"Minority Labor Problems and the Hoover Dam Project": manuscript draft by Roosevelt Fitzgerald

"MINORITY LABOR PROBLEMS AND THE HOOVER DAM PROJECT"
BY
ROOSEVELT FITZGERALD
The absence of information pertaining to America's minority groups in
the national histories is surpassed only by the exclusion of such data in
regional and/or local histories. In most instances, such voids exist in spite
of the efforts of researchers! However, in some cases, particularly in the
trans-Mississippi west, very little research and even less publication has
occurred. That which is there is generally sanitized and has little to say
about the interpersonal relationships which might have existed between racial
minorities and the majority group and even less about that existing between
different racial minority groups.
Native Americans have probably received the greater amount of attention
owing to the efforts primarily of anthropologists! In the case of Chinese-®
Americans, there is a body of information but, for the most pa-rt, it is
anchored in the nineteenth century. That pertaining to the Japanese American
is often centered around World War II and the appearance and the effects of
concentration camps. The subject of Hispanics is operational in three arenas--
the era of Spanish exploration and settlement in the southwest, the Texas war
for independence and the ensuing Mexican-American War of 1846 and the effects
of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and, more recently, the subject of labor
and illegal aliens. In those areas of the trans-Mississippi west where slavery
either did not exist or existed only in a limited way, there is rarely any
mention of blacks until after the mid-way point of the twentieth, century and
then only in conflict situations with the "system".
With each group, little is said of their contributions to the development
of the nation and even less is said in regards to the role which each
has played in helping make the Constitution not only live but to growH The
process of aiding that growth has been most difficult. In 1787, when the
United States Constitution was first drafted, it excluded many. Being free,
male, white, at least twenty-one years old and property ownership were prerequisites
for participation Dn the activities of the new nation. It would
be one hundred and ninety years before those criteria would be completly
overturned. That one hundred and ninety year period of our domestic history
might well be characterized by the resistance encountered due to to the continuing
efforts of those who were excluded and thereby powerless and oppressed,
to become full, active citizens.
Seventy eight years after the drafting of the Constitution, the year that
the Civil War ended, the Thirteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution
legally ended slavery. Within the next three years, both the Fourteenth and
the Fifteenth Amendments were passed. The first granted citizenship to the
recently freed blacks and the latter declared that they could not be denied
the right to vote on account of race, color or previous conditions of servitude.
While it is apparent that all three had black males as their primary target,
they would later embrace other non-male white groups®
These Amendments were abided by during the twelve years of 'Reconstruction
(1865-1877). However, once Reconstruction ended, they were literally ignored
for the next three-quarters of a century until the rendering of the decision
in the Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954. That
decision was intended to put an end to the jim crow practices which had begun
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during those post-Reconstruction years and both nationalized and legalized with the Plessy v Ferguson decision of 1896.
During those intervening years the circumstances and the quality of life of America's minority groups would be determined by the hoped for good will of those who oppressed them. In those places where minority peoples population figures were small and during times of plenty, they encountered less economic suppression. However, during more lean times, the traditional policy/ practice of being the "last hired and the first fired" was operative. Who or which group or groups was immediatedly affected, if affected at all, was de- dendent upon which group or groups were present in specific target areas.
The great depression of the 1930s involved the entire nation. Few Americans excaped its wrath. Beginning with the stock market crash in 1929, it tentacles soon reached from the concrete canyons of Wall Street to those of the faraway and sometimes untamed southwest and beyond. Those who had held lowly jobs were among the first to become casualties of unemployment. The gardeners, maids, cooks, common laborers, chauffeurs, janitors, wash women and such who were already on the bottom of the economic totem pole and already involved in their own personal, though unofficial, depression were the hardest hit They began to compete with each other for those few jobs, of that sort, which were available. Further, because the depresston engulfed the entire nation, no area and no racially distinctive group excaped the wide brush of resentment and discrimination.
The manner in which minorities were perceived by others and. how they viewed themselves was greatly altered by the events of the 1930s. Thomas Sowell articulates their circumstance well when he writes:
A certain benign contempt may exist toward a group that is clearly on the bottom and showing no sign of rising. But once they reach the stage of becoming threats to others jobs or status, a much more active and intense hatred may develop. This is sometimes referred to as "good race relations turning to hostility. Rising ethnic groups are the greatest threats to others at or near the bottom—including other ethnic minorities.1
I hate to think what would have happened if this work hadn't come...I'd sold or hocked everything I could. And my kids
The depression, of course, did not cause those at or near the bottom to rise and become "threats to others' jobs or status." Indeed, what did in fact occur is those who were on the top plummeted toward those on the bottom and, once there, sought, usually with great success, to commandeer the jobs they found there. The continued presence of those who had been on the bottom all along and doing "common labor" or "menial" work, served as constant reminders of how far middle and upper class America had fallen.
Frank Walker, a member of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal offers a classic example of the results of the depression on some of those who had been better off. The story he related could have been found, in substance, in thousands of places throughout the country. He found it in his home state, Montana, while on an inspection tour there. He discovered former businessmen digging ditches and laying sewer pipes in their old business suits. Walker was dumbfounded. Upon inquiry, he was told by one of the men:
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were hungry. I stood in front of the window of the bake-shop down the street and wondered just how long it would be before I got desperate enough to pick up a rock and heave it through that window and grab some bread to take home.
The scene is reminiscent of that of Jean Paul Jean of Victor Hugo's. Les Miserables. Those Montanians who had been ditch diggers and sewer pipe layers before were displaced by those who had hitherfore hired to to do such jobs. They became part of that group we collectively and romantically refer to as "the forgotten man." They became the hobos who scoured the country looking for work. They did not displace former businessmen in those places where they went. If they did indeed displace anyone, it was America s racial minorities who, as the malaise of the depression worsened, found that even those previously secure, although repugnant, jobs were now being sought after by others. America's minorities not only were forgotten, they became invisible
In the United States during the early 1930s, there were not many places where jobs could be found. This was especially true in terms of jobs which had any longevity. The Hoover Dam project of the 1930s served many^purposes, not the least of which was that of helping address the problem of widespread unemployment in the United States. The stock market crash of 1929 had cost of Americans their jobs. They were forced, by that event, to eke out a living the best way the could. Many of the newly unemployed scoured.the country in search of work. Along the thousands of miles of railroads which criss-crossed the country there could be found hobo camps. Riding the rails, or as one writer put it: "Taking to the open road", was a way of life for many. These were not bums. They were, for the most part, men who had always provided for their families and were now unable to do so. They followed up every lead in search of work. There have been dozens of movies made which characterize both the times and the people. "My Man Godfrey", "Emperor of the North1;, "Hard Times", and "The Grapes of Wrath" are but a few. Even though their efforts met with some limited successes, it was not enough. Eventually, the federal government would offer some assistance.
