H. Graham Morison Oral History Interview, August 10, 1972

Notice
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the Morison oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened 1978
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[212]

HESS: To begin this afternoon, sir, you were just recounting a story before we turned the machine on, would you tell me about that?

MORISON: Yes, Mr. Hess. After I had completed the trial proceedings of the second "John Lewis case," the United Mine Workers case, I was physically and emotionally tired. And shortly after that, Attorney General Clark invited me to attend, with my wife, a small dinner of various members of the Cabinet -- not a Cabinet meeting or dinner -- that Dean Acheson was having. And apparently at his request I was invited. During the course of the dinner, Dean Acheson spoke to Attorney General Clark and said about as follows:

"Tom, I don't understand it, your assistant looks kind of 'peaked,' what's the matter, is he

[213]

off his feed?"

And this was deadpan.

And Attorney General Clark said, "I don't really know. I've noticed it too, Dean, but I just don't know what's wrong, maybe he is off his feed. I don't whether," he called my wife Miss Bea, "whether Miss Bea's feeding him right, or what," and she was about to speak up and I shushed her.

And he said, "Well, you know, this is a good time to get him back on his feet. I just happened to think of it. The Department of State has got to select a chairman of the American delegation to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland," and he said, "Why don't I just appoint him as chairman, for if he can easily take on John Lewis he can take that on." And he further said, "He can take his wife. It will be at the expense

[214]

of the Government, and he will have a staff. He can go there when the meeting convenes and appear the first day for the amenities and the last day, and in between that time his staff can take over, and he and his wife can have a little vacation."

Well, I didn't open my mouth, but Attorney General Clark said, "That's a good idea and I will try to convince him to do it."

Well, it was arranged and I took my mother, who was then about 70, who had never been to Europe. We went on the George Washington, a Government ship, and were given the only stateroom on the ship, it was a transport ship. And we were met in France by the head of the FBI and an officer at the Embassy in Paris, Horton Telford, who remains as a very close and devoted friend of mine from that meeting and to the present.

[215]

I had about two weeks for me to show my wife and my mother around Paris. At the end of the fifth day, however, my wife wanted to go up and visit a childhood friend from Washington who was on the staff of the Embassy in Norway, and Mother and I were left there. And being Scotch in my proclivities, as head of the Civil Division of the Department of Justice, I had just gone through a thorough review of an admiralty case pending in the Civil Division, which was a most amazing case. Admiralty law has always been an area of law in which I'm not well-versed. However, the head of the Admiralty Section had recommended settlement of the case. This didn't make common sense to me on the facts.

The facts were these: The Isbrandtsen Steamship Line had leased, under the program established, a brand new Liberty ship from the United States Government tied up in Europe. To

[216]

add "frosting" on that deal, they exacted and got the contract to pick up at Essen in Germany, the port of Essen, the excess railroad rails of the Army, and spikes, railroad equipment, and new steam and diesel engines, as well as some freight cars, and the Line was to take all of this to Korea. The Isbrandtsen Line on this trip was also engaged in a tramp steamer operation.

I found out in going over the matter with the head of the Admiralty Division, that the facts were that the captain who was sent by the Isbrandtsen Line to command the ship, after loading the railroad cargo at Essen, sailed to the Port of Antwerp in Belgium and there on the second day, and when the ship was tied up and during a blinding rain storm that evening, he told his officers and crew that he was leaving the ship and that they were to notify the officers of the Isbrandtsen Line in New York by cable of his action -- without explanation. The Isbrandtsen

[217]

Line then flew in from New York, another skipper.

The loading then was completed after the third or fourth day, and the ship proceeded on "tramp operations" to ports of France and Spain and then into the Mediterranean. The ship finally reached the port of Genoa in Italy. And there it was tied up for three days at the quay; one ship was on the other side of the quay from it. And on the third day that ship exploded. It killed about five people, wiped out that quay and damaged the ship in the other berth. Whereupon, the Isbrandtsen Line, although it was insured by Lloyds, brought suit against the United States for the full payment of the cargo that was not property of the United States, and the full charge for transporting the destroyed rail equipment, and for the loss of their anticipated operation of the ship to Korea. This was to me a brazen travesty. So I asked the head of the Admiralty

[218]

Section and said, "What happened on the ship at the Port of Antwerp?" and "Have you had any FBI investigation of it?"

He said, "No, we got the U.S. Embassy, we couldn't get the FBI, they said they didn't have any people there." This of course was not true, Mr. Hoover just didn't want to do this sort of work apparently.

So, I said, "Well, who went?"

"Well, we got the Embassy to send some of their people down."

I blew up and said, "You mean the striped pants boys were going down to the wharfs there, to try to ask questions?"

And they said, "Well, that's all we could do, and we've got to settle."

I said, "Don't. I'm going to Europe, don't make any move. I'm going to find out about this."

[219]

So, I had some friends in Paris who agreed to take care of my mother while I'd look into this matter. My wife flew to Norway at that time for a visit, and I went to Horton Telford at the U.S. Embassy who was head of the FBI there and said, "How can I find out about this?"

And he said that the one way, if I wanted to try it, was to go up to Brussels, Belgium and have a conference with the head of the Belgian National Police, M. Anton Louage, who was a "Flem," who'd come up from a cop on the beat, and was then and still is considered to be the greatest policeman in Europe. He was an honest and highly intelligent man. Subsequently, after his retirement, he was the only man who ever was elected head of INTERPOL for three terms.

I then got a Navy commander stationed at Trieste, who had been the investigative naval officer of the explosion, obtained an Army limousine, and I took my mother, and Mr. Telford,

[220]

and the commander, and we drove to Brussels, to the Palace de Justiste, and by arrangement met with M. Louage. And when I walked in and was introduced to him, I noticed he had a beautiful office. I noticed most particularly the many beautiful color etchings on the walls. They were exquisite. And in all honesty, and not trying to patronize him, I asked who was the artist that had done those beautiful etchings and he laughed and said, "I did them."

And I said, "Well, this is a strange thing for a policeman who's come up through the ranks to have such artistic talents."

"Well," he said, "it's a strange thing how this came about, and an important chapter in my life. In World War I, I was an intelligence officer in the Belgian Army. My subaltern was the greatest etcher in Belgium at that time. We were captured and interned by the Germans and they provided us with materials and he

[221]

taught me to etch in prison. And people say that every line I make is a duplication of the line that he made," but he said, "I have enjoyed it very much."

Well, this gave us a degree of rapport and I put my problem to him. Mr. Telford wasn't sure that he would do it, but he finally said, "Belgium owes the United States and its people the greatest debt that it owes any other people in the world. The United States has saved Belgium twice, and anything the Belgian Government can do to help the United States, it will do."

Well, I was elated. After that, M. Louage called his wife and his daughter, who had been an army nurse with the French Army, and he took me, my mother and Mr. Telford and his family to lunch at a famous restaurant of his choice, a very small one, which served the food he enjoyed. Following that I found out through Mr.

[222]

Telford that he put together not only the national police who were under his direct jurisdiction, but also a great number of city and provincial police over which he also had jurisdiction. He got the best detectives who were familiar with this major port city of Belgium, and they were in all about three hundred men. They started at 2 o'clock in the morning, in a cordon about three, three and a half miles in circumference, and moved slowly into the dock center of Antwerp and interviewed every person, whether they were in bed or not. And by the time they got to the docks, they had the answer.

What had happened was, the Isbrandtsen Line had given secret instructions to the first "Skipper" of the Liberty ship (which he would not follow), to load metal containers of sulfuric acid and agricultural nitrate, which in a vessel

[223]

of this type is considered a dangerous cargo and which as such entitles the crew to a higher "hazard" pay. And clearly what had happened, when the tramp operations began from Antwerp to Genoa, the seas were rough at some places, and there was an acid erosion of the metal drums which were mislabeled, and when it settled, the nitrate and sulfuric acid met and it was like a "time bomb" and blew the ship up. So, that case was promptly settled. I kept in touch with Mr. Louage for many, many years.

When I came back I went to the White House and talked to President Truman and told him this story and I said, "Mr. President, I would like for the United States to do something special for this great man." I said, "He's considered the greatest policeman in all of Europe and the only honest one." I said, "One mark of his validity is that Edgar Hoover is so

[224]

jealous of him that he will not allow the FBI to join INTERPOL because he thinks he overshadows him."

And he said, "What did you have in mind?"

And I said, "Well, I think we had ought to have him over here. There's bound to be some fund we can use to get foreign dignitaries over here and encourage goodwill. And he told me if he ever got to America he wanted to go see Hollywood, and he also wanted to go to New Orleans because they spoke French there," and I said, "I would like to have him come as the guest of our Government."

He said, "You just call Dean Acheson and tell him I said to do it."

And M. Louage came. He stayed at our home and then he went on the grand tour. We had a State Department emissary to go with him, and he had the time of his life. I asked him if I could get him

[225]

anything special, and found he was interested in the new Land camera, you know the one that is now -- what's the one that you take...

HESS: Polaroid Land camera?

MORISON: Yes, Polaroid. I got him one of the first.

After this Admiralty case was successfully concluded in Belgium, which delighted me, my mother and my wife and I then went by the "Blue Train" to Geneva, and my staff were already there.

We got together and went to see the offices at the old League of Nations. And the program that Dean Acheson had suggested was fine, but, I sat next to the Russian Ambassador to Switzerland there was one other Communist bloc representative, a Count from Poland who privately told me he was 'under the gun,' that they'd assassinate him if he didn't stay with them, and after I left the Department of Justice, I helped to obtain

[226]

for him political asylum in the United States and he died here.

