All The King's Men: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

The novel begins in 1936, approaching Mason City, in a state presumed to be Louisiana. The narrator is in a large, black car with an enormous eight-cylinder engine, flying on a new road to Mason City from the outlying farmlands. The narrator, who speaks in the first-person (with the pronoun “I”), is not yet named, but he describes the pine-forest landscape of northern Louisiana as it whizzes past the car windows. The narrator indicates that he is sitting in the car with Sugar-Boy, the driver; the Boss (his boss); the Boss’s wife and son; and Mr. Duffy. The narrator also indicates that this scene, in 1936, took place three years ago, meaning that the narrator is “speaking” from the “present,” in 1939.

A second car, following the car in which the narrator sits, contains Sadie Burke (secretary to the Boss) and a pool of journalists who have been assigned to cover this particular trip. The narrator describes Sugar-Boy, the driver, who is a small Irishman with a terrible stutter; the Boss, who sits up-front next to Sugar-Boy, enjoys how quickly and nimbly Sugar-Boy drives the great black Cadillac.

After flying through the surrounding countryside, the two cars stop in front of a soda fountain, and the Boss (whose name is revealed to be Willie Stark) gets out to have a Coke, since it’s an extremely hot day. A crowd quickly forms inside and outside the soda fountain, as the Boss is a local celebrity of some kind—probably a politician, from the hints the narrator has dropped about the Boss thus far.

The Boss goes up to an old man the narrator terms Old Leather Face, and asks about him and his family. The old man replies that his son is in trouble with the law—on trial for murder, after getting into a fight. The Boss drinks his Coke, thanks the proprietor of the shop for giving it to him “on the house,” and begins walking outside. Mr. Duffy asks the Boss whether he intends to give a speech in Mason City, which appears to be the Boss’s home town. The Boss says he’s not sure, and continues walking in a straight line from the soda fountain.

But the Boss walks up to the steps of the Mason City courthouse, and it appears he is going to make a speech, after all. Willie begins by saying he won’t ask the crowd for their votes, and that asking them wouldn’t do any good anyway, as Willie must contend with the politicians in the state’s legislature. It here becomes apparent that Willie, the Boss, is the Governor of the state.

A man shouts at Willie from the crowd, apparently making fun of him, but Willie has a quick retort for the man, and the remainder of the crowd seems sympathetic to Willie’s fight against his opponents in the state congress. Willie ends his speech by saying he has come back to the Mason City-area to see his father, who lives on a farm nearby, and to shake hands with the “regular folks” who make his Governorship possible. The crowd cheers him.

Willie, Lucy, his son, the narrator, and Mr. Duffy get back in the Cadillac, and Sugar-Boy begins nudging it through the streets, which are now choked with Willie’s well-wishers. The narrator, in the car, then recalls how he first met Willie, then a young local elected official, in Mason City in 1922, fourteen years previous.

In this scene, in 1922, the narrator is seated at Slade’s, an illegal bar where many politicians meet—with him is Slade, the proprietor, Duffy, who at this point was big in local Mason County politics (Mason City is the seat of Mason County); Alex Michel, the deputy sheriff in Mason County, and Willie Stark, then the County Treasurer for Mason County, who had come down to the city to try to get financing for a new schoolhouse.

The narrator was, at that point, a reporter for the Chronicle, a local paper, and he was there to cover the conversation; Duffy was one of the Governor Joe Harrison’s top men in that region—part of Harrison’s Democratic machine in the state. Alex introduces Willie to Slade, the narrator, and Duffy, and makes fun of Willie, joking that he married a school-teacher—which Alex finds hilarious. Willie takes the joke in stride, though he appeared, at that time, to lack the powerful confidence and projection the narrator notices in the Willie of 1936.

Willie finally introduces himself, formally, to the table, and we find out that the narrator’s last name is Burden. Willie shakes Burden’s hand. The narrative shifts back to the 1930s, when Burden is working as the chief of staff and right-hand man for Willie, and Burden asks the Boss, then, if he winked at Burden when he shook hands with him, back in 1922. Burden swears that Willie did wink, but Willie, who enjoys a good joke himself, strings Burden along, never admitting to whether or not he winked at him the moment they met, so long ago. It is revealed, too, that Duffy, once believing himself to be far more powerful than Willie, is now (in the 1930s) Willie’s Lieutenant Governor, and that Willie has helped him to gain this position.

Burden switches back to 1922. Burden recalls Willie being offered a beer by Duffy, and Willie declining this beer several times, implying that he does not drink and that his wife, Lucy, does not approve of drinking. Slade, the owner, replies to Duffy, who insists that Willie drink a beer, that Slade only sells beer to those that want it. Burden recalls how, once Prohibition was repealed nationally, Slade was rewarded by Willie, then governor, with lucrative liquor licenses and a profitable location for his new, legal bar. Burden believes this is a testament to Willie’s memory and political favoritism, especially for those who have helped him in the past.

Burden goes on to recall the remainder of the four men’s conversation, that day in 1922, when Alex convinces Duffy that Willie is not just some interloper, as Duffy had thought him to be, nor a country bumpkin, but a shrewd politician who was, in fact, county treasurer for Mason County. Burden reserves the remainder of the story of how Willie built his schoolhouse for later on in the narrative, but as he shifts back to the black Cadillac, in 1936, whirring past the schoolhouse Willie built, near Mason City, Burden seems to imply that Willie has got what he wanted—Duffy now serves him, as Lieutenant Governor, and all those who thought him a “hayseed” or yokel must now recognize that Willie is the chief political power in the state.

The Boss tells Burden, back in the car in 1936, that Burden should find a good lawyer, an “Abe Lincoln type,” to represent the old leathery man’s (named Malaciah) son in his trial for murder. Burden remarks that he has a great deal of his notes written down in black notebooks and locked in a safety deposit box, where enemies of Willie’s cannot find them.

