Oral History Interview with
Oscar L. Chapman
Assistant Secretary of the Interior, 1933-46; Under Secretary
of the Interior, 1946-49; Secretary of the Interior, 1949-53.
Washington, DC
September 1, 1972
Jerry N. Hess
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This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry
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Opened 1980
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri
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Oral History Interview with
Oscar L. Chapman
Washington, DC
September 1, 1972
Jerry N. Hess
HESS: To begin this morning, Mr. Chapman, I want to read a paragraph
from Harold Ickes' article, "Farewell, Secretary Krug," that appeared
in The New Republic of November the 28th, 1949, We have already
cited this article in a previous interview, but in the article Mr. Ickes
says:
Secretary Krug had run out on his chief during the desperately fought
campaign last year. He hid in the sagebrush of the Far West where none
could discover him. He failed to volunteer his services in the Truman
campaign. He even refused to make speeches, except on one belated and
inconsequential occasion.
Is Mr. Ickes' appraisal correct?
CHAPMAN: Unfortunately it is. I say it is unfortunate, but it was unfortunate
for Secretary Krug to have made himself unavailable to that campaign.
He traveled during most of that time around the country visiting fish
and wildlife preserves, and parks, and outdoor places of the Park Service
and other bureaus of the Department. He enjoyed those kinds of things.
However, that was not a good excuse for--that was not considered
a good excuse for him to not make himself available and useful for the
campaign.
HESS: Were there times when the White House tried to reach him to ask
him to participate?
CHAPMAN: It did. I was on the train with the President, going to the
lower part of California at the time, and we were trying to reach Secretary
Krug. I couldn't reach him through even the Department switchboard, and
his own secretary here was not able to give me his phone number. And so
I was unable to reach him myself.
Let me add a sentence for that. I know of several occasions in which
the White House tried to get in touch with Mr. Krug during that time and
was unable to reach him at all. This, of course, made it very embarrassing
for me and somewhat difficult for the management and continuing to run
the office and keep it going, because I was devoted, and arranged to devote
full-time to the campaign, and have Mr. Krug to make special speeches
and be at the office to take over the management of the office, but he
did not choose to do that.
HESS: What was the President’s reaction? Did you ever hear Mr. Truman
make a comment on Mr. Krug's lack of participation?
CHAPMAN: Well, he was very unhappy about the fact that Krug didn't make
himself available to participate in the campaign at all. Had he
made himself available for a few speeches he might have gotten by with
it, but the President felt the way that he handled himself, he was deliberately
trying to defeat him.
HESS: The President felt that way?
CHAPMAN: Yes, he did,
HESS: What is your opinion as to why Mr. Krug did not participate?
CHAPMAN: He thought that Dewey was going to be elected and he had been
working behind the scenes with Mr. [Bernard] Baruch, and Mr. Baruch was
working behind the scenes with Dewey.
HESS: Do you think he thought that he could stay in the same position
in the Dewey administration?
CHAPMAN: Yes, or something better.
HESS: Or something better?
CHAPMAN: If he thought there was anything better. There isn't anything
better as far as I'm concerned than the Secretary of the Interior; that's
the best job in the Government. I think he had in mind that he could stay
on in his administration in some high position.
HESS: In the Republican administration?
CHAPMAN: Yes,
HESS: Did you ever hear him say that?
CHAPMAN: No, never heard him say it, in any respect. As a matter of fact
he would never talk about the campaign to me, except to comment that Truman
couldn't win.
HESS: He did make that comment?
CHAPMAN: Yes, he did to me. And I told him he was going to be a surprised
man on November 5th, following the election day in November.
HESS: A11 right. Now to what extent did his lack of participation have
in his resignation one year later?
CHAPMAN: Well, I think it had a very definite part, in the overall
picture; that with other things.
HESS: Why did he stay there for so long? If the President was unhappy
with him...
CHAPMAN: And he knew it
HESS: ...in November of 1948, and he knew it, why did matters drag on?
He didn't resign until a year later, in November 1949. And a year in an
appointive position is a long time.
CHAPMAN: What seemed to a lot of people that the White House was dragging
its feet on Secretary Krug's action of not resigning right after election,
had another reason for it that the public didn't know. There was
an investigation that had started, that arose out of a trial that had
been filed in New York. As I said, the public was not aware of what was
going on in regard to that, and it was not appropriate to make it known,
or to make it public at that time, because a hearing was underway on a
suit that had been filed against Secretary Krug for the repayment of a
rather large sum of money to a man in Philadelphia, who was the--who was
in the textile business and had gotten what was considered by some people
as favors, in the terms of favored position in getting priorities for
material for his plant. Then in this trial it began to base itself on
the fact Krug had paid back some seven hundred thousand dollars on this
loan, and the public was not aware of it or anything until that suit was
filed, and they wanted to let the investigation finish if they could.
But when the suit was filed, the President I'm sure decided that he would
move and take an action on this matter at the time. He didn't want the
suit to become the opening thing on this first. So, he asked for
his resignation at that time.
HESS: All right. Where were you on election night, and what are your
recollections of those momentous times?
CHAPMAN: Well, it was a very pleasant time for me that evening. I was
enjoying the evening much more than some of my friends were, because I
had a different outlook of what was going to happen that evening than
some of my friends did. And I was at my wife's uncle, Basil Manmouth Holmes,
and we had quite a few guests in and we were looking at the television
and discussing the campaign, during the course of the evening, and how
many of them that were there had thought that he could win. And I must
admit that most of them that were there, were quite honest about it and
said that they had not thought that he could win.
My conviction was really firmed up by different incidents and things
that were happening from the first of October until election. The month
of October absolutely confirmed my conviction that he was going
to be elected. What one of those incidents amounted to was a trip that
I made through Iowa to check the different elements that were acting for
the party and those elements that were in opposition to the party. I was
absolutely certain that Senator [Guy Mark] Gillette would
win reelection--he was running for reelection. I was certain he would
run for reelection and win. He did, and then I was certain that if he
ran, Truman and he would carry Iowa. As the month of October went along
and I kept a check on it, my convictions became more definite and concrete
that he was going to carry Iowa.
