(left) American actor Broderick Crawford playing Willie Stark in the 1949 film All The King's Men. Movie based on the novel. Willie Stark based on the real-life Louisiana politician Huey Long.
----- [excerpt from All The King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren. Copyright 1946. Harcourt Inc.] -----------
But, speaking vulgarly, the Sheriff and Pillsbury were part of Willie's luck. I didn't know it that night in Pappy's parlor, and I didn't know it when I got back to town and gave Jim Madison my tale. Well, Willie began to appear in the Chronicle in the role of the boy upon the burning deck and the boy who put his finger in the dike and the boy who replies "I can" when Duty whispers low "Thou must."
The Chronicle was turning up more and more tales about finagling in county courthouses around the state. It pointed the finger of fine scorn and reprobation all over the map. Then I began to grasp the significance of what was going on in that world of reasons high above the desk of Jim Madison, and caught the glint of those diaphanous spirit wings and the fluting whispers of the faint angel voices up there.
In brief, this: The happy harmony in the state machine was a thing of the past, and the Chronicle was lined up with the soreheads, and was hacking away at the county substructure of the machine. It was starting there, feeling its way, setting the stage and preparing the back-drop for the real show.
It wasn't as hard as it might have been. Ordinarily the country boys in the county courthouses have plenty of savvy and know all the tricks and are plenty hard to pin anything on, but the machine had been operating so long now without serious opposition that ease had corrupted them. They just didn't bother to be careful. So the Chronicle was making a good show.
But Mason County was Exhibit Number One. On account of Willie. He gave the touch of drama to the sordid tale. He became symbolically the spokesman for the tongue-tied population of honest men. And when Willie was licked at the polls of Mason County, the Chronicle ran his picture, and under it the line KEEPS HIS FAITH. And under that they printed the statement which Willie had given to me when I went back up to Mason City after the election and after Willie was out. The statement went like this:
"Sure, they did it and it was a clean job which I admire. I'm going back to Pappy's farm and milk the cows and study some more law for it looks like I am going to need it. But I have kept my faith in the people of Mason County. Time will bring all things to light."
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