Epistles from Pap: Letters from the man known as 'The Will Rogers of Indiana' Part 15

Russellville opinion of the accident differed. It would. Suffice to say, no run was attempted on the trusty old Private Inst.i.tution; the next reconnaissance by State Examiners showed said Bank to be in its usual sound condition; and a scrutiny of Uncle Ernest's balance sheet showed no unusual strain on his normal account.

The scene shifts to Greencastle: Uncle Ernest was bringing his "fair Calantha" to call on Mother and Aunt Margaret in the parlor of the old brick, where a solid line of Paris Green fringed the red carpet, unsullied these many months by human feet. The horse- hair upholstered furniture stood where I last saw it five years before. Aunt Margaret's painting masterpiece of 1884 still hung on the west wall, showing castle, moat and drawbridge (and the fair lady in green riding habit riding the horse down from the castle to the drawbridge hadn't made any mileage since then). On the east wall hung Aunt Margaret's effort of 1885 in paint on red velvet. It was intended to delineate our National Bird--the American Eagle--however, something had happened to her measurements at the time, or the n.o.ble bird had developed a p.r.o.nounced goiter meantime.

Aunt Jennie Black, she of the piercing black eyes, who looked with suspicion on any thing or happening outside the confines and regulations of the Presbyterian Church, had been called by Mother to sit in--a job she was never known to flee from when it was her duty, which it always was.

Uncle Ernest had asked me to be on hand, probably for moral support in the event our womenfolk got out of hand.

The inquest got off to a good start. Pleasantries were pa.s.sed all around until I was hoping against my better judgment. But alas, in her enthusiasm and heightened conversation, our fair caller, in an unguarded moment, dropped the fact she was a Red Cross worker in World War I, and had pa.s.sed out cigarettes to the soldiers in France. Great G.o.d! I saw Mother's bosom swell, Aunt Margaret's lip twitch like it does just before she evades an unpleasant question or is getting ready to give a lecture on morality and church attendance; and Aunt Jennie's spinster chest flatten out flatter than usual, and I knew from now on the meeting was to be an inquisition in the real medieval meaning of that word.

Eventually conversation lagged, good-byes were said, the guests departed. The trio went into a caucus before I could get out of the room, and I heard Mother p.r.o.nounce sentence: "We don't need any female cigarette distributors in this family." How times have changed!

That Fall, our Red Cross worker taught in Buffalo. Uncle Ernest got off for a short trip to San Antonio, but caught the wrong train and landed in Buffalo. Next Spring she taught in Cleveland.

Again, Uncle Ernest headed for San Antonio, got the wrong train, but this time found out his error in time to get off at Cleveland.

Last Chapter: Uncle Ernest died in 1931. As Executor, I went through all his effects. Away back behind everything, I found a dusty Indiana National Bank canvas sack once used to express silver dollars and fractional silver coins. It was full of envelopes about the size of a two-thirds grown postal card, all addressed in the same handwriting, and all tied up in packages with grocer's soft white twine. I didn't know the handwriting, but eventually caught the full signature. I hadn't tried to read the letters--just sifted through them to make sure the envelopes contained only letters. Shortly, I came to one, the opening sentence of which caught my eye: "I am terribly lonesome tonight, Dear."

I quit reading. They weren't intended for Executors. I took off my gla.s.ses and sifted all the remaining letters one by one into a handy banana hamper. Some had snapshots in them. I took everything out and burned it. Somehow, I felt pretty bad. . .

As ever, "Pap"

THE HAY AND FEED RACKET

April 19, 1944

Dear Sarah Jane: . . . While we're on the "racket" subject, I think I have partially solved the "hay and feed racket" at the Indianapolis Stock Yards. We trucked the heifers to Indpls. Sunday afternoon.

The buyers (a commission firm) insisted they get there the evening before--"to rest, get a good fill and good weight next morning, and be ready to be re-loaded alive in stock cars to go to New York." I've been skeptical about ever coming out even on a feed and hay bill. . . I had too bad a cold to go up Sunday afternoon in one of the trucks and stay overnight, so I got up Monday morning at 4 a.m., and got to the Yards. I found the cattle and just about stayed with them until it was all over.

