A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Henry Schricker was born in North Judson, Indiana in 1883. After high school, he took some college classes in bookkeeping and worked at his parents grocery store for several years. At some point, he decided to become a lawyer, went to work at the Starke County clerk’s office, and studied law on the side (back when you could still do such things.) By 1908, he became the owner, publisher, and editor of the Starke County Democrat. He ran unsuccessfully for the state Senate in 1924 but ran again in 1932 and won. He successfully promoted a bill to create a circuit court in Starke County, helped create a state tenure system for teachers, and helped create a pension system for firefighters. In 1936, McNutt arranged to have Schricker nominated as the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor under Clifford Townsend. An upside to this change of position was that one of his duties as lieutenant governor was to be head of the state’s agricultural department. This meant he was able to absent himself from Indianapolis when the Democratic factions were fighting amongst themselves as FDR, McNutt, and Van Nuys worked out their disagreements. Meanwhile, he was traveling the state, meeting people, and gaining their support for his future run for governor.

Election of 1940

By the election of 1940, the era of Democratic dominance was coming to an end. Hoosiers were becoming dissatisfied with the welfare initiatives of the 1930s. Unemployment remained stubbornly high. War was breaking out in Europe. The mid-terms of 1938 had given Republicans hope after a long period in the political wilderness. The election of 1940 looked to be an opportunity for the GOP.

One major item that remained mysterious until relatively late in the game was FDR’s intentions with respect to the Presidency. He was completing his second term. At the time, there was no prohibition against running for a third, but there was 150 years of tradition against doing so. Locally, Paul McNutt was very interested in the question. He was an ambitious man and felt the Presidency was a possibility. Technically, McNutt wasn’t local at the time — he was commissioner in the Philippines, but his close ally, Frank McHale of Logansport was keeping an eye on the domestic situation while McNutt was overseas. (One thing that keeps coming up in the sources that I don’t think I’ve mentioned earlier is that McNutt was apparently very handsome.  With round face, smooth skin that seemed perpetually tanned, silver hair that imparted wisdom more than age (he would be forty-eight in 1940), McNutt had striking good looks. Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes called him “one of the handsomest men I have ever seen … .”) On the other hand, he had his detractors — not least among those who also had their eye on the Presidency. His barely concealed ambition, his record of consolidating executive power in Indiana, and the naked greed of the “two percent club,” had some calling him the “Hoosier Hitler.”  Roosevelt, for his part, supported everyone and no one and made his own intentions unclear until the day of his nomination — effectively neutralizing potential opponents while not letting anti-third term sentiment gain momentum until it was too late.

As McNutt faded, the fortunes of McNutt’s former classmate, Wendell Wilkie, rose. He was born and raised a Hoosier, but his adulthood and the logic of his candidacy were outside of Indiana.

One could question whether or not Wendell L. Willkie deserved to be classified as from Indiana. His roots were there: raised in Elwood, he married a girl from Rushville; education from bottom to top came from state schools, culminating with a bachelor’s degree and then a law degree from Indiana University. Then he left: to teach briefly in Kansas, to spend several years in Ohio, and finally to serve as a corporation attorney in New York. His appearance in politics had more to do with New York and big business than with farms in Rush County or anything commonly identified with Indiana. As president of Commonwealth and Southern, a large utilities firm, Willkie was engaged during the mid-1930s in a hard struggle with the Tennessee Valley Authority, which sought to absorb part of his company’s property. While he had to sell in the end, he extracted so large a price that some people proclaimed him a winner; and in the process he established himself as a vigorous fighter, an eloquent and perceptive defender of private enterprise, and a generally gracious contestant. By arousing the interest of “movers” within the Republican party and by sparking his own thoughts about changing careers, Willkie’s quarrel with TVA became the avenue for his entry into politics.

His background as a non-politician and his trademark unkempt appearance allowed him to present himself as a man of the people despite his professional background. Wilkie was a dark horse who was able to gain traction among Republicans because of the lack of strong leaders in the party. (FDR had been so dominant, he arguably prevented the rise of strong leaders in both parties). Thomas Dewey was young and somewhat inconsistent on major issues such as whether to be an isolationist or not with respect to the troubles in Europe. Robert Taft was cold, conservative, and isolationist. Wilkie came bursting forth out of the pack with some shrewd media appearances arranged by his eastern handlers and with the freshness born of someone outside the normal political circles and with nothing really to lose. He was able to be for New Deal problems and against its bureaucratic, centralizing tendencies. He was an enthusiastic internationalist, willing to do everything but go to war with Germany. One non-trivial problem he had with rank and file Republicans was that, until maybe a year or two earlier, he’d been a Democrat. Nevertheless, the soft support for establishment candidates combined with an enthusiasm for Wilkie from the galleries led to a “revolution” in the party with Wilkie’s nomination.

Not long after, FDR was nominated in Chicago. McNutt hoped to be chosen as the Vice-Presidential nominee, but FDR had other plans. He chose secretary of agriculture Henry Wallace in a manner that was perceived as rather heavy handed. Wallace was not a popular choice in part because he had been a Republican before entering the Roosevelt administration.

