Archives and Special Collections Mansfield Library, University of Montana Missoula MT 59812-9936 Email: [email protected] Telephone: (406) 243-2053

This transcript represents the nearly verbatim record of an unrehearsed interview. Please bear in mind that you are reading the spoken word rather than the written word.

Oral History Number: 411-001 Interviewee: John Melcher Interviewer: Don Spritzer Date of Interview: January 10, 2007 Project: John Melcher Interviews Oral History Project

John Melcher:Are you testing?

Don Spritzer: I'm testing right now, yeah.

JM: Am I speaking about right for you?

DS: That's what we're going to find out. [Tape skips] Just one more notch, [pause] Okay, I'm speaking with Senator John Melcher. My name is Don Spritzer. This is an interview for the University of Montana Oral History Project. We're in Missoula, Montana, at the Senator's home and the date is January 10, 2007.1 guess the first question I have for you... talk a little bit about your early life first, because I think that's what'll really supplement your papers in the Archives more than anything, or as much as anything. You were born in Sioux City, is that correct?

JM: Yep. Sioux City, Iowa.

DS: And how long did you live there?

JM: Four years and then my dad's job took him to Dubuque, Iowa, and we lived there for three or four years. Then my parents were divorced and I lived with my grandmother and aunt in Ashton, Iowa, which is north of Sioux City, about 70 miles. When I was a junior...going to be a junior in high school, an agreement between my mother and dad, he let me live with my mother who lived on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. [She was] married to a man named Ed White, a rancher who had a lease on the Pine Ridge Reservation. I went to school in Oelrichs, South Dakota. That was the closest high school, public high school, to where we lived. I graduated from that high school and had one year at the University of Minnesota and then went into the Army in 1943. June of '43.

When I came back from the Army, I was married to Ruth. Her maiden name is Klein, who was also in the same class as I was at Oelrichs high school and...

DS: So, you m et her in South Dakota in high school?

JM: Right. We dated in high school and wrote to each other in the timeI was at the University of Minnesota. She was at the time, I guess they call it the Black Hills Business College in Rapid City. And then when...later she went to Oakland, California to live with her sisters who were out there. Their husbands were in the Navy. We got together after I got back from the Army and got married down in Oakland. 1 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. DS: I see. So you were only at the University of Minnesota for one year?

JM: Yeah, that's all and I was in what was [dog barks]...oh man.

DS: He sees a dog.

JM: Oh yeah, he can...he can see it...he knew it.I don't know how he knows it, but he either smells or hears something that we don't hear. At any rate, I was only at the University of Minnesota for one year, simply put, because the Army duty came up then and...Ben, we don't need that, [dog growling] [inaudible] He guards us anyway.

DS: Right. Okay, so, you were at, you were at Minnesota for one year and...

JM: I was in pre-veterinary...the course pre-veterinary medicine.I was preparing to go into veterinary medicine. Minnesota at that time did not have a veterinary college.

DS: So, you kind of decided on a career in veterinary medicine from...

JM: High school.

DS: Pretty early on in high school. What...what influenced you to do that? Do you remember?

JM: I have often thought of that.I think I just liked animals and living on the ranch on the Pine Ridge Reservation, that's all we had was cattle and I think I just liked animals and wanted to be in that area and veterinary medicine was an avenue to be in that area...with animals. Particularly with cows.

DS: Right. For sure. I was going to ask you a little bit about religion. You're Catholic, right?

JM: I am Catholic.

DS: What role do you think your religion played in, say, your later career?

JM: Well, I, you know, I think...I think it's a discipline. I've always looked at it that way. The way you live your life and it's a guide. A great satisfaction, I thought.

DS: I' m going to go back to high school just a little bit. What activities did you participate in? Were you in athletics at all or music or...

JM: Yeah. We had...at Oelrichs High, we had a very small high school. I think our graduating class was thirteen and so if you had football, it was only six man football and basketball. In the summer we had Legion baseball and so, it seemed like all of us were involved in it. You had to

2 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. be with only thirteen in your class and only half of those are boys. I don't know whether we had six boys or seven boys in my class, but it was one or the other. So, everybody had to be involved in our athletic programs.

DS: What position did you play in football?

JM: I played half-back and with six man...I don't know if you've ever seen it, but you have three on the line and three in the back field and a quarter back and two half-backs. You can line them up differently with just two backs and four in the line, but and you did all that in six man football.

DS: And you played a baseball. What position?

JM: I played third base and short stop. Always in the infield.

DS: That was Legion ball in the summer most of the time?

JM: Legion ball in the summer.

DS: Right.

JM: That's what it was.

DS: So, you're in Minnesota and then did you enlist or were drafted?

JM: I was drafted. I felt, you know, a lot of people then that were in college get into sort of a reserve officer status and continue on in college, but since everybody was going, I should go too and go when I was called, which was in June, very convenient to my school year and so that's...I was inducted into what's called Fort Snelling. I don't know if they still call if Fort Snelling or not, but it wasn't...it really wasn't an active fort there. There were some Army personnel there, but all we used them for those days was VA, a veterans' hospital at Snelling and an induction center. So, I was inducted there.

DS: And you served in Europe mostly from what I read?

JM: Yeah, we...I took basic training, which was about ten or twelve weeks in Texas and then we were assigned to, after that, to various spots. They had something that was called the Army Special Training Program, which was just going back to college and they selected some of us for that. Those of us that had been in college, after basic training they shipped us back to college in an A.S.T.P. program and I went to Hope College then for, I suspect it was for three or four months.

3 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. Well, it was from about October to February and then they abolished that program because there was a need for training people to be good in something for the long run...five years in the future when the Army would need you after you graduated, maybe four years, but in some specialized training...some specialized area of education...the languages are one of them, but all sorts of planning by the Army. If this was going to be a ten year war, what they would need was four or five years hence. Well, what the Army found out what they needed were infantry people.

Then, so we were jerked out of Hope College in Michigan and I was assigned...and a lot of us were...from that group were assigned to an infantry division which happened to be the 76th Infantry Division and there was training in Wisconsin, near Sparta, Wisconsin. I trained there for, oh, it would've been from about February to Thanksgiving time. We trained there in division infantry tactics and then we were shipped over to England first and then from England, about the first of the year, we were transferred over to France and then directly into Belgium. It was the tail end of the Bastogne breakthrough, which was stopped at Bastogne.

And then our division was there for a few days in Belgium and then transferred down to Luxemburg, put right on the line between Luxemburg and Germany and then we had that holding position for...until about the middle of February and then we crossed over into Germany to go Sigfried Line and on into Germany as a whole and to start ending the war. I didn't last very long, in that when we were all out on the offensive line, I was hit in the knee by a thirty-caliber, with a machine gun bullet probably.

At any rate, I was a casualty and sent back to England for hospital care and then back to the states only after a few months in England at the hospital there and back to the states so the knee could finally heal up and I was discharged late in the year... late November 1945 after the war was over. Ruth and I got married shortly after that. I think we were in Oakland for about four or five months and then along in March or so we headed back to Ames, Iowa, so I could enroll in Iowa State College and then get prepared to try to get into Veterinary College that fall, which I was able to do. I was admitted to Veterinary College in the fall of 1946. I had all the pre- vet stuff accounted for, so it was just four more years after that and I got my degree in Veterinary Medicine at Iowa State in 1950.

DS: I want to just back up just a little bit. I read an article that said thirty-nine years after your time in the military, you were awarded a bronze star. How did that happen?

JM: The Army was beginning, in my last days in the Army, was beginning to recognize that people in the infantry really were vulnerable to getting killed or getting injured like I was...not killed, but injured by bullets or mortars or whatever. So General Bradley, who was just under Eisenhower, came out with a...what was called an infantryman's badge. It was a special recognition that was called the Combat Infantryman's Badge. It was a special deal as a medal and Bradley ran that through with Eisenhower's approval to get recognition to infantrymanin combat.

4 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. Later on, and I didn't know about this for years and years, later on Bradley also was successful establishing within the Army that if you were a combat infantryman and were injured by actual combat, meaning a bullet wound or a shrapnel or something...bombed...you were entitled then to a Bronze Star. I knew nothing about this because it was happening while I was in Germany, but I didn't know about it. What did we know, we were just...we were called "dogfaces." But we were...the Army term is you're just a dogface if you're a combat infantryman.

