C. Girard Davidson Oral History Interview, July 17, 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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.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 June, 1979
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[1]

HESS: Mr. Davidson, to get underway this afternoon, would you tell me a little about your personal background, where you were born, where you were educated, and what positions have you held?

DAVIDSON: I was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, July 28, 1910. I went to public schools, elementary and high schools in Lafayette, and then to college in Lafayette also at what was then known as Southwestern Louisiana Institute. It is now Southwestern Louisiana University. I received my A.B. degree there in

[2]

1930 and then went on to Tulane University in New Orleans where I received my LL.B. degree (Bachelor of Laws) in 1933. Since this was the midst of the depression and the best job one could get as a lawyer in New Orleans was $5O a month, I managed to get a Sterling Fellowship to Yale Law School. I was in residence at New Haven for the school year 1933-34 and completed my dissertation a year later. In 1936 I received the degree of Doctor of Juridical Science at Yale. But at that time I was with the TVA in Knoxville, Tennessee.

HESS: Then you went to Bonneville...

DAVIDSON: Then I stayed at TVA -- this was the early days of the New Deal. My field was power. Joseph Swidler and I were the two attorneys who primarily handled power matters of TVA. I stayed there until 1937 and returned to Lafayette to practice law with my brother under the firm name of Davidson

[3]

and Davidson. After being there about a year, I was asked by David Krooth and Leon Keyserling, who was then Deputy Administrator of the United States Housing Authority, to come to Washington, D.C., and head a rate negotiation section of the United States Housing Authority. That must have been in 1939, so I spent nine months at that time obtaining state utility company rulings for master metering of housing projects. I then went back to Lafayette to practice law and at the same time taught a course at Southwestern Louisiana on American Government and Constitutional Law. However, the American Government course was only the first semester. The second semester I taught Lousiana government which was quite difficult immediately after the rule of Huey Long.

While in Lafayette I was called by Billy Martin, who had been at TVA with me and who was then with Bonneville Power Administration in Portland, Oregon. James Lawrence Fly who had been General Counsel of TVA was also at Bonneville,

[4]

and asked me to come out there to help negotiate the purchase of Puget Sound Power and Light Company by the Bonneville Power Administration. So I went to Portland and agreed to stay six months as a consultant. That six months started in 1940 and my residence has been in Oregon ever since.

HESS: What are your earliest recollections of Mr. Truman?

DAVIDSON: I did not know Mr. Truman as an individual until I was appointed Assistant Secretary of Interior. That took place in '46.

HESS: How did you receive that appointment; how did that come about?

DAVIDSON: Well, I went out to Bonneville in 1940 and I was made Assistant Secretary of the Interior in '46. While at Bonneville I also worked with

[5]

the Office of Production Management. We were in the midst of developing a stepped-up power program at Bonneville to provide power for aluminum companies, because President Roosevelt had said we needed 25,000 airplanes. At the request of Cap [Julius] Krug, who was at that point at the Office of Production Management, I went down to Atlanta, Georgia to ration power throughout the Southeast. We had to save power so that it could be diverted into defense materials rather than unessential uses. I first met Cap Krug when he was chief engineer of the Kentucky Public Service Commission and I was at TVA. As I was in the power field at Bonneville it was natural for him to call on me to come help him down in Atlanta. I was there the day of Pearl Harbor.

At the end of that job I returned to Portland

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as General Counsel of Bonneville. The War Production Board was then created. During this period I was General Counsel at Bonneville in Portland, and I was an Assistant General Counsel of the War Production Board in Washington, D.C.. Krug had been head of WPB's Power Division and when he became head of the War Production Board I stayed as counsel for the Power Division with Edward Falck as its head.

While at WPB, and at the same time I was at Bonneville which is in the Interior Department, there was a great deal of correspondence going back and forth between the Power Division of the War Production Board and with Mr. [Harold] Ickes in the Department of Interior. Abe Fortas was then Under Secretary, and Tex [Arthur E.] Goldschmidt was head of Interiors Power Division. There were great fights about who would have jurisdiction over power. I would write one letter for Mr. Ickes' signature and then turn around and prepare an answer

[7]

for Mr. Krug. Thus, I knew Krug and worked closely with him not only in Atlanta but also at WPB. When Ickes was fired by President Truman and Krug became Secretary of the Interior, I was about the only one in Interior Department that Krug knew, and I immediately came back to Washington from Portland and worked with him during the time that he was getting confirmed and afterwards. I think it just became natural for him to appoint me, as well as Warner Gardner, who was then Solicitor of the Department, as the two Assistant Secretaries. He elevated Oscar Chapman to the position of Under Secretary.

HESS: Before we leave Mr. Ickes, what is your opinion of his handling of the Department of Interior at the time he was Secretary?

DAVIDSON: Well, I liked Mr. Ickes. You knew where he stood, and one had a definite feeling as an underling that when you were carrying out his policy,

[8]

that you wouldn't be run out on. This was very important during the time that I was General Counsel at Bonneville, because we were trying to buy out the Puget Sound Power and Light Company. We needed financing, and Mr. Ickes, I remember, tried to get us money through Jesse Jones over at the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. They had a nice set-to on that question because Jones basically did not believe in any kind of public ownership of utilities and Ickes did. Obviously, we never got the money from RFC.

But while at Bonneville I was advocating a Columbia Valley Authority for the Pacific Northwest because I felt that the great TVA experience should be transferred to other river basins.

HESS: Just one thing more and then I want to get into the development of your thought about CVA, the Columbia Valley Authority.

[9]

What do you recall about Mr. Ickes' resignation?

DAVIDSON: Well, at that time, I was, of course, out in Portland, Oregon, as General Counsel at Bonneville. I do not remember much about it except that it seemed to me there was some argument he had with the President. I've forgotten what it was about but his resignation was pretty sudden. But it was not so sudden that there was not time for Mr. Fortas to resign as Under Secretary first. I think Ickes' resignation came within about a week or ten days later. Mr. Ickes liked his department, was jealous of its jurisdiction and he had the reputation of wanting to take on additional agencies from other departments such as the Forest Service. He did not want to give anything up.

HESS: Was he an empire builder?

