Truman Library - Oscar R. Ewing Oral History Interview, April 29, 1969

Attorney, Hughes, Hubbard & Ewing, New York, New York, and predecessor firms, 1919-1947; Assistant Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, 1940-42; Vice Chairman, 1942-47; Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General, 1942 and again in 1947; Acting Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, 1946; Administrator of the Federal Security Agency, 1947-53; and organizer and member of an unofficial political policy group during the Truman administration, 1947-52.

Chapel Hill, North Carolina
April 29, 1969
by J. R. Fuchs

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

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

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 It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

FUCHS: Mr. Ewing, I wonder if you would mind beginning with a statement of your background, when and where you were born, your education and anything else that you think might be of interest to history.

EWING: Well, I was born in Greensburg, Indiana on March 8, 1889. My father was a merchant. His name was George M. Ewing and he was one of fifteen children. His father and mother had migrated from Kentucky to Indiana in 1826.

The Ewing family, so far as we know their story, began in about 1665. A William Ewing, who had been born in that year near Stirling Castle, Scotland, as a young man migrated to Londonderry, Ireland, where he was married to a Scottish girl living in Ireland. We know that this William Ewing fought in the battle of Londonderry, which I think was about 1689.

In about 1725 , two or three of the sons of William Ewing migrated together to America. One of these sons was Joshua Ewing, who settled in Cecil County, Maryland,

Joshua Ewing had a number of sons and daughters. One of these was my ancestor, Captain Patrick Ewing. The youngest son of Joshua Ewing was Nathaniel Ewing. He was the grandfather of Adlai Ewing Stevenson, who was Vice President of the United States from 1893 to 1897 and the great, great grandfather of Adlai Ewing Stevenson who was the Democratic candidate for President in 1952 and 1956.

My ancestor, Captain Patrick Ewing, lived in Cecil County, Maryland and was a soldier in the Revolution. The story is that he was commissary general under Washington when his army was at Valley Forge. I used to boast a good deal about that until I realized that the American Army at Valley Forge had nearly starved to death, so I stopped bragging about this ancestor.

Captain Patrick Ewing had a large number of children. The son through whom I trace my ancestry was named Putnam Ewing. He married a Jane McClellan from the adjoining county, Chester County, Pennsylvania. Jane McClellan Ewing was, by tradition, a woman of great beauty and fine intellect. In our family it was for a long time thought that she was closely related to General George B. McClellan, a commander of the Union Army of the Potomac in the Civil War. I mentioned

this to General McClellan's son, the former Mayor of New York, George B. McClellan, Jr., when I sat beside him at a lunch back in the 1920s. He said the relationship must be rather remote. He explained that originally there were three McClellan brothers who had migrated from Ireland to America. One settled in Maine, one in Connecticut and one in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Mayor McClellan said that his branch of the family was descended from the brother who settled in Connecticut while Jane McClellan Ewing, being from Chester County, Pennsylvania, was undoubtedly descended from the brother who had settled in that county.

Putnam Ewing and his wife had two sons born in Maryland. One of these was my grandfather, Patrick Ewing, born July 28, 1803. Shortly after his birth the family migrated to Bath County, Kentucky, where Patrick grew to manhood amidst nine brothers and sisters.

On September 5, 1826 Patrick was married to Lydia Morgan. About a year after their marriage they migrated to Decatur County, Indiana where they thereafter resided.

Lydia Morgan Ewing had an interesting family background. Edward Morgan, his wife and two children, shortly after 1700 , crossed the Atlantic Ocean from Wales and settled near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The older child was a son, David, who

was grandmother Lydia Morgan's ancestor. The other child was a daughter, Sarah, who in 1720 married Squire Boone and was the mother of Daniel Boone.

In "Annals of North Carolina" (Petree, 1804), Squire Boone is reported to have stated that his wife had another brother, Daniel, who was one of the great American generals in the Revolutionary War. In the first battle of Saratoga, as a colonel commanding a regiment of sharpshooters, Daniel Morgan had ordered his men to pick out the Redcoats wearing epaulets (officers). As a result so many of Burgoyne's officers were killed that he could not handle his troops adequately during the second Saratoga battle, which contributed much to that great American victory in October 1777. Subsequently, Daniel Morgan retired from the army being piqued by the promotion of certain officers over him whom he felt less deserving.

After the fall of Charleston, South Carolina on May 12, 1780, Congress passed a resolution calling on Morgan to join the Southern Army then commanded by General Horatio Gates under whom Morgan had served at Saratoga. At Gates' urging Congress made Morgan a Brigadier General and he was made head of a Special Service. After Gates' defeat in the battle of Camden, South Carolina, August 16, 1780, he was

replaced as Commander of the Southern Army by Nathaniel Green. Greene gave Morgan an independent command and with these troops he battled a British force under Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton at Cowpens, South Carolina on January 17, 1781 and won one of the most brilliant American victories of the Revolution. Out of some 1,100 men the British losses were 600 prisoners and over 200 killed and wounded while the American losses were 72 killed and wounded out of less than 1,000 troops.

As before stated, my grandfather Patrick Ewing and his wife, Lydia Morgan Ewing, migrated from Kentucky to Indiana in 1826. Grandfather had walked from Bath County, Kentucky to Cincinnati where he crossed the Ohio River, then from Cincinnati out to Decatur County, Indiana and there he entered 80 acres of Government land. He paid a dollar and a quarter an acre. He chose this particular land because a half uncle, David Douglas, had already entered an adjoining tract of land. David Douglas was a farmer and a part-time preacher.

EWING: Yes, it was quite near Greensburg, Indiana, about five miles west of Greensburg, and was very good black land. Having chosen his land Grandfather started on a return

trip going first to Brookville, Indiana, where the Government land office was located and there paid his $100, and formally entered the land. From Brookville Grandfather walked back to Cincinnati, re-crossed the Ohio River and walked back to Bath County. A Bath County neighbor loaned him a horse for the trip back to Indiana. Grandmother rode the horse holding one child. Grandfather led the horse. These were, as I calculated, about a hundred and sixty-five mile trips. They got back to Decatur County, Indiana somewhat late in the fall so that Grandfather only had time to build a three-sided log cabin before winter really set in. The family spent that first winter in that three-sided log cabin with the south side open and exposed to the sun. In the spring, Grandfather rode the horse back to Bath County and then walked back to his new land in Decatur County.

Grandfather and Grandmother had fifteen children. Every one of them lived to have children of their own. At one time I had fifty-four first cousins, two on my mother's side and fifty-two on the Ewing side.

EWING: Yes, it is. My father was one of the younger sons. He was the twelfth child. He left the farm rather early

and went into Greensburg and became a merchant. He had a farm, also, a little way out from Greensburg; and he continued as a merchant. It was sort of a general grocery store and hardware and almost everything. Then he sold that out when I was quite young and went into farmer's supply business. That continued until his death.

EWING: No. Father and mother had gone to housekeeping in a little house in Greensburg that her father had given them, and that's been in the family ever since. My sister lives in it now. I was born in that house and so was she.

EWING: Father married Jeanette Ross. She was a local girl in Greensburg and really a very superior woman. She had had one year at Western College, in Oxford, Ohio, and was really a woman of fine literary tastes and just a thoroughly fine person.

I personally had a very happy boyhood in a small midwestern town doing the usual things that a kid does. I attended the public schools in Greensburg through high school. In high school I took part in the usual school activities, particularly debating. I never was very much for athletics. I never had any particular competency there. I was president of my senior class in high school. From there I went on to Indiana University entering the freshman class in 1906. I joined the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity and lived in the Beta house for the four years I was at I. U.

I became rather active in college politics and in my junior year I ran for president of my class and was elected, and again in my senior year I ran for president of my class and was elected. I understand that I am the only student in the history of Indiana University who has been elected president of both his junior and senior classes. I had a very happy time at the University. I was valedictorian of my class and this was an unexpected honor because I simply

assumed that many of my classmates had better academic records than mine. However, when the faculty named me valedictorian I asked no questions.

FUCHS: Did you take that as a good background for your going into law or did you think of that as good background for politics, or how did you decide on philosophy?

EWING: Well, it so happened that one of the best and most interesting professors was head of the philosophy department. I think it was in my second year that I took a general course in philosophy under Professor Lindley and he was so interesting that I--I mean he made the whole subject so interesting, that I decided to major in it. I was very glad that I had done so because the whole trend at that time and even today is, toward scientific courses which involve analysis, breaking down, analyzing this and that and the other. Whereas philosophy, its main purpose is synthesis, trying to put

things together and make sense out of them, getting the meaning of the whole rather than breaking down the parts and concentrating on those. Synthesis is needed so much, I don't say more than analysis, but there is much less emphasis put on it and I think it is equally needed.

After I graduated from college at Indiana University in 1910, I determined to go to Harvard Law School. I had always known, since I was a youngster, that I wanted to be a lawyer.

EWING: Well, I had two uncles and three cousins who had been lawyers and one of these uncles particularly was almost my idol. He was wonderfully nice to me and I was extremely fond of him, so much so that I named my first son for him, James Ewing.

EWING: He was in Greensburg. He'd been a judge of the Circuit Court there and really influenced me very much. I had taken one or two law courses at Indiana University, which I was allowed to do, and apply the credits to my A.B. degree. I wanted to go on to Harvard. My father was very much opposed to this. He didn't feel that he could afford it. He also

felt that I could do like my uncles and cousins had done and that was read law in some lawyer's office; that they had been quite successful and there was no reason why I couldn't get my legal education in the same way.

EWING: Yes, oh, yes there was a law school at Indiana University, but I don't think there was any question but that at that time Harvard Law School was the best in the country. I thought that if I was to go to a law school I might just as well go to the best. My father said he would not help me financially, and so I got a job taking subscriptions for the Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies Home Journal. My sister helped with that. As a result, I saved up about four hundred dollars that summer. This was enough to get me started in Cambridge where I also got a job waiting table in Randall Hall. In the meantime, my father had agreed to go on my note at the bank for what I would have to borrow to see me through.