But in any event, the first order of business was to elect a chairman. Among the delegates, I met and made a lifetime friend of the Danish representative, Baron Heinrich Zetphew-Adler, who guided me as to the expected amenities. We elected [Yakov] Malik as chairman. And then the Russian Ambassador, who sat next to me, insisted that the accepted order of international conferences be changed, and that translations not be limited to English and French, but English, French and Russian. Chairman Malik, in order to avoid a controversy I assume, ruled that that would be accepted. The meetings lasted from 10 in the morning until noon, when we went to lunch.

After the preliminaries, then the amenities, the Russian Ambassador asked to be recognized.

[227]

For an hour and fifteen minutes, or more, he engaged in a vilification of the United States. He stated that it was the most corrupt nation in the world; that it talks about liberty but are ever the aggressors, that they had stolen much of the territory which the Russians really had won by the blood of their soldiers; that they were immoral; that they had blocked freedom throughout the world; that capitalism was its dominant interest, and was the facade of freedom, while capital ruled the masses.

I became madder and madder and madder. He finally concluded ten minutes late, after the 12 noon hour.

I had nothing to say and sat for awhile and stewed. I had planned to follow the program as Secretary Acheson had suggested, to let my staff take over, because I had arranged for my wife, who is a Catholic, to have a private audience with

[228]

the Pope, and my mother agreed that she would like to go to Rome with her, and I was also going with them. But I then called my wife at the hotel and told her that I was going to work late and that I could not go to Rome.

I had a Scotch lady, about forty or forty-five, as a secretary, who was very able, and I was at the League of Nations office until about 12:30 that night. I drew what a country lawyer would call "a demand for a bill of particulars," and having carefully timed the translation in all three languages that interrupts when you speak, say, two minutes or three minutes, I timed it properly. And I took on Russia from the Mongol hordes, Ivan the Terrible, Katherine the so-called "great," all of the brutality of the czars, the effect of [Aleksandr Feodorovich] Kerensky's short term, followed by Lenin, the various members of the Politburo that followed

[229]

until Stalin, who was then in power. And I spoke of the depravity of that government in the suppression of every morsel of freedom of the people in Russia and its satellite countries; their suppression, their lack of food, their lack of any ability to exercise initiative, their world-wide espionage and their commercial espionage. I covered every aspect of Russia's policies and its depraved government that I could think of. And before the adjournment time of 12 noon came, the Russian Ambassador just couldn't take it, he got up and left!

Following this, and at the adjournment of the meeting, all of the members except the chairman, Malik, trooped up to my office and they said, "This is the finest thing that has ever happened. If the United States in these conferences, in the United Nations and elsewhere, would hit Russia right on the nose and not take any sass from them, they'll retreat. But

[230]

they said, "We can't do it because we live right next door to them, and they can take attrition against us, military or otherwise." So they said, "The program that all of us here have agreed upon (which I had discussed with them), you've got to lead the fight if we are to succeed."

Well, I battled it out and we did win it, and we as a majority got everything that we sought to meet the tragic problems of displaced persons. Thus, it was that our recommendations were adopted by the Economic and Social Council and sent to the United Nations where they were ratified.

During the course of this, however, there was some publicity that came out of Geneva, which got into the Herald-Tribune and New York Times and other papers, about the American representative "taking off" on the Russian Ambassador, and I had a call from Jim Webb, who

[231]

was then Deputy-Under Secretary of State, I guess, saying that I should "ease off."

So I said, "Jim, I'm here and you're not. Now, the President and Dean Acheson sent me here, and you and I are old friends," (he was attached to the Aviation Division of the Marine Corps, I had known him slightly before that) but I said, "I appreciate your calling me. I'll think about it, but I'm not going to make any retractions, let that be clear, if you want to replace me, go see Dean Acheson."

"Oh," he said, "I don't want to do that, but," he said, "you'll hear from me."

Well I then put in a call for Charlie Murphy and related very quickly to him that I just could not take this vilification of my country and that I had this call from Jim Webb and what should I do about it.

He said, "Well, I'll go see the Boss if you

[232]

want me to," meaning President Truman, "but," he said, "I don't think I need to, I know what he's going to say. If you're over there hammering those Russians, you've got the guts to do what most of our striped-pants boys don't have."

And I said, "Well, would you at least mention it to him and if you get any kick-back and he wants anything else done, let me know, but I'm not going to retreat, but he or Dean Acheson can replace me."

He said, "No, you're not going to be replaced, you go ahead." So that ended that.

HESS: Do you think our dealings with the Russians would have been more successful if more people in the State Department had exhibited a sterner attitude as you had done?

MORISON: I'm not enough versed in diplomacy to know. I did this without any regard to diplomatic policy. I was just outraged as an American

[233]

citizen.

This had been my first experience in anything involving American diplomacy, or representing the United States in an international organization, but I couldn't sit still and have this vilification of our country. I don't know, this is a very intricate thing. I do know this, that that Russian Ambassador was replaced right after this thing was over, and the Swiss government moved in and cut down the size of their staff to about one-third...

HESS: Of what it had been.

MORISON: ...of what it had been before, because it was clear that it was engaged in espionage.

It was an interesting assignment in any event, and the accomplishments were rewarding, and I was extremely grateful to have this experience.

[234]

I also saw President Truman at a Democratic rally, with members of the Cabinet and others, and the officers of the Democratic committee, at the Mayflower Hotel. He came over to me and said that he had heard from Charlie Murphy and from Dean Acheson that I let that Russian "have it" over there. He said it pleased him mightily but he hadn't gotten around to telling me and wanted me to know. That was a great experience and I am deeply grateful to Dean Acheson.

I had a great affection for Dean Acheson and a high regard for his capacities. I think this was because of the fact that he was a profound lawyer, and he was quite interested in the manner in which I handled these difficult cases, against John Lewis, and in time I came to know him and we found our common bond in our affection and deep admiration for President

[235]

Truman. We remained close and devoted friends until he died, and I admire him above most men I've ever known.

HESS: On the subject of the political events of 1948, did you go to the convention in Philadelphia that year?

MORISON: Yes, I did. I was on the platform committee for antitrust, I did not go that time as a delegate, because a delegate's position is too confining and I wanted to have "floor room."

There was a lot of speculation in the press and elsewhere that there was a "dump Truman" movement, but that was like a soap bubble that burst in the first wind, because the hard core of the Democratic Party had recognized, in President Truman, his quality of forthrightness, how he had grown in office, and removed himself from the shadow of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and became

[236]

his own man and accepted the awesome responsibility of the Presidency -- as he put it, "The Buck Stops Here."

He also understood politics, he understood the needs and necessities of political parties and that what was needed for the Democratic Party was to find a manner of bringing what some of the sophisticates would call the "social compact," meaning regardless of race, religion, or otherwise, you seek to find those common denominators of need which will bind people together in common. They may not agree on all things, but the basic things, if they are a part of the party's thrust of accomplishments this silent agreement is the absolutely essential quality for a political party to succeed.

I remember most -- he of course, appeared after his nomination, there were others nominated as the record will show. Alben Barkley made the keynote address and Barkley was at his very best

[237]

that night. The thing I shall recall the most was that after this keynote address, and his subsequent introduction of the nominee, the President of the United States, they released doves that were flying all over the place, and all of the rock-bottom Trumanites that I knew would say that, "We hope Alben didn't have anything to do with that, and that those birds hadn't been fed." But that was...

HESS: Those birds were released from a big flower "Liberty Bell."

MORISON: From the platform, and these were doves flying all over the place. It was quite an event:

HESS: I'll bet. Do you remember anything particular of the writing of that particular plank, the antitrust plank for the platform, was there any difficulty?

[238]

MORISON: No, there wasn't because I soon found out that President Truman, when being consulted about the platform had said, "Well now, Morison's been in that office and he has really burnt the woods up, and he has a good feeling for the absolutely essential importance of antitrust. It's got to be strengthened. It's got to have vigorous enforcement." That was reported to me by the chairman of the committee.

He said that President Truman had said, "You know if you read Claude Bowers and his biography of Jefferson, the first place it's found that I've ever read, Claude Bowers speaks of Jefferson's talk with his friends Madison and Mason in which he said, 'You know, the Constitution, and now the bill of rights, guarantee individual freedom, but coextensive with that,' Jefferson reminded them, 'unless it is accompanied by the protection of individual freedom of one's

[239]

person or property, or economic freedom, you're denying the other half of the meaning of freedom."' That observation by President Truman was a great statement of the meaning of individual freedom. I used that statement many, many times in speeches I made about the purpose of the antitrust laws and its enforcement: that is that it, economic freedom, is immutably related to personal liberty and freedom. The campaign after that, of course, is well-known to history.

HESS: Well, there's one further thing I wanted to mention. There was a plank over which some difficulty arose over, the civil rights plank.

MORISON: Yes.

HESS: The Andrew Biemiller-Hubert Humphrey civil rights plank.

MORISON: Right.

[240]

HESS: Were you there at the time that some Southern delegates walked out?

