Oscar L. Chapman Oral History Interview, August 18, 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 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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.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 1980
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[314]

HESS: In our fifth meeting, we were discussing the New York Times article by Anthony Leviero of August 1, 1948. In the article he referred to a number of meetings that were held to form a staff of political advisers and it states:

Such meetings have been held after a fashion for a few months. But the group has been enlarged and has scheduled frequent meetings for an all-out campaign. The first of the new high councils was held on July 22. The White House declined to identify those who attended.

In writing to the Library I got a Xerox copy of the page from the White House Appointments Books for July 22, and we see that the meeting was held at 8 p.m. in the evening and included, according to the list in the Appointments Books: The Attorney General, Tom Clark; the Secretary of Commerce, Charles Sawyer; Oscar Ewing; yourself; Leslie Biffle; William Pawley; Senator Carl Hatch; Stephen Early; Judge Samuel I. Rosenman; and

[315]

Matthew J. Connelly. Let's discuss that meeting for a moment and discuss what was the subject of the meeting and were there others present who are not named on the list.

CHAPMAN: Well, I'm just reading the list off here to see who was present there that I didn't remember. I see one or two here that were there that I had not remembered.

HESS: Who was that? Which ones?

CHAPMAN: Mr. and Mrs. Warren Pershing. That was arranged by Mr. Ross.

HESS: What time of the day there? Were they at the 8 o'clock meeting?

CHAPMAN: No, no, that's right. They were not at the 8 o'clock. It's got the hours here.

HESS: The 8 o'clock meeting is the last one listed for the day. That starts off with Attorney General Clark, I believe. That's the way I have

[316]

it on my list. Yes, that's right.

HESS: What was the subject of that meeting?

CHAPMAN: That meeting in the evening was devoted primarily to the discussion of selecting a few more members to go on the finance committee, add to the finance committee, and to enlarge our activities by that method for the time being. Then we selected from that group; I know we selected from that group, Oscar Ewing, Bill Pawley--I don't see any more on that list that was there that night.

HESS: The article by Anthony Leviero of August 1 mentions that two men at that time were under consideration for chairman of the finance committee, and they were Cornelius V. Whitney, who was Assistant Secretary of the Air Force at that time, and Mr. William Pawley who was former Ambassador to Brazil. Pawley was at the meeting on July 22, but Whitney was not.

[317]

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: Was Whitney's name also mentioned as a possible chairman of the finance committee?

CHAPMAN: Yes, it was mentioned.

HESS: Was the job offered to him?

CHAPMAN: I didn't understand that it had been, that it had been offered him. He was discussed in relation to his duties and what he was doing, and whether he would be in a position to be able to help very much. They discussed him for a little while but not long. They seemed to have dropped him from the discussion as the thing went on in the evening, that it would be hard to do with his duties that he had to perform. Somebody got a telegram from him that night, about his not being able to serve.

HESS: What are the criteria that are looked for when you are selecting someone for a position like that? What kind of a man do you want to head

[318]

the finance committee?

CHAPMAN: Well, you look for first, a man with courtesy.

HESS: Mr. Louis Johnson was finally chosen, or finally accepted the job. Was he discussed that night?

CHAPMAN: Yes, he was.

HESS: Why wasn't he in attendance that night, do you recall?

CHAPMAN: Wasn't he there?

HESS: Not according to my list. Do you think he was?

CHAPMAN: Yes, I do,

HESS: For just a moment let's discus who else attended that meeting that did not get their names on the list? We have Attorney General Clark; Secretary Sawyer; Oscar Ewing, who was head of the Federal Security Agency at that time, what later became HEW; yourself; Leslie

[319]

Biffle; William Pawley; Senator Hatch; Steve Early; Judge Rosenman and Matt Connelly. Who else do you recall being at that meeting?

CHAPMAN: Well, I thought Rosenman was there at the meeting.

HESS: He's listed. What about Clark Clifford?

CHAPMAN: Clark Clifford was there.

HESS: He was there. Sometimes, as I understand it, lists of this nature were drawn up in advance.

CHAPMAN: Quite often they were just a bunch of names that were put down.

HESS: That's right, so the President would know who was coming in at a certain time.

CHAPMAN: Then they would scratch them off sometimes when they didn't show up.

HESS: And other people would come in whose names were not on the list.

[320]

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: Do you recall anyone else besides Mr. Clifford--and you say Louis Johnson was there?

CHAPMAN: Yes, he was there.

HESS: Do you recall anyone else besides Louis Johnson and Clark Clifford who attended the July 22 meeting?

CHAPMAN: No, I don't.

HESS: What did Louis Johnson have to say that night, do you recall?

CHAPMAN: Well, he was quite talkative, free in giving his advice and judgment and so on.

HESS: Was it about this time when he was offered the position?

CHAPMAN: I think it was at this time, the next day or soon after when he was asked to do it.

HESS: What kind of a job did Louis Johnson do as

[321]

chairman of the finance committee?

CHAPMAN: I thought he did a pretty good job. You've got to remember the circumstances under which he was working. Truman's stock was quite low at that particular time. That was at one of his low points at that time, and, naturally, no one wanted to take it, to serve, at that time. I think Lou Johnson came to that meeting with full intention and everything of taking it. I think he came there with the idea of accepting it if it was offered to him at all.

HESS: Do you recall if he was offered any inducements to take that position? For instance, if he would take that position and raise money for the Democratic National Committee that he might be offered a position if the President was successful in the election?

CHAPMAN: I don't know who would have offered it to him.

[322]

HESS: How about Mr. Truman?

