Bayard Clan

In the State of Delaware there are two clans which are really potent. They fight occasionally, but usually they divide the political machinery of the state between them with a casual gesture. One clan, of course, is the famed Du Pont family whose industries make everything from dynamite to dainty ladies' hand-mirrors. To the Senate they have sent T. Coleman du Pont, Republican. The other tribe bears the name of Bayard. Many centuries ago, its forefathers sprang from the loins of Chevalier de Bayard, that knight sans peur et sans reproche. In the U.S. the Bayards have been in the Senate with surprising regularity since the days of Thomas Jefferson. Now there sits as the colleague of Senator du Pont, one Thomas F. Bayard,* Democrat.

Last week, Senator Bayard, in his role of Treasurer of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, decided that he was sick of Republican talk; so he ruffled his flowing, black silk necktie and emitted a broadside against President Coolidge. Said he: "The Republicans have been banking on Coolidge popularity but are now trying to sell the President personally to the country through a press agent--Bruce Barton--who is best known as the author of the book The Man Nobody Knows. This is simply an effort to draw red herring across the trail of the dismal record of the complete failure of the so-called 'Presidential program.'"

And in their graves, four onetime Bayard Senators must have chuckled proudly, said: "Nice work, Tom--you have that old Bayard fight in you." The four/- dead had once been fighters: 1) James Asheton Bayard, Senator (1805-13), battled for the election of Thomas Jefferson against Aaron Burr. 2) Richard Henry Bayard was first mayor of Wilmington, Del., Senator (1836-45), Chief Justice of Delaware Supreme Court.

3) James Asheton Bayard II, Senator (1851-64), resigned his office on being required to take an "iron clad oath" of allegiance to the Government. He was later reappointed to the Senate and served until 1869.

4) Thomas Francis Bayard, father of the present Senator, was the greatest of all the clan. In 1861 he made a speech which is said 'to have kept Delaware from seceding from Union. He was a Senator (1869-85), a Secretary of State and first U. S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's.

*Senator Bayard's wife is a daughter of the late Dr. Alexis I. du Pont and a cousin of Senator T. Coleman du Pont.

/-The present Senator Bayard also had a great-great-grandfather, Richard Basset't, who was a Senator (1789-93) and a Governor of Delaware.