Gerald Heaney

Judge Heaney served in World War II.

He served in the U.S. Army (1942-1945) in the European Theater. He served with the 2nd Ranger Battalion. Immediately after the war, he was assigned as a labor relations advisor for the military government of Bavaria (Bayern) in Germany for five months.

Below is the transcription of an oral interview with Judge Heaney.

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Interviewer: Mrs. Helen McCann White
Interviewee: Judge Gerald Heaney
Location: Federal Building, Duluth, Minnesota
Date of interview: November 30, 1967
Originally transcribed by: Gretchen Furber in December 26-27, 1967
Re-input by: Karin Swor, Veterans’ Memorial Hall Program Assistant/Senior Aide, January 8, 2008

Helen M. White: Could you tell a little bit about how you happened to get into politics, Judge Heaney?

Judge Gerald Heaney: Well I suspect that my interest in politics started when I was a boy in Goodhue County during the Al Smith campaign in 1928. There was an old family friend by the name of Frank O’Gorman who was the county chairman of Goodhue County, which at the time was a very strongly Republican county, and through him I developed an interest in politics and spent a good deal of time going with him to meetings and nailing up signs and doing the customary political chores. I continued an interest in politics from that time until the present—rather a passive interest during my high school and college days—but I was working as well as going to school. After graduation from the University of Minnesota law school in 1941, I worked for a year with the Securities Commission of the State of Minnesota as an attorney investigator, and of course, I was under civil service during that period of time and didn’t have a strong political interest. During law school, however, I became acquainted with Orville Freeman. We were in the same fraternity and were very close personal friends at that time, a friendship that has continued until now. In 1942, I went into the Army and served in the Second Ranger Battalion overseas until 1945. And I would suspect that the real impetus of my going into politics came during the period of time that I was in the Army in this respect, that I would suppose that it was a good deal like so many others that served in the Army in World War II in Minnesota and who came back and got active in politics. After the end of hostilities in World War II, I was assigned as a labor relations advisor for the military government of Bavaria, and spent from VE-Day approximately until October, when I came back to the United States, and this work was political in nature in the sense that it was an effort by the American military government to revive democratic institutions in Germany and was very interesting and again served to whet my political appetite. As it were. When I returned, I made up my mind to come to Duluth to practice law, because I wanted to specialize in the field of labor relations and there wasn’t a labor attorney in Duluth at that time who represented the unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. So.

HMW: Not one?

JGH: Not at that time, so I came to Duluth and went into practice with I.K. Lewis, but spent practically . . . spent most of my time in my early years of practice representing various unions that were affiliated with the AFL-CIO. On return from the Army, I immediately renewed my personal friendship with Governor Freeman, and he, of course, at that time was working for Hubert Humphrey who was mayor of Minneapolis. And Hubert had ambitions, of course, of running for the United States Senate. We all…I became . . . I had known Humphrey before this time, but not well. But because of my close association with Freeman, I became a close friend of Humphrey’s as well. And we both, I would say, went to work on the job of trying to get Humphrey elected to the Senate. At the outset, I think, the first determination that we made was that we could only win an election in Minnesota if we were able to strengthen the Democratic Party and to remove from positions of influence a number of persons who were either member of or close to the Communist Party. So I undertook the responsibility of helping organize the Duluth and Iron Range area, to organize the precinct caucuses for 1948 so that we would have a strong enough party to be able to conduct an election with . . . and make a successful effort out of it. So you might say to summarize this, that I had . . . I got into politics partly because of the close personal friendship with Orville Freeman and partly because I became convinced during World War II that a person had a real responsibility to be active in political life, and then, Governor Freeman and I both became interested in helping Senator Humphrey achieve his . . . first election. So I would imagine that I spent a good half of my time in 1948 either organizing for the precinct caucuses in the county conventions or in Senator Humphrey’s election campaign. The balance of my time, of course, was spent in practicing law and I guess, I thought, doing a full-time job in both of them.

HMW: Would you say from your experience in other parts of the world and in other places, that Minnesotans are more politically aware? I’ve heard this said-than people in other areas- that this long; third party tradition has made the people of the state more aware politically?

JGH: Well, I would most…I would say that they most certainly are more issue-oriented than the people of many other sections of the country are. I think that they are inclined to be more independent than people of other parts of the country are. There’s a good many reasons for this, I suspect. It’s a diverse nationality pattern, diverse religious pattern; there isn’t a good deal of patronage, so that the typical type of political organization cannot be built in Minnesota over a long period of time. I think you can only attract people if the party is issue-oriented and if you have attractive and capable candidates. I think that in some other states, that it…. with the amount of patronage that is available, it’s easier for them to build an organization which stays in power largely because of its ability to give patronage to its members-that certainly isn’t true in Minnesota.

HMW: Well now, you had some attractive candidates to work for in Minnesota in those days.

JGH: well, I would expect that at least in my experience, I don’t know of any other state that at one time had as many young and attractive candidates holding office as we did in 1958 when we reached the…when the Democratic Party reached its strongest point. There was Governor Freeman, Senator Humphrey, Senator MaCarthy, and Congressman Blatnik from this area. I suspect that it would be almost impossible to find four young, aggressive, able men who were in office at one time.