Wilkie made efforts to present himself as a Hoosier rather than a New Yorker. For example, he kicked off his campaign in Elwood, Indiana. (The town apparently had some trouble accommodating the crowds.) He campaigned mostly in the northeast and midwest. The South was almost entirely ignored by both candidates. Blacks were prevented from voting and whites overwhelmingly voted for the Democrats, allowing FDR to take the votes for granted and forcing Wilkie to give up on the area as a lost cause. FDR for his part mostly didn’t campaign and mostly ignored Wilkie, relying on the publicity from the office of the Presidency and maintaining at least the pretense of being above “mere politics” — being too busy dealing with the situation in Europe. Wilkie gave a good speech and was successful in drawing energized crowds to his campaign events, but this did not translate into broad support at the ballot box. In the end, Wilkie lost by a large margin in the electoral college. The dangers of war apparently blunted the criticisms of FDR’s third term and reduced voters’ willingness to take a chance on a fresh face and a political outsider.

At approximately the same time as the flood in the southern part of the state, the city of Anderson was having trouble with labor unrest. UAW activity and strikes involving the Delco-Remy operation led to opposition and violence by employees loyal to the company and by local officials and community leaders who were willing to look the other way (if not participate) when unionists were threatened or harmed. Initially, Townsend was unable to send the National Guard since they were all occupied in flood relief. He was able to arrange for appointment of additional city deputies who were not antagonistic toward the union. Later, in February, when a new round of violence broke out, Townsend called out the National Guard to protect the factory. He also requested the creation of the Division of Labor to provide voluntary mediation during union strikes.

No real segue here, but – from 1935 to 1939, Indiana was engaged in an beer  trade war with surrounding states. The federal government gave up control of commerce in beer after the repeal of Prohibition. Indiana had adopted a system whereby persons dealing in out of state beer had to pay higher licensing fees. In retaliation, Michigan and Missouri banned Indiana beer completely. Indiana brewers unsuccessfully sued Michigan over its law. In retaliation, Indiana banned importation of Michigan beer, wine, or liquor. Indiana’s newly created Commission on Interstate Cooperation, along with a Michigan counterpart, were able to broker a peace. A temporary truce was arranged until the legislatures could pass formal legislation to sort things out. Speaking of alcohol in the 30s, Indiana also pioneered breathalyzer technology and laws.

In 1938, Dr. Rolla N Harger, a biochemist at Indiana University, introduced a novel device for measuring a person’s alcohol level. The procedure involved breathing into a balloon, the air in which was then released into a chemical solution that changed a particular color depending on the level of alcohol in the person’s system. The Indiana State Police soon adopted the device, which Harger jokingly referred to as the “Drunkometer.” The name stuck.

. . .

In 1938, Dr. Harger also assisted the National Safety Council in drafting a model act providing for the use of evidence from drunkometers and similar apparatus. The legislation also established blood-alcohol limits for motorists: (1) Defendants with a blood-alcohol level of 0.05% or less were not to be considered under the influence; (2) a blood-alcohol level between 0.05% and 0.15% established intoxication but only when taken into consideration with other evidence; and (3) defendants with a blood-alcohol level of 0.15% and above were presumed to be under the influence of alcohol.

In 1939, Indiana became the first state to adopt this model legislation.

In 1938, the Republicans started to get their groove back somewhat. Nationwide, the Democrats kept their Congressional majority but Republicans picked up 81 seats (which close to doubled their previous representation in the House — that’s how far into the wilderness they went.) New members were Robert Taft, a conservative from the Taft dynasty out of Cincinnati; Earl Warren, a Republican from California who would — as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court — come to be revered by civil rights advocates and reviled by conservatives who felt betrayed; and Thomas Dewey, a crusading prosecutor from New York who is mostly known to history as an inaccurate newspaper headline held up by Harry Truman in 1948. In Indiana, the Congressional delegation shifted from 11-1 in favor of the Democrats (Charles Halleck from Jasper County was the lonely Republican) in 1936 to 5-7 in favor of the Republicans.

At the state level, there was internal discord among the Democrats. The McNutt-Townsend faction was at odds with Senator Van Nuys, primarily over federal patronage jobs. FDR stirred the pot somewhat because Van Nuys had opposed FDR’s efforts to pack the Supreme Court. The Republicans took control of the Indiana House of Representatives and attempted to roll back some of the Depression-era social programs. The Democratically controlled Senate blocked these efforts by the House, and the General Assembly was mostly gridlocked. “Only a few pieces of legislation were passed: the driver’s license examination became required by law, pensions for the state’s firemen were approved, free textbooks were authorized for public schools and the state ordered school buses to be painted yellow for safety’s sake—this last starting a nationwide trend.”

Townsend did not involve himself in the selection of his successor and mainly seems to have left state politics after he left office. During World War II, he directed various federal agricultural and food related efforts. In 1943, he returned to Indiana to manage his farms. In 1946, he unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate. Townsend passed away in 1954 from a heart attack at the age of 70.

Clifford Townsend was born in Blackford County in 1884. After high school, he was a teamster in the oil fields during the tail end of the Indiana Gas Boom. Eventually he worked his way through school and became a teacher and superintendent. His work as an educator and with the Indiana Teacher’s Association caught the eye of Paul McNutt who chose him as his running mate. As part of the government reorganization legislation passed by McNutt and the Democrats, the responsibilities of the lieutenant governor’s position expanded. Among other things, the office became the head of the state’s agriculture department.