Eventually the hay wagon came along. They threw out two bales for our cattle and then distributed them in the hay racks. I watched the cattle. They weren't eating any of the hay, just none at all.

It was timothy. They were used to alfalfa. . . The bell rang and trading started. Buyers came and went. Our heifers were better than any I saw. Kingan's (Indpls. local packer) man bought them.

He had been out to the farm to see them two weeks before. I got more than he offered me out there. I marched along to the scales, counted, and saw them weighed. My bill, among other things, read: "400 lb. Hay@ 1.45 = $5.80". The two bales they threw out for us would total not more than 120 to 130 lb. Timothy hay delivered in Indpls. would not run over $20 per ton. They figured ours at $29 per ton, as shown above. The heifers didn't eat a quarter's worth all told.

However, there are worlds of straight people. Witness Ira, for instance; the Hazlett Brothers, who started with a boot and shoe and now can get about any amount they want at staid, old, conservative, dependable Russellville Bank, the bank that only guarantees its own depositors; Mr. Whitaker at the filling station here; and thousands of others, who, like kitchen utensils at farm sales, are too numerous to mention. . .

"Pap"

PATRIOTS DEBATE--THE BALLOT OR THE BOTTLE?

April 19, 1944

My dear Margaret: Munny is on one of her many pilgrimages to Milford under disguise of most urgent business. I had seen it coming on, and the final break was made when I was called to Indianapolis by the railroads for the Special Session. She left the day after I did. This time she thought she would go by coach, paying her own fare, because in this emergency I have refused to ask for pa.s.ses. The day I left she told me her intentions, and knowing how trains are crowded, next day I went to the station at Indianapolis to see how she was faring. I found her standing, and she had been standing all the way to Indianapolis and was bedraggled already, and with only about one-twenty-fifth of her journey completed. . .

We got back to the Pullman conductor, stated our troubles, and he made the usual reply: "I have just one lower to New York, and she can have that". . . The coaches and aisles were crowded with soldiers, sailors, baggage, dirty newspapers, pop bottles, paper cups, lunch boxes and kids . . . and the last I saw of that day's first section of No. 12, the conductor was shepherding her back through the Pullmans . . . .

The Special Session brought out a holocaust of patriotism--if I am using the right term. The purpose was to make it possible for the members of "our armed forces" to vote next Fall. Each member tried to out-do the others. The two chambers and the corridors rang with zealousness in the interest of "our armed forces"

getting the ballot. Those not running this Fall and the hold-over Senators were less voluble, but in the House, where everybody had to run this Fall, or else stay out, the rafters went off center from 7 to 9 inches. I haven't seen such valiant patriotism in a legislative body since the last war, when I was in it and up for re-election. I don't remember my conduct, but I expect it was pretty patriotic. I do remember I introduced a resolution in the House commending Wilson and the Congress for breaking off relations with Germany, so I evidently had my lightning rod up pretty high. . .

People generally had a fear about this Special Session, and were afraid it would hang and hang on amidst fervent patriotic speeches and many, many glowing accounts of the heroism of "our armed forces," and not adjourn sine die, maybe for the full 40 days. . .

The Session was remarkably free of drunkenness and wild parties-- some of course, but not the usual amount. . . Thursday evening we had a private dinner in the "English Room" of the Claypool for quite a number of railroad executives who were in the city, partly on account of the Session. It started a drab and serious affair. The war was on and restraint was in the air. Railroad executives are like all other people--busy, serious and worried.

The railroads are carrying an enormous load. Equipment is over- used and the replacements are just not to be had under the circ.u.mstances. And so, the dinner lagged. The talk ran to the Special Session, and each speaker praised the Legislature for setting in motion the plan to allow "our armed forces" to vote, and there was gentle inquiry as to how long the Session would last. Naturally, their patriotism would want it to be short, with nothing done against the carriers. Eventually they got to me, and for my opinion.

