Kansas' McGill
Sirs:
The following signers, all of whom are Kansas voters, would appreciate the publishing in your columns of the political activities of "colorless" Senator George McGill of Kansas [TIME, Aug.1].
F. G. TRENTLE
T. L. FERRIER
H. B. DOWNING
R. S. HANSON
E. M. MULWANEY
Wichita, Kans.
The record of Kansas' Senator George ("Gloomy Gus") McGill is as follows: Born: Lucas County, Iowa, Feb. 12, 1879.
Career: Youngest of a farmer's brood of eight, George McGill was moved from Iowa to Kansas at the age of 4, hoed and harvested on his father's farm until he left to work his way through Central Normal College at Great Bend, Kans. and to study law.
Appointed deputy county attorney in Wichita in 1907, Lawyer McGill made an early reputation by winning every case he brought to trial, then spent two undistinguished decades in criminal law and local politics before he was elected to fill the Senate vacancy left by Hoover Vice President Charles Curtis in 1930. Two years later he won a practically foolproof campaign as a Roosevelt and Labor man against old Republican Senator Henry Allen.
In the Senate: Balddomed, small chinned, doleful and dull of mien, Senator McGill has only one conspicuous mannerism—a "haha" which he inexplicably tacks on the end of his infrequent speeches. His voting record is Yes to every Roosevelt proposal: so faithful is he that, along with New Mexico's Hatch, he tried to launch a substitute Supreme Court bill after the President himself had given up.
Since 1933 he has strayed off the reservation only once; as a Midwestern Isolationist, he voted against the World Court protocols in 1935.
A scrupulous legislator, Senator McGill always records his vote, regularly attends the meetings of his five committees—Agriculture, Judiciary, Immigration, Naval Affairs, and Pensions (of which he is chairman). In committee he has furthered his two legislative interests: more money for veterans and the cause of the wheat farmer. He wrote the wheat sections of the Pope-McGill Farm Bill (the second AAA), defended them in the longest speech he ever made in Congress (30 min.).
Despite his New Deal voting record and the fact that Kansas' other Senator is Republican Arthur Capper, George McGill is far from being Kansas' No. 1 Democrat in Washington. He ranks in Federal patronage matters below Commissioner of Internal Revenue Guy T. Helvering and Secretary of War Harry Woodring. In social Washington he cuts even less ice. An Elk, a 32nd degree Mason and a Shriner, he spends most of his time at home. His wife, who calls him "Senator," drives the family Buick. Regarded by his friends as a loyal New Dealer and by his enemies as a humdrum Main Street politician, George McGill is not so sleepy as he looks. On one occasion, barnstorming in a Kansas campaign, he was scoring opposition leaders by name.
Of one in particular he bellowed: "And there's that old scalawag. Where's he in this fight?" The chairman sharply yanked the McGill coattails, whispered that the man in question had switched to their side. Without lowering his voice or blinking, George McGill continued: "Again I say, where is good old Ed? Why, he's with us!"—ED.
Absence of Trunks