DAVIDSON: I think so, but that so often happens in

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Government, and I guess this is why I would sometime get myself into trouble. My first experience in Government was at the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the one thing we prided ourselves on was that this agency was a self-contained operation covering a region, and no other agency could come in and interfere. We did not report to anyone in Washington, D.C. except the President. The board of directors reported to the President and to Congress. They were administering the law and the agency operated extremely efficiently. I had been with the U.S. Housing Authority, the Department of Interior and I had seen other agencies operate. TVA was an extremely efficient operation. When I went to the Northwest we had the same kind of problems that were encountered in the Tennessee Valley, but the Government administration was different. The Columbia River needed dams on it but the Army Engineers were building some of the dams, the Bureau of Reclamation building some, the Army Engineers in charge of

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flood control and navigation, the Bonneville Power Administration was handling the sale of power, the Fish and Wildlife Service was responsible for the salmon in the river; the Bureau of Reclamation handling irrigation water. So many agencies were involved that programs either bogged down or were constantly involved in jurisdictional disputes.

Having seen the way TVA worked, I naturally thought we should have a Columbia Valley Authority in the Northwest. So I started making speeches on the subject. Dr. [Paul] Raver who was then head of the Bonneville Power Administration, went along with me. We felt Bonneville should be a regional agency and I had certain legislation passed (Tom Clark was then Attorney General), taking jurisdiction away from the Department of Justice and turning it over to Bonneville so we could handle our own legal matters. The President signed the bill and then Senator [Walter G.] Magnuson and Tom Clark made a deal and a short time

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later this progress was reversed and the Department of Justice was again put back in charge of Bonneville's legal matters. I just didn't like this kind of inefficient administration. One of the things that Columbia Valley Authority would have done was to take the dam constructing business away from both the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Engineers. The Columbia Valley Authority would handle all of the resource problems in the Columbia Basin which are now scattered among about fifteen or twenty different agencies.

HESS: Those are two powerful organizations: The Army Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation.

DAVIDSON: Exactly.

HESS: Did you think that you were going to get them to give up a good deal of their authority and power?

DAVIDSON: Not voluntarily but I was always optimistic

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and in this kind of thing it depended on how much muscle you had. Mike Straus had been appointed several months before Mr. Ickes left, as Commissioner of Reclamation. I remember that one day I was buzzed in my Portland office by the Administrator of Bonneville, Dr. Raver. He said, "Come into the office." I went in there and he threw a telegram at me from Secretary Ickes reading this way:

Please report in my office Monday morning at 10 a.m. for a discussion of your activities in relation to a Columbia Valley Authority. Bring Davidson with you.

Well, I said, "Paul, here are our walking papers. We've expected it to come."

We went back to Washington for the meeting with Secretary Ickes. Mike Straus, Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, was the chief complaining witness.

HESS: You were on trial.

[14]

DAVIDSON: We were on trial. We were accused of taking all of this jurisdiction away from Interior, and giving it to an independent agency. There must have been twenty people sitting around this big room that Secretary Ickes used, but Krug used only for ceremonial occasions. Under Secretary Fortas was there and was helpful to our point of view. There was a good deal of discussion as to whether the CVA would report to the President through the Secretary of the Interior. Ickes would have bought this but those believing in the Valley Authority principle felt it must be independent.

It is not a matter of public record, but what happened at that discussion was that Raver and I talked fast enough and around the subject enough so that the old man took it under advisement, and within two weeks he was out, and Krug was made the head of Interior, and Krug was, of course, a TVA man who felt as strong or stronger than I did on the subject.

[15]

HESS: Did he really feel as strongly as you did on this matter?

DAVIDSON: On TVA, yes.

HESS: On TVA. All right, what about CVA?

DAVIDSON: On CVA. Yes, he did. There was no question about how he felt, but Krug was never a person to really get out and fight like some of the rest of us did. But on this issue, there was no question where he stood. When he would get into a discussion of that subject, you knew that you were always going to be backed up by Krug on this subject. It was ironic that after the so-called trial by Mike Straus to have us fired for espousing CVA that I became Assistant Secretary. My jurisdiction and authority were then greater than that of Commissioner Straus. The tables just turned completely; the Secretary of the Department of Interior was a Valley Authority man. I began working then to see how we could

[16]

get a Columbia Valley Authority, which I thought would be easier to secure than a Missouri Valley Authority.

HESS: Why?

DAVIDSON: Because it was a smaller region to begin with, more cohesive and integrated.

HESS: Less populated?

DAVIDSON: Less populated than the Missouri River Basin which involved a much larger area. CVA was basically in the Northwest and had three states involved: Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

HRSS: And western Montana.

DAVIDSON: Well, western Montana, that's right, over as far as the Continental Divide, but in the Missouri River Basin you had about ten or eleven states. The irrigation problems were many in the Missouri Basin and we felt that we had a better chance because the political climate we thought

[17]

would be better.

HESS: General [Lewis A.] Pick at this time was head of the Army Engineers, was he not?

DAVIDSON: Yes.

HESS: He had his plan set up for the Missouri Valley, what later became known as the Pick-Sloan plan. Did you feel that he was too far advanced or too far along with his own plans to try to counter his views?

DAVIDSON: No. The Pick-Sloan plan, as you remember, was to divide up the dam constructing operations between the Army Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation. This was only done, in our opinion, to stop the movement for the Missouri Valley Authority. Prior to the Pick-Sloan plan, you recall, there was a knockdown, drag out fight between Reclamation and the Army Engineers. Whichever one could get to the site first and start scratching the

[18]

dirt a little bit would then rush into Congress and say, "This is a project we've already started working on, it's underway, so give us the money." That fight between the two is the very reason that some of us felt one agency ought to do the job and not have it done on a haphazard basis. But as the proposal for a Missouri Valley Authority gained strength, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Engineers got together and came out with this new Pick-Sloan plan. Pick was one of the very close friends of President Truman. He was a very highly respected engineer but was shortsighted when it came to handling the problems of a river basin as was Commissioner of Reclamation Sloan. They were interested in protecting and increasing the jurisdiction of their agencies.

HESS: As I understand, one of the main objections or the opponents of the CVA, was that it would remove authority from the area and bring the Federal Government into closer review of operations.

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Isn't that counter to what you mentioned awhile ago, about keeping the authority in the area?

DAVIDSON: No! There is a fundamental difference between a Valley Authority and a Departmental concept. Mr. Ickes, as Secretary of Interior, the Commissioner of Reclamation, and the head of the Army Engineers were typical of most Government agencies and had almost every problem coming to Washington, through the Department for decision. The fundamental principle of TVA, CVA, and MVA was that you would have a board of directors appointed from and living in the region itself, dealing with the problems day-to-day and making decisions in the region itself -- not in Washington, D.C. You must remember we are only talking about problems and decisions that the Federal Government as distinguished from local government is called upon to make.

HESS: Did all three directors have to be from the

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area, or two of the three?

DAVIDSON: In different bills this was handled in different ways. I always felt it didn't make too much difference where they actually came from. The directors would have to live in the region and be familiar with its problems so that they could make better informed decisions.