Now when I tell my friends about that back here, hardly any of them could
believe it or would believe it; they thought it was my enthusiasm that
was running away with me, but I never let my enthusiasm for my man be
the basis for my judgment, because I always found you had to allow for
that with everybody. You have a friendship for a man you work with like
that, and you might say a wishing and hoping that he would win; you had
to discount a certain amount for that, with almost anybody, including
myself. I found that most of the people, a lot of the people, that I talked
to in the first of September, or the last week of August, and during the
month of September, had absolutely changed their minds in October. This
was my own Gallup poll that I took and I found out how it would go. I
made a little poll of my own in Iowa. I did this in several states, but
this is a pattern that I followed. I would go into the State of Iowa;
I would call somebody that was active in the Teachers' Association and
get their reaction about this. It would usually be somebody that I knew.
HESS: Why did you single out the Teachers' Association?
CHAPMAN: Well, I was going to follow and tell you that the teachers were
one, the American Legion was another, and I would pick different organizations
in different states.
HESS: Labor unions?
CHAPMAN: Labor unions. I checked labor union officials and I'd check
the officers or friends, not necessarily officers--friends of somebody
I knew well, where I knew they knew their own people well
in their own organization.
HESS: Did you also try to contact business organizations, such as the
Chamber of Commerce, or did you figure that those were too far Republican?
CHAPMAN: Oh, no, I never passed up a chance to talk to them if I could.
I would make a talk to them if I could, and usually I would be interesting
enough. I'd get invitations to speak to Chambers of Commerce in a lot
of places. I was not making many speeches; I couldn't, because my time
schedule was such that I just didn't have the time to prepare my speeches
and to keep a schedule with any of these organizations very much. So I
didn't make many speeches of any kind, but often I'd get caught in a town,
and the Chamber of Commerce was meeting that day or something and they'd
ask me at the last minute if I would address the Chamber of Commerce that
day. It was their regular luncheon meeting and so it wasn't even a special
occasion, of any kind.
Now, I met with them in circumstances that didn't have any political
overtones at all, because I was invited at the last minute. There was
no publicity to it, or hardly any, that I was going to be there, because
it wasn't known until so late that we hardly got any publicity about my
going to most places.
Now I would check two or three of those people at that luncheon that
I would know. I knew them; that was always so much better if I happened
to know them, and I did have some very good contacts among the young Chamber
of Commerce people and I really got some surprisingly good help from a
lot of them, from the young ones in the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber
of Commerce, of course, didn't come out, shouting and endorsing Truman.
HESS: You didn't get quite the support there that you did when you would
speak to a union?
CHAPMAN: No, you didn't get the same enthusiasm. And as a matter of fact,
they would be afraid to applaud for fear the other fellow would see them.
HESS: And report them.
CHAPMAN: And report them. That would happen in place after place that
I saw it happen. Now those were little meetings that would hardly be publicized;
there wasn't time. They were done on the spur of the moment in most cases,
and I would fill in at the last minute. It was when I saw we weren't going
to leave town until 3 o'clock or 4 o'clock, and I'd have time to have
lunch with them and go on. Now that's what I did in my way. That was not
a planned idea and I made no effort to try to get appointments to speak
to that group per se. Oddly these invitations came to me by the fact that
I was there that day and they were having a luncheon and they thought,
well, they always wanted to get somebody from Washington. I had lots of
fun discussing things with some of those younger Chamber of Commerce people.
I found we had much more sympathy in that group than people have given
us credit for. The old-timers in that group weren't giving us any help
at all; that was very obvious, but I didn't let that bother me. I'd talk
to the younger ones and others when I could.
HESS: Among the group that you were with on election night were you pretty
well in the minority of people who were confident that Mr. Truman would
win?
CHAPMAN: Oh yes.
HESS: Before the returns started coming in?
CHAPMAN: I was in the minority when the returns started coming in. The
time difference between here and Iowa and here and California was a very
innocent thing. I was sitting there and there were three or four fellows
in that group; one of them was a regular professional gambler. I mean
professional; he always gambled on every election, and he wanted
to get some good bets up, and he had by telephone got some good bets put
up here. Finally he said, "Man, don't talk to these people for a minute,
talk to me. Get me on this story on Iowa. You said they could carry Iowa,"
he said; "I could get a good bet on Iowa, and I could get a good margin
on that." He said, "Give me the story why you think they will carry it,
and if you do think Truman will carry it." I'd explain to him why Truman
was going to carry it, and when I explained to him the circumstances of
that state and what was happening, he began to see that I had a lot more
information checking on that state than the average poll would get of
the picture. I had gotten very close-in to this and wanted to follow through
the close contact that I had with those different people in some of these
states.
Anyway, I did have close contact with individuals and that could give
me very accurate information. They could give me, and I could tell from
past experiences in the campaign, what they could do and what they had
done before, and these estimates were very accurate. I could get them.
One fellow got up and went to the telephone. I don't think I should bring
all of that story in; it's pulling in too much that isn't a good story
to tell that way. I'm not a good storyteller from the point of view of
history.
HESS: Well, you do a good job.
CHAPMAN: But I have many things of memory in my mind, not well-coordinated
as it should be or as I want it to be.
HESS: Mr. Truman was in Excelsior Springs and the Kansas City area. When
did you first see him after the election?
CHAPMAN: I think that he took the train the next day I believe...
HESS: That's right.
CHAPMAN: ...and came back here.
HESS: And came back here. Did you see him when he got back?
CHAPMAN: Yes, I saw him when he got back. I went down to the train.
HESS: What was his attitude? What did he do and what did he say? What
do you recall about that occasion?
CHAPMAN: He says, "Well, you and I told them." This was his good joke;
he says; "You and I told them." And we have of course a lot of fun with
the Tribune.
HESS: The "Dewey Defeats Truman" issue.
CHAPMAN: "Dewey Defeats Truman." And they had put that thing over so
hard; they would try to influence a few more hundred votes in Illinois.
I've forgotten now whether we carried Illinois or not. I've forgotten
the history of that; I've forgotten the story of what happened.
HESS: Illinois went for Truman. 1,194,715 to 1,961,103, so it was very
close.
CHAPMAN: Very close.
HESS: Pretty close, Illinois usually is though isn't it?
CHAPMAN: In my reporting on Illinois I have quoted we carried by 85 hundred.
Now there's a man who was--that publisher and editor of the Chicago
Sun, a Marshall Fields publication, and he used to work in the Department
with us as our public relations man.
