Born To Be a Newspaper Man

by Martin J. McGowan Jr.

Politics

It seems I was always interested in politics. My interest began as soon as I knew what it was. That was in 1928 at the age of eight when Al Smith ran for the president of the United States.

He was the first Roman Catholic to run for the office. He was a Democrat. My father was a Democrat. So I was a Democrat. I wore a plastic sticker in my hat band for Smith. I doubt if many people in our Lutheran town of Appleton felt that way. There was a fear in some quarters, particularly in the Bible Belt south, that Smith would be a pipeline to the Pope who would infiltrate the government and take it over.

It was no surprise that Smith lost. His derby hat and New York accent were too much for the rest of the nation to accept.

I was active in school elections, both in high school and college. My college degree had a minor in Political Science.

My father didn't have much political power in our county. That power was held by an old-time pol named Billy Perrizo. He controlled the patronage in the county but my father had higher connections and had much to say on other matters. He was on the ballot in 1932 as an elector for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and he met Roosevelt when he was campaigning in Minnesota for his first term.

When my father's close personal friend, Elmer A. Benson, became governor of Minnesota in 1936 that also had its effect on my interest in politics.

The Swift county representative in the state legislature was Alfred I. Johnson, of Benson. A small town grocer, he had worked his way up to being Speaker of the House. More of a compromiser than a leader, he was pushed along by his wife, a very competent person. With his background as Speaker he decided to try for a seat in Congress. Not being a very powerful orator, he lost the race. But that left an opening for somebody to run for his seat in the legislature. I decided to run.

The name McGowan was quite well known throughout the county and my office as secretary of the party for 19 years gave me connections all across the county. My opponent was a farm store manager in Benson named Howard Ogle. He did not have a great reputation, even in Benson. He joked through the campaign and I won. Two years later nobody filed against me and I had a free ride. I felt I had done a good job for the county and I was returned for two more terms.

When I came to the legislature there was no political party designation. There were two groups just named Liberals and Conservatives. The Liberals were generally Democrats and the Conservatives were usually Republicans. My first two terms were under Conservative control and the last two with the Liberals in charge. It is much more fun to have your own party in charge for then you can get something done. As a minority member your legislation is often shunted aside but serving in the majority the committee assignments are better and there is support for your legislative proposals. In my final term I was elected secretary of the Liberal caucus. That is not a high position but it is part of the leadership.

I came into the legislature with high ideals and thinking I could change the world. That is probably true of most first termers. I came there with the idea of permitting newspaper reporters have the right to shield their sources of news. This was known as the newspaper shield law. That would elevate the reporter to the status of a priest hearing confession or an attorney in dealing with a client.

There is a custom that first term legislators are usually accorded the courtesy of passing their first bill. That worked out to be true in the case of my shield legislation. It took some doing as it was not a popular bill and was considered revolutionary at the time. One of the veteran Conservatives, Rep. George French, of Minneapolis, was very helpful to newcomers. As the debate proceeded on the bill he told me how to improve the bill and then voted against it.

My bill passed with a good margin. Then it had to pass the Senate. Earlier I had arranged with a newspaper publisher in the Senate, Sen. Henry Harren, of Albany, to be the Senate sponsor. He did so, never thinking my bill would pass in the House. When it did pass and came over to him, he was quite surprised. He also did nothing to pass the bill there and it subsequently died a quiet death. In the intervening years since then the law was passed and has been amended two or three times. But at least I got it started.

I was given some good committee assignments under both the Conservatives and Liberals. I was on the Tax committee all four terms. That resulted in being appointed to an interim commission of senators and house members to consider the imposition of a sales tax in Minnesota for the first time. The commission held hearings around the state. The commission was stacked with a Conservative majority and I was probably the token Liberal member to give some pretense of balance.

