Robert Smylie

              Voices from the Past
Governorship and Politics in Idaho
By Robert Smylie
March 10, 1982
Tape # 14
Oral interview conducted by Judy Austin
Transcribed by Theophilus E. Tandoh September 25, 2004
Brigham Young University- Idaho
An interview with former governor Robert Eben Smylie. Interviewer is Judy Austin of
Idaho State Historical Society.
JA: This interview with former governor, Robert Smylie of Idaho is being conducted
March 10th 1982 at the Idaho State Library and Archive in Boise. Questions were
generally prepared by Harold Forebush of the Upper Snake River Valley Historical
Society. The interviewer is Judy Austin of the Idaho State Historical Society. Governor
Smylie, would you begin by giving us your full name and where and when you were
born?
RS: Well my name is Robert E. for Eben E- B- E- N Smylie. I was born at Marcus in
Cheroot County Iowa in 1914 October 31.
JA: Where were your mother and father from and what were their names?
RS: My father’s name was Lorne L- O- R- N- E Francis with an I Smylie. He was born in
Branford Ontario Canada. And my mother’s name was Ida May Stevens, S- T- E- V- E- N- S
Smylie. She was born in Macgregor Iowa. Mother was a descendent of a tribe called the
Modes who sailed with William Bradford for Plummet Rock and came across the country
through Myriad Ohio and ended up ultimately on the blobs of Bob Macgregor across the
river from Prey to Shevinconscin. Father’s people were Methodist circular writers and his
father was ordained a minister at the age of sixteen and they came to Iowa in about 1865 I
think. Father was born when they were back in Ontario in 1881.
JA: Did your father’s family live in Canada long?
RS: About 200 years.
JA: What brought you to Idaho?
RS: I had an auntie and uncle out here in Coelho. He was I guess you will say a pioneer
physician in Coelho, he came there in 1907. And I came out here in 1934 to go to college.
JA: At the College of Idaho?
RS: Yes.
JA: From which you graduated then in 1938?
RS: Right.
JA: And hence I believe that both a debater and football player, in your career?
RS: I did about everything there was to do. Only 400 students there wasn’t much
competition.
JA: Ha- ha… What did you do when you graduated from college?
RS: Well, I tried to organize my affairs so that I could go to law school. I had already
decided that I want to go [ to] George Washington University. And this was a kind of a
poor time to arrive in Washington than it was the fall in 1938. There was an election
going on and so nobody was there unlike the way things are today. And I waited to get
into law school until the commencement of the second semester in February in 1939. In
the mean time I’d managed to get a job as a capital policeman and did that for six great
months and worked for Covington and Berlin, a law firm in Washington for the rest of
the time I was in law school.
JA: Did you then stay in Washington or come back to Idaho?
RS: There was an event that occurred and everybody got invited to a war. And so I
decided early on that the draft board had my number and when it came up why I would
go do what I was required to do. The reason for that being that I was getting fairly close
to graduating from law school and I thought that if I had that behind me before I went
well it will make simpler when I came home and I’d early on about 1940 decided that it
wasn’t a question of whether we were going to get that war but it was a question of when.
And I’d been going to summer school and taking as much in a way of courses that I could.
I plan and managed beat them to the dry and got my degree in June of 1942 and Uncle
Sam came calling.
JA: What did you do when you got out of military?
RS: Well, I had been working at Covington Berlin which is, I guess you’d call a law mill
as what is against the law apparently in those it was kind of small they only had about 50
lawyers. But they have 400 now. But I had been working there and as a matter of fact had
been admitted to the bar about nine or ten months before I graduated from the university -
And was doing a full time lawyer’s work before I went to the service. I came back to
Covington Berlin and was with them for about four or five months and decided the guys
that had been there all through the war and sons and nephews and cousins, there were too
many and so I decided to go out on my own. Then practice law for about four- five
months literally out of a telephone booth in Washington. And 1946 late in December
Barbie Albright called me up and asked me if I would like [ to] be Assistant Attorney
General of Idaho and I…
JA: He was at that time Attorney General?
RS: Yes, but he was going to be in 1947. And I said yes after some consideration and
Christmas week between Christmas and New Year I rode to Boise.
JA: Now I was about to ask you about your seal. Some point in there you got married I
believe?
RS: Yes, this is a - you don’t marry your boss’s daughter while you marry your secretary.
Lucille was Judge Covington’s secretary in the law firm and we got to have lunch
together and that sort of thing and in due course time around on, she at the mean time had
gone to Reel to be a secretary in the embassy in Reel, Bis and Arrows during the war and
came back in 1943 and we were married on 4th of December 1943 that was a Saturday
afternoon and the only time they had a vacancy at the little church around the corner was
quarter after four in the afternoon.
JA: That is when you were married?
RS: Yeah and we were married down there.
JA: You have at least two sons?
RS: Yes both of our boys are adopted; one is Richard William who is now thirty- two
years old and Richard Stevens who is twenty- seven.
JA: Do they still live in this area?
RS: Yes they both live in Boise. Bill, that is Robert William, works for Hewlett Packer
here in Boise and Richard Stevens Steve is a social studies teacher at Prima Junior High
School in Boise.
JA: So you came back to Boise then for the beginning of 1947 to go and work for
Familsi?
RS: Ah… Was admitted to the bar on the 7th of January of that year and sworn into the
system attorney general that afternoon.
