Oral History Program Robert S. Newey & Robert L. Newey Interviewed by Lela King 24 July 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Robert S. Newey & Robert L. Newey Interviewed by Lela King 24 July 1971 Copyright © 2014 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. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Newey, Robert S. & Newey, Robert L., an oral history by Lela King, 24 July 1971, 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 Robert S. Newey and his father, Robert L. Newey. The interview was conducted by Lela King and concerns speculations for a social gathering to be held on July 24th, 1971, in the state of Utah. LK: During spring break, Robert S. Newey and myself, were hitchhiking to Ashton, Idaho. In Tremonton, Utah we met a person named Kim Lester, who informed us of a rock festival that was going to be held July 24, 1971, for three days at Monte Cristo, Utah. He told us that it was a "sure thing" that it was "going to happen" they had permits, that Steven Stills, and Led Zeppelin were coming for sure. There was many other groups who were intending to come but they had no official notification of. He said they were expecting a crowd of fifty thousand or more. Since then there has been a lot of controversy about what was going to go on at this place. The local officials, the forest service, and land owners have been very concerned about a large number of kids coming in and disrupting their homes. The officials of Weber County have just made some decisions on what things would have to be done to provide adequate facilities on having a festival of this size here in Utah. Here is a discussion between Robert Leroy Newey, present Weber County Attorney, and his son, Robert Scott Newey. Robert Leroy Newey has been involved in the proceedings from the establishment side, and Robby is conditionally sympathetic toward the youth movement to perhaps take place. Here is Robert Leroy Newey. RLN: The proposed rock festival was first called to the attention of the Weber County Commission by members of the press. They were advised that a young man by the name of Kim Lester, who is nineteen, of Tremonton, and another young man by the 1 name of Don Olson, of Ogden, age twenty-nine, were proposing to hold a "peace picnic," up on Monte Cristo, which is just over the Weber County line over to Rich County. When the Weber County Commission were first advised of the "peace picnic, and the possibility of forty to fifty thousand young people gathering during a period of time when the pioneer day celebration is in Ogden, and Ogden Canyon is overloaded with traffic, they became somewhat alarmed, rather than taking drastic steps, they ask to meet with the two proposers of the peace festival to determine what, if any, preparation they had made. They also met with Cache National supervisor, Merlin Bishop. At the meeting held at the Weber County Commission Chamber, is was learned that there was only picnic area available for three hundred and seventy-five people, at the proposed site, that the water supply came from a private spring and had to be pumped to the proposed picnic site, that this water supply after a use of an average summer weekend would be depleted then the water supply would then have to be pumped back up and replenished for a maximum of three-hundred and seventy-five people, using the picnic area. Mr. Merlin Bishop, the Cache Co. Forest Supervisor, advised the group that if they put all of the camping facilities together in the Cache National forest it would in no way take care of a group as proposed by Mr. Lester and Mr. Olson. When these young men were asked what they proposed to do to furnish water, Mr. Lester said, in my opinion, rather naively stated, "Well our notices that went out said to bring you own drinks', and this was the extent of preparation made by him. It was further questioned as to what they proposed to do to handle sewage, how they proposed to get someone out of the area should they become ill for any reason or hurt. It was apparent that they had made no real preparation to protect the safety and welfare 2 of the people they had invited in for the festival. They had also failed to obtain a permit from the federal forest people and therefore at that time, Mr. Bishop of the fire service advised them that permits could not be issued for them to hold the rock concert at Monte Cristo, or for that matter at any place in the Cache National Forest. And the Weber County Commission advised them that they would not permit them to hold the rock festival because of the great and eminent danger to the people that might be brought into Weber County without sufficient preparations, and also to the eminent danger to the people that live up Ogden Canyon, on up into Ogden Valley, to the standpoint of overcrowding the highway, making it impossible in case of a fire or another hazard to get help back and forth. We had from that point several other meetings held; meetings were held by the Cache, Riche, Weber and Box Elder County Commission up in Logan, Utah. The solution appeared to be the drafting of a uniform ordinance for people who desired to hold festivals or other large gatherings of people. Myself and the attorney from Cache County, met with the Utah Attorney General, and reviewed an ordinance that was proposed to determine if the ordinance was reasonable and would be constitutional. At this stage Weber County Commissioners and also the Cache County Commissioners will consider an ordinance on April 20, and determine if the ordinance should be passed to control and regulate the standards of large gatherings of people in their respective counties. RSN: I know myself, with hearing about the decisions that there is a lot of inadequate facilities, and the establishment, and a lot of people I’ve talked to seemed to think it doesn't matter what facilities are available, the establishment, the people, the cowboy environment of Ogden city, especially during the July 24th weekend, Pioneer Days, is so 3 against any type of peace festival, rock festival, any type of long-hair influence that they will do anything, make any kind of rules, laws, to hold-out the coming in of all kinds of people of this sort. Seems to be that so much of the establishment, the older generation, and the cowboy environment are so afraid of long hairs, and music and the possibility of drugs being around that they will do anything. They will make rules and laws that are constitutional within their constitution, to limit and restrict any type of gathering of this sort. What type of facilities are needed, and have you decided is necessary to have a festival, and does this just pertain to a rock festival, peace-festival, with the so-called, "hippie environment" or does this also pertain to church, cowboy, old folks type environment? Just what type of problems would exist in this situation and what facilities need to be made for it? RLN: First of all the forest service has set up regulations governing the use of forest owned land, or federally owned lands. These regulations would apply whether your hair is long or crew-cut, the regulations would not contemplate whether you were using drugs or using alcohol, or being somber. I think there is undoubtedly a provision to govern people the same on the use of federally owned lands. It has been made clear by the forest supervisor that the regulations are such that they could not grant a "use-permit" to a group this large, whether for a rock festival or for some other form of religious purpose for that matter. Now then, it is true that the Weber County Commissioners, and I might say for myself, particularly I do not want to see any confrontation between large 'masses as of people you have called "hippie-type" people and the young cowboys, here during the 24th of July. And then when you interject problems, possibly with the Job Corps, as we have seen in the year immediately past, at the 24th of July celebration, I can frankly 4 say that I don't want to see fights break out, I don't want to see the confrontation between the various groups. However, this has nothing to do with the proposed rock festival up on Monte Cristo, I think that the proposers of the rock festival, or as they call it a "peace picnic" believed that this would take the hippies out of Ogden City and Weber County up into a rural area, where there wouldn't be the classes and the fights that they have had in the past. I believe their motives were good, I believe frankly they were naive, they were ill-prepared in their proposal because I don't believe they realized the preparation that it takes to protect and have a well conducted festival of this type. I have read and I have been told that over a year’s preparation went into the Woodstock before the festival took place. Now getting back to your other question in addition to the regulation for public use of public lands the proposed ordinance sets up standards for any person who would sponsor a gathering for a large number of people. The standards set up was for a thousand people requiring a license. It also provided that if it was going to be of a duration of more than eighteen hours at a time a license would be required. It provides that you must then if you are going to have a gathering of one-thousand or more people for eighteen or more hours at a time that a license must be obtained. The cost of the license would be one hundred dollars for each day, at that particular site which the gathering was to hold forth. It provides that you must furnish doctor and nurse service with an enclosure where you could treat someone if they needed medical help, provides that you must have a sufficient supply of water, and sufficient toilet facilities. The proposed ordinance provides for one enclosed toilet facility. This can be a portable type, of course, but one enclosed toilet facility, for each 300 men, and one enclosed toilet for each two-hundred women at the gathering. It also provides that you must be 5 able to dispose of the sewage, from the toilet facilities. It provides that you must have guard protection on a basis of, as I recall, one guard for each seven hundred and fifty people in attendance, so that there would not be disturbances or fights. And it provides generally for many other things such as lighting, reasonable amount of parking space, I know the Weber County Commissioners were quite concerned that there would be vehicles up in the area on one way traffic type dirt roads which would cause great traffic jams, at a far distance from any water supply, or food supplies, and it could create some real safety problems to people. So the proposed ordinance does not apply to rock festivals and in no place in the ordinance is the term rock festival mentioned, but furthermore it does not just apply to rock festivals, it would apply to a gathering of over one-thousand people, for more than eighteen hours, for any purpose, what-so-ever. Now the ordinance does not apply to places such as established stadiums and other halls, but it would apply to any facility in which the space available was exceeded by more than two hundred and fifty people. So it would not apply to a church picnic group, even if it exceeded one thousand people if it weren't going to be held for more than eighteen hours in duration, wouldn't apply to high school or college football game, because you have established facilities, and this does not last for more than eighteen hours. I might also point out that when we have large gatherings of people, at the University of Utah stadium or Weber College's stadium, Utah State or BYU stadium, within less than five minutes away from the stadium you have a major hospital facility to take care of any one. I also might point out that there are lavatories available, there is a water supply available, and any of us who attend the football games, throughout the football game hear the call for Dr. Such-and-Such, would you please come to the main 6 press box, or some such announcement. So we are well aware that there are medical people available to take care of large gatherings of people at these other places. So in my opinion the proposed ordinance would not be discriminatory against whether you want to call them long hairs or "hippies" or whether you want to call it a rock festival and it is not the purpose of the Weber County Commission to discriminate against this type of function and permit other types of large gatherings to go on. It is also not the desire of the Weber County Commission to bring in or permit someone to bring in large number of people, and then not offer them safe protection, and the many facilities that a large gathering of people would require. I also might add that if you want to put it on a basis of the establishment proposed to have some form of a gathering to bring in some type of entertainment, to invite or sell tickets to a large gathering of people, that they would have to provide facilities to do so, would undoubtedly have to have public liability insurance in case someone was injured at the gathering. And I cannot see why because you are going to do it under the guise, or someone were going to do it under the guise of being a rock festival or a "peace picnic" or a hippie gathering, why this group should not be held at the same standard and the same safety code and the same level that you would expect anyone else who was working in the entertainment field to bring in a legitimate group to entertain, whether they be of a rock nature, country western or a jazz group. I cannot see where one promoter would feel that he should be able to escape safety regulations and not be able to furnish in advance proper facilities, where you would expect any other citizen to provide safe conduct, and safe keeping of people while they are at any type of other gathering. 7 RSN: Suppose this is completely cancelled out having the rock festival at Monte Cristo, unless they could meet the standards set by the commission. Is there any place that they could possibly have one within these standards? RLN: Well there have been some certain amount of conversation back and forth; first of all the proposers of the rock festival have acknowledged that they no longer intend to hold the festival in the Monte Cristo area. They have also indicated that they do not believe that there is any way that they can call off the vast number of people who have already received notices who will be coming to the state of Utah in anticipation of attending a rock festival. There have been some offers which whether they were serious or not certainly would not be appropriable, for example it was suggested by the Attorney General, Vernon Romney, that they would be offered the salt flats during this period of time. I suspect that he said this with tongue in cheek, and the answer to this was we would all burn up if we were to be on the salt flats during the month of July, which is certainly true. There have been some other statements made, the chairman of the Weber County Commission, Commissioner George Frost, suggested that if they tried to hold it up Monte Cristo, that he would call the National Guard, now I'm sure he didn't intend this per se, because he will knows that the governor of the state of Utah is the person with jurisdiction or authority to call the national guard. And what he meant was that if it got out of hand, and there was chaos, that would certainly result if you brought in fifty-thousand people to Monte Cristo, that if it were necessary he would request the governor to call out the National Guard. My personal thinking, and I'd like to make it clear, this is my own personal opinion, not speaking for the commission, Weber County Commission, is that the responsibility should first of all be upon the people who got the 8 ball rolling in the first place, and promoted the rock festival, or peace picnic, if you may, without first having obtained any permits to do so on federally owned lands, without first having given sufficient thought as to how they were going to take care of the many people they had invited to come into the state of Utah for this purpose, and so I feel that they would be in the same category as any other promoter of an entertainment phase to go out and make arrangements, lease land, do what anyone else would do if they were promoting a particular function. Now then if they are unable to find a location, I don't think the legal obligation is upon any one else to furnish them with a location, however I would say personally, I would not want to see people get uptight over the situation, I would not want to see any confrontation between Utah National Guard, and a large group of people who had come to the state of Utah to watch a rock festival to find that there were no facilities for them to see a rock festival. Therefore I would think as a last and an emergency measure, that perhaps the answer might be, if it were obvious and eminent that all of these people were coming in and were here for the rock festival, rather than have the confrontation, I would think that there certainly should be an area of federally owned land in the state of Utah where they might go to hold a peace picnic, or a rock festival, without harassment. I would also like to say that surely where the federal government owns in excess of 70% of the lands within the state of Utah, that there should be someplace within the state that they could hold such a festival. I want to make it clear that I'm not inviting someone to hold a festival, I think that is their responsibility to find someplace, their responsibility to go out and lease some lands, which should have been done to start with if they were going to hold a festival, next I think they should have the responsibility to provide the toilets, and the water facilities, 9 and the health protection facilities, and make sure these people would have safe conduct while they were at the festival, but if it is eminent that all of these people come to the state of Utah, and they arrive and they cannot be accommodated, then as a last emergency measure, I would propose rather than calling the National Guard out to disband and disperse them that they find the federally owned land where they might go that they also provide them with lime as you may for their latrines, that they would provide perhaps, through national guard vehicles with water tank trailers and trucks, that they provide them with the water. So that they would not have forty to fifty-thousand people turned loose to possibly suffer confrontation either from the National Guard or from the young cow-boy groups, or from the Job Corps groups, as we noted in small numbers around our municipal building and park during our last 24th of July holidays. And so I wouldn't offer to advance this because I think the obligation is upon the promoters and perhaps they will find a suitable location. But as a last resort, I would feel that that would be a much better way to work it out than through a confrontation. Also I think the State of Utah should not overlook the fact that if this were properly promoted and if the standards were met that this obviously brings a great surge to the economy of the people in the state of Utah, because these people spend money the same as any other person might do, they have to buy gasoline, they have to buy food, although they wouldn't be spending it directly for lodging, perhaps either before or after the festival they would also be purchasing lodging, among all the other incidental things, therefore if this problem is faced in an unemotional manner, I feel that it can be worked out, without, to use your vernacular, "without having a big hassle, and everybody becoming uptight over it.” 10