George Burditt Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

George Burditt Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield George Burditt Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

from uis.edu More from this publisher

16.10.2014 Views

University of Illinois at Springfield Norris L Brookens Library Archives/Special Collections George Burditt Memoir B897. Burditt, George b. 1922 Interview and memoir 24 tapes, 1,129 mins., 2 vols., 307 pp., plus index ILLINOIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM Burditt, member of the Illinois House of Representatives 1964-73, discusses his achievements in public aid, health, welfare and safety, environmental protection, education, revenue and transportation. He recalls lobbyists, political ethics, Illinois Republican politics, his work on legislative committees (education, higher education, judiciary, and elections and reapportionment), the 1970 Illinois Constitutional Convention, and his unsuccessful 1974 bid for the U.S. Senate. Also discusses his involvement with Chicago area civic organizations and the Western Springs Plan Commission, work for the Republican party and the Eisenhower campaign, and experience with pure food laws. He also recalls his childhood in LaGrange, family, childhood entertainments, athletics, education, Depression, attending Harvard College, experiences in the air corps during WWII, law school and practice. Interview by Horace Q. Waggoner, 1983 OPEN See collateral file: interviewer's notes and photocopied pictures. Archives/Special Collections LIB 144 University of Illinois at Springfield One University Plaza, MS BRK 140 Springfield IL 62703-5407 © 1983, University of Illinois Board of Trustees

University of Illinois at Springfield

Norris L Brookens Library

Archives/Special Collections

George Burditt Memoir

B897. Burditt, George b. 1922

Interview and memoir

24 tapes, 1,129 mins., 2 vols., 307 pp., plus index

ILLINOIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

Burditt, member of the Illinois House of Representatives 1964-73, discusses his

achievements in public aid, health, welfare and safety, environmental protection,

education, revenue and transportation. He recalls lobbyists, political ethics,

Illinois Republican politics, his work on legislative committees (education, higher

education, judiciary, and elections and reapportionment), the 1970 Illinois

Constitutional Convention, and his unsuccessful 1974 bid for the U.S. Senate.

Also discusses his involvement with Chicago area civic organizations and the

Western Springs Plan Commission, work for the Republican party and the

Eisenhower campaign, and experience with pure food laws. He also recalls his

childhood in LaGrange, family, childhood entertainments, athletics, education,

Depression, attending Harvard College, experiences in the air corps during WWII,

law school and practice.

Interview by Horace Q. Waggoner, 1983

OPEN

See collateral file: interviewer's notes and photocopied pictures.

Archives/Special Collections LIB 144

University of Illinois at Springfield

One University Plaza, MS BRK 140

Springfield IL 62703-5407

ILLINOIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

GEORGE BU

MEMOIR

VOLU

PREPARED FOR THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATIVE RESEARCH UNIT

BY THE ORAL HISTORY OFFICE, LEGISLATIVE STUDIES CENTER OF SANGAMON STATE UNIVERSITY

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS

1988

Joint Committee on Legislative Support Services

Rep. Michael J. Madigan, Chicago, Chairman

Sen. Philip J. Rock, Oak Park

Speaker of the House

President of the Senate

Rep. Lee A. Daniels, Elmhurst

House Minority Leader

Sen. James "Pate" Philip, Elrnhurst

Senate Minori ty Leader

Legislative Research Unit

222 S. College, Third Floor, Suite A, Springfield, Illinois 62704

Co-Chairmen

Sen. Jack Schaffer, Crystal Lake

Rep. Sam W. Wolf, Granite City

Senators

Howard B. Brookinu, Chicago

John A. D'Arco, Chicago

Miguel del Valle, Chicago

Walter W. Dudycz, Chicago

William F. Mahar, Homewood

Representatives

Eoleta A, Didrickson, Flovsmoor

James M. Kirkland, Elgin

Robert LeFlore, Jr. Chicago

Michael J. Tate, Decatur

(vacancy)

Terry Rruce, Olney

U.S. Congressman

19th District

Illinois General Assembly Oral History Program

Advisory Committee

Cullorn Davis, Director of Oral History

Office and Professor of History,

Sangamon State University

William L. Day, Former Director

Illinois 1,egislative Council;

Editor Emeritus, Illinois Issues

David Everson, Professor of Political Studies

and Public Affairs, Sangamon State University

Gerald L. Gherardini, Associate Director

Legislative Research Unit

Patrick O'Grady, Executive Director

Legislative Research Unil

Dan Holt, formerly associated with

State Historical Library and

Saagamon State University

Robert P. Howard, Former Statehouse Reporter

for Clh;qagu Tribune; Author, Illinois: A

-- History of 1he)rairie State

Margaret Munn, Former Branch Chief

Department of Mental Health

J, Glenn Schneider, Former State Representative

(D-Naperville), and Social Studies 'Teacher,

Naperville North High School

Samuel K. Gove, Professor

Institute of Government and Pirblic Affairs,

IJniversity of Illinois (Former Ilirector)

H. William Hey, Former Director

Legislative Research Unit

Jack Van Der Slik, Director

Legislative Studies Center and

Professor of Political Science

Sangamon State University

George Burditt Memoir, vol. 1 - Archives/Special Collections - Norris L Brookens Library - University of Illinois at Springfield - UIS

ILLINOIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

PREVIOUS TITLES IN SERIES

I

L

Martin B. Lohmann Memoir, 1 Vol. (1980)

Bernice T. Van der Vries Memoir, 3 Vols. (1980)

Walter J. Reum Memoir, 2 Vols. (1980)

Thomas A. McGloon Memoir, 2 Vols. (1981)

John W. Fribley Memoir, 2 Vols. (1981)

Charles W. Clabaugh Memoir, 2 Vols. (1982)

Cecil A. Partee Memoir, 2 Vols. (1982)

Elbert S. Smith Memoir, 2 Vols. (1982)

Frances L. Dawson Memoir, 2 Vols. (1982)

Robert W. McCarthy Memoir, 2 Vols. (1983)

John C. Parkhurst Memoir, 2 Vols. (1984)

Corneal A. Davis Memoir, 2 Vols. (1984)

Cumulative Index, 1980-1984

Edward P. Saltiel Memoir, 1 Vol. (1985)

William A. Redmond Memoir, 2 Vols. (1986)

John G. Gilbert Memoir, 1 Vol. (1986)

Paul J. Randolph Memoir, 1 Vol. (1986)

William L. Grindle Memoir, 2 Vols. (1986)

Gale Williams Memoir, 2 Vols. (1986)

Robert L. Burhans Memoir, 1 Vol. (1987)

Esther Saperstein Memoir, 2 Vols. (1987)

Leland Rayson Memoir, 1 Vol. (1987)

Donald O'Brien Memoir, 1 Vol. (1988)

George Dunne Memoir, 1 Vol. (1988)

Leland J. Kennedy Memoir, 2 Vols. (1988)

GEORGE BURDITT

ILLINOIS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF

ILLINOIS BLUE BOOK

Preface

This oral history of George Burditt's service in the Illinois House of Representatives is a

product or t.hc Illinois Legislative Research IJnit's General Assembly Oral Ilistory

Program. The oral history technique adds a distinctive new dimension to the unit's statutory

rcsponsibility for performing research and collecting information concerning the government

of the state.

George Burditt was born in Chicago September 21, 1922. When he was two years old, Mr.

Hurditt's family moved to La Grange, Illinois. The story of his early life is typical of childhood

and youth experiences in suburban Chicago. Growing up during the Ilepression, he

was drawn toward the Republican party by a growing concern, fostered by his father, that

big government was not a good thing.

After graduation from Harvard, Mr. Burditt served in the air corps during World War

11. Upon returning from the war, he attended IIarvard Law School, graduating in 1948. He

returned to Chicago to practice law, and in 1969 established his own law firm of Uurditt

and Caulkins.

Mr. Burditt entered politics after settling with his family in the village of Western Springs,

Illinois in 1952. Imm~diat~rly an active participant in community affairs, he soon extended

his horizons. IIe served as chairman of the Cook County Young Republicans, president of

the Lyons Township Republican Club and vice-chairman of the Illinois Citizens for

Eisenhower in 1952. The following year he became chairman of the Legislative Reapportionment

Committee of the Illinois Committee on Constitutional Revision. In 1964 he was

elected to the legislature in the state-wide at-large election. He continued to serve in the

legislature until 1973.

Mr. Burditt's major legislative achievements were in the fields of public aid, health, welfare

and safety, environmental protection, cducation, revenue and transportation. His memoir,

while focusing on such legislation, also recounts other political and personal subjects.

Following his legislative career, Mr. Rurditt ran unsuccessfully for the US. Srnate in

1974. That same year he was elected Lyons Township committeeman. Mr. Burditt also has

been president of the Chicago Bar Association, chairman of the United States-South Africa

Lcader Exchange Program, president of the Metropolitan Bar Leaders Caucus and prcsidcnt

of the Law Club of Chicago.

Readers of this oral history should bear in mind that it is a transcript of the spoken

word. Its informal, conversational style represents a deliberate attempt to encourage candor

and tap the narrator's memory. However, persons interested in listening to the tapes should

understand that editorial considerations produced a text that differs somewhat from the

original recordings. Koth the recordings and this transcript should be regarded as a primary

historical source, as no effort was nlade to correct or challengr the narrator.

Neither the Illinois 1,egislative Research Unit nor Sangamon State University is responsible

for the factual accuracy of the memoir, nor for views expressed therein; these are for the

rcader to judge.

The tape recorded interviews were conducted by Horace Waggoner during the summer and

fall of 1983. Mr. Waggoner was born in 1924 in Wag~oner, a small farm-service community

in central Illinois. At age 18, he cnlistrd for military servicc in World War I1 and, as a

U. S. Air Force com~nissioned officer, continurd to serve until 1973. Upon leaving service,

he resumed his formal education, achieving a masters degree in history at Sangamon State

TJniversity in 1975. He was associated with the Sangamon State TJniv~rsity Oral IIistory

Ofice from 1976 until his death in 1987.

Julie Allen transcribed the tapes and, after the transcriptions were edited by Mr. Waggoner

and reviewed by Mr. Burditt, prepared the typescript. Ir'lorenw Hardin compiled the

index. Timothy Jones prepared the prrface and table of contents, The Chicago Tribune

provided valuable assistance in the pre-interview research.

This oral history may be read, quoted and cited freely. It may not be reproduced in whole

or in part by any means, elcctronic or mechanical, without written permission from the Illinois

1,egislative Research Unit, 222 South College, Springfield, Illinois, 62704.

!

I

Table of Contents

Note on page location:

Volume I - pages 1-151

Volume I1 - pages 152-320

Preface ................................................................................................................................................... v B

The Years Before .................................................................................................................................

Family background - Grade school - Meeting wife - High school - Harvard

- World War TI - Law school - Legal career - Western Springs Plan

Commission - Young Republicans - Eisenhower campaign - Legislative

Reapportionment Committee - Civic organization involvements - Pure

fond law experience

The General Assembly Years ........................................................................................................... 172

Decision to run - 1964 "Blue Rihhon" ballot - Getting started - Philosophy

of representation - Reapportionment Committee - Ethics and conflict of

interest legislation - House Legislative Ethics Commission - Intergovernmental

Cooperation Commission - Food, Ilrugs, Cosmetics and Pesticides

Laws Study Commission - Consumer protection - Education legislation

- Public aid, health, welfare and safety legislation - Revenue - Transportation

legislation - Civil rights - Constitution Study Commission -

Leadership - Deciding not to seek reelection

The Years After ................................................................................................................................... 291

Dan Walker - Governor's Board of Ethics - Illinois Liquor Control

Commission - Bid for U. S. Senate - Lyons Township Committeeman -

Chicago Bar Association - United States - South Africa Leadership

Exchange Program - Advice for future candidates for the legislature

Index ..................................................................................................................................................... 308

Illustrations following pages 63 and 191

I

vii

Volume I

GEORGE BURDITT

SESSION 1, TAPE 1, SIDE 1

Q: 1'11 need a couplc of vital statistics. When were you born sir?

A: September 21,1922.

Q: And where were you born?

A: In Chicago.

Q: What part of Chic.ago.

A: St. Anthony's IIospital, which is on the West Side. I'm guessing - it's maybe something

like . . . twcnty or thirty hundred west and right next to thc Burling.l,on Kailroad

tracks. The Rurlington train goes right by it.

Q: What suburb would that be'!

A: It's in town, it's in Chicago.

Q: Oh it's in Chirago itself? I see.

A: In the city.

Q: So you are actually a native Chicagoan then?

A: I was born here but my folks moved to - we lived in Jackson Park at the time when

I was born. And we lived there for a couple of years and then movcd - my folks movcd

to La Grange when 1 was two.

Q: I see. What was your father's name?

A: George. I'm Junior.

Q: I see. And his middle name was what?

A: Miller.

Q: George Miller?

A: Yes. Which was his mother's maiden name.

2

Q: Let's go back into the hearsay era and could you talk a little bit about your family

background? Where the old country was and when they came to the United States and that

sort of thing.

A: Sure. Let me start with the Burditts, the Burditt side of the family. My wife and one

of my cousins on the other side of my family have recently traced the Burditt family back

five generations further than we knew about. My dad was born in Cooperstown, New York

and lived there all through his boyhood. 1Ie went to work in a lawyer's office right out of

high school, and read the law, as they said in those days, and took the bar exam right out

of that law firm. And never went to either college or law school. I'm very proud of the

fact that two lawyers who do not know each other, one in Chicago and one in New York,

both told me my dad was the finest lawyer they'd ever known. So college and law school

don't really make much difference.

Q: I see. Yes sir. (chuckles)

A: His father's name was William Dean Burditt. He lived in Cooperstown his whole

life. William nean Burditt, I think, didn't have any outside occupation. He mainly looked

after the estates and holdings of his father, Luther Ingalls Burditt, who was quite an

entrepreneur. He was a farmer and builder and had a lot of real estate in and around

Cooperstown.

We were back there one time when our kids were rather little and my son and I went over

to the Baseball Hall of Fame, which is of course in Cooperstown. And Rarbara took the

three girls over to the county library and looked up the Burditt history and she found an

article on Luther Burditt which said that he was elected to the New York state legislature

as a Democrat right after the Civil War. And of course there weren't very many Democrats

in upstate New York. I don't know how he got elected but he did. And the article said

he was best known during his service in the legislature for sponsorship of a bill to create

the - T believe it was the Buffalo and Albany Railroad. You know they were building railroads

and they needed state sponsorship and he was the chief sponsor of that bill to create

the railroad. Then there was a new paragraph in the article and it said, "Immcdiately after

serving one term in the New York state legislature Mr. Burditt resigned and became president

of the Buffalo and Albany Railroad.''

Q: Oh! So that was his legislative intent!

A: I guess it's possible. (laughter)

Q: Well!

#

A: His father was Wigglesworth Burditt who I think came from Boston. And I don't know

where Luther Ingalls Burditt was horn, whether he was born in Iloston and he moved to

Cooperstown or whether Wigglesworth did. I rather think that Luther probably moved

there. That was as far back as we knew about the Burditt family until recently when my

wife and one of my cousins who was kind of a professional in tracing g~nrology traced it

back five more generations and we now have all those records. Those fivc gencratjons were

all in Malden, Massachusetts. They came from England in the middle of the seventeenth

century. I don't know - 1650's' something like that, the first Burditts came over to

Malden. They sometimes spelled their name Burden. You sometimes see it both ways,

Rurden/Burditt, in some of those old records, which my wife has now looked up also at the

Newberry Library.

Q: Do you know what part of England they came from? Has that been . . .

A: No I don't know. But that's on the docket for us to check into one of these days. We

don't, know whcre they came from.

Q: So you think you might go to England and hunt around over there?

A: Well we did a touch of that when we were over there on the other side of the family

last year. And they said the place you've got to go is the Mormon records in Salt Lake

City, they're the best. But we might - you know, there's still parish records and things

like that in England that we might be able to - if we can get a lead, we don't have any

leads right now.

Q: Well thc Mormons might be able to do that. They have quite a collection.

A: Yes they really do, yes.

Q: As a matter of fact, they may have records from England there. They collect from all

over the world as I understand.

A: Yes they do.

Q: So on that side of the family then you've traced back to the seventeenth century then?

A: Seventeenth century yes.

Q: Do you know anything about the family in Malden? Have you visited there to . . .

(taping stopped for telephone conversation, then resumed)

Q: How about Revolutionary War service? Did you run across any . . .

A: Yes. My dad's older sister applied for a membership in the DAR [Daughters of the

American Revolution] one time many years ago through her mother's side of the family and

was turned down so she traced it through her father's side of the family and was

admitted. Thcy were about equal I expect but, you know, the records were a little

diffcrcnt. It might have been vice versa, I don't know. She got through on both sides of

thc family really. We've got some records on that if it's relevant for the project I would

be glad to . . .

Q: No, not particularly. I was just wondering if there was an older one, or something of

thc family that . . .

A: Yes. There was a fellow by the name of Angus Wood. Let's see Angus Wood . . . I

think was Wigglesworth Burditt's father-in-law. And I think he was maybe in the Civil

War. And then there were several other people with different names who were . . .

Q: This would have been the Civil War?

A: Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War, yes. Revolutionary War in the Roston

area. They were all in the Boston area in the eighteenth century. But they'd been there

for a hundred years then bccause they came in the 1650's and by the 1750's they would have

heen around for a while.

Q: Do you have an indication that they weren't on the Tory side at least?

A: No they were - no, no, they were all on the Revolutionary side.

Q: How about the War of 1812? any notable participation in that from the family?

A: No. I don't - I don't know ahout any other wars. I don't know about the War of 1812

or the . . . the Civil War, or Mexican War.

Q: Alright sir. How about the Malden area? Have you visited it to look at the old family

homestrads and that sort of thing?

A: No we haven't. We just found out about this last year. And Malden is now part of

Boston as I understand it.

Q: I see.

A: Quite changed! It wouldn't be anything like it was in the little rural community that

was isolated. But it would be fun - we'll do it - we just haven't gotten around to it.

Q: You don't know of any relatives that are still living in that area?

A: No. The only Burditts we know of moved with my dad's family, moved to Cooperstown

and that's all we'd really know.

Q: And why did they move to Cooperstown?

A: I don't know anything about the reasons. I just know names. And I don't know professions

particularly. You know I guess everybody was laboring in the seventeenth century

when they came over here. The records I've seen - which have bcen sparse, you know

they're birth and death records and marriage records, things like that. Rut they haven't

really told us a whole lot about . . .

Q: Did your father ever indicate why he came to Chicago?

A: My mother's mother and father lived here. And my dad was practicing law in New York

and they came out just before I was born. Her mother and father were here, her whole

family was here. She had . . . two brothers who were here and four or five sisters, all of

whom lived in the Chicago area. Well three or four of them lived in the Chicago area.

Q: What was your mother's name?

A: Her maiden name was Hardie. Her name was Flora Winifred Hardie.

Q: And what about her family background?

A: She was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, where her folks were just really passing

through. Her father and mother were both Srottish. Her father was born in Edinburgh

and her mother was horn in Glasgow. IIer father was a mechanical engineer of some

note. Hc was either the mechanical engineer or the assistant mechanical engineer or something

like that of the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. He was also an inventor

of some note. He invented a compressed air streetcar. And it ran in Rome, New York,

for a while and it ran in - I think it ran in Chicago for a while.

He was a very interesting old Scot. He died when I was two so I didn't ever really know

him. But he wrote an autobiography which I now have in my hand. It's typewritten as

you can see. And it's falling apart, hut it is over fifty 8 % x 14 single spaced, margin-tomargin

pages of typing. And very interesting. It just traces his life - very - not - as

distinguished from oral history, that's written history. It's very probably much more interesting

than this one will be.

Q: Well! (laughter) And let's see now - I hope I'm not lost here - that was Angus Wood?

A: No, no, Augus Wood was on the other side. Angus Wood was Wigglesworth Burditt's

father-in-law. This is Robert Hardie, is his name. This is my mother's side we're talking

about now.

Q: I see.

A: My grandfather on my mother's side was Robert Hardie and his wife's name was Mary

Annc Watt IIardie. Robert Hardie's father was Peter Hardir, who worked for a railroad

in Edinburgh. Peter's wife's name was Anna Hardie and Pcter and Anna moved right after

my grandfather was born to a little place called Green Hill Junction, which is a juncthn

on the railrmd just right near Falkirk, which is, as I recall, maybe thirty or forty miles

west of Edinhurgh. And they lived there for a while and then my grandfather, at a relatively

young age, was apprenticed to a foundry I think. And worked in the engineering field,

had a great mechanical bent.

Q: Now this was the one that came to Chirago and manapd the . . .

A: Came to Chicago yes. He was at the World's Fair in Chicago. And that was his chair

as a matterh of fact (points to chair by window).

Q: Oh by the window?

A: It's a wooden chair which is, I think, the only very comfortable wooden chair I've ever

sat in and I have a picture of him sitting in that chair which . . .

Q: That's quite a design on it. Is there anything significant in the - I guess it's a lion's

head, is it not?

A: Yes it - I think it is and to the best of my knowledge there's no significance. The picture

of him sitting in that chair was taken probably in 1923 or 1924, so it's about sixty years

old.

Q: Oh this is when the chair is new that he was in it?

A: I guess. It doesn't look much older now. (chuckles) And it's a very heavy solid chair.

Q: It's a beautiful chair. Well let's see. This is a little unusual. I think this is the first

of the families of the various people I've talked with that has come directly from

Scotland. Most of them had come through the northern Ireland routc, the Scotch-Irish sort

of thing.

A: Oh is that right. No they came directly here. But they came very late. You see, they

came in the late nineteenth ccntury. They came over, I think - as a matter of fact, I'm

not sure . . . yes, my grandmother must have b~cn here when my grandfather was working

at the World's Fair. I don't know that they lived in Chicago at that time. Let's see, my

mother was born in about 1884 or 1883 or 1885 or somewhere along in there. And at that

time they lived in Hohoken just for a very short period of time. Then they moved to Rome,

New York. And I think most of my mother's early years were spent in Rome.

Q: Is Rome near Cooperstown?

A: Very near Cooperstown. As a matter of fact, my dad's older sister, the one who tried

to trace her history back, lived in Rome. They (lid riot know each other in Rome. There's

no ronnection hetween them. They didn't meet in Rome. My mother was a professional

musirian. And I'm sure you'll excuse my prejudict hut she had an absolutely beautiful

voice. She got as far as her own private concert in Carnegie IIall, which is, you know, a

pretty good step. She was probably headed for an operatic career, but I shortstopped that

- or my dad did.

Q: Oh? (chuckles) Did she do much singing after that then?

A: Yes. She sang in churches as long as I can remember. She directed the Episcopal choir

in Hinsdale, Illinois. And gave concerts and sang at weddings and funerals and was responsible

for my love of music I'm sure. Although I don't have any abilit,y.

Q: Where did she get her training for . . .

A: She went to a school in New York called the Masters' School of Music, And studied

under some pretty well-known teachers and was very deeply involvcd in the musical world

in New York.

Q: And where did your father go to school? Did he go on to college?

A: No he went right out of high school into the law firm.

Q: So all his training was just from the reading as you did in those days.

A: Yes.

Q: Where did your mother and father meet?

A: They met in New York. My father was married at the time. I gather somkwhat unhappily

married. In any event my mother was successful in persuading him to marry her, or

vice versa. I've heard her say many times that it was love at first sight. Her favorite song

was that one from South Pacific, "Some Enchanted Evening," the line, ". . . across a crowded

room." She said, "That's exactly what happened to your father and me."

Q: I'll he darned. Did she say anything about where they had met?

A: It was in New York and I don't know where. Mothcr was singing in and around New

York, she was a classical singer only. And my dad was practicing law in New York. They

were married in 1918. They moved out here I think right shortly after that. And they had

one child who was born, I think, in 1920 or 1921 maybe and died at birth. And then I was

born in 192".

Q: There were no children by the first marriage then?

A: No.

Q: Let's see now, did your father give any indication - and I think this is a repeat question

- as to why he came to Chicago then?

A: No I think it was his new marriage and job change and everything else.

'

Q: What did he do when he came here? Did he join a law firm in this area?

A: Yes he went to work with - I think his first job was with George I. Haight, who was

a very well-known lawyer in Chicago. He did that for a few years. And then the first recollection

I have, my dad was in partnership with a Inan hy the namP of Harry Newby. Newby

and Rurditt was the name of the firm. Harry Newby was a county romrnissioner in Cook

County and did miscellaneous - they'd just do - a small general law practicc firm.

Q: And you say this was in the Jackson Park area?

A: We lived there, but my dad's office was downtown. My dad's office was 208 S. La Salle

as long as 1 can remember.

Q: Oh is that right?

A: And we were just there till I was two. And then we moved to La Grange. And my

dad commuted from La Grange from then on.

Q: So you have no real recollection of your birthplace then I guess.

A: Not at all. The first place I remember living is the house in La Grange where we lived

until I was five. And then we moved across the tracks to this - the first house was 1144

Arlington Avenue. And then we moved to 53 South Spring.

Q: Which was the "right side of the track"? the first or the second?

A: Six of one . . . they were really the same. Each one's a block from the

track. (chuckles) So, there really wasn't any difference.

Q: What are some of your recollections of that period then in that home until you were about

five, that is pre-school age experiences?

A: If I may before that - let me do some other family things, could I?

Q: Oh sure.

A: That wouldn't be out of order? because I left out my dad's mother's side of the

family. Their name was Miller. My grandmother's maiden name was Miller and there was

a whole series of George Millers. There was a George A. Miller and a George B. Miller

and a George Hazelius Miller. And they were all ministers, they were all preachers. At

a place called Hartwick Seminary, which is a town and a seminary just south of

Cooperstown. And one of them - I think maybe it was George IIazelius Miller was the

founder of the seminary and then his son and his grandson both carricd on running the

seminary and living in that same general area. I've got a book of sermons of one of the

George Miller's at home.

Q: Of what faith was that, do you recall?

A: (pause) I don't remember - it was Protestant. It was - it was kind of an

evangelical. It wasn't one of the basic Presbyterian or Congregationalist or one of those. I

think it was - I'm embarrassed - I don't know. I think it was an evangelical faith of

some kind.

Q: Did this reflect in your father's attitude toward religion in any way?

A: His first wife was Catholic. His sister and her husband, who lived in Rome, were dedicated

Christian Scientists. He was a practitioner; they were both - no I guess he was a

practitioner and reader. And my mother and dad raised me as a Presbyterian singing in

the Episcopal choir. So I guess the answer to your question is no, it didn't. (chuckles) My

mother was a very strong Scotch Presbyterian.

Q: Let's see now, we talked - now I keep getting mixed up when I get in these genealogical

things. We talked about your mother's father's lines.

A: Yes.

Q: What about the other side? Do yo11 have much knowledge of that side of the family?

A: No I don't. I can tell you what I know. Mary Ann Watt was born in Glasgow. We

were back in England the summer before last, and Scotland. And we had some addresses

from early mail. We looked at the - we went to see the place where my grandmother and

grandfather separately lived before they were married in Edinburgh. One - I think the

place where my grandfather lived - now is a Chinese laundry. And tho place where my

grandmother lived is in a little cul de sac area, a little circular area, with buildings all

around it which are in beautiful condition, all occupied by professionals, lawyers, dentists,

accountants, things like this. And we found the specific number which we had from prior

mail. And I've got pictures of both Chinese laundry and this now very nice little enclave

of an area that's where my grandmother lived. Rut that's about the extent of it.

Q: And you found no relatives in that area, other than . . .

A: No we went to the records of the geneological records place in Edinburgh and also the

British Museum in London and they both told us, "Go home to Salt Lake City."

Q: Oh I see.

A: They said, "The records there are infinitely better than ours." It's really kind of like

looking - thcy'll say, "We have records of each parish. What parish did your grandfather

live in?" Well unless you know the parish and about the year, it's a needle-in-the-haystack

land.

Q: So the records are there but they're rather difficult to get to unless . . .

A: Yes I expect they are. If you knew what parish church to look for, what little rhurrh

to go to out in the country, you might find it if they hadn't been burncd up in a fire some

time in the last two or three hundred years. But there's somebody - let me think for a

second - there's somebody in our family - it must he on thc Burditt side - yes, I

remember. One of the Burditt's somewhere along the line was married to somebody by the

name of Tracy. And there was a d'Tracy with William the Conqueror when he landed in

Normandy in 1066. So then that is probably the same line. There's a lot of gaps. There's

a big gap in there, but the name is the same. And apparently that line goes off into France

but in the eleventh century or twelfth century.

Q: And you haven't gotten any more of a clue back that far yet?

A: No. Some day we may do it, my cousin may.

Q: Well you never know when you're going to run into somebody who has the record alrcady.

A: Yes.

Q: Well then with your family now in your second home, what do you remember about the

family life in that second home?

A: Well, okay, let me - I don't remember anything at all about Jackson Park. We moved

to 1144 . . . I think that's the address, I may have that mixed up with an earlier address

that my folks lived in in Austin. But it was next to the corner house just before Edgewood

on the north side of the street on Arlington in Ida Grange. It's a wooden frame house, a

very nice little old house. It was really kind of old - I guess it was stucco - I guess it

was a stucco house. There was a young boy next door about my agt whose name was noody

Carter, Ronald Carter, and he and I played from the age of two till the age of five. I had

a dog, Teddy, which was my constant companion, a little Highland Terrier, whose favorite

hobby was riding in the side car of the policeman. The police would come around, he was

such a cute little dog, they would take him for a ride in the sidecar which I remember.

Q: Were you with him in the sidecar?

A: No I was never allowed to go. They just took the dog for the damned ride.

Q: Oh? (chuckles)

A: Oh I remember having red fire engines. I had one that the axle kept breaking on. My

' dad kept coming home with new axles every couple of weeks.

Q: Was this large enough for you to ride in you mean?

A: Yes. They were the ones where you'd turn - you know.

Q: I see.

A: And I had a tricycle and in those early - one of my uncles lived in Livingston, Montana,

one of my mother's brothers, and we used to go out to see him every once in a while. We

went out there when I was two. I don't remember this but my mother and I took the train

out. And she peeked in at me one time to see if I had gone to sleep in the berth and I

was lying thcrc holding my eyes open because I didn't want to go to slccp.

Q: You wanted to see what was going on.

A: Yes. I don't remember those trips. They ended before I remember. We subsequently

went back and of course 1 remember all of those. But not when I was a little kid.

Q: Was this a single-family dwelling where you lived?

A: Yes. Typical residential home in the suburbs. I don't remember how many bedrooms

it had, probably thrce bedrooms. Just a little typical two-story house with an attic and a

basement.

Q: Yes. Was it a fenced-in lawn?

A: No. No the houses in that block are probably on . . . oh sixty or seventy-five foot lots,

probably sevent,y-five foot lots, probably sixty foot lots, maybe fifty. Driveway down the side

and a garage in hack, separate garage in back. I don't know when those houses would have

been built but we moved there in 1924 and it wasn't a new house then. It was probably

built around the turn of the century or . . .

Q: Was there an alleyway behind or was that . . .

A: (pause) I don't remember if there was an alley in that block. I don't think there is

though. I think it just backs up on the house next door on the . . .

Q: Did your dad have a garden out back at that time?

A: My dad was never a great gardener. Neither was mother. Oh, we'd have a few little

tomatoes and things like that but it wasn't big enough so there was a big yard to cut or

anything. It was the second house from the corner, it was next t,o the corner. No big deals

as far as gardens or anything like that are concerncd.

Q: Had you brothers and sisters by that time?

A: No I'm an only child.

Q: You're the only child.

A: Yes. And of course I don't really rememher a lot about that house because we moved

out of there when I was five. I just, you know, have spots - and having heard stories it's

kind of hard to remember whether I actually remember it or just remember the retelling

of it.

Q: Yes. What about the community itself? What do you recall of that? Were there stores

nearby that you went to?

A: La Grange is a typical bedroom suburb. Arlington is an east-west street that's about

a block from the railroad track. And my dad walked to the train every morning. It was

mayhe a three-block walk to the train down to the Stone Avenue station. And right at the

Stone Avenue station there were some stores. There was a grocery store and a drug store

and I don't really remember when those went in. I don't remember if they were there when

I was a little kid. I expect probably they were. There was probably a little corner drugstore

and a corner grocery store there and a hardware and things like that in that neighborhood.

In La Grange the business distrirt is centered along the railroad track. It runs east

and west along the railroad track.

SESSION 1, TAPE 1, SIDE 2

Q: Was the church close by that you attended at that time?

A: The churrh was on the other side of the tracks. We went to the Presbyterian church

in La Grange, which is on the other side of the tracks. It's maybe - oh, it was six or

eight or ten blocks, something like that. I don't really remember going to Sunday school

before I was five. My mother sang in the Presbyterian church in Oak Park. They had a

professional quartet in that church. And an organist who was supposed to be one of the

better ones in Chicago. I remember I was always turned off because my mother sang not

only in the morning service but also had to go back for an evening service, and 1 didn't

want her to leave me on Sunday nights. I was very uncomfortable with that. Of course

they never left me alone. Dad would stay with me or dad would take mother over and have

a babysitter I guess. Maybe sometimes I went. I don't remember going at night but 1 was

pretty little. I might not remember.

Q: At that age were there other members of the family living nearby? uncles and

aunts'? You had one in Montana, an uncle.

A: One uncle was in Montana who was a dentist. But he always said he wanted to drill

for oil instead of drill teeth.

Q: Oh is that right?

A: And he had a ranch.

Q: What was his name?

A: His name was Jack Hardie.

(pause) My mother had another brother, Robert Hardie, same name as her father. Robert

Hardie was a doctor in Chirago, who delivered me. They lived in Austin. My mother had

another sister, Annc Hardie - Anne McIntosh Hardie - who was a teacher in the Chicago

school system. She taught at Marshall High School I know, coached the debate team there,

and had a couple of people on that debate team who subsequently becamc fairly well known

in Chicago politics. One was Aldcrman Becker. And the other one was Herb Geislcr, who

ended up in the legislature, he and I ended up in the 1cg.islature at the same time. We called

Aunt Anne, "Nanna."

11

Q: Oh?

A: And Nanna ended up as the principal - during the Depression years - as the principal

of two grammar schools in Chicago. They were doubling up, and she was paid in

script. They had no money. She lived with us. I don't remember whether she lived with

us on Arlington or not. She probably did. I just don't remember. I think she lived with

her father and mother until they died in 1924, which was when we moved to La

Grange. And I don't remember whether she lived with us there or not. But she did live

with us at 53 South Spring, at the second house we had in La Grange.

My mother had another sister who was married to Doctor James MacDonald, who lived in

Aurora. Her name was Aunt Glady. But that wasn't her right name. Her right name

was . . . oh that's terrible, I can't remember, I always called her Aunt Glady.

She had another sister, Aunt Dollie, whose name was Madeline. Aunt Dollie was married

to Charles Welford. They lived for a while in Tuckahoe, New York, and then in Toronto,

Canada. Charlie was with Addressograph-Multigraph.

My mother had another sister - oh, one younger sister whose name was Alice Funk, married

to Herbert Funk. And they lived in Chicago part of the time and in La Grange. They lived

in La Grange when we were on the other side of the tracks. But they lived at 404 N. Wyola.

Since I had no brothers or sisters we were fairly close to those people because they all had

children. Uncle Jack in Montana had five kids . . . three of whom are still living. Unrle

Bob, the doctor, had three children, none of whom is still living. They were all older than

I was. I was next to the youngest of about fifteen or eighteen cousins. Aunt Dollie, the

one in Toronto, had one daughter who is still living, whose husband was a Presbyterian

minister who baptized a couple of our kids. IIis name was John Rates. Aunt Glady, the

one in Aurora, had a son and a daughter. Jim MacDonald, my cousin, is about seven or

eight years older than I am and lived with us for a while, through my high school

years. And he was more like a brother to me than anybody else.

Q: What was the occasion for his staying there?

A: His father contracted Parkinson's disease, and he was a surgeon. And of course with

the shaking hands he could do absolutely nothing. He was totally incapacitated for his

profcssion. And Aunt Glady opened a candy store in Aurora and she was quite an enterprising

lady, a beautiful woman, Aunt Glady, and she died. And she predeceased "Uncle Honey,

which of course nobody expected. And Jim didn't have any place to live, and he was through

high school, couldn't afford to go to college and so he moved in with us whilc hc was working

in Chicago. And he worked for some brokers, Harris, IJpham . . . I don't remember who

else. A great guy, a very dear friend. I think Jim is maybe nine years older than I. When

I was a little kid he used to come to all my birthday parties and tell us stories about L)iamond

Dick and Hank the Hawkeye and, oh, he was just great. Ht: was our hero when we

were little kids you know. When we were seven, you know, he was sixteen and he was -

boy, he was really the big kid you know, and a dear friend.

Q: You've talked of your mother's brothers and sisters. How about your father? were any

of those in this area?

7

A: No my dad had a brother and Iwo sisters. My dad was significantly the youngest. I

don't know which of the other three were the oldest. He had a brother whose name was

Byron. Byron had four kids. I think maybe two boys and two girls. . . maybe three boys

and a girl. And Byron disappeared, totally disappeared, without a trace, leaving' four little

kids.

Q: I'll be darned.

A: The year my dad died - my dad died in . , . 1944, in - May 1, 1944, and Byron had

surfaced just before that. He wrote to my dad and said, "I'm your long lost prodigal brother

returned home." And my dad didn't believe in the prodigal son story and was a littlr chilly

to Byron, never saw him. My dad thought he might be an imposter, didn't know anything

about him. But he came to my dad's funeral. And I saw him and it was pcrf~ctly clear

he was a Burditt. IIe looked - oh, I look somewhat like him - we look kind of like those

Millers, all those George Millers, long deep lines in our face here, and tall. And that's the

only time I ever saw Byron, never had any other contact with him.

My dad had two sisters, Jesse Randolph, who married Raymond Randolph, who lived in

Chicago. They never had any chiIdr.cn. And we saw them periodically, not very

oftcn. And another sister, Maude Barnes, married to Merton Barnes. They lived in Rome,

New York, and we saw them regularly. They were the Christian Scientists. Uncle Mert

died and Aunt Maude - my Aunt Maude had really raised my father in many ways. She

was eleven years older than my dad. And my dad weighed fourteen pounds and eleven

ounces when he was born, which is a fairly good-sized baby, and his mother was never really

quite the same after that I gathered. And Aunt Maude really kind of raised him, and never

had any children of her own. And then when my dad died, I kind of inherited that motherchild

relationship with Aunt Maude. After Uncle Mert died she stayed in Rome for a while,

but then she came to La Grange. She was in a nursing home in La Grange for the last

several years of her life. But she also had no children so we were very close to her too.

Q: Well now, with those that lived in the Chicago area, did you have frequent Sunday dinners

and lhat sort of thing where thc family got together?

A: Yes. Yes quite often. The ones who lived in La Grange on my mother's side, my

mother's younger sister, had two daughters and one's a few years older than I am, one's

a few years younger than I am. And we saw them fairly often. We went out to Aurora

to see my cousin Jim MacDonald and his mother and dad out there. I can rcmemhcr driving

out there a lot of times. They had an electric car which was a great thing to ride around

in. And Aunt Jesse, my dad's sister who lived in Chicago, we saw them, not every Sunday

by a long shot but within frequent intervals.

Q: Let's see now, you moved at the age of five across the railroad tracks then. Were you

in any way tlisappointcd with that move or did you look forward to it or do you recall any

emotion at all regarding that change at that time'!

A: I don't remember any negative emotions about it. I tend not to have too many negative

emotions about life, anyway I didn't have one on that. It was a new house. We had the

excitement of moving into a new house.

Q: Did your father have the new house built?

A: No. He rented it.

Q: Oh I see.

A: He rented it . . . probably in September, 1927, because I had a couple of weeks of kindergartcn

at the Ogden School on the north side of the tracks. But then we moved and I started

out again right in Cossitt School, in the kindergarten at Cossitt School on the south side

of the tracks. And I think my dad probably had a year-to-year lease or a two-year lease

because I know in September, 1929, he signed a five-year lease on thc house at some enormous

exhorbitant rent. My recollection is $140.00 a month, which in those days was just terrible

and of course a month later came the crash. And there was no money. And I remember

it was always hand-to-mouth when I was a kid. We didn't have money, weren't able to save

anything and lawyers were always the last ones paid and we lived in a rented house all

through that. As a matter of fact my folks never bought a house, never owned a

house. They rented throughout.

Q: What about your kindergarten experiences? Do you recall any particular traumatic

situation?

A: Oh yes. Oh yes. Yes I remember several things about it. One is that - and clearly

the most important - the cutest little girl I ever saw in my life was in that kindergarten

class, the second one at Cossitt School. Her name was Barbara Stenger. I moped around

the house for two years worried about not seeing this little girl except in school and my

mother finally said, "Well, Bunks," which was my nirkname when I was a little kid, "why

don't you rall her up and invite her to go to a movie." So I did and we had our first date

in second grade. And her mother and her best friend went with us. I remember I paid

for her tirkct and my ticket to the movie in La Grange but her mother paid for herself

and Jane. Then we didn't do any more dating in grammar school. In second grade it's a

little unusual to date. I had another girl in seventh grade. But Barbara and I went to

the eighth grade dance together. And we were good friends but we didn't date at all in

high school. We dated other people, both of us.

When I was in the air corps I went steady with another girl from my junior year in high

school all the way through college - the rest of high school and college and part way

through the air corps and I used to fly up to see this girl to see her when I could. And

I flew up one weekend and we double dated with Uarbara Stenger and another very good

friend of mine by the name of Bob Neimann. They were dates while I was dating the other

girl, whose name was Lucille Lahiff. And I decided after going steady with Lucille for about

five years that Barhara Stenger, my first choice from kindergarten, was better so I flew up

the next week to see Barbara and we are now - we've been rnarried now for thirty-seven

years. We were marricd February 17, 1945. So that's thirty-eight years. Geez! See time

flies when you're having fun, I only thought it was thirty-seven.

That's one memorable event of kindergarten. The rest of kindergarten was all had. I hated

the damned naps you had to take. I was so skinny when I was a kid, I was really bony

and I hated to lie down on that rug. I didn't want to take a nap anyway and to lie down

on that uncomfortable rug on the hard floor I just didn't like. I couldn't tie my

show. Finally somebody got me to switch hands tying shoes and I learned it right away,

hut I had a terrible time tying my shoes, and everybody else could tie his shoes and I felt,

you know, very insecure. They had a jungle gym that you could climb around on and I was

scared to death of the damned jungle gym. We had a kindergarten orchestra and obviously

I should have been the director of the orchestra. But instead of making me the director

Mrs. Zack, the teacher, made me play the cymbals in the back row of the orchestra. And

to add insult to injury the guy she ~icked td head the orchestra was Dickie Lodge who was

a real cute little boy who also liked Barbara Stenger, and that added insult to injury, so

I was just mightily unhappy in kindergarten. And it culminated when Mrs. Zack told my

mother at the end of the year that she really thought I had not developed as I should and

I should take kindergarten over again. (chuckles)

Q: So you had another year of kindergarten?

A: No, no I didn't. My mother said no. She wasn't going to do it. My mother felt vindicated

eight years later when I got the American Legion award in that class and was first

in my class in high school. So she did right, she didn't make me take it over

again. (chuckles)

Q: What about your discipline in the home? Which was the disciplinarian, the father or

the mother?

A: They really worked pretty well together as a tram. It wasn't a matter of, "I'll tell your

father when he comes home." I can only remember being spanked once or twice and I think

y my mother. I don't remember my dad ever spanking me.

mous problem.

But discipline wasn't an enor-

You know, my mother was a great activist, she was always into things and getting me into

things. For example, later on halfway through grammar school, somewhere along sixth

grade or so, my mother got me into stamp collecting. My older cousin Jim was a stamp

collector and my older cousin Jean was a stamp collector so my mother got me stamp

collecting. And there was a fellow who lived a couple of houses down the street who was

- looking back on it now I realize he was probably an alcoholic but he had a stamp collection

and I used to get my twenty-five cents allowance on Saturday and I'd go down and buy

stamps from this old gentleman. You know at a penny apiece or two cents apiece or whatever.

Out of that my mother organized the group called the Junior Philatelists of La Grange which

was all of my buddies and I formed a stamp club in La Grange. And my mothcr. gave us

this fancy name and sent out a news release to the local paper about it which carried a

news release about the formation of the Junior Philatelists of La Grange. We met at our

house once every week, every Wednesday afternoon or something and traded stamps. As

1 recall there were six or eight or ten boys in it. My mother never had a daughter so pretty

soon she organized the girls' auxiliary of the Junior Philatelists of La Grange and the girls,

including Barbara, came over and traded stamps for a while. That was one of the things

my mother got me into.

Then in seventh grade my mother, and of course with my dad's support but my mother was

the motivator, decided that we ought to have more exposure to classical music and the gentilities

of life. So she organized a music club with five boys and five girls who met at our

house every Sunday evening, five or six o'clock or something like that. And everybody came

separately, ~~arents dropped us off I believe, or dropped the other kids off. Thcn thc boys

drew straws to see which girl would be their date for the night really. And mother always

had a buffet laid out in the dining room and the boys would serve the girls.

And then after we'd all eaten we would then each do our musical thing. Bobby James played

the flute and Bob Haeger and another, Johnny Smith, and I sang in a trio and 1,ucia

Llrwellyn played the violin and Barbara played the piano and - my now wife played the

piano - and Lhrothy Meissner played the piano and Mary Ann Redel played the

piano. Mary Ann Redel was the girl I was then in love with and was dating when 1 could,

but you know, kind of secretly. And there was - oh, Buddy Burgess played the cornet and

every night - the trumpet - and every night we started out singing, "God of our Fathers

Whose Almight Hand," and Bud would give the great flourish, you know, the great trumpet

flourish at the beginning of that one. We did that all through seventh grade and then at

eighth grade the other mothers, I guess, had a guilty conscience so they offered to divide

it up and from the eighth grade we went to other homes, moving around on Sunday nights.

We also brought a couple of other people into the - I think there were six maybe or -

I know A1 Cook who played the accordian came in. A1 was a real good friend of ours. My

mother never quite approved of the accordian but she let A1 into our club. (chuckles)

Q: Was he Irish or Italian?

A: No no no. He - I don't - they were . . . I don't know what the Cooks were. His dad

worked for Sears.

Q: Now you said you were a singer. Did you play any instrument.?

A: Oh I forgot, yes, I played the piano. I took piano lessons for years. Never could play

worth a darn. I got attracted to Rachmaninoff's "C: Sharp Minor Prelude," and I used to

fight my way through that thing. Every Sunday night I'd play the darned thing hcmnse

I couldn't play anything else. And I played it very poorly.

Q: Did you enjoy that? Were you . . .

A: No. I never liked the piano at all. It was a perpetual fight. My mother had to make

me sit down and practice. One of the fellows in our club, whose name was Johnny Klutz

and his stepfather adopted him so he became John Smith that year, loved to play the piano

and John used to come over - they didn't have a piano in their apartment, his dad was

a pilot for American Airlines - I'm not sure - he's a pilot with one of them airlines. And

John used to come over to our house and play the piano which also kind of infuriated me

because I didn't - you know, I didn't - "Why did anybody want to do this'!" you know,

especially a friend of mine.

Q: I see. (chuckles) Did anything come of this group? Were there any that became then

professional musicians in any way?

A: No. I don't think there are any - nobody did. It was just a hobby for all of us but

out of it, you know, we learned a lot about music and some of the social graces and it was

a - we all - we see several of the people who were in that, we see them fairly often or

at high school reunions or at things like that, and we always talk about it, laugh about what

we were doing.

Q: Did this include any trips to the opera or the Orchestra Hall or . . .

A: Not as a group that I recall but when I was in high school my folks bought me a season

tickct to the opera. And I used to go in alone and sit in the hack half of the top gallery

where I think the tickets were fifty cents. And I did that for a whole year and out of that

developed kind of a love of opera which I still have. When I was in high school a few years

later my cousin, Jim Macnonald, was living with us and Jim knew somebody who got us

in as supernumeraries at the opera. So Jim and I were a couple of operas.

Q: Oh?

A: Spear carriers. We were in "Carmen" and . . . I don't remember - we were in another

one too, we were in two of them, I don't remember what the other one was. But I vividly

rernrmber the "Carmen," the humorous things that happened during "Carmen," it was really

funny. And of course . . .

Q: Humorous things - you mean that weren't supposed to have happened or . . .

A: Oh yes, when you're up close - there's one scene in which Carmen - there's a ramp

that comes down into the middle of the stage, it comes right down the front of the stage

but at the back of the stage it goes up at right angles into the wings. And the lady who

was singing Carmen was an enormous, you know, classical heavy set - of those days the

coloratura sopranos were all - you know, contraltos, everybody was great big people. And

this lady, this Carmen, had to come tripping lightly on her toes down that ramp and make

a right angle turn to come out on the stage. Well they knew if they ever got that hulk

going down that ramp she'd never make the turn. So they had two huge guys, one on each

side of her, helping her down as she came around there and kind of - of course we were

close and so we could see the smile on her face but the corner of her eyes looking as to

whether she was going to make this corner down at the bottom.

And another

ried in a big

empty. The

time, there's one scene, the smugglers scene in "Carmen" where Jim and I carbox

of some kind, and we put the box down after struggling with it. It was

box was a big box but it weighed maybe two pounds, a great big thing. And

wc struggled over and put it down and one of the fat Italian tenors in the chorus came over

and he just picked the box up and moved it over about ten feet, after all our acting you

know.

Q: I see. (laughter) Well! That kind of blew the scene.

A: Blew - yes blew our cover. (chuckles)

Q: When did you first start going to the opera? Do you remember the - your first occasion

at thf opera?

A: I don't remember my first occasion at the opera, but my folks had some very good friends

whose name was Marble, Manton and Dorothy Marhle. And they had two children, one of

whom's name is Ken Marble who's a couple of years older than I am and Ken and 1 are

now still very close friends. And Ken and I met at the opera, in utero, or at least I was

in utero at the opera. And so my folks were taking me out before I was even born. And

I guess I don't remember going to the opera before I was in high school. I might have gone

when I was in grammar school once or twice, but I remember really mainly going in on

- I guess it was maybe Thursday or Friday night. I played basketball all the way through,

so it couldn't have been the night we were playing basketball in high school, but it was . . .

Q: What about the symphony orchestra - did you attend it as often?

A: No.

Q: Apparently not.

A: No. I don't really remember going to the symphony when I was a kid. I loved classical

music and had, oh, Wagner and Beethoven and some of the other things that I just

played. As a matter of fact, when 1 was in high school I played cvrry night - to get myself

psyched up for a basketball game, I'd play the prelude to the third art of "Lohengrin."

Q: Well! (chuckles)

SESSION I, TAPE 2, SIDE 1

Q: Let's see, we went from your first experiences in band which was the cymbal I guess in

kindergarten on up.

A: That's the total extent of my hand ~xp~rience.

Q: So you never played an instrument in the band at all.