But when I was in the Senate, the Secretary of the Army, whose name was Marsh, and who had been in the House of Representatives before me and appointed, let's see, the Secretary of the Army. Of course, I knew him. We knew each other well, but he invited all of the Purple Heart Veterans serving in the Senate, meaning those that had been injured in the war out to his office in the Pentagon for breakfast. There happened to be eighteen of us out of a hundred that were Purple Heart members. When I went out there for this breakfast, he said, "John, are you aware that you are entitled to and never awarded the Bronze Star.

Well, I looked at him and said, "No. I'm not aware of that. What does it mean?"

He said, "Well, Bradley's order was, and approved by Eisenhower, was that every combat infantryman that was shot or wounded, and got the Purple Heart, or killed, would get a Bronze Star as an award fo r valor."

I said, "No, I'm not aware."

He said, "Well, you are. I checked up on it when I was setting up this breakfast for you Senators and found out that you hadn't got it and I'm presenting it to you now." So, I've still got it.

DS: Must've been a surprise?

JM: It was a surprise. It was a very pleasant surprise and nice to have a Secretary of the Army who really looks into this.

DS: Okay, so then you went to Iowa State. Did you go to school on the G.l. Bill?

JM: Something like the G.l. Bill, but it was actually...it had a different number to it meaning the public law that gave a little bit extra, if you were disabled...if you were disabled because of war time activities. So, I actually got about...I don't know, I think it was $20 a month more in compensation for...very much like the G.l. Bill. It paid for the enrollment fees. It paid for the books and it gave you a stipend and our stipend was a little bit greater than the rest of them who were just on the G.l. Bill.

DS: My guess is Ruth was probably working while you were...

5 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. JM: She was. She was. She'd gone to the Business College at...Black Hills...in their business college and she was very good as a stenographer. Very good in shorthand. Very fast typist. Very good in office management sort of stuff and she got a job working for one of the professors in engineering at Iowa State and that helped like hell. It wasn't that we couldn't have survived on $150 stipend, I guess you could've, but we didn't have to because she had a job and it helped.

DS: Did you have kids in the tim e tha t you were in school?

JM: Our first child was born when I was a sophomore in vet college and actually our second was born the last year as I was a senior. So, we actually had two of our family born in Iowa. We've had six altogether, but...

DS: Mm-hm. That's always hard making ends meet when you're going to school. I've been there.

JM: Yeah, you've been there. Most people have been there. We did not suffer financially.I will say that. We were able to pay all the bills and even get a car later on; it wasn't much of a car, but we got it as a means of transportation, I think the last two years we were at Ames.

DS: Did you live in a dorm or at apartments there?

JM: We lived in what was known as...veterans' housing. First of all, it was a trailer and a small trailer...an eighteen foot trailer that they provided to veterans and almost everybody was...men were...almost everybody was a veteran. I think in my class of 60 in veterinary college, there were only two that weren't veterans and so we had affordable places to live and later on it was better than a trailer. Some were Quonset huts. Some were just put together buildings. It was small apartments and we did very well, we thought. At the time, it was all right. It was good.

DS: I can picture that kind of housing because I've seen it on campuses when I was a kid.

JM: Sure.

DS: Military surplus.

JM: Military surplus was what it was.

DS: Okay, so you finished up, got your vet degree at Ames and was it then that you decided to move to Montana or when did that come about? Did you...

JM: Well, Ruth and I...her folks lived in South Dakota, in southwest South Dakota, just south of the Black Hills and my mother lived in California at that time. My father lived in Minneapolis and there was always this thing about...had to visit one side and then the other side of the family and we had sort of a triangle, with my mother being the other part. We decided well,

6 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. let's go to Montana and see what it's like and perhaps we'll move there and then we wouldn't be with any part of the family, but they can come and see us.

DS: So, you'd be sort of centrally located? Is that?

JM: Well, they didn't think it was too central or I believe my dad, in Minneapolis then...well, actually he loved Montana and in his business he had spent time in Montana. In fact my first visits to Montana were in the summertime in the '30s, three different years he took us, my brother and I, with him as he made his rounds, calling on the people he had to call on in Montana and go through North Dakota. He had some customers in North Dakota and more customers in Montana. We actually traveled the state and that was my first exposure to Montana which I found very interesting and very intriguing.

DS: So, your dad was involved in sales?

JM: Yes, he was involved in sales in what was known as Stover Manufacturing Company, which sold small engines and pump jacks and windmills, stuff like that...and a hammer mill also. Also a hammer mill. A lot of people wouldn't know what a hammer mill is anymore, but it grinds up feed like...

DS: Okay.

JM: And makes it fine, so you can just dump it in a troughs and that was his business and calling on his customers out there. It would take...a Montana trip would take about a month or five weeks and so we'd pass through North Dakota rather quickly and then get on into Montana and spend at least four weeks for him to call and the deal was that he made fairs. So we'd go to Great Falls and do a fair there for a week and then drop through Missoula and then over, over into Billings for their fair and be there another week. It was a marvelous way to learn the state.

DS: Well, yeah, I'd say you saw a lot of the state then. You'd seen a lot of the state by the time you moved...yeah.

JM: By that time...and I was always intrigued with Montana and Ruth didn't know much about it, but she took it from what I told her about my experience in Montana. She got interested too and so we had decided that when I graduated, we'd go to Montana and I'd set up a practice someplace and hopefully make a good living at it. It did happen that way too.

DS: Why'd you pick Forsyth?

JM: I wrote to the state veterinarian in my senior year...early in my senior year and told I them was interested in coming to Montana and what would my prospects be like and the cattle situation...practice in the cattle ranching area. Then, they were anxious for veterinarians, so he was very attentive. He wrote to me and invited me to come and see him whenever I had the

7 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. chance and visit Montana and look at several places and as our correspondence developed, he said, "You might like to look at Forsyth and you could look at Lewistown. Forsythhas no veterinarians, but they certainly want one. They've been in contact with me through the Chamber of Commerce and then also I have Lewistown where there is an established practice with a veterinarian who wishes to retire and sell his practice."

So, I looked at both Forsyth and Lewistown. If we moved to Lewistown we could buy him out and the amount he wanted was very reasonable and Lewistown is a beautiful city and a beautiful area and Forsyth was most anxious...they were treating me like royalty. When I showed up and said I might consider moving there, the thing that decided me was that I'd been in winter country where snow comes and stays and that's true in Lewistown...most winters. They had a foot of snow when I was there, but Forsyth was clear and I said, "What's this weather like here?"

"Well, we get chinooks. We get cold weather, but we also get chinooks."

And, "Do you get very many blizzards?"

"Oh some..." [coughs] Excuse me. "... but the chinooks, you know, make it tolerable." And they said, "You know, these avid golfers we have at our little course out there at the edge of town. You'd be surprised, but they play some golf in January."

At any rate, that was my deciding factor. There's less snow in Forsyth and the break in the winters with these warmer days and Chinooks. Well, fine. So, that's why we decided to go to Forsyth, but there was one other factor that I'll tell you about.

DS: Okay.

JM: There was another factor there that guided me towards Forsyth too and that is the state veterinarian was...well, he didn't pressure me or anything. He said, "You know, Doctor..." He called me Doctor. I didn't have my degree yet, but he called me Doctor and he said, "If you want to go to Forsyth, we have a certain amount of state work that has to be done. Amounts to some TB testing and Brucellosis testing and we have to do it, but sending somebody from Helena or somebody from Bozeman to do it and those are the places we send people, we might be able to send somebody from Billings, but it's still an expense and it would be to our advantage in this office, the state veterinarian's office, if you would go there in Forsyth and I'll pay you $50 a month," which doesn't sound like very much...now, but actually the car Ruth and I bought in our...the spring of our senior year cost 900 and something dollars. A brand new car and so if you multiply what a car costs now, the same car would cost twenty...ten times more...twenty times more.

So, 50 dollars, I guess would amount to about a thousand dollars a month now and it was a factor in our decision to go to Forsyth because that would be 50 dollars that we could count on

8 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. without any expense because they'd pay me 8 cents a mile or 10 cents a mile and whatever driving I had to do this kind of testing for the state. Brucellosis or tuberculosis in dairy cows which is really what it was and so that was a factor in going to Forsyth.

[End o f Tape 1, Side A]

John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. [Tape 1, Side B]

JM: Okay, so, our decision was Forsyth and we've never regretted it. We love that town. We still do, although we don't get there hardly ever, but we still own our house there and if somebody would say, "Well, where's your real home?" I would say, "Well, I hang out here in Missoula because I've got two kids and a granddaughter here, but Forsyth is where I vote."

DS: And you still have the house?

JM: I guess that's illegal. I hope it's legal, but...

