Oral History Program J. Bracken Lee Interviewed by Harold C. Bateman 12 October 1971 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah J. Bracken Lee Interviewed by Harold C. Bateman Emeritus Professor of History 12 October 1971 Copyright © 2012 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 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. Additional interviews were conducted by members of the Weber State community. ____________________________________ 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: Lee, J. Bracken, an oral history by Harold C. Bateman, 12 October 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. J. Bracken Lee 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with J. Bracken Lee (born 1899). Governor Lee served as Governor of Utah (1949-1957), mayor of Price (1935- 1947), and mayor of Salt Lake City (1960-1971). The interview was conducted on October 12, 1971 by Harold C. Bateman. HB: I am Dr. Harold C. Bateman, director of the Weber State College Oral History Museum. It is a great pleasure to interview J. Bracken Lee, who served two terms as Governor of Utah and three terms as the Mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah. Mayor Lee has served many years as a public servant and evidently felt it imperative to enjoy the blessings of retirement. While he did not seek office this year, he continues to enjoy a tremendous following of supporters and admirers. Just a week or so ago, a highly respected official of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints said of Lee, "I fully sense that J. Bracken Lee is an honest man." This conviction is shared by many citizens regardless of their religious affiliations throughout the state of Utah. Mayor Lee, would you please tell us about your early life, family and education? JL: I was born in Price, Utah on January 7th, 1899. My father was Arthur J. Lee who was born in Springville, the son of Edwin C. Lee, who was a convert to the Church and came to Utah in 1855. My mother was Ida May Leiter, who was born in Salt Lake City, and her mother was the daughter of a very prominent Mormon who came to Utah in 1849. However, she quit the church when her husband took another wife. She raised my grandmother out of the church and my grandmother 2 raised her family in the Episcopalian church. But the peculiar thing about my great grandmother, who divorced her husband because he took another wife, is that she ended up becoming the fourth wife of the brother of Truman O. Angell, who designed the Mormon temple. But, my mother was raised out of the church. All of my father's brothers, he had three other brothers, became very active in the LDS church. He was the one that drifted away, and after marrying my mother, raised our family pretty much out of the church. I have a son and a daughter however, who are both very active in the church and most of my relatives on both sides are church members, but I have never been active in the LDS church. I got interested in politics to begin with when I wasn't even 21 years old, but I began to take an interest in what was going on and I felt that the people weren't getting a square deal, and this irritated me. I'm the kind of person that if I see something that looks unfair, I have the feeling that I want to make it right. HB: This was in Price, wasn't it? JL: Yes. And so I would speak out. Then, when I didn't like the mayor that we had in office, I tried to get somebody else to run. We couldn't find anybody who would run and finally, somebody said, "Why don't you run?" I did and I got beat badly. So then I thought I wasn't cut out for politics and at the next election we got another man and stood behind him. The new Mayor was in, but I didn't like the man I had supported. I started to criticize him. I had some trouble with him and I decided we'd have to get somebody to beat him. So it ended up pretty much the same way, "Why don't you try it again?" So I did and I won by 2 votes. The salary 3 of the mayor of Price was $25 a month and it was a two year term. So that meant that I would get six hundred dollars for two years. My opponent brought a lawsuit contending that I didn't have enough votes, or that two votes weren't enough, and demanded a recount. Between my lawyer and court costs, it cost me well over $800 to prove that I was elected Mayor, to collect $600 in two years. Actually, I enjoyed it though. There were many things that you could do as a mayor. When you have a mayor and city council form of government, it gives you more responsibility and there's more that you can accomplish. In Salt Lake they have the commission form of government, which means that you have five people, and although the mayor has the title, he actually has no more power than any other commissioner. HB: I've noted that you certainly have the support of all the religious sects generally in the state. How would you account for that? They must like your policy, don't they? JL: Of course. I think you have to recognize that if you go to Boston, you find the majority of the people there are Catholics. And if you go down in areas of Texas, you find that most of them are Baptists. Wherever you find a dominant church, it's natural that you're going to find that the church will be accused of trying to play politics. I think of Mormon people as being just the same as everyone else. My feeling is that if a religious group doesn't like a candidate, they can defeat him, where they are in control. But if a candidate is not anti-CathoIic, for example, I don't think the Catholics, as a whole, would vote against him. I think definitely that any religion would, if they felt that you were against them. I've had a lot of 4 good personal friends in the church as you well know. Over the years, the leaders of the church have been great supporters of mine. HB: Some years ago, I had the opportunity of listening to a conversation between two men. One of them was trying to talk the other one out of voting for J. Bracken Lee. He talked to him for ten or fifteen minutes and when this other fellow left after listening to his talk, [they were both good Mormons] the other one said, "Well, I am still going to vote for J. Bracken Lee." I was quite interested in that. Well, what is your position concerning the economic capacity of the state of Utah to support its institutions? JL: Well, of course, what had disturbed me in Utah is the great amount