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"The genesis of this campaign against labor in the House of Representatives is not hard to find. It is within the Democratic party. It runs across to the Senate of the United States and emanates there from a labor-baiting, poker-playing, whiskey-drinking, evil old man whose name is Garner."
Committeemen gasped. Several spectators stood up. Lewis pounded on:
"Some gentlemen may rise in horror and say, 'Why, Mr. Lewis has made a personal attack on Mr. Garner.' Yes, I make a personal attack on Mr. Garner for what he is doing, because Garner's knife is searching for the quivering, pulsating heart of labor. And I am against him.
"I am against him officially, individually and personally, concretely and in the abstract, when his knife searches for the heart of my people. I am against him in 1939 and I will be against him in 1940 when he seeks the Presidency of the United States."
There was a lot more, but no one listened. Then the room was still. Lewis finished. Mary Norton said mechanically: "I thank you for your very fine contribution to this meeting." (Next day, when she caught her breath, Mrs. Norton said she was "displeased" with Mr. Lewis' statement.)
Repercussions came immediately, spread throughout the U. S. Attorney General Frank Murphy, whose dark red eyebrows are ranked third in Washington below Lewis' and Garner's, had a reporter reread Lewis' statement to him, chuckled heartily, said aloud: "That's too eloquent for comment," then sotto voce to a nearby reporter: "It's a sinful world." (Mr. Murphy and the entire press section of the Justice Department spent the rest of that day and evening, in hasty afterthought, insisting he had not correctly understood the statement.)
Before nightfall Lewis' crack at Garner had become a national gag. Bibbers lifted highballs with happy cries of "Well, here goes, you whiskey-drinking, poker-playing, evil old man." Columnists' consensus was that old tomato-nosed John Garner now had the drinking and card-playing vote locked up solidly for 1940.
John Garner read the statement, chuckled, said "No comment." Newshawks began checking, soon learned that "Cactus Jack" quit high-stake poker about 1920, has since played seldom and then for "buttons."* All top-rank correspondents know John Garner's drinking habits. He likes bonded rye, will occasionally go for good corn, scorns soda, ice and fancy fixings, pours water-tumblers half-full, says "Let's strike a blow for liberty" and chases with a little "branch-water" out of the faucet. He has never been seen drunk or even lightly groggy. After 6 p. m. for some 15 years he has either played a few hands of rummy with his wife-secretary, Ettie, or sat with her on the Washington Hotel roof, his belt loosened, his high-laced shoes cocked on the railing, deliberately picking his teeth and yawning. Never later than 9:30 p. m. he is in bed, barring only one or two top social functions of the year.
No one whatsoever may telephone him after that hour.
Having said his say, John Lewis, still pale, sat all that afternoon out at his huge walnut desk in the palatial United Mine Workers building, drumming fingers steadily on his desk, speaking gruffly and seldom.