Oral History Program Raymond Hansen Interviewed by Patricia Buchanan 06 August 1980 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Raymond Hansen Interviewed by Patricia Buchanan 06 August 1980 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii 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. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ 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 All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Hansen, Raymond, an oral history by Patricia Buchanan, 06 August 1980, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Raymond Hansen. The interview was conducted on August 6, 1980, by Patricia Buchanan, in Hansen’s home. Hansen discusses politics in Weber County as well as specific political parties in Utah. PB: Mr. Hansen tell me something about your early life growing up in Weber County and how you got involved in Weber County politics. RH: My Mother and Father were immigrants to this country. My mother came over a year before my Father and she worked for Joseph Peterson, well-known democrat, and early Chairman of the Democratic Party on his ranch up in Huntsville, Utah. My Father came over the following year and went to work for Ivan Griffin Company who was then located on Ogden Avenue between 25th and 26th Street. A couple years later, purchased by Weber Central which is now the Weber Central Dairy, on 12th Street. My Father was a firm believer that his kids raised and born in America, of which I am the oldest, and should be good citizens - should be active in their community/in their political party. Whether or not Joseph Peterson had any influence on my Father's Democratic choice, I have no idea. He always told me - 'you’re a Democrat until you got a million dollars, then you’re a Republican whether you like it or not.’ I was born on 12th street and I am told the old house east of the old Mound Fort. Later we moved to 3506 Adams Avenue among a colony of Danes and Dutch and a lot of people think that the reason I'm so tough, I don't think so, is because I have had to fight my way since I was a kid. We then moved on 177 North Washington Blvd. My Father then took his naturalization papers out. At that time the names of all their minor children whether they were born in this country or not, are listed on the certificate. I am listed, my brother Alma is listed, my 1 brother Milton is listed and my sister Laura June is listed. My Father my Father became a citizen on the 29th day of September 1926. The following year they were we had the first Democratic Ward meeting, as I referred to it at that time. My Father became a delegate to the convention and because he wasn't quite sure of the English language, he insisted that I go along. At this election he became very friendly with Governor Dern and worked very hard as did myself and my brothers in passing out handmade literature to all the citizens in the Northern end of the city. I worked in two or three city campaigns and in next county campaign. I had not yet reached the age to vote yet I do whatever I could. One of the jobs, and a lot of people amaze at this, what I had to do is to watch the obituaries, list all the people and turn them into my county chairman. This was also done by the Republicans. Who they would then turn them over to the Legislative district chairman who in turn find somebody to vote for these dead people. It should be noted that Lawrence Van Dyke, a Republican, was then a County Clerk. His records were so out of date you could vote a dead person at least twice before he was removed from the polls. As most people know, that if you miss any Presidential election you are removed from the polls at the next presidential election. That was the really big campaign I was involved in, the campaign that nominated Governor Blood the party's candidate and Delano Roosevelt as our presidential campaign. I worked hard and I learned a lot about that campaign. I was interested in it. I felt that he had the right idea of getting the country back on its feet. He didn't believe in giving anybody anything. The WPA, the CCC's, the organizations like that we could well have known and could eliminate some of our outright welfare. That is welfare for able bodied people. I don't think that they 2 should have welfare. It was then and is now a political issue and has been in the fifty some years that I have been active. PB: What was Utah like during those years when Maw was Governor and they had the CC Camps and so on? RH: No, it was Governor Blood. When Blood was governor, the Highway Department in the State of Utah had 9,600 and some employees, I can't remember the exact amount. And it was the beginning of federal financing for Highway construction. Mainly to put people to work. Governor Blood had, during the years, 32, 34, 36 and 38 legislatures and the 40 legislature. The laws of Utah was so changed when I hear about women's rights and women's rights the way they want them now. We went out and fought for when women's rights. We got minimum wage for women that wasn't even heard of. We got maximum weights a woman could lift in a factory. We in those years we passed 34 bills they're still on the statutes. This is something most people don't know. My next active campaign again was Governor Blood's campaign. And he was elected by the convention unanimously without opposition. When he, there was a lot of resentment shown by friends of Maw that said we should go into a primary system or the primary system as we know it now. A later campaign when the republicans crossed over and nominated a democrat from southern Utah that they felt would be easier to elect than a democrat from northern Utah or the Salt Lake area. I feel that the choice of a candidate is totally the choice of the Democratic Party and the members thereof. That any outside interference is an encroachment on the rights of the Democratic Party. And that's why I feel that our present system is wrong. I think we should go into a convention, we should nominate our people and present the best man we have to the public floor for their 3 consideration. If