Oral History Interview with
Tom L. Evans
Kansas City businessman; friend of Harry S. Truman since
the early twenties; formerly Secretary of the Harry S. Truman Library,
Inc.; and Treasurer of the Harry S. Truman Library Institute for National
and International Affairs.
Kansas City, Missouri
November 28, 1962
J. R. Fuchs
[Notices and Restrictions | Interview
Transcript | Additional Evans Oral History Transcripts]
NOTICE
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry
S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee
but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember
that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written
word.
Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript
indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral
history interview.
RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced
for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission
of the Harry S. Truman Library.
Opened August, 1966
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri
[Top of the Page | Notices
and Restrictions | Interview Transcript
| Additional Evans Oral History Transcripts]
Oral History Interview with
Tom L. Evans
Kansas City, Missouri
November 28, 1962
J. R. Fuchs
[84]
FUCHS: The last time we were together, Tom, you were telling about the
beginning of your association with Mr. Payne in a drugstore in Kansas
City, Missouri. I guess we should start there, now.
EVANS: That's fine. Mr. Payne, during the time that I worked for Fritche-Henderson
Candy Company as a salesman, was a salesman for the old Evans-Smith Drug
Company. Incidentally, that Evans was no relation of mine; but it was
an old, old Kansas City firm and a wholesale drug house--jobbing house--selling
to retail drugstores. Mr. Payne and I, of course, were good friends because
we were both born in Larned, Kansas, and we traveled the same territory
together and were well-acquainted; and had the opportunity of observing
retail druggists in their operations and how poor most of them operated
their stores. We had often talked about going into the retail drug business.
The War came along and, of course, stopped that and then my illness. Mr.
[85]
Payne had been in the service and he had gotten out and taken a job down
in Texas with a wholesale manufacturer of drugs selling a product called
"Orgatone." He got in touch with me, saying that he was getting tired
of traveling and he thought that we ought to consider again buying a drugstore.
In December of 1919 he quit his job down in Texas and came up here, and
I showed him a number of drugstores that I thought were good locations.
One in particular was at the corner of what is now Linwood and Main or
3300 Main. In those days, it was called Hunter Avenue and Main. Linwood
then, west of Main Street, was called Hunter Avenue--it's now Linwood.
The store was run by a man by the name of Harry Wilkerson. I had called
on him selling candy; Mr. Payne had called on him selling drugs--he knew
him. He had rather a nasty disposition--ran an awful dirty drugstore.
It was a prominent corner, a great transfer point; the old Strang Line
interurban railroad, running from Kansas City to Olathe, turned there
and it was quite a transfer
[86]
corner. So, we thought that would be a good location. We talked to Wilkerson
about buying it and found that we could; the only thing that we needed
was money; we didn't have any money. We started out to raise some money
and I've already told most of that story. Mr. Payne did have $2500 and,
incidentally, was not married. I was married and had a daughter; it was
taking all of my money to live on. I went to my old boss, the McPike Drug
Company, that I first went to work for, and sold them the idea that I
wanted to go into the retail drug business--wanted to buy a drugstore.
They loaned me $2500 and that was, incidentally, the first money I ever
borrowed. Then Mr. Payne and I made a tour of all the banks in Kansas
City trying to borrow another $5000 because the drugstore that we wanted
to buy at Hunter Avenue and Main, the cost of it was $10,000. Clive Payne
had gone to the University of Kansas with S. K. Cook whose brother was
the president of the Columbia National Bank and he (S. K. Cook) had taken
a job in the
[87]
bank, and, of course, as I say, he knew Mr. Payne. Well, as I said earlier,
we talked him into loaning us $2500 on an open note, of course, we had
no collateral. Then we got Mr. Wilkerson, the man we wanted to buy out,
to agree to take a mortgage on the fixtures for the balance of $2500,
all of which took considerable time. Anyway, on January 15, 1920, we bought
the store and closed the deal and took possession. It was agreed between
Clive Payne and myself that I would continue on working for Fritche-Henderson
Candy Company and he would run the drugstore. He would run it during the
day and after I finished my work in the day, I would run it at night,
to see how we would get along. The store, at the time we bought it, was
probably doing about--oh, less than a hundred dollars a day business,
which was not even enough to pay expenses, so we wanted to take it easy.
The store as I said before, was dirty, unattractive. There was a lot of
old fixtures. I remember a florist's box for flowers was built into the
window--fine thing for a drugstore to sell, but anyway, they had it there,
and
[88]
between the glass of the flower icebox and the glass of the window there
was this vase that I guess had been there five, six, seven years and it
was just filthy dirty--it was awful. People, of course could see it--dirty.
Well, anyway, I got my brother and my father and my brother-in-law and
all my relatives to help us and some of Payne's relatives--we tore out
that old icebox and started stocking up the store. We had plenty of credit;
we didn't have any trouble buying merchandise and we got the store in
pretty good shape. We put in a new soda fountain—bought that on time--and
business started picking up. After about forty-five days of Mr. Payne
running it in the daytime and me running it at night, we determined that
there was enough business for both of us, so I notified Fritche and Henderson
that I was resigning my job to devote my full time to my first drugstore,
which we did. Well, we had a very fine, successful operation there; I
think mainly, Jim, because Mr. Payne or I was on duty all the time. One
of us was there all the time and both of us
[89]
were there most of the time and we had little help to hire. One week
I would open and that week Mr. Payne would close. The next week, I would
reverse and open and he would close. We each put in about fourteen to
sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, and the night that I closed up
my wife would act as my cashier and the night that Payne worked, Mrs.
Payne would work as his cashier; so we had no help. Incidentally, all
the money got in the cash register instead of in some of the help's pocket,
which I think made it a pretty successful operation.
It worked out--that store worked fine, and at the end of the twelve months
period we were both mighty happy to know that we had paid off the bank,
the $2500 that we borrowed from them (The Columbia National Bank), and
we had paid the $2500 that I had borrowed from McPike Drug Company. We
paid Mr. Wilkerson his $2500 and paid Mr. Payne back his $2500 and in
addition we had increased the inventory from about $6000 to $12,000, and
we put in about $10,000 worth of new fixtures. Actually, the drugstore
made pretty good money, at least,
[90]
exceptionally good money for those days. And, as I say, it was mainly
because one of us was there all the time and both of us were there most
of the time, and we had our wives helping us to watch and see that there
were no losses. I've often said that that drugstore probably made more
money than any drugstore that I bought in later years, but that was because
both of us were there.
They have a great story they tell on me about my first operation at that
store. Mr. Truman's heard the story so I guess I better tell it to you
and let the young lady, when she transcribes this, hear this story.
After we were in business about a year, and, as I told you, Mrs. Evans
helped me at night, I just couldn't get by without help. Whatever amount
of business we'd done up to six o'clock in the evening, we would do an
equal amount from seven o'clock to twelve, so I needed a cashier. After
we were there almost a year, Mrs. Evans was pregnant and
[91]
was expecting our second child and she said, "I just can't come down
to the store and work any more, I'm too big."
She felt good and I said, "Well, I can't afford to lose a good cashier
and I need you. Wait until it gets dark and you can come down and slip
in the front door, right in behind the cigar counter, and I'll build up
some boxes of cigars on the top of the counter so people can't see you
only just above your waist."
And she did and then she got larger and I put up another stack of cigar
boxes. So I had her working for me until the 10th day of January, 1921,
and Dick, our boy, was born on February 6th, 1921. They've kidded me about
how hard I worked my wife and piled cigar boxes up so she couldn't be
seen; but, as I say, I needed her very bad and, of course, she deserves
a lot of credit along with Mrs. Payne for our original success in that
first drugstore.
FUCHS: Now, this was about 1921 when Mr. Truman and
[92]
Eddie Jacobson were experiencing difficulties with their haberdashery
business, largely as a result of what they called the "Harding depression,"
I guess. Was that felt in the drug business?
EVANS: Yes, it was what we now call a "depression" in general, and it
was felt, not only in the haberdashery business, drug business, grocery
business, and by everybody. I know there was a grocery store next to our
drugstore there at Hunter Avenue and Main and a man by the name of Jessee
owned it and he couldn't survive; his business just got so bad that he
had to close up. Well, frankly, Mr. Payne and I might have been in the
same boat if it hadn't been for the fact that we had bought a store that
was a good location, but the business had just been abused and we just
had a natural good business plus the fact as I have said, because we employed
very little help and very little overhead and we were able to get by and
build our business in that depressed year.
[93]
Yes, I knew about, of course, Mr. Truman having the haberdashery and
had learned from some of our friends of some of the difficulties that
he was having. But, as you can well imagine, I was too busy running a
drugstore to pay much attention in those days to the haberdashery at 12th
and Baltimore.
FUCHS: You don't recall talking to him about any of his difficulties.
You didn't see him much, I gather?
EVANS: No, no. As I say, I didn't have time. I would occasionally see
A1 Ridge, whom I think I told you about being a soda dispenser over at
22nd and Prospect and is now a Federal judge and, of course,
we're good friends. He spent a lot of time in Eddie Jacobson's and Mr.
Truman's haberdashery and I would occasionally see him. It seems to me
that his statement in those days to me, when he'd drop in the store at
Hunter Avenue and Main to see me, was that their biggest trouble was that
they had given credit to so many of their
[94]
friends, and their friends had lost their jobs and couldn't pay; that
that was the difficulty. At least, that was Al Ridge's idea of what was
wrong at the haberdashery. As I said, I didn't see either he or Eddie
because I was too busy keeping my first drugstore going and trying to
make some money and pay off my debt, which I'm thankful we were able to
do.
FUCHS: Do you know anyone who might have clerked for Mr. Truman in the
store in those days?
EVANS: No, I don't recall anyone by name who worked for them.
FUCHS: Well now, you lost your cashier as a result of gaining a child?
EVANS: That's right. Well, I had employed a young man on the soda fountain,
a boy by the name of Andrew A. Zimmerman who had a fine personality and
a lot of pep. In those days, you could send a man part-time to the College
of Pharmacy for study and he could take the state board, and if
[95]
he was successful in passing it, he became a registered pharmacist. That,
of course, is no longer true. Today, you have to have four years college
education before you can take the state board. But anyway, we hired him.
He did a job. We made him a clerk because I'd lost my cashier and our
business was such anyway, that we had to have some help. We put him through
the College of Pharmacy and he became a registered pharmacist. We bought
a drugstore at 31st and Main--that was our second store. Incidentally,
we had to borrow all the money; we'd paid back everything, so Mr. Payne
and I borrowed the money to buy that drugstore. As I recall it, we paid
$15,000 for that store. We put Zimmerman in to run it with the understanding
that when the profits from that particular store paid us back our $15,000,
he would own one half of the store and Mr. Payne and I would own the other
half. Well, he did about the same as we did; he worked hard. He had gotten
married; he had his wife helping him in the drugstore and he did very
well. And at the end of twelve months
[96]
period he'd paid back the $15,000 and he owned a half interest in that
store at the northeast corner of 31st and Main.
FUCHS: Is he the former taxi driver I read about?
EVANS: That's the one. That's the boy that Mr. Payne and I employed and
put through pharmacy school, and he did that in about sixteen months by
going to school five mornings a week one week and five afternoons the
next week and studying in the drugstore. He passed the state board and
became a registered pharmacist. It was about fourteen or fifteen months
after he went to work for us that he had passed the state board, and we
bought his store and a year later he'd paid us back the $15,000 and was
the owner of it.
FUCHS: That store was just a short distance from your first store, wasn't
it?
EVANS: That's right. We were really at 33rd and Main and this was at
31st--just two blocks, but it was entirely a different neighborhood.
At 31st and
[97]
Main in those days almost ninety percent of their business was streetcar
transfer business. We had a good neighborhood business at 33rd and Main,
but 31st and Main was an enormous, big transfer point--the second best
in town, and it was transient business; oh, there was some neighborhood.
There were two large hospitals there. One, in those days, was called the
Swedish Hospital; it's now the Trinity Lutheran at 30th and Wyandotte.
Of course, it's still there, but completely modernized; and St. Mary's
Hospital--Catholic Hospital--at 28th Street and Main, which
is still there, but completely revamped, and there was a lot of business
for that store from there.
Well, Zimmerman was a good operator, a wonderful personality, and a hard
worker, and, as I say, at the end of twelve months he had that store paid
for. In the meantime, Mr. Payne and I had looked at another store at 39th
and Main, which was six blocks south of our first store. It was a good
business center. In later years, by the way,
[98]
Eddie Jacobson (after World War II) opened a haberdashery across the
street on the northwest corner of 39th and Main. Mr. Payne and I bought
this store at 39th and Main, which was at the northeast corner, right
across the street from where Eddie later opened his store. There was a
couple of men who owned the store--a couple of partners--and they had
not been getting along well. It was a heavily populated little suburban
business section--all kinds of business for about two blocks square, as
you can remember. Even now 39th and Main is a separate and distinct business
district. Well, that was an exceptionally good store. Mr. Payne then left
me at 33rd and Main or Hunter Avenue and Main, and he went down and ran
that store. As I remember, we paid $20,000 for that store, and we had
all of the profits of that store and all of the profits of our first store,
and half of the profits of the store at 31st and Main to pay it off, and
in about eight months, we got that paid for. I must say,
[99]
however, that neither one of them made near the money that the first
store did, because we had split up, which, while we made money, we didn't
make as big money as we did in the first store, as I'm sure you can understand
why: because we had to hire help and you didn't have people working eighteen
hours a day, seven days a week. Although I must say that things are considerably
changed today as compared to then. We used to hire a registered pharmacist
in those days for a hundred dollars a month and he worked eighty-four
hours a week. People sometimes wonder where labor unions got started;
well, I've often said that between Kresge and Woolworth and the druggists
of America, we made the labor unions, because we worked the help to death--long
hours and no pay. Today, a registered pharmacist works forty hours a week
and, I guess, makes at least a hundred and fifty dollars a week as compared
to a hundred dollars a month and eighty-four hours a week.
Well, we were then the proud owners and
[100]
operators of--Mr. Payne and I--of two and a half drugstores. In the meantime,
we had a couple of men who were working for us, a man by the name of Bill
Werthe and another man. Werthe was working for Mr. Payne at 39th and Main,
and I had a boy working for me at Hunter Avenue and Main by the name of
John Williams. So we bought a drugstore at the southwest corner of 25th
and Troost. It was a small drugstore, in those days operated by a man
by the name of Roy Berkley. Roy was a good friend of mine because I had
called on him as a salesman--so had Mr. Payne--we knew him. He didn't
like the drug business; he'd gotten mad at it because of the long hours
and hard work. I wanted to get John Williams into a store; I went to see
Roy and bought his drugstore for a very reasonable price. I think we paid
$10,000 for it--it wasn't too big a drugstore. We put John in that store
on the same basis that we did with Zimmerman except, instead of giving
him a half interest we gave him a third interest, as we had a slight indication
that a man with half interest in a store--from Zimmerman--
[101]
assumed a little bit too much management, in our opinion; so we decided
to cut him down to a third. We told John Williams that when the profits
of that store had paid off the cost of it, that he would own a third of
it and Payne and Evans would own two-thirds of it. He kept up the tradition,
and at the end of twelve months period he had his store paid for. In the
meantime, Mr. Payne's man, Bill Werthe, had developed under Mr. Payne,
and we put a store in a new shopping center, which was the first ever
built in Kansas City, at 31st Terrace and Main, where Pla-Mor now is.
You recall where Pla-Mor now is? Well, that was called the Stop and Shop
Market, and it was a gigantic, big building with all kinds of merchants
under one roof--the first of its kind in Kansas City.
FUCHS: That would have been very close to your second store then.
EVANS: Oh, just a block, but it had a parking area; and if the store
was to succeed, people had to
[102]
come from all over town because it was a gigantic undertaking, and there
was a grocery store in there; a haberdashery store; and a hardware store.
And then we had a drugstore inside this Stop and Shop Market. If I recall
right, the building was four hundred feet square, so you can imagine what
kind of a large store it was.
FUCHS: Would there have been any objection from Zimmerman in the store
at 31st and Main?
EVANS: No, because it would all have to be transient business under this
big Stop and Shop plan, figuring that it would not hurt our store at Hunter
Avenue and Main or Zimmerman's store at 31st and Main. All we had to buy,
of course, was fixtures to put into that store, and merchandise. Unfortunately
the Stop and Shop Market itself was not successful. Of course, there were
motor cars, but not too many had them. A gigantic investment, and they
went broke. That building was later bought and taken over and that's where
the Pla-Mor Ice Rink was, by the way. It's just been done away with in
the
[103]
last twelve months and the great big, gigantic discount store is there,
Atlantic Mills--just opened, probably you noticed in the paper, a month
ago. Well anyway, the P1a-Mor Bowling took over, and they had an ice rink
there and the ballroom. We actually did not lose any money in our drugstore;
we didn't make very much, and when they went broke, the Pla-Mor Corporation,
we moved our fixtures and merchandise to a storeroom we rented at 35th
and Indiana; and Bill Werthe went in there as manager and did very well
in that particular store. Then we started to have little serious trouble
with Mr. Zimmerman, our first boy. He said, "Here, you and Mr. Payne have
got four or five drugstores, and I've only got a half of one drugstore,
what am I going to do; how am I going to expand?"
So, we told him that if he would develop a man that could run a drugstore,
and he put up half the money and Payne and Evans put up the other half,
that when this man, that he had developed,
[104]
had it paid for, Zimmerman would own a third and the man he developed
a third, and Payne and Evans would own a third. He had a boy by the name
of Gustafson who was a hard-working, energetic young druggist. We felt
sure that he could run a store, so we bought a store at 39th and Summit
on the southwest corner and put Gustafson in. That's now on the trafficway
and, incidentally, a drugstore is still there. I don't know how they do
business because the traffic goes by there so fast they can't stop. But
anyway, there's still a drugstore in the same identical room and building.
