Transcripts

Interview 3 – May 3, 2005

Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted by phone, with the interviewee and interviewer in Green Valley, Arizona, and Washington, D.C., respectively.

JOHNSON:
This is Kathleen Johnson, interviewing Glenn Rupp, a House Page from 1932 through 1936. This is the third interview with Mr. Rupp. It is May 3, 2005. When we ended the last interview, you were telling a story about trying to gain entry to a Senate hearing on behalf of your supervisor at the Federal Housing Administration. And, you were speaking to the Sergeant at Arms when we stopped. Would you like to finish that story?
RUPP:
Let’s see…
JOHNSON:
So, I think you ended—or the tape ended—when you were just getting to the point when you were talking to the Sergeant at Arms, and you were trying to get your boss into a Senate hearing.
RUPP:
Oh, I see. Did you get the recording where we went over to the Capitol, to the Senators’ office building together? On the train?
JOHNSON:
I don’t believe so.
RUPP:
Yeah. Well, he took me over to the Senate office building—
JOHNSON:
Okay, and this was the Sergeant at Arms?
RUPP:
The Sergeant at Arms. And there were gates up—a number of them, three or four—with a policeman standing on the side of each gate, to make sure that nobody got in that didn’t have a pass to the hearing room.
JOHNSON:
Yes, right.
RUPP:
Yeah. And so, we went in and the Sergeant at Arms asked where would we like to sit. And I said, “Well” and pointed to the front row, and said, “Those look pretty good to me.” And he said, “Well, they do to me, too.” He said, “Actually, you can bring them in before the hearing starts, and they can sit anywhere they want to.” And so then I went out with him, and I told the policeman, “Please don’t challenge me when I come back with a man and a woman—with the Federal Housing Administrator and his wife.” And, then we departed, and I went to the chauffeur at the car, parked on Constitution Avenue, and told him to go on back to the office, and I called the administrator, and told him that we were all set, he should just go with the chauffeur, pick up his wife, and the chauffeur would know where to come, and I would be there to meet them. And I took them to the hearing. And so forth. And that was pretty much the end of that deal.
JOHNSON:
And do you remember what year that was?
RUPP:
It was probably 1935, I would imagine. No, I think it was ’36.
JOHNSON:
Because this was after you were working as a Page, you were at the FHA.
RUPP:
Yes.
JOHNSON:
Okay.
RUPP:
Then, I’ve got another interesting thing to tell you if you’re interested in hearing [4:00] it. It happened while I was a Page.
JOHNSON:
Sure. Go ahead.
RUPP:
Do you know if the Bachrach Studio is still in Washington?
JOHNSON:
That doesn’t sound familiar.
RUPP:
Yeah, it was quite the thing in those days. And my sister-in-law worked there, and she called me to see if there was any possibility of my getting her and the photographer into the committee room that North Dakota Senator Gerald P. Nye was using. And he was investigating J. P. Morgan, the financier. And so, I thought a little while, and I said, “Well, why not go to Senator Nye directly, right off the bat, and see if I can pull this off?” So I went in and had a little talk with Senator Nye, in his office. And I suggested that it might be a good thing to have J. P. Morgan’s picture taken, because he had standing orders. No one ever took his picture before, apparently. And Senator Nye seemed to think that was a good idea. So I called my sister-in-law from his office, and I said, “Bring your photographer on down, and meet us at the committee room, and I’ll take care of the rest.” And I told Senator Nye that I would take over when J. P. Morgan and his first assistant, Al Lamont, was with him. And my sister-in-law and the photographer came there, and they had the old type…picture machine photography and the cloak and all that. So I had them set that up to the side, and told them just be ready as J. P. Morgan comes into the room, I’ll get him and bring him over, and you can take his picture. So, pretty soon, Morgan and Lamont came in, and I said, “Mr. Morgan.” And I’m just a kid in my early 20s, he could have told me to get lost and I’d have probably gotten lost. But I bluffed my way through, and said, “The first thing we have to do is get your picture taken here. So, you sit in this chair, we’ll have the picture taken, and then you come to the stand, and you’ll be ready for the committee to begin their session.” Oh, and then that evening, because he’s never photographed or anything, nobody, I guess, had any idea what he looked like, or the general public didn’t. His picture was on the [8:00] front page of the Washington Star that evening. Mission accomplished.
JOHNSON:
Very successful.
RUPP:
Yeah. It was a much bigger thing than you might think it was, because he was almighty. His word went. And nobody told him what to do or anything. But I did.
