All the King’s Men
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state capital where he attempts to conduct a Christian ministry for the poor and the unfortunate.
Theodore Murrell -- The "Young Executive," as Jack characterizes him; Jacks mothers husband for most of the novel.
Governor Joel Stanton -- Adam and Annes father, governor of the state when Judge Irwin was Attorney General. Protects the judge after he takes the bribe to save his plantation.
Hugh Miller -- Willie Starks Attorney General, an honorable man who resigns following the Byram White scandal.
Joe Harrison -- Governor of the state who sets Willie up as a dummy candidate to split the MacMurfee vote, and thereby enables Willies entrance onto the political stage. When Willie learns how Harrison has treated him, he withdraws from the race and campaigns for MacMurfee, who wins the election. By the time Willie crushes MacMurfee in the next election, Harrisons days of political clout are over.
Mortimer L. Littlepaugh -- The man who preceded Judge Irwin as counsel for the American Electric Power Company in the early 1900s. When Judge Irwin took Littlepaughs job as part of the bribe, Littlepaugh confronted Governor Stanton about the judges illegal activity. When the governor protected the judge, Littlepaugh committed suicide.
Miss Lily Mae Littlepaugh -- Mortimer Littlepaughs sister, an old spiritual medium who sells her brothers suicide note to Jack, giving him the proof he needs about Judge Irwin and the bribe.
Gummy Larson -- MacMurfees most powerful supporter, a wealthy businessman. Willie is forced to give Larson the building contract to the hospital so that Larson will call MacMurfee off about the Sibyl Frey controversy, and thereby preserve Willies chance to go to the Senate.
Lois Seager -- Jacks sexy first wife, whom he leaves when he begins to perceive her as a person rather than simply as a machine for gratifying his desires.
Byram B. White -- The State Auditor during Willies first term as governor. His acceptance of graft money propels a scandal that eventually leads to an impeachment attempt against Willie. Willie protects White and blackmails his enemies into submission, a decision which leads to his estrangement from Lucy and the resignation of Hugh Miller.
Hubert Coffee -- A slimy MacMurfee employee who tries to bribe Adam Stanton into giving the hospital contract to Gummy Larson.
Sibyl Frey -- A young girl who accuses Tom Stark of having gotten her pregnant; Tom alleges that Sibyl has slept with so many men, she could not possibly know he was the father of her child. Marvin Frey -- Sibyl Freys father, who threatens Willie with a paternity suit. (He is being used by MacMurfee.)
Cass Mastern -- The brother of Jacks grandmother. During the middle of the nineteenth century, Cass had an afiair with Annabelle Trice, the wife of his friend Duncan. After Duncans suicide, Annabelle sold a slave, Phebe; Cass tried to track down Phebe, but failed. He became an abolitionist, but fought in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, during which he was killed. Jack tries to use his papers as the basis of his Ph.D. dissertation, but walked away from the project when he was unable to understand Cass Masterns motivations.
Gilbert Mastern -- Cass Masterns wealthy brother.
Annabelle Trice -- Cass Masterns lover, the wife of Duncan Trice. When the slave Phebe brings her Duncans wedding ring following his suicide, Annabelle says that she cannot bear the way Phebe looked at her, and sells her.
Duncan Trice -- Cass Masterns hedonistic friend in Lexington, Annabelle Trices husband. When he learns that Cass has had an afiair with Annabelle, Duncan takes off his wedding ring and shoots himself.
Phebe -- The slave who brings Annabelle Trice her husbands wedding ring following his suicide. As a result, Annabelle sells her.
Summary
All the Kings Men is the story of the rise and fall of a political titan in the Deep South during the 1930s. Willie Stark rises from hardscrabble poverty to become governor of his state and its most powerful political figure; he blackmails and bullies his enemies into submission, and institutes a radical series of liberal reforms designed to tax the rich and ease the burden of the states poor farmers. He is beset with enemies--most notably Sam MacMurfee, a defeated former governor who constantly searches for ways to undermine Willies power--and surrounded by a rough mix of political allies and hired thugs, from the bodyguard Sugar-Boy OSheean to the fat, obsequious Tiny Dufiy.