EWING: No, at that time if you had an A.B. degree Harvard Law School would admit you. Oh, I think one had to stand reasonably well in college but I had been valedictorian of my class, so I had no problem on that score. The first year in law school I did pretty well and made an A grade, so that made me eligible to be an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

In the fall of my second year I was made a member of the Choate Club. If my memory is correct, each fall the club took in five second year men who were graduates of Harvard College, five of Yale, five of Princeton and five all-American, that is graduates of any other colleges. Besides monthly meetings at which a third year man would read a scholarly paper, the club had two big dinners a year, one in the fall and another in the spring. At the first dinner I attended I was the only member not dressed in a tuxedo. Naturally, I felt uncomfortable. Then, just before the Christmas vacation, Jim Dennis, one of my classmates who lived in Morristown, New Jersey., invited me to spend the vacation with him. I wanted very much to accept but I knew a tuxedo was essential, so I went ahead and bought one at Brooks Brothers in New York. Well, when my father heard that it made him so mad that he said he

Shortly after my return to Cambridge after Christmas the mid-term bill arrived and I didn't have the money to pay it. Several people in Greensburg had offered to help me if I needed it. But when I needed help one of them had died, another had lost his job and the others all had excuses. I was in a desperate situation. I had explored every source of a loan that I could think of and in my desperation I went into Dean Thayer, and asked him if the Law School had any loan funds that were available.

I had got to know Dean Thayer early in my first year at the Law School by reason of a peculiar combination of circumstances. I had been admitted to the bar in Indiana on my twenty-first birthday, in March before I graduated from Indiana University and...

EWING: Yes, in Indiana at that time the only qualifications required for admission was that the applicant be twenty-one years old and of good moral character. So I was admitted merely on a motion. About a month after I first arrived in Cambridge in the fall of 1910 I got a telegram from the Democratic county chairman in Decatur County

that the man that they had nominated for Prosecuting Attorney in Decatur County had had to resign. He had been accused of some trivial crime--I think it was rape. So the Democrats decided that he wouldn't be a very good candidate and they wanted to nominate me for his place on the ticket. I didn't know what to do, it was a pretty flattering offer, it would mean $1,000 or $1,200 a year which was big money in those days in a county seat. I went in to ask Dean Thayer for his advice as to what I should do. Apparently it was rather unusual for a first year law student to be offered the nomination as a prosecuting attorney but nevertheless Dean Thayer said he would advise me to stay in law school. He said, "If I didn't believe in a law school education I wouldn't have given up the practice myself to become Dean." And so I followed his advice and refused the nomination.

EWING: Ezra Ripley Thayer. So when I went back to him to ask if any loan funds were available he knew something of my background. When I told him what a bind I was in, he wanted to know how much I needed. I said, "Two hundred and twenty-five dollars for my mid-term bill." And I

saw him take his checkbook and then he handed me a check for two hundred and twenty-five dollars. I said, "Dean Thayer, I didn't come in here to borrow money from you."

He said, "I know, that's all right." He said, "I'm glad to do it." Then he added: "Do you think if I took over the indebtedness at the bank that your father's already obligated on, it would relieve his mind?"

I said, "Yes, I'm sure it would, but you're not going to do it because he's hooked for that and he's going to stay hooked."

And the next year I did have to borrow another hundred dollars. So that made my indebtedness to him three hundred and twenty-five dollars. I gave him a note for it and he said to pay it back whenever I was able. Unfortunately, he had a bad breakdown in 1915. While the first Mrs. Ewing and I were on our honeymoon that fall, I read in the paper that he had committed suicide. He had found that he had cancer of the throat and it was inoperative. Apparently he suffered terribly and no one can blame him for what he did. When I read of his death I wrote to Mrs. Thayer a letter of condolence and also referred to my indebtedness.

I said I knew that they would want to settle the estate and if she would have her attorney calculate the interest and let me know the amount, I would arrange to take care of it. Well, she wrote back the most beautiful letter I almost ever received. She said that Dean Thayer was so fond of me that she wanted that indebtedness to be her contribution to the new Ewing menage. She did it in such a way that it would have been rude not to have accepted. But over the years the debt was on my conscience. So, a number of years ago, I don't know how long ago, I set up a loan fund at Harvard in memory of Dean Thayer, and altogether I've given it something over a hundred thousand dollars.

EWING: She was still living when I started it; I don't think she's living now. I just felt that I owed it and I owed very much to Harvard Law School.

FUCHS: I believe when you were quite young you had some political experiences. I think that I've read that you gave a speech as early as your eleventh year.

EWING: Yes. Well, really that wasn't a very creditable performance. One of my uncles who had a farm was going to have a Democratic pole raising in the campaign of 1900. They would raise a hickory pole, you know, for Old Hickory Andrew Jackson and my uncle wanted me to make the speech. I tried to commit to memory a speech my mother had written for me. When I got up and was declaiming it, I got about half way through and forgot the rest. I don't know that it contributed to the defeat of Mr. Bryan in 1900 but I know that it didn't help him any.

EWING: Yes. The Ewing family, on the whole were very strong Democrats. You see my Grandfather Ewing, when he left Kentucky, left five brothers behind and every one of them

served in the Confederate Army. When the heat and emotion of the Civil War came along in Indiana there was a lot of bitterness and anyone who was a Democrat was castigated and viewed with suspicion. I think that experience hardened all the Ewings against the Republican Party. And that feeling has persisted down through succeeding generations. In my own youth, people would come up to me and say, "How can any intelligent person be a Democrat?" Well, it would make me so mad that I couldn't be a Republican.

FUCHS: Then I believe you had another political experience attending one of the conventions?

EWING: Yes. That was in 1904, when the World's Fair was going on at St. Louis and the Democratic National Convention was held there. By that time I was fifteen years old and really very much interested in politics. So, two of my friends, boys about my age, and I, we all went--supposedly to the fair. I went to the fair one day and attended the Democratic National Convention five days. That year the Democrats nominated Alton B. Parker for President. After I got back to Greensburg, there were so few supporters of Parker that they couldn't get enough Democrats to fill the committee offices; so they had elected me secretary of the

county committee in Decatur County. That was a very, very interesting experience and a liberal education for politics at the grass roots. We had no money and would have to pass the hat when we needed to buy postcards to notify the county committee of a meeting. But I learned to carry a poll book and do the chores of politics in that way.

FUCHS: What was the population approximately of the town or village, and of the county? Do you recall?

EWING: Well, at that time it was probably around four thousand in Greensburg and I dare say that the county was, oh, probably twelve thousand, something like that.

FUCHS: Do you think this was the experience that caused them to offer you the nomination for county prosecuting attorney?

EWING: I dare say it was. I had worked with the organization and I knew all the other workers. Yes, I have no doubt it had something to do with it.

FUCHS: Were there any other political experiences that you recall prior to your graduation from Harvard Law?

EWING: No, because I made up my mind then that I would not spend much time on politics until I had become established

as a lawyer and was financially independent. I don't think anyone should go into politics and give it all his time until he has got to the point where he's independent financially. It is only then that you can be completely free of the pressures of politics and can tell anybody to go to hell.

FUCHS: Before we went back aways, you were commenting about the advantages of graduating from Harvard Law School in those days.

EWING: Well, at that time I think, 1910 , when I was considering where to go, I think that Harvard was the pre-eminent law school of the country. Today, there are other very, very fine law schools; Yale and some of the midwestern schools are top-notch. So that going to Harvard isn't anywhere nearly as important today as it was in those days, although I still think it's probably the best law school in the country.

FUCHS: I believe that you had some interesting classmates at Indiana University.

EWING: Yes. Well, the two most prominent were not classmates but they were fraternity brothers of mine. When I was a

senior Paul McNutt was a freshman. He was also a Beta and his first year I saw a great deal of him since we lived in the same house. I liked him very much and admired him. He was a very handsome man, a good student, a hard worker, and I got to know him very well. Then Wendell Willkie was in Paul's graduating class but he was not taken into the fraternity until his senior year. That meant that I had graduated three years before he joined the fraternity. I entered Indiana University in 1906 and he entered in 1909. Both Paul and Wendell entered in the fall of 1909. But Wendell wasn't taken into the fraternity until 1912, the fall of 1912.

FUCHS: The enrollment was large enough by then that you wouldn't necessarily have known him then even if he was there.

EWING: That is true. I did not know him at all in college. He had a sister and a brother who were contemporaries of mine and I did know them because they were a class ahead of me or maybe two classes, but at least I got to know them. But I didn't know Wendell in college. I got to know him very well later in New York.

EWING: Well, I had a lot of them there, because I think truly the class of 1913 at the law school probably was one of the best classes of all time for the prominence of its graduates. Bob Taft was in our class; he was president of the Law Review in my last year on it. Charles Evans Hughes, Jr. was president of the Law Review my first year on it. Then we had Jim Kem who practiced law in Kansas City and was later United States Senator from Missouri. Owen Brewster of Maine, was Governor of Maine and Senator for a long while--he was a member of our class. We had a large number of judges. Harold Stevens was judge of the United States Circuit Court of the District of Columbia. I think he was chief justice, if I'm not mistaken, for part of his time. I can't think of the others but there were quite a few that made really great names for themselves.

FUCHS: Do you recall any incidents, humorous or otherwise involving any of these people, Taft or Hughes, Jr., that might be of interest as a little footnote? What were your impressions of Taft when he was in law school?

EWING: Well, I was a great admirer of Bob Taft. He was a brilliant man, and when you got to know him you found him

to be really a very warm person. He didn't have that public image but he was really a very warm person and we were very good friends. When I was nominated by President Truman as Federal Security Administrator, Bob at that time was the Republican leader of the Senate and the Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate. Bob took me in and introduced me to the Finance Committee which passed on my nomination and urged my nomination. He couldn't have been nicer. Later I did a thing that offended him and I have always regretted it deeply. Bob was running for re-election to the Senate in 1950 and Mike DiSalle was his Democratic opponent. Mike asked me to make a speech for him in Toledo and I told him I would. So, I had someone on my staff, I forget who it was, draft a speech for me. When I read the draft I found it was bitter and full of personal attacks. So I completely rewrote the speech and tried to take out everything that was personal or that could possibly be offensive. None the less Bob was greatly offended by the speech. He introduced it in the Congressional Record as an example of a carpetbagger's speech. I was a carpetbagger coming from New York out to Ohio to make a speech against him. Well, I knew there was nothing that I

could say. I always felt we had a right to our political differences. I wouldn't for the world have said anything personal against him but there was apparently something to which he took offense and I regretted it. But there was no use even apologizing because...

FUCHS: Did you review the speech to see if you could possibly isolate what it was?

EWING: Oh, yes, I went over it again even afterwards because I was very much upset by his reaction.