A: The only instrument I ever studied was the piano. And I hated it so damned much I

didn't have to do it very long.

Q: And it's difficult to march with too.

A: Yes. (chuckles) I sang in the Episcopal choir for many years when 1 was a kid. I prohably

started out singing in the Episcopal choir . . . oh, I suppose in fourth or fifth grade

in La Grange and sang all the way through grammar school and I guess maybe part way

through high school in the Episcoptil church in La Grange. And then when I was in college

my mother was directing the Episcopal choir in IIinsdale and I used to sing in her choir

in Hinsdale when I came home, when I was home for summers or vacations and so on.

Q: You evidently enjoyed singing.

A: Yes I loved to sing. I still love to sing. I don't get to do it now but I love to sing. I

love to harmonize.

Q: I believe you said that, in your group at least, you had a trio that sang together.

A: Yes.

Q: Did you sing at occasions? Did you go out to . . .

A: Every once in a while we'd sing at something yes. We'd sing trios like "Lift Thine Eyes"

which is from - is it from the "Elijah?" I think it's one of Handel's. It's a classic trio

and these three little boys sang that around different places. Usually it's every Sunday it

seems to me we sang it. (chuckles)

Q: Well, did your mother give you training in singing? Did she guide you on . . .

A: Not formally. I mean she never stood me up before the piano and had me do exercises,

that kind of thing. But she would show me how to breath and do things like that. Since

she was a professional and had been through Master's School of Music she knew that very

well and gave me - I guess so subtly I didn't know I was getting instructed. And I don't

purport to have a professional voice. I don't. I just love to sing . . . and harmonize.

Q: Let's see now. When you went to school then, entered the first grade, what school did

you go to?

A: Cossettes School, I started yes. It was three blocks from where we lived and I went all

the way through grammar school there.

Q: Did you go home for lunch from . . .

A: I went home for lunch yes. It was easily walkable. Most of the kids went home for

lunch. Barbara went home for lunch every day and she lived maybe eight blocks from the

school.

Q: What do you remcmber of the teachers in grade school? Were there any that stand out

that . . .

A: Well yes we're - of course having continued to live in that same town and since Barbara

and I both had the same teachers all the way through, we were in the same homeroom all

the way through grammar school, we'd talk about them quite a lot. Mrs. Zack was our kindergarten

teacher. Z-A . . . maybe it was 2-A-C-K, I don't remember. I guess it was

Z-A-C-K. Well I don't know. I never - since I didn't like kindergarten at all I don't have

the fondest recollections of Miss Zack. She and I apparently had a personality

conflict. Coursc she liked me so much she wanted to do it over again then.

Our first grade teacher was Mrs. Swift who was a kindly old lady who retired - an old

lady about my age now. Kind of a middle-aged lady. We have a picture of our first grade

class with Mrs. Swift and with all of the people and we were looking at it one time this

last year trying to identify - we identified about half of the kids I guess.

Q: How many would there be in such a picture?

A: Oh eighteen, twenty, something like that. Our second grade teacher - well I don't -

I think maybe Miss Lessig was our second grade teacher, nice lady. Third grade - I'm not

sure. Miss Freese was probably fourth grade. Miss Lewis was fifth or sixth grade. And

then we kind of - I don't remember who our homeroom teachers were - we had some -

Mrs. Chenoweth was one.

The teacher I suppose in grade school who had the most influence on all of us was a lady

by the name of Nell Hashagen. Mrs. Hashagen had no children of her own . . . and no

husband that I knew of. I don't know whether they were divorced or he died or what, but

we were Nell Hashagen's kids. And she sponsored our seventh and eighth grade basketball

teams. She wasn't our coach. We had another coach. The gym teacher was our

coach. But Mrs. Hashagen adopted all of us and got us our shirts died purple so that we'd

all have purple shirts, that kind of thing. Just a great lady, you know, just looked after

all of us.

Our librarian was Mrs. Bilger, whose husband - she and her husband lived in the same

building that my mother lived in later on after my dad died. Many years later. There was

another librarian by the name of Miss Zimmerman who befriended us and who was very

helpful and you know in kind of educating us in the literary world.

There was a dramatics teacher by the name of - something like Miss Gulbrandsen, G-U-L-

B-R-A-N-D-S-E-N, something like that, that may not be quite right, who coached the school

play every year. I remember she made me the court jester one year and I could just horse

around on the stage, and it was - I really had more fun. I piled a bunch of hats on my

head I remember one scene. I'd never done it before until the day of the play. We were

on and I started piling all these hats on my head. I don't know where I got them. But

she was in stitches. I remember this lady - our coach who was supposed to be watching

what we were doing - was laughing so hard behind the stage, you know, behind the curtain

she couldn't - she wasn't doing anything. (chuckles)

Q: So you were involved with dramatics then in grade school'!

A: Just a school play and I never did anything beyond that. I never went out for dramatics

in high school.

Q: What about legitimate stage in grade school and high school years? Did you attend

much? do you recall any?

A: I don't remember any in grammar school. We used to go - our French teacher in high

school used to take us in to some French plays. And I don't rcmomber going to legitimate

theater much. We were - you know, those were Lkpression years. Let's see in 1929 at

the time of the crash I was seven, so I was in second grade. So all through those early

1930's those were my grammar school years and there was just no money around. Nobody

had any money. I guess you don't quite remember that but boy, it was . . .

Q: I'm only two years behind you.

A: Are you? (chuckles) Well those were not - where were you raised?

Q: In the country, on a farm those years.

A: Yes.

Q: Well, no, we were in the village I mess still, in the early years.

A: In Illinois?

Q: Waggoner, Illinois.

A: Oh yes, yes, that's right. I forgot you told me that.

Q: Well let's see then, most of your activity during those years would have been in the community

other than perhaps the opera which came a little bit later I guess.

A: Yes. Very much isolated to La Grange yes. But my mother really import,ed some things

like the stamp club and the music club, And we took great vacations whon I was a kid. We

ented a cottage at . . . well my first vacation I remember was at Berrien Springs which

is just around the border in Michigan. Somebody was up there - I don't remcmber who

it was - I think maybe my Aunt Alice, Mrs. Funk, had a place up there or had some friends

who were there or something. Then we rented a cottage for a couple of weeks for several

summers at Twin Lake, Michigan, which was right near Muskegon and I remember being

up there sort of.

I remember one time I caught a fish, a big bass, all alone on the boat. I was probably seven

or eight. And I was rowing out in the lake and I caught this bass and the hook was in

so far - I wouldn't touch the fish. I still don't like to touch fish. (chuckles) And I

dragged that poor fish all the way up on the beach until somebody came and saved the poor

fish you know. I mean - by that time he was long dead.

We did that for a few years and then we rented a cottage at Long Beach, Indiana, which

is right near Michigan City. And we used to have great times up there. A lot of my friends

would come up and we'd play Capture the Flag around the dunes. There was one - kind

of a strip mine. I don't know what it was, it was kind of like strip mine rows you know,

and it was great for Capture the Flag because it was eroded a lot and there was just -

you know, you could hide everywhere and we had more fun playing around there and on

the beach. And we played tennis. I learned how to play golf up there such as it was you

know and it was just a great place for kids in the summertime.

And we also had some really good trips. We used to go back to Rome and see my aunt

and uncle - and Cooperstown. We went out to Montana to see my uncle. In seventh grade

my mother and dad and I drove all the way to the west coast and went out to California

and saw everything. And as a matter of fact I kept a diary of that trip and wrote it up

with pictures. And I still have that diary of that trip. We stopped at the Petrified

Forest. I got a picture of my dad standing next to a petrified tree and the caption I wrote

under it in the seventh grade was, "Petrified Tree and My Dad, left to right."

Q: I see. (chuckles)

A: And corny stuff like that. It was bound up and I turned that in as a paper in seventh

- in eighth grade I guess. That was my, you know, my term paper.

Q: Well! (chuckles) Now that - let's see, you went through where? New Mexico or Arizona?

A: Well it was one of the two. Let's see, Petrified Forest, Arizona, I think it is, yes.

Q: So you must have gone by the Grand Canyon then?

A: Yes. We drove - we drove down Route 66, you know, we went out Route 66. And my

dad and I rode the mule down into the Grand Canyon.

Q: Oh you did?

A: Which is a great experience, you know, I was in seventh grade and . . .

Q: Do you remember the sensation you had going down on the mule? Were you frightened

or.. .

A; Wait a minute. I'm not sure . . . no I don't think it was - we also went out my sophomore

year in high school and I think it was my sophomore year that we went down - my

sophomore year we went down on the mule in Grand Canyon. And yes, you know, it's an

exhilarating thing to ride the mule down that trail. It's really exciting. We went all the

way down to the Phantom Ranch which was down at the bottom. And then back

20

up. There's another one that goes all the way across and comes up on the north rim but

we went down from the south rim and went back up the south rim.

The most exciting thing that happened was when we passed another mule train coming up,

the procedure is that one mule train stops and the other one goes by. And the one - it's

a narrow trail - and you know, it's a sheer drop on one side and the mule train that stops

goes to the outside and stops and then the other mule train that's passing goes to the

inside. We were going down so we were stopped on the outside. And the mules were

coming by us on the inside. And a mule got opposite me and he kicked at my mule and

either he kicked my foot out of the stirrup or scared me to death! I don't know

which. (chuckles) Looking down two thousand feet and these mules getting into a tangle,

I wasn't interested in that operation.

Q: Well. Well apparently your father was doing sufficiently well then that you could take

these trips during that period of time.

A: Yes my folks had - when my dad was in New York they had quite a lot of money. They

always had servants. As a matter of fact two servants for a lot of the time in New

York. And when we were in La Grange, 53 South Spring, we had a live-in maid nearly

all the time, a high school girl who - a girl from - the one who was there most of the

time lived in Bryant, Illinois. Her dad was a miner, her brother was. And her name was

Louise Tomic. And Louise went through high school while she was living with us and helping

my mvther - really doing most of the housework and some of the cooking and so on. I

don't remember what Louise was paid. It was something like ten dollars a week which was

the going rate for a live-in servant in those days, And my mother was making a little bit

more than that singing in the Presbyterian choir. Only because my mother sang in the choir

could we afford to have a live-in maid. We had no money. We were not a wealthy family

at all. My dad never had enough money to make a down payment on the house.

But my folks always lived very well. They were both to the manor born. They were both

very well-educated people. And my mother knew as much about Shakespeare as just about

anybody I've ever known in my life, perpetually quoting Shakespeare. She had a whole

bunch of little Sheakespearian quotes like, "Stand not upon the order of your going, but go

at once." People stand on one foot and the other waiting to leave you know. Or, "Send

Ariel for it." When you're trying to remember something and you can't remember, she'd

say, "Just send Ariel for it." Ariel is a character in one of the Shakespearian plays and

I'm embarrassed to say 1 don't even remember which one. Maybe "Midsummer Night's

Dream?" No thjit's not it. But Ariel is the guy they would always - they'd send Ariel

out on it, he was a messenger they'd send out. And so she'd say, "Send Ariel for it." She

had a whole bunch of little quotes from Shakespeare that I grew up on, not knowing Shakespeare

from Adam's off ox, but you know they were things that she said around the house

all the time.

Q: You didn't become absorbed then in Shakespeare?

A: No I really never did except these quotations now of course have great meaning to

me. And I still use them. (chuckles)

Q: Apparently then there must have been considerable reading in the home. Did you have

a study with a considerable number of books?

A: No. No, none of our houses were big enough for a study. Let me see if I can remember

what it was - the configuration of our house in La Grange. There was a living room down

the south side of the house with a downstairs back porch that was screened in and storm

winclows in the wintertime hut really too cold for much in the wintertime. And the left

side of the house had the dining room and the kitchen. And there was a hall down the

middle. But there was no study at all. IJpstairs there were one, two, three, 1 think four

edrooms upstairs, and a sleeping porch. And I slept out in the sleeping porch most of the

time. My dad and I slept out in the sleeping porch for most of - all winter long I'd sleep

on the sleeping porch and my mother made big robes for us with a hood on them and you

could pull your feet inside and I don't know what the theory was, but maybe my uncle, who

was a doctor, said, "Let them sleep in the cold." So I slept out there and my dad slept

out there. I think there were two or three beds out there, my cousin slept out there with

me when we were in high school. And finally I came in the house somewhere along the

line and had one of the four bedrooms.

Q: Did you have a collection of books that you collected over the years?

A: No. I've never been a very avid reader. I've always had a lot to - I've always been

busy. But not really an active reader. I was always with a couple of other fellows. We

invented a lot of Kames for example. A fellow by the name of Ned Munger who is a professor

at Cal Tech [California Institute of Technology], he's the one I mentioned the oral history

thing to the other day. IIe lived a couple of doors away from us. Ned's father was the

financial editor of thc Daily News, and a very inquiring mother. And his mother and my

mother I think kind of conspired to get us doing things.

And Ned and I invented games together. We had more fun playing games. We had a game

we played, that we invented, on a map of the world which is full of logistics, navies and

everything else. And that must have been about eighth grade 1 suppose we did that. And

then we had another game, a war game, that we played - these were both war games -

on our living room floor with lead soldiers and cannons and checkers or crokinoll pieces or

something, we'd shoot across and we'd try to knock out the enemy nests and you know we'd

keep our living room locked up like that for days on end you know. Our folks were very

tolerant. (chuckles)

Ned Munger incidentally is a professor at Cal Tech and has just written a book called

Touched by Africa. And he's got on the cover of it the names of all the people that he's

written about in here. It includes some very well-known people, the whole Leakey

Foundation. And Ned is - I think he's executive director of the Leakey Foundation.

Q: That's the anthropologist.

A: Yes. Yes, yes, and their names are over in the anthropology part of Africa on the

map. And one of the names he has on here is Burdjtt. And Allen Payton is one of the

ones down hew in South Africa. These are all people that he knew at some time during

his life.

Q: Now is that you?

A: Well when I got it, I thought, "I didn't know Ned had another friend by the name of

Burditt." And so I opened the book and as it turns out (shows copy of the book) this is

another copy - chapter one is about me.

Q: Oh is that right? Well!

A: So I'm not only participating in oral history but now I'm in written history. The title

of the chapter is "Runks" which was my nickname.

Q: Oh I see. From 1937 to the present. So he met you in 1937 then?

A: Well he says that. Actually we were fifteen in 1937 and I knew him long before that

because we lived just a half-block apart. I don't know how he happened to pick 1937 because

I think - well at age fifteen, that's about the first time you have any significant . . .

Q: I asked about your reading - I see G-8 and his Fighting Aces - that's really G-8 and

his Battle Aces - I used to read that I recall.

A: Oh? Oh is that right, yes, oh yes. And you know I don't think I thought about that

until I saw it again in this book.

Q: Is that right?

A: But Ned had those G-8 magazines. They were so great with the zeppelins flying around

in and out of the clouds and G-8 was . . .

Q: Going behind the lines and all!

A: Oh yes. (chuckles) Oh yes, yes, those were great.

Q: Were you interested much in World War I and that type of thing?

A: Oh you know, I guess like any kids, sure. Ten years after you know. The G-8 things

and you know I suppose like - not inordinate, it never occurred to me to make a career

of the military or anything like that. And I wasn't very big on parades and stuff. But

you know we just . . .

Q: How about Boy Scouts? Did you join the Boy Scouts as you went along?

A: Yes. Yes, I don't - you're going to have a hard time to name an organization that I

didn't join as a boy. The Presbyterian church started - I was in the Cub Scout troop in

the Presbyterian church. My Scoutmaster was a fellow by the name of Pierce, who had

a little boy who was younger than we were by maybe six or eight or ten years. And one

time when I was in the air corps - I was instructing at Stuttgart, I was at twin-engine

advance at Stuttgart, Arkansas - and Captain Pierce was stationed at Pine Bluff. There

was an ammunition depot or something at Pine Bluff'. Do you know what that was? do you

remember what that was at Pine Bluff?

Q: I don't recall.

A: There was some kind of an ammunition - some kind of a supply depot or

something. And he was over there. And I knew he was there so I flew over one time from

Stuttgart to see him, and his little boy was there. Now I was probably twenty-one and he

was probably twelve or something like that. And I took him up - I don't think I took

him up.

That was clearly not permitted to take a civilian up in an airplane but I took him

onto the plane and showed him - we played like we were flying around you know. And

he might even have been a little younger than that. And about ten years later - he must

have been about that age - about ten years later after the war, after law school and after

we were out of the first house we lived in, the doorbell rang one time and I went to the

door and here was this young man, Captain Pierce's son, a B-50 pilot . . .

Q: Oh really?

A: . . . and he just came over to see me to tell me what I had done to him by climbing

him on that airplane that day.

Q: I'll be darned. You never know.

A: But we were great games players. Gosh, we'd play - as I said - I mentioned some

of the war games but we played cards all the time. My mot.her and dad were both very

good cardplayers. They played a lot of bridge, and pinochle. They taught me how to play

pinochle when I was a little kid.

Q: Did they have regular weekly pinochle or bridge games?

A: Bridge games. Yes my mother and dad were in a duplicate bridge club and indoctrinated

me into that when I was in high school where I got - I guess maybe in high school and

certainly in college when I came home I filled in to thcir - I would fill - they'd let me

play when I'd go you know - they'd sit out for a round and then I could play with them.

Q: Did you enjoy that?

A: Oh yes I absolutely love cards. And learned how to play bridge then and as a matter

of fact later on another guy and I won the Harvard bridge tournament which we had

organized. It was a little embarrassing. I'll tell you about that when we get to the college

days. We also played a lot of miscellaneous things. We were not permitted to play cards

on Sunday.

Q: Oh!

A: Scotch Presbyterians don't play cards on Sunday. Looking back on it, I don't think it

made a heck of a lot of difference whether we were playing cards or playing Mahjong, which

we played regularly on Sunday, or something else, because they're just a bunch of gambling

games and everything else. And I rather suspect it was because my folks wanted me to

learn these other games.

Q: I see. (chuckles)

A: Maybe not, maybe not. But in any event we played, oh, checkers and chess. They

checked me out on chess real early. A lot of games I remember.

Q: What about Monopoly?

A: Oh yes. Gosh yes. My cousin, Jim, got a game called Finance which came out before

Monopoly. It's very much the same game, a little bit simpler, but wc played Finance when

Jim was living with us when I was - maybe my freshman year in high school, something

like that, and played it all the time. We even got so we liked it in preference to some other

games. Finance is a good two-handed game. And it was before the days of gin

rummy. We weren't playing gin in those days.

Q: How about dancing? Did you get involved with formal dancing in any way?

A: When I was in seventh and eighth grades my mother and dad decided they had enough

money to send me either to dancing school or to piano lessons. My recollection is those

lessons cost a dollar a week. And we could only afford one of them. So you know I wanted

dancing and I got piano.

Q: I see. (chuckles) Was there much social dancing, parties in the area where you did

dancing and that sort of thing?

A: Well of course not very much in grammar school and we didn't dance at the music

club. I don't remember that we ever did. But there was in high school of course. You

had a lot of dances, sorority dances and things like that in high school.

Q: You say you joined a number of organizations. Were there church organizations that

you belonged to?

A: Yes there was a High-Y and then I went into the Roy Scouts. You know, it's kind of

- I've always been an overachiever. God, you know, if there's something there, I've got

to go do it. And I got all three of the - I don't remember what the ranks now are in

Cub Scouts, Wolf and Bear and Lion - yes I do remember.

Q: And Webelos I believe.

A: Yes that's right. And there were Arrows and I remember I got the Arrows . . .

Q: Order of the Arrow?

A: No I think they were kind of like a second round or so - for extra credit or something. I

don't remember what they were, but you get them and I remember that you'd get the picture

of the wolf and then you'd get an arrow. It seems to me there was an arrow or something

that hung down from it. And then I went into Boy Scouts and I ended up with about sixteen

merit badges. But there was one merit badge I couldn't get, I couldn't do it. I don't rernrniber

what it was, it was . . . some particular thing. I couldn't do situps or something that

you had to do for the athletics merit badge or something. 1 don't remember what it

was. So I never got my Eagle but I was within four or five merit badges of it. You'd think

I would have gone on, a little uncharacteristic of me not to go on. But there was some

real impediment to it that I just . . .

Q: Did you travel much with the Boy Scouts to summer camp and that sort of thing?

A: I went to Camp Delavan I think just one summer. But we - you know, my family went

away. Maybe I went two summers. I went to Boys State a couple of years when I was

in high school, which was a very interesting experience. I went down one year and didn't

know what was going on and went down the next year and was elected . . . state - gosh,

I don't know - state treasurer or secretary of state, one of the state offices, which was -

that was really kind of fun.

Q: What about - going back a little bit now - or not necessarily going hack, hut with your

unclcs, were there any of those that were particularly involved with politics or active in politics?

A: (pause) No. I don't think anybody in the family ever did anything in politics. My

mother and dad didn't do anything in politics. My great-grandfather, Luther Ingalls

Burditt, was in the New York legislature, but I think he's the only one, thc, only one I can

think of off the top of my head who really ever did anything in politics.

Q: So there was no member of the family that you knew of that . . .

A: No my Uncle Boh was a doctor and was busy doctoring, Uncle Jack was a dentist who

wanted to look for oil and have a ranch out in Montana and a super guy, just a great guy,

finally opened up a bar and roadhouse just north of Yellowstone, down south of

Livingston. Just a super guy and Uncle Charlie worked for . . . he was a salesman I think,

a marketing guy for Addressograph-Multi~raph. And my dad was a lawyer and never did

anything in politics. I think my mother and dad were - I know they were Democrats until

Roosevelt - the time of Roosevelt's second term. I think they voted for Roosevelt his first

term and then switched, at least my dad did. I'm not sure my mother ever really

switched. My mother thought Franklin Roosevelt was quite a guy. My mother was very

impressed with gentility and he was a real gentleman. And she thought Eleanor Roosevelt

was a great lady too.

Q: You were a little young then but did you have any impression as to why your father

might have changed? Did he ever . . .

A: Yes, like most people when they get older they get a little more sensible and he thought

it was time to be Republican.

Q: I see. Yes sir. (chuckles)

A: Well he - dad, I think he was concerned ahout big government. Really the basic reasons

that I'm a Republican. His experience with Roosevelt was leading us into a social direction

with which he did not agree, where the people who work had to take care of the people

that didn't work. Now that's a gross oversimplification. But there was YOU know that feeling,

a lot of people had that feeling during the depression years. Everybody was struggling

and nobody had any money - but you know a lot of the people who weren't working obviously

wanted to work but couldn't. But I think that general philosophy of government doing

things was contrary to my dad's thinking.

SESSION 2, TAPE 3, SIDE 1

Q: I'd like to stick with the 1930's if we could, more or less, getting started here at least.

A: Sure.

Q: First of all I'd like to ask a bit more about your father. You have characterized your

father as being a rather retiring sort - or that's the impression I've gotten. Is that a correct

impression?

A: I don't - no I don't think so - and I can see how you would get that impression because

I talked so much about my mother yesterday. But, no, my father was a very strong

guy. He was a very articulate lawyer. Ht: was very knowledgeable in a numbcr of areas

other than the law and - no, I certainly wouldn't characterize him as retiring. The only

reason I'm hesitating at all on that is that my mother's family, the Hardie family, were

as enormous extroverts as you can possibly imagine. And almost anybody getting into that

group would look like he was retiring. My dad held his own in that group far better than

anybody could possibly handle it. (chuckles) Because he was not retiring at all. He was

a very strong guy and was the kind that would really tend to dominate rather than retire.

Q: You say there were a number of subjects that he was quite knowledgeable in. Did he

discuss any particular areas with you.

A: Really I was - I was a little kid then. And we talked about sports a lot hut my dad

died when I was I guess nineteen. And I was really racing to get through school and I

just - one of the regrets of my life is that I really never had time to discuss enough things

with my dad. Particularly the law. Here he was a - as I said yesterday two lawyers told

me he was the best lawyer they ever knew and I didn't bencfit from that at all. I never

got to know him and never was able to discuss the law with him because I was in the air

corps when he died. So . . .

Q: What type of law was he involved with?

A: He was a general practitioner but - he was in private practice. He did a lot of trial

work and business law and in those days lawyers tended to be more general practitioners

than spcrialists. He had a case one time against a cornpany called the Lawrence Warehouse

Systems, which is a field warehousing company, and at the end of that case Lawrence offered

him a job. And he went with Lawrence eventually, I guess maybe went with them as general

counsel, and endcd up as vice-president in charge of operations which was an operational

job, and was also gcneral counsel. He traveled quite a lot with the company and had a

very fine relationship with the company. Rut that was the only other job he had in Chirago

and he had that job for the last - oh 1 would guess six or eight or ten years of his life. And

he was in that position when he died.

Q: Did you have occasion to visit his office very often?

A: Yes. Not on a regular basis. You know, you're kind of isolated when you're out in the

suburbs, at least you think you're isolated. And I used to come down with him once in a

while or my mother and I would come down when I was a little kid. Both in his law office

and at the Lawrence office. But it wasn't a regular matter.

My dad did some business traveling, and mother and 1 went with him on some of those

busines trips. I remember one time he had business in Seattle. So we made a summer trip

out of it. And we dropped dad in Seattle and mother and I spent that day driving around

the Olympic Peninsula, which was a great experience. I guess maybe that was my seventhgrade

year. I don't remember, seventh grade or sophomore year in high school. We took

those two trips and I don't - I don't - I guess maybe that was my sophomore year because

I was sharing the driving - I would have been fifteen - I was sharing the driving with

my mother then at that time.

Q: Let's see, sophomore year, that would have been about 1938 I guess.

A: In 1937 or 1938 yes, probably the summer of - yes probably 1937 or 1938.

Q: Well I get the feeling now - let's see, you classified the family as - what were the

words? very involved with higher class things like literature and music and that sort of

thing, without much money.

A: Yes.

Q: Now as the 1930's went on, did the situation get better for the family then?

A: Sure. I guess it did for everybody as the 1930's went on. My dad must have joined Lawrenre

about, oh, really probably about the depths of the Depression, 1937, somewhere along

in there. I don't remember whether he was with Lawrence when we went out to the west

coast. He probably was though. He was probably with Lawrence that summer when we

went - yes I'm sure he was because we stopped in San Francisco where the president's office

of Lawrence Systems was and then we stopped at a couple of other places along the way

and talked to Lawrence people. I remember my dad would - it was probably a getacquainted-with-the-offices

kind of a trip. But I'm sure that's what he was doing in

Seattle. He probably had a problem with a particular warehouse in Seattle or something

like that. I don't know. I don't remember what the business was in Seattle.

But, sure, things got better. We continued to live in the same house in La Grange which

my folks were renting. We lived in that house until my dad died in 1944. I remember one

time we looked at a house, over back on the first side of the tracks, which was a very nice

house. But my folks decided they just couldn't swing the payments on it. They were thinking

about buying it, but the down payment was too much and they never really had enough

money for the down payment.

But - you know, I don't mean to sound poor-mouth because I don't remember ever really

wanting anything desperately when I was a kid that I didn't get. I don't mean I had sixteen

different everything, I certainly never had a car or anything. nearly of that magnitude. But

we had superb trips in the summertime frequently. Well, like our two trips out West and

we'd go to Cooperstown or someplace like that or we'd drive around different places. We'd

drive up to New England or things like that.

Q: Now you say, drove. I was going to ask how you went on these? Did you hop in the

touring car and go?

A: Yes we always drove. Well I guess when I was a little kid my mother took me on the

train out to Montana. But other than that we drove regularly. I remember one - between

Christmas and New Years we drove down to New Orleans and back and that was about -

that was late grammar school probably. I don't remember the year. You know, we stopped

to see some Civil War things and just did some sightseeing around New Orleans and spent

New Year's Eve in Memphis over at the old Peabody Hotel.

Q: Oh?

A: And when we'd take those trips my dad's goal was to finish the day, counting our motel

and all meals and gas for the car, everything we spent that day, he tried to make it on

twenty dollars a day! Now can you imagine that, Ilorace? the difference now?

Q: Good heavens! Not without camping. Did you camp out on any of these trips?

A: No we didn't take a tent with us or anything like that. We always stayed in a motel

but you know motels in those days were two or three or four or five dollars, you could get

a pretty good room. We didn't stay in the classiest motels around but - but at national

parks we'd stay in one of the lodges at the national parks.

My folks developed in me a fond love of national parks and the outdoors. With them I went

to a great many national parks. As I mentioned my dad and I went down on the mules

in Grand Canyon. We drove around Grand Canyon. We went to Zion and Bryce. We went

to Yosemite and Sequoia, the Tetons which are just south of Yellowstone and of course to

Yellowstone. We went to Glacier once or twice. So we really covered the West thoroughly

in traveling.

Q: I didn't ask yesterday when we were talking about reading in the home, did you take

National Geographic in the home?

A: Yes, yes.

Q: So with that type of interest you must have really eaten up National Geomaphic?

A: We did, and I still look through National Geographic every month. And I have the

National editions bound.

1

Q: Oh?

A: Somebody got them - I guess my mother and dad must have gotten those bound, just

the copies we had, probably through a bookbinder that my dad was using for briefs or

something. My recollection is our bound volumes of the Geographic which my mother and

dad gave me start back in the middle 1920's and go up to somewhere in the early 1940's. It's

a whole bunch of big bound volumes.

Q: Do you ever go hack and look through them very much.

A: Sure. Every once in a while. They're sitting in the hall of our apartment right

now. And I keep threatening to get them brought up to date and to fill the gaps. But I

haven't done it. I've got it though. I've saved all the Geographics, We save them all and

somc day I'll have them bound.

Q: I'll be darned. That's expensive now.

A: Yes a lot more than it was then, a lot more.

Q: What other magazines did the family take in the 1930's?

A: Boy!

Q: Life and && and that sort of thing?

A: Life. I don't remember that we ever took Look. We may have you know tried it out,

but we did - but, you know, we weren't - in those days nobody was - well, none of our

friends at least, and certainly we were not in a position where we could subscribe to

everything. We'd subscribe to the Chicago Tribune and my dad brought the Daily News

home at night, which he read on the train.

Q: Did they have Grit Magazine around?

A: Have what?

Q: Grit Magazine, it was sold as a weekly.

A: No I don't remember that one.

Q: It's been going for years and years.

A: Yes. I don't remember that. There were other - I'm sure there were other magazines

around, but I - I can't off the top of my head tell you . . .

Q: Christian Science Monitor by any chance?

A: No. We didn't subscribe to the Monitor although we had some dear friends who were

Christian Scientists. When I was in college my aunt and uncle came back to Boston for

the annual meeting at the mother church, Christian Science church, in Boston. I used to

go over and go to that church with them when I was in college.

Q: Is that right?

A: Yes.

Q: Let's see, well with your father tied up in law so much did that in any way influence

you in thinking toward being a lawyer?

A: Sure, sure. There wasn't any question in my mind - once I decided I wasn't going to

be a tireman.

Q: Oh?

A: The only other possibility was going into the ministry. But the law was clearly first.

Q: Yes. Did the fireman come from the fact that you had a firetruck when you were a young

child?

A: Probably. And I got over it when I finally had to give the firetruck away I expect.

Q: I see. (chuckles) Yes sir. So those were your main ambitions during your young years

then.

A: Really yes. I don't think I ever considered any profession except the law and ministry.

Q: At that time had you given any thought at all to being president of the United States

at some time?

A: Sure I suppose. Like all American boys do.

Q: But you weren't seriously thinking of that at that time, that you wanted to get into politics?

A: No. No I never really considered the possibility of going into politics. Maybe because

I - I didn't know the avenues, nobody in our family as I said yesterday was involved in

politics.

Q: I was wondering, you mentioned that your father's partner, Harry Newby, was it? was

a county commissioner. Did you know much about his activities in that respect?

A: No I didn't really. It was - we had a close relationship, 1 always called him Uncle Harry,

hut I don't even remember whether at that time he was still a county commissioner. I

think he was, but I think maybe he got out of it about that time when he and my (lad were

partners. I don't remember why. I think maybe - in my mind right now - I haven't

thought about this, hut I think maybe he was dumped. I think maybe they - or maybe

just beaten.

Q: During those years were you aware of a ward committeeman or a precinct captain in

the area? Did you . . .

A: Never. Never, and there almost wasn't any such thing in La Grange.

Q: Oh?

A: The Republican organization even after the war when I came back, it was virtually

nonexistent. You never heard from a precinct captain.

Q: Was this because there was generally no need for it in that area? The Republican party

was strong enough that . . .

A: I think partly, sure. When I first took over a precinct, I remember it was a precinct

in which I did not live. It was a - one of the very nicer precincts in the city, in La Grange,

in the village. And in the election there were, I don't remember - 312 Republican votes

and six Democrats or something like that. And I was kind of pleased that my precinct

would be like this. And one of the Republican judges took me aside and said, "George, did

you see the vote?" I said, "Yes I sure did." And she said, "Have we had a lot of new people

move into this precinct?" meaning six was too many Dcmocrats!

Q: Oh? (chuckles) Were you able to do anything about that?

A: No. I didn't know who they were you know.

Q: Yes. How about the politics of the time? How much were you aware of the activities

of the Kelly-Nash machine as it developed through the years?

A: Not at all. Not at all. I guess I knew the name when I was a kid, but that was really

about the extent of it. But my family had quite a social conscience. One of the things that

my mother got me to do when I was a little kid was get out my wagon, my - which I had

outgrown the wagon - but on Thanksgiving week, after school - and I did this for years

- I would start down at the railroad track on Spring and I would pull that wagon all the

way from Spring up to Forty-seventh, which is ahout four blocks, five hlocks, go up and ring

every doorbell and ask people for a can or something to give to the poor. And I'd come

home with a couple of wagonloads of canned goods which we then took down and gave to

the community nurse. And that was kind of - you know, our contribution lo the welfare

of the times.

Q: You say, our. Was this a family-type action?

A: Solely, solely. I was the only kid in La Grange who did it, and it was at my mother's

prompting.

Q: Again one of the family organizations of your mother then?

A: Yes. That was a corporation sole. I was the only one in that group! i

Q: Well. (chuckles) Did that spread at all?

A: No. I don't think anybody else ever did it. And I never particularly liked it. I didn't

do it because I liked to go up to the door and ring the doorbell and ask people to give me

a can of brans for the poor you know. But through that, I think, really 1 developed a social

conscience which among other things resulted in my becoming president of Phillips Rrooks

House when I was at Harvard, which at the proper time I'll tell you about.

Q: Well do you think your mother might have had that in mind, that it was an educational

experience for you as well as being a philanthropical sort of thing?

A: Probably. These other things were pretty educational things, like the stamp club and

the music club. And 1 expect she thought that I ought to have a social conscience and this

was a good way to do it. .

Q: She sounds like a remarkable person.

t

A: She really was, yes, she really was. (chuckles) And again by saying that I don't mean

to take any away from my dad because my dad cooperated fully in all these things and he

would drive me down to take the cans down to the community nurse and participate in it,

but of course he was full-time working, in the depression years. And my dad worked every

Saturday.

Q: Oh he did?

A: Come home at noon yes.

Q: Then Sunday was definitely a day of rest though?

A: Yes.

Q: Except that you had a considerable number of activities. Evidently you went to church

every Sunday.

A: We went to churrh every Sunday. And not only did I sing in the Episcopal choir all

those years, but the Presbyterian church started a choir. So I sang in both choirs for a

couple of years. I'd sing at the nine o'clock or nine-thirty service at the Presbyterian church

and ihen go to the Episcopal church kitty-corner across the street and sing at eleven,

Q: Well! (chuckles) Did anyone ever look askance at that, any of the old ladies?

A: No I don't think so, I'm not sure they knew it. I was - but I didn't mind it, you know.

Q: Yes. Now your mother organized within the home these things. Was she a joiner? Did

she join the PTA [Parent-Teacher Association] and the Eastern Star and . . .

A: Not at all, not at all. She . . . my mother could be a little bit irritating I think. She

went to a circle meeting at the Presbyterian church one time, and the ladies were sewing

diapers by hand, stitching diapers by hand. And the inefficiency of it so infuriated my

mother that she gathered up all the diapers, took them home, put them on the machine and

sewed them all up in an hour and took them back you know!

Q: Oh? (laughter) And what was the reaction to that?

A: I don't know. (chuckles) But I can imagine that the ladies thought, "What in the world

was this lady doing!''

Q: "For heavens sake!" So she didn't continue with that then?

A: I'm sure she was in a circle at the church for years, but I don't know why I remember

that one incident except that it struck me as being the sensible thing to do. You know,

to get the diapers done more efficiently on a machine than having a hunch of ladies sitting

around sewing on them by hand. (chuckles) But mother didn't - she was not a joiner

at all. I don't remember PTA. I remember hearing her say, "I like woman, but I don't

like women!" (chuckles) Meaning, you know, to get a bunch of ladies together in a

club. She and dad played a lot of bridge together though and did things like that. They

had a duplicate bridge club.

Q: Now you had mentioned duplicate hridge - club you say? Did they go some place

to . ..

A: Traded around different homes. Well I'm not going to nearly be able to tell you

everybody that was in it, but the Jones and the Bercheids and the Hardies - unrelated hut

spelled the same way - and my folks. But maybe there were just four couples. If there

were just four couples, they played team-of-four duplicate. They probably did that.

Q: Yes. So it was in the home rather than in church or someplace?

A: Yes all homes, they just rotated around.

Q: Well then, how about your father? Did he belong to any - like the Masons or anything

that you recall?

A: No. No, dad wasn't a joiner either. I think partly . . . partly because he was busy and

we didn't have any money you know. There wasn't - of course other people were joining

who didn't have any money either, so it must have been inclination more than any lack of

funds or anything.

We finally joined the La Grange Country Club. I must have been about . . . it was probably

in the late 1930's, or rnaybr 1940, right - probably about 1940. And my dad then played

golf. No it was before 1940, it must have been because I was in all the way through high

school. It must have heen 1936 or 1937 that we joined because I think through my high

school years we were members of the club. In those days it cost something like fifty dollars

to join the 1,a Grange Country Club or maybe a hundred dollars. Now it's something like

six thousand dollars.

Q: It's somewhat comparable though because of the times I guess.

A: Yes sure, yes yes. And my dad therefore played golf almost every weekend. Usually on

Saturday afternoon.

Q: Did you play with him?

A: Once in a while yes. But I was still kind of a littlc kid then you know and I never especially

liked golf. I played with my friends some. But we played tennis. My dad checked

me out on tennis but he was quite a lot older than I. My mother was forty and my dad

was thirty-eight or nine when I was born. So they were quite a little older than I was.

But nevertheless my dad - I remember playing tennis my very carly days with my dad.

Q: Was he a good tennis player?

A: Workman-like tennis player, you know, but he knew how to handle a racket. And he had

a tennis racket. But he really stuck with golf as he got older.

Q: Was there swimming then at the club?

A: Yes.

Q: Prior to that time was there a community swimming pool that was available to you there?

A: No. That was before the days of community swimming pools. At least I don't - there

wasn't one there.

Q: So you didn't have an opportunity to do much swimming during the summer then I guess.

A: Except when we had the cottages. Remember we had cottages at Long Beach for a couple

of years and then Twin Lake for a couple of years. But there was no YMCA [Young Men's

Christian Association] pool that I recall. And what swimming 1 did was at summers up

at the cottage, that's where I learned how to swim. There was a country club in Long Reach

that we belonged to and I used to swim there.

Q: Long Beach?

A: Indiana. It's right near Michigan City.

Q: Oh I see.

A: I remember the year they built the pool there. I was probably six or eight or something

like that and that's where I really learned how to swim. I never was a very good swimmer

but I swam my fifty widths so I could get my gold star or my name on the chart or something.

Q: I gather the sense that a good deal of your play activity, as with the toy soldiers on the

living room floor and that sort of thing, was inside. Did you do much playing outside as

a child?

A: Sure. We played Kick the Can in the street regularly. I was introduced to basketball

in sixth grade, and I have spent an enormous amount of my life playing basketball. We

played outiloor basketball through a lot of the winter, just played all the time

outdoors. And I played on the grammar school team and the high school t,cam and the college

team and I played semi-pro basketball all the way through law school.

Q: So a good deal of your time outdoors was taken up with basketball then?

A: Yes.

Q: I suppose year-round.

A: Yes.

Q: Did you have a basket on the garage there at home?

A: I did not. It wasn't - there just wasn't room for it. There was a tree right there. Rut

Ned Munger, the fellow who wrote that book that I showed you yesterday, his folks put up

a hoop in their backyard. In those days there weren't a lot of baskets around in people's

yards. But when I was in sixth grade Ned was in sevcnth grade and I really started to

play in his backyard with a backboard nailed against a tree, it was nailed right on the

tree. And then several of my other friends, particularly a fellow by the name of Pete

Molthop, who livcd in the four hundred block on La Grange which was then called Fifth

Avcnue, had a basket in his backyard and we played there a lot. And Bobby Racine who

lived fairly close also had one and we played there.

Q: Now you say you were introduced to it in the sixth grade. Was there any particular

start or did you just start shooting baskets?

A: Just started shooting baskets. Somebody said, "This is a basketball, let's go see if we

can put it through the hoop," you know and we started just like any little kids do. I started

out with two, Ned Munger and his cousin, who were both a year older than I was. And

then guys in my class started to play and we played in the gym at grammar school and

went from there.

Q: Now you had an indoor gym there also in addition to the . . .

A: Yes, yes.

Q: How about coaching there? Did the gym teacher - was he pretty good at teaching you

how to handle a ball and all that sort of thing'!

A: I don't really remember that the grammar school coach did much other than just get

us out there. He taught us how to dribble and what a double-dribble was and things like

that.

Q: It wasn't really formalized if one of the teacher had to get you to dye your shirts purple.

A: Yes, yes that's true, yes.

Q: But you did, evidently, with that sort of support have a kind of a fan club for your playing.

A: Yes we did and the mothers used to come around a little bit and watch us play. They

were all right-after-school games.

Q: Who did they play with?

A: I was on the Cossitt School tcam. I played forward and Dave Wood was the center who

has been a friend of mine ever since. Dave is a lawyer at Mcnermott, Will and Emery,

is now down at Florida. And Pete Molthop who has been one of my dear friends and Dave

Wrisley, who are - you'll hear more about them over the next few hours, played on that

team and Bob Racine. I would guess maybe the five of us were the first string. But I played

forward. nave Wood was taller than I was in eighth grade. As a matter of fact Barbara

my wife was taller than I was, in seventh grade she was taller than I was.

Q: You outgrew her then finally?

A: I did - hut one summer - I grew five inches the year betwcen eighth grade and my

freshman year in high school. I can't believe it but that's my recollcction, 1 grew five inches

that onc summer. I just sh-h-h-h-h - you know, I just took off.

Q: I know our son did much the same thing and that was a bad summer for him, or year,

in that he was so lethargic through the year. We had to push him to do anything. Did

you find that occurring?

A: No not really. I ate like a horse when I was a kid. I just ate all the time. And I was

the skinniest kid you could imagine. As a matter of fact, in about the summer of my

seventh grade I would guess, there was a federal judge in La Grange, a federal judge who

lived in La Grange. His name was Judge Barnes, a highly-respected federal judge in

Chicago. And he had two sons, one of whom was one of my very good friends, Paul Barnes,

Bud, Bud Barnes. And Bud was a heavyset stocky kid. And he had a younger brother,

Doug, who was equally heavyset and stocky and all of Mrs. Barnes' kids were stocky

kids. And she was just sure that my mother wasn't feeding me enough. So they invited

me up to their cottage in Green Lake, Wisconsin, one summer. That was probably seventh

or eight grade.

SESSION 2, TAPE 3, SIDE 2

1

A: And we went up there for two weeks that summer. And I ate more than Mrs. Rarnes'

fat kids combined, all of them you know. And she was perfectly content, and was just the

nicest person. Both of those boys were killed during World War 11. They were both killed

in the Battle of the Bulge.

Q: Oh is that right?

A: And it had an enormous effect on Judge Barnes, you know, his two youngest sons. I

saw the Barneses some after that. As a matter of fact after I practiced law Judge Rarnes

sent some cases to me. But it was just a very sad thing you know, to lose his two boys.

Q: That's remarkable, both in the same area.

A: Yes. Within about a week of each other. They weren't in the same unit but they were

both in the Bulge. And everybody got caught and when the Germans came through on the

Bulge there was a lot of guys got hurt.

Q: Yes sir. Well your mother evidently wasn't a poor cook then. Did you have special

things that you wanted her to fix for you?

A: My mother never liked to cook.

Q: Oh she didn't?

A: That's why she had a maid all the time. And she said, "Anybody who can read can

cook."

Q: Oh? (chuckles) Well!

A: The big problem was I was never hungry at breakfast. And therefore they really tried

to give me good things at breakfast. 1 can remember having lambchops and small steaks

for breakfast trying to fatten me up, in high school at least.

Q: Yes.

A: Everybody was afraid I was going to get killed on the basketball court you know.

Q: But it didn't bother you particularly.

1

A: You know, I was embarrassed I guess because I was so skinny, my ears were so big, but

there was nothing I could do about it.

Q: Yes sir. (chuckles) Let's see, was there a park in the area there near where you . . .

A: There was a lot right kitty-cornered across the street owned hy a very nice older lady

by the name of Mrs. Mitchell. And Mrs. Mitchell let us play bascball and football in that

lot. And we always had to bat away from the house, but as long as we batted away from

the house - and there was room for little kids to play baseball. It was, oh, a couple of

hundred feet I suppose. I don't think there were very many village parks. You know villages

didn't have any tax money to put into the development of parks in those days. But

we'd find vacant lots and play, you know.

Q: Did you - like this lot there - did you have any upkeep that the kids themselves

did? Or you just . . .

A: We just did our best to stay out of Mrs. Mitchell's tulips. But that's all. I don't remember

that we did anything else. She was just real nice to let us play in her yard you

know. And I'm sure that our parents were all very solicitous of Mrs. Mitchell. She was

just a very nice old lady.

Q: With football I suppose that was all informal,

A: It was. I went out for freshman football. And there were twenty-four guys who didn't

make the freshman football team. They wanted to keep the twenty-four kids interested and

off the street so Elmer Sweeney, who was a high school coach, volunteered to take the

twenty-four of us out for football every day. We were known as Sweency's Shit Squad.

Q: Oh really? (chuckles) Not amongst the parents I suppose.

A: Yes I think everybody called us Sweeney's Shit Squad. It was not a term of approbriam,

it was a tcrnl of love, you know. (chuckles) Kids who weren't good enough to do anything

else. And since it takes twenty-two to play football, the twenty-two played and Joe Kenny

and I were the last two who didn't get to play because we were so skinny.

Q: I'll he darned.

A: We got to play a little bit. They were scared to death we were going to get killed you

know.

Q: In the home, homework-type activity, was your mother severe with that, or your father,

or do you recall your homework situation?

A: Horace, I never really worried about homework. I just did it. I don't remember my

folks being on me. I remember my dad asking me if my homework was done. But if it

wasn't,, I would just go do it. It wasn't a matter of my resisting homework. I resisted practicing

the piano like mad, but 1 never resisted homework. I enjoyed it. I always liked my

studies you know. That sounds goofy, but I really kind of did. I loved things - subjects

like geography for instance. I remember in sixth grade, or maybe fifth grade - I got a

VG orw time. The grades were E, excellent, VG, G and P. And J got a VG - I'd been getting

straight E's - and I got a VG one time and my mother went over to see the teacher to

see what had gone wrong that I got a VG.

Q: You were failing.

A: Yes. So you know I just liked it.

Q: So you had no real trouble keeping up with the studies.

A: I never did no.

Q: Do you feel the school could have challenged you more?

A: Isn't that funny? I never thought of that and I don't think anybody's ever asked me

that question. Sure, I guess they probably could have although we had pretty good tearhcrs,

and I think maybe they did challenge me, with extra - I remember always doing extra credit

things. You know, they'd put me on making a model farm, you know, whatever. All kinds

of little extracurricular projects of one thing or another. I'm really still kdlking about grammar

school I take it.

Q: Yes.

A: Yes. But I remember writing extra papers and things that - partly because as I said

I was an overachiever, I was always trying to get a better grade. And I liked it. It wasn't

a matter of doing it just for the sake of working. I was interested in it. History and geography

particularly. Math.

Q: Was your interest as a group? did you work with others in these projects or was it pretty

much on your own?

A: Sometimes, but usually pretty much on my own. There was a boy who lived right in

back of me, Bob James, who is now professor at the IJniversity of Chicago, and Uob and

I worked - did a lot of games and things together, along with Ned Munger, the three of

us were all very good friends. We all lived within a block. And Bob and I would do intellectual

things together once in a while, you know, a reading or a project or something like

that or - but a, lot of times it was game-oriented. It was kind of pre-computer age kinds

of things. I'm sure if we'd had computers when we were kids we would have been up to

our ears in computer stuff.

Q: Now you mentioned the logistics game, navies and that sort of thing throughout the

world.

A: It would have been classic - we would have really loved getting something like that on

computers.

Q: You are an age ahead of yourself.

A: Yes, yes, well we didn't realize what we were missing. (chuckles)

Q: How about home tasks? Did you carry out the garbage each evening or have certain

specific things that . . .

A: Yes, sure. Like all kids, I did. My recollection is that I cut the lawn with some

regularity. I'm not sure that was my job every week because I remember my dad doing

it sometimes too. It wasn't a very big lawn. My wife and I were talking about that a

month or so ago and Barbara said that somebody had told her I never cut the lawn. It

probably must have been my mother who told her I never cut the lawn. (chuckles) By my

recollection I cut the lawn a lot. And yes sure I'd take out the garbage. We had a coal

furnace in the basement and I would go down and put coal in the furnace and things like

that.

Q: Did you ever have to load the coal into the basement from . . .

A: We had a chute, the truck would drive into the driveway and put it in a chute going

right into the big bin room for coal down the basement.

Q: I don't suppose Walter Reum and his dad ever delivered coal to your place?

A: I don't know. I'll bet they did.

37

Q: They had a business where they did it.

A: Yes, sure, I didn't know Walter then and I don't remember the name of the company. I

think maybe Keller was the name of the coal company.

Q: What about job experiences? Did you deliver papers or work in a grocery or anything?

A: I never did. My dad had an absolute rule that my job was to get good grades in school

and he didn't want me to work. And therefore, even summers, I didn't have summer jobs. I

had other things I had to do in the summer. I went to summer school. Whcn 1 was in

high school I went to summer school every summer. And we took trips. As a matter of

fact I really wanted to get a job when I was in high school, but my dad said, "No, your

job is to do your school thing. And then when you finish the summer school, you can take

the rcst of the summer off or take a trip or something."

Q: So part of all the E's for excellence was your father's encouragement too then?

A: Oh, no question about that, yes. It really was.

Q: Did you own a bicycle?

A: Oh yes, oh sure, yes.

Q: Did you travel much throughout the rommunity on the bicyrle, you know, just driving

around?

