Story-Telling Statesmen from Arkansas - Page 3

Article that reviews Brooks Hays' career in The Linkin a platform statement that restored unity to the Democratic Party that had been divided by a Dixiecrat split four years before. Brooks Hays has been in some phase of government since his twenty-third birthday. He was a student at George Washington University Law School then (after having graduated from University of Arkansas) and took a part-time job in the Treasury Department. "I counted twenty dollar bills all week long, and on Saturday they'd let me take one home," he quips. He served sixteen years in Congress, as Democratic representative from Arkansas. He has been a director of the Tennessee Valley Authority, a member of the U.S. delegation at the United Nations, an Assistant Secretary of State, and Special Assistant to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Right now he's on part-time leave from the White House, commuting to New Brunswick, New Jersey, to lecture on politics in the Eagleton Institute of Rutgers University. President Johnson reluctantly agreed to the division of his time so that Hays —in the President's words—"might share with students his lifetime experiences as a Christian in public service." The President was referring to the Hays characteristic all Washington has come to respect through the years—the Arkansan is first of all a religious man and church leader. The ten million member Southern Baptist Convention took note of his spiritual depth and leadership ability by twice electing him to its presidency. He is one of six laymen to fill the president's office in 120 years of Southern Baptist history. "As a boy I debated whether I should go into politics or the ministry," Hays recounts with a twinkle. "The church won and I went into politics." Actually he has masterfully combined the two in his philosophy that "the world is a Christian's workshop." He first campaigned for public office at the age of twenty-nine, when he ran for governor of Arkansas. "The boy scout candidate," his opponents called him. He was twice defeated for governor and once for congress before winning his congressional seat in 1942. Even in those early campaigns his humor was winning friends. At one rally an enthusiastic supporter introduced him as a man who did not smoke, drink, or cuss. Hays interrupted his friend, "You've just alienated my three biggest blocks of voters. All I have left now are the snuff-dippers." And once when a heckler asked him, "Tell us, Brooks, who wrote your new book?" Hays quelched him with, "I'll be happy to answer that question, friend, when you tell us who read it to you." Hays has persistently pushed legislation to provide increased opportunities for underprivileged and harassed citizens. He saw their plight when he worked for the National Recovery Administration in the 1930's ("I knew the depression was over when I saw a chicken cross the road without somebody chasing it," he mused). He also wrote and pushed 2