CHAPMAN: He wouldn't do that. I have every reason to believe that he wouldn't make that offer in turn for his raising money for the campaign. I just don't believe he would do that.

HESS: There are those who say that an offer of this nature may have been made because when Mr. Forrestal left in March of 1949, Mr. Johnson replaced him as Secretary of Defense, and as you will recall. Mr. Johnson had been in the War Department with Woodring before and had wanted to move up into the top spot when Stimson was chosen back before World War II. But you don't think there's anything to that?

CHAPMAN: I think that came entirely out of Johnson's mind. I think he was spreading it.

HESS: Johnson did?

CHAPMAN: Yes. I think he was giving out information at that time that he had been offered the Secretary

[323]

of Defense to take this.

HESS: The treasurer of the Democratic National Committee was Joseph L. Blythe. Do you recall anything in particular about Joseph L. Blythe?

CHAPMAN: Not a thing. I didn't talk with him; I never talked with him on anything that I can remember. He would work mostly with Johnson, and Johnson would keep in touch with him because he was the money man.

HESS: Did you become involved in the matters of fund raising in 1948 in any way?

CHAPMAN: No. He's got things in here that are mixed.

HESS: That wasn't part of your duties as an advance man?

CHAPMAN: No.

HESS: Anthony Leviero, in his article?

CHAPMAN: Yes.

[324]

HESS: Where does he get mixed up?

CHAPMAN: He's got some things that are mixed, and I don't mean that he's got them wrong, necessarily, but not in sequence of their actual performance, when they did it and so on.

HESS: What did you find?

CHAPMAN: I was trying to look for that one spot that I found. I found that you'd already marked one of them.

HESS: We should say for historians that what we are looking at is an article by Anthony Leviero which appeared in the New York Times on August 1, 1948, in Section 4, page 1, and starts on column 3.

CHAPMAN: That is right.

HESS: One thing that Mr. Leviero mentions is that two "old hands," as he calls them, are coming back to assist: Jonathan Daniels and Paul Porter. Now, neither one of those men was at the meeting,

[325]

but what do you recall about the assistance of Jonathan Daniels and Paul Porter about this time?

CHAPMAN: Paul Porter was at that meeting.

HESS: He was?

CHAPMAN: Yes, he was at that meeting that night, but Daniels was not. I don't remember his being there.

HESS: Do you recall anything about Paul Porter's assistance to Mr. Truman during the campaign?

CHAPMAN: Yes, he was very active, quite active, in assisting in raising money and turning it over to Mr. Johnson.

HESS: The article states that James Forrestal, who was Secretary of Defense might take some part in political discussions, but that he usually disassociated himself from politics. It says: "Observers cannot picture his taking the stump

[326]

for President Truman or any other candidate." Did Mr. Forrestal assist in any way in the campaign, or did he keep himself separated from the campaign?

CHAPMAN: As far as I know he did not do any work in relation to anything I was doing, so I don't know if he assisted in some other way with some of the other men who were working with the President or not.

HESS: Was it the normal course of events for people associated with the Defense Department to disassociate themselves from politics?

CHAPMAN: Yes, it was pretty generally a policy for the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, not to make political speeches, not that they didn't make some speeches occasionally. And whether they were or not, they were always charged with that.

HESS: Did the fact that he did not take a role in

[327]

the campaign have any bearing whatsoever on his resignation the following March in 1949?

CHAPMAN: No, I done think it did. I really think, as I look back on the situation, I honestly believe that it was his health that was detected by Truman and some of the others that were closely associated with Forrestal. I think that that was the basis for problems that arose during the next few months that brought it about, and when Truman was elected, Johnson was beginning to spread pretty freely the commitment he supposedly had.

HESS: Do you recall when you first noticed signs of the unfortunate mental breakdown that overtook Mr. Forrestal?

CHAPMAN: Well, it's very hard for a layman to say that, to know, because you can't tell. It's so hard for a layman to judge. I don't know just at what point he really was going down. I couldn't tell. I didn't see him enough to tell

[328]

at what point he was breaking down. I never talked to a doctor or anyone about him.

HESS: Do you know if he attended Cabinet meetings regularly, say in January and February?

CHAPMAN: I am just thinking about that period.

HESS: This is something we can look up in the record, of course, but did Mr. Krug attend regularly also in January and February?

CHAPMAN: No, he never attended regularly.

HESS: He did not attend regularly at any time.

CHAPMAN: No. He was traveling a good deal through the conservation areas, Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service. There were some people who began to make comments about Mr. Krug's absence from the campaign trail. As a matter of fact, he didn't want to make any. He had been so convinced by Barnie Baruch that he didn't want to take too much of a part in it. By the same

[329]

token, Louis Johnson had a great deal of hesitancy about Truman.

HESS: Louis Johnson did?

CHAPMAN: Yes.

HESS: Did you hear him make any comments of that nature during the campaign?

CHAPMAN: Yes.

HESS: What did he say?

CHAPMAN: He just commented that there were such a lot of skeptics working under him.

He was not critical of Truman as a man. He was not downgrading him, but he was speaking in terms that Truman would have to overcome; he was speaking in terms that Truman would not be able to carry this state or that particular state, one or two states that he had in mind. They were big states and he carried them both.

HESS: What states were they, do you recall? Some

[330]

of the important states were Ohio...

CHAPMAN: California, Illinois.

HESS: He didn't think Mr. Truman had much of a chance in those states?

CHAPMAN: No, he didn't think he would carry them. I said, "If I were a betting man I'd make a nice bet with you on that, on each, state by state."

HESS: What did he say? He didn't want to take you up on that?

CHAPMAN: He pretended that he did but he didn't. He pretended where everybody could hear that he was taking me up on it, but he didn't take me up on it, and he wasn't intending to.