A: To my friends' houses. But I don't remember that we - at least in grammar school

- that we went on bike hikes. You know, we went on Boy Scout hikes, hut 1 think that

was all on foot. We did the twenty-rniler around Tlake Delavan, up at Camp Delavan, the

Boy Scout camp. 1 had a bike with a basket on it you know and I did things that kids

usually do with things like that hut . . .

Q: No extensive traveling on it then.

A: No.

Q: How ahout a camera? Did you own a camera at that time?

A: Yes. We had an old Brownie box camera. You know, you remember those old famous

- probably onr of the most famous cameras in history. And we had that for ycars. And

I'm the one who lost it. We were somewhere out . . . I think out west, but maybe east,

I don't remember, but I was - it was a Sunday or something because I remember I had

a sport coat on or a suit, one of my earliest - probably my first double-breastcd suit. And

I was climbing. It was a hard climb. 1 had to use hands and feet, although with these

good clothrs on. And I took the camera, and I had tucked it insidc my coat. And while

I was climbing up it fell out and it was sufficiently steep so it just rolled down and by the

time it got down to the bottom it was all smashed and busted open and evcrything

else. That was the end of the Erownie. Boy, I haven't thought about that, I don't think,

since that day.

Q: But you did take pictures on these travels?

A: Sure. And we've still got them, still have those pictures.

Q: Yes I'd be interested in seeing the one of you and your father with your . . .

A: Petrified tree.

Q: Yes petrified tree. (chuckles) The Chicago World's Fair in 1933 and 1934, did you attend

it much?

A: Yes. Several times. I remember running down the Midway at full-tilt one time and

tripping and falling down and chipping a tooth. Let's see I was ten or eleven when that

was on. (pause) That's a little young for something like the World's Fair. I remember

knowing that Sally Rand was there, but I don't think I ever saw Sally Rand.

Q: It didn't impress you at that age then?

A: No it didn't, it really didn't. I remember riding on thc skyride.

(

Q: Oh did you?

A: Do you remember? Did you ever see that? They had a couple of towers and the

cablecar that ran between the towers. It was slowly . . .

Q: I've seen pictures.

A: I remember that.

Q: It seems to me they had zl large ferris wheel or was that in 1893 that . . . :

A: I don't remember that. I think maybe that was the 1893 fair.

I

Q: It must have been the 1893.

A: They had the beginnings of television at that 1933 World's Fair. I rememhw seeing

myself on a screen. (pause) I remember Ford had an exhibit on soybeans and they were

making knobs for handles of cars and things out of soybeans in those days. (pause) I don't

really remember much more. There were a lot of arcades and things. It was a great place

for kids.

Q: What about annual affairs in the community that you might have attended like, oh, was

therc a bazaar at the church annually or anything of that nature that you regularly attended,

or the family regularly attended?

A: I don't remember anything like that. There was a Memorial Day parade.

Q: Oh? Did you participate in that for any . . .

A: I guess our Cub Scout and Boy Scout troops probably marched in it. I remember there

were Civil War veterans in it who were then quite well along in years. Well let's see, the

war ended in 1865 so they were - so if they were twenty-five in 1865, they would have been

sixty by 1900 and they would have been in their eighties by the middle twenties. But I don't

really remember any . . . major church events. I suppose there were school events and you

know always graduations and things like that.

Q: Were there any annual picnics in the community? Kiwanis? Or . . .

A: My dad wasn't in Kiwanis or Lions or any of those although they were very active. I'm

sure they are now, and have been for as long as I can remember.

Q: I was thinking at a community affair whether the . . .

A: Oh yes, there - yes, yes, the American Legion in La Grange had a carnival every year

which was really a big event. And it had the ferris wheels and the - and the - all the

cars and all of the - throwing the things at the dolls. And we used to go to that every

year.

Q: But no particular church activities that you recall?

A: Well of course a lot of our activities were kind of centered there. The Cub Scouts and

Boys Scouts were both in the church. I sang in thc two church choirs. Oh! One very

important - in the Episcopal church we had a great choirniastcr, a guy by the name of

Myron Boehm, and Myron - in the first place I liked him so much my mother switched

me over to takc piano lessons from him. And I got him wild with frustration, the poor

guy was just goofy. As a matter of fact he got so mad at me one day hc grabbed me under

the arm hwc and pinched me and I remember when T wcnt home I had a blood blister under

my arm where my music teacher had pinched me under the arm because I just wasn't doing

it right.

But Myron Boehm, partly to promote - we were paid in Sunday school, we were paid fifty

rents a week or something like that for singing in the Episcopal choir, but the most important

thing we got was to play baschall. We had two or three choir practices a week, two

practices a week I guess. And two of them were after school and one was - no, we practiced

every Saturday morning. And Saturday morning after the practice we played baseball and

it was an organized baseball game. We had two teams and Myron Boehm was the umpire

and statistical record bcvper. He kept a box score on every game and calculated all of the

RBI's [runs batted in], the number of double's, triple's, home runs, number of errors, fielding

averages. I guess kind of a hobby with him, but he had a total calculation of everything

we did, which I'm sure whetted my apprtite for doing things like that which I still do. Of

course we enjoyed singing in the choir, most of us anyway, tout this baseball game, afterwards

was - you know, that was really the frosting on the cake and we did that every week.

Q: Who did you play?

A: There were enough kids in the choir so we had two teams within it. It was purely within

- it was all in-house.

Q: What position did you normally play?

A: (pause) First base and pitcher I guess. I pitched part of the time and played first base

part of the time. And I was - I remember I led the league in - the two teams - in

either doublt~ or triples. I don't remember which it was. I think maybe it was

doubles. But I just loved it and we all did. It was just really a great thing this guy did

for us.

Q: How long did this go on?

A: Well probably five or six years.

Q: Oh that long?

A: You know, as long as the kid sings in the Episcopal choir. I probably started singing

in that choir in atoout fifth or sixth grade. And I sang all the way through grammar school

and 1 think maybe my first year in high school. Then I guess my voice changed and J got

out of - I couldn't sing - I didn't sing. And I never sang either tenor or bass. I was

always a contralto. I always sang alto part in the - before my voice changed. That was

probably eighth grade.

Q: IIow about attendance at professional ball? Did you get out to Wrigley Field?

1

A: Yes. My dad took me out to Wrigley Field every once in a while. I don't remember

if we went to Comiskey Park or not. I guess we probably did. But I don't really remember

doing that very much.

Q: You must have been more of a Cub fan than the White Sox then?

A: Yes. And my dad took me in to some Bear's games.

Q: Oh?

A: Bears and Green Bay. We used to go in and see the . . . I rememher those were the

days of Don Hudson and . . . I liked Green Bay about as much as 1 did the Bears, they

were such a good team in those days.

Q: Did you ever meet George Halas?

A: I met him the year before last when I was president of the bar.

Q: 1'11 be darned.

A: He came to a bar association meeting. What's the name of the fellow who was the allpro

lineman for the Bears? Who was also a lawyer?

Q: Oh, my goodness, I . . .

A: Alan Page. Alan Page - I invited Alan Page to speak at one of the bar association

meetings. And George Halas came to that meeting. And during the question and answer

period, George struggled to his fect because he - he had a male nurse with him all the

time in those days. He struggled to his feet during the question and answer period, and

I said, "Mr. Halas," and he said, "Alan, why are you retiring? You're too young!"

Q: Well! (chuckles)

A: Brought down the house. George Halas and my father-in-law, who was a great athlete,

played foothall and basketball together at Great Lakes during World War I. They had a

fantastic athletic team up there, and my father-in-law and George both played on it. Paddy

Driscoll and, I don't know, some other famous people were on that team.

Q: Let's see, they didn't have professional basketball 1 guess in those days here or did they?

A: No. No . . . not to the best of my knowledge. I don't remember ever seeing a professional

game then. (pause) And I don't remember going to any college basketball

games. Yes I did too. I remember seeing Jewel Young at Purdur play onv time. I don't

know what year that was but I might have heen - probably in high school.

Q: And that - played here, where? at the TJniversity of Chicago?

A: I just don't remember. Probably - it could have been, yes. Because the University of

Chicago, they had a one-man football team, Jay Burwanper, anti a one-man basketball team,

Bill Haarlow. And I remember seeing those guys play but I - that may have been when

I was in high school. Basketball became increasingly important in my life. After sixth,

seventh, eighth grades.

Q: Did you ever go down to the University of Illinois to see any games down there?

A: Not in grammar school. We did in high school. We got put out in an overtime one year

by the team that ended up fourth in thc state. And we - well we thought we should have

gone down. We didn't quite make it. We went down to see them play a couple of

times. And we went down a couple of times when our kids were in high school. La Grange

had a state championship team, an undefeated team, about 1953.

Q: Well now you became interested in basketball about the sixth grade you say and you

played in grammar school then. Were they waiting for you when you got to high school

for you to . . .

A: Nowhere near, no.

Q: Oh?

A: No. I was so skinny and that was the summer I grew five inches that everybody was

scared to death I was going to get killed. And the freshman coach, whose name was Bob

Sedgwick who was the guy who really taught me how to dribble and taught me how to pivot

and you know he really worked on the fundamentals with us. And he was a great

experimenter. He didn't have a very good team hut he thought he would try something

different. We had four other guys who were very fast and kind of short hut were good aggressive

guys. So to my utter humiliation, freshman year - we were jumping center that year,

that was the last ycar of the center jump - and since I had grown so much I was by far

taller than the other kids on the team. And usually at least as tall as the othcr center. And

I was so skinny I could get off my feet pretty good and so I could get the jump on just

about everybody. So I was valuable because after every basket you came back to the center

to jump it you know. It made a lot of difference in control.

So we'd do the center jump and we'd get the ball and we'd take it down and - or whoever

did - but no matter what happened I never played dcfense. Whatever happened I just went

down under the offensive basket and I'd just stand there with my hands on my hips while

my four buddics back there were running their tails off trying to guard against five people.

And as soon as they'd get the ball, one of them would get the ball, he'd just wing it down

the length of the court over his head or sideways or hookshot or whatever, and I'd be down

there all alonc and so I racked up a terrible scoring record. My freshman year I was way

the scoring leader in the league, simply because I didn't have any defense. But that psychologically

blew the other teams off the court, and as a result then thcy would have to put

a guy back on me and they'd take him out of circulation and our four guys were bctter than

the other four. The result was we had - I don't remember if we lost any games that year

or not. Oh we may have lost one or two but we won just about everything in the league.

Q: Well the coach's thought then paid off evidently.

A: Strange, yes but strangc things. (chuckles) And very humiliating for me I've got to

tell you.

Q: Well. Well then the following year you say the center rulc had gone out so . . .

A: Right.

Q: . . . so that didn't work so well after that from then on.

A: Right. And in those years there was a freshman team and a sophomore team and a

lightweight team and a heavyweight team, no junior varsity. There was a lightweights

instead of the junior varsity. And I didn't want to play with the sophomores, 1 wanted to

play in the lightweights if I could which was thr JV's my sophomore year. So my friends

and I all went up - particularly L)ave Wrisley and Pete Molthop, those are my two best

basketball playing buddies - and so we went out for the lightweights and wc madc the lightweight

team, and had a very good season. I don't remember what our record was but we

did well. It was in the West Suburban Conference.

42

Then my junior year I wanted to keep playing with Dave and Pete, both of whom are fairly

short. nave is a lefthanded forward and a fine athlete. He won the conference broad jump

and played halfback on the football team and first-string forward on the basketball

team. Pete played guard on the basketball team and I thinh he - and end on the football

team, and was very agressive. They're both tough. So I wanted to keep playing with those

guys. So our junior year I played - went out again for the lightweights. I had to diet for

a week to make the 137-pound weight limit which almost killed everybody. It didn't bother

me, I felt perfectly fine. But I barely made the weight limit and that year we had an undefeated

season. We didn't lose any games and wc could heat the heavies hands down.

Q: I'll be darned.

A: The heavies had a fairly good team but - Lou Saban was on our team, was in our class

but was playing as a junior, and when the season ended Dave and Pete and I all went up

to play with the varsity in the state tournament. I don't remember if it was that year or

the next gear that Proviso beat us in an overtime. They beat us in overtime one year and

by two points the next year. And I think both years Proviso went downstate.

But wt: had a good team, junior undefeated. I remember Hinsdale was our big rival, and

at the end of the first quarter we were ahead of Hinsdale sixteen to nothing. Sixteen is

a lot of points for a quarter in those days. (chuckles) And of course to shut out a team

for the quarter - and our coach, being a good guy, benched all of us and let the second

string play the rest of the game. We were furious at him.

Q: I guess so. (chuckles)

A: Then senior year we had a fine team. Lou Saban and Pete Molthop were the two guards

and Dave Wrisley and Baron Smith were the two forwards and I play~d center. I got the

flu three different times and I was in bed for a week each of thc, first two times. I was

in bed the whole week and I'd get up on Saturday afternoon to go play in the basketball

game. Finally toward the end of the season I was in bed for two weeks, I missed one game.

I was in bed for two weeks and I got up to play again. The doctor washed his hands of

us but I played. And wc lost. We only lost two games that year. We lost one game to

York which was in first place in the league and we lost one to Riverside which was in last

place in the league. The last-place team heat us one of the days I just couldn't play.

Q: Overconfidence or something?

A: Well we just - we were decimated - we were - I'd been sick. And I think that was

the game I may have not played at all. And maybe Pete was sick. The sickness just got

us. There weren't any antibiotics in those days so you couldn't knock anything.

Q: With your tall skinniness, did you ever have a problem with awkwardness? Did you have

that to overcome as you were training yourself?

A: I would have had far more if I hadn't played basketball darned near every day. But

the basketball I'm sure helped me get coordinated. It did not help with my left hand. I

am absolutclg totally right-handed. And I used to - when I was playing. in Ned Munger's

backyard when I was in seventh and eighth grades, and even in high school, I would pick

up a couple of rocks in my right hand and try to play and shoot lefthanded. 1 really worked

at it, hours on end. I just never got it. I never could shoot lefty.

Q: Rut it didn't damage you too much then?

A: No, not right off.

SESSION 2, TAPE 4, SIDE 1

A: When I was in college, I tried a left-handedhook shot and missed the backboard!

43

Q: You say you missed the complete bankboard.

4

A: Yes and the coach called a time-out, called me over, and said, "If you take another lefthanded

shot, you're going to sit on the bench the rest of the game." I'll tell you ahout college

baskethall because that's one of the highlights of my life. You askcd about

awkwardness, I've never been very graceful, but basketball certainly helped with my coordination.

Q: Did you do much weightlifting and that sort of thing in order to develop as you were

growing?

A: I didn't. I never did weightlifting and I really should have because I had a very weak

upper body. And therefore I was never a very good rebounder because I just - you know,

I could get up with everybody hut 1 couldn't hang onto the ball.

Q: You weren't impressed with the Charles AtIas advertisements?

A: Should have been. I should have been a lot more than I was. But I just - you know,

I didn't especially like it. When I was a kid I couldn't climb a rope, even in college I couldn't

go up a rope. And I had a heck of a time chinning myself in high school. Even a couple

of chins would just - I'd - very weak upper body.

Q: Now you said something about not being able to pass a test in the Boy Scouts.

A: Oh it may have been something - it may have been one of those upper body tests. I

don't remember. 1 said swimming before but I - I could swim pretty well so it wasn't

- I guess maybe it probably was not swimming and it probably was one of those - pushups

or something. I just simply couldn't do them.

Q: I'll be darned.

A: I can do way more pushups now than I could in high school.

Q: I can't do them much anymore at all. (chuckles)

A: Well I can get by ten if I have to but you know it's - I could do a little more if -

with practice I can do them now.

Q: You mentioned track a while ago. Did you get involved at all with track?

A: No. I never went out for track - did I? (pause) No in high school I never went out

for track. 1 was busy and doing a whole bunch of other things in high school. But I never

and I don't know why I didn't, I guess because I was still playing hasketball. And I

wasn't any good you know. I wasn't fast. I couldn't jump, high jump. My feet were too

big to get me over the bar and I wasn't fast enough to be a good broad jumper and I wasn't

nearly strong enough to be a shot-putter or . . .

Q: Javelin thrower or . . .

A: Yes. 1 just never got into any of those.

Q: What about some of the - what would you call them? the finer things of life, like speech

and that sort of thing? Did you have much speech training?

A: I went out for the debate team. I was on the debate team. But I never really concentrated

on it. As a matter of fact Ned Munger and I were on the debate team together. It

44

was his senior year and my junior year. (pause) And as a matter of fact Ned was mentioning

that the other day and he said that was his first experience with reverse

discrimination. He and I debated another team and one of the debaters on the other team

was a black girl, and he heard one of the judges say, "There's no question about who won

that, but we can't take it away from that black girl."

Q: Oh r~ally?

A: Yes and that was Ned's first experience with reverse discrimination.

Q: Do you remember anything about any of the debates that you were in? Did you go to

other schools?

A: Yes we traveled around. It was a conference set up. The subject one year was,

"Resolved that the Several States Should Adopt a Unicameral Legislaturc."

Q: Oh?

A: Nebraska had and has a unicameral legislature. The only state that, 1 think, has ever

had it. And we debated all the pros and cons of that. We debated on both sides of the

issue. Another . . . there was one on foreign policy one year. T don't remember what it

was. It was probably something like, "Resolved that the Unitcd States Should Withdraw

from the United Nations" - or "from the League of Nations," something like that. Those

I think were probably the subjects my junior and senior year. I remember the unicameral

legislature one very clearly. I'm not sure of what the foreign policy one was.

Q: Mrs. Van der Vries was on a debate team at one time, and one of the other members

got up to speak and fainted. Did you have any things of that nature occur?

A: Only one most embarrassing thing, I remember a girl got up to debate one time and her

water broke. I don't know what happened but she flooded thc place and of course was absolutely

mortified, ran out of the room. Just terribly embarrassing for the girl. She wasn't

from our school. She was from another school. I don't have any idea of course who the

girl was or anything else. But of course at an event like that, it's something that you

remcmber.

Q: Yes I would think so.

A: Oh gosh, I never felt worse for anybody in my life than I did for that poor little girl.

Q: Did you enjoy the debating?

A: Yes I did. My recollection now is I had the feeling I wasn't as prepared as I should

have been. Maybe that was just natural nervousness. It probably was. Because you know

we had a fine debate coach and La Grange always had a tint. debate team. They were state

champions many timcs. I don't remember ever debating other than in the conf~rence. It

was during the basketball season and you know I was up to my ears playing ball. And there

were conflicts in time, basketball practice every afternoon when the debate team was practicing

and we'd have basketball games a couple of nights a week.

Q: Well perhaps you had reason to feel that you hadn't prepared then.

A: Yes I think that's probably true, yes. (chuckles)

Q: What about speeches in themselves? Did you have occasion to speak very often'?

45

A: I took a course in public speaking in high school. As I did in college. And I never did

need homework for it. It was perfectly natural for me. It was one of the courses that just

never bothered mc in any way.

Q: Oh? You had no problem in thinking up subjects and supporting them and all that?

A: Yes I just - you know, I could shoot from the hip on speeches.

Q: That must be very helpful.

A: It always - my whole life that's been helpful. (chuckles)

Q: Yes sir. How about acting? Did you have occasion to put on any more hats?

A: No. There was a school play but 1 never went out for the school play. I was in a whole

bunch of other activities hut never that one.

Q: How about languages in school? Did you take Latin?

A: I had four years of Latin. It was perhaps my favorite subject. We had a Latin teacher

by the name of Effie Case who looked like a Roman herself. And she always wore knit dresses

that she'd knit herself that kinda hung like a toga. A very interesting lady, very encouraging

for all of us. We sat alphabetically and I sat in the front row and I was kicking up

my heels enough so she'd banish me to the back of the class, so I usually sat behind Dave

Wrisley, my close buddy. And Dave didn't like Latin as much as I did and I was forever

leaning forward while he was reciting and whispering things in his ear, giving him the

answers. Sometimes thc answer, sometimes not. I remember one time she was - Dave and

I were talking about this a couple of months ago. He lives down in St. Louis now

but. . . . She asked him to compare "bonus," which is one of the irregular adjectives, "bonus,

bonior, bonium," would be regular. But it's "bonus, melior, optimus," is the way it ought

to be done. So I whisper in his ear, "bonus, bonior, bonium," which is - there are no such

words as "bonior" and "honium," but if it were regular, that's the way it would be. And

Effie blew her cork at him. And she said, "Do it in English, David.'' So I whispered in

his ear, "Good, gooder, goodest." And he said, "Good, gooder, goodest."

Q: Well! (laughter)

A: It brought down the house. Then after he saw what was happening, gave me hell.

Q: That was kind of a dirty trick on him! (chuckles)

A: Well yes, he's a buddy, yes you can do things like that to a buddy.

I entered the state Latin contest my junior year - no, my senior year. And it was jus

like the state basketball tournament. There was a district and regional and a state

tournament. And the rules were that the two high guys from the district went to the region,

two high from the region went to the state. And you ended up with, I don't know, thirty,

forty, fifty in the state tournament. In our district it was Highland Park and Evanston

and all the - well all the suburban Cook County schools.

And I ended up third in the dis-

trict, which meant I wasn't eligible to go to the region. The guy who was first - the two

who were first and second were Bob Harwood from Evanston and John . . . boy, terrible

- John, from Highland Park. I'll think of his name and tell you later on. But I was

third. So 1 was out of it, but for some reason I got a letter saying, or Effie called me and

said, "You have been qualified to go to the region. The other two fellows, Bob IIarwood

and John - Butler! is his name -- John Uutler were going, but they took three from our

district. So I got to go to the region. 1 went to the regional tournament. And it was a

written examination. And the same thing happened, I was third again. So I wasn't eligible

for the state but Effie called me again and said, "They've let you go to the statc."

Q: Did she give a reason?

A: No. Apparently - but apparently our grades were fairly close. I was clearly third

though both times but I got to go to the state and in the state tournament the same thing

happened, they were first and second and I was third.

Q: Well! (laughter)

A: So - and I thought well, you know, at least I'm through with those guys. And I got

a national scholarship to Harvard and I went down to Harvard and the first couple of days

I was there they had a meeting of the national scholars and here were John Butler and

Bob Harwood in my class at Harvard. I thought, geez, this isn't a good start!

Q: You were going to be third again!

A: Yes - or no better. No better than third.

Q: Well why do you think you had such an interest in Latin, the analytical part of it or

the history involved?

A: Both. Both. I loved Latin history. I think the mathematical symmetry of Latin was

intriguing and even today, although I've had no association with Latin whatsoever since high

school, I could still sit down and conjugate a verb. 1 could probably take through a lot of

the different conjugations and I could decline nouns and several of the declentions. It would

be fun to try it. T haven't tried it, oh gosh, for probably forty years, hut . . .

Q: You know, we're having so much thought today about the quality of education, do you

think perhaps pushing Latin again as a subject in school would be helpful in that?

\

A: Clearly, Horace, clearly. Particularly for - well for anybody who's going into the law

Latin is very important, it really is. There are a lot of Latin phrases that you come across

regularly, which if you have the Latin - any kind of a Latin background - it means -

it would just simply mean more to you. Furthermore Latin, it's fun to do. It's really a

fun subject, if you've got a fun teacher. And Miss Case, who was an older lady, just -

it kind of inspired us - she had a Latin club, we had a Latin club. And of course I mded

up as the president of the Latin club. And we had a Roman banquet every year. We sat

at three-sided tables the way the Romans did. Our mothers made tunics or togas or something

for us and we all had garlands and somebody gave a speech in Latin and you know

- which none of us could understand - but you know we were trying. She made a game

out of Latin. Made us feel like we were Romans. She always called me Catalinc. My nickname

was Cataline. Cataline was the leader. of one of the conspiracies. 1 don't remcmber

which one now, whether it was - whether he was with Brutus, one of the guys who assassinatcd

- I think maybe he was one of the group that - the Cataline conspiracy might have

bcen the one that overthrew Caesar that ended up in the assassination of Caesar.

Q: Was there some significance in her choice of this name?

A: Yes because I was always messing around with things, you know, like taking poor David

Wrisley down the primrose path. I remember one time we were talking about the different

declentions, the future and the perfect and the plu-perfect and all these things and 1 said

to her one time, "Miss Case, what's the plu-future of that word?" And she looked and she

said, "There's no such things as plu-future! What do you mean plu-future?" You know. We

had fun. Of course everybody - she didn't take offense at it and she and I - I was kind

of her prize guy because I was the only one in the Latin contest that year. It was a fun

subject, I just enjoyed it.

Q: Were there other subjects like that that you got deeply involved in?

A: History I certainly liked very much. All kinds of history. One summer I took a history

of modern Europe from a lady by the name of Miss Jacobson who was a short little fat

lady but she just inspired me. And I remember my dad had told me if I got a 98 in that

course, he would buy me the entire set of George the Sixth coronation stamps from the whole

British Empire. Which wasn't a major investment but it was, you know, I suppose fifty or

a hundred dollars or something which really was quite a lot in those days and I was a stamp

collector. I was still interested in stamps. And I worked my tail off and Effie gave me

a 98 that year, that's for that summer course. But not because - I liked doing it. 1 love

history. I ended up concentrating in history at Harvard when I went to college. Math I

liked very much. I just - I kind of liked all of my - my . . .

Q: What was the least likeable of subjects that you took?

A: Hard question because I really kind of liked - well I guess English literature, literature

stuff never fascinated me. The only grade I got below ninety in high school - I got an

85 the first grade in French. Which mortified me, my god, I couldn't stand getting an

85. So I really went to work on Frenrh and ended up writing extra book reports and

things. And Miss Hunter, Laura Iluntcr, known as Madamoiselle, my last class Idaura gave

me a 97. She graded in increments of 5 but I'd done some extra work - 97 or 98, something

like that - because I'd done some extra book reports and you did enough of them, you'd

get an extra point on your grade. Whatever your grade was, you'd get an extra point or

two.

Q: I'll be darned. How about writing? Did you develop your skills through your high

school years as a writer?

A: Not as I should have. Looking back on it, I think the school was a little weak in

English. I did as well as anybody in English in the school and I went to Harvard and I

expected of course to pass the test so 1 could get into the advanced English course because

my mother and dad both spoke flawless English and I was never allowed to say, "Anyone,

they . . ." or anything like - any grammatical thing was immcdiatcly corrected at home

as well as in school. And one of the - the second shock 1 had after seeing John Butler

and Bob Harwood there was not passing the test that would get me into the advanced

English course there.

Q: So you think that was a weakness of the school then?

A: Well I - no I don't blame the school. It was a weakness in me too. I didn't especially

- I didn't like it quite as much, but if there was a weakness in - I think - you ask what

I didn't like and T guess probably English. And if you don't like something, you don't do

as well in it, period. You know, that's about what it amounts to. Math I liked. I got as

far as - let's see, I took algebra and plane geometry and solid geometry, I never took

trigonometry. And I didn't take any sciences in high school. I don't know how I got around

that.

Q: No biology or . . .

A: No biology, zoology, chemistry or physics. No sciences. I don't know why.

Q: It should have bcen required I would think.

A: It should have been required but it wasn't. 1'11 tell you one way that I might have

avoided it. I don't remember now how it was, but my senior year in high school -- ;'A had

two years of French. I started French my sophomore year which was a year early, normally

you took French or a foreign language your last two years. But I took French my sophomore

and junior years. And I wanted to take another year of French. There were no more high

school courses available but there was a junior college in the same building, Lyons Township

Junior College. And somehow they gave me permission to take junior college French, so

I had a third year of French my senior year in high school which was a college class and

I don't remember - it was probably literature but I don't really remember. And that might

have been in place of the required - what should have been required - science course.

Q: Do you think that in any way was detrimental to you, not having taken science courses?

A: (pause) Yes. There are good and bad things about it. Thcre were a couple of good

things about it. One was that I ended up as valedictorian of my high school class and if

I'd had to take a science, I might not have.

Q: I see. (chuckles)

A: A second good thing about it was that when I took the examinations for a scholarship

at Harvard, I had to take an exam in a science. And I had to go with physics or chcrnistry

or biology. And they gave us all three papers and you could take a look and whichever

one you wanted you could take. Well I looked at physics and chemistry and of course I

knew zero. I couldn't answer a single question. The biology test was a multiple choice and

a lot of it was based on Latin roots of one kind or another, definitions of flowers or

whatever. And so I took that test.

And when I went in for my interview for the scholarship, after I'd taken the math test and

the Latin test which 1 thought I'd do real well on for Harvard and all thesr others I thought

I'd do pretty well, I went in for the interview with the dean, who was kin Chauncey. His

name is on that chart. I'll tell you about it one of these days. Said to me, "You didn't

take any science did you?" And I said, "No sir." And I thought, you know, "School's

out." And he said, "You did surprisingly well on the biology examination." Only one he

mentioned, he didn't tell me anything about any of the other tests I thought I did real well

on. But apparently I'd lucked out on the multiple-choice biology test.

That was a good thing. The bad thing was when I got to college and took physics I was

totally unprepared for it. And 1 didn't do well in it, I did poorly in it. I never did understand

it. If I hadn't had a classmate who about two years ago became the first Harvard

undergraduate to win the Nobel Prize in physics - he's the guy who got me through Physics

B.

Q: I'll be darned. (chuckles) That's pretty good help.

A: Somebody told me that he was the first Harvard undergraduate to get the Nobel Prize

in physics. A lot of Harvard people have gotten it, but they've been professors who got

their undergraduate work somewhere else and went to Harvard as professors.

Q: Yes.

A: Or for research or whatever. This guy's name was Phil Anderson. IIe's a professor at

Princeton now, in the physics department at Princeton. When he got the Nobel Prize I

wrote him a letter and congratulated and I said, "Well you really earned this in 1940, not

in 1980. They're forty years late giving it to you. You got me through that course and

you should have gotten it thcn." Bright, bright guy.

Q: Did you get involved with journalism in any way? editor of the yearbook or anything?

A: No there was a school paper and a yearbook and I don't remember that I worked on

either one of them. I just didn't do enough writing. I should have done more. It would

49

have been very helpful to me. But T don't think - I don't remember working either on

the or on the - I might have had an occasional letter or articlc in the T,ion. Yes

I guess I did maybe. Yes I'll tell you what I did, I was president of the Latin club and the

French club and I'm sure that I would write squibs reporting on their activities. Like the

writing up of the Roman banquet that we had every year. That kind of thing I would

do. But simply ex officio, president of the club, rather than as on the staff of the Lion or

the yearbook.

Q: Now you've mentioned that, with these organizations, that you usually became the

president. Was this a desire on your part? Did you work at becoming an officer of each

of these organizations?

A: There was no such thing as working for that. You just didn't do it. There was no such

thing as campaigning for anything. I was taller than everybody else you know and I liked

them, I was available. I don't know. But there wasn't any campaigning. We never had

any contests.

Q: They just had an election and unanimously decided?

A: Yes, yes, well I don't know if it was unanimous. But it was - it was . . . the - there

was also a student council in La Grange and I was president of the student council. I

remember that the high school administration put in a point system that year, and you could

only have so many points. And every time you got to be president of any one of these clubs,

you got enough points that you couldn't be president of anything else. But you had your

choice, you could give up a job if you - for instance when they were nominating our class

officers, I remember I was the first one nominated for president of the class. But in order

to do that - I had too many points - 1 would have to have resigned as president of the

student council. So I said, "No thank you, I'm going to stay on the student council." And

Dave Wrisley and Pete Molthop were right behind me and they did the same thing. Dave

was secretary of the student council and Pete was treasurer of the student council. As a

matter of fact, I've got a picture of them with Dave holding his gavel in the picture - no,

I'm holding the gavel, Dave is holding the minute book - and Pete, the treasurer, kind of

felt left out of it so he pulled a dollar bill out of his pocket. So he's holding a dollar bill

in the picture.

Q: Well! (laughter) On the student council what types of things came up? Did you have

to argue with the administration in any way or were there any . . .

A: Horace, my recollection is that in those days students were pretty much . . . organization

people. I don't remember having any enormous fights with the administration about

anything. We weren't demonstrating. There were no demonstrations in those days. We

were doing things like organizing drives and running things that the school was getting into

and sponsoring projects. And constructive kinds of things but not - not big confrontational

kinds of things. I don't remember any kind of confrontations with the administration in

high school.

Q: Were there any dress codes that were up at that time?

A: Not realIy necessary. The girls, for the most part, wore skirts and sweaters or

blouses. I wore - I wore - my recollection is I wore white open shirts and a white sweater

all the time. My mother knit sweaters for me all the time. Either cardigan or cable stitch

and I wore white sweaters with my I, on it with my stars and everything. And that was

a typical dress. As a matter of fact, somewhere around I saw a picture of me the other

day with that L on it. I think maybe Debby, my daughter, who is here in the law firm,

had one. But that was - we didn't wear ties, but 1 wore a sweater and a shirt every day,

and slacks.

Q: What was the social life like? Did they have fraternities and sororities in the school?

A: There were a couple of fraternities and another club called the FFC, which was supposed

to be very secret. The FFC was founded by a bunch of guys who were seniors our freshman

year. And they started it their freshman year. And they happened to be a bunch of very

good athletes. They were the athletes of the school. And they took in only guys from their

own class. And it wasn't a very big club, maybe twenty, twenty-five fellows from their own

class. Their senior year they had had - and they were the straightest kids. When we were

in grammar school, those guy who were by that time juniors in high school, I remember

they came down and our teachers lined us up in the gym, and these kids, these juniors in

high school, gave us a lecture on the evils of smoking and drinking.

Q: Oh is that right? I'll be darned.

A: Yes. Voluntaries. But they were the FFC guys. They sound straighter than hell, but

these were the good athletes. They were fine athletes. They had some excellent athletic

teams at La Grange in those days. And they also had a fine coach, the high school coach,

I really ought to spend most of these hours talking about the high school football coach,

whose name was Ollie Stenger. He coached football and basketball and baseball, all three

major sports. I don't believe he even had any assistants in any of them. La Grange was

one of the smallest schools in the conference. In its early years it was in the suburban

conference which included Evanston and New Trier and all the hig schools. Ollie's record

in ten years as the football coach at La Grange was fifty-five and six.

Q: Oh really? i

A: Which has got to be a remarkable record for any coach in any league, let alone one of

the smallest schools playing with the big schools. But he was not only an outstanding athlete

himself, for years, something like thirty or forty years, he held the record for the longest

pass caught in intercollegiate foothall. It was seventy yards in the air. It was when he

went to North Central, which was then called Northwestern, in Naperville. And a guy by

the name of Kluckhohn threw a bomb to him and he caught the darned thing, and it was

seventy - of course Kluckhohn gets credit for throwing it. And that was the pumpkin

football. It wasn't the streamlined football, it was that one that was almost round.

I

Q: He must have had a good wind hehind him. I

A: Well he must have had something. And Ollie said he went down and the defender had

long since stopped guarding him and he went back to get into the play. And Ollic turned

around and he saw this thing coming at him, seventy yards, and he had time to think, "I

can't catch this this far away," hut he did.

And he was just a natural athlete. He had a heart attack when he was about forty and

had to give up tennis and the active things and took up golf. And in the first year was shooting

in the seventies in golf. He died at the age of sixty-seven and that year he played in

the Class A finals at the La Grange Country Club with a guy who was twenty-six or seven

years younger than he was. He lost in the finals. But he lost to this guy who hit the hall

maybe three hundred yards you know. A fine golfer, Jack Kuhlman, beat him. Jack was

two or three years behind me in high school and he beat Ollie in the Class A finals. Ollie

was so well coordinated that he could wind up and hit a golf ball just as hard as he

could. When he hit a golf ball he looked like he was just slamming the ball. Usually if

you try to hit a ball like that you'd hit the ground a foot - if I did it, I'd hit the ground

a foot behind the ball. But he was almost never in the rough, right down the middle and

just a superb athlete in all sports, he could do any sport.

Q: Was he your coach then?

A: No. He was the coach when we were in grammar school. But he stopped coaching my

freshman year. He didn't coach our freshman year. He went in the insurance

business. Rut his main attribute was he could take kids who were only average athletes

and he could make those kids think they could do anything, and they could do anything. You

know, you can't yourself make high school kids win and get a fifty-five and six record. You've

got to inspire those kids to do it. And he did. He had a way with people, mcn and women

and everybody else. He was just an absolutely inspirational guy. He is my wife's lather.

Q: Oh I was wondering about the . . .

A: Yes. He was Barbara's dad. And he died at the age of sixty-seven. But he was just

a superb athlete, remarkable guy.

SESSION 2, TAPE 4, SIDE 2

A: I was trying to figure out - there was some thought that I interrupted myself with,

started talking ahout Ollie. I'm trying to remember what it was.

Q: Well let's see - we were talking - you had the fraternal type organization there.

A: Yes. Yes. Yes, the FFC. Dave Wrisley's older brother was in the FFC and their senior

year they decided they'd had so much fun with this bunch that they wanted to start another

group. So they started a bunch of freshmen, a bunch of our guys in our class. And I was

in that FFC group.

Q: Was it still a secret sort of thing?

A: Oh yes. Nobody wanted - yes, very secret. We had a formal initiation you know blindfolded

and candlelights, and I was scared to death. T'11 never forget how scared I was. Les

Rice had a big old barn in the back of their house, which was a garage but it had been

a barn, and its upstairs was the FFC clubhouse. And Les was a great big tackle on the

football team. And all these really star athletes, seniors you know, and here I'm a freshman

and I went up there with all my friends and I didn't know if I was going to get killed or

beaten up or what was going to happen to me. I was blindfolded and - and the motto

of the club was, "To the Stars" - it was "Ad astra per aspera," which means, "To the Stars

through 13ifficulties." And in the initiation ceremony I was repeating after them you

know. And they said, "Ad Astra Per Aspera," and they said, "To the stars through

difficulties." And I thought they said, "To the stars, three different colors." So I said, "To

the stars, three different colors." And everybody laughed. And anyway T survived it. And

some of my dear friends were the guys in that club. We had an annual dance and we had

a fight every week for four years as to whether we should have rings or pins for our

club. We ended up, I think, getting neither.

Q: Well! (chuckles) Was their any particular objective of the club?

A: It was purely social.

Q: Just social.

A: You know, we - I don't remember if we went down and told the kids in grammar school

not to drink, but for the most part we didn't. nave and Pete - let's see, Pete was in a

fraternity. Pete didn't join the FFC. We tried to get him in and he wouldn't do it. But

Dave of course was. And a number of other guys and - Bud Barnes that I'd mentioned

whose father was a judge. And a couple of other kids who were killed in the war. Bob

Overmeyer was in, he was killed in the war. Nearly all of the guys who were on one or

more of the athletic teams and really a good bunch of guys.

It was just social. We met every Monday night and during the fall season we'd go out and

we'd set fire to all the leaves out in the street, and oh gosh, we'd really get - we weren't

very smart in some things we did. We spent every Halloween in jail. Wf'd get picked up

by the cops you know.

Q: For doing what?

A: Nothing. We would be just standing on the street corner and th~y'd know, "There's these

troublemakers," so they'd come pick us all up. Not just FFC guys, but everybody. They

made a general roundup. 1 remember one night we got stuck in jail and we didn't have

- nobody thought to bring any cards so we got some toilet paper and cut it up and marked

it as a deck of cards and played cards with toilet paper. It's kind of hard to shuWe.

Q: Yes. (chuckles) I would think so. What did your parents think of that sort of thing?

A: We didn't tell them too much about the fires we were lighting in the leaves. Our folks

weren't very happy about our being picked up that night. We were held

incommunicado. They didn't call our folks to let thrm know where we were. The father

of one of the guys was on the village board and he took a little heat for that one.

But you know we didn't do any damage really. We did some things that could have caused

damage. I remember one night Bud Barnes and I were out with a couplc of guys and we

put some logs across a street. Somebody cut down a tree, we put some logs across the street

and watched the cars come screeching to a halt while we were standing on the other side

of the logs and one of the cars that came to a screeching halt was a squad car and the

squad car came flying around the logs up on the sidewalk and we took off like we were -

hurdling fences you know. We got away but we were back of the Barnes' house somewhere

and I remember the cops fired a couple of shots in the air. (chuckles) Put the fear of God

into us, we didn't do that anymore.

Q: So Halloween was kind of rough around.

A: Well you know they were - the cops were - it was really relatively harmless. We didn't

go around breaking windows and things like that or doing - or banging up cars. It was

relatively good clean fun and we frequently had girls with us. We didn't drink. I don't

think any of us smoked. So it was, you know, it was fairly clean fun, considering boys

will be boys, it was really pretty good.

Q: You say you had an annual dance in the club. How did you finance that?

A: We had dues of fifty cents a week or something and we collected a treasury and then

- I don't remember now hut to my recollection we had some do-gooder things that we did. I

r~rnrmber we used to go down to Hull House every once in a while. And I don't remember

if that was E'FC sponsored or church sponsorcd. It was the kind of thing we might have

done.

Q: What did you do at Hull House?

A: Oh just played basketball, coarhed the kids in playing basketball, that kind of

thing. And we went to some other - a Spanish one too - maybe it was - I think Hull

House was black in those days. I don't really remember. Maybe - I don't know, maybe

it was even white. I don't remember. Rut we also - Casa somrthing, Casa Central maybe,

which was an Hispanic settlement house.

Q: Is that in where? the north . . .

A: They're both in Chicago. They're in the . . .

53

Q: Hull House is southwest I guess.

A: Yes. Hull House is right over by - right where the University of Chicago - University

of Illinois, Chicago Campus. As a matter of fact, it is still there. It's been refurbished,

it's been rebuilt. And we were down in the near-west area of Chicago.

1 don't remember any - it was just - it was social. We'd get together on Monday nights

and we'd horse around and maybe somebody would play cards, or we'd drink cider and we'd

argue ahout which girl was best looking and, you know, the usual things that you do through

high school.

Q: You mentioned that you had gone to Boys State. How did that come about?

A: I don't really remember who initiated that?

Q: Is that a Legion affair?

A: Do you know what Boys State is?

Q: know, yes. You might describe it some.

A: Yes, I guess maybe it was Legion. The American Legion had an award. They gave an

award to theoretically the outstanding guy in grammar school and in high school. And I

got both of those awards. Part of the deal was I think we got a fifty dollar prize or

something. There may have been some other qualifications but it could have been through

that. It was Legion sponsored though, I think that's right. And I went down and there

was some other people who went down with me. I wasn't the only one that went down from

La Grange.

Q: You said you knew more about what was going on the second time you went than you

did the first time.

A: Yes. The first time, you know, geez, you go in there and there's a whole bunch of kids

and we lived - we stayed - we lived in the State Fair grounds.

Q: Oh you did?

A: Yes my recollection is that we just had bunks in those - you know those long buildings,

they were probably cattle stalls or maybe they're - they're like barracks. And we had

double-decker bunks. And I remember I was in a room with a guy hy the name of Slick

Miller from Peoria. I haven't any idea where the hell Slick Miller is now. I haven't heard

frorn him since. But, you know, it was a very interesting way, even in those - those were

the very early days of Boys State. Gosh, that must have been the first few years of it.

Q: What did you do? You stayed at the State Fair grounds, but your activities were down

at the Capitol Building, were they?

A: Some yes. We went down to the state Capitol Building. I don't really remember too

much about it. We had talks and we did a lot of campaigning, all kinds of signs for people

running. We were organizing political campaigns. That was my main recollertion of it, was

organizing political campaigns.

Q: Amongst yourselves?

A: Yes, among ourselves for somebody who was running for governor. That's what it

amounted to. And usually thc guy who ran for governor had been there a year or two before

54

and knew a lot more what was going on than the rest of us. We were kind of in a real

fog you know.

Q: You said you ran for treasurer or something?

A: I ran for something, I think my second year. And I don't know how that came about. I

think maybe one of the candidates for governor said, "How about you heing my candidate

for treasurer on my ticket," or something. And theoretically I came from La Grange and

I had friends from the suburban area, you know, and I was out talking to everybody. That

was my first real exposure to politics. There hadn't been any of that in high school at all.

There was no politicking for jobs. There were no rallies, there were no signs, there was

nothing. But down thcre there sure was. You downstaters really taught us about politics.

Q: Well! Who did you meet in the way of politicians, do you recall any of them?

A: I have no recollection. Slick Miller is the only guy I could name who was there with

me. I don't even remember who went down from La Grange.

Q: How about the officials down there? Did you meet the governor? This would have been

what? perhaps Homer or Green or . . .

A: Yes it might - probably even before that. I just don't remember, Horace. I remember

very little about it except - my recollection it was only two or three days. I don't think

- it's a week I think now, isn't it?

Q: I don't know.

A: I think - maybe not, I don't know. But my impression is that it was much more rudimentary

than it is now. That might even have been the first year of it. It would he interesting

to go back and see what the first year was. Let's see, it was probably about 1938,

the summer of 1938 or 1939 that T went down.

Q: It was shortly after that John Fribley was involved with getting Girls State started.

A: Oh is that right?

Q: I don't recall what year . . .

A: I'm sure - I don't believe there was any Girls State that early.

Q: How did you go down, by bus or train or . . .

A: Isn't that funny, I don't remember. I remember Violet Hautau's mother - Violet

Hautau was a girl in our class who subsecluently has worked with mr in almost every political

thing I've ever been in. She headed my volunteers the year I ran for the United States

Senate. Her husband's name is Murray Dawson. Vi's mother and dad were very active in

La Grange, particularly her mother. And her mother drove us down to the state student

council convention. The student councils had a state convention. And Mrs. Hautau drove

us down to Carbondale. T,ong way from La Grange to Carbondale. That's when I learned

how big the state of Illinois was.

Q: That would be a drive.

A: Yes because there was no divided highways in those days. And Route 45 was a two-lane

highway the whole way. It was paved I think probably the whole way, but it was . . .

Q: I'm sure. This would have been the late 1930's, was it?

A: Yes. Yes it was probably - well, let's see, I was president of the student council in

1939 and 1940 so it was probably that year. Oh you asked about annual events and sporting

events. Another thing that I forgot that we did regularly in grammar school, once a year

my mother and dad and I would go down to an Illinois football game with a client of my

dad's. My dad had a lady client whose name was Mrs. Hoag. Parker Hoag and Mrs. Hoag,

I think they were clients, and the Hoags invited us down to that game, down to one of the

football games, and we'd always stop and have the chicken dinner at one of the churches

along the way. Do you remember whether in any of those towns - I know there are several

towns along there that always had a chicken dinner for everybody driving from Chicago

down to the football game.

Q: I'll be darned.

A: And we did that for years. And I remember Mrs. Hoag had a Stutz, that's how long

ago it was, a beautiful Stutz. And one year when we were coming back I know we stopped

at one of the churches for the chicken dinner, coming back on Sunday I guess, or maybe

going down on Saturday - no, I think it was probably coming back on Sunday. And my

mother dropped her purse out of the car, didn't know it. And the next day a lady called

her from Hinsdale and said her name was Mrs. Walgreen and she'd found h ~ purse. r So

mother went over and got her purse. No, it wasn't Mrs. Walgreen. Mrs. Dart is who it

was, Mrs. Dart. And it turned out to be Justin Dart's mother. And Justin Dart subsequently

became president of Dart Industries, and Walgreen was president of Walgreen, he

married a Walgreen girl. I think my mother sang at their wedding, or at a shower or

something. My mother did quite a lot of professional singing for Mrs. nart because Mrs.

Dart found my mother's purse. And Justin Dart - of course the Dart Industries has now

merged with Kraft and the Dart and Kraft, that's one of the biggest corporations in the

United States.

SESSION 3, TAPE 5, SIDE 1

Q: Okay. What I'd like to do is delve back a little bit to homelife back in the 1930's. How

did your family celebrate Christmas normally?

A: At home. We always had a Christmas tree. When I was a little boy I was a deep

believer in Santa Claus. We always had a little table of some kind set up by the fireplace

where we put out milk and crackers, graham crackers, and a banana or something for Santa

Claus. And I frequently left him a note. And he always ate whatever was there and replied

to the note. And frequently left a footprint in the ashes or something..

Q: Oh is that right? (chuckles)

A: I always had a stocking hung by the fireplace and since I was an only child I got particular

attention at occasions like that. I don't remember whether we had family at Christmas

or not. I expect we probably did. When I was a little boy, probably my younger cousins,

Irla and Geraldine Funk, my two closest cousins who lived at least for part of that time

in La Grange, I'm sure we would get together on Christmas. I expect for Christmas dinner

we would have various family members or go to my Uncle Bob's house in Austin or maybe

my

sister, Aunt Jessie and Uncle Ray's house. Or they would come to our house for

Christmas. It was very much of a family event. In high school years 1 sang in the Episcopal

choir at the midnight service every Christmas Eve. But it was very much of a family

celebration.

Q: Were you still in both choirs at that time?

A: No by that time I think I was just - well, actually by the time 1 was in high - well,

my late grammar school and mayhe early freshman year in high school I was really only

in the Episcopal choir I think. At least I don't remember ever going to a midnight service

in the Presbyterian church. I'm sure there was not one. But there was in the Episcopal

church and then through high school I sang in my mother's choir in Hinsdale on Christmas

Eve.

Q: I meant to ask before, were the Funks related in any way to the Funks down by Bloomington,

the Funk's hybrid corn people?

A: No I'm sure not. Uncle Herb was - to the best of my knowledge he didn't have any

relatives around here. He was a telegrapher. And that was one of the professions that

went down the tube with science, development of wireless, with develnpment of radio and ,

television and everything else, other means of communication, and Uncle Herb didn't work

for years. My Aunt Alice was a secretary in the Chicago school system. But no relation.

Spelled the same way.

Q: How about Thanksgivings? Big family affair?

A: Same thing. Yes always big family - my mother's family was very close. And we were

regularly with my Uncle Bob and his family or they with us or whoever else, whatever

cousins happened to be around. Every once in a while we'd have visiting cousins. I remember

my cousin Bob Hardie, Sport, who lived in Montana. My cousin Chick and his brother

were with us regularly. Jimmy MacDonald whose mother and dad lived in Aurora. Jim and

Helen would get together with us. We'd go out there for Thanksgiving or they'd come

in. And the same way at Christmas. We were regularly seeing all those people.

Q: I guess La Grange in those days was still kind of a rural setting, was it not? Weren't

there farms around at that day?

A: There were, yes, the houses really ended at Forty-seventh Street. From Forty-seventh

Street north it was pretty much solid houses. But south of Forty-seventh Street, when I

was a boy, was a farm. With occasional houses - a farmhouse or somcthing. But it was

still very much of a bedroom community. Certainly a lot of the fathers worked in

Chicago. They'd walk down and take the Rurlingtnn and . . .

Q: But there was enough of a rural community around that you knew where milk came from?

A: No. I was never around a farm when I was a boy. No. See, La Grange was only about

fifteen miles out. And I don't remember being on a farm around there ever.

Q: So you were oriented toward town. How often did you visit, say, the Art Institute?

A: (pause) As infrequently as possible.