HESS: Who was he?
CHAPMAN: Pete Akers. And Pete was a fine newspaperman; he was really
a man that plugged desperately to get the real truth of a story. He'd
try to get around all the fallacies that surrounded these exciting stories.
People would get excited and say a lot of things they aren't sure they
hadn't repeated before, you see, and he would try to run these down to
get the truth about them. Pete was one of the best newspapermen that I
think I ever worked with, in the way of getting accuracy into his stories.
Now on a yellow pad, like this one, like this yellow pad here...
HESS: A legal-size yellow pad.
CHAPMAN: Legal-size yellow pad; he took a pad with him and I had stopped
in Chicago that night which was a--I think either a Wednesday or a Thursday
night. I stopped just for the night there to do one more little checkup
thing and to get $5,000 transferred to the Illinois area instead of letting
it go to New York, and I cut it out of New York and gave it there.
HESS: You thought it could be put to better use in Illinois?
CHAPMAN: Well, I knew it wouldn't be put to any use in New York, because
I knew Fitzpatrick had not supported us and was not supporting us. He
had traded us off for everything under the sun, from a dog catcher on
up to the Presidency, and he had traded us off completely as state chairman.
I knew it and I had a close check on him. We didn't feel very happy about
Fitzpatrick doing this. We thought that Paul had been given recognition
and honors that goes with such recognition, and we had tried to help him
in the State of New York as much as we could; we felt that he was unfair
to us in New York taking the position he did in this campaign.
HESS: Did you ever talk to him about why he did not support the President?
CHAPMAN: I did on Saturday night before the election.
HESS: Before the election?
CHAPMAN: Yes.
HESS: What did he say?
CHAPMAN: He said, "I just learned this afternoon that you were the one
that transferred $5,000 up here this weekend, and," he said, "we need
65 thousand."
"Well," I said, "Paul, time has come to be perfectly frank with each
other now and we can quit kidding one another. I hope you don't think
you've been kidding me all these months, that I don't know that you have
absolutely sold us down the river in New York, and you personally have
done it," and he had and I knew it. I said, "You have not turned your
hand to help Harry Truman get elected President of the United States.
You have traded him off for other jobs in this state, such state positions
you wanted."
HESS: What did he say to that?
CHAPMAN: He said, "That is not true." He denied the truth in my statement,
and he said I'd been listening to a lot of his enemies and it was totally
unfair to him for me to say that.
And I said, "If I didn't have a couple of letters in my hand and the
person is perfectly willing for me to make them public, I wouldn't say
this."
HESS: Did you at that time call to his attention the fact that the American
Labor Party had to pay the rent on Madison Square Garden for Mr. Truman's
speech?
CHAPMAN: I did.
HESS: And that the Democratic Party would not do that?
CHAPMAN: Now he claims that he was out of money and he claimed that it
was my fault that they didn't send any money up there.
HESS: Is that what he wanted the money for?
CHAPMAN: No.
HESS: For Madison Square Garden?
CHAPMAN: Well, that was one of the things.
HESS: One of many things.
CHAPMAN: One of the many things, but he learned about the $5,000 that
I shifted to Illinois and I got it shifted up there, rather than to spend
it in New York, and [Ed] Flynn said, "Oscar, you're absolutely right."
He said, "You're not going to win a thing in New York." He said, "You
haven't a chance in the world." He said, "Kirkpatrick has absolutely been
against us; he has sold us down the river." And he said, "You've got the
picture exactly right, and that was the right thing to do, and I'm glad
you did." And he said, "I know you were trying to get me on the phone
the other day to tell me; I couldn't get to the phone, couldn't take the
phone at the time, but," he said, "when I found out what you were doing,
I was completely for it, was glad you were doing it." And he said, "It
was difficult for me to take a part in that up here in New York," now
it was based here. "So," he said, "it was a very good move for you to
do that to get the benefit of our money." We didn't have much money anyway,
and we had to spend it where it would really count.
I used to laugh. You see, I never collected any money when I was
in that vast campaign, working in the campaign at all, and I would not
accept contributions. I'd have somebody else to take it; they'd give it
to somebody else that wasn't in the Government, and I just said, "I don't
want anybody in my Department to accept any money, or anything at all."
HESS: Did you usually have somebody from the Democratic National Committee
who could handle financial matters?
CHAPMAN: Yes. Well, in my case I had with me as my co-chairman of the
eleven western states, old Governor [Nathan L.] Miller of Wyoming, one
of the grand old men that you would ever talk to, and he was the greatest
help in the world. These fellows that would come in and want to take a
couple of hours to talk to you just to visit about everything and you'd
be surprised how many of them would want to do it, and I couldn't take
the time right then. I just couldn't do it.
HESS: You were a busy man.
CHAPMAN: I was busy working the program, in each of the eleven western
states and getting them coordinated, mostly by telephone and sometimes
by plane. And somebody would come in and say, "Well, I've got $5,000 I
can get for you," say, "I can get it to you today."
Well I'd say, "What time could you be here today?" And if I could get
them to come up to the hotel where I was staying, I'd have Mr. Miller
there when they got there.
HESS: So that he could take the money?
CHAPMAN: And I'd have them to make the contribution to him and held sign
the receipt for it, and we kept the closest records you ever saw. We kept
absolutely tight records. And I refused to accept the money
because I was still Under Secretary of the Interior.
HESS: Concerning your active participation in 1948, what weight do you
think that that gave to your receiving the fob of Secretary of the Interior?
CHAPMAN: I think it gave the President an opportunity to observe me in
my approach to people and in my efforts to really help him. I think it
gave him opportunity to understand me and to know me, because I had been
with Ickes, but I had never criticized Ickes to him. I had never criticized
him to him at all and...
HESS: Or Krug?
CHAPMAN: No, Krug--I never criticized Krug.
I told him on one occasion how I couldn't be critical of these men because
if I felt bad enough to do that, strong enough about it, I ought to resign
and let you put somebody in my place that will run these things, or put
somebody in the head place to run it, because I shouldn't be in that position.
I said, "You can't undercut the man that is your immediate boss in running
an organization if you expect to produce and do an effective job for giving
service, and effective service," and they are a few of the little problems
I had on that.