McNutt had an active interest in who the Democrats would nominate for the 1936 election. He wanted someone who would cement his legacy, and he wanted to demonstrate control of the state Democratic party in advance of an anticipated Presidential run in 1940. However, he had opposition. The conservative faction of the party, led by Senator Van Nuys, supported E. Kirk McKinney. Within his own faction, McNutt’s executive secretary, Pleas Greenlee was gaining support. (Sherman Minton, among others, was a supporter). He had been in charge of a lot of patronage during the McNutt administration and had made friends. McNutt did not think he was well qualified for the job but didn’t feel himself in a position to reject Greenlee outright initially, so he let the matter fester. Eventually, however, Greenlee made some indiscreet comments boasting about his power. This pushed McNutt to act, and he ultimately supported Townsend. McNutt’s clout was significant enough that he was able to push Townsend’s nomination through.

At one point during the convention, Lake County had cast its votes for a particular ballot but was considering throwing its 107 votes to McKinney. They were not allowed to do so until the current round of voting was complete. There was a delay while Marion County was considering its votes — and the potential support for McKinney was what had Lake County thinking about switching its votes. During the Marion County delay, J. Clynn Ellison (the Gary chairman of the Lake County delegation) approached the microphone. Fearing the psychological effect of any statement, supporters of Townsend stopped him. At which point, “Ellison delivered a terrific blow to the chin of Wayne Coy, state WPA director, before he was hustled out of the convention hall.” However, Townsend was eventually selected as the nominee by acclamation.

Townsend faced Raymond Springer (who had also been McNutt’s challenger) in the general election. Springer was game but he wasn’t quite up to the job. He tried to turn the election into a referendum on McNutt and criticized a jailbreak by John Dillinger, the Two Percent Club, the gross income tax, and tried to make inroads on labor by claiming that McNutt had used prison labor instead of union labor for some state functions. However, labor wasn’t that impressed, apparently, because Springer also campaigned against the new social security law. The result was a comfortable victory for Townsend: 55.4% to 44.3%.

Not long after Townsend took office, the Ohio River flood of 1937 struck. Parts of Ohio received 6 – 12 inches of rain between January 13 and January 25. January 1937 remains the wettest month ever recorded in Cincinnati. Some high power radio stations began broadcasting 24 hours per day, seven days per week, commercial free; serving as an important way of communicating messages to rescue crews. Vessels sent down the rivers to provide aid did not have enough clearance to get under bridges and, in some cases, were forced to “steam across farmland and bridge approaches, dodging telephone and power lines.” In Indiana, the river rose 19 feet above flood stage, sending water over the 6 month old riverfront plaza in Evansville. Shortly before the full impact of the flood hit, residents along the Ohio hoped it would not be as bad as the flood in 1913. It was much worse:

All news gave way to stories of the rushing waters which poured into basements, boiled from the sewers and wholly disrupted life as it is generally found in Evansville. Tell City was paralyzed. Cannelton was hard hit. Other communities along the Ohio sent out desperate pleas for aid.

. . .

On January 24 martial law was clamped down on Evansville. On that day the river stage reached 54 feet — far above the 1913 level.

Then slowly the swollen waters began to recede. Behind them they left a desolate scene of destruction. Flood damage in six Indiana counties from Leavenworth to Mount Vernon was estimated at nearly $13,000,000.

. . .

John K. Jennings [Indiana administrator of the Works Progress Administration (WPA)], who during this disaster has thrown all his efforts and the efforts of his workers towards flood relief. Now that the first phase is over, Mr. Jennings has asked that he be allowed to proceed with the biggest job he has ever done, a job that makes Hercules’ cleaning the Augean stables a piker’s job, and help make this fertile and beautiful region once more a fit place for human habitation.

The WPA, a federal program that put unemployed citizens to work with public works projects, apparently did heroic work mitigating the damage of the flood and cleaning it up. In the aftermath, the Army Corps of Engineers did extensive work along the Ohio, including the installation of numerous storage reservoirs to control flood height.

McNutt and the Democrats also were finally successful in changing the state tax structure. Readers may recall that Governors Marshall and Goodrich had unsuccessfully attempted to amend or replace the Constitution to address the tax situation.  As the economy had changed since 1851, the tax system had not kept pace. Local property taxes were overburdened, and intangible wealth was escaping taxation. In 1933, McNutt advocated and the legislature passed a state gross sales tax — in effect a combination sales and income tax. It taxed salaries, wages, and commissions as well as certain retailers such as clothing stores. “There were two rates: 0.25% applied to wholesaling, manufacturing, and agriculture; and 1% applied to other business and individual gross receipts. A basic exemption of one thousand dollars was allowed each taxpayer.” The state was then able to maintain its pre-Depression revenues while reducing the percentage of that revenue that came from property taxes. The state balanced its budget and provided additional money to schools.

Another area that McNutt tackled was organization of the state bureaucracy. “More than 100 state departments and agencies existed in a haphazard patchwork of uncertain authority and imprecise control.” He overhauled the system, putting the agencies into eight departments with more clearly defined responsibilities and more centralized control. Indiana had a grand tradition of patronage. (Repeating my high school teacher’s adage that today’s reform is tomorrow’s corruption – in the days of Andrew Jackson, patronage was seen as a reform. It got the government out of the hands of the blue blood elitists and into the hands of the common man.) McNutt’s reform of the state bureaucracy allowed him to expand his patronage power. State employees became beholden, to one extent or another, to the governor. There were suddenly a lot more loyal McNutt Democrats in state government. They were “encouraged” to show their support by joining the Hoosier Democratic Club — commonly known as the “Two Percent Club,” because that percent of their pay was assessed as the price of membership. Theoretically membership was voluntary, but it was generally assumed that a state job was not secure if one did not belong. Republicans vehemently denounced the Two Percent Club but somehow changed their mind about its merits when they returned to power in the 1940s.

