Oral History Program Ira Huggins Interviewed by Richard Sadler 7 August 1981 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Ira Huggins Interviewed by Richard Sadler 7 August 1981 Copyright © 2023 by Weber State University, Stewart Library 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 Weber State College Oral History Program was created in the early 1970s to “record and document, through personal reminiscences, the history, growth and development of Weber State College.” Through interviews with administrators, faculty and students, the program’s goal was to expand the documentary holdings on Weber State College and its predecessor entities. From 1970 to 1976, the program conducted some fifteen interviews, under the direction of, and generally conducted by Harold C. Bateman, an emeritus professor of history. In 1979, under the direction of archivist John Sillito, the program was reestablished and six interviews were conducted between 1979 and 1983, with additional interviews being conducted by members of the Weber State community. In 2013 the campus prepared to celebrate the 125th Anniversary of Weber State University in 2014. In order to document the student experience, interviews were conducted with Weber State College Alumni on an ongoing basis. ____________________________________ 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 Richard Sadler, 7 August 1981, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Abstract: The following is an interview with Ira A. Huggins, conducted by Richard Sadler on August 7, 1981. Mr. Huggins discusses his work on many different community, religious, and government groups as well as his work in the State Senate. He talks about his work with Weber State College and his future hopes for the college. RS: Conducted on August 7, 1981 of Mr. Ira A. Huggins, by Richard Sadler. The interview is being conducted in Mr. Huggins’ office in the First Security Bank building. Mr. Huggins was born March 8, 1898, and I would like to start out by asking you to tell me a little bit about your background. Where were you born, and your parents—some of the things you remember of your early childhood, please? IH: Well, I was born in Fountain Green, Sanpete County, Utah. My parents—my father was a farmer, two small farms. He was an honest, hardworking man. Never made any money and I worked with him on the farm, beginning at the age of eight. I earned my education in Fountain Green. I got my high school education in Moroni, which is eight miles south of Fountain Green, attending by horse and buggy in the morning and night for the first year. I went through high school in three years. Since we were poor people, and I had to work, I was not able to register in high school, not until late in the fall—probably October or after the crops were harvested. The last year, I registered on the second day of January the following year, on the condition that I would take six units of credits and that I would pass the mid-year examination with a straight A—which I did. 1 That year, I was also president of the student body. I stood in for the basketball team. I participated in track and debate. After I graduated, my mother, who was the mouthpiece for our family—my father was a very quiet, hardworking man. My mother was more vocal. She called me into what we then called the ‘porter’ and advised me that she and my father discovered I wanted an education and I was fairly good. They had decided they couldn’t do anything for me, but they would release me from the farm and I could go out to do what I could do for myself. So the next day I packed the clothes that I had in an old rickety suitcase. My mother took me to the railroad station in Fountain Green in the old Buckboard buggy. The last thing she said to me: “Son, you are going into a whole new world now. You are going to be subject to a lot of temptations and going to get involved with a lot of people. I have one bit of advice I’d like to give you: if you live each day so that you can sleep with yourself at night, you won’t go off on the wrong.” When I was about three or four years old—of course my mother had all of our clothing—I was walking down to the store with my mother. I had on a new navy suit my mother had made for me. The store was about six blocks away from our home. On the way down, we passed a well-dressed gentleman, who very courteously gave his hat and coat to me. When he had gotten out of hearing, she stopped and said, “Son, if I can have one of my sons follow in that man’s footsteps, then I will be happy.” Of course, I inquired of who he was. He was Herbert Smith, the only lawyer my town had ever produced. Right there, I decided that somehow, 2 someway, I had to become a lawyer. I was one of five sons in the town. I had three sisters. RS: Where did you go that day on the train? IH: Went to Pocatello, Idaho. Got a job as a carpenter's helper in the railroad yards. I worked there until late summer; then I went down to Fielding, Utah, where I met my wife. My brother-in-law had contracted topping beets. Of course, topping them had to be done by hand. We would work from before daylight with a lantern, until after dark with a lantern. We could