Indianapolis Times, Volume 45, Number 6, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 May 1933 — Page 16

PAGE 16

M’NUTT VAULTS BARRIERS TO LEGION THRONE •

Rivals Scoff at His Pretensions, but Hoosier Dynamo Wins Commander Post

This is the fourth of a series of stories on the life of Governor Paul V. McNutt. BY ARCH STEINEL Times Staff Writer TILL the boys come home,” The song ended. The legions of the lame, tne lonesome and the last came back to spend S6O bonuses on “civvies” and jobs. Leading the cavalcade of World war veterans was a tanned actor-lawyer-colonel-professor. The flair of his hair, the grip of his voice, sureness of his walk, gave off the actor. The methodical mind shot forth the lawyer. a The crispness of orders pegged him the colonel. And the mien of a professor mantled Paul V. McNutt again when he returned to the faculty of Indiana university as professor of law. Organization of classrooms and lectures were easy now for the man who had written his own pamphlets on “how to fight” while at Camp Jackson, S. C. He grasped the law school and its work. It snuggled to him. n a a THE American Legion got its natal eye-wash. McNutt joined Burton Woolery post, Bloomington, Ind. Luncheon clubs invited him to speak. He dropped the militaristic. He exercised his vocal powers. He swayed bored dry goods merchants wdth witticisms and logic. The McNutt home, near the campus, lived neighborly under the glow of the gracious, genteel hand of his bride of war days. She brought friends to him. They brought friends to her. He was closed in upon by the town’s legionnaires as a man “going places.” He always was going places swiftly when in the business district of the town. No small-town loitering over a cigar at a drugstore or gabfest with a courthouse hangar-on for the professor. Some took his hurry, his failure to see them, as “ritzing” in a day when it was called "uppish.” “Just something on his mind.” defended his legion and college friends. aaa ”T LIKED him in equities! He 1 taught me contracts! His subjects always were well prepared. He had copious notes. He had the practical court experience of the faculty,” was the verdict of his students. The “flu” walked with him in the war, but it never bothered him. In February, 1920, the plague that made white-masked bandits of a warring nation scourged him. His weight dropped from 205 to 18) pounds. Clothes hung on him. One year later Louise, their only child, was born to parents who are “only children.” “She never can have any aunts, uncles or cousins,” muses Mrs. McNutt in the gubernatorial mansion. The Bloomington lgion past, set him in the commander's chair. They rallied around him. White

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Iff Ilifp I 1 figures in the veterans organiza- a a a tion sized him up - 'T'HE night before the balloting, ffjpjp fj| “ B i San Antonio papers bannered Jpljrf v 'i. jfcißpll il> * departmental tacticians, and trot The ruse, engineered by opW | WWs- M " % am Hn jragjp him out the next Year posing candidates, flustered the ? W'im A ' They hadn’t counted on McNutt. Indiana delegation's favorite son ||^ rfrf h ' S ar,ni 10 those boom m hundreds of a ,I V -. V . k ,-., r him J s Nutt says in recounting the in-

Upper Left—Governor Paul V. McNutt, in his Legion days, leading a parade in Boston. Upper Center—The parade at San Antonio, at the 1928 convention shortly before McNutt was elected national commander. Indiana's legionnaires can be seen at the head of the procession.

hairs streaked and fringed his sideburns. o n n THE post's boom started. Each of the ninety members was held responsible for a list of war veterans. Each had to sell Legion to as many on his list as humanely possible. The campaign grew. One hundred, 200, 300, and on until 500 were on the rolls. The American Legion weekly carried stories of the feat. Legion politicians in Indiana visited Bloomington, heard the deft speeches of the Bloomington commander, were charmed by his manner, ability, co-ordination of work and membership. “Fireworks—and about to ex-

•This Man McNutt —.Vo. 4-

Upper Right—Legion Commander McNutt receiving congratulations of the man he succeeded, Edward E. Spafford, shortly after the balloting ended. Lower—Commander McNutt being sworn in as chief of a tribe of Pueblo Indians, following his triumph at the Texas convention.