Sen. Donald Wright, of Minneapolis, was chairman of the commission. He showed me considerable courtesy to ask some questions to bring out the view that a sales tax was an unfair tax that hit everybody and made no consideration for income status. A sales tax was passed over my negative vote and started at 1 per cent and quickly was raised to 2 per cent. When this was written the rate was 6-1/2 per cent.

I served on a committee called Civil Administration. This one dealt with state governmental bureaus and agencies. The name of the committee has been changed in recent years.

I had one term on the Highway committee. This committee had a lot of responsibility, deciding where which highways should be built and how to finance them with the state tax on gasoline. I believe I was chosen for this committee because it was headed by Charles Halsted, a one-time candidate for governor on the DFL ticket. My sister-in-law, Eleanor Nolan, a sharp Brainerd attorney, was a good friend of Halsted and I presume he felt he could count on me to be a supportive member of his committee. In my last term I was named vice chairman of a committee called State and County Fairs. That came about because of seniority. The committee existed only one session and it held only two hearings where I presided at one session.

Aside from my attempt to pass a shield law for reporters I was successful in passing another bill dealing with "printers' devils." In the rural area these were usually high school boys who worked after school and on Saturdays cleaning up forms and sorting handset type. At the time this came up the manager of the Minnesota Editorial Association, later called the Minnesota Newspaper Association, was not paying attention when wage scales were being set. These apprentices fell under the regular minimum wage, which was too high for the kind of work they did. So I set about trying to rectify the situation.

I first got a bill thorough both houses that eliminated these young people from the minimum wage scale. When the bill hit the desk of Gov. Karl Rolvaag he called me in. He said he could see the worth of the bill but organized labor, a garret source of support for him, was raising objections. He asked me to do something else.

So I went through the procedure of recalling the bill. Motions had to be passed calling the bill back though both houses, a rather unusual procedure that irritated labor. They did not want to see anybody exempted from minimum wage laws. Conservative members were suspicious of the recall. They favored the bill if it reduced wages. But I got it back on the floor of the House and proposed an amendment that set up a three-part wage scale. The bill said that as sophomores in school the apprentices would be paid 75 per cent of the minimum wage, as juniors they would be paid 85 per cent and as seniors they would receive the full minimum. That measure was passed and became law.

All this did not endear me to Robert Olson, the head of the AFL-CIO. He liked me even less when I voted with the Conservatives on workmen's compensation and unemployment measures favored by the Conservatives mostly to help the small town merchants I represented. I was told he really raged about that since he had given me $600 for my campaign.

Another bill I authored was to change the requirements for being a legal newspaper in Minnesota. Being a legal newspaper meant that it was eligible to publish legal notices. At the time of this legislation one requirement was that the paper be printed and published in the town with its major circulation. Being printed in that town was becoming a problem. Many small town papers were being printed by the letterpress method with aging presses.

This method was becoming antiquated and a newer method was coming into play. This was the photo offset method. This involved pasting up strips of paper with news stories and advertising on them, then taking a photo of the page to get a negative, then putting the negative sheet on a sensitive printing plate and thus getting a thin plate with all the print on it. This plate was put on a cylinder, ink rolled on the thin plate and a large continuous roll of paper was fed into the press and a folded section of the paper created. More recently computers have been used to set the type and lay out the pages.

Small town papers could not afford to replace their old letterpress presses, nor could they afford the newer photo offset presses. My bill did one thing. It removed the requirement in law that a newspaper had to be printed in its home town.

This change had two results. It led to the creation of central printing plants where a number of newspapers from different towns were printed in this one central plant with modern equipment. The change also led to the creation of new newspapers. All it took to start a newspaper was to have a computer and access to a central printing plant. Not all newspaper owners were happy to see a competitive paper arise in their town which had been their sole province.

I had one other interesting experience with Gov. Rolvaag aside from the printers' devil bill. This situation arose after the 1960 census was taken and a reapportionment of legislative districts became necessary for the 1962 election. My House district was Swift county. There was another House district in Kandiyohi county and the Senate district included both counties.

