Oral History Interview with John P. McEnery
Monterey, California [Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | Additional McEnery Oral History Transcripts] Notice Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview. RESTRICTIONS Opened May, 1976 [Top of the Page | Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | Additional McEnery Oral History Transcripts]
Oral History Interview with Monterey, California FUCHS: Well, one thing I would like to ask you about is the two minority motion roll calls that occurred in the 1948 convention. First, a gentleman from Mississippi introduced a minority report regarding the seating of the Mississippi delegation, and Jack Shelley objected, as well as the Illinois delegates, that there was no roll call and they wanted to be recorded as favoring the minority report. Do you have any recollections of that? MCENERY: Was that about the time that the Southern delegation walked out? FUCHS: No. MCENERY: When the Southern delegation walked out, shortly before that -- this was an awful mess, this auditorium, the aisles were plugged and everything. I went out to get about a dozen orange juices for everybody in the place, and I was coming back into the back of the hall with my big box of orange juice, maybe a dozen of them, and as I was walking down to the California delegation, I got caught right in the middle of the Southern delegation argument and all the noise back there. I sat down next to a man and asked him if the delegation was going to walk out. He said, "Where are you from?" He took a look at my badge and he said, "Oh, you're one of those California guys. Evidently you don't want the South in the convention," or something like that. I said, "I don't know a thing about it. I've been outside." I said, "What's your name?" And I looked at him and it was Senator [Lister] Hill that I was sitting next to, a man in a white suit. He started giving me the dickens when he saw I had a California badge on. But I had been out for maybe ten minutes before that waiting in line getting this juice. Those things, as you look back at them now, they seemed awful important at that time; but the only reason that Jack Shelley and some of these people were so anxious to get this thing on record was to make sure that the minorities back home knew that we were fighting for them, because there is a tremendous minority vote in California that has always belonged to the Democratic Party up till the last few years. Now, talking in 1970, there are some leaders of the minority groups that are strong Republicans now and they do split it up a little bit. But in those days they voted the straight Democratic ticket all the time. I remember an awful lot of commotion. I was a delegate in '52 and withdrew because I was in the Mint; but in '56 and '60 there was nothing to compare with that ‘48 convention for excitement and uncertain things happening all the time. You never knew what was coming up. If it wasn't for the masterful handling of the convention by Rayburn I don't know what would have happened. Sometimes he made some rulings there that were almost dictatorial, but by God, he either had to make them or the convention would have ended. FUCHS: Was this in part, this concern of the California delegation about civil rights, occasioned by a fear of Wallace's appeal to minority groups? MCENERY: I wouldn't say so, no. I mean the California Democratic Party and its leaders have always been very cognizant of the fact that they represented a lot of segments in the political picture and you have to keep all of those segments together just as you do nationally, if you're going to win. They are a great bunch of fellows for fighting even between themselves in off years, but somehow or another they always vote Democratic on election day. FUCHS: The former Attorney General, Robert Kenny, came out about the 19th of July, 1947, in Fresno, to organize a move to elect Wallace, to pledge delegates to the ’48 convention. He was chairman of the PCA, Progressive Citizens of America at that time. What do you think about this? What reflections do you have on Kenny's going over to such a movement? MCENERY: I think that after the way Kenny acted in the election of '46, and after his nomination, and the way he acted in the election, I think that he was just not reckoned with in the Democratic Party. I think he had some of the extra, extra liberals under his wing, and he was kind of one of the leaders of it; but I think that Kenny at first felt a little bitter towards the Democratic organization. We felt that he didn't do anything to help himself, and he felt that the Democratic leadership didn't do anything to help him in his abortive run at the governorship. But it's kind of hard to campaign for a candidate when he gets on a plane and leaves for a month or so when the campaign is going full speed. You've got to have the old body in there at least . Summarizing, I just think that the Democratic Party, at least in the north -- see I still keep going back to the fact that we have almost two Democratic organizations in California, you have the north and the south -- I think that this is partly true with the Republicans. I don't know what they were doing down south, I never heard Kenny's name mentioned much after that 1946 election and I don't think he was even considered as a delegate to the convention in ’48. I don't remember whether he later on became a delegate to the convention in ’48 or not. I don't think so. And that naturally would have made a man that was such a leader in the party very bitter. FUCHS: How many delegates would you normally send to the convention? MCENERY: Well, at that time we had one full vote, since then they've changed it to a half a vote. So I think in most of the roll calls I think we had about what was it, about 70. Seventy delegates with a full vote each, and of course, then the alternates. In the north there was another thing we always did do. When we were in control of the picture, these alternates always went to the convention, and we'd always arrange for them to take our badges and get down on the floor for one of the votes, just to let the records show that they were there in the convention. Today, having a hundred and fifty delegates at the convention, with a half a vote each, we couldn't get our roll call votes recorded in 1948 when we had half that number. Today, California coming so early in the roll call, they're just not going to be recorded because there's no way of finding out when these motions come up how the California delegation feels. Unless you have some fellow that exercises some leadership in the thing, like Jack Shelley when he was in his prime; he was very robust and boisterous and he was quite a leader. If he didn't know how the delegation stood he'd get up and give a vote anyhow. But then, after that, we ran into our elastic Pat Brown who never could make a decision on anything. He always wanted to know what the delegations thought. I remember in one of the conventions in '56 when he was the head of it, they passed out a paper for each row to record their vote. When the thing came back, you'd vote one way and the guy down the line would change your vote. You couldn't even get a legitimate vote of the delegation. The only way you could have had it would have been to have a ballot and let them drop it in and count it. Well, you can imagine, when there are only three or four states before you how quick they got to California in that roll call. And they're always waiting to see what California does. It's quite a tip-off as to what's going to happen. Then when California passes all the time on these important votes, it makes it look like the California people don't know how they are voting or how they are thinking. But actually what happens, it's the mechanics of it. You can't get their vote recorded that quick. And so many of these things, after we passed and they had the roll call, it didn't make any difference how California voted then. If all the votes went one way or the other it wouldn't change anything. Where California could have been a tremendous influence on any convention with that big bloc of votes, it just didn't happen, because we never got our vote on record. FUCHS: Have you a comment about Pauley's resignation as national committeeman on January 3, 1948? He, by that time was a special assistant to Secretary of the Army [Kenneth C.] Royall. MCENERY: No, I have no comment on it. I'm sure it was caused by the constant agitation against Pauley by Roosevelt and a few of his friends; it was part of the campaign Roosevelt to get rid of anybody that was a leader in the party in southern California. FUCHS: He was involved in grain speculation investigation by that time? MCENERY: I don't think that had anything to do with it. You know, when you work in this politics a long time and you run into a guy like Roosevelt that's just about sabotaging the whole thing to get himself ahead, you finally say, "Aw to heck with it;" and you say, "I've served long enough." You say, "Well, I'm ready to retire from it now." I think that Roosevelt was responsible for an awful lot of fine people just walking out of the party in southern California. Of course, he got an awful lot of people into the setup in northern California in an attempt to get some votes here from the state central committee and so forth. FUCHS: A little bit more on ’48. Did Jacob Arvey approach the California group in early ’48 in regard to his concern about dumping Truman, so to speak, for Eisenhower? MCENERY: It was just the opposite to that, in my recollections, and I've given you a picture there of Pat Peabody and Jake Arvey and myself in Los Angeles. He gave us the impression that he was in California at that time, and a young man who had served in his office in Chicago was then becoming prominent in southern California politics, and later on became national committeeman, Zefferen I believe his name was, became national committeeman from California. And as I understood it, from all the conversation we had, and we met him at the Chapman Apartments on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles and we spent quite a bit of time with him, Mr. Peabody's brother was part of the Democratic organization in Chicago, and was chairman of the racing commission in Illinois. Naturally, Peabody didn't have any trouble in getting in to see Mr. Arvey. In fact, we had an appointment when we went over to see him, and he gave me the impression that he was going to do all he could, at the time, to help out on the Truman campaign. He didn't give me any idea at all that he was in favor of dumping Truman as is stated in the press. And I sometimes am led to believe that Jake Arvey, the clever politician he was, was out here doing a little probing. I was surprised and almost dumbfounded when I heard his name mentioned first as a part of the group that was trying to convince Mr. Eisenhower that he ought to accept the Democratic nomination with the idea of dumping Truman. And I'm sure that Patrick Peabody of San Jose can substantiate my thoughts on that because Peabody was as strong for Truman as I was. I can't believe that that's true, that Arvey was out here that early with an idea of dumping Truman. Now somebody else may have a different slant on it, particularly Mr. Zefferen who is his fair-haired boy here in California. I think that's about all I can give you on that. FUCHS: Yes. Did you come in touch with Oscar “Jack” Ewing in any way? MCENERY: Not Oscar Chapman. FUCHS: No, but I want to ask about Oscar Chapman. I'm thinking of Oscar Ewing who had a policy strategy board operating in this period. MCENERY: No. My only contact were with Howard McGrath and then later on with Oscar Chapman. FUCHS: When did you come in touch with him? MCENERY: I went to school with a fellow by the name of Jim [James] Rowe, and Jim Rowe was very prominent in Washington at the time. We were in the same class in high school. I believe somewhere (I don't know where it was) I met Jim Rowe and Rowe introduced me to Chapman and later on we became pretty good friends. In fact, in the '60s when I was very strong for John Kennedy, Mr. Chapman was interested in the Johnson campaign. The night before we left for the southern California convention, the '60 convention, Chapman called me, or sent me a telegram inviting me to come to a dinner at the Fairmont Hotel for Mr. Johnson, then the leader of the Senate. I went up to San Francisco, at Chapman's request, and ate dinner and they called on me to say something. I told them that I was always happy to meet a leader like Mr. Johnson of the Senate, but I felt that John Kennedy had done a very thorough job and that most of the people I knew that were delegates to the convention and friends of mine, were all committed to John Kennedy; which was rather a strange statement to make, because I think Mr. Chapman was the man that called on me to say a few words at the dinner that night. Commenting on that, it was a shame the leaders of the Democratic Party that were invited to that dinner that night (I think there were about forty or fifty of them invited from northern California) felt so committed to Kennedy