Old Frontiersman
No sooner had the brand-new Congressman from the brand-new state arrived on Capitol Hill than he got some sage advice from a House veteran. Said Maryland Democrat Frederick Talbott to Arizona Democrat Carl Hayden: "Son, there are two kinds of Congressmen--show horses and work horses. If you want to get your name in the papers, be a show horse. But if you want to gain the respect of your colleagues, don't do it. Be a work horse."
Linking Two Frontiers. That was in February 1912. This month, as Arizona celebrates its 50th anniversary as a state, Work Horse Hayden celebrates his 50th year in the U.S. Congress--an alltime record. A Senator for the last 35 years, he rarely speaks on the floor, avoids newsmen as if they were lepers, hardly ever appears in headlines. He is chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee and, as the Senate's president pro tempore, third in succession to the presidency. Bald, stooped Carl Hayden, 84, is a congressional institution--and a last link between the New Frontier and the real one.
Hayden's father was a Connecticut Yankee who came down with "lung fever," headed West, took the Santa Fe Trail from Independence and finally settled in Arizona. There, on the Salt River, eight miles from a farm village that is now Phoenix, he built a flour mill, started a ferry, opened a general store, a blacksmith shop and a freighting business. Young Carl swam in the Salt River, rode a pet bull while driving cows, recalls seeing Apache fire signals burning at night on nearby Four Peaks. He went to Stanford in 1896 and, as a strapping 6-ft. 220-pounder, played center on the football team. In his senior year his father died, and Hayden left college without graduating to take over the family business.
Smiling Through Millions. In 1907 Hayden was elected sheriff of Maricopa County. Phoenix was then a raw town of 10,000, its unpaved streets lined with saloons, gambling halls and brothels. Among Sheriff Hayden's duties was one to enforce an ordinance requiring Indians from the Maricopa Reservation to wear pants, not breechclouts, while in town. Once, according to a story Hayden likes to tell, a group of churchwomen complained to him that an old Indian chief outside town had three wives; they demanded that the sheriff do something about it. Hayden went to see the chief, explained: "Under the white man's law you can only have one wife. Now you pick out the one wife you want to keep and then tell the other two that you don't want them." The chief sat in silence for a few minutes, then grunted: "You tell 'em." Hayden knew when he was whipped; he got on his horse and rode back to Phoenix.
When Sheriff Hayden arrived in Washington as Arizona's first Representative, he early established himself as a faithful party man; from Wilson's New Freedom, through F.D.R.'s New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal to John Kennedy's New Frontier, Carl Hayden has generally voted straight down the Democratic line. Most of his work is in committee--and in taking care of the folks back in Arizona. He has a reputation for quick, effective replies to constituents' letters. Through his efforts and his influence on the Appropriations Committee, Arizona has received vast federal funds for dams and irrigation projects, military bases and airfields, Indian school construction, special social-security payments and fish hatcheries. Says Vice President Lyndon Johnson: "Carl Hayden has smiled through untold millions for the people of Arizona."
Despite his age, Hayden is still a formidable Senate figure. A few weeks ago, a controversial proposal came up at a Democratic Policy Committee meeting. Several Democratic leaders favored it; Hayden was against it. Taking a long puff on his cigar, he growled: "I don't like that goddam bill." It died shortly thereafter.
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