And it did very well; Gustafson was a good operator and he made money,
and I am sure that he paid off in a year, too. Then we experienced more
difficulty because we went on and Mr. Payne and I kept buying stores;
and in the meantime I'd hired a young man by the name of Ray Sears and
he was a capable young fellow. We went down to Lawrence, Kansas and bought
a drugstore that was an old, old-time store owned and operated by two
boys by the name of Dick--the Dick Brothers operated a
[105]
store there for many years. It was an old-time, dirty drugstore. We purchased
that about 1923, I think it was. I remember we gave $20,000 for it and
then threw out all the fixtures. I think we paid a man to haul them away
and paid $10,000 for a new set of fixtures and put Sears in to operate
that on the basis that when the profits paid for it, he would own a third;
Mr. Payne and I would own two-thirds. Well, Mr. Zimmerman, our original
man, said, "Here are you and Mr. Payne still buying stores and I've only
got my half of one and a third of another."
"All right, when Gustafson develops a man who can run a drugstore, why,
you put up a fourth, and Gustafson can put up a fourth, and we'll put
up a half (Payne and I) and we'll put him in a drugstore. So Gustafson
developed a boy by the name of Paul Schwartz and we went up to Acheson,
Kansas and bought a drugstore. They kept getting higher in price, because
I remember we paid $35,000 for that one and it worked out and he got it
paid for.
[106]
FUCHS: Was this movement outside of Kansas City more or less initiated
by the other partner in the store, or did you and Payne feel that you'd
like to expand outside?
EVANS: Oh, Payne and I felt that the towns such as Lawrence, Kansas and
Leavenworth and Acheson and St. Joseph were ideal because you got away
from the bad competitive situation that we had with the Katz Drug Company
in Kansas City; and we just felt that it was a good location. That was
a good store, and Paul paid off his share. And they went on; we kept on
and on and on and everybody developing somebody. I had to carry a book
around in my pocket with a list of who the partners was and what their
interest was--I mean, you couldn't remember because it would be a half
owner, a third owner, a quarter owner and four, five, six or seven partners,
maybe in one drugstore; in the case of Paul Schwartz, why, here was Payne
and I a part owner and Zimmerman a part owner and Gustafson a part owner
and Schwartz a part owner.
[107]
Then Schwartz developed a man and that added another partner to a string
of them.
So, we got up to 1928, the latter part, and the early part of 1929 when
money from investment bankers was very easy to get. In those days we had
no Securities and Exchange Act to govern the investment bankers and they
could do most anything and everything that they wanted, and did. In other
words, they could sell any kind of security; there was no law or regulation
against it and they certainly did a job of selling some that were pumped
pretty full of air and water. Incidentally, I'm a little ahead of my story.
I don't believe we've covered our forming the Crown Drug Company?
FUCHS: No.
EVANS: Mr. Payne and I had gotten about six or eight stores, I've forgotten
the number, operating under our management; and a couple of our friends
whom we knew as salesmen, John Watkins, who operated a couple of drugstores
in a similar manner, that is, with partners. They were great friends of
ours
[108]
and along about, I think it was 1922, my wife wanted to go up to Chicago
to visit a cousin of hers. I hadn't had any time off and Mr. Payne said
that if I would go up to Chicago on a little vacation, when I came back
he and Mrs. Payne would take a vacation. So I took the first vacation
and went to Chicago.
While there, I saw the Walgreen Drugstores all around Chicago. It looked
to me like there must be hundreds of them and it was quite an impressive
sight on an old druggist from Kansas City to see so many stores of the
same name. I looked up Mr. Walgreen, called him and made an appointment,
and went out to his beautiful office and warehouse, where he made his
ice cream, where he put up a lot of drugs and things he sold in his store,
and made all of his syrups--fruits for the fountain and everything. Mr.
Walgreen was a wonderful individual. He took me around and showed me his
entire operation and how he had started with one drugstore and how he'd
built it up. I really got bit with the chain store bug.
[109]
I came back to Kansas City and got the two Watkins boys and Payne and
told them about the wonderful experience with Mr. Walgreen and what a
great operation he had, and that I had made an appointment with Mr. Walgreen
for the three of them and to go up and see the same thing that I had seen;
and they did. They got sold on the chain drugstore business with the wonderful
cooperation, help and advice from Mr. Walgreen; and the two Watkins boys
and Payne and I determined that we would pool our interests and form Crown
Drug Company.
We'd had quite a time in determining the name for our new so-called drugstore,
because our drugstores (Payne and my drugstores) were called Payne-Evans,
and Watkins' was called, one John S. Watkins and one C. Morris Watkins.
The boys told me that on the way up to Chicago on the train they had discussed
a name to call it, and while they were there, and on the way back. They
wanted something that was easy to remember and something that would be
easy to symbolize and all of a sudden, I don't
[110]
know who it was (Payne probably), said "Well, what are we talking about.
When Tom and I bought the drugstore at Hunter and Main from Harry Wilkerson,
he called it Crown Pharmacy. So why don't we use the name Crown Drug Company
and Incorporate? It's simple, easy, and not too many letters when you
buy an electric sign. They all thought it was wonderful and I agreed.
And so, when they came back we pooled all of our drugstores together.
This was in February, 1923.
FUCHS: Did this require acquiescence from your other partners?
EVANS: Oh, yes.
FUCHS: Of course you had controlling interest in each of the stores?
EVANS: We had controlling interest. We met with them and told them what
we wanted to do, and we set prices on each one of the stores and gave
them stock--common stock in the new Crown Drug Company Corporation for
what their interest was worth on
[111]
the basis of the prices we set, which were generous prices. I was looking
the other day; I still have the folder with the original figures, where
we set those stores down. I remember our first store at Hunter Avenue
and Main was put in at $40,000. It actually had a value, probably an actual
book value, of about $15 or $18,000, oh, I'd say, maybe $20,000. I'd say
$12,000 worth of inventory and $8,000 worth of fixtures. Well, we put
it in on the basis of $40,000. We did the store at 31st and
Main--the Zimmerman partner store--at $40,000; 39th and Main, $40,000;
the store at 25th and Troost was a smaller store and it went in for $25,000.
Zimmerman got his stock. He was a half-owner at 31st and Main. He got
$20,000 worth of stock--his interest in 31st and Main. Mr. Payne and I
each got $10,000 for that because we were half-owner. Gustafson got twenty-five
percent of--I think his store at 39th and Summit was priced at $30,000.
Well, he got his proportion of that and so did Zimmerman and Schwartz.
The Watkins
[112]
boys did the same thing, and when we put the Watkins boys' stores in
and our stores in to form Crown Drug Company, we had to elect officers,
of course. We decided that the easiest and best way to do it, was to do
it by age. John Watkins was the oldest, so we made him president; Mr.
Payne was next oldest and we made him vice-president; C. Morris Watkins
was the next oldest and we made him secretary; and I was the youngest,
so I was treasurer.
FUCHS: Is this a common sort of thing in business?
EVANS: I don't know as I ever heard of it before, but it saved an argument
because I'm sure we all felt that we ought to have been president. I know
I felt that I should. I had worked hard but I knew that they felt the
same way, so the suggestion of age saved the big argument, and that's
the way it was formed.
FUCHS: At this time, incidentally, Crown Drug Company owned no buildings,
is that correct?
[113]
EVANS: That's right. It owned no buildings but leased all of our stores.
The Crown Drug Company did have a warehouse where we kept merchandise.
FUCHS: You purchased this after you incorporated as Crown Drug Company?
EVANS: Crown Drug Company owned it and we supplied our stores out of
there and had our offices there.
Well, we were all big chain store operators and no need to work those
eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, and everybody quit work and became
an executive, and the profits certainly did suffer. All hired help running
the individual stores--let's see, there were about fifteen to eighteen
stores, I think; while they had some stock, there was a lot of help to
be hired, and after seven months of operation of Crown Drug Company, why
things didn't look so good, Jim. There was too much overhead and not enough
volume and making no money, and it was a pretty serious situation. In
fact, it looked like that if we
[114]
continued, we’d just be broke, just have to go broke--four high-powered
executives drawing a pretty good salary out of a business that wasn’t
making much money and it just wasn't a happy situation.
After about seven months, the two Watkins boys and Payne and I, who consisted
of the directors and officers, decided that it was a mistake, and so we
dissolved the Crown Drug Company corporation and turned back our stock
and took our stores back. We each got our stores back and turned in our
stock--Zimmerman turned in his stock and got his interest back in 31st
and Main and his interest in 39th and Summit, and then Payne and Evans
and their group of managers went back to work as in the olden days and
the profits came right back.
In the meantime, in this seven or eight months period, a tremendous amount
of money had been spent on advertising the name Crown Drug Company. Mr.
Payne and I determined that we did not want to go back calling our stores
Payne-Evans Drug Company and lose the value of that advertising. So our
lawyers set up Crown Drug Company and kept the
[115]
corporation alive with the two Watkins boys and Payne and I owning all
of it; and we asked the Watkins boys for permission to use the Crown name
and they readily gave it to us. They went back to using their own individual
names. After about six or eight months operation our business was terrific
because we were back looking after it and running it--Zimmerman, Gustafson,
Werthe, Williams, and everybody working.
FUCHS: And all carried the Crown name?
EVANS: The Crown name, but the Watkins boys had gone back to their name.
Our business was just wonderful. The Watkins boys' business was not so
good and they determined it was because they had gone back to their individual
names. So, they asked permission to call their stores Crown Drug Company,
and, of course, readily got it and they started calling theirs Crown Drug
Company. So we: operated Crown Drug Company--individual stores that were
individually owned but called Crown Drug stores. The Watkins boys owned
theirs; John and his partners
[116]
owned a group; Morris and his partners owned a group; and Payne and Evans
and our group owned a large group. In fact, Payne and I had, I think,
twenty-two or twenty-three stores, but the corporation owned nothing.
FUCHS: Did the Watkins brothers' stores, after they reassumed the name
Crown, notice a great change in business?
EVANS: Yes, because we immediately took them in to do advertising under
the name of Crown Drug Company and their sales went way up and so did
ours, but we were individually owned. That we continued for a good many
years. We opened a warehouse, owned by the corporation that we had put
money into, at 3033 Main, where we had a small stock of inventory. We
kept adding stores with partners in the ownership, as we had been, but
instead of calling them Payne-Evans Drugstores, we called them Crown Drug
Company number 1, number 2, number 3 and so forth; and the Watkins boys
did the same thing.
[117]
Then, we went to the Franklin Ice Cream Company, who were suppliers of
our ice cream, and we borrowed from them--the Crown Drug Company corporation--$150,000,
with which we bought four drugstores that were owned by the Crown Drug
Company corporation. We put managers in those stores, but we kept on operating
our individual stores. We owned four stores, by the corporation; we determined
along in that period, I think about 1926 or '27, that we needed a larger
warehouse.
FUCHS: Was stock issued on these four stores?
EVANS: No, no. The stock was owned by John and Morris Watkins and Payne
and I--all the common stock. And the corporation just went to Franklin
Ice Cream Company and borrowed $150,000 and bought the store; so we owned
the stock already, there was no additional stock. We just owed the $150,000.
In addition to buying the stores, we wanted to build a warehouse; that's
why we borrowed that much money. So I bought the ground at 31st and Grand
Avenue
[118]
and Crown Drug Company, the corporation, erected a warehouse. As I remember,
that warehouse cost $40,000, and I was able to get an insurance loan on
it over a ten year period for $35,000, and there we set up our offices
and our warehouse. Each of us spent only a small part of our time there
because we were busy running our individual stores.
FUCHS: Now you earlier had had a warehouse when you...
EVANS: At 3033 Main.
FUCHS: That was a building you didn't own?
EVANS: That was just a building, storeroom, that we leased for a warehouse.
FUCHS: You gave that up?
EVANS: Yes, because it wasn't large enough. Then, we had this nice office
at 31st and Grand, and we had a large meeting room set up with study chairs
and a stage where we could have meetings with our store personnel, and
we put the building, really, to good use. Those four stores owned by
[119]
the corporation made money; nothing like the individual stores, but they
did very well. There was one at 7th and Minnesota in Kansas City, Kansas;
one at 71st and Wornall; one at 55th and Brookside, as I recall; they
were the stores that were owned. Well, anyway, we went ahead and operated
that way, and kept enlarging and adding stores--individual stores with
partners. By that time, Zimmerman had been operating under the name of
Crown Drug Company. The general public didn't know who owned them, but
Payne and I had our group that we owned; John Watkins had his group that
he owned; and Morris Watkins had his group that he owned. Do you see what
I mean?
FUCHS: How many drugstores might there have been in a town the size of
Kansas City?
EVANS: You mean all drugstores?
FUCHS: All drugstores.
EVANS: In those days, along 1926, '27, '28, ‘29, I recall there was 550
retail drugstores in
Greater
[120]
Kansas City--that's Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas, Independence, North
Kansas City. Today, I don't imagine there's a hundred independent drug
stores. The bigger stores--Katz, Parkview, Crown--have put them all out
of business, plus the fact that the grocery chains all sell drugs, and
so forth. But the corner drugstore--almost every two or three blocks in
those days there was a drugstore, you know, on the main streets.
FUCHS: How many stores might there be now, including the independents
plus the chains?
EVANS: About a hundred and fifty. There would be about fifty chain stores--Katz,
Parkview and Crown. There's only about a hundred and fifty drugstores
in greater Kansas City today.
I used to know the Secretary of the Retail Grocers Association--he told
me, along in 1929, they had about 600 independent grocery stores in greater
Kansas City. You know, every neighborhood had their little neighborhood
grocery store. Today, I don't think there's fifty independent
[121]
grocers and probably a hundred and twenty-five chain store grocers. But
between Milgram and Kreger, A & P, and Safeway, there isn't much--in
fact, I only know of two independent groceries in town right now. Of course,
that's what happens to business.
Getting back to Crown Drug Company, we operated that way, and then we
get to this part where I had heard, and we had been called on by the investment
bankers how easy it was to get money from the general public. Up until
that time, both Mr. Payne and I had no money; all we had was drugstores.
As soon as we got the bank paid off, we'd go and buy another and go in
debt. We just didn't have anything except a lot of drugstores and we thought
probably it would be a good idea to get a little money out and quit going
in debt. In talking to various investment bankers from New York and Chicago
and St. Louis, we came to the conclusion that we ought to expand our chain,
which at that time between the Watkins boys and Payne and I, we had thirty-four
drugstores all independently owned but operating
[122]
under the name of Crown Drug Company, and the corporation owned four,
so that was thirty-eight Crown Drug Stores. We talked to an investment
banker who would buy six hundred thousand dollars worth of preferred stock
of Crown Drug Company and that, incidentally, would be a seven percent
(unheard of today) convertible, preferred stock. In other words, convertible
into common stock over a period of years. That got the man that wanted
to gamble on the stock market to buy the preferred stock and if it was
a huge success, he could convert it into common. And, as I say, there
was no Securities and Exchange Commission Act--no government body governing
what the investment banker said or sold or did or how he sold it--it was
pitiful. The widows and orphans really got taken for a good ride in those
days; the rich got richer and the old saying, "the poor got poorer."
We were anxious to get the $600,000 into Crown Drug Company corporation
and transfer all
[123]
of these properties into Crown Drug Company, because, if I remember right,
in 1928 Mr. Payne and I had twenty-nine different partners; and, as I
say, I carried a book to determine how much interest each partner had--I
couldn't remember them--there was too many, which was a dangerous thing.
Our lawyer was constantly worrying about us because we were responsible
for the acts and deeds of our partners in a partnership; a corporation
was the logical thing. So, to make a long story short, we put all these
drugstores back into the corporation, as we did previously, except we
issued 600,000 shares of preferred stock. The bankers got $60,000 commission
for that; Crown Drug Company got $540,000 of cash that went into the treasury
of the Crown Drug Company. All the drugstores were again appraised and
stock issued to Payne, the two Watkins boys, and myself and all our partners.
Like in Zimmerman's store (the second one we bought), you recall, he owned
half of it; well, we put that store in at $60,000 in the re-incorporation
of which Zimmerman would get
[124]
$30,000. Then the same thing applied with Werthe and John Williams and
Gustafson and Schwartz and all of our boys. The investment bankers were
anxious to get all of the common stock that they could get.
FUCHS: Common stock, you say? Now this 600,000 was preferred.
EVANS: The 600,000 was preferred, but they was anxious to buy all of
the common stock that they could and the only way that they could sell
the 600,000 shares of preferred was to give them a share of common with,
I think, ten shares of preferred--not give it to them--let them buy it,
because the common stock was the stock that people could get rich over
in all corporations. Remember this was before the big depression and they
wanted all the common stock they could get. We would not sell them (I'm
talking about the two Watkins and Payne and I), but twelve percent of
Crown Drug Company common stock. It's all we wanted them to have because
we wanted to be sure and retain control.
[125]
They wanted more but that's all we would sell them.
They came out with the preferred at $600,000, and the common stock, at
$22.50 a share, and of course they published the earnings which were certified
and audited, of course. In those days we were earning about $4.00 a share
and selling it at $22.00, which was a cheap stock in those days. The investment
banker was, by the way, George H. Burr and Company in St. Louis, Missouri,
which was the company we chose to do business with. We told all of our
partners that they could get this stock on the basis of what we agreed
on their stores, in cash, or in stock at $20.00 a share; the investment
bankers was coming out with it to the general public at $22.50, so we
gave it to them on the basis of $20.00.
Well, in Mr. Andrew Zimmerman's case, he owned half of the store at 31st
and Main, a third of the store at 39th and Summit, a fourth of the store
in Acheson--he had six or seven partners, all different amounts. He actually
was worth close to $250,000--his interest on the basis of $20.00 per share
for the
[126]
shares that he had received for his interest in the corporation. It was
very close to $250,000 in stocks at $20.00 a share for his interest. Now,
I'm using this as an illustration. The two Watkins boys, Mr. Payne and
I, selling our twelve percent of the company to the investment bankers,
gave each of us enough cash to pay off all of our indebtedness and give
us, for the first time in my life, a cash balance in the bank. Before
we'd just owed the bank all the time, so we felt pretty free and clear
and independent. Come about, I think it was, May of 1929, we owed nobody
a dime. Zimmerman owed the bank $60,000 that he had borrowed to put in
his drugstore and he'd bought a home, and he made some other investments.
