State

Big Men fro Little Washington The town on the Painlico has a rather unique distinction in the number of its citi¬ zens who have become nationally famous in various lines of endeavor. Abraham Lincoln* was bom in a country shack. Grover . Cleveland’s birthplace was the small town of Caldwell, New Jersey. Mark Twain first laughed at or with the world in Florida. (Some will pick me up here and say Mark was horn in Missouri — and each of us will be correct, for he entered into being in the hamlet of Florida, Missouri.) Paducah, Kentucky, claims Irvin Cobb as its most distinguished native son, and Will Rogers first saw the light of day in a house four miles from any town. 0. 0. McIntyre’s advent was in little Plattsburgh, Missouri. These names are selected at random as they come into my mind. There is no Who’s Who at hand, but if you look through it you will probably dis¬ cover that most of the men whose names fill the volume had nativity in moderate sized towns, villages, or in the country. It may be because there are more of such places of habitation than large cities, but whatever the reason, little places apparently have a way of turning out big men and women. The list could bo indefinitely lengthened, but it would serve only to confirm my present opinion that Washington, North Carolina, has a record not frequently exceeded when it claims no less than seven native- born men who have attained what may be called national distinction. I John II. Small is the dean of the seven. For eleven terms— twenty-two years — he served in the National Con¬ gress as Representative from the First North Carolina District, and the Con¬ gress never had a more conscientious worker, nor the district a more faith¬ ful representative. In every avenue of service he was pre-eminent, but the cause nearest his heart, and to which he gave unremitting toil, was the de¬ velopment of the Mnine-to-Florida Inland Waterway. It was not a popular project, and Mr. Small must have endured many heart-breaking hours in his effort to awaken the people to the vast importance of what he persistently, admirably ad¬ vocated. By JOHN G. BRAGA W Even after he left Congress he continued to preach the doctrine of intra-coastal waterway systems for use in peace and especially in war. Time and the present war have justi¬ fied the untiring effort and energy he expended, and now when German sub¬ marines are making havoc of shipping along the Atlantic Coast, the only safe passage for commerce is through that scrips of inland watercourses which may well be written into history as John П. Small’s greatest enduring public accomplishment. He is hav¬ ing now the satisfaction of thinking, even though he may not say it, “I told you so” to those who scoffed at his precious brain-child during those years when few thought it could ever be of practical service. Josephus Daniels tells in his widely- read book, Tar Heel Editor , of what he says is the only time he was ever called beautiful. It was when Dr. David T. Tayloc, who assisted his advent into the world, told Mrs. Daniels, the mother, that the new baby was “a boy, sound in body and limb,” and then answered her anxious in¬ quiry as to his personal pulchritude by exclaiming, “He is beautiful!” That satisfied the mother, and Mr. Daniels apparently has rested his claims upon that statement. All that happened in the modest home on Main Street here in Wash¬ ington, North Carolina, a short dis¬ tance from the present site of the Baptist Church. The house is still here, though removed to a nearby spot. From that home the boy departed, to become, successively, editor of a small-town newspaper, clerk in the office of Secretary of the Interior, Hoke Smith, in the Cleveland admin¬ istration, back to the newspaper field, then into the cabinet of Woodrow Wilson, back to the newspaper, then to Mexico as Ambassador to that country — again, of his own volition, returning to the newspaper office to resume full responsibility of editor¬ ship when his sons, one by one, had been called to or volunteered for their country’s war-time service. The lure of printer’s ink. ns lie says, was never absent from him, and now at eighty-one he is pulling his weight in the harness with as much vigor as men thirty years his junior. It was the only brick house in Wash¬ ington, was the de Mill© house, in the late '70’s and early ’80’s when it became the birthplace of William Churchill de Mille and just missed serving the same purpose for Cecil Blount De Mille. William is the elder by two years, and is terribly, and justly, proud of his kid brother whom he would not follow to the West Coast when the younger fared forth to make his fortune in “visionary schemes” — would not follow him nor invest money in the new-fangled moving pic¬ ture business, but ho would save his money to pay Cecil's way back East when the latter should go broke out there, or grow tired of his folly and desire to return to Broadway. If the reader knows anything at all about motion picture history lie will enjoy that story. And if he has ever read William de Mille’s fascinat¬ ing book. Hollywood Saga, he will know that William has got a tremendous amount of satisfaction out of the success Cecil has dug out and piled up for himself. If Cecil's predilection for inspiring such titles as “Colossus of Hollywood,” “Holly¬ wood’s Super- Director,” and others, has slightly overshadowed William, William has never worried about it a minute. William’s tastes and genius, while different, were kindred. Stage successes such as Strongheart, The Warrens of Virgin (a. The H'owan. to name but a few, established the elder brother’s fame in the circle of drama before the moving picture came into being. And now, while Cecil continues to produce super-pictures, and conducts the Theatre of the Air, William is Professor of Dramatics, head of the Drama Department at the Southern (Continued on page thirty-six) 17