State

May 5, 1934 THE STATE Page Nineteen LEGISLATIVE PERSONALITIES IT was just about three years ago this week that Josephus Daniels and O. .1. Peterson were applying the editorial lash to Wilkins Perryman Horton, then serving as the senator from Chatham, but in spite of perhaps the most scorching and vitrolic criticism heaped upon any member of the North Carolina General Assembly in a gen¬ eration or more the reddish-haired sen¬ ator from Chatham never budged an inch from the stand he had taken. The saga of Wilkins Perryman Hor¬ ton is one I have longed to write in this series of personalities in the four ses¬ sions 1 have looked upon in the state legislative mills as they ground out various and sundry legislation designed to make you and me do thus and so. It was on the sales tax question that Editors Peterson and Daniels split with Senator Horton in the 1931 sc.ssion, and had they been able to swerve the Chat¬ ham Senator from the position he had taken against the sales tax in those April and May days of three years ago there is every reason to believe that a sales tax would have been placed upon the statute books two years earlier than such a law was written into the books. Senator Horton and Senator John W. Hinsdale, of Wake, were the mem¬ bers from the Thirteenth Senatorial District composed of Wake, Chatham and Lee counties. Senator Hinsdale concocted what he termed a selected commodities tax, but which others termed a “luxury tax,” as it was de¬ signed to tax cigarettes, chewing to¬ bacco, snuff, cosmetics, candies and so on and so forth. Editor Daniels, who was pounding Republicans and anti¬ sales tax members of the 1931 session, and Editor Peterson, then conceiving editorials for the paper he was publish¬ ing in Pittslioro, fell deeply in love with the Hinsdale tax plan and called upon Senator Horton to support it. But the Chatham senator, who re¬ vealed he was more tenacious than a group of bulldogs, could not see such a tax and held that it was unfair to tax some of the people and let the others go tax free. Personal appeals were made by the two veteran editors to the reddish-haired Chatham senator to take a stand for the selected commodities tax. The ap¬ peals turned to indirect threats of what would happen to him politically unless W. P. HORTON of Chotham - ★ - lie left the forces sup]K»rting (). Max Gardner, then Governor, who had termed the Hinsdale tax plan “a tax upon poverty.” Like Leo before Rich¬ mond, Senator Horton held out. The two editors loaded both barrels of their editorial guns, trained them upon Senator Horton and let go full blast. Under such fire 1 should think an ordinary legislator would get weak in the knees and quickly run up the white flag, but the more the editors fired away at him the tighter the senator from Chatham held on to the standard he was following. The firing went on for days and days and the like of it had not been seen in Raleigh for years and years. Senator Horton refused to weaken despite the fact the editors as¬ sorted with considerable emphasis that “the majority” of the voters in Chatham preferred a sales tax t-» an ad valorem tax on land, but since the good people of Chatham were not polled that state¬ ment was debatable. Back and forth the sales tax fight raged in the Senate, which had gotten the luxury tax bill after the House had approved it under the orders of Beau¬ fort’s Mr. Angus Dhu MaeLean. The fight was so close that one vote meant everything. Along about the middle of May it looked as though the Hinsdale forces had won and the “luxury tax” bill had passed its second reading in the Senate, but over one week-end Senator No. 30 Wilkins Perryman Horton By Wade II. Lucas T. II. Hatchett, of Caswell, changed and defeated it on third reading by a margin of one vote. Even standing room in the Senate lobbies was at a premium as the crowds almost fought to get in to hear the sab- tax debates. Harsh words were ex¬ changed upon the floor. Senators shook their fists under the smelling apparatus of their follow members. Editor Dan¬ iels time and again would take a seat at the Semite press table almost within arm’s length of Senator Horton’s desk. The editor was at the press table the night that Senator John Folger. of Surry, arose to make a speech in defense of Senator Horton. That speech, I dare say, has not been equalled in state legis¬ lative halls since. So much for the 1931 session. I go into some detail only to try and show that a man with a weaker backbone than P. Horton’s would have been terribly frightened had such editorial guns as the ones Editors Daniels and Peterson trained upon him. I was intrigued to rend recently in Editor Peterson’s paper this tribute to Senator Horton: “He (Horton) may be counted upon to stick to his own opinion at any cost. I saw him fight for a Negro whom lie was appointed to defend clear up to the Supreme Court, though popular opinion was high against the Negro and there was no worth while foe." That. I think, describes W. P. Hor¬ ton, who is again before the Chatham voters this June asking their support in his candidacy for the 1935 Senate. If he is so fortunate as to return, the next Senate will have in it a man equipped with a strong backbone. Mr. Horton can take care of himself in rough and tumble debate. He is a vet¬ eran in the legislative halls ami be is a Democrat, who, as secretary to the State Democratic executive committee in 1930. helped elect Josiah W. Bailey to the Senate of the United States as well as return the “normal" Democratic majority in the General Assembly after the Waterloo of 192S. Senator Horton, who for the past two years has serve-1 as executive secretary of the North Carolina Truck Owners Association, a position to which he de¬ votes about two days each week, has served in three sessions of the State Senate. He first came to Raleigh as a senator in 1919 and again in 1927.