James P. Aylward Oral History Interview

Notice
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

As an electronic publication of the Truman Library, users should note that features of the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview, such as pagination and indexing, could not be replicated for this online version of the Aylward transcript.

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This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened September, 1976
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

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FUCHS: Mr. Aylward, I wish you would give me, sir, a brief autobiographical statement--when and where you were born, your schooling, and so forth.

AYLWARD: I was born in Peoria, Illinois, 1885. My father and mother were Irish immigrants. They brought me to Kansas City when I was six months of age and I have lived here continuously ever since. All the other members of the family were born in Kansas City, Missouri--some twelve brothers and sisters. I went to parochial and public schools until the fifth grade and then I got a job. I was a newsboy, newspaper carrier, Western Union messenger boy, a cash boy in the department stores; had jobs of a similar character, office boy for a merchandise brokerage here. About 1899 I was in an office in the

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West Bottoms and transferred from there to the New York Life Building. There I met Mr. Frank P. Walsh, who was a very prominent lawyer, and became fascinated with his career and reputation and ability, and wound up as his office boy. Frank Walsh was actively engaged in local and state politics--he was a member of the state committee and prominent in politics for his own crowd, the Shannon organization in Kansas City as opposed to the old State House crowd that was in power at that time. That was Governor Dockery and Allen who was treasurer, and Sam B. Cook, who was Secretary of State, and Joel Stone who was in the Senate--who really dominated and controlled the politics of Missouri at the time.

There was a controversy over the leadership and a division in the party. Joseph Folk of the City of St. Louis was the circuit attorney and prosecuted the boodlers in St. Louis; those who had received and accepted bribes or solicited bribes for the support of franchises granted to suburban railroads and other utilities; and he made an enviable reputation for obtaining convictions of members of the council and other leaders from the outside who had any connection with the bribery scandals. He became a candidate for Governor, and he established a statewide

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reputation as a law enforcement officer, the leader of the party in St. Louis; and he ran against Mr. Harry Hawes, who was the leader of the Jefferson Democratic Club in St. Louis and who was aligned with Ed Butler, the boss of the City of St. Louis, for Governor of the State of Missouri. He won the primary election of the delegates to the state convention--the majority of them--and he was nominated over Hawes for Governor of the State of Missouri.

FUCHS: And this was what year, sir?

AYLWARD: 1904. Walsh supported Folk and so did Shannon, and they became the dominating leaders in Jackson County, Missouri on account of the Folk election. As far as patronage is concerned, why, they were in control of practically all of it.

Well, during those campaigns, as office boy I kept track of all of the charges and the debates, that is an account of them carried in the newspapers, concerning all the personalities in these campaigns, and from then on I kept a scrapbook, for every year thereafter I assume, about politics. So that's my introduction to

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politics, and I was a member of the Shannon organization, faction in those days. I was unanimously selected by the leaders of the Democratic Party in Jackson County in, oh, say 1920 or maybe prior thereto, as chairman of the Jackson County Democratic Committee; and I continued in the office of chairman of the county committee for a period thereafter of sixteen to eighteen years. I was engaged in organizing the Democrats in the party into one unified and harmonious group, so that we could present a united front to the Republican organization, and we set up all the latest departments for accomplishing that effect. We perhaps had the strongest, the most powerful, and the most efficient political organization in this state at that time--all that time up until past the election of Truman.

FUCHS: Were you ever affiliated with the Shannon organization?

AYLWARD: I was affiliated originally with the Shannon organization.

So the leaders, Pendergast and Shannon and others, agreed that I should be selected as chairman of the Democratic County Committee and that was done and, as I

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say, I was the man who was selected every two years thereafter. I used my good offices to keep the so-called bosses together. When they'd have a controversy, why, I did everything I could to bring about a rapprochement to prevent disunity, so that we could continue to win. There were many good experiences of that type.

FUCHS: You were practicing law all this time?