The extent of that assistance varied from place to place and was oftentimes influenced by the people involved. Once Franklin D. Roosevelt took the office of President and established his "New Deal", it created numerous agencies designed, ostensibly, to allay some of the suffering of the entire population. "However, because of a long custom of discriminating against blacks, it was inevitable that in these agencies there were variations between black and white relief grants, numbers of workers, salaries, and the like. Many of these discriminatory practices occurred, in part, because local management of such agencies was placed in the hands of local whites who were not unaccustomed to discriminating against.black people. Fear of reprisal prevented blacks complaining. Fraud and discrimination was rampant in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration which had, perhaps,.the widest influence over blacks in the rural south.4 Everywhere that segregation was possible, and it was possible everywhere, it was practiced. Wherever it was practiced, black people were either under represented or underpaid.0
The state of Nevada, especially southern Nevada, played a major role in helping ease the economic difficulties of the entire nation. Its role was not necessarily a result of the depression. Beginning tn 19.14, serious consideration had been given to constructing a dam on the Colorado River.
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Engineers, geologists and other scientists began to spend the cooler months doing preliminary studies in determining the best site on the river for such a project. Lees Ferry, Arizona separated the upper basin from the lower and the needs of the two were debated. Among those items debated were the relative importance of navigation, domestic and agricultural uses of water and power generation.?
The members of the original commission consisted of representaives from each state on the river and Nevada's was James S. Scrugham, who was governor from 1923 to 1926. By 1922, the Commission had drafted the Colorado River Compact and it determined the distribution of the waters of the Colorado between the upper basin states and the lower basin states.8
The Boulder Canyon Project Act was passed by Congress in 1928 and, the following year, the Swing-Johnson Bill, which authorized the construction of a dam at Black Canyon on the Colorado River was also approved by Congress. These events all preceded the collapse of Wall Street.
Owing partially to the earlier passage of the Boulder Canyon Project Act, Las Vegas found itself the target of the attentions of unemployed America at the outset of the depression. Its population was approsimately five thousand but, because of its proximity to the future dam site, it became an overnight boomtown. Its minority population had always been small and did not increase noticeably during the period of dam activity. One result of that demographic was that soughern Nevada, unlike soughern states and urban centers of the north, had no age-old racial antagonisms. Southern Nevada found itself in a position to generate thousands of new jobs. Americans from all parts of the United States turned their attention to southern Nevada for possible employment opportunities. Within months of the "crash" the first of those who sought employment began to arrive in Las Vegas. By New Yearns Day of 1930, "over forty-two thousand letters of inquiry had arrived from prospective job seekers."
Those letters were soon followed by their writers and others. Las Vegas was not prepared to accommodate such an influx. While there had been adequate housing for permanent residents, there was not a sufficient surplus of housing for the new arrivals. During the early months of 1930, they could be found sleeping in whatever makeship shelters they could either find or build. Some did their sleeping on the lawn in front of the Post Office building while others did so in cars, gulleys or lean-tos. All in all, there was created "a pitiful and pathetic sight."1*
Those job hopefuls represented every stratum of American life. C.P. Squires, editor of the Las Vegas Age, daily wrote of their presence. He suggested establishing aTocal welTare system for those who needed it and a chain gang for undesirables.12 Twenty years earlier, during Las Vegas' infancy, a definition of undesirables, of sorts, had been introduced by F. A. Waters. In a letter written to Walter Bracken, a representative of the Las Vegas Land and Water Company, dated August 3, 1909, he suggested closing Block 17 and turning it "into a residence district which would be the district desired by colored people and Mexicans, etc."1-1 Bracken, seven days later, in a letter to the Vice President of the Company, H. I. Bettis, wrote that "Block 17 could be converted into a residence district for a certain class of people which is badly needed here in Las Vegas, so that they will not be scattering around through town.Block 17, incidentally, was adjacent to the "red light" district, which was restricted to Block 16.
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The dozen years immediatedly prior to Bracken's attempt to segregate Las Vegas are best characterized by the onslaught of the reprecussions of the Plessy v Ferguson Supreme Court decision of 1896 which officially introduced the nation to the concept of "separate but equal" and lent judicial approval to jim crow practices. In many places the segregation of the races had moved swiftly and with little opposition. Segregation was the anthem of the times especially where there might have been sizeable minority populations. Las Vegas had no such population characteristics, therefore nothing came of either effort even though Bracken continued with his efforts through 1911. In March of that year, in yet another letter to Bettis, he wrote: "Our colored population, Mexicans, etc., is growing very rapidly and unless we have some place for this class of people they will be scattered all through our town."10 In closing, he wrote that "other property owners in town are refusing to sell them property where they will be mixed with the white people,"
While those efforts at early housing restriction failed to bear fruit, similar exclusionary efforts in the economic arena were more successful. A report of the Union Pacific Shop Federation, a few years later, offers an example:
We the Americans of the entire shopcraft of all department in the shops and yards on the L.A. & S.L. request that no man without their Citizen Papers be hired. And that none other than American Citizens be promoted or permitted to learn a trade. And that none but white men be promoted as we feel that it is not fair for us to be compelled to work with them in shops.17
That report was written in 19.19 and clearly excluded all people of color. The wave of racial hysteria which swept the country follow!nt the release of the movie "Birth Of A Nation", the ongoing fear of a "yellow peril" along with a continuing disdain for Mexicans and Indians placed all four groups at peril. Those four racial groups were among those who were most undesirable as economic conditions worsened and competition’ for jobs increased. Although "Birth Of A Nation", in 1915, had spurred a rebirth of the Ku KIux Klan and the formation of klaverns nationwide , the decade following the end of World War I, while pock-marked with racist outbursts had prosperity as its overdriving theme. That prosperity is characterized by the mass exodus of rural people especially from the south to the industrial centers of the north,
Approximately 1.4 million negroes came North from 1910 to 1930 and experienced relative prosperity in contrast to their conditions in the South. The labor demand remained brisk during the 1920‘s and Negroes entered unskilled manual jobs in the rapidly growing automobile and steel plants, foundries, highway construction, railroad maintenance and the garment industry—for the most part, taking jobs which the native-born or foreign white workers had vacated as better occupational opportunities opened for the.>2
Las Vegas Newspaper reports of the time offer clear distinctions in the treatment of those groups in comparison with others. Squires suggested a welfare system for those who were just "waiting at the Colorado River for something in the nature of work to turn up."20 Those who waited for work were out of work and were, technically, vagrants. However, only those who were termed "undesirables" were so treated. One such victim was "Allen Carter,
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colored" who "was arrested on complaint of Clay H. Williams, Union Pacific Officer. Carter is alleged to have been trespassing on railroad property without permission."21 Carter was later released on $250 bond pending his hearing.22 For the times and the prevailing economic conditions, the bond was exorbitant. A signal was sent to other minority job hopefuls to get out of town if they could not show a visible means of support. Subsequent reports in the local newspapers illustrate the frequency of similar police action toward minority people. 3
While minority aspirants were being systematically removed from competing for jobs on the impending project, local white labor sought to further enhance its chances at securing jobs. Those thousands of newcomers posed threats to Las Vegans who felt that they should have preference in hiring for the jobs that might become available on the project. They sought, through their unions, to incorporate a hiring restriction that employees be "bona fide" citizens of Nevada.2^ A great deal of employment confusion ensued in the hiring process. Preference was eventually given to Nevada residents who were, also veterans but, by the time actual construction on the dam got underway, those newcomers to the area had fulfilled residency requirements and the great majority of them were indeed veterans.
