Lila Johnson EA: Eugenie Anderson JM: Jan Musty

Eugenie Anderson Narrator Lila Johnson Interviewer May 28, 1971 LJ: Lila Johnson EA: Eugenie Anderson JM: Jan Musty EA: Where did we leave off? I think I was in the midst of leaving Denmark and talking about the crisis in 1950, wasn't I? LJ: The next activity that I have listed was when you were chairman of the Fair Employment Practices Commission, but that was several years after. EA: Yes. Shall we just leave off with Denmark and start on the next? LJ: Okay. EA: I returned home from Denmark about six months after my resignation. My husband and I and our son, Hans, had spent several months in Europe traveling and resting up from the strenuous last period in Denmark. Hans and I arrived home in June 1953. I remember we were greeted at the Red Wing Milwaukee [Road Railroad] Station by the mayor, who was Harry Reardon at that time, and a little musical band, and a large group of friends to welcome us home. My husband had returned to Denmark to attend our daughter's graduation from the gymnasium, so he and Johanna didn't arrive home until July. During that first year that I was at home I was really, I guess you would say, becoming reacclimated to private life. In many ways it was a welcome period and in other ways it was difficult to find myself suddenly without responsibility and without involvement in public life. The first winter, I believe, I went on a lecture tour, mostly on the West Coast but some in other parts of the country, too. LJ: What were you lecturing about? EA: I had signed a lecture tour contract with the Colston Leigh lecture agency in New York. I was lecturing mostly about my assignment during those years in Denmark, about diplomacy, about my ideas of diplomacy, and about the North Atlantic Treaty problems and other diplomatic and foreign policy questions. 1 In the fall of 1954 I was ill. I was ill in bed for almost three months with some rather mysterious ailment. At first the doctors thought perhaps I had rheumatoid arthritis or rheumatic fever. They decided that it was not rheumatoid arthritis and probably not rheumatic fever but something like rheumatic fever, so that I had to be flat on my back in bed for those months and I was not strong for several months after that. At first I was dismayed at this period of complete inactivity but when I realized that it had to be I actually enjoyed the chance to do a great deal of reading that I hadn't been able to do for several years. I concentrated on works of two great men that I had always admired. One was Abraham Lincoln. I think I mentioned that my father was a special admirer and student of Lincoln's and I had always felt the same but hadn't ever read very much. I began reading everything that I could, acquiring quite a little Lincoln shelf or shelves in my library. I read mostly about Abraham Lincoln that fall and winter. I also read quite a bit about Sigmund Freud, who had always interested me, also. I recovered in the spring of 1955. I might say that I had been fairly active politically in the campaign of 1954 helping to elect Governor Orville Freeman. I was active in the spring and summer before I became ill. Of course, after I became ill I couldn't do anything, but I did play a role in the early part of that year. LJ: You mentioned before that I hadn't asked you your impressions of Freeman. Maybe this would be a good time to do that. EA: Yes, I had always liked both Orville and Jane Freeman, admired their vigor and their enthusiasm and Orville's uncompromising courage and honesty, integrity. I got to know them as far back as 1946 when Orv had just been released from the service. And he, I think I mentioned, was elected secretary of the DFL party that same year when I was elected the vice-chairwoman. It was Orv Freeman and I who carried the burden of the DFL anti-Communist struggle within the party executive committee meetings. Orv and I and one or two others always had strategy meetings, always caucused before the DFL executive committee would meet, so that I really got to know Orv very well that time. I found that he was not only very vigorous in his approach toward everything, but he was also very astute and willing to devote himself wholeheartedly to what he was committed to. I felt that he would make an excellent governor when 1954 came, although frankly I hadn't thought that he would have too good a chance to be elected. I simply felt he would be our best candidate. I can remember that I urged him to run simply as a matter of duty because he was the best candidate and would be the best governor, but I told him frankly that I didn't think he had much of a chance to be elected. He's often teased me about this because of course he was elected. And he certainly lived up to my expectations of him as governor. I think he was one of the best governors Minnesota has ever had primarily because he had a program and he was vigorous and energetic in carrying it out. He had a wide circle already built up of friends in many different walks of life. While he was very loyal to the DFL party, he also had many friends in the Republican party and many independent friends. I think he was really more concerned with 2 issues. He was not a personally ambitious person. He had enormous drive but yet you never felt that it was for reasons of personal ambition. And I think that this was true of his wife, Jane, also, who was a tremendous help to him. She was a very sophisticated person and at the same time very sensitive and very sweet, always very sympathetic and very concerned with other people, really interested in other people. I think that Orv had the same capacity. He asked people's opinions. He listened. He was open and his office became a center for new ideas, and new people were brought in to the government at high circles. Not long after he was elected Governor in 1955 the legislature passed the first Minnesota Fair Employment Practices Act. This had been attempted for several years but not until Governor Freeman was elected and through his whole-hearted support behind the passage of this act did it become law. Orv very soon thereafter asked me if I would serve as the chairman of the Minnesota State Employment Practices Commission. I agreed to do so because this was an area, an issue, in which I had always been very much concerned and which I had believed. In fact, this was one of the reasons that I had first become active in politics was because of this, as well as my concern with international affairs. So I was glad to have an opportunity to have this responsibility. This was not a full time job of course; this was not a paid job. We had regular monthly meetings and sometimes ad hoc meetings on special issues. He had a full time executive secretary and one or two assistants. We had an excellent state board, or commission, that was all appointed by Governor Freeman from the various districts. I served in this capacity until 1960 when Governor Freeman was defeated in 1960 election, and I resigned at that time. LJ: What were some of the things that this commission dealt with? EA: Mostly complaints of discrimination in employment, mostly on the basis of race. Most of the complaints which came to us came from Negroes, from blacks, who felt that they had been discriminated against on this basis. We had, perhaps, a few complaints on the basis of religion. Maybe, oh, a very small percentage on the basis of religion. Most of them were on the basis of race. LJ: And this would come up to a hearing then? EA: Then we would conduct an investigation and we would hold hearings. We had I would say quite a success in being able to work out most of these complaints, adjust these complaints before it reached the state of litigation. The commission had the power to bring action, legal action, against the party if it was found to be discriminating. But in most cases by talking things over with the employer and the employee we were able to work out the complaint and bring satisfaction without doing that. I think only in a very small number of cases did we ever have to bring legal action against the employer. 3 I think one of our most important cases was against Northwest Airlines, which at that time had never had any black stewardesses, and we had a complaint from a young lady who felt that she had been discriminated against because of her race. This went on for many months. In the end, we finally were able to get an agreement from Northwest Airlines that the first Negro who applied and had the qualifications would be employed by Northwest. I think we were not able to get them to hire this one young lady who had brought the complaint because Northwest felt first, that she was not qualified, and secondly, they did not want to have their right of deciding whom they should employ infringed upon.

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