ARIZONA: Too Ornery

In a vague sort of way, Arizonans had known for months that Governor Sidney Osborn, 63, was a sick man. Last week, in the midst of a violence-ridden strike of lettuce packers, they learned how ill he really was.

Governor Osborn had summoned strikers and employers to his home for a long, exhaustive conference. His visitors were shocked at his condition; they could hardly understand a word he said, even though he repeated it five or six times. Next day, he collapsed. His doctor ordered him to bed and broke the news to the public. The governor’s condition, he said, was exceedingly precarious. He was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the creeping paralysis that killed baseball’s Lou Gehrig. A cold, a nervous shock, even a bad sneezing spell might mean the end, at any time.

Tough as Mesquite. It was hard to believe. Sidney Osborn seemed as permanent a part of Arizona as mesquite, and as tough. His skin had weathered in Arizona’s dry winds, his eyes crinkled against the glare of its deserts. His grandfather had owned the land where the Capitol now stood. Sidney himself had had a part in Arizona politics since boyhood. He had been the youngest member of the constitutional convention, and served three terms as secretary of state. In some 16 years as a publisher, he made Dunbar’s Weekly famous throughout the state for tart, pointed political comment.

As a schoolboy, he had scrawled in a textbook “Sidney P. Osborn, Governor of Arizona.” After he was elected in 1941, he declared: “Only the voters or death will take me out of here.” Tall and husky, he worked 15 to 16 hours a day. He drove himself hard, his balky legislature harder. But any citizens who wanted to talk things over just called him up—he always answered the phone himself, at home or at the office. The voters liked that. In the last three elections, he carried every county in the state.

Steadily Worse.The first, faint signs of trouble began over a year ago. Once his legs suddenly gave way, and he fell. Once, in the middle of a speech, his voice thickened unaccountably. Through the summer and fall, his condition grew steadily worse. His chauffeur and companion, husky Jack Hirsh, had to lift him from car to wheelchair in the daily trip between home and office, wheel him around the Capitol, carry him to the rest room. Said one friend: “Old Sidney is just too ornery to stay at home and die.”

The doctor’s gloomy announcement last week made Old Sidney more ornery than ever. Defiantly, he heaved himself out of bed and summoned newsmen to his office. He issued a typewritten statement announcing that he was calling three special 20-day sessions of the legislature, starting next month. He had quieted the lettuce strike by calling out the National Guard. As long as his mind remained clear, Sidney Osborn intended to remain governor—until the voters or death removed him. Last week the voters were still loyal.