STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI RESEARCH CENTER-ST. LOUIS
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-ST. LOUIS

This is the thirteenth in a series of oral history interviews conducted by the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Your interviewer is Professor Richard Resh. My guest today, August 24, 1970, is Mr. David Grant, a prominent city attorney and a fighter for civil rights long before that struggle became fashionable.

RESH: Mr. Grant, could you begin by telling us something about your life, your background? Were you born in St. Louis?

GRANT: Yes, I was born here on New Year's day, 1903, and I came through the primary and secondary school system of St. Louis. I was born at 3228 Lawton which, of course, no longer exists, in a third floor front bedroom, my mother told me, there being no hospitals at that time where any Negro could at least be served in a maternity ward. Now whether or not there was any, I know there was no black hospital until the Provi- dent which came in the teens. But most of my early life, my school life primary and secondary, was spent where I lived which was in houses between Compton and Grand on Lawton Avenue. At that time, I remember the barrier between white and black moved from Channing...there were no blacks living west of Channing...and then later to Theresa. And I think were the first black family that moved in the 3500 block of Lawton where most of my young life was spent. At that time, of course, we had a strict Jim Crow school system, and the two nearest black schools...one was the L'Ouverture located at Chouteau ^d Jefferson, a distance of upwards of two miles, and the other was at Boyle and Pap in, Wheatley School, another better than two miles. My parents chose Wheatley where from kindergarten age...now I did have two brothers and a sister all older and so the chaperoning, if you want to call it that, was by them not by any others. But we were given streetcar tickets, two little paper tickets, each evening at the end of school, one to go home by streetcar and the other to come back the next morning. I remember we would invariably spend the 2-1/2 cents ticket at the little confectionary; we'd get 2 cents worth of candy and walk down the railroad tracks from Sarah Street to Grand Avenue. In the mornings, we rode...took the Grand Avenue car, we had to transfer to Market Street, then the Market Street car on out to Chouteau to Boyle, then over one block to the school which is still out there located on Pap in. I graduated from that school in June of 1914 at age eleven, and then the only high school for blacks was Sumner High School which was located at Pendleton and St. Ferdinand at Cottage...a distance of nearly four miles from my house. And I was bussed out there, but this time at the expense of my parents. In other words, they had to pay for our streetcar fare, and it was a very long trip from Grand over to Easton, then an Easton car out to Pendleton and then walk to Cottage. Now speaking of schools, the nearest neighborhood school was a white school only five or six blocks, the Carline School located at Bell and Channing. And every morning, we road by Central High School which was then located just about at Windsor and Grand on the east side of Grand. And we rode, which was again less than five blocks from where I lived, but we rode by there every morning, here we are. Now, when I finished high school in June 1918, educationally, as far as St. Louis was con- cerned, I had had it. Even though I lived...! could stand on my back porch and almost throw a stone at St. Louis University which was right up the street. If I was to get any further education, it meant that I had to leave home. The only school of higher learning at that time in Missouri for blacks was Lincoln Institute which was really a glorified, not-too-good high school. The first black legislator, a fellow named Walton, his main claim to fame was in changing the name...introducing a bill to change the name from Lincoln Institute to Lincoln University. He didn't have much to do with changing the curriculum or budget or anything else, but it became a university overnight. Well, from 1918 to 1920...now in 1918, World War I was still going on and, of course, boys mature during wars of that kind, because the men are gone. I was 15 years old, but I talked my mother into letting me go to Detroit to work as a waiter on a boat...although I had never waited tables or any- thing else, but there was a company that sent for some waiters from down here and I went up and preceded to travel on the lakes, and I loved it. You could go on any steamer, because they were all short, and I would work from one payday to see, run from Detroit to Cleveland then to Buffalo. Then I got on the Canadian Liner Boats and went up to Duluth and to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and all that kind of business. And then I waited tables. I became a waiter and waited tables for two years before I went to college. Fortunately my mother, who was a Chiropodist, my father was a Chiropodist...Chiropody was not controlled by legislation in Missouri until about 1923, I think, and all persons who were practicing were given licenses and then later there were examinations. Meanwhile, my dad died in 1916, so my mother had three boys and one girl to rear. In 1920, she came up to Detroit...! doubt if I would have gone myself to matriculate, but she came up and she took me to the University of Michigan where I matriculated and did my undergraduate work. I did not graduate from there; I earned some 70 college hours. In 1922...I didn't go back to school in '22 and '23, because my mother had my brother, Johnny and Halrry in dentistry, and just frankly, I thought the load was a little heavy, and I felt that I was very young, and that I had years and that I could afford to mark time. So I went to Michigan in the summer of '23, and then I didn't go back there any more. I went up to the Illinois College of Chiropody, took a year of Chiropody and then in 1927, I matriculated at Howard Law School and finished there.

RESH: Could I ask you a couple of questions about this period?

GRANT: Sure.

RESH: First of all, you were in Michigan during the First World War period and the First World War was known in part as the great migration period.

GRANT: Well, it was over now.

RESH: It was over?

GRANT: I didn't go in until 1920.

RESH: 1920.

GRANT: Yeah, and World War I ended in November, as you know, of 1918.

RESH: But you were able to see, observe, some of the results of that great migration, the tremendous influx of Negroes, many Negroes, southern Negroes to Chicago, Cleveland...

GRANT: I remember the East St. Louis riot which occurred in 1917.

RESH: Right, July of 1917.

GRANT: And I could see the sky across the river. In fact, I had begun to court a girl over there, and I almost went over there, but there was one unusual thing about that...I felt, and that is that rather than the riot taking root here, here it is right on the doorstep of St. Louis, and rather than it causing racial antipathies to polarize here, St. Louis actually became a city of asylum for those that were dispossessed and burned out in East St. Louis. The Mayor was Mayor Kiel at that time, and I remember that he rented all available places and put beds in there to relocate people and the families from East St. Louis. As I look back now, I think it was a wonderful demonstration of the racial thing that's been here in St. Louis. So, the migration was on, that's true. And the blacks who came back from the war were, many of them, not going back to the inequities and abuses of the South. Many of them stayed North. I can't say that I noticed a lot of it at Michigan. We had at that time, I think, something like twelve to fourteen thousand students and, well, there were so few blacks.

RESH: Right, that wouldn't have been felt there.

GRANT: But we knew...we practically knew...everybody. There couldn't have been over fifty or sixty of us there.

