Epistles from Pap: Letters from the man known as 'The Will Rogers of Indiana' Part 5

The Democrats were prepared. Hastily, all fifteen of them who were present (two others were ill and absent) "bolted" their legal confines and took refuge in the neighboring state of Ohio.

Most of the "bolters" made the trip in a bus rented ahead of time. They wound up in Dayton, where they took up residence in a hotel owned, curiously, by Hoosier Lieut. Gov. Van Orman, a Republican. In a "spirit of bipartisans.h.i.+p," the latter telegraphed the runaways to "be my guest."

Another Democrat, Senator Harrison, left the next day secluded in an Overland Moving Van. Pap's transit was courtesy of his railroad pa.s.s. The train deposited him in Cincinnati, and he went on to Dayton from there.

The Minority Leader, Senator Joseph M. Cravens of Madison, Indiana, halted the escape bus briefly on its way to Ohio to order a barrel of apples to be forwarded to the Indiana Senate, accompanied by a note--"Compliments of the Minority Members." The erudite Senator Cravens (known informally as "Uncle Joe") was the bachelor scion of perhaps the most distinguished and aristocratic families in Indiana at that time.

The Indianapolis Star and other newspapers had a field day covering the Democratic "bolt," which brought official undertakings to a complete halt. Photos of all the "strikers"

were printed side by side almost as if they were fugitives in a rogues' gallery.

A poignant victim of the escapade was the official "Doorkeeper"

of the Senate, one Jerome K. Brown, who was ordered by the Senate leaders.h.i.+p to go to Ohio and serve warrants for the arrest and return of the vagrants. Poor Doorkeeper Brown protested against going it alone, but to no avail. He arrived in Dayton 11:45 PM on the 25th and served his warrants on the "bolters" in their rooms at the Gibbons Hotel. The warrants were ignored, but Brown was invited to join a poker game in progress.

The Ohio governor and attorney-general p.r.o.nounced that Indiana arrest warrants were without official standing in Ohio (which coincidentally was under a Democrat administration at the time.) The governor furthermore invited the Hoosier "strikers" to stay on in Ohio "without being molested" as long as they wished.

Senator Cravens accepted the invitation "with great pleasure-- until the Penrod Bill is withdrawn."

Senator Penrod countered firmly that nothing of that sort would take place.

Thereafter the shenanigans increased as the plot thickened.

The Republican Majority in the Indiana Senate set about trying to find a hale and hearty Democrat on Hoosier soil who could be legally compelled to resume his seat. Pap's eldest daughter was accosted on her way home from school in Greencastle by a friendly pair of men she had never seen before. She thought it a bit strange, but all Hoosiers were unrestrictedly friendlier those days. They got around to inquiring of Pap's whereabouts. When the fifteen-year-old reported the conversation later at home, her mother explained that Pap was "just hiding out somewhere with his Democratic friends."

Senator Cravens' adroit public comments expressed regret for the legislative drought, but noted, "The Democratic Minority in the Senate has from the beginning done its best to aid in the pa.s.sage of every constructive and economic measure brought before that body. . . in the hope of benefitting the overburdened taxpayers of the state. Our only regret is that there have not been more measures of economic and constructive character to vote for. . ."

He took the opportunity to expound on party grievances.

The Republicans threatened to call out the state militia and place the matter before the Marion County Grand Jury, which they said might fine the runaways $1,000 and imprison them. Such threats and the clumsy attempts to serve warrants or "kidnap" a Democrat backfired, however, and became targets of public hilarity.

The papers made light of the fact that the Marion County Horse Thief Detective a.s.sociation was sworn in "to watch for Senators who might attempt to sneak back home to Indiana without being detected."

Faced with becoming a legislative laughing stock, the Republican Majority capitulated to the Democratic Minority, making a prophet out of Pap, who had predicated in a letter home that a "truce"

would be arranged in a day or two.

