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Eula was granted a 1921 divorce on the ground of desertion and that McClellan "neither answers, demurs or otherwise pleads, but wholly makes default." Despite the cold legal words, the breakup was passionate and enduring. Years later, weakened by blood poisoning after a minor operation, Eula Hicks McClellan called to her bedside Doris and Max, the children of the marriage. "Don't ever," she said. "as long as you live, have anything to do with the McClellans." Then she died.
The curse worked in reverse. Doris and Max adored their father—but he held himself aloof from the children of his broken home. After he left Eula, McClellan moved to nearby Malvern, paid $125 down for the law library of a recently deceased judge, and set to work as few men can work. It paid off. At 30, McClellan was elected prosecuting attorney for a district covering three counties, including the one in which Ike McClellan was a leading defense lawyer.
Glint for Slint. John McClellan was a born prosecutor. His temper rarely showed in the courtroom. "He was cool," says a friend. "That was his business—law—and he knew it." His cases were perfectly prepared (although old Ike, who knew people and juries, still chortles about his victories over John); he feared nothing and favored no one. Once a boyhood pal who had turned moonshiner was prosecuted by McClellan, convicted and fined. He came to McClellan afterward with a chill glint in his eye. "John," he said, "this time's all right. But don't you ever prosecute me again." McClellan returned glint for glint. "Albert," he said, "I don't care how much whisky you make or sell—but don't get caught. If you do, I'm going to send you to the penitentiary."
McClellan's record as prosecutor put him on the path to Washington; in 1934 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Arkansas' Sixth District. Coming from a state ravaged by the Great Depression, McClellan voted for many of the early New Deal measures, e.g., social security, and the so-called "share-the-wealth" revenue bill of 1935. But the Administration's House leaders learned right off that Ike McClellan had not raised a yes man. A few days after John McClellan took his seat, a Democratic whip bustled up with curt instructions to vote for a certain bill. McClellan bristled. "Look," he said, "you don't know me and I don't know you, but we're going to get to know each other pretty darn quick. I vote as I please." He did, too. and as his essential cotton-country conservatism took over, he often voted against the New Deal.