Click the image, then click “Begin.”
Just having fun with the Star Wars crawl creator app today, while seriously hopped up on pralines, peppermint bark, and other holiday goodies in my kitchen.
Thank God I don’t drink anymore, eh?
Seriously, though, 100 years ago today, Emmett was on a train, headed back to Pensacola from Washington, D.C.
The Washington Herald, December 22, 1915, page 14.
It was a clear but cold and somewhat blustery, with temperatures in the high 20’s, according to The Washington Herald — much unlike today, rainy, no wind, and in the upper 50’s.
He was probably looking forward to going home; he had decided not to run for office for his third term, and his term in office, while off to a strong start in early 1913, was mostly undistinguished and on a decline since coming close to death almost exactly a year ago. He wasn’t popular; he was mostly alone and in poor health.
It would be about 36-48 hour train ride home. He wouldn’t have had his cell phone with him; just a lot of reading material, correspondence to catch up on, and time to do a lot of thinking about things.
Dannite H. Mays. Source: Wikipedia.com
I often wonder what he thought about during his final months in office. He was the youngest U.S. Congressman, certainly during his first term in office.
Did he go in thinking he would be able to make a real difference for his constituents, something different than the lackluster performance put in by his stodgy predecessor Dannite Mays?
How quickly did he become disillusioned? Overwhelmed? When was it that he just gave in, gave up? Or, had he given up completely at this point in terms of his professional life? He knew that when he finally moved back to Pensacola for good, he’d have a job waiting as Kehoe’s law partner — he’d be the junior partner once again, as he was when he’d first started his career about 12 years earlier. Another start-over. Another chance to rebuild himself, or recreate himself, as he wished.
This is what lay before him as his train would bring him back home for Christmas in 1915.
Categories: Book Congressman Interesting & Odd
jsmith532
Professor,
Communication, Arts, and the Humanities
The University of Maryland Global Campus
Tell my story. 
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