Harold I. McGrath Oral History Interview

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 Harold McGrath 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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.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 May, 1986
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[1]

MCGRATH: I first met Senator Truman at a Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco in 1944, when the members of the Truman Committee were conducting hearings in California pertaining to the national war effort and were the guests of the Democratic Jackson Day dinner of that year. I was impressed at that time with the genuine affection shown to this modest man by his peers on the committee. They all wanted to make a point that their chairman was the nicest human being that one could possibly have anything to do with. This was in 1944.

FUCHS: Who all came with him that time?

MCGRATH: [Robert S.] Kerr was one. Somehow I'm under the impression that Warren Magnuson was another. Maybe it

[2]

was Schwellenbach instead. I'm not too sure who the others were, but there were at least four Senators plus the staff members, and I can't tell you at this late date who they were. Each of them spoke when introduced at the dinner, but Mr. Truman merely stood and bowed, and the other members of the committee stood at the table and cheered for him at that dinner.

FUCHS: Did you have any conversation with Mr. Truman personally?

MCGRATH: None whatsoever, other than to shake hands. Someone, possibly Mr. [William] Malone who was the chairman of the dinner, introduced me to him along with other people. We merely shook hands.

I next met him in the early part of 1948 when he made a non-political trip to California to receive a degree from the University of California at Berkeley. And it so happens that my wife was receiving an M.A. degree from the University of California that same day. I met him casually in Faculty Glade at the University of California where my friends were lunching prior to the ceremonies at the California Memorial

[3]

Stadium, and he came through with Bob [Robert Gordon] Sproul, the President of the University, and others; and I shook hands and we chatted a little bit, and I told him my wife was receiving a degree with him.

That evening, some six or eight hours later, I met him again in one of the rooms of the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco where we had arranged a dinner for approximately forty gentlemen, consisting of the Democratic male leaders of northern California, the Democratic Federal judges, and other important Democratic officials and leaders. It was a delightful dinner and I, and one or two others, brought President Truman from his suite in the hotel to the banquet room and introduced him around; and I guess I did most of the introducing of the other people to the President. We had a cocktail hour, at which, as I assiduously noted, he had one drink, an old-fashioned, which he merely sipped on. He didn't really consume it, he just sipped on it. Most cordial and friendly. We had arranged to have our two young political leaders seated next to him at the dinner table, that is, two State Senators, Oliver Carter and John F. Shelley. And these two men

[4]

and President Truman got along famously at that point. Mr. Shelley had known him previously.

At the dinner I had occasion to go back into the cocktail room and chat with the bartender, who was a distinguished appearing man, who volunteered the information to me that this made the fifth President of the United States that he had served. Sticking his chin out, he recited that Truman and [Calvin] Coolidge were good guys. And I reported this to President Truman in the banquet room and he grinned and said, "Please bring the man in here I want to talk further to him," which I did, and they had an enjoyable time. The gentleman who was tending bar, again repeated that he thought highly of President Truman and that he had thought highly of President Coolidge.

FUCHS: Well, now this was in...

MCGRATH: In June. It was essentially a non-political trip.

FUCHS: Jimmy [James] Roosevelt would then have been state chairman.

MCGRATH: Mr. Roosevelt at that time was the state chairman,

[5]

of course; he represented southern California.

FUCHS: He didn't come up to this...

MCGRATH: He was not at this affair. The leader of our party was John McEnery, who was the vice-chairman, that is the chairman for northern California; and Mr. Malone was the San Francisco chairman. We had at that point, just about convinced Judge Carter, who truly believed intellectually in the reelection of Mr. Truman, to take on a political task during the '48 campaign, but that had not jelled as yet.

I talked with Mr. Truman on two occasions by telephone from Washington in the summer of 1948, essentially pertaining to appointments of people in California.

FUCHS: Do you remember who the people were or what the appointments were?

MCGRATH: As I recall now they pertained to Federal judgeships. It could have been something with the U.S. marshal, but I think substantially Federal judgeships. They were incidental conversations, I would say.

[6]

The next time I saw the President was in the fall of 1948, when he was campaigning for President and we had arranged to put our people on a train in Redding -- I have forgotten from whence he came -- to tour rural California ending in the Bay area that evening. My guess is that this was the early part of October, possibly late September of 1948.

Backing up a little bit, after the National Convention in the summer of '48, the State California Democratic Convention was held, and Oliver J. Carter, State Senator from Shasta County, had decided that he would be willing to be the state chairman for the next period of time. He had retired from the state Senate and took on the task of the chairmanship. From that point on I worked very closely with him, since he and I were old friends and associates of many, many years.

The interesting thing about the train trip in the campaign -- I'm sorry, I want to go back further. I think possibly one of the main contributions that our rather small group made to the '48 campaign, was the development of material pertaining to agricultural programs.

[7]

I want to mention the name of Mr. Frederick R. Soule, now deceased, who was a newspaperman and a retired Federal employee of the old Resettlement Administration, Farm Security, etc. Very early in the fall he had developed lines of, and written material, pertaining to the success of the agricultural programs of the Roosevelt-Truman administrations, and developed thoughts as to how they could be added to and supplemented in the future. We used this material for our speakers in California. Mr. Carter knew California agriculture; and others knew how to utilize this material successfully. We forwarded the gist of our thoughts to political and agricultural leaders in Washington, particularly Mr. Charles Brannan, and we always thought that some of our views, which were essentially developed by Fred Soule, were the basis for the Truman agricultural program and his campaign material in agriculture in the '48 campaign.

FUCHS: Didn't you mention a Herb Waters in this connection?

MCGRATH: Herb Waters participated there. Herb Waters at that time was the editor of the Santa Rosa Press

[8]

Democrat, a Democratic newspaper; and he worked with Mr. Soule. He worked with our committee in preparing this material. Subsequently, he went to Washington in 1949 as an assistant to Secretary of Agriculture Brannan and later became associated with Senator [Hubert H.] Humphrey.

At any rate, we have always thought (by we I mean our small group of 1948) that the views of an agricultural program that we developed here, did as much as anything to carry the 1948 election; and we thoroughly believed that it carried California, because we won California by overcoming a deficit in the southern California counties. And while we carried the Bay area, San Francisco, Alameda and certain other counties, we carried rural California solidly. By that I mean Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Kern County, the heartland of agricultural California. And this is where we carried the election.

To go ahead to the "whistlestop," the campaign tour.

FUCHS: One point on the agricultural.

[9]

MCGRATH: Yes.

FUCHS: As you probably know, the failure of the Congress to provide money for the commodities...

MCGRATH: For the commodities, yeah.

FUCHS: …to furnish storage bins...

MCGRATH: Storage space.

FUCHS: ...played a large part in the wheat areas and other areas. Was that a factor in the type of agriculture they have in California?

MCGRATH: Very definitely a factor. Particularly in cotton and certain grain crops in the southern San Joaquin Valley areas. Not so much in the fruit, nut, and vegetable areas, but in the crops that required storage facilities, this was an important factor. Mr. [Thomas E.] Dewey's program was devoid of anything constructive in this field, and the Truman agricultural program, which he and our group enunciated as clearly, I think very clearly, in California, was accepted by the rural voters, and is probably the most important factor.

[10]

Back to the train?

FUCHS: Well, one point I want to get out.

MCGRATH: All right.

FUCHS: Did you hold any kind of a position in either the local, state, or district organization in '44?

MCGRATH: 1944? No.

FUCHS: For instance when you attended this Jefferson-Jackson Day party.

MCGRATH: No. At that point I was an employee of the United States Government War Relocation Administration, bringing these Japanese-American people back from their detention camps. I entered the active political arena again, after an absence of several years since the 1930s, in 1946, when my friend Robert W. Kenney was ignominiously defeated in his effort to unseat Earl Warren as the Governor of California.

FUCHS: Why was that?

MCGRATH: Shouldn't have run that year; he should have bided his time. Governor Warren was almost a cinch for

[11]

re-election and was as it turned out; and Mr. Kenney didn't even get by the Democratic primary. Earl Warren, because of the peculiarities of the crossfiling laws at that time in California, carried the primary election in June of '46 -- both his own party, the Republican, and the Democratic Party.

FUCHS: Had Kenney been popular as Attorney General?

MCGRATH: He had been very popular; a very able man. And might well have served in higher political offices in the future; but he was importuned to run by people who thought he would do better; who for one reason or another wanted him to run for Governor. He acceded to their wishes, I think against his own better judgment, and, as a result his political career was terminated.

FUCHS: I believe in 1950 he associated himself with the liberal wing and organized a progressive group in California, didn't he?

MCGRATH: He has always been a progressive, more than a liberal. An outstanding progressive, and always on that wing of the Democratic Party. Actually, in the early days I think he was a Republican as many people

[12]

in California were. Edmund G. Brown was once a Republican. Kenney was always on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party; but his career was finished when he was defeated in the primary of 1948.

FUCHS: What happened to his campaign to have delegates pledged to [Henry A.] Wallace selected in '48?

MCGRATH: I've forgotten the incident, what the circumstances of it was; whatever it was, it was a hopeless proposition. Kennedy wasn't very active in '48 to my recollection. The infighting in the '48 primary situation was led in California by Jimmy Roosevelt, who simply (and I believe him), quite simply, didn't believe that Mr. Truman was going to be reelected; and Jimmy was totally pragmatic on the matter and thought that he and others could induce General [Dwight D.] Eisenhower to run as a Democrat and that, therefore, he would win and the continuity of the Roosevelt-Truman administration would carry on. It was simply a pragmatic decision by Jimmy, I'm sure.

FUCHS: How come Jimmy was so against the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall plan, which very well could have been

[13]

things that his father would have favored?

MCGRATH: Well, no question about it. I don't think Jimmy was opposed to them at all. He merely thought that possibly that would have been some piece of idealism to hang his hat on as a pragmatic politician. He wanted to win the election and he was convinced Mr. Truman could not win, and obviously, as it turned out, he and the others had no assurance whatsoever from Mr. Eisenhower that he would run at all; and it turned out that he turned them down when he was approached.

The dissident part of the '48 group in the Democratic Party, in my judgment and recollection, came from people who viewed the thing pragmatically, that Mr. Truman's cause was hopeless and, therefore, something else must be found; and they, for want of a better front man, all coalesced in the delusion that General Eisenhower could be drafted to serve. I don't think there was -- well, the Wallace forces were active. I have forgotten whether Bob Kenney was a leader in that group or not; I can't say. If he was, it was in southern California. But the leaders of the Wallace people in northern California were not particularly potent political leaders and they were -- what's the word -- they were

[14]

provincial. They were limited in their approach to matters.

FUCHS: Could you name some of them?

MCGRATH: One who comes to mind is a dear old man, Walter Packard, who served with Mr. Wallace in the Department of Agriculture in the Roosevelt administration. He had been an Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, a magnificent man. He was essentially a scientist -- soil conservation and other things -- and a rather important Californian, and he headed a group. They were idealists. Some of the labor union people, particularly the longshoremen, particularly some of the ILGWU people, possibly some of the steel workers, and only some of their leaders, were promoting the Wallace progressive idea.

FUCHS: Did you view these people as Communists?

