Jim Traficant wants us to think he’s crazy. Throughout his
recent trial for bribery, tax evasion, and racketeering, as well as
during more recent congressional proceedings to expel him from the
House of Representatives, Traficant has acted as if he’s slightly
off his rocker. Check out
this Washington Post account of his hearing before a
House ethics subcommittee for evidence.
Trouble is, as amusing and kooky as Traficant’s antics are, no
one really buys what he’s peddling. What Traficant’s really trying
to do, it seems, is deflect attention from his crookedness by
wrapping himself in the mantle of insanity (a tactic tried recently
— with similarly little success — by Mafia capo Vincent “The
Chin” Gigante).
That’s too bad, because a crazy congressman makes a great
story.
There was, however, a member of Congress some years back who
really was nuts. Marion Zioncheck, a New Deal congressman
from Washington state, was colorful, charming, quirky, and, sadly,
it turns out, insane. His descent into dementia was very short —
just seven months — and very public. And, like Traficant’s
downfall, it made for great copy.
In just a short period of time Zioncheck grabbed the nation’s
attention with a hilarious series of madcap antics, bizarre stunts,
and numerous arrests. Almost overnight he shed his congressional
obscurity to become known as the “Playboy Congressman,” with a wild
bride he barely knew, an odd ping-pong obsession, dancing pet
turtles, and an Indian headdress. Today, strangely, he is entirely
forgotten.
ZIONCHECK WAS ELECTED WITH FDR IN 1932, and earned no notice during
his first three years in Congress. That all changed in late 1935.
Neighbors complained to police about the howler of a New Year’s Eve
bash he threw. When the cops arrived, they found Zioncheck in his
cups, commandeering his apartment building’s switchboard and waking
all the tenants.
The night ended with them putting the stewed congressman to bed,
but the illustrious run of Marion Zioncheck was on. With increasing
regularity, he made waves with odd or contentious behavior on the
House floor. He derided Postmaster General James Farley, saying,
“There has never been a dumber or more inadequate man in office.”
Members of the Supreme Court were “old fossils” and “corporation
lawyers.” When a fellow congressman made a unanimous consent
request, Zioncheck said he would not object as long as the
legislator wanted “to make a fool of himself.” The unamused
colleague, Rep. William Ekwall, replied, “There is no bigger
jackass in Congress” than Zioncheck. As if to prove that point,
Zioncheck would need to be restrained from physically attacking a
Texas congressman a few weeks later.
Rep. Zioncheck’ antics off the House floor made for bigger news.
He gained notoriety for reckless driving. Skipping an April court
appearance for speeding set the local authorities on his trail.
When D.C. police found him, Zioncheck cited congressional immunity,
a claim that failed to dissuade the gendarmes from tossing him in
the clink, albeit not without a struggle. A fellow member of
Congress had to pay Zioncheck’s fines to free him.
Four days later Zioncheck made the broadsheets again. The
occasion this time was his eloping with a 21-year-old Works
Progress Administration stenographer, Rubye Nix, whom he had only
recently met.
Surprised reporters pressed him on how well he knew his new
bride. “I met her about a week ago when she called me up one
night,” he replied. “She asked me down and so I went down and
looked her over. She was OK.” Before leaving on his honeymoon,
Zioncheck entertained a coterie of bemused reporters at his
apartment. Donning an extravagant Indian headdress, he mixed
cocktails and served them stew.
The happy couple headed south for their honeymoon, but their
progress was interrupted by a number of encounters with the law.
Rubye was nailed for speeding in Charlottesville. Meanwhile, a
warrant for Zioncheck’s arrest was being issued in Alexandria,
Virginia, the result of another missed court appearance. One North
Carolina sheriff apprehended the congressman after a high-speed
pursuit, and was ready to extradite him. Problem was, the
Alexandria authorities weren’t anxious to have Zioncheck returned.
The sheriff let him go.
It was during this trip south that Zioncheck’s amusing antics
started giving way to seriously deranged behavior. He and Rubye
turned up in Puerto Rico, where in the course of several days
Zioncheck twice crashed his car, was challenged to a duel, sparked
a small independence riot, and called on the United States Marines
to quell the uprising.
The Marines instead hustled Zioncheck and his bride to the more
peaceful environs of the Virgin Islands. There, newspaper reports
revealed, he was tossed out of a formal dinner for lapping his soup
from his plate. This was relatively normal behavior compared to
what would follow.
After dinner, his car careened into a ditch. Apparently he had
bitten the driver on the neck. Zioncheck emerged from the accident
in good shape — physically, at least. Reports also noted the
congressman drinking cocktails of rum and hair tonic which he
consumed with little difficulty.
MARION ZIONCHECK’S TRUE DIFFICULTIES were only starting. Zioncheck
had been leasing his Washington apartment from an elderly magazine
writer named Pamela Young, who was traveling through South America.