we've made a mistake, we just have to live with it and the other party will elect it. Now, getting back to our next election, the Maw election was a very exciting election, very exciting. We were able to get him elected without too much trouble. Maw was elected in 1938 and he was beat by Lee because of a scandal over one of his employees in the Liquor commission. Clyde succeeded Lee in '56 and he served to '64. In 16 years of republican administration, Utah went back so far on roads, on so many of our social gains we had got in the years between '32 and '48, that we almost had to start over again when Rampton got in. It’s been said many times when Rampton was elected in 1964 and it's been said many times that most of the legislation that was passed by Rampton was to catch up on what the republicans had been dragging their feet on. Rampton, in the 12 years he probably had the best record of any of the Governors that I've known. And now we have Governor Matheson - a good record. His re-election, I think is assured. His opponent is a second-class attorney (send that down to him - he'll probably enjoy that). And I think it was just a matter of finding somebody to put up a front. You just have to have somebody to run for every office. I think that pretty well covers the Governors. Of the twelve Governors we've had in the state, I've known seven of them, and looking over the history of those Governors, in the legislation that was passed, you can't help but think that your Democratic party is the party of the people and the party that does the best job for the people. PB: You had something to do with getting the (roving) registration agents for registering people to vote incorporated into Weber County. Tell me something about that. RH: Well, the roving registration agents that we had in Weber County, I think is a forerunner of our present law. In Walt Grader's campaign against David Wilson, I determined by 4 reading the election laws, that the county clerk had the power to deputize registration agents. And so, with the consent of the county attorney, we set up a registration agent, or deputized registration agents. And particularly in my district, district three, which I was chairman of, we attempted to register every non-registered voter in district three. And the proof of the value of having people totally registered has held up in my belief, to the fact that it's good for the Democratic Party to have people register and vote. If you look at the history of legislative three, we have not had a Republican elected in that since we got it properly registered. Your present registration is more liberal. You can go out, you have mail-in information, there are so many ways you can be registered that were not at our disposal in those days, and so today people have more opportunity to register than they ever had before in their history. I think what my father said. And an interesting thing, my father died in 1953, and the last thing he did before he died was voted an absentee ballot. He died in August of '53 and I think I got one of the first absentee ballots that were printed that year. But, he was such a believer in our country, in our beliefs, in his religion, that there was no way that anybody could change his mind on these beliefs. If he's going to be a citizen of this country, he'd vote. If you don't vote, don't complain, and if you do complain, the person that did vote has a right to smack you square in the mouth and knock your teeth out. He was so adamant about this that sometimes he'd scare you. And maybe I've become the same way. This country has been good to me and good to my family, the state has been good to me and good to my family, and I feel a very strong obligation to vote. My son-in-law ran for election to the school board, and lost by one vote. They counted and got a tie vote. They tossed a coin and he lost. So don't let anybody tell you or anybody, if you listen to this tape tomorrow 5 or a hundred years from tomorrow, don't ever let anybody tell you that one vote doesn't count. One vote is as important as a hundred, but a hundred is better. PB: What do you do when you are excluded from being active in politics due to Governmental regulations? RH: Well, Government regulation allows you to participate. Federal employees that work directly for the Government can contribute to a candidate, can put stickers on his car, he can't actively engage his party in any party office in the party, now, we had a lot of federal employees at one time, and we were unable to have them participate, we wanted their vote, we wanted their activity, so we organized a political education association, which I was elected president. We helped elect Walt Granger, Heber Benion (Secretary of State) and I think, Governor Maw that year, and we were very active in Albert Thomas' campaign. It was a choice that it had to be a non-partisan effort. In addition to being political, we fought very hard to maintain the Ogden Depot which was being threatened. The war was over and they were threatening to move that out and move it to the west coast. It's still here and I think a lot because of the political education association. The main functions of the political education association was to what advise the members working for the Government in what was good for them and/the records of various people that they were supporting was and how they could best help them. And I think because of this effort that one of the reasons that we was so successful was we were counting. We were counting up the name of being a Democratic county and I think one of the reasons was because of activities like this. PB: I see you have an open letter to the Weber County Democratic delegate from P967. Can you explain to me what happened during that time? 6 RH: This was an illegally called convention. I say it was called by the un-holy thirteen. What happened was that Darrell Renstrom left Ogden to take a job in Washington D.C. and left the Chairmanship open. Bob Drako was appointed chairman. Duly funded by the central committee. The un-holy thirteen called an illegal convention