State

November 11, 1933 THE STATE Page Seven FRANK PAGE WAS ONE MAN WHO OPENLY DEFIED Col. A. D. W atts PAGE refused to mix politics with road building. . . . How the senate redistricting bill was drafted. . . . Some hitherto unpublished details of the raid which brought to a close Colonel Wotts' public career. By BEN DIXON MacNEILL THIS is the second ond concluding installment of a most interesting character analysis of Col. A. D. Watts. Mr. MacNeill was inti¬ mately acquainted with the Col¬ onel and you will find his article this week even more interesting than the first one— dealing with the same subject— which appeared in last week's issue. ★ THERE was not before him, and there is not now. a man of any semblance of the power that Watts wielded in North Carolina. Except for the mis-step in the 1920 Supreme court contest, lie made no blunders. Many have wondered at the hidden spring of his power. I don't know where it lay, unless, possibly, in its utter unselfishness. He was un¬ selfish. He did nothing for the ad¬ vancement of his own interests, lie was always poor, lie went, in 1913, to Simmons and asked for a job be¬ cause he was in need. Wilson made him Collector for the Eastern District. That was all he asked for. I know that in the course of his campaigning he collected uncounted thousands of dollars for the furtherance of the am¬ bitions of some man upon whom Sim¬ mons had placed the henison of the party's head. But with all that has been said in villification of him, 1 have heard no man say that Watts ever applied a dime of these moneys to his own uses. It is, of course, a matter of fact, if not of record, that when he was sum¬ moned to battle for Simmons' choice for Governor in 1920, it was necessary to raise $2,500 to straighten out Watts’ gambling debts in Charlotte, lie was hard pressed for money, and had turned to poker in desperation, lie had also been drunk for several weeks. With that debt lifted, lie was immedi¬ ately sober, and no liquor passed his lips for long months. The party need¬ ed him. And it had him. If Watts is to be villified for his acts, 1 think any equit¬ able evaluation of him ought to dis¬ tribute the guilt. A word from Sim¬ mons would have stayed Watts’ hand in any manipulation that ever engaged him. 1 don’t suppose that Simmons was always personally aware of what his chief servant was up to, but he knew Watts. So did they all know him. Prompted by no Selfish Motives But I have not set up as his de¬ fender. I have no alibi for anything that lie ever did. He was, admittedly, politically ruthless and privately de¬ plorably wide of the mark of the best thought of moral practices. If there is need of palliation, it will have to lie found in the unquestioned fact that in his public or |mlitical service lie was without selfish interest or motive but the doer of the will of his accepted masters and that in his private depar¬ tures from the norm of respectability, lie debauched none save himself. And I think there can be no dissent from the statement that no master ever had an abler servant. He would have made n magnificent general in the army of Attilla. or of Genghis Kahn. His notion of battle was the utter destruction of the enemy. Very vividly do I recall a night during a session of the General Assembly when word had gone out that in order to rectify party lines in the Senate it would be necessary to redistrict the State. There had been a ileal of talk about a hill, hut none hail been writ¬ ten. The idea was to so re-arrange district lines as to wipe out all repub¬ lican meniliers of the Senate. The House was in night session. The Colonel stalked into the hall and looked about. He lieckoned and asked if there was a stenographer anywhere about. There was none. He said he wanted to write a bill redistricting the State for the Senate. Only aim¬ less debate was claiming my attention and I offered my services. I foolish¬ ly asked him if he had it mapped out on paper and he disdainfully said that he had nothing on paper, but for me to sit down there and write what he told me. Without an instant’s hesi¬ tation over any district, the Colonel dictated and I wrote the senatorial districting bill 09 it now stands on the statute l>ooks. He had no note of any sort from which to work. For its purpose, there is not a more admirably contrived law anywhere. Its purpose was- to remove republicans from the Senate. It does. People Really Feared Him I have wondered a lot what would have happened if there had l>eon any frequent defiance raised against Colo¬ nel Watts, how he would have met it. what he would have done with open opposition. It chanced that I was present and listening on the one oc¬ casion that brought him open, undis¬ guised and unequivocal denial of any¬ thing that he demanded. People feared him. without ever daring to find out what he would do if he were opposed. It was May. 1921. The General As¬ sembly had appropriated fifty millions for roads, and bad provided for the reorganization of the Highway Com¬ mission with Frank Page as head of it. It looked, then, like a picnic for politicians. Г had looknl forward secretly to the time when the picnic would start, and with n right definite notion of what would happen, being tlien ami now of the opinion that in Frank Page the State had found the ablest man that has been in its service in this generation. Many must remember that day of organization. Raleigh was inundated with job-seekers and others wlm ox- |*ceted to profit by the basing of fifty niillion dollars. Tt was evening of the second day before anybody had a chance at Mr. Page. He had asked me to dinner with hint on condition that if I mentioned the subject of roads that he would kick me out of the din¬ ing room. The Colonel was waiting in the Yarborough lobby. He had been waiting two days. He accosted Page, and sought to draw him aside