When the bids for local construction projects and for the supportive and preliminary work for the dam were let, numerous new jobs were created.^0 The construction of the road from Las Vegas to the dam site employed 400 men.27 This added to the number of men who worked in bringing power lines from southern California, constructing the railroad spur from Las Vegas to Boulder City and on to the dam, the building of Boulder City and the numerous other support jobs which had to be done prior to the actual construction of the dam.2° It was on these projects that there was some degree of integration of the workforce. Ray Lyman Wilbur points out in a report titled: The Hoover Dam Power and Water Contracts and Related Data that the only integration in effect on the dam project had to do with the operation of other projects further down the Colorado River and on into the Imperial Valley of California. That statement has significance in light of the stated objective for the creation of Boulder City: "The government wants all of the people connected with the construction of Hoover Dam to live in comfortable, sanitary fashion commensurate with a federal project of the nature of this one." While the government was determined to see to the creature comforts of the workers on the project, it took no apparent interest in ensuring equality of employment opportunities for all its citizens. It was "estimated that during the construction period the city contained some 8,000 people." None of them were minority people. Boulder City was built and owned by the government, including housing. The fact that it was an all white city was thus the result of deliberate policy.
There is at least one photograph which shows black workers helping construct the railroad spur to Boulder City. There was also some Mexican- American involvement along with that of Mexican nationsis. Hamon Carralaga, who came to Las Vegas in 1930 and remained there for the next thirty-seven years, recalls that there were "seven or eight (Mexican-AmericansJ who had worked in the mines near Austin, Nevada, who worked with one crew clearing away brush, digging holes and making a railroad bed."-" He and two other Mexican-Americans, one of whom was named Guzman, returned to Las Vegas after we finished and tried to get on at the dam."34
Minority people experienced great difficulty in securing employment at
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every step and level of the Hoover Dam Project. Whites, on the other hand, whether locals or new arrivals, were more fortunate. They were aboe to secure work even though they had had no previous experience doing that sort of work. They had been farmers, soldiers, salesmen, taxi drivers, movie company gaffers, factory workers and even stockbrokers. Few had any prior experience at building dams. Mr. Joe Kine, a white long-time Boulder City resident, recalls that he "had never done that kind of work. From what I could see, nobody had. We just learned as we went along. When I started off They were still digging the tunnels. I worked there for a while. After that I became a high scaler."35 Kine's memory is supported by many others who worked on the project and continue to make Boulder City their home. No one downplays the rigors and danger of the work. They do, however, agree that they "learned as they went along."
With the exception of the technical jobs, common laborers were used extensively. Even at that, quite a number had little experience at that sort of work. "Experienced only need apply" did not apply to workers interested in work on the dam project unless, as we shall see later, they were racial minorities. While it is true that upon their arrival in 1930-1931, few had any experience building dams, by the time they had completed that project and gone on to build other dams in other places, they had become the best dam workers in the world.
Confusion continued in regard to the hiring process. Following an investigation in which charges were made that Clark County residents were being denied jobs, T. L. Wilcox, one of the investigators, filed the following report:
With reference to men employed on Boulder Dam, the Six Companies are not required by contract or special provision to regard local preference, but can hire citizens of the United States from any state providing veterans are given preference.35
The Six Companies was a consortium of six indepent companies which had
joined together to form one major company which would be the primary contracting agent for the construction of the dam. Along with their offices, the local Chamber of Commerce attempted to ease some of the pressure by
screening prospective workers and registering "men who had lived here less than one year."3'
them. It did not register It further reported that it
had "checked the references and approved 138 white men and 37 colored men who had been residents a year or longer."38 n0 other racial groups were acknowledged by the Chamber in screening report. The Chamber did not become involved in this process until two years after the original work had begun. Further, there is no evidence to show that any action was taken based on the recommendations resulting from their screening. It should be further noted, that this one reference appears more than a month after the first blacks were hired on the project.
In addition to the Chamber, the Red Cross also became involved in the process of identifying workers. Perhaps owing to its efforts to assist the new arrivals in securing food and lodging, they attempted, with limited personnel, to serve as a clearinghouse in determining the needs of those who passed through its doors. In a letter to Leonard Blood, Director of the Las Vegas Labor Office, which made the final determination as to who would or
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would not be hired on the project, the Executive Director of the Red Cross informed him that they had "...endeavored to refer to you only those men who are heads of families and who seem fit to work."'’" There is no known record of how many minority aspirants, if indeed any did, partook of those services and were subsequently recommended to the Labor Office. However, it is known that the contract for the dam project prohibited the employment of "those of the Mongolian race."^0 Once again, the activities of the Red Cross coincided with those of the Chamber of Commerce in the actual hiring of black labor on the project.
Perhaps the first of America's minority groups to find employment on the project was Mexican-Americans. Ramon Garralaga was among those who worked on digging the diversion tunnels. "I remember that there were several others (Mexican-Americans) there at the time but there were never many as far as I know. They put up a rock and dirt dam to get the river going through the tunnels later on and they had a bunch of us cleaning out the river bed. They called us 'muckers' and some of the fellows didn't like it."41 Garralaga and the other Mexican-Americans lived either in Las VNgas or in McWilliams Townsite which would, in the next decade, become the location of Las "Vegas' black community. He did not "remember any ever staying in the dormitories at Boulder City."4" In conversations and interviews with other workers on the project, while some do indeed recall some limited "Mexican" involvement in the workforce, none recall any Mexican-American residents of Boulder City during that Period.
Former Boulder City Commissioner Morgan Sweeney worked as a supervisor at Anderson's Cafeteria in Boulder City during the construction period. It was there that the majority of the workers took their meals. His job was to ensure that only bona-fide wokers entered. Each worker wore a badge and each badge had a number. During his stint as supervisor, he was called, by his own testimony, "Four-Meal Sweeney." He gained that moniker because sometimes a worker, who might have a friend who did not have a job, would loan his badge in order to enable the friend to enter the cafeteria and get a meal. When the friend would approach the entrance to the cafeteria, Sweeney would glance at the badge number and look at the face above it. If the two did not match up he could confiscate the badge and retain it through the next four meals. When asked how he managed to differentiate between legitimate workers and imposters, his reply was: "I had a photographic memory. I knew every badge number and every face that belonged to it." Such a memory as that was indeed remarkable. He did not, however, ever remember seeing a minority person eat in that cafeteria.44
The cause of the initial exclusion of black workers was due in large measure to the racial perceptions of the Labor Office director. He maintained that blacks should not be hired on the project because their presence would cause tension with the white workers. Additionally, he concluded that there would be "difficulties of housing and feeding 'colored labor', and the cost of providing separate facilities..." would be an unnecessary expense.
As previously stated, earlier attempts to bring about segregation tn housing in Las Vegas had been fruitless. Further, white families were standing in soup lines, doing without, being evicted and having their hopes dashed. Men were riding the rails, living in hobo camps, panhandling and, in some places, ending up on chain gangs because of vagrancy laws. These men were not going to turn down jobs because they did not approve of the complexion of
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a co-worker. Apparently, Leonard Blood allowed his own bigotry to interfere with the execution of his position.
Blood and the Six Companies, by their refusal to hire minority workers on a federal project which was financed by federal funds, gives clear evidence of the need for anti discrimination laws applying to employment. Their prejudice cause undue hardship for minority groups who either were locals or who came to southern Nevada in search of work as did others.
