Presidential Papers, Doc#755 Memorandum To Sherman Adams, 4 March 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower
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Document #755; March 4, 1954
To Sherman Adams
Series: EM, AWF, DDE Diaries Series ; Category: Memorandum
The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XV - The Presidency: The Middle Way
Part IV: "Pushing ahead along the broad center"; December 1953 to March 1954
Chapter 9: Fending off "the reactionary fringe"

 

I do not know Dr. Morgan, and it is possible that I read things into his letter that are not there.

1

However, it appears to me that he is presumptuous in assuming that he ran TVA perfectly and we want to ruin it. Please look over the attached rough draft of a suggested reply, and let me have your reaction.2

1 Arthur Ernest Morgan, civil engineer and educator, was president emeritus of Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio. Appointed to the original board of TVA by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933), Morgan had served as chairman until 1938, when he was removed by Roosevelt for contumacy (David E. Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, 4 vols. [New York, 1964-69], vol. I, The TVA Years, 1939-1945 [1964], pp. 70-74, 98). Morgan's March 1 letter said that he understood that Eisenhower had assured Republican Senator John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky that he could "determine" the appointment of the next chairman of the TVA. Protesting the action, Morgan called it a "violation of a sound provision of the TVA act to make TVA appointments a party matter" (WHCF/OF 51). As TVA chairman, Morgan said, he had received "hundreds of requests" from congressmen for patronage appointments: "very, very rarely did these persons compare favorably with the best men available." Political patronage, he said, was a "major source of weakness in our government."

2 Eisenhower's draft reply is in AWF/D. On Morgan's charge that he had relinquished responsibility for naming a new TVA chairman, the President said that he had "never delegated to anyone else the authority or responsibility of making appointments to major positions in the Federal Government." In regard to political patronage, Eisenhower replied that he knew of no reason why a "responsible individual" would "select for important Federal posts, individuals whose political philosophy is obviously antagonistic to his own. . . . Were he to do otherwise, there would be little point in the elective processes that we observe." Eisenhower contended "that the appointees of this Administration will show, on the average, a better record of success in non-governmental life than will many former ones." Adams's reaction to Eisenhower's draft reply is not in EM, but Ann Whitman, personal secretary to the President, who was an Antioch College alumna, would write to Morgan on March 8 to reinforce Eisenhower's position on political patronage and the upcoming TVA appointment (WHCF/OF 51; see also Donovan, Confidential Secretary, pp. 62-63).

Eisenhower was increasingly concerned about the appointment. He had, on this same morning, met with Senator Dirksen to discuss candidates for the post that he hoped to fill in May, when the term of the current TVA board chairman, Gordon Rufus Clapp (A.M. University of Chicago 1933), would expire (see notes, Mar. 4, 5, 1954, AWF/D; see also John Oliver, "Administrative Foundations," in TVA, The First Twenty Years: A Staff Report, ed., Roscoe C. Martin [Alabama and Tennessee, 1956], pp. 35-49). On Eisenhower's earlier correspondence regarding TVA see nos. 525 and 557. For developments see no. 815.

Bibliographic reference to this document:
Eisenhower, Dwight D. Memorandum To Sherman Adams, 4 March 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 755. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/755.cfm

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