HESS: Still those men were not elected, they were appointed.

DAVIDSON: How about the Secretary of Interior? Is he elected?

HESS: No.

DAVIDSON: Is the Commissioner of Reclamation elected?

HESS: No.

DAVIDSON: Is the Chief of the Army Engineers elected?

[21]

HESS: No.

DAVIDSON: And they are certainly a lot harder to get at from a public standpoint than the people who are living day-to-day in the region, able to be seen daily by the people of the region, and being responsible for the actions that they take in the area. This is why I think there's just no question about it. I still believe that the present method of handling our natural resources stinks. It's completely inefficient, and, sure, we are wasting money all the time and not getting as good a job done. But, of course, the power companies were joined with the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Engineers, and I think you've seen the article entitled "The Lobby Which Can't be Beat."

HESS: All right, as Assistant Secretary, what were your principal duties and what were your secondary duties, if you had to outline them in such a manner?

[22]

DAVIDSON: Well, I was Assistant Secretary for four years, and during that time my duties changed considerably. When Mr. Warner Gardner and I were originally appointed Assistant Secretaries by Secretary Krug, we divided up the work; at first each of us covered every agency in the Department. Prior to that time, as I've already indicated, Mr. Ickes believed in a centralized administration. The only people who could sign the Secretary's name to documents were the Secretary, Under Secretary or an Assistant Secretary and there was very little delegation to the Bureau chiefs. During the first several months that Mr. Gardner and I were there, the mountains of mail would be wheeled in on very large trucks. We decided early that one of us would sign the mail for a week, and because this was practically a full-time job, the other one would do some thinking about how we could get out from under this mountain. After we managed to get some of the responsibility redelegated

[23]

to the bureau chiefs and pushed them to delegate on out to the field, then we had time to take a little broader look at the Department.

I've forgotten all of the various changes and bureau assignments that I had but I remember that I supervised at times the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Oil and Gas Division, the Bureau of Mines, the Geological Survey. It was evident that some regional type representation was necessary in the various bureaus. Secretary Krug issued an order saying that all of the Department's agencies in the Pacific Northwest would be under my jurisdiction, and all of the agencies in the State of Alaska were going to be under Mr. Gardner's jurisdiction for planning purposes.

HESS: Did you approve of that, sir?

DAVIDSON: I certainly did, and it was at that time that we established the so-called Departmental

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field committees. We brought in the top man of each of the Department agencies in a region for meetings and in a number of instances this was the first time they'd ever met their counterparts. Prior to that all of his contacts were in a particular bureau and went from the region back to Washington, then up to the Secretary. We established the Pacific Northwest Field Committee, with Roy Bessey as the full-time man on my staff located in Portland, Oregon, to pull the agencies together, and let them start talking to each other about how they could best execute the Department's programs in that area. We couldn't do anything about matters outside of the Interior Department, but we did try to make contacts and eventually there were interdepartmental committees in the regions.

HESS: You could coordinate activities within the Department anyway.

DAVIDSON: We could try. It was difficult because the

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old line agencies in the Department thought it was revolutionary to try to make decisions in the field and they didn't like it as decision-making was always in Washington.

HESS: Your first job connected with public power was TVA, is that correct?

DAVIDSON: Yes, my first job after I got out of college and law school.

HESS: What led to your interest in public power? In other words, why did you take a job of that nature?

DAVIDSON: I had no idea about what I wanted to do but I came down to Washington after leaving Yale. I needed a job and it was in 1934, the early days of the New Deal, and I had a letter to a fellow by the name of Thomas Corcoran.

HESS: "Tommy the Cork?"

DAVIDSON: Right. He had been a friend of Mr. [Monte M.]

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Lemann, a lawyer in New Orleans with whom my brother had worked and who knew me. I showed up in Corcoran's office, and he said, "Where do you want to go to work?"

And I said, "I haven't the slightest idea."

So he said, "Well, go see this person in the Department of Justice, this person at SEC, this person at AAA." (I remember that I was to see Abe Fortas at AAA, but he was out on the West Coast writing a peach code.) [Donald] Richberg at NRA; he sent me to people all over the place. I came back in three or four days later and he said, "Well, what do you think?"

I said, "Well, I'm so confused I don't have the slightest idea."

He said, "You know what you ought to do? You're from the South; you ought to go down to the TVA. I have a brother who is down there working for TVA, and I think it would be a great place for you to go."

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I said, "Fine."

So he picked up the phone and called Larry [James Lawrence] Fly to tell him he was going to send me down there to talk to him. Larry said, "Well, I'll be in Washington tomorrow, why don't I see him then?"

I said, "Fine." I met him at the Hay-Adams. We made a deal and that's how I ended up at TVA. No principles involved. But by the time I was out I…

HESS: Then you had your principles.

All right, what do you recall about the matter of desegregation of swimming pools in Washington, D.C., and on this subject, you were well-known as quite a civil libertarian, a champion of the colored people, I might say. How did you develop that attitude as you were a young man from Louisiana?

DAVIDSON: This is really a long story.

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HESS: Shorten it a little bit.

DAVIDSON: When I was president of a student council at Tulane University I came to a convention of the National Student Federation of America here in Washington, and I was one of the worst racists that you could find. I remember my argument with the representative from Vassar. She wanted blacks to come to a dinner and dance, and I was completely outraged, taking a typical Southern view. Now, fortunately I've come far from that point of view as you have seen from the record.

HESS: What changed your views? And did your view change?

DAVIDSON: My view started changing at TVA. It was the first time in my life I had ever worked side by side with blacks who were smarter than I, or as smart. I started to realize that they were people rather than somebody to be pushed around. Then,

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after returning to Washington with public housing (United States Housing Authority) I lost my prejudices and my philosophy changed completely, and I suppose I wanted to make up for my blindness. I worked on a committee of the City Club in Portland back in '36 on the economic problems which plagued the blacks. And when I came from there to be Assistant Secretary I felt we could not justify any segregation of public or recreation facilities, so I started to try to change the Government's policies.

HESS: What do you recall about the difficulty that you had in desegregating the swimming pools in the District, and perhaps arguments with the D.C. Commissioners?

DAVIDSON: Well, the swimming pools in Washington were administered by two agencies. The District Commissioners had six or seven pools under their jurisdiction and we had six or seven pools in the National Capital Parks. I didn't

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feel that the National Capital Parks ought to be running recreation facilities in the District. This is really a job for the District Recreation Board. But I also felt there should be no discrimination or segregation in the operation of the facilities, so I said that we would not turn over the swimming pools or recreation facilities to the District of Columbia until they quit their segregation policy which they refused to do. And this was, of course, a cause celebre, everyone was saying that we were moving too fast and the argument on opening the swimming pools to desegregated use ended up in the President's office.

