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CG Russell Fridley -RF Robert Goff -RG Lila M

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CG Russell Fridley -RF Robert Goff -RG Lila M Charles A. Graham Narrator Russell Fridley Robert Goff Lila M. Johnson Interviewers 1968 Charles A. Graham -CG Russell Fridley -RF Robert Goff -RG Lila M. Johnson -LJ RF: Begin by giving us a little biographical information about yourself. Where you were born and raised? CG: Yes. I was born in Saint Paul and lived here all my life. I was married in 1924 to [LaFrance Bass]. We have three children; two boys and a girl that are all married. I went to the Rice School grade school and enrolled in Mechanic Arts [St. Paul, Minnesota] for high school education, but my father passed, so I decided to work and earn a living and help support my mother and baby sister. I didn’t get to go to high school like I intended going. RF: Where did you go to work? CG: First job was for Armour and Company as a butcher. From there in 1923 I secured a job at the Saint Paul Athletic Club as a door checker. My duties were to know all the members of the club, and they affiliated with Minneapolis, so we had quite a number of members, twenty-five hundred, I think at the time, 1923, when I worked at the club. We had members of the Minneapolis Athletic Club that had interchange with memberships and they also used the club. Many of them worked in Saint Paul but carried a membership in Minneapolis, so I became well- acquainted with the majority of lawyers and doctors and prominent businessmen throughout Saint Paul. It gave me a very good experience by coming into the governor’s office, because I knew so many people in the Cities. RF: When did you go into government service, Charles? CG: January 16, 1933. RF: How did that happen? This was during the Depression, now. CG: During Depression times they cut salaries at the Athletic Club and I was married and had a family and needed more money. Through some influential people, members of the Athletic Club, I was able to secure a job as a janitor for the state of Minnesota. That was in 1933. 1 RF: Floyd Olson was governor at that time. CG: Floyd Olson was the governor of Minnesota. RF: Was he the man who hired you? CG: Well, Mr. Spoonmacher, the Director of Public Property, actually hired me, but I had to be recommended to the governor. Just a matter of a little paperwork and then you were hired. We didn’t have civil service in those days. Civil service came in in 1939. RF: Did you meet Billy Williams [William F. Williams] about that time? CG: Yes, I met Billy Williams in 1933. When I came up to get the job I was told to go and meet Billy Williams, so that’s where I met Billy in 1933: in the governor’s office. RF: Maybe we could just pursue that a little bit, Charles, and you could tell us some of the other things you did between the time you went to work for the State and when you finally wound up in the governor’s office sometime later? CG: I was the supervisor of the night crew in the capitol building and complex, and I knew Judge Devitt [Edward James Devitt] very well. When this opening became available I contacted Judge Devitt; I can give Judge Devitt the credit for getting me the job. Billy Williams told me that there was going to be an opening, so I contacted Judge Devitt because he was a very prominent politician in those days, and with his efforts and Billy Williams’ efforts I was able to secure the job. RF: In the governor’s office? CG: As executive aide in the governor’s office. RF: Before we start talking about Billy and some of the other people maybe you could tell us a little bit about what that job entailed, what it involved, and what it still involves? CG: Governor’s aide’s duties are to see to it that the governor’s appointments are kept on time and get the people who have appointments in and out of the office. It’s sort of protective for the governor, and as he has these people come in I escort them into the office. When I feel as though time is up I just go in and let them know that his next appointment is ready, so it will give a little inkling that the meeting should break up. RF: It really takes tact, doesn’t it? CG: A little diplomacy in doing that so you don’t hurt anyone’s feelings. Sometimes people get in the office they get to talking, get in deep conversation; they don’t realize how much time they’re taking of the governor’s. He has a full-time schedule of appointments, so we have to keep them moving right along during the day so we can finish it. 2 RF: Now the man that you trained under— CG: Billy Williams. RF: Billy Williams—and he goes way back to when? Perhaps you could tell us something about Billy and some of your recollections of him. CG: Billy Williams became an executive aide to Governor Johnson [John Albert Johnson] in 1905. At that time the building was just being completed and Billy started his work as governor’s aide in the state capitol complex buildings at the present building. LJ: Was this a new job? CG: Yes, it was a new job. LJ: There wasn’t somebody that held it in the old capitol? CG: Well, from what I can gather, it was a Mr. Beasley that was a messenger to the governors in the old capitol building that was down on the corner of Tenth and Wabasha Street. That building wasn’t torn down until about 1939. That’s when I was a janitor. I used to go down there sometimes and move things around and curate the building. RF: But Billy really went back all the way to the capitol, or to the beginning of our present capitol building. CG: Right, yes. Before the building was completed he was in the office. RF: I think he started with one of the men that was generally recognized as one of the outstanding governors that Minnesota ever had. I wonder if you recall—I know you had many long conversations with Billy over the years about all of these men and events. Do you recall anything that he might have told you about John Johnson and what kind of a man he was and so on? CG: He said he was one of the greatest men that he ever worked for, and that he was very, very kind to Billy. In those days Billy was a young man, and he played professional baseball. The governor would let Billy take off on weekends and play baseball and earn extra money by playing baseball. Billy said that the governor told him that anytime he wanted to go play ball, play a game, it was perfectly all right. Billy’s never forgotten that. RF: He died soon after that? CG: I believe the governor passed away in 1909. Yeah, 1909 he passed. He went to Rochester and had an operation for appendicitis, I believe, and never recovered. 3 John Johnson, of course, was a Democrat in the tradition of, particularly the job that you hold, being of a kind of a non-partisan nature. I suppose it began then with the new governor, who was a Republican. It was Eberhart, wasn’t it? Adolph Eberhart? You make such nice contact by the fact that you’re in the office and you’re serving so many people, that they never change the job. Billy was a non-political appointee, and he never played politics. In fact of the matter, he always told me, he says, “If you want to you can have this job as long as you want it as long as you stay out of politics.” I listened to his advice, and it seems as though it’s worked out the same way for me as it did him. As each governor changed, why, they’d automatically keep me on. RF: Do you recall anything that he might have said about any of these men or any anecdotes? I remember one story you told, Charles, about somebody trying to start a fire in the fireplace. CG: Yes, the pigeons were so bad in those days that they used to roost up in there, so someone threw a match in there and they started a fire, and so they put the fire out and blocked it up. So they haven’t had a fire in that fireplace now for about fifty years, I believe. RF: Didn’t someone, some new governor or something, or one of his staff members try to start a fire in there? CG: In the fireplace. [laughs] RF: And the flue isn’t open? CG: That’s right, it was blocked off. RF: And almost burned the capitol down. Well, then, Billy was the aide to— CG: Fourteen governors. RF: To Governor Hammond [Winfield Scott Hammond], Governor Burnquist [Joseph A. A. Burnquist], and all the way through there. Do you recall any anecdotes about any of these men that Billy might have passed on to you, Charles? CG: Well, not exactly. He had a high praise for all the governors that he’d served and never did go in detail much about any particular governor. They were all very fine to him.
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