The Indianapolis Times carried the banner headline: D.C.

STEPHENSON BEHIND MOVE WHICH BROUGHT 15 ABSENT SENATORS BACK; REPUBLICAN POLITICAL BOSS a.s.sURES DEMOCRATIC FUGITIVES MEASURE THEY ARE OPPOSED TO WILL BE DROPPED.

The runaways were also given promises of immunity from arrest and the quas.h.i.+ng of any indictments against them. Thus, having thoroughly enjoyed their rest and recreation, they cheerfully returned to their seats on the afternoon of Feb 27.

The saga of the "Democrats who bolted" in order to make their political point perfectly clear (and effective) became an oft- told tale in Hoosier political circles.

And Pap received his just political reward.

Shortly thereafter, he was chosen as successor to "Uncle Joe"

Cravens as Minority Leader in the Indiana State Senate.

CHAPTER III: FAMILY YEARS, BULL BREEDING AND GOOD CREDIT--1930-1940

While continuing to attend legislative sessions, Pap did so in another capacity. He put his considerable oratorical and literary skills to work lobbying his former peers and Congressional representatives on behalf of some lucrative new clients--the railroads. The improved income situation also allowed him to devote more time to his growing family, and to write about the comedy and crises of domestic life: A relative's eccentric s.h.i.+pping practices, a daughter's distress at being blackballed by a sorority. As the decade progressed, the older children were flying the nest, going on to higher education and finding mates of their own.

Aside from domestic duties, his law practice and lobbyist activities, Pap became more involved running the family farm and in other agrarian pursuits, including the purchase of Hereford bulls. The livestock provided grist for his pen on more than one occasion, including a memorable account of some thoroughbred price-fixing. Pap even started thinking like a bull (or as he imagined one of his prize studs would feel after the animal was struck by a train).

He also found time to champion small and solvent independent banks like the family-owned Russellville inst.i.tution against onerous government "reform" regulations during the Depression; to promote his old alma mater, Western Military Academy; and suggest a hospital tighten up its security after he fell victim to thievery.

Pap wrote some family history--a poignant account of a chair that was an heirloom, and a satirical account of his grandfather's attempt to create a new county with Russellville as its seat of government. That effort may have failed, but Russellville still wound up with good credit at the Waldorf-Astoria during daughter Joan's wedding.

OUTRAGED OVER SORORITY POWER

Excerpt from a letter Pap wrote to his mother-in-law, Mrs.

Sawyer, sometime in 1930.

. . . Joan has triumphed overwhelmingly and unequivocally.

A college sorority in my way of looking at it is a very small matter. In college circles, it is a thing of momentous magnitude.

It is ridiculous--utterly ridiculous--that sororities should have the hold they have and should wield the power they do . . . and the heartbreaks they cause or bring about. . . This letter is to be read by you and by no one else. And then it is to be destroyed, and its contents divulged to no one. Because I am actually ashamed that my daughter could be so influenced so permanently by so small a thing as anybody's college sorority. . .

It happened at the time Joan entered college. As is customary, at high school graduating time, the sororities look over the girl graduates with a view to bidding them admission to the several sororities. Joan was invited to a great many--among them Kappa Alpha Theta. Kappa Alpha Theta was founded at DePauw probably 50 years ago. It was among the first of all sororities. I had a cousin, now long since dead, who was one of the founders. In fact, I think she was probably the most active of all of those founders. All of my people, except Sister Margaret D. Bridges and one cousin, were naturally Thetas. Mrs. Bridges did not go to Depauw, but went to a girls school, Oxford, where they did not have sororities, so that let her out. . .