And I said to Mr. Zimmerman, and so did Mr. Payne--we talked to him: "Zim,
you sell enough of the stock to George H. Burr and Company to pay off
your indebtedness to the bank."
And he said, "No, I don't want to sell them any of my stock now; I want
to wait until the stock gets $25.00 a share."
[127]
It was advertised to the general public that it was coming out at $22.50.
So, it did, and the first day that it came out at $22.50, it closed that
day at $27.00. Remember there was no Securities and Exchange Act to govern
it. And so, the very next day, after it came out, we said, "Zimmerman,
it didn't only go to $25.00, it went to $27.00. Sell enough to pay your
indebtedness." No, he wanted to wait until it got to be $30.00 a share.
Well, in a month it was $30.00 a share and Zimmerman did not sell his
stock to pay his debts. He, in talking to him, decided he was going to
wait until it got to $40.00 a share and then he'd be a rich man. The market
was continually going up--the general market; business was good; we were
paying a dividend on the stock. With this money, incidentally, that we
got in on the preferred stock--actual net to the corporation of $540,000--Mr.
Payne and I got in our car and went out to Springfield, Springfield, Missouri,
and we bought a drugstore, and we bought one in Carthage, Missouri; one
at Joplin, Missouri; one
[128]
in Miami, Oklahoma; and they were good drugstores. Then we got lots of
publicity and added tremendous to our volume and it looked like Crown
Drug Company was going to make a tremendous amount of money--there was
no question about it. Our stock was in demand and traded in and then Zimmerman
just got the spirit; you see we'd sold ours at $22.50 and got out of debt,
but he decided he wanted to wait until it got to $40.00. Well, it got
to $37.50 and we had all this fine publicity and having bought all these
other drugstores, as I say, and things did look good, when the market
crashed. In the first crash, in November of 1929, our stock being a new
stock on the market was harder hit than some like U. S. Steel or General
Motors or General Foods or some of those seasoned stocks. They were hit
hard enough, but ours went from $37.50 a share the first day to $27.50,
and in sixty days our stock was down to a dollar a share. Mr. Zimmerman
had not sold any of his stock to pay off his indebtedness and the bank
was getting
[129]
scared and things were getting pretty panicky and, in the meantime, the
market had crashed and that's when people rented rooms for jumping purposes,
you know. You've heard that story, more truth than poetry. The bank just
foreclosed and sold out his stock and he didn't have a dime; and he was
broke and disgusted and we had to let him go.
Later, just to show you what will happen to one man, we felt sorry for
him and loaned him the money--oh, in 1933 when things were pretty bad,
and things were low, why, he could buy a drugstore at 43rd and Main. We
loaned him the money, just to operate an individual drugstore so that
he could make a living for himself and his family, but he couldn't make
it. He went broke and had to take bankruptcy. We next got him a job with
Lee and Fink, the manufacturers of Lysol. That was about 1935-36. He's
still with them as a salesman; we're very friendly but...Zimmerman was
a young millionaire in the early part of 1929 and bankrupt in 1930.
[130]
FUCHS: What could the company--the bank recover on his stock, of their
$60,000?
EVANS: I think they lost about fifty percent, and they didn't sell it
soon enough, that was all, because the fortunate part of it on our part
was that we had paid off our indebtedness. Times were awfully tough in
1930, '31, and '32.
FUCHS: Under the corporation setup, they couldn't interfere with the
drugstores that Zimmerman had?
EVANS: Oh, no, because they'd been turned into the corporation for stock
of the corporation; of course, if they hadn't have been in the corporation
and had individually owned, why they would have taken them, but we'd been
fortunate to organize a corporation.
FUCHS: What about the other partners?
EVANS: They all got out of debt--sold enough to get their money out of
the business. As you know, I sold my interest in Crown Drug Company because
[131]
I'd been nursing an ulcer for a good many years and I just decided life
wasn't worth it. All the worry of these drugstores that I'd been running
for a good many years, and in 1948 I sold out my entire interest in Crown
Drug Company. At that time, that I sold my interest in November of 1948,
Gustafson, Williams, Werthe, and almost all the partners were still employed
at Crown Drug Company. In fact, Gustafson was personnel director, executive
vice-president. One of the Morris Watkins' boys, a fellow by the name
of Bickley, who had owned an interest in one of the Morris Watkins' stores
in the beginning, was the head buyer. In fact, there's a number of them
still at Crown Drug Company. I see them occasionally, except Zimmerman,
who had to go bankrupt because he wanted to get rich.
In connection with the Crown Drug Company, and it seems to me that I’m
doing an awful lot of talking about Tom Evans and the Crown Drug Company,
but Jim, as you've explained to me, you want my
[132]
background for people that might be interested--"who was he." That's
why I'm trying to give it to you, and an interesting sidelight of Crown
Drug Company was that in those days, there was a man by the name of F.
Donald Coster bought controlling interest or bought enough interest, I
guess I should say, to control McKesson & Robbins, a manufacturer
of drugs. He became president of that corporation and had a wild scheme
of buying for stock of McKesson Robbins, Inc. (not money but stock), wholesale
houses throughout the United States. Like here in Kansas City was an old,
old established wholesale house called Faxon-Gallagher Drug Company--been
here for a hundred years--and McKesson and Robbins stock. This was going
on in 1926, ‘27, '28, and '29 until by January 1, of 1929, McKesson and
Robbins, headed by F. Donald Coster, not only owned a large, gigantic
manufacturing plant in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where they manufactured
drug products, but they owned (that they had purchased with their common
stock) ninety wholesale drug houses throughout the
[133]
United States, why they could sell McKesson Robbins merchandise and make
it the biggest seller in the world, and it was good merchandise.
After that famous try of his, buying all these wholesale houses, which,
incidentally, they still operate, he was disgusted in the fact that he
had not reached the top in the world in the sale of McKesson & Robbins
merchandise. I received a call from a good friend of mine in New York
saying that he'd like to have me come back. This was in 1929, by the way,
after we had bought these stores and gotten the preferred stock money
and were well-known in the drug business throughout the country, because
we had financed and bought all these stores and our stock was listed on
the New York curb, as it was called in those days. We were well-known,
and I got a call from this friend of mine in New York who manufacturers
razor blades, and a good friend of his and he had been instrumental in
getting these wholesale drug houses together for Mr. Coster to buy with
McKesson & Robbins stock.
[134]
Anyway, he called me.
FUCHS: What was his name?
EVANS: Harry Cooper--manufactured Cooper razor blades. He said he had
a gigantic deal. He had a man who wanted to buy Crown Drug Company; it
had to be a deep, dark secret and to come back. Well, I went back and
talked to him, and his proposed purchaser was Mr. F. Donald Coster. Mr.
Coster told me of this dream that he had: how he bought McKesson &
Robbins, that was a very small manufacturing plant, and how he
had built up a tremendous business with these wholesale houses that he
had bought. And they were catering to the independent druggists, advertising
throughout the country that they did not sell to chain stores, that chain
stores was a menace to the community and they shouldn't be allowed. That
they (McKesson & Robbins) only thought that the small independent
druggists was the man that ought to be in business. That was their slogan.
They would not sell, or have anything to do with
[135]
a chain store. So he said, "I find out I can't get rid of enough merchandise--I
don't sell enough, and I've got to go into the retail business, and since
we cater to the independent druggists, why, I can't let the independent
druggist know that I am going into the retail business. I'd like to buy
your chain for one reason. There are four of you in there; you're all
young; you're aggressive; you've proved your ability; I need manpower
and I want to go out and buy chains of drugstores throughout the country
the same as we bought wholesale houses throughout the country. When we
own them, we'll have them sell McKesson & Robbins merchandise and
I want your manpower--you, Mr. Payne, the two Watkins boys."
So, it did sound very attractive, but "it must remain a deep, dark secret.
Under no circumstances can the information that we make a deal can it
ever get out."
FUCHS: How was he justifying to the independent stores, the sale of McKesson
& Robbins products in a chain store?
[136]
EVANS: Why, I asked him that question, Jim, I said, "How are you going
to justify that you're breaking over and selling to these chains?"
And he said, "Why, we'll prove to them what's a fact, that our merchandise
is so good, the chain stores come to us and we had to have it--we just
don't turn down business."
And I said, "Maybe you can do it; I can't." But he did. So we started
in negotiations and we really did negotiate. I was there in New York for
three weeks. I called Mr. Payne, and he brought the two Watkins boys and
they were there for two weeks--that was five weeks that I was there. It
seemed to me like it was about five months. To make a long, story short,
we closed the deal--a deep dark secret. No one knew it at all; we did
not tell our bankers; we didn't tell anybody. There was no transfer of
stock as far as records were concerned and we sold sixty percent of Crown
Drug Company common stock that the two Watkins
[137]
boys, Payne and I owned, to F. Donald Coster, of McKesson & Robbins.
FUCHS: There was nothing illegal about this; weren't ethics involved
in that your common stock holders did not actually know who the owners
of the corporation were?
EVANS: Well, it depends on how you look at it. I can only go back today
and show you that the biggest corporations in the country, U.S. Steel,
Dupont, General Motors--management as a rule will own less than one percent
of the stock. After all, management is the most important thing. And,
of course, the reason we couldn't say anything about it was because McKesson
& Robbins is still catering to the independent druggist. So, our stock
that we sold remained in our name and for a good many years. I'd get the
check and endorse it or put it in my account and write my personal check,
and so did the two Watkins boys and so did Payne, for the amount of the
dividend that belonged to McKesson & Robbins.
[138]
Now, as I say, there was no Securities and Exchange Act, no reporting,
no supervision of securities of any kind, or who owned what or why, and
in those days, big corporations, Jim, heads of it, if they knew business
was going to be bad and the market stock would go down, heads of corporations
would sell their stock. There was no reporting; nobody knew it; they'd
get out before anybody knew it. If the corporation was going to have a
big growth for some reason because of a patent or a dozen other things,
they would buy the stock low and sell it high--no reporting of any kind.
As you know today, the head of a corporation or any officer or member
of the board of any corporation whose stock is traded in, must list his
holdings and if he buys stock he must list that--notify them; it's public
information; or if he sells any, plus the fact you cannot sell stock to
anyone without getting out a prospectus, which is not only approved by
the Securities and Exchange Commission, but is scrutinized very closely,
and if it doesn't meet with their approval, they won't
[139]
let you put it out. I mean, it's too bad it wasn't put in years ago.
That's one thing the administration of Mr. Roosevelt did. Certainly one
of the finest laws that was ever put in was the Securities and Exchange
Act.
Well, as soon as this deal was consummated, the two Watkins boys, and
Payne and I signed an employment contract for ten years at a substantial
salary and a percentage of the net profits of Crown Drug Company. And
we came back to run Crown Drug Company, I thought; and the first thing
that developed was that there was a chain of drugstores down in Oklahoma
called Steinberg Drugstores, Inc. It was put together prior to the Securities
and Exchange Act by a Mr. Steinberg, who owned one drugstore and who had
been an exceptionally capable operator of that one drugstore and had made
a lot of money in one drugstore. He decided that he was going to buy forty
drugstores throughout Tulsa, throughout Oklahoma and Oklahoma City and
he'd go and look at a drugstore and say "I will give you" (let's for argument's
sake say $40,000) "when I can raise the money.
[140]
And he went to forty drugstores like that throughout Oklahoma--dozens
of towns--Oklahoma City, Tulsa. You could do this; everybody did it in
every kind of business. Then he got an auditing firm to put together a
pro forma balance sheet showing the operation of that independent drugstore
combined into a giant overall operation of Steinberg Drugstores, Inc.,
and what it would mean; an independent store operator, turning it over
to a chain store, the thought was that the chain store with good management
would improve it. Well, the earnings were terrific as they was and improving
it made it tremendous. And they sold, on that pro forma balance sheet
to the general public (incidentally the same banking firm, the George
H. Burr and Company of St. Louis did the financing), $800,000 of preferred
stock to buy those drugstores with, and Mr. Steinberg operated them about
six months and they didn't make a dime under that type operation. Like
Crown and Payne and I, as long as
[141]
we were operating stores we were doing fine, but when we became executives
of a large chain of stores, we didn't make any money. Well, that's what
happened there; they were just about to go broke. And George H. Burr and
Company had $800,000 worth of preferred stock and they talked to me about
them; I talked to Mr. Coster unbeknownst to anybody, and he was after
drugstores, as the more drugstores he could buy, the more merchandise
he would sell. So I went down and looked at him and Mr. Payne went with
me. We found what a horrible condition they were in. I wouldn't have bought
them myself; I just wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't have given more
than $200,000 for the common stock. That meant that George H. Burr and
Company would lose a lot of money, but Mr. Coster wanted those stores
and he insisted that we buy them. We gave Mr. Steinberg $100,000 cash
and gave the holders of their preferred stock, Crown Drug Company preferred
stock for it, and we took over the chain. That was in 1929 and then the
bottom fell out of
[142]
things in November in 1930. If we would have bought it and had been the
sole owners, it would have probably bankrupt Crown Drug Company, but with
McKesson & Robbins in back of us, and Mr. Coster telling me, I said,
"Well, look, no sense doing that. We can buy these for probably twenty
cents on the dollar if we wait six months."
And he said, "I don't want to wait six months; I want to close the deal."
And I said, "Well, I'll do it, of course, if you say do it; it's your
stock; it's your business; we'll do it, but it's a poor deal." And as
a result we had to have about $500,000 cash to pay off a lot of bad debts
and a lot of bad leases that they'd gotten into and I think it would have
broke them. As it was it turned out to be a profitable operation after
about three years it took us to get it on its feet.
In the meantime, Mr. Coster formed a corporation called, Retail Drugstores
of America, Inc., unbeknownst to anybody, of which I was the president.
A man in Detroit who operated a chain of
[143]
drugstores called Shapiro Drugstores, was vice-president. Well, Mr. Coster
had bought Mr. Shapiro’s chain of drugstores, the same as he had bought
Crown Drug Company, unbeknownst to anybody; and Retail Druggists of American,
Inc., which was owned a hundred percent by McKesson & Robbins, acquired
Shapiro's stores as it acquired Crown Drug Company stores, and I became
president of that. It was my job to go throughout the country and buy
drugstores. I was gone most of the time. I went to Birmingham, Alabama,
at Mr. Coster's urging and suggestion, and bought a chain of stores there
called Wood's Drugstores. They operated throughout Birmingham and the
south, including Memphis, Tennessee and Mobile, Alabama; I bought another
chain in Memphis. I went to New York and bought three different chains
there, all owned by Retail Druggists of America, Inc.--McKesson &
Robbins was furnishing the money to them and we were paying cash. But
the money was McKesson Robbins money. And again I say, it was a deep,
dark secret. Nobody knew anything about it. There
[144]
wasn't any way for them to know because there wasn't any records made.
I don't know when the Securities and Exchange Act became effective, but
Mr. Roosevelt took office, if I remember right, in early 1932. Do you
recall, is that correct?
FUCHS: Well, he was elected in '32 but he took office in '33.
EVANS: In '33. He was elected the first time in '32--March of '33. Well,
then in '33, the Securities and Exchange Act became a law. I'm not sure
I'm right, but it was Mr. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the man that wanted
that kind of a law and justifiable, as I say. And anyway, it became a
law, and which meant that every person, firm or corporation had to show
their holdings; if you bought any you had to report it; if you sold it,
you had to report it; every corporation had to report all of their holdings
in every corporation. That, I can assure you, not only in the McKesson
& Robbins organization but in many gigantic corporations, was a terrible
thing for them because the steel
[145]
mills owned small companies throughout the country that they owned and
controlled a hundred percent. They didn't want anybody to know it because
they were in competition with a lot of the people they were selling to,
and they all had to get busy and do something. So, I went to Mr. Coster
and I said, "Mr. Coster, you are finally in the position whereby you are
going to either be in the wholesale drug business or the retail drug business;
the day is ended for you to ride two horses, as you well know."
And he said, "That's right, and of course I can't be in the retail, business
because I'm in the wholesale business, and you're right. So I want to
liquidate all of the retail drugstores."
And I said, "Fine, we'll start in by liquidating Crown Drug Company."
And in the meantime--I'll digress for a minute, Jim--the two Watkins
boys was no longer connected with Crown Drug Company. While it's true
they had a ten year employment contract,
[146]
they had received a substantial amount of cash for their interests in
Crown Drug Company, the same as Mr. Payne and I had--more money than any
of us thought we'd ever see, let alone have. We each received $400,000
cash and $400,000 in stock for our interests, or $800,000 for each of
us, and that was a lot of money for four druggists. The two Watkins boys
decided that they didn't want to work so hard and that they wanted to
enjoy a little of that money. I had sold it, really, to Mr. Coster, with
Mr. Payne's help, and I felt an obligation to Mr. Coster. After about
a year, Mr. Coster said to me, "You've got to fire the two Watkins boys;
they're not doing the job."
I said, "You can't fire them because they've got a ten-year contract."
He said, "Oh, yes, we won’t have any trouble firing them. Their contract
specified that they are to do what the board of directors direct. You
have the board direct that each of the Watkins boys stay a day on each
one of the Thousand Islands. If they want to do that, why, we'll pay them;
if
[147]
they don't, they'll have to quit."
I said, "Well, Mr. Coster, I can't do such a thing as that. I've been
together with the boys; we've been close friends; I just can't do such
a thing."
"Well, you're going to have to get rid of them."
Well, I came back to Kansas City feeling pretty low, Jim, at the turn
of affairs. I came back and I met with John and Morris Watkins and Payne.