MCGRATH: In my judgment some of them probably were registered Communists. I would think probably that the Communist viewpoint was represented in the organization of it, but that mainly the people who were operating the

[15]

campaign were highly idealistic, dogmatic, in their idealism. I don't know what else you would call them. Walter Packard is the best example I know of a man of impeccable character, impeccable loyalty to America in every extent, every way, shape, and time, and a very useful citizen at the time, but who had no real political factor.

FUCHS: Were they mostly members of the Progressive Citizens of America which was organized around '47?

MCGRATH: I would think so. I would think so. I haven't thought about this group for a long, long time. It was really a very small minority of people. I've forgotten how many votes Wallace got in California in '48. It wasn't too many.

FUCHS: I think he got a hundred and some thousand; I read it the other day.

MCGRATH: Not very many; a very small percent.

FUCHS: He only polled a million and a hundred fifty thousand in the nation, which was far below what they said he at one time thought he was going to do.

[16]

MCGRATH: Yes, a very small percent. After the fall campaign had started, it was a question of a very few loyal, broad-gauged Democratic leaders actively working in the Truman-Barkley campaign, and the rest of them taking a vacation or working in local campaigns, such as for congressmen or state offices or things of that nature. The real problem was in motivating the normal Democratic sources, the broad groups of Democratic people who were interested in the previous Democratic administrations, to get to work to do anything. The dissidents were not of any real importance.

FUCHS: Were you personally, or was the group you were a part of, apprehensive of the Wallace movement that it might make deep inroads into the...

MCGRATH: No.

FUCHS: You weren't?

MCGRATH: No. I think we had it sized up pretty correctly all the way along the line that this was another splinter collection of people not to be taken too seriously, as of importance.

[17]

FUCHS: Well, now in '44 then, at the time you attended a dinner and met Mr. Truman, you were essentially just an avid Democrat and by '48 what was your position?

MCGRATH: In 1948 I was the Executive Secretary, or Executive Director, of the Democratic State Central Committee of California, and the executive officer of the Democratic National Committee insofar as the committeeman and committeewoman for California were in charge of it.

FUCHS: What did your duties consist of?

MCGRATH: Duties consisted of running the campaign of anybody that was running for public office, and attempting to interest the leaders and other people in becoming active. And it was rough. I think the entire amount of money we raised in northern Califonria couldn't have been much over $50,000, which was just unheard of in a Presidential campaign, even in those days, for such a large area; and we were ofttimes totally devoid of any funds at all.

FUCHS: Did this consist of a great number of small donations, or by and large...

[18]

MCGRATH: Very few, very few large hunks of money. Very, very few. The Heller family, I think, contributed several thousand dollars; later to become Judge Herbert Erskine contributed several thousand dollars. Of course, this does not include monies raised by local county groups. For instance, our Sacramento friends raised quite a little money and carried on their own campaign in that way, as did other areas. But this was the overall northern California -- you might call it the statewide campaign.

FUCHS: Was this, in part, for the Presidential, or Truman-Barkley ticket and...

MCGRATH: What I'm talking about was the Truman-Barkley campaign. Another arm would be the assistance that the State Committee gave to other campaigns such as campaigns for Congress, State Senate, State Legislature. That year, '48, we had no United States Senator candidate, having lost the Will Rogers campaign in '46, and we lost the Douglas campaign in '50. In '48 it was the Presidency and then the next office was the congressional; which is rather an oddity in this state; we had no

[19]

state offices running in '48 either.

FUCHS: The $50,000 was what went for the...

MCGRATH: That was for Truman-Barkley.

FUCHS: What did you receive, as you recall it, roughly, from the Democratic National Committee?

MCGRATH: Any money we received from the Democratic National Committee came solely from Mrs. Edward H. Heller, who was the Democratic National Committeewoman, and was her money. We received, for our purposes in this campaign, not one red cent, and we were always being importuned by the National Committee to aid them in their funds, which we did in some ways, from individuals who would want for reasons best known to them, to have their contributions made directly to the National Committee. There were always a few of those incidents.

FUCHS: Now, to your knowledge, was this an unusual situation? In other words, might you have received, say in '44 or '52, a considerable amount of money from the Democratic National Committee?

MCGRATH: Not really, because this is one of the rich states

[20]

which the National Committee, to my knowledge, always considered as a giving state, not a receiving state. I suspect much more of our money that went to the National Committee was spent in poorer areas of the country than was returned here. This is not necessarily true of campaigns for incumbent senators or congressmen. They were always assisted by the appropriate national campaign group. Cap Hardy was a Californian who ran the congressional campaigns out of the National Committee and out of the Congressional Campaign Committee headquarters, and that was, to my knowledge and recollection, a wholly other and different arm of political activity than we carried on here as the local state group. And the national committeewoman in all this time, came from northern California, and the man usually from southern California. So, here in this area, we were the arm usually of the National Committee as represented by the national committeewoman, which in the years that we speak of here, was Mrs. Eleanor R. Heller, who was more than generous in every respect at all times, and of course, could well afford to pay for affairs.

FUCHS: What about the national committeeman by this time?

[21]

MCGRATH: That floated around between -- Culbert Olson, when he was Governor was national committeeman; then Ed [Edwin W.] Pauley was, and then, rather out of my mind after Pauley.

FUCHS: Was it Roosevelt?

MCGRATH: I don't think he was ever national committeeman.

FUCHS: I thought he was by this date; maybe he wasn't.

MCGRATH: State chairman from '46 to '58.

FUCHS: Well, who succeeded Pauley when he resigned in January of '48, and do you have any comments about his resignation?

MCGRATH: No, I don't. I never was close to Mr. Pauley since he read my econ examinations when I was a freshman scholar at the University of California; and as of now it is totally out of my mind as to who succeeded Pauley as the national committeeman -- and certainly was of no assistance to us, whoever it was.

FUCHS: Are you in a position to compare this, what you've indicated was a rather small amount of money raised

[22]

for the Truman-Barkley campaign, to what has been raised say for the Roosevelt-Truman or [Adlai E.] Stevenson-[John] Sparkman...

MCGRATH: Not too accurately. I would compare it to 1938, from my personal knowledge of the Olson campaign, when I would say -- and speaking rather roughly -- several hundred thousands of dollars were raised to conduct it. In 1944 not so much, because the country was at war, and the normal political ways of doing things have been rather set aside, although there was a good strong campaign; but it was a different type of a campaign.

All right, '48, come to '52 and I was the active secretary of the Stevenson-Sparkman financial committee at which several hundred thousands of dollars were raised. The '48 campaign is startling in its lack of money in this area, and I believe that's true probably all over the country.

Again, and I seem to keep it in my mind, so I want to get it out of it, this train trip of 1948 when we did not have enough money in the coffers to rent a hall, either in San Francisco or Oakland, to rent a building to conduct a political rally for the incumbent President

[23]

of the United States and had to make arrangements for the free use of the ground in front of the City Hall of San Francisco and comparable in Oakland, to conduct evening meetings when the President came in on the train. I again will have to mention that I had been warned sternly by some of the elder leaders not to spend another nickel or to commit another nickel, and put out my own personal money of about $400, which at that time was hard to come by, to pay for lighting so that television could be taken of the President's appearance on the steps of the San Francisco City Hall at 8 o'clock in the evening.

We were startled when the crowd, assembled at the City Hall, and with absolute conservative estimates, we had over thirty-five thousand people standing in the dark in the air in the park in front of the City Hall. And across the Bay where Herb Erskine and Monroe Friedman and Pat McDonough were conducting the rally over there at 9 o'clock, over twenty-two thousand people standing out in the open awaiting the arrival of the President. It was at that point when people decided that maybe this man did have a chance to carry California and be elected.

[24]

FUCHS: Did you attend the speech there? Did you have time to -- in San Francisco and in Oakland?

MCGRATH: I did not go to Oakland. I left that in the capable hands of the people over there, but the situation in San Francisco generally was of my arrangement and I was there.

FUCHS: You didn't join the train on -- well, they came in at Truckee and on down to Roseville and Sacramento and then into San Francisco?

MCGRATH: No, our small campaign group, consisted of not more than a half a dozen people -- John F. Tolan, Jr. was assigned to the train, and it is my recollection that he came in with them and went down the Valley with them -- and had made the arrangements for that work.

FUCHS: Did the state chairman -- who at that time was who?

MCGRATH: Oliver Carter.

FUCHS: Carter. Yes, he was elected in August.

MCGRATH: In August.

FUCHS: I believe he got on the train and came down.

[25]

MCGRATH: Oh, he was the official head of the party and met the President's train, I presume before it came to California; possibly Reno or someplace.

FUCHS: Yes.

MCGRATH: And stayed with it all the time.

FUCHS: Do you recall any comments he made about anything that might have happened before he got to San Francisco, or after he got to San Francisco? Anything that might be of an anecdotal nature of some interest?

MCGRATH: Yes. In Tracy, which is a small community south of the city of Oakland, the train arrived there at possibly 5 o'clock in the morning with no intentions of stopping, was not on the program. And here were tens of thousands of people that had come from as far away as Stockton, waiting in the dark to see the train. And so our people rather hesitantly woke the President up and told him the people were waiting for him and he said, "I will get dressed and we will stop the train." And he did and he spoke in the dark at Tracy to thousands of people.

[26]

The next stop which was, what will I say, maybe Modesto or south of Modesto, the next town.

FUCHS: Well, this was after they left Oakland...

MCGRATH: After they left Oakland was to go south.

FUCHS: Yes.

MCGRATH: The next stop, of course, it was daylight.

FUCHS: When they went through Merced and Fresno and Tulare.

MCGRATH: All those places in the daylight, and millions of people lining the tracks even when the cars did not stop, literally, being almost the -- well, you can't say almost the entire, that would be foolish, but millions of people in the San Joaquin Valley out to greet the Truman train. This, of course, impressed all of us who were involved in the campaign terrifically. And of course this helped in our campaigning efforts, too; but it was really too late in the game to set up new groups and committees to raise new monies for new expenditures. So, it was a poor man's campaign all the way.

Now, what occurred when they went over the hump

[27]

from Kern County over the -- by the hump I mean the Tehachapies into southern California -- I'm not the proper one to speak of. The southern Californian campaign was in my judgment in far less capable hands than it was in northern California and less real interested people down there. Senator [E. George] Luckey was a state vice-president, that is State Senator Luckey of Imperial County, and a man named Steve Wells. If you can find him, if you can ever find Steve Wells, I'm sure he must be dead by now, because he was a rather mean man and someone must have done something to him; but he was my friend and he worked hard in that campaign down there, and very few other people. But of course, the trip that I speak of here, turned out just as successfully in the southern part of California too.

FUCHS: Well, now it is my understanding when Mr. Truman spoke on the 23rd of September at the Gilmore Stadium in Los Angeles, that that was necessitated by the fact that the Republicans, were having Dewey speak the succeeding evening in the Los Angeles Bowl, but they had, on a pretense of checking the lighting, rented, or

[28]

excluded, so to speak, Truman from using the Los Angeles Bowl. Have you ever heard that story? Is it true?

MCGRATH: I recall that story; I can't say whether it is true or not, but I recall having heard it. I don't think necessarily it was a Republican plot to exclude him. I think probably, and I'm merely stating this not as a fact but as a supposition, that probably the Democratic leadership of southern California did not have enough funds in the coffer to contribute their proper share of the lighting or the rent of the hall or anything else, because I knew that was the circumstance that we were faced with up here.

