State

Мчу 26, 1934 Т hi Е STATE LEGISLATIVE PERSONALITIES LVIIRIK UcEACIIEKN, who has represented Hoke County in the I past two sessions of the House of Representatives of the North Caro¬ lina General Assembly, has never re¬ ceived the newspaper publicity that his predecessor, L>. Scott Poole, did, hut Mr. McEaokcrn never sought in the halls of the General Assembly to forbid learned professors from teach¬ ing the young minds that once upon a time their ancestors might have in¬ habited trees. No; Laurie McEachern, a Moke farmer and a Knoford Kiwanian, never emulated Mr. Poole, the man who created such a furore in the 102"» session hv fathering a hill to make illegal the teaching of evolution in North Carolina, and 1 say Mr. Mc- Eneliern never got the publicity that Mr. Poole got. Air. McEachcrn in the two sessions I have known him has never sought to magnetize the spot¬ light of the press so that its bright and shining light would illuminate him for all to gaze upon and marvel. Those of us who chironiclc what happens in the biennial legislative sessions in Raleigh were not at all sure in January, 1031, just what kind of fellow Mr. McEachcrn was and it was only natural that we .should won¬ der among ourselves if the doughty •Scots of Hoke had sent us another monkey hater. So we of the press adopted a policy of watchful waiting and we watched Mr. McEachcrn. Well, we watched and watched and listened and listened and not yet have we seen or heard Air. AIcEachcrn oven intimate that he would take up where Mr. Poole left off and conduct another eampuign against those who insinuate that our forebears swung by their tails from the tops of trees. Laurie AIc- Eachern, a swell Scotchman when you get to know him real well, is certainly no hidebound fundamentalist nor modernist. I think I can say that with¬ out fear of being called a liar. Hoke had been paraded up and down the state and the nation, too, as a county abounding in fundamental¬ ists and no one could blame the news¬ paper scriveners if they paid more at¬ tention in the 1931 session to Mr. Laurie McEeachcrn than they did to The doughty Scot from Hoke - ★ - most of the freshmen inciilhont com¬ ing up that session. Still in his thirties, Laurie Mc- Eacbern has made an impression upon those who have served in the past two House sessions and if ho weathers op¬ position in Ifoke this Juno 2 ho will come to Raleigh next January an avowed candidate for Speaker of the 1935 House. Far lie it from me to at¬ tempt to utilize these columns to in¬ dulge in any speculation relative to Mr. McEnchorn’s chances for Speaker, but I do believe he will be one of the favored ones for that honor if ho is a member of the next House. Mr. McEachcrn — you pronounce it “Mac-Cairn” — is slated to come to grips over the speokorship with his good friend and fellow legislator, Mr. Robert Grady Johnson, of Pender, and should these two dive into the speakership waters next January there's going to be some fast swim¬ ming. Both arc capable legislators and neither is what we of the press refer to (among ourselves, of course), as “legislative jackasses.” Incidentally, the estimable Tom Rost is the coiner of that phrase and many times have I heard him apply it to some self- confessed “friend of tho pee-pul” as Page Twenty-seven No. 33 l.uuric MeKacIicrn By M ade II. I.ura* wo sal at llm press table suffering from too much meaningless oratory. Be it said to the credit of Laurie McEachcrn, I have never seen him make n “legislative jackass” out of himself and I don't believe Tom Rost lias either. And both of us have watched him two sessions. Like Mr. Robert Grady Johnson, Mr. Laurie McEachern is still a bachelor. He is not what one might term a woman-hater, neither is ho ad¬ dicted to the habit of using vaseline on his hair and wearing ultra-swank clothes to catch the eye of the fair sex. But I do know Mr. McEachern can make n pretty speech to a lady la-cause I heard him make one on an occasion when several of ш wore pass¬ ing the time of day in the hall of the House while that body was in recces. And it was a prettier speech than many the lardcd-hnir boys could make, too. The fact that ho is a bachelor might have induced a lady lobbyist, old enough, 1 dare say, to be Mr. Me- Eachern’s mother, to pester him him than she scorned to pester others in the 1931 session over some legislative matter. The lady, who shall lie name¬ less here, was a swift-moving person, and she observed no code of working hours as she sought to make the 1931 members hop through the hoops at her bidding. Being a lady who seemed to work 24 hours each day, she had a habit of calling Mr. McEachern and others at all hours of the night to ask them to do thus and so on the bills she want¬ ed passed. I know she called Mr. Afc- Eachcrn many times and 1 know that he resisted her many efforts to get him to carry the flag for her cause. And speaking of this lady, I am reminded of the time that Mecklen¬ burg’s imperturbable “Undo Joe” Garibaldi aroso on tho floor one day to object to her persistent telephon¬ ing at 4 a.ra.; when “I am getting ready to go to bed.” Since the 1933 session adjourned Mr. McEachern was rather severely injured in an automobile wreck, but I am happy to report that he has re covered his health and seems to be ready for the battles that will bo fought out in that 1935 session.