JOHNSON:
Had you met Senator Nye before this day?
RUPP:
Not personally. Not to talk to him. But I knew enough how to get in to see those fellows. It was so easy, I don’t even remember doing it hardly. I knew he’d go along with it.
JOHNSON:
Since we’re going back to your time as a Page, I wanted to ask you a few more questions about that period in your life. Were Pages in the House required to follow a specific dress code?
RUPP:
Run that by me again.
JOHNSON:
Were you expected to have a specific dress code as a Page? Did you have a uniform or dress code?
RUPP:
No, we really wore just our trousers and coat. Always a matched suit and coat, and a white shirt and a tie. But they really didn’t tell us even to wear white shirts. But I think I usually did. And the shoes were any color you wanted. They weren’t like they were in the Senate, where they wore grey trousers, and a blue suit and coat to go with it. We pretty much wore what we had and what we wanted to wear.
JOHNSON:
Earlier we talked a little bit about pastimes and I wanted to ask you about a specific activity. Was the practice of collecting and selling autographs, was this something that was prevalent among Pages? Was there any sort of autograph selling?
RUPP:
Not really. I happened to get quite a few autographs, but they were, like, from the Vice President and the Congressmen that I wanted autographs from, and Rudy Vallee. I didn’t even get one of some of the people that I should have.
JOHNSON:
And that was just for your own collection?
RUPP:
That’s right. Nobody did it to any great extent, to my knowledge. If they did it, I didn’t know about it. There were plenty of opportunities to do that, but after you were there awhile and you saw a lot of people, it didn’t make you feel like you wanted to do it particularly…bother people with it.
JOHNSON:
That makes sense. And you spoke about some of the women that served in Congress during the period, and one woman in particular I wanted to ask you about was Willa Eslick, from Tennessee, and her husband [Edward Eslick].34 Do [12:00] you have any recollections of them?
RUPP:
Which one was that now?
JOHNSON:
Willa Eslick, from Tennessee.
RUPP:
Well, that was a male Congressman. And his wife was in the gallery; that’s the one that dropped dead there on the floor.
JOHNSON:
Right, right. And then his wife took his seat after he died. Were you present on the day that he died?
RUPP:
Well, I was [on the] right side of him when he fell down, and I don’t recall who took his head and his shoulders in his hands, and I took his feet, and we carried him out to the Speaker’s Lobby, and laid him on the davenport out there, and then I went and called Dr. Calver, the Attending Physician of the Capitol, to come right away, and he pronounced him dead.35
JOHNSON:
This was in June of 1932.36
RUPP:
No, that would have been probably in the mid-thirties.
JOHNSON:
Did you meet his wife, Willa Eslick?
RUPP:
I don’t know where you got that name.
JOHNSON:
Willa Eslick—
RUPP:
Did you look it up?
JOHNSON:
Yes. She was one of the women that served during the time. She was elected in a special election to replace her husband.
RUPP:
Oh, I see.
JOHNSON:
I didn’t know if you had a chance to run any errands for her, or if you met her that day.
RUPP:
No. It must have been in ’36, and she must have been elected after the House adjourned, because I never met her as a Congresswoman having succeeded her husband.
JOHNSON:
I also wanted to ask you about your memories of Joint Sessions and Joint Meetings. Are there any that stand out in your mind?
RUPP:
Well, I don’t think anything in particular. The sessions got pretty hot and heavy sometimes, and the Members were almost fighting—I can’t tell you what legislation they were debating, but, anyway, whenever that occurred, and it happened several times while I was there, the Speaker would ask the Sergeant at Arms to take the Mace and go down and he’d hold the Mace over the Members who were about fighting and so forth, and there’s a standing rule that if they don’t cease and desist at that time, they’re automatically expelled from the House of Representatives.
JOHNSON:
What about one of FDR’s State of the Unions. You had sent us an image, and I believe you were in the picture that was taken, right in front of the rostrum?
RUPP:
Yes.