FUCHS: You mean they weren't in a financial position to get the Los Angeles Bowl and they went to a smaller space?

MCGRATH: To a smaller space.

FUCHS: To Gilmore Stadium.

MCGRATH: Simply as a practical, financial matter. Now, that's a supposition on my part, but I suspect it's

[29]

true. Generally speaking in this state, and I think it still holds, the political leaders all know one another from the state government arrangements, and we have never quibbled about practical matters such as arrangement between the two parties. There has not been a dog-eat-dog attitude on such non-substantive matters as arrangements.

FUCHS: Well, in the earlier non-political trip in June...

MCGRATH: Yes.

FUCHS: Mr. Truman attended breakfast of the International Labor Organization.

MCGRATH: That's right.

FUCHS: And then another event at the Fairmont Hotel was the luncheon, and then that evening, or sometime that afternoon, I suppose, he spoke at the Golden Gate Park.

MCGRATH: No.

FUCHS: It was a Flag Day ceremony of the Elks, sponsored by the Elks.

[30]

MCGRATH: Yes, yes, but that was after he had received the degree at Berkeley, which was, as I say, at noontime the next day.

FUCHS: The next day.

MCGRATH: The next day, that's right. It was a Flag Day ceremony in Golden Gate Park. I have no knowledge of that affair.

I do want to get in for the historical records, if you don't mind, the fact of that dinner in June, that among other things there were forty dozen red roses on the dining table, and they were beautiful. And when the dinner was over I asked the President did he have any thoughts as to what we should do with the red roses, and he very graciously plucked one rose out and told me to take it home to my wife from a fellow alumnus of the University of California. Then he inquired whether there was a veteran's hospital nearby, and I told him Letterman was within two miles distance. He said, "Will you please have the rest of the roses taken out there and distributed?" And I don't think anyone else will tell you that story. I think perhaps that's a scoop.

[31]

FUCHS: Very good. The organization of the ADA by Mrs. [Eleanor] Roosevelt, and Wilson Wyatt, and others, some believed was to offset the action of the organization of the Wallace or progressive groups.

MCGRATH: Yes.

FUCHS: Were they active in California to any extent? Do you know anyone that...

MCGRATH: Now you've got to search my memory. Most of those people are, and were, friends of mine. Who were they in northern California? I would think of a few people possibly who were connected with the University of California at Berkeley, or at Stanford. I think of Professor Newman of the law school at Berkeley, others of that general characteristic, a few liberal lawyers in San Francisco. I can't kick off a name immediately -- basically Democrats, and basically people who were a bit abhorrent of the "machine" type of Democrat. We have never really had a machine operated in California. But they were intellectuals, idealists; I can't pull too many names out of them. Certainly in my time at the Democratic Committee here we always worked cooperatively

[32]

with them.

And Mr. Humphrey was out here later on in '49 when he had been elected a Senator. The person you should see is Mrs. Milla Logan of San Francisco who was active in the '48 campaign. Milla Zinavitch Logan, a Czechoslovak lady. A rare talent in political ability; an iconoclast from the word way back, who helped organize the ADA and other such groups and was a darned good Democratic politician. The wife of Tom Logan who was a newspaperman and writer. They live in San Francisco and she should be spoken to. Milla Logan, a very capable lady. She would be the best one to fill in on a lot of the affairs of the ADA type and of their opponents within that type of thinking. She is a scholar in this field. Also well connected with labor situations.

FUCHS: The occasion when you went to North Beach with Humphrey, was that in 1949 after he was Senator, or during this campaign? What do you recall of that event?

MCGRATH: I haven't thought of that for a long time. Who

[33]

was there? Oliver Carter, Marjorie and Harold McGrath, and Tom and Milla Logan, and Hubert and Muriel Humphrey. This was arranged by Milla Logan and this was in either late '48 or '49 when he had been elected to the Senate, and he arrived in San Francisco with a homburg, which, I personally took off his head and threw under the Market Street Railway, and that's the story of that homburg.

FUCHS: Why did you do that?

MCGRATH: Because he didn't look like a Democratic Senator in San Francisco with a homburg. We spent a splendid day and he went about his duties, and we had dinner that night in Jack's Restaurant in San Francisco at which -- Carter must have told you this because you haven't seen any of the others -- at which we arrived maybe at 7 or 7:30 and we had a drink or two; and we ordered dinner and by the time that it became 11 o'clock and Senator Humphrey's steak had gone back to be warmed three times, Muriel said, "Shut up Hubert and eat your dinner!" He simply talked without drawing a breath for four solid hours, and we all had dinner and whatever else was to eat or drink. I think that's the one story you have reference to.

[34]

FUCHS: Yes, I think that was the time. He told me the story about a party in Minneapolis and something about there was no Democratic Party, it was the "Humphrey Party?"

MCGRATH: In Minneapolis, yeah.

FUCHS: Was that the occasion?

MCGRATH: Yeah. We had a good time. We always got along fine with him. Thought highly of him at all times. Now, later on, of course, one of our group, Herb Waters, became possibly his closest associate for a number of years.

FUCHS: Wallace came out here one time and they brought him up to San Francisco. Do you recall when that was?

MCGRATH: Henry Wallace was out here campaigning in 1946 and -- I've forgotten the story in San Francisco, or at least it doesn't hit me now as of great interest, but we carried on from here on down into Los Angeles. We had a big affair scheduled in the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles at which we also arranged to have Senator Alben Barkley and Secretary Wallace as the

[35]

co-guest speakers, representing what looked to be the two wings of the Democratic Party and to see how well we could get together. There was some basis for it. And it turned out to be a highly successful luncheon and affair, and Senator Barkley slaughtered, in my judgment, Secretary Wallace, whom I thought highly of and still do in many, many ways, in public presentation. One, because he was introduced second and was able to counterpoint the views that Wallace had, and was a far better speaker and Wallace was too serious. But the anecdote that strikes me there is that I had known Secretary Wallace for many years before, going back to '35 and '36, when he was then Secretary of Agriculture and had appeared at the Arvin Migratory Labor Camp, the first Federal agricultural worker's camp, of which I was the manager at the time, one day with an entourage to visit this new experiment. This was by the Resettlement Administration. And we had developed a self-government group there in the camp of maybe five hundred people. We had elected a camp council to run the camp of five people, the chairman of whom was a magnificent appearing man in his seventies, early

[36]

seventies, named Sam Eastman. And among the other things, we had the Secretary of Agriculture and his group in my home there for many hours that evening in a general discussion of economic and agricultural matters. And Mr. Wallace and his group left to go back and I asked Sam Eastman what he thought of that man and he said, "Wonderful man. He ought to work for the Government." Sam Eastman incidentally, could never read nor write.

All right. So, in 1946 at 2 a.m. I went out to the Los Angeles-Burbank airport and met Secretary Wallace on a plane the day before our meeting in Los Angeles, and at 2 a.m. he suggested that he and I walk for an hour at the Burbank airport for exercise. We walked for roughly fifteen to twenty minutes until I decided I had had enough and then we got into the car and went away.

The next day I met Senator Barkley and that was the first time I had ever met him, and he and I got along famously right from the word go. His first wife was then ill and I was, I think, a little helpful in making arrangements whereby he could speak to her, I

[37]

presume in Kentucky or Washington or some place, and he thought that that was nice. And we were friends always after that. They both appeared at the noon rally at the Biltmore Hotel the next day and it was a successful affair. That possibly is the one that you have reference to and that's all that I know about that particular trip.

Although -- no, two or three days prior to that Wallace had had a cocktail party, again at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, at which most of the people who, what shall I say, were to the left of center in the Democratic Party, were there to greet him. A lot of people who had known him when he was the Vice President and was the Secretary of Agriculture, particularly the agricultural people. Secretary Wallace made many sincere, devoted friends during the eight years that he was Secretary of Agriculture, and many of those people were around in this general area and always rallied to greet him. As far as I know I never saw Wallace after that except socially in the '50s one time in San Francisco at an affair that has nothing to do with politics. He was passing through, I think.

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FUCHS: Why do you think Jimmy Roosevelt was, you might say, a political failure in California?

MCGRATH: Because he insisted on doing things too rapidly. He and I were quite close at one time. After we became acquainted in 1948, I traveled with him during the campaign and arranged most of his affairs, speaking affairs, in both parts of the state. I counseled with him to be patient and to serve as he was then a state chairman, and to help other people for a period of years, because he was then a very young man. He seemed to agree that the future was ahead of him in California, but within four years he was off and running himself as the great man; again in a hopeless situation where he was challenging an almost unbeatable candidate, Earl Warren. He used poor judgment and he did not broaden his base of political friendship properly in California. I think he started that way in 1948 and he had all the goodwill, and everybody with him and for him, and he lost it, as far as I'm concerned. I saw no duplicity between he and I, or anything of that nature, but I've heard so many stories, from people whose judgments I think is true, that he would

[39]

deal with them in a two-faced manner. I suspect that he was quite capable of considerable duplicity even when it was totally unwise to be anything other than frank. If that’s a play on -- pun on words, that’s a good one. And in no way was his father like this. His father was a political animal whom you could deal with and whose word was good; and Jimmy, no. Now, just after we ignominiously lost the 1948 election, Jimmy started to attempt to rebuild, to quote, "to rebuild the Democratic Party in California."

FUCHS: The ‘48 election?

MCGRATH: No, the ‘46 election.

FUCHS: Kenney for Governor.

MCGRATH: Well, after that. Our head situation in the fall of ‘46 was Will Rogers, Jr. for the United States Senate. We have already lost the governorship in the spring, but we were badly beaten in the fall. We lost our senatorship, and Jimmy started to do several things. He and former Congressman George Outland (who had been defeated for reelection in the Santa Barbara area by 211 votes in the 1946 election), started an intellectual study committee to regroup

[40]

and to reform the Democratic Party, which, of course, was an especially good idea after a defeat and is a standard procedure. But in my judgment I could see that he wanted to do it too much in his own way, without considering the other forces that were of importance to the Democratic Party in California.

FUCHS: What seat did you lose in '46?

MCGRATH: We didn't lose a seat. Senator [William F.] Knowland had been appointed by the Governor and this was his first shot at it, and we thought we had him defeated handily by running Will Rogers, Jr. who was, I believe, an incumbent congressman that year; and we were defeated.

FUCHS: Any comments on the defeat of [H. Jerry] Voorhis in...

MCGRATH: Yes, I had always been an admirer, although not a close friend of Jerry Voorhis, in the old [Richard H.] Nixon district; and he had been a congressman for ten years and we were very, always, proud of him. He made a startling good start in the New Deal days '30s; but by 1946, 1 recall a luncheon meeting in his

[41]

district, either in maybe Covina or someplace in rural Los Angeles County and five hundred people at lunch. This was Jerry Voorhis' district so naturally the party was set up for him, but we had other important people, Jimmy Roosevelt and Pat Brown and other political leaders also at the head table, none of whom got to get a word in edgewise and half the audience went home, while Congressman Voorhis harangued his friends and constituents for an hour and forty minutes without a bit of humor. Simply talked himself to death. And the Republican people had this young man Nixon running against him, we believed, almost for the exercise. But Jerry beat himself by serious, ponderous, lengthy, harangues (that's the only word that you could use), of his own constituents, of his own friends.

FUCHS: Did anyone ever try to get to him on this?

