Let 'em Holler - A Political Biography of J. Bracken Lee

Morals and the Mayor

2 Morals and the Mayor While still mayor of Price, Lee attempted to secure the Republi­can nomination for governor in 1940 but was defeated by Don B. Colton, former congressman and a prominent Mormon. Lee obtained the Republican nomination for congressman in 1942 only to be defeated by Democratic incumbent Walter K. Granger by a mere 269 votes. Since he ran ahead of his party in a Demo­cratic year his name became more formidable among party ticket makers. In 1944 he was nominated for governor to run against Democratic incumbent Herbert B. Maw, former University of Utah professor and a prominent attorney. Maw was also a mem­ber of the LDS Sunday School General Board and, therefore, could be expected to draw Mormon support against Lee. Maw was, unfortunately, not a favorite of Mormon authori­ties. In 1937, as president of the state senate, he sponsored legis­lation striking at powerful utilities that were allied with general authorities of the church through directorships. It was common knowledge that Maw's actions were not popular with Mormon leaders.1 In 1940 church opposition to Maw focused on his decision not to reappoint Apostle Stephen L. Richards and David O. McKay of the First Presidency to the governing boards of the University of Utah and Utah State Agricultural College, respec­tively. Maw believed that church leaders dominated boards and therefore should not serve on them. It was clear, he said, that both McKay and Richards resented that decision.2 Presumably, church opposition to Maw also crystallized on moral grounds, due to his alleged connections as a private lawyer with wholesale liquor firms supplying Utah's state-controlled liquor stores.3 Maw himself believed that church authorities had no good reason to oppose him, except that many of them were Republicans by conviction, "unless they believed the propa- 23 J . BRACKEN LEE ganda" about him. Maw was proud of his church membership and said he was under the impression that many church leaders supported him.4 Some church leaders, however, were convinced that Maw's church credentials were less than perfect and that his political performance did not qualify him for support. For instance, Ezra Taft Benson, president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, declared that the church supported Lee for gov­ernor. He reported that they considered him a man of convic­tions and integrity and preferred him to Maw "who was known to equivocate on some issues. Generally, the Church prefers a non-Mormon with high principles to a Jack Mormon." In con­trast to Maw, "Brack had a deep spirituality," though it did not show on the surface.5 In light of Benson's known conservative Republican biases, it must be wondered how fairly he, and per­haps other leaders with Republican leanings, judged Maw's church credentials. That Maw never sought church support6 may partially account for the coolness of Mormon leaders toward him. The election of 1944 vibrated with moral overtones. At Maw's behest, in a slow-moving campaign, Gordon Taylor Hyde, a former Mormon bishop, and Joseph J. Cannon, former editor of the Deseret News, prepared a seven-page pamphlet, Morals and the Mayor, that made numerous moral allegations against Lee's administration in Price. After making a personal investiga­tion in Price, Francis W. Kirkham, a Mormon educator, agreed to allow his name to be used as the sole author.' Desiring to consider financial matters first because they were deemed less important than morals, the authors observed that in spite of the elimination of property tax, Price maintained a substantial bonded indebtedness of $316,000.00.8 In fact, city records list the slightly smaller figure of $279,418.13.° The authors also charged Lee with increasing the cost of living of Price residents by purchasing electricity and water and reselling them to the people at a profit. Other questionable methods of acquiring revenue, such as licenses, fines, and forfeitures, allowed large financial interests to escape a legitimate tax at the expense of the people.10 24 MORALS AND THE MAYOR Even more important, in the author's view, was the practice of condoning vice by collecting money for it from the underworld: "Fines have a legitimate place in restraining crime, but permitting it by collecting periodical fines or forfeitures violates the statutes, is anti-social and is palpably immoral." The authors argued that Lee operated a "wide open town where gambling houses and houses of prostitution operate on the main street and liquor is readily available even to 13 year old boys."11 Mayor Lee allegedly hindered state officials from stamping out these conditions. For instance, when state officers tried to stop the illegal sale of liquor in Price, Lee had an ordinance passed prohibiting the search of buildings. "This subterfuge offered the Mayor an opportunity to molest the state's representa­tives," according to the pamphlet. An establishment alleged to be disorderly was raided by representatives of the state liquor com­mission, and the landlady and others were arrested. They pleaded guilty, and the building was closed until a $500 bond was posted. The landlady refused to comply with that agreement on advice of the mayor, and instead, officers of the liquor commission were served with a criminal complaint under city ordinances. After several trips to Price by state representatives, the charge was finally dismissed.12 Recounting the Jones Club incident, the authors concluded that Lee had "led a mob to overthrow the rule of law," which was "repulsive to moral concepts." Lee was guilty, they said, of violating his obligations as a 32nd degree Mason, his oath of office as mayor, and all Christian ideals. Finally, in a blatantly religious appeal, the authors insisted that it would be "unfortu­nate," especially "for our young people," if the governorship was attained by a man who entertained different morals from the majority of the state. The pioneers came here for a great spiritual purpose. They left all that they had, they buried their loved ones on the plains, they met the desert and the savages, in order to satisfy the highest demands of their souls. It would betray their great purpose to place in the office of chief executive a man who has proved . . . that he feels it profitable and fitting for gov- 25 J. BRACKEN LEE ernment to be intimately connected with gambling and prosti­tution and disregard for law of the state.13 Some political analysts to the contrary,14 it is impossible to ascribe to the pamphlet a definitive role in Lee's narrow defeat that year. Although most Democrats won election by as much as a 3-2 margin, Maw received 123,907 votes to Lee's 122,851, a difference of only 1,056. It would seem, rather, that Lee's popularity held up remarkably well in a Democratic year in which Roosevelt carried over 60 percent of the Utah vote. Had Lee been a Democrat suffering the only ignominious defeat, the effect of the pamphlet as a political "dirty trick" would have been dramatized. However, to assign it paramount importance, it must be assumed that prior to the pamphlet's appearance, Lee's popu­larity was so overwhelming that he most certainly would have been elected as the only Republican in a Democratic year. Due to the lack of effective polling, that assumption cannot be made. Convinced that he was robbed, Lee went to court in an unsuc­cessful attempt to reverse the election results. He claimed that 8,000 ballots marked for him had been thrown out. These voters had marked a straight Democratic ticket and then indicated Lee for governor without crossing out Maw's name in the Democratic column. According to Lee, his court test failed because an earlier election had been contested by Republicans and a woman Demo­cratic candidate for county recorder defeated under similar cir­cumstances. The Republican-dominated Utah State Supreme Court insisted that the voter cross out the name of the opposing candidate to produce a valid ballot. In Lee's opinion, they "robbed the woman of her office" and set a dangerous precedent that could be applied later against him.15 Some irate Price citizens staged a protest visit to the capitol to label the pamphlet "an infamous smear on Price, overlooking its virtues and exaggerating its vices."16 They purchased space in the state's newspapers to argue that Price was progressive in its schools, churches, and people and should not be held up for ridicule and "its name dragged in the mud." They charged that the pamphlet was mailed to Utah citizens with the use of tax­payers' name plates on record in the state tax commission. 26 MORALS AND THE MAYOR Allegedly, when J. Lambert Gibson, chairman of the tax commis­sion, was asked about it, he answered, "It's none of your busi­ness." The Price group also attacked the influential Francis Kirkham for conducting a secret investigation of Price without ever bringing his findings to the attention of city officials. If Kirk­ham was really interested in improving the moral climate, "why did he not pick out his home city to investigate, or any number of other communities?"17 In a major editorial entitled "An Uncalled For Attack," the Price Sun-Advocate echoed this sentiment. The editors asserted that the pamphlet had "no place in a political campaign" and interpreted it as a direct attack on the city of Price, which they claimed "stands highly rated, and with good reason, among cities of the intermountain district."18 Even the Mormon-owned Deseret News dismissed it as "a political ploy to destroy J. Bracken Lee as a candidate for gov­ernor." In spite of its usual interest in moral issues in political campaigns, the Mormon church wanted no responsibility for the pamphlet. The News issued a signed, front-page editorial by David Robinson just before the election. The author claimed to have made an investigation into the "origin and aims of the pamphlet" but actually did not examine the city of Price to corroborate or defeat the argument. Rather, Robinson effectively reduced the moral argument by essentially ignoring Cannon and Kirkham, who were Republicans, and blaming the project entirely on Gordon Hyde, a Democrat and chairman of Maw's state finance commission. Allegedly, Hyde's job hinged on Maw's reelection.19 Although Robinson was right in assessing the political nature of the project, only the most naive would assume it was anything else, coming as it did at election time. The issues raised by the pamphlet were still important, and Robinson failed to confront them. The pamphlet's real authors were especially vulnerable to criticism for placing it under the name of Kirkham, when in fact he did not write it. But Robinson's clumsy attempt to make Kirkham appear nervous and edgy when interviewed about it was political. According to Robinson's account, Kirkham admitted 27 J . BRACKEN LEE that he did not write it and then promised to tell the "full story" after consultation with his associates in the project. But when he returned he "guardedly reported that he was under arrest, that he had hired an attorney, and that he had been advised by his attor­ney not to talk."20 Robinson argued that the writers had failed to investigate any other important Utah city. He admitted that Price was not free of vice, "but neither are Salt Lake, Ogden, Provo, Bingham, Helper, or most any other city of any size."21 Since one does not expose corruption in a specific place by exposing it everywhere, Robinson's argument is not valid. Exposing corruption in one city might lead to its exposure in other cities; but no sincere observer would refuse to consider it in one city on the grounds that it exists everywhere. A similar argument is often employed by politicians accused of graft who argue that other politicians are doing it, too; therefore, their graft is justified. Robinson was guilty of at least as much partisanship as the pamphlet writers. That he would write the editorial, however, suggests the church's strong desire to dissociate itself from the pamphlet, which could be interpreted as tacit approval of J. Bracken Lee. In this elec­tion, the church was not interested in crusading for morals. The white-haired Kirkham suffered as much misery over the pamphlet as Lee. Judge S. J. Sweetring of Price, especially sensi­tive to personal criticism, interpreted it as a personal affront because he believed it implied that he had "conspired to break the law" and was therefore "guilty of a criminal offense." Accord­ingly, Sweetring charged Kirkham with contempt of court and ordered him to appear in Price. Attorneys for Kirkham replied that if a judge could haul someone into his court for making a comment derogatory toward him, "what becomes of the right to freely communicate opinions?" The Utah State Supreme Court issued a restraining order, and Kirkham never appeared.22 Finally, Attorney General Grover Giles announced an opin­ion of the pamphlet after a request by J. Bracken Lee. Lee had contended that criminal action should be taken against the authors, but Giles found no grounds for criminal libel. First, he observed that a political candidate is subject to criticism as a 28 MORALS AND THE MAYOR natural part of seeking office; and, second, he saw no evidence of "malicious defamation" or falsity of publication. The burden was on the prosecution to prove that the pamphlet was false, and he did not think Lee had done that.23 Clearly, the basic charges of the pamphlet were true. Judge Fred W. Keller, a realist about Price and its problems, made this comment in 1948: As I recall there have been few, if any, of these cases that have failed for lack of evidence and competent action on the part of liquor agents. In a number of these cases Mayor Lee tried by all means at his command to obstruct the liquor agents in the performance of their duty.24 The cases to which Keller referred were those in violation of state liquor laws tried in his court during 1940-48. Interviewed years later, the judge was read the above statement to test its veracity. Keller listened intently and replied, "That's right. I made that statement, and that statement's true!" He also de­clared that Price's reputation as a "wide open town" was accurate and contributed to the excessive amount of crime in those years: "While I was District Attorney in the late 1930's, I prosecuted four more homicide cases than were prosecuted in all the rest of the state!"25 W. Cleon Skousen, former Salt Lake City police chief, related that shortly after Lee was elected mayor of Salt Lake in 1960, he attended a meeting of ex-FBI agents. Lee stood to speak and saw Bryant Croft, then an attorney, who later became a judge. Croft had been asked during the 1960 election to report on conditions in Price while Lee was mayor, and Croft had indi­cated from his personal knowledge that "the town was more or less wide open." Croft had been anxious to know if Lee would govern Salt Lake in a similar manner. According to Skousen, when Lee looked at Croft, "he sort of smiled and said to the audience, You know, I didn't know exactly what to say to Mr. Croft, because many of the things that he said were true.'"26 Lee believed that Croft was "one of the snoopers who got the dope" for the pamphlet.27 29 J . BRACKEN LEE No one interviewed for the purposes of this work has denied the basic allegations of Morals and the Mayor7 With the excep­tion of the charge of accepting payoffs from the underworld, Lee conceded its basic validity, though not its spirit or conclusions. He said that it was cleverly done and "captured the imagination with the first paragraph." He did not pretend to have an answer for it, because prostitution and other problems did exist in Price, although not to the extreme claimed in the pamphlet. He con­sidered it significant that even though wrongdoing was "implied," neither the Democratic district attorney nor the county attorney chose to prosecute. " But I can say one thing: no one ever caught me stealing, and nobody ever caught me taking a payoff! And don't think they didn't spend a lot of money trying to find out!" Lee regarded the project as a political smear and claimed that "church people" in Price came to his immediate defense, includ­ing Catholic priests and Mormon bishops.29 There is no evidence, however, to support such a claim. It must be concluded that the pamphlet's least reliable asser­tions are those alleging the existence of payoffs from the under­world. Even the highly principled Judge Keller, who was in a better position to know than most and who was frank in his criti­cism of Lee, knew of no evidence to support such a charge.30 Moreover, the most that can be said for the pamphlet's long-term effect on Lee's lengthy and illustrious career is that it may have slowed his race for the governorship-but not by much, for 1948 was the charm. 30 MORALS AND THE MAYOR 1Frank Jonas, "J. Bracken Lee and the Mormon Church," Proceedings of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters 34 (1957): 111. interview with Herbert B. Maw, Salt Lake City, August 1, 1972. Jonas reported that Maw wrote him a letter, April 21, 1955, saying that Heber J. Grant, LDS church president, had publicly denounced Maw for this action. See above article, p. 112. 3Jonas, "J. Bracken Lee," p. 111. 4Maw interview. 5Interview with Ezra Taft Benson, Salt Lake City, August 15, 1972. Benson recalled visiting Lee in his home when Lee had a severe case of flu. Benson told Lee he had been "praying for him. It touched him-you could tell." Apostle LeGrand Richards, also a Republican, expressed similar feelings about both Lee and Maw. Interview with Richards, Salt Lake City, July 2, 1972. 6Maw interview. 'Francis W. Kirkham, Morals and the Mayor (n.p., 1944). sibid., p. 2. 9Price City Minute Book, 1944^15, Price City Hall. 10Kirkham, Morals, p. 2. "Ibid., pp. 3-5. 12Ibid., p. 6. Lee remembered this incident: "I'll be damned if the liquor commissioner and another guy come down and they do this same thing all over again [enter a private house] and by God, I charged 'em! Arrested 'em. They took that to the Supreme Court and you got a Supreme Court ruling up here now that permits a liquor agent to enter your home without a search warrant. Isn't that a hell of a note?" Lee interview. 13Kirkham, Morals, p. 7. "Unaccountably, Frank Jonas claimed that the pamphlet "had a decided effect on the election outcome and was generally credited with having been responsible for Lee's defeat in 1944." Jonas, "J. Bracken Lee," p. 113. 15Lee interview. See also Sun-Advocate, January 11, 1945. Lee predicted a 4,000-vote plurality for himself following the recount, while Calvin Rawlings, attorney for Maw, predicted an increase of 3,000 votes for Maw. 16Deseret News, November 2, 1944. 15Sun-Advocate, November 2, 1944, advertisement paid for by "Popular Subscription by the Citizens of Price." Lee remembered an ad signed by LDS stake presidents and bishops and by Catholic priests in his support. (Lee inter­view.) No such ad exists; he was undoubtedly thinking of this ad by Price citizens in which no names were mentioned. 18Sun-Advocate, November 2, 1944, editorial. 19Deseret News, November 2, 1944, editorial. 20Ibid. "Ibid. 22Sun-Advocate, December 21, 1944. ^Sun-Advocate, February 1, 1945. 24Judge Keller to Frank Jonas, October 8, 1948, quoted in Jonas, "J. Bracken Lee," p. 113. 25Keller interview. Keller remembered being so "hostile" toward Lee in that period that he assembled a mass of evidence to use against him when he ran for reelection, consisting of questions about liquor, gambling, and prostitu­tion cases with appropriate supporting materials. He decided not to use it. Several years later he was unable to locate it. ^Deseret News, March 23, 1960. 27Lee interview. 31 J. BRACKEN LEE 28Reva Beck Bosone, former Democratic congresswoman, did not deny the specific allegations, although she suggested in a general sense that charges of "corruption" against Lee in Price were "hogwash." (Bosone to author, January 20, 1974.) Three-time opponent of Bosone, William Dawson, former Republi­can representative and staunch friend and supporter of Lee, admitted to the tenor of the charges against Lee. Although he believed the pamphlet was not justified in a political campaign, he agreed that Lee did have an open town in Price. He noted that Lee had the reputation of being involved with the under­world, but "there is no underworld in this state, as we know it in Chicago and other places." Of course, Lee did have the support of the pool halls, drinking establishments, and "that caliber of people," said Dawson, but there was "not a more moral man anywhere than Bracken Lee." (Interview with Dawson, Salt Lake City, August 7, 1972.) Wayne L. Black, son of Parnell Black and former Democratic national committeeman for Utah, characterized Price and Helper as "rough and tumble towns" where liquor was sold openly and "prostitution was rampant." Black was philosophical in his evaluation, believing that Lee simply thought that was what the people wanted. (Interview with Black, Salt Lake City, July 28, 1972.) Former Utah governor and Democrat Calvin L. Rampton noted that although Price was without question "more loose" than the rest of the state, he did not believe that Lee took kickbacks. (Rampton interview.) On the other hand, O. N. Malmquist, for many years political editor of the Salt Lake Tribune, declared, "I think he did run a wide open town" but believed that most of the "payoffs" were siphoned back to city coffers. Malmquist noted that some of Lee's associates were "not exactly models of virtue." (Interview with Malmquist, Salt Lake City, August 7, 1972.) 29Lee interview. 30Keller interview. 32