Q: Oh really? (chuckles)

A: I never had any interest in art at all. My penalty is that two of my daughters majored

in art history in college. And one of them is really quite an accomplished artist. She drew

that picture. (points to painting on wall) She painted that watercolor of our Cottage in

Michigan. And she's up there right now. She's my oldest daughter, the one who lives in

Purtland, Oregon. And Betsey found an old notehook full of prneilrd drawings and she took

me through the - once she came down to the legislature with me - and shc took me through

- yesterday she and I were looking at the pictures of legislators and trying to remember

who they were.

Q: That she had drawn you mean?

A: That she had drawn in 19 . . . probably my second term which woul

1967. And we could identify several of them. I think I could identify Ed Madigan

have

clearly,

haen

d

and Jack Touhy clearly, and Harold Katz clearly.

sure who the others were, nor was she.

Q: So you weren't . . .

And I - the others, I just - I'm not

A: Ralph Smith was another one we could identify.

Q: Oh? From down south.

A: Yes.

Q: So you weren't inclined toward art at all then?

A: Not in - not drawing at all. I can't draw a picture of a horse now that looks like

anything. I never have been able to. Music was the other way. As I think I may have

mentioned, I had a season ticket to the opera when I was in high school.

Q: Yes you went through that, your operatic career.

A: Yes. (chuckles)

Q: Well how about the - Shedd Aquarium and the Museum of Natural History?

A: Yes, we went to all of those, the Shedd Aquarium, the planetarium, Museum of Science

and Industry, and the Museum of Natural History which in those days was the Field

Museum. And I thoroughly enjoyed those. I didn't - art - painting and artwork of that

kind just never captured my imagination at all. I had a lot more interest in the scientific

things and the historical things, particularly natural history. I loved the mastodon and

things like that at the Field Museum.

Q: So did you get there fairly often, once a year or so?

A: Probably not much more than that. But they were impressive visits. It wasn't something

I was dragged off screaming to as I recall. I was looking forward to it. Suburbanites tend

to be isolated from Chicago too much. It's very unfortunate. It's still the case. But those

are really great - one of the great benefits of living in a megalopolis like Chicago that those

things are available to you and there should bc more available to you.

Q: That's what I was driving at. I wondered how often you went to those things?

A: I don't suppose much more than once a year. Maybe the Field Museum more than

that. Of course we took field trips in school. But it wasn't the kind of thing that every

month or so 1 would on my own or with a bunch of my huddies go down to the Field Museum

or the aquarium or planetarium or anything like that.

Q: How about Midway Airport? Did you get out there very often to watch the airplanes?

A: Occasionally. My dad - I remember the first time my dad - I think it was the first

time, onc of the early times my dad flew was on a Braniff Airlines single-engine plane with

no windows in it as I recall. I just remember my dad disappearing into this little singleengine

plane. He was flying down to Tulsa, Oklahoma . . . from - of course from

Midway. And airplanes were, you know - like all little kids, airplanes were a very important

part of my life you know. I remember when I was five or six - when I was five I

guess - we went out to Maywood which was then - I guws it was before the days of

Midway. I guess Maywood Airport was the - I believe before Midway was huilt. This was

in 1Y27 we went out there to see Lindberg right after his flight which was in 1927 so it

was probably in the fall of 1927 or the spring of 1928 or something like that.

Q: So you got to see Lindberg then?

Y

A: Saw him, yes, and I still have a couple of first day covers that my dad sent

me. "Lindherg Carried this Letter," with the Lindherg stamp and Lindberg picture on

it. One is from Springfield to Chicago I think and one's from St. Louis to Chicago. I have

two first day covers of, or - I'm not too sure they're first-day covers, they're covers that

bear t h Lindberg ~ stamp and that Lindberg flew this particular letter.

Midway came along later. My recollection is that that Rraniff Airway's flight that my dad

took was from Midway. Did we ever go out to see the planes land out there? I don't

remember doing that. I spent almost every Sunday taking my oldest daughter out there

when she was a little girl.

Q: Oh is that right?

A: Which she fondly now rememhers, We were talking about it just the other day.

Q: Did she learn to fly?

A: No she's never flown. But I think would love to. She has four kids and if she gets that

squared, maybe she'll take it up.

Q: Well! (chuckles) Too busy to get involved. How about the ballgames? Did you get to

the Comisky Park and Wrigley Field?

A: Cubs park more than Comiskey. I was a Cub fan when I was boy, the days of Kyky

Cuyler, and Hack Wilson, and Rick Stevenson and I might - maybe - I'll bet you I could

come pretty close to naming that team. Gabby Hartknett was the catchrr and Charlie

Grimm was first base and Billy Herman second base and Billy Jurges was shortstop and

Stan Hack was third base and Cuyler and Hick Stevenson and Hack Wilson were the

outfield. Now I'm not sure. That's about 1932, somcwherc along in there so. . . . I can't

name - I don't think I can name anybody on the White Sox in those days, so obviously

I was a Cub fan.

Q: How often did you get out to the games? Pretty much during the summer. '

A: Oh no. A time or two or three my dad would take mc out. I don't remember going

except with my dad. The same way with football. My dad took me to some of the Bears

games when - particularly Bears and Green Bay, who were the big rivals in those days

you know.

Q: How about the radio? Did you listen to the games much on the radio?

A: Yes. Sure. Used to keep box scores regularly of the baseball games. I learned how

to kcep a box score early on, and kept box scores regularly. Like the program thcy give

you at the ballpark, I'd make up my own program and keep it by innings.

Q: What were your radio listening habits? Little Orphan Annie and Jack Armstrong and

that sort of thing? Or did you listen to those very much'!

A: I don't - occasionally I guess. I don't really remember that I was ever tied to one. My

mother and dad used to listen to One Man's Family. I remember on mayh~ Sunday night

was it, or Saturday night? And I used to sit and listen to One Man's Family with

them. Henry Barber was the head of One Man's Family. And it was just a good family

story. I listened to the hallgamc rrgularly on radio. But I don't remember that I really

was tied to radio. I listened to records quite a lot. I listened to classical records some,

early on my folks had classical records and I listened to those.

Q: What was this? a windup Victrola, did they call them?

A: We had one of those but that was really, by the time I came along, really they were

electric. 1 don't recall the years, but those windup ones were in the early 1920's. See I

was born in 1922 and by the end of the 1920's everything was pretty much electronic. We

did have a windup one. I remember winding one up. 1 rrmcrnher an icebox as distinguished

from a refrigerator. My wife saw one yesterday that she wants dearly that has been refurbished

and made up as a filing cabinet and it's three hundred and fifty dollars, and it's a

gorgeous one in an antique store up in Beulah, Michigan. We were looking at it yesterday.

Q: Well! You should have kept the one from when you used it.

A: Oh yes. But I remember the iceman. I was a little boy. I remember the iceman coming

along in a horsedrawn wagon and coming through La Grange. And we'd all go out when

he'd come in. Wc'd help him carry - well you know, he'd carry the ice in, a twenty-five

pound block of ice and put it in the icebox in back of our house.

Q: Did you have the card in the window that you turned to signal?

A: Yes. Twenty-five, fifty or a hundred. Yes. I'd forgotten that until you mentioned it

but yes we did.

Q: What other kind of deliveries did they have back in the late 1920's or early

1930's? Groceries were delivered?

A: Groceries were frequently delivered, yes. One of my mother's favorite stories was calling

up Rossrnan and Palmer one day and ordering the groceries and saying, "This is Mrs.

Burditt." And the girl simply could not get it. She then said, "How do you spell it?" And

my mother spelled R-U-R-D-I-T-T and the girl said to her, "Oh you mean Burdm," which

has haunted all Burditts their whole life. Everyhody calls them Burdette. Other deliveries

- well the newspaper was delivered. (pause) I don't remember - cleaners maybe, I don't

rememher.

Q: Did they have any, what do you call them? green grocers with wagons that came by at

any time that you recall?

A: Well yes, Horace, but that wasn't a big thing. Most of the groceries - there was a lot

of mom and pop grocery stores in La Grange. Ramp's Market and Young's Market, Rossman

and Palmer. Those were three that I can remember off the top of my head who were just

- and we would - my mother would either call or go down and do the shopping at the

grocery store. Those three were all within three blocks of our house.

Q: Did you do much shopping for her of that nature?

A: I did once in a while. I never was really hot for doing the shopping. And there wasn't

any occasion for me to do it really.

Q: Did you learn how to cook as you were growing up?

A: Oh not really. I learned how to make a hookie-dook sandwich which is one that one

of my best friends liked which was chicken and tomato and lettuce and with thousand island

dressing over it that we concocted ourselves out of mayonnaise and ketchup. But I never

did any cooking when I was a kid.

Q: We talked about political things that might be going on and your father wasn't overly

interested in that sort of thing. How about the Landon campaign against Roosevelt. Do

you recall anything about that in 1934 - you were a little young - or 1936 I gucss.

Q: Yes. Do you recall anything about thc Landon campaign at all?

A: I really don't, Horace. I remember the issue, I remember that Landon ran and carried

Maine and Vermont because the expression was changed, "As Maine goes, so goes

Vermont." It used to be, "As Maine goes, so goes the nation." But I think that was the

campaign that changed that slogan because Landon carried Maine and Vermont only. Is

that right'! Do you remember? Is that right?

Q: He carried very little. I don't recall exactly what.

A: I think he carried Maine and Vermont only and Roosevelt carried everything else. Rut

that's really about all. I don't remember much about the campaign.

Q: How about the Willkie campaign in 1940, do you recall?

A: I remember a little more about that because Wendell Willkie's brother lived in La

Grange. He was the vice-president of Libby and his daughter, Betty Willkie, Ed Willkie's

daughter - Ed Willkie is Wendall Willkie's brother - and Ed's daughter, Betty, was in

our class in high school.

And that was the year we graduated from high school so - of

course everybody was - all of us were for Willkie in those days. Maybe that's why T'm

a Republican today because Betty Willkie was in my class in high school. 1 don't recall

that we had any teenage Republican club or anything like that. But, oh, we probably had

a button, Willkie button. As a matter of fact every once in a while I'll find an old Willkie

button in something. But . . . you know, that - I was very active in a lot of other high

school things as you know that we've talked about before and 1 didn't really spend much

time worrying about that. I couldn't vote, nothing I could do about it. And we didn't -

tcthnag~ R~publicans were not in existence as I recall in those day. There may have been

one, but if there was, I wasn't in it.

Q: How about Mrs. Van der Vries? Did you know her at that time? She was one of your

representatives?

A: No I didn't. Art Sprague and Mrs. Van der Vries were for many years the two representatives

from that enormous suburban house district. It went all the way around the

city. Mrs. Van der Vries was from Winnetka?

Q: Well yes . . .

A: The North Shore.

Q: She moved to Evanston.

A: Did she? And Art Sprague lived in La Grange. And they represented that district but

I didn't - you know, I didn't have much to do with either one of them in those days, before

college.

Q: How about the Green campaign? Do you recall anything at all about Governor Green

bcing elected?

A: No. No. I remember that he was elected but I wasn't active in that campaign at

all. And I don't even remember who he ran against.

Q: Green . . . I can't recall whether it was the Ninety-Day Wonder or not. What was his

name? The one who was there after Horner left.

A: Shapiro.

Q: No, no, no. That was after Kerner. Well for heavens sakes. He and Horner didn't get

along at all.

A: He was a Democrat?

Q: Yes he was the lieutenant governor and then he took over. I think he ran against Green

but I'm not sure.

A: Isn't that funny - I don't remember either - I should remember - I'm embarrassed

that I don't, but I don't remember.

Q: Yes I should too. I've been over it many times.

A: (laughter) We can strike this part of the tape.

Q: From about 1937 on things began to really heat up towards World War 11. Do you recall

your sense of the coming of World War 11,1937, 1938,1939?

A: I remember that when I went back to Harvard in Scptember, 1940, I was astonished at

the difference. "My goodness, there's a war on." Blackouts were in effect in Cambridge

in 1940.

Q: In 1940?

A: Right. And there was nothing like that going on in - well, yes there were blackouts

because you sec there was a lot of shipping going on and they were trying to black out the

coast so that - and I'm sure - I know when I went back to Harvard that was one of the

many differences between the Midwest because there was just virtually nothing going on

here in terms of cognizance that there was a war on. But the East Coast was far more

aware of it and there were more manifestations of the war than there were out here.

Q: How about the summer of 1939? Do you recall when France was falling, news

coverage? I recall that they had a map every day showing the progress of the Germans.

A: Yes. And that was . . . well I guess it was either that summer or the summer of 1938

that I was out west. I guess the summer of 1938 I was out west and - out with my mother

and dad. That was the trip I took with my mother and dad after my sophomore year. And

while we were in Los Angeles we went to see a friend of my mother by the name of Emily

Cole. And she had a young man by the name of Kai Ostby. Kai was a Norwegian. He

had been in Norway at the time of the German invasion and he was just my age. And

he came out on the side of the Germans. Which really shook me. You know, it never

occurred to me there was anything good about Germans. And he was - I spent quite a

lot of time with him because he and I went for a hike in Yosemite National Park, an over-

night hike. Actually it was a three-day hike but we did it in two days. Have I told you

about this hike?

Q: No.

A: We went with - just the two of us - I don't remember - somebody must have taken

us out there, probably my mother and Emily Cole. We started down at the bottom of the

canyon, in Yosemite Valley, and we hiked up over past Vernal and Nevada Palls across Tuolumne

Meadows and across over in back of North Uorne. Around. It was a three-day hike,

but since we were young and vigorous we did it in two days. And it was during {.he course

of that he was telling me about how he would - when the word came that the Germans

were coming and that the Uritish were retreating and everybody from the village where he

lived just climbed up the sidc of the mountain where they had a panoramic view of the whole

valley with the British retreating. And they never liked the British because the Rritish were

so autocratic and haughty you know, the typical of - what we think of frequently as British

attributes. And the Germans just cleaned them out and came right up the valley with tanks

and the Panzer Divisions and the British were no match. The Kritish were totally

underequipped. And he said after the British had retreated all the way or had been captured

and the Germans had taken over, he said, "We all came down out of the hills and

we hitchhiked with the German soldiers and they gave us a ride on their trucks and they

were very friendly to us," and quite contrary to what the British had done.

So that was my first exposure to it and I simply didn't understand that, having finished

my sophomore year in high school. I guess like everybody else after the invasion of Poland

in September the first, 1939 and the invasion of France shortly after that, you know, I was

very ~nuch on the side of the - there never was any question - I just thoroughly disagreed

with Kai Osthy. And I often wonder whatever happened to him, whether he's still -

whether he later on changed his feelings about it.

Q: He might have had occasion to.

A: He might have, yes, sure.

Q: Did he go back?

A: I don't really know. I don't know what happened to him, Horace. He probably went

back but - I don't know. The war was on, he may have staycd in this country. I just

don't know.

Q: Do you recall anything else about the Yellowstone trip? Now this was what you had

mentioned - I believe you had thc writeup on it you had done.

A: Yes there were two. My sophomore year my mother and dad and I went out west, and

- the summer of 1938 - and we made pretty much the rounds. I know we went to

Yellowslone. And I've got this stack of pictures which I showed you this morning. That's

from that trip. And we went up to Srattle, my dad had husiness in Seattle. I've got a

picture of the Tacoma Bridge. Do you remember the Taconm Bridgc that blew down? That

enormous bridge. Big - it went across the whole Tacoma Bay and the darned thing blew

down.

Q: It was twisting - and they have pictures of it.

A: Yes. They've got movies of it, yes. It's a movie you'll never forget if you've ever seen

it. I've got still pictures of that - of the Tacoma. Bridge. As far as the rest of that trip

is concerned, I remember we drove around the Olympic Peninsula. I think inayhe I talked

about that trip. But then - then the summer of 1939 - those are two pictures of the Tacoma

Bridge. (proff ers photographs)

Q: It just wiggled back and forth and fell down.

A: Like a kid with a rope yes.

Q: It was still open at this time?

A: Well I think it was closed. It looks like in one of those pictures

Q: It looks like it's missing . . .

A: This was probably right after it went down.

Q: Yes.

A: The piers remain standing. and from this picture you can see that this strand across the

top is still standing but there's no roadbed on it. So it's apparently right after it went down.

Then in 1939 two other fellows and I rented a car - the folks let us rent a car and go

out. And that's the diary that 1 have here and another set of pictures from that thing,

which I'm going to put together for my own purposes. And we covered all the nalional

parks, you know. If I have a hobby, it's planning trips out west.

Q: Oh is that right?

A: Yes I love to do that. We've had our kids out west all the way to the coast three times,

in 1961, 1963 and 19fili. Barbara and I went on our honeymoon on a full trip out west. My

son and I drove out one time while he was in college. My mother and dad and I drove out

when I was in seventh grade and after my sophomore year. So I suppose I've driven to

the West Coast eight or ten limes. And I love it. It's just great. I love the national parks

and I'vc done a lot of hiking in them.

SESSION 3, TAPE 5, SIDE 2

Q: You had mentioned, Iike the book from the Lakeside Press that you mentioned before

we started taping here, and before you've indicated that your uncle therc in Montana was

kind of a hero to you. Did you become a Westernphile, if that's the word?

A: Oh sure, sure.

Q: The cowboys, and the history of the West and that sort of thing?

A: Yes. My uncle's two sons both went to college in Montana and they were, oh, ten or

twelve years older than I was I guess. And they were always kind of heros to me when

I was a hoy and they were both cowboys. And they had cowboy friends who came with

them. There was a fcllow by the name of Harold Rose. Why I would remcrnher his name,

I haven't any idea. To my recollection, his name was spelled R-0-S-E and was pronounred

Ross. But 1 may be wrong about that. But he was a cowboy and you know they came and

told us stories about cowboys.

And when I was in seventh grade when we were staying with my uncle in Livingston I got

my first pair of long pants and we went riding down in the Gallatin Canyon which is down

from Boseman I think. It's the next canyon over from the Yellowstone Canyon. It's the

next one wcst. And I remember that we wtw riding along - not any fancy riding, because

I wasn't a rider at all - and the cinch on the saddle hadn't been tightened and the saddle

just gradually slipped and 1 went right off with it. Of course I was petrified. But . . .

Q: Were you hurt in any way?

A: No. I was so scared I couldn't get hurt. But I just went right off.

Q: You say they were cowboys. Did they actually have cattle they were working out there

at the time?

A: Yes, yep, yes.

Q: When you were there did you get involved in the branding or anything?

A: No I didn't. I was too little to get involved in anything like that. My uncle had a ranch

in Wilsal, Montana. And I remember being out at that ranch but I don't rcmernber doing

\

AGE 4, STANDING

FALLS,

WITH HIS FATHER AT NIAGARA

"I'm very proud of the fact that two lawyers

who do not Know each other, one in Chicago

and one in New York, both told me my dad

was the finest lawyer they'd ever known."

IN MATTHEWS HALL. HARVARD. 194 1

"Oh yes I absolutely love cards. And learned

how to play bridge then and as a matter of fact

later on another guy and I won the Haruard

bridge tournament which we had organized."

IN FRONT OF A STEARMAN AT PRIMARY FLIGHT

SCHOOL, 1943.

"And we took all of the tests, you know, for

classification. I was classified - choices were

bombardier or navigator or pilot. And I was

classified as a pilot which of course was what I

wanted."

GEORGE BURDITT AND BARBARA STENGER ON THEIR

WEDDING DAY.

*And I decided after going steady with Lucille

for about five ymrs that Barbara Stenger, my

I

first choice from Kindergartm, was bettw so I

flew up the next week to see Barbara and we

are now - we've been married now for thirtyseven

years. We were married February 17,

1945. So that's thirty-eight years. Geez! See I

tim~ flies when you're having fun, I only

thought it was thirty-seuen."

any branding or anything like that. I remember later on in the 1961 trip or 1963 trip with

our kids we spent some time in Wisdom, Montana, with a guy who was one of my very best

buddies in the air corps, John and Jill Eliel, who had eight kids. And their eight kids and

our four kids and we spent about a week together and had a super time. And I helped John

brand the bull. That's my total experience with branding.

Q: Oh? Brand a bull. Usually you brand calves don't you?

A: Well this was a big bull. And I don't know why it hadn't been branded, but we got -

they have a metal frame I guess. Is that the standard way for branding calves? The big

metal frame, you run the hull into it and you lock the darned thing on the bull so he can't

move, or can't move very much, and then they branded him. I remember we did that. That

was post-childhood.

Q: How about Indian reservations and that type of thing? Did you visit those while you

were traveling out there in the 1930's?

A: (pause) We drove through them. (pause) I know we drove through the Mandan Reservation

in North kkota. I don't remember . . . stopping to see any of the

reservations. When we took our kids out there we went through some reservations too. In

our 1961 trip I guess our son would have been . . . about nine. Anti we were coming into

our first Indian country, just south of where the Rattle of the Little Big Horn was

fought. And we'd been kind of looking for Indians and hadn't seen any. And finally I saw

one, and 1 said, "Bud, there's some Indians." There was a general store or something, maybe,

three hundred yards off thc road, way back from the road. But there were some way

in the distance, you could see some people standing. And I said, "Bud, there are some

Indians." And he - he - of course his eyes were just popping becausc he'd never seen

a real live Indian. And he leaned forward and whispered in my ear, "Friendly?" A question

mark.

Q: (laughter) I presume they were.

A: Oh yes. (chuckles)

Q: Did you give any thought to not finishing high school and perhaps going off to the war.

A: No.

Q: Nothing as drastic as that.

A: Never occurred to me. Never had any thought. I never had any thought except going

to Harvard. I didn't apply to any other college. I don't know what would have happened

if I'd been turned down.

Q: When did you first find out that there was a possibility of going on to Harvard or selecting

- when did you select EIarvard as a goal?

A: Well as long as I can remember that I was talking about eollege. I don't remernhcr ever

discussing going to any other college.

Q: Why were you so set on Harvard?

A: I don't know. I guess I was brought up to believe it was the number one college, and

I ought to go to the number one college. My dad didn't go to college at IIarvard, didn't

go to college at all, let alone Harvard. Nobody else in the family ever went to IIarvard.

Q: Was there any influence at all, any of your dad's law partners or anyone that . . .

A: I can't think of anybody. The gentleman from whom we purchased our cottage in Michigan,

N. R. Clark, went to liarvard. Rut my acquaintance with him long postdated my interest

in going to Harvard.

Q: Did this have anything to do with the Harvard Law School? Was that your aim at the

time?

A: No not really. Well I think I wanted to be a lawyer.

Q: Yes.

A: I really always kind of wanted to be a lawyer but I wasn't going to Harvard College

because I wanted to go to Harvard Law School. There's really no connection. You can go

to Harvard Law School wherever you go to college. I just wanted to go to Harvard

College. And I don't remember what the motivating force was.

Q: Did it have to do with the sports possibilities there?

A: No because the sports possibilities at Harvard, you know, they're - although I figured

I'd probably have a better chance of playing baskethall at Harvard than I would if I went

to Illinois. I suppose - I don't remember that being a conscious thought. I didn't know

if I could make the basketball team at Harvard, you know it's . . .

Q: When did you first learn of the scholarship possibility?

A: (pause) Oh I don't - I don't remember. Probably my sophomore or junior year in high

school. Probably my junior year in high school. And I didn't know if that was realistic

or not but they had tests, kind of like the Scholastic Aptitude Tests I gather. I don't remember

if they were just for Harvard or not but I remember that a bunch of us took the test

at the same time. Probably had to do with - probably about the same thing as the

SAT'S. Although it may have been just for IIarvard scholarship applicants. I don't remernber.

(dials on intercom) It wasn't - there weren't a lot of. . . . (speaking to

secretary) Ask Debbie to come in for second will you? My daughter's here I just want

you to meet her.

(taping stopped for introduction of daughter, then resumed)

Q: So you really have no idea why you wanted to get off to Harvard.

A: Just that it was the number one school, that it had the reputation of being the number

one college and - 1 hadn't seen it, I'd never seen it before I went.

Q: Did you have any counseling, any of your teachers who may have discussed various

schools with you?

A: I may have but I don't remember that I did because I never considered going anywhere

but Harvard. My mother and dad and I had talked it over and I was going to Harvard,

period. That was the total extent of it. I wanted to, and they wanted mc to and that was

fine.

(taping stopped for telephone conversation, then resumed)

Q: Now you've mentioned earlier that yo11 did have a little problem with the science but

managed to squeak through alright on that. Were there any other problems with those

scholarship examinations?

A: I never heard. I got the scholarship. I never heard how I did on the exams. They

never tell you. I just got a letter in the mail one day saying I had a national scholarship. A

national scholarship was the best scholarship that Harvard gave and it was based on

need. You'd get whatever you needed, and they determincd that I needed a tuition

scholarship. And my scholarship was . . . I think it was - my recollection is that it was

three hundred dollars my first year and four hundred dollars my second and third year,

something like that. It was a full-tuition scholarship, it paid nothing else. But it could

have gone up to as high as a thousand dollars which in those days was a lot of money for

college. That would pay everything.

Q: Let's see, now the tests for that were different from the tests you took in your junior

year were they?

A: No. There were - as I recall there were three tests, which was probably in my senior

year. I probably heard about them in my junior year and I expect I probably took them

in my senior year. And I think there were - well let's see, there was a test in science

- 1 remember t,hat one because I didn't know anything about it. But that's the only one

that the dean told me I did well on. One in Latin . . . and one in English, and math, I

think probably those were the four. Maybe one in French I don't remember. It was a battery

of tests we just took.

Q: Now you took these here at the school here? You didn't go to Harvard to . .. .

A: No I took them in Chicago as I recall. Some place in Chicago, some centralized place

in Chicago whew they invited everybody.

Q: And this was managed by Harvard itself?

A: I think so - I think it was just for Harvard scholarship applicants, a prbgram which

I think has long since been dropped. But on the othcr hand, there were no scholastic aptitude

tests in those days. I don't think there were, I never took one, this is the only thing

I ever took, was this . . .

Q: So this was probably a kind of a replacement for that, or a substitute for that sort of

thing.

A: Right. Or maybe antidated it.

Q: Well then - let's see now, you were valedictorian as I understand your senior year when

you graduated. /.

A: Yes.

Q: Do you recall your valedictorian speech of that year?

A: Didn't give one. I don't remember that I did. I don't remember that I did.

Q: I thought that was one of the requirements of the valedictorian that they had to . . .

A: They may have said, "There's no way we're going to let you get up and give you the

mike. You'd never sit down."

Q: Well! (chuckles)

A: I may have said a few words but I had no major - I don't remember going through

any preparation of any major valedictory addrcss.

Q: Now you've indicated before that there was the possibility that you might go into the

ministry. Was this at Harvard? Do they have a seminary there that's connected with the

srhool?

A: There is a Harvard Divinity School which is a fine divinity school, By the time I got

to Harvard - well - during - in collcge years I was still kind of debating, but I think

in those years I had pretty well made up my mind I was going to be a lawyer. Not necessarily

Harvard Law School, I don't know that I'd figured that far. But I - that was certainly

a presumption that I would go to Harvard Law School, or apply for Harvard Law School,

whether I'd get in or not.

Q: So at that time your main concern was just a bachelor's degree. In any particular field

that you . . .

A: I started out concentrating in government, and didn't especially like it, so I switched to

economics, which I liked even less. So I switched to history which I loved. I knew I loved

it from the beginning but I thought it was kind of impractical and I probably should be

doing something more practical like government or economics. Rut I didn't like them so

I switched to history and I loved it. I probably did all those switches my freshman year. I

don't remember just when I did them but . . .

Q: Did you have guidance there in the school as to what you ought to be taking?

A: Sure.

Q: Did you have an advisor?

A: Yes. Harvard's got a wonderful tutorial system.

Q: Oh?

A: We had a proctor, a graduate student, who lived in our entry. His name was Alf

Darnen. And we had advisors too. I don't remember just who my advisors were

but . . . we had - you have a tutor in the field in which you're specializing and he works

with you on your papers, on your thesis.

Q: What's an entry? You say you lived in an entry.

A: Oh! Freshman year you live in a dormitory in Harvard Yard, in the yard. And they're

old - big old buildings. And I lived in the north entry of Matthews Hall. There were

two front entrances. One was the north entry, one was the south entry. And I lived in

the north entry. We had - Alf Lhrnen lived down on the first floor as I recall and I was

up on the third floor.

Q: What were they? two-men rooms or . . .

A: Well it varied from one to five. I was in a two-man room.

Q: Did you have any choice in that mattter? Or did they just assign you to a room?

A: You're pretty - we were assigned. It seems to me we might have been able to request

that, "I'd like one roommate," as distinguished from none or two. And, "If possible I'd like

somebody from the East," something like that. I had no - my freshman roommate was

totally blind.

Q: Blind?

A: 1 mean blind - no, I didn't know him. We didn't know each other. And we had no

requests for each other or anything like that.

Q: Did you get along alright?

A: Oh fine, yes. Very interesting guy, one of the most interesting people I've mct in my

life. His name was Jack Keeler, John H. Keeler. IIis father was not around. I don't

remember what happened to him. His mother was the choirmaster - no, the choirmother

of an Episcopal choir in New York City. It was a live-in boys' choir in New York City. And

Jack had been raised in that atmosphere. And he was a very interesting guy.

Q: In what way?

A: He had two full-time jobs, two eight-hour jobs, one in a factory of some kind, and one

as a busboy in a nightclub, which only left him another eight hours a day, a substantial

portion of which he would spend with the bestlooking woman who showed up in the nightclub

the night before. He was a very handsome debonnaire - terrific personality. He took the

November hour exams in Archeology I, and he couldn't remember whether it was archeology

or anthropology and he wrote the wrong name of the course on the Blue Rook. I think I've

got them mixed, I think it was in anthropology because our proctor was in

anthropology. And he wrote Archeology I. So he ended up with something like four

incompletes and one failure at the end of November, maybe after the first term, and went

in to . . . let's see, he - did he? He finished - got through the first year. And how he

did it I don't know. Fascinating guy, just a charming guy. One of the bestlooking, most

interesting people I've ever known in my life. But then in our sophomore year he and I

roomer1 together for part of the sophomore year with a third roommate.

And then Jack went into the merchant marine, signed up in the merchant marine. And to

show you what kind of a guy he was, he was - do you want to hear this? He signrd up

for the merchant marine and was put in charge of the merchant marine armed guard of

five or eight or ten men on a freighter on the Murmansk run, which you will recall was

90 percent casualty rate, terrible, trying to get around the north end of Norway to supply

the Russians. His convoy ran into a wolfpack of subs. Everything was sunk. The raptain

of Jack's ship gave the signal to abandon ship in what Jack considered to be fairly unfriendly

waters. (chuckles) You know, raging seas, iceburgs, you know awful. And Jack said if he

ever got off or his crew got off, they'd never survive that water. So he kept the merchant

marine guard onboard ship. The ship did not sink although it had something like a 40

degree list, an enormous list, and he sailed that ship - with his little merchant marine

guard, sailed it into Murmansk, at the age of maybe twenty-one, twenty or

twenty-one. Subsequently he became, I think, the youngest merchant marine captain in the

history of the merchant marine.

Q: Oh he became a captain?

A: Yes. And I'm not sure he didn't have another Murmansk run or two.

Q: The armed guard, did you ever talk to Judge McGloon about armed guard?

A: No.

Q: He was an armed guard a year or so until he got into the naval liaison.

A: Did he ever do Murmansk?

Q: I don't think he did Murmansk, but he went to England a time or two and then he was

on the southern route. I think he went to South America or something.

A: Oh a lot better than going up that northern route. That was probably the worst duty

in the war.

Q: When he left - now you say this was your second year - so that would have been pretty

close to Pearl Harbor, I guess, when he enlisted then.

*

A: He probably enlisted right after Pearl Harbor. I don't remember but maybe even before.

Q: What were your feelings at that time? Did you think of dropping it . . .

A: I signed up right - I signed up in July, 1942.

Q: Oh you did?

A: Yes. We all - everybody did.

Q: Signed up for what?

A: I signed up for the air corps, enlisted in the air corps. I just - I thought about enlisting

in the marines. As a matter of fact I went down and was interviewed by the - there was

a marine recruiter who came out to Harvard, a Harvard man by the name of Lieutenant

Hornblower.

Q: Oh really? (chuckles)

A: Yes.

Q: That should have been navy.

A: (daughter enters room) Dehhy Norton, Horace Waggoner. Do you want to punch your 4

button?

(taping stopped for talk with daughter, then resumed)

Q: So let's see then - in your sophomore year you signed up but you still continued at school

then.

A: Yes. I didn't go into the marines because I had flat feet. And Lieutenant Hornblower

said, "If you end up with flat feet, you'll probably get washed out of Marine Officer Candidate

School, and you'll end up as a private in the marines. And," he said, "you don't want to

be a private in the marines." So then I signed up for the air corps. And signed up in July

and just waited to he called. I was called in February, 1943.

Q: Now was that sufficient time then for you to get your bachelor's? to complete your bachelors?

A: Of course I saw the war coming because the war - I started in September, 1940. And

went to summer school. I took an extra course first of all. Every year I took five - every

term I took five courses instead of four, so I had one extra course. I had - and I went

to summer school, I think, both summers. I must have gone to summer school both summers,

after my freshman year and after my sophomore year. So that by the time, February

1943, came along, chronologically I was halfway through my junior year. Rut in terms of

credits, I was halfway through my senior year.

So then I went in the service. And I went to, among other things, college training detachment

in the service which was a compulsory three-month part of the air corps training. And

the - 1 had - we had history and math and some other things. And as a result of that, -

Harvard gave me a degree without my having to go back. So I got my college degree really

in two and a third years which was a break and started out in law school.

Q: So you were there a solid two and a half years at Harvard.

A: Yes.

Q: When did you first become active in basketball there?

a

A: Well I guess probably my first week whenever they put out the call for the freshman

team you know. I didn't know anybody. I didn't know a soul when I went to IIarvard,

knew nobody in my class. There was one upperclass~nan from La Grange that I saw once

or twice but I really didn't know him. I think he was a senior my freshman year, a fellow

by the name of Frank Langden. But you know, a hunch of my buddies were also from the

Midwest and were basketball players and we watched and went down and went out for

basketball, along with everybody else. It wasn't any special deal, 1 mean nobody solicited

me and I didn't - there wasn't any such thing as an athletic scholarship. I just went down

to the indoor athletic building with everybody else and tried out. And I was one of the

taller ones, I guess I was probably the second tallest, and so I made the team.

Q: You made the team, with carrying five subjects - that's, what? roughly twenty hours

a semester?

A: (pause) Horace, I don't remember. I guess - let's see - we had - most of the classes

met three days a week for an hour. So it would be Monday, Wednesday and Friday at nine

o'clock. So if that - would that be - what would that be? three hours?

Q: That would be a four-hour course I guess for - if you met three hours a day, I mean

three times a week for a semester would give you four hours credit I believr. So you might

- well, at any rate you must have had quite a heavy load there. Did you have any conflict

between your basketball workouts and that sort of thing, keeping up with . . .

A: Not in terms of time, I mean actual time, because - well once in a while we'd be out

of town, we wouldn't get back in time for a class. But usually frcshman year we'd practice

at three o'clock in the afternoon and the classes ware over by then. Or you'd arrange your

class so that you could take a section which was not meeting at the same time as

basketball. I don't think I ever had any direct conflicts. Sometimes I was kind of banged

up, you know, or hurt or something or had a had ankle or something so I might miss a

class or two. But only by choice, not because 1 had a conflict.

Q: And do you recall your coaches? !

A: Yes very well. Our freshman coach was a fellow by the name of Skip Stahley, who was

a great guy. And he spent my freshman year - I now look back and 1 know - trying

to toughen me up. I was very tall and very skinny and very soft. And Skip would - after

practice every day he'd chase me around the indoor athletic building. God, he would chase

me around that building and if he'd catch me he'd kill me some way. He's a wrestler and

he'd give me a bearhug and he'd dig his chin into my chest and all kinds of wild things,

just chasing me over. And also working out with me.

I really had a good chance because the varsity coach my freshman year was Wes Fesler,

who was an All-American at Ohio State. My recollection is that hc was All-American

football, basketball and baseball. My recollection also is that he started the all-star football

game at left end, or at end . . . was one of the leading scorers in the Big Ten in basketball,

hatted in nine runs in the Big Tcn championship baseball game. Super athlete, you know,

one of those really good athletes. And Wes needed a center badly. Ht. didn't have any

height in his team and he could see me being his center my sophomore year.

And after practice frequently Wes and Skip Stahley would work with me, two on one. I

had the same thing happened with different pcople my sophomore year but it was really

great because here I am working against an All-American, a tremendous athlete. I was a

little taller than - well a little taller than he was. I was only about six two and a half

when I was playing ball in - I guess I was maybe - it seems to me I was six one and

a half my freshman year, I was still growing. But those two coaches really helped me a

lot with basketball, just one-on-one and just doing things with me.

Q: But you didn't learn to raise your arm. (points to picture)

A: Obviously from that picture I didn't. Yes. (chuckles) As a matter of fact, one of the

things they had us do was just stand with our arms like this, you know, for ten

minutes. (Extends arms straight out)

Q: Oh? That got a little tiresome after a while.

A: Well it's good for you, you know. That's the kind of training you need when you're a

young basketball player.

Q: Did you have any conflict at all between the athletic program and your scholastic

program? Were there instructors that complained that . . .

A: No. No, they - for the most part the instructors didn't know about it. Oh, they did

a little bit. As a matter of fact I went to German class one day, not - this was not my

freshman year, I guess this must have been my sophomore year. And we had a fellow who

was a major in the German army of World War I who was our German instructor. A very

nice gentleman. I don't remember his name. And he called on me in class one day and

he couldn't -- he called me Bunks you know. No he was introducing me to somebody, he

was introducing me because they always called you Mr. Burditt in class, and he was introducing

me to somebody and he looked blank and when he looked at me he said, "All I can

remember is Bunks Burditt. 1 don't remember your first name." Because Runks is all I

was ever called in the paper.

SESSION 3, TAPE ti, SIDE 1

A: Harvard College is really very small. There were only about a thousand in my class at

Harvard, which is typical of the size of the classes. And with that many, you know, the

professors kinda get into the act. They kind of know you and they work with you. I don't

remember anybody raising hell with me because I was unprepared for instance. If we had

a basketball game somewhere they'd usually take it easy on me. I mean in recitation the

next day, never in tests or anything like that. You just had to live up - if you didn't make

it, you didn't make it, that was too bad.

As a matter of fact, we had two super-good baskethall players on our freshman team, one

forward and one guard. Both named Lutz, L-IJ-T-Z one was spelled, and the other one was

L-U-T-Z - E. And both of those guys flunked out in the middle of the year, or they went

on probation and couldn't play basketball.

I'm looking at a clipping of our game against Columbia. We beat Columbia seventy-one to

fifty-four my sophomore year, and they both played in this game, but J think with the end

of the November hours - when the November hours came out, which was about Christmas

time, they couldn't play after that,. We lost two really good ballplayers. We had a good

team at the beginning of the year, wc beat Columbia seventy-onr to fifty-four which was

pretty good.

Q: Do you remember any particular games that were outstanding on your part or that . . .

A: Oh sure. You always remember the highlights of games. The game I remember best

was the game that occurred in my . . . sophomore year. Dartmouth had a superb team in

those days. That year Stanford beat Dartmouth in the NCAA [National Collegiate Athletic

Association] finals in Kansas City. So that tells you - Stanford - Dartmouth was really

national class. It happened that the Dartmouth center went to high school at

Glenbard. He was a year ahead of me. Glenbard is in the West Suburban Conference,

same conference as La Grange. He was a year ahead of me and I'd never played against

him, because I played in the lightweights my sophomore year and didn't play on l,he varsity

till my junior year. Excuse me, I played lightweights my junior year and the varsity my

senior year, except in the tournament as I told you before. And Jim Olson, the Glenbard

and then Dartmouth center, was a fine basketball player. And another guy on that team

was George Monroe, who ended up playing on the St. Louis Cardinals and is now, I think,

the CEO [Chief Executive Officer] of Phelps Dodge. Fine team. Stubby Myers was one of

the guys - no, Stubby Pierson and Myers and . . . they just had one good team. And

clearly the class of the East.

For some reason I got psyched up for that game. The only time in my life I've been psyched

up. Like I was in a different world. I was totally righthanded. I couldn't shoot lefthanded

at all. As a matter of fact, I took a lefthanded shot one time and missed the backboard

and the coach took me out of the game. In that game for some reason I, without ever consciously

thinking about it, I took an underhanded lefthanded shot. Now there is no such

shot in basketball. Hell, who ever heard of anything like that. I had never consciously

thought about it. But I faked right, and Jim Olson was expecting me to shoot right because

I never shot anything but right and he'd seen me play, you know, all the way through high

school and college. So he was overplaying me on the right and I faked right and came

around underhandcd left, two-handed underhanded left shot. And of course my arms are

so long that he fouled me. And everybody - there was kind of a stunned silence, "What

the hell are you doing?" you know. Nobody ever saw a shot like this. And in my psychedout

state of mind, I kept doing this and Jim Olson picked up three fouls right off the bat,

and there were only four fouls in those days, so Jim got benched and the second string center

was put in who was six eight, and who ended up married to Betty Willkie, to Wendall

Willkie's niece. Jim started again the second half and got the fourth foul immediately after

that.

And I was really psyched up. I don't remember how many points I got but probably -

I think I had a pretty good night, I probably got twenty-four points or something like that,

which was a lot of points in those days. And we beat Dartmouth. We beat them by - as

a matter of fact, we beat them by thirteen points which was a & margin in those

days. And as a result of that, that was perfectly clearly the highlight of my basketball

career, that one game.

Q: What did the coach say about that?

A: Well he - you know, he was - he couldn't believe that his little group of pickup guys

beat Dartmouth you know. That didn't happen. Dartmouth incidentally lost to Stanford

by thirteen points in the national finals. So that made us as good as Stanford obviously.

Q: Well! (chuckles) You didn't play Stanford though?

A: No we didn't. If we had, they would have beaten us by fifty-two. They really had a

good team that year.

Q: Let's see, Harvard's biggest rivals are what? the Yale game would be . . .

A: Typically Yale yes. I don't remember my freshman year but we split with Yale. We

beat them one and they beat us one. We were better than they were all three years, but

you know that's one of those things when you get a couple of guys who were psyched up. We

might have beaten them two our freshman year. We had a pretty good freshman team. But

I don't remember. Varsity games I think we just split with them. But Dartmouth was the

team to beat in those days. They had a series of very good teams.

Q: Did you give any thought along the line to going into physical education, perhaps becoming

a coach? because you appeared to like basketball so much.

A: No I really never did. I thought about a career as a sports writer for one event.

Q: One event?

A: The national finals when Stanford and Dartmouth played. I wanted to see that game

in the worst way. It happened to be on during spring vacation in my sophomore year. So

I went to Ralph Wheeler who was the sports editor, or thc sports writer, for the Boston

--

Hcrald and asked Ralph if I could - if ht. could get his paper to sponsor me for a trip

out to Kansas City to see that game. He said, "I'm sure not, but let me try." So he

did. And I wcnt down to talk to the editor and made a deal with him. I would write three

stories, one hefore the game, one during the game and then a followup after the game. And

in exchange for that, they would pay for my railroad fare from Chicago to Kansas City which

was something like twenty-five dollars. I was going home anyway for spring vacation so

that was part of my sales pitch.

So I went down there and I wrote a pre-game story. I went around and talked - of course

I knew a11 the Dartmouth guys and I talked to them and 1 talked to the Stanford guys, wrote

a pre-game story about them. And then during the game - Horace, this will lcll you how

old I am - during the game I sat at the press table. Of course I was the junior birdman,

I was a sophomore in college, you know. I was a junior birdman with all those sports writers

from all over the country covering the NCAA finals. And I had a telegrapher sitting

in back of me, the whole row of telegraphers sitting in back of all of us. And I was writing

my story out in longhand to the Boston Herald and turning around and handing it to the

telegrapher who was then sitting there with a telegraph key telegraphing it back to the Boston

Herald. And then I wrote a follow-up story for that when I got back home. But that

was my one excursion into sportswriting.

Q: Did you know Wheeler quite well there?

A: Well I got to know him because he covered all our games, he came down to all our

games. I never saw him except at basketball games and during that episode but hc was

always very nice to me in the write-ups. (points to clippings on desk) A couple of them

are right there that he wrote, so . . .

Q: How about other sports there? Did they have a good football team while you were in

at,t,endancc.

A: Ilarvard had a fair football team yes. In 1942 they had a pretty good team. Harvard's

last - I think last All-American was in the class of 1942. One Endicott "Chub" Peabody,

who ended up as governor of Massachussets. And he was a fantastir guard in football. Not

very big, but total will, very strong guy. There were other teams that were - some of the

less important midwestern sports, things like hockey which was unknown in the Midwest

then, and Harvard's always been big in hockey, been very big in crew. But the only varsity

sport I played was basketball.

I went out for the tennis team my freshman year and I thought, you know, boy, I had a

shot at making the tennis team because I'd been the conference doubles champion in tennis

in high school and got the tennis medal in high school my junior year for winning thc tennis

tournament, the singles tournament. And I didn't even make the team at Harvard. So -

and I wasn't even close. There were just a lot of real good tennis players.

Q: Now you made varsity in basketball. Did that mean you didn't have to participate in

intramural or did you have an intramural program, series of games?

A: We had an intramural program. I don't remember whether it was an intramural program

in my freshman year. As a matter of fact I saw an article the other day that one

of the things that we did when I was president of the student council was recommend a

broadening of the intramural athletic program at Harvard. I played intramural softball my

sophomore year, during the course of which I dislocated my right knee and it was right in

the middle of spring basketball training, and I thought the coach was going to kill me. And

I sat for two or three hours every day on a bench with a weight on my ankle you know,

a couple of sandhags on my ankle, just to strengthen my knee muscle. And the only time

it ever popped out was that I got a nice clean single to right field and my knee went in

the process. So I was really - the coach said, "Absolutely no intramural sports!" And I

don't think I did. The only one I remember playing is softball.

Q: Let's see now, you majored in history. Did you have a minor in any particular field?

A: I don't remember that I did. See, I wasn't there long enough really to take time for

all of those things. I was just kind of taking pickup courses as I could get them and when

they were available, summertime especially. And I had one very interesting course one

summer on the history of modern warfare, which was a fascinating course. Taught by a

gentleman who had been a colonel I believe in the American army in maybe World War

I, a little old gentleman.

Q: And this is at Harvard?

A: Yes.

Q: That's rather an unusual course isn't it?

A: Yes I think - yes it was kind of unusual course, but it was - you know, it talked about

Henry the Fourth, and Agincourt and Crecy and just a fascinating course on the history

of modern warfare. And then I had a course on Far Eastern history and modern Europe,

a lot of very interesting history courses. But minor - I know I took enough government

and economics to know I didn't like them, Then I had two years of French. But you didn't

have to have a minor.

Q: You had what? French and German then?

A: I had two years of French which were my fourth and fifth years of French because I'd

had three years in high school, one of which was a junior college year. And one year of

German.

Q: Why did you select German?

A: (pause) Well I don't remember. I guess because I wanted another language.

Q: You thought you might be captured and want to talk to them?

A: Probably. Yes. ReaIly what happened was I ended up in charge of a whole bunch of

German prisoners of war in the air corps. Maybe I was getting ready for that.

Q: Yes sir. (chuckles) What about social life during that time. You were pretty well tied

up but what was social life like?

A: Dates, that kind of social life?

Q: Right.

A: I dated, I was really busy when I was in college, so I didn't have a lot of time for dates,

but I did date. There was a girl from Hinsdale that I'd dated some in high school who

was going to music school in Boston. Her name was Gracie Landes.

I used to date Grace some.

And I used to see Grace,

And then one summer my mother and dad rented a cottage down at Duxbury, down at the -

foot of Cape Cod. And I met a girl down therc by the name Ann Flannery, who was a

gorgeous gal and who was going to a physical education school in Boston, and the first time

I met her she challenged me to a decathlon. And you know I fancied myself to be a pretty

fair athlete, but she was tough. We played tennis, she beat me at tennis right off the

bat. So then I said the next thing we're going to do is go on a cross-country run. She

kind of wilted at that. I was out for cross-country at the time.

I didn't date, no. I dated a girl from Radcliffe a few times. But you see during the basketball

season, we were playing basketball usually Saturday night and frequently Friday and

Saturday night, always one of the two, and frequently both. And you know you're tired

enough so that you don't really have a whole hell of a lot of energy left for. girls. Usually

my dates consisted of inviting a girl to come to a basketball game and watch me play ball

and then nursing me after it was over, nursing me back to health and taking the subway

home. (chuckles)

Q: Well what about - what would you call them? official functions? Did they have official

dances and that sort of thing during the year at various times'!

A: There's some of that. There's always a freshman mixer and your freshman year at Harvard

you live in the Yard, but then for the upper class years you live in one of the

houses. Customary. There are exceptions of course to both rules. But the general rule

is in the Yard freshman year and then down in the houses starting your second year. And

you apply for admission to the house and you're - then the houses consider who they're

going to take in and they - you're admitted to the house, some house takes you in. I lived

in Winthrop House which was my first choice by far. Winthrop kind of had the reputation

for being the athletic house, I'm embarrassed to say that Jack Kennedy lived there. 1 don't

remember him being there because hc graduated my freshman year. But he was there my

freshman year - let's see, he was . . . yes he would have brcn there my freshman year

- well, he was the class of 1940 so he would have graduated before I got there. But he

- other guys said he came down and when he'd come back he'd have dinner at the Winthrop

House with some of his old friends.

Q: The house structure, did that replace fraternal type organizations?

A: Yes, yes.

Q: They had none of those there?

A: Theoretically there were no fraternities at Harvard. In fact there were a few fraternities

still around. DKIT [Delta Kappa Upsilon] had a house. SAE [Sigma Alpha Epsilon] had

a house. But they were not affiliated nationally with those fraternities. There was also

superimposed on the house system a club system of private clubs. And some of the private

clubs had rooms where people lived. The club system at Ilarvard is again by invitation.

It tends to he the Eastern prep school guys who gravitate toward a particular club. The

Fly Club would have the people from Groton or wherever, would tend to be in there, not

exclusively of course. Either - there were Groton people at other - lived in the houses

and belonged to other clubs or lived at other clubs and there were people at Fly who didn't

go to Groton but - and I don't know whether Fly and Groton are associated but there were

maybe, oh, a dozen clubs like that.

I was in a club called Pi Eta which was not part of the formal club system I guess. But

it had a musical, like "The Christmas Spirits." I wasn't involved in it. I was really so busy

I never really got very active at Pi Eta. I joined it fairly late, probably my - beginning

of my junior year, maybe the end of my sophomore year. And money was a factor. I didn't

have a lot of money. And it was an added cost, not a lot, but I ate some mcals there and

we had some social functions there. There were dances at Pi Eta. So there was some organized

social life.

Q: Now did you eat in the house once you had moved into Winthrop House?

A: Yes.

Q: So you ate right in the house?

A: Yes. Or sometimes at Pi Eta.

Q: I see. Did the houses then each have their own tutoring system so that the senior members

looked after the junior members?

