Roadside Rest

Oh, for Another Eruption of the Bifurcated Volcano

Still reeling from last fall's presidential campaign in which one candidate alleged he felt my pain and the other promised a massive tax cut (or whatever), I began yearning for a purgative dose of undiluted Ashurst.

That was the name of a potent political medicine widely available long ago in Arizona.

The tonic's full name was Henry Fountain Ashurst, given in 1874 to a boy child born to a pioneer family of northern Arizona's Coconino Plateau.

Henry, second eldest of 10 children, labored as a teenage cowboy, lumber hand, and turnkey. In every available moment, he read the classics, the poets, the law. As a consequence eloquently spoken, Ashurst was ready at age 38 to serve as one of the 48th state's first U.S. senators. He filled that post for 28 years.

Then he lived several decades more as "The Silver-tongued Sunbeam and Bifurcated Volcano," a movie character actor, and a statesman emeritus in Washington social circles, occasionally delighting journalists (including this one) with straight, salty, insightful interviews. From my own now-yellowed notebook of the 1960s: On learning to speak: "I used to recite my speeches walking up a hill. Gives you wind power. I could throw 56-pound words across the Grand Canyon."

On graft: "When a public officer accepts a gift, he dissolves the pearl of independence in the vinegar of obligation."

Regarding youth: "Youth should be prudent along with its boldness for youth has much to lose; therefore, do not sow your wild oats in youth; you might live to reap the terrible harvest. Sow your wild oats in your old age, and you will not live till harvest time."

About his friends: "I have no trouble with my enemies, but my friends, they are the ones who keep me walking the floor nights."

When voted out of office: "The welfare of the United States, and the happiness of our people, does not hang on the presence of Henry Fountain Ashurst in the Senate. When that realization first came to me, I was overwhelmed by the horror of it, but now it is a source of infinite comfort."

Deeds: "Good words are the sons of Earth, but good deeds are the daughters of Heaven."

Once to a heckler: "If both of us jackasses bray separately, we will last a lot longer."

On ideological consistency: "But there never has been added to these vices of mine the withering, embalming vice of consistency."

About a Senate colleague he admired: "His Christian constituents asked him to have Washington build them a church. He wired back, 'I can't get you an appropriation for a church. You can't dip into public funds for church matters. Besides, Congress doesn't know anything about religion. And secondly, what you need is not a church. What you need is a jail. I'll get you a jail. '"

Remembering a dead cowboy pal: "Some years ago, Bill went to that vast realm where kings and queens are probably counted as deuces, and American cowboys are counted as aces."

On growing old: "When a man has reached the age of 80 years, he should have learned many things. He should have learned to make peace with the Lord, with mankind, and with himself, and to make his Will. He has atoned for the wrongs he has committed and forgotten the wrongs against himself.

years, he should have learned many things. He should have learned to make peace with the Lord, with mankind, and with himself, and to make his Will. He has atoned for the wrongs he has committed and forgotten the wrongs against himself.

"As he grows old, he probably grows better not that he is so much inclined to forsake his sins but that his sins will forsake him. His ambitions are behind him; they are either achieved or are faded in importance.

"He finds that life runs in a sort of cycle; he is born without teeth or hair, and in old age he is usually bereft of teeth and hair. In early childhood, one's steps are short and uncertain; in old age, one's strides will be short and uncertain. He has learned that as one grows old, one either develops the childish intolerance of hardened arteries, or slides gracefully into a beautiful senility.

"He has learned that fame and riches may take wings, but that cultural and spiritual resources abide with him. He has learned that happiness may not be captured as a general would capture a city or as a hunter would capture a wild beast; he has probably learned the lessons taught by the prophets of ancient Palestine and the sages of ancient Athens: that happiness always eludes those who seek it for themselves, alone, but wells up like a loving tide around those who seek to give happiness to others."

On the future: "I take no stock in the gloomy jeremiad that is so constantly repeated, saying that all humankind will exterminate itself on this planet. I do not subscribe to the defeatist philosophy which says that human beings are nothing but the hapless vendees of a witless fate and thoughtless chance, which will overthrow the wisdom of the wise, defeat the valor of the brave, and tarnish the trophies of the true."

On tragic failure: "The renown of Socrates would have been eaten away by the tooth of time had it not been preserved in hemlock."

Then, finally, an opinion on the Hereafter: "There either is or there isn't a Hereafter. If there is, I'll be there. If there isn't, I'll never know it.

"But if there is an eternity, don't think God will say, Henry Fountain, you've cavorted and raised hell and broken my Commandments so you'll have to stay out. "No. I don't think He'd want to run a Heaven that would keep Henry Fountain Ashurst out."