An autobiography of Dillon S. Myer : oral history transcript / 1970

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University of California • Berkeley

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University of California Bancroft Library/Berkeley

Regional Oral History Office

Dillon S. Myer
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DILLON S. MYER

1970 by The University of California at Berkeley

Dillon S. Myer, Director of the War Relocation Authority
at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center. Center build
ings and Heart Mountain in the background.

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All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement
between the Regents of the University of California and Dillon S.
Myer and Jenness Wirt Myer, dated July 7, 1970. The manuscript
is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary
rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved
to Dillon S. Myer and Jenness Wirt Myer until January 1, 1980. No
part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the
written permission of the Director of the Bancroft Library of the
University of California.

Requests for permission to quote for publication should be
addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Library, and
should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted,
anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user.
The legal agreement with Dillon S. Myer and Jenness Wirt Myer requires
that they be notified of the request and allowed thirty days in
which to respond.

MANUSCRIPT HISTORY

The following manuscript by Dillon Seymour Myer, government official in
the areas of agriculture, the relocation of the Japanese during World War II,
federal public housing, inter-American Relations, and Indian affairs, came to
the attention of the Regional Oral History Office in the spring of 1968. At
that time Mr. Myer was engaged in tape recording his recollections of his
many years in government service, a task he took on after completing the
writing of The Uprooted Americans on his work in the War Relocation Authority.
Mrs. Helen S. Pryor , a friend and retired government employee, was serving as
an interested listener and questioner (for Mr. Myer soon found that talking
to a tape recorder alone was an awkward and unrewarding process), and Mrs.
Pryor had heard of the Regional Oral History Office through Dr. Thelma Dreis,
the Office's Washington, D.C., interviewer. The question was raised as to
whether The Bancroft Library would be interested in having a copy of the
completed manuscript so that it could be made available there for scholarly
research?

Mr. Myer had served as director of the War Relocation Authority, 1942-
1946, largely a California problem. His work as Commissioner of the Bureau
of Indian Affairs brought him into western U.S. history. As an agronomist,
county agricultural agent, and Extension Service supervisor (although in
Indiana and Ohio), his career directly complements interviews being carried on
by the Regional Oral History Office on agricultural history. The Bancroft
Library indicated that it would be delighted to have a copy, and would like to
encourage the completion and distribution of the manuscript in every way
possible.

Over the following two years letters and several meetings took place
between Mr. Myer and Mrs. Pryor, and Mrs. Willa Baum and Mrs. Amelia Fry of
the Regional Oral History Office. In the meantime, Mr. Myer completed his
painstaking tape recording. He could have stopped there, but he didn't. With
admirable persistence, he undertook to find a transcriber, who materialized
in the form of his daughter, Margaret Myer McFaddin. Still a do-it-yourself
project, he carefully edited the manuscript with full cooperation from Helen
Pryor, had it retyped and indexed, provided photographs, and sent a final-
typed version to The Bancroft Library in June of 1970 that was so clean and
complete that none of it had to be re-done before photocopying it. His work
is now available in The Bancroft Library as well as other research libraries
which will be requesting copies. In addition, Mr. Myer has given valuable
assistance in suggesting and locating other individuals who can give
information on other aspects of the wartime Japanese relocation.

The previous November Mr. Myer also recorded with Mrs. Fry an extensive
interview on his War Relocation Authority experiences in California and this
manuscript will appear as part of the series of interviews in the Earl Warren
Oral History Project. The original draft of The Uprooted Americans (University
of Arizona Press, 1970), which contains some materials that were deleted from
the final publication, has also been donated to The Bancroft Library.

Willa K. Baum, Director
Regional Oral History Office

20 June 1970

Regional Oral History Office

486 The Bancroft Library

University of California at Berkeley

Ill

CONTENTS

Chapter Page

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS x

FOREWORD - A BRIEF FAMILY HISTORY xi

I GROWING UP ON THE FARM IN THE 1890's AND 1
EARLY 1900's

The Country School 4

Family Life 9

Household and Farm Chores 13

The Miracle of Free Gas " 17

II FARM OPERATIONS 19

Threshing 27

Corn Harvest and Storage 28

Potato Raising" 31

Butchering and Meat Preparation 33

The Catfish Ceremony 37

- Of f -Season Work ~ 45

Community Road "Repairing 47

III PLEASURE AND RECREATION 54-

Memories of Visits to Grandmother Seymour 56

A Country Quartet 58

Marooned by a Storm 60

Plans To Become A farmer 63
More About Fun During ffiie Days On The Farm 64
The Coming Of The Interurban And' Related " " 66

Items

An Expansion Of Business 72

IV GROWING UP DURING THE TEEN YEARS AND MY FIRST 73
JOB

High School 75

My Early Courting Days 76

IV

Chapter

Innovations And Transition 77

College Years 81

My Years At The University Of Kentucky - 85
The First Job""

MATURING AS A YOUNG COUNTY AGRICULTURAL AGENT 89
IN INDIANA

More About Kentucky 91

My Only Scientific Publication 92

Soil Fertility Theories"" 93

Back To Vanderburgh County; Getting 96

Acquainted
Making An Impression By Demonstrating

Know How
Field Demonstrations And Dealer Goop-

~"eration

War Gardens And Aphids '03

Interest In The ^ County Agent 's^Politics
Newspaper Experience And Relations
Early Meetings 1°7

Learning The Importance Of Remembering

Faces And Names
Get Acquainted Meetings

The Soy Bean Story H2

Hybrid Corn ^7

Wintertime Meeting In Scott Township 120
Summer Time Meetings 123

A Return Visit After Twenty Years
Women On The Farm 125

Four H Club Work 129

Interesting Adult Demonstrations 132
Armstrong Township And Henry Kissel's 135

~"5og Cholera

Army Worm And Grasshopper Control
The Process Of Change

.

A Move To My Second Supervisory Job As
District Supervisor Of ^ The Agri
culture Extension Service

VI COUNTY AGENT SUPERVISOR AT PURDUE UNIVERSITY 14-5
AND A MOVE TO OHIO AS A COUNTY AGENT
AGAIN

A Second Job As A County Agricultural 149

"

Chapter FaSe

Supervisory Techniques

A Crucial Decision 155

Facinp; The Problems Of The Depression 156

A Bit Of Back Sta^e Lobbying 157

Adding; 'xQ My Farm Experience, 159

I Met The Most Wonderful Girl 159

VII THE COMING OF THE NEW DEAL AND A CHANGE OF 161
WORK

The Move To Washington 164

Another Job Change 166

Another Proposed Move 16?

Initiation Of Aerial Land Surveys 168

VIII A BRAND NEW JOB IN THE SOIL CONSERVATION 170
SERVICE

Origin Of The Soil Erosion Service In 1?1

The Department Of The Interior
The Battle To Secure Passage Of The 175
~S~tate Soil Conservation Districts

Act

A Promotion To Assistant Chief 177

An Attempted Take Over"" 177

A Proposal To Move Some Regional Offices 178
The Pearl Harbor Attack And A Change In 179
Status

IX THE MOVE FROM AGRICULTURE TO THE WAR RELOCA- 183
TION AUTHORITY IN 1942

The Evacuation Authorization And 185

"Initiation

Agricultural Labor - The First Reloca
tion Move

Student Relocation Committee
First Steps Toward A General Relocation 188

Policy""

The Army Assembly Centers 190

The Hove To Relocation Centers 191

The jr>olicy___Con.f erence And Its~Importance
The Dies Committee Moved In 193

The Post en And Manzanar Troubles
A Second Policy Conference 195

VI

Chapter Page

Relocation Field Offices Established 196

A Senate Sub-Committee Holds Hearings 1§7

Tlie 442nd Regimental Combat Team Was 197

Launched

Baseless Rumors 198

Our Letter To Secretary Stimson Recom- 199

'mendinp; A Change In The Exclusion

Order

Mrs. Roosevelt's Visit To Gila River 200

And A Luncheon""

The Dies Sub-Committee At Work 202

The Tule Lake Incident And Resulting 204

A Date With The American Legion 208

A Follow Up Of The Tule Lake Incident 210

Reinstitution Of The Draft Of Nisei" 210

A Change In Status - The Move To The 211

Department Of The Interior

The European Refugees " 212

Back To The Problem Of Japanese- 216

Americans

The First Closing Of A Relocation 217

Center

The Lifting Of The Exclusion Orders 218

Final Relocation Problems' 219

Supreme Court Decisions 220

More Final Relocation "Problems 221

An Award For Work Well Done 224

The Wind Up Of W.R.A. In 1^46 224

X A PERIOD OF CHANGE 225

More About My Good Boss Secretary Ickes 225

The Offer Of A Governorship Of Puerto 22?

Rico

An Interim Interlude 228

A Battle Over Senate Confirmation 229

XI A MOVE TO HOUSING AS COMMISSIONER OP P.P.H.A. 231

A Visit From The Mayor Of Minneapolis 238

My Last Days In Housing' 239

vii

Chapter Page

XII A DECISION TO MOVE TO THE INSTITUTE OF 240
INTER-AMERICAN AFFAIRS AS PRESIDENT

A Try For A New Charter 242

Another Offer To Head The Bureau Of 244

Indian Affairs

A Successful Appeal For More Funds 245

A Middle East Interlude 246

XIII ANOTHER MOVE TO THE DEPARTMENT OF THE 252
INTERIOR AS COMMISSIONER OF THE BUREAU
OF INDIAN AFFAIRS

Resistance To Change In An Old Govern- 256

ment Bureau

The Program 257

Schooling For Indians 261

Health And Sanitation 265

Welfare 26?

Roads 268

Relocation Problems 268

oumrninF: Up The Indian Program 270

Lack Of !Pub]ic Understanding Of The 284

Indian Pro'hlem~

Many Indians Are Still Primitive 286

The Future For American Indians 288

Indian Claims 291

Are The Indians A Dyinp,- Race? 2§2

Five Hundred Years Hence " 2§4

Looking Back At The Indian Affairs 295

Assignment

XIV CHANGE OF ADMINISTRATION AND I LEAVE THE 299
GOVERNMENT

I Become A. Civil Service Retiree 300

Congressional Friends And Political 300

Contacts During My Career In

Government

Senator Carl Hayden 301

Senator Clinton Anderson 302

Senator Richard Russell 304

Senator flIRe Mansfield 305

dongressman George Mahon 306

Congressman "Ghet" Holofield 307

viii

I

Chapter Page

Congressman Charles Levy 309

Congressman Nprris Poulson 311

Relations With Congress 313

Attitude Toward Congress 318

Politics 321

XV SOME PEOPLE AND EXPERIENCES THAT WERE 323
IMPORTANT IN MY LIFE

University Life 325

Dr. Arthur McCall 325

George Roberts and Edwin Kinney 326

G. I. Christie 329

Harry Ram sower 330

Howard Tolley 331

Milton Eisenhower 332

Paul Apple by 334

M. L. Wilson 336

Henry Wallace 337

Hugh Bennett 339

Harold Smith 340

Harold Ickes 340

Matters Of Importance That I Have 342

Learned Prom Experience

Supervisory Techniques 344

XVI THE YEARS AFTER 1953 347

A Temporary Retirement 347

Group Health Association 347

The Hand Of Fate Intervenes 348

A Move To The United Nations 356

And To Vene zue la 356

Difficulties.. In^Modernizing The 363

Government

Social kife In "Venezuela 366

Travel Through The Country 368
Reflections On The Venezuela Experience 371

Back Home 372

A Graduate School Seminar 373
Other Assignments And "Near" Assignments 374

A Temporary Assignment 376

Temporary Assignment In Korea 380

A Stop Off In India~ 383

ix

Chapter Page

Chairman Of A Personnel Review Board 385

A Change In Directors" 386

A Position With The Organization Of 38?

American States
A Travel Interlude Then Further Assign- 392

ments

I Do Some Writing 393

XVII POSTSCRIPT - SUMMING UP 395

INDEX 397

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The following narrative was started in 196? as a
result of the encouragement of many friends including
Helen Pryor who spent many hours over several months
serving as the interviewer during the taping period and
editing the typed script.

At an early stage of the taping process I weakened
and debated whether to continue. My good wife Jenness
Wirt Myer urged me to continue, because she wanted the
record completed for our three daughters.

We were also encouraged by Mrs. Amelia Pry and Mrs.
Willa Baum, of the Regional Oral History Office of the
University of California General Library, to complete the
taping and the typing of the manuscript.

So it is thanks to my wife Jenness, to Helen Pryor,
our good friend, and all of those who urged that we com
plete the task, that it has been done.

Thanks also to our daughter Margaret Wirt Myer
McFaddin for spending many long hours typing the taped
story.

Dillon S. Myer

1 June 1970
3025 Daniel Lane
Washington, D.C.

xi

FOREWORD - A BRIEF FAMILY HISTORY

Like many Americans, my interest in and curiosity
about my family's history lay dormant until my later years,
when, unfortunately, no one of an earlier generation is left
to question about the family tree. From the scanty infor
mation available, I know that .my father's great-great-grand
father was a German tutor, who left Germany with his wife
and two sons for the United States. One can only conjecture
that this was in the middle or late eighteenth century.

According to family legend, their ship - a sailing
vessel, of course - was wrecked somewhere off the coast of
Maryland and the father and mother were lost, along with the
gold that they had. The two boys reached shore, and being
destitute, they bound themselves out, a customary procedure
in those days. The duration of their servitude is unknown;
in fact, the interim history is unknown to me until my Grand
father Myer and his brother migrated from Allegheny County,
Maryland, to Licking County, Ohio, during the early eighteen
thirties. In 1834- they bought farm lands on the banks of
what is now Buckeye Lake.

The land was owned by the U.S. Government and the
sheepskin deed bearing that date was signed by President
Andrew Jackson. A portion of the land purchased at that
time is still a part of the John Hyson Myer estate and the
sheepskin deed is still a Myer keepsake. The land is now
owned by the third generation heirs of my father, John
Hyson Myer.

My Grandmother Myer was Mary Oldaker. She was born
in Virginia in the upper part of the Shenendoah Valley
which is now a part of West Virginia, in 1818, and she and
her family moved to Ohio by horseback when she was Just a
girl. We still have some of the antique dining room chairs
in the family that were brought to Ohio by horseback. My
Grandmother's father and my great Grandfather Oldaker was a
millwright and evidently traveled about to build mills and
mill wheels in different locations.

xii

My Grandmother married Jacob Myer, my Grandfather, at
age forty- two. She was his second wife and she must have
been several years younger than he was. My father, an only
child, was born in 1861 when Grandmother was forty-three years
old. His father Jacob Myer died in 1866 when Dad was only
five years old. My widowed Grandmother was left with a
young son and a farm to look after. It seems that portions
of the farmland wore still swampy and undeveloped. At the
time my father, an a young man, took over the management,
debts had accumulated due in part to poor management and in
part to post-Civil War depression.

Consequently when he was married in 1887 at the age
of twenty-six he and my mother took on the debts and added
to them the cost of remodeling the house. The remodeling
job was largely a new structure built around and encompassing
R portion of the old house which was originally a log structure,

My Mother was Harriet Eatella Seymour before her marri
age. She was born in 1864- . Her parents were Bruce and
Elizabeth Seymour.

When her father and mother were first married they
moved to Tippecanoe County, Indiana, near Lafayette which
was frontier country in the early eighteen fifties. Their
first son was born there but they moved back to Ohio in
about 1856 and built a log house on the raw land that had
been secured from the government. They later built a frame
house and as a child during the 1890 's I remember the old log
house which was far back on the farm and was then used to
shelter livestock.

Mother had two sisters and four brothers, all of whom,
with one exception, lived to be eighty-two years of age or
older.

My Mother lived to be ninety-four years and ten months
of age and an older sister Aunt Mate who lived with us
during her late years lived to be one hundred and two.

The Seymours were of Scotch-English descent but I know
very little about the family before my Grandfather except
that they were early settlers in Licking County, Ohio and
lived not far from Newark, Ohio.

Xlll

My Grandmother Seymour was a Lees and her parents were
English. Evidently my great Grandfather Lees was Cockney
English and still had the cockney accent when Mother was a
girl.

My Father died in

at age eighty.

I have one brother who manages the home farm and estate
who is now eighty-one and two younger sisters, Mrs. Don Tobin
of Columbus, Ohio, and Mrs. George Eikenberry of Cambridge,
Ohio.

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CHAPTER I

GROWING UP ON THE FARM IN THE 1890's AND EARLY 1900's

DSM: I was born and reared on a typical corn belt farm
of 135 acres in central Ohio in a family of four;
one older brother and two younger sisters. My
pre-college days lay entirely within the horse and
buggy era and before automobiles and tractors were
generally used. Consequently communication was
not easy between communities.

One of my very earliest memories has to do
with a visit that we made to some relatives of
my father, by the name of Myer, in the northern
part of Licking County. It was a large county,
and I must have been only two years old, possibly
three.

During that visit I wandered away from the
family and out into the yard where some bee hives
were located. Being quite young and inexperienced
I didn't know what bee hives were. It seems that
I picked up a corn cob and was beating on the
hives, and the bees, of course, swarmed around me
and stung me rather badly. One of the older girls
in the family, when she sensed what was going on,
picked me up and carried me out of the range of
the bees. Another sister ran into the garden,
pulled up some green onions, brought them back,
cut them up, and put the green onions on the
stings which helped to alleviate the soreness.
I suppose it had something to do with stopping
the poison. I have found, throughout the years,
that this is an antidote for bee stings. This
experience was so vivid that it happens to be, I
think, the first thing that I can recall.

I can still remember what those bee hives looked
like. They were painted white, and they were just
about my height because I think they had put what
we know as supers on top of some of the hives. As

a consequence when I think of bee hives, I think
of that kind of bee hive that I saw at that stage.
It was a square bee hive.

I learned from that experience that onions
were a good antidote for bee stings. Years later,
when my youngest daughter was about five, we had
moved to Palls Church, Virginia, and I was working
out in the yard one nice sunny day and had mowed
the yard. I sat down to talk to somebody when she
came rushing out and plopped down beside me, put
ting both hands on the grass as she sat down, and
she put one hand right down on a honey bee. I had
my knife in my pocket and I immediately pulled up
a wild onion, which was easy to do because we had
lots of them, and cut one in two and put it on
the palm of her hand, which had been stung, and
said "Close your hand and hold it for a little
bit," which she did. As a consequence she had no
after effects from the bee sting.

There are two other early memories that may
be interesting. One of them had to do with the
cutting of my curls. In those days little boys,
as well as little girls, wore curls until they
were at least four or five years old. I don't
remember a great deal about mine except that I do
remember that I was told to go and look at my curls
in the looking glass for the last time. And crazily
enough I remember getting a chair and moving it in
front of the looking glass, which I had to do
because I wasn't tall enough to see in the glass
otherwise, and took a last look at my curls before
they were whacked off.

The other incident was not one that I like to
recall. Nevertheless it was an incident of some
importance in my younger days. My Father was pre
paring to plant potatoes in the spring of the yeer
and he found that he did not have enough seed
potatoes to plant the ground that he had in mind;
so he asked my brother and me to go to a neighbor's,
who lived at least three quarters of a mile away,
and ask him if we could borrow a few seed potatoes
to finish out the job. My brother was eight years
old and I was five. So we hied across the fields.

When we arrived at Mr. Bert Neel's place Mrs.
Neel said she was sorry but that Mr. Neel wasn't
there just then, but he would be back after a
little bit and why didn't we go with Minnie, her
daughter, down to see the deer which Mr. Neel had
brought back from a hunting trip and had put into
a deer lot that he had built. Of course, this
was very intriguing. So we spent some time
watching the deer and playing about until Mr. Neel
returned.

We finally got the potatoes and took them
home. When we arrived home we found my Father in
a rage because he had been waiting for quite some
time. He had told us to hurry and we had not
hurried. So he cut a peach switch and gave us
both a switching.

It 3ust so happens that I had on my first pair
of little boy short pants which my Mother had made
with her own hands. They were a beautiful blue
and to get a switching the first time I wore these
pants was bad business as far as Mother was con
cerned. I remember very distinctly that she wept
some tears which, I think, was the only time in
her life that she wept when I was punished.

When I was five, my brother, of course, had
already been in school for some time, having
started at age six. I was very much interested
in learning to read. So my Father, who at times
had great patience, taught me to read in the first
reader, McGuffy's First Reader as a matter of fact.

So by the time I started school, at age six,
I was able to avoid the so-called chart class,
which they had in those days. I remember taking
very great pleasure during the first years in
school in watching the chart class stand up in
front of the chart with the teacher with a
pointer, spelling out C-A-T? R-A-T, D-O-G and all
the simple words, and thinking I was awfully glad
I hadn't had to go through that.

The Country School

DSM: We went to a one-room country school which
was at least a mile, probably one and one half
miles, from home. We walked to school and home
again each school day except in times of very bad
weather. Occasionally in the wintertime, if we
had a blizzard or a heavy snow and the snow was
deep, Dad would take us on horseback with the two
of us riding behind him. He would drop us off
and then maybe come for us in the afternoon if
the storm continued.

A little later on he decided it wasn't
necessary for him to go so when we got old enough
he allowed us to ride old "Queen" which was one
of our driving horses. He put a blanket on her,
strapped it on and we two would ride to school
where we would tie the reins up, turn her loose,
and she would go home, which of course was
twasier than walking in heavy snow when the snow
was hard to plod through.

One of my earliest memories, in my first few
weeks of school, was the fact that we had a lady
teacher by the name of Lottie Horn who lived just
across the road from the school; a very lovely per
son. One morning I felt that I needed to go very
badly to what we would call the bathroom nowadays,
the toilet, and I held up my hand. She very
sweetly said "We will have recess in a few minutes.
I think you can wait." Well, I couldn't wait. As
a consequence I flooded the area and she sent me
home for 0 change of clothes. She was very con
trite and T never had any problem after that when
I held up my hand.

We had Miss Horn for a period of a couple of
years. Then we had a man teacher, by the name of
Mac Mossman, who only lasted a year. Unfortunately,
I turned out to be teacher's pet under Mac Mossman
which embarrassed me no end because I didn't care
for him and none of the students did. He was
always saying something that embarrassed me such

as "Would a good little boy put some coal in the
stove?11, or something of that kind.

One of the things that I remember about Mac
Mossman was that he chewed scrap tobacco. He kept
his tobacco in the coal house and the door was
just behind the teacher's desk. One noon, when
he had gone away temporarily, a bunch of us boys
got into the coal house, found his tobacco and
scattered it all over the coal so that he would
have had to pick it up bit by bit. We also found
some switches which he had cut for use on the
older boys if they got out of hand. We ringed
those with a knife so that if he did use them
they would break into pieces.

HP: Did fellow students kid you about being "the good
little boy?"

DSM: Oh sure. That is what irked me. I didn't mind

being the good little boy but I didn't like being
kidded about it.

Our next teacher was the one that was a real
teacher, and who was there the rest of my time in
elementary school or country school. I went to
country school, by the way, from age 6 to age 14-.
Mr. Harvey Orr was an excellent teacher.

As I remember it, I think I learned as much
from listening to the older scholars reciting their
lessons as I did from reciting my own. We had long
recitation benches in the front of the room and
they were called up to do their reading or their
language or their arithmetic or what not. Of course,
in a one-room school everything is open to everybody.
I remember quite distinctly listening to many many
recitations and repetitions of reading lessons,
reading of poems, reading of prose, and so on, out
of the old McGuffy Readers.

After I had been in school for quite some time,
during my last two years, I was the only scholar
in what would now be called seventh and eighth
grade. Consequently, the teacher was able to
devote a great deal of time to one student.

Fortunately, he was a man of some learning and
some imagination. He did such things as to pro
vide extra work which was not in the curriculum.
For example, he provided a course in orthography,
which was a course on the origin of words. This
has been very helpful to me throughout the years.

During my last year or two in school we read
Shakespeare part of the time. We read such Shake
spearian plays as "A Winter's Tale", "The Merchant
of Venice", "Midsummer Night's Dream", and one or
two others.

I also remember that there was no school
library in those days, but Mr. Orr felt that there
should be one so he, with his own hands, built a
bookcase which could be locked and put it in one
corner of the schoolroom. He brought his own
library to the school; allowed us to take out
books; take them home to read; and, of course,
they were also properly returned. This was quite
an unusual thing in those early days.

In those days, the country school teacher got
a very small salary. I'm sure that Harvey Orr
received only $30 a month when he started teaching
and never more than $40 during a school year. He
provided his own house. There were no fringe
benefits, except occasionally if he didn't want
to go home and it was bad weather, somebody in the
neighborhood, usually it was the Myers, provided a
place for him to stay all night and provided some
meals.

There was a time, previous to this, when many
of the country teachers "boarded around" but he
didn't "board around." He lived at a place called
Jacksontown which was about three and a half or
four miles away. He drove every morning and put
his horse in the barn, at the neighbor's across
the way. He had a family of at least three children
whom I can remember. They went to school in their
own community. He raised truck crops during the
summer to supplement his wages.

HP: He sold them?

DCM: Yes. He peddled his crops at Buckeye Lake among
the summer cottagers.

We had an eight months school in those days.
He got $240 a year, and later he got $320 n year.

HP: Had he been to college?

DSM: No. I'm sure he hadn't "been to college. He was

pretty much self-educated beyond the common schools.
I'm not sure thot he had been to high school because
they didn't have many country high schools in those
days, but he was a great reader. He believed in
good literature. He believed in a sound basic edu
cation, and he was a wonderful teacher. I was most
fortunate that I was able to have him for a period
of five years of my country or elementary school
ing.

One other incident that I remember about
Harvey Orr: In the state of Ohio we had the
Patterson i'Jxamin^tions or Boxwell Examinations.
If you passed an examination, which was given on
a county-wide basis, you could go to high school
of your choice and have your tuition paid. Well,
I took the examination. It just so happened that
Harvey Orr, along with two other teachers from
around the county, was one of the three examiners
who supervised the exams.

Much to my amazement, about three or four
weeks after the examinations were given, Harvey
Orr drove his horse and buggy into our place one
day and turned around. My Dad went out to talk to
him and then he called me. When I went out he pre
sented me with a book, which as I remember was "The
Seven Wonders of the World", and the book was a
reward for having won the top grade in the county
in mathematics. I smile every time I think of this
because it was the last time I ever won a top grade
in mathematics. I didn't do too well in Algebra
and Geometry in high school and I took no mathe
matics when I went to college. I saw to it that
I avoided mathematics.

8

I ought to go back, I think, to the period of
Mac Mossman for a moment to recall one rather
important and exciting incident. At least it was
exciting for most of the youngsters.

He got all excited one day and rushed all of
us outside with the statement that the greatest
invention of the age was coming up the road. When
we got outside and lined up in front of the school
house, here came Mr. Dave Black of Newark, Ohio,
in his "one-lunger" automobile with a dashboard
and, of course, with the kind of handle that you
had in those days instead of a steering wheel. He
had on a linen duster, a cap with goggles, and all
of the gear of the early day automobilist. It
happens that I had seen Dave Black before in his
automobile because he occasionally came out to the
reservoir, which was near our place. But most of
the kids had not. It must have been around 1899»
because I was just a youngster. I don't think I
was over eight years old at that time.

In those days, of course, when you drove the
team hitched to the surrey to church on Sunday and
you met an automobile, which wasn't often, you got
out and held the horses by their heads while it
passed, to keep them from jumping over the fence.

Much of the social life in my early days,
during the country school period, revolved around
the school or around the church. The school social
life had to do mainly with such things as box
socials. This, of course, was a social where the
ladies and the girls each brought a box, which they
had packed themselves, and then these boxes were
auctioned off. The men and the boys bid for the
box. One of the ways to make money for the school
was to find one or more who wanted a certain girl's
box and were willing to bid for it and it went up
sometimes to enormous sums such as $1.50 or $2.00,
which was a lot of money in those days.

HP: What was in the box? Food?

DSM: Yes, food. There was food in the boxes.

HP: What was considered a good box?

DSM: Oh, sandwiches and cake or fried chicken — the

kind of thing that was easy to pack in a box and,
of course, it was a picnic type of meal.

Another school affair, which was quite general
in those days, was the spelling bee. Nearly every
body in the community attended and some of the
older folks participated.

Family Life

DSM: Spelling was a very important matter in our
family. We used to have spelling bees around the
supper table, after we had finished our evening
meal, and my Dad and my Mother enjoyed them, I'm
sure, more than we did, at that time, because they
were good spellers and they wanted to be sure that
we would be.

HP: How did you do it? Did you have a spelling book
that your Father would read from?

DSM: Oh, no. Normally they would just remember words
they had spelled throughout the years and they
would give them to us to spell. They would pro
nounce them and we would do the spelling. I
remember one that Dad always enjoyed using was
the volcano in Mexico which he called "Popocatapetal"
which in Spanish is pronounced "Popocatepetl." He
thought that was great fun to throw this one out
at us because he had, I think, gotten stuck on it
in a spelling bee at sometime or other. These home
spelling bees, as I said, took place after supper
in the dining room.

My Mother, in particular, was very interested
in seeing to it that her youngsters knew how to
speak the English language. She was very careful
to correct us if we didn't pronounce words properly.
She was very insistent that we study our language
and grammar lessons. If need be, she was helpful,

10

for she knew a good deal about grammar and language
because she was interested in it. Of course, as I
have already indicated, she was very interested in
seeing to it that we knew how to spell. This, I'm
sure, was helpful, not only at that time but in
later life because it was drummed into us day after
day.

In the same way, as I began to grow up, she
would slap me on the shoulder blades every time I
passed and tell me to straighten up so that I
wouldn't be stooped, as tall boys very often are.

HP: Describe how it was around the dinner table. Was
it in the kitchen or the dining room?

DSM: We always ate in the dining room. Our kitchen was
small and we had a fair-sized dining room. We ate
all our meals in the dining room.

HP: Did your Mother use a white table cloth?

DSM: Oh yes. Occasionally, during the week, we would

use a white-and-red-squared tablecloth but usually
it was white. Mother believed in white table
cloths.

My Dad sat at the head of the table and always
gave the blessing and, if somebody had been parti
cularly bad or some incident had stirred him up,
sometimes he ran on and on. Sometimes we would
glance at each other and think "Boy, are we getting
it on the chin." But usually it was very short and
very sweet.

HP: What sort of grace would he say?

DSM: He would ask for a blessing on the food, and bless
the members of the family. If he felt other people
should be blessed he would bring them in too.

Mother sat across the table from me, which was

at my Dad's left; my brother sat next to me; my

Grandmother Myer sat at the other end of the table;

and then the two young girls sat next to Mother on
the other side of the table.

11

HP: I wonder why your Grandmother sat at the end. Was
it near the kitchen for your Mother to get up or
did she sit on the side or what?

DSM: Grandmother always considered that this was her

house. My father was the only boy in her family.
She married a widower who had lost his first wife.
He was older than she was and Dad was born when
she was 4-3 years of age in 1861. He was the only
child she ever had. She wasn't married until she
was 4-2. So when Dad got married Mother came into
their home and I might say she had a very tough
life until my Grandmother's death many years
later.

HP: Did you realize this as a child?

DSM: Oh yes, many times. Every so often Dad would take
Grandmother into the living room; close the doors;
and we were barred for two or three hours, while
they argued out something that had to be argued
because Mother had gotten to the end of her rope.

Grandmother sat at the end of the table because
she probably always had sat there before Mother
came on to the scene. I don't know. In any case,
it was accepted.

HP: Was there ever argument in front of you children,
or how did you know that your Mother was unhappy
about her Mother-in-Law?

DSM: We knew that Mother was unhappy at times by her
attitude mainly, and occasional comments.

HP: Was your Grandmother bossy or critical or what?

DSM: Grandmother liked to take over and to run things.

She was always wanting to do things which sometimes
were in Mother's way. Her final act, that led up
to her demise, happened while Dad and Mother and
all of us had gone away. She decided to do some
ironing, which she wasn't supposed to do, and she
fell over a threshold of the door and broke her
hip. She was in bed for a year and she got well
enough that she got up to walk some but died from

12

uremic poisoning from being bedfast so long. She
was 94 years of age at the time of her death.

Generally speaking Grandmother was good to
us. She was for the most part kindly. There
were certain times when she tried to manage us.
We didn't care for that but she was usually good
to us.

One of the things that I remember very well
was that she had begun to develop cataracts as
she got older and she couldn't thread her own
needles. I think I threaded hundreds of needles
for Grandmother when I was a kid. Everytime she
needed a new threading I was available. I was the
one who did the threading for one reason or another.

One other thing that we helped her do was to
find her spectacles. About half the time they were
pushed up on top of her head where she had forgotten
she had put them.

HP: There was nothing that could be done for cataracts
in those days?

DSM: Well, at least nothing was done. I don't remember.
I suppose they were not operable in those days. I
don't think they had developed the techniques but
I'm not sure about that.

Another thing that I was always called on to
help Grandmother do was to pick greens in the spring.
She loved greens. We picked dandelion, narrow dock,
lambs quarter, and what have you. I have forgotten
some of the others but, oh yes, horseradish leaves.

I might say she also loved horseradish and
every so often I had to help her dig horseradish
root and helped to grate it which, of course, brought
tears to the eyes.

HP: Grated raw?

DSM: Yes. I still like horseradish in spite of the dis
comforting experience.

Household and Farm Chores

DSM: Youngsters growing up on a farm in those days
were expected to help with the farm chores just as
soon as they were able. In my own case the first
chores allotted to me were the gathering of eggs
and the carrying in of kindling wood for the
kitchen stove and the heating stove. At that
stage, I didn't have to cut the kindling but I
did have to carry it in. A little later I was
expected to fill the wood box in the kitchen.

HP: From the first grade age or even before that?

DSM: Yes. I started doing both chores when I was
around five.

HP: Did you have a basket or a bucket to put the eggs
in?

DSM: Oh yes, and occasionally, of course, there were
broken eggs.

HP: Did you ever break any?
DSM: Oh sure.

Following the period when I began to cut the
kindling, to gather it and to carry in the wood
to fill the wood boxes, I unfortunately decided
that I'd like to learn to milk; so at age seven
I started milking. I was never relieved of the
task until I left home at age 22 after I had
finished college.

HP: Can a seven year old really milk?

DSM: Sure, I did.

HP: Were your hands big enough?

DSM: Oh yes. I didn't milk some of the cows at first

because their teats were a little large for seven-
year-old hands but I could milk most of them. My

brother didn't like to milk so he took care of the
horse stables and the horse barns which he loved.
I had to do the cow barns, which I resented
throughout the years, but there wasn't anything
I could do about it. The pattern was already
fixed.

Other chores during this period had to do with
feeding the stock, both in the barns and in the
lots. We put fodder out for them after we turned
them out from the barns.

HP: Everyday?

DSM: We fed them twice a day. In the morning and evening,
and the cleaning of stables was done once a day,
including putting down new bedding.

HP: Every day?

DSM: This was routine every day during the winter.

We didn't keep them in the barns during the
summer. Normally you turned them out at night, and
just let the cows in long enough to milk.

The horses were brought in to curry and to
harness. During the season when we used teams the
currying and harnessing of horses to get them ready
for the field was a chore before breakfast every
morning. This was in addition to the other chores.
The horses had to be ready to go when the signal
was given after breakfast.

The worst chore that I ever had, and one that
I still don't like to think about but which I can
still do, was the sawing and splitting of wood for
both the cook stove and the heating stoves. This
went on from fall until spring. All winter long.
Any time we had left before school, we got out the
crosscut saw and sawed off a few chunks of wood.

HP: How far away was the wood?

DSM: The wood yard was right between the house and the
barn.

HP: Even in bad weather?

DSM: Oh yes. Unless the weather was awfully bad, we

sawed wood or split wood and carried in wood; both
before and after school and, of course, on Satur
days. Most of the day on Saturdays during the
winter months we sawed, split and carried wood.
V/e didn't use much wood during the summer. We
had stored enough and stocked enough in cords to
carry us through the summer for cooking and the
wash house.

HP: How big were the logs?

DSM: Some of the logs were two or three feet in

diameter. We took down trees and would haul the
logs up to the wood yard. We usually sawed them
up there. On Saturday we sometimes sawed the wood
in the woods and loaded the chunks onto the wagon
or sled and hauled them up and dumped them into
the wood yard.

We had enough logs right at hand so that
before and after school we always had plenty to
saw on. They ranged anywhere from a foot in
diameter to two or three feet in diameter. Some
of them were pretty knotty such as elm, beech,
and oak. Certain parts of those trees didn't split
very easily. I have always wished we could have
had wood like they have on the West Coast such as
fir and some of that beautiful straight grained
wood. I still would like to take an ax and split
some of it just for the pleasure of knowing how
it felt to split wood without knots in it,

HP: It must be easier to split then.
DSM: Very much, yes.

HP: And every bit of fuel in the house? What did you
use for illumination? Kerosene?

DSM: Kerosene lamps were used entirely for illumination.

Outside of kerosene in the lamps, every bit
of fuel used in the house was prepared by the three

16

"men" of the family, and a occasional "hired man."
We used wood until we got free gas.

Speaking of kerosene lamps, that was another
chore that I had to help my Grandmother with. My
Grandmother always cleaned the lamps, refilled
them and cleaned the wicks on Saturday when I was
available. So I helped to clean the lamps, clean
the chimneys, snuff the wicks, fill the lamps with
"coal oil" as kerosene was called, wipe them off
again, and to get them back into their proper
place in the house.

HP: Did you ever get a kerosene cook stove?

DSM: No. Fortunately, we never had a kerosene cook

stove. I hate the smell of kerosene to this day.

HP: How many lamps were there?

DSM: As I remember it, we had a couple of lamps in the
kitchen; one on each side of the kitchen that hung
in brackets. We had, usually, a couple in the
living room and, of course, we had one or two in
the dining room. We had a beautiful lamp in the
parlor, tall lamp with a big globe with flowers on
it,

HP: Standing or hanging?

DSM: Standing, the kind that you put in the middle of
the table. It had a smaller chimney than the
others that came up through the beautiful flowered
china globe.

HP: Is it still in there?

DSM: No. I don't know what happened to it. It's been
gone for quite some time. I don't know where it
went.

HP: Then when you went to bed did you carry a lamp
upstairs with you?

DSM: No. We kids usually went to bed without a light.
If we needed a light, we had a lamp in each of the
rooms.

17

Grandmother most often carried a lamp upstairs
with her because she didn't see too well. During
the wintertime, she also carried her soapstone
wrapped in a piece of blanket or a hot flat iron,
if the soapstone wasn't handy. She would turn her
bed clothes back and iron the bed or smooth the
bed with the hot iron or soapstone before she
crawled in and then she put the soapstone at her
feet. If we were ill with a cold, we usually got
a soapstone or an iron at our feet. Otherwise we
crawled into a cold bed.

We hadn't any heat upstairs excepting that in
Dad and Mother's room, a large room upstairs; they had
put a radiator, a sort of drum with vents in it, on
the pipe from the stove downstairs. This threw a
little more heat into that room but the other rooms
were just plain cold. There was no reading in bed
in those days.

The Miracle of Free Gas

DSM: Illumination by gas light and the doing away
with wood sawing and wood cutting had to await the
arrival of free gas, which happened when they began
to drill gas wells throughout our community. They
found some gas and before we had a well of our own,
they wanted to come across our place with a gas
line which would supply gas to Buckeye Lake Park
which was then developing. As a result of wanting
that right-of-way, we were able to get free gas for
years for two houses; for the tenant house and for
our main house.

HP: For illumination and heat both?

DSM: We used it for heat, and illumination.

HP: Cooking?

DSM: And cooking. It was one of the greatest things
that ever happened to me as a kid.

18

HP: I'll bet. At what age did this happen?

DSM: I think I was around twelve when the gas field
began to open up and, as a consequence, there
was no more wood sawing by the time we were ready
to start to high school.

We put in a furnace and had central heat.
All you had to do was turn on the gas, light a
match, throw it in and boom! away it went. I'll
tell you that was a thrill, a real thrill.

We had a barnyard light, at that time, with
free gas. We didn't burn it like some people did
as a open flame; we put mantles on ours. That was
the beginning of an easier life.

19

CHAPTER II
FAJRM OPERATIONS

DSM: Other than the farm chores, the seasonal

farm work, the field work which we did throughout
my young life, we did such off-season work as
cutting weeds in grain fields and pastures, such
as dock and mullein; in the wheat fields very often
you would find wild mustard which had to be pulled;
hoeing in the garden; the weedy spots in the corn
field had to be hoed. We helped with that along
with my Dad and the hired man.

Land preparation, including plowing with
walking plows, harrowing either with spiked tooth
or disk harrows, dragging or rolling prior to
planting; all this came with growing up.

HP: I suppose it was unthinkable to say "Well, I don't
like this kind of work. I want to be a school
teacher" or something like that.

DSM: It never occurred to anybody at that age to say

"I don't like this kind of work" because Dad would
have said "That's just too bad."

Speaking of this, I was hauling hay shocks as
a very small kid. We used to haul hay shocks up
to the stackers; some people called them hay doodles,
You would take one horse and a rope and you would
run the rope around the bottom of the shock so you
could drag it up to the stack for the men to pitch
it up onto the stack.

I got very tired one day and the horse that
I was riding was bothered by nit flies. She kept
throwing her head, and it bothered me. On one of
ray trips to the stack I complained about the head
tossing to the pitchers, and one of them said, "Oh,
that's nothing to worry about," and as he unhitched

20

the rope from the shock he gave Queen, the mare I
was riding, a whack on the rump with his fork handle.
She started in a gallop which increased in speed,
and about half way down the field I bounced off,
but held on to one hame for a bit, but I finally
dropped to the ground and the horse galloped right
over me. I just laid there until the hired man came
running over and said "Jump up; you're not hurt,"
So I jumped up and sure enough my pride was the
only thing hurt.

They corralled Queen, and then my Dad went
and got an old nag called "Old Doll", that belonged
to a neighbor. She was sway backed and didn't have
enough stamina to toss her head around. I had to
ride her the rest of the day but he rewarded me by
saying "I will give you a nickel if you will finish
out the day." The nickel was important. It is
the only reward of that kind that I can remember,
but it was a very important nickel.

HP: You were a contributing member to the farm economy
almost from the time you could walk.

DSM: Oh yes, almost from the time we could walk.

Other farm tasks included cultivating corn and
potatoes either with a single cultivator, with a
one-horse cultivator, or a double cultivator which
used a team and straddled the rows; harvesting of
hay, wheat, corn, potatoes and occasionally barley
or oats', if we were growing those, which we didn't
do every year.

Hay harvest in the early days included machine
mowing; tedding, in order to help the hay to dry;
raking with either a wooden dump rake, which you
walked behind and raised the. handle up enough so
that the rake would catch and flop over and leave
a wind row; or a little later we used a sulky rake.
It was a horse drawn rake which was self dumping,
if you tripped it at the right time with your
foot. This was an improvement.

HP: I've never known what a wind row is.

DSM: A wind row is the row of hay that is left after you
have raked it up. Usually you put it in rows. You
try to line it up. You dumped it each time as you
came around so that there were long rows so that
we could drive your wagon right down beside them
and load them; or you could shock the hay more
easily with pitch forks.

HP: It has nothing to do with being a wind break?

DSM: No. Where it got its name wind row I don't know.

It is one of those things I have wondered about but
I never have looked up and no one has ever told me.

Shocking, or as some people called it doodling,
you did with pitch forks out of the wind row. You
built shocks which were about as high as a normal
individual and sloped the sides so that if it
rained it shed the rain. Most of the hay in those
days had a good deal of timothy in it. Even though
it was a clover meadow they put timothy with it
and it was very easy to shock.

As I have already indicated after the shocks
had been in the field for a while to mature a bit
and dry out thoroughly, they were hauled to a
stack by boys on horseback to be pitched onto a
stack by pitchers.

Stacking was usually done by somebody who
knew how to stack hay; who had a lot of experi
ence; and who knew how to make the right bulges
and draw it in at the right time. Very often if
they didn't do it right the stack would fall
over. It would start leaning and over it would
go.

HP: How big is a stack?

DSM: Well, it all depends. If we had lots of hay we
ricked it. A rick is a long stack with a narrow
ridge along the top equal to a double or triple
stack.

An individual stack was built on a wooden
bottom. We always used rails to set it on. We

22

would lay down a square of rails and build our
stack on that. It was rounded and then pointed
out at the top.

HP: To keep it off the ground?

DSM: The rails would keep it off the ground. It would
rot on the ground if rails were not used.

HP: And then was it left out all winter?

DSM: It was also a good arrangement so we could poke
the rabbits out from under those haystacks.

It was left out all winter or until you were
ready to use it. If it was ricked, you usually
used the hay fork and cut down through it and
hauled in a portion as you had space for it in
the mow. Usually you still had stacks available
when spring came. If you had any left over you
usually sold it of there was a good prospect for
another year.

HP: Was the mow the loft of the barn?

DSM: That's right. The hay mow is the loft of the barn.

In those days we had room for stabling cows

and horses but we had very little mow room so we

didn't put in a great deal of hay. Most of it
was stacked out.

I have already indicated that one of the early
jobs was hauling hay shocks to the people who were
the pitchers at the stacks, either for my Dad at
home or for neighbors. The first money I ever
remember earning was at the rate of twenty-five
cents a day for hauling hay shocks for the
neighbors.

HP: How long a day?

DSM: We worked from ?:JO in the morning until dark or
thereabouts. A ten hour day, at least, if they
had that many shocks to haul and they usually
did. Your bottom got pretty sore by the time the

day was over because you were riding a horse all
day long with some harness on it.

HP: You rode a horse and dragged?

DSM: Oh sure. They had a man in the field who did the
hitching for you. You went back and forth all day
long hauling in one shock at a time.

HP: You didn't have to get down off the horse? You
Just stayed on?

DSM: We stayed right on the horse. However, if we did

not have enough extra help as we got a little older,
we older boys would sometimes jump off the horse
and do our own hitching.

After the twenty-five cents per day I did have
two or three years when I got fifty cents a day for
either carrying water or hauling hay shocks.

HP: And this was your own money?

DSM: This was my own money. It was important money
because it was mine.

Then about 1906, I can't remember exactly, but
I think it was about the time I started high school,
we talked my father into building a barn. Every
body else was building barns having big hay mows.
The new barn had not only a hay fork on a track
which was able to pick up hay in large lots, dump
it into the mow and with very little work on the
part of the people in the mow, it could be stored
away in rather large lots.

This led to the purchase of a mechnical hay
loader, which meant that we took the hay right
out of the swaths; the loader picked it up by a
system of revolving rakes; brought it up onto
the wagon; and if you would allow it to do so,
would push it far enough forward that you didn't
have to do much loading. The first year we got
it my brother and myself nearly killed ourselves
trying to keep the hay out of the mouth of the
loader but it wasn't necessary. We learned after

24-

a while to let the team push it forward. It got
a little heavy for them but we just kept it on
the wagon. That's about all.

The hay had to dry enough that it would not
spoil in the mow. But with a hay loader, my
brother and I usually did the gathering of the
hay in the field and took it in. We usually ran
two wagons. We would take the team off one wagon
and hitch it to an empty one, which they had Just
emptied by the use of the hay fork, and we kept
hay coming on.

My Dad would stick the hay fork and drop the
hay in the mow, and the hired man, and if we had
an extra hand two of them, mowed it away. This
meant that the labor force during hay harvest was
reduced very drastically. There was a time when
we had as many as eight or ten men working in
harvest but with four men we could do a pretty
good job. We could even do it with three if we
had to.

We finally got to the place that one of our
old farm horses didn't need somebody to ride him
to haul the hay up. He would go out and when he
heard the car with the hay fork, with a load on
it, click on the track, he'd start swinging and
come back up and turn around.

HP: Was this almost the beginning of the mechanization
on farms?

DSM: It was as far as we were concerned. Well, with
this exception. During the younger days of my
Father and Mother mechanical binders and mech
anical mowing machines came in. They could
remember the time when much of the hay was cut
with scythes. The grain was cut with what they
called cradles, which were nothing more than
scythes with some hoops or arms on them to help
lay the grain over in swaths. They remembered
that period.

My Mother, as a girl, used to drive what was
called the self rake reaper which, when they cut

wheat, had sweeps on it that went around. It had
a platform and the cutter bar, like a cutter bar
on a mowing machine, and it would cut it and the
sweeps would come around and sweep it off onto the
ground where the people who did the binding of the
sheaves would come along and bind them by hand
afterwards. By the time I arrived on the scene,
we had grain binders and the first Job my brother
and I did in the harvesting of wheat was to gather
sheaves, because our grain binder did not have a
sheaf carrier on it.

Just after it was bound it was kicked off and
dropped. They were dropped one by one as they
went along. In order to make it easier for the
men, and to speed up the operation, we gathered
sheaves and laid them in a circle. We carried
them in by hand so that the shockers could come
along and shock them more easily,

HP: It must have been dusty work.

DSM: It wasn't too dusty at that stage. Threshing was
dusty but that kind of work wasn't too dusty. It
was prickly but before long we got a new binder
with a sheaf carrier on it and with a foot trip
you could carry six or eight sheaves at a time and
as you came around you'd drop them in the same
area so you didn't have to have boys carrying
sheaves as we used to do. Boys on a farm in
those days were a very important economic asset
and many, many farmers in those days had a big
family of boys.

HP: If you had a hired man was he a single man; or a
man with a family?

DSM: In the early days he was always a single man. He

lived in the house with us, in one of the bedrooms.
Then later we built a tenant house about the time
I was about thirteen or fourteen. The hired man,
who had worked for us when I was younger, and his
wife, came to live in the tenant house as our first
tenants. He had worked meantime in a stove foundry
and I reckon he decided he liked farming better.

26

HP: Where would .you pet other extra help?

DSM: We had extra help that lived up near Buckeye Lake,
which was in those days the Licking Reservoir,
people who did fishing: and odd jobs. We had quite
a little community of what we called snake hunters.
The origin of this name was not known by my gen
eration. They were people that lived around the
edge of the lake and made part of their living out
of the lake. They were nearly always available
for hay harvest, and for other harvest work such
as working as pitchers in the field at threshing
time and other odd jobs.

HP: How would you pet the word to them?

DSM: When we needed them, my Father would send one of
us boys up to tell them that we wore ready to
start work.

HP: Do you recall what they were paid?

DSM: Yes. Pay started at a SI. 00 a day, and later rose
to SI. 50 and finally $2.00 and $2.50 a day. We
occasionally hired boys from town. I remember
Dad started paying them seventy-five cents a day
but he finally after a year or two got up to $1.50
for those boys. These were husky high school
boys.

The cash outlay on the farm in those days was
usually for buying a piece of machinery occasion
ally; for seasonal labor, particularly harvest
labor, both for hay harvest in particular and
sometimes for corn harvest including somebody to
husk corn during the winter, if you didn't have
plenty of help at home. Most of the other cash
outlay on the farm was for buying certain staple
groceries such as coffee, sugar, tea and a few
spices.

Threshing

DSM: About two or three weeks after the wheat was
harvested with the binder in the field and shocked
the threshing started in the neighborhood. We had
a threshing ring, following the same pattern pretty
much year after year, with five or six neighbors
helping each other out.

When I was about fifteen I started loading
and hauling wheat to the machine from the field
and this was the change from boyhood to manhood
as far as farm boys were concerned. There was
another lad of exactly my age who was a neighbor
boy who started hauling wheat from the field at
the same time.

We had a neighbor who could be very crusty
when he was in the notion — and he often was in
the notion. He didn't think that boys of this
age could be trusted so if the wheat was a bit
damp he used to stand back of the wagons and
watch us to be sure that we didn't pitch too many
sheaves to clog up the machine. Usually he
walked away after a while when he thought things
were going all right — and the minute he turned
his back we loaded the machine to the point where
it had to be cleaned out by hand and everybody
could sit down and rest for a little while. This
was the only person that we did this to. If he
hadn't been so "persnickety" about it we wouldn't
have done it to him but this was a challenge to
kids of our age.

My first job at threshing was carrying water
for the threshing hands, both for ourselves and
for the neighbors, and I don't think I ever got
over fifty cents a day from the neighbors, when
they paid me for doing such a job. A little later
I used to hang sacks on the grain spouts, and some
one else took them off because they were too heavy
for a young lad. Threshed grain was hauled into
the graneries in two-bushel sacks.

28

HP: Made of what?

DSM: They were cotton sacks. The grain was stored until
it was decided the price was right to sell. A
two-bushel sack of wheat weighed 120 pounds, and
a youngster became a full fledged threshing hand
when he could shoulder a two-bushel sack of wheat
by himself and walk off with it.

Corn Harvest and Storage

DSM: Harvesting corn consisted of cutting by hand
with a corn knife, or cutter and it was shocked in
the field. As soon as we were old enough to
"make a hand" we were allowed to stay out of school
for a few days to help cut corn.

HP: I don't know what shocking means.

DSM: Shocking means standing the corn up around galluses.
To make galluses you take four hills of corn and
bring them together, (it is green of course) and
you wrap the tops in such a way that they will
hold and then you use that as a frame to set the
corn up around. Usually in our day a shock was
made up of twelve corn hills square. Twelve hills
this way and twelve hills the other.

HP: Then there was a lot of air in the middle.

DSM: There was some air in the middle. We used to chase
rabbits out of corn shocks when we hunted them in
the wintertime.

Corn wasn't husked usually until after it was
well matured and dried out. Consequently I did
very little corn husking when I grew up because this
was done during the period when we were in school.
We occasionally did some husking on Saturday but

normally the huskers husked out the corn during
the week and my brother and I spent most of
Saturday hauling in what had been husked out
during the school week.

HP: Was it husked out on the field?

DSM: They generally husked out in the field.

HP: Did they wear gloves?

DSM: No they didn't wear gloves; it was too bunglesome.
Some of them used a husking peg that had a hook
and a partial glove went over the hand and around
the thumb. The hook was down at the base of the
hand and they would hook into the husk, and pull
it down. Most of them used a husking peg that
you wore on the right hand that slipped over the
fingers and hod a hook much like a type of beer
can opener and you just ripped it down and then
husked it down.

HP: Was the corn left out in the field to dry or
hauled to the barn?

DSM: We didn't have room in the barn in those days

because the barn wasn't big enough to hold even
enough hay. We stacked the hay out and left the
corn in the field. A little later on about the
time I was maturing and I was leaving the farm,
they very often hauled it in as soon as it dried
out in the shock and husked it by machine and
shredded the fodder. The fodder was blown into
the mows then if you had mow room, to be fed
later to livestock out of the mow.

HP: Could the entire stock and leaves be used for
fodder?

DSM: Cattle seldom ate the stalk but they did eat the
leaves and we fed the fodder normally after they
husked the corn. We bundled the fodder in bundles
that could be handled easily and we hauled them
in and stacked them outside the barn lot where
we kept the livestock during the day and before
we turned the livestock out we scattered several

bundles of fodder for them to feed on during the
day. When we shredded the fodder of course they
ate more of it because it was possible for them
to eat the tougher part of the stock which had
been shredded up into smaller bits.

HP: Did you have a machine for doing this?

DSM: We had a machine called a "corn shredder." It
really was a corn husker because that was the
important part of the job, but it husked and
shredded both.

HP: Were there silos? When did silos come in?

DSM: I don't know exactly when silos came into use but
we didn't have a silo until after I left the farm
at age twenty-two but we got one I'm sure quite
soon after that. They came into general use I
would guess sometime between 1910 and 1920, and
they were being widely recommended in my early
days of extension work when I was at Purdue
or in County Agent work in Indiana between 1916
and 1920.

HP: Many people do not understand exactly what silos
are for, and if there is any reason for the
construction in cylindrical shape.

DSM: Do you know how to make sauerkraut?
HP: Yes.

DSM: Well, it is the same idea as making sauerkraut.
It is fermented corn and fodder. When they fill
silos they cut the corn green after the ear has
been pretty well matured and it is put through
a silage cutter and cut up into small bits. It
is run by power and blown up into the top of the
silo and drops down and is packed into the silo
just as you would pack cut cabbage into a kraut
jar.

HP: And it is the entire corn plant?

DSM: It is the entire corn plant except the roots.
They usually had a corn cutter that was drawn

31

by a team and bundled it like sheaves of wheat
only it was taller of course and loaded it on
wagons and hauled it into the silage cutter.

HP: Is there any advantage to the fermentation?

DSM: I don't think there was any advantage to the fer
mentation. It was simply a good way to store the
whole plant and a mixture of corn and fodder, of
course, and the fodder was green enough that once
the cattle got used to it they ate the whole plant.
They didn't eat the whole plant normally when you
fed the dry plant.

Silos are still in use to some extent although
they aren't as widely used as they were at one
time. Just why I'm not sure. I think probably
the main reason is that practically all the corn
nowadays is allowed to stand in the field until
it is ready to husk because it is husked by a
power outfit which goes down the rows, husks the
corn and carries it into wagons or trucks. The
fodder is simply loft in the field. But there
are still a few cilos that are being utilized.

The advent of more alfalfa and legume crops
of that kind which helped provide green feed
other than the type that we used to have which
was largely timothy and clover, I think has made
some difference. Of course, they use a large
amount of mixed feeds now. So I assume that is
partly the reason. I think probably there are
more silos used by beef cattle producers now than
dairy cattlemen although I have not followed the
trend very closely in recent years. This is purely
an inexpert opinion.

Potato Raising

DSM: My brother and I were allotted land for a
potato patch of our own when we were old enough

to look after it ourselves so that we selected the
seed, cut the seed, prepared the ground, furrowed
out the rows, and dropped the seed pieces by hand
and covered them in part by a one-horse shovel
plow or with a hand hoe. We harvested potatoes
in the early days by digging with a hand hoe or
a fonr-tined manure fork. Potato culture was not
easy. However, it did give us the opportunity to
earn some cash which we were interested in having
and I suppose we had a potato patch of our own for
four or five years before I started to college.

We usually had anywhere from a fourth of an
acre up to three fourths of an acre or a whole
acre for potatoes. It depended on how old we were

HP: What a lot of work!

DSM: It was a lot of work all right. My back aches yet
every time I think about picking up potatoes or
doing the kinds of jobs we did in those days.

Later on, of course, they perfected potato
planters which brought the pieces around and
dropped them about every so far apart. It was
drawn by horses. They also perfected or rea-
sonally perfected at least, a potato digger which
was nothing more than a very wide moleboard plow
with a shaker on the back which rode in under the
potatoes, soil and all, and then the shaker would
flip up and down and flip the soil out and leave
the potatoes free so they could be picked up in
baskets or crates.

HP: It was sort of a screen?

DSM: That's right. The bars were close enough together
that the potatoes didn't fall through. But we
weren't lucky enough to have that kind of an
operation when we were having our own potato patch.

The first real money that I earned in this
manner I spent for a Remington shot gun, which I
still have. I don't suppose I ever bought anything
that I got more pleasure out of as a kid then I
did that.

33

HP: How old were you?

DSM: I was fourteen; the same year I started to high
school. One of the good merchants in the town
allowed a friend of mine, Nick Embrey, and me to
go to Columbus with a order from him to the whole
sale house there to sell us a shotgun at wholesale,
So Nick bought a Winchester and I bought a Reming
ton.

Butchering and Meat Preparation

DSM: One farm task that was always considered to

be fun was the butchering of the year's meat supply
during the winter. It was fun because we were
allowed to stay out of school for the day, and
there was always a gathering of certain neighbors
and relatives which made it sort of a social
occasion.

From the shooting and bleeding of the hogs,
including the scraping, through the rendering of
the lard and the making of the sausage, it was an
exciting day for us. One of my uncles always
helped us butcher because he was very expert. He
was also a good shot. I felt that I was beginning
to grow up when one morning he asked me if I
wouldn't like to shoot the hogs which I did, and
I thought I was a big guy. It was our own family
meat supply. We usually butchered four or five
hogs.

HP: That was a winter's supply?

DSM: That was a winter's supply; some of it usually

lasted into the summer. Most of the meat was cured
and smoked so it would last into the following
summer if needed.

HP: Did you have your own smoke house?

34-

DSM: We had our own smoke house. We smoked with hickory
wood. We cured the meat — the hams, the shoulders,
the sides — which were rubbed with a mixture of
brown sugar, salt, pepper and saltpeter before it
was smoked and was allowed to "cure" for a time.
Then it was hung in the smoke house and smoked for
several days. I don't remember for just how long.
Then we bagged it in heavy paper bags and tied it
up and hung it in the smoke house until it was used.

HP: Was the fire kept constantly during those days of
smoking?

DSM: Yes.

HP: A very low fire?

DSM: A very low fire was maintained so that there was

smoke instead of blaze. I suppose occasionally it
would go out during the night and was rekindled
again the next morning. I remember how it smelled
and seeing the smoke coming out from under the
rafters of the old smoke house when we had a good
smoke going.

HP: Would you save hickory logs for this purpose?

DSM: No, we saved hickory pieces for smoking our meat.
You don't use much wood when you smoke meat.
Little pieces of hickory that aren't very big
much like kindling wood only a little larger than
kindling normally were used and we had plenty of
hickory in those days. When a hickory tree was
cut we would take the chips and small pieces
that were left and use it for smoking meats.

HP: Was the smoke house a brick building?

DSM: No it wasn't a brick building. The smoke house

on our farm was the oldest building on the place.
It was a frame building, built of logs with black
walnut siding and it was never painted until after
I graduated from college and had left home.

Dad finally decided that it ought to be
painted to make it match up with the other

buildings. We regretted it because we kind of
liked it the way it was. But that siding had
been on there, I suppose, for a hundred and fifty
years or more and it was getting thinner each
year because it was very dry of course and would
flake off a bit. The old smoke house is still
there. It will probably stay there unless it
burns down.

HP: Then it is hundred and fifty years old at least;
it must be a considerable fire hazard.

DSM: That's right, it probably is one hundred fifty

years old. There isn't much of a fire hazard if
you are careful.

HP: Was it a low fire?

DSM: Low fire, and we used one of these big iron kettles
and set it in a barrel. The kettle was filled with
sawdust to near the top. We were very careful to
keep the fire in the middle and not to lay the
hickory sticks so that any pieces would drop off
when they burned down to the point where they
might be heavier on the outside. So it never
occurred to us that we might have a fire in the
smoke house. I suppose people did.

HP: How many hams and shoulders of pork were there for
a winter's supply?

DSM: Well, when we killed five hogs, which we very often
did, there were ten hams and ten shoulders, which
would be twenty, plus ten pieces of side meat which
would be a total of thirty. Those were the pieces
that were smoked after curing.

HP i What about bacon?

DSM: The side meat was used as bacon. We occasionally
used the fattest part for cooking with beans on
wash day but we also sliced it for fried bacon.

Spare ribs were eaten very soon after butcher
ing because they were fresh and there was a general
understanding among the neighbors that when we

36

butchered they would pet some sausage and spare
ribs and whatever it was that was available that
we thought they might like of the fresh meats;
and the same thing happened when they butchered.

We didn't butcher the same day as our
neighbors so we had a lot of fresh meat at various
times during the winter: fresh sausage, fresh
spare ribs, and occasional tenderloin. The
neighbors didn't give us the tenderloins, we
saved out the tenderloins for use by ourselves.

HP: Was all sausage smoked?

DSM: We never smoked sausage. Some people do smoke

sausage but we never did. What we did was to use
quite a bit of it soon after butchering and the
rest of it was fried down. This simply meant
that it was partially cooked and put into a
large five or ten gallon jar, twined around if it
was cased sausage, that was the only kind we fried
down, and then you poured hot lard over it until
it was completely covered.

HP: That was a preservative?

DSM: That's right. If you would have looked into the
top of that Jar you would have thought, if you
didn't know better, that it was only a jar of lard.
The jar was a five or ten gallon crock usually
white on the outside and dark on the inside. It
could be done , of course , in a smaller crock or
jar but usually when we fried down we did it in
a big jar.

HP: The lard was used for shortening?

DSM: The lard was used for shortening. In the old days
lard was about the only shortening that was used.
We sold a lot of lard as we began to have cottagers
nearby and others who were interested in buying
butter, eggs, lard, etc.

We sold it in little wooden boats and weighed
it out by the pound. I used to work for my uncle
and aunt in a general store part of the time. We

37

used to sell it in the store. Nowadays lard is
less often used, but it is still available. When
hogs are slaughtered there is some lard, but most
of the hogs nowadays are not the lard type that
we had in the old days. Pat hogs were a good
commodity and were in demand back in the early
1900 's.

HP: Lean hogs have more meat...

DSM: That's right; bacon type hogs have a larger pro
portion of lean meat.

HP: How long would a Jar of sausage and lard keep?
Would it keep until spring?

DSM: Oh, yes. That was the whole idea. Usually we
didn't start using the fried down sausage until
toward spring and normally we didn't finish it off
until early summer.

HP: But it wouldn't keep over for another year?

DSM: Well, I suppose it would. If we had kept it during
hot weather the lard would have had a tendency to
melt. You wouldn't have had as good protection
for the sausage as you would during the winter
season. We always kept it in a cool place.

The Catfish Ceremony

DSM: One other little item that we, my brother and
I, have always looked back upon that happened on
butchering day was the frying of what we called
the "catfish." My Uncle Zane Seymour, who helped
us butcher, would come around about the middle of
the afternoon after they had started rendering the
lard and the fires were up and the lard was hot.
He would whisper in our ears in a very secretive
manner, wanting to know if we didn't think it was

about time for a "catfish". Of course we would
jump up and down and say yes. We always slipped
around slyly. He would take a knife and go cut a
strip of tenderloin about the size of a small cat
fish for each of us and we would Just drop it into
the hot lard. It would sear immediately. We
would leave it there a little while until it was
cooked through and then we would fish it out with
a long handled ladle.

By that time we had a hand full of salt and
as soon as it was cool enough we ate the "catfish"
and I have never tasted anything that tasted any
better than that "catfish". It was something
that we always looked forward to because it was
our secret. Of course everybody knew what we were
doing, but we thought it was a secret.

HP: I'm afraid I still haven't gotten the complete

picture on the butchering: where it took place,
whether the women took part in it — the flavor
of the whole thing.

DSM: Oh yes, the women, everybody worked at butchering
time. The family who lived nearby who had only an
acre or two of land themselves helped, the Roby
family. Mr. and Mrs. Roby and one of the two
grown sons always helped butcher. I have already
mentioned my uncle Zane Seymour who always came
down to help us butcher.

We were always allowed to stay home from school
to help butcher. And then, of course, we usually
in those days had a "hired girl" who was usually
one of the Roby girls. Mother, of course, helped;
everybody worked.

'

The first thing that happened in the morning
was the starting of the fires and heating up water
for dousing or scalding the hogs after they were
killed so as to make the scraping of the hair
easier. This was out-of-doors. The kettles were
set between two logs on heavy iron rings with legs
that were made by a blacksmith. The platform that
was used to draw the hogs up on to after they were
killed was the farm sled with boards put across it

39

lengthwise. Next to this were one or two barrels
which were set so that they slanted toward the
sled. As soon as the hogs were shot and bled by
our neighbor Mr. Roby who was good at it, taking
a butcher knife and cutting the Jugular vein, they
were dragged by a hook which was fitted into the
back of the Jaw, to pull them up onto the sled.

Then the boiling water was poured into the
barrel or barrels and the hogs were then doused
up and down in the barrel until tests around the
legs showed whether the hair would come off
easily, and when it did, they turned the hog
around and doused the other end, then pulled them
out. The hair was then scraped off either with
knives or scrapers, that were made for the purpose.

HP: Was anything in the hot water?

DSM: Just hot water was used generally, but wood ashes
were sometimes added.

HP: Was any use made of the hog bristles?

DSM: No. The bristles were lost as far as the farm was
concerned. In the packing houses, of course, they
were saved. They used to say they used everything
but the squeal in the slaughter houses.

HP: A hog weighs about half a ton, doesn't it?

DSM: No, not that much. Normally the hogs we butchered
would weigh anywhere from 200 to 250 or 300 pounds.
The market size of hogs in those days was around
250 pounds normally. If it was fat or if you
butchered an old hog which they occasionally did,
we sometimes had one that would weigh up to 600-
700 pounds. You usually sold the old hogs to
somebody else to eat. They were a little tough.

HP: Were the women in on this phase of the butchering?

DSM: In the meantime the women were busy in what we called
the wood house, where tables were set up with planks,
boiling water ready to do a number of things inclu
ding having the instruments cleaned up. As soon as

40

the hogs were scraped, they were hung on a
scaffolding beside the hen house with one end
next to the building and at the other end two
posts were set up crisscross with a log chain
around it to hold the scaffolding with a heavy
post running across between the two. They were
hung on what they called gambles, which were stuck
through the leg right near the bend in the knee or
the hock. They were held up by a couple of men
and the gamble put over the top of the scaffold
and slipped through the other leg so that they
hung there to cool out.

HP: All five hogs in a row?
DSM: Yes.

HP: The scaffolding was put up just for this purpose,
a temporary affair?

DSM: Yes, Just for this purpose.

HP: It had to be very strong; my word, the preparation
that went into butchering!

DSM: Yes, but of course it was a normal thing to pre
pare for butchering day; you didn't think much
about it. It didn't take too much time.

As soon as the hogs were cooled out a bit they
were cut up into various cuts: the hams, the
shoulders, the sides, and the sausage meat were
trimmed out. The major part of the lard came off
the tops of the hams and the shoulders and around
the loin and the top of the side meat, plus the
leaf lard from inside the ribs.

HP: Let me be sure I understand. The hog has been
killed and eviscerated and the bristle has been
scraped off the skin and then the rest of him is
still there; the whole hog.

DSM: The rest of him is still there. Usually after the
carcass had been hung, one of the first things they
did was to cut off the head. It was trimmed out

and the snout was taken out and the rest of it
cooked to make mincemeat. Grandmother also liked
souse so the ears were also cooked sometimes.
That was one of the first things that were done
after the hogs were hung. Then after they were
cooled out they were moved back onto the sled,
which had been washed down thoroughly, and that's
where the cutting up, that is the major cutting
up, was done. As soon as the cutting was well
under way the women and the boys and anybody else
who wasn't too busy began to cut lard. It was
cut into little chunks about an inch or inch-and-
a-half each way.

HP: Had the hogs been skinned, or was the skin part of
the lard?

DSM: We usually didn't put the skin in with the lard,
although it could be done that way. Sometimes
the lard had the skin on it and that ' s one of the
things that made cracklings. But there was also
cracklings from lard that was skinned, too,
because all you got out of it was the fat. The
fibers that holds the fat together is still
there. So the lard cutting was quite a job.

Cleaning of the entrails for sausage casings
was started as soon as the hogs were cut up, and
this was usually done by one or two of the ladies
in the wood house away from the cold. They had a
stove in there and it was possible to have enough
heat to keep reasonably warm.

HP: I had forgotten that there weren't synthetic sausage
casings.

DSM: No, there weren't synthetic casings. These sausage
casings were prepared and ready. In addition to
cutting up lard the parts that were to be used for
sausage which was the scrappy parts of the meat
that had mostly lean meat in it were cut up into
pieces which went into the sausage grinder.
Sausage grinding started as soon as there was
anybody to turn the sausage grinder which xvas
usually one of the jobs that we did as kids.

HP: Was it like a food chopper?

DSM: That's right. They were the same as food grinders
nowadays, manually operated. The sausage was
stuffed by the same machine that was used for
pressing lard. When you pressed lard you ran it
out hot into jars in liquid form from a spout
and then when it was cooled it was Just good
white lard. When you got ready to stuff sausage
the same machine was used only you took out the
sort of strainer we had inside the machine for
lard. We pressed the ground-up sausage and it
came out through a spout into the entrail casings
which had been attached to the spout.

HP: Is there anything inside the hog that is shaped

like a sausage casing, or how did they get it into
that cylindrical shape?

DSM: They simply used some of the intestines or entrails
which were the proper size for this type of opera
tion.

HP: Then it wasn't a matter of sewing it, or anything?

DSM: No, it was Just a matter of scraping them and
cleaning them thoroughly and then put in salt
water in a little pan or jar until ready for use.
They were clean and edible by that time.

HP: Was the sausage seasoned?

DSM: The sausage was mixed and seasoned as soon as it
was ground.

HP: Did they put filler in with it?

DSM: No.

HP: No bread crumbs?

DSM: No, we didn't put in anything but meat, salt, pepper
and a little sage usually. It depended on what
people liked. We didn't put onion in it.

HP: Was your Mother in charge of this?

4-3

DSM: Well, yes end no. Mrs. Roby, the neighbor, was in
charge of the denning of the sausage casings and
she also usually officiated at the stuffing because
she knew exactly what to do when once in a while
one would bo cut and she would see it coming up and
it would start shooting out at the side and she
would grab it and the sausage that didn't get into
the casing would be put back through in the next
run. She would cut the casing at that stage and
start over.

HP: Did you eat sausage for breakfast?

DSM: Sausage was used for almost any meal, but breakfast
was more normal. In those days on the farm you had
meat of some kind almost every morning for break
fast especially during the winter. Cereal hadn't
come into general use in our household as yet.
Although we did have oatmeal and we had a lot of
buckwheat cakes and pancakes and fried mush and
that sort of thing during the winter. But we
usually had sausage or bacon or even steak occa
sionally for breakfast.

HP: And eggs, I suppose.

DSM: Oh yes, eggs were in common use.

HP: Did you keep chickens?

DSM: Oh yes. Don't you remember I told you my first
job was gathering eggs?

HP: All the butchering was done outside the house;
nothing was brought into the house until the
finished product was ready.

DSM: That's right. In our case this was true but I'm

not sure that was true in every case. Our kitchen
was small. Some places had large kitchens and I
wouldn't be surprised if some of this processing
of the sausage and so on wasn't done in the kitchen
but not in our case. V/e used what we called the
wood house for that.

HP: It's simply amazing how self-sustaining the farm

was when you were young. Outside of coffee, sugar -
what else did you buy?

DSM: Well, there were certain seasonings. We could grow
sage and occasionally did, but we usually bought a
little sage and that sort of thing for seasoning.
Coffee, tea and sugar were the major staples that
we bought.

We tried to raise enough vegetables for use
during the summer and for canning for use during
the winter. Most vegetables in my early days were
not so easy to can, because they hadn't developed
the cold pack method yet and some of them spoiled.
We always put up tomatoes, and of course fruits
like peaches, apples and jellies and such. But
it is true that some farms were almost completely
self-sustaining.

We did buy our own brooms although I knew
farmers and some of our relatives whom I men
tioned earlier who lived in the north part of the
county, grew their own broom corn and made their
own brooms in an off season.

Getting back to butchering, I might add that
we usually laid out planks on chunks of wood in
our basement where the hams and the shoulders and
the side meats were placed until they were rubbed
with a combination of salt, sugar, saltpeter and
pepper that I mentioned, before smoking. We used
the basement because it was cooler down there than
it was in some of the other areas.

HP: Was this before or after the smoking?

DSM: Before — right after the butchering. They started

rubbing the meat with that combination of salt etc.
within a few days after butchering, then we smoked
it all at one time.

We had long stringers or beams that ran about
two feet apart across the smoke house, the full
length, with sharp hooks on them, so you could just
hook the meat up there directly, or you could tie
it with twine string and hook it up there. It got
a little drippy sometimes if your fire got too hot.

