The Senator from Alabama
Juneau, Solomon
374 THE COMMONWEAL February 9, z9z7 i i i THE SENATOR FROM ALABAMA By SOLOMON JUNEAU T IS now some years since Senator J. Thomas Heflin, of Alabama, was characterized by the New...
...What if he had talked an hour?' " The editor went on to remark that though the address had been sent collect, it was "politely but firmly returned...
...and to attack Harvard University for having conferred a degree upon W. P. G. Harding...
...But despite the unappreciating attitude of the Age-Herald, the 2,7oo words were duplicated upon many an occasion...
...As a matter of fact, it seems likely that a more correct estimate of the sources of the display was formulated by Senator Reed when he said: "Intolerance, sir, is the child of ignorance...
...This extraordinary patriotic vigilance had been surpassed, however, during the course of an incident which occurred some six months earlier...
...in eloquent pleas for the celebration of Mothers' Day...
...It reported that he denied having made the charges, and that he was "subject to criticism...
...He simply cannot help it...
...The ingratitude of the nation is nowhere better exemplified than by the fact that shortly after the official adoption of these verses, editorials cropped up everywhere demanding the curtailment of the cost of printing the Congressional Record...
...But it is well to take the matter calmly and to concede that everything Heflin has to say is on the surface--the product of his own redoubtable imagination and voracious reading...
...The inference is perfectly clear...
...Heflin staunchly fortified himself with the knowledge that he had talked into print more apocryphal quotations from Washington and Lincoln than any other human being of whom we know...
...Heflin at that time asserted he knew "there is a gambling room in Washington where pro-German and peace-atany-price members of Congress get their pay by being extraordinarily lucky at cards...
...These adjectives suggested nothing more dire than a Falstaflian figure addicted to sonorous diction...
...Creager...
...Thereforeuand therefore onlyuit is worth while seeing the man as he is and weighing his many qualifications as a public sage...
...Heflin's native state...
...After all, Homer found it worth while to describe Thersites...
...Germany has been trying to find out how many men we have moved across the sea, and how many we still have at home...
...Immediately thereupon, Hiram W. Evans, grand kleagle, addressed an audience of Texans to the effect that "we need to get away from such men as Tom Heflin...
...Give me the radius of any man's intelligence, and I will describe the circumference of his tolerance...
...Similarly, the only thing which could make him relatively important and dangerous is the possibility that his present attitude in the Senate has been cleverly assigned to him by some forces which prefer to remain incognito...
...The connection here was never very obvious...
...When Senator Reed remarked that during the grandiose periods of Heflinian oratory "the stumps in the Potomac River bobbed up and down in unison," the retort was simple and prophetic-"They will be bobbing again...
...In all sober truth, the injection of religious feeling into an issue complicated by the existence of manifest religious persecution, is a matter to which public opinion cannot profitably remain indifferent...
...visible empire," it was Mr...
...They should be accepted very simply as nothing more than the braggadocio of a buffoon...
...On Washington's birthday, I926, he arose to request the insertion into the Congressional Record of a poem written by one of Alabama's sons--"a man of February 9, 19z7 THE COMMONWEAL 375 very brilliant intellect and of marked poetic genius...
...Heflin was chosen to fill the unexpired term of Senator Bankhead~an event which he promptly followed up by announcing that "prices for cotton will be higher...
...Though this really tolerant state is not at all in the throes of bigotry, political circumstance (in a way that is described elsewhere in this issue of The Commonweal) conspired to give the "invisible empire" considerable political authority...
...German spies have tried to find out where our cavalry horses are located...
...The older fellows, of course, simply didn't recognize him...
...Heflin's suddenly revealed ambition to play with deeply rooted popular prejudices and animosities has transfigured him into a nuisance of some proportions...
...There is really only a political connection between him and his state, which has supplied the national scene with many a genuine statesman, many a keen-witted soldier, and many a commendable intellect...
...By this time, naturally enough, the Senator had become a Washington landmark...
...But when during t924, Mr...
...These qualities were manifested in violent antagonism to woman suffrage...
...And beyond any shadow of a doubt they are...
...He demanded an investigation at once and the subsequent expulsion of those found guilty...
...As late as August I4, I919, he had such confidence in German money that he assailed it as being behind the propaganda to defeat the League of Nations...
...Naturally his ettort in this direction met with the recognition it deserved...
...Of late, however, Mr...
...Heflin as "tilting down Pennsylvania Avenue, usually in a long frock coat, with perfectly manicured eyebrows, wondering that the Avenue does not tip to one side because he is all on that side...
...Heflin who made the telling retort of starting an inquiry into certain real-estate transactions associated with Mr...
...Perhaps, however, it would be well to agree with an expert's opinion which holds that the most important thing done by Mr...
...to charge the existence of a deep plot laid by his political enemies...
...In his eagerness to serve, he wrote a letter to Secretary Daniels advocating specially constructed ships packed with cotton, which would keep afloat after being torpedoed...
