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There is something overwhelmingly appealing about the old type of southern gentleman. When such a gentleman is a scholar and a politician, the combination is well-nigh irresistible. Such is John Trotwood Moore, delegate from Tennessee to the late Democratic National Convention. He is the author of several novels and many stories of the South. The Bishop of Cottontown is being made into a motion picture by the Metro Co. The Old Cotton Gin is well remembered. Mr. Moore is slender, wiry, fervidly Democratic. His hero is Andrew Jackson (of Tennessee), about whom he has just written a novel. Since I have lately finished collaborating on a play about the same gentleman, I found immediately a common bond.
"You come over to my hotel and I'll show you Jackson's marriage certificate," said Mr. Moore. "Jackson was the greatest man America has ever produced, the greatest President and the greatest General. We need a man like him in the White House today, a man who understands the needs of Labor, a man of the people."
Naturally I made no attempt to discuss politics with Mr. Moore. We had chosen different periods in the life of the fiery President for our efforts, so we could compare notes without coming to blows.
Mr. Moore is one of those picturesque figures that one misses when one stays too close to New York City. Polished, courtly, yet positive, he exudes romance. His very address—Granny White Pike—speaks volumes. He was born at Marion, Ala., in 1858. In 1885, he moved to Tennessee. In 1905, he began to edit his own magazine, Trotwood's Monthly; then he joined Robert Love Taylor and called it The Taylor-Trotwood Magazine (1906-1911). Since 1919 he has been Director of the Tennessee 'State Library of Archives and History. Among those documents to which he has access, he has searched in an effort to reconstruct the character of Jackson. He has found him gruff, tender, the duelist, the fighter with pistol, with sabre and with politician's eloquence; he has found him rough-mannered and sentimental, eager to defend the honor of women, a devoted husband, a sorrowing widower. To me, Jackson represents, as he does to Mr. Moore, something that is very deep in the inheritance of the U. S.—something common and strong. Before Jackson, the Presidents of the U. S. had been aristocrats ; with him, the heart of the U. S. came into its own.
J. F.
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