Milk & Thorns

Old John Nance Garner had sat for seven years on his Texas farm, stubbornly refusing to say a word about the past. He had even burned all his records (TIME, July 14). But in the long run he could not resist the temptation to join the long line of Franklin Roosevelt's old intimates in the writing of memoirs.* With Garner's blessing, Washington Correspondent Bascom N. Timmons, a crony of his Washington days, drew on his own notes and memory, started the ex-Vice President's story last week in Collier's. Some milk and thorns from Cactus Jack:

P: At the 1932 Democratic National Convention, just after Garner had handed Franklin Roosevelt his 101 delegates and assured his nomination, the late Will Rogers, who had stumped for Garner, came to Timmons and growled: "I've been neutral all my life . . . and the first time I come out for a man he throws his strength to a fellow with a Harvard accent. No good can come to a Texan who does a thing like that."

P: Garner thought that Henry Wallace, his successor as Vice President, had "crazy ideas" and that Henry Morgenthau "had no ideas at all." Garner wondered "by just what methods of sorcery one of such meager abilities remained in the high post of Secretary of the Treasury." Once Garner said: "Morgenthau is the most servile man toward Roosevelt. . . . In Cabinet meetings, he looks like he is afraid someone will ask him a question and he will give an answer that will displease Roosevelt."* Garner tried to joke with Morgenthau, gave it up "because he had no sense of humor." Then he amended the phrase; he thought perhaps it was "exactly two words too long."

P: Terrible-tempered Harold Ickes gave salty-tongued Jack Garner none of his sass. Related Garner: "I don't ever recall having had a conversation with Ickes. We just speak or nod. We don't seem to hit it off."

P: One of Garner's earliest differences with F.D.R. was over U.S. recognition of Russia--"a regime which refuses to acknowledge the sanctity of international obligations." When Russia walked into Poland in 1939, Garner took an I-told-you-so attitude. He said to the President: "You haven't much choice, Cap'n. Either Hitler or Stalin would conquer the world. Hitler by force, and Stalin by chicanery, corruption, treachery and undermining."

P: Of his relations with Roosevelt he said: "Even when the going was toughest I determined not to have a rupture with the President. . . . Sometimes you could persuade him. He was a charming fellow. . . . But he was a hard man to have an understanding with. He would deviate from the understanding."

* Notably: James A. Farley (TIME, June 23), Henry Morgenthau Jr. (TIME, Sept. 29), James F. Byrnes (TIME, Oct. 20), Henry L. Stimson (TIME, Jan. 5), Cordell Hull (TIME, Jan. 12). * From Morgenthau's memoirs: "I remember John Garner turning to me one day in Cabinet meeting and saying, half jokingly, half not, 'Damn you old moneybags. Until you came along Mrs. Garner and I averaged 16% a year on our money, and now we can't get better than 5%.' "

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