Delmer Goode Oral History Interview, July 6, 1979

 JL: O.K. You spoke last time about how the years of the depression in terms of curriculum at Oregon State were very eventful years. What did you mean by that? In what ways?

DG: Did I discuss, well I will, did I discuss my graduate study?

JL: That you went down to Stanford?

DG: Yes.

JL: Yes, you did.

DG: Yes. Well, the reason I did, you remember, the reason I started my graduate study 20 years after I got my Bachelor's Degree was because I found that I was not merely on the campus here but during the time of the unified catalog in 1932 and '3 and for a maybe a year or two afterwards I was consulted by people of other institutions in the state system as though I knew things 00:01:00about curriculum and then I was asked to talk to our administrative council on the future curriculum of Oregon State and so on. And finding myself taken seriously and as a sort of authority on curriculum I decided that I'd better give myself some real formal and scholarly foundation for it and that's why I undertook my graduate study. It started out on the theme of curriculum and that was the goal that I had throughout excepting that I spent one year, of three, three graduate years but I spent the middle of the year of those three years on graduate psychology which I considered related to curriculum and I did that mostly at The University of Oregon. I spent two summer sessions there and 00:02:00what they called a post session one year and then went on a part time basis studying psychology. I did some very interesting graduate work in psychology, largely at The University of Oregon. The thing that started me there was a course, two courses, in fact, by Dr. Hilgard, a psychologist from Stanford who was a visiting professor at Eugene during the summer of 1937, I think it was and I took his two courses and I got my start in graduate psychology with him. I had some work with him down at Stanford, too. Well, along with these studies I was serving as, on our campus here, as secretary of the, what was called, The 00:03:00Course Revision Committee. At some stage it got to be called The Curriculum Committee. But, it was concerned with all curricular changes that were to be made in the curriculum of the different schools.

JL: This was in the early- 1930's?

DG: Yes. What I have really come to now is the mid 1930's. It was 1936 I started my graduate study down at Stanford. But, meanwhile I was meeting all the time and serving as secretary of this curriculum committee and later in the latter '30's I was made chairman of it as they began to recognize I was becoming 00:04:00something of an authority on curriculum why there was a vacancy and I was made chairman of the curriculum committee and while I was chairman I persuaded the administration to call it The Curriculum Council because it still exists and is now lapsed back to committee. It's called The Curriculum Committee but I got it called Curriculum Council because we had to deal with the Graduate Council, The Administrative Council and so on and we had responsibilities. For instance, as secretary or as chairman of this curriculum body committee or council I was exoficio a member of an inter-institutional Curriculum Committee 00:05:00that included, I think, it was nine members. There were three from Oregon State, three from University of Oregon and two, well, one from the Medical School and a second man from the Medical School who was chairman of this inter-institutional committee and then there was a man representing the Normal Schools, as they were called, at that time. He was a professor at Monmouth so there was a body of nine that had a great deal of responsibility and influence and I served on that as long as it lasted. It ultimately faded out as the institutions became more and more autonomous. The tendency was toward autonomy 00:06:00and the weakening the system power over the institutions. That was going on. Well, many crucial things came before that inter-institutional body and, of course, they had their aspects and counter parts in our own Curriculum Committee or later Council and some of it was pretty fierce because during the years from 1932 until 1942, I believe, The University of Oregon was engaged in a systematic program to get back the right to give major degrees, baccalaureate 00:07:00and advanced doctoral degree in science. They had lost that. That had had it but they had lost it to Oregon State.

JL: Was Oregon State also trying to get back their lost programs?

DG: Well, no we weren't. The policy of Oregon State College, as it was called, was to accept and work with the new program.

JL: Now why wasn't The U. of O. trying to work with the program?

DG: Well, because the University of Oregon decided it would manage some way to get back, it kept the name University of Oregon and it adopted the principal that a university has got to have the right to give a complete program in basic studies like science, literature and the arts and here they had been deprived of 00:08:00the right to give advanced work, major work, in science. And they were determined to get it back.

JL: Who was this headed by? Who was leading this...? [Unintelligible]

DG: The University of Oregon?

JL: What individual?

DG: Well, it wasn't always the same one. I could name a number of people but it was particularly spearheaded by this committee. This inter-institutional committee was made up of from University of Oregon and from Oregon State the graduate dean. That made two of them from The University of Oregon and Oregon State the dean of lower division which was an important post as planned by the board although it was diminished in importance because The University of Oregon 00:09:00practically sabotaged it as far as their campus was concerned, I don't know whether I should go into that or not, but anyway, the dean of lower division originally was supposed to be an inter-institutional dean who would operate both at Eugene and at Corvallis, but when and the board appointed our dean of lower division as this inter-institutional dean and when he went down to Eugene and tried to function they put every obstacle in his way that they could think of and he ultimately just decamped and gave up. He was supposed to be serving down there but they refused to accept him and made it impossible for him to function, but they had what were called the lower division science departments which 00:10:00didn't have the right to give degrees but had full freshman and sophomore programs and they had a dean down there. They created a deanship for him and he was the one put on this inter-institutional committee along with our dean of lower division who was supposed to be the inter-institutional dean but has been virtually robbed of his functions but there were these two lower division deans then. Two graduate deans, two lower division deans. The graduate dean at the Medical School, they had a graduate program up there and he was chairman of the inter-institutional body and then, as I said, a representative of the Medical School, a man in Biology up there, and a representative of the Normal Schools. 00:11:00So, it was nine men.

Well, this committee acted for the board in reviewing all proposals of all the institutions and made recommendations. Well, all the time there was scheming on the part of The University of Oregon to introduce a course which could be used as part of a fabric for ultimately a full program of science. They had made up their mind they were going to get it. Well, they worked then through this committee, all the time. And there were various schemed purposed that would kind of alleviate the embarrassment of The University of Oregon in not giving degrees in science. Many of those were proposed and didn't get anywhere but 00:12:00meanwhile they were making progress in terms of politics. They tried to get members of The Board of Higher Education either to be appointed who were in sympathy with getting science back for The University of Oregon or could be converted into that philosophy. There were several instances of that and then they did it politically. They elected a president. They needed a new president down there and they elected a president under a secret understanding by him that they were going to get science back at The University of Oregon. 00:13:00That they had an organization, political and academic, strong enough so that the time was nearly at hand when they would get it back. So they got a president who was able to say to the board I came here under the assurance that science would be restored to The University of Oregon and they got the governor committed to giving science back to the university. And I was appointed, this illustrates the fact that I had reached a kind of a status in the curriculum field, I was appointed by the president here of Oregon State...

JL: And that was Peavy?

DG: Yes...to go to go with Dean Dubach who was a dean of men to call on the 00:14:00governor and try to persuade him to the idea that the state system as it existed had been set up under state law, an act of the legislature and under Federal Survey the recommendations of the Federal Survey Commission and at Oregon State University, er, College as it was called was supporting that program.. And we put it up to him should not you as governor of the state supposed to enforce the laws of the state be in favor of maintaining this program. I said that to him. I had the courage sitting one evening in Salem across from the governor.

JL: Hmmm.

DG: But we found we couldn't get anywhere because the governor had already committed himself in favor of putting science back at The University of Oregon.

JL: Now the governor then was?

DG: Sprague. Charles Sprague. He'd dead now. I had some temerity to talk that way to a governor but I had been sent to do it. But, we came back unsuccessful. We had to report the governor has already assured his support of giving science back to the university.

JL: What did you feel the repercussions would be if they did get science? I mean if they had...

DG: It would mean the beginning of the disintegration of the state system and it 00:16:00DID! The state system still exists but it isn't anything like it was originally supposed to be.

JL: Do you still believe they should not have gotten a science degree granting program in science?