MCGRATH: I tried to tell him and he'd say, "Go away, it's my district, I'll do it my way." So he had become what some politicians do, above the set of circumstances. Maybe he believed his own press clips or something.

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FUCHS: Think he got Potomac fever?

MCGRATH: Maybe so. He beat himself and he was a very useful citizen in the early years, too. It was unfortunate. Of course, again, he still might have made it, excepting in '48 we had a losing situation here, and it got worse as the year went on.

FUCHS: What other problems presented themselves besides the one of funds in '48? Who came to assist you in the way of speakers, say from the Speaker's Bureau of the Democratic National Committee?

MCGRATH: As far as I know, no one. Oscar Chapman was, of course, helpful as a liaison man, but not as a public figure, and was in and out of the state attempting to do his very best to organize things. I can't say for sure that Charlie Brannan was through here. Clinton Anderson for several years was rather interested in California politics and would appear whenever asked. By that time I believe, though, he had all -- no, that year he was running for United States Senator from New Mexico, taking care of his own affairs.

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Outside of the Truman trip with the Truman train, which was in retrospect a masterful, almost a classical piece of whistlestop campaigning -- maybe the best one in the history of the country -- outside of that episode, and the fact that it showed that the people had a great deal of affection for President Truman (and he knew how to utilize that campaigning), the best, effective campaigner we had was Alben Barkley, who went through here maybe two times during the campaign and who performed brilliantly.

Now, Howard McGrath had been through and was the national chairman. Much earlier than that Gael Sullivan, another Irishman from Rhode Island. He and Howard were not particularly close friends, and I have heard that they were, in fact, antagonistic in many ways, although not from either of them. He had performed a good organizing job, I think, from the national committee's viewpoint, when he was the executive of the national committee, but that was prior to the '48 campaign. Howard McGrath was out here in the spring of '48 attempting to organize, and we had him as a speaker at our Jackson Day

[44]

dinner. An episode there, where Edmund G. Brown was the chairman -- and we were constantly attempting to build Mr. Brown as a public candidate in California, which was successfully done in later years -- and he introduced Howard McGrath, and he even entertained him in his home.

Ah, this might be of interest! In the spring of '48 Senator McGrath made a tour through here officially, to speak at the dinner, and we appointed Pat Brown as the chairman. And Pat Brown had a dear friend, who was a good Democrat, named Bill Newsome. He was the treasurer of our campaign and he was the president of the California Electoral College. After we won the election, he was elected president of the California Electoral College and took our California votes back to Washington to elect Mr. Truman. Well, Bill Newsome had money. Brown never had any money and had his pockets sewed up so that there was no chance of ever getting -- Pat Brown has yet to buy the first drink, meal, cigar, or anything else for any other human being; and I love him dearly and we are dear friends. So, Brown was the chairman and we had to entertain the distinguished

[45]

national chairman, Senator McGrath. So, Bill Newsome said, "We'll entertain him. Pat will entertain him. I'll pay for it." So, we had all of our committee, which was a number of people, several score of people, out at Brown's home in San Francisco where Edmund G. Brown's at that time seventy-odd year old mother, now 92 and alive, was introduced to Chairman McGrath and who said, "I'm for Wallace. My maiden name is Wallace." This was in Pat Brown's home. Well, that was a good start of the evening, I can assure you.

We later adjourned to the Lakeside Golf Club where we had a delightful dinner, paid for by Bill Newsome, for which Mr. Brown was the host, maybe fifty, sixty people. And we had a wonderful time and an excellent dinner, but Edmund G. Brown kept defending his mother, Mrs. Wallace Brown's, right to vote for anybody, and who'd want to vote for Truman anyway. The very next night he was introducing the national chairman and so forth. The night after that when Howard McGrath was due to go to Los Angeles, which is a story in itself to get from some of the southerners, because Roosevelt gutted him. There was Pat Brown helping Jimmy gut the national chairman in Los Angeles.

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This is all in the spring before the election. So, outside of the loyal Trumanites, our group in San Francisco, Howard McGrath had a rather unsuccessful, rather unhappy experience as the national chairman in California. Later on when we won the election we entertained him properly out here, I think.

FUCHS: Is Harold McGrath related to J. Howard McGrath?

MCGRATH: Am I related to J. Howard McGrath? We finally evolved that we were third cousins once removed, the forebears all coming from County Tipperary at one time or another.

FUCHS: Third cousins?

MCGRATH: Yeah. Someplace along we found a connection. And I always found him a dear friend, and I have a picture here which he inscribed to me, which may or may not be of interest to anybody.

I must get in the fact that the very, very small group of people in northern California in 1948 who conducted the Truman-Barkley campaign, formed what is known as the California Coonskinners; and this of

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course, is prior to the time of Senator [Estes] Kefauver's use of the coonskin cap, because rather vainly we like to think that we introduced Estes Kefauver to the coonskin cap. We probably didn't, but at that time, I think 1948 was his first shot at the United States Senate from Tennessee. We had him out here at one time; but we formed the California Coonskinners and wrote poetry, songs, and etc. ascribed to these letters.

FUCHS: How did you get that name?

MCGRATH: I kind of forgotten, other than the fact that I had a cap which I found advertised in a magazine from some organization in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where they make winter hats out of animal skins and so forth. And while mine wasn't a coonskin cap, it was a woodsman type hat, they sent along their catalog featuring a coonskin, and I think between Jack Tolan and Jack Abbott and myself, we evolved the idea that we would buy a coonskin cap for Oliver Carter, who was our chairman, who essentially was a mountain boy and whose father, State Supreme Court Justice Jesse Carter, never had a pair of shoes on until he was seventeen years old.

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He was born and raised in the forks of salmon country of Siskiyou County and was a poor mountain boy, in the total poorer than any mountain boy ever lived; he never had shoes, he had deerskin moccasins. This is Oliver Carter's father. So, we kind of always rather enjoyed the second generation Carters, and we got him a coonskin cap, presented it to him. Then we ordered many more and presented them to distinguished Democratic people who had been involved in the '48 campaign; and we wrote songs and poems, and at the drop of a hat I'll sing them all to you.

FUCHS: Were you in any position to know Mrs. Heller's views of Edwin Pauley when they were serving together?

MCGRATH: I maybe know a lot of things about that, but I don't know them as absolute facts; but I would talk on the subject for this reason; that Mr. Pauley is a product of the University of California, and was a poor man as a youth. The Heller family are products (if one can use it that way), of the University of California, and I speak of the University of California in Berkeley, and were and are, very rich people. Mrs.

[49]

E. F. Heller once told me that she is the only woman in the history of mankind that can say that her father, her brother, and her son were all Regents of the University of California. Both the Pauleys and the Hellers, to speak objectively, love the University of California at Berkeley through family connections, as do I.

Mr. Pauley is a self-made man, and he has given millions of dollars to the University of California. He was first appointed to the Board of Regents by Governor Olson in the '30s, and has served for thirty odd years as a regent of the University of California.

Ed Heller is a graduate of the University of California class of 1921. His grandfather was a regent of the University of California; and he was appointed a regent of the University of California by Governor Olson in the late '30s. And, parenthetically, during the [Joseph] McCarthy days when the loyalty of the teachers of the University of California -- laws were attempted to be passed locally to require "loyalty oaths" and the intellectual community opposed the use of loyalty oaths; and Ed Heller as a regent, and other people, successfully defeated the use of loyalty oaths.

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Governor Olson made a special trip from his home in Los Angeles to San Francisco to confront Regent Heller and to say to him that, "I had great misgivings of appointing a man as rich as you to any public office," -- Governor Olson was essentially a socialist -- "but I want to come and tell you you're the finest appointment I made in my administration. Those other bums such as that Pauley, etc., that I put on that Board of Regents should be kicked off," or words to that effect. So that -- Ed Pauley, and Ed Heller, both Democrats, but of different backgrounds and different views, yet serving together, and really working together, certainly, for the good of the University of California, and secondarily for the good of the Democratic Party in California, but never really close friends; and in later years in businesses that were not compatible. Not that they necessarily crossed in any direct way; but there was always a wariness between the two of them. I speak mainly from Heller's viewpoint, although I grew up with Mrs. Pauley and know something of their circumstances, also. The Hellers are my dear friends in many ways, and I know their views. I would say that

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Mrs. Heller, a charming and cultured lady, Mrs. Eleanor Heller, would cooperate in every conceivable way with Mr. Pauley on unimportant matters (maybe that's the best way of saying it), and would find ways of getting things, from her view and from the Heller view and from our general views, to be executed successfully even though Mr. Pauley may not have been of that line of thinking.

In other words, let's say this about Mr. Pauley; it appeared to us that he wanted to use his political influence in a more businesslike monetary way, and the Hellers, to my absolute knowledge, never profited in any direct, or that I could see, indirect way from their political connections; and they didn't have to, they already were inordinately rich in every respect. Superficially they worked together (in answer to your question), but never as real close associates. I can't think of any real divergence. The only thing comes to my mind is this loyalty oath issue at the University of California, where Mr. Pauley represented what we would classify as the repressive attitude, and Mr. Heller was the other way around.

Mr. Pauley has been reappointed a Regent by now Governor [Ronald] Reagan. Mr. Heller and all of his

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friends would never be reappointed by Mr. Reagan, I am sure. Mrs. Heller has currently succeeded her husband, and is currently a Regent of the University of California, as is the Governor, and they vote in opposite ways; and the Governor and Mr. Pauley vote the same way.

FUCHS: Jimmy Roosevelt was a national committeeman in '52.

MCGRATH: I guess he was.

FUCHS: In January '52.

MCGRATH: Yeah.

FUCHS: So, he would have been elected in what year?

MCGRATH: I guess he was elected national committeeman in '48. Yes, I guess he was.

FUCHS: Now, Pauley resigned in January of '48. Was there an interim where they had no national committeeman or national committeewoman? I can't remember.

MCGRATH: It's not in my memory at the moment. Whoever it was I didn't cross his path at the time. Yes, Jimmy was later. Now whether or not he was selected

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to fill the unexpired part of Pauley's term, I have forgotten, I don't know.

FUCHS: How did the Californians view the attempt by Mr. Truman to have Pauley appointed the Under Secretary of the Navy?

MCGRATH: From my point of view, we didn't like it, but we weren't going to do anything about it. Now, by "our" I'm saying, possibly the rather limited view of the current leadership of most of the northern California group. We always thought of Mr. Pauley as, "Yes, we wanted him on our side, but keep him at arms length." We would have hoped to see other types of people appointed to these positions, but we were always pretty good politicians and never started to fight our own people just for one job or things of that nature.