RESH: My second question was at this time, in fact...through the thirties and forties, Missouri was a Jim Crow education. University of Missouri was a Jim Crow educational institution, but sometimes the State of Missouri would provide limited, very limited funds for Negroes, Missouri Negroes, who wished to go out of state. Were you able to...

GRANT: Yes. The way Missouri satisfied the fourteenth, the provision of the Fourteenth Amendment which requires every state to give equal protection of the law to all citizens, was by paying the tuition of black students who were in out-of-state colleges or universities pursuing courses given at the University of Missouri, but not given at Lincoln. And law was one of those and I did get it, but it was a very unsatisfactory thing; they never appropriated enough money and each time I went, I had to pay my tuition and then later I'd get it back at Howard, see, in the law school. Now they paid no tuition, of course, at Michigan because I was in the Lib School, the College of Liberal Arts. And they had one, supposedly, at Lincoln and so, hence, I was not eligible. They paid only tuition to students, black students, taking courses not given at Lincoln, but given at the University of Missouri. And, of course, that was broken down in the case of Gaines vs. Canada where he wanted to take law and the Supreme Court issued, you know...ruled...that if one student wants it> they either have to build a Jim Crow school for him or let him in the University of Missouri. So they built this Jim Crow School...

RESH: This was over at Poro College?

GRANT: At Poro College, and I got locked up in the first place I knew that opened, I think, in 1939. And I knew that a building and books do not make a law school; faculty makes a law school. And the faculty at Lincoln was, well, you didn't have...you just had the faculty there... even though it did put out some black lawyers who have done very well, and I might say, that actually you don't learn a hell of a lot in law school until you get out to practice. You only learn how to become a lawyer, maybe, let's put it that way. But the average lawyer...the law should have an internship thing like doctors have, because you turn a fellow out of law school, let him answer questions on the bar and pass, well, he doesn't know what the hell to do. I opened my off ice...my mother opened it for me...at the site that now the Federal Building sits on, eleven-something Market Street. Hung my shingle out and set there hoping nobody would come in wanting a lawyer, because I knew I didn't know what to do. We didn't have, and still don't have unfortunately, law firms; a lot of white boys go into law firms as clerks where they learn what to do. So, hence, it's a matter of learning after you get out, really, how to go about this business of representing people properly and adequately and efficiently.

Now, as soon as I came back home in 1930, I came primarily because I could help my mother in Nugent's Department Store where she had her Chiropody office. My two brothers had both taken Chiropody; we all had it. But I came back, because I could make some money as a Chiropodist while I was marking time to take the bar. And I was admitted on August the eighth, I think it was, 1930. So that I've been at the bar now forty years. As soon as I came home...at that time, 99% of the blacks were Republicans. They were Republicans because they had an emotional attachment to the Republican Party based on the myth that the Civil War was fought to free men; the Civil War was really fought to free labor... in other words, to destroy the system based upon free labor. The Dred Scott case having ruled that an owner of slaves had a right to take - — those slaves anywhere he wanted to without affecting their condition as slaves. And the Dred Scott case ruled that no state had a right to legislate on the question of slavery and that Congress itself had no such right. It actually outlawed the Missouri Compromise of 1820. So the Republican Party always having been a party of economists so that these two systems, one based on paid wages in the North and one on free slave labor in the South, could not operate in the same economy. When the Dred Scott case threw them into direct conflict with each other, it didn't take a genius to see that the day would come when the country would be a total slavocracy...that there would be the time when no white man could get a job because the corporations which were beginning to form, and we were beginning to be a manufacturing country, they would go South, buy all the labor they needed and take it up there to operate their plants. So, that the quickest way, of course, to destroy that was to destroy the slave system. I'm sure you know no wars are really fought on these high falutin' chivalrous slogans, "The war to make the world safe for democracy," and the "War to end wars," and all that damn stuff, they're all fought for money or economic reasons or interests which are...

RESH: ...to build empires.

GRANT: That's right. Now however, the Republican Party was quick to sieze upon the...it being the party of freedom, it had freed the slaves. And the carpetbaggers went South and then the Republican Party really showed its true colors...in the Hayes-Tilden sellout when they agreed to with- I- draw the troops from the South if they would be permitted to steal this ? election. And the Democrats made the deal with them, and that's when the _ blacks' emancipation ended. I'm always amused at blacks celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation which is nothing but a hoax. It never freed a single slave who could be freed. It even went down; all you got to do is read it. It went down into the counties of West Virginia even; it was that specific. It was like a man going into a jail with the keys to freedom and saying to the man who could use the key to open the cell, "You're still a slave; you're still a prisoner." And the fellow who's in the cell that's already open says, "You leave, you're free." But, however, Frederick Douglass made the statement, and he was a great man; I'm not taking anything away from him, but he made the statement that the "Republican Party is the ship and all else is the sea." Blacks were brainwashed, and they were emotionally attracted to the Republican Party, and here in St. Louis, you could probably have counted the Democrats in 1930, black Democrats, on your hands and toes. In fact, it was worse in 1930 to be black and a Democrat than it was today to be a card-carrying Communist. Now this is a fact. Dr. Resh, I know it. I experienced it. However, when I came home I went through the dusty records of the election returns. You had had the Republican Party in power in St. Louis and in the state from 1909 to 1933, in the City, a period of 24 years, and I knew generally the areas in which blacks lived. And I went over and did a hard job of research to discover that it was the black vote that was keeping the Re- publican Party in power in the City of St. Louis. They had no white col- lar jobs; they had all of the slop wagons with the mules; they had all of the mops and the slop buckets, and that's all they had. They had one assistant city counselor, a fellow named Walter Hill, who was in the Law Department at the largest salary of $2400 a year. There were some few appointees in the so-called County Offices; one of them was a fellow named Les Williams, who's dead now, but he was a collector in the — License Collector's Office. I forget the name of the collector. But I know that they refused that even these jobs, these office-holders would make their black employees do work at their homes such as cutting their grass and being their butler. These things all happened. I was not a Democrat through any ideology. As far as I was con- cerned, it was true then and true today that the white man who is a racist, doesn't matter what his party politics, he's a racist. However, I was in- censed at what Negroes had received in return for what they had given. And I was determined to expose it. Macklemore, Joseph Macklemore. As I was saying, the first effort the Democrats made here to attract black votes, the first real effort, was the nomination in 1928 of Joseph L. Macklemore in the old llth Congressional District for Congress. Prior to that, they didn't even run a candidate. Leon C. Dyer was the repre- sentative from that district, and he had introduced an anti-lynching bill in 1920, and he rode back now, he...