DG: I'll tell you what I believe. I think that their case that a university as long as they kept the name university the idea of the survey The Federal Survey Committee and originally the idea of the board was that the state system should be a university. ONE university. And this Zorm-McPherson Bill was a 00:17:00proposal to make ONE university at Corvallis and the other branches at Eugene and Monmouth and Medical School and so on would be part of that university. And I think that was a fine idea excepting it was not practical. When it came down to the election for the Zorn McPherson Bill all of the alumni of Oregon Normal School at Monmouth scattered all over the state, teachers you know, and their friends and relatives and so on SPRANG to the rescue of their institution because it was going to be moved from Monmouth to Eugene and use the campus and buildings of The University of Oregon for a state teachers college which would 00:18:00be part of the state university too and they resisted it. So the Zorn-McPherson Bill lost a lot of votes from that moving and then, of course, The University of Oregon as a whole was going to be moved to Corvallis, OF ALL PLACES, of all places because they despised us. So they didn't want to be moved to Corvallis and there were a lot of business interests in Eugene, of course, that would be affected. They felt the State University was far more important to Eugene than a State Teacher's College would be but it was a noble idea but the trouble was they never got to the point of saying this shall be the University of the State of Oregon. They organized it, if it were but they didn't name it. It was 00:19:00the Oregon State System of Higher Education and the institutions kept their regular names and one of them was The University of Oregon, another one, the one up at Portland had on one of its principal buildings carved out of a stone tablet across the front of the building, University of Oregon Medical School, so they kept themselves as part of The University of Oregon although the board had set it up in such a way that the dean of the Medical School would be responsible to the chancellor, not to the president of The University of Oregon. As a matter of fact, at that stage The University of Oregon or Oregon State or any of them were supposed to not have presidents and they didn't have to start with excepting that the Normal Schools had presidents and kept them.

But there were these two foresters in the State Board opposed to each other and in the long run the idea of a unified State University which is what the whole thing was supposed to be and which we supported, organized only in part. It was gradually disintegrated. Now I believe it was a noble and fine idea but if The University of Oregon was to be a University of Oregon I think they were quite right in maintaining that it would be a mockery to have a university without 00:21:00doctoral degrees in science and that's what governor Sprague believed too. That was the logic that they sold him on and it's good sheer logic. Our mistake, I think, was at a meeting of the State Board of Higher Education held down at Ashland the board voted to grant as petitioned by The University of Oregon to The University of Oregon all degree granting privileges in science and then we immediately, Oregon State, I think, logically should have although technically I'm not sure that it really would have been effective but logically we should 00:22:00have said on the same basis we should have all degree granting privileges in the social sciences and humanities. The trouble was we hadn't had even bachelor's degrees in those fields so we were at quite a disadvantage. The University of Oregon had had so what we did was to ask to get back what we had lost. The university had lost science. The University of Oregon had lost Science. We asked for the restoration of our School of Commerce and our School of Mines and we got them ultimately. We didn't get them right away but we after a meeting or two we did call it a School of Business and technology...

JL: And you were instrumental in getting this passed then?

DG: What?

JL: Were you instrumental in getting these...

DG: No, I was just a tool. I was used but I wasn't the one to make decisions 00:23:00like that. If they had asked me I would have said, "Why don't we start ourselves now. If it takes ten years why don't we go out after all degree granting privileges in humanities and social sciences. Why don't we? It's time we did. Under this moral act statement without excluding other scientific and classical studies, without excluding them, we could have said why are these excluded? They're NOT SUPPOSED TO BE EXCLUDED from a Land Grant Institution. Now we're going to get now them back. Now if we'd gone through the maneuvering the tactical attempts and the political and similar machinations I suppose we 00:24:00could have done it and we'd have doctoral degrees in a humanities and social sciences right now. I don't know whether we have any. I don't know just what we have. We have bachelors degrees I know. But, back in the '30's we didn't have. Nor in the '40's. We didn't have.

JL: What part did Peavy play in this?

DG: Well, he was a dedicated man and courageous and he held to a policy that I have outlined that until The University of Oregon got science back we resisted any of their proposals that were contrary to the program of the state system and we refrained from asking for anything that was contrary. It wasn't that we 00:25:00were timid but we were being loyal to the State Board and we felt, I know I felt, the State Board didn't show much appreciation because they gave The University of Oregon which instead of supporting them had defied them they gave them what they asked for. So I felt that, well that we deserve better from the State Board. But we fought our way and Dr. Peavy and then in 1940 about the time that The University of Oregon got science back why we got a new president. Dr. Peavy had reached retirement age.

JL: How and why was Peavy chosen as president?

DG: He was the senior dean of the various schools. He had been a dean longest. Of course...

JL: [Unintelligible]

DG: Yes, he had been for a long time dean of forestry and, of course, forestry is an important and powerful school in the sense of its importance in the state because Oregon is a great timber state and so he was a strong figure and naturally he was the one chosen as president.

JL: It wasn't for his attributes then? It was because he'd been dean longer than anybody else?

DG: That was it. Yes. Yes.

JL: How did he do as--I understand that he retained his deanship of School of Forestry? How did that work with being president and dean at the same time?

DG: Well, it didn't work throughout. I think before his time as president was 00:27:00over they did appoint another dean. I'm not sure on that. That could easily be determined when a dean was chosen, but I believe, it was before his time as president was over because he did have a big job as president and he dedicated his time and talents to it and he did the best job he possibly could and it was a pretty good job. He had help, of course. Now maybe before we leave the decade of the '30's we'd better go into one aspect of my career that is in line with this policy of Oregon State to support the board. One of the things that 00:28:00the board did when it established the state system was to establish a division of information in the chancellor's office and I told you last time about how Edwin T. Reed who was called college editor, at that time, could I know have been placed in charge of that division of information and how I remember a time in a Salem hotel when he he left the door open of his room and I was in my room our rooms communicated but he was in his room in the dark meditating a long 00:29:00time. I think a couple of hours or more. But he finally came out and joined me and I remember clearly he said, I do not think that I should head this division of information. And he had gone through it from the standpoint of he owned a home here, in fact, a small farm adjacent to Corvallis and he had a family in school and all and he was approaching retirement. Within ten years he would be retiring and he decided he didn't want to move to Eugene and it was already, I guess, decided that the chancellor would put his office in Eugene. That was Dr. Kerr's decision but he did it thinking he could work better with 00:30:00The University of Oregon if his office was at Eugene. So, Mr. Reed he said Professor Byrne could do that.

Now the thing was there was an editorial office on this campus and editors and E.T. Reed was the main editor. Head of the office and I was an assistant or ultimately associate editor and finally became editor of publications with rank of professor and I had had much experience and so on. But there wasn't anyone at the University of Oregon who had real experience as an editor. They didn't have anyone there. So, if there was going to be a head for this new office it had to be either Reed or Byrne and Mr. Reed decided in favor of Byrne and 00:31:00Byrne who wasn't a doctor at that time he got busy and earned a doctor's degree at Stanford on the basis of some leaves and so on. But, he became director of information.

Well, the director of information was responsible to the chancellor and he became the soon after Dr. Kerr became the...

The board discontinued its executive secretary job and they gave the man Dr. Lindsey was his name a year's salary or something but dismissed him immediately. Ended his services. There is quite a story there but I won't go into that. It affected me a little but it isn't really anything that you need to include. I worked under Lindsey for a while though along with others 00:32:00but when Professor Byrne took charge of the office he was the executive secretary under whom he worked for awhile. Under the board but when the executive secretary office disappeared then Professor Byrne was under the chancellor. And the board and he was made secretary of the board. Not executive secretary but secretary of the board. Keep their minutes and look after many things under the direction of the chancellor, however. Well, we our office then was although it was an office of Oregon State College became 00:33:00virtually a part of this division of information and when the chancellor settled in Eugene the office of the division of information was developed there and so we did and Mr. Reed who had declined to be head of this division was named editor of publications of the state system. He was under the director of information. He was still under the president of Oregon State College, too. But, he was editor of system publications. Well, of course, so was I in one sense because I edited the unified catalog for 1932, '33 but Mr. Reed 00:34:00occasionally went down to Eugene and Professor Byrne occasionally more often came up to Corvallis as part of his duties but I was not so much of a figure and I was useful agent and so I was called down to Eugene a great deal to work with the division of information.