of money which we are putting into education, which I don't think, and have never felt, that we could afford. I take as an illustration the University of Utah. I'm not oposed to having the finest school system you can afford, but here we have a state of a million people and the University of Utah would be a credit to a state the size of California. HB: That is right. JL: Both in area, and buildings, and the educational program you have. Now it's hard for me to understand that Salt Lake City, with almost 200,000 people, has a total operational cost which is just over one third of the cost of operating the University of Utah. Now when you stop and consider all the street workers, all your firemen, all your policemen and all your employees in Salt Lake City, we only have about 1700 and the University of Utah has 5,000 so-called blue collar workers. On top of that, they have 1,700 people in the teaching profession. One way or another, 5 from your executives on down, there are five thousand more employees at the University of Utah than all of Salt Lake City government. It's out of balance. I notice that your president, whom I know very well, a fine man I've always liked, Bill Miller, is retiring. This of course brings back memories of Weber College. I gained the ill-will of school people all over the state pretty much with my policy of trying to cut down the cost of our educational system. I don't think there is a million people anywhere in the United States, or anywhere in the world, that maintains as many state operated colleges as we do. I think it's to our credit to try to do it, but I think it's difficult for the people to afford it. HB: I can certainly understand what you're getting at. It’s been a pretty expensive thing to move Weber to a four year institution and if we take on a graduate school, it's going to cost considerably more. There's no question about it. It's a very, very expensive operation and I think your basic contention is that there is a possibility that we are overspending and expanding our social services too fast, and possibly we might end up in the field of collectivism or socialism. JL: Well, of course this is what worries me because apparently we're heading in that direction more and more all the time. It appears that most everybody, no matter what walk of life, likes a little socialism. I guess we'd all like to limit it some too, but by liking a little of it, our weakness is that we keep adopting more. Now it used to be unheard of to think that the federal government would come along and help a private corporation but now we're doing it. HB: We certainly are. 6 JL: We appropriated aImost a billion dollars to save an airplane industry on the excuse that these people would be out of work. HB: That was Lockheed. JL: Now, what's going to happen when Kennecott and U.S. Steel can't pay their bills? Are we going to finance them? The disturbing thing is that these people used to be tax payers, now they become ‘tax-eaters.’ This throws the burden back onto working people more and more, and how long can you stand this? Can we ever break that? I've tried to preach in government, that you must endeavor to try and live with what you can afford, because if you live beyond your means, it seems inevitable that you're going to reach a state where you're going to have to pay for it. HB: I wonder if you would care to comment on the philosophy of the various political parties today. Are they quite similar, do you think? Is there really a difference? Does the tax payer and the voter really have a choice, to any great degree, in selecting their candidates? JL: No, I don't think there's much difference between the political parties, either state-wide or nationally any more. We know what kind of a platform Nixon ran on, and what he implied that he was going to do. But in my opinion, he has done pretty much the opposite. He's pretty well stolen the platform of the candidates from the Democratic side. Not too long ago, Kennedy got up in the Senate and said that he thought the government ought to use tax money to cure cancer. We should appropriate money to try to solve that great problem. The publicity was immediately taken 7 over by the President and the average person today thinks that Nixon advocated it. So he takes hold of anything that the Democrats come up with. It's been my opinion that since the days of Roosevelt, the two parties have pretty much drifted together. I'm sure that most people felt that Eisenhower could have been a candidate on either ticket. In fact both wanted him. HB: True. JL: In fact, Nixon could run on either ticket. HB: He's been working closely with Lyndon Johnson and Connally. JL: Yes, and in the last few years, say since the first term of Eisenhower, I think the people have not really had any choice. Maybe we didn't really have any before that, but I particularly think that Eisenhower in his first term pretty well took over the Democratic idea of government spending and taxation. HB: That's the position of the historian. JL: Then, the people, in the Republican party, pretty well took the convention away from the politicians, the professional politicians, and nominated Barry Goldwater. I don't think Goldwater really wanted the nomination but he got it. But the same politicians who lost the party to him destroyed him as a candidate. I really felt that Goldwater gave you a choice. I don't know what's going to happen in the next election, but I for one would not support anybody that's been named to date by either party. I wouldn't support Nixon. In fact, I had a group of people wire me when there was some talk that Nixon might drop Agnew as the Vice President. They wanted me to send Nixon a telegram requesting that he keep Agnew on the ticket next time. I wired 8 the group back, and said, "I'm not for Nixon for President, I'm for Spiro Agnew. I'd rather have him." HB: Well, Agnew is consistent. JL: I would vote for George Wallace. Now I don't know whether Wallace would make any better a President than any of the others, but at least he's out fighting what the others are doing and he does give me some choice. Now people say that you should be positive about things and never negative, but I like to say this—I think the greatest thing about living in a free country is the right to be negative, because anybody can be positive in Russia. You won't have any trouble at all saying yes. When you get in trouble