HMW: You had some interesting adventures with Governor Freeman after his election, did you not? Supporting his program and working for it….

JGH: Well, after Senator Humphrey was elected in 1948, our next objective was to elect a governor, and this was my feeling, that Orville was the person that we ought to elect and so we went to work on that job, and it took us until 1954 to accomplish it. After the governor was elected, I worked quite closely with him and never had a state job…because I didn’t…wasn’t interested in it. But I was still…remained a very close friend of his and spent each of the three legislative sessions working with the governor, particularly in the field of education, appropriations, and taxation. And spent, I would say, two-thirds of my time during the three legislative sessions working with him in trying to get his program passed. During this period of time, of course, I was also an officer in one capacity or another of the Democratic Party; I became National Finance Director for the Democratic National Committee in the state of Minnesota in 1954….no, let’s see, that would be in 1950, and became Democratic National Committeeman in 1954 and served until 1960. So during all this period of time, in addition to serving in the Legislature, I worked quite closely with the governor in developing legislative programs, in organizing his campaigns and particularly in this area.

HMW: What were some of the important educational issues at that time?

JGH: Well, I suspect that the major educational issue in each session of the legislature was the State Aid Bill to elementary and secondary schools-this was always the major piece of legislation that was presented in each session of the legislature. And then, of course, you had the appropriations bills for the University and the state colleges. Now that there were some other issues there on school consolidation and establishing a liaison committee for higher education, but mainly, as far as I was concerned, I worked in the area of appropriations for elementary and secondary education and for the University and the state colleges on their building appropriations, and I did not get involved in detail on some of the…of side issues.

HMW: Did you favor setting up the branch Universities, such as the one here in Duluth?

JGH. Yes, I have always been under the impression that really, we probably would be better off in the state, if all of the institutions of higher learning were under a single Board of Regents, although I guess that I haven’t felt as strongly about that as some have; I have been a little more programmatic about it, I’ve always felt that the major problem that we had in education was to get adequate financing, and if I had to trade…. if I had to concede on some of the issues of organization, of form, as I call them, in order to get some more money for education, I guess I was always the one who was willing to make the compromise to get the money that was needed and to avoid a kind of a knock-down fight on organization that would lead to substantial cuts in the budget.

HWM. How did you feel about the education budget during those years?

JGH. Well, I felt that we did very well, except during the 1959 session. During the 1959 `session, we had a very, very difficult tax…or a very difficult problem as far as taxes were concerned.. We were in the middle of a recession-iron mining was way down-it was necessary to raise more money. The governor had been involved in the Albert Lea strike situation and I think the business community and the conservatives had made up their mind that they were going to defeat the governor on whatever grounds that they would. So they pretty well battled him across the board. I would say that the one area where we
Had the most controversy on during…in state aid, was the level of the state aids that would be given to Minneapolis and St. Paul and I …this was the area where we were not as successful as we should have been, and I think that we’re paying the price for it now. We always had a terrible fight with the conservative legislators in terms of how the state aid was going to be distributed. And of course, the conservatives were in favor of having a state aid formula that would give a good deal of money to the farm areas, particularly those in southern and southeastern Minnesota, and also one that would give a maximum state aid to the suburban communities, because this, of course, where their legislators came from. And we were concerned with getting more aid into the poorer districts of the state-northwestern Minnesota in particular and also into the Twin Cities because we…it was our feeling that the school system in the major cities were deteriorating, that property taxes and the local boards of education were incapable of raising real property taxes, that this was kind of a losing battle and it still is on a state level, and this is basically, I suspect, why federal aid to education has come into existence, because of the refusal, really, to recognize the needs and the problems of the major metropolitan areas, not only in Minnesota but across the nation.

HMW. Do you think there is a real danger of federal control along with federal funds, or is this more or less a booby?

JGH. Well, of course there’s always danger of this. There’s always this danger; I guess it’s one that we have to weigh always against the dangers from not doing it, and I certainly feel that you’ve got to keep the local school boards in control of the educational systems in the communities. But I think you’ve got to distribute the state and federal aids in such a way that the most help goes to those who need it. In fact, I think really in the last-and maybe I shouldn’t be going on, but the whole…the major issue in politics has changed in the short time that I’ve been on the scene. From 1948, I would say, up until 1960, I would say that one of the major issues that divided the Republicans and Democrats, not only in Minnesota but also in other parts of the nation, was, does the federal government have a responsibility…an increasing responsibility in education, welfare, and what have you? I think that question now has been answered in the affirmative and now there’s a much more difficult problem, and that is the question now is-well, as I see the division, for example, between the Minnesota Republican and Democratic delegation at the present time. They’re all in favor of the various federal aide-there may be some difference as to the level of these aids-but it’s about the same problem we had in Minnesota in distributing the state aids to the elementary schools. In other words, they’re in favor of it if all the money goes to the middle and the upper-middle class, and so now you’ve got a much tougher issue to fight, because when you had a large percentage of the people that needed help, for example, on Medicare and Social Security, you had rather a powerful vote lobby to back you up, but when you’re trying to get aid, for example, in the poverty program, you have a mighty tough time because the represent only a small percentage of the total. Many of them don’t vote. They, of course, have no effective lobby or representation and I think it’s just inherent that they never will have. So the issue now becomes one of not weather the federal government should do these things, but how they should be done, and this unfortunately id the reason why they support so strongly turning all the federal aid to education money over to the state. I don’t think it really has anything to do with control; I think it just depends on how the money is going to be distributed.

