Tom L. Evans Oral History Interview, April 17, 1963

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.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.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 August, 1966
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

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FUCHS: The last time, Tom, we got down to 1940 and the second campaign of Mr. Truman for the Senate, and we discussed the election night; but I have a few other questions I'd like to ask about that campaign and election. One I might start with, is that I understand Hannegan, who was a political subordinate of Mayor Bernard Dickmann in St. Louis, and who was supporting, in the beginning, Stark, later switched to Mr. Truman. Do you know anything about that?

EVANS: Well, very little, Jim, frankly. I think what you say is true, that he was supporting Stark and for some reason I don't know, he did, I believe, maybe on the last day before election, switch over to Mr. Truman. But I'm sorry to say I was not familiar with it, who, so to speak, got it done or how it was arranged or what it was. I did know at least the day before election, maybe it

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was a couple of days or possibly three, but what the particulars were or who arranged it, or why, I don't know.

FUCHS: Did you ever discuss it with Mr. Truman?

EVANS: No, other than the fact that I remember the day before election: "Well, we're going to get some support that we didn't have in the form of Hannegan, and some other good friends in St. Louis," but I never pressed him as to who--God, it could be one of a hundred people who arranged it, or maybe a good many people.

FUCHS: A student, in his doctoral dissertation states that, on the basis of an interview with you, Mr. Truman admitted some years later--after the 1940 primary campaign--that he (Mr. Truman) had had something to do with Milligan entering that race. [Gene Schmidtlein: Truman the Senator, unpublished doctoral dissertation (University of Missouri, 1962), p. 217]

EVANS: I may have had something to do with Mr. Maurice Milligan staying in the race, because after we finished the interview at the President Hotel

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which I once told you about, where Vic Messall and Kenneth Miller and Mr. Truman and myself were, Kenneth Miller and Vic Messall left for Jefferson City to file the papers for Mr. Truman for the nomination. I think it was that same afternoon, I went over to see Tuck Milligan, Maurice Milligan's brother. By way of explaining why I could go to Tuck Milligan, I think I have explained that Tuck Milligan was the lawyer who when I started to get into the radio business back in December of '35 or early '36, went back to Washington with my associate, Mr. Cox of Springfield, Missouri, and handled this matter. He was there a number of days and I paid him a rather substantial fee for his services. So I felt close to him.

FUCHS: This was your first acquaintanceship with Tuck?

EVANS: With Tuck, yes. Oh, I knew him when he was congressman, but not intimately. But when you employ a lawyer to represent you and you travel

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to Washington and are there a week or ten days and back, you get pretty close to him. So I went directly from the President Hotel--I'm sure it was that afternoon--and went to Tuck and said: "Tuck, I think it would be a good idea--I think if your brother is nominated, he can be elected and would make a good senator; and I want to tell you that I will be glad to help you out with a financial contribution when your committee for his election is set up, I'll give you $500."

He said, "Give it to me now, because the committee is already set up."

Maurice, his brother, I'm sure had filed, but there was some talk about him withdrawing. I felt that if we could keep Mr. Milligan in there that he and Mr. Stark would split some votes and might help Mr. Truman. So he said to make out the check to the "Milligan for Senator Committee," and I did that very day. Later I told Mr. Truman that for once I was supporting the candidate who was opposing him and he looked at me kind of funny and

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said, "What do you mean? When did you quit me?"

I said, "Well, I just think Maurice Milligan will make a pretty good senator. I went over and contributed to his campaign."

He said, "I don't want to know anything about that. I wish a lot of my friends were off of me as much as you are, I might be elected."

And I think that's all he knew about it. I never discussed it further with him.

FUCHS: Why did Clark oppose Stark, in your opinion?--Bennett "Champ" Clark, who was the senator elected in 1932.

EVANS: Why he opposed Stark?

FUCHS: Yes.

EVANS: Well, because Milligan was his close, intimate friend. He was for Milligan.

FUCHS: Do you think that's the only reason--he was very close to Milligan. Someone once said that they thought that Clark felt Stark was supplanting

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him as a leader in the Democratic party in Missouri.

EVANS: Oh, I don't think so. He'd always been very friendly with Milligan, Tuck particularly, the one I referred to. He had always been very, very close with Bennett Clark.