A: To a degree. Of course things were redly kind of messed up by the time I got down

there. People were starting to go in the service, and the upper classes were being.

decimated. Our class went into the houses almost in toto. Just about all of us went into

a house but we started leaving shortly after that. Jack Kceler was one of the first ones

but he left right - well either before or shortly after Pearl Harbor. See we moved into

the houses in September of 1941, and the guys started to leave right after that.

Q: What do you remember about Pearl Harbor Day? Where were you?

A: I'm embarrassed to say I don't remember where I was.

Q: You don't remember at all.

A: I don't remember. That's terrible that I don't. It was probably right after a basketball

game and I was - I don't remember.

Q: Probably sleeping.

A: I probably was still asleep. (chuckles)

Q: Do you remember hearing Roosevelt the following day?

A: Yes, yes, I do. And of course we all started right away talking about signing up and

discussing things. I suppose Lieutenant Hornblower was probably up there within a month

or so and most of my friends or a number of my friends - our basketball team consisted

of seniors and sophomores. There was only one junior on the squad, he played t,hird string,

so he didn't get to play. So the fellows I was playing with were I guess - all the rest

of that - of the first string my . . . my sophomore year . . . I think maybe they were all

seniors. And I think maybe all of them, or all but one or two of them, signed up for the

marines. So that was my interest. But because of my flat feet I didn't do that.

Q: You didn't want to go through as Douglas did starting out as a private?

A: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Q: Well let's see, you became class president. When did this happen? Was that junior

or ...

A: Well yes our junior - normally the class officers are elected in the senior year, but

because our class was all disappearing they thought they ought to have an election before

we left so they had that election - I don't remember - it must have been . . . early -

well probably toward the end of the first semester of our junior year. It was before I left

I remember.

I xmember it very clearly because there was no campaigning whatsoever. That was just

absolutely beneath the dignity of anybody at Harvard to campaign for a political office, my

god, unheard of! So there was none. The day of the election of our class officers the Crimson,

which of course was the daily Harvard paper, came out with a headline over the student

council story which was not - I was president of the student council so it was not illogical

that my name would bc in the headlinr, it was once in a while. And the headline of the

article was, "Don't be a" - and then parenthesis, the word "Obsccnity," "Vote for

Burditt." So - and the subhead - my roommate was Thayer Drake and Thayer was secretary

or vice-president or treasurer of the student council, also student council officer, the

subhead was, "For Christ's Sake, Vote for Drake." Well we had becn kidded about these

two slogans and here the Crimson printed them.

Well I was - I - I - I was devastated. So was Thayer. God, we were just both of us,

just sick over it. And we both disappeared for the day. I went over to Pi Eta and 1 holed

up in the library and god, I didn't talk to anybody and I didn't see anybody and that night

I finally went back to my room about ten o'clork and Thayer did too. We had been to class

I guess but we hadn't sought out anybody.

I remember we went home that night or maybe it was at dinner time, it was late, after

the whole day and I said, "How do you feel about it?" And he said, "Gee, just

tcrrible." We were both commiserating, you know, now everybody would think it was a putup

job and there was no way anybody would vote for us. Well you know we wanted to be

- we werc called marshalls of the class, not president. It amounted to the same

thing. And so I said, "Well did anybody talk to you?" And he said, "No, nobody mentioned

it to mc." I said, "Nobody mentioned it to me either. What's that all about?" Two guys,

the sports editor and the editor of the Crimson lived right down below us in Winthrop

House. So he said, "Let's go down and talk to him." So we went downstairs and we talked

to him about it. And we were a little bit irate, you know, we kind of let him have it. And

as it turned out, they had made three copies with those headlines. One for us, one for them

and one for the Crimson archives. (laughter) The other one just had the regular headlines

inside - headlines, subhead of the student council article. So anyway 1 was elected first

marshal1 and Thayer was elected third marshall.

Q: When did you join the student council? That was earlier evidently.

A: Well let's see - I . . . I guess at the beginning - there was an election for the student

council. I guess maybe at the end of my freshman year. I don't think thew are any freshmen

on the student council but maybe there's an election either the end of the freshman

year or the beginning of sophomore year. And I was elected to student council then and

was on the student council my sophomore year and thcn was reelected my junior year and

was president my junior year. So I was on it for at least a year and a half, my last year

and a half I served.

That was a very interesting job. That job, I think as much as any, gave me a lot of training

in running meetings and dealing with people and projects and good ideas and bad ideas,

and innovating programs and doing things like that. It was a very educational process for

me.

Q: Do you remember any particular programs that were being supported at that time or

pushed by the council?

A: One I remember very well. One of my best friends on the student council, who was vicepresident

of the student council and who also played basketball - the only guy who was

taller than 1 was on the basketball team - a fellow by the name of Hugh IIyde. Hughit!

had gone to Groton and they had no basketball at Groton and the first time he'd played

basketball was his freshman year and he ended up playing first string on the basketball

team. A natural athlete, a dedicated athlete, very hard working. Built about like I was,

he was about an inch taller and weighs about the same as I do, maybe ten pounds more

than I did in college but we got to be very close friends.

And Hughie was vice-president of the council. We got talking about what we could do. One

of the problems that year was that the navy had taken over Harvard Yard, almost the whole

thing. And there was, you know, the normal kind of friction you would expect, that you

always get, the town-gown situation, and the navy guys taking over. You know, we didn't

know anybody in the navy and we wanted to try to get better acquainted with them. We

heard that Oswald Jacoby, who was one of the top bridge players in the United States, was

at Harvard and was in that V-7 unit at Harvard. So I called him up and introduced myself

and I told him I was prrsidcnt of the student council and we werc thinking about sponsoring

a Harvard-wide bridge tournament and the prize would be a game with Oswald Jacohy,

"Would you be willing, Mr. Jacoby, to be the prize?" And he said, "Sure, be glad to do

it." I said, "I take it you probably have a partner." And he said yes, he had a fellow by

the name of Commander Mendell who was his service bridge partner.

So Hughie and I and some other guys organized the Harvard-wide bridge tournament.

(chuckles) And as luck would have it, Hugh and I won the bridge tournament. We had

organized it. It was a little embarrassing, but yes we won it, fair and square.

So we got to play Oswald Jacoby which was a fascinating experience because I remember

- of course it was publicized some, and we had maybe a hundred people watching us and

we had two new decks of cards and Jacoby broke one deck and shuffled it and took the jokers

out and everything and I had won the deal on the cut. So I dealt the cards and I remember

it very well because I had dislocated my middle finger of my left hand in the basketball

game the preceding week - or that week, night or two before. And I had a tongue depressor

- they didn't have splints - I had a tongue depressor taped on it so my - I was dealing

a deck of cards off this damned tongue depressor. And it's hard enough to hold cards when

you've got - when - you know I was eighteen I guess and I'm playing Oswald Jacoby in

bridge with a hundred people watching. (chuckles) And 1 had a hell of a time dealing.

I finally got all the cards out and I came out with an extra card. Well you know - I've

dealt very carefully obviously because of the tongue splint more than anything else and my

general fear. And to come out with an extra card T couldn't understand because, you know

- if I'd been one card short you know, that's one thing, but to come out with an extra card

is kind of hard to do at bridge, unless I misdealt three times. So I said, "Geez, I'm sorry

gentlemen, T've misdealt." And Jacoby said, "Well let's deal them over again." And I said,

"Are you sure you took out all the jokers, Mr. Jacoby?" He said, "Of course I took out

all the jokers," We looked and he had missed one. It was a deck with three jokers which

is kind of a trap, you don't see those.

So anyway we - and he did a couple of remarkable tricks for us that night. He played one

hand out of his pocket. He sorted his hand and put it in his pocket, which I think any

good bridge player could do. That's no big deal. But he did one that I - there's no way

I can do it. He took a deck and we took out one card. And then he went through the other

fifty-one cards very slowly about (counts slowly) one - two - three, like that, and he said,

"You have the four of diamonds." In other words he had fifty-two slots in his mind and

one of them wasn't filled when he got through. That's a toughie, that's tough to do. I could

maybe do that with thirteen, but I sure as hell couldn't do it with fifty-two.

I

i

Q: Yes sir. (chuckles) Did you play much bridge while you were there? h

A: Oh some. But I was really pretty busy and, you know, we didn't have that much time

to play. But we played, we played a little bit now and then. I don't remember devoting

79

a whole lot of time to playing bridge but . . . I can't really remember playing much at

all. I can't remember anybody I played with. Hughie and I played together in the

tournament and I'm not sure we ever played together again. (chuckles)

Q: Well how did it work out with the V-7 program? Did you get them integrated into Harvard

then?

A: Oh well, you know, they were only there for a couple of months. It was - they were

ninety-day wonders and you know they'd get their commissions and they'd be gone in ninety

days. But it was a move to make them feel like part of the Harvard community and that

there were going to be some guys around there who were going to be joining them in another

month or two and as soon as we got old enough and got called, we'd be off too. So it worked

out fine. It was . . .

Q: How come you didn't think of the navy - or did you think of the navy?

A: I don't know. I just - 1 really never did. My buddies were going in the marines and

I thought about that and I wanted to fly, I wanted to be a pilot, so I just signed up for

the air corps. I guess I thought about the navy. There was a navy ROTC [Reserve Officer

Training Corps] unit at Harvard. And there was also an army ROTC unit. But I wasn't

in either one of them. And I wanted to be a flyboy, I wanted to be a pilot, hot pilot, so

I...

Q: Did you have a commitment with the army air corps then?

A: No you just signed up. And when they called you, you went in.

SESSION 4, TAPE 7, SIDE 1

Q: We'll go back to Harvard, if it's alright, today sir.

A: Sure.

Q: I wanted to ask some more about the student council work. You had indicated that one

of the values you got from that was a little bit better ability as an administrator. What

else did you get from having functioned on the student council there?

A: A wide acquaintanceship of course because you're meeting people in other classes, not

just your own class, because all classes are represented. I think maybe even freshmen

toward the end of the year. Or there may be even some - at the beginning of the year

somebody picks some freshman to Ferve on the student council. I was not on it my freshman

year. But you meet people from other houses. You meet people from other classes. You

meet people that you wouldn't otherwise have much contact with. So in terms of meeting

other students it's very beneficial. You also meet other people in the faculty or other parts

of Harvard that you'd had no occasion whatsoever to meet before.

Q: How large a group was the student council?

A: I don't remember exactly. But it was a fairly good-sized council. It was probably in

the neighborhood of sixteen or eighteen or twenty, something like that. My recollection is

that at least part of the student council was appointed by the president. Seems to me it

was half elected, and then the president could appoint others on the theory that you can

elect people who are well known, but you might not get people who have special interests

or who are particularly good workers. Because in my experience elected officials are not

always very good workers. Sometimes they are, sometimes they are not, whether it's the

student council or otherwise. And therefore I had the privilege as president of appointing

several others and most of my life from high school on any time I had a very difficult job

that needed to be done I would appoint one George R. Hooper. And George Hooper was

one of the first people that I appointed to student council. Ever since then he and I have

been appointing each other to all kinds of things.

Q: Oh is that right? Had you known each other before that?

A: He was a year behind me in high school.

Q: Oh.

A: And I knew him then.

Q: Oh yes you mentioned him before I'm sure. Well then with that large a group, some

of the meetings could have gotten a little unruly. Did they do so?

A: I don't remember anything being unruly. Mainly it was a matter of getting things over

with so we could all get out and do something else, you know.

Q: You've mentioned a program or two that you were on, getting the navy involved on the

campus. What were some of the other things that came up the student council had to consider?

A: One of the things that we were undertaking was the defense things. Air raid wardens,

blackouts, all kinds of things like that. The administration was just getting into that. And

we were starting to think about them on the council. The dean called me in one day and

said that the administration had decided to set up a separate organization to handle the

organization of air raid wardens and all of the things that needed to be done for defense

work. This was the guy who was in charge of my scholarship, a very fine gentleman, Dean

Hanford. And Dean Hanford said, "We would like to have you head up the undergraduate

part of the defense activities at Harvard." And this was at a time when I was really hurting

'cause I had - I was very busy. (chuckles) And I needed that job like I needed a hole

in the head. The only thing I needed, really seriously, was my scholarship. And since he

was in charge of scholarships I thought the better part of discretion was for me to say yes

to that offer.

So I took on that job too which kind of grew out of my work on the student council. It

wasn't directly under it. It kind of started in the council days but . . . then I had the job

of getting air raid wardens for every building and to have somebody walk around and holler

at somebody who forgot to pull his shade down because the blackout was on. I don't remember

what - we had air raid drills and all kinds of miscellaneous things.

Q: Did you have advice from any of the ROTC [Reserve Officer Training Corps] or anyone

on that sort of thing?

A: I don't remember. Probably not the ROTC. I don't remember working. with the ROTC

people on it. It was all civilian, it was all with the college administration. It was mainly

getting people to do the jobs of walking around being the town crier to make sure all the

shades were pulled down, all the blackout curtains were pulled across windows and things

like that. And that the signs were posted on what to do in the event of an air raid and

that kind of thing.

Q: Was there a sense - not so much perhaps on campus but out in - what is it? Cambridge

near there . . .

A: It's in Cambridge yes.

Q: . . . or Boston that there was really something serious that . . .

A: Well yes ships were being torpedoed off the coast.

Q: Could be seen?

A: Every once in a while you would see - well from Cambridge - Cambridge is inland

far enough so that I never saw them from there. But there were regular reports in the

paper of - and if it was a tanker that got torpedoed and it caught fire, you could see the

glow on the horizon. And of course thc purpose of the blackouts was to prevent the light

background so that a submarine would see the silhouette of a ship against the light

background. And the whole East Coast was blacked out then.

Q: So this was a kind of Assist the Allies sort of thing at that point too.

A: Yes. I don't remember just when the Lease-Lend program began but it was probably

in - it was before Pearl Harbor.

Q: Yes it was in the 1940's.

A: It was probably in 1940, or early 1941 at the latest, because it was in full swing before

Pearl Harbor hit and it was those Lease-Lend ships that we were trying to protect.

Q: Was there any sort of German bund sort of thing on campus? Was there a group . . .

A: I don't - there may have been. If so - I don't remember it being there at all. Knowing

Harvard, there probably was. (chuckles) But I don't . . .

Q: Why do you say that?

A: There's all shades of every activity at Harvard. The dean of Harvard Law School told

me last week his career was complete because the week before that the black Harvard law

students' association had invited a member of the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organization]

to speak at their group, and the Jewish Harvard law students' association had picketted the

group, and then thc Jewish Harvard law students' association invited a Birch Society

member or a Ku Klux Klan or somebody like that to speak to them, and the black guys

picketted that one. So there's all shades of every conceivable idea and goofy idea at Harvard

in some form.

Q: What else happened with the student council?

A: I don't remember any significant things particularly that we did. I know we worked on

some intramural - increasing the intramural program. I saw an article on that the other

day. (pause) It was an opportunity to meet some upperclassmen, particularly people who

were ahead of me, older than I was, that I would not probahly ever have seen other than

that.

Q: Were there any aims that came up within the council that were kind of adversary sort

of things with the administration?

A: Not really in those days, Horace. It was certainly not like the 1960's and really not very

much like today even. We were all pretty much establishment kids. We weren't raising

a lot of cain, we weren't objecting to anything. It didn't occur to us that we should strike

to make Harvard a coeducational school because there were no women in our classes. In

the summertime we had women from Radcliffe who came to our classes, but . . .

(taping stopped for telephone conversation, then resumed)

A: I had a long haul from the house up to where the public speaking class was and I could

make up my speeches as I was going up there. Do you want to go back and over some of

that stuff?

Q: Oh . . . well I don't know. I don't think it will be necessary. Let's see, you mentioned

the speech course. And you say you had no trouble with it. Did you do much speaking

outside of the course? Was there any contest with other schools or anything in the speech

area?

A: I never went out for debate in college. I did in high school. But I don't remember giving

speeches anywhere, other than speeches connected with the student council or something -

or the undergraduate defense work, things like that.

One other organization in which I was very active was called Phillips Brooks

House. Phillips Brooks was a famous Methodist minister in the nineteenth century in

Boston. And there is a special building called Phillips Brooks House in the corner of IIarvard

Yard. And Phillips Brooks House is kind of the social service center of Harvard.

There is a freshman committee that I heard about the first week I was at Harvard. I don't

know how 1 happened to hear about it. Some of my friends were going over to Brooks House

to see if they wanted to go on the freshman committee so I went with them and went on

the freshman committee and ended up as the chairman of the freshman committee at Phillips

Brooks House. Then my last year there I was president of the Phillips Brooks House.

Phillips Brooks House is run by a board but the activities are carried on through

committees. There's an undergraduate faculty committee which helps tutor students who

need tutoring help. There was a social service committee that sent volunteers down to settlement

houses in Boston to help underprivileged kids. And 1 did some of that my freshman

year and of course more of it as time went on. It was one of the committees I was on.

There were other committees in this general area of social service that Phillips Brooks House

ran, and that took quite a lot of time. Of all my undergraduate activities, that probably

took thc most time. More than the student council I would guess because you know it had

a location, it had an established reputation for carrying on significant activities at Harvard,

and it had a staff, there was an executive director. A guy by the name of Ray Dennett

was the executive director. And at least one paid secretary. Several other committces that

don't come to mind right now, but all of which were fairly active. And of course as president

I had the job of kind of keeping things organized and selecting the chairmen for the

committees and the vice-chairmen and working with thcm and getting volunteers to help

in projects, things like that.

Q: Now here's another situation where you became president. You weren't able to campaign

so apparently you didn't push for these. How do you account for becoming president of the

student council and president of this other organization?

A: I was taller than everybody else, Horace. I think that's the answer. (chuckles) I don't

know. I'd just go to a meeting - maybe I'd talk too much or maybe 1 didn't - maybe

I talked so little they thought, "That guy would be good because he doesn't talk very

much." I really don't know. There was no campaigning lor any of those things. Yes, you

know, I didn't - when I went to the meeting of the frcshman committee I didn't know a

soul, I didn't know anybody there except a couple of guys in my entry that I went over

with. I don't remember - I don't really remember the circumstances under which I became

president or chairman of any of those things. The only one I remembcr is being elcrted

first marshal1 of the class which I told you about yesterday, the newspaper

article. (chuckles) The rest of it, I don't know.

Q: How about acting or any drama sort of thing? Did you . . .

83

A: Didn't do any.

Q: Didn't take up opera or anything of any sort?

A: No. I thought about going out for the choir. Harvard had a really fine choir in the

chapel, in the Mcmorial Chapel in I-Iarvard Yard. But I just - I just had enough outside

activities and singing was not one 1 could do. I ushered in church on Sunday mornings,

but that didn't take a lot of rehearsals. I would go to church a lot of times anyway, but

I could just walk up and usher.

Q: What about your visits home? You evidently were going straight through so you didn't

have a lot of time to take off and go home.

A: I didn't have a lot of money to come home either. I came home for Christmas every

year and camc home for spring vacation. And came home in the summer after summer

school. But I think that was about it. I remember one time my dad sent me a check for

a hundred dollars to come home. And I was so pleased that when 1 came home I had been

able to make it and buy my ticket on the train - on the New England States, because everything

was train in those days - I could buy my ticket and give my dad back his rheck for

a hundred dollars. I remember that so clearly because I was so pleased that since I didn't

work and my dad didn't want me to work and I wasn't bringing in any income at all that

I could at least save my dad a hundred bucks, which in those days was a bunch of

money. (chuckles)

Q: Yes sir. The war was coming along. Did you have any problem getting on the train?

A: No I don't remember there were any problems on reservations. I sat up all night. You

r*

know, there were berths on the train you could get but I'd never - I don't remember I ever

had one. I'd just sit up and sleep in the dorm or the coaches.

Q: Was there good train service? Was that a good train, the New Englander?

A: New England States was a good train yes.

Q: I suppose they had dining cars?

A: Yes sure, sure. I remember our basketball team took western trips two years, two

Christmas vacations, my sophomore and junior years. And my sophomore year we played

hearts - four of us played hearts from the time we got on till we got off which was -

1 think it was eleven or thirteen hours of hearts. And the guys I played with were Ed

Rothchild and Bud Finegan who were seniors. Ed is now a practicing lawyer here in Chicago

and a very competent guy. Bud Finegan was from Gloucester, Massachussetts, and those two

were the intercollegiate bridge champions. But we never could get a fourth for bridge. We

never heard of gin rummy. We played hearts all the time and the fourth guy on that trip

most of the time was a fellow by the name of Scully who was the only junior on our whole

basketball team, the only one in his class. So we played a lot of hearts.

Q: Didn't the coach kind of frown on thirteen hours of hearts on the way?

A: Well we had had five games in six nights on that trip. And I don't think the coach was

of a mind to frown very much. Our coach incidentally - our varsity coach that year was

another tremendous athlete. I mentioncd Wes F dcr who was the varsity coach my freshman

year. My varsity coach my sophomore and junior years was Earl Brown, who was an

All-American at Notre Dame, also started thc All-star football game at left end. And an

All-American basketball player too, just another supcrh athlete. And Earl had a - Earl

and Moose Kraus were good friends. Moose Kraus was in the . . . I don't remember, either

a football coach or basketball coach at Boston College. And several times Moose came over

- and of course he was an All-American too - and Moose came over and after basketball

practice Moose and Earl Brown would work on me, you know two on one - one of them

feeding and the other one hooking and I was - I would - I never got to play guard feeding,

but I was either the offensive or defensive center playing with two All-Americans which was

enormous experience, you know. My god, those guys taught me moves I'd never dream of

and to try to guard against their moves was just a superb opportunity for a young guy in

college.

Q: They didn't teach you the two-handed, left-hand . . .

A: No the Lord taught me that one, Horace. (chuckles)

Q: That was your first trip, you say there was another trip the next year then?

A: Yes. The first year we played Rochester . . . Wisconsin, Michigan State . . . Illinois and

Notre Dame I think, as I recall. Pretty good teams. And the second year we played

Rochester . . . and we played the Whiz Kids at Illinois who had a fantastic team and they

bcat us in the last minute of the game. We were ahead of them the whole game. You

saw that articlc I had yesterday, Bradley beat us in the last three minutes. We played

Bradley that last year, the second year, the same kind of - we playcd five games in . . . well

let's see, the first - no, I was wrong - the first year we played five games but it was over

the two-week holiday period. The second year we played five games in six days and then

had another week vacation after that. We talked it over with the coach, we said we'd rather

have a week at home, so he changed the schedule the second year. But he still didn't object

to our heart game. As a matter of fact he probably played with us a little bit. (chuckles)

Q: What about Cambridge itself? Could you describe what it was like as a university town?

A: Well Cambridge is kind of an industrial city. Harvard is really quite isolated from Cambridge,

and therefore there are sometimes the town-gown problems that any university has

with the town in which it's located. Harvard may have less with Cambridge than some college

towns do. But we really didn't get out into Cambridge very much. If we were going

out socially we'd usually go into Boston. There were a lot of real good eating places in Roston,

Durgin Park and a number of other - and a lot of other famous seafood eating places

in Boston. We'd go in to places like that once in a while. I don't remember any particular

social events in Cambridge. We'd go over to Wellesley once in a while for dates.

But Cambridge itself, except for the settlement house work - I'd go down to a settlement

house in some of the tougher areas in Cambridge or Roston. But IIarvard is so big you

know, the collegc is relatively small but by the time you get through adding all of the multitude

of graduate srhools, it's a pretty good-sized community and if you want any kind of

academic programs or artistic programs or anything like that you can get them at

Harvard. You don't have to go anywhere else.

SESSION 4, TAPE 7, SIDE 2

A: I'll tell you, another social event that we had, we played poker every once in a

while. There was almost a twenty-four hour-a-day poker game going on in Thayer Hall,

one of the freshman halls. And I used to go over there and play poker every once in a

while. It was a . . .

Q: Were you any good at poker?

A: No. That's why I didn't play more often.

Q: I see. (chuckles) What about the settlement activity? You mentioned going down to

the settlement houscs. What types of things did you do down there?

85

A: Coached a basketball team. (pause) Helped kids with their studies. Supervised the

organization of athletic things. The typical kind of work that we did in those days, going

down to settlement houses.

Q: Did you have any trepidation going to that area?

&

A: I don't remember having any, I don't think so. It wasn't dangerous to go down there

I don't think. My recollection is that it was mostly white, it was kind of a poor-white

neighborhood. I don't remember that it was very black. There weren't as many blacks in

the north in the early 1940's as there are now.

Q: How about Harvard itself? Was it at that time integrated, were there blacks on the

campus?

A: Oh yes. Yes. Not a lot. Out of my college class of a thousand, I don't suppose there

were more than . , . thirty blacks. It would be interesting because I've got the yearbook,

I could go back and count the faces. But it was, I would guess, something like maybe

twenty-five or thirty.

Q: And I suppose they were treated just like anyone else there?

A: Oh yes. There was no discrimination or distinction of any kind made that 1 was aware

of. We lived together in the house that I lived in. There was a big suite up on the top

floor whcre thcre were five guys, and one of those fellows was black. If they wanted to be

integrated, they were integrated just like anybody else.

Q: How about the Jewish situation? Was there any anti-Semitism there that you know of?

A: Not that I was aware of. There were a lot of Jewish guys at Harvard although . . . not

as many as - at least I wasn't aware of a lot of Jewish guys. More than we had in La

Grange but - about, the only Jewish family 1 knew in La Grange was Ben Mottelson who

was my Presbyterian Sunday school teacher. And whose son I bclievc also won the Nobel

Prize in physics. At least there's a Ben Mottelson who is now a Danish citizen who won

the Nobel Prize in physics and somebody told me that Ben Mottelson had gone to

Denmark. So for a guy who knows nothing whatsoever about physics I now know three

Nobel Prize winners in physics.

Q: Yes sir. (chuckles) How come you wanted to get into aviation cadets?

A: Oh I guess for glamour of flying. I guess all kids want to fly. I've got to tell you, I

wanted to fly the things that you flew. I wanted to fly P-47's and P-51's or

P-38's. And . . .

Q: Had you flown much up to . . .

A: I'd never been in an airplane.

Q: Oh you had not.

A: Even commercial.

Q: So then you were accepted - let's see, when was this? in the middle of your junior year

I guess.

A: Let's see, I signed up in . . . in July of 1942, which was right after my sophomore

year. And I was going to summer school. And I was subject to call any time from there

on. I got the call just before Christmas 1943, to report the first of February 1943.

You know, I just wanted to fly. I wanted to go in the marines because of my buddies. But

that was ill-advised so I just started - some other friends of mine were signing up for the

air corps, and a number of us went in together. Paul Butler, Bill Ringham and several

others signed up for cadets together. I remember that when I got my orders in December

just before the Christmas break I was really torn hecause I had - I had - oh no I guess

I . . . well it might have been - I don't remember - it might have been just aftcr the

Christmas break - no I think it was just before Christmas. We were scheduled to play

the army down at West Point. And I was captain of the team that year and I wanted to

play the army at West Point in the worst way. I'd never seen West Point. I had the military

coming up you know, and I just wanted to do that. But my choice was to go home

and spend a couple of weeks with my folks and my girl or play at West Point and I opted

to not play at West Point and go home. So I just went home for a week - I think maybe

just a week, maybe two weeks - with my folks and my girl.

Q: Well. Was this Barbara by that time?

A: No. No this was Lucille. Her name was Lucille Lahiff. And Lucille and I started to

go together in my junior year in high school which was her sophomore year. And we went

steady all the way through high school and all the way through college. She came down

to college a couple of times to see me. And I spent a lot of time with her when I was

home. We were together all the time. As a matter of fact my senior year we had a date

almost every night.

Q: Oh is that right?

A: Which was, looking back on it, was really good because it gave me an incentive to get

my homework done. In high school we had two hours of study halls. And I really worked

hard in the study halls and I didn't do - I almost never did homework at night my senior

year in high school.

Q: Well then did you report directly from home then to duty?

A: Yes. We reported in Atlantic City in February which is an interesting experience

because Atlantic City is a resort area, hut in February it has the worst weather in the history

of the world. And I was billeted in the twelfth floor of a hotel with no elevator service. We

had to walk the twelve floors and my recollection . . .

(taping stopped for telephone conversation, then resumed)

Q: Alright sir, you were in a hotel in Atlantic City.

A: And we - typical - you know, the bugle would blow at five o'clock or whatever. We'd

go downstairs for breakfast where Glenn Miller's orchestra was playing, and frequently

Glenn Miller himself was there. We would sit on a step - the line would back up to maybe

the fourth floor or something. We'd go down, sitting down, one step at a time until we got

down to the mess hall.

Then we would fall out at six-thirty or whatever in the street in heavy overcoats because

it would be cold. We would stand around forever. Our sergeant's name was Indian Joe,

"Injun Joe." IIe was really one tough cookie. We'd stand around for a while, by which

time it would start to - it would start to snow, or a kind of a sleety snow, so they'd send

us back upstairs to put raincoats on over our overcoats. So we would go back up twelve

floors, put them on, come back down, fall out again. Sometimes play a hand or two of bridge

while we were doing it because we got our timing down pretty good.

And then we would fall out in overcoats and raincoats, and by the time we got downstairs

twenty minutes later the weather had changed again so wc didn't need thc overcoats. So

ack upstairs we get to go to take our overcoats off and we'd come hack down with raincoats

only. All set to go. By that time the sun was out and they'd send us back upstairs again

to put on our flight jackets instead of our raincoats.

And at that stage we would then march off to the parade ground or the rifle range or whatever

we were doing or for PT [physical train in^] or whatever it was. But it was just one

month of basic army - 1 guess maybe two months of just basic army training. Nothing

to do with flying

Q: Drill and you say weaponry and . . .

A: Yes, yep, yep, we learned how to shoot rifles and pistols and close-order drill and you

know all of the things that you do in the first month in the army.

Q: Did you serve mess hall duty?

A: Yes. KP [Kitchen Police], sure.

Q: And you were there for two months then in Atlantic City.

A: Right. It was a dreadfully unhealthy place. I remember playing bridge one time, sitting

on a bunk playing bridge and none of thc four of us could talk, our vocal chords were

gone. There was also a spate of spinal meningitis which went around which scared the hell

out of everybody because they carried people out. An epidemic, number of people died.

There was a colonel from La Grange who was based at Atlantic City, a fellow by the name

of Ed Streator, whose kids were - whose two daughters wcrc! ahout my age in high

school. One ahead of me a year or two and one behind me a year or two. He was nice

enough to look me up one day and he was talking to me ahout that problem.

My dad came down to Atlantic City one time, almost cried because here was his little boy

really hanging out of this uniform because they didn't have a uniform that was long enough

for me, that would fit my skinny frame, so the sleeves were maybe six inches too short and

the pants were about four inches too short. It was really a - I felt sorry for my

dad. (chuckles)

Q: Then when you left there, where did you go?

A: From Atlantic City we went to a college training detachment for three months at Birmingham

Southern College in Eirmingham, Alabama. And we took whatcver courses were

assigned to us. We had math and we learned how to read a calculator for navigational

purposes. We had a history course. I went into the history course, it was 1Iistor.y of

Modern Europe, and the subject was the origins of World War I on which I had just written

my tcrm paper at Harvartl, sarnc book and everything. And I was really kind of a smart

aleck in class the first day you know. 1 don't know if 1 corrected t,he professor hut I just

might have on a couple of things he said because I had just read all the texts. As a matter

of fact 1 read them in French as well as the English text.

And after it was over he asked me to step up. Hc said, "I take it you've just had this?"

And I said, "Yes sir, I have." Supcr gentleman, a man by the name of nean Shanks. And

Dean Shanks said, "I really think it would be kind of a waste of your time to do this again,

wouldn't, it?" I said, "Well sir, if there's any way I could do anyt,hing else, I'd sure like

to." And he said, "Ilere's a list of courses. Take your pick and I'll get you into whatever

one you want."

And I selertrd one, the history of the Civil War, which was a great course herause here's

a - I'm in Birmingham, almost the hrart of the (hnlcderacy. The only people in the class

were students at Birmingham Southern, there were no other cadets in the class. And not

only that but there were almost no other boys in the class. So by virtue of that T turned

out to be the link between the girls in the student body and the whole cadet corps which

was just great because I fixed up all my buddies with dates and every chance we'd get we'd

all go into Birmingham together and on the bus and I was the social secretary for the whole

cadet corps, great.

Q: Was there any problem with that particular subject with the southern people there?

A: None at all. They couldn't have been nicer to us. One of the girl's parents invited me

over to their house on several Sundays. Her name was Cole and I'm embarrassed to say

that's all I can remember.. But they just took me in like their son. As a matter of fact

I think they may have had a son who was away in the service. And they took me in to

their home for Sunday dinners. And other fellows were going around. It couldn't have

been a warmer relationship. They were just super to us.

Q: Now as I understand it, the credits there were sufficient for you to get your bachelor's

degree at Harvard.

A: Right.

Q: How was that arranged? Was it arranged before you went down there or after?

A: No. Afterwards when I got through with those. After I finished the war I wrote to

Harvard and told them about it and they said you can start right out in law school.

Q: So at that time it would be 1945 or so that you did that.

A: Right. It was probably . . . probably in late 1945, I got out in November 1945, it was

probably about that time.

Q: So this was a girls' school, was it?

A: No but there weren't many boys in college those days.

Q: I see.

A: There were maybe a few freshmen but the core of the class I was taking was not a freshman

class. You know all the upperclassmen, everybody was in the service. There just

weren't any guys around, any college.

Q: So this was going on towards summer then by the time you finished up there.

A: Yes. Let's see, probably February, March - it was probably April, May and June, something

like that.

Q: Then where did you go for preflight?

A: First we went to. . . well I went to Maxwell for preflight, Maxwell in Montgomery. But

I - I don't remember whether we went to classification center before we went to preflight.

Q: Yes you would have.

A: Preflight first, okay.

Q: No, no it would have been classification first.

A: I meant classification first. Okay. I went to classification at Nashville.

Q: Oh?

A: And we took all of the tests, you know, for classification. I was classified - choices were

bombardier or navigator or pilot. And I was classified as a pilot which of course was what

I wanlcd. And that took a month. I think we were in Nashville for a month. And then

from Nashville I went to prcflight at Maxwell.

Q: When you left did you know that you were going to Maxwell? Was that . . .

A: Yes. I think just everybody in the Southeast Training Command went to Maxwell. I

don't think there was another preflight in the Southeast Training (hmrnand. Thcr~ was

the Gulf Coast Training Command - had one at . . .

Q: San Antonio.

A: Right. And wasn't there one maybe at Biloxi too?

Q: Not that I know of.

A: Just - there was - well there was one in San Antonio and there was one out in -

someplace out on thc West Coast, Santa Clara, Santa Anna - one of the Santas, I'm thinking,

out there.

Q: Santa Anna I guess it was.

A: Yes.

Q: And then at preflight you went back to class I guess,

A: Sure the same kinds of things. Yes, and of course I tossed all of that into my letter

to Harvard when I - to try to sell them on - because we were learning more, weather

courscs for example. We had weather everywhere.

Q: Aircraft recognition.

A: Oh yes, yes, yes.

Q: Do you recall standing guard?

A: Sure. Oh yes, sure, we had regular guard duty.

Q: Do you recall the mass formations that - or did they do that back in the 1940's?

A: Oh yes. Sure. Oh yes, by the time I got to Maxwell it was probably something like

July and August and 1'11 tell you it's hot. And guys would drop like flies, standing out in

that heat on the parade grounds. Never have a parade that a number of guys wouldn't pass

out.

Q: Did you ever have occasion to faint so you could get off the . . .

A: No. No I never did. (chuckles) You know, you feel like you're going to. You're standing

at attention so long that you feel like - your lcgs go to sleep, your arms go to slecp,

and you'd come pretty close to it yourself. I'm sure you went through that too.

Q: You'd have to flex your knees occasionally.

A: Oh yes, you had to tighten your muscles without moving. Because you know, you move,

you've got some upperclassman climbing all over you down there.

Q: How was the hazing in that Southeast. . .

A: It was pretty good. There was - well, you know, not serious. But there was enough

of it. For instance when we went into the barracks we had to take off our flight caps and

whack them across our knees. As a matter of fact I did that one time with my left hand

and I had my watch on and my watch flew off across my hat and my hand and everything

else. And I found it clear down at the other end of the barracks. Lucky - it all smashed

up - at least I got it back.

Q: Did you ever have to hold GI boots out at ninety degree angle for periods of time?

A: No. But our boots had to be polished correctly and I always had a problem with that.

Q: Oh?

A: I don't know why, but I never could get the gloss on my boots that satisfied the officers

who were inspecting us. My feet were of course the biggest of anybody, and I - my only

consolation was I thought maybe my boots were made by a different manufacturer. But,

god, I spent hours shining those damned boots. And I just never could get them. It wasn't

through lack of effort, I really tried.

Q: Do you think the training was adequate that you got there, the instruction?

A: Oh sure, for what we were doing. Yes, we all wanted to fly. We wanted to get over

the goofy other stuff and get flying you know. It got us in pretty good shape. Of course

I was in real good shape when I went in because I'd been playing basketball. And within

two weeks I was almost dead in Atlantic City, but you - you know, you get through it. And

I got so that I could do things that I couldn't do before. My upper body strength has always

been very bad. In basketball they'd have us climb ropes and things like that. I couldn't

climb a darned rope. I could never get up at all. I could do very few chin-ups. And I

got so I could do at least some chin-ups. Now sit-ups and some things were no problem

at all. Sit-ups I could do forever. But my upper body strength was really bad.

Q: Where did you go then for primary?

A: I went to Chester, Illinois, for primary.

Q: Oh really?

A: Actually I guess the base was called St. Mary's, Missouri. It was just right at Chester

- it was right across - well it was just across the river from Chester. And I was there

for two months. I was there for . . . let's see, I was there . . . I must have been there

about October and November, something like that, 1943. And that was really - it was a

real nice place. It was a civilian base, civilian-run base, and most of the instructors were

civilians.

Q: Was it an airfield in a crook of the river just south of the Kaskaskia?

A: Yes that's the one yes, yes. I was there one time many years ago after the war, and

the barracks were there still. I don't know if they still are or not. But . . .

Q: I don't know. It's a jet maintenance base now for commercial light jet aircraft.

A: Oh is that right? Yes.

Q: Which primary aircraft did you fly?

A: The Stearman, PT 13's, yes. And you know if I were going to pick out one month of

my lifc as being the most fun, I think it would probably be my last month at primary. Of

course as you remember we had twenty-, forty and sixty-hour checks. We got sixty hours

of flying. And the sixty-hour check, if you passed that, then you'd go on to basic

school. And 1 got my sixty-hour check after forty hours. So I was through. I had twenty

hours when I could do whatever I wanted to.

My first flight in an airplane was in a Piper Cub when I was at Birmingham Southern where

they took us - we had two or three hours of just kind of orientation. But enough so they

could tell - you know whether we were - the really bad ones were washed out. As a matter

of fact the guy who was one of the best coordinated shortstops I've ever seen in my

life washed out of flying there because he couldn't fly. But he was of superb

coordination. His name was - a fellow by the name of Capone. He was a left-handed

shortstop if you can believe that, Horace. He'd charge the ball and spin and

throw. Fantastic coordination. But he got sick every single time he went up in the Piper

Cub and he washed out. And of course more guys did that at primary.

But I just loved it and for that last month I was all alone and I could do whatever I wanted

to. You know I got up and I - and I loved acrobatics and I would go up and do spins

and loops and whatever I could do in a Stearman, which is just about everything.

I remember one day I took it up as high as I could get it, with the carburator heat out. Did

you ever fly a lightplane like that? where you could put the carburator heat - you could

get another thirty feet out of it when you'd take the heat off. Of course it's open cockpit

so it's fairly cold, but I got this Stearman up to 10,400 feet or something, just over ten thousand

feet.

SESSION 4, TAPE 8, SIDE 1

A: The engine would quit when you were upside down in a Stearrnan because it was a

gravity-feed carburator. And it was just dead silence, just with the prop windmilling and

hanging by the belt there and, oh, that was just so great, just a super time in that - flying

that Stearman around.

Q: How did you pass the sixty-hour check at forty? You were just qualified to that extent?

A: It was up to the instructor when they gave you the checks and you know they couldn't

give everybody a sixty-hour check thc last day. So as soon as an instructor had a cadet

that he thought was ready for his twenty- or forty- or sixty-hour check, he would tcll the

check pilot, who as I recall was an army officer, and he'd tell him about it and then he'd

takc us up and 1 was just lucky to be one of the early ones to get taken up. So you know

you didn't have to have sixty hours.

We were supposed to have ten hours to solo. And I'll never forget the day I soloed. We

were out at one of the auxiliary fields and my instructor - WP landed a couple of timcs,

we'd been shooting some landings and he taxied over to the little flight shack they had out

on this auxiliary field. And he got out of the plane. I thought he had to go to the

bathroom. I literally thought that. It never occurred to me because I only had about eight

hours as I rerall, seven and a half or eight hours, so I didn't have enough time to solo. It

never occurred to me that he was going let me solo. And hc got out and said, "Okay, see

you later." And you know I almost fainted. But I took it up and survivcd it so, you know,

it was just an exhilarating thing.

And the same thing, I got a little bit early on my twenty-hour - my solo was a little early

and my twenty-hour check was early, and the forty-hour check was - I probably had -

I don't remember if I had the forty after thirty hours or something like that. So I was

expedited all along and I was just lucky I got done early so I could do whatever I wanted

to. Well, I had instructions to go practice my pylon eights and whatever else. But it was

just super.

Q: Let's see, at primary you wouldn't have done any cross-country work I guess other than

out to auxiliary fields and that sort of thing.

A: Yes. I don't think we did. I don't remember that we did any cross-country in

primary. Primary was really a lot of fun for me because I ended up as a squadron

commander. There were two squadrons. And I had all the northern guys in my squadron,

guys from - from northern schools, a bunch of fellows from Ohio and Illinois and I don't

remember, were there any Harvard guys still with me? Yes there were a couple of Elarvard

guys still with me I guess at primary too. We'd stuck together all the way through and

only by that time 1 was kind of narrowed down to the guys whose names began with B-U. I

think maybe Paul Butler and I were still together at that stage of the game. But anybody

from the D's on I never saw again you know.

But my squadron were not very good soldiers. They were not the guys who would make

their beds so that you could bounce a quarter off them and whose shoes were always shined

and who were always there. The other squadron on the other hand was all southerners,

and I could see why the south did so well in the Civil War. These guys were totally disciplined

compared to our guys.

And I just had a hell of a time with my guys. The barracks were in the shape of a big

square U, and the parade ground was in the middle of the big square U. And every once

in a while in the morning the officers would - we'd all fall out - they had a bell that

went off in the barracks. And then the guys would - as soon as the bell went off we'd

get dressed and go out for roll call. And the other squadron commander would always

salute to the group commander who was the ranking cadet on the base. And he'd say,

"Three men absent, sir." And I would always say, "All present or accounted for, sir,"

because I'd have a straggly squadron behind me but I could account for them all, I knew

they were all in their sacks still.

So every once in a while there would be a surprise inspection. It was dark still at that

time so when they were having a surprise inspection, we had a deal - the last guy in my

squadron in the ranks would go flying off through the barracks and clear everybody out so

when the inspecting officers came in the top of the U, these other guys would come out the

bottom of the U and by the time the inspecting officers got around in front, everybody would

be out falling in and trying to tie their ties and put their dog tags on and everything

else. And the result was that I got a number of tours. I was walking tours a lot down

there because I just couldn't keep control of those guys. (chuckles) I was a terrible squadron

commander.

Q: So you lost some weekends I guess.

A: Yes, not - oh, I'd lose a couple hours, you know. But I did walk some. But some of

the guys - one guy for instance, a guy by the name of Brooks who had had a year in the

Canadian Air Force hefore he came down to cadets here and therefore knew a lot more about

flying. He was a good pilot. And Brooks one time put cloth in the bell so that the bell

didn't wake us up in the morning. We slept right through reveille. (chuckles) You know

I had a little hard time with some of thew guys. They were a lot of fun, really interesting

guys.

And we had fun together. We did a lot of parading you know, and, you know, we invented

some new commands like, "By the funeral, MARCH." And everybody would then go into

93

the very slow pace. You know, we had the close order drill, "To the wings, marrh," and

getting guys flying all over the parade ground and trying to get them hack together again

all in one piece. We had a lot of fun doing that sort of thing. And if you make fun out

of drill, really it can he a lot of fun to do it.

Q: How about the obstacle course? did they have a good one there?

A: Oh yes. Every place we went we had good obstacle courses. They were tough and challenging

and some things were harder than heck to get ovcr.. You know, you go up a ten-foot

wall and then you've got to go jump off of it on the other side, roll - learn how to roll

off a ten-foot wall, or - we had parachute practice, in jumping off the ten-foot wall

backwards, things like that, which is a little bit hairy. (chuckles) Especially for a guy who

is built like I was you know. But it was a lot of fun.

Q: What about the academic work there? Did you have any problem with aircraft engines?

A: No we really didn't have a lot of engine work. You know, we never took engines apart

or learned how to repair them or anything like that. We just never got into that.

My main job in primary was to try to keep that poor squadron together and keep - I'll

never forget, the group commander had been to Clernson and was a fine soldier. And this

straggly old squadron that I had used to drive him absolutely wild. And he would call me

on the carpet. And we were both cadets, we were in thc same class. I mean he didn't -

but he was thc group commander and 1 was a squadron commander, I reported to him. He

was the only cadet on the base who outranked me. And he would call me into his office

and he would just chew me out from one end to the other. Ilis favorite expression was

- since he was a southerner he couldn't say Burditt, he always had to say Burdette, he

always called me Burdette. IIe'd say, "Burdette, that happens one mo' time, yo' ass is

mine." He must have told me that fifty times. And as a result 1 walked a few tours.

Q: Do you have any idea why you moved into the leadership slot there again?

A: No.

Q: Just a natural, huh?

A: I don't know. No I wasn't a nat,ural because I didn't know a darned thing about it. But

I really think being the tallest guy had something to do with it. I don't know. I really

don't know, IIorace. I did not do much campaigning for those jobs either. You know, I

was used to that kind of a campaign, a nun-campaign. You know the CO [Commanding Officer]

calls you in one day and says, "You're thc - you're it." 1 didn't know it till he called

me in. Nobody interviewed me, there were no tryouts or anything you know.

Q: Did you get into Chester?

A: Yes we used to go into Chester. We used to go into Chester every week and go to the

Bal Tabarin which is the little - the tavern in town and one or two other taverns that

we'd go in. And I had a d~al with the hus driver that no matter what happened 1 was

going to get out at every one of the taverns whcrcl he stopped and I was going to weave

my way through the bar and pick up all my buddies or whoever was in there. And frequently

there were guys in there passed out somewhere and I'd help them get back on the

bus. But the bus driver really cooperated with me on that.

Q: This was a military bus that took you in and . . .

A: I guess it probably was a military hus yes. Although it may have heen a civilian bus

because the whole base was run by civilians. We had civilian cooks and - 1 don't think

/

we had - I don't remember having KP at primary. I did at the army bases, but I don't

think at primary. A bunch of ladies who lived on the farms around Chester and in town

cooked. And, gee, they were great cooks. (chuckles) We had wonderful meals, they were

just super.

Q: Well let's see, where did you go from there for basic then?

A: Well I went to Malden, Missouri, for basic which was - we flew BT-13's, the Vultee Vibrator.

Q: You said PT-13 a while ago. You meant PT-17 I believe.

A: I guess I did mean a seventeen. What's a - a thirteen was that single-engine, lowwinged

monoplane wasn't it?

Q: Well there's a PT-23. I don't know the PT-13. PT-13's were back in the 1930's I think.

A: Okay. The Stearman was a seventeen. I was - yes I'm sure that you're right.

Q: The BT-13 and the . . .

A: Yes. The BT-13 was the Vibrator yes, yes, yes. And of course that was a lot of fun

I too. And I was a squadron commander there too so it was a . . .

Q: Oh you were? again?

A: Yes once you got to be squadron commander you were squadron commander all three

bases and you just kind of - just kind of kept the job.

Q: This was the same group of students then?

A: Yes but more than just St. Mary's fed into Malden. Cape Girardeau was also a primary

that fed into Malden. I think that's right. And then there are one or two others that fed

in to the - as you went on you know, a few guys would wash out and there's always

more than one primary going - feeding into a basic and more than one basic feeding into

advanced.

No particular reminiscences about Malden. We did a lot of flying around. We did some

cross-country there. We had a number of auxiliary bases around.

Q: You would have done your first night flying I presume there.

A: Yes.

Q: Do you remember your first night flight cross-country?

A: No I really don't. No I don't remember it . . . which I suppose means it wasn't partic-

ularly impressive to me. Oh I remember one time when I was at primary in that last twenty

hours when I was messing around, I lost sight of the Mississippi River.

Q: Oh?

A: I didn't know which way - and that was the guide you know. With that much flying

you're not oriented very well. And I was about to say, "Well, okay I'm going west hecause

I think I must have drifted east of it," and just at that point I saw the sun hit the river

in the other direction. And I came within an ace of landing in a cornfield with no gas sornewhere.

Basic, no particular events. I remember there was a radio station in Poplar Bluff, Missouri,

that we could pick up on the - what do you call the harmonics, it was broadcasting at 550,

you could pick it up at 1100 or 2200 or 3300 on the radio. I forget what they call that on

the radio. And they used to play "Paper Doll" which was the number one hit in those

days. And I used to go up there doing my pylon eights, or whatever, on the radio tower,

listening to "Paper Doll" while I'd fly ovrr the radio station.

Q: What about - I've forgotten the term - we used to - they'd string a line across the

field between two poles and then you came in and you were supposed to land as close as

you could on the far side of it.

A: Short-field landing?

Q: Well, yes, except that it was over a barrier, this line. You were supposed to not break

the line.

A: I don't remember ever doing anything like that.

Q: You don't recall anything like that?

A: No. We did some things like that later on when I went to instructor school, but never

- I don't remember in cadets ever having anything like that. Of course we always tried

to hit the end of the runway, but that's - land as close as you can. But I don't remember

ever landing over a barrier.

Q: Well then where did you go for advanced? Evidently you went to twin-engine advance.

A: We11 let me tell you one other thing about basic which just occurred to me. We were

there at Christmas and this is the first Christmas any of these - I guess we were - let's

see that was in 1943, so I was twenty. We had never been away from home, anybody, on

Christmas. We'd always been home. And here we were out in the middle of nowhere at

Christmas. We all felt very sorry for ourselves.

So we decided we'd have a party in the barracks which was, you know, you just never had

liquor in a cadet barracks. But we smuggled in a couple of bottles. I don't remember how

it was, I remember we were having - we were in the middle of this roaring party and way

after lights out, it must have been midnight, it must have been a couple of hours after lights

out. And I was just going to the door with two little pint bottles in my hand and the door

opened and the officer of the day came in. He was a first lieutenant. And of course I yelled

attention. And everybody popped down off his bunk and the place must have reeked like

a brewery. And the officer, who happened to be the PT [physical training] officer, who was

a great guy. Hc was the guy that helped us with all our close order, fancy close order,

drills and just a neat guy. He'd probably been a high school teacher or something like that

because he got along so well with kids. He looked me right in the eye - I must have blown

him over with my rum breath, or whatever, Canadian Club, or whatever we could get in

those days - and he said, "Mr. Burditt, don't you realize it's lights out?" And I said, "Sir,

I did not realize that. The lights will be out immediately." I was just going out the door

to throw these liquor bottles over the back fence before it got caught in my room. He never

said a word about it. Of course we shut the lights off right away and went to bed.