MORISON: Yes. Yes, but I -- one of them was the state of Virginia and I knew a lot of those delegates, they were all "quasi-Democrats," they were more Republican than they were Democrats. The Governor then was I believe John Battle, I'm not sure, I think it was, and he was against any "walkout." Now he did walk out in '60 on the platform issues. That was when Lindsay Almond was Governor, but there was this -- yes, I was there. I had never thought of it in the terms of bitterness that would affect people who as delegates should have possessed a broader spectrum of political understanding from the various communities in which they resided in the states.

This was an inevitable gap in our constitutional promise, long been deferred. The only

[241]

leverage as to the denial of the Negro's civil rights the Government then had were the bills enacted after the end of the War Between the States, providing voting rights to Negroes. At the end of the War Between the States, and during "reconstruction," the Congress enacted bills to prevent the southern states from denying the Negroes, as citizens, from voting and holding public office. It was a better time for the economic and political control of these states remaining with the white citizens. The Negro, however, was denied the right to vote or to hold land and he had no social status. The very few states that provided access to public school to Negroes were conducted by underpaid teachers and designated dilapidated cabins or frame buildings as Negro schools. All of these things were brought out at the hearings on the civil rights bills. I began then to

[242]

understand that this was the last stand of the "red-necks" -- the "red-necks" are the impoverished whites in the South. They were in the same boat, literally, as the Negro, except that they were accepted on a little better social level, but economically they were no better off than the Negroes. They were under the same "yoke," but failing to understand this, they took their anger out on the Negro citizens.

The proposals of the Humphrey plank were modest in their scope, but it was a beginning, and that beginning was important.

HESS: Many of the delegates from the southern states that walked out at that time later met and founded the States Rights Party. Senator J. Strom Thurmond ran as the Party's nominee.

MORISON: Right.

HESS: What effect did you think that Thurmond's candidacy, and the States Rights Party issue, would have on the outcome of the campaign?

[243]

MORISON: I had no way of measuring it, but I was afraid of its effect. You know the history from "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman and Tom Watson and the rest of that type of "windmill" orators, who preyed on the passion and prejudice. Tom Heflin was the last of that "breed" but he used Catholicism as the whip. I was measurably disturbed and I made several trips to...

HESS: During the campaign?

MORISON: ...on occasion, to go down to Birmingham to talk to friends; I went to Atlanta; I went to Memphis; to Charlotte and I went to Charleston, and...

HESS: What seemed to be the general attitude of the people in that area?

MORISON: Their general attitude was that it was going to at least split the vote very badly.

HESS: Were there any efforts that you or anyone else could have taken at the time to try to soften

[244]

the blow, to try to cut down the number of votes that eventually went to the States Rights Party?

MORISON: There was only one man that could do it, and that was the President. He would not seek any compromise with the devil." This States Rights Party came into being because of the insanity of people who seek office by stirring up latent prejudice. It's happened in our history before. I counseled against any idea that some accommodations should be made with Thurmond because I believe that such efforts would compromise the integrity of Harry Truman as a person. He did not believe in trying to compromise on basic issues.

I'm sure that some efforts were made quietly, but they were rejected, but I certainly was not privy to them, I was just trying to find out. I really didn't know, but I had in the kind of a bone marrow feeling that if the

[245]

President got thoroughly aroused by the Republican candidate, that he would be at his best, because he would not use prepared speeches, he'd talk right from his mind and heart. And when he did that, although he lacked oratorical style, he conveyed his convictions more distinctly and with greater impact than anybody I have ever heard.

HESS: Were you present at any time that he spoke during the campaign?

MORISON: I never was. I was working in various other places with state and local committees, particularly in Virginia and Tennessee and elsewhere.

HESS: There was also another party, Henry Wallace and his Progressive Party. What effect did you think they would have on the campaign?

MORISON: I really thought that it would have no

[246]

impact at all.

HESS: I think Mr. Wallace's appeal was mainly in the big cities, was it not; in the North and West?

MORISON: Well, to a degree. He was trying to zero in on his agricultural background and thought that he might get what was called the "farm bloc," but he had become too radical for farmers. He no longer could equate himself with his beginnings, plus the fact that there was -- he found out after the fact that there was a begrudging admiration for President Truman for his stand that if Wallace got out of line as a member of the Cabinet and failed to carry out the program of the President of the United States that he deserved to be dismissed from the Cabinet." So, I pretty well counted out Wallace and his candidacy as of no consequence. I felt Wallace

[247]

would probably hurt the Republican candidate more than he would President Truman.

HESS: Where were you on election night and what comes to mind when you look back on that time?

MORISON: I was so upset and worried because I knew it was going to be close, that I just wasn't fit to live with. I sent my wife up to visit friends in New York and told her that I just had to be alone. I went down to the White House, because they had all the up-to-date returns, other than you, got over radio, and stayed there for awhile and there was a lot of gloom. I then went back to my apartment near the Shoreham Hotel and had my little old radio on. Finally the vote tally came and he had won. The first thing I did, I knew where he was, I called -- there's a springs outside of…

[248]

HESS: Excelsior Springs.

MORISON: Excelsior Springs. I called Excelsior Springs, I had the number, and I got Matt Connelly, and I said, "Matt, great God, I wish I was out there, I'd like to pour a little bourbon with the Boss."

And he said, "Well, that's what we're doing!"

And I said, "Any chance I can speak with him?"

And he said, "Why, of course, you can speak with him." And he got on the phone.

I said, "Mr. President, I don't know what to say, I'm so full of myself!"

"Well," he said, "don't worry about that."

I said, "This is the greatest event that ever happened in my life. I've been straining with this thing despite Les Biffle's accurate predictions; and to think that the country might lose one of our greatest Presidents would

[249]

just be the most crushing blow of my life. From here on out it's all downhill!"

And he laughed and said, "Well, we did skunk 'em, didn't we?"

And I said, "We didn't, you did!"

HESS: He came back from Excelsior Springs fairly early that morning to the Muehlebach Hotel in Kansas City.

MORISON: That's right. Yes, that's right. And then I called my wife, it was late at night, and shared the joy with her, and I said, "You can come on home now!" I met her the next evening as the "Congressional" came into Union Station. When she got off she said, "Your 'old adversary' in the litigation against the mine workers, John Lewis, is on the train." And she said, "He supported Dewey and on our trip down from New York, people made snide remarks to him." And

[250]

she said, "Nevertheless he was the soul of courtesy to every person who stopped him and he never lost his temper." And she said, "I felt so sorry for him, he seemed so alone."

Of course his wife was dead, so when he got off I went up and said, "Mr. Lewis, I'm Graham Morison and," I said, "I'm here to meet my wife. If you haven't made arrangements, I've got my car here, I'll be glad to drive you to your home in Alexandria."

He said, "Well, that's very, very thoughtful of you, but I have a car that's meeting me. But it's mighty generous of you to offer to take me home."

And I think I related to you that when I resigned that I had this call on the private line in my office? On a Saturday?

HESS: I don't recall.

[251]

MORISON: And this voice said, "Mr. Morison?"

I said, "Yes."

He said, "This is John Lewis."

Well, I thought somebody was pulling my leg, but I had enough sense to keep quiet, because I didn't know how anybody got my Government private number, I thought it might be some of the jokers in the White House or something. But he said, "I have just seen on the ticker tape here in my office that you have resigned as an official of the Department of Justice, and I want you to know that I feel that you've been an honest, forthright, and a very able Government lawyer, and I wish you well."

And I just said, "Thank you, sir." And I immediately called Welly Hopkins at the Mine Workers offices, and I said, "Did the boss call me?"

He said, "He sure did."

[252]

HESS: That was nice of him after all the disputes you had over the years wasn't it?

MORISON: I was really shook up. But this event reveals much about the man.

HESS: J. Howard McGrath was chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1948, did you have any dealings with him or the Democratic National Committee staff during that campaign?

MORISON: He was still in the Senate and I, of course, knew Howard McGrath, but I had few dealings with him, because he was only at the committee offices off and on, maybe an hour, hour and a half at a time. There were a number of things that I discussed with the staff over there. Two of the issues that I had a particular area of political knowledge, was the question of Virginia, the question of Tennessee, North Carolina, and

[253]

West Virginia.

I discussed those with him about certain ways in which I felt we had ought to go. One of them was that I had scouted Harley Staggers who was running for Congress for the first term, and that I thought we ought to get a good speaker for him. So, about a week or so later he called back and said, "Harley wants you." And I made his opening address out there at the ball park in his hometown. I know it was a bitter cold night. Bea and I nearly froze. They had these big oil drums with holes in them and they put wood in and had some heat, but there was a very small crowd. I met all the people there and then came back twice on weekends and campaigned for him because the mountain vernacular is something I'm very well acquainted with. Stagers was elected and has been re-elected ever since.

HESS: There's a very interesting point about Virginia

[254]

in 1948. Virginia went for Mr. Truman.

MORISON: Yes sir.

HESS: And that is the last time that Virginia has voted in the Democratic column in a presidential election.

MORISON: I will tell you why. Francis Pickens Miller, who had been in the House of Delegates briefly from Fairfax, who was born in Lexington, Virginia, where I went to college, came in and introduced himself at the Department of Justice. We had a lot of friends in common. He said that he could see the trend and that he wanted to run for Governor, but that we needed to have an independent Democratic organization, because the Byrd hand in the Democratic Party machinery in Virginia was such that they could turn the vote "on" or turn it "off" through the State Compensation Board. In the workings of the

[255]

system if you are a commonwealth attorney of a county and getting $6,000 a year, if you didn't stay in line, it would be promptly reduced to $1,200 a year. I agreed that we should organize and we had a meeting with the most famous man in modern times in the Virginia House of Delegates, now deceased, Robert Whitehead, from Lovingston, who was the recognized master of the House of Delegates.

