The American Spectator

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Political Hay

(Page 3 of 3)

ZIONCHECK'S ANTICS HAD NATURALLY GAINED notice back in his district. By the time he returned, eighteen people had filed to run for his seat in November's election. The "Capitol Clown" kept observers on their toes, suggesting that he would run for governor in order to "have charge of all the insane asylums in the state."

In Seattle he addressed a paying audience of more than 1,000 on the topic, "Who's Crazy?" Zioncheck, of course, denied he was. Two weeks later he announced he would not run for re-election. Days later he reversed himself and said he would.

The matter would be settled definitively three days after that, on August 7th. Marion Zioncheck jumped to his death from the fifth-story window of his Seattle office. His body landed just yards away from an automobile in which his bride of four months sat waiting for him to come down.

The wild and often hilarious escapades of Rep. Marion Zioncheck were brought to a sad end. His seat in Congress was soon filled by Warren Magnuson, who would distinguish himself for decades as a paragon of sobriety and stability.

Zioncheck, who so delighted newspaper readers across the country, quickly faded from the consciousness of a public worried about the beginning of the Spanish civil war and Hitler's occupation of the Rhineland. Today it is rare to find anyone who knows of him. But if only for a short time, Zioncheck managed to do what most people who pass through the halls of Congress never do, and that is truly to make a name for himself. While he met a sorrowful end, no one can deny that Marion Zioncheck had a great run.

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Law, Supreme Court