HMW. Your remark about the state funds would apply, would it, to the federal situation too, then? The important thing is to get the money where it’s needed.

JGH. Ya, the same thing.

HMW. Not particularly how it’s administered?

JGH. Well, of course, you’re always interested in the administration, but the key thing is to-at least in my judgment-is now that we cannot afford in this country to have as many people as there currently are who are being poorly educated. For example, in the courts now, we frequently run into situations in which when they’re trying to integrate schools, some of the southern states, where…and they’ve had segregated schools in the past and the Negro teachers have taught Negro pupils and the white teachers have taught white pupils, and now they’re trying to integrate the school systems and one of the real problems that they have is that the white parents resist vigorously the transfer of Negro teachers into their schools, not because they’re Negro, but because they aren’t as well trained and as well qualified as the white teachers are. Which is just another way of saying that the Negro schools have not been equal. Well, I departed a long way, but I’ll get back on…

HMW. No, you’re still…. part of the problem. You mentioned the problem of taconite back a way-I wonder if you’d like to talk about that important issue and your role in the taconite amendment.

JGH. Well, I think about in 1957, after the St. Lawrence Waterway had been completed. It became apparent that Minnesota ores were going to be subject to substantial competition. There’d been indications of it prior to that time, and by that time, of course, the Reserve Mining Company plant had been built or was in the process of construction, but it was apparent to everyone that the new…I mean that, you know, that additional plants were going to have to be built to take up the slack in the unemployment on the iron range. And the mining companies, of course, at that time, particularly United States Steel Corporation, took the position that three things had to be done before they would commit themselves to build taconite plants on the range- (1) that the local communities would have to reduce expenditures, (2) that there would have to be a revaluation of non-mineral property on the range, (3) that there would have to be a constitutional amendment which would guarantee, for a reasonable period of time, that the taxes would not be changed. So, this was a pretty vigorous campaign going on during that period and, of course, it was one of which we were all aware. And as early as 1958, the governor took the position-Governor Freeman took the position that he was willing to support a taconite amendment to the constitution if the mining companies were willing to commit themselves to build a plant. They were not willing to make this kind of commitment at that time. I think the smaller companies were, but United States Steel Corporation took the position that it was not willing to make any commitment, that if we passed the taconite amendment, then that they would then review the situation and they probably would go ahead, but they weren’t willing to make any commitment. And of course the governor was not willing to support a taconite amendment unless they did, and I think that…that surely was my feeling, and the feeling of many others in this area and in the Democratic Party. The matter, as you know, was first voted on in the 1961 session of the Minnesota legislature, and the amendment was defeated in that session of the legislature and defeated precisely because the mining industry was not willing to make a commitment that if the amendment was passed, that they would build a plant. After 1960, the pressure continued to mount-it mounted in this area because people were out of work, and I think the pressure began to be heavier on the steel corporations because they realized that this was a very good product and were anxious to build, and furthermore, they were having substantial difficulties in South America and in Canada, and I think they needed to have alternative sources of supply so that their bargaining position with them would also be improved. So I would say that largely as a result of the efforts of the Vice-President and Congressman Blatnik and Senator McCarthy, who were in a position to exert substantial influence on the mining companies finally did what they said they would never do, and that is that they agreed that if the amendment could pass, that they would build a plant. I think the unfortunate thing for this part of the country is that the mining companies did not make this kind of commitment much earlier. If they had, it would have meant that a lot of younger people who moved out would have stayed and our economy would have been healthier. I suspect that those who disagree with my position would say that it was unfortunate that the Democrats would not agree to the amendment and accept…and to hope, I guess, that the plants would be built. I think this is basically one of the differences between the Republicans, and the Democratic parties-I suspect from the eyes of the Republicans, they would view this as being an anti-business attitude on the part of the Democrats; we would tend to view it as being an attitude of protecting the public, of being willing to give a tax concession, if you want to call it that, provided you were assured that the people got something in return.

HMW: have all the hopes been realized since the passage of the amendment? Do you feel that the taconite program has been a success at this point?

JGH: Oh, I think that the commitments that the mining companies made have been kept and more than kept. Now, you phrased the question, “Do you think the hopes have been realized?” – now this is a different question. I think that for anyone who took the time to study the situation, that they realize this that what the taconite amendment would do, would be to stabilized this area – in other words, to put a floor under the economic…under our economic system. It would have been better, of course, had…. other people, particularly in other parts of the state, felt that this was going to do more than that, in other words, it was going to result in extensive growth and development on the range. I never had that idea; nonetheless, I supported the taconite amendment completely, because I felt that it was a fair bargain, so to speak, and they have kept their promises to the letter.