with a dictatorship, is when you say no. The right to say no is really the freest thing you can do. But when they tell me that I've got to go mark a ballot and haven't any choice but to say yes, I have no freedom. But you know, when you talk about freedom, I've about come to the conclusion that there's something more precious and lasting than the kind of freedom maybe that most of us talk about, and I think that is a government that tries to be just. I think i can prove my point by pointing to the days of slavery. After emancipation, when the Negro was owned by a white master that was a just, fair and honorable master, he never left the master. He stayed there till he died. HB: That is true. JL: Because he knew he was being treated fairly and justly, and they would give him medical care, and he had a place to sleep and good food to eat and this is what appealed to him. Freedom without justice is wrong. I'm under the impression that 9 what we're doing is creating more and more injustice all the time. Look at that what we've done with our tax laws. They become more unjust all the time. In this morning's paper, you had the example of Texaco Oil Company. It paid out of about ten percent of its profits in taxes, and the company scrub lady was paying about eighteen percent of her low salary! HB: I noticed in yesterday's Ogden Standard Examiner, that they are going to reappraise our property up there, and that they expected that the taxes would be raised. JL: Well, of course, to have correct appraisal for our property is the proper thing. But when it's done, we ought to have a state law that would require them to lower the mill levy, because you create a windfall for the government that I don't think the government should have. HB: Any time they have a surplus, they're going to find means and ways of spending it. JL: Why sure. HB: That's the way it works. JL: This is the trouble with government not being limited in its income. And, I have pointed out many times that I think every one of us needs to have some controls over us. HB: I agree with that. JL: Let's take the traffic laws. We all agree that we should have a speed limit, and stop signs, and all these things to preserve life and property. And we agree pretty much that all of us need a limit over what we can do as a citizen. I can't go out 10 here and deliberately harm you without paying for it. And we all agree that this is good, and we ought to have, as individuals and private institutions, an economic limit on our income which means that if we violate it, we get into trouble. And, the theory of our forefathers was that government would also be limited, but now the people say, "Give the government more power. Give it more money. Give it more power." HB: And they ask for more services. JL: The more you give a human being, the more power you give him, the more likely he is to abuse it. HB: That's right. You keep asking for more services, you've got to pay for them. JL: We think that government is different, and I don't think we should. I think that people who now would say that our government's old fashioned, I would remind them that we go back to our Constitution, that it's more modern than any form of government that anybody's ever thought of since. HB: That's true. JL: Because there isn't anything new about socialism. There isn't anything new about Communism. Communism and socialism are dictatorships and kingdoms. They're as old as man. But where do you find anything as modern as our original constitution? HB: That's true. JL: We've destroyed it. It's not the original government any more. HB: There are plenty of our people who really don't know what our founding fathers said. They didn't intend to go Jacksonian and have mob-ocracy and that's the 11 kind of thing we've got now. We've got what is called democracy but it's chaos. You see what our hippies are doing and what so many of our people are doing. Our founding fathers had restraints against that. JL: Now really, I think one of the greatest tragedies of our school system, is that we're not teaching history as much as we used to. I look upon history as one of the greatest subjects that can be taught, because if you're going to learn anything about the experience of others, you've got to read history. That's the only way you can profit by it. If we had been teaching history, like we should have been teaching it for the last thirty years, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now. Because what is history? It's a record of the successes and failures of people. If we had any sense at all, we would learn that and then we'd know from the experience of our fathers, how they hurt themselves. HB: Well, I've taught history at Weber since 1946 and I'm glad to hear you say that because I fully agree with you. I think that more people ought to get some good, solid courses in history—my background is such that I can go into sociology or economics or political science and related fields and feel right at home in teaching those areas. And you have to know those fields to teach history. JL: I think it's the most important subject you've got. HB: I don't think a man's educated unless he knows his history. JL: I'd use this as an illustration. Your scientists keep a record of their experiments and in many instances they are compelled to make literally thousands of experiments before they finally find a solution to what they're working for. If they 12 didn't keep a record of that, just think of how many times they'd keep making the same mistakes over again. HB: That's true. JL: You see, this is what we keep repeating, our mistakes, because we don't know enough about history. That causes the trouble. HB: Maybe I will get into trouble with some of my statements here if someone listens to this tape, but one of the things that makes me ill is this—that so many men go and get their higher degrees and training in the field of physics and then wind up as administrators. They're not administrators. JL: Oh, this is true. HB: It doesn't make sense. You wouldn't expect a person who is a professor of sociology to go into a hospital and operate on you. Yet we're doing that in every area of society. I think it's as stupid as it can be. JL: Isn't this what's the matter with government? HB: I think that’s what’s the matter with the government. JL: We're electing failures to office. HB: We are, absolutely, in too many cases. Now, to bring some