For example, within a few years the board had adopted enough in the way of rules and regulations so they needed to publish their kind of administrative code. They had taken all kinds of actions, board actions, which were recorded in the 00:35:00minutes of the board and, of course, Professor Byrne as secretary of the board kept those minutes but they had the rules and things that the board had adopted that people needed to know about in order to follow were all scattered in these minutes and they decided quite properly that they ought to get out a in pamphlet in which would include, I don't remember now what it was called but it an was a kind of an administrative code of the state system of higher education board action affecting deans, directors, presidents, institutions and so forth.

Well, I was asked to compile that. And I had the minutes of the board to follow, of course and I went down I spent quite a bit of time at Eugene where 00:36:00the minutes were. Later we used to get the minutes ourselves but the official minutes were in the office of the secretary of the board who was also director of information and I worked many days I had to come back to Corvallis from time to time because I had duties here too. But, I stayed at a hotel in Eugene for several days and compiled this administrative code of the state system of higher education under Dr. Kerr under Professor Byrnes supervision. That was an example. I wasn't doing this for President Peavy although I was responsible to President Peavy but as a part of the division of information I had a responsibility at least to Professor Byrne director of information and some responsibility to the chancellor. I had more later.

JL: What kind of a man was George Peavy?

DG: He was a very popular dean and very able. He developed a great school of forestry and he was well liked throughout the state and he was respected on the campus here. I'll give you a little bit off the record if you'll shut this off a little. I don't want to put it in the...

JL: Do you know anything about George Peavy acquiring McDonald Forest lands? Do you know anything about that?

DG: Yes. That's a very it's one of his achievements. Mrs. McDonald was the widow of a wealthy forest owner and after his death she had vast holdings to look after and through the influence of President Peavy she became very interested in the work of the School of Forestry and so on and she decided that this forest up here which, I guess, had already been named McDonald Forest would be or maybe it was named at the time that she gave it to The School of Forestry, anyway, she gave it to The School of Forestry. A very important gift. In addition she made a gift of what is called The McDonald collection of rare books 00:39:00in the library in the McDonald Room. And this was one of President Peavy's achievements. She allotted money for the construction in the library of what is now Kidder Hall, it was the library at that time, and in that building a room was designated to house this McDonald collection of rare well books. And yet it was built beautifully. The bookshelves were all of hard wood with beautiful glass doors, carpeted floor, beautiful hardwood furnishings, chairs and tables and so forth called "The McDonald Room."

JL: What qualities did George Peavy hold that made him so popular and have people give him money like Mrs. McDonald did?

DG: Well, he had a good sense of humor and then he was dedicated and very much in earnest. An example of his dedication was when he became president he adopted a principle that he would go to bed at nine o'clock every night. Well, of course, there were many events on campus that as president he needed to attend but I remember once nine o'clock up he got. He left the table where he was and went home and went home to go to bed. And he did that in order (he was getting on in years and he wanted to conserve his strength) so he could fill his job as president and, of course, I'm sure sometimes he was glad to get away. Sometimes these meetings that you sit at are bore some and all. But other times he was probably sorry to leave but that was an example. He felt his first claim was as president.

JL: What kind of an administrator was he?

DG: Pretty good although I'd say he had his weaknesses. But I won't go into that. But he was pretty good. He was respected. He was respected by the other deans and he was their senior dean and he got along all right with them. I don't know of any real clashes at all. I do know that he was capable of some kind of, oh, vindictiveness vindictiveness in terms of appointments. I re~ member once where he was proposing to just fire a professor who had not been too loyal to Oregon State. He was a professor who had been transferred up here 00:42:00from The University of Oregon and he had been somewhat lacking in loyalty and this man and particularly not so much just loyalty to the institution as to the head of the department. He had been brought up from Eugene and put up under a department head that he didn't respect and he didn't treat respectfully. So, President Peavy was planning to fire him and I know that he was advised not to. The repercussions would be too costly. Well, that was an example that he wasn't all wise but he was wise enough to adopt that advice. He didn't fire the man.

JL: Would Kerr have wanted him to be president? Did Kerr endorse his presidency?

DG: Oh, I'm sure he did. Yes. There wasn't any money to pay a president a 00:43:00proper salary at all. This was in the midst of the depression. Enrollment had dropped down to a couple of thousand and the lowest ever it had been in the early years of the thirties and so there wasn't money to pay a president properly. I'm sure that Peavy got a raise as president over what he had as dean but he didn't get anything like he should have had. But, Dr. Kerr named him as a courtesy and because he was eligible and deserved it.

JL: What kind of a family did President Peavy have? What... Go ahead.

DG: He had, I don't think he had any daughters. He had at least a couple of 00:44:00sons. Maybe three. He had two, I know. One of them was connected with Stanford. At the time one of his sons was connected with Stanford at the time that I started my graduate study down there. My wife and our little boy, who was approaching four years old, spent the five weeks down there and we were housed in a cottage which was on the property of this Peavy family... This son of President Peavy with his wife and whatever children they had. And they invited us to dinner one evening. The three of us, my wife and our boy and me. They were not very nice to us. I knew of him. I forget which one now. One of them was named Darwin but I'm not sure whether this was Darwin or not. 00:45:00They both went into careers, I think, more academic than forestry. I'm pretty sure that this one at Stanford was in some academic position rather than forestry.

JL: What was Mrs. Peavy like?

DG: She was a very eccentric woman. She was dedicated to her job as first lady but very, very eccentric.

JL: Explain that to me.

DG: Well, as an example the president's reception used to be held in the Memorial Union and in the main lounge, and you know the balcony there around it, well, in the old days the president's reception used to be held in the men's gymnasium and it always included dancing. The president's reception was for 00:46:00the faculty and it was quite a grand occasion and there was always an orchestra and people that wanted to dance danced and the others watched. But there was a receiving line and all. Quite a receiving line. All the deans stood in a receiving line. Well, while Mrs. Peavy was running the reception had been moved to the memorial union and there was the problem about dancing and they had ultimately had arranged to have dancing downstairs in the ballroom, but that hadn't been done yet and as a gesture toward dancing she engaged a number of young couples, there was an orchestra playing, and she engaged a number of young couples to come through balcony doors and dance up there on the balcony so the 00:47:00rest of us could watch them. Well, I felt sorry for those, of course though they were nice couples and I'm sure they enjoyed dancing but to dance like that up there on a balcony under the gaze of hundreds of people down below must have been but the president's wife had asked it and they did it. Well, I don't think we've ever had a president' wife who would have had a fantastic an idea as that but that's an example of her eccentricity. She had her good points and her odd points. She was an odd lady but...

JL: How was she odd?

DG: What?

JL: How? In what ways was she odd?

DG: Odd. Well, that was an example. No one else would have done anything like that.

JL: She was quite different from President Peavy? He seems like a...

DG: Oh, yes.

JL: ...pragmatic...

DG: Yes. She wasn't much of a homemaker. She, for instance, took the lead in trying to organize a kind of a community kitchen where people like herself, wives of the faculty, could go and get prepared food. She'd have been in her element now with frozen food but this was before freezing was available. Her idea was perhaps her husband could stop on his way home and pick up an Irish stew or something like that all hot, ready to serve, bring it home and all that. She that community kitchen didn't work out very well but that was an example of her ideas and, oh, I remember some strange thing at some meeting at their 00:49:00home once. But, it doesn't come back clearly to me. I know it was an example of her oddity. But, she wasn't mean. She, well, she was a fine first lady but an odd person. Not ordinary. You never tell what ideas she might have and she was in a position to carry them out.