(chuckles) But gosh, we all had visions of being kicked out of cadets and everything else.

Okay now back to your question, yes I did go to twin-engine advance. At Stuttgart,

Arkansas, which is right in the middle of the rice country. Therc, were fellows from other

basic schools who joined us there. I was there 1 guess from the middle of January till the

middle of March of 1944, and we went through the regular routine of flying that you do

in a twin-engine advance. You have formation for the first time, and night formation which

is a little bit hair raising, and cross-country day and night. And a lot of instruments -

we had instruments at basic too.

Q: Oh you did?

A: Yes we had a hood in basic, not very much as I recall, but we had some basic instrument

instruction.

Q: Did you have a ink trainer in basic?

I

A: I don't remember if we had a ink trainer. But we had inks at - I think maybe we did

though. I know we had inks at Stuttgart. And 1 think we had inks at basic too. I'm not

really sure about that, Horace.

But I really enjoyed the twin-engine. I really wanted to go to single-engine advance, but

I was so tall there was just no way. I wanted to be a fighter pilot. I told you I wanted

to fly P-47's and Y-51's like you did. But . . .

Q: What were you flying in advance? What type of aircraft?

I

A: It was an AT-10 which was a plywood made by Globe, a small twin-engine plane. It

looked a little like - oh, like a Cessna or a Beech, single-tail.

Q: A Bobcat, did they call that?

A: No. Bobcat was another one. Bobcat was a - I think - wasn't a Bobcat a AT-9?

Q: No the AT-9 was the tricky one.

A: The AT-9 was the tricky one yes. Well yes, well maybe the ten was called the Bobcat. I

didn't remember that.

Q: I don't know.

A: I don't remember that it was. But it was - the nine and the ten were the two basic

trainers, the two fundamental advance trainers for pilots. It was a two-seater, side-by-side-

. No room for anybody in the back, a third person couldn't get in. And maybe it was called

a Bobcat - no, a Bob - wasn't a Bobcat maybe a C-45, the . . .

Q: No it wasn't a C-45, but a Bobcat had room in the back.

A: Yes there was. Well the C-45 was the cargo version of an AT-7 or an AT-11.

Q: Right.

A: That . . .

Q: With a twin-tail.

A: . . . with a twin-tail. Yes. I had in mind that that was called the Robcat but maybe

I'm wrong about that.

Q: No. The Bobcat was single-tailed.

A: Was it? Well maybe that's what the ten was. It could have been.

Q: I don't know.

A: 1'11 bet it was because I don't think there was another single-tailed twin-engine trainer

except the . . .

Q: Well it seems to me there was no room - I mean there was room in the back of a Bobcat,

I don't know - a couple of seats back there or something.

A: I've got a couple of books of World War I1 aircraft. I'll take a look and see. Stuttgart

was, you know, pretty much the same as everything else in terms of training. I was a squadron

commander again. And we just went through everything. I don't remember any particular

exceptional things that occurred anywhere along the way.

Q: Now on your cross-countries there presumably you flew further than you had in basic.

A: Oh yes much, yes.

Q: And you had the strange field landings at that time. Do you recall where you went?

where your auxiliary fields were?

A: We landed at a bunch of auxiliary fields around. We had several auxiliary fields around

Stuttgart. There were three or four of them, as there were around Malden. But I don't

remember that we landed - did we land at some other fields? We might have landed at

Memphis or someplace like that some time. I just don't remember.

Our cross-countries though were usually just - they were all home-based. We flew around

Arkansas. We'd fly all over Arkansas with different check points. And once we got checkcd

out in the ten we would then go with another cadet, two cadets would go together. But

you were with your instructor for the first few hours. I don't remember. Maybe another

ten hours of twin-engine. I remember the first time we got into n twin-engine plane and

saw all those instrurncnts and two of everything! My God, it was the biggest shock of my

life until I got into a B-24 and saw four of everything. That was - that was worse.

Q: Well then you went into B-24's directly from advance then?

A: No. I got my wings on March . . . 13, 1944, and then I had a couple of weeks' leave

and then I wcnt hack to Stuttgart as an instructor.

Q: Oh you did?

A: Yes. I thought - I really thought I had it made because we went in for our interviews

you know. In cadets the last couple of wccks you go in for interview brfore you're

assigned. And the deputy commander of the base, a guy by the name of Lieutenant Colonel

- he was a lieutenant colonel, Williams was his name, who interviewed me and he said,

"I see you wcnt to Harvard." And I said, "Yes sir." IIe said, "So did I." I thought, "Geez,

maybe I'm going to get" - you know, "Maybe I'll get a B-25 instead of thr B-24's and U-17's,"

which were the one things I didn't want. And he said, "What house did you live in?" I

said Winthrop House. He said, "So did I." I thought, "Geez, maybe 1'11 get a P-38." You

know, I had big plans. And the only thing 1 didn't want was an instructor. I had stayed

away - I hadn't even told them I had taught Sunday school. I taught Sunday school several

times. My first Sunday school class I taught when I was a senior in high school. And 1 taught

Sunday school a lot after that. I didn't tell them, I didn't want anybody to know it because

I didn't - I thought they might, you know, "Maybe ht can teach, we'll make him an

instructor." So I didn't even tell them that. I had two instructors down there, they both

knew 1 didn't want to be an instructor but they made me an instructor.

So I went back. And these two guys both - as a matter of fact the first day I came back

from leave they took me aside and apologized to me and they said, "We didn't want to do

it. But you've got to do it. And we're sorry. But we'll befriend you and we'll take care

98

I think they thought they owed it to me because there was one radet . . . a fellow

of you."

by the name of Burton who lived in upstate New York right near Rome, where my family

had come from, and Burton was a - was not the best pilot in the world. And these same

two instructors, they're names were Miller and Sabine, took me aside and said that Burton

was really not a very good pilot but he was down to the last two weeks before he got his

wings and commission, and they just didn't have the heart to wash him out. And they said,

"He won't be a captain of a ship. He'll be a copilot forever. But you're elected to solo

him. You'vc got to take him up, hut for God's sake, don't let him go too far." So I said,

"Okay, I'd be" - you know, what do I say? So I took him up and he did fine. He was

okay. He landed and I didn't take over or anything. It worked out fine. But I think

because of that, they figured if I could survive Burton I could survive

anybody. (chuckles) So they made me an instructor.

I went back to Stuttgart and my dad died right after that. My dad died on the first of

May in 1944. So he knew I got my wings. And I was asleep in the barracks one day and

a flight officer came in to me and said, "Mr. Burditt, I'm sorry to tell you this. But your

dad died." So I went to the base commander, Colonel West, and he let me go right home. I

flew up that day. So I was home - my dad died Sunday morning, I was home Sunday afternoon,

which was very nice of the commander.

But you know I got to know my dad so much better really after I went to college. When

I was going to high school really. My mother was forty and my dad was thirty-eight when

I was born. So they were older than a lot of parents. And even though I was an only child,

until I got playing basketball, I was much more my mother's boy than my dad's boy. But

once I started to play ball, my dad was really - he and I got lo be very close.

And I remember he made a rule never to fly during World War I1 because it was dangerous

to fly. And it was hard to get seats, and you may be taking them from somebody who had

a more important job than he did. So he was taking trains. But we were playing basketball

in New York one time and he was up in Buffalo or something, and he flew from Buffalo

down to New York to watch us play Columbia.

Q: Well!

A: Columbia had a tough team. We beat them but they physically beat the hell out of

us. Oh God, I was one mass of bruises when that game was over. And my dad - I'll never

forget, my dad came down in the locker room and he was just furious at these guys from

New York, his old hometown, who had beaten up his little boy you know.

Q: Well! (chuckles) Did you have much opportunity to fly where you wanted to on weekends

and that sort of thing now and then?

A: Yes, yes we had a real good deal when I was instructing. We were entitled to take weekend

cross-countries, theoretically for training purposes. It turned out that most guys flew

to Iks Moines every weekend because Des Moines was the WAC [Women's Army Corps]

centcr and they were receiving training in a number of different areas when they flew up

to Dcs Moincs.

I started to fly up to Chicago to see Lucille and I flew up one weekend and was with one

of my very dear buddies who was a pilot in the marine air corps, Bob Nieman. And Bob

and Lucille and I were together and we said, "Who are we going to get for a date for Bob?"

and we said, "What about Barbara Stenger?" So we called Barbara Stengcr who had just

come in from a flight. She was an American stewardess. She had just come in and she

said sure, she'd go out with us. And the four of us went out togcther that night and the

next weekend I flew up to see Barbara. And Lucille and I had gone together for, you know,

golly, since my junior year in high school till - through college, a long time, 1 don't know,

five or six or seven years I guess.

Q: And this was the start then of the . . . .

A: Yes. And then I flew up every weekend from then on to see Barbara.

Q: Well! What did Lucille say about that?

99

A: Well I think we hoth agreed it was kind of time to call it quits. She gave me my ring

back, my Cub Scout ring or whatever it was she had you know. It wasn't unfriendly particularly,

we didn't have any enormous fight or anything.

Tho only rule on our cross-countries was we couldn't land at the same airport more than

once a month. So I kind of alternated among Midway - I'd land at Midway

regularly. Every month I'd land at Midway, which is a little hairy. You know, talk about

landing over an obstacle, that's a classic definition of Midway. And Glenview every once

in a while. And O'Hare I think was in - I don't remember if I landed at O'IIare. I don't

- it seems to me O'Hare was . . .

Q: O'Hare was Douglas at that time wasn't it?

A: . . . was Douglas yes. And I don't think we could land there. I remember I landed at

Chanute once or twice and Barbara would come down there and meet me. And then some-

times I'd bring another guy up with me and that would be counted as his landing. So I

could fly with him. I'd be copilot and he'd fly up. And then one time the CO called me

in because one of the . . . one of the nonflying officers, engineering officers or something,

wanted to come up to Chicago for a weekend or something and asked me if I would fly him

up. And I said, "1 think I can work that out."

Q: Yes sir. (chuckles)

A: It really was great. I landed at Midway one week, and it started to snow right after

we landed, and there was eleven inches of snow or something like that. And my plane of

course was out in the open. That was when they had to take everything in the hangar to

get them brushed off and thawed out and everything. And since I was only a second lieutenant

- I was the lowest ranking officer who'd flown a plane in that weekend so I was

the last one to get out. So I had three or four days in Chicago that weekend.

Q: The snow cooperated.

A: Yes.

Q: What about your instructing experiences? Did you have any problem children that came

through?

A: Oh you always have, sure. And some fun experiences. I remember one time - I had

one guy who really needed confidence. He was a perfectly good pilot but he didn't know

it, and you know he just needed confidence. So I always paid less attention, or acted like

I was paging less attention, with him. And would always encourage him and you hnow kind

of sing my song and look out the window and watch the passing corn. And we were out

shooting landings at an auxiliary field one day and it was rainy. Stuttgart's right in thc

rice country and you know it's just solid mud, or water, off the runways. And I was sitting

with, really relaxing, with my feet up on the dashboard as I frequently did. And he came

in and landed and was going a little too fast and bounced and hauled it back and he went

maybe thirty feet in the air and standing in a real - right on his tail you know. God!

And I grabbed it and hit the throttles as hard as I could and nursed - we were in a stall,

a shuddering stall you know, and it stalled off to one side so we're - by this time we're

off the runway, over the - right over the water and gear down and everything - and pulled

it out and you know - I mean it worked. I gave it back to him. But a little touchy.

Another time I was up flying instruments. You know, of course we had the green isinglass

in the windows and then the Cadet put on the rcd glasses so he couldn't see out. But the

instructor sitting next to him could theoretically at least see through the green, but it got

old and foggy and was really kind of hard to see through. We were flying one time on an

instrument letdown, and this boy was doing real well. He was right where he should have

been, he was just coming in to the cone of silence over the station.

Q: Radio range?

A: Radio range yes, which was all the navigating we did really, was radio range. And he

came in right over the cone, and he was right at cone altitude, he was at three thousand

feet, exactly where he should have been, right over the cone of silence. And again I had

my feet on the dash and I looked in front of us and not - I don't know, it seemed like

maybe a hundred yards in front of us was a formation of three planes headed right at us,

right smack our altitude. I hit the wheel so hard that both engines stalled, again gravityfeed

carburators, and I hit it and both engines stalled, and of course came right hack in,

but we went under this formation and of course I couldn't imagine an instructor being so

dumb as to fly a formation into the cone at cone altitude. You know, even at 2500 or 3500

or any other altitude, but at 3000! Dumbest thing!

So I peeled off, I was furious and of course shaking from being so scared. And the instructor

leading the formation was equally furious at this dumb lone guy who didn't yield to the

formation, because he didn't know he was over the cone of silence. And you know we both

had something to say for our positions and we said it in clear words to each other on the

radio, agreed we would meet down on the ground. And we did. And I was about a head

taller than he is so we didn't - nothing ever happened.

But God, that was - I'll tell you that was I think the closest call I ever had in an airplane.

That was really close. I don't know how we ever missed those planes, looking back on

it. God, I know - they were right in front of us. And lucky, I just happened to glance

up at that time because we would have washed out one of them and maybe two of

them. Obviously nobody would have gotten out of that, head-on collision and nobody would

be able to get out of it.

Q: What kind of schedule did you have? Did you work mostly in the morning at . . .

A: No we rotated. We'd instruct in the morning one day, afternoon the next day, night the

next - no, wait - morning one day, night the next day, afternoon the next day. We flew

seven days a week and we'd just rotate - did we? I think we flew seven days a week. But

we rotated the schedule.

SESSION 4, TAPE 8, SIDE 2

A: Night formation was something else. The first plane that takes off, starts a very slow

turn to the left and the second plane that takes off catrhes up on the right. And then the

last plane that takes off comes in on the left so that you - then you end up with a three-ship

V. And we had no lights except the little wingtip lights, you know, the green and red lights

on the wingtip. There were no lights on the plane other than that. I guess there may have

been a little light that - I don't know, maybe a little light in the tail. I don't remember

but there's just these two little lights to focus on. And it's very hard to focus your eyes

on that. And the result was that it was a little hairy because these cadets taking off -

or even an experienced instructor taking off - would come up on you and he'd be there

and before you know it he'd go zooming by you, and he'd almost take your wings off and

his too, until you finally get so that you get the feel for it a little hit. But there were some,

you know, some interesting calls with guys coming racing through a formation like that or

trying to join it but going right - just overshooting.

the hero's name - the Red - he's the Red something - the Red Baron, not the Red Baron,

the Red - whatever he is. There's one scene where he comes racing in with a great scarf

around his neck and as he came racing in the scarf hooked on something that spun him

right around hack out. (laughter) A lot of little things like that that - you know they

were trying, the music was good, it was a fun thing.

But we weren't - you know we didn't know anybody there so we didn't really get in very

much. We went to the Alamo. We went and made the tour of the Alamo and did the things

like that that we should have done but it was kind of a quick month.

Q: Where were you quartered there at Randolph?

A: In the BOQ somewhere. I don't remember any more about it. I don't even remember

the rooms wr were in. But we were on the base. Wc were - I was only off the base two

or three times. You know, we'd play a lot of gin rummy in those days and you know we'd

go to the oficers' club and play gin or something like that. But there wasn't a lot - we

didn't do much in town.

Q: And then you went back to Stuttgart then?

A: Then we went back to Stuttgart yes. While I was at Stuttgart, that summer I joined

the Little Rock Country Club. The Little Rock Country Club had a special deal for military

men, for anybody in the service. You know, nominal - ten dollars or SO, some nominal

amount, which was really great because it - we could play tennis there, we could go to

the dances there. And we met girls. A friend and I joined together, Sven Peterson who

was in the class of 1943 at Harvard. And Pete and I joined Little Rock and 1 think maybe

Beverly James Buchanan, my buddy Buck Buchanan, also joined. It seems to me that the

three oI us were all members.

We'd go over there and met girls and I met one girl particularly I spent a lot of time dating

that summer, whose father was a lawyer in Little Kock. You know I always went to the

midnight service at the Episcopal church with her 1 remember. And we had a lot of fun,

we (lanced a lot together and drank occasionally together.

Q: Well then you left there and went where?

A: They closed Stuttgart. They announced that the war was kind of cranking out, they had

enough pilots, and so Stuttgart was closing and the commanding officer assigned me the job

of closing up the flight line, of accounting for and disposing of all of the ecluip~nent on the

flight line, all the desks and chairs and all the flight equipment and thc lamps and

everything. IIe did that not because he thought I would be the best one to do it but because

I had screwed up one night. I got a little bit drunker than I should have and I drove my

car into the ditch where it appeared the next morning and it was perfectly obvious what

had happenrd, so the CO figured he owed me one. So he gave me this terrible duty.

I had two groups of lahorers to do the work, one group of pre-aviation cadets [PAC'so) they

were called. They were guys who signed up for cadets but they were still pre-aviation cadets

because there was no need for them. And no group in the army ever had a lower morale

than those kids, they were really bad because thcy wanted to fly and herc they're carrying

furniture around the flight line in the middle of Arkansas. And the second group was a

group of German war prisoners whose morale was excellent and who were great workers

and who did cverything beautifully. So anyway that - I spent maybe a month or so just

- I guess maybe doing some flying but as a squadron would shut down we'd go in and clean

it out and account for everything and you know make the inventory and sign all the govcrnment

forms and evrrything else we had to do.

Q: Did you have a good sergeant to help you with it?

A: I don't remember. All I can remember is I had Germans and pre-aviation cadets. The

PAC's were so bad and the Germans were so good and I think I did most of the paperwork,

or as I recall I did most of the paperwork. I must have had some - I must have had a

sergeant to help hut I was physically doing it.

(taping stopped for telephone conversation and not resumed)

SESSION 5, TAPE 9, SIDE 1

Q: You may recall we wound up you closing down a base and getting rid of all the equipment

and had heen transferred t,o R-24 transition. Where was this B-24 transition located sir?

A: It was in Courtland, Alabama, which is at the north end of Alabama, a typical B-24 transition

base. That's the base at which all cadets after graduating and getting their wings

and commission, if they're assigned to a four-engine school, they go to a base like that. Most

of thc people who were there when I was there were pilots who had heen instructing for

a while and their bases had closed down and we were all going through now learning to

fly four-cngine aircraft.

Q: Did you find it much different than . , ,

A: Oh yes, yes, it's - the two biggest shocks I think I had in my life were the first time

I sat in the cockpit of a twin-engine plane and the second was when I sat in the cockpit

of a four-engine plane. You know. (chuckles) There's four of everything you know and

so much more instrumentation and superchargers and all kinds of instrumentation we didn't

have at all on thc trainers. So yes it's different, besides which a B-24 is a very hard plane

to fly.

Q: In what way?

A: It just takes enormous strength to fly it. It takes all your strength to fly a B-24. We

couldn't use trim tabs for example. And one of the standard things was to hring back the

number four engine, the right outboard engine, to simulate feathering. That is, you don't

shut it off because in the B-24 you may need it bad in a hurry. So you don't ever take

any chances. You don't need to. But they bring' it back to - something - as I recall bring

it back to twenty inches and that simulates feathering And then you've got the two good

engines on the left and the number three engine are still all-powerful and when you're shooting

landings and touch-and-go takeoffs, you have to turn into those two good engines, turn

left into the good engines, staying in a left-handed pattern. And the only way you could

turn that without using trim tab, which we could not do in training, was to put both fcet

on the left rudder and lock your knees. You didn't have enough power in your legs to hold

that without putting both feet on the rudder and locking your knecs.

In the B-24, unlike a normal aircraft where you steer it with a stick or the wheel, you don't

do that with a B-24, in a B-24 you hold the wheel steady and you drive the darned thing

with the rudder peddles. It's totally different from any other kind of plane. It's because

of that particular wing that the B-24 - a very long narrow wing. And some of the perfectly

strong guys in our unit - I remember taking off one day and here's a plane just gradually

drifting off to the right, the guy couldn't hold it to hring it around. Everybody knew that

was Gussie Schrott who was a perfectly big - Gussie must have been pretty close to six

feet tall and he just simply couldn't hold the plane. But the plane just drifted off to the

right and everybody would say, "There goes Gussie."

I

Q: Well! What was the idea of not allowing you to use trim? t

A: Just for safety factors. Because if you have trim on it and something happens it's hard

to get the trim off real quick. And when you're that close to the ground, it was just as

a safety factor they didn't let us use the trim.

Q: Oh.

A: Obviously if you have an actual situation where you lose an engine you would trim it

up. And I presume we probably did that at altitude, I don't remember, but we must have

done it at altitude. But when you're shooting touch-and-go landings, no trim. Maybe it

was just to teach us respect for the aircraft, I don'l know. (ch~icklcs) Or to build our leg

muscles.

Q: Let's see now, you had taken over a leadership role in each of the situations before. Did

you become commandant of the flight line here?

A: No. There wasn't any such thing that I recall once we got through cadets. You know,

I was inst.ructor in a unit and I guess we had a flight leader, I don't really remember. We

just had a group of students who were assigned to us at Stuttgart as cadets and then, see,

by this time I was commissioned, I was scrond lieutenant by this time. And I don't remcmber

that there was any kind of organizational structure. I was just in with a bunch of other

fellows learning how to fly B-24's.

Q: How long did you spend learning how to fly them?

A: My recollection is that we were at Courtland for at least a couple of months. I don't

remember how much time we got but it was probably general magnitude of fifty or sixty

hours.

Q: Was there any cross-country involved in that? Did you go anywhere?

A: Yes there was some. It was mostly just learning how to fly the plane itself right around

there though. I don't remember . . . I don't remember flying a U-24 anywhere and landing

at another base. We must have done some of that. I just don't remember it, Horace.

Q: Did you have any problem getting it on the ground?

A: No. It was a hard plane to land. One of the instructors at Stuttgart who went over

with us, who was a first lieutenant as a matter of fact, had a very hard time flying a

B-24. He just simply couldn't fly it. And my two instructors took me aside as that same

kind of thing had happened to me in cadets and said, "Lieutenant X can't fly very well and

you're elected to night solo him." So I took him up on his night solo. And he was perfectly

alright you know, he brought it down by instruments. He got on the ground, he was so

ecstatic, he was almost euphoric, he was just laughing and shouting and taxiing about three

hundred miles-an-hour across the ramp which scared the hell out of me, but his flying was

okay.

Q: Did you do much formation flying with the B-24?

A: Yes we did. We got checked out in the R-24 - that's part of the transition. You learned

everything you'd have to do in comhat.

Q: That was part of our problem in the Eighth Air Force, the B-24's couldn't hold the formation

very well, it was very difficult.

A: Yes, yes. Yes it's such a sluggish plane that they were - they're hard to hold and it

takes so much strength. It isn't just a little adjustment or a little pressure on the wheel

or on the rudder that keeps you in line. It's like driving a truck that's flying through the

air with some - somebody glued some wings on it. It's a very hard plane to fly.

Q: Now let's see, about what year - this was 1944,1945?

A: In 1945. Well it was right after Christmas. Stuttgart closed in December 1944, and I

think I spent Christmas down there and I - then I came back up to Chicago. I remember

I drove from Stuttgart back up to Chicago on leave and I spent the whole night - I drove

all night long, terrible drive, to try to get up here so I could spend New Year's Eve with

my thrn-girl, now-wife who was weathered - she was a stewardess on American Airlines,

and she was weathered in in New York. I spent New Year's Eve with one of my hcst friends

which has infuriated me for the last forty years, whatever. It must, have hcen the first week

or so in January 1945 that I went to Courtland. Courtland's right near Decatur and we

were there for two months.

And during that time Barb and I got engaged and we were planning to get married in

Chicago in March. But I saw a place where 1 could get home for a weekend and T got one

of my buddies to sign me in in the base and took the train up on Friday night and we got

our blood tests and got the license on Saturday and were married Sunday and had a fullfledged

wedding in the Congregational church in La Grange which Karbara's mother put

together in about three or four days and . . .

Q: Oh really?

A: . . . it was a regular - there was a big crowd. And then a reception at the La Grange

Country Club and then Barbara and I got on the train to go back down to Courtland so

I could fly the next morning. And nobody got court martialed for my being AWOTl [absent

without leave] and everything was fine; whoever signed me in did a nice job of covering for

me.

Q: Did you have any problem finding quarters down there?

A: A little, sure. We lived in a farmhouse out in the country right near Decatur, Alabama,

which is a bigger town. We had the second floor of a farmhouse, or a room on the second

floor of a farmhouse. There was another couple who had another room on that floor. It

was a great big old room in a big old farmhouse and it had the usul complement of mice

and other things that you have in farmhouses like that. And it was okay except Barbara

got a bladder infection whilc shc was down there and she was so scared of mice and she

had to go to the bathroom all of the time of course, as you always do with a bladder infection,

and I had to run convoy duty about six times in the night because of the mice. But it was

a nice place out in the country.

Q: Well then when you finished up your training there, did she go with you to your next

base?

A: Let's see, yes, from - we had a car. Barbara's mother and dad came down to see us

and they felt so sorry for their poor little girl out in the country in this old farmhouse that

they left their car with us, their only car. Barbara's an only child, and they couldn't hear

this. So they went home and got along somehow in La Grange without a car while wr had

their car in Alabama.

And I went from Decatur to Smyrna, Tennessee, and I was on orders to be a captain of

a B-29. Those were U-29 first pilot orders. And the war in Europe of course had ended

by this time and they were cranking up B-29's more for the Far East. So I was there for

about a month flying B-24's still. But that was a lot of cross-country on that. That was

nearly all cross-country. I remember we flew over to Newport News, Virginia, one night. I

didn't know I was going to have to go therr and I didn't have a flying jacket or anything

else. I just had my khakies on. I darned near froze. I was colder than I think I'd ever

been in my life. A lot of cross-country and quite a lot of time. We were flying four or

five or six hours a day.

Q: What was the purpose of the flying?

A: Just to get more used to four-engine until we went to B-29's. And I was all set to go

to B-29's. I'd been in Smyrna about a month when - and Barbara was with me. We lived

in a . . . gosh, I think she was there the whole time, I think we lived in a hotel or some

kind of a rooming house or something in Smyrna. It might not have even been a month. It

was a quite a short period of time.

And then I got transferred to what's called the White Projec~. The White Project was the

project for ferrying planes that were being flown back to this country from Europe. And

the combat crews were bringing them back and dropping them at any one of a number of

ports on the East Coast. West Palm Beach, Florida - Morrison Field at West Palm Beach

- and Savannah, Georgia and - what's the one in Savannah? is that - is it Hunter or

Turner? I never can remember.

Q: Well Hunter, let's see - well no, that's . . .

A: One of them's in Savannah and one's in Georgia somewhere - Albany, Georgia.

Q: Turner's the one down south.

A: Well whichever one's in Savannah, I picked up some planes there and . . . Windsor Locks,

Connecticutt. And the comhat crews were bringing them back and then we'd go out and

pick up the B-24 and fly it to a reconditioning depot or a storage base. I took B-24's to

Malden, Missouri, where they - no, it wasn't Malden - Walnut Ridge, Missouri, whcre they

were just lined up, miles of them. I flew one to Spokane, W~shington, which I think was

a reconditioning depot. And took one to San Bernardino, California, and - oh several places

like that whew they were either being stored or refurbished for further combat duty.

i

And in the course of that I went down to - well 1 was - I was . . . stationed for a while,

or at least Barb and I lived in Memphis.

I guess maybe I was hased at the Memphis airport

there. There was a base there for a while. We lived in the King Cotton Hotel in M~mphis

for about a month. And then from there I was sent hack to Romulus Air Force Base, which

is now the Dctroit Metropolitan Base, as part of the White Project. And I was flying B-24's

from there. And was . . .

Q: Was that Willow Run?

A: No Willow Run is the next one out. Willow Run is - oh it's maybe twenty miles west

of Metropolitan. Romulus is currently - it's the O'Hare of Detroit. Hut Willow Run is west

of there. Willow Run was the place where the B-24's were hcing made, Ford had a plant

there and as a matter of fact we landed - I got checked out and some other stuff there

and I landed at Willow Run a couple of times on check flights.

But while I was in - at Romulus I was playing on the post basketball team and Barbara

and I were having breakfast at the officers' club one day and my name was called over the

loudspeaker, "Report to flight line." So I was all excited. I thought the post basketball

team was going to go somewhere. And I went out and the - the guy on the flight, line

said, "There's a C-53 out there. Please take it to Marfa, Texas." And I said, "Well I think

maybe you've got the wrong guy because I've never heard of a C-53 and I sure never heard

of Marfa, Texas." And he said, "Is your name Burditt?" And I said, "Yes sir." He said,

"Take that plane to Marfa, Texas."

Well the day before I'd been up for two hours in a DC-3, in a C-47, shooting landings and

sure enough that was - a C-53 is a little different version of a C-47. It had the gear lever

on a different side and there was - you know a few little miscellaneous differences. But

they gave me a copilot who had never been in a C-47 before, and I had two hours. And

so we had to take it out. The crew chief was down on the ground and I called out the

window to him, I said, "Chief, you better come up and help me get started, to get this thing

cranked up." I don't - I hadn't been in it the day before when they cranked and I was

of course following the checklist carefully. So he came up and we got it started.

And unlike any other plane I'd ever been in, when the hydraulic pressure falls down, you

just goosc it a little bit, just rev up the throttles a little bit and it brings the hydraulic

pressure back up. But this one for some reason didn't do it. The hydraulic pressure just

kind of gradually kept slipping off.

So I was kind of hurrying although I went through the checklist very carefully, with very

little help from my copilot because he - all he could do was read it to me and didn't know

where to look to check anything. One thing that was not on the chcrklist was the rudder

pedals, you know the little button on the rudder pedals you can pull out to adjust them forward

or back depending on your height. Well apparently the guy who had flown it before

I did was shortlegged and the rudder pedals were therefore all the way toward the pilot's

seat. And I hadn't realized it. The wheel on a C-47, if you'vc cvcr flown one, when you're

sitting on the ground, rests forward. It just rests up against the (lash. And when you give

it the throttle to get down on the runway the wheel comes up into a neutral position. So

when it came up into the neutral position, my knees werc in the way so I couldn't pull the

wheel back and the damned wheel was in the way so I couldn't kick the rudders to keep

us going straight down the runway.

We went careening down the runway, really all over everywhere, my copilot sitting next to

me with his arms folded wondering, "What in the hell have I gotten into?" And somebody

put up signs down the runway, "going," "going," "gone." And we were headed right for

that second "going" sign. And I thought, "Geez what am 1 going to do?" because it was

- you take off at about half power on a C-47. They're just really powerful planes for that

size, especially when they're empty. So I just put on the rest of the throttle. Geez, we

jumped into the air over the "going" sign and kind of wobbled around a little bit just above

the stall and took off and I got the gear up and everything and the tower called me and

said, "Is everything okay?" And I said, "Of course," J said, "I always take off like

that." But I realized what was the matter, and as a matter of fact that is probahly the

safest aircraft ever devised by man, a fantastic plane.

Q: Well then, and you flew it down and turned it in down there did you?

A: Yes, yes, took it to Marfa. As we always did, we had papers and we'd - whatever it

was, we'd just take it in and turn it in. I went down to Morrison Field at West Palm one

timc with a group of guys. They flew us down in a C-47 and there was six or eight or ten

crews and we were all - most of us were R-24 pilots but there was one crew that I got

to know fairly well who were both first lieut~nants and hoth B-17 pilots, hut one was flying

with the other one as copilot. And a squadron of B-17's came in and so I went to our squadron

commander and said, "I'd be glad to split. I'm not proud. 1'11 fly copilot for one of

the B-17 pilots and my copilot can fly copilot for the other one." And he said, "If you knew

how much paperwork is involved in splitting crews, you'd never make that suggestion. But,"

he said, "I'll chcck you out in a B-17." So he took me up for a couple of hours in a B-17. My

copilot stood behind us and watched. And my friends took off right ahead of me and circled

until I could catch them. And then we flew formation from Morrison Ficld over to Mohile,

Alabama, that night where they had an 8,000 foot runway which was a very very long runway

in those days. And I managed to get the thing down.

109

But actually I felt more at home in a B-17 after two hours than I did in a B-24 after two

hundrcd. Easy plane to fly, very nice aircraft. Of course we weren't supposed to fly formation

while we were doing that ferry work. But we were flying formation. I was flying the

lead and my friend was flying on my right wing and I leaned back across my copilot and

looked back, just looked at them one time. And here also flying formation with us was an

A-26.

Q: Oh really? (chuckles)

A: Just three of us were flying along there. So I said over the radio to my buddy in the

other plane, I said, "Who's your friend?" And as soon as I said it, the A-2G just peeled

off. I mean he figured probably a couple of generals in R-17's you know. He didn't want

to get caught.

Q: So this went on for how long then? through the summer and into fall?

A: Yes pretty much. Well until I got through, until I was discharged. I got out in November

so it lasted the better part of a year. I was ferrying planes all over. I took a - I

guess maybe a B-24 into Greenville, Mississippi, Greenville or Greenwood, I forget which,

there are both of them there. And I got there around dinnertime and asked the guy on

the flight line, the officer of the day, how I could get out and he said, "Well there's a three

o'clock train to Memphis." And 1 said, "Isn't there any other way?" And he said, "There

isn't any way out of here except that. But there are some guys over them who are ferrying

a plant?, standing over at the other end of the operations room. And," he said, "they're going

to Savannah, and maybe they could get you closer to where you're going." So - I was going

back to West Palm - so I went over there and here was a guy I'd been in the Episcopal

choir with in La Grange when I was a kid for years. So I flew over with hirn and my copilot

flew over with his best friend whose name was Bert Early. And we went out together that

night. And Bert and I ended up in the same class in law school and Bert lives in Hinsdale

and was the executive director of the American Rar Association for, I don't know, twenty,

twenty-five years. So we've been very good friends ever since we ran into each other in

Mississippi that day.

Q: Now what do you think, if anything, you gained from all this experience in World War

II?

A: Well you know unlike - and it's a terrible thing to say - but I had a really great experience

in World War 11. Flying is a fantastic experience, as you're well aware, Horace. It's

an exhilaration and it's a training in coordination and things like this. But just for sheer

fun to gct up and fly a Stearman - I guess you probably never had that experience did

you, to fly an open cockpit, single-engine biplane like the Red Baron with goggles and a

helmit and 1'11 tell you, there's just nothing like that.

Of course I learned the discipline and working together with people I'm sure more than most

people because you know heing an only child, I really hadn't had as much occasion to work

with people except in svhool. And to work in a military situation was quite a strange experience

for me, something different for me. Rut of course my main recollection is flying. You

know, you and I could sit here and tell flying stories for a hundred years.

Q: What about the leadership role? Do you think it improved your capabilities as a leader,

the fact that you were through cadets and all that?

A: Oh yes. I expect, Horace, that anytime you get a leadership job, as chairman of a

committee or squadron commander in cadets or whatever it is, it's going to increase at least

your experience in leadership and hopefully your abilities as a leader. And I'm sure that

it did. Sure. It certainly taught me how to get along with some people who were kind of

difficult to get along with because some of those northern guys wanted to fly, they didn't

want to march. And it was - it was tough, I had some really hard experiences. I didn't

handle all of them very well either. There was a lot of times 1 could have done better than

I did. I don't know how, but I wasn't very successful in what I was doing. And I'm sure

that somebody who had had more military training or was just a better natural leader than

I could have done a hell of a lot better job in handling that squadron. They certainly

wouldn't have had to walk as many tours as I did because some guys underneath me weren't

doing what they were supposed to do and I couldn't get them to do it. But it was all in

all I think a very interesting experience for me. I don't have any bad recollections of the

servicc like a lot of guys do who were foot soldiers in combat or even pilots in combat. I

really had a very fortunate lucky easy experience.

Q: Did you give any thought at all to staying with it?

A: Yes I did. I liked flying so much I thought about the possibility of staying in. I just

didn't want to stay in I didn't think. I also thought about the possibility of trying to go

to work for an airlines as a pilot because I liked flying so much. But my whole life I'd

wanted to go to law school. My dad was a lawyer. He had died during the service, he died

when I was instructing down in Stuttgart. And I just decided I wanted to go to law school

so I got out. I did stay in the reserves for a while while I was in law school. But after

I almost put an AT-6 into an inverted spin I thought I'd better get out of it beforc I'd kill

us all.

Q: What did your wife think about you gadding about all over the country during that period

of time'! Did she get kind of tired of that?

A: Oh I don't think so. Everybody was gone you know. We were lucky to see each other

at all. You know, most of our friends if they were married - of course the ones who were

married, the men were all gone. There was nobody around for any length of time. If you

were in a position where you could see your wife orcasionally you were very fortunate and

all through transition after we were married Barbara and I lived together until I - well

we even lived together in Detroit when I was at Romulus. I had a cousin who lived up there,

and she and her hushand invited us to stay with them. So we lived at their house in Michigan

for a while, and then they moved or at least Ruthie came back to Chicago and Barb

and I rented a house in Dearborn and Dave came and lived with us for, oh, a month or

so maybe I guess, something like that.

So we were very fortunate. I was gone a lot, but I was also - you know, I'd get hack to

the home base once a week or once every couple of weeks so it really was. . . . In terms

of our seeing each other, it really was a lot better than most people.

Q: Well let's see now, sometime around November then - where did you come? back to Fort

Sheridan here to make the decision on separation?

A: I think I was discharged at Chanute. I'd made the decision to do it before and I think

I went to Chanute and was discharged there. And then I came home and I'd applied to

Harvard Law School and I also had tried to persuade them not to make me go back to

college. I was one term short of the degree requirements but I ovcrcmphasized all of the

things I had done in the air corps - see, I had actually spent two or three months at the

college training detachment at Birmingham Southern and we had other, you know, educational

programs of one kind or another all the way through. And so Harvard gave me a

dcgrcc without my going back. It saved me one term. They gave me credit for the things

I'd done in the air corps so I could start right out in law school.

And the first term I could get in was in February 1946, so I had from November till February

to wait, and 1 got a job in the post office in La Grange. Which was great bccause it was

convenient and they nccded work for over thc holidays and I knew the town so I knew all

the addresses and the streets and everything. And I was a carrier for a while. They gave

me one route in town. Which was pretty tough, I wasn't really happy about that one. You

know, it was a good job but my respect for mail carriers went up a lot. Those bags get

darned heavy around Christmas time and it gets cold. But I had some streets over - I

had a route over on the northwest side of La Grange.

Then right around Christmas time the fellow who had the - an old-time employee - who

had one of the rural routes out south, got sick, as I was told he did every Christmas, and

they needed somebody who knew the territory a little bit so I got put on that route. And

I had a driver and you know I didn't - it was just - you get things addressed to a person,

"Rural Route 2, La Grange," total extent of it. And I didn't have any idea where the people

lived for the first few days except that I knew there were some et.hnic connections where

the Mdhok would have one kind of ethnic name and Hodgkins would have another kind

and - so I did that for a month or so and then all through Christmas and for a while

after Christmas.

And I used to go out to Hodgkins and I'd have everybody come down to the general store

in Hodgkins when they saw the mail car coming in, we'd have a mail call there. I'd call

out and they'd say, "Oh no they don't live here. They live over out on Old German Church

Road,'' or somewhere like that. (chuckles) I got a lot of help from all the people. And

then I went back to law school in February.

SESSION 5, TAPE 9, SIDE 2

Q: Well let's see - then it was kind of like coming back home when you went back to Harvard?

A: Oh yes. Yes, yes it really was. It was - it was great. We had lived with Barbara's

folks and my mother was in La Grange for those few months I was here. So that was a

good kind of a reunion. And then when I went back to Harvard we looked around for a

place to live and we - the third floor of a house that Longfellow had built for one of his

daughters on Braddle Street and we lived there with nnc of my college classmates who was

in divinity school. And he and his wife and Barbara and I lived together on the third floor

in that great big old rambling house for one term.

Then we moved down the street to another great big old proper Bostonian house and we

lived there for one summer with another couple who were wry dear friends of ours. The

fellow's name was John - well the first people we lived with was Barry and Jack

Ellison. Barry was the wife and Jack was the guy in divinity school. And then when we

moved down the street we lived with John and Sally McNaughton. John and Sally had both

been at L)e Pauw when Barbara was there. And Sally had been in high school with Barb

and me, a couple of years ahead of us in high school so we knew them quite well. And

John and I got to be very fast friends.

He's a super guy, one of the brightest guys I've ever known. He ended up working for Milton

Katz in a European assignment. Katz was a professor at IIarvard who took over one of

the major European assignments right after World War 11, I guess implementing the

Marshall Plan as I recall. And then John went on and h~ finally was appointed secretary

of the navy and was killed in an airplane accident. A privale plane ran into an Allegheny

Airlines commercial plane and John and Sally and one of their sons were on the Allegheny

plane and they were all three killed. Hut a super bright guy, we lived with them for one

summer.

And then we stayed on living in the same place and another couple, Dean and Marg

Hennessey, moved in with us. Dean and Marg would have been a year behind us in high

school. Dean had been a year behind me in college. And he was either the second-string

center or a forward on the basketball team with me in - both in high school and in college,

so he and I were real good friends. And they lived with us for the rest of the time we

were in law school.

Q: So when you started into law school were there instructors that you already were

acquainted with that were involved with your law instruction?

A: Not personally. The law school is totally separate from college. There's no overlapping

of the faculty. I knew some of them by name, by reputation. Several of thc professors were

very well-known people like Roscoe Pound and . . . Bull Warren and . . . McCurdy and

several others, were very famous people.

Q: Were there any that you became particularly closely associated with?

A: No. I really didn't. We were all assigned to law clubs for purposes of the moot court

competition.

Q: The moot court competition?

A: Yes moot court is mock court. They give you a hypothetical subject which you then

debate and the winners keep advancing, it's a regular elimination tournament. I was in

what was called the Fuller Club, named after Lon Fuller, who was a professor so I guess

I knew him about as well as any. Two others that I got to know a little bit socially were

the two leading professors of property law, Jim Casner, who is still living and still looks

just like he did then, he's a fantastic guy who was a colonel in the air corps in World War

I1 and his sidekick, a fellow by the name of W. Barton Leach, who was also I think a colonel

in the air corps, or maybe a lieutenant colonel. Casner went in and he got Leach to come

in with him. They were the two property professors at Harvard. And a friend of mine

by the name of Roger Stokey and his wife somehow got to know them and we ended up

playing duplicate bridge with Casner and Leach and a couple of other people and the

Stokeys. Team of four duplicate, which was a very interesting experience for, you know,

for law students to be playing with these two famous professors and who kept growing in

fame till Jim Casner's now one of the best-known professors - Bart Leach is no longer

living.

But you know at law school you're so darned busy you don't have a whole lot of time for

social contacts with people. And I didn't have any money at all. My dad had died during

the war and my mother couldn't help me. And Barbara worked. She got a joh as a receptionist

in a doctor's office. And I had a scholarship. I'd had a national scholarship in college,

and that kind of a scholarship you can keep in law school if they give it to you - you're

eligible for it - and they did. And they gave me a thousand dollars a year, which in those

days was a lot of money. My recollection is that's what the tuition was. And of course

I had the GI Rill and I got a job selling advertising for one of the law school puhlications

and I was playing semipro basketball so I was really making - I made money, I made more

money in law school than I have ever since I think.

Q: You were playing pro ball at that time in the Boston area I guess?

A: Yes. I had a call one day. I guess - have 1 covered this with you? I got a call one

day from a guy named Ziggy Strzlecki. Boy, S-T-R-Z-L-E-C-K-I, something like

that. That's - I've shortened it up. But Ziggy was the leading scorer in New England

when we were in college. He played at Clark University and then he went to the Coast

Guard Academy. We had a pre-season game with them when he was at the Coast Guard

Academy and we beat them. This was before the war, and he remembered this, oh, three

or four or five years later. He didn't like to be beaten and he had a - hc lived in Worcester,

Massachusetts - and he had a team out there and they had fivc guys and he asked me if

I'd likt> to come over and be their sixth player. He said, "You won't ever start because we

always start the local guys. But you'll play just as much as the rest of us do because we

113

all have to go out and have a cigarette once in a while." So I went over and played with

them, we got twenty bucks a game. We played - we were the hometown team in both

Worcester, Massachusetts, and Marlboro, Massachusetts. And we had a game in each town

once a week so we got at least forty bucks a week for that.

And then through that I started playing with some other teams. I played with the Lynn,

Massachusetts, VFW [Veterans of Foreign Wars] team, the Polish VFW team in Lynn, they

gave me a Polish name and put me in a uniform and so I played with those guys. And

I played with a couple of other fellows. There was a young fellow by the name of Rocko

Antonelli, who was the organizer there. Johnnie Antonelli's brother, Johnnie Antonelli was

a famous pitcher in those days in Boston maybe and his brother, Rocko, had a team and

so I got to play with those guys. So I was playing basketball maybe three times a week

the last couple of years, which was really great lor relaxation and for money too because

I really needed money.

Q: You didn't find that interferred with your studies?

A: Oh I don't know. Probably - sure, it probably did you know. But you know there's

just so much you can study. At least there was just so much time 1 could devote to

studies. As long as my grades were good enough to keep my scholarship. I never was

smart enough to get straight A's with that class. That was a super-bright bunch of people

at IIarvard Law School then. Of course see there7d have been about a five-year hiatus in

there when nobody was going to law schools. With the war on there was nobody available

to go to law school. So thcrc was - all of a sudden you had a fivc-year crush of people

applying. And furthermore a lot of people who couldn't otherwise afford it could go because

of the GI Uill. And Harvard usually gets some pretty bright people under any

circumstances. But when they get that kind of a crush all in one year, grez, that was a

smart bunch of guys. And they've done very well now. There's an awful lot of really top

business and legal leaders in the country here from that class. Deans of law schools and

presidents of colleges and presidents of corporations and everything.

Q: Were there particular parts of the law curriculum that you liked better than others?

A: I guess so. There were some classes I liked particularly - I've got to say I never particularly

enjoyed law school.

Q: Oh?

A: I don't really know why. It was - I just didn't like studying. And I think you'll find

that a lot of people, a lot of lawyers, will now admit they didn't especially like law

school. Some of the courses I didn't particularly mind. But there were none that I was

just wildly enthusiastic about. In college you know I really loved a lot of my history courses

and French and a lot of - most of the courses I took in college I liked. 111 high school

I liked all of my courses. But, gee, I got to law school and I've got to say it was kind of

a drudge. Of course I was a little older and I'd just been through three years of flying,

and that might have had something to do with it psychologically, but I just never really

got wound up in law school.

Q: Did you give any thought to changing to something else at any time?

A: No, no. Never did, never occurred to me to do anything else. It wasn't that bad. And

I don't mean to portray it as being something that was a real drudge. Rut I'm naturally

kind of enthusiastic about things, and 1 just really never was that enthusiastic about law

school.

Q: Was there a fraternal organization, a law fraternity of any sort?

A: Yes, there were - the Chancery Club was the one I belonged to - there were really

two of them. Chancery had its own house, its own building. It was a social cluh, although

a few of the guys lived in Chancery, no married couples did. But we'd go over there mainly

to drink and shoot liar's dice. We had dinners there once in a while and the unmarried

students ate thcre quite a lot. We had a chef and a kitchen and everything. But I don't

remember having any meals there. Barb and I usually ate at our apartment.

Q: Besides basketball did you find time for other activities to get your mind off your studies?

,

A: Horace, you really don't in law school. You work your tail off in law school especially

when everybody's smarter than you are. You just have to. And we went straight through,

we took no vacations. The way they had it set up they started in effect a full class three

times a year. So there were - I don't remember how many there were in our class. There

were probably five or six hundred in our term and then five or six hundred right behind

us four months later and then five or six hundred right behind them. So in order to get

through quickly we could go straight through the summers. The summer was just another

term. And it was three terms a year. And we took seven terms. So it was two and a

third years if you went straight through, as most of us did because you know we were older

and we wanted to get out. So I started in February 1946 and got out in June 1948. I was

really pretty lucky. In terms of time I had two and a third years of college and two and

a third years of law school. So the war you know, I was in the air corps for three years

but it - 1 only got out of law school a year later than 1 would have if I hadn't been in

the service, if I'd just gone the normal four and three years.

Q: Then there weren't any other types of organizations besides the Chancery Club that you

belonged to at that time?

A: Well Phillips Brooks House had a committee in the law school. And T'd been president

of Phillips Brooks House when I was in college. And I was on that committee but didn't

take a great deal - there wasn't an awful lot to do on it though. There wasn't a lot of

time I was willing to spend on it. And there was also a law school directory which was

just simply a listing of all the students with some ads in it and I was editor of that. I

sold the advertising and guess made sure the names got typed right. As a matter of fact

I think Barbara typed that. She got paid for typing - yes she did. It was just a listing

of all the students. It wasn't a formal thing like they have now with everything on

computers. It was just a little simple probably five by eight soft-covered handout.

Q: Was there a Law Review of any sort? Were you involved with that in any way?

A: I wasn't nearly smart enough to be on the Law Review. The Law Review was based

purely on grades and I don't know what percentage of the class, maybe 5 percent or something

like that made Law Review. I don't remember where I was in the class. I was about

a third of the way down from the top. But that wasn't nearly good enough to get me on

the Law Review. The Harvard Law Review is a very exclusive, very super-bright group of

people, every year, still is.

Q: What about the school sports program? Did you get involved in that in any way? or

did you have time at all from law school for any of that?

A: Before I started to play pro ball, like my first year there, I played up in the gym you

know, just to go up and play pick-up basketball. I don't remernber thcre being any organized

sports in law school. Law school's a different place from a college. At least Harvard Law

School was from February 1946 to June 1948, it was a hardworking place. I'm sure it still

is too.

Q: Well then let's see, you graduated then in June of 1948. What were your plans at that

time?

A: Well you start looking for jobs. In those days we started looking in the middle of our

senior year. Now you look in the middle of the freshman year, you see - we get a lot of

students out here looking. One of my dear friends, Glenn McGee, whom I had met in law

school, and I drove out here. I played basketball in Worcester, and Glenn went out with

me while I played and then we started to drive from Worcester, coldest night in the history

of the world. Gosh, was it cold. And the gas rationing was still on. Out about as far as

Canandaigua, New York, or someplace - the west end of New York and we couldn't get

gas and we were right on the bottom of the tank. We finally stopped at a roadhouse about

three o'clock in the morning, the only place that was open. And the guy had a gas tank

and he came out and gave us some gas. But it was really really cold.