FUCHS: Wasn't there some other gentleman there that said that he concurred with you that you didn't think Taft had any reason for...

EWING: Yes, that happened at one of our class reunions later on. Paul Alexander, also of the law school class of 1913, was judge of the Juvenile Court in Toledo. We were both attending our class reunion in 1953 and were raising money for a memorial for Bob Taft to be located right across the street on the vacant lot north of the Capitol and west of the Old Senate Office Building.

FUCHS: The only thing I can think of is pyramid. I was thinking they erected a bell tower in his honor, but I must be thinking of someone else.

EWING: Well, whatever its name it was the memorial for Bob Taft that we were raising money for, and in the course of a discussion I told my classmates about this unfortunate experience I'd had of unintentionally offending Bob. Judge Alexander of the Juvenile Court in Toledo and a member of our class, spoke up and he said, "Why, Jack, I heard you make that speech and I can't recall a single thing that I could think would be offensive to anyone."

FUCHS: Do you think maybe it was just that as a former classmate he felt that you shouldn't say anything?

EWING: Probably, he probably felt that way, but after all he certainly knew I was a Democrat because he had recommended my appointment to the Senate Finance Committee. And he knew I had been appointed Federal Security Administrator by a Democratic President.

EWING: No, I don't know. We had been such good friends that I think the fact that I had spoken for his adversary would perhaps hurt him. I didn't mean to. Some people are that way and some people are very much influenced by those things.

When I was Vice Chairman of the Democratic National Committee I was still a partner in my New York law firm of Hughes, Hubbard and Ewing. The senior partner of that firm was Charles Evans Hughes, Jr. Apparently one of our clients, I never knew which one, took great offense at my being active in Democratic politics. This man went to Charlie Hughes and told him that their company was going to take their business away from the firm unless they completely took my name out of the firm name and eliminated me from the partnership. I thought Charlie's answer was a marvelous one. He said, "Well, Mr. So-and-So, we would hate very much to lose your business, because your company is a good client, but you know, we here in this office only have one thing to sell, and that's our legal talent. Our political views are not for sale." I don't know whether the man left with his business or not, but that was the answer that he got.

FUCHS: You think that any of the subsequent legislation that came under the purview of Congress, more or less through the aegis of the Federal Security Administration might have been opposed by him and a little bit more vehemently on account of this incident?

EWING: I have no reason whatever to think so. Actually, I think he had taken all of his positions on welfare legislation before I ever was in office.

FUCHS: To go back, after you graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1913 what were your first moves then?

EWING: My first year out of law school I taught in the University of Iowa Law School. I greatly enjoyed this experience although I learned much more than my pupils did. My faculty associates were friendly, attractive men with whom it was a pleasure to work. Nevertheless, although I had intended to teach for at least two years,

before the end of the first year I was restless to get into active law practice, and hence I declined reappointment. My father thought my decision was very foolish. At that time teaching law had been given an added aura by reason of President Taft accepting a professorship at the Yale Law School at the end of his term as President in 1913. My father was greatly impressed by this and also by the fact that I was giving up a salary of $1800 for nine months work, much of which would be applied to my bank loans on which he was an endorser.

In the fall of 1914 I went to Indianapolis and accepted a clerkship in the office of Whitcomb, Dowden and Stout at $50 a month. That firm passed on the title of real estate on which the Prudential Insurance Company were making mortgage loans. I did much of this work and also assisted the senior partner in trial work. After about a year I joined up with Carl Wyle and Charles Jewett (a former Mayor of Indianapolis), in the firm of Wyle, Jewett and Ewing. The inclusion in the firm name of my own was not because I was a partner. I was really on my own. I just had a desk in the office and got what business I could, which was not much.

EWING: I was married to Helen E. Dennis on November 4, 1915. Her home was in Morristown, New Jersey and she was a sister of a classmate at Harvard. Of course, Mrs. Ewing's father had to help us out financially at first. He was a director of the Pennsylvania Lines West of Pittsburgh. About a year after Helen and I were married I was offered the position of Assistant Counsel of the Vandalia Railroad Company, a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Lines West of Pittsburgh. My salary was to be $3600 a year. This meant moving to St. Louis which we did in the spring of '16. We remained in St. Louis for about a year when I was made Assistant Counsel of the Pennsylvania Lines West of Pittsburgh and moved to Pittsburgh. About this time World War I began and I again got restless, feeling that I ought to get into the service. By that time I had a wife and a child, but nevertheless I wanted to get into uniform, and Helen encouraged me to do it. So I went into the Army. I was given a First Lieutenant's commission and was made a Contracting Officer of Aircraft Production. Later I was promoted to the rank of Captain. Another Captain and I were the two officers who made most of the contracts for American aircraft in World War I.

EWING: Yes. The building is still standing. It is one of those little temporary buildings designated by the letter "D". Even after I was Federal Security Administrator that building was standing right across from the Federal Security Agency's building. One of the columnists said that he knew that I was a "red" because the only three old World War I buildings still standing near our building were building "R", building "E" and building "D".

FUCHS: I believe I saw some place that you wanted to go into welfare work at one time.

EWING: Yes, that was when I was in St. Louis. Well, first I got a taste of it in Indianapolis. When I was living

there I became a voluntary probation officer of the Juvenile Court and that taught me a lot. The first boy that was assigned to me was a bright kid from a good family. His father was an engineer on one of the railroads and his mother was a very nice person. He had stolen a bicycle. It had just been a boy's prank and he was soon straightened out. The second boy was a rather overgrown young man. I suppose he was sixteen or seventeen. He was overgrown, had adenoids and just wasn't too bright. He lived in a very poor house. His mother was slovenly, "rushed the growler," if you know what I mean by that.

EWING: Rushed the growler. Well, she would go to a saloon and get a bucket of beer and carry it home and drink it.

EWING: I haven't any idea. But it was a well understood colloquial expression. I just didn't get anywhere with this boy. He needed an adenoid and tonsil operation, and a good deal of medical care. I was unable to

accomplish any improvement in him. Finally I went to the Judge. I said, "I just give up on that case. I don't see that I have made the slightest bit of progress."

"Well," he said, "you needn't be surprised. You're the third officer that's tried to work with him and the other two have failed also."

In St. Louis, they had a charity organization, I forget what the name of it was. Roger Baldwin was the active director and he resigned to become the director of the American Civil Liberties League. I knew Roger had done a great job in St. Louis and when he resigned I got the idea I might like to succeed him. I applied for the job but they didn't take me, so I kept on in the law. I'm sure that they did me a favor by letting me go on with the law. But emotionally the other job had appealed to me very much.

FUCHS: Were there any experiences in World War I in Washington that left a distinct memory with you that might be of interest?

EWING: No, I don't think there are. It was a routine job where you had to exercise a good deal of judgment, but Captain Schnacke and I , who were the two contracting

officers, our work was largely routine. They had negotiating officers who would negotiate the contracts and settle the terms, so that our functions were largely just embodying into proper form what had been negotiated. It was just what any lawyer does when his corporate client has negotiated a contract. It was really a little easier than that because, to a large extent, we followed accepted forms.

EWING: Well, I went to New York and shopped around the larger law offices to try to get a job. I had made up my mind I wanted to practice law in New York.

EWING: Yes, what had happened was that my father who was living at the time I got out of law school was very anxious for me to practice law back in Greensburg. Well, I didn't want to do that but he was very anxious for me not to be too far away. It was this fact that had largely influenced me in going to Indianapolis in the first place, although to a person who had been raised

While I was in the office of Whitcombe, Dowden & Stout I had helped the senior partner of that firm try a case. We spent a week preparing the case for trial, we spent a week trying it, we had to spend a week getting ready for an appeal, and the whole case only involved $1400. It seemed pretty small. By the time I got out of the Army, my father had died and the urge to go back to Indiana had evaporated, I had had my experience there. I wanted to get where the big law business was and that was New York.

EWING: No, I had had a few small criminal cases. When I went to New York I made the rounds and was offered a job by Cravath & Henderson, which was probably then the biggest firm in New York. Then I was offered one by Hughes, Schurman & Dwight. At that time Charles Evans Hughes was the senior partner. Also I was offered a position with White & Case. That was another big firm in New York. They were counsel for J. P. Morgan & Co. and many large corporations. But I went with the Hughes

firm and never regretted it. I had some very pleasant experiences there. The personal relations were so very pleasant and it was a delight to get to know Judge Hughes well. He had been twice elected Governor of New York and had resigned in 1910 to become an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He resigned from the court when the Republican Party nominated him for President in 1916. Judge Hughes had gone back to the firm January 1, 1917, after he had been defeated for the presidency by Woodrow Wilson in 1916. Of course, he immediately drew a very large clientele of important clients. As a result the firm was very busy all the time on big things.

EWING: Well, they were largely corporate. In one case Judge Hughes was asked to defend John L. Lewis, the head of the United Mine Workers. Shortly after the close of World War I the union had called a nationwide strike. It paralyzed the country badly. There was a Federal district judge out in Indianapolis, Judge Albert Anderson, who was an excellent lawyer but pretty much of a tyrant in his court. If he was for you he tried your case. If

he was against you, God help you. Judge Anderson had caused a grand jury in Indianapolis to indict Lewis and other officers of the miner's union for alleged violations of the anti-trust laws and the defendents had asked Judge Hughes to defend them. Judge Hughes asked me to help him on the case but I couldn't because I was tied up on some other work. The reason he wanted me was because of my Indiana background. I knew the ropes out there better than anyone else in our office in New York. But I did tell Judge Hughes one thing about Judge Anderson. I said, "Now, you're going out there to argue a motion to dismiss the indictment and I want to give you a tip on what you will be up against with Judge Anderson. If he's against you, and he is against you in this case, you'll start to make an argument and he'll begin asking you questions and he'll keep on asking questions so you'll never be able to finish your argument."

I didn't go out with him when he argued his motion to dismiss the indictment, but I got the story afterwards and it's still a classic story in Indiana. Things happened just as I had predicted. Judge Hughes got

started on his argument and he had only spoken a few minutes when Judge Anderson asked him a question. Judge Hughes answered, "If your honor please, I'll answer your question when I come to it in the course of my argument." This happened four or five times with a question and the same reply. Finally, Judge Anderson leaned over the bench and said in a very sneering voice, "Mr. Counsel, this court has asked you five separate questions and all the answer I've got is that you will answer the question in the course of your argument. I don't think that's showing proper respect to this court. I insist that you answer those questions now."