RESH: He rode all the way on that bill? - -—————————

GRANT: Yeah, frequently, he would have black opposition, but it was always split up, and George Vaughn and Homer Phillips would be candid- ates; they had formerly been law partners and later split up on this thing. And I can remember Roger Hamms. I can remember as a youngster, fifteen, sixteen years old...fourteen...that these campaigns would be horrible, call each other liars. It was really a disconcerting thing. Incidentally, I might tell you that in my youth, I played cello. My brother had an orchestra; he was quite a violinist here, a New England Conservatory man, and he wanted to get into the jazz business. But he went down to New Orleans by train to bring a river boat back up the river, the steamer Majestic, and that was quite an experience for me. Later in Michigan, I wrote a paper, "Some Changes in Hos- pitality." I observed it as we came up the river, and it was interest- ing, of course. It was like a circus. The boat ride would be adver- tised ahead of time. We'd leave like New Orleans, and the first stop was Natchez, and there would have been the advertisement of a night- boat excursion, and then we might get into Natchez, say, that morning at ten-thirty, eleven o'clock. We'd get dressed and walk up into the town, and we'd have on regular suits and actually white people would look at us as an odd thing, because we weren't wearing jumpers and overalls, which was the dress. And they would come out and look at us as if we were something curious. And then we came on up the river and brought this boat. This was interesting. Of course, on a boat, the prima donnas of a boat is the band. You got a good band, you got a good boat. If you haven't got a good band, then it don't matter how fine the paddle is, you just don't have a boat if it's an excursion. All of the cabin boys who had to do the cleaning up and so forth...this is in Louisiana...and we would never get up for breakfast, we'd get up around eleven o'clock and lunch would be ready then and we had, of course, a very lovely table, and we would eat and then we'd rehearse usually a couple of hours, and then we'd just loll around the boat watching these white boys work. And I've never been looked at more angrily. This was quite an experience. And then, as we saw the change in the attitude of blacks and in whites, and I did a paper on this thing later at Michigan where I used plus and minus signs. But, anyway, that was quite an experience and we went on up to Dubuque, Iowa, and back. Now, back to 1930 when I came home. I became a Democrat really in hatred of the Republicans. I had always voted wherever I was, and it's odd to say that I would invariably vote if I was at Ann Arbor, I would always take the ticket of the organization to know who to vote against. When I came home, I became an organization Democrat and knew what slating mean and this sort of business. All right, back to 1930, home to practice law. This investigation and joining with Joe Macklemore and Earl McClullen, fellow named Billy Swanson, and Elmer Moseque who still lives, and our alderman from the 26th Ward, Bruce Ard, we were renegades; because we were black Democrats. However, of course, with the Depression, the horrible depression of the 30's where everybody's against the "ins." And then after Roosevelt won in '32, it was then that Jordan Chambers came over. In other words, Chambers supported Hoover.

RESH; Could you tell me something about Chambers? I've run into his name several times.

GRANT: He was a very interesting man. He was unschooled; he didn't finish Sumner High School; he went to Sumner, but he never graduated. He was a natural organizer. He was of this odd brand it takes an odd brand of a human being to be a committeeman, a political committeeman. Just anybody can't fill that job. He was tops at it. A very wise man. A very firm man, and a farseeing fellow who had the respect of the en- tire political family of St. Louis, principally because he kept his word at all times. This is a thing on slating. In other words, if you promise a man you're going to support him in the primary, you make that promise to him and keep it, he knows it's going to be kept. This is one of the prime factors in political...

RESH: So Chambers had a lot of, I should say, political capital in the bank.

GRANT: He had political clout...political oomph. And he had a so- called independent organization which was really a Republican organization until the Dickman campaign of '33 when he threw the lot of the, I forget the name of it...they used to put out a paper and all...but he threw the lot of his Civic Improvement Association to the Democrats and that helped a whole lot in the election of the first Democratic mayor in twenty-four years when Dickman was elected in 1933. And now, bear in mind, that in 1920 there had been an eighty-seven million dollar bond issue which at that time would be almost the same as a billion dollar bond issue today for capital improvements. As you know, the only way that we can make capital improvements is through bond is- sues. I think it's all geared towards six percent, eight percent, now. Has to be some place where this money gets eight percent under our system. I don't see any reason why in the world a city shouldn't be permitted to put a reserve account for capital improvements rather than to have to issue bonds and pay somebody eight per cent of the money. But, neverthe- less, under our charter and our form, we cannot. This Board of Aldermen must balance the budget...in other words, provide no more money than is needed to pay the salaries to furnish the services which the city furnishes. There's no such thing as any money being put aside for capital improvements. Anyway, this bond issue had an item of two million dollars, a million dollars for hospitals. The understanding being that this was to be for a black hospital. You can't put that in a bond issue; it has to be unconditional in order for them to sell, but nevertheless, this was to furnish a black hospital. All of the improvements under that bond issue that bond issue that helped our zoo, it made the hospital for monkeys out at the zoo, and finally they rented this old...what had been Barnes, which had been Washington University Medical School which was then at Garrison and Lawton. And that was known as City Hospital Number Two. It never was intended to be a hospital; it's maximum capacity was 300 beds. And in 1933, they had better than 600 people, children and all, mixed in there. We went into that hospital; we couldn't take the people to the hospital, so we decided we'd take the hospital to the people. And McClullen, Swanson, a fellow named Dave Pace...all three of those are dead...and myself, and a photographer went into that hospital, strong-armed one morning about three o'clock, and we went through there and took pictures and pictures and pictures. Billy Swanson stopped at the desk and told the man not to touch the telephone to call the police or anything, and we went and we got these pictures. Then we bought three stereopticon slide machines. And we would take these pictures and show them at ward meetings. And I remember that McClullen used to say that the only thing he regretted since he was born in St. Louis after we got these pictures, he went out and got pictures of the hospital of the monkeys... the monkey hospital at the zoo...which was a beautiful thing. And he would show these, and his comment was...since he had to be born in St. Louis, he was just sorry that God didn't make him a monkey. So, if he got sick, he could get some decent hospital care. At any rate, the Democrats won in '33, much to the surprise of everybody, but they won. And, of course, Dickman immediately began the building, and meanwhile, you had federal funds coming in from Dicky's outfit and they built what I claimed is the biggest Jim Crow institution in the world...Homer Phillips Hospital. I may sound like I'm boasting, but I suggested that it be named "Homer Phillips." He was a lawyer. And Phillip's...main thing had been to prevent them from building a ward at City Hospital Number 1. Here is a case where you...even though you hated Jim Crow...you had to embrace it, because he saw no opportunity for the development of black doctors and he thought that the ward wing down there would merely be an experimental thing for the white doctors, and so he fought the thing, and finally Victor Miller who was mayor at that time, why, gracious, he was out of his head, but he made the statement that he "was so sick of, hearing where they were going to build this nigger hospital that as far as he was concerned he didn't give a damn if they built it in the middle of the Mississippi River." Now, this was said. In 1931, Woolworth's Dime Store was putting up a store they built in the 2600 block on the South side of the street of Franklin Avenue. They proposed to open that store without a single black clerk. It was then that we got this ad hoc group together which consisted of Judge Young who is now Nathan Young, myself, a fellow named Lionel Stevens, who's dead, N.A. Sweets, and one other fellow who's name I can't re- member. But we formed a committee called the "Neighborhood Improvement or some such thing. The St. Louis Argus printed fifty thousand handbills for us free with which we circularized the entire area. And then we picketed out there in front of that store and we kept an entry. Before doing this, we went to management and asked them to hire some black clerks, and they said they had black janitors in white stores, so why did we have a right to complain? And our answer was, you have — black janitors there because it's probably to your economic advantage. And we're gonna picket. Which we did. We maintained a picket out there and finally it was early summer... they put one black woman in the door- way selling ice cream cones. And finally we, the economic picket, which was the first economic picket in St. Louis, was successful, and they hired two or three clerks inside the store.