Nobody ever challenged Bob Whitehead. He knew more about budgets, he knew more about every bill that came before them in the House than anybody, and he was a debater par excellence. Nobody ever tangled with him.

He and Francis Pickens Miller and I formed the -- for that year, the "Democrats for Truman." And this was the beginning of the independent organization. I later became chairman of this after I left the Department.

[256]

We raised enough money to put out a series of pamphlets, all over the state, through various people who had signed up with us to distribute them by hand, and the rest by mail, to the proper people who were just "John Q. Citizens," and who were not under the interdiction of the courthouse arm of the Byrd organization. We made speeches all over the state, particularly in southside Virginia, you know, where it was always rough, and we just "skunked them," we just skunked them, because we got to the polls the hard core of average working men who could not be hurt by the Byrd organization. Theretofore, you know, most ordinary people didn't go to the polls. Why? Because they felt the Byrd organization would win anyway. And that's how it came about. President Truman was their kind of man and they turned out in great numbers to vote for him.

[257]

I participated in the presidential campaigns thereafter all the way through. Even when I tried to -- later on when Jack Kennedy was nominated and defeated the candidate I had been floor manager for, Adlai Stevenson, I came and talked with Larry O'Brien and his deputy (I can't think of his name), and told them both, "If you're going to let Bill Battle, the son of Governor Battle, be the Virginia campaign manager, just because Bobby went to law school with him, you're going to lose. If you will give us the funds we need and let us tell the average citizen in Virginia the story of the '48 campaign and how President Truman carried Virginia, we will see that the people that should be sought out, the common people, are approached and we will see to his election in Virginia.

Well, they wouldn't do it, so we organized our own campaign out of our own pockets. They

[258]

wouldn't even ask the Governor of the state, Lindsay Almond, to speak for the ticket, because Blackie Moore, who was the Dean of the House, he just had an iron hand on the politics of Virginia, and he would not let Bill Battle do anything that he didn't approve of, and he was giving out press statements up at his home near Winchester.

The only thing I can say, I finally got Governor Lindsay Almond to agree to speak for the ticket and I held for the first time a torchlight parade in Stanton, Virginia, and we had over 600 people who turned out for that to hear the Governor speak for the ticket. I knew that Pat Jennings, now the clerk of the House, would take care of the Ninth District, but the greatest victory of all, for me, because I did the campaigning personally, was Clark County, Virginia, which is the residence of Harry Byrd. I carried it for Kennedy, but

[259]

he lost the state because they wouldn't listen to our independent Democratic group.

HESS: That was 1960?

MORISON: Yes, the Jack Kennedy campaign.

HESS: Okay, now that's 1960. Why did Virginia go for the Republican party in '52, '56, '64 and '68?

MORISON: Because it was not a Democratic Party, it never has been as long as the Byrdites have been in power there. They're put to the test now with the election of a Republican Governor who is a disappointment because he's not carrying on the Byrd tradition. Linwood Holton is more of a Democrat today, than...

HESS: They just changed roles.

MORISON: That's right, and he's an old friend, he's a mountaineer from Big Stone Gap, Virginia, I

[260]

know him very well and I am very proud of what he has done. That's the reason why.

HESS: All right, I have one more question dealing with the Justice Department in 1948 and about the election. On July the 20th of 1948, just shortly after the Democratic National Convention, the Government initiated proceedings before a New York Federal Grand Jury to indict the leaders of the American Communist Party for having violated the Smith Act. Some historians say that the Justice Department acted as it did because the administration had advance information about the imminent appearance of Elizabeth Bentley and Whittaker Chambers before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and was seeking a way to change its image from being soft on Communism. Do you recall anything about that episode?

[261]

MORISON: I don't, because at that time I was working as hard as I could, and I was not privy to this. It came through the Criminal Division. Of course, I knew who the head of the Criminal Division was at that time. If I had been executive assistant at that time I would have known about it, but I didn't. I mean I was just up to my hips in my own area of work and litigation.

HESS: Now let's move on to the year 1950, and at that time you were assigned to establish the Office of Economic Stabilization. Would you tell me about why you were selected for that particular assignment and what problems you were faced with?

MORISON: Yes, I remember it came as a great surprise, the Korean war was coming on and I was called over to the White House, and I forget whether Charlie was then Counsel, I guess he was.

[262]

HESS: Yes, he was.

MORISON: Charlie talked to me about it and then took me in to see the Boss, and Charlie had outlined what he wanted. He wanted me to take a leave as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Division, leaving my first assistant as "acting," to establish an agency to be set up to control prices and wages and to schedule productions and to have limitations on certain strategic items in order to avoid a price spiral, a "run away" inflation that could hit us and to keep the economy on an even keel. President Truman knew more about me than I thought he did. He probably was advised, I don't know, maybe by Tom Clark, but anyway he said he wanted me to do it and he put it this way, "You're the only man in my official family who, because of the fact that you were assistant general counsel of the War Production Board, that knows how this

[263]

ought to be set up, and it's got to be done in a hurry. And I hope you'll accept it."

I said, "Well, Mr. President, I'll be glad to undertake this task." By action of Congress, the President was authorized in a national emergency to establish an agency to control prices and wages. In view of the Korean conflict the President had to stabilize prices and wages. It was named the Office of Economic Stabilization.

So, I took three members of my staff from the Civil Division and we went over to the old building where I first started as Assistant General Counsel of the War Production Board, old "Tempo E," now destroyed, which was built when Barney Baruch headed an agency to accomplish such controls in World War I -- but in a much more limited scale.

HESS: Who were the three men you took with you?

[264]

MORISON: I took my partner Sam Abrams, a very bright and able lawyer; Samuel D. Slade who was in the appellate section of the Civil Division, and Dick Guggenheim and my secretary Rose Dennis. I also had several other men from the Department for a limited time but it was a very small staff to undertake this urgent and complex task.

I had fortunately saved a lot of my files from my term at the War Production Board. I had stored them when I went into the Marine Corps. I dug those out and carefully reviewed them and then went to see Mr. John Lord O'Brian, the former General Counsel of the War Production Board, and he advised me where specific records were stored with reference to the establishment of the regulatory machinery in the beginnings of the War Production Board, and provided an index that he had retained. I also found other material in the National Archives. I had one of my men prepare a "problem" list. At the top of

[265]

the list was steel; second, coal; third, wages on the labor front; profits in critical industries because they all had to be drafted and published before specific regulations could be framed. Then I began drafting the basic regulations for price control and projected both aspects of regulation under one agency and not to be divided as in World War II, where the War Production Board was to a degree separate from the Office of Price Administration. So we put it under one tent, and we expanded this to be a comprehensive list of all anticipated needs. I then began to deal with the first "bugaboo," which was labor. We had meetings of all the top labor leaders. They were intransigent at first about regulations and were clearly suspicious of any regulation of wages, although they were enthusiastic about price regulations for consumer items!

[266]

HESS: Who did you talk to at first, who did you call in? The union leaders?

MORISON: Yes, the craft union leaders -- but not [George] Meany or Philip Murray who succeeded John Lewis as head of the CIO. We had [Jacob S.] Potofsky, the successor of Sidney Hillman, president of the Garment Workers Union of the CIO. The head of the telephone workers union (now Communication Workers Union) and many of the second in command in other major unions. The head of the Steelworkers Union, whose name I cannot recall, also attended.

I opened the meeting by giving them an outline. I pointed out what the hazards were because I had been through it at the WPB and all of them were aware of the problems during World War II. I recognized that labor could not stand by and see industry, the employees of union members, be granted a great increase

[267]

in price which in time would result in price increases at the grocery stores, and to the clothing stores, and all of the other consumer goods that the average union worker had to buy -- unless wages were increased commensurately. I recognized that equation. But I said, "Our purpose is to work in "harness" with labor. I don't want to have the divisiveness that I witnessed in the early days of World War II. We've got to work in "harness." This Korean war is an unknown, it could lead us into a hell of a mess in Asia. Our economy could just overnight go into a flat spin and that would seriously hurt labor, as well as all the ordinary citizens."

HESS: What would you say was the general attitude of the labor leaders?

MORISON: Well, they kind of grumbled, but they said,

[268]

"Well, we've got to see what you propose." We finally made some basic progress on principles, and then I said, "Well now, I've got to have your help." I said, "You name someone of this group to help us and work with my deputy, Sam Abrams," who was with me, "and let's work it out." I knew the format of the War Production Board and the Office of Price Administration and the record of how the proper regulatory power was applied and which provided a right of administrative appeal and all the provisions for due process by administrative hearings on just these basic principles. Well, they started and then they got "hung up." But they still accepted these basic principles as to wages and prices and it was a fair beginning.

Later I got hold of Joe Freehill, who was an able Government lawyer in the Corporation Counsel's Office of the District of Columbia.

[269]

I brought him over there to be responsible for price regulations because he had been one of the best men in the Office of Price Administration during World War II and he was a stellar performer. He began to put these principles in order and he knew how to mediate.

But we made the beginnings. I was able, with the help of our small staff, to get all of the regulatory processes set up and I also prepared a history of the experience I had at the WPB in the issuance of what we called "L" orders, i.e. Limitation Orders to serve as a guideline for similar orders and also "Price" orders. I stressed the necessity for the right of administrative appeal, although the law doesn't require it in time of war or a national emergency because this process I learned at the War Production Board served to get the pressure off of the regulators and the objectors to such orders.