that they wouldn't even come to see the leader of our Democratic Party in the Senate, wouldn't even come to see him when he came to San Francisco. It was quite odd that within another week he was the vice-presidential nominee on the ticket with Kennedy. I have not kept in touch with Oscar Chapman in the years since then. I understand he has an office in Washington, doesn't he? I haven't kept in touch with him at all; but Oscar Chapman was very active in coming to California on a number of occasions during the early part of '48, and I guess I saw him on two or three occasions. But the story, again, was always what are we going to do about southern California? There was no problem that we had to take care of in northern California; once in awhile there would be a few alternates or something that would start a little difficulty. I don't even remember their names now, but it never got anyplace. Of course in southern California they'll say, "Oh, it's the political bosses here that are running the party." That's not true. The people in northern California -- I come back to that old word loyalty again, they're not jumping all over the place with every liberal idea that comes along. You can have all the ideas you want and have all the things you wanted incorporated in the platform as long as it don't hurt the candidate, or as long as the candidate is satisfied with it. You confuse your Democratic voters, when you're having policy statements on everything all of the time; it ought to be enough that the state central committee meet every two years and draw up the platform and support the candidates that have been nominated. FUCHS: Oscar Chapman was advance man for Mr. Truman in his campaign in ‘48. Do you recall meeting with him about the California trip and any anecdotes, if so? MCENERY: No, I really don't. It doesn't occur to me that there was anything in connection with the Chapman trip that was important. I say it's kind of hard to think of these things when there wasn't some excitement connected with it. We were for Truman and it didn't make any difference if anybody in southern California was for him at all. FUCHS: There weren't any problems that arose in regards to the arrangements for his halls, or his welcome, or funds involved, or anything like that? MCENERY: No, we were constantly having trouble over funds for the national committee, mostly with the treasurer of the national committee, our friend from California. But you had Ed Pauley in there before Killion. That was one of the things that Roosevelt used to harp on all the time, that the national committee was taking all the money, all the big money, out of California. Well, with the feeling that existed with Roosevelt towards Pauley, then naturally Killion, who was a good friend of Pauley's, did a lot of talking and maybe writing to Roosevelt; but underneath I know how they both felt. It may not have been so in the beginning, but the feeling between Roosevelt and Pauley became very antagonistic. I don't remember a time when Ed Pauley and Jim Roosevelt came to the same meeting in southern California. I used to see Pauley at one time when I'd go down there, and then if I'd go to a meeting the next day Pauley wouldn't be there and Roosevelt would be there. Kind of hard to run a party when you can't get the national committeeman and the chairman of the party in the same room, or talking to each other. FUCHS: Did you by any chance discuss with Jim Rowe the course the Democratic Party should take to win the election in '48, the issues as he saw them, and the various problems involved? ENERY: No, I don't think I had any conversation with Rowe about that at all. I did have some with Chapman, and I couldn't say what time of the year that was, it must have been early in the year. As I say, Truman's popularity was at a very low ebb. But we never had any idea of ever considering dumping Truman; we never thought about anybody else. I’ve got to say that I was just like everybody else, including Truman. There were times when we didn't think we could win in California, but nobody ever heard me say it out loud. FUCHS: Did you have an impression of Rowe as being a very astute observer of the national political scene, or did you not think he was especially knowledgeable about that? MCENERY: He was in the picture all right, but I don't know where. I thought that he was working with Chapman. That may have been true and may not, but I went to Washington and (I don't know when that was), and we went to see Alben Barkley at that time in his office, and at that time I met the Secretary of the Senate, Mr….help me out there. FUCHS: [Leslie] Biffle? MCENERY: Yes, Biffle. We had some discussion at quite some length in his office about the California situation. Barkley was present, and Biffle, and I don't remember who else. Patrick Peabody from San Jose was with me. FUCHS: What was the situation in regard to Sheridan Downey after the November election? I understood that he was not especially in Mr. Truman's favor. MCENERY: Well, if it was true right after the election, it sure wasn't true a year later. I never remember Sheridan Downey having any problem, never heard of him having any problem with Truman. I never heard Senator Downey say anything -- and I met with Senator Downey many times; in fact every time he came to the coast I was with him. I went with him to look at the Berryessa Canyon near Vallejo, which now has the large reservoir up there with the water for Vallejo and Solano County, and I never heard Downey say anything but favorable things about Truman. I think that Truman and Downey were the same kind of Senators. They were both working Senators, took care of their homework, and took care of their state problems; but you've got to remember this that when you talk about a United States Senator from California, you are talking about one now representing twenty million people, and even at that time their office staff was not large enough to take care of all the correspondence. I remember Sheridan Downey telling me that he and Wally Phair came to work at six o'clock every morning -- and Wally Phair was Sheridan Downey's executive assistant, he practically ran the office -- I was very surprised that a United States Senator had to come to work at six or six-thirty in the morning. I'd been in Sheridan Downey's office at seven o'clock in the evening when he started home. That was a pretty long day. But if you're going to be a United States Senator from California, I guess you've got to make up your mind to be a slave to the job, and you can't be worried about all these other political campaigns. Wally Phair later on went to work as executive secretary for Bill [William F.] Knowland. He told me afterwards that he couldn't stand it. After working for Downey who was always taking care of everything, Knowland he wouldn’t see half an hour in a day or two. He couldn't work for Knowland, he only stayed, maybe, six months, and he went to work then after that for the Kaiser Company. He didn't want to. He liked the job of being executive secretary to the Senator from California, but not after working with Downey, who was almost a slave driver, and very particular about every message that went back to every constituent that inquired about anything. A lot of people may have interpreted Downey's lack of interest in all the other elections, other than his own, as being cool towards Truman, but I don't think that was at all true. When the Truman Committee came to California, I heard Sheridan Downey introduce everybody on that committee in San Francisco. We had a dinner in ’45, and at that time I wasn't a leader of the party except in Santa Clara County. FUCHS: Was that after Mr. Truman had left the committee? MCENERY: No, Truman was on the committee. FUCHS: Well, he resigned in August of ’44 after he was nominated for Vice President? MCENERY: That's right, I got the years mixed up. Well, then it would be June, it would be June of ‘44 that he was out here, it could have been ’43. FUCHS: Was this on an investigation? MCENERY: Yes, that was an investigation. The Truman Committee never investigated anything with the idea (the way it looked to me) of creating a lot of press releases on it. They were very quiet about their investigation. They were down and investigated what we called the Hendy Iron Works in Sunnyvale. The whole Committee was there. FUCHS: Yes. Well, I just wondered if he was here for a political event or for an investigation. MCENERY: No. the whole committee attended the Democratic fundraising dinner; it was at the Palace Hotel, and it must have been ’44 as you've refreshed my memory. And Sheridan Downey introduced every one of those Senators and gave a speech about each one of them He must have talked for an hour and a half just presenting these people. I say, I never at anytime heard Sheridan Downey say anything but something favorable about Truman. If you will investigate the motions and so forth that were made on the night that Truman made the speech where he requested permission to take over the railroads, Sheridan Downey had no interest in what Mr. Roosevelt was doing in southern California at all. He would answer him and Mr. Downey was a very polite and nice man, and smooth, and even if he was mad at you you would have an awful time knowing it. He wasn't the kind of fellow that would just chop you up, you know. He would just be cool to you, that's all. Oh, I heard him talk many times about his feelings towards Roosevelt and what he was doing to the party. Of course, the United States Senator had a pretty good following in southern California, too; and I always felt that he, and Pauley and Killion, and that group were very friendly. I know that anything that I would say to Downey somehow or other would get back to Killion or Pauley. I don't know how, but it used to the rounds and it would be visa versa, too. If you said anything to McGrath, when he was head of the Democratic National Committee, somehow or other it would get back to Downey. I don't know when all these little conversations took place, whether it was in the Senate lunchroom or what it was. Sheridan Downey didn't make many trips to California except he was taking care of Senate business and it was always a quick trip. If he would come to northern California, it wasn't uncommon for him to call my house and ask me to meet him at the airport if somebody else didn't meet him, say Mrs. Smythe, or one of his other secretaries. I'd used to get called quite often to pick him up at the airport, take him to San Francisco, or take him to Oakland. I've driven him to Sacramento on occasions. FUCHS: You say he would usually come on Senate business, or…. MCENERY: Senate business, yes. FUCHS: …rather than Democratic… MCENERY: Democratic business. He would be there when you needed him. But he never insisted on being at dinners and so forth, and he was a hard man to get to come out just to a Democratic dinner, to sit at the head table. If you needed him for a speech, which -- we ran into some trouble with a speaker from the national committee, a couple of weeks before the dinner was held -- we had to get Downey to fill in. I don't know what dinner that was, it was one of the three dinners we held in '46 or early '47, latter part of '46 or early '47. There was no problem at all about Sheridan Downey coming out, and he made a tremendous talk. I remember he stayed at the St. Francis Hotel and after he got through with the dinner that night he and his wife and I walked from the Palace Hotel over to the St. Francis, oh, sometime around 11:30, 12 o'clock at night. He always liked to take a walk before he went to bed. It was quite surprising, as we walked down Market Street and then up Powell Street to the St. Francis that there wasn't one person said hello to the United States Senator walking down the street. Nobody seemed to recognize him. So, he wasn't a popular figure in political gatherings, he just took care of his homework, that's all. I know that McGrath on several occasions mixed Senate business and Democratic meetings together. For instance, McGrath was on the Senate committee handling Federal prisons, and I went to Alcatraz Island with McGrath, and he was investigating the living conditions and so forth, at Alcatraz; and we had lunch with Mr. Johnson, who at that time, was head of Alcatraz Island. He later on became head of all the United States Federal prisons, a year or two later. I don't think that McGrath hardly knew Johnson until the day that he ate lunch over at his house there on the island. But that was a matter of Senate business, and then we had a number of meetings in regard to Democratic politics. Our meetings were always so hospitable, we were never fighting about anything. Practically every time any leader came from Washington they came to San Francisco first and met with us. And the whole conversation would be, "Well, what can we do about southern California?" Well, what do I know about what they could do about southern California? I couldn't even get along with my own counterpart down there. FUCHS: Well, one thing that prompted my question about Downy's being out of favor with Truman, was that a press report in