Maybe that's kind of glumming it over, nobody did anything to stop the appointment; it was just, I would say, kind of, "Too bad, should have got somebody better. Should have had somebody more in tune with our way of thinking," which is the story of northern and southern California. It is very, very seldom that the, what shall I say, the social Democratic viewpoints of

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Democratic Party in northern California, where we win elections, and have since '32, coincide with the view of the Democratic leadership of southern California by and large. And this is true in other activities of like in California. You will find it in almost every field that you deal in. The labor people say, "My God, we get along fine up here, but those kooks we've got in Los Angeles." You find it in many many fields and activities. It is true in the business life of California. The people who are business leaders and active in the business world in the San Francisco northern California area are a different type of person, generally speaking, than those in southern California. Not that they -- I don't imply that they are better in any way, but they are different. But southern California is a lotus-land of -- it's an amazing place, it's an amazing place. It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. Too many people, too -- oh, lord, it's a melting pot. It's an interesting social phenomena -- has been for what, sixty, seventy years now. People from all over this country and elsewhere mesh in there and live. It's very interesting. Generally, though, our (by "our" I mean the Democratic Party in modern

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times in California) leadership has come from the northern part of the state. It's been exceptional. We have some excellent congressmen down there; Chet Holifield, Lionel Van Deerlin, young [Richard F.] Hanna from Orange County, he is a magnificent young man; Tom Rees from -- excellent cover, with a future. In this day and age, John Tunney, and the man who is running for the Senate this time, Brown, whom, I believe, is a kin of William Jennings Bryan. I think he is a greatgrandson of William Jennings Bryan. I can't say that as a fact, but I think so. And other interesting people. But they do seem to kind of hang in the senatorial, the congressional level, and we don't develop out of southern California, or we haven't so far, our larger scope political leaders. Maybe we will this time with young Tunney. I kind of think highly of him.

FUCHS: Northern Californians are more of a -- well, they are all immigrants, but more indigenous stock, so to speak, natives.

MCGRATH: Well, they may be a little more stable now;

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but another generation or two has passed -- a little more stable, or perhaps a little more human. It is a climate that is more in tune to change three or four times a year, whereas southern California remains on a level. I think anthropologists, or scientists, do have some views that climate has a great deal to do with the way people perform under circumstances. In northern California we have a distinct summer and winter and spring and fall season; and seasons have something to do with it. It's interesting the type of person, newcomers to California, who given a choice -- which all of us have had at one time or another -- gravitate to the north, and those who gravitate to the south. There is a difference in people, generally speaking. It's just like the mild climate down there, and the flat lands, and the calm ocean, and the less greenery, and those who prefer up here in the wilder Pacific Ocean, the larger mountains, the snow, the variety of agriculture, different things.

FUCHS: Environment changes them after they are here, but they are different when they come here, too. They select the habitat.

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MCGRATH: They select. They have a choice. I know in my personal experiences during my life I've talked to scores of people, "Why did you come here," and "Why did you come there?" Actually, parenthetically, in 1938 the Ku Klux Klan of Tulare County threatened me in the middle of the night, because earlier that evening I had made a speech to three hundred Chamber of Commerce people at which I had explained in answer to a question, "Why are all these Oakies and Arkies settling in our area here?" I had explained to them that I had asked many of them that question and that they had told me, "Because it's like it is back home, that's why we're here." And this had been taken as an insult to the local characters. Funny world.

FUCHS: They didn't want you repeating it.

MCGRATH: Well, I had the right to say, because I was the oldest Californian in terms of heredity, I guess, than anyone else in the audience.

FUCHS: Was labor a crucial issue in the '48 campaign? Did Taft-Hartley have great power as an issue here?

MCGRATH: Yes, it did. Now, I will have to test my memory.

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When was Taft-Hartley? When was that act?

FUCHS: It had been passed.

MCGRATH: It had been passed.

FUCHS: He had said that he would appeal for a repeal of it.

MCGRATH: But the Taft-Hartley was on the books.

FUCHS: Yes.

MCGRATH: Yes, it was the most important factor and perhaps next to agriculture, I would say, that is the next important factor. Next to the agricultural program, that’s the next most important factor of mass voting appeal. I can start by talking on that one way. In 1948 among other things we were looking for candidates for other office, and in district one, which is this district where we are now, it goes from -- at that time -- from the San Francisco Bay to the Oregon border on the Pacific coast -- and long-time Congressman Clarence Lee had retired, or was retiring, and therefore there was a vacancy. We had

[59]

prevailed on a young man named Roger Kent the Democratic son of former Congressman William Kent, a Republican in this district, to run on our ticket.

The story that I have to tell about Roger Kent is something like this: We had prevailed upon him to run for Congress and we had an excellent candidate. And almost the very first day that we had prevailed upon him, we arranged for meetings with the labor people and they were friendly. They had found a good candidate they thought, and almost the first question they asked him was, "How do you stand on Taft-Hartley," and he inadvertently blurted out, "I favor the law." He just had not familiarized himself either with the law or with the viewpoint of the Democratic Party at that time, and the day he decided to run in my judgment, was the day he lost the election. The labor people just went up in arms at that point. It was just an unhappy political mistake. So that, the labor people were vitally concerned about the Taft-Hartley Act and they supported President Truman. They were a great help.

Now, again, as everybody else, many of them thought it was a hopeless cause, and usually labor had been one of the great financial supporters for the

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Democratic Party in northern California, and it was hard getting that this year. They preferred to put most of their money into other races where they felt they had a chance of winning. I don't want to speak with too great authority here because I was not privy to the financial arrangements that organized labor had. I say that from our viewpoint, hoping we could get more money from them; but they participated thoroughly in every way. And a man that you should interview is Jack Goldberger, a labor leader in San Francisco. Very definitely. He's an interesting character, he's a Teamster. He was just getting started in politics this year, and he was most useful to us, although he got mad at me when I wouldn't let him sit on the top shelf of the distinguished guests at the outdoor rally when the President spoke.

FUCHS: This was in...

MCGRATH: This was outdoors in San Francisco. I thought, "Well, hell, here's a good guy. I can put him do here," because we didn't have enough room -- people marching through -- and he became mad. I should have had him up in front, which was poor judgment on my part.

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You should realize people coming from the ranks of labor it would have been far more important for him to sit there than some rich donor, you know, that didn't have to, or potential rich donor. But labor was most helpful. Again John Hennings and Neal Haggerty. Cornelius J. Haggerty, of Washington, D.C.; he's an old man now.

FUCHS: Was he the one that was the AFL man in California?

MCGRATH: He was the executive secretary here. Cornelius J. Haggerty, a fine man to work with, in every respect, and a broad-gauge man. He later served a term appointment of Earl Warren as a Regent of the University of California, the first labor Regent. But he's the head of the building trades in Washington, D.C. now. He would have some interesting things to say, I'm sure. San Francisco is a labor town. The Democratic Party in San Francisco has always worked for organized labor, true to East Bay, true to a lesser degree in some of the smaller communities because they are more rural oriented.

FUCHS: Are you acquainted with a gentleman named John

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Anson Ford in Los Angeles?

MCGRATH: I am indeed. He and I were good friends. Now, I have to soak my memory. The Ford whom I really admired in Los Angeles was Tom [Thomas Francis] Ford, a congressman from a district that I once was going to -- I moved to Los Angeles to run to succeed him, and then personal circumstances changed my plans and Helen Gahagan Douglas ran for that seat to succeed Congressman Tom Ford; he was a magnificient man in every way.

The other Ford was John Anson Ford, who was a member of the Board of Supervisors of Los Angeles County; and I believe he once attempted to run for Governor or Lieutenant Governor of California, and was an interesting Democratic politician. We sometimes could work with him and his friends in Los Angeles.

Now, '48, what was his position in '48, I have -- I can't say.

FUCHS: He was then supervisor of the Third District, and he wrote the President a letter and I was just sort of

[63]

curious in that he said:

We foresee in California and the nation a real contest between conservatives and progressives. This will apply particularly to the National Democratic Convention and the makeup of the California delegation. For over twenty years I have studied California's distinctive political trends; therefore, I ask that you recognize that California is eighty to eighty-five percent liberal, if my estimate is correct, I earnestly suggest that you give your primary endorsement to your delegation headed by James Roosevelt our state chairman.

I wonder if you have a comment on that.

MCGRATH: John Anson Ford would be a dogmatic liberal. I think we only had one delegation of which Jimmy would have been the chairman. I have forgotten whether anybody was attempting to form an opposition slate. I don't recall. I would say that this would be an effort of John Anson Ford in all sincerity to try and button up a one-slate situation. He was a pretty good politician.

FUCHS: This was in August '47.

MCGRATH: Yes.

FUCHS: When Roosevelt was attempting to vote for Eisenhower.

MCGRATH: Yes. Oh, in '47 he wrote that letter.

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FUCHS: Yes.

MCGRATH: Well, isn't that interesting? That means that in '47 Jimmy had charmed John Anson and that they were getting along. I would suspect a year later that John Anson would have said, "No."

FUCHS: I was wondering one thing about his figures. Eighty to eighty-five percent liberals in California, and also...

MCGRATH: Oh, that's not a true figure. How can you tell one. What is a liberal? And eighty percent in a large place as California. I would say that that's oratory.

FUCHS: He tends to be dogmatic anyhow, you say.

MCGRATH: I would say he considers himself a true liberal, or did; he must be dead by now. I don't know, maybe he isn't. If he isn't, go find him.

FUCHS: That's another one.

MCGRATH: He was important in a -- not in a major way -- but important political leader in California over a

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period of years, and held an elected position in Los Angeles County. He's an honest man and a sincere man. I think at this point probably Jimmy had charmed him.

FUCHS: Apparently this was -- there again -- the dispute on the method of selecting delegates between Pauley, as committeeman, and Roosevelt as chairman.

MCGRATH: As state chairman. Well, again, Los Angeles was always fighting. By and large, in northern California, 1932 of course, we had a variety of slates; we had three or four slates. The John Nance Garner slate represented California in the '32 convention; but after that, after the Roosevelt election we always were able to pull our affairs together; until 1952 in northern California, a gang of Jimmy Roosevelt's real friends and supporters were able to support Kefauver against a Stevenson, or our regular delegation. But for twenty-odd years we would have harmony here by putting a variety of views on the thing.

FUCHS: Do you have any recollection of the event in about

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the middle of '47, or earlier in '47, when Jimmy Roosevelt drafted a statement of policy which seemed to be against Truman's foreign policy, and he called for a meeting of the party delegates to vote on this statement of policy?

MCGRATH: I recall that. That was drafted essentially by Jimmy Roosevelt and former Congressman George Outland. You should interview George Outland. He is a professor of political science at San Francisco State College, lives there, former Congressman from Santa Barbara. Again, he broke with Roosevelt, and at this time, they were close friends and associates.

Yes, this is what I had reference to earlier after the defeat of '46. Roosevelt attempted to reorganize, in his way, the Democratic Party in California and starting with a statement of principles, which I believe George Outland is the principal author of, former Congressman Outland. Yes, I know about that because one of the early meetings of that group was in my home in San Francisco. Merely an idea of half a dozen people, maybe -- or three or four I think (Outland and Roosevelt stick in my mind), saying, "What can be done

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now to get the Democratic Party reorganized," and the first thing was a statement of principles. I can't say by memory, but it was generally not favorable to the foreign policy of the Truman administration.

FUCHS: Would you object to reading this memo or glancing at it, by Will Rogers, and maybe you can give some comment on it.

MCGRATH: Well, Will got awfully mad at Jimmy and these other people, and turned almost into a right-winger after he lost his election.

FUCHS: Now that date on there is the filing date and the document is undated, so I don't know exactly when this was. This is a copy of a memo written by Will Rogers, Jr.

MCGRATH: Will Rogers, Jr. Well, I don't want to comment about him. He's had a lot of trouble in his life. Wife in trouble. He ran into trouble later on. I don't know where he is now. You certainly should talk to him if you haven't. But yes, I remember this. Will Rogers represented the status quo and the

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Roosevelt-Outland views were something new -- "As submitted by George Outland." Yeah, here, "endorsed by James Roosevelt." And both Outland and Rogers considered themselves, more or less dogmatic experts on foreign policy. I don't think Jimmy was ever dogmatic on it and their views were different.

