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John Brandt_3
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John Brandt_3
HERBERT: Herb Douglas here and May 22, 1985. At the present time we're just thinking back as to why and how Idaho has become such a center in this nation for its healthy horse stock and the fact that some of the best jockeys in the country have come out of Idaho and John is thinking back as to how some of that just [00:00:30] happened to be here in Idaho. Now rodeos, you said you were the master, grandmaster of the rodeo?
JOHN: Well I was on the rodeo board here for a number of years and I think the thing that dressed up our parade more than anything else was certain requirements and certain contests we put on. Probably the rodeo did more to bring in these good saddle [00:01:00] horses than anything else. It was, it caused the development of riding clubs. Most of them were Western riding clubs although when I was managing the parade here we had two English saddle clubs from Boise. And the thing that probably made our rodeo, our particular queen contest, one of the best [00:01:30] in the whole country, was to have each riding club select their princess, their candidate for queen. At one time I had as high as 36 candidates for the queen contest and that meant that there were at least 36 riding clubs. I used to ride in the Canyon County Posse myself and they did County Posse and then there were various other groups all of whom take, took great [00:02:00] pride in it and a great rivalry. And although although this area is not an extravagant one, for instance you go to the, oh, Rose Parade at at Pasadena, you'll see more silver on one horse there than all the horses in this valley I expect. So it wasn't a matter of wealth, it was a matter of love for horses and pride and rivalry and trying to put on a better display and they did spend some money to have costume but [00:02:30] that's rather minor by comparison and from the time they were little kids, I remember my youngest girl, her mother was away one time, I let her ride in the parade as a five-year-old. I caught the dickens when she got home but nevertheless that was the attitude that people took, that this was a wholesome recreation for young people and the caring for that horse and the striving to excel in [00:03:00] horsemanship and so on, that kids that look after a horse, are in a riding club are not apt to get into trouble.
HERBERT: I couldn't agree with you more. Well let's take a little bit more about, did the jazz age, the rag time age of the 20s, did that get as far west as Nampa?
JOHN: [00:03:30] Oh yeah, to a degree. I'm sure that there were some who enjoyed the jazz music and there were some...
HERBERT: The roaring 20s type of thing, probably didn't affect agrarian life.
JOHN: Not as much, we were a lot more stable but I remember some of them, Charleston I remember, some of the girls would show off doing that, [00:04:00] but I suspect that it was rather less than some more metropolitan area.
HERBERT: You just had to work too hard around here, I can tell you. Now in the 30s, you lost some money in the 1920s, early 20s, but you must have seen some more problems to drop in this area, the 20s, the 30s?
JOHN: Yeah, it was tough going.
HERBERT: What began to happen then?
JOHN: It was tough going.
HERBERT: [00:04:30] Okay, now after the bank crash, well the stock market crash, which led eventually to some of the banks going belly-up, did it affect this area very much?
JOHN: Well I recollect even when I was teaching school, there wasn't enough money to pay the teachers, we got warrants, which eventually were paid, so there was some of that. [00:05:00] Frankly, farmers were able to exist because they had little debt and they...
HERBERT: But not everybody is a farmer.
JOHN: No, but then it was pretty well based on the farm economy, if they could have some, a little milk they'd come and they could help the grocer or the haberdasher or whoever it might be to exist. Although it was tough going, there's no doubt about that, but [00:05:30] we didn't have any riots or any...
HERBERT: Any more banks go bad here? Maybe not.
JOHN: No, I don't think so. We were on the bank guarantee by that time, weren't we? I can't recollect that.
HERBERT: Well, I'm sure the banks went bad, but maybe out here you had stabilized things.
JOHN: I can't recall, of course, as a youngster, and that, when I had just a few dollars [00:06:00] and that closed the doors, but no, I really don't, I don't believe that we had any.
HERBERT: Did you have people suddenly who were hard-working people out of jobs, what happened to them? Did we have the WPA out here?
JOHN: Yeah, yeah, and that disturbed me and some of my like. The mistake that was made there in the WPA was that they paid higher wages for fewer hours than some of us who were trying to make a living otherwise. [00:06:30] I said as I wasn't very old then, I had brains enough to realize that that was a poor system, and when they inaugurated that, they started the downfall of many, many people who became subservient on welfare. If they'da had to work longer hours for less wages they'da wanted to get off instead of on. I'm not saying that they shouldn't have had the work provided, but the [00:07:00] method by which it was done and the encouragement that it gave toward subservience or dependence was bad.
HERBERT: Did they build some of your sewers in town? What did they do positively, build parks or what?
JOHN: If I recollect, now I wasn't here at the time, but if I recollect the subway here was built with WPA.
HERBERT: A subway?
JOHN: I think so.
HERBERT: Oh, you mean [00:07:30] under the train. I see.
JOHN: But a lot of it was make work. For example, I was still the superintendent of schools at Cambridge, and they had, well that was not the WPA, but it was a similar thing. Well, they had a CCC camp there too, and they were perhaps better than some of the other. They were, they made them work a little [00:08:00] more, far more than the civilian camps nowadays, but in school, for example, we had to make work for some of them. They varnished some doors and that sort of thing. They, probably the objection was that the work wasn't really essential at all, and when times were tough, they could have got by without it, and that put a burden on the taxpayer.