Joan asked me which was the best of all. . . I told her that Theta was best, and I felt sure she would get a proposition from them, . . . that if I were she, I would belong to Theta or nothing. And of course I meant it, and for that matter mean it now. Well, that sort of talk fortified her to refuse others, and therefore I was to blame indirectly for what happened afterwards, because I am inclined to think if I had said nothing that she would have joined another. . . And I did not know what heartbreaks were in store for her. The Thetas invited her to their "rushee" party, and things looked well. Then something happened. I do not know what it was, but she was dropped and never bidden into Theta . . . and so she became a barb--that is a non-sorority girl. She was ignored so far as parties were concerned. She did not get into the social life of the college scarcely at all. The fraternity to which I had belonged invited her to two or three things, and then sort of dropped her because she had no sorority to reciprocate with. . .

In spite of this social handicap she began in a small way to make herself felt in college circles. It became noised about by the faculty what a fine scholar and girl generally she was. It came to me from a thousand sources--or almost a thousand. Some of the other and lesser sororities came to her and asked if she would consider a proposition. By that time, she had her back up, and she declined universally. But many is the night during these two years when she was studying in the dining room that she would say that this one and that sorority or fraternity were having a big dance, or something along social lines. Blue, of course she was blue. And discouraged and humiliated. But she is a thoroughbred.

She never disclosed it away from home. Just went about her daily college business. Kept her scholars.h.i.+p and head up, however she might be hurting inside. . .

Last Tuesday the lightning hit. The Thetas called the house . . .

and they asked her to come to the Theta House for supper. And after supper, they asked her to join. And she did. And that night came home with the colors on. She is a happy, happy girl. Things have changed overnight. The leading college man, or at least one of them, called the Thetas and openly congratulated them on getting her. Hundreds have congratulated her, and all this makes her very happy.

I have told you all this to sort of try to explain what she had undergone. It makes me hot under the collar to write it, and to even think about it. To think that a thing of that character could so get hold of a college and of college students to make them or break them at the whim of this or that fraternity or sorority is an outrage. But it is a fact nevertheless. And so I am glad for her eventual triumph. But at the same time, I am humiliated to think that such things exist in a free country. And the more so because members.h.i.+p in any organization of that character is not based on ability or scholars.h.i.+p but is based, on a large measure, on the whim of the individuals who happen to belong in the organization at the time the individual is proposed.

I must stop, or you will not get this all read.

PLEASE DESTROY IT AT ONCE. . .

As Ever, Andrew

DAUGHTERS ADORNED LIKE UNTO CLEOPATRA

Greencastle, Indiana Nov. 17, 1930

Dear Sister Margaret: Joan and Sarah Jane went to the Theta big party last Sat.u.r.day night, and I'll tell you they both looked mighty pretty, at least they did to me. "Not because they are my daughters," as Charlie McWethy says, and all that sort of thing. But I'll say this, they looked mighty pretty to me. Sarah Jane had her hair waived and screwed on some ear rings that hung on small chains about six inches long, and I'll be dad burned if she didn't look like the advertis.e.m.e.nts you see for perfumes and things of that sort in the Ladies Home Journal. She was so highly colored by reason of the excitement she didn't need any artificial color. Her necklace I think was Joan's, maybe one that Grandma Sawyer gave Joan-- looks something like an old fas.h.i.+oned hammock in shape, made of brilliants or imitation diamonds set in black, and she walked out looking like Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish's favorite daughter. And Joan looked just as well, all trigged up for the occasion. Her greeting to the boys when they came was that of a young woman perfectly confident in herself. No stammering or anything of that sort. Sarah Jane was not so free in her conversation, but she'll get over that. She is a great deal like Ma, only she has more nerve in speaking out. . . Both of them had their hands and nails smoothed up and s.h.i.+ned up and tapered down like unto Cleopatra herself.

That night they got home shortly after midnight. The boys just brought them to the front door and about a minute after the door closed I heard the shoes flying here and there. I heard both of them say their feet and legs ached so bad they were numb. They talked it all over and I went to sleep.

Andrew

CHRISTMAS CHAOS AND AMAZING FREIGHT

Greencastle, Indiana Dec. 26, 1930