of this to focus, Mr. Lee, what years were you Governor of Utah? JL: From January 1949 to January 1957. HB: As I recall, didn't you occupy sort of a minority position? What was this committee you were on, you and Heber Bennion and Clinton Vernon? JL: Well, that was the Board of Examiners. HB: Oh, Board of Examiners. That's what I was trying to think of. 13 JL: Of course, I was the only Republican elected in twenty-four years in state government. HB: Then I was wondering about the State Senate and House. Weren't those two bodies predominantly Democratic? JL: The first two years, they were very much Democratic, seventy-five or eighty percent. But let me say that you had some outstanding Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate with whom I got along very well. In fact, I went out and worked two years later all over the state to get a Republican House and Senate and found out that they didn't do as good a job as the Democrats. HB: That's just what I was going to ask you, if it was true that you received about as good support from the Democrats as from the Republicans. I believe you did. JL: Oh yes. Very much so. Very much so. HB: Heber Bennion isn't with us any more I understand. I tried to get some history from him. JL: Too bad. He was a fine man, a good man too. He became a good personal friend of mine over the years. HB: He was a good, sound thinker, wasn't he? JL: Very good. HB: What happened to Clinton Vernon? He's in town isn't he? JL: Vernon lives here in Salt Lake City. I see him once in a while. HB: He didn't get back into politics after he was Attorney General? JL: No. 14 HB: Well, I wondered about that. I want to contact him sometime. I think Heber Bennion was a very fine man. I guess Vernon was a good man too. JL: Well, I got along with them both. I think that Vernon was inclined to be more political. By that I mean, he usually rendered an opinion from the political standpoint, which got him into trouble. HB: What did? JL: His opinions got him into trouble. HB: Oh, his legal opinions. JL: He rendered a few opinions to begin with that I thought were legally wrong. Here's where you get in trouble. If you don't try to render an opinion from the standpoint of what is actually correct, and you render it for political reasons, which I'm sure Vernon did, you need to be careful because things change. In other words, the subject that I ask an opinion on today may be in my favor if it's rendered one way now and differently a year from now. I may ask you for an opinion that is on the same subject but I may be on the other side of the fence. He got to a point where finally he wouldn't give me an opinion on anything because I kept a record of it, and then when I'd ask him later on and he'd reverse the opinion. I'd say, "Well, what about this opinion?" Finally the last year or so, Vernon wouldn't even give me an opinion, of any kind, because I had him tied up. I've always contended that if you do something wrong today, it's going to catch up with you. I'll prove this to you. In my case, I actually think I was elected governor in 1944. I was beaten in the vote count by about 1200 votes. But we discovered that the judges throughout the state had thrown out better than 8000 15 ballots that were marked for me. They were straight Democratic votes, but they jumped over and voted for me, without scratching the other name out. Now what brought this about was that the original state law said, "If the judges of election can determine for whom the vote was cast, they must count it." About twenty-five years before that, in a county election in Salt Lake, there were two women running for county recorder, one on the Democratic ticket and one on the Republican ticket. They had all Republican judges in the Supreme Court, and on this particular case the Republicans had voted straight Republican but had gone over and scratched for the Democrat. The judges counted all of these ballots, and it brought the Democratic woman in. Well, the Republican woman brought a lawsuit stating that they shouldn't have counted these ballots and the Republican Supreme Court upheld the Republican and kept the Republican in office. So when I came up here they had a precedent, and all these ballots were thrown out. So, based on the Supreme Court decision, the judge threw my case out. But you see it's just like Clint Vernon. Things come home to roost with you, and I contend this happens to all of us, one way or another you pay for what you do wrong. HB: That's right. Clinton practiced law very long before he became the Attorney General. Had he had very much actual experience? JL: He was in law I think in Logan, wasn't he? HB: Yes he's from Logan. JL: Now don't get me wrong, I like Clint Vernon. This was one of his weaknesses which I'm sure that he would admit. But I use this as a point and I'm sure he 16 would have to admit it if you asked him about it. Personally I liked the fellow very much, liked his wife very much. Heber Bennion, I think, was a very fine man. HB: Very consistent. JL: I will say this for him, that even to his detriment, he voted with me many times rather than with Vernon. I could give you one illustration. The LDS church wanted to buy a piece of property that belonged to the state, and my feeling was that we shouldn't sell it to the church unless we had a fair market value on it. There were two ways to get it, one was to get appraisers to appraise it, or call for bids. My suggestion was that we call for bids and if the church happened to bid it in, fine. We shouldn't give them any preference because they were not going to use it for church purposes. They were trying to buy a block of ground up here that they eventually leased to the county for their auditorium. So they came and talked to me and offered me a sum of money for this property. I said, "I don't like to do this. If it was for a school or some good reason I might feel different. But I really think we ought to advertise it and then if you bid it in, fine." So Heber Bennion went along with me. HB: I think he was a very fine man. JL: Of course, Vernon didn't, but we called for bids and the Church was the high bidder, but they paid a lot more than they originally bid for it. HB: I'd Iike to ask you about trends in education. We have liberal arts and professional-vocational education. Are we overdoing some of these areas, for example liberal arts? 17 JL: I think we have. I know