HERBERT: Did you have [00:08:30] a new kind of political party developing though, a New Deal kind of a party that began to outvote some of the rest of you?
JOHN: Yeah.
HERBERT: You meant in later 30s perhaps?
JOHN: Of course, Harding was, I mean, Hoover was maligned and criticized greatly, and then along came Roosevelt, and he was a little like Hitler in Germany. [00:09:00] He was the fair-haired man on the white horse. Everybody thought, and I guess some of these things were necessary, but that was the start of the welfare system, which many of the programs that have later proved to be disastrous were in the initial stages with good intent and even good execution, but they carried to the extreme to [00:09:30] destroy the person. I'll never forget, as I said I was teaching at the time, there was a young boy named Stickney who got sick. Another of the men teachers there, and I took him home, and we could see that they were just destitute, so we came back downtown to the general store there. A man named Fred Jewel was on our school board, so we made up a basket of [00:10:00] staples and beans and flour and cheap stuff that had a lot of food value for the amount of dollars. At any rate, we took it out. No sir, they weren't going to take that. They'd make it some way. Finally, we prevailed on them. Well, that fall, here they came to my door with a basket of tomatoes and some squash. I could see that they were proud and they wanted to repay the favor, so eventually I took it. Well, [00:10:30] then I quit teaching, came down here and went back up to Cambridge and stopped in to visit Fred a little while, and of course the conversation, he said, you remember that Stickney family you you made up that basket of groceries for? And I said, yeah, they sure were proud people. I said, that's the kind we need. So that's why I brought it up. He says, now they're first in line to get their hand out. And we destroyed that kind of people with the welfare system, and that's sad.
HERBERT: [00:11:00] Did it affect any of the politics of this town from then on?
JOHN: Oh, I'm sure that it went strongly. In fact, I think the swing was toward that New Dealism for a time. Generally speaking, this has been rather conservative [00:11:30] area and still is. I think the agrarian society tends toward being that way because they have to work for it.
HERBERT: Of course, the farmers have become as subservient a group, you see, now as any particular segment.
JOHN: I've made the statement a number of times, if there's one group in the United States that's never going to be taking these handouts, I said, the farmers [00:12:00] are rugged individualists and he's going to paddle his own canoe, whether or no. All they have to do is put the green back on the stick and he follows right along. So that's no better than the rest of them.
HERBERT: All right, let's come down to really this, the testing period of the 40s and the World War II. That was no longer a romantic war, it was a job that had to be done.
JOHN: Yet, we had the same, D. Worth Clark, who was the representative from [00:12:30] Idaho at the time, and sayin' we had the same moth-eaten phrases, like, make the world safe for democracy, and it wasn't Hitler this time, I mean, it wasn't Kaiser Bill, it was Hitler, and so we lost the romanticism, but we still tried to sell the same...
HERBERT: We thought it could be...
JOHN: Same ideas.
HERBERT: So you now saw many more people leave for the war. That was, it really disrupted talent then.
JOHN: Yeah, it was bad. [00:13:00] And the main effect that I saw as a farmer was that we had no help. There were certain, what were called 4Fs, they were physically incapable of going, one cause or another, and floaters who were transients that they couldn't catch up with one way or another. So I operated, one time I operated 190 acres, that doesn't sound like much now, but it did then, with 4Fs [00:13:30] and floaters, and I had to run my business besides, and milk the cows besides. I had one good boy, one named Behrman, and I, he was from Wieser, I appealed to the Wieser board, the draft board, to exempt him, and they did once, but then he, he got so much pressure that he, he said, I don't want you to do that anymore, he said, [00:14:00] I've got to go. So it was a tough time, primarily for, because of the shortage of labor, they'd taken the boys all away.
HERBERT: Did you have close friends who didn't come back?
JOHN: Yeah, not what I'd call a real close friend, but acquaintances. None of those boys that had actually worked for me, they [00:14:30] all came back.
HERBERT: Did we have any POW camps in this area?
JOHN: Yeah, yeah, in fact, one was on a piece of land that I owned, about a mile east and a half north of where I lived, a little triangle cut off by a ditch, and I was approached to make a German war camp, and they said that they, about the only requirements [00:15:00] was that they had to have domestic water, so, and that's rather an interesting story, in a way, they, they set up there, and I employed a well driller, I said, now all they want is domestic water, doesn't have to be soft water, just so it's pure water. I said, I think you get that about 25 feet. Well, I was running the business, I'd be back and forth, and first thing I know, he was down close to 100 [00:15:30] feet, and I said, well, so I went around and talked to a number of the neighbors, and they had pretty good wells at 100 feet. I said, okay, you get just a little farther, you'll have good water, I want you to stop there. It may not be the softest, but it'll be good, good water. Well, the next thing I knew, I, he says, I didn't find any good stopping place, there was no, no clay bed there where I could stop. I know he wanted a job.
HERBERT: [00:16:00] Yeah.