In early 1932, it was reported in the Las Vegas Age that "when the Hoover Dam has been completed, an average number of nearly 4,000 employees will have rolled up the stupendous number of 71,500,000 man-days worked by the typical dam worker of 37 years of age, white, American born, and representing every state in the union."46 That description of the work force would remain fairly constant for an additional five months wntil July of 1932, two and a half years into the project, when some small changes would take place.
Beginning with the close of the Civil War and the adoption of those three Civil War Amendments, black Americans found themselves in a much better overall circumstance than they had previously been. The good times, however, only lasted for a dozen years or so and with the close of Reconstruction, blacks found that the federal government no longer enforced the intent of at least the latter two of those Amendments. For almost twenty years, black Americans lost ground in relation to white Americans in the the pursuit of the American dream. Fortunately, that era did not provide much opportunity for the chasm between blacks and whites to widen overly much. What might have been an opportunity for the seizing of unfair advantage proved moot in almost every instance with the possible exception of acquisition of property which, during that time, wasnot only plentiful and relatively cheap but there was also more desirable land available for homesteading.
1896 offered yet another opportunity for the economic distance between blacks and whites to widen. The Plessy v Ferguson decision was rendered that year and blacks were officially and legally placed in a position where acts of discrimination could have adverse effects by design rather than by chance. Once again, there were not many areas in which white America could gain real advantage. The fact that black were being held in place did present a condition which bears scrutiny in regards to other effects. Perhaps the areas in which the most disastrous results are to be found is in education and jobs. As the century turned, the distance between whites and blacks in educational attainments and economic development widened. The effects of those realities would continue on into the twentieth century. The quality of life for white America, as compared to that of black America, became more enhanced from year to year. After nearly a third of a century, the differences had become so great as to have become almost unsurmountable. Then the "crash" came and everyone was back to square one where black America and other racial minorities had been all along. While the "crash" was indeed devastating, it brought equity to American society. Those who had lost and those who did not have, both ended up with nothing to lose. The bottom line is, everyone was in the great morass together.
As America came out of the earlier stupor caused by the stodk market crash of 1929, it began to seek solutions. The Hoover Tam project was one of the first salves used to soothe the wounds of many who had been mauled by the
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"crash". All those thousands who came to southern Nevada in search of jobs well expected that they would at least have an opportunity to try to get work. Upon arriving there and seeing the numbers of others who had also come in search of jobs they were able to determine that only a fraction of them would indeed be hired. They remained, living however they, could, with the firm belief that "they" would be hired and that it would be the "other fellow" who would not. It was a gamble but they all took it. Minorities, however, found that the deck was stacked against them. Even though they were as desperate as the others, they were removed from the pool simply because of the color of their skin.
Minorities, especially blacks, took exception to the hiring status quo. From the outset, charges were made that while black and other minorities were expected to fulfill their responsibilities as citizens, their rights were ignored and not protected as provided by the Fourteenth Amendment. Arthur McCants, who would later reorganize the Las Vegas chapter of the NAACP said: "When the call to arms came in the Great War our government called for American citizens, regardless of color. Many of them are unable to obtain work where even foreigners are being employed."47
Discrimination in the hiring on the project prompted black aspiring workers to organize. They formed the Colored Citizens Labor Protective Association in late 1931 and over the next year and a half they sought to change not only the minds of white Las Vegans but their hearts as well. O.B. Allbritton, one of the officers of the organization, penned the following letter to the editor of a local newspaper:
...There have been since the creation of this Association, many colored over sea soldiers and citizens have applied in person, with their discharge papers, for work on the Hoover Dam Project, we sent a delegation in request; we enrolled in various agencies, and we called on Mr. Crowe, general supt. The answers were: We have no provisions. Idon't know. We now appeal to the just a fairminded citizens. First to the Las Vegans, to the various Congressmen, and to the press, for assistance. The leaders of the association are law abiding citizens; standing for justice. Is it patriotic for the white community to stand by and see the eagle torn down from its lofty perch and the flag used as a dish rag? Union and liberty are inseparable. The colored man isn't a traitor to his country. The association thanks all who lend a hand to break down such activities.48
Two weeks later, J. P. Liddell, another officer of the association wrote the following letter:
All races of people are divided into classes. These classes ranges from the highest to the lowest scale of civilization to which the race has developed. The object of the Colored Labor Protective Association is to make itself a harmonious joint in the congruity of political economy. The fitness, it recognized, must be based upon the Constitution of the United States and not upon obsolete methods of bigots of past ages. We ask the superior minds of the white race for protection of life and liberty and a chance 'to breath and be a man'. This association, an intelligent and humble part of this community, pledges itself to be dependable and
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honorable. We ask for advise and aid from those of superior intelligence from the white as well as the negro race.
The hoped for changes in hiring practices did not occur. While blacks waited for an opportunity to make a living, by comparison, whites were making a killing. Over the next several months, blacks were relentless in their efforts to bring about change but to no avail. The local office of the NAACP established contact with the national office who sent Field Secretary, William Pickens to Las Vegas both to investigate conditions and to make an appeal to the local labor offices and to the citizens. He spoke at the Majestic Theatre on Fremont Street on Thursday night, April 14, at 8:00 pm. The Las Vegas Review reported the event.
Pickins wasted no words on the subject, and exhorted all colored voters to remember this fact: "Hoover and the Interior Department's failure to provide for the employment of blacks on the Boulder Cam Project", when it came time to register their choice in the fall. "If we're not good enough to work on the Boulder Dam project, we're not good enough to vote for President Hoover", he declared dramatically. "There are twelve million colored voters in the United States and we're getting organized. We'll wield plenty of power next election. We were powerful enough to stop the confirmation of Judge Parker as United States Supreme Court Judge, and we can defeat President Hoover."50
Pickins returned to Las Vegas in May of that same year because, even though some promises had been made, employment practices had not changed. His May visit was highlighted by an open meeting in which several prominent white Las Vegans were in attendance. Nye Wilson, Mayor Ernie Cragin and Leonard Blood of the Las Vegas Labor Office were among those. Pickins address to the group extolled the contributions minorities had made in the historical development of the nation. * Due to his determination and that of Arthur McCants of the local chapter of the NAACP, O.B. Albritton of the Colored Citizens Labor Protective Association and others, additional pressure was brought to bear on the issue of minority hiring. In a meeting between the above mentioned and representatives of the Six Companies, Senator Tasker L. Oddie and Secretary Lyman Wilbur of the Interior Department, it was finally decided that there would be "no further discrimination against the employment of Colored labor on the Hoover Dam."52 By this time, the project had be h underway for two and a half years.
The Las Vegas Age reported on June 18, 1932 that Secretary Wilbur had said that "when additions to the force are made the Company will arrange to give employment to Negro labor."55 By inference, it is suggested that negro labor will be given preferential treatment when, in fact, white labor had been given preferential treatment from the very start. W.A. Bechtel, President of the Six Companies, chimed in, saying "he had never heard of any refusal to employ colored people and that he would take the matter up immediatedly on his return to Boulder City, and see that provision was made for their employment on the work when and if they had the necessary experience."^ As stated earlier, such prior experience had not been prerequisites for white workers.