December of '48 said that William Malone, the Democratic leader in San Francisco County, had gone back to Washington in regard to patronage in California. And in the same context, they mentioned that Senator Downey was not particularly in Mr. Truman's favor. I suppose the implication would be that he had dragged his feet in the campaign and Mr. Truman had won, and therefore he was out of favor. But I wondered what your thoughts about it were. MCENERY: It would be very easy to interpret Senator Downey's actions in the campaign as dragging his feet, because you couldn't get him interested in what was going on in the campaign. He was having quite a time with the Corps of Army Engineers and the Department of Interior. He had a running fight with the Department of Interior all the time, and that may have created some animosity between Downey and the President. But if there was any feeling existing at all between the President and Sheridan Downey -- and I was around Downey as much as anybody was when he came to California -- he never said a word to me about feeling anywhere bad about the President. But, as I say, if you needed Downey he was always there, but he wasn't one of these fellows that was going to go tramping up and down the state with you. He felt that that was a problem of the party organization. I know he always felt very good about coming to San Francisco and northern California and he was just like everybody else from the national committee, "Well, what do I do when I go to southern California?" Well, the only thing he did when he went to southern California was take care of whatever business he had to take car care of as Senator from California. In December of '48? -- oh, we were having some trouble over the appointment of Federal judges. I think that very probably this was the problem that we had with Senator [Patrick A.] McCarran who was chairman of the Judiciary Committee -- and it took some time to get Ollie Carter appointed Federal Judge. McCarran held it up in the Judiciary Committee until the President asked for another Federal Judge in San Francisco. The Senator from Nevada wanted a man by the name of Ed Murphy for a Federal Judge and they finally ended up by creating another Federal Judge and appointing Carter and Murphy at the same time. That may possibly have been what Bill Malone went east for. Bill Malone was always very friendly with the President from the time he was a Senator. FUCHS: John Shelley, at the same time, was back in Washington attending the 15th National Conference on Labor Legislation and this article mentioned that he had at one time been mentioned for a Cabinet post. Do you know what that was? MCENERY: It was in Labor, it was Secretary of Labor. There was some talk, and it got into the national press. There was some thought that Jack Shelley might possibly be made Secretary of Labor. It didn't materialize, I don't know what happened after that, ’48, early ’49. FUCHS: When Mr. Truman was coming out here in June of ’48, 1 have been told that they first wanted to book him into Kezar Stadium, so to speak. Do you know anything about that and how it turned out that he spoke at the Golden Gate Park on, I believe it was Flag Day, at a ceremony sponsored by the Elks. MCENERY: Kezar Stadium is an awful place to hold any kind of a meeting. It's almost impossible to hold even a football game there, anymore, if you have any kind of a crowd, because you've got to plan on walking a mile and a half, two miles from your automobile to get to the stadium. I was never in favor of having anything where you haven't got parking in close proximity, I don't remember what actually happened in that,, that Truman talked at Golden Gate Park. There was never any information sent out to the county chairman and the leaders, that we were going to hold this meeting. I remember some talk about attempting to hold a meeting at Kezar. It wouldn't be a good place to hold a political meeting. You just couldn't get a crowd there, and naturally the Elks have a good crowd on Flag Day at all their ceremonies. It's one day of the year that the Elks usually put on a pretty good affair and they used to have parades in every town. I imagine there was a built-in crowd right there at the Golden Gate Park. At the bandstand, I think, is where he talked. But I don't think there could have been any significance to the fact that the thing didn't materialize at Kezar Stadium. I don't believe it was thought too strongly of by those that had to put on the meeting; but you'll have to ask somebody else about that, I'm not too familiar with what happened. FUCHS: There wasn't great concern about the debacle in Omaha where he had spoken at the Ak-Sar-Ben Auditorium and only to a crowd of about 2,000 at this big place, because it had not been publicized it was open to the public and the public thought it was only open to the 35th Division reunioneers. MCENERY: No. I don't remember that episode ever happening. If it happened it wasn't given too much significance out here on the coast. I don't remember hearing about it until now. FUCHS: What about the speech in L.A. at the Gilmore Stadium, in the campaign in September, where he was followed by Dewey at the Los Angeles Bowl the next night? Do you have any memories about that? MCENERY: No, I didn't go down there. I didn't go down to southern California at all. After Ollie Carter became the chairman of the committee I just assumed that I wouldn't see Los Angeles again or think about Democratic politics down there. FUCHS: McGrath and Humphrey went to North Beach for some kind of a dinner, and you told me a story about that that I thought was very interesting. MCENERY: I think you ought to get that from McGrath, but the way it was repeated to me, I couldn't… FUCHS: Was this Harold McGrath or J. Howard McGrath? MCENERY: No, this was Harold McGrath, who was my executive secretary in the office. Humphrey came to San Francisco and I was supposed to go to dinner with him. He was then the Mayor of Minneapolis? McGrath, and I don't know who else -- there were a few others that went with McGrath -- and they went to North Beach to dinner. I remember McGrath telling me the outstanding remark that was made was that when Harold McGrath wanted to know how things were getting along with the Democratic Party back in Minnesota, and particularly in Minneapolis, and he asked Humphrey, Humphrey said, "There's no Democratic Party in Minneapolis it's the Humphrey Party." Here's the fellow that later on becomes the nominee of the Democratic Party for President after all of his bobbling around. FUCHS: This probably is pretty well-known, but your insights on it might be of aid to some scholar. And that's why Reagan, who was a strong supporter, at least with other entertainers, of HST at one time, ends up as a Republican Governor of California. MCENERY: Well, all you've got to do is listen to Reagan's speech. I'm sure that he felt that his patriotic duty in preserving constitutional government and so forth, would be better aided by the Republican Party that it would be staying in the Democratic Party. I'm sure that when he was president of the motion picture actors and so forth -- which would be considered a union -- that he was very influenced by the other union people that he came in contact with. Later on he went on the speaking tour for General Electric, and all of his speeches were on the idea of preserving our way of life and the Constitution and so forth. I think that the Republicans put a lot more emphasis on that than the Democrats, and I think that it was a gradual drifting over to the Republican Party. It was the people he met and that he came in contact with, they were all Republicans; so I guess he got sold on the idea that that was the path that would take him where he wanted to go. I never thought about him when I first saw him as a potential candidate for anything, any. public office although he did get wonderful audiences. I remember one time when I was visiting my son in the Air Force back in Omaha, I noticed in the paper that he was speaking and I went down to the Civic Auditorium which was just a few blocks from the hotel where I was staying, and I think I paid a dollar and a half to hear him speak, it wasn't a free lecture. There must have been two or three thousand people, paid a dollar or a dollar and a half to hear him talk, and I was very impressed by the speech that he gave. Naturally, being an actor, he was very dramatic and he was a very good speaker. But how he got into the Republican Party after his support of Truman, I don't know. It would seem to be a gradual thing. FUCHS: On June 13, 1948, in the Venetian Room of the Fairmont, the President sat between you and William Malone who introduced the gathering to the President, and you introduced the President to the gathering. Have you any memories about that particular occasion? MCENERY: Yes, the only thing was the introduction. I'd say there was about eleven or twelve hundred at that gathering. It was a noon meeting, a noon dinner, or luncheon meeting, and we had a nice conversation at the table. There was only the three of us, I think, sitting at the head table. But I got up and I very simply said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States." As I sat down he said, "You sure did that right," he said, "there's not many people that present the President without making some kind of a remark." He said, "That's the way it ought to be done." A little later on we were talking and that's where he was kidding me about making a mistake, that some place along the line I would make a mistake and I would say the wrong thing. He bet me five dollars and I told him I wouldn't. And that was the famous boo-boo I made in San Jose when I told him that the people down the line, down the side of the train here "want to see you Harry." That's where he turned around to me and said, "Give me the five bucks." FUCHS: Nothing else of your conversation on that occasion remains with you? MCENERY: No, nothing of any significance. He was constantly -- sitting at the table there asking who various people were, when he would recognize somebody down the hall not too far away. He wore these real heavy glasses that he wore; and he'd ask you who certain people were at the table, and he was so friendly. I mean he was always waving at somebody or calling them by name, or -- he'd lean over to Malone or I, and ask who so and so was that waved at him or something like that. He was in tremendously good humor at the luncheon that day. There was no prepared speech, he just got up and spoke extemporaneously. He had nothing but compliments for everybody. There was a tremendously good feeling created by that luncheon on the part of a lot of Democrats who were maybe feeling that it was all over for the Democratic Party. He had a way of instilling confidence in the people that listened to him. As I say, that whistlestop that he made through California was tremendous, that was a real pickup in the campaign. Ollie who was with him every inch of the way there, will tell you how the response grew. I believe that he went down the coast and came back the San Joaquin Valley and the crowds grew all the time as he went through the state. FUCHS: That night, then, in the Garden Room of the Fairmont he spoke to a gathering of Democratic leaders and so forth. Do you have any recollections of that? MCENERY: I believe that was the night that Jack Shelley presented him to the audience, the little group. I think there were only fifty or sixty in that room. They were mostly the money people or the people that had contributed large amounts to the Democratic Party, and a few of the leaders from across the Bay. Jack Shelley's wife had been sick for some time and was in her last sickness, and was very seriously ill at the time. I believe that there was only one or two women, or three, attended this dinner. Later on in the evening, Jack Shelley's daughter came in and was presented to the President by Jack. She came up to the head table there and shook hands with the President. And sometime during the course of the evening a large bouquet of two or three dozen roses, I believe, were presented to the President, or maybe to -- Margaret Truman was there, I think. And the President sat down, and on a piece of paper wrote a note and handed the bouquet to Miss Shelley and asked if she wouldn't please take those out to her mother and say that they were sent by the President of the United States. It was the biggest bouquet of long-stem roses you ever saw. This was so spontaneous like, you'd think it was just someone doing something for a part of the family. He had the greatest feeling for everyone. He seemed to be a very considerate individual. I don't think he liked the idea of hurting anybody's feelings; and this was just a wonderful gesture, it just made everybody feel so good. It was, after you think about it a little bit, a natural thing for him to do, but I don't think anybody else thought it was going to happen. He just sat right down, and Miss Shelley was in front of him, and he wrote this letter, I don't know how many lines. I imagine it has been preserved by Miss Shelley, and you ought to