JL: My gosh. (With surprised enthusiasm)

DG: (Chuckle) That is there was I'm sure a lot of kind of laughing around the corner or behind her back but nevertheless she was treated with respect and courtesy and accepted as first lady with the campus.

JL: Did they have strong family ties? The Peavys?

DG: Except the sons none that I know of.

JL: Where they a close knit family?

DG: Oh, a family. Well I didn't know the family in that sense at all.

JL: Hmmm. How was the community of Corvallis affected by the turmoil of the '30's at O.S.C.?

DG: Well, it was affected one way at the when the salaries were cut on the campus because of the lower enrollment and the shortage of money. There was a quite a bit of kind of gloating downtown, the business men thought it just they had been kind of jealous of some of these so called or what they imagined were fat salaries up on the campus and they thought it wouldn't hurt us to have a taste of because they were already feeling the depression, you know. Things were going hard with them. The aftermath of that though was that as soon as the salary cuts took effect it affected business downtown and they began to feel that they gloated too soon.

JL: Ohh.

DG: But, in general there's always been pretty good relation between downtown and campus here.

JL: How was Corvallis affected by the depression?

DG: Oh, I'm sure it was affected bad. Prices all went down. Had to. There was a restaurant downtown that was run by a lady who knew her business. Mrs., ohhh, the name doesn't come to me, well, in a minute. It was on Monroe Street. 00:52:00Down between third and fourth, I believe. Mrs. Howser's restaurant and why you could get a meal for what you'd get a milkshake for now. A dollar thirty five maybe you got a good meal, three course meal. Main, soup or salad, and a main course and dessert, beverages. But, as an example there was a man over here whose wife was an invalid. I remember at a boarding house where they lived at one time they had rooms upstairs, over the dining room and he used to carry his wife's meals upstairs on a tray. Well, after Mrs. Howser's restaurant started they had built a house over on, the Episcopal Center over 00:53:00there. They built that house and they used to this wife and her sister who was living with them at that time would go downtown to Mrs. Howser's in a cab but the man, the professor, would walk down. It gave him his exercise. But they'd have their dinner down at Mrs. Howser's. They could do that. It helped him because after they weren't at a boarding house I presume there was a problem of getting meals although, I think, his wife got so either she or her sister could get meals. That may have been the reason her sister was with them. But, the prices came down which helped to match the lowered salaries and I've told you about how our salaries not only were lowered. We had a base 00:54:00salary and our salary that we actually got was only a percentage of that and then in addition to that we had voluntary deductions from our salaries to help people that didn't have jobs, skilled people.

JL: Dr. Kerr sort dropped out of the picture after he retired in 1933 or '34 didn't he? As to making any major changes in the direction of Oregon State?

DG: You mean while he was president?

JL: After that and then he became chancellor and retired.

DG: Oh, Dr. Kerr.

JL: Dr. Kerr, I'm sorry.

DG: Yes. Well, of course, he had the job of helping the University of Oregon reestablish their science program, and as Chancellor, he helped us get back our business major.

JL: What did he think about the U. of O. getting back the science program?

DG: I think he was on the side of Loren McPherson. I think that he never came out for it, but I think his policy was to support the Board program. I don't think he would have taken the chancellorship if he hadn't been willing to support the Board's program, and of course, although he might have personally felt that it was a mistake to give science back to the University, he accepted it or he wouldn't have taken the job as chancellor, but his general policy was to carry out the program of the Board faithfully and honestly. I don't know 00:56:00anything ever of Dr. Kerr being involved in any kind of intrigue or anything of that sort. He was open and above board about everything that he did. Not that he didn't, if he had something to do, go at it in a way to get it. But, not any skulldugery or anything like that. He was honest and honorable but he didn't have to be. He didn't have to be anything else because he knew how if he had a case he knew how to support it and make it prevail. He had strength.

JL: Do you think there was a man a person more capable than Kerr to become chancellor of the state system?

DG: No. There never was a chancellor better than Dr. Kerr.

JL: Is that right?

DG: No. If he had only been younger and The University of Oregon would have 00:57:00allowed him to function they would have done anything they could but if the board supported him why there would be limits to what they could do. But, they did right under Dr. Kerr they did scrape this job of interinstitutional dean of lower division. In effect, so that a man appointed by the board to function couldn't function. Dr. Kerr couldn't stop that but I think that would have been about it. I don't believe that, I don't think, that if he had continued as chancellor that they would have been able to get away with anything else other than that. But, anyway he became 70 years old and he had announced that 00:58:00he'd retire at 70 and he did. But, there were chancellors of varying degree but none equal to Dr. Kerr. None of them. They were distinguished men though I wouldn't reflect on them.

JL: Did Peavy have the same support that Kerr had? Support from faculty and administrators?

DG: Did he have what?

JL: The same support as Kerr had as president of O.S.C.?

DG: I think he did. I think he did. I wasn't in one way I was quite familiar with murmurings if there had been any and so on. I think I would have known them if there had been. I'm sure there were deans who felt, I can think of one dean especially who not only felt but probably was much more capable of running the institution than Peavy was.

JL: May I ask who that is?

DG: Not on a matter of record?

JL: O.K.

DG: No. Somehow or other. He's dead now. I wouldn't need to be afraid of it. Afraid of mentioning him but he was dean of a strong school here and as it turned out he became president of an eastern polytechnic institute, which was a kind of a university. Showing that he was very capable. He could well have been but he wasn't the senior dean, you know, like Peavy but I think he had principle enough to support President Peavy and I'm sure he did.

JL: You felt that there was a more capable person than Peavy to run the institution at this time? This time of turmoil?

DG: No, because this man that I speak of might not have had the support of one of the other schools which was a very powerful school and would have felt that if anybody other than Peavy was going to be in there why why shouldn't our dean be in there and so on. So I think Peavy was the best we could have had.

JL: Hmmm.

DG: And I think he did all right. We didn't lose ground. We didn't lose ground. We kept up our support of the board and so on. But you see here when the university got science back we began to get some things back that's all. But meanwhile we were forgetting the seven words without excluding other scientific and classical studies. We were still doing it and I don't believe 01:01:00that Dr. Kerr was sensitive to that nor was Peavy nor were any of the presidents following. They weren't as sensitive to it as they should have been or we probably would have had a program long before we have. Have had to get these other scientific and classical studies.

JL: Strand was very instrumental in getting this...

DG: He was a good president. Strand was a good president and we got business back. We got major work in science in mines. We didn't get the School of Mines as such. But we got a science major and there were other points of progress under President Strand. Especially internal progress.

JL: Before we get to him I know that President Peavy later became the mayor of Corvallis.

DG: Yes.

JL: How was he as mayor?

DG: Very good.

JL: Is that right?

DG: Yes. He was respected downtown. And he ornamented the office rather than in any sense inadequate. He was adequate. He made a good mayor. Of course, a mayor's function is not heavy. It isn't anything like a presidency and yet it has some important decisions and it has important influence. He did a good job.

JL: Can you compare Dr. Kerr and Dean Peavy for me?

DG: Oh, Dr. Kerr was a statesman.

The only fault at looking back on Dr. Kerr the only fault I would ascribe to him is his neglect of this provision in the land grant act. The Morrill Act of not excluding other scientific and classical studies. They were neglected and ignored and allowed to lapse even to a level below what they ultimately were granted by common consent. This lower division status. They lapsed very badly and, I think, we should have been militantly working for and 01:04:00demanding development, in the interest of, the liberal and practical education of students in the occupations and professions in life. Particularly agriculture and mechanic arts but Dr. Kerr like the leaders of most other separate land grant institutions became enthusiastic about agriculture and mechanical arts and other practical subjects and they made such a success of those subjects. Agriculture and forestry and engineering, home economics and mining and all the practical.