HESS: If he did not think Mr. Truman would take those states, and perhaps was not going to win the election, why did he accept the position as chairman of the finance committee?

CHAPMAN: Well, you sometimes wonder when a man takes

[331]

a position in a campaign, obviously a lead man in an important position for the President, as finance chairman for the committee would be; you wonder what he's thinking and what his plans are.

I was working pretty close with Louis. We worked very close together. He was trying to impress me with the work that he was doing, the amount of work that he was doing. For instance, often held get a good-sized donation and he would give me a call and say, "Oscar, I've got some good news for you this morning. We can get the train out [or plane] and we can so-and-so, absolutely on time. We can count on him. We got the money."

I said, "In hand?"

He said, "In hand."

I said, "Good for you. That's wonderful."

He'd keep on talking to me. He'd have to tell me. He always wanted to tell me who it was. He fished around and he got it around to where it looked like I was asking him, or trying to, who it was. He had a very peculiar quirk in his

[332]

thinking. He'd like for you to know that he had done certain things, but some things, I know, did not get done at all.

HESS: Even though he said that he had done them, is that right?

CHAPMAN: Even though he said he had done them, they had not been done.

HESS: Could you give me an illustration?

CHAPMAN: Yes. I don't like to use a man's name though.

HESS: That's all right.

CHAPMAN: He was telling me about the success that he had on his New York trip. He says, "I had a wonderful trip to New York these last three days." We happened to get back here the same day; we got in about the same hour. I had flown back in and he had taken the train, and so when I got here I telephoned him in the office and

[333]

I got his secretary who had been with him for twenty-five years, and she would give me almost any information she had; whatever I would ask her about, she'd tell me. I would ask her views, fishing, giving information to get everything in line that I could so that when I got down close to the end of the road, I had notes from the meetings of what had been said and done by certain people. This particular incident was recorded in a little memo I had, a brief memo, and I had kidded him about it a little bit and I said, "Lou, what is your explanation for Mr. So-and-So not coming through with that money?"

He was surprised because he didn't know that I knew about that. He was a little surprised and he said, "Well, he's coming through. He's coming through. He got a little bit late in some change of stocks and so he's got to find the right time to dispose of those stocks and he's going to do that. I'll have that ready."

I said, "That's the stock that I put on my

[334]

notation that you had in your pocket and I committed it."

I always kept back enough money to pay my bills on the current trip, each trip, always knowing that political commitments are not kept two thirds of the time, or at least a third of the time. Should I say that political commitments are not kept as easily as they would if they were making a commitment to you up on the Hill as a Senator. "Johnson, I'll do so and so for you as Senator," They would have much better headway had we been able to get someone, but I don't think we could get any Senator to do it. If you had had a Senator helping you, a Senator that was loyal to the President, you would have had to work close with him as you do any chairman of any campaign committee. I know Johnson was quite disturbed in his own mind. I don't know how to follow this up now.

HESS: Senator Carl Hatch was at that meeting on July 22.

[335]

CHAPMAN: Yes, he was.

HESS: Did he provide assistance during the campaign?

CHAPMAN: Yes, he did, but not the type we needed. We needed more of the intense contacting work than we did. Carl Hatch was very loyal and he was very good. He was very loyal to the President, and I know he thought a great deal of him. He was trying to help us all he could, but he couldn't do but so much. He was still in the Senate; he couldn't resign. You see, it's a little difficult to resign from the Senate and go back in when you want to. Now an administrative man can take a leave without pay anytime he wants to, if the President agrees to it. That's the way mine was done. Ickes had gone but he was still shooting behind the scene.

HESS: A power behind the scene?

CHAPMAN: He was trying to be. You see, he was trying to get back with Truman, but he didn't want

[336]

it known, in any way at all. But he was not too happy with the President. He didn't agree with him, and I know he made the comment in my presence that he thought I should take my leave without pay.

HESS: Without pay?

CHAPMAN: With pay, excuse me. That I should take my leave with pay. I said, "I think that's too dangerous and would be subject to criticism. I'd rather do without a few dollars than to be put in a position of having to defend myself because I'm helping President Truman,"

Johnson was trying to get next to Truman all the time, closer, and in that interim, transition period, Lou was keeping up with him like a bodyguard. There was one thing I was going to tell. you about, Johnson's lack of activities, some things he had done, reported done as if they were accomplished, and they had not been accomplished.

[337]

HESS: Did you run across that several times?

CHAPMAN: Yes, I ran across that several times.

HESS: I understand there were times when the funds ran low and there would be difficulty getting the train out of the station or paying the bill for radio time.

CHAPMAN: I didn't handle details on train expenses for that particular instance, but I know we were caught once where we were up to leaving time, within an hour before we left, and we didn't have the money. I said, "Let's go get on the Pennsylvania and put the President on that train and let's see them put him off." I said, "They're a lot more worried about it than we are."

Truman looked at me and he said, "I think you've got an idea there."

I said, "But we must work diligently to get the money and get it in there as soon as we can. We must do it because it's not the foundation of a specific law which affects a

[338]

President of the United States, but it might cause some criticism for us to take advantage of that situation to do it."

HESS: Where was that recall, do you recall?

CHAPMAN: Right out of Washington. We didn't have the money to leave here and naturally we were right under the spotlight right here in Washington.

HESS: Was that one of the western trips?

CHAPMAN: Yes, that was a western trip. On this trip west, he was making little stops, a lot of stops between Washington, D.C. and Indianapolis, and we took advantage of that, made a lot of stops on that.

HESS: Going back to the July 22 meeting, what was Mr. Truman's attitude that night? Do you recall anything that he said?