HMW: You mentioned how a lot of young people left the state – do you think they’ve been coming back, finding jobs in the new taconite plant?

JGH: Well, I don’t think they’ve been coming back, because they had left and had found other jobs, and what’s happened of course, in many of the taconite plants, is that the jobs have been filled by persons who had seniority rights and who formerly worked in the mines. In other words, when U.S. Steel opened up their new plant, now, and there are people who’ve gone from other mines into the taconite plant, and…but I would say – I guess I don’t have anything specific to back this up – that a larger percentage of the high school and college graduates are now staying in this area than did during the years from 1957 up through 1962 or ’63.

HMW: What do you think the effect of – along the same line – the effect of the University here at Duluth has on the employment picture, the residence of young people on the range?

JGH: Well, the whole iron range has always had, and Duluth, have always had good educational systems. And this has not particularly, I think, had the effect yet of having them stay home after they finish these institutions, but at least it’s given them an opportunity to go to school at a lesser cost than if they had to leave home. And I think, you know, these Lithuanian people and the Finnish people in particular make any sacrifice, and still do, to get their children a good education. And many of our very best students have left this area. I think this trend has slowed now, and hopefully it will be reversed, and more and more of these students will start staying home. This is still the basic problem in this area, is to diversify our industry and to be able to provide the additional new jobs that we need each year for the younger people who are coming into the labor market. We aren’t doing it yet, but at least now we are no longer going downhill; we’ve got a fairly good base. Our major problem now…. I would say the next problem we have is to do what we can to insure that the steel plant in Duluth is modernized. It employs about thirty per cent of the people - there’s thirty per cent of the payroll of Duluth – is dependent upon the plant of the American Steel and Wire Company and Universal Atlas and 858 Company. This plant is not a modern plant. It’s costs, therefore, are high, and whenever…. unless something is done, we’re all afraid that it will eventually be closed out and this would be a terrible economic blow, but if, by working with them, a method can be worked out so that they will make the investment necessary to modernize the plant, then we’ve got a kind of a stable base to build on.

HMW: I noticed out in the harbor yesterday, there, - and maybe its out there today – is a ship from some Orient line. Someone told me it’s full of steel from Japan.

JGH: Ya, there’s a good deal of finished steel that comes in, and this just relates to the problem that I mentioned and that is that because of the lower labor cost in Japan, and because many of their plants and mills have been modernized, we aren’t always able to effectively compete with them. But if our plant here were modernized, we would be able to, and I think that increasingly, their wage levels tend to rise and the standard of living in these countries tend to rise, but this levels off.

HMW: Would you like to stop a minute?

JGH: Well, I would say that I was active in the national Democratic Party scene from 1952 until 1960, the period of my most intense activity. During that period of time, I was either the finance director for the National Committee in Minnesota or on the National Committee. Of course, this was the period of time that President Eisenhower was in office, and the Democratic Party was absorbed in the job of trying to maintain control of Congress, which it did during most of that period, during all that period, as a matter of fact. And also trying to find a Presidential candidate to run in 1956 – for 1952, 56, and then in 1960. I would say that in 1952, of course, we had the Presidential primary in Minnesota; in 1956 we had a primary. In 1952, Senator Humphrey ran as a favorite son, and in 1956 Governor Stevenson ran. I was active in both of these campaigns. In….Senator Kefauver, you know, was active in both of those campaigns in Minnesota. And during this period of course, I was also active in meeting particularly, in the Midwest with other leaders of the Democratic party, particularly Neil Staebler who was then State Chairman of the Democratic Party in Michigan and is now National Committeeman and, who was always a close friend of mine and a close political ally. I suspect, probably, the best state chairman that the Democratic Party has ever produced in any state.

HMW: It is a pity he couldn’t have stayed in Congress longer.