Vocational education. They neglected those other scientific and classical subjects. It really is a reflection on Dr. Kerr and on Oregon State as an institution that we didn't have degrees in the sciences. If we were to give liberal and practical education even in agriculture and mechanical arts or engineering we needed to have associated with those students, students who were majoring in the basic sciences and or some of them in the classical studies. Like humanities and social sciences. We needed to have such students as dormitory associates and class room associates and so forth of these 01:06:00agricultural and engineering students. We needed them and Dr. Kerr used to emphasize that that the education of the man or the woman takes priority over the influence of the professional. The agriculturalist or the engineer. He used to say that but the real liberal education of these professionals agriculture and engineering, for example, requires a liberal environment for their education which means as if you look in that book about Johnathan.' Turner his conception was a university that would do for the practical professions what the old line universities or colleges were doing like Harvard and Yale were 01:07:00doing for what were called the polite professions. The ministry, law and medicine. That's what the old colleges were doing and the land grant institutions were, under Turner's conception, to be established to do for people in industrial occupations the same kind of university education that these professionals in the polite professions were getting. And I don't think that Dr. Kerr or the other leaders who followed enthusiastically the fascination of practical education really had the Turner conception and I don't believe that that Senator Morrill who took the lead in getting the Morrill act passed really 01:08:00caught the Turner gleam either. I think he called them colleges rather than universities just for political effectiveness though. I know that, I feel sure that, it would be a lot easier to establish colleges than it would have been to establish universities in all of the states. He adopted the word college because that's what people were supporting in those days. Even HARVARD was a college. You didn't go to Harvard University. You went to Harvard College and you graduated from Harvard College. The same was true of Yale and Princeton and many others although there were a few institutions called universities. But they weren't really universities in a proper sense, as yet, although they were called universities. The real higher institutions in The United States were Colleges.

So Dr. Kerr like others of his kind was deficient in that respect. But, never the less with that defect he was a great education statesman whereas Dr. Peavy was not of that stature. He had qualities of statesmanship and he had high qualities of dedication and he had a kind of contagion about him. He was a good leader. For example, of his leadership. At the time he was still president I was chosen president of Phi Kappa Phi in the fall of 1939 or '38 it 01:10:00must have been. Because it was the year before I went to Stanford for my last year. The fall of '38, President Peavy was still president and I had an ambitious program for Phi Kappa Phi, Now this is about me but it will illustrate Peavy too. I had a program for Phi Kappa Phi that Phi Kappa Phi is an honor society. It should be a power on the campus for scholarship and I meant while I was president to make it so and so I at the very beginning of the year I organized all of the committees I needed. A number of committees. A committee on forums. A committee on nominations for new officers. A 01:11:00committee on selection of members and so on. There were probably a dozen committees and I enlisted among the faculty and the students, and there were a lot of student seniors who were members. Initiated members of Phi Kappa Phi. Among those I organized committees and I asked one of each committee to be a convener and to come to get their whole committee to come and sit in a body in a meeting that we would hold at five o'clock in Commerce Hall, er, Bexell Hall it's called now which is where the president's office was too and we met in a 01:12:00classroom at five o'clock and I asked all of these committees led by a convener to come and sit together in the meeting and I said, "There will be an opportunity before you to elect a chairman and decide when you can have meetings."

So these committees were all to be activated at this meeting and they were to be there and I found in my experience with Phi Kappa Phi, I'd worked with Phi Kappa Phi for some years in various functions as a committee chairman, for example, and I found they are very responsive. They are high grade students or they wouldn't be members of Phi Kappa Phi and they have time. They can get a flock of A's and still have some time. If they have a job that commands their 01:13:00respect something they ought to do and they say they'll do it they do it. So I asked them to come to this meeting and they came. We had a whole classroom full but I had announced, "President Peavy will speak," So here came the president of the institution to speak. He wasn't there during the early part of the meeting when they were having their committee meetings and electing chairman and secretary and things like that. But, he came in and he gave an inspiring speech. So did I. I gave a speech too. I didn't compete with the president but I gave a speech as president of Phi Kappa Phi and he gave a speech and a very good speech as president of Oregon State College, that is an 01:14:00institution of higher learning and interested in learning and in scholarship and in the fostering of high level scholarly action and attainment. And high level scholarship. He gave a good speech. He was a vigorous speaker. He should be given credit for that.

Well, I made my speech, too, and when it was over after the president's speech and I gave my closing speech which indicated to them that we were going to be a strong powerful influence on, I hoped, on the campus toward good scholarship and that we would carry on activities that would keep scholarship before the students. Particularly before the attention of the students who had shown 01:15:00ability to get high level in scholarship. Like people who got into Phi Eta Sigma and Alpha Lambda Delta. I'm not sure we had Phi Eta Sigma yet, but Phi Kappa Phi had always given to students who made, I think it was, 3.25 in their freshman year a certificate of encouragement that they had shown promise and ability to make a good record in their college work. Well, I raised up a high ideal of a scholarly program for Phi Kappa Phi and Dr. Helen Gilkey who was a professor in botany and who was a curator of the Herbarium over in what is now Cordley Hall. She was chairman of one of these committees and I remember her. 01:16:00As people were going out, she passed me and she said, "Very inspiring". So I felt, now the reason I mention that is that it wasn't only that year but that year that I was president is still remembered in Phi Kappa Phi and that is why I have in recent years, been a member of the executive committee of Phi Kappa Phi. I, in my latte 80's long past a stage of any kind of activity or even of vitality, here I have been a member of the executive committee of Phi Kappa Phi and it is because really they wanted to regain that's been kind of tapering off that year of '38 and '39 was a banner year in Phi Kappa Phi when I was president and they still want to get it back.

JL: Hmmm.

DG: Well, President Peavy helped on that. I hope Phi Kappa Phi is going to work still toward getting that back. I'm not going to be on the executive committee anymore excepting they told me they hope I'll attend. So they want me there but I don't know. I won't have an office anymore. And so I don't know as to that but I still have hopes for Phi Kappa Phi but they have been making use of my ideas. The trouble is, I think, they have to go at it the way I did. They've got to mobilize the whole chapter at the very start of the term. This is off the record. Let me will you mark it? You can mark it off the record and don't put it in. But I am going to if I get a chance I've 01:18:00asked to talk to the new president of Phi Kappa Phi I'm going to try to get her to do something as president to act as president somewhat of the way I did in actually mobilizing the whole chapter in the fall. I'm in hopes I can do that. Whether I do depend on her. I don't know, of course. She's president. I won't be president. (Chuckle)

JL: Mr. Goode I want to change the subject and to go on to when you first started the Boy Scout Troop in Corvallis. Now how did you get involved in Boy Scouts? How did you start this troop?

DG: All right. First let me make a little preface. Before World War I there 01:19:00was in Corvallis a scout troop called Corvallis Troop No. 1, That's the way they named troops in those times. And the scout master was Edwin T. Sherman who was pastor of the First Congregational Church. It was not however a church troop. It included boys from all over the town and they were, many of them, connected with various churches and they had patrols or some kind of sub organizations within the troop that had heads and one thing and another but he was the scout master. Well, I could show you pictures of them and there are one or two men in Corvallis still living who were members of that troop.

JL: I met one.