RESH: Where was this Woolworth's located?

GRANT: About 2620-22 Franklin Avenue...just-west of Jefferson. The building is still there; it's no longer a dime store, but the building is still there...just west of Jefferson on the south side of Franklin, east of Franklin Avenue, really.

RESH: Were you harassed in any way when you were picketing?

GRANT: Yes. The pickets were arrested. They were suspected of being Communists. Chambers would come and sign the bonds, and I would represent them in court. They were not convicted. The Communists came to my office at that time, and I guess they figured I was fodder for their mill and all...nevertheless, there were arrests made, but we continued our picket and we kept it going. I remember we had three pickets a day, each walking four hours. The store was open for twelve hours, I believe; I'm not too sure about this. But I remember we paid them four dollars a week apiece. And we got to the point where we couldn't pay them because the doctors who had agreed to underwrite it...the professional men in the People's Finance Building where my office was... had agreed to pay or give a dollar a week. It got so I couldn't collect it, and it ended up...one fellow was about my size, and I ended up paying him by giving him all the wearing apparel that I could possibly afford. I remember Bob (Owens)...Bob's a lawyer... he's still now out at the...he's very old, but he's out at the Tom Powell Post. __

RESH: Would that be Witherspoon?

GRANT: No, no, no, not Witherspooon. Witherspoon and I were classmates. This was Robert Owens; he doesn't practice and hasn't practiced in years, but he's at the Tom Powell Post. He remembers all about this. Well, following the success of that, the Colored Clerks' Circle which was organized by Frank Jones...and I was counsel for it at the very beginning...began then to attack all the stores up and down Easton Avenue and then later they branched out.

RESH: This would have been, say, '32?

GRANT: Around '32, '33, when the Colored Clerks' Circle formed, but it formed after our picket on the dime store.

RESH: Could you tell me something about Frank Jones?

GRANT: Frank Jones' mother was a lawyer in Chicago. Frank has since died...died at a rather young age. He was a youngster. I don't know bat Frank was doing then; he later was a liquor salesman. He had a good foundation, good training, and he was a good leader of the Colored Clerks' Circle. They were quite successful in their efforts at opening employment opportunities in the stores in the black ghettos that were operating without any black help, usually family stores. I remember when they attacked Aronson's. It was down on Whittier, near Whittier and Easton, down on Blair and Easton. And the Judge Aronson was a brother or something of the people that owned it; he called me over to his chambers and almost ordered me to see that the pickets were called off. Of course, I wouldn't be ordered, and I told him that I couldn't do that and so forth, and I guess...Judge Aronson died. Well, he was a good judge, but there were times when I felt he was shoving me a little bit because of that effort. Now in 1933, after Dickman became Mayor, we had several sweat shops here, particularly the Funston Nut Picking Plant out on Delmar where the Communists got in and took the workers out and they had signs, "I earned $1.87," when the truth was that they had nothing but marginal help, old women. It was a social place; they did piece work. They'd go and get twenty-five pounds of nuts, pick them out...they were already cracked...pick out the meats and save the shells and turn them in. They got so much for that. They could take them home even and do it, and the result was that some of them did make $1.87 a week, but the best workers, but the best workers, most of the best workers would make around eight dollars. And Lashley represented the Funston people. Dickman became much concerned about it, and a fellow named Parker who's since died. I was then in the City Counselor's Office. I had replaced Mr. Hill at $3,000 per year, and we, together with Rabbi Isserman, John dark of the Urban League, had a committee to try to settle this thing, and I forget how we got it settled, but I know this that after that, we got the nut picking thing squared away, I went to the Mayor and I said to him, "Mr. Mayor, many of the sweat shops that I know about," ...we had quite a pickle-packing industry down on the levee, and we had a rag picking industry. This fellow, Parker, was a little black lawyer who had total rapport with the women that was working these things, these old women. So, I suggested to him that he appoint Parker as a building inspector...Parker knew nothing about buildings, but this would give him an opportunity to get in to see the conditions. I said, "If he finds another potential Funston nut picking outfit, you, Mr. Mayor, can call in the owner of that business and tell him he'd better straighten up, because he was possibly the next target." And this was rather successful, because those were touch-and-go days where you had food demonstrations; people who were hungry and the Communists were exploiting the hell out of this business. And so we did that. Then, of course, along tame the Gaines case which was the primary and the preliminary...the first...case that eventually led to the decision in Brown vs. the Board of Education in Topeka. The decision was in favor of Gaines, and we used that. At that time I was the legal redress committee of the NAACP. And I went, well, I was called in various places in the state...Louisiana, Missouri. Then in '39 when they opened this Jim Crow law school, I went out there to picket it and was promptly arrested. Not charged with anything. I was ~————— charged with impeding traffic and there was quite a story. If you get the old St. Louis Call, they had a picture in there, and it was amusing, because I later learned that the police were told "just call him 'boy' and he'll give you plenty of reason to lock him up," which they did, and I gave them reason. They told me to follow them in my car up to the Deer Street Station and I said, "I don't get arrested in my own automobile. If you want to arrest me, you arrest me in your automobile." They were foot police, and they called them the "Black Maria" I'll never forget, as it was coming I was talking to one of them, and a fellow named Wilson came by and said, "Dave, what's this all about?" I said, "Oh, it isn't anything. When we get up to the station, there'll be somebody there with some sense." And the cop said, "You calling me, you saying I ain't got no sense?" "I didn't say a word to you. Officer," I said, "You can do this for me; call the Mayor's office." I had an appointment with John Sullivan in the Mayor's office..."! had an appointment with John Sullivan in the Mayor's office for eleven o'clock; tell him I'll be a little late." Well, when he...when the other cop came back after the Black Mafaia came and got in it, he got in there, I'll never forget it, and he sat near me and he said, "You don't like policemen , do you?" And I could tell he was getting ready to slug me, and the other cop who had heard me tell Wilson to call the Mayor's office, said to me, "I don't care if you do know the Mayor." He was telling his buddy, "You better not hit him. I don't know what we got here." When I got to the station, of course, it was a traffic offense, if anything, and the guy said, "Will you take a ticket?" I said, "They never offered me a ticket; of course, I'll take a ticket." He asked for my driver's license...I didn't have it, really, I didn't even have it. I said, "It's in the glove compartment of my car," I said, "I don't have it with me." I had it at home. Sweets was up then at the American and he said, "Well, come on, we'll take you back where you can get it." And I said, "Am I under arrest?" They said, "No." "Well," I said, "I don't want to ride in your automobile through the streets in a police car; people will think I'm under arrest." So Sweets said, "I'll take you." So I said, "I'll meet you there." I left those cops hanging around there until three o'clock. I went home and got my driver's license, rushed in, jumped in, and made out like I was getting it out x»f the glove compartment. They talked to me. They said, "You just dirtied your car." Anyhow, following that, of course, I was in the City Counselor's Office until January 1, 1941, when Tom Hennings was elected Circuit Attorney. We had not had a black Circuit Attorney since a man named Jones who had been appointed by Howard Stagner in the early twenties. And Hennings appointed me. I was the first black Democrat and the first black in sixteen years to go into the Circuit Attorney's Office. I stayed there until I was fired, not by Hennings, but by Henry G. Morris. The Sikeston lynching occurred in February or March of 1942, and the _ ___ NAACP appointed a committee to wait on the governor to ask him to de- clare martial law based upon the fact that the prosecuting attorney of Sikeston, of that county was a guy named David Blanton of the Blanton's. His father ran a paper called the Pole Cat Column. They were racists. And Harry Blanton was the district attorney here and Henry G. Morris had first been appointed Assistant U.S. District Attorney before he came over, and he remained acting Circuit Attorney when Tom Hennings went to the Navy. I went in to tell Henry that I was going to Jefferson City with this committee when I was going, and we had an awful row there. All of his sarcasms, "Are you so great that it can't succeed ~ without you? Why do you have to go?" And so forth and so on. And finally, we harangued for the better part of an hour. A fellow named Clyde Snyder who was his first assistant, who is still living and still practicing, a very nice guy—finally I said, "Well, Henry, if you'll just tell me that if I insist upon going when I get back to hand in my resignation, then I'll have something to say." At that point, Clyde said, "Dave, you're real subjective about this, step out." I stepped out and I came back and I had made my mind up that if he said, "Well, that's the way it is," I was going to tell him, "Well, I'll give it to you before I go. And I'll tell you this much, if you ever expect to stick your head up for any elective office where the black people can stop you, I'll see to it that you're stopped." But he didn't say that, he didn't say you can and he didn't say you can't, and so, of course, I went in his total disfavor, and when I got back, the mayor that year asked for my resignation. And I asked him to put it in writing...the reasons...which he had none...and then later, if you read the papers, I made a statement that the choice between the respect of 70,000 or what- ever the number of Negroes were, and a $4,000 job was not hard to make. And to my great surprise, my first month out in private practice, I made nearly $800, and I later had the opportunity in front of Tom Hennings, after he came back, with Henry Morris there to say, "Henry thinks I have animosity against him, but he's my greatest benefactor, because I didn't know what was out there, and I had become wage addicted. When I was thrown out, I had to get out into the practice and I have Henry to thank for opening the door to my freedom and liberty and also to my economic advantage." Well, that was in '42. That was the time when you first had your first sit-ins.

RESH: I think this would be a good place to change the tape.]

GRANT: The sit-ins began with a group of women, some of whom had sons in the Army, and it was an integrated group, they had some white women with them. And what happened first was that they would go down there and sit at the counters and they wouldn't serve the black women. The white women would order and then give their orders to the black women. So then, they closed the place up; they took the seats up off of the stools. This went on and finally they threatened them with trespass...with arrest for trespassing. At that time Sidney Redmond who, I thought, had done a yoeman's job in the Gaines case...but Sidney is more or less conservative...and Henry Wheeler was leading them at that time we had the March on Washington...but we did not initiate that, this was...

RESH: As I remember from reading, this was the Citizens' Civil Rights Committee?

GRANT: That's so...some name...

RESH: Henry Wheeler and Mrs. Pear Maddox...

GRANT: Maddox, that's right. Now what happened...when they threatened them with arrest for...as trespassers...they came up to Sidney Redmond and asked him whether or not they could be arrested for trespassing. And he told them that they could and that they oughtn't go back down there. Then, like people do, they went to another lawyer. They came to see me. I happened to know that in Missouri, we had a...there was a rule that there can be no trespass on a public place in the absence of damage. Now this doesn't mean necessarily physical damage, it's damage if I go in and begin to use a lot of violent, profane language. But you cannot commit a trespass on a place that is a public place that invites you to come in, you're an invitee. And so I told them that I didn't think they could make a trespass case against them, but I said the finest thing that I think could happen, and I don't believe any of those stores would be stupid enough to call the police wagon and lock up you fine women. It would be the best thing in the world to happen to your cause, because it would hit the newspapers, and I don't think the stores would dare risk the economic thing that would happen to them if they had a bunch of women like you locked up. So I tell you keep on going, go ahead down there. I'll represent you, and I don't believe you'll be arrested. It was fol- lowing this advice that I was proposed for president of the local branch. I had not been attending meetings, and I told them that I would accept it if elected, but I wouldn't campaign for it, because I had...! have... great respect for Sidney Redmond and thought he'd done a yoeman job and So forth, although I knew that Sidney's views were far different from mine.

The March on Washington was a direct action organization while the NAACP was the court outfit. During this period, McNeal may have told you that we were having this Wendell Pruitt Day and... RESH: He didn't tell us about that particular incident.

GRANT: Well, they brought Burnaise here, the great public relations man from New York. And Burnaise met with Ted and told him...maybe Ted told you this...in a city like St. Louis, there will be twelve people who'll do the thinking for the city establishment. And out of those twelve, there'll be three who do the thinking for that twelve. And the three were the ones he wanted to get to. I remember this. At any rate, we were...we had...threatened to picket on the Wendell Pruitt Day, this great war hero. And we were going to picket that he's a great hero but he can't get a sandwich in this joint. He can't eat, he can't get a glass of water in here. And, of course, they wanted to avoid that, and there was a meeting...the Human Relations Council had been formed by that time by Doug Becker, I guess, or Judge Kaufmann.

RESH: Yes, Becker had the idea and then he was killed. Then Kaufmann implemented it.

GRANT: Mack said to me it would be a good thing if I would take the presidency with him as president of the March on Washington, which we ad operated together, that I would be head of the NAACP and he'd be head of the March on Washington, we probably could do some good. Prob- ably the most significant thing at that time.. incidentally, the Communists were definitely trying to infiltrate the NAACP, there-, no ,question in my mind about it. And I was not Communists hostile until they completely changed their line after Germany invaded Poland and crossed the Polish border, then they said, "Don't do anything to impede the war effort." And this woke me upon them absolutely. And I said...the sense of what I said...-as that this is a bunch of phony bastards who are busy trying to use us. They campaigned against our picketing the small arms plant, you know. They put handbills out that it was a mistake and so forth. At any rate. we. of course, picketed the small arms...you know the story on that. At the time we went to personnel...they had this big office on Olive Street where they had approved some five thousand blacks, but hadn't, put a damn. In. And I remember at the meeting, McNeal and I had a device when we were talking with management where one of us would get mad and stor. Out and then the other one would try to placate him after he left. Then, of course, the guy would tell the remaining whatever in the hell that It was we really wanted to lean. I remember at this meeting with the head personnel who was fro. Great Britain.. .they didn't have a single Negro woman in the plant. They had three hundred blacks, all material handlers, porters, laborers...out of twenty-five thousand employees. He had met with the Chamber of Commerce, the head of whom was also killed in that plane, and he had made the damn fool statement that infuriated me...that we had nothing to worry about because they were then scraping the bottom of the barrel for white employees, and after that bottom got thoroughly scraped, they'd have to hire the black people. And this to him was okay. And I remember Bean Sweet was at that meeting, and I said to Dean, "This Is this white boy's attitude." At any rate, I think the best contribution that I made was the initiation of the Washington University Law Suit that resulted really in the desegregation of that school. As you know, maybe you don't know, Washington University was incorporated in 1853 as the Eliot Seminary. At that time, all corporate bodies received their certificate of incorporation by act of the legislature. They were given their corporate charter on the grounds that they would furnish education, and this was in 1853, and they amended their charter a year later to become the Washington University. Now they got tax exemptions on the basis that they were going to furnish a function of education, of public education, that the state otherwise would have to do. When Missouri adopted its constitution of 1875, it had a section in there that no school could be tax exempt unless it was operated by the state or a political sub-division of the state. And Washington University litigated that to the Supreme Court where it was held that that was impairing the obligations of the existing contract and that hence they enjoyed tax exemption ever since. They got to the point where they had property, off-campus property in St. Louis. Property worth nearly six million dollars. And they were getting more and more. And every time the state, the tax collector, the assessor would issue assessments to the tax collector and he'd go over, Washington University would go in for an injunction or a restraining order, and they would get it on the basis of this law suit. In 1945, we adopted a change in our civil code, the procedure which permitted any person to intervene in the suit of another if he would be effected by that suit, or if he had a common question of law involved. So when the tax collector...when Washington University brought the suit to restrain the tax collector from attempting to collect his taxes, we first came down. I came down to Sidney Redmond and George Stemmler was City Counselor, and I suggested to Sidney that they raise the point that Washington University was not providing public education in as much as they barred not all black people, because they had Indians out there...they had people from India...only black Americans were barred. I said, "Why, let's make the city raise it." He said, "Dave, I don't think they'll do it." I came and talked to Stemmler and asked him to raise it, and he refused. So, then, we brought the Washington University Law Suit. I can give you the number of it, if you want it, in which we sought to intervene as party plaintiffs in that suit on the grounds that they were a public institution...only on tax collection day...but three hundred sixty-four days out of the year, they were private. The Washington University Case is number 86852-C.

RESH: Would you repeat that again?

GRANT: 86852-C. It was brought in 1945. We had quite a few conferences and so forth. George Vaughn, Witherspoon and I were the attorneys. I remember at the hearing on our application to be permitted to intervene, Judge Connors who was sitting in equity asked me whether or not I believed that he had the authority to order them to admit black students. My answer was, "You do not have that authority, but you do have the authority, I believe, to declare that the school is not providing public education...that it is a private school, and that they should pay their taxes. And if they are willing to pay their taxes, which amount to five hundred dollars per calendar day on their off-campus property, if they want to pay that to enjoy their racist policy, then there's nothing we can do about it. But if they can refuse me because I have black skin, they can refuse you because you have blond hair or because you have green eyes, or any other feature that's arbitrary and so forth. Now that suit...what happened was the following: we were granted permission to intervene. The suit lay fallow; it was in a meeting before the board of...what are they called? The thing that...

RESH: The trustees?

GRANT: The trustees and the city. And they agreed 1) that they would not take any more property that was deeded by living persons and the property that was left to them by will, they would divest themselves of the title as soon as they could, and they would sell it. In other words, that they would not get...because at that time Washington University could have gotten all the property in St. Louis. We would have nothing as a tax base, and there was, as I was telling you, better than six million dol- lars then that was off-campus property that, of course, they said they needed to maintain themselves. So, first they agreed...this was agreed between the city officials, too, then they opened the social workers' school, I believe. And then in 1949 after George Warren who, of course, was the lawyer in Shelly vs. Reamer that knocked out restrictive cove- nants, his son was admitted to the law school. Then they eventually let down all the doors. Meanwhile, this suit was lying fallow from 1945 to 1952, seven years. It was never tried. You can see the file over there, and you'll find that Judge Aronson finally decided...dismissed our petition on the ground that it sounded in quo warranto...quo warranto is "by what warrant," in other words, this is when the...this is used to test the right of a corporation to exist or an office-holder to hold office, by what warrant do you precede. And en quo warranto proceedings cannot be brought by a private citizen. It has to be brought either by an attorney general or the prosecuting attorney, the circuit attorney, and he held that since our petition sounded en quo warranto, we...it could not be maintained, and he dismissed it. And I went over and filed a memorandum in which I stated that since all of the objects sought to be obtained by the petitioners had been obtained, the petitioners would not appeal the ruling dismissing their petition. I had to drop that in, and you can in that in the file, and you can find a very interesting petition which sets out to...of course, we were basing it upon the fact that black taxes had to make up...were increased by the forgiveness to the school. And that hence we were supporting something that we could not use. And so that was the story on there. Now, I have a record of arrests, police arrests that is, oh, pos- sibly ten or twelve. From the time I first started, I had to go down on the levee where the black Democrats were. They were all running boots joints and bet houses and crap games. They weren't coming out on Enright where I lived, so I had to go down there. And quite often I would go down there dressed down; the first time the cops came in the place, I told one of them, "I'm a lawyer." I remember he said to me, "I don't care what you are; you're a black son-of-a-bitch as far as I'm concerned." So I said, "Well, I won't make that mistake again." Ended up locked up, but what they'd always do when I'd get to the booking thing, they'd say, "What do you do for a living?" I said, "I'm a lawyer." Then they'd call in one of the black policemen off the street to see if I was who I said I was. Then he'd precede to tell me what a good cop this was and please don't make a complaint. But if made a complaint every time. And at that time, they had to write out their reports in long hand, and many of them couldn't construct a grammatical sentence, and it got to be a laugh that they were making out a Dave Grant report. I remember one occasion I was in Carl Glass' place down on the levee and a cop came in and said, "All you black son-of-a-bitches line up against the wall." So, I didn't move, so he came over to me and said, "Did you hear what I said?" I said, "I heard you say something to black son-of-a-bitches; you weren't talking to me." "Oh," he said, "you're a smart black son-of-a-bitch?" And I ended up locked up. And the only thing I used to get frightened about was being slugged on the way up, but I never was. Maybe because I talked my way out of it and, maybe, it was because of the general manner I had that they were maybe a little frightened. But the funny thing would be that whenever I got put in the cell with two or three of the other fel- lows, these three blacks would criticize me. "Mr. Grant, why don't you tell them people who you were?" And I would say, "Don't you see I'm try- ing to help you, the only reason I..." "I think you're crazy not to tell them who you were. You don't need to be locked up." That was, this was their attitude, you see.

RESH: I have one more question, and then I'll let you go. This question deals with the Interracial Committee which was formally set up by Mayor Kaufmann in August of 1943. It was set up because earlier in 1943 in June and very early August of 1943, Detroit, and then Harlem, were the scenes of very, very ugly riots, and so St. Louis sought to avoid riots, and one of the purposes of this committee was to establish...really for the first time, apparently...some sort of bridge, racial bridge, in the community. How effective was it? I've read some of the records, many times apparently the full complement of the membership did not meet; it was a huge member- ship.

GRANT: I think it was very ineffective. I remember the strong man was the head of St. Louis Car Company..

. RESH: Edward Meisner.

GRANT: Meisner, Meisner. He was a character. He was a real character of a fellow. He tried hard, but those of us like McNeal and myself certainly looked upon it as another white man's device to throw oil on the water of discontent that was beginning to stir in the breasts of black people. It was ineffective. It met and things were discussed, but really ' it was a toothless sort of outfit without power. And as I said. Mack and I viewed it as just a great waste of time, and it really was never in- tended to hit the guts of this problem.

RESH: It had almost no budget apparently.

GRANT: That's right. Now, I may say to you. Dr. Resh, if you're in- terested, I don't believe that the race situation in America...and this is a great country, I love this country...and it's the people who have screwed it up. There shouldn't be any such thing as poverty in this great land of plenty. And the race thing is not going to be solved by laws. It's not going to be solved by the Department of Justice. It's only going to be solved, in my view, by attrition. In other words, I'm sixty-seven years old, and I believe that every white person with very, very rare exceptions, doesn't guess about it...doesn't theorize about it ...but he knows that this is a white man's country, and any non-white should be...is...here by his sufferance, by his leave, by his goodness, and should be happy at any crumb that drops off of the feast table his way. When you begin to examine that, you find first of all, blacks were first permanently introduced to this country at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619...which was a year before the Mayflower came. The racial mixing which flourished in the South through the slave owners taking the maiden heads of their young black slave women, happy at the increase, because that increased their wealth and so forth...that we, in the northern areas, blacks simply have inter-bred basically with their own. So aside from the mis-named American Indian, I think they call him this because Columbus thought he'd discovered India when he got here, so he said these are Indians. But the natives of this country that we call the Indians are the most indigenous people to this ssil. Next to the Indians is the blacks. You never had any mass immigration from black Africa. They were brought over as slaves. Now, I don't believe that...with rare exceptions...that white parents ever set down at their table to teach their children to hate blacks. That's more prevalent today in hanging signs on these little five and six year old girls, "I don't want to go to school with niggers. don't want this," than I think it's ever been before. But they did have, because of the race labeling of crime news that is white, conversation; there would be some discussion about a horrible raping by some black of some white woman or a murder, or any crime news. Very little of the good that blacks had done would be carried and, if so, it was back in the back pages and not discussed at the table. Now, this naturally would give a child, subliminally, he would get at this impressive age, the view that these are inferior people, and they're bad people. They're people that have to be kept in subjection, you see. Now, the worst of it...what did I get at my dinner table? There would be a recounting of some horrible lynching. I distinctly remember the discussion at the dinner table of a lynching that occurred in Val- dosta, Georgia, in 1919, where a black woman because she would not tell the mob where her husband was whom they were seeking, was taken out; she was eight months pregnant...she was taken out, lynched, her belly cut open and the baby's brains beat out...at Valdosta, Georgia. Now this would be discussed, or it might be discussed how some black didn't get a job although much better qualified, or didn't get promoted, al- though much better qualified. And, subliminally, I got the idea that ~- this white man is my enemy, and he is in my way, and he doesn't want to see me succeed. And I'm gonna have to fight him every step of the way. Now, today, while you still have some of it...but a hell of a lot of these kids on the campus, black and white, male and female, will walk on now...they don't give a damn who sleeps with who. A white man in my generation almost becomes apoplectic and all of them believe...and when I say "all" I mean practically all...that Negroes are sexual giants. Once a white woman has a Negro man, she never wants... you know, Gunnar Myrdal's American Dilemma practically concludes by say- ing that it's basically a case of sexual jealousy. So, when I say that he white man knows this is a white man's country, and I would say that ninety per cent of the blacks of my generation have been brainwashed into believing it. So, hence, there's got to be a lot of dying, natural dying...I don't mean killing. I think the Watts Riot was a wonderful thing, but most of those that have followed it, I think, are totally wrong...unnecessary. I think they are more or less inspired by the fact that here's a chance to plunder something with no risk...to steal. I was in Detroit at the riot there some two or three years ago and there, the papers called them riots; they aren't riots, they're merely vandalism. You don't riot against a building, against property, you riot against people. And, hell, I saw whites and blacks jumping in and out of window: Nobody knows. Whites and blacks weren't fighting each other...unless they were police. So, I think that maybe it'll take three full generations...maybe four...before this question of race will be solved and people will look back and say, "What was all the shouting about?" I remember Bishop Jones...is that his name? He's a Methodist traveling white preacher. He gave a talk down at the Statler Hotel, and Judge Russell insisted that I go. Judge Russell...who recently committed suicide. I went with him, and I remember this...I'11 think of his name in a minute... T. something Jones...he said, "Usually after I make a talk like this, some of my white friends will take me aside and say, 'But, doctor, aren't you preaching racial amalgamation?'" He said, "So that none of you will have to do that, of course, I'm preaching that. It's in- evitable...it's coming. Three hundred years is an awful long time," he said. "You white people have nothing to fear. You'll end up one- tenth darker, but more musical and much better humored."

RESH: Mr. Grant, as a historian, I've always believed that history is people, and I want to thank you very much for sharing your reminis- cences with us this morning and if, in this three or four generations, as you predict, there will be somewhat of an easing into a period of greater racial tranquility in this country, it will be because of the efforts of people like yourself who fought a very good fight when many others were afraid to, or indifferent to it. So, thank you, again, sir.

GRANT: Perhaps I ought to add this. I was elected in 1956 as a member of the Board of Freeholders to rewrite the charter. George Stemmler vss the chairman. Thirteen members, freeholders; they made me chairman of the committee on legislation, because one of the main things was to cut down the size of this board which needed cutting down. A man named Major Einstein...Major being a name and not a title...he was one of the first vice-presidents of National Bank...and I were on this committee. The committees were five in number. We saw right away that if we could get together, if we never got at loggerheads, we could get whatever pro- gram we wanted through. We agreed. I was taken ill. I had a serious operation and during my period of convalesence, he came down, and we agreed to bring in a file which would cut the board to 19 .aembers... 14 to be elected from two ward areas... there being 28 wards...4 to be elected at large. I was able to sell this to Chambers and Weathers who were the only two black committeemen. Democratic committeemen, at that time. And, frankly, it was a political effort. I told Einstein there was one thing I wouldn't agree to, because we would put the wards together, and I wouldn't agree to put the 18th and 19th wards together. And he said, "Why?" And I said, "Because those are the only two wards that have black committeemen, and I will not put them at each other's throats." The truth is that, politically, no committeeman dare go into another committeeman's ward, you know that. But this would give Chambers the opportunity to organize his 5th ward...his aldermanic thing...and Fred Weathers...we were gonna put him with the 26th ward. A month before we were to adjourn, after this had been accepted, gone to the final draft committee and everything else. Major Einstein arose, without asking me to call a committee meeting, and moved that this file be come back...be brought back...and be substituted by what he called "seven, seven, and one." Which I called "eight-seven." That would be electing one from four ward areas, seven at large, and a president. Now, this I opposed, and this I said would sink the charter, and it did sink ill. Because all of the rest of the file was geared toward majority ac- tion in the board on recommendation of the mayor. They brought one file in there where, on recommendation of the mayor, the board could pass an ordinance to buy the streetcar company without a vote of the people. In other words, this provided for the election of eight-four at each two years at large. And I saw...in other words, I took the position that I didn't care about a captive mayor, and I didn't say Tucker was captive, but a captive mayor or captive official...the people are not nearly as in danger as if you have a captive legislative body. When you've got a captive legislative body, the people are in trouble. And I saw this. I called it a "Continental Mark Four." Eight-seven, eight to be elected at large. I could see the burghers getting four people; TV, radio...which you don't use in a ward election. In other words, aldermen out here will spend maybe $2500 - $3000 to get elected. To get elected city-wide, you've got to begin with $75,000, you see. So, we opposed the damn thing, and it was beaten, as you know. I refused to sign the final draft. It was funny; we were all supposed to sign it...although I looked up the law and found out that it only took seven...a majority...to sign it to put it up to the people. And so they were busy; they had twenty or thirty of them that had to sign. And they said, "Oh, Dave, we've been waiting for you to sign." I said, "I'm not gonna sign it." "You're not gonna sign it?" "No, we didn't write it. it's a ghost written thing, and I'm not gonna sign anything I didn't write." And I didn't sign the damn thing. I had told my wife when I had talked with her...there's no pay, you know, and Chambers had called me out and told me he wanted to run me, and I ran fourth in a field of forty some odd, and he said, "I think you can be elected." And I said, "Well, Jordan, I just can't give it the time." He says, "Why?" "Well," I said, "I got two kids I got late in life; I've got to educate them. I'just don't have that kind of time." He said, "All those reasons are personal, aren't they?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Well, this one's got to pass your personal consideration; this is what you owe the people." He said, "You tell me somebody who knows as much about municipal govern- ment as you know, and who'll stand up like you'll stand up, and I'll let you off the hook." And I said, "Well, Jordan, I'll have to admit I'm the best qualified." I said, "But let me go and talk with my wife about it." So I went and talked with Mildred, and she said, "Dave, why get into something that you're gonna end up in a big controversy?" And I said, "This won't be controversial," I said, "I don't have a lot of money, you know that," I said, "I'll leave my children a legacy of their daddy's name on a charter. We'll write a charter that will last maybe a hundred years or more." And I forgot all about that. When that time came, I called Mildred. I said, "I don't care. They want me to sign that damn charter, and I'm not gonna sign it." She says, "What happened to the legacy?" So, thank you for what you said.

RESH: Thank you very much, Mr. Grant.

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