DS: I...if you own a house there, I would think it would be.

JM: And we still own that house and we rent it out of course, but now we really think of that as our home and have always thought of it as our home. We're never disappointed at all that we chose Forsyth. That community was so good for our kids and so good for Ruth and I that we just love it. That's all.

DS: Tell me a little bit about your...your vet practice in Forsyth.

JM: You know, the first day...the first day we advertised, we got all the office set up and we advertised in theForsyth Independent that I'd be in business on a certain day perhaps two different weeks ahead, and on that date you always wonder, 'Well, is there going to be any business?' Actually, we had a call from a rancher that first day. It was something I could handle easily, but getting a call on the first day was such an encouragement. I cannot tell you how big a deal it was and business built there quite quickly. They did need a veterinarian, I'll tell you. Rosebud County and Treasure County, Hysham, the two went together really, and Hysham was twenty eight or thirty miles from Forsyth, but the two went together. The two areas ducktail geographically, of course, but also I was the veterinarian, the only veterinarian between Billings and Miles City, so that's quite a stretch.

DS: That is a big stretch of miles.

JM: So, the practice built up immediately. Within a year, I was looking for a partner and got one. I was successful in getting one. A friend of mine from Iowa State in the next class agreed to come and join me in a partnership arrangement and it was always a two-man practice, from...except for that first year and after three or four years, we were able to build a building of our own, which would allow ranchers to bring a sick animal...a cow or a horse or calf, a hog if they wanted to...but bring them right into what we called the clinic and leave them if they wanted to...if the treatment required being left for a few days and then come back and get it after the treatment was finished and so we had plenty of business; plenty of opportunity to make a good living.

10 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. DS: Did you have to spend a lot of time in the field? Ranches and such?

JM: Oh, as it developed, after we got this building built, it was about half and half. About half of the animals were brought in by truck or pickup right to the clinic and the other half, we'd go out to the ranch or farm, wherever it was because this is irrigated land along the Yellowstone. There were a lot farms too rather than being separate from the straight ranching although a lot of it was combined. So, a lot of the ranchers had plenty of grass away from the river that they owned or leased and were not just farming in the irrigated land.

It was sugar beet country, so there were some farmers and that's all they did was sugar beets and whatever crops they rotated with the sugar beets and alfalfa. Then there were the ranchers who actually grazed cattle out in the grass lands and away from the river and away from irrigation. It's a very good place to practice veterinary medicine, I can tell you that. There're a lot o f cattle there.

DS: That's for sure. Sounds like practically all the work you did then was with livestock rather than dogs and cats.

JM: Yeah, of course, we were the only veterinarians between Billings and Miles City, so we took care of everybody's dog or cat or whatever pet they had and that was a part of our business, but I don't think it ever got up to 20 percent. Virtually, 80 percent of it was working on cows.

DS: How many hours a day would you guess?

JM: Well, we started our days around...had the office open by 8 and, of course, we'd be there a little before 8 and with two of us there, it was possible, you know, one of us would be on call in the evenings after we closed at 5:30 or so. We closed the office at 5:30. One of us would be on call and we were open Saturdays. We were open six days a week and one of us would be on call on a Sunday. We'd alternate so we'd get some time off.

DS: A day was adequate probably?

JM: Yeah, well, we always thought of it as a good living.

DS: It seems to me that your background as a vet definitely played a role in what you did once you got to Congress as a Senator. I'd say that's a fair assessment.

JM: Absolutely. Of course, I played a role before I got to Congress. I played a role in getting elected to the Legislature. The people...It's a blessing. People in Montana and throughout the country really have respect for veterinarians. I guess it's because they love animals and they know veterinarians take care of their animals, so that's a marvelous collection, politically, I would say. I profited from that all that time I was in the elected role office which was not just

11 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. the Legislature. I was in the city council of Forsyth and then the mayor of Forsyth for a number of years. So, I think it gave me a sort of credibility that people like.

DS: Sure. What made you decide to run for alderman? I guess that was the first office you held, right, was city councilmen of Forsyth?

JM: Well, we'd been in Forsyth two or three or four years;I forget how long it was, but it was probably about five years, three years at least. Anyway, I had the feeling that we owe this town something and I ought to do something. You know volunteer sort of stuff and for the community because they're so good to us and while I was thinking that, I actually had in the back of my mind maybe, we had a Lion's club in Forsyth. Maybe I would do more for the Lion's Club and about that time, Berger Aasland lived there and run a [inaudible], a delivery business, stopped me on the street and he said, "Don, how would you like to be on the city council?" and I said, "I don't know much about that Berger. What do you...I know you're on the city council. I read th a t in the Independent now, but what do you do?"

He said, "Oh, we have meetings every two weeks. Sometimes a special meeting. We decide what has to be decided here in running the city and you get $5 a meeting, by the way, and the thought occurred to me. 'What...that's public service, I mean. It's sort of serving the community. Maybe that's what I ought to do.' So, I said, "Well, I'll think about it."

He saw me a day or two later and said, "Have you thought about that, Doc? About running for the city council?"

I said, "Yeah, yeah. Maybe it's something I could do." And I said, "But what do I do if I do run?"

He dragged out a piece of paper out of his back pocket and said, "All you do is sign this."

I said, "W hat am I signing?"

He said, "It's a petition just to let you run."

I said, "Well, then what do I do after I sign this?"

"Well," he said, "You won't do nothing. You probably won't be opposed. You'll just get elected."

And so, I signed it and he was right...nobody opposed me. They have two in each ward, I guess, and they had three wards and then six had to be elected, so I got elected and it probably would've...I probably never would've run for mayor, but...which would be a contest as I learned. Mayors were...just whenever they came up every four years, two years, I guess it was every two years. There would always be a contest for that, but something happened and the [inaudible] and another councilman encouraged me to run. I guess he meant for mayor and it didn't take

12 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. much encouragement...so I ran for mayor which was contested and it was a friendly contest as it worked out, but...

DS: Probably non-partisan?

JM: Yeah, it's all non-partisan. Yeah.

DS: It usually is.

JM: Yeah and so I got to be mayor and I was mayor for five or six years andI was encouraged to run for the Legislature and I guess they didn't have to encourage me too much. I don't really remember them...anybody really twisting my arm, just saying "Why don't you doc? Why don't you try for that?" I did and went ahead and got into the Legislature.

DS: Well, it sounds like it was mostly a good experience for you. Alderman, mayor...were there any...do you recall any big controversial issues? Was there anything like that during those years?

JM: Well, there were controversial issues and I...the most profound one was...and why I ran for Mayor...was a city...we only had two or three cops, but one of the police officers was apprehended...just beating up on a small Indian. He [the police officer] was a huge...not huge, but he was 200 pounds and over 6 foot. This Indian, who was kind of a likeable...a likeable Indian, had a habit of, whenever he had any money, coming into Forsyth and getting intoxicated. Of course, he'd have to be picked up and dry out and sober up in a cell.

You know, it wasn't uncommon with this particular guy, but he wasn't very big and when this cop was seen kicking the living daylights out of him in his cell, being brutal for no reason at all, it was reported. The city council was upset and the mayor defended the police officer and it became an issue. That's why I ran for mayor. Because otherwise I don't think I ever would've and, of course, [I] won. The guy that was the mayor and defended the police officer was a friend of mine in business. He ran the cleaners, Bob Kerr. His place of business was right next to mine and we had to campaign against each other, but that was the issue and it wasn't like we went around talking about it. It was just known and that's why I ran and why I won. Why poor Bob Kerr had the wrong end of the sentiment of the town.

DS: Sounds like it. Did you stay friends after that?

JM: Yeah, we did.

DS: In a small town, you kind of have to.

JM: You have to. We didn't interrupt taking our cleaning there and he didn't interrupt having his daughter's cat...going next door to the veterinary clinic for us to take care of.

13 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. DS: It's not good to stay mad for too long. What happened to the policeman?

JM: You know, the policeman's wife and daughter had a cat they were very fond of and I wondered about that, but they showed up when the cat needed something. It was obvious they were...while they might've resented me, they weren't going to let it interfere with us taking care of the cat when it needed it. So, but the police officer really was really kind of ticked off. It was a job and probably the best job he could get in Forsyth at that time, but when he began to say hello to me again after six years, I felt pretty good about it. But it took about six years.

DS: So he did lose his job over it?

JM: Oh yeah. Yeah, we fired him.

DS: After the election?

JM: That was what the community wanted and we wanted that on the city council too. The majority of us on the city council wanted him fired. We know how important the job was to him, but you can't tolerate that sort of action by your police officers.

