Spouse

John Wesley Langley, beloved soak, bleary-eyed disciple of Sir John Falstaff,/- was ten times elected Congressman from Kentucky by bone-dry, Fundamentalist, Republican mountaineers. His tongue knew well the golden mellowness of old Kentucky "corn," his hand had felt the frost of tall mint juleps, but he remained faithful, legislatively, to the arid principles of his constituents. He had been arrested for intoxication in both Pikeville, Ky., and Washington, D. C., but Congressmen continued to admire his genial philosophy, his legal knowledge. He is now serving a two-year term in the Atlanta penitentiary for conspiracy to violate the prohibition law, but he was made editor of Good Words, a monthly magazine published "with the approval of the Department of Justice for the encouragement and educational advancement of the prisoners."

Last week, sunbeams crept softly through the penitentiary bars, glistened on tears of joy in the eyes of Mr. Langley, who was composing a telegram to his darling, Spouse Langley. His words flowed like a dream in the Vale of Tempe: "I am supremely happy. Even these grey prison walls seem to shine with the lustre of our beloved Cumberland and Blue Ridge. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. May He bless and keep always the good men and women and all our children of the Kentucky Mountains. My love and greetings to the first Congresswoman of the old commonwealth." There was joy in the Langley home in Pikeville. A wide-eyed, little girl and a strapping, handsome-though-freckled lad in his teens kissed their mother as she read the telegram. Mrs. Langley had reason to be proud. She had won the Republican Congressional primary, has no opposition for election to the seat lost when her hus band resigned. She told the press: "While I did not base my campaign on vindication and sympathy -- that was proved two years ago by the re-election of Mr. Langley -- at the same time I feel that it is a vindication of us. I based my campaign on my own fitness for office."

Mrs. Langley, a vigorous woman in her forties, with rather pretty features, abundant jet black hair, will be no commonplace figure in the House of Representatives. Her large, heavily-veined hands show that she has worked hard, that she has worried.

In the House are two other Congresswomen, elected to succeed their husbands: Florence P. Kahn of San Francisco, Calif., spouse of the late famed statesman Julius Kahn; Edith Nourse Rogers of Lowell, Mass., spouse of the late John Jacob Rogers, potent shoe manufacturer.

/- Famed sack-consuming philosopher and companion of Prince Hal, he was later ousted from England, migrated to Germany. His descendants changed the family name to Folstadt, then to Volstadt. Most of the Volstadts were hearty beer drinkers, but not so the youngest son who felt the lure of the prairies of the New World. On arrival in the U. S. he changed his name to the simpler Volstead, little knowing that one of his progeny (Andrew by name) would some day put Volstead on the lips of teeming millions. (U. S. folk lore.)