AYLWARD: Practicing law at this time, I was a partner of Frank Walsh--started as office boy and wound up as his law partner. He supported Woodrow Wilson for President and he was named by Woodrow Wilson as chairman of the Industrial Relations Commission in Washington to set up an investigation of the labor practices, the labor situation, and conditions throughout the country for the purpose of introducing legislation to correct evils that they encouraged in industry such as child labor, sweatshops, wages and hours, and sanitary conditions, and so forth; so he went from here to New York and Washington and opened an office in New York and Washington and I continued to practice law here in Kansas City and attended his office. He remained away for practically the rest of his life. He

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came here occasionally. After his service on the Industrial Relations Commission he was appointed, with William Howard Taft, as co-chairman of the War Labor Board during the First World War. He served until Wilson went out of office in 1920.

I said I continued to manage the executive organization and to set up all the departments, I don't want you to think I did it all on my own. I had plenty of cooperation and help from the party leaders and the workers and the precinct captains and every person who was a member of the organization. We built this organization to the zenith of its power and we had I'd say 7,500 persons who were directly interested in winning elections for the Democratic Party. We had plenty of precinct workers--ten or twelve people to a precinct. They were not all jobholders; we didn't have that many jobs. We set up a registration department and polling department. We polled every householder, every voter in the community--this hasn't been done here for some twenty years. We knew from day to day who the voters were and what their predilections were, their selection of candidates in either party, or if they were independent or irregular. Whenever we polled

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a voter and he manifested some doubts, why, we didn't put him down as doubtful, we put him in the Republican column. So that we actually had a substantial, accurate, truthful poll, and, as I say, it covered the entire city and most of the county--the townships out in the county. We had that kind of a working organization. We had all the various committees usually operating in an election; speakers' committee; habeas corpus committee to take care of members of the organization who were arrested for some violation of the law, when they really weren't violating the law, just to get rid of them, get rid of their services in the precinct. So we managed to get them out of jail so they could continue to work. In those days, from 1920 to '32, for twelve long years the Republicans were in power in this state. Hyde was elected Governor in 1920 and Baker in '24 and Caulfield in '28; so we had considerable opposition at that time and we were out of office almost out of the county and city until '26, when there was a charter election. There was a conference among the leaders of the party as to whether or not we should support this charter that was prepared and drafted by a political committee who were not close to the

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Democrats. We believed that it was dominated by the Republicans. Prior to the adoption of the charter we had a councilmanic form of government. We had sixteen wards and sixteen aldermen in a lower house and sixteen in an upper house, and a mayor, and comptroller, and treasurer, and an auditor. That was the old form of government. So that was scrapped but the question for the leaders to decide was whether or not we should support this charter or be against it--what would be best for the party organization--whether we could live viably under it--continue to be a success as a political unit in Jackson County and Kansas City, particularly. So Pendergast and Welch after a conference decided they'd support the charter, and Shannon decided he'd be against it; so the charter was adopted.

FUCHS: That was Cass Welch?

AYLWARD: Cass Welch on Fifteenth Street, yes. He was the leader of the second ward in those days and he became aligned and affiliated with Pendergast, and we were all friends. Part of the Shannon crowd then departed from Mr. Shannon and joined Pendergast in support of the

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adoption of the charter and thereafter in the election to nominate the candidates to office. After the charter was adopted, there was a primary election and we filed candidates for all the offices. The twelve councilmen and mayor- perhaps at that time they didn't have that many but that was the setup--one from each district. There were four councilmanic districts--one from the local district and the other four at large and a mayor, so that's nine. Shannon filed a ticket in the primary and Pendergast and Welch, and the others who went along with Pendergast, they supported the Pendergast slate in that primary, and the Pendergast slate won. Shannon was defeated by a substantial majority. Then the question arose what we were going to do about the division that would occur because of Shannon's defeat. So I waited a few days until after the election and then I went to see Mr. Thomas J. Pendergast; and I suggested to Pendergast that something ought to be done to induce Mr. Shannon to support the ticket in the general election because there was great danger of suffering a defeat if he didn't go along, if he bolted the ticket it had been bolted before and then been defeated. Well, he said, "Nobody can talk to him. You can't make deals with him."

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I said, "Well, don't despair about it. I've got a suggestion I'd like to make to you."

He said, "oh, what is it?"

"Well," I said, "why don't you agree to give him one third of the patronage if we win, and two members of the