WET, DRY OR MOIST?
Greencastle, Indiana
April 11, 1932
Mr. James G. Smith
Alamo, Indiana
My dear Mr. Smith: I have your inquiry about Court Gillen, and I shall answer to the best of my ability . . . . He is a man of ability, a lawyer, a decent man and surely is entitled to another chance in Congress. . . I do not know that he is particularly dry. I do not know that he is particularly wet. . . He may be a trifle moist, and he may not be. He has never been known as a radical on anything, within my knowledge. I have heard some criticism against him on his so-called dry vote, but I have also heard that anyone with any sense, under the same circumstance, would have voted exactly as he did.
For that matter, he will not be beaten by the "lady candidate". If my information is correct, she got into this race simply and solely on account of the one vote Gillen made on the Prohibition question. . . Now, if that is the case, she might be characterized as a radical "wet", obsessed on that one question, and forgetful and more or less incompetent on everything else. And I am saying to you right here and now that there are other important questions pending except "wet" and "dry". . .
You know, it is a very easy thing to sit or stand around and "cuss" those in a legislative body for what they did or did not do. . . If everybody had all the information, and had given a question the same study and attention as the one who did the voting, there would be less criticism than there is. . .
Let me illustrate how these things go. I was nominated as Representative from Putnam County in 1912. I was young and inexperienced. A day or two after my nomination, Colonel Matson, who had been in Congress for years, and was a lawyer here at the time and almost retired, gave me some advice: "Find out where the coat racks are, where your seat is, and when the Legislature assembles take your seat and keep still. There will be times when you will think that you have the exact solution for whatever is being debated. When you feel this coming on you, get up and get your hat and walk around the State House, then come back and sit down and keep still. If you will do that, they will not find out how ignorant you are. . . I don't want to hear of you taking any part in the debates your whole first term, I don't want you to introduce any bills. I just want you to be on the job every day and every hour, and attend your Committees, and above all else, keep still."
I followed that advice, I think absolutely, or nearly so.
But there was another side to the matter. . . After the Session was over, I met a farmer friend who had worked hard for me, and I asked him if he were pleased with the way I had conducted myself. He was not. He said: "I thought if we sent a mouthy young lawyer to the Legislature, he would get some laws through, and we would hear from him, and he'd be up there doing something. I never saw where you even made a speech."
Time went on. I served in 1915. Then I went to the Senate in 1917 from Montgomery and Putnam, and again in 1923. Some time shortly after either the 1925 or 1927 Session, I met this man on the streets here in Greencastle. He came up to me beaming, and said: "I'll take it all back. You are the best Senator we ever had. . . I can't pick up the papers without seeing your name strung all over it. . ."
People jump at conclusions, and sometimes they jump wrong unless they know all the circumstances. . . Cordially,