and nominated Calvin Gould as chairman, Ruth Thayne Olsen co-chairman, they now call them vicechairwomen Brian Florence as secretary, and Gordon Belnap as treasurer. The sad part of this whole thing is that it came out of the mess in the county building in the grand jury investigation which endeited our Sherriff. I think, for political reasons, instigated by the chairman of the Republican Party. At the time, as I mentioned before, that year, he was only able to elect one person to political office. The following year, or the following election, we were able to elect five to the legislature, and yearly we increased that number and did real well until our last little scandal that cost us a few seats in the legislature and one in the senate that we should never have lost. It seems, for some reason or other, that we can elect the best people in the world to office, and for some reason or other, they do some of the damndest, craziest things that aren't actually illegal but by the time they're painted, that pink becomes so red that you can't believe it was ever pink. There's a letter, and I thought I had a copy of it. Some of the people that were on there, of course there was Frank Guildner, he was chairman of the group, Clyde C. Patterson was one of the people, I can't remember all of the names, but I know of a person that has all of the names, so I'll add those at a later date. Earlier you asked me how a party should be made up and the funny thing all of this tape provides for, a chairman, a vice- chairman of the opposite sex, a secretary and a treasurer. So we attempted to involve those people and at that time we had a group of young Democrats 7 whose ideal, and so we took the chairman and vice-chairman of each of the legislative committees, legislative districts, and the chairman and vice-chairman of the young Democrats and we called them the executive committee. We would during my terms of office, and I had three terms, and tried to have a separate committee which was made up of a chairman and vice-chairman of each of the voting districts and we would try to meet with those people once every two months. We had a finance committee. The Treasurer of the party was the chairman of the finance committee. We had a sawbuck committee, a specially fund raiser committee, a Governor's ball chairman committee, and a dollar for Democrats that could serve under the executive committee or registration committees for speaking a publicity committee, and a research to get all the facts on our enemies. A women's club, and a women's minority club, a vice-chairman, an ex-official member of all committees. The vice-chairlady was the ex-official member of all the ladies committees and all the young Democrats women's committees. We had the Weber County Businessmen's Club, which I still think is in operation, and Dallas Buckway headed that up with my appointment for that and still is doing a good job by having an occasional dinner for out-of-town Democrats. Weber County elected Hawser's Club which never developed. Weber County minority clubs which never developed because nobody could decide which was a minority. We had the legislative district chairman and vice-chairman and their responsibility was to investigate and improve all the patraneeds appointments from their district such as registration agency judges, set up a committee to get delegates convention, completely organize their district, telephone committees, district headquarters committee, voting district care officers, telephone committee, meetings to instruct people on conducting mass 8 meetings and organizational voting district meetings, registration day to get up and register, and recommend registration agency. PB: I see you have a list here of the past Democratic Chairmen in Weber County. I wonder if you could tell me who they were and then tell what you have done as Democratic County Chairman. RH: The present chairman is Mick Babbles. He was elected in 1979. That year I told not to run again. Preceding Mick I held the office for two years and during that time we elected most of the Democrats in Weber County. We did lose a county commission because of what we had there. We lost a couple good legislative seats, one house seat. I think we raised more money and put on a better fight than had ever been done in Weber County. We were able to raise enough money so we were able to finance each individual candidate. Our system was financing with actual money. Preceding me, Kit Linford held a term for two years and she had a tough race. She was chairman during the time that the governor was elected. She is the only woman that has ever held that seat. She was my, during the time I was chairman, she was my secretary. She was secretary of the party and did a good job. Preceding Knit Linford, Dallas Buckway held the job for six or seven months during a time I had to leave because of the Hatch Act and at that time, I had to resign as Chairman of the Weber County Democratic Party. I was on several of the western Democratic committees. I was on several of the state committees. I think in that term, we did an exceptionally good job. On that election we won every seat but two. No, we won every seat but one. The only seat we lost that year was legislative two and the same held for the preceding two years of which I was chairman. We won all the seats but legislative two and of course, there wasn't any senatorial race that year. Mike 9 Monson was appointed to fill the unexpired term of Sheldon Mancetti who went to Washington as Gunn McKay's administrative assistant. Sheldon Mancetti was elected and went to Washington as Gunn McKay's administrative assistant. Mike Monson was appointed to fill the unexpired term of Sheldon Mancetti. Now we come into a complicated field here. Darrell Renstrom was elected in 65 and re-elected a following term. The following term he left to go to work for the teachers in Washington and Bob Draper was appointed to fill his unexpired term. The unholy thirteen called a convention and picked Bob Draper and his committee out and installed Cal Gould, Ruth Thayne Olson, Brian Florence