Now I had just to avoid criticism of both Ickes and Krug, one for different
reasons. I was really very fond of Ickes in many ways; I was in the doghouse
part of the time with him, and then I was friendly with him provided that
he worked with me perfectly beautifully this month. Maybe next month I
couldn't get to see him.
HESS: When you were in the doghouse, what were some of the causes for
falling out at that time?
CHAPMAN: It probably was because I had testified before a committee and
didn't give him a copy of my testimony beforehand.
HESS: Did he like to keep pretty close tabs on what was going on?
CHAPMAN: Oh, yes, he did. He wanted to keep pretty close tab. Now this
is the thing with him, he wanted to stay at the office and work; he didn't
want to travel. Krug was just the opposite. He just hated that office;
he didn't want to stay there, and when he could see that girl coming in
around 4 o'clock in the afternoon to bring a stack of papers to be signed
by the Secretary, he'd almost faint. In the first place he didn't know
the least thing about them; he couldn't know. This is not against him,
but as I say, no man could know. He just didn't dream that there were
that many papers that a Secretary would have to sign each due, and you
don't get a chance to sign them until late in the afternoon when
you could cut your appointments off about 4 o'clock and start...
HESS: Then get into your paperwork.
CHAPMAN: Get into your paperwork. And that's what you have to do, and
that will last as long as is necessary for you to finish, and that may
be 7 o'clock, and many times it was 8 o'clock for me; but I tried to finish
them by 6 and a lot of times I did. I'd finish most of the times about
6 or 6:30, but also probably as many times I'd finish at 7 or 8. I tell
you this only to give an idea of the function of the Department of the
Interior. People don't quite understand; the average public is not acquainted
with the mechanism of that department.
HESS: It's so huge.
CHAPMAN: Well, it's huge and made up of a conglomeration of bureaus that
operate with a conflict of interests with each other, because...
HESS: The Park Service and Reclamation...
CHAPMAN: That's right. That's right. The Park Service would want to kill
a dam that was being built in some stream somewhere, and Reclamation was
politically, and every other way, was trying to get support for it to
get it built. Well, poor Ickes was like I was; we were trying to
get information to make some judgment of our own, because we were
trying to make independent judgment around the two respective parties,
you see. We were trying to get enough information that we could make some
intelligent judgment about this thing. Now that was one of the hardest
jobs I had to do; that was to do all the research and talking I could,
with someone on the conservation side, and the Park Service side, then
someone involved with power development. There is where our friend Davidson
had such a struggle. He was a strong power man, a public power man, and
so was I. I was very strong for power, public power, but Davidson would
fight a little bit, probably a little bit tougher than I would and sometimes
a little bit more brash about it than I would be. That came from years
of experience, of always knowing that the other fellow probably knows
more about it than you do.
HESS: In your opinion, was there more coordination between agencies under
Krug than there had been under Ickes? Did Mr. Krug try to get some sort
of coordination between agencies?
CHAPMAN: Well, you see, when Krug was made Secretary I was made Under
Secretary, and he knew that he was taking an Under Secretary that he had
never seen before, didn't know, and that I had been in the Department
for...
HESS: Since May of ‘33.
CHAPMAN: Yes, since May of '33, May 4, and I had that many years of experience
in working with the personnel of the Department, the key people especially,
the key men in the bureaus I worked with. And I had gotten a long ways
down on the lower echelon of operation in working with them, because I
wanted to know all I could find out about this program, how it worked;
and we had some mighty fine people in there, in the Department that really
were dedicated people. They were not just in there picking a scrap all
the time; some people think they were, they were not. They were dedicated
people and hoping to accomplish something. Now their accomplishment--in
one case there would be a conflict between their interests, and support
for a project would come from opposite sides. We've been using the Reclamation
Bureau as an example, but they're not the only ones wherein a difference
of opinion would arise. The Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service
often had a difference of opinion about how things should be handled and
managed. You had to try to find out what was the best way
to do this. You had to try to get the very best information you could
and you had to do it fast; that's why I was always concerned whether I
was doing it efficiently enough. It was a fact that I had to do
it so fast.
Now our friend, Secretary Davidson, was an activist in every sense of
going after a program, and a project, and working at it very hard. He
really tried hard on some of these programs, particularly public power;
he was especially good on that.
HESS: One of the projects he had was to try to get the Columbia Valley
Administration established. Right?
CHAPMAN: Ickes, of course, was supporting him on this, very strongly,
because anything that brought something else to the Department of the
Interior, Ickes would support him, any of it. To me it was the wrong time
to get it done, because you had Lilienthal, who was running the TVA, Tennessee
Valley project. He was running that post. Terrific powers had been given
him, such as giving him a right to borrow money against the credit of
the Government, to borrow money himself on notes of his own company, from
TVA. That was a tremendous breakthrough for him, because it gave him the
opportunity to have money to go ahead and proceed with his program.
HESS: We might discuss the methods that you tried to use to bring about
better coordination.
CHAPMAN: Let me talk about that a little bit, about trying to develop
the Department, allowing better coordination.
I felt that the Department of Interior should have the Forest Service
and it should be put together with the Park Service. Those two agencies
really should be together, and whether they should be in the Department
of Interior or in Agriculture isn't too material one way or another, except
there's a history to the Park Service in the Department of Interior since
1916. Since Teddy Roosevelt's time the Department of Agriculture has had
the Forest Service, and [Gifford] Pinchot spent the latter part of his
life fighting for the Forest Service.
HESS: He was quite a conversationist.
CHAPMAN: Oh, he was; he was a great friend of mine and I was very crazy
about him. I got some nice pictures of him in his robe and pajamas when
he and I were sitting out on the lawn up there at his farm at Milford.
He had a very beautiful old home there, very beautiful thing.
HESS: Was that New York?
CHAPMAN: No, it's Pennsylvania, just across into Pennsylvania, Milford.
Now his brother, Amos, was the financial genius of the two. He was a broker
and handled funds for the family and he'd made a good deal of money for
the family by pooling their money and having it together. He did a very
fine job of it.
Now going back to the question of the Department of the Interior, it
was a cross-section of functions including conservation of land and conservation
of human resources, coordinated with land use resources. Involved with
the latter is the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Eskimo people have a claim
to a large amount of land that belonged to them in this thing. We have
opposed it so long to keep them from getting their fair share of that
land.