DS: So, you were mayor for how long after that?

JM: Three term s. Six years.

DS: Anything else you can think of that comes to mind during those years?

JM: Well, what really comes to mind when we think of Forsyth, that is Ruth and I, was how good it was to have the kids grow up there. When I got elected to the House, we took our three youngest back with us too. We had five and one had died...our first child had died in about 1952...and they could go swimming in the summertime, they could walk to school, they were...could bicycle, walk wherever they wanted to. It was just a marvelous place for kids to grow up. When we took our kids back from [inaudible], Washington, our youngest, they missed it so much that we...after two, three years, Ruth moved back to Forsyth with the youngest so all of them could graduate from Forsyth High School and I commuted back and forth every week from Washington back to...[cell phone rings]

DS: Okay. You were talking about your kids growing up in Forsyth.

JM: Actually Ruth with the three youngest moved back to Forsyth and I commuted back and forth. I was still in the House and they were all able then to graduate from Forsyth High School, back in their familiar surroundings and all. We were glad we did that. It was quite a sacrifice for Ruth, in particular, but it was a sacrifice for me too because I was every week commuting from

14 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. Washington to Billings and driving a 100 miles from Billings to Forsyth and then back again, getting back to work.

The House was in session on most days. On Mondays and went out of session on Friday. So, it wasn't like you could...I had to go back Sunday night and be on the floor or in committee on Mondays and then leave on Fridays and then come back to Billings, back to Forsyth. But we are glad we did it because the kids really appreciated being able to graduate from Forsyth High School. It's a lot more normal for them. Living in the community they lived in, had grown up and were born in and grew up in, and going to the school they were familiar with and it was a very good education too, by the way.

DS: What led to your decision to run for the State Legislature?

JM: I think it was a feeling...well, okay,I know a lot more now about local government, but local government is really...has to get their directions from state statutes and maybe I could help at making better state statutes...state laws and so that was, I think it's being bit by the political bug and I kept going afterwards and that was part of it too. Could I actually be elected to what would be considered a higher office? I'd been mayor of Forsyth, being in the legislature.

So, I campaigned for it. In those days, still the same as it is now, if you want to get in the Legislature, you better go around and see everybody, ask them to consider. "Please consider me when you vote." Give em your card and that hasn't changed. As I've witnessed here, in the past several years, that hasn't changed a nickels worth. That's still the way it's done. If you want to get elected to the House of Representative in Helena, you better get out and hustle and tell folks that you're interested in it and why and hope they'll vote for you.

DS: Door-to-door.

JM: Door-to-door.

DS: You probably did a lot of that.

JM: I certainly did. I knew those doors in Forsyth whenI ran for mayor andI learned to know those same doors in town, but also the ranchers in town, "You know, I am trying to run for the Legislature, here's my card" and go to each ranch too and each farm.

DS: That seat at the time pretty much was just Rosebud County or did it...

JM: It was just Rosebud County at that time. Yeah.

DS: Strictly Rosebud?

JM: That's a big county.

15 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. DS: So, this is, uh, yeah...very big. I've been there. This is your first partisan race then, I guess, huh?

JM: Yeah, that was the first time.

DS: Have you always been a Democrat?

JM: Well, yes, I've always been a Democrat. First time we voted, Ruth and I voted, we were the same age and the first time we were eligible to vote was for President. It was Harry Truman in 1948 and we did vote for Harry Truman. Stood in long lines with students and people working at Iowa State University, we called it Iowa State College then, but same place. It was [inaudible] and we stood in long lines in the rainy weather to be able to vote for Harry Truman, but not expecting him to win and when he did win, we were thrilled.

DS: I think that surprised everyone.

JM: It certainly did. Went over to the library the next day after the election and there was a... the Chicago Tribune, with about 8 inch...[cell phone interrupts].

DS: Ready? Okay.

JM: I went over to the library, the Iowa State Library, so I could look up at theChicago Tribune and they had, I think, at least 8 or 9 inch headlines across the top, "Dewey wins" and it was all a blurb, written ahead of time before Truman went ahead, which I knew, because a bunch of us sat up and listened on the radio as Truman began to look like he might carry Iowa. We knew if he carried Iowa, he was going to beat Dewey and he did carry Iowa. The Tribune went to press for sending out their papers to Ames, Iowa, probably about 11 or 12 o'clock, and the election wasn't decided and it wasn't apparent that Truman was going to win until about 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. So, they were caught with a bad paper. In fact, Truman made it a point to get his picture taken the next day, holding up that paper.

DS: I remember. I've seen that picture...

JM: Yeah.

DS: .. .many times. So, you never even considered running as a Republican at all?

JM: No, no.

DS: My guess is that part of Montana would've been fairly heavy Republican, maybe not that long ago?

16 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. JM: Well, at that time, and this is the way they gauge it, at that time, most of the offices in the courthouse were held by Republicans. Since then, I can tell you, it's sort of been times when most people were Democrats, but up until that time, most everybody that got elected in the Rosebud County to the Court House was a Republican. That tells you that Republicans frequently dominated a community, but they made some exceptions. They vote for whoever they please. They were truly voters of that type. If they liked a Democrat, they didn't care that he was a Democrat. They just liked him and I was lucky enough that they liked me. Everybody called me Doc and they voted for Doc. Not that I won by an overwhelming margins or anything like that, I just won by nice majorities.

JM: Mm-hm. So, Helena, the Legislature, I'm guessing here that it was probably similar to there where you'd have the session at the beginning of January. Is that every other year still?

DS: Yeah, and then every other year. They try to hold it for 60 days, that's what they're supposed to hold them, but it never worked out that way. January, February, well I guess in those days it was ninety days and they tried to hold it to 90 days, but they always went into April. It was a question of going over because you had to vote whether you're going to go over or whether you're going to get any money for it. We were paid, I think, fifty dollars a day or something like that, which we'd have to pay our board and room out of and it wasn't that you could make money being in the Legislature. You're going to lose a little bit of money and everybody did. I think maybe it's the same way now. You don't make any money there.

DS: It is.

JM: You're going to have to pay some of your own hard earned cash in order to serve out the session.

DS: Mm-hm. So, your partner ran the clinic while you were...

JM: He ran the business. Yeah. He was almost a saint to do that. I would try to help him out on, you know when I'd get back up. Tried to get back on Friday nights and try to help him on Saturday and give him a little time off on Sunday and then drive back to Helena. It was 300 miles and it was...the way we went was Forsyth to Round-up, Round-up to Townsend, Townsend on into Helena. It was a 300 mile drive.

DS: That's a ways.

JM: Yeah, it was a ways. You had to love being in it in order to do it and I guess, I know I loved it. I wouldn't have done it otherwise. It was hard on Ruth and the kids too. It was a sacrifice for them all the time that I did all this political stuff.

DS: What were your main interests in Helena? Do you remember committees you served on, for example?

17 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. JM: Oh, let's see.I served on Agriculture, andI guess that was the name of the committee, andI don't know that I ever served on the Education Committee or not, but I had a big interest in education. You ought to with five kids going to public schools. You ought to have some interest in education and I did have it.

Every isolated session there was always intense interest on not just me, but I think everybody there. We came for a purpose. We came to try to make the Montana laws work better and to appropriate money from state coffers for the purposes we felt were important to the state. I say that whether it's Republicans or Democrats it was, the interest was sincere and the efforts were the best we could put forward. I have a high respect for the legislative process and I've learned it there in Helena, serving in both the House and I was in the Senate also. So I served four years in the House and four years in the Montana...Montana House, and four years in the Montana Senate. I really first saw how the legislative process works and how you do some good and get your licks into straighten out some laws that don't work that good and create some new laws that might be advantageous for people.

DS: Do you remember any specific bills that you sponsored that your...

JM: I remember the first bill I sponsored.I was...I was asked by Jim Murray, who was a labor person to introduce a bill on the minimum wage for Montana and I did introduce it. I have often thought how nice of him to ask me and the reason he told me he was asking me was that...

[End o f Tape 1, Side B]

18 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. [Tape 2, Side A]

DS: Okay, you were referring to Jim Murray asking you to sponsor that.

JM: Yeah, he asked me to sponsor it because...and it makes sense too...he said, "You're from eastern Montana. You're from the cow country. If we get somebody from Butte, they say, 'Oh, they're in tight with labor.'"

I said, "Yeah, and this is...this is for the state of Montana, minimum wage for the state of Montana, how does that affect your members?"