Duffy, in the car, nervously tells the Boss that Malaciah’s son, as Duffy has heard it, knifed the son of an important political figure in that region, and that it would perhaps not be wise for Willie to pay for a lawyer to represent Malaciah’s son. But Willie turns around in his seat and responds harshly to Duffy, saying that no one will be able to trace this lawyer to Willie’s office, and that he, Willie, is loyal to Malaciah, who has been an old friend. This ends the conversation.

The black Cadillac pulls up next to the house where Willie grew up, a farmhouse in rural Mason County. Burden remarks that Willie never really had the house repainted or renovated, not in any obvious ways, but that Willie did pay to have an electric pump installed for the plumbing in the bathroom—this improvement isn’t “noticeable from the street,” and therefore means that Willie will not be seen as corrupt, or using money to favor his own family.

Willie’s father, an old farmer, skinny and wrinkled and taciturn, emerges from the house and welcomes, quietly, Willie, Lucy, Jack, and Duffy. After sitting in the parlor for a moment, the next car arrives, with Sadie and the reporters in tow, and a photographer asks to take some “candid” shots of Willie and Lucy in the house. Willie asks Burden to pick up Willie’s father’s old dog, who can barely move, so the dog is placed in the shot, making the photo look more “homey.”

The photographer then takes some photos of Willie in his old bedroom, where he had studied for the law exam when he was a much younger man. Burden, whose first name has been revealed to be Jack, walks outside, through the farm, and down to a fence, where he looks out over the beautiful rural landscape. After some minutes, Burden hears footsteps, and Willie has come out to join Jack and to sip some of Jack’s liquor, which he has in a flask in his pocket. Willie confesses that his father, like Lucy, is not much for drinking, even now, although Willie clearly is now a drinker.

Sadie rushes out to join Burden and Willie out back, by the fence. She has something to tell Willie, but is so flustered she cannot get the words out, and Willie makes fun of her, gently, for not being able to speak; this makes Sadie even angrier, and less able to speak. Sadie finally tells Willie that Judge Irwin, an established political figure in Louisiana, has decided to side with Callahan, a politician who opposes Willie’s policies. Willie calls Irwin a bastard under his breath.

Burden leaves Sadie and Willie, who has taken this news poorly, and goes off to watch Sugar-Boy shooting, and cursing, at targets with a small gun at the back of Willie’s father’s property. Willie calls Jack inside for dinner, which is eaten with Willie’s family at a long table, and Willie announces, after the meal, to his wife and his father that Jack, Sugar-Boy, and he will be taking a drive that night, to see about some business. Willie’s father and Lucy seem quietly upset at this, but do not protest.

Burden, Willie, and Sugar-Boy get into the Cadillac, and the Boss announces that they will be traveling to Burden’s Landing, over a hundred miles away, and the town in which Judge Irwin lives. Sugar-Boy drives in his characteristically speedy fashion, but they still arrive in Burden’s Landing late at night. Jack warns Willie that he will not be able to scare Judge Irwin, who has been in Louisiana politics a long time. Willie says he doesn’t want to scare Irwin; he just “wants to look at him.”

Willie reveals to the reader, by speaking to Jack, that Jack grew up in Burden’s Landing, that the Burden name there is his family’s name, and that Jack’s friends, Adam and Anne Stanton, are also from Burden’s Landing. Willie tells Jack to direct Sugar-Boy to the Irwin house, which Jack knows well—he has been mentored by Judge Irwin since he was a small boy.

The Boss tells Jack to go up to the door and knock for Judge Irwin, who is in bed at this late hour. Irwin answers the door, eventually, in his bedclothes, and is happy to see Jack; he welcomes Jack inside, asking if Jack is OK or in trouble, but at that moment the Boss pops his head out of the darkness and says that, no, Jack isn’t in trouble, and that, in fact, the Boss and Jack would both like to talk to Irwin.

The Boss and Irwin stare each other down for a long moment, and Jack wonders what he is doing there—he mutters to himself that both of them, his old mentor and his new boss, can “go to Hell.” Finally, Willie asks Irwin if the rumors are true—if Irwin is in fact supporting Callahan for the Senate nomination, instead of a candidate, Masters, whom Willie backs. Irwin says that the “rumor” is in fact true, and that he has made up his mind in his decision.

Irwin says he does not support Masters as a Senate candidate because Masters will do whatever Willie, governor of the state, wants. Willie says that he is not trying to scare Irwin at the moment—he doesn’t believe Irwin can be scared—but he vows that, if Irwin thinks he has “dirt” (incriminating information) on Mastern, Willie and his team will certainly be able to dig up dirt on Callahan, Irwin’s candidate. Willie then threatens that, perhaps, he could also dig up information on the Judge himself, and feed that information to Callahan, who might then repudiate the Judge’s endorsement publically.

This latter piece of blackmail is too much for Irwin, who kicks Willie out of his house. Willie calls Jack to follow him, and the Judge and Jack have a terse exchange, wherein the Judge implies that Jack is merely the servant of the powerful Boss. Jack replies, curtly, to Irwin that he knows what he’s doing, and that Irwin had better at least consider Willie’s offers (and threats), if he doesn’t want his reputation tarnished. Back in the car, on the way to the old man’s farm again, Willie tells Jack to dig up dirt on Irwin that will stick.

Willie then says, in a famous line, that “Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud,” meaning that Jack will be able to find something on the Judge. Burden rounds out the chapter by saying, to the reader, that he did manage to find something on Irwin, that it did stick, and that the Judge, the Boss, and Adam Stanton are all dead at the moment—implying that this initial meeting between Willie, the Boss, and Burden is the novel’s central political and personal conflict.