Some state and federal programs require participation by local citizens. Many of these are just for show. Staff put the plan together; a few people met a time or two and signed off to meet minimum requirements for citizen input.
When Ralph Kelley became mayor, Chattanooga had citizen participation----BIG TIME! His Jaycee type campaign, the enthusiasm, the volunteer involvement, the upset victory and the colorful inauguration set the stage.
We enrolled hundreds of citizens in a variety of civic activities. The former Purchasing Agent resigned. We didn’t just replace him, we assembled a committee of the top purchasing agents in town (public and private) and asked their advice. They said, ‘find a professional purchasing agent’. In the past this job was a “political plum”, but Kelley agreed; better still, he asked the volunteer committee to help him find a good purchasing agent. All of these purchasing agents saw many vendors, so word spread like wildfire; no hanky-panky and no kickbacks with the new administration. Soon we employed Harlan Whitfield, a professional, and he saved the tax payers millions of dollars.
We set up an Economic Development Committee headed by the recently retired CEO of Chattanooga’s largest employer (Sam Parry, Combustion Engineering) an aggressive push began to support local industry and to attract new industry. This was coordinated with the Chamber of Commerce, the Manufacturers Association, et al. We went on industry hunts. When I walked into the office of Kohring Southern in Milwaukee, I thought I might have to explain where Chattanooga was. The president greeted me with a smile and said, “I understand you have a mayor now that believes in free enterprise”; the word was out. Dupont soon announced a huge expansion, so did Combustion. Every month Sam Parry, the mayor, the Chamber president and I would have breakfast with small employers. This was not to preach to them, but to ask how local government could help them prosper. When problems were uncovered, they were attacked. Small employers now had direct access to local government and small employers create most of the jobs.
On an industry hunt to New York, I was with Abe Koblentz who owned an upscale clothing store in Chattanooga and made a lot of money selling uniforms for the Women’s Army Corps (WACS). The largest WAC base was at Fort Oglethorpe. As we drove through downtown New York, Abe said, “See that building there, that’s where I SOLD all those WAC uniforms.” We drove a couple of more blocks and Abe added, “See that building over there, that’s were I BOUGHT them”. Abe was a great civic leader, founded the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), etc. My wife remembered him best for dancing with every woman in the ballroom even at an advance age.
Unemployment was around 9%, unusually high for Chattanooga, so a Full Employment Commission was established. The Commission was largely composed of Industrial Relations Managers or Personnel Directors. Their thrust was to stimulate training and educational programs. Ben Gibbs was chairman. After a year or two, this committee was incorporated as a private, non-profit corporation, and administered a nationally recognized “on-the-job” training program and aggressively adult education.
A Mayor’s Tourism Committee was also established with the president of the Convention and Visitors Bureau as chairman. This committee was to use the mayor’s office and local government to broaden the scope of the local tourist industry. Training programs were established for the front line troops---policemen, waitresses, service station personnel and cab drivers. The mayor emphasized how important these citizens are to the local economy. Later Mayor Kelley was honored by the national tourist industry for demonstrating how local government could help tourism.
Bill Hubbuck, foreman of the grand jury, headed the Mayor’s Traffic Safety Committee. This committee had Safety Scouts, volunteers citing people with friendly notices urging the driver to drive more safely. They also sent commendations for traffic courtesies. Some cab and “jitney” drivers were found to have atrocious traffic records. Enforcement was enhanced
A Finance Committee was named and pointed out that the city had millions of dollars in the bank, drawing no interest. When we called to purchase Treasury Bills, the CEO’s of the three biggest banks, descended on the mayor. They said that such a move would necessitate them withdrawing loans (I believe each million dollars qualified for loaning up to five million dollars). The mayor said, “This is the people’s money and it should be earning interest. However, we don’t want to cause a hardship so we will just invest a million dollars a week until it is all invested.” Ever since Ralph Kelley was mayor the city and county have earned many millions of dollars from investing.
Probably the most important mayor’s committee was never announced. The anonymity was what made it successful. The mayor named Rev John Bonner, to head a Bi-racial Committee (five whites and five blacks) to address racial problems of the turbulent sixties. The unnamed committee met frequently in the basement of the Hamilton National Bank. Their charge was to anticipate racial problems, work out solutions and promote racial harmony to keep Chattanooga peaceful. This hard working citizens committee did an outstanding job in the midst of racial unrest; without fanfare. Remember, many blacks thought Kelley was a racist and only 13% voted for him. When he ran for re-election, he received over 90% of the black vote.