Well, this would be Rogers' defense of the Truman foreign policy, and a critique of what Outland, essentially, and Roosevelt were attempting to develop to change that. I think the point that I would make there is that -- Jimmy is a pragmatic man, as his father was -- and Jimmy's idea of doing this would be to attempt to create something that would be more appealing to the voters of California. I don't think Jimmy would think twice as to the validity of the foreign policy of the United States. Outland would, but Jimmy would use a thing like this to attempt to -- he wanted to reorganize and reorient the Democratic Party in California, and to his credit, after the Rogers' defeat of '48.

FUCHS: Well, why would the Truman Doctrine and the spending of funds to rehabilitate Europe and the Marshall plan, be something that would not be favored by -- especially

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by the voters of California. What are the views: did they differ vividly on foreign policy?

MCGRATH: Yeah. Yeah, there is a difference. Essentially it's the difference of the views of the foreign policy of the United States -- it has gone on for many, many generations. Isolationism versus internationalism. In essence you see it today. The forces of righteousness are all in favor of closing out of the Vietnam war tomorrow. George Outland and Roosevelt represented that viewpoint in a different way, of what, twenty-odd years ago. And as I recall, there was no unanimity in this country, that Mr. Truman and Secretary Marshall were doing the right thing in attempting to rehabilitate, what, Greece and Turkey.

FUCHS: The Truman Doctrine; yes, aid to Greece and Turkey and...

MCGRATH: And the whole...

FUCHS: And then whole Europe.

MCGRATH: About that. And it would hinge on personalities. Is Truman doing what Roosevelt would have done? This

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was the popular concept. And this is what Jimmy Roosevelt was trying to cash in on. I don't think Jimmy could care less as to the difference of the views as to whether the money should be spent in rehabilitating Greece, Turkey, or any other place, but would it be popular. What is the popular thing? Whereas, Outland, I think, had genuine beliefs and views that perhaps the Truman Doctrine was not the right thing to do, and Rogers, as he says, "...right down to the bricks," -- "I am for the present direction of American foreign policy right down to the bricks" -- Will Rogers, Jr.

FUCHS: What do you recall of the campaign of Nixon and Douglas in '50?

MCGRATH: Well, in many ways I consider myself the inventor, politically, of Helen Gahagan Douglas, who was a lovely, charming and swell gal, and is. And in the 1950 campaign Sheridan Downey was retiring as United States Senator from California, and there is a lot of stories about that, of which I am not the right person to talk to about; but, at any rate, he had decided to retire, and the more liberal-thinking group of people,

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particularly from southern California, convinced Mrs. Douglas at that time that she should run for the United States Senate. Many people in northern California, the more conservative people, many of them our friends, preferred someone else. Whether it was chauvinistic because she was a woman, and two an actress, even though they liked her and enjoyed her personally -- those are pretty hard things to combat in those days -- they ended up supporting the publisher of the Los Angeles News, Mr. Manchester Boddy, who was a good man, and a fine man and a good Democrat and everything else. So, it ended up when Senator Downey retired. The more prudent, the more cautious, the more socially acceptable people supported Mr. Boddy and Mrs. Gahagan handily defeated him. And I had a bit of an underhanded piece of work to do on that because I favored Mrs. Douglas, and I did everything I could internally to help her. A man does -- becomes a damn gossip I must say parenthetically -- but I worked with my friend Eleanor Heller, the national committeewoman, very hard to help Mrs. Douglas, whereby my dear friend, and Mrs. Heller's husband, worked very hard and contributed money to Manchester Boddy. But this was a good internal Democratic fight and Helen beat

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Boddy handily; and Nixon, because of his affairs with the Hill Committee and the LA Times behind him, took off to run for the seat and he slaughtered Helen Douglas and he did it in the usual way, he played dirty pool. He accused her of -- almost to the point of being a registered Communist and yet never would say the word that could be pinned down in any sort of a libelous way at all. But he and his principal, the Los Angeles Times, at that time were able to get over the idea that: One, you didn't want a woman Senator; two, you didn't want a damned actress; and three, you didn't want a Red representing California in the United States Senate. So, he beat her.

My principal interest was, in the final of that '50 campaign, was in her and in Pat Brown who was elected Attorney General at that time. That was the one that we won. Roosevelt was defeated for Governor, and Helen lost and Brown was our principal interest, really, because he was ours and we knew he would win. And that's another whole story about how he beat a man named Frederick Napoleon Howser, who literally, I guess, could be called a common thief. It was an easy position for Brown to win, so he won and we lost all the other

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seats. But Helen had a fighting chance. My judgment is really that the Korean war which broke about the summer of 1950 defeated her.

FUCHS: How's that?

MCGRATH: I think Nixon had rather cleverly painted the idea that if she wasn't a Red she was pretty close to it and too far to the left. And here we were suddenly, now, engaged in a shooting operation against, formally, the Communist, and the common reaction of the voters, with all these other things, a woman, an actress, says, "Ah, let's not take a chance. We can't take a chance. It's too much of a risk." She might have won without the shooting episode of the Korean war, because she was a ringtailed dandy and a magnificent campaigner. And she would wear a cape and was dramatic and knew how to conduct herself. And this is what we have ended up with now, Ronnie Baby, Governor of California, an actor; and I blame myself because she was the first one of the whole movie community that we pulled into the political arena. She was a good congressman, a good district congresswoman.

Well, what else about that?

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FUCHS: Downey resigned. Sheridan Downey resigned to give Mr. Nixon some seniority. Do you look upon favor to that sort of thing, the Democrats?

MCGRATH: I do not, no. If there is anything to our system of government, a person is elected to do certain things and he has legal responsibilities and duties and he must fulfill those duties. And I think if they resign to give someone else some sort of an advantage it is trickery. Maybe that's too damn moralistic an attitude, but I think that it is correct. It just happened in this community only recently, on our local school board, a man who was not going to run because he was soon to become a judge, refused to resign to give someone else a chance to run as an incumbent. I counseled with him and advised him to do that, that it was the right thing to do. The people think that if you're elected to a four-year term, by God, you are elected to serve and do your best for that entire term. I think it is chicanery to give somebody else the false idea of a few days seniority. And it's particularly bad to give one of your own ilk the false idea of incumbency, although it's commonly done. I suppose there is a reason if a

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man is in very poor health, dying of cancer, or some damned thing, and cannot perform his duties, then probably he does have a responsibility; but that's a different thing than doing it for political advantage. I just think that's unsound. I think you will find most of the Democratic politicians and Republican politicians of southern California -- I mentioned a little earlier that we never squabbled about mechanics or getting along -- this has not been a dirty place in recent times, politically speaking; pretty damn clean politics all the way across the board. Of course, there are some exceptions, particularly in local areas. But since the reform days of Hyram Johnson's administration in 1910, 1912, and around in there, the California government has been reformed. There are many criticisms that can be made and many criticisms of this not being sufficient party government, but by and large, those reforms have held now for sixty years and have created a good governmental climate in California. By and large, it is true. What happens next, who knows? You get endorsed a common thief, people like that, here and there, but that's southern California.

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I suppose you should interview Mayor [Samuel William] Yorty of California. The man is no goddamned good in every respect whatsoever. Sam Rayburn got him about the fourth day he was first in Congress. He run up there, "Here's a bill Mr. Speaker."

"Go sit down."

Came back the next day, "I want my bill introduced."

"I told you yesterday go sit down."

Came up two days later, "I insist that you accept my bill."

He said, "Young man, I am the Speaker, and as long as I live and you're in this hall, no bill with your name on it will ever be accepted;" and it never was.

FUCHS: How come Rayburn was so against him?

MCGRATH: He just smelled the guy, I think, on instinct. He's a venal character that bird; and he's been on our side for many years, and guts us and supports the other end of the deal. So what, that's personality. But he should be interviewed; he's part of the picture.

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FUCHS: Do you think that it might have been in the back of people's mind and redounded to Jimmy Roosevelt's disadvantage in '50, that he was using the governorship as a stepping-stone if he could get it, and perhaps...

MCGRATH: Oh, no question.

FUCHS: And you think that was a factor in his defeat?

MCGRATH: Well, the main factor was the poor timing, his overanxiousness, which I told him as bluntly as could be -- as did many other people who at the time thought kindly of him, and who were thinking what was best for him -- to bide his time. Of course, he had some views of political activities that may be a little naive and among those views, which had some merit to it, is always take on a big champion because if you lick a champion, you're that much better than licking somebody else. And Earl Warren was a big man and running for a third term (unheard of in California), had been defeated with Dewey and many, many things. So, I suppose Jimmy thought he had a clay pigeon. Well, he didn't; the people of California always have thought highly of Earl

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Warren all the way through. Jimmy just picked the wrong time and his timing was atrocious for his own political career in every respect.

FUCHS: Of course, he issued lots of statements that he would serve a full term if elected. Do you think that he would...

MCGRATH: I don't think that he would, Jimmy. Jimmy was a pragmatist, as his father was. Only his father was an honest pragmatist. In politics you do many things. Your word has to be good. Your written statement can be worthless, but your word has to be good. Now, what do you mean by good word? I've explained this to dozens of youngsters in politics. That means when you give your word, you adhere to it. If you find as time goes on that conditions change and it is wrong for you to adhere to that word, you don't be a goddamned fool; but before you change that you go to the people to whom you have given your word, and you thrash it out with them and reach a new understanding. And this is the way politics is conducted. This is a sore subject with me. I was lecturing on it as early as this morning to a man who

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is going to run for Congress in this district -- almost hopeless, but is a magnificent candidate -- explaining a few things. But I don't know that's relevant to what your query was there.

FUCHS: Did you come in touch with Robert Hannegan when he was chairman?

MCGRATH: Only casually. Only to shake hands and help on arrangements. I worked closely for a number of years with a man named Robert Moore, who was from Missouri, and I believe Hannegan brought him into the national committee. He was my working relationship with the national committee for a number of years. I've often wondered what happened to him?

FUCHS: What about Bill Boyle?

MCGRATH: Boyle later became chairman and, particularly, we worked closely with him in 1949 when he had a western states conference here. Of course, this was after the '48 election, and we had a big affair in San Francisco, eleven western states conference, lasting for several days, under the auspices of the national committee, which I organized and ran. Boyle, of course,

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as the national chairman was their man here. I worked with him; and an able person, a good politician in my judgment whose word was good and you could work with. We had an excellent conference there. The President was not here. I think Mr. Barkley was our principal speaker at the main affair and others, Brannan, Chapman and so forth.

FUCHS: Do you recall any anecdotes in connection with any of these figures? I believe [Julius A.] Krug was there and also Charles Sawyer.

MCGRATH: Krug was earlier. Krug was in '46 and '47. He served as Secretary of Interior.

FUCHS: But I believe he was at that gathering in September of '49 as Secretary, and Chapman came along as Under Secretary.

MCGRATH: Yes, that could be true. I never got along with Krug. I think I was a little impolite to him out here. I know some of my friends were rather shocked that I had to tell him to shut up and "go over there" and -- he didn't conduct himself in the way that I thought

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that a person should have coming in here (this is a joke of course now), as our guest and he didn't take orders. We have these visiting people and we used them to raise money and to advance our political contacts, and we expect them to work when they come out here.