Governor Gruening became Governor of Alaska and he fought so hard for
the state bill; he got everything in that he could for the Eskimos and
other natives. He got everything he could for them. He put everything
he could into that bill to give the natives a better share of the lands,
and more of the wealth of the country than they had been given
in other places, in other states. And he is still supporting a move with
some of the Indian groups to pressure Congress, or anybody that they can,
to get a bill through Congress to give them, identify their title, and
give them title to a larger percentage of that land.
Now they got one bill through and got another in their hands, but not
as much as they are entitled to be any rules of the game. They are entitled
to more of that by any rules. You can say that maybe Alaskans are entitled
to far more of the Alaskan resources than they are getting. It is my belief
that they are entitled to more than they are getting of the resources
of that country. The state has the power now to give it away or dispose
of it in some other way. A lot of it will be state land.
HESS: What are the main pressure groups that come in to try to prevent
the Indians and the Eskimos from receiving their just amount of land?
The oil interests, and timber interests?
CHAPMAN: Well, you don't find those fellows out front; they work behind
the scenes, very carefully, but well, the oil interests don't particularly
bother too much; they have never got out in front too far on it. But the
timber interests are primarily the ones, along with the fisheries. Those
two have been the strongest interest groups of those that I know, and
they have given tremendous time to this effort.
HESS: Did you receive a good deal of pressure from those groups during
the Truman administration?
CHAPMAN: Oh, yes. Oh yes, I got a lot of pressure. I got a lot of pressure
from those groups during Truman's administration. But the wonderful part
of working with Truman was he worked with his Cabinet officers. If he
felt that that man knew what he was really doing and was really trying
to help these people, he'd work with them, and he'd work with his Cabinet
team, I thought beautifully. This was true if that Cabinet officer was
working with him and was trying to coordinate to his policies.
So many people that go after the oil people go after them with such emotion
that it's awfully hard to get them straight on the line, to get a factual
story and statement in what they are charging. We felt if they are going
to charge a company for violation of the law, they should do so with as
much substantial evidence as possible and not just do it because they
are major companies. The Government permits them to be major companies
and do a lot of things we criticize. If I was ever in there again I would
go and talk to the President and see what his policies tended to be, regarding
conservation. The issue is pretty well cleared up legally now; not all,
however, since some are still fighting that.
HESS: In your opinion, how interested was Mr. Truman in the general subject
of conservation?
CHAPMAN: Well, I felt this, that he didn't want to be misled by a lot
of the emotional people on the question of conservation, just for the
sake of conservation. He wanted to take action, whatever action he had
to take; he wanted to do it based upon a pretty thorough knowledge of
that particular section of the country he was working on. I can't think
of a single project that I was working on, in conservation, that Truman
didn't support wholeheartedly. I don't know of a one. Now, I said I don't
know a single project that I was supporting, and working for, that he
didn't support me on.
Among the cases that came along one by one, I was not as enthusiastic
for one case, I'll say, as a conservation officer is sworn to be.
HESS: What case if that?
CHAPMAN: Well, I had one case, the Dinosaur National Park. I was trying
to handle that. There's a way you handle these things; you'd kill them
without hurting yourself, if you'll handle them right. Well, I don't think
the dam should have been built where they were proposing it, that is the...
HESS: Bureau of Reclamation.
CHAPMAN. Bureau of Reclamation was proposing it, and to my chagrin, [Newton
B.] Drury, who was director of the National Park Service at the time,
got a secret memorandum of agreement with Mike [Michael W.] Straus in
which the two of them had signed that they both would work together to
try to put over this dam and the national park.
HESS: A secret agreement...
CHAPMAN: Yes.
HESS: ...between two of the bureaus of the Department of the Interior.
CHAPMAN: Right, and they hadn't told me about it.
HESS: Was this at the time that you were Secretary?
CHAPMAN: Yes.
HESS: They intended to carry out an action that the Secretary was not
in favor of?
CHAPMAN: That’s right, and they both knew it.
HESS: They both knew your views.
CHAPMAN: That’s right; they knew my views thoroughly on it.
HESS: How did you find out about that secret memo?
CHAPMAN: Purely by accident. You see they were planning to spring their
secret memo--the Reclamation Service was, not the Park Service--Reclamation
was planning to bring that agreement, signed agreement, between the two
bureaus to present it to me when I held a public hearing on the matter
here in the Department. And that would put me on the spot pretty bad.
Fortunately for me I had got ahold of this information and got a copy
of this thing. I had gotten a copy as soon as I found it was in existence;
I got it. And I sent for Mike Straus; he said, "Yes, we’ve got a
secret memorandum out." He said, "It’s not secret. We just haven’t
given it out because we haven't sent it to you." He said, "We were supposed
to give it to you before the hearing and he said, "that's all there is
to it." He said, "You know I’ve been supporting that."
I said, "Yes, I know; you know I've been opposing it."
And he said, "I know it, but we've both had our own views and we express
them."
Well I said, "You keep on expressing your own views through proper channels,
and that's all I ask you." And Drury denied signing the memorandum,
but Straus brought me the original and handed it to me at the hearing.
HESS: And both signatures were there.
CHAPMAN: Yes, both of them were there. Drury got terribly mad at me because,
oh, he had cursed me. I sent for him a few days later and I said, "Newton,
you are such an ardent conservationist. I want you to be promoted up to
Assistant to the Secretary, have that title and with the same salary
you are now getting and become my real adviser on all these conservation
matters." Well, he was wise enough to the old tricks. He knew what I was
doing; put him in there and I’ll take him out of line of operation, have
another line of operation and he wouldn't have anything to do with administering,
except for what I handed him each day, and that would be nothing.
HESS: Give him a nice office and close the door.
CHAPMAN: Close the door; that's what I was going to do. Now, see, he
wouldn't accept it, and he kept on trying to talk me out of it, and I
said, "No, Newton, we've talked a month over this now, and so the first
of November I'm going to announce the appointment of Connie [Conrad L,]
Wirth as Director of the Park Service." And I said, "Connie Wirth has
been Associate Director of Forest, and he knows it. He knows it well,
and he's well-liked on the Hill, and he's,''--I said, "I can't remember
during all the time that I've worked here that he has ever signed a memorandum
of agreement with another bureau on something that was in opposition to
my policy, that he didn't bring it to me first, and discuss it with me."
