Oral History Program Ira Huggins Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Ira Huggins Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Copyright © 2016 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Great Depression in Weber County, Utah, is an Oral History Project by Mack S. Taft for completion of his Master’s Thesis at Utah State University during the summer of 1969. The forty-five interviews address the Great Depression through the eyes of individuals in several different occupations including: Bankers, Laborers, Railroad Workers, Attorneys, Farmers, Educators, Businessmen, Community and Church Leaders, Housewives, Children and Physicians. All of these individuals lived in Weber County from 1929 to 1941. The interviews were based on what they remembered about the depression, how they felt about those events and how it affected their life then and now. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Huggins, Ira, an oral history by Mack S. Taft, circa 1960s, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Ira Huggins. Mr. Huggins, a former state senator, describes practicing law and serving in the legislature during the Depression. He also discusses the overinvestment of the Ogden State Bank in agriculture and livestock, leading to its close. The interviewer is Mack Taft. MT: Where did you practice law during the Depression years from 1929-39? IH: Ogden, Utah, and of course throughout the State of Utah and Nevada and Idaho. MT: What do you recall as being some of the problems of an attorney at that time? IH: Well, of course, during the Depression years, the public generally had very little money. Legal business was rife. By that I mean there was plenty of legal business, but there was no money to pay fees with. So every lawyer got by on a very slim income necessarily, as most every other business and professional man did. There was just no money available. MT: When did you start your legal practice in Ogden? IH: April 1925. MT: You had a short time then, before the Depression began. IH: Yes, I recall the Depression started in about 1929, so I had about four years, but of course the first four years of a lawyer’s practice is not very lucrative. He’s just attempting to develop a clientele, and I had developed some clientele, of course. About that time, or shortly after that time, during the Depression years, in fact shortly after Franklin Roosevelt became president, Congress enacted an act called the National Recovery Administration. A part of that administration consisted of a national Brewers’ Code. Shortly after Roosevelt was elected Prohibition was repealed. In order to avoid the possibility of breweries buying 2 their outlets by furnishing bars, back bars, and furniture, and many other things, this National Breweries Code was developed to police the action of the breweries. I was appointed along with an attorney by the name of Jack Healy from Denver, and Clint Broam from Omaha, as attorneys for the National Brewers Code Authority in the eleven western states. So I was practicing law throughout those states enforcing that authority. So I had that business in excess of what business I could develop here locally. And then, of course, the Ogden State Bank closed in 1930, I believe, and Judge Gideon and I were appointed attorneys for the liquidator of the Ogden State Bank, which was a godsend for us. MT: What do you remember about the Ogden State Bank and its reasons for closing, and whatever else you recall about it? IH: Well, the principle reason, of course, for closing the Ogden State Bank was that A. P. Bigelow, who was the president at the time, was very friendly with the agricultural and livestock interests, and he had made through his bank very many rather liberal loans, wherein he had taken real estate and livestock as security. As a matter of fact, they had not always been too careful in checking titles. In some of the farms and agricultural lands, he had as many as three and four mortgages on them at the State Bank. Well, livestock raisers and growers could not get enough money out of their produce to pay their mortgages off, and so the bank started running short of money. Other banks at that time were also hard-put. As a matter of fact, there were thirteen or fourteen banks every day 3 going broke because of lack of funds to keep up with the demands of their customers. And it developed here that people became alarmed at the fact that the Ogden State Bank was known to have made many liberal loans to the agricultural interests, and the time came that it couldn’t meet the demands made upon it, so it had to close. MT: Now later, as I have heard from others, they paid off a certain percentage to the investors. Do you recall what percentage that was? IH: As I recall, they paid back about 66 or 67 percent on their general deposits. Of course they had a rather large trust, and of course that trust paid out in full – the trust moneys went to pay the trust. But the common claims, the checking accounts and the savings accounts, paid out about 66 to 67 percent. MT: Over how long a period of time would that have been, do you remember? IH: Oh, I think it was in liquidation six or seven years. Of course that necessitates, in the liquidation of a big institution such as that, a good deal of expense, overhead expense, legal expense, administrative expense, and that sort of thing. And then in the liquidation of a banking institution, they are required to sell the property. The Depression being on, the sale prices, of course, were down, so they lost money on their sales and liquidation. If the bank could have sold and liquidated their securities at face value, they could have paid out 100 percent on the dollar, but they couldn’t do that because they were on forced sale. MT: Getting back to the life of an attorney during those years, what would be some of the problems of a young attorney then that would be different from the problems of a young attorney now? 4 IH: Well, of course his main problem was getting paid for his services. Bankruptcies were prevalent and of course whenever bankruptcies would occur there would be one or two attorneys and doctors and dentists and grocery-men who would lose. And so they had the problem of collecting fees. It wasn’t so much a matter of starting a business. It was collecting the fees after they had performed the services. The money just wasn’t available. MT: What was the nature of business then as compared with the clientele and business of an attorney today? IH: Well, the bulk of the business at that particular time would be bankruptcies and collections. And of course, always in times of Depression there are a lot of divorces because dissatisfaction develops in the home, and quarrels develop, and the husband and wife just simply part their ways and divorce. Collections were difficult to make. You could get judgments, but you can’t eat with judgments. He just took bankruptcy, he had to because if he didn’t take bankruptcy and he got a job, his wages would be garnished, and he couldn’t feed his family, so he had to take bankruptcy. It was very prevalent. Bankruptcy fees were small, collection fees were small, divorce fees were small, even if you could collect them. So some attorneys, one in particular here, was quite resourceful and went into the used furniture business. He would take mortgages on the household furniture for his services, and when the mortgages weren’t paid he took the furniture and sold it, used furniture. And he made a substantial amount of money doing that. MT: What entertainment do you remember during those years? 