Chair Talk, Back Talk

Chair Talk. To the editors of Liberty went a letter (published last week) from Senator Carter Glass, 70, of Virginia. It read: "There has been left on my desk a copy of Liberty, dated April 28, containing what purports to be an interview with me by Sidney Sutherland on the subject of the Fifteenth and Eighteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. I desire to warn you that the purported interview, almost from the beginning to the end of it, is inaccurate and largely fictitious. ... I have usually managed to think and talk as a gentleman should and to use the English language in a fairly measured way, whereas your Mr. Sutherland has put into quotations and ascribed to me his own crude thoughts and objectionable verbiage.

"This young man came into my sick bedroom at the Raleigh Hotel unannounced and sought to interview me on the subject of the Constitutional Amendments which he has made the basis of his article. I positively declined to talk to him for publication referring him to carefully prepared articles by me which completely reflected my views. Upon his insistence and purely for his own information, I consented to explain exactly why, in my opinion, there was no analogy between alleged violations of the suffrage amendments in the South and the actual violation of the Eighteenth Amendment and the Prohibition Act in all parts of the country. That was all; and nothing that I either thought or said could afford justification for the article which Mr. Sutherland wrote and which you published depicting me as a sectional ruffian, speaking harshly and intemperately of those whose views on the question involved differ from my own."

Naturally Writer Sidney Sutherland was haled before his editors for questioning. He swore several jagged, journalistic oaths at men unaware of what they say during interviews; then explained what happened. His employers believed him. Then came a bright thought. His report would make a good story. He wrote it.

Back Talk. "When I knocked on the [hotel] door, a somewhat impatient voice bade me enter. I found Senator Glass lying on top of his counterpane, angrily nursing a bandaged toe, his hair and his pillow and his pajama coat and the bedding discomposed as he tossed to and fro.

"I gave him my name and the purpose of my call. He motioned me to a chair near the foot of the bed, rumpled the pillow under his head, and exclaimed:

" 'I've expressed my opinion on this subject a hundred times. ... I don't want to talk about niggers or booze or Constitutional amendments or anything else. . . .'

"I confined my questioning to such decisions as affected the ballot-box fortunes of the Negro in Dixie, and in not one case did Senator Glass either (1) decline to comment; (2) ask me to treat anything he said as confidential; or (3) request me to tone down the fervent quality of his responses.

"But I did tone them down. First, because it would have been unfair to quote him verbatim while he was irritable as a result of the nature of the subject and peeved because of the confinement consequent upon his sore toe. . . ."

Reported Talk. Writer Sutherland's first printed (and toned down) version of this was: "I'll tell you something about the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments and how they came to be incorporated in the Constitution. The rabid Northern haters of everything in the South determined to crush our white civilization.

"On this ruin would have been erected an Ethiopian state, brutish, sex-inflamed, profligate, corrupt, composed of blacks not one per cent of whom could pretend to read, and dominated and controlled by white wretches beneath contempt. . . .

"The people of the original thirteen Southern States curse and deride and spit upon the Fifteenth Amendment--and have no intention of letting the Negro vote. . . .

"As to the Eighteenth Amendment and its nullification, I want to say now, that if the North can find some way to keep within the letter of the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead act and still get its booze, it's all right with me what it does with the spirit of the law. . . ."

Back & Forth Talk. After the early version appeared in print Writer Sutherland telephoned Senator Glass, and, according to Mr. Sutherland, the talk was: " 'Your article, sir, is false and libelous from beginning to end. You have made me out a sectional vulgarian and an ignorant ruffian. You have put your own ignorant thoughts and uncouth grammar into my mouth, when everybody that knows me, knows I never speak as you say I do, or voice my sentiments in any but the language of a gentleman.'

" 'But, my dear Senator,' I expostulated, 'did you say what I said you said, or did I--'

" 'It makes no difference what I said, sir!' he exclaimed. 'I say what I please whenever I please, but I say it as a gentleman and an educated man. You have, I repeat, sir, made me out a ruffian and a blackguard. Whereas, sir, you are merely a blackguard yourself. . . .'

" 'Hold it, Senator,' I said. 'Hold everything ! The thing for you to do, sir, is to write a letter to my publisher and express any sentiments you damn well feel like expressing. I don't know what kind of press representatives you are accustomed to dealing with, but I do know I'm about to hang up on you, since it is evident we have nothing more to talk about.'

"But the Virginia statesman beat me to it: he hung up first. I went on about my business, and when I returned to my hotel room later in the day I found that Senator Glass had phoned.

"I called up his apartment, and he spoke as follows:

" 'Young man, I still think your article is an injustice to me, and that it is wrong from beginning to end. But, sir, I could not sleep this night until I apologized for the epithet I employed this morning.'

" 'Senator Glass,' I laughed, 'you're an old darling, and I refuse to quarrel with you, so. . . .'

" 'Oh, well, all right, young man,' he rejoined, apparently mollified. 'Nevertheless, your article is all wrong. I am so writing your editor.'"