There were two seasonal jobs which I enjoyed
very much. Butchering in winter and threshing in

the summer. Part of the enjoyment came from the
social contacts from these group activities and
they were also feast days.

Off -Season Work

DSM: One of the most onerous tasks which we indulged
in in those days was the cutting and storing ice
during the winter. We had our own ice house which
we filled by cutting ice on Buckeye Lake and hauling
it a mile or more to pack it in sawdunt in the ice
house.

The main hotel at Buckeye Lake have a very
large ice house to provide their supply of ice
during the summer months, and at age fourteen I
worked with a crew for most of two weeks during the
holiday season harvesting ice. It was hard, wet,
cold work, but I wanted a new suit of long trousers
for school wear, so I stayed with it and I \tfas able
to buy the suit for $14.00.

Other off-season jobs on the farm were the
various jobs that were carried on when the main
crops were not being planted or harvested. In the
summer after harvest was over there was always the
job of mowing fence rows and open ditch banks with
a scythe. When I got to be old enough I had this
full job because I was the only one in the family
that didn't poison from poison ivy. I had a week
or ten days job of working all alone around the
fence rows and up and down the open ditches.

HP: What is a fence row?

DSM: A fence row in those days was largely rows along

the old rail fences where there was a lot of space
taken up that could not be cultivated. They were
sometimes called wormfences. Along the wire fences
there were fence rows also, because you could only

get up about so close to a fence with a team when

you were cultivating or plowing, so that there was

always a strip on either side at least three feet
wide.

HP: Is this waste space that has to be mowed?

DSM: That's right. It had to be mowed if you wanted to
keep the weeds under control. They were usually
mowed in August after harvest and threshing.

During my teenage period, in particular, we
hauled a great deal of gravel during the off-season,
because at that time we were beginning to use a lot
of concrete. We made concrete drinking troughs for
the animals; we put in concrete walks; we built a
big wide concrete veranda, half way round the house.

HP: You did this yourself?

DSM: That's right. When we built the new barn we built
a bank barn and it had a concrete wall on one side
and both ends. The basement was concreted through
out. This was an off season job of concrete work
normally. Not only of hauling the gravel but of
mixing cement and aggregate by turning it with
shovels and then taking it from the mixing board
to the place where you wanted it in a wheelbarrow
and dumping it and leveling it or pocking it
inside of forms.

Some of the other jobs, off-season jobs, hod
to do with clipping wheat stubble, with c mowing
machine, in order to keep down the ragweed and
other weeds that would p;row up after the harvest,
clipping pastures if there were too many weedr. in

the pasture.

•

On rainy days, of course, we very often oiled
and mended harness, in the wintertime we put up
ice, and in the fall we made cider, and in the late
summer in addition to the other out-of-season
chores, we usually hauled manure out of the barn
lots that had accumulated from the feeding opera
tions during the seasons when the cattle and the

4-7

horses were not out on pasture. There was always
the job of building or rebuilding and repairing
of fences.

G ommun ity 'Road Repairing

DSM: We also usually had a period when we were
hauling crushed stone for the road.

We prided ourselves on having one of the best
roads in the county, before hard surface roads
came in. The grading was done by the neighbors
who used their tearar. and a township grader which
was supplied. The township usually agreed to pro
vide the crushed limestone. We didn't have enough
gravel right close by. We and the neighbors would
haul it and put it on the road; so we had a period
of hauling road stone nearly every year until we
got the road really built up to the place where
it was quite a good road for that day before the
automobile came in.

HP: Did you do road work only in front of your own
land?

DSM: Oh no, a group of neighbors worked the whole strip
of the road all the way from the national pike out
beyond our place up to what later became Buckeye
Lake Park which was better than two miles. There
wasn't any question raised. We worked the whole
strip. We would do a strip each year and the next
year we would pick up right there and go on to the
next strip. We didn't get it all done the same
year.

HP: Who was in charge? Who told you what to do?
DSM: Usually the township trustee was responcible.
Ill': Did he come out and actually ovornee your work?

DSM: I don't remember of ever seeing a township trustee.
They supplied the stone and the preder and somebody
went and got it, and we did the work.

IIP: Who gave the orders? Who told you what to do?

DSM: Well, we knew what to do. I don't know who was boss,

HP: Was this considered a form of government taxation?
It was a very democratic thing to do.

DSM: I suppose some of the older men in the group like
my Dad or John Neel, the old neighbor I mentioned
awhile ago, maybe took over. I Just don't know.

HP: What if one of the neighbors had said "I'm not
going to work on the road this year."?

DSM: It never occurred to anybody to say that they

couldn't help. Anybody who lived on the farm in
that area, worked on the road. The people who
usually served as day workers and whom I called
the snake hunters didn't work on the road. They
didn't have teams and they weren't a part of this
neighborhood operation.

HP: It was a prestige thing then, wasn't it?

DSM: It was just accepted. It was a cooperative thing
that was accepted, and I have never thought of the
questions that you have just raised. Somebody I
suppose raised the question whether it wasn't time
to tell the Trustees to get some stone in and we
started hauling stone.

We had what we called gravel bedn for the
wagons which simply meant that there were several
flats about five or six inches wide that you fitted
in with side boards and you unloaded the stone then
by lifting the side boards and then slat by slat
and dumping it right in the middle of the road or
wherever you wanted to dump it.

HP: It really was a form of self government.
DSM: That's right.

HP: And apparently very democratically run.
DSM: Yes, it worked out very well.

HP: With a certain status to it — that the people who
weren't property owners were not expected to
participate.

DSM: Even if they owned property if they weren't farmers-
there were a few people who had a acre or two but
they didn't have teams, they didn't have equipment.
The Robys were neighbors.

HP: You mentioned your neighbors the Robys. They had
only an acre or r,o, you say?

DSM: Yes.

HP: Tell me about them.

DSM: Well, it happened that Mrs. Roby was a cousin of
my Dad's. They had a family of about seven or
eight youngsters. He was a Civil War veteran and
a very good handyman and we looked to the Robys
for all kinds of jobs throughout the year when we
required extra help. They were harvest hands, they
were butchering hands, they occasionally helped out
in other jobs when we needed occasional extra help
and in the meantime they worked their own acre or
two; raised potatoes, raised vegetables and of
course canned them and were pretty self sufficient.

The girls as they grew up worked out as hired
girls. We had three different Roby girls work for
us while I was a youngster. As one of them got
married another one came on and worked for us.

HP: They obviously had a somewhat subordinate position
in the community and I wonder why? Was it limited
intelligence or was it physical strength? As a
Civil War veteran he must have been pretty well
advanced in age.

DSM: No, it wasn't physical strength. They were as
strong as most men.

HP: Were they the kind of people who were successful?

DSM: Well, the Robys were accepted like anybody else in

the community in local affairs such as school socials
and that sort of thing if they wanted to partici
pate. But they were not thought of in terms of
leadership.

The Roby kids and we grew up together.
HP: Did you date the Roby girls?

DSM: No, I never dated them and most of them were older.
There were only two who were our age. We used to
go hunting every time we could get off during the
winter with a Roby boy that was my brother's age,
a little older than 1. Most of the family was
older and some of them were already married and
had left home by the time I came along.

But they were sort of a self sufficient family.
They had one horse, which was enough to do their
plowing with a small plow and their cultivating on
the small acreage that they had. If they needed a
team they occasionally borrowed a team from us.

HP: I'm just trying to guess the sociological grouping
in your community. They seemed to occupy a sub
ordinate position and I wonder why?

DSM: Well, I don't think they were considered subordi
nate in most senses, Helen. It seemed that they
participated only as hired hands in such things as
threshing, harvesting, butchering and so on because
they didn't trade wcrk. They couldn't reciprocate.

The same thing is true about hauling stone on
the road because they were not equipped. Come to
think of it I think they used to help do some
leveling with shovels once the stone was dumped.

HP: A voluntary or paid contribution?

DSM: A paid contribution. I don't think most of the
people of that type did contribute to road work.

People up around the lake I don't think did. It
is a little hard to explain what the difference
was because they were accepted as playmates, they
were accepted if they wanted to be in the social
activities, but for the most part they usually
didn't go to church which was one of the social
activities.

HP: Could it have been a lack of proper clothes that
kept them from church?

DSM: I don't think so. As a matter of fact I think as
the girls and men grew older they did occasionally
go to church but I don't think the older folks went
to church much. Mrs. Roby went occasionally. It
wasn't that they were complete heathens in the
sense that we thought of heathens.

HP: Did they ever come over to meals at your house?
Special dinner or anything like that?

DSM: No. We always went to Grandmother Seymour's for

Christmas when I was young. Either to Grandmother's
or one of the aunts. Later on, of course, we had
it at our house with our own family, our immediate
family.

HP: There just wasn't much of a social relationship
with the Robys.

DSM: Well, not in that sense, no. We thought very

highly of the Roby girls who had worked for us and
one of them was still living until recently. She
was in the early eighties. She took care of my
Mother after her own husband died several years
ago and Mother got to the place where she needed
somebody to help her out.

She took care of Mothers household until she
broke a hip. I never went back home that I didn't
go to see her and chitchat with her because we
thought of her as practically a member of the
family; she helped raise us.

HP; You have no idea what they were paid as hired
girls?

No, they weren't paid much I assure you.
HP: Perhaps something like $3.00 a week.

DSM: I think that's probably right, and at that time I
don't think they got more than S3. 00 or $4.00 or
$5.00 a week at the outside. They pot their board
and their room of course. Later on when she came
to take care of Mother in recent years she got
$35.00 a week and her board and room, so the times
have changed pretty drastically.

HP: Your family was certainly one of the leading
families in the community.

DSM: Yes. This was always hard for me to believe, Helen,
I remember some of the kids from what we called the
snake hunter group used to tell me how rich we were
and I knew that we were in debt and had been in
debt for years. We were paying off some money that
had been borrowed during Grandmother Myer ' s day
after Grandfather died. She wasn't too good a
manager. We always had patches on our- pants but
that didn't seem to make any difference.

As far as these kids were concerned we lived
in the big house. They thought that we had lots
of money, I presume, compared with them, but I
didn't think we had any money because I wasn't
getting any of it unless I raised a patch of
potatoes. This I'm sure, as I look back, was the
general feeling of kids of that category: that
we were some of the elite, the outstanding well-
to-do citizens. We weren't too well-to-do but
nevertheless we did own 135 acres of land and we
had buildings to go with them.

Finally we had a new barn, and other improve
ments. Later on as we began to rent some of the
land for cottage lots things began to get better
but we never made a lot of money farming so we
never had much cash.

HP: There were so many other things besides cash.

DSM: Oh sure. If there hadn't been more than cash it
would have been terrible. There was plenty of
food and many homely pleasures.

CHAPTER III

PI£ASURE AND RECREATION

DSM: Farm boys had to have some pleasure and
recreation as well as hard work. Some of the
things that we got pleasure from was the owning
and rearing of pets. I remember that we had one
or two pet lambs which grew into sizable sheep
which were ultimately sold and there were tears
when they went off to the market.

At one stage when I was a youngster, we had
a pet gosling. One day when the family was away
my brother and I decided to have a parade — he led
the lamb and I led the gosling. I put a string
around his neck and by the time they came home the
gosling was beyond recall. I had choked him to
death.

We occasionally had a pet pig, a runt pig,
that needed a little extra attention. I remember
one that our hired mar. called "Toby" for some
reason or other. I don't know where he got the
idea. This pig was smart enough so that every
time the cows were milked and the milk was
brought in, he used to come in to the yard
through a little hole in the bottom of the gate
where one picket had been broken off where he
could o^st get through. We would put out a pan
of milk for him and he would drink so much that
he couldn't get back out between the pickets so
he would go off and lie down by a little cherry
tree nearby until he had shrunk back to the size
where he could get back through the hole. He
knew enough to know that he couldn't do it and he
learned enough to know all he had to do was wait
and he would shrink back to normal size.

At Easter time or previous to Easter time it
was a great game to hide eggs, and to brag about
how many dozen you had. hidden. I'm sure that the

55

eggs were never very good quality by the time they
were retrieved. Very often it was cold enough that
if v/e hadn't hidden them in a warm place they would
freeze.

HP: They were colored eggs?

DSM: No, these were eggs that we had gathered. I should
say that we stole from the family and hid them in
boxes. Everybody expected it. We used boxes or
anything that you could find. We would tuck them
awoy in the hay mow or any good hiding place.

HP: Were they boiled?

DSM: No. They were fresh eggs at the time they were
hidden and then they were brought in on Easter
morning to count out to see who had hidden the most
eggs. Kids around the whole neighborhood used to
brag about how many they had hidden. Of course it
was a game to get away with it because Mother and
Dad weren't too happy to have their eggs hidden.

Then we colored some eggs but not very many.
It was great business to brag about how many eggs
you ate on Easter morning. I don't remember what
my record is but I did pretty well.

HP: You mean cooked for breakfast?
DSM: Cooked for breakfast, that's right.
HP: Not hard boiled.

DSM: If you liked them hard boiled they could be hard

boiled, but usually they were soft boiled or fried.
Any way that you liked them.

HP: How many eggs would you eat? Half dozen or some
thing like that?

DSM: I probably ate six or eight. Farm kids could get
away with six Or eight eggs without too much
trouble .

56

Memories of Visits to Grandmother Seymour

DSM: Memories that stand out are the holiday visits
to my Grandmother Seymour's. Usually we went there
on Thanksgiving and Christmas and my brother and I
usually went to stay with them for two weeks during
the summer when we were younger, when we weren't
yet making a full hand at home.

HP: Tell me about the Seymour household. Where it was
and exactly what it was like and so on.

DSM: Well. The Seymour household was five miles away
on one route and on another route it was seven
miles from our place. It was up a long lane off
the Lancaster road and near the National Pike
(Route 4-0). The road ran from Luray, about two
miles from Hebron. Hebron, of course, is quite a
metropolis compared to Luray. Hebron has 800 and
I think Luray had about 50.

HP: Then or now?

DSM: Still. They haven't changed much.

They, the Seymours, had settled on this land
back in the 1850's about the time they were
married. First they went to Indiana and settled
in Tippe canoe County, Indiana, near Lafayette for
a short time and then came back to Ohio and built
a log house.

The old log house was still standing when I
used to go up there as a kid. The roof had partly
fallen in. They kept some livestock back there
and the logs were still good.

The older kids were born in the log house but
I think maybe they had built the other one before
my Mother came along.

The house wasn't too big. They had what they
called a summer kitchen that was attached to the
house by a porch. I can smell it yet, it smelled
good. It always smelled good.

57

HP: What was a summer kitchen?

DSM: In the wintertime they set their cook stove up in
the same room that they used for a dining room the
year around. They cooked in there and they served
in there. But during the summer they cooked in the
summer kitchen where they had a big stove. They
had all the kitchen equipment that they needed
there and the food was carried through the porch
into the dining room to be served.

HP: It was to keep the heat out of the house.

DSM: I suppose. I don't know why.

HP: Were they both coal ranges or wood?

DSM: They were wood ranges, in those days.

HP; They had stoves in both places.

DSM: Oh yes, or they could very easily move it, you know.
In the summer time they moved the stove out of the
dining room to make more room if nothing else. They
may have moved it back and forth. I'm not sure
about that. They had a good sized range I remember
in the summer kitchen which wasn't too easy to move
and I think maybe they simply stored the other one
temporarily.

We had great times there at Grandmother Seymour's,
We always had presents at Christmas time. They were
not very costly presents. The whole family gathered
in for the picking of the Christmas tree. My Grand
mother bad a family of seven at that stage. Inci-
dently all of the seven with one exception lived
to be 82 years old or older. The one that lived
to be the oldest was an aunt of mine who lived with
my Mother for a number of years before she died at
age 102.

HP: How old was your Mother when she died?

DSM: My Mother died at 94. She would have been 95 in

two more months. My Aunt Alice, who was one of my
favorite people, died at the age of 52 with cancer

of the lung. All the rest lived to more than eighty-
two years of age.

Thanksgiving was quite a day but it didn't
have presents, of course, as you had at Christmas.

The Seymours were farmers just the same as the
Myer family was and I assume had about the same
standing in the community. Some of the Seymours
were quite active Methodists as my Dad and my
Mother were. My Aunt Mate, for example, who lived
to the ripe old age of 102, always sang in the
choir when I was a kid. She had a good alto voice.

HP: What is the name Mate a nickname for?
DSM: Mary.

A Country Quartet

DSM: My Uncle George v.as a. good tenor. There w.as
a quartet in the community of which he was a
member as a young man. They sang all the popular
songs of the day. The, quartet type of songs such
as "Where Oh Where Eas My Little Dog Gone?", and
also some songs that were much more serious than
that. They always threw in one of this kind
because people just loved it — "With his tail cut
short and his hair cut long" and so on.

It used to be fun to watch that quartet. A
chap by the name of Mac Brown was the base, Alf
Parish was second tencr, Sam Rosebraugh was bari
tone. Sam Rosebrauph was always losing the place,
You could always see them pointing a finger when
they realized that Can was lost. . One time I've
forgotten what they were singing but Sam sang
"Where, Oh where is the place" and one of them
sang "I'll be damned if I know."

59

HP: This was in front of a crowd?

DSM: That's right. Of course it was a group of people
that knew what they were doing. They sang at
funerals, they sang at all kinds of affairs.
Three of them were farmers and Sam Rosbaugh was a
harness maker in Hebron. They started singing when
they were kids. Uncle George was a member, the
tenor. He is one of the Seymours that lived to be
92.

As I said earlier, my brother and I used to
go up there for two weeks every summer which we
thoroughly enjoyed.

We helped out with the chores and if there
was anything to do, such as hauling gravel and
that sort of thing, we went along and helped to
load gravel in the off season. We helped with the
harvest. I have a finger that is badly mangled
because I tried to help a horse pull up some hay
and got my finger into the pulley and the rope
peeled it off. My uncle and aunt took me to the
doctor at Hebron four miles away by horse and
buggy.

We also did some shooting, and hunting.
Shooting the blackbirds to keep them out of the
corn field if it was that time of the year was
fun for us.

I remember quite distinctly one of my great
frustrations. After I had been at Grandmother's
about a week one summer we went to church on Sun
day night, which was not unusual. My Aunt Mate
drove us and my brother and I went along. Of
course, my parents were there. As we came out
of the church my Mother put her arm around my
shoulders as we walked out to the buggy and she
said "We're going to tiaresh this week, don't you
want to come home with us?" She didn't realize
that this was a rather cruel thing to do. I
didn't want to go ho.ae but I didn't want to miss
threshing and I wept tears that went clear to my
toes. I suppose I wepc the most of the way back
to Grandmother's but I decided to stay that extra
week. It was the kind of decisions kids have to

60

make once in a while that are kind of tough. I
think this indicated how well I liked my Grand
mother, She was a great person.

Grandfather Seymour had died in 1890, the
year before I was born, so Grandmother had been a
widow for a number of years.

Grandmother Seymour continued to run the farm
with the help of her boys, and she had three at
home at that time. They did the heavy farm work.
She was a good farm hand herself. She did the
milking usually and she did a lot of other chores.
When the old cat had kittens and she had too many
around she was the one who took the kittens in the
coal bucket to the creek.

HP: What did she look like, Dillon?

DSM: She wasn't a very big woman. She was spare, wiry
and gray hair almost ever since I could remember.
White hair, of course, by the time she passed away
at age 85. She had a wonderful smile.

HP: Was she a good cook?

DSM: Oh, wonderful. Just superb. I suppose it was one
reason why we liked to go up there because I told
Mother, she did things better than she did. I
said I liked Grandmother's cookies better than
Mother's and Mother used to get so mad because
she said "I make them exactly like she does."
She did I'm sure, but there was something about
the aura of Grandmother's kitchen and cookies
that made me like them better.

Marooned by a Storm

DSM: One other incident that I'm reminded of is a
scary one. During the summer, as I have mentioned,

my brother and I usually spent two weeks at our
Grandmother ' s . My Aunt Mate who was still a
bachelor lady usually looked after us and if she
went any place she took us with her. One day we
went to Newark to do some shopping which was a
distance of eleven or twelve miles.

We got near home after dark and a big storm
had come up. The storm had blown a large tree down
across the road which was just across the fields
from my Grandmother ' n house but this was probably
half a mile or more away.

We were in a dilemma because my brother and
I were afraid to go for help and Aunt Mate didn't
dare leave us with a skittish horse to go for
help so all she could do was to wait and yell for
help.

During this wait she called for her brothers.
We saw them come out to the barn with a lantern,
hitch up a horse to a cart, and drive out the lane
which was not too far from where we were and they
went in the other direction to Millersport, a
town probably three and a half miles av/ay. I
don't know whether they went to the barbershop
or did some shopping. It was only when they came
back from Millersport that they finally heard
my aunt call and two of my uncles came down and
helped to roll the tree off the road BO we could
pass.

HP: How long were you marooned there?

DSM: I think we must have been marooned there about
three and a half hours.

HP: Did you have anything to eat?

.

DSM: Well, I don't remember about that. I suppose we
had had something to eat. We probably had some
candy and that sort of thing with us but I don't
remember about it. We were too scared to remember
very much.

HP: Was it raining?

62

DSM: No it wasn't raining at that time. It was windy
and it had rained but at that time it wasn't
raining but of course, we had a little phaeton
with side curtains on it.

Going back to Christmas time for a moment,
some of the simple pleasures were having popcorn
balls, strings of popcorn which were used to
decorate the tree in those days and you could eat
it off by having one kid at one end and another at
the other end and see who got to the middle first.
All such simple pleasures as that. If you got an
orange in the bottom of your stocking on Christmas
morning you really had something that you treasured.
Nowadays, of course, kids don't realize that oranges
were scarce back there.

HP: I suppose they would have to go to town and buy
oranges at Christmas time.

DSM: Oh yes, they bought oranges. The storekeeper got
them in at Christmas time. It was about the only
time they ever had them. Once in a while they got
a bunch of bananas out of season but not very often.
But oranges were something special at Christmas.

HP: What were other Christmas gifts? Something knitted?

DSM: Occasionally you got something knitted but a pair
of skates was really something and books that kids
could read. Knitted mittens were very common but
I don't remember that we had home knitted socks
because Mother didn't do that kind of knitting
and Grandmother didn't either. She didn't have
time.

Candies and an orange beside one major pre
sent was about what we had at home. Then we
always had some small gifts at Grandmother's and
gifts from the aunts. Once in a while we would
get something as big as a sled.

HP: They lived close enough that you could go up just
for the day on Christmas?

63

DSM: That's right. We would go up to Grandmother

Seymour's as soon as the chores were done in the
morning and come back in time to do the chores in
the evening. Which meant that we usually got there
about 10:00 or 10:30 and left by 4:00 or 4:30.

HP: The chores must have been the nagging thing about
life on a farm. That you couldn't leave the
animals whether you felt like it or not.

DSM: You're telling me. The chores that I had to do
were not only feeding but also the milking. As
I got old enough to have dates and to be away on
Sundays I always had to get home and help milk on
Sunday evening and my brother didn't need to because
he didn't milk. It used to irk me no end. But we
did it. We milked every morning and milked every
evening.

Plans To Become A Farmer

HP: That well may have been a factor in your not wanting
to be a farmer.

DSM: No. In spite of monotonous chores I wanted to be
a farmer. As a matter of fact I had planned to
be a farmer. I had bought a farm Just before the
war broke out in 191? and I had planned to farm
but by the time I got ready to farm I wasn't married
and I didn't think anybody who doesn't have a wife
should live on a farm. When I got married I didn't
marry a farmer's wife.

HP: You pretty nearly have to be in a farm family to
be able to cope with all the problems.

DSM: Well, I kept the farm that I had bought in 191?
until 1948 because I was interested in it. As
long as we lived in Columbus, Ohio, before we
moved to Washington, 1 was down there almost every

64

weekend and occasionally on holidays. I would
help out with the wheat harvest or occasionally
with work of other kind. I liked to get my hand
in again.

HP: You had a tenant farmer?

DSM: Yes, my uncle who used to help us butcher, had

the farm for a number of years until he got older
and then he took over the home farm of his in-laws
and I had to get other tenants.

More About Fun During The Days On The Farm

DSM: Other fun that we had on the farm included

horseback riding, horse racing as we got old enough
to have a horse and rig of our own, youth parties
which we usually enjoyed during the winter with
an occasional one during the summer, including
such things as taffy pulls, and parties with the
kind of kid games that were played in those days
including post office, etc.,

Games at school such as prisoner's base,
black man, sock ball and others, of course, were
always fun. Hide-and-go-seek was a very common
game and I assume that it still is. School
socials, spelling bees, were always a part of the
family fun.

I took great pleasure in taking on new tasks
considered to be a man's work. I mentioned already
at the time of butchering I felt that I was begin
ning to grow up when my uncle suggested that I
shoot the hogs.

I remember the first time that my Dad allowed
me to plow for any length of time. I took over
about the middle of the morning because we were
trimming raspberries which I didn't like to do.

The hired man was doing the plowing so he let me
go out and plow in his place. I finished out
the day and I was so tired by evening that they
were up with me half the night because my legs
ached so badly that I couldn't sleep. I was Just
a kid of course.

I loved to plow with a walking plow. There
was something about watching the soil turn and
the smell of the soil and the movement of the
team. We had a good team. I Just thoroughly
enjoyed it. I have never gotten over it and I
would still like to do it even though I nearly
killed myself the first time around.

Taking a team at threshing time, which I
mentioned, for the first time was fun.

There was hunting in the wintertime. We
hunted without guns until we were old enough to
have a gun. We usually had a dog. If we didn't
have one of our own we had a neighbor's dog and
we would chase a rabbit into a corn shock or into
a culvert or ditch where we would poke him out.
We got a rabbit about every other time we went
out hunting.

HP: The dog would catch it?

DSM: The dog would sometimes catch him but very seldom.
We usually got them holed up some place where we
could catch them without the dog's help. He
helped to tree them usually.

In the summertime we did a great deal of
fishing. We used to keep the family in fish for
breakfast. Very often we went to the lake, now
called Buckeye Lake. It used to be called the
Licking Reservoir. We would go over there in
those days in an hour's time you could catch
forty or fifty nice blue gills or maybe a few
perch mixed in or an occasional catfish. We
would bring them home and clean them and we would
have them for breakfast the next morning. There
was nothing like a good fresh fish.

66

These were in general the kinds of things we
did. Of course in the wintertime we had skating
and coasting in addition to the rabbit hunting.
There were probably others that I have overlooked.

The Coming Of The Interurban And Related Items

DSM: There were certain new developments during the
time when I was growing up that stand out in my
memory. About the time I was twelve years of age,
I presume 1902 or 1903, the Columbus, Newark and
Zanesville interurban traction line was completed
with a spur from Hebron to Buckeye Lake. It became
known as Buckeye Lake after the traction company
bought up land and established Buckeye Lake Park.
This brought major changes and new experiences in
my young life.

HP: I would like to hear what part that development
played in your whole family life and in yours
particularly .

DSM: Well, transportation, of course, into town, into

the county seat and even into Columbus became very
much easier. In order to get into Columbus before
the traction line came in we had to take the T and
OC Railroad and change at a place called Thurston
and it took it seemed to me hours to get there.

HP: Toledo and Ohio Central?

DSM: Toledo and Ohio Central ran through our town of
Hebron.

HP: How long did it take to get from home to Columbus?

DSM: I don't remember exactly. I never did it over two
or three times. I went to Columbus first when I
was five years old. My Mother went to the hospital
to have a nonmalignant tumor removed and my aunt

67

took us up just before Christmas. It seemed to me
the wait at Thurston was interminable. I suppose
it took not over an hour and a half or two hours
but it seemed an awfully long time. Then I
remember we went on an excursion or two, a Sunday
School excursion to Columbus by train.

HP: How would you get to the train?

DSM: Well, we took the train from Hebron which was three
and a half miles from home.

HP: You took a horse and buggy?

DSM: We took a horse and buggy and put it in a livery
stable until we got back if we went for a day, or
somebody took you in and then went home.

HP: I never realized that the livery stable was sort
of a boarding place.

DSM: Oh sure.

HP: The horses didn't necessarily belong to the livery
stable.

DSM: When we went to Newark we always put our horses up
in the livery stable during the day while we were
there, and they fed them at noon. We usually took
our own corn but they fed them hay. We used to
have what they called a ten cent barn. We could
stand our horse and rig in there all day for a
dime if we brought our own feed. They would charge
you extra if they supplied the feed.

HP: Was this under cover?

DSM: Oh yes.

HP: Did you unhitch the vehicle?

DSM: Yes. We usually unhitched them although in this
particular one you could stand them in and tie
them up without unhitching the rig. But in most
cases you did unhitch them. What the livery
stable did, of course, was lease horses and
carriages or buggies which they owned but they

68

also took care of other peoples horses when they
came into town.

To go back to the interurban line. This gave
us the opportunity and the freedom which we did
not have previously to travel with ease. Newark,
our county seat, was about, depending on which way
you went, nine or twelve miles from our home.
During my high school days we went to the theatre
many many times with our dates which we couldn't
possibly have done if we had been dependent upon
a horse and buggy.

HP: You mean that you would drive into Hebron.

DSM: Yes or we could go in on the interurban on the
spur to Buckeye Lake which was just across the
field from us. In the wintertime though if we did
that we walked home from Hebron at night. If you
went early enough you could catch a car in because
it ran until six o'clock. But we did this very
often. We would go in on the car or walk in and
then we would walk home. Two and a half to three
miles and we could do that in half an hour if we
stepped right along on the railroad track.

We went to high school by taking the inter-
urban, which ran to Hebron. It had a one-man
raotorman and conductor. He was awfully good to
us. He would toot the whistle the minute he was
ready to leave the park which was a little farther
away than it was from our house down to the rail
road. We would start on the run and he would run
slowly until he got down to the Neal ' s crossing
and we would just about make it there all out of
breath. We would get on and he would grin and
say "Well, I almost beat you this morning."

HP: How long would it take you to get there?

DSM: Oh just a whip-stitch, three or four minutes. It
was only about a quarter of a mile.

HP: What was the fare, do you remember?

69

DSM: It was a nickel to begin with; maybe it went up to
a dime later. We went home from high school the
same way.

I used to go to baseball games and the Grand
Circuit Harness Races occasionally by interurban.
As I got old enough I would sneak away from home
and let on that I had gone some place else if I
went to a Sunday baseball game because my Dad did
not favor Sunday baseball games.

HP: This interurban really made an enormous change,
didn't it?

DSM: It opened up a whole new era. The opening of the
summer resort which the interurban company did at
Buckeye Lake changed our whole economy. We started
selling milk, vegetables and produce to the hotels
and to the cottagers who began to build cottages,
or to rent cottages during the summer.

Prom the time I was about twelve or thirteen
up till the time I went to college at age eighteen
my Father and I delivered milk morning and evening
by hand. We measured it out in a quart or a pint
measure and poured it out into somebody's pan. Of
course the hotels would take maybe two to five
gallons depending on the crowd expected. On a
big day five or ten gallons.

HP: Did the interurban company build the hotels?

DSM: The railway company built one hotel and then there
were others that were built privately near by.

HP: Summer hotels?

DSM: Yes. They were summer.

People started coming to the house to buy
produce. There got to be so many of them that we
decided to deliver. That's the way it all got
started.

When I got back from delivering milk in the
morning I would help to harvest whatever vegetables

70

that were ready and I would deliver such things as
butter and eggs, sweet corn, preen beans, apples
and anything else that we had for sale.

HP: Who would set the price? Your Mother?
DSM: My Dad, I think, usually set the price.

i^ori ; riy JL/WU., x UIJ.O.IIA., UBUO.J.XJC t>tsu oii« jj.L'.Li;tJ«

HP: What did you use? Did you have a horse and carriage?

DSM: We made over an old buggy into a spring wagon that
would haul quite a load of sweet corn for example.
This was an experience, I suppose, that had a good
deal to do with my learning to deal with people.
You dealt with all kinds of people under these
circumstances. Some people would like to fight
with you.

I remember one old lady who was a good customer.
She and I were good friends. But she came out one
day and said "My milk soured. " She started to give
me the devil about it, and I had rjust poured a pint
of milk into her pan. She only took a pint of milk
that morning. So I just picked it up and poured
it back into my can and said "I'm sorry you don't
like our milk" and started on. You should have
heard her. She wanted milk so she called me back.
She never bawled me out again. Never.

HP: You had milked it that morning,

DSM: Oh sure. It was fresh milk but we didn't cool it
well enough and it is a wonder that it didn't sour
much more often than it did because we didn't handle
it as it ought to have been handled, but usually
it was fresh enough and our cans were clean of
course and if they took care of it properly they
could keep it from morning to night at least or
from morning until the next morning and they did
not order more than they thought they were going
to need.

HP: This added a cash income during the summer.

DSM: Oh absolutely. I used to carry a pocket full of

change and of course when I got bills I would turn

them in. But in the meantime I was allowed to
spend anything that I thought I needed out of that
cash. If I needed a bottle of pop I bought a
bottle of pop which was amazing because we had
been pretty frugal throughout the years but it
taught me a bit about how to handle money.

HP: Did you extend any credit or was it cash basis?

DSM: We sold for cash. We sold tickets for milk if some
one wanted to buy tickets to make it easier.

HP: They paid in advance.

DSM: That's right. In this process of carrying a pocket

full of change and selling produce for cash I learned
much about human nature and I found some of it good
and some of it bad.

HP: Were you shy? Was this an ordeal for you or did you
enjoy it?

DSM: No. I think I enjoyed it. I was a shy farm kid and
of course under certain conditions I was still shy
but I had gotten pretty well accustomed to the
routine and I knew most of the customers. Of course,
there were strange people who came into the cottages
for a week or two or three but I got so it didn't
bother me.

HP: Did they add to your sophistication? Some were pro
bably rather sophisticated people compared to the
ones you had known.

DSM: I don't think there was too much difference.
HP: There wasn't gambling or that sort of thing?
DSM: There was some of it but I didn't see much of that.

An Expansion Of Business

DSM: The demand increased our dairy herd. We had to
do more milking, increase our vegetable production,
and when we ran out of produce we bought from four
or five neighbors if we had to have more. I used to
go and pick up eggs and butter, milk even under cer
tain conditions, if we had a big demand on holidays
and big days.

HP: Would you call neighbors and ask if they had extra
milk or how would you do that?

DSM: I usually went to these neighbors without calling
because it was easier to go and check. We knew we
could get produce in most cases because they would
save it for us and during mid-summer we were usually
able to handle most of the surplus that they had:
such things as eggs, butter and current produce then
in season.

73

CHAPTER IV

GROWING UP DURING THE TEEN YEAES AND MY FIRST JOB

DSM: During the summers between ages around fifteen

or sixteen to twenty-two at the time I graduated from
college my brother and I would work all day on the
farm; after work we would get rid of the day's grime
in the old cedar wash tub. Then garbed in clean
clothes we would go to the park almost every night to
dance or date or maybe just to watch other people.
This usually meant late hours for farm boys and as a
result it was not easy to crawl out of bed in the
early morning or to start again after a thirty minute
noonday siesta. Our Father many times pointed out
that most of the people who frequented the park were
on vacation, long or short, did not have to work the
next day, so we should not try to do what they did
because it was hard work all summer for us.
But we persisted in spite of his admonitions and
tired bodies. As I look back we put up with many
aches and pains just so we could say we had been to
the park every night.

I learned to dance on a public dance floor with
the very much appreciated help of the older girls in
our crowd. Roller skating was free to us because the
operators of the skating rink kept a horse at our
place. We also had free rides on the roller coaster
because two of the head operators boarded with us for
a time during the summer.

There was a strange interlude or two that may
prove interesting. Our church decided one summer to
sponsor a couple of so-called fresh air kids which
meant that they were willing to arrange with their
members to take a couple of kids from the city for
two weeks where they could get out into the country
and get the fresh air that they felt that they needed,

About the time I was ten or eleven and my brother
was thirteen or fourteen such a project was sponsored
and my parents decided to take on two boys. It hap
pened they were brothers and they were almost the
same age as my brother and myself. Their names were
Willie and Harry Graham from Columbus, Ohio. During
the first few days of their stay my brother and I
sat at their feet enthralled by stories of city life
including the routines of their uncle's livery stable.

When the city life stories began to be less
interesting it occurred to us that maybe there were
some exciting things that we could show them. It was
fortunate that no one got hurt or killed for one of
the first things that we did was to bridle up old
"Queen" and "Gyp", a pair of bay carriage horses, and
took them out into the pasture field and boosted the
boys on to them without saddle, just bareback, and
when we got them settled on their backs we stood back
with a hitch strap each of us and gave the horses a
crack across the back end that started them down
through the field as hard as they could run. It
happened that the boys did survive. I think at least
one of them fell off before they slowed down but no
body got stepped on.

We then remembered that there were two or three
bumblebee nests in the recently harvested meadow so
we maneuvered them so that they walked through them
while we were on the flanks and of course they got
stung and they had to do the fighting. These experi
ences and others taught a couple of city boys that
all the excitement did not lie in the cities.

On Sundays we went to Sunday School and Church
regularly. I went through all the paces from the
Primary Sunday School Class to the passing of the
collection baskets during the time I was a teenager.
My Father was a dedicated Methodist layman and a
pillar in the church but he didn't have us baptised
and entered into the membership of the church as
babies because he felt it should be our own choice.
This situation lead to a continuing challenge to our
several successive ministers to get Johnny Myer's
boys into membership and consequently we were preached

to and at so often that we became bored and obstinate.
As a result during my years on the farm I did not
join the church.

I neglected to mention one other instance in
relation to the Boxwell or Patterson examination
which I mentioned earlier. They had a commencement
for the people who had passed that examination. I
had a "piece" to speak. I think the title was
"Should The Farmers Go On A Strike." When I got up
to say my piece the first line eluded me completely
and I stood there before the audience embarrassed.
It seemed to me it was five minutes — it probably was
not over half a minute — but long enough that I could
see my uncles and others looking down their noses and
feeling sorry for me. It was an experience that I
shall never forget. The line finally came to me and
I took off. Once I got started I went through it in
a hurry.

High School

DSMr The high school which we attended was at Hebron.
Ohio, and it was a small high school. My brother had
not gone to high school previously because they had
not had a good high school up to this time so we both
started at the same time. He lasted only one year
because he couldn't stand the pressure and the feeling
of wounded pride that he had of having to go to school
with his younger brother who was almost three years
younger than he was. So he quit at the end of his
freshman year and I continued.

Six boys and six girls graduated in my graduation
class which indicates something of the size of the
institution. We went to high school on the inter-
urban which fortunately ran all through the winter
during the daytime.

76

These were the days of horse and buggy courting,
hay wagon parties, kid parties, birthday surprise
parties, etc. These were the things that made up
most of the social life other then skating and sled
ding in the wintertime. The school was not big enough
for a football team. It was hardly big enough for a
baseball team but we had one, but we usually had to
run in a ringer or two who was not in school any
more in order to make out a team of nine players.

We had a debating team which was pretty good.
One instance that I remember quite distinctly was when
we went to Kirkersville , which was six miles up the
pike toward Columbus, to debate the Kirkersville High
School one night and afterward when we came out to
get on the interurban we were egged by a bunch of
hoodlums and most of us went home with eggs all over
our overcoats.

HP: Do you remember what things you debated, what sub
jects?

DSM: I don't remember what subjects we debated. I do
remember that I was the cheerleader in those days
and about the only place you did any cheerleading
was at the debates. How I happened to be selected
I don't know. Anyhow, I probably could still give
some of the old high school cheers.

My Early Courting Days

DSM: I had two girls during this period. The first

one was about half as tall as I now am. A little bit
of a thing and fortunately she didn't think I was
quite her style so I started going with another girl.
Ruth Pence was her name. I went with her all the
rest of high school and all the way through college.

We decided to call it quits about the time I was
in my senior year when I decided to go to Kentucky to

77

teach I stopped by her house and got all of the
fraternity pins and the sort of jewelry that she
didn't need anymore.

I suppose going steady was a good thing for me
because it sort of kept me running straight if I had
been loose I don't know what I would have done.

During this time Ruth's father for some reason
or other got mad and upset. I don't think he knew
quite why but in order to be mean which he was at
times, he decided that I shouldn't come to the house
but that didn't stop us. I used to drive up in front
of the house with my horse and buggy and Ruth would
step out and v/e would go riding across the country
side. Finally he wanted to give a party for her on
one of her birthdays, but she said no, she didn't
want a party, because I couldn't come. So he broke
over and let me come after which I went to the house
again regularily.

He was one of those people. He just got twisted
up one day and this was the ornriest thing he could
think of, I guess. She was an only daughter and I
think he thought I was getting too serious. I don't
know for sure. But that didn't break things up. As
a matter of fact I think it made things worse.

Buckeye Lake Park during the summer, as I have
already indicated, was a gathering place and it was a
regular thing that our gang from Hebron came out on
Saturday nights and we would meet them at the inter-
urban. This was dance night at Buckeye Lake.

Innovations And Transition

DSM: During the period of my growing up during the

country school days and high school days a number of
important things happened which stand out in my
memory. Probably the first one was the initiation

78

of the rural free mail delivery in our area which
happened about 1900. Incidentally one of our neigh
bors who was a law into himself never put in a mail
box and didn't accept mail from the rural free
delivery because he said then he would have no excuse
to go to town. He drove to town to get his mail all
the rest of his life.

Our first telephone, a party line with eight
families on it, on which our ring was five, came
when I was probably around eleven or twelve years
of age. This was quite a thrill and of course it
was used for many things besides business. One thing
that I recall quite vividly was that the chap who was
the beau of one girl who worked for us used to bring
his Edison phonograph along occasionally. It had the
horn, the round wax records that he kept in cotton
and pulled out with two fingers and slipped onto the
cylinder. He had the usual group of songs and music
of that day and an occasional record of Josh Billings
such as the one about the lightening rod salesman.

My Dad used to call up cousins and others clear
across the county and at other exchanges Potaskala
and Jersey and got them on the line and would say
"Now we're going to play 'Listen To The Mockingbird1.1
Then he would set the receiver dov/n on the little
shelf and it would play away and then he would go
back and check. Maybe they would play four or five
tunes for them. They kept the phone busy often but
fortunately nobody was calling a doctor at that time.

My first automobile ride was an important event.
It probably happened about 1902 or 190$. Two gentle
men came walking up an alternate lane we had which
wasn't used a great deal and left their car down on
the road which was more than a quarter of a mile away
to see whether or not they could leave their auto
mobile in our barn or shed. When Dad told them that
they might, they invited us to go down with them and
ride up.

It was one of the early Buicks which had a door
in the back with a step, that you used to step up
into from behind. My brother and I got in and of

79

course we were bumping each other with elbows and
giggling and having a great time. It was quite a
thrill. The ride was less than a half mile. Some
where between a quarter and a half mile but it seemed
like a worthwhile ride to us.

The coming of free natural gas and the advent
of a furnace to supply central heat was one of the
greatest things that happened to me during my young
life.

The purchase of our first automobile in 1913 was
a big event. This did not happen until I was in col
lege. I remember quite distinctly that we debated
between buying an Oakland and a Studebaker. We finally
bought the Studebaker because it had jump seats and
would haul seven passengers instead of five in a pinch
even though it was only a four cylinder car. We all
learned to drive during this period except my Dad and
Mother. Dad tried but when he hit the gate post once
he decided he wouldn't ever drive again so the boys
did all the driving.

Fords had become quite common by this time. I
think the first Ford garage and sales agency was
established in our hometown in 1909 and it wasn't
very long until model T Fords were beginning to
ramble around the countryside and scare all the
horses and cause trouble generally.

The period from 1891, the year of my birth, to
1914-, the year when I graduated from college, was in
reality a period of transition from the horse and
buggy days to the machine age throughout the country.
Thin transition I am sure had an important bearing
upon my life and future development. The invention
of the auto in the early 1890' s, and the gradual
emergence of the automobile as a means of transpor
tation between 1900 and 1914- had a tremendous impact
on communications between people and communities
and upon the economy.

During this same period the interurban electric
line came into general use, particularly in the Mid-
West. The coming of the Rural Free Delivery and the
rural telephone lines were particularly important

81

Self binders for grain, with sheaf carriers also
arrived during this period. The development of the
combine harvester which nowadays is common came later.

Intermingled with all the hard farm work and
onerous chores there were many pleasures which helped
to make life livable. There were always horses to
ride for both business and pleasure. Rabbit hunting
with dog and no gun in the early years and later both
rabbit and quail hunting were fun times. Pishing in
the summer was a good sport and we had good fishing
spots within walking distance.

Evenings around the fire in the winter with
apples and popcorn were also fun. Social affairs at
the country school were well attended and added to the
social life of the community. Later teenage parties
were quite common during our high school days.

College Years

DSM: I had a bit of a problem in coming to a decision
about where to attend college. My Father wanted me to
attend Ohio Wesleyan and he was hoping that I would
be his one son that miRht be willing to become a
Methodist minister. I'm sure he felt very badly that
I didn't do this but instead I made a decision to go
to the College of Agriculture at Ohio State University.

This decision was probably influenced by the
fact that a Perm State graduate by the name of Clarence
Henry had arrived in the community about the time I
was a high school freshman, as the superintendent of
the Wherely Farm. The Wherely family were the owners
of a large stove foundry in Newark and they had a
large farm between Hebron and Newark. "Pat" Henry
was receiving $1200 per year and living quarters for
managing this large farm and this seemed like a
tremendous income. In addition job opportunities for

82

agricultural graduates appeared to be available with
good paying salaries rather generally. So I enrolled
in the fall of 1910 in the College of Agriculture.

On my first day on the campus I met a cousin of
one of our local girls with whom I had gone to high
school. Her name was Gladys Reese. She introduced
me to a young man by the name of Chester Engle who
immediately asked me to go with him to his fraternity
house for lunch. I had had no experience whatsoever
with fraternities but it so happened that this
introduction led to my accepting the pledge from the
Alpha Zeta fraternity which was an agricultural frat
ernity.

This proved to be a very important factor in my
college work I'm sure mainly because of the fact that
the fraternity had a record of good grades. On the
whole they were excellent students and the older
members of the fraternity, juniors and seniors, saw
to it that the younger members were doing their work
properly and if they needed help they didn't hesitate
to do the kind of kindly tutoring which was very often
needed.

My grades were only average during my college
years. It seems that I had no aspirations to be an
honor or merit student. I learned after my first
several months in school that I could get passing
grades by going to the library in between classes
and laboratory periods during the day and then I
spent too much time playing cards in the evening or
on trips downtown to shows and in other recreational
activities which took up time that might well have
been devoted to my school work.

I did pass all my courses however, with only one
condition and that came about because of my poor art
work in Zoology Laboratory. After I received the
condition I went to see Doctor Osburn about it. He
was my lecture and classroom work professor. He was
a kindly, elderly gentleman and he said he didn't
understand it because his grade book showed that I
had a grade of between ninety and one hundred in his
class work and finally he asked me who my lab instruc
tor was and I told him Professor Barrows. With a

83

kindly and knowing grin he said "I think you had
better see Professor Barrows." I did and I found
that he was the one that gave me the condition.
It was agreed that if I passed off the second seme
ster satisfactorily in his lab I wouldn't need to
take an exam to pass off the condition. I'm sure
that he may have been sorry about this later because
I never left the lab on any lab day without getting
his approval of the work that I had done. Anyhow
I did pass the course and it was the only condition
that I received during the four years.

Along about the time I was a sophomore I happened
to be around the fraternity house one evening when
almost everybody else was out and two of the alumni
who were then attached to the university came by and
sat down on our porch to visit. Jack Livingston who
was teaching Agronomy, field crops to be exact, was
one of those. After we had talked awhile he asked
me what I was going to select as a major. I told him
I didn't know; I supposed animal husbandry. This
seemed to be the popular thing in those days. He
said "Well, a lot of people seem to think that that
is the thing to do but I'll tell you what to do.
You decide to major in Agronomy and field crops and
when you get through I'll see to it that you have a
job if you want one." This impressed me and I sup
pose it was a real factor in my determining to
specialize in the Agronomic field.

At the beginning of my sophomore year I moved
into the fraternity house and my roommate was a chap
by the name of Ralph Kenny who was already special
izing in Agronomy and we got to be very close
friends and he was most helpful to me.

•..

Later on when he graduated he took up work at
the University of Kentucky as an instructor in
Agronomy and assistant at the Agricultural Experi
ment Station. This happened at the beginning of
my junior year and later on he had a job offer from
Kansas State College, at Manhattan, Kansas, and
decided to take it. He recommended me for his re
placement at the University of Kentucky.

When this happened I was in the first semester
of my senior year. I was taking a course in soils
under Dr. McCall who was head of the Agronomy Depart
ment and during this time he gave an exam shortly
before the holidays which somehow or other I didn't
seem to be able to do much about. Out of ten questions
I had only answered four during the hour. In other
words I flunked the exam out and out.

It was rather interesting though, during the
holidays Prof. McCall had gone to Lexington, Kentucky,
to judge a corn show and to appear on their Farmer's
Week program at the university. When he returned he
called me aside and said "Myer, what was the matter
with you on the examination we gave before the holi
days?" I said "I have no excuse whatsoever. I
simply didn't have time to finish the exam. I was
too slow in making up my mind in regard to the
answers and I just missed it." Well he said "I was
down in Kentucky during the holidays and Prof. Roberts
asked me about you and I recommended you for the job
which Ralph Kenny is leaving."

I could have thrown my arms around him but I
didn't. I thought it was a great gesture on his part.
He told me he thought I could do the job. As a con
sequence, I went to Kentucky in mid-year. They asked
me to come down to see them in January which I did
and they decided they would like to have me join the
staff. As a consequence I arranged to go down and
start teaching during the second semester.

In the meantime Dean Price of the College of
Agriculture at Ohio State was teaching a course in
farm management which was the only required course
that I hadn't completed, but I still had eight hours
total that I needed to complete in order to graduate.
Dean Price agreed that I might go to Kentucky and
substitute for his course as well as to take the extra
credit hours on a part time basis and to transfer my
credits back to Ohio in June of 1914- to get my degree.
This I did.

To go back for a moment to my college life. It
seems to me to have been somewhat uneventful. The
greatest thing that happened to me was that I was

given an opportunity to become an Alpha Zeta. I had
some wonderful friends among this group plus a great
deal of contact with agricultural leaders who had
graduated from the fraternity and in many ways I
profited from having been a member of the organiza
tion.

Social activities were largely fraternity affairs
with occasional dances or parties, attendence at the
theater was usually limited to "peanut gallery" seats
for shows and of course these seats were cheap but we
went very often as good shows came into town. They
had a new theater .called the Hartman Theater in
Columbus and we used to go down and stand in line
late in the day to get a good seat in "peanut heaven."
Occasionally we went to the old Munich, or later to
the Kaiserhoff cafes for a bit of a drinking bout.
I look back on some of these parties as not only
interesting but fun.

I think I may have already mentioned a young lady
who I had gone with all through high school and through
most of college during this period. While we had some
dates during the last year or two of college for the
most part I had dates with other girls during this
time. It was when I went to Kentucky to take over my
new job that I stopped by to pick up the jewelry that
I had given her and to bid her goodbye.

My Years At The University of Kentucky — The First Job

DSM: During my two years at the University of Kentucky
I served as instructor in Agronomy in the Kentucky
Agriculture College and assistant in Agronomy at the
Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station. Most of my
work at the experiment station was during the summer
season after school was out in the spring and before
it started in the fall, although I did have some con
tact with experimental work throughout the year.

86

My pay for the first five months during the time
when I was finishing up my school work for needed
credits wan $50 per month which was later raised to
$83.35 per month for the rest of the time that I was
there. In other words I was getting on a full time
basis $1,000 a year.

During this period I taught courses in cereal
crops and forage crops to both the two year students
and the four year students, also taught a course in
farm weeds which had not been taught before and which
I had to prepare for in great detail. I assisted in
the soil laboratory during one of these years and
during the first summer I assisted Prof. S.C. Jones
in Soil Survey work in Franklin County, Kentucky, and
in Graves County, Kentucky. This work consisted
mainly in taking soil samples with a soil auger and
labeling them to conform to the soil map in which
the soil types had been mapped.

I was given the responsibility for the wheat
variety tests and the soy bean variety tests during
my second year.

During these two years I really learned how to
study efficiently for the first time. It was
necessary in order to keep ahead of my various
classes and it's only too bad that I hadn't learned
how to do an efficient job of studying before I
graduated from college.

I had two wonderful years in the lush and
beautiful blue grass country where they raised
thoroughbred horses, tobacco, and other farm crops
and also good dairy cattle and good beef cattle. It
was a beautiful country and I never tired of travel
ing around through the countryside. It was an
interesting and profitable two years and in spite
of the fact that I was getting only $1,000 a year
I saved $200 a year out of my very limited salary.

I had two wonderful bosses; Prof. George Roberts
who was head of the department was one and Mr. Ed
Kinny who really had charge of the crops work and was
more closely related to my particular field than was

87

Prof. Roberts and was second in command. He not only
taught field crops but he also was a geneticist.
These two gentlemen trusted me implicitly and dele
gated experimental work and teaching spots as well
as speaking engagements throughout the state. I had
full support on everything I did. This trust and
support was an important factor in the development
of badly needed selfconf idence and provided experience
in public speaking and in student relations as well
as in research techniques and knowledge.

In addition to good relations with my own depart
ment and bosses, my living arrangements were such
that during the last several months of my stay in
Lexington I was closely associated with professors
and instructors in the fields of Veterinary Medicine,
Horticulture, and Poultry. This provided an oppor
tunity to gain knowledge in fields that were helpful
later as I entered county agent work and extension
work in Indiana.

About my only recreation during this stay in
Kentucky, particularly during the first year, was
usually a vaudeville show on Saturday night. I had
very few dates during my time there. I went bowling
with some of my friends who boarded at the same
boarding house as I did. Some of us enjoyed long
Sunday walks through the blue grass countryside and
after I moved into the household where there were a
number of friends whom 1 have mentioned from the
Veterinary, Horticulture and Poultry Departments we
occasionally had penny ante games which got a little
bit out of hand shortly before I left. However I
never lost much money in the penny ante games. I
did develop some very excellent friendships with
some wonderful people, some of whom I have kept in
touch with throughout the rest of my life.

My old friend and boss Edwin Kinny passed away
only a few months ago. He came to Washington to live
with a daughter for his last few years and I visited
him on a number of occasions and we enjoyed talking
about old times during 1914- and 1915.

88

Prof. Georpe Roberts, who was head of the depart
ment, recommended me for a raise each year but the
dean didn't feel that a raise was important. He was
a chemist. If I had been a chemist I would have been
more important in his eyes. So after the second turn
down I was somewhat disgusted so I sat down and wrote
a letter to Prof. S.C. Jones who I had aided in soil
survey work in 1914- and who had moved to Purdue Uni
versity in the meantime. After bringing him up to
date on the local gossip and telling him of my frus
tration 1 rather lightly told him that if he saw any
jobs lying around loose in my field to let me know.

He took me seriously and upon receipt of my
letter he immediately recommended me to T.A. Coleman,
the County Agent leader for Indiana, as a prospective
county agent. His recommendation worked and I was
invited to Purdue for an interview and as a result
I was ultimately hired as the first County Agricul
tural Agent for Vanderburgh County, at Evansville,
Indiana.

-

Frank Metsker, a demonstrator showing nitrogen- Dillon S. Myer as a young County Agricultural
nodules on roots of soy bean plants. Vanderburgh Agent in Vanderburgh County, Indiana in 1916
County, 1917. or 1917. Taken beside the Court House in his

usual summertime garb of white shirt, bow tie

and cap.

>Vk

f\ -- 1.^

f

/

r

A group of young men connected with
the College of Agriculture, University
of Kentucky. All roomed at the same
address. Dillon Myer in front, Instruc
tor in Agronomy and Assistant in the
Agricultural Experiment Station. All
of the others were veterinarians except
John Carmody, Dillon Myer's roommate,
who was a horticulturist. 1915.

Dillon Myer, a young instructor at the University of
Kentucky College of Agriculture and Assistant at the
Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station, visiting the
Sudan grass experimental plots. This plot was a combin
ation of Sudan grass and soy beans. September 1, 1915.

89

CHAPTER V

MATURING AS A YOUNG COUNTY AGRICULTURAL AGENT IN INDIANA

DSM: I resigned my position at the University of
Kentucky effective February 1, 1916 and after a
month's training with three older county agents in
Indiana, one week each, I reported to Evansville as
a young inexperienced county agent on March 1 ,

I was fortunate in that I had been assigned to
work for a week with Clarence Henry in Allen County
who had been a county agent there for some time and
with Cal Mclntosh in Green County, Indiana, and later
with Roy Marshall in Gibson County which was just to
the north of Vanderburgh County. I learned a great
deal from all three of these men about the technique
of county agent work which was not generally available
excepting through experience and word of mouth from an
agent who had had experience, because there weren't
too many agents in those days and there was very
little on the record about the work of county agents.

Before reporting for duty at Evansville, I
asked the county agent leader Mr. Tom Coleman what
I should do. He said "Go down and go to work. You
know as much about the job as I do." So I was on my
own in a strange country, but I soon found friends.

The township trustees who were also the county
school board or the county board of education rather
were responsible for the approval of the county
agent. Most of them were quite helpful once I had
been approved and was on the job. They helped to
arrange meetings for the purpose of getting acquainted.

The county superintendent of schools, Mr. Floyd
Ragland, was a real friend and supporter. He was a
valuable advisor to a young upstart of twenty-five
years who was assuming to advise farmers regarding
the problems of crops, livestock production and
marketing, and the establishing of 4H Club program.

90

In those days there was a requirement that $500
be raised locally in the county to provide for office
furnishing before Purdue University would recommend
a county agent for the job and before putting in
state and federal funds to help pay the county agent's
salary. In the case of Vanderburgh County the Evans-
ville Courier, which was the leading newspaper in that
part of the state, took on the task of helping to
raise the money through small subscriptions from
farmers and others and I think actually put up about
half of the $500 themselves in order to meet the
requirement of the $500 fund.

The office which was assigned to the county agent
was in the courthouse just next door to the Sheriff's
office on a main corridor and across from the County
Clerk's office. It was well located and quite satis
factory, from the standpoint of giving a new county
agent a chance to get acquainted with people, because
of the easy access.

The office, of course, had to be equipped
throughout. We bought desks, chairs, typewriter,
files, tables, and all of the accoutrements of a
normal office plus some < bookcases that I had made by
a carpenter or cabinetmaker and a bulletin rack which
would hold thirty-two bulletins which lay flat in a
pocket which was tilted so that they were easy to
see and easy to read. This provided the kind of
bulletin distribution center which helped get people
acquainted with what literature was available in the
various agriculture fields.

I also had purchased a number of text and refer
ence books in the various fields that I thought would
be helpful. I laid in a supply of Purdue and U.S.
Agriculture Department bulletins for reference work.
I found that all of these things came in very handy
later because there were many times that I needed to
look up information which I did not have at hand.

I found one small publication from the University
of California, that was written by B.H. Crocheron who
was Agriculture Extension Director in California, on
the subject of county a^ent work in Humbolt County,
California. This publication was the only one of its

type that I know of in existence at that time.
Director Crocheron had described in simple language
and quite completely the everyday work of the county
agent in a California county, including a descrip
tion of various types of method demonstration which
taught people how to do things with their hands or
with equipment; also result demonstrations which
involved petting the cooperation of some good farmer
to plant crops or to carry out certain practices
that would end up in the kind of results that could
be brought to the attention of people through a
meeting at a later date, to view the results or to
discuss the results. He also discussed the use of
farm visits, and office calls, project meetings,
general meetings and other techniques that had been
used by the county agent in Humbolt County.

I found this publication tremendously helpful
because as I have pointed out earlier, excepting
for the contact I had had with the three county
agents that I had spent some time with before I
came on the job in Indiana and some general know
ledge that I had gathered during the two years while
I was in Kentucky I had no very specific information
regarding the job of a county agent. This particular
bulletin gave me the idea that I should map out a
program of my own and I began to lay plans for various
types of projects which I thought were adaptable to
Vanderburgh County and made plans for carrying out
these projects.

More About Kentucky

DSM: I would like to revert to my experience at the
University of Kentucky briefly. I found that during
my experience in county agent work that the know
ledge that I had gained as a specialist in the
Agronomic field, especially my work with wheat varie
ties and with fertilizer plots and with the soy bean
varieties which I had charge of under the general

•

supervision of Ed Kinny during the last year I was in
Kentucky, was highly valuable because the soy bean
crop was new and not generally familiar to farmers
throughout the country.

My Only Scientific Publication

DSM: Also I have forgotten to mention the fact that

the only scientific publication that I ever have been
a party to was published while I was at the University.
On my first visit to Lexington to be looked over by
Prof. Roberts and Prof. Kinny, we had taken a trip
over the farm and on the way back we walked through
a small five-acre alfalfa field where we found many
dead alfalfa plants. Upon examination we realized
that there was a disease that was causing this
trouble .

After I arrived on the job I signed up for a
course in Plant Pathology under Prof. Gilbert in the
Botany Department and we discussed this particular
disease. After some discussion Prof. Roberts suggested
that we make this a project of my course with Prof.
Gilbert and that we prepare a bulletin on it. So as
a result we proceeded to do so.

Prof. Gilbert had some knowledge of German and
I had had a little, very little. We found that about
the only literature in the field which had to do with
the particular disease that we found in the alfalfa
field was German literature. So night after night we
went out to Prof. Gilbert's office and I would help
to look up the meaning of words as he found that he
didn't quite know the meaning and he did the trans
lating thus we hammered out a translation of the
publications that we found in this field and I
think we did a very good job of it.

Following that then Prof. Gilbert did some
laboratory work and checking out the microscopic

93

work and so on that needed to be done and since I
was traveling occasionally around the state I did
the field observation work and the contacts through
out the state as to the spread of this disease in
alfalfa and clover. As a result we came up with a
publication entitled "Stem Rot of Clovers and Alfalfa
as a Cause of Clover Sickness" by A.H. Gilbert and
D.S. Myer.

The particular disease that we had found was
known scientifically as Sclerotinia Trifoliorum.
This was a fungus and the name came from the fact
that they were resting bodies at a certain stage in
the life cycle of the disease known as Sclerotinia.
They were a dark blueish or purplish type of nodule
that we found in the alfalfa field when we first
discovered the disease at the University of Kentucky.

I got so interested at this particular stage in
this particular disease as well as in plant pathology
generally that I considered going to Cornell Uni
versity and taking graduate work in this field with
the expectation of becoming a specialist in the
field. I'm very fortunate that I decided not to do
GO because I realized later that I never would have
had the patience or the continued interest in doing
the careful scientific laboratory work that was
necessary in order to be a top plant pathologist.

However, this was a worthwhile experience and
it did stimulate my interest in the field of plant
diseases and plant problems, and led me to do a good
deal of reading and research in this field which was
helpful to me in my county agent work.

Soil Fertility Theories

DSM: There is one other phase of my work at the

University of Kentucky that I found helpful after I
left the University and got into county agent work.
There was o wide difference of opinion among

scientists throughout the world on what was causing
some of the problems in the field of soil fertility.
There were about five different major theories extant
at that time and each of the folks who had developed
a theory were very adamant in their belief that they
were right about what was causing problems in the
reduction of crop yields.

One of them concerned the lack of fertilizer
elements and particularly the lack of phosphate.
Prof. Hopkins at the University of Illinois was a
great advocate of the use of rock phosphate in its
natural state, simply ground rock phosphate, when
applied with clover and legume crops turned under
would do very well in the black soils of Illinois
and consequently he had a tendency to ascribe most
of the ills of crop production to lack of phosphates.

On the other hand, Dr. Bolley of the University
of North Dakota who had the problem of trying to
find the answer to their so-called Flax Sickness,
learned that through crop rotation they could con
tinue to grow flax, provided that they did rotate
crops over a period of four or five years and not
put the same crop in the same soil year after year.
As a consequence of his studies in this field he
began to insist through his writings that the limita
tion on crop production and the lowering of yields
was due almost entirely to plant disease.

Prof. Whitney of the Bureau of Soils and Chemistry
in Washington had developed a so-called toxic theory
in whish he insisted that the growth of crops in the
soil had over a period of time gradually thrown off
a toxic substance and that it was this toxic condition
that was causing reduced yields. He felt very
strongly about his theory.

A scientist at the Rothamstead Experiment Station
in England had developed an amoeba theory in which he
said that there was a type of amoeba in the soil that
was seemingly on the increase after crops were grown
for a number of years that caused the trouble.

My own Prof. George Roberts believed that there
were various reasons for reduced crop yields depending

95

upon the type of soils and their condition. He was an
advocate in areas of clay soil in particular of the
use of acid phosphate instead of rock phosphate and of
other mineral fertilizers in areas where they were
needed. For example in muck land he felt potash
should be used but not necessarily in clay lands.
He felt that on clay lands if you grew legumes and
the land was properly limed, if it needed lime, to
grow legumes normally about all you would need was
phosphate because the legumes would provide the nitro
gen and there was generally ample potash in the soil
that could be made available if it had the right
treatment otherwise.

So the argument went along. The fertilizer
companies, particularly the Federal Chemical Company
at Louisville were very very adamant that mixed
fertilizers should be used. In other words they were
very strong for selling something like 2-8-2 which
was two percent of nitrogen, eight percent phosphate
and two percent potash or a 4—8-4- or a 4—10-6 or some
thing of that kind and they were against the idea of
the use of a single element of mineral fertilizer.

I lived in the modst of this battle for a couple
of years and read everything that came before me in
regard to it. So when I got on to the job at Evans-
ville I was pretty well prepared for the arguments
which were current and I knew something about the
type of fertilization that seemed to be required on
the various types of soil that we had in Vanderburgh
County because of my knowledge of the detailed
experimental worked had been carried on with the
various soil types in Kentucky. Some of these soil
types were quite similar to those that we had in
Vanderburgh County.

Prof. Roberts had established soil experimental
fields all over the state to supplement what they
were doing at the college at Lexington because the
blue grass soils in the Lexington area were very high
in phosphate, were highly fertile if properly handled
and were quite different than the so-called mountain
country of the east and the pennyroyal country of the
western part of the state. So he had established

96

these various fields and I had been conversant with
the results. This was all very helpful.

In addition to that, in my association with my
roommate John Carmody, who was a horticulturalist,
I learned a great deal about horticulture. When I
found that I was going to take on a job where I may
need to have wider knowledge I didn't hesitate to
use the opportunity to learn about a lot of practical
things that I had forgotten about or which I had
never learned.

The same thing was true in the field of animal
diseases with my veterinarian friends and regarding
modern poultry production from my friends whom I
lived with or associated with, men who were poultry-
men. The experience as an instructor and as assis
tant at the experiment station for two years was
worthwhile, therefore, from the standpoint of my
technical training for county agent work.

Back To Vanderburgh County; Getting Acquainted

DSM: In addition to the early meetings in the county
which were arranged largely through the township
trustees for the purpose of getting acquainted with
the farmers in the various communities and having
them get acquainted with the new county agent. I
used the opportunity when I was not otherwise
occupied to get into my car and drive out through
the various areas of the county, keeping my eyes
open. These drives were made for the purpose of
getting acquainted with people.

If I saw somebody over in the field and they
weren't too busily occupied, if they were stopping
for example to rest the horses or if they were having
a little tractor trouble, I would pull up to the
side of the road and go over to the fence and intro
duce myself as the county agent and very often in

97

those early days they would say "Agent for what?" and
I would have to explain that I wasn't selling auto
mobiles or farm machinery. Then I would explain
briefly what the county agent's Job was, the fact
that I was the new agent, and made many acquaintences
in this way.

I also kept my eyes open to learn more at first
hand about the farming operations, the type of
practices that were being utilized, the type of
equipment that farmers were using, type of crops that
were grown, and the methods they were using in the
cultivation and harvesting, and various problems of
crop handling, as well as the kind of livestock, and
how they were equipped to handle livestock, etc., etc,

I found these drives highly valuable and infor
mative and after a while, of course, I got to the
place where there were certain stops that I nearly
always made because there were key people in nearly
every township or community as I began to get
acquainted who were interested in my work. A stop
for a short visit with them very often led to another
lead about something that maybe should be done, or
I would pick up information about the reaction of
various people in the community toward the meetings
or toward the demonstrations that were being carried
on, and various subjects that would come up that
were helpful to me.

I found that it was highly desirable that I
store up all the detailed information that I could,
not only about the farming and farming practices
and what I could seo for muself or what I could
learn from them, but about the people and their
attitudes. I remember one day, for example, driving
along the road and seeing a chap by the name of
Jake Walker cultivating corn with a disk cultivator.
He was doing what they called barring out in those
days. I was sure he was cutting off many corn roots
so I climbed over the fence and followed him, when he
wasn't looking, for one row through and when I ended
up at the end of the row I had two hands full of corn
roots. He turned around and saw me and said "Where
did you get those?" and I said "You cut them off on
the way through." It was this kind of thing that

98

helped me to bring to the attention of farmers cer
tain lessons that I was trying to bring to them.

As a matter of fact, we suggested shallow cul
tivation not too close to the corn plant in those
days. They had been in the habit of cutting in as
close as they could and cutting off most of the
young roots. I remember one old gentleman when we
talked about this particular problem ? Mr. Mitchen,
who said he thought it was a good thing for corn
roots to be pulled and jerked around like that; that
it was good for them and I said "What do you think
would happen if somebody went into your entrails
and pulled them around and jerked them around like
you're talking about with the corn roots?" and
everybody laughed. They got the point very quickly.

Making An Impression By Demonstrating Know How

HP: Would it be possible for a man to become a county
agent who had not had the kind of farm experience
you had?

DSM: Well, a county agent had to be well trained. If
he had not lived or was not reared on a farm, he
had to have some kind of farm experience. I have
known a few city boys who have become county agents
but they are always handicapped a bit because there
were certain things that didn't come as natural to
them as they did to some of us.

I was asked many times to do certain practical
things. For example ? if I stopped by some place
where they were cultivating corn and trying out a
new cultivator somebody would look at me with a grin
and say "Why don't you take it for a round or two."
I was always delighted and I would climb onto a
cultivator and take the team through the field and
show them that I knew how to handle a team and
cultivator and it always helped.

99

I remember one day out in Armstrong township
where Henry Kissel lived, there was a chap by the
name of William Hepler who had bought a 'new Tower
cultivator. The Tower cultivator was different
than the normal cultivators in that it didn't have
the shovels of the type that most of the cultivators
had but it had knives. It just happened that when I
was a kid I grew up v/ith a Tower cultivator. Ours
was a walking type but I knew how to adjust them,
then we got a riding one before I left home so I
learned to use it.

I stopped by the house and Mrs. Hepler said
"Oh, Will's back in the back field and they are trying
out a new cultivator." Well, I met him about half
way back and he was in a bad sweat and a bad humor.
I said "What's the trouble?" He said "Oh, that God
damn cultivator. I'm going to toss the damned thing
into a fence corner and forget about it." I said
"What is it?" He told me. "I said "Is it back there?"
He said "David is using it." David was his oldest
boy. I said "I'll go back there and see what David
is doing and see what I can do about it." When I
got there I found that the cultivator was as com
pletely out of kilter as they could possibly get it.

They had the blades every-which-way and it took
me about a full round, stopping every little while
to use my wrench making some adjustments until I
got it so it would function. When I got back after
making a full round and after making probably a
dozen stops and making some adjustments here and
there, it was doing very well. The soil was a little
too wet to cultivate, but nevertheless it did work.
So I said "Get on, David, and let's see you take it.
Now don't you touch it, you just use it this way."
So he did and they were just delighted with the
fact that somebody knew how to handle it.

I got in touch with the salesman and said
"You don't have any business selling a new piece
of equipment into any community like this and then
going off without spending some time to see that
these people know how to use it."

100

It was this kind of thing that added zest to
the job because you knew certain things that nobody
else in the community knew and you were able to
demonstrate them and I got a thrill out of it.

Field Demonstrations And Dealer Cooperation

DSM: In addition to the other activities in the
county, we had a number of demonstrations in the
use of ground limestone for the correction of soil
acidity so as to secure better stands of clover.
We also had fertilizer demonstrations using acid
phosphate for increased crop yields. After we had
received some results in this area I arranged for
a meeting with the fertilizer dealers in the county
as well as from surrounding counties.

I explained to them that I didn't believe that
most farmers needed a so-called complete fertilizer
which means fertilizers which have nitrogen, phos
phate, and potash but if they raised clover or
other legumes to provide the nitrogen and if their
soil condition was such that potash could become
available, there was plenty of it in the type of
clay soils which existed in most of the county.
Consequently the limiting factor was phosphate.

So I explained to these dealers that we were
going to recommend the use of what was then gen
erally considered the best phosphate fertilizer
because it was readily available. That was twenty
percent acid phosphate which meant raw phosphate
rock treated with sulphuric acid to make the
phosphate more available.

In addition to some of our local friends who
had already attended the meeting with the seedmen
that we had earlier, a chap by the name of Garrison
who was the regional or area representative for the
Federal Chemical Company of Louisville, Kentucky,

101

came to the meeting. After I had explained what we
were proposing to do and why we were doing it and
asked their cooperation in handling acid phosphate,
Mr. Garrison spoke up and said "Well, Mr. Myer,
these people won't handle acid phosphate. Farmers
are accustomed to a complete fertilizer and the
dealers will want to handle a complete fertilizer.
There is no use talking about it." So I said "All
right Mr. Garrison, suppose we leave it to the
dealers." So I put it to a vote and of course they
wouldn't vote me down and three or four of them
said they would be glad to handle it. Mr. Garrison
was very unhappy because of the prospect of
diminished profits but we had won.

Among those in attendance was an elderly gentle
man by the name of John Schlensker, a good old German
from out in the north part of the county, who had
never handled much fertilizer but he had been
handling one car load a year for a group of farmers
in that area for a number of years. So after the
meeting was over he ordered a car load of acid
phosphate from the Welch Chemical Company of New
Albany, Indiana. He got a letter back saying that
they couldn't ship a full car load of acid phosphate.
They would have to ship half a car load of 2-8-2
which was two percent nitrogen, eight percent
phosphate and two percent potash versus twenty per
cent phosphate.

So he brought the letter into my office and
said "What will I do about it?" I said "Mr.
Schlensker, if I write a letter on plain paper
would you sign it?" He said "Yes." So I wrote a
letter playing the part of Mr. Schlensker. I said
that I was not interested in any 2-8-2 fertilizer.
I wanted a car load of acid phosphate and if they
couldn't ship it please let me know immediately
because I wanted to order it from another company.
This incidentally was the company that he had been
dealing with for years. Well, he got his acid
phosphate and he came in as tickled as a boy with
a new pair of boots after it rolled in.

102

Several months later after I had moved into
Purdue as Assistant County Agent Leader, I had a
meeting up in northern Indiana on the farm of
Warren McCray, who was a cattle breeder and later
was the Governor of Indiana and of his brother-in-
law George Ade? the writer. During one of the
breaks Ray Ellis, who was the general manager of
the fertilizer company in New Albany who had gotten
this letter came around and shook hands with me and
he said "Dillon, how is your friend John Schlensker?"
I said "Well, the last time I saw him he was fine.
He's a nice chap." He looked me straight in the eye
and said "You wrote that letter that John Schlensker
sent me, didn't you?" I said "Ray, John Schlensker
got his acid phosphate, didn't he?" He said "Yes,
damn it."