[270]

I found out at the WPB that if you invite those who object to such orders to be fully heard in person in an administrative hearing -- where a record is made of their oral objects and their written protests were made a part of the record, that this type of hearing abated the objectors anger and paved the way for just and p roper charges where justified. Whenever the objectors could not substantiate their grievance, however, that ended the matter and their protest ended without anger. This process also provided a just and proper answer to the objections made, on behalf of constituents, by members of Congress.

Well, by the time I established these fundamental elements I had selected and obtained an able staff of lawyers -- although many that I wanted wouldn't come! But I had enough that agreed to join my staff and would stay with the job. At that point, I felt that the machinery

[271]

for emergency regulation had been established.

I then called Charlie Murphy and advised him "I'm all set and ready to go, but I need to know who is going to be the head of this agency, because that's of fundamental importance; and second, who's going to be its general counsel."

"Well," he said, "I can tell you who is going to be general counsel, it will be a fellow named Francis Whitehair, who is a lawyer down in Florida, and..."

HESS: Were your recommendations asked on the staffing of the top positions?

MORISON: No, they took care of the top positions. In any event, Francis Whitehair said he would come up. In time he did come to Washington and I educated him as to what we had done and then asked him, "Now look, when are you going to come and take over?"

[272]

He would say, time after time, "Well, now I've got to go home and attend to several pressing matters, but I'11 be back up next weekend." But the next weekend he would have to go home again! Finally I just said, "Francis, you're not going home this weekend, because Sam Abrams and I and all of the staff from the Department of Justice are leaving! It's now your job, and you've got all the basic documents establishing the agency and I have recruited an able staff of lawyers to support you. You've got the blueprints. I'm available at any time to talk with you on the telephone, or I will meet with you. But I am responsible for a mass of cases in the Department of Justice and I must return there. This is now your job." Well, that "did the trick" and he finally took over the responsibility for the Legal Staff as General Counsel.

[273]

But, the worst thing was, word came from Charlie that the President was going to appoint a man named [Alan] Valentine, who had been the president of Rochester University.

I had known Valentine in New York. He was a great supporter of Wendell Wilkie's in the election year Wilkie ran against President Roosevelt, but he was an overeducated sycophant and had never taken a job outside of the "Ivy Halls" or in Government before. He aspired to do what was "right," but he didn't have the understanding, the leadership or the toughness that that job required. He was, by nature, an academician and not a "fighter."

Well, he arrived. At his request I spent days with that man, telling him of the bloody experiences that we went through at the WPB that would be repeated in this agency and that he must be prepared to face them. I advised

[274]

him where the pressures on him would come from. I reminded him that every friend that he ever had would be importuning him on this, and that, and the other, and I said, "Unless you are able to take an absolutely firm stand, and not flinch, and unless you agree for Francis Whitehair to take on the legal battles and you are willing to "ride herd" over every division of this agency, you can't win." I coached him, and coached him, and coached him as best I could to educate him about his tasks.

When it was clear that the first crisis he would face was the demand by U.S. Steel to increase prices, I advised him "This agency is going to be 'made' or 'broken' because of the fundamental issue that has just been raised and which challenges its authority." I learned that U.S. Steel would announce an increase in the price of steel and it was clear that

[275]

the other steel companies would do the same. I said, "If U.S. Steel is not prevented from that price increase that's going to be followed by labor's demands for wage increases." I said, "If you don't immediately get out an order to prevent this price increase and show that this agency has "the guts" to carry out its mandate, you've lost the war!"

"Oh," he said, "it couldn't be that bad."

I said, "I've been through it all, and I promise you I'm not overstating anything. If I was in your position I would be on the phone right now making it clear to steel that they must withdraw the price increase and tell them, 'if you don't we're going to enjoin you."'

Well, he listened. I thought he understood my position. Later he came into my office and said, "Oh, boy, I've really got it worked out." He said, "I've got some substantial help for the steel crisis."

[276]

I said, "That's great, what is it?"

He said, "I've got an appointment with Barney Baruch. I am going to meet him in Lafayette Park on 'his bench' at noon."

"Oh," I said, "that's fine, what's the meeting for?"

He said, "Oh, I'm going to ask him for his advice about the price increase of steel. He's a great financier and I know he will help us for he established the first one of these operations in World War I."

I said, "Well, that's fine. I'd like to know what he has to say after you meet with him. Would you point up the issue I have discussed with you and state that unless the authority in this period of the national emergency is sustained as to this price rise it will result in 'runaway inflation' across the board?"

When Valentine had his meeting with Baruch, he came back to my office and I said, "What did

[277]

Baruch say?"

He said, "Well, Mr. Baruch, after I had presented the problem, said a strange thing. He said, 'If I were you Dr. Valentine, I'd get in high grass and keep my tail down!"'

I knew exactly what Baruch was saying, he had measured the man. If you haven't got the guts to take the "fire," don't get near the stove. And he surmised that Valentine didn't have the toughness that the job required. I called Charlie Murphy and said, "Charlie, this fellow can't last two weeks."

"Oh," he said, "you're out of your mind. This fellow is well thought of."

I said, "Charlie, I know this man. When you first told me he was going to be appointed I told you that it was a mistake."

Well, in ten days the White House had to let him go, because the letters coming into the White House from all points, including the Congress,

[278]

were uniform in saying, "This office that is responsible for Price Administration has failed. Prices of all items are going up everywhere. What's this agency doing?" Valentine, on the steel issue, lost the fight and the floodgates of price hikes were made in all sectors of the economy.

Later, Charlie Murphy called me and asked, "Do you know Governor Mike DiSalle of Ohio?"

I said, "Yes."

"What do you think about him?"

"Well," I said, "I have come to know him at conventions. I have friends in Ohio and even those who oppose him politically agree that he has the toughness to stand by his decisions. He also has another quality. He has the rare quality of being able to control his temper when groups assail him for action taken. He'd say, 'Look, we've got to do this. I'm going to do it,' but he won't get them 'riled up,' he's not

[279]

a dictator, and I think he would be a good man for the job."

So DiSalle was first named head of Price Administration, and with Joe Freehill as his counsel on the price side of the regulatory authority. Later it began to work, but they'd lost so much ground by failing to act promptly as I had recommended. "

HESS: Valentine was replaced by Eric Johnston was he not?

MORISON: Well, for just a very brief time.

HESS: Just a brief time.

MORISON: This was a makeshift. Eric Johnston had no capacity to act firmly in this tough regulatory job.

HESS: And a Mr. DiSalle was director of the Office of Price Stabilization for quite some time until

[280]

he took over as director of the Office of Economic Stabilization in '52.

MORISON: That's right, that's right. You see, the guts of the whole thing that had to be done was to "put a lid" on prices. The scheduling of production was not a problem.

HESS: Okay, anything more on that subject?

MORISON: No, I think that's about it.

HESS: When you came back from that assignment you were Acting Deputy Attorney General, is that right?

MORISON: For about three months, I guess.

HESS: What were your duties during that period of time, what comes to mind?

MORISON: Well, the office of deputy, of course, entails, one, you act if the Attorney General's away, as Attorney General, but more than anything

[281]

else, it is the office that deals with the Congress on all matters of confirmation of officers of the Department of Justice and legislation in which the Department of Justice has interest. It is the office in which legislation sought by the Department of Justice and legislation in which the Department of Justice has interest. It is the office in which legislation sought by the Department is carried forward.

HESS: Just how is that done? That's a very interesting subject in which many historians are interested. Can you cite a particular piece of legislation that the Department was interested in and show how that was carried through, to illustrate just how that phase of the job was accomplished?

MORISON: Well, one of them was an amendment to Section 7 of the Clayton Act. I worked with Senator Kefauver in drafting that amendment. But Estes Kefauver was an old friend of mine

[282]

and when I was head of Antitrust we conferred about antitrust legislation quite regularly. But, this emanated as a departmental -- really approval comes from the Department showing its approval, by my helping Estes in his draft of legislation to amend the Section and having the Department go over it, and to defend his position as to why "Section 7" should be amended at the hearings of the Judiciary.

Since then the damn amendment has been chopped with holes by a series of decisions, and you know what's happened in the Republican Administration, and by inaction in some of the later ones of the Democratic administration. But we then took that amendment to the Judiciary Committee, because, and since Kefauver was the -- of course, a member of the Judiciary Committee and his subcommittee was the Antimonopoly Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, and we first went to the staff so that they thoroughly

[283]

understood the amendment, and we knew that the proponent on the Judiciary Committee would be Kefauver. I, in the meantime, had also gotten in touch with the Federal Trade Commission to be sure that they didn't get in the way (and I mean just that!).

HESS: You looked upon them more or less as an obstacle rather than someone that could help you?

MORISON: Well, certainly not any help. There were certainly some good men there but they were not the commissioners.

We then let Estes be the proponent and carry all of the bills emanating from the Department of Justice, we let him carry the ball; and when we testified we would support the individual sentences of the amendment by explaining why this had to be done, we cited cases to demonstrate that there was a "vacuum" in this law. It was, in fact, just like leaving the barn door

[284]

open only to "shut the door when the horses had escaped."

HESS: Did you have any particular help from the White House staff

MORISON: If we needed it we could get it. I mean I could call Marty Friedman, or any number of people over there if I needed help on a particular matter.