Two and a half years after the project had been underway and in light of
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the constant turnover of workers, there was an abundance of white ex-^am workers who would have more experience than would minority hopefuls. Under those circumstances those minority members without experience because of prior exclusionary practices would be at a distinct disadvantage.
Two months following Pickins1 open meeting to discuss the concerns of minority employment on the project, on July 8, 1932, the first ten blacks were hired on the project.56 Two months later the first Native-Americans were hired. They were not local but Apaches from Arizona. The Las Vegas Review reported on their arrival. "Six trained Apache Indian high scalers will perform in the dangerous reaches of Black Canyon on work being done on Hoover Dam. While high scaling was indeed dangerous, it was the glamour work of the project; the hero in Zane Grey's novel, Boulder Dam was a highscaler. Of those Apaches, the newspaper reported that "they have been trained in this work, having worked on the Roosevelt Dam years ago in Arizona and having worked rno^e recently on the Coolidge Dam, also in the Apache country of Arizona."58
Blacks who had found it necessary to petition time and again in search of employment opportunities on the dam; similarly Indians found it necessary to do the same. "These sure-footed brawney men were placed on jobs here through tje effprts pf am Omdoam wjp os Omdoam Agent for some of the tribesmen who are wards of the government, and who has been in Boulder several times in their behalf, working in cooperation with Construction Engineer Walker R. Young."55
For the duration of its construction, only a handful of minority people were allowed to work on the dam project. No Asian-Americans held any positions, due to a restriction in the contract, and those other minority group members who were fortunate enough to secure employment were left to their own devices in obtaining housing. The dam project did indeed do much to alleviate some of the economic hardships of the country. It provided work not only in southern Nevada but in other parts of the country as well. All of the equipment and materials, with the exception of sand and gravel, wer manufactured elsewhere. For every wheelbarrow, hammer, nut, bolt, foot of rail or wire, turbine, generator, truck and from work clothes to the food consumed by the workers, someone in another part of the country was put to work. In spite of all this, minority people were forced to do without work on the project until it was nearly a third completed. Even after being reluctantly hired, they never made up more than two percent of the total work force.
Has the federal government taken the opportunity presented it in the throes of the depression, to give all the runners an even start and not some a false start, there is a likelihood that there would be no need for such a thing as affirmative action today. Additionally, it is important that such subject matter be included in history texts for all levels in order to help dispel the convenient notions which so many have concerning the state of minority America today.
END NOTES:
1.
Thomas Sowell, Race and Economics (New York: David McKay and Co. Inc., 1975), p. 162.
2.
Eric Goldman, Rendezvous With Destiny (New York: Vintage Books, 1956), p. 258.
3.
John Hope Franklin. From Slavery To Freedom: A History of Negro America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), p. 393.
4.
Ibid.
5.
Ibid. 394.
6.
Ibid.
7.
Ray Lyman Wilbur and Northcutt Ely, The Hoover Dam Power and Water Contracts and Related Data (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1933), p7~6.
8 Bernard Frank, Water, Land and People (New York: Alfred A. Knopf Co., 1950), p. 11.
9.
Wilbur and Ely, p. 8.
10.
Paul L. Kleinsorge, The Boulder Canyon Project (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1941), p. 301.
Las Vegas Age, January 2, 1930, p. 2.
11.
Las Vegas Age, February 10, 1931, p. 1.
12.
Las Vegas Age, February 14, 1931, p. 1.
13.
F.A. Waters to Water Bracken, August 3, 1909, Union Pacific File, Special Collections, UNLV.
14.
Walter Bracken to H. I. Bettis, August 10, 1909, Union Pacific File, Special Collections, UNLV.
15.
Walter Bracken to H. I. Bettis, March 21, 1911, Union Pacific File, Special Collections, UNLV.
16.
Ibid.
17.
Las Vegas Age, May 17, 1919, p. 4.
18.
Robert P. Ingalls, Hoods: The Story of The Ku Klux Klan (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1979), p. 19.
19.
Louis A. Ferman, ed., Negroes And Jobs (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968), p. 11 •
20.
Las Vegas Age, February 14, 1931, p. 1.
21.
Las Vegas Age, April 2, 1931, p. 1.
22.
Ibid.
2
23.
Las Vegas Review Journal , January 25, 1932, p. 3, February 5, 1932, p. 8, ' June 28, 1932, p. 2, June 22, 1932, p. 1.
24.
Telegram, H.C. Gardett to Leonard Blood, July 9, 1931, 590-50 NL-FX, Los Angeles, California, Leonard Blood File, Special Collections, UNLV.
25.
"Investigation Regarding Discrimination Against Clark County Residents", Leonard Blood File, Special Collections, UNLV.
26.
Las Vegas Age, January 5, 1930, p. 3.
27.
Las Vegas Age, September 11, 1930, p. 1.
28.
Ibid.
29.
Wilbur and Ely, p. 96.
30.
Las Vegas Review Journal, February 5, 1932, p. 2.
31.
Henry Reining, Boulder City Nevada (Washington, D.C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1950), p. 13.
32.
Ibid, p. 39.
33.
Author's interview with Mr. Ramon Garralaga, July 17, 1974, in San Bernardino, California.
34.
Ibid.
35.
Author's interview with Mr. Joe Kine, December 2, 1975, in Boulder City, Nevada.
36.
"Investigation Regarding Discrimination, loc. cit.
37.
Las Vegas Age, August 23, 1932, p. 1.
38.
Ibid.
39.
Deborah B. Pentz to Leonard T. Blood, August 22, 1932, Blood File, Special Collections, UNLV.
40.
Kleinsorge, p. 147.
41.
Garralaga interview.
42.
Ibid.
43.
Author's interview with Mr. Morgan Sweeney, December 14, 1975, in Boulder City, Nevada.
44.
Ibid.
45.
"Elwood Mead, Irrigation Engineer and Social Planner", Unpublished Dissertation by James Kluger, University of Arizona, 1970, p. 205.
46.
Las Vegas Age, February 3, 1932, p. 8.
3
47.
Las Vegas Age, December 19, 1931, p. 3.
48.
Las Vegas Age, January 7, 1932, p. 2.
49.
Las Vegas Age, January 20, 1932, p. 2.
50.
Las Vegas Review Journal , April 15, 1932, p. 5.
51 Las Vegas Age, Nay 11, 1932, p. 2. See also interview with Mr. J Hoggard “Executive Director of the Economic Opportunity Board in Vegas At The Crossroads", p 139, Special Collections, UNLV.
52.
Las Vegas Age, June 18, 1932, p. 4.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
558 Las Vegas Age, December 20, 1931, p. 5.
56.
Las Vegas Age, July 8, 1932, p. 4.
57.
Las Vegas Review Journal, September 1, 1932, p. 3.
58. Ibid.
. David "West Las
59.
Ibid.
"MINORITY LABOR PROBLEMS AND THE HOOVER DAM PROJECT" BY ROOSEVELT FITZGERALD
The absence of information pertaining to America's minority groups in the national histories is surpassed only by the exclusion of such data in regional and/or local histories. In most instances, such voids exist in spite of the efforts of researchers. However, in some cases, particularly in the trans-Mississippi west, very little writing and even less publication has occurred. That which is there is generally santitzed and has little to say about the interpersonal relationships which might have existed between racial minorities and the majority group and even less about that existing between different racial minority groups.
