GH Helen Mccann White -HW

Judge Gerald W. Heaney Narrator Helen McCann White Interviewer November 30, 1967 Duluth, Minnesota Gerald W. Heaney -GH Helen McCann White -HW HW: could you tell a little bit about how you happened to get into politics, Judge Heaney? GH: Well, I suspect that my interest in politics started when I was & boy in Goodhue County during the Al Smith campaign in 1928. There was an old family friend by the name of Frank O'Gorman who was the county chairman of Goodhue County which at that time was a very strongly Republican county, and through him I developed an interest in politics and spent a good deal of time going with him to meetings and nailing up signs and doing the customary political chores. I continued an interest in politics from that time until the present - rather a passive interest during my high school and college days - but I was working as well as going to school. After graduation from the University of Minnesota law school in 1941, I worked for a year with the Securities Commission of the State of Minnesota as an attorney investigator, and of course, I was under civil service during that period of time and didn't have a strong political interest. During law school, however, I became acquainted with Orville Freeman. We were in the same fraternity and were very close personal friends at that time, a friendship that has continued until now. In 1942, I went into the army and served in the Second Ranger Battalion overseas until 1945. And I would suspect that the real impetus of my going into politics came during the period of time that I was in the army in this respect, that I would suppose that it was a good deal like so many others that served in the army in World War II in Minnesota and who came back and got active in politics. After the end of hostilities in World War II, I was assigned as a labor relations advisor for the military government of Bavaria, and spent from VE-Day approximately until October, when I came back to the United States, and this work was political in nature in the sense that it was an effort by the American military government to revive democratic institutions in Germany and was very interesting and again served whet my political appetite, as it were. When I returned, I made up my mind to come to Duluth to practice law, because I wanted to specialize in the field of labor relations and there wasn't a labor attorney in Duluth at that time who represented the unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. HW: Not one? GH: Not at that time, so I came to Duluth and went into practice with I. K. Lewis, but spent practically… spent most of my time in my early years of practice representing various unions that were affiliated with the AFL-CIO. On return from the army, I immediately renewed my personal friendship with Governor Freeman, and he, of course, at that time was working for Hubert Humphrey who was mayor of Minneapolis. And Hubert had ambitions, of course, of 1 running for the United States Senate. I had known Humphrey before this time, but not well. But because of my close association with Freeman, I became a close friend of Humphrey’s as well. And we both, I would say, went to work on the job of trying to get Humphrey elected to the Senate. At the outset, I think, the first determination that we made was that we could only win an election in Minnesota if we were able to strengthen the Democratic Party and to remove from positions of influence a number of persons who were either members of or close to the Communist Party. So I undertook the responsibility of helping organize the Duluth and the Iron Range area, to organize the precinct caucuses for 1948 so that we would have a strong enough party to be able to conduct an election with… and make a successful effort out of it. So you might say to summarize this, that I got into politics partly because of the close personal friendship with Orville Freeman and partly because I became convinced during World War II that a person had a real responsibility to be active in political life, and then, Governor Freeman and I both became interested in helping Senator Humphrey achieve his… first election. So I would imagine that I spent a good half of my time in 1948 either organizing for the precinct caucuses in the county conventions or in Senator Humphrey's election campaign. The balance of my time, of course, was spent in practicing law and I guess, I thought, doing a full-time job in both of them. HW: Would you say from your experiences in other parts of the world and in other places, that Minnesotans are more politically aware? I've heard this said - than people in other areas - that this long, third-party tradition has made the people of the state more aware politically? GH: I would say that they most certainly are more issue-oriented than the people of many other sections of the country are. I think that they are inclined to be more independent than people of other parts of the country are. There is a good many reasons for this t I suspect. It’s a diverse nationality pattern, diverse religious pattern; there isn’t a good deal of patronage, so that the typical type of political organization cannot be built in Minnesota over a long period of time. I think you can only attract people if the party is issue-oriented and if you have attractive and capable candidates. I think that in some other states, that with the amount of patronage that is available, it's easier for them to build an organization which stays in power largely because of its ability to give patronage to its members - that certainly isn't true in Minnesota. HW: Well now, you had some attractive candidates to work for in Minnesota, in those days. GH: Well, I would expect that at least in my experience, I don't know of any other state that at one time had as many young and attractive candidates holding office as we did in 1958 when we reached the… when the Democratic Party reached its strongest point. There was Governor Freeman, Senator Humphrey, Senator McCarthy, Congressman Blatnik from this area. I suspect that it would be almost impossible to find four young, aggressive, able men who were in office at one time. HW: You had some interesting adventures with Governor Freeman after his election, did you not? Supporting his program and working for it. GH: Well, after Senator Humphrey was elected in 1948, our next objective was to elect a governor, and this was my feeling, that Orville was the person that we ought to elect, and so we went to work on that job, and it took us until 1954 to accomplish it. After the governor was elected, I worked quite closely with him and never had a state job because I didn’t… wasn’t 2 interested in it. But I was still… remained a very close friend of his and spent each of the three legislative sessions working with the governor, particularly in the fields of education, appropriations, and taxation. And spent, I would say, two-thirds of my time during the three legislative sessions working with him in trying to get his program passed. During this period of time, of course, I was also an officer in one capacity or another of the Democratic Party; I became National Finance Director for the Democratic National Committee in the state of Minnesota in 1954… no, let's see, that would be in 1950, and became Democratic National Committeeman in 1954 and served until 1960. So during all this period of time, in addition to serving in the legislature, I worked quite closely with the governor in developing legislative programs, in organizing his campaigns and particularly in this area. HW: What were some of the important educational issues at that time? GH: Well, I suspect that the major educational issue in each session of the legislature was the State Aid Bill to elementary and secondary schools - this was always the major piece of legislation that was presented in each session of the legislature. And then, of course, you had the appropriations bills for the University and the state colleges. Now that there were some other issues there on school consolidation and establishing a liaison committee for higher education, but mainly, as far as I was concerned, I worked in the area of appropriations for elementary and secondary education and for the University and the state colleges on their building appropriations, and I did not get involved in detail on some of the… of side issues. HW: Did you favor setting up the branch Universities, such as the one here at Duluth? GH: Yes, I had always been under the impression that really, we probably would be better off in the state, if all of the institutions of higher learning were under a single Board of Regents, although I guess that I haven't felt as strongly about that as some have; I’ve been a little more pragmatic about it, I’ve always felt that the major problem that we had in education was to get adequate financing, and if I had to trade… if I had to concede on some of the issues of organization, of form, as I call them, in order to get some more money for education , I guess I was always the one who was willing to make the compromise to get the money that was needed and to avoid a kind of knock-down fight on organization that would lead to substantial cuts in the budget.

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