March 3, 1934
THE
i T A T E
LEGISLATIVE
PERSONALITIES
HAD President Roosevelt known
Mrs. Lily Morehcad Me bn no, of
Spray, as well as many of the
mem tiers of the last two sessions of the
State House of Representatives knew
her, I honestly believe he would have
named her as the United States Min¬
ister to Sweden, a position for which
she was recommended by the 19:1. 'I Gen¬
eral Assembly.
Mrs. Mebane, only woman member
of the House in the last two sessions,
would have been no stranger in the
European capitals. She has walked
and talked with at least one of the
crowned heads in Europe and today
unless I am mistaken there is still a
strong tie of friendship between her
and her good friend, former Queen
Marie of Roumania.
Hobnobbing with queens and others
of the so-ealled ruling class of this and
other nations has not served to make
of Mrs. Mebane a woman who keeps
her head tilted in such fashion as to
prevent her from seeing, sympathizing
and helping those who frequently find
it diflicult to keep the big, bad wolf
from parking on tbeir very doorsteps.
-Mrs. Mebane is not a politician. She
never will be, I venture to assert, in
the sense that we in North Carolina
sometimes think of the type that seems
to be ever striving to reach an objec¬
tive with apparently little regard for
those who may be trampled in their
Sherman-like march. She is too kind
and humane to be like that, ami 1 am
quite convinced she would lie most un¬
happy were she to be innoculntcd with
that kind of a political germ.
Having observed Mrs. Mel wine quite
closely in the two terms she has l>ocn
in the House, I believe she is practical¬
ly incapable of the guile I have seen
exhibited by certain legislators from
time to time. True, she is a politician,
but she belongs to that class of poli¬
ticians who really try to help others
before they try to help themselves.
Duty is a big word to this woman,
the widow of B. Frank Mebane, an in¬
dustrialist of wide renown in Pied¬
mont North Carolina. I have seen her
east votes that appeared to cause her
considerable mental anguish, hut T be¬
lieve she east them with the thought
of others more uppermost in her mind
than she did with the thought of what
might happen to her in voting ns she
did.
MRS. MEBANE, OF SPRAY, N. C
- ★ -
The sales tax question troubled her
mori‘ perhaps than anyone other than
herself will ever know. On the one
hand she had been told the sales tax
meant the salvation of the public
schools and on the other she had been
told by her constituents, a vast ma¬
jority of whom are of the industrial
type, that enactment of such legisla¬
tion would work a hardship upon them.
Unless I am mistaken she has voted
against and for the sales tax, hut I
will always believe she voted as she did
only after considerable debate with
herself.
As chairman of the House’s Public
Welfare Committee for the past two
sessions, Mrs. Mebane was active in the
promotion of welfare measures de¬
signed to help others.
During the 1999 session the measure
providing for the setting up of a board
known as the State Board of Cosme¬
tologists to pass on the ability of those
operating and working in beauty par¬
lors had been kicked about from pillar
to post and as the result of the rather
overly-advertised “cosmetologists par¬
ty" the hill looked as though it would
never pass. There had been much said
in the papers and in the hotel lobbies
about that party and many legislators
undoubtedly felt that to champion the
measure meant political death.
No. 21
Mrs. Lily .Morcli«‘:i«l Mt-hniu-
By
Wade II. Lucas
The measure finally was reached oil
the House calendar lute in tin- Mssion
and it looked like it would
!«•
passed
up again as it had been held up a iiuiii-
lier of times before, but Mrs, Mebaue
stepped in and virtually demanded that
action
1ю
taken. And action was taken
after she had championed the cause of
the measure to regulate those who prac¬
tice the cosmetic arts in the State.
Reputidly wealthy, Mrs. Mebane
proved to Ih< a good mixer. She never
high-halted Other members of the
House and she never said things in her
comparatively few Speeches on the Moor
to anger other members. She* apparent¬
ly sought to learn as much as she could
of the intricate ways by which legis¬
lation is fashioned in the historic halls
of the General Assembly.
Time and again she has stood I
к
•I. C. “Blind" Johnson, the blind and
white-haired doorkeeper «if the House,
and led the singing «if old-time hymns
in the rotunda bofor<“ sessions of the
House were called to order. Nows that
she is running for election to the Stale
Senutc this year has served to sadden
Mr. Johnson, a newsdealer here, who
says he is afraid she will not he able
t«i help him lead the singing very much
in the 1935 session.
Mrs. Mebane seemed to get a pecul¬
iar pleasure out of raising her voice in
those rotunda song sessions. And sing¬
ing with her and other legislators
seemed to give “Blind” Johnson much
enjoyment in the world of darkness in
which he lives.
.Never inclined to lx* «if the type of
legislator on parade f«ir all to see and
talk about, Mrs. Mebane is rather un¬
ostentatious. I rather think she has
done many things few people know
about in making the loail lighter for
others.
During the 1931 session a father and
soil met their death in a coal mine
tragedy at Oumnock in Lee County.
The Raleigh paper that employs me
started a fund for the relief «if the
mother and seven orphaned children of
that miner.
To that filial Mrs. Mebane gave lib¬
erally. hut with the request that noth¬
ing he said in the pa|x-r about it. In
telling about it now I liojx* Mrs. Meb¬
ane will forgive me 1 icon use 1 think
the State should know about it even
at this late date.