Native Americans have probably received the greater amount of attention owing to the efforts primarily of anthropologists. In the case of Chinese Americans, there is a body of information but, for the most part, it is anchored in the nineteenth century. Writing pertaining to the Japanese American is often centered around World War IT and the appearance and the effects of concentration camps. The subject of Hispanics is operational in three arenas--the era of Spanish exploration and settlement in the southwest; the Texas war for independence and the ensuing Mexican-American War of 1846 and the effects of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; and, more recently, the subject of labor and illegal aliens. In those areas of the transMississippi west where slavery either did not exist or existed only in a limited way, there is rarely any mention of blacks until after the mid-way point of the twentieth century and then only in conflict situations with the system.
With each group, little is said of their contributions to the development of the nation and even less is said in regards to the role which each has played in helping make the Constitution not only live but to grow.
-2-
The process of aiding that growth has been most difficult. In 1787 when the United States Constitution was first drafted, it excluded many. Being free, male, white, at least twenty-one years old and property ownership were prerequisites for participation in the activities of the new nation. It would be one hundred and ninety years before those criteria would be completly overturned. That one hundred and ninety year period of our domestic history might well be characterized by the resistance encountered due to the continuing efforts of those who were excluded and thereby powerless and oppressed to become full, active citizens.
Seventy eight years after the drafting of the Constitution, the year that the Civil War ended, the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution legally ended slavery. Within the next three years, both the fourteenth and the Fifteenth Amendments were passed. The first granted citizenship to the recently freed blacks and the latter declared that they could not be denied the right to vote on account of race, color or previous conditions of servitude. While it is apparent that all three had black males as their primary target, they would later embrace other non-white groups.
Those Amendments were abided by during the twelve years of Reconstruction (1865-1877). However, once Reconstruction ended, they were literally ignored for the next three-quarters of a century until the rendering of the decision in the Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954. That decision was intended to put an end to the Jim Crow practices which had begun during those post-Reconstruction years and both nationalized and legalized with the Plessy v Ferguson decision of 1896.
During those intervening years the circumstances and the quality of life of America's minority groups would be determined by the hoped for good will
-3-
of those who oppressed them. In those places where minority peoples' population figures were small and during times of plenty they encountered less economic suppression. However, during more lean times, the traditional policy/practice of being the "last hired and the first fired" was operative. Who or which group or groups was immediatedly affected, if affected at all, was dependent upon which group or groups were present in specific target areas.
The great depression of the 1930s involved the entire nation. Few Americans excaped its wrath. Beginning with the stock market crash in 1229, its tentacles soon reached from the concrete canyons of Wall Street to those of the faraway and sometimes untamed southwest and beyond. Those who had held lowly jobs were among the first to become casualties of unemployment. The gardners, maids, cooks, common laborers, chauffeurs, janitors, wash women and such who were already on the bottom of the economic totem pole and already involved in their own personal, though unofficial, depression were the hardest hit. They began to compete with each other for those few jobs, of that sort, which were available. Further, because the depression engulfed the entire nation, no area and no racially distinctive group excaped the wide brush of resentment and discrimination.
The manner in which minorities were perceived by others and how they viewed themselves was greatly altered by the events of the 1330s. Thomas Sowell articulates their circumstance well:
A certain benign contempt may exist toward a group that is clearly on the bottom and showing no sign of rising. But once they reach the stage of becoming threats to others- jobs or status, a much more active and intense hatred may develop. This is somethime referred to as "good race relations" turning to hostility. Rising ethnic groups are the greatest threats to others ^t or near the bottom--including other ethnic minorities.
-4-
The depression, of course, did not cause those at or near the bottom to rise and become "threats to others' jobs or status." Indeed, what did in fact occur is those who were on the top plummeted toward those on the bottom and, once there, sought, usually with great success, to commandeer the jobs they found there. The continued presence of those who had been on the bottom all along and doing "common labor" or "menial" work, served as constant reminders of how far middle and upper class America had fallen.
Frank Walker, a member of Franklin D. Roosevelt s New Deal offers a classic example of the results of the depression on some of those who had been better off. The story he related could have been found, in substance, in thousands of places throughout the country. He found it in his home state, Montana, while on an inspection tour there. He discovered former businessmen digging ditches and laying sewer pipes in their old business suits. Walker was dumbfounded. Upon inquiry, he was told by one of the men:
I hate to think what would have happened if this work hadn't come....I'd sold or hocked everything I could. And my kids were hungry. I stood in front of the window of the bake-shop down the street and wondered just how long it would be before I got desperate enough to pick up a rock and Heave it through that window and grab some bread to take home.
The scene is reminiscent of that of Jean Paul Jean of Victor Hugo's
Les Miserables. Those Montanians who had been ditch diggers and sewer pipe layers before were displaced by those who had hitherfore hired them to do such jobs. They became part of that group we collectively and romantically refer to as "the forgotten man." They became the hobos who scoured the country looking for work. They did not displace former businessmen in those places where they went. If they did indeed displace anyone, it was Americas racial minorities who, as the malaise of the depression worsened, found that even those previously secure, although repugnant, jobs were now being sought after by others- America's* minorities not only were forgotten, they
became invisible.
-5-
In the United States during the early 1930s, there were not many places where jobs could be found. This was especially true in terms of jobs which had any longevity. The Hoover Dam project of the 1930s served many purposes, not the least of which was that of helping address the problem of widespread unemployment in the United States. The stock market crash of 1929 had cost millions of Americans their jobs. They were forced, by that event, to eke out a living the best way they could. Many of the newly unemployed scoured the country in search of work. Along the thousands of miles of railroads which criss-crossed the country there could be found hobo camps. Riding the rails, or as one writer put it: "Taking to the open road", was a way of life for many. These were not bums. They were, for the most part, men who had always provided for their families and were not unable to do so. They followed up every lead in search of work. There have been dozens of movies made which characterize both the times and the people. "My Man Godfrey", "Emperor of the North", "Hard Times", and "The Grapes of Wrath" are but a few. Even though their efforts met with some limited successes, it was not enough. Eventually, the federal government would offer some assistance.
The extent of that assistance varied from place to place and was oftentimes influenced by the people involved. Once Franklin D. Roosevelt took the office of President and established his "New Deal", it created numerous agencies designed, ostensibly, to allay some of the suffering of the entire population. "However, because of a long custom of discriminating against blacks, it was inevitable that in these agencies there were variations between 3 black and white relief grants, numbers of workers, salaries, and the like." Many of these discriminatory practices occurred, in part, because local management of such agencies was placed in the hands of local whites who were not unaccustomed to discriminating against black people. Fear of reprisal
-6-
prevented blacks complaining. Fraud and discrimination was rampant in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration which had, perhaps, the widest influence over blacks in the rural south. Everywhere that segregation was possible, 5
and it was possible everywhere, it was practiced. Wherever it was practiced, black people were either under represented or underpaid.6
The state of Nevada, especially southern Nevada, played a major role in helping ease the economic difficulties of the entire nation. Its role was not necessarily a result of the depression. Beginning in 1914, serious consideration had been given to constructing a dam on the Colorado River. Engineers, geologists and other scientists began to spend the cooler months doing preliminary studies in determining the best site on the river for such a project. Lees Ferry, Arizona separated the upper basin from the lower and the needs of the two were debated. Among those items debated were the relative importance of navigation, domestic and agricultural uses of water and power generation.?