HESS: Tell me about that meeting.

DAVIDSON: Well, there were several of the District Commissioners there.

HESS: All right. Now, they were John Russell Young, president of the board; Guy Mason, a Commissioner, and then Brigadier General Gordon R. Young, the Engineer Commissioner.

[31]

DAVIDSON: That's right. They were present, and Secretary Krug went with me and let me do a good deal of the talking. I made the argument that everyone was a taxpayer and we had no business discriminating or segregating the use of public facilities. The Boss said "yes." he agreed.

It still was quite awhile before the District Board of Recreation would agree to our terms. The pools operated by the Department were also segregated, some were exclusively for black and some exclusively white. There were official plaits of the District of Columbia showing which recreation area could be frequented by black kids and which areas could be frequented by white kids.

HESS: Restricted areas.

DAVIDSON: Restricted areas, restricted playgrounds, restricted pools. Blacks could not go in a white pool; whites could not go in a black pool but this

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latter restriction was not so vigorously enforced. But after we were in the President's office, I then went to work to start desegregating swimming pools under the National Capital Parks, and that's when all hell broke loose. I remember I got a race relations specialist out of Chicago to come in.

HESS: Who was that?

DAVIDSON: I can't remember his name, but if I remember it, we'll add it.

HESS: What was the attitude of the Commissioners?

DAVIDSON: The Commissioners felt that eventually, in ten or fifteen years, we could get to the point where we could open the swimming pools to desegregated swimming, but now we mustn't move too fast. This was always the question. "We mustn't move too fast. We're not ready for it now. We'll have riots, we'll have race wars."

HESS: And Mr. Truman's view was that it was all right

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to move at that time?

DAVIDSON: Yes.

HESS: Do you recall what he said?

DAVIDSON: No, I don't. It's been a long time ago. I'll try to get my memory refreshed. Some of my assistants who were around at that time may have remembered, as I came back and told them and they might freshen my recollection. But I do remember after I came back and I had my race relations man from Chicago working with the park police (that had been his duty in Chicago, to teach the policeman how to handle such matters), and he worked constantly with the park police trying to get ready for the time that we were going to open the pools. The papers were carrying scare stories, headline stories, and I remember very vividly being called to the Under Secretary's office at this time on this matter. When I got there Phil Graham of the Washington Post who was its publisher and

[34]

Under Secretary Chapman, both of whom had great liberal reputations, each told me I was moving too fast. "You will be running into riots," and "You can't do this now," and I said, "Everything's set; we're going to do it."

This is when Krug stood fast and said, yes, we were going to do it. That's why I feel that one can't always rely on the public reputation one is given. Oscar and Phil Graham, the great public liberals, were both saying, "Don't try," and Krug, who was liberal and also had guts, said "Yes. Go on." And, of course, the Boss had already given the green light which was the most important of all.

HESS: Were there any initial difficulties?

DAVIDSON: Yes, there were a few skirmishes. They tried to have a mob scene around the pool which had been the one announced to be open. I remember a very famous photograph which was spread in all

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the papers, showing a member of the police force on top of a horse with his upraised club and a kid down on the ground underneath it. Pictures like this did not help. In the first week it was touch and go, but we stuck to our guns. This was back in '46. It seems peculiar in this day and age to have to recount what difficulties we went through 25 years ago because now there's no problem and everyone assumes public recreation is open to all.

HESS: We've come a long way in a short time.

DAVIDSON: We sure have.

HESS: What's your opinion of Mr. Truman's general views on the matter of civil rights, a man from rural Jackson County, which really had a Southern flavor when Mr. Truman was growing up?

DAVIDSON: There's no question about where he stood. He had problems but he believed very strongly

[36]

in the Constitution, that "This is the law; how can you discriminate against people," in spite of the fact that we grew up with our prejudices feeling otherwise. When you're in an official position and presented with alternatives, one of which is so clearly right, and the other is just a matter of prejudice and nothing else, one has, in my opinion, no alternative but to buy the proper one and not the one that's based on prejudice; and this is what I think Mr. Truman did. How could he as President of all of the people of the United States say that blacks are not entitled to swim, or play golf, or to eat in a cafeteria, public cafeterias, along with the others? Now, in the private clubs, that question wasn't raised at that time.

HESS: One of the questions that was coming up at that time was D.C.'s restaurants, and the Government lunchrooms. Do you recall those difficulties?

DAVIDSON: Yes I do. I don't think I got so much involved

[37]

with them as with the golf courses. They were run by Government Services, and of course, my responsibility in supervising the parks, the National Capital Parks, threw me right into the swimming pools and golf courses and parks problems. I also ordered the desegregation of the hotels in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park right over here in Virginia, and at that time these decisions were far from popular.

HESS: Could blacks eat in the Government lunchrooms in the Department of Interior here in town?

DAVIDSON: I don't recall whether they could or not. I've forgotten. It was something that I couldn't have done anything about anyway, because Government Services had a contract agency for operating the restaurants with the General Services Administration.

HESS: Did David Niles and Philleo Nash get involved in any of the desegregation matters?

[38]

DAVIDSON: I knew Philleo and Dave both very well, but I do not recall their taking an active part. As a matter of fact, I don't remember whether either one of them were in the room at the time that the President met with the Commissioners, Secretary Krug and myself.

HESS: Do you recall with either one of those gentlemen on other occasions on civil rights matters?

DAVIDSON: Yes. Philleo used to be particularly interested in the Indians, and down in Navajo...

HESS: He later became...

DAVIDSON: ...Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and at that point, I think the only two states were Mexico and Arizona, which did not allow Indians to vote, and we worked hard to try to get that changed.

HESS: Regarding your views on the rights of Government employees, we'll want to discuss the matter of the

[39]

letter that you wrote, and Donald Dawson's memo. Why did you become interested in that matter? First, if you would, just briefly, state the problems, and then why did you become interested in the matter?

DAVIDSON: First, this was the time of the Joe McCarthy days. Do you remember his time?

HESS: This was a little earlier than the Joe McCarthy era, I think wasn't it?

DAVIDSON: Was it earlier? This was at the beginning of it. When did McCarthy come in?

HESS: I think his speech in Wheeling, Virginia, when he said there were "X" number of Communists or Communist sympathizers in the State Department, if I am not mistaken, was in 1950.