Judge Hughes said, "If your honor please, I'm fully aware of the respect and courtesy that counsel owes the court. I am also fully aware of the courtesy that the court owes counsel to allow him to make his argument in his own way. I'll answer your questions in the course of my argument." Judge Anderson sank back and didn't ask another question.

EWING: I had a number of, what to me were interesting cases. One case involved Ivar Kruger. If you'll remember, he

was the Swedish match king and he was supposed to be one of the richest men in the world. The Swedish firm of Kruger and Toll had match monopolies in many countries all over the world. Kruger's representative came in to me and wanted me to handle a case for him. It had some very interesting facts.

EWING: Well, it was after the depression started, I'd say around 1930 or 1931. Kruger was negotiating back in the middle 1920s with the Bolsheviks for a match monopoly in Russia. The negotiations had strung along for some time and finally Kruger became convinced the negotiations would be successful. One provision of the deal was that the Bolshevik government would assume the obligations of outstanding bonds of the old Czarist government. When it looked like this arrangement would be made Kruger got together with a banker in St. Petersburg named Lessine. Lessine was to go out and buy up as many of these old Czarist bonds as he could get hold of. Lessine did so and invested his own money in Czarist bonds and as much as he could borrow. When the Bolsheviks backed out of the deal it bankrupted Lessine.

Under these circumstances Lessine's creditors were very anxious to find every asset of his that would help pay them off.

One position the creditors took was that Kruger was a partner in Lessine's purchase of Czarist bonds. If this contention were proved Kruger would be liable for all the debts of the partnership. Kruger vigorously denied the existence of any such partnership.

In their pursuit of satisfaction of their claims against Lessine his creditors learned that he had a possible claim for damages against the National City Bank of New York. It seems that Lessine had had about three million, two hundred thousand dollars of American securities in a safety deposit box in the St. Petersburg branch of the National City Bank, and when the Bolsheviks had captured St. Petersburg they had opened all safety deposit boxes and taken their contents, including those belonging to Lessine. Lessine claimed that the National City Bank had been negligent and not done all that it should have done to protect his securities. Lessine's creditors were very anxious to have this claim prosecuted against the bank but they did not want to put up the money that would be required to do this. Finally a

solution was found for both problems. In consideration of Lessine's creditors giving up their claim that Lessine and Kruger were partners in the making of the contracts to purchase Czarist bonds, Kruger agreed to pay all expenses incurred in prosecuting Lessine's claim against the National City Bank.

It was this case that I was asked to take. I gave it a lot of study, and finally decided that the claim could not be sustained. Kruger, however, was under contractual obligation to prosecute the case and to pay for the cost of the prosecution. I, of course, was very reluctant to attempt to prosecute a claim which seemed to me to have very little merit. On the other hand I felt that I had no right to insist that a client give up a claim for three million two hundred thousand dollars just on the advice of counsel. So, I finally said that I would take the case. I insisted, however, that Kruger pay our fees in advance, because no client enjoys paying a lawyer's bill after his case is lost. So, I insisted on Kruger giving our firm a retainer of $10,000, which was to be renewed from time to time as the case proceeded. The crash finally caught up with Kruger and he became so involved that he committed suicide. That, of course,

for all practical purposes, ended the prosecution of the case because there was no one who would pay the cost. Incidentally, just shortly before Kruger shot himself, we had received another refresher of our retainer so I think that probably our firm were the only people in the world that owed money to Kruger when he died. The balance that was left of the retainer that was not used up when Kruger died was more than used up in further work we had to do to wind up the case.

FUCHS: Would a firm such as this always operate on a retainer basis rather than a contingency?

EWING: As far as I recall, in the twenty-seven years that I was in the firm, I think that we had contingent fee cases only when we were representing Indian tribes in claims against the United States Government. If a lawyer represented Indians in a claim against the Government he had to take it on a contingent basis. This was because the tribes had no money and the Government wanted the Indians well represented.

The facts of the first of our Indian claims cases were interesting. In 1868 the Government made a treaty with the Sioux Indians setting apart certain territories

for the "absolute and undisturbed use" of the Indians The territory was known as the Great Sioux Reservation and included the Black Hills in western South Dakota. In 1874 General Custer, in violation of the treaty of 1868, entered the Black Hills and explored them. His report of finding gold was such as to cause an immediate large influx of miners into the region. The Government also, in violation of treaty rights, refused to permit the Indians to utilize other hunting grounds. These hunting rights were the only thing that stood between the Indians and starvation. In the winter of 1875-76 many Indians were hunting buffalo in areas where they had a treaty right to hunt. In December 1876 the Commissioner of Indian Affairs ordered the Indians who were hunting to come to their agencies by January 31, 1876 or they would be regarded as hostile. It was impossible for the Indians to comply with this order. Even the runner sent out by one agency to notify its Indians was not able to return himself until February 11, 1876. Notwithstanding this, the Indians were declared hostile.

On March 17, 1876 an Indian village on Powder River was destroyed and a large number of Indians were killed. On June 26, 1876, General Custer attacked an Indian encampment near the mouth of the Little Big Horn River in Montana. He was defeated and he and his entire force were destroyed. Subsequent operations resulted in the complete defeat and surrender of the Indians with the exception of Sitting Bull and some of his followers who made their escape to Canada.

The foregoing is a brief statement of the facts relating to the claim of the Sioux Indians. Over the years many people had become convinced that the Indians had been grossly mistreated and that the Government should make amends. Finally, in June 1920, Congress enacted a Jurisdictional Act permitting the Sioux Indians to submit to the Court of Claims "all claims of whatsoever nature which the Sioux Tribe of Indians may have against the United States..." and "...if any claim or claims be submitted to the said courts. they shall settle the rights therein, both legal and equitable..."

Shortly after the enactment of the 1920 Jurisdictional Act, the Sioux Indians held a tribal powwow out in Kansas for the purpose of selecting counsel to represent them in

the prosecution of their claims against the Government. A Washington firm of lawyers hoped they might be selected. Accordingly, their representatives attended the powwow, supplied several beeves and liquid refreshments for an Indian feast. The lawyer hosts were promptly chosen as counsel for the Indians.

Since the Indians were, and still are, wards of the Government all their contracts must be approved by the Secretary of the Interior. This office was then held by Lindsey Garrison, one of the most distinguished men ever to hold it. He expressed great reluctance to approve the contract and, while not refusing, urged the Indians to employ Judge Hughes' firm which they finally did. One of the partners, A. L. Richards, was assigned to the case. He gave his entire time for at least a year to digging up the facts and preparing a memorandum of the law and facts. His conclusions were, in substance, that the rights of the Indians in all the vast territories of the Great Sioux Reservation were merely "hunting rights" and that any recovery would be limited to the value of jack rabbits, buffalo, etc., of which the Indians had been deprived. Furthermore, Richards felt that the Jurisdictional Act provided

for Government counterclaims against the Indians that would completely wipe out any damages they might establish. This ended our firm's participation in the Sioux litigation. We lost a year's earnings of one of the firm's most competent lawyers with no compensation whatever.

EWING: We finally collected years afterwards in other cases as a result of what we learned in the Sioux case.

EWING: Yes, George W. Schurman. He was a brother of Jacob Gould Schurman who at one time was president of Cornell and was later Ambassador to Germany.

EWING: Dwight was of the family of Church and Dwight, you know that make Arm and Hammer soda?

EWING: He was of that family and he was a very fine lawyer. One of the best I ever ran into. I'd rather have his guess on the law of a case than most other lawyers' mature judgment. He was an extremely good lawyer.

FUCHS: Very good, sir. We've gone about an hour and a half, would you like to rest a bit? Take a break now? Or do you wish to go on?

FUCHS: Mr. Ewing, I believe you have something more to relate about the Kruger match king case?

EWING: There was one amusing thing that happened when I was working on that case. I had to go to Paris to take some depositions. I had worked with a Russian named Ratchkovitch who was Kruger's representative. He was there in Paris to help me. In Paris visiting counsel are expected to follow a standardized routine. He first is required to call on the French lawyer, and not a word is said about the business in hand on that first visit. Then the two lawyers get together on the third day and get down to business. Another formality that Ratchkovitch arranged was having a dinner in my honor. This was held at the Nouveau Circ Club. I understood that this was a very exclusive club to which only the French nobility belonged. Kruger was not a member so he got his friend Baron deBony to host the dinner. As I recall there were about a dozen men guests altogether.

As we were going into the club Ratchkovitch asked me if I would like to play bridge after the dinner.

Well, in college I had majored in bridge but when I went to law school I decided that I had wasted so much time at the game that I wasn't going to play anymore. And from that day to this I have not played except when I got into a situation where it was embarrassing not to play. So when Ratchkovitch asked me if I wanted to play I said, "No. I'd rather not." And then I thought, "Well, after all, I'm the guest of honor and it isn't polite to refuse to play." So I said, "Well, if you need me for a fourth I'll play, but I'd rather not."

After dinner, which was a very wonderful gastronomical adventure, Ratchkovitch came to me and said they did need me for a fourth. So, four of us sat down: Ratchkovitch, myself, a young Frenchman whose mother had been a Miss Spreckels from San Francisco, and the fourth man, I don't recall his name, but they said that he had been a former Minister of Finance of France.

EWING: Yes, she was one of that family from San Francisco. So, we sat down and I understood enough French to realize that the other three men were talking about the stakes.

Soon Ratchkovitch turned to me and said, "Well, we're making the stakes a tenth of a franc if that's all right." I said, "Certainly," because a franc at that time was worth four cents so it meant playing for a quarter of a cent a point. Well, when we played three things happened. I don't think I ever held worse cards in my life. Every trey and deuce in the deck seemed to turn up in my hand. Secondly, I was playing for the first time with French cards and the face cards are different from ours. This was confusing and I couldn't take in my hand at a glance. And third, and lastly, I had just had enough wine so I couldn't quite remember what cards had been played. The result of these three things was disastrous.

FUCHS: I understand that you don't drink. Was this--did you not drink at that time but you did partake on this occasion or...

EWING: Yes, I took some wine and when you're in France wine tastes very good. I don't care much for it over here for some reason. But when we finished playing and counted up the score I owed $7.80 , which was, after all, getting out with a pretty small loss. All the other gentlemen had gone by the time we had finished, except us

four. We left the club and were walking down Quai d'Orsay when Ratchkoviteh pulled me over to the curb and said, "Monsieur, may I give you a little tip?"