that you know that I had quite a bit of trouble with the school leaders in this state. In the first place, I got into trouble with them because I felt that the vocational schools should be a part of the high schools and universities. But I never could sell that idea. My thought was that you don't need more administration. What you need is more money for the actual teaching. I contended that they ought to be a part of the same school system and their theory was that it should be separated. I think I have proved that this was a mistake because I think the people in favor of liberal arts and the professions had a tendency to downgrade mechanics and electricians and people that work with their hands. I think that those people should be able to get a degree in the college and be looked upon with the same respect that the others had. HB: Dr. Dixon would agree with you 100 percent. JL: I'm sure that there are a lot of people in the school system who would agree with this. HB: There are a lot of people at Weber, I might say, who if they had their way, would push the technical school right off that campus. They've got the wrong attitude. JL: Well, what is degrading about something that is so necessary to the welfare of the human race? HB: I think it's just as dignified as a PhD in liberal arts, absolutely. JL: I do too. HB: If I have a plumber come into my home who can do a good job, he's just as important to me and his skills are just as great as a man who's a liberal arts specialist. 18 JL: Well, anyway, I got in trouble over that. Then I got into trouble over something that I've never agreed with the school teachers on and that is their demand for what I call a union. They say it isn't, but it is. HB: Well, it is a union. JL: You see, I felt that you should pay the better teachers more money. Good people should be rewarded. I know that good teachers are not made they're born to begin with. HB: That's right. JL: I don't think that you can make a teacher out of anybody. HB: No sir. JL: So this caused me trouble because I wanted a system of reward for better teachers. I never could get it. Of course, I finally came to the conclusion that you just as well call it a union and fight it, because the very theory of the union is equal work, equal pay. To me, this defeats the educational system, and I'll tell you why I think it does. During my life, I've seen it grow. I can remember when the principal in the high school even taught a class. He probably had a girl in his office, and once in a while probably had students helping. Now I see the school system loaded down with supervisors. Here is what happens—and it's human nature and if I were on the school board, I'd be guilty of the same thing. But here, you've got a good teacher, and the good teacher becomes discouraged because he sees the incompetent teachers neglecting their job and not teaching like they should, not delivering. So he gets discouraged, and says, "Well, this is no system 19 for me. I'll either get into another business or I'll try to get into another educational position somewhere else." So he comes to the school board and says he's quitting. Well, why are you quitting? "Well, some teachers are not earning their money and I think that I am, and there's no reward and no future." So the school board says, "Well, we don't want to lose that teacher he's too valuable." So then you create a system of making a supervisor out of him to pay him more money. Now maybe, he's an excellent teacher but a poor supervisor. What you're doing is putting your poor teacher in contact with your students and your good teacher, who really ought to be in contact with the school system, is eliminated. I think you're lowering your educational standards. Now my experiences in school—and incidentally I didn't answer your question originally there—I did not even graduate from Carbon High School. I joined the Army in 1917 and later, they gave us diplomas. I joined in April and they gave us diplomas. But actually, I didn't even graduate. I volunteered for the Army. HB: You know what some wise professors have said? There's no substitute for brains and they say it's a shame to tack a thirty thousand dollar education on a fifteen cent mind and that's what they're doing a lot of today. JL: Yes, It's very true. HB: In your case, I don't think there's any question about your aptitude and your intelligence. You had the qualifications. You've got your education in actual life. JL: Well, I will say that I think the schooling you and I had is probably better than what you get today. 20 HB: Oh yes. JL: Because they used to teach more and there wasn't as much foolishness. HB: That's right. JL: I want to tell you another thing that impressed me in school. I had about four or five teachers from my first grade until my last that made an impression on me. The rest of them didn't. You know the conclusion that I came to? If I'd had a good teacher in every subject, I would have been good in every subject because some teachers have a way of creating interest in a subject for a child that he may not even like. HB: That is true. JL: But if you have a poor teacher in a subject that you don't like, you're never going to learn very much in that subject. HB: That's true. JL: Now the subjects I learned the most in are the subjects where I had outstanding teachers. I think a good teacher is priceless. HB: I agree. I don't think they can pay a good teacher enough. I was impressed by something when I was stationed at Camp Callen, California during this last war period. General Hardway appeared one time and he saw a man loping around the battalion area with a full pack on his back and he said, "What is going on here?" The battalion commander said, "This man has broken some of the rules and we're making him pay for it." The general said, "I never want that to happen again. What we want to create in the minds of these men is a good image toward the Army, not a bad one. Don't let that happen again." So what you say is true. I 21 think any of us can name our great teachers on one hand. You know Milton R. Merrill at Utah State? He's one of the great ones. Roy Welker is another. I don't know if you ever met him or not. He's quite active in the church offices. He wrote a lot of the courses of study. JL: I think I've met him. HB: He's one of the great teachers. There are not too many of them JL: You know, I used to talk to many educators and