Show - I - -- s - - - 410 lisE - - - e ' 1 t r c 41 ' r ' ! - s''— ' ' -- 1 '- s) i - : t lk'—v-- - 1 - — 4 'li -- 1 - ' r ': - - 4 - 1 I ': I - A '1 FiCgt ) - ? 1:f" t 4 ' ' - )1 ' 02- : - - f---- - - ' 4 6k ‘:11k L5 - K - — i )!)'4' W -- - :' I r - ' ' :t ' 4 ' ‘ I 4'- 't ' '1 ' ''''': ''''''''' - ' - 7 41 ) '6C'4'6''2' -- A ' -- ' - t! ' - ' 1 N‘t-'-'- '' 1 k ” 'i-----14- ') s ' (:"----- ' ‘' - t --- V 1 'C'' N) I ') t - - ' ' ‘ I re k l'") 14 ' - 4 0 1 I ' J ( i ' ' ! ' '' ' ' 1 ' dkm6tma- - - J -- ' t gt i ' S E f ' t 44‘-tt- - - l'' ''''''" - 't I it ' ' ‘ wwil L:a) t Alben W 3rd three and Dorothy Anne five the Vice President To his friends on Capitol Hill Barkley is still known as "Senator" To his grandchildren Ba rkley the raconteur: The Vice President spins a yarn for Democratic national chairman 'J Howard McGrath and New York Democrats Paul Fitzpatrick and Edward J Flynn 1:r 1 - Atb I ' is iust "Grandpa" ' Wtiii- - wit iiiiir firm deteiimintitifid mark- Barkley - Both will find their uses if the Vice President serves as a constant link betlieen Congress di :111(1 the White House - like the one about the hippopotamus disBob Hope when he recently flew to Europe with Barkley and Jinx Falkenberg When the party returned to Washington reporters asked Hope if he had had a good time "No" replied Hope "Jinx stole all the glamor and Barkley told all the stories Besides I had to ride atop a load of corn on the airlift to Berlin" "Liquid or solid?" asked the irrepressible Barkley-"Yosee what I mean?" shrugged Hope Barkley not only won the job Warren rim for and missed but Californians presented the Democratic victor with a fancy five-foredwood gavel they had carved for Dewey's running mate It looks like a super-dupstonebreaker's mallet and the Vice President is still hunting a place big enough to house it "I think put it in a Senate alcove with the American flag on one side and the gavel on the other" said Barkley "When these Senators take out after me if I can't flag them down I'll stop them with that gavel" Barkley and Truman talk the same legislative language share their devotion to nearly all of Franklin Itoosevelt's tenets and mix with equal ease They like people But they are opposite in their working rrAms reoncerted f er habits Truman is an "early to bed early to rise" man always up and around by G am Barkley likes to work late and sleep late If he hasn't a speech to write or a bill to draft he often picks up a book and reads himself to sleep A favorite Barkley yarn is the epic of the ungrateful constituent A lawmaker returned home before election to find a long-timsuploorter pledged to his opponent The amazed legislator reminded his former friend of the money he hail loaned him and the federal plums he had handed him over the years "Yes" said the constituent "But what have you done for me lately?" Barkley a man of intense emotions and deep convictions isn't always the debonair funmaker of fact and fiction Sometimes he admits he tells stories "just to drive away the blues" Dangerous in debate he drops the lighter pose MARCH A 14 i PARaet deals in facts and logic in the legislative clinches Senate leader longer than any other Democrat seldom was he bested in debate When ponderous facts failed to convince Barkley used the rapier Once Louisiana's late Huey Long tied up the Senate with a long harangue Finally Barkley rose "Did the Senator ever study music?" he asked "A little" Huey replied "Then suppose the Senator sing for us—a little" said Barkley Once even Franklin Roosevelt retreated before the rebuke of an aroused Barkley The breach was soon mended but neither ever forgot it On the death of Arkansan Joseph T Robinson in 1937 Barkley ran for Senate floor leader against formidable opposition Critics of the administration's highly controversial plan to alter the Supreme Court backed the late Senator Pat Harrison Roosevelt preferred Barkley and sent him the now famous "Dear Alien" letter telling him so Barkley won Barkley's loyalty to Roosevelt never wavered until the late President vetoed a taz bill in 1944 against the advice of his congressional leaders Barkley called Roosevelt's stinging message a reflection on Congress and promptly resigned as leader The veto was overridden and Barkley was re - I t ri e a 1to - ? pi I L ' - ' P- yi""''4 if' f f k t - '' I 4r : 1 - : t 01 '0 ! ' t ? ' U- ' t --N - - - ' t4 I i z' -: ' t'- r - I— s - 1 i 41116ks I 1 E I - anft' I t t 4 ' f f r t 1i: ' - A 414 it) F- ' 4 - 4 - ' - - '"' A s v I 4 4f 4 - 14 - I - - - - 4 ' - - " - V : AO ! ! 64 - i The Vice President and his boss Harry S Truman raise coffee cups in a toast during a lull in the Inaugural parade elected unanimously Roosevelt had to make the first move to repair the break sending Barkley a second "Dear Alben" letter Barkley dropped the quail el and their ties were never again shaken There have been a few other moments when Barkley's capacity for deep indignation erased his famed sense of hainor During the last Democratic convention reports spread that President Truman was shopping around for another running mate " Said Barkley: "I won't take Once the campaign got underway Barkley barnstormed with a vigor that matched Truman's own He criss-crossthe country by plane and by train carried his fight deep into states' rights territory Between thrusts at the record of the Eightieth Congress Barkley found time to kid himself and the job he was running for He loved to tell the story of the man W h o had two sons One of the sons went to sea The other became vice president Nothing more was ever heard from either of them warmed-overbiscults- ed Kraponaibility Begets Gravity Barkley seldom jests about the vice Ile last quipped about it when he took over his new duties He told Senators he couldn't remain silent for four years asked them not to be surprised if he strolled onto the Senate floor to make a speech When he tapped the Senate to order after his inaugural it was with dead serious intent Ile offered his "services" to any branch of the government The President prpmptly put him to work Since then he has been sitting in on all of the President's cabinet meetings not as a spectator but as a regularly accredited participant Ile's consulted on administration bill drafting and his advice asked on presentation of major bills But it is in the cloakrooms of the Capitol where misunderstandings so frequently arise as to just what is or is not the President's intention that Barkley will be of the most help to his chief With White House and Capitol doors open to him he can bridge that long mile down Pennsylvania Avenue keep communications lines open If the "partnership" works out according to plan Barkley may become a sort of alter ego to the President speaking out for the administration when Mr Truman isn't available In such circumstances the country would scion forget all about that mythical nonentity of US politics "Mr Throttlebottom" NOWADAYS |