Well I'll tell you how cold it was and how long ago this was. This was the first year of

rheostats on the lights on the inside of the car. And I didn't know about rheostats. And

Glenn didn't either. And we were driving. It was so cold that the defroster would melt

only a little area maybe four inches high and maybe five inches wide right on the bottom

of the windshield. And so we had to scootch way down and look underneath the top of the

wheel through that little place to see where we were going because the rest of the car was

totally frosted up. And I remember this very well because the dash lights were on full

bright. And the bright light reflected right in that little area so we were looking through

that light. If we'd only known we had a rheostat we could have turned it down. (chuckles)

Q: Was your wife with you at this time?

A: No Glenn and I drove out alone. Betsey, our first child, was six months old, Barb couldn't

leave so Glenn and I came out alone and interviewed for jobs in Chicago. He interviewed

- well we both interviewed at Bell Boyd, which is a very fine firm here. And Glenn got

a job at Bell Boyd, I didn't. I kind of wanted to work for a corporation, and one of the

places I interviewed was Swift - I guess that was the only corporation I interviewed -

and I got a job in the Swift law department. So I was signed up - this was sometime

around Christmas I guess, or January, that we - it was probably the break between January

and February, break between our last and next to last terms. So then I was signed up to

go to work in June when I graduated.

Q: What was the interview like? Did they have a particular type of law that you would

be involved in?

A: Well no. I guess I wanted to be a corporate lawyer, whatever that means, I didn't know

then any more than I do now, maybe even less. Swift had a law department of: about a

dozen lawyers out at the stockyards, which wasn't in those days thc nicest place in the world

,

to work. But the Swift office building was air conditioned, it was the first air conditioned

major office building I think anywhere in the world. And boy, it needed it bad. It was

really tough out there, especially in the summer.

But I - you know, I didn't expect any major deals. Swift had a policy, the youngest lawyer

comes in and works in what was called the general division of the law department handling

garnishments and attachments and talking to people who had personal problems and maybe

occasionally hclp working on a change of name petition or filing income tax returns or handling

adoptions and - a lot of personal things - and reading the daily Law Bulletin which

is a pain in thc neck, but looking at all the cases. And helping write legal memoranda for

anybody in the office, anybody especially in the general division who needed help on a particular

problem, filling out government forms, doing all the kinds of miscellaneous things that

a young lawyer did.

And then their policy was that after two or three years in something like that you'd transfer

to one of the other divisions so that you could learn labor law or property law or whatever

field you wanted to happen to get into, or where there was a need for you. Anyway I was

in the general division for three years.

My interview was with Bill Strack, William N. Strack, who was general counsel of Swift

in those days. And Bill had no sons of his own. He had one daughter. And of course

my dad had died. So we developed almost a father-and-son relationship. He was just a

super guy. We played tennis together. He loved to sing barbershop, so I used to sing in

barbershop quartets with him and we went to parties together and just a very nice guy.

He was from Indiana, from down south in Indiana, southern Indiana. And he and I got

to be real good friends.

Bill Strack was general attorney, and the general attorney ran the law department out at

the stockyards. There was a separate general counsel downtown. And in the first three

years while I was working out in the stockyards Bill Strack became general counsel and

moved downtown. The previous general counsel retired. And Swift was then involved in

a big antitrust case that the government had brought against Swift, Armour, Wilson and

Cudahy. It was a dissolution case to break up the four meatpackers into fourteen

meatpackers. And Bill needed a young man and young lawyer to come down and work on

that case. And for some reason there were two or three others that would have been more

logical than I because they were older than I was and would have been eligible if they'd

wanted to do it. For some reason they couldn't do it so I got that job. So 1 moved downtown

then to the general counsel's office and worked on that one antitrust case for three

years.

Q: Oh is that right?

A: Which was very interesting. I wasn't just sitting in my office working on it. I was

riding horseback around half of the major stockyards in the United States and going through

slaughter houses and going to feedlots and going to dairy plants and all kinds of the multitude

of different operations that Swift had.

Q: What was the purpose of all of the visitation?

A: Well the government complaint in that case alleged a continuing conspiracy from 1890

until 1948, fifty-eight year conspiracy, during which the four packers are alleged to have kept

the pricc of livestock down and the price of meat up, thereby making exorbitant profits,

unconscionable and illegal profits, in violation of the antitrust laws. As it happened, parenthetically,

one of the packers had gone hankrupt during that time and another one had gone

through a reorganization and the other two had averaged something like two-thirds of 1

percent profit. So, you know, it was a terribly ineffective conspiracy. (chuckles)

But the complaint had some things in it that looked suspicious. For example the complaint

alleged, and there was a table showing this, that Swift and Arrnour which were the only

two of the packers at the Milwaukee market, divided up the Milwaukee calf

market. Milwaukee's the biggest calf market in the world. There's so much dairy cattle,

there are a lot of ralves in Milwaukee. And the complaint alleged that Swift bought 66.7

percent of the calves and Armour bought 33.3 percent of the calves. In other words an exact

two-thirds, one-third split and it never varied more than one-tenth of 1 percent for seventeen

years. Now that's - you know, on the face of it, is enough to raise eychrows. I went up

to Milwaukee to try to find out what in the world had gone on, why did that happen, and

develop a rationale for why for seventeen years Swift got two-thirds of the calvw and

Armour got one-third.

s

And that was the kind of thing I was doing. The Omaha hog market was kind of the same

way and the Dallas rattle market was kind of the same way. Nothing was as blatant, or

as straightline, as the Milwaukee calf market was. Rut that's the kind of thing I was doing,

to go out and try to find out what went on, look at records and collect files and read everything

and make copies of it and everything, enormous job, huge case.

SESSION 5, TAPE 10, SIDE 1

117

Q: You say that you spent full time on this one job then for three years?

A: Yes.

Q: You must have gotten to know the meatpacking business very well.

A: It really was a great opportunity. I did. You know, I knew every phase of the operation,

not just meat but all the dairy and poultry things, all the feed operations, all the pesticide

and plant food things, really a great experience. As a matter of fact when Bill Strack

invited me to take the job he said, "I'd only want one commitment from you and that is

that you will stay with Swift as long as the case lasts. And," he said, "you've got to rcalize

this case could last your lifetime. It could go to the Supreme Court two or three times and

if you don't want to do that, say that. I'm not going to hold that against you obviously

but I do want that commitment because we're going to invest a lot in you in educating

you.'' And so I made the commitment. And . . .

Q: And it wound up in three years then.

A: Yes it wound up in three years. Actually what happcned was we heard the government

had an 800-page pretrial brief that they were going to deliver to us. And all of the top

people went over. I was such a junior birdman I wasn't even invited to the meeting. But

all of the top lawyers for the major companies went over to that meeting. And instead

of getting an 800-page brief, they were given a one-sentence stipulation to dismiss the case.

Q: What had happened?

A: It was a political case. It was filed in 1948 just before the 1948 election and Truman

wanted it filed. There was no substance of the government allegations. There had been

no conspiracy. Obviously there's not going to be a conspiracy if half the members go bankrupt

and the other two don't make any money. There was no conspiracy. They were violent

competitors. The reason that Milwaukee calf market came out like that was that the two

calf buyers hated each other and there's no way that either one was going to let the other

guy get more than that percentage. They watched the figures very closely. Swift's plant

was twice as big as Armour's plant and the Swift guy said, "I'm not going to let that Armour

guy get more than a third of the calves. I'm going to get two-thirds, he's going to get

one-third." But it wasn't by agreement between them, they weren't dividing it up, it was

because of the competition.

Q: 1'11 be darned. Did you feel that that was restrictive to you in any way, being on one

thing for three years like that?

A: No not at all really. During the course of that Bill Strack asked me to write a memorandum

on the protectibility of house counsel's files, you know, so that - "Can the other

side get at your files of the corporation through subpoena or through production, motion

to produced documents on?" And I wrote a very extensive memorandum for that which

appeared in a publication called The Business Lawyer which is the magazine of the corporation

banking business law section of the American Rar Association. If anybody should take

time to look up that article, it will be under the author's name of William N. Strack.

Q: Oh?

A: I didn't even get a - not even a footnote, and Bill Strack didn't write word A of the

article. I always wonder what happened to my old buddy, my father image you know.

Q: Well! (chuckles) You were working for him I guess.

118

A: Oh yes sure. I never complained, I never said anything to him about it but I did kind

of think he might give me a footnote that at least I had done some of the research or something

on the darned thing. It was a major article. I read every single case on house counsels'

files. It was a big job.

And being downtown gave me an opportunity to get into a lot of things. Let's see, that

was - I was downtown from 1951 to 1954 working on that case. And during those years

I was president of the Chicago Junior Association of Commerce and Industry which I would

have had a hard time doing from the yards. And I was president of the Young. Republicans

of Cook County. So it gave me a chance to get into civic things that I would not otherwise

have been able to do.

Q: Why would that be now? You were living in what? Western Springs by this time?

A: Let's see we lived in La Grange . . . when I first got out of law school we had an apartment

in Berwyn. We shared an apartment with the McGee's in Berwyn in 1948, for the

summer of 1948, when we were taking the bar review course and the bar exam. And then

we moved to an apartment in La Grange, the Homestead Apartments in La Grange. And

then about 1950 we bought our first house in La Grange, lived there for a year or two and

then in 1952, about 1952, we moved to Western Springs. And we lived there for fourteen

or fifteen years. So all through this period, starting in 1952 at least, I was in Western

Springs.

Q: So why would it be easier then - did you meet at noon and that sort of thing with

the . . .

I

A: Yes. Meetings were downtown. I was in a carpool driving out to the stockyards. You

could get downtown by EI, [elevated train] which I did when I had to come down but it's

kind of a nuisance. And then I didn't - I wouldn't often enough to get accustomed to the

train or to get a monthly commuter ticket. So it was time consuming and your office schedule

and everything. But it just made it a lot easier being downtown to get into things like

that.

Q: Where was the Swift office down in the Loop here?

A: It was in the old First National Bank Building which was on the corner of Monroe and

Clark. And thal building is now torn down and that's where the Plaza is just south of the

new First National Bank Building.

Q: So you were right downtown then?

A: Right in the middle of the Loop yes.

Q: Let's see now, Betsy was born in 1947 so you were still at Harvard at that time.

A: Right she was born June 3, 1947, when we were in law school. She made either the -

I don't remember if it was the front page or the front sports page of the Boston Herald

the day she was born.

1

Q: Oh, why?

I

A: A little squib, said, "Harvard's First Woman Center Was Born Today."

Q: Woman center?

A: On the basketball team.

Q: Well! (chuckles)

A: That was kind of a hectic time because that happened to be the time of my third college

reunion and at Harvard your third reunion is the first big one. 'I'hrrc's no reunions the

first or second year. The third year is the first big one. And the day Betsy was born I

went to the hospital in our class uniform. We were the baby class, the third reunion class

is always the baby class, and our uniform was shorts and shortsleeved shirts and a great

big orange bow tie, a great big thing, huge thing. And I went to the hospital in that outfit

with all the nurses of course feeling appropriately sorry for this poor lady who was married

to this goof. And the next day was the day of the Harvard cornmenccment parade and I

went to this same hospital in a cutaway and a great cravat and tophat which really put

the icing on the cake. Everybody knew Barb was married to a nut then.

Q: Well! (chuckles) Were you involved in the organization of that reunion?

A: (pause) Horace, I don't remember that I was. I was first marshal1 of the class so I

probably was doing something with it. There's not an awful lot to do. The alumni ofice

kind of told you what to do and we probably had a bunch of guys who sat down and talked

it over and decided we'd go with this uniform and we'd do this, that and the other thing. I

led the class in when we came in in my cutaway. That's one of the things the first marshal1

does. But 1 really don't remember that we had a whole lot of meetings on it. There were

undoubtedly some but . . .

Q: Has this been an annual affair since that you've been involved with?

A: Not annual. But I go back to our - every five years - if there's a third and then there's

a sixth, we went back to our sixth reunion. And I've been back to I think every one every

five years starting with the tenth. I might have missed one but Barb and I go back to most

of them.

Q: Are you involved with the organization of these every five years?

A: To a degree yes. I help raise money but it's done mostly by guys in the Boston area.

Q: Now didn't you become associated with a Harvard Club here in Chicago in some way or

other?

A: I did. Before I get to that let me just tell you about one of the Harvard reunions. A

Harvard commencement is a real pageant. It's one of the great pageants that's left in

America. The sheriff of Middlesex County comes in on horseback and all decked out. And

there's maybe a hundred people in tophats and cutaways and it,'s a very fancy demonstration

and all the alumni march by classes. And there's one of the provosts or one of the rncmhers

of the administration starts calling the classes and anybody from that class then falls into

line and starts marching down. I remember at my tenth and eleventh reunions I was a

marshal1 and I was lcading the - you know, walking in with people. A marshal1 at the

commencement is really a glorified usher, that's really about all he is. But you're in a tophat

and everything, and it's really kind of a fancy thing.

One of the funniest stories I think ever in my life: at my eleventh reunion I was invited

to be a rnarshall by Henry Cabot Lodge who was the chief marshall. Every reunion there's

a chief marshall who is the head guy who leads in the whole commencernont parade. Henry

Cabot Lodge who was I think then maybe a senator, was the chief rnarshall that year, and

for some reason I was invited to be a marshall. The marshalls are picked from the different

classes, some from his own, some from the chief marshall's class, but other classes too. And

somehow they picked me as a marshallaire.

And I was - the marshalls are kind of helping the older alumni around and I was stationed

at a little corner where two buildings come together, just a little walk between the corners

of these two buildings, and I was standing there and in the quadrangle behind me was -

a small quadrangle, maybe, oh, a hundred, two hundred square feet something like that -

two hundred feet square I mean. The classes which had been out of college over fifty years

were convening. So the youngest guy there was probably seventy-one or something like that.

And it went from there up. The youngest guy's seventy, you know the average has got to

be eighty or ninety or something like that, and I was standing there at this corner ushering

these people in and making sure they knew where they were going and helping them with

whatever they needed or showing thcm whew the tent was where they could get a drink

or whatever. And as two of these fellows were walking by me, kind of leaning on each other

- they must have both been in their, at least their mid-eighties, one of them said to the

other one, "My class is divided into two groups, those who can't hold their water and those

who can't pass it." (laughter) Never forget that.

But anyway I've been back several times. Then I wanted to mention one other reunion story,

IIarvard commencement story. In 1969, that was my twenty-fifth reunion and the chief

marshal1 comes from the twentyfifth reunion class. And I was elected chief marshal1 that

year which was a great experience, one of the great honors of my life. Also one of the more

humorous ones because there's a committee from the class which nominates candidates to

be chief marshal1 and then the hallots go out to everybody in your class only. And there

was one fellow in our class, a liberal Democrat which delights me all the more, who was

on the nominating committee. Well it's an unwritten rule that if you're on the nominating

committee, you know, you're not eligible to be nominated yourself. Rut this frllow managed

to get himself nominated which was, you know, a little unusual. And not only that, he was

from Boston, and he was successful in having no other Bostonians nominated. Ha was the

only one from Boston.

Well there were a couple of other fellows who were likely candidates to be chief

marshall. One was from New York. So as it turned out, there happened to be two or three

candidates for chief marshall from New York, thoreby splitting the New York vote and there

were also two of us from Chicago - and the other fellow's a very fine guy from Chicago

and very popular - thereby splitting the Chicago vote and leaving the Boston vote which

is by far the biggest vote anyway for this one guy. And he didn't win. I won that

election. I'll tell you, of all the elections I've ever won or lost, that's the one 1 get I think

my biggest kick out of.

But that was really quite an experience and that chart that you see over there in the corner

is the seating chart of an event called the Chief Marshall's Spread, which was a lunch at

the time of that Harvard commencement in 1969 and that's - when it was finished they

asked me if I wanted the seating chart and I said 1 certainly do because on that chart is

all the name dropping I would ever want to do my whole life.

Q: The names on there, are they marshalls?

A: They were all marshalls except the honorary degree recipients and a few people from

the faculty and invited guests. But everybody there was in a cutaway and tophat. But

there are five cabinet members on there and at least one senator I can think of and all kinds

of business people like David Rockcfeller and F. A. 0. Schwartz, you know the toy guy, and

Walter Reuther. And the president of the European Econotnic Colnrnunity. And poets and

leading businessmen and thinkers and professionals from all over the IJnited Staks which

is good.

t

About halfway through - I was sitting between the president of Harvard and the governor

of Massachusetts - and I turned to the president of Harvard, and it was Natc Pusey in

those days, and 1 said, "Nate, what's the program today?" Ant1 he said, "Well whenever

you want to, just get up and say anything you'd like to say." I said, "Nate, I don't even

know who to address in this group. Who do I acknowledge? Mr. Secretary, Mr. Secretary,

121

Mr. Secretary, Governor, Mr. President of European Economic - what do you do?" He said,

"Just g ~ up t and say something." So I got up and said very little, I can tell you.

Q: Well it must have been quite an experience. i

A: It really was yes.

Q: Is it going to happen again do you think?

A: Well every - this goes on every year. There's somebody who's fortunate enough to be

somebody from the twenty-fifth reunion class who's the chief marshal1 and that happens

every June. And it's still going on and they're - the problems vary. The Shah of Iran

got an honorary degree one year we were there and there were great demonstrations. 1

think it was that year as a matter of fact. It's really very interesting to see a commencement.

Q: Well now, as I understand it you were involved with the Harvard Club here in Chicago.

A: Yes. There are two separate organizations. One is the Harvard Club of Chicago which

is the college club and I was on the board of that once about, oh, twenty years ago or something

like that, maybe twenty-five years ago. And I've been on it again for the last two

or three years. The Harvard Club of Chicago is very active. It's a super club. They've

had a series of fine presidents who've done an outstanding job with it, spent a lot of time

on it. They have a lot of social events, they have a lot of intcllectual events, sponsor very

interesting programs. I can say that because I have been a very inactive board member,

I get zero credit for what's been going on, they've just done a super job with it.

Thr other organization, The Harvard Law Society of Illinois, which is the lawyers, the law

school graduates, and I was on that board and was president of that a couple of years

ago. Far less active. All it does is have a lunch once a year at which the dean of the law

school or some major professor comes out and talks, and in recent years we've had a reception

for law clerks, Harvard students who are clerking during the summer here in

Chirago. It's a rcrcption one afternoon at the Chicago Bar Association or the Yacht - probably

the Yacht Club or some place like that.

Q: Just to acquaint the community with them I guess.

A: Yes. And them with the community, to see there's older guys who've been around for

a lot of time who like (:hirag0 and who find Chicago an attractive place to practice. And

let them visit with their friends from law school that they may not have seen since they've

bccn out here. Roth successful events hut miniscule in the total scheme of operations, and

one of the things we're thinking about doing is trying to increase the activities of the Harvard

Law Society . . . of Illinois.

They have one for each state I guess then generally?

Yes yes.

And others apparently have been more active than the Illinois . . .

Most are not. Most of them aren't probably - probably they're not as big or as active

our's is. Some of them are very active. Boston and New York are probably the two

most active. The one in southern California is quite active. Northern California which is

in San Francisco is quite active. And there are others around thc country that are fairly

active. Rut it is not the fundraising arrn of the law school, it doesn't have anything to do

with the fundraising arm. I think that's a mistake and I think the fundraising activities

for IIarvard Law School which are concentrated in the Harvard Law School Fund, can be

etter served if we can get the Harvard Law Societies around the world active in it a little

bit. As a matter of fact I'm going to South Africa next month and I just wrote the Harvard

Law School Fund and asked them to tell me who the alumni are in South Africa and put

the bite on them while I'm over there.

Q: Well let's see, what about the Western Springs community when you moved to Western

Springs? Actually you just went across the street more or less I guess from . . .

A: Yes. Let me just say one more thing about Harvard Law School before we get off

it. I'm currently the national chairman of the Harvard Law School Fund. For a couple

of years before that I was Greater Chicago chairman for the fund and then last year I was

vice-chairman, national vice-chairman, and this year and I'm scheduled again next year to

be national chairman of the fund. I was Chicago chairman of the fund the same year I

was president of the Harvard Law Society. So because I had hoth jobs I could take advantage

of my position and when I was at the Harvard Law Society annual meeting I could

make a pitch for funds you know. And I think that helped a little.

Q: Oh?

A: Okay now let me get to Western Springs unless you want . . .

Q: No.

A: Okay. Let's see we moved to Western Springs about 1952 so I was about thirty years

old. And I got into the usual community activities that everybody does. You know, I collected

my block for the United Fund and ended up as the colonel of the United Fund. You

know, you have areas of the major and then a licutcnent colonel who was the - a military

setup and I ended up as the colonel one year for Western Springs.

We had a very forward looking and thinking and active and bright guy who was president

of the village in those days, a fellow by the name of Howard Knowlton, and Pat Knowlton

- Howard G. Pat Knowlton was his name - Pat was in the printing business. And he'd

been very helpful to us in our political things we've been doing, and he decided it was time

for Western Springs to have a plan commission so he asked me if I'd he chairman of the

Plan Commission, which I was, and together we picked an interesting group of people for

the Plan Commission, some of whom were very close friends of mine. We had a ten-member

cornnlission as I recall, five members who were just members of the commission and five

others who were ex officio because they were on the library board or the village board or

the zoning board of appeals or something else.

So we had a real interesting group and we came up with a plan, a Williamsburg Plan,

Williamsburg-style architecture for Western Springs. And if you go down in the village and

see the downtown area in Western Springs now, it's mostly Williamsburg-style

architecture. Wc even had a Shell gas station which was Williamsburg. It was Shell or

Texwo, I forget. We had a very friendly but a pretty good shoot out with them because

they said, "We don't put up anything but porcelain and enamel gas stations." And we said,

"Yes you do if you're going to have one in Western Springs." And they put one up and

it's very nice, blcnds right in. You know, it's got the typical red brick.

We had a lot of fun on the plan commission. One of my friends is still mad at me because

he ended up walking the sewers and he was never very happy about walking the sewers.

Q: Well! (chuckles) What was the main function of the Plan Commission? to design the

expansion of the community or what?

A: Well to have some kind of a plan for the expansion of the community, not necessarily

to promote it, hut if somebody was going to build a new store downtown, or remodel a store

downtown, to have a scheme so that you didn't have a hetcrogenous hodgepodge of junk in

the downtown area. The merchants were very cooperative with us hecause it was all to their

benefit, partly - at least partly to their benefit, to have an attractive whole community.

And I remember the guy who was chiefly in charge of that was Bud Meissner. And Rud

concocted the idea that all brick in downtown Western Springs should be titty pink

brick. (chuckles) So the whole town has turned out to be titty pink.

Oh, when a new subdivision would be developed, like Spring Dale, we would work on the

plans of Spring Dale to get as much park area as we could and to make the lots as big

as we could, working with the developer, because obviously he's not doing this as a charitable

thing, to build a community, to build a subdivision.

Q: Did you bring advisors in conlmunity planning and that sort of thing?

A: When we needed it but there were enough people around the town who were pretty knowledgcahlc,

in different areas so that we could really call on them as residents, as friends and

neighbors, to help with projects.

One of the big west suburban projects is the Western Springs Little Theater, fine little theater

out there. And nave Gooder, who was a lawyer at Lord, Rissell and Brook in Chicago,

who lived not in Wcstcrn Springs hut out there somewhere, came over to my house one

Sunday with plans for a new building for the Weqtern Springs Little Theater. And he

walked me through them and they looked fine to me, they looked great. So we showed them

to a lot ol pcoplr around and everybody seemed to approve the plans. It looked just

fine. Whatever little modifications, if any, we put in, wr - and Western Springs has now

got a great Little Theater, in the structure itself as well as the people who are doing

it. And, oh, we had a community swimming pool. We had to approve the plans for

that. Just to gcn~rally upgrade and to make sure that the growth was in a desirable way.

Q: Did you have any conflict with any of the villagers, among the villagers, about what was

being developed or decisions that were made?

A: Oh sure. All those things, you know, some people say, "Spring Dale doesn't have enough

parks" or "The streets aren't wide enough," or "you ought to have sidewalks, you can't have

a conirnunily without sidewalks, whoever heard of such a thing." Or "You've got to do something

with that terrible water tank downtown." Or "We don't want a theater in our neighborhood,

put it over in some other neighborhood." You always have things like that. But

in gcneral things went really pretty smoothly and people worked together on it and it was

a very cooperative effort. A few grouses here and there but, you know nly recollection is

not of complaints from villagers at all, it was trying t,o he fair to the developers and to

Texaco or whoever is putting in a gas station or to somebody who is remodeling a downtown

store so that you don't make it so darned expensive that it's not economically feasible for

him to do it.

Q: Did you get federal grant assistance in that sort of thing.?

A: No. Did it all ourselves.

Q: You did?

A: Yes.

Q: What was the relationship between this commission and the village board? Was there

any.. .

A: We were thcir commission. We reported to thrm. And I used to go to village board

meetings and report on what we were doing every once in a while. Or I had regular meetings

with Pat Knowlton, the president, and with other board members who were assigned

specifically to kinda work with us or keep an eye on us or whatever. But it was a very

- we had a lot of fun at the meetings and it wasn't an antagonistic situation at all. I

guess maybe things like that can be. But this wasn't. We were all trying to get to the

same place. We all wanted a good-looking village and it worked out very well.

Q: Well now you wound up on this planning commission and did you ever think of running

for the village board?

A: No I really didn't. I had so many things to do in life that I just really wasn't particularly

looking for outside activities. The things I fell into kept me pretty busy. I was very active

in politics. Let's see, I ran for county chairman of the Young Republicans. Let me go back

a step. George Hooper, whose name I believe I've mentioned, who was a year behind me

in high school and college and law school, had moved - when we finished law school lived

in Chicago and he got well acquainted with Bill Scott and some other fellows hut primarily

Bill, who were really revitalizing, raising from the dead, the Young Republican organization,

the Young Republican movement in Cook County. And George came out and talked to a

group of us about it and asked us if we would start a Lyons Township Republican Club. The

clubs were organized on a ward and township basis. And George was our organizer and

was first chairman of the Lyons Township Republican Club although he lived in Chicago. He

was raised in La Grange. And he was president for - I don't remember, a few months

or something, until we got started, and then I became the next president. And Bud Meiser,

who was on the planning commission with me, was the next president. Jim Ashley, who's

now slipped to a liberal Democrat, was the third president of it. (chuckles)

SESSION 5, TAPE 10, SIDE 2

A: We just got a bunch of guys together and really had an interesting social thing out there

really. We did everything by couples and Hoop said the only way we could ever build a

successful Young Republican Club was to have somebody be a candidate for something. And

he said, "What we have to do is get a candidate for state central committeeman," a job of

which none of us had ever heard. It turned out to be the head of the Rcpublicar, party

in a congressional district.

So we had a nominating committee and they nominated me to run for state central

committeeman. So I ran for state central committeeman. Pat Knowlton did all our printing

and wrote half our brochures and, oh, we had a grrat hig heck ol a fight with thc old

incumbent who was one of the old guard Republican members of the state central

committee. And in those days there were ten townships and two wards in that one congressional

district. And the incumbent committeeman, a fellow by the name of A1 Becker, was

from the Ninth Ward, and A1 heat me handily. Wc carried Rich Township and Lyons

Township. We had a lot of fervor and very fcw votes except in those two townships. Rich

Township was Park Forest and we had a lot of law school friends out there and a lot of

young people. And we did real well in those two townships. Of course we had no money

except a hundred dollars that people kept contributing to us and we didn't have any money

of our own. But out of that came a pretty strong Young Republican organization in Lyons

Township.

Q: And the whole idea was to not defeat the regular organization but to build the Young

Republicans?

A: Well that would be an overstatement, Horace. We really wanted to do what we could

as young people to huild the Republican party. As a matter of fact the first meeting we

had we all kind of sat around and said, "What are we, Republicans or Ilemocrats?" And

somebody said, "Well geez, I votrd for Adlai Stevenson for governor and Paul Douglas for

senate in the last election, but I think I voted for all the other Republicans." And we wcnt

around the room and we had all done kind of the same thing. Almost all of us had voted

for Douglas and Stevenson but we voted for Republicans - if we voted for a Republican

down the line, that must mean we're Republicans and if the Republicans would ever put

up good guys at the top, we'd vote for them. So it was more than just to build an

organization. We wanted to get an effective voice on the state central committee where

George Hooper said, "You've got to have an effective voice." 1 don't mean to say we were

just doing it solely for our own local purposes. You know, we had idealism and stars in

our eyes about doing something for the Republican party.

But right after that Bill Scott and George Hooper decided I should be county chairman of

the Young Republicans. And so they got me elected. I didn't know anybody. As a matter

of fact the first meeting I went to, of the board of the Cook County Young Republicans,

I went to as chairman. I didn't even know a lot of the people. I'd never been to a board

meeting. It happened to be just before the national convention at which Taft and

Eisenhower were thc two contenders. And George Hooper, the guy who got me into it, was

an Eisenhower guy. But there were a lot of conservative people who were for Taft in the

Young Republicans. And the first order of business after we had shaken hands around the

room, somebody said, "I move we meet Mrs. Taft at the train station or the airport, wherever

she's coming. in, with a bunch of roses." "Second." "Carried." George Hooper said, "I

move we meet Mrs. Eisenhower at the train station with a hunch of

roses." Seconded. Didn't pass. Hooper was so mad he got up and walked out of the

room. I went flying after him. I said, "You son of a gun. You got me into this. Now

I don't even know those people in there. Get back in there. You can't walk out on me." So

that was - anyway there was a little friction in those days between those - even in-house.

We all wanted to get into the Republican organization as precinct captains or

whatever. And there was an old guard committeeman who simply would not let us in, for

whatever his reasons. So I finally got a precinct, not the one I lived in but another

one. And in 1954 there were two or three of us who were captains but that was all. So

in 1954 we decided we'd run a candidate for township committeeman. And they asked me

to run, and I said, "I don't want to run. If I run, it's going to look like we're doing this

all for George Burditt, and I just don't want that to happen, so I'm not going to run,

period." And I then joined the committee that was doing the nominating and we nominated

Terrel Clarke. And we won. I was his campaign manager. Our house was the

headquarters. I didn't see the piano for three months, it was covered with literature. We

had meetings at our house every Sunday right after church. Guys came with their wives,

it was a couples organization. We had area captains and precinct captains and maybe my

military training helped me hut we had things really pretty well

organized. (chuckles) And we won the election.

Q: Now this was for committeeman?

L

A: This was township committeeman, yes, in 1954. We always had as president in those

days one of the older gentlemen who had been a financial advisor to us. We were all thirty

you know so we didn't want to be - we thought it was a little young so we always had

- the businessmen were a big help to us, and lawyers and professional men and they were

contributing and we always picked one of those fellows as president. And 1 served as executive

vice-president which was really the job that ran the organization you know, helped pick

the precinct captains and everything like that.

I SESSION 6, TAPE 11, SIDE 1

I

Q: Okay I'd like to drop back a bit. We kind of took off arunning yesterday at the end

there. T'd like to drop back to 1948, that summer you said you stayed in Berwyn and prepared

for the bar. What review course did you take at that time?

A: I took the Hardy course. That was really a lost summer, Horace. It was a terrible time

of life. In those days we worked full-time. And I was working out at the stockyards and

my recollection is that something like four nights a week and all day Saturday we had the

bar review course. And it lasted substantially the whole summer. And, you know, what little

time you had off like Sundays you simply had to study to get ready for the bar

exam. Nowadays anybody in a law firm who is taking the bar exam, you give them a half

a day off, and a week or two before they may take the whole time off. People are softer

now than they were in the old days, you know that. (chuckles) But it sure was a terrible

lost summer.

Q: What did you think of the Hardy review course? Did it really benefit you?

A: Oh sure. No question about it. A bar exam of course is necessarily aimed very much

at local law, the law of that state. And when you go to a national law school like Harvard

and like a lot of othcr law schools, you don't really learn much about the law of a particular

state. You're learning general principles and how to think and you know a lot of things

like that and a lot of case law, but you're not learning the law of a particular state, particularly

statutes from that state. So a bar review course is really almost essential and the

Hardy course was an excellent one. It had the reputation of being the best one then and

it was essential to take it.

Q: Did you take the bar exam here or in . . .

A: No here, I took it here.

Q: How did you feel about it - when you'd finished did you feel that you were going to

have a job out at Swift?

A: Well I - I had the job before I took the bar exam. And you don't really discuss it as

to whether you keep your job if you don't pass the bar. You know you've got to take the

bar again. Fortunately I passed it so I didn't have to worry about that. I passed it and

was admitted to practice in January 1949. So see, I got out of law school in June, took the

bar exam probably in . . . I don't remember, October probably, September, October, sometime

like that. And then heard about it and was sworn in right after thc first of January.

Q: Were you sworn in at Springfield?

A: Yes. We went down to Springfield to be sworn in.

Q: The Supreme Court Building I believe.

A: Right. Isn't that funny, I don't remember where we were. I think maybe we were -

might have been in the Armory. Rut I don't remember. It could have been the Supreme

Court Building. Nowadays it's a little different. There are so many new lawyers now that

we swear them in at Aeirie Crown Theater at McCormick Place.

Q: Well then, let's see now you spent that summer living in Berwyn and then you went

through thc homes that you had moved to in La Grange and then over to Western Springs.

A: Right.

Q: Do you recall any thoughts concerning the elections of 1948? I believe you indicated you

had voted for Stevenson and Douglas at that time.

A: Right. Truman was the Democratic candidate. And I guess Dewey was the Republican

candidate. Is that right'! do you remember?

3

Q: The one who won almost.

A: Yes, well yes, the Tribune had him winning. And of course I was really not very active

in that campaign because of the bar exam. Almost up to the day of the election we were

working pretty hard so we didn't even have time much to think about politics before that

bar exam.

Q: But you did vote that year?

A: Oh I'm sure I voted, and I'm sure I voted for Dewey, and whoover the Republican candidates

were down the line. I don't really remember too much about that one.

Q: Did you have a feeling at that time that you were absolutely a Republican?

A: Oh I guess maybe I thought I was a Republican all along. My mother and dad were

Democrats when I was a little kid. And when the New Deal came along my dad switched

over and from then on he was a die-hard Republican, very much anti-New Deal. My mother

was very much of an idealist and was a great fan of Eleanor Roosevelt's and I have a hunch

that probably my mother voted for Roosevelt all four terms, I think my dad, I'm sure, voted

for him the first couple of terms. But I'm not sure whether he did later on or not. I would

expect probably not.

Q: So you kind of went with his way of thinking then and . . .

A: Yes. Well I don't remember that we had any great philosophical discussions about politics,

about what I should think. They didn't try to lead me or guide me or anything. We

talked about it and my dad expressed his views. I know he thought Felix Frankfurter was

a wildeyed liheral on the Supreme Court, which in those days I guess maybe he was. But

of course as times have gone now, Frankfurter looks like one of the more conservative judges.

Q: Well then while you were still in La Grange before you moved over to Western Springs

had you started thinking then about getting involved in politics in any way?

A: Yes. Yes, see, that was - let's see, we lived in Berwyn for the last half of 1948 and

then we moved down to the Homestead Apartments probably in 1949. We lived there for

a couple of years and jazzed through the bar exam. So all I had was my job plus other

things I started to get into, and politics through the Young Republicans that George Hooper

got us started on was one of the things we were doing. We spent a lot of time on it, yes,

in La Grange before we moved over to Western Springs.

Q: Now as I understand it, the Lyons Township Young Republicans started really working

in 1951. So that would have been a little later than . . .

A: Well I think it was maybe a little before that that George Hooper started - it was probably

in - earlier than that - probably . . . well Hoop probably started - he was in the

class of 1949 at IIarvard. So he was a year behind. Now my gucss is we probably got

started in 1950. He was probably president in 1950 or something like that and I was in

1951,1952, something like that. It could have been 1951. I don't remember, 1950 or 1951.

Q: Yes sir. In 1950 there was a campaign, the house of representatives would have been

up again for it. Do you recall at all Mrs. Van der Vries who was representive at that time?

A: Sure, very well. The two representatives from that district were Bernice Van der Vries

and Art Sprague. Art Sprague lived in La Grange. And of course Bcrnice Van der Vries

was a highly regarded person, enormously respected. I don't remember that we did any great

deal of work for them. They didn't need it. The suburbs were so Republican in those days

that Bernice and Art Sprague were inevitable winners. Art Bidwill I think was probably

the state senator from that same district. It was an enormous district that ran all around

the city of Chicago from Lake Michigan on the north clear around the Indiana border on

the south.

Q: Well let's see now - there would have been - the mayor election of 1951 I guess would

have been Merriam and Kennelly, was it, at that time?

A: Probably. I remember the year that Bob Merriam ran. But we lived in the suburbs

and I was working out in the stockyards until 1951 and really didn't get involved in Chicago

politics at all.

I

Q: Now in 1950 you became a precinct captain. Do you recall when you first thought, "Gosh,

I ought to be a precinct captain," and started after that position?

A: Oh I think probably when George Hooper was talking to us about getting the Young

Republicans started and said that we ought to be a precinct captain. You know, in Cook

County the precinct captains are appointed by the township committeeman, or ward committeeman

in Chicago, whereas in downstate of course they're elected. So it wasn't a matter

of running for anything. You went to see the committeeman and to see if he needed a precinct

captain somewhere. As a matter of fact the precinct where I was a precinct captain

for the first time was not the precinct in which I lived. We lived at 601 S. 10th which is

in the southeast corner of La Grange and Frank Kriz, our township committeeman, assigned

me to a precinct on the west side of La Grange which was a very good precinct.

I rememher the first time I was there that we were counting the votes after the polls had

closed. And one of the Republican judges beckoned me over in the corner and she said,

"Did you see the vote in this election?" And I don't know - the vote was something like

300 to eleven or something like that, 300 Republicans, eleven 1)ernocrats. And I said, "Yes

I sure did." And she said, "Have we had a lot of new people move into this precinct?"

Q: Eleven, huh? (chuckles)

A: Those are the good old days.

Q: Yes sir. How did you go about being a precinct captain? Did someone instruct you in

what you were supposed to do?

A: No there was virtually no instruction from the Republican organization. It was run by

a bunch of older gentlemen who had no interest in or ability to train people. It was a really

defunct organization run by guys most of whom had political jobs of one kind or another. It

was not a volunteer organization. It had no esprit de corps. It had no idealogical or philosophical

goals or motives. It had nothing to do except keep jobs for the few precinct captains

they had. That's a little overstatement obviously, there were some dedicated people

in it. But for the most part it was people who were benefiting from the Republican party

or from government in some way, through jobs or through patronage or through contracts

or something like that.

Q: Did you feel at a loss as to what to do? or how did you go about . . .

A: Well what I did, I started talking to some of the ladies who lived in the precinct and

I got a block captain for every block and one of the ladies, who was kind of an assistant

precinct captain, we had coffee at her house on a Sunday afternoon for all the block workers

and I gave them all the literature. Many of them were friends I'd known, having lived in

La Grange from the time I was two, you see 1 knew an awful lot of people. And I picked

people I knew to be block captains. And very great cooperation. We had a real good precinct

organization. It wasn't hard to do, it was just a matter of getting people who were

willing to cover the houses in their block.

Q: And by doing that you mean for the purpose of getting them to election?

A: Right. Getting them to vote. And selling them on who they should vote for. You

know, it was not like a Chicago organization where you've got a precinct captain whose job

depends on his personally covrring the precinct. And they do a superb job of covering the

precincts, those fellows and ladies. Ours didn't work that way. I didn't want to spend the

time going door-to-door in that precinct. I was trying to do my bit to help democracy work

by getting the Republirans well organized and I could do that best by getting other people

to do it. So with one meeting on a Sunday, maybe a couple of meetings and some follow-up

phone calls and distributing the literature, I could do the job that a precinct captain in

Chicago would do in weeks of solid work. And I'm sure he'd do a better job than I would,

but that was as much as I, or any of our precinct captains, would be willing to devote. And

that was really the theory on which we built the Republican organization after we beat

Frank Kriz and took over as the Republican organization.

Q: Now it was kind of the purpose then of the Young Republicans to liven up the organization

there.

A: Yes. Exactly, yes. And to get some idealism and some interesting meetings, instead of

talking about jobs we went in and talked about philosophical subjects or political

subjects. We'd have speakers come out, usually leading political lcaders or other people to

come and talk to us. Or we'd put on programs of our own.

Q: Let's see now, in 1952 then you went through the state central committeeman

campaign. What kind of campaign did you run? How did you organize to try to be elected

in that situation?

A: Well, in the first place we were starting from scratch. So we were unhampered by any

organization anywhere. (chuckles) I went around and made speeches. For example I went

to the Rich Township League of Women Voters meeting in Park Forest, or one of the towns

in Rich Township, which is one of t h southeast ~ townships in Cook County, and after the

mrcting was over a young couple about our age came up to me and said, "You sound like

a breath of fresh air. We've never heard of you, but we'd like to work for you. What can

we do for you in Rich Township?'' So I said, "Have a coffee at your house and invite all

your friends and let me come give a pitch to them." And that happened to be a couple

by the name of Claire and Rend Hanson, who since then have become very good friends

of ours. They've both been enormously active in all kinds of things.

Kene' is currently . . . chairman of, I think, one of the committees of the League of Women

Voters. She's been very active in the League. She is vice-chairman, I believe, of the Judicial

Inquiry Board. She's been in all kinds of civic and governmental activities. Her husband,

Claire, is president of a company that's a corporate consultant company. They do an

excellent job and Claire's also been very active in civic and governmental Republican

politics. They're both very competent people, business people, really donating a major part

of their lives to help make democracy work.

Q: But they couldn't work hard enough to get you to be the state central committeeman.

A: No. They carried Rich Township though.

Q: Oh they did?

A: Yes. Which was very good. You know, that's - when we got into it, we knew it would

be a terrible uphill battle to win. And you know, we all had jobs, we were all working. We

couldn't spend anything like full time on it. But we carried Lyons Township overwhelmingly

and we carried Rich Township by a good margin too. But any time you're running. up

against the regular organization, whether it's Republican or Democrat, you've got a real uphill

hattle.

we just simply did it Iny - we went around and talked to all the newspapers. Anytime anybody

asked me to come and give a speech, I'd go, or one of my friends would go speak for

me if I had a conflict. So it was a very interesting campaign. We got a lot of literature

out, brochures and you know we just . . .

Q: How did you design the literature? Did you get involved yourself in the . .' .

A: Well Pat Knowlton, who was the village president in Western Springs, is one who really

helped us with it. He was a very good man with words. He was in the printing business

as I mentioned and he did a lot of it himself and he had somebody at his office that he

could get to do some art work. And we had other people who were doing it. We had a

fellow who was a statistician who worked for Swift who did all our statistical analyses on

where we needed to get the votes and to show how it was feasible. And we had fundraising

meetings at the La Grange Country Cluh and other places and asked people to

contribute. We had to show credibility. And we had a bright bunch of people working in

the campaign who didn't have any personal ax to grind, none of them had political jobs,

they were all people who just wanted to do a good job for the Republican party.

Q: Did you have any particular conflict with the regular organization during the campaign?

A: Oh sure, regular - regular conflict. Ideological conflict you know. Our whole thrust

was that they weren't doing anything and that Major Becker, who was the incumbent, had

made no significant contribution to the Republican party of any kind. He was not a

leader. He was a political johholder who was beholden to whoever he happened to be working

for at the time, he had no independent thought and leadership he could bring to the

Republican party. And if you're going to have leaders, you've got to have people who can

be independent and who can in fact take a leadership role rather than be subservient to

somebody else. That was the ideological difference in the campaign. We debated that all

over.

G):

Well how did he respond to that?

A: Oh, "I'm the voice of experience. All these young men are misled and misguided and

I don't know what their motives are but they don't really know what they're talking

about. I'm the one who's been here forever," and, "Look at all my frirnds who have been

here forever," and you know. It was the classic entrenched organization against the revolutionaries.

Q: The Young Turks.

A: Yes, exactly, yes.

Q: Well. Then in 1952 was kind of a big year there. You had that campaign early and

then that's when you became chairman of the Cook County Young Republicans.

A: Right, right.

Q: Where did they generally meet? They wouldn't meet in La Grange or . . ,

A: No. The - well the Cook County Young Repuhlican organization was composed of representatives

of the ward and township organizations. So Lyons Township had one vote in the

Cook Cour1t.y Young Republican organization. The Cook County board meetings took place

in Chicago always at the Bismarck Hotel regularly or someplace like that. The board rneetings

were always downtown and the convention was always downtown. But I spent a lot

of time going around to ward and township meetings that year after I was elected. One

of the things that the county chairman was expected to do was to go to the Nineteenth Ward

when the Nineteenth Ward Young Republican organization had a meeting. So I spent a lot

of time driving around to those meetings.

Q: As chairman of the county organization, you were also involved with the state organization,

were you not?

A: Not per se. There was a separate organization called the Young Republican Organization

of Illinois and we worked closely together. And Fred Leydig and Sam Young were thc sue-

-

cessive Cook County chairman and president I guess it was called. The state organization

was set up so that one year the chairman would be from downstate and the president from

Cook County and the next year reversed. We worked closely together on things.

In the 1952 national convention the Republicans were making a big show of trying to bring

young people into the organization. The state convention was about to be held - of the

regular Republican organization - and in those days, at that time, the state convention

nominated ten delegates and ten alternate delegates to the national convention. And this

great manifestation of support for young people and bringing young peoplc into the party

resulted in the nominating committee nominating one young Republican for alternate delegate,

which we thought was kind of shortchanging the Young Republicans and going back

on what Eisenhower had been saying about bringing young people into the party. The alternate

delegate was Sam Young.

A group of us got together and decided this wasn't right. We had to have more than

one. So I was nominated to go and talk to Senator Dirksen who was chairman of the nominating

committee. So I went in and I gave Senator Dirksen my firmest pitch on young

people being in there and having at least one delegate and probably an alternate or two

you know. And of course I didn't get much of anywhere with Senator LXrksen but I really

gave him the full pitch. I saw I wasn't getting anywhere and I said, "Well, Senator, I really

want to tell you that my instructions are that if the nominating committee doesn't nominate

Sam Young fur delegate, not just alternate, my instructions are to get up from the floor

and nominate him from the floor." And Dirksen cocked his head over on one side - you

know, the way he always talked - and got this faraway very senatorial look on his face

and he said, "Young man, I wouldn't do that." And of course I didn't. (chuckles) We

decidcd we wouldn't do it. And we would have had a hard time doing it anyway because

they controlled the podium of course and I never would have gotten recognized.

Q: Now this was the state convention.

A: This was the state convention.

Q: And you attended in 1952?

A: Oh yes.

Q: And it was held where that year?

A: Horace, I haven't the slightest idea. Maybe . . . maybe Peoria.

Q: That's in the back of my mind, in 1952.

A: I do remember an incident that occurred and it could have been at that time. Barbara

was with me and we were in an unair-conditioned hotel. You know, a lot of hotels wcren't

air conditioned in 1952. And it was hotter than heck. And I remember 1 went over - we

were going to bed and I went over and I opened the window and turned around to go back

to bed and the window closed of its own weight. So I went around to open it and I saw

it was going to fall so I got a wire paperhanger and I propped the wire paperhanger to hold

the window up. And I turned around to walk back to bed and I got about halfway across

from the window and the wire paperhanger came zinging across the room because the weight

of the window just shot it out of there. (chuckles) So I went back again and I very carefully

wedged it in so there was no way it could get out of there and jokingly I turned around

and ran across the room and dove over the foot of the bed. The bed cover was over the

foot of the bed. And I came crashing down flat on the bed. Everything was fine except

that I didn't realize there was a footboard across the foot of that and my shins came down

across that hoard and god, I thought I'd broken both legs. I think it was Peoria.

Q: I see. (laughter) A vivid remembrance.

A: Yes. It was about that time.

I

Q: What do you remember about the convention, the attendance of it?

A: I don't remcmber anything at all except we talked about trying to get Sam Young

nominated. And we had a lot of meetings down there to decide what to do but I really

don't remember anything more than that. I don't remember that I had any substantive input,

except as chairman of the Cook County delegation of Young Republicans. But that was

about all.

Q: You don't remember any meetings of the Young Republicans there?

I

A: No. I don't. We may have had them but, you know, conventions like that turn out to

he as much party as anything else. Plus internal politicking wit,h guys wandering around

from room to room where there were parties going on, and drinking and politicking were

necessary. And all thc candidates coming around and shaking hands and urging that county

or that township or whatever to support him for whatever the job was. I don't remember

there was any major serious business to transact other than things like that.

Q: Do you recall meeting any particular dignitaries in the Republican party at that

time? You said you talked with Dirksen.

A: Horace, I don't. Obviously as chairman of the Cook County Young Republicans I was

in meetings with them all year long. But the leaders of the Republican party - I don't

remember any particular incidents with anybody.

Q: Well, you started off the year kind of fighting against the party but then later on you

joined the regular organization in the campaigns I guess for the elections in the fall.

A: Oh yes.

Q: You were vice-chairman of the Illinois Citizens for Eisenhower. Now, how did you go

about becoming vice-chairman?

A: I'd forgotten I was until you just said it. (chuckles)

Q: Oh?

A: I was vice-chairman of the Illinois Citizens for Eisenhower. Is that right? Very

interesting. Well I can't answer how I got it. George IIooper was chairman of the Youth

for Eisenhower. And his now-wife was cochairman or vice-chairman. That's where they

met. And I don't remember - yes, George - George Fry was maybe the state

chairman. There were two George's, George Pry and another George who was a very competent

guy, who were the state rhairmen for Eisenhower. And 1 don't know - I guess one

of them may have asked me to be vice-chairman, probably because I was chairman of the

Cook County organization. And I guess I did it. I had forgotten I was.

Q: You don't recall any particular activity in that regard then.

A: No. I'm sure that I pushed Eisenhower as much as I could at every point. And of course

after the convention when Eisenhower was nominated, there was a pretty good unity within

the party to support Eisenhower. There were still some Taft diehards who believed as 1

did that Senator Taft was an absolutely terrific man, one of the brightest guys we've ever

had in govwnmcnt. But in spite of that I was for Eisenhower, and I think most people

were. Well obviously the voters were and I think even within the regular Republican

organization. There was some recalcitrance by the Taft pcople as there always is from ultraconservative

people to join with somebody who's not ultraconservative. But it wasn't too

significant.

SESSION 6, TAPE 11, SIDE 2

Q: Well let's see now, for the fall election then, apparently you became campaign manager

for the Lyons Township Republican organization. I>o you recall any particular activity as

campaign manager?

A: How did you know - where did you get all this?

Q: This came from the Chicago Tribune as a matter of fact.

A: Oh is that right? Okay. No, I'd forgotten that too. (chuckles) I guess by that time

Frank Kriz had rcalized that we had a pretty active hunch of Young Republicans and had

asked us to work in the campaign because he didn't have anybody who'd do it. And I don't

remernhcr what I did, but I presume it was pretty much the same thing that I talked about

in the precinct, first of all to try to get pr~cinct captains everywhcre. Second, where we

couldn't get a precinct captain, as is always the case in some precincts in Summit or Krookfield

or some plarrs like that, recruit a crew of Young Republicans to go out there the week

bcforc election. Or maybe one of them, even though he lived in a different part of the township,

take over as captain, do his own recruiting, go door-to-door, work with the other precinct

captains and make sure they get the literature distributcd and make sure they've got

the judges of election on election day and that the paraphernalia for the election is all there

on election morning, that kind of thing.