FUCHS: There was a Roy Williams who Milligan selected to be his manager, as I understand it, and the story is that Mr. Truman was glad, because Roy Williams was a former Stark man and he thought that by Milligan hiring Williams that they would be attacking Stark, and I suppose divert attention from him. Do you have any knowledge of Roy Williams?

EVANS: No, I don't. I remember Williams, but I had no knowledge of him being a Stark man at all. Do you remember where he was from?

FUCHS: No, I don't.

EVANS: I just barely remember that he was active in Maurice Milligan's campaign, but this is the

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first I've heard of him being close to Stark. He may have been but I didn't know it.

FUCHS: As I understand it, Messall was made campaign chairman. He resigned his position as secretary to Mr. Truman to handle the campaign, and he was headquartered in Sedalia, and there was an individual designated as "Director General," whose name was David Berenstein, and he was in the St. Louis office. Do you recall anything about Berenstein?

EVANS: No, I don't, Jim. I thought maybe you were mispronouncing Barringer's name, of Memphis, Tennessee. I don't remember this man; I don't remember anything about him. He, frankly, must have been more or less handling the St. Louis situation the way I was the Kansas City situation. I had no contact with him at all.

FUCHS: I have a letterhead used by the Harry S. Truman renomination and election committee in 1940, which indicated you were chairman of the radio broadcast division. Do you have any remarks in connection

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with that title and your activities?

EVANS: I think they passed out titles pretty easily. No, I really don't remember anything about that title. I certainly didn't confine my fund raising to the broadcasting industry. In fact, I think it probably should have been the drug industry because that's where I raised a substantial amount of money from my friends throughout the country--Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Miami, Seattle--all over. I had lots of friends, because I was operating a chain of drugstores in those days, as you know, and was buying from manufacturers all over the country; and a number of them had met Mr. Truman in his first term as senator, because we in the drug business in those days were constantly appearing in Washington before committees in connection with health and welfare, the food and drug committees. And of course, I was there a lot on radio; but a number of my friends in the drug industry had met Mr. Truman and they liked him, and I told them he was running for re-election and

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had a hard fight and needed money. And I got help, surprisingly, from all over, due, I think, to two things. They were friends of mine and they had had the privilege of meeting Mr. Truman in Washington with me on numerous occasions. Oh, I can think of a number of people that contributed that had really no local interest than the fact that they were my friends and had met Mr. Truman. I think of one man, Harry Cooper, a Jewish individual who was in the razor blade manufacturing business, competitors of Gillette. He had met Mr. Truman in Washington and liked him very much. (I bought some of his merchandise.) In fact, I think I had introduced him; he was a friend of Eddie Jacobson, Mr. Truman's former partner. I wrote him a letter and he sent me a check for $250.00 for the campaign. Another gentleman I think of was the executive vice president and sales manager of McKesson & Robbins. I think of his name now--Wilbur Dewell. Wilbur had had some difficulty in the Food and Drug Administration.

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I was in Washington; I met him; I introduced him to Mr. Truman when he was senator; I think, if I'm not mistaken, I think he might have had a lunch or dinner with Mr. Truman. But anyway, I wrote him and he gave me a nice contribution. That's only an illustration of the help that I got.

Getting back to the man in St. Louis, I didn't have anything to do with fund raising in St. Louis nor neither did Dave with fund raising in Kansas City. However, I did get contributions from a number of my personal friends that I happened to know in St. Louis, like a man by the name of Al Manlin. He was in the insurance business, has been for many years. He used to carry all my insurance for all the Crown Drug Company property. He carried all my insurance to all my business--does to this day--he carries my personal insurance. He had met Mr. Truman. Mr. Manlin was quite an admirer and he sent me a contribution, Al Gasen, a chain drugstore operator, who still, by the way, operates a chain of drugstores in St. Louis. He

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had met Mr. Truman on at least two or three occasions; he sent me a nice contribution. A man by the name of Williams a stockbroker in St. Louis, who had had a hand in financing Crown Drug Company when I was head of that, sent me a nice contribution. So those were the only contacts I had in St. Louis, and they had none up here, unless some of them had some. So I didn't know this man at all.

FUCHS: Did you send the contributions you received to Vaughan then?

EVANS: There wasn't any way to keep from it, because he was calling all the time for money. He needed the money because he had bills and he was, of course, the treasurer of the committee,

FUCHS: Did you have any meetings that you recall during the campaign, say with Victor Messall or with Mr. Truman or with Harry Vaughan? Was there any occasion to get together in those few months?

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