The members of the original commission consisted of reprensatives from each state on the river and Nevada's was James S. Scrugham, who was governor from 1923 to 1926. By 1922, the Commission had drafted the Colorado River Compact and it determined the distribution of the waters of the Colorado between g the upper basin states and the lower basin states.
The Boulder Canyon Project Act was passed by Congress in 1928 and, the following year, the Swing-Johnson Bill, which authorized the construction g of a dam at Black Canyon on the Colorado River was also approved by Congress. Those events all preceded the collapse of Wall Street.
Owing partially to the earlier passage of the Boulder Canyon Project Act, Las Vegas found itself the target of the attentions of unemployed America at the outset of the depression. Its population was approximately five thousand
-7-
but because of its proximity to the future dam^ site, it became an overnight boomtown. Its minority population had always been small and did not increase noticeably during the period of dam activity. One result of that demographic was that southern Nevada, unlike southern states and urban centers of the north, there were no age-old racial antagonisms. Southern Nevada found itself in a position to generate thousands of new jobs. Americans from all parts of the United States turned their attention to southern Nevada for possible employment opportunities. Within months of the "crash" the first of those who sought employment began to arrive in Las Vegas. By New Year's Day of 1930, "over forty-two thousand letters of inquiry had arrived from prospective job , ..10
seekers.
Those letters were soon followed by their writers and others. Las Vegas was not prepared to accommodate such an influx. While there had been adequate housing for permanent residents, there was not a sufficient surplus of housing for the new arrivals. During the early months of 1930, they could be found sleeping in whatever makeship shelters they could either find or build. Some did their sleeping on the lawn in front of the Post Office building while others did so in cars, gulleys or lean-tos. All in all, there was created "a pitiful and pathetic sight."
Those job hopefuls represented every stratum of American life. L.P. Squires, editor of the Las Vegas Age, daily wrote of their presence. He suggested establishing a local welfare system for those who needed it and a 12
chain gang for undesirables. Twenty years earlier, during Las Vegas' infancy, a definition of undesirables, of sorts, had been introduced by F. A. Waters.
In a letter written to Walter Bracken, a representative of the Las Vegas Land and Water Company, dated August 3, 1909, he suggested closing Block 17 and turning it "into [a] residence district which would be the district desired
-8-
1 3 by colored people and Mexicans, etc." Bracken, seven days later, in a letter to the Vice President of the Company, H. I. Bettis, wrote that "Block 17 could be converted into a residence district for a certain class of people which is badly needed here in Las Vegas, so that they will not be scattering around through town."14 Block 17, incidentally, was adjacent to the "red light" district, which was restricted to Block 16.
The dozen years immediatedly prior to Bracken's attempt to segregate Las Vegas are best characterized by the onslaught of the reprecussions of the Plessy v Ferguson Supreme Court decision of 1896 which officially introduced the nation to the concept of "separate but equal" and lent judicial approval of jim crow practices. In many places the segregation of the races had moved swiftly and with little opposition. Segregation was the anthem of the times especially where there might have been sizeable minority populations. Las Vegas had no such population characteristics therefore, nothing came of either effort, even though Bracken continued with his efforts through 1911. In March of that year, in yet another letter to Bettis, he wrote: "Our colored population, Mexicans, etc., is growing very rapidly and unless we have some place 15 for this class of people they will be scattered all through our town." In closing, he wrote that "other property owners in town are refusing to sell them property where they will be mixed with the white people."1^
While those efforts at early housing restriction failed to bear fruit, similar exclusionary efforts in the economic arena were more successful. A report of the Union Pacific Shop Federation, a few years later, offers an example;
We the Americans of the entire shopcraft of all departments in the shops and yards on the L.A. & S. L. request that no man without their Citizen Papers be hired. And that none other than American Citizens be promoted or permitted to learn a trade. And that none but white men be promoted as we feel t^at it is not fair for us to be compelled to work with them in shops.
-9-
That report was written in 1919 and clearly excluded all people of color. The wave of racial hysteria which swept the country following the release of the movie "Birth Of A Nation", the ongoing fear of a "yellow peril" along with a continuing disdain for Mexicans and Indians placed all four groups at peril. Those four racial groups were among those who were most undesirable as economic conditions worsened and competition for jobs increased 1 Although "Birth Of A Nation", in 1915, had spurred a rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan and the formation of klaverns nationwide, the decade following the end of World War I, while pock-marked with racist outbursts had prosperity as its overriding theme. That prosperity is characterized by the mass exodus of rural people especially from the south to the industrial centers of the north and midwest.
Approximately 1.4 million negroes came North from 1910 to 1930 and experienced relative prosperity in contrast to their conditions in the South. The labor demand remained brisk during the 1920's and Negroes entered unskilled manual jobs in the rapidly growing automobile and steel plants, foundries, highway construction, railroad maintenance and the garment industry--for the most part, taking jobs which the native-born or foreign white work^s had vacated as better occupational opportunities opened for them.
Las Vegas nerspaper reports of the time offer clear distinctions in the treatment of those groups in comparison with others. Squires suggested a welfare system for those who were just "waiting at the Colorado River for something in the nature of work to turn up."20 Those who waited for work were out of work and were, technically, vagrants. However, only those who were termed "undesirables" were so treated. One such victim was Allen Carter, colored" who "was arrested on complaint of Clay H. Williams, Union Pacific officer. Carter is alleged to have been trespassing on railroad property without permission."21 Carter was later released on $250 Bond pending his hearing.22 For the times and the prevailing economic conditions, the bond was exorbitant. A signal was sent to other minority job hopefuls to get out of town if they could not show a visible means of support, Subse-
-10-
quent reports in the local newspapers illustrate the frequency of similar 23 police action toward minority people.
While minority aspirants were being systematically removed from competing for jobs on the impending project, local white labor sought to further enhance its chances at securing jobs. Those thousands of newcomers posed threats to Las Vegans who felt that they should have preference in hiring for the jobs that might become available on the project. They sought, through their unions, to incorporate a hiring restriction that employees be "bona fide" citizens of Nevada.2^ a great deal of employment confusion ensued in the hiring process. Preference was eventually given to Nevada residents who were also veterans but, by the time actual construction of the dam got underway, those newcomers to the area had fulfilled residency requirements and the great majority of them 25 were indeed veterans.
When the bids for local construction projects and for the supportive and preliminary for the dam were let, numerous new jobs were created. 8 The 27 construction of the road from Las Vegas to the dam site employed 400 men. This added to the number of men who worked in bringing power lines from southern California, constructing the railroad spur from Las Vegas to Boulder City and on to the dam, the building of Boulder City and the numerous other support jobs which had to be done prior to the actual construction of the dam.28 It was on these projects that there was some degree of integration of the workforce. Ray Lyman Wilbur points out in a report titled: The Hoover Dam Power and Water Contracts and Related Data that the only integration in effect on the dam project had to do with the operation of other projects further .29 down the Colorado River and on into the Imperial Valley of California.