JGH: Yes, well see, I guess that he was essentially an organizer and a darn good person to run someone else’s campaign, but a kind of a modest man who isn’t best when he’s talking about himself. We, of course, all worked awfully hard – when I say we: Governor Freeman and Senator Humphrey and Senator McCarthy and Congressman Blatnik and myself and others – all worked very hard for Governor Stevenson, not particularly in 1952 before he was nominated because he came on to the scène as a dark horse in the convention, on the issues, particularly in the civil rights field, at that time the major issue, at least up through 1956, was FEPC, in other words, an attempt to get national fair employment practice legislation. I suspect that our state was eight or ten years ahead of their time in that – as early as ‘ 48, you’ll recall, Senator Humphrey was able to strengthen the civil rights resolution in the Democratic National Convention. In 1952, we had the same kind of a fight; and in 1956, we had the same kind of a fight in the convention. I was very active in those. I still feel we were right, and I think that we were right in selecting employment as a number one goal. Unfortunately, we not only were unsuccessful in terms of unemployment…. fair employment practice legislation, but before any real progress had been made in there, the target shifted into the educational area, and this was done, not by Congress, but by the Supreme Court. And as a result, I think, that the efforts in Congress began to shift away from the employment area and to shift into these other collateral areas, all of which are absolutely essential. I think the experience now begins to indicate that it is just awfully difficult to give a person dignity and self-respect unless he has a job. Of course, nowadays, you can’t get a job without having an education. But this was the area of our major battles, and this, I think, is what distinguished Minnesota from most of the other parties of the nation. Well, it was always a problem, because the only areas where we ever really had clear support was from Michigan, through Governor Williams and Neil Staebler. And from Wisconsin, scattered support from some of the other states in the early years, but the main fight on civil rights was always carried by Minnesota and Michigan, and I suspect that my activities on the National Committee were directed towards this line and also towards the support of Governor Stevenson and then Senator Humphrey. He was making plans to run in the 1960 Presidential primary. With reference to that primary, we spent…I spent a good deal of time on it, particularly in Wisconsin where I managed Senator Humphrey’s campaign in the Presidential primary in Wisconsin. I went over there in December and stayed until after the campaign was over. We…it was a difficult campaign in the sense that there was no contest in the Republication primary, no meaningful contest. The only contest was in the Democratic primary. As a result, there were many, many thousands of Republicans that voted in the Democratic primary. Milwaukee was a very difficult area for us – the north side of Milwaukee, as you know, is strongly Polish, and Senator Kennedy had a tremendous appeal to them which was primarily a religious appeal. As a result, in an area where you would ordinarily expect that Senator Humphrey would have done best among workingmen, we were quite badly defeated in Milwaukee. We won in Madison, we won in the Kemp district, which is Superior, and we won in the LaCrosse district and one other. The irony of this I guess is that Senator Humphrey who carried the ball on civil rights and on the various human rights issues for the entire Democratic party for many, many years, is now under attack, particularly, I think, from the younger people who were not around in the early stages of this battle, beginning in 1946, 1948, 1950, 1952, all the way through to this period. So they don’t have any sense of identification, and nave no real understanding of what went on in those periods.

HMW: I was wondering – you’ve had so much experience in the grassroots political program – could you make some observations about the..…. Appeal, the vote getting appeal of such people as Humphrey and Stevenson and so on? How did the crowds you watched react to these men? What was the in personal appeal?

JGH: Well, I think – you know, I’ve always often asked myself just what makes for appeal – I don’t know if anyone can give an answer to that will be valid for more than an individual campaign. I think so much depends on your opposition, on the time and on the circumstances, on the mood of the people. Basically, if I were to attempt to analyze the people that I’ve worked the closest with, I’d start out with Senator Humphrey and I would say that his appeal lies in the fact that he is a warm human being with a quick mind, probably the most effective public speaker before a large crown in the United States, probably still is. He has an unlimited supply of energy and he is a humanitarian in every sense of the word. I think that in terms perhaps of a national image that he is a little earthier than what the East is used to. I think that they…that the relationship between the people in the East and a United States Senator is quite a bit different, or the Vice-President, than it is in Minnesota, and I’ll go into that and give you some examples of that in a little bit. But here, you know, people won’t tolerate that kind of thing, so if you’re going to be successful in Minnesota politics, I mean you…. there was no room for pretensions or airs or any netiquette or aloofness. And so I think that Humphrey by nature is a gregarious person and this has made him successful. I think that Hubert sometimes is inclined to be – in order to be more successful than he is – is sometimes inclined to be – in order to be more successful than he is – is sometimes inclined to be too kind to people in the sense that he is reluctant to disappoint them and to be as firm as he ought to be in some circumstances. As far as Orville is concerned, he really has very little of the warmth, the gregariousness of Hubert but I suspect that his strength is that he probably is the best administrator ever fostered in Minnesota politics. He has a god mind – not a quick mind in the sense that Gene McMarthy or Hubert has, but a good mind, a good deal more patience than either one of them has, and a good deal more stick-to-it-ness, I think, than either one of them has, and really getting hold of a problem and sinking his teeth into it and not letting go until it is solved, a very able organizer, but a person who instinctively never did like to campaign. In other words, he never liked a lot of small talk. I mean, if Orville went out and spoke to a political group at night, he wanted to get away and get home, you know, and with Hubert or John Blatnik, you know, after a meeting they’d stay around all night you know and just have a good time and really enjoy it, but as far as Orville was concerned, with him it was always, you know, to be at home and to his family and take out the books and start working and reading. I suspect that if one were able to combine the administrative ability and the firmness of a Orville Freeman with the warmth and gregariousness of a Hubert Humphrey, you’d have quite…

HMW: …unbelievable combination?