One part of my job was to coordinate the work of all the citizens committees. As the word spread, volunteers would holler, “Bob, put me on one of those committees”. I am a little prejudiced but I believe a lot of Kelley’s success as mayor was attributable to tapping the abilities, energies and enthusiasm of these civic minded volunteers. Not so incidentally, this conveyed the image of an honest, open door local government and helped to build civic pride. Ralph Kelley and I were surprised to learn how much clout the title “Mayor” carried both in business and in government. We were careful not to abuse this power but wanted to use it fully and creatively for the benefit of Chattanoogans.
Our city was on the verge of losing access to various state and federal funds. Lack of qualified planners was one problem. Joe Knowles was brought in from Michigan to help spark the City-County Planning Commission. Bob Sheppard was Acting Director; later T. D. Harden was employed as Director. All of us worked hard to establish or improve relationships with state and federal agencies.
Willie Miller headed the local Social Security Office. He was the first Fed I knew who operated on the principal “It is easier to apologize than it is to get permission” He helped us develop pipe lines directly to regional offices to expedite various projects.
One day, one of the city commissioners asked the mayor, what I was doing in Atlanta with my wife in a city car. He seemed to feel that I was on an extravagant junket. My wife drove while I prepared a speech; I made the speech, called on three agencies and returned home the same day. Total expenses: $1.26 (gas cost the city only 10.5 cents a gallon then). Don’t you wish all government employees were cheap skates like me?
On one trip to Washington, I finished my business faster than expected. I checked the building directory to see if there was anything else I could do while there. Then I called on the top man listed, gave him my card, not having any idea what I was going to do. He saw “Mayor’s office” and said, “you probably want to know about that proposal for the University of Chattanooga”. I grinned and nodded. My host summoned an executive to bring the file for UC. I expedited that project without even knowing what it was. This is a ridiculous example of how we used the clout of the mayor’s office creatively for the good of the community.
J.B. Collins was the long time city hall reporter for the News Free Press. (Springer Gibson covered for the Times.) They would come by the mayor’s office every day. One day I purposely misled J.B. I told him that I was flying to Washington and then Bettye and I were going to Paris for a meeting. The day I returned, J. B. wanted to hear about my junket. I told him that I didn’t have time to return to Chattanooga so Bettye met me in Nashville and we drove to Paris, TENNESSEE for a meeting of the Tennessee Conservation Commission (that I chaired). I acted surprised, “Oh, did you think that was Paris, FRANCE?”
In 1965 Chattanooga celebrated its Sesquicentennial. We recruited Abe Koblentz to chair this event and involved hundreds of volunteers. One of the features was to encourage men to grow beards. When Abe put the arm on the mayor and me, Kelley grew a small beard on his chin. At last I was a man----I grew a Van Dyke in four colors, blond, red, black and gray; my first beard. Every man should grow a beard at least once. I couldn’t grow one in the military, I was a late bloomer.
We had no budget for the celebration but sold ads and other things to cover costs. One gimmick; we put “gold” half dollars in circulation. At the end of the celebration, you could redeem them, but most folks kept them for souvenirs. We netted $.41 from each one and earned thousands of dollars.
We had a huge outdoor play and extravaganza at Engel Stadium. Commissioner Bookie Turner was proud of his new fire engines and had them on display. Unfortunately, the big fireworks show left pox marks on them, it was kept quiet and the fire engines were repaired.
That same year we had a major celebration of the new air terminal and the facilities at Lovell Field. Three astronauts were special guests. Several of us took a ride in a Ford Tri Motor Airplane. “When I was in grammar school, you could take a ride in one of these for $1. Astronaut Ed White took over the controls for a while. He was such a nice guy; unfortunately he died later in that tragic mission to the moon that exploded shortly after launching.
Working at a focal point in city government was exciting and fun. I worked hard and long hours, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and was proud of what we did. When we incorporated the Full employment Commission, we needed a CEO. Time was short and we couldn’t come up with one so I agreed to serve as Executive Director to qualify for a major federal On The Job Training Grant.
I would continue to serve as Special Assistant to the Mayor, but without pay. I was glad to do this because exciting things were happening and I wanted to be a part of it. I would also continue to coordinate the work of all the mayor’s committees. Pat Rose took my position at city hall. He did a fine job; later he was elected Public Works Commissioner; then served two terms as mayor.
You may ask, “If you enjoy politicin’ so much, why didn’t you run for office?” Fair Question. I thought about it several time. Back in the 1950’s Wilkes Thrasher tried to get me to run for Sherriff. Hubert Fry and others tried to get me to run for Mayor or County Judge in the 1960’ and ‘70’s. I had so much publicity for over 20 years, political polls were favorable. I was interested, but had limited funds and no one stepped forward to raise the money. I could promote someone else like Ralph Kelley, but self-promotion did not come easy for me.
I am a natural born “do-gooder”. I have donated thousands of hours for volunteer work but felt like I got more benefits than the ones I tried to help. On the other hand, I have recruited and utilized other volunteers in scouting, Jaycees, tourism, church, local government, politics, sports, etc. I am truly grateful for all these volunteers.