DAVIDSON: 1950? Well, in any event, he became the epitome of a witch hunt, but prior to that time, there had been people over on the Hill talking

[40]

about Communists in Government, that had to be weeded out. .And of course, since a Democratic administration was in power, many Republicans were always preaching this kind of philosophy, that we had to get rid of subversives in Government. I certainly felt strongly that any subversive should not be working for the Government and should be taken off of the Government payroll; but I also felt that just because somebody's grandmother thought she heard somebody say that this guy was a subversive did not mean he was; and I didn't feel that this justified somebody starting a complete investigation, turning it over to the FBI and letting them go to every place that the person had lived for the past ten or fifteen years, talking to his neighbors, and asking who he associated with, invading his private life, and discussing this matter with everyone they could find.

When someone's loyalty to the Government is questioned, particularly when he is going to be

[41]

working for the Government, I think a common reaction is "Gee, I didn't know there was anything wrong with him, but if there's smoke there might be some fire." Under FBI procedure at that time (and I don't know whether it is any different today), after a widespread investigation was made, none of the people who were ever interviewed by the FBI were ever notified that the person was cleared or obtained the job. They never knew what had been found out about the person under scrutiny. The question in their minds raised by the questions relating to one's loyalty remained with no refutation. If one being interviewed did make some derogatory statements about the individual under scrutiny, these could be taken as fact by the reviewing agency, since there was no chance of cross-examining the person; no opportunity to find whether the person giving the testimony was the old enemy "X" of the person he was talking about or any test of his credibility at all. And I felt that this was not consonant with American civil rights and procedures, that anybody who was accused or suspected of being

[42]

disloyal to his government -- and what could be worse than being a subversive.

HESS: Someone out to overthrow the Government.

DAVIDSON: Yes! What could be a more serious charge. It is one of the worst charges that could be levied against an individual, and someway he ought to have the opportunity to defend himself; under the Government's loyalty program he had no such right and this was one of the principal changes in the loyalty program that I wanted to make.

HESS: And was this the time that you sent the letter to Clark Clifford?

DAVIDSON: Yes.

HESS: We can't find the copy of it. We should say for the record that we have looked in the files of the Truman Library and cannot find this particular letter.

[43]

DAVIDSON: I wonder if it's in the Archives of the United States?

HESS: It could be.

DAVIDSON: It could be at the Archives.

HESS: At the Library, in file 252-K, which is the Loyalty File, we have a memo from Clark Clifford to Donald Dawson dated December 31, 1947, transmitting your letter and saying, "I shall appreciate having your comments on this letter and your advice as to how I should reply," plus the three-page reply to Donald Dawson.

DAVIDSON: Does it give the date of my letter?

HESS: No, it does not. It says: "Jebby Davidson has sent me a letter relating to employee loyalty which I am passing on to you."

[44]

DAVIDSON: Well, I'll tell you, the reason I wrote to Clark was because at that time we were seeing each other every Monday at these little meetings that we held at Oscar Ewing's apartment. I felt very close to Clark, that I could talk to him about anything I wanted to, and I felt very strongly on this issue, so I wrote him a personal letter. Now, I was amazed when a week or ten days later, I got a call from Jimmy Wechsler of the New York Post saying that he understood that I had written a letter to somebody at the White House.

I said, "Where did that come from?"

He said, "I'm not going to disclose my source." Maybe he will now. I'd be very interested in finding out where it came from, because it could have come from several sources.

[45]

The FBI was not happy about my public speeches, and I had debated one of their assistant directors on this issue. I remember I was horrified when he said during this debate that one of the criteria the FBI used in a loyalty investigation was whether the Government employee associated with a person of a different color. Just because one was walking down the street with a black was enough to put this whole machinery of an FBI investigation into gear to determine whether he was a subversive. I said that if they had any respect for the Bill of Rights of our Constitution such a criterion should be abandoned immediately.

On that letter to Clark, I wish we could find it. I also wish we could find the letters which I used to write Seth Richardson of the Loyalty Board. I see we've got his reply, and also a copy of the letter which I started to write him but then somebody told me I had probably written enough so I didn't send it. It

[46]

was at that time, you'll recall, that the Times-Herald wrote an editorial saying I should be fired for questioning any part of the President's Loyalty Program. Then the Washington Post wrote one coming to my defense. I think you've got that marked wrong. [referring to Scrap Book] That's from the Washington Post. This is from the Times-Herald. This is the Star editorial. You don't have the one in the Times-Herald. I think it's in my scrapbook somewhere. It just said that the President should waste no time in getting rid of me.

HESS: Was it your view that the Department of the Interior should be allowed to send their own investigators out to try to find the accusers, is that correct?

DAVIDSON: That is the way my position appeared publicly. I did not feel that it necessarily should be the Department of Interior doing it. I felt that there ought to be some way that an individual's rights could be protected, because he could never find out anything that was in the

[47]

FBI file concerning him, and I've seen hundreds of their files on individuals. That raw file of questionable evidence would be turned over to a loyalty board in the Department. There might have been some better and faster way of doing the checking, but if not, we should have, at least, allowed each loyalty board to make an independent investigation to get to the heart of the matter and really find out something about the employee in question, rather than having to rely solely on this undocumented hearsay evidence which found its way into the FBI dossiers.

HESS: According to Dawson's memo and to a couple of the clippings, there was some question about whether or not Secretary Krug yaw your letter before you sent it to Clark Clifford. What do you recall about that?

DAVIDSON: Well, I don't recall showing the actual letter to Krug, but I did discuss the matter with Krug and told him that these were my

[48]

feelings and I was going to write to Clark. Now, I was going to do it on a personal basis and…

HESS: Not as Assistant Secretary?

DAVIDSON: ...not as Assistant Secretary. Cap knew that I was going to these Monday evening meetings, that I was seeing Clark all the time, and he knew that he was Special Counsel to the President, and he knew I felt strongly about this. And I never expected this letter to become public. And I suppose, in anything you wrote, you've got to assume it's going to become public. I didn't know whether it was the FBI itself that leaked the letter, or somebody who obviously wanted to get me. It was one that did.

HESS: Did you discuss this particular subject at any of the Monday night meetings at the Wardman Park? Do you recall?

[49]

DAVIDSON: I do not recall it as such. I'm sure we did, because at those Wardman Park meetings we used to discuss everything, anything that popped into one's head, about what was going on in the Government; what was not good or things that one thought could be improved.

HESS: As you will recall, the subject of loyalty investigations was an important one after the Second World War, and trying to ferret out subversives.