top and load about eight tons a day. That would give us about a dollar a ton, eight dollars a day. That was pretty good wages at that time for saving to go to school. When I was in Fielding, I met my wife. I got a job then—two on the fastener seat before the beet-topping came in. I lived in the barn of the people who owned the fastener seat. I was up in the loft of that barn one day and I saw my wife, who lived across the street. She had just washed her hair—she had beautiful black curly hair and it was wavy—and I said to myself, “There goes my wife.” RS: What was her name? IH: Leonna Ashcroft. She was the daughter of Bishop James Ashcroft who was killed while on a mission with the Navajo Indians in New Mexico. She was the granddaughter of a locksmith named Alda Switchers, who was the sister of Willard Richards, who was with Joseph Smith when he was assassinated. RS: Did you court her long before you were married? IH: I corresponded with her for about two years. About that time, I became old enough to be drafted in the army. I didn’t want to be drafted, so I enlisted. Just 3 before I was enlisted, I was called on a mission by my bishop. I went to him and explained that I was old enough to join the army, and we were in a very terrific conflict. I wanted him to advise me whether I should join the army or go on a mission, and he said, “Well, I think that your country needs you now more than the church does. You can enlist in the army and you can go on a mission later.” So when I got out of the army, which was in December or November of 1918, I was mustered out of—oh, what’s the army…? RS: Camp Douglas? IH: Yeah, Fort Douglas. My wife at that time was working for Heber J. Grant in Salt Lake, and I became acquainted with him, and we went together in November until July. That following year, we were married in the Salt Lake Temple. RS: Tell me about your experiences in the army. How long were you in and what did you do? IH: I joined in April of 1918 and I was mustered out in November, so, my experience in the army was just local training. I had passed the examination for the Air Force. I didn’t want to be in the infantry. But I didn’t get around to it. RS: When you look back on your youth, prior to leaving Spring City… IH: Fountain Green… RS: I’m sorry, I’m in Sanpete County. Before leaving Fountain Green, what were some of the fun things you did as a boy for recreation? IH: Well, I played baseball a little. I liked to walk up in the mountains, shoot at Indians who weren’t there, roast potatoes. That’s about all. We didn’t have any time for recreation. I milked three cows in the morning before going to school. 4 Fed the cows, milked them before I went to school—even when I was in high school. When I came home at night, I slopped the pigs and fed the chickens and fed the cows and milked them. I think I invented the first mechanical cow milker. Sometimes I had difficulty getting the cows milked in time and so I conceived the idea, making all four nice clean straws and inserting them in the tits of the one cow. While I was milking the other two, she would drain out into the bucket. My father never found me doing that. We had no recreation in those days. We had family parties, of course, dances in the home. My mother’s brothers were musically inclined—they played the banjo and the mandolin, the guitar. They would come to our home. My mother’s father ran a little store, a little grocery, and we would always pick a sack of candy and we would sit around and talk and sing. That was about all the recreation that I had. RS: Fountain Green has been a sheep center on some occasions. Did your family have sheep? IH: No, we were about the only family in Fountain Green that didn’t have sheep. My father didn’t like sheep. At that time, Fountain Green was the wealthiest town, per capita, in the United States, because of the great numbers of sheep which were grazed in that area. In fact, the grazing was so heavy that they ruined the grazing areas. They have hardly come back in completely. In the spring, I would leave school and go out to Jericho where they were shearing sheep, and the Fountain Green people would sell from that shearing institution. Twenty million pounds of wool and four million lambs. My father had a few cattle, but in Sanpete County, in 5 those days, if you didn’t have sheep, you were glad in the fall just to get your seed back, because your seeds were very sharp and dry, so it was nip and tuck, ‘course. RS: What did your father farm, particularly? IH: He grained mostly. Once, he got into some sugar beets, but it was not sugar beet country. The seasons weren’t long enough. But, mostly grain. RS: After you married your wife in the summer of 1919, where did you go to school, and how did you become involved in getting an education? IH: Well, after we were married, I asked her where she would like to live, and her mother lived in Brigham City, so she said, “I’d like to live in Brigham City.” I didn’t know anybody out there, but we went out to Brigham City and bought a little home out there. She had $200 saved in savings bonds, and I had about $200. I finally got a job there as a chemist with the Amalgamated Sugar Company. I worked