JGH: You’d have…yes. As far as Senator McMarthy is concerned, I suspect that he’s the one Minnesota politician who in a way is aloof that has been successful. Of, course, he has a good mind, a very attractive person, a good sense of humor, was never participated to a large extent in the organization of the party, was not one to get involved in tough decisions, I would say, in this regard, but I suppose that Orville made most of the tough decisions that the party made between 1948 and 1958 that resulted in our success. Even Hubert was two-timed, you know, and politics had begun to be successful – some people have to be disappointed. But McCarthy is an able speaker. I think he’s a little more inclined to be a little less cynical or perhaps cynic is the word better to use and there’s a little of the cynic in him. John Blatnik, of course, is the warmest of them all, and his strength lies in this personal contact that he has with people. I would say that basically, however, their…. they-things that they’ve had in common – they’ve all been willing to work hard, they were all young, they all had a lot of energy, they were all intelligent, they all had a good education, and they all were basically humanitarians who realized the needs of the people and who realized the problems that had to be solved in that period. And now…made them busy in solving these problems. And during this period, I suppose, there’s a new set of problems that have come up, and maybe the younger people don’t identify them, really…with them because they’ve been completing the job that President Roosevelt was never able to complete and President Truman wasn’t, and now I would say that the New Deal and the Fair Deal have been completed, and now you’re meeting….Adali, of course, was, I suppose if one had to make a choice, as to whom your favorite was, it’d be Adlai as far as I’m concerned.

HMW: Is that so.

JGH: Adlai was not the cold individual he was given the impression for, nor aloof – he was warm, personable, but he didn’t have the ability to project this kind of image. He was very precise; I remember that in 1956 he had a campaign tour across the iron range and half the people on the iron range didn’t any more care, you know, precisely what he said than the man in the moon. They just wanted to talk to him and to see him, and so, he started at Grand Rapids and went all the way over to Eveleth, and our plan was to have, you know, the different mayors and public officials drive with him from one town to the next, and have this all organized and we did this, but Adlai would get in the back seat of the car and instead of, you know, visiting with these local people, he’d sit there and he’d make notes of precisely what he was going to say at his next speech. But despite that fact, of course, when he wasn’t intent on the job, he was a very warm, personable human being. I think probability in my judgment that the reason he never became President was that people really don’t deep down want someone who’s going to be fair. Everyone says they someone who’s going to be fair, but I think what they mean by this is they want someone who’s going to be a little more fair toward their side than the other side. In other words, if they’re a working person, they want someone who they feel was going to really be for them; if you’re in business, you want someone…. everyone talks all you want is a fair share, but really, everybody is kind of weighing in their mind in order…is he going to be a little more for me than he is for the other person? I think that if we were going to. …You know, that if the people of the world were going to vote on who they thought would be the fairest to everyone concerned, they would vote for Adlai. But here at home, you know, we don’t want a President who’s going to necessarily going to be fair to France and England and Germany and South America; we want someone who’s going to be for us.

HMW: Do you think that a clever public relations firm could have projected the right kind of image of Stevenson?

JGH: Well, they could, but he wouldn’t let them. I mean, this was his…this was Adlai. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that he didn’t have a clever public relations firm; it was just a question of just Adlai Stevenson. He was going to do things the way that he felt he wanted to do them and if this wasn’t sufficient to be elected President, then he didn’t want any part of it.

HMW: Do you get it…I suppose you got to know some of his close advisers quite well, people like Schlesinger?

JGH: Yes. Well, I don’t think that Arthur Schlesinger was ever really close to Adlai; Adlai’s real close adviser, his closest adviser was Bill Blair from Chicago who is the United States Ambassador to the Philippine Islands now. And, well, there’s no doubt about it, that he was his closest adviser. Another close adviser is Jim Finnegan from Pennsylvania – he was a close adviser. But Arthur Schlesinger, in all my experience with Adlai, never really was close to him.

HMW: I see. I guess he just thought he was, in retrospect.

JGH: Maybe he thought he was in retrospect. President Kennedy, of course, he didn’t…I was on the other side as far as he was concerned in Wisconsin. I got to know him reasonably well, and then Bobby and Teddy, I got to know them reasonably well, but nowhere near as well as Stevenson or Hubert or Orville or our own people. I think that President Kennedy had the…. had this mystique about him and gave the appearance of being very friendly and warm, that Orville Freeman was never able to give publically, and yet in many ways they were very much alike. I can recall when President Kennedy came to Duluth to give a speech at the University, he got into Duluth about five o’clock.
Immediately went to his room, had a dinner – either alone or with one or two of his own party, went up and gave his speech at the University, came back to the hotel, and so far as I know, was absolutely alone for the rest of the evening. Now Hubert would never be able to do that; I mean, Hubert just wouldn’t be able to spend that time by himself, you know, he’d want to be with people to be talking to them. And I think that this, of course, was one of President Kennedy’s strength, you know, was to completely withdraw and keep his distance. But yet when he comes in at the airport, you know, he’s out at the fence, shaking hands. And I look at it kind of as the difference between Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver. Kefauver had the reputation of being, you know, a man of the people and had this tremendous grassroots support, particularly from the poor and the underprivileged. And from people who generally dislike the establishment. And yet, if you were with Estes personally – and he was an awfully difficult person to talk to – I mean, if you talked to him man to man, you got the impression that you were talking to the side of a wall. But with Adlai…. this wasn’t true and I think that again this was because Estes was willing, you know, in terms of the radio and TV and the press, to do what you said – can a public relations expert make a man of the people out of him? And President Kennedy never carried that to the extent that Senator Kefauver did, but he was able to project an image of himself as being a warm individual etc…and actually, I think that he was a person who maintained a curt sin between himself and others, and perhaps maybe this was one of the reasons why Hubert hasn’t been elected President. He appears to be too acceptable to the…too much one of us. Maybe we want someone…where do you draw between an Adlai Stevenson and a Hubert Humphrey and Jack Kennedy – who knows? And so, I say, that it’s hard really to put your finger on what is it that makes a person a successful politician.