JOHN: But at any rate, I ended up with a 475 foot artesian well, which I still have there. Well, that German war camp were there for some little time, and I know we employed some of them on the farm, and they, they had their own officers who actually disciplined them, and then they, our forces had people with rifles standing [00:16:30] around, but the main discipline came from their own German officers. And although I was very much averse to tobacco, they said, you want to keep in good with these guys, why bring them a can of tobacco, so I bought the first and only one I guess I ever bought, took out to them, and they were very, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, and so on. Then later, that same camp moved over on Franklin Boulevard there, north of [00:17:00] where I now live. They built some towers there, and they're a little more formal. They cleaned things up good though, and the only thing is, I got a few dollars rent, but I spent all of it, a lot more for a well, which I didn't really want. I got it in the wrong part of the thing.
HERBERT: The government didn't pay you?
JOHN: No, no, I had to furnish the water, you see. They rented the, I don't even remember how much rent I got for it, but they weren't there very long, and so I know I didn't get near what the cost of the well was, but it's kind of an interesting [00:17:30] thing. Yes, and they had another, another PO, prisoner of war camp down in Deer Flat, south of Nampa, and maybe others elsewhere, but these two were the ones that were close here. No problems, and these, these prisoners were very courteous and pleasant, and they couldn't talk your **ant** language much, but I don't...
HERBERT: They were very happy they were prisoners.
JOHN: They were glad to be prisoners. You know, they, as an aside, [00:18:00] they criticized Reagan for going to this cemetery in Germany, and I thought his reply was very good. Most of those were boys who had no choice, who were buried there, you know. Maybe there was a few of the officers who were zealots and all, but I bet you most of those boys were just like the boys here we had in the prisoner of war camp. They were there because they were forced to be there, not because they wanted to be.
HERBERT: Would you [00:18:30] say there were a thousand? Were there a thousand at camp?
JOHN: Here? No, no, not that big. I would guess a couple of hundred. But that's a long time ago, and I...
HERBERT: As soon as the war was over, they just went back to Germany, I guess.
JOHN: One of the most tragic things to me in this area was the Japanese. Some of the present citizens, the Kondo brothers, for example here, were [00:19:00] numerous, numerous law-abiding, native-born Japanese farmers from the coast, were put in concentration camps. There's no other name for it. One was at Hunt here, and they were worked out, and I remember Henry Kondo told me he worked for Leonard Tiegs out here. He said he treated us like human beings. [00:19:30] Almost gets me to think about it.
HERBERT: They come into town now and then?
JOHN: But they held them there in that concentration camp, and then they turned them loose, and they... That's another good example of where if a person or a race or a group of people want to be industrious and [00:20:00] behave themselves and be law-abiding and so on, they can be accepted. The Japanese did exactly that, and they now are just as respected and accepted as white people. And that's with quotes.
HERBERT: Yeah.
JOHN: We've got some others who want to be other nationalities or races that don't take that attitude.
HERBERT: [00:20:30] Why did they come to Nampa, this area? Because it was wide open space?
JOHN: Why did the Japanese...
HERBERT: Why did they bring the Japanese here?
JOHN: Well, the concentration camp wasn't right here, but the Japanese came here then because of, yeah, because of the fact that this was a very productive agricultural area, which was along their line. [00:21:00] I don't recollect whether they brought some here while they still, or were released from the camp for work here or not, but, you know, they were mistreated, sadly.
HERBERT: Yes.
JOHN: Even here, even some of them who were here, why, they were felt like the Germans during the World War, World [00:21:30] War I, they were outcasts almost for a time.
HERBERT: Well it's a troublesome period, of course.
JOHN: People become so emotional, they don't think, they lose all their...
HERBERT: When you're under attack, I guess, you just lose your grip and rationality.
JOHN: Yeah, that's what happened.
HERBERT: Now, the railroad, that probably is one of the greater reasons why Nampa developed. [00:22:00] Do you have any feelings about the railroad?
JOHN: Yes.
HERBERT: Have they been fair, or have they been big boy on the block and had their own way?
JOHN: Had it not been for the railroad and the irrigation water and people, we would have been nothing.
HERBERT: The Oregon Trail, you mean.
JOHN: People who came out here, but the irrigation water and the railroad, and maybe the Homestead Act, but yes, the railroad [00:22:30] was looked upon with great favor. It had a certain romantic aspect to it. Remember, when I was was a little child, I went down to the depot and here, I still remember the big display of polished apples and oranges and how good they looked and so on. People would get on the train with sandwiches and when that old steam engine came up there and was spitting their steam and bell clanging, [00:23:00] well, that was a big day, you know. And by and large, the people were very appreciative of the railroad and recognized its worth. So, you know, Nampa was definitely a railroad town, about as well balanced as any town could be between agriculture and various other industries. One time the Pathfinder magazine, which is now extinct to an extent, [00:23:30] picked Nampa as one of the best balanced towns in the United States and played it up in their magazine. So, no, the railroad has been a real asset to us and although some hobos came in on riding the rails and that sort of thing and made Larry Maloney more or less trouble getting rid of them.
HERBERT: Because some of those fellas [00:24:00] had a rough time back East.
JOHN: Yeah.
HERBERT: But when they didn't want to work for their meal, I suppose that separated the men from the boys.