CHAPMAN: Nothing other than in keeping with our discussions. We had had some discussions in

[339]

which we talked about the campaign, and which section of the country we should start first, and I think I recommended a general outline that we should start first in the far away trips from Washington and close in on New York and Washington and Philadelphia and the big cities.

HESS: Later in the campaign?

CHAPMAN: Bring it in as to the last part of the campaign.

HESS: That was done?

CHAPMAN: That was done.

HESS: Why did you think it should be handled in that manner?

CHAPMAN: Well, it was a question of saving time for the President so he would cover more people, see more people, and more people would hear him, more in that way than in any other way I could think of. You've got to control your time and let more people see you, and by that time of

[340]

the campaign you're under heavy pressure; each day it increases, the pressure for him to come to "my town and stop there and make a speech."

HESS: Do you recall any discussion about whether or not he should go into the South during this campaign? As you recall, the South had walked out. J. Strom Thurmond had started the States Rights Party and they were going to be running, and Mr. Truman did not go into the South very much. He went to Raleigh, North Carolina to the North Carolina State Fair, and to Miami to the American Legion convention. But he did not take an extended trip through the South.

CHAPMAN: No, he never did take a full-fledged trip into the South.

HESS: Was that by design, to limit his appearances in the South?

CHAPMAN: Yes.

HESS: "We just can't go into the South."

[341]

CHAPMAN: Well, the point was, we wanted to be sure that we were not wasting our time. Our time had to be measured in very careful terms, because we had run pretty late for the convention and consequently we wanted to see more people than it was possible to see, really.

HESS: And Thurmond took Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and one electoral vote out of twelve in Tennessee. So was it pretty well recognized at this time that the Deep South was lost to the Democratic Party?

CHAPMAN: Yes. We had that about as well tabulated, up to the nth degree, as to what we would be able to do and not do there. We had that pretty well scheduled out and that was one of the most accurate pieces of work that we did. You see, we had a man--I didn't go South myself, I never did go South, because I was known as a crusader for rights.

My position on the civil rights issue was so

[342]

well-known and I had more or less crusaded on it and had done some speaking on that subject. I had done a great deal of work on that and it was well-known in the South, although I was well panned for it at the time, being criticized as a Virginian who was against my father and so on. My father was in the Civil War.

You know, things of evil intent seem to travel at such high speed compared with things of honest intentions. They don't travel as fast.

HESS: They say the truth never catches up with a lie.

CHAPMAN: Never, never catches up with a lie, not to a full degree. You may sometimes curtail it; you may sometimes do some good by trying to curtail it, but you don't really catch up with the lie itself.

HESS: Mr. Truman's first talk that year was the traditional opening address, the Labor Day address

[343]

at Cadillac Square in Detroit. Back in those days when labor could pretty well be counted on to be in the Democratic line, that was traditional, wasn't it, to open at Cadillac Square in Detroit? Did you go up there that time?

CHAPMAN: I did.

HESS: What do you recall about that day?

CHAPMAN: Well, in the first place, Jimmy Hoffa was always in a fight with his labor competitors in the union and he would take advantage of any opportunity to knock them down where he could, and he did a good job of it. I'll say that. It came up pretty close to Labor Day and we still didn't have a good organization as I thought they ought to have worked out to get the delivery of bodies in the hall.

HESS: What labor leaders were you working through?

CHAPMAN: Well, at that time, you'd be working through

[344]

the various top labor leaders.

HESS: Phil Murray...

CHAPMAN: Yes; Phil Murray was definitely with us all the way through. He was a hundred percent.

HESS: Was Dave Beck in charge of the Teamsters at that time?

CHAPMAN: Yes, he was with the Teamsters at that time.

HESS: Walter Reuther, of course, with United Auto Workers.

CHAPMAN: What I did, I got in between those two or three people and did all I could to stir them up on each other.

HESS: How do you do that?

CHAPMAN: Well, in the first place, I went to a meeting that they had invited me to and I attended the meeting and made a little talk. I didn't

[345]

try to make a speech, but I made a little talk that would help. I knew Jimmy Hoffa would see red if I mentioned Walter Reuther's name or Phil Murray; he'd go wild on it. I had mentioned something they had done or had planned to do, or was going to do, and added, "I wish this group would take the subject up themselves and pass on it and pass it down the line to your people, and get their real help in this location, in this area." That set Jimmy Hoffa off. His fuse was at a low burning stage, and I set him off in two minutes just by one or two things. He would never wait to see whether you would qualify your statement or not, so I was always careful about doing it. I saw Jimmy on Saturday before Labor Day. I saw Jimmy. We had quite a session, a long session.

HESS: What did he talk about? What seemed to be his mood?

[346]

CHAPMAN: His mood was, "Now, you quit working with these other bastards and I'll help you fill that damned hall. I'll have every seat in the hall taken and 10,000 people outside, standing outside to get in."

HESS: But he more or less wanted to be the exclusive agent, is that right?

CHAPMAN: He did. He was trying to maneuver for that. He saw that wouldn't go over, that that couldn't work. So, I tried to do it in as nice a way as I could, to get him off of this shift as easily as I could.

HESS: Because in Detroit you could not ignore the United Auto Workers, even though the Teamsters are a powerful union; you can't go to Detroit and ignore the United Auto Workers.

CHAPMAN: No, you couldn't. It would be just as foolish as anything you could think of. It was just plain foolish to think of it.

[347]

I was just trying to look back in my brains, the things that I've been holding in my mind for you, to give you. I didn't get a chance to go through some notes I had there at the house that I would have used with you this morning. That's what I planned to do. I clearly forgot them this morning.