find out from Jack if that little note is still available. It ought to definitely go to the Truman Library. It gives a little insight as to the…. FUCHS: Certainly does. MCENERY: He was just a family man, the President, I'm talking about. FUCHS: Yes. Were you acquainted with Bartley Crum? MCENERY: Yes, only casually. He had a lot to say, but I can't say anything about him. I wasn't familiar with him at all. When you say the name Bartley, I think of Tom Barcley, professor of political science at Stanford University, who was always a great friend of the President and who had done considerable research, working during the summers on several occasions for the Democratic National Committee. Tom Barcley was a great loyal Democrat and a good friend of the President's. He has passed away, he's no longer here. But he was quite enthused over everything that Truman did. He went to the '48 convention, I think, as an alternate. No, he didn't, he wasn't a member of the delegation. He was there, however, as an observer in his role of -- I think he was head of the political science department of Stanford University for a number of years. He was a great help to us all over northern California. He'd come at a drop of a hat to make a speech anyplace for us, and he was a good talker. FUCHS: Was there anyone of significance that you know that became a strong supporter of the ADA in the '48 campaign, Eleanor Roosevelt's ADA? MCENERY: No, I can't. There were a number of them. I often wonder whether Congressman Outland became a strong booster for ADA. I think he did. I think Outland became very active in it, but I stayed away from them. There was a brother of Herb Erskine who was active in the ADA, and he asked me at one time, as northern California chairman, to attend a meeting. I wasn't impressed by the type of people, they were mostly the intellectuals, they wouldn't go out and push a door bell or try to get a vote. They may contribute their money; and, again, they like to make these intellectual statements and all on policy and so forth without any feeling as to what it's going to do with the voter. FUCHS: Were you confident on election eve of the outcome? MCENERY: No, I was not. I felt that we would do all right in northern California; mainly, I didn't feel too confident about San Francisco. It seemed like we had a good campaign going in Alameda County, and I made a survey on my own of the San Joaquin County and I felt that he was going to do well there; but it doesn't make any difference what northern California does, if there's a switch of one or two percent of the votes in Los Angeles, or southern California area, it practically swings the election whoever gets the majority there. I couldn't feel confident about what was going to happen in southern California because I knew what a mess they were in all the time and what a lack of campaign there was down there. I can't say that I was confident. In fact, I didn't run into any Democrats that were very confident, but it didn't stop them from doing their little bit. FUCHS: I thought I might run down the itinerary and if there is anything about the names of these towns that ekes you think of an anecdote or something I'd be happy to put it in the record, He came in on September 22nd in '48 to Truckee? MCENERY: Yes, Nevada. Came down through the Central Valley. I think I've already got it on the record about the committee, with Ollie Carter, going up and meeting him practically when he came across the border into California, and the changes that were made in his speech which made it a lot better talk. That was the one that he gave at Sacramento. FUCHS: Well, he came on down through Roseville and then into Sacramento. MCENERY: Yes. The idea was to arrive at noon-time, I believe, in Sacramento, because most of the employees there are state employees and there was a good crowd out to see him. He made that strong pitch for development of natural resources and public utilities in California. I give an awfu1 lot of credit to Ollie Carter for convincing the President and the speechwriters that that speech should have been a lot stronger. I'm sure the speech was changed a good deal between the time Ollie Carter got on the train and the time they arrived in Sacramento. I don't think it was the same speech. They said that the typewriters were really going to work and people were changing things around. That was the one key thing that I felt won the election for him, that speech that was made there in Sacramento and convinced the Bee that they had to come out strong for him. FUCHS: Of course, he then came on into San Francisco where I suppose you joined him, and then he made a major speech at Lakeside Park in Oakland. MCENERY: That was the one that I was talking about on the banks of Lake Merritt, where he made the speech. I may have said that he made it earlier, I thought it was on the non-political trip in June that he made that talk but you've got the record there where it was made in Oakland at that time. The Alameda boys over there were very disappointed that they hadn't seen more of him over there. This speech that he gave there in Oakland, that wasn't planned a long time ahead of time. It was kind of something that came up maybe in a week before the President came that he was to make the speech over there. But he had a good audience though, an enthusiastic audience, let's put it that way. I don't think the crowd was real big as I remember it, but the President gave a good talk and the audience was very enthusiastic. And it was very well-received by the Oakland Tribune, which is a Knowland paper over there. They gave him some good space and handled the thing pretty well, as I remember it. People in Oakland were always complaining they couldn't get anything into the Oakland Tribune about the Democrats, but he got a good press when he made the talk. FUCHS: Then on the 23rd he went on down and made these so called whistlestop talks, in Merced, Fresno, and Tulare? MCENERY: I thought he was going the other way on that trip, but that's right. I wasn't on that trip. Let's see, didn't he stop at Modesto? Yes, he did, he stopped. Wasn't there a stop at Modesto? FUCHS: I just have the ones where they recorded the speeches, the whistlestop speeches in the Public Papers. MCENERY: Well, he made a lot of little stops in between that. He stopped at every town of any size at all down through the San Joaquin Valley. I think his biggest meeting was at Fresno. The chairman of that was a fellow by the name of Lopez, a lawyer from Fresno, I think. He was chairman down there of Truman's campaign. But they had a good turnout at Fresno, I heard. I'm not familiar with that, I didn't go on that trip. Ollie Carter was with him, he was the chairman of the party then. When you get into anything after the end of June there, I wasn't too much in the picture, although I was available, and I raised considerable money for the party, because I knew the people that had contributed in the past and that seemed to be where I was needed the most. It was kind of like pulling teeth to get money out of some of these people. FUCHS: Mr. Malone (this was in '49), visited the President and had some friends with him, Mr. and Mrs. Ray Sullivan. Do you know who they were? MCENERY: Yes, Ray Sullivan, he is now a member of the State Court of Appeals, he's a prominent lawyer in San Francisco. He was appointed by Brown to the Court of Appeals here. And by the way, they tell me he's a very fine judge, makes a wonderful judge. He was quite a working lawyer, he was a lawyer's lawyer. FUCHS: There was a gathering of the Democrats on the coast, in September of 1949. I believe Brannan was out here, and Judge Carter was involved in this, and George Luckey as vice-chairman; and Charles Sawyer came, and Julius Krug, Oscar Chapman, Assistant Secretary C. Girard Davidson, and Bill Boyle. And then, of course, the labor leaders, some of them were here. Do you have any recollections of that? MCENERY: No, but it had something to do with the problems that California was having with the Department. Was Oscar Chapman Secretary of Interior then? FUCHS: Krug was then Secretary and Chapman was along as Under Secretary. MCENERY: Under Secretary, he later on became Secretary of Interior. We had some troubles in California here with the Department of Interior that needed some straightening out. Sheridan Downey as I told you, was very much against Interior. He didn't think that they were doing their job in California here and Sheridan Downey was always very friendly with the Corps of Army Engineers. The Army Engineers were always happy to get in on some of these projects if Interior wasn't there to take them over. I'm sure that Sheridan Downey played the Army Engineers against Interior to get some of these projects started. I think that there was some attempt at that meeting to try to get some of these patronage things straightened out, too, by the tenor of who attended the meetings. California has never been very successful in getting people appointed to -- for the size of the state and everything -- has never been very successful in getting anybody of importance appointed to national office, except in the last -- well, it started with the Kennedy people. There were a few appointments made but -- such as Assistant Secretary of Labor [John F.] Henning, was appointed by Kennedy -- California never got by the Democratic Party the recognition that they were entitled to with the size of this state. We did pretty good in the early days of FDR, but I always felt it was due to Jim Farley's influence. He had visited California many times and knew many of the leaders out here. We used to have the most awful time getting the right people appointed postmaster's jobs in large cities. Sheridan Downey, the United States Senator, would recommend one person and the Democratic National Committee, with their fundraising and so forth, would have somebody else in mind. The best thing a politician can do is to get two groups fighting when there's an appointment to be made, and then just don't do anything about it; just sit back and let them fight for awhile and if you don't get the two groups together, eventually somebody will be appointed that neither one of them will like. We had great success with McGrath and with Gael Sullivan. That was a real fine period of our relationships with the Democratic National Committee in regard to patronage. I'm talking about the small appointments that had to be made. McGrath was always on the side of the northern California committee whenever anything came up. He stayed with us on that appointment of Herb Erskine which was to the Federal bench in San Francisco. We thought for a long time that McCarran would be able to get Ed Murphy appointed at that time and he didn't. But he was successful in getting him appointed in '49, as I told you, when they made the extra judgeship. FUCHS: This had been billed as the Western States Democratic Conference with jobs, land and water subjects on the agenda. MCENERY: Oh, yes, I attended that meeting in San Francisco. They came from, I guess, as far as Utah to that meeting. I remember national committeeman Rawlings, who I knew, from Utah I believe, he made a good talk there; but this was, again, the part of politics that I wasn't interested in. I was interested in organization and in getting them to vote Democratic, and here we are with all of the intellectuals assembled at the Fairmont Hotel in a big banquet room and having discussions about national policy on water, and Congress. I remember attending a meeting that afternoon with the Congressman who's chairman of the congressional committee on banking? We hear his name mentioned so prominently all the time. I can't think what his name is. But that was a good meeting, that was very well-attended. FUCHS: Well, the press pointed out that besides getting the western Democrats' point of view across to party leaders elsewhere, that they were also focusing attention on the important election in California next year, in which they hoped to unseat either Warren or whoever the Republicans nominated. This gets us into the ' 50 campaign, and which -- has some national importance because of other people who were involved such as Helen Gahagan Douglas and [Richard M.] Nixon, and so forth. Have you any thoughts about that, or anecdotes? I have a letter here from George Davis to Matt Connelly in April 1950, in which he said that things had reached such a point in California that it was unwise, he and Ollie Carter and Bill Malone had decided, to continue to ignore Roosevelt's potential as the next Governor of the State of California. MCENERY: Well, that would be George Davis' idea, I'm sure Malone didn't feel that way. I don't know what Ollie Carter felt. Maybe Ollie Carter felt he was the only guy on the horizon that was going to run, anyhow, so he might as well go along with it. I don't think Ollie Carter was very infatuated with Jim Roosevelt. Of course, he didn't have the problems that I had with him, so it seemed to be almost desperation in trying to do anything other than to promote Jim Roosevelt. Coming into the '50 campaign, I, too, felt that it was going to be nothing