JOHN: I'm talking about hobos, not, they were the professionals. A lot of people rode the rails out here and that sort of thing. They were perfectly willing to work and they made no problem. It's the professional hobo whom I was referring to before.
HERBERT: Because I can imagine [00:24:30] people who were down and out back East hearing about Nampa and farms and people needing work, they would drop off here.
JOHN: Well, frankly, when I was growing up here, everybody practically had a garden and every farmer practically had chickens and a cow and raised his beef, meat and so on. [00:25:00] When I first started in the real estate business, for example, a five acre tract was a very popular sized parcel. They could have a job, but they could make their living on the five acres. Now there aren't very many of them. If they are out in the country, they want a half acre, at the most an acre, maybe to keep a saddle horse or maybe raise the beef. Even a lot of farmers don't raise a garden. Part of the reason is that they [00:25:30] can employ their time better otherwise. And secondly, that you go to the supermarkets and they've got high-class, high-quality produce there and a fair price.
HERBERT: Costs money though, it costs money.
JOHN: Yeah. So it's justifiable to a large degree. I still raise a big garden. I used to tell my wife that if I'd spend as much time on a tractor farm on 80 acres as I spend with the flowers in the garden, I'd be [00:26:00] about evened up. But I still do it. Partly I guess you get where you like to...
HERBERT: Oh yes. How well I know. This is your recreation?
JOHN: Yeah. And it's a relief. I used to say instead of getting all frustrated or disturbed by some deal or one that blows up or whatever [00:26:30] or somebody is very unreasonable, instead of taking it out on people, I go out and chop the dickens out of the weeds. So it has a certain psychological or physiological benefit as well.
HERBERT: Now you weren't all work all the time. Did you ever take your wife on vacation?
JOHN: Yeah. We've been in every state in the Union. The last trip I made with her was to Alaska. [00:27:00] When I was state president of the real estate group, we went overland and took two of the kids out of school. We'd never been in the Deep South. Our convention was at Miami Beach and then adjourned over to Cuba. And then to Hawaii. Every summer we'd take a trip to the mountains. We usually took a truck with a bunch of horses so we so we could ride around in the timber [00:27:30] and so on.
HERBERT: Did you camp or did you stay at something?
JOHN: Camped. Camped out. And that's the far cry from taking these modern campers or motorhomes and so on. One of the biggest thrills was to be able to build that bonfire and hear wood crackle and bacon sizzle and so on.
HERBERT: And your wife joined in heartily?
JOHN: Very much so. And all the kids certainly enjoyed it. [00:28:00] Even after my youngest daughter was at, I forget whether it was at Willamette or I guess she was at Oregon getting her MBA, she had a friend who she wanted to bring home. She says, I want to take a trip to the mountains and camp at Paddy Flat. So we did.
HERBERT: Happy memories. Is your wife still with you?
JOHN: No. She died two years ago.
HERBERT: Two years ago.
JOHN: After suffering many years. [00:28:30] She had a very, very severe case of shingles, which a few, a very few, never recover from. It creates a a pain pattern. And I had her everywhere, University of Washington pain clinic. Then shortly she developed Hodgkin's, which is cancer of the limbs. She recovered from that. They gave her chemotherapy. [00:29:00] Pain was with her from then on. And so it was kind of sad because she was extremely active in the community, church, YWCA, PTA, that sort of thing. Probably as much so as anyone in the town.
HERBERT: I get the feeling that if you had your choice, you'd still begin and live your life here in Nampa.
JOHN: No regrets. [00:29:30] Yes, I do. I have three children and none of them got married. So that's my one regret.
HERBERT: None of them got married.
JOHN: None of them got married. My son is in with me here and I'm very much gratified with that because he's following almost exactly my footsteps in every way. He doesn't smoke or drink.
HERBERT: I've got to meet him some day.
JOHN: He's very ethical in all of his dealings and [00:30:00] so on. And the youngest girl is, well she was product manager for the Pacific Northwest Bell. She got her MBA, she went there. With this divestiture, she went to AT&T and that instead of having an office in a skyscraper in Seattle, she now goes to Kent as a part of her commute. She has an excellent job. The oldest girl is a clinical psychologist on the Salt Lake. [00:30:30] So from only one standpoint, that I have no grandchildren. You have to, you know, build an estate and build a reputation where you kind of like to have the bloodline as well as the name carry on, you know. So I do have that one regret. Otherwise...
HERBERT: Well, how old's your boy?
JOHN: Oh, he's 40. He was born in 1937. He'd be 50, 40, what is he?
HERBERT: [00:31:00] Well, he'll be 50 in 87, so he's 48. Well, he may find the right person yet. Maybe his ideals and so on.
JOHN: First time in his life that he's been going with a widow lady over in Boise, but I'm about to give him up there. But there are many, many satisfactions and honors that I've had, [00:31:30] so I...
HERBERT: You've given yourself to the community, obviously. It became natural. You headed up the real estate for the state. The rodeo has been kind of a side interest.
JOHN: With farming, you know, the horses. And I was honored by the College of Idaho with an LLD degree, honorary degree.
HERBERT: Well, now you tell me. I think that's a high honor when you get that [00:32:00] kind of distinction.
JOHN: I consider it so. And more recently, my picture and my write-up was on the front of the statesman, telling of these various...