there as a chemist for that company for one year. Then the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company bought the plant, and I worked there as a chemist in their plant for a year. Then I became a special chemist for the two companies for another year. Then they closed the plant. During that time, I had met a man in Brigham who was our bishop, as a matter of fact, who was taking a law course when it was an extension of The University of Chicago. He induced me to join the University. For the next two years, I spent all of my Sundays, my holidays, and all of my nights, trying to learn law, and I would dictate the answers to the question to my wife—she was a sonographer. She would type them and send them in. I got my LL degree in 6 1925, then I took the bar examination in June of 1925. Students of the University of Utah in those days didn’t have to take the bar examination, but students out of that school did have to. I hadn’t had any college training, but they admitted me into the examination on the theory of my experience as a chemist that qualified me to take the examination. There were 28 students from Harvard, Yale, Mount Western, The University of Chicago, Stanford. After the results were in, grades made, I was called in by one of the bar examiners who congratulated me. He said, “Out of the 11 who passed, out of 28 who took the bar…” I passed with the highest grade of anyone who took the bar. He said, “You come from Northwestern?” I said, “No, I come from the University.” He said, “Oh, those dirty pricks. Northwestern gave them their legal study outline. They stole them from us.” He said, “You answered the questions just like we had to at Northwestern.” On June 25, 1925, I started practicing law in Ogden, Utah, and I’ve been practicing here ever since. That’s nearly 57 years. RS: Did you move to Ogden, then, in 1925? IH: No, I moved to Ogden in 1923 after the sugar factory closed in Brigham City. There was no work up there. Except, I did get a job with Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, selling life insurance. I was a poor salesman. I didn’t do it very well. But I was pretty good at mathematics and they employed me as their accountant and their auditor. I came to Ogden and worked as their auditor for two 7 years in Ogden. At that time, they wanted me to become the regional auditor, but I was more interested in practicing law. RS: What was Ogden like in 1925? The town and the people? IH: Well, of course, Ogden was a railroad town. Railroads were the main industry here, railroads and transportation. Trucking was beginning to develop somewhat, but a lot of farming here, of course. The railroad was the main industry in this area. There were not many sidewalks in Ogden. We had two children at that time. Before I was coming to Ogden, while I was in the army, I had developed the flu—pneumonia. I was in Fort Douglas in old wooden barracks. In my platoon, there were 80 men, all of them six feet and over. Most of them were athletes. In less than a month, 30 of them were carried out then. Governor Bamberger, who was in the United States Senate, came up to Fort Douglas and made an investigation, and they had us transferred down into Salt Lake to homes and into hospitals. I had a sister living in Salt Lake and they transferred me into her home. Well, every winter after that—or every fall, as soon as cold weather would start, I’d get a coat. I wore a sheep-skinned sweater, where the wool would sit next to my body, and I’d turn it in every April of that year. By 1924, I tried to convert my more recent insurance, they called it, to an old-line insurance. They sent three doctors out from Fitzsimmons and Denver to examine me and they turned me down. They said my left lung was completely gone and my right lung was so badly damaged that I would have to have an operation where they would remove the damaged parts. Well, I went to an old 8 doctor in Brigham City by the name of—I forgot the name of him, but he was a rough old guy. He examined me and he slapped me on the shoulder and he would knock me down and say, “Well, young man, you’re in a hell of a condition.” He said, “Don’t you ever let the bar know, because you will never work again. You’ll be on pensions for a few years and then you’ll die.” I said, “What’s the alternative?” He said, “Walk. Get up in the mountains and walk, all the time. Every chance you get, you go out in the mountains and walk.” So I walked all around Brigham City in the mountains; I walked all around Ogden, night after night after night. Finally, I got to walking up to the Malan’s Heights with a group that were walking up there. I got so that I could walk up to the mouth of Taylor Canyon from the bottom in 56 minutes. It was faster than anyone could do it in that Canyon. Since then, I have taken a lot of insurance and have been rated up. My lungs have been damaged. RS: That takes me back to a question. You mentioned you ran track in high school. What part of track did you run, what race? IH: I ran mostly the eight-mile and I would run behind the buggy. I excelled, in that time, in the high jump. In basketball, Ephraim, the Snow College, which is a junior college, was in our