The final reapportionment bill said the average population for each House district should have about 23,000 people and no district should deviate more than 10 per cent above or below that number. Swift county then had about 17,000 people and thus deviated more than 10 per cent below the average.

As I was taking a break at the lunch counter just off the House floor, which was dubbed "Ulcer Gulch," Gov. Rolvaag walked in looking for me. He pointed out the variation in my district and asked what I wanted to do. I said I would prefer to keep my district intact as it was. There was a community of interest in one county. Even though my request went against the terms of the bill, Gov. Rolvaag said he would try to respect my wishes. He did so and Swift county continued as one district with the smallest population of any district in the state. After the 1970 census when the population of Swift county had fallen to about 13,000. Swift county was split diagonally into two parts and divided into two districts. The senatorial district then included parts of five counties.

The greatest experience I had in my legislative tenure was to preside over the House of Representatives. I considered that a high honor. It came about this way. First of all, I had to have served a few sessions and knew the way to preside. Secondly, it helped to know the leadership. I was elected secretary of the Liberal caucus and occasionally presided over caucus sessions.

So one day Rep. Fred Cina, majority leader when the Liberals held the majority of the House seats, came to me and said he was going to name me to preside during the afternoon session. That gave me a bit of warning and I wasn't too nervous about it.

Regular members of the House can preside only during the Committee of the Whole. This is the period when most of the discussion and debate takes place. Bills are introduced and discussed. When a vote is taken it gives only preliminary approval to the measure. When bills are to have final passage the Speaker of the House must preside.

I got through my session with no goofs or problems. I was given a round of applause when I stepped down. I have a picture of myself at the Speaker's chair but that was posed. It was not taken during the time I actually presided. That is frowned upon as not proper decorum. But that session is one I will always remember.

Another unforgettable experience during my legislative years came in January, 1960, when I was able to attend the inaugural of John F. Kennedy as president of the United States. My seat mate in the House that year was Dr. Joe Kelley, a veterinarian from Marshall. We heard that Gov. Elmer L. Andersen was planning to attend the inaugural. He was going to fly there on a plane of the Minnesota Air National Guard. They had to put in so much time in training flights and the governor decided this would be a good way to put the plane and crew to work. He invited some legislators to accompany him and Doc Kelley and I managed to get on the flight.

Doc had some friends in Maryland with whom we could stay. As soon as we landed we went to Doc's friends and left our baggage. We then returned to the Willard hotel where the Minnesota delegation was stationed.

By this time, it was late afternoon and we noted it was beginning to snow. By supper time it had snowed so much that cab drivers pulled off the streets. They were not used to driving in snow so they just gave up. So it was apparent Doc and I were not going to make it back to Maryland.

While standing around in the lobby of the hotel we learned that Sen. Hubert Humphrey, who had a suite in the hotel, was stuck at another location and could not get back to his room.

We spotted a lobbyist from Minnesota who reported he had the key to Humphrey's room. If the senator couldn't get to his room maybe some of us without a room could use it. Somehow four of us lucked out and we were given the key. Once there we flipped a coin for who got to use the bed and who had to sleep on a couch in another room of the suite. My luck was going good and I got half of the bed.

In the morning we looked out the window and saw that during the night the Army had plowed out Pennsylvania Avenue that ran right past the hotel. We got something to eat and then continued to watch out the window. Before long the inaugural parade came right past and we could see outgoing President Eisenhower and incoming President Kennedy in their limo heading to the swearing in. It was said the two were not very friendly and didn't have much conversation on their way to the ceremony.

We didn't get to see the actual ceremony at the capitol but we made our way to the reviewing stand for the parade. It was bitterly cold and after seeing the dignitaries in a heated stand watching the parade, we left for a warmer location.

Doc and I retrieved out baggage in Maryland and then flew home with Gov. Andersen. It was a rather historic occasion and we were glad to have been there.

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