All the Kings Men is also the story of Jack Burden, the scion of one of the states aristocratic dynasties, who turns his back on his genteel upbringing and becomes Willie Starks right-hand man. Jack uses his considerable talents as a historical researcher to dig up the unpleasant secrets of Willies enemies, which are then used for purposes of blackmail. Cynical and lacking in ambition, Jack has walked away from many of his past interests--he left his dissertation in American History unfinished, and never managed to marry his first love, Anne Stanton, the daughter of a former governor of the state.
When Willie asks Jack to look for skeletons in the closet of Judge Irwin, a father figure from Jacks childhood, Jack is forced to confront his ideas concerning consequence, responsibility, and motivation. He discovers that Judge Irwin accepted a bribe, and that Governor Stanton covered it up; the resulting blackmail attempt leads to Judge Irwins suicide. It also leads to Adam Stantons decision to accept the position of director of the new hospital Willie is building, and leads Anne to begin an afiair with Willie.
When Adam learns of the afiair, he murders Willie in a rage, and Jack leaves politics forever. Willies death and the circumstances in which it occurs force Jack to rethink his desperate belief that no individual can ever be responsible for the consequences of any action within the chaos and tumult of history and time. Jack marries Anne Stanton and begins working on a book about Cass Mastern, the man whose papers he had once tried to use as the source for his failed dissertation in American History.
Chapter 1
Summary
Jack Burden describes driving down Highway 58 with his boss, Governor Willie Stark, in the Bosss big black Cadillac--Sugar-Boy is driving, and in the car with them were the Bosss wife Lucy, son Tommy, and the Lieutenant Governor, Tiny Dufiy. Sugar-Boy drives them into Mason City, where Willie is going to pose for a press photo with his father, who lives on a nearby farm. The Cadillac is followed by a car full of press men and photographers, overseen by Willies secretary, Sadie Burke. It is summer, 1936, and scorching hot outside.
In Mason City, Willie immediately attracts an adoring throng of people. The group goes inside the drugstore, where Doc pours them glasses of Coke. The crowd pressures Willie for a speech, but he declines, saying hes just come to see his "pappy". He then delivers an efiective impromptu speech on the theme of not delivering a speech, saying he doesnt have to stump for votes on his day off. The crowd applauds, and the group drives out to the Stark farm.
On the way, Jack remembers his first meeting with Willie, in 1922, when Jack was a reporter for the Chronicle and Willie was only the County Treasurer of Mason County. Jack had gone to the back room of Slades pool hall to get some information from deputy-sherifi Alex Michel and Tiny Dufiy (then the Tax Assessor, and an ally of then-Governor Harrison). While he was there, Dufiy tried to bully Willie into drinking a beer, which Willie claimed not to want, instead ordering an orange soda. Dufiy ordered Slade to bring Willie a beer, and Slade said that he only served alcohol to men who wanted to drink it. He brought Willie the orange soda. When Prohibition was repealed after Willies rise to power, Slade was one of the first men to get a liquor license; he got a lease at an exceptional location, and was now a rich man.
At the farm, Willie and Lucy pose for a picture with spindly Old Man Stark and his dog. Then the photographers have Willie pose for a picture in his old bedroom, which still contains all his schoolbooks. Toward sunset, Sugar-Boy is out shooting cans with his .38 special, and Jack goes outside for a drink from his ask and a look at the sunset. As he leans against the fence, Willie approaches him and asks for a drink. Then Sadie Burke runs up to them with a piece of news, which she reveals only after Willie stops teasing her: Judge Irwin has just endorsed Callahan, a Senate candidate running against Willies man, Masters.
After dinner at the Stark farm, Willie announces that he, Jack, and Sugar-Boy will be going for a drive. He orders Sugar-Boy to drive the Cadillac to Burdens Landing, more than a hundred miles away. Jack grew up in Burdens Landing, which was named for his ancestors, and he complains about the long drive this late at night. As they approach Jacks old house, he thinks about his mother lying inside with Theodore Murrell--not Jacks first stepfather. And he thinks about Anne and Adam Stanton, who lived nearby and used to play with him as a child. He also thinks about Judge Irwin, who lives near the Stanton and Burden places, and who was a father figure to Jack after his own father left. Jack tells Willie that Judge Irwin wont scare easily, and inwardly hopes that what he says is true.
The three men arrive at Judge Irwins, where Willie speaks insouciantly and insolently to the gentlemanly old judge. Judge Irwin in