conference. For high school, I played center on my team against Herb Parcey, who played on the Snow team. He was the meanest man I ever come in contact with in my life. He would trip, he’d nudge, he’d gouge, he’d do anything in the world to hurt you. I got out of a game when I was getting all bloodied up. 9 RS: Was there a lot of competition between Mt. Pleasant and Moroni and Ephraim and Manti? IH: Not much then, not much. Of course, Mt. Pleasant had the Wasatch High School. They had a high school in Ephraim which was associated with Snow College, but there was not that much competition. Most of the students from Fountain Green and Wales and Moroni stayed in the Moroni school. RS: When you began to practice law in Ogden, did you practice law broadly, or did you begin to specialize? IH: No, I did dental work. I became a dental practitioner, though I shied away from criminal law. I never did like criminal law. I gradually gravitated into carpentry work, estates, and prohibition matters. That’s where I did most of my area. I used to do personal injury; I did quite a bit of work in personal injuries and condemnation work. RS: Now, you’ve been involved very heavily in community affairs. Did you begin that in Brigham City or in Ogden? Tell me a little bit about your involvement. IH: When I started in insurance work, of course, in Brigham City I became—do you want the church history? RS: Sure. IH: I taught Basic for a while and then I became assistant to the Sunday School superintendent. Then when I came to Ogden, I became involved in politics. First, I became involved in the American Legion activities. Then I got into politics and became secretary of the Democratic Party here. Then I became chairman of the party. Then about the time the Great Depression—I’ll have to go into this. I met 10 Franklin D. Roosevelt when he was running for president in 1930. Senator King introduced me to him and he was a great broad-shouldered man. He towered way up over me, and he put his arm around my shoulders and he said—I was in the state senate at that time—he said, “Senator, when you come to Washington D.C., come over to the White House and see me. I’ll be there.” He hadn’t been elected yet. I was elected then to the senate in 1930. It was in ‘32 when I met him. Then I got involved in all kinds of specific activities around Ogden, particularly in the church. I was appointed to the High Council in 1926, and then I was made Bishop in the Ogden Temple in 1930. Before that, I became superintendent of the Sunday School. I became very much involved in politics. I became Weber County Democratic Chairman in 1932. I became chairman of most of the legislative committees, including appropriations and taxation, the legal judiciary committee. Then in 1939, I was elected president of the state Senate for two years. After President Roosevelt was elected, I remember we had a nationwide epidemic of polio. I was appointed by one of President Roosevelt's law partners—what was his name? I have a picture of him over there. I became involved as Weber County Chairman of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. Then I was made State Chairman of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. Of course, I kept it all in the towns and the state union in that area. 11 I worked practically in the nomination and election of the state officers. Up until 1930, there hadn’t been a democrat elected in Weber County for 20 or 30 years. In 1930, the year I was elected, we split right down the Senate, in which half Democrats and half Republicans were elected. I ran against Albert Becker, who ran Becker’s Brewery. Of course, he was a well-known businessman in Ogden. I wasn’t very old at that time; I was only 32. I didn’t think I had a chance to be elected, but I was elected. What was bad was I did not get elected during the Roosevelt [inaudible]. That wouldn’t have been much for ego. I became involved in church work and Senate work, and became chairman of the National Club, chairman of the Sage Brush Democracy, and chairman of the Labor Relations board in Weber County. I joined the Kiwanis Club. I was elected twice as vice-chairman of the Kiwanis Club and once as the President of the Ogden Kiwanis Club. Soon I became Lieutenant Governor in Kiwanis, which covered from Clearfield to Logan. Then I was elected Governor of the Kiwanis Club: Utah–Idaho Governor. Of course, I’ve been a part of the Kiwanis Club for 48 years. During my time as the Regional Director for the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, my oldest son had gone to Washington D.C. to study law. In December of 1941, Miss Huggins and I went back to Washington D.C., and we met Basil O’Connor, the man who appointed me—Franklin Roosevelt’s law partner. He saw me in the state one afternoon, and he said, “What are you doing?” I said, “Oh nothing.” 