HMW: What brings in the votes?

JGH: What brings in the votes, who knows?

HMW: What do you think the Democratic prospects are in the next election?

JGH: Well, I think the Democratic prospects are not very good in the next election. I think there are at least three major issues that really work against the Democratic Party – not one, the usual thing, but three. First of all, there’s Viet Nam. Most of the polls that have been taken indicate that a majority of the people favors our course in Viet Nam and those that don’t favor it, really prefer to do something more rather than less. But unfortunately, among those who want to do less, with the “doves” as they’re called, a high percentage of those are people who either have always voted Democratic or who are voting their first time this time, and would normally vote Democratic. In other words, so it isn’t any great consolation to me, for example, in the vote they announced in Cambridge, that the vote was about two to one in favor…almost all in favor of…. against the cessation of bombing and getting out of Viet Nam. This isn’t any real consolation because I’m afraid that those who want to do that are primarily persons who have voted Democratic in any event – there’s nothing we can do to get them. Secondly, the poverty issue works against the Democratic Party for the reasons that I talked about earlier - the poor don’t vote and the middle-class, particularly the younger ones, really don’t want to give anything to the poor. I mean, they’ll talk about it, but when it comes right down to it, they don’t want their tax money spent to help other people. And the third is the civil rights issue, particularly in cities like Milwaukee, St. Louis, Detroit where you’ve had…. Milwaukee is a perfect example. The Democratic Party has always gotten huge majorities out of Milwaukee, largely because of the Polish on the north side of Milwaukee. Yet, with all the trouble they’ve been having down there on housing, it would be a miracle if the Democratic Party were even to get a majority of the north side vote in Milwaukee. And then, if you take and put these issues together, they cut against one another – in other words, the very people who opposed the President’s policies ion Viet Nam are the strongest supporters of the poverty program and his civil rights program. So I’m discouraged because I…. well, I’m discouraged, mainly, I think, because I am unable to understand, frankly, the position of Senator Fulbright and Senator McCarthy and Galbraith – people that I’ve always held in very high esteem and have had a lot of respect for their ideas. I’m as upset about Viet Nam as they are, and yet I think that what they are doing is going to result in their cause and their point of view not being strengthened, but weakened. You get a kind of…you get backed into a corner. It’s always been my feeling, for example, that Senator Fulbright has strongly supported giving this aid on a multi-lateral basis through the United Nations, and yet, what comes through now to the person on the street is that he is opposed to the aid program – they don’t read between the lines. All they do is, they get the fact that he really is opposed to our aid program and didn’t do anything to maintain even those parts of the program that he agreed with. How long has it been since you heard that either he or any of the others that are closely associated with the so-called dove-position really talk to the American people about the need to strengthen the United Nations – to do more, not less, through the United Nations? I’m afraid that the net result of all of this is going to be that those in the population who….have felt that giving aid or assistance to foreign countries is the wrong thing to do under any circumstances gain strength and credibility because of their efforts.

HNW: It almost looks like a new isolationist trend.

JGH: A new isolationist…. and I’m sure that this is precisely what they don’t want. I guess it really comes down to two questions. I spent all last Sunday listening to various people talk about Viet Nam. For example, Professor Galbraith was saying that he thought we ought to discontinue the bombing and that we ought to withdraw into enclaves and that we ought to arrange to get out as soon as we could. And he then went on to say that if we did this, I know we certainly would have to make provisions for the persons who would be liquidated or murdered if we pulled out and Joseph Harsh asked, well, couldn’t this run as many as two or three million people? And he said, well, I don’t think it would, but it could.” And he said, well, would the United States be willing to accept that many people?” And his answer was that the United States has always been willing to make some sacrifices, but he didn’t think there’d be this many involved. But what happened is, you know, is this…. is I think there are two basic questions: (1) I think that these men must feel that the President intends….President’s policy really is more that what he says – in other words, that our goals were more than building a stable society in South Viet Nam and be getting out of there – and I don’t think….I don’t have any reason to disagree with the President on this issue, but they obviously must, and must feel strongly enough abut it to raise the kind of a fuss that they are raising at the present time.

HMW: I get the impression from hearing this debate that Mr. Humphrey is doing quite a good job of supporting the President’s policy in his own speeches and travels around the…. country.