Sometime after this incident I was visiting in
one of the surrounding counties and came upon a chap
who was serving as agent for the New Albany company
and we got to talking about their business and I
said "Do you sell much mixed fertilizers now-a-days
down in the pocket, in the area surrounding Vander-
burgh County?" He said "Yes. We sell it every place
excepting Vanderburgh County and thanks to you we
sell acid phosphate in Vanderburgh County." Which
was, of course, what I had hoped to hear.

Other than the activities of the 4-H club
members in pig clubs, poultry clubs, and in a few
cases calf club members we had very little work
in the field of livestock production other than
meetings on dairy rations; however we also organized
a cow testing association which I have mentioned
elsewhere.

This was an association of twenty-six members
that hired a tester who came around once a month to
test their milk for butter fat, weigh up the volume
and then figure what the production of each of the
cows was for the month.

Some of the folks who signed up in the cow
testing association were amazed and surprised at
how good the records of some of their cows were.

103

War Gardens And Aphids

DSM: During April of 19"17» which was the beginning of
my second year as county agent, World War I broke out
and with it came war gardens which were recommended
generally.

It so happened that during the spring and summer
which followed we had the worst infestation of aphids
that I have ever known. Most of the war gardeners
were growing potatoes and their young potato vines
became covered with aphids which are plant lice that
suck the juices out of the plant. 1 had literally,
it seemed to me, hundreds of office calls, people
coming in or calling up asking how to get rid of
aphids .

I learned something out of this experience. At
that time there were three different remedies for
aphids. One of them was whale oil soap which was
made into an emulsion, another one was coal oil
emulsion which was mixed with whale oil soap and if
you didn't get it just right you would burn the
plants. A third one which had come onto the market
fairly recently was a product called Black Leaf
Forty. It was made from tobacco. It had a very high
nicotine content and came in a small bottle. When
properly diluted in water it was quite effective.

I began to tell people about the three different
remedies. I came to realize after watching their
faces and watching them linger a bit that they were
frustrated. They left in most cases not knowing
what to do. I realized that many of them wouldn't
do anything because they couldn't make up their
minds. So as a result of this experience I began
recommending only Black Leaf Forty and there was
no problem from that time on because they could go
to the drugstore and buy a small bottle with the
directions on it.

This taught me a lesson regarding all kinds
of remedies of this kind. If there was more than
one, from that time on, I picked what I thought was

104

the right one, and didn't even mention the others
because I found that people don't like to make a
choice. They like to have somebody make up their
mind for them.

Another wartime idea that was widely advertised,
that I had many questions about, was growing straw
berries in barrels. The process v/as simply one of
filling up the barrel with soil, boring holes about
six or eight inches apart all around the barrel and
sticking strawberry plants into the holes. This of
course appealed to many city gardeners who didn't
have garden patches big enough to grow a garden so
I had many many calls asking about how to grov;
strawberries in a barrel.

Interest In The County Agent's Politics

DSM: Shortly after I arrived in Evansville I learned
that the Democratic party had made a clean sweep the
previous fall in the elections and they had cleaned
out the courthouse of all Republicans with the
exception possibly of the County Superintendent of
Schools.

Of course they didn't know the politics of the
new county agent. This was something that was very
important to some of the folks who were hangers-on
around the courthouse so I was questioned time and
again and various approaches were used to learn my
politics. They tried to slip up on me by such
questions as whether I had Joined the torch light
parade the night before when one of the parties was
having a parade and that sort of thing.

Finally a chap by the name of George Wegel who
was a Socialist and a loud mouth Socialist who lived
out in Knight township, came into the office one day,
He and I had learned to know each other pretty well
and we bantered back and forth and kidded each other,

105

On this particular day he came into the office and
went over my office with a fine tooth comb and asked
me what everything in the office cost including the
typewriter, the desk, everything that we had that
we had purchased. He stayed quite a long time.

Not too long after he left I went across to the
clerk's office to buy some stamps which I usually
did when 1 needed stamps. A beautiful young girl,
Miss Schindler, who usually waited on me, got ray
stamps for me and then she looked up at me with her
beautiful smile and said "Mr. Myer, the people around
here are wondering if you are a Socialist?" I said
"What do you think?" She said "I don't know." I
said "Well let's leave it that way. You Just tell
them you don't know."

So far as I know they never did find out what
my politics was at that time because I didn't tell
them and I didn't even register for the primary.
I voted in the general elections but not in the
primaries.

Newspaper Experience And Relations

DSM: As I have mentioned previous to the establish
ment of the office of the county agent the county
was required to raise a minimum of $500 for the
purchase of office supplies, equipment, etc. by
voluntary subscription. The Evansville Courier,
which was the major newspaper in the county and
in "the Pocket" which included about six counties,
had helped to raise this money and had probably put
up at least half the money in order to assure that
the $500 was available. Sometime after I had
arrived on the scene I had been introduced to the
editor but 1 had done very little else about keeping
any contact with the paper.

106

One day Fred Trueblood who was the managing
editor called me up and asked me to go to lunch with
him, which I did. After we were settled at the table
he said "Young man, I would like to remind you that
my paper the Evansville Courier helped to raise the
money to get you to come here and we expect some
cooperation out of you in providing some rural news
for the paper." Ny response was thot I wasn't looking
for publicity and I didn't believe that I needed any.
Then he really jumped with both feet. He said "Let
me tell you something of the facts of life. You do
need it and you need it very badly. Not only that;
you are going to get it and you are going to help
get it."

He explained to me that they had recently started
a farm page once a week which came out on Friday and
he wanted the assistance of my office in providing
local copy for the farm page, seasonal items, and
anything that was of interest because up to that time
they had been using practically entirely the "boiler
plate" from some source or other. "Furthermore" he
said "we would like to have you either call up or
drop into the office after your meetings throughout
the county and report on the meetings, how many were
there, what was discussed, things of interest to the
paper, and to the rural community." So I promised that
I would be glad to cooperate.

As a result the farm page at times became
practically the county agent's page. I can remember
a few times when I had five columns right across
the top of the farm page. It happened to be at times
when seasonal items were important and the paper
didn't hesitate to use them.

Furthermore, I found it most interesting to
stop by the Courier office after night meetings in
particular when the paper had been pretty well put
to bed and was about ready to go to press. The city
editor would assign somebody to take my story which
usually didn't take very long, and then I would light
my pipe and sit down among the reporters who were
hashing over the day ' s news .

ft WO*;

10?

I became a member of the staff in a sense. This
was a great experience. It was an experience that 1
never had had. I knew nothing about the inside
workings of a newspaper up until this time and need
less to say I got a great deal of Rood support out
of the paper. When somebody would propose that v/e
have a meeting out in their community and I would
say "Do you want to send out notices?" They would
say "Oh bust put it in the Courier. Everybody reads
the Courier. " And they did. That ' s the way we
advertised our meetings. So Fred Trueblood's visit
with me proved to be well worthwhile.

Early Meetings

DSM: Before leaving the subject of Vanderburgh County
I want to pay tribute to a gentleman who was a real
help and a real sponsor of my program. I think I
mentioned earlier that the County Board of Education
was the board that had to approve the recommendations
of Purdue University as to who came in as county
agent. The County Superintendent of Schools, of
course, was the executive officer of that board and
supervised the schools throughout the county. At
that time there was a very wonderful gentleman by
the name of Floyd Ragland who was county superin
tendent. He went with me to the various stores to
introduce me and to help me select my office equip
ment in the beginning.

Furthermore he went with me on several occasions
to meetings in the country during the first two or
three months and then on the way home in the kindest
and nicest manner possible he gave me the kind of
criticism that I needed very badly as to how I should
talk to farmers. He found that I hadn't realized
that having taught two years in the College of Agri
culture at the University of Kentucky that instead
of talking about ground limestone or just plain
burned lime, I was talking about calcium carbonate,

108

calcium oxide, and using other chemical terms which
were quite well known by students who had taken
chemistry but were not well known by farmers. This
is typical of the type of thing that he pointed out
to me and I'm sure that any success that I may have
had in the county in my speechs was largely due to
Floyd Ragland and his very kindly approach in
helping me to orient myself to a new situation.

Since I was the first County Agricultural Agent
in Vanderburgh County and since I was a young man of
only twenty-four years of age at the time I started
my work there, it became very important to use all of
the techniques available to me to become acquainted
and to find ways and means to gain support and respect
for the services which we had to render. Much of our
time, of course, was devoted to meetings of various
types including community meetings, farm tours,
demonstration meetings to show the results of crop
treatment or to show how to mix insecticides or for
some other reason.

Of course, the use of the press which has already
been mentioned became a highly valuable medium, and
farm visits to individuals in the community who
became standbys as advisors, and as demonstrators
and services provided through office calls.

Learning The Importance Of Remembering Paces And Names

DSM: The first office caller that I had was a chap by
the name of Homer Pierce who lived right out in the
edge of the county almost into the adjoining county
on a rather poorly drained heavy clay farm. He came
in to ask me how to get rid of cattle lice, which as
far as I knew did not exist up to this time. I had
to admit to him that I didn't know but that I would
find out and asked him the next time he was in town
to drop in and I would have the answer for him. So

109

I wrote to Dr. Craig who was the head of the veteri
nary department at Purdue University and got the
information back promptly.

Two or three weeks later Mr. Pierce came swinging
into the office again. The minute he stepped through
the door I said "Good morning, Mr. Pierce." I thought
the man was going to faint, he was so taken aback that
I remembered him. He wasn't used to being remembered
it seems. He couldn't quite get over the idea that
this was a wonderful thing. This response on his part
alerted me to the fact that it was highly important
that I remember names, remember people, and that I
learn to call them by name.

As a result, the young crippled lad who came to
work for me as a stenographer and I teamed up to work
out a system that would be helpful in remembering
people. I recorded every farm visit that I made, why
I stopped there and what we talked about, put it on a
file card and filed it away alphabetically. I did
the same thing if any thing of importance happened in
the way of requests for information at meetings, and
we did the same thing for office callers.

This young man who served as secretary had worked
over most of the county before he was crippled, as a
member of a threshing crew, so he knew a lot of people
that I didn't know. So if he sensed that I didn't
know somebody's name he found ways and means to slip
me a bit of paper having the name of the person on it
so that I could begin calling him by name. The
response was usually very very pood. My secretary
used to come by a long table where I usually sat
down across from the caller and he would act as
though he was using the table to help him along to
the files. He would put his hand down and leave the
slip of paper where the person across the table would
not notice, because he was busily occupied in asking
questions.

110

Get Acquainted Meetings

DSM: The first few weeks we were there we determined

to have a meeting in every community if possible. The
township trustees who were the members of the Board of
Education which had approved my appointment, generally
arranged these meetings and the meetings were for the
purpose of letting them see me, the new county agent,
to tell them something about what we hoped to do in
the way of providing service to the farmers of the
county, and for me to have the opportunity to get
acquainted with my constituency. After a short talk
outlining the duties and the responsibilities of the
county agent and what we had hoped to do for them, we
always had a question and answer period.

One of the questions that invariably came up
during that first spring was the question as to whether
or not it was better to plant potatoes in the light
of the moon or the dark of the moon. I usually would
tell them that my Mother would know the answer to
that for sure but I was not quite sure and I was sure
their own experience maybe it was as good as mine.

Finally after four or five of such meetings at
one in a very German community the chairman of the
meeting was a chap by the name of Mr. Kirchof . Mr.
Kirchof when that question was asked leaned over to
me and said "Ask for a show of hands of how many plant
in the dark of the moon and how many plant in the
light of the moon." I did just that and they were
split almost fifty-fifty. He looked at me and winked
and I used that technique time and time again after
wards because they all thought they were right and it
answered the question and there was no comeback
because everybody was willing to argue among them
selves which was right.

When we used to kid my Mother about her belief
that the moon affected crops she said "Well, the moon
affects the tides, why shouldn't it affect the growing
of plants." And we just closed up because we just
didn't know. I don't know or didn't at that time;
whether they have learned anything about it in the
meantime I am not sure.

111

We had one very interesting community which was
just over the edge into Posey County, the adjourning c- ^ *
county. The community lapped over into Vanderburgh
County. The name of the community was St. Phillips,
a Catholic parish, a very rural one. Shortly before
I arrived on the scene they started having meetings.
The county agent from Posey County attended all of
their meetings and he informed me that we v/ere to
take turn about. They met once a month in the parish
house and they had a priest by the name of Father
Verse. About two hundred people turned out at every
meeting and they practically hung on to every word
that was so id. I don't think I have ever seen a
hungrier group of people for information then these
people were.

They had been isolated for years and after one
of the meetings that I attended Father Verse invited
me over to his manse to chat a bit. And I said
"Father how do you explain getting all of these people
out and the interest that you have developed here?"
He said "Well, when I came here I found that the
priest who had proceeded me had been here for forty
years. He never encouraged meetings of any kind,
excepting meetings of the church and as a matter of
fact he discouraged it and I realized that it was a
very backward community and that they needed all the
help they could get in modern agricultural practices.
I came from up near Notre Dame. I was associated
with a community where I learned a good deal about
agricultural practices so when I first came here I
invited the county agent from Mount Vernon to come
over and talk with us. The first meeting was on
poultry. We decided to have meetings once a month
and you can see the results."

In all my experience I don't think I have ever
had a more appreciative or a more satisfactory
audience. They would literally keep you on the floor
for hours if you would allow them to, asking questions.
They were just that hungry for information.

Father Verse was quite an unusual man and this
was a very very interesting experience for me.

112

The county agent ' s office was on the main floor
of the courthouse and as a consequence it came to be
the hang out for all the newspapermen who covered the
courthouse beat. Occasionally we had rather a rough
group because they would come over to get over their
hangovers in my office.

A chap who covered my particular office was
named Bullock. They decided to put out a special
edition of the Evansville Courier and he asked me to
write a story about the agriculture of Vanderburgh
County. I said "All right, "Bull", I will do so if
you won't change it or write a lead on it." He so id,
"All right." But when the paper came out the lead
that he had written said "Myer says that all of Van
derburgh County will be within the city of Evansville
within fifty years," and of course I got laughed at
around the county but nevertheless Bullock was about
right because as I drive back through that part of
the country nowadays, fifty years later it appears
that he was not far wrong.

The Soy Bean Story

DSM: The introduction of soy beans into Vanderburgh
County is a very interesting story. As assistant at
the Kentucky Agriculture Experiment Station in
Lexington and during the time I was there, 1 taught
during the winter and spent all my time on experi
mental and research work during the summer. The
supervision of the variety test for soy beans, as
well as the wheat research program, was turned over
to me to supervise. So I became quite well acquainted
with the soy bean, which was not very widely used nor
widely known throughout the United States. The seed
that we had included about twenty varieties. They
were all imported.

HP: From where?

DSM: Mostly from China and Japan.

HP: Is that so? I wonder how it all started — I wonder
how the United States finally did realize the soy
bean's worth?

DSM: The Bureau of Plant Industry was sending people out
all over the world looking for new plants and
interesting plants. This was one of the most
interesting jobs that they had in the Department of
Agriculture.

They started, as a matter of fact, importing
new plants before the Department of Agriculture was
ever formed. The Patent Office was the agency used
if they found something interesting in those early
days. So the Bureau of Plant Industry had supplied
the seeds for these variety tests.

There was an Agronomist by the name of Morris,
who was supervising this program. He visited us two
or three times in Kentucky and I went over the pro
gram with him. So I got quite well acquainted with
the early, the medium, and the late varieties and
those that had more seed available.

When I got to Evansville, in Vanderburgh County,
Indiana, I found that many of the soils had become
so acid that they weren't producing good crops of
clover. They needed a legume in the interim that
would help produce nitrogen as well as provide a
change in rotation. So I started recommending soy
beans.

At that time about the only soy beans that was
on the market was a variety called Mammoth Yellow.
It was a very late bean and normally in that area it
didn't mature at all. It would get frosted before
the seed would mature. It was a good bean if you
wanted to plow it under because it grew up very high.
That is about all they had, so I started recommending
a bean called Hollybrook and two or three others,
medium varieties, that would mature in that area.

It didn't occur to me that the dealers would not
have them. I should have known it but I didn't think

114

it through. One day I came by a farm owned by Billy
Erskine. Billy was a slov; talking, awfully nice guy
and one of my better friends. He said "I ran into a
chap the other day that is awfully mad at you." I
said "What's his name?" He said "Owen Monroe," and
I said "Where is he?" He said "At the Heldt Seed
Company." I oaid "What's he mad about?" He said
"I went in and asked him if they had some liollybrook
soy beans and ho looked at me and said 'Who in God's
name is recommending this variety of bean1 and 1 said
the County Agent. He said 'Let me show you something,
so he took me to the bock of the store, up a few steps
and showed me a great big bin of Mammoth Yellow beans
and he said 'We haven't sold one peck of these beans
since this County Ap:ent started recommending other
varieties and we're stuck.1." I said "I guess I'd
better go in and see him." So the next day I did go
in to see him.

I went in and introduced myself to Owen Monroe
and he said "Come with me." He just turned on his
heel and went back and took me up some steps to show
me this bin. He said "See what you've done?", and I
said "Yes, I do and I'm very regretful and it's a
mistake on my part and we'll see if we can't do some
thing about it." He said "What can you do?" I said
"Well, I would like to have a meeting of the seed
dealers of the county. Would you come?" He said
"Yes I'd come but I don't think anybody else would
come." I said "Would you help me by giving me the
names of the various seed dealers that you know
about?" "Sure", he said. So I got a piece of paper,
sat down and listed a group of names.

We sent out a notice calling them to a meeting
and told them in the notice that we wanted to talk
about the soy bean crop, securing the soy bean seed
of the type adapted to that area. About five dealers
came; one was a wholesaler and about four others. I
apologized for what I had done and said "What I'd
like to do is to settle on two or three key varieties
that we can use in this area; one early, one medium,
and Mammoth Yellow if someone wants to turn the crop
under. But there won't be many people who will want
to do that, so I think the medium one will be the
major one because it will mature here."

115

Usually by the time the beonr, are harvested for
seed the leaves have already dropped off but if a
farmer is going to turn it under he usually does it
while the plant is still green enough that the whole
crop becomes humus. However, the bean was increasingly
valuable for seed, because it was beginning to be in
demand.

I said "I'll tell you what I'll do, if you will
make a deal with me. I'll locate seed supplies for
you, tell you where you can get them, if you will
stock them, and do one other thing. Some of these
supplies may be a bit short and you may not be able
always to have them in stock and if you don't, I
would like to have you suggest other dealers who
might have them. I'll keep informed about who has
the beans and who hasn't." About three of them
agreed. Owen Monroe was one of them. By golly, we
put soy beans on the map! It wasn't more than a
year until the Pratt Brothers, who had a seed supply
store, were shipping them in by the car load.

HP: Because the soil really needed them, and the farmers
realized it?

DSM: The farmers needed a new crop and soy beans were

almost entirely free of insect damage and disease.
Because it was a new crop in the area.

HP: Was it used exclusively for feed for cattle?

DSM: Well in those days it was generally used for seed.

The beans could be ground and mixed with other
feeds for it was high in protein and high in oil.
Actually it was a little too high in oil, and it
wasn't very digestable unless it was ground. The
farmers in Vanderburgh County because of the fact
that we were sort of out in the forefront, cou.]d
sell them as need, you see, to other people who
wanted them.

HP: In other counties?

DSM: Yes. It was a good market for seed of these key
varieties. The upshot of it was that v/e put soy

beans in to Vanderburgh County and even down in Union
Township where they had never grown anything but corn
and timothy; timothy on the hills for the 'horses, and
corn in the bottom lands. They started growing soy
beans, because it was a good seed crop and they began
to have a good market for it.

IIP: What made the soil acid that it required the rotation?

DSM: The gradual wearing out of humus and the lack of

replacement of humus seems to develop a kind of toxic
acid condition under those conditions and the soil
gets tough and hard-packed and the beneficial bacteria
don't function well.

HP: And the soy beans did correct that?

DSM: Well, soy beans would grow in that kind of soil
where clover wouldn't.

HP: Would it also do anything to rehabilitate the soil?

DSM: Well sure, if they turned them under for humus

replacement it helped a great deal to rehabilitate
the soil.

The upshot of it was that two or three years
after I left there, I went back to Purdue and was
talking to Keller Beeson, who was at that time the
extension Agronomist. Keller had Just been down into
the "Pocket" of which Vanderburgh County is a part,
and he said "I think you ought to be very proud of
the fact that southern Indiana and the "Pocket" today
is one of the outstanding soy bean production regions
in the United States." Of course, at that time they
were beginning to spread out into the Illinois
blacklands and other areas, I said "Yes, I am proud
of that fact." So this was the major new crop that
we introduced.

Of course, at the same time we were doing this,
we were recommending the use of ground limestone to
get the soil back into shape where they could grow
clover; particularly for the dairymen and others who
needed hay and fodder of that type for their cattle.

117

HP: The limestone, what does it do'/ L>wcctens?

D^M: Limestone sweetens the soil. It developed an alkaline
reaction which helps to sweeten the soil so that the
bacteria can develop so that clover and other legumes
can store nitrogen and do the Job that they are
supposed to do.

HP: Is that part of the country still growing essentially
what it was growing fifty years ago?

DSM: I haven't been back to Vanderburgh County to check on
their crop production during the last twenty-five
years or more. I'm pretty sure that they are still
growing corn down in the bottom lands and probably
soy beans. Not quite the way they used to do but
I'm certain they are still producing corn and beans
for the market.

Part of Vanderburgh County that used to be good
farming land is now under houses. The city of Evans-
ville has spread out and is taking up a lot of terri
tory. The suburban area has developed out into the
county, yet there still is quite a lot of farmland.
They are undoubtedly growing hybrid corn nowadays on
the farms still in operation in Vanderburgh County.

Hybrid Corn

HP: When was hybrid corn introduced?

DSM: Hybrid corn actually got under way along in the 19^0 's
but there weren't enough seed producers producing
hybrid corn. It wasn't widely used until after 19:50.

HP: What are the advantages of hybrid corn?

DSM: Hybrid corn is uniform. You can look at a field of
hybrid corn and know that it is hybrid because it
looks like you could put a level on the top of it

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when it is growing. When it tassels out, it is just
as level as it can be.

HP: Every seed grows at the same rate of speed? Is that
it?

DSM: That's right. Each seed has the same genes, exactly.
Also, it is possible to select, from their pure line,
types that have a stiff stalk and do not fall over in
wind storms. The big factor, in addition to that, is
that it is higher producing. Hybrids for some reason
or other — true in livestock generally speaking as well
as in crops of corn — are more productive then the
mixed genes of a normal crop that is selected out of
a field. Do you know how hybrid corn is produced1:
Let me tell you briefly about it for it will give
you a better understanding.

In order to produce hybrid corn specialists take
a certain type seed corn; they will grow it for
several years, maybe for four or five years; self-
pollinate it and prevent any cross pollination at all,
until they get what they call a pure line. Very often
a pure line in a corn crop, when they actually get a
pure line, may not be taller than two or three feet.
It's a little bit of a stunted plant with stunted ears.
Then they pick that particular pure line and cross it
with another pure line. They don't allow cross
pollination excepting with the two pure lines which
produces a hybrid. The resulting hybrid seed pro
duces a vigorous and beautiful crop.

HP: Maybe one is selected for rigid stem.

DSM: That's right. They try various combinations and then
they pick the ones that are best adapted to the area.

The way they cross pollinate these pure lines,
after they get to the place where they want to cross
them and develop a hybrid seed, is that they have
boys go through and detassel one of them. The tassel
carries the pollen, the seed, the male part of it.
They detassel one type maybe every two or three rows
where they planted that type of seed, and leave the
other type to supply the pollen so that the whole
field will be pollinated by exactly the same pollen,
and you've got your hybrid.

119

They detassel one pure line so it won't pollinate
its own and the other type will provide the pollen.
Then that seed is the hybrid seed and may be planted
Just one year. It is necessary to buy new seed again
the next year.

HP: Why?

Di:3M: Because it bep;ins to split up and divide up into
various types.

HP: It goes back to its origins.

Dt3M: That's right. It's a throw back. You can grow corn
from it but you aren't sure you're going to get the
kind of uniformity that you are looking for from a
hybrid.

HP: You can't use it as seed corn.

DSM: That's right. You don't use it. You can but you
don't.

HP: That's interesting. I'm trying to apply it to human
beings. Whether the birth rate of a very inbred
community finally goes down, as corn; doesn't produce
as much. 1 don't know.

DSM: We haven't carried this question of pure lines and
hybrids in humans very far. We do know that there
has been an understanding on the part of people
throughout the years, that people who are closely
related should not marry because very often they
produce cripples or various kinds of deformity.
The reason for this is, for anybody v/ho knows
anything about genetics, quite obvious. If there
are any weaknesses at all, in the genes of the
strain, you intensify them and it begins to pop
out with all kinds of problems. Now if you have
all strengths and no weaknesses then you get a
strong line.

One of the ways they have improved certain
breeds of livestock, throughout the years, is by
what they call inbreeding. Breeding a cow to her
son, for example, if he is a good bull; and the same

120

way with hops, and other animals . And yet you can
carry that to the place where you begin to get a
reduction in vigor. In human beings, I'm sure, that
if you have had an incestuous situation inbreeding,
you would be likely to pet reduction in virility and
in stamina as in livestock.

Wintertime Meeting In Scott Township

DSM: We had a very interesting v/intertime program that
was worked out in Scott township. This was one of my
best communities. We started having meetings there
about once a month, and when it came the fall of the
year somebody suggested that we schedule meetings on
one particular day a month.

We would meet about nine o'clock in the morning
and have lunch at the church. The ladies would bring
enough to lay out a wonderful lunch. And then we
carried on till about four o'clock until it was time
to go home to do the milking and other chores.

HP: Did the wives take part in these meetings?

DSM: Yes. The wives also took part in these meetings

because they wanted to come and they wanted somebody
to meet with them who knew something about Home
Economics. So among the various people that I
learned about in Evansville, who were willing to
spend some time on it, I found four or five people
who were willing to help and who were well trained
enough to do it and I would take them out there with
me.

HP: You mean in Home EC?

DSM: In Home Economics, or somebody who had developed

certain interests in such things as sewing or table
setting and in all kinds of things that the ladies

121

were interested in. Some were people who were teaching
Home Economics in the Evansville schools.

HP: But there was no program for the women's phase of
farming at that time.

DSM: There was no Home Demonstration Agent at that time
but shortly after 1 left the county they got a Home
Demonstration Agent.

There was some Girl's Club work, 4-H Club work
including canning and sewing clubs. These for the most
part were supervised by school teachers who were busy
during the winter teaching school but had some time
during the summer. We found enough money to pay them
a small stipend for their expenses, and their time in
handling the supervision of clubs.

Going back to Scott township. What we did out
there with the men and with the women was quite inter
esting to me. They were looking to me, of course, to
provide the program and I said "No. I'm not going to
do that. You people are going to participate in this
program" and I said "What kind of subjects do you want
to talk about?" Somebody said "Well, we would like to
know something about seed corn and seed corn selection. "

1 said "All right. Tho first meeting, then, I
want each of you to bring five or ten ears, I don't
care whether it is five ears or ten ears, of the kind
of seed corn you would select to plant. Then 1 will
expect you to defend your position to the other people."
Well they came and they started to talk about seed corn
and of course after a while if they asked my opinion
about this, I v/ould take out a set of ears that I
thought was the type that was adapted to that area and
explained the reasons for my choice. But they went on
from there and they talked about all kinds of corn
problems; planting, time of planting; cultivation;
insect and disease control; and all that sort of thing.
And we would spend the whole day. It was amazing.

Toward spring, I remember, one of the young
Dutchmen of the group, Chris Volkman — a good farmer —
said "Let's talk about potatoes the next time." This
was along about February. I said "All right. Each of

122

you bring a half dozen or a dozen potatoes to the
next meeting." They didn't know what I was going to
do when they brought them. But when they got settled
I said "Chris, how do you cut potatoes for planting?" '
They cut potatoes by dividing them into pieces having
an eye in each piece, at least one eye. Chris dug
for his knife and he started in to cut potatoes and
he didn't get through with the first potato before
they all began to dig for their knives. And they had
the darndest argument about how to cut potatoes. I
j'uct sat back, of course, and listened and watched.

HP: The fact that you don't just use the eye — is the other
part that you cut for the potato is that for nutriment?

DSM: That's right.

The part of the potato other than the eye pro
vides nutriment until the plant gets rooted and esta
blished. This is what supplies nutriment to the young
plant and if you dig up the old potatoes you will find
nothing much left but the peeling or the husk. It has
all been utilized and dried up, rotted out because the
young plant has taken the moisture along with the
nutriments out of it.

Well, this was the start. Of course T kept
leading them on. "What time do you plant potatoes,
Chris?" Then they would arpue about the time to plant
and again control of potato bugs, control of diseases.

HP: Would they come to a consensus?

DSM: Yes. They were usually able to agree. Once in a

while you wou.ld find something, such as their method
of cutting potatoes, which may be somewhat different,
but of course they wouldn't change. But at least they
had a good time arguing about it.

So we went on. We had a whole meeting on potatoes,
I learned as much about potatoes as they did, because
I didn't know too much. I had planted potatoes and I
had grown potatoes as a kid. That's the way we made
our first real money, my brother and I as I have told
you. But the meeting was fun.

At one of these meetings they wanted to talk
about dairy rations and how to balance rations. I
wasn't very good on this. It had been a long time
since I figured balanced rations.

IIP: What did you do when you needed some help? Did you
go to Lafayette?

D8M: Of course I had reference books for this kind of

thing. And I boned up and I thought I could do it
but I got stuck. Well, there was one young chap in
the bunch, John White-head, who had been to Purdue for
a short course and he knew all there was to know about
balancing a ration by the method that I was trying to
use. So he started making suggestions and I said
"John, come take this piece of chalk and you go ahead
with this." He went ahead with it and I sat back and
Just grinned like a Cheshire cat and they looked at me
and said "Is he doing it all right?", and I said "He's
doing fine. He's doing ^ust as well as I could do it."
I didn't have to disclose my ignorance. But they had
a wonderful day talking about dairy production, dairy
feeding, and the kinds of feeds that were available.

HP: These meetings would go on just in wintertime?
DSM: Just in wintertime.

Summer Time Meetings

DSM: They had meetings usually in the summertime too
but they usually were evening meetings.

I remember one meeting we had right in the midst
of threshing time. Somebody from Purdue, I think Fred
Shanklin who was one of the club supervisors at Pur
due, recommended that I get a chap by the name of Doc
Frier to come down and show a set of slides. He said
"He has a wonderful set of slides that will interest
these people."

124

So I scheduled him for right in the middle of
threshing and they said "We'll be threshing and we're
going to be busy and I don't know whether we can get
there or not." I said, "All right, I'll make you a
deal. I'll come out and help you thresh that day if
you will come to the meeting." They said "All right."
Of course they had a gleam in their eye.

So I put on my coveralls, went out, took a team
and a wagon and threshed for four or five hours. They
tried to cover me up and used every trick possible on
me and got the biggest bang out of it. I had done
this sort of thing at home and I knew how to do it and
I could load a load of wheat as well as any of them.
So I worked like Hell all afternoon.

HP: Then went back and held the meeting?

DSM: That's right. Then we got cleaned up and went to the
meeting and most of them went to sleep! This was the
most god-awful, boring session that I had ever sat in
on. I was ashamed of it afterwards. But the techni
que that we used in getting that meeting was one of
the things that interested me. It interested them.
They enjoyed it even though they all got sleepy before
the meeting was over.

HP: I'll bet. They had probably gotten up at dawn.
DSM : Sure .

A Return Visit After Twenty Years

DSM: It was in that community that they held a banquet
celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of extension
work and the first anniversary of the organization of
the first Soil Conservation District in Indiana. They
invited me back as the main speaker, and we held the
banquet in the same community house at the church.

'125

Bluegrass Church, they called it, and people at
that time came from all over the county. I had boned
up a week or two ahead of time and listed all these
people down the various roads and I only missed two
of them as they came up to say hello. I'd look over
somebody's shoulder and recall the names as they
approached. 'This was a lot of fun.

HP: How can you do this? People really change so much

in twenty-five years. I can't imagine how you could —

DSM: Well, it had been about twenty years since I had seen
any of them, but it was no problem with me once I got
the names listed. Of course, I knew most of -chese
people so v/ell because they were old buddies or they
wouldn't be coming to this banquet. Some of the
younger ones did look older and some of the oldsters
also looked older, of course. But they would come up
with a boyish grin on and they all looked a little
younger then they actually were.

Women On The Farm

DSM: There were some women farmers in those days.

The chap who was one of the main lawyers in Evansville,
who had been born and brought up on a farm out in the
northern part of the county, had some sisters who lived
on the farm. He lived in town and went out there
occasionally but his sisters ran the farm. They pro
bably were my best customers when it came to questions.

Ther/ were interested in asking questions about
anything that came to their mind that they were not
sure about. 1 think they were a pair of "old maids,"
as I remember it. One of them was r< teacher and she
was quite interested in lots of tbingc. Thir; is the
only farm that I can think of that was operated
entirely by women.

126

But I learned one thing, among many other things,
while I was there. I came to this conclusion: that
the boss in farm families, and I'm sure it is true in
other families, just about fifty percent of the time
was the woman.

HP: In making decisions on how money war, to be spent?

DSM: In making oil kinds of decisions that dealt particu
larly with the budget the women often made the deci
sion. I learned this when I was trying to organize a
Dairy Herd Improvement Association. In those days it
was called Cow Testing Association. I thought they
needed one, so I went out to sign up people. It
required twenty-six members because there were twenty-
six working days in the month. They hired a cow
tester to test their milk for butter fat and to keep
records of the production one day a month. It cost
a bit of money.

HP: To test their milk for butter fat, or what?

DSM: Butter fat and production generally. It was a method
of weeding out the herd to determine which were the
cows that would produce the most and that were the
better breeding stock.

I learned that one of the men in the area had a
wonderful herd. It wasn't a pure bred herd but was
an excellent grade herd. His brother and others were
quite anxious to get him in, but I couldn't convince
his wife. But he finally did come in and he was in
the top list in the state of Indiana, with two or
three high-producing cows, time and time again. Of
course they were delighted later. She was the one
who was holding the purse strings, and holding out.

HP: What was her resistance? Do you know?

DSM: She was careful about the budget and I just couldn't
sell her on the idea that this was an important thing
to their business. We finally did, but it took a
long long time. Well, 1 got to thinking about it.
Thinking about the people I was dealing with and I
came to the realization that on many, many things
the lady of the house, if she was a strong character,
very often was the boss of the house.

127

It was true in my family. My Dad was a strong-
minded chrp and he did things that he wanted to do,
but when it came to the business end of things on the
farm Mother was in some respects a better business
manager than Dad was. He always consulted her. Dad
was away so much that she very often was running things,

HP: Did this include the decision as to what crops would
be put in'r

DSM: Not necessarily that. If new crops were planned or
if they are going to change the pattern Mother would
be consulted. Just like signing up for a Herd Improve
ment Association: it was something new and different
and they were going to gamble a bit, and the women
helped to make the decision.

HP: What sort of questions or information, do you recall,
that these two women who ran the farm wanted from you?

DSM: The women farmers mentioned earlier asked questions

about time of planting; the kinds of crops they should
be growing; and if they were dealing with a new crop
with which they hadn't had experience, they were
interested in checking at every stage about how to
seed, the time of planting, the time of harvesting,
and marketing; almost every phase of the crop program.

HP: Did they come in to see you or consult you by the
telephone?

DSM: They would usually telephone and ask me if I was out
that way to stop by, and 1 made more farm visits with
them, I think, than I had office visits. Their
brother came in occasionally to bring a question
because he had been out there and said the girls
wanted to know so and so. So the next time I was out
that way I'd stop by.

HP: Sometimes I think women have reluctance to go to the
courthouse. All those hangers-on around there and
that sort of thing. They might not have wanted to
come to the office in the courthouse.

DSM: I'm sure that these women did chores such as milking
and taking care of chickens and gardening and that

128

type of chores close around the house, but I don't
think they drove tractors, or handled the teams in
the field. I think that was done by somebody else.

There were women on farms young and old who went
out into the fields and helped and in those days they
wore the same kind of dresses they would wear around
the house when they helped in the fields excepting
one young lady I knew who wore jeans and was as good
as any man I ever saw about a dairy. Agnes Hoeing
was a dairy club girl and she practically handled
the milking, the handling of cattle and all of the
farm work while her father went to meetings and did
a lot of things that he wanted to do.

I had a very interesting experience with her.
We ran a special car to Purdue to their short course
and had people from three counties.

HP: You mean a railroad car?

DSM: Yes. We chartered a sleeper and took a bunch of club
kids. The county agent from Warwick County brought
some older farmers and their sons, the same in Posey
County so we made up a full car load. The only girl
in the Pullman was this young lady that I mentioned
above. These boys were not worrying too much about
what they said and they horsed around after they got
into the berths. We had a terrible time keeping them
calmed down and remembering that there was a girl on
the car. It worried some of the other agents more
than it did me. I'm sure that Agnes had heard enough
of this sort of thing so that I don't think it bothered
her. She came out bright and pert the next morning.

HP: Do you happen to know whether she married a farmer?

DSM: No. I don't know what became of her. She was a husky
young German girl and she probably married a farmer
but I don't know.

I don't actually remember any women In Vander-
burgh County who were farmers in the sense of doing
their own farm work. I have seen this happen in
some other places but I never saw it down there.

129

Four H Club Work

HP: I would like to know about the 4H work; how new it was
when you were doing it; whether you had responsibility
for that along with other things, and all about it.

DSM: Four H Club work was one of my most rewarding projects.
It was completely new to Vanderburgh County. They had
none before I came there. They had very little Four
H Club work in any of the counties until after they
got a county agent. Four H Club work was one of the
earlier types of extension work.

There were men in two or three different states
who claimed that they started Four H Club work. One
was a extension director by the name of Graham in Ohio.
He was teaching in Springfield, Ohio, and had started
home projects of the type that were later included in
Four H work. A chap by the name of Benson out in Ames,
Iowa, started corn clubs, and then George Farrel in
Massachusetts claimed to be the pioneer. All' of these
happened to come along about the same time, about 1905
to 1908.

The Smith-Lever Act was passed in 1914. They had
county agents before that but they were financed partly
by Sears Roebuck or some other big institution and the
local county. After the Smith-Lever Act was passed
federal appropriations were available to the states
based upon the rural population. These federal funds
had to be matched by state appropriations and county
funds. The counties usually provided office expenses
but seldom put up money for salaries; although some of
them did. It was only after the Smith^Lever Act was
passed that Four H Club work began to spread out
across the United States.

HP: How did you tackle it? It's certainly a different
phase because of working with youngsters.

DSM: There was a club department in the extension service
with three or four specialists.

HP: You mean at Purdue.

150

DSM: At Purdue. They were specialists in this field. I
talked with them before I went onto the job. Then,
as I remember it, Pred Shanklin who was one of the
members of the staff, came down and spent several
days with me going over -the possibilities and meeting
with some people who v/ere prospective leaders.

HP: Did you work through the schools?

DSM: Yes, in part. We began to write up the possibilities
in the papers. I had some individual club members
that 1 supervised personally scattered here and there
over the county who weren't really in clubs at all.
They were doing home projects which I supervised.
We had some clubs which were supervised by one of
the teachers in the school in that area.

In Perry Township, for example, we had a chap
by the name of Ed Grossman who had a number of club
youngsters in three or four different types of
projects — youngsters who had poultry projects and
members who had pigs as their home project, and we
even had some girls in a canning club. V/e usually
got some help from one of the county girls in helping
in the meetings.

HP: How did you get kids interested in this?

DSM: We aroused interest through the schools, through the
parents and through the teachers. I would go out and
talk with them in the schools.

HP: Was it put to them as a source of possible spending
money or what would notivate them to raise chickens
or a pig?

DSM: Well, I don't remember that we used the profit motive
much. We presented it as an interesting program in
which they had an opportunity to learn something and
to have a project of their own, with some prospect of
getting some income out of it although that wasn't
true with the sewing and canning clubs for the girls.
Mothers encouraged them to do this sort of thing
because they were interested in having the youngsters
learn.

131

With the boys the prospect of having pigs and the
opportunity of at least winning prizes and to have
poultry to sell or to have a dairy calf that grew up
into a cow that they would own was important. This
work was interesting. I had. some boys in pig club
projects and three or four who had a corn project.
They had an acre or more of corn of their own that
they handled, supervised, planted and carried all the
way through including harvesting.

HP: Which phase of your county agent work did you find most
interesting?

DtiM: 1 think as time -went on I had the most pleasure out of
the club work. It was fun watching these youngsters
come along and develop. I remember one case, the chap
by the name of Homer Pierce who was my first office
caller lived way out in the north end of the county
and he had a boy by the name of Elmer. Elmer joined
a pig club and I visited him regularly. He had three
pigs as his project.

HP: What would you visit him for?

DSM: Oh, I visited him to see how he was getting along,
whether he was having any problems in the way of
parasites or other things that ought to be taken
care of such as lice; whether or not he was main
taining a good ration; whether the pigs were growing
well and to give him encouragement, and a pat on the
back. This kid came along very nicely, and I remem
ber quite clearly after he had gone through a year and
had sold his pigs I dropped by there to see his father,
and he disappeared when we were out in the barnyard
for just a very short time and the first thing I knev;
I heard a bicycle bell ring and I looked around and
here came Elmer on a bicycle. He had bought it with
his pig club money. You never saw a kid prouder of
anything in his life than he was of that bicycle. It
was his own, he had spent his own money for it and he
was just as proud as punch.

HP: How old was that boy?

DSM: I think he was about eleven or twelve years old.

1J2

HP: They were very young kids.

DSM: Yes. Most of the club members were young. Two or
three were in their teens, fourteen or fifteen.
Most of them were anywhere from eight yeers to
twelve years of ap;e.

Interesting Adult Demonstrations

DSM: I got a great deal of satisfaction out of seeing
the results of the demonstration programs we had with
such things as soy beans, limestone, fertilizers and
others. We had demonstrations here and there with
people who would leave strips not limed, and we would
call meetings and show the neighbors what was happening,

I got a great deal of satisfaction also out of
the hog cholera control program that we put into effect
that I will discuss later.

We had one demonstration that turned out to be
the sort of thing that you look back on with great
pleasure. One day a chap by the name of Haas, a
German, who was a school teacher out in German town
ship — I think there was only one or two families with
English names in the whole township — came in wearing
a derby hat that had turned green, and the rest of his
get up was of the same vintage. He said "I've got a
brother-in-law who wants to grow alfalfa. I wish you
would come by and see him. He lives just above me."
I said "What kind of land does he have?" He said
"Well, I don't think it's too good but I wish you
would go out and talk to him." So we talked awhile
and I said "All right, I'll stop by and see him."

This brother-in-law's name was Cornelius Roeder.
He was a widower and he had eight youngsters; some of
the girls were teenage but most of them were younger.
I stopped by to see him and he took me over and showed
me a little five acre patch that was on a hillside,

1.53

not too steep, but there it was. Clay soil that
needed about everything. I looked it all over nnd
I said "Well, I think I can get alfalfa for you if
you will do everything I tell you to do." He said
"I will." So I said "Do you have any stable manure?"
"Yes", he said "I have some." I said "I want a good
coating of stable manure, most of it to go on before
you plow and then a top dressing after you plow before
you seed. I want you to inoculate the seed before you
plant because there hasn't been any alfalfa in here
before but I'll see that you get the inoculations.
That's no problem."

HP: I don't understand inoculation.

DSM: Inoculation was necessary to provide the growth of

bacteria that would develop the nodules on the roots
of the alfalfa plant which is the nitrogen-fixing
mechanism of all legumes.

HP: An injection?

DSM: Well what you did was to take this little batch of
inoculants that you had made up in the laboratories
from alfalfa roots. This is put with water and
sprinkled over the seed so that it is covered with
enough of it so that when it is planted it had been
inoculated with bacteria enough to assure the develop
ment of the nitrogen fixing nodules on the roots.

HP: And the plant seed absorbed this? Did you have to
puncture each seed?

DSM: No, no. It didn't have to absorb it. It carries the
bacteria into the soil with the seed. It was there
when the roots were ready to pick it up. Once alfalfa
had been grown and gotten inoculation started in the
soil there was no problem.

So I said "I will get that for you but you will
need the lime." He said "All right. Where do I get
the limestone?" I told him and how much to put on.
I said "I want you to put on at least a ton per acre
and two tons would be better. Then you should apply
two hundred pounds of acid phosphate fertilizer per
acre which would mean half a ton for the five acres.
It would be better if you put on three hundred or

four hundred pounds, since you haven't been fertilizing."
He said "All right. You tell me how much." I said
"Well lets make it three hundred pounds." So he did.
He used his manure, he did exactly what I told him to
do. He planted it in August as I recommended.

HP: In August?

DSM: It was well started before fall then it came on well
the next spring. I said "One other thing I wish you
would put in a little strip or two of sweet clover
which will be a good preparatory crop for alfalfa
later because the roots are thick and though they are
not as deep as alfalfa they are big and they help to
open up the soil and prepare the ground for alfalfa . "

HP: Put it right along side of the alfalfa?

DSM: Right along side. I got him to leave a strip up at

the top without any lime or fertilizer. It was ,just a
drill row through.

PIP: Just the soil as it was?

DSM: That's right. Then the rest of it was planted to
alfalfa and then on the lower part of the patch he
put in three or four drill widths of sweet clover.
Well, he did everything I told him to do and he did
it just right. He got a beautiful crop of alfalfa
and the sweet clover was all right too. He wasn't
so much interested in that. So the upshot was that
I was a great man in his eyes and in the eyes of the
kids and from that time on everytime I stopped there
I was referred to as the "alfalfa man." Nothing else.

Cornelius Roeder had a cave and in it he had five
barrels of v/ine. Everytime I stopped after he got the
alfalfa established to visit with him he would say
before I left "Now we will go and have a drink on the
alfalfa." We went through the same process on each
virit. I nearly didn't get home the first time this
happened because he would take a common tumbler, the
kind used in tho:;e days, and say "And now we'll taste
each one and then we'll drink the one you like best."
And he would fill that tumbler up about two-thirds
full for a taste and I would have to drink five of

135

those "tastes" and then have a full tumbler for a
drink. Well, I began to get smart after the first
time. The first time 1 didn't leave immediately
and by the time I got home I was really floating.
So from that time on I never stopped there unless I
was on my way home and I didn't linger after 1 had
had my drinks. I went right on home and parked the
car. This went on every time. He would have been
mad if I hadn't joined him in the cave so we did it.
Anyhow he was a great demonstrator and of course,
people from all over the township knew about Cornelius
Roeder and his alfalfa.

He had another brother-in-law by the name of
Hahn who wanted to grow soy beans. This was the way
things spread. So I helped him get his soy beans,
told him about inoculations for soy bean seed because
they had never grown them in that area and made other
suggestions. He got a wonderful crop of soy beans.
We had a meeting on his place to show off his soy
beans. He was a proud man.

This was the sort of thing that cracked the
community wide open in the kind of areas where these
old German folks lived who were so conservative. They
loosened up and the new county agent was accepted.

HP: Did you keep notes and did you make reports to anyone
on this?

DSM: We had to make monthly reports on our activities
including these demonstrations and then we had an
annual report every year. 1 have been tempted to go
down to the National Archives here in Washington to
see if they have the county agent reports of Vander-
burgh County on microfilm after fifty years. It would
be interesting to find out.

Armstrong Township And Henry Kissel's Hog Cholera

DSM: The various communities in Vanderburgh County had

their own particular characteristics. Some of them were

1.36

a little bit hard to get opened up, so as to gain the
confidence of people in the community. One of those
was Armstrong township. For the most part the first
meetings we held in each one of the communities was
arranged by the township trustee who was a member of
the county board of education, which had had the
responsibility of approving my appointment to the
,job as county agent. The township trustee in Arm
strong township was a chap by the name of Joe Martin.
He was rather slow and he told me on a number of
occasions that he wasn't sure that people would come
out to a meeting oven if he called them. Ife said
"ifl/e don't have any very good meeting place." Finally
after some urging he arranged a meeting in an old
warehouse which was right close to the railroad that
ran through that area and next door to the general
store and the saloon which was the most important
social center in the community.

We arranged to have this meeting in the early
fall. It was chilly. I think it was probably as
near a flop as any meeting could be. After the
meeting was over one of the men came up to me and
he said "You know Mr. Myer if we met over in the
saloon we would be a lot warmer. There would be a
lot more people who would be interested in coming."
I said "All right. The next time we have a meeting
we will have it in the saloon."

But before the next meeting came around one of
the deputy sheriffs by the name of Jake Slager came
by ray door one morning, stepped Just inside, and he
said "Myer, 1 was out in Armstrong township yesterday
and 1 ran into Henry Kissel and he said he wanted to
see you. He's having trouble with his hogs. He's got
some sick hogs." I said "Jake you know darn well that
Henry Kissel didn't ask for me. He doesn't know me
from Adam. I'm sure he's never heard of me." Jake
said "Oh yes he has. You go out there; he needs you."
So I said "All right, I'll "go out but I don't think
he sent for me." Well, the next day a young chap
who occasionally hung around the office and liked to
ride out into the country with me and I went out to
see Henry Kissel.

When we got there, here was this elderly German,
aged around sixty or sixty-five, with the kind of

1*7

paunch you would expect a pood old German to have.
He was so hard of hearing you had to yell at the
top of your- voice to pet him to understand what you
were saying and I was sure that when I introduced
myself and told him I had come to look at his hogs
that he was skeptical. He kept eyeing me and looking
me over when he thought 1 wasn't looking. So we went
out and looked the hogs over and sure enough they had
hog cholera. There wasn't much question in my mind
about it. He had five hogs that were down and about
to die. He had throe or four more that were a little
dopey but hadn't gone down yet but most of them out
of the forty that he had were still on their feet
and looking good. They were ready for market.

So after I looked them all over I said "Now what
you need is a veterinarian, you don't need me, and
you ought to get either Dr. McConnell, or one of the
veterinarians out of Evansville to come out and
vaccinate your hogs." I went over this I suppose six
or eight times during the hour or hour and a half I
was there to be sure that he understood and to drive
home the necessity for vaccination. I told him that
even though he got a veterinarian he would undoubtedly
lose the five hogs that were down and ouite ill and
that he might lose the three or four others that were
not down but ill. Possibly Dr. McConnell might decide
to vaccinate the three or four ill ones and he might
save them.

After we had gone over and over this we got into
the car and started back to town. When we got down
the road a little piece this young lad who was riding
with me said "Do you think he will do it?" I said
"I have no idea but I just hope he will." Well, I
didn't see Henry Kissel again or didn't hear from
him until our second meeting in Armstrong township.

We had our meeting in the saloon and we were
standing there talking. Four or five people had
gathered around me and were asking questions and all
at once I saw somebody coming through this group
knocking people to the right and to the left with
his elbows and right up to me.

It was Henry Kissel. He slapped me on the back
and almost knocked me on my face and said "Young man,

after you left I didn't think a damn thing about
what you told me. I didn't think I was going to do
anything about it. That evening I was sitting there
reading the paper and I thought by Gott I'll do it.
I told the boy to hitch up the horse that we were
going over to Cynthiana and get Doc McConnell. And
we did. We drove to Cynthiana and we saw Dr. McCon
nell, and he came over the next day. He looked them
hogs over and he said the same damn thing you said.
He said I would lose some of them and I might lose
three or four more but he could save the rest of them
if we vaccinated them. So I said 'Go ahead'; so he
vaccinated them hogs. Those that you said would live
are still alive and well and by Gott, young man, if
these other hogs live I never will forget you."

Well, this was the biggest thing that happened
in Armstrong township to gain the confidence of the
farmers who were at that meeting and of the community
because Henry Kissel was a good old standby. He had
a good farm and he was a good farmer in the eyes of
those who were his neighbors and he was my man from
then on.

I might add that Henry Kissel never had a sick
cow, or a sick horse, or a sick animal of any kind
after that that he didn't call me up and ask me to
come out. I would say "Henry, there isn't any use
my coming out. You call Doc McConnell. He's the man
who knows about sick animals." "No," he'd say "I
want you to come out and look at them. Then if you
want me to get Doc McConnell I'll get him." So I
would drive out that way and I would look over his
cow or his horse or his animals and say "I think
you better call Doc McConnell." He would say "All
right." So he would call Doc McConnell without
further argument.

I would like to go back just a little bit to
give a little background on hog cholera. Hog cholera
was quite prevalent in those days. It was the early
days in the use of hog cholera serum for prevention
of cholera and many of the veterinarians had had no
experience in handling it.

The extension staff at Purdue had among its
members a Doctor Kigan who was a veterinarian and

139

who had developed a technique for dealing with the
hog cholera problem. He told me about it before I
went onto the job in Evansville. So one of the first
things we did was to arrange for him to come down and
I called a meeting of the veterinarians in the county
and in the surrounding area. Only five or six of them
came. Some of them were not interested but one of
them was Dr. McConnell, whom I have mentioned, who
lived in Cynthiana, Posey County, but did some of his
practice over in Vanderburgh County. Another one was
one of the good veterinarians in Evansville and these
two gentlemen agreed that they would do what we re
quested.

What we had requested was this: that if they were
called out because of hog cholera they would report it
to me so I could report it in the papers to warn people
to vaccinate their hogs in that community and to take
care that they didn't have it carried over to them from
a neighbor. In the meantime I would keep a list of the
veterinarians who agreed to do this and when somebody
asked me whom to get I would give them the names I had
of the veterinarians who were cooperating. Two gentle
men said they would cooperate, and we cleaned up hog
cholera all over Vanderburgh County as a result of thin
technique. Henry Kissel was one of our key demonstra
tors, of course.

Army Worm And Grasshopper Control

DSM: One of my most interesting experiences had to do
with a call for some help on controlling army worms.
Union township was the one bottom land township in the
county, where the farmers generally depended entirely
on corn as a cash crop because they depended on the
flood waters in most of the township to bring the top
soil down from up river and deposit it as the flood
waters went down. Throughout the years they had been
getting pretty good fertilization from the sediment.
However, the top soil which was being brought down at

140

this stage of the game was getting poorer and poorer
because the hills had been washed off above and a
good deal of it was clay soil and they needed some
changes down there.

Right at the upper end of the township was a
wonderful family by the name of Edmonds. John
Edmonds was one of these very wonderful farmers who
had good literature in his home, had a nice family
and it was always a joy to go there and have a meal
with them which I did a number of times. One day
John came into my office and said "What do you know
about Army worms?" I said "Why?" He said "We've got
them." I said "What are they doing?" He said "Well
at the moment they are marching right up through my
timothy field and they are taking everything as they
go except the stems." I said "I don't know too much
about them but I know where I can get the information
for you. " I had bulletins on insect control which
included Army worms. So I informed him that the best
thing to do was to make up a bran and arsenate of
lead or paris green mixture which was sprinkled over
the area to poison them. I gave him the ingredients
which included just normal wheat bran, paris green
and lemons which were used only for the odor in
order to attract the worms. So he bought all these
things and took them home. I said "I'll be down
tomorrow morning and we will spread it together."

The next morning when we got down to the patch
where they had been eating up the timothy crop the
day before there wasn't an Army worn in sight. He
looked at mo and said "Where did they go? They were
here yesterday because you could hear them eat." I
said "I'm sure you could. I'll show you where they
went." I got a sharp stick and began to dig them
out of the ground. The time had arrived, just the
wrong time for me, for them to go into the pupa
stage or the resting stage, and they do this by
going into the ground and burying themselves wherever
they happen to be at that moment. They go through
the cycle there and they come out as moths which fly
away someplace else and lay their eggs during the
following season.

When John Edmonds realized what had happened
and I explained the life cycle to him and just how

this all happened he just nearly rolled on the ground.
He laughed and he yelled and hew hooped and he said
"Young man, you have missed the opportunity of a life
time. If you had come down yesterday and we had
gotten this poison spread, I would have thought that
a minor miracle had happened and 1 would have spread
it all over this township. You would have had no more
troubles because they would have thought you were a
miracle man." So I soid "All right. You know the
answer now and you can spread the story around if you
want to but there will probably be other opportuni
ties. "

The v/orms march in a row and they go right down
the line. The line through the timothy field was as
clear cut as it could be. They went right across the
whole field, the whole big swath of them feeding as
they went.

Several months later a new opportunity came to
show our skill in insect control in Union township.
I had a telephone call from a chap by the name of
Sam Bell who felt that they had no use for a county
agent up to this time but he called me up and said
"We're in trouble." I said "What's the matter?" He
said "The grasshoppers are about to eat us up." I
said "Did you have any trouble last year?" He said
"Yes, they got about half of my crop last year." I
said "Why didn't you let me know?" He said "Well,
I didn't think you knew a damn thing about it." He
was that frank about it. I said "All right. I think
1 can help you." So I went down and we used the same
kind of poison bait for grasshoppers as we had planned
to use for the Army worms. I told him what to get
and 1 would come down and we would mix it and spread
it. Which we did. The grasshoppers were just little
fellows. They were just hatching out and they were
thousands or probably millions of them. It was
rather dry, hot weather. The corn was probably two
feet high when we scattered the bait and they ate it.
I went down a day or two later and found them piled
up in the shady places dead and black as they could
be or they were dying and blowing into the cracks
in the field where the soil had dried out and had
cracked open.

So I said "Aro you happy?" and he said "Yes. 1
think we have found the answer." I said "Can we get
these other fellows around here to come to a meet
ing?" He said "No I don't think so. They are culti
vating corn. I don't think they v/ould stop." I said
"Well, what about Sunday? What do they do on Sunday?"
He said "Yes. They might come on Sunday." I said
"All right. Let's call a meeting for about two o'clock
next Sunday afternoon and we will put out some more
bait in the meantime. We'll see if we can't demon
strate to them how to control grasshoppers." This
was late in the week anyhow. So we got the word out.

On Sunday afternoon I went down with my sailor
straw hat and my bow tie. It was too hot to wear a
coat. I sat down and backed up against one of his
porch posts with my pipe and just waited. There was
quite a crew that had gathered around the yard in
little groups. We waited and waited and finally some
body yelled out, "Well, what about these grasshoppers?"
Sam said "Do you want to see them?" They said "Yes."
He said "All right. Get into your cars." So we got
into the cars and we went back to the fields where we
had spread the bait. We couldn't find any grass
hoppers at first because they had all gone into some
spots that were full of bind weeds where there was
plenty of shade and had died. Some of them piled up
there a foot deep. When I led them into that area
they were sold. They knew something had happened to
those grasshoppers. So we talked about them and what
we had done about it.

We went back to Sam's house and yard. I got out
of the car and went over and sat down and lighted my
pipe again and waited. Only half of the people had
gone down to see what had happened. The rest of them
were skeptical and didn't even go. Finally one of
the old boys who didn't go said "Tell us about those
grasshoppers. What did you find down there?" One of
the men who did go said "Well, we found them all right.
You never saw so many dead grasshoppers in your life."

This other chap said "Tell us what you did about
it." So Sam said "Well, this is Mr. Myer the county
agent and I think most of you know him. He is the
man that gave us the information so Mr. Myer you tell
them about it." So I got up and told about what we

143

had done and why we had done it and what had happened.
As a result a lot of them did what we had recommended.
They saved their crops. Some of them who didn't
spread poison bait lost about half of their crop. In
any case we had gained the confidence of a large
number of people in that township and from there on
we had no trouble. We could go in there without
being kidded every time we went down as we had been
originally.

They used to tell me when I first went down into
that community "You better go up into the hills where
they need you. We don't need you down here." But
that was all past and that township, by the way, be
came one of the major soy bean growing townships and
communities in all of Indiana after they got started
with soy beans because they realized that they needed
some change, and that their soil wasn't as good as it
had been once. They realized their deposit from the
floods wasn't as good as it used to be. So they began
to grow soy beans and to market them as well as corn.

The Process Of Change

DSM: I don't think there is a great deal of difference
in human nature generally in their ability to resist
change. I think there is something to the fact that
the more isolated communities who haven't had much
contact with the outside world are more wary and more
careful about taking in strangers. You really have to
show them something that they can visualize in order
to get them to adopt new practices. But I think this
would be true in any area where they hadn't learned
to communicate nor learned to go to the source of
information for themselves.

One of the great values, of course, of the
Agricultural Extension work was that it was based on
the demonstration idea rather than just going out and

i.'

144

talking to people. There were two types of demon
strations. One of them was the so-called method
demonstration, flow to do things. How to make bran
bait, for example, or how to can fruit, etc., etc.

The other one was a demonstration as to how to
grow things, how to produce, how to fertilize and so
on which was a long time process. You had to wait
for results but in time results did show up and then
you called a meeting to show them what the farmer had
done and why he had done it and what results he had
gotten. I don't think there is a greal deal of
difference in human nature. It would depend more
on their environment and their traditions than any
thing else.

14-5

CHAPTER VI

COUNTY AGENT SUPERVISOR AT PURDUE UNIVERSITY AND
A MOVE TO OHIO AS A COUNTY AGENT AGAIN

DSM: I stated earlier that I moved to Evansville
March 1, 1916 at the behest of Thomas Coleman,
County Agent Leader in Indiana whose office was at
Purdue. At the time I took on the job I asked him
what I should do and he said "Go down there and go
to work, you know as much about the job as we do."
So I did just that. After one year I received a
raise of two hundred dollars a year from $1600 to
$1800 which was a very important item in my young
life.

During my first month on the job a promoter by
the name of John Wallenmyer who served as the sealer
of weights and measures in Vanderburgh County pro
moted or was putting on a farmer's institute at
Evansville and I was asked to help with the program.
As a consequence I contributed two speeches during
the institute on agronomic subjects. I was well
versed in agronomy at the time because I had just
come from Lexington, Kentucky, where I had taught
agronomy for two years at the University of Kentucky.
It so happened that Professor G. I. Christy who was
Director of the Agricultural Extension Service at
Purdue was present when I made my speeches and
evidently he was impressed because sometime within
the year after I had been on the job he called me
into Purdue in the spring of 191? and urged me to
accept the position of Field Crop Specialist on the
Purdue staff. He put the pressure on rather heavily
for a couple of days during my visit to Purdue.

I finally told him before I returned to Evans
ville, that I would have to talk to some of my local
leaders and others who had supported my work there
and to think over the matter and I would let him
know within a few days. I did talk with some of my
supporters in the county and after talking with them

146

I came to the realization that I didn't want to leave
county agent work at that time and furthermore they
didn't want me to leave which of course was gratify
ing.

In the meantime war was imminent. I wrote
Professor Christy and turned the job down with the
full realization that I might never get another offer
from him. But much to my surprise in the fall of
1917, about six months later, I received another
offer. This was a job as Assistant County Agent
Leader at Purdue working with Thomas Coleman who had
hired me in the first instance. I was reluctant to
take this new position for two reasons. I was
thoroughly enjoying my county agent work and
furthermore World War I had been in progress for
some time when this offer came and I felt that I
should join the Army if I made a change of any kind.
I told Professor Christy and Thomas Coleman just
this.

Much to my surprise I learned that they without
saying anything to me had proceeded to get me re-
classified in a 5A classification, which meant that
I was in a deferred classification. I was told that
emergency agents were to be recruited and placed in
all of the counties which did not have agents at
that time and that the campaign to produce more food
and save food for the war effort was to go into high
gear and that my experience and ability was more
important to the government in the job proposed than
service in the Army. So I reluctantly accepted with
the understanding that I could leave for Army service
as soon as the emergency extension program for new
agents was well established.

In addition to the job of hiring and training and
supervising of new emergency county agents, I was
put in charge of the increased wheat production
campaign to secure a twenty percent increase in
planting and production in Indiana. We gained our
goal in the wheat production program during the few
months of 1917 and 1918 that I was in charge.

During the first ten months of 1918 I found
myself in quite an embarrassing situation, because

147

I was not in uniform. I was in travel status most of
the time. I traveled from one weekend to the next
and on three or four different occasions I returned
to Purdue, even though my schedule didn't call for
my returning, to tell Director Christy that I wanted
to resign and to go into the Army. Each time he
explained how much more important my work was than
serving in the ranks. Each time he urged that I stay
on until the first set of objectives \vere accomplished.
This went on until signing of the armistice of Nov
ember 11, 1918. Nevertheless, every time I saw a
troop train full of men in uniform heading east and
I was still in civies I felt that I was a bit of a
slacker. Much to my surprise however, I was never
accosted with such a charge during World War I or
since.

I worked at the Assistant County Agent Leader
Job from September 191? to May 1, 1920. During thin
period, I traveled into and did work in all but six
of the ninety-two counties of Indiana which meant
that I had worked in eighty-six different counties
during this fairly short period of time. I was
training and supervising new county agents, meeting
with boards of education, and with state war boards,
making speeches, securing county appropriations,
running the wartime wheat production campaign, and
taking care of all the miscellaneous side issues that
came up in connection with these responsibilities.

This wide variety of duties and experiences pro
vided the opportunity to learn much about the job of
hiring and supervising men, and the art of speech
making and of course added to my knowledge of human
nature, good, bad and indifferent.

I have already indicated that during most of the
war period I traveled from the first of the week to
the weekend. I waa in the office on Saturday, on
occasion, and then started out again Sunday evening
or early Monday morning. In those days we were
traveling on local trains. We had sleeper service
only from Indianapolis to Evansville. The rest of
the time you got in late in the evening, got up early
to catch maybe a five o'clock train to another county
seat. I get tired even yet when I think about how

14-8

tired I was at times. Those long hours, lack of sleer>
with the grinding work during this period was some
thing that was required and something that we didn't
think too much about at that time.

We had of course a variety of type of people
doing emergency work. Some of them were older agents
who had not done too well earlier were rehired. 1
remember one case where one of the other supervisors
visited a chap of this type and when he got back to the
office our supervisor, Tom Coleman, asked him hov; "Mac"
was getting along and he said "Well, he's so busy tell
ing you how busy he is he doesn't have time to do any
thing." We had one or two cases of this type. Mostly
we had younger men shortly out of college who were
eager, willing, and who on the whole were intelligent.
They were doing a very good job.

There were a couple of older agents who were
recalcitrant and who did not fit well into the situ
ation. One of these was a chap who was known as
Stephen Jim Craig who was county agent in Lake County,
Indiana. He had graduated from the University of
Illinois and he had an offer to return to Illinois and
they had written to the County Agent Leader to ask his
opinion about Craig's services and abilities. We all
knew that he was the type of person who did not work
well in double harness. He didn't fit well into the
organization and we would all have been glad to get
rid of him but we didn't feel that the people who were
asking for information should be misled.

When they inquired about him the County Agent
Leader wrote a letter glossing over some of his
irascible traits. When the assistant in the office
called our attention to it one Saturday morning we
all agreed that the letter should be revised and we
proceeded to revise it. The mistake we made was that
we didn't take it up with Tom Coleman, the original
writer, and the letter went off to Illinois. It did
not occur to us that a copy was being sent to Stephen
"Jim" Craig. When the copy and the revised letter
came together Coleman was charged with being a double
Grosser. Well we had to face up to it. So we
traipsed into the boss's office when this came to
light and frankly faced up to the fact that we had

149

made a drastic error and that we had done something
that we had no business doing without his approval.
We made it clear that we were all very sorry about
it and that we had all learned a lesson. I must say
that he was a real gentleman about the whole thing.
When he heard our story he just said "Let ' s just
forget about it and go back to work." I'm sure that
his reaction was due in part to the fact that he had
a bit of a guilty conscience about his letter. In
any case his response was wonderful and those of us
who were involved learned a lesson. I certainly
did and I never made that kind of mistake again.
1 never after revised something that the boss pro
posed without getting the boss's approval.

A Second Job As A County Agricultural Agent

DSM: The war was over in November 1918 and I con
tinued on at Purdue throughout 1919- and the first
four months of 1920. At one of the extension con
ferences in early 1920 Extension Director Ramsower
and A. E. Anderson who was one of the county agents
supervisors in Ohio approached me and asked me to
consider the job as county agent in Franklin County,
Ohio, of which Columbus is the county seat. This
happened to be the adjoining county to my home
county in which I had purchased a farm in early
1917 and I was anxious to be near by. I received
an offer of $3500 a year which was quite a boost
over what I was getting. Director Christy agreed
to meet their offer but I decided that I had not
had enough experience as a county agent and would
like more, plus the fact that I was anxious to get
back near my farm which I had purchased earlier.
So on May 1, 1920 I took over the job as County
Agricultural Agent in Franklin County at Columbus,
Ohio.

I bought a new Dodge roadster for use in the
county and settled in for more than two years as

150

county agent. I found the job there much different
in some respects than the first county agent job in
Evansville, Indiana. First of all they had had a
county agent previously in Franklin County and they
hadn't had in Vanderburgh County, Indiana. In other
words I was breaking new ground in my first county
agent job.

The fact that Columbus was the seat of Ohio State
University and the College of Agriculture made exper
tise much more easily available to the up and coming
farmers of the county. If they wanted to go to the
University to talk to a specialist they could do so,
and many of them made use of the service of a
specialist directly.

The county farm bureau had recently completed a
membership drive in which they had signed up about
two thousand members at ten dollars per year and as
a result they agreed to pay a portion of my salary.
The key leaders were all hepped up over hiring a
farm bureau purchasing agent which they did. This
distracted from interest in my job. By the end of a
year the collection of dues from farm bureau members
was a very .real problem and membership had dropped so
drastically that they couldn't afford to pay the
portion of the salary to which they had committed
themselves and at the same time support the coop
erative purchasing program which they wanted to
maintain if possible. During this dilemma I was
asked whether I wouldn't be willing to reduce my
salary by the amount of the farm bureau contribution
which would allow them to carry the purchasing agent
for a longer period. I replied that "I would not do
so but that I would go one better namely I would pre
sent my resignation so that they would be free of any
obligation to me." This was not acceptable to the
board so the purchasing agent program was dropped.

During the more than two years the home demon
stration agent and I supervised a large and active
Four H club program for boys and girls which was
probably our most important contribution.

Other activities for which I was responsible
including an intensive poultry culling demonstration

151

program particularly during the first year of ray
incumbency. We established wheat variety improve
ment demonstrations throughout various sections of
the county and provided for the distribution of new
and pure line varieties which had been developed by
the Agricultural Experiment Station. We organized
a cow testing association, which was later renamed
the lierd Improvement Association, so that the
dairymen of the county were able to determine the
production of their individual cows as well as
their herds.

The normal activities included consultations in
the office, as well as farm visits, followup on the
demonstration program, supervision of the work of
the Four H club leaders and the Pour H club members.

A Move To My Second Supervisory Job As District

"Supervisor Of The Agriculture Extension Se'rvice

DSM: In the mid-summer of 1922 I was again approached
by Director Ramsower of the Agricultural Extension
Service and offered the position of District Super
visor of Agricultural extension work for the twenty-two
northwestern Ohio counties. I accepted the Job at a
salary of $3800 per year with what I thought was a
promise of $4000 for the following fiscal year.

In my new job I had the responsibility of all the
extension work in the district of twenty-two counties.
In addition, in lieu of a County Agent Leader which
they had had previously, I was designated by the group
of supervisors as the chairman of our supervisory
group. This was my second supervisory gob and I
served in this particular spot from 1922 to 1933.

This provided my most extensive experience in
supervision, including the training of new staff,
recruitment procedures, liaison with the various
groups of public officials, farm bureau members and

152

extension committees. I was fully responsible for the
selection and training of all new county agents in my
district and for securing of county appropriations
from the boards of commissioners for the local con
tributions and for the liaison with the extension
committees and the farm bureau boards.

I also worked closely with the home demonstra
tions supervisors and the Four H club supervisors as
well as the extension subject matter specialist who
served my territory. We had a very close working
relationship with all the people involved in the
area. Throughout most of the each year I traveled
into the counties four days a week and was usually
in the central office on Mondays and Saturdays.

During my early tenure in this particular job I
found that I faced some real problems. There was a
necessity for changing- the personnel in some of the
counties because several of the agents had been hired
during World War I as emergency agents and had carried
over for three or four years, but were not particu
larly well adapted to the job in those counties.
Complaints about the work of the agents had become
increasingly common so 1 had to face the problem of
making changes. It was during this period that 1
developed what I called a philosophy for firing
people. It was a very simple one. I came to the
realization that if we had somebody who was not well
adapted to the job and not doing well, the best
solution was to try to find what their interests
and their abilities were and to try to find a job
into which they would fit. This was usually possible.
1 made a number of adjustments by helping people
relocate into orher jobs and then hired new agents
in their place. In one or two instances I was not
able to do thir, and I hove always folt badly about
the fact that I had to get rid of somebody when I
couldn't help him relocate satisfactorily into
another spot.

My most satisfactory case in this respect had
to do with the agent in VanWert County, Glen Rule,
who was well liked and a wonderful chap but miscast
in this particular spot. It took me several months
to find out junt what his real interests and his real

153

abilities were. By happenstance I learned about what
he would like to do. I was in his office one day on
one of my regular visits. A farmer came in and during
the interview that he had with the farmer I picked up
a local newspaper and I found an article on the front
page that was very well done. I waited until the
farmer left and 1 tossed the paper over to him and.
said "Who wrote this article'.'"' He said "I wrote it,"
with a bit of a blush and I said "Why don't you write
like that oil the fcimeY" He said "Don't IV" and I
soid "No, your reports are not written like that end
I have had a number of complaints from our extension
editor about the quality of your reports. Get out n
half a dozen of your monthly reports and let ' s take o
look at them." So he did and we went over them care
fully one by one. As a consequence he began to write
the most interesting and well prepared reports of any
of the agents in my -whole territory. It was an out
standing switch.

In the meantime I asked him what his interests
were. He said "Well, I-'m interested in writing: but
I would also like to do some cartoon work. " I found
that he was very good at pen and ink work. I encour
aged him to send in some cartoons to the farm papers
and he had two or three of them accepted. He also
wrote some articles for the farm paoers and had some
of those accepted. About a year or so later 1 hnd an
opportunity to make H recommendation for one of the
agents to po on pnbaticnl leave and 1 recommended
Glen Rule. The recommendation wns accepted find lie
went to Cornell University and took a year's work in
journalism. Following this year of study he wan
hired as the Agricultural Extension Editor in Maine.

This was 1927. Several years later on, in 1935,
I had the pleasure of hiring him again as a writer
on the staff of the Soil Conservation Service in
Washington after I joined that service. We needed
two or three writers to prepare some additional
publications which were badly needed at the time.
He took on that Job and stayed on in the Department
of Agriculture as a member of the staff until he
retired. He has been one of my most devoted friends
throughout forty-six years.