END OF RECORDING
HERBERT: Herb Douglas here and May 22, 1985. At the present time we're just thinking back as to why and how Idaho has become such a center in this nation for its healthy horse stock and the fact that some of the best jockeys in the country have come out of Idaho and John is thinking back as to how some of that just [00:00:30] happened to be here in Idaho. Now rodeos, you said you were the master, grandmaster of the rodeo?
JOHN: Well I was on the rodeo board here for a number of years and I think the thing that dressed up our parade more than anything else was certain requirements and certain contests we put on. Probably the rodeo did more to bring in these good saddle [00:01:00] horses than anything else. It was, it caused the development of riding clubs. Most of them were Western riding clubs although when I was managing the parade here we had two English saddle clubs from Boise. And the thing that probably made our rodeo, our particular queen contest, one of the best [00:01:30] in the whole country, was to have each riding club select their princess, their candidate for queen. At one time I had as high as 36 candidates for the queen contest and that meant that there were at least 36 riding clubs. I used to ride in the Canyon County Posse myself and they did County Posse and then there were various other groups all of whom take, took great [00:02:00] pride in it and a great rivalry. And although although this area is not an extravagant one, for instance you go to the, oh, Rose Parade at at Pasadena, you'll see more silver on one horse there than all the horses in this valley I expect. So it wasn't a matter of wealth, it was a matter of love for horses and pride and rivalry and trying to put on a better display and they did spend some money to have costume but [00:02:30] that's rather minor by comparison and from the time they were little kids, I remember my youngest girl, her mother was away one time, I let her ride in the parade as a five-year-old. I caught the dickens when she got home but nevertheless that was the attitude that people took, that this was a wholesome recreation for young people and the caring for that horse and the striving to excel in [00:03:00] horsemanship and so on, that kids that look after a horse, are in a riding club are not apt to get into trouble.
HERBERT: I couldn't agree with you more. Well let's take a little bit more about, did the jazz age, the rag time age of the 20s, did that get as far west as Nampa?
JOHN: [00:03:30] Oh yeah, to a degree. I'm sure that there were some who enjoyed the jazz music and there were some...
HERBERT: The roaring 20s type of thing, probably didn't affect agrarian life.
JOHN: Not as much, we were a lot more stable but I remember some of them, Charleston I remember, some of the girls would show off doing that, [00:04:00] but I suspect that it was rather less than some more metropolitan area.
HERBERT: You just had to work too hard around here, I can tell you. Now in the 30s, you lost some money in the 1920s, early 20s, but you must have seen some more problems to drop in this area, the 20s, the 30s?
JOHN: Yeah, it was tough going.
HERBERT: What began to happen then?
JOHN: It was tough going.
HERBERT: [00:04:30] Okay, now after the bank crash, well the stock market crash, which led eventually to some of the banks going belly-up, did it affect this area very much?
JOHN: Well I recollect even when I was teaching school, there wasn't enough money to pay the teachers, we got warrants, which eventually were paid, so there was some of that. [00:05:00] Frankly, farmers were able to exist because they had little debt and they...
HERBERT: But not everybody is a farmer.
JOHN: No, but then it was pretty well based on the farm economy, if they could have some, a little milk they'd come and they could help the grocer or the haberdasher or whoever it might be to exist. Although it was tough going, there's no doubt about that, but [00:05:30] we didn't have any riots or any...
HERBERT: Any more banks go bad here? Maybe not.
JOHN: No, I don't think so. We were on the bank guarantee by that time, weren't we? I can't recollect that.
HERBERT: Well, I'm sure the banks went bad, but maybe out here you had stabilized things.
JOHN: I can't recall, of course, as a youngster, and that, when I had just a few dollars [00:06:00] and that closed the doors, but no, I really don't, I don't believe that we had any.
HERBERT: Did you have people suddenly who were hard-working people out of jobs, what happened to them? Did we have the WPA out here?
JOHN: Yeah, yeah, and that disturbed me and some of my like. The mistake that was made there in the WPA was that they paid higher wages for fewer hours than some of us who were trying to make a living otherwise. [00:06:30] I said as I wasn't very old then, I had brains enough to realize that that was a poor system, and when they inaugurated that, they started the downfall of many, many people who became subservient on welfare. If they'da had to work longer hours for less wages they'da wanted to get off instead of on. I'm not saying that they shouldn't have had the work provided, but the [00:07:00] method by which it was done and the encouragement that it gave toward subservience or dependence was bad.
HERBERT: Did they build some of your sewers in town? What did they do positively, build parks or what?
JOHN: If I recollect, now I wasn't here at the time, but if I recollect the subway here was built with WPA.
HERBERT: A subway?
JOHN: I think so.
HERBERT: Oh, you mean [00:07:30] under the train. I see.
JOHN: But a lot of it was make work. For example, I was still the superintendent of schools at Cambridge, and they had, well that was not the WPA, but it was a similar thing. Well, they had a CCC camp there too, and they were perhaps better than some of the other. They were, they made them work a little [00:08:00] more, far more than the civilian camps nowadays, but in school, for example, we had to make work for some of them. They varnished some doors and that sort of thing. They, probably the objection was that the work wasn't really essential at all, and when times were tough, they could have got by without it, and that put a burden on the taxpayer.
HERBERT: Did you have [00:08:30] a new kind of political party developing though, a New Deal kind of a party that began to outvote some of the rest of you?
JOHN: Yeah.
HERBERT: You meant in later 30s perhaps?
JOHN: Of course, Harding was, I mean, Hoover was maligned and criticized greatly, and then along came Roosevelt, and he was a little like Hitler in Germany. [00:09:00] He was the fair-haired man on the white horse. Everybody thought, and I guess some of these things were necessary, but that was the start of the welfare system, which many of the programs that have later proved to be disastrous were in the initial stages with good intent and even good execution, but they carried to the extreme to [00:09:30] destroy the person. I'll never forget, as I said I was teaching at the time, there was a young boy named Stickney who got sick. Another of the men teachers there, and I took him home, and we could see that they were just destitute, so we came back downtown to the general store there. A man named Fred Jewel was on our school board, so we made up a basket of [00:10:00] staples and beans and flour and cheap stuff that had a lot of food value for the amount of dollars. At any rate, we took it out. No sir, they weren't going to take that. They'd make it some way. Finally, we prevailed on them. Well, that fall, here they came to my door with a basket of tomatoes and some squash. I could see that they were proud and they wanted to repay the favor, so eventually I took it. Well, [00:10:30] then I quit teaching, came down here and went back up to Cambridge and stopped in to visit Fred a little while, and of course the conversation, he said, you remember that Stickney family you you made up that basket of groceries for? And I said, yeah, they sure were proud people. I said, that's the kind we need. So that's why I brought it up. He says, now they're first in line to get their hand out. And we destroyed that kind of people with the welfare system, and that's sad.
HERBERT: [00:11:00] Did it affect any of the politics of this town from then on?
JOHN: Oh, I'm sure that it went strongly. In fact, I think the swing was toward that New Dealism for a time. Generally speaking, this has been rather conservative [00:11:30] area and still is. I think the agrarian society tends toward being that way because they have to work for it.
HERBERT: Of course, the farmers have become as subservient a group, you see, now as any particular segment.
JOHN: I've made the statement a number of times, if there's one group in the United States that's never going to be taking these handouts, I said, the farmers [00:12:00] are rugged individualists and he's going to paddle his own canoe, whether or no. All they have to do is put the green back on the stick and he follows right along. So that's no better than the rest of them.
HERBERT: All right, let's come down to really this, the testing period of the 40s and the World War II. That was no longer a romantic war, it was a job that had to be done.
JOHN: Yet, we had the same, D. Worth Clark, who was the representative from [00:12:30] Idaho at the time, and sayin' we had the same moth-eaten phrases, like, make the world safe for democracy, and it wasn't Hitler this time, I mean, it wasn't Kaiser Bill, it was Hitler, and so we lost the romanticism, but we still tried to sell the same...
HERBERT: We thought it could be...
JOHN: Same ideas.
HERBERT: So you now saw many more people leave for the war. That was, it really disrupted talent then.
JOHN: Yeah, it was bad. [00:13:00] And the main effect that I saw as a farmer was that we had no help. There were certain, what were called 4Fs, they were physically incapable of going, one cause or another, and floaters who were transients that they couldn't catch up with one way or another. So I operated, one time I operated 190 acres, that doesn't sound like much now, but it did then, with 4Fs [00:13:30] and floaters, and I had to run my business besides, and milk the cows besides. I had one good boy, one named Behrman, and I, he was from Wieser, I appealed to the Wieser board, the draft board, to exempt him, and they did once, but then he, he got so much pressure that he, he said, I don't want you to do that anymore, he said, [00:14:00] I've got to go. So it was a tough time, primarily for, because of the shortage of labor, they'd taken the boys all away.
HERBERT: Did you have close friends who didn't come back?
JOHN: Yeah, not what I'd call a real close friend, but acquaintances. None of those boys that had actually worked for me, they [00:14:30] all came back.
HERBERT: Did we have any POW camps in this area?
JOHN: Yeah, yeah, in fact, one was on a piece of land that I owned, about a mile east and a half north of where I lived, a little triangle cut off by a ditch, and I was approached to make a German war camp, and they said that they, about the only requirements [00:15:00] was that they had to have domestic water, so, and that's rather an interesting story, in a way, they, they set up there, and I employed a well driller, I said, now all they want is domestic water, doesn't have to be soft water, just so it's pure water. I said, I think you get that about 25 feet. Well, I was running the business, I'd be back and forth, and first thing I know, he was down close to 100 [00:15:30] feet, and I said, well, so I went around and talked to a number of the neighbors, and they had pretty good wells at 100 feet. I said, okay, you get just a little farther, you'll have good water, I want you to stop there. It may not be the softest, but it'll be good, good water. Well, the next thing I knew, I, he says, I didn't find any good stopping place, there was no, no clay bed there where I could stop. I know he wanted a job.
HERBERT: [00:16:00] Yeah.
