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Robinson: ". . . That is illustrative, my friends, of how a good man can go wrong, and how far wrong he can go, and what a fool he can make of himself after he has gone wrong."
Heflin: "Mr. President, I was replying —
Robinson: "Mr. President, I have the floor. I will yield to the Senator if he will courteously address me. . . . I am going to call a conference tomorrow, and I challenge the Senator from Alabama to come before the conference and move the election of another leader for the Democratic Party of the Senate."
Heflin: "Mr. President—"
Robinson: "We will take a vote on the subject there and find out whether the Senator from Alabama is entitled to discredit millions of good citizens of the United States in the name of the Democratic Party because of their religion."
Heflin: "Now, Mr. President the Senator from Arkansas misunderstood entirely what I said. . . .
"Before I rose the Senator said I had said something that was unworthy of me. If that is not lecturing me, what is it?"
Robinson: "Yes; I did say that it was unworthy of the Senator from Alabama. . . . I say now to the Senator from Alabama, in moderate language, that I am amazed, I am amazed beyond the power of expression, that he would bring the name of a lady into this controversy, even though she be a Catholic."
Heflin: "What wrong was there in doing that, if she is?"
Robinson: "If the Senator cannot recognize it, I do not propose to waste the time of the Senate in telling him. A man of a chivalrous spirit would hold William R. Hearst responsible, rather than assail the wife of William R. Hearst, who is totally inoffensive, so far as I know, in this connection."
Heflin: "I am responsible for it, and I resent the Senator—"
Robinson: "And I think it is unworthy of the Senator from Alabama—"
Heflin: "It is unworthy of you to say that."
Robinson: "All right. I cannot settle that with the Senator from Alabama. It is another fact about which we differ. . . . "
Mr. President if I had my way about it, I would stop Catholics from abusing Protestants and Protestants from abusing Catholics. . . ."
Heflin: "Would the Senator suppress free speech in the Senate? . . ."
Robinson: "... The trouble about the Senator from Alabama is that he takes himself so seriously that he thinks he can dictate to the whole Democratic Party what is right."
Heflin: "No—"
Robinson: "And I do not think he can do so."
Heflin: "And I do not think—"
And so on, and on, and on. Senator Heflin had many last words, including raucous sideswipes at Candidate Alfred Emanuel Smith. One phrase made the galleries guffaw. "Mr. President," Heflin said, "I have no religious prejudice. I am simply a wholehearted American."
Senator Walsh, grim Montana Democrat, at last reminded the chamber what its business had been before his colleague began to roar. Funnyman Moses made a quip about "those speeches that have been made today in behalf of the Republican party." And eventually the Senate went out to recess.