Supervisory Techniques

DSM: In my supervisory work I tried insofar as possible
to teach by precept or example and suggestion where I
felt adjustments were needed. The change in the type
of reports which Glen Rule was submitting is a pood
example of this. One other example that comes to mind
was the case of Francis Bell who was the county agent
in Williams County, a snappy young man who was always
on the go and had been sending in reports that had a
snap to them and some of the specialists particularly
the head of the poultry department resented. I was
sure that the most of the things that he had said were
not meant in the sense that they were taken, oo I
waited for the opportunity on one of my visits and
said to him "Why do you write your monthly reports in
such a way that you make people mad down at the
college when you don't need to do so?" He said
"What do you mean?" I said "You get out four or five
of your monthly reports, and sit down on the other
side of the table and I will read these to you as
they sound to E. L. Dakin, head of the poultry depart
ment and to other people who felt that you were being
snipish." So we did just that. After we had
finished reading the four or five reports to which
he had listened carefully, he said "I understand what
you mean and I'll do better." He did. He began to
write his reports in such a way that it didn't rile
people and at the same time provided the kind of
information that was required.

We had regular monthly county agent conferences
in the district. Many of these conferences had to do
with the discussion of teaching methods, demonstration
methods, agricultural problems generally, and occa
sionally we had specialists scheduled to come in and
talk about the programs that they were handling. In
addition to that we did things that were not directly
related to the agricultural programs. In one or two
of the districts we started reading books and having
a discussion or group book reviews. Books by men like
Walter Lippmann and others. This I felt was related
to their jobs and that it was important that they

155

have some studies of a broader nature rather then to
spend all of their time on techniques in which they
were fairly well grounded anyhow.

Watchful interest in the individual, looking and
listening in the office and in meetings and in the
field followed by tactful suggestion were the most
important supervisory techniques that were helpful
to the agents in my .-judgment. Timing was important
in order to assure the right attention and at the
same time securing acceptance. As I have indicated
earlier, waiting for the opportunity to get examples
and being able to teach by example and precept was
much more effective than ,just talking in generalities.

Most of the new agents who were hired during this
period were young, intelligent men but had only
limited experience after college. Some of them were
placed with older agents for a few months for training
as assistant agents or as Four H club agents. Some
had had two to five years of Smith Hughes Vocational
training as agriculture teachers and most of these
were flexible and open to suggestion. There were one
or two older agents who were less flexible.

In one case at least I was resented as somebody
who was interfering with his operations. It required
much tact and a thoughtful approach in order to meet
some of the problems that existed.

At the end of my first year I reminded Director
Ramsower that it was my understanding that he had
promised a two hundred dollar raise at the time I was
hired. The Director hadn't remembered it in the same
way and I had to press pretty hard in order to get it.
But I did get it.

A Crucial Decision

DSM: Some time later perhaps after I had been on the
job five years or so, 1 received an offer of &5000

156

a year, which was quite a bit higher than I was getting
at the University, to become an area salesman for e
large feed company. 1 decided after thinking it over
that I would accept thin offer in case the University
didn't meet it. .Director Ramsower at this particular
time was on leave, taking his sabbatical at Harvard
University and Mr. Georp;e Crane who was secretary was
actinp; Director. George was sympathetic to my problem
and took the matter up with Dean Vivian who was not
directly responsible for extension but who was usually
consulted. The dean didn't approve of the increase
in salary so there appeared to be nothing to do except
to take the feed company's offer. However George Crane
said he would like to write Director Ram sower before
any final action. This was done. Much to my surprise
and pleasure he approved the raise in spite of Dean
Vivian ' s opinion.

I have always felt strongly that salaries should
be flexible and they should not be controlled by what
someone else was getting. This however was not the
general view and it did make it rather difficult for
the director to put somebody out of line with a raise
above the income of the other supervisors. It did
lead to some .jealousy and tension which of course is
always a thorn in the flesh of an administrator.

Facing The Problems Of The Depression

DSM: When the depression of the early 1930 'r, came on
we had a period when county taxpayers' leagues were
organized in many of the counties for which 1 was
responsible. The county agent appropriations which
were made by the county commissioners no matter how
small were nearly always a target of that particular
group of people. So we spent much time during this
period fighting the loses of appropriations, which
meant usually the elimination of the county agent in
case the appropriation was not made.

157

This came at a time when I had two very young
daughters and worry and concern over the dropping of
county agents with their young families such as my
own led to concern and worry about my own security.
After several months of concern about this problem
and about the agents who were losing their jobs and
their livelihood I attended a meeting in Crawford
County, Ohio, at Bucyrus where we had been trying for
many weeks to find ways and means of saving the county
agent's job by getting enough money together to pro
vide for the local expenses. This particular evening
it was decided that the battle was lost and it was not
feasible to continue the program.

It so happened that the agent in this particular
county had a young family. His youngsters were just
about the age of my own youngsters and he was going
to be without a job. This touched me very deeply so
when I started home I decided that I must face up to
the possibility that we might have to face a similar
situation. So I decided that by the time I had
covered the forty miles between Bucyrus and Columbus
I would have completed an inventory of assets and
decide what to do if worst came to worst.

I proceeded to determine which expenses should
be eliminated first and in what order and the upshot
of this inventory took us in my minds eye back to my
father's tenant house as a hired man on the farm with
limited wages but with a garden, no rent and lots of
fresh air and sunshine until things got better. Mrs.
Myer thoroughly agreed with me on this approach so
we quit worrying. This rationalization of our pro
blem was most comforting and we slept better for some
time.

A Bit Of Back Stage Lobbying

DSM: Along about this same period a new state director
of the budget decided that the agricultural agencies

156

of the state were petting twice the money they should
have and he recommended a cut of fifty percent across
the board on all agricultural appropriations including
the extension service. Director Ramsower designated
me as the strategist to fight this cut. We did this
entirely by organizing groups in the counties to make
tours to Columbus, county by county. This included
extension leaders, Four H club leaders, members and
parents, members of the farm bureau who made trips to
the State Capitol to visit the Governor, George White,
and their own legislators. We managed to schedule
these tours so that at least one arrived each week
day for a period of weeks.

The Governor finally got tired of this so when a
group arrived and asked to see him he would send for
the state budget director and introduce him to the
group and announce that "This is the gentleman respon
sible, so talk to him." The result of our campaign
was that we took a cut of about twenty-five percent
instead of fifty percent. Our salaries were reduced
by about twenty-three and a half percent. We would
have done even better if the representative of the
Agricultural Experiment Station had not agreed to
accept this cut without consulting with us. During
this whole campaign I never appeared before the
legislature or the budget director or the Governor.
All of it was done by people who were interested in
the program and who had no personal responsibility
directly for the program and they were not receiving
any money out of the funds that the appropriations
provided.

This period from 1922 to 1933 was an important
period in my supervisory experience. I learned a
great many things for sure while working with young
agents over a period of years. It helped to fix in
mind several techniques which were useful to me
throughout the rest of my administrative life.
During 1933 with the advent of the New Deal agri
cultural programs I was assigned the task of super
vising the federal agricultural programs for the
Agricultural Adjustment Administration in the state
of Ohio. I relinquished my position as district
supervisor in northwestern Ohio.

159

Adding To My Farm Experience

DSM: Throughout all this period and from early 1917 on
in addition to my job I had another experience and
another responsibility which was well worthwhile. I
had purchased a farm in 191?» When I moved back to
Ohio in 1920 I spent most of my weekends with my
partner walking over the farm, talking over plans,
keeping in touch with what was going on, and having a
part in the management. This experience was also well
worthwhile for the reason that it gave me a real in
terest in the problems of the individual farmer who
we were serving and I learned a great deal about the
practicalities and vicissitudes of the everyday
farmer's life. I seldom mentioned this when I talked
to people who I came in contact with who were farmers
but occasionally I got into an argument with someone
who thought I was not a dirt farmer and it came in
handy to let them know that I had also had some direct
experience and a direct responsibility in practical
farming.

I Met The Most Wonderful Girl

DSM: The most important thing that happened to me

during this period and perhaps during my whole life
was the fact that I met a young lady who came to
Ohio State to serve as a specialist in the field of
Interior Decorating, and as a Clothing Specialist in
the Extension Service. I might not have met her had
I been in some other occupation. Her name was Jenness
Wirt and I met her in November 1923. We were engaged
at Easter time and were married the following Septem
ber on my thirty-third birthday. There is absolutely
no question about the fact that Jenness has been a
tremendous factor in my further development from 1923
up to the present time.

160

In addition to her help and moral support which
she has always amply provided, we developed a family
which added responsibilities and which was an impor
tant consideration in the decisions that were made.

At the time I proposed to Jenness she said she
was going back to school for a year which she needed
to do to complete her degree. I told her that I had
hoped to get a sabbatical leave during the following
year and if she would wait we would both go to college
because I wanted to get my Masters degree and she
could finish her degree. Fortunately she agreed. As
a consequence in the fall of 1925 we matriculated into
Columbia University in New York City. She was special
izing in the field of Fine Arts and received her degree
in 1926. I was enrolled in Teachers College and I got
my Masters degree in Education. I took several
courses in Columbia College including courses in
sociology, economics, and finance, subjects that I
had felt the need of for quite some time.

During this year in Columbia we lived in one
room. We had to skimp, of course, because we were not
on full pay at the time, we found that we could get
along together. It was a real trial run I presume.
In any case we came through it and it was a well worth
while interlude that added not only to our experience
but to our abilities to do our jobs.

As a result of our marriage we have three very
wonderful daughters and three very excellent sons-in-
law and eleven grandchildren. As I look back and
realize that 1 might have been a bachelor all the
rest of my life I shudder to think what a drab exis
tence this would have been as compared with the exis
tence that we have had with our family and with the
opportunity we have had to watch our children and our
grandchildren develop.

161

CHAPTER VII

THE COMING OF THE NEW DEAL AND A CHANGE QF WORK

DSM: We go from here to the period when my work

changed in 1933 with the advent of the New Deal at
which time I was assigned by the Director of Exten
sion in Ohio to supervise the new agricultural pro
grams which emerged from the Department of Agricul
ture and from the Agriculture Adjustment Administra
tion which was more or less a separate entity for
quite some time. This was new, very new.

One of the first Jobs was to tell unbelieving
farmers that they should market their pigs before
they got to the place where they produced a lot of
meat because of the over-production of pork. There
was a great deal of criticism throughout many years
of the program of "killing little pigs" but that was
the first step in the corn hog program , in which I
was o participant. We had a lot of skeptics at that
time.

The major programs that we had in Ohio which were
initiated by the Agricultural Adjustment Administra
tion were wheat, corn and hogs, tobacco, and to some
extent sugar beets in northwestern Ohio. There was
some interest in dairy and in some areas vegetable
marketing and programs of that type. We had, in
other words, most of the major national programs
that were developed in some section of Ohio because
of the varied type of agriculture. About the only
major one we didn't have was the cotton program
because we grew no cotton in Ohio.

During this first year of the program in 1933
and early 193^ the corn hog, wheat and tobacco pro
grams took up much of my time and interest. Yet it
was necessary to keep up on all phases of the Agri
cultural Adjustment Program because we never knew
when something new was going to be projected. Con
sequently I worked long hours. Most of the time 1

162

went back to the office and worked until ten or eleven
o'clock at night throughout the whole year and of
course, on weekends.

The policies and rulings were made in Washington
but within the limits of those policies and rulings
we had full opportunity to carry out our work in
Ohio using the methods we thought were best. We had
a corn hog committee which was appointed by the Wash
ington office but they didn't interfere with the work
that I was doing. They served as advisors and had
occasional meetings. We had one chap on the committee
who felt that farmers whould handle it entirely but
he didn't press so hard that it interf erred with what
we were doing at the University.

1 remember one incident that stands out during
this first year. Doctor Albert Black who was in
charge of the corn hop program called me from Purdue
and said he was in Indiana and if we had anything to
talk about that was important he could come by Ohio
on his way back to Washington but it would mean a
meeting on Sunday. I said "Come ahead, I have a lot
of questions." We got the corn hog committee together
for a meeting on Sunday morning for two or three hours.
I had twenty some questions already written out. We
took about two hours to go through this list of ques
tions and discuss them. Most of them had not arisen
before so in most cases Doctor Black would make a note
and say he would have to take it back to Washington
to talk to the policy committee about it. So we
didn't get the answers on many of them. When I got
to the end of my questions I pushed my notes back and
said "Well, believe it or not that's all the questions
I have today." Al Black said immediately "I'll bet
by God by next week you will have just as many more."

After the early stages of the program I had begun
to realize that in a State like Ohio where we had
farmers who were growing wheat, were growing corn and
hogs and maybe even in some cases tobacco, that we
might come to the time where if they had inspectors or
people from these individual programs doing the check
ing that we might have a good deal of duplication,
because of the fact that one week someone might check
the wheat acreage and the next the corn hog program,

163

the next week tobacco and so on. This concerned me.
In February of 1934 I went to Washington for three
days to get a lot of questions answered that had
developed in the meantime and which I didn't seem to
be able to get the answers on from correspondence or
long distance telephone. Because of my concern about
this compliance problem and the lack of planning on
the part of the divisions for meeting the problem. I
decided to see Chester David before 1 returned to Ohio.
He was heading the Agricultural Adjustment Program at
that time.

So on Saturday afternoon I waited in his office
until three or three thirty without lunch. He hadn't
had lunch because he had been in a meeting. I finally
got to see him and he listened to me for about ten
minutes and I laid out the problems as I saw them and
then he began to smile and without listening further
he said "We don't have many people down here from Ohio;
why don't you come down here and handle this for us."
I said "I don't want to be embarrassed by being offered
the job because that isn't why I came to Washington or
why I came to see you. I simply wanted to pose the
problem so that you could do something about it." He
said "Well, I realize what you have said is true but
nevertheless I think maybe something ought to be done
about this," and he insisted. He called in Grover
Trent who was acting in charge of the production
division at that time because Victor Christgau was in
the field. He asked Trent to take me back to his
office and to see that I got a Form 57 and filled it
out and that I made an application. Because he wanted
me to come to Washington.

Well, I wouldn't take the Form 57. He tried to
put it in my pocket. 1 told him I v/asn't interested.
The upshot of it was that I went back to Ohio. I
reported to the Director what had happened. The pro
posal was that I come in for three months to get the
program started. Nothing developed immediately
excepting that there was a letter or two urging that
I come on but I turned it down.

Along about the first of April, several weeks
after I had been to Washington, we were in a meeting
in Indianapolis on Dairy problems, the director and

164-

some of the supervisors and myself. It was a meeting
of the leaders in the Agriculture Adjustment Admini
stration program, a regional meeting and it included
several states in the midwest territory. During the
meeting a call came in for the director from Wash
ington and he came back he called me out of the
meeting to tell me that Chester David had called,
and insisted that he send me to Washington to do this
compliance job.

We discussed the matter and Director Ramsower
finally said "Well, I think it might be a good exper
ience for you and I think maybe you ought to go for
the three months." It just so happened that my good
wife agreed with Dr. Ramsower and she felt very
strongly that I should go.

The Move To Washington

DSM: On April 12, 1934- I went alone to Washington.
The family continued to live in Ohio until June and
much to my surprise when I got to Washington I found
that nothing had been done about setting up a Job,
They set up a Job as chief of a new compliance section
in the production division and I was introduced to
Victor Christgau who was the chief of the production
division whom I had never met and who I found had not
been consulted about this particular Job. Furthermore
I found that none of the division chiefs with whom I
was going to have to work had been consulted and they
were all against the idea.

So I spent about three months of the most frus
trating time that I have ever had in my life trying
to do something about something that nobody wanted
done excepting the chief of the Agricultural Adjust
ment Program. I would bring in suggestions to meet
ings. They would be knocked down one after the other
and it was really a very very tough period. Finally
in a few of the states where the programs weren't too

165

complex; for example, in Iowa where the program was
practically all corn-hogs and in Idaho where it was
mainly a wheat program we did get some compliance men
appointed who helped supervise compliance for all of
the programs including the lesser ones as well as the
major ones. The last six months of 1934 were some
what easier than the first three months but it still
was not easy.

In June of 1934- they asked that my leave be ex
tended for another three months and the director
agreed. I was on leave from Ohio State University
from my Job that I had there as a Supervisor of Ex
tension. We rented a house for three months from
people who were going to Rehobeth Beach for the
summer and brought the family down in June with the
expectation that we would be going back in September.

In the meantime Jenness had moved from the house
we had been living in in Columbus, Ohio, with the
help of friends of ours the Clarence Fergusons (he later
became Director of Extension at Ohio State University)
while I was busy in Washington. She moved to another
house. The family never lived in that house. She
rented it for the summer to a couple who were taking
graduate work. So in the fall then when a further
extension of leave was granted we decided to give up
the house. Jenneas went back, packed up and had all
the goods put in storage. We rented another furnished
house in Washington. The upshot of it was that we
stayed on in Washington for almost a year and a half
on leave from Ohio State University which was a little
longer than normal but they were very decent about it.

In January of 1935 the "purge" in the Agricultural
Adjustment Administration took place. There was quite
a division within the administration between some of
the very liberal lawyers including Jerome Frank, and
some of the others including my boss Victor Christgau
who was on Jerry Frank's side regarding methods.
Finally Chester Davis decided that he had to do some
thing about it so he fired a lot of people, including
my boss.

Since I was on leave and this didn't seem to affect
my economic status too much. I found myself having

166

meetings with people who were looking- strained and.
upset who were still on the ,1ob and who had lost
their bosses. Foolishly I kidded them and asked
them once or twice who they were working for this
morning and they didn't find it a bit funny! After
four or five days I realized that I was sitting all.
alone in a area with no production division which had
been eliminated and !_ had no boss. A day or two .later
I pot a call from Chester Davis1 office. I went up to
see him. lie chuckled and said "Dillon, I hope your
ego isn't too badly hurt. Very frankly, v/e forgot all
about you for a little while in the shakedown of
things and we came to the realization that here you
were and something ought to be done about it. How
would you like to go to work for Howard Tolley in the.
planning division?" I said "I would be delighted."

Another Job Change

DSM: So I moved over to the planning division and

worked for Howard Tolley who was another of my good
bosses by the way. In that position I could continue
to be in close touch and informed about policy within
the administration. I had the opportunity often to
meet with the top people in the AAA as well as with
the Secretary in connection with program policy and
of course with all the various divisions. I was there
until September.

In the meantime one or two things of importance
should be mentioned. One of them was the fact that
the first draft of the proposed Soil Conservation
Districts Act had been prepared by M. L. Wilson and
Philip Glick and was circulated to various key people
in the department for review and comment. Howard
Tolley tossed it into my lap. I mention this because
it became part of my life within a few weeks.

The other event that happened during this period
was the Supreme Court decision that the Agricultural

167

Adjustment Act was unconstitutional. So it required a
complete revamping.

Another Proposed Hove

DSM: In the meantime 1 had been asked to take on a job
with the Resettlement Administration under Hex Turwell
as assistant to Dr. Gray who headed up the division oi
lands. At the same time I was offered the job as chief
of a new division in the Soil Conservation Service to
be called the Division of States Relations and Planning.
This put me in a bit of a spot because Re:c Tugwell was
not only head of the Resettlement Administration but
he was Under Secretary of Agriculture. I had to tell
him that I would prefer to go to the Soil Conservation
Service and he put the pressure on pretty heavily to
pet me to change my mind to come over to the Resettle
ment Administration but I stayed with my interest in
the SCS.

So 1 told the SCS that I was willing to come pro
viding that I could get the kind of pay and the kind
of grade to justify my staying on. 1 was getting
$6800 a year in the Agricultural Adjustment Program
und the pay for chiefs of divisions in the Department
of /.pricu] ture at thob time v/as ft'ybOO. 1 sa.id I
didn't feel that 1 was justified in accepting the
grade at ft'pbOO but if they could get the grade moved
the next ster» up to #6500 1 would be interested. Other
wise I could live as well or better by going back to
Columbus at a somewhat lower salary because it cost
me less to live there than it did in Washington.

To make a long story short Milton Eisenhower, who
had been assigned by the Secretary to help integrate
the Soil Conservation Service into the department,
worked most of the summer to get the Civil Service
Commission to set up a grade that would pay $6500.
He finally made it in early September and I'm sure
that every division head in the Department of Agri-

168

culture were very happy and were ready to thank me for
sticking; it out because everybody else also got a
raise. As a result of having won this little battle,
on September 1^th I moved over to the Soil Conservation
Service as the chief of the division of State Relations
and Planning.

This salary sounds incredible now of course but
we have hod tremendous inflation in the meantime, './e
lived pretty well on {p6,500 a year in Washington at
that time.

Initiation Of Aerial Land Surveys

DSM: Before I leave the AAA program I should mention
one or two important things that happened during the
last several months that I was with the Agricultural
Adjustment Administration. One was the fact that I
was sold on the idea of experimenting aeroplane sur
veys for use in compliance work. A chap by the name
of Brown, who was a private engineer stayed with me
until he convinced me that aeroplanfc mapping was
practical. I got permission to experiment with this
type of mapping in three different counties. One of
them was a county in which Raliegh, North Carolina,
is located. It had a lot of small farms, tobacco
farms mainly; also a county in Minnesota; and one in
Texas .

They took aerial photographs of the land, then
by the use of equipment on the ground they could use
measuring apparatus to delineate the different types
of plots and come out with measurements that were
more accurate than measurements with tape measures.

t

We were after the amount of acreage that people
had planted to crops that were covered by the AAA
program.

I found out in the meantime that in Soil Con
servation Service, particularly Charles Collier who

169

worked for the Soil Conservation Service, wan working
on the same problem in connection with soil surveys
and he had gone much further than we had pone. I
didn't get my report on thin aerial survey results
completed until after 1 had. moved over to the 3CS
but I sent it back to Chester Davi£ and indicated
that 1 thought each of the division chiefs should
see it. I'm sure that nobody saw it immediately
because in the following spring 1 happened to be over
in the department for lunch one day and Claude Wickard,
who at that time was head of the corn-hog program came
rushing up to me and said "We want to see you." 1
said "What do you want to see me about?" He said "We
want to know about that aerial survey work you were
doing." I said "You mean you haven't seen it?" He
grinned, shook his head and said "No we haven't seem
it." So I told him where it was.

I went around and saw his assistant and talked
to him about it. They immediately went to work on
it and adopted the practice of using aerial surveys
in their compliance work. Within a year or two all
of the compliance work involving land measurement
was done by aerial survey.

170

CHAPTER VIII

A BRAND NEW JOB IN THE SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE

D3M: Another important development that came about

very soon after I moved over to the Soil Conservation
Service, the AAA was groping for an alternative to the
Agricultural Adjustment law which had been declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. It happened
that during my first v/eek with SCS word came to me
that a suggestion had been made by one of the newsmen
that they take the very neat little act which the
Soil Conservation Service had gotten passed authori
zing the soil erosion and soil conservation work and
rework it so it could serve as a vehicle for a rev/rite
of the AAA law.

When I learned about this I hied myself over to
the department and immediately went into a meeting
in Chester Davis1 office which I was allowed to do
because I knew the Secretary. Sure enough they were
rewriting the act regardless of its effect on SCG and
were about ready to go to Congress to ask passage of
the revised draft.

They not only incorporated the AAA program but
they had done a great deal of mayhem to the Soil Con
servation Act that we already had on the books. 1
made a plea that whatever they did that they simply
add amendments to our act rather than change a word
in the original language to accomplish a revision of
the Agricultural Adjustment Authorization.

I was able to convince them that it was not fair
that the act should be torn up and rewritten as they
proposed to do. Chester Davis listened and then
turned to Mastin White, who was the solicitor at that
time, and said "Mastin, what do you think of thisY"
He snid "1 think that Dillon is right. I think bhct
it not on.ly can bo done by adding additional sections
to the net rather than int erf erring with the act as it
now stands but it probably would make Just as good if
not a better one."

171

So the meeting broke up at that instant because
Chester Davis said "OK Mastin, get to the Kill as
fast as you can and stop the action and let's rewrite
it." It was Just that close. So my experience in
the Agricultural Adjustment Administration stood me in
good stead when I moved over to the Soil Conservation
Service.

I .neglected to mention that one of the other things
that I was called upon to do during the last few months
with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration was to
serve on a committee of which Milton Eisenhower was
chairman. We had a representative from the Forest
Service, a representative from the Bureau of Agri
cultural Economics, and myself representing Dr. Tolley.
The committee's job was to write a program for the
integration of the Soil Conservation Service into the
Department of Agriculture. The service had been set
up originally in the Interior Department and it was a
matter of trying to write a program that would not hurt
the SCS and at the same time would more or less satisfy
the Bureau of Plant Industry, the Bureau of Agricul
tural Engineering, the Bureau of Soils and others who
thought they ought to be doing that job.

Origin Of The Soil Erosion Service In The Department
Of The Interior

DSM: The reason why the Soil Erosion Service was

established in the Department of the Interior was an
interesting story in itself. Rex Tugwell who was one
of the instigators of the Soil Conservation Service
was quite interested in it and so was the President.
When they decided to set up an agency to promote ero
sion control work Tugwell was given the job as Under
Secretary of Agriculture. He called in Hugh Bennett
who was the best informed man in this field in the
Department of Agriculture, and who had been working for
Erosion Control throughout the years since 1903 at the
time he joined the Department as a young man doing

soil survey work. He told Hugh Bennett about the pro
spects for such a program and said that because of the
fact that there were bureaus within the Department that
were vying for the job they thought they were goinp; to
have to set it up in the Interior Department, would
he be interested? Hugh was hell bent, of course,
because he was always hell bent to do anything about
soil erosion and this gave him an opportunity. He v/as
willing to leave the Department and move over to
Interior, which he did. During the first several
months the agency was known as the Soil Erosion Service
in the Department of Interior.

It was moved back to the department in April or
May of 1935 and renamed and it was shortly after this
that I came into the picture because Jack Cutler who
was Regional Director at Dayton, Ohio, had come into
Washington and had recommended that the kind of divi
sion that I ultimately headed, the division of States
Relations and Planning be established and recommended
that I head it. This was in May 1935 as I remember it,
when I was first consulted. As a result of this recom
mendation I received an offer but it took all summer
to get the job worked out so I moved over in September.

The Soil Conservation Service at the time I joined
the organization was responsible for two major acti
vities. One of them was the establishment and super
vision of a large number of erosion control projects
throughout the country which Hugh Bennett had initiated
and the other was the supervision of a very large
number of Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) camps.
These were utilized in connection with the local soil
conservation projects. They were doing tree planting,
terracing, most of which was done by machine, but there
were certain phases where hand work was needed; alsp
nursery work. Soil Conservation Service maintained a
number of nurseries throughout the country to provide
planting stock for the establishment of trees and
shrubs in areas that needed cover.

There were, I believe, ten regions at the time
with a regional director in charge of each, plus a
state soil conservation coordinator in each of the
states. He was responsible to the regional office.

173

The extension service generally throughout the
country or the state extension directors generally
throughout the country were quite unhappy that the
Soil Conservation Service was working directly with
farmers on the various projects and in the use of CCC
camps. They felt that they should come under the
control of the Extension Service, iiugh Bennett
thought just the opposite. As a matter of fact he v/as
somewhat embittered ap:oirist the Extension Service
because of the fact that only in one or two states
had they done anything, in his judgment, of any
importance toward developing an erosion control pro
gram other than the all-out terracing programs that
were extant in many of the old southern states, and
he felt much of that was overdone. So it v/as
necessary if we were going to work within the states
to get the cooperation of the Extension Service to
work out a program which would reasonably satisfy
them and get their assistance and at the same time
get ahead with our work.

My major job at the beginning of my work in the
SCS was trying to establish this kind of relationship
with my old cohorts. I had worked many years in
agricultural extension as a county agent and later as
a supervisor. I knew all of the directors well at
that time and we had many arguments every time we had
a meeting.

I had the opportunity to set up my own new divi
sion. I was able to hire the personnel which I
selected. We had three sections within the division.
I had to fight the battle to get the kind of grades
that I felt I needed in order to secure the personnel
of my choice. These grades, were controlled at that
time by the Civil Service Commission because the Soil
Conservation Service which had not been under Civil
Service was blanketed into the Civil Service in early
December of 1935.

One of the new sections was a section on exten
sion relations and was headed by J. Philip Campbell
who was a former extension director in Georgia and who
had good relations with the extension directors through
out the country. The information section was moved
into my division. The second new section had to do

174-

with planning. T. L. Gaston whom I had worked with
in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration headed
this particular section. The work of this section
developed very shortly into plans for the development
of cooperation with the states through the medium of
soil conservation districts acts which were proposed
by the Department of Agriculture.

In view of Hugh Bennett's attitude toward the
Extension Service I had a bit of a problem when I
first moved over. Some of the first memoranda or
letters that I had prepared to go out to the field and
to the extension directors didn't suit him and nearly
every time he saw the Extension Service mentioned he
would take his pencil and draw a line right through it.
I finally decided that I couldn't carry on like that so
when this happened the third time to a memorandum of
this type I said "I think, Hugh, that I had better pre
sent my resignation." I thought he was going to cry.
He said "Oh no, don't do that, don't even talk like
that." So we chatted about it a little while and I
told him very frankly that if we were going to carry on
ivork with the States we were going to have to work out
some kind of sound relationship. I made it clear
that I was not going to sell him down the river.
From that time on he never even read my letters or
memorandum that were going out, he Just signed them.
So I had no more trouble with that situation although
he still did not like the Extension Service.

Before I moved over to the SCS I had the oppor
tunity to review the proposed States Soil Conservation
Districts Act which had been prepared by M. L. Wilson
and Philip Glick within the Department of Agriculture.
As a consequence one of the first responsibilities
that I had after I established myself within the SCS
in September in addition to our job of Extension
Relations was to get acceptance of a Soil Conserva
tion Districts Act by Hugh Bennett and his staff. In
order to get approval by the states it seemed necessary
to include the Agricultural Extension Directors,
Directors of Agricultural Experiment Stations, and the
Dean of the Agricultural College on the state committee
that was to be established by the Act to give general
supervision to the establishment and operation of the
local districts which were proposed under such an Act.

175

This problem of getting the Extension Directors
in particular and the other college people as members
of the state committee created a bit of a problem
within the SOS but the proposal was finally accepted.

The proposed Soil Conservation Districts Act was
essential in the minds of M. L. Wilson and of many of
the rest of us within the Department in order to
establish new local agencies which would plan and
supervise a program of erosion control without having
to do it through the county commissioners and the
established county setup. They were not authorized
to carry on programs of this type. Furthermore they
were busy with roads, and ditches and a lot of other
things that they were traditionally responsible for
and it was felt that it would not work well under
these old established regimes. Furthermore there
were many people in the Department and in the SOS
that felt that such an organization should be estab
lished on a water-shed basis rather than on county lines,

Among other things in the act was provision for
the establishment of land use regulations, which could
be formulated by the districts in order to require
certain erosion control methods on the part of farmers
which would help to protect their neighbors and help
to protect the soil in the area. This, of course, was
an entirely new authorization which was not available
to anyone at that time.

The Battle To Secure Passage Of The State Soil
Conservation District Act

DSM: I don't remember exactly when we got final

approval of the draft of the Act by the Department,
by the departmental agencies, by the Soil Conservation
Service and by the Secretary of Agriculture but the
Act v/as printed up within a few months. It was in the
early spring of 1936 before we were able to distribute
a copy of the proposed Act to the States. Then the

176

battle started in many of the states because there
was opposition to having such a law. Certain of the
Extension Directors in particular opposed it and in
some cases the deans and other college people.
Some of the states adopted the Act almost immediately.
One of the first states to adopt it was North Carolina
which was Hugh Bennett's home state. Many of the
states in the south adopted the Act without much argu
ment because of the very serious problem of erosion
which had developed throughout many years, caused
principally by their type of clean cultivation cotton
and corn and other clean cultivated crops.

The hardest fights in order to get the Act
adopted developed in Texas, Kentucky and Missouri with
lesser resistance in the states of Oregon and Cali
fornia. We had arguments in other states and we had
to spend a good deal of time in convincing would-be
members of the state committees that it was important
and sooner or later we were able to do it. There were
adjustments made in the provisions of the Act in some
of the states. Many of the states objected to passing
an Act with the land use regulations included but
fortunately some of them did and some of them have
been useful particularly in the wind erosion areas.

Fortunately for me I had complete support within
the Secretary of Agriculture's office when the battle
developed in states like Texas and Kentucky in parti
cular. Telegrams would come in asking the Secretary's
point of view, hoping to get this support. I always
wrote the answers and sent them over and Paul Appleby
and Milton Eisenhower (Paul Appleby, the Secretary's
top assistant, in particular) saw to it that the
Secretary was convinced that my answers were proper
so they were signed and sent back in due order. The
battle went on but we finally won the battle in all of
these states. By the time I left the SCS in early
194-2, thirty-seven states had adopted the States Soil
Conservation Act.

177

A Promotion To Assistant Chief

DSM: In the midst of all of this I became Assistant
Chief of the Soil Conservation Service in 1938 and
turned over the work of the division of States Rela
tions and Planning to J. Philip Campbell who had
headed up the section on State Relations earlier.

An Attempted Take Over

DSM: In the meantime the battle on the part of the

state extension directors to take over the work of the
Soil Conservation Service continued. Along in the
late 1930's Harry Brown who had been extension director
in the State of Georgia came into the Department as
Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. At that time Cecil
Creel who was Director of the Agricultural Extension
work in the state of Nevada was chairman of the exten
sion relations committee, of the Land Grant College
Association which functioned as sort of a watch dog
for the extension directors generally in regard to
legislation and cooperation with departmental agencies.
Creel and his group evidently convinced Harry Brown
that he ought to convince the Secretary that the pro
posal to have the extension service take over the SCS
was a good one.

I found out that they had already been to the
Senate and had talked to Senator Bankhead of Alabama
who was Chairman of the Senate Agricultural Committee
and he had agreed to some language to make the change
provided the Secretary would recommend it. Before we
knew it they practically had the Secretary committed
to approve the language but somehow it came to our
attention. So we went into battle. We convinced the
Secretary that he should arrange a meeting with the
extension committee and with the SCS representatives.
1 was Assistant Chief and Hugh Bennett told me I was

178

to be spokesman. Well, we argued the case before the
Secretary and I must have been really steamed up
because after the meeting broke up we arranged to see
the Secretary the next morning along with M. L. Wilson,
the Under Secretary and William Jump the budget dir
ector for the Department.

When we went into the Secretary's office, before
I had a chance to say anything, Secretary Wallace
turned to me and said "Dillon, yesterday as you were
making your presentation I was reminded of the fact
that you were sitting in the same position in relation
to the Secretary of Agriculture fighting the battle
against the takeover as I was with the President of
the United States, because of the fact that the Interior
Department was trying to take over the Forest Service."
This evidently appealed to him as something that was
important and relevant.

As a result of further discussions that morning
he definitely decided to tell Harry Brown that he would
not approve the proposed language. As a consequence
there was no change in the law. This was a major
victory for the SGS and for me personally.

A Proposal To Move Some Regional Offices

DSM: One other incident that I remember quite clearly
resulted from an idea that was developed by Paul
Appleby and Milton Eisenhower, who was working very
closely with him at the time. They decided that the
various regional offices within the Department of
Agriculture should have the same location in the field
so that they would have easy access to each other and
be able to carry on better working relations. Such
agencies as the Forest Service and the Soil Conserva
tion Service had a great deal in common, for example,
the Bureau of Agricultural Economics and other agen
cies which had field offices of this type. Well,
there seemed to be no getting away from it so we had

179

to start work on this matter. One of the proposals
was to move the office from Spartanburg, South
Carolina, to Atlanta, Georgia, where the Forest
Service was already located. This, of course, was
stepping on Jimmy Byrnes toes who was probably the
most powerful Senator in the U.S. Senate at the time.
He was highly respected. He carried the battle
against the change and. we lost which didn't hurt my
feelings too much. Nevertheless at some cocktail
party or other he was heard to make the remark "That
those two Jews Eisenhower and Myer were planning to
wreck his program in South Carolina."

During the midst of this battle for the changes
of the offices I was called upon to go with the Secre
tary to some kind of meeting. In route I told him that
we were planning to move the regional office of the SCS
in Des Koines, Iowa, to Milwaukee where the Forest Ser
vice Office was already located. This, of course,
meant that we were moving a major office out of the
Secretary's home state and into another state. He
asked me a few questions about it and what was going
on and I explained to him what we were called upon to
do and he didn't rebel. We moved the office.

The Pearl Harbor Attack And A Change In Status

DSM: In the fall of 1941 Hugh Bennett was asked to go

to Venezuela to do some soil survey work for the govern
ment of Venezuela. He was down there for several weeks
and during that period I was acting Chief of the Soil
Conservation Service. It was at this time that the
Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour and we were in the war.

Following the Declaration of War in December 1-94-1
I awakened one morning and found a story in the news
papers which stated that Secretary of Agriculture,
Claude Wickard, had established a new agency within
the department known s.s the Agricultural Conservation
and Adjustment Administration. "Spike" Evans who had

180

been for quite some time chief of the Agricultural
Adjustment Administration was made administrator and
I was announced as Assistant Administrator of this new
overall agency. Neither Evans nor I were informed of
this action ahead of time. This came as a complete
shock to both of us.

It developed that this was an idea that had been
dreamed up by a couple of the Secretary's assistants,
Sam Bledsoe and Bob Shields. Evidently they thought
there should be some consolidation of the agencies
and if I were moved over I would want to bring the
SOS into control under my wing in the new organization.
As a consequence it put me in a pretty hot spot. I
immediately wired Hugh Bennett in Venezuela what had
happened and he was out in the field so it took time
to find him. When he returned to Washington it was
early January. He was so upset that I was completely
ignored. He brought Lewis Merrill, who was the Regional
Director at the time in Port Worth, Texas, into Wash
ington as his right hand man.

Fortunately Merrill and I had worked together
very closely on the fight to get a Soil Conservation
Districts law established in Texas and he had complete
confidence in me. He understood the problem so he came
in every day to tell me what was going on. This was the
only communication I bad with anyone in the SOS for
days on end.

I am sure that Hugh Bennett thought that maybe
I had something to do with the Secretary's action.
In any case he was very upset about the whole matter.
I had always made it very clear to him that nothing
happened that I didn't tell him about in respect to
the service as soon as I knew it. I explained to him
that it had all happened without my having anything
to do with it and that he could be reassured that I
was not going to move in to wreck the service but that
didn't satisfy him.

So from early January until mid-June I at first
was Assistant Administrator of the new organization
and then from late January to mid-June I was acting
administrator. "Spike" Evans was appointed to the
Federal Reserve Board and left the department during

181

January. I had made up my mind that I was not going
to be a party to shuffling the agencies and the take
over of the AM and the SOS completely as I was urged
to do. So my job in the meantime had to do with
handling the tough problems that nobody else wanted
to handle in regard to the various agencies. Occa
sionally I had a meeting of the agency chiefs to talk
about inter-agency problems.

As an example of the type of tough problems that
I had to handle: the AAA had a real problem between
the southern region and the western region because of
the battle as to how the cover crop seeds which were
grown in Oregon should be handled in arranging for
sales to cotton farmers in the South. Since nobody
wanted to handle it I had to referee this battle. I
did it and I'm sure that I did it without very much
support on either side but I finally had to make a
decision and I made it.

In the case of SCS the major problem that came
up during this period was the fact that our appropri
ations by the Congress were reduced for administrative
purposes and it seemed necessary to eliminate some of
the regional offices. One of the regional offices
which had been established because the former chair
man of the House Agricultural Committee, Marvin Jones,
insisted was a wind erosion region be established at
Amarillo, Texas. If it wasn't established he said he
would write it into law. So it had been established.

In the meantime Marvin Jones had moved out of the
Congress and over to the Court of Claims. We decided
that we didn't need the Amarillo office any more and
it was to be dropped. It fell to me to go to see
Marvin Jones. He didn't like it but he said he would
not stand in the way. I came back to report to the
Secretary that I had informed Marvin Jones and he had
accepted the fact that we were going to do it. He
looked at me and smiled and said "What did Grover Hill
say?"

Grover Hill was at that time Assistant Secretary
of Agriculture. He was an appointee upon the recom
mendation of Marvin Jones and he was a great supporter
of Marvin Jones. I said "I haven't talked with Grover."

182

He said "I think you had better do so." So I went and
talked with Grover Hill and Grover really put up a
scrap.' He told me that we were being traitors to Jones
and that we were cutting the ground out from under him.
We spent an hour or two together. He tried to con
vince the Secretary to overrule us but we stood pat
and we got the job done.

These items were examples of the kind of dirty
work that I had to handle during this period and I
didn't get too much thanks for it. Nobody in the dif
ferent groups that came under the administration that
I was heading liked the new organization. Incidently
the Agricultural Conservation and Adjustment Admini
stration included four agencies: the Agricultural
Adjustment Administration; the Soil Conservation Ser
vice; Crop Insurance Service; and the Sugar Division.

Dillon Myer, Director of WRA> and Mrs. Myer in
center of photograph, on a visit to the Grenada
or Amache Relocation Center. James Lindley,
Center Director, stands next to Mrs. Myer. The
young lady at the Director's right was the art
ist in charge of the silk screen art shop. 1944.

Dillon Myer, FPHA Commissioner, signing a con
ditional sales agreement with the Veterans
Co-operative Housing Association for the pur
chase of Naylor Gardens, Washington, D.C. From
left to right: Louis B. Arnold, Harry DeWitt,
President of the Co-op, Mr. Myer, Nicholas
Zapple, and Col. William Roberts. 1947.

Dillon Myer (seated) at the time of taking over
the Presidency of the Institute of Inter-Ameri
can Affairs in late 1947. Colonel Harris, the
retiring President, standing.

Three former Directors of the Cuban Refugee
program at Miami, Florida. Dillon Myer
(center) was Director for several weeks during
early 1961 until R.A. Wise took over. Arthur
Lazell, former Assistant Director, became
Director after Mr. Wise returned to his position
as Director of the Miami office of the Social
Security Administration.

183

CHAPTER IX

THE MOVE PROM AGRICULTURE TO THE WAR RELOCATION
AUTHORITY IN 1942

DSM: After serving as Acting Administrator of the

Agriculture Conservation and Adjustment Administration,
which Secretary Wickard had established in December of
1941, I was asked to take on the job as Director of
the War Relocation Authority in June of 1942. The WRA
was an independent agency established by Executive
Order on March 19, 1942.

We were having a party at our house on a Saturday
evening June 13th, and among others present was Milton
Eisenhower and Helen, his very wonderful wife (later
deceased). Milton had taken on the job as Director of
the WRA in March of 1942 much against his will. It so
happened that during the afternoon before they came to
our party he received a request from Elmer Davis to
become his deputy in the new agency known as the Office
of War Information. Ib was quite obvious to me that
he was all hepped up about it. He talked about it on
our porch and I could hear bits of the conversation.

About nine o'clock Milton went into our dining
room where we kept our piano, sat down and started to
play. When the party was over Milton and Helen were
the last ones to leave and as we walked out together
I said "Milton you are going to take the job at OWI,
aren't you?" He said "Yes I am." I said "You de
cided that at nine o'clock tonight just before you
went in to play the piano," and he said "That's
right." Then he turned to me and he said "Will you
take on the job as Director of WRA?" I said "Well,
this is a bit of a shock but let's talk about it."
So we set up a date for Monday evening.

Jenness and I went down to the Eisenhowers and
we spent a couple of hours going over the whole
situation and finally I said to Milton "Do you think
I should take this job?" He said "Dillon, if you can

184

sleep and still carry on the Job my answer would be
yes. I can't sleep and do this Job. I had to get
out of it." So I told him that I would take on the
Job. This was on Monday evening and Wednesday after
noon on June 17th I took over the chair which he had
vacated.

Fortunately I had had some part in the selection
of the key personnel in Washington or at least most of
them. Milton Eisenhower and I rode in the same car
pool. We had been working together for years and I
don't think he made any appointments, at least from
among those people that we had worked with in Agricul
ture, that he didn't discuss with me. So except for
two or three people among the top staff, they were all
people that had worked for me or with me within the
Department of Agriculture. I found out later that
before Milton finally made a recommendation that I
take on the Job he checked it with the staff and they
had approved the idea which of course pleased me very
much.

When Milton said that he couldn't sleep he meant
literally that because he was very disturbed about the
whole WRA concept. He found the situation that he was
facing most difficult, with the antagonisms on the part
of much of the American public against the Japanese
because we were at war with Japan and many people did
not differentiate between the Japanese Americans and
the Japanese with whom we were at war. At the same
time the problems of moving people from assembly cen
ters on the West Coast into temporary relocation cen
ters I'm sure got on his nerves very badly, and he
was practically ill.

HP: You are Just as sensitive to this and to the injustices
involved as he was. How do you explain that you were
able to take it more tranquilly then he was?

DSM: Well, I think first oJ' all Milton had been in public
relations work most of his life. He was a public
relations man first, last and all the time and he did
not like to get in between the rock and the hard place.
He certainly was in between on this Job because the
pressures on both sides were very, very heavy and this
upset him very much.

185

In my own case even though I think I am quite
sensitive and I had some emotional spots during the
four years that I was Director of the WRA I never have
been bothered when it comes to carrying on a job that
I feel that I am responsible for. As a consequence I
didn't worry myself too much about the pressures from
the racists and from the people who were trying to
beat us into the ground all of the time.

I was able to take it in stride and fortunately
I have always been a good sleeper and I still am. Con
sequently I did the job as I felt that it should be
done and with a very few exceptions I went to bed at
night and slept soundly until time to get up the next
morning.

HP: I take it you were no more in sympathy with the philos
ophy in back of the evacuation than Milton was, but
that you felt that there was a job to be done and it
might as well be done as well as possible.

DSM: That's right. The war was on and I was requested to
take on a special war-time job with a Presidential
appointment and unless you have a very good reason you
don't turn down a Presidential request during wartime.

The Evacuation Authorization and Initiation

DSM: I, of course, was not sympathic to the evacuation
and the move that was made by General DeWitt. The
truth of the matter however is that when I first took
over I had very little information about the Japanese
people on the West Coast and I had very little clear
information about the basic reasons that were given for
the evacuation and whether the reasons were sound or
whether they weren't. I found out very quickly after
I became Director that most of the reasons were phony
and many of the rumors which were used to justify the
evacuation which came out of the attack on Hawaii were
proven to be completely untrue as were many other things

186

that were put forth by the people who were pressuring
for the evacuation previous to the time when General
DeWitt had made the final decision in February 194-2.
The evacuation didn't actually take place until March
but he made his recommendations to the War Department
on February 1J in which he did an all out job of try
ing to Justify the move that he had proposed to make
if given the authority to do so. He got that authority
on February 19 and announcements were made that there
would be an evacuation.

In the beginning he allowed people to move out
from the California and the West Coast on a voluntary
basis but after a short time it was quite obvious that
these people were running into trouble because the
people in the hinterland where they were trying to
settle didn't quite understand who they were. They
were fearful and they thought that they were having a
Japanese invasion in some cases. Milton Eisenhower,
who was still Director, recommended that the voluntary
evacuation be stopped and that plans be made for carry
ing out the evacuation on a step-by-step basis.

The history which led up to the evacuation is a
bit complex and I'll not try to cover it here except
to say at that time Earl Warren was Attorney General
of California but looking forward to being candidate
for governor in the fall of 1942 which he was and he
favored the evacuation. General DeWitt had brought
onto his staff on the West Coast Colonel Carl Bendet-
sen who was in charge of his civilian affairs and while
some people feel that Bendetsen had little responsibility
for recommending the evacuation I -do not agree. I
think that he was a prime mover in recommending to
General DeWitt that he carry out the evacuation. As a
matter of fact after the evacuation order was issued
here on the mainland he tried for weeks to get a
large group of people evacuated from Hawaii with the
idea I am sure of justifying their West Coast evacu
ation. One of the people who touched off the cam
paign for the evacuation was a radio commentator by
the name of John B. Hughes who recommended in late
January that an evacuation be carried out.

Much to the surprise of many of us when we checked
the history we learned that Walter Lippmann went out

to the coast and spent several days in early February
and he was evidently taken in by General DeWitt. He
recommended evacuation. He repeated some of the same
phony philosophy as to the reasons for the evacuation
in one of his columns. The major thing that he ended
up with was the fact that General DeWitt had said and
he repeated this "the fact that there had been no
problem up till then was the best indication in the
world that there would be because they were just wait
ing for the right time . "

So on February 19 * 194-2 the President issued an
Executive Order which authorized Secretary of War
Stimson or any commander designated by him to esta
blish military areas and to exclude therefrom any and
all persons who they felt might be inimical to the war
effort. Following this Executive Order the first pro
clamation that was issued by General DeWitt under this
authority was on March 2, 194-2. On March 11, 194-2 he
established the WCCA which was the civilian affairs
unit of his organization that I have already mentioned
under Colonel Carl Bendetsen and on June 2 proclama
tion number six announced no further voluntary move
ment from California e.nd plans for eventual total
evacuation was announced. This was just two weeks before
I took over the job on June 17th.

Agricultural Labor - The First Relocation Move

DSM: During the month of May the pressures for agri
cultural labor were so heavy that authorization was
provided both by the Western Defense Command and by
the WRA for the recruiting of labor in the centers
under certain very strict conditions. These rules pro
vided that they had to have the statements by the
Governors of the various states and by the lav; enforc-
ment officials that they would enforce the lav/ and see
that there were no problems in the way of retribution
against people of Japanese ancestry and a number of
other very closely written restrictions which had to

188

do with their staying within certain limited area.

Student Relocation Committee

DSM: Along about the same time there were a number of
students in the universities on the West Coast who
wanted to continue their studies so Milton Eisenhower
asked Clarence Pickett of the American Friends Service
Committee to form a committee to propose and initiate
plans for a student relocation program.

The committee was appointed and when I arrived on
the scene on June 17th there already were plans under
way for checking with colleges outside of the evacuated
zone to see which among the various colleges and uni
versities were in position to accept students and at
the same time for making a survey, on the West Coast,
of the students who were in college there to see who
among those wished to relocate into other institutions.
This work was carried out largely through the summer
of 1942 and a very excellent job was done.

The main handicap that the committee had was the
fact that many of the universities had defense con
tracts and they were fearful that the Defense Depart
ment would object to their taking evacuee students
at that time so that there were some of the institu
tions who didn't go along with the plan who otherwise
might have done so.

First Steps Toward A General Relocation Policy

DSM: During the first week of my incumbency we held

our first staff conference and I met the people among

189

our key staff whom I had not met previously. Among
others was Tom Holland who had just returned from a
trip to the V/est Coast and who had visited some of
the Army's assembly centers and one or two of the
new relocation centers that had been established.
When I called on him for a report on his trip he made
one of the most articulate and most moving statements
that I think I have ever heard made in a staff meeting,
He strongly favored s policy of relocation and the
doing away with centers altogether as quickly as
possible. I was very much struck by his presentation
and by his arguments.

Almost immediately after this meeting was over I
started on a trip to the West Coast with three or four
of the key staff members at which time I visited the
Tule Lake and Posten Relocation Centers and the area
office in San Francisco. When I came back I announced
to the staff that I was in full agreement with Tom
Holland's recommendations. I wanted immediately to
proceed with plans for a relocation program. So plans
were written up, very cautious ones I might say, to
allow relocation outside of the centers under certain
conditions.

Among other things the plan was limited to Nisei.
Kibei (who were Nisei who had spent a good deal of
their time in Japan and had most of their education
there) were not included in the group who could re
locate. Issei were not included in this first state
ment.

HP: This was relocation from the centers?

DSM: That's right. This involved relocation from the relo
cation centers into the hinterland to accept jobs
wherever they could be found. This policy became
effective July 20, 1942.

Following this we immediately went to work on a
more comprehensive program and regulations for which
we were able to issxie in late September and it became
effective October 1, 194-2. It made provision for
relocation from the relocation centers into the normal
communities outside of the evacuated area. I have
mentioned the terms Issei, Nisei and Kibei. Nisei are

190

first-generation Japanese Americans who are American
citizens because they were born on American soil.
Kibei were also born on American soil but these were
Nisei who had gone back to Japan for much of their
education and as a consequence some of them were
really more Japanese in their culture than they were
American. The Issei were the first generation folks
who immigrated from Japan to the United States and
who were the parents of the Nisei and the Kibei.
They were aliens and continued to be aliens until
the 1950's because the laws up until that time did
not allow naturalization of Orientals. The only
exception to that was a few cases where Issei had
participated in World War I and were later given
their citizenship by a special act of Congress.

In 195^ the immigration laws were revamped so
that it set up a quota, not only for Japanese but for
the so called Asiatic triangle and authorized the
naturalization of people from that area and which
opened the way for the Issei who had been in this
country throughout many years to apply for American
citizenship. Many of them had lived here since 1900
or 1910 both here and in Hawaii. The majority of them
did apply except for those who were so old that they
didn't feel that it was worth going to the trouble.

The Army Ass em b ly Centers

DSM: After General DeWitt issued his proclamation which
provided for no further voluntary evacuations and set
up a general schedule for the evacuation of the rest
of the territory, the evacuees were moved into army
assembly centers which were hastily provided. These
were mostly in racetracks up and down the West Coast.
Many of these people lived in these temporary assembly
centers run by the Army throughout the summer and fell
of 19^2 while relocation centers were being constructed
by the army engineers.

191

HP: Did they use tents?

DSM: No, they used the barns, put in partitions and they
used the grandstand. Kitchens and other service
facilities were underneath the grandstand. The Nisei
still talk about the smell of horse manure that they
lived with during those months.

The Move To Relocation Centers

DSM: The first relocation center was Manzanar which was
originally an assembly center which was constructed by
the Army. It was turned over to WRA on June 1, 1942.
The other center which was in the early stages of con
struction and use was the one at Posten near Parker,
Arizona, which was constructed on an Indian reservation.
Posten turned out to be the largest center we had with
three different units — Posten I, II and III. The
other centers were brought into use as they were
partially or wholly completed. The last of the evacuees
were moved into the Rhower center in Arkansas in
November 1942.

We had real problems during this period of move
ment from the assembly centers because once the army
set up dates for movement which was carried out
through the use of trains and buses they moved on the
scheduled dates in spite of hell or high water, regard
less of whether or not the centers were ready for the
evacuees. As a consequence we had very many situations
where centers were not complete and where there was a
great deal of misery and inconvenience as a result of
having not been able to complete the centers in time
to receive the people as they should have been
received.

-

HP: How many people were involved in this?

DSM: 110,000 people were moved to begin with. During the
four year period we dealt with a total of 120,000

192

people. Some of them came in from other parts of the
country where they had voluntarily relocated and added
to our group who were evacuated in the first instance
and then a lot of babies were born during the four
years of the relocation centers; it happened that the
births outstripped the deaths during that period. Our
good health facilities in the centers helped many
people to extend their life span. I am sure they
might not have lived so long if they had not had the
kind of medical service that we were able to provide.

The Policy Conference And Its Importance

DSM: Up until August of 194-2 no general policy had
been issued regarding; the operation of centers. On
August 13th we convened the directors of centers who had
already been selected and our key staff members from
some of these centers plus our key staff members from
Washington at a meeting in San Francisco which was
known as a policy session. During the several days
following August 13th we hammered out policy after
policy affecting the operations of relocation centers.
This was essential because we had absolutely no pre
cedent on which to operate.

These policies concerned the various phases of
life in the centers. The matter of food and mess halls
and how they would be operated, and type of food and
the costs and so on had to be spelled out. The areas
of education, policing, religious worship, the matter
of whether or not we were going to have farming oper
ations to provide food wherever it was feasible and
so on. It went into all phases of life in the center
at that time.

As fast as these policies were shaped up they
were issued one by one over a period from about the
20th of August through the middle of September. This
was a very important matter. The reason being that
by the time we had arrived at this stage much to our

193

surprise the people on the West Coast who had helped
to pressure General DeWitt and others into carrying
out an evacuation were again on the prowl and they
were out sniping at everything that was going on in
the centers. They were claiming that the evacuees
were getting better meats than the men in the Army
were getting and all kinds of crazy stories were
being put out in the Hearst press and in other ways
to harrass the evacuees and WRA.

The Dies Committee Moved In

DSM: It wasn't long after the policies were formulated
that the Dies Committee of the U.S. Congress set up a
sub-committee headed by John Costello. They sent in
vestigators, so called, into five or six of the centers
to check on our policies and I requested the Directors
to be sure to take a transcript of all of the testi
mony that was given to them so that I could see what
was happening.

You can imagine my relief when I found that the
Directors had learned their lesson and that they all
told the same story; they had read the policy state
ments and they just clicked right down the line. I
heaved a great big sigh of relief and said "Thank God
we have the policies and have the people who had the
good sense to know that it was important to follow the
policies" because had they found that we were not
consistent and playing it by ear we would have been
in more trouble than we were. We were in trouble
enough as it was.

194

The Posten And Manzanar Troubles

DSM: Our first real trouble spot developed in Camp I
of the Posten Relocation Center on November 14, 1942
when we had a community-wide strike and demonstra
tion, which was called by the Hearst press and others
a riot which it wasn't. This came about because the
F.B.I, had come into the center and had arrested two or
three people and they were put into jail and the com
munity got up in arms and demanded that they be . re
leased and when they weren't released immediately they
went on strike and consequently nothing was done for
about a week or ten days except to provide the basic
food and essential services required by the evacuees,

This had hardly settled down when we had a in
cident at Manzanar on December 6, 1942 and this was
known pretty much as the Kibei rebellion. A group of
Kibei and a group of people who were running the
kitchens were involved. The chefs who had organized
themselves into a kitchen workers union began to
demand things. Here again this incident came about
because there some arrests were made in the center
and these people who were arrested were taken out to
Independence or one of the nearby towns.

This group demanded that they be brought back to
the center and that they be released to the people in
the center. As a result of discussions that Ralph
Merritt, the director of the project, had had wivh
the leaders of the group he thought they had arrived
at a meeting of the minds and a compromise but he
found out an hour or two later that the leader had
simply announced another meeting later in the day.
When he found that they had broken their word and
were meeting again he called in the Army which he
had authority to do. Unfortunately, after the Army
came in some youngster climbed into a car and released
the brakes and ran it right down 'toward the soldiers
and some trigger-happy boy started shooting. Some
people were wounded and three people ultimately died
as a result of the shooting.

195

This was a period of my greatest anxiety. The
month of December was a horrendous month. I didn't
know what was going to happen in the other centers
and whether this was a pattern that was going to
develop in center after center which some people were
predicting. Furthermore we had not followed the
recommendations of the Army when they turned the
evacuees over to us to hire forty to fifty police at
each of the centers from the outside because we did
not feel that it was necessary.

We had adopted the policy of having one police
chief who we appointed and then the rest of the
policing was done by the evacuees themselves who were
hired to do a job, just as they were hired to do other
jobs in the center. So we didn't know at this stage
whether we had been wrong. This is the one period
when I remember quite clearly that I didn't sleep
every night as I had promised Milton Eisenhower to do.

Finally I came down to the office one morning
and decided that we were going to do something although
I didn't know what! I asked Elmer Rowalt to fill his
pocket up with cigars which he liked to smoke and to
come into my office and close the door — that we
would probably spend the morning together and we were
going to talk the whole thing over and through and
come out with some decisions.

A Second Policy Conference

DSM: We decided that the first thing that we would do

would be to call a meeting in early January 194-3 of all
the project directors and the key personnel again and
review our policies which had already been issued and
see whether any changes should be made. We made
practically no changes as a result of this but it was
something to be done and we did it.

196

We did authorize the hiring of not more than two
additional assistants to the police chief in each of
the centers. Some of them hired them and some of them
didn't. We decided to approve the election of Issei
to the centers councils. Even though this action
doesn't seem to be very much, we did review our other
policies and decided that they were sound and that we
would sit tight.

In November of 1942 we decided to eliminate the
three regional offices that had been established and
to move the responsibilities that they had carried into
the Washington office except for some liaison people in
one or two operations including an evacuee property
office on the tfest Ccsst. This was done between
November 15, 194-2 and the first of January 194-3.

Relocation Field Offices Established

DSM: About the same time we decided to go all out on
a relocation program outside of the relocation cen
ters. On January 4, 1943 the first two relocation
field offices, called area field offices, were
established to assist in helping people to relocate
outside of the centers through finding jobs, housing
and assuring them the opportunity to live peaceably
and to carry on as other civilians would carry on.

From this start we established field offices in
key cities all over the United States. Before 1943
was out we had seven other offices making a total of
nine by the time we had completed that earlier setup.

197

A Senate Sub-Committee Holds Hearings

DSM: On January 20, 194-3 Senator A. B. Chandler, who
had been named Chairman of a sub-committee of the
Senate Military Affairs Committee, started hearings
on a bill which was introduced by Senator Mon Wall-
gren of Washington to transfer the W.R.A. functions to
the War Department. This bill had been proposed some
weeks earlier by the American Legion, who were poorly
informed. They claimed that we were relocating people
out of the centers in which they were supposed to be
kept throughout the war period, and that it was likely
that we were introducing sabateurs all over the
country.

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team Was Launched

DSM: Fortunately on January 28, 1943 before the

hearings were ended, Secretary Stimson announced that
a regimental combat team composed of volunteers of
Japanese Americans from the mainland and Hawaii was to
be organized. I had been pressing for this during all
the months that I had been in office as director, and
it happened to come at a very opportune time from the
standpoint of the hearings that we were having on
Capitol Hill.

Following this, beginning on February .8, 1943,
we started in cooperation with the Army a registration
of all people who were eligible for army enlistment and
we also added provisions for leave clearance from the
centers for all people over fifteen years of age in
cluding the Issei.

This led to some difficulties because some of the
questions were poorly worded. The worst one for
example was "Do you swear to be a loyal citizen of
the United States, etc.?" Of course the Issei could

198

not be citizens of the United States, never had been,
and were not allowed to be. They couldn't answer this
question. So after this was pointed out the question
was changed so that all except a very small percentage
were able to answer it because it simply said "Will
you do nothing to interfere with the war effort of the
United States?" I don't remember the exact details
but that was the essence of the question.

Baseless Rumors

HP: Getting back to the allegation by the American Legion
that some of the people released from the centers to
take jobs elsewhere v/ere guilty of sabotage. Was
there ever an established case that a person from a
relocation center had become a saboteur?

DSM: No, there never was an established case of sabotage.
Not only as regards the people who had been in relo
cation centers who had lived on the West Coast but it
also included Hawaii, which had more people of Japanese
ancestry then we had in the United States mainland.
There were lots of rumors about sabotage but none of
them proved to be true. It took a long time to elimi
nate those rumors. H&ny people were still quoting
them weeks and weeks after they had been knocked down
by J. Edgar Hoover and others who had made the
investigation.

I had one rather embarrassing situation in my
own home. One Sunday afternoon we had some friends
who had dropped by arid among them was an Admiral of
the Navy who had been a neighbor of ours for years
and during the course of the conversation they got
onto the question of the evacuees and the Admiral
said, "Well, you know that one of the Japanese who
was shot down during the attack on Pearl Harbour —
a member of the Japanese Air Force — was wearing a
high school ring from Hawaii." I said "Yes, I know
about that" and then I hesitated because here I was

199

host to a whole room full of people but I finally
said "George, I do know about that and we have
checked that out thoroughly and it isn't true. Our
source of information on this is the Office of Naval
Intelligence." He said "Well of course they should
know." I said "Yes. I think they probably are better
informed than most anybody," and we passed over it.
Fortunately we continued to be good friends but it
was a very tough spot to be in. This was typical of
what was going on in those days.

Our Letter To Secretary Stimson Recommending A Change
In The Exclusion Order

DSM: On March 11, 194-3 we sent a long detailed letter
to Secretary Stimson of the War Department recom
mending immediate relaxation of the West Coast exclu
sion orders. This was just about one year from the
time the.t the evacuation orders were issued. In view
of the fact that it was quite obvious that there was
very little danger, if any, of invasion of the West
Coast, we thought there was no justification for con
tinuing the exclusion order. We proposed two alternate
plans. One of them was all-out lifting of the exclu
sion order to allow people to return to their West
Coast homes; the other was a step-by-step proposal
whereby people who had been in the Army and their
immediate relatives might be allowed to go back. We
presented a long list of reasons.

On May 10th, two months later, we received a reply
to this letter rejecting our proposals and urging a
segregation program to separate the so-called pro-
Japanese from the people who were in support of the
American effort in the relocation centers and to set
up a special center for those v/ho wanted to be Japan
ese and wanted to return to Japan. As a matter of
fact this had been urged by General DeWitt from the
beginning. We had hardly taken over the first cen
ters before he began to argue for this. We pointed

200

out to Secretary Stimson that had this been a feasi
ble move and was as easy as suggested by General
DeWitt it should have been done during the assembly
center period and we should never have had the pro
blem to face later, but this didn't stop them. They
kept right on pressuring for the segregation program.

As a matter of fact Assistant Secretary McCloy
went before the Chandler sub-committee and made recom
mendations urging the separating of the so-called
disloyal from the others residents of the center. The
pressure finally got so heavy that we decided that we
had to go ahead with the segregation program.

So on the last of May 194-3 we made a decision
to use the Tule Lake center as the place to which to
move people who wanted to be pro-Japanese and others
who we felt should be separated. As a consequence we
offered the opportunity for people who wanted to move
out of Tule Lake to go to other centers previous to
moving people in. This process took all summer and
most of the fall. It was terrific Job and led to
real difficulties which I shall mention later.

Mrs. Roosevelt's Visit To Gila River And A Luncheon

DSM: In the meantime on May 6, 194-3 Mrs. Eleanor Roose
velt visited the Gila River Relocation Center in Ari
zona at the request of the President. I met Mrs.
Roosevelt in Pheonix and escorted her to the center.
We spent the day at the Center and she with her wonder
ful energy, covered everything in the center of any
importance including all the wards in the hospitals,
the schools, and all phases of the service activities
so that she could report back to the President. On the
way back to Pheonix we were discussing some of our pro
blems and I decided that I would try a bold stroke so
I told her that I would like to talk to the President
about some of our problems that we were facing at the
time. She said "I think you should and I shall arrange
it," and she did arrange it.

201

On May 23, 194-3 Mrs. Myer and I were invited to
the White House for luncheon. It was one of those
beautiful bright spring days and they decided to have
the luncheon on the lawn where small tables were set
up. We spent a hour and a half at lunch. At our
table in addition to Mrs. Myer and myself was the
President and the President's daughter Anna Roose
velt Boettenger from the state of Washington, who
with her husband, was running one of the Hearst
papers at that time. At another table was Harry
Hopkins and his wife, Mrs. Roosevelt and John Boet
tenger. They were far enough away that they didn't
interfere with our discussions.

The President and I had an excellent discussion
about the problems and when I told the President about
the "Happy" Chandler committee and the fact that I felt
that they were doing things that were not very helpful
he said "I think I can help you with this." I didn't
know for some time just how he had done it but I found
out later that he had gotten in touch with Senator
Joseph 0"Mahoney who was a good supporter of the
administration. I later learned that Joe 0"Mahoney
called "Happy" Chandler into his office and dressed
him down and told him that he should lay off and quit
harrassing the W.R.A. He did. As a result we got quite
a satisfactory report out of his committee. It was
very much in line with what we had proposed to do any
how in the way of segregation and other problems.

In the meantime, also during the month of May,
the Dies Committee, which I have mentioned earlier,
started their investigators to work in the various
centers. On May 12 they arrived at Manzanar unannounced
and they visited four or five other centers in sequence.
This is the group that I mentioned in dealing with
whom we had asked the directors of the centers to take
transcripts of the answers to their questions. Our
directors knew their stuff and knew what the policies
were and they all gave the same basic answers in their
replies. This showed how important these policy state
ments were and how important it was that they were
being followed.

202

The Dies Sub-Committee At Work

DSM: The Costello sub-committee of the Dies Committee
was appointed on June 3, 19^3 and they became a real
harrassing element over the period from May until
July 6th. They held so-called hearings in Los Angeles,
to which we were not invited. One or two of the people
from Posten were invited but the people who were tes
tifying out there were mostly people whom we had fired
because of the fact that they had either not been loyal
to the service or who had left the center during the
Posten incident.

In one case a chap by the name of Townsend who
testified had left the center in a government car
because he was scared, to death, and was gone for a
week. When he came back fortunately the director of
the center had had enough experience that he sat him
down and interviewed him with a stenographic trans
cript of the interview and of course fired him.

This ex-employee told all kinds of wild stories
at the time of the Los Angeles hearings which were
fed out to the newspapers across the land and we had
no chance for rebuttal at that time. I never shall
forget that during those weeks from May through until
July morning after morning after morning my informa
tion staff John Baker and Morrill Tozier and I met to
review what had been in the papers the day before.
Day after day one of us would get so madp" by the time
we were through reviewing that we were recommending
that we go out to kill the Dies Committee! Usually
the other two kept Cf-.lm enough so that they had good
enough sense that we finally settled down and decided
that we would document every bit of misinformation and
information that was put out by the committee in such
a way that we would have it on paper.

We did just that so that by the time we got our
hearing in Washington on July 6, 194-3 which was an
open hearing; with the press present we had stacks of
mimeographed documents which we carried up by the arm
load and piled up oi> the table.

203

Every time a question came up we gave a handout
to the press, and during this particular hearing we
made the statement that Mr. Townsend, whom I mentioned
earlier had left the center in a government car and
was gone for a week and who had told so many wild
stories, had told forty-two lies or had made forty-two
misstatements during his hearing in Los Angeles. This
was during the morning session.

When the afternoon session opened John Costello
the committee chairman leaned forward and said "Mr.
Myer, we have reviewed the Townsend statement during
the noon hour and we can only find thirty-nine mis-
statements." I got up and bowed and said "Mr. Chair
man we accept thirty-nine , " and of course we got a
real laugh out of the newsmen and a real break out of
it.

As a result of those hearings which lasted three
days we got some real support from the good people
around the United States who began really to roll up
their sleeves and go to work to help us in our relo
cation program and in our program generally. The
church people and many others who had representatives
sitting in on the hearing sent out the word and in
formed people about .it so that it turned out, this
committee did us a favor rather than doing us harm in
the long run.

Their harrassment of W.R.A. made the good people
around the country mad enough that they decided to
really go to work and do something about it.

While all of this was happening during the early
part of 194-3 we were intensifying our program to do a
relocation job outside of the centers. We were getting
our area offices established, as well as local district
offices, and by the end of 194-3 our program of relo
cation was very well under way.

On October 11, 194-3 the last group of evacuees,
from other centers who were being moved to the Tule
Lake Center as so-called "segregatees" except those at
Manzanar, had been transferred to Tule Lake. The trans
fer of people out of Tule Lake who had been willing to
move to other centers had also been completed.

204-

The Tule Lake Incident And Resulting Turmoil

DSM: In late October Tule Lake workers were going out
to the farm on a truck; and the truck had upset. As
a result one of the workers was killed in the acci
dent. This led to a farm strike and turmoil really
began to develop in the Tule Lake Center on November 1.

I visited the center at which time a demonstration
was staged for the benefit of the National Director.
I arrived on the morning of November 1 and Ray Best,
who was the project director, had arranged to meet
with some of the evacuee committee on the following
day but they had decided that they would meet the day
of my arrival. During the noon hour I had eaten in one
of the mess halls and Ray had eaten dinner at his own
home. He came down to where I was after lunch and said
that he had just received word that an announcement had
been made in all of the mess halls that there was to
be a meeting at the administration building and that
everybody was to gather there.

So he and I immediately got into his car and
drove all over the center to see what was happening
and we realized that those in charge at that time,
among the evacuees, had not only urged everybody to
come but that they were putting pressure on them to
come, and we saw people going all across the center in
their best bib and tucker, elderly ladies and elderly
men, people with youngsters by the hand and so on. We
discussed the situation and we agreed that there was
not anything very serious going to happen except talk,
in view of the fact that they would not have had all
of these women and youngsters in the crowd if there
was anything that they planned to do other than talk..
So when we got back to the office here was the committee
and they asked for a meeting and we agreed to have one.

The meeting went on for two hours and a half and
they made the same requests of me as they had made to
Ray Best earlier, including the firing of the project
director, four or five of the other key people on the
staff and a number of other things which I shall not

205

try to relate at this stage. I told them that I would
not make any promises under pressure of this type and
it wasn't the way we planned to do business and as
soon as the people from Manzanar arrived at the center
later we had planned to arrange for a meeting of ; the
evacuees where they could select their own repre
sentatives. I told them that I had some question
whether the people in the room at that time were really
representatives of the people as a whole.

After we had met for a couple of hours the chair
man of the group asked if I would speak to the crowd
and I said I would be very happy too. So I very briefly
told the crowd what I had told the committee. The
chairman then made a speech in Japanese and the crowd
broke up.

In the meantime during the meeting there was a
report that came to us that the doctor in charge of the
hospital had been assaulted and that there had been a
fight between the doctor and some of the evacuees. We
sent the police chief over to check on it. He came
back and said that it was true, that they had assaulted
the head of the hospital.

HP: The doctor was non-Nisei?

DSM: Not a Nisei. He was a doctor that we had hired from
the outside and who was a bit crusty. They didn't
particularly like him and some of the boys who had a
grudge used this opportunity, when every one was
occupied, to do their job. The doctor had gotten
skinned up a bit but nothing very serious so we went
ahead with our meeting.

HP: How many people were assembled?

DSM: I would guess that there were must have been maybe
10,000 or 15*000 people gathered around the admini
stration building because everybody was asked to come
or they were pressured into coming. They were herded
in there by some stooges of the committee who were
acting as strong arm men to get everybody in.

*-w/

HP: Where there amplifiers in those days?

206

DSM: Yes. They had set up an amplifier on the roof of the
building. Somebody had a loud speaker outfit and they
set it up which we didn't object to. '

HP: Did you feel that your life was in danger?

DSM: Not at all. At no stage in the game did I feel that I
was in danger.

HP: You might have been, you know.

DSM: Oh, I suppose, but there was no indication of that.
My experience with the Japanese people generally was
that even though they had some hard boiled people in
this group they were under pretty good control.

As we came out of the office after the meeting
had been adjourned I looked up at the flag pole and
said "Old Glory still flies." I mention this because
one of the Hearst reporters among other things had
said that they had torn down the American flag and
tramped on it, which of course was not true. As a
result of this affair many of the people on the staff
left the center and people who were in the center as
service people who had come in to bring in supplies
and so on had left the center and told some very wild
stories about what was going on.

Telephone communication with the outside was very
poor. It was through the Tule Lake exchange which was
a small town and we tried to get our San Francisco
office and couldn't reach them and we tried to get
some of the newsmen who had arranged for me to
meet with the press olub group in San Francisco the
night before and I wasn't able to reach the chairman
of that group who had been my host.

We did our best to get the word out and to deny
the wild stories put out by the Hearst press and some
of the others. One paper reported that plans were
made for setting fires all over the center along with
other bits of misinformation.

Unfortunately, the reports officer at Tule Lake
had resip-ned before I arrived which I did not know.
While he was still on the project he did absolutely

20?

nothing to gather the information which he had normally
been responsible for. He was the chap who should have
had all the facts about what had gone on and should
have been calling the newspapers to report it. Instead
of that we had to do our own reporting. Robert Cozzens
was with me and we did our best to get in contact with
news people but it was impossible to reach many of
them. As a consequence most of these fables which
were passed out by people who left the center went
unanswered until the 14th of November which was nearly
two weeks later. I left the project after my second
day there and went on about my business including a
trip to Portland and to Seattle.