JA: What were your particular assignments as an assistant attorney general? Did you
focus on one particular?
RS: Well, the attorney general’s office in those days was like the state government,
happily something less than it is now. And I think there were only four of us in the office
so being an all purpose gentleman while you did almost everything. I ended up working
for the department of finance, the department of agriculture, serving pretty much as chief
deputy because Mr. Elshie had a very bad case of the asthma and was often incapacitated.
And as in that capacity I used to follow his work on the land board and got to be more or
less console to the governor who was then Dr. C. A. Robins. And at, I think it was in
November after the death of his father and mother both within two months time Mr.
Elshie himself passed away and there was a vacancy in the office of attorney general and
I’d always thought that the reason I was appointed was because it only paid four-thousand
dollars and there wasn’t really much competition for the job so Dr. Robins who
would build some faith in me during our association over the year appointed me attorney
general in November of 1947.
JA: And then you run for re- election?
RS: I run for re- election in 1950 and then as I guess occasionally happens there got to be
some people around who thought maybe I have to be governor and I began to think about
that.
JA: Had you intended to get into campaign type politics when you took the job in Idaho
originally?
RS: Well, I one evening in 1936 when the returns of the elections were coming in at the
call to news tribute in Colevillem, and Barsule Clark was being elected governor and Ben
Rocks was being defeated for the senate. A bunch of us were sitting down there listening
to the returns when they came over the associated press tele printer and I explain to some
people how [ you] had to get yourself elected governor of Idaho that evening. I really
didn’t intend at that point in time to do it but I’ve always had interest in public life as a
matter of fact ills I hadn’t died had my plans all laid to go into practice sometime in 1948.
JA: And then perhaps look further down the road.
RS: Later, but is like in a mining count when you draw cards in the poker game you play
the hand.
JA: While you have it. In your years as attorney general is there anything specific that
stands out as either something was particular significant while it was going on or
something you feel especially pleased to have had happen under your attorney
generalship?
RS: Well, I think the most interesting law suit we had in those years was probably a raid
case with the Mountain Bill Telephone Company we forced the bill system to disgorge
about four million dollars and over charges that I think is the only case against the bill
system since 1926 where that has occurred it was a fun case simply because it was always
following around. And the rest of those years I remember is years of administration, I
earlier on had the conviction that the way to be a success as an attorney general is to be a
good attorney general in a professional sort of way. And leave the politics to somebody
else who was more adequately trained in that field. And actually try affirmatively not to
use the office in a political way as a consequence I think I build up a very great degree of
trust on both sides of the political fence - with the leadership of the parties and with
members of the legislature and others around the state.
JA: Which will then stand in good step during those limits?
RS: As it turned out it did. Yes.
JA: Not to sound quick, since you had stayed out of politics and done the administering
as much as possible during your years as attorney general, how come you then took off
and do it clearly in a more political office?
RS: Well, there was a fellow named Ken Woods who was then a publisher and editor of
the Pries River Times in Pries River Idaho. And sometime early in 1953 or late in 1952
he wrote a front page editorial saying that I should be governor. I didn’t know it was
coming, as a matter of fact three people sent it to me before I saw the newspaper. And
this had come about in part by reason of the fact that I had been helpful in getting the
financing put together for the outlet control structure Pries Lake which stabilize the
beaches through the summer season up there, and had stood in for governor Jordan at the
ground breaking ceremony of the Falls Dams Pondera River which now in Ponds Lake
Pondera. For some strange reason, business in the office and otherwise I had spent a good
deal of time in those five northern counties, and I suppose that’s when Woods got the
idea probably didn’t heard at all he use to live in Sheldon, Iowa and he thought an Iowa
boy was a pretty special thing.
JA: Well, I should think not. Also the fact that a south based Idaho governor was willing
to come to north Idaho was expect to note.
RS: Well, it was really funny one of the places that you never seem to get to in those days
was eastern Idaho. I am talking about Rexburg; I think I’ve been attorney general for four
and half years or five before I ever got to Rexburg on business. And for some reason or
other there was a multitude of occasions when business took [ me] north of Moscow.
JA: Was north Idaho then heavily democratic?
RS: Yes I will say so; Lake Tarn County Moscow was generally regarded as a republican
county by reasonably narrow margin. And Bonne County was marginally but on and off
Republican. Boundary County was about the same, the rest of them I’d say you’d have to
list there is a pretty heavily democratic.
JA: So you had become somewhat accidentally quite visible in the area control by a party
that isn’t yours?
RS: Yes that is right.
JA: Did you have primary opposition in 1954?
RS: Yes, former congress man John Sanbers from Hagerman, run against me and Maro
Crudilin Larry Garner. And we developed a campaign strategy that was based on carrying
six of the ten northern Counties in the primary and figured out later on that, that was the
key to winning it was Maro Crudilin on the ticket we did carry seven of the ten northern
Counties.
JA: Not Kootenai I presumed?
RS: We run even in Kootenai. Nobody is a prophet in his own land you know.
JA: What was your margin in the primary?
RS: Well, as I remember it was in the order of twenty five, twenty one – seventeen. That
sort of thing; it was pretty firm margin by the billing standards of those days. I remember
being over about eleven fifteen or eleven thirty in the evening, so it couldn’t have taken
too long to count because they were doing it manually in those days.