JOHN: But at any rate, I ended up with a 475 foot artesian well, which I still have there. Well, that German war camp were there for some little time, and I know we employed some of them on the farm, and they, they had their own officers who actually disciplined them, and then they, our forces had people with rifles standing [00:16:30] around, but the main discipline came from their own German officers. And although I was very much averse to tobacco, they said, you want to keep in good with these guys, why bring them a can of tobacco, so I bought the first and only one I guess I ever bought, took out to them, and they were very, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, and so on. Then later, that same camp moved over on Franklin Boulevard there, north of [00:17:00] where I now live. They built some towers there, and they're a little more formal. They cleaned things up good though, and the only thing is, I got a few dollars rent, but I spent all of it, a lot more for a well, which I didn't really want. I got it in the wrong part of the thing.
HERBERT: The government didn't pay you?
JOHN: No, no, I had to furnish the water, you see. They rented the, I don't even remember how much rent I got for it, but they weren't there very long, and so I know I didn't get near what the cost of the well was, but it's kind of an interesting [00:17:30] thing. Yes, and they had another, another PO, prisoner of war camp down in Deer Flat, south of Nampa, and maybe others elsewhere, but these two were the ones that were close here. No problems, and these, these prisoners were very courteous and pleasant, and they couldn't talk your **ant** language much, but I don't...
HERBERT: They were very happy they were prisoners.
JOHN: They were glad to be prisoners. You know, they, as an aside, [00:18:00] they criticized Reagan for going to this cemetery in Germany, and I thought his reply was very good. Most of those were boys who had no choice, who were buried there, you know. Maybe there was a few of the officers who were zealots and all, but I bet you most of those boys were just like the boys here we had in the prisoner of war camp. They were there because they were forced to be there, not because they wanted to be.
HERBERT: Would you [00:18:30] say there were a thousand? Were there a thousand at camp?
JOHN: Here? No, no, not that big. I would guess a couple of hundred. But that's a long time ago, and I...
HERBERT: As soon as the war was over, they just went back to Germany, I guess.
JOHN: One of the most tragic things to me in this area was the Japanese. Some of the present citizens, the Kondo brothers, for example here, were [00:19:00] numerous, numerous law-abiding, native-born Japanese farmers from the coast, were put in concentration camps. There's no other name for it. One was at Hunt here, and they were worked out, and I remember Henry Kondo told me he worked for Leonard Tiegs out here. He said he treated us like human beings. [00:19:30] Almost gets me to think about it.
HERBERT: They come into town now and then?
JOHN: But they held them there in that concentration camp, and then they turned them loose, and they... That's another good example of where if a person or a race or a group of people want to be industrious and [00:20:00] behave themselves and be law-abiding and so on, they can be accepted. The Japanese did exactly that, and they now are just as respected and accepted as white people. And that's with quotes.
HERBERT: Yeah.
JOHN: We've got some others who want to be other nationalities or races that don't take that attitude.
HERBERT: [00:20:30] Why did they come to Nampa, this area? Because it was wide open space?
JOHN: Why did the Japanese...
HERBERT: Why did they bring the Japanese here?
JOHN: Well, the concentration camp wasn't right here, but the Japanese came here then because of, yeah, because of the fact that this was a very productive agricultural area, which was along their line. [00:21:00] I don't recollect whether they brought some here while they still, or were released from the camp for work here or not, but, you know, they were mistreated, sadly.
HERBERT: Yes.
JOHN: Even here, even some of them who were here, why, they were felt like the Germans during the World War, World [00:21:30] War I, they were outcasts almost for a time.
HERBERT: Well it's a troublesome period, of course.
JOHN: People become so emotional, they don't think, they lose all their...
HERBERT: When you're under attack, I guess, you just lose your grip and rationality.
JOHN: Yeah, that's what happened.
HERBERT: Now, the railroad, that probably is one of the greater reasons why Nampa developed. [00:22:00] Do you have any feelings about the railroad?
JOHN: Yes.
HERBERT: Have they been fair, or have they been big boy on the block and had their own way?
JOHN: Had it not been for the railroad and the irrigation water and people, we would have been nothing.
HERBERT: The Oregon Trail, you mean.
JOHN: People who came out here, but the irrigation water and the railroad, and maybe the Homestead Act, but yes, the railroad [00:22:30] was looked upon with great favor. It had a certain romantic aspect to it. Remember, when I was was a little child, I went down to the depot and here, I still remember the big display of polished apples and oranges and how good they looked and so on. People would get on the train with sandwiches and when that old steam engine came up there and was spitting their steam and bell clanging, [00:23:00] well, that was a big day, you know. And by and large, the people were very appreciative of the railroad and recognized its worth. So, you know, Nampa was definitely a railroad town, about as well balanced as any town could be between agriculture and various other industries. One time the Pathfinder magazine, which is now extinct to an extent, [00:23:30] picked Nampa as one of the best balanced towns in the United States and played it up in their magazine. So, no, the railroad has been a real asset to us and although some hobos came in on riding the rails and that sort of thing and made Larry Maloney more or less trouble getting rid of them.
HERBERT: Because some of those fellas [00:24:00] had a rough time back East.
JOHN: Yeah.
HERBERT: But when they didn't want to work for their meal, I suppose that separated the men from the boys.
JOHN: I'm talking about hobos, not, they were the professionals. A lot of people rode the rails out here and that sort of thing. They were perfectly willing to work and they made no problem. It's the professional hobo whom I was referring to before.
HERBERT: Because I can imagine [00:24:30] people who were down and out back East hearing about Nampa and farms and people needing work, they would drop off here.
JOHN: Well, frankly, when I was growing up here, everybody practically had a garden and every farmer practically had chickens and a cow and raised his beef, meat and so on. [00:25:00] When I first started in the real estate business, for example, a five acre tract was a very popular sized parcel. They could have a job, but they could make their living on the five acres. Now there aren't very many of them. If they are out in the country, they want a half acre, at the most an acre, maybe to keep a saddle horse or maybe raise the beef. Even a lot of farmers don't raise a garden. Part of the reason is that they [00:25:30] can employ their time better otherwise. And secondly, that you go to the supermarkets and they've got high-class, high-quality produce there and a fair price.
HERBERT: Costs money though, it costs money.
JOHN: Yeah. So it's justifiable to a large degree. I still raise a big garden. I used to tell my wife that if I'd spend as much time on a tractor farm on 80 acres as I spend with the flowers in the garden, I'd be [00:26:00] about evened up. But I still do it. Partly I guess you get where you like to...
HERBERT: Oh yes. How well I know. This is your recreation?
JOHN: Yeah. And it's a relief. I used to say instead of getting all frustrated or disturbed by some deal or one that blows up or whatever [00:26:30] or somebody is very unreasonable, instead of taking it out on people, I go out and chop the dickens out of the weeds. So it has a certain psychological or physiological benefit as well.
HERBERT: Now you weren't all work all the time. Did you ever take your wife on vacation?
JOHN: Yeah. We've been in every state in the Union. The last trip I made with her was to Alaska. [00:27:00] When I was state president of the real estate group, we went overland and took two of the kids out of school. We'd never been in the Deep South. Our convention was at Miami Beach and then adjourned over to Cuba. And then to Hawaii. Every summer we'd take a trip to the mountains. We usually took a truck with a bunch of horses so we so we could ride around in the timber [00:27:30] and so on.
HERBERT: Did you camp or did you stay at something?
JOHN: Camped. Camped out. And that's the far cry from taking these modern campers or motorhomes and so on. One of the biggest thrills was to be able to build that bonfire and hear wood crackle and bacon sizzle and so on.
HERBERT: And your wife joined in heartily?
JOHN: Very much so. And all the kids certainly enjoyed it. [00:28:00] Even after my youngest daughter was at, I forget whether it was at Willamette or I guess she was at Oregon getting her MBA, she had a friend who she wanted to bring home. She says, I want to take a trip to the mountains and camp at Paddy Flat. So we did.
HERBERT: Happy memories. Is your wife still with you?
JOHN: No. She died two years ago.
HERBERT: Two years ago.
JOHN: After suffering many years. [00:28:30] She had a very, very severe case of shingles, which a few, a very few, never recover from. It creates a a pain pattern. And I had her everywhere, University of Washington pain clinic. Then shortly she developed Hodgkin's, which is cancer of the limbs. She recovered from that. They gave her chemotherapy. [00:29:00] Pain was with her from then on. And so it was kind of sad because she was extremely active in the community, church, YWCA, PTA, that sort of thing. Probably as much so as anyone in the town.
HERBERT: I get the feeling that if you had your choice, you'd still begin and live your life here in Nampa.
JOHN: No regrets. [00:29:30] Yes, I do. I have three children and none of them got married. So that's my one regret.
HERBERT: None of them got married.
JOHN: None of them got married. My son is in with me here and I'm very much gratified with that because he's following almost exactly my footsteps in every way. He doesn't smoke or drink.
HERBERT: I've got to meet him some day.
JOHN: He's very ethical in all of his dealings and [00:30:00] so on. And the youngest girl is, well she was product manager for the Pacific Northwest Bell. She got her MBA, she went there. With this divestiture, she went to AT&T and that instead of having an office in a skyscraper in Seattle, she now goes to Kent as a part of her commute. She has an excellent job. The oldest girl is a clinical psychologist on the Salt Lake. [00:30:30] So from only one standpoint, that I have no grandchildren. You have to, you know, build an estate and build a reputation where you kind of like to have the bloodline as well as the name carry on, you know. So I do have that one regret. Otherwise...
HERBERT: Well, how old's your boy?
JOHN: Oh, he's 40. He was born in 1937. He'd be 50, 40, what is he?
HERBERT: [00:31:00] Well, he'll be 50 in 87, so he's 48. Well, he may find the right person yet. Maybe his ideals and so on.
JOHN: First time in his life that he's been going with a widow lady over in Boise, but I'm about to give him up there. But there are many, many satisfactions and honors that I've had, [00:31:30] so I...
HERBERT: You've given yourself to the community, obviously. It became natural. You headed up the real estate for the state. The rodeo has been kind of a side interest.
JOHN: With farming, you know, the horses. And I was honored by the College of Idaho with an LLD degree, honorary degree.
HERBERT: Well, now you tell me. I think that's a high honor when you get that [00:32:00] kind of distinction.
JOHN: I consider it so. And more recently, my picture and my write-up was on the front of the statesman, telling of these various...
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