I watch bad TV, and politics often reminds me of “Survivor.” Alliances tend to be fairly strong when the opposition is fairly well balanced. They break apart when the opposition is weak. I can’t say that the Democrats fell apart, but there was a fair amount of infighting and resentment between the new, younger McNutt Democrats and the old guard who had been in the wilderness for quite some time. Senator Frederick VanNuys would come to be a prominent leader of the old guard Democrats in opposition to McNutt. They resented the high handed manner of the young democrats. And, there is no doubt that the demographics of the Democratic party was changing during this period. Blacks, ethnic voters, industrial workers, and urban dwellers were important parts of this new Democratic majority. However, the major fractures would come later. During McNutt’s term as governor, he was able to hold sway over the whole party. The time in the wilderness and new found power was enough to paper over factional differences.  

Even though he was constitutionally limited to one term, McNutt’s tenure in office was one of the most influential. McNutt sought the Presidency in 1936 and was a front runner for a period of time until Roosevelt announced his intention to seek a second term. Roosevelt beat him easily. McNutt also angled for the Vice-Presidency, but Roosevelt remembered McNutt’s maneuvering during the 1932 convention. Instead, Roosevelt made McNutt High Commissioner of the Philippines. The position was mostly ceremonial, but McNutt managed to cause controversy by being fussy over protocol and proposing the construction of a summer palace. He did manage to raise the number of Jewish refugees who were allowed admittance from fascist countries — even though they weren’t allowed into the U.S. itself in large numbers. In 1939, he became head of the Federal Security Agency, an umbrella agency for several New Deal programs. Once again, he was thought of as a Presidential contender in 1940, but Roosevelt ran for a 3rd term.

During the war, “McNutt publicly urged ‘the extermination of the Japanese in toto’. When asked for clarification, McNutt indicated that he was referring to the Japanese people as a whole—not just the Japanese military—“for I know the Japanese people.’” McNutt would serve a second term as commissioner of the Philippines and then ambassador when it became an independent nation. He died at the age of 63 when after a surgery, he went to the Philippines to recover. His condition worsened there, and he came back to New York to seek better care, but to no avail. He passed away in 1955.

The national commander’s position made McNutt a national figure. He “continued to extol the virtues of America, the nobility of military service, and the need to fight pacifists and to fund a strong national defense.” This put him at odds with President Hoover — particularly with regard to the particulars surrounding Hoover’s decisions to reduce naval construction. “Hoover, a small-government Republican and a Quaker, believed that more arms would lead neither to security nor peace but to “burdensome expenditure” at home and “suspicion, ill will and misunderstanding” abroad.”

McNutt also sought federal action with respect to caring for veterans and their widows and dependents, urging Congress to build more veteran’s hospitals and to be more expansive in treatment of veterans. This support for expanded military expenditures  and federal care for veterans was a precursor to McNutt’s support of FDR and the welfare state.

McNutt’s experience in the Legion was critical to his success when he decided to run for the governor’s office in 1932. The GOP had held the governor’s office since 1917 and during that time seen its share of scandals. Its response to the Depression was seen as anemic, and the party was ready for a fall. McNutt’s organizational acumen, honed through the Legion, served him well. He won the Democratic nomination and went on to route his opponent, Raymond Springer, by over 10% of the vote. The national landslide in favor of FDR was felt in Indiana. Democrats captured 91 out of 100 state house seats and 43 of the 50 Senate seats. They also captured all 12 of Indiana’s Congressional seats. One of those Congressional seats was won by Virginia Jenckes, Indiana’s first female member of Congress.  McNutt was an organized politician with a huge majority to work with. Indiana government was going to see some changes.  

On his way to the governor’s mansion, McNutt made a political move that would not serve him well. Having secured the state nomination for governor, McNutt was already eyeing the White House. Franklin D. Roosevelt was leading the delegate count at the convention but he had not yet reached the two-thirds necessary to get him over the top. Hoping to perhaps replicate some of his success in his battles for Legion positions, McNutt held the Indiana delegates back. Perhaps FDR’s delegate count would peak and stall, and then perhaps McNutt could emerge as a compromise candidate.

Unfortunately for the McNutt forces, the Democratic National Convention was a larger and more complex affair-bringing together wily, veteran politicos-than a Legion gathering of young, politically minded veterans. On the fourth ballot, the Texas and California delegations switched their support to Roosevelt, nullifying Indiana’s resistance and handing FDR the presidential nomination. After the convention, James A. Farley, Roosevelt’s convention manager and chair of the party’s national committee during FDR’s first two terms in the White House, never forgot the disloyalty of McNutt, whom he assailed as “the ‘platinum blond’ S. O. B. from Indiana.”

When he took office in 1933, McNutt hit the ground running.  Historian James Madison says, “no governor since Oliver P. Morton held such power or so forcefully directed state government and his party.” McNutt believed that government could be a great instrument of human progress. First on the agenda was relief for the unemployed. The local organizations and government were not up to the task. McNutt extended and centralized the existing relief efforts and worked in conjunction with FDR’s federal government to provide more. This led to the Indiana Department of Public Welfare and the creation of a state old age pension. Another initiative of the McNutt administration was the Office of the Consumer Advocate — initially led by future Supreme Court Justice Sherman Minton.