I learned three days later while I was in route
back to Washington by train that I was supposed to call
the project, which I did en route. I found that on the
night of November 4th there was an outbreak of violence
at Tule Lake because of an attempt to stop the move
ment of trucks which were taking food out to the farm
laborers who had come in from the other centers to
help harvest the crops. The civilian police that we
had at the center tried to break up the group but it
ended up in quite a melee. So Ray Best finally called
in the military and they took over which was in line
with our agreement that if they were brought in they
were to be in control. They were there until January
1944.

In view of the fact that all of these fantastic
stories and charges had been fed out and published in
the newspapers we felt it highly important that they
be cleared up as fast as possible, but after the
military took over on the night of November 4th they
allowed no newspaper men into the center and gave no
interviews. As a consequence some of my very good
friends among the reporters felt that we were holding
out on them. They did not understand the arrangement.
It led to a very, very bad situation.

When I got back to Washington on about November
6th or ?th, I learned that our head information man
Morrill Tozier and Leland Barrows, who was acting in
charge, were seriously worried because of the fact
that they couldn't get any report either out of Tule
Lake or from me. Of course the problem was that there

208

had been so many charges, so many things misstated
that it took days to get the facts together. Finally
on November 14, ten days after the incident on Nov
ember 4 we were able to put out a release. We had a
meeting at the Office of the War Information and the
release issued was based upon very careful checking
on all the things that were said and done. This
however did not allay the criticism. It continued
because the Tule Lake incident was just the kind of
thing that the American Legion and the Hearst Press
and all of the people who had been harassing the
evacuees and the WRA were looking for in order to
keep things stirred up.

As a result of this incident and all of the mis
information that flowed out from Tule Lake, the period
from November 1, 194? to January 20, 1944 marked the
lowest point in our public relations, especially on
the West Coast.

A Date With The American Legion

DSM: Fortunately during November I had a date set up
to meet with the state commanders and the state
adjutants of the American Legion at Indianapolis.
This came at a very good time because the American
Legion was one of our real problems. Homer Chaillaux
who was head of the Americanism Committee had been
practically forced into arranging this meeting. As
a result I had an opportunity to meet with a group of
people who needed to hear the facts straight. This
was a very rewarding meeting for me because I was able
to get some of the facts on the record and get them
straight and we had a very tough question and answer
period with the representative of the California Legion
leading the way and being very snide. We got through
the session in good order.

It happened that we were meeting in a hall with
a hallway along the side so that there were several

209

doors out to this hallway. When the meeting broke up
I started for the men's room; it had been a long
session; Dick Russell, the Senator from Georgia, had
been the speaker after I was on. It took me about
twenty minutes to reach my destination for the reason
that people were popping out of each one of those
doors and grabbing me by the hand and shaking my hand
and saying "By God mister you did a good job." I got
back to the men's room and as I opened the door and
some chap just stepped out of a booth, saw me come in
and said "By God mister I was glad to see you give it
to those sons of bitches." Everybody in the men's room
said "It was wonderful."

I might add that after this meeting Mr. Chailloux
was much more calm about the W.R.A. and the evacuees then
he had been beforehand. I think that I may have
already mentioned that one of our men in the infor
mation division of W.R.A. had been chairman of the Amer
icanism Committee some years before and he knew some
of the people who were on the committee. He was the
one that had gone up to New England to meet with a
chap by the name of Jimmy O'Neal to get this meeting
set up. This was a very fortunate circumstance.

In the meantime, hearings were held again by the
Senate Military Affairs Committee of which "Happy"
Chandler was sub-committee chairman, and the Costello
sub-committee of the Dies committee in the House.
These hearings on the Tule Lake affair were calm as
compared with the earlier hearings that these people
had carried out but they felt that they had to get on
the record. I do remember that after we completed
the hearings for two or three days on Tule Lake, Mr.
Stripling, the Executive Secretary of the Dies Com
mittee, came up to me and shook hands and said "We'll
see you after the ne:rt blowup in the centers." This
is the kind of snide p;uy that he was. I just said
"There ain't going to be no more" and walked out.

I have already mentioned that we had the poorest
public relations at that time that we had ever had.
I had a real job to clean up the situation particularly
in San Francisco.

210

A Follow Up Of The Tule Lake Incident

DSM: We made a trip in December or early January

particularly with Tule Lake in mind and visited the
representative of the New York Times who was the chap
who had arranged for me to meet with the press club
in San Francisco the night before I went to Tule Lake
and who felt very let down because I didn't reach him
personally at the time of the Tule Lake crisis to
report on what happened. Of course I had tried, but
wasn't able to get through. So I had lunch with him
and after an hour and a half I at least got him to
believe me. He was still feeling low, but we got to
be very good friends again after that.

The San Francisco Chronicle had been the most fair
of any of the larger West Coast papers, but after this
happened they really turned against us. One of the
editorial writers wrote an editorial in which he called
us stupid, ignorant bureaucrats and all of the names
that he could think of that he thought were derogatory.

In the meantime v/e had arranged for Allen Markley,
one of our staff of Washington information men, to go
to Tule Lake and to take over the information job. We
introduced him to the news people including the
Chronicle and some of the other papers and said that
he had been instructed to provide any information which
the papers requested, to allow them into the center
anytime the;/ wished, and to report to them any inci
dent that he thought might be news worthy. This
started us back on the right track but it took some
weeks to get the job done.

Reinstitution Of The Draft Of Nisei

DSM: Fortunately on the 20th of January, 1944 Sec
retary Stirason of the War Department announced the

211

reinstitution of the draft for Japanese Americans.
This had been set aside shortly after the evacuation
order had been issued. We had been pressing for some
time to get it reestablished because we felt that it
was in the interest of the Japanese American group to
have their boys drafted like everybody else. The
excellent record which was achieved by the 100th
battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team between
early 194-3 and early 1944 helped us to get the War
Department to change the orders on the matter of
draftees.

A Change In Status - The Move To The Department Of
The Interior

DSM: As a result of the Tule Lake affair and all the
hubbub that grew up following it and the criticism
that continued out on the coast, the Attorney General
Biddle wrote a memorandum to President Roosevelt and
recommended that we be transferred as an agency to
the Department of Interior. The first two years of
the life of W.R.A. had been one in which we had been
responsible to nobody except the President of the
United States and I had seen him only once.

Fortunately we had the opportunity to develop
our own policies and to defend our own policies with
out any interference from any source whatsoever, but
Attorney General Biddle felt that it was time we had
some cover. He felt that Harold Ickes was the man to
provide it. When I learned that they expected to
transfer us to Interior, I visited Harold Smith of the
Budget Bureau, who had sent my name to the President
in the first instance, and told him I didn't like it.
I thought I would rather go to the Justice Depart
ment and gave all the arguments as to why. I might
say my real reason was that I thought I could handle
Biddle better than I could Harold Ickes. Harold Smith
told me to go see Biddle which I did and Biddle told
me what he had done and as a matter of fact I think he

212

showed me a copy of the memorandum. When I went back
to Harold Smith and he said "If you want to see some
one in the White House you better see Jimmy Byrnes."
Well, I saw Jimmy Byrnes and Jimmy Byrnes listened to
my story and when I p;ot through he said "I think you
had better go to Interior," which we did.

On February 16, 1944- the President issued an
executive order transferring the WRA to the Department
of Interior. In spite of our reservations it turned
out to be a very good move.

The European Refugees

DSM: In early June 194-4- the President announced plans
to bring in one thousand European refugees to the
United States outside of the immigration quotas and
to quarter them in an emergency refugee shelter at
Oswego, New York, to be administered by WRA. This was
something else that came as a surprise to us because
we didn't know until they were ready to announce it
to the press that we were to be asked to take care
of these refugees.

HP: Who were these refugees?

DSM: These were European refugees that had been gathered up
from all over Europe and were in Italy at the time
that this v/as announced.

Evidently the announcement that we were bringing
over one thousand was made with the idea of doing
something that would be considered at least a token
toward doing our share of taking care of refugees
because there was pressure on other countries to take
care of them.

Out of nine hundred sixty-three of the refugees
that came, nine hundred sixteen of them were of Jewish

213

decent and they came from all across Europe — Belgium,
France, Germany of course, and several other countries.
Several of them came from Yugoslavia. Some of them
didn't speak anything except Serb or Croat and we had
to have a translator or a interpreter that could not
only speak German but Serb and Croat and practically
all of the other languages of Europe.

The European refugees were sent to Oswego, New
York, where we took ever an old army post which had
been in existence throughout the years. It was one of
the posts that helped to provide defenses along the
Great Lakes and it hadn't been in use for quite some
time but it served our purpose quite satisfactorily,
because there was room to provide a hospital and ample
room for nine hundred sixty-three refugees, plus
provision for staff r.nd for mess halls and other
facilities. These people were quite unhappy about
being placed in a canip and I couldn't blame them for
that. We recommended, very strongly when we heard that
they were coming that they be absorbed into the popu
lation immediately rather than being placed in a camp.
But evidently the President and his staff felt that
there would be a great deal of criticism if this was
done in view of the :?£;ct that they were being brought
in outside of the immigration laws.

Most of the refugees were people who had never
done any kind of physical labor. They were literary
people, writers, doctors, professional people of
various types, a highly intelligent group of people.
They had had to be in order to escape the places they
came from and to get by with being refugees as long
as they had, because this was 1944- when we got them.

They were an interesting group of people , but
they weren't always easy to deal with; they knew how
to argue and they would argue at length. They decided,
for example, that they were not going to do any menial
work such as unloading coal to keep themselves warm*
During the summer no problem came up but as fall came
on and it began to p;et chilly we needed heat and it had
been our general policy throughout, and we had made
this stick with the other centers, that the evacuees
who ever they were would have to unload the coal and
see to it that it war; delivered to the proper places

214

and to organize groups to do it. Well they weren't
going to do it. So they went on strike and the
director of the camp called me up and wanted to
know what to do about it and I said "Well, if they
want to be cold, why we will have .to let them be
cold. This ic awfully hard hearted. and I can under
stand something of the reaction of these people, but
I am sure that after a day or two they will unload
the coal," which they did. They decided to divide
it up and to take turns and to organize different
crews to take different weeks to get the job done.
We had no more trouble after that as far as the coal
and other scut work was concerned.

We had a number of problems off and on all
through the months between 1944- until December 194-5.
This is the period in which the refugees were in camp
with no opportunity to get out except that they were
free to go into the town of Oswego. The farmers there
abouts wanted some help and some of trie refugees were
willing to go out to pick fruit and that sort of thing.
Generally speaking, however, they stayed within the
general environment of the camp.

In Washington throughout all the weeks and months
that they were in coiap, we were busy trying to get an
order which would allow us to help these people inte
grate into the pattern of the United States generally
and to leave the camp.

HP: Was there much illness from their years of deprivation?

DSM: Very little. The health problem was quite easily

handled because we sent one of our doctors that had
been in the centers up there as head physician. He
had enough skilled help among this group to handle
the problem very well so we had very little health
problem except the normal sort of thing that you will
get in any population this size. It wae very well
taken cars of.

HP: V/ha't was dono about schooling?

D3M: Fortunately the schools of Oswego allowed the children
to come into their schools. Many of them, of course,

215

didn't speak English- well but fortunately the schools
had a good superintendent and a good principal who
got into the spirit of the thing. These youngsters
really proved to be an interesting group of people
among the other youngsters because of their experi
ences. They had had good schooling, and during the
several months that they were there the refugee kids
had a wonderful opportunity in their association with
these other kids to learn English which they did.

HP: Was it dormitory life for the families?

DSM: For the most part, yes. Although it v/as a little
different than it wan in the other centers because
there v/as much more room. We could allot much more
space and they could work out their apartment space
much better because v/e did have more room.

HP: Did it ever increase from the nine hundred sixty-three?
DSM: No. Thin was it, and v/e didn't receive any more.
HP: What became of them? Did they return to Europe?

DSM: Well, finally President Truman decided that it was

time to do something about it and on December 22, 194-5
he issued an order allowing them admission into the
United States. What we had to do was to arrange for
them to go to Canada and come back in in order* to
have status. I believe that only about seventy-five
or eighty went back to Europe, most of them to Yugo
slavia. The rest of them were relocated by the Jewish
agencies which were so helpful to us during this time.
All we had to do was to take them to the gate and they
saw to it that they got to Canada and back to the
United States. The Jewish agencies then found places
for them to live in the United States.

After the people from Oswego were allowed to go
to Canada and come in and apply for American citizen
ship, we had very little contact with most of them.
We did get reports from time to time as to hov.r they
were adjusting. Many of them v/ent to New York City
because they had friends there or because of the fact
that there was a large Jewish population and they felt

216

more at home. Some of them went to Minneapolis and
to a number of other cities throughout the country
where arrangements had been made by the organizations
for them to be accepted. They integrated very well,
having little difficulty as far as being accepted in
the United States and I think most of them were
happier here than they would have been if they had
gone back to Europe.

A young man, Freddie Baum, who served as our inter
preter and whom I have kept in touch with off and on
throughout the years, has been most successful. He
offered his services and they were accepted by the Army
for a time as interpreter and he spent some time in
Europe, but he is now in New York and quite well
situated.

Back To The Problem Of Japanese Americans

DSM: Back now to the main stream of the V/.R.A. program,
the handling of the Japanese Americans who were located
in relocation centers and those who had relocated
throughout the country.

One of the worse pieces of legislation ever passed
by the United States Congress was passed on June 30th of
1944-. This provided that American citizens could re
nounce their America]! citizenship while on American
soil if the renunciation was approved by the Attorney
General. This bill was slipped over as far as W.R.A.
was concerned. We weren't even called for, a hearing when
the bill was up. I learned later that the Attorney
General was misled. Edward Ennis who was our very
good friend and was in charge of the Alien Division
in the Department of Justice unfortunate]. y was pre
occupied with some question that somebody had whispered
to him when the chairman of the committee asked the
Attorney General if he favored the bill and a chap by
the name of M'Grannery who had been a Congressman and

217

who had been moved down to the Justice Department
because he had lost his election and was serving as
Congressional contact man leaned over and urged the
Attorney General Biddle to say yes and he did. The
bill was passed. The President signed it on July 1 ,
1944- and this is the bill that led some five thousand
four hundred evacuees to renounce their American
citizenship, freauently under pressure. Most of them
were at Tule Lake but fortunately only a few hundred
of them returned to Japan. The rest in a series of
court tests over a period of years regained their
American citizenship. I think only about four hundred
did not and some of that group went to Japan. The
great majority of them did regain their American
citizenship. Some of them by court action and later
I think by the action of the Attorney General in 1959
which cleaned up the whole mess. It was a mess and
it was most unfortunate.

Thei First Closing Of A Relocation Center

DSM: On June 30, 1944 we announced the closing of the
first of the relocation centers at Jerome, Arkansas.
This was one of our smaller centers and one of the
last ones to be opened. Our program had gone well
enough that we felt that we could distribute the
people in Jerome quite satisfactorily into other
centers and get along without this particular center.

We had recommended in March 194-3 that the War
Department either lift the evacuation order and allow
people to go back to the West Coast or at least to do
it in part, but we were unsuccessful in getting the
order lifted during 194-3 and early 1944. We did get
some relaxation during the summer of 194-4- when families
of veterans of the 442nd and some other were allowed
quietly to go back to the West Coast without any
announcement.

218

The Lifting Of The Exclusion Orders

DSM: Finally on December 17, 1944- the War Department

after a long battle cf more than twenty months announced
the revocation of the West Coast mass exclusion order
to be effective January 2, 194-5-

HP: Yet the war was still on. Hov; did it happen that these
people were acceptable to the West Coast?

DSM: Well, we knew that these people would be generally

acceptable on the part of the population on the West
Coast. Our big problem was with certain people in the
military who I suppose had a problem of saving face.
Even after the announcement was made on December 17,
General Wilbur who was in charge of civilian activities
on the West Coast held up about ten thousand evacuees
whom they said they had to check out very carefully
before they would allow them to return. This inter
fered with our general relocation program.

It is true that the Japanese war was not over
and wasn't ended until August and as a matter of fact
the teace wasn't signed until early September of 194-5.
We had pressed very hard over the twenty months that
I have mentioned from March 194-.-3 until the time when
the evacuation order was finally lifted to get the
opportunity for these people to return before the war
was over because we felt that the competition for
housing and jobs as well as the competition in many
other things would be very difficult when the war was
over and soldiers began to come back in very large
numbers. As it worked out it happened that we were
already a bit late because the biggest battle we had
in getting people relocated on the coast who wanted
to go back was to find housing for them.

219

Final Relocation Problems

DSH: Rex Lee, my relocation officer out of the Wash
ington office spent weeks and months on the West
Coast and the biggest part of his job was digging up
temporary housing and finding arrangements where
people could live until they could find housing of
their own, simply because many of the soldiers' fami
lies and others had begun to flock into California
toward the end of the war. California had a boom
period at the end of World War II. It started before
the war was over and has continued ever since.

Some of the evacuees had money and could take
care of themselves. We helped some to get jobs. We
transferred money to the Social Security Board and
they arranged with the California State Welfare people
to take care of people who actually had no funds or
jobs. So that we had no problem in that respect. The
problem was to find places for them to stay. I
remember that we had one case that the Los Angeles
Times reporters dug up where there was a family of
tv/elve youngsters and because of the State Welfare
Department they v/ere paying them at a rate of six
thousand dollars a year and they tried to make a big
incident out of it because it was coming out of W.R.A.
funds. Even at that late stage there was still
sniping.

Fortunately we were able to get the evacuees
reestablished at home while the war was still on.
Another problem was that many of the older people,
that is the Issei, among the evacuees, were somewhat
fearful about going home, with some good reason
because there was still some sniping and some shooting
into houses up and down the Central Valley. In any
case they claimed that they had been promised that
they would be allowed to remain in relocation centers
as long as the war was on and there was still a war
on with Japan. So it was difficult to get them to
move out from the centers.

When the Japanese peace treaty was signed in
early September we began to have a big movement and

220

we were able to keep our schedule for closing cen
ters.

As soon as the announcement came that the order
had been lifted w:e he.d announced immediately that the
relocation centers would all be closed within a year
from the time the evacuation order went into effect.
We were able to keep that schedule because we set up
a schedule in June of 194-5 for final closing of all
of the centers excepting Tule Lake which was delayed
a bit because of the renunciants.

We closed the first ones in September and the
last ones were supposed to close by December 1st but we
beat the dead line a bit because we finished up two
weeks ahead of time. There were some difficulties
other than housing and I'll touch on them again a
little bit later.

Supreme Court Decisions

DSM: Very interestingly on the same date thot the Army
announced that the evacuation order would be lifted on
January 2, 194-5 the Supreme Court issued a ruling that
the evacuation order had been constitutional in the
Koromatsu case. In the "Endo" case, which was a case
of a young Nisei girl who had asked that she go freely
from the centers without signing up of forms or any
thing of the sort, which we wanted heard long before
it v/as heard, much to our pleasure they, the Supreme
Court, held, that a loyal American citizen should not
be held under any circumstances. This was a ruling
that we had been hoping for for months.

The reason why we didn't get it before the Court
sooner was because the Solicitor General Charles
Fahey had a record that he didn't want to break. He
had won every case that he had argued before the Supreme
Court and he was sure that he was goinp; to lose this
one. We argued with him time and time again and he

221

finally agreed to take it to the court but the ruling
came out the very day the Army lifted their restric
tions. Solicitor General Fahey asked us several times
to mute the case, but v/e wanted the backing of the
Supreme Court to permit the evacuees to go where they
wanted to go at anytime.

More Final Relocation Problems

DSM: 1 have mentioned the fact that there were some
dastardly things perpetrated to keep people from
coming back. On January 8 an attempt was made to
dynamite -and burn a fruit packing shed ov/ned by a
returning evacuee in Placer County, California. This
was the first of about thirty incidents involving
violence. Most of these consisted of shooting into
the homes of returned evacuees between January 8 and
about mid-June. They weren't shooting at people.
They were using long range rifles, shooting into cor
ners of houses hoping to scare people out and to din-
courage their return.

HP: Who do you suppose was doing thisY

DSM: The people who were doing it were for the most part
young farmer lads and others up and down the Central
Valley who had either taken over some of the rented
land that they didn't want to give up or who didn't
want the competition. We pretty well knew who was
doing it in some cases.

As a matter of fact, we had one case come up
before a Justice of the Peace and he released the boys
on probation and Secretary Ickes let out a blast at
him that practically blew him out of his job. This
was one of the good things that Secretary Ickes did
and could do better than anybody else in the world.
It helped to calm things a bit.

222

Between January 10 and January 20, 194-5 we estab
lished key relocation offices in Los Angeles, San
Francisco and Seattle, and many district offices were
established throughout the three states of Washington,
Oregon and California to assist returning evacuees in
becoming reestablished wherever they wished to go.
Host of them went back to their old homes or to their
old areas, but not all of them.

All out opposition developed on the part of many
evacuees in centers, and many former friends of good
will who had supported us throughout the years who
objected to closing centers because they were fearful
that people were not going to be accepted. They
feared that the violence was going to continue and they
insisted that we keep at least two or three centers
for welfare cases and others.

As a consequence many of these good people joined
the race baiters to urge the evacuees to stay put
rather than to face the gunfire and the violence plus
possible unemployment. However, we had made well
established plans for the welfare cases to be taken
care of. We had arranged also with the employment
services so we had little difficulty in finding
employment for people who were not immediately able
to get back into their regular line of work. There
wasn't much argument about lack of employment because
there was still plenty of employment. This was one of
the reasons why we wanted to get people back before
the war ended. I think I mentioned that in June or
July a definite schedule of closing of centers was
announced that would take place between September 15
and December 15. The last center was closed out
except Tule Lake on December 1 .

One of the very wonderful things that happened
during the battle to get people accepted back on the
Coast was the fact that Captain George Grandstaff who
was a Californian and who had fought with the 442nd
Regimental Combat Team went home on leave during this
period and he became GO incensed about what was hap
pening thnt he wrote the War Department and asked them
to allow him to go on speaking tour on behalf of the
Japanese Americans throughout California and he did
Just that.

223

He not only went on speaking tour and talked to
Rotarians and Kiwanis Clubs, but he would also visit
the sheriff, and the local officers of places like
Placerville and other places where violence had
occurred. The tour worked out so well that before
it was all over we bad about five other young officers
who volunteered and we covered the whole state of
California with meetings telling of the fine record
of Nisei soldiers.

Finally we had the help of a Colonel from the
Asiatic front who had been involved with the boys
who had gone to language school and who had served' as
the eyes and ears of the various divisions throughout
the battles with the Japanese. When this colonel
came and listed some of the wonderfiil services he
cleaned up the opposition pretty fast. He cleared
most of the kind of misinformation and the kind of
rumors that had been spread around.

After V.J. Day, August 15, 194-5, when the Japanese
decided to surrender, the Western Defense Command
finally issued a proclamation (September 4-, 194-5)
revoking all individual exclusion orders from the
evacuated area. This gave us the opportunity to help
anyone who wanted to go back to that area to go.

On December 22, 1944 President Truman issued the
order which provided the admission of the European
refugees to the United States with the prospect of
their becoming citizens. As a result of the Presi
dent ' s order relating to the refugees at Oswego we
were able to close the Oswego center. On February 4-,
194-6 and on February 23, 194-6 the last group of re-
patriots who were going back to Japan, four hundred
thirty-two in number, sailed to Japan from Long Beach,
California.

Tule Lake was finally closed on March 20, 194-6
after we had arranged for the Justice Department to
take some of the evacuees who were aliens and their
families into their detention centers. These were
people who had not yet been allowed to return to the
Coast or who had not yet decided whether they wanted
to return to Japan. This gave us the opportunity to

Secretary of the Interior Julius Krug congratulating Dillon Myer upon receipt of the Medal
for Merit, 1946. The medal was received as a result of his work during World War II as
Director of the War Relocation Authority.

224

finish the official life of WRA by June 30,

An Award. For ;.7ork Well Done

DoM: On Hay 8 the Director of WRA. received the Medal
for Merit because of the work that the WRA staff had
done throughout the war. It hangs on my wall today
as something to remind me of the pride we had in doing
the best possible job under difficult circumstances.

The Wind Up Of WRA In 1946

DSM: On May 15 the last of our field offices were

closed. We were able to arrange with local committees
throughout the west Coast and other parts of the
country where they were needed to help carry on any
assistance to the evacuees that they might need and on
June 30 we closed our doors as an official agency and
called it quits.

One thing that we did was to arrange for a small
group mainly of administrative people to continue on
for another year to clean up all of the bills and all
of the paper work that had to be completed. We also
arranged for Robert Gullum, who had been one of our
good relocation officers to continue for a year to
spend his time getting about and learning how evacuees
were getting on and how they were making out in their
resettlement areas. He was able to issue a report
at the end of the year as a printed report of this
phase of the operation.

225

CHAPTER X

A PERIOD OF CHANGE

\
More About My Good Boss Secretary Ickes

DSM: In view of the fact that I have already stated

that I was reluctant to go to the Interior Department
1 think that 1 should now state that it was a very
fortunate thing- that the President did decide that we
should move to the Interior Department because Secre
tary Ickes was probably one of the best boscen that I
have ever had and I have had severe 1 throughout my
lifetime.

He wrote a newspaper column after he left the
job as Secretary of Interior in which he stated that
he had examined the policies of the Vi/RA and found them
good, and that he didn't interfere except to let his
fists fly occasionally when we needed some help of
that type. That was literally true. He supported me
on every issue that came up.

Abe Fortas , who was the Under Secretary and who
I reported to for the most part, was very helpful
although there were certain things that we did not
agree upon. Some of the men in the Justice Depart
ment felt that Tule Lake should be transferred to
them at a stage when we felt that we could handle it
better and I had to argue against this and the Secre
tary fortunately supported my position in the matter.
We stuck it out and were able to finish the job better
I think than they could have done because they didn't
have the background.

Under Secretary Fortas also worried because of
the pressures on the part of the goodwill people about

226

closing out centers, and many of them, as I have
already said, would have liked us to have kept on
two or three centers to take care of many of the
older people who they thought couldn't readjust
easily. This finally went to the Secretary. V/hen
we were ready to announce our schedule of closing
centers the Secretary said "Well, we will hold this
question in abeyance until September and if you are
still on schedule where you plan to be at that time
I think you can go ahead and if not we will review
it at that time." Well, when we reviewed the matter
around September 1st I think we were only just less
than fifty people off the schedule that we had said
that we would have relocated by that time and the
Secretary said "Go ahead." V/e had no further trouble
about that.

Nevertheless I have appreciated very much the
aid and the help that I received from Abe Fortas and
from Harold Ickes in particular of all people who I
wasn't sure would give us this kind of support.

I had come out of the Department of Agriculture
and of course Henry Wallace as Secretary of Agricul
ture and Harold Ickes had been fighting over the
Forest Service and many other things and he wasn't
too happy with Agriculture. About the time we were
to finish up our job he called me in one day and
offered me another job as head of the division of
Insular Possessions and in doing so he said "I don't
know if you know it or not but when you were trans
ferred over here I was skeptical about you." I
grinned at him and said "Mr. Secretary, it was mutual
I assure you," and he laughed and we v/ent on about
our business.

I turned that job down because I told him that
it was too early for me to leave W.R.A. V/e had gone
through the worst of it. We were now ready to
finish off and I wanted to see the job through and
he understood that.

HP: I wonder how many jobs offers you have had in your
career?

DSM: I counted up one time and I had, as I remember it,

thirteen or fourteen job offers as I was leaving W.R.A,

22?

HP: It would be interesting to know how many you had
during your entire career.

DSM: I don't think I could remember all of them.

After WRA I was offered the job as Chief of
the Missouri Valley Reclamation Program, the regional
program. Mike Strauss was intent on my taking it but
I told them that I didn't believe I wanted to move
out of Washington at that stage of the game. So in
stead the Secretary offered me a job as Assistant
Secretary of Interior and my name went to the White
House but before it got to Capitol Hill Secretary
Ickes went to the Hill and opposed the appointment
of Ed Pauley as Secretary of the Navy and did it so
violently that the President asked for his resigna
tion and got it. As a consequence my name was not
sent to the Hill as Assistant Secretary and I missed
the opportunity to be in the junior cabinet.

The Offer Of A Governorship Of Puerto Rico

DSM: Finally before I had completly made my decision
about what I was going to do I was offered the job
of Governor of Puerto Rico and I turned it down.
Secretary of Interior Krug had talked to President
Truman about it and the President said "Let me talk
to him."

So I made a date and went over to see the Presi
dent and he told me that what they needed down there
was an administrator and he hoped that I would take
the job. In the meantime I knew that he had lying
on his desk a recommendation from Wilson Wyatt that
I become the Commissioner of the Public Housing
Administration. This was a job which I decided that
I would like to take because I found out something
about the kind of housing that people had to live in
when I was visiting evacuees in Chicago and other
places in the slummy parts of these cities. Phil

228

Klutznick who had been the former commissioner had
made the recommendation that I take on the job.

I wasn't at all sure that I wanted to handle
the kind of social functions and extra curricular
activities that the Governor of Puerto Rico would
have to carry out in the way of entertaining and
related activities so I turned it down. My wife and
family have never been quite happy about this because
they thought I should have taken it but I took the
housing job instead.

Before going on to other Jobs, I want to revert
for just a moment to W.R.A. Shortly after the Tule Lake
incident I had an invitation to appear before one of
the luncheon clubs called the Downtown Club or some
such name in Los Angeles and when I arrived on the
scene I found a minister who was leading a group of
racists and who were sitting right up in the front
rows waiting to heckle me, I was sure. I made my
speech and of course I told them among other things
about the Tule Lake incident and what had happened
and some of the reasons why it had happened. During
the question and answer period a gentleman got up
back in the middle of the room and said "Mr. Director,
if the sort of thing that happened at Tule Lake had
happened in Japan what do you think the Japanese would
have done with the instigators?" I said "They would
have shot them, but fortunately we live in a country
where we don't believe in shooting people for what v/e
think they are thinking." Well, there were no more
questions of that type. From there on we went on an
even keel and I as usual enjoyed the meeting. I had
had enough heckling in my lifetime that I didn't
mind heckling.

An Interim Interlude

DSM: After we completed the W.R.A. program on July 1,
194-6 there was an interim that needed to be filled in

229

before I took over tbe Housing ,job including Retting
my name to the Hill and getting it acted on by the
Senate. Oscar Chapman had asked me to come over to
Interior in the meantime and to hold intra-departmental
budget hearings and to make recommendations for the
departmental planning program. So on July 1 Philip
Glick, Edwin Ferguson, and I along with a representa
tive of the Government Organization Division of the
Bureau of the Budget went to work on the budgetary
problems of the department and upon recommendations
for a departmental planning unit.

This group spent six weeks on these two nobs. I
am not sure just how much contribution we made on the
budgetary problems but the department did adopt our
recommendations for a departmental planning unit which
was staffed and 1 believe is still functioning at the
departmental level.

A Battle Over Senate Confirmation

DSM: In the meantime Senator Taft of Ohio, which is
my home state, became irked presumably because my
name was presented to the committee for the ,job of
Commissioner of the Federal Public Housing Authority
while he was away in Ohio making a speech. He hap
pened to be a member of the committee before which
I was to appear. Consequently Senator w'agner who was
chairman proceeded with the hearing one afternoon,
reported my name out and by the time Senator Taft got
back it was an accepted thing as far as the committee
was concerned. Taft was quite obviously sore.

I did get a date to go up and see him but I
didn't make much impression on him. He had made up
his mind that Truman had tried to slip over something
and he was very unhappy. So he objected to my con
firmation during that particular session and the Con
gress adjoined without my being confirmed. So I
started an interim appointment on August 16,

230

until the following session when my name was presented
again to the committee in 194-7.

In the meantime Harry P. Cain, who was a new
Senator from the state of Washington, was elected to
the Senate and Joseph R. McCarthy from Wisconsin was
also a new Senator. Both of them were members of the
committee before which I was to appear. These two
were the only two on the committee who voted against
my confirmation.

Before the committee finally acted I received a
call from Senator Tobey who became chairman of the
committee in the Eightieth Congress. He asked that
I come up immediately if possible and when I arrived
Senator Harry Cain was talking and Senator Tobey
interrupted him to tell me that I had been charged
with bad faith because of a previous statement re
garding the policy relating to the sale of war
housing. As a result Senator Cain and I had a real
tough go-round for about a half hour or an hour and
following this episode the committee voted to recom
mend my confirmation without the vote of Cain and
McCarthy who voted no.

231

CHAPTER XI

A MOVE TO HOUSING AS COMMISSIONER OF F.P.H.A.

DSM: It was only after starting on the gob as Com
missioner of Public House ing that I learned that the
House Appropriations Committee had assigned Robert E.
Lee, now a member of the Federal Communication Commis
sion, as an assistant to investigate the F.P.H.A. This
was an important development because this was the
first year of the imfamous Eightieth Congress which
made the kind of record on which President Truman
based his campaign in 1948. As it developed I found
it necessary to devote much of my time during my year
and a half incumbency in the job as Commissioner in
defense of the agency and its record during the war
years.

By the end of 194-6 the appropriations sub-committee
on government corporations was beginning to leak bits
of the so-called investigative material to the press
and finally one of the New York newspapers carried
nearly a column and a half of scurrilous trumped up
information which had been presumably gleaned by
Robert E. Lee and his partner who had been assigned
to investigate the housing program.

At that time Congressman Ben Jensen of Iowa was
the chairman of the appropriations sub-committee that
handled our appropriations hearing and he promised me
from time to time that we could see the investigative
report when available but he couldn't deliver so we
never saw it. The sub-committee was dominated by
Walter Ploeser from Missouri, Fredrick Coudert of
New York and Jamie Whitten of Mississippi and there
never was any question but what this trio and others
were out to kill Public Housing.

The Public Housing Agency had the responsibility
during the war for the building of all of the temporary,
semi-permanent and permanent war housing that was
built; for the management of that housing during the

232

war period; and the continued management and sale of
the housing that was supposed to be sold after the
war. This gave a great deal of opportunity for
sniping and the opportunity was not overlooked.

I had much to learn about the F.P.H.A. organiza
tion, the authority of the agency, procedures and poli
cies, before hearings on confirmation and before having
hearings before the appropriations committee. There
was also many hearings before the Banking and Currency
Committee of the House in particular and some before
the Finance Committee of the Senate. The House com
mittee on Banking and Currency was headed by Congress
man Jesse Wolcott of Michigan. On one or two occasions
there were joint hearings before the Banking and
Currency Committee and the Appropriations Corporation
Sub-committee on housing policies, especially policies
in regard to the disposal of war housing. We adopted
the procedure of getting a full report from our field
staff on every item appearing in the press so that we
would be prepared to answer properly when appearing
before the committees.

In spite of the many many sniping charges we were
able to identify the source and the charges and to
fill in the story before testifying and we were
correct in our assumptions in all cases with one
exception. I missed it in regard to something that
had happened in Texas and the committee had a smile
about this but the rest of the time we hit the pro
blem directly on the head and I think they were some
what surprised in view of the fact that we had not
seen the investigative report and didn't always know
where the investigative report came from.

The leaders of the opposition to Public Housing
in the House acted upon the theory that iteration and
reiteration of a story made the story true in the
minds of most people. So the Corporation Sub-committee
replayed the material that had been leaked to the New
York paper earlier by putting out their own press
release. Then after a very short period of a few
weeks they passed it on to Congressman John Taber who
was chairman of the whole appropriation committee who
played the same material in a press release put out
by himself and then they passed on the material to

233

the Banking and Currency Committee and Congressman
Jesse Wolcott and his cohorts after a short time
replayed the same material in a press release.

It developed that the Corporation Sub-Committee
made the investigative report available to members of
the press by simply laying it out on the table and
allowing them to come in and look at it and to glean
from it any tidbits that they thought .might be ur.cful
in their own local areas. When we realized what had
happened I called Ben Jensen and reminded him of his
promise to see that we got a chance to see the inves
tigative report in case anybody saw it. He hemmed and
hawed about it and 1 realized that he was under orders
from the stronger members of the sub-committee not to
allow it to happen.

Finally at a Corporation Sub-committee hearing in
the middle of 194-7, Congressman Ploeser and Jamie
Whitten in my presence discussed with the sub-committee
members the question of whether the investigative re
port by Robert E. Lee and his aide should be published
by the committee for general distribution. Since v/e
had never seen the report I interrupted to tell the
sub-committee that v/e felt that since v/e had not had
an opportunity to reply to the report it would be un
fair to the agency and to the American people unless
v/e had the opportunity to reply to such a publication.

Congressman Ploeser who had taken over the
chairmanship of the subcommittee in the meantime from
Congressman Jensen informed me in no uncertain terms
that the subcommittee would decide what to do with
the report without the need of advice from m-e. I
granted that I knew that this would be possible and
a probablity but it would still be unfair to the
American public and to the agency. I might add that
the report as such was never published.

HP: This must have been a trying time for you.
DSM: Yes, it was.

The Corporation Sub-committee retaliated by cut
ting our budget for staff and administrative purposes
drastically r,o we found it necessary to reduce staff

234

both in Washington and in the field. We combined the
Seattle and San Francisco Regional Offices, made
drastic adjustments in other field offices and in
Washington and by the time this adjustment was required
Raymond Foley, former Commissioner of the Federal
Housing Authority, had replaced Wilson Wyatt as head
of the Housing and Home Finance Agency. I presented
our plans for making our adjustments in personnel and
in cuts required on two or three occasions to Raymond
Foley and his staff and I thought that I had his
approval to go ahead with our plan. So I called a
meeting of our regional people and key representatives
of our Washington office to outline our plan.

On the very morning about fifteen minutes before
I was expected to go into the meeting to make the
announcement Frank Waters, who was then serving as
the Administrative Officer for Raymond Foley and the
Housing Agency, appeared on the scene and said that
Ray Foley had asked him to come over and tell us that
he didn't want to go ahead with any personnel changes
at that time and that we should hold up action. I,
of course, was baffled and incensed. I called Ray
Foley on the phone and explained that we had reviewed
the proposals thoroughly and I felt that I had his
approval and that I could not understand the switch.
I explained that it would be most embarrassing to
everyone concerned including him and myself and the
agency. He finally said grudgingly "Go ahead" but
that we might have to take another look at it later.
So we went ahead.

I am sure that Ray Foley at that stage wanted
my resignation and he thought that this move might
bring it. Later in the Congressional session of 194-7
the Congress passed a Housing Reorganization Act which
established the Housing and Home Finance Agenc?/ which
included under its charter the Inblic Housing Admini
stration, the Federal Housing Administration, and the
Home Loan <3ank Board. The passage of this legislation
required the re confirmation by the Senate of all the
incumbent heads of all of these sub-agencies who were
Presidential Appointees.

'i'his meant that my name as Commissioner of the
Public Housing Administration would need to be ixre-

235

sented again to the Senate. Not long after this
legislation had passed and had been signed, John
Steelman who at that time was serving as President
Truman's right-hand man and trouble-shooter, called
me and said the President wanted me to join the White
House staff as one of the anonyomous Presidential
assistants. He made no explanation as to why. After
trying for two or three weeks to get Steelman to tell
my why the proposed change of jobs I finally asked to
see the President. 1 had no trouble getting an appoint
ment with President Truman and when I entered his office
I found him busy looking over a stack of telegrams
regarding a speech which he had made a few days before
relating to his argument with Senator Taft regarding
the cent inuat ion of OPA.

He explained what he was doing and when I asked
him how they were running he said "Mostly favorable."
Then he handed me one from an undertaker somewhere in
Arizona and after I read it he said "That son of a.
bitch wants an answer from me for advertising purposes
but he ain't going to get it."

Then I told the President about my dilemma, and
told him I wished to know if he was unhappy with my
administration of P. IT. A. He said "There isn't anyone I
would rather have on the job as Commissioner of P.H.A.
than yourself, but Bob Taft has told us that he wiir
oppose your reconfirmation, and since he comes from
your home state we don't think we can get the job done
in view of his opposition." I thanked the President
and told him that I appreciated both his confidence
and his frankness. I then said that I appreciated
his offer to be a member of his immediate staff as an
assistant to the President but if he had no objections
I would like to explore the field before making a
decision. He said that would be perfectly all right
with him.

I was offered two different jobs at this time.
One was the job as Commissioner of the Bureau of
Indian Affairs which I was interested in but after
errploration with people on the Hill who handled appro
priations and Indian legislation, I found that the
adminintrntive budget was so tight and with very little
chance of getting it changed in the Eightieth Congress,

2J6

which was anti-administration, I didn't feel that it
would be possible to make the adjustments that I felt
were going to be necessary to get the Job done that I
wanted to do. I felt that I wouldn't have the elbow
room administratively to do an adequate job. So I
turned it down.

The other job was that of President of'the
Institute of Inter-American Affairs. More about that
a little later.

In the meantime I notified Ray Poley that I would
be moving to the new job as of January 1 and that
during the tv/o or three weeks interim I planned to
take some vacation. So 1 went gaily off to Florida
for a rest that I felt that I very badly needed after
battling over the housing program.

During the time that I v/as gone I designated
Philip Glick, the PHA counsel, as acting Commissioner
in my stead. But upon my return I found that Ray Foley
had asked that I be transferred immediately, and as a
consequence they had had to ask the State Department to
put me on their payroll by the use of a special fund
of some type until the decks could be cleared on
January 1 by the resignation of the former President
of the Institute.

In the meantime Ray Foley designated John Epan
head of the Management Division as the Acting Commis
sioner. This was the second sleezy trick that Ray
Foley had pulled and it wasn't very much appreciated.

The year and one half as Commissioner of the
Federal Public Housing Authority was spent in large
part learning what I needed to know about the program,
the laws and the established policies and in fighting
off the wolves in the National Real Estate Board and
in the Congress who were attempting to kill the public
housing program.

The biggest job otherwise had to do with the pro
blems of management, sale and reconstruction of wartime
housing which had been the major job of the agency
during the war years and following. Because of the
tremendous demand for veterans' housing much of the

237

so-called temporary housing was either used in place
or moved and reconstructed for veterans ' use especially
in urban centers like New York and many other centers
throughout the country. Pressures for the sale of
semi-permanent and permanent housing were heavy and
many projects were sold.

Some of it was sold and moved by the purchasers
where it was possible to move it. The largest sale
that we made during this period including Fairlington,
a large apartment building which had been constructed
in Fairfax County, Virginia, and the McLean Gardens
Apartments in Washington, D.C. These two were sold as
one package and I as Commissioner received the biggest
check that I have ever had in my hands as a down pay
ment on this package deal. It was in the neighborhood
of four million dollars.

One of the major battles developed over the sale
of housing to veterans cooperatives. Jesse Wolcott and
Ben Jensen as chairman of the Banking and Currency Com
mittee and the Corporation Sub-committee respectively,
held a hearing on the policy relating to credit and
then put out a press release in which they demanded
that we sell for cash on the barrel head. We followed
this action by addressing a carefully worded letter to
the two chairmen pointing out that such a policy would
mean that only the large and rich real estate operators
could buy under the policy which they had laid down
and which I was sure was their intent and the veterans
groups generally would be unable to purchase.

Drew Pearson's office heard of the hassel. They
called me to ask about our response and I told them
that we had sent a letter. They asked if they might
have a copy and I said of course. It was public busi
ness and I supplied a copy to them and they published
the gist of our reply and it really stirred up the dogs.
Veterans wrote in to Jensen and Wolcott. Jensen par
ticularly was very upset and as a result however they
did provide authority for the use of federally guaran
teed loans which served the purpose which we had in
mind in eny case.

Ben Jensen was very angry at me, for he thought
that I had initiated the action by contacting Drew

Pearson, which if course I had not done. It took
yeaz^s to calm him down and to get back to a reason-
ally friendly basis with him. This was of some
importance because he was still a member of the appro
priation sub-committee that handled our appropriations
for Indian Affairs later.

There was very little activity in starting new .
public housing projects during 194-6 and 194-7 but
additional housing units were added in some areas by
the transfer of war housing to the Public Housing
local agencies handling public housing.

A^ Visit From The hay or Of^ Minneapolis

DSK: One visitor that I had while I was Commissioner
was the Mayor of Minneapolis, Hubert H. Humphrey. He
came in to get more information about public housing
and housing legislation. There were two things of
some importance to me that grew out of that visit.
Hubert Humphrey went back to Minnesota and pushed a
bill through the Minnesota legislature authorizing a
public housing program for the State of Minnesota at
a time when this seemed like an impossible task in
view of the fact that everything seemed to be running
against public housing.

The other matter of importance was that I became
a great admirer of Hubert Humphrey beginning with that
visit and my admiration has grown throughout the
twenty years of acquaintance.

239

My Last Days In Housing

DSM: Had I realized what was to happen in the public
housing area during the period when I was to take
over the job I probably would have accepted the offer
to become the last appointed Governor of Puerto Rico
in spite of my antipathy to the social and protocol
requirements of that office which led to my non-
acceptance. The Public Housing milieu was a strange
environment for a farm boy who had spent the first
fifty years of his life on the farm or in agricul
tural work. The atmosphere in housing was almost
one hundred percent urban and I am sure that many of
the city reared staff and supporters never quite
understood the actions of a farm reared lad.

Perhaps it was just not a matter of being farm
reared. I could not accustom myself to the ease with
which many of the people in the housing field were
able to adjust their sights in order to meet the
political needs of the moment, and also their will
ingness in some cases to overlook regulations and to
do things which I had been brought up to avoid because
it was either dishonest or it was disloyal or for some
other ethical reason. Most of the people that I worked
v/ith were efficient arid highly ethical. But there
were people on the staff or in local housing author
ities who I felt did not hold the type of ethical
standards that I felt should be maintained.

When the word got around that I was leaving
housing I had two jobs offered to me. One of them
'was the job of Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian
Affairs. After spending a week or two investigating
the possibility of additional funds for the admini
strative area where I felt that I needed some elbow
room, I gave that up because I didn't think we had a
chance during the Eightieth Congress to secure the
appropriations necessary to make the adjustments that
I thought needed to be made.

240

CHAPTER XII

A DECISION TO MOVE TO THE INSTITUTE OP INTER-AMERICAN
AFFAIRS AS PRESIDENT

DSM: The other job was the Presidency of the Institute
of Inter-American Affairs. John Drier, who was an old
friend of mine and a former employee in the Soil Con
servation Service was a member of the Department of
State. He had recommended that I take on the Institute
job. After being interviewed by Norman Armour and
other members of the board of trustees I agreed to take
on the job as of January 1, 1948.

This agency included segments of the program which
was organized and supervised by Nelson Rockefeller as
Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs which had had its
beginnings in 1939 and was greatly expanded during
World War II. After World War II it was drastically
reduced again. Nelson Rockefeller had established a
series of corporations chartered under Delaware laws
and those that still existed after the war were brought
together under the Government Corporation Act as a
federal government corporation.

This corporation was named the Institute of Inter-
American Affairs and there were three major divisions
responsible for the supervision of projects in Latin
America. The largest division or activity was the
health and sanitation program, which had projects in
eighteen of the twenty-two Latin American countries.
There was an educational division which ranked second
in number of projects. They limited their activities
to vocational educational projects in twelve countries.
The third division supervised the agricultural programs
in four countries at the time that I took over. The
program had been under study in 1945 to determine
whether it should be continued. Two representatives
of the State Department visited Latin America at
different times to appraise the work of the Institute.
Louis Halle who now lives in Switzerland and has
written many articles and books and a former member of

241

the State Department, was one of those and Andy Corey,
who is now the Ambassador to Ceylon, both made trips
to Latin America, separately. They both came back
most enthusiastic about the programs and their testi
mony before the Congressional Committees had a most
important bearing on the issuance of a new charter.

In 194-8 only about three and a half million
dollars were appropriated for the work carried for
ward by the U.S. Government under the three divisions
and the administrative fund was so drastically reduced
that we found it necessary to eliminate the field
auditors, and this led us into a battle with the
General Accounting Office at a later date.

A head of the division of GAO resented the fact
that as a government corporation we were not subject
to the same field audit procedure by the GAO as were
non-corporate agencies. So he dug up many incidents
of what he claimed were improper expenditures that
went all the way back to 194-0. All of these alleged
discrepancies happened before my time but they pre
sented their case before the House Committeie on Govern
ment Expenditures of which Porter Hardy of Virginia
was chairman. This meant that we were called upon to
dig back through the records to check every case pre
sented in order to be prepared to defend the agency.
This we did and after several days of hearings we
came out on top. This is the first and only time that
I won an argument with the General Accounting Office,
lioxvever the GAO representative retaliated by charging
that I was opposed to auditors and to audits because
we had found it necessary to drop our field audit
staff in order to maintain adequate finance staff.

The Institute projects were carried on in coop
eration with the various Latin American governments
by means of a unique device called a "Servicio." A
"Servicio" was established as a separate entity of the
Latin American governments and was usually headed by
the Institute Party Chief but jointly financed, and
the joint contributions constituted a "Servicio" fund
which served to provide finances for personnel, and
for other costs such as materials and local labor.
The field party members were hired and financed by
the Institute.

24-2

This constituted a very happy working arrangement
in most countries and the "Servicio" carried on even
after changes in regimes in all cases with one excep
tion. The "Servicio" provided stability and avoided
political manipulation to a large extent and we were
also assured that the funds were being properly looked
after which was not always true in the Latin American
governments.

The one project which was dropped during my regime
was in Guatemala where the Communists were moving in
and wanted full control of all the educational activi
ties. The pressure became so heavy that the educa
tional program was dropped during that period. The
expenditures of the various "Servicio" programs were
at least three times ?..s much as we contributed from
the Institute budget because appropriations were made
by the local government to these various projects which
were generally ouite popular.

Charter

DSivi: Before approaching Congress for a bill for a new
charter it was necessary first of all to get the sup
port of our board of directors, all of whom were key
members of tne State Department staff; the Secretary
of State; and then' the bureau of the Budget.

I haa decided in the meantime that we should
start at least a year ahead of time in order to be
sure to have the chapter extended which was to run
only until '1950. Norman Armour was Assistant Secre
tary of State for Latin American Affairs and the
Chairman for the Institute Board of Trustees at the
time of my arrival on the scene but unfortunately he
had retired soon after, and Paul C. Daniels, an old
otate Department hanc . was made Acting Assistant Secre
tary and he unfortunately like several of the old time
foreign service officers were opposed to the work of
the Inrtitutc. They felt that it simply messed up

their so-called diplomatic functions. As a result of
this change my proposal for a new charter was held up
for many v/eeks because the Acting Assistant Secretary
and Chairman of the Board did not approve.

I finally asked for a meeting with the Acting
Secretary of State at a time when Secretary George
Marshall was away. Robert A. Lovett was Acting Secre
tary. I presented my case to him in quick summary in
about ten minutes and he approved our approach so we
were on our way again. We had no trouble in getting
the approval from the Bureau of the Budget.

The next problem was to get the right sponsorship
in the Congress. Congressman John Key from West
Virginia was chairman of the House committee on
foreign affairs and at the time was ill and in the
hospital. When I went to see the Acting Chairman,
James P. Richards of South Carolina, he told me that
he was favorable but he felt that he should clear
with Representative Key before acting. This he did
and in our next meeting he was so friendly that he
said that he would name a sub-committee to hold hear
ings and asked who I would like as chairman of the
sub-committee. I immediately told him that Hike
Mansfield of Montana would be my choice, lie then
told me who he would appoint as the other members of
the sub-committee and he particularly advised me to
see Robert B. Chiperfield of Illinois who was the
ranking Republican on the committee and also on the
sub-committee. I visited Representative Chiperfield
and found that he favored action in the Latin American
countries but was opposed to foreign aid in other parts
of the world. The result was that we had a very
friendly sub-committee and our bill went to the House
and was passed in good time.

I found that our "friendly enemy" in the General
Accounting Office had not given up however because he
had convinced Mike Mansfield and Porter Hardy that we
should have some field auditors. So before the bill
went before the full committee and to the House I
agreed to hire at least three auditors if the bill
was passed. This is the kind of compromise you some
times have to make under pressures of this type.

244

Senator Tom Connelly of Texas who was chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senator Arthur
vandenburgh was the ranking Republican member. We
were asked to make some compromises upon the sugges
tions of Senator Vandenburgh. 1 felt strongly that
we should stand by our bill but the State Department
counsel took it upon himself to agree with the change
from the ten years to five as to the length of the
charter and also to & limitation on funds v:hich was
somewhat lower than I had hoped for.

Another Offer To Head The Bureau Of Indian Affairs

DSM: The bill was finally passed in good order but not
before President Truman called me at home after his
reelection in 1948 and asked me to take over the job
as Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This
was the second time 1 had been asked to take this job.
I told the President that we hrd some problems that
needed my attention r,nd he said to make a date with
Matt Connelly, his appointments officer, and come in
to see him. So I called Matt and the appointment was
set up.

During our visit I told the President that we had
just gotten under way with what I felt \tfas an impor
tant proposed piece of legislation to extend the
charter of the Institute and I felt that I should see-
it through to final, passage for I was fearful that
anyone new would, have problems unless he could have
several months to prepare himself as I had had. The
President said "well, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has
gone along for ciuite some time without any Commissioner'
and maybe two or three months more would not make too
much difference."

24-5

A ^Successful Appeal For More Funds

DSH: 1 then took the bull by the horns and said "Mr.
President, I have another problem." He said "What ' c
that." I replied "We are asking for an increase in
funds for the next fiscal year for the Institute and
I was fearful that we might not pet it and it was
badly needed." He pulled a pad over to him and he
then said "How much do you need?" I said "Five million
dollars," which was about one and one half million
dollars more than the budget at that time. It was the
only time in my lengthy career in government that I
ever had the chance to appeal to a President for funds.
We got our funds approved by the Bureau of the Budget.

Some months later a friend, Hel Spector, told me
that he had been seated next to Fred Lawton, Director
of the Bureau of the Budget, at an administrative
organization meetinp.:. After a time he asked Fred Lav/ton
if he knew Dillon Hyer and Lav/ton beean to laugh and
said "Yes, 1 know Dili] on i'iyer. I have a funny story
to tell you." lie then told Mel that when he was
Director of the Bureau of the jjudget he had taken
the proposed annual budget over to President Truman
for his review and approval and in the midst of their
discussion the President said "By the way 1 want you
to give Dillon hyer what he requesting - Five million
dollars." 1 then said "Why Mr. President?", and
President Truman said "I have a shitty ass job that 1
want him to do." He of course was referring to the
Bureau of Indian Affairs job.

1 have always considered that my major contribu
tion to the Institute of Inter-American Affairs was
securing the passage of the bill that extended to
charter to 1955 » and the increased budget which the
President helped with. As a matter of fact if he had
not said to give it to us we probably would not have
had it.

The Institute was rather a ouiet spot after w'RA
and Public. Housing Administration because there war;
very little Congressional interest except by the
Committees on Foreign Affairs and Foreign Relations.

246

There were few if any Congressmen who had constitu-
tents in Latin America. Consequently the calls from
Congressmen and Senators were few and far between but
it was an interesting and worthwhile job. I visited
a number of Latin American countries during two major
field trips. We had a good staff in Washington and
good field staff members for the most part and much
good work was accomplished.

I think that I should mention that I got in
touch with Nelson Rockefeller to tell him about out
legislation for a new charter and asked his aid
especially with Senator Vandenburgh and the Republican
members of the Senate. He was delighted that the
program was going forv/ard and he cheerfully agreed to
contact the key people in the Senate.

I think that I should mention also that during
the time that we were at the Institute Philip Glick,
my solicitor, my secretary and I took a course in
Spanish at the Foreign Service Institute over a period
of a year's time. We met three times a week. We never
became very proficient in the Spanish language but we
did get so that we coxild read the Spanish newspapers.

A Middle East Interlude

DSM: During my last year in the Institute during the
summer of 1949 Roswell Barnes of the Federal Council
of Churches called me from New York and said that he
had talked to Clarence Pickett who was then Executive
Director of the Friends Service Committee and that
they had agreed that I should be recommended for the
Directorship of the Arab Refugee Program in the Middle
East. A little later Clarence Pickett urged me to
consider it also. Soon after that they must have sold
George Me Gee on the idea. George, at that time, was
Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle Eastern
Affairs because he be^an a campaign to get me to agree
to take the job. George McGee was one of the board
of trustees for the Institute of Inter-American Affairs

24-7

so I saw him regularly and he pressed me several times
about the job. He even sent Paul Porter over to see
me to try to talk me into the job. Paul was a long
time friend going back to the early days of my Wash
ington tour in the Department of Agriculture. Paul
had been in Geneva for several weeks in an attempt to
mediate between the Arabs and the Jews following the
battles of 1948.

Along about August of 194-9 it was announced that
a United Nations mission was to go to the Middle East
to make a study of the refugee and related problems.
The mission head who had been selected to go to the
Middle East was Gordon Clapp of the T.V.A. and this
was to be a two months study of the Arab and the Jewish
situation and what might be done about it. I learned
about this and when I was pressed again by George McGee
to take over the Directorship of the Arab Refugee pro
gram I said to him "Why don't you attach me to the
mission for the next two months to give me a chance to
study the refugee problem and if after a look see as a
member of the mission I then feel that something con
structive can be done about it I will be interested in
taking on the job." George McGee agreed and I also
asked that Rex Lee was assigned to work with me. After
a conference with Andrew Cordier, Deputy to the United
Nations Director, 1 was assigned and sworn in.

Up until early September I had never met Gordon
Clapp. He and most of the mission members who were
assigned reported directly to Beirut while Mrs. Myer,
Rex Lee and I went to Beirut by way of Geneva, Swit
zerland for three and a half days in order to be
briefed by the refugee director's office which main
tained headquarters in Geneva at that time. Ambassador
Griffith was serving in a dual capacity. He was Ambas
sador to Epypt and Arab Refugee Director.

After Geneva we went to Beirut by United Nations
plane and upon arrival I was full of questions and
ideas about what was to be done. T went in for a
chat with Gordon Clapp, and I received one of the
neatest brushoffs that I have ever received in my life.
TIe quite obviously did not want nny suggestions and be
practically told me in a very tactful and firm manner
that every tliinp; was under control and that I need not

248

worry about it. He didn't say it in those words but
that was the feeling that I got.

The heads of the mission represented four
countries. Gordon Clapp of course represented the
U.S.A. as chairman, Great Britain, France, and Tur
key were also represented, and these were the people
who were presumably overseeing the job. Since my
services were apparently not needed or generally
accepted, Rex Lee and the crew who was assigned to us
went on a number of field trips to visit refugee centers
in Trans-Jordan and such places as Jericho, the ruins
across from the hotel in Aman, the old Roman ruins
which was full of people and other points throughout
the Jordanian area.

Molly Flynn, Nora Powell, both good folks were
assigned to me. Norn was a statistician and was very
helpful on statistics. Herbert Kounde from U.S.A. was
also assigned along with a Britisher whose name doesn't
come back to me at the moment. During the various trips
we covered most of western Syria from Aleppo to the
Trans-Jordan line. Also Nablus in Palistine and the
Arab portion of Jerusalem. We covered Israel from the
Lebanon boundary to the Negev including the Dead Sea
area. We visited Acre, Nazareth, Galilee, Tel Aviv,
Joffa, and the Jewish portion of Jerusalem. We also
visited the Gaza strip which was in Egyptian hands
and which had more than seventy thousand refugees in
this small strip of about twenty-five miles long and
only about five miles wide. Those people were packed
in there on top of the residents who were already
there making up a total around one hundred thousand
people in this little spot.

We went on to Cairo for a couple of days trip to
take care of some business with some of the agencies
who had headquarters there. We also covered Lebanon
from Tripoli to the Israel border as well as the
territory between Beirut and Damascus, Syria. We
visited many refugee camps as well as areas left
behind by the refugees.

We prepared carefully documented reports on the
visits and made checks and samplings of the size of
the refugee population in the various areas and

24-9

finally worked out a figure to our satisfaction as to
the number of refugees; which incidentally did not
agree with the British representative who insisted
that many of these people who were in camps now had
gathered in after they had evacuated Israel. Perhaps
a few had but not many. After the most extensive
field work done by any of the mission staff v/e were
completely ignored when it came to preparing the
final report.

V/e were on a field trip during the time that the
report was prepared and did not know that it was to be
prepared at that time. When we got back I found that
the report had been completed and typed. V/e got back
on late Saturday and on Sunday morning I went to the
office and went to Gordon Clapp's secretary and insis
ted on seeing a copy. She quite obviously had been
told not to give me a copy but I got one Just the
same. I had to pour the pressure on pretty hard.

I read the report and disagreed with it in many
aspects. I made my comments, sent them forward to
Gordon Clapp and he sent them back with notations on
the side in response to my comments which he didn't
want in his files. I took them back to his secretary
and said "I think you will want to file this. This
is my comments on the final report." I don't think
it was ever filed but nevertheless I had the satis
faction of taking it back. I had turned the report
over to Rex Lee to read, as soon as I had read it,
and he wasn't half way through when Clapp's good man
Friday who he brought with him from T.V.A. came in
and gathered it up and wouldn't let him finish it.
So what I did was to prepare a minority report which
was not distributed generally but I did prepare a
report for Andy Gordier who was the Deputy Director
of the United Nations whom I had talked with before
I came over, for Clarence Pickett who was largely
responsible for my being over there and for George
KcGee of the State Department who had recommended that
I be taken along. These were the only copies that I
distributed to anybody.

When we finished our work Mrs. Myer, Rex Lee and
T took the plane fron Damascus back to Hrussels

250

where we spent a day and then Mrs. Myer and I spent
two weeks in Paris with a three day interim visit in
London where we went with the Ambassador's plane. At
that time Averill Harriman was in charge of the Mutual
Security program.

While I was in Paris Andy Cordier from the United
Nations called me by phone and asked me if I could come
on back to New York sooner than I had planned for the
reason that Mr. Clapp and other key people were not
planning to be in New York at a time v/hen the General
Assembly was to meet and he was anxious that they have
somebody there at the time that the report was pre
sented to discuss it and to answer questions. I told
Andy Cordier that I didn't believe that he would want
me to come back and he said "Why not?" I said "Well,
I had no part in writing this report. I do not agree
with much of the report. I would not be able to
cover up my feelings about it if I came back to meet
with the General Assembly; and as a matter of fact I
have written a minority report which is for your hands
and for the hands of George McGee and Clarence Pickett
only, which will give you some idea as to what my
feelings are about the situation. "

He listened and asked a few questions and finally
heaved a sigh of relief or disgust, I have never been
quite sure which, and said he agreed that I should not
come back. So I didn't come back to report to the
United Nations.

This was one of the worst fiascos that I think I
have ever been involved in. I felt sure by the time
we left there that for some reason or other Gordon
Clapp had agreed to write the program pretty much as
the British representative dictated and I wasn't
absolutely certain but several years later when
Arthur Gardner who had been McGee 's assistant was in
Viet Nam working with Leland Barrows, the subject came
up and he admitted to Leland Barrows that the whole
pattern was agreed to before they ever started work
and this was in line with what I was pretty sure had
happened but this was confirmation.

On my way back to Washington I stopped in New
York. Ambassador Griffith who had been in Egypt, as

251

I have already indicated, who was planning to go on
to Argentina as Ambassador at that time, came out to
the airport to snend some time with me to try to
convince me further that I should take the job as
Refugee Director because he was trying to find a
replacement. 1 had found things in such a shape
that I didn't feel that there was a chance to do a
job so when I returned to Washington I told George
McGee that 1 didn't believe that I was interested in
taking the job. So I went to work again at the
Institute in early December of 194-9 and continued
there until May 8, 1950 when I finally accepted the
bid from Oscar Chapman, who had become Secretary of
the Interior while I was abroad in 194-9 and who was
determined that I become Commissioner of the Bureau
of Indian Affairs.

Dillon S. Myer, Commissioner of the Federal Public
Housing Authority. 1947.

Chief of a Chippewa Indian Group in Wis
consin initiating Dillon Myer, Commissioner
of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, as a
member of the tribe. The feather head
dress was symbol of the occasion. 1952.

Secretary of the Interior Oscar Chapman with
Staff members from the Department and the Bur
eau of Indian Affairs, in consultation with
Indians representing twelve different tribal
groups. Commissioner Dillon S. Myer standing
in back row to Secretary Chapman's left. 1952.
Seated left to right: Albert Yava- Hopi,
Thomas Segundo- Papago, Maxwell Yazzie- Navajo,
George Adams- Skokomish, Charles Reevis- Black-
feet, Secretary Chapman, Floyd Maytubby- Chick-
asaw, Frank George- Colville, Henry Vicente-
Jicarilla-Apache, Norton Edwards, Office of the
Secretary. Standing left to right: Warren
Spaulding- BIA, Ervin Utz-BIA, Asst. Sec.
McKinney, Asst. Sec. Wolfsohn, Peter Grant-
Blackfeet, Ed Wilson- Chippewa, Indian Commis
sioner Myer, Jasper Long- Crow, Alfred Chalepah-
Kiowa-Apache , Richard La Roche- Lower Brule
Sioux.

KJ«

25

CHAPTER XIII

ANOTHER MOVE TO THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AS
COMMISSIONER OF THE BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS

DSM: I was surprised at the offer of the job as Com
missioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the
spring of 1950 even from Oscar Chapman who was such
a good backer and a good friend, because John Nichols
of Nev; Mexico had been appointed Commissioner less
than two years before. I didn't think that they
would make a change because of his having come from
New Mexico. I had assumed that he had been recommended
by Senator Clinton Anderson, a very important member
of the Senate Interior Committee. I found that he
had evidently agreed to it because as soon as my name
was announced Clint called me up and I went up and
talked with him and he told me things that he thought
that I ought to know about what the bureau staff did
to John Nichols and not to let them do it to me. But
in any case before accepting the job I posed a series
of questions and requests to Secretary Chapman and he
gave satisfactory answers to most of them.

One of them was a request that I report directly
to him as the Secretary rather than through an Assis
tant Secretary. Bill Warne was the Assistant Secre
tary at the time and I am sure that he never told
Bill that this was what was happening but as long as
Bill was Assistant Secretary I did report to Oscar
Chapman and Bill would call me up occasionally and
make suggestions and I would listen very tactfully
and very carefully and thank him very much.

In any case along about two or three months after
I. became Commissioner he appointed Dale Doty, who long
had been one of his assistants, as Assistant Secretary
and I did report through him most of the time, although
I always had access to the Secretary whenever I felt
that I needed it or whenever I had an argument with
the Assistant Secretary.

253

Probably the most important agreement that was
made at the time I was asked to take over the gob
was that Rex Lee who was then Assistant Director of
the division of Territories Islands and Possessions
was to become Associate Commissioner of Indian
Affairs. He moved over the day that I reported for
the job.

William Zimmerman had been Assistant Commissioner
throughout many many years and had been acting
Commissioner frequently during that time because the
Commissioner during the 1940 's was ill with tubercu
losis much of the tine. Bill Zimmerman was moved
over to Assistant Chief of the Bureau of Land Manage
ment and Hex Lee took over the spot as my key assis
tant .

In addition to Rex Lee, Erwin Utz who had worked
with me throughout many years in different jobs, be
came Assistant Commissioner in charge of lands and
resources and John Province from my W.R.A. staff was
already Assistant Commissioner in charge of the area
which involved health, education and the social ser
vices.

It was necessary that my name be presented to the
Senate for confirmation, which had been required
throughout the years because the job of Commissioner
of Indian Affairs was one of only two bureau chief
jobs in the government that was still a Presidential
appointive job. That and the Chief of the Forest
Service were the only two. Usually bureau chiefs
are appointed by a particular Secretary in charge of
the department but that was not true of Indian Affairs.

Rex Lee, who had been very close to the Congress
ional committees during the four years or so when he
was in the division of Territory and Insular Affairs,
sensed that there mi.^ht be some real opposition to my
appointment so he went up to see Senator Butler on
the morning after it was announced.

Senator Butler was from Nebraska and was the
ranking minority member on the Interior Committee.
Rex was well acquainted with the secretary in the
front office, and when he walked in and asked if the

254

Senator was available she nodded her head toward the
Senator's inner office and said "Indians". Rex stuck
around until he got into the Senator's office and he
found that the Senator had his desk piled full of
documents from the Dies Committee and from all the
committees that had ever had me on the pan throughout
the years and was trying to find something that was
derogatory because Fulton Lewis Jr. , a muck-raking
radio commentator, had called him and asked him to
dig up some information which he could use in opposi
tion to my appointment on that evening's broadcast.
So Senator Butler war, working on this task.

He said "1 hear that this man Myer. is a Communist",
and Rex said "Well, Senator I am afraid you are mis
taken. He is Just a farm boy like you and me." He
said "Farm boy?" Rex said "Yes, he grew up on a farm
in Ohio and he is no more Communist than either you
or I or anyone else who has grown up under such cir
cumstances." So they chatted awhile and he sent the
files back and decided that he was not going to be
quoted.

However Fulton Lewis Jr. did find somebody that
he could quote because Ben Jensen in the House, who
was from Iowa and who had been very mad at me during
the housing period because he thought I had leaked
some material to Drew Pearson and never had gotten
over it, was perfectly willing to allow his name to
be used. So on Fulton Lewis Jr.'s broadcast that
night he took out after me and among other things he
said and I quote "This man Myer has been in Government
a long long time and he has had Job after ,job after
job and everytime he fails in one the President finds
another one for him.':

In spite of Fultcn Lev/is Jr. and his broadcast
and certain other opposition that flared up the
Interior Committee endorsed my appointment and recom
mended me unanimously for the Job and I was approved
by the Senate. There were a few old timers from among
the Indian politicos vvho were there to make a speech
including Bob Yellowtail who had at one time been
Indian agent for his tribe the Crows. Bob was still
bitter because he had gotten fired back in the days
when he didn't think he should have been so he was

255

out to attack anybody. This didn't have much effect
because the committee knew him quite well.

I reported for duty on May 8, 1950* I had no
more than seated myself in the Commissioner's chair
than I had a clipping from the New York Times laid on
my desk. It was a letter which John Collier, former
Commissioner for many years, had written to the r;ew
York Times telling them about this man Myer and what
a terrible guy he was and explained in some detail
Just what Myer was going to do about the Indians.

John Collier had gotten very upset at me back in
the days of WRA because the Posten Relocation Center
which was on the Coloi^ado Indian Reservation was
operated for awhile by the Bureau of Indian Affairs
under a contract which was arranged before I became
Director of V/RA. In the fall Df-1942 in less than
six months after I took over the job, I visited Posten
and made a speech in which I made it clear that our
major policy was going to be to help people relocate
into the rest of the United States rather than to
continue to live in tne Posten center. It was only
after I made this speech thr.t I learned that John
Collier had been there just two or three weeks before
and had painted pretty pictures about how they would
probably be there for forty years or more and they
would develop land and they would be able to have a
fine brand new community, etc., etc. This, of course,
was entirely opposite from what John had said and he
never quite forgave me, and I might say his blast at
the beginning of my regime was not his last attack
because he kept it up throughout my nearly three years
of tenure and if he v;asn't able to do it directly he
did it through a stooge or two who was in the Depart
ment of Interior and who tried to bring pressure to
bear on the Secretary not to approve some of the things
that I tried to do.

Joel .v'olfson was our worst problem in that re
spect. He had been in Interior for a long time and
had worked closely with Collier previously. Oocl was
always very affable when I saw him, but I was sure he
was cutting my throat regularly.

256

Resistance To Change In An Old Government Bureau

DSM: The Bureau of Indian Affairs had been reorganized
about two years before I became Commissioner. ' Area
offices were established throughout the western part
of the United States and presumably most of the line
administrative activities were to be delegated to the
area director and his staff. This meant an important
change to the Washington staff who had been carrying
out the line operations throughout the years with the
agents in the various reservations as the people who
put them into effect. The Washington staff now became
staff officers rather than line officers and some of
them didn't care much for the switch. Old habits are
hard to break and many authorities which were supposed
to be delegated to the field were still retained by
the Washington staff heads. So we proceeded very soon
after I arrived on the scene to start work on a new
manual.

We brought over Ted Taylor from the Territories
and Island Possessions to handle our processing of
administrative procedures and during the first few
months we were involved in preparing a thorough-going
manual which delegated the proper line jobs to the
field and outlined the jobs and the responsibilities
of the staff officers in Washington.

The installation of the revised procedures, as
might be expected, brought about some repercussions;
one of which was the resignation of V/illard Beatty who
for years had been head of the educational division of
the bureau and who had run that division with no questions
asked. V/illard came to see me after we proposed to put
the change into effect and said that he didn't want to
operate as a staff man. He wanted to operate the
schools as he had been doing. I said that I was awfully
sorry but I thought thp plans had been laid some time
before and I thought it was time to nut them into
effect. iVell the upshot was that he resigned and went
to UNESCO. Some of"x;he other folks didn't like it
much better than Willard did but there were no further
resignations.

257

I found that there were certain other problems
which were hard to overcome. One of them was that
some of our division chiefs had been there through
a number of changes in Commissioners and they had been
in the habit of trying to figure out what the Com
missioner wanted and tried to provide him with the
answers that he wanted. I never did like Yes men.
I didn't want them to guess what I wanted done. Our
worst case of this kind was the chief of the Land
Management Division and throughout the nearly three
years that I was Commissioner I tried my best to break
him of the habit but the disease was so firmly set that
I never did change hin% I had to listen and decide
that he was telling me in most cases just what he
thought that I should know but rather what he thought
I wanted to hear.

The Program

DSM: The Bureau of Indian Affairs throughout the years
had carried out services to the Indians which had been
expanded many times. Some of the early treaties
had provided for fairly simple services to be provided
at the reservation level: services such as providing
a blacksmith, a doctor, and maybe a schoolteacher or
two, and services of this type. In some cases they
even had agreed to provide so many yards of calico
each year.

One group in New York state who were no longer in
a federal reservation had a treaty which provided that
they should get a certain number of yards of calico
each year under the treaty and in spite of the fact
that their population had increased and that each one
would only get a quarter of a yard of calico apiece
they insisted upon having the calico doled out each
year to each member of the tribe! I presume this was
important to them as a indication that the treaty was
still in effect and that any other phase of the treaty
should not be abandoned. So they weren't willing to

258

abandon even this one. There were many other items
that were holdovers, I am sure, from the early days
and from early treaties.

For the Navajo reservation, for example, there
was a provision at the time that they came back from
Texas where they had been placed during the Civil War
that they would have one schoolteacher for each thirty-
five pupils and the schools would be provided for all
of the Navajo youngsters. There were about eight thou
sand of them at that time. The Government attempted
time and time again throughout the years to fulfill
this agreement but it was not accomplished until after
World War II. I will comment on this a little more
later but there were things of various types that the
Government had promised that they weren't able to
carry out, in some cases because of lack of cooperation
on the part of the Indians themselves.

There v/ere certain functions which had grown up
throughout the years either by law or by tradition.
They may be summarized as follows — there were about
fifteen of them.