JA: Who is your formidable general election?
RS: A gentleman named Quark Hamilton who was a former state senator who was a
merchant and weaser. And he had had primary opposition in the person of former
governor Charles Gusset and two other names that I don’t at the moment off the top my
head recall. But he won in a narrow victory and was then the democratic nominee.
JA: Was there also a senate race that year in other words was there state wide races I
should know of?
RS: Ah, just a moment let me think no there was not a senatorial race that year there was
the two congress men who were elected and the governorship.
JA: So yours was clearly the, the significant race?
RS: Yes it was the most visible race and it was the only state wide race other than the
other constitutional offices.
JA: What was your margin in the general election?
RS: Fifty four forty six in percentages I can’t tell you the numbers without going to the
abstracts.
JA: Anything out of the ordinary about where the votes came from in terms of party
distribution of the election ballots?
RS: We came within forty votes of carrying Bounty County which…
JA: That will be out of the ordinary?
RS: Yes, that was regarded then as achievement. And we didn’t lose Newburg County as
heavily as we thought we would. We lost Shoshone, Carey, Kootenai, run even in
Benewah and the big margin was in Eider Canyon County. I carried Canyon County by
about seventy one percent and Eder by sixty- five.
JA: Prophet don’t always lose at home?
RS: No.
JA: If you don’t mind let me skip ahead and ask you a little bit about the other three
gubernatorial campaigns as long as we discuss them?
RS: Alright.
JA: And I think perhaps I will simply let you comment as you would about what was
unusual or remarkable about the fifty- eight, sixty- two and I guess sixty- six campaigns
since the elections.
RS: Well there were fifty- eight campaigns was the first time that any one of the parties in
Idaho had exposed organized gambling as a campaign platform. Although Senator Deere
Although from Barron County who was their candidate at that time did pretty well try to
get lost from the issue as the general election got closer. But I think the over riding issue
is that there was a recession, a recession in nineteen fifty- eight pertaining a dollar was 25
cent a hundred weight and it was difficult economic times. That is the election I won by
fifty point one of the votes and it was four o’clock in the morning as a matter of fact the
statesman went to bed without having the winner on his front page. And I was the only
republican elected in the state, where election that year senator Devosh Act was re-elected.
The…, I think that was the year the congress man Barge was defeated and two-third
of both houses of the legislature was democratic after the fifty- eight election. So
there had been a big win in the willows that night.
JA: Yes indeed and you come out lucky I suspect?
RS: The one side light on the thing the right to work in the city was on the ballot. And it
was long republicans drawn every which way. I had taken a position. I didn’t against the
fore right to work really. I just simply said I was going vote against the initiative in part
at least I don’t believe in the initiative but I think the legislative process will stand on its
two feet not have an excuse to go to the people in phony elections. But it was widely
perceived that I was against the right to work legislation which I was and I think that was
one of the reasons that I survived the holocaust.
JA: There are lessons to be learned in that in 1982 by any chance?
RS: Well it, the right to work is one of those issues that is without which issue. It’s like
some of these people about abortion and that sort of thing. You could be right on ninety-nine
issues and wrong on that one and that burns the van out. They are just not reasonable
about it; I don’t know how strong the people feel but I have a notion that most of the
people are here who had been members of unions or our members of unions will see the
support of right to work legislation as a vote against them and feel fairly strongly about it
that it will remain to be seen. I’m too far out of the ballgame not having any really
informed judgment.
JA: What happened in 1962 in the presidentorial election?
RS: Well, in 1962 against three other opponents a fellow named Vernon Smith who was a
Boise lawyer was nominated as the democratic candidate. He had been Senator Durious
Campaign Manager in 1958. And he hanged on gambling suet on the veteran end as a
strong proponent of open gambling. And this was going to solve all manner of economic
woes and was going to solve all manner of needs for financing for education and the next
thing. And that was his downfall. I had a notion simply because the so called bible billed,
never seem to be excited about moral legislation and gambling and things like that and in
an election as they are really rhetorical, I had a notion that finally the perfection of
Vernon Smith as a man came through and that had much to do with the outcome as the
issues really. I of course had to run on a record to become a governor for eight years and
be asking for four more without happen to answer for all your sins and all of your
accomplishments. But the accomplishments was then very substantial by then and we
won by the biggest margin and I think the governor won by up to that time that was the
biggest margin that a senator had that year.
JA: Why don’t we hold off sixty- six till they get to the end of the discussion as your years
as governor.
RS: Ok.
JA: Let me ask, first if you came into office is there any particular expectations that broad
things you wish to accomplish?
RS: Ah, yes I am glad you asked that question because one of things I’ve always thought
is that nobody is, ought to really, ought to be governor without having a pretty well
established agenda of why. I… starting in February of 1954, we had isolated without the
benefit any formal polling or any of that sort of thing - four issues that we thought were
of some importance and I decided that [ the] only way to really test those out was to go as
public as you could with them. Political campaign seems in those days to get a little
better coverage than they do now in depth and as a consequent position paper attracted
some attention. I made four major speeches that I manufactured the forum for. One was a
junior high school PTA meeting in the afternoon and call and that one was about
education. And one was a meeting of a service club in Fila and that was about water. And
one was Idaho State College business fraternity meeting in a Chinese restaurant and
Pocatello that was about economic development and one was in Macaulay some sort of a
meeting and it was about environmental concern, parks, recreation, fishing, wildlife and
that sort of thing. And as the campaign developed and when we finally got around the
place where we had enough money to do some polling this was after the primary. It came
once loud and clear that fifty- seven percent of the people thought more money for
education was the most important issue before the electorate. And so we started coming
down early on what was then regarded somewhat revolutionary by the more conservative
members on my party and that was full funding for the formulae for public school
education. We won and we did it.