JOHNSON:
Can you describe that at all? What do you remember about that day? [16:00]
RUPP:
Well, I think that was in, I know it was in 1933, and we’re all anxious to hear the new President address the Joint Session of Congress, and Johnny McCabe was with me, sitting in front of the Speaker’s Rostrum at that time. I just sat there for a…actually, I was on duty. I just sat there for a little bit. I didn’t know they were taking the picture while I was sitting there. He [Franklin Roosevelt] had a very good technique of reading from a prepared speech, and giving it almost as if he was speaking without notes or anything. And Jimmy Roosevelt sat to his left, listening on the platform and, immediately behind him, were the Vice President, sits right behind, to the right, and that would have been, at that time it would have been Jack Garner, who had been Speaker before that. So, Joe Byrns was sitting in the Speaker’s chair, with the presiding officer at the time.37 Did I tell you that we always had a platform built, and we’d take it in, and put it at the Speaker’s Rostrum, so President Roosevelt could walk up the steps to get to the podium to speak? There’s no way in the world he could have done it without this. And he always used it. He walked through the Speaker’s Lobby, and we’d speak to him and so forth, and we’d open the doors so that he could go on in. And I forgot to tell you this, it was always my job to have a glass of water and one of our House of Representatives towels on the Speaker’s Rostrum so he could drink whenever he felt like it. And one of the enrolling clerks always collected those glasses and took them home with him. He prized them very highly when the President drank out of them. And whenever he had any problems at all, the Speaker always entered from the rear, through the lobby—Speaker’s Lobby—whereas after that, they always come in on the east door, and the Doorkeeper at [20:00] that time always introduced the visiting guests and the diplomatic corps, the Senators, and everybody else.38
JOHNSON:
So, I just wanted to get back to the image for a second. You’re seated in front of the rostrum, and you said that Johnny McCabe, the chief of the Republican Pages is there. So, you were there just for a short time, and where did you go after that?
RUPP:
I went where I should have been then, to the Speaker’s door. I was just goofing off, really. I wanted to be inside and see some of it. Lyndon Johnson used to do that, too. When he worked for me.
JOHNSON:
Oh, did he?
RUPP:
Yeah, he was always missing. He was inside watching and listening and so forth. And I think, hoping that he would someday succeed the President. It was an interesting thing—I don’t know whether I touched on that or not—I think several things enticed Johnson to go all the way, which he did. One was his being able to be on the floor of the House when he worked on the Speaker’s Lobby door. And then he was made National Youth Administrator for the state of Texas, when he got back there, then the Congressman—I think I told you this—that represented his district passed away. And then Johnson and nine other people ran for the job, and Johnson got it, but I don’t know if he won it fairly. The reason he was elected was because when he was campaigning, it was at the time that Roosevelt had tried to get the Congress interested in going along with him and having a Supreme Court packed because they were getting unfavorable decisions, like the Triple A [Agricultural Adjustment Act] was declared unconstitutional, and so was the NRA. Roosevelt asked, “Who is that young Congressman that’s campaigning in Texas for the House? I’m going to take a trip by train down through that area, and I want him to be with me when I travel through the state.” So, they said it was Lyndon Johnson, and they made arrangements for Johnson to meet Roosevelt, to [24:00] be with him. And they got to be such good playmates or pals, that Roosevelt became like a grandfather to Johnson. And then Johnson was elected. [James] Buchanan was the name of the man that died. He was chairman of the Appropriations Committee. And that’s the seat that Johnson filled.
Well, anyway, when Johnson was elected then, he had immediate entrée to the White House. He could go down and see Roosevelt at will, where senior Congressmen couldn’t even do it. He was encouraged and helped an awful lot by Roosevelt, in the White House. That’s partially why, I think, if it hadn’t have been for Roosevelt, Johnson would not have been elected to the House in the first place. Nor would he have gone as far as he did. To the Senate, then Majority Leader, then Vice President under [John F.] Kennedy and, of course, then President.
JOHNSON:
All the way to President. I have a few more questions, if that’s okay.
RUPP:
Okay, sure.
JOHNSON:
What do you remember about the only African-American Member that served, Oscar De Priest, while you were a Page?39
RUPP:
Well, Oscar De Priest was a Republican, and he always sat in the front row. And he was very quiet, and…I think—I could be wrong about this, so, I don’t know—it seemed to me like he wore a swallowtail coat, but I’m not absolutely sure of that. But he always sat there, and I never heard him open his mouth or speak one time. Oh, and I have to tell you, another one that sat with him was, sat where he did… close proximity to him was [Fiorello] LaGuardia of New York.
JOHNSON:
Oh, okay.
RUPP:
He was a Fusionist candidate. The only one that we had. But he always sat on the Republican side, and he was always in demand by people coming to visit the House Chamber, they wanted to hear LaGuardia talk. Is he going to talk and so forth, and Huey Long in the Senate. Those two in particular. Now, that was in 1932, when I first went there. Fiorello LaGuardia ran for mayor, then, in November in ’32, and was elected, of course.
JOHNSON:
Right, of New York.
RUPP:
So I only saw him for one year. One session.
JOHNSON:
So, because De Priest was a Republican, and you were a Democratic Page, you really didn’t have that much interaction with him?
RUPP:
Well, I would always see him when he came through the door, in the Speaker’s Lobby, when he’d go in and out. He always passed us. So I saw as much of him as [28:00] I would…you know, maybe anyone. Since he was not very active. I don’t know if he didn’t run or whether he was defeated. He never came back after ’32. That was the last we saw of him.
JOHNSON:
I think he was in for one more term; the 73rd Congress [1933–1935] was his last Congress.
RUPP:
Oh, was he? Yeah. That could have been. But he wasn’t very active. Let’s put it that way.
JOHNSON:
All right. I just have one more question for you. It’s a broad question. I would like to know what kind of effect did your years as a Page have on your life. Do you think that it changed your life in any way?
RUPP:
Would you repeat that, please?
JOHNSON:
Sure. Do you think that being a Page in the House of Representatives changed your life in any way?
RUPP:
Oh, I’m sure it did. You have such a good feeling; I think you probably feel a lot better about yourself having had the privilege of serving in the House or Senate. It’s bound to affect you quite a bit. And I think it helped me in later life, too, as I…got older and left. Never forgot it.
JOHNSON:
Did it influence your interest in history, did it make you more interested in history or politics, do you think?
RUPP:
I don’t think in particular that it did. It should, but I don’t think that it did. Oh, I have to tell you a funny thing here.
JOHNSON:
Sure.
RUPP:
Well, does the name “Fishbait” Miller ring a bell with you at all?40 William Miller was his right name, but they always called him “Fishbait” Miller, and he worked on the lobby door, at the other end of the Speaker’s Lobby, and he later became Doorkeeper. And two people that—I was at FHA in 1937 when Joe Sinnott, the Doorkeeper, called me, and asked me whether I could possibly come down and train this new man on the door, “Fishbait” Miller, on the Speaker’s Lobby door at a Joint Session of Congress.41 So, I said, “Certainly,” and I did. That was pretty unusual.
JOHNSON:
Right, because you said you were working at the FHA at that point.
RUPP:
Yeah! I wasn’t even in the House.
JOHNSON:
Well, they must have been impressed with how you had done your job before.
RUPP:
{laughter} They never told me that. I guess I did all right.
JOHNSON:
I guess so.
RUPP:
So, the two men that I trained on that lobby door, one became President and [32:00] one became Doorkeeper of the House.
JOHNSON:
Not a bad record.
RUPP:
Not too bad.
JOHNSON:
No, not at all.
RUPP:
Should have done more for myself. Why, in the things that I’ve told you about before, and I notice in the typewritten account of it, which I sent to you, the Congressman that had the man toss the gun down from the House Gallery, it’s M-A-A-S [Melvin Maas]. She had written it M-O-O-S.
JOHNSON:
Okay. That’s fine.
RUPP:
And Henry T. Rainey, a time or two, she spelled it Harry Rainey, and it’s Henry T.
JOHNSON:
Those are all things that we can edit when this is transcribed.
RUPP:
I just thought you could make those changes ahead of time. If you wanted to.
JOHNSON:
Okay.
RUPP:
And then, I worked at the Agriculture Adjustment Administration in ’34 and ’35, after the House adjourned.
JOHNSON:
Would you like to talk a little bit about that? You were working as a Page, and then when the House adjourned, you had this job?
RUPP:
Yep. Lyndon Johnson got me the job.
JOHNSON:
Yes. Is there anything that you’d like to add about your years as a Page?
RUPP:
Well, number one, I think it’s by far the most outstanding assignment that anyone can have as a young adult, either in the House or Senate. The people that you meet, and the experience that you have, in either or both chambers, is such that there wouldn’t be any job in the world that would be comparable to it, and I think anybody that is assigned to a Page job in the House or the Senate has to be so fortunate that it’s hardly…hardly any way to describe it. And I didn’t work for mine. I didn’t earn it. It came to me. And they very seldom do, I can tell you that. Or you already know it.
JOHNSON:
What do you mean by that, because you knew the Congressman?
RUPP:
Yeah, because he selected me. Well, first of all, that he had patronage to give someone a Page job. Not very many have that luxury, and secondly, why would he pick me?
JOHNSON:
Well, there must have been something about you that…
RUPP:
Well, he did come to my high school graduation. I think maybe when I sent him an invitation, that gave him an idea, that was when he was…he was assistant Majority Whip, to [Jacob] Tuck Milligan of Missouri, at that time, and had [36:00] enough seniority to get the job. Congressman Milligan, Jack Cochran, and Congressman [Robert Davis] Johnson all three ran against [Harry] Truman in the election of ’34, when Truman was elected to the Senate.42 And we all thought that Tuck Milligan, the Majority Whip, would be able to defeat Truman. But he didn’t pull it off—defeat Truman. Oh, did I tell you that the last time I saw Truman he was a Senator, and he came in to see my boss, the Federal Housing Administrator? I had charge of all the appointments and personnel and stuff like that. And he sat at my desk, talking to me. For quite awhile we talked, until my boss was free and could see him. And my boss died before Truman ever became President, so he never knew he became President. He was from the same state, from Missouri.
JOHNSON:
Well, I have really enjoyed speaking with you. This has been a wonderful experience. Thank you so much.
RUPP:
Have you got room for one more?
JOHNSON:
Sure. If you have more to say.
RUPP:
One day, at the administrator’s office, an Afro-American man came up to me, and handed me a letter. And, I opened the letter. He had been to the White House, and he was a former classmate of President Roosevelt at Harvard, and the letter read this way, addressed to Mr. McDonald, administrator, “This will introduce Mr. So-and-so, he and I were college classmates together. I would appreciate it very much if you would, could find a job for him, in engineering at FHA at about $2,600 per annum.” That was a pretty good job in those days. You wouldn’t be looking for it, would you?
JOHNSON:
No. {laughter}
RUPP:
I wouldn’t think so. I can’t think of anything else to tell you that would be of any importance that you could add to whatever you have. I know you’ll have a job of taking out a lot of material that you know about. Maybe you might think is immaterial, or you don’t have the space for it and so forth.
JOHNSON:
Well, I just wanted to thank you again, this was very enjoyable.
RUPP:
It was my pleasure, and I hope I haven’t disappointed you.
JOHNSON:
No, definitely not.

Footnotes

  1. For more information on Representative Willa Eslick, see Office of History and Preservation, Women in Congress, 1917–2006 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006): 110–113 and http://womenincongress.house.gov.
  2. George C. Calver was the Attending Physician of the Capitol from 1928 to 1966. For more information on his career, see Claude Koprowski, “Capitol’s First Attending Doctor Retiring Tuesday after 38 Years,” 9 October 1966, Washington Post: B2; “The Capitol’s first Attending Physician, Dr. George Calver,” Weekly Historical Highlights, Office of History and Preservation, Office of the Clerk, http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/highlights.html?action=view&intID=144.
  3. Congressman Edward Eslick died of a heart attack on the House Floor during an impassioned speech in favor of a veterans’ bonus on June 14, 1932.
  4. Representative Joseph Byrns served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from January 3, 1935 until his death on June 4, 1936. During FDR’s 1933 State of the Union address, Byrns was the Democratic Majority Leader and Henry Rainey served as Speaker.
  5. A total of 34 individuals served as Doorkeeper until the position was terminated in the 104th Congress (1995–1997). Many of the Doorkeeper’s duties were transferred to the Sergeant at Arms, the Clerk of the House, and the Chief Administrative Officer (whose position was newly created).
  6. For more information on Representative De Priest, see Office of History and Preservation, Office of the Clerk, Black Americans in Congress, 1870–2007 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008): 278–285 and http://baic.house.gov.
  7. Doorkeeper of the House from the 81st Congress through the 82nd Congress, (1949–1953). Miller also served as Doorkeeper from the 84th Congress (1955–1957) until his resignation near the end of the 93rd Congress, on December 31, 1974.
  8. Sinnott was Doorkeeper of the House from the 62nd Congress through the 65th Congress (1911–1919) and from the 72nd Congress (1931–1933) until his death on January 27, 1943, during the 78th Congress (1943–1945). For more information on his career, see “Doorkeeper of the House of Representatives Joe Sinnott,” Weekly Historical Highlights, Office of History and Preservation, Office of the Clerk, http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/highlights.html?action=view&intID=322.
  9. Alonzo Hamby’s biography of Harry Truman, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), notes that Truman had two opponents in the 1934 Missouri Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate: John Cochran and Jacob “Tuck” Milligan.