Education was a very important one as far as the
Federal Government vms concerned and as far as many
Indians were concerned and up until a few years before
the educational work had been carried largely by
Indian schools, many of them boarding schools.

The health program which had been expanded
throughout the years v/as another of the very important
functions.

Welfare, which neant providing for people who did
not have enough food or weren't able to take care of
themselves was another function which was handled
directly by the Federal Government.

Agriculture Extension Service was established in
the 1920's or the early 1930' s.

Shortly before 1 became Commissioner a relocation
and placement program had been started in connection
with the !!ava,1os who were interested in noinf; to
boarding .'.-schools outside the reservation and in

259

receiving placement in jobs but very little work was
being done of this type except in Los Angeles. We
expanded this function greatly during our regime. We
provided a training program and a relocation placement
program and we established offices in a number of
places in the United States including Denver, Chicago,
Seattle, San Francisco, and other major areas where
the opportunities for employment were good.

HP: Do you know whether they still exist?

DSM: Oh yes. They not only still exist but they finally
adopted a program which we had recommended before I
left the Bureau of providing vocational training for
up to two years for Indians who wanted to take voca
tional training as a basis for relocation. We stunned
the sub-committee on one of our trips to the Hill with
an appropriation bill in which we asked for eight
million dollars for i;his type of work. We didn't get
it at that particular time but about two years later
they did get it, and this work has been carried for
ward. Many young Indians have received the kind of
training that they wanted to take and were able to
locate themselves in ,jobs off the reservation.

Law and Order was another function that was
carried out by the Federal Government and this of
course was important in many areas because there was
no local p.;overnment in many of the areas where reser
vations were located.

Roads in the reservations were the responsibility
of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, especially in those
areas where there was no established local government.

Credit, which had been provided many years before
as a basis for helping Indians get under way in ranch
ing or farming in particular.

Supervision of trust lands, both tribal and indi
vidual lands, was the responsibility of the agency.

Handling individual Indian moneys who still
required trustees to look after their affairs.

260

Division of Soil and Moisture Conservation had
been established back in the late 1930's when it was
transferred from the Soil Conservation Service.

Forest and Range Management was an important part
of the work of the resources division.

Irrigation program, utilization of utilities in
cluding communications and power and the sxipervision
and development of tribal enterprises such as saw mills
and other types of enterprises that x^ere important to
encourage the development of the resources of the
agencies.

The problems of handling forestry for example in
view of the responsibilities of the Bureau of Indian
Affairs for their trusteeship was an entirely different
problem than handling forestry in the Forest Service
in the Department of Agriculture. As a matter of fact
one of the agencies that made a study of the Bureau
raised the question why forestry and range work could
not be transferred to the Forest Service. At that
time I happened to know the Forester very well who was
in charge of the work in Agriculture and I talked to
him about it and he said "Oh, Dillon, we don't v/ant it.
It is entirely out of our line. This isn't the type
of thing that we do or that we know anything about be
cause it had to do with dealing with the tribes, deal
ing with individuals, and so on, instead of looking
after Federal lands as we do in the Forest Service."
There were certain other things that could be handled
by local and state governments and even by certain
other Federal government agencies which will develop
as we proceed.

As noted, the Bureau was responsible for most of
the services provided in almost any city or community
plus some that were unique because of the trust re
sponsibility. Much progress had been made in con
tracting with local school districts following the
passage of the Johnson-O'Malley act in the 1930's
which provided authority to contract for services with
local and state government agencies.

261

Schooling For Indians

DSH: There were areas however, large ones as a matter
of fact, where there were no local school facilities
or local governments to deal with. For example, the
Navatjo reservation which is about the size of the
state of West Virginia, had no local government with
in the reservation area so all of the services inclu
ding schools had to be provided by the Federal Govern
ment because there was nobody to contract with. I'll
point out a little later that we did arrange to have
many of these youngsters go to school in other areas
in order to get them out of the reservation complex
and milieu. But this was an entirely different thing
than contracting with local governments.

We proceeded throughout my nearly three years as
Commissioner to get as many of the public schools
which had not already taken over to take over the
educational function of the Bureau. Most of this had
already been done where it was feasible up to this
time. It was a good thing and one of the best inte-
grative processes thet we could work out.

Some of the older boarding schools which had been
utilized throughout the years particularly in Oklahoma,
California and certain other areas were available for
use since we had already contracted for school ser
vices with local governments in those areas. So as a
result of having these available we did arrange to
have Nava<jo youngsters and the Papagos in southern
Arizona, sent to California, to Oklahoma and other
places to boarding schools where they could be r>ro-
vided with services without providing new boarding
school buildings and at the same time get them into
areas where they had some contact with the outside
public.

This provided also an opportunity particularly
for the older youngsters of high school age, many of
whom had never been tc school, to get intensive
training for five or six years and then to be pro
vided with opportunities for employment in the areas
where they had gone to school. This was one of the

262

first types of relocation that was initiated. Birring
my regime they completed the rehabilitation of an army
installation in Utah where about five hundred Navajo
youngsters were provided for. This school was planned
particularly for youngsters between twelve and eighteen
who had not had schooling and where they could have
intensive courses in English, and basic elementary
training plus some vocational training and could be
established then in jobs if they were interested in so
doing in that or other areas by the time they had
finished school.

HP: What kinds of jobs?

DSM: Many kinds of vocational types of training jobs v/ere
urovided. Use of machines of various types, 1 can't
recall at the moment just what types of training we
did provide.

HP: Was it for girls also?

DSM: Yes, they had some girls. More boys than girls but
they had some girls.

While we are on the Navajo and while we are talk
ing about education I think I should go a little further
in my discussion about the problem that we had there.
The Navajos after they came back to the reservation in
northern Arizona, New Mexico and Utah became sheep
herders and as a consequence many of them were nomads.
In other words they moved with their flocks depending
upon the season into the mountain country and into
other areas, and as a consequence they weren't always
available at any one place for school. Furthermore
most of the older Navajos didn't want their youngsters
to go to school because they didn't want them to stray
away, from the particular culture and the family con-
tols. So the government was unable even though they
tried very hard throughout the years following the
Civil war to carry out their responsibilities which
they had agreed to under the treaty to set up schools
with one teacher for each thirty-five youngsters or
less because the youngsters didn't go to school. This
pattern was not broken until after World War IT.

263

During World War II many of the Navajo boys
were inducted into the service and rendered good ser
vice, in fact a unique service because of their
ability to speak Nava^jo and nobody else in the world
could. They were able to serve in intelligence units
and to communicate among themselves across the lines
and to confound the enemy and provide information
for their own units. A great many of them that did
go into the Army received the kind of training that
the Army gave including courses in the English langu
age, learning to read and write and many other things
which they hadn't learned up to that time. When these
boys came back to the reservation after the war they
began to put the pressure on to have schools estab
lished and for people to go to school.

So by the time I became Commissioner in early
1950 the most important political campaign issue on
the part of tribal council members and people who
were running for tribal council was to back the idea
of providing schools for every Navajo youngster.

This grew out of the fact that these young lads
had come back after seeing some of the rest of the
world and had recognized what their problems were.
So the pressure was on. It was impossible over the
short period of four or five years to provide enough
schools and enough teachers to fill in the gaps that
had been missing because of the fact that people
wouldn't go to school earlier. It was only with the
help of the boarding schools outside, plus building
new schools which took time that we could fulfill
this desire which had finally developed on the part
of the Navajos for education for their children. At
that time about eighty percent of the Nava;jos popu
lation could not speak English so the first job of
the schools for the first year or two was to teach
the youngsters English so that they could proceed to
teach other things which they only knew how to teach
in English because the teachers unfortunately didn't
know the :Tavajo language.

It was during this period when I was Commissioner
that I suggested the idea of developing some trailer
schools for youngsters who were following their herds
with their families as a way of providing an opport-

unity for them to learn the English language and to
learn the other things that they needed to learn in
elementary scnool. This was not adopted during my
time because I wasn't able to get it across fast
enough but it was adopted in the regime which fol-
lov/ed and I was very happy to see it adopted because
if you were going to reach all of the Navajo young
sters you had to provide facilities where they were.
You couldn't remove them entirely from their jobs as
shepherds so you had to move in where they were.
Trailers were used to some extent.

Finally I think along about four or five years
after I left the ,job as Commissioner they caught up
with the backlog and were able to provide schools for
every ftavajo youngster who wanted to go to school or
whose parents would allow him to go to school. This
was highly important because it is very difficult to
help to decrease a much over-populated area through
placement and relocation unless the people could
speak the language of the country, handle simple
figures, and had some kind of ability in the way of
skills such as carpentry, or other similar training
which could be useful in relocation. I mentioned,
that when the Navajos came back from Texas following
the Civil War there were only eight thousand people.
At the time I was Commissioner there were about
eighty thousand Nava.jos and they were still increasing,

The Navajo reservation was not the only one that
required that all the services be Federal services
because of lack of local government. I have mentioned
Papago, and the Oglala Sioux in South Dakota is
another area where there was no local government.
There were not even any counties organized, at least
up until very recent years and they were not yet
organized when I was Commissioner in the area where
the large Oglala Sioux reservation was in South
Dakota, so that provision did have to be mede either
in the way of local one or two room schools or board
ing schools which were much more common for these
areas.

265

Health And Sanitation

DSM: Health and sanitation problems were very real

problems. The problem of maintaining sixty hospitals
which were under the auspices of the Bureau and of
providing a reasonable approach to training in sani
tary and related measures was very real. The problem
of recruitment of doctors and nurses for out-of-the-
way places in reservations areas was most difficult.
Fortunately we did have some help from the Public
Health Service but even they were not in a position to
assign people who were needed someplace else so we
very often got people who weren't too well adapted to
reservation life.

In spite of that we were doing a pretty fair Job
particularly in the hospitals which were developed
throughout the years, some of them large and some of
them small. They had a large reservation hospital
in the Navajo country because they had a very large
population, but even there under the Johns on-0' Mai ley
Act the Bureau had been able to contract with local
hospitals in some areas and we continued to push for
that kind of a program throughout the years when I
was Commissioner. A big hospital was constructed
down in the Albuquerque area to help provide ser
vices for the Pueblo people. This was constructed
partly out of Bureau of Indian Affairs funds, partly
out of local funds and some out of the Federal funds
that were provided for hospitals generally under the
bill which authorized contributions for hospital con
struction and this was one of the largest of its type.

The big problem other than hospitals had to do
with sanitation which was very often a missing item.
Indians like many poor and indigent people lived under
crowded circumstances. The Navajos lived in hogans.
Other tribes lived in small houses, and the Apaches
still lived in skin type teppes, up in the northern
Apache country. As a consequence tuberculosis was a
very difficult disease to control, with lack of sani
tation, crowding and inability to se^re^ate people who
had become infected. This was also true of many other
types of diseases.

266

Hospitals could be used for people who had become
quite ill but the matter of providing sanitary measures
by moving people into hospitals was something else
spain. I talked to the doctor in charge, who had been
assigned by the Public Health Service, about this and
he said "There ought to be the kind of sanitary train
ing, inspection and supervision that exists in other .
local governments, but there are no funds for it."
I said "Well, if I can get the funds do you think you
can do the job?" I got the funds and I got more money
than he could spend because he couldn't find the people
to do the job. It was ironic that when I managed to
do what he had been pressuring me to do, and which I-
was delighted to do, when I got him a couple of hundred
thousand dollars he couldn't use all of it because he
couldn't find enough people to move into areas of this
type to help get the .lob done.

This was one of the important problems and one of
the things that v/e were nearly always able to get
additional money for if we needed it. But it wasn't
just a matter of getting additional money. It was a
matter of petting additional personnel of the proper
type that was important. I might as well add here
that before leaving the job as Commissioner I made
the recommendation that the health and sanitation
services be transferred to the Public Health Service.
I was somewhat reluctant to do this because of certain
problems that I thought would be involved but I did
it, and shortly after 1 left the service it was trans
ferred. Since then the health and sanitation service
has been greatly expanded.

Public Health Service has taken the job very
seriously in fact maybe they are overdoing it a bit
nowadays but nevertheless who am I to criticize when
it v/as so badly undermanned back in the early days.

26?

welfare

DSK: The welfare program was also a very real problem

because lack of employment opportunities in many of the
reservation areas v/as one of the very difficult pro
blems. Excepting for about twenty or twenty-five reser
vations throughout the United States the Indians who
were put into reservations were pushed off into some of
the worst scab land and bad lands and some of the poor
est agriculture lands that you could find any place in
the country.

As a consequence of that plus the fact that they
weren't fanners in the first place there was a real
problem of finding employment in a rural community
where there v/as no industry to amount to any thing
near by so about the only employment that could be
found was transitory work such as harvesting of sugar
beets, and other crops during the harvest season. As
a consequence many of these people worked for three or
four or five months, lived on the money that they earned
in doing this kind of migrant work during the crop
season until it was used up and then they went on wel
fare until the time came again to earn some more money
as migrants.

We estimated for example in one of the North
Dakota reservations tbere weren't opportunities for
employment for more than about two or three percent
of the peot>le on the reservation as far as full time
employment was concerned. This is one of the reasons,
by the way, that I felt very strongly about the need
for training, relocation and placement in ,jobs outside
of the reservations. i3o welfare v/as an important item
and it had to be handled in such a way if possible to
avoid making full time wards out of the people.

I remember telling one of my old bosses at the
University of Kentucky while 1 was Commissioner about
this particular problem. He said "In other words what
you have is a lot of very much enlarged poor houses."
1 said "That is ,just about right. They are similar to
the old time poor houses as far as many people are
concerned. "

268

Much progress was made in transferring the job of
agriculture extension work to the state extension ser
vices during the time that I was on the job. Both Rex
Lee my associate and I had been extension agents at
one time and we knew something about this particular
approach and we felt very deeply that it ought to be
handled in the normal manner. We were able in areas
where the extension service functioned with other local
and county governments to get them to take over the
Bureau of Indian Affairs work under contract from us
and the Indians became part of the program such as Four
H Club work and other things that the extension service
was generally responsible for.

Roads

DSH: Roads in the reservation was another part of the
responsibility of the Bureau. We did our best in
areas where there were local governments and where
it was possible to do so, to work out an agreement
to bring the roads up to the standard that the local
governments required. Then we were able to turn them
over to them for maintenance. We did much of this in
California, Montana and a number of other places where
this was feasible.

It was not feasible in the Navajo and many of the
other large reservations where there was no local
government to take over.

Relocation Problems

It is important that I comment further on the
problems of relocation and placement outside the re-

269

servation. Because populations have increased dras
tically throughout the years on the reservations,
most of the reservations were over-populated by the
time 1 came on the .job. 1 have already mentioned the
Navago but it was also true of many others and especi
ally in areas where there was no local industry close
by where people could work. So in establishing our
area and district offices to assist people in relo
cating we provided a number of services.

?irst it was necessary to provide funds for
travel to where they v/ere being relocated and funds
for them to live on during the first month or six
weeks after they arri.ved until they began to get pay
checks. Our relocation officers made contact with the
social agencies, welfare agencies and others, to be
sure that they understood the particular problems
these relocatees faced. It was necessary that they
work with personnel officers in industrial plants and
others to get them tc understand the problem.

Without extra help we anticipated that most of
these young people — and they were mostly young people
who v/ere willing to relocate — would go back to their
home communities or to the reservations very ouickly.
We knew they would be lonesome, it would be the first
time away from the area, they had no associates or
friends, so the tendency to go out on a binge was very
great.

I was gratified over the fact that our Chicago
office in working with one of the industrial plants
there had found that certain young chaps after three
or four weeks did go out on a binge and wouldn't show
up for work. Well, our office had prepared the way
so that one of the people from our office along with
a personnel representative of the plant would go out
and find these boys, get them sobered up and encourage
them to come back onto the job. They came back to
work and stayed on the job but had that not been done
they were either off to skid row or back to the reser
vation.

I understood the importance of having somebody
help these kids over this first hump because I was a
country boy and when 1 went to college even though only

270

thirty miles from home the boy who was going with me
as my roommate wasn't able to go at the last minute
and conseauently I we.s among strangers and I have
never been so lonesome in my life as I was that first
three or four weeks. The Hocking Valley railroad
which ran through the edge of Columbus used to whistle
in every night about five o'clock and 1 can remember
the mournful sound and as a matter of fact after about
three or four weeks 1 went home with the idea of not
going back to college because I didn't think I could
take it.

I was never -sure until after Christmas that I was
going to stick it out. When I thought about my experi
ence I thought about these Indian boys and what they
were up against in the way of strange situations. I
knew that we had to do a real all-out job to get every
body we could to help get the job done. Fortunately
it did work because the relocation has gone ahead and
I'm delighted about it.

Summing Up The_ Indi aii _ Program

DSM: Under date^of March 20, 1953, which was my last
day in office, 1 addressed a memorandum to the Secre
tary of rhe Interior which summarizes what seemed to
me to be tr:e major problems then facing the bureau and
the Indians. I believe the best way for me to tell
this story is to quote from this particular memorandum.

"The number one rroblem is the problem of poverty,
increasing population? and the relationship of popula
tion to resources and. services in the Indian country.
After visiting every Indian agency in the United
States mainland and the territory of Alaska, with the
exception of the iSenn.nole agency in Florida, I find
that I am more deeply concerned about these problems
of poverty and increrring population in the Indian
country and on Indian reservations than I am about any
other problems. The problem has grown out of c. number

of basic facts which need to be understood by the
Indians themselves and by those who administer the
program and by the public generally. Many reasons
which lie behind the problem of poverty and over
population at the many reservations today are too
numerous to discuss here. Needless to say, some of
the more obvious ones are the destruction or limita
tion of the Indians ' primitive economy by the white
man; the limitation of Indians over a period of many
years to reservation life; the development throughout
the years of the health program which has decreased
the mortality rate especially of infants; the lack of
migration from rural Indian country to industrial areas
as compared with migration that has taken place in re
gard to all other rural people. Over fifty percent of
the people in the United States in 1900 lived on farms
while today less than fifteen percent live on farms.
It is quite evident that the migration from Indian
areas has not kept pace with the migration from other
areas. For example, eight thousand Navajos were trans
ferred from Fort Sumter to the Navajo reservation in
1868, and today there are approximately seventy to
eighty thousand Navajo people living on the reservation
or adjacent thereto.

"We have encouraged Indians to continue to live in
areas where they can not possibly make a living by the
provision of good schools, free health services, wel
fare payments and other means, rather than encouraging
these populations to move into industrial or other
areas where they could make an adequate living. The
situation varies, of course, in the various reserva
tions and tribes throughout the country. Some of the
worst examples of poverty resulting from over popula
tion and limited subrnarginal land resources are to be
noted in such areas as the cutover country in northern
V/isconsin, Minnesota, Turtle Mountain, Fort Totten and
Sissiton Reservations in North and South Dakota, and
the drastically over populated arid lands of Navajo
and Papago country in the Southwest.

"I

have two specific recommendations regarding
these problems: (1) I recommend that you ask Con
gress to increase appropriations for the placement and
relocation program which this Bureau has demonstrated
over the past two years is feasible and which will

2?2

decrease the cost to the government in two ways if
carried forward. It will decrease the necessity for
services in the way of schools, hospitals and other
services now being provided mainly on the reserva
tions. It will provide an opportunity for many
Indians who cannot at; present pay income taxes to
make enough money so that they may pay income taxes
and more than reimburse the government through the
payment of such taxes for any cost involved in their
relocation. Three years ago the Congress passed a
bill which would authorize an eighty-eight million dol
lar rehabilitation program for the Navajo-Hopi tribe.
Some twenty million dollars has already been appro
priated to carry out the intent of this legislation
and after studying the problem quite thoroughly I am
deeply concerned about whether more schools and hos
pitals in the out of the way places on the Navajo
reservation and in other areas are justified as
against an all-out attempt to assist poverty stricken
people to relocate in areas where they will have a
chance to make a living. It would be my recommen
dation that you find someone, or herhaps two or three
people of real ability and standing in the United
States and make a reatudy of the Navajo problem in
terms of the possible effect of the long range pro
gram which is now getting under way. This group, in
my opinion, should reconsider the question as to how
many people can actually make a living on economic
units, and ucc the range on the Navajo reservation
and the question as to whether or not we will be
building up a larger problem for the Mavajo people
and for the government twenty-five or thirty years
from now if we continue to provide facilities, and
free services to limited groups of people in out-of-
the-way places instead of offering them opportunities
in other areas. I a^i recommending someone from the
outside to make this study because there is a great
deal of emotion involved in this question and under
standably so and therefore the problem should be con
sidered by someone who can do it as objectively as
possible.

The second area where we have problems has to do
with the supervision of individual trust-alloted lands.
This problem is a most serious one. The problem of
supervision 0.1' individually ownod trust-olloted L-mds

has become progressively worse since the Allotment Act
of 1887 and there are now around sixteen or seventeen
million acres of trust-alloted lands for which the
Bureau of Indian Affairs has the responsibility. Some
5,067,000 or 3,068,000 million acres of this land is
fractionated through deaths of original allotees and
their heirs so that now six or more heirs have an
interest in each of the 23,462 tracts that are involved
in this acreage.

"Proposed legislation was sent to the Department
(of Interior) last year but was not sent to the Congress,
Similar legislation is nov; under reviev; in the Bureau
of Indian Affairs and should be followed up carefully
and presented to the Congress at the earliest possible
date in order to clean ur> this problem before it becomes
completely impossible.

"Another acute problem in connection with the
administration of individually alloted trust land is
the fact that many of these lands are owned by highly
competent Indians who insist on maintaining their
lands in trusts. This insistance stems from the advan
tage they have in being free from property taxes and
because under the policies and procedures that have
been in existence throughout many years they have
certain advantages such as: priorities in the purchase
of other Indian lands; borrowing of tribal and Indian
loan funds; and usinp; other tribal resources without
adequate payment. These privileges have been a valu
able asset to these individuals. We have taken steps
to correct part of this problem through the issuance
of a new procedure under the date of February 29, 1952,
a copy of which is attached which required a reviev/ in
Washington of all proposed negotiated sales betv/een tri
bal officers or people who had fee patents previously
who were proposing to purchase lands from other Indians
on a negotiated basis. The same procedure also required
an appraisal within three months if negotiated sales
were to be executed in any case. This procedure had
been drastically criticized by some of the people who
were affected by it.

"A comparative ly few Indians of this type who were
more competent in handling of real estate matters than
mont othe>" people have taken up a great deal of the

time of our staff who deal with trust property. Some
of these people are capable of making the Bureau of
Indian Affairs appear as a group of paternalistic
bureaucrats who will not allow them to handle their
own affairs. At the same time however these same
people refuse to accept trust free patents to all of
their property when such an offer is made to them.
The problem as to how to eliminate the trust in such
cases is one xrtiich we have been exploring for some
months and on which we still have not found the answer.
Part of the answer probably lies in the review of
treaties and in the length of the trust period in
regard to these properties at present. It may require
new legislation to help solve the problem. One thing
that I am sure of is that the present competence bill
before the Congress will not solve this particular
problem, as it only deals with those Indians who vol
untarily apply for patents. This will not bring under
control those people v/ho want to maintain their trust
status.

"The third major areas in which problems occur has
to do with the type of charter organization and busi
ness management required to safeguard the interest of
the Indians and their tribal resources when the Bureau
of Indian Affairs relinquishes its trusteeship respon
sibility. There is a wide variation among the two
hundred or more groups, bands or tribes of Indians as
to the kind or amount of tribal resources which they
possess. There are perhaps twenty or twenty-five
tribes that have enough resources to justify the
establishment of a business management akin to a cor
porate structure and the hiring of a business manager
or a managerial staff to supervise the continued
operation of those assets. This problem is one of the
most difficult problems that the department faces as
it looks to the time of withdrawal of services by the
Bureau of Indian Affairs.

"Many very important problems must be considered
in working out a transfer of responsibility to the
Indians themselves: The relationship of taxes, state
and national and other taxes to the problem is an
important, one; the type of services now being rendered
and how they can be continued if they are essential
services without encouraging additional poverty and

275

increased population at the various reservations;
the problem of land leasing as against assignments
and many other complex problems which differ depend
ing upon the treaties made in the past; legislation
nov; in existence and the kind of resources, whether
they are tribal lands or alloted lands or both. On
several reservations a comparatively small number of
tribal members are using the total resources of the
reservation for the grazing of livestock or for other
purposes and are not paying anything into the tribal
treasury for the use of these resources. Consequently,
the rest of the tribal members are not getting any
direct return whatsoever from resources which belong
to the tribe as a whole. This small number of tribal
members would like to maintain the status quo because
of the bip advantage that they have. As a result they
oppose any plan or program which would provide for the
proper leasing of tribal lands and establishment of a
corporation which would require a distribution of
returns of resources for everyone and the withdrawal
of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

"I am attaching a copy of a proposed report on
Senate 101 4-, a bill which would authorize a $1500 per
capita payment to each member of the Monominee tribe.
This report attempts to set forward some of the items
that should be considered soon before additional
capital surpluses have been dissipated.

"We have hoped over the past several months to
work out arrangements whereby we could get a special
study of this problem with some outstanding people
outside of the Department who might take six or eight
sample areas and make an analysis of the problems
involved. If such a study could be made with alter
native recommendations as to how these problems can
be met it would be helpful so that we might have a
variety of patterns which might be applied under
various conditions. We need these patterns as a
basis for the type of organization, method of making
distribution of dividends and many other questions that
need to be answered.

"The fourth area that involves major problems has
to do with the administration of the health program as
it relates to Indians. The Bureau is nov; operating

276

some sixty hospitals and a number of clinics in
addition. It is operating in the field of Public
Health, preventive medicine in various communities
where services are not otherwise available. It is
quite clear to me the.t the Bureau should get out of
the business of operating hospitals ,just as quickly
as possible. It should transfer, if possible, all
the public health functions to the states or communi
ties involved. '.This is not easy because many of the
states and counties are not equipped at the present;
time to do this type of work. Some progress has-been
made in closing out of hospitals and in transferring
our responsibilities in this field to other agencies
or community organize tions. Additional progress can
be made if a firm position is taken in the matter and
if action is insisted ur>on.

"1 am attaching a copy of a letter which was sent
to certain field offices on February 18, 1953. Ke-
nT>onscs have been received and the information is avail
able within the Eureau. 1 am also attaching a copy of
a proposed report which has gone forward to your office
on House Resolution '0'; which provides for the trans
fer of all health services from the Bureau of Indian
Affairs to the Public Health Service. I do not believe
that this is an ideal solution because I do not believe
that any Federal agency should have the continued re-
sDonsibility over a long period of time for providing
direct hospital services to Indians. However, I think
the responsibility should be worked out so that Indians
can get services of the same kind in community hospitals
which serve the general population. Alternatively in
areas where this1 is not feasible I would recommend that
hospitals and facilities be transferred to states,
counties or the territory of Alaska along with what
ever Federal funds are necessary to assist in provid
ing services to those Indians that need help.

"We have tried during this fiscal year to trans
fer our responsibility in the field of preventive
medicine and public health work to states with the
exception of one or two and have been unsuccessful
because of the unwillingness on the r>art of the state
or county officials to take over such responsibility
or because of their feelings that they are not able
to handle the responsibility properly.

277

"The fifth major area which has real problems
involved has to do with education. A great deal of
progress has been made over the past fifteen years in
the transfer of responsibility for education to public
schools in various states and to the territory of
Alaska by entering into contracts under the Johnson-
O'Malley Act. There are now fifty-two thousand Indian
youngsters enrolled in public schools and about thirty-
six thousand Indian youngsters enrolled in schools
operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs of which twenty
thousand are in boarding schools. I am attaching copies
of two memoranda which were sent to all area directors.
One dated March 21, 1952 and one dated February 19,
1955 which pretty well states the policy which we have
been following over the past three years and to make
some suggestions for further action. They provide
the means for bringing together additional information
needed in order to measure progress already made and to
determine needed action. It is my recommendation that
the Department continue to press toward the transfer
of its responsibilities for direct educational oper
ations to the local school districts or the state
departments of education and also to encourage further
use of boarding schools wherever this is feasible. I
would also recommend transfer of these responsibilities
to the local school districts or states in cases where
boarding schools can not be eliminated. Progress in
this field has been limited recently because of the
unwillingness on the part of many of the school dis
tricts to take on the responsibility and because of
the inability either legally or otherwise of the state
departments of education to assume the responsibility.
And finally because of the objection of Indian groups
themselves to the transfer of this responsibility.

"The sixth problem area of importance has to do
with maintenance of lav; and order. The Federal govern
ment throughout the years has had general responsi
bility for maintaining law and order in areas of .
Indian trust lands and has discharged this responsi
bility in cooperation with the Indian tribes them
selves. Steps have been taken during the past three
years looking to the transfer of this responsibility
to the states in areas where agreement could be
reached between the Indians, local or state officials,
and the Bureau. Legislation ir, now pending which

278

would transfer both criminal and civil jurisdiction
to the states in California, Oregon, Washington,
Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Nebraska. Some exceptions
have been provided for in these bills because a few
groups of Indians were not ready. Nevertheless, the
Bureau came to the conclusion that the bill should go
forward even with the exceptions and submitted them
with the hope that amendments could be provided for
at a later date.

"It is my recommendation that these bills be
pressed and that further exploration be made in a
number of other states immediately. In this latter
category I would include Nevada where studies are
already being made and in any other states where such
a move would appear to be feasible. The matter of
jurisdiction, of course, is closely related to land
pattern, schools, credit programs and any other pro
blems. It has been our Judgment that more progress
could be made by taking steps in those states where
the Indians were ready and thus gaining some experi
ence in problems involved in the transfer of such
jurisdiction than could be made if we proposed an
overall transfer in all of the states at one time.

"The seventh area where major problems exist
has to do with the handling of the general super
vision of lawyers who mislead Indians, v/ell meaning
organizations and the general public for their own
personal gain. Over the past nearly three years we
have learned first of all that there is nothing simple
about the problem of Indians and Indian affairs.
There are certain lawyers who learned this long before
we did and have very effectively capitalized on the
fact by getting themselves placed in positions where
they could use certain organizations as their front.
By use of propaganda, either directly or indirectly,
the organizations have misled and confused both the
public and the Indians involved. To be specific, '/
James E. Gurry has served as council for the
National Congress for American Indians and through
this relationship and other contacts has secured
many Indian contract,-3 as indicated in Senate Report
No. 8. He has indulged in many practices including
the dissemination of misinformation which has been
harmful both to the Indians and to the public of the

279

United States, Mr. 1'elix Cohen four years before tie
left the Department served as a member of the board
of directors of the Association of American Indians
Affairs, which had headquarters in New York, and since
194-S he has served as its legal counsel. In my .judg
ment he has used this organization as his front. He
has either directly or indirectly put out falsehoods,
distorted information and misrepresentation of the
worst type while posing as an idealistic lawyer whose
main interest lies in helping the Indian people.
Actually Mr. Cohen has a very substantial personal
financial stake in the Indian law business both in
terms of direct representation of the Indian tribes
for a fee and through his consultant fees from the
.joint efforts groups.

"Without discussing this problem at length I
would refer you again to Senate Report No. 8 of the
Eighty-second Congress and to a document which is
attached containing extracts from an article which Mr.
Cohen succeeded in having published in the Yale Law
Review together with our comments. The document is
voluminous necessarily so because of the fact that
Mr. Cohen knows how to take complex questions and
misstate them in such a way that it is difficult to
explain to you or to the general public what the real
facts are without rather extended and detailed analysis
of the seauence of event that were involved in the
various incidents to which he refers. It is quite
apparent that Mr. Cohen because of his knowledge of
the laws, regulations and procedures of the depart
ment, most of which he helped to formulate, is able
to capitalize on any weak points in the laws, regu
lations, procedures to embarrass and discredit the
Bureau of Indian Affairs. He has done so on numerous
occasions. One of his techniques is to encourage so-
called tribal leaders to ask for authority to expend
their tribal funds and utilize their resources as they
see fit without having the trusteeship responsibility-
removed from the shoulders of the Secretary of Interior
and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. It has been
evident that Mr. Cohen is very successful in aiding
and abetting a group of alleged tribal leaders with a
modicum of Indian blocd, some of whom have exploited
other tribal members who are less competent then they
are, through shady real estate deals or utilization

280

of tribal funds to maintain themselves in power. He
has also assisted them in bringing pressure on the
Secretary of Interior and Congress to do things which
are to their particular interest but not actually of
interest to the tribal members as a whole. It is
quite clear, from the information that we have deve
loped, that Mr. Cohen is one of the prime movers, if
not the prime mover, in the organization which Mr.
Curry calls the Cohen Syndicate and which we call the
"Joint Efforts Group" of lawyers who have twenty or
more Indian claims contracts. This group is discussed
in Senate Report No. 8 and further investigation of
the group's activities is therein recommended. You
will note that this Joint efforts agreement approach
by the department produced some of the least favorable
contracts from the Indian standpoint and all the
claim contracts and agreements have been negotiated
with the help of Mr. Cohen prior to my appointment as
Commissioner. I might add that Mr. Cohen, at the time
of my status as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, was
receiving around $20,000 a year as consultant for this
particular group of lawyers even though presumably he
didn't have contracts of this type himself. I am sure
that he had an interest in these contracts in addition
to getting his consultant fees.

"The eighth area that I would like to talk brief
ly about has to do with the reorganization proposals
in relation to the Bureau. A few months before I
became Commissioner of Indian Affairs the Bureau under
went a major reorganization. Area offices had just
been established and the Bureau was starting to try to
straighten out its lines of authority. Some Indian
groups and many people who make a living out of de
ploring the plight of the poor Indian immediately
asked me after my appointment to reorganize the Bureau
again. I personally made a quick survey of the situ
ation and although I was not completely sold on every
aspect of the previous reorganization I decided not to
make any further drastic changes. I reached this
decision partly because the Bureau had had many pre
vious reorganizations and the morale of the personnel
was very poor but even more importantly because the
Indians and our personnel were confused on lines of
authority and responsibility. Shortly after I decided
that it would not be desirable to undertake any major

281

reorganization a private management firm, the Booz-
Allen Hamilton Management group, which had been hired
by the Secretary to make management studies within the
Department of Interior reported on our organization.
Their report indicated the desirability of maintaining
the present type of area set up with some minor changes
most of which have been made subsequently. There con
tinues to be a great deal of criticism against the area
offices and much of this is inherent in the problem
itself. We have attempted to delegate the maximum
amount of the Commissioner's authority to the area
offices for final decision in most problems affecting
the daily life of the Indians. The area offices are
the ones that have to say no to the many pressure
groups that are attempting to defraud or mislead the
Indians. Previously the NO had to come from the
Washington office with many many months of delay and
duplication of effort. I strongly recommend that
before making any ma'jor reorganization which v/ould
eliminate the area office set-up, that you make a
thorough study of the situation. It has taken almost
three years to complete the realignment of delegations
and to secure a clear-cut line of command and to pre
pare a manual of procedures that is a clear-cut pro
cedural operative manual. Any major disturbance in
this line of command would cause great confusion both
to the Indians and to the Bureau and to the Department
personnel for a period of at least two years.

"Area nine that has some problems involved that
should be considered has to do with proposed legislation.
Several weeks ago I discussed with you the question as
to how we should handle the so-called California-
Western Oregon Withdrawal Bills which were introduced
in the last session of Congress by Senators Watkins
and Anderson. The Oregon Bill was Senate 3004- and the
California Bill was Senate 3005. These bills were
prepared within the department and one or two revi
sions need to be made in the California bill. They
have not been introduced in this session of Congress.
In accordance with our recent conversation, the Oregon
bill was discussed with Senator Cordon and it was indi
cated that he wished to study the matter to see whether
he would introduce it. This matter is still in his
hands. The California bill was discussed with Senator
Knoxvland's office and we have had no report as to

282

whether he desires to introduce this bill. This matter
should be followed up closely and presented in this
Congress if possible in order that the withdrawal pro
gram can proceed on schedule in these states. Certain
other withdrawal proposals with regard to four or five
other tribes, bands or groups of Indians will probably
be ready within the next thirty to sixty days that
should be considered and sent forward to Congress for
action.

"Area ten has to do with some general comments that
I would like to make before leaving the office of Com
missioner. I was asked to take the job as Commissioner
of Indian Affairs three different years beginning in
the fall of 194-7, again in 194-8 and finally in the
spring of 1950. I did not accept the job on the first
two occasions because I knew something about the com
plexities of the problems involved and had some doubt
as to whether I could do an adequate job with the tools
at hand and when it was offered to me in the spring of
1950 I made it quite clear to the Secretary that I felt
very strongly that the Bureau of Indian Affairs should
get out of business as quickly as possible but that the
job must be done with honor. I secured agreement before
accepting the job on many points which I thought were
essential if we were to get the job done. I believe
for example that we should proceed with intensive pro
gramming operations with the Indian tribes. I have
found during my term as Commissioner that a great
majority of the Indians are opposed to having the
Bureau get out of business. This is particularly true
of those Indians who are profiting through the exploi
tation of their less competent neighbors. There are
also many older Indians who feel insecure about the
matter. I was a bit surprised to find that the feeling
was so nearly unanimous and that there were only a few
groups so far who have been willing to agree with the
government on immediate withdrawal, or for that matter
on discussing a definite plan for withdrawal at some
time in the future. One of them is the Grand Ronde
Siletz, a group in Oregon which you know about. In
addition there are a number of groups and individuals
ordinarily identified as friends of the Indians who are
definitely opposed to any withdrawal action. Foremost
are the lawyers such as James E. Curry, and Pelix Cohen

283

and the Association on American Indian Affairs and the
National Congress on American Indians.

"In addition to the lawyers whom I have mentioned
serving as legal counsel for the Association of Ameri
can Indian Affairs and the National Congress for Ameri
can Indians, there are some other people in groups many
of whom are very good people who do not understand the
complexities of this problem and have thus opposed
action in relation to withdrawal. This has been evi
denced by the fact that a strong attack was made on
this office following the issuance of a memorandum of
August 5, 1952, a copy of which is attached.

"Also attached is a copy of a letter sent out to
all tribes by Mr. Prank George, the executive director
of the National Congress for American Indians, and
copies of our letter and memorandum sent out as follow
up to Mr. George's letter and a copy of the statement
released by Mr. John Collier. I believe these docu
ments will give you some understanding of what you
face if you consider them along with the documentation
that we have prepared with reference to the recent
article presented by Felix Cohen and which is also
attached to this memorandum. I think my record will
bear out the fact that I believe very strongly that
time is past due when many Indians should be released
from all types of Federal supervision. While I have
pointed out that many Indians do not wish this, I
strongly feel that the trusteeship and other special
forms of government services to the Indians are holding
the Indians back politically, socially, and economi
cally. The Bureau is ready to prepare proposals or
has proposals in process in regard to many tribes
similar to those that have been prepared on California
and the Grande Ronde Siletz in Oregon. In order to
implement these proposals and for the benefit of the
Indians a strong hand will have to be taken both by i
the Department and Congress. There are many other bits
of evidence which I could supply but this memorandum
is already too long. I am sorry I had to present this
problem in this manner but I am sure that you will
understand that I am trying to be helpful in giving
you some of the experience that we have gained over
the past nearly three years which I hope will be of
some help to you and my successor."

284-

Lack Of Public Understanding Of The Indian Problem

DSM: During the past few years there has been appro
ximately half of the states of the United States with
an Indian population for which the Bureau of Indian
Affairs had some responsibility. This, of course,
includes the state of Alaska which has come in as a
state in recent years and which was not only respon
sible for the Indians there but for native people such
as Eskimos, Aleuts, etc. Most of these states, of
course, lie west of the Mississippi River mainly
because the eastern Indians were moved west by the
Federal Government many, many years ago and established
in Oklahoma in the then Indian territory.

If they didn't move, they stayed on and hid out in
certain other areas such as Mississippi, Alabama,
Louisiana, Florida, North and South Carolina. The
Eastern Seaboard states and the Northeastern states
of the United States probably have seventy-five thou
sand or one hundred thousand people of Indian blood
most of whom are not under the supervision of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs. Agreements were reached
between the State of New .York and the Federal Govern
ment many years ago, and the same is true of the State
of Maine, whereby the states took over the supervision
of the Indian lands and the Indian reservations so that
the responsibility no longer lies with the Federal Gov
ernment in those areas. Most of the Indians in the -
other Eastern States are part of the general popula
tion and do not live on lands that formerly belonged
to the Indians, but are integrated into the popula
tion generally.

We had a great deal of pressure during my regime
to accept a group in South Carolina back into the
Federal fold because some of the goodwill people felt
that they weren't being properly treated and that they
needed protection. We did not feel that this was the
way to give them the kind of protection they should
have, so vie opposed the bringing them in again.

The American Indian is often thought of by many
people in the United States as a rural person and as a

285

consequence they consider American Indians to be
farmers. This was not generally true. The only
Indians who did extensive farming were, the Pueblo
and Hopi Indians in the New Mexico-Arizona area, who
had received their grants of land from the Spanish
conquistadors many many years ago and who were able
to carry on undisturbed for a great many years in
their fanning operations. These people really knew
how to do dry land farming as well as irrigated
farming. Outside of these however the forest Indians
of the East and North and the Plains Indians of the
Midwest and the fishing Indians of the Northwest did
practically no farming; and any farming that was done
by these Indian groups was done by squaws, who simply
raised patches of squash to dry, corn which could be
used as meal, and used as a part of their pemican
which was made from buffalo meat, berries and many
other things which they packed together into a kind
of a combination of neat, grain and fruit that they
could slice down all winter long. So it was a mis
conception that Indians could be set up on a reser
vation; provided with horses, wagons and a black
smith; plows and a few other tools and that they
could make their own way. They had no idea how to
go about it.

Finally an agriculture extension service was
established to assisT; the Indians in carrying out
their operations, and there are today some pretty
good Indian farmers. Most of them are ranchers
instead of farmers. They do pretty well at taking
care of cattle and looking after the ranching phases
of the program. As a matter of fact one of the pro
blems on many of the reservations is that a few smart
Indians have bought cattle and turned them loose.
They have herded then and looked after them without
paying any range fees and as a consequence the poorer
tribe members are not getting out of it what they
should.

286

Many Indians Are Still Primitive

DSM: Most Indians, of course, were primitive people
who lived by hunting, fishing and by use of small
tracts of land for production of corn and squash and
that type of food. They lived the life of the nomad,
because they moved from place to place and many of the
tribes lived in part by poaching on the richer tribes
and stealing their produce. The Navajos, for example,
before the Civil War, got most of their food by wait
ing until the Pueblos had harvested their crops and
then they moved in and stole them. The Apaches did
much of the same thing in the Southwest. So there
were many, many tribal wars that went on throughout
the years before they were put on reservations. They
fought for various causes: trying to take over each
others' land, trying to take over each others' women,
trying to take over anything else of value. They were
quite primitive.

It was only in the late 1880's that the Indian
Wars between the troops of the United States and the
Indians came to an end. Some of the latter wars were
the Sioux wars in which Ouster and his army were
killed off; and the Apache wars in the Southwest. The
Apaches were finally taken to Oklahoma and put into
compounds and practically ruined because they were
supplied beef and other things and had absolutely
nothing to do. They had been a very active people,
of course, who poached on other Indians and who
poached on white people but they were put behind
bars, not exactly barn, but fences and guarded. They
spent years there and became about as low in their
living habits as anybody can possibly imagine. So up
until sometime after the turn of the century there
wasn't very much interest on the part of the American
people generally in trying to bring the Indian into the
civilized life of the so-called whites, or I should say
maybe the so-called civilized whites, because most of
the whites who had an interest in Indians were inter
ested in exploiting them, taking over their lands,
pushing them off of their lands, or some other type
of exploitation. Even in some areas they were used
as slaves, back in the old days.

28?

It was only after about 1920 that a much more
humane attitude began to develop, so it has been
only over the last forty or fifty years at the out
side that much has been done about: 1, stopping the
exploitation; 2, providing sound educational facili
ties; and 3, encouraging Indians with ability not
only to learn the ways of the white man but to enter
into professional types of activities which have been
the normal development of people in rural communities
generally.

One of the problems had been that Indians were
put on reservations and weren't even allowed to vote
until the late 1940's. I must add that Felix Cohen
helped to carry the battle on that on the right side
of the fence and did help to get the vote for Ameri
can Indians for which he should be given credit, in
contrast to his negative contribution to the Indian
problem.

There has not been much outstanding contribution
made by Indian individuals in terms of what we think
of today as statesmanship, professional activities, or
business activities. This doesn't mean that there
aren't any highly intelligent Indians because there
are, but unfortunately because of the fact that they,
most of them, do live on reservations that are under
the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the smart Indians have
learned to vie with each other in handling tribal
business and being the Indian politicos and many of
them who are interested in this kind of activity ex
ploit their poorer neighbors. It hasn't been a very
pretty story.

There have been people, of course, among the
Indian tribes even before they were moved out of the
south, among the so-called civilized tribes, who were
very erudite and well educated people. One of the
Cherokee Indians who was moved to Oklahoma, for
example, developed a written language for the Cherokees
which they had never had. This was an important con
tribution, and there were many similar contributions
of this type. American history is full of information
about some of the great old chiefs who knew how to
lead their warriors and to deal with the whites but
not in the modern way.

288

The Future For American Indians

DSM: At present time I'm most hopeful that over the
next hundred years, seventy-five years, fifty years
and even twenty-five years in many respects there
will be Indians who will be emerging as active people
in politics, as lawyers and doctors and professional
people of various types, because nowadays many of them
are going to the same schools as white people are, and
they are getting the opportunity to go to college. We
do have one Indian who is a Congressman from the Dakotas
and perhaps we will have others moving up within the
foreseeable future.

As I look back over the problems involved in work
ing with the Indians, in my job as Chief of the Bureau
of Indian Affairs there are a number of different areas
that need to be discussed.

First of all, many of the problems, if not most
of the problems, stem from things that had happened in
past history. There has been a tendency, for example,
for people who lived in the eastern part of the United
States to think that all Indians were farmers when it
just wasn't true. The only Indians who were farmers
were the Hopis and the Publeos in the Southwest who
were pretty good farmers and to try to adapt the pro
gram on the various reservations, once the Indians
were placed on reservations, to the kind of a program
that the white man had been carrying out in the way of
an economic program was not only a difficult task but
an impossible task from the standpoint of getting ac
ceptance on the part of most of the Indians.

I have already mentioned my visit to the Sissiton
area in North and South Dakota where the land had been
allotted to both Indians and whites following the
passage of the Allotment Act in 1887. The white people
had the good sense to come in and pick the kind of land
they were accustomed to farming, while the Indians,
having had the kind of economy that was based upon
hunting, fishing and the forest type of existence,
picked the hill lands and the scrub lands. As a re
sult they have nothing left today because the game is

289

all gone, the fish is all gone, the population has
increased, and consequently there is nothing but a
big poor-house type of area in that particular terri
tory. That is true in a number of reservations. Un
fortunately, when Indians were placed on reservations
they were generally placed in areas where the white
man didn't want to farm, didn't want to live. They
were put on scab lands and rough lands or in some
cases forested lands. In some cases this turned out
to be fortunate for the Indians, because there are
two or three reservations that I can think of that
have excellent forests which nowadays are providing
a good income to the Indians. The Monominies of
Wisconsin, the Klamath Indians of Oregon and some of
the Indians in other parts of the country still have
some pretty fair forest lands because at the time that
they were placed 'on these lands forests were available
rather generally and the white man wasn't so interested
in virgin timber in the areas where Indians lived.

Eastern Indians had a basic economy based upon
water, forest, and game; the Midwestern Indians'
economy was based largely upon the buffalo and the
picking of berries arid other fruits that were found
to supplement the food and clothing that they got from
the buffalo; the Northwest Indians were fishermen and
the Pueblos, as already mentioned, were farmers. We
the people of the United States throughout the years
pulled the rug out from under all the Indians, except
the Pueblos, by destroying their economy through cut
ting down forests, eliminating game, killing off the
buffalo or building dams so that the Northwest fish
ermen had great difficulty in finding the kind of
fishing spots that they once enjoyed.

The Indian owned the whole land in the sense
that they had occupied the land, with no white man
on the continent, until Columbus arrived. The reser
vations were set aside for their use and in some cases
a much larger area was set aside than they now have.
For example in western South Dakota where a very large
area was set aside for the use of the Sioux gold was
discovered in the area where the Indians had been re
located and the white man found a way to beat the
Indians out of the land on which there was gold, or

290

it was suspected there was gold. The Indians were
moved into more and more limited areas.

This sort of thing went on, and the thing that
is most difficult today is the fact that the Indians
generally who are under the trusteeship arrangement
with the Bureau of Indian Affairs have lived chiefly
on reservations and as a consequence they are insecure
when they move into any other area.

In the case of the Indian, because he is used to
associating with his own kind, he has had very little
association with the outside world, and when he moves
out of the reservation very often he wants to go back
fairly soon because he feels quite insecure otherwise.
So one of the biggest problems facing the Government
is to assist the Indian in moving into the main stream
of American life and breaking that pattern of isola
tion. Reservation life leads to a continuation of
certain old ways of life and nowadays leads to a wel
fare type of state for the simple reason that there is
not enough work available in many of the reservation
areas. So poverty, problems of relocation, problems
of education, problems of health and sanitation all
go more or less hand in hand.

Poverty basically is a very great problem to
which we in the United States have contributed through
out the years and like many people who are living in
the slums of the cities the educational facilities may
be there but they are not utilized as well as in
certain other areas.

Sanitation also becomes a very real problem^— in
fact there is a whole complex of problems which have
grown out of the fact that people who have not yet
moved into what we think of as the civilized world
are at the same time expected to do the things which
they have not learned to do in their early environ
ment.

As a result of all this, they have been exploited
not only by the white man in taking over the more
valuable lands, lands that had developed oil and gold,
but they have also been exploited in more recent years
by their own Indian politicos. Every tribe that I had

291

any experience with hs.d some smart, sharp Indians who
lived pretty largely off of the exploitation of poorer
Indian neighbors. Unfortunately the Indian politicos
have learned all of the bad tricks of their compatriot
politicians and not tco many of the good tricks, so
nowadays the control of Indians by other Indians is a
very real problem.

Indian Claims

DSM: The Indian lawyer problem is very closely asso
ciated with the problem of the Indian politicos,
because the lawyers very often worked with the
politicos and give them every break possible in order
to have their support in order to maintain their legal
business, whether it was claims work or some other
more general type of legal activity. This has been
one of the very real problems throughout the years
and certainly throughout the recent years, when
Indian claims are being presented to the Indian
Claims Commission.

During the 1940 'a an Indian Claims Bill was
passed. It was presented by the then Senator O'Mahoney
from Wyoming who said he wanted to get away from the
individual claims that were coming up from time to time
and having to face them individually so he prepared a
bill and the bill was passed which set up a Indian
Claims Commission of three people who were expected
to receive applications for claims and to have the
hearings held and claims settled by the early 1950' s.
As a matter of fact the Indian Claims Commission is
still in existence; three new members were recently
appointed, as of December 19S7. At the time of these
appointments it was stated that they homed to com
plete all the claims by 1972; ot goes on and on.

Many of the Indians hnve already rotten settle
ments of millions of dollars in claims which is
generally divided among the tribesmen, sometimes the

292

money doesn't last long when that happens.

The problem of planning for the withdrawal of the
services of the Bureau was one of the very real pro
blems that we tackled during my regime. There was
strong opposition from the so-called Indian Associa
tions and also from the Indian politicos, because
frankly they have a good thing going. As a conse
quence we got very little cooperation on the part of
the tribal leaders and others to try to work out plans
which would look toward the final independence of the
Indians if they did want to live on the reservations,
handle their own business or have it put under some
other kind of a trust; or to move out and move into
other areas into professional and skilled jobs.

Are The Indians A Dying Race?

DSM: The question is "Are the Indians on the way out as
a people?" or "Will they continue to be Indians in the
sense of recognized type of people?" This is the
American Indian that we are talking about. I think
the Indians are on the way out as a separate or iso
lated people, but it may take hundreds of years. I
feel quite strongly that integration is already in
process. It will increase as communications between
Indians and the outside public increases and it will
speed up, I think, from here on out.

The old rites that were practiced by the Indians
in initiating young men into the tribe are going out
of existence pretty fast. I remember of talking to
some of the old people among the Pueblos who were
bemoaning the fact that many of their youngsters were
not going through the process of earning their right
to be accepted members of the tribe way back in 1950
or 1951 when I was Commissioner. I am sure that this
problem of loss of interest on the part of the young
people and maintaining the old rites is going to be
a factor in the integration process. Some of them

293

have gone out as various types of workers in Pueblo
country. It is one of the few places where the
economy was not wrecked by the white man for the
reason that the Spanish conquistadors when they came
in made peace with the Indians and assigned large
tracts of land which were the lands that they had
been using for their continued use and they still
have them.

The problem today, however, is that during the
last twenty-five years or fifty years with better
health facilities, with the decrease in the death
rate among babies and youngsters, the population in
these areas as the population in most other parts of
the country has increased so much that there is not
enough land for these people to maintain their tribal
units without having some of the people go outside to
work. This going outside to work is a factor. Many
of the Pueblo Indians; go out now as younger people,
work outside for some years and when they retire they
come back to live in the Pueblo or near the Pueblo
where they can be near their family and friends.

The economy of the Pueblos was the only that had
not been wrecked and even it is changing drastically
now mainly because of the fact that there are just too
many people to live on the limited areas assigned to
them years ago.

Incidentally, I think that there is no Pueblo
with the possible exception of the Hopi, whose young
sters are not going into the public schools under con
tract nowadays, rather than having separate schools,
which of course is a. factor in the integration pro
cess.

When I was asked during the time that I was
Commissioner how long I thought it would be before
the Indian Bureau could withdraw and get out of busi
ness I alwa.ys refused to give an answer, because
there were too many factors to consider to make an
estimate. For example, getting out of the Kavaj'o
reservation where there are now probably about eighty
thousand people who have been living a life of nomads
and sheep herders- and who until recently at least
eighty percent of then did not speak the English

294

language is an entirely different problem than the
problem of the Pueblos. Each tribal situation is

different.

In Oklahoma for example where reservations were
eliminated many years ago there are still two area
offices rendering services to Indians in Oklahoma,
yet they are not on reservations but on their own
private lands, some of them communal, but most of
them individually owned. It is well known that some
of the Oklahoma Indians are rich because of the oil
strikes in the oil country of Oklahoma.

Five Hundred Years Iler.ce

DSM: I have said many times that five hundred years
from now we probably will not have an Indian problem
in the sense of having a separate group of people.
Many of the Indians who have not lived in reservations
throughout many many years now in the eastern part of
the United States are pretty well integrated. In
addition to other types of integration there is a
great deal of intermarriage between whites and Indians
and in the Carolina countries there has been consid
erable intermarriage between Negroes and Indians so
that many of the Cherokees from that area have both
Indian and Negro blood. It is obvious that this pro
cess of gradual absorption into the general pattern of
the country will inevitably continue, although it. is
slow due to isolation at the reservation level, pro
blems of fear and insecurity when they move off the
reservation. This is being changed by the fact that
the Bureau of Indian Affairs is now trying to provide
assistance to young people in particular who do move
off, to see that they get the kind of help they need
and the kind of association that will keep them rea
sonably happy and secure.

295

Looking Back At The Indian Affairs Assignment

DSM: In spite of all cf the battles that we waged with
the associations who are presumably working in behalf
of the Indians, with Indian lawyers, and with a former
Commissioner, my service as Commissioner of Indian
Affairs was a most interesting one. I visited all of
the agencies with one exception. The agency in Florida
I didn't visit because I didn't want to go down during
the wintertime and be charged with traveling on govern
ment funds to get a Florida vacation! However ? I have
visited the Seminoles in Florida as a private indi
vidual. The Seminoles are scattered around the state
now, having hidden out for a great many years in order
to keep from being moved from that area into the Indian
territory in Oklahoma where most of the Seminoles and
the five other so-called civilized tribes were moved.

There are still Cherokees in North Carolina, and
some other tribes in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana
and a fairly large group of Seminoles in Florida. I
didn't realize until after I became Commissioner that
most of the Seminoles had been moved and there are a
large group of Seminoles in Oklahoma along with the
other tribes that wex-e moved out there.

One of the big battles that we had continuously
during the time that I was Commissioner was the battle
to keep the record straight as far as the officers of
the Indian Associations were concerned. The Associa
tion of American Indian Affairs sent out their execu
tive officer every summer to visit many of the reser
vations in the West and to cook up stories of neglect,
of ineptness on the part of the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, and any kind of stories that would touch the
hearts of people, in order to raise money. We recog
nized very quickly after the first round of these
that these stories appeared in the newspapers under
the name of Oliver LaFarge who was President of the
Association.

Ife didn't go out to pick up the stories but he
could write well and after the 'information was pro
vided to him the papers published his material because

296

he was a well known writer. We began to rebutt these
statements and when people wrote in to ask us about
the truth of the matter we took the time and went to
the effort to get all of the information available on
the question and mailed it out to them. I remember one
case of an individual out in Denver who had been sub
scribing twenty-five dollars or fifty dollars a year
to the American Association of Indian Affairs for some
time who wrote in and we wrote him fully, a three or
four page letter, in response to one of these articles
that had appeared. We got a letter back from him in
which he said that he had sent his last money. He had
believed what they had said and he had never heard the
other side of the story and he was delighted to have
it. Naturally this kind of thing didn't make us
friends of the people who were trying to raise money
and of the people who were doing it by using the
Bureau as a whipping boy for their money raising
operation.

One other incident that I remember, the Congress
of American Indians was one of those that was always
picking at the Bureau and was finding ways and means
to dig up so called dirt and spread it around. They
also tried to have a hand in running the operations
of the Bureau to suit themselves, and I remember quite
distinctly attending a meeting in Philadelphia of a
group of people from the Association of American Indian
Affairs, the Congress of American Indians and two or
three other smaller organizations. The question was
raised as whether or not we had decided to continue to
have an advisory council to advise with the Commissioner,
I knew something of the history of the past advisory
council and I hadn't made up my mind whether I was
going to continue it and I had made this statement when
Ruth Musrat Bronson, who was one of the most active of
the Congress of American Indians group, spoke up and she
was supported by the Association of American Indian
Affairs executive officer in which she said "We think
you should have a council and furthermore we don't
think you should make any policy decisions without
consultation with the council."

I immediately said, "Well I can give you an answer
to that one. Policy decisions often need to be made
four or five times a week. The council would not be

297

available I am sure when these decisions had to be
made and I don't intend to handicap my job as Commis
sioner and to tie down my responsibilities in such a
way that I turn it over to somebody else to make my
decisions." Well, this didn't make me very popular,
but nevertheless it was the kind of thing that we had
to deal with. By the way, one of the old time
Commissioners, one of the Quakers who was Commissioner
back in the late 1920s, was at that meeting and he
nearly ^Sodded his head off when I gave this answer
and he stood up immediately and told the group that
he thought I was right ; that nobody could run the show
if he was expected to call somebody in every time he
made a decision. This was typical of the kind of
thing that we had to buck.

These interest groups have been carried on
throughout the years because a lot of well-to-do
people have salved their consciences by contributing
money to Indian work. There is a rather large group
of Quakers who are interested because the Quakers at
one time operated many of the reservations and did it
practically free of charge because they were interested
in seeing that these people got the right kind of
treatment. Unfortunately the Quaker organization that
now exists, or did when I was Commissioner, have fallen
for the same sort of pattern that developed several
years ago of insisting that no Indian lands be sold or
disposed of.

One of the men who came in from Oklahoma to work
with the Interior Department in the area of oil was a
Vice President of the Phillips Oil Company. He hap
pened to be chairman of one of the Oklahoma tribes.
He was perhaps one-sixteenth Indian, but any Indian
blood will qualify you as an Indian in Oklahoma, and
there is nobody in Oklahoma that I know of who isn't
proud to have some Indian blood. He had told me that
he didn't think any Indian lands should be sold, so I
invited him to come down and spend an hour with me
sometime when he had time, which he did.

I pointed out to him that the Indian lands that
I had seen in Oklahoma were the poorest farm lands in
Oklahoma and that to insist that they hold on to those
lands and try to make a living off them was not in the

298

interest of the Indians and if they thought Indians
should be farming and if Indians wanted to farm they
should be given the type of credit and the type of
support which they needed to go out and buy good farm
lands, as most other farmers would do, and not be
required to hold on to the old post oak, or scrub oak
lands which they were trying to operate as farms in
eastern Oklahoma and in other parts of the United
States. Well, I went through the whole process. I
told him about the Sissiton experience which I have
mentioned where the Indians when they had a chance
to take allotments had selected land that was poor
farming land because it had game and fish and now had
none. I convinced him. I found out later however,
that the pressures were so great on him that he reversed
himself again but at the time I convinced him.

This idea of not selling Indian lands goes back
to the days when the Indians did lose lands that white
men wanted because it had oil or it had gold or it had
something else that was really valuable or it was good
farming land. There was exploitation, there is no
question about it, but that exploitation has been pretty
well over for quite some time because the Bureau of
Indian Affairs has set up provisions for helping to
protect the Indian trust lands. The matter of holding
onto lands just because they are Indian lands is one
that has developed into a real problem.

299

CHAPTER XIV

CHANGE OF ADMINISTRATION AND I LEAVE THE GOVERNMENT

DSM: In 1952 General Eisenhower was elected to the
Presidency. It is the tradition that on the first
of January after an election when there is a change
in political parties, every one who has been a
Presidential Appointee, submits his resignation to
his department or to his superior officer. Among
others, of course, I submitted my resignation.

I heard nothing from it until the thirteenth of
March, some weeks after the President had been inau
gurated. On that date I got a letter signed by the
President saying that my services would be discon
tinued upon March 20, one week hence. I got a call
from Orme Lewis who was Assistant Secretary, who had
been appointed in the meantime, telling me that it
was coming and he apologized and said "I'm sorry that
I had to give you this message." Incidentally I found
out later that former Governor McKay who had become
Secretary had recommended that I be continued, but the
Republican National Committee who were riding high in
the saddle didn't want anybody of the old regime. So
out I went.

I might add that I doubt very much whether
President Eisenhower even read the letter that he
signed because he is the only man that I had known
before he became President and I knew him and his
brother Milton quite well and I am sure that he signed
dozens of letters that came across his desk without
looking at them at that time in order to go along
with the Republican National Committee.

I regretted having to leave in the midst of a
program that I thought was worthwhile; on the other
hand I knew it was coming, and I had no ill feelings
then and I have no ill feelings today, because of the
fact that I was fired. I might say that part of the
pressure for the change came from the Association of

300

American Indian Affairs and the Congress of American
Indians. In view of what I have said here about my
relationship with these associations it wasn't sur
prising that they didn't want me to continue as
Commissioner; but it was an interesting experience.
I wouldn't have missed it for a great deal. I
learned a great deal not only about Indians but
about human nature in general and one of the things
that I learned was that there are more experts in the
field of Indian affairs then in any other field that
I know of in the United States of America.

I Become A Civil Service Retiree

DSM: The job as Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian

Affairs was my last full time job with the government.
During the fall of 1953 I became a civil service
retiree at age sixty-two. Before reviewing my
activities from that time to the present, (1969) I
would like to reminisce about some people and experi
ences that contributed to my development and education
and to philosophize a bit about things I have learned
throughout my years of public service.

Congressional Friends And Political Contacts During
Fly Career In Government

DSM: During the seventeen years or more that I was

appearing before Congressional Committees and making
almost daily contact with members of the Senate and
the House, I learned to know some wonderful people
who were occasionally demanding but usually were most
helpful.

301

Senator Carl Hayden

DSM: Among those wae Carl Hayden who in 1%8 was the
Dean of the U.S. Senate. He wan nearly ninety years
old but he still had his faculties and was still the
chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Carl
li'ayden was one of the best politicians that I have
ever worked with. 1 remember quite distinctly after
having a visit with him in company with Leland Barrows
back during the days when I was Director of the W.R.A.
jbeland said "He is the kind of a person that a poli
tician ought to be. He takes people from over on the
right, people from over here on the left and brings
them together here in the middle." In other words he
is always looking for a compromise.

I shall always remember one of those problems
that he faced. He didn't quite know what to do to
resolve it but he finally figured out the answer.
During the days of the War Relocation Authority the
people in the Salt River Valley of Arizona were quite
concerned for fear that a lot of the Japanese Ameri
cans were going to settle there and they didn't like
the prospective competition. There were a few Japanese
Americans already there and they knew that the com
petition was something that they didn't want to face.
So they hired a so-called public relations man who was
not very ethical. They put on quite a campaign against
the Japanese Americans and stirred things up to the
point where it began to worry Senator Hayden and of
course it worried me. We already hod two relocation
centers in Arizona, one near Parker, on the western
side of the state, and one that we called Gils in the
Gila Indian Reservation a few miles out of Pheonix.
Carl Ilayden talked to me about it a number of times
and finally when General McNarney who represented the
Army before the Appropriations Committee at that time,
appeared before them he took up the question with him.
General McKarney .just brushed it off. It wasn't some
thing that he had anything to do with so he didn't do
anything,

So Carl ila.yden waited until the Congress adjourned
for that session. Then he went down to the White

302

House and saw President Roosevelt and he asked the
President to send the Inspector General of the Army
down 'to Phoenix. He told him what he wanted him to
do was to establish himself in the Westward Ho Hotel
and to call in the leaders of this group down there
one by one and to get real tough with them and to let
them know that the U.G. Government felt that they were
interfering with the v;ar effort.

The Inspector General came over to see me to get
the lay of the land. I gave it to him and I said "Of
course, you have talked to Senator Hayden," He smiled
and said "Yes, I have talked with Senator Hayden." So
they went to Phoenix s.nd established themselves in the
hotel and they called these men in from out of the Salt
River Valley, and they really scared them. We had no
more trouble in the Salt River Valley. They Just
piped down and everything went beautifully. Of course,
they never knew that Carl Hayden had any part in this
business and we never told anybody while he was still
in the Senate.

He was always the.' kind of person who was repre
senting his people and he pressed for things that he
thought they wanted. He seldom made a request in
which he said "It must be done." He simply proposed
it , and if we had very good reason against it he ' d
say "Well give me a letter that I can send out to my
constituents about it, giving your explanation." I have
a tremendous regard for Carl Hayden the man in the
Senate who seldom made a speech on the floor but did
his work in committees and behind the scenes. He is
greatly respected and loved by the people who have
worked with him.

Senator Clinton Andernon

DSM: Another chap from that part of the world that I
have learned to know uuite well is 01 inton Anderson
who came first to the House of Representatives from

303

New Mexico. At that time I was connected with the
Soil Conservation Service and it was suggested by our
Regional Director, Hugh Calkins, that we get in touch
with the new Congressman from New Mexico and fill him
in on the conservation program. I was elected to do
this. I called him up, made a date and went up to
see him. He wasn't too busy so he put his feet up on
a bench and leaned back and said "Tell me about it."
We must have spent two hours together. He was inter
ested both in New Mexico and South Dakota, which was
his home state. He had moved to New Mexico because as
a younger man he had developed tuberculosis and he
thought that was a better place for him to live.

After 1 had filled him in on a lot of information
he wanted about soil e.rosion, water control, and re
lated matters, he asked me to send him all the litera
ture that we had that had a bearing on his part of the
v/orld and on South Dakota. This was my first intro
duction but I saw a nreat deal of Clinton Anderson in
later years. I pot quite well acquainted with him
durinp the period in the House and later I got m-uch
better acquainted with him as a Senator. Dux-ing the
days when I was Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian
Affairs we had trouble with some of the so-called
Indian lawyers who were always a thorn in the flesh,
We talked to Clint Anderson about it so he set up a
series of hearings, he practically chased one of them
out of business with our help which we were very happy
about. This lawyer's name was Jim Curry. He had
gathered up a great many contracts on Indian claims
for presentation before the Claims Commission, by
having the help of an Indian organization for which he
was the lawyer go out and get him these jobs. He had
them all the way from Alaska to the Southwest and
across the country and I'm sure that ultimately he
probably made a million dollars out of it because he
sold his interest in these to somebody else for twenty-
five percent interest and as these claims began to be
come due he got a large return out of it without doing
much about it.

I remember one other incident to show how the
mind of a good politician works. One of the Pueblo
groups in New Mexico had an excellent deposit of gravel
and there were several people who were interested in

304

getting in on this gravel for construction work. There
was one chap who was already using gravel from this
place, by the name of Loudermilk. There was another
group who moved in and who got Senator Chavez's
brother to serve as their attorney. They put the
pressure on us to let them take over an exclusive
contract. We weren't willing to do this; but the
pressure got very heavy. So I went up one day and
talked to Senator Anderson. I said "Senator, we have
no interest in pushinp; Mr. Loudermilk out, but we have
an interest in dividing up this gravel down there so
that we can not only take the pressure off but to give
these Pueblo people an opportunity to make the most
they can out of it.'r He looked at me and said "I don't
care what you do as long as you let Louderrailk continue
to have gravel." So we let about five people in with
a contract that provided for a somewhat higher price.
v/e put the money in the tribal fund for the Indians.
But this again is typical of a man who is willing to
compromise. We had great support from him and I shall
alv/ays remember the nood relationships I have had with
Clinton />.nderson.

Senator Richard Russell

DSM: Another Senator whom I worked v/ith for a number of
years and for whom I have a very high regard is
Richard Russell of Georgia. While Richard Russell and
1 do not hold the same philosophy in many respects
including the race problem we did get along very well
in the days when I was a member of the staff of the
Woil Conservation Service. He supported our program
at that time and he was a very strong supporter of the
Farm Security program and most of the other New Deal
programs. During those days I could go to his office
at any time that I wished for a conference with him,
to get his advice which I very often did. At that
time he was Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Sub-
Committee. He always handled our appropriation hear
ing. After the first year with S.C.S., I presented the

305

detailed information about our budget and consequently
we saw a good deal of each other. Dick Russell is one
of the top politicos in my opinion. With his friends,
he is a man of honor. He never pressed us to do some
thing that was impossible.

At one stage we had a chap on the rolls from
Georgia in the fairly early days of the Soil Conserva
tion Service who wasn't producing and we told our
regional director, that he could get rid of him. This
word came back to Richard Russell and he called me up
and said "Dillon, I have got to have that man on the
payroll." I said "All right, Dick. We have got to
have him off within a reasonable time. How long do
you have to have him?" He said "Three months." I
said "We'll keep him three months." At the end of
three months we dropped him. This was the kind of
relationship that we had and it was wonderful. We
could talk to each other on first name basis and we
understood each other.

Senator Mike Mansfield

DSM: Mike Mansfield, the present Majority Leader of the
Senate, is another great man in my opinion. I had more
contact with Mike when he was a member of the House
than I have had since he became a member of the Senate.
I have only seen him occasionally in recent years
because I have not been in Government.

During the time he was a member of the House he
was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. When I
was President of the Institute of Inter-American Affairs
it was important that we get a new charter. The one we
had only lasted another year. I went up and talked
with the acting chairman of the committee, Congressman
Richards, and he said "I'm favorable and I would like
to do something about it, and I'll be glad to appoint
a sub-committee to have hearings on the matter. Whom
would you like as chairman?" I said "Mike Mansfield."
So he made Mike Mansfield chairman, and we had a good

306

sub-committee. We got our charter through the House
and we got it through the Senate. We had a very
close working relationship. Here again I could always
stop in to see him at any time. In the days when I
was Director of the War Relocation Authority when I
occasionally needed counsel about what to do about the
Dies Committee and others who were on our necks, Mike
Mansfield was one of those whom I would talk to on
occasion, and he was always willing to take ten or
fifteen minutes to advise about the next move.

Congressman George Mahon

DSM: George Mahon who is now Chairman of the House
Appropriations Committee, comes from the Panhandle
country of Texas. I shall always remember that when
George was a young Congressman back in the 1930's he
came down to my office, and said he needed a dam in
his district. It so happened that there had been a
dam built, in the adjoining district which Marvin Jones
represented, by the land usage agency of the old
Resettlement Administration which was finally trans
ferred to us. I told him that I was sorry but that I
did not believe we were in a position to build any
dams. The dam building period was pretty well past.
I said "Tell me, Congressman, do you really think it
would be a good expenditure of money to build a dam
down there even if we had the money?" He said "That
isn't the question. My answer is no, I don't think it
is a good expenditure of money; but my constituents do
and for that reason I'm asking for a dam." I said
"I can understand that perfectly. All I can do is to
write you a letter and tell you about the situation
in regard to a limitation of funds and give you some
thing that you can send back to your constituents.*1

This was the beginning of our acquaintance. I
saw a great deal of him during the following few years.
He was always decent, he was always ready to sit down
and talk sense. Here again was a man whom I learned

307

to regard so highly that during the days when we were
under stress I occasionally went up to see him for
advice. I remember one time I went up and called him
off the House floor to talk with him, about what to
do about Congressmen Costello and Dies, who were
harrassing us in the W.R.A. days. He told me to go
ahead and take care of our business and not worry too
much about it, but if it got too bad to come back and
he and a few other people would go on the floor and
see what they could do about it. George Man on is a
conservative, a very solid, down-to-earth realist and
a great person.

Congressman "Ghet" Holofield

DSM: "Chet" Holofield was a member of the House of

Representatives at the time I was Director of the War
Relocation Authority. He was a young Congressman from
Los Angelos. I shall always remember how I met "Chet"
Holofield.

V/e had a young chap on our staff in the first year
or two of W.R.A. by the name of Gibson who was working in
our Community Affairs Division who came from Califor
nia. He knew we were having a great deal of difficulty
particularly with the West Coast Congressmen, most of
them from California. So he came into my office one
day and said "I don't know whether you will want me to
do anything about this or not but I know Chet Holo
field and if you have no objection I would like to go
up and see him and tell him something about W.R.A.'s
problems and about what your problems are, to see if
I can't arrange for him to pick up some of the chips
and do something about it." I said "Go right ahead."
1 briefed him and he went to the Hill.

In three or four days I got a letter from Chet
Holofield raising a lot of questions which I'm sure
had been discussed at the time Gibson was on the Hill.

308

I replied to them in writing. A few days later he got
in touch with me by phone and said he thought it would
be a good thing if we had a meeting of the California
delegation. He said "If you like I'll ask Clarence
Lee who is chairman of the delegation to call a meet
ing. " I said "I would be very happy to have that
happen." So he arranged with Clarence Lee to call a
meeting of the California delegation. I went up still
not having met Chet Holofield and didn't know what he
looked like. He was a little late getting to the
meeting and Clarence Lee, the chairman, was getting
itchy and had about decided to go ahead without Holo
field but Just at that moment he walked in. I was
sitting near the aisle where I could intercept him
and I simply raised up out of my seat and shook hands
and said "I'm Dillon Myer" and he said "Fine" and then
went right on up front.

Holofield explained to the California delegation
that he had a number of questions which had been
bothering him. He had gotten in touch with me and I
had been so helpful about answering them that he
thought the rest of the delegation ought to have the
opportunity to hear some of the same answers, so he
had arranged for this meeting. He introduced me and
we had a real session as we did four or five times
subsequently through the next few months. It was an
opening wedge into the delegation and the opportunity
to get acquainted with these Congressmen many of whom
felt that they had to batter us day after day after
day because they thought it was the politic thing to
do.