HESS: One thing of interest that we might develop, you mentioned the difficulty of getting Senators to help with the fund raising. Is one of the problems there, trying to work with Congress, is that they're trying to get reelected, too? Every member of the House is up for reelection, and one-third of the members of the Senate, and they have their own fundraising to do, do they not? I believe that Congressman Mike Kirwin of Youngstown at that time was trying to raise money for the House, wasn't that right? I don't recall who was the head of the Democratic senatorial fundraising.

[348]

CHAPMAN: He was.

HESS: He was, for the Senate, too?

CHAPMAN: No, just the House.

HESS: Just the House. I don't recall who was in charge of the Senate's.

CHAPMAN: Let me see. I think I can tell you that, I believe Mike Mansfield was. I can't be sure, but 1 think he was.

HESS: Does competition for funds sometimes cause friction between the people who are trying to raise money for the Hill and the people who are trying to raise money for the executive branch?

CHAPMAN: They're always running into each other. But back to labor--if we got an entree to a place that we can get to this man and his group, we try to reach him as fast as possible. Otherwise, if you're expecting anything like that, we

[349]

would always know where he was going to be at at all times, and they kept up with him pretty regularly as to, where he was. They were always keeping me informed of where Jimmy was. I kept up with most of the other labor leaders, and I kept up with where they were most of the time. Then I'd keep in touch with them. That's the way that I stirred up all kinds of little contentions among--I didn't lie to them, I didn't do that--but I would tell them what they had actually done, and that they had done these things, you see. I'd tell them something about a meeting in which a commitment had been made to me to do certain things; that Reuther had committed himself to do certain things, and I made it a point to keep it no secret at all. Well, that just burned Jimmy Hoffa up, his name not being up among the first four or five, you see. That's what he wanted. So, he really put the heat on Dave Beck. There was one spot in there where he put the heat on him pretty hard.

[350]

HESS: In what way, what did he do?

CHAPMAN: Oh, by pressuring him to get his unions better organizes out in the West to help Dave. They didn't have them as well-organized out West there as they did certain little spots. Dave would tell me which spots they were, if they had a good solid organization. Dave would tell me, and I had that information and I would go to some meeting that he was going to attend. Well, I'd have a good flash going by the time I'd get through that meeting, because I'd said something at which I knew that Jimmy Hoffa would be mad. He didn't get mad for nothing. It always paid off for him, but he never got anything out of me. I want to say, he never asked for anything. He never tried to get anything out of me. Not once did he try to get anything out of me.

HESS: Did Mr. Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 make it easier for you in your dealings with labor leaders?

[351]

CHAPMAN: Oh, yes, much easier.

HESS: What was the image that labor had of Mr. Truman?

CHAPMAN: It was a changing stream, going down hill here. They were uncertain which way he was going to turn into the irrigation ditch, and whether he was going to turn out in this direction, or into another ditch. I'm speaking in reclamation language at this point.

I had to turn down a client, a good client, this morning, who made me a good offer, but I couldn't take it, because I found that it was one of the things that I had signed. I'd signed the contract. You don't just pick up a case that you have handled in the Government. Now sometimes, a question of time eliminates the evil of that, the particular thing, but it doesn't always eliminate it, and certainly the question of what is evil and what is not, the subject of that nowadays, comes to me pretty freely and pretty fast. I have been trained under a man

[352]

like Ben Lindsay in Denver, the judge who really taught me some things about that kind of a thing. Ickes did the same thing. Ickes was very much like Lindsay. They both were a lot alike.

HESS: What trips in 1948 did you act as advance man for? For all of the western trips?

CHAPMAN: Yes, practically all of the western trips. He may have made a quick flying trip--in some cases, for instance, where he would fly up to Chicago for a quick meeting. Matt Connelly would be along and I would have my problems because I had my schedule already made ahead of time and I couldn't make two of them.

HESS: You just couldn't do it.

CHAPMAN: I just couldn't do it, I said, "Mr. President, I can't possibly make it, I have a conflict." I was briefed by Richard Daley on his situation, what it was, and I knew pretty much what his problems were there and I said to Richard,

[353]

"Richard, who in the administration in Washington would be helpful to you out here, that would know enough about the politics to know how to handle the President of the United States when he comes here? You know, a lot of people don't know how to handle a President as different as Harry Truman when he goes out on these trips. Two different men. You don't handle him like you do an ordinary man. Therefore, you have a sensitive touch there, that could flare up and hit you in the face before you realize what you've done."

He said, "That's just what I thought. I got the lay of the land when the last three Presidents campaigned. I had their campaigns down pat. I got them from you; I got them off of your pad."

We would go over it like that and discuss it, see where we stood. Then I was able to say to the President, "Mr. President, they're pressing me very hard to come on down to Kentucky to be there and help with the arrangements down there;

[354]

help with the seating for one thing, and to keep them off the necks of the local boys." They wanted somebody to put the heat on, you see. Some of them could take the heat and not get excited and not get worried about it.

HESS: Is that all part of the task of an advance man?

CHAPMAN: Yes, that's part of the task. You really take the heat for some local leaders; or some other local people are needling him for something that he can't do, difficult for him to do. So he'll come to me and he'll say, "Can you help me out of this?"

I'd say, "What can I do?"

He didn't know how to handle a President, you see. He didn't know what would be good. It takes good protocol and this was something that Truman recognized. You know, as I do, he has very deep feelings about certain things, and there's no use wasting time talking to him because

[355]

he's made up his mind; he's studied the subject, he knows it. You'd have that kind of a thing coming out at all stages of the trip. Somebody would be asking you to go with them and help them, take them off the spot. These invariable little commitments about the President, "Could you stop over here, and take him over here to John Smith's little place," and it was a little honor for local John Smith who had been very helpful with money. He'll do anything he can to help you. Well, you don't want to hurt this fellow, if you can help it. If you can get that fellow without hurting him you should.