12 He said, “How would you like to come over to the White House and meet the President?” I said, “I would like that very much.” Now, I hadn’t seen Roosevelt since 1930. Our appointment with him was for seven o’clock. He was in session then with the Japanese ambassador Kichisaburō Nomura. That session didn’t break until eight o’clock. There were about 48 of us, waiting out in the waiting room to meet with him that night. Keith O’Brian, another one of his law partners, was standing at the door of the entrance into the Oval Office. Keith and Basil kind of stood next to the President to present him. Well, as we went into the Oval Office, the President was just quiet with rage. He hit the desk with his fists, and he said, “I am a man of good, and by God, there are certain things that I won’t do.” Well, we lined up, and O’Connor was introducing us to him. I can’t remember the name of him. Anyhow, Basil O’Conner was supposed to present us to the President. Well, I was falling right back to the Governor—Brigham Adams. He had been appointed by Roosevelt, so Roosevelt knew him, and he shook hands with him and he said, “Well, here’s a young man, Ira Huggins from Utah.” RS: That’s amazing. Was he sitting down? IH: He was sitting down. He almost always sat down, of course, except when he spoke. He wore leg braces and they’d help him through his speech. With the help of crutches, he could walk to the podium and speak. 13 RS: Did you notice much of a change in him in the ten years that had passed since you had seen him? Physically, was he much older-looking? IH: No, he looked very vigorous. He was very angry that night, but he looked quite vigorous and he acted quite vigorous. He was very talkative. I didn’t see him after that until he died. I was in Warm Springs, Georgia, attending the Warm Springs Foundation for Infantile Paralysis when he died. I went over to his house away from the White House that he had in Georgia, a little lumber home. His car, everything was operated by hand. The gas, the brakes, and everything, he could operate by hand. He’d go down Oak Hill, rolling in splint. He enjoyed driving down Oak Hill. His cabin had canes and crutches from people all over the world. RS: Being a stark Democrat, were you in favor of him running for a third term? IH: Yes, I was. I thought Roosevelt was one of the greatest men alive for our country, and we were in such conditions that I didn’t see others fit to help with the change. I thought that he should continue on. RS: It’s interesting to me that for the past—oh, 20 years at least, Democratic people in Weber County seem to have been strong, 1960-1980. Did it begin to build, you say, about 1930? IH: Yes. From 1930-1960 there was hardly ever a Republican ever elected in this county. RS: Why was that? IH: Largely because of labor unions. Ogden was a labor town—railroads and trades and laborers, and Roosevelt was a friend of labor. He loved them and he did a lot for them. During that time, I met Jim Farley, who was Roosevelt’s campaign 14 manager in the first and second elections. He was Postmaster General. In those days, we traveled by train. He’d come through Ogden, and he’d always send me a telegram telling me the number of the train and the hour that he would be in Ogden. He’d ask me to invite 50 or 60 prominent Ogden citizens of both parties and professions and businesses and send him a list of them. Then he’d stop down here at the station for maybe an hour or two and mingle with the crowd, and he’d have me mark off on my list those who were in attendance. Then I’d send that list back to him, and within two weeks, each one of them would get a personal letter from Mr. Farley, signed by him. He’d always comment on their business or occupation of their party. They thought he was a great man with such a memory. I don’t know how he was doing it. RS: Working with you, huh? IH: With me. RS: He opposed Roosevelt’s third term, didn’t he? IH: Yes. RS: Why did he do that? Did he talk at all with you about that? IH: No, but he thought two terms was enough for a President. At first, that had been the precedent of this country, ever since the time of George Washington, but not the law. He didn’t want Roosevelt to do that. RS: You’ve worked with a number of governors in this state, from the 1920s to the present. Who would you pick out as being one or two best governors and why? IH: I think probably Governor Dern. He was the most objective one. Governor Blood was a good governor, but he was not forceful. Governor Maw was in on welfare, 15 and I never did agree on his theory of proper welfare—we didn’t get along so well. Well, we got along all right, personally, but I didn’t support him on that. Frankly, he was strong, but I didn’t agree with some of the things he did. I think Crampton was one of the best governors. I’ve met all of the presidents of the United States since 1930, except Eisenhower and Nixon. Because I haven’t met them yet, I don’t reckon I will. [Inaudible] is a jolly old fellow and I would love for him to serve a second term. One of the big men that met in politics and whom I felt should become president, was… his son is a senator. I can’t think of his name. RS: He ran against Eisenhower? IH: He ran against Eisenhower, yes. What’s his name? RS: From Illinois? IH: Yes. I spent a whole afternoon in a hotel room with him in Salt Lake. He was trying to get me to run for the United States Senate again. Senator Watkins; he was the most brilliant man I ever met. His mind was triggered like that and his speech was outstanding, from the one man I ever met. His articulation and pronunciation was as good as Winston Churchill, and I met Winston Churchill and next to him was—oh, what’s his name? RS: Adlai Stevenson? IH: Adlai Stevenson. He was a good man, but he couldn’t get down with the public. He talked over their heads. Of course, nobody, including Jesus Christ, could have been elected against Eisenhower. RS: With the Korean War situation? 