I told them I had sensed the restraint of the dinner, but as I had no further political ambitions, and was standing no stud horses, and had no past due notes in the Bank, I was more or less of a free agent, and would try to speak the truth; that it was my honest opinion the average soldier didn't give a d.a.m.n whether he voted or not out there wherever he was; that not one out of four of our armed forces out there in the trenches would try to vote unless it was more or less compulsory, amazingly easy and did not interfere with whatever he or she was interested in at the time; that not one out of four of the ballots of those who did vote outside the U.S. would get back in time to be counted in the proper precinct for State and County offices; that I'd bet 3 to 1 that three out of four of said "armed forces", if given the choice between a ballot and a bottle of beer, would select the beer; and that over 90% of all this tremendous anxiety about the soldiers getting to vote was political hooey pure and simple.

Also that no adverse legislation against the railroads would be offered, much less pa.s.sed; that the Session should close by the end of the week; that the Republicans were already starting to take credit for this early adjournment by attributing it to a strong new leadership and a united militant front--which also contained a good percentage of hooey--and that early adjournment, if it did come, could actually be credited to two big factors: a world of back Spring plowing and the acute whiskey shortage-- especially the latter.

You could just see them softening up and relaxing in their chairs around the table. They all agreed and from then on the dinner party went along like a good dinner party should go. The Session adjourned Friday night.

Now Margaret, if I were you, I don't believe I would show this letter to anybody. She won't know Pap and she might get the impression I was making light of the soldiers and the War. The Lord knows that is not my intention. Far, far be it from me to want to deprive soldiers or any other qualified person from voting. What gets me is all this fan-fare about setting up the machinery to allow a person to do what he has always had the right to do. That doesn't take any patriotism. That is simple justice. . . Those of us at home can show our patriotism by staying at home and off trains and away from crowded cities and hotels unless it is necessary; by raising more livestock, grain, grub of all kinds and fewer orchids and "rackets" of all kinds; and above all else, by cracking down on these strikers and d.a.m.nable labor racketeers and stopping this criticism of the powers that happen to be Churchill, Stalin and Brother Roosevelt.

. . . I'd like to carry the rosin bag for those boys. They are the ones who have kept most of the Russellville Bank stock in my name, and old Fred and Nellie and the work harness in the old log barn. I'm fer 'em.

Keep a stiff upper lip, and your hat on straight.

"Pap"

A PATRIOTIC CANCELLATION

(Undated) . . . All our Indiana Railroad Lobby set-up except me are Republicans. The State is Republican. Most of the Indiana Public Service Commission are Republicans. They got the idea of a National Public Service Commission Convention at French Lick this August. So two of our set-up went to Washington D.C. to see Brother Johnson, who is the head of the War Transportation outfit, and arrange for cars . . . They had their story ready, and particularly "the importance of the meeting."

Brother Johnson listened attentively until they finished. Then he uncrossed his legs and spoke about as follows: "There will be no convention at French Lick this summer. I wouldn't allow you one seat in one bus for the whole d.a.m.ned convention. We are going to move an additional 1,000,000 men and equipment in August, and 1,500,000 in September. We don't know how we are going to do it with what equipment we have left, but I know one way we are going to help--we are going to set off every G.o.d d.a.m.ned railroad executive and near-railroad executive we can find wherever we find him. That will help considerably. You go back to Indiana and tell those Hoosiers there's a War on in case they don't know it, and the thing for them to do is to stay home where they belong and not be cluttering up these trains."

That combination, "near-railroad executive," is what cooked our crowd. None of us is as high as a section boss.

The National Public Service Commission Convention for this summer at French Lick has been called-off by unanimous consent. "After studying the matter carefully, we have decided it might possibly interfere with the War Effort in some unforeseen way, and the patriotic thing to do is to take no possible chance in that regard".

As Ever, Pap

HOW TO SELL

March 27, 1945

A letter to all the children away from home.

. . . But let's get down to more important things. First and above all else is Ann Drew's impending venture into making matrimony. . .

What Annabelle Lee wants in the way of a husband is what I most surely want her to have. Besides that, Ralph is a first cla.s.s young fellow, if I am any judge. Under the circ.u.mstances, I'd like him if he wore spats and drank tea. . . I do hate to have her get married away from home, but that is all right under the circ.u.mstances, if she does decide to make the jump away out there by herself in California. They tell me a marriage license issued out there (maybe I should have said a wedding ceremony) is still good here in Indiana.