DG: Mr. Guthrie? Guthrie, what is his name? Guthrie. Anyway he's a member of the Congregational Church. Bernard Guthrie. I used to know one or two others but I don't know whether they're alive yet or still living. But that troop disappeared when Edwin T. Sherman resigned and left here and then World War I came and so there wasn't, during that time from 1917 to '19 when I came to Corvallis, the troop. When I came here there was no troop but meanwhile I was in a Minnesota school at Clarkfield, Minnesota at the time that World War I, as 01:21:00far as The United States is concerned started. I was at Clarkfield after I received my degree at Minnesota in the fall of 1916 I went to Clarkfield as superintendent of schools and I served there two years and during my first year '16 to '17 there was a young man who was connected, I think, with the telephone company who was located in Clarkfield and who had been a scoutmaster and he became interested in organizing a troop and I was superintendent of schools and I was very interested although I had never been a scout nor ever been a scout master. But, I helped him in the schools and so on. One thing in particular in 01:22:00the town there were two Lutheran Churches, both of which because, I think the influence of German propaganda in this country in this war time had worked through the Lutheran Churches which were Scandinavian, Norwegian and Swedish and kind of represented to them that scouting was a kind of something they should steer clear of and so they were against scouting and particularly in this town. There had been a scout troop but it had been the scoutmaster had been the Methodist minister and the boys had flocked to him, of course, from these Lutheran Churches and the two Lutheran pastors were afraid they were losing their boys. (Amusement in Voice)

JL: (Chuckle)

DG: So they were not in favor of a scout troop again. So, I helped this young man to organize a scout troop under a principal. That it would be under the school, not a church and that it would be open to boys from any church and so forth and I went to the pastors of these two Lutheran Churches. It happened that the Methodists didn't have a pastor at the time. Just a supply every Sunday but this young telephone man who was going to be who had been a scoutmaster was going to be scoutmaster and we were getting started fine. But, along the first part of April here came the declaration of war against Germany 01:24:00by the United States, you know, by President Wilson because the Germans had sunk some of our ships and had told us they would sink some more if we attempted to carry any kind of either food or armaments to their enemies the English and the French and all and this young man who was going to be scout master was in the National Guard and was called into active duty. Well, somebody had to be scout master. Vie had organized a troop committee and we had a woman on it. One of our teachers was a member of this troop committee. They are getting 01:25:00women into scouting now. The Benton district here now part of the Oregon Trail Council has a woman chairman and they give the silver beaver now to women. They didn't use to. They gave them if there were women den mothers you know, and that sort of thing. They gave them a silver fawn but they've changed that now. The women get silver beavers, too.

JL: I wanted to ask was that common that a pastor of a church, would be the scout master?

DG: Anything was common if the pastor was interested. Churches have always been good centers for scout troops. However, they are not so universally so as they used to be. They are more P.T.A.'s and schools now rather than churches. 01:26:00Our church The Congregational Church, still sponsors troop one which is the one that I'll come to in a minute. But, anyway in Clarkfield after this young man was called into service somebody had to be scout master and I became scout master. Not knowing a thing about scouting excepting what I'd read but I took a group. I became the scoutmaster and I took a group of scout's summer camp that summer. The summer of 1917. The war had started but I was going back to Clarkfield. I guess I had received a draft number and I might be called into service, but I was going to be a scout master and I took them to camp. Well, I didn't know how to swim then and we went out in boats and I sometimes tremble to 01:27:00think what we'd have done if someone had fallen overboard because I don't know how many of the boys knew how to swim either. But, Minnesota is full of lakes, you know, and everybody goes out on boats. Anyway we spent the best part of a week in camp and then we operated a victory garden. A man in Clarkfield who owned a little land out of town offered some land for us to raise beans and so the scouts had a bean patch and raised a lot of beans and peddled them around and sold them in market and so on in the fall. But I went home part of the summer for my vacation and then I went back to Clarkfield and continued as scout 01:28:00master and that was Clarkfield Troop No. 1. And but then before the year was over that second year in Clarkfield my draft number came up but the superintendent of the county the superintendent of schools went to the country draft board and represented to them that it would be a mistake to take me out of Clarkfield right away and so they got my call extended until after the end of the year.

And so I put in two years at Clarkfield and two years, another year as scout master as well as superintendent of schools. So, I learned some things about scouting. I used to conduct scout meetings and so forth. I took them on 01:29:00hikes and so forth because I was very interested. There was a very beautiful poem in a scout magazine addressed to a scout like a father addressing it to his son and it had the line, describing the things that a scout does, and it had the line. "Doing the things I longed to do when I was a boy like you." Well, I had a little bit of nostalgia for some of those things that I had longed to do when I was a boy so I enjoyed leading hikes and so on. I don't remember so much but I know that we had a good troop and even when I went into the service which I did in June the end of that year I had a list of boys to whom I used to 01:30:00write from France later and the troop gave me a camera and, I think, some no it was here they gave me field glass. They gave me a field camera. The senior class gave me a toilet kit and so on. I went off with all kinds of attentions...

JL: Ohhh.

DG: ...when I went into uniform. But, I went out of scout uniform and so I don't know what happened to that troop. I was too busy with my own affairs but I used to hear from the scouts during most of the time I was in the service. Well, when I came out here I was discharged from the service in January 1919 after about half of my time in uniform in France. So I had crossed the 01:31:00Atlantic twice. Once in convoy to protect us from submarine attacks. We could have been sunk by the submarines as the Germans had warned us they would sink us and they would have been delighted to sink a whole boat load of soldiers. But we were protected by this convoy. We zigzagged across the Atlantic. It took us 12 days to get across. But we did. We landed at Glasgow and so on.

Well, we sailed from Bordeaux and landed back in New York and were discharged at Camp Grant, Illinois at Rockford, Illinois in January. And then I began to seek a job, as you know, and I'll skip that part. I got my job out here in Corvallis and Mr. Reed who was active in the First Congregational Church, took 01:32:00me to church right away. He took me into his home as a house guest for a week till I found a room then he saw to it I got to church every Sunday and so on and before long I was kind of captured by the Congregational Church although I had never been a church member I used to attend church. But, I was no heathen nor was I anti- church but I had never found a church that I could join because they all had barriers like creeds or something or other that I didn't believe in and so I didn't become a member but I found the Congregational Church didn't require strict adherence to any part-icular belief. It assured you freedom to believe whatever you believed. It still does. So, I ultimately joined the 01:33:00Congregational Church but before that in October I started in the Congregational Church here to attend it in March after I arrived in Corvallis. But, sometime in October after a church supper a group of boys of scout age, came to me there v/ere three of them, and...

JL: Who were they?

DG: ...one of them was Alexander Clyde the minister's son. The other two were half-brothers of Irwin Harris who is on the campus here now. You know him do you?

JL: No.

DG: Well, he's a student I forget his title but it's a you look up Irwin Harris and you'll find what his job is. He had the same mother of these two boys but 01:34:00their name was Taylor. Their father had died and their mother had married a man named Harris, a Congregational minister and Irwin Harris is a son of that marriage but these two.

DG: ... there was a big general room in the basement of The Congregational Church where the church dinner had been held and they took me into a little side room and said we'd like to see you and they got me in there and said, will you be our scout master?

JL: Why did they choose you?

DG: Well, because I'd been a scout master, you see. They knew that. I'd been a scout master and they wanted a scout master.

JL: Where had they heard of scouting?

DG: What?

JL: Where had they heard of scouting?

DG: Well, they had heard about this old Troop 1, you know, that had existed but no longer existed. And they Troop 1 the minister the father of this Alexander 01:35:00Clyde was I don't know whether he'd ever been a scout master but anyway he was strong for scouting and he wanted his boy to be a scout and the boys of his church to be scouts. So...

JL: Well, had there was there a lot of publicity about scouting during that time that the Boy Scout Troop was...

DG: ... oh, it was getting under way. I'll give you an example of a program we had quite soon after I became scout master. Well, they couldn't have thought up a better scheme to get me to be scout master than to send boys to ask me. Because I would have resisted E.T. Reed or the pastor or others much more easily. But, the boys I couldn't resist.

JL: (Chuckle)

DG: And so I said yes.

JL: Soft touch.

