THE CONGRESS: Voice of the 84th

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A Scotch Verdict. George's dogged adherence to the middle of the road has sometimes caused him trouble. The New Deal regarded him as the darkest sort of reactionary (just as some reactionaries suspected him of being a New Dealer). During the first six years of the Roosevelt Administration, George voted with the New Deal some 60% of the time, supporting NRA (reluctantly), AAA (even more reluctantly), the invalidation of the gold clause, the Wagner Labor Relations Act, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Social Security and TVA. But he fought the New Deal on the wage-hour bill, the Wagner housing bill, and the Roosevelt plan to pack the Supreme Court. The late Pundit Raymond Clapper summed up the New Deal quandary: "I don't consider Mr. George a New Dealer. Yet, when I try to diagram the proof out of the record, I can't do it. You have to give Mr. George a Scotch verdict—guilty, but not proven."

Franklin Roosevelt, unforgiving of George's leadership in defeating the court-packing plan, thought he could diagram the man from Georgia as a reactionary. On Aug. 11, 1938 Roosevelt went to Barnesville, Ga., spoke as the "adopted son" of "my other state," and laid his prestige squarely on the line against George in a three-cornered race for Senator. His message: Senator George, having listened too closely to the "dictatorship of the small minority of individuals and corporations" who opposed the New Deal, should be denied renomination; Candidate Eugene Talmadge, as a "demagogue," should be defeated; Candidate Lawrence Camp, as a New Dealing U.S. district attorney, should be nominated. While F.D.R. spoke, Walter George sat behind him on the platform, listening gravely. When the President turned to sit down, George arose, walked over, shook F.D.R.'s hand and said: "I want you to know that I accept the challenge." Replied Roosevelt: "God bless you, Walter. Let's always be friends."

Four days later, George opened his campaign. At Waycross, a railroad town near the steaming swamp country, George spoke to 1,500 white-shirted Georgians. He was nearly blind from cataracts (later removed), the sweat poured from his forehead, the red rose in his lapel wilted in the 100° heat, and the tears streamed down his cheeks. His voice choked, and he had to pause as he answered Roosevelt's charge that he was a pawn of big business. Cried he: "I was born in south Georgia, the son of a tenant farmer. I have known how it feels to want things that I cannot have. Back there in the days when as a boy I plowed the white soil . . ."

He beat Talmadge soundly; F.D.R.'s man, Camp, ran a poor third.