...I have an idea that many simple people who read newspaper accounts of his remarks concerning secret Catholic preparations for war with Mexico believe every word they look upon...
...374 THE COMMONWEAL February 9, z9z7 i i i THE SENATOR FROM ALABAMA By SOLOMON JUNEAU T IS now some years since Senator J. Thomas Heflin, of Alabama, was characterized by the New York Times as "solemn, tragic, sublime, endless...
...His light-colored waistcoat was now the symbol by which newcomers in the press gallery recognized him...
...The Texas headquarters of Klandom then issued a statement saying that if opposition were manifested to their chosen representative, J. Thomas Heflin would rise to lead a movement to unseat Senator Lodge...
...Is there a connection between these sundry events and the latest display of oratorical energy by the Senator from Alabama ? I hasten to reply that I do not know if there is...
...Heflin during his years in the House was "wearing summer white flannels long before they came to be regarded as 'sports' garments...
...Heflin dassifies himself as a "lawyer and public servant," and must be accepted as a senatorial reality...
...This inquiry expanded into an investigation held before the Senate Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, the accusation being that Mr...
...For the Klan, it will be remembered, had decided that "waves from Geneva shall never pollute these shores...
...The speech was simply overwhelming...
...But to others his present remarks ought to be, not a reflection of public opinion, nor even an insult...
...The fluffy crop of his native state had, in fact, been the supreme Heflin bulwark during sixteen long years in Congress...
...Mr...
...A more resolute patriot never breathed...
...But during September, I926, Senator Hettin distinguished himself by delivering a pompous though unnecessary address in advocacy of United States entry into the World Court...
...to call Senator Glass a liar in a dispute over the Federal Reserve Board...
...To him it must be delightful--almost the goal of a too, too long Falstaffian career...
...Creager had used the mails to defraud...
...He voted staunchly for the war resolution, assailed Representative Kitchin for manifesting some opposition, and spoke eloquently for the draft bill...
...On April 6, x9t8, he delivered a famous address that in addition to advocating the expulsion of Senator La Follette and the internment of Representative Berger, sharply reproved another member of the House : "The gentleman from Illinois got up here yesterday and told the world where all our boys in the marine service are located...
...Behind the Senator's present activities--which are, be it noted, pacifistic in a manner irreconcilable with his fervent public and private history--there lies a peculiar, complex episode which can only be defined as the rise of the I~,u Klux Klan in Alabama...
...Even this calling of his bluff did not, however, silence the "Wireless" of Alabama...
...This was the man who entered the Senate prepared to continue the best oratorical traditions of Webster and Calhoun...
...For some reason, however, the project came to nothing and the Senator cast about him for other gear...
...R. B. Creager, Republican National Committeeman from Texas, circularized the members of the Committee, asking them to go on record at the I924 convention as denouncing the "in...
...In the end nothing came of the investigation, but--and the point is worth noting--Mr...
...During I918 there was read into the Congressional Record an editorial from the Age-Herald, a prominent organ of Mr...
...His personal fame reposed chiefly, however, upon what one writer termed the "endurance and calisthenics" of his speech...
...A slightly prejudiced observer once described Mr...
...Creager had been silenced...
...During I923, the election of Mayfair to the Senate from Texas raised the question of eligibility on account of his professed association with the Klan...
...But though this caustic comment often mentioned him by name as an offending example, Mr...
...and in various other ways predominatingly harmless...
...The matter aroused so much attention that a special committee was appointed by the House to investigate the "charges made by Honorable J. Thomas Heflin...
...Though the two-minute rule was then in force," remarked the editor, "Heflin sent 2,7oo words of his speech with the introduction: 'Heflin holds House in rapt attention while he spoke on the prohibition amendment, in part as follows...
...In all likelihood, J. Thomas Heflin will go right ahead being intolerant...
...Finally there came that most touching occasion which was to reveal clearly the Senator's profound attachment to poetry and other devices of culture...
...During November, I92o, Mr...
...When finally the end came, the telegraph editor sighed in despair and was heard to mutter, 'Two minutes...
...Those interested in collecting the treasures of American literature and, incidentally, in profiting by the example of their great public men, may dig out the entire masterpiece for themselves...
...Cotton Tom's" genuine opportunity came with the outbreak of the world war...
...So far so good...
...Never was there so efficient a human seismograph for the detection of enemy manoeuvres...
...I cannot refrain, however, from quoting the following representative lines: In the infancy of the republic When the nation's foundations were wrought, Through the wisdom of Washington's judgment And the justice of Jefferson's thought, Providentially planned and perfected Was the spot of her capital's home...
...He has hoisted himself into a pose which not even the furious frisking of a large kerchief over a face empurpled with oratorical passion can deprive of a certain impressive ominousness...
...Heflin arose to demand the expulsion of L. Jones, a negro who had apparently uttered an ejaculation in the visitors' gallery...
...They found 500 of them in Kentucky and they poisoned them...
Vol. 5 • February 1927 • No. 14
