Epistles from Pap: Letters from the man known as 'The Will Rogers of Indiana'

by Andrew Everett Durham

OF QUESTIONABLE REPUTE

November 5, 1949
Hon. Claud Bowers
U.S. Minister to Chile
Santiago, Chile

My dear Ambassador: This is a voice from the long, long ago. It must have been about 1904 you were a candidate for Congress against old man Holiday. I was just out of college. During the campaign you made some very forceful and logical speeches backed by excellent oratory. I attended and was fascinated—got the political bug. I am not quite sure I got in on what we called the "Week's County Drive" of your campaign, where the "small fry" in the last cars of the cavalcade ate miles and miles of gravel and road dust kicked up by the cars on ahead. If not, then I sure got in on them later.

My daughter, Aura May Durham, and I hope to arrive in Santiago, December 20, 1949, during a rather extended trip into South America. I am enclosing a copy of our alleged itinerary. We are having considerable—very considerable—trouble arranging for some six visas, or their equivalents. But we expect to arrive on schedule if humanly possible, provided I retain my heretofore good health and reasonably fair mental facilities. I have been vaccinated and "shot" for about everything except treason, but my lack of a criminal record is universally questioned south of the Equator. Our local Chief of Police has, for the past four weeks, valiantly signed varying documents denying varying insinuations I have a criminal record and . . . our local banker has spent long nights compiling "letters of commendations and responsibility" that would tend to meet the requirements. . .

All this and much more has gotten me to where I am. It is too much for a small-town Hoosier lawyer to stand—and a Democrat to boot. And so, if on or about December 20th, you see a rather sprightly young woman leading a doddering old man in his upper 60's into the lobby of the Carrera Hotel, then charitably reflect, "it was not always so with him."

Naturally, I would be immensely pleased to see you.

Yours, for more respect and credibility South of the Border for small-town Hoosier Democrats, Andrew E. Durham