Alarmed by the reports she received about her tenant, Mrs. Young
hurried home to ensure the safety of her possessions.
The congressman was still on his honeymoon when she arrived.
Mrs. Young was mortified by what she found: windows open or broken,
a fancy bed cover used as a rug under the dining room table, dozens
of spent rum bottles, refuse and filth everywhere.
Zioncheck returned shortly to the United States by ship,
arriving in New York City. A bevy of reporters was on hand to
record his every move. They were hardly disappointed. A late-night
sortie to the nightclubs of Harlem yielded more Zioncheck mania: He
hurled a glass at one unsavory patron merely for looking at the
Zioncheck party the wrong way. The victim suffered a deep gash in
his hand. Marion and Rubye stumbled back to their hotel at dawn,
but were up and greeting visitors by 10:00 A.M. Instead of
breakfast, the bathrobed legislator fixed guests “Zioncheck
Zippers” — equal parts rye and honey, with a dash of mint —
before taking a tour of the city. On a dare, he peeled off his
shoes and splashed about in the Rockefeller Center fountain.
The Washington press corps and Zioncheck’s landlady were
anxiously awaiting his return. The Zionchecks and Mrs. Young had
their first altercation at the apartment. “At first, Zioncheck was
amiable,” reported the Washington Evening Star. “He showed
Mrs. Young how his pet turtle could dance to the tune, ‘I Can’t
Give You Anything But Love, Baby.’”
She was not amused. A heated argument ensued, during which the
Zionchecks decided Mrs. Young should be forcibly ejected.
Newspapers across the land treated readers to the bizarre
photograph of the Honorable Marion Zioncheck dragging a little old
lady out of her own home.
Mrs. Young was taken to the hospital, where she would be treated
for a serious hip injury. Meanwhile, the unbothered Zioncheck mixed
drinks for reporters, played with his turtles, and posed endlessly
for pictures. He told the assembled scribes that he suspected Mrs.
Young was a communist.
What happened next would presage COPS by some sixty
years. At some point during the evening Rubye mysteriously fled.
Zioncheck grew inconsolable. And when the last drunken reporter
departed, Zioncheck worked himself into such a rage that he began
hurling bottles and a typewriter out the window. This led to
another violent arrest, with policemen wielding billyclubs to
subdue the shirtless congressman
After making bail, Zioncheck would spend the better part of the
next day vainly searching for his missing wife. But not before
heading to the zoo, where he enthusiastically pointed out to
spectators how “Wahoo,” his favorite baboon, could perform
somersaults.
When he finally returned alone to his apartment that evening,
ironically, he told reporters standing sentry duty, “I’ve got to
get some sleep before I go nuts.”
He would need his sleep. The next day would proved the turning
point in the bizarre saga of Rep. Marion Zioncheck.
RISING EARLY, ZIONCHECK SET OFF in his roadster, tearing through
the streets of Washington toward the White House. He cruised the
wrong way down some streets and even drove one block of Connecticut
Avenue on the sidewalk to avoid a traffic jam.
He pulled up to the president’s mansion at 8:30. (In an earlier,
safer era, there was no gate around the White House, and anybody
could drive up.) The congressman announced he had a few gifts for
President Roosevelt. Skeptical police officers inspecting his bag
found a number of empty beer bottles, a mothball container, and
some ping-pong balls. Roosevelt wasn’t back from a yachting
excursion, so Zioncheck scribbled a note to his fellow Democrat,
left the items, and departed.
By this time Zioncheck’s behavior was catching up to him. He was
arrested that afternoon and placed in the sanitarium. A trial was
ordered to determine his sanity. “Detention in Gallinger Hospital,
however, did not stop the Zioncheck antics,” reported The New York
Times. Clad in pajamas, he invited in news photographers “for whom
he posed in various attitudes that he considered fitting for a
person in his suspected condition.”
Zioncheck might have thought it funny that everyone thought he
was crazy, but he didn’t help his case much by what happened next.
He escaped. After kicking in two window screens, a wire report
noted, Zioncheck “galloped about the grounds, whooping and puffing
at a long black cigar, until caught by guards.”
Rubye reappeared on the scene, and had her husband transferred
to a private hospital near Baltimore in exchange for dropping
lunacy charges. The congressman was there for barely a week before
he escaped again, this time scaling a fence, outrunning hospital
guards, and disappearing into the woods. Zioncheck trekked 18 miles
before hitching a ride back to Washington, where police found him
the following day.
Zioncheck struck a deal. He agreed to return to Seattle rather
than be arrested once more. The House Sergeant-at-Arms and a D.C.
policeman accompanied the flighty congressman as far as Chicago,
where a crowd of hundreds waited for a glimpse of the lunatic
congressman they had heard so much about.
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.