I just laid the cards on the table and told them exactly what Mr. Coster
said. They both said, "Well, that's fine. We're getting sick and tired
of this anyway. We don't like this running all over the country."
Mr. Coster had a great habit, Jim, of calling up at four o'clock in the
afternoon and saying, "Be in my office in the morning at eight o'clock."
Up in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Flying wasn't quite so common in those
days as it is now and you couldn't make it in bad weather, anyway, and
it was awful.
The boys said, "We’re tickled to death; we'll
[148]
just quit."
So, they quit--resigned, cancelled their contract and Morris Watkins
put in a store out here on the Plaza and put in two or three stores. John
put in one on the Plaza, also; they were competitors, but they get along
fine. They're both still operating; doing fine--made a substantial amount
of money and we've all been friends, thank goodness--never caused any
trouble.
Getting back to the liquidation now, I got to this part where I said,
"Well, we liquidate Crown Drug Company first."
He said, "No, we liquidate the others."
We had quite an argument. I knew if I liquidated the other ones first,
I'd have an awful time getting Crown Drug Company. I wanted to get Crown
Drug Company back.
And he said, "The trouble is, if I let you buy Crown Drug Company, you
won't liquidate these others."
And I said, "I'll give you my word that I will, but I want to buy crown
Drug Company first."
[149]
Well, there wasn't anything he could do about it; there wasn't anybody
else could liquidate it without him letting all these independent druggists
know that he'd been lying to them all these years, so I had him about
where I wanted him. It took weeks and weeks and weeks of negotiation.
He had paid us $34.00 a share for the stock he bought from us in 1929,
and I was offering him a dollar a share to buy it back from him, in 1934,
I guess it was, or 1933. Of course, there had been a break in the market.
Finally, Payne and I were able to purchase back all of his stock.
FUCHS: Was that low price entirely due to the changed market condition
or was it party because of his being "tipped over a barrel?"
EVANS: All on account of market conditions. That's all it was worth.
It wasn’t making any money; we weren't paying any dividends and business
was in horrible shape. He could have sold it undoubtedly to somebody else.
That was the only thing, I had him over the barrel--he couldn't afford
to sell it
[150]
to anybody else because then it would be known that he had owned all
these drugstores. As far as the price was concerned, that was all it was
worth.
FUCHS: He couldn't have sold it to anyone else for much over that price?
Is that correct?
EVANS: No, but he could have easily sold it to somebody else. There was
other people that wanted it. I didn't want somebody else to get it. In
fact, I think Mr. Shapiro wanted to buy it and was bidding on it and would
have paid probably as much or maybe a little more than we were offering.
But anyway, I finally got him to take it and we bought back the stock,
on a graduated basis of $1.25, $1.50 and $1.75 a share. Then I started
out and liquidated all of his drugstores that I had bought in New York,
Brooklyn, Memphis, Mobile and Birmingham. I kept the stores in Oklahoma
and after I had gotten all of this liquidated, confined the Crown Drug
Company operations to Missouri and Kansas and Oklahoma and swore that
I'd never go outside of those three states again, and I never did. We
[151]
continued to operate up until the time I disposed of my interests in
1948. But, you probably are not aware of the fact that a good many years
after that, after I had purchased this stock back, Mr. Payne and I was
relieved in the fact that we owned our business back and didn't have to
be taking orders from anybody, why, a great tragedy occurred in the McKesson
& Robbins organization which is unheard of. It turned out that--I
must find you a book and let you read it because it's still interesting--almost
unbelievable, Jim. Mr. Coster, whom we had talked about, was not Mr. Coster;
that wasn't his name at all. He was supposed to be a German; he wasn't
a German; it turned out that his name was Musica, a man of Italian birth--born
in Italy. He came here to the United States, I think in 1900, as I remember
the story, or maybe it was the late 1890's. But anyway, it was at a time
when human hair was in great demand; the women all wore switches and human
hair was in great demand; and they baled it in bales just like they do
cotton, only not quite as
[152]
large a bales. The banks would loan money on human hair, just the same
as they loan money on bushels of wheat, bushels of corn, or bales of cotton
today. Musica, under the name of Musica, and his brother and his mother
and father and sister, came here from Italy and imported a lot of human
hair and they had it in bales, and he went to the bank of Manhattan at
40 Wall Street and borrowed a lot of money on these bales of human hair.
They skipped town; they couldn't find them. They got to looking and the
bales of human hair contained not human hair but just excelsior; and the
bank was beat out of about a quarter of a million dollars. Musica was
never found. He turned up under the name of Coster and purchased McKesson
and Robins, I guess with some of the money that he'd gotten on the human
hair deal. He was known in the drug trade as head of McKesson & Robbins
as a genius; he was a genius; no question about it. To be able to acquire
all these wholesale houses, he had to make a great showing of earning
profits, and as I told you in the beginning, McKesson & Robbins,
[153]
when he bought it, was only a very, very small manufacturing plant, with
a small volume and very little profit. The profits rose tremendously under
Coster's management, which made these owners of these wholesale houses
throughout the entire United States, like Mr. Faxon here in Kansas City,
most anxious to make a deal and get this valuable McKesson stock. It was
selling around $40 a share and paying about a $3 a year dividend, and
he was a genius. How had he accomplished all this, nobody could understand
it; that made him a genius; he was looked upon in the drug business by
everyone as: "Do you know Coster, I'd love to meet the fellow; he must
be a genius."
One little incident that is absolutely true and peculiar. I had lots
and lots and lots of dealings, as you can imagine, with Mr. Coster. I've
been in his big, beautiful home in Fairfield, Connecticut, close to Bridgeport
where the manufacturing plant was, hundreds of times--spent weekends with
him. Two incidents come to mind. I was in New York City at the Commodore
Hotel on
[154]
a Friday night--now remember he's supposed to be a (I don't think I told
you this), but he was supposed to be a doctor--a graduate in medicine
from Heidelberg College in Germany, but never practiced. He spent all
of his time in concocting wonderful formulas for McKesson & Robbins
from this German knowledge that he had from this famous German college
in Heidelberg. I was in the Commodore Hotel in New York--going to spend
a weekend and he wanted me to come up and spend it at his place in Fairfield.
He loved to play bridge. They had a widow friend of theirs that they would
call in for dinner and we'd have to play three or four hours of bridge--the
four of us. He was a lousy bridge player, but he liked to play. I said,
"Mr. Coster, I'm just too sick; I can't do it; I've got the flu." I had
a high temperature, ached all over, and I said, "I really think I ought
to go home."
He said, "Don't go home, I'll come down and take care of you."
So he and Mrs. Coster drove down in their car and came up to my room
in the Commodore and he took
[155]
my temperature and he took my pulse and he listened to my chest and he
got out a hypodermic syringe and filled it with something and give me
a shot, and in fifteen minutes I felt pretty good. We sat there and talked
and in another fifteen minutes, he gave me another hypodermic of something
and, gee, I felt wonderful and got up and went up and spent the weekend.
Another incident, and then I'll get back to Coster. As I say, I spent
lots and lots of time with him; Mrs. Evans had never met him. I had to
be back there and he suggested that I bring her back with me. I did. We
were going out one Friday on his big, beautiful yacht that cost several
hundred thousand dollars; it was a beautiful thing out on Long Island
Sound. We spent Friday night, Saturday and Sunday and come back down the
Sound into the East River and would let me off at 30th Street in New York,
Monday morning, Mrs. Evans and I. And so we got on the beautiful boat
on Friday, and we played cards; we did some fishing and we had
[156]
dinner--went to bed rather early and staterooms on boats are not thick-walled.
You know, you have to be careful if you want to talk about the people
next door. They've liable to hear you. So I whispered to Mrs. Evans and
I said, "How do you like Coster?"
She whispered back and said, "I don't like him. I think he's a crook."
Well, that made me mad that my wife would think that the great F. Donald
Coster, head of McKesson & Robbins, who was a genius in the drug business,
would be a crook. In fact, it was a very disagreeable weekend that I spent
having to be nice to the Costers in front of them and knowing all the
time that my wife didn't like him and she had no basis for it. Of course,
it turned out that she was right, because he was an absolute crook, of
the worst type. This brother, Musica, that was in the human hair business
with Coster was employed by McKesson & Robbins under another name
(George Dietrich--I knew him real well--of course never dreamed that he
was Coster's brother) and he was in charge of the
[157]
export-import business. And the big crooked deal that Mr. Coster made,
was that he set up an export business and import business and would presumably
export fine chemicals and oils of all kinds and import fine chemicals
and oils of all kinds; and this import-export business made a tremendous
profit. This, combined with the McKesson & Robbins operation, made
a wonderful operation that made him the genius that he was supposed to
be. You see what I mean.
FUCHS: Yes. Is it true that, even without the export-import business,
McKesson & Robbins would still have been a tremendously profitable
enterprise?
EVANS: No, it wouldn't have been tremendously profitable at that time,
because it was too small.
FUCHS: Oh, he built the export-import business up at the same time he
was building up McKesson & Robbins?
EVANS: That's right, and as a result his profits were tremendous--huge
profits and nobody could understand it. Well, it turned out that this
export-import
[158]
business actually did not exist. It was a complete fake, run by his brother,
George Dietrich, with warehouses in Canada, England, France, Netherlands--with
millions of dollars of inventory and it was handled so well that Price-Waterhouse,
certified public accountants, who made the audit of McKesson & Robbins,
year in and year out, never questioned it and never saw a warehouse; never
saw anything. All they got was communications and they certified to it.
FUCHS: These were non-existent warehouses?
EVANS: Right. That went in to show fake profits. There was no money--just
fake profits, but with the fake profits, McKesson & Robbins were able
to issue and have a firm of investment bankers, Bond and Goodwin, purchase
twenty-two million dollars of McKesson & Robbins bonds because of
their fine earnings. With the twenty-two million dollars they expanded
their manufacturing plant and bought all kinds of manufacturing businesses.
In fact,
[159]
so many different kinds, that I didn't even know of many, because there
was no reason to publish it--no law that made them. They owned two gigantic
distilling companies because they sold whiskey in their wholesale houses;
and they used this twenty-two million dollars to purchase valuable business.
Well, a man whom I knew very well and whose name was Julian Thompson (he
was a wonderful person), was with Bond and Goodwin Investment Company
when they financed and sold the bonds and gave McKesson Robbins twenty-two
million dollars in cash. The sale of the bonds was made possible by these
huge profits of this fictitious import-export business that didn't exist
at a11. This man, Julian Thompson, who was with Bond and Goodwin, resigned
his position and took an executive position, at Mr. Coster's urging, with
McKesson & Robbins. I had lots and lots of dealings with him; he was
a wonderful person. This was long after I'd bought back the stock, and
when he was out in this part of the country I'd meet him and we'd have
lunch together and visit. Anyway, he got curious about
[160]
this export-import business and the fact that he had never been able
to meet anybody, outside of this man George Dietrich, who was actually
Coster's brother, Musica. That's the only man he'd ever met--nobody else
from all of their various houses throughout foreign countries and Canada.
So he wrote a friend of his in this town up in Canada--I've forgotten
where it is--to look it up and he looked it up and said it was just a
small office; wasn't anything to it, but a name on the door to receive
mail. He got curious and went up and couldn't find this warehouse where
it was supposed to be. He went and faced Coster with it and he was terribly
upset. One thing brought on another and the government was called in.
The government was in because the Securities and Exchange Act become a
law and in the sale of this twenty-two million dollars of bonds, this
listing of this import-export business was of course listed--supposed
to exist--had to be listed, and it didn't, so the FBI was called in. They
started running checks and it turned out that Mr. Coster was Mr.
[161]
Musica of the human hair, that they'd been looking for for years, and
a crook of the worst type. Mrs. Evans was a hundred percent right. The
bonds that Bond and Goodwin had sold, Jim (twenty-two million dollars
worth), were a thousand dollar bond at par. They were selling for seventy-five
dollars and the common stock was down--well, it wasn't listed. They pulled
it off the listing; it was down to one-sixteenth of a dollar. They closed
in on Coster in this big, beautiful home in Fairfield, Connecticut, where
I'd been many times, and as they closed in, he run into the bathroom,
shut the door and took a revolver and stuck it in his mouth and blew his
brains out. That was the end of Mr. Coster.
It was then reorganized and all of this came to light. Crown Drug Company
had been selling a tremendous amount of merchandise from McKesson &
Robbins because we had been featuring it all these years; and even though
Payne and I owned our stock and bought it back and had no connection with
McKesson & Robbins, we continued on with the
[162]
business because there had been tens of thousands of dollars spent in
advertising and it was good merchandise. When this thing broke and it
proved that most of these formulas had been concocted by Coster who knew
nothing about chemicals or drugs (had never gone to school, never been
beyond the third grade in Italy)--that people would come to the conclusion
that these drugs were no good. We had about $150,000 inventory of McKesson
& Robbins merchandise and, frankly, I was scared to death that it
wouldn't be worth anything, and the company would go broke because of
the expose of everything that was wrong. You know, the public is a strange
thing. As a result of all that publicity, the sales just doubled and we
couldn't hardly keep in the merchandise. So it didn't bother us at all.
The company went on under good management, made a lot of money, and today
is one of the outstanding drug manufacturers. They still own the wholesale
houses; they've got one right here in Kansas City and do very well and
always have, but never would have
[163]
succeeded if it had not have been for the fact that Coster got it started
by a fictitious lie of a lot of profits--never would have gotten off the
ground.
FUCHS: Strange story.
Well, Tom, now I'd like to go back and talk a little bit about your political
activities in the early twenties when you had left the 10th
Ward and became president of the 5th Ward Club. About what year would
that have been?
EVANS: 1921 I think.
FUCHS: Did you have any association with Mr. Truman in that period?
EVANS: I don't believe I had any contact at all with him. Of course,
when I bought my first drug store, at Hunter Avenue and Main, Charlie
Regan (a great Democrat) who was then city clerk here in Kansas City,
lived there in the war, and he prevailed upon me to take the presidency
of the 5th Ward Democratic Club; which I think I held from, I guess,
[164]
1921 up until the thirties.
FUCHS: Did Mr. Truman come around the 5th Ward?
EVANS: I don't remember Mr. Truman being around the 5th Ward until he
ran for presiding judge, and I think that's the first time he was ever
at the 5th Ward Club. Then, I believe my memory serves me right, on two
occasions he came out and was introduced and made a little talk, and then
he was around on election day when he first ran for presiding judge, which
was customary to go around to all the ward clubs.
FUCHS: The Independence Examiner at the time, 1922, and later,
said that Mr. Truman came out "on his own" for candidate for eastern district
judge in 1922, rather than first consulting with some of the bosses. Do
you have an opinion about that?
EVANS: Well, my opinion is that he had the support of Jim Pendergast
(the son of Mike and a nephew of T. J.) who was for him and he got his
father, Mike,
[165]
to be for him, who ran the 10th Ward and he had that support. And I don't
think he did have the support of Mr. T. J. Pendergast, particularly, at
that time, but he did have the support of his brother Mike and Mike's
son, Jim.
FUCHS: Yes. Well, that is the traditional story, that he had the support,
but there is this other side of the coin that seemed to be the predominant
feeling of the newspaper in Independence, that he first announced that
he was going to run and had the backing perhaps of the veterans, but did
not consult the bosses first. Then when the bosses saw that he was making
a pretty good show, why, they got behind him.
EVANS: Well, I think, my opinion is, that he had the support of Jim Pendergast
and his father, Mike, when he announced, but he did not have the support
of the dominant head of the "Goat" faction, which was Mr. T. J. Pendergast.
My opinion is that he never did have it until he won that nomination and
of course, then he had it in the election and
[166]
he had it from there on; but he did not have it in the beginning.
FUCHS: What do you recall of Buck Purcell's relationship and Mike Pendergast's
relationship to Eastern Jackson County affairs?
EVANS: My opinion is, Jim, that he was friendly, Mike was friendly with
Judge Purcell, but I don't believe T. J. was very friendly with him. Now
I could be wrong.
FUCHS: Do you think Purcell was a power, more so than Mike, in the area
in Jackson County outside Kansas City?
EVANS: No, I don't think he was as big a power as Mike was because Mike
was a brother of T. J. I think he thought he had more power, and as I
remember him (I was quite a kid) he was kind of an arrogant, egotistical,
know-it-all type of fellow, which didn't ordinarily mean a very good political
boss. In other words, political bosses were not supposed to be of that
character.
[167]
FUCHS: Have you any outstanding memories of the '22 election when he
ran for eastern judge?
EVANS: No, very little, for this reason. In 1922, we over here in Kansas
City, couldn't vote for him and couldn't work for him, and, as I say,
I was busy running my drugstore, and what little political work I did
was in the 5th Ward Democratic Club. But then when he did run for presiding
judge in 1926, of course, we had a part in it. That's when he would come
to the 5th Ward Democratic Club.
FUCHS: Likewise then, you probably have few memories of the '24 campaign
when he ran again for eastern judge and the Republican candidate beat
him out--Henry Rummel.
EVANS: First and only election he lost, Jim. I recall that very well,
because I know that the, at least it's in my mind, that the "Rabbit" faction
of the Democratic party, the so-called "Shannon" faction, teamed up with
the Republicans to beat
[168]
Mr. Truman in the '24 campaign. Otherwise, they couldn't have beat him.
FUCHS: They were really out to beat the "Goats."
EVANS: That's right. They was out to beat Mr. Truman and that's the only
way--cause he was a "Goat" and had the Pendergast support.
FUCHS: Do you remember anything about the split, why the Democrats split
up that election?
EVANS: No, I really don't; I probably should, but I have no memory of
why, because, again, I was pretty busy trying to run a drugstore, or maybe
by that time, two or three.
FUCHS: Of course, it's always been said that the Ku Klux Klan vote had
something to do with his defeat in 1924. Do you have any knowledge of
his association with the Klan?
EVANS: No, I have no knowledge of his association with the Klan. It does
seem to me in a faint recollection, that the Klan was bitterly against
him in both '22
[169]
and '24, and it seems to me that the Klan in Jackson County was much
stronger in '24, than they were in '22. That's been a good many years
ago. I remember, speaking of the Klan, when I worked for McPike Drug Company
I had a good friend that was in the retail drug business--been dead now
many years--C. M. Owens. He invited me to go to a meeting that he thought
I ought to go to and thought that I would enjoy. I frankly took it that
it was a political meeting. He didn't say anything about it and I went
with him. It was in the basement of the Grand Avenue Temple, which was
at 9th and Grand and, for that matter, still is. When I get into this
meeting, here's a group of men and it turns out to be a Ku Klux Klan meeting
and they're after members. You practically can't get out; you're locked
in unless you join the Klan. Well, I didn't have much trouble getting
out because I was just a kid and I didn't have any money, so I couldn't
join the Klan, so I didn't have much trouble getting out.
[170]
But there in this meeting was a man by the name of Harry Hoffman, who
I knew very well, and he made speeches at this meeting about what a great
thing the Klan was, and I, frankly, shall never forget, I was scared to
death being in a meeting. I knew I had no business being there and I wondered
how I got there, really. My friend, C. M. Owens, had taken me, and Harry
Hoffman was Mike Pendergast's good friend out in the old 10th Ward. Actually,
working in the drugstore at 26th and Prospect, I've seen Harry Hoffman
when he was down and out and didn't have anything, and Pendergast took
care of him and brought him up, and later he was made sheriff of Jackson
County. I remember in those days, he drove a great, big, enormous car
and was active in Pendergast's politics. I know his speech at this Klan
meeting that I was to, was all against the Catholic and the Negro and
the Jew, and here Mike Pendergast, his great friend, I knew, was a Catholic;
I couldn't understand it. So I was quite perturbed. I got out, because,
as I say, they couldn't keep me because I didn't have
[171]
the money to pay the initiation fee, but they virtually did make everybody
stay; and I went home and I told my mother what had happened. I didn't
know what to do. I knew I had no business there. She said, "Well, because
you say that this Mr. Hoffman is such a good friend of Mr. Pendergast,
you ought to tell Mr. Pendergast; he's been your friend. So I went to
Mike Pendergast and told him about going to this meeting and seeing Harry
Hoffman there. He, needless to say, was kicked out of the organization,
and in 1944, when Mrs. Evans and I was traveling with President Truman
on his campaign tour, in a little town right out of Chicago--I believe
Peoria, Illinois--the story broke about Mr. Truman having been a member
of the Ku Klux Klan in Jackson County. And this statement was made by
one Harry Hoffman, back in, I believe, Indiana or Ohio. I'm sure that
Harry Hoffman was paid a substantial amount of money to make such a statement,
because I'm sure that Mr. Truman had nothing whatever to do
[172]
with the Klan. They were bitterly opposed to him, particularly in 1924
when he was defeated for eastern judge. Along with the Rabbits and the
Republicans, it was pretty hard to beat.
FUCHS: Mr. Truman was defeated, then, in 1924, and went to work, for
a time, selling memberships in the Auto Club of Kansas City. He also attended
law school from 1923 to 1925. Do you have any recollections of that period
in his life?
EVANS: I remember when he was selling memberships
[173]
and I also knew he was going to school at night, but I didn't realize,
or if I did, I'd forgotten that it was to a law school. As I say, in those
days I was pretty busy in the drug business and didn't have much time
to devote to outside matters.
FUCHS: Your relationship wasn't such then that he would have mentioned
to you his future aspirations, political or otherwise?
EVANS: No, not at all. I knew he was selling memberships in the auto
club and I knew he was going to school and it was so remote that I didn't
even know that it was a law school. If so, I didn't remember.
FUCHS: Then in 1926, of course, the story is that he wanted to run for
the collectorship of the county, and Mr. Pendergast told him that he'd
promised that to someone else and endorsed him for the presiding judge.
You've been quoted by Mr. Steinberg in his book as having talked with
Pendergast about Mr. Truman at that time. Do you recall that conversation
now?
EVANS: Of course, I had known Mr. Mike Pendergast, as you know, from
what I've already told you, back in the old 10th Ward days; and in later
years and after I'd gotten into the drug business, I had become acquainted
with Mr. T. J. Pendergast through his nephew, Jim, and had occasions to
see Mr. T. J. Pendergast occasionally on various matters, usually pertaining
to the drug business or something like that.
[174]
As I recall, the '26 campaign, when he ran for presiding judge, I think
I was over to see Mr, Pendergast (and I’m going now by a weak memory)
about a problem that an old friend of mine, Mr. A. L. Gustin, Sr. at Gustin-Bacon
Manufacturing Company had with, I believe, the Kansas City Fire Department.
They were in the fire hose business and an order had gone out to people
in Chicago or Cleveland or some place instead of the Gustin-Bacon people
getting it. I went to see Mr. T. J. Pendergast and took the executive
vice-president of the Gustin-Bacon Manufacturing Company, a man by the
name of Jack Foyle--J. W. Foyle--to see what could be done about keeping
this fire hose business in Kansas City instead of going out of town. I
knew Pendergast that well and we talked to him about it; and as we started
to leave, he called me back and he said, "This brother Mike, of mine,
seems to think pretty highly of one of your people out there in the 10th
Ward, a fellow by the name of Harry Truman. What do you know about him?"
[175]
"Well," I said, "I don't know too much about him, but Jim knows all about
him; he was overseas with him,"
He said, "I know what Jim knows about him; he thinks he's all right;
he's for him; I want to know what you think about him," in his abrupt
way.
And I said, "Well, I always found him absolutely honest and dependable.
That's about all I can tell you."
"That's all I want to know." Very abrupt and quick.
I didn't know Mr. Steinberg--is that what he quoted me on, something
similar to that?
FUCHS: Yes. He also added something about him being rather "ornery" and
you agreed that Mr. Truman was a rather "ornery" person; in other words,
he was resolute when he made decisions.
EVANS: I never knew him to be ornery. I think he misquoted me if he said
that, You know, I haven't read that book. I guess I'll have to buy it.
I
[176]
never knew Mr. Truman to be ornery,
FUCHS: Well, I suppose, ornery can be interpreted several ways depending
on how you say it.
EVANS: If he was hard-headed, yes.
I believe what Mr. Steinberg was referring to was another meeting in
Pendergast's office that I recall now because I was there. Maybe I'd better
tell this while I'm thinking about it.
T. J. Pendergast had his office at 1908 Main Street on the second floor,
and you went up a flight of steps, turned to your left and then a couple
of steps and there was a waiting room and then into another office where
Mr. T. J. Pendergast's secretary had his office. He was a great, big man--Captain
Matthews--about six foot six, weighed about 250 pounds. And then to the
right, off of that, through a door, was Mr. T. J. Pendergast's office.
There was always a number of people there to see Mr. Pendergast, beginning
at 5:30 or 6:00 o'clock in the morning. He never saw anyone
[177]
after noon, but he would be there real early in the morning. There was
always a lot of people to see him; and I had to see him about something;
I don't recall at the moment what it was, and I was waiting in the outer
office. Mr. Pendergast never closed his door, very rarely did; I don't
believe I ever did see his door closed--well, once I believe I did. Well
anyway, his door was open and in there was several men whom I knew by
sight. I don't think now I could even tell you their names but one of
them, I remember, was Boyle who was in the construction business. Another
man was in the paving business--cement business--not ready-mixed, but
sold cement. In come Mr. Truman and in Mr. Pendergast's office was four
or five men. Mr. Truman walked in and he said, "Harry, these men are complaining
that you’re not giving them a fair share of the road business," and this
business, and that. I believe maybe it was in connection with the building
of the courthouse.
FUCHS: What year would this have been?
[178]
EVANS: I don't remember the year. I just remember this happening, I'm
outside and I can hear it. He said, "Mr. Pendergast, they'll get their
share," or words to this effect, "of the business, if they can deliver
the right kind of materials, but they can't deliver cheap materials and
charge regular price; I won't stand for it."
And Mr. Pendergast said, "I told you he was the hard-headest, ornerest
man in the world; there isn't anything I can do. That's it gentlemen.
You get your price right and get the best material. You heard him say
it; you'll get the business."
Now that's the only time I remember the word "ornery" being used in Pendergast's
office. I wonder if that might have been Steinberg's quote?
FUCHS: It might very well have been.
EVANS: "I told you he was the hardest-headed, orneriest man I ever seen;
there isn't anything I can do. You've got to get your price right and
furnish good material. You heard him say, then you'll
[179]
get the business." And he dismissed them. That's the way he held court.
FUCHS: I believe you were also quoted as saying that around the period
when Mr. Truman was active in the road program, that the bosses sort of
resented Mr. Truman because he was doing things on his own, which they
were unaccustomed to. Do you have any recollection of that?
EVANS: That may be what I had just told you about, because they had complained
very bitterly, apparently, to Mr. Pendergast and he had said, "Well, we'll
get together," and that was his method of handling it.
FUCHS: It wasn't so much Mr. Pendergast resenting him?
EVANS: Oh, I don't think Mr. Pendergast resented him at all. I think
the other ones that had been accustomed to getting the business whether
they were delivering good, or bad, or indifferent material, was up against
something for the first time.
FUCHS: Well now, in 1929, Mike Pendergast died and Mr.
[180]
Truman, of course, was still serving his four-year term as presiding
judge, Do you think he more or less succeeded Mike as a political boss
in the county outside of Kansas City?
EVANS: Well, Jim, I hardly believe that I'm in a position to say that
he succeeded him. I well remember Mr. Mike Pendergast--going to the so-called
"wake" at his home, as I remember it, about 43rd and 44th,
near Troost, and Mr. Truman was there. But I never regarded Mr. Truman
in my own mind as being a political boss in the sense that Mike Pendergast
was. I regarded Mr. Truman in those days as a man who had a lot of influence
in county politics, primarily outside Kansas City, Missouri, in Jackson
County. And as far as I was concerned, I think he was the dominant head
of the so-called "Goat" faction in Jackson County, outside Kansas City,
Missouri, Now I never felt that he took over--I don't know whether I explain
it right but I never felt that he was a political boss in the sense that
Mike Pendergast was.
[181]
FUCHS: Would the patronage still have been controlled, then, largely
by Tom?
EVANS: I think so, yes, where it used to be controlled by Mike. I don't
believe Mr. Truman ever said who got a job and who didn't. Now, if he
wanted somebody to get a job, why, they got one all right, but he didn't
dish out the jobs as Mike did in the 10th Ward, and as T. J.
always did throughout. But I think they probably had to meet with Mr.
Truman's approval or they wouldn't get the job out in the county, but
I think they were passed out by Mr. T. J. Pendergast after Mike died.
FUCHS: Tom Pendergast, of course, had the Ready Mixed Concrete Company.
There have often been allusions to other companies that he had. Do you
have any knowledge of any which might have participated in the building
program throughout the county and thereby would have profited?
EVANS: Well, yes, he, of course, had the Ready Mixed Concrete, as everybody
knew because his trucks
[182]
run all over the streets and he had his name on them. Then he had a paving
business, I believe called Pre-Coat--something to do with asphalt on the
streets. I remember across the street from my first drugstore, they tore
down a great big, old mansion that was owned by old Captain Warner who
was quite a military man (the Warner family was well-known) and next door
was Miller's. They tore down the mansion of Miller's and Warner and put
streets through and built apartments there, which, incidentally, didn't
hurt my drugstore to put in, must have been forty, three-story apartments.
They were being built by a fellow that was quite a Republican. This was
during prohibition. This fellow used to come in and get his whiskey prescriptions
filled in my drugstore, and I used to kid him, and I said to him, "You're
such a rabid Republican, I can't understand why you use this Pendergast
ready-mixed concrete."
His answer was: "Well, I'11 have to say one thing, if anybody else made
concrete as good
[183]
as he, Pendergast wouldn't get it, but he makes the best concrete in
the business."
Well, I recite that because I think that was true, and I heard that time
after time. His ready mixed concrete was the best that you could get,
so even his enemies used it, because it was the best in the long run.
That and the Pre-Coat business and, of course, there was a lot of other
businesses such as the wholesale liquor business he was in, as you probably
know. I'm talking about T. J. Pendergast. I, of course, had liquor permits
in all Crown Drugstores, in fifty-six stores that we operated in Missouri.
I did quite a little liquor business with T. J.'s son, Tom, and his old
associate, Phil McGrory.
FUCHS: You say T. J.'s son, Tom. He ran the liquor business?
EVANS: He ran the liquor business.
FUCHS: He's still living isn't he?
[184]
EVANS: That's right, but no longer in the liquor business. I had a peculiar
experience with Tom, Jr., we'll refer to him as, although I never hear
him called "Jr." It was "T. J.'s boy, Tom." I had been giving Pendergast
liquor company quite a lot of business, I thought, because he'd always
been my friend and our people at Crown knew that I would like to do as
much business with him as we could, as I like to do business with all
of my friends. Mr. Pendergast was convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary,
as you know. I was in New York at the time that this happened. I think
at the time he pled guilty or anyway, at the time he was sentenced. I
know I came home the evening that he was to go to the penitentiary in
the morning, and I thought, well, the least that I could do is to go by
and say "hello" and "goodbye" to him, because he's always been my friend.
I lived just two blocks down the street from him. He lived at 56th and
Ward Parkway; I lived on 58th Street( 1232 W. 58th) just off of Ward
[185]
Parkway, so I stopped by and rang the bell and he came to the door. And
I said, "I just come in from New York and I wanted to stop by and say
hello and tell you goodbye and ask if there was anything that I could
do."
And his reply was, "I appreciate it, Tom, your coming by. It was nice
of you. Yes, there's something you can do. I'd like to have you give Tom
all the liquor business that you can; he'll need it while I'm away."
I said, "Okay, I will; I'll be glad to." I thought I already had been
doing it. So I instructed all our buyers to give him all the business
that we could possibly give them, and I had them each month lay on my
desk a report of how much liquor they bought from each one of the liquor
suppliers. T. J. Pendergast Liquor Company--we bought more from them than
any of them. I ran into young Tom who was nothing like his father, surly,
arrogant, overbearing, young fellow. I met him one day, I think, someplace
for lunch
[186]
and I was sort of proud of the fact that I was doing what his father
had asked me to do and was helping him and I said, "Tom, how do you like
all that nice business we're giving you down at Crown?"
He said, "I don't like it at all. It's no good."
And I said, "Well, why? What's the matter?"
"Well, it's a bunch of public brands that we don't make any money on.
What I want to sell is my own brand."
And I said, "Why didn't you say so. What are your brands?"
And he told me a couple of them--one of them in particular. I was going
to say Waterfill-Frazer, but I may be wrong. Anyway, it was a brand that
they owned. So I said, "Come down this afternoon and we'll talk to the
liquor buyer." So we got the liquor buyer in and we bought about 250 cases
and stacked them up in the various stores and put prizes out for the store
that sold the most and the
[187]
clerks--you know, what we call a regular drive. We sold about 500 cases
which I thought was out of this world, that I was doing a fine job. I
run into young Tom again and I said, "Well, how did you like that drive
on your special brand?"
He said, "Well, you ought to have done twice as much."
He wasn't very appreciative. Then liquor became very, very scarce and
it was based upon what you bought--you were allocated liquor. During the
war you couldn't get liquor--it was allocated--just an awful battle, and
they were cutting us down and the liquor buyer came to me and he said,
"We're in a terrible situation. Pendergast won't give us near the liquor
we're entitled to."
And I said, "Well, I'll go and see him and talk to him."
So went up to see him. His office was only a block from mine. My office
at Crown Drug Company was 2110 Central and I think he was 2101, just less
than a block. So I went into see him and I said,
[188]
"The boys are complaining about the liquor, Tom, that you're allocating
to Crown Drug Store. After all, we give you a lot of business."
"Aw that business was never any good; I'm not going to give you any more
liquor. After all, the only ones I'm interested in is the bars that serve
it by the drink."
We actually were allocated where we'd be entitled to maybe ten cases,
he'd give us an allocation of two-fifths or two pints which were nothing.
This was after Mr. Pendergast had served his time and came back and was
down at the Ready Mixed Company; but, as I remember, he was not permitted
to go around the liquor company, under his sentence. So I went down to
see him. I shall never forget this--at the Ready Mixed Company--I think
the first and only time I was ever down there to see him. I used to see
him at 1908 Main a lot. So I went in and I said, "Well, I came to tell
you goodbye the night before you left and you remember what you told me.
You asked me to
[189]
give Tom all the liquor business I could. I said, "Here's the business
I gave to him," and I had the figures--a lot of money, almost $600,000
a year for two years, which I thought was a lot of business. I said, "Now,
he's not allocating me any liquor to speak of and it's embarrassing; we're
in bad shape."
And he said, "Tom, I want to tell you. I'm awful sorry; there isn't anything
I wouldn't do for you that I can, but you're asking me to do something
that I can't do. I have no control over young Tom. He's deserted me; has
no use for me and won't even talk to me. So there isn't anything I can
do. I appreciate what you've done for him, but there isn't anything I
can do in return." Tears came in his eyes and he said, "I've had nothing
but trouble with the boy." That's the first and only time that I ever
talked about it. I recite that, how his boy turned against him and he
later sold his business. I see him occasionally, but not very often; I
don't even know what he does
[190]
nowadays. Well, I got off, but I thought that was rather interesting.
FUCHS: Yes, it is.
Mr. Truman became associated with Spencer Salisbury and Arthur Metzger
and others, in the Community Savings and Loan Association. Do you have
any recollection of that or any comments about the associates of his that
might be of interest?
EVANS: No, I knew little about that, Jim. I just did know that he was
associated in the savings and loan business. I knew who Spencer Salisbury
was. That was about all. I don't remember anything about it to speak of.
That must have been in...
FUCHS: That was around 1926-'27.
EVANS: Wasn't it between the time he was defeated as eastern judge and
the time he ran for presiding judge?
[191]
FUCHS: Well, he sold those auto club memberships then, but the dates
that I've been able to get show that he started in this before he was
elected presiding judge and continued it after he was presiding judge.
EVANS: I'm under the impression, and probably I'm wrong, that he sold
memberships in the automobile club and also was in the savings and loan
business, too, at the same time. He might call on one man on savings and
loan and sell him an automobile club membership and he might call on somebody
to sell them an automobile club membership and try to get them to make
deposits in the saving and loan. I was under the impression, but as I
say, I may be wrong. I knew so little about it.
FUCHS: You don't recall anything about Spencer Salisbury that would enlighten
us about the subsequent split that they had, the conflict in personalities?
EVANS: No. I know they had a split, but I was not at all familiar with
it or in on it.
[192]
FUCHS: The next campaign that he became involved in, of course, was for
re-election as presiding judge in 1930. Did you play a part in that?
EVANS: Well, a part, because I was very active as head of the 5th Ward
Democratic Club and he was on our ticket and at that time, he was out,
before our group, I think, on a couple of occasions and around on election
day, which was customary with all the candidates, and visited with him.
And, of course, in the 5th Ward, we worked hard for him.
FUCHS: You had no very close relationship to him as far as managing part
of his campaign and so forth?
EVANS: Oh, no, not at all.
FUCHS: Then, Mr. Truman, of course, had the road program, which was quite
a success, and he engaged in the bond drive to build the court house which
was completed late in 1934. I think you were also quoted in regard to
Mr. Truman's putting a jail
[193]
on an upper floor of that building which was, you thought, an innovation
at that time. Could you recount that now?
EVANS: Well, first, in connection with the bond drive, I felt it was
badly needed for Kansas City and Jackson County, not only the court house
but a number of things, from a civic standpoint. I worked very hard and
diligently on that particular bond drive to get it through by the voters,
solely and only because I thought it was a good thing for Kansas City.
Incidentally, we did such a good job on that, I got the job on numerous
occasions after that, even to the point where I tried to get out of a
big city bond drive a number of years later; but I went into it and we
were successful on that. I know that Mr. Truman, after the bonds had been
approved and the jail was in the hands of the architect, he was traveling
all over the country looking over, apparently, court houses, jails, and
so forth. I probably am wrong, but at least it was an innovation; I never
heard of such a thing
[194]
myself. I heard from him that he was planning a jail on top and I said,
"There must be something wrong. You couldn't put a jail up on top of a
courthouse." I mean, it just didn't seem possible to me. And I said to
him, "I must have been misinformed."
And he said, "No, that's right. That's what I'm going to do. That's where
it belongs." And I believe he said that one place he'd visited where they
had one of them (I'm not sure this is true) was Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
It just dawned on me, "Well, why hadn't somebody thought of that before;
it is an ideal place as compared to the ground floor or the basement."
They can't get out of the top floor as easy as they can get out of the
basement; I mean it was just peculiar. And of course, that's where it
was built. I guess it is most places nowadays. But it may have been me,
or maybe it was an innovation, I don't know which, but it certainly was
an odd thing to me.
FUCHS: Had you become considerably closer to Mr. Truman
[195]
by 1934, just prior to his running for senator?
EVANS: Of course, I'd known him and he knew me; but we had a county liquor
license to buy; a city liquor license and a state liquor license and a
federal liquor license for each drugstore that had a liquor permit. The
county court, of which he was the presiding judge, approved the permits.
Well there never was any question about it. I don't think anybody ever,
if they were at all reliable, had any difficulty, but I would be in contact
with him. If we bought a store, we would apply for a liquor license and
go down to the court. We never had any difficulty. We had a matter of
taxes on each drugstore, the amount of assessments, what the store should
be assessed at for inventory; they'd raise your taxes and if you thought
it was unfair, you could go before the Board of Equalization. Well, as
I remember it, the Board of Equalization consisted of judges and the assessor
and the county highway engineer, and I'd
[196]
often be before them in a business way, you know, before Judge Truman.
I always got a fair deal and I think everybody else did if they were right;
if they were wrong, they didn't. So naturally I became more close to him
because of the business, many things that we had with the taxes on drugstores
throughout the county and the liquor permits and what have you.
FUCHS: Was he always completely business-like on those occasions, or
was there more conviviality between he and his political friends when
they came before the court?
EVANS: Well, my impression is, Jim, that it was just business but always
very friendly; but he was always very friendly with everyone, if they
were fair. Now they had a rule I think in those days, if I'm right--today
you pay on fifty percent of what--if you got a hundred thousand dollar
inventory in your warehouse, you're supposed to be assessed on fifty-thousand
dollars. I think in those days
[197]
it was thirty-three and a third percent. I could be wrong. But I'm under
that impression. And somebody would want to pay on ten percent and when
he'd find that out, there would be the devil to pay. He'd raise the dickens
and slap them down for making an assessment that was far under. Well,
then they were in trouble--but he was always friendly with everybody.
That was just his human nature; he was naturally that way.
FUCHS: You once related a story about once seeing Mr. Pendergast in relation
to liquor licenses. Do you recall that?
EVANS: You mean for Crown Drug Company?
FUCHS: Crown Drug Company.
EVANS: Oh, yes. I shall never forget that, Jim. This was right after
repeal of prohibition and the state legislature at Jefferson City was
preparing law under which liquor could be sold legally. It was planned
that liquor would be sold in retail drug
[198]
stores, grocery stores, and so forth. With drugstores being open at night,
it was the logical place. We were counting very much on handling liquor
in all fifty-six Crown stores that was located in Kansas City and Missouri
and by that time we had stores in Jefferson City and Springfield and Carthage
and Joplin, Columbia--all through Missouri. I got a call one day from
Jefferson City from a friend of mine saying that the legislature was going
to enact the liquor law that evening--take a vote--and that they are going
to vote to limit the liquor licenses to a corporation to only three permits.
In other words, a chain store can only have three permits. No person,
firm or corporation operating more than three drugstores can have more
than three permits. So that would mean that we'd have three permits in
three of our fifty-six drugstores in Missouri and all our competition
would have a liquor permit. And he
[199]
said, "You can't waste any time. You've got to go over and see your friend
Pendergast. It's going to be passed tonight."
And I said, "I don't see how I can see him, it's one o'clock." And the
rule was that--an unwritten law that you never could see him after twelve
o'clock noon. You could see him at six o'clock in the morning and any
time up until noon, but when twelve o'clock noon came, if there was forty
people waiting to see him, that's all today--and they were through. And
this was about one o'clock..
He said, "Well, this is important, you've got to go over there and see
him."
So I jumped in my car and run over. It was only four or five blocks from
my office and down in front was ten or fifteen of the old hanger-on politicians,
job-holders, you know what I mean--down in front, standing down on the
street. I knew them all by sight, spoke to a couple of them and opened
the door and one of them--young Tom
[200]
Conway, I well remember he said, "Where are you going?"
I said, "I got to go up and see the boss."
He said, "Oh, don't go up. He's mad as the dickens; he'll throw you out."
"Well, he's not going to throw me out."
He said, "Don't, please don't go up."
I said, "I got to go up."
So I went upstairs and came into this Captain Matthews office, that I
was telling you about who, I guess, was his secretary--I always called
him his bodyguard, this great, big fellow. Old Cap was a great guy--enormous
big fellow. He looked up and he saw me coming in and motioned for me to
go back out, didn't say anything--just with his lips moving, but not saying
anything, "Get out of here, get out of here," motioning for me to go back.
I said, "I got to see the boss."
"Get out of here, get out of here," without saying it--with his lips
and motioning me to get out.
[201]
And I kept on coming and got up in his office, which was right outside
Mr. Pendergast's office, and I looked in and there was Mr. Pendergast
looking out the window and sitting on the very edge of his chair looking
out the window. He was a big, powerful man, as you have probably heard,
and just barely on the edge of his chair, sitting at this great big, old
roll-top desk. Up on the top of the roll-top part of the desk, I thought,
was a radio and I could hear something going on and he was sitting there
looking out the window, and I thought, "Well, he's listening to the radio."
And Cap said, "He don't see anybody this time of day; you ought to know
that."
I said, "I got to see him," and with that T. J. looked around.
He said, "I'll see you in a minute." So I waited and in a few minutes,
he said, "Come on in." I walked in and he said, "Well, you've caught me
at my one and only vice."
[202]
I said, "Is that so; what's that?" I didn't know what he was talking
about.
And he said, "I'm gambling on the horses; I just won. You brought me
good luck."
And I said, "Well, good. What do you mean?"
He said, "That's the result of the races coming in"--on what I thought
was a radio--"and I was listening to it. What do you want?"
I told him about getting this call and that I was told that the legislature
was going to pass a law limiting a person or firm or corporation to three
liquor licenses. And he grabbed the phone and called Senator Mike Casey,
who was an old-time senator--I'm not sure but what he's still there; if
he is he must be almost a hundred years old, but he was quite a guy. I
don't know really, Jim, why he picked up the telephone because he bellered
loud enough that Casey ought to have heard him at Jefferson City. He said,
"Mr. Casey, my friend Tom Evans is here in the office." (Oh, he was just
bellering.) "He tells me that you plan to
[203]
pass a bill down there limiting these corporations to three liquor licenses.
I won't stand for it. Don't talk to me, Mr. Casey; I'm telling you what
I won't stand for. I won't stand for it; I won't stand for it at all.
Don't talk back to me. I'm just telling you I won't stand for it, Mr.
Casey. My friend Tom Evans has got to have a liquor license in each one
of his stores to compete with his competitors. Don't talk to me Mr. Casey;
I won't stand for it. Do you understand, I won't stand for it." And he
hung up. He said, "I think it will be all right."
And I said, "Thank you."
And I got up, and he said, "Oh no, don't go. Wait a minute. You brought
me good luck." And he said, "Cap, come here. On so-and-so, I want you
to bet twenty to win, ten to place, and five to show."
Cap wrote it down and he started out I said, "Cap, make the same bet
for me."
In a few minutes, this, what I thought was a
[204]
radio opened up with a bang--"And they're at the post"--and it was a
direct line from--he had three of them there from three different race
tracks. "They're off" and the announcement's made as they're running the
race and where they stand at the quarter and half and home stretch and
how they finish. Well, it was my first experience of hearing a race run
on a private wire. Well, the horse he bet on to win, won; the horse he
bet on to place, placed; the one he bet on to show, didn't. So I knew
enough that with twenty dollars on the winner, I did pretty well.
And he said, "Well, you did bring me good luck."
And I said, "Well, good, I'll leave."
And he said, "No, I want you to stay for another race."
So, I stayed for another race. He said, "Cap, I want you to bet thirty,
twenty and ten," and he gave the horses--win, place and show."
So I thought, "Well, I've won; I can't lose
[205]
too much." As he went out, "Cap, make the same bet for me."
Well, we did that three times and he wanted me to stay because his horses
were winning and he was way ahead. And I had an important meeting, and
I had to go and he didn't want me to but I had to. And as I went out,
I said, "Cap, call me when you pick up this winning and I'll come over
and get it."
"What do you mean--winnings?" he said in his old, gruff way.
"Well," I said, "you made those bets for me."
"Did you want those bets made?"
"Why certainly I wanted them made; why wouldn't I?"
"You know what the old man was betting don't you? He was betting twenty
thousand, ten thousand and ten thousand dollars; did you want that bet?"
Well, of course, I was shocked; I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't
believe it. But that was his vice and, as far as I know, the only vice
[206]
the man ever had. And of course, it ruined him. That's why he had to
resort to being dishonest, to pay these gambling debts.
I later had an incident that occurred that brought that home to me with
Mr. Pendergast, much more so. Clive Payne and I had a friend, a close
friend, who was born and raised out in Larned, Kansas. He had a job with
a national concern down in Springfield, Missouri. We had a couple of drugstores
down there and when either one of us was there, we always visited with
him. Clive Payne called me one night. He was down there and he said, "I
went over to see so-and-so, and I found the door to his office locked,
but I could see him sitting at his desk." And he said, "I rattled the
door and raised the dickens and finally got him up and he come and let
me in. He was sitting there with a gun planning to kill himself." And
he said, "I think you better come down; he's in pretty bad shape."
He said, "He's been betting on the horses and
[207]
he has stolen about twenty thousand dollars from his company and the
auditors are coming in tomorrow" (this was a national concern), "and if
I hadn't been here, he'd be dead by now. So you better come on down; we
got to help him; I don't dare leave him."
So I got in the car and drove down to Springfield, talked with him, met
with the auditors, called the company, called the president back in Ohio.
He came out and to make a long story short, I said, "Well, I'll tell you
what I'll do." This loss ran about twenty-seven thousand dollars instead
of--he thought was twenty. He had a thirty-thousand dollar life insurance
policy. I said, "I won't make up one cent if you want to prosecute him,
I'll furnish him the best lawyer and do my darndest to keep him from going
to the penitentiary, but if you don't want to prosecute, I'll give you
a guarantee that I will see that the life insurance premium is paid on
this insurance and that your company is made the beneficiary. And that's
all
[208]
I will do." Well they finally took that and I guaranteed his insurance
and, incidentally, for a good many years, I had to pay the premium because
he couldn't get a job. He couldn't furnish a bond. He was bonded with
this company, but once being dishonest, he couldn't ever get a bond and
he couldn't get a job. And I tried and tried and tried to find a job for
him as I was paying the premium. So I went to Mr. Pendergast and I told
him the story and I said, "Do you suppose we could get him a job someplace
in the city or in the county or the state?"
He said, "Yes sir, that's a man that's got a bad disease, Tom. And he
can't ever be cured of it. That's the worst thing that can happen to a
man."
I didn't realize he had it.
FUCHS: This was prior to your...
EVANS: This was prior to the time I went to see T. J. on the liquor permits.
And he said, "That's the
[209]
worst disease that a man can get and there is no cure for it. Yes, I'll
help him, providing you promise me one thing, that you don't get on him
too much or crucify him because he can't help it. If you'll promise to
be kind to him, I'll get him a job."
And I thought that was the strangest request, until I got over there
that day and saw him betting thirty-forty thousand dollars on a race and
that's, of course, why. He did, he gave me a little note to somebody at
the county (it wasn't Mr. Truman) written in red pencil and this boy went
to work there and he's worked there up until two years ago last September
when he died, and the insurance was paid to this company and they got
their money and his widow got four-thousand dollars back that was over
what he owed.
FUCHS: This man wasn't a friend of Pendergast's?
EVANS: No, he didn't even know him. No, he was a friend of mine, as far
as I know. He put him to
[210]
work because he had lost everything gambling on the horses, and said,
"Don't be too hard on him; he can't help it; it's a disease; it's a terrible
disease."
FUCHS: Very interesting.
EVANS: So, T. J. had the disease bad and I'm told, and I think by people
that should know, that he gambled millions of dollars without his wife
ever knowing about it. That's why he took the payoff money from the insurance
company, to pay off some of his horse race debts.
FUCHS: In 1934, then, Mr. Truman was running for the nomination for senator.
Did you play a part in that campaign as far as his personal campaign committee?
EVANS: Well, yes, to an extent, Jim. A number of the boys who were interested
and surprised that he had been selected to run, got in behind him and
raised a small amount of money. One fellow I
[211]
particularly remember, I've often wondered why, was Jim Taylor, former
city license collector here. I don't think he was very close to Mr. Truman;
but I remember he asked me to raise some money and I raised a small amount
of cash for the campaign and turned it over to the campaign committee,
which, I think Jim Taylor was treasurer of--I'm not sure.
FUCHS: I believe Roger Sermon was chairman.
EVANS: Well, I think he was chairman of Jackson County and I think Jim
Taylor was treasurer of the Kansas City, Missouri committee. I don't know
who was chairman; I know I wasn't. I was pretty busy in those days, but
did get out and worked, of course on election day. I worked like the dickens,
as I would for even you on the Democratic ticket, Jim. But I worked for
Mr. Truman--raised some cash.
FUCHS: I don't know how in the hell to take that!
[212]
EVANS: Well, as I often say to some of my good friends that want to know
why I'm such a strong Democrat, I say, "Why, I'd even vote for you on
the Democratic ticket," and that way I always get them satisfied. Of course,
I could turn it around and say, "I wouldn't even vote for you, Jim"--maybe
if you run on the Republican ticket. I usually do it the other way. Then,
I remember, Jim Taylor called me for a celebration for that victory and
wanted some beer donated. I, of course, handling beer in the drugstores
and knowing all of the beer distributors, I didn't have much trouble getting
together a lot of beer that didn't cost very much and for the life of
me I've tried to figure out where it is where we had that celebration.
It was on 12th Street, right near the courthouse, but I can't
figure out yet where that place was where we had that celebration. It
was on 12th Street, right near the courthouse, but I can't figure out
yet where that place was where we was that night. Mr. Truman was there
for just a few minutes and left
[213]
and the rest of the boys drank the beer. I know that.
FUCHS: That was a celebration for the entire Democratic victory?
EVANS: It was primarily for Truman's victory.
FUCHS: I see.
EVANS: Jim Taylor, I know, was active in that and he said, "We're going
to celebrate Truman's victory."
I said, "I'm not sure there's going to be a victory."
"Well, I'll guarantee it is." And it was, of course.
FUCHS: There's talk that there was a number of candidates first considered,
among them even Jim Reed and, of course Joe Shannon and James Aylward.
Did you have any knowledge of that at the time?
EVANS: Yes, I think I knew that--something about it. I don't know why.
How long had Jim Reed been out in 1934?
[214]
FUCHS: It must have been since about 1928, I believe.
EVANS: I have a faint recollection of the fact that "how can Truman get
the nod if fellows like Aylward and Reed want it." After all, Jim, Aylward
was county chairman, state chairman of the Democratic Party, and quite
an outstanding lawyer, and pretty well-known throughout the state in Democratic
parties where Mr. Truman wasn't well-known. I don't see why Mr. Reed didn't
want it, or why he didn't take it, because it would seem to me if he did,
he could have had it.
FUCHS: He was getting quite old then, for one thing.
EVANS: Probably so. And maybe, it had reached the point where there had
been some disagreement. I know at a later date it was. But I'm under the
impression that if Mr. Aylward had wanted it, he could have easily had
it; but apparently he didn't want it, and I had been under the impression
that they really didn't want it for the reason that they thought it was
hard for a Democrat to win--probably
[215]
didn't have much chance. That often happens in politics and, therefore,
they didn't want to take the chance of running and be defeated.
FUCHS: You mean it would have been hard for a Democrat to defeat a Republican
in that year?
EVANS: Well, for some reason, I was under that impression. They didn't
seem to want it too bad because of that it might be hard for a Democrat
to win. Now your next question is, "Well, why?" Well, it seems to me that
there--wasn't there a Republican senator at the time?
FUCHS: Roscoe Patterson was the incumbent.
EVANS: Well, he was a Republican. That was what I was thinking. Wasn't
there two Republican senators. Wasn't R. R. Brewster also--no, he'd run
and been drafted--Patterson beat him.
FUCHS: The other senator at the time was Clark, I believe.
EVANS: Champ Clark…?
[216]
FUCHS: Bennett.
EVANS: Bennett Champ Clark. Well, anyway, I'm under that impression that
that's why Aylward didn't want it, because I'm sure he could have had
it. And so Mr. Truman got the endorsement because nobody else really wanted
it.
FUCHS: I believe you purchased a radio station about 1934. Did that enter
into the campaign in anyway?
EVANS: Well, no, it didn't actually enter into the campaign but I used
Mr. Truman in connection with the FCC. I had to on that because it was
an unusual situation, Jim, and rather an interesting story.
I was busy running Crown Drug Company and had quite a large organization;
and I had a young man in charge of our advertising department. He was
a young Indian boy that I had inherited when I bought the Steinberg Drugstores
down in Oklahoma. The boy's name was August Schleicker. That's kind
[217]
of a bad name for an advertising manager--Schleicker; but, nevertheless,
that was his name. He came to me and he said, "Mr. Evans, I see in the
morning paper that Radio Station KWKC at 39th and Main Street is going
to be sold by the government for income taxes. What do you think about
me investigating it. Might be a good thing for Crown Drug Company to own."
And I said, "Well, go ahead, Schleicker, and see what you can find out
about it." I knew nothing about radio business--nothing, absolutely, except
to listen to it. And the fact that we had really built our business (I'll
digress for a minute, Jim), actually had built Crown Drug Company on radio
programs by buying--I 'm trying to think of the famous black-face radio...
FUCHS: Amos and Andy?
EVANS: Amos and Andy, yeah. We bought Amos and Andy when it was recorded
and played it every night the program, fifteen minutes. We had it at ten
o'clock at night for Crown Drug Company as the
[218]
sponsor. It did a tremendous job--just a gigantic job. We received thousands
of letters and tens of thousands of telephone calls of mothers complaining
about the lateness of the program that kept their children up so late,
that we finally prevailed upon WDAF (the Kansas City Star) to give
us eight o'clock because we had so many complaints. We had it for three
years. We put on an Amos and Andy parade here in Kansas City in 1926 and
gave a $2500 prize for the best impersonation of a "fresh air taxi cab"
and the best impersonation by a high school student of Amos and Andy and
various other characters in the Amos and Andy program. Kansas City was
about 350,000 population at that time, and they said there was 450,000
people witnessed that parade in Kansas City. It really was a gigantic
thing for Crown Drug Company, but that was my only experience in radio.
But because of that experience, I said to August Schleicker "Go ahead
and investigate it; see what you can find out."
[219]
So he came back and he said the man that owned it was a very odd and
peculiar fellow. Duncan was his name. He wore whiskers that must have
protruded out, at least, six or eight inches, just all clear around. Oh,
he looked terrible, like a Russian Communist. He had made a mistake in
failing to ever pay any income tax. This was long years ago, I think it
was for 1928, '29, '30, '32--maybe it was later than that because it takes
five years for the statute of limitations. Anyway, he hadn't paid his
income tax and the government had confiscated his station and they wanted
to sell it for taxes. So Schleicker came back and he said "He owes $44,000
for taxes. You can get the radio station for that."
And I said, "Well, thank you very much. I'm not interested." I mean,
that was just out of the question--$44,000--I didn't even give it a thought.
A couple of days later, the collector of internal revenue was Dan Nee.
(He was a lawyer in Springfield, Missouri, had been appointed collector
of
[220]
internal revenue here in Kansas City and Bennett Clark was his friend
and got him the appointment; that was 1934)--he called me on the phone.
He was a good friend of Mr. Truman because Dan Nee had helped him down
in Springfield during the campaign. He said, "Your man was down here about
buying this KWKC--"Keep Watching Kansas City ‘--radio station at 39th
and Main."
And I said, "Well, Dan, I told him to go down and investigate it, but
I'm not at all interested, not at that price."
And he said, "Well, you might be surprised. Would you do me a favor.
I used to coach the football team at Drury College" said Dan, and on that
team was a young boy by the name of Lester Cox of Springfield, Missouri,
who is a great friend of mine, a wonderful operator, and made a lot of
money. He owns two radio stations in Springfield; got interest in one
in Pittsburgh, and got some interest in radio stations in other places,
and I wonder if you'd talk to him."
[221]
I said, "Sure, I'll talk to anybody, but I'm not interested in getting
in the radio business."
So, in December, of 1934, Lester Cox came up here from Springfield. I
shall never forget it; it was ten below zero and a lot of snow on the
ground. I met with him downtown in the Hotel President and he proceeded
to give me the darndest selling on radio that any human ever got. He was
president of the Chamber of Commerce in Springfield and he wanted to get
a radio station for Springfield. He went out and got one up in Iowa and
was going to move it down there; and the newspaper took after him because
they didn't want a radio station, and he brought it down anyway. He had
a big fight on his hands but he did well with it. I just got a tremendous
selling--what a gigantic thing a radio station was and how you could talk
to the world--a large territory--and what a tremendous thing it was. And
so I thought, "The easiest way to get rid of this friend of Dan Nee, who
had come all the way up here, is
[222]
to get rid of him easy." And I said, "Well, I might be interested, Lester.
If we bought it, how would you want to buy it?" I figured that he'd say,
"Well, I'll take fifty-one percent," and I'd say, "Nothing doing," and
that would be the end of it.
And he said, "We'll buy it any way you want to."
I said, "What would you think about you going in a third and Mr. Payne
a third, and me a third?" That give Payne and I, of course, control of
it. I knew he'd say no.
He said, "Oh, that's fine. I'd be tickled to death. I'll teach you all
I know about radio and you can run it."
Well, he took me by surprise agreeing to only putting up a third of forty
thousand dollars, if that was what we were going to do. And he said, "It's
well worth it. It will be worth a lot of money to be able to get a frequency
for a radio station. Well, to make a long story short, we called Washington
[223]
and made reservations and took an airplane and went back to Washington.
It was a peculiar thing. The Internal Revenue Department of the Federal
Government had confiscated the station and the FCC had the granting of
the license--the Federal Communications Commission. They didn't work together
and it wasn't possible to get an approval under three or four or five
months, and you had to fill out a lot of papers and have a lot of engineering
data and so forth. But we went back and we went to the Internal Revenue
Department and the collector of internal revenue was anxious to sell the
station to get the forty thousand to satisfy the bill that this man owed.
The FCC wasn't interested in granting us approval because it was supposed
to take time; you know. But we called Mr. Truman--by the way, I think
it was January. I think he took office in 1934, did he not?
FUCHS: Yes.
EVANS: He was there for the meeting, and it was in
[224]
January when we got back there. He was just brand new. He went with us
over to the Federal Communications Commission and went in to see the chairman
and told him who we were and who I was and why we were there, and we had
a representative from the Internal Revenue Department because they wanted
to get their money. For the first and only time in history, we received
approval and paid that $40,000, and we owned the station before we left
Washington.
FUCHS: The first and only time in history that it had been done so rapidly?
EVANS: So rapidly, yeah. The only time in my knowledge that one branch
of the Federal Government owned a radio station that they wanted to sell
to get taxes, too. But anyway, we got it; and he went over there with
us, as I'm sure he would have done for any constituent that wanted to
pay off an old income tax bill for some property. But he was very nice.
In fact, Bennett Clark went with us too, so I well remember that Bennett
Clark was
[255]
the other senator--he was the senior senator. He went with us; took both
of our senators.
And then, KWKC didn't stand very well in this community because it was
a lousy radio station with horrible, old tin-canny records played--oh,
it was terrible; no viewers, had a bad reputation. So, we wanted to change
the name, move it from 39th and Main to the Commerce Trust Building and
put a high antenna up on top of the Commerce Trust Building that, incidentally,
had never been done. It operated down there for quite a long time--about
four years. The main thing was to change those call letters. KWKC, as
I said, had a bad reputation. So, I said to Lester Cox, "Well, how do
we go about changing them? Can we just use any letters? How do you get
them?"
He said, "Any four letters beginning with K. K represents west of the
Mississippi River. Has to start with a K, but the other three letters,
it doesn't make any difference if they're not in use."
I said, "What about KCMO?"
[226]
He said, "That's fine, if it's not in use."
This was much later, about the time we moved it to Commerce Trust, I
imagine six or eight months later. So we checked with the Federal Communications
Commission to see if we could get KCMO, and they said, "No, it's in use.
It's assigned to a Navy ship out in the Atlantic." So, KCMO, Kansas City,
Missouri, sounded like wonderful call letters. So I talked to the then
Senator Truman about it, and told him what we'd like to have but it was
assigned to a ship, and would he mind using his good offices to see if
he could get the Navy to release it. He did and the Navy released KCMO
and they give the ship another assignment; and we got KCMO, which is still
in use today--which is good call letters, KCMO--Kansas City Missouri.
So Mr. Truman a had a part in that.
Actually, the prize in the communications business, Jim, is a television
frequency, especially in any city where there is only three stations,
[227]
like Kansas City. It's tremendously valuable. I did not succeed in getting
my television station when Mr. Truman was President. I had to wait until
after his term was expired and Mr. Eisenhower became President before
I got my final grant on a television station. Most people will tell you
I got it because of my friendship with Mr. Truman when he was President,
but that isn't true. I got it after Mr. Truman's term expired.
FUCHS: Do you think there was any reason that you didn't get it while
he was President?
EVANS: No, I'm sure there wasn't any reason. It was rather complicated
and there was a lot of people wanting it and we had lots of complications.
It certainly was not his fault that we didn't get it.
FUCHS: I gather then it was a long time between the initial application
and the final granting.
EVANS: About five or six years, and he was President when we filed it
and we didn't get it granted
[228]
until after he went out of office. I think maybe in my old scrapbook
that you looked at, you saw a story written in some syndicated column
where Tom Evans made some fictitious millions of dollars in a television
station that he got from his friend Truman, when he was President. Well,
that wasn't true because I didn't get it from Mr. Truman.
FUCHS: I believe I did see something about that. Your radio station was
not acquired until 1935?
EVANS: I think January of 1935.
FUCHS: Then you continued with your radio activities and your drug activities.
EVANS: That's right. I ran both companies until 1948, when I sold out
Crown Drug Company. Between them both I managed to get a good case of
ulcers. In 1936 I very nearly died and suffered with them for years and
years and years; and certainly the radio business or the drug business
does not help a guy with ulcers; that I can tell you. I finally
[229]
got rid of the drug business and, as you know, I not too long ago actually
sold my financial interest in KCMO to the Meredith Publishing Company;
and while they give me this nice office, this nice place to stay out of
the cold in the winter, and it's nice and air-conditioned in the summer,
I do very little work here. Also, as you will recall, I got rid of my
ulcers a couple of years ago when I had a hemorrhage and almost died;
had to be operated on and cut out my stomach with those old ulcers in
and I got a new one now, and I feel wonderful.
FUCHS: Did you and Clive Payne and Lester Cox remain associates over
the years until you finally disposed of your interests in both groups?
EVANS: Mr. Cox, Mr. Payne, and I owned KCMO all the time, up until the
time that Mr. Payne and I decided to completely dispose of our interest
in Crown Drug Company, which we did; I think, it was 1948. It may have
been '49. I can very easily tell. But
[230]
anyway, as I said, I talked to my doctor. Payne wanted to get out and
move to California. I don't know why, but he did; and we sold our interest
in Crown Drug Company. And then we owned a lot of joint ventures together.
We'd made a good many investments with a partnership that we had been
for thirty years. Many an investment was bought with a Payne-Evans check,
like interest in the President Hotel when--Mr. Frank Dean, who used to
operate the Yellow Cab Company. His father and grandfather before him
operated the old Baltimore Hotel, and then his father and Frank Dean himself
was a partner in the Muehlebach Hotel. Frank Dean wanted to buy in 1934,
the President Hotel, which was in bankruptcy as a result of the depression.
Incidentally, Mr. Dean bought the President Hotel for $400,000 cash; he
owning about fifty-one percent and a group of us owning the balance of
forty-nine percent. We bought it for $400,000. That hotel was built in
1927 before, again, the Securities and Exchange Act was in effect when
the bankers could sell anything.
[231]
It was built at a cost of $2,600,000, and bond issue for that amount
was sold to the general public; and then when the depression of '30, and
the worse depression of '31, and the worse ones in '32 and '33, why, hotels
practically all over the country went bankrupt. And the President Hotel
did. We bought it, including the ground, the building, the furnishings,
the inventory, there wasn't much cash in the bank but we got what cash
there was, for $400,000. That shows you how things were. What I started
to say, Payne and I put $25,000 in the President Hotel with Mr. Frank
Dean, when he bought it for $400,000. A Payne-Evans check was rendered,
so Payne-Evans owned that stock. Gallup Map and Stationery Company, that's
still in existence, Byron Schutz here in Kansas City, and John Marshall
of Kansas City, and Dick Potts, who is now deceased, and myself, bought
the Gallup Map and Stationery Company. We issued a Payne-Evans check and
Payne-Evans owned it. That happened in numerous investments that Mr. Payne
and I made. When we sold
[232]
Crown Drug Company, Mr. Payne, said he wanted to liquidate everything
that he had in Kansas City and he wanted to get out. I bought his interest
in Gallup Map and made a nice profit on it. Mr. Dean bought his interest
in the President Hotel; I bought his interest in KCMO, so that I had two-thirds
after 1948 if that was the year. He liquidated everything that he had.
I urged him to keep KCMO because I thought if and when we ever got television,
it would be a valuable property. He said, no, he didn't need it, didn't
want it and wanted to go to California and didn't want any more worries.
So I bought it and we did get television and it was a valuable
property. But up until that time, why, Mr. Cox and he and I were the sole
owners of KCMO. Then Mr. Cox and I sold it to the Meredith Publishing
Company. Mr. Truman, in 1934, did help with the radio station and he did
the government a good favor by getting them paid their income tax for
KWKC.
FUCHS: Now there is a story that when Mr. Truman decided
[233]
to run for senator, that he asked you to become presiding judge.
EVANS: I guess there is something, maybe, to that. My main qualification
was that he knew I was a Democrat and that I'd run the 5th Ward Democratic
Club and he had, as I say, known me pretty well just in a business way
when he was presiding judge, through liquor licenses that I've mentioned,
taxes, etc. I've heard that story a good many times and for the life of
me, Jim, I can't tell you where it happened. I know he did say to me,
"Well, I've got one candidate for my job when I got to the Senate."
"Who's that?"
"That's you."
Well, I haw-hawed it off, because I felt sure he wasn't serious. I always
figured it was more or less a joke. Then, after he was elected, Jim Pendergast
says to me, "Your friend Charlie Ragan has been down to see the boss (meaning
T. J.) about you taking Harry Truman's job. How about it?"
[234]
"Well," I said, "God, Jim, I couldn't do it. I've got too many irons
in the fire as it is. I just couldn't do it." Really, no circumstances
couldn't do it. So that's as near as I ever come to being presiding judge.
I know Mr. Truman said that. He's said a lot of things to me that I'm
sure he didn't always mean.
FUCHS: In the '34 campaign I understand there was a publicity manager
named William P. Harvey. Do you know who he was?
EVANS: William P. Harvey. No, it's the first time I've heard the name.
The only Harvey that I know of, and I'm sure that couldn't be who it was,
was a labor leader--like pipe steam fitters or--that couldn't be him.
Was it in the '34 campaign?
FUCHS: Yes, that's what I read.
EVANS: Well, if so, I don't know who he was. William P. Harvey?
FUCHS: Was Fred Canfil the campaign manager for Mr.
[235]
Truman in '34?
EVANS: Well, I don't believe he was campaign manager. I think he was
general all around utility man from chauffeur to bootblack, who'd do anything.
I'll say one thing for Fred Canfil, whom I knew very, very well, he would
do anything in God's green world for Harry Truman; but he was very uncouth
and rough and very pronounced in his likes and dislikes. I don't know
who his campaign manager was. I was going to say it was somebody in St.
Louis, but I can't remember now for sure who it was.
FUCHS: You received a letter from a fellow named Newt Gardner in later
years, who was more or less reminiscing after Mr. Truman was President;
and thinking back he said that he remembered very well that '34 campaign
and the "switching of the vote of Pemiscot County..."
EVANS: There is such a county; I don't know where it is.
[236]
FUCHS: I believe it's down there in the Bootheel.
EVANS: Said "the switching of the vote in Pemiscot..."
FUCHS: ...the switching of the vote in Pemiscot County had a great deal
to do with electing Mr. Truman in 1934. Do you know what he was referring
to?
EVANS: No. I know who Newt Gardner was. He was a druggist in Kansas City.
He and his brother owned a drugstore at 63rd and Brookside. They used
to buy candy from me and drugs from me and we were friendly because I
was in the drug business. Newt was a Democrat. I think his brother was
a Republican--I can't call his brother's name. I remember when I was asked
to raise some money for the '34 campaign, that Newt said he would raise
some money among the druggists and he himself, but he didn't want his
brother to know what he was doing and if I'd keep still, he'd raise some
money because he was for Truman. He'd done a good job and he did raise
some money. As near as I remember it, I think
[237]
he gave me probably three or four hundred dollars in ten, fifteen, twenty-five
dollar checks. And as I remember, a fifty-dollar check of his own. Then,
it seems to me that Newt developed tuberculosis, had to sell his business
and go to--was this written in Arizona--this letter?
FUCHS: Well, I should have brought a copy with me, but I didn't.
EVANS: You got this out of going through my files out at the Library?
FUCHS: Yes.
EVANS: He went to Arizona, someplace in Arizona.
FUCHS: I rather believe it was.
EVANS: Probably so. So I don't know what he means, because if it's the
county I'm thinking of, my Lord, it was always, I thought, always Democratic.
But come to think about it now--and this is the first time I've thought
about Pemiscot County in
[238]
so long--if it is down in the Bootheel (and I'm going now by a weak memory),
that's where it's called the "Bible Belt," that because of Mr. Truman
being such a Baptist, he did get a lot of votes down there that a normal
candidate wouldn't get; I think, Newt was referring to that Bible Belt
vote down there that went strong for him, which elected him, really.
FUCHS: You said that you thought it was normally a Democratic...?
EVANS: I thought it was normally Democratic, but I think maybe I'm wrong.
FUCHS: It might normally have been Republican?
EVANS: It might be Republican depending upon how the Bible Belt went.
FUCHS: I also saw a letter which indicated there was an "E. C. Faris,"
who was secretary to Mr. Truman before Vic Messall. Do you have any recollection
of him?
[239]
EVANS: No, sir, I sure don't, and I don't believe he was. I don't believe
there was ever any E. C. Faris as secretary to Mr. Truman. Vic Messall
was secretary to a congressman whose name I can't recall, down in and
around Joplin, Missouri, who was defeated the same year that Mr. Truman
was elected to the Senate the first time and he came to Mr. Truman and
said what a good secretary this fellow was and the boss took him on.
FUCHS: Do you have any other vivid recollections of the '34 campaign,
particularly the primary where he was running against Tuck Milligan and
John Cochran. Of course, in the general election he was against a Republican
and it was not a Republican year, so his big race or big troubles were
in the primary.
EVANS: Oh, yes, the primary. There wasn't much question about the election.
It was Tuck Milligan, from Liberty, Missouri...
FUCHS: Richmond, I believe.
[240]
EVANS: Richmond, yes, that's right. And Cochran and Truman. That hadn't
occurred to me and there's no point in it, but when Lester Cox gave me
this selling on radio and we went back to Washington, he said that we
had to have a lawyer that knew his way around in Washington to get this
job done; and Dan Nee recommended that we hire Tuck Milligan and we did,
and took him back to Washington with us. The reason being, I think, because
he had been a congressman, is that right?
FUCHS: Yes.
EVANS: But I paid him a fee--KCMO paid him a fee--and I now remember,
and it never occurred to me when I was going up to see Mr. Truman about
getting his help, and he said, "Well, it will probably be a lot better
if you go by yourself."
And I accused him of being a coward and did go, but Tuck Milligan got
Bennett Clark who was his friend to go with us. Tuck Milligan didn't go,
but Bennett Clark and Harry Truman went with
[241]
us. I'd forgotten all about Tuck Milligan.
FUCHS: Do you think there was a certain amount of bitterness between...
EVANS: Oh, I think there was during the campaign, but I don't think it
ever did get over. That's why his brother Maurice wanted to run against
him six years later.
FUCHS: You think that played a part.
EVANS: I think so.
FUCHS: Any other incidents that happened in '34 to '40, in those six
years Mr. Truman was a new senator, that you recall?
EVANS: Oh, I don't think of anything particular. I had to be in Washington
an awful lot in those days, because of the radio business--took an awful
lot of time. Also, because of legislation that was proposed that would
adversely affect the drug business, drug manufacturers; we had an awful
lot
[242]
to do (Crown Drug Company) with narcotics because we, of course, had
to have a narcotic license. I was in Washington a great deal of time and
visited quite a lot with the then senator, but recall nothing, to me,
of very much importance.
Mrs. Truman, to this day, doesn't remember this, but it actually happened.
And the President remembers it. Mrs. Truman said to me (we were out not
very long ago, Mrs. Evans, the President, Mrs. Truman, and I were together
and something came up): "Well, it's funny to me that I never cooked a
meal when we were in Washington--actually cooked you a meal."
And I said, "Why, you certainly did, I'm surprised."
And she said, "Well, I didn't."
And I said, "Well, you certainly did and I'll tell you where it was.
You lived in a little apartment, up on the second floor, I don't remember
the street. Your husband invited me out and your guests were one Tom Evans
(a druggist from Kansas
[243]
City), one Joe Shannon, and Congressman Bell. We had dinner and you cooked
every bit of it, and you and Margaret washed the dishes; and we went in
the living room and spent two hours and a half listening to Joe Shannon
lecture on Thomas Jefferson." The President well remembered it and Mrs.
Truman don't remember me ever being there. I guess Joe Shannon was congressman
from the Fifth District and Jasper Bell was congressman from the Fourth
District at that time, and he was senator, and he invited us out to the
house. I well remember it, but Mrs. Truman don't remember it.
But, as I say, I would see him, oh, often have lunch up on the Hill with
him. He would come by my room and have a drink. I saw quite a bit of him;
but I was always pretty busy myself, back there on so much business. I
had a radio hearing that lasted three weeks (that, incidentally, seemed
like three months) and I took fifteen men back from Kansas City and had
them on my hands for three weeks--a minister, several businessmen, to
testify
[244]
how badly in need Kansas City was of additional radio facilities. That's
the way you got them.
FUCHS: About what year would this have been?
EVANS: 1936--I know it was 1936, because I came home with a case of ulcers
and went to the hospital for nine weeks. During that time in Washington
I was with him (HST) quite a bit, but nothing that I can think of that
was unusual. He would talk to me about some of his problems and, Lord,
he had plenty of them.
FUCHS: These were specific problems in regard to legislation or just
the general problems of a senator?
EVANS: Oh, just general problems of people wanting ridiculous things
and wanting him to work on them; which in later years, I come to find
out that that's what you expect of a senator. I know that's true. Like
just the other day, the President of the Produce Exchange Bank here--
[245]
incidentally, today he's having open house of a new department of his
bank, celebrating—wanted Congressman Bolling to use his influence in getting
the Hope Diamond out here so it could be displayed at this open house.
"Why," I said, "I never heard of such a thing. How can you expect a congressman,
Sam, to do such a thing?"
And he said, "Well, that's part of the job they ought to do for their
constituents."
Well, I got in touch with Bolling, and sure enough it's in the Smithsonian
Institute and controlled by a committee of senators and congressmen of
which one of our congressmen here in Missouri is the chairman of--one
of the old, old, congressmen down in central Missouri. They got turned
down, but we tried it.
No, just various--nothing specific.
FUCHS: Did you ever have a chance to observe him in the Senate chamber,
on the floor?
EVANS: Yes, on numerous occasions I would have a pass
[246]
into the gallery to watch, particularly if I happened to be there and
he was going to make a speech, which in his first term was not too often.
The second term, it seemed to me like every time I was back there he was
making a speech. I remember, and I can't give you the details, hearing
one on some legislation that he was on, in connection with the railroads--transportation.
He made a beautiful speech; I heard that. You've probably got a record
of that in the Library.
FUCHS: You were impressed by his speaking ability?
EVANS: Not so much his speaking ability as I was his ability to dig out
the facts and know them. No, he wasn't a good speaker, but he sure had
the facts. He spent a lot of time at KCMO in connection with his speaking,
after he was nominated Vice President. Leonard Reinsch who had worked
a lot with President Roosevelt and who was in the radio business--managed
the Cox station with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia--come up here and
he worked
[247]
with him and helped Mr. Truman on his speechmaking.
FUCHS: Was that Lester Cox?
EVANS: Former Governor Cox, who ran for Vice President owns these radio
stations and Leonard Reinsch was the radio man under Roosevelt, and he
was Governor Cox's manager of, I think, four or five radio stations. He
came up here to help Mr. Truman with his making a better speech. They'd
come down to KCMO and the President would make a speech and we'd record
it, and he and the President would sit and listen to it and correct it.
Then he'd go back and make it over and do that and do that and do that;
and I had all those records. I've never been able to find them. I still
think they're someplace in KCMO.
FUCHS: It would be very interesting if you could find them.
EVANS: Today, we put it on tape, as you are this. In
[248]
those days, we put it on platters, and we had it. Do you remember when
I brought out a whole box full of records. I thought sure we'd find them.
They'd be invaluable today.
FUCHS: Yes, they would. The speeches certainly would be interesting.
EVANS: That was after he was elected Vice-President and before his acceptance
speech in Lamar; that’s what he was working on. That's what that was.
FUCHS: Coming down to 1940, when he was completing his first term and
was in for quite a run for the money in the next campaign, largely, or
at least in part, because of the aspersions being cast about his connections
with Pendergast, who in the meantime, had been convicted and served time.
I believe, you played a larger part in Mr. Truman's campaign in 1940,
didn't you?
EVANS: Well, I think--and you probably know this better than I, because
you've had access to those files and looked at them, and I had access
to them and
[249]
didn’t look at them--you probably know a lot more about that, actual
facts, than I can remember.
FUCHS: Well, what I would like to have is what you remember about the
various meetings. There was one, I believe in St. Louis (at the Hotel
Statler, probably), early in the year, when they were discussing whether
Mr. Truman should run again. Were you present at that meeting?
EVANS: No, I don't think so. Oh, it seems to me I have a faint recollection
of being at that meeting--who was there, John Snyder, or do you know?
FUCHS: Well, I don't have the names of the figures who were there.
EVANS: I'll tell you the first that I remember about the '40 campaign--40's
right, isn't it?
FUCHS: Yes.
EVANS: He went from Washington to St. Louis to Kansas City and I don't
think I was there at that meeting
[250]
in St. Louis, but apparently someone there had tried to discourage him
from filing; and I met him in a room in the President Hotel and Vic Messall
was there.
FUCHS: This was in Jefferson City?
EVANS: No, Kansas City--the President Hotel. He was there and Vic Messall
was there and another young man from Washington who was close to Vic,
Kenneth Miller. They were there and Mr. Truman was somewhat reluctant
to file, and that's what the meeting was about. We discussed many things
there, about who would be for him and what could be done and he said,
"I've decided one thing. Vic, you and Ken go down and file at Jefferson
City." Like the deadline was tomorrow--"Go down today, and be sure and
be there and file, because there's one moral cinch, if I don't get anybody's
vote, I'll get the boss’s (meaning Mrs. Truman) and my own."
And I said, "I can get you two more, my wife's and mine. I don't think
Vic is eligible
[251]
to vote, so you'll only be assured of four. Ken can't vote because he
lives in Washington where they don't allow them to vote." I well remember
that. He started them off down there. There was a fifty dollar filing
fee.
FUCHS: Who was Kenneth Miller?
EVANS: Kenneth Miller was a young man who worked in Senator Truman's
office. Later he worked at National Democratic Headquarters in Washington
and part time in Senator Truman's office, during which time he attended
law school and became a lawyer. After Vic Messall started his public relations
business, Ken went with him and handled the legal end of the business.
After a year he left Vic and went into a law firm of his own in Washington
and at the present time is practicing.
FUCHS: How was the campaign financed?
EVANS: I remember Harry Vaughan wired me how important it was for money.
I think you've seen that wire in
[252]
the file.
FUCHS: Yes, he requested an advance.
EVANS: I think, if I remember right (and I know you've seen it since
I have), he requested a thousand dollars from me and a number of others,
and it was to be repaid from contributions as they were received. I sent
mine. I don't think many people did. I'm under the impression that probably
only about five or six.
FUCHS: Well, the telegram I have in mind, is one in which Vaughan wired
you and said a letter would follow explaining (which he did send) and
requested a thousand dollars advance of funds from you to get the thing
rolling. He said that there was no doubt that Mr. Truman would be nominated
because the railroad brotherhoods were going to get behind him.
EVANS: Well, that was just a request for a thousand dollars, not to be
repaid.
FUCHS: Well, it said "advance."
[253]
EVANS: Advance, yes.
FUCHS: I assume it would be repaid.
EVANS: Well, as I remember it, there was very few who did contribute--just
five or six. We did have a hard time with money, but we also got some
surprises. I know that we worked like the dickens and we got help from
places that we didn't anticipate. The places that we anticipated we didn't
get help, and it was quite a battle.
FUCHS: Did you have a particular title in that campaign or did you just
raise money as a friend?
EVANS: I think I just raised money in the '40 campaign; I don't think
I had any official title.
FUCHS: Do you have any recollection of some charges by Stark of a slush
fund that was supposed to have been raised in that campaign?
EVANS: No, I sure don't. I have recollection of charges of a slush fund
being raised in the '44
[254]
campaign. I do remember some charge of Stark, but he made such horrible
charges that nobody paid any attention. I can assure you one thing, that
there was no slush fund because it was too tough to get a regular fund
let alone a slush fund. There wasn't a slush fund needed.
FUCHS: There has been mention that at this meeting early in the year
in St. Louis at the Statler when they discussed whether Mr. Truman should
go ahead and enter the race that they selected two Missourians, one from
the west and one from the east, and they refused to serve. Do you have
any idea whom they might have been?
EVANS: For senator?
FUCHS: They were selected to run the campaign--manage the campaign--one
from the eastern part of the state and one from the western?
EVANS: You mean to run Truman's campaign?
FUCHS: To run the campaign, but they refused to do it.
[255]
EVANS: No, I have no idea who they were. I'm sure of one thing, the one
from the west wasn't Tom Evans. I know of four or five who refused to
head his campaign when he ran in '48; we'll get to that later, I'll call
some names.
FUCHS: You know Eugene Donnelly, how did he participate as, I believe,
Jackson County Democratic chairman?
EVANS: I believe he was Chairman of the Jackson County Democratic Committee.
If he wasn't he was active, he was a committeeman, by the way, from the
5th Ward, too. Oh, yes, I knew Gene. He was in Battery D with HST.
FUCHS: Was he always very active in politics?
EVANS: Yes, and held a political appointed job for a long time. I've
forgotten what it was--in the collector's office or something like that.
FUCHS: Were you down in Sedalia when Mr. Truman gave his opening speech?
[256]
EVANS: Yes, I went down with him, drove down. It was there on the courthouse
steps.
FUCHS: In that speech, he talked about civil rights and the Negroes.
Why would he have chosen to do that at Sedalia? Any particular reason
that you can think of?
EVANS: I was there and, in fact, rode along with him while he studied
his speech that night that he gave it; I think it was just the way he
felt about it. As he is well prone to do, whether it would help him or
not, if that's the way he felt, that's the way he was going to do it.
FUCHS: Was there a particularly large Negro population in Sedalia?
EVANS: No, I'm sure there's not. It's a great railroad town, you know.
FUCHS: It's been mentioned that Mr. Truman was approached, probably by
Senator Clark (I don't recall), to not run in 1940 and that there was
a possibility of his
[257]
being appointed to the Federal Trade Commission. Have you any knowledge
of that?
EVANS: No knowledge, other than I'm sure that it took place.
FUCHS: You've heard that.
EVANS: Yes, I've heard it, but I don't know that Mr. Truman ever told
me that.
FUCHS: You don't recall talking to him about it?
EVANS: Bennett Clark was a close friend of Maurice and Tuck Milligan
and Dan Nee and that group. Bennett would have done anything legitimately
that he could, to have gotten Maurice Milligan elected, and he thought
he was going to have an easy time doing it--nominating him in that primary.
FUCHS: Is there anything that stands out in your mind, before the primary
election night, in regard to that primary? I believe you do have a rather
vivid memory of election night.
[258]
EVANS: When he went to bed? That I do. No, I don't know of anything particular.
FUCHS: Did he seem to be optimistic throughout most of the campaign?
EVANS: I never knew that man when he wasn't optimistic. I'm serious about
it. All the years that I knew him, at no time did I ever know him to be
a pessimist. And in the '48 campaign (I'm way ahead of the story) when
he came back from that long trip before that night when he went to Excelsior
Springs, he spread out on the bed in the penthouse a lot of figures; these
crowds that he's been getting, "it spells victory, it can't mean anything
else, and want to show you how I'm going to win," and I turned around
and I said to myself, "That guy actually believes it."
FUCHS: I believe he did lose a little of his optimism that primary election
night in 1940, is that not true, when the returns started to come in initially?
[259]
EVANS: Yes, I think he did. I think he thought he'd lost, but did not
seem too disturbed about it.
FUCHS: What happened that night?--as you recall it?
EVANS: Well, as I recall it, I was down at Democratic Headquarters down
at the election commissioners where you get the vote, and at one time
he was quite a ways down, as I remember it. That's when I think maybe
he thought he was going to be beat.
FUCHS: Was he down there with you?
EVANS: No, he was out home, and I talked to him. And then things commenced
to look up, and I think maybe that's where we got some counties that we
didn't expect, big majorities like Newt Gardner referred to--switched
over and brought it up. And I called, and Margaret answered the phone
and she was up all night. I talked to her off and on--two or three o'clock
in the morning, but he'd gone to bed and we couldn't disturb him. I have
said, "You went to bed knowing you were defeated and woke up and
[260]
found you were elected." Well, he never agrees that that's true; but
I know when I called and found that he'd gone to bed, I thought he was
going to be defeated. But, as you know from the records, I think he was
way behind when he went to bed.
FUCHS: I guess he just won by some eight thousand votes in St. Louis
and then over the state came out with some eight thousand votes to win
the nomination.
EVANS: And those were the days, of course (they're not so long ago),
but it took a long, long time to get the count--not like the voting machine.
FUCHS: Well, that brings us down through 1940.
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