The President's Temporary Commission on Employee Loyalty was established in 1946. The chairman was A. Devitt Vanech of the Department of Justice. The Department of Interior did not have a representative on that Commission. They weren't the only department who didn't, but they were not represented. Do you think that the Department of Interior should have been represented, and do you recall anything about that Commission?

DAVIDSON: Very little. I knew Devitt Vanech. He

[50]

was an Assistant Attorney General or something of that kind. I felt that the Department of Justice was buying what the FBI said, and I guess I also had the feeling that they didn't want anybody on their commission or committee who was going to upset the applecart. They probably felt that if they did put anybody from Interior on it, since I'd been the one shooting off my mouth on the subject, I would be appointed and they'd just as soon not have that since I would undoubtedly have questioned some of their basic procedures.

HESS: In one of the clippings in your scrapbook I found that the Labor Department had said that if in such investigations, if the accuser was a Federal employee they were going to give the accused person the right to face their accuser. Do you recall anything about that?

DAVIDSON: No, I do not.

[51]

HESS: That clipping is in here some place. You seemed to be the person in the Interior who was pushing this matter. Do you recall anyone in the Department of Labor at this time who may have been interested in loyalty investigations?

DAVIDSON: As I recall Dave [David A.] Morse, who was Under Secretary of Labor, and who came to the Monday night meetings, was one of the ones who felt this same way about it. The Labor Department was about the only department in Truman's administration, other than Interior where the Secretary was a liberal and let us fight for these liberal positions. I've forgotten who the Secretary of Labor was at this time.

HESS: [Lewis B.] Schwellenbach had died in mid-1948 and then [Maurice T.] Tobin took over.

DAVIDSON: But as you know, the balance of the Secretaries were very conservative individuals: Snyder in Treasury, Sawyer in Commerce, Forrestal of Defense and I think this is what made that

[52]

little group, working through Charlie Murphy and Clark Clifford, so important.

HESS: Were there times that you felt yourself, perhaps, at loggerheads with some of the people you have just mentioned, some of the more conservative people in the Truman administration: Mr. Snyder at Treasury?

DAVIDSON: A great many occasions, not just at times.

HESS: Tell me about an occasion or two.

DAVIDSON: Well, I think that I mentioned that one of the bureaus that I supervised was the Oil and Gas Division of the Department of Interior. I remember that there was a shortage of fuel for our preparedness program at that time, and the reason that the petroleum men gave me was that they could not get steel pipe; it was impossible. I said, "Why?"

They said, "Because pipe is not being allocated to the oil industry." It was being allocated

[53]

through a steel industry advisory committee in the Department of Commerce handled by Sawyer. He presided. And these steel moguls were refusing to expand capacity but were merely allocating their product. They said that they just weren't going to expand. At this point, Sawyer and I used to have head-on arguments on this subject. I wanted more steel so that more oil could be produced, and he was, in effect, representing the steel companies in their, "Just take it easy, we're going to wait until we are sure the demand gets there and we might pick up a little bit." The demand was there.

HESS: Mr. Sawyer makes a reference to you in his new book.

DAVIDSON: He does?

HESS: Concerns of a Conservative Democrat, on page 209:

Unfortunately, some enthusiastic government officials were demanding production

[54]

far beyond what was reasonable or possible. I recall particularly Assistant Secretary C. Girard Davidson of the Department of the Interior. He had a definite anti-business attitude and continually insisted that I force the steel people to increase their output.

Do you think you have a "definite anti-business attitude?"

DAVIDSON: I certainly do not and did not. The steel companies could have made more money if they would have produced more steel but they were afraid or too conservative to expand. The trouble was they were holding down the whole economy by refusing to even use all of their existing facilities. I remember I made a speech somewhere in the Midwest or perhaps out in Spokane, and I said, one, that "The steel companies should go on and use all of their capacity, and if that's not meeting the need, they should build new capacity. If they can't finance it themselves, then the RFC should finance it. If the steel companies refuse to take the RFC financing, and still refuse to expand

[55]

capacity to meet the needs of this country, for this basic commodity, then the Government, as a last resort, should step in, and build steel plants themselves."

Well, then when I said that, of course, all hell broke loose; Iron and Steel News, the steel companies and conservatives said that this was just awful.

HESS: Socialism.

DAVIDSON: Socialism. Talking about the Government getting into the steel business was "socialism." I said, "Look, if you take care of the country's needs this is fine; but if you refuse to do this with such a basic commodity as steel, it has to be provided by someone and that means the Government." Well, I remember very well, I got a call from Clark Clifford over at the White House a few days later. I was sitting at my desk and Clark called me and said, "Jebby, I understand you made a speech somewhere out West on steel."

[56]

I thought, "Here it's coming. Here it's coming."

HESS: You were going to be drug off to trial again.

DAVIDSON: And I said, "Yes, Clark, I'm afraid that's right."

He said, "I think in that speech you said that the Government ought to build steel plants?"

I said, "Clark, that's basically right. These steel guys are giving us an awful tough time." I figured I had had it; that Sawyer or some of the others had gotten to the President.

He said, "Would you send me a copy of that speech?"

I said, "Okay, I will."

He said, "I guess you're curious as to how we heard about it?"

I said, "Yes."

He said, "Well, Walter Reuther called the President and told him about this speech; said it was great and the President is wondering what you said. Can you get it right over?"

[57]

Obviously, I was extremely happy about this turn of events. It was about a month later that the President made his State o£ the Union speech to the Congress and said, "If the steel companies do not expand their capacity to meet the country's need, it may be necessary for the Government to do so." Shortly thereafter the steel companies began a large-scale expansion program.

HESS: Do you think that's one of the most important contributions that you may have given to a presidential address?

DAVIDSON: I would not say it is the most important contribution, but it was one that probably gave me as much satisfaction as anything else. When you started with an idea and it was fought by the steel companies and a Cabinet officer and you won, obviously you had a sense of accomplishment. Sawyer was fit to be tied but he couldn't

[58]

fire me. He’d have to go through the President, and Cap was more or less defending me then. In addition, the close association with the little group around Oscar Ewing made one feel that he was not completely isolated. Even though one was taking on a Cabinet officer, he could feel that due to our Monday night group the Cabinet members were not having any more influence with President Truman than we were. Obviously, I don't think this steel episode anyway compares with material we got the President to send over to the Congress in his civil rights message. That, to me, was the greatest.

HESS: You felt that you had as much input into the President's thinking as the Cabinet?

DAVIDSON: Yes.

HESS: Could you have had a little more than some others?

DAVIDSON: It is very hard to answer that question,

[59]

because we as individuals did not. I mean, I didn't see the President except a very few times. I don't know how much the others -- I'm sure John Thurston and Dave Kingsley and Dave Morse, and probably others, didn't see the President any more than I did -- our method of getting to the President was through Clark Clifford and his assistant, Charlie Murphy.