16 IH: Yeah. RS: When you came to Ogden in the twenties, did you notice any conflicts between the Gentiles and Mormons? IH: There was currently a conflict between the Masons and the Mormons, yes. It was quite bitter. RS: Was it evident at all in the community? How did it come out? IH: It came out socially, it came out in business, it came out in politics, and of course, it came out in religion. You couldn’t be a Mormon and be a Mason. You could be a Mason and be a Mormon, but you can’t be a Mormon and be a Mason. Most of the top-notch business men in Ogden at that time were Masons. Most people who run the Bigelow Hotel, who run the Ogden State Bank, the ones who ran the National Security Bank, they were all Masons. They were strong Masons, they had a strong following then. They were mostly Republicans. RS: How did 25th Street start to grow? Was it already growing when you came? IH: It was growing when I came. It was of course a red-light district. Most of the hotels down on 25th Street had girls that you would drive down and they would walk down. There were girls out seeking trade all through the Southside on 25th street, down towards the railroad station. They had cribs all along there where the prostitutes held this one little room with a bed. It was a bootleg street, all the bootleggers in town, except for one. They closed 25th Street at one time and it drove bootleggers up to the bench and the prostitutes. RS: When did that happen? 17 IH: Oh, in about the late 30’s. Harman Perry was the mayor and Harmon was bootlegging out at the El Monte. RS: Old Mill? IH: Old Mill. In fact, he was convicted of bootlegging while he was running for mayor. He got the heaviest load that he had ever seen. RS: Sounds like he cheated debts running for presidency in getting the most votes from the penitentiary. IH: Yes. One time here we had a fellow of the name Ed Muncy. He was mentally way out in left field. He wore some of the most ridiculous clothes you can imagine. He was harmless, but he had a hat with all kinds of feathers and beads and everything on him. He’d ride up and down in the street cars and walk up and down the sandbox. He ran for mayor! So help me, he got the second heaviest vote in Ogden that year. RS: That’s interesting. Why did 25th Street remain alive so long, when there was opposition to it? IH: Well, Fred Williams was in the city council for a long time, and he has a store down there. He was a good friend of the lawless society. He played a big part in keeping 25th Street open. He always put a good vote in, that’s how he won the last time. For some reason, he kept that street open. RS: What kind of store did he run? IH: A grocery store. RS: Was he related to the Shupe-Williams people? IH: No. 18 RS: Your involvement in the state Senate started in 1930. How long did that last? IH: Until 1946. The Senate had all executive boards. In 1932, I became involved in trying to help Weber College. That year, 33% of the taxes were paid in the state because of the Depression. The Ogden State had closed and I was helping liquidate the Ogden State finance. Everything had gone way down in the Mormon church, so the church issued a proclamation—it wasn’t really a proclamation, but they were going to have to close Weber, Snow, and Dixie because they couldn’t afford to keep them open. Well, the House had tried three times to get a bill through to keep these colleges open. At that time, as I said before, we had prohibition. In the state, prohibition had been repealed nationally as soon as Roosevelt became president. He wrote a bill nationally, but we still had prohibition in the state. The two breweries, Fisher and Becker, were still making beer, but it was called ‘near beer’ and ‘Becker’, backwoods. Becker was near Fisher. They couldn’t manufacture beer with any alcohol in it, and the ‘near beer’ or ‘Becker’ was near enough beer than anyone was buying. Both breweries were going broke. So I got in touch with Judge Howell, who’s a friend of mine, and Dave Maw, who represented Fisher in Salt Lake. We talked about trying to get something through to let them manufacture beer in Utah. Finally, we came up with the idea: maybe we could get a bill through the legislature for admitting the manufacturer of 3.2% beer for sale outside the state. Then we thought, “Maybe we could allocate the heavy tax on the manufacturer of beer for the operation of three new colleges, and maybe get a bill to the legislature to save them.” 19 At that time, I was bishop of the Ogden Temple, and I said, “I can’t very well sponsor a beer barrel as long as I’m the bishop.” I said, “I’ll get in touch with the first presidency.” President McKay was a good friend of mine. He was chancellor and president. “I’ll get in touch with him and see what he thinks about it.” So I