I had a hard time with my dear friend Howard McGrath his first trip out here. He locked himself in the bathroom one day. I had many groups of people, and time was tight. And I simply broke the lock on the bathroom door at the Palace Hotel and there he was sitting on the can reading the paper. And I took the paper off of him, and I says, "You button up and get out here. You're here to work." Nobody had ever said that to J. Howard McGrath before. From that point on we were dear friends. He knew when he came out here that he was to work. Krug in my judgment was a lazy bum. Out here to do a political job and he wouldn't work. Now, yes, I think somebody probably was reported along the line, or you'll get it from people with a long memory, I guess I really did tick him off at one point in one of these committee meetings, I don't know.

FUCHS: I hadn't heard that story.

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MCGRATH: I don't know. It's of no consequence at all. I think I really always thought that Oscar Chapman should have been the Secretary of Interior instead of Krug. We always thought highly of Oscar who was the Under Secretary during '48, who was a magnificent politician and was one of our contacts out here. I think I was cross with Krug right from the word go, probably for that reason, because the man was in the position that I thought that my friend should be in.

FUCHS: After the election in '48, I have seen a newspaper clipping in which William Malone had gone back to Washington to discuss the patronage of California, and the same article mentioned that Sheridan Downey was not exactly in the good graces of President Truman at that time. I wonder why? Do you know?

MCGRATH: Downey was a funny individual. Sheridan Downey was a Sacramento lawyer and his brother Steven Downey was, and up to a few years ago (he's dead now), was a Sacramento lawyer, a water lawyer. Steven Downey was probably as well equipped on water problems of the west as any man who ever lived, and particularly the legal aspects of it, and Sheridan was a good lawyer there.

So, in 1934 a man named Upton Sinclair (and if you haven't read his books, read them), decided, and was urged to run for Governor of California. This was in the depth

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of the depression and he won the Democratic nomination. He was a socialist, and a fine man in every way. And he selected this young lawyer, Sheridan Downey, to run for lieutenant governor. Well, among other reasons they lost, was because Upton Sinclair and Sheridan Downey, the other side immediately labeled them "Upy and Downey" and made a show-business thing of it. But he lost to what I refer to as "Fat Frank Finley Merriam" the damndest fool that was ever Governor of California. And so that was the start of Downey's career.

Downey took on Senator McAdoo, in '38, I guess. That was the year we won in California and that's another whole long story that we had best not go into now, because our ticket was headed by a man named Culbert Levi Olson, who was elected Governor of California, and who was my dear friend. And Downey was elected to the United States Senate.

Remember, Downey's background came from the Upton Sinclair socialist views of impoverty in California. And so, therefore, Downey was considered an odd-ball on the left out here. Well, it turned out after serving two terms (he was reelected in '44 during the war), two terms as United States Senator, he ended up as the darling of what is called the Associated

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Farmers of California; and all I can say about that group is they are a right wing collection of rich farmers attempting to gather up these wealthy lands in California for the welfare of the few. Downey somehow turned from his socialistic views, to the main speaker of the big ownership of lands in California. Keeping his populist views and other things such as labor it was a confused philosophy that he ended up with. I never really liked the man, never could get next to him. It didn't seem to me that he really talked sense, although he turned out to be a good political Senator, and would go along -- and he worked with Malone when Malone in the '30s was the state chairman for patronage matters.

But I don't think Downey was ever close to Mr. Truman in any way, shape, or form that I could hear of or think of. Downey wasn't active in the '48 campaign, I can promise you that. I don't know what he was doing. He was probably off wandering around Asia or India or some damn thing on some diffused idea of, the Lord knows what all. But he was of no value to us in the '48 campaign. I wonder where the devil he was? I haven't thought about that for years.

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FUCHS: You know of no specific thing that they were on the outs about. It's just assumed that Truman would realize he hadn't helped him and so he wasn't...

MCGRATH: I think Truman would just see through Downey. Truman always struck me as a man who wanted to get to the point of, "Let's get something done." And Downey was a diffuse character. Good Lord, I think he owed him nothing, and why?

Now, Malone is the political leader of this state and could be reckoned to and could be listened to, and a solid man whose judgments are based on solid convictions. While he didn't have the broad background maybe, philosophically, of some of the rest of us, essentially he thought highest of anybody of Ed Heller. He was never going to get himself crossed with the Heller viewpoint, which was essentially our viewpoint around here. And we worked with Malone. We always thought him a little pompous, but hell, when he found out some of the poems we were writing around here, he finally got to see the humor of it, and thought, "There's nothing wrong with this in politics," but a serious man and all this stuff. And Malone was the patronage head of California a long, long time.

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FUCHS: Would there have been any particular problem in December of '48 that he would have been going back to see about?

MCGRATH: Yes, there very definitely would have been. There was the matter of the appointment of Federal judges. Now, again, I'll speak on a subject that I do not have the verified facts, but I'm absolutely certain. I mentioned earlier that possibly the main philosophical and one of the best financial assistants we had of substantial people in the '48 campaign was Herbert W. Erskine of Alameda County, a prominent San Francisco attorney who had rationalized the fact that Mr. Truman was a cinch to be elected. I've forgotten his entire rationale, but it was sensible, and it was pithy, and it was right to the point. Herb Erskine simply appeared and said, "I'm spending the next year, or the next "x" number of months, campaigning for President Truman period," and he did and was of a great help to us as Judge Friedman and other people will tell you in the East Bay. But I knew it more than anybody else, and Oliver Carter and myself knew it more than anyone. Now Herb had always been active in Democratic politics, but not a great leader. Then the election was over and Herb said, "By golly, I'm tired of practicing law.

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I'd like to be a Federal judge," and there was a vacancy.

And Carter and I said, "You will be the Federal judge."

Well, some of our other friends, I'm not saying Bill Malone maybe, but some of our other friends said, "Hell, here's a Federal judgeship, why should we give it to Herb? Herb's a good guy." The last one they put in, Judge Harris, was one of their boys. Maybe Malone wanted it himself.

I don't think so, but maybe he had someone else in the back maybe that wanted it. I got wind of this thing through some newspaper people in San Francisco, that "while Herb Erskine was one of the few who campaigned for (this appeared in print), for Harry Truman, it looks as though he may be euchred out of the judgeship he wants by," and they named a few characters.

So I got on the ball and among other people, I talked to the President, explained again to him. This was maybe, I don't know, maybe December '48, January '49, and I saw to it that proper statements not credited to me or Carter, appeared in the San Francisco paper

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that Herbert Erskine would have first refusal of any Federal appointment on the Federal bench. And that just pulled the plug out from anybody else.

There was no further opposition, and he was appointed to the Federal District Court here, which is what he wanted, and where he served for, what, maybe two years, and then one day up and died. A damned shame; a delightful man.

So, there was a little hassle. I don't think Bill was in opposition to Erskine, he couldn't have been really. But there was a little hassle there and that judgeship was there.

Now, our problem with Federal judgeships which developed a little later on, a year or so later, was that the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee was a little rascal named [Patrick A.] McCarran from Nevada. And it came about that we had two Federal vacancies. I guess one was the death of Herb Erskine and the other one maybe was a new appointment, or maybe Judge [Michael J.] Roche retired or something. So the Carter group here put forth as tentative ideas, Matthew Tobriner, now the Acting Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, and Ben Duniway, who was Truman's San

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Francisco chairman, now Federal Appeals Justice of San Francisco. They were our two young, top-grade quality candidates for judge.

Well, we got the word back that that was all very nice and we'd go along with you boys, but Pat McCarran says his friend Judge Murphy, who was a Superior Court judge, his family friend, must get the first appointment or there won't be any approval. As simple as that. So, we tried to figure out a way to get around that and we couldn't because McCarran had the authority as the Judicial Chairman, simply to just sit on the thing. There we were. So, in politics you do the art of the possible. Duniway and Tobriner both have magnificent law practices and were well off financially and didn't have any burning desire at this point to be judges; whereas Judge Carter, the son of the man who never had any shoes until he was seventeen years old, needed a paycheck, literally.

We had always been grooming Oliver Carter to be Governor of California, United States Senator, and President of the United States. This was our game. I've got others I have done that with too. But he

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would have been our California best candidate if the circumstances had developed. So, he made the decision finally that no, his father was a California State Supreme Court Justice, that he would be satisfied with life, and he would be the sane man -- that's why he thought so much of Truman, an absolutely sane man. Not a great ambitious, egotistical nut -- that he would be satisfied to be a Federal judge for life.

So we compromised with Senator McCarran and we said we will accept Murphy, Murphy is perfectly all right (except that he's a damned drunk) and for the two vacancies we'll take Murphy and Oliver Carter would be the other one. So, we submitted the names and that's the way they went through. Murphy's since dead and Carter sits on the Federal bench, where he is a lazy bum and a delightful, magnificent man. His wife died Christmas and now I see in the paper yesterday that he's going to marry a family friend, Mary Wallace, which Abbott and I have been kind of working on him to get him to do. You see Abbott's wife died a couple of years ago and Jack wisely married his current wife within a couple of months, which I think is the

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proper thing for people to do if the circumstances are there. So, the next two judges were Murphy and Oliver Carter.

And then came 1951. I got out of the picture in June of '51, but prior to that time there was another vacancy -- I've forgotten, Judge Roche maybe died or something like that -- and so we all proposed, and we had a lot of internal fighting, that Monroe Friedman, our chairman and a distinguished Jewish lawyer, in Alameda County, be appointed, and McCarran said, "There'll be no Jew get through my committee in the west." Just as straight as that. That's all there was to it.

So, Congress adjourned, Mr. Truman immediately gave Monroe Friedman an interim appointment where he served with distinction as a Federal judge, maybe what, eight months, something like that; but that was it because the Republicans went in in January of '53 and they couldn't be less interested in -- as soon as they found out here was Judge Friedman serving nonconfirmed, "Get out, boy, we've got our own judge." So, they put in Sweigert who is a good judge, Republican. But that McCarran was a sonofabitch.

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FUCHS: How would he have conveyed this information that he wouldn't confirm a Jew, you said in the west?

MCGRATH: Well, in his bailiwick. He considered this all his bailiwick. I suppose he couldn't care less if somebody from Connecticut, the Senator from Connecticut, who he was friendly with, so forth, just so what. I can't be absolutely certain on this. I got it, I think, from Bob Moore out of the national committee. Generally that was where I would get my direct and honest information here and there, around.

Now, we had another little source during the Truman administration, a secondary source, Dick Neustadt, worked in the White House. He was in charge of affairs there. You no doubt have many records from him. He's the son of the man who was a Social Security Administrator out here prior to that and a brother-in-law of a man named Stanley Crooks who was an economist and a dear friend of mine. I had a round-about way there of somehow finding out a few things on -- through Stan Crooks, who would work it. Well, that's that.