DG: Yes. I said, "Yes," I would. And so I became scout master and that was 01:36:00October 27, 1919. Well, that wasn't the date. But on October 27 we organized Troop one and we had nine boys, at that time. We had eight boys. In one patrol is eight boys. And so we had eight boys for a full patrol and one boy who, I think, was Ernest Poor. The younger one of the Taylor brothers as the second member of the second patrol. Well, the boys began to flock in no time and we had to establish some kind of a rule because this Troop one that had existed had, as it in Clarkfield, hostility on the part of pastors of other churches. 01:37:00Congregational Church was dragging all the boys in town into this big old Troop 1 and our pastor now the First Congregational Church didn't want to repeat that and so it was decided that we would receive into Troop 1 only boys of our own Sunday School or boys who were not in a Sunday School in Corvallis. Who were not connected with any other church, see. Our general principle was let the other churches form troops. If their boys want to be scouts why let them do it! The Congregational Church shouldn't be what this old Troop 1 had been, community troop. It should have its own troop but not a community troop. But the boys began to flock. I was all the time shifting out, "Do you attend a 01:38:00Sunday School? If you are, well, go back to your school, er, to your church and agitate for a troop in your church."

JL: Did you approve of that?

DG: Yes. I did.

JL: Ohh.

DG: We got but if there were boys that didn't go to Sunday School, all right, we'd take them in no matter whether they should have been in Sunday School or not. If they weren't attending we'd take them.

JL: What was the draw to Boy Scouts? Why did they flock to you?

DG: They wanted to be scouts.

JL: What in particular were they drawn to?

DG: Because they heard a lot of things about scouting and they knew that if they were scouts they would be able to do the things they longed to do. "Doing the things I longed to do when I was a boy like you." That's what scouting is. 01:39:00It's a program of things that boys long to do in but our modern life increasingly they don't get a chance to. I don't know whether it's as bad as it used to be because transportation and communication and general facilities are all better than they used to be. But, scouting is still needed and scouting, although it isn't growing like it was at some stage it is still a going thing. It's just that, that longing for the outdoors and the things that you don't get otherwise but they knew they'd get hikes and camps and so forth in scouting. And they got them. We were, I said, we would put the outing in 01:40:00scouting and there are 12 scout laws and I said the 13th scout law is, "A scout is weather proof." That's the 13th scout law. A scout is weather proof. So, we would announce a hike and if it rained we had a hike. We were supposed to put on clothes suitable for raining outdoors just as well as sunny outdoors and so on. A scout is prepared. A scout motto is a scout is prepared. He's prepared for rain. He's prepared to hike and so forth all right we were a pretty practical troop but we had our meetings every week and we got a room there that very room in which the boys asked me to be scout master was granted to us and we worked it up as a troop room. We ended up by building 01:41:00a fireplace and it was money that we ourselves raised. We built a fireplace in it because on Monday night when we used to hold our meetings there was no heat in the building and although a scout is prepared they'd come in warm clothes. It was kind of chilly and then we had the use of this larger room for activities of all sorts. Anything we wanted to do. It's better than the Troop 1 facilities are right now. They don't have any big room like we had. I'm agitating for them to have it. They need a big room. But, never the less we had the whole outdoors and we used to have hikes. And they had hikes under their own charge. In those days there weren't any local councils. I had to 01:42:00do all of our dealings with the N.Y. scout office and when I told them about some of the hikes that our boys were having they'd take Saturday morning hikes and I had to work Saturday morning. So I couldn't go with them but, they I used to - I reported to a national office about these hikes. I got a letter from them saying that those are not really approved. Boys going out on hikes should be under an adult leader. But, these boys were all right. I used to let them go anyway but under charges that they should understand they really should have an adult leader and they should conduct themselves as if they had. They'd just hike around the countryside here and so on.

JL: What were the ages of these boys?

DG: They had to be 12 years old or older but boys would start begging to be scouts before 12. Well, so I became scout master of Troop 1 and I was scout master for 11 years. In those first years I wasn't married and when I was married in 1926 see, this was 1919 six or seven years I'd been scout master and my wife still tells about I was often late for dates with her because I would come on my bicycle from some scout activity and so on and a woman who was living with her criticized her. She said, I'd certainly not wait for anybody like that. I'd get that thing headed off. But, my wife was quite patient. I guess she'd already decided I was the man for her and she put up with quite a 01:44:00bit. So she did but I she did put up with quite a bit because weekends I'd go on hikes sometimes overnight and one thing and another and that would break up some of our possible dates and so forth. But, we finally settled down and got married in September of 1926. And I was still continuing as scout master. The scouts gave a special supper for us down in this big room of the church after we were married. They had some help from their mothers but the boys set up the table themselves. You should have seen them and there were some of them that didn't belong to our church at all who were active in getting this meal ready and they we were the guests of honor and they presented us with a framed picture as a wedding present and so forth. So, they gave her a good welcome.

JL: Mr. Goode did it continue through the 11 years you were affiliated with the boy scouts? Did it continue in The Congregational Church?

DG: Yes. Still is. It's the oldest troop in the council. The Oregon Trail Council contains or is comprised of six counties and headquarters are in Eugene. But, Troop 1 was the oldest troop within a continuous history at the time the council this council was organized and the council granted Troop 1 to continue as Troop 1 so it's not Corvallis Troop. No it's Oregon Trail Council Troop No. 1.

JL: But a boy that wants to join Boy Scouts does not have to be affiliated with the congregation?

DG: No. The town is full of troops now and we kind of let that lapse ultimately. But not while I was scout master. We were still holding strictly to that regulation.

JL: I talked to one of the members of your troop at one time and he said that he saw you as a father figure. Very much. You influenced his life.

DG: That's Carl Merryman.

JL: How did you know?

DG: Oh, I know that. Because I know he had a bad time with his own father and that's why he needed a father and he had to fight his way to get into Troop 1 because his mother had some of this prejudice against scouting that some of these ministers had. I don't know where she got it. But she opposed his getting into Troop 1 but he kept at it and finally got in.

JL: Because it was a different church from their...

DG: No. She wasn't opposed to churches although I guess she had some reason to 01:47:00be but their father deserted the family, you know, and left, oh, a half a dozen children, under the care of the mother who didn't have a job. She had her children to look after and she had a tough time and so he needed some kind of a father figure and I didn't know that at the time but I meant a lot to him.

JL: I'm sure that was common, though, with a lot of boys don't you think?...

DG: Yes...

JL: They looked up to you.

DG: ...in various ways, yes. But, never the less a scout master in general is a figure to a scout quite different from a father but held in higher regard. I used to realize I would give I would receive boys into the troop in a ceremonial way. To become a member of the troop they had to pass certain tests. I think 01:48:00they had to be tenderfoots and in order to be that they had to qualify. But anyway, when they qualified with the proper qualifications they would be chosen by the troop accepted by the troop and then on behalf of the Troop I would welcome them into scouting. They would take the scout oath.

"On my honor I will do my duty to God and my country and obey the scout law. I will help other people at all times and I will keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight. "

Those aren't the exact words but those are the provisions. They would take that oath quite solemnly and then I would welcome them with a scout handclasp 01:49:00which is three fingers and then the thumb and the other finger over and around the others hand. Like this. This is the scout handclasp. And they did that so soundly and were so dedicated they never forgot that. I used to see scouts years afterwards. Passed them on the street and see a light in their eye seeing me knowing that I was remembered as their scoutmaster. Not a father figure. I never thought of that in that connection. They all had fathers but in the case of Carl he didn't. His father had deserted him so I had a different place with Carl but with most of them I was their scoutmaster and they revered the position 01:50:00of scoutmaster. I used to go with them on hikes and I was their friend and so on and I represented scouting for them. I don't know if they wouldn't have had me as scout master if I hadn't been that to them but that was that. I did last for 11 years but by eleven years Carl had matured enough as a scout so he was an assistant scoutmaster and he was eager and I realized that he could become scoutmaster and I resigned because things were getting too thick for me. You see this was in the early thirties and that was when these things these duties were taking me out of town and, apart from the fact that I was married 01:51:00and had to have time off. My wife had more authority over me after we were married than she had before. (Chuckle) So, anyway I resigned after I'd been scout master 11 years and then Carl became scout master.

JL: You enjoyed it as much as the boys did then?

DG: Oh, yes. Certainly I did. I enjoyed the hikes. I went through hardships and all but I enjoyed it and I held them to scouting. I didn't let them become weak sisters or anything like that. They had to be manly boys and weather proof and prepared and all those things.

JL: Those are the attributes you stressed then?

DG: Yes, and to do a good turn daily. To do something for somebody not for pay; just for the sake of doing something for somebody else. And that's an ennobling thing.

JL: I understand that there was a letter written by a boy scout executive in the 1920's saying he's seen over 300 units and he hadn't seen anything to compare with yours.

DG: I don't...

JL: (Unintelligable)

DG: ...I don't know who that was.

JL: Well, Carl Merryman told me that...

DG: He knows.

JL: ... about his letters.

DG: I see. Yes. Yes.

JL: Why was your program so special compared to other Boy Scout programs?

DG: Oh, I think it was because I gave so much time to it. I think it would not be unfair at all to say that I was a dedicated scout master and my soul and heart were in it my soul and heart were in the lives of the boys, too. I was 01:53:00proud of them and interested in them and I knew that scouting, not I but scouting was doing something for them. I didn't ascribe it to me but I considered that I was a privileged person to be a scout master to kind of hold these boys on the course the trail that scouting had laid out for them. I wrote a hymn called "Trail Hymn" which represents life as a trail.

JL: You had a knack for understanding boys, too, I bet.

DG: Yes, I always had that because the schools that I was in the population of boys in the high school always increased when I was the head of the schools. It always increased beyond the population growth of the town. That is, boys 01:54:00that had dropped out of school or wouldn't have attended school came to school. Not because of me. It wasn't that I was so attractive but the kind of program that I stood for an instituted and activated attracted them. We introduced subjects that commanded their respect for example. And activities like athletics that they wanted and one thing and another. So, they had something to come for and so I was interested in boys, yes. But, I was interested in girls, too. I was just about as effective I think working with girls excepting in one respect. I always found girls less predictable than boys. It means that I didn't understand them like I understood the boys. I had been a boy and I never had been a girl and I couldn't understand girls quite like I did boys. 01:55:00But, I'd had a sister and I wasn't so ignorant of girls but never the less I couldn't, oh, I just couldn't be as sure of girls as I could of boys, but still I got along fine with girls and one of the girls in high school who wrote later a thing which you have seen or should see a little thing about my favorite teacher as it was called. She was a girl...

JL: (Unintelligible)

DG: ... showing that I got along with girls.

JL: Hmmm. What activities did the scouts do in Corvallis? (Unintelligible)

DG: Well, one of the very first ones while I was early in my scout master 01:56:00activities we had a flu epidemic and we had a December freeze which was one of the coldest Decembers in Corvallis in half a century and there was a lot of suffering because that was the year when students veterans of World War II were flocking back and enrollment was increasing and housing facilities were inadequate for both faculty and students on campus. And there were lots of people living in housing that wasn't suitable. And that was true generally all through Corvallis because of population growth and there was partly, I suppose, because of this cold, this terrible cold, in December we had a flu epidemic and snow piled up and the students had a big time out on Baldy tobogganing and 01:57:00that sort of thing. But, never the less there were lots of people that got flu and there were people poorly housed. Communication wasn't good and there were lots of people the whole family would get the flu and how would they get groceries. Well, under Father Simpson who was rector of the Episcopal Church an emergency patrol was organized of scouts but this didn't have anything to do with the Congregational Churches as such but Troop 1 was the main one because I was scout master and the members of this emergency patrol, although they didn't have to be scouts mostly were. They had a special armband that was marked. It 01:58:00may have been boy scouts emergency patrol. It was some kind of an emergency patrol. An armband to kind of indicate that they had a function. So, they could go to people's homes to people who were shut in because of flu and do errands for them and the people could know that they were accredited. They wouldn't just take their money and run off with it. They would run errands go and buy things for them. Medicines or groceries and one thing and another. Well, the scouts took to that wonderfully. We had one boy especially who just went all out for it. He made a record. He ran more errands he was tops and they enjoyed doing it. Well, they were prepared. They could get out in the snow and they could do errands and so on. They couldn't use bicycles but they 01:59:00could trudge along and they did quite a service over many weeks and I was in charge of that emergency patrol...

JL: This is in 1919?

DG: ...because I was scout master.

JL: This is in 1919?

DG: Yes. 1919 and '20. Of course, it extended over into 1920. It ended when the flu epidemic waned and ended.

JL: What other community activity did the boy scouts do?

DG: Well, we didn't do so much while I was scout master. Carl, when he became scout master in the '30's made a wonderful record in community activities. 02:00:00But, one thing I remember was the during, no, no, that, well, that was while I was scout master though. Yes, after World War I there was a kind of movement to establish airports. It was before we had the airport out south of Corvallis and the civic authorities of Corvallis chose a plot of land in the north of Corvallis. I imagine it was over in the direction of the hospital. I don't know exactly where it was. It wasn't so far out but it was far enough out of town so it was believed that planes could land there and an air field built. It wasn't called an airport but it was an airfield established and we helped dedicate it. I remember a bunch of scouts and so on I remember marching with them and there were ceremonies dedicating this airfield. Later...

JL: Go ahead.

DG: ...later things took a different turn and under Carl and after World War II, of course, the airport south of town became available but that was one project. And, I think, there was a tree planting project but that may have been under Carl. I don't know. When Carl was an assistant scoutmaster or a at a lower position in the troop than an assistant scoutmaster he had to be 18 to be an assistant scoutmaster but he was very active. But, anyway there was a tree 02:02:00planting along the highway starting to south towards Eugene. But, I'm not sure; Carl was in charge of that. I believe that was a community project. Other troops took part in it too but Carl was a leader in it.

JL: You organized the Green Bar Unit?

DG: No. I don't think so. Carl may have though. It may have been done by Carl but I wasn't in that. I don't know what that Green Bar was.

JL: He said that you stressed learn by doing.

DG: Yes. Oh, yes certainly. Well, for example I didn't know, the scout tests. But, one of the eight boys, er, nine boys that really started the troop October 27, 1919 had been he came here from Toledo, Ohio and as a first class 02:03:00scout so he had been through all of the scout tests. Well, he knew those tests. He'd passed them and I enlisted him. He was just a kid but he was a first class scout and I enlisted him under my supervision but he had the knowledge which I didn't have to train scouts in the different tests and we started a program where after scouts had qualified in tests themselves they became teachers of other scouts. This was something like the Lubock program. Each one teach one. Lubock's program of worldwide literacy is that a teacher will teach someone to read and that one will teach someone else to read and, of 02:04:00course, it will help him to learn to read to start teaching somebody else. Well, I did that actually in this program in Troop 1. I called, Kingsly Snyder was his name, I have always called him the cornerstone of Troop 1 because we used his knowledge that he had gained in Toledo, Ohio as the basis for starting a regular-each one teach one in Troop 1 and that's the way we always operated. There were always scouts in the Troop and others younger than I who knew the scout tests that I didn't know because I'd never been a scout. So, that's the way we operated and that's what made us a strong troop. They not only learned the tests and qualified themselves but in teaching others to qualify they 02:05:00learned them better and so on. And so we ultimately had a group of troop instructors who were all first class scouts and who were qualified to teach and test scouts in the various tests. There are a lot of tests, you know. There are three tests for a tenderfoot and 12, er, 10 tests to be a second class scout, er, ten and a dozen to be a first class scout and those to be a first class includes such things as swimming 50 yards and hiking and a hiking record also...