Mr. Sargent

4 minute read
TIME

John Garibaldi Sargent,* 64, six feet three, about 225 Ibs. in weight (he has been nearer 300 Ibs., but recently has been ill), low-collared, with stormy gray hair and a wrinkly weather-beaten face, was turned into an Attorney General almost before the country knew it.

One morning last week, the President called him by long distance and asked: “Will you be Attorney General ?” “I will,” answered Mr. Sargent. That afternoon, the Senate confirmed him. The next afternoon, he had taken office and was at his desk in Washington.

The last time he had been in Washington was on Mar. 4 when “J. G. Sargent, Ludlow, Vt.” registered at the Willard. He had come down on the train with Colonel John Coolidge and his party; and the story is that he had treated the whole party to railroad and Pullman tickets. Although he dined at the White House as the guest of the President, he is said to have preferred to have his meals in the basement of the White House with the Secret Service men with whom he had made friends the summer before at Plymouth. He kept out of the prominent reviewing stands.

The boy Sargent’s schooling was delayed and he was still in the Black River Academy at Ludlow when Calvin Coolidge, twelve years his junior, came over from the hill-farm at Plymouth, twelve miles away. They say that the husky senior took care of the little fellow at hazing time.

Afterward, he went to Tufts College, played centre on the football eleven and was called “Jumbo”—a name which Mr. P. T. Barnum had just popularized. Next, he went back to Ludlow, married and read law in a law-office. Three years later, he was admitted to the bar, became a successful attorney. From 1908 to 1912, he was State Attorney General. He won a murder case where the plea of insanity was made, but wept when the man was sent to the gallows. At one time or another, he represented the New York, New Haven & Hartford and Boston & Maine Railroads and the American Express Co. in Vermont litigation.

He lives in an old-fashioned brick house with 15 rooms, has a big library and (so it is said) 100 pipes—briars, corncobs, clays, calabashes. He likes Oriental rugs, is somewhat of a naturalist (collects birds’ nests), owns a maple grove. He bought a tumbled-down place about 15 miles from Ludlow and uses it as a fishing club—he loves fishing. His automobile is good but old—old and paintless. There are nine clocks in the room where he works, for one of his hobbies is repairing clocks. Mr. Sargent is, in Republican state politics, quite a power. He opposed the 16th Amendment to the Federal Constitution (Income Tax), the 17th (Popular Election of Senators), the 18th (Prohibition) and the 19th (Woman Suffrage). Last year, he tried to read Senator Porter H. Dale and Representative Ernest W. Gibson out of the Vermont party organization for voting to override the President’s veto of the Soldiers’ Bonus Bill. But Senator Dale has forgiven him that.

About 20 hours after his nomination was confirmed, he hopped off a train in Washington, alone, carrying a suitcase and a paper bag holding his rubbers. Rush L. Holland, Assistant Attorney General, and Edward Starling of the White House Secret Service were on hand to meet him with a White House automobile. He asked to go to the home of Associate Justice Harlan F. Stone, his predecessor and friend. There he left his bag and telephoned to the White House. Next, he was driven to the Department of Justice and sworn in, shook hands, saw reporters, was photographed. He unrolled a gorgeous rainbow-colored tobacco pouch, almost a yard long, filled his pipe and smoked on the way to the White House, where he spent half an hour with the President. There more photographs. In the evening, he went back to the White House for dinner—he and Charles B. Warren (TIME, Mar. 23) were the guests.

*Mr Sargent’s brothers are John Wesley and John Rudbare. John Singer (famed painter), is, so far as is known, no relative.

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com