That statement has significance in light of the stated objective for the
-11-
creation of Boulder City: "The government wants all of the people connected with the construction of Hoover Dam to live in comfortable, sanitary fashion commensurate with a federal project of the nature of this one." While the government was determined to see to the creature comforts of the workers on the project, it took no apparent interest in ensuring equality of employment opportunities for all its citizens. It was "estimated that during the con- 31
struct!on period the city contained some 8,000 people." Boulder City was built and owned by the government, including housing. The fact that it was 32
an all white city was thus the result of deliberate policy.
There is at least one photograph which shows black workers helping construct the railroad spur to Boulder City. There was also some Mexican- American involvement along with that of Mexican nationals. Ramon Carralaga, who came to Las Vegas in 1930 and remained there for the next thirty-seven years, recalls that there were "seven or eight [Mexican-Americans) who had worked in the mines near Austin, Nevada, who worked with one crew clearing 33
away brush, digging holes and making a railroad bed." He and two other Mexican-Americans, one of whom was named Guzman, returned to Las Vegas after 134
we finished and tried to get on at the dam.1
Minority people experienced great difficulty in securing employment at every step and level of the Hoover Dam Project. Whites, on the other hand, whether locals or new arrivals, were more fortunate. They were able to secure work even though they had had no previous experience doing that sort of work. They had been farmers, soldiers, salesmen, taxi drivers, movie company gaffers, factory workers and even stodkbrokers. Few had any prior experience at building dams. Mr. Joe Kine, a white long-time Boulder City
-12-
resident, recalls that he "had never done that kind of work. From what I could see, nobody had. We just learned as we went along. When I started off they were still digging the tunnels. I worked there for a while. After that 35
I became a high scaler." Kine's memory is supported by many others who worked on the project and continue to make Boulder City their home. No one down plays the rigors and danger of the work. They do, however, agree that they ""learned as they went along."
With the exception of the technical jobs, common laborers were used extensively. Even at that, quite a number had little experience at that sort of work. "Experienced only need apply" did not apply to workers interested in work on the dam project unless, as we shall see later, they were racial minorities. While it is true that upon their arrival in 19301931, few had any experience building dams, by the time they had completed that project and gone on to build other dams in other places they had become the best dam workers in the world.
Confusion continued in regard to the hiring process. Following an investigation in which charges were made that Clark County residents were being denied jobs, T. L. Wilcox, one of the investigators, filed the following report:
With reference to men employed on Boulder Dam, the Six Companies are not required by contract or special provision to regard local preference, but can hire citizens of the UnitedgStates from any state providing veterans are given preference.
The Six Companies was a consortium of six independent companies which had joined together to form one major company which would be the primary contracting agent for the construction of the dam. Along with their offices, the local Chamber of Commerce attempted to ease some of the pressure by screening prospective workers and registering them. It did not register
-13-
37 "men who had lived here less than one year." It further reported that it had "bhecked the references and approved 138 white men and 37 colored men who have been residents a year or longer." No other racial groups were acknowledged by the Chamber. The Chamber did not become involved in this process until two years after the original work ttats begun. Further, there is no evidence to show that any action was taken based on the recommendations resulting from their screening. It should be further noted, that this one reference appear^ more than a month after the first blacks were hired on the project.
In addition to the Chamber, the Red Cross also became involved in the process of identifying workers. Perhaps owing to its efforts to assist the new arrivals in securing food and lodging, they attempted, with limited personnel, to serve as a clearinghouse in determining the needs of those who passed through its doors. In a letter to Leonard Blood, Director of the Las Vegas Labor Office, who made the final determination as to who would or would not be hired on the project, the Executive Director of the Red Cross informed him that they had"...endeavored to refer to you only those men who are heads of families and who seem fit to work."39 There is no known record of how many minority aspirants, if indeed any did, partook of those services and were subsequently recommended to the Labor Office. However, it is known that the contract for the dam project prohibited the employment of "those of the Mongolian race.Once again, the activities of the Red Cross coincided with those of the Chamber of Commerce in the actual hiring of black labor on the project.
Perhaps the first of America's minority groups to find employment on the project was Mexican-Americans. Ramon Carralaga was among those who worked on digging the diversion tunnels. "I remember that there were several others
-14-
(Mexican-Americans) there at the time but there were never many as far as I know. They put up a rock and dirt dam to get the river going through the tunnels later on and they had a bunch of us cleaning out the river bed. They called us muckers and some of the fellows didn't like it." Garralaga and the other Mexican-Americans lived either in Las Vegas or in McWilliams Townsite which would, in the next decade, become the location of Las Vegas' black community. He did not "remember any ever staying in the dormitories at Boulder City."43 In conversations and interviews with other workers on the project, while some do indeed recall some limited "Mexican" involvement in the workforce, none recall any Mexican-American resident of Boulder City during that period.
Former Boulder City Commissioner Morgan Sweeney worked as a supervisor at Anderson's Cafeteria in Boulder City, where the majority of the workers took their meals. His job was to ensure that only bona-bide workers entered. Each worker wore a badge and each badge had a number. During his stint as supervisor, he was called, by his own testimony, "Four-Meal Sweeney." He gained that moniker because sometimes a worker, who might have a friend who did not have a job, would loan his badge in order to enable the friend to enter the cateria and get a meal. When the friend would approach the entrance to the cafeteria, Sweeney would glance at the badge number and look at the face above it. If the two did not match up he would confiscate the badge and retain it through the next four meals. When asked how he managed to differentiate between legitimate workers and imposters, his reply was: "I had a photographic memory. I knew every badge number and every face that belonged to it."43 Such a memory as that was indeed remarkable. He did not, however, • 44 ever remember seeing a minority person eat in that cafeteria.
-15-
The cause of the initial exclusion of black workers was due in large measure to the racial perceptions of the Labor Office Director. He maintained that blacks should not be hired on the project because their presence would cause tension with the white workers. Additionally, he concluded that there would be "difficulties of housing and feeding 'colored labor', and the cost of 45 providing separate facilities..." would be an unnecessary expense.
As previously stated, earlier attempts to bring about segregation in housing in Las Vegas had been fruitless. Further, white families were standing in soup lines, doing without, being evicted and having their hopes dashed. Men were riding the rails, living in hobo camps, panhandling and, in some places, ending up on chain gangs because of vagrancy laws. These men were not going to turn down jobs because they did not approve of the complexion of a co-worker. Apparently, Leonard Blood allowed his own bigotry to interfere with the execution of his position.
Blood and the Six Companies, by their refusal to hire minority workers on a federal project which was financed by federal funds, gives clear evidence of the need for antidiscrimination laws applyint to employment. Their prejudice caused undue hardship for minority groups who either were locals or who came to southern Nevada in search of work as did others.
In early 1932 it was reported in the Las Vegas Age that "when the Hoover Dam has been completed, an average number of nearly 4,000 employees will have rolled up the stupendous number of 71,500,000 man-days worked by the typical dam worker of 37 years of age, white, American born, and representing every state in the union."46 That description of the work force would remain fairly constant for an additional five months until July of 1932, when some small changes would take place.
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Beginning with the close of the Civil War and the adoption of those three Civil War Amendments, black Americans found themselves in a much better overall circumstance. The good times, however, only lasted for a dozen years or so and with the close of Reconstruction, blacks found that the federