Oral History Program Samuel C. Powell Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Samuel C. Powell Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Copyright © 2016 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Great Depression in Weber County, Utah, is an Oral History Project by Mack S. Taft for completion of his Master’s Thesis at Utah State University during the summer of 1969. The forty-five interviews address the Great Depression through the eyes of individuals in several different occupations including: Bankers, Laborers, Railroad Workers, Attorneys, Farmers, Educators, Businessmen, Community and Church Leaders, Housewives, Children and Physicians. All of these individuals lived in Weber County from 1929 to 1941. The interviews were based on what they remembered about the depression, how they felt about those events and how it affected their life then and now. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Powell, Samuel C., an oral history by Mack S. Taft, circa 1960s, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Samuel C. Powell. Mr. Powell discusses the failure of Ogden State Bank, his experiences as attorney for the Utah Construction Company, and the building of the Ogden Arsenal, the Defense Depot, etc. The interviewer is Mack Taft. MT: Would you please give us your profession and where you practiced? SP: I was an attorney at law. I practiced in Ogden, Utah. I've been in this building ever since I started to practice law outside of the time that I was in the military service during World War I. But I still maintained an office and I've been here 56 years. MT: What were some of the problems of the attorney during the Depression years? SP: The attorney suffered like everyone else did. The problem of getting sufficient clientele and business, money was tight and people couldn't afford to pay what they might have otherwise if you didn't have the Depression. Many of the young attorneys who started at that time were having a very difficult time. It happened that I had built up a clientele that was representative of people that had connections and wealth that I went through the Depression very easily with the exception of my investments when they went down. As an example, you buy Utah Power and Light stock, preferred stock, for $110 and $100, 6 and 7 percent stock. I rode it down to $10 a share and back up. Stocks were the same way. Of course, back in New York, like one of my friends said, those people who suffered when the stock market dropped not only lost their wealth, but they threw themselves out of windows. They committed suicide because of it. No one knows today what it meant to go through that Depression. 2 MT: What do you remember about the Ogden State Bank? SP: The Ogden State Bank failed in 1931, I believe, and of course it was an old bank, a well-established bank here for years. And the bank closed. My own connection with it was that on Friday before it closed, I heard a rumor that it might be closing, and I went over there to the bank to see whether I'd take my money out of the bank. I had $4,000, I think it was, in a savings account there. My principle bank was the First Security, but I had shifted over there on this. So I decided that I wouldn't take it out. On Monday morning, I was going by the bank and there was a great big sign, "Closed by the bank commission." It had a very serious effect on Ogden and Weber County. In fact, I think in the whole state. You had the same situation down in Salt Lake. You had the Deseret Bank, which was about ready to go under, and Marriner Eccles and Browning and the interests - E. G. Bennett was director then - finally took it over, and that's how they got that present building down there. I happen to be familiar with that very well. I had a connection with it. Another incident; I don't remember the name of the vice president of the bank in New York, but I was attorney for the Utah Construction Company, I guess it was, and I was in New York, and I had a letter of introduction for the vice president of this bank. So I went up to see him, and I wanted to get some tickets to a theater. I finally got them through him and some other things, and I became quite well acquainted with him and got talking about this Depression. One morning about two in the morning, I received a call from Heber J. Grant. He said, "We're having trouble. We need several million dollars." Now, I 3 don't know whether that was Zion's or First National, or whatever, but anyway it was the church bank. He said, "We need this money. Get it out to us as quickly as you can." And it was several million dollars. I forget just what it was. And they put it in the window and said, "Come on, and get it if you want it." Well, that, I guess, saved the bank from closing. And afterward he came out west here, and he was talking with Heber J. Grant - or it was Adams, I don't remember which. He said, "For what you have done, we will show you the assets of the church." And he showed them to no one else. But it was just indicative of what happened over the whole state, in fact over the whole country. Businesses were failing, bankruptcy courts were filled with petitions for relief, and the government had enacted the law in relation to the RFC and another financing law. Something along the line of what they're doing now to help Lockheed. And they were trying also to get things going. Of course it was a worldwide Depression. Poor Old Hoover got the blame for it. I went down to the depot, and I remember I never saw a sadder man in my life. He was going through, and everyone was blaming Hoover. You had Roosevelt, who was elected and Roosevelt - he wanted Roosevelt to step in and do something before he got out of office. He agreed upon the thing, and Roosevelt would not do it until after he got in office and then he closed all the banks. All the banks were closed for a week or two. I don't know whether it was that long, maybe only a week. They finally opened up. 4 They tried to weed out the ones that they thought wouldn't stand up, and I don't recall how, if they made loans or not. One of the problems that we had here, was that people were thrown out of employment. Now I was the attorney, as I said, for three of the directors on this Ogden State Bank affair, and this is a report that was given to John A. Mailai, who was the bank commissioner. It was a confidential report, but I did get it. And afterward I made a settlement in behalf of all the directors in connection with the bank. But the closing of the Ogden State Bank was the thing that hit Ogden harder than anything else. MT: Do you recall how much you received out of the liquidation of the bank? SP: I believe it was about 76 percent. It should have been more if they had hung on to the assets and gradually liquidated, but they pressed a lot of them, and I think it was about 76 percent. See, that was owned, or the majority stock owned by the Bigelows, A. P. Bigelow, and H. C. Bigelow. They were bankers who came here from Nebraska in the early days and started the Ogden State Bank. During that time I was in the Ogden Chamber of Commerce, and I was on the Military Affairs Committee of the Ogden Chamber of Commerce, and we were trying to rehabilitate the Ogden Arsenal. Now the Ogden Arsenal had been originally built after World War I, and we had a bad windstorm come down Weber Canyon and cut across the sand ridge there, and blow down most of the magazines they had constructed. They were made out of brick. I don't know why they used that. And so the Work Progress Administration had the people who were unemployed doing a lot of foolish things. One thing up around Lester Park, 5 they were taking the dirt out from under the grass and lowering it in places, just creating jobs that didn't mean anything at all. So a group of us got together, and we decided that we were going to try to use it for some kind of benefit to the community and state. So we got permission from the Works Progress Administration to start the reconstruction of the magazines and rehabilitate the Ogden Arsenal. And so we spent money in that matter until we could get an appropriation through Congress to complete it. So we went out there and built the igloo type magazine, which was the Navy type of strong base, wide base of concrete and then up with a thin ceiling. So that if there was an explosion, it went up in the air, it didn't scatter sideways as much. And that was how all this military started after 1920 when they originally built that after World War I. And that led from the Ogden Arsenal to Hill Field and then the Defense Depot and the Davis Supply Depot down at Clearfield. But there were about five of us that did most of the work in connection with getting that started. The Chamber of Commerce bought land and gave it to the government, drilled wells out there, military springs brought down from the mouth where the Job Corps is piped in down to the Ogden Arsenal. They were trying and yet interesting days. If you were young enough, then why, you could take it. You got some enjoyment out of doing something worthwhile. I was president of the Chamber of Commerce then and afterward when Hill Field was being activated, and our first officer was Colonel Burman in charge, and then later on the Defense Depot came up, and we were working hard to get it. I got a telegram from the Secretary of War Stimpson, and he said, "If the OCC 6 will raise $100,000 to help buy the land there, you can get the site there in Ogden. But you have to have information back to my office by 10 am." Well, I called a meeting and we got all the directors of the Chamber of Commerce, the city commissioner, and county commissioner, and other prominent people around here, in Ogden to pledge $100,000. That's how we got the Ogden Defense Depot. MT: Are there any of the city or county commissioners that are still living now, Mr. Powell? SP: Frank Browning was in on it with me. Harold Hemingway was in on it. There's no one living with the exception of Ezra Felstead, who was secretary of our Chamber of Commerce now, that was very active in it at all. MT: Would you compare for me a young attorney starting now with one starting during the Depression years? SP: The young attorneys now starting have so many more avenues to make money. There's a greater demand for attorneys than there was when I first started. And of course the economy of the area is much better. There is more opportunity. I might say that I was kind of halfway in between. There were the old-time attorneys that were out here in the territorial days that were admitted practice. And they were individualists, and they had an idea that the only way they could make money was in the trial of lawsuits. Well, the whole picture has changed to a great extent. The workman's compensation law came along and a lot of them complained about it, and the Federal Employees Act, which made compulsory settlements and took away the lawsuits that were made in that connection. 7 And also in the early days here in Utah, a great deal of the legal work was done in the bishop’s court. As a matter of fact, I've heard it said that the church did not encourage their young people to become lawyers in the early 1890s, and where people came to me with little things who I knew were members of the church, I would refer them back and say, "Why don't you go back to your bishop's court and get this thing settled?" Now I don't know. I'm not a member, and I don't know whether they still have the bishop’s courts or not. MT: Do you remember any interesting experiences that you recall during those times that would indicate the economy or spirit of the times? SP: Of course during your practice, you have a number of interesting experiences and losses and things that way. I've been an attorney for the Weber County School Board for 46 years. I was county attorney, I think in 1924, and prior to that time, the county attorney had taken care of that business. And so when I got out of office they asked me if I would stay, and I have ever since then. And I've been attorney for Ogden City Schools for fifteen years, up until last year when I decided that I had too much to do. I'm trying to reduce some of my practice. My work principally now is probate and corporation work, and I've tried to eliminate a lot. I won't take a divorce action, and I haven't for a number of years, and I won't take a number of things. I was attorney for the Utah Construction Company when they sold ranches out of Nevada, which involved a large transaction and transfer of property. I don't recall the exact numbers, but they extended into Nevada, Utah, and Idaho, 8 probably 500,000 acres of land, and another 500,000 tied up in forestry and public lands. MT: Were there many cases in the courts to recover debts and properties and so forth? SP: Yes, there were a lot of foreclosures, and then there was, of course, congressional action taken forbidding them, and there were a lot of bonds. You took out a federal home owner's loan. I represented a party in Salt Lake who had a large amount of money involved in mortgages on homes, and we took bonds in place of it. Of course they finally paid out. But in order to save the homes of people, that legislation was enacted. And it worked out very well during those times. MT: What do you remember about the government programs during that time that came out to assist the individual? Were there projects here that you recall? SP: Well, there were projects around here. I don't remember exactly. Most of it was in relation to public buildings and grounds and so forth to improve it. And the principle thing, and where most of it went, was out here at the Ogden Arsenal. There were some dams - Pineview Dam came along, the Echo Dam. The Echo Dam came first. And of course after that you had the Utah Construction Company and six other companies building the Hoover Dam down here, and the Utah Construction Company was the leader in that. W. H. Wattis was the first president. Now that was built during the Depression. MT: Do you have any recollection of any projects done by the CC Camps? 9 SP: Yes, there were a number of CC Camps around here. I remember one of them that we got working with the road going up to Snow Basin and the CCC were all through the forests. Mostly the Forest Service took them, and this was the headquarters for the Forest Service for Utah, Wyoming, and part of Montana and Nevada. But, undoubtedly, that did a lot for the young people. The Job Corps is kind of a successor to it, but in a different way. MT: Are there things that you recall from those years that you think might be good for people to experience? SP: Well, this may be kind of harsh, but sometimes I think we need a good Depression in order to jerk the people up and find out where we're going. I'm not in sympathy with all this give-away. We're running into the ground, nobody wants to work. We're having our problems on the account of that and everybody wants a high salary. And I don't want to say this in a prejudicial way, but I think that the unions are destroying our country right at the present time. You’re getting salaries up so high, and the production isn't going along. At the same time we've got the Japanese taking over the camera business, they've taken over the television, they've taken over the building of ships, the manufacturing of steel, and their salaries are nowhere near what ours are. And we can't compete in the world market, so those who are doing those things are cutting their people. I don't think we have any patriotism in this country any more. I think if we had an invasion, we wouldn't stand up and fight like we would have done during the First World War. At that time, I experienced that because I was in it, but we had extreme patriotism. We haven't anything like that now. 10 We went through that experience, of course, and we didn't have the controls that we have now on the economy, and we just waited it out. Before we never heard about depressions. We heard about panics. We had the panic of 1907, and we had a panic back in the 90s. I heard my mother and father talk about it, and it just kind of worked itself out. But the Depression of 1930 was really worldwide. Hoover wasn't to blame for it, and yet he got all the blame. And I criticize Roosevelt severely in my own thinking. We became great because we were willing to work and we had certain principles that we lived by. We went and cut off all the stuff to Europe, and he went over to Europe and borrowed all the stuff that we did not adopt and brought it back into the so-called New Deal to take care of you from the cradle to the grave. Well, what's resulted? A weak people, in my opinion. Sometimes some of these young attorneys come to me and say, "How can I be successful?" And I say, "How much are you saving?" And they say, "Oh, I'm not saving anything." And I say, "If you can't save money, I don't care whether it's five dollars a month or ten dollars a month, and create a habit of saving, the spirit of success is not in you." Which is true. And if you're a lawyer and you have any kind of clientele, if you have saved money, you bet your clients will come to you and say, "Do you want to make some money? Here's something that you should get in on." That's been the experience with me. And if you have the money to make the investment, you'll make money. You see, the income tax law became effective March 15, 1913. Now you take these old timers that had accumulated, like David Eccles and all 11 these wealthy people that came in here. They could save everything that they made. But in 1913 you start in with the income tax law, and it was very low at that time, very low. And then we got into all these wars, and we got into terrible indebtedness, and consequently they kept increasing it and increasing it until the average person cannot save everything because so much is taken away from them. The only way they can get ahead is to save what they can and make investments on long-term gains in the industries of this country, and grow with the industry. Now they're trying to put a law through instead of fixing a value on stocks or assets, that each person at the time of their death, to establish the amount of inheritance tax you pay to the state of Utah, or the federal or state tax. They want to go back and say, "How much did it cost you when you originally bought it?" Well, that means the destruction of wealth. The cost would be terrific for people who have worked hard all their life, and are trying to pass it on to their children on the day of their death. And then they go back and pick it up after that and it destroys the whole thing.