"Big Drunk"

Like home towns, native States wait to see how their wandering boys turn out before they boom their claims to parenthood. Early U. S. frontiersmen, born in the Original 13 States, were doubtful characters. Even those who made good generally had to bury their crudities a long time in the grave before the genteel seaboard was ready to honor itself by claiming them as native sons. Few have waited so long as great Sam Houston.

Sam Houston ruled Tennessee and practically created Texas, but there were plenty of times when Virginia was glad to forget that he had been born at Timber Ridge Church, seven miles from Lexington. He lived as a boy with the Cherokees in Tennessee, got to be Governor at 34, quit late in his term because his aristocratic new wife had left him under tongue-wagging circumstances. Sam Houston went back to the Indians to forget. The Indians admired him, trusted him, gave him a squaw, but changed their name for him from "Col-on-neh" to "Big Drunk."

"Big Drunk," mighty, hawk-eyed, 6 ft. 2 in., drifted down to Texas in time for the trouble with Mexico. Santa Anna drenched The Alamo in its defenders' blood, put the Government and people of the new Republic into panic. Commander-in-Chief Sam Houston yelled, "Remember The Alamo" and raised an army out of the ground. In 15 minutes at San Jacinto he wiped out Santa Anna's far larger force, losing only six of his own men. Worshiping Texans gave the hero two terms as president, sent him to the U. S. Senate when Texas joined the Union.

Sam Houston marched into Washington with a big sombrero on his head, an Indian blanket over his shoulders and a tiger-skin vest around his middle, sat in the Senate for 13 years whittling at a stack of wood. But he was a gallant, handsome man, with the Indian's poise and dignity, and even Virginia ladies loved him, until he began to talk against secession. Back in Texas as Governor, he lost his office when he refused to swear allegiance to the Confederate Government. The whole South drummed "the hoary-haired traitor" to his grave in 1863.

Last week proud Virginians unveiled a great bronze bust of Native Son Sam Houston in the Capitol at Richmond.

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