HESS: If you can find a way to let him down easy.

CHAPMAN: That's right. Find a way to let him down where he won't get hurt. Well, I usually worked it out where I didn't have much trouble after the first trip. After my first trip I soon found out there was no problem there. Of course, I helped in the '36 campaign. Hardly any of the leading

[356]

people came out to the West. Jim Farley made one trip out there. Of course, I insisted on his coming by and talking to the hardboiled politicos that were working.

HESS: They didn't travel quite so much in those days, did they?

CHAPMAN: They didn't.

HESS: Travel was more of a problem back then.

CHAPMAN: It was more of a problem. Second, there was a need for it for the Truman campaign. There was a need for it that was much greater than anything we ever had in the Roosevelt campaigns. We could fly Roosevelt from one airport to another and get off in a little town and make a speech and leave right quick and make another speech somewhere that night a couple of hundred miles away. And he could do that very easily.

HESS: President Truman's campaign was conducted mainly by train, as you know, and you have mentioned

[357]

the whistlestops. Was that part of a designed plan to give him as much exposure to the American public as possible, to stop at every whistlestop, as Senator Taft called them?

CHAPMAN: Yes, that was done purposely, and Taft helped us out beautifully on that.

HESS: He gave it a good name, didn't he? Whistlestop.

CHAPMAN: He did a good job for us.

HESS: A new word came into the political vocabulary then, didn't it?

CHAPMAN: It did. A new word came into the political vocabulary.

HESS: Do you recall what Daley said were the problems in Chicago about getting out the vote? What did he see as the problems in Chicago and Illinois?

CHAPMAN: At that time, on that particular trip, I had really worked to get them out. His campaign was not so hard. The attitude had not frozen

[358]

against Truman. I must get my dates in there straight. I get my campaigns mixed up. I handled so many during the course of twenty years.

HESS: Daley wasn't Mayor at that time, was he?

CHAPMAN: No, he became Mayor right after that.

HESS: Mr. Truman spoke at the Chicago Stadium on October 25th, and the people who were there at the time that the President referred to were former Governor Henry Horner, Democratic candidate for Governor, Adlai E. Stevenson, and Democratic candidate for Senator, Paul H. Douglas. Those were the men that President Truman acknowledged at the beginning of his speech, but the Mayor is not listed.

At that time the percentage of the Negro population in the major northern cities was increasing. How did you view that situation, and did the black vote in the North help in Mr. Truman's victory?

[359]

CHAPMAN: It very definitely helped. It was my own feeling that he was getting deep support from the Negro of the North. They were a little bit better educated and a little bit more sophisticated on the political questions and issues than the Negro of the South, so consequently they were looked upon with a great deal of respect and appreciation. They would call upon them, they'd make speeches, everywhere.

HESS: Now, in 1948 one of President Truman's major addresses to a black audience occurred in Harlem during his trip to the northeast when he went up to New York and took a drive over into Harlem. Were you on that trip?

CHAPMAN: No.

HESS: Did Donald Dawson travel with you on all of your trips?

CHAPMAN: No, he'd come in. I'd call him in and ask him to take Texas, be down there a week ahead

[360]

of me, to go down there and get things lined up ahead of me.

Dawson was very knowledgeable about how to handle a President and he was a very dignified looking fellow. He was a very helpful person and I'd call for him. What I would do in order to keep from being mixed up with the Democratic National Committee, and I didn't want to get mixed up with them anymore than I had to...

HESS: Why?

CHAPMAN: Well, there were several reasons, but one impelling reason was, you can't work with two organization heads trying to run a program of this kind scattered across the whole United States and having two heads to report to. Now, it's obvious that I was going to keep up with Truman. Now, if I had to spread that to two more keeping up with them, it would make it a rather impossible task.

HESS: J. Howard McGrath was one of those other two,

[361]

is that right?

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: Who was the other one you're referring to?

CHAPMAN: Well, I was referring to the Democratic National Committee up there. Then you have an independent group of leading Democrats that are always looking to take over the party.

HESS: Back to J. Howard McGrath. What seemed to be Mr. McGrath's attitude? Do you think that Mr. McGrath thought Truman would win the election?

CHAPMAN: No.

HESS: He did not.

CHAPMAN: No.

HESS: Did you hear him say so?

CHAPMAN: Yes, he told me that, I was doing a thankless job, and it was certain to be appreciated. I said, "Well, it's going to be a double

[362]

headed victory then when we win. The appreciation of people who know what I'm doing, what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to do as good a job as I know how on this. I'm trying to influence as many people as I can."

Truman and McGrath were beginning to have differences. They felt differently on many things by that time, and McGrath just almost, but not quite, had almost pulled out of that fight.

HESS: He almost resigned as Democratic National Committee chairman?

CHAPMAN: Yes, almost resigned.

HESS: Was this during the campaign?

CHAPMAN: Let me get these things straight that I'm telling you here because it's serious. McGrath didn't talk about resigning or anything of that kind. Let's see now, was he Attorney General?

HESS: Not yet. He was Senator from Rhode Island and

[363]

Gael Sullivan was acting chairman for a while, and as I understand it, he would have liked to have been appointed as head of the Democratic National Committee, but was not. Then Senator McGrath was appointed and served through 1948, and he did not become Attorney General until August of 1949--just a year later, after the campaign. That was when Tom Clark was moved from the Department of Justice to the Supreme Court, and then McGrath was made Attorney General. This was in August of ‘49. So, in other words, during the campaign, he was Senator from Rhode Island as well as head of the DNC.