JA: No is a good revolution I think. Did you think about anything about the other three
speeches that they make promises as well?
RS: Well yes, but anything that hit fifty percent in terms of voters identifying and it is
their first item of concern, if your polling sample is anywhere as near accurate and most
of these professional polling operations I would think hit within a margin of five- percent.
Well that was the most fifty- six this clearly was a bill and red taped and the others were
in descending order had lost of interest but no where is near as common as the nominator
thing work on it. And education was obviously the common the common nominator of
the fifty- four election. And Idaho is always interested in water but strangely enough that
issue ranked third in that fifty- four poll. Economic development and tourism that sort of
thing. My plan was to organize a department of congress and development which we did.
And funded and get going and this apparently struck a good note.
JA: Somebody is going to do something concrete.
RS: Yeah.
JA: Were there any real surprises when you got into the governorship about how the
office works and about relationships with the legislature about anything else?
RS: Well no, of course I think there was a great concern not really concern but a wait to
see attitude on the part of what you might call a senior business community generally and
the great bearers in the party this is understandable as far as I was concerned because I
cross my fortieth birthday less than two weeks before I was elected governor. There was
a tendency to keep being concerned about that kid downstairs. The…, I think the first
message on the state of the state which I think is one of the really great state papers of the
state to the legislature of nineteen fifty- five that is in the budget message together. Pretty
well set out guidelines that lasted twelve years and that tended to cure up some of the
illness then they quit being as worried as they were surprised and so I finally told Woolly
Burns who was the state Chairman he was from Idaho Falls and I think he been surprised
too. But I told him I was not going [ to] give in until 15 of July I would surprised and then
anybody was surprised after that way it was going to be too late.
JA: Their problem and not yours anymore?
RS: Yeah.
JA: What particularly stands out in that first four years term to you, either good or bad?
RS: Well, this will strike a controversial note but the physical jumbles which my
predecessors left in office left the government, was the principle concerned and getting
that cured up.
JA: And your predecessors in office?
RS: Was Governor Jordan. It is not widely known but we were registering warrants when
I took office. And the budget was in the red.
JA: Which was not only illegal but unconstitutional?
RS: Exactly, and the state in the payroll on the 1st of January was without registering
warrant.
JA: Ouch.
RS: The two thousand dollar number wasn’t a big deficit but it required quick planning
while we managed to bring the cash flow back into balance by the 1st of February to
establish reasonable margin of movement by the 1st of March. And in the mean time the
legislature had come and gone and we raised taxes twenty- five percent in order to close
the problem was that the government was spending under the last Jordan budget about
fifty million dollars on the revenue base that produced forty million.
JA: Ooo.
RS: And so we had to go find ten million dollars right fast. In the first two years
1955, ’ 57, we only spent forty- nine point nine million against two hundred under what
the last Jordan budget was and that way we closed on it by ninety fifty- seven while we
had some margin. But I don’t think we close 1957 for not more than by four- five
hundred thousand to spare. But it was one of [ the] things that I was always proud of is
that we never had any surplus and we didn’t ever run red.
JA: John Corellas used to tell me that the revenue projection during your administration
consist of if you putting your feet up and thinking for a while and coming up with the
figure, which was always extraordinarily accurate.
RS: Well that sounds like Corellas simplification and very complimentary. It not really
true; I used to tell the tax collector and the auditor’s office, the fellow in the auditor’s
office then did this sort of thing was Lewis Bediganida and I use to tell him and the
budget director I told them to bring me hard figures as I often paid them to optimists or
pessimists. And I said you let me crack the economics into it. I had developed machinery
that turned on to beat pretty accurate basis for estimating not necessarily how the
economy was going but how people felt about their money which tells you a good [ deal]
about what is going on. And this was by comparing bottle count and a dollar count in the
state legatorial spensory.
JA: Ooo.
RS: If they were imperial our lines things was growing on pretty even keel. If the bottle
count started to descend and the dollar count to up they were “ ban better booz.” If it was
the reverse, they were feeling bad and were down grade in their purchases. There will be
more bottles sold and less money and it kind of a simple equation but it seems to work.
JA: It [ is] particularly interesting that it works in a state in which great many people don’t
drink.
RS: Yeah.
JA: Fascinating.
RS: It a direction of spending I think is what you talking about.
JA: Yeah and liquor is one example.
RS: There will be others except it on of which we had very close control and I can get
after Mr. Charles had been superintended in the dispensary for a few years, few months
actually. I can get months and figures by like about the fourth day. And that made
prognostication much easier. The only time that we run even close I can even remember
what year it was but I think in 1961- 63 budget I thought they’ve had over spend them.
The available revenues by about five percent that turned out that it was almost exactly
right but I just imposed the mandatory five percent who bag on a re- appropriation from
the beginning of the biennium and that caused a lot of strain and pain and much
screeching in a few universities.
JA: I’m sure it did.
RS: But anyway we ended in the black.
JA: Would you say it gone bad by annual budgeting?
RS: Yes, very simple reason, this business of annual budgeting, I don’t know how much
money is spent in putting those numbers together. For a legislature that by the very nature
of the organization doesn’t have all that much equipment to digest it. And maybe you get
better physical control but I doubt it. And it also allows the pressure groups to have
sharps at the far end so they are just one which is never wise. But I think that by annual
budgeting for instance in the Universities it will mailed this year before the
administrative staffs of the universities know how much money they are going to have to
play with in order to re- group people. Well in most, it may not be true in this market
because PhD’s are pretty much dime- a- dozen these days. But anybody you want to hire is
normally all gone by the first of May and I think having at least fourteen months free
time in between might be helpful administrators of the institutions of higher education at
least.
JA: You only have to face that crunch every other year?
RS: Yes that is right, because they have to contract before they know what money there is.
JA: What else happened? What did you learn about relationships between the governor
and the legislature, generally and you in particular?
RS: Well, I thought I will just operate on the theory that if the legislature wasn’t
complaining about the man downstairs then you probably weren’t doing your job. Which
is to say in a different sort of way that it’s important I believe for the chief executive to
have a strong agenda of things to do and problems to solve and to be very determined
about doing it. In other words to furnish exceptionally strong leadership. The legislature
is supposed to dispose not propose and they are not supposed to get themselves involved
in executive decisions those ought to be left to the place where article four section five of
the constitution leaves it and that is in the governor’s office. But that presupposes the
governor is willing to do both his leadership and physical chores.
JA: In the years in which you were governor, how many times did you face legislature
controlled by the other party, obviously in fifty- nine sixty?
RS: In fifty- seven the senate was divided and in fifty- nine both houses were democratic
by two- thirds majority. Those were the only times but always in both houses we had a
reasonably narrow republican majority, for instance two votes in the state set up was
normally our margin.
JA: So there had to be some kind of working relationship between the two the parties if
anything were going to published?
RS: Oh yes, in 1959, I had regular meetings as a matter of fact once a day with both the
democratic leadership in both houses and with the republican leadership in both houses
separately. As a general proposition, if it seems to me that it will be advantageous I get
them together in my office. And I try to keep my office as a sort of behind the order place,
you know it was alright to be in the cathedral but you had to get to the special place, they
sometimes are more reasonable in the governor’s office than [ they] were upstairs.
JA: Which meant that you were definitely providing some kind of influence on seeing
that the legislative process kept going as well as the executives?
RS: Well, it is all well and good to be hard nosed about things but politics is the act of the
possible and you move toward what should be to what can be which involves
compromising adjustment and this and that the next thing and sometimes easier. And not
comfortable and not easy to do but it’s a very necessary part of process of being free in
my estimation. And so you can really be partners in hard land sense of the word. You
always have to remember where your friends are but you keep remembering where your
friends are and don’t be unduly partisan about it, ultimately you have some friends who
used to be partisans.
JA: And may in some ways be more useful friends than the ones you started out?
RS: Yes that is right. I had exceptionally good relationships with the leaders of the
appropriation and finance sections of the 1959 legislature. They were both gentlemen
from Newburg County, Mr. James Manroll in the house and senator Howard Hefting in
the senate. And we had just decided that we will keep the railway running whether the
two parties did or not.
JA: Moment where I would like to transfer all three of you down to the legislature right
now.
RS: Well, I think there has been some excessive partnership of both upstairs and down in
the section.
JA: What was your relationship generally with the other constitutional officers? I was
there in 1959 to ’ 63 you were the only republican in the group?
RS: Well I…, Mr. Benson who was Attorney general had a difficult situation and I just
never did have any relationships with him because it was a sort of impossibility. I was the
long wall and the state auditor Mr. Joe Williams and with the others Mr. Angel King,
Miss Mowen although I pretty well tried to keep them doing what they were supposed to
be doing and not something else. But there again is a function of strong leadership.
JA: Were you lieutenant governor throughout your three terms of the same party?
RS: In 1955 to ’ 59, the lieutenant governor was a republican in my party. Mr. Seal, Mr.
Berkley Larson from Firth, Idaho. And then he was defeated in 1958 by then senator
Drevlo from Lewis County who was lieutenant governor for the rest of my term.
JA: Both then elected in ’ 62 as well?
RS: Yes.
JA: Ok. How do you feel about lieutenant governor and governor being joint ticket as
[ opposed] to [ being] separate officers?
RS: Well, ideally I think you’d like them as a team but the real truth of the matter is that I
don’t think it makes much difference how you elect them. There ought to be an organized
succession in which the people had a voice. Because people do crème airplanes and
mountain sides and this that and sort of thing. And it better you should have an elected
person than an appointed person. But I don’t think anybody will ever be able to figure out
what to do with the lieutenant governor or the person who is second in line of succession
anymore than the Queen of England really knows what to do with Prince Charles. There
is only room for one Hero. And that isn’t the lieutenant governor.
JA: And there is a lot of thumb twiddling that goes on?
RS: Well, not necessarily because and the other thing is the ceremonial thing that you
spend so much time doing and what is apparently means so much to people you can’t
substitute it, they don’t want somebody else they want you. And unfortunately on many
occasions they’ve contracted with the rotary club or this or that and the next thing to do
produce you and so you got to get produce or you get renumbered.
JA: Yes, and there is always election out there. What else particularly stands out for you
in the twelve years you were governor good and bad? Things you accomplished,
frustrations you hit?
RS: Well, I think as it got to January of 1967 and I was thinking about how grateful I was.
I didn’t have to go out and make that speech on the state of the state. I got to looking
back over the messages that have gone before and they really wouldn’t have been much I
could told them I don’t think it was probably time for a change, simply because of the
fact that everything the agenda was complete at the end of the sixty- five session.
JA: How very nice to be able to say that about these twelve years. I suspect you are very
lucky?
RS: Well some of them were a long time coming. I first asked them for a parks
department in 1959 it finally happened in ’ 65.
JA: And then with a little with conniving with them?
RS: Well it wasn’t really that, it ah… Mr. Deriamining who was in that year democratic
leader in the house and finally apparently either gotten word or concluded that this had
gone on long long enough. What they really fighting about was fifteen or twenty jobs in
the land department were held by democratic and this would have been a terrible thing.
I’d assure them and a matter of fact I think we’d had used all of them except a couple
who were manifestly unusually corrupt or unusually incapable. And the man in, decided
that we were going to get it done so we made a few changes. And what I had suggested
that neither hurt nor helped the original concept. But kept the mainland very intact and
we did it. But I think that sixty- five sessions probably has to rank as one of the most
productive in the history of the state. It fully funded the teacher’s retirement system and
public impeller’s retirement system and acted the sales tax and gave education the money
it needed and built about twenty million dollars worth of buildings of the universities.
Provided the initial funding for Boise State University, added revenues to the highway
fund that permitted very close to completion of the interstate system which is a problem
they better face up to about now or else we going to end up with a highway system as
shambles. But in general part we are sitting in a building that is built on a mall was
enacted in those years. That was another thing I’d got tired of building buildings of thirty-six
street and state and town and Municipal Park. And decided that it was time that the
state government had home in down town Boise where the eight block capital mall is a
result of that concern. I picked Sister Peter James hundred dollars from option on the old
sale alphat hospital and got the legislature to pick up the tab.
JA: Ha- ha.
RS: Made me a honorary sister of the holy cross.
JA: Surely a unique achievement?
RS: It ought to be that in the judgment as well.
JA: Have you managed to pull up in safety yet?
RS: I am honorary judge with two. I have a degree from Consiga.
JA: Oh marvelous, marvel. You can go anywhere now absolutely? Well the great thirty-eight
legislature sort of tied up all these nice loose ends and then came November of 1966.
In fact for you there came August in 1966.
RS: Yes that is right.
JA: What happened? Is that a fair question?
RS: Well, yeah it’s a fair question. I think I early on apprehended and start talking about
what I conceived to be the destructive effects of all crooks and favoritism. And it was
descend by the parties that I had something less than an enthusiasm for Senator Golgoth’s
nomination in 1964. I thought it would be disastrous and it turned out it was. And then I
was worse off than I had been for being less than enthusiastic it turns out I was right and
that was unforgivable. So in a series of ways I’d agonated a lot of what was then a much
stronger right wing of the party than exist at the present I think.
JA: Was it a stronger party generally as party structure than it is now as well?
RS: Well, I don’t think the party structure ever in my time as such or now can produce
both. Those are produced by personalities who happened to achieve a relationship that the
Spanish would call some particle about politics. I don’t think they perceived a candidate
for governor as a republican or a democratic. They perceived them as an individual who
could be the governor. And the party structures are useful in an organization sort of way.
It is a rare occasion I think when you can count on forty- four organizations that turn up x
number of votes for each. And believe it will happen.
JA: So by the time you got into it, had you thought about not running in 1966?
RS: Yes, well I made a basic mistake in 1960. Two when senator Divorsa died we were
in midstream in a gubernatorial campaign which I won. And I should have appointed
myself to the senate. Instead I appointed Jordan and that was obvious I hadn’t arranged
when senator Divorsa acted, he was not going to run in ’ 66, I was. That was a basic
personal mistake and a basic political mistake.
JA: And the kind of thing you could not in that setting had much time to stop and think
about?
RS: Well, we had a poll that showed Vern Smith running ahead of me and really the
decision was not whether we were going get a new candidate for governor who had
roughly two months to organize a total campaign including financing. And that would
then be pretty tough to do if we’re starting behind and we had to assume I was in a
stronger position than the new candidate would be. And it was a very real possibility that
Vernon Smith could be governor well it wouldn’t have been all that bad he died within
ten months, it was the 1st of January ’ 63.
JA: But you couldn’t have known that you see?
RS: I thought the consequences of his ever getting the range of power would have been
pretty disastrous for the state and that was one of the things that led me to the direction
that was. But all and all I should have been thinking a little bit more of myself than I was.
JA: So in a sense you run in ’ 66 to the hope of holding off conservative forth, I hate to
put that?
RS: Well, not necessarily that was, if you were going to stay in public life. I had to have a
forum. And this was a forum the only one that was available. And Jordan and off the day
after he was elected he was going to run for re- election. And that took that out of the
context and I thought for a while really starting a Dawnic Brooklyn against him but
would have torn Barns up so.
JA: And I suspect by the time he got well into his senate term you and he were perhaps
closer in outlook than you would have been when he was a governor.
RS: Well, as a matter of fact he had the same view as senator Goldwiore in 1964 as I did
he just didn’t say it. It may have been lack of courage or I don’t know. Or maybe closer
apprehension of what kind of people there were out here in the bushes. Because they
were organized to defeat him in 1972 if he hadn’t stepped down. And he knew it and that
is why he stepped down.
JA: Well, that makes a good deal of sense. Was your loss in the primary essentially an
ideological loss?
RS: That plus the fact that, I forgot who said it. But there is a lot of good sense of
American politics and history in what somebody called the patient wisdom of the people.
And it had probably been about long enough. But the fact that the agenda was complete
there was a message there that I didn’t read. I had done about all that I could do. And
they probably knew it and I didn’t, those sorts of things and after twelve years while there
is a whole generation of politicians that are frustrated governors.
JA: Just waiting.
RS: Yeah. And don’t really enjoy being deprived of the possibility of getting defeated.
JA: You run one more campaign ’ 72.
RS: Yeah 1972.
JA: Which everybody ran for senate I think?
RS: Well, somebody asked me once why I did that and said well, it’s like a lot of other
things you just have to know the answer, so I found out.
JA: Which was no, so unfortunately…
RS: Yeah.
JA: Is this the only time you’ve ever run legislature. Maybe you enjoyed being an
administrator.
RS: Well, I would rather have been governor of Idaho than the United States senator.
JA: Because you enjoy the administrative?
RS: Yeah. Well, I think it’s being in the senate for fifty years like Boreal was; he can
look at Arrow rack Dam from wherever he is. And he can regard that as a physical
achievement. There are miles of highways, at least hundred buildings.
JA: Lots of educated kids.
RS: That I can put my hands on those I things I helped to do if I didn’t do them and the
sense of achievement is much greater I think than a bunch of oratorio empty words and
even worlds most exclusive men’s club.
JA: Ok. While you were a governor, you were active in a national level and indeed before
you were governor, in Republican Party politics, but also in organizing governors to be a
voice for themselves particularly in the west?
RS: Well, this came about largely because of my conviction. Born in 1960, as a result of
horrendous republican defeat in 1958, nationally as well as in Idaho. We ended up with
thirteen governor’s nation wide. I think, I can remember who run against him. But David
Lawrence had not been governor of Pennsylvania in 1960; John Kennedy would have
been elected President.
JA: He carried Kennedy than the other way round.
RS: Right and it is one of the things they forgot about Kennedy as the legend built that he
was among the already President when he was first elected.
JA: So not one of those four o’clock in the morning we don’t go to bed without knowing
the situation?
RS: That is right. As a matter fact it was ten the next day. But the whole, I perceive that
we have to have some machinery for one help and make sure that we had good candidates
for the gubernatorial offices. And do pick our targets do them oddest amount of training.
We put together national comedian kind of an ad hog group composed of Governor
Rockferin, Governor Scranton, myself, Governor Lao from Colorado— no Lao wasn’t in
it yet. Forgot who the other one was oh, Governor Knight in California. And this was to
design and pick people not to go in a state to pick people but to assist them and recruiting
guys if we could who might be electible. And then we also had what we called training
not training schools but training conferences where we talked about some of the nitty-gritty
of running campaigns and that sort of thing. And phenomenal number of people got
nominated for governor without really knowing how to run a gubernatorial state wide
campaign their legislatures or this or that the next thing and it all together a different ball
game. And this republican governors association was designed to cure that up. It was
formalized at the 1963 national governor’s conference in Miami Beach and I was elected
the first chairman and served in that capacity till I left office.
JA: How active is the Republican Governors Association now, do you know?
RS: Quite ah, you don’t hear much about it because it doesn’t engage in all these wild
fund raising campaigns with houses in it committees for the preservation incumbency do.
But it’s been effective I think or one the reason you don’t have a fund raising thing is that
it’s pretty difficult organize a national fun constituency for a governor of South Dakota
for instance.
JA: You can tell people how to go about setting up the mechanisms but you can do it
yourself for them?
RS: And how effective that was is that by 1966 in that election, we elected 26 governors.
JA: That’s pretty effective.
RS: By that time we had an office in Washington and they still do in the national
committee country our offices back there. And out of that also grew the republican
coordinating committee and which is now disbanded but it was designed to be an out
office sounding board for the senate of the house to get policy papers and try to establish
party positions that were a consensus sort of thing and they never really made much noise
simply because consensus seldom does. But they were useful.
JA: Would it be possible for such an organization given what happened in the Republican
Party in the last year to make it in the last few months in fact with what I sense as perhaps
some widening splits as Reagan has been more challenge one more issue in congress.
Would it be possible for that kind of coordinating committee to even exist now?
RS: I doubt it simply because of the fact that republican policy is made by Ronald
Reagan. At the moment that is what the people decided not the party.
JA: Yes. I understand that very well.
RS: And unless he is willing to advocate part of that which I don’t apprehend he his.
While the coordinating committee the democratic ought to have one so that they could
walk in 17 different directions at the same time like Don Halley’s horse.
JA: Yes.