"Well," he said, "I will tell you. If a gentleman in Europe invites you to his club to play a game of chance, he has a right to name the stakes. Now, when we first sat down there and were talking about what the stakes should be, the other two gentlemen wanted to play for ten francs a point. Fortunately, our host, Baron de Bony was not in the game so I could protest and we made the stakes one tenth of a franc. Had we played for ten francs a point you'd have lost $780 instead of $7.80. Now, monsieur, you're sure that you will take no offense? Well, if in the future a gentleman in Europe invites you to his club to play a game of bridge, tell him you do not know how."

EWING: He was quite a man. I sat in with him on some other negotiations and I thought he was one of the best negotiators that I had ever seen. He would throw out a proposition and explain what the possibilities of profits were, and he would get everyone interested. Then he would proceed to point out that there were certain dangers involved which must not be lost sight of. He would tell some of the dangers of the investment and soon some of the men to whom he was talking would be arguing that these dangers were not serious. In other words, he'd get his listeners to argue his case. He was very, very clever that way.

EWING: Yes, he was a fine looking man. All of six feet, maybe a little more. And very personable.

New York. I had a letter of introduction to one of his partners. The firm at that time was Hughes, Rounds, Schurman & Dwight. An uncle of Mrs. Ewing was a great friend of Mr. Rounds, and it was this uncle who had me contact that firm. And Mr. Rounds took me in to meet Judge Hughes. It was merely a casual introduction. He was very cordial. Judge Hughes was wonderful to work with. If you were a junior helping him on a case, he took you into every detail of it, held talk over everything with you. You'd go to lunch with him. He didn't often talk business at lunch. Sometimes I would have dinner with him downtown when we had to work at night. He was really wonderful that way. Of course, if he was absorbed in one case, he didn't like to be interrupted. He had the most marvelous concentration of any man I have ever known. He was a very fast reader. Sometimes it seemed to me he'd just inhale a page. He was very thorough.

I remember the first matter that I ever helped him with, shortly after I had begun work in the office. The Judge had been asked for an opinion as to whether or not a New York testator might insert a provision in his will denying his executors any compensation for their

services not-withstanding a New York Statute that specified the commissions to which they were entitled. The facts were that the testator was a very rich man. His son and son-in-law were to be executors of the will and since they would be getting millions anyhow, the testator felt that they were being amply compensated for whatever services they would be called on to perform. Well, I examined every decision by any New York court that might have any bearing on the problem. One Saturday morning, the Judge called me into his office to report what I had found. I told him about the New York cases and when I finished he said, "Well, now what have you found from the other states?"

"The testator," I replied, "is a resident of New York and I didn't think cases from other states would be applicable."

Well, I had to hurry out, get in the library and see what I could find. It wasn't as hard as I feared it might be because many states didn't have the statutory

commission and in those states the compensation of executors was left to the discretion of the court. And so, I merely had to examine the decisions of courts of states that did have statutory commissions for executors. And how right the Judge was in making me do this because the best case I found in the whole United States was an opinion by what in New Jersey is called an "Ordinary." He is like a surrogate or a court that handles wills and estates and all that. The opinion of that Ordinary was by all odds the best one I'd found. He traced the history of statutory commissions from Roman times down through medieval times and right up to modern times. And Judge Hughes gave an opinion to the client largely based on that decision. And I had learned a lesson in thoroughness!

Judge Hughes was a delightful raconteur. After he had been appointed and confirmed as Chief Justice in 1930, we were having a firm dinner. We had one once a year at which the partners would discuss office matters, salary raises of staff, and all of that. Judge Hughes had been confirmed as Chief Justice but had not yet taken the oath. So we had invited him to sit in with us; he didn't often do it, but he came down that night and I never

saw him in better form. And he told one story that I've repeated many times because to me it is priceless.

He said that after his defeat for the Presidency in 1916, he came back to New York and re-entered the old firm on January 1, 1917. Shortly after that he was elected president of the Union League Club in New York. At that time the war clouds were gathering and the Germans were sinking our ships and things were looking very ominous. He said the Union League Club had a number of patriotic meetings during the spring and summer. He added that as a matter of fact the club was very belligerent, having declared war on Germany sometime before Congress did! But in August after war had been declared the club had a particularly enthusiastic meeting. The night was very hot and after the meeting had adjourned a small group went down into the grill to have some beer before going home. There was Judge Hughes, Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root, Chauncey Depew, and James Sheffield (who had been Ambassador to Mexico). This was at the time Theodore Roosevelt was anxious to go abroad and lead a division in the war against Germany. President Wilson, at the urging of General Pershing, wouldn't let him go; and you could understand it because

if Roosevelt went he would be giving orders to Pershing instead of Pershing giving orders to him, and Pershing didn't want that. But as the party sat at the table in the grill, Judge Hughes said Teddy was very emotional, he would lean over and slap the Judge on the back and say, "Charlie, you've got to make the President let me go, I've got to go." And the others would change the subject. Soon Teddy would turn around and slap Mr. Root saying, "Elihu, you've got to make the President let me go, I've got to go." Again they would get him off the subject. Finally, he became very emotional and said, "I've got to go. I know what it means to go. I know if young Teddy goes, he won't come back. If Archie goes, he won't come back. If Kermit goes, he won't come back. If Quentin goes, he won't come back. If I go, I won't come back."

Senator Root interjected, "Well, Theodore, I think if you can convince President Wilson of that, he'll let you go."

Geneva to draw up the narcotics convention in the early ' 30s. Would you mind relating that?

EWING: Well, at that time I was counsel for the American manufacturers of narcotics for medicinal purposes. They were Merck & Co., Inc., Mallinckrodt Chemical Works of St. Louis, and the New York Quinine and Chemical Co. The United States had the best system of narcotics control of any country in the world. None of the raw materials were grown on this continent, so the Government strictly limited the importation of opium and coca leaves. The principal opium derivatives were morphine and various other opium derivatives, as for example, heroin and codeine. Cocaine is the medicinal derivative of the coca leaf. Our Government had a system of control whereby they would allow the manufacturers, and they only allowed these three particular manufacturers, to import raw materials. The Government would assay that raw material at the customs house, and the chemical assay would tell almost to a fraction of a grain how much of the derivative could be produced. After the derivatives had been manufactured they could only be sold to people who were licensed to buy the product, such as wholesalers,

hospitals, doctors, etc. Before a manufacturer was permitted to buy a new supply of opium or coca leaves he had to show that his previous supplies had all been used in making derivatives that had been sold to licensed buyers. This was an excellent system of control. As a matter of fact, never in a year since the United States has had this system of control have the narcotics of American manufacture seized in the illicit traffic exceeded one half of one percent of total seizures. The small amount of American manufactured narcotics seized by the police was almost invariably stolen from a doctor's office or a drugstore.

During the first three decades of this century the illicit trade in narcotics had grown to alarming proportions. There were narcotic manufacturers in Germany, France, Italy, Britain, Holland, and Japan in addition to the three in the United States. While the American manufacturers were strictly controlled this was not true of those located in Europe and Japan. These foreign manufacturers monopolized practically all of the legitimate narcotics business. They would sell to the world's legitimate markets (except the United States) at very low prices because they needed some legitimate business as a

smokescreen for their purchase of raw materials to make narcotics that disappeared through the back door into the illicit market. They sold in the legitimate export markets at almost give-away prices knowing that losses incurred thereby would be made up many times over by their profits from the backdoor business. As a result the American manufacturers had no export business.

In 1930, the old League of Nations decided that it would try to draft a convention that would limit the manufacture of narcotics throughout the world. A group of representatives of the manufacturing countries was appointed, under the chairmanship of Sir Malcolm Deleveyne of Britain, to draft a convention which would be the basis of discussion at a conference to be held in Geneva in 1931.

The American manufacturers received an early copy of this draft. They were interested in it purely from the point of view of the possibility of their getting into the legitimate export business in narcotics at some future time.

EWING: Yes. This draft scheme of control was to have every country in the world once a year send to the Opium Control Board in Geneva an estimate of the amount of legitimate narcotics that they would need for its own medicinal requirement, minus what that country would manufacture internally. Then in Geneva they would add all these net figures together and the total constituted the so-called "world export total." This world export total was to be divided up among the manufacturing countries on a quota basis determined by each country's past export business. They had it in the draft that no country could export narcotics unless it had a quota based on its past export business. If a country didn't have a quota and wanted to go into the export business, there were two ways in which it could get a quota. It could first go to those other countries who had quotas and ask for a share of their quotas. You know how far they would get that way--zero. Failing that, the country that wanted an export quota could ask for an arbitration. Here was the catch. The draft convention provided that the decision of the arbitrator had to be based on the past export business of the applicant country. In other words, a country couldn't export unless

it had a quota and it couldn't get a quota unless it had a past export business. This meant that the American manufacturers would be barred from any export business for all time.

When the American manufacturers had studied the proposed convention, we got in touch with Government officials in Washington who handled narcotics matters. The State Department had already chosen its delegates to the Geneva conference. The chairman was a man named John C. Caldwell. He was a career man in the Consular Service and had been supervising opium importations for a number of years. The Department had originally designated Under Secretary Joseph P. Cotton to be chairman of the delegation, but he died before the delegation got organized. This necessitated the designation of a new chairman and Mr. Caldwell was selected because he was more familiar with opium matters than anyone else in the Department. In these delegations, the chairman is all powerful. There were to be four delegates, Mr. Caldwell was chairman. Then there was Harry Anslinger, who was Commissioner of Narcotics; a Doctor Treadway, an Assistant Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, and a State Senator from California named Sanborn

Young. Senator Young had been very active in anti-narcotic work in California and was a friend of President Hoover.

At their request the American manufacturers were given a hearing before our Government's delegates to the Geneva conference. We went to Washington for the hearing, and presented our views of the proposed convention. We advised the delegation of our objections to the quota system of control and urged that all countries should be required to adopt the same system of control that was used in the United States.

We found that Mr. Caldwell was quite unsympathetic to our argument but that the other three delegates seemed to agree with us. Later we discovered the reason for Mr. Caldwell's lack of sympathy. He had been going to the annual meetings of the Opium Control Board in Geneva each year and while on his way, he would stop off in England and be entertained very elaborately by Sir Malcolm Deleveyne, who was the British member on the control board. Apparently there was some kind of a hero worship that Mr. Caldwell had developed for Sir Malcolm and Caldwell was for anything that Sir Malcolm was for.

At the conclusion of the conference of the American manufacturers with the American delegation in Washington, Mr. Anslinger and Dr. Treadway called me aside and said, "We're very interested in the method of control you proposed and wish you'd go with us to the conference in Geneva. In the meantime we suggest you draft a convention along the lines that you propose so that we can have something to work with." Mr. Anslinger also added, "Be sure and bring your own secretary because public stenographers in Geneva are the greatest source of intelligence between governments in Geneva." So, I arranged to go and did take my secretary, and on the boat trip over made a draft of a convention to control the traffic along the line of the American system.

We got to the convention, as I recall, early in May, 1931. The formalities took several days. The chairman of each delegation had to make a speech. Then they got down to business. There was a great deal of wrangling over the whole scheme that the committee had drawn up, this quota system. After three or four weeks the conference seemed to be getting nowhere. One day I was walking from the conference back to my hotel for lunch, and I overtook a man who was with the Japanese

delegation and whom I had seen often in New York at the Savarin Lunch counter. This was in the basement of the Equitable building at 120 Broadway, where I often ate lunch. I didn't know the man, but I picked up with him and we passed the time of day, etc. I asked him how he felt the conference was going and he answered, "We think it's terrible." He added, "We are very unhappy with the whole affair. We have no export narcotics business and this draft, if it's adopted, would shut us out of narcotic business forever. We're very frustrated and don't know what to do about it.

FUCHS: When you saw him in New York did you know that he was connected with drug or narcotic business?

EWING: No, I had no idea. I think the Japanese consulate was in the Equitable building at that time.

EWING: Yes, and he would come down to get lunch every few days and I would see him.

in the same position as your Japanese manufacturers. This scheme of control in the draft will eliminate the Americans from all future export trade in narcotics."

EWING: Yes. I proceeded to explain to him how we control the narcotics trade in America. "Oh," he said, "That's wonderful. Would you mind coming over to the Japanese embassy this afternoon and explain it to Baron Sato who is our chief delegate?"

I answered that I could not do that because under American law, it is a crime for a private citizen to talk to representatives of other governments on a matter that's already in our government's hands. But I added, "I'll send over some of our delegates, and they can talk to you."

I don't know who all went, I think all three of our delegates, as I recall, other than Mr. Caldwell, went over. Anyhow, the Japanese thought it was a wonderful idea and they asked for our draft. Our delegates explained to Baron Sato that the chairman of the American delegation was opposed to this plan and

they were consequently unable to get it before the conference for discussion. Baron Sato immediately said he would introduce it. So from the next day on as each paragraph would be taken up Baron Sato would offer as an amendment these various paragraphs that I had drafted, and finally the whole conference adopted that scheme and that today is the convention to limit the manufacture of narcotics. Now in that process, the conference improved greatly what I had drafted, because I had not been able in the time I had to draft it to think through everything. But the convention as finally adopted is the scheme of control that the whole narcotic trade of the world is operating under today.

FUCHS: This is to say that Caldwell would not accept what you were submitting to him so it was entered through the Japanese. Did he immediately recognize it as your work?

EWING: I don't know whether he did or not. Before the Japanese began helping, when Mr. Anslinger or one of the other delegates would hand him a paragraph that I had drafted, he wouldn't even read it. He'd say, "Did Ewing prepare this?"

FUCHS: I was wondering how the impetus towards narcotics control began in the period prior to this.

EWING: Well, there was a Dr. Hamilton Wright, who was a medical missionary in China, I think in the 1890s and certainly in the first decade of this century. He saw the devastation that narcotics worked among the Chinese and he really started the world crusade against the abuse of narcotics. Narcotics, used properly, are a gift of heaven, to relieve suffering in terminal cases and things like that; but they are also subject to terrific abuse. Dr. Wright saw what the evils of addiction were and he really started the crusade against narcotics back in--I forget the year but it was during President Taft's term. Dr. Wright persuaded the President to call the first International Opium Conference at The Hague in 1911 to do something about this illicit traffic. Dr. Wright died in 1917 and after his death his widow, Mrs. Hamilton Wright, continued his work. She was a most persuasive and valiant fighter for the cause.

1932 , there was to be a conference in Bangkok to draft a convention to limit the manufacture of smoking opium. The American manufacturers, however, weren't interested in that conference. Of course, smuggled smoking opium would be found occasionally on the West Coast, largely I think among the Chinese there. But it was not a great problem in the rest of the country and the American manufacturers had nothing to do with it.

One weekend Mrs. Ewing and I were invited to be the guests of some friends of ours in Greenwich, Connecticut. Saturday afternoon our host and I were playing golf at one of its country clubs when suddenly a bellboy came running across the golf course with an urgent message for me. I went into the clubhouse to the phone, and it was Mrs. Wright. She was all excited and said: "Mr. Ewing, you've got to come in to town right away, I've got to talk to you; it's very, very serious and I need your help desperately." As she was a very good friend I told her that I would drop everything and return to town, which I did. I met her in the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel. She said, "Oh, the most terrible thing has happened! The conference to limit the manufacture of smoking opium is to open in Bangkok in a

couple or three weeks and the State Department has gone and appointed this horrible man, John C. Caldwell, as chairman of the delegation and he won't do anything. The whole thing will be a futile gesture because Portugal and the British have such a large source of revenue from smoking opium they will never consent to real control and Caldwell will just play their game. You've got to stop this Caldwell man from representing the United States at that conference."

So I said I would. I thought over what I might do. At that time Henry L. Stimson was Secretary of State and one of his law partners, Allen Klots, was Special Assistant to the Secretary of State. Allen had been a classmate of mine at Harvard Law School. We both had been editors of Harvard Law Review and I knew him very well. So, I telephoned Allen and said I'd like to see him as soon as possible about a rather urgent matter. I gave him a little hint over the telephone of what I wanted to talk about, and he said, "Well, come down tonight on the train and have breakfast with me Sunday morning.

" He said, "I'll get Harvey Bundy over to join us." Harvey Bundy was an Assistant Secretary of State at that time, and he was a class behind Allen and me in the Harvard Law School and on the Law Review with us. By the way, Harvey Bundy was the father of McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy.

EWING: Oh, yes. We were on the Law Review together. I knew him very well. So the three of us had breakfast together Sunday morning at Allen's house. This gave me a chance to explain the whole situation. When I had finished Allen Klots said, "Well, I'll see what I can do." He added, "It so happens that I'm having breakfast with Secretary Stimson tomorrow morning and I'll take this matter up with him at that time. If you can wait over, I will try to telephone you at your hotel at least before eleven o'clock and let you know the answer.

So he called me about eleven o'clock the next morning and said that he had talked with Secretary Stimson but the Secretary thought that it was so late that it would look very bad for him to pull Mr. Caldwell practically off of the gangplank when he was to sail

So, that was that, and there wasn't anything more I could do. Caldwell took off as scheduled and of course he went by way of England. First he went to London and then he and the British delegates went on to Marseilles where they got a boat that went around through the Suez Canal and on to Bangkok. Well, I'd say about ten days after that, Harry Anslinger, who was Commissioner of Narcotics, got a telephone call from William Castle, who was Under Secretary of State, asking Mr. Anslinger to come over to the State Department, that they had something very important to discuss with him. Mr. Anslinger went over and Mr. Castle showed him a telegram that President Hoover had received from a Mark Requa. Mark Requa was the Republican National Committeeman from California and had played an important part in helping Mr. Hoover get the Republican nomination for President in 1928. It seems State Senator Sanborn Young, who had been one of the American delegates to the Geneva conference the year before, knew that the Hearst papers were bitter enemies of the illicit narcotic trade. Young had gone to the Hearst people and told about the appointment of Caldwell to head our delegation to the

Bangkok conference, and of his seeming subservience to the British. As a result the Hearst San Francisco papers, and their papers all over the country had blasted the President for appointing such a man as chairman of the American delegation. Requa's letter had related all of this to the President, adding that such an appointment would damage him politically very much. Mr. Castle said to Mr. Anslinger, "Why didn't we know about this? Nobody told us about it?"

Mr. Anslinger said, "Mr. Ewing came down here and explained all this very fully to Mr. Klots and Mr. Bundy, and Mr. Klots took it up with the Secretary and the Secretary decided that he could do nothing about it just two days before Caldwell was to sail."

Mr. Anslinger then remarked, "Well, you know you can tell Mr. Caldwell what he's to say."

"That's a good idea," Castle said, "Will you draft the kind of statement you think he should make? If you'll

So. Mr. Anslinger telephoned me after he'd returned to his office and asked me to come down and help him prepare the statement. By the time I got down there I think a draft was about completed and it had been well done. By the time Mr. Caldwell's boat reached Bangkok, his speech was already prepared for him and quite different from what he would have liked to have made.

FUCHS: Very interesting. This brings us down to approximately 1932 when Franklin Roosevelt ran for President. Did you know Mr. Roosevelt then?

EWING: I think I had met him at a dinner before he was nominated but it was nothing but an introduction. That was when he was a candidate for the nomination. I'm sure I didn't have any contacts with President Roosevelt until the 1940 campaign.

EWING: Yes. I did not become active in politics until 1939 and 1940. Paul McNutt had been elected Governor of Indiana in 1932 and as I have explained, Paul was a great friend of mine and I had gone out to Indianapolis for his inauguration on January 1, 1933. Then I followed his administration out there simply as a friend, no more than that. Paul's term as governor expired January 1, 1937, because in Indiana a governor can't succeed himself. A lot of Paul's friends, including myself, thought that he would make a great candidate for President in 1940 at the end of President Roosevelt's second term. Several of us actively promoted the idea and there was more or less publicity regarding the McNutt candidacy. Paul had been National Commander of the American Legion before he was elected Governor of Indiana. This had given him nationwide publicity and his Legion friends were enthusiastic in his behalf. Finally, I'd say along in '39 some of us got together and...

EWING: Yes. Well, the principal ones were Frank McHale in Indianapolis, and Wendell Willkie, who was a Democrat at that time, Clarence Jackson, Wayne Coy, Fowler

Harper, there were a lot of others--Bowman Elder. We decided that there should be an organized effort on Paul‘s behalf. Frank McHale headed up the activities in Indiana and very ably, and then I became eastern manager. This was in 1939 I'd say, about the middle of 1939.

EWING: What would happen was that I would go out to Indiana from time to time and meet with McNutt and McHale, maybe some of the others out there, Bowman Elder, Judge Fansler--Paul had quite a group of boosters out there. I don't recall all their names. And then down in New York, McHale or McNutt or some of the others might come down and we'd all get together there.

EWING: Oh, no. No, no he was intrigued by the idea. As a matter of fact, he was a very forceful politician. Along in the summer of '39 we felt we had to raise a little money. So, I got a group together in New York one time when Paul was to be in New York, and gave a dinner for them at the University Club. I suppose that there were eight or ten people there who were all good friends of

Paul and whom I thought might be able to make contributions. Willkie was one of them. We had a very nice evening and broke up about half past nine. I had agreed to give a thousand dollars, Willkie had agreed to give a thousand dollars and one or two of the others had also offered donations. After dinner Willkie and I walked away together from the Club up Fifth Avenue, in the course of which Willkie said to me: "You know, Jack, you and I will never be as close to anyone who really has a chance at that job as we are to Paul McNutt."

Well, the very next day, Ray Clapper's column came out saying that the utility people were going to try to push McNutt for the Democratic nomination for President and that Willkie was helping bring that about. So, Wen telephoned me and he said, "You know, Jack, I think if I'm active in helping Paul it's going to hurt him more than help him. Now, I'd better not make that contribution, I'd better pull out of any active participation." I couldn't argue with him, it was for him to make his own decision. He did pull out and by the next spring he had taken over the Republican Party.

EWING: Well, I think the Republicans had suffered such a stunning defeat in 1936 with Governor Landon as a candidate that they wanted to pick a winner for 1940.

EWING: Both Senator Taft and Tom Dewey were sparring for the nomination but both lacked the charisma that Willkie possessed. He was very attractive personally, and had a bluff honesty that was appealing to people. Willkie was a very able man, and a man of great ability. His nomination was an extraordinary triumph by a group of suddenly organized amateur zealots over the steam-rolling political bosses of the Republican Party.

FUCHS: Just when did he make the switch from the Democratic to the Republican Party?

EWING: I don't think he made the switch until a real interest in his candidacy had developed. I'd say somewhere around January of 1940. Just when it was, however, I don't know.

EWING: No, I don't think I had any further communication with Willkie until after he was nominated. Then I got a telegram from him asking me to come out for him. I've got that correspondence I think someplace.

EWING: Yes. I answered Willkie's telegram saying that I was very fond of him personally but that he had chosen Senator McNary of Oregon as his candidate for Vice President and Joe Martin of Massachusetts for chairman of the Republican National Committee. They both held very strong isolationist views and I simply could not vote the Republican ticket. Then afterwards, I became assistant chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

FUCHS: Now, I would like to continue with the candidacy of McNutt unless you want to bring this out someplace else.

really built a pretty good organization. We kept boosting McNutt for President on the assumption that President Roosevelt would not run for a third term. When it finally became clear that he was going to run, we tried to get McNutt the nomination for Vice President. But there we ran into a stone wall because President Roosevelt just did not want to have Paul with him on the ticket. He wanted Henry Wallace.

EWING: There were some tax matters of which I do not know the details. Anyhow it was enough to convince President Roosevelt that it wouldn't be wise to have Paul on the ticket.

EWING: That was in 1939. I think there was never anything personal about it. I think it was just a matter of judgment. He thought they could bring something up

EWING: After McNutt's term for governor had ended, Roosevelt sent him to the Philippines as High Commissioner. He returned from there about the middle of 1939. President Roosevelt at that time was setting up the Federal Security Agency by executive order, and he offered Paul the job of Administrator. Those of us who were Paul's friends all thought that it would be wise for his own political future if he were to accept the job. I remember Paul, Wayne Coy and I drove over to Maryland one summer day in 1939 to discuss Paul's situation with Harry Hopkins. Harry Advised him to accept the appointment as Administrator. He thought it would be good politically for Paul. Mind you in all this time Roosevelt had not said he would run for a third term. So it was an uncertain situation in which we were operating.

EWING: I had no objection to it. I think the American people have a right to choose whoever they want for President, and I believe the Constitutional amendment

prohibiting a third term was very unfortunate; and it came back to haunt the Republicans because they would have liked to have nominated Eisenhower for a third term. They really got hoisted on their own petard.

EWING: No, he never did to me. He possibly felt it. But he was a very good sport about it. You see after the Philippine independence, President Truman appointed him as the first ambassador to the Philippines, and Paul, of course, having been High Commissioner before the war, knew the Philippine situation very thoroughly.

FUCHS: You might have seen that year then in 1940, two Indiana University classmates and fraternity brothers running for President against each other.

FUCHS: Very interesting. How did you come to be appointed as assistant chairman of the Democratic National Committee?

EWING: Well, if you'll recall, Jim Farley resigned as National Chairman in 1940 because he was so opposed to the third term, and Ed Flynn was made National Chairman. Some of Mr. Roosevelt's friends in New York, particularly Judge Ferdinand Pecora, whom I knew very well, knew of my activities in the McNutt organization. Judge Pecora felt that Mr. Flynn, while he had a very wide acquaintance and great political strength in New York State, he did not know the rest of the country very well. Judge Pecora believed it would be wise to get someone in the National Committee to help Mr. Flynn who knew other parts of the country. So Judge Pecora made a trip to Washington and spoke to Mr. Roosevelt about it, the President spoke to Mr. Flynn who sent for me and asked me to become Assistant Chairman.

EWING: I may have shaken hands with him but it was nothing more than that up to that time. It was only after this

FUCHS: What was the source of Judge Pecora's power? What was his political base there?

EWING: Well, he had been a judge of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. He had a very attractive personality, and was very able. Also he was a man of great integrity and active in many good movements. He had been counsel for the House Banking Committee. It was he who was examining J. P. Morgan when the little dwarf jumped into Mr. Morgan's lap when he was testifying. You remember that?

EWING: Oh, very good. Ed was a man of great ability. He made up his mind quite quickly and generally had good judgment.

EWING: It wasn't any very definite assignment. Actually, I more or less took care of the overflow of things that he didn't have time to handle. Then they would be referred to me. Also I think I helped in other ways. He'd come in and talk about a problem and it was an outlet for him to have someone with whom he could talk things out.

EWING: No. Not that year. My activities were practically all in the headquarters at the Biltmore Hotel in New York.

EWING: Yes, the headquarters were in New York. They are almost always there in campaign years. Ever since I can remember the National Headquarters have been in the Biltmore Hotel in New York during a presidential election year.

FUCHS: Whom do you recall working with on the committee, if anyone? In '40 to '42 say.

EWING: Charlie Michelson was in charge of publicity and he was really a terrific publicity man. He knew how to put the dagger in and turn it, and he had an unerring aim for the jugular. A gnome-like figure, but smart as a whip and a very loveable personality when you knew him. I remember saying to him one time that he should write his memoirs, that he'd met so many interesting people and I couldn't imagine anyone who could write a more interesting autobiography. "Oh," he said, "I wouldn't think of it. If I told the truth, I'd lose half of my friends, and if I didn't tell the truth it wouldn't be worth writing."

"But," I said, "Charlie, why don't you write the book and not allow it to be published, say, until twenty years after your death or something like that?

Quick as a flash he answered, "Charlie Michelson owes it to posterity? What the hell's posterity ever done for Charlie Michelson?"

EWING: He had been, I think, one of the principal editors, correspondents and writers for the Hearst papers.

EWING: No, no, I don't think so. But it was in 1941 that the Aluminum Company of America asked me to do some legal work in Washington.

EWING: The air Battle of Britain in 1940 had vastly increased the need for aluminum. Existing capacities were being taxed to the utmost and Alcoa had, therefore, considerably enlarged its own facilities. In February 1941 aluminum was placed on the list of priorities and this meant that Government licenses had to be obtained for aluminum building materials and equipment. Alcoa

decided to further increase its own production facilities by, if my memory is correct, about 200,000,000 pounds per year. It intended to finance this expansion out of its own resources and without cost to the Government. When, however, the company applied for the necessary licenses for building material and equipment they were not issued. Secretary Ickes and Attorney General Biddle were accusing Alcoa of having a United States monopoly in the manufacture of aluminum and they therefore opposed any Government action that would increase Alcoa's production capacity. Despite the desperate need for aluminum by British and American aircraft manufacturers, Messrs. Ickes and Biddle considered it more important to destroy the Aluminum Company than to defeat Hitler. Naturally, all of this greatly disturbed the officials of the company and they asked me to go to Washington and try to get the roadblock removed.

The reason I was asked to do this job was because my law firm in New York, Hughes, Hubbard & Ewing and its predecessor firms had been New York counsel for Alcoa since sometime in the first decade of this century. I understood the relation started before Judge Hughes first became Governor of New York. Ordinarily, Alcoa's

Pittsburgh attorneys would have been asked to do this work but they were very short of manpower at that time and hence my firm's employment.

When I got to Washington I joined Mr. Arthur V. Davis, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alcoa, and Mr. I. W. Wilson, then Senior Vice President and later President of the company. We worked there together until the end of the war. Each of these men was extremely able and each was a delightful companion. Each was also, what I would call, a business statesman. In their negotiating they naturally were vigilant in protecting Alcoa's interests, but time and again I saw them sacrifice Alcoa's interest when something else was better for the country.

My first task was to acquaint myself with all the facts and background of the controversy--Alcoa's desire to help satisfy the desperate need for more aluminum by expanding its production facilities at its own expense; its failure to obtain the necessary licenses for expansion; the fact that the officials in charge had no other plan to increase aluminum supplies. With these facts I prepared a memorandum addressed to Harry Hopkins, whom I knew well, but really for the President.

I took this memorandum to Mr. Hopkins who was then living in the White House. When he had read it he saw the point immediately and said, "I'll see what I can do about this." Our talk was on Thursday. Friday we got word that the President had ordered the people who were in charge of increasing aluminum supplies to have a report on the President's desk by Monday morning. Apparently the report was there, because we were advised that the Government had decided to build the needed aluminum plants itself and lease them to the various companies that had the ability to operate them.