CHAPMAN: I want to keep that in order in sequence of its time according to the event, because it's very important. Now, Howard McGrath was appointed to the Cabinet, Attorney General, August of 1949.

HESS: The day was August 24, 1949. But was there a period of time during the campaign when he

[364]

was thinking of pulling out?

CHAPMAN: Yes, at one point. Now whether he was relating this to the President or not I never did find out. I never did know whether he was relating this kind of remarks to the President, to him personally, his power, or what. Howard and I individually worked together in perfect harmony. We had no differences in regard to our work and our area that was carved out for us to do. A lot of times I'd get a call from Matt Connelly and the Boss had just left, had gone, and I couldn't get him to follow it up for me. He called me and said, "The Boss says you've got a chore to do."

I said, "Let me have it easy now. What is it?" And he’d kid me.

He said, "He wants you to go and handle that trip for him in Texas,"

I, for a definite reason of my duties in my office as Under Secretary or Assistant Secretary...

[365]

HESS: Under Secretary at that time?

CHAPMAN: Under at that time. He wanted to keep everything straight and all. He was trying to keep everything as peaceful and happy as he could. But by that time in the campaign, they had reached the point that Howard McGrath was not in perfect harmony with the President. He was making a good face and a good show all he could. He was trying to put a respectable face on it, and he wanted to do that. I'm trying to think of the date when he told me that. He was appointed in October...

HESS: When he was appointed Attorney General?

CHAPMAN: Yes.

HESS: August of '49, about a year later.

CHAPMAN: Yes, I was appointed Secretary of Interior in November.

HESS: December 1, 1949. That's when you were sworn in.

[366]

CHAPMAN: That's when I was sworn in, yes. My name was sent up in November.

HESS: The nomination went up in November.

CHAPMAN: That's right.

HESS: Veterans' Day, in fact. November 11.

CHAPMAN: That's exactly the way he did it. That's the way he appointed me. It was the funniest thing I ever saw. When the appointment came, you'd think that a man, a person that appointed another man to work in close confidence with his high echelon and would be in close confidence with him, that he'd want to know more about him. He'd want to ask him a lot of questions and talk to him and ask him a lot. But you know what he did to me? We worked on Saturdays--that was a Saturday by the way--and he pulled this one on me. That day John Sullivan was chairman of Brotherhood Day. I had had it the year before. John had had it that year; was chairman of the

[367]

Brotherhood luncheon. I was invited, naturally, to go over to that as I'd been chairman of it before, and they had asked me. I had been active in that organization--National Conference of Christians and Jews. I was working, and during those days everybody worked on Saturday; we didn't pay any more attention to Saturdays than any other time. Well, I was at my office with almost my entire staff. My administrative staff was all working. Generally the girls that wanted off could take off.

HESS: Did you get a call from the President?

CHAPMAN: No, I was just coming to that. That's the part that puzzled me. I didn't get a call from the President, because my memory is--I want to get this straight because it's a long ways from now to then.

HESS: That was a long time ago, wasn't it?

CHAPMAN: That was a long time ago. That was a long time ago, twenty years now.

[368]

I got a call from Charlie Ross about 11 o'clock. Charlie says, "Oscar, did you serve in the Navy or the Army?"

I said, "I served in the Navy, Charlie." I further served in the juvenile court in Denver under the famous juvenile judge Ben V. Lindsey. If you remember he was disbarred from the Supreme Court in Colorado, disbarred from all courts, and I worked for two years, nearly two years, until I got a rehearing on his case before the Colorado Supreme Court. Also involved was a committee of the Bar Association, who had organized a committee to try the case for me; I had gotten the members together. One of them was the president of the University of Colorado. His daughter's married to Byron White on the Supreme Court. He was a real conscientious Republican. He was chairman of the Bar Association committee that would handle these kinds of things for the Bar Association. So I got him to call the committee together for me to see if they would agree to

[369]

make a study of this case and review it carefully and then prepare to present it to the Supreme Court for review of that case, the purpose being to get the Court to reverse its previous position. I did seven or eight months work on it. The case was presented. The press completely turned around, turned around and supported him, and they got a unanimous decision of reversal of the previous case. The judges who sat on the first case, only three or four of them sat on the second hearing. Some new judges had come in.

When Charlie Ross called me from the White House, I noticed it was 11 o'clock, and I knew that the habit and the practice and the schedule was always that the President would be at Arlington Cemetery at 11. That was scheduled in my mind so thoroughly; I knew what time he always went there, at the same time. I said, "Charlie, this sounds funny. Are you investigating me? If you are, let me come over and sit down and go over anything that I have done, right or wrong.

[370]

HESS: "Skeletons in the Closet" type of thing.

CHAPMAN: Yes. Strangely enough, I used those words. I said, "I'll be glad to show you all my skeletons." We made that comment and he kind of laughed. And I said, "Wait a minute, Charlie, seriously, if you are investigating me I want to sit down and have a real interview."

"Well," he said, "there's no real investigation, Oscar. The President's going to send your name up Monday for the Secretary of Interior, but we don't want it out until after he has spoken this morning."

I said, "Charlie, look at your watch. What time is it? He's going to be before that microphone in about three minutes. He'll be speaking from over there. The minute he does, you'll have that release. You've got that all ready. You'll be giving it out and it will be on the front page of the Star, and I'm meeting him over here for lunch at 12:15 at the Brotherhood luncheon. He's coming to the Brotherhood luncheon."