but Roosevelt. I felt that Roosevelt would get the Democratic nomination. There was no doubt about that, but I didn't think that it would go any further and it didn't. He was beat so soundly in the election by Warren, I didn't see any activity around Santa Clara County. They ran a campaign. Of course, they had their congressional candidates, and their assembly candidates in '50, but here you've got to have the campaign for the whole ticket or you don't have any campaign at all. FUCHS: Do you think there was some distortion in the newspaper reports that you had switched and was supporting Warren? MCENERY: I never supported Warren at all for anything. I wrote a letter. George Luckey wrote me and asked me just as a friend -- we had correspondence with. each other -- what I was going to do about Roosevelt . I wrote him back. I'm sorry I haven't got the letter, maybe I'll find it; if I can ever find it I'll send it to you. The actual letter I wrote was that there was no use in doing anything about him as he was going to be so soundly beaten. And I had a few other things to say which were nothing more than history; what I had found out by dealing with the guy. You couldn't trust him, you couldn't believe him, he was only interested in Roosevelt and no one else. I wrote this letter to Luckey, and three or four days later I got a call from Manchester Boddy, who was the publisher of the Los Angeles News, which was the only Democratic newspaper in southern California, and I might say in California, for that matter. The only large paper that gave the Democrats any kind of a break at all. He told me that he had this letter he wanted to know if he could print it, and I told him that I didn't want it printed. I had written it to George Luckey, and when he called me on the phone I wasn't in a position where I had the letter to look at again, and I had almost forgotten what I had said. I wasn't too careful about what I had said. I had some doubts as to whether or not the thing might be libelous if it was published. The next thing I knew other people were on the phone to me, I don't remember who they were, and said that it was a good letter, particularly in light of the fact that I had been vice-chairman with Roosevelt. Well, everybody knew how I felt about Roosevelt. I had made it plain, nationally, when we went to the convention and I hadn't got into the campaign at all. This was right at the end of the campaign, maybe two weeks before the end of the campaign, and I was more surprised than anybody else when the letter with a couple of sentences left out appeared in practically every paper in northern California. They hooked it up, for instance, in our hometown, with a statement of Pat Peabody's, who had been my friend, and they published both of our pictures in the paper with a caption over the top that McEnery and Peabody endorse Earl Warren for Governor. And they published the entire letter. If anybody read the entire letter, I made the statement to George Luckey that there was no use doing anything about him, that he was going to get beat by seven hundred thousand or a million votes, so there was no use us getting involved in it. I never thought that the letter would get as much publicity -- or I never thought I would ever see the letter again when I wrote it to George Luckey. The letter has come up many times since 1950 to haunt me, because everybody got the idea from the caption on the top of the paper that I had endorsed Earl Warren. I never intended anything to be made public. I just felt there was just no use in me getting involved in it. He didn't have a chance of winning and that was all there was to it. God help California if he had won. FUCHS: What about the Helen Gahagan Douglas-Nixon contest? MCENERY: That was a terrible thing that happened to the Democratic Party. We held many meetings, and we held some good meetings in San Francisco, and we knew that Sheridan Downey was getting a little tired, he wasn't too young. I didn't know, I thought he was feeling all right. He kept himself in pretty good shape, but worked like a dog . I guess he got a little tired with all of this constant jabbing that was being made at him, mainly by Roosevelt and his cohorts in southern California. And I'm sure they were instigated, a great deal of them, by Roosevelt again. They had to get rid of everybody in the Democratic Party to get their own people in. Sheridan Downey met with us in San Francisco and everybody strained themselves to make commitments as to how much money they'd raise and so forth for the Downey campaign. I'd say that there was maybe 20 at a luncheon we held in the city, and we all pledged our loyalty to him, and he got up and made a wonderful talk thanking us for the past and present support. Sheridan got up and told us how much he appreciated all of the support and that he would run again and, oh, I don't know, maybe it was a month afterwards, just out of a clear sky he announced that he was no longer going to run. This was just a month or so before the primaries, as I remember. Many of Downey's supporters, one of which was -- I imagine Pauley had something to do with it, and they convinced -- at that time Manchester Boddy, I think, was selling his newspaper -- Manchester Boddy, a fine Democrat and a wonderful gentleman, and he said that he would run. Well, Helen Gahagan Douglas had already, I think, announced that she was going to run against Sheridan Downey. I don't think there would have been a chance in the world that she would defeat Sheridan Downey. I felt all Sheridan Downey had to do was to put his name on the ballot and come out here and make a few speeches and let the Democratic organization do the job. I guess he had some doubts as to what would happen in southern California, but I think it was mostly due to the fact that he just got worn out. I don't think he felt well and that was the reason, and at that time his wife didn't feel well, too. So, I imagine that he thought that he had served long enough; but he surprised even his closest friends in making the announcement. He just floored everybody in California. Well, we all pulled together as best we could and we ran Manchester Boddy. We had him in northern California, I think, for only a couple of days, and we had a meeting at Stanford and we had one in San Jose, Santa Clara County, a dinner meeting. I presented him to the audience. But the Helen Gahagan Douglas campaign started to roll then. I didn't feel too enthused about Helen Gahagan Douglas. She was very liberal, but the idea of Communists, and communism and everything else that they used against her later on, nothing was farther from the truth. I think she was for every liberal movement that came along, and she was a good spokesman for most of them. But anyhow, she beat Manchester Boddy in a walk. I mean it wasn't even close. I'm pretty sure that's the campaign of '50 that I'm talking about. And then Nixon went on to defeat her, simply on the -- the whole campaign was communism, communism leanings, and so forth. I never felt that there was anything communistic about Helen Gahagan Douglas. She was way ahead of her time in a lot of things that she was promulgating, but today, like many of the rest of us, she might be considered a conservative if she was promoting these same things. Shortly after this she left politics altogether, and went back on the stage, I guess. I haven't seen her in some years. FUCHS: Downey's resignation was simply to give Nixon seniority? MCENERY: Yes. That was all. Downey was a real Californian. He was fighting for California causes all the time, and I still think that Downey wasn't feeling good. I think he just wanted to get back here. When he got back to California, after he moved back here, he lived in an apartment in San Francisco and you couldn't even see him. He just didn't want to see anybody. He lived on Post Street in an apartment, and I tried several times to see him when he came back, and it was a year or a year and a half later, I think, he died. I don't remember exactly the date of his death, but it wasn't very long after he came back to California that he died. As I told you, there was no funeral services for him at all. He gave his body to the medical department at the University of California. There was no services held for him, nothing, just an announcement in the paper that he had died; which, to a person like myself that has always felt that there should be some kind of a burial (and I don't think that Downey was an atheist or anything like that) -- but he just felt again that, I guess, he was doing something for the human race by turning his body over to the University of California. FUCHS: We talked, but not on tape, a bit about the 1944 campaign and convention, about which you had some remarks. Just what was your position in politics in 1944? MCENERY: I was very busy trying to make some money. I was in the hotel business, in the hardware business, and I very probably could have gone to the convention. I was chairman of the county committee of Santa Clara County. We were getting to be quite a good sized county. I did meet with the delegates -- they met here in Monterey -- I did meet with the delegates before they went to the convention. There was quite a fight here between former Governor Culbert Olson, quite a fight over who was heading up the delegation and so forth. I wasn't a part of it and I don't remember too much of it, only what I heard indirectly from those who attended and the maneuvering that went on in the nomination of Harry Truman for Vice President. Everybody from here thought that it was going to be Byrnes or someone of that type and there were other names that were considered, but Byrnes was the most prominent and Justice William Douglas. FUCHS: Was Douglas popular here? MCENERY: No, not at all. Douglas never was popular in California. He has a few strange bedfellows around here, but to tell you the truth, to my way of looking at it, most of them are screw-boxes. I don't know where they came from. They crawl out from under the rocks every once in awhile, but you don't see anything of them, and he's nothing around here anymore; a lot of people that are interested in preserving nature, and trees, and so forth. He comes to Monterey once in awhile, but I never thought that he figured in the picture at all here in California. He never was thought of by anybody until Roosevelt started to mention him again, and some of the people in southern California. But I didn't think that the politicians or the Democratic party leaders would pick anybody like Douglas. I felt that it was going to be Byrnes. Pat McDonough was chairman, I believe, of the California delegation in '44. He ended up as chairman I think -- I'm not too positive about that, you've got to check it -- but I talked to Pat McDonough, and Malone, and Ed Heller and any number of the Democrats and they thought that they did quite a job with the California delegation They were working very close with Hannegan. The Byrnes people thought that they had the California people lined up, but there didn't seem to be any doubt, but what Truman and Hannegan didn't felt that they had the California people lined up. They did have some awful battles, I heard, in caucuses and so forth.