With the overall program settled, there were then negotiations regarding the building of the plants for the Government. As a matter of fact Alcoa was the only organization in the United States with the know-how to build the plants. The Aluminum Company therefore offered to build the new plants without any profit to itself, free of charge insofar as its services were concerned. The Aluminum Company asked for no option to buy any of the plants or anything else. After the war was over, the new plants were to be completely at the disposal of the Government. This offer was accepted by the Government. Then we found that we had to have

a separate site and each had its individual problems. As a result I spent the rest of the war down in Washington as counsel for the Aluminum Company on these contracts. But I was not busy all the time. I would have a rush job that might take a week or two weeks or maybe a month, then I might be free to do other things during intervals. In this way I was able to continue on as Assistant Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and do things there when I was not busy with my professional work for the Aluminum Company.

EWING: Well, I think I met him first through Paul McNutt and Wayne Coy. He was a very good friend of both Paul and Wayne. Then I was spending most of my time in Washington and I saw Harry fairly frequently.

EWING: Wayne was a special assistant to the President working in the White House.

FUCHS: Well, then in '42 I believe you resigned your position with the Democratic National Committee?

FUCHS: Well, first I wanted to ask you. Did you come in touch with the Truman Committee in connection with the aluminum investigation?

EWING: Yes, yes the Committee examined us and we got along all right with them. I think on the whole, the Committee did a lot of good.

EWING: Oh, yes, and I testified, because the Committee wanted to know about these contracts for building the Government plant and all the details of them. I had virtually lived in Washington from the time I went down there in 1941 until the end of the war in 1945. Mrs. Ewing didn't move down but she'd come down from time to time. I had an apartment at the Carlton Hotel and so did Mr. Davis and Mr. Wilson.

EWING: The first time I met Mr. Truman was in the campaign of 1940. He came into the Biltmore Hotel where the Democratic National Committee headquarters were and asked

to see Mr. Flynn, who was chairman. Mr. Flynn was on the West Coast. Then he asked to see me and he came into my office and was mad as hops. He said he had a grievance against the Democratic National Committee and I asked him what it was. He said that he was a candidate for renomination as Senator from Missouri and Governor Lloyd Stark, who was the Democratic Governor of Missouri, was a candidate against him; that the Democratic National Committee had booked Stark for some speeches around the country and that he was spending more time damning Truman than he was supporting the Democratic ticket. Senator Truman said he wanted those speaking engagements cancelled. I said, "Well, if he's doing that, Senator, we'll certainly cancel them." So I went into the Speakers Bureau and found out where we had booked Governor Stark for speeches. Apparently the Bureau had arranged for the Governor to speak in a number of places over the country and also at a number of spots in Missouri. So I went back out to Senator Truman and said, "Senator, the Speakers Bureau has not only booked Governor Stark for some speeches outside of Missouri, but it has also booked him for some speeches inside of Missouri. Do you want those cancelled?"

"Oh," he said, "hell, I don't want them cancelled. Everybody in Missouri knows that Lloyd Stark is the biggest liar in the state. I want him to keep on talking there because the more he talks there the more it's going to help me."

Perhaps I should now jump to 1942. Early in that year I was asked by Attorney General Biddle to undertake the prosecution of William Dudley Pelley in Indianapolis for sedition. Pelley had originally come into prominence in Asheville, North Carolina, where he published several books and magazines. He was a very good writer. But he was a man who had an absolute phobia about Jews and he had established an organization known as the Silver Shirts. It was a fascist setup copied after the Brown Shirts of Hitler. Pelley had great emotional and intellectual admiration for Hitler and the whole Nazi apparatus. Pelley had been in trouble in North Carolina. I think it involved some Blue Sky Law violations. He had been tried, convicted and his case was being appealed when he moved to Noblesville, Indiana, where he began publishing a magazine. The magazine was very anti-government, rabidly anti-Roosevelt, pro-fascist and really very revolting to those of us who felt much less sympathetic to what

Hitler was doing. Pelley finally crossed the line with some of the things he wrote. He was printing just plain Nazi and fascist propaganda, picking it up from German and Italian publications or broadcasts and copying their content word for word. So the Department of Justice decided to prosecute Pelley for sedition. This was in the early part of 1942.

EWING: Sometime early in 1942 since the case was tried in the summer of 1942. Attorney General Biddle asked me to go out to Indianapolis and take charge of the prosecution. The Department had a United States Attorney with whom they were having some differences. He was really a very good lawyer and when he felt he was right, he stood by his guns. The Department had wanted to prosecute an Indianapolis citizen for some act, I forget what, and the District Attorney felt that prosecution was not justified and he refused to act. This was embarrassing to the Department, and they didn't want to run into anything like that in connection with Pelley's case. It was for this reason that they decided to send in a special assistant to try the case, and because of my

Indiana background, I was asked to do it. I presented the case to the Grand Jury, obtained the indictment and then tried the case. It was a very interesting experience. We convicted Pelley of sedition and he was sentenced to jail for from five to fifteen years. The judge felt that the war would be over in five years, that Pelley couldn't get out of jail before then and that he should not be in jail unless a war was going on where he could do the country some harm. Well, when that case was finished I was again appointed an officer of the Democratic National Committee, this time as Vice-Chairman.

FUCHS: Were there any interesting aspects to that case? What did you base your case on?

EWING: Yes, there were some very interesting aspects. I got immersed in the whole law of propaganda. I found that the Nazi and the fascist propaganda was divided up into fourteen definite categories. One category was anti-semitism, another was anti-war, another was spot news. I forget what the eleven others were. But one could take any piece of their propaganda and he would find that it fitted very neatly into one of those

fourteen categories. Pelley's publications, in many instances, were following the Nazi or fascist lines in what he was printing. Before I ever got into this case, the Department of Justice had obtained a warrant to search Pelley's plant in Noblesville and they had collected a lot of material which was taken to the courthouse in Indianapolis, where it was examined by agents of the F.B.I. But the week before we went to trial I got to thinking about all those seized papers and decided that they should also be looked over by a lawyer. All this material had been stored in the attic of the courthouse and with all the August heat I hated to ask any of my assistants to make the examination. But I had to do it. The young man to whom I assigned the job could not have been more cooperative. When I asked him if he minded doing it he answered "Not a bit." On the second afternoon of his work in the attic he came rushing down almost shouting. "I've got it." He had found a typewritten copy of a broadcast that had been made from Rome, Italy and which Pelley had copied word for word in the next issue of his magazine. This was conclusive evidence that he was deliberately and consciously following the enemy

When we tried the case the defense called Charles Lindbergh as a witness, because he had been making speeches along the same line as Pelley's articles in his magazines. Lindbergh, as you may recall, was opposed to our getting into the war. He felt that the German Air Force was so strong that they would crush us right away. Well, the fact that Lindbergh had been subpoenaed as a witness by the defense caused a lot of national interest in the case. As it turned out, I objected to most of the defense counsel's questions and the Judge sustained my objections. Such questions were obviously irrelevant. When I refused to cross-examine, nothing that Lindbergh had said helped the defense or hurt the prosecution. Pelley was convicted and the Judge sentenced him to a term in prison of from five to fifteen years.

EWING: He had his organization of Silver Shirts and quite a lot of followers who would send in money.

the Democratic National Committee to take on this Pelley case as a Special Assistant to the Attorney General. After the trial was over Mr. Flynn, the Chairman, asked me to come back to the Committee as vice-chairman; and I did. Not too long after I got back, one day my secretary came in and said Mr. Elmer Benson of Minnesota wanted to see me. I had never met Mr. Benson but I knew who he was, of course, because he had been Governor of Minnesota and also United States Senator from that state. He came in and said, "Mr. Ewing, I've never met you but we have some mutual friends who know you, and they tell me I can trust you." He went on to tell me about the political situation in Minnesota, how the liberal vote in that state was divided between the Democratic Party and the Farmer-Labor Party with the result that the Republicans were winning all the elections. He said, "I have come to the conclusion that the Democratic and the Farmer Labor Party should combine, but this will be difficult to bring about because the chairman of the Democratic State Committee in Minnesota has no confidence in me and I have none in him. We are in a situation where we need an honest broker to try to get the two parties together and I hope that you can

"Well," I said, "Senator, I appreciate what you say and I'll let you know in a day or two."

The chairman of the National Committee at that time, I think, was Frank Walker, and he was away on an extended trip. I didn't want to take on a major job like that without his approval or the approval of President Roosevelt. So, I went over to see President Roosevelt to ask him if I should undertake this assignment and he said, "By all means do it." As a result, from early in 1942 until practically the time of the Democratic National Convention in 1944 I spent quite a bit of time in Minnesota trying to get the two parties together. I found that there was a Minnesota statute under which they could merge so there would be no need for legislation of any kind. But there were long and difficult and tedious negotiations involved. We finally got it worked out barely in time for the new Democrat-Farmer-Labor Party to send delegates to the Democratic National Convention in 1944.

Elmer Kelm, who was the Democratic state chairman, was very suspicious of anything that Senator Benson said, and Senator Benson was equally suspicious of

anything that Chairman Kelm would say. Hubert Humphrey was an assistant to Kelm. He was a young eager beaver at that time but he was of great help in bringing about the merger. When Mr. Kelm would take an intransigent position on some point, Mr. Humphrey could do more to bring him around than anyone else. That merger of the Democrat and Farmer-Labor Party was the thing that made possible Humphrey's later political career as well as the careers of Orville Freeman and all the other Democrats in Minnesota who have been elected to office since that time.

FUCHS: Were you selected for this primarily because of your legal ability or your political ability or a combination?

EWING: I really don't know, they just thought I'd be a good intermediary. It was Senator Benson, encouraged by some of his friends, who decided to ask me to do it. I know who these friends were and they were good friends of mine and I knew them very well.

EWING: No, it was people who were in Washington and back and forth. They were Minnesota people who were working in...

FUCHS: I mean, do you think you might have been selected in part because you were from Indiana which was...

EWING: No. No, no, the main chap who was involved in this, was a man that I knew in the labor movement and he was from Minnesota. I think he was still active in labor matters in Minnesota quite as much as in Washington.

EWING: His name was Freeman. I don't remember his first name. It wasn't Orville . Then there was Mrs. Vera Barnes, who was with the women's division of the National Committee and was originally from Minnesota. She was on the same team as Freeman, and both were friends of Senator Benson. I'm quite sure it was they who caused me to be asked to do this. I am sure both sides were very happy about what was accomplished.

Oral History Interview with Oscar R. Ewing

Oral History Interview with
Oscar R. Ewing