5 IH: Well, I haven’t been one, and my family hasn’t been a family to seek much entertainment. A picture show once in a while, family gatherings. Of course we belonged to two or three social groups, a dancing club, maybe a bridge club, or something of that sort, that was about all the entertainment we had. We’d go for a little ride in our automobile and take a trip for two or three days. We couldn’t afford more than that. That was about our entertainment. It was mostly entertainment for the entire family instead of just for the parents as separate from the family. I belonged to the Kiwanis beginning in 1935, and I belonged to the Knife and Fork Club. MT: Looking back on those years, what would you advise a young attorney starting out now? IH: I was elected to the Utah State Senate in 1930, and I served in that body until and including 1946. And of course by reason of my work in the state Senate, I became acquainted with a lot of rather influential people. I was able to develop some rather substantial business from my contacts, not by way of getting legislation through, but I became known, and that’s the big problem of the average young lawyer, is becoming known. Until people know him, and have confidence in him, of course they don’t use his services. And so one of my recommendations today would be to the average young lawyer to get himself in some public office, not necessarily for pay, because the pay in those days in the Senate was $4 a day for 60 days every other year, and no expense money. So certainly the pay was not commensurate with the time involved. But it did put me in contact with a lot of people who were in the position later to use my services. I 6 would certainly recommend that to a young lawyer today, to become known in his community. Render some public service, let the people know who you are. If you have some ability and you are public-minded and get their confidence, I think that’s the greatest asset a young man can have for himself. He needs to get into a position where he can build up a private practice. There is, of course, the possibility of getting connected with an established firm and by doing that he has an advantage and a disadvantage. Usually the firm uses him to do their beefing and research, and he doesn’t become acquainted with their clients. But at least he does get some practice in making some research. MT: Is there anything that you remember about those years that you might consider beneficial to people? IH: I think one of the practices that would avoid the very trouble that developed then would be to keep out of debt. You go into debt when money’s easy, and you can’t pay the debt back when money’s tough. And so they lose their property, and that’s the thing that worries me today. With easy credit, credit cards, and that sort of thing, I have a fear that our total economy will be bankrupt. It’s easy to buy these things when you only pay $5 a month, or $1 a month, and then you accumulate all those $5 a month. I’ve seen instances in my office where a man’s total income for the next 10, 15, 20 years has already been mortgaged. He has no money to pay with, and the first time he misses a payment, his wages are tied up and he loses all that he had paid in. So keep out of debt. Work hard. Work is becoming a dirty word. It’s one of those four-letter words we read about, I think. It’s a dirty word: work and save. My wife and I, when we married, agreed 7 between ourselves that every month of our marriage we would put something away for our declining years, and we’ve done that. Sometimes it’s been mighty small, but we’ve done that, and there hasn’t been a month since we were married that we haven’t put something away. And that’s becoming passé nowadays because too many of us assume the attitude that the government will take care of us. Well, I think that’s a poor attitude, and the time will come, I think, when the government can’t take care of all of us. We’re going to have to be taking care of ourselves. And I would have the hope that sooner or later we would go back to that practice of being adults sufficient within ourselves to not have to have the government take care of us. MT: Is there anything else that you remember about those years that might be interesting to other people? IH: Generally speaking during those years, we had a lot of young people who, because of the lack of money in their homes, dropped out of school and went out and got jobs much to their detriment in the future. Because a man without an education nowadays has very little chance of getting a job that will pay him very much money. And there are many of our people who today find themselves on relief. I think that they are on relief because they dropped out of school and didn’t get an education so that now they cannot qualify for a decent job that will pay them a living wage. I think we saw a lot of that during the Depression years. And my recommendation is that every young man and every young woman should get all the education they can because they are going to need it. I’m happy nowadays that we are beginning to recognize the need for technical vocational 8 training. I’m on the state board of education. I was on the board of trustees for Weber College eight years, and we’ve been educating 80 percent of young people in this state for about 15 percent of the job openings. So we’ve been transporting out of our state the academically-trained people and keeping those here who aren’t trained at all. Now we have two technical colleges, and we’re training a lot of people in vocational work. Many times I’ve seen up here to Weber College where a person has two years of technical vocational training get his certificate and leave the college and say, “I’ve got a job for $15,000 a year” – being paid, receiving more for his services than many of the college professors are receiving. I’m glad to see this trend, and I think that we’ve got to develop it and increase it. Technical training now, vocational training, is very, very important, and it pays good salaries. I don’t know of anything else that I can think of now that would be of any particular interest.