plode.” was the frank comment of one legionnaire who knew McNutt in those days. More dinner engagements, a widening of his range of friends, more speeches, train jumps to make classes at the law school after a Rotary luncheon, nights poring over lecture notes, romps with Louise, evenings at home with the biographies of great men, and the smoothing of the ripples with the calm, cheery smile of Mrs. McNutt. a if it THE W'hite hair grew. So did the man. Then checkmate! Suffering came to live in the McNutt home for a child. Four years old she was that day that nurses and doctors placed Louise cn a board in bed. Tuberculosis of the spine ravaged her. Hope for her recovery ranged up and down with her fever. A mother guarded, watched over. A special nurse supervised. A professor of law worried, was snappish perhaps, at a facetious collegian’s class remark. McNutt had plans to complete his work for a doctor’s degree at Harvard. Mrs. McNutt's mother died. McNutt gave up thoughts of a degree with, “We’ll make a home for you, dad. and your mother,” in talk with the man who gave him a daughter's hand during those war days at San ’Tone. it it a HE w’as offered the deanship of the Indiana law school, due to a resignation. He accepted. Critics later wdiispered that he'd sought the job. His friends answer. “He turned it dowm several times before he accepted.” Graduation speeches, long trips to give addresses, swift jumps .back to the law lectures, to a day or so at home smoothing the brow of his bedfast Louise as she admired a dolly he’d brought her. The law school enrollment jumped from 117 the year he became dean —1925 to 165 when he left it to become Governor in 1932. “But he spends most of his time making speeches on university time,” complained the carpers. “And he taught five hours a w’eek while other professors were teaching seven in addition to handling the administration w’ork. “He advertises the university. He's giving it prestige. He's built the faculty. He's made Indiana's law school recognized,” retort his friends. ana And the record is that no matter where McNutt went to make a speech—be it Sioux Falls or Oshkosh—he always was back on time for his class or he made up the lost hour if detained unavoidably. Believing heart and soul in the motives of the American Legion,

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he was hurried to the forefront in the state department. . State commander was his in 1927. H? duplicated his membership organization feat in the Bloomington post, by increasing the state's department from 18,000 to 25,000. Legionnaires clase to national headquarters in Indianapolis

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called him into conference. A coterie of state men—some of the same men who now' hold offices of distinction in the statehouse — gathered about him. “National commander” rang the word down to the rank-and-file. The noise thundered. National figures in the veterans organization sized him up. aaa “WJ' E'LL let them look him VY over at the 1928 convention in San Antonio,” explained departmental tacticians, and trot him out the next year.” They hadn't counted on McNutt, his actor ability to sw’a.v those he addressed- or the poise and surety of fact backed by hundreds upon hundreds of after-dinner speeches. They didn't hear the man talking to an old friend of his first Legion days. Dr. O. T. Turflinger, past commander of the Bloomington post, shortly before he boarded a train with Mrs. McNutt for the Texas jamboree. "Turf, if I can talk to all the caucuses, I've got a chance. I'm not afraid of myself,” he told the chiropractor and now state license bureau head for Monroe county. San Antonio gay with banner... Welcome. Legionnaire, East With a Buddy... hawkers... hotel crap games.. .overworked bellhops w'ith •'ce pitchers and ginger ale “splits” ... Get a souvenir whip... cowgirls riding in a rodeo.. .bulldoggers... bull throwers telling about “over there”...sightseeing tours... aaa AND the McNutts stepped off of a sleeping-car into the town that had given them each other back in 1918, given them tears sometimes, a sweet little girl w'ho was battling successfully to w'alk again like other children, laughs, too, and hopes. It w'as a second honeymoon for Mrs. McNutt, but mostly it w'as to just mother the man she calls “Paul” in defeat that she went with him. “I thought it was pathetic the idea, that he could be legion commander. I wanted to be there to comfort him in his defeat—his hardest battle, I didn't believe he

could do it,” she says as she sits in a straight-backed chair in the Governor’s mansion and talks in smooth purling syllables. Few women fit straight-backed | chairs. It needs queenliness. She fits them just as she fitted in the picture at San Antonio that day. aaa THE night before the balloting, San Antonio papers bannered stories telling of the withdrawal of McNutt from the commandership race. The ruse, engineered by op- j posing candidates, flustered the j Indiana delegation's favorite son : boom. “But, w r hy worry, we're not try- j ing to win w'ith him this year?” | they joked it off. McNutt squared for action, j He called in a few trusted men. Ohio was for him, Michigan , would slide his way. "Now let me talk personally to ! as many state caucuses as I can. i Line them up,” he ordered. The way was Smoothed. He went from hotel room to hotel room. He impressed here, got a pledge there of ballots and moved to other states. All night he battled. In the morning, weary, he returned to the hotel room and a wife who waited with coffee for him. “Well, honey, don't worry I’m going to be the next Legion commander,” he told his wife. “I was bowled over,” Mrs. McNutt says in recounting the incident. aaa CONVENTION day dawned. The election was the order of the day. Frank M. McHale, one of the closest friends of the Governor today, made the nominating speech. The first ballot showed the vote divided, with General Hoffman of Oklahoma as McNutt’s chief threat. The Indiana forces held their fire on the second ballot. They shot the works on the third ballot. States clambered aboard the McNutt bandwagon.. State signs waved. Legionnaires rushed to auditorium platform

surrounding the new commander. The din was terrific. Indiana men were so excited that they forgot the room numbers of their hotel. And. as a customery finale, the election turned into a general rough-house of stripping insignia and signs from the convention floor for souvenirs. In a hotel room a few blocks

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away, a wife might have bpen seen looking down at a wedding ring that was put there ten years ago in that same town bv the man who had given her her greatest thrill in anew title of National Legion Commander Paul V. McNutt. (Next—McNutt, the Globe-Trotter).