Q: Mrs. Van der Vries at one time, up in the Evanston or Winnetka area around through

there, found that s h had ~ t,o help the Democrats because they didn't have anybody up there

to h~ precinct captains and that sort of thing. Did you do any organizing of the Democrats

so that they would have some representation?

A: No I don't remember that we did help - we didn't help them organize. We may have

hrlprd them once in a while to get a judge of election. I - I don't rcmcmher whether there

were three or five judges of election. My r~coll~ction is that there were only three. At least

one had to be Democrat. And in some precincts they just had a heck of a time finding

somebody. We would help them in places like that. Or mayb~ get a ltepublican at the last

minute to fill in because one gimmick for delaying the start of the opening of a poll is, "You

don't have enough judges.'' And if you delay that fifteen minutes, the people who are on

their way to the train don't wait in the suburbs, so you've got to have that precind ready

to open and go to work at six o'clock. And if that means you've got to draft the first person

in to he a judgr, you draft the first person in to be a judge.

Q: Well!

A: If you can: And try to get him or her to stay there until you can get somebody else

to take over. Rut we would help in that sense. But we were really helping ourselves more

than the Democrats.

Q: Well let's see, after that election year of 1952, in 1953 I guess Stratton was pushing -

I don't know the real genesis of the idea, but for a reapportionment. And there were some

other things which required constitutional change.

A: Right.

Q: And you became chairman of the Legislative Reapportionment Committee. This was

within the Committee on Constitutional Revision. Do you recall that situation?

A: Yes. I had mentioned earlier that enormous representative district and senatorial district

that went all the way around the suburbs which had a populat,ion of about a million

people. Pete Granata's district, I believe it was, on the west side of Chicago, a small Wcst

Side Bloc district, had a population - my recollection is something like thirty thousand

people. Yet they both had three representatives and one senator in Springfield. So thcre

was a classic case of failure of the reapportionment system. And now of course something

like that wouldn't be tolerated for a minute. The Supreme Court would rule that out of

whack summarily. Now even if you get as much as a couple of percent difference between

the districts, the courts will knock it out as invalid.

But there were two ways to go about it. One was in the court system, which would have

been a long costly hattle and another one was to have a reapportionment amendment to

the Illinois Constitution. And the powers that be opted for the latter course. And I got

into that in - oh, several ways. One was through the Jaycees, the Chicago Junior Association

of Commerce and Industry. And I was chairman of the Reapportionment Committee

of the Jaycees. Now the committee that you mentioned, 1 don't - was that a Chicago Bar

Association committee?

Q: I'm not sure. It was a committee on constitutional revision and I'm not sure what the

parent organization was.

A: Well thcre was - there was a citizens' committee. I guess maybe this Committee on

Constitutional Revision - I guess that was it. Maybe Sam Witwer . . .

I

i

Q: Yes 1 believe Witwer was in charge.

A: Sam was chairman, okay. Sam Witwer was chairman of that and Sam and I got to be

very good friends. And Sam asked me to chair it. I don't remember the details of it at

all except that through that comrnittee and through the Jaycees, I did a lot of work on the

reapportionment. For example we were trying to find dramatic ways in which we could

illustrate the disparity in the districts. And a bar chart was one that we came up

with. And I remember the first draft of that bar chart I did on a piece of yellow paper

in my office. I just sat there and drew out the - on a graph size - you know, estimating

the size, and my God, it really made a difference. If you'd get one district that's - what?

thirty-five times as hig as another district, the bar is thirty-five times as long, it makes quite

a difference. And especially when you put in some of the middle ones that show about where

you ought to be.

And a fellow in the Standard Oil law department, a very good friend of mine by the name

of Bob Frick, Bob and I worked out those charts together working on reapportionment on

both committees, both in the Jaycees and in Sam's committee. We wrote canncd spccchcs

for pcoplc and put together some other illustrative material and we had these bar charts

madr up on big, oh, three-feet by four-foot cardboards you know so we could show what

they were, and distributed them all over the state through t h Cornmittce ~ on Constitutional

Revision and helped in that campaign. Obviously very much needed and the constitutional

amendment was carried by the voters in the electorate. This was voting at the election and

everybody in the state could vote on it.

Q: In 1954, the referendum.

A: Right yes.

Q: One thing that occurred there, and I've asked this in each interview series, when the constitutional

change was formulated there were, I guess you'd call them Chinese walls or something,

there was supposed to be a Chicago area, an area of Cook County outside of Chicago,

and then the rest of downstate.

A: Right.

Q: And there was to be no overlapping of districts between those.

A: Right.

Q: Do you recall anything about that idea, or how it developed?

A: Well that was in one of the constitutional provisions. It was in the old Constitution as

I recall too. And it was then just incorporated in, I don't remember the inception of it. I

would guess probably it was purely political. There isn't any mathematical rationale for

it. Clearly it runs counter to mathematical rationale to draw arbitrary lines like

that. Arbitrary lines like that are now clearly unconstitutional. There's a lot of cases that

say they're unconstitutional. It couldn't be done now.

I expect that it was probably a matter of political expediency that the people in the suburbs

were afraid that the gerrymandering would result in pieces of the suburbs hcing gobbled

up by dominant Chicago areas in their districts. And that's precisely what's

happened. People were afraid that suburban districts would be cut up badly, as they were

under the reapportionment subsequently that Bob Blair engineered when he was Speaker

of the house when Dick Ogilvie was governor. It was a terrible disservice to the Republican

party. Thc major townships were all split up. My township for examplc, Lyons Township,

was in four different representative districts. Well you know that dilutes your power

enormously. And every single one of the major townships in the suburban area was cut

up likr that. Thc result was, you know, the township committeemen lost a great deal of

their power. And the whole thing was engineered by Bob Blair who was the Republican

Speaker of the house. I never could understand why he did it or why Ogilvie countenanced

it or enpjnetlrrd it himself.

Q: Well of course the first crisis as a result of that was in 1965 and the redistricting then.

A: Right.

Q: And that's when the overlapping was allowed to slip back in. But what I haven't been

able to find is anyone who knows anything about the discussion or the development of the

idea, "Okay, the Constitution should have this in it.'' And you say you think that perhaps

it was there bcfnrr and it was just allowed to continue.

A: Well I would have said it was there before and was allowed to continue. The only thing

that shakes me a little bit, I'm not sure that the district that Bernice and Art Sprague had

was the entire suburban area. I think maybe it was the entire suburban area. Was it? Do

you happrn to remember?

Q: Yes sir.

A: Well if it was, then it was probably in that earlier Constitution and this was a carry-over

and any time you're amending a constitution you want to make as few amendments as possible

because you tend to accumulate the opposition the more changes you make. And it

would be a lot easier to sell to a suburbanite that, "You've got your own district, you've

got your own area and you will have X number of representative districts in your area and

Chicago will never be able to take over from you, nor will downstate coming the other

way." And similarly, downstaters could be told, "You're not going to be encroached by

suburban areas." So that it makes political sense to draw the lines. It just makes no legal

sense now. It's totally illegal now. Horace, let me digress.

Q: Yes.

A: If you have done an oral history on anybody in the state of Illinois it ought to be Sam

Witwer. I can't tell you that too strongly. He was the chairman of the Constitutional

Convention of 1970. He was known as Mr. Constitution. He was the Republican candidate

for the United States Senate in 1960. And Sam is even older than I am. He was the Republican

candidate for the Senate twenty-three years ago. I don't know how old Sam is but

he's probably in his seventies somewhere. And I would highly recommend to you that if

you're ever going to get a guy who knows about government in Illinois, Sam Witwer's the

guy. Has thcre been any talk about that, do you know?

Q: Well not in this program of course.

A: Why not?

Q: Because he wasn't in the legislature at any time?

I

A: Do you have to be in the legislature to be qualified?

Q: For this program yes.

A: Oh do you? Now Mandeville wasn't in the legislature but you did him. What did he

do?

Q: Well that was the governor's program. That was a different program you see.

A: He was in the Constitutional Convention. That ought to qualify him.

Q: Well yes. (chuckles) I agree thoroughly that Samuel Witwer is an import'ant one. Bert

Jenner I think was another one. I don't know whether he's still living.

A: He is and just as active as ever and so is Sam. But both of those gentlemen are well

along in years and I just highly recommend that you get to those guys. Maybe sometime

when we're not on the record you and I could talk about what I can do to promote

that. (makes note)

Q: Okay. (pause) Okay. When did you first meet Sam Witwer?

!

A: Well it must have been in the middle 1950's. He was - my recollection is that he was

chairman of the Constitutional Committee oC the Chicago Bar Association. I was on that

committee.

Q: Oh?

A: And that could be where I met him. I know that in 1959 five or six of his very close

friends decided that he would be a very logical candidate for the United States Senate. And

George McKibbin and an advertising man by the name of Nate Jacobs, of Uozell and Jacobs,

and Nab's nephew and Nate's son, Tony and Tild~n Chmmings, who was the CEO [Chief

Exrrutive Officer1 of Continental Bank I think (looks in book) and . . . one or two others,

and I met every week, every Wednesday for example, for lunch for a year to organize Sam's

campaign, to figure how wc could get him the nomination first of all and then second, having

gotten the nomination, how to get him elected. And we werr just a kind of a kitchen cabinet

for Sam. And I was the secretary of that group. You know, I was the junior birdman,

these gentlemen were all older than I was. I was the kid and I kept all the minutes and

you know those minutes would be an interesting thing to go back and take a look at right

now. I haven't the slightest idea where they are but they might be down in my hasement

or so~nrwhere. A lot of junk like that is.

Q: Yes, it wasn't in your papers in the Illinois State Historical Library.

A: No I'm sure it wouldn't have been. That was something I probably would have kept

around. (Pausc) Sam must be about - he got out of college fourteen years ahead of me

so he's got to be seventy-four.

Q:Yes that's one of the problems with oral history, people get older too

fast. (chuckles) Well let's see, going back to that - now you had the Legislative Reapportionment

Committee for that change. Now there were three other things that they were

working on at that time that went in on the referendum. One was the amendment to the

judicial article. Ilo you recall anything about that arncndment?

A: I don't except that I know it was one of the four. There's been a long history in Illinois

of attempts to try to improve the quality of the judiciary. And there have been different

ways that people have gone about it. One is to take judges out of politics; don't gct them

elected, get them appointed. Total appointment as the federal systcm is. But Ihey're are

a lot of steps short of that. Where a judge once elected runs against his record. He doesn't

run against somebody from the other party, so it removes partisanship from the retention,

that's the system we have now. And there have been a lot of difierent suggestions for -

maybe the trial judges are chosen by one system and the appellate judges by another system

and the Supreme Court judges by another system.

There have been disputes over what geographical areas should be represented on the

court. Right now we've got . . . three from Cook County and four from downstate on the

Supreme Court. Or is it the other way? I think it's three from Cook County and four from

downstatr. But that hasn't always been true and just - I don't remember what the particular

judicial article was at that time hut they've been - there is a committee still working

on it, the Committee on Modern Courts. And it's been a very frustrating thing for people

who were trying to improve the judiciary and the judicial system.

Q: Did you know Edward Saltiel at that time? He was very much up to his ears in the

judicial amendments.

A: Sure. I did. Yes I knew Ed very well. Ed's . . . cousin or hrother, I forgrt which, was

thc first pr~sident and founder of the Chicago Jaycees so I knew both the Saltiel's fairly

well. They wertJ of course a generation ahead of me pretty murh hut Ed Sttltiel was very

active in those campaigns. He was on the Committee for Constitutional Revision and was

working - he might have been the chairman of the Judiciary Committee of that. Wasn't

Ed in the state senate for a while?

Q: Oh yes.

A: Yes sure.

Q: Yes.

138

I

A: Before my time, before I was down there but yes.

Q: Right. Well at this time he had left down there as a matter of fact and was - he lobbied

there for the judicial amendment up to 1962.

A: Yes.

I

Q: Another one of those items was the attempt to change the treasurer's tenure from two

to four years. Did you get involved with that one at all?

A: Only peripherally. You know, the speeches that we wrote for the reapportionment

amendment would always have an optional sentence recommending yes or no, I think yes

on all of the other three. What was the fourth one?

Q: The fourth one was to permit the sale of the Illinois-Michigan Canal.

A: Yes, oh yes, yes yes yes. Geez, I'd forgotten. That was a long time ago, Horace. I'm

sorry to tell you a lot of water's passed down the Illinois-Michigan Canal since then.

Q: Well it doesn't go too far now. (laughter) It's pretty locked up in spots.

A: Yes. That's right. Yes yes.

Q: What about in 1954 in that election when the referendum was coming up did you take

action then to tout for these changes in the . . .

A: For the legislative amendment, yes, for the reapportionment amendment. I gave a lot

of speechcs, organized speakers' bureaus, that was my job as chairman of that Legislative

Committee. We had speaker's kits and you know if the League of Women Voters wanted

speakers, we'd send them out. And I did a lot of that myself, gave speeches myself. I

milked that bar chart to a fare-thee-well.

Q: Oh? Were most of your speeches in this area or did you go downstate at any time?

A: I don't remember going downstate. I think maybe I did once or twice but I don't really

- 1 don't remember. It wasn't a big deal. My area was primarily Cook County and that's

where I was talking. I was talking mostly in the suburban area. Rut jurisdictionally I

guess I had the whole state.

Q: Of course downstate was the ones that perhaps wanted to change the least. Do you

remember any discussions with any downstaters at that time?

A: No I don't. But I'm sure there were a lot of thcm. Elbert Smith was involved in some

of those campaigns. And I'm not sure - did you do the oral history of Elbert?

Q: Yes. L

A: Did he mention being involved in that? I think he might have been. I don't remember.

Q: I don't recall that particular - he was involved in the judicial end of it, now whether

he got involved with reapportionment or not, I don't think so.

A: We had a lot of support from civic organizations. The League of women Voters and

people like that and the Jaycees got deeply involved in it.

Q: Well let's see, in 1954 then until 1956 you were executive vice-president of the Lyons

Township regular Republican organization. You mentioncd that yesterday saying that you

allowed certain other people to be the president and so on in order - because they were

older than you were.

A: Well that was after Tec Clarke was elected. Was I executive vice-president from 1952

to 1954?

Q: Yes sir. Well 1954 to 1956.

A: Okay, yes, you see in 1954 was when we had the revolution and the Young Republicans

took over the Lyons Township Republican organization.

Q: Oh?

A: And we elected - see, the township committeemen are elected in the off-year, the offpresidential

year. The ward committeemen are elected in the presidential year in 1!)52 and

1956. But the township committeemen were all up in 19.54. One rcason for that we always

cynically said was because the vote was much less in an off-year and the strength of a ward

or township committeeman in the Cook County Central Committee depended on the number

of votes he received in the last election. So the ward committeemen had the benefit of being

elected in a presidential year therefore disproportionately weighting their vote and the

suburban township committeemen were elected in an off-year so they had proportionately

less vote.

But in any event in 1954 was when we had the election and Terrel Clarke was elected and

it was at that time that I then became executive vice-president and really kind of the rhirf

operating officer of the Republican, regular Repuhlican, organization in Lyons

Township. We had some wonderful support from business people and lawyers and professional

people, but a generation ahead of us, or a half a generation ahead of us. And Dave

Swain who was one of those gcntlemen was the first prrsident of the Repuhlican organizalion

and we had others who were highly-respected local businessmen who had supported our

Young Republican movement from the beginning of time, financially and otherwise. And they

were always the president and ran the meetings, very helpful, they were great guys.

Q: When did you first meet Terrel Clarke?

A: Tn grammar school. Tec was I think maybe a year or maybe even two years ahead of

me in grammar school and his sister was a year behind me in grammar school and of course

we wcrr all the way through high school together. His older brother went to Harvard College

and was one of the very few people I knew at Harvard when I went back. As a matter

of fact he was in medical school I think by the time I got to Harvard. I'm sure he was. So

Trrrel's father was our family physirian. He came to see my dad when my dad had his

fatal heart attack, got there and couldn't do anything to save my dad. But we've been good

friends from childhood on.

Q: Well how was it that he was selected for that position? Did he actively want the position

and let it be known or was he drafted?

A: No I don't think he was actively seeking it. There wasn't a big campaign. In those days

we just had a nominating committee and everybody knew everyhody elsc and wc thought,

"Who's the best guy to do it?" or, "Who's available who can do it'! Who's working

locally? Who's got time for it? Whose wife will go along with it?" You know, all of the

other factors. And our committee picked Tec as the candidate.

Q: Now this was for ward committeeman?

A: Township committeeman.

Q: Township committeeman. So once he went in then you were pretty well set as far as

control of the political setup there was concerned in the township.

A: Ideally there's no question about that. But within a very short period of time all of us

who had elected Tec, I think practically without exception, the inner circle of peoplc of maybe

a dozen or twenty people had a total falling out with him. It was one of thc rral regretful

and sad events of my life. But when Tec got to be committeeman I'm sure in utter good

faith - he was trying to bring in some of the old people too, he had that problem, and

as a result those of us who had rcally elected him were just completely frozen out.

Q: Oh really? !

A: And it was a really unfortunate thing. It didn't surface right off the bat. But I remember

one of the things in which we helieved very firmly was that a committeeman ought to

be totally independent and should not have a political job, he should not be an elected official,

because he's then beholden to a dift'erent constituency. He should not be an appointed official

hecause then he perfectly clearly is heholden to at least ont! man and maybe a fcw more

than that, but he is not independent. And we thought a committeeman, in order to be an

effective leader and be able to bring creative judgment in hclping decisions of t,he party,

ought to be totally independent. Tec decided shortly after he was elected that he wanted

to run for the legislature.

Q: Oh?

A: Which we encouraged him to do. Fine. Our only request was that if he ran for the

legislature he not continue to serve as committeeman. And T'll never forget one night. We

had been trying to get Tec to tell us what he was going to do, and he simply wouldn't tell

us what he was going to do, whether he was going to run for the house, whether hc was

going to keep the job as committeeman. We really wanted to know.

And I'll never forget, I'd heen somewhere apparently out west in the middle of winter and

1 took a train home and I got ofl the train in La Grange, and one of my friends met me,

one of the inner circle guys, I think it was probably Glenn McGee, or mayhe George Hooper,

proabably Glenn, met me at the train. And we were having the showdown meeting with

Tec in the headquarters.

SESSTON 6, TAPE 12, SIDE 1

A: Glenn McGee picked me up at the train and - terrible wintry night - God, it was just

awful. I remember 1 had boots and overcoat and hat and scarf and everything on. 1 went

up to the Republican headquarters that I'd rented you know with my - gee, it was just

my baby because I'd taken care of it. I'd bought the mimeograph machine that was in there

and all the - conned people out of the furniture and you know signed a lease on it and

every thing else.

We didn't care whether Tec wanted to be in the legislature. Fine. We wanted him to be

in the legislature, it would have been great, but as a matter of principle we didn't want

him to be committeeman if he werr also in the legislature. So I finally said to him, "Tec,

we don't cars whether you're in the legislature. Fine. We urge you to do it, hut all we

want to know is when you will tell us whether you're going to run for both offices." And

Tec didn't say anything. He just shook his head no. And it was deadly silent in there.

And 1 was so frustrated. I've got to tell you I was the most frustrated guy you can

imaginc. (chuckles) I didn't say a word. I simply got up and I walked over in the corner

and I put my boots on - and nohody said a word all this time - I put my scarf on, my

coat, my hat, my gloves, buttoned up, picked up my briefcase and walked out into the

cold. Without anybody saying a word. And as a classical anticlimax, when I got out there

I realized 1 didn't have a car. So I had to go back in and ask somebody to come take me

home.

Q: (laughter) And he still hadn't spoken?

A: No. Never did, never did.

Q: And he did stay on in both positions then?

A: Sure, yes. George Hooper ran against him in the next election, split our organization

right down the middle. We had probably oh, three- or four-fifths of the Young Republican

group. Tec had all of the old Republican group, every single one plus a number of his very

good close friends who were in our group. And Tec won the election. It was a really bitter

nasty internecine war. Internecine war in the Republican party is something to

behold. And that was a classic example of it.

Q: Now that would have been in what year?

A: Well 1 guess that was 195 . . . I guess maybe that was 1958, would it have been 1%8? It

must have been 1958 because he was elected in 1954.

Q: I see.

A: You had me as executive director from 1954 to 1956 that would be about right. I guess

Tec ran for the legislature in 1956 so the event that I described probably took place in

1956. And then we ran somebody two years later against Tec.

Q: Were there any other major events during your career as exec there?

A: Oh I don't remember that we had any - it was just typical drudgery of running a Republican

organization you know. We had a lot of fun with it. We had a bunch of people and

we kind of did it togethrr as couples. It was a couples organizations really, and all our

social events were - wives were included. It was a unique experiment in politics. It was

a lot diff~rent from what you normally see in a Republican, or any - in a Democratic organization.

We didn't have any jobs. We had a few jobs, but very few. None of our people

had jobs. It was just a volunteer organization. We had a lot of fun.

Q: Wcll then, let's see in 1956 you became president of the Chicago Junior Association of

Commerce and Industry. When did you first become involved with that organization?

A: The Jaycees in those days was composed of groups from major companies in the Chicago

area. I guess it probably still is. And when I was at Swift, when I first got out of law

school, sonlebody in the Swift Jaycee group asked if 1 would like to join that group. Which

as I recall was a closed group, we had - well it may not have been, I don't know - I think

we had a dozen, fifteen members, Swift employees who were Jaycees. So I joined that group.

A lot of the effort was carried on through a group. This Swift group would take on a

proj~ct, Christmas kettles. You know, the Jaycees take over the Salvation Army kettles far

a couple of days at Christmas or a project of visiting orphanages during the Christmas

holidays. One group would take that on and would recruit people inside and outside the

Ja,ycees to help on Ihat project, or whatever the particular project was.

So that's how I got into it, probably in . . . well it was before I went downtown so it was

probably about 1950. You know I was a relatively inactive Jaycee, there wasn't a lot I could

do out in the stockyards. The lunches were downtown on Tuesdays and for me to get downtown

on a Tuesday lunch was really pretty tough. But then when I rnovcd downtown in

1951 I could do that, and I went regularly to the Jaycee lunches and was chairman of the

reapportionment project.

And then the next year I moved up to director of the Jaycees - the Jaycees had sixteen

directors and I was elected a director and reapportionment was one of my projects. And

Bob Pricke was the chairman of the project for me. And that was successful, the reapportionment

amendment passed and I - you know in the Jaycees you either move up or

out. And you move to director - there are sixteen directors and there are four vice-presidents.

Each one of the four vicc-presidents has four directors and then there's an executive

vice-president. One executive vice-president, who moves automatically to president.

So I finished my term as director and that was the end of it. I was getting out of the

Jaycees. I was probably thirty-two or three I suppose, something like that. You have to

get out at thirty-five. You become what's known as an exhausted rooster at thirty-five. So

I was gctling out of it. But as it happened that year, only one of the four vice-presidents

could, for one reason or another, run for executive vice-president. The other three were disqualified

hy thcir own choice for some reason. Their jobs wouldn't permit it or for whatever

reasons they wouldn't run. So a couple of those vice-presidents and some other directors

came to me and asked me if I would run for executive vice-president, in other words skip

the vice-president rank. Well you know the thought hadn't occurred to me to do it, but

these were vcry competent guys I had a lot of respect in and so I said, "Hell yes, I'll do

it." So I did it and was elected executive vice-president.

I ran against a very nice guy, a vcry competent man from the telephone company, and you

know 1 really felt had about it. I thought I was really kind of being a sacrificial lamb for

the electoral process. I'd gone that way before so it wasn't anything new to

me. (chuckles) But anyway I was elected and so I was executive vice-president for a year

and then was president for a year after that.

Q: Were there any major achievements during that period other than the reapportionment?

A: Well the Jaycees every year have done an enormous amount of civic work of one kind

or another. And because of my own personal inclinations toward governmental matters, we

did more in governmental affairs those years and, oh, in having governmental speakers and

getting involved in get-out-the vote campaigns and urging people to get active in the party

of their choice. Things were oriented toward government so we did quite a lot of that.

Many of the Jaycee projects though were just things that were kind of handed down from

year to year. They were very worlhwhile - likc thc Christmas kcttlcs, the Jaycees raised

a bundle of money for the Salvat,ion Army. Thcy'd take over these kettles, they could get

a lot more people out there. Very aggressive; you know, they're ringing a bell right in your

face when you get out of the train at the Union Station or the IC [Illinois Central] Station

or whatever. And you see friends of yours and you walk down the street with them until

they're so embarrassed they give you a buck or five or whatever, or a quarter. And did

a lot of work in settlement houses, a lot of work with orphans, with - in all kinds of things

like that. The Jaycees were a very very worthwhile civic organization.

Q: You had joined a couple or three other organizations like Kiwanis. When did you first

become associated with the Kiwanis?

A: Oh golly, I don't remember. I was really never very active in Kiwanis because I joined

the La Grange Kiwanis Club - my father-in-law was very act.ivt1 in the La Grange Kiwanis

- 1 was downtown and no way I could go out there for lunches. So I'd really forgotten

I was a menlher of Kiwanis. I never was active, simply by the force of geography.

Q: I see. What about the Midday Club of Chicago? Was that downtown here?

A: It's a social club. It's a luncheon social club. I had lunch there today

Q: Oh you did?

A: Yes. It's in the top of the First National Bank Building, the old Midday Club was down

at the old First National Bank Building that we were talking about the other day. And

the general counsel of Swift was a member of that club, and he used to take me up there

for lunch when I first came down to work with him, rvery Tuesday we'd go up and have

enormous quantities of food. And I loved it. It was just super. And then, oh gosh, it was

a long time after that, I guess long after - I didn't join the Midday Club 1 don't think

until I was at the Chadwell firm for several years. The Chadwell firm - which was - I

joined Chadwell in 1954, so sometime after that, probably in 1957 or 1958 or 1959, late 1950's

probably.

Q: I didn't note that you were an officer in that organization at all . . .

A: No.

Q: . . . how did you escape that?

A: I don't know. I just never - it's easy to escape things if you . . .

Q: Oh? (chuckles)

A: It's a very nice club and it's a social club. I don't know - have I ever bren an officer

of a social club? I ncvcr was an officer of the La Grange Country Club either or the Crystal

Lakc Country Club where we belong now. I just - my interests have been otherwise and

nobody asked me. I guess that's one of the reasons. (chuckles)

Q: Let's see, in 1952 I guess your son was born and then in 1954 a girl, Debra?

A: Right. She's the one you've just met. And Betsy was born when we were in law school.

Q: Yes in 1948.

A: Our oldest daughter was born in law school in 1947.

Q: Yes.

A: I remember Betsy's birthday because for many years our license was 631947. Betsy was

born on June 3,1947.

Q: I see. Well!

A: It's a good way to remember our license plate,

Q: We have the same thing. My wife's license plate is 249, EW 249, and that's our son's

birthday, February of 1949.

A: Great, yes, oh that's great.

Q: So let's see, you had set up housekeeping in Western Springs then. Could you kind of

dcscrib~ the first home you lived in thcrc. I understand it was a four-bedroom home.

A: Right. That was the second house we bought. We owned a house in La Grange which

was a little tiny two-bedroom house. And the house we lived in in Western Springs, the

~ Q:

address was 4724 Grand Avenue, red-brick house, about a block and a half from the Rurlington

trarks. Two-story, nicc yard, good sideyard and backyard, great for the kids' playing,

two-car garage in hack. The rooms weren't enormous and when I go back into it now I

think, "Gee, this house is really smaller than I remember." But it was a super house for

US.

We paid $30,000 for it which was way more than we could afford in 1952. As a matter of

fact it was on the market for thirty-six and we paid thirty for it. We made an offer for

thirty, never thought they'd accept it and they did. And we moved right in and we had

about fourteen wonderful years in that house. It was just a great house for our kids and

for us.

Q: So you commuted then on the Burling2ton did you?

A: Right. I commuted on the Burlington. Almost all of the time I was in Western Springs

I simply walked down to the train, or Barb would once in a while take me down to the train

and I'd just gct on at Western Springs and ride in town. I'd drive some but we only had

one car so it was easier to commute. And you know I'd meet with Pat Knowlton and play

bridge with him on the train going in in the morning and - or we'd talk about village things

if we needed to, about the Williamsburg architecture or whatever. We had some real good

bridge games on the train going in.

Q: Well! (chuckles) Could you give a description of Western Springs as it was when you

moved there? I understand it was a Western Williamsburg, or is now.

A: Yes. Western Springs was a very nice bedroom community, classical bedroom

community. Population I would guess would probably have been about eight or ten thousand

whcn we moved in. I'm guessing something like that. It's a suburb of straight streets,

north, south and east and west. Not all paved when we first moved in. Some of the eastwest

streets on the north side of the tracks were paved later on while we were living

there. There was an old section but there were a lot of newer sections, and as I mentioned

subdivisions going in. It's between La Grange and Hinsdale, borders La Grange, it's west

of La Grange, east of Hinsdale, touches both areas.

It's quite a homogenous suburb. It doesn't have very wide variations in income. It's more

homogenous I would expect than a lot of suhurhs where there are a lot of very wealthy people

and a lot of people who aren't so wealthy. It was more a middle class wburb, not much

blue collar, nearly all white collar, but a lot of people worked downtown, most of the men

in La Grange worked downtown. Some very well-known people, Virgil Martin who was

president, of Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company for years; Joe Meek who was thc Republican

candidate for the United States senate in 1954 and who ran the Illinois Retail Merchants

Association.

i

I

I always regretted that there wasn't more participation by people in Western Springs, and

La Grange too, really in city affairs. In the civic things I was doing downtown 1 met a

lot of people from Winnetka and Kenilworth and Willmctte and Lake Forest and River

Forest and - but I hardly ever met anybody from La Grange or Western Springs. Very

interesting that the wcst suburban towns didn't make, I believed, as big a contribution to

the civic part of - and the governmental part - of the Chicago metropolitan area as people

in other areas did. I don't know why that was. The same thing with the far south suburbs

- Flossmoor and places like that didn't, in those days at least, contribute nearly as much

as thc northern suburbs did. I don't mean financially, I mean - well financially too, but

I mean in terms of service.

What about the ethnic makeup? Were there various - like Italians and Germans?

A: (pausc) Yes. Not segregated though. I mean there was no German section of town or

no black section of town. There were more middle Europeans moving in, Czech, and Polish

names and things like this that we didn't have in La Grange when I was a kid. But for

the most part pretty much white Anglo-Saxon Protestant suburb. That's a clear overstatement

but there were a 101 of WASP's in Western Springs. There was also a very fine Catholic

church thew built in Springdalc in thtl new area that I mentioned and as a result there

were a lot higher percentage of Catholic families moved out there and have made a great

contribution to the town. It's a big church comrnunity. There's a whole bunch of churrhes

and they're all very active churches.

There's a village club in Western Springs which is a kind of a center of social activities

which you join the club if you want to. And Village Club has bridgc tournanlents and all

kinds of dances and social events. There's a swimming pool that's great for the

kids. Th~re's an American Legion Hall, there was, I'm not sure it's still there. Maybe it

is not but there was then. Boy, was it American T,egion or VFW [Veterans of Foreign

Wars]? I think it was American Legion. If you could describe a typical midwestern - or

what we think of as a typical midwestern suburban community that would be Western

Springs.

Q: What about industry? Was there any industry to amount to anything?

A: Virtually none. There were no factories of any kind. There was a business district

which had a couple of drugstores and a couple of groccry stores and . . . a laundry, a clcaners,

a hardware store, a rouple of gas stations, you know, classic - all right across the tracks

from the police station and the water tower and the park. But no heavy industry at all. I

don't remember even any light industry. Maybe out on the fringes there might have been

some.

There were no blacks in Western Springs at all. We went to the Congregational church

and I was a deacon at the Congregational church which was a three-year term. And after

one term, one gear of my three-year term, the minister came to me and asked me if I would

be chairman of the board of deacons the next year. And I said, "Thank you, I'd love to

but I'm not eligible. You've got to get somebody from the class ahead of me. My turn's

next year if you want mc then." He said, "Well I've talked to all of those fellows and two

black families are moving into Western Springs and they're Congregationalists and they're

prohably going to apply to our church and the people who are eligible to be chairman of

the hoard of deacons aren't for that. And I don't want to have a chairman of thc board

of deacons who would oppose that."

Q: Well! (chuckles)

A: So I became chairman of the board of deacons and was chairman for two years and they

never applied for membership.

Q: Oh they didn't?

A: No. (chuckles)

Q: Well! Was the community at that time close enough to the surrounding farming community

so that the children would know what a cow was?

A: No. No. Evcn when I was a kid I don't remember seeing a cow around. I was raised

in La Grange from 19 - well my folks moved to La Grange in 1924 I guess. And I don't

remember seeing a cow around there.

Q: So it's kind of a - what would you call it? an ingrown conlrnunity as far as the .

A: Well whm I was a kid the houses - the fully-populated area ended at Forty-seventh

Street. Everything south of Forty-seventh Street was a farm. But it was a corn and grain

maybe - but it wasn't a cattle or a dairy farm. I don't think you can call the suburbs

ingrown because there's a quite a lot of movement, middle management guys in and out,

they're in Chicago in the general office or branch office here for two or three or four years

and then they get transferred out. So there's a lot of motion, a lot of people are moving

out. We'd just get a guy trained as a precinct captain and he'd gct transferred

somewhere. It happens all the time. So I don't - it isn't inbred in that sense because

there is quite a lot of new blood coming in all the time. It's not stagnant. A lot of scientists,

some of the most active people in the Young Republicans were Argonne scientists.

Q: That's near Western Springs.

A: Well it's fairly near. It's out - where is it? it's out - you know, that Fermi Accelerator

- Fermi Accelerator Lab is, the accelerator, it was - well Argonne was out near Lemont

which is southwest of - right off the canal. A couple of townships away. But Western

Springs and La Grange were very good bedroom communities for Argonne and I suppose

the same thing now with Fermi Lab which is about equal distance the other direction, northwest

of La Grange and Western Springs.

Q: Did you get involved with the Parent-Teachers Association as the children were starting

school?

A: Went to PTA meetings and homeroom meetings you know like all parents do. I've got

to say Barbara did a superb job on that, a lot better than I did. And I tried to go to meetings

like that with her but I - you know I was traveling some and I - if I had to go to

the Nineteenth Ward Young Republican meeting I - you know, I might go to the Nineteenth

Ward Young Republicans rather than going to a PTA meeting. I tried to go to PTA

meetings. And I remember going to a lot of PTA meetings. I was never wildly enthusiastic

about going to PTA meetings as most fathers are not. But you know you've got to do things

like that and we did them.

Q: How about Boy Scouts? Did you get involved with the Boy Scout organization?

A: No. I really didn't. Bud wasn't interested in Boy Scouts. He was in the Cub

Scouts. And I think maybe Cub Scouts kind of turned him off a little bit. He didn't take

to things like that so we didn't. And the girls - the girls were in . . . Bluebirds I guess

or one of those pre-Girl Scout things and there's another one.

Q: Now that would be Brownies.

A: Brownies yes. There were two of them. They were in the Brownies yes. But the kids

were never really very active in scouting work.

Q: What about summer vacations? Where did you take the family summers when the children

were young?

A: Well we did several different things. Barbara and I both liked to travel. And we've had

some great trips with our kids. We had three trips out west, in 1961, 1964 and 1966. In

1961 . . . we drove to . . . Horace, I'm not sure. I've got the trips mixed up in my

mind. But I can tell you what the three trips were whichever the years they were. One

trip we drove to a place called Wisdom, Montana, which is in the Big Hole Valley, which

is in the extreme southwest corner of Montana, it's eighty miles southwest of Butte, to see

a buddy of mine from the air corps, whose wife and Barbara had become very good friends

in the air corps. Their name is John and Jill Eliel. They lived on a ranch in Wisdom. A

cattle ranch, not a dude ranch, a regular business cattle ranch. Jill's father, whose name

was Hershey, had a big ranch near there. I don't know, 60,000 acres or something like

that. And John and Jill were just getting started in the ranching business. By the time

we stopped visiting them a few years later they had eight kids. Barbara and I are the God

147

parents of their number eight child. One of their daughters called me here in the office

just a couple of weeks ago. We keep in touch with them regularly. Every once in a while

one of us just gets a yen to call up the Eliels or they the Rurditts and we've been good

friends ever since. A great experience for our kids and for dad. I helped brand the

bull. Our kids all rode in the Rutte rodeo parade. And Butte's got one of the big rodeos

you know. And we had a super time with them.

And on that trip we also went to Yellowstone National Park with the kids. T believe we

also took the kids to, oh, the Tetons and some other things on the way. You know, the

Badlands and Stratosphere Bowl and Mount Rushmore and Wind Cave and some things like

that.

Our second trip we took the - and this was the 1966 trip, this was the last one - we took

the Zephyr to San Francisco which was a great experience. They were talking ahout closing

down the transcontinental railroad and we thought our kids ought to have the

experience. Barbara and 1 had done it before and so we took the train with all four kids

to San Francisco. Then in San Francisco we rented a car, rented a station wagon and drove

north up the coast, up through northern California and Oregon and Washington, took the

ferry at Port Angeles, Washington, over to Victoria, drove around Vancouv~r Island and then

took thc fcrry Irorn Nanairno hack to the mainland over to Vanrouver, drove around Vancouver

and then drove through the Canadian Rockies, which is a super experience, through Yoho

National Park and Kamloops and Revelstoke and all the other Canadian national parks, to

Banff and then we drove up to Lakc Louise and on up to Jasper National Park, and played

golf at Jasper.

Had some great experiences on these trips. Barbara and I were playing golf one time and

there were three hears on one of the greens you know and I won't go into the details but

our kids - we were all agog at this.

And then we drove down through Glacier National Park, back down to the ranch and went

down to the Eliel's ranch again and then flew home. They drove us up to Butte, we turncd

t,hc car in at Butte and we flew from Butte . . . to Denver I guess - no, it was Salt Lake

City and then home from Salt Lake City.

The third trip . . . we drove to LA and did the usual thing of Grand Canyon and Zion and

Bryct.. (picks up photo cube) Zion National Park has always been my favorite and what

I'm showing you is a cube of pictures that my son took in Zion in the last few years. That's

Lady Mountain. One morning before breakfast he and I got up and went for a hike. Every

morning we would get up and go for a hike while thr 1adit.s slept a little bit longer. And

in Zion we hiked up Lady Mountain for a half an hour or so and came to s place where

there was a sheer. cliff, maybe as wide as - oh, rnaybe twelve, fifteen feet across as I recall,

maybe twenty feet, with a chain imbedded in it and the path cnded there and if you wanted

to go across there you grabbed the chain and you walked yourself across.

i

And I said, "Okay Bud, let's go down." Bud must have been about eleven, so this was probably

the 1964 trip. And he conned me into doing it. So I said, "Well 1'11 go and I'll see

how it is." So 1 went across and it was really easier than I rxprctcd so I said, "Okay, come

on." So he went across. You know if either of us had slipped it would have heen - school

would have bcrn out. You slip and you'd just fall off the damned chain, you're dead. And

anyway we went out a little bit further and we finally had to go back to have breakfast. And

ever since then Bud and 1 have just had a great thing about Zion and hc sent me all of

these pictures one day from Zion. As a matter of fact one of these pictures is taken from

halfway up Lady Mountain.

SESSION 6, TAPE 12, SIDE 2

148

A: (points on cube) That picture's taken from about where that chain was.

(chuckles) That's looking down, you can't see what - but there is a little car - it's so

far up that - a little tiny car right there in the middle of the picture.

But that was classic of the things we did in the summertime. We had three of those. We

also had a lot of other trips with the kids. We took two of the kids for instance on a trip

down to Dallas, had a business meeting in Dallas and we drove down to Dallas with two

of them. Another time we had a business trip in - several meetings in Boston or New

York or Washington and we would drive east with the kids. We took two of them on the

Yorktown, Williamsburg, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, all the Civil War battle fields,

tour. And you know, they're great, you rent little things that tell you the story, the phonograph

- not phonograph record, but it's a recording, little tapc thing. And I'll never forget,

these were so great, these tape recordings of what went on in the battle. We'd be listening

to them while the two kids that we were taking the trip for were sitting in the back of

the station wagon reading comic books.

Q: Yes. (chuckles) Or taking a nap. I've been through that.

A: We also - if I can go on with some other things, summer things. We rented a cottage

at Palisades for several years. Palisades is in Michigan right about at Saugatuck,

right . . . about at South Haven, just before you'd get to South Haven. And we were in

there for several years with the kids. Barbara's mothcr and dad had a cottage there which

they had sold by this time. But Barbara spent some summers up there and it was a very

nice place, so we rented a place for - maybe two or three summers there we had a cottage

there for two or three weeks.

We did a lot of traveling with the kids around different places. We took trips down to

Arkansas. I remember driving through Arkansas running into a herd of wild hogs somewhere

along thc line. They weren't wild, they were obviously tame hut they were out in

the country with no fencing or anything. Swimming in the Ozarks.

We took one trip out west and on the way home I asked Sud what he felt'was the most

exciting thing he had seen the whole trip - you know, all the caves, mountains, waterfalls

and everything clse. The most exciting thing he had seen the whole trip was a Louisiana

license plate. That must have been the 1961 trip.

Q: I see. (chuckles) When did you get the hause there, the cottage in . . .

A: In Michigan? In 1969.

Q: Oh that was much later.

A: Yes much later yes. That was after we had done - taken all the trips with the

kids. Now summers are there. Barb and I do a lot of traveling too but that house has

a gravitational pull for the kids. All four of our kids were there this summcr, our oldest

daughter was there for five weeks with her four kids, her husband was there for four of

the five. And Bud and his wife were there for their weeks of vacation. They both have

new jobs so they only had a week. And Debbie and her husband and thcir two kids have

been up probably six or eight times including their whole vacation, two or three weeks, and

they were up last weekend. And Barbie and her husband, Mike, who live in New York have

been up there a couple of times, spent a week, and they've been up other times too. Barbie

was marricd at that cottage two years ago. So it's a real center for the family.

Q: Let's see, in 1958 you became president and chairman of the Citizens of Greater

Chicago. When did you become associated with that organization?

A: Through the Jaycees. I was the Jaycee representative on the Citizens of Greater Chicago

board. I made a note of that. That's the only thing I've written down in all the hours

t

you and I have been talking because I wanted to talk about CGC because it was such a Camelot

concept.

In 1952 a Republican ward committeeman by the name of Gross was murdered. And he was

found with cement around his ankles at the bottom of the Chicago River as I recall. And

a number of civic leaders and business leaders decided that this would be a good time to

try to catalyze and organize civic support and effort in Chicago, instead of leaving it to the

Democratic political organization, or before that to the Republican political organization.

So under the leadership of a gentleman by the name of Guy Reed, who was the vice-president

of the Harris Trust and Savings Bank and happened that year to be also president of the

Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry, a committee which they called the Big Nineteen

was formed. And the Big Nineteen were the presidents of nineteen major organizations:

the League of Women Voters, the Chicago Bar Association, the Chicago Crime

Commission, the Better Government Association, the . . . labor, civic, religious, Church

Federation of Greater Chicago, nineteen of the real leaders of Chicago formed this Big Nineteen.

It got enormous publicity. Every time they got together they would have a battery of newspaper

reporters and television and radio reporters outside the door just battering it down

to - and radio particularly in those days, it was really in the very early days of television

- to find out what this Big Nineteen was doing.

The Big Nineteen came up with a nine-point program. They hired Leverett Lyon as I recall

- no, well, Leverett Lyon who ran the Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry was

very active in it, but they hired an expert in civic affairs to be the executive director. They

recommended that it be created as a permanent organization. They recommended nine

points including the ones we've been talking about this morning, the reapportionment article,

a judicial article, home rule for Chicago, civil service improvements. And Guy Reed gave

a speech and put out a pamphlet called the Nine Points which for many years was the classic

guide for better government in the city of Chicago.

The Big Nineteen gradually turned over as new people came in. The president of the Jaycees

was one of the original Big Nineteen. He was, I think, my predecessor by one or two, by

two I guess. And by the time I came along as the Jaycee president I was the delegate to

the Big Nineteen and a member of the Big Nineteen, which by that time was called The

Citizens of Greater Chicago. The original Big Nineteen became the first board of directors

of the Citizens of Greater Chicago. And a couple of years after that T then became a board

member of the Citizens of Greater Chicago by virtue of the fact that I was president of

the Jaycees. And you know I went to the meetings and did what everybody did at the meetings.

By that time CGC had changed substantially. Fred Hoehler, who was the executive director

had . . . I guess maybe not worked out as well as people had hoped, I think that's fair t,o

say. And at least the organization didn't flourish. Guy Reed had kind of a falling out with

the business community which had been pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into this.

A lot of money went into it. And a lot of the objectives were achieved, the reapportionment

amendment, home rule for Chicago - the ones I mentioned - I think those were all

achieved. All but a couple of them were pretty well accomplished largely through the efforts

of CGC so the raison d'etre of the organization kind of evaporated or at least it lcssened

substantially.

And I was - you know, I'd done my thing - I was about ready to get off the board, and

Guy Reed called me at home one night and said that his doctor had told him he had to

taper off and start doing less and he asked me if I would be president of the CGC if he

stayed on as chairman of the board. So I said sure of course I would, and I did it for a

year or so while Guy stayed on as chairman. And then a year or so later he said he wanted

to retire altogether and asked me if I'd be chairman of the board. So I was chairman of

the board and I got my successor from the Jaycees, a fellow by the name of Bill Gray, who

was with the Harris Trust, to be the president of CGC.

CGC in those days was largely run by one woman, who was an ahsolutely fantastic person,

a lady by the name of Laura Hughes Lunde. Did you ever hear of Laura Lunde? She was

something else. She knew more about government than I think anybody I've ever

known. Both theoretically and practically. And Laura told me she decided when she was

a young married girl that she wasn't going to play bridge like her compatriots were doing,

she was going to play government. And she really was something else. She personally

made the sandwiches for everybody to eat at a CGC lunch every week when we met. She

was a total catalyst and energizer and innovator and guiding spirit for CGC for several years,

all through Guy Reed's years, she and Guy worked very closely together. And then as Mr.

Reed tapered off Laura really took over. And as a matter of fact the two awards that CGC

gives every year are the Guy Reed Award and the Laura Hughes Lunde Award. And never

were two awards better named because they just were tremendous motivators and movers,

both of them.

Q: Was she in any way - perhaps not the word - abrasive in her forcefulness? Was she

difficult to get along with?

A: I never found her one iota difficult to get along with. But she was a shaker and mover,

Horace, and you know you don't - most shakers and movers can rub some people the wrong

way.

Q: That's what I was thinking of.

A: Sure. That happens. But she was - she was a grandmother type. And you know she

wasn't a battle-ax woman coming in and wielding the meat-ax on things. She was very logical

about her approach. She was very forceful with it. She really wasn't offensive in her

approach I didn't think at all. But you know some people would say, "My god, here comes

Laura Hughes Lunde!" I'm sure they felt that way when Carry Nation started going in, or

somebody that goes in with a meat-ax into the bars, you know. But Laura wasn't that

way. She was one brilliant person.

And incidentally when Laura died, her husband - either shortly after that, or just before

that - retired from his position and he kind of dedicated his life to carrying on the work

that Laura Lunde started and was just, you know, just a fantastic guy himself. But was

a businessman, and while she was living, he was - he came to the meetings when he was

needed or when he was there for dinners and things like that, but he never did anything

with CGC until after Laura died and he retired and then he took over. And was a very

interesting guy. As a matter of fact I went to his funeral a couple of years ago at a little

church out in the northwest side of Chicago. quite a gentleman.

Q: I understand that Mrs. Lunde actively lobbied down at the legislature in Sprin@ield.

A: Oh you bet she did, yes.

Q: At her own expense I understand.

A: At her own expense, yes, everything was at her own expense, even the lunches that she

- she literally made the sandwiches for it. (chuckles) And they were all good-government

projects. The slogan of CGC was, "Good government is not a sport for t h short-winded.-

~

" And boy, the classic example of that was Iaura Lunde. She was certainly anything hut

short-winded. As the matter of fact the first letterhead we got hack from the printer came

&,a, qood government is not a sport for the short-minded." (chuckles) There was a typo

in it. But we used it anyway.

Q: Now she was down in Springfield. Did you have occasion to go to Springfield on any

of these matters? Did you do any lobbying at that time?

A: Horace, I don't remember going down there for CGC to lobby. I've been down lobbying

on judicial article things over the years. I went down just a couple of years ago for the

Committee for Modern Courts. I don't remember if 1 had occasion to go down and lobby

for other things or not. I may have but it wasn't a major part of my life, if I did it would

be an occasional thing. And normally you know I couldn't get away for a day. I had a

job and my boss at Swift or my partners or the guys who were running the Chadwell firm

kind of expected me to be around. And until I went into the legislature I didn't really take

many days off to do lobbying things. I couldn't very well really.

Q: It sounds like most of these organizations that met or meet downtown do so at noon. IS

that a fairly safe statement? or how much night meetings then?

A: Your statement is safe. There's an awful lot of noon meetings. The Jaycees met every

Tuesday for lunch or whatever it was. And there were regular committee meetings at

lunch. The whole organization got together for lunch in the Wedgewood Room at Marshall

Fields every Tuesday, three hundred guys usually, something like that, with a speaker, Frank

Lloyd Wright, some governor or senator or business leader you know, whoever was in the

particular news at the moment. And every week we had a different speaker. You know

it was really a . . . a lot of good talks.

Q: Did any of these organizations have annual banquets of any kind?

A: Oh sure. Yes, Jaycees have several of them. The big one is called the DSA Banquet,

the Distinguished Service Award Banquet, when they pick the ten outstanding young men

in those days in Chicago. Now they call it ten outstanding young people or something, As

a matter of fact the Jaycees, the Chicago Jaycees had no women. No Jaycees anywhere in

the United States were allowed women members, and the Chicago Jaycees decided we were

going to allow women members - this was after my time, that was an issue in my time

- but subsequently decided they were going to have women members and they were expelled

from the national organization because they allowed women members.

Q: Oh is that right?

A: Yes.

Q: 1'11 be darned. (chuckles) But then that kind of led to opening things up I guess.

A: Oh sure. I don't know what the national policy is now but it's - you know, you can't

exclude half the population and a fairly bright half too. In a lot of ways the young women

I see coming out of law school are brighter than the men coming out of law school. They're

more motivated and everything else. And the same thing happens in business you

know. Our society has opened up to a half of the population that we just didn't utilize.

George Burditt Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

George Burditt Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield ... View more George Burditt Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Delete template?

Save as template ?

George Burditt Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield George Burditt Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield