Dole Institute of Politics - Voices from the Big First, Part 1

what was on the minds of kansans in the nineteen sixties i'm kate mcintyre and today on keep your prisons voices from the big first nineteen sixty one to nineteen sixty eight that's the newest exhibit that the dole institute of politics at the university of kansas i'm joined by kansas historian virgil dean an associate director of the dole institute of politics of recall many great to see you both good to see you can first things first we're doing this interview face to face which is a rarity for us nowadays but i want to assure listeners that although we are face to face we're face to face from quite a ways apart from each other and are infertile are about nine feet apart i'm probably twelve feet apart from either one of them i disinfectant all of our equipment so we are doing our best to keep this as safe as possible in keeping with npr as the best practices with that sad voices from the big first nineteen sixty one to nineteen sixty eight with the idea for this exhibit well you know we're working with archive's in the papers here at the ball institute

and hours being a relatively new so to speak historical collection meaning that there hasn't been a whole lot of scholarship done even though the papers have been open for about ten years or more we can see our whole host of subjects that we would really love to know more about what their souls and also think that you know scholars might be interested in and really trying to cultivate awareness of our collections so the nineteen sixties kind of beginning of the beginning of dole's career in the us congress so we thought it would be nice to frame but those years but when you know after his election in nineteen sixty three and after his election to the senate in nineteen sixty eight and up and another nice manageable timeframe and also us as we talk about the crossroads of of change in the twentieth century and lots of different types of cultural social a political things going on during our time and have won for many years said to tell the story and

to get some help telling that story in and vergil was kind enough to lend us his expertise and then looking into it field of energy that that itself in just a minute but i want to draw attention to the name of it it's entitled voices from the big first but in fact in nineteen sixty one bob dole was elected to the us six kansas congressional district not the first explain how that happened and how the big first became the big first that's right very perceptive we cannot while little bit in the title it'll have a lot of false information that unintentionally create a licensing deal that's that's better but your idea when dole was elected bob dole was elected to congress for the first time and it was in nineteen sixty five he was running to replace our wordsmith it represented from the sixth congressional district which was basically north central in northwestern

kansas at that time a democrat how floyd reading was represented from the southwest about half the have the stadium and in the southwestern part of the state so adorable won that election and that then into just two years later he had run against incumbent from the fifth district to know when he has to continue his service no one of his close elections although he won unfairly unlit but in the interim by the nineteen sixty census occurred and as a result kansas lost a congressional district went from six to five and up the redistricting that took place essentially divided the state in half in syria have something similar to what we have today although the eastern boundary of the big first is not nearly as straight as it was then i even then i went back into the street part a little bit for this

city's term central portal bit further but fifty eight of the hundred and five candidates were combined into the first congressional district and so our i guess to defend the head the title that it's what what became the first big first and that it's so representative the voices from throughout that region that area and so we go from the southwest to the northwest in that is far east is so mind in that area and coastal and hutchison on the eastern side of the big first it's hard to imagine now that at that time bob dole would have then the new kid on the block in washington dc can unite us who else was representing kansas at the time the outcome though is a thirty eight he came of course opt out of just was leading as rose district attorney in the county attorney and russell can and debt

so he was so sparingly and relatively and all of his experience with his military service in a short time the legislature in anderson county attorney was significant but that elsewhere in kansas as i mentioned before floyd reading was a democratic representative from the southwestern part of the state and we have been the home robert bales worth i'm not sure i can name omar right offhand the other four through for her representatives senatorial a window was first elected him to sample i was in the senate along with the frank carlson he and several died in early nineteen sixty one and early nineteen sixty two and jim pierson was appointed and then subsequently elected to that position so throughout most of dole's time in the house almost all of that

he was working with in this on the senate side was frank carlson from a concordia parish and jim pearce i'm from johnson kinney and so there was those relationships there gubernatorial in kansas you have a giant his sermon will we may britt delivery and the course then the docking years began during that time about what's happening politically on the national scale of course kansas's favorite son president eisenhower was just finishing up his term and die young he was elected right as an hour of finishes second term in in nineteen sixty and so didn't run his vice president richard nixon of course are sought the nomination receive the nomination and then ran against john f kennedy and they're so when kenny one in sixty three close election he started

along well the decade before that with a democratic majority in both the house and the senate in washington and that that would continue throughout that period democratic party controlled the congress to rout goals entire time in the year the legislature and he was working with two were dominant figures and in the white house with kennedy and then of course johnson after the kennedy assassination so i had the door position of being a very conservative republican in a minority party certainly on the right of his party which was that time a fairly diverse was a different time when we head a conservative and moderate to liberal republicans in the same in the democratic party can that but the republicans were in an image stake minority during most of that period or service in the

in the house was he had when in the senate things start to change a little bit after the johnson years but they would continue the democratic dominated for quite a number of years so he was a player are we learning how to maneuver in the congress in a minority position under to korea active and prominent democratic presidential characters question might be easy day or heart take a cancer in hindsight but looking back at those very early days in nineteen sixty one was there a sense that all was going to be it a person to be reckoned with on a national level or coming in as a freshman congressman was that you know he's just one of hundreds well yeah i think that's one of the things that i learned from this project not that it in a lot from the research but so one of the things i learned about goal was the fact that he had no intention

of being a wallflower even from the very beginning and so he quickly made himself known a threat but his district are of kansas and in washington dc so before their long people were talking about when he was gaining for a variety of reasons some national press and there he enjoyed that i think was quite a bit and work hard to make sure that continues numbers so from the very beginning i think he he was going to say was he was a minority in the minority so he had to struggle to make make his voice heard in that way or to have much impact on legislation and initially he was he became quickly known as somebody who is opposing everything the slimy journal called him via kansas against your bow was one of the charges that they applied to him fairly early on and he had some press criticism from the western part of the state route is attracting you're in here forty four terms in

congress up to me from the sheriff's newspapers in the west texas and so on at hand a great band at that time were all papers that were pre match moderate to to little little left of center republican because they're in kansas but that for the most part they were reflecting a very moderate position in the us we're on the outer door when he wasn't at the shy away from battles with the with those newspapers even the hudson hutchison paper i think i know when it started it was in sixty one and sixty two i think he talked about the hutchison news is the prophet of the purr so harper it probably was so those kinds of battles i think attracted a lot of attention and but it was i think even those opposition papers realize before too long that door had a good chance of making a name for himself and moving on and certainly after he won re election

in nineteen sixty two which was by no means a a sure thing running against the democratic incumbent from the southwest of people recognize that this is it this is that this can be around for quite a while and i think started looking for you know what's next for bob dole as bob dole that it at least as early as nineteen sixty six had his eye on her senate run and things work out for him perfectly and sixty eight when frank carlson decided to retire and he was ready by that time two to move on to a lot to the approaching they do you describe him as being sort of ready to go from they get go because the goal has pretty famously said when he first thought about going into politics that he didn't know if he would be a republican or democrat and you went back and looked at russell county and it was a republican counties so by george i'm gonna be a republican so you didn't get a sense of that like

this is the man who started out with a really strong but the course when he was elected to the legislature he was a republican by the time and he was republican is this county attorney russell cary but i think that europe that points out a to some extent pragmatism and so to go was certainly solicitous of his constituents paid attention to what they wanted and quickly became i mean certainly from the beginning of his congressional career he was a very partisan republican and that although he and i think foster the relationship with eisenhower to a certain extent but they were very different republicans and condolences to you but yeah it is partisanship comes early on one of the things he tried to do the very first year was to become involved in something that we don't cover in the exhibit but i found an uninteresting a republican war organization ideas she did say are

or team of congressmen called the paul revere they organize what they call paul revere panel which is to call attention to go up throughout the country in groups of three and to call attention to the socialist the policies of the democratic administrations so answer that that started as far as i can tell and sixty one bowl asked to be involved in that i think he didn't get a position but he was he was supposed to he hosted a group became the western kansas and in two years in nineteen sixty three when they started up again it was a member of that so as that an interesting effort to you know be an indication that he want to be involved in republican party politics in their eyes he is inactive very active way from the very earliest point i would also add you know and then in the mid sixties and there's a real

effort by him to distinguish himself not in congress but also it beat i'm philosophically i guess when the twenty ten it becomes a goldwater supporter and nineteen sixty four he actually introduces barry goldwater are on the stage it might madison square garden is the one who you know is really ready to not just be against something you know begins democratic policies but try to find some kind of thing to what are we for liberty individualism and things like that and so trying to define himself a sign of that as a choice not an echo as a goldwater rodin any echo that same court and an inside you know in his own writings in that in the archives in nineteen sixty five and not for this project but for some research we did a few years ago the course after we start sending combat troops and i said to vietnam army bowl goes on a while listening tour on on college campuses they're out that october november a six college campuses including kay you for today's some of the other schools and he gets

a lot of attention now within the republican party for this really hands on type of the news centered our reach i am so i think he is just really you know apart from you know that the that the political philosophy parties just whatever he does he does a big and hard and find ways to excel an end and to be visible here whenever he's doing mcintyre today and keep your prisons were visiting the dole institute of politics and their new voices from the big first exhibit virgil dean is the curator of an exhibit empathy with other komen the associate director of the dole institute of politics let's talk a little bit about the exhibit the focus really is on letters from constituents which you know now in twenty twenty one that may seem a little we allow any comment on that two government say i'm old enough that it didn't seem right to sign a letter that i wrote about

i really didn't and then the main reason is that i've done quite a bit over researching congressional collections and gubernatorial papers and where the constituent correspondence is an important part of most of those and there when you get to love to members of congress it's voluminous and i'm as curious as probably most people they're interested in how they going to deal with all these e mails in the future because it is very different i mean i haven't written a letter that anybody at the other than a note for a long time and certainly in corresponding to cover prison deeds or senators who ever public officials on the local level it's email you don't nicholas overly innocent but so it's it's a very different than a thing but again that's where my focus is banned the nineteen sixties is can a recent for me

so most mylar researchers panel earlier in the twentieth century and then with other projects back in the nineties yeah i think that's a but i mean but the experience of reading these letters and you make the great point the case that the the nature of our communication is so different these days of it so a media and verve as virgil said there's just vastly more volume that congressional offices are are dealing with but i think you know the more time you spend with these things and as an archivist i have a particular tune to appreciating these maybe more obscure point serve about documents are created but you really get the sense that are you know if you're writing a mall tae paragraph letter eat by hand or by typewriter you are at least thinking very slowly and deliberately or maybe you've jotted out a draft beforehand i'm there's the sense that there's communication is really between the

writer and the recipient of the season but it's of a more of a private exchange i think we think when we send email we know it's going for a system we know that it may or may not be read by human arm that it hopefully somebody you be you know an algorithm is gonna analyze it and get back to you or maybe it will be constructed by a person with various form letters that is not to say that didn't happen in the sixties because there you can see and then the response is i'm in the letters that they're different you know and there are four letters they actually be well very well crafted out towards the message that at the center is but you know the issues that the initial correspondent is identifying what they they feel very personal and you know congressman dold it's said that he read all those himself incoming mail himself and you really do get that personal sense there but even the sense of this that the exchanges is a private exchange it's not something that you know with social media where you suppose right writing imposing our opinion america's in a sea of everybody's

got a comment on it i'm you know i think in some ways it might have been easier for people to express what they're thinking knowing that it's more of a private exchange the tickets were true in terms of its easy to imagine door waiting all are virtually all of that correspondence and he said that i would have no reason to question later in later years i'm sure that wouldn't be the case but up through the nineteen sixties it going the more common you also get a large handwritten letters from people that probably i don't know for the exhibit i i would guess at least seventy five percent maybe doing this are obvious but fifty to seventy five percent of them correspondents the week old abet one handwritten and that's his that's impressionistic but there's a lot of that and so it's more person on that sense from the constituents any dig it there's a sense that there isn't time was

go instead of course going into writing the responses and they're much more responsive to the interests of the of the correspondents now if if there are there are many cases where they'll be a lot of almost identical letters coming arctic there is a name you'll find it to be very similar almost identical a letter is going out to this to different people but they are personalized in somewhere or another and i didn't think i don't think i found any that i thought well this didn't even come close to addressing what this person's concerned that whereas in more recent times i've had that experience the power i thought i don't always reading this but they're not really understanding what's certain and i don't think it's because i didn't explain it was a yeah there's a lot of there's a lot of this back and forth or reference to something that somebody said in their regional american citizens in their original owner says and unicef are really working hard to put those out in than typing us out by hand one hand so there's just i really

respect i guess the amount of time both at the the constituents and that the office dedicated to making sure that this was done well and right and i think that fits into it with what we understand to be senator dole style just really making people and relationships and communication a priority and one of the things i found that from journalists covering him was quickly recognizing the fact that i think i might mention this earlier he was very very careful to be responsive to that to his constituents and so he was i think well known for one of the reasons why he was able to get reelected several times and then move on to the senate was that he was so a servicer was so careful too try to meet the needs and pay attention to what his people not western kansas where we're interested and it pointed to and we go and look at the exhibit there's not a lot of we didn't do a lot of photography universal imagery in the exhibit it focuses very much on the documents

but in some of the graphics and things on one foot and then you know another great highlight of the collections here is that there are boxes and boxes of photographs that congressman dold took with his constituents when they would come to visit him in washington dc and there on the steps of the capitol and so does voters are incorporated into the design of the exhibit a man identified as such they don't match up with the letters and eventually found but you again just that the person a person failing relationship building that you get with the letters is also very well documented in attendance scores of filters that we have done in the archives of now congressman bowl with all manner of people from kansas who were coming and very proud that to meet him in washington said tell me about how you got archives boxes and boxes and boxes of letters from constituents who are writing to bob dole between nineteen sixty one and i sixty eight how do you get that too an

exhibit give me a sense of like how many boxes how many hundreds of letters are we talking about and how did you go about saying sergeant rodriguez our direct mail finish but wait we first of all identified by looking at inventory lists and so forth together and that studying those and then talking about it together some of the topics that we thought we try to cover up the ticket those that was that would when you would be an interest in the nineties to the nineteen sixties civil rights for example you wouldn't deal with it with the a nineteen sixties that didn't matter vietnam few obvious ones but then some other things that just work came outcome a surface as a result a lot of correspondents on redistricting in the nineteen sixties on why that's the case and that so that research would

kind of direct where we ended up but after selecting if you're those key topics we'd just started i just started asking for boxes of letters of correspondents really focused on the constituent correspondents and so this collection is very well armed catalogue them and very impressive easy to easy to work with and so understaffed i was with good about giving me the things that i wanted to look at and then i just want to a lot of a lot of boxers and hundreds of letters trying to make some resemble selections i approach is a lot different than i would have for those who are doing out an article or a book because i you know i mean i would be the first to admit work would probably miss a lot of good stuff too but you can't it's you the tough times that drew i was more and more time schedule them for this

exhibit work that i would have been for a research project for publications so candidate and has some things as quickly as you can but then others you know maybe a former enemy fighters or innocent on average older but there's a lot in some are huge line from zig is one folder in each box archival boxes set very simple lives and it's so out of the boxes i ask them to call for me some of the new look at now that doesn't have in there what i i knew what i was expecting city can deal with pretty quickly others it takes a lot of time so we spent a lot of hours it's i mean yeah there's huge as virgil said the board the volume of material it's just a manson and pretty overwhelming on my guest you know that kind of speaks again to the value of a project like this because one would you know before during a public facing research project you know when my guest scholar common and take the time to really digest this kind of material so

and not just for the public to appreciate after the exhibit but also i'm getting a sense letting people know what will we have and how it might be useful to them in their research is gonna need to think about what what kind of researcher might spin off it again like as our guard our global perspective you know the volume even people think about digitizing archives and you know wanted to scan at all in or maybe this letter of the law so now i think but in the past people have been more quick tip to weed out things particularly in the congressional they burst tradition because they're seeded correspondent has been seen as duplicative those talks about the same issue again and again again will pick lion or ten or something like that but i am if it's just the volume of material of that indicates something is happening with this group of constituents in their song you know there's a suburb of people mobilizing to discuss this particular topic readers are seeking redistricting tom education federal aid education for and schools know

agriculture policy which is less surprising outcome and being in western kansas and so that's something that you know using that as a tool to focus in on a on a few key subjects that we thought were particularly representative of the big first of western kansas during this time that that tells you a lot as for you know after after vergil latest selections you know we spent a period of weeks and months you know trying to analyze the specific content of each letter and trying to make sure you know try to pick the best examples i guess so once that night tell a full story in very few words and many cases armed you know some that were you know whether they're easy to read are so there's all sorts of kind of lesser concerns when you're when you're putting out documents for an exhibit not just isn't any better as an interesting so it's a pretty complicated

process and so you know i am you know trenchant to create a bizarre representation that is true and accurate to the best of our ability of representative of the time and that also supports a narrative that we think also reflects the time and an issue says you know what we are going for to bob dole back in nineteen sixty three how you think you've got that letter do you have essentially every letter that every constituent has ever read and a bob dole i get the impression that that's probably true you always wonder as a researcher history researcher research of any kind what am i saying here and who made decisions about what then i was that there's this question you know who makes decisions on what to keep and what not to keep it was a love was a weeded out you know at some point and audrey would woods would confirm that all

they care what they are risi and so an archive can only keep what they got from the congressman's office or the center's office but i get the impression that it was pretty thorough and an innate they kept most everything and so as a result you do have some really critical correspondents i mean there's some really really harsh anti where bill's positioned was awesome very flattering and so you get the whole range of issues and you know there are several issues of school prayer was i think one of the things that surprised me there were a lot more media although it was heavily weighted towards those who were in favor of or oppose the supreme court decisions stop things prayer or bible reading in school there were a lot that we're supporting that position and of course were writing a critically adored because he was taken the position fairly early on with his majority of his constituents to

try to figure out a way not to want to reverse that i am so you know i think that i think it's pretty pretty sprinkled comprehensive yeah and i will i would agree with what the virgil on ahmed on the comprehensive nature of the of the collections with some with some caveats because you know as virgil doesn't anyone else who's done research and constituent mail it doesn't mean that it's going to be filed under your name it's probably you know animal vary from office to office but for example you know they're they're filed under subject line loosen loosely by you know by just in the order of which they were received a man responded to so on that you know when we do get questions every once in a while on from folks who are who are looking up exactly like you're asking cave know continue to find this one and my mom wrote this or know and

it's it's a needle in a haystack proposition all we are public archive and so we encourage folks out not wearing our modern onsite research but i'm you know you're you're welcome to come look you don't have idea what the it files of famous people that wrote to bob dole that they've separated out but most others don't fall under that can also sitting sitting presidents and heads of state and things like that i would say that aubrey coleman of the dole institute of politics and virgil dean he is the curator for their newest exhibit voices from that big first nineteen sixty one to nineteen sixty eight but some of the issues some of the topics that were of interest did mention school prayer any time any other big surprises are or anything that you do you knew was a big topic that they use and surprising in terms of what you what you saw well it again say it was a surprise

but the agricultural correspondent says audrey alluded to earlier it's something nice probably should've mentioned the very beginning because thats one of my areas of interests but that is an incredibly large part of the collection the for a legal categories of the constituent correspondents and legislative they just a huge number of files boxes of material on that a one of the air one of the things that i was kind of surprised a little chat about was that got so much attention was the redistricting is you as you may recall and as i did more as i got into it in nineteen in the early nineteen sixties the supreme court in and states handed down a cherry tree very important decisions on one man one vote as it was called at the time one of them betting baker versus carr deal with congressional districts so that states had to make sure that their congressional

districts were fairly even in terms of population another dealt with state legislatures and at this time in night in the mid sixties i think sixty four was when that came down or maybe sixty three i forget sixty four i think but the decision on legislators came down in the courts and at that point many states including kansas i use geography lahore by cammie to distribute their representatives so kansas head and in the five counties as we did today and twenty five members of the house representatives each county is regardless of the population got one represented many had twenty in kansas twenty extras like to divvy out to those more populous counties the interesting thing about that when that came down and they were the prospect of having to change was in the butt was imminent there were

efforts to amend the constitution to make indoor was involved in efforts to amend the constitution unsuccessfully but to a man to make to nullify that supreme court decision so that states would be allowed to continue to make their own decisions in that way and he argued at one point three that's for sale for two three years throughout that period made fifty mid sixties but this was the most important issue as far as he was concerned facing the people was from kansas and i offended find it interesting in part because as a more i thought about it the more i think this is a very timely thing to consider because it's in some ways it's a very anti democratic hot and that there was a but the idea was that he was arguing and many people did that that the rural areas are going to be under a percentage than i could have any influence of you look at people wise that's the way to be it look at it read recently poor well a

geographically but he was arguing and others argued that they should be allowed in one else at least of this on a bicameral legislature to use other things to determine geography for example to determine how representation would be a lot so the interesting interesting debates about that i think it's i mean and again just yet commenting on that the selection of topics out but we chose to represent the strip or cement discussion is just especially in context with you know we're talking about democratic majorities in congress a democratic presidential president throughout the sixties an end and sort of you know influence of the supreme court on western kansas and how state legislatures are being dictated to and how ways we do things here in kansas no larger more centralized national programs coming from the federal level and then you know federal aid to education being one of them that will give you money but we you know you need to be accepting

the standards it's all the support of the us the potion paul and given take which when i feel like it gets that it really kind of is there's a note of contention because there is this just general sweeping of lack of autonomy or perception of of power shifting away you know with losing the congressional seat and then you know there's just one in this year's events demographic changes during his near one of those issues that are well represented by that redistricting love with the pomegranate says fewer and fewer people in the countryside and few more more people moving into urban areas and so as people observe this firsthand there they're realizing that things are really changing and it's getting out of the control and so that's a you know reacting to row away ok as we lose more more people are within those more more influence and there are billy to influence legislation whether it's

warm legislation which of course has a direct impact or something else there is a threat there that people are working are reacting to nothing to a great extent i think the the other issue is an odd religions fertility education school prayer those issues really do generate a lot of correspondents it i want to jump in here because i think that's one thing that maybe in twenty twenty one if you're not familiar with with history and educational policy would probably surprise you back in the nineteen sixties as the federal government back then had a very limited role in education and just how controversial that was in the nineteen sixties and seventies and eighties as the federal government became more and more active in this policy area that previously had really been under the control of state and locals against

and that's that's the thing they're reacting to resisting that outside influence the role you know you have a little bit of that in it during the eisenhower administration because of the science and issues in space but it's really the kennedy and johnson administrations that ah push for a federal role in education that would be more difficult for us today that we would we'd most of this just kind of accept this as a reality but your audience is something that's very new and so it's going to be a lot of controversy was resolved and kate mcintyre to then keep your prisons were visiting the dole institute of politics and they aired new exhibit voices from the big first nineteen sixty one to nineteen sixty eight we'll have more about this exhibit as keep your prisons continues right after this