HESS: He was the point of contact?

DAVIDSON: He was the point of contact.

HESS: And Charlie Murphy?

DAVIDSON: And Charlie Murphy, who succeeded Clark Clifford. They were both at these sessions every Monday night when problems would be discussed, kicked around. And we wouldn’t know on a number of occasions what Clark was really going to say. All of us were arguing our point of view. Clark was pretty good about keeping his mouth shut, but

[60]

every now and then he would come out with what he thought and what did we think of this tack. He had a sounding board, because all of us had our ideas.

HESS: Just one question on steel production before we go further into the Wardman Park group. What is your general opinion of the condition that the economy might be in today if we had, at that time, back during the late forties and early fifties established some Government-owned steel mills? Would we be in better shape?

DAVIDSON: Oh, I think that would be a debatable question. At the time I was turned down by the steel makers, some of the news stories said that the treatment I had received when appearing before the Industry Committee requesting additional oil pipe was not the way for industry to treat a Government official. This was before the election, shortly before, and the industry was

[61]

confident that they were not going to have to bother with Truman's administration anymore. Dewey was a walk-in. And anybody then in Government they were happy to insult. After the election, when they found the President's message to Congress adopted my position, there was a complete reversal and the industry went to work increasing capacity fast.

HESS: So there was no need for pressing the point.

DAVIDSON: No. They originally just said, "Go to hell." Then the President gets re-elected, the necessity of additional steel capacity goes into his first message to Congress, and, bang, they just started building because they were afraid the new plants might be built by the Government. They decided that the best way to do it was to build themselves.

HESS: Let's go back to the beginning of the Wardman Park group and cover a few basic questions:

[62]

When was it established, why was it established, and who were the original members?

DAVIDSON: Gee, I can't remember the dates. It seems to me that we worked for about a year before the '48 election. I think there were a number of people around Government, who were unhappy with the advice that the President was getting from the majority of his Cabinet. We felt that our little group constituted the "Liberal wing versus the old timers and the conservatives in the Cabinet." Jack Ewing, Oscar Ewing, was the head of the group and Oscar was not only head of HEW at that time, he was vice-chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

HESS: It was the Federal Security Agency way back in those days, which we now know as HEW.

DAVIDSON: It was long before it became a Cabinet office. But anyway, Jack became very worried, and Howard McGrath, Chairman of the Democratic

[63]

National Committee, was also worried about the campaign and where the President was going. The members of the group included Clark Clifford and Charles Murphy. They were our pipeline into the White House. Leon Keyserling, who was then on the Council of Economic Advisers...

HESS: He was vice-chairman.

DAVIDSON: He was vice-chairman, he was not chairman. Charlie Brannan, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture; Dave Morse, Under Secretary of Labor; Donald Kingsley, who was Jack Ewing's first assistant, and John Thurston, who was his second assistant. Since Jack Ewing was heading up the group both from the Federal Security Agency, and as vice-chairman of the Democratic National Committee, we felt it was proper for him to have two people there all the time. They gave an input just like everyone else. Let's see, also Wayne Coy, who had been with President Roosevelt, and Wayne was

[64]

then a Federal Communications Commissioner.

HESS: Did J. Howard McGrath attend most of the meetings?

DAVIDSON: I'd say that he got to about half the meetings, and he would come in at times when we were discussing a particularly tough problem such as the recognition of Israel -- that spread over three or four meetings.

HESS: What were his views on that?

DAVIDSON: He felt Israel should be recognized as all of us did. I think this was unanimous on the part of all of us.

HESS: What were the main reasons put forward for the recognition of Israel?

DAVIDSON: Well, it was the humanitarian thing to do. There was a country that had been established and would allow Jews to move from Germany, which no other country -- including the United States --

[65]

would do. When all other places discriminated against them they set up their own state. And then from a purely political standpoint, we felt this would be one way of helping to solidify the Jewish vote and assistance.

I certainly remember the difficulties we had with the State Department. I don't think the State Department has changed yet. It is still Arab-oriented, and certainly was at that time. We discussed the recognition of Israel at long length and it got to the President. He decided to recognize Israel, and he sent word over to the State Department. Who was the Under Secretary of State then? I can't remember. George Marshall was Secretary. Anyway, Israel just didn't get recognized, so two weeks later, I think it was, the matter again came up at the meeting, and we all said, "What's happened?"

HESS: Robert Lovett was Under Secretary for a while.

DAVIDSON: He might have been. But it was not done.

[66]

The recognition went back to the President; the President got hold of the State Department again, started it through, and the recognition still didn't come out. A story goes (I don't know whether it's accurate or not), that finally, the third time President Truman called he said, "Get me George Marshall." He found him down in Florida someplace, and said, "George, three times now I've said to recognize Israel. Now, that is my decision; you go do it, and if not, I'm going to fire you if you don't do it." Well, then Israel was recognized.

HESS: He spoke that frankly to General Marshall?

DAVIDSON: That's what the story says. I wasn't there, but I understood that he spoke that frankly, and it took that to get the State Department to do it. I still feel the State Department, even today, is pro-Arab and anti-Israel, has been all along, and that was one of the clearest

[67]

demonstrations. But I think it took about that kind of language. I think you ought to check this sometime with Clark or Charlie or some of the rest of them.

HESS: Why do they seem to have that view, because of pro-oil views, or because they were the same views that the British had had for quite some time?

DAVIDSON: Well, I don't know. It seems to me that it's been this Government's policy for a number of years to support Israel. Even Nixon is supposed to be doing it. But the Arab -- or Middle East -- desk has always seemed to have a great deal of muscle.

HESS: Back to the participants: Who did the choosing, how were the people selected?

DAVIDSON: Have I forgotten any of them? I don't think so.

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HESS: I don't think so. I think we've gone over most of them. Now, in your scrapbooks I have found notations where Wayne Coy, J. Howard McGrath and John Thurston were members.

DAVIDSON: I don't think that's in the scrapbooks. That's in the files.

HESS: Over here?

DAVIDSON: Because I don't think this group ever got any publicity, or very little, until Phillips wrote his book, The Truman Presidency.

HESS: That's right. That's in your files marked "Civil Rights," and has to do with the memo that you prepared on civil rights and sent around to the members. This is a good thing to discuss next. But I did want to mention that Thurston, McGrath, and Wayne Coy are not listed as being members in Cabell Phillips' book, The Truman Presidency, correct?