[371]

He asked me to go. He was going to speak, so naturally I went.

He said, "Well, there's no problem, Oscar. Nothing to worry about. He just wanted to get one or two questions."

I said, "There may be one or two questions he’ll want to ask me. He might disagree with me completely on tidelands oil, and if he did I couldn't accept the appointment. It would be a fiasco. I would get right in the middle of a terrible cabal here with a lot of Senators and a lot of other people. I ought to talk with him first about it so he can know how to protect himself after he's appointed me."

He said, "He knows your position on every one of these issues, Oscar. He knows your position on every important issue, and he knows them by heart. You've done a good job these last seven or eight months running that department as Under Secretary. He wants you to take over the department. Mr. Krug has resigned."

[372]

I said, "When did he resign?"

He said, "Last night."

HESS: And you hadn't known about it until then?

CHAPMAN: I didn't know that Krug was thinking of resigning. He was doing just what he always has done ever since he had been there. He’d never done any different. He liked to travel and that's what really got him trouble. He was traveling too much. It didn't set well.

HESS: Did he work very hard when he was around the office?

CHAPMAN: He would work but he was never there. He had a good mind, and one that you appreciated the technicality, his knowledge of power (utilities), things of that kind. He was very good on them, better than I was on that. He just didn't like to work at the desk. He didn't like it at all. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon they would bring you a stack of mail this high to sign, and you'd better take at least some glance at it.

[373]

You've got to learn how to read those papers quickly. You've got to learn how to check who has initialed them, and who on there could you trust that initialed them, and who on there that you don't pay any attention to. Some names are initialed on this second page which goes to the record, stays in the file, and you look at that and you know immediately, "Well, I don't care what this fellow says, I'm not going to bother about him. I'm going on down until I run across a couple of fellows." There would be a couple of Assistant Secretaries and a couple of Bureau o£ Land Management people that I trusted. One of those Assistant Secretaries signed it and one of the Bureau of Land Management people signed it; I trusted those two very much. That way the Assistant Secretary would sign them. Now, I signed papers that Jebby had initialed very quickly.

HESS: Davidson?

[374]

CHAPMAN: Davidson was an honest person; you might not agree with him, agree with his good judgment sometimes, but you had to trust him. He was a good, honest man. I'd scan through those, look through those, and I'd be signing them as fast as I could.

I'd sign those and get them out, but it would take Krug two or three hours. I'd sign them all in thirty minutes, because I didn't have to go through them as carefully as he did. He didn't know any of those people. I'd been there seventeen years or more, just about.

HESS: Ever since May of 1933.

CHAPMAN: Yes, ever since May of '33, May 4th. I had that back of me that I had the advantage of knowing them, so consequently it took him twice as long to sign that stack of mail. They'd get it into you always around 4 o'clock in the afternoon. They couldn't get it in much before then. I tried every way in the world I could

[375]

to speed them up and make them get it in before 3, but I couldn't. There was too much of it.

HESS: There was an article written by Harold Ickes on November 28, 1949--that was between the time that you were nominated and when you were sworn in--and published in New Republic. Mr. Ickes mentioned Mr. Krug's interest in a textile mill in Knoxville, Tennessee, and said: "...which did not leave him time to attend properly to the affairs of this department." Do you think that the textile mill took too much time from attention to administrating the department?

CHAPMAN: Yes.

So that's the way my appointment went into the White House on Saturday. He sent it up to the Hill the first thing Monday morning, but he had given it to the press Saturday, and he got all that Saturday publicity. He gave it plenty of time on Saturday to get the Saturday afternoon's publicity, some of the later papers. Then he got

[376]

the good article stories; he got a good sized article, because he got it in in time to have space. The papers in Chicago, of course, had given it the thorough pinpoint story, because every time something had the slightest color to it, it would reflect back and be referred to by the columnists who would write that kind of a follow-up; they would refer to Secretary [Albert] Fall in these columns. This fellow had written columns on Fall and his downfall.

HESS: Teapot Dome type of thing.

CHAPMAN: Yes. He tied it up, the Teapot Dome, and he made it the amount of evil influence that that would create around your department. Ickes, of course, gave it to me to print the whole thing. They didn't print it.

HESS: Speaking of the Teapot Dome and Secretary Fall as a Secretary of the Interior: I know you ran the office in an honest manner, but were there ever times when you felt that you were kept

[377]

on the straight and narrow by what had happened to Secretary Fall?

CHAPMAN: Well, I'm not egotistical enough to say that those things influence every honest man that would try to run his department. He had an example before him, of what had happened to that department by doing these dishonest things. It would naturally keep you reminded of them, because the press would keep you reminded of them every so often through one story or another, all those years. I don't suppose even in the last month I was there they would make some reference to Secretary Fall. There was never at any time that I ever found a single article which was in any way critical of me or trying to make my method of operations that would lead to that kind of action. Fall had done so much more than the public realized. They didn't get all of the story. The Republican Party had been very successful about cutting that story down.

[378]

HESS: What had been cut out?

CHAPMAN: Oh, there were things that I wouldn't dare mention, that were in there, in the official record, and they didn't put it in. And things that would be--well, you'd just kind of get your breath when you'd read such things about a man. The amount of money he got was so much greater than they came out with in the story, or in the hearing. That was done with the assistance or the connivance of the Attorney General's office. He was really into that up to his neck, the Attorney General's office was, in a way. He hadn't done anything, but he later assisted--I would say that he assisted in the committing of a crime.

HESS: Who was Attorney General at that time?

CHAPMAN: Harry Daugherty. He was one of Harding's cronies down in Ohio.

I believe that's enough for today.

[379]

HESS: All right.