and Gordon Donald. Preceding Darrell Renstrom, Cal Gould was chairman for two years. And preceding Cal Gould, Caleb Shreeve was chairman. Caleb Shreeve was chairman during the time of the Bud Favero and Maurice Richards, and Leroy Hadley situation with the county building. Carry over was that Darrell Renstrom lost the election. And Bruce Jenkins, I think was chairman in 1951 as Dave Welling and Ernest McKay from Huntsville who later runs for Congress. Warren Metcalf, Basil Hansen, Sid Johnson, and Blaine Peefrson, I just can't seem to put them in the right order, I would suggest possibly with the Standard Examiner can do this and would probably be happy to do it for a copy of a which is agreeable to me. PB: Can you tell me something about that incident in the County Building that involved the county commissioners during Cal Gould's term. RH: Well actually, it wasn't during Cal Gould's term. It was actually during Caleb Shreeve's term and it was a carry over for the next chairman who was Darrell Renstrom. Well, they accused the sheriff of letting a prisoner take a weekend to visit his wife. PB: Who was the sheriff? 10 RH: Leroy Hadley, and one of the most outstanding men you will know in your life. And this is sometimes what politics does to people. Roy was a kind of a person that couldn't stand the heat. He was honest, upright, and he believed everybody that he was dealing with--an attorney, and in addition to that the Republican County Chairman. He laughed at this fellow named Anderson take a weekend through "to visit his wife, and then he later was accused of letting him go without--that he was a federal prisoner and Hadley had no jurisdiction over it. Hadley served three months in the Davis County Jail because of this. They dug up several other items that are not don't important, I think, to you or anybody else. The county commission had purchased some tickets either for a football game or a basketball game or something like that from Weber College and to me it seemed Hike a proper thing for us to do to support our colleges and high schools. But evidently the Republicans didn't feel that way, so they made a big fuss about it. As a result, Leroy Hadley went to re-election, lost the election, had he won the election he probably would have been doing exactly what Bob Bowen is now doing-- serving out his term. But he didn't win the election, so he was prosecuted and I think he served three months at the Davis County Jail. It seemed like whether you are Republican or Democrat that you get into those jobs you've got to have clean skirts. Nobody would ever have thought that things that Commissioner Bott had done that were brought up after his election, Commissioner Albert Bott, a Republican had done would-be brought during an election. And they weren't brought out during the election, they were brought out after the election. After he was defeated. But these are some of the things that happen in politics. And like I said and like Harry Truman said, "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of kitchen." The reason we work so hard in the early 30's and the late 20's 11 was because it was the poor people of Weber County that were starving. I remember, I served two days a week at a soup kitchen that was set up behind the old coal stable, coal delivery stable that was located where now the Union Pacific Bus Depot is located. The kettle we cooked the soup in was an old Swiss cheese copper kettle that I was able to obtain from my employer. We would go to Debine's over to the American Packing and Provision Company which later becomes Swift's now is Smith and Edward's junkyard, and they'd bones and hope we could get a little meat on them. We would call farmers and ask them to bring their extra potatoes, onions, carrots, and other vegetables in and between the women in the party and the kids in the party all of these were prepared so every morning we were able to give everybody a good big ladle of stew plus a cup of buttermilk. The buttermilk was donated by the Mutual Creamery Company, my employer at the time. If it hadn't have been for that effort, I think many people in Ogden would have starved to death. It was something that I have always been proud of. I remember that the soup kitchens a lot of times would go from Grant Avenue down to Wall Avenue and back towards 27th one way and about back to 24th the other way. Usually to dish out that soup would take two hours, but it was important, and we continued that thing for almost two years and finally Roosevelt come through with some of the relief programs that got the people something to eat besides homemade stew. My statement now is not political. In the early part of my life, like most adolescents looking for excitement in Ogden was really a place to be raised. Ogden was there at that time ; the lottery headquarters of the West. On Tuesdays, Tuesday night, the trains converging on Ogden and they did from all directions, Ogden was then a railroad center carried Chinese lottery salesmen. A lottery burnout took place in taverns under the 25th Street 12 hotel as far as I can figure out from memory the place is now called the Kokomo is where the lottery used to take place. The procedure was interesting, they had long steel rods that they would put in a brazier until they were red hot and then this Chinaman would take these hot sticks and force them down through maybe an inch, inch and a half of paper and pull them out and then take another one and down and depending on whether your number burned out, whether or not you won. You could win anywhere from a dollar to one hundred thousand dollars. The Tourier's Commission was standard, was ten percent of whatever, take it he sold you if you won you owed him ten percent. It took place, if I remember right, up until the early 30's and then a lot of sanctimonious people felt that it was wrong to have that kind of thing going on in Ogden and it’s now gone. The history of Ogden and part of the history that I could see no harm in, I see no harm in slot machines, I see no harm in a lot of things, but of course I'm a rabblerowser. 13