I imagine that Culbert Olson and some of the people from the south might have been in favor of Douglas; but I felt, being at home, that it was going to be Byrnes that was going to be the vice-presidential candidate. FUCHS: What about the renomination of Henry Wallace? MCENERY: Henry Wallace, I thought that someplace along the line that he was going to be dumped, I had that feeling. FUCHS: What about the feeling of Californians? Were there some who were strong for Henry Wallace before they got to the convention? MCENERY: Again you have that feeling of loyalty I always keep talking about in northern California. If the President had made it clear that he wanted Wallace, the same ticket again, I'm sure that the northern California people would have gone along, but some place along the line they got the word that Wallace was not going to be the man. I am sure that that came mostly with the friendship of Hannegan with many of the leaders. Hannegan made many trips to California. In fact, he was out here a week or two after he became chairman of the party. Made a wonderful impression on everybody. He was a great friend of our family doctor, Doctor Eddie Amaral. They had played football together at St. Louis University. I took Doc Amaral to a meeting that was held at the Bohemian Club in San Francisco, where all of the Democrats got together for lunch. Hannegan and Amaral hadn't seen each other in years, and when I looked up, I sat down at the table looking around for Doc Amaral, and he was sitting up next to Hannegan at the head table. He never had anything to do with Democratic or Republican politics either, and here he was sitting at the head table with -- just old college friends. MCENERY: I've always had a feeling that the leaders of the party organization should not be either candidates, or potential candidates, for public office. If they don't have that kind of a feeling about it, people right away get thinking, like I do about Roosevelt, that he was promoting himself all the time. And I'm not the only one that felt that way. I'm sure that Shelley, Brown and Rogers felt that way, from the '46 campaign. I think that the Democratic Party is making an awful mistake in California right now in having so many elective officeholders holding positions in the party organization. The only time that we've ever had any success in the Democratic Party in California was when we had people who were just interested in organization and not interested in running for public office. You become prominent when you're in connection with party organization, and if you have the ability eventually people start thinking about you in terms of running for public office and they will sometimes convince you that you ought to run. But I feel that it would be a lot better if people that were in party organization would stay away from running for public office. This is what's happening all over in California today. I almost get a thrill when I see the things that are happening to the Republicans, but it's kind of disgusting to me when it happens to the Democrats. You can see a breakdown in an attempt to get some party organization when these people get to thinking in terms of being a candidate for public office. FUCHS: One more question about '44. Hannegan came out here and met with Malone and Robert Kenny at the Palace Hotel late in May of that year, and then they went over to Alameda County -- I guess the Leamington Hotel's probably in Oakland? MCENERY: Yes. FUCHS:…..and had a public reception. MCENERY: I attended both of them. FUCHS: Do you recall anything of what these conferences were about, or any anecdotes in connection with that? MCENERY: No. The only thing that I remember is Hannegan made a tremendous impression. He made a fine speech in San Francisco and I went over and I think there was a dinner meeting held at the Leamington and I was there. I think the same old tried and true leaders were there; Pat McDonough, and I think Monroe Friedman chaired the meeting over there for Hannegan. We always, when we went to any other town, just let the chairman of the county committee or their own leaders take over and we kind of sat in the background. But Hannegan had made a wonderful talk in San Francisco and made a wonderful talk that night, an altogether different speech than he had made in San Francisco. But he really did a great job at stirring up enthusiasm with his talk. He inspired leadership, there's no doubt about it; he must have been a wonderful organizer in Missouri where he was. Was it Kansas City or where? FUCHS: St. Louis. MCENERY: St. Louis, Missouri. I'd forgotten. FUCHS: Well, what direct contact had you had with Senator Truman prior to '44, either in connection with the Truman Committee or other activities, and do you recall any anecdotes? MCENERY: No, I wasn't in a position of prominence. I don't think it was '44, but it might have been, the time that the Truman committee came. I had met Truman on a couple of occasions. I remember being in a reception line, I think this was at the Palace Hotel, too, where we all went up to shake hands with the President. I don't think that was in '44, I think it was later. I think it was in '46. FUCHS: Of course, if it was after he was President it was after April '45. MCENERY: It was, so I'm not talking about '44. I'm talking about '45, as President; and I remember coming up and shaking hands with him and saying, ''This is my wife Margaret; I'd like to have you meet my Margaret.'" My daughter was in line, she was then taking a nursing course at San Francisco and she wanted to meet the President. And the President turns around and he yells, "Hey, Margaret, come here and meet John’s Margaret." It shocked me, it was just like myself being around the house yelling for one of my kids. He just turned around, and the hall was full of people and he just said, "Hey, Margaret, come here, I want you to meet John's Margaret." Well, to tell you the truth, Margaret Truman and my daughter were the only two young people in the place. So, they went off in a corner and started to talk about, oh, I don't know, the usual things young girls talk about, I guess. But they were the only young people in that reception. This was the reception before dinner. FUCHS: Do you have any vivid memories of him coming into town as a Senator, then, with the Truman Committee and your conversations with him? MCENERY: Yes. I hadn't talked with him so much, but when his committee came I had the hardware store in San Jose and we did a lot of business with Hendys. It wasn't the Senator that talked to me, but one of the members of his committee, asking me if I knew anything about the lathe room. We were selling Atlas lathes for Hendys and I told him no, I didn't know particularly about it, I had a man that contacted them. I went down there, I don't know what, I checked up on the number of lathes that were in the room and the number of men that were working them and so forth. I gave that information to one of the secretaries that were working with the committee. I heard the next day (I wasn't down there) but the next day the whole committee went down there and they went through this lathe room. I never did find out what the Truman Committee had to say about Hendys or anything of that type. I was invited up -- this could have been '44 -- I was invited up to his room. He stayed at the Palace Hotel, and this was before he was President, and there was about eight or ten of us in there and Mrs. Truman was there, practically all. men in there, with the exception of Mrs. Truman. Somebody was with her, some friend of hers. I don't know who it was, maybe they were traveling with them or maybe it was one of the other Senator's wives. They had put a piano in the Truman parlor and they were always kidding Truman, you know, about playing the piano, and they asked him if he wouldn't play something on the piano. Well, he sat down and he played a couple of things on the piano and he hit a couple of chords on the piano like he was going to start singing some little funny ditties or something like that. Mrs. Truman turned around to this friend of hers and she says, "That means that we leave now." There was nothing shady about any of the little ditties that he sang, but it was most likely something that he would have, little joke songs, maybe given with his whole Army group or something if they were having a meeting. I believe that was when he was on that Truman Committee. That was my first contact with him where I hadn't just seen him, and where I got into the same room with him, and after I had met him a few times. I can say this that -- not because he became President or because he was United States Senator -- he was so easy to become friendly with. I don't know, I just kind of felt that he kind of liked me, too. Maybe everybody got that feeling, I don't know, but I felt that I was kind of close to him. Maybe when you go through a few of these battles for a fellow, or with him, maybe you get that feeling, anyhow; but I always thought that the President like to come to San Francisco. He really enjoyed San Francisco; he felt that he was always among friends up there. I remember that he was great on Chinese food and he used to like to go down to Chinatown after we'd get through in the evening and eat Chinese food. When he became President and he came to San Francisco, we had it all fixed up at one of the older Chinese restaurants to have dinner down there. Alben Barkley was with him on this trip. I don't exactly remember the date, but he was President, and I think it was on this non-political trip in early '48. We arranged for this dinner down at this Chinese restaurant and, gee, we were all going to be down there at ten-thirty, all the little group that had known him for some time. Maybe there were forty or forty-five of us going to be down there. And, gee, at the last minute, I was the one that got the word first, but I don't know how it happened, whether one of the security men got ahold of me, or something, and said that they had been down to look at the restaurant and the President couldn't go in that building. There was no security, and it was an old rattlestrap of a building. It had never occurred to me. The front of the building looked good, I didn't know what it looked like behind. But they went around looking at the building and they said the President couldn't go. But Alben Barkley didn't miss. He was there and he was around shaking hands with all the little Chinese girls and the people and everything else. We had quite a pleasant evening of it. But I remember that Truman came in '55 to San Francisco after he had been President. This was the tenth anniversary of the formation of the United Nations and we still went to Chinatown, again; after the President's security people didn't have anything to say about it. And I remember walking in this room, and there wasn't very good lights -- took me a little longer to get there than the President did because he came down with the limousine and the officers from the auditorium next to the Opera House where the United Nations Charter was signed in '45. He got down to Chinatown in a hurry, and I remember coming into this Chinese restaurant where a group of us were going to get together and it was rather a little dark. I was checking my coat and I turned around, I couldn't quite see who was at the bar, and I heard Mr. Truman's voice say, "Come on, sit down here on the stool." He was already sitting down at the stool and he was waiting, I guess, to have a little nourishment. We sat down and one at a time as the people came in, the President shook hands with all his old friends. I don't imagine that there was more than twenty or twenty-five came to this and we had a Chinese dinner after we had a few drinks. Albert Chow and Jack Chow were alive, I think, at the time, and they took care of it. I think that they had something to do with the ownership of the restaurant. I don't remember its name now, but it's in existence there now. But we had a lot of good times out in Chinatown together. I'm not much of a Chinese food eater, but we had some pretty long dinners out there, many courses. FUCHS: Do you have any other post-presidential recollections? Did you see him on other occasions? MCENERY: Yes, any time he came to California I was there. I don't know what trip this was. This wasn't the '55 trip. This must have been later, in '58, or '59, that we had a dinner in San Francisco that he came to. I hadn't been anything in Democratic politics for quite some time, and I got a phone call one day from some of the people that were running the dinner and said that I was going to introduce the President. This was held at the Fairmont. I think I gave you a newspaper clipping. It must have been '58 or '59. I was rather surprised, because I hadn't been active in Democratic politics there for some years in the state organization. After all, Pat Brown was there; I thought the Governor should have introduced him, but they evidently had Pat Brown to make some remarks. I ended up being toastmaster that night and introducing the President. I had a little more fun that night, I had an opportunity to say something about him. I wasn't presenting the President of the United States that night. We had a little banter at the head table, I don't remember what it was, but the audience got quite a kick out of it. That was where he said in his talk that Pat Brown had something that he never had. I don't know what he mentioned, it's in the newspaper clipping there. He was kidding Pat Brown about something . I'm awful sorry that the President isn't feeling up to it to make another visit to the coast, he still would get a tremendous reception. A lot of his old friends are still around here and they never quit talking about him. They all have their own little episodes, many of which would parallel mine, and I don't want to have it thought that these things -- you're just asking me about, what happened to me. I don't want to have it seem that I was anything in particular; but I kind of got the feeling that we really struck it off pretty good together. FUCHS: I'm sure you did. What was your reaction when, I believe it was in March, 1952, he announced that he was not going to run again? MCENERY: I thought it was coming. I didn't think that he would run again. I thought that you were going to say something else, not about'52, then. FUCHS: What was that? MCENERY: Oh, I thought you were going to ask me something about the Kennedy remark that he made, that he thought that Kennedy couldn't win, or shouldn't have been nominated in '60. I thought you were going to ask me about that. FUCHS: Well, I'd like to have your comment on that. Of course, I could ask a great many more questions, but I know you are busy. MCENERY: Well, I think Truman was just for someone else for President. I don't think he was for Johnson, or at least he didn't leave me to believe. I think that he was for Symington in the early part . I don't know whether there were any statements made, I can't remember whether there were any statements made on that; but I didn't think that he had said