Earnest Willie

Gentlemen visiting the House of Representatives' Chamber in the Capitol often used to point out a striking, little cripple on crutches, his hair awry, his lips compressed. Obviously, he wanted to talk. Gentlemen would turn to their guide, say curiously, "Who is that man?" And their guide, if well informed, would perhaps answer thus: "Well, he has a name--William David Upshaw--but is commonly known as 'Earnest Willie.' He comes from the Bible-loving, liquor-hating region of Georgia, and like most cripples who do not become incurably bitter, he is an incurable romantic. When he was 18, he fell from a load of wood, hurt his back, remained for seven years in a bed constructed upon four tree trunks coming up through his house because vibration caused him agony. That was 42 years ago."

Courageous, chivalrous, when he ran for the first of his three Congressional terms seven years ago he talked from a wheel chair, said of his opponent: "No knightlier spirit than Edgar Watkins ever went to worthy combat or shivered lance at Camelot or Stirling." Himself lost in Camelot's misty lore, Knight Upshaw may often think in terms of questing a Holy Grail.

If so, the grail for him is a wineglass, empty, upside down. He speaks for Prohibition (sometimes at $100 a speech from the Anti-Saloon League) fanatically,* beautifully,*interminably.*

He advocates such extremely malignant Prohibition policies as imprisonment of all men who take a drink. But he is colorful, sincere. . . .

His career is, at least temporarily, checked. Last week, Georgians became politically active, held a primary--Democratic, of course. Mr. Upshaw lost the deciding county of his district by 24 votes to one Leslie J. Steele.

Vexed, chagrined Congressman Upshaw announced: "Private investigations have revealed that there is indisputable evidence of more than $100,000 of vote money having been sent into this district to defeat me. . . ."

* A specimen of Upshavian verbiage: "But, my colleagues, friends, and comrades of a sacred fellowship, and fathers, most of you, of sons and daughters who are to be your crown and joy or your voiceless despair, I summon you to the comradeship of helping to make Washington safer for our homes here and the homes of the Nation everywhere. I do this for the sake of making the most beautiful flag in all the world 'a stainless flag' before the eyes of all the world. I do this for the sake of the Constitution. ... I do it for the sake of the ideals that must control your own children, who are dearer to you than the ruddy drops that gather in your hearts. I do this for the sake of my own little daughters and the homes they are to make some day, perhaps for some of your misguided sons. ... I hold aloft this picture dream of my own girlies and declare: 'These are my jewels.' And these are my reasons, my radiant, priceless reasons, for making no compromise before the angels of heaven or the demons of hell with the poisoned enemies of our homes, our churches, our schools, and our threatened civilization. . . ."