called him up. He had just finished up with a session; a friend of mine had him interviewed. He said, “Well, give me an hour. I’ll get back to you.” He called me back in an hour and said, “The prophecies know about the first presidency, and we can’t see any opposition to this. We’ve been making alcohol in Sandy for years for medicinal purposes, and if you can’t get something through, we will go on with you.” So that day, we prepared a barrel for a manufacturer of beer, and said it was for sale outside of the state, and paid a $1 per barrel tax against the manufacturer of beer, and a tax for the operation of making the beer. To have the state take over the junior colleges and state institutions, the first time we were together, I asked him if we got the bill through, if there was any chance… He said, “No, I have to leave tonight. You’ll have to find an additional mind.” Senator Chandline from Sanpete county, a little Republican, cheap man— he was the dean of the Senate. You didn’t get anything through without his consent, and at that time, you had to get the unanimous consent of the Senate to get his appeal. We were having an out session, and I asked for permission to induce a bill. Senator Chandline said, “What kind of bill is it?” 20 I said, “It’s an agricultural bill. I need Bullion hops to make beer.” He consented. He never forgave me about it. We got the bill through that man and saved the breweries, and the state took over the three colleges. RS: It’s your estimation they would have closed, had that not have happened? IH: No question about it. The president of the college said, “We don’t have the money. We will keep the ‘Y’ open and we will keep Rick’s open, but we can’t keep the others. Besides that, we don’t want to have competition with the school system in the state.” RS: You have been involved not only in the state Senate, but also in a number of ways on governing boards dealing with higher education in the state. Tell me a little bit about your involvement there: what you were involved with, and some of your involvement on those boards? IH: Well, let me go back to the part of my civic activities. RS: Okay. IH: In 1932, President Roosevelt appointed me an attorney, one from Denver and one from Omaha. We were supposed to enforce the national brewers code authority. When they started—when Prohibition was appealed, the breweries started going crazy, giving out back bars and all kinds of glasses and anything to get people to buy their beer. So they adopted the code of ethics. They appointed three of us to represent the eleven western states and enforce a code of authority. Well, the attorneys, named Jackson, Denver, and Brulim, from Omaha, were drinking men, and we’d go to Chicago, Omaha, and some other places to 21 try a case against some brewery. They’d go out drinking the night before and they wouldn’t show up the next day, so I had to try all those cases. When the NRA was repealed, we were taken home on a train. He was president, of course, of a brewery company. It was a timid brewery company, and all their work in Denver, $10,000 a year salary. [Inaudible]... when I talked to Roosevelt and my wife, they decided it [inaudible]. In 1953, we had a vote in Weber County and Ogden City whether we should continue on with our council manager. I was an active chairman of the committee to draw the Ogden City traffic… [audio ends]. [Audio begins again]. RS: Start back with your involvement with the Ogden City government here. IH: Well, we had an election to determine whether we should continue on with the city council, or have a council manager to do what we called a ‘home rule’ form of government. The home rule form prevailed in the special election we had. I was named as chairman of the board of twelve people to draw a charter for Ogden City. They drew the charter and then it was adopted by the borders, and then a few years later they had a revision. I was party chairman of the revision committee. But, before that, I must tell you this: I was elected in 1948, chairman of the Utah State electors. I drove potential electors, and in those days, the president of each state's Board of Electors had to go back to Washington and personally cast the state’s votes. I went back and cast Utah’s vote for Harry Truman. RS: That’s great. 22 IH: Then, in 1953, the state bar commissioner association became the state bar. Decided to revise our legal code. I served on the committee. It was called a commission—for three years revised the Utah legal code. We met in Salt Lake every Wednesday afternoon for three years, revising that code. I still look at it now. Then, a few years later, they found a commission to adopt a uniform code of evidence. I served on that commission for two years, and we wrote a code of evidence. We worked on that for about two years. Then, on my religious side, I was the bishop for the Ogden Temple Ordinance. Superintendent, ward Sunday School. I was a stake Sunday school attendant, something else I was going to say. RS: What about your involvement with higher education? IH: Well, after we got the bill through to take Weber, Snow, and Dixie over, I became very friendly with President Tracy, who was president of Weber