RS: But as long as there is a central policy making fountain which the white designed in
our system of government to be. Then a coordinating committee or something like that
tends to serve a useful purpose. And it also tends to sort of mellow the varying wings of
people opinion. Hugh Scott for instance the senator from Pennsylvania very seldom
thought along the same lines of Senator Jackson from Illinois. But in that coordinating
committee you’ve got arrive and it was composed of the leadership of this house of
senate President Ford was there and all of the ex- former candidates for President
Governor Dale, Mr. Nixon and this presented a pretty basic forum for discussion. I think
there were five governors on it and I was a member of the committee for all the years that
it existed.
JA: And a wide spectrum.
RS: Yes.
JA: Obvious a wide spectrum. Aside from running for the senate in 1972 what have you
done to keep yourself occupied since January ’ 67?
RS: Well, I have been asked oh, sometime in early sixties to become a board member of
the college of Idaho and had declined on the basis that I thought there was a clear conflict
of interest between being a member of the board of trustees and the private institution of
higher education and also to all intents and purposes that presiding officer over the
organization that supported three state universities and a couple of colleges. And that
offer was renewed in 1967 and I then accepted it. I’ve been quite active on that board and
have served as its chairman from 1972 to 1980; I am still a member of the board but not
chairman any longer. And have more fun since I am not chairman.
JA: That is kind of not being governor?
RS: And I’ve been active in the YMCA. Mrs. Smylie continues to be active in the
Salvation Army Board we have been strong supporters of things like the Boise Galway
Park, Boise Filmanick, Channel 4 and as you do when you kind of fade out of the Law
practice when you end up a whole bunch of people have depended on you and continue to,
whether you say you are willing or not. And so I have bee pursing a small or career of
being a widow of orphans of Uncle Bud.
JA: When did you formally retire from the law practice?
RS: In, let’s see, 1979.
JA: When you hit ’ 65 in other words you went through the ceremonial aspect?
RS: Yeah.
JA: I suspect well?
RS: I decided that more people would be wise to decide in any organization of
consequence. It’s a pretty good idea for the old man get out of the way and let the lions
that are under to start growing.
JA: If you’ve trained them well, you could be as proud of them as you can be of yourself.
Do I do any speculating particularly giving the budgetary situation in Idaho financial
situation about what is going to happen here in the next few years to the state as an
institution?
RS: Well, I think that I don’t know if it is the one percent initiative or Governor
Samuelson’s unwise remission of the inventory tax. Some place along the line the two
percent sales tax became inevitable. And I think the legislature and the governor both of
the last two governors and the last six legislatures have underestimated by far, public
reaction to adequately funding sooner of later they will come to a realization that there is
going to more political reaction to not doing the things that people want done. I think this
just now beginning a rash of letter to the editor about the highways as maybe acquired a
bigger than a man’s hand than the horizon. But the consequences of a tornado are there. I
think unless there is a vast addition to highway funding we are going to have a highway
system that is going to cost us billions literally to replace the brand new interstate for
instance in many places already going apart. And for twenty days this weather we were
without north south communication in this state. Both highways were gone. And I
suspected to really put horse shoe hill back in place in any kind of acceptable form. You
are talking about eight or nine million dollars worth of money.
JA: If it can be done over the hill itself rather than building it there.
RS: As far as universities and public schools and all that sort of thing, the time comes for
two percent increase in the sales tax. And if I were doing that I would ask for the
authority to issue pretty close to half a billion dollar in bonds to get going with this
highways system. And do it now so it won’t cost more money later. We borrowed money
in 1955 to build the university library, which when first it appears in the appropriations
schedules of the state was in 1927 they wanted twenty- seven thousand five hundred
dollars to build the library. We spent a million and half bucks building it in 1955, the
same structure will cost four million today.
JA: The early investments really best pay off.
RS: You pay a little interest but at least you have the use of the facility. And if we talking
about economic development and making jobs for people, the best way they can do is to
get the highway system back in shape, because you are not going to have economic
development unless you got a decent road system.
JA: There has been accountability in being able to transport staff.
RS: Yeah.
JA: Have you got any final word to add? I think it will be welcome.
RS: Well, you asked me what I had been doing since I left the governorship, I inferred I
practiced law both here and Europe for a while. Not many people know I have an office
in Brussels.
JA: I know international business?
RS: No, well I was doing a lot of work for international telephone and telegraph in
Alpartal National Gas. And the, Lucy and I done a lot of traveling and I pay what some
will think as an undue amount of attention to the stock market. I got up at 4: 30 in the
morning and listen to Short Wave Radio broadcast. It tells me what the market did
yesterday in Hong Kong and Tokyo. And what the opening is in London.
JA: So you can start tinkering with New York.
RS: And when the Wall Street Journal arrived I started tinkering with New York. I was
had an idea I can do and it turns I can. And but we do that and enjoy two grand daughters
and I refurnish furniture as a hobby which is self perpetuating you. If you don’t want to
keep it you can always sell it for more than that. That financing the equipment and the
ointment and whatever you got to buy to do the job.
JA: I think it’s quite clear that you feel you have made a genuine and significant
contribution to the state you’ve adapted?
RS: Well, I suspect I’d take it off the Broadway Bridge. I tried if I didn’t feel that way
and so I guess the answer is yes I do.
JA: Good. Thank you very much.
Harold Forebush representing the Upper Snake River Valley Historical Society Inc. At
the close of the interview wishes to express personal appreciation to Judy Austin of the
State Historical Society for conducting what proved to be the most interesting and
informative interview with the former governor Robert E. Smylie. And I thank Miss.
Austin and I thank sincerely Governor Smylie.