[69]

DAVIDSON: Yes, Brannan was not mentioned either in Phillips' book. Brannan was at practically every meeting. It was only when we were out of town that we didn't go to the meetings. This we had as number one on our schedules. If we could possibly make those Monday night meetings we did.

HESS: In making your selection were you looking for liberals?

DAVIDSON: I have no idea how the people were selected. When I went to the meetings there was this group. Oscar had us over for dinner at his apartment. Have you interviewed Jack?

HESS: He has been interviewed. I did not interview him, but he has been interviewed.

DAVIDSON: Well, I had a letter from his son the other day, and I'd like to find out. It's a good question. I'll try to find out what basis he

[70]

had for getting us there, because I just don’t know. My assistant, Dan [Daniel L.] Goldy, told me that he was a very close friend of Kingsley’s, and when Kingsley was talking about this, he suggested that since I traveled the West a great deal, I could make some good input. That might have been the basis for it -- I just don’t know.

HESS: All right, now one of the items in this folder is a memo on civil rights. This is a memo that you sent around to Clifford, Morse, Keyserling, Ewing, Brannan, Thurston, McGrath, and Coy. You say, "You will recall that last Monday I was asked to compile that recommendations of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights. The attached compilation includes all the recommendations of the President’s Committee and I have tried to put them down in groups so that they will be easier to consider. I hope you have a chance to go over this before our next discussion." The first thing that I thought of when I saw that was, was this done very

[71]

often, to have a memo sent around for consideration by people before the meeting on the following Monday night? I had never. heard of this being done for the Monday night meetings.

DAVIDSON: I really had forgotten about this until it appeared in my file. This refreshed my recollection. We used to take up subjects at various meetings and say what we were going to talk about at future meetings. But a written memorandum was much more the exception than the rule and I don't remember any others. And you will note from this memorandum to the members of the group which was discussed at a Monday night meeting one may see how the President's message on civil rights got under way.

HESS: February 2, 1948, the ten points message?

DAVIDSON: Right, and you can take a paragraph from this memorandum and see precisely where it ends up in the message. This document, of course,

[72]

comes from...

HESS: This you took mainly, I think, from the civil rights report that was transmitted to the President in October, the one that was called "To Secure These Rights."

DAVIDSON: Right. And then I broke it down into what could be done by executive action, what could be done by congressional action, and then what states should do. Then the President did one of the things that was suggested, "Issuance by the President a mandate against discrimination in Government employment, and the creation of adequate machinery to enforce this mandate." The action which he said in the message he had taken follows closely the executive action which we recommended and which initially came from his Commission. Then, also, the memorandum and the message set forth clearly what he was asking Congress to do. They didn't do it, of course. This message was February 2, 1948, and was before the election.

[73]

For example, he says:

Under the authority of existing law, the Executive branch is taking every possible action to improve the enforcement of the civil rights statutes and to eliminate discrimination in Federal employment, and in providing Federal services and facilities, and in the armed forces.

This was one of the great problems. I think the only way this part of the interview can be readily understood is to attach a copy of that memorandum.

HESS: All right. Now was this a conduit, a channel, for the views that originated in the Monday night meetings, to go through Clark Clifford and end up in the Presidents message? Is it that clear a channel?

DAVIDSON: It happened to be in this instance.

HESS: It worked this time.

DAVIDSON: It worked this time. But these items which I presented in this memorandum were more or less from the Civil Rights Commission Report, and

[74]

our Monday night, group became a convenient panel to get the President to implement the recommendations.

HESS: The Civil Rights Commission Report of October of 1947. That came first and then you distilled it?

DAVIDSON: Yes, and you will find pretty near the same language in the message. Well, I would assume that would be normal, because this document was in the hands of Charlie Murphy and Clark...

HESS: At the time they were writing the message of February 2nd.

DAVIDSON: At the time.

HESS: Did you personally sit down and help him go over the drafts of the President's message of February 2, 1948?

DAVIDSON: No, those were probably done by Dave Bell,

[75]

or some of the guys in the White House. But having this...

HESS: They did have good ideas.

DAVIDSON: You can see the identical language. I have noted here, for example, number 12 of the memorandum says: "The enactment by Congress of legislation establishing a local self-government in the District of Columbia." These are the exact words in his message. His message is a much more rounded presentation. If you want further examples, he says: "3. The enactment by Congress of an anti-lynching act..." This corresponds to 6 under "Congressional Action." His message states: "I recommend therefore that the Congress enact legislation directed toward the following specific objectives: Establishing a permanent Commission on Civil Rights, a Joint Congressional Committee on Civil Rights, and a Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice." Item 1 of our memorandum stated: "The Civil Rights

[76]

Section of the Department of Justice should be given a substantial increase in appropriations, raised to a full division status in the Department and granted increased authority," etc. Now, when he's explaining number 1 a little later in the message he says: "As a first step, we must strengthen the organization of the Federal Government in order to enforce civil rights legislation more adequately and to watch over the state of our traditional liberties. I recommend that the Congress establish a permanent Commission on Civil Rights reporting to the President." This was in Item 26 of the memorandum.

"Protection of the Right to Vote." In his message he said: "Under the Constitution, the right of all properly qualified citizens to vote is beyond question, yet the exercise of this right is still subject to interference. Some individuals are prevented from voting by isolated acts of intimidation. Some whole groups are prevented

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by outmoded policies prevailing in certain states or communities." This follows memorandum numbers 9, 10, and 11.

These sections were more or less lifted and worked into the message, but we did not take credit for these. We were instrumental in getting them put down, putting them in more succinct form. Clark sold it to him.

HESS: Taking the ideas of the Commission from the report, selling them to him and seeing that they got into the message.

DAVIDSON: Yes -- and this was one of the messages which was sent over to the Congress and they did not enact the legislation. So the President went out and told the people what the 80th Congress did not do for civil rights.

HESS: His Commission came out in October with the report, "To Secure These Rights," and he came out in February with a strong message to Congress,

[78]

his ten-point message; just as an opinion, but how much of this do you think was politics in view of the 1948 election coming up and trying to secure the Negro vote?

DAVIDSON: The timing I would certainly say was political -- sending this message over when he did. As I indicated earlier in the discussion of the swimming pools, I don't think there's anything in the message that the President didn't believe in strongly. He felt that something should be done, and he used this occasion to throw it to Congress and say, "Do something about it." They didn't do anything about it, and this is one of the reasons he was re-elected. Because then he would have another chance to do something about civil rights, and I think he and the subsequent Democratic Presidents did a great deal.

HESS: It's about 4:30, and we're all out of tape. Shall we quit for the day?

DAVIDSON: Sure.