In 2009, volunteering has attracted new-found attention. I love volunteer work and I love volunteers. Take a minute to think about it and volunteer to help your favorite cause.
PURSUING FULL EMPLOYMENT
Mayor Kelley had launched a local “War on Poverty” and named Roy Batchleor to head the Community Action Program. The Full Employment Commission and CAP moved into a small office building on McCallie Ave. I had a secretary and four Job Developers.
We started an aggressive program to encourage public and private employers to grow and offer on the job training to employees. The program was so successful and so cost effective that the department of Labor published booklets using Chattanooga as a model. Later the Labor Department sent a film crew to Chattanooga and produced a thirty minute show for distribution nationally.
The US Conference of Mayors named me as a consultant and had me help train mayor’s assistants in meetings in California, Missouri, Florida and Washington D.C.
I probably learned more than I taught; I was so naïve; for example, I was surprised that activist groups were aggressively seeking more hand outs from government—public housing, welfare, whatever. The “War on Poverty” greatly accelerated the “entitlement” perception. Now we almost have more tax eaters” than taxpayers.
It was interesting to observe the mayors of all the big cities. Their looks and personalities were all different. You couldn’t help but wonder how they got in politics (or how some of them got elected). As a consultant I met a lot of other politicians like Vice President Hubert Humphries, Freshman Senator Richard Luger, Senator Howard Baker, The Secretary of State, The Secretary of Labor and others.
The OJT program trained larger numbers at lower cost than anyone expected. However, our volunteer leadership and our fine staff had a much bigger role to play.
One of the job developers was a bright young man, Bill Knowles (a former barber and destined to have a brilliant political future as County Clerk). Returning from Nashville Bill and I decided to promote a ‘Back to School’ campaign to encourage everyone to continue their education. We had no authority and no responsibility, but we saw the need. The next day we lined up 25 radio and TV interviews and launched a campaign to prevent drop outs, promote GED’s, promote technical schools and literacy training for adults.
We used public service announcements, billboards and new stories saying, “You are never too old to learn”. We publicized “Grandma” Walker as our poster girl who learned to read at 117 (we could prove she was over 100). She was named by the U.S. Department of Education as America’s oldest student. She was publicized on national TV and the local Walker Towers was named in her honor. Grandma’s motivation was to learn to read the Bible. She demonstrated her skills by reading the Bible to my two daughters on national television. To celebrate, we had Chattanooga’s oldest pilot, Harry Porter, take Grandma on her first ride in an airplane. Harry told Grandma, “We are going to fly over your apartment and wave to your friends, and then we are going to fly over Lookout Mountain and thumb our noses at those rich folks.” Over forty years later, my grandson, Brooks Kisiah, wrote an essay about Grandma Walker after seeing some of my newspaper clippings. His teacher gave him a C and wrote a tart note saying, “No one lives this long”. I offered to send her the clippings, but Brooks just settled for a C.
A lot of schools, agencies and news media helped to make the Back to School Campaign successful. Channel 9 produced a one hour special in prime time proclaiming 10,000 adults in Chattanooga were continuing their education.
Mayor Kelley or the Full Employment Commission would not claim credit for it, but unemployment dropped from 9% to 2.3%, probably a record low for Chattanooga. Two years after Ralph Kelley was re-elected with an overwhelming majority, he decided to resign for reasons of health. He always appeared so calm outwardly but was suffering inwardly from the pressure the office in these trying times of the “60’s. He was offered a Federal Judgeship (formally called Referee in Bankruptcy). He established a favorable national reputation in this position. When I called the U.S. Conference of Mayors, to report Kelley’s resignation, they couldn’t believe it. I think they had him in mind for national leadership. He was a southern mayor with the sophistication to understand the need for change. City Commissioner A.L. Bender, took over as Mayor.
Hubert Fry was chairman of the Convention and Visitors Bureau. He tried to entice me to be their Executive Director for several months. Anyone that knew Hubert knew how persistent he could be. Finally he came up with the idea of consolidating that job with Managing Memorial Auditorium. After Hubert and Carl Gibson got my ear, they learned it wouldn’t work (the auditorium manager had to be full time, by law).
I have always loved to promote my home town, however, so I finally took Hubert’s offer. Now I would be paid for what I had always been doing for free.
(This is an excerpt from Bob Elmore's new book, "A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to the National Cemetery." The book is $10 in softback, $20 in hardback. Copies are available at the Bicentennial Library downtown, Wally's (on McCallie), Senior Neighbors, The Racket Club and the Brainerd Trophy Shop. All proceeds, not just profits, go to the Chattanooga Area Historical Association. For more information, call 629-1366.)