He said, "Well, you know, it doesn't directly affect them, but labor is always gung-ho for the minimum wage for the state or federal; state and federal combined because we know that if we raise up the poorest of those...the poorest paid workers, if we raise them up, it'll help us in the long run."

So, I introduced the bill for him and I was glad he asked me to do it and then pleased that I had that opportunity.

DS: Did it pass?

JM: Yeah. As I recall, it passed. It wasn't, you know, it was probably increasing it from two dollars to two dollars and a quarter. Back then. It wasn't much...

DS: If that...

JM: ...but there were some it affected in Forsyth and they thanked me for it. They showed their appreciation and it was a start for me, anyway. Oh, the big issue we had was that we didn't want them, the...there was talk of combining the Northern Pacific with the Great Northern and that effort was being made by the two railroads and our issue was that, in Forsyth, we liked the Northern Pacific just the way it was. We had a lot of railroad workers there because Forsyth is a division point and they would prefer not to be combined with the other railroad. That was an uncertainty they didn't want to face on what would happen after the two lines were merged.

So, that was my big issue in state legislature. Oh, I think we did pass a resolution or at least I attempted to pass and had to thoroughly discuss and that was a merger we're not in favor of, but that means...it had a lot of attention in Forsyth. They thought I was doing the right thing and was something of some consequence.

DS: We'll continue that. Any bills in the area of agriculture that you can think of?

JM: There was a bill or two involving something right in my profession about what we did about the so-called Practice Act and what veterinarians were supposed to do or could do and what

19 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. they would look at as official work for veterinarians. I mean, legal work for veterinarians is lawful work that other people could not perform. It was right down my alley and there were bills of that nature. Also, bills that would require what the profession had to do to approve the licensing of new veterinarians. There was stuff like that that would come up that would be sort of my expertise. My line of knowledge would be considered and would be important.

DS: Who was the governor back then?

JM: Let's see, Babcock, I think. Yeah, he was governor at that time, the Republican Governor, but we got along. Legislature and Babcock got along with each other.

DS: So, the first time you ran for Congress was in '66, I think.

JM: Yeah, I ran for the nomination, got the nomination, and that meant I thathad to run against Jim Battin who was effective and a very decent legislator. He was in the House of Representatives in Washington, for Montana and it was a stretch for me running against him, but I did and was soundly defeated.

DS: So, it wasn't a close election?

JM: No, it was not a close election.I think maybe I was in the high thirties. I don't thinkI made forty percent of the vote. Maybe forty.

DS: Do you remember what some of the main issues were in that campaign?

JM: That campaign, an issue thatI fought for was freight rates...for shipment of Montana product on the railroads. Whether or not we were getting a fair freight rate, which we weren't. At the time, Montana Wheat was paying per bushel or a hundred [inaudible] ton...however you wanted to measure it. I thought it was too high and the railroad tariffs should be looked at and corrected, and it took a long time, but it did get corrected.

After I was elected to the U.S. Congress, I tried to do something here. At one point, after I was there a couple of term there was an opportunity to have lunch with the president of the Northern Pacific. He had a custom of having lunch with Congressman from North Dakota, Minnesota, Washington and Montana, the areas they served on the NP. He said, "What could I do for you? What would you suggest I do?"

That gave me a chance to say, "I would suggest that you look at the tariffs, the freight rates on Montana Wheat and recognize that you're charging us just as much to get a bushel of Montana Wheat out to the Pacific Northwest to export as you charge if you was coming out of Minnesota or eastern North Dakota and there are a lot fewer miles involved. Fewer miles on your railroad for our wheat than there are for those going to the West Coast.

20 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. Oh, he said, " No. We don't set freight rates that way."

I said, "Oh, yes you do."

I was so insistent and so positive that he turned to one of his aides and said, "Do we do that?"

And the aide said, "Yeah." The president of the NP at that time was good about it.

He said, "I'll tell you Congressman, if that's what we're doing, I think you're right." He said, "This will be looked at." So, about six months later, the tariffs were lower, but I campaigned on tha t basis. That was one o f our issues.

DS: I guess sometimes it doesn't take a bill then, does it?

JM: No, no, this time the message going to the right person (resulted in getting action).

DS: I guess.

JM: He said, "Well, that'd be totally unfair on our part to do that" and I said, "Yeah, it sure as hell is!" But he did get it corrected. It took about six months to do it, but he got it done.

DS: That's neat. So, after you lost that first race for Congress seat, did you give any thought to just getting out of politics?

JM: Well, I was in the Montana Senate. I'd been out a term and no, I wasn't in the Montana Senate. I had completed my term as a Montana Senator, but then I was out. In the meantime, they had changed the Supreme Court decision that said one man, one vote. They had changed the way we elect house members and members of the Senate, in the Legislature...the Montana Legislature. My adjoining county had Senator Dave Manning, a legend, a true legend in Montana politics. After the next election came up after my unsuccessful effort against Jim Battin, I decided to run and try to get back in the House...the Montana House and I did. I was reelected back into the Montana House. I would not run against Dave Manning for the Senate seat.

So, I was in the Montana House and rumors came in Helena, as they did across the country that Jim Battin was going to be appointed a Federal Judge and he preferred that to serving the House of Representatives and he was appointed. I think he was one of the first Nixon appointments to the federal bench. Jim Battin was appointed by Nixon to be the Federal Judge in Billings and that opened up the seat. At the tail end of that session, I thought, 'Well, maybe I should run for the end for it." I began to call the Chairman of the Party, the Democratic Party, and various counties in eastern Montana, because they were going to have to make the decision in a convention, a call for that very purpose. What you do in a special election...because it'd have to be a special election.

21 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. Jim Battin had just been elected to the U.S. House and resigned to become the Federal Judge. That created a vacancy and then the process would be set in motion for a special election. It would be the people in the counties. The Democratic Central Committees of each county would send, generally, their Chairmen or Chairwomen if it happened to be a woman, to a convention to determine who would be the nominee for the Democratic Party. I got to thinking, 'Well, maybe I should run' and decided to run for the vacant seat in the special election. I was successful in getting the nomination and then successful in winning that election.

DS: Bill Mather, I think, was the person you ran against who was the Republican.

JM: Yes. He got the Republican nom ination so he andI were opponents in that special election and I was lucky enough to win that.

DS: From what I read, one of the main issues in that campaign was the siting of the Safeguard Missile. You remember anything about that?

JM: Well, yes. I vaguely remember about that and I don't think it was much of an issue between the two of us. If it was, I don't recall it. We ran on the basis of who could do the most for Montana...a Democrat or a Republican. I think that helped me somewhat because it was a Democratic House. Maybe that was the edge I needed. It was a very tight election. I don't know what I won by, but it wasn't very much.

DS: So, then you had a new job and had to live in Washington, at least part time.

JM: Yeah.

DS: Your family, you said, they, for the most part, stayed in Forsyth, right?

JM: Yeah. Well, no we moved them back there in August.

DS: Oh, okay.

JM: That's when we stayed three years andI was in the House and we rented the house back there. I was in the House of Representatives and we rented a house nearby in Maryland and the kids, the three youngest came back with us. We had two in college at that time and out here at the University.

DS: Okay. So, by then all your kids were through high school.

JM: No.

DS: Not quite?

22 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. JM: And that's when, after we were there for three years, that's when they decided...Ruth decided, "I'm going to take these three youngest back so they can go to school in Forsyth."

DS: Oh, I see.

JM: And lead what we thought was a more normal life and it was for them. That was what they considered a more normal life. I'll tell you, they were happy as could be that they were going to get to come back to Forsyth, live in Forsyth and go to high school in Forsyth.

DS: Is it they just didn't care for it in Washington that much or back east or that they just liked Forsyth that much?

JM: Well, they were normal human beings and it's a lot better to be living in Forsyth than it is living in suburbia of Maryland, suburbia of Washington out in Maryland.

DS: I agree. Uh, your veterinary practice...did you sell out at that time or did you hang on to that?

JM: No. The decision was, and it was a big decision, but it was only fair to my partner at that time, I'd gone through different partners but my partner at that time was a man named, a veterinarian named Forsyth. He was out of Kansas and he'd been there three or four years, maybe five, I forget how long when I got elected, but the agreement was that if I got elected I would sell my half to him. We each owned about half of it. I think I had maybe fifty-one percent of it and he had forty-nine. I don't know, but I had a slight advantage over him because I had been there a lot longer when he came. But that was our agreement. If I did get elected into the House of Representatives in Washington, I would sell to him at an agreed price. We went through with that so he could immediately shop for somebody else. It was a two man practice. It'd be a killer for just one person.

DS: Sure, [pause] So, then you set up an office. How many people in those early years worked fo r you in your House office?

JM: I think when we began,I was able to have two or three people in the state on the payroll, on the federal payroll. Maybe four. Probably was four and then in the office at that time, I had about twelve and that's about all. You're allowed so much per house member and that was about all it was at that time, but that seemed like quite a bit to me and for the office space we had, it was quite a bit and we were kind of crowded.

DS: And this when you hired Ben Stong?

JM: Yep. I was lucky. I knew...Lee Metcalf and Mike Mansfield were very supportive of my campaign for the election and for that special election. Of course, they didn't support me until I

23 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. was nominated. They didn't take sides in the nominating process, but I did get the nomination. From that point on, they were very supportive and tried to help me in every way they could by advice. Actually, Lee sent out one of his top people to help me right during the campaign. I guess that was legal.

He did help me immensely, but one of the things I noticed during the campaign, was that they'd have a press release for me and did I want to have it distributed to papers and stations? I'd say, "Did you write this press release?" They said, "Well, actually, Ben Stong wrote that." "Who's Ben Stong?" Well, he works for the government, but he's a friend of ours and he used to work for Jim Murray but he's working for McGovern now. I said, "Well, he's pretty good. I like the preciseness. He gets right to point. He seems to know agriculture."

Then he nodded and said, "Yeah. There isn't anybody who knows more about agriculture in Washington than Ben Stong."

After I got elected, one of the first people I wanted to meet in Washington was Ben Stong. When I met him, I liked him. I liked him right away, naturally and...a very likeable person and so I offered him...I said, "Would you ever think about working here?"

Ben said, "Well, why do you say that?"

I said, "Well, you know what it is. I've got to get a staff here. You're helping me. You're already giving me advice on how to get staff around here and hire people to run this office."

I had Pat Williams with me. Pat and I had served in the House together...House of Representatives in Helena together and Pat had said he'd be interested in coming back if I got elected. I immediately hired him, but I didn't have anybody else. He [Ben] said, "Well..." [I said] "If you want to come and work for me, Ben, I'll pay you whatever the maximum is that I can pay you. You can help me set up this shop and help me run an office."

Ben said, "I'll think about it."

I said, "Well, how long is it going to take you to think about it?"

"Well," he said, "how about a day or two?"

I said, "All right, I'll call you over there then and see what you decided but I sure as hell need you. You can tell that can't you?"

He said, "Oh yeah, you need somebody. You're pretty green." He said, "I'll think about it."

I called him back in a couple of days over in McGovern's office and I said, "Have you thought about it?"

24 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. He said, "Yeah, I've thought about it."

I said, "W ill you do it?"

He said, "Yeah, I will." That was it.

I said, "Well come over here and set up all that while I sign all the papers to get you on my payroll and whatever the limit is, I'll pay you." So, I paid him. Best move I ever made in my life...getting Ben Stong on board.

DS: Well, I know Murray appreciated having him and everything up here that I read. So, Pat Williams was in that office too from the start?

JM: Oh, right away, yeah. It was great having Pat Williams, I'll tell you, but Pat was new to Washington. He couldn't be the AA...that's what we call the Chief of Staff and the administrative assistant. He couldn't be the top dog in the office, because he was green to Washington too. Just like me. So, Pat got a little good out of Ben and they were thick as thieves right from the start. They caught onto each other.

DS: So, they were the two main people you had? T JM: Absolutely.

DS: Were there any others you could think of?

JM: No, well, gradually as I got in there, yeah, there were others because of who I was able to get on the Interior Committee, in particular. That allowed me to use some professional staff. They guided me to other people who could handle Interior Committee problems. They don't call it the Interior Committee now, they call it the Natural Resources Committee...

DS: Right.

JM: ...but they still have jurisdiction over U.S. forest, parks, and wildlife refuges and stuff. Only wildlife refuges were actually handled in a different committee, but you bumped into it.

DS: Sure.

JM: And I got plenty of good staff after that, but Ben helped me. Ben was the key. He knew people...

DS: He knew people.

25 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. JM: He knew people and he knew could work and he guided me. We got...well, for instance, we got Mary Gereau to work for us, the former superintendent of public instruction in Montana. A legend out here in education matters and we got her on board. We lost Pat. He only stayed two, three years or four years, I don't recall exactly what, but we lost Pat because he was coming there to see what it was like in the House of Representatives in Washington. He didn't come there to make a career out of working for me. He came there to gain knowledge and set himself up to run for the House of Representatives.

DS: So, did you...how often were you able to get back to Montana?

JM: All during those last days it was extremely frequent. Particularly after Ruth and the three youngest kids came back here. Then it was every weekend I came back, but during the House and my early days in the Senate, I came out here very often, which is the right thing to do.

DS: I read you had to pay your own way.

JM: No.

DS: Sometimes?

JM: No. I never had to because they would allow a weekly visit to your home district. Every day, all year round, if you were in session. So, I did not have to pay my own way. There might've been some who would've, for instance, those who lived in New York, who might've gone back and forth, in between, just up for a night and back the next morning, but in my case, I never had to pay my own way. The House, their funding always paid for it.

DS: I read the little monographs the Ralph Nader study group did on all the Congressmen, including you. I don't know if you're familiar with that or not. It was real early when you were in the House. Anyway, it describes your interests, and this came out in 1972. Your main interests as agriculture and the environment. Do you think that was probably a fair assessment?

JM: Oh yeah.

DS: Those were your big 2 topics?

JM: Yeah. The Strip Mine Bill was a huge bill and, of course, I was always in the thick of that fight.

DS: Well, here, I want to talk about that a little bit, because I read something about it. What was your position on strip mining?

JM: My position on strip mining was fundamental. I mean, we had to have a national law on it. The reason we had to have a national law was because in a state like Montana, a great deal of

26 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. the coal was owned by the federal government. That's true in Wyoming too, by the way. The homesteaders got rights to the surface and they've got rights to oil rights. They didn't get rights to coal. So you could own the surface on your farm or ranch, but you didn't own the coal underneath it. That meant that there would be a real effort by the federal government to open up the mine because they own the coal. One of the provisions that I was instrumental in getting locked into the bill was that the surface owner could refuse to have it mined because it would be strip mined and all the surface would disappear and that would leave them without really owning the land. Then they [the Federal government] could say, "Well, I've given them a fair price for their farm or their ranch, so we could mine that federal coal." They would've [paid], but what was a fair price?

To most people, well, it's not for sale. I want it. It's mine. You can't. Is the law such that you can tell me to get off because you want the coal underneath me? So we locked into the bill, the surface owner's rights. The claim for the federal coal could not be exercised unless the surface owner agreed to it. It became a huge issue out here. Gradually, it became a huge issue in W yoming also.

There's a second subject that is paramount in strip mining. Well, three points. Could the surface owner have the rights to maintain his surface, his ranch or farm the way it was? Forget about the coal underneath. That was the big issue, but secondly was, would it interfere with water? You're going to go down seventy-five, a hundred and fifty feet, and then two-hundred feet. In some instances, you're going to go down pretty deep and would it interfere with aquifers? We made it part o f the Strip M ine Bill,[inaudible ]...probably I was in the lead on it. The land could not be strip mined if it disturbed an aquifer that was significant and important. We made it in such language that it didn't mean that you could do it and then afterwards compensate somebody for it. You had to have the mining plan demonstrate that the aquifers would not be disturbed.

You know there was a third point. Let's see. What was it? Oh. Would the land be reclaimed properly? Would it be reclaimed in such a way that cattle could graze...

[End o f Tape 2, Side A]

27 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. [Tape 2, Side B]

DS: Okay. You were talking about the reclamation.

JM: Could it be returned to the same level of production as it had been before? You run into a lot of different things and one of the things that became important to us was that native grasses would have to be restored because we're out here in Montana. We get about eleven inches of precipitation a year in the country where they're going to be strip-mining. So, could it be maintained as good as it was before?

Those three provisions were paramount for a strip-mine bill and I've already gone over the fact that it had to be federal because we had this question of federal ownership of the subsurface for coal. Then the question was, could these three categories be locked into the bill? They were locked in successfully. I had a big role in that part because I'm from Montana and Colstrip and they were already mining in Colstrip without regulation.

There was some state regulation, but the state agreed they wanted federal regulations because of the federally owned coal. We got those things locked in and it took years to get that bill passed, but beginning in about 1972,1 was scooped up into that endeavor and I don't think we passed it until 1977. We did pass it a couple of times, but it was always vetoed. In '77 we knew if we could pass it, we would get Jimmy Carter...