JGH: I think that what many people forget is…. and that is – it goes back to….almost back to where we opened this conversation and that is that the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota, when it was formed, was formed on the basis that if we were going to make real progress, not only politically, but actual progress for the State, and if we were going to accomplish our objectives, that you had to have a liberal, non-Communist party. And our point of view that I haven’t departed from since that time is that while we certainly – and I’m sure this is Hubert’s point of view – that while we want to do everything that we can work and open up relationships with all the nations of the world, including the Communist nations, while we want to make it perfectly clear that we have no intentions, territorial ambitions, as far as they are concerned. That we live in a real world and that if freedom and liberty mean anything, they mean that we have to do something to protect people who are trying to maintain their own freedom. And this is the basis upon which I went into politics and Hubert and Orville did, and Gene McCarthy too, and I guess their argument now is that Communism is no longer the monolithic threat that it once was and perhaps this is true.

HMW: For the moment… .

JGH: And I certainly don’t want to do anything, as I say, but to improve relationships with them and try to open up their…open up the iron curtain and open up the bamboo curtain and whatever else there is, but I think that we always have to keep in mind that whether they’re united or divided, that I haven’t seen anything to establish Communism whenever and wherever they can and by peaceful or non-peaceful means. And I think this is the…. that this is essentially the debate that we’re having, and unfortunately it can’t be debated on those terms because I’m sure that if Senator McCarthy or Fulbright, for example, were to tell the American people that they still believed that we have to give more aid, not less, that we have to strengthen the United Nations, not weaken, that we have to involve ourselves in the world society, not withdraw from it, that two-thirds of the support that they’re currently receiving would evaporate, because they’re expressing dissatisfaction with the present policy, but really not….and implying that this dissatisfaction with the present policy, but really not….and implying that this dissatisfaction runs much deeper than it actually does.

HMW: Do you feel sometimes that you’d like to get out into the fray again?

JGH: Well, I suspect occasionally, but not really. I think that in politics that you’ve either got to be going up or…. you can’t stand still, I mean, if you aren’t going up, you’re going back down. There was nothing more that I could really do in politics and I think that it’s good, for example, for the Democratic Party to have new leadership and to get new people in it and…because you just can’t keep going to county conventions, you know, pretty soon…and to state conventions. I mean, with new people coming up – whether they agree with you or disagree with you, they’re younger and they want to take over the operation of the party just like we did back in 1948.

HMW: Would you say the party is quite lively with young people at this moment?

JGH: No, I wouldn’t say so, because I think that in part, at least, many of the most active younger people have not yet determined what they want to do – they know what they don’t want. And I think that they…their attitude is a little different than ours. We believe that we could accomplish what we wanted to through political means. We believed that we had the perseverance and the strength and the ability to win elections and to put people that believe in our point of view in office. I think the younger people want to move at it a little more directly, in other words – and I think that they feel that they can accomplish by protest and demonstration, and speeches and so forth. But I think
That this is going to be a change. Now the real problem is, that if this type of activity doesn’t lead to a strong revival of the right, of the rightist philosophy. But I find satisfaction in what I do now. I would expect that all of the cases are important; most of them are interesting, and perhaps one in five involves a question with social, economic, or political implications or all three and it’s in this area where I certainly have as much opportunity to accomplish something as I had in the political area.

HMW: It’s important then you have humanitarians as judges as well as Congressmen.

JGH: Well, I wouldn’t want to be misunderstood on that – I’ve been on the bench, now, since December 1st, a year ago, during that year, I suspect that I have listened to approximately a hundred oral arguments and have participated in deciding a hundred cases.

HMW: You were saying that you had participated in a hundred….

JGH: In a hundred cases. And I….in that hundred cases, I have written dissenting opinions in four; four cases, one of which had no economic, political or social implications at all. The other three cases were cases, which involved Constitutional questions. And so, really, there isn’t much room for difference as one would feel, but in one case out of five – or maybe that’s too many – one out of ten – you will reach in case in which a president has not been established by the Supreme Court, in which there haven’t been decisions from the other circuit courts that point the direction in which you ought to go, and in which there is room for difference of opinion. And it’s here, I think, that your whole background – your education, your training, your ideas, your point of view, are coming into effect. And this is where you get an opportunity to express, your basic philosophy.

HMW: Well, I think that this has been very interesting and I would like to say that when we make the transcript of this tape and send you a copy of it, if you have any further things that you would like to add to it, we’d be glad to have you attach extra pages and think of it as an accompaniment to your papers when we get them.

JGH: Well, I’m afraid really that it has been more of a conversation between you and I on a lot of various things rather than going into so many other things – I don’t know what good it will do you.

HMW: I think it’s very useful in providing background – you do provide background for more detailed study of a man’s career and activities he has participated in. If you find them, when you look over the transcript, that you haven’t gone into enough detail on these matters and would like me to come back at some future time, I’ll come back with the recorder.

JGH: Well, I guess I’ll just have to leave that up to you. I’ll try to get my papers in order. You know there are all kinds of interesting things that might be helpful. But after you have seen the papers, you can decide whether there is enough.

HMW: Thank you very much.

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