There's when Drury kept denying that he signed this memorandum. Well,
there it was, I had it. I had the memorandum of an agreement that they
had signed.
HESS: Did you show it to him at that time?
CHAPMAN: Oh, I read it at the meeting; I read it at the public meeting
I was holding. I said, "Now this would normally be embarrassing if I hadn't
already known about this for some time," but not through the two principles
involved.
HESS: Not through proper channels.
CHAPMAN: "Not through proper channels," the very words I used. And
I said, "Now, you people who are interested in conservation, and you who
are interested in dams and building of dams for the purposes of power
and reclamation and things of that kind, I'm for these programs. I'm for
building every one we can, and another thing we should do, we should raise
the time limit on the project as to how long the credit could be given
on any given project. It could be spread over twenty years, or forty years,
or fifty; it didn't make any difference. It was a credit due the United
States that will be paid to the United States by these people, due in
that course, whether it was twenty or thirty or fifty years, would make
absolutely no difference in the bookkeeping of the Government, or affect
their bookkeeping in any respect at all." I said, "I've talked to the
Treasury Department about that and they just said they would not oppose
the bill at all and go along." And I was trying to get that kind of a
bill put through, and we got a good deal of support for it at least there,
when I broke the bubble on that Dinosaur National Park and they knew that
I'd buy it. Drury, he was the only man I actually fired.
HESS: What was the outcome of that? Did they build the dam?
CHAPMAN: No.
HESS: Just one brief question about Columbia Valley Administration; we
may want to discuss it further on other days.
CHAPMAN: Yes.
HESS: But did you mention that you thought that it was premature, that
the CVA should not be established at that time?
CHAPMAN: I thought it couldn't be, I was torn...
HESS: Were you for it?
CHAPMAN: I was for the idea, but I was for us timing it better. We were
not using our best judgment in planning the development of this; it was
a good thing to do and still is.
HESS: How would you have developed the timing?
CHAPMAN: Well, the timing was this; you look your field over and what
group do you have supporting you. Well, it just didn't have any support
in Congress at all from either of them.
HESS: They sure didn't have the Idaho Power Company behind it either.
CHAPMAN: No, they sure didn't! They were crucifying him; they really
could. Well, those are the things that made me support him so far; the
background was always after him. But it just didn't have any support among
the Congress, both houses. Had he had enough support among them to carry
this fight, I'd have been willing to have tried it, but we didn't have
any support from the White House.
Roosevelt was for it, but Roosevelt was not going to take anything away
from Lilienthal while he was there and they should have known that. I
tried to stress it with my friend Jebby Davidson that that was our hardest
part, the position of Lilienthal, and that his position with the public
and with the Congress and with the President was so much stronger than
Ickes'. Thus, they'll beat us before we get started, and you won't have
a chance to present your case adequately or properly. And Congress was
deathly opposed to this at that time.
HESS: Ickes left in February of '46 and then Krug was sworn in in March
of '46, and the effective date of Krug's resignation was December the
1st of '49, the same day that you were sworn in. Did Krug have any better
support in Congress than Ickes had had so that he might have been able
to get something going on CVA?
CHAPMAN: He could have, had he not been such a good friend of Lilienthal.
He wouldn't fight Lilienthal.
HESS: But hadn't Lilienthal gone to the Atomic Energy Commission by this
time though?
CHAPMAN: I think he had; I think he had moved, but he was still carrying
this fight.
HESS: He was still opposed to the Columbia Valley Administration?
CHAPMAN: That's right, he was still opposed to it.
HESS: What was the basis for his opposition?
CHAPMAN: He was opposed to it as...
HESS: He was an old TVA man.
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: What did he have against CVA up in the Northwest?
CHAPMAN: Well, actually when you got right down to hard conferencing
with him about it, his opposition I didn't think, was solid enough. It
was only a temporary expediency that he was fighting, but not a permanent
long-range development. Our position was so much sounder from the point
of view of a long-range development. But Lilienthal was such a well-known
conservationist per se that nobody would believe any of the stories that
was written about him back east in the eastern papers.
HESS: Did he think that the establishment of a CVA out in the Northwest
would somehow weaken TVA?
CHAPMAN: Yes, he did.
HESS: I see no connection.
CHAPMAN: Well, he thought that they both would be put under the Secretary
of the Interior.
HESS: Oh, I see.
CHAPMAN: He thought that when we accomplished one, that we would go after
the other, and we would.
HESS: And you would?
CHAPMAN: Yes. That's what we were going to do.
HESS: So that was the basis for his opposition?
CHAPMAN: Yes.
HESS: One reason why I brought this up was that Mr. Truman had a special
message in 1949, I think it was in February of 1949, just after the election,
calling for the establishment of the Columbia Valley Administration.
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: He had even mentioned it I believe in his State of the Union address
in 1949. In other words, what I am saying is it was well-known that Mr.
Truman wanted to establish the Columbia Valley Administration. There are
those who say that people in Government dragged their feet.
CHAPMAN: Well, a lot of them did. A lot of them did.
HESS: In other words, they couldn't come out in open opposition
to Mr. Truman and say...
CHAPMAN: No.
HESS: ..."Okay, you want a CVA but I don't," but when Mr. Truman would
make his pronouncement that he wanted a CVA, there were a number of people
in high positions in Government who worked under cover to see that it
was defeated, is that right?
CHAPMAN: That is perfectly right. Remember Anderson was Secretary of
Agriculture for awhile and he was opposed to it, and he was close to Truman
at that time, and he was I know...
HESS: What was the basis of his opposition; was he afraid that he would
lose the Department of Agriculture's...
CHAPMAN: Forest Service.
HESS: ...Forest Service?
CHAPMAN: He'd lost it in the total overall picture; he would lose a lot
of things that would go into this CVA.
HESS: Were all of the Government organizations operating in that one
area going to go into that one unit?
CHAPMAN: Not all, but most of them.
HESS: Well, that was Michael Straus' attitude over at Reclamation; he
didn't want to go under CVA either.
CHAPMAN: He didn't want it; he didn't want it, and he was cutting it
everywhere he could.
HESS: Now he didn't work so much under cover did he?
CHAPMAN: No, he didn’t.