HESS: In 1949 two men were added to the White House staff with the title of Legislative Assistant to the President.

MORISON: One of them became a U.S. District Judge. I assume you're talking about Richmond Keech?

HESS: No, I'm talking about Charles Maylon,and Joseph Feeney.

MORISON: Oh, Joe Feeney, yes. Yes, well, Joe of

[285]

course was Navy, and he was easygoing. He would go out and take a Senator across the street and give him a drink and, you know, he was very good at that and aided the passage of needed legislation, etc.

In areas of special legislation of specific interest to the Department, which emanated from the Department were the kind of things that we pretty well had to do ourselves. We'd get the help of the White House staff as to particular members of Congress. Usually we'd call upon individual Senators first on the Judiciary Committee, and then we would do whatever was necessary in contacting the Senators at large when it came up for a vote in either House of Congress. If there was strong opposition we'd "scout it" and join forces with the White House staff. We kept in touch with the White House at all times.

[286]

HESS: Were there ever times when a personal call from President Truman to someone on the Hill may have been requested? He had been in the Senate, he knew many of the Senators.

MORISON: I don't recall any. Charlie [Murphy] can tell you more about that than I can, he may have done it. But for instance -- well, I've related about Pat McCarran, he said to me, "I ought to call that old so and so, but you know, I haven't been in the Senate for some time and I don't like to call these fellows up there unless I feel it's something where the White House through the President must do so; then I don't call them, but invite them down here to eat with me in the staff dining room every now and then, and mention the legislation the President wishes enacted."

HESS: The President met with what was known as "the big four," the Vice President, the Speaker of the

[287]

House, and other congressional leaders every Monday.

MORISON: That's right.

HESS: A11 right, and then a little later in 1950 you were Assistant Attorney General...

MORISON: Antitrust.

HESS: ...and head of the Antitrust Division. Why were you selected for that division? Because of your knowledge of antitrust matters?

MORISON: No, again Charlie Murphy gave me the news on this and he said, "Graham, the Boss wants you to be head of the Antitrust Division, and I'11 tell you why. He said he's concerned about the fact that the new act of Congress provides for the sale on bid of all the Government-built factories and facilities that were set up for production in World War II," and he said, "The

[288]

act requires a review by the Antitrust Division as to the impact of sale of any of those who are known bidders."

As I was saying, although the Attorney General had said that this appointment was in the wind, Charlie Murphy called me and said that because I had at that time, considered very strenuously, because of my wife and the rough time she was having while I was so completely occupied, I wanted to resign, I went there to stay six months and there I was getting into my fourth year.

HESS: That sounds like a Government job, doesn't it?

MORISON: I didn't want to leave anything in the lurch, and I had a great, of course, devotion to President Truman. I could never really turn him down on anything that he really wanted me to do.

[289]

Charlie explained that the reason he wanted me above all others that had been considered to take this position as head of the Antitrust Division, was that he had found out that in the interregnum, after the resignation of Wendell Beige and when I was executive assistant, I, in effect, without title, acted at Tom Clark's request to run the Antitrust Division, so that I was acquainted with the Division and its work. But second, he said, the importance that I be the one to head the Antitrust Division was occasioned by reason of the fact that Congress had passed a law for the sale at auction or otherwise or by negotiation, of Government-built factories and facilities of all kinds, paid for by the taxpayers, to corporations who wanted to buy them. And the antitrust implications were in the act, they had to be reviewed by the Antitrust Division.

[290]

If there was any opposition to sale of a particular facility to a particular company, meaning a company we'll say like Firestone, who had set up for them by the Government a butane rubber plant right near it, and this would give it an advantage which would tend to give a position of dominance to Firestone over other rubber companies, then the opinion of the Antitrust Division was required.

And he said, "The Boss feels that you are the only fellow that can take that on, because, one, you had the War Production Board experience; you've had the setting up of this Korean office of Economic Stabilization, and you are versed enough in antitrust, because you served there, without title, to be able to do a good job," and he said he can find nobody that he things that he can depend upon, because it's going to be important that this be carefully reviewed.

[291]

I just couldn't say no.

HESS: In the year before that, in 1949, Howard McGrath had replaced Tom Clark as Attorney General.

MORISON: Right.

HESS: Why in your opinion was Mr. McGrath selected to fill that position?

MORISON: Well, for a variety of reasons. One, he had been an able Senator from Rhode Island, had a great and good relationship with all the members of the Senate, both sides of the aisle, he had been one of the first Democratic Governors in Rhode Island for almost fifty years; he had served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and he had been, was then, Solicitor General, which is the number two job in the Department of Justice. John W. Davis was Solicitor General in the Wilson administration

[292]

there, so it was a logical transition.

HESS: How interested was he in antitrust matters?

MORISON: I can only say this, that I would bring matters, particular matters calling for a grand jury for criminal suits, and for the filing of any antitrust suits, to him with my notes for a full discussion of the investigative facts, at some course the complaint made, and the economic background, the whole thing. I did that in the early days when he was Attorney General, and he said, "Graham, I know the quality and care with which you work on these matters. From here on out there's no necessity of your going into all of the facts and details, if you say I should sign it, just show me where to sign."

HESS: How interested was Mr. Truman in antitrust matters?

MORISON: Very much, very much.

[293]

HESS: Did you have very many conversations with him on that particular subject?

MORISON: No, I didn't, but it would come back through Charlie, "The Boss was pleased with your victory in this case, and that case, and the other, and it's been long coming." And he said to me later when I took him down to my university, in our drive together, that not until he got to the White House did he recognize, although he applauded the idea behind the Sherman Act, enacted in 1890, and the oppressiveness that would have followed with the Rockefeller and the Hill tycoons and all the great trusts, but that not till he became President did he see the impact by letters, by economic reports made, of the fact that lacking a vigorous antitrust policy, the country is left at the mercy of economic domination and that you always will have people with avarice and that this is absolutely essential for the stability

[294]

of the economy and for the good of the people to present economic domination by corporate monopolies.

HESS: You had known Charles Murphy for quite some time, but were there other people on the White House staff who you also knew and worked with?

MORISON: Oh, Clark Clifford, I worked with him on a lot of speeches for President Truman.

HESS: He left, I think, in January of 1950 but he was there for quite some time.

MORISON: Yes, I worked with Clark on a lot of speeches he was preparing for the President.

HESS: They were the Special Counsels for Mr. Truman?

MORISON: That's right.

HESS: Did you work with any other staff members, perhaps E1sey?

[295]

MORISON: Oh, yes, of course, I knew George. I worked with George on a great variety of things. There was not too many things within George's area of responsibility that were matters of concern that I had in Justice. Yet many economic problems he worked on had a close tie to antitrust and also to the problems of the Civil Division.

HESS: When you were working with matters pertaining to John L. Lewis, and to strikes and things like that, did you work with Dr. John Steelman?

MORISON: Oh, yes, very, very closely, all the national emergency strikes and also his deputy David Stowe who I first knew in college.

HESS: What would be your evaluation of his handling of matters in his office?

MORISON: He was a master. First, he's a keenly intelligent man. His grasp of economics was

[296]

really quite remarkable, plus the fact that he was a large, statuesque man, bubbling with good humor. He could mediate the captains of industry in any great crisis about as good as any person I've ever known. Now Dave Stowe, you know, kind of was a back-up for him. Of course, Dave...

HESS: He was his assistant for some time.

MORISON: We've always given him office space in my firm. He is now with the National Mediation Board. He wouldn't take the top job. If named, they would get him for one day and then he would resign and let someone else have it. Dave was in college with me down at Washington University, I first met him there. He's an able guy.

There were a disparity of personalities and disparities of qualifications on that White House staff, they all melled, and the common denominator (when I look at the "Chinese fire drill"

[297]

we have in the White House today measured against a very smaller, a much smaller staff), the common denominator was a devotion to the Chief Executive, as a person. Those guys would work all night long for President Truman.

HESS: And often did.

MORISON: And would do it with joy in getting it done for the President. And if I would get called at 11 o'clock at night to come to the White House, I'd go there, help out as long as I was needed.

HESS: One of the better known cases at that time was the Pan-American-Trans World Airlines route case that took place in 1950.

MORISON: Right.

HESS: Did you become involved in that action?

MORISON: Yes, the Department did.

[298]

The Civil Aeronautics Act provided that as to the award of an international air carrier route where challenged is determined by the President. This was an acquisitions case in which American Airlines, who had an overseas route, had to give it up and the route was up for grabs. TWA and Pan-American were both applicants. The board made a decision and that has to be reviewed, by that act, by the President of the United States. My recollection is a little bit vague, I'd have to go back to my own files on that. My recollection is that the board had found in favor of TWA; the President reversed that and said it should go to Pan-American on the economic facts of competition in these overseas routes and in recognition that Pan-American had pioneered overseas air transport. This then was contested by a suit filed by TWA in United States Circuit Court of Appeals here in the District of Columbia.

[299]

I was then head of the Civil Division and I had my staff people prepare the briefs, pleadings, and so forth, which I went over and changed in various aspects.

I didn't even talk to the White House. Nobody opportuned me from either TWA or Pan-American because by that time I think the word had gotten around the community, that, you know, you're just hurting yourself if you go in and try to talk to Morison, unless you want to bring out facts that he may not have or something of that kind, and just leave it at that.

HESS: But there was nothing that could be called pressure that was brought to bear on you?

