“I’m going and get acquainted,” he said and headed across the valley.
Most of Mono county is isolated by the High Sierras. Again the door to door technique. No torches. No brass bands. Just the old eye-to-eye-talk-it-over system. As always he let the voter do the talking and he listened, but when he slid into his car the voter was ready to tell his neighbor: “I like that fellow. Doesn’t claim to know it all.” He told his banker, his grocer, his butcher, baker, and barber.
Result? I was in the Senate Chamber at Sacramento later, when I heard one of a group of men huddled nearby say, “This is an important bill that concerns everybody on the east side of the Sierras. We’d better see Charlie.” I nudged the man reading a document at my side. “Those fellows want to see you, Senator.”
He had received the nomination of both the Democratic and Republican parties and had secured the passage of an act which denies a municipality holding more than 50 per cent of the property of another subdivision of the state, proprietary power over the security and stability of such subdivision. Moreover he was on the all-powerful Rules Committee, the Fish and Game, Local Government, Natural Resources, Social Welfare, and Election Committees, friend and frequent adviser of Governor Warren.
Honeymooning Secretary Ickes was combining business with pleasure when he reached California and wanting to see how his Park System was functioning, he took his bride to see Death Valley. Besides, he had some plans affecting the Inyo area.
The fight was having tough sledding in the legislature despite President Roosevelt’s approval. Then he talked to people less biased. “You’d better see Charlie....”
“Who the hell’s Charlie?” asked Harold.
“Senator from Death Valley....”
With Ray Goodwin, Superintendent of the Death Valley Monument to guide him, he was taken to all the show places. “Now,” said Mr. Ickes, “I want to see Brown.”
At Shoshone Charlie’s toggery is strictly for work which includes tending the gas pump, stove repairing, plumbing, and what-have-you. He was flat on his back under the dripping oil of a balky car when Mr. Goodwin stepped from the limousine.