(2 of 3)
Washington loved his high-flown oratory, but Ashurst had too keen a sense of the ridiculous to take politics very seriously. He was an early supporter of F.D.R., but the New Deal could never count on him. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ashurst first defended F.D.R.'s Supreme Court-packing plan, but unaccountably changed his mind. "I am," he said, "the Dean Emeritus of Inconsistency." To a woman who wrote him praising him for his stand, he wrote back: "Dear Madam: Which stand?" He voted both for the 18th Amendment and for its repeal, cast his ballot twice for the soldiers' bonus and twice against it. In 1935, when most of his colleagues shuddered in fear of Louisiana's rabble-rousing Senator Huey ("Kingfish") Long, Ashurst took him on in one of the most devastating speeches the chamber ever heard. Ashurst spoke of the curious denizens of the deep that are cast to shore by the fury of a storm. "We find wriggling on the beach Crustacea, such as crawfish, shrimps, mud crabs and lobsters; among the fish we find the grunt, puffer, pike, topknot, toadfish, jellyfish—kingfish." He threw in a few references to physics, anthropology, cosmogony and medicine. He alluded pointedly to Burns's poem To a Louse . . . He recalled the Greek legend of an eagle who dropped a tortoise on the head of Aeschylus. Added Ashurst: "I express the hope that the American eagle will not be required to drop something upon the head of the Senator from Louisiana . . ." The speech left Huey speechless. When another Senator criticized him for his endless spouting in debate, Ashurst observed creamily: "I am a fountain, not a cistern."
Peace & Joy. Though Arizona voters returned Ashurst to the Senate four times, the Demosthenes of drollery visited his home state only infrequently. On one visit he told listeners: "I am not in Washington as a statesman. I am there as a very well-paid messenger boy doing your errands." By 1940 Ashurst had begun to feel Arizona and the world moving away from him. His wife had died the year before; he was childless. He had voted against conscription, lagged in his errand running for the folks back home. That year in the primaries, Judge Ernest McFarland surprised Washington by defeating the incumbent. Next day Ashurst took the Senate floor to describe his feelings. "The first half hour you believe that the earth has slipped from beneath your feet, that the stars above your head have paled and faded, and you wonder what the Senate will do without you . . . But within another half hour there comes a peace and joy." Then he added: "I think I shall sell apples. For almost 30 years I have successfully distributed applesauce in the Capitol. I ought now to be able to sell a few apples."