MORISON: No, that's right. I mean, they just quit, because Pryor of Pan-American and TWA's head was persuaded not to go to me. I hate the opportunists and a lot of them tried to do it in antitrust, and I literally threw one guy from out in Missouri,

[300]

right out the door of my office for trying to pressure me or "buy me."

HESS: Did he say he was a friend of the President's?

MORISON: Oh, he said all of these things which were not true, but I threw him out, I was so mad. But also old friends like [Frederick M. Eaton], the head of Shearman & Sterling, a large law firm in New York, who was also an assistant general counsel in the War Production Board, he came down on the suit I filed against the Stock Exchange. I can see it now, Fred's a jocular fellow, he told the finance community, "I know this fellow, he's my friend, he and I were both assistant general counsels. I know I can go get this thing settled."

Well, he was a friend, but I just said, "Fred, you know, I don't want our friendship to be broken, this is not the problem. Now if you have a proposition about a consent that you're authorized to

[301]

offer me, I'll entertain it, but lacking that, Fred, let's don't breach our friendship."

And I had this same problem with old [Thomas J., Sr.] Watson, the head of IBM, when he came down and cried, he had a hundred and sixteen people, everybody I had known since childhood, to call me at night and say, "Don't bring this suit against IBM. Mr. Watson is an aged man, it will kill him and so forth." And, of course, he had been a robber baron, he had been violating the antitrust laws and getting away with it for years, and I was as gentle with him as possible because of his age. But he had his son with him, and I remember after they had a presentation they put up on my desk, all prepared by, I guess a public relations outfit, the words hand painted, they'd turn the page, we've done this, and done that, and this and that, and I kept my mouth shut and listened to it all very politely until they were finished and I finally said,

[302]

"Well, Mr. Watson, let me go back now and review what we have here, and as a public servant what I must say. The record shows and you cannot deny, I use a bad word to shorten a long discussion--you stole the French Bull patent. It was an illegal act, you have suppressed competition, you have control of all of your paper stock of cards, no other cards can be profitably made that will fit the IBM machines, so they have to buy the essential cards from you. You will only rent your machines, you won't sell, you have taken aggressive action against the beginnings of potential competitors who had other like machines." And I said, "On the facts, IBM really deserves a criminal suit, but I've only filed a civil suit against your company, but I believe, Mr. Watson, that in time, if you would go in right now and accept the decree, don't litigate, this will save your company," but I said, "the technology

[303]

of electronics, which is fast emerging, from all I can gather from the Bureau of Standards, and it is going to pass you by and you will be an antiquated company in the major business of your company."

"Oh," he said, "this can't happen."

I said, "It will be the healthiest thing that will happen, but Mr. Watson, I've got to say no. I will not dismiss the suit or accept a consent decree as offered by your lawyers."

And he wept and finally went out.

I met his son after his death at a "Roper Conference," down at Hot Springs, and he came to me, "This is the first time I've seen you since we met in the Department of Justice," he said, "my father's passed on."

I said, "Yes, sir, I was sorry to hear that."

He said, "I've never forgotten what you told my father. I know you did it gently, and he, of

[304]

course, was emotionally upset, but you are absolutely right. And as his son, I couldn't say it, but we were going to be passed by and just the pressure of this decree, because he dominated the company, was the only thing that saved us."

HESS: All right, on July the 14th, 1952, President Truman signed the Fair Trade Laws bill. What do you recall about the pressure brought to bear by small businessmen who were in favor of that bill? If I recall correctly many small drugstores were in favor of fair trade laws.

MORISON: Yes. Well, no pressure was ever brought on me. I mean I...

HESS: Did you get any letters?

MORISON: No. I guess by that time that from my career in the community of both the civil side, executive assistant and as head of Antitrust

[305]

Division, those who were advised didn't try to see me, and if there were letters to me that didn't require an answer, they'd say, simply, "We want to get it passed."

HESS: That particular bill, the Fair Trade Laws bill, brought a flood of letters into the White House many of them from small druggists.

MORISON: Right. This was thought to be doing them in, and...

HESS: How would you evaluate the success or failure of antitrust actions, the overall view, in the Truman administration?

MORISON: Good. One of the best. And there's many treatistes on this that say that. Now mind you, I picked up cases that had been hanging around the Antitrust Division for four or five years, and nobody had the guts to bring, and with Harry Truman

[306]

I got them out. I cannot claim that I did all of the work-up of all these cases. The devoted civil servants in the Division spent years putting the facts together.

HESS: Were there one or two that you can think of that didn't end your way?

MORISON: The only one that we lost was one that had been started before I became Assistant Attorney General, was the suit against the Stock Exchange, which in effect, charges that there was price fixing between major stock brokerage houses on commissions that affected those that did underwriting and brokerage. That was tried before U.S. District Judge Harold Medina. We have a branch office of Antitrust in New York. It had been poorly handled and I had to go up and clean that damn office out.

The difficulty of it was that the man who had been the long proponent of it had become

[307]

ill and had resigned, and I had to get Dick Cramer, who is the head of one of the litigations sections, to give up his duties and go up to try it, but it was just impossible to get Medina to comprehend the case. He had been a U.S. Attorney, and he was a very eloquent speaker, and this, that, and another, and did a lot of shenanigans during the course of the trial. After I left the Division I left word, "Take this case to the Court of Appeals," but my predecessor didn't do it. Medina being a downtown New York lawyer instinctively -- without revealing it -- sides with the big financial and brokerage houses.

Now, all of the turbulence that is involved in the market, really relates to what we tried to do then. As you know the whole structure of the Stock Exchange machinery and its financial interrelations is now a matter of great concern to the financial community as well as to the public, because the public is in the market.

[308]

Meaning the small investors. That's one I hated to lose.

HESS: All right, in November of 1951, T. Lamar Caudle, Assistant Attorney General was head of the Tax Division, and he resigned from the position with the Department of Justice. As you know, he was accused of wrongdoing. In your opinion, was he unjustly accused?

MORISON: Unquestionably he was. I testified at a Grand Jury in his behalf held at Kansas City. The story of that I found out because I have many of the civil servants who were friends in the old Department of Justice and still remained there after I left. Those that are still there are still my friends, because I fought their battles and recognized the good ones. Lamar was born and raised in Wadesboro, North Carolina, his father had been the judge there. He was made U.S. Attorney with offices at Charlotte, and had the

[309]

greatest record of the criminal convictions of any U.S. district in the United States. He was highly recommended by the Senators from that state and that Tom Clark appointed him. But one of his great charms was also a defect -- he had a naiveness about him, a perfect and utter frankness, he would not hold any enmity against anyone, he was the most kindly disposed man I've ever known.

And I remember a cousin of mine had bought a racehorse down in Tennessee, they brought it up -- it had shown up remarkably in other races and had brought it to have it up in -- where do they have the races in Maryland?

HESS: Pimlico.

MORISON: Pimlico, I guess. And he came up with his wife and took Bea and I, and had a limousine, we went up and sat in the owner's box. His horse

[310]

did do pretty good, came in second. But when I was there I ran into Lamar, and he was with two very flashily dressed, pretty ugly looking guys, and so the next week I went down to see Lamar in his office. He always called me "Professor." And I said, "Lamar, who are those two fellows you were with?"

And he gave me the names. Well, they were a quasi-fringe of the criminal element either in money racketeering or something, I forget now, or alleged to be.

I said, "Lamar, as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Tax Division, don't you know you shouldn't be going out to public places with people like that? You've got other good and honest friends." I said, "It just doesn't look right, for an official of the United States Government's executive department, particularly as head of the Tax Division." I said, "I

[311]

don't know their records, but I can pretty well 'smell what I can't see."'

He said, "Professor, I know you don't mean any harm to me. The thought never occurred to me. You know my daddy raised me to never think evil of any man. It would abase you too if you let it control you." And he said, "These people have always been nice to my children when they were all kids, bringing them presents. They have been nice to my wife as well."

I said, "Lamar, God damn it, this is the way they work into your confidences and you shouldn't do it. Even though you wouldn't do anything wrong, the appearance of wrong, unfortunately, is on our shoulders." I said, "I don't let people take me to dinner, or my wife to dinner, who might be the subject of litigation either in the Civil Division or other areas of the Department. I just won't do it. We just don't accept invitations." And it took me a long time to explain to my wife

[312]

why, "We're not in that bracket, we can't invite them out to dinner. And such people might and usually do have something in mind, and I don't want to have any feeling of social obligation enter into my thinking as a Government official. These people seek to make friends with people in positions like yours and mine."

"Well," he said, "professor, I had never thought of it that way."

And said, "That's the way I feel," so I let it drop.

This may sound to a sophisticated ear to be hog-wash, but it was bone marrow. Any bum off the street could come in to Lamar and talk with him. I remember one fellow came in, waited at his office for an hour. He said, "professor, this fellow has been waiting out there, I've got to see him. I think he's a little bit off his rocker, but I'm going to see him. Will you

[313]

stay?"

I said, "Yes."

This fellow came in, had a derby hat on, and had a striped vest and had a cane, and he said, "Well, sir, what can I do for you?"

He said, "Sir," he said, "you've got to get them Jap radios off my head," he said, "they're penetrating my mind all the time," and he said, "it's just driving me crazy, those Japs."

And Lamar never cracked a smile, he said, "Why that must be real painful." He said, "Professor, what do you think we ought to do about that?"

I said, "Lamar, why don't you have him go out to the Bureau of Standards," I said, "they know all about radio waves and all that sort of thing, maybe they can get some sort of a platinum helmet to put under that derby to tune it out."