anything to help Johnson. Senator Symington would have made a wonderful candidate. I thought that we were oversupplied with good candidates, as the years went on there, for President. We had men that had been connected with Government and had been through a lot of the things that happened in the legislative branch, and they were thoroughly familiar with what was going on in the executive branch of the Government. Symington, particularly, with his background in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and then as Secretary of the Air Force, wasn't it? I thought that he would have been a tremendous candidate for President; but he made trips to San Francisco, but he never took like Harry Truman did. He never got on with the leaders, and there was nothing that he did -- he was a pleasant fellow and I liked him very much. In fact, they didn't have a head table this particular day at the Fairmont when they had a reception for Symington and they asked me to sit with him. I had met him on a couple of occasions. Once at a hearing in Washington I was invited by Harley Hise to come over and listen to a hearing on the Pennsylvania Railroad, which owed the RFC a lot of money. This was a hearing where several of the Senators were in attendance, and one of them was Symington. I met him there and talked to him. I'm sure Symington didn't remember ever meeting me, but I remembered being in his presence a few times and they asked me to sit with. .him. We had a very pleasant conversation at lunch. Kennedy had so many connections in California it was kind of hard for anybody to catch up with him here. I was surprised that he didn't win by a bigger margin than he did in California, both in the primary and in the final election. But it was a real battle royal . I was only around the verge of the campaign, I didn't hold any official office. But I was friendly with some of Kennedy's father's friends in Nevada, Bill [William] Woodburn, who was national committeeman. He invited me up there to a dinner and a luncheon, in '59 I believe it was, maybe it was early '60, that they gave, and there was no doubt in my mind that Kennedy had sewed up the eight Nevada votes, I believe it was eight votes, at the convention. And Bill Woodburn was very friendly with him I talked with him. I made a survey on the east and west side of the San Joaquin Valley, just a little survey on my own going into each little town starting at Manteca and going down below Fresno and coming back on the west around by Sonora and so forth, for John Kennedy, He asked me to do it, and I was to report to one of his secretaries. I went to a cocktail party at Carson City four or five days later and gave them the report on what I had found out. I was surprised that the reception was so good for Kennedy in these small towns. They evidently knew and had made some surveys down through the center of the San Joaquin Valley, all the way down from Stockton to Fresno, but they didn't know what was happening in the little towns off to the east and west. I always like to study the final tallies that came in from some of these small towns. In the San Joaquin Valley, for instance, you'll find out that, taking all the bigger cities down along through the San Joaquin Valley, that they go about fifty-fifty for every candidate that runs, whether he is a Republican or Democrat, when they have an election. It seems like the balance of power is held by the direction that these small towns go in, and I'm sure the Kennedy people knew it. Of course, we're getting away from getting something about Truman on the record; we're getting too far away from that when you get to 1960. FUCHS: I believe this is good about Kennedy. I think you had a short, vivid account of the actual request by Kennedy. MCENERY: Oh. That was very interesting. Kennedy had his room at the Fairmont Hotel and he wanted to see me, and I didn't have any idea what he wanted to see me about. I had been very friendly, I had worked for him at the '56 convention. In fact, I stayed up all night talking to delegates and so forth, and sometime around one or two o'clock in the morning, I introduced him to the whole Rhode Island delegation. They were down in the lobby, or in one of the bars, in one of the hotels in Philadelphia. I had got acquainted with him and I was asking them about Kennedy and they hadn't met him. I saw Kennedy go down the hall and I ran over by the elevator and told him that there were a bunch of fellows here from the Rhode Island delegation that would like to see him. He walked in there and he was introduced to all the fellows around, and it turned out that if you will look at the record of the '56 convention, there was one vote in the Rhode Island delegation, that, Howard McGrath I believe, voted for Kefauver, and practically everybody else in the delegation voted for Kennedy. It might be good to check those figures and see if I'm right or if I've got it a little bit mixed up. However, as I say, I had been friendly with Kennedy at least from the '56 convention on. I had known him, had seen him before this and had listened to him speak at a few affairs. He wasn't anything of national importance, or we didn't think so at the time, although he had a very pleasing personality. He asked to see me, and I went up to his parlor and there were about six or eight people in there. He wanted to ask me something, but he couldn't do it, there was just too many people around shaking hands and pushing in on him all the time, and he asked me to go in the bedroom. I walked into the bedroom and turned around and here was John Perchio and Mr. Deeden, who are both superior court judges in Alameda County and who were very strong for Kennedy, Perchio had originally come from New York. Kennedy again wanted to say something to me, but he didn't seem to want to say it in front of Perchio and Deeden. He was going to go to Oakland that night to make a talk, and Perchio and Deeden were there to take him over to Oakland. He told them that his back was giving him a lot of trouble and that he'd like to get under the shower for awhile. He started in stripping down in the room and he walked into the shower room, and we were still there in the room and he said, "I've got to let that hot water play on my back for awhile," or something to that effect and he got into the tub. He said, "Come here, I want to talk to you." I ended up in the bathroom, and he kicked down the toilet seat and he said, "Sit down, I want to ask you something." And that's where he asked me if I could find out -- and it seemed to him like San Joaquin Valley was just like going over here across town and checking up on something -- he asked me if I could go down in the San Joaquin Valley and make a little check for him in these small localities there on both sides of the valley and give him a report. I said, "Well, where will I give it?" He says, "Well, Saturday night we're going to be in Carson City, could you get ahold of us by phone or something like that?" I told him it would take a couple of days, this was very probably a Wednesday, and he wanted the report on Saturday. He asked me if I'd give it to O'Donnell, and he told me about this reception that was being held at the Governor's mansion at Carson City. It was for Kennedy. I came back -- I don't know whether it was on Friday -- and I got ahold of Bill Woodburn in Nevada and he says, "Well, gee, if you're coming up, come to the reception at Carson City, you're invited." He said, "The Democratic Party is giving it for Kennedy." Well, I went up. I drove up, and the next night I went to the reception there at Carson City, and when I started to talk to Kennedy and told him I had made the trip, he was surprised to see me, because I was just supposed to make a phone call. Well, O'Donnell, the secretary that was there with him, asked me if I wouldn't give the information that I had, and I had all the little towns, how many I stopped and talked to and so forth, and I was surprised that there was such a large percentage of the people in favor of Kennedy. And to be a little on the conservative side, which has happened to me in the last twenty years, I cut the percentage of lead down about to half of what I had actually recorded in the various people that I talked to. I didn't get a very good reception in the building and loans and the banks that I went into. Depending on the size of the town, I'd walk down the street and ask ten or fifteen people, and go into a few business places. what they thought about Kennedy's chances for getting the nomination, and being elected President. And, gee, the reception was wonderful, nobody told me it was none of my business or anything else. They all seemed to say that they either didn't like him or they thought he was too young or something to that effect, but I'd say it was easy ten or fifteen percent, the majority of them were for Kennedy. But I attended all the Kennedy gatherings when he came out to California. I was only an alternate to the convention in 1960; but I was happy to go, at least you got a reserved seat out of it anyhow. FUCHS: Did you have a final percentage figure? MCENERY: I did have a percentage figure. Afterwards I was told that it was within two tenths of a point of what the vote actually came out. I was complimented by 0'Donnell, and I met Salinger afterwards, and they told me it was the best report that they had got anyplace. I must have been too optimistic in writing down the Kennedy votes, because I had cut it in half when I told them what the percentage was going to be. As it turned out later on, those little towns all along the San Joaquin were the ones that helped decide the election. You know how close it was. FUCHS: This was in the primary? MCENERY: Yes, in the primary. It was quite a battle. I thought that Humphrey hurt himself a lot in that Kennedy campaign. But as we said before, the Democrats can have a lot of trouble, but they always seem to get together on election day somehow or other, I don't know. They may be mad at some Democrats, but they still go in and check the man that has D-e-m-o behind his name, so it's all right. FUCHS: Did you have any feelings about Stevenson's displacing national chairman McKinney, with his own chairman, [Stephen A.] Mitchell and rather disassociating himself from Mr. Truman's record in the 1952 campaign. MCENERY: I felt very bad about, and I think he would have done a lot better had he stayed on the Truman line, better than he would going off on his intellectual discourses. He received great receptions, though, in San Francisco. But it was altogether a new type of Democrat that came into the Stevenson campaign than were in the Truman campaign. I got to know Stevenson when he was Governor of Illinois through the Peabodys. I had met him in Senator [Scott] Lucas' campaign. Senator Lucas had been head of the Senate and was defeated in Illinois by Senator Dirksen, wasn't it? FUCHS: Yes. MCENERY: Well, we went to that reception, and I met Stevenson; and we had Stevenson to California when he was still Governor of Illinois . We had him out here for a reception at Saratoga, at a private home, it was a private party, there was only ten or fifteen. I always felt that I knew him. I think Stevenson was used later on in the '60 campaign. I don't think that he felt that strong about getting the nomination, and I don't think he should have got into it down there in Los Angeles; but again you had Mrs. Roosevelt being so strong for him, and coming to the convention hall and practically disrupting the convention. And I thought that Stevenson made a mistake in coming to the convention hall, too, but I think it was in desperation that he came there. John Kennedy had the thing. He had done so much spade work for two years before, that these guys just couldn't catch him, any of them. He was so far ahead. FUCHS: Well, in '56 did you prefer Stevenson again? MCENERY: Yes, I did. I preferred Stevenson. I didn't have the same enthusiasm about his nomination that we had in '52, but he made a good campaign out of it; I was quite surprised. I didn't think he'd make as good a campaign out of it as he did. FUCHS: Do you think Mitchell did better than McKinney might have done? MCENERY: I thought that Mitchell was nothing I never got enthused about Mitchell. I don't know why Stevenson was so impressed with him. I never got any feeling about him at all. I never thought he was good or bad. I sure as heck didn't feel the same way about him that we all felt about Hannegan, or in the old days about Jim Farley, or even about Howard McGrath, or any of these people that were connected with the party. He struck me as kind of a haughty businessman or something. The several times that I saw him I didn't care whether I met him, or shook hands with him or anything else. It wasn't me, I just felt that he was the wrong man in the job; but he was evidently the kind of a guy that impressed Stevenson. He was Stevenson's man, and I guess he was entitled to whoever he wanted in the national committee at the time, but I think he'd have done a lot better if he had kept McKinney in there. I think McKinney knew where the money was, too; he was able to raise money better than