when I ran into a really qualified person, I never had any trouble selling the idea that you should reward people who were doing the better job. The ones I had trouble with were the people who knew themselves that they couldn't make it on their own. They'd always say, "But who's going to judge us?" I never heard a good teacher say that. They'd say, "I don't care who judges us." I don't think there's any measurement on earth by which you can measure a person except through trial. I don't think you know who's going to make a good road commissioner or who's going to make a good mayor or who's going to make a good school teacher until you give them a try. HB: That's right. JL: Then, how are you going to measure? I'll give you two illustrations. I wanted the best man in this state to be chairman of my welfare commission and every place I went people said, "See if you can't get Dr. Lambert from BYU." He's the fellow who had been advising the Legislature on welfare problems for ten or twenty years, whatever it was. So I talked to Dr. Lambert, I'd met him before, and I asked him, "Would you be interested in being chairman of the Welfare Commission?" He said, "Only on one condition that they give me a leave of 22 absence because I want to go back to my job." So then I called the church officials and asked them if they'd loan him to me and they did. Now mind you, he was a good man and he was a good teacher, but he wasn't an administrator. Actually, it got worse in that welfare department, and it was in a mess when he took it over, but it got worse. Actually, he came down to me and he said, "You know, I thought I would actually know something about running a thing like this. But I must admit to you, I'm a failure." HB: He's a smart man to admit that. JL: Well, he told me, he says, "I just don't know what to do about it." Well, now, Shoemaker— HB: The Sears Roebuck executive? JL: Yes. During my first term, I had a certain deadline to get my appointments in. I had everything appointed but the chairman of my Tax Commission. I wanted some good, fair-minded individual with intelligence. I’d inquire around and I got quite a few recommendations that Shoemaker was a very capable administrator, but I'd never met him. I didn't want to appoint somebody I didn't know, so I called his house and this was the day before my deadline. I called his house and his wife said he was out of town. I said, "Where is he?" She said, "Chicago." "Do you know where I can get in touch with him?" "Yes," and she gave me the number of Sears Roebuck. So I placed a call to Sears Roebuck and they said he'd just left by train for home. So that was two nights and a day trip, something like that. Anyway, I then called his wife back and said I couldn't get hold of him, but maybe you can tell 23 me, "Would he be interested in being chairman of my Tax Commission?" His wife said, "Well, I'm sure he would be." She said, "You know he's getting awfully cranky laying around the house doing nothing." I'll never forget that. I said, "Well, I'm up against it. He's on his way home on the train, I can't contact him." Well, I appointed him and when he got off the train, he bought a newspaper and here's his picture as chairman of the new Tax Commission. So instead of going home, he caught a cab, came up to my office, walked in and introduced himself—first time I ever met him. He said, "What's this all about?" I explained it to him. He said, "Well, what do you want me to do with the Tax Commission?" I said, "Well, I have a theory of government and I want you to be as fair with the tax payers as you are with the state. I don't want anybody to be penalized and I don't want any personality standards. I just want you to be as fair as you can." He said, "How much power am I going to have?" I said, "I'm going to hold you responsible for the success or failure of the department, therefore, you'll have full responsibility. You'll run it." I called the other commissioners up. I introduced him and told them he was going to be chairman and he was going to be the boss. And what'd he do? The first week, he employed a very active Democrat, one of the most active Democrats in the state, as the chief attorney of the tax commission. Well, you know what happened? Republicans from all over the state called wanting to know what's going on. I called him in, and I said, "You know, you have gotten me in a lot of trouble." He says, "Well why?" I said, "Appointing this Democrat." He thought just a minute then he left the office. He came back with the other 24 commissioners. He said, "I want the other commissioners to hear what I have to say. In the first place, Governor, you told me when I took this job that I was to be the boss. These people didn't hire this man. I hired him. I want you to know that these other commissioners didn't have anything to do with it. I hired him. I hired him because I checked his record and I don't know of any other attorney in the state who's better qualified on tax matters than this man." It was true, he was a good man. He said, "Now, If you want me to fire him, I'll fire him, but I want you and these commissioners to know that when I walk out of this door, I go too." In other words, if he wasn't going to run it, he'd quit right there. So I told him to go back to work and forget it. Well anyway, when Lambert quit, I moved Shoemaker over there. You never saw such a change in your life. In thirty days it was the smoothest operating department you ever saw. HB: How is Ward Holbrook? JL: Ward was a good man, yes. I was very fond of Ward. HB: He's quite old now isn't he? JL: Well, he's retired now. HB: Well, I don't want to wear you out but I'd Iike to get a little on the history of Weber College struggle. I believe in 1949, you became Governor. That's when they tried to make Weber a limited four year institution, and a bill was passed by both Houses. JL: I vetoed it. HB: You vetoed it. JL: Yes. 25 HB: Could you give a little history on that? JL: Well, I actually thought we had too many four year colleges for the size of our state and, of course, I was trying to cut down on expenses. I cut the University of Utah back. I realized that the bill provided no funds for it but I knew once you set it up, it wasn't going to be long because this is the history of it. That was the only excuse I had. Now, of course, when you get into junior colleges, which Weber was at the time, and the history of Weber