He said, "Professor, that's the thing to do." He said, "Sir, this is my friend here, why

[314]

don't you do just that?"

Well, this is the kind of a guy he was. He was unjustly accused. The circumstances are as follows: When he was U.S. Attorney in Charlotte, he had a man up for a second degree murder charge. The doctor, a very competent doctor, had filed affidavits that if he were put to the strain of a criminal trial that because of his heart, -- and they had a complete diagnostic report on his heart condition -- it could kill him right on the stand.. And the lawyers had asked that he accept the sentence by the Judge and not be tried. And Lamar wouldn't do it and went ahead and tried him and the guy died right on the stand. And he never got over that.

Now, the case involved was one, I think the man's name was [Irving] Sachs, or something like that, who was a shoe manufacturer out in St. Louis. When Lamar was the head of the Tax

[315]

Division, there was a lawyer from Kansas City who came to see Matt Connelly and Matt Connelly asked Caudle to see him, and he had talked to him about the case. Lamar said he had not gotten that far into the case enough to make any judgment and just let him go.

In any event, subsequently, a very able lawyer who represented Sachs, presented to Lamar affidavits by top physicians in St. Louis; and I think from the Mayo Clinic; and one other hospital, saying he had advanced stages of grand mal epilepsy, and if he were put to this strain of a trial at his age, that it could, as it had done in other cases, create such a stress so as to bring on a seizure that would kill him.

Well, Lamar remembered what had happened to him as U.S. Attorney, but he did the right thing. He sent all of these affidavits to the Public Health Service and asked them to review

[316]

it, and to advise him about it. Well, I think there was one dissenting doctor who was not sure that this would happen, but the majority of those Public Health doctors, who reviewed all of the records, and one I think who actually made a physical examination of the man (one who is based in St. Louis), came back and agreed with this diagnosis. Then Lamar got in touch with the judge out in St. Louis, his name is on the tip of my tongue, and also the U.S. Attorney. He told each of them about this, and said that in view of this medical opinion that he was inclined, if this fellow would accept a plea and a fine, and if the Internal Revenue people would agree in view of these circumstances, that he would let him enter a plea to avoid the trial. And the judge said, "This is what ought to be done." So it was done.

Now after that, just after the lawyer from St. Louis first called on Lamar, Lamar

[317]

didn't even know what it was, he received in the mail, certificates for oil royalties. You know you can buy oil royalty certificates in Texas or Oklahoma, and he wrote back to the return address on the envelope and said, "I have never bought these oil royalty shares that you sent me and I am enclosing them herewith. I'd like to know how they came to be sent to me." He never got a reply, but the certificates went back. Matt Connelly received a camel hair coat from this same lawyer.

So they had this Grand Jury, it went on for two months, in St. Louis. I testified in this case. And I knew the guy who was the prosecuting lawyer, I knew him in New York. Herb Brownell had picked him to go down there.

You see, they tried to get John Snyder, they wanted to get some scandal, some criminal scandal on the Truman administration and they couldn't get it on John so they got it on Lamar.

[318]

That lasted so long that they had a revolt in the Grand Jury, and the members advised the Government lawyer, "You're going to release us, we're not going to stay here. We don't give a damn if you put us in prison, we have had nothing in here except your oratory about this man Caudle and why he should be indicted." And he finally modified his tactics to a degree, and finally in desperation, after near two months, the Grand Jury issued the indictment I think to be able to go home.

Well, after that the trial went on, I contributed funds (I was then in private practice), to help him; John Hooker, an able lawyer in Nashville, who was a great friend of his, contributed funds for his defense. I helped on the briefs, donated funds for his appeals. The Government put in its case, objections were made, but the judge who presided would not rule on any

[319]

motion when it was made. He said, "I will let it ride with the case," this is the old way of doing it that is to rule on motions at the end. They got just into Caudles' defense, the presentation, their motions had been made to dismiss for lack of any substantial evidence, but the court had not ruled on the basic motions. And then the judge died -- he committed suicide, and he had grand mal epilepsy.

HESS: The judge did?

MORISON: That's what he died from, that's what caused him to kill himself. They brought a Federal judge, a Republican, appointee from out in Nebraska to come in and read a cold record and rule on all the motives. Now how in the hell, not seeing the demeanor of the witnesses, not hearing the arguments of counsel or anything else, all of these motions had been reserved, and he, on the basis of that, sustained a conviction, and the jury

[320]

was called in and the conviction was, in effect, ordered. It went on to the Court of Appeals and on to the Supreme Court and I have never yet understood how that conviction could be sustained.

After his appeal to the Supreme Court was denied, he was incarcerated down in the Federal penal facility at Tallahassee, and I went down to visit him. He was keeping up his spirits, for me I'm sure, but it was a terrible blow to him. He said that he was in charge of a men's Bible class and he had two-thirds of all the inmates there that attended his class. He said, "Of course, we can't vote down here, but I've organized everybody in this place, to vote for the Democratic nominee by writing to their relatives."

And I said, "Well, I'm sure that may have some profound effect, and his spirits were up.

Well, after he was finally released, his wife, Clara, as a result of this, died. Tommy

[321]

his youngest son, who had become a vice president of one of the major corporations located in Atlanta, Georgia, became a psychiatric case and was hospitalized for six or seven months, he's now back on his feet. His oldest son who graduated with honors from Yale Law School, and was doing well with one of the largest law firms in Dallas resigned and went with a classmate of his in developing Hilton Head Beach to be near his father. Subsequently, Lamar came home, and Lamar later married the nurse who attended his wife, while he was in Tallahassee.

But this grief and sense of injustice was so profound he took up law practice, of course, they had not taken away his admission to practice in North Carolina, although if anybody wanted to raise it they could have, and he was doing counseling to do something to keep :busy, and this tragedy was just eating on him constantly.

[322]

Turner Smith who just recently died, and myself, and John Hooker, prosecuted his application for a pardon. I had an agreement with Matt Connelly, who was also convicted, that he would not make an application for pardon until he notified us, that they'd both do it together. He slipped the gun however and he was pardoned. Bobby Kennedy was Attorney General and had held up the pardon of Lamar. I prosecuted it here; and I shall never forget the bias of Kennedy.

I came in to confer with Kennedy with John Hooker, who is now dead, an older man, a top lawyer in Nashville whose son was a great friend of Bobby's to find out why the pardon, which had been recommended by the pardon attorney was not granted. And I was shocked. I went into the Attorney General's outer office, instead of being in the back office, where the Attorneys General when I was there worked, the room Kennedy occupied

[323]

was the reception room and saw that he had moved this big desk out and had his feet upon the desk, an ancient desk that came from one of the first Attorney Generals, the last Attorney General when the Department was in the Treasury Building. He had on no coat and a half sleeved shirt on, cut off to here. He listened for awhile and he said, "Ah well, this is a bunch of nonsense," he says, "he's tied up hand and glove with the crooks and he's a Hoffa man." Which related to the fact that while in his desperation, Lamar had no income whatsoever and was flat broke, he had to sell part of his farm his father had left him, and put a lien on his home, his father's home.

At that time Hoffa had asked when they brought the suit here to unseat him and put a conservatorship over the Teamsters, to get from Lamar an opinion about that ruling and to recommend how the ruling could be now attacked again and

[324]

set aside. And Lamar called on me in my office, when he came here, he worked day and night for about three months, went to the law library in Charlotte, and the U.S. District Court library, and the library of the Court of Appeals. He had done a magnificent job of careful research and in his opinion reviewing the whole record and concluding that action could be brought to set the injunction aside which was done on the basis of that review by Caudle. And he paid him, $5,300, I think, for that opinion, based on his time account.

Later, still desperate for money, he was importuned by a mortgage investment company in Charlotte to seek to get funding on proper basis for real estate development they had in mind. And he went to Miami to try to see Hoffa. He didn't get to see him but talked to one of his deputies. They have a pension fund, the Teamsters, that loans money, and he wanted it only on the papers.

[325]

And although he'd sent all this to Hoffa, he knew that Hoffa was a guy who would never read anything, and he just wanted to make certain that it was so. He was being followed by the FBI when he went.

Now this was the basis of Kennedy's denial of Caudle's pardon. I got so mad that I went right across the desk and collared him, and I was going to let him have it, but John Hooker grabbed me, like this, and then Kennedy got the hell out of the office and went back to the other office.

As soon as Ramsey Clark came in, who I kind of handraised when he was a child and when he would come to see his father almost everyday. I got him into the Marine Corps, because I had been in the Marine Corps. And he was a quiet youngster, but a very studious one, devoted to his father, and he evolved when he became Attorney General as really a remarkable guy,

[326]

showing the imprimatur of his father and his mother as well as his instincts.

And I just said, "Ramsey, you remember Lamar Caudle from when you were a youngster, and you know as well as I do, although he had weaknesses, they were human weaknesses of kindness, but this man is no more capable of committing a crime than you are..." This was a political backlash that Brownell wanted to get for political purposes, and the record of Brownell's man before that Grand Jury, if you know anything about it, is full of the evidence of how terribly wrong this thing is, and how unjust, and how there can be a miscarriage of justice under our system of laws. There's a loophole that I never knew existed, that a judge that never presided at a trial or heard the witnesses, can convict a man on a dead judge's notes and the transcripts. And I want to get that pardon.

[327]

And he said, "That's right. I know the story."

And I got it in a week, before he died, and thank God I did.