As soon as that meeting was over Chet Holofield
and a young man by the name of George Outland who was
in Congress only a term or two closed in as we came
out and guided me to Eolofield's office. They sat
down with me and told me about the "facts of life" as
far as California politics were concerned. They said
that they wanted to be helpful and that I could call
on them at any time.

I shall always remember one suggestion that Holo
field made. He said "I think you ought to send a mine-
ograph statement to the whole West Coast delegation
every time something happens that the Hearst papers

309

and others blow up into something that isn't quite
right. Keep them informed week after week, and month
after month so that people like Dick Welch (Congress
man from San Francisco) will have his feet tied to the
floor if he has the facts so that he can't say he
didn't know about them." We adopted this practice
and it was most helpful. It enabled Congressmen to
be in a position where they had to know that I had
sent them information giving our side of the events
which was very often s-.t variance with what went into
the newspapers, and very often at variance from what
was being fed out of the Dies Committee's Mr. Stripling
and others. I shall always give my heartfelt thanks
to "Chet" Holofield and to George Outland for the fact
that they were willing to be the buffers.

It so happened after the Tule Lake incident in
the early days of 19^- the whole California delegation
with few exceptions and some of the Washington and Ore
gon delegations, twenty-one out of thirty-three V/est
Coast Congressmen, signed a petition to President
Roosevelt to have me fired. I was very pleased to
know that "Chet" Holofield and George Outland and John
Coffee from the State of Washington and several others
were not on the petition. Some of the others were
away at the time but several of these people were
courageous enough to give us the support that we
needed. I occasionally still stop by and say hello
to "Chet" Holofield, because I feel very strongly
that a man of his type should know how much he is
appreciated.

Congressman Charles Levy

DSM: There are two other people who are now out of the
Congress that I want to talk about briefly. The first
one is the late Charles Levy who at the time I first
knew him was Congresonan from the Spokane area of the
State of Vasiiinrton. This was back in the days when I
wan with the Soil Conservation Service.

One of the reasons that I got so well acquainted
with Congressman Levy was the fact that he was on the
sub-committee of the House Agriculture Appropriations
Committee. We saw ham regularly as we went before the
committee with our budget. At one stage I presented
a budget for small water development projects which
had been transferred to us with the Land Use Division.
Charles Levy spoke up and said he thought this was
something that should be the responsibility of the
Bureau of Reclamation. When the bill came on the
floor he bucked our appropriation for this particular
item on the grounds that it did belong in the Bureau
of Reclamation. So I called up the Chief of the
Bureau of Reclamation whom I knew at that time and
told him about the problem. He said "We are not inter
ested in doing this kind of work." I said, "Would you
be willing to meet with Congressman Levy and me if I
got in touch with the Congressman and arranged a meet
ing?" He said "I would be delighted." So we had the
meeting. Charles Levy came down and met with us.

The Chief of the Bureau of Reclamation told him
that there was a mistake about this. It wasn't some
thing that they could do or were really interested in
or were equipped to do but it was something which the
S.C.S. was equipped to do. So Levy accepted the state
ment and went back to the Hill. At the first oppor
tunity he got he got up on the floor of the House and
said he wanted to correct a mistake. This was the
first time I had ever known a Congressman to announce
publicly that he had made a mistake ! He corrected
his mistake by saying that he was wrong about this
and he now wanted to support the program for small
water development of the type that we were presenting
and gave his reasons for it. I called him up and said
"Congressman, this is the first time that 1 have ever
known a politician who was willing to admit to the
world that he had made a mistake, and I just want to
give you a great big pat on the back and say thanks."

As a result we got to be very close friends.
After he became a judge in Western Washington, when
ever I went that way ':'. always stopped in to see him
and had a good visit with him. He was a wonderful man.

Congressman N orris Po u Ison

DSI'l: The other Congressman whom I want to mention

briefly is Norris Poulson. Rorris was a young Con
gressman during the "tattle" of the War Relocation
Authority in the early 194-0's, who was a member of the
group who met with the California delegation that I
mentioned previously. We thought Norris was willing
to listen and Bob Cozzens who was in Washington at the
time and 1 spent quite a little time with Poulson
trying to convince birr that he shouldn't go off the
deep end. But he evidently thought his political
interests were strong; enough on the other side that
he finally went on the floor of the House and mnde a
scathing attack on rce personally and on '.v'.R.A. Natural
ly we didn't quit speaking to him but we didn't see as
much of him as we had previously.

He then was out of Congress for two terms and was
reelected. While I was in the Capitol building one day
shortly after I became the Commissioner of the Bureau
of Indian Affairs which was six or seven years after
his attack, I ran into Norris Poulson. We stopped and
shook hands and he said "Dillon, I have been intending
to tell you something and here's a good opportunity.
I just wanted to tell you that you were right and I was
wrong back in the days of W.R.A." I said "Norris, I
appreciate that and I always kind of thought that when
you really understood what it was all about you pro
bably would change your mind. I appreciate it very
much. "

vvell, this wasn't the end of it. The first time
our Bureau of Indian Affairs Appropriation Bill came
on the floor a big husky "blow-hard" Congressman-at-
large from Ohio, named Bender, got up and took out-
after me personally and made a scathing statement in
some respects very similar to the one that Korris
Poulson had made seven or eight years before. Lo and
behold, Norris Poulson got to his feet the minute he
had an opportunity and said "You are completely mis
taken. I know Dillon Myer. I once made a statement
about him myself that I now regret because I have come
to the conclusion that Dillon I'iyer was right and I was

312

wrong in those days, and I still think very highly of
him. I am sure that you will find that you are wrong
about Dillon Myer."

I called Norris Poulson after I read the record
and thanked him for what he had done and said again
that this was the second incident that I had ever
known where a politician had been willing to get up
on the floor and say that he had been wrong. He said
"Well, Dillon, it almost got me licked. I came off
the floor and Bender had barged out of the door and
he grabbed me by the lapels and I thought he was going
to kill me. I stood my ground and he let loose pretty
soon but he was so mad because we were both Republicans
and he couldn't understand why I had let him down."

One other little incident. Some time after we
had finished the W.R.A. program and after I had resigned
from the job as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Jenness,
my youngest daughter Margaret and myself made a trip
to the West Coast. We pot into Los Angelos and the
newspapers had big headlines about the big fight the
mayor was having about trash collection. Here was
Norris Poulson 's name right across the top of the
paper oecause at that time he was Mayor of Los Ange
los. I said to my family "I must call Norris up."
The next morning I called him, and I was greeted as
an old friend. He wanted to know what we were doing
and I said "Well, Margaret wants to see Hollywood so
we were planning to go over to Hollywood and spend a
day or two in Los Angelos seeing the sights." He said
"Do you have a car?" I said "No." He said "There will
be one down there in thirty minutes." Presently we
were paged and when we went out the front door here was
c. wonderful driver who had spent a lot of time on one
of the Hollywood lots. His father was employed over
there in one of the big studios and he was then serving
as chauffeur for the Mayor. We had the use of a big
black Cadillac with a telephone and all the equipment
in it, and we were shown around Hollywood in style
that day, as a result of my knowing the Mayor and my
past experience with him. This was a heart warming
experience. When we pot into the car and were well
established Jenness reached over and touched me on the
arm and said "Just let me touch you."

313

Relations With Congress

DSM: There are other people whom I learned to know in
my Congressional contacts that I might mention but
these stand out in my memory at the moment. For fear
that I might go on and on I think I had better close
it out simply with this statement. The one thing that
I missed more than anything else after I got out of the
Government and did not have any official contacts with
the committees and members of the Congress, was the
fact that I didn't have the opportunity to sit down
across the table and have the kind of give and take
that we had in the days when I was a "bureaucrat."
I learned to enjoy the committee sessions thoroughly.
I also enjoyed seeing my friends on an official basis.

I learned after a short time that once you are
out of the Government and you have no business up
there you are not really welcome in most of the offices
other than just to shake hands and say hello because
these people are busy people. I still miss it but I
had a good experience during the seventeen or eighteen
years of Congressional contacts.

HP: One of the things that has impressed me of the des
criptions of the people on the Hill whom you knew is
that you were never afraid of them. So often in
Government there is disproportionate fear of the men
on the Hill. But you seemed to have accepted them as
your equals and were relaxed and impressed with them
and I think this must have contributed a great deal to
your ability to get along with them.

DSM: I must admit that during the first few rounds I had on
the Hill I was nervous and a bit afraid, and occasion
ally defensive, much to my disadvantage. You never
want to "bark" back at the old-time Senator across the
table. You had better take it in stride and get at it
some other way and I learned this after the first one
or two hearings. I learned very soon that as long as
I knew more about the subject then the people across
the table did, I could have fun out of it because I
was confident that I had the answers. I occasionally

314-

took it on the chin for a while but I learned to wait
for the opportunity to make the record clear. So it
did get to be fun.

It is true, generally speaking, that if you play
fair with the people across the table the Congressmen
and the Senators, they will usually play fair with
you. This is something that you have to learn the
hard way. Even in the days of the Eightieth Congress
when we were taking a terrible beating when I was
Commissioner of the Public Housing Administration
because they were trying to kill public housing, we
had on the whole very courteous treatment before the
committees and a chance to build out part of the re
cord.

Speaking of this type of thing I have another
incident that maybe I should throw in here.

Senator Pat McCarran was a politico of the first
order from Nevada as everybody who ever knew him knew.
He was hard boiled, he was tough but during the early
days of the War Relocation Authority they wanted some
people out of the relocation centers to help with the
raising and marketing of tomato plants which they
grew in the Moapa Valley in Nevada. They didn't have
the needed labor in those days. The war was on and
we had pressure from every side up to and including
finally the Governor who had not as yet given us a
letter which we required saying that they would be
responsible for law and order and see to it that the
evacuees were properly treated and protected. Among
others, we had a call from Senator McCarran "s office.

It happened that Rex Lee who at that time was in
charge of our Salt Lake Office, had gone over to
Nevada to meet with the Governor. I could not reach
him that afternoon but I left a call for him to call
back that night. When he called I asked him whether
the Governor had promised to send a letter and he said
"Yes." I said "Do you think he will?" and he said
"Yes." I said "Let the folks go to Nevada to help
them get their work done." They were over there by
noon of the following day. As a result of that we had
a call from the Senator's assistant saying that the
Senator had had the most expeditious service that he

315

had ever gotten out of anybody in the Government and

they appreciated it very much. A few days later

McCarran called personally to be sure that I had got
ten the message.

It wasn't very long after this incident, a few
weeks or months, we had our appropriations bill up be
fore the Senate committee. Normally if the House
passes the bill without any change you don't go to the
Senate unless you are called because there is nothing
to be changed and this is what happened in this case.
The House had passed the bill without a change in any
respect. So I was surprised when I got a call from
the Hill saying that they wanted me to come up and
testify before the Senate. I went up and as we waited
in the anteroom Senator Hayden came through and I
stopped him and said "Senator, tell me why we are up
here, do you know?" He said "No, but I will find out."
So he went into the room and came back out and said
"I don't know why but Senator McCarran wants to talk
with you. He is up on the floor now fighting another
battle, so I understand that the hearing you are going
to have will be postponed until tomorrow."

The next day Senator McCarran came in and there
was about ten or eleven other Senators who were members
of that committee present. The Senator came in loaded
with editorials and pieces that came out of the Nevada
papers all of which were violently against the Japanese
people. It was the same kind of campaign that had
been going on in the Salt River Valley in Arizona. I
realized that this had overlapped into that part of
Nevada which wasn't very far away. The Senator would
read one of these tough editorials or one of these
tough pieces written with a byline by somebody out
there and he would end up by saying "Mr. Myer, I agree
with that. Now what do you think?" and he gave me all
the time I wanted to rebutt. I had right in my file a
telegram from Senator McCarran asking that we send these
Japanese Americans in, about whom the newspapers were
protesting. Well, this went on for about an hour and
a half. McCarran was building the record and I was
also, because he was giving me plenty of opportunity
to build my record.

316

When he finished he stood up and said "Off the
record." He turned to the rest of the committee with
a smile and said "Gentlemen, this has gotten to be a
very tough problem out in my part of the world, in my
State, and I even had a letter the other day from a
man who told me if I didn't do something about it he
would vote Republican the next time." Of course every
body laughed. I said "Senator, before you leave and
while we are off the record could I ask you a couple
of questions?" He said "Why of course, Mr. Myer." I
said "We sent some folks into Nevada to help some of
your farmers down in the Moapa Valley with their work
and they are still there. Would you like us to take
them out?" He said "Not by any means, Mr. Myer. We
very much appreciate what you did for us. You did a
wonderful job. They are still there and the people are
very happy with them and please don't do anything
about it. Just leave them there."

All of this was off the record. I fished his
telegram out of my case during the time that all of
this was going on. Leland Barrows punched me and
rolled his head sidewise back and forth. He was
afraid that I was going to present it and of course
I wasn't. I just wanted him to know I had it. Well
this was all there was to it. He was just building up
the record and here was the proof of it. A few days
later when the Congressional Record of this hearing
came to my office which it always did from the appro
priations hearings, for us to make any corrections in
the record, I called Senator McCarran's office and
talked to Miss Adams, his trusted assistant, and said
"What is the relationship between the present Governor
and the Senator politically?" She said "Mr. Myer, we
wish we knew." I said "I'll tell you why I asked. I
mentioned the Governor's name on two or three occasions
in my testimony. I didn't have to and it isn't perti
nent or necessary to the testimony and I just wondered
whether I should strike it out which I can very easily
do." She said "Mr. Myer, do you have a letter or a
wire from the Governor asking that you send evacuees
in to help do this work?" I said "Yes." She said
"Will you send us a copy of it?" I said "Yes." She
said "If you will do that you can do anything you want
with that record." So this was the reason. He was
afraid that the Governor was going to run against him

317

for the Senate one of these days. The Governor had
built a pretty bad record on this situation and he
wanted to be sure that he couldn't outdo him when it
came to being against the "Japs", so called.

One other incident that I think may be worth
recording has to do with the Senator, who until re
cently was Minority Leader of the Senate, Everett
Dirksen. I learned to know Everett Dirksen during the
days when I was appearing before the House Appropria
tions Sub-Committee on Agriculture of which he was a
member. We got quite well acquainted because he was
of course a minority member and was supposed to be
picking at everything we did. In spite of this we got
to be very good friends. During the latter part of my
period with the Soil Conservation Service after the
so-called land use program was transferred over to us,
we had some problems with some of the things that had
been completed before they came to us. One of them was
a dam that was built down in southern Illinois which
cost a lot of money and of which Congressman Kent
Keller was very proud. It was probably a good thing
in their community but it probably wasn't justified
on the basis of the authorization. They happened to
have an engineer in those days who liked to build dams
and he didn't worry too much about the justification.

In any case, we got a letter one day from Senator
Dirksen, who at that time was Congressman Dirksen,
asking for a detailed statement about this particular
dam in Kent Keller's district. He wanted to know about
the costs and the justification for it. We wrote him
about a three or four page letter. As I usually did
under these circumstances instead of mailing the letter
I took it up. I handed it to him and said "I think
maybe you ought to read that while I'm here because
if there are any further questions I can then answer
them." After he read it, I said "I have a message
for you. We told Kent Keller that we had this letter
from you and Kent Keller's reply was 'You tell Everett
Dirksen to get out of my district and if he doesn't
I'll kick his ass out.'." So I told Everett Dirksen
this and he leaned back and just roared. He said
"Well, I think Kent Keller is justified. I don't
usually meddle in other peoples affairs who are Con
gressmen from other districts. The only reason I sent

z

18

you this letter is because it was sent down to me by
Joe Martin, the Majority Leader of the House, and he
asked me to handle it and that's the reason I'm han
dling it." We had a good laugh about it and I'm sure
he sent the information on to whoever requested it and
that was that.

I saw Everett Dirksen many times during the years
when I was in Agriculture and occasionally when I be
came Director of the V/ar Relocation Authority.

Attitude Toward Congress

HP: As I have mentioned before, I can't help wondering about
the one common demoninator that is your lack of fear.
You seemed to have the attitude when you went up on the
Hill that you were certainly as good as anybody whom
you were talking to. This lack of fear seems to be an
important ingredient to your successful relationships
there.

DSM: I'm not sure that I can explain to you just how all of
this came about but I will do my best. I think I
should start by saying bascially I was quite a shy boy
who grew up in the country. I didn't have too many
public contacts in my very early days but I did have a
good many as a teenager when we began to deliver com
modities to cottage people and others. This experience
may have had something to do with my having learned
how to deal with people. I worked in a grocery store
owned by my aunt and uncle off and on throughout the
years when I, was in grade school and I think that
helped.

Basically though, I think that my family relation
ship was a factor. My Mother was also a very shy per
son but she was a very proud one. Without having any
thing much said about it, there was never any question
in our family but that we held our heads up. We were
not any better than anybody else but we were not any

319

worse than anybody else. My Father was highly re
spected in the community for his honesty, his frank
ness, his ability to communicate with people and his
helpfulness to them. My Mother was highly respected
too, although she didn't have the same kind of active
part in community life as my Father did. The home
relationship and example were good ones.

When I was in college I was a member of an Agri
cultural fraternity which was most helpful to me. I
had help on every turn if I needed it with studies
that I wasn't too good at. I was encouraged and I
was expected to do my best. So this was also a good
atmosphere.

When I got out on the job myself I began to look
around me and I began to wonder why some of the people
who were much older than I hadn't gone further then
they had. I wondered if they hadn't worked hard
enough, whether they didn't know enough about their
subject, whether they didn't know how to present it
well, or what the problem was. I found myself trying
to do something about that, and it wasn't very long
until I realized that I was willing to present any
thing that I knew which was in my field to anybody
and to present it fairly well.

There was one incident that probably was a good
one. I went out on an extension trip with a group of
older extension men to attend two or three meetings.
At one place we had a local experimental field which
was run by our department. Somebody asked me a
question about it and before I got through I admitted
I didn't know too much about it. We hadn't more than
left that building until I was jumped on from all
sides by my associates and was told that you never
admitted that you didn't know about something. You
gave the best you knew and say that there was probably
additional information but you didn't deny your know
ledge because as they pointed out, immediately after
my admission of ignorance there weren't many more
questions.

I found before I had been out of college very
long that I was willing to tackle any Job that was
assigned to me within my field of knowledge or within

320

my area of responsibility with confidence. I suppose
this was pretty basic to my later approach to Congress.
I don't know exactly when I came to the conclusion that
there wasn't any percentage in kowtowing. I never did
kowtow. I don't think my Mother or Father ever kowtowed
to anybody. We told the truth as v/e knew it and we did
our work the best we knew how, and we never felt any
particular shame about the way we handled a matter.

I remember quite distinctly after I moved from my
first job at the University of Kentucky, and after I
had been county agent at Evansville, Indiana, for a
time, when I was offered a job at Purdue by G. I.
Christy who was the Extension Director, I learned that
there were certain people on this staff whom he loved
to "ride." They never came into his office or they
never came around him that he didn't do something that
I thought was bad to them. I used to say that evidently
he could see a man's knees shaking under his pants the
minute he came into the office. He always climbed right
on and went to work on him. In my case he never did
because I think he knew that I wasn't going to take it.

HP: Apparently there is something of a bully in many people.

DSM: That's right. He was a bit of a bully. But he never
bullied me. I realized that this was important to me.
I suppose that was simply another event in my realiza
tion that the thing for me to do was to remain firm
and not allow myself to be bullied.

After I became a. member of the staff of the Soil
Conservation Service and I began to handle part or all
of the hearings before the Appropriation committees of
the House and the Senate, and before any other committees
of the Congress, for the first few times I must admit
that I was nervous and a bit defensive. At one hearing
Senator Bankhead had dug into me pretty deep and I had
barked back at him. After the hearing was over Hugh
Bennett who was my chief at that time very decently
and very kindly reminded me that I should not loose my
temper. I should handle it in a somewhat more tactful
manner. This was good experience.

I never went to the Hill that I wasn't thoroughly
prepared so that I felt fully confident that I knew

321

more about it then anybody else, even the people in my
own shop, because the budget hearings were my parti
cular bailiwick. As a consequence I had no fear. As
I saw these Congressmen, many of whom had been former
prosecuting attorneys, sitting across the table from
me trying to dig into the testimony to find some holes,
it got to be a big challenge to be able to meet their
questions head on and to build a good record. It
wasn't very long until we began to establish a mutual
respect.

Politics

HP: Did you ever consider going into politics?

DSM: I have been asked many times whether I had considered
going into politics. My answer has always been no I
never have. First of all by the time I learned some
thing about politics I was living in the Washington
area, I was a well established "bureaucrat." As a
matter of fact I was living in Virginia a good deal
of the time where politics didn't appeal to me. I
encouraged Jenness to go into politics once as a mem
ber of the Falls Church council, and I had a lot of
fun serving as her advisor, but I never was in it my
self.

I enjoyed myself in my bureaucratic relationship
with people in politics. I respected those people I
knew who were the good ones. I knew when to show dis
respect at the proper stage to those who weren't the
good ones.

Jenness was asked at one time after she had been
on the town council to run for Congress in our district
in Virginia. We discussed it at some length. Finally
we sat down one evening and I said "Do you know how
much it would take to do this job without accepting
somebody else's money?" She said "No." I said "Well
I have been making some inquiry about it. It would

322

take about fifty thousand dollars." She said "Let's
forget it." So v/e forgot it.

It is true that many people who are in politics
have started where it didn't cost that much money.
They built up their knowledge of the game and they
built up a clientele. Former President Truman, for
example, was a county Judge, what we would have called
in Ohio a county commissioner, as one of his first
jobs in the political field. Of course he had support
from some very strong people in Missouri. How much he
had to kowtow to those people I don't know. I must
say though that I think he made a darn good President
and he knew when to draw the line. He knew when to
say yes, and he knew when to say no which others have
not always been able to do.

323

CHAPTER XV

SOME PEOPLE AND EXPERIENCES THAT WERE IMPORTANT IN
MY LIFE

DSM: My parents were two of the finest people I have
ever known. They were both people who practiced the
Christian faith and were quite active in church work
but the important thing is that they were people who
really lived their beliefs and taught them. I think
I am beholden to my Dad, as well as to my Mother, for
the training I received in learning the necessity of
always being honest and of remembering that there was
a Golden Rule and when you were tempted to overstep to
remember to repeat the Golden Rule to yourself and try
to do something about it. I have said many times that
if I could leave this world with a feeling that I had
the respect of the community in which I had lived and
operated equal to the respect that my Father enjoyed
in the community in which he lived and worked, I v/ould
feel very happy.

I shall always be grateful for the kind of parents
I had. They were farm people. Their life was much
more restricted from the standpoint of communication
with the rest of the world than mine has been, but
nevertheless they lived a wonderful life and they
passed on to me and to their other children something
that is impossible to get otherwise than by having
the right kind of parents.

HP: I wish you would backtrack, and give some description
of the personal appearance of all of these people :
Your Mother, your Father, Mr. Orr, all of them that
you have mentioned.

DSM: My Father was not as tall as I am. As I remember him
he was five feet nine inches, I'm six feet one inch so
I'm four inches taller than he was. My Mother was five
feet seven inches which was a fair height for a lady in
those days but still she was not considered a large
woman. My Dad when I first remembered him had almost

324-

black hair and a very dark mustache and one of the
things that I shall always remember he had a very bad
case of diptheria and was ill for some time during
which he allowed his beard to grow, and he had a very
dark beard. When he shaved it off his face was so
white that we marveled at it. My Dad was not a man
of great physical strength. On the other hand when
he decided to do a day's work he really could do a
day's work. He was wiry, he was active at all times
except when he was ill, and he kept going at a great
pace right up to the time he left this world at age
eighty years. I remember quite distinctly that we
used to talk about Dad cracking his coattails as he
went down across the field to catch the inter-urban.
He alv/ays went in a hurry and he went almost as fast
as I did when I was running to catch the car to go to
high school.

My Mother had long beautiful auburn hair. She
had to cut out part of it occasionally because it was
so heavy it made her head ache if she kept it all.
She could sit on her hair and I loved to see her comb
it. She had the kind of complexion that goes with
that color hair and she freckled easily. She was
very careful to wear a sunbonnet when she v/ent out
into the sun to do garden work and she did a great
deal of work in the garden. She liked to be outside.

HP: Flowers and vegetables both?

DSM : There were both flowers and vegetables, and also fruits
in the garden. She had raspberries and blackberries
which she helped to pick.

We always v/ent blackberrying out into the wilds
where we nearly always got chiggers but she loved to
come in with two or three buckets of blackberries and
she would "put them up."

She was a great person, a person of tremendous
energy and vitality although she wasn't the kind of
person who moved around fast. She looked after the
chickens, and the garden for the most part. I helped
her as I got older. She did n lot of other things,
nnd of course in those days, there won much canning
of fruits in particular and a little later vegetables •

and the frying down of sausage in lard. She looked
after all of these things and more while she raised
a family of four kids.

HP: How much difference was there between you and your
sisters?

DSM: My brother is three years older than I am. My sister
next younger than I is about four and a half years
younger and my youngest sister was born ten years
later so that I was in my teens v;hen she was born.

University Life

DSM: As I moved along into college I v/as most fortu
nate in being invited to become a member of the Alpha
Zeta fraternity which had very high scholarship stan
dards and a group of serious students, who saw to it
that I and other freshmen were told about it in case
they found we were lagging in our studies. Further
more if we needed tutoring in any subjects we received
it from the Juniors and Seniors. I particularly remem
ber having been tutored in Chemistry by Tom Phillips
which I needed very badly. This got me through Chem
istry. The relationship with not only the undergrad
uates but the opportunity I had to become acquainted
with many leaders in the agriculture field not only
at my own university but people who came in from other
institutions for meetings at various times was highly
important in providing information and inspiration.

Dr. Arthur McCall

DSM: Dr. Arthur McCall who recommended me for my first
job v/as rather a rotund person. He was a large man

326

and thickly built. He had dark hair and wore a must
ache. He walked calmly and slowly but he had a spring
in his walk. He had a beautiful smile and was a most
pleasant person to be with and to deal with. I had
the privilege of not only knowing him during my college
years when I was a student of his but I met him socially
on a number of occasions because we were members of
the same fraternity and when we had various activities
in the fraternity he usually came. Throughout the
years I kept in touch with him, especially after I
came to Washington. He had already joined the staff
of the Bureau of Soils and Chemistry and it was always
a pleasure to see him and sit down and talk with him
from time to time. I would remind him of the fact
that he had started me off in spite of low grades and
he always said that he was glad that he had done so.

Many years later, in 19^7, Dr. McCall and Dr.
Warburton on the National Director of Agricultural
Extension jointly sponsored me for membership in the
Cosmos Club in Washington.

George Roberts and Edwin Kinney

DSM: After I left college and went to Kentucky I had

two bosses, both of whom were wonderful people. George
Roberts was head of the department. He was a chemist
nnd took care of the soils work in the department
generally and his assistant was Edwin Kinney who
handled the supervision of the teaching of field crops
as well as supervision of all of the variety tertc and
other crops experimental work in the Kentucky Agri
cultural Experiment Station. Edwin Kinney has passed
away only recently at age eighty-seven. He had been
living with a daughter in Washington and I visited him
on a number of occasions during the last three or four
years. He graduated at Ohio State University some
years before I did, in 1908, as I remember it. I
graduated in 1914.

327

Kinney was a little more than medium height,
probably five feet ten inches or five feet eleven
inches, a bit rotund, not fat but with a bit of
flesh, a man of quiet demeanor who was always busy.
In addition to his teaching activities he wrote re
plies to questions that came in to him from two or
three farm papers in the south. I can remember seeing
him walk the floor and dictate his replies to those
questions which had been presented for reply. He was
a wonderful boss. George Roberts was also my boss but
Ed Kinney worked more closely with me then George
Roberts did.

Roberts believed that everybody should have some
responsibility and as a consequence I was given a full
teaching load as soon as I was able to carry it, after
I had finished my college work in the first semester
at the University of Kentucky. I taught courses in
field crops, both to the four-year students and to the
two-year students and assisted in the supervision of
the soil laboratory. They suggested that I also give
a course in farm weeds, which I did. It had never
been given as far as I know, at that institution, and
I had a lot of fun doing it because I learned a great
deal about weeds and plants. I had to start from
scratch. We did quite a bit of it during the fall
and spring when growth was such that they could -be
identified.

HP: Did you use a textbook for that?

DSM: We did not have a textbook for farm weeds. I wrote to
the various experiment stations throughout the country
and got bulletins which described weeds and weed con-"
trol. I developed a very good library. I wish I
still had these materials by the way but they have
gotten lost along the way. The Ohio Experiment Station
had an excellent bulletin. I used these for my lectures
and also made them available in the building where the
students could come and use them. In some cases I got
extra copies so that they were available and could be
taken out.

HP: What is n weodV What is the definition of a weed?

328

DSM: The best definition of a weed that I have ever heard
was by L. H. Bailey the great plant man from Cornell
University. He said "The weed is a plant out of
place."

HP: Then if a stalk of corn were in a field of wheat, it
would be a weed.

DSM: Would be a weed, that's right. Normally you think of
certain plants which are regular pests in the farm,
jimsom weed, the different kinds of pig weed, and
lambsquarter. In the small grain crops there is
cockle and corn flower and wild mustard. There are
certain plants, vetch for example, which is a very
good crop if properly controlled but if vetch seed
gets into and comes up in a wheat field it wraps up
the wheat so you can practically take one corner of
the area where the vetch grows and shake the whole
area because it winds up the crop. Vetch was known
as the tares of the Bible. But it is a good crop. It
is a good legumenous crop if kept separated from the
small grain crops.

HP: You must not have been much older than some of your
students when you were teaching these courses.

DSM: I wasn't. I started doing some teaching while I was
a Senior because I didn't graduate until June after
I went down to Kentucky the first of February. I was
taking courses right along with some of the Seniors and
I was supervising laboratory work of some of these very
same people.

HP: This is most unusual isn't it?

DSM: No, it is not too unusual or wasn't in those days

because they had student assistants in various labora
tories, who were majoring in the work. We had student
assistants who helped supervise the chemistry labs and
both in general chemistry and agriculture chemistry.
Sometimes v/e had assistants who were not yet graduated
who were Seniors so it wasn't entirely unusual although
it wasn't common. Usually it was graduate students
who were the assistants.

329

HP: What did you teach the students? How to identify and
how to eradicate?

DSM: That's right. In the course on weeds we taught them
how to identify weeds, and control weeds. We usually
did this on field trips during the part of the season
when we could identify them in their native habitat
although we did have bulletins and certain text materials
that we could use for identification purposes. We also
gathered specimens which could be brought into the
laboratory and dried.

On our field trips we would go out on the farm
and around the fence rows and through the edge of the
campus. You could find weeds almost any place; expec-
ially in the good Blue Grass soil of central Kentucky
they spring up easily.

G. I. Christie

DSM: The top man in the Purdue Agricultural Extension
Service was G. I. Christie. He was an Canadian who
had graduated at Guelph Ontario Agricultural College
and had done his first work in the States in Iowa
before he came to Purdue. He also was a specialist
in the field of Agronomy and he loved to make speeches.
He was tall, I would suppose six feet, somewhat heavily
built with an excellent voice and he didn't hestitate
to put it out. You never had to worry about hearing
G. I. Christie because he was articulate and careful
and he never was at a loss for words. He made many,
many speeches and he appreciated people who could make
speeches. I think I have already stated in a previously
that he heard me make a couple of speeches in the first
few weeks that I was on the job in Evansville which
evidently led to two different offers later, the first
one which I turned down and the second one which I
accepted to become more closely associated with him at
Purdue University.

330

G. I. at that time was widely known among the ex
tension group and was probably one of the outstanding
extension people of his day. He came to Purdue in
1905. By the time I got there he had already been on
the Job eleven years and was well established.

Christie was the kind of person who if you would
knuckle to him he'd make your knees shake everytime he
saw you. It happened that I never knuckled and for
some reason or other he respected me. As a consequence
we got along beautifully. He gave me the opportunity
to do a number of things which I am sure he would not
have done had I been willing to be his vassal.

Harry Ram sower

DSM: After leaving Purdue I moved to Ohio as County
Agricultural Agent in Franklin County, Ohio, because
I was approached by Director Harry Ramsower of the
extension service and asked to take the job. Harry
Ramsower was also one of my fraternity brothers and
much older than I was. I think he had graduated in
1906 and was well established as a Professor of Agri
cultural Engineering when I was in college. He was
an excellent teacher, a man of better than medium
height. He was quite nearsighted and wore glasses,
had a good voice. He was another person who believed
that you should have your lectures and speeches well
prepared and to say them in such a way that there was
no question about what was said. He was able to make
himself heard at the far corners of the room and was
highly respected as a teacher. He was later appointed
as Director of Extension and this is where he was when
I was invited to come back to Ohio.

HP: What brought you back to Ohio? Was it that you felt

that you wanted to go back to your home state? Was it
more of a possibility of an advancement in your job?
What factors went into that decision?

331

DSM: I came back to Ohio mainly because I had bought a farm

about twenty-five miles east of Columbus, Ohio, in 191?,
just before World War I had broken out and at that stage
I still thought I was going to farm it myself sometime.
This opportunity to come back to Columbus, Ohio, which
was only twenty-five miles away, was an opportunity to
keep in close touch with my farm and its operations.
I decided to take the offer I think mainly because it
was near the farm and of course it was also near my
home. My Mother and Father were still living and it
provided an opportunity to see them more regularly.

I also wanted additional county agent experience.
I didn't dream at that time that I would accept
Director Ramsower's offer two and a half years later
to become the District Supervisor in Northwestern Ohio,
but I did. This came at a time when 1 was still
thinking that I was going to farm.

Howard Tolley

DSM: Howard Tolley was head of the AAA Planning Divi
sion. I worked with him as an immediate member of his
staff and he gave me many, many challenging jobs to do
including among other things the review of the proposed
States Soil Conservation Districts Act which I had the
opportunity to help get adopted in the states after I
moved over to the Soil Conservation Service.

He was a man of real intelligence and ability and
a great person to work for and to work with. He spoke
with a low voice. One of those people who never seemed
to be ruffled and went about his business with no pre
tense what so ever. As I look back I think of him as
one of the great sponsors that I had during that parti
cular period. I continued to see him often after I
left the Department of Agriculture up to the time of
his death.

332

Milton Eisenhower

DSM: I owe a great deal to Milton Eisenhower who at
the time I came to Washington was the head of the
Information Service for the Department of Agriculture.
Milton, along with Paul Appleby, decided evidently
after a time that I had certain abilities that should
be utilized.

About the time I moved over to the Soil Conserva
tion Service he was assigned by the Secretary to help
integrate the Soil Conservation Service into the De
partment, and spent part of his time for the first two
or three months working at this job. He had an office
in the Information Service and another office in the
building where the Soil Conservation Service was
located.

HP: It was an unusual assignment for an information officer.

DSM: Yes it was. In the meantime the Secretary had made him
the land use coordinator in the Department and he con
tinued to handle the information office for some time
after that. He finally gave it up and Morse Salisbury
took over the job as Director of Information.

HP: Had Milton had newspaper experience?

DSM: Yes. He had had some newspaper experience. He also
had had some experience as an attache in the State
Department Counselor Service in Scotland. He was
brought to Washington back during the Republican
regime v/hen William Jardine was Secretary of Agricul
ture. He was an Assistant to the Secretary of Agri
culture in 1924 and he continued in Washington until
he took the gob as President of his Alma. Mater, Kansas
State College in 1944.

In any case Milton and Paul Appleby recommended
that I become the head of a Division of States Rela
tions and Planning in the Soil Conservation Service.
He fought the battle with the Civil Service Commission
to get a job classification set up which I could afford
to take. I am sure every division head in the Depart-

333

ment of Agriculture thanked him and me because they
were all raised nine hundred dollars a year when the
new grade level was finally approved in September of
1935* I moved over to the Soil Conservation Service
in Agriculture. In the meantime, Milton Eisenhower
was Land Use Coordinator and we worked very closely
together.

I served on his committee while I was still with
the Agriculture Adjustment Administration to write up
a program for the integration of the Soil Conservation
Service into the department. I also served with him
on many other committees to which. I was assigned
throughout the years.

Then, he had been appointed against his will as
Director of the War Relocation Authority in March 1942
where he served only three months when he received an
appointment as Deputy to Elmer Davis in the Office of
War Information. It was then that he recommended me
to Harold Smith, who was the Budget Director, for his
replacement as Director of W.R.A. x«;hich resulted in an
appointment by the President to succeed him in June
of 1942.

During those years Milton Eisenhower was quite
a supporter of mine. He promoted my interests at
almost every turn. At the end of my work in W.R.A. he
wrote me a wonderful letter saying this was a job that
he couldn't have done, and was very complimentary about
the work that I had done. So I feel very kindly toward
Milton Eisenhower.

In brief Milton v/as a man whose middle name was
public relations. He frankly did not like to be between
what I have often called the rock and the hard place.
He didn't like to make tough decisions which might
effect his relations with other people. There was
always a struggle within him when he had to face such
a problem. That is one of the reasons that he was un
happy in the W.R.A. program.

He was an excellent public relations man, an
excellent writer, and a highly intelligent and articu
late person with a great deal of charm who has been
most succesr.ful not only in the work that he did in

334

Agriculture but in his three different positions as
college president since he left the Department. His
first one was already mentioned as President of Kansas
State College, then he moved to Penn State College and
during that period there he got the name of Penn State
College changed to Penn State University and later he
moved to Johns Hopkins University where he retired in
June of 1968.

Paul Appleby

DSM: The late Paul Appleby who when I first knew him
was Assistant to Henry Wallace, one of five or six
assistants, was the key man and Wallace's right hand
man. He graduated at Grinnell College and spent a
number of years in Iowa and was quite well acquainted
with the Secretary before they came to Washington.

Paul was highly intelligent, a person with definite
ideas. At times he was irascible but if he was for you
he would support you to the limit. He was little better
than medium height, on the slender side, with graying
hair, with very sharp eyes and was a highly articulate
person.

My first personal experience with Paul Appleby
was not a very happy one. I was still working in the
Agricultural Adjustment Administration as head of the
section on compliance plans and I had proposed that
the compliance office in Iowa be moved from Des Moines
to Ames where they would be more closely associated
with the college of agriculture extension service. I
came in one morning and Victor Christgau, v/ho was my
immediate boss, said that Paul Appleby wanted to see
me. I asked him if he had any idea as to why and he
smiled and said "No." I went over to Paul Appleby 's
office and in those days I wore a hat every place I
went outside the building. I laid my hat on his desk
and sat down and he said "I would like to have you
state your reasons for proposing to move the compliance

335

office from Des Moines to Ames." So I proceeded to
state all of the reasons. When I finished my state
ment he looked at me with a cold stare and said
"When you came in here I had an open mind about this
matter but now I haven't because I don't think you
stated one good reason why the office should be
moved." I looked at him for a moment, got up, picked
up my hat and said "Well I guess that's that" and
walked out.

The very next day he called me by phone , called
me by first name, was most affible and from that time
on we were good friends, in spite of the fact that I'm
sure he was irked and I was more irked than he was
after our first conference.

Paul continued as assistant to Henry Wallace
throughout the period when I was carrying the battle
to get the States Soil Conservation Districts Act
passed by the various states, and he was quite favor
able to our program. He believed strongly in the
water shed idea because he thought the counties were
outdated as governmental units of any importance. He
also thought that certain of the states should be
combined such as the Dakotas and other states with
very limited populations. Every time we got into a
battle Paul was always there and ready to support us.

I forgot to mention the fact that in 1937 he and
Milton Eisenhower — 1 think it was Paul's idea —
recommended to Hugh Bennett that I become the Assis
tant Chief of the service rather than Chief of a
division. This happened almost immediately. It took
me a long time to find out that this recommendation
came out of the Secretary's office. Paul and I got
to be very close friends and by the time he became
Under Secretary after Henry Wallace left and Claude
Wickard became Secretary of Agriculture we saw a
great deal of each other.

f

Later he went to Syracuse University as Dean of
the College of Administration and was there for a
pood many years. He became quite well known in the
field of public administration. He wrote a couple
of books, and finally retired in Washington.

336

M. L. Wilson

DSM: Another gentleman who was one of the great men of
the early New Deal days was M.L. Wilson. M.L. when I
first knew him was head of the Wheat Division of the
Agriculture Adjustment Administration and I started
dealing with him during the year when I was in charge
of the Agricultural Adjustment Program in Ohio. The
wheat program was one that we dealt with regularly.
He later became Assistant Secretary of Agriculture and
then finally Under Secretary before he took over the
job of National Extension Director which was his last
job in the department and in the Government.

"M.L." was an earthy kind of person who had
strong beliefs about how he should live and stuck to
them. There was a story going around that somebody was
in his office one day and he received a call from Mrs.
Roosevelt inviting him to the White House for some kind
of a function and every once in awhile he would say
"Well, Mrs. Roosevelt I think you will have to give us
a rain check this time." He didn't accept the invita
tion. M.L. had definite opinions about social func
tions most of which he didn't feel were very important.

He was a delightful person to go on trips with or
to hobnob with in his office if he wasn't too busy,
because he always had some tales to tell about experi
ences that he had had.

On two or three different occasions I heard M.L.
give a full description of Ouster's battle of the Little
Big Horn to people who were not as well informed as he
was. He had lived in Montana for a number of years.
He loved history as well as geology, and philosophy
and a lot of other sciences.

M.L. made many contributions to the program which
a lot of people knew nothing about. For example, he
was greatly interested in the Mormon practice of main
taining a store house throughout the years, which they
used to help supply food to unfortunate people, in this
manner taking care of their own poverty problems. Out
of his interest in the Mormon store house came the idea

337

of the Ever-Normal granary which Henry Wallace got
credit for and which, of course, he promoted. But it
was M.L. 's idea.

M.L. Wilson also had a great deal to do with the
program of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration.
As a member of the staff of the Bureau of Agricultural
Economics at one stage he had been a party to the devel
opment of a program which involved domestic sales at
one price and foreign sales at a lesser price in order
to get rid of surpluses. This was known as the
Domestic Allotment Act.

M.L. also conceived the States Soil Conservation
Districts Act. He learned that down in Texas in certain
areas they had what was known as wind erosion control
districts. He had lived in Montana where they had some
range problems and they had some grazing districts so
he put two and two together and decided that there
should be a general pattern of districts for erosion
control and land use. So M.L. and Philip Glick pre
pared the first draft of the States Soil Conservation
Districts Act.

There was a group of people who were known as
"M.L.'s boys." I prided myself on the fact that I
became one of M.L.'s boys before I left the Depart
ment, because he didn't take everybody under his wing.
I shall always be glad that I had the opportunity to
work closely with M.L. Wilson throughout the years
that I was in the Department.

Henry Wallace

DSM: Henry Wallace was Secretary of Agriculture during
most of the several years that I spent in the Depart-'
ment of Agriculture. I worked with Henry Wallace very
closely from 1934- until he became Vice President in
194-1. Even after he became Vice President I occasion
ally went to the Hill to have talks with him because he

338

was always willing to see me and he always told me not
to worry about using his time "because the Vice Presi
dent didn't have anything much to do anyhow." He
would always put his feet up and listen, and served as
my advisor during the bad days of the War Relocation
Authority when I needed somebody to talk to, about
whom to see, how to go about it, and other problems.
I also had some contact with him when he was Secretary
of Commerce later.

Those of us who had worked for Henry Wallace,
had two or three luncheon dates with him after he
left the Government when he came to Washington.
These were interesting and highly worth while. Henry
was a rather shy, retiring type of person in his social
contacts. He had rather bushy auburn hair as his
Father had. He had been editor of the agricultural
journal "Wallace's Farmer" for a number of years before
he came to Washington. He had definite opinions re
garding the fact that farmers should have the same
opportunity for what he called parity of income along
with industry and he went all out to try to work out
a program that would provide for parity. My relations
with him while he was Secretary of Agriculture were
largely in conferences with other people, either small
groups or large groups on policy matters, reporting
in on problems of various types. Occasionally I was
called in to provide information that he wanted to be
brought up to date on.

Henry Wallace was a great man in spite of the fact
that he occasionally got carried away with philosophies
which were a bit off beat. At the time he became a
Presidential candidate of the Progressive party he lost
a lot of friends and a lot of support. I have never
understood quite why he did that but in spite of it I
still think that he was a great man and I think he made
a great contribution.

339

Hugh Bennett

DSM: I spent more time with Hugh Bennett than anybody

I had worked with in the Department of Agriculture. Hugh
Bennett was chief of the Soil Conservation Service when
I joined his staff in 1935- He had come to the Depart
ment of Agriculture in 1903 as a young college graduate.
He joined the Bureau of Soils and Chemistry at that time
as a chemist. Throughout the years he was involved in
soil survey work, and had become a persistent erosion
control advocate long before the New Deal came along.

Hugh was responsible for initiating a program of
Erosion Control Experiment Stations which were estab
lished in different parts of the country long before
the New Deal. The purpose was to secure scientific
data on the amount of water and soil loss under various
conditions. Most of these stations were carried on in
cooperation with the states. However he was not a very
great admirer of state agricultural institutions gener
ally, because he felt that they were paying too little
attention to soil erosion. There were only tv/o or
three state people whom I know of who were in his good
graces. One of them was Dean Funchess of Alabama who
supported the soil erosion control program. Another
one was a Doctor Miller of Missouri. The Extension
Service as far as he was concerned had been quite re
miss in many respects and he never quite forgave them.

I was brought into the service in order to head
up a division of States Relations and Planning, and I
had my problems in the early days because of his anti
pathy to the Extension Service. I was in rather a
tough position at times because Milton Eisenhower who
at the same time had become Land Use Coordinator of the
department and Paul Appleby who was the Secretary ' s
right hand man usually called me in and talked to me
about problems that I felt they should have taken up
with Hugh Bennett. Usually they were related to
administrative problems which Hugh wasn't much inter
ested in. I followed the policy of going directly
back to the office arid reporting to him just what went
on in every case. Gradually we developed a very
excellent relationship.

Harold Smith

DSM: Harold Smith, who was Director of the Bureau of
the Budget , at the time that I was recommended 'to
follow Milton Eisenhower as Director of the War Relo
cation Authority, was another gentleman for whom I
learned to have a high regard.

Smith happened to be the man President Roosevelt
looked to for recommendations regarding the admini
stration of W.R.A. because it was set up as an indepen
dent agency and was reporting "only to God." So Harold
Smith was the man that I went to see rather regularly.
I never walked into his office what he didn't grin at
me and say "Dillon, you know I am not your boss." I
would say "Yes, I know you are not my boss but you are
the one man that knows something about the W.R.A. pro
blems and I need somebody to talk to," so he would lis
ten. We talked many many times. He v/as most kind to me
and served not only as someone to talk to to get things
off ray chest but as an advisor from time to time.

Harold Ickes

DSM: Much to my surprise, Harold Ickes was one of the
best bosses that I ever had. I was reluctant to go
to the Department of Interior partly because Ickes
during the time I was in Agriculture v/as always in a
scrap with Agriculture. I didn't find out until quite
a long time later that he also had some reservations
about me. He was the kind of person who was known as
the "Old Curmudgeon" but he had a rule which I appre
ciated very much namely that he would see any bureau
chief in his department within a twenty-four hour
period and sooner if the emergency required it. I
could always call up and get an engagement. Usually
if I called in the afternoon or evening I could pet
one the next day. While I was supposed to report

341

through Under Secretary Abe Portas it was quite well
understood that I could always see the Secretary.

On several occasions I did have some difference
of opinion with Under Secretary Fortas and we went to
Harold Ickes with our problem. I 'always got the kind
of sTipport that I felt a bosc should give.

Secretary Ickes required that everybody submit
their agendas for travel to him at least three days
ahead of travel time, so that he could countermand the
order if he thought we shouldn't go. When I was about
to leave on a trip to the Went Coast which included a
speech in Los Angelos. About six o'clock in the evening
I got a little note from Ickes which said "I don't
think this is anytime to be making speeches. Further
more I'm concerned about the amount of gasoline and oil
you are planning to use on this trip and I don't think
the trip should be made." The reference to gasoline
and oil was due to the fact that he was responsible
for wartime conservation of these commodities.

As a result of this little orange colored note I
called up his secretary and said "Eleanor I want to
see your boss and I want to see him now. " She said
"Just like that." I said "Yes, oust~TTke that." She
said "How about eleven o'clock tomorrow morning?" I
said "Fine." At eleven o'clock the next morning I
arrived on the scene and when I was told that he was
available, I walked into his long office with this
little orange colored note between my finger and thumb.
I walked the full length of the office holding the
little note in my fingers and laid it on the corner of
his desk and I said "Mr. Secretary, I want to talk to
you about the note you sent me and about my plans for
the trip." He said "All right, go ahead." So I
explained to him exactly why I was going.

I started out by saying that I had been in Govern
ment for quite some time and that I had never yet made
a trip on Government funds which I felt was not justi
fied from the standpoint of expenditures, and I didn't
intend to start now. I felt very strongly that this
was one of the more important trips that I had scheduled
during the W.R.A. days. He listened to me with great
care, never said a word until I finished. Then he pimply

34-2

said "All right, go ahead." This was Harold Ickes at
his best. He always would listen and if he respected
you he would pay attention to what you said. This was
the type of battle that I won a number of times.

Harold Ickes became a retiree after he blev; him
self out of the Department of Interior by fighting the
appointment of the gentleman who was recommended as
Secretary of the Navy. Consequently, the recommendation
which he had made to the President that I become an
Assistant Secretary of Interior was never sent to the
Senate.

Matters Of Importance That I Have Learned From Experienco

DSM: Some of the things that I learned rather early in
my work after I got out of college included such things
as the importance of securing participation on the part
of the people you were working with if you expected
them to enjoy the wonderful feeling that results from
participation and accomplishment.

I learned this very definitely in my early county
agent work when I met with a group of people in the
Blue Grass neighborhood where we met all day long in
the wintertime. What we did there was to ask the par
ticipants to bring in samples of corn, potatoes and
various things that we were going to talk about, and
then ask them to discuss their own methods of doing
things which lead to a discussion in which I simply
served as a moderator. I saw to it that the discussion
moved ahead and usually they would ask me to summarize
and add my comments at the end. This procedure led to
real interest, real enthusiasm and in my judgment it
was highly important.

Very early in my county agent experience I learned
the importance of remembering peoples' names and faces.
My first office caller came in to ask a question and I
didn't have the answer and I told him to return the

343

next time he was in town, which he did. When he came
in I said "Good morning, Mr. Pierce," and I thought
he would faint, he was so pleased and surprised that
I had remembered him. This little incident made me
realize that this was highly important to people. So
we established a system in our office that would help
us to remember names and faces by developing a file
of all visits in the field or to the office, and what
we talked about, so that when we put it into the file
it was pretty well fixed in mind. This stood me in
good stead throughout many years.

I remember one instance after I had been in ex
tension work for ten years or more, including service
as county agent in Columbus, Ohio, during Farmer's Week
I used to go to my office through the hallway of the
Agricultural Building where groups of farmers were
registering or visiting. Naturally I stopped to speak
to a lot of people and called them by name as I went
through. One day as I was going down the hall a Mr.
Reasnor who had a stand where he was promoting the
sale of farm paper subscriptions followed me, tapped
me on the shoulder and said "Mr. Myer, I want to ask
you a question." I said "All right." He said "Do you
know everybody in Ohio?" I said "No. I don't know
everybody in Ohio but I know a lot of people who live
in Franklin County and. I know some other people from
around the state." He said "I have watched you for
the last three days as you have come through here, you
have shaken hands with everybody, you have called every
body by name." I grinned and said "I think I may have
overlooked a few." But it was true that I had learned
the importance of remembering names and faces.

Because of certain experiences that I had in
county agent work I learned that it was very important
before I started on a project to bring all elements
into the picture and this means that I learned the
necessity for planning even small details. This grew
out of the experience which I have already mentioned
regarding the oversight in not alerting dealers to the
fact that I was recommending new varieties of soy beans
and consequently when the farmers called for them they
weren't available. The dealers as well as the farmers
were quite upset because they had varieties that weren't
adapted and as a result I had to do something about

correcting my mistakes. I tried to avoid such mis
takes in my future planning. It is important to face
up to mistakes and oversights and to see to it that they
are corrected if at all possible. This early experi
ence helped to fix that into my mind so firmly that I
didn't forget it throughout the years.

I learned also the importance of keeping an open
mind, keeping flexible and open to constructive criti
cism. I have already mentioned the fact that the county
superintendent of schools who went with me to meetings
pointed out things that my use of language was not
adapted to the audience to whom I was speaking.

Also the incident when Fred Trueblood, the managing
editor of the Evansville Courier Journal, arranged to
have lunch with me and pointed out that I needed
publicity whether I thought I did or not in order to
get my job done, and as a consequence I practically
wrote their farm page every Friday and reported meet
ings. An interesting by-product of this was that I
learned a great deal about the newspaper game by drop
ping in after meetings. These experiences pointed up
the need for an open mind and the importance of keeping
flexible. It is something that everyone should learn
particularly if they are going to work with the public.

Supervisory Techniques

DSM: In regard to techniques used in supervision, I

think the major one that I discovered rather early in
ray supervisory experience was the importance of study
ing each individual with whom I was working, whether in
the field, in meetings, in the office or at home, to
learn all I could about him both as to his strengths
and iveaknesnen. Then I was ready when the time came,
and there always is a r-ight time to make suggestions.
It is not always the right time when you first think
of it. It is time when a proper opening occurs and
you have an opportunity particularly to use an example

34-5

to drive home a point. This I believe is probably the
most important technique in the supervision of people.
I asked one of my former county agents recently what
occurred to him as being important in my supervisory
work. He said "Well, the first thing I think of is
you very soon learned more about me than I had learned
about myself."

In my supervisory experience after World War I
as indicated earlier there were several agents in my
area who had been appointed during the emergency and
who were not well adapted to county agent work. It was
important that they move out of that job and into some
thing to which they were better adapted. I became con
vinced rather early in the game that it was important
to help a person who was not adapted to the job to make
the adjustment as quickly as possible into something
where he was better adapted. It was good for the per
son as well as for the work at hand. I followed this
policy throughout the years. It wasn't always easy to
tell somebody that he should move into another job but
it was easier in the long run because when you dilly
dally about making adjustments that it is quite obvious
must be made, it gets worse rather than better.

Another major factor in supervision is teaching
by specific example rather than using generalizations.
This goes back again to timing. I found that if I
recognized a weakness and then if I took time to try
to find an example that would illustrate not only what
that weakness was but how it could be corrected, it
was better than to barge in and talk about the weakness
before you had fully analyzed the situation and before
you had a specific example or suggestion as to what to
do about it.

I learned another very important fact about re
ports from one of the Washington supervisors in my
early days of county agent work. I was harping about
the fact that many monthly and long annual reports
were irksome and I wondered if anybody ever did any
thing about them or ever utilized them after they were
written. It was pointed out to me that this was the
wrong approach in thinking about reports; that basically
reports properly prepared and properly thought through
were most important to the individual in his work than

346

they were to the people who read them, whoever those
people were. The reason is that good reporting requires
sitting down, taking inventory regarding accomplish
ments, where you have been, the kind of things that
have happened. This laid the basis for future planning
in a way that isn't possible otherwise.

After getting this point of view I found reporting
a much different and pleasanter task then it was
earlier. I tried to pass this on to people who found
reporting irksome and I think I cured many people of
being upset about making reports when they began to
realize it was important to themselves as well as to
others.

Preparation and planning for the work ahead is of
first importance whether it means planning a speech,
thinking through on what may happen at a meeting, what
participation you are going to be called upon to enter
into, what kind of contribution it is possible to make,
or any other phase of any project that involves com
plex situations.

I remember quite distinctly that during World War II
when I often went to Capitol Hill to meet with committees
of Congressmen from California and other West Coast
States. A certain cabinet member who went along was
sometimes quite eloquent when he was stirred but most
of the time he fumbled because it was clear that he had
not prepared himself for what he was going to say or
what he was going to do.

347

CHAPTER XVI

THE YEARS AFTER 1953

A Temporary Retirement

DSM: On March twentieth 1953 I retired temporarily. I
spent four months resting. The first month was fun.
I would get up in the morning, get The Washington Post
and climb back into bed and read the paper in bed. I
did a lot of loafing and resting. At the end of the
first month I found that I had had about all of that
that I wanted and I was sure that Jenness had had
about enough of me, because I was beginning to get
itchy. So I began to look around to see what there
was for me to do. I soon came to the realization that
there was no job in the Government in Washington where
I could go to work because they weren't going to allow
anybody who had had three Presidential appointments in
the past twenty years to be on the payroll during the
Republican regime. So what to do?

Group Health Association

DSM: It so happened, along about a week or two after
I began to be concerned about keeping busy, I had a
call from one of the committee who had been appointed
by the Group Health Association to find a new Executive
Officer, who asked if I would consider the <job. I told
him "Yes, I would consider the job, but I would like to
talk about it further."

He said that the board would insist that whoever
took the job would be agreeable to signing a contract

348

to stay on at least two years.

I said "Well, I'm sorry but I don't think that is
a good idea. I don't think they would want to keep me
two years if they weren't happy with me. Furthermore
I don't think they would want to keep me for two years
if I weren't happy with my job at Group Health. As a
consequence you tell the board that I might be inter
ested but I would not be interested on the terms that
you have just suggested." So the job had gone out the
window as far as I knew.

The Hand Of Fate Intervenes

DSM: About a week later I had lunch with James Mitchell
who was formerly Commissioner of the Civil Service
Commission and now of Brookings Institution. Jim and
I were good friends and he said "Dillon, what are your
prospects?" I said "Well, I have only had one and I
guess that has gone out the window." I explained to
him what had happened. He said "Do you know that I
am a member of the Group Health Board of Directors?"
and I said "No, I didn't know that." He said "Do
you mind if I reopen this question?" and I said "No,
I don't mind. I am not asking anybody to do this
sort of thing for me but if you would like to do it
I don't mind. "

I got another call. They said they would like to
talk with me and I went down to talk with them and the
upshot of it was that I signed up as Executive Director
of Group Health, and went to work the first of July
1953 and spent more than five years in that particular
spot.

Group Health Association is a medical cooperative
that was organized in late 1937 or 1938 by the Home
Owners Loan Corporation personnel office. The agency
put up fort.y thousand dollars to start the program off.
They needed a little money to hire doctors nnd to get

34-9

other things going before the membership got under way.
This was fortunate, because if that forty thousand
dollars hadn't been provided Group Health Association
never would have been able to make it. The chief of
the agency had to answer to Congress later on for this
financial help but he did a good job of defending his
position and got away with it.

I became a member along with my family in 1938,
when they first opened up the membership rolls to
other government agencies outside of H.O.L.C. and I
have been a member ever since excepting for a couple
of years around 194-0 to 194-1 when I became a little
discouraged with their seemingly insoluble problems
and we dropped out for a time, but we went back in in
just a few months so that I have been a member for
most of the last thirty years.

At the time that I took over the job as Executive
Director of Group Health in July 1953 there were about
eighteen thousand five hundred participants. By the
time I left a little over five years later we numbered
around twenty-three thousand five hundred with a new
group coming in which would bring it up to around
twenty-five thousand. The District of Columbia transit
workers group were just then being accepted as members
into the agency.

My major activity during 1953 and most of 1954-
was that of trying to strengthen several of the admini
strative and supervisory areas. A professional admini
strative analyst group had been called in about a year
before I became Director, which had reviewed the
pattern of the organization and made recommendations
regarding the organizational pattern as well as other
suggestions. Most of these had already been accepted
and activated and I didn't feel that I wanted to do
anything about changing the pattern generally at that
time.

In addition to the medical division, there were
three other divisions: the clinical division; the
finance and records office; and a membership division
concerned with 'getting and maintaining members as well
as keeping membership records.

350

One of my first jobs was to establish a sound
liaison and understanding with the medical director
and the medical staff. Fortunately this didn't take
long. Henry Litchenberg was Medical Director in
addition to being the chief of Pediatrics. Henry and
I established a pattern of having weekly luncheons
together to review anything that we had not had time
to take up during the previous week. We established
certain ground rules early in the game which kept us
from getting into each other's hair. He v/as respon
sible for the medical program and I v/as responsible
for the general administration including the personnel
problems that we faced in regard to other personnel in
the shop including these who were in the finance office,
the records office, the nurses and the assistants in
the medical program and the personnel people.

There were two major areas in which Henry Litchen
berg and I didn't agree. One of them v/as that I felt
quite strongly after I had been there for a short time
that the records which had been developed throughout
the years and which were no longer active should be
utilized for research purposes. There were various
problems that the doctors were interested in having
some answers to, which would also benefit the member
ship. Henry felt very strongly however that patients
had been told the records were personal, were private
and shouldn't be used. So we never got the chance to
use them for this purpose , even though I was convinced
that to do so would not have broken the confidentiality
of individual patients' records.

The other problem which I felt needed improving
was our procedures for the recruitment of doctors. I
made suggestions from time to time that key doctors,
key heads of divisions and the Medical Director might
go out to medical colleges near graduation time to try
to interest some young doctors in coming to Group Health,
We would thus have had a better selection than we would
by simply waiting for applicants to come along. But I
was never successful in convincing them that they should
take time off from Pediatrics, Adult Medicine, and
other things to do this kind of a job.

One of the first jobs in the administrative and
supervisory area that I insisted be done was the

351

installation of a classification and job writing pro
gram because they had no job descriptions on any of
the personnel. They were hired orally and off hand
and I pointed out that I thought our turnover was due
in part to misunderstandings that had developed because
they didn ' t remember all of the things that they were
supposed to do. So during the first six months in
particular and during most of a year in the clinic
area the division chiefs were busy writing job sheets
but we got them done and in good shape and they were
utilized. We saw to it that each applicant for a job
got to read the job description, and to have a copy if
he wished for his own use, of the job that he was
expected to fill. It was how we were able to
cut down the turnover, mainly because of the classifi
cation system, the job descriptions and more thorough
recruitment procedures. This is one of the main things
that I think I contributed during the first few months.

One other thing we did in the personnel area was
to eliminate a few people who were not efficient from
a few key spots. We established a plan for having
meetings with the supervisors from the different areas
from time to time. Early in the game we did it every
week or two and when we had these meetings the first
thing on the agenda was to give the supervisors a
chance to tell me and the division heads what problems
they needed help with if they could get it. Following
this listing of problems we established some methods
of finding out for ourselves some of the problems in
the shop.

One problem was the tendency on the part of
employees when they were asked a question to which
they didn't have the answer, to refer the caller to
somebody else, without knowing whether the other per
son had the answer or not. On two or three occasions
patients told me they were referred to as many as five
or six different people to get the answer and they
still hadn't gotten it.

At one of our supervisors ' meetings I made it
quite clear how we expected this matter to be handled.
One, we were not to speculate on what the answer was,
nor were we to speculate on who had the answer. If
they weren't sure of answers to questions, the caller

352

was to be referred, to the division head, whether it
was finance, clinic, or membership; or to the Executive
Director. When this rule was laid down and accepted
we had no more complaints of this type. This seemed
a little thing but it had been going on evidently for
quite a long time.

Another problem was a tendency on the part of
some of the staff to engage in quarrels with patients
or members who came in in a militant mood. Very often
patients were in a militant mood and wanted to scrap
with somebody. I had long ago recognized that there
were certain people that liked to beat people around if
they thought they could get away with it but they did
not try it with top people, because they were sure they
couldn't get av/ay with it. So we laid down another
rule which was accepted by the supervisors and passed
along to the staff and which functioned almost per
fectly. This was that if somebody started being
difficult that they do what telephone operators did
in those days when a caller got rough with them. They
said "I will give you the Chief Operator". In our
case it was not the Chief Operator but the division
head, the clinic head, or the Executive Director again.
This practically cured that particular problem in a
very short time.

We also established training meetings for such
simple things as how to answer a telephone, how to
greet members, and how to utilize the telephone. We
got some people over from the telephone company to
put on a demonstration and it was amazing what a
difference this made throughout the whole shop. The
staff now answered the telephone by saying who they
were and giving some information about themselves.
Also telephone courtesy was emphasized as well as
passing along the caller to the right people if they
needed to be referred elsewhere.

At the suggestion of the clinic supervisor, I
started making regular trips throughout the shop.
Just wandering around up and down the aisles, into
the laboratories, into the dental offices, back of
the scenes into the medical offices accomplished two
things.

353

One was that the staff were aware that I was
interested in what was going on. They probably assumed
that I was checking on whether or not the procedures
that had been established were being carried out, but
the main thing that was accomplished and it was impor
tant, was the developing acquaintanceship with the
personnel behind the scenes — being able to greet
them and have them feel that somebody was interested
in what they were doing. I did this usually two or
three times a week, although it depended on how much
time I had to do this kind of thing.

We had a real problem in the dental area because
we were losing money nearly every year. So we estab
lished a system of records which came to my office each
month which helped us to put our fingers on where the
weaknesses were and where the losses were in time and
income. As a consequence in a very few months time
we had the dental clinic up in the black and were able
to make certain recommendations that eliminated lost
time and kept everybody busy at the chair. There were
two or three dentists that weren't too happy about this
because they enjoyed the opportunity to do a little
loafing on the side but nevertheless it did work out.

One of my very important problems, and it was a
problem, was my dealings with the Board of Directors
and the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee
was outdated but was maintained mainly because the
two or three doctors who were members wanted to be
able to say to other doctors who raised the question
that they did have a part in policy formation. The
Executive Committee met between Board meetings and
usually we repeated everything that we had gone over
in the Board. So it was duplication but we weren't
able to get rid of it.

We had on the Board of Trustees, in those days,
two or three people who had objected to my appoint
ment and didn't hesitate to use the needle at every
meeting about budgets, about this, that or the other
but in particular who took long hours of time to
talk at length about things they felt they knew more
about then the administration did. It became quite
boresome and I became impatient.

354-

For example, early in my regime Mark Coleborn,
a board member, insisted that the board send out a
questionnaire to all the personnel under my general
supervision to find out what their gripes were. I
put my foot down rather strongly and said I thought
I could find out what their gripes were. Fortunately
the majority of the board supported me.

I asked Coleborn for a list of things that he
wanted to talk about and he took time off from his
job one day and came over to the office and we spent
two or three hours together. From that time on he
and I personally got along pretty well although he
was always difficult in board meetings because he
usually had some point of view that was different
than that of the majority of the board.

Another fetish of his and of Bill Reines was that
the audit should be an administrative audit. This
meant that they felt that Group Health should hire
auditors who would not only audit the finances but
would go into the problems of administration generally,
and studying what the administration was doing and
make comments and recommendations regarding it. This
I opposed with the argument that if they didn't have
confidence in my administration all that they needed
to do was tell me, and I would submit my resignation
and they could find somebody in whom they did have
confidence in; but they never let up. I got a bit
tired of this kind of quibbling but I got more tired
and more impatient sitting through long, drawn-out
meetings where little or nothing was accomplished.

We started negotiations well before my last year
with Group Health with the Transit Workers Union, a
group that are now members and have been since the
fall of 1958» After carrying on the negotiations for
quite some time and reporting back to the board, some
of the board members felt that I wasn't doing well
enough so they appointed a committee of three to take
over and they did the negotiating. They made some
concessions which I didn't feel were fair to the rest
of the membership, so in September 1958 I submitted
my resignation. My agreement called for a sixty day
notice and I continued my work until November fifteenth,

355

There were three major reasons why I decided not
to carry on. Probably the most important one was that
I was a bit bored by this time because I wasn't really
busy over half of the time. I didn't want to take
over any of the jobs of the division heads or to get
my fingers into things that they were doing well. We
had cut down the gripes on the part of members to the
point where I didn't get very many of those and as a
consequence I was only busy at the time when we were
preparing budgets, or getting ready for board meetings,
making reports or in my routine trips around the clinic
which I made a couple of times a week in order to keep
in contact with what was going on.

I had meetings with my division heads and super
visors from time to time but I still wasn't busy and
I wasn't very happy in not being busy. I was bored
with the board meetings and I came to the conclusion
that it was not the type to work for a group of people.
I would rather have one boss.

The other item which probably brought things to a
head at that particular moment was our disagreement
with the committee and with the board on the certain
phases of the contract that was made with the Transit
Workers. This was simply a straw on top of the other
things. So I left the Association November 15» 1958.

I think I should add that my relationships with
the personnel, that was ray responsibility to deal with,
was excellent. It was a very happy relationship. We
got along beautifully and all through each month up
until the time of the board meeting. There wasn't an
unhappy moment from that standpoint, except that I
didn't have enough to do. Our division heads were
quite cooperative and very loyal and I still enjoy
going down to Group Health and spending an hour or
two wandering around seeing some of the old timers
who are still key people on the job and it's a great
satisfaction to me to know that they are still there
and that they are glad to see me.

This finishes the comments about my work with the
Group Health Association and we are now going to talk
about the job I took on for the United Nations as a
so-called "expert" in the field of public administra
tion at Caracas, Venezuela.

356

A Move To The United Nations

DSM: During the fall of 1958 after I left my Job on

November fifteenth with Group Health, I talked with my
friend the late Bill Howell who was executive officer
of the International Bank about the possibility of some
international service that I might find interesting and
where I could be helpful. He suggested that I get in
touch with Herbert Emerich of the United Nations and
let him know of my availability. This I did. I had
known Herb Emerich for a good many years. As a matter
of fact he had preceded me by some time as Commissioner
of the Public Housing Administration. I had known him
also in other capacities.

My contact with him resulted in an offer to go to
Venezuela as, as I have indicated above, an expert in
the public administration field. I might say that I
don't like the term "expert" but this is the term that
the United Nations used and this was a part of my title.
I never used it when I was on the Job. I was a repre
sentative of the United Nations in public administration.

And To Venezuela

DSM: The reason why the United Nations was involved

there was the fact that the U.N. was invited to send a
representative down to Caracas following the coup which
eliminated the former dictator Perez Jimenez better
known as P.J. The Minister of Finance requested that
someone make a survey of the needs of the government
in the field of public administration. So Herbert
Emerich did this survey during the late spring and
summer of 1958 and made a series of recommendations
most of which were carried out.

Herbert Emerich 's report indicated that he found
great determination in Venezuela at that time to accel
erate the economic and social development of the
country. Because of this announced policy he felt

357

that it was important that they do something about the
modernization of their administrative procedures.
He felt that in order to carry out their programs
successfully it would involve an unusual partnership
between private and public sectors and that there
should be better communication between the government
and the private sector. In order to make the program
effective a sustained effort was necessary to up-grade
the capacity in the public administration area of
Venezuela in order to enable it to discharge the
responsibilities of its share of the partnership
efficiently, and to satisfy the general expectations that
had been raised in connection with the proposed reforms.

The principal administrative needs, as he outlined
them, included an improvement in government organiza
tion, with more clearly defined functions; a simpli
fication and expedition of government procedures; a
central and modernized system of fiscal controls,
development of economic data as a basis for better
control and for decision-making on policy matters.
Above all, a vastly improved system of public personnel
administration and training was needed.

Another phase of the problem that he felt must be
considered was the problem of what is generally called
delegation and participation to relieve the undue
congestion of routine business at the top in the
various agencies. He indicated that while the United
Nations personnel could help and advise, it couldn't
perform the task itself in doing the kind of moderni
zation job that was essential. As a result he recom
mended that a temporary national commission on public
administration be established, which was carried out
promptly. This was based more or less upon his know
ledge of what the Hoover Commission had done in the
United States upon two different occasions. This
commission was to make contributions themselves and to
recommend laws and regulations for administrative re
form. They would also provide for hiring additional
contract personnel to assist them in their program and
setting up task forces, etc.

Among other things he recommended that it would be
necessary ultimately to create a permanent central
office of organization and methods, and to enact a law

358

for a modern civil service system and modernization of
their personnel system generally.

He recommended the adoption of a modern system of
obligation and accrual accounting of the revenues and
expenditures of the government; strengthening the
office of the budget and the Minister of Finance; the
appointment of budget officers in the major ministries
and autonomous agencies; the perfection of a system of
departmental accounts subsidary to and in harmony with
the central accounts and the Ministry of Finance
office; and the classification of government trans
actions on the model of the United Nations system to
reveal not only the governmental budget but also the
relationship to the total economy of the nation, and
with the cooperation and the approval of the Office
of the Comptroller General, to study a system which
would permit better post audit of public expenditures.

He felt that in the study of organization and
methods that the problem of decentralization and the
delegation of administrative procedures, were highly
important in the interest of relieving the congestion
of day-to-day business in the ministries and to create
time in the ministries, from excessive routine, for more
attention to matters of policy and improvement of
administration.

He also felt that simplification of routine pro
cedures with quicker and more efficient service to
individual citizens and to the business community was
important, and that equal treatment should be provided
for by public procedures established under rule of law
and that decentralization in a prudent manner of
government functions was necessary to achieve a sense
of civic responsibility and citizen participation in
the states and municipal government. He recommended
that the technical assistance program of the United
Nations could be utilized in part and recommended the
assignment of several different experts who might be
helpful, one to be in the field of general public
administration and organization and methods; one in
finance; one in personnel; and one in training. In
addition to this, he suggested that firms of manage
ment consultants be engaged by the Minister of Finance
to produce quickly an adequate staff, free from

359

day-to-day responsibilities for the large amount of
detailed survey work analysis and systemization that
would have to be done. I believe I am correct in
saying that he recommended that two such firms might
be adequate. He felt that the staff of such firms
were needed particularly in organization and classifi
cation studies, installation of new methods, in per
sonnel. He recommended that only management firms
that had successful experience in the field of public
administration in several countries be considered.
They should be attached to the staff personnel of
Venezuela for the interpretation of national needs
and conditions to enable the staff to benefit from
stimulation and training.

When I reported for duty on March 1, 1959 I
found three instead of two, contract agencies on the
job with a total personnel of twenty-six people who
had been hired by the previous temporary executive
director of the commission. In addition to that, the
recommendations that had been made regarding U.N.
personnel were being carried out. I followed John
Blandford, who had been in charge of over all general
administrative work. He had started work on September
first and had agreed to stay only six months so I was
to take over following him on March first.

J.D.M. Smith of England was already on the job
and functioning as their finance expert and Michael
H.H. Loew of the Union of South Africa had been
designated as the expert in the training field but
had not arrived on the scene as yet but was practi
cally on his way. David Walsh, also of England who
was an excellent civil servant in England was hired
for a year's service in the field of personnel. He
did not come on until April.

The public administration commission had been
established soon after Herbert Emerich completed his
general survey in accordance with his recommendations.
The first executive officer for a few months was a
Dr. Lander who was connected with one of the very
important and large oil companies in Venezuela but he
felt that he needed to get back to his job so Dr. Beneto
Raul Losada was the new Executive Director who had been
on the job only a short time at the time I arrived on
the scene.