Republicans thought McNutt’s efforts were a precursor to communism and that it encouraged sloth at the expense of hard working taxpayers. Township trustees likely also resisted the diminishment of their power. Home rule and state’s rights were infringed upon in favor of a powerful state government working hand-in-hand with the federal government.

Another successful initiative by the McNutt administration was the creation of an Indiana State Police force. Paul Musgrave has a fascinating article entitled “A Primitive Method of Enforcing the Law: Vigilantism as a Response to Bank Crimes in Indiana, 1925-1933.” In the 20s and 30s, bank robberies were an increasing problem. Law enforcement was still designed for the era of travel on horseback. The automobile and good roads had given robbers considerably more mobility. Media often painted robbers as celebrities. John Dillinger committed his bank robberies in 1933 and 1934.

From his first banked robbed in June 1933, it took John Dillinger just under a year to reach public enemy number one. Dillinger was a notorious criminal active from 1933-1934. In that time, Dillinger robbed over a dozen banks, police stations, and escaped from police custody at least three times. The charismatic robber would capture the hearts of the everyday man and woman with his exploits and his criminal nature.

Joe Uhl (linked above) states that the media coverage was more or less straightforward, covering him as a dangerous criminal. But, due to the bad reputation banks had, ordinary citizens viewed them as Robin Hoods. If bank failures were erasing life savings anyway, what were a few bank robberies more or less? “The daring daytime robberies and skillful getaways were glamorous and exciting, especially if the robbers were handsome, polite and photogenic.”

So, bankers were not sympathetic victims. The increase in robberies was driving up insurance costs significantly. So, for a time, bankers took matters into their own hands with extralegal vigilante organizations. However, they also advocated for an Indiana State Police force that could help them deal with the problem more effectively. During the twenties they did not make much headway. Governor Leslie helped with some study of the subject. But, it was McNutt with his near total control of the General Assembly who successfully had the organization created. The bankers abandoned their vigilante organizations and lobbied for funding of a state police radio network. A state police organization with a state radio network resulted in a significant decrease in successful robberies. “[T]he Hoosier Banker announced a twenty-percent decrease in bank insurance rates.” Musgrave notes the shift at approximately this time of public opinion of vigilante organizations.

Within a few years, Indiana’s political culture shifted from sanctioning the private apprehension and even the informal execution of criminals (albeit under minimal government supervision) to using a public and bureaucratic approach to fight crime. The change reflected a broader evolution of popular political beliefs. The nineteenth-century idea of a privileged democratic and legal status for vigilantes, who often operated without the oversight of local or state government, had given way to the assumption that vigilantes needed the approval of the local authorities. That idea was, in turn, replaced by a belief in the priority of the state government over local institutions.

Next time: Tax reform!

Paul McNutt (1933-1937) –

The election of 1932 was huge for the Democrats, both nationally and in Indiana. The Depression was taking its toll on the American people, and Democrats brought a philosophy of government that said government could actively help in times like these. The Republicans had been more ambivalent on the subject. Their administrations wanted things to get better for the people, and often they ended up using government to try to help, but they were held back to some degree by a philosophical sense that government should stay out of the way. The Democrats more full throated support of a government active in helping people who were being hurt by the economy was appealing.

Paul McNutt was born in Franklin, Indiana. His parents were school teachers. However, his father became a lawyer and moved the family to Indianapolis where the elder McNutt was the librarian of the Indiana Supreme Court. After that job, he moved the family to Martinsville where McNutt went to high school. He then went to IU where, among other things, he became active in theater productions and became friends and fraternity brothers with Wendell Wilkie. McNutt then went to Harvard Law School and got his degree in 1916. He returned to Morgan County and soon ran for election as prosecutor but was narrowly defeated. He landed a job as an assistant professor with the Indiana University School of Law but left the job after a year to join the army in World War I. McNutt served in Texas and South Carolina  as an artillery trainer.

[H]e entered the Second Officers Training Camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison, near Indianapolis, on August 27, 1917, and left camp on November 27 as a captain in the field artillery.6 By war’s end, he had attained the rank of major.

After the War, McNutt returned to Indiana University as a law professor. He became a full professor in 1920 and, in 1925, at the age of 34, the youngest dean in the school’s history.

Significantly for his political career, McNutt would join the American Legion shortly after the war. As I mentioned in an earlier installment, the American Legion was one of those advocacy groups (like the Anti-Saloon League, the League of Women Voters, and the Klan) that was altering how politics got done in the early 20th century. They were big and influential and didn’t necessarily owe allegiance to any one party. The Grand Army of the Republic comes to mind as a predecessor, but given how the Civil War broke down party lines, it was pretty much a Republican organization.

The American Legion was part social group, part political advocacy group. The nature of its mission ensured that, at the outset, most of its members were fairly young, being recent veterans of the War. It secured an early victory in 1924, getting Congress to pass the Bonus legislation which would give veterans $625 (in 1924 dollars plus interest) in 20 years. It was a significant financial commitment for a conservative Congress that feared inflation. They fought against what they perceived as un-Americanism: pacifists and communists in particular. Their commitment to free speech was a little sketchy when it came to some groups.

In 1933, for example, the “Americanism” committee of the Legion’s Department of Illinois denounced the social reformer and pacifist Jane Addams and the well-known defense attorney Clarence Darrow as communists by virtue of their association with “international-pacifist-defeatist organizations.” “There is room in this country for only one ‘ism,'” declared National Commander Frank N. Belgrano Jr. in 1934. “That is Americanism.”