as is true with Snow and a number of other colleges, is that they originally belonged to the LDS church. HB: That's right. JL: The church transferred them over to the state with the understanding that if the state ever moved them, the property would then return to the church, which it did. So I, being a good friend with the church leaders, met with them and asked them if they would take the schools back. They said they'd give me an answer later. So it wasn't long until I was advised that the church would like to take the schools back. HB: Was that President McKay? JL: President McKay was the President at that time. He is not the one that I talked to however. Now the one that I talked to who represented the church at the time is still alive and I think maybe I'd better not mention his name. He was the spokesman. HB: You say the reason you vetoed it was financial reasons? JL: Yes. Even though the bill carried no provisions for any money and they didn't intend to appropriate any, at that stage. 26 HB: The Legislature didn't? JL: Yes. HB: They were just passing the buck to you. JL: All they wanted was the authorization. Now my recollection was that there was a small sum of money attached to it, I think something like $10,000 or something like that. It didn't amount to much and I think it was just to implement it. Then of course, I didn't like the idea of Utah financing the junior colleges. I lean more toward the theory that they have in California, that if you had a junior college, the local government had to share in part of the expenses. My argument on that was, if you put a junior college in Price, why not one in Vernal or why not one in Roosevelt or why not one in other cities? There's no end to it unless you pass some of this burden on. Now in California, local government has to pay a sum to get a junior college. You see recently they authorized one at Roosevelt. HB: They talked about it. JL: No, it's authorized. HB: Oh, is it? JL: But no funds have been appropriated. But I don't like to see the state move faster than it can afford too, and I think the only way to compare what you can afford is by comparing it with other states. We are putting more into education than any other state in the union, individually and personally and every other way. This was what I was thinking. Another thing that I always believed In, I would rather have one good school than two poor ones. My feeling has always been if you branch out and have too much, you lower your whole standard. Now when it 27 came to this deal with the Church, why I contacted the Church and they said yes, they'd be glad to take these schools over. They even wanted the Price school which was not a former church school. I said fine, because I think BYU is one of the finest colleges in the state. I really do. The Church has convinced me that they know how to run a good school. So I personally couldn't see any harm in it. They used to own them, they used to run them, here they're willing to take this burden off our shoulders, and that would leave more for the other universities. Of course people in Ogden, since Weber was one school which was going to be lost, didn't like it, and neither did folks in Price. In fact people all over the state said they have religion and the government mixed up together. Well, anyway then I met with the House and the Senate and told them what I wanted to do and of course there were some of those people who immediately didn't like the idea, but it didn't take long to hush them up because the Church people started to work on it. It wasn't long till it went through the House and the Senate by a big margin. Then it hit my desk. Then they started lobbying me, people who didn't want me to sign it. They were mad. People from Weber came down to my office and they were really mad about it. HB: Mr. Glassman, do you remember him? JL: Oh, do I! [Laughter] HB: His front page editorial. JL: Oh yes. The people in Price were the same way. Well, in fact all over the state the papers were against it. So then I got disturbed about it, so I called one of the head men of the church, a guy I had contacts with all the time. I told him, "You 28 know, I want you people to think this over carefully and I don't want to hurry you, because I've got ten days in which I can sign this or veto it or let it become law. I want you people to talk about this because I think you're going to have a lot of bitterness in this state over this thing. I am convinced right now that if I sign this bill that they are going to get it on the ballot and you will have a big fight over it. I want you to get all of your leaders together and I want you to talk about it. I'm going to exact a promise out of you and I want you to keep it. Now if I sign this bill and it does get on the ballot that you'll fight to prevent it. You be prepared to fight it because I think it's going to be bitter." He said, "Oh no, we want it, we want it." I said, "Don't give me an answer now and don't you give me the answer. I want the answer to come from the top of the church, I mean your Apostles and your leaders, and I want it unanimous, and don't you tell me you're going to do this unless you intend to keep your word." Well, they did give me an answer, and they said, "We have met, and it is unanimous and we guarantee to you that we'll fight this thing right through to the end. If it gets on the ballot, we'll fight it." I knew if they fought they had a good chance of getting it. Well anyway, as it began to get bitter, it was about two weeks before the elections. I think, McKay got out on the air and made a public statement to the effect that they weren't too interested or something, I forget. It cut the ground right out from under everything. HB: I think Frank Browning went to President McKay. The stake presidents up in the Weber area were lobbying for turning Weber over to the church and Frank Browning, as I recall—it's just a rumor, because I never had any inside pipeline— 29 but I understood he got to President McKay and he told the presidents of the Stakes to call off their efforts in behalf of this program. You remember, we had a little fight up in Rexburg and President McKay went and straightened that up, between Idaho Falls and Ricks College. I guess President McKay doesn't like to have these knock down drag outs. JL: He was a wonderful man. HB: A peaceful man, wasn't he? JL: Very peaceful. He was a poor man to be involved in politics and he kind of avoided them, whenever he could. HB: Too hard on him. JL: You know, I had one of the church leaders, who's now dead, actually call me and cry about it. HB: He did? JL: He said, "I can't tell you what happened, but I have to admit that we haven't kept our word with you and I feel terrible about it." He said, "I can't tell you what happened." HB: They stuck your neck out, some of them. JL: I told them, "I'd just as well veto it right now and stop all this bitterness. If I can't get assurance that you're not going to back down." Because what was gained? HB: I know what happened. You probably know that the Weber faculty, I'd say ninety percent of them, donated liberally to that fund, and became notary publics and went out and got people, to sign the petition to put this thing on the ballot. It was really a knock down drag out fight. 30 JL: Well, it's really a shame. I never dreamed that McKay wouldn't stand behind it. But I had a hunch. I had a feeling, that there were a lot of people involved. Actually I didn't talk to McKay. This one man, he'd tell you, he's still alive, one of the leaders up there, I think chief spokesman right now, he apologized to me many times afterwards. HB: Well, while this fight was on in the Legislature, I came to Salt Lake. I wasn't lobbying. I wasn't pressuring anybody. I was on the Senate floor. It wasn't in session at that time and I think it was Lon Hopkins, from Randolph, or Woodruff, somewhere up there, came up to me and said, "Who are you?" I told him and I made the mistake of teliing him that I was a faculty member of Weber College and when he found out I was a faculty member, he said, "Get off this floor as fast as you can. We're under enough pressure." I wasn't pressuring anybody. Oh I'm telling you, there was pressure up there. JL: Oh, there was terrible pressure. HB: I want you to comment on Henry Aldous Dixon before I get through. Describe your relations with him. JL: They were always good, I liked Aldous Dixon. I thought he was a fine man. I don't believe that he was cut out to be a public official, and I think he agreed himself, and I don't think he cared much for it. Actually, I did everything I could to talk him into becoming a nominee for Congress and he would not. He said, "Under no conditions will I take it." I knew I couldn't convince him, so I left and later, I think, it was Arthur Watkins and Wallace Bennett who talked him into it. HB: That's to take Stringfellow's place? 31 JL: Yes. You see, he was a peace loving man too. A very likeable individual. I was personally very fond of him. HB: Tender-hearted. JL: I'll tell you something he did when I was trying to get him to run. I don't think he realized what he was doing, but it affected me, it made me mad at him because I was sitting there telling him that he owed it to the state to run. I was proud of him. I thought he was a wonderful Individual and I meant it. Finally, he said to me, "Well, I might consider running if you'll promise me something." I said, "What is it?" He said, "If you'll promise me you'll give Weber College the budget that we've requested." You know, that irritated me. So I told him, "No, I won't make any promises," and I walked out and I left him. But see, the last thing he was thinking of was his college. HB: President Dixon, I think, ran into some criticism when he went to Utah State University. Some people in Ogden were quite bitter about that. But, as far as I was concerned, if he wanted to go, it was certainly all right with me. I didn't have any criticism of him going up to Logan. JL: Wasn't that a promotion for him? HB: I think it was a promotion. Of course some maintain the idea that some people at Utah State were trying to jerk the ground out from under Weber because they felt that President Dixon was spear-heading this fight to become a four year college. I think that's probably true. JL: Well, Miller got that through first, didn't he? HB: Yes. 32 JL: I think they gave him credit the other night for being the one to get it through. HB: Yes, he was the one that really got it through. JL: I think he got it through with Clyde, didn't he? HB: Yes. I know George Dewey Clyde quite well and I want to interview him, but of course he's had a stroke and I don't know whether he's ever going to get back or not. He's been a pretty sick man. JL: They tell me he's right bad. HB: Let's see, I talked with his wife twice and she says he seems to be rational in the morning but seems to become a little fuzzy later on. He's a little too old of a man to recover from a serious stroke, but I would like to talk to him. I got the impression that Clyde signed the bill because he thought that Weber would remain a technical college. Now I couldn't say that's true, but that's the impression that I got. There were a lot of people who wanted to maintain Weber as a technical school but there was also quite a demand for the liberal arts and for the pre-professionaI, and other areas. Of course, those areas have grown, but I certainly think that President Dixon was right all the way through in maintaining that technical school. I guess Lorenzo Peterson helped with that pretty much too. JL: Well, you see the way it's going today, the technical school people are coming out of there very much in demand where your liberal arts graduates are dropping off. HB: That's right. 33 JL: You've got a lot of people out of work because they've got degrees and they can't get a job. I think we have made a serious mistake. I think any profession in life where you make an honest living is honorable, just as honorable as the others. HB: That's right. JL: And just as needed, why down grade a profession? I guess all of us over the last generation have been responsible for it, in one way or another, but my goodness I think that with lawyers today. You could do without a lot of them. I think they've about wrecked the country. I told the Commission the other day—see we had Jim Barker on there for six years, and he's a lawyer—I told the Commission the other day, "I feel sorry for you, Jake and Tom and Jennings Philips, because you're going to be in a lot worse position than I have been in." Barker says, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, we have had one too many lawyers on this commission in the last six years, but now you're going to have two." HB: On that note, thank you Governor Lee for the interview.