DS: Jimmy Carter was president?

JM: Yeah. He would sign it and we got it passed.

DS: So, you started that whole thing in the House and you were in the Senate by the time it passed.

JM: Yeah, and those three issues were still important. They were still debated. Each time they were debated vigorously. If you were a coal company, there was stuff they could see as being a headache for them. It could be done and they knew it could be done, though we would put it into the bill, but it was a headache for them so they always opposed it...

DS: Oh, of course.

JM: I do recall a Senator Hansen from Wyoming. He wasn't locked in with me on the surface owner's rights. I said to him, "Well, just check out there with some of your ranchers and see if they don't want that, if they don't think that's extremely important to them." After a couple of weeks, he came back to me and he said, "You know, you're absolutely right on that. I'm joining with you! I'm going to fight this harder too! It is important! I didn't know how important it was." He said, "All that coal over there around[inaudible] is about half federal." Or more than tha t even.

28 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. DS: So you were the Chief Sponsor of that bill most of the time it went through?

JM: I would call Udall Chief Sponsor of the bill.I was just one of the helpers in the bill, but those were the three areas that were so significant to Montana on the surface owners rights, the water aquifers and what was that third one?

DS: Reclamation?

JM: Oh, the grasses had to come out the same. That was important to Udall too, but thenI was in coal country. He wasn't really. There wasn't much strip-mining going to develop in Arizona and so those three issues were kind of mine...

DS: So, you made sure that went right in the bill?

JM: Yeah and as a matter of fact, the big huge coalition that backed that bill and was instrumental in drumming up all the support that was necessary. I'll tell you, you had to get support from every angle. One time, there was a question in the early days, that probably would've been '72 or'73, there was a question. The AFL-CIO, the labor organization, had not endorsed the bill and put it on their list. This is the one that we're going to count, you know. They only had about a dozen bills a year that they counted as being significant and they hadn't elevated the Strip M ine Bill to th a t level and so, I called people in labor at AFL-CIO and said, "What's it gonna take to get your endorsement of this bill?"

They said, "That'll have to be through the Operating Engineers." I knew about the Operating Engineers. That's people on those drag lines and people that service those drag lines and all that heavy equipment.

I said, "Well, you gotta get them to sign off?" and "Who's the president of the Operating Engineers?" And they told me. I guess I could've looked it up, but at any rate, they told me and I called over at that union and said, "Was he in town? Could I talk to him?"

He said, "He's in Switzerland."

And I said, "Well, could I talk to him over there?"

"What's this about?"

I said, "We want an endorsement and the AFL-CIO won't give an endorsement unless you people sign off...agree with it." I said, "Can I talk to him? They got telephones over there? Can I talk to him?"

"All right, if you're so insistent, we'll set it up" and they set it up.

29 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. I said, "We've got this strip mine bill. You're familiar with the strip mine bill, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Well, have you taken a position?"

"Well, we kind of think it'd probably be all right."

I said, "Well, would you tell the AFL-CIO that you want it so they'll endorse the bill? We're trying to bring this bill up in the House."

He said, "You want me to tell the AFL that we're okay on it?" He said, "Well, wait a minute! How is Lee M etcalf on it?"

I said, "Lee Metcalf wants it. He's big time on this. He really wants it."

He said, "Are you sure Lee wants it?"

I said, "Well, you can call him, but he does want it."

He said, "Well, I suppose I can take your word for it, Melcher." We met somewhere along the line, but at any rate, he said, "I suppose I can take your word for it."

"W ell, call Lee. He'll tell you."

So he said, "I'll see what I can do about this."

The next day, they endorsed the bill. The AFL-CIO endorsed the bill. So, if he called Lee, which he probably did...

DS: Probably.

JM: He was very fond o f Lee, was in tig ht w ith Lee, and he knew me, vaguely, not all tha t well, but he really was a great friend of Lee Metcalf. So that's the way we got the endorsement. This vast array of organizations that backed the Strip Mine Bill were pressuring every little nook and cranny that they could.

DS: Was the Northern Plains Resource Council planning on....or were they later?

JM: No, they started later.

DS: Okay.

30 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. JM: But this was the beginning of the Northern Plains Resource Council because they were Montana people...Pat Sweeney brought that to Washington as a young man, a really young man. I don't think he was more than 21 or 23 years old at the time and he lobbied...We got to know each other well in the lobbying efforts for this bill and it did take til...'77 to finally get it to become law. We did pass it in the House twice before that. Well, we got it on the President's desk twice before that. It vetoed once, but I got...

DS: It got vetoed...

JM: Vetoed by Nixon, then by Ford.

DS: M m -hm .

JM: Because the coal companies maintained it was too much. There was just too much in there and we knew there was because part of what they figured was too much was the surface owner's rights...the very things that were so fundamental for Montana.

DS: And the ranchers especially.

JM: Yeah.

DS: Sounds like probably the bill has helped you more in Rosebud County more than it would've hurt you.

JM: Oh, immensely. Yeah, immensely.

DS: That's what I thought. Were you satisfied with the final bill?

JM: Yeah. Those three areas were locked in tightly. They still are too, by law.

DS: Yeah and that's good. You were also in the House...a big advocate early-on of health standards of food.

JM: Oh yeah.

DS: Do you recall any specific bills or anything in that area?

JM: Oh, a lot of oversight in the...not so much bills as lots of pressure from trying to get the committee. I was always on the Agriculture Committee House horse and trying to get the committee to, not only in their hearing process, but in their actions of making sure they lived up to it. They had a...I think they probably still do it...every year they print...send out the President's budget with no funding for the Food Safety Inspection Service. That is the

31 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. inspection of meat and poultry. It's federal responsibility and they'd send it up with no money it because they're going to privatize it. Going to make the packers, the chicken people, and hog people pay for the inspection and it's fundamentally...you know, you have to think of that.

Do you want your inspectors paid by the industry they're inspecting or not? Is it a responsibility of government to set up the inspection standards and to actually do the inspection and enforcement? Or, is it somehow going to be changed so that paying for doing those very things will be done by the people that you're inspecting. Of course, we always resisted that, but about every other year, they sent up their budget with that category not funded, so we had to find the funds to pay for that inspection and maintain that separation between those inspected, who hired them, who paid them.

DS: Mm-hm. Protection of Indian lands was also a big issue.

JM: Yeah. Indian problems, whether it was housing or getting the money they were entitled to under the agreements, federal Indian agreements...I served on those committees, both in the House and Interior. Again, it was called the Interior Committee, and now called Natural Resources. I don't know where their jurisdiction is in the House, but in the Senate, it's the same as it was then. I was always on those committees, in fact, [I was] Chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee for two, three or four years. I don't recall which.

DS: I' m just assuming your interest in Indian lands and Indian issues probably stemmed from the fact that all the Native American Reservations in Montana...

JM: Yeah. Yeah.

DS: ...and their constituencies.

JM: After all, I lived on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation...

DS: That's true.

JM: ...for two years. I knew they had problems and they're big problems. Education, housing, all the basics and the opportunity to get a job somewhere. Those are always huge and are still huge today. They haven't gone away. They haven't been corrected.

DS: Any major bills you could think of in that area that you helped get passed?

JM: Well, lots of them. I don't know how major they were, but people had a habit of keeping track who passed bills and a number of... I'll tell you, I passed more bills than anybody when I was Chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee because there were a lot of bills that had to be acted on and they had to be legislated. You couldn't do it by...you couldn't do it by regulation. That had to be law. So there were scores, not a few. Scores. Hundreds.

32 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. DS: They're on file in the archives too. I'm sure.

JM: I' m sure they are. They certainly are.

DS: Well, while you were in the house, what I read is you had a slogan "Man on the move for eastern Montana." Do you remember that slogan at all? Where that came from?

JM: I' m sure it came from Ben Stong. Ben loved campaigns. Then he would come out here to Montana during the campaign. He was a jewel.

DS: Okay, we'll switch gears a little bit. Foreign policy, while you were in the House. Generally, what was your position on the war in Vietnam?

JM: I' m ashamed to say that despite what Mike Mansfield was saying, "They oughtta be out of Vietnam, lock, stock, and barrel." Despite the fact that Tip O'Neill came on the floor, he was majority leader at the time, he wasn't speaker then, he was the majority leader, came on the floor and he said, "I've changed my view on the war in Vietnam. These students, and I have a lot of them in my district, had been telling me for years, that we're wrong for being in Vietnam and I felt, well, we had purpose there and we had to win that war." He said, "I've changed. We don't belong there."