The Legion could be a political training ground for young men who were shut out of leadership positions in the more established major parties. They gained experience in organization and advocacy.

In his article for Indiana History Magazine on McNutt and the American Legion (from whom a lot of this information is derived), Dean J. Kotlowski says that, in addition to a variety of other reasons for becoming a Legion member, McNutt was a joiner. He was “a Methodist, a Mason, an Elk, a Kiwanian, a Rotarian, a dean, a professor, [and] a colonel.”

In 1926, McNutt became embroiled in a campus political debate. ROTC training was mandatory at the time. The post-war isolationist mood of the country made that less than popular on campus. A pacifist by the name of Frederick J. Libby spoke on campus advocating that ROTC training be made voluntary rather than mandatory. McNutt objected strongly. He felt it was the “”duty of every American citizen to serve this nation in time of war” and that military training was “an essential and proper part of an adequate national defense.” McNutt grew to hate the pacifists. This probably helped his political career, but he was chided by the Kokomo Dispatch for seeing Reds “lurking in Indiana cornfields and briar patches.”

McNutt’s anti-pacifism, anti-communism, and speaking ability started his rise in the ranks of the American Legion. In 1925, his local Bloomington legion needed a new leader. In what would become a pattern (not an unusual one for a Hoosier politician), he would be publicly coy about wanting the job while maneuvering behind the scenes to secure the election.

Such false modesty seemed to confirm an old adage about Indiana , that “every Hoosier baby’s first words are: ‘Although I am not a candidate for any public office, if nominated by the people of my party and elected by the sovereign voters of the great State of Indiana, I will serve to the best of my ability.”‘

McNutt won the leadership position. He liked the victory and began to have ambitions. He launched a recruitment drive for the Bloomington post, exceeding his goal of 250 new members and increasing membership from 87 to over 500 members. The feat caught the attention of the state organization, and McNutt set into motion plans to lead the state department of the Legion. In the 1926 convention in Marion, he out organized and out spoke the competition, and was elected to be the state commander. This, in turn, led to interest in the national leadership. McNutt had become friends and allies with Frank McHale whose support and organizational abilities would be invaluable. McHale would go on to be active in Indiana politics and earn the respect of Republicans and Democrats alike before his death in 1975. With McHale’s help, McNutt was able to win the national commander’s post in 1928. He did so in similar fashion to how he had won the state commander’s post, “McNutt overcame his status as an outsider and an underdog with preparation, organization, tireless speaking, and sheer effort.

The 1930 mid-term elections would not be good for the Republicans. The Indiana Congressional delegation would go from 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats to 4 Republicans and 9 Democrats.

Despite the grim economic situation, there were the occasional seeds of future success being planted. In 1931, the Indianapolis Municipal Airport opened. It would later come to be known as the Indianapolis International Airport. But, in the interim, it was known as Weir Cook Municipal Airport after Harvey Weir Cook, a World War I flying ace who was born in Wilkinson, Indiana. He graduated from Anderson High School and went to DePauw. Weir Cook would later command air bases in New Caledonia during World War II where he died while hunting an enemy submarine. Another economic seed was planted when Ermal Marsh opened his first Marsh Food Store in Muncie, Indiana in 1931.

Strange Fruit in Marion

In August of 1930, Indiana received notoriety due to the lynching of two black men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana.  

On August 6, white couple Claude Deeter and Mary Ball had been parked at a local lover’s lane in Marion. Deeter had been shot and killed. The Marion Chronicle Tribune had reported that Mary had been raped. On August 7, a mob formed at the Grant County Jail, and Ball’s father demanded that Shipp and Smith, who had been arrested for the murder be turned over to the mob. The police refused (though some reports suggest the refusal may have been mostly token), and the mob stormed the jail and dragged the inmates out into the square and hanged. Smith’s attempts to free himself were such that the mob lowered him to the ground, broke his arms, and raised him back up.

A third person — 16 year old James Cameron was also dragged out and almost murdered too:

 

“After 15 or 20 minutes of having their pictures taken and everything, they came back to get me,” Cameron told NPR in 1994. “Just then the sheriff, and he was sweating like somebody had throwed a bucket of water in his face. He told the mob leader: ‘Get the hell out of here, you already hung two of ’em so that ought to satisfy ya.’ Then they began to yell for me like a favorite basketball or football player. They said: ‘We want Cameron, we want Cameron, we want Cameron.’

“And I looked over to the faces of the people as they were beating me along the way to the tree. I was pleading for some kind of mercy, looking for a kind face. But I could find none. They got me up to the tree and they got a rope and they put it around my neck. And they began to push me under the tree. And that’s when I prayed to God. I said, ‘Lord have mercy, forgive me my sins.’ I was ready to die.”

That’s when some people say a local Marion citizen stood on the hood of his car and shouted, “He’s innocent, he didn’t do it.”