But those stories of those Federal judgeships,

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these are important political positions. Lord, these are important as any appointing officer has. We're finding that right now. Look what Nixon is doing with this [George H.] Carswell who is a nonentity. He has -- good God there are what, there are thousands of Republican lawyers. I know fifty here, far more eminent than this man, of a conservative view who would make excellent Supreme Court justices. This is a bad thing, and I hope that Scott and those fellows who are responsible people come to that conclusion to force this man to find someone of some quality to put in these positions. It is highly important. Not that Mr. Truman's appointments to the Supreme Court turned out too well, but I think he tried on them. He did put Senator [Harold H.] Burton, who was his friend, I don't think there was any real reason for putting Senator Burton on the Supreme Court. And who was that other nice Senator [Sherman] Minton, who was his friend, and I don't see any great thing there; but Vinson was something else. There was a man of great ability and caliber and he made him chief, hurray! It's a hard problem.

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FUCHS: What about Tom Clark?

MCGRATH: I never thought much of Mr. Clark. Well, now I take that back. I think highly of Tom Clark, but in other capacities. He was involved in the Japanese evacuation deal out here and he was involved in several other things of which I was indirectly tied in with, and a very able and a fine public servant; but I don't think, in retrospect, that he was a great Supreme Court Justice. I must say my dear friend Howard McGrath, whom I wanted for prejudice to be on the Supreme Court, deserved it but he didn't. He's a tough guy, not a thinker. You should put on that court -- the Roosevelt appointments in my judgment were excellent by and large, and a variety -- I think highly of Bill Douglas, and always have. They consider him a bit of a screwball now, mainly because the damn fool insists on marrying twenty year old girls here and there. A public servant shouldn't do that if you're going to be well thought of. Look at Hugo Lafayette Black. There isn't a lawyer in America that doesn't respect his legal views. And others, and others.

Kennedy -- we always wanted Ben Duniway put in -- we hoped that we could get Ben Duniway put on the

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Supreme Court from California, by Kennedy, and might have made it if he had lived, I don't know; but so what, that's irrelevant, too.

Back to Harry S. Truman, who proved in his operation of the Presidency more than any other man, certainly in modern times, the validity of the American institution of the Presidency because of his sound and sane approach to the problems -- the fact that a sound, sane, almost average human being could successfully operate the office. It's a startlingly important number of years in American history, his administration. Startlingly successful. Regardless of whether one agrees with the Truman Doctrine, or this or that, or the Taft-Hartley Act or anything else; it was an administrative job of greatest importance in American history I think.

FUCHS: After you went through this campaign, how confident were you on election eve?

MCGRATH: I'm glad you recall that little episode. We had a little headquarters up the line from where our offices were up Market Street, which is a large structure. We had arranged to have some food and some liquid refreshments

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and a radio, and even a little television set, although there wasn't much television in that day and age. I think we had a little damned thing stuck in there, but we had radios around the place and loud speakers. My wife and I arrived at that place about 5:30 in the evening, and there was one other person there, Joe Bender, who was a worker in the campaign. There were the three of us. And Clary Heller, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Heller, who was a senior at the University of California, arrived next, and that made four people. And Mrs. Charles G. Porter, Julia Porter, the women's chairman in San Francisco arrived and that was five people. We had five people in the headquarters waiting for the returns and they were already coming in from across the country. Those were the only people who really showed up. Usually the place is jammed by 5 o'clock in the afternoon of an ordinary election. But within a couple of hours the place became jammed. And we were busy there. As Congressman Tolan's son will tell you, he was assigned to the Alameda County Courthouse, where there have been incidents of incorrect voting procedures in the past.

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Some of the people say that Upton Sinclair was denied the governorship of California from the Alameda Courthouse in 1934, which may or may not be true. So, Tolan was over there with a group of people, he and Judge Friedman. Mr. Carter was in Redding, his hometown; Mr. Shelley was representing us in the City Hall in San Francisco. Not that we had any worries there, because they were mainly our friends. But we had our areas pretty well guarded from past experience to make sure we'd get a proper return. I was getting the data in as it came along, and as the evening went on, a most exhilarating experience. You realize we were not confident of winning. We didn't know. The nature of the campaign would almost force us to believe that it was not possible to win, even the amount of money we made, and yet we were hopeful; but very few people were. But as the evening wore on, that headquarters was loaded and the streets outside, and we went home I would say 2 o'clock believing that we had won the election and believing that we had won it only in California. We didn't realize until the next day that the Truman ticket had also carried Ohio, which was the other crucial point.

[98]

As I related to you -- may just as well get on the record -- I got up about 8 o'clock the next morning and phoned for a taxi cab and had the driver take me in a nice -- it was a beautiful morning -- on a ride through Golden Gate Park. It was a most exhilarating personal experience; an experience of personal achievement where everything felt good. And then I rode down to my office, which was the state headquarters office, and opened the door and there were dozens of letters stuck through the mail slot which was onto the outside. All of them with checks, all of them dated the day before the election, from our assorted friends, with little notes saying, "Wanted to be sure you got this in time for the election," and all sorts of interesting little quips. I'm sorry I don't have them, they all went out in the wash. Even a one would have been important. You wouldn't though, you wouldn't tell on people that way; but from that point on we had ample funds to support our committee work for the next two years, to pay off deficits of all campaigns, and to plan a political operation.

I first tried to reach President Truman in the hotel in Kansas City and couldn't get through, and then

[99]

between calls I got Senator Barkley in his home in Paducah, and after exchanging greetings he said, "Tell me, Harold, did I beat my opponent in his home county?", which was Alameda County, California; and he had defeated Earl Warren, even though it was not a direct race in Alameda County. We had won Alameda County. That seemed to please him.

The world went on from then.

FUCHS: I believe George T. Davis was chairman of the Truman-Barkley committee, and later then served, I believe, as campaign director for Jimmy Roosevelt in the '50 governor campaign. Have you any remarks on this campaign?

MCGRATH: I doubt that he did that. George T. Davis, an interesting man. Among other things, he's a brilliant attorney. I guess you'd call him a criminal attorney. And I may be wrong on this, but I think he arranged in the Olson administration for the release of Tom Mooney and Mr. Billings -- in a famous (bombing) case. I put bombing in parenthesis, in San Francisco -- from the State of California prison. This is a famous labor

[100]

cause. So, George was a famous criminal attorney skirting around politics, and because mainly, and I think I say this objectively, because no one else would serve. Very early in the fall of '48, he got Oliver Carter to say, "All right, George, you can be the northern California chairman. I guess nobody else wants it," and as far as I know he did very little in that campaign. He didn't bother me very much. Whenever we asked him to make a speech he'd make a speech. Maybe he did other things that I didn't know about. He was certainly the person to appear at the White House at the Inaugural and accepted all invitations that he could wrangle from anyone, which is a little unjust. I really like George, but you have to be very careful with him. Now what he did later with Jimmy Roosevelt, I'm not familiar with.

FUCHS: Well, he was supposed to have been appointed northern California coordinator and finance chairman.

MCGRATH: I have no knowledge of it.

FUCHS: I only have one more question.

MCGRATH: All right.

[101]

FUCHS: There were newspaper reports that John McEnery had bolted the Roosevelt ticket and was supporting Warren in 1950?

MCGRATH: Not true. Not true. In later years I have heard and read where John had maybe endorsed a Republican assemblyman in one form or another in his home district; but John was a good Democratic politician and unless he were to tell you that he did, I just would not believe it; I think he would stay home. But I know for a fact that he helped Helen Douglas, although he wasn't particularly fond of her; and he particularly worked hard for Pat Brown for Attorney General. But he just didn't help Jimmy, that was all. No bolter John. John's an honest man. Maybe there are better politicians, but a fine, fine man.

FUCHS: How did John Abbott, incidentally, participate in the '48 campaign?

MCGRATH: Well, the crew that did the work; Oliver Carter was the chairman. I was the executive director, and my associates, and the associates of Judge Oliver Carter, too, were Tolan and Abbott, who were in the

[102]

public relations business together at that time and who were personal friends of Mr. Truman's from the Truman Committee days. They had specific assignments, as did a man named Joe Paul, whom you should definitely see, and Judge Murray who was our youngster running errands for us. Now a Superior Court Judge of Orange County. So, the crew was Carter, McGrath, Tolan, Abbott, Paul, and Murray; and we did the work and we ran the campaign.

FUCHS: Thank you very much.

MCGRATH: I think maybe John Abbott is our best historian because he is a master of the English language and a magnificent writer of things.

FUCHS: I certainly appreciate your help; you've been very helpful in many ways.

• Abbot, John, 101-102

  Barkley, Albin, 35, 36-37, 39, 43, 99
  Boddy, Manchester, 71
  Boyle, William, 79-80
  Brannan, Charles, 7
  Brown, Edmund G., 12, 44-45, 72

  California, geographical politics of, 54-57
  Carter, Oliver, 3, 6, 24, 47-48, 86, 88, 89-91, 100
  Chapman, Oscar, 42, 82
  Clark, Tom, 94

  Davis, George T., 99-100
  Douglas, Helen Gahagan, 70-73
  Downey, Sheridan, 70, 82-85
  Downey, Steven, 82
  Duniway, Ben, 88, 89

  Eastman, Sam, 36
  Erskine, Herbert W., 86, 87-88

  Ford, John Anson, 62-64
  Ford, Thomas Francis, 62
  Friedman, Monroe, 91

  Goldberger, Jack, 60

  Haggerty, Cornelius J., 61
  Hanna, Richard F., 55
  Heller, Ed F., 48-52, 71, 85
  Heller, Eleanor R., 20
  Howser, Frederick Napoleon, 72
  Humphrey, Hubert, in California, 32, 33

  Kefauver, Estes, 47
  Kenney, Robert W., 10-12
  Kent, Roger, 59
  Krug, Julius, 80-82

  Logan, Milla Zinavitch, 32
  Luckey, E. George, 27

  Malone, William, 85, 87, 88
  McCarran, Patrick A., 88, 91
  McEnery, John, 101
  McGrath, Harold I.:
  • Duties as Executive Director, Democratic State Central Committee of California, 17
    and Presidential election campaign of 1948, 2-9
  McGrath, J. Howard, 43, 44, 45-46, 81
  Merriam, Frank Finley, 83
  Moore, Robert, 79, 92
  Murphy, Judge, 89, 91

  Neustadt, Richard, 92
  Newsome, Bill, 44-45
  Nixon, Richard M., and campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas, 72-73, 74

  Olson, Culbert L., 49, 50, 83
  Outland, George, 66-67, 68, 69, 70

  Packard, Walter, 15
  Pauley, Edwin W., 21, 48, 49-52, 53
  Presidential election campaign of 1948, in California, 6-19, 22-30
  • rural vote, 8-9

  Rayburn, Sam, 76
  Reagan, Ronald, 51
  Rogers, Will, Jr., 39, 40, 67
  Roosevelt, James, 12-13, 38-39, 52, 63, 65, 66, 68-70, 72, 77-78

  Shelley, John F., 3
  Sinclair, Upton, 82-83
  Soule, Fred, 7
  Sullivan, Gael, 43

  Taft-Hartley Act, as an issue in California, 58-59
  Tolan, John F., Jr. 24
  Tobriner, Matthew, 88, 89
  Truman Committee, 1
  Truman, Harry S.:

  • and Downey, Sheridan, 85
    and Letterman hospital, 1948 campaign, 30

  Voorhis, H. Jerry, 40-42

  Wallace, Henry, 13-16, 35-37
  Warren, Earl, 10-11, 77
  Waters, Herb, 7-8
  Wells, Steve, 27

  Yorty, Samuel W., 76