HESS: He just said what he believed?
CHAPMAN: You know there's one thing he always liked about Mike.
HESS: Even if you disagreed with him he was open about it.
CHAPMAN: That's right. He was open about it. He never tried to go behind
your back and he would tell you that you're wrong. I think that this is
right; I'm going to stick to my position, and you can't oppose a man that
does that. You've got to give him credit for being an honorable man in
his approach to basic principles.
You see these fellows think that they have accomplished a lot if they
have gone around the head of the Government (in this case the President),
because we had gotten the President's support for this thing. We had really
gone after it and I always give Jebby great credit for that because Jebby
did--he did a very fine job of promoting that.
HESS: He made a lot of speeches in the Northwest didn't he?
CHAPMAN: He did. He made a lot of speeches in the Northwest; he talked
to a lot of officials about this, and he did a lot. And he did a fine
job in promoting a wonderful project that would have been a great asset
to the country in the future. It was a sound approach for another hundred
years. You were putting together your resources of this area, and congealing
them. You've got to find some mechanism for it to operate on, and this
was the only thing that we could find that would do it really adequately.
It would be something on this principle.
HESS: What's the main reason that it was not established?
CHAPMAN: Well, just that so many people were opposed to it; that's why
they wouldn't do it. They were not opposed to Truman about it.
HESS: Weren't the power companies in the area bringing pressure on their
Congressmen and Senators?
CHAPMAN: Oh yes. Oh yes, that was one of the...
HESS: I believe every Governor was opposed, every one in the Northwest.
CHAPMAN: They were all opposed to it.
HESS: The Governors of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Nevada.
CHAPMAN: Well, I always give Jebby credit for a great deal of nerve of
going out in that area and discussing it publicly. I thought, and he knew
the Governors were opposed in that area.
HESS: And many of the Representatives.
CHAPMAN: Oh yes, many of the Congressmen were opposed to it.
HESS: And I believe Harry Cain, a leading Representative from that area,
was opposed to it.
CHAPMAN: Yes, you're right.
HESS: Did Mr. Davidson's tendency to spend a great deal of time in the
Northwest and his tendency to give a good many speeches, cause you difficulty
at any time?
CHAPMAN: Not especially.
HESS: What were your views on iris method of operation?
CHAPMAN: Well, I felt that he was losing a good deal of the value of
his work by the fact that he was concentrating and centering himself in
the Northwest and establishing another Secretary of Interior in the Northwest.
HESS: Did you feel that he was trying to do that?
CHAPMAN: Oh, I don't think that he was trying to do it; it just
shows up that way on paper when you say it.
HESS: It just looks that way.
CHAPMAN: It just--it really just looks that way. I don't think he would
really try to do it. I think he was honestly trying to establish
this principle. He wanted to get it done, not that he got himself built
up a great deal along with it. As far as he was concerned it was all right;
he didn't care, he didn't mind that.
HESS: It was a secondary benefit:
CHAPMAN: Yes, I say he didn't mind that. But on the other hand, Jebby--Jebby's
technique of approach was different from mine.
HESS: How would you characterize his technique of approach?
CHAPMAN: Mature and individual actions that he would take, and he would
be doing one thing and he ought to have been working on the other one,
because you had to keep the horse before the cart here. To move anything
in Government as major as this is, requires a brilliant and physically
active man that understands his subject matter basically. Jebby understood
it; he had that quality. He understood it and he knew what he was trying
to do, but he did not--in my mind, he used the wrong technique of approach
to get his case sold to the public.
HESS: Do you think that he would have liked to have been Under Secretary
of the Interior at .the time you became Secretary of the Interior?
CHAPMAN: No, he wanted to be Secretary.
HESS: He didn't want the second job; he wanted the top job, is that right?
CHAPMAN: And I'll tell you this; I'd never be Under Secretary again to
any Secretary in any department of Government.
HESS: You wouldn't want to be Under Secretary of...
CHAPMAN: Of any department.
HESS: Of any department?
CHAPMAN: Not again,
HESS: Is that the man who does most of the work?
CHAPMAN: That's the man that is being shot at from both ways; always
has to take the responsibility; he's surreptitious by the nature of the
office. The Under Secretary gets criticism. There are people below who
think he's trying to get the Secretary's job. He wants to be Secretary
next, and being Under Secretary all he has to do is just get one man out
of the way. Now that's what a lot of folks will believe; they'll believe
that you are trying that. I had an awful time fighting that kind of a
thing all of the time. Unfortunately Krug didn't want to stay in the office
in the first place. He didn't want to stay there; he wanted to travel.
Well, the public didn't know that. They thought that I was staying there
running the office because I wanted to run it. I didn't want to do all
of that work. I wanted him to take part of it, but he just wouldn't do
it. There wasn't anything I could do.
HESS: At the time Krug resigned, there was an article in the Oregon
Journal, dated November the 11th, the day you got your phone call
from the White House. The article was by Forrest Finely. I'll just read
the first paragraph:
For this key Cabinet post, five names have been thrust forward: Former
Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, Governor Mon Wallgren, Senator Joseph
O'Mahoney of Wyoming, present Under Secretary Oscar Chapman, and the
present Assistant Secretary of the Department, C. Girard Davidson of
Portland.
So Davidson was named as one of the five possibilities. Did you think
that it was possible that Ickes could be brought back in '49, as Finely
thought?
CHAPMAN: No, that wasn't in the picture at all.
HESS: What about Mon Wallgren?
CHAPMAN: No.
HESS: He was a friend of the President.
CHAPMAN: He was a personal friend, but Truman knew him; he wouldn't have
put him in that job anyway. You see, Truman had put him in what job?
HESS: Well, he had nominated him for a job had he not?
CHAPMAN: Named him to something, some Federal job.
HESS: Wasn't it to the National Security Resources Board?
CHAPMAN: Yes,
HESS: And I don't think the nomination went through.
CHAPMAN: It wasn't approved or something about that.
HESS: A little difficulty about getting his name approved in Congress
I believe.
CHAPMAN: I think there was some problem there.
HESS: But you don't think that he was considered seriously at this time?
CHAPMAN: No, I didn't take him seriously.
HESS: What about Senator Joseph O'Mahoney of Wyoming?