College. I worked with him at the college, and then President Greer succeeded him, and he appointed an advisory committee to work with the staff and the administration of Weber College. I worked on that graduate committee for 16 years. I was chairman of that committee for eight years until 1968, when Weber College was made a four-year institution. I think it was ‘68, wasn’t it? RS: I’m thinking it was ‘64. IH: Maybe so. Anyhow, in 1968, I was hired for the higher education legislature. That bill went to the Supreme Court in the favor that it was unconstitutional of employment and an unconstitutional committee, because it took the appointed power away from the chief executive. The Supreme Court determined it was 23 unconstitutional, then Governor Rand ran to the point beyond his word of higher education. I served on that board for eight years. I was chairman of the buildings and housing committee for two years on the board at Weber. RS: How can smaller colleges like Weber have influence on a board like that? IH: I must say this, Mr. Sadler. Our Board of Regents have been very kind to legitimate causes. We had a handicap. They were all three small church schools, and their faculty wasn’t the best faculty. They were church-appointed, and most of them were older people. The salaries were way down, the family state of Weber College over Tracy salaries $100 a month. The Board of Regents has recognized all the way through that Weber particularly was offering a handicapped difference in salary between professors and instructors. At Weber, they were so far below the salary of the professors and instructors that the two other universities had to hire… Well, they had graduate schools, and it’s been an uphill pull to try to bring Weber up to the same-grade professors that you can find at the University of Utah or Utah State. We are getting up there, but we have a ways to go. I said in the beginning that it would take a decade to do it, and here we are. But, eventually there will be wages. I think that a professor of the same quality and same grade at Weber will be receiving about the same salaries as the University of Utah and the Utah State. RS: In the state of Utah, which is a relatively small state, population-wise, we have several educational institutions. IH: Yes. 24 RS: Do you think, from your observance on the board, that we have too many and would be better to cut back? Or do we have a bottom-up? IH: In one field, I think we are getting too many. The field of… not the academic field. What’s the other field? RS: Technology? IH: Technology. We have a technical school at Richfield, and they detract from Snow College. We have a technical school out at Vernal, right under the Utah State. Otherwise, it would be conflicting with it. They are trying to get these little technical schools down in the south. I think they’re broadening out, spreading themselves too thin. Now we have these three large technical schools. One at Weber State—which is the largest and advanced, under the best arrangement, and they have one in Salt Lake and one in Provo. It’s a good school, but their weakness is they don’t have the academic association between their students and the other students. They’re two classes of people. Now, Weber, they mix you around, the technical students and the academic students, on the same campus. Nobody there is a second-class citizen because they do mix them. I think that’s a proper arrangement. I don’t think we ought to have this many technical colleges. I would hesitate, if I were to control, to have any more academic colleges for our population and the ability we have to support them financially. We have a hard time now getting money into them to sustain them. RS: What would be your estimation of the one or two biggest problems that the Board of Regents deals with, ongoing? 25 IH: Money. For some reason, and I could never understand why, but for some reason, the Board of Regents have never been able to build a status with the Utah Legislature. They just don’t have one and they have never had one. I had high hopes when I was working for the Board of Regents that the time would come, and they’d find a reason for a close association between the Board of Regents and all of the institutions of higher learning. But our mass experience, the legislature would say, “Here, you people know more about this than we do. What should this school have and what should this school have?” But, they have never done that. When we make appropriations, they cut them down in some instances within the worst place because they don’t know where the money can best be used. The money has been the main problem. I think, with one exception—maybe it’s a good thing and maybe I’m wrong—but I think we are better-built than other campuses. Like some other colleges, some of the buildings, we use less than a third of the time. Weber College has used an average of at least 80% of the time. But, USU, some 30% of the time. They had one doctorate class at the USU when I was on the board; there was one student in it. Teaching East Indian languages, taught by our Ph.D.’s. One little student in one class. We got rid of it. RS: I’m appreciative of your time today. 26