Despite that, I still was of the opinion that well, we are at war. The President has to be in charge of it and you have to support our military efforts. I did not change and I'm ashamed of that because I had two very fine people, whom I respected, and knew they had great knowledge and Mike Mansfield and Tip O'Neill, I still didn't change. I just thought in my own mind, 'Well, we're at war. We've gotta stay there.' I knew that not long out of the decision making process, I knew that when we went into this Iraq war, that it was a repetition of a mistake we made in Vietnam.

We had no business in going to war in Iraq. I've learned my lesson through the Vietnam experience and how wrong I was then and wasn't going to be wrong again in my own mind and my own judgment on whether war was proper or not and I just wasn't there. I didn't have it within me to know that the Vietnam War was a foolish escapade on our part and one that caused a lot of tragedy for so many different people and so many different families. So many people died over there or were injured, came back with something they had a hard time overcoming and some of them still have a hard time overcoming the syndrome they picked up in Vietnam.

DS: Were there any...do you recall any resolutions in the House regarding the war?

JM: Well, I'm sure there were.

DS: I can't remember. inaudible[ ], I guess.

33 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. JM: I can't remember exactly what they were, but I'm sure there were enough and if you had the opportunity to make your expression, one way or the other, I'm sure I didn't make my expression correctly.

DS: But at the time, you felt you were right.

JM: Yeah, I said, "Well, that's where we're at and we've got to support our efforts."I think we were wrong. I don't think we should've gone into Vietnam now, but I wasn't smart enough to wise up to know it was a mistake at the time.

DS: Do you think it affected your, the vote turn-out or the elections at home in any way?

JM: Well, it was only during the tail end when we were getting out that it became apparent out here that there was strong feeling. After all, Mike felt strongly about it and he campaigned across the state. He didn't make any bones about it. He didn't make it the number one issue or anything, but when he campaigned during that time, he said, "We don't belong there." He would campaign not just for himself, but for others that we ought to get out there "lock, stock and barrel." That was his phrase, which was unequivocal. You know, when he said it, he meant everything. Just get out, but I'm ashamed to say that I didn't agree with him at the time. I was silent on it, but of course, I didn't ever, ever contradict him. Ever, but...

DS: Did he ever try to bring you around to his way of thinking that you remember?

JM: No, he wasn't that way. He'd just give his opinion and he wouldn't pressure.

DS: Metcalf probably didn't either, huh?

JM: No, Metcalf didn't either. It really was not a huge issue when I ran. It was not a huge issue, but when the young people started to demonstrate as they did, correctly so, that it was wrong and it gradually swayed opinion.

DS: Okay. 1970 when you ran for re-election, the first time, your opponent was Jack Rehberg. How is he related to Denny? Or is he?

JM: Father.

DS: That's what I thought.

JM: Yeah. See, I served in the Montana House with both Bill Mathers and Rehberg. So,I knew them both quite well and was friendly toward them. We didn't criticize each other in our campaigns. No negative stuff.

34 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. DS: That's a lot different from now.

JM: It's changed, it's changed. I didn't like the negative stuff.

DS: What were the main issues in that campaign? Do you remember anything?

JM: Well, I tried to make this railroad stuff an issue and to a certain degree it was an issue. After I won the first time, you know, the incumbency has a lot of things going for it and you can point to stuff you tried to do or did do or issues you were directly involved in and that was significant, whether that was in agriculture or strip mining or national forest lands. There isn't that much national forest in eastern Montana, but there're some and so it was part and parcel to...

DS: Southeastern corner especially.

JM: Southeastern and then some around Lewistown and Great Falls.

DS: One thing I read about that campaign, you tried to run on sort of a law and order platform, which was popular among Republicans back then. Remember anything about that?

JM: No.

DS: It wasn't a big thing in Montana from what I understand. Crime wasn't that big of a problem in the eastern part of the state. Rehberg called you a conservative in Montana and a liberal in Washington.

JM: Yeah. That was a familiar charge.

DS: Do you think that was a fair assessment or not?

JM: No...I always thought I was about the same whether I was in Montana or back there, but the fact that I was engaged in the Strip Mine Bill was positive for me because it was a business...there was a great concern. If we're going to have strip mining, are we gonna have it clean or not? Were the power plants going to be cleaned or were they going to pollute Helena? Now that was an issue in Forsyth and I recognized that. Actually, Colstrip was going to have these...what was it? Three new plants and if it's going to be...if it was going to be a pollutant, well, it's right in our county and so, I felt I had personal stake in that. Not that Colstrip's 45 miles from Forsyth, not that the winds are generally going to the north and west. They weren't going to pollute Forsyth, but we're going to pollute Colstrip and the southern part of the county.

Yeah, you couldn't help, but make it...well, this is personal. This is in our neighborhood and so, I think those were always significant issues with every time I ran in the House, in particular, but also in the Senate with how much [we] are doing to safeguard what we've got? I was fortunate

35 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. enough to have passed, or been the sponsor, of what we called the National Forest Service Act in 1970. No, it wouldn't have been '70. It would've been about 1974. It didn't hurt me any. I was the original...when I say wrote, you write it with staff of the BLM, Bureau of Land Management Organic Act. They were set up by presidential order and they didn't really have a basis in law that said what their duties were and what their responsibilities were.

DS: The BLM didn't?

JM: BLM did not.

DS: W ow.

JM: And, I forget what year it was. Maybe it was early 70s. '72 or '74, somewhere in there.

DS: W hile you were in the House?

JM: While I was in the House. The Forest Landsmen's Act was one for the National Forest and the BLM Organic Act was for the Bureau of Land Management and both were passed the same year. I happened to be the lead sponsor of both of those acts and the BLM Organic Act was fundamental. My god. [They] have all the control administering all those federal lands throughout the country and the personnel they had working for them and they did not have a specific law that said what their responsibilities and their duties were. It was really not the way to run the government. So it fell on me to start drafting that bill. When I say drafting, the committee staff really drafted it, but I was a leading one. I was in charge of it.

JM: Your congressional district, even when the state was split in half like it was, it was bigger than most states.

DS: Oh yeah, what were the ways...how did you keep in touch with your constituents?

JM: Well, we tried to answer every letter with not a form reply. We tried to handle everybody's letter as if it were from a friend or part of the family and really get in the response and get down to the decent response that tried to explain what we were trying to do or we couldn't get done and where the hold-up was. In Montana, the Farm Bill was always a significant bill and it had to be passed every two or three, sometimes four years and every little issue we were involved in, affected people in the state that were in agriculture and it goes much beyond that.

It goes into the school lunch program. It goes into the food stamp program. It goes into the nutrition program. It isn't just for farmers. It goes into Food for Peace, which is what we're doing abroad and one of the best avenues we have in creating good will in foreign countries. So, all of that always comes up in every farm bill. Not to mention, animal welfare...what we're doing about animals. Whether we're being as humane as possible to animals. After all, we have all these animals [inaudible].

36 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. We graze to kill. Milk cows are a little bit different and we raise them to get the milk from them. But are we doing the right thing with the animals and all of the animal welfare issues do come up with the Farm Bill. They're always reviewed at that time and we try to make improvements in the law as how we're treating them. So, all that was extremely important when people...we wanted constituents to be asking us or telling us what they wanted. Asking us why it wasn't better or making suggestions to us how it could be better and we tried to treat that mail...it was generally through the mail and not telephone calls. A lot of the meetings out here in the state.

DS: You kept some offices farthe r north, Billings, Great Falls...

JM: In the House, I think the...I had a staffer in Lewistown and staff in Billings, I think I had two there. And just maybe one or two in Great Falls. That's while I was in the House. And when I got in the Senate, then I could have a few more and of course, I had somebody in Butte and somebody in Missoula and somebody in Kalispell and Bozeman were the areas I tried to have staff.

DS: During those years you were in the House, what Congressmen do you think were your closest friends?

JM: In the House?

DS: M m -hm .

JM: Well, people on the committees that you serve on are always very close...I mean, you get to be close to them. Tom Foley. I got to be close to him. He basically became Speaker of the House. Bob, from Minnesota, I forgot his last name, got to be...he got to be Secretary of Agriculture under Carter, but yeah. One that I've always been close to, simply because he was elected in a special election just before me was Dave Obey, the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee. Boy, I had a lot of friends there.

[End o f Interview ]

37 John Melcher Interview, OH 411-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula.