JCHS Journal Winter 2020 by Jackson County Historical Society

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020

Paul Henning:

Beverly Hillbilly By Brian Burnes

n 2013, William Chrisman High School drama students in Independence mounted a production of a show written by an obscure author with local ties. Paul Henning’s most famous creation, “The Beverly Hillbillies”

Table of Contents Beverly Hillbilly ....................... 1 Children’s Mercy ..................... 9 Heist at Truman Library ........ 13 Hare and Hare ....................... 17 Women and Pendergast ......... 21 Voter Suppression .................. 31

World Renowned Botanist…...33

It concerned a poor and barely-fed mountaineer family whose members remain unchanged by sudden transformative wealth, despite their relocation to a new community whose comfortable residents so clearly covet their wealth. The show was “The Beverly Hillbillies,” created by Paul Henning, a 1929 William Chrisman graduate. Few of the students recognized “Hillbillies” when Kim Hayes, Chrisman theater advisor, announced it. “So they just went to YouTube,” Hayes said. The entertainment legacy of Henning, one of Jackson County’s less celebrated celebrities, remains stubbornly low profile, sometimes even in Jackson County. That’s one reason why Ruth Henning – Paul Henning’s wife – wrote the memoir that now has been posthumously published by the Jackson County Historical So-

ciety with the Mid-Continent Public Library, “The First Beverly Hillbilly: The Untold Story of the Creator of Rural TV Comedy.” Paul Henning died in 2005; Ruth Henning, who finished her manuscript in 1994, died in 2002. “Our mother always felt Daddy didn’t get the appreciation he should have,” Linda Henning, a daughter of Paul and Ruth, said recently from southern California. “But even though my father was a self-made man, he always kind of played down what he did. My father was introverted, very quiet and shy.” Henning, born in 1911, grew up as the youngest of an Independence family of 10 children before finding a career path at a Kansas City radio station and then following it further, leaving for Chicago in about 1937, and then again for Los Angeles in 1939. In the book, Ruth Henning tells how her husband became one of the most influential writers and producers in television history with the successful 1962 debut of “Hillbillies.” A second Henning program, “Petticoat Junction,” followed in 1963, with “Green Acres,” for which Henning served (Continued on page 3)

Jackson County Historical Society OFFICERS Gloria J. Smith, President Shirley Wurth, Vice President Stephanie Rohr, Secretary Steve Noll, Treasurer David Ross, Assistant Treasurer DIRECTORS Barbara Allinder Irene Baltrusaitis Brian Burnes Karla Deel Sandra Enriquez, PhD Mark Eubank Gary Jenkins James McGee Mary McMurray, PhD Ralph Monaco II Diane Reuter Jason Roe, PhD Brian Schultz Shane Seley STAFF Caitlin Eckard, Executive Director Savannah Lore, Archives and Education Director Kevin Ploth, Wilburn Collection Lead Larry Penrose, Admin Assistant All surface-mail correspondence must be delivered to PO Box 4241, Independence, Mo. 64051-4241.

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020

From the Editor

e are increasingly, incessantly on our devices and online. Whether at a sporting event, concert, airport, coffee shop or in our homes, folks are peering at some flat screen device beckoning for our attention. Little arrives in the mail of interest; personal notes and letters are a rarity; and our newspapers and magazines are continually getting thinner and losing weight in ways our personal diets fail us. Our world is indisputably going digital. This is not some Luddite lament. It is acknowledging things are fundamentally and irreversibly different. And so we, like so many others, are making the longstanding Jackson County Historical Journal an online publication hoping reach new audiences and save scarce resources (printing and postage is expensive). This has not been easy - the Journal remains a largely volunteer effort but here we are. Publishing online is quicker, cheaper and offers extraordinary opportunities to enrich traditional historical articles (words with a few pictures) with audio, video and interactive features. One good example is the Kansas City Public Library’s extraordinary digital history website The Pendergast Years: Kansas City in the Jazz Age & Great Depression - a website recognized with a JCHS and national awards. This website is an exemplary project for its breadth and its approach to public history by juxtaposing different topics and history in a virtual space – the proverbial cloud. Original documents pertaining to this era are housed in many different repositories, and had never been assembled in one, highly accessible location. It took lots of people, lots of time and lots of effort but it shows what even less ambitious online efforts can achieve.

JCHS History Center and Archives 112 W. Lexington, #120 Independence, Mo. 64050

In her provocative book W hen W e A re No More: How Digital Memory Is Shaping Our Future Abby Smith Rumsey posits: “If something cannot be found online, chances are it will disappear from the public mind.”

1859 Jail Museum 217 N. Main St. Independence, Mo. 64050

This is a compelling reason us to move our Journal online where we can create short and long-form historical content which is discoverable, readable and engaging.

Vol. 55, Issue 01, Winter 2020. The Jackson County Historical Society Journal (ISSN 0888-4978) is published by the Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society, a non-profit Missouri educational corporation. Back issues are available on the JCHS website www.jchs.org. All rights reserved. Contents, when fully credited, may be used with written permission.

We are lucky to have young, skilled staff trained in the growing field of public history which emphasizes how to document, research and share diverse and new stories of people, places and ideas. They also are skilled in creating websites, podcasts and other digital content. Facts still matter, curiosity remains essential and evaluating and organizing historical information still at the core of the endeavor. Our history is no less interesting or consequential because we share it in new ways. And so we begin. Brent Schondelmeyer, Editor

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(Continued from page 1)

as executive producer, appearing in 1965. Just as the new book’s title suggests, Henning’s programs entertained millions with pastoral scenarios that were as gentle and comforting as the 1960s were raucous and disruptive. Ruth Henning’s book touches – sometimes only briefly – on some of the several Jackson County institutions that influenced her husband’s life and career. Among them are the Jackson County Council of the Boy Scouts of America, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (today known as the Community of Christ), Kansas City radio station, KMBC and Harry Truman.

Boy Scouts Almost every account detailing the origins of “Hillbillies” cites Paul Henning’s vivid recollections of encountering rustic Ozarks residents while attending Boy Scout camp. The story’s emphasis seems always to be more on the exotic “hillbillies” whom Henning encountered than the scouting summer camp experience he was discovering. Organized scouting began in the United States in 1910, one year before Paul Henning’s birth. That August Kansas City scouting officials formed their own council at the Young Men’s Christian Association building at 10th and Oak streets. The concept proved immediately popular. By that October there were 1,900 Boy Scouts across the Kansas City area, with 100 more in Independence. Troop 1 in Independence was organized by the Stone Church congregation of the

Scouts marching in formation into Noel, Mo. in 1923. Photo courtesy of Andrew Dubill

Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and its scoutmaster W. O. Hands was considered the first scoutmaster west of the Mississippi River to be issued credentials.

efore scouting there were few organized activities for Kansas City area boys, said Andrew Dubill, author of In the W oods: 100 Years of Boy Scout Camping in the Heart of America Council. “There were a lot more ways for a city boy from Kansas City or Independence to get into trouble than healthy, fun activities organized by them for adults,” Dubill said. In 1911 the Kansas City Department of Public Welfare, a manifestation of the Progressive Movement, counted 194 pool and billiard halls across Kansas City, with an average weekly attendance of 153,387. Two years later the same office counted 234 churches – and 616 saloons. Scouting, with its organized summer camps, changed the equation for many boys and young men.

“Camp life means to live under canvas, away from the piles of brick and stone that we generally call our cities,” read a scouting booklet published in 1911. “A summer spent like this…fits (the scout) for the struggle of the school or shop that is going to test his endurance during the long winter months.” In 1910 Kansas City area scouts marched from 39th and Genessee streets to a “camp” located on a Johnson County, KS. farm. The following year scout officials organized a summer camp near a district known as Dallas, located approximately one mile north of the current Kansas City intersection of 90th Street and Wornall Road. By 1913 area scout officials had grown more ambitious, organizing summer camps at Elk Springs, about four miles outside Noel, Mo. in the Missouri Ozarks, in the state’s extreme southwest corner. During the 1920s both the Jackson County and Kansas City scouting councils organized summer sessions at Camp Dan Sayre, a separate facility also located a few miles outside of Noel.

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This may have been where Henning met his hillbillies.

communication between the two locations, some 110 miles apart.

“I’ve always had a great affection for hillbillies and I think that started when I was a Boy Scout and went to camp at the Ozarks at a place called Nome, Missouri,” Henning said once in an interview.

Upon arrival in Lamoni, he noticed a home with an elaborate radio antenna.

Perhaps Henning mispronounced the community’s name or the interviewer didn’t clearly hear it. There is no Nome, Missouri.

There were many amateur radio enthusiasts in the years before World War I. Smith, however, was a grandson of prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. and in 1915 he would become president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, with followers across the country.

It’s possible that Henning was referring to Noel.

he Jackson County Council brought their scouts to Camp Dan Sayre during the summers of 1923 through 1925, when Henning would have been 11 to 13 years old. “In the early years of the scouting program in this area, boys were taken by train deep into the Ozarks for summer camp,” Dubill said. “The train ride was a rare treat in itself as many of the scouts had never been far from their homes. Whey they arrived at camp, they headed right for the river to enjoy the fresh water and the giant slide (‘Shoot-the-Chute’) that the scout council built for them. “Most of these boys had never been in a swimming pool.” Henning always retained his regard for the southern Missouri Ozarks. In 1983 he and Ruth dedicated the Ruth and Paul Henning Conservation Area, a 1,534-acre preserve – much of which was donated by the Hennings or purchased from them - near Branson.

RLDS In 1914 Frederick M. Smith, an amateur radio enthusiast, rode a train from Independence, Mo., to Lamoni, Iowa. On the way he had pondered the plausibility of swift, efficient radio

The home’s owner, after Smith knocked, confirmed that such a miracle was doable.

Much of Smith’s early radio enthusiasm was driven by the stillevolving communication possibilities between two operators in distant locations as opposed to oneway “broadcasting.” But his clear vision of how the young technology could spread his congregation’s message eventually led to the establishment of what Judd A. Case, associate professor of communication studies at Manchester University in Indiana, calls the first licensed, church-owned radio station. By 1927 that would be KMBC, the station young Paul Henning would be singing over by 1935. Case told the story in a 2016 article published in The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal. As Case explained, Smith encouraged the building of radio facilities, funded by donations, at both Independence and Lamoni, home of Graceland College, established by the RLDS Church in 1895. During the years before World War I, both stations were offering daily programming for listeners. In 1920 RLDS officials named Arthur B. Church, who had served

as a U.S. Army radio instructor during World War I, head of their newly-formed Department of Communications. Church moved to Independence and began planning the construction of a radio studio in a small brick building in the rear of the Stone Church, then RLDS headquarters. That studio was completed during the winter of 1921-1922, according to Case. The station then received a license to operate with the call letters WPE and listeners soon found broadcasts there of church services, sermons and music. In 1923 Church persuaded RLDS officials to finance a 250-watt transmitter, and the Stone Church station received the call letters of KFIX. The following year Smith helped lead a fundraising drive to further upgrade the power of the station which then would be known as KLDS – as in “Latter Day Saints.” Writing in a church publication, Smith commented “…we shall because of generous contributions have the means of enlarging the station and then establishing relay stations, until we can eventually

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circle and encompass the globe with the glad sound of the gospel and with knowledge of the kingdom of God.” KLDS debuted in 1925 with a 500 -watt signal. But growing federal government regulation, along with the pressures of the emerging national market for commercial radio networks, contributed to the end of KLDS as a predominately religious station.. “That end came much too soon; the challenges of professional broadcasting proved to be too much for the cash-strapped church…” Case wrote. In 1927 the station became the property of the Midland Broadcasting Company, a Missouri corporation whose president was F. B. Blair, who had served as an RLDS bishop in Kansas City and before that as manager of the Lamoni power plant.

he company received the call letters KMBC – as in Midland Broadcasting Company. In 1928 KMBC became part of the Columbia Broadcasting System, the radio network predecessor of the CBS television network. Its operators moved the station’s studio to Kansas City, where it occupied space in the new Aladdin Hotel at 1215 Wyandotte St. In 1930 the operators moved the studio again, this time to the top floor of the new Pickwick Hotel at 9th and McGee streets. That’s where Paul Henning arrived sometime in the mid-1930s - wanting to sing.

KMBC At KMBC Henning joined a thriving community of young singers, musicians, actors and writers from all over Kansas City.

KMBC - as in Midland Broadcasting Company, featured the best of Kansas City’s up and coming singers and musicians. UMKC collection.

“KMBC was an exciting, innovative place to work,” said Chuck Haddix, curator of the Marr Sound Archives at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. “Radio was still in its infancy, and they were making it up as they went along.” One of Henning’s new colleagues was Ted Malone, whose real name was Frank Alden Russell. A 1928 graduate of William Jewell College. Malone had built an audience as the warm voice of “Between the Bookends,” during which he read poetry with soft organ music in the background. One of the program’s fans was Ruth Barth. The 1930 graduate of Kansas City’s Central High School had attended junior college but the Depression had prevented her from obtaining a bachelor’s degree. Barth had her own creative aspirations, however, and KMBC represented thrilling possibility. Although Barth’s official role was as a member of the station’s continuity department, she also joined her

peers, writing and acting in the several daily serial programs KMBC distributed to stations across the Midwest.

“Creative young people swarmed the studios at KMBC and it was a three-ring circus,” she writes in her memoir. “As far as I was concerned, it was the answer to everything.”

arth won a role on the KMBC serial known as “Life on the Red Horse Ranch” (sponsored by Standard Oil of New York, or Socony, which featured a winged red horse as its trademark).

Both Barth and Henning, meanwhile, appeared as young lovers in a second show, known as “Happy Hollow.” They were on the air and getting paid – Henning $50 and Barth $35 a week. Several times the “Red Horse Ranch” cast traveled to Chicago to record dialogue on the oversized electrical transcription discs used by stations to distribute and broadcast the shows.

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Henning and future wife, Ruth Barth, appeared as young lovers in the KMBC show Happy Hollow. UMKC Collection.

“We did all 13 episodes in less than a week but I was never the same again,” Ruth Henning writes. “This was glamour time.”

Barth and Henning married that same year in Yuma, Arizona, and continued on to southern California.

Soon Barth left KMBC for Chicago, where she landed a role in a program called “Don Winslow of the Navy.”

Harry Truman

She also circulated among those professionals who produced another popular show, “Fibber McGee and Molly.”

hen the producers of that program said he needed material, Barth contacted Henning, who provided a sample script. The writers bought the script and soon Henning left for Chicago, where he and Barth worked together again. In 1939 Henning resolved to leave to go to Los Angeles and try his luck in the radio industry there.

Over the ensuing 20 years, after rising in the radio – and then television – industries, Paul Henning began pondering a concept involving the Ozarks residents he encountered as a Boy Scout. Henning ultimately pitched the concept in 1961 after television executives asked him to submit ideas for a new show. It’s possible Harry Truman helped make that possible by not agreeing to two separate pitches made by Henning to the former president in 1959 and 1960. In most accounts of Henning’s encounter with Truman, the future president plays a peripheral role.

A teenaged Henning, serving sodas at Brown’s Drug Store on Independence Square, first encountered Truman when he and other county officials would cross the street to the drug store following night courthouse meetings. Truman, elected western Jackson County judge in 1922, had begun attending night classes at the Kansas City School of Law in downtown Kansas City the following year. He later abandoned his studies but when Henning, scheduled to graduate from William Chrisman High in 1929, asked Truman’s career advice, Truman suggested law school. “It opens the door to many possibilities, including politics,” Truman said, according to Ruth Henning. Her husband signed up for night classes and took a day job at a law firm.

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According to the memoir, law students in Missouri who had yet to pass the state bar exam could take on clients on civil cases involving less than $500. In one instance Henning represented a farmer in a feud with another farmer over a fence. The opposing lawyer kept obtaining continuances until a frustrated Henning went by his office. The lawyer told Henning he expected the case never to come to court.

Henning asked him why not. “Cause I can’t win, that’s why,” the lawyer said, before spitting toward the nearest cuspidor. According to Ruth Henning, her future husband soon quit law school for radio. But the Truman-Henning relationship would take a fateful turn some 25 years later. In 1959 and 1960 Henning twice pitched the then-former president on two possible television projects.

n the first, Henning proposed a “Truman Reviews the News” concept, a program in which the former president would comment on the headlines of the week. “After twenty-five years in radio and television, I don’t enthuse too easily, but this one really has me excited,” Henning wrote Truman in a January 1959 letter today archived at the Truman Library in Independence. In his letter Henning submitted his Independence bona fides. Those included reminding the former president of their Brown’s Drug Store encounters during the 1920s, how he had been born “on the old Whitthar Place on Blue Ridge,” how his older brother Harry “Cotton” Henning, a celebrated auto mechanic who would become

associated with the Indianapolis 500, once had worked on Truman’s car; the several Independence addresses where his family had lived and how his mother Sophia, who lived at 725 South Main Street, would celebrate her 90th birthday on April 1. Correspondence files at the Truman Library are silent as to whether Truman directly turned down

this offer. They do, however, include a copy of the April 1 birthday greetings Truman sent to Sophia Henning, cc-ing a copy to Paul Henning in North Hollywood. A second idea, which Henning proposed the following year, was a travelogue feature in which Truman would lead tours of historic

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sites such as Valley Forge and Ford’s Theater.

ruman declined the second pitch, with the handwritten note “We’ll talk about it” scratched out on Henning’s letter, followed by these words: “File. Did talk about it. Can’t do it.” Truman’s reluctance might now be considered a lucky break for Paul Henning. In her book Ruth Henning is specific about the chronology that led to “The Beverly Hillbillies,” often consulting her annual daybooks for significant dates. Paul Henning had completed work on “The Bob Cummings Show” in 1959. In the spring of 1960 he began cowriting a script for a film, “Lover Come Back.” That fall he and Ruth had sufficient spare time to take night German classes at North Hollywood High School.

In 1961 he helped write another movie, “Bedtime Story.” Also in 1961, Henning received a call from a film executive who wanted more television programming. Henning pitched his idea for “Hillbillies,” and a pilot episode was filmed in December 1961. In January 1962 the pilot was tested before a live audience in California. That April Paul, Ruth and daughter Linda traveled to Independence where they visited Truman at his library. If her husband and the former president discussed Henning’s two earlier proposals during their visit, Ruth Henning doesn’t say so in her book.

If Truman instead had opted for either one of Henning’s projects, But at about the same time, Truman it’s unclear whether the “creator of rural TV comedy” would have agreed to participate in a 26-part had the time to ponder the possidocumentary called “Decision: The Conflicts of Harry S. Truman” which bilities of his program about hillwas syndicated to about 60 television billies. stations in 1964.

In September, 1962, about five months after Truman met the Hennings at the Truman Library, America met Jed, Granny, Jethro and Elly May.

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Mid-Century decisions propelled Children’s Mercy to the modern age “For All Children Everywhere” is a new history of Children’s Mercy; the first published since 1961. The book spans the entire 120year history of the children’s medical center and covers 224 pages with about 200 photographs, many never before published. There are several stories published for the first time and several other stories where facts have been corrected from previously-published versions. Among the never-before-published stories is one that revolves around critical decisions that led Children’s Mercy to expand its mission and to leave its home of 50 years on Independence Avenue for a new building and a new identity on Hospital Hill.

The following is adapted from “For All Children Everywhere.” By Thomas McCormally

y the 1950s, Children’s Mercy was well established in Kansas City and well known across the country. It was founded in 1897 and had worked its way into the very fabric of this Midwest community by providing care to all children, regardless of their address, their religion or the emptiness of their parents’ pocketbooks. And if Children’s Mercy remained as the charity hospital it was founded to be, that would be a tremendous legacy. But a variety of forces came to bear on Children’s Mercy in the 1950s and early ‘60s that propelled it to become much, much more. Change was all around as the second half of the 20th Century dawned. In the world, in the city,

in medicine, change was everywhere. Even on Independence Avenue, where Children’s Mercy has operated since 1917. Challenges mounted. The status quo, it was clear, would not sustain the little charity hospital. A baby boom was exploding the ranks of children, many of them in need of care, some of them unable to pay. Epidemics of childhood infectious diseases, such as polio, were out of control and without cures. Budget deficits were mounting and, by the end of the 1950s, were entirely unsustainable. At the proverbial fork in the road, the leaders of Children’s Mercy had choices to make. Their community and its children were counting on them. Following World War II, Children’s Mercy saw its budget shoot up as demands for its services grew. In 1949, the hospital budget was $387,000. Five years later, it was $604,000. It topped the $1 million mark in 1960. Deficits continued to mount, running as high as $28,000 a month. By one estimate, at that rate of deficit spending by the end of the ‘50s, there was only enough money to keep Children’s Mercy afloat for 18 months. There was growing interest among business, community and medical leaders to develop a “children’s medical center” for Kansas City. The idea was that the children of the region would be best served by a single, large pediatric medical center, instead of the current system where poor children were taken care of at Children’s Mercy and other children were cared for in

1969-70 Children’s Mercy Hospital construction

hospitals that also cared for adults. It was time, many believed, for Children’s Mercy to take on an even larger role in caring for all of the region’s children, not just the charity cases.

he growing population of the Baby Boom was putting pressure on many aspects of life in Kansas City and elsewhere. Health care was no different. Community hospitals, without the greatest of pediatric expertise, found themselves caring for more and more children and it was creating a burden. A comprehensive, regional children’s center was desirable, but questions remained. Was Children’s Mercy ready for a change in direction, away from its role in the community as a charity hospital? Were the current facilities adequate? If not, what hospital would fill the void and where would new buildings be constructed? Financial realities were already forcing some changes. For the first time in its history, Children’s Mercy began to ask for payment from patient families in the mid1950s. Until then, Children’s Mercy was exclusively a charity institution. In fact, Dr. Katharine Berry Richardson, one of the founders,

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said she hoped a paying patient never got “within a thousand miles” of the hospital for fear the hospital’s mission would be compromised. But the new post-war era required new approaches. The first instance of Children’s Mercy asking families to help pay for the cost of care was mentioned in Central Governing Board minutes was in July 1955. “It was directed that a definite effort be made to collect $1 in advance for penicillin shots given to patients in the Out Patient Clinic,” the minutes read. A few months later, in November, the Board agreed to begin accepting paying patients for the first time.

mant that the hospital accept no insurance payments for physician fees “except in emergencies.”

till, no child was turned away because of an inability to pay. In the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, the hospital was providing about $800,000 a year in free care. The policy of never turning a child away has continued to today and in 2016, Children’s Mercy provided more than $172 million in uncompensated medical care for patients. Responding to the growing interest in a new comprehensive medical center, the Board in August 1962 released a document called “The Children’s Mercy Hospital: Future Plans and Policy:”

With the demands for services growing, the hospital on Independence Avenue was not only old and outdated by modern medical standards, it was simply too small. The Board, and in fact the entire community, began to look to the future and a “new Children’s Mercy.” Chief among the proposals was to move the hospital close to the University of Kansas Medical Center at 39th and Rainbow, across the state line in Kansas. W. Clarke Wescoe, MD, dean of the school of medicine at KU, made the offer to Children’s Mercy on April 14, 1959. He said that (1) the Kansas City area needed a regional children’s medical center, (2) KU was interested in helping develop the center and (3) Children’s Mercy was the “best and only logical answer to supplying this need in the community.” Dr. Wescoe offered to Children’s Mercy as much as 10 acres of land for a new medical center north of 39th Street, east of Rainbow Boulevard, across from KU. The land, owned by the KU Endowment Association, would be leased to Children’s Mercy for 99 years at $1 per year.

Crowded conditions show the need for a new children’s hospital.

This caused some misunderstanding in Kansas City, with some people (in letters to the editor of the Kansas City Star) questioning if Children’s Mercy was abandoning its mission. The Board defended itself and assured the faithful that it remained committed to all children. There was debate within Children’s Mercy as well, and the volunteer medical staff was ada-

“While the new Medical Center will become a complete community hospital geared to service of private patients much more so than in the past, it shall continue first and foremost the tradition of the Children’s Mercy Hospital in providing medical care to any child who needs it.” It was clear that Children’s Mercy was heading in a new direction.

Wescoe said the proposal would benefit Children’s Mercy and its patients in many ways. The land would cost Children’s Mercy no money and KU Med Center would completely close its pediatric inpatient and out-patient services, sending all of its private and paying patients to Children’s Mercy. He also assured Children’s Mercy that the University of Kansas would not interfere with the “policies, operation and direction of Children’s Mercy Hospital.” The offer was, indeed, tempting. But immediately, some questions arose: could Missouri doctors at Children’s Mercy practice in Kan-

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sas; would the state of Missouri continue to pay for state patients if they went to a hospital in Kansas; what would the effect be on the contributions by the Kansas City, Mo., Community Chest; how would Kansas City, Mo., public officials and citizens react to the hospital moving across the state line; would a new children’s hospital on the Missouri side be needed or desired? Children’s Mercy board of trustee members were also concerned that being too closely affiliated with a university would mean a lose of control over assets and operations.

n the meantime, there was growing interest among other institutions to have a closer relationship with Children’s Mercy. Both St. Luke’s and Research hospitals were mentioned as partners. Menorah Medical Center was waiting on a decision about expanding or perhaps closing its pediatric program, depending on a decision about the future direction of Children’s Mercy. The Kansas City Area Hospital Association, at the request of the Community Chest, formed a special subcommittee on the future of Children’s Mercy, pediatric care and pediatric medical education. Dr. Miller, the KU doctor who served as Children’s Mercy medical director for several years, wrote that for some people in Kansas City, it seems like the Civil War never ended. Whether it was pure politics, hurt feelings, remnants of the Civil War or simply logistics, the move of Children’s Mercy took years to sort out. Herman Sutherland, who was a member of the Children’s Mercy board at the time, said there were a number of factors at work. In the book Hospital Hill by James L. Soward, Sutherland said Chil-

dren’s Mercy was reluctant to leave Missouri. “They (KU) wanted us to move over there,” he said. “But we couldn’t move because we had a lot of legacies that depended on the fact that we were in Missouri. We were by that time beginning to build an endowment and if we moved over there, we would have been swallowed up (despite assurances from KU that Children’s Mercy could remain autonomous). “The old Loretto Academy on 39th Street was for sale at that time. So we told KU we could buy it and move our hospital there. Thank God we didn’t do it. It wouldn’t have been adequate.” Hospital Hill – today well established in the area around 24th and Holmes – was more of a concept than a destination in 1960. Kansas City Mayor H. Roe Bartle was determined to design a system of better health care for all citizens. An effort to consolidate city and county hospital services was led by Homer Wadsworth with the Kansas City Association of Trusts and Foundations and Nathan Stark, vice president at Hallmark

who later would become chairman of Crown Center Redevelopment Corporation. Stark also served on the Children’s Mercy Central Governing Board. Part of their plan was to have a full medical school on the Missouri side of the state line, not just a satellite of MU in Columbia. The prospect of a new medical school and the opportunity to be close to it and General Hospital greatly interested Children’s Mercy officials. “Homer Wadsworth started to work on a medical school on Hospital Hill so we got very excited about this and said we would like to be included,” Sutherland said. “They were very happy to have us.” When Children’s Mercy signaled its intent to relocate to Hospital Hill instead of a site closer to the University of Kansas, General Hospital agreed to close its pediatric beds and clinics and send all its patients to Children’s Mercy. This meant more children than ever would be cared for at Children’s Mercy, further growing the institution as a community asset.

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In 1963, General Hospital, Children’s Mercy and MU signed an agreement “in their concern for excellence in patient care, medical education and research.” Though it would be several years before a medical school would be established, the plan for Hospital Hill as the centerpiece of public health care in Kansas City was well underway. Children’s Mercy agreed to build its new facility adjacent to General Hospital.

Hill-Burton Act designed to pay for new hospital construction.

Kansas City was riding a wave of optimism during this period. In 1966, voters approved plans for Kansas City International Airport. A year later, Hallmark announced plans for Crown Center (adjacent to the fledgling Hospital Hill development.) And in 1968, ground was broken on the Truman Sports Complex, home of the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals, which began “For the big job ahead, there could play in 1969. be no finer focal point than Mercy ith all this swirling around, hospital,” The Kansas City Star the federal Health Education wrote in an editorial. and Welfare Department approved

Former President Harry Truman and Joyce C. Hall of Hallmark Cards were co-chairs of the committee to raise money for hospital construction. This was the first major, public role in Children’s Mercy for the Hall Family, but it would surely not be the last. The sale of the Independence Avenue hospital would help pay for the new facility; and there were hopes of help from the federal government through the

a grant of $1.3 million for the construction of the new Children’s Mercy in the fall of 1967. The Kansas City Star proclaimed that the call for bids was near and that building could, finally, begin in late fall. Children’s Mercy Christmas cards sent during the 1967 holiday season included a drawing of The New Children’s Mercy Hospital. Herman

Herman Sutherland, 1965

Sutherland, by then chairman of the Central Governing Board, wrote a note inside one: “It’s been a hard fight, but worth it. Now here we go.” Ground would be broken in the spring. Children’s Mercy would move into its new home on Hospital Hill in December 1970.

1960s illustration of Children’s Mercy Hospital

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020

Unsolved Jewel Heist at Truman Library By J. Bradley Pace

ust before sunrise on March 24, 1978, the early morning calm at the Truman Presidential Library in Independence Missouri was shattered by the sound of breaking glass. Within the few minutes that followed, thieves entered the Library and walked away with five ceremonial swords and daggers likely worth over a million dollars today, and then simply disappeared. Over 35 years later no one has been brought to justice for this brazen crime. No one has even been charged. Since the items stolen were originally given to President Truman as official gifts of state, the victim of this crime is not only the Truman Presidential Library but also the American people. The mystery of their loss is one of the great unsolved crimes in Jackson County history.

The Jewels The pieces stolen that day in 1978 were unique custom creations literally fit for a king. No expense or extravagance was spared. The National Archives describes the missing items as follows: Dagger and scabbard (a sheath for the blade), state gift from King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, having a “gold hilt with 4 diamonds of .5 carats each in the pommel, surrounding a 2.5 carat emerald. The lower grip has 15 small diamonds surrounding an oval 3 carat ruby. The scabbard is gold with 4 rubies at the throat and an 8.5 carat emerald over a 3 carat ruby surrounded by 12 small diamonds. At the tip is a 3 carat ruby surrounded by 12 small diamonds.” Dagger and scabbard with belt, state gift from Saudi Arabian

Crown Prince Saud, with “a gold hilt, steel blade, and decorated with 9 diamonds on its grip. The scabbard is gold decorated with 4 diamonds. The belt has a gold buckle and woven gold thread.” Sword and scabbard, state gift from Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Saud, “ just under 38 inches long. It has a curved steel blade with ivory grips and a gold decoration chain leading from the hand guard to the pommel. It has multiple diamonds and rubies throughout both the grips and the scabbard.” Presentation sword fr om Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Saud, “38 inches long, with gold grips and a gold chain connecting the hand guard with the pommel grip. It is decorated with 4 diamonds. The hand guard also has a diamond. The scabbard is gold and black leather decorated with 15 diamonds.” Persian presentation sword and scabbard fr om the Shah of Ir an, of which “the primary materials are silver and steel.” The artifacts were originally appraised in 1958 by Independence jeweler Walter C. Diesel, who described them as “irreplaceable and unbelievable.” Diesel explained to The Independence Examiner that he had heard about the pieces before he went to appraise them and knew they would be fabulous, but was not prepared for what he saw.

fter the theft, Diesel remembered one diamond particularly. It was located on the scabbard of one of the swords, and was one of the most perfect stones he had ever seen. In 1978 he estimated the value of that one stone alone (a seven carat diamond) to be worth over $200,000, “if you could find such a stone.”

Stolen dagger and scabbard

He felt the value of the Saudi swords and daggers alone might top a million dollars. Today their value would clearly be much more. In all there were 139 diamonds, 13 rubies and three emeralds of varying quality. Legend has it that once at a White House reception President Truman joked to his wife Bess that he would give her one of the diamonds if she would trip Ohio’s Senator John W. Bricker, who had been Thomas Dewey’s running mate in 1944 when Truman ran for vice president with Franklin Roosevelt. Mrs. Truman declined the offer.

The Heist A major robbery at a Presidential Library is not an impromptu crime of opportunity. The available evidence suggests that this particular crime was planned well in advance.

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020

In fact, the burglary in March 1978, was likely the second attempt by the determined robbers. One month earlier on Feb. 3, 1978, one the guards at the Library actually stumbled upon an attempted break-in. When making his rounds outside the building a little after 6:00 a.m., the guard heard the sound of a “walkietalkie” radio.

night to 8:00 a.m. Williams, an experienced employee of the Federal Protective Service (an arm of the General Services Agency), was new to the Library, having just been transferred in a few days earlier. His thoughts were likely on the surprise return of winter. Jackson County residents awoke that morning to find that snow had fallen overnight.

Following the sound to the front of the Library he was astonished to encounter an individual he later described as a white male, about 30 years of age, wearing a ball cap. The man was standing near the main doors to the Library.

The first sign of anything unusual occurred around 6:20 a.m. when Williams spotted an unknown woman loitering outside the north side of the building. From his station in the north lobby (leading to the research room), Williams watched her sitting in a late model Oldsmobile, and then as she exited the car briefly before getting back in the car and driving off. Williams would have been especially alert to anything suspicious given the recent robbery attempt.

When the guard yelled at the suspect demanding to know what he was doing, the man ran off behind the bushes to the west side of the main entrance, and then continued running towards Mechanic Street. Upon investigation the guard discovered that one of the front doors had been tampered with. He observed that two holes had been drilled into the door’s locking mechanism. Metal shavings were found at the bottom of the door, and two screw drivers and a Black and Decker portable drill were found behind the nearby bushes. These items were apparently dropped by the suspect as he fled the scene. Fortunately, this breakin attempt was thwarted, but the suspect could not be identified. Library officials may have breathed a sigh of relief but the worst was yet to come. Robbers would strike again the very next month. To this day it is not known for certain if these two incidents are related, but the coincidence is startling. The graveyard shift on March 24, 1978, had been uneventful for federal security guard Thomas W. Williams, the only guard on duty at the Truman Library from mid-

bout 5 minutes after the suspicious woman drove away Williams was shocked to hear the building’s alarm sound. From his guard station he could see from indicator lights that the alarm triggered was at the main entrance, on the south side of the building. Following protocol, he then used his hand held walkie-talkie to call for assistance. At this point Williams was joined by Neil Morris, a GSA maintenance engineer who had arrived early for his 7:00 a.m. shift.

Morris had also heard the alarm. Together they ran towards the scene of the crime, down a long hallway through the administrative section of the building. It was later estimated that it took the two men about 15 seconds to run from the guard station down the hallway leading to the double doors which separate the administrative area of the Library from the main visitors’ section.

As they ran they heard the double doors slam shut. They also heard breaking glass. Thieves had broken into a glass display case on the left side of the main lobby entrance, which held the ceremonial swords and daggers. The artifacts were posted to the display case wall against a red velvet background. When Williams and Morris arrived at the end of the hallway they found that the burglars had tried to chain the double doors shut. The chain had been slipped between the two door handles. Later when police recovered the chain they found a padlock attached. In their excitement the burglars had apparently snapped the padlock shut before they could connect the two ends of the chain. Williams and Morris could hear the chain rattling and could tell there was someone on the other side of the door. Fearing what they might find on the other side, the two did not try to push the doors open, but instead briefly stood behind the doors. As Morris later explained to The Kansas City Star, “Those guys were probably standing there with who knows what, and we didn’t know how many there were.” Williams shouted at the suspects and then heard them leave. Without ever entering the lobby, Williams then ran back to his guard station where he called the police. Although it is ironic that he reached the scene of the crime but did not try to open the double doors to confront the suspects, Williams was never reprimanded. He had been trained to seek help first and then try to resolve the situation. The regional director for the Federal Protective Services, John N. Jester, commented to The Star that Williams had handled the situation

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020 correctly, and that if he had attempted to stop the thieves he probably would have been killed. “They’re not dealing with peanuts here,” he said.

society … These are treasured items that can never be replaced.”

15 loyal secretary of state from 19491953.

Later when Williams finally did enter the front lobby there was nothing left to see but broken glass and a mostly empty display case. Police estimated the robbers were in and out of the Library in around 45 seconds. In less than a minute they had pulled off the biggest theft in the history of presidential libraries. Speed had been their best defense. They had broken one of the glass doors at the building’s front entrance, entered the lobby and completed a quick smash and grab, then fled into the early morning light. Snow outside the entrance provided investigators with their best clue, revealing two sets of footprints leading away from the building. However, investigators were unable to determine if the robbers had fled by car because traffic on the museum drive had obscured the evidence. But given the distance to 24 Highway which runs in front of the building, it is likely that a getaway car, possibly the Oldsmobile spotted just before the alarm sounded, was waiting at the bottom of the Library’s front steps.

The Investigation

ibrary officials were shocked by the brazen nature of the theft and the loss of such valuable artifacts. Library director Dr. Benedict K. Zobrist had been out of town on vacation when reporters reached him by phone for comment. Zobrist explained to the Kansas City Star that the burglary had stunned him, “I’m really disappointed in certain elements of our

Shattered display case window in the lobby of the Truman Library

Some felt the theft was a blow to the good name of mid-America. Dr. Daniel Reed, assistant archivist for presidential libraries in Washington, compounded these feelings when he charged, “That’s a great community we have our Truman Library in isn’t it? It has the record.” There had been a previous breakin at the Library in 1962, when a valuable coin collection was stolen. The Kansas City Star was quick to point out that if there was blame to be assessed, it should start with Dr. Reed and his bureaucracy which had been responsible for security in the first place. Despite this controversy and the active crime investigation, Library staff did their best to minimize interruption to operations. The jagged and broken glass was cleared and the remaining items in the compromised display case were removed. A drapery was placed in the case, along with a bust of Dean Acheson, who had served as Truman’s

There was no shortage of detectives working the case, with the Independence Police, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Federal Protective Service all investigating. From the beginning there were different theories about who might be behind the robbery. Perhaps the most obvious possibility was that thieves targeted the swords and daggers for sale to wealthy collectors, possibly on the international market. Others feared the items may have suffered a worse fate. Dr. Zobrist speculated to The Star that, “All these people can do, presumably, is to extract all the precious stones, melt down the gold and that is going to be the end of these one of a kind (items).” Looking for any connection, investigators poured over the records of other recent collector sword and dagger thefts. Just a few years earlier a Tiffany presentation sword originally given to Civil War Union general Col. Rush C. Hawkins, now likely

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020

worth several hundred thousand dollars, turned up missing from Brown University. The stolen sword went through the hands of multiple private collectors before it was noticed. Eventually Brown University was alerted and took legal action to recover the artifact, which it considered priceless.

fter litigation between the various parties claiming ownership, a court ordered the sword returned to Brown, noting that the thief could never convey good title. The criminals who originally stole the artifact remain unidentified. Surprisingly, there were several high-profile sword thefts near the time of the Truman Library breakin. On the evening of January 17, 1978, thieves broke into the home of a wealthy collector in Maryland and walked away with a collection of samurai swords and other antiques valued at $1.7 million. Then only two months later two white males posing as police officers gained entry into an apartment in lower Manhattan, and proceeded to relieve the owner of his samurai sword collection. These two incidents were thought to be related, and remain unsolved. In yet another 1970’s samurai case, thieves in San Francisco used explosives to blow out a wall in a private residence to break into a vault. Shortly after the Library theft an expert with the Missouri Arms Collectors Association contacted Library staff to opine that wealthy collectors in Japan would be the likely buyers for stolen samurai swords. He was concerned for the safety of the Truman Library’s 650 year old samurai Masamune sword.

Fortunately, this priceless piece was not disturbed. It had been given to President Truman by General Walter Kruger who received it from a member of a samurai family while with army occupation forces in Japan. Some speculated that given the spirit of nationalism which was prevalent in the Middle East in the 1970s, that perhaps international based persons or groups wanted to see the items returned to Saudi Arabia or Iran. While still others believe the artifacts ended up in Mexico. A more pedestrian theory is that the theft was pulled off by local criminals who simply saw an opportunity-jeweled daggers and swords, and limited security. If a petty thief can target the local jewelry store, why not the neighborhood Presidential Library? But to Sgt. Al D. Hainen of the Independence Police, the heist was far too creative, and appeared too well planned not to be the work of professionals. He felt it was most likely that the robbers were working under a contract. The exotic nature of the items taken meant that they would have a limited black market. The artifacts were so unusual that any attempt to sell them to a legitimate buyer would raise immediate suspicions. Marketing such valuable, unique and “hot” items is risky. To Hainen it seemed likely there was a buyer for the goods even before they were stolen. “More than likely they had a contract. They knew when they took it where it was going.” In fact, as Hainen explained to the Kansas City Star, it is likely the theft was connected to the attempted break-in at the Library the previous month. On both occasions the thieves arrived at the Library between 6:00 and 6:30 a.m. They

may have attempted to time the break-in for when the alarm would normally be turned off just before the arrival of staff and tourists. Recall that in the failed break-in attempt the man spotted by the security guard was carrying a walkie-talkie radio. Then later in the actual break-in a suspicious woman was seen loitering behind the building just before the alarm went off. Could she have been using a radio to communicate with thieves at the front of the Library? Was she part of a “crew” intending to distract security guard Williams?

ver the years there have been few good leads to temp investigators. No fingerprints could be found, and there was never a good physical description of the robbers. Nor had they been caught on camera. At that time outside cameras covered the parking lots, but not the main entrance. There were no cameras on the inside of the building. The Library sponsored a $5,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of the items, but investigators were puzzled and disappointed when the offer failed to produce results. There was apparently no information “on the street”, which some investigators took as further evidence of a contract job. A professional thief working under contract would need only to hand the pieces over to the buyer, and then keep their mouth shut. The tips that did trickle in ultimately went nowhere. One individual claimed to have seen several very expensive looking swords and daggers fall out of a plastic trash bag while being carried into a house. He saw them for only 2 or 3 seconds, but felt they matched the newspaper pictures of the stolen Library swords.

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020

Hare and Hare

On another occasion an individual called the Library claiming to have knowledge of the missing swords. But when asked for his name he By Carol Grove indicated he would call back the next day. He then abruptly hung up, ver a fifty-year span the Kanand never called back. sas City landscape architecture Forty-one years after the crime no firm of Hare and Hare completed commissions in more than thirty arrests have been made. As the headline from a 1985 Kansas City states, and in Mexico, Costa Rico, and Canada. Star article bluntly bemoaned, “Library thefts unlikely to be The father and son team of Sidney solved.” J. (1860-1938) and S. Herbert Hare

honorary member at the age of seventeen, and he curated fossil collections from an early age.

As a young man he was hired as a surveyor for the city Engineer’s Office where he would join the concerted effort to improve conditions and beautify the city which had become dominated by railroad lines, stockyards, and billboards. “Sid,” An FBI spokesman explained in the (1888-1960) became recognized nationally for their contributions to as he was known, and George Kessarticle that “By now that stuff has ler worked side-by-side in the early the profession which they helped been busted, cut and ripped into planning stages of the city’s park pieces and melted down. On top of shape. Many iconic and scenic places in Jackson County are their and boulevard system. that it’s been flown to someplace like New York or Los Angeles and work. Lake Jacomo and the 1,700+ acre Blue and Gray Park are among sold.” these, as are the grounds of the HarWhile these one of a kind art pieces ry S. Truman Library in Independmay now be only a memory, there ence. is always a chance, however reIn Kansas City proper, there is the mote, that they might still exist in Nelson-Atkins Museum, Loose all their glory, hidden away in the vault of some unscrupulous collec- Park with its newly restored rose garden, and the numerous neighbortor. hoods of the Country Club District Is it possible that someone in the – such as Hampstead Gardens, Kansas City area has information Crestwood, and Sunset Hill – that could help solve this “cold planned for J. C. Nichols. case?” The firm devoted its attention to If anyone reading this has both comprehensive master planknowledge of the crime and is sufning and to details from topographfering from a troubled conscious, The Hare family portrait, taken by ic studies and street connectivity to they should not hesitate to contact photographer W. A. the color of roses in a courtyard and the Federal Bureau of InvestigaHare, Independence, Missouri, 1891 the design of weathervanes for a tion’s global tip line at tips.fbi.gov. garden pavilion. In each of these projects their com- Later he honed his eye for landmitment was, in Herbert’s words, to scape as superintendent of the city’s make “cities and countryside more Forest Hill Cemetery where he oversaw a museum-like collection convenient, efficient, livable and of trees and shrubs. Leaving Forest beautiful.” Hill in 1902, he took on a range of Sidney Hare was eight in 1868 projects where, aside from cemewhen he and his family moved to tery and residential work, he deKansas City from their home in signed numerous parks, school and Louisville, Kentucky. As a youth he institution grounds. Within a decshowed an interest in photography, ade he had more than seventy comhorticulture, and geology, for which missions across much of the counhe was inducted into the Kansas try to his credit. City Academy of Science as an

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020

Sidney’s young family is captured in a 1891 photograph taken in Independence that depicts his wife, Mathilda, with their children Nell and Herbert. Nell, who would grow to become a devoted friend of the Jackson County Historical Society, was two years older than her brother. Herbert, who was born in 1888, was raised, in his words, on “botany, landscape, and solitude.”

here were early lessons about plants cultivated in greenhouses, “under glass,” and about the fossils in his father’s collection. His formal education included attendance at the newly opened Webster School, two miles west of their house, and at the Manual Training High School where he chose courses in free-hand and mechanical drawing, portraiture, and math. As a student he excelled in art and during high school worked as a draftsman for his father and the local architectural firm of Shepard and Farrar. It was then that he began to discern the relationship of landscape and the fine arts and understand that good design was achieved not only at the drafting board but “on the ground.” The history of Hare and Hare began in the summer of 1910 when father and son established the firm and moved into offices in the downtown Gumbel Building. They promoted their services and qualifications as “a combination of long experience and the best eastern technical training.” Their strengths reflected their varied training and backgrounds. Sidney was self-taught and representative of practitioners from varied fields of study who, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, identified themselves as “landscape gardeners.” A considerable knowledge of science and horticulture, and an appreciation for the environment, enlightened Sid’s approach to landscape design. His belief that “nature’s plan is best” r

Sydney J. Hare, SHS, KC

Herbert Hare, SHS, KC

reveals a respect for the land, a tenet which was at the foundation of his work. The refuge for wild flowers and birds that he and Mathilda created at their house – which they named “Harecliff” – is a personal example.

Herbert’s education taught him the value of “order, convenience and beauty” regardless of the type of project. Later in his career he shared his knowledge by mentoring students and teaching classes at the University of Kansas and the KanHerbert was equipped with a differ- sas City Art Institute. His formal training would serve as a foil to his ent set of skills. At twenty he had been accepted into Harvard’s newly father’s varied background. formed master’s degree program in Sid’s specialties were site-specific landscape architecture which was projects such as cemeteries, parks, the first of its type in the country. and “home grounds” while HerTrained for this budding profession, bert’s focus over time came to be large-scale planning. Sid was a proand among the first students to ponent of “the modern cemetery” study city planning there, he was also an adept draftsman with an in- movement and the design of soothterest in the art and history of land- ing park-like spaces, which conscape. Though he would admit de- trasted with the gloomy “marble sign to be his real passion, his work yards” of the past, were the focus of would prove to be a balance of the his earliest commissions. artistic and the practical, going beyond the garden and the park, ultimately addressing comprehensive planning and issues such as land use, bayou preservation, and affordable housing.

ount Hope near Joplin, Elmwood in Birmingham, Alabama, and Graceland Cemetery in Racine, Wisconsin are a few early examples. Park projects include a charming water garden that replaced a ravine in downtown Kan-

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020

sas City, Kansas. The Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts estate grounds of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science (of whose Church of Christ, Scientist Sid and Herbert were members), was one of Sid’s numerous residential commissions and his “garden suburb” of Bellaire, at the west edge of Houston, retains the smalltown feel that he aimed to create in 1908. Herbert’s expertise in planning at the neighborhood level began with his work on Kansas City’s Country Club District that began in 1913. Less than a decade later, at the age of thirty-four, he would be hired to create on a larger scale, to plan an entirely new city for Kansas Citian Robert Alexander Long’s logging operations in the state of Washington.

porate elements that define the Country Club District. Each have houses oriented for privacy, set along winding streets lined with mature trees and massed shrubbery, pedestrian walks with picturesque bridges, and street signs unique to the place.

whether the project was in the city or lay outside of urban areas.

Years prior to designing parks and recreational spaces in Jackson County, the firm was selected by Tacoma, Washington, city fathers to develop Point Defiance Park. Brilliantly, Sid and Herbert met the ouston developers who envi- goal of preserving the natural wildsioned a well-designed suburb ness of the old growth forest that that combined “rural quiet and con- juts into Puget Sound while increasvenience” traveled to Kansas City ing its accessibility for public use. to tour these model neighborhoods These priorities would be at the and sought out Herbert Hare. The forefront of planning when Herbert, firm’s recommendations for what and St. Louis planner Harland Barwould ultimately become tholomew, proposed plans for the Houston’s River Oaks include bay- new Lake of the Ozarks. That ou parkways connecting the suburb team’s recommendation to protect to downtown, the abundant use of Missouri’s recreational streams beThe firm’s work in Kansas City native plants and trees, and preserv- came a reality when the Current served as models for projects across ing nature at the adjacent 1,500+ River and the Jacks Fork River bethe country. Neighborhoods in Tul- acre Memorial Park. came the first federally protected sa and Oklahoma City, Omaha, Constant within the firm’s work natural, free-flowing streams in the Denver, and Salt Lake City incorwas a sensitivity to the environment nation. From a marshy site at the confluence of the Columbia and Cowlitz Rivers, Herbert and his associates devised a comprehensive master plan for what became the city of Longview. It included separate industrial, commercial, and residential districts, a formal civic center, church and school sites, playgrounds and neighborhoods lining scenic Lake Sacajawea – which had been no more than a drainage canal before it was remade it into a chain of lakes. Within five years Longview was promoted as “The ‘City Practical’ That Vision Built.”

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020

Hare and Hare’s master plans for twelve Missouri state parks – blueprints for growth meant to guide development over time – would balance recreation, conservation, and new realities such as the need for parking for an ever increasing number of visitors arriving by automobile. Sid and Herbert believed that good landscape architecture was both a science and an art and that a sys-

tematic approach to planning provided for the welfare and happiness of Missourians and Americans alike.

are and Hare incorporated these beliefs into its commissions through two World Wars and the Depression. After Sid’s death in 1938, Herbert continued to build up the firm

slowly, hiring staff “with a stairstep of ages” to ensure continuity. Approximately twenty years after Herbert’s death in 1960, Kansas Citian Ralph H. Ochsner purchased the firm and continued in the profession under the name of Ochsner Hare & Hare. In 2010 it celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the firm.

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020

Women and Pendergast By Kay Barnes “The first clubs must have been women’s clubs. Surely sitting on those cold stones in the caves, some women must have said, ‘Girls, we should do something about the mess in here,’ and tying twigs together invented the first broom, and so it has gone: whenever women came together, they formed a club, working together to improve their conditions.”

Coates, an aspiring lawyer she’d met in Philadelphia.

21 an opportunity for women to increase their knowledge and participation in humanitarian causes and to expand their knowledge of history, literature, science, and art.

Again, led by Sarah Coates, the Women’s Christian Association Her first impression of Kansas City (WCA) was founded in December of l870. The intent of the organizawas less than enthusiastic. tion was multi-faceted including a “Never shall I forget the early “broad set of priorities ranging morning on 13th day of April, 1856, from benevolence to rescue and when my husband and I stepped reform and equality.” ashore from the steamer ‘William Campbell,’ after four days and five These priorities accurately mirrored nights of tedious travel on the ‘Big the analysis offered by Hewitt in Muddy’ and the thirteenth day after describing the historical patterns of humorous, yet apropos, intro- our departure from Philadelphia. female activism. A distinguishing duction to an exploration of feature of the WCA during its inithe role of Kansas City women and “Weary and worn with travel, any tial years was its inclusive memberwomen’s organizations in multiple kind of resting place was a welship with women representing a civic reform movements, culminat- come sight. But alas! How my heart range of religious affiliations, sank when the thought passed ing in the successful 1940 antiProtestant and Catholic, as well as through my mind, ‘And this is to be machine city elections. varying economic levels. my home!’ ‘Be brave,’ said the A helpful framework for underowever, at the 10-year annispirit within me, and instead of sitstanding the evolution of women versary of the WCA, the memting down and weeping, as most and women’s clubs in American women would have done, I immedi- bership and focus of the organizacivic affairs is provided by Nancy ately went to work to investigate my tion had noticeably changed. Hewitt, in her book, W omen’s Acnew and strange surroundings.” “The membership of the WCA betivism and Social Change. She came increasingly elite and focused identifies three separate ways by on activities deemed appropriate to which women have historically exthe female sex – the care of women pressed their activism: and children. The organization no “1. BENEVOLENT women longer visited brothels or hosted sought to ameliorate conditions speakers on the topic of female within the existing order. equality.” 2. REFORMERS wor ked to (Although providing some services cleanse individuals and institutions to the community for the next ten of evil. years, the role of WCA rapidly de-

3. EQUALITY envisioned for ming a democratic society based on sexual, racial, and social equality.”

clined when the Provident Association, an all-male relief agency was formed.)

In the 1850s and ‘60s, as women’s clubs began forming in Kansas City, they focused initially on benevolence combined with a major emphasis on self-education.

As the years passed, other women’s organizations formed. During the same time period, the name Pendergast became known in Kansas City.

The dominant club leader and community activist at that time was Sarah Coates. Arriving in Kansas City in 1856, she was the wife of Kersey

Sarah Coates, Missouri Valley Room

Her determination prevailed as she combined an interest in benevolence and the importance of lifelong learning. She initially led the creation of the History Club, the club’s objective being to “provide

James Pendergast, an Irish politician and hotel and bar owner, began to build a political family dynasty through providing aid to the poor. His approach was popular because, in contrast to the benevo-

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lent associations, he required no investigations of the needy recipients before they could receive assistance. As he gained power in the 1890s, the next wave of influential women’s clubs emerged. Two particularly prominent ones were the Athenaeum, still serving Kansas City today, and the Woman’s City Club. Both continued a focus on benevolence, yet gradually expanded their activities to include civic reform efforts.

rganized in 1894, the “Original Call of the Athenaeum” stated, “Has not the time come when it behooves us to stand shoulder to shoulder in the uplifting of the mental, moral and physical status of our city?” By its fifteenth year, the Kansas City Athenaeum was the second largest women’s club in Missouri with 387 members. By 1914, Athanaeum members had appeared before the City Council and its committees arguing against prostitution and gambling as well as lobbying against saloons in neighborhoods. A year later, as described in the Kansas City Star, the Athenaeum’s “ ... social and civic committees are apt to bob up anywhere and at the most disconcerting moments in municipal crises. Sometimes, staid officials have been driven to wonder ‘how these women knew.. .’ Hardly a moment that does not come in some way under the eye of these women who are the most persistent of mothers and civic housekeepers.” As the Athenaeum continued to grow in membership and civic involvement, another organization was formed and rapidly grew in influence, the Kansas City Woman’s Club.

Founded in 1916, the membership had grown to over 400 members. The Woman’s City Club agenda developed rapidly with concerns being promoted including a Health Committee, a Garbage Committee, and numerous pro-suffrage activities. For example, in 1918, the club “presented a course of lectures on ‘Principles of Government’ for the ‘impartial enlightenment of City Club members’ preparing them for the voting privileges yet to come.’“” By 1921, membership in the Woman’s City Club had grown to 2,471. During the ‘20s and beyond, the Club activities expanded to embrace multiple initiatives including significant lobbying at City Hall. Projects included “pasteurized milk, garbage covered and collected, a state boys’ reformatory, children’s playgrounds, juvenile court assistance, help for widows and orphans, assistance to public schools, separated prison facilities for women prisoners, mothers’ milk stations, smoke abatement, inspection of county homes, real estate tax for teachers’ salaries, promotion of a symphony orchestra, and strong hospital support.”

n 1932, another women’s organization, the Government Study Club unexpectedly witnessed an assault on the Pendergast regime by Rabbi Samuel S. Mayerberg. The women heard Mayerberg exhort them, “You’ve turned your city over to a gang and given it into the hands of crooks and racketeers because you are asleep ... The time has come for action. The time for study is passed.” In his autobiography, Mayerberg later commented, “The reception given that address amazed me. Those gentlewomen, leaders in the club life of the city, arose and shouted their approval.” A growing recognition of the corruption of the Pendergast machine forces became apparent as the 1930’s progressed. As a result, reform efforts became more organized. Rabbi Mayerberg was instrumental in the development of the Charter League, followed by the Citizens Fusion ticket in 1934. An increasingly popular concept promoted in these reform efforts was “nonpartisan” government, designed to replace the heavily partisan and contentious politics

Although often ambivalent about direct “political activity,” in the 1930’s, the leadership of the Woman’s City Club gradually led its membership into more active civic engagement against the Pendergast machine. Now led by Tom Pendergast, the younger brother of James Pendergast, the machine continued to exert enormous power in Kansas City with corruption at multiple levels including control of the Police Department, widespread gambling and prostitution, and wideopen “entertainment” venues.

Tom Pendergast, SHS

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020 being practiced in Kansas City. At the same time that there were multiple organizational efforts to combat the rampant corruption in Kansas City’s county and city governments, there were also individual reform efforts afoot. One of the most well known reformers in the mid-1930s was Mrs. A.J. Dahlby (Edith), wife of Reverent Albert Dahlby, pastor at Broadway Baptist Church. Long an activist in previous communities and a licensed minister herself, Edith Dahlby became so enraged about the widespread corruption in the city that she began to speak out with passion about the need to “boycott all places of business that operated gambling devices.” Her outspoken message captured the attention of the Executive Committee of the Council of Churches and the Ministerial Alliance, and she subsequently led a delegation of women representing the PTA and women’s clubs to lobby for reform at City Hall. Although well-intentioned and courageous in her efforts, Mrs. Dahlby began to experience fierce resistance to her message. She and her husband received threatening anonymous phone calls and even visits to their home by strangers threatening their lives and the lives of their children. The situation became so frightening that Mrs. Dahlby backed off from her public statements and, fearing continuing danger, she and her family left town for a lengthy period of time. Although both Rabbi Mayerberg and Edith Dahlby were unsuccessful in their individual efforts to substantially thwart the machine’s grip on the city, they did signify the gradual recognition on the part of Kansas City’s civic leadership

that a concerted community wide initiative would be necessary to end the Pendergast machine era. The challenge to do so was complex and intimidating.

s described in a Holiday magazine feature, Kansas City had become “a rollicking haven of gangsters, gamblers, con men, striptease dancers, traveling salesmen, cattlemen, and conventioneers. Clip joints, fleshpots, and homicides flourished. In the burlesque shows even G-strings were superfluous. Votes were stolen by the handful and voting lists were padded with names taken from tombstones.” Although this reality was more than distasteful to most Kansas Citians, ambivalence still existed among many. A leading newspaper at the time editorialized that an “open city” brought tourism and thus increased financial viability for the community.

As described by one civic observer, “It was difficult for South Siders to understand the magnitude of the problem” as they lived in a part of the city not directly encountering daily corruption. An apt description of the ambivalent attitude toward Pendergast and his machine was reflected in the words of Maurice Milligan, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, when he wrote, “I think it can be said without exaggeration that the people of Kansas City accepted Pendergast as the visible symbol of their pragmatic philosophy of live-and-let-live. They took a certain amount of pride in him.” There was also continuing fear among many in the city, fear for their physical safety and also, their financial livelihoods. “People were told what physicians they might use, what lawyers

23 might practice, what merchants might do business. Personnel men would refuse to employ men unless they had passes from the Boss. All city insurance and all surety bonds for contractors working for the city or county had to be negotiated through one insurance broker ... Respectable businessmen soon found it a matter of safety to have Pendergast or Henry McElroy [Tom’s henchman and City Manager] identified with them in their concerns; in some instances they received blocks of stocks, in others they were paid for serving on executive boards …” In spite of the seeming intransigence of the Pendergast machine, by 1938, internal and external stresses developed rapidly. Multiple reform forces worked to implode the Pendergast dynasty. Gov. Stark, working with Democrats statewide, began to mobilize to thwart Pendergast’s efforts to control state government. A particularly important action by Stark was to appoint new members to the Kansas City Board of Elections, individuals who were not under the thumb of the machine.

n Jackson County, a judicial investigation of machine activities was underway. And fraud and tax evasion charges against Pendergast by the federal government were proceeding under the leadership of Maurice Milligan.

As a result, there was increasing awareness among the citizenry of corruption at City Hall. A compelling example was the realization that the City had a deficit of over $1.5 million in the general operating fund, which ultimately led to no salaries for city employees being paid the last four months of l939.

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(After the 1940 elections, it was learned that the City’s actual debt was 11 million.) Heated encounters between Pendergast forces and individual citizens were on the increase. A particularly graphic example occurred at City Hall. “The wife of a city fireman ... called on judge McElroy to protest his actions in cutting the wages and breaking up the union of the firemen. Armed with a leather whip, she was swinging lustily on the judge when his attendants went to the rescue. They attempted to explain the woman’s actions by charging that she was intoxicated, and she admitted that she had had a nickel beer which was all she could afford on her husband’s salary of $67 a month.” Finally, in rapid succession, Pendergast was indicted on April 7, 1939, McElroy resigned as City Manager on April 13, and antimachine reform efforts began to coalesce.

ollowing indictment, a succession of women’s organizations continued to form, including the Charter Party. Its focus was a petition drive to force an election to recall the machine-controlled Mayor and City Council. Months of hard work by hundreds of volunteers resulted in over 100,000 names on the recall petitions being submitted to the City Clerk for validation to enable a special city election. However, the remnants of the Pendergast machine still controlled City Hall including the City Clerk’s office. Behind closed doors, the Clerk and his staff circulated among themselves a list of twenty questionable factors which could disqualify a signer of the petition. As a result, the City Clerk struck so

A group of ghosts circle the ballot box in this 1936 editorial cartoon by Daniel Fitzpatrick which ran in the St. Louis Post Dispatch. SHS

many names that only 42,102 remained.

government, there had been growing evidence of corruption.

This was an inadequate number to warrant a recall election. Predictably, citizens were outraged, and this episode lent much credibility to the efforts of the reformers to galvanize the community.

hree women, active in the leadership of the Women’s Forward Kansas City Committee, a fledgling reform group, were selected by the presiding Judge of the Jackson County Court to serve as an advisory committee to examine the county’s institutions.

The reform leaders went back to the drawing board recognizing that initiative petitions were approved by the Board of Elections rather than the City Clerk. As a result, a campaign was launched for a charter change that would reduce the terms of office of the Mayor and City Council from four years to two. Again, because of the influence of the Pendergast machine in county

The presiding judge, George S. Montgomery, was not affiliated with the machine, although the other two county judges were. (Fred. W. Klaber and F.L. Byam, Jr.) The three women named were Mrs. Charles N. Seidlitz, Jr., Mrs. William E. Kemp, and Mrs. J. Howard Stephenson. They were

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020 specifically assigned by Judge Montgomery to “ ... make recommendations on the pay roll of the county institutions and report on the personnel, efficiency, and general quality of public service of the county welfare units.” For six months, the three women spent countless volunteer hours assessing county departments uncovering evidence of poor management and inadequate services being provided in county facilities. Then, abruptly, with no advance warning, the two machine judges of the county court “discharged” the women’s advisory committee. As reported in the Kansas City Star, at the end of a regular meeting Judge Klaber stated, “I move that, since the ladies advisory committee has gone beyond any thought we had about its duties...” he started, then backed up to his motion again, “I move that in the future we dispense with the ladies advisory committee. “I vote yes,” Byam said quickly. “I vote ‘no,’ Montgomery shouted, “These women don’t get a nickel out of their work. Their interest is solely in the welfare of the many unfortunates in our county institutions. They are well informed on the standards that should be maintained. They have no personal motives, no political friends.”

The heated exchange among the judges continued with Klaber asserting “We are very glad for their advice but we should refuse to let them dictate who shall be discharged and who shall be appointed. They have gone beyond proper bounds in their dictation.” This well-publicized episode served as an example to Kansas City women of the typical mindset of the machine politicians, even county judges.

he reaction in women’s organizations was illustrated by the action of the Kansas City Athenaeum as their 500 members endorsed a resolution chastising the two judges for disbanding the women’s advisory group.

after, elect a reform-minded Mayor and City Council.

The convergence of this rejection of the women by the county court with the rapidly developing involvement of women in city reform groups worked to further energize women to become civic activists.

During the fall of 1939, as momentum built among the various reform-oriented groups, it became abundantly clear that there needed to be a single organization formed to lead the campaign efforts. Thus, the creation of the United Campaign Committee. The initial members were: The Charter Party, Forward Kansas City Committee, Good Government League, Republican Party, Democratic Citizens Association, Kansas City Democratic Club, and Citizens League. Shortly thereafter, the Woman’s City Club and the League of Women Voters formally joined the effort.

In dizzying progression, more reform organizations were created including the anti-machine Democratic Citizens’ Association, the United Democrats Committee, and the United Citizens Committee. One of the most visible and progressive groups formed was Forward Kansas City. Made up of many prominent business leaders, it was the first time this segment of the community had become visible in anti-machine activities. An executive committee of Forward Kansas City was quickly formed with three women among those appointed to serve, Mrs. Charles N. Seidlitz, Mrs. Edmund Field and Mrs. Charles S. Petrat. Because of the continuing outrage over the rejection of the recall petitions at City Hall and with the leadership of Forward Kansas City, the initial petition drive gained momentum. It was recognized that if the drive was successful and the subsequent charter change resulted in reducing the terms for Mayor and City Council from four years to two, then a second election would be required. The subsequent strategy was three-fold: get enough signatures on the charter change petitions, be successful in an election to get the term reduction, and shortly there-

The first election date was projected to be Feb. 13, 1940, and, if successful, the second election would be held, seven weeks later, on April 2.

Regarding the Women’s City Club, its progression from avoiding “political” involvement to active participation in the city reform movement reflected the reactions of other women’s organizations over time.

n Feb. 25, 1938, a meeting of the Woman’s City Club Executive Committee focused on that year’s city election campaign. A letter to all the members was agreed upon, urging them to register and vote “in the interests of good government.” By 1939, the Executive Committee agreed on a written response to the Forward Kansas City Committee. This response included the following: we “enthusiastically endorse the Women’s Charter Committee and through our active participation in the work of this Committee we consider ourselves a definite part of the Forward Kansas City Movement.”

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oon after, this action led to the Woman’s City Club joining other organizations as active members of the United Campaign Committee. Typical of the mindset of increasing numbers of Kansas City women were the comments of Mrs. Susie Robinson, a volunteer with the emerging United Campaign Committee. “We women have been ashamed of our city too long. We’ve apologized for it to our young people too much. The time is here for a thorough house cleaning at City Hall. Women who use their home and tea and bridge parties as an excuse to shirk their civic responsibilities are placing an added burden on the rest of us who do want a fine city in which to live.” An interesting example of “lines in the sand” between even progressive men and women in the late 1930’s is evidenced in the bylaws of the Charter Party, one of the more visible reform organizations. In describing the officers and their functions, the following requirements are included: A chairman of the Central Committee, who shall be a man. A vice-chairman of the Central Committee, who shall be a woman. A secretary of the Central Committee, who shall be a woman. A treasurer of the Central Committee, who shall be a man.

Regardless of the gender boundaries that existed at the time, there was early recognition that women needed to be actively involved in the anticipated 1940 campaigns. In short order, a Women’s Division of the United Campaign Committee was created. On November 22, 1939, under the campaign slogan of “Ballots and Brooms vs. Bosses and Bullets,” the initial meeting of the Women’s Division was held. Repre-

sentatives of organizations made up of over 10,000 women were in attendance. The organizations included the Democratic Citizens Association, Citizens League, Good Government Association, League of Women Voters, Kansas City Democrats, Charter Party, Women’s Forward Kansas City Committee, Republican Party, and the Woman’s City Club. A highlight of the meeting was the recognition of the Woman’s City Club as making its “first endorsement of a political campaign in the 22-year-old club’s history.” The club’s rationale was explained by Mrs. J. Howard Stephenson, the club’s president ... “an organization of the scope of the Woman’s City Club must necessarily contain people of every political sentiment, but we believe that this is no longer a political

situation, but a question of good government and civic rightmindedness.” Perhaps the most important decision announced that day was the selection of Mrs. George Gorton (Claude) as chairman of the Women’s Division. She would prove to be the linchpin for the entire campaign effort.

rom the beginning of the women’s campaign activities, there was a recognition that one of the challenges was to assure other women that it was safe to vote for reform and that the voting process would be legal and confidential. As Mrs. Conger Smith, an active Republican in the campaign, stated, “Confidence must be built up in the thoughts of women-confidence that their ballots are secret and that they will be counted. If we lose ten votes in each precinct through fear, we have lost

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4,000 votes. Education that overcomes fear will hold those 4,000 votes.”

out and mail in to the Election Board, identifying their new addresses.

One of the first major efforts led by the Women’s Division was registering voters throughout the city for the initiative petition drive. Going door to door, hundreds of women contacted individuals to be sure they were registered and also prepared to vote on the two projected election days, February 13th and April 2nd. After unregistered voters were identified, other women would drive them to the Board of Elections offices to officially register. Over 200 cars were used in that effort. A third group of women were telephoning citizens around the city to also identify individuals and then make arrangements for the registration process. An agreement was reached with the Kansas City Star to print in their newspapers a form that citizens could fill

fter being received and processed, the women volunteers would prepare and mail postcards acknowledging that those citizens were now eligible to vote. Later reflecting on her active role in the women’s campaign efforts, Mrs. John Gage, the future Mayor’s wife, described a frantic pace. She was in charge of the “postal card” effort including the registration notification and subsequent reminders to vote.” According to Mrs. Gage, 109,000 postcards were sent in the course of the campaign. She described a “massive” addressing effort with hundreds sponsored by the Women’s Division; a weekly slogan contest was underway. Over 300 women typically voted in the selection process, and $5 was the prize. One winning slogan was

offered by Miss Alma Bates. ‘The old machine is out of fix, We now are wise to all their tricks. Our women brave, with eyes so keen, Will help keep Kansas City clean!” A more succinct entry in the contest was offered by Mr. C.H. Huffman, “Kansas City’s dirty dishes are in the sink, While most of the bosses are in the clink.” Chosen as the overall symbol of the 1940 reform efforts was the broom. Lapel pins were designed consisting of a miniature broom with a blue handle and red ribbons. Mr. William Munger, husband of one of the women active in the reform effort, made the broom pins in his basement, and they were sold for $1 each to raise funds for the United Campaign and the subsequent development of the Citizens Association.

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There was even a theme song for the reform campaigns. Entitled “God Bless Our Town,” which had new lyrics for an old favorite, “God Bless America” and was sung at many campaign events.

n January, it became apparent that the efforts of the United Campaign and its most active participants, the Women’s Division, were succeeding. The end result of all the telephoning, going door to door, sending post cards, and participating in speaking events resulted in over 100,000 citizens signing the initiative petitions, the Board of Election Commissioners certifying the petitions, and the election day formally set for February 13. To highlight the election’s importance, there was a statement printed at the bottom of all United Campaign letters sent out in January regarding the February election: “All forces in Kansas City opposing the corrupt Pendergast machine are joined together as the United Campaign Committee in a movement to amend the Charter of Kansas City to reduce the terms of office of all city officials to two years.” On the Feb. 13th election day, a huge volunteer effort was evident. Thousands of women were active in getting citizens to the polls. Five hundred had been assigned to be on the phones all day encouraging voter turnout while 500 more were in their cars driving voters to and from the polls. Also, at every precinct across the city, women were assigned to provide all-day oversight and support. There was an additional group of over one hundred women preparing meals for the election judges in each precinct. In total, over 7,500 women were involved as volunteers on that Election Day. And it was reported, “at the polls the women workers for the United Campaign outnumbered the men workers three to one.”

A 5-1 majority vote in favor of the charter change set the stage for the April city election of the Mayor and City Council. It had been a massive victory for anti-machine supporters across the city. And did the women celebrate! The day following the election, over 1,500 women gathered at the United Campaign headquarters. Women’s Division chairman, Claude Gorton, led the gala by announcing that tea would not be served .... instead, “It’s going to be punch, fruit punch with a brass band!” A cakewalk ensued with the band playing, “Happy Days Are Here Again,” followed by “Roll Out the Barrel” with singing, hugs, and more and more flowers arriving on the scene all day long. One joyful male supporter told Mrs. Gorton that ‘I’ve just been to City Hall. They’ve got the flag and the pigeons all at half-mast.” And Mrs. Gorton asserted, “The women have been marvelous. All day long they have marched to the polls, just as we knew they would. They have worked shoulder to shoulder with the men. I toured every ward in the city today, and I saw what the women did.”

ne of the winners in the slogan contest had been selected by the Women’s Division as the motto for the entire reform campaign, A NEW HEART FOR THE HEART OF AMERICA, which was proudly displayed on a large red heart at the campaign headquarters. When victory in the February election was assured, the heart, over six feet across, was moved to the front window for all to see. Acclaim was generous for women in the 1940 campaigns. Rabbi Mayerberg later wrote, “The women of the city joined us heroically and performed prodigious tasks. Gentle women walked from

door to door receiving signatures of those who would join what we now called the Clean-Up Campaign. A broom was our symbol...” Similar praise came from Maurice Milligan. “The women of Kansas City made a determined drive, adopting as their emblem of battle, ‘the housewife’s broom.’ They rang doorbells, polled precincts, and spread the gospel of good government in every political ward of the city.”

ov. Stark personally congratulated the women in a telegram to Claude Gorton. “All Missouri is proud of the part the women of Kansas City played in cleaning up the wreckage left by years of Pendergast misrule. No one ever again can question the powerful influence of women voters for honest, efficient government. I am confident that the brooms which made Kansas City a clean community in yesterday’s election will keep it clean in the years to come.” By 1946, the momentum for reform had continued with the women demonstrating their ongoing civic engagement “The ladies with their brooms, their leaders and admirers generated so much enthusiasm that six years later, their movement was still going strong, at the end of which time they had triumphed over the Democratic opposition in three more elections.” Of the thousands of women volunteers who devoted time, energy, and resources to the reform campaigns of l940, Mrs. George Gorton, was acknowledged by all as their singular leader. Gorton, known as Claude, the designated chairman of the Women’s Division of the United Campaign Committee, exhibited exemplary leadership in that role. She’s been

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020 given much of the credit for the 1940 victories.

gro districts and over in the West Side community meetings.”

Born in Alabama, Claude moved to Kansas City, married George Gorton, and in 1930, was widowed. For decades, she was actively involved in community volunteer organizations and was also a businesswoman. She served on the boards of the USO, Traveler’s Aid Society, YWCA, and many others, while at the same time, serving as the vice-president of the W.B. Young Supply Company. Previous to the 1940 reform campaigns, Mrs. Gorton was involved in the National Youth Movement and served as chairman of the Independent Coalition of American Women for Missouri in support of Alf Landon’s bid for President in 1932.

In each case, she impressed her audience with her warmth and intelligence. For example, when speaking to black audiences, she would reference her earlier years in Alabama. Her comments often included, “Your race taught me to speak. My old mammy was one of the nearest persons to me in my earliest childhood. I have met and talked recently with your great chemist, Dr. George Washington Carver, when I visited your great Tuskegee Institute.”

odest about her accomplishments, nevertheless, during the reform campaigns, Claude Gorton exhibited a stamina and leadership acuity that won her accolades both before and after the elections. As described by Mrs. John Gage, Claude was “quite dynamic” and “only wanted good government in Kansas City. Another woman active in the reform efforts commented that “ ... most of us women just can’t keep up with her. But we’ve learned to trust her final suggestions as a sort of nugget of the best of a lot of points of view.” In addition to her organizational skills, she traversed the city from one end to the other during the campaigns, taking every opportunity to speak to women’s clubs, neighborhood groups, and civic organizations. As commented on by many, she seemed to relate to all groups of citizens, no matter how diverse. Recollections include her campaigning “down in the Italian neighborhoods and the Ne-

Claude Gorton was also not afraid to confront anyone in an audience who challenged her in a personal way. One instance occurred when a machine politician interrupted her speech. She recognized him and recalled that he’d referred to the women involved in the reform movement as “pink-nailed, cocktail-drinking, cigarette-smoking South Siders.” She took this opportunity to chastise him for his comments and assure him that she was a true “Alabama Democrat.” At another campaign appearance, Mrs. Gorton “began to pull off her elegant elbow length gloves, then commented, “’I want to get these gloves off first,’ she explained with her slow and gentle smile. The men say you can hit a lot harder with hard fists.’“ As the charter change campaign progressed, the words of Claude Gorton in her speaking appearances reflected the message being articulated by women speakers across the city. In her appeal on WDAF radio, she said, “In the Women’s Division of the United Campaign Committee are the names of 40,000 women who have signed to amend the charter because they know the record of the present city administration was bad; that homes and family wel-

29 fare was affected; that the only way to correct conditions was to change from those who have broken faith to those who have honorable records and clean hands.” On the February election day, it was reported that Claude Gorton arrived at campaign headquarters when the sun rose. She voted early that day and spent the following hours visiting every ward in the city to check on the work of the women at the polls. The highly successful leadership of Claude Gorton in the Feb. 13th election was so evident throughout the city that she was approached by John Gage to join his ticket as a City Council candidate in the upcoming April election. He was insistent that she agree to run. In addition, the executive committee of the Women’s Division passed a resolution encouraging her candidacy.

o both entreaties, she declined. As she stated, “The women played an important part in the February 13 election. More than half the votes cast for the clean-up forces were from the women. I appreciated the resolution adopted by the Women’s Division endorsing me as a candidate and Mr. Gage’s request too. However, I felt that this was an emergency and that a woman in the council would not be as effective as a businessman. We have a very strong ticket now and the Women’s Division will be back of it 100 percent.” When the campaign was over, Mrs. Gorton reflected back on the decisive role of women in achieving victory in both elections. She said, “Thoroughly aroused at the broken machine promises and definitely determined to clean house, the women voters of Kansas City showed their real fighting spirit. Our broom was no idle symbol as

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machine workers said. It never is. We women were determined more than ever that we would clean house. We decided that something must be done. We did not break faith with those who blazed the trail in founding our great city.” In a retrospective article in the Kansas City Times of May 2, 1966, the reporter, Lew Larkin, described the “Triple T Group ... The Trio That Took Tom.”

he trio consisted of Mrs. George Gorton, former Mayor John Gage, and Harold Luhnow, who chaired the overall campaign effort. As described by Larkin, “the three defied all political precedent in these respects: 

None had much political experience.



None wanted anything out of the venture.



Nothing was promised by them except honesty in municipal government.”

“...’The trouble is,” a machine leader said, “’these people are clean.” The reporter continued, “Mrs. Gorton was one of the most gracious women this city has ever known. She was thoughtful, considerate, and kind. She also had a sixth sense about what people wanted and wished to believe in.” At a campaign event, referring to a Pendergast machine leader, Mrs. Gorton said, “That man who’s been stealing your votes called you ‘little people.’ Let me tell you, you’re as big as he is, and you’re as big as I am because you have a vote that is the same size and power as my vote. The real little people are trying to steal this election again.”

Twenty-five years after the 1940 reform campaigns, a veteran political reporter reflected on Claude Gorton’s leadership, “If she had been a man, she’d have been President.”

A rich and enlightened period in Kansas City has passed. However, the reforms instituted by Claude Gorton and the legacy of the 1940s elections remains and still resonate in this city today.

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McCrary Voter Suppression lished the first edition of his masterwork, A Treatise on the A merican Law of Elections. In nearly 500 pages of densely footnoted and carefully reasoned text, McCrary established the standards under which a contested election could be overturned and how conflicting evidence should be reconciled. Thus, when a confused nation turned its eyes to Congress in the months after the vote, many on Capitol Hill turned to McCrary for a solution.

George Washington McCrary

tion. For Democrats it was a chance to overturn the revolution that ReBy Gideon Cohn-Postar construction had wrought in the eorge Washington McCrary post-war South. Republicans sought did not spend the majority of to defend the structures they had his life in western Missouri. His built by “waving the bloody shirt:” distinguished and controversial le- reminding the electorate of who had gal and political career took him been on which side during the Civil from small-town Iowa to Congress, War. the Cabinet, and the Federal Bench before a position as General Coun- As McCrary himself put it in a sel for the Aitchison, Topeka, and campaign speech, “we claim credit for the Republican party for having Santa Fe Railroad finally landed been true to the Union throughout him in Kansas City in 1884. the dark days of the rebellion.” If McCrary is known today it is al- When balloting descended into acmost entirely due to the minor but rimony, violence, and accusations critical role he played in perhaps of fraud in key states, tensions rose the greatest political scandal of his to such a pitch that “turmoil, exciteage: the contested Presidential elec- ment, and perhaps civil war” tion of 1876. seemed certain to result. With biracial Reconstruction gov- McCrary, a staunch Republican and ernments in the South under assault Hayes supporter, was at the time by domestic terrorists, and the Re- Congress’ foremost expert on elecpublican Party losing ground nation law. He had served four terms tionally in the aftermath of the dis- in the House of Representatives as astrous financial Panic of 1873, the Chairman of the Committee on contest between Rutherford Hayes Elections, and just a year before the and Samuel Tilden felt to its partic- Presidential controversy he pubipants like more than a mere elec-

The fix he devised was singularly disastrous. McCrary crafted a bill that empowered a bipartisan commission to receive the contested returns, investigate their validity, and award the frozen electoral votes to the legitimate winner.

hough brilliant in conception, the plan was flawed in its assumption that the commissioners would act impartially. The commission awarded all twenty-one votes to Hayes, each by an 8-7, party-line vote. Though it ended the contest, it perpetuated the controversy for decades and encouraged an explosion of coercive ballot practices that came to define the era. Why did McCrary fail to account for the poisonous power of partisanship? In a campaign speech he delivered in Iowa two years later McCrary would give voice to his own political ideology in what he hoped would be a catchy new motto for the Republican Party: “in essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things charity.” Leaving aside the motto’s lack of rhetorical punch, it was also a singularly oblivious statement for a politician at the height of the Gilded Age to make. Power, not charity,

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was what both parties sought. The willingness of men to do whatever was necessary to win, both outside the polling places of South Carolina or in the halls of Congress, stripped McCrary’s thoughtful legal formulations of all power. By all accounts McCrary truly was an honest and fair-minded man. His correspondence, housed at the Jackson County Historical Society, reveals a man scrupulously devoted to his duties and the concept of equality for all. Newspaper clippings that his wife, Helen A. Gelatt, preserved describe the McCrarys discretely supporting destitute orphans and widows throughout Washington. One odd example in particular stood out as exemplary of his temperament.

hen a certain Prof. J.W. DeWitt of Colorado Springs sent McCrary a set of cards covered in random letters that were allegedly a part of a “secret writing” system that he believed the government should adopt, McCrary gently rejected the request and saved the cards in a new envelope. McCrary’s assumption of honesty and good intentions on the part of his correspondents and colleagues was credited by contemporary observers to his frontier upbringing and legal training in the small town of Keokuk, Iowa.

After his death, his son-in-law, Henry L. McCune, noted that “he seemed to live serenely above the ordinary strifes and passions of life,” and had “never resorted to any of the artifices of the politician for success.” As resolutely good a man as he may have been, McCrary’s generosity of spirit and desire to float above the fray were ill-suited to

politics in the Gilded Age and to the crisis of 1876 in particular. In thanks for his assistance during the crisis, Hayes appointed McCrary Secretary of War. In the years that followed, as congressional investigations exposed the extent of electoral chicanery on both sides, the weakness of the voter intimidation statutes McCrary had promulgated became ever more apparent. From his perch at the War Department, McCrary studiously cut out and preserved article after article describing the corruption, intimidation, and fraud that his commission had papered over. McCrary’s scrapbook from his time as Secretary of War, preserved on microfilm at the State Historical Society of Missouri, Kansas City, suggests that he was profoundly bitter with the political system by the time he assumed his high office. Interspersed with the corruption articles are accounts of his political speeches. As part of the presumed quid pro quo for allowing Hayes to take office, Democrats demanded the withdrawal of the few remaining federal troops from the South. It was McCrary’s job to manage the logistics of that withdrawal. For a man who firmly believed that “the States of the South should, of their own accord, protect all citizens in their rights, without discrimination,” giving the order to abandon federal protection of Southern African Americans must have been remarkably difficult. If it was, his papers and scrapbook reveal nothing of his thoughts. Though the archive in the Truman Courthouse contains countless letters recounting his social commitments, efforts to preserve war

graves, and diplomatic entanglements, of the most consequential action he carried out during his term there is not a single record. McCrary resigned his cabinet position to serve as a federal judge, but after four years on the bench he gave up public life entirely, taking the lucrative railroad job that finally brought him to Kansas City. There he resumed the practice of law, which he had desultorily continued while in office, as part of the firm of Pratt, McCrary, Ferry, & Hagerman. Though McCrary passed away at a relatively young age in 1890, his legal legacy was carried on in western Missouri by his son, Frank, who served as the first secretary of the Kansas City board of pardons and paroles.

nfortunately Frank did not fare well in that position and ended up traveling across the West offering his expertise managing parole systems to mayors and city managers throughout the 1920s before settling back with his family in Kansas City. Far more impactful was the legacy left by McCrary’s son-in-law and law partner, Henry McCune. After marrying McCrary’s daughter Helen in 1888, McCune rapidly ascended the legal ranks of Kansas City and was elected judge of the circuit court of Jackson County in 1904, where he became the first presiding judge for the juvenile court. In that position he advocated for the creation of a farm for “wayward boys” who could, through hard work in the fields, learn “to meet the responsibilities of community life.” That institution, named in his honor, the “McCune Home for Boys,” closed in late 2012 after more than a century in operation.

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020

Frank Bush of Courtney, Missouri Humble Country Storekeeper and World Renowned Botanist By Gloria Haralson Smith

o his neighbors in the small community of Courtney, Missouri, B. F. Bush was the proprietor of a small general store and the postmaster for the area. Most of them knew of his interest in saving weeds. They were used to seeing Mr. Bush walking about the meadows and along the river bank collecting all varieties of plants. But to botanists at universities throughout the United States and in Europe, he was a remarkable discoverer of new species. In Jackson County, Missouri, It’s Opportunities and Resources, published in 1928, Mr. Bush was described as a veteran postmaster who handled all the mail addressed to Courtney while at the same time attending a general store. The author described that these combined duties had kept Mr. Bush “more than merely busy for thirty years”. Missing from this description of Mr. Bush and his activities was his passion for collecting plants and his reputation among the scientific world for his many discoveries. Benjamin Franklin Bush was born in 1858 in Columbus, Indiana to William and Henrietta Eccles Bush. Little is known about his father but it is believed that he came to the Midwest from his birthplace in Baltimore, Maryland and at the time of his marriage to Miss Eccles in 1857, he was employed as a juggler for the Dan Rice Circus. Although the handsome William Bush may have won the heart of Henrietta and her consent to marriage, his chosen profession may not have been looked upon favorably by her family. In a letter to William Bush dated September 8, 1858, following the birth of his son, his sister, Rose,

congratulates her handsome brother on his new family and advises him not to allow his wife’s family to “pass their opinion on to you”.

Henrietta’s father and grandfather had been attorneys and politicians in Kentucky and Indiana. When Thomas Lincoln’s first wife and mother of Abraham Lincoln died in Indiana in 1818, Thomas Lincoln returned to Kentucky to wed and bring young Abraham’s stepmother back to Indiana. On December 2, 1819, in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Thomas Lincoln married Sarah Bush Johnson in a house once owned by Henrietta’s grandparents . This same grandfather served as a State Legislator in Indiana during the 1850s. Henrietta’s great grandfather, William Shepherd, fought in the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774 and received a pension from Edmund Randolph, governor of Virginia for wounds suffered during that battle. Following recovery from his battles wounds, Shepherd moved to Kentucky and helped to establish Harrodsburg, Kentucky in the 1780s. Since Henrietta’s family was a solid and es-

tablished family with roots back to Jamestown, we can only surmise that they were less than excited to have their daughter marry an iteniert circus performer. In the six years following his birth his parents moved frequently, living in Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois. During that time, Henrietta gave birth to and buried three babies before William Bush’s death in July 1864 in Springfield, Illinois. At the age of 23, Henrietta was a widow with a six year old son and living miles from any family when she met Robert Tindall. Tindall was a Union solider from Delaware who was recently discharged from the Army and was planning to move to Missouri.

enrietta came to Independence, Missouri with her young son, Frank, riding on the first Missouri Pacific train to travel the line between St. Louis and Kansas City. In October 1865 she married Mr. Tindall and they settled in Independence where in 1866 they built a home at 316 North Main. In just 8 years, Henrietta had married, given

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020

birth to four children, buried three of them in infancy, and as a young widow had traveled to Independence with her young son and remarried. Henrietta and Robert Tindall bought the land for their home from Harvey Vaile and lived in their home on North Main until their deaths in 1922 and 1923.

every green thing, he studied books. Soon he began to discover mistakes that other botanists had made. And after awhile he began to discover plants that were new to science. The other botanists of the country took notice and he was soon recognized as one of America’s foremost botanists.

Mr. Tindall’s trade was carriage trimming and wagon making. Seeking such work in Independence, he opened a shop on the southwest corner of Main and White Oak, and found plenty of work repairing buckboards and stage coaches used by The Star Route of Vaile Miner and Company. When this business grew slack, Mr. Tindal built the first greenhouse in Independence on his property on North Main to supplement his income. According to one of Mr. Tindall’s sons, the office of the greenhouse in 1942 was in the original wagon shop built by Mr. Tindall in 1866.

His life long study of the plants of Jackson County resulted in it becoming one of the best known sections of the Unites States from the botanical standpoint, and his writings and plant collections made the name of Courtney, familiar to botanists throughout the world.

arly photos and plats show that the Tindall greenhouses were built on the north and west sides of the Tindall home and for many years it was operated by Mr. Tindall and then by his son. It was in these greenhouses, assisting his step -father, that Bush acquired his early interest in plants. In May, 1875, Henrietta Tindall describes a two day invasion of Independence by “grasshoppers”. She said that despite the efforts of her husband and seventeen year old Frank, the insect invasion stripped their yards and plants bare and their loss was over $300.00 in plants. Frank Bush attended the local school in Independence. Little is known of any formal education following his graduation from 8th grade, however it was apparent that young Bush was eager for knowledge and self taught in many areas, including Latin which he used later in his botanical work. Mr. Bush taught on occasion at the Woodlawn College in Independ-

Another early interest was birds and he eventually knew all of the resident and migrant species of the reence, Missouri. gion by sight and by their calls and On a Sunday afternoon in 1878, a songs. His collection of birds eggs group of young men of Independwas valuable since it contained sets ence met and decided they would of many species no longer found in become students of nature. They the region. He contributed his notes believed this study in the woods concerning birds of this area to Otto and fields would be more profitable Widmann’s “Preliminary Catalog than their idleness about town. of The Birds of Missouri” in 1906. Each of the young men chose a spe- While his interest in birds contincial line of investigation and Bush, ued throughout his life, the study of because of his employment as a flo- plants dominated his work. rist, decided to become a botanist. nother of his interests was poThus he began a lifelong study of etry, one he shared with his the flora of Jackson County. Bush friend Arthur Grissom. In October was a born naturalist and in the 1879, one of his poems entitled country about Independence he “October” was published in the found a most interesting field for exploration and study. Within a ra- Jackson Sentinel. dius of a few miles were areas of Old Father Time with horologe in open prairie, woods, and creeks hand running to the Missouri River. Has ushered in October days; Many unusual species of trees and smaller plants grew along the high A soft and golden sun shines o’er limestone bluffs. The wild life was the land, rich and varied in plants and aniIn the place of melting blaze. mals. All of these conditions contributed towards a rich flora. Many Your smile is seen where soon will preserved fossils were found in the be the frown beds of limestone and sandstone Of wintry blasts, and cold and and evidences of Indian inhabitants sleet; were abundant in the form of flint arrow heads and other implements. November follows with his snowy crown, While Bush went into the woods and struck up an acquaintance with And walks about with icy feet. trees and plants; taking notice of

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020

eron Mann, who was then pas- time and described him as a loving tor of Grace Episcopal Church. and patient man. During this time Mr. Bush and Rev. Mann had shared many excursions around Independence studying the botany of the region. Another close friend of Bush who accompanied him on his excursions was the poet Arthur Grissom.

The mail that came to the three or four dozen families in the locality did not keep the botanist very busy. The post office was a case of pigeonholes on one end of a counter.

In the coming years, Bush was absent on his frequent botanizing expeditions and his wife managed the While teaching school in Court- business of the little store and the ney, Missouri, Bush met Mar- post office. tha E. Smith. Her family had hile on an expedition in the settled in the Courtney area in “sunk lands” of southeast 1835 and her great grandfather, Missouri in 1891, Bush made one William Smith had owned over of his most important discoveries. 600 acres in the bottoms prior He found an unknown “cork tree” to his death in 1841. He left this that had the lightest of any known land to his two sons, Enoch and wood and subsequently published a Jesse who deeded an area on book on this discovery. the hill overlooking the bottoms for a cemetery where William In 1894, Mr. Bush discovered a new species of willow tree on a Smith was buried in 1841. creek bank near his home. Named When Bush married Martha in the Missouri willow, the wood of 1886, the marriage was noted in the this tree was much harder than the local newspaper and he was deordinary willow and the leaves scribed as favorably known here as were different. Those coming to a botanist of Jackson County. After Courtney to inspect this tree includthey were married they lived in ed Prof. Sargeant from Harvard and Courtney where he ran a general Prof. William Trelease from store from 1888 and was postmaster Shaw’s Garden in St. Louis as well from 1896 until they moved to In- as other noted botanists. dependence in 1935. While living on the second floor above the gen- Mr. Bush collected and prepared eral store and post office, Mr. and the Herbarium for the Columbian Worlds’ Fair at Chicago in 1894 Mrs. Bush raised seven children. and it won first prize as did the Some of the people in the commu- Missouri forestry collection, also nity wondered why a scientist who prepared by Mr. Bush. Local papers had so many distinguished visitors noted that Mr. Bush had received could be contented in such surnational recognition in the form of roundings. Bush’s establishment diplomas from the management of was the typical general merchanthe World’s far stating that he was dise store of the country villages. of great service in finding and The groceries and lamp chimneys mounting plants for the Herbarium were kept on one side of the room and the forestry exhibit and was and the dry goods on the other. It entitled to much credit for his work. was a place where farmers eat By 1901, Mr. Bush’s reputation as lunches of crackers and sardines, a botanist was so widespread that washed down with red soda pop. his arrival in Marshall, Texas was Thelma Haralson, one of his grand- noted in the local newspaper. They daughters recalls seeing him sitting described that the purpose of his with his feet on the potbelly stove visit was to collect trees for Arnold reading a western novel in his free Arboretum of Harvard University

In 1880, at the age of 22, Bush began a systematic study of the flora of Jackson County. In 1882, Bush published “Flora of Jackson County”, giving a list of 609 species of plants. This publication created much interest in his work. Professor Charles S. Sargeant, one of Harvard’s highly esteemed botanists came to Courtney to meet Bush. Professor Sargeant had listed and named fourteen redhaws for all North America, but Bush pointed out 110 here in Missouri; as a result of their collaborative efforts, they extended the list to one thousand by 1911.

or many years Professor Sargeant made frequent visits to visit Bush and together they made pilgrimages to other areas of the country while Bush assisted Professor Sargeant as he revised “The North American Sylva”. Bush collected many specimens over the years for the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. In 1884, Bush published First Supplement to the Flora of Jackson County raising the total numb er of species in Jackson County to 906. Bush was assisted by Bishop Cam-

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020

and that he had collected quite a number of new species around Columbia and San Antonio as well as an undescribed species of plum and a several new species of red haws.

anist, same to be placed in Library at High School.” The photograph was subsequently hung but perished in the fire that totaled the building in 1939.

coming to Courtney to interview him each year on his birthday. During an interview that year, Bush displayed a letter from the Thomas A. Edison Company Laboratories in New Jersey asking for a sample Jackson County, situated where the In 1911, Mr. Bush was listed of tarweed. Bush sent fifty pounds floras of several different regions among the “Prominent Men in to them and a chemist replied that blend, was of special interest to the Greater Kansas City” and debotanist. “Flora of Jackson Coun- scribed as an unassuming man with it was the best materials found so far to use in making hard discs for ty” was published by Bush and a national and even international use in electrical apparatus and inMacKenzie in 1882 and in 1885, reputation. quired as to the quantity available Bush and Rev. Mann published a In 1912, Mr. Bush was featured in in this area. That was just one letter supplement to this flora and in “Diversions of Busy Men” in the of that type he had received. Much 1888 Mr. Bush published a secof his time was spent answering ond supplement. questions of other botanists and enneth K. MacKenzie was a in writing treatises on plants for student under Bush followbotanical magazines. Many plants ing his graduation from Manual were sent to him every year from Training High School in Kansas all over America and Europe for City in 1896. For six years the him to study, identify and return two men researched throughout to their owners. Dr. Paul Jackson County, collecting plants Aellen of Basel, Switzerland with and classifying them and in 1902 whom Bush frequently correpublished “Manual of the Flora of sponded, named many new plants Jackson County, giving 22 new for this storekeeper-botanist. species and a total of 1,192 varieDuring all these years, Mr. Bush ties of plants. Following publicawas constantly on the search for tion of their book, Mackenzie more plants. The Missouri Botanmoved to New York City and by ical Garden in St. Louis has over 1908 was a practicing attorney in 35,000 items collected and catethat city. gorized and preserved by him. In 1905, Mr. Bush learned that the n a letter to Dr. Steyermark in evening primrose, common to September 1936, at the age of Missouri, changed from season to 78 , only five months before his season displaying a marked Sunday edition of The Kansas City death, Mr. Bush wrote “I suffered change in both leaves and flowers. Star. They described him as famous three bad falls last year that preWhile the primrose had been because of his diversion. His leivented me from doing as much as I known to botanists for 75 years, had planned, but I got several hunthis particular behavior had never sure is spent in the study of botany and he has an international reputa- dred new localities. This past been observed. This discovery tion because of his researches in spring, I had two bad falls from caused such interest among botathe science. For several years he bluffs, one of which laid me up for nists that Hugo De Vries, a celehas been associated with the botan- a week or more and kept me from brated naturalist of Amsterdam, tical department of Harvard Unidoing what I had planned to do.” Holland made a trip to visit Mr. Bush to discuss his discovery. Prof. versity. He has discovered so many Benjamin F. Bush died on Februplants that were new to science that ary 14, 1937 at his home in IndeDe Vries was formulating a new he is considered one of the foretheory of botany and the pecular pendence and is buried in Woodmost botanists in America. His changes in the evening primrose lawn Cemetery. work was the first ever published supported his views. on the flora of Jackson County.” By 1909, Mr. Bush’s was recognized for his work by the Board of By 1924, Bush had attained a certain level of celebrity and his Education in Independence who granddaughter Thelma Haralson voted to “procure a large photograph of Frank Bush, our local bot- remembers the local newspapers

JCHS Journal — Winter 2020

About our authors Kay Waldo Barnes Kay Waldo Barnes served as Mayor of Kansas City, Missouri 1999 – 2007. She has served as an educator in the field of human resource development, and is currently Senior Director for University Engagement, Park University.

Brian Burnes Brian Burnes, a St. Louis, Mo. native, from 1978 through 2016 served as a reporter for The Kansas City Star. In 1993 editors named him the newspaper’s history reporter, and he wrote or co-wrote eight books for The Star’s books division. He and his wife Debra live in Westwood, Kansas.

Gideon Cohn-Postar Gideon Cohn-Postar is a PhD candidate in History at Northwestern University. His dissertation “’Mind How You Vote, Boys:’ Economic Voter Intimidation and the Crisis of Workplace Democracy in the LateNineteenth Century United States,” explores the intimidation of economically precarious workingmen during the Gilded Age and how it reshaped American politics and voting.

Have an article for The Journal? The Jackson County Historical Society welcomes submission of articles relating to the history of Jackson County, Mo., and the Kansas City area. Materials should be written for an interested general audience. Manuscripts should be between 1,500 to 2,500 words and include sufficient notes and sources.

Authors should submit manuscripts electronically. JCHS does not accept responsibility for statements of facts or opinions made by authors. Original articles are preferred though articles previously published may be considered if reprint rights are secured.

Carol Grove, Adjunct Assistant Professor of American Art, University of Missouri, Columbia, is a landscape historian who focuses on Midwestern subjects as they relate to the broader history of the U.S.

An editorial board will review and select articles for publication based on subject, quality and sharing a broad view of the region’s history.

Thomas McCormally

Send your manuscripts to journal@jchs.org.

Carol Grove

Thomas McCormally, MS, was an award-winning journalist at Kansas City area newspapers 1979-1993. He has since worked at children’s hospitals, first in communications and public relations and currently as historian at Children’s Mercy. His first book, For A ll Children Everywhere, is a history of Children’s Mercy and was published in 2017. He has also authored the book Science and Heart: The Triumph of Psychosocial Care in Pediatrics.

J. Bradly Pace A native of Independence, Missouri, Pace has authored various history articles, and the book, Survivors, A Catalog of Missouri’s 19th Century County Courthouses. He recently contributed the forward to the book, Front Lines to Headlines, the World War I Overseas Dispatches of Otto P. Higgins, by James J. Heiman. Pace is a past president of the Jackson County Historical Society, and a practicing attorney.

Gloria Haralson Smith Gloria Haralson Smith is currently President of JCHS, and an avid local historian. She is a retired paralegal and office manager. Smith is a 7th generation resident of Jackson County, and the great granddaughter of renowned botanist Benjamin F. Bush.

A note on sources This is a general regional history historical publication and not a scholarly journal. We have chosen not to provide notes on sources and citations in the print publication, but do share author’s notes on sources on our website.

JCHS Journal â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Winter 2020

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