Somehow, that stopped the momentum of the mob. Cameron was lowered, the noose was removed, and he was returned to custody. Cameron said that Smith and Shipp had murdered Deeter. Ball later retracted the rape claim — and it seems to have been the alleged rape of a white woman by a black man, more than the murder, that provoked the lynching. One of the black policemen in town reported that the worst part wasn’t the lynching. Rather, “it was the belling . . .  White people drove their cars down into South Marion, dragging cans from their bumpers and shooting guns in the air. ‘I bet you every car in town was in that belling,’”

The picture became famous and, among other things, inspired the poem “Strange Fruit” by Abel Meeropol:

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,

Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,

And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

This, in turn, became the famous Billie Holiday song. There were no legal consequences for the lynchers. The Grant County grand jury returned no indictments. The Attorney General issued warrants and brought two men to trial, but their juries quickly returned not guilty verdicts. No further prosecution was attempted. Cameron, was, however, convicted of accessory to manslaughter and served four years in jail.

————

Concluding this entry on Harry Leslie: Despite the Depression era challenges Leslie faced and despite the Republicans being routed in a landslide in the election of 1932, Leslie’s administration was generally praised as being “honest, efficient, and economic.” Leslie himself would become President of the Standard Life Insurance Company in Indianapolis. He became friends with such luminaries as Will Rogers and George Ade. Leslie died in 1937 of heart disease while visiting Ade in Miami, Florida.

Harry “Skillet” Leslie (1929-1933) – Governor Lazarus

With Governor Leslie, I had the good fortune to find that, just as I was about to write this section, the Journal & Courier re-published a column on Harry Leslie by Tippecanoe County historian, Bob Kriebel. Leslie was a Tippecanoe County native, born in 1878, and graduate of West Lafayette High School. As a transplant to the County who has been eagerly laying down roots in the community, I’ll enjoy some entirely irrational pride by association. We have a bridge named for the governor!

Leslie went to Purdue and was class president every year, captain of the football and baseball team and President of his class. (Not to mention, for reasons unknown, earning the nickname “Skillet”). He seems to have been something of a golden boy, and life was good. But, in 1903 tragedy struck. Indiana and Purdue’s football rivalry was developing. They’d played 10 times, Purdue had a 7-3 advantage in the series, but Indiana had won 3 of the last 4 encounters. Organizers wanted to play on a neutral site in Indianapolis. To accommodate the team and fans,  Purdue organized two special trains that carried 1,500 fans and the team itself. Special trains operated outside the normal schedule, and a clerk on the railroad failed to notify the switchmaster near 18th street in Indianapolis that the specials were coming.

The first special, carrying the team, rounded a corner and saw a coal train being pushed back on the tracks. The engineer immediately put the engine in reverse, hit the emergency brake, and bailed out. Unfortunately, no one else had time to do so. The engine slammed into the coal car, splintering apart the first few cars. The fans near the back of the train did not really know what happened, as they only felt a slight jolt before the train stopped.

Seventeen people died, including fourteen players. Leslie was thrown from the train and taken for dead. Literally. He was taken to the morgue before a pulse was discovered. Having been reclassified as “alive,” he was confined to a hospital bed for 38 weeks recovering. At the age of 29, he graduated from the Indiana Law School in Indianapolis after which he set up a law office in Lafayette and did some work for the IRS. In 1923, he went to the General Assembly as a Representative. The Republican minority was fairly small that year and he was chosen as caucus chairman as a freshman legislator. The Republicans had a big year in 1924, taking the majority, and he became Speaker of the House as a second term legislator. He would hold that position for four years before running for governor in 1928. Readers familiar with the last installment may recall that 1924 was the year that Ed Jackson — D.C. Stephenson’s man — had been elected to the governor’s office, and the Stephenson scandal that brought down the Klan happened in 1925. Leslie apparently had some Klan support in getting the Speakership, but he was not necessarily friendly to them, fighting “the Klan block on several issues, including committee assignments, legislation aimed at eliminating Catholic schools, and other issues.”

The 1928 elections were good for the Republicans. Hoover had his landslide win nationally, and in Indiana, Republicans won ten of Indiana’s thirteen Congressional seats. (1930 would show this as the highwater mark of Indiana’s population — that census would result in the state declining from 13 Congressional seats to 12.)  Leslie beat out some competition for the Republican nomination, getting the nod on the fifth ballot. He then ran against Indianapolis mayor, Frank Daily. “Only” 75% of the voting age population cast votes during that election. While that would be a huge number today — and, in fact, it was up somewhat from the elections of 1920 and 1924 — it was down from a peak of 95.1% in 1896.

According to the 1930 census, early in Gov. Leslie’s term, Indiana’s population had risen to 3.2 million people. Of those, 96% were white. The urban population had climbed to 55% with 45% living in rural areas.

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In December of 1929, a blizzard hit the state. The Indianapolis News and the New York Times reported that Texas Senator, Tom Connally was stranded. Governor Leslie’s secretary took the phone call where Connally were snow-bound at a farmhouse along the Lincoln Highway near Valparaiso with 25 other travelers, that food was becoming a problem, and the roads needed to be cleared. It was later reported that Connally and the other motorists were trekking on foot to Wheeler, Indiana. The highway department was wrestling with 8 foot snow drifts.

Then shockingly on December 23, 1929, The Vidette-Messenger of Valparaiso, Indiana reported that the telephone call made from the Senator Tom Connally of Texas to the office of Indiana Governor Leslie was an imposter. According to wire reports, Senator Tom Connally is at home in Dallas, Texas and has been nowhere near Indiana.

