Man with a Temper

Hawk-nosed Novelist Vardis Fisher spends twelve hours a day working his farm in Idaho's Snake River country, four hours a night whipping out impassioned prose (Intimations of Eve, Children of God, etc.). But he is never too busy to argue. Five years ago Publisher Margaret Cobb Ailshie (TIME, Aug. 5) let contentious Vardis Fisher argue the case for isolationism in her interventionist Boise Idaho Statesman. Before she knew it, she had a new drawing card.

As a columnist, Fisher carried chips on both shoulders. Readers found him as gabby as Winchell, as irascible as Pegler. He was as short-tempered with the New Deal as Mrs. Ailshie was, but the affinity ended there. From time to time the Statesman had to square itself with readers by slapping him down editorially. A one-time Mormon who now belongs to no church, he railed at Christmas, funerals, Sundays. When Catholics found it rough reading and complained, he promised last winter to offend them no more.

Month ago Fisher aimed a haymaker at Idaho's Democratic Governor Arnold Williams, sneered that he "will no more enforce the laws than he will climb to the top of a flagpole to eat his lunch." Next day the Republican Statesman used an entire editorial column to bail out the Democratic governor and bawl out its free-swinging columnist. Vardis Fisher quit in a huff, looked for another soapbox. Last week, readers who really missed him had to buy a tiny upstart weekly called Statewide (circ. 5,000). Fisher and his new editor were getting along fine--so far.

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