Mitchell was. FUCHS: You felt he was capable? MCENERY: Uh, McKinney? Well, from everything I heard about the man -- I didn't come too much in contact with him -- but from everything I heard, everybody seemed to like him and he seemed to be a real worker and he seemed to accomplish something. FUCHS: Would you recount your story about becoming director of the Mint in San Francisco? MCENERY: Well, after the '48 campaign, I went back home to try to pick up the loose ends of my business. I had spent too much time in politics, and I was involved in the hotel business and the hardware business. Sheridan Downey just, almost in a kidding way, said to me one day, "You know, you ought to be Superintendent of the Mint, businessman and so forth." I didn't even know anything about the Mint. I wasn't interested in the Mint, I wasn't interested in any political appointment. Gee, the next thing I knew -- I don't know how it all happened, whether Sheridan Downey got ahold of the White House or what -- I heard that Sheridan Downey had recommended me to the President for Superintendent of the Mint. Well, I didn't pay a lot of attention to it. In fact, it came out in the paper, went to the Senate, and it was all confirmed like it was all set up. I picked up the paper, one morning -- the Senate had confirmed me on a Thursday or something like that -- and Notre Dame was playing USC and I went down to the football game down south. My wife didn't go with me; I went with a bunch of fellows down there and I called home in the evening and my wife said, "My God, the phone's been ringing all day, newspapermen and everything else." I said, "Well, you must have told them I'd gone down here because the phone's been ringing all day here at the hotel, too. And poor old Luke Kelly, who was my roommate, said he was my secretary down there. I waited until I got home; I didn't do anything about this appointment until I got home a couple of days later. And I called up Sheridan Downey and I said that, "Gee, I don't want to be Superintendent of the Mint." "Well," he says, "you're confirmed now." "Well," I said, "I appreciate it and everything else, and," I said, "I'm not going to take the job." Well, he laughed about it and said, "Well, you're confirmed. I don't know what you can do about it…" So, I sent a telegram to the President of the United States thanking him for recommending me, and I sent another telegram to Downey thanking them for the Senate for confirming me and everything else, but I don't want the job. I couldn't take it if I wanted to. I mean there's too many things involved. Well, I didn't know it, but, boy, there had been an investigation going on by security people and so forth checking up on me for a week or two before and I didn't know anything about it. Somebody had asked me some questions and a fellow came to interview me, he had an office at MacAllister Street there in the same building the Internal Revenue was in, and he asked me some questions about my background and myself. But, anyhow, the President sent me a letter thanking me and was sorry that I couldn't serve and so forth. I've got those telegrams and letters someplace, I don't know where they are; but this is '48. Well, in 1951 when everybody was talking about dishonesty in Government, whether it was fur coats or refrigerators, and we were having all the investigation of the Internal Revenue, I got a call one day from Jack Shelley, wanting to know if I could come up and see him. Well, I didn't know what the world Jack Shelley wanted to see me about. We were always very good friends, but I hadn't seen him, he was a Congressman, and he asked me if I could come up to his place. He said, "Be sure and be there not any later than two o'clock." Well, it didn't occur to me that there was anything involved in it more than something personal. He wanted to ask me some questions or something or he had some other appointments. Well, what happened was that when I got there George Miller, Frank Havenner, and Jack Shelley were there; and they said, "We got you up here, you've got to take the job of Superintendent of the Mint. We're being criticized, the Democrats can't find anybody to even head up the Mint. In view of all these problems that they're having over dishonesty and everything else, they can't clear anybody for the Mint." FUCHS: Who had been directing it when you refused the job? MCENERY: He's in politics in San Francisco today, George Gillin. FUCHS: What had happened to him? MCENERY: He had some problems in regard to -- and it's not a matter of record, and it never got out in the press -- but he had been in the insurance business, and he had made sure that his company sold insurance policies and so forth to the employees at the Mint. There was just a little, I guess, investigation, and he just resigned. But the job was open there for a month or two, and the criticism kept mounting. They couldn't find anybody to even fill in in the Mint. Well, I didn't give it a lot of thought, and I guess I let my better judgment get away with me. When Shelley, and George Miller, particularly, the Congressman, asked me if I wouldn't consider it or take it, I said, "Well, gee, if it's that bad I'll take it for a few months until you get somebody else." I was thinking just till after the primary election, that's all I was thinking about. Well, with that, Jack Shelley picks up the phone and phones Clair Engle who is in Washington, then Congressman, and says, "McEnery will take the job." He says, "Great, let me talk to him." So Clair Engle said hello to me, and I said, "Gee, I don't know, it looks to me like I've been boxed in in this thing. I don't want the job now." The job didn't pay an awful lot, I think it only paid eleven thousand a year or something like that; and when you get through adding that to your other income you only have about two-thirds of it left anyhow. So, I was figuring, "Well, I'm not going to move to San Francisco or anything like that." My home was fifty miles away. Before another week was up I got a phone call from Mrs. Ross, who was Treasurer of the United States, and a phone call from Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Foley and it got out into the paper that I was going to take the job as Superintendent of the Mint, and the thing was confirmed and I was in up there. I've been told that I have an all time record of getting out of a political appointed job the day after election. I had given two letters to Matt Connelly when they were in San Francisco, one that says that, "Now that we have won the election I would like to resign as Superintendent of the Mint," and the other one says that, "Now that the Republicans have won the election I want to get out and let's turn the running of the Mint over to them." The night of the election I sent a wire to the White House telling them to use letter number two. The next morning I got back up to the Mint, the day after election, and I had a telegram from the White House -- because they had opened up three hours before we had -- I had a telegram at the San Francisco Mint telling them to turn all values over to the Assistant Superintendent, that I was relieved of my job. I don't think anybody ever got out of a job that quick. I think everybody knew that I just took the thing for a few months; and it was frightening the amount of money that was in there. The other thing that happened, after I was confirmed I didn't actually take the job for two weeks, because some of the vaults in this Mint had been locked up since they had moved over there to this new Mint in 1933. These vaults had been sealed up for all of these years and I didn't believe the seal and the figures that were on the outside. So they had to send somebody from the Philadelphia Mint, somebody from the General Accounting Office, and somebody from the Denver Mint to supervise a complete inventory of all the coins that were in there -- call it a settlement. I guess I was in there two weeks before I signed a piece of paper saying that I was accountable for the money. But the inventory had come out all right, there was nothing wrong. We had a good time up at the Mint, everybody working for us was very loyal, I invited everybody to the swearing-in ceremonies, which was just held in a large office. I didn't think any of the employees would come, but I invited them all; and when a few friends and Judge Harris were in there, swore me in as Superintendent of the Mint, and a few newspaper people around, taking pictures and so forth, you couldn't get the employees in there. So, after it was over, I went out and the employees were all lined up on the steps going down and I made a talk to them and said that I would be around to see the ones that I hadn't met; I would be around and get acquainted with all of them, and I was happy they came. It got me off on the right think very many of them would come, we had about two hundred employees in there. But we had a very successful operation of the Mint. We were in third place as far as production was concerned, and I told these people at the Mint that production had to be brought up, that we were behind the Denver Mint. The Philadelphia Mint had, of course, by far the most employees and the most production. But I told them that they had to get their production up. That if there would be some kind of survey made, and we weren't getting the production out, that if one of the mints was going to be closed, it would be this one. And we did, we brought the production up, and we passed the Denver Mint easily. Denver was having some trouble. I went up there at the request of Mr. Foley, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. Mrs. Ross, I guess, agreed with it, I don't know whether she had the thought or who. The thought, anyhow, first was broached to me by Secretary Foley in a phone call asking me if I would go up there. There was a schoolteacher that was Superintendent of the Mint up there, and evidently the Denver Mint was in an awful mess. I mean it was just a mess of a building, it wasn't a practical operation. It wasn't a conveyor line operation. In fact we didn't have one in San Francisco. There are a lot of things that could be done, and some of them have been done, to improve the mint field. But in spite of the mess that the Denver Mint was in, I did go up there and helped out our schoolteacher friend, who was a Democrat. It consisted mainly of taking a few of the news-paper people and letting them hold a gold ingot that weighed about forty pounds, and letting them have their pictures taken. And buying a couple of bottles of bourbon and a bottle of scotch and going over to the American Legion Hall, which was two or three blocks away from the Mint, and buying a few drinks. We convinced them, after we showed them through the Mint, that everything was in good shape, there was nothing wrong with the Mint. We got some good write-ups. I've got clippings of it and so forth afterwards. It was just another one of these attempts on the part of politicians to convince the people that things weren't being handled right, you know, and criticizing the Superintendent and so forth at Denver. But it was a terrible disappointment to me, after I left the Mint, and after the men had worked so hard, and we had got things rolling pretty good that Eisenhower, when elected President, without even a decent survey being made, decided that the San Francisco Mint was supposed to be closed. Naturally you wouldn't expect him to close the Denver Mint, having his wife's folks and everything coming from there. I wrote a letter at the time about it to the Senate committee and also sent copies of it to the Treasury Department, and I made a prediction which has come true. I said it would cost more for freight to ship the money from Denver down, you know, with insurance and everything, than it would to keep the Mint operating. Well, they found out that in no time at all that they had to open up the San Francisco Mint on a limited basis to manufacture dimes and nickels and quarters and pennies because it was costing so damn much to ship them in from Denver and from Philadelphia. I think that that gives you the story, unless you can think of some other question, in regard to the Mint. FUCHS: That's about all I have. I certainly do thank you. I appreciate your patience and cooperation. MCENERY: Well, I don't know how much of it is of any value; it just gives a little insight as to how we felt, particularly in northern California. I'm sorry there had to be so much said about the animosities and the problems we have had with some of our friends in other parts of the state because, I again come back to the fact that if we had a decent political organization in California, the Democratic Party, there'd be no reason why we shouldn't hold every elective office, and at no time should there have been two United States Senators from California that were Republican. We at least have one Democrat in there now, and I think that with any kind of a campaign, there very probably could be the election of one in the coming election. FUCHS: Thank you very much. [Top of the Page | Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | Additional McEnery Oral Histor |