Hard on the heels of that blizzard, not to mention the stock market crash, a drought hit in Indiana and elsewhere. Indiana received 57% of its normal rainfall (states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky had it even worse). In August of 1930, Governor Leslie had planned to use $2 million from highway funds for drought relief but the State Auditor told him that was illegal. (This would not have stopped Gov. Morton, but I suppose the embezzlement by Governor McCray was fresh in everyone’s mind.) However, Leslie was initially reluctant to have the government involved in addressing the issues caused by Depression and drought because he was afraid it would make citizens too dependent on the government. To some extent, the debt limitations put in place after the canal debacle in the early 19th century tied the State’s hands in terms of the relief it could offer. Eventually, Gov. Leslie changed his mind and he urged the federal government to hire out-of-work farmers for state road projects.

Next time: Strange Fruit in Marion

As if the Depression wasn’t tough enough, through much of the 1930s, the plains area of the U.S. suffered from drought. This was on top of settlement and agricultural practices that tore up the virgin topsoil. (Settlers knew it was dry but there was a prevalent bit of wishful thinking that “rain follows the plow.”) When the crops did not grow for lack of rain and the winds started to blow, topsoil was carried into the air, creating the Dust Bowl.  The “black blizzards” carried all the way to the east coast. On the plains, visibility was often reduced to three feet or left. Tens of thousands of settlers were forced to abandon their farms. Often they fled to California and suffered hardship there as well — this dynamic formed the background to John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath.”

Overseas, it was the winds of war that were blowing. Struck by the global depression, burdened with reparations from World War I, and disillusioned with the government’s austerity measures that brought little economic improvement, Germany was vulnerable to extremism, and they got it when Adolf Hitler took power in 1933. Benito Mussolini had become prime minister in 1922 and had turned Italy into a police state by 1925. In Japan, the military had taken over the government by 1936. There were precursors to what became World War II. Japan invaded China in 1931 and again in 1937. Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935. The fascist supported nationalists defeated the communist supported government forces in the Spanish Civil War from 1936-1939.  However, World War II proper is generally said to have started In September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later, and Europe was, once again, at war. Paris fell to Germany on June 14, 1940.

FDR’s third election was unprecedented. Stopping at two was a matter of tradition since George Washington had stepped down after two. FDR laid the groundwork for a third term by undercutting potential Democratic rivals. He engaged in a bit of chicanery in league with the Chicago machinery where the convention was held. He purported to not be inclined to run again unless drafted. The friendly crowd nominated him on the first ballot with a vote of 946 – 147.  In the general election, FDR squashed the Presidential ambitions of two Hoosiers: he prevented Paul McNutt’s nomination as the Democratic party’s nominee (and spurned his efforts to be the Vice-President); and he beat Wendell Wilkie in the general election. (More on this later.) The situation FDR straddled the line between internationalist and isolationist. He was friendly to the Allies and gave them support but he stopped short of war with Germany. After Paris fell, the U.S. significantly increased the size of its navy. During the election, FDR promised that he wasn’t going to send Americans off to die in a European war. In December 1940, FDR called for the U.S. to become “an arsenal of democracy.” The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, changed the situation. The Japanese had woken “a sleeping giant,” and the U.S. geared up its formidable production capacity and bent its efforts to the war.  

In February 1942, paranoid about Japanese treachery, FDR signed Executive Order 9066, forcibly relocating and imprisoning 70,000 American citizens who were of Japanese ancestry.  Many fewer citizens of German and Italian ancestry were targeted under these regulations; the disparity suggesting that simple racism was a major factor in how the groups were treated.

During the war, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were allies of necessity. FDR apparently had – at least initially – an optimistic view of Stalin. But, by the end of the war in Europe, the U.S. came to realize that the Soviets’ view of the world was not compatible with that of the U.S. The U.S. ambassador to the USSR wrote, “we must come clearly to realize that the Soviet program is the establishment of totalitarianism, ending personal liberty and democracy as we know it.”

In 1944, unlike 1940, there was little subterfuge or doubt about whether Roosevelt would run. Despite declining health, he would run for an unprecedented fourth term; this time against Thomas Dewey. Roosevelt would drop Henry Wallace as his Vice-President and choose Harry Truman as his running mate. There was little opposition to Roosevelt’s nomination but his health made the V.P. slot a major bone of contention. Wallace was thought to be erratic. “Truman was highly visible as the chairman of a Senate wartime committee investigating fraud and inefficiency in the war program. Roosevelt, who personally liked Wallace and knew little about Truman, reluctantly agreed to accept Truman as his running mate to preserve party unity.” Dewey and the Republicans ran against the New Deal and big government, but Roosevelt was popular, particularly because the war was going well for the United States. Roosevelt won the popular vote by 7.5% — a large margin in general terms, but his smallest margin of victory in his four elections.  The portion of the fourth term served by Roosevelt was dominated by negotiations surrounding the end of the war, the conference at Yalta taking place in February 1945.  

Describing his vision for post-war international relations and supporting the creation of a United Nations, Roosevelt said, “The Crimean Conference ought to spell the end of a system of unilateral action, the exclusive alliances, the spheres of influence, the balances of power, and all the other expedients that have been tried for centuries– and have always failed. We propose to substitute for all these, a universal organization in which all peace-loving nations will finally have a chance to join.” Tensions between the Soviet Union and the U.S.  were increasing during this time period. On March 29, 1945, Roosevelt went to Warm Springs, Georgia to rest in advance of his anticipated appearance at the founding of the United Nations. On April 12, 1945, the President died of a stroke at the age of 63 — eighteen days before Hitler would commit suicide in Berlin and 26 days before VE day was formally declared.  Harry Truman would take over as President, finish the war effort, and begin the post-war efforts.