CHAPMAN: He would have been a serious man at any time. A President could
have appointed him at any time. There were no obstacles in his way from
any source. He could have taken it without any question. It was just a
question of losing the chairman of our Interior Committee in the Senate,
and we always want to have him with us if we can, but we had O'Mahoney
and he supported Truman, and he was a good supporter of Truman's.
HESS: Finely's next statement is: "Of the five, Chapman's is the brightest,
at least at the present." So the writer of this article--he didn't know
that on that same day you were going to get that telephone call from the
White House--thought your chances were the brightest.
Now, back to Mr. Davidson just for a moment. Was there no understanding
that he might become Under Secretary?
CHAPMAN: None.
HESS: Now there was a period of time...
CHAPMAN: There was no understanding between Davidson and the President
if that's who you mean now. I don't know who he may have had an understanding
with; the President’s the only one who could appoint that man, so there
is no one that he could have an understanding with but the President,
and I know he didn’t have one with the President. And that's the way I
was appointed Secretary of the Interior, as I told you about him calling
me up and telling me.
I want to clarify if I can, and I have no way of doing it unless the
President would wish to clarify it with a little memo for the record.
I don't understand, and I didn't understand it when I left his office
on that Wednesday morning, when he had answered Ickes' letter that was
an insult to him, that had been sent to the President on Saturday afternoon,
and said, in effect, "If I don't have an answer to this letter by Wednesday
at 11 o'clock I'm going to call a press conference and live this letter
out. If I don't have an answer from you."
Well, that's an invitation for a President to fire you; that's all it
is. I knew Truman wasn't going to take that. I didn't see that letter.
I didn't know it was being written until almost that Wednesday
morning; that's when I learned of it. I went in to see Ickes and I said,
"Mr. Secretary, I understand that you wrote a very, very caustic and unpleasant
letter to the President." I said, "I don't think your situation with the
President is in that kind of a state, and I don't believe it justifies
that." I said, "You haven't got an issue you can draw on as Secretary
of Interior and to resign on that and become a great crusader as the man
who saved the world from Truman." I said, "You're not going to get away
with that. You might do it, and I'm terribly sorry that you sent that
letter. Had I known it I certainly would have advised you not to have
sent it, but to take the chance, go in and sit down and talk with Truman.
I think you can work things out without any question." I thought they
could have. Truman is always big hearted if you go half way, if you will
make an effort to show your integrity and your honesty to him. Now the
difference between the President and Secretary was based on nothing but
a personnel problem, nothing else. Ickes was trying to make an issue out
of Ed Pauley's appointment as Secretary of the Navy, or Under Secretary,
I've forgot.
HESS: Under Secretary.
CHAPMAN: Under Secretary I believe, and Ickes fought his nomination very
bitterly upon the Hill. He fought his nomination hard.
Now, they finally withdrew Ed Pauley's name, who was the man involved.
Now I didn't think that was sufficient enough grounds; there was not enough
of any unfavorable things that you could have brought into this, that
justified him challenging the President's position publicly at that time
and place. Now there is a time and place that you can do anything more
effective than you can in other times and places. He certainly was not
in good timing on his position with the President and I told him so. I
said, ''The President will get the best of this without opening his mouth;
he doesn't have to say a thing. He'll have enough press against you, enough
Senators against you on the Hill, they won't support you."
And I was very fond of Ickes for his position on liberal things like
conservation, public power, and things of that kind. I was very fond of
him; he supported me on everything in that. He supported me very well
on that, and he had quite a regard for Girard Davidson, and he liked him.
But I think he felt--this is Ickes now--but I think Ickes felt Davidson
might be moving a little too fast and not necessarily for the benefit
of the program, but for the benefit of Davidson becoming Secretary of
the Interior. Now I know he was--I feel confident he was suspicious of
that, a feeling Davidson was making these speeches rather free handed
out there and not coordinated necessarily with the Secretary.
HESS: What did Krug think about Davidson's speeches?
CHAPMAN: He didn't like them, but he didn't say anything. Krug didn't
say anything, but he didn't like them.
HESS: I believe that there was a time that he debated an FBI man, wasn't
that right?
CHAPMAN: That's right.
HESS: Did that cause any difficulty?
CHAPMAN: Well, to this extent--no; Davidson was right in his speech,
but he was certainly wrong on his man and his time. You don't pick the
lies when he's on top of the hill, when you're throwing rocks at him;
you wait until you get him to the bottom of the hill.
HESS: Did you ever talk to J. Edgar Hoover about that?
CHAPMAN: I did. I had a nice talk with him.
HESS: Did he ask you to drop over to his office?
CHAPMAN: No. No, nothing at all. I called him to see him about some Puerto
Rican matters, on which he was extremely helpful to me.
I want to say this for Hoover; he began to let his people annoy our employees
a lot by investigating them all the time under the Joe McCarthy
regime and influence. I went to see Hoover about that myself and said
to him that it was causing a great deal of loss of time and conflict with
our other programs. And I said, "I can give you my word that any man or
woman that you want to see, any employee you want to talk to about anything
in this world, if you call me I'll give you a little room close to my
office that you can come up and sit in there and have a conference as
long as you want. Nobody will bother you at all, and that room is not
bugged." I said, "It would help me to keep the suspicion from spreading
in the Department that you are investigating the Department of Interior
about something. You really are not investigating the Department of Interior
about any wrongdoing, I know that. You're not, because there just isn't
anything."
He said, "No, you're right. I haven't, and I'm not investigating for
that." He said, "I am investigating some people over there on account
of this Communist influence that we seem to think--some of the people
seem to think--that is too close, some of the Communists."
"Well, Mr. Hoover," I said, "perhaps you would investigate those people
very carefully and talk with them by themselves, not in their office where
other people are coming in and going out. The rumor then goes out that
an FBI man is investigating John Smith down in the Bureau of Mines." I
said, "Immediately that becomes a sensitive area and it immediately flashes
that you're investigating the Department. It gets them all confused and
gets them terribly concerned about what is happening to their own situation."
But Hoover dealt with me in as fine and gentlemanly way as I have ever
had a man work with me. He was most helpful to me in giving me information
that I needed on the Puerto Rican situation, and he gave me that in the
form of a memorandum. I said, "You use not names or titles; you use the
phrase 'unidentified, but responsible informant,' all the time, but you
never have used the name of anybody."
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