Frank's young calf, of course, is a more serious problem. I don't know how to answer his inquiry about feed for a stray young calf, except to say that cow's milk is the solution. . . Incidentally Frank, you can get original first hand information, together with some startling dialog relating thereto, if you will ask Jim Anderson's wife at Russellville how she raised "Old Nellie"--the old sorrel mare we now have at the farm--when her mother died when she was born. I can write the details but it takes Stella (Jim's wife) to give the matter the proper wording. (It is a story for men only. Women crimp Stella's style). . .Well, the facts are these: There was that tiny hungry little helpless colt.

They got her dried off and away from her dead mother into a box stall with plenty of straw. Then the food question arose. Jim drove up one of the cows; they milked some milk into a small crock; Stella stuck two of her fingers into the colt's mouth and down into the milk crock, and eventually Nellie got the idea. And so, from day to day, they repeated the scene. The leggy ambling colt waxed sleek and gained flesh. She got so she could drink, but preferred to suck Stella's fingers. One evening Ernest was there, and the usual performances were had, and everybody admired the colt and thought it very cute . . . when all of a sudden and all unexpectedly, Nellie backed square behind Stella, got the exact range and let fly with both feet, hitting Stella squarely on the axis and knocking her about six feet flat on her stomach.

The air took on a blue tinge as it does in Indian summer, and no stevedore ever out-stevedored Stella's utterances, which were both long and loud. . . They started feeling for broken bones.

Everything appeared to be in perfect alignment, but to be sure they started raising and lowering various garments until the bare truth unfolded before their anxious eyes. There, 'neath the warm, shimmering rays of a setting sun, in high relief from a gra.s.s bordered background, were two sizable red lumps soon to turn a darker hue--one on either cheek.

. . . I deposited $5 to Frank's account at staid, dependable, old Russellville Bank, a Private Bank, with more back of every dollar of its deposits than any other Bank in Indiana. As of this date, its capital stock remains at $15,000; we upped the surplus to $55,000 and upped the undivided profits to about $15,000. The deposits now run considerably over half a million. This increase . . . is not all money we made last year by a whole lot. It represents recoveries on real estate the Banking Dept. ordered us to sell back there when land was low. We just charged that stuff off out of earnings and undivided profits as we went along, as the Dept. ordered it sold or charged off. One piece the Dept.

recommended we sell for $1,500 and take our loss we sold last fall for $3,300. Another they thought should be sold for about $3,000 brought $6,750 this January, cash in hand. Couldn't loan the purchaser a cent. That was bad. We've made money on every piece we took over, and have sold to date. And every property paid more than its way as we went along. . .

I really should tell you about the oldest piece of real estate we had on hands--at the extreme northeast edge of Russellville, east of the Carter house. . . It consisted of five little lots, as lonesome a five lots as you would want to see. Away back there, 20 or 25 years ago, Uncle Ernest loaned a fellow $300, and as a precaution pure and simple took a mortgage on those five lots.

The fellow paid the loan down to $150 in drabs, got sick, moved away, and eventually deeded the Bank the lots and called the loan square. Time went on. No one thought much about those lots. Uncle Ernest died. The panic came on, and every once in a while, Mr.

Boyd, our President, would suggest we sell "those lots up in the east part of town." In the meantime he rented the gra.s.s here and there. . .

About two years ago, Bill C-- got drunk one day and offered Mr.

Boyd $75 cash for the five . . . to pile junk on. I said "no", as they were too near the Carter house for one thing, and not enough money for another. Time went on. Finally George joined Mr. Boyd in wanting them sold, and they pretty near had Mr. Fordice in the notion of selling too. . . We were just adjourning when Bob Whitted walked in the front part of the Bank. I said to my brother Directors, "Let's sell those lots to Bob Whitted. He lives up in the east part of town." They said, "Let's see you do it."

I tackled Bob. He asked, "What do you want for all five?" I said "$350," just like that, and he didn't wince. He asked, "How do you want me to pay for them?" I said, "How do you want to pay for them?" He said, "By the month, and not more than $10 a month, and I wouldn't want you to squeeze me if I run behind sometime." I said, "Well, we're selling them to you at half price, so let's make the payments at half price--$5 a month, you to pay the taxes next Fall and from then on, and get possession today, and the deed whenever you make full payment."