carolina political tradition in 1932 by running for the Senate as a Wet, turned out Dry old Cam Morrison who had been a power in North Carolina for 30-odd years.

When other Senators ostracized Huey Long, Bob Reynolds became his friend. They had known each other years before when Bob ran a skating rink in Shreveport. Bob Reynolds undoubtedly would like to be another Huey, but so far he hasn't shown the makings. As everybody knows, Huey called the tune for Louisiana voters, North Carolina voters call the tune for "Our Bob," and he never lets himself forget them. "If $700,000,000 of the people's money is to be expended," he once declared during a Housing debate, "I want North Carolina, God bless her, to have her part--although she does not need it particularly." When Huey spoke in the Senate, the chamber was jammed. When Bob speaks, it empties.

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