360

My major responsibility appeared to be largely
one of coordinator and liaison representative between
the various groups. It was a large problem to
coordinate the activities of the various contracting
agencies, three of them, and the U.N. experts who were
functioning in some cases in the same field as the
contracting agencies, the commission itself and with
the government representatives who were in general
charge of the area in which the commission was func
tioning. This was probably the major task which
took up a great deal of time. John Blandford who had
preceded me had done a good Job in systematizing and
organizing the projects that were being carried out
by the various contracting agencies as new projects
were established. I was responsible for writing up
some additional projects and seeing to it that they
were accepted by the commission and by the contracting
agencies, so that we had a job sheet that we could
work to.

I think that I should mention who the three con
tracting agencies were: The Public Administration
Service of Chicago was functioning in the field of
government organization; the J.L. Jacobs Associates
of Chicago were doing the work in the field of per
sonnel administration; and the Griff enhagen-Kroeger
Inc. of the John Diebold Group of New York were
working on governmental systems and procedures, par
ticularly in the field of finance.

I neglected to mention in addition to the other
U.N. personnel previous to my arrival on the scene
Dr. 0. Glenn Stahl of the United States Civil Service
Commission had served from November 1958 to February
1959 in assisting the Commission in preparing a draft
of a new civil service law and presenting it to the
Commission and getting it generally approved. It was
finally approved after I arrived on the scene but it
had been pretty well established before Glenn Stahl
returned to Washington.

In April of 1959 Dr. Manuel Perez Guerrero was
designated by President Romulo Betencourt as the chief
of the central office of coordination and planning and
he was also designated as the principal liaison officer
between the Commission and the Presidency. Following

361

the establishment of the Commission in October 1958»
some twenty-five Venezuelan coordinators, so-called,
and about forty Venezuelan technicians, or really
trainees called technicians, were recruited to work as
counterparts with the management consultants and the
United Nations staff, so that all told we had ulti
mately five U.N. people, twenty-six people on the
staff of the consultant agencies and forty additional
people who were assigned to work with the contracting
agencies who were Venezuelan, making a total of
around seventy-five people; this in addition, to the
few additional people working in the general office
staff of the Executive Director. There was an execu
tive secretary and a public relations officer in the
Commission as well as a secretary, and clerical per
sonnel who were also recruited locally in Venezuela.

The annual budget which was provided by Venezuela
was more than one and a half million dollars which was
quite a lot of money but nevertheless it was put up
freely. Venezuela, being supported largely on oil,
didn't seem to worry about it. By March of 1959, the
month that I took over from John Blandford, the first
twenty projects had been programmed and prepared in
written form for approval by the Commission and were
approved. In the initiation and implementation of
these projects the management consultant firms and the
United Nations experts worked closely in collaboration
with the Venezuelan coordinators and technicians that
were assigned to these projects.

This cooperative effort provided valuable training
for the young Venezuelan technicians and they in turn
did much of the required work on the studies and the
reports and were most helpful, particularly with the
problems of language and communication in many areas.
The senior U.N. advisors, mainly Mr. Blandford and
myself, served as advisors to the Presidential office,
to the Public Administration Commission including its
staff and the management consultants on matters of
program planning, projection and execution, and coor
dination. In addition I participated in studies and
formulation of recommendations in certain areas,
attended many conferences with the director of the
Commission and with Dr. Perez Guerrero and with the
U.N. experts as well as with the management consultants

362

and with officers of the ministries. It was important
to keep fully informed in order to do a more effective
job of coordinating the activities.

Much of my time was spent in reading reports of
management consultants, also reviewing proposed laws and
decrees, reviewing proposed governmental contracts,
progress reports, recommendations regarding the organ
ization of offices and agencies and the formulation
of project plans. All this required preparation in
memorandum form for the Executive Director and many
individual conferences with key members of the consul
tant firms for the purpose of the exchange of infor
mation. Projects which were assigned to the management
consultants included review of the work of the Presi
dential office, ministry reorganization, review of the
work of the autonomous agencies of which there were
several, intergovernmental relations, administrative
assistance in the field of agrarian reform, the career
civil service bill which has already been mentioned,
personnel regulations, personnel classification and
compensation, personnel selection standards and
techniques, and social security for public employees
and also the organization of the Comptroller General's
Office, a budget system, a general accounting system,
payroll procedures, procurment programs, revenue
administration, congressional services, and systems
and procedures in the Ministry of Health and the
administration of the Federal district which compares
with our District of Columbia government, Venezuelan
Development Corporation, the Banko Abrero which served
the housing area and the National Railway Institute.

HP: This apparently was an herculean attempt to bring

Venezuela up to the twentieth century in its govern
ment administration.

DSM: That's right. Venezuela, like all Latin American

countries that I have ever known, was still running
its government much as they were run under the
Spanish four hundred years before. There hadn't been
too much progress in the revamping of the governmental
structure and procedures, and this was an attempt to
try to modernize their procedures and develop a program
whereby many of the old traditional patterns could be
revamped.

363

There were projects also in the area of personnel
training which were supervised by Michael Loew of the
U.N. staff. These projects totalled twenty-eight, which
had been approved by the Commission and with which we
kept in touch at all stages. Unfortunately, up until
June of 1960, when I completed my tour of duty, little
had been accomplished in the execution of the recom
mendations which had resulted from the studies and
which had been largely completed by the spring of
1960.

Difficulties In Modernizing The Government

DSM: Well, there seemed to be a great deal of lethargy,
plus the fact that people were busy with other things.
During the first year of my assignment we were quite
optomistic that real progress was being made and that
really outstanding accomplishments were possible and
likely, in breaking old habits and modernizing govern
ment procedures, which so badly needed revision. How
ever, cooperation in most areas came to a dead stop or
reached a stalling stage when the execution stage was
reached. Old habits established throughout the four
hundred years or more, going back to Spanish rule,
were so well entrenched that it was most difficult to
break them. Passing the buck from bottom to top and
the lack of delegation of authority was the general
rule.

Nobody below the top man was willing to take the
responsibility for making the decision, because he was
not given the responsibility which, of course, meant
that the whole process of government was slowed up.

Staff members selected because of political or
family connections was widespread, antiquated record
keeping including hand written copies duplicated many
times in some instances, lack of trust on the part of
top officials in employees except for a very limited
few, was the sort of situation that was handed down
from the centuries of dictatorship.

364

This kind of procedure helped stymie the work
after the first of the year along with the fact that
President Betencourt was running into a lot of trouble
with people who were trying to bring back the former
dictator. There were attempts across the border from
Columbia to bring about a coup and in addition to that
there was all kinds of trouble piling up here and there
with shooting and attempts at taking over. As a result
Betencourt had many emergencies to face, and as these
things began to happen he began to depend almost
entirely upon his three key advisors who were the
Minister of Mines, the Minister of Finance, and the
Chief of Planning and Coordination whom I have men
tioned Manuel Perez Guerrero, whom we depended upon to
get things done in the government.

As a result, the President was so busy with this,
that and the other that in spite of the fact that he
had given strong support to the Commission, we did not
get any support from him, to my knowledge, in pressing
the different ministries to go ahead with the program
that had been outlined in connection with the studies
jointly with the ministries. Also, Perez Guerrero was
so busy working with the President that he did not have
much time to do much about it, so the whole situation
bogged down in nearly all areas of the government.

The only ministry that really did much about what
was recommended was the Ministry of Health and they did
a pretty good job. The minister himself was interested;
he not only worked closely with the consultant agencies
in getting studies made and procedures worked out which
would be adopted, but suggested other areas where he
wanted work done. And he saw to it that many of the
recommendations were put into effect. It was the real
bright spot in the whole government at the time.

In addition to the other problems was the one that
it had been traditional for top people to make all of
the decisions. This meant that there was a great lack
of trained supervisors, especially at the third and
fourth level. In nearly all cases the Ministers and
their deputies handled the business, made the decisions
and things filtered up to them. They were so busy
handling every day emergencies that it was difficult
to get their ear about any changes.

365

Incompetent people in key areas, and reluctance
to make replacements where people were incompetent,
was another factor in the situation. As a result of
the complete bog-down of the recommendations, nobody
did any thing about pushing the civil service bill
through the Congress which had been recommended in
1959 and it was not passed during my regime. Most
recommendations resulting from other projects were
ignored except as I have already mentioned by the
Ministry of Health. It was a great disappointment.

About the time that I planned to leave in June
1960, Dr. Losada who had been the Executive Director
of the Commission, was moved over to be Deputy to the
Minister of Finance and the chap who was brought in to
replace him was Dr. Lopes Gallagos who had served as a
member of the Commission. Unfortunately Dr. Gallagos
was not happy in the presence of "gringos" and he was
so politically minded that he put personal ambitions
above the work of the Commission. He didn't actually
take over until after I left but I knew him personally
quite well and I got reports, of course, from the con
sultants and others as to what had happened later. So
the work of the Commission suffered very greatly when
Dr. Losada moved over.

Dr. Losada did his best to keep it on a high
level and to avoid some of the pitfalls which had been
usual in Venezuelan procedures throughout the years
such as depending upon people who were friends and
were looking for jobs rather than trying to get people
who were really qualified.

My assignment called for one year. I was asked
to contract for a second year, but since it was an
election year in the United States in 1960 I did not
want to be away for the whole year because I v/as still
a young man who wanted to consider the possibility of
taking on a job with the new administration. As a
matter of fact, I hoped that I might be able to help
with the campaign. So, although I was asked to extend
my stay for another year, I agreed to stay only another
three months which ended up in late June I960.

As it turned out, I was glad I had not agreed to
stay on, in view of the fact that Dr. Losada had

366

decided to leave and that Dr. Lopez Callages was going
to take over, because I was sure that we would not
have been very happy together.

The very day that Jenness and I left for Panama,
where we were going to stop off to visit friends and
to do some sightseeing, an attempt upon President
Betencourt's life was made, about fifteen minutes
after out plane left the ground. The car was dyna
mited, the chaff eur was killed and the President badly
burned, but fortunately he survived. When we got to
Panama we had dinner with friends that evening and the
host brought home a paper telling the story of the
bombing and the fact that the borders of Venezuela
had been closed for a few hours almost immediately
after we took off. They kidded us by telling us "We
know now why you left Venezuela; you got out just in
time." We really did get out just in time because if
we hadn't gotten off just when we did it would have
been several hours before we would have been able to
leave the country.

Social Life In Venezuela

DSM: When we had first arrived in Venezuela we stayed
at a hotel for a short time, until we could find an
apartment. During that stay at the hotel they were
short on water and water was carried in with a bucket
for us for two or three days while repairs were being
made. So we didn't have a very pleasant stay for the
first two weeks, until the Blandfords left and we
took over their apartment which was close to the hotel
and in the part of town where it was less dangerous
than it was down in the old section of the city.

It was expensive to live in Venezuela, much more
expensive than it is in the States. Fortunately for
us we got along very well indeed for the reason that
the U.N. had a policy which favored a family of two as
compared with a family of four or five. We received

367

the same fringe benefit allowance for family care and
maintenance as a family of four or five received. It
was difficult for a family with several children to
live on this extra allowance because of extremely high
costs, but we could almost live on our expense account
and the cost-of -living differential and spent very
little of our salary during the fifteen months that we
were there for actual living costs. If we spent any
of our salary it was because we travelled which we did
occasionally.

After about a month or six weeks in the Blandford
apartment we found another apartment in the same
building which was better situated with an excellent
view and more space. So we really had very good
living conditions. We were most most fortunate. A
United Nations car was assigned to our group, which
took us to the office and brought us home for our
siestas and took us back to work in the afternoon, and
brought us home in the evening. Furthermore, if we
were invited to official parties the chaffeur picked
us up, took us to the party and brought us home. So
we had good transportation and an excellent driver
which was fortunate, because driving is not easy in
Latin America and in Caracas in particular it is a
dangerous business if you don't know your way around.

There was quite a lot of social activity during
several months. We were invited to a number of social
affairs both small and large by government represen
tatives including Perez Guerrero who was working
closely with us. The consultant groups also enter
tained on occasion, and we were always invited to
those along with representatives of the Venezuelan
government.

Parties start late in Venezuela. I remember
particularly we were invited to Dr. Lopez Callages
house to a party one night and the invitation said
nine o'clock. We arrived promptly at nine o'clock
a la American and when we arrived I am sure they
were embarrassed, because they weren't ready for us.
Our host, who didn't speak English very well, tried
to entertain us because there was nobody else there
to do it. His wife was better at it than he was and
she was most gracious to Jenness, but it was about

368

an hour before everybody else came. We had thought it
was a cocktail party and drinks were served and then
the other people began to roll in and about the time
we thought we ought to be going home around eleven
thirty or twelve o'clock, they came in and asked
Jenness to accompany the hostess out into a patio in
which there was a long table loaded with all kinds of
food and a big dinner was served. I don't remember
what time we got away from there but after dinner they
served drinks again. The party went on for many hours.

This is typical; any number of times we were in
vited to cocktail parties and then when we prepared
to leave after an hour or two, the hostess would come
around with great surprise and say "Why we are going to
serve dinner after while. Won't you stay on?" Dinner
was usually served anywhere from twelve to one-thirty
in the morning.

One thing that interested us: We were told that
we need not expect any invitations to the homes of
Venezuelans, that they might give official parties at
a hotel but not into their homes. On the contrary we
were invited to Dr. Losada's home on at least three
occasions which we thoroughly enjoyed. Other
Americans were also invited. I have already mentioned
that we were invited to Dr. Lopez Gallagos house along
with some of the other U.N. representatives at least
and we were invited to a couple of other homes. So we
weren't blocked out entirely from entertainment in homes
of our friends whom we had made down there.

Travel Through The Country

DSM: In addition to our experience in Caracas I was

fortunate in having the opportunity to travel through
out Venezuela. The head of the P.A.S. consultant firm
asked the Executive Director to send me along with
their staff members who were going to visit the area in
western Venezuela near the Columbian line. I spent

369

nearly a week in the Andes country and in the valleys
in that area including a visit to the University at
Merida where we had interviews with the President and
with his staff. Merida was all dressed up for an
anniversary. The city had been established four hun
dred years before and they had really dressed the town
up. It was beautiful, one of the loveliest towns I
visited in Venezuela.

One of the things that interested me on this trip,
different from what we have in the United States, is
that almost every community, certainly every sizable
community, has a community-owned slaughter house.
Each town slaughters its own animals. We visited a
couple of these establishments en route. Around the
slaughter house there were hundreds of buzzards just
waiting for the offal to be thrown out where they
could clean it up. This is an old practice that goes
way back.

Also I took a trip south to the Oronoco country
with the head of the P.A.S. contract agency. We spent
four or five days in that area. Among other things
that we did there we interviewed various administrative
people and other local and state people. One evening
when we were wandering about simply stretching our
legs we stopped into the library. We were amazed to
find that the library which represented the State of
San Fernando de Apura didn't have any more books, if
as many, as I have in my own private library at home.
Most of the books were official reports of the legis
lature or something of that kind. It was really sad,
because it was so limited, yet the librarian was proud
of her library. She showed us through. This was in
San Fernando de Apura which was the capital of the
state by the same name.

Later on I went to Cumana for a visit to the
state of Sucre with the head of the P.A.S. group.
Jenness joined me there after a day or two. Again we
made a trip out into the countryside to visit some of
the institutions and found it most interesting.

While in Cumana, the Governor who until recently
had been the Ambassador from Venezuela to Washington,
Enrico Tehara Paris, met with us on two or three

370

occasions. He told us about the work that he was
trying to accomplish in the state, and offered us the
opportunity to go over to the peninsula of Araya off
the coast. It was an arid spot where there were salt
works which had been traditional throughout centuries.
Salt was still being harvested out of shallow areas of
water which were drained off after a time and when
dried up workers came in with -wheelbarrows and piled
the salt in very large mounds. There was tons and
tons and tons and tons, because it didn't rain enough
there to melt it and until it could be processed and
bagged and sent out to the various parts of Venezuela
it was safe to leave it in great mounds. We were told
that the former dictator, who had been eliminated, had
made a contract with an Italian firm to establish a
modern system for their salt works and they were almost
ready to start operating.

We visited also the salt processing plant, which
was an intriguing business. It was all run by elec
tricity, the control room was very complex. It would
take some time to really learn what the various gadgets
were and what they controlled. This was for refining
the salt which was brought in in shallow boats through
little canals into this factory and dumped. It went
through a process there including grinding, some type
of purification, mixing with other elements that were
needed and finally ended up in a bag. It went through
the whole process right there on this little neck of
land.

We wondered what would happen to the thousands
of people who had been doing the salt work there when
it became mechanized, because it was the only industry
on the island.

We also went over to the island of Margarita over
the weekend where they dive for pearls. It is a lovely
spot and we enjoyed our visit there very much.

371

Reflections On The Venezuela Experience

DSM: I'm still wondering how much good the Commission
and the contracting agencies and the U.N. represen
tatives did, and whether or not there has been any
real development since 1960 in modernization of
government in general and government procedures in
particular.

I think the most hopeful thing out of our whole
experience there was the fact that there were around
forty or fifty young men who were fairly well trained
in various phases of modern governmental procedures
and I am hoping that some of them were able to carry
on and help to establish new procedures. However,
it is difficult to change the old idea in Latin
America that a small group, perhaps twenty to one
hundred people, control the country. It is considered
perfectly justifiable that they maintain their poli
tical power in part by patronage and selection of people
regardless of their ability to fill jobs. Often there
are two or three times as many people on jobs as are
needed. In some cases we found people on jobs and on
the government payroll who were doing no work at all
for the government but working some place else. Or if
they were doing any work, they may do it in an hour or
two in the morning and then go off to another job and
earn more money some place else. This is a part of
the old tradition, I presume.

As I have indicated we left Venezuela in late
June. Jenness and I came back by way of Panama, Costa
Rica, Guatemala, and Mexico. In the first three
countries we visited old friends, most of whom had
worked as a part of the staff of the Institute of
Inter American Affairs in the days when I had been its
President. It was a great joy to visit these good
people again and find them continuing to do some of
the very excellent work that had been carried on
throughout the years. In Mexico we simply were
tourists, on our way back home.

372

Back Home

DSM: When we arrived home we found our grounds so over
grown with two years of spring and summer growth,
particularly spring growth, that it took me about three
weeks to get the hedges, shrubs and trees pruned back
to the place where they should have been kept in the
beginning.

The house had been unoccupied except for about
two months when some friends who had decided to move
back to Washington occupied it until they found some
place else to live. Because we were so selective we
hadn't been able to find somebody to rent the house.
Jenness did not want to take a chance on having
families who wouldn't take care of it.

When we finally got things in order along about
the first of August 1960 I made a date with my good
friend Al Waterston of the International Bank for
lunch .

A few days after my call, on the very day we were
supposed to have lunch, I got a call from Al. He said
"I have a young man in my office that wants to see you
and wants to talk with you," and I said "Bring him to
lunch." He said "He has a luncheon date but could he
make another date?"

The young man was Milton Esman from the staff of
the University of Pittsburgh. Milton was interested
in finding somebody to take over a seminar that he
was scheduled to teach himself that year but found he
was unable to handle because the University had
received a sizable grant from the Ford Foundation and
he was going to have to spend some time administering
the grant. So he had come by to see Al Waterston to
ask his recommendation on who might be available to
handle the course and Al said "Well you came at the
right time. I am having lunch with the man who ought
to be able to handle it very satisfactorily." So we
made a date to meet after luncheon. Milton Esman and
I, who I had met in Saigon some two or three years
before, had a chat and as a consequence I agreed to
take on the job.

373

A Graduate School Seminar

DSM: This was a course in the graduate school of Public
and International Affairs of which Don Stone was Dean.

The course concerned the theory and practice of
technical and economic assistance throughout the world.
It was scheduled to meet each Monday in the afternoon
for two hours. So from mid-September until December
20, 1960, I commuted from Washington by plane leaving
on Sunday evening and coming back on Monday evening
after the class work was completed.

It was a part time job, but since it was a new
course and nothing had been done in the preparation of
course plans, I spent nearly full time for the first
two months from mid-August until mid-October outlining
the course, selecting and reading reference books in
preparation for the meetings on Monday afternoon. I
set my sights high enough that it took more time per
haps than some people would have taken because I
decided I would not assign reference books either that
were required reading or were voluntary reading that I
had not read myself. So this in itself involved a lot
of reading plus the fact that I scanned many other
books in the process of making my selections for the
assigned readings.

The seminar included eighteen people in attendance
regularly, two of whom were not registered for the
course but were simply sitting in because of their
interest in the subject but they did participate even
though they weren't taking the course for credit.

I found the course highly stimulating. It was not
a lecture course in any sense of the word; it was truly
a seminar and most of the discussion was carried on by
the members of the class. As a result I learned a good
deal, both from my own research and from the discus
sions. Some of these people were quite well experi
enced. For example, three U.S. Air Force officers
were assigned to the University of Pittsburgh for addi
tional work and they were able to contribute substan
tially when they began to discuss military assistance
abroad.

374

One incident that amused me was that one of the
students wrote a paper on what he thought the policy
should be on military assistance in Latin America.
He was opposed to it, and everybody kidded him,
telling him that he had better not let the Air Force
see that paper, because they probably would do some
thing about it.

In the meantime I still hoped to help out in the
election that year, in the election headquarters in
Washington. I tried to convince the people in charge
that they had need of one of my experience because I
had worked in the 1956 election in particular helping
to schedule candidates. But it soon became obvious
that anyone over forty years of age with white hair
was considered too old by the Kennedy staff. This was
probably fortunate since much of my time was taken up
with the seminar during September and October which
I had not originally anticipated.

In addition to suggestions from Milton Esman
regarding the preparation for the course I received
a letter from Dean Don Stone setting forth suggestions
for the need of a defined plan enough in detail to pro
vide description of particular topics to be taken up at
each meeting plus well organized reading assignments,
project assignments, and reports or papers to be pre
pared, etc.

I look back on this particular seminar with a
great deal of pleasure not only because of what I
learned but because of the contacts that I made during
this period.

Other Assignments And "Near" Assignments

DSM: In the meantime during the last six months of
1960 I had lunched a couple of times with Henry
Labouisse who had headed a study for the International
Bank in Venezuela for several weeks during my stay

375

there and we had become quite good friends. I had
heard that Henry had been considered for the Director
ship of the International Cooperation Administration
during the Eisenhower administration, but that it had
been vetoed by the Republican National Committee. So
one day while I drove him back to the office after
lunch I raised this question and he said that that
was true, that he had been all set to take over, but
the Republican National Committee decided that he
shouldn't. So I said "Well, now, Henry, things are
going to change this fall and the Democrats are going
to win and you're probably going to get the offer to
do the job again. If you do take it on and I'll come
down and help you." All of this was said half -jokingly,
He said "That's a deal."

Sure enough following my discussions with Henry
in early 1961 he was offered the job of Director of
I.C. A. which later became the Agency for International
Development.

In late January William Mitchell, who was Com
missioner of Social Security, called me and said
"Dillon, we have just been handed the job by the
White House of taking over the Cuban refugee program.
Would you like to talk about it? We would like to
talk to you," and I said "Yes, I would like to talk
about it but I am afraid that I may be committed to
Henry Labouisse whose name has not come up for com-
firmation yet, but I understand that it will, as
Director of I.C.A./A.I.D." He said "Well, would you
be willing to go down as an consultant during a three
or four day meeting which has been called by the former
Director of Refugees in Miami of the representatives
of the various groups who have been working with them
and who they want to help support relocation? The
meeting is being called for people all over the
country." I said "Yes, I would be willing to do that.
I will call Henry Labouisse to see what the status is
there." Henry said "Well, Dillon, it is true that I am
going to be the new Director but I. don't know when I
will take over and even if I do it may be some time
before we get squared away, so go ahead and work with
them if they want you to in the meantime." I told Bill
Mitchell this and I said "In view of that situation

376

maybe you won't want me to go down as consultant." He
said "Well let me check with the Secretary."

HP: Which Secretary was this?

DSM: Of H.E.W. The new Secretary was Abe Ribicoff. Bill
checked with him and called me back immediately and
he said "The Secretary wants you to go by all means."

So I packed my bag for a four-day trip to Miami.
This was on Saturday morning. We left by plane and on
Monday morning my telephone rang about seven o'clock
and it was Bill Mitchell and he said "Dillon, I'm in
trouble. The Secretary is arriving on a plane at
around noon today and I am to meet him. The first
question that he is going to ask me is 'Who do you have
to take over on February 1 ' . " (This was three or four
days ahead of February 1.) He said "I haven't anybody
and I don't know what to do about it and I am calling
you to see whether you would continue on and take over
for awhile down here until we can work out something. "
I said "I would be glad to providing it doesn't inter
fere with any developments with I.C.A. So I will call
Henry Labouisse and let you know before noon if pos
sible." Henry Labouisse said he thought it was a fine
idea as it would be some time before things developed,
and for me to go ahead.

A Temporary Assignment

DSM: As a consequence I stayed on from that time until
around March seventh as the Director of the Cuban
Refugee Program with my office in Miami. This proved
to be a most interesting experience.

There were already several thousand Cuban refugees
who had come into Miami, most of them by plane, some by
boat. The procedure in Cuba was such that if anybody
left Cuba at that stage they left everything they owned
there. They would have five dollars in their pocket

377

and that's all. So they actually came destitute.

There were Cubans in Miami who had gotten out
earlier and had been able to salvage most of their
assets. The very well-to-do Cubans when they saw
things developing came earlier. A system had already
been established of registering the refugees as they
arrived with a background of history, their professional
interests, training, etc. This registration program
continued and we were registering a thousand to fifteen
hundred people a week. The problem that we immediately
faced when we took over was the fact that no provision
had been made for a welfare program for these people
who came in for the most part destitute.

The city of Miami was getting badly worried about
the fact that the labor market was, in certain areas,
being crowded. There was some objections from Labor
already on the jobs and they felt that something should
be done about it. So before the H.E.W. staff, including
William Mitchell and his immediate staff, left for
Washington during the last of January, we sat down and
worked out a program which included providing some wel
fare payments to people who were destitute in Miami
and welfare payments for people who were willing to
relocate and who were found themselves out of a job
later in other areas of the country. Welfare was not
provided for people who simply wandered off by them
selves. So that during the seven weeks I was there
we set up provisions for processing welfare cases, with
the people from the State office and worked very
closely with them in getting that particular program
under way. We paid a great deal of attention, of
course, to the question of relocation and how it was
being handled and in view of the fact that I had had
some experience earlier in relocation affairs with the
Japanese American program in W.R.A. during the war, I
was able to make some suggestions that were helpful to
the various agencies that were carrying on the work.
I did have some help from staff members from H.E.W.

I was able to help, I think, to some extent.
There were four agencies already at work trying to
assist in the relocation program. One of them was the
Catholic Welfare Agency which was handling a great
majority of the cases because most of the people who

378

came in from Cuba were Catholics. The Jewish Agency,
Hias, had a representative there. The Protestant
Church Groups had combined to provide assistance in
their area and there is one other agency whose official
name I don't remember but which had been in the relo
cation business for some time. All of these people
were working with contracts which had been made with
the former refugee director so one of the jobs that I
was asked to carry out was to renegotiate contracts
with all four of these agencies before I left the
which I was able to do.

In the meantime I found that many many refugee
groups wanted to interview the Director of Refugees.
I am talking now about Cubans, professional groups and
others. I also learned that the former director had
refused to see these groups. I spent quite a bit of
time listening to the stories and the complaints of
people who felt that maybe they had been overlooked,
groups of dentists, groups of other professions that
felt that something ought to be done about their work
and getting them established in the United States. We
spent time giving them a chance at least to feel they
had been listened too.

I did very little about revamping the organization
of the staff and strengthening the weak spots of the
staff because I knew that I was going to be there only
temporarily. I didn't think I should be making changes
if I could avoid it until the new director came on.
Every time I talked to Washington, usually two or three
times a week, I raised the question with William Mit
chell as to whom he had in mind for taking over because
I wanted to be back in Washington to be close in touch
with what was happening back here.

Finally after five or six weeks he told me that
they were going to ask their representative in Miami
who was handling the old age assistance program there
to take over this job which he did and he was an
excellent choice. He was reluctant to leave his other
work, but he did leave it but kept some contact with
it and finally went back to his original job, but in
the meantime I was very happy to have a man of his
caliber to take over because he was good and they
carried on an excellent program. I keep in touch with

379

the reports that come out monthly from the refugee
office in Miami and it has been very interesting to
me to find that there are about one hundred thousand
permanent residents in Miami, a quite stable group.

More than one hundred thousand others have been
relocated throughout the United States. The number of
people who are relocated out of each new group that
comes in now is much larger than it was back in the
days when I was there. This is normal, because once
you get a relocation program rolling to the point where
you have areas pretty well established where there are
a number of people who as in the Cuban case for example,
who speak Spanish and where there is a chance for people
to have some association with people they know well it
is much easier to get others to go out. We found that
during the W.R.A. days and we found it true in the
refugee program so that the refugee program has picked
up throughout the last four or five years and it is
pretty well stablized.

I mentioned one hundred thousand people in Miami.
As a matter of fact there was a pretty sizable Latin-
American community in Miami before the refugee program
got under way, and this increased, of course, with the
very large number of Cubans coming over in the mean
time.

I went to Miami for four days and I stayed for
about seven weeks, pretty close to that. I went down,
as I remember it, on the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth
of January and I didn't finish up down there until
early in March. When I found that I was going to have
to stay on I called Jenness and told her I thought she
ought to bring me some clean clothes and to come on
down. Whish she did and she spent at least a month
with me in Miami. We had very pleasant living condi
tions because we lived in a good hotel in Miami on a
quite adequate expense account and developed some
pleasant associations with a number of very nice people.

After my return from Miami in early March of 1961
I contacted Henry Labouisse a couple of times but
learned that action in regard to the foreign aid program
was being maintained pretty much in status quo pending
a reorganization. They had established a task force to

380

review the whole program and organization structure of
which Henry Labouisse was made chairman, to consider
how the agency should be revamped. This required
almost one hundred percent of his time and left little
time for the actual administrative job for which he v/as
presumably responsible.

Earlier during December or early January I had
been approached by Bill Shepard who was in charge of
the I.G. A. Far Eastern region. He wanted me to accept
a temporary assignment to Korea to follow up on a
public works program which was to be financed in large
part by the provision of U.S. surplus products, namely
wheat, cotton, and other minor products for use in
partial payment to workers who were doing public works
Jobs in lieu of cash. I had some reluctance to take
this assignment out of the U.S., but about mid-April
Henry Labouisse called me to say that it was going to
be some time before the agency would be reorganized and
asked that I consider going to Korea in the meantime to
assist on the public works program which was being
financed largely by U.S. products.

Temporary Assignment In Korea

DSM: I agreed and Jenness and I took off for Korea by
way of Rome on about April twentieth.

We went to Korea by way of the eastern route
because some of the staff in I.C.A. suggested that I
spend a few days in Tunisia to acquaint myself with
the public works program there that was being financed
with surplus commodities and which had been operating
successfully for some time. They thought this was de
sirable before going on to Korea where they were get
ting under way with a similar new and larger program.
So Jenness sojourned on her own in Rome for three or
four days while I went to Tunisia where B.C. Lavergne,
an old friend with whom we had spent some time in the
Phillipines when he was acting Mission Director in 1957 »

381

was Mission Director of the Tunisian I.C.A. program at
the time. The Lavergnes asked me to stay with them in
their home during my stay, which was most pleasant. I
visited many of the distribution points all over northern
Tunisia to learn what I could from their experience.
This was a most interesting part of our trip because I
had not realized how many old Roman ruins there were all
over this part of the world. You think normally of the
ruins being located in southern Europe and the Middle
East but I hadn't realized how many were in Africa.
My whole trip in Tunisia was well worth while. I was
fully briefed on the program, on the problems, on the
successes and I had a most interesting and delightful
time with the Lavergnes.

After three days in Tunisia I returned to Rome and
we took off for Korea by plane. After a short stop
over in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Bangkok we reached Korea
on April 27, 1961.

I went to work immediately to acquaint myself with
the program and to become acquainted with the Korean
Minister in charge of his staff.

During the first three weeks I felt that I had
become well enough acquainted with the job to be done
and the people responsible and was ready to render some
services I realized were needed. The program had
gotten well under way and there were some areas
particularly where the details of the agreement were
not being carried out, especially the fact that in
most cases the workers were being paid entirely in
surplus commodities, instead of the Korean Government
putting up their share of the cash that was originally
proposed.

After three weeks we wakened at about .two or three
o'clock one morning and heard the rat-tat-tat of machine
guns! I tried to assure Jenness that it was something
else but she knew better. As a matter of fact it was
General Park Chung Hi and his insurrectionists who were
on their way in to take over the government.

This coup made a tremendous difference in our work
over the rest of the period from mid-May until the time
we left in early July. Following the coup we never

382

knew from one day to the next with whom we would be
dealing. The first army officer assigned to the area
in which I was involved including the public works
program appeared to be "just what the doctor ordered."
He was intelligent, understanding and agreeable to the
correction of some of the procedures which we felt
badly needed correction, but at the end of about ten
days he was transferred to another job before he had
a chance to do anything about the things that we had
suggested. During the first six weeks in Korea we had
to deal with three different ministers.

The program which had been well thought through
and well planned involved the hiring of many people on
planned projects throughout the whole of South Korea
on such jobs as road construction or realignment of
roads, reclamation projects of various types, drainage
projects where this was desirable in order to provide
more land for cultivation, and similar types of con
structive work. The plan was that wheat in particular,
cotton in some cases, and other surplus projects that
we shipped in, were to be used in part payment to the
workers in the various communities. Consequently it
involved setting up storage places in every area where
work was being carried on, in order that payment could
be made regularly week after week.

In addition to the surplus products there was a
certain amount of cash to be provided by the Korean
government. We found in our early visits to some of
the projects that the cash part of it was missing,
that the payment was being made entirely with the sur
plus products. This was one of the things that we
called to the attention of the Minister and his staff
very early. I was not there, of course, as a watch
dog or an inspector, but nevertheless it did bother me
that the terms of the contract was not always being
handled as they should have been.

I have already mentioned that the first man
assigned after the coup didn't last more than ten days
before he was transferred to another area. After about
two or three more weeks I suggested that we take a long
field trip across Korea to check more in detail on the
distribution centers. This was agreed to and Jack
Anderson, who was working with me, and I along with a

583

Korean Colonel who had been assigned and two of his
Korean aides took a land rover car and started out.

We had a most rugged but interesting trip. I
thought that we had learned a great deal that was worth
while toward the implementation of the program in the
future and toward the correction of some of the things
that I felt should be corrected. However the very next
day after we returned to Seoul the Colonel who had
spent a couple of weeks touring with us to find out
what was going on, was transferred to another job.
This was typical of the type of problem that I ran into
day after day and week after week during the rest of
the time that we were there.

It was an interesting two or two and a half months
but little was accomplished on the program as far as
any contribution that I was able to make, because of
this personnel turn-over every three or four days.
This was a period, of course, of chaos when the new
military government had taken over after the coup and
they were trying to adjust people to various jobs. In
some cases they fired a lot of people because they felt
that they should have been in the army long before and
weren't. Some of them were arrested and put in jail
because of the fact that they weren't in the army. It
was not a very happy situation from the standpoint of
getting work done.

I had full support from Ray Moyer, who was the
Director of the Mission, and John Heilman who was the
Deputy during the time that I was there. They did
everything they could to assist me in getting the job
done. Also I had full support from the Acting Ambas
sador Green, who was quite interested in the program
and who kept in touch.

A Stop Off In India

DSM: During the time that I was in Korea, Douglas
Ensminger who was in charge of the Ford Foundation

384

program in India visited Seoul because he was on the
program of an international meeting that they were
having there. He came to see me and talked about the
program in Tunisia and in Korea and said that he
thought that it was something that they should be
interested in in India. He asked if I would be will
ing to stop in India on my way home. I told him that
of course I would providing the I.C.A. people felt that
it was a desirable thing to do. After he returned to
New Belhi I got word from Tyler Wood who was the I.C.A.
director in India, that the idea had been approved and
he had arranged for the approval by the I.C.A. in Wash
ington. Consequently Jenness and I went to India en
route back to the United States and spent a most inter
esting week during July of 1961.

Ty Wood and his staff were most gracious and help
ful as was Doug Ensminger and his staff of the Ford
Foundation. I had several interesting meetings with
the top members of India's planning staff who were
responsible for their series of five year programs that
had been launched. We were provided the opportunity to
visit a demonstration village north from New Delhi and
on the weekend Doug Ensminger supplied us with a car
and chauffeur to take us to Agra to see the Taj Mahal
which, of course, was a thrill.

In the meantime we had the opportunity to see
the Indian countryside between New Delhi and Agra.
We found in India, as we found in some of the other
countries, that one of the very real problems in
carrying out a program of this kind was the lack of
trained people or the lack of competent people at the
local level who had had any basic education at all to
take over and be responsible for a program of this
type. This was one of the problems in South Korea.

Returning from Korea on our way home, we stopped
again briefly in Hong Kong, and before reaching India,
Bangkok, and in London for a day to see friends who
were with us in Caracas, Venezuela in 1959 and 1960.

385

Chairman Of A Personnel Review Board

DSM: Upon our return to Washington in late July Henry
Labouisse asked that I serve as chairman of an execu
tive personnel review board. During the whole month
of August I was busy with files and board meetings
during which time we reviewed the records and secured
information from people who knew about the work of
one hundred fifty-two staff members who were in the
top echelons of the foreign aid program throughout the
world. We completed a report on each one for the
Director. It was a pleasant assignment because we had
an excellent board to work with.

In the meantime the reorganization pattern was
shaping up and Henry Labouisse told me that during
this interim he wanted me to take over a new division
which was planned — a division of research and tech
nical cooperation — in the revised setup once it was
finally approved. Before assuming that responsibility,
however, he had another assignment for me. It had been
decided to review all the cases that were brought before
the personnel division in Washington as a result of
Public Law 621 which authorized the review and selec
tion out of people who did not meet the standards that
they felt were required for the new A.I.D. agency
which was finally formed and named. I was asked to
head one of the review panels which started work in
September. We were busy at this job through the middle
of December.

This was not as pleasant as the executive review
procedures which we had just completed because it was
dealing with cases that had been recommended by some
body for selection out and we had to decide whether
we felt that the recommendation was a sound one or
whether it wasn't. Naturally it is not a very happy
procedure when you are having to recommend that people
be dropped from their jobs.

During August and September we began to hear
rumors that some of the White House young men who
President Kennedy had brought in were feeding out
material to some of the columnists to the effect that

386

Harry Labouisse was not tough enough and that a
Republican banker should head the program. It was
evident there was an attempt on the part of some of
the smart young men to run the program from the White
House rather than leaving it in the hands of the
director.

Harry Labouisse was appointed as Director in
February and was almost immediately made chairman of
a task force. This required practically all of his
time and he never did get a chance really to serve as
the head administrative officer. Dr. Dennis Fitzgerald
carried most of the job during that period.

A Change In Directors

DSM: The upshot of all of this was that Harry Labouisse
resigned effective October first and they soon announced
that George Wood, a Republican banker from the First
Boston Corporation, would replace him. It so happened
however that the Washington Post published a story
relating to Wood's opposition to the T.V.A. and to
cooperatives generally and played the story in the
middle of the front page. As a result so much con
troversy developed regarding Mr. Wood's place in the
picture that his name was withdrawn and another name
presented. The name of Mr. Fowler Hamilton was
hurriedly submitted to the Senate and he took over in
December. Of course all of this meant that my appoint
ment into a key spot in the new program went out the
window. Possibly the bright young men in the new
regime felt that anyone seventy years of age or older
was no longer useful. I did continue to serve in the
personnel review program until late in December.

During this period I had lunch with Harry Labouisse
and learned that he had taken a bundle of the clippings
of the various columns that had appeared, many of which
appeared in overseas editions, to President Kennedy,
who said that he had not known about them and that he

387

was very sorry. Harry Labouisse told the President,
according to his statement, that the pressures were
such that he felt that it would be better if he
resigned. Which he did. He then told me that Sec
retary Rusk had called him in and obviously had tried
to convey his regret about the whole thing. After a
nervous and agitated discussion on Rusk's part he
produced a map to show where there were openings or
probable openings in embassies throughout the world and
practically said "Take your choice." Harry selected
Greece and in the early part of 1962 he became the
Ambassador to Greece. After serving in that spot for
a term or more, he took on the job as Executive Director
of the United Nations Childrens Fund, UNICEF in New
York, and that is where he is today.

A Position With The Organization Of American States

DSM: Early in 1962 my good friends Albert Waterston
told me that the Organization of American States or
rather the subsidiary the Pan American Union were
planning to hire someone in the administrative field
to develop some studies and procedures and to serve
those countries interested in the modernization of
their administrative organization and procedures.
This was an entirely new approach on the part of the
Pan American Union. Al told me that he had recom
mended me for the job. Following an interview in
January with Dr. Walter Sedwitz and Senor Alvaro
Magana and others, I accepted an appointment as a
consultant under a one-year contract beginning
February 19, 1962. The contract had a proviso that
the contract could be terminated by either party on
sixty days notice.

The first few weeks were devoted to orientation
and contacts throughout the agency, plus other agen
cies, and various groups, the reading of documents
along with review, selection and procurement of
published materials in both English and in Spanish,

388

in order to provide a working library in this particu
lar area. A partial bibliography of available
materials was prepared and made available to those
interested. Liaison was maintained with related
agencies including a division of public administra
tion of the United Nations and the Agency for Inter
national Development.

I represented Dr. Sedwitz as a panel member re
lating to international assistance on the program of
the American Society of Public Administration at their
meeting in Chicago during the early days of my assign
ment. Arrangements had already been made before I came
with the agency with the Graduate School of Public
and International Affairs of the University of Pitts
burgh for the preparation of two basic papers. The
first paper, entitled "Administrative Criteria for
National Development Plans" was completed in draft
form in March of 1962. The second paper "Proposed
Programs of Study and Research on Development of
Administration in Latin America" was completed in late
April. Both papers were carefully reviewed and some
time was devoted in reediting of the first paper in
cooperation with the University of Pittsburgh staff.

Much time during April and early May was devoted
to preparation of detailed plans for a meeting of a
task force which had been proposed and which was
scheduled to meet for three days May twenty-third,
twenty-fourth, and twenty-fifth. The planning included
securing a list of prospective members, selection of
members and making contacts with these people to try
to get them to take on the job, the preparation of an
agenda, and other essential activities that were
necessary to prepare for such a meeting.

Dr. Sedwitz had told me that I was to be chairman
of this task force , then just a few days before the
scheduled meeting he told me that Dr. Gorge Sol
Castianos, Executive Director of the particular area
in the Pan American Union, whose initials were I. A.
Ecosoc which had to do with economic and social
development, had suggested that the chairman be
elected by the members of the task force. I objected
to this approach for the reason that I felt that any
one selected who had not been closely in touch with

389

the purposes and detailed planning would be at a loss
in expediting the work of such a group. Dr. Sedwitz
said that he would discuss the matter further with
Dr. Sol Castinanos. In the meantime he, Dr. Sedwitz,
was called away to a meeting in Europe.

Consequently, on the morning that the conference
was to begin, May twenty-third, Dr. Sol appeared on
the scene and turned to me and said "What arrangements
have been made for a chairman?" I realized that Dr.
Sedwitz had not discussed the matter further with him
before leaving for Europe so I simply said that Dr.
Sedwitz had told me earlier that I was to serve as
chairman. This he immediately accepted and the con
ference got under way with a statement by Dr. Sol
about the conference at Punt Del Este where he had
been one of the people that had attended.

As the conference went along I arrived rather
slowly at the realization that my immediate boss
Senor Magana had been responsible for the proposal
that the chairman be elected. Obviously he was very
upset at the turn of events and seemed quite sulky
and uncooperative throughout the whole three days.
He did participate when called upon, but he did it
rather unhappily, I thought.

We proceeded with the three day conference as
planned, and had a most constructive and agreeable
conference in spite of the fact that I sensed that
Senor Magana was unhappy. The task force recommended
a number of things. There were seven major projects
for consideration which I will summarize as follows:

1 . They proposed a survey to be conducted of
three teams of two or three members each who would
visit each of the twenty-one Latin American countries,
consult with ten to twenty key leaders, at which time
they would introduce and review the paper on "Admini
strative Criteria for Notional Development Plans"
mentioned earlier which had been prepared by the
University of Pittsburgh Graduate School. The ob
jective would be to secure constructive comments about
the paper which would be useful in connection with a
possible revision. The teams would also review the
most important problems or barriers affecting adequate

390

administration in these countries, to determine with
responsible officials any needs for service which
might be rendered by the Organization of American
States in the development administration area.

2. A proposal for a conference or perhaps three
group conferences of delegates from each country to
discuss the basic questions and problems outlined in
the paper "Administrative Criteria for National
Development Plans" which would be held later in 1962.

3. Consideration of the establishment of a
research documentation, translation and training center
somewhere in South America.

4-. Plans for an inventory and an index of past
and current research and publications in the field of
public administration and related matters.

5. The initiation of an overall study of auto
nomous institutes and agencies in regard to their
relations, coordination and integration with the rest
of the governmental structure and a similar study of
financial control problems with particular reference

to a review of accounting and auditing responsibilities,

6. The development of a publication of a simple
and adequate conceptual framework for a sound per
sonnel system and the same for a good budgetary
system.

7. A determination should be made of whether an
updating of the overall study of administrative pro
blems similar to the Blandford study of the early
1950s should be carried out.

Following the conference I proceeded to prepare
a summary report of the actions of the conference with
the list of agencies and individuals' who should
receive tfopies of such a report. This report was
typed, and I prepared a request for duplication of the
number of copies required. I very soon found out that
Senor Magana had quietly vetoed my requests in this
regard along with some other items which was, I'm sure
he knew, most embarrassing and frustrating to me.

391

I came to the realization that he was going to do
everything possible to get me to resign my job, because
he was quite unhappy with me in this particular spot
so I asked for a meeting and had a meeting with Senor
Magana. After discussion for quite some time even
though he wasn't completely frank with me, I came
definitely to the conclusion he would block every
thing that I proposed if he could do so. I then went
to Dr. Sedwitz and told him of the impasse and asked
that my resignation be accepted as of July first. This
was already late in June because I had been working to
get everything in order before we sent the material
out and it took me several days to come to the con
clusion that I wasn't going to get the summary report
duplicated. Dr. Sedwitz refused to accept my resigna
tion, saying he wanted time to work out some other
basis for continuing my services as an consultant.

As time went on nothing happened, so I fell back
on the sixty days notice clause in my contract. I pre
sented my resignation effective at the end of sixty
days and I had little to do after July first. I
couldn't get agreement to have my services terminated
and since I was held by the contract there was nothing
for me to do but stick around and twiddle my thumbs.
As a matter of fact I did a great deal of reading
during this period to fill in the time. The months
of July and August were unproductive, and my resigna
tion was not accepted until September first.

This experience of having been stymied and boxed
in by a jealous and revengeful boss was a new experi
ence for me and it was not a pleasant one. I realized,
of course, shortly after I came on the job, that per
haps I had made a mistake by accepting the job since
I was fourth man down on the totem pole. There was
Dr. Sol Castianos at the top, Dr. Sedwitz, Dr. Magana
and then myself. This was something that I had not
been accustomed to for some time and perhaps part of
the fault was mine .

392

A Travel Interlude Then Further Assignment;

DSM: During late January and February and part of

March 19&3 Jenness and I took a trip to Hawaii, Fiji,
American Samoa, New Zealand and Australia.

After our return from this trip and a few weeks
of unemployment, I made a luncheon date with Frank
Coffin who was nerving as Deputy to the Director of
the A.I.D. program. Frank had been an excellent mem
ber of the executive personnel review panel during
August of 1961 which I hod chaired and we had become
good friends.

During the luncheon I asked whether it was apainst
the lav/ or policy of A.I.D. to hire anyone over seventy
years of age. He laughed and said that he knew of no
such lav; or policy. I said "I do not wish to embarrass
you in any way but I believe that I have the ability
to contribute something to the agency and I would be
happy to serve as a consultant in any area where my
experience and talents might serve best." Pie immed
iately said that I should be able to render real ser
vice in the area of research and technical services
and he would speak to Dr. Baumgartner who had taken
over the job that Harry Labouisse had planned for me
and also explore other areas. As might be expected
nothing developed in Dr. Baumgartner^a area but only
a few days later I received a call from the personnel
office to ask that I serve on a personnel review panel.
I accepted for part of May and most of June of 1965.

Soon after this, in late July, I had a call from
David Stanley of Brookings Institution who told me
that he had asked A.I.D. for some help from them on a
study of the higher civil service in Government and
it seems that he talked with Frank Coffin, who was
acting at the time. Frank had told Stanley that they
would make me available and agreed to pay my salary.
So on August 5, 1963 I started to work with David
Stanley at Brookings. My major job was that of inter
viewing a long list of civil servants in grades above
grade fifteen both in Washington and in the field, and
in preparing detailed reports on these interviews. I

393

was carried on the A.I.D. roles from August fifth until
September thirteen and then transferred to the Brookings
payroll under contract until October 25, 1965. The
results of this study were published in November 1964
and authored by David Stanley with acknowledgements to
those of us who had assisted in the study.

Following this assignment I was again appointed
by A.I.D. as a consultant on November 4, 1963 to serve
on a pcnel to review a long list of employees as a
first move toward a selection out process. This work
continued throughout the rest of 1963 and into early
1964. We completed the job and reported to David Bell
in February 1964.

Jenness and I then started planning a European
trip. In early July, Jenness and I, along with our
eldest grandchild, Pamela Hall, toured Norway, Sweden,
Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland, France
and then spent six weeks in England and Ireland, return
ing about mid September, 1964.

Shortly after my return I was asked by the personnel
director of U.S. I. A. to serve on a promotion review
panel which was to review for possible promotion, the
records of the foreign service officers who were at
work in U.S. I. A. I learned that James Mitchell who was
then working with the Brookings Institution, end who
was a good friend, had recommended me for this spot.
This assignment was interesting and enjoyable because
we had a good panel, two of whom were members of the
staff of U.S. I. A. and two of the State Department. I
was the lay member not attached to any agency.

I Do Some Writing

DSM: We finished thin job in December 1964 and fchio,
as it developed, was my Inct assignment oo consultant
in any of the governmental areas. So in 1965 after
coming to fche realization that I wasn't going to be

selected for further part time work I started writing
a book which came to be entitled "Uprooted Americans"
with a subtitle "The Japanese-Americans and the W.R.A.
during World War II." The manuscript was completed in
late 1966 and will soon be published by the University
of Arizona Press. I would like to add that I had
excellent help on this manuscript from four of my very
pood friendr who served as readers and reviewed the
document from time to time.

They were Helen Pryor, Philip Click, Morrill
Tozier (both of the latter had served with me in W.R.A.)
and Mike Masaoka who at the time of W.R.A. was Executive
Officer of the Japanese-American Citizens League arid
who has continued to be closely associated with the
J.A.C.L. throughout the years.

The manuscript has also been reviewed by William
Hosokawo , Associate Editor of the Denver Post, who
made a number of constructive suggestions.

Upon its completion I wrote to Doctor Edward H.
Spicer, head of the Department of Anthropology at the
University of Arizona, an old friend and a former mem
ber of the War Relocation Authority staff. He asked
that I send a copy of the manuscript to him for review
and possible referral to the University of Arizona
Press.

After reviewing the manuscript he recommended thct
it be published. The University of Arizona Prenr.
agreed. Oon.c3equently the book will come off the
press early in 1970.

CHA1TKR XVII
POSTSCRIPT - .SUMMING UP

DSM: It was my good fortune to have been born of

wonderful parents, and to have been reared on a farm
at a time when thrift and hard work were virtues. The
farm tasks and responsibilities, which were hard at
times, were accepted as a major part of a farm boy's
life. The work habits that were formed in early life
were important assets in later years.

I have had the benefit of good educational train
ing all the way from the one-room country school through
college and post-graduate work.

I have been fortunate also in having good bosses
throughout the more than forty years of public service.

All of my many jobs have been interesting and
worthwhile. I have had the opportunity to visit most
of the fifty states officially in the company of per
sonnel who had an excellent knowledge of the people in
the areas but they were also well versed in the nature
of the flora and fauna. This kind of guide service
could not be hired for love or money for it was avail
able only among the well trained public servants who
were agriculturists, conservationists and others well
versed in the lore of the areas served.

In addition I had the opportunity to visit many
foreign countries officially with the same kind of well
trained escorts.

The two jobs which stand out in their contribution
to my development are: my first job as a County Agri
cultural Agent in Vanderburgh County, Indiana, where
as a young mnn of twenty-four years, I v/as on my own
for the first time. I learned there that I liked work
ing with people and my confidence in my own ability in
creased greatly. New vintas opened up fox- me as a
result of that experience.

396

The second one came many years later when I took
over the Directorship of the War Relocation Authority
for four .years in 1942. This was a tough job without
precedents or guide lines. I learned many things for
sure during that four years including the confirmation
that many of the tenets which I had grown up with were
still valid. Also the importance of planning and never
giving up so long as there were stones unturned and
that people of good will often came to the front more
slowly than those of ill will but they stayed with it
longer once they took hold.

During this period I lost all feelings of fear or
insecurity that had occasionally been bothersome up to
that time.

All in all, I have had a wonderful life with many
opportunities for learning and development in my many
jobs. On top of it all at age thirty-three I married
a most wonderful girl. As a result we have a family
that makes me very proud.

397

INDEX

Agricultural Conservation
and Adjustment Admini
stration, 179, 182, 183

Agr. Adjustment Administra
tion, A. A. A., 161, 164,
165, 168, 170, 181

Alpha Zeta Fraternity, 82,
85, 325

American Lep.;ion, 197

Americanism Commission,
members Homer Ghaillaux
and Jimmy O'Neil. 208,
209

Anderson, A.E., Apr. Ext.
Supervisor, 149

Anderson, Clinton, Senator
252, 281

Appleby, Paul, Adm. Ass't
to Sec. U.S.D.A., 176
178, 332, 334, 339

Armour, Norman, Ass't. Sec.
of State, 242

B

Barrows, Leland. Exc. Officer
W.R.A., 207, 250, 301, 316

Barrows, Professor, O.S.U.,
82, 83

Baum, Mrs. Willa, x acknow
ledgement

Bankhead, John, Senator, 177

Beatty, Willard, Chief of
Education Bureau of Indian
Affairs, 256

Beeson, Keeler, Ext. Agrono
mist, 116

Bell, Francis, Co. Agr. Agent,
154

Bell, Sam, Farmer, 141, 142

Bendetzen, Carl, Col. Civilian
Affairs Western Defense Com
mand, 186, 187

Bender, George, Congressman,
311, 312

Bennett, Hugh, Chief of Soil
Conservation Service, 171,
172, 174, 176, 177, 179,
180, 320, 335, 339

Baker, John, Inf. Officer
W.R.A., 202

Benson, Mr., Four H Club
Founder, 129

398

Best, Ray, Director Tule
Lake, W.R.A. Center,
204, 207

Biddle, Francis, U.S. Att.
General , 211, 216, 21?

Black, Dr. Albert, U.S.D.A.,
162

Black, Dave, Early Auto
Owner, 8

Blandford, John, U.N.
Experts, 359, 360, 361

Bledsoe, Sam, Ass't. To
Sec. of Agr. , 180

Boettenger, John and Anna
Roosevelt Boettenger, 201

Bolley, Dr., Plant Patholo
gist, 94

Bronson, Ruth Muskrat, Con
gress of American Indians,
296

Brown, Harry, Ass't Sec. of
ACT., 177, 178

Brown, Mac, quartet member,
58

Brown, Mr., Engineer, 168

Byrnes, James, Senator and
Sec. of State, 179, 212

Buckeye Lake Park, Ohio, 7
26, 45, 65, 66, 68, 48,
69, 73, 77, 80

Bullock, Mr., Newspaperman,
112

Bureau of Agr. Economics,
U.S.D.A., 178

Bureau of Plant Industry,
U.S.D.A., 113

Butler, Hugh, Senator, 253,
254

Caine, Harry P., Senator,
230

Calkins, Hugh, Reg. Conser
vator, S.C.S., 303

California, Humbolt Co., 90,
91, 186

Campbell, J. Phil, Section.
Chief Soil Conservation
Service, 173, 177

Carmody, John, Horticulturist,
96

Castianos, Dr. George Sol, Pan
American Union, 388, 389
391

Chandler, A.B. (Happy), Senator,
197, 201, 209

Chapman, Oscar, Ass't Sec. and
Sec. of the Interior, 229,
251, 252

Chavez, Dennis, Senator, 304

Chipperfield, Robert, Congress
man, 243

Christgau, Victor, Division
Chief A. A. A., 163, 165, 334

399

Christie, Prof. G.I.,

145, 146, 147, 149, 320,
329, 330

Civilian Conservation Corp. ,
C.C.C., 17?

Clapp, Gordon, Chief of Near
East U.N. Mission,
48, 249, 250

2

Coffey, John, Congressman,
309

Coffin, Frank, Deputy Adin.
A.I.D., 392

Cohen, Felix, Indian Att.,
279, 280, 283

Coleman, T.A., County

Agent Leader, 88, 89, 145
146, 148

Collier, Charles, Soil Con
servation Service, 168

Collier, John, Commissioner
of Bureau of Indian
Affairs, 255, 283

Columbia University, 160

Columbus, Ohio, 63, 66, 67,
74, 76, 147, 149, 150,
158, 165

Connelly, Mat, President
ial Ass't., 244

Connelly, Tom, Senator, 294

Cordier, Andrew, Ass't Head
of U.N., 247, 249, 250

Cordon, Senator, 281

Corey, Andy, Department of
State, 241

Cornell University, 93

Costello, John, Congressman,
Chairman of Sub. Com. of
Dies Com., 193, 202, 203, 209
and Robert Stripling Staff
member, 209, 307

Coudert, Fredrick, Congressman,
231

Cozzens, Robert, V/.R.A. Ass't.,
207, 311

Craig, Doctor, Veternarian,
109

Craig, Stephen Jim, Co. Agr.
Agent, 148

Crane, George, Ass't Director
of Agr. Ext., 156

Creel, Cecil, Agr. Ext, Director
Nevada, 177

Crocheron, B.H. , Agr. Ext. Dir.
California, 90, 91

Cuban Refugee Program, 375
376

Cullum, Rovert, W.R.A. Relo
cation Officer, 224

Curry, James, Indian Attorney,
278

D

Dakin, E.S., V/.R.A. Relocation
Officer, 154

400

Daniels, Paul C., Acting Ennis, Edward, Department of
Ass't Sec. of State, 242 Justice, 216

Davis, Chester, Chief of Ensminger, Douglas, Ford Foun-
A.A.A., 163, 164, 165, dation, India, 383
166, 169, 170, 1?1

Erspine, Billy, Farmer, 114
Davis, Elmer, Chief of

O.M.I., 183 Esman, Dr. Milton, Un. of

Pittsburgh, 372, 374
DeWitt, John L. , General,

185, 186, 187, 190, 193 Evans, "Spike", Chief of A. A. A.,

179, 180

Dirksen, Everett, Congress
man and Senator, 317, 318 Evansville, Indiana. 89, 95$

113, 117, 120, 139, 145, W
Doty, Dale, Ass't Sec. of 150, 320
Interior, 252

Evansville Courier, 90, 105,
Drier, John, Dept. of State, 106, 107, 112
240

F
E

Fahey, Charles, Solicitor
Edmonds, John, Farmer, 140 General, 220, 221

Eisenhower, Milton, 167, 171 Parrel, George, U.S. Agr. Ext.
176, 178, 183, 184, 186, Service, 129
188, 322, 333, 339

Federal Chemical Co., Louis-
Eisenhower. President of ville, Ky., 95, 100
U.S.A., 299

Ferguson, Clarence, Poultry

Egan, John, Acting Commis- Specialist and Director of
sioner P.H.A., 236 Agr. Ext. Service, Ohio and

National, 165
Ellis, Ray, Fertilizer Plant

Officer, 102 Foley, Raymond, Dir. of U.S.

Housing Agency, 234, 236
Embray, Nick, a boyhood pal,

33 Forest Service, U.S.D.A., 178

179, 226
Emerich, Dr. Herbert, United

Nations, 359 Fortas, Abe, Under Sec. of

Interior, 225, 226, 341
Engle, Chester, Fraternity

brother, 82 Frank, Jerome, Lawyer and

Judge , 1 65

401

Frier, "Doc", Agr. Ext.
Specialist, 123

Fry, Amelia, x acknow
ledgement

Funchess, Dean, Auburn
State University, 339

Gas, Free Natural, 79

Gallagos, Dr. Lopaz, Exc.
Dir. of Ven. U.K. Com.,
365, 366, 367

Garrison, Mr., Fertilizer
Salesman, 100, 101

Gaston, T.L., Section Head
Soil Conservation Ser
vice, 174

George, Frank, Exc. Dir.
of Congress of American
Indians, 283

Georgia, Atlanta, 179

Gibson, W.A., W.R.A. Em
ployee, 307

Gilbert, Prof. A.H., Bo-
tony Dept., Un. of Ky. ,
92, 93 "

Glick, Philip, Lawyer, 166,
394

Graham, A.E., Former Agr.
Ext. Director, Ohio, 129

Graham, Willie and Harry,
Fresh Air Kids, 74

Grandstaf, George, Capt. 222
Gray, Dr. L.C., U.S.D.A., 167

Griff enhagen, Kroeger MC, 360

Grossman, Edward, Four H Club
Leader, 130

Group Health Association Inc.,
347, 348, 349, 354, 355

Guerrero, Dr. Manuel Perez,
Chief of Venezuelan Office
of Coordination and Planning
360, 364, 367

H

Haas, Mr., School teacher, 132

Hahn, E.R., Farmer Demonstra
tor, 135

Halle, Louis, Dept. of State,
246

Hamilton, Fowler, Director of
A.I.D., 386

Hearst Press, 193, 206, 308

Hebron, Ohio, Hometown, 66, 67,
68, 75

Heilman, John, Deputy Dir. of
I.C. A., Mission in Korea,
383

Heldt Seed Co., Evansville,
Ind., 114

Henry, Clarence, Co. Agr. Agent
81, 89

Hepler, William and David,
Farmers, 99

Hill, Grover, Ass't. Sec. of
Agr., 181, 182

402

Hoeing, Agnes, Pour H Club
Girl, 128

Holland, Tom, Employment
Division W.T7.A., 189

Home Owners Loan Corpor
ation, 348, 349

Horn, Miss Lottie, School
Teacher, 4

Uosakawa, William, Assoc.
Editor Denver Post, 394

Hoover Commission, The U.S.,
357

Hopkins , Harry and wife ,
Pres. Ass't., 201

Hopkins, Prof., Soils Dept.
Un. of 111., 94

Howell, William, Exc. Off.
of International Bank,
356

Hughes, John B., Radio Com
mentator, 186

Humphrey, Hubert, Mayor of
Minneapolis and Senator,
238

Ickes, Harold, Sec. of
Interior, 211, 221, 225
227, 340, 342

Institute Of Inter-Ameri
can Affairs, 371

Interurban Line , Columbus ,
Newark, and Zanesville,
Ohio, 66, 68, 79, 80

Jackson, Andrew, U.S. President,

Jacobs, J.S. Associates, 360

Jardine, William, Sec. of
Agr., 332

Jenson, Ben, Congressman, 231,
233, 237, 254

Johnson- C'Malley Act, 260, 265,

277

Jones, Marvin, Judge, Court of
Claims, 181, 182

Jones, Prof. S.C., Soils Dept.
Un. of Ky., 86, 88

Jump, William, Budget Director,
U.S. Dept. Agr., "178

K

Kansas State College, 83

Keller, Kent, Congressman, 317

Kennedy, John, U.S. President,
385

Kenny Ralph, Fraternity Brother
Agronomist, 83, 84

Kentucky, 77, 85, 91, 177
Key, John, Congressman, 243
Kigan, Dr. L., Veternarian, 138

Kinney, Edwin, Prof, of Agron
omy, 86, 87, 92, 326, 327

'i-03

Kirchof, Fir., Farmer, 110

Kissel, Henry, Farmer, 99
135, 136, 137, 138, 139

Korea, 380, 382

Krug, Julius, Sec. of
Interior, 22?

LaForge, Oliver, President
of the Association of
Am. Indian Affairs, 295

Labouisse, Henry, Int. Bank
and Dir. of I.G.A., 5?4,
375, 376, 379, 380, 385,
?86, 387, 392

LaVergne, D.G., Dir. of
Mission Tunisia I.G.A.,
380, 381

Lawton, Fred, Dir. U.S.
Bureau of the Budget, 245

Lee, Clarence, Congressman,
308

Lee, H. Rex, Relocation
Officer W.R.A., Deputy
Commissioner of Indian
Affairs, 219, 248, 249
253, 268, 314

Lee, Robert E., K.C.C.
Commissioner, 231, 233

Lewis, Fulton Jr., Column
ist and Commentator, 254

Lewis, Orme, Ass't Sec. of
the Interior, 299

Lichtenberg, Dr. Henry, Med
ical Director G.H.A., 350

Lippman, Walter, Columnist,
154, 186

Livingston, Jack, Prof, of
Agronomy, 83

Loew, Michael, H.H., U.N.
Training Expert, 359, 363

Losada, Dr. Benito Raul,
Exc. Officer of Venezuelan
Pub. Adm. Com., 359, 365,
368

Loudermilk, Mr., Contractor,
304

Lovett, Robert A., Acting Sec,
of State, 243

MC

McCall, Dr. Arthur, Prof, of
Soils, 84, 325

McCorran, Pat, Senator, 314,
315, 316

McCarthy, Jos. R., Senator,
230

McCay, Douglas, Sec. of the
Interior, 299

McCloy, John, Ass't Sec. of
War, 200

McConnell, Dr., Veternarian,
137, 138, 139

McCray, Warren, Hereford
Breeder and Governor of
Indiana, 102

404

McFaddin, Margaret, x
acknowl edgement

McGee, George. Ass't Sec.
of State, 246, 247, 250

McGrannery, Jas., Dept. of
Justice, 216

McGuffy's Reader, 3, 5

Mclntosh, Gal. Go. Agr.
Agent, 89

HcKarney, General, 301
M

Magana, Senor Alvaro, Pan
Am. Union, 387, 389, 390,
391

Mansfield, Mike, Congress
man, 243

Markley, Allen, V/.R.A. Inf.
Officer, 210

Marshall, George, Sec. of
State, 243

Marshall, Roy, Go. Ap;r.
Agent, 89

Martin, Joseph, Congress
man, 318

Martin, Joe, Twp. Trustee,
136

Masaoka, Mike, J.A.C.L.,
394

Merrill, Lev/is, Reg. Con
servator S.C.S., 180

Miller, Doctor, Soils Dept.
Un. Of Missouri, 339

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 179
Missouri, 176

Mitchell, James, Brookings
Institution, 348, 393

Mitchell, William, Commis
sioner Social Sec. Board,
375, 376, 377, 378

Mitchem,,Mr. , Farmer, 98

/

Monroe, Owen, Seedsman, 114
115

Morris, Doctor, Agronimist,
U.S.D.A., 113

Mossman, Mac, School Teacher
4, 5, 8

Moyer, Dr. Roy, Dir. of Mission
Korea I.C.A., 383

Myer, Jenness Wirt, x acknow
ledgement

Myer, Jacob, Grandfather, xii
Myer Relatives, 1,6

Myer, Mary Oldaker, Grandmother
10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 41, 52

N

Neel, Bert, Neighbor, 3

Newark, Ohio, 66, 67, 68

New York Times, 210

0

Ohio State University, 81, 82, 84,

405

Ohio Wesleyan University,
81

0 ' Mahoney , Joe , Senator ,
201, 291

Organization of American
States, 38?

Orr, Harvey, School Teacher
5, 6, 7, 323

Osborn, Doctor, Professor
of Entomology, 82

Oswego, New York Refugee
Center for Europeans,
212, 213, 214, 223

Outland, George, Congress
man, 308, 509

Paris, Enrico Tehera, Gov
ernor of Sucre, 36y

Parish, Alf , Quartet Mem
ber, 58

Park, Chung Hi, General
and President Korea, 381

Pence, Ruth, Boyhood girl
friend, 76, 77

Pauley, Edward, Recommended
for Sec. of Navy, 227

Pearson. Drew, Columnist,
237, 254

Perez, Juineny, Venezuelan
Dictator, 356

Phillips, T.G., Professor
and Fraternity Brother,
325

Pickett, Clarence, Exc. Officer
of the Friends Service Com
mittee, 188, 246, 249

Pierce, Homer and Elmer,
Farmers, 131, 343

Ploeser. Walter, Congressman,
231, 233

Posey County, Indiana, 111
Pratt Bros., Seedsmen, 115

Price, Homer, Dean of Agr.
O.S.U. 84

Province, John, Ass't Commis
sioner of Bureau of Indian
Affairs, 253

Pryor, Helen, x acknowledgement,
394

Public Administration Service,
360, 368, 369

Public Health Service, 265,
266, 276

Purdue University, 88, 90, 102,
107, 116, 123, 130, 145, 147,
149

R

Raglund, Floyd, Co. Supt. of
Schools, 89, 107

Ramsower, Doctor H.C., Dir. of
Agr. Ext. Service, Ohio, 151,
155, 156, 330, 331

Reese, Gladys, Friend, 82

Reines, William, G.H.A. Board
member, 354-

4-06

Ribicoff, Abe, Senator and
Sec. of H.E.W., 376

Richards, James P., Con
gressman, 243

Roberts, George, Prof, of
Agronomy, 84, 86, 8?, 88
92, 94, 95, 326, 32?

Roby, Mr. and Mrs. and

family, neighbors, 38, 39,
43, 49, 50, 51

Rockefeller, Nelson, Gov. of
New York, 240

Roeder, Cornelius, Farmer
Demonstrator, 32, 134

Roosevelt, F.D., President
of U.S., 200, 201, 211,
212, 217, 302

Roosevelt, Mrs. Eleanor,
200, 201

Rosebraugh, Sam, quartet
member, 58, 59

Rothamstead Experiment Sta
tion England, 94

Rule, Glenn, Friend and
Employee, 152, 153

Rural Free Delivery, 78
Rusk, Dean, Sec. of State,

387

S

San Francisco Chronicle,
210

Salisbury, Morse, Inf. Officer
U.S.D.A., 332

Schindler, Miss Lena, Co. Clerk's
Office, 105

Schlendsher, John, Farmer and
Fertilizer Dealer, 101, 102

Sedwitz, Dr. Walter, Pan Amer
ican Union, 387, 389, 391

Seymour, Grandmother and family,
xi, 37, 38, 51, 56, 57, 58,
59, 60, 61, 63

Shakespeare, Works of, 6

Shanklin, Fred, State Four FI
Club Leader, 123, 130

Shepard, William, I.C.A. Reg.
Director, 380

Shields, Bob, Ass't to the Sec.
of Agr. 180

Smith, Harold, Director of the
Budget, 211, 212, 340

Smith, J.D.M., British Finance
Expert U.N., 359

Smith-Lever Act, 129

Soil Conservation Service,

U.S.D.A., 169, 170, 171, 172,
173, 178, 179, 182

South Carolina Spartenburg, 179
Spelling Bee, 9

Spicer, Dr. E.H., Un. of Ari
zona, 394

407

Stahl, 0. Glenn, U.S.
Civil Service Com., 360

Stanley, David, Brookings
Institution, 392

Steelman, John, Presiden
tial Ass't., 235

Stimson, Henry, Sec. of
War, 187, 197, 199, 200

Stone, Don, Dean of School
of Public and Interna
tional Affairs, Un. of
Pittsburgh, 373, 374

Stand, Mike, Chief of
Bureau of Reclamation,
227

Stripling, Mr., Staff Mem
ber of the Dies Committee,
309

T

Taber, John, Congressman,
232

Taft, Robert, Senator, 229

Taylor, Ted, Adm. Ass't,
256

Texas, 176

Toledo and Ohio Gen. Ry., 66

Tobey, Charles, Senator, 230

Tolley, Howard, Chief of
Planning Division A. A. A.,
166, 177, 331

Tozier, Morrill, W.R.A. Inf.
Officer, 202, 207, 394

Trentj Grover, Production
Division A. A. A. , 163

Trueblood , Fred , Newspaper
man, 106, 107, 344

Truman, H.S., President of the
U.S., 215, 223, 227, 229,
231, 235, 244, 245, 323

Tugwell, Rex, Under Sec. of
Agr., 167, 171

U

United Nations, 355, 356, 357,
358, 359, 360, 365, 368, 371

United States Information
Agency, 393

University of Kentucky and Agr.
Experiment Station, 83, 85, 89
91, 93, 107, 113, 14-5, 320

Utz, Edwin, Ass't Commissioner
of the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, 253

V

Vanderburgh Co . , Indiana , 89
90, 91, 95, 96, 102, 107,
108, 111, 112, 113, 116,
117, 120, 124, 125, 128,
130, 132, 135, 136, 139,
14-1, 150, 395

Venezuela, Caracas, 179, 355,
356, 357, 361, 362, 366, 368,
371

Verse, Father, Priest, 111

Vivian, Dean Alfred, Ohio State
Un., 156

408

Volkman, Chris, Farmer, 121
122

W

Wagner, Robert, Senator, 229

Wallace, Henry. Gee. of Agr.
177, 178, 179, 226, 334,
335, 337, 338

Wallgren, Won., Senator, 197
Wallenmeyer, John, 145
Walker, Jake, Farmer, 97

Walsh, Sir David, U.N.
British Personnel Ex
pert, 359

War Relocation Authority,
183, 184, 185, 187, 216,
223, 228, 377, 379, 395

War bur ton, Dr. Clyde, U.S.
Director of the Agr. Ex
tension Service, 326

Warne, William, Ass't Sec.
of Interior, 252

Warren, Earl, Att. Gen.
and Gov. of Gal., 186

Waters, Frank, Adm. Off.
Housing Agency, 234

Waters ton, Albert, Ind.
Bank, 372, 387

Watkins, Senator, 281

We pel, George, Farmer, 104

Welsh Chemical Co., 101, 102

Welsh, Dick, Congressman, 309
Whitehead, John, Farmer, 123

White, George, Gov. of Ohio,
158

Whitney, Prof. U.S. Dept. of
Agr., 94

Whitten. Jamie, Congressman,

231, 232

Wichard, Claude, A. A. A. Div.
Head and Sec. of Agr., 169,
179, 335

Wilbur j General, Civilian
Affairs Western Defense
Command, 218

Wilson, M.L., Under Sec. of
Agr. 166, 175, 178, 336, 337

Wirt, Jenness, my fiancee,
159, 160

White, Mastin, Solicitor
U.S.D.A., 170, 171

Wolcott. Jesse, Congressman,

232, 233, 237

Wolfron, Joel, Ass't to Sec.
of Interior, 255

Wood, George, Proposed Director
of A.I.D., 386

Wood, Tyler, Mission Director
A.I.D. India, 384

Wyatt, Wilson, Director of
Housing, 227, 234

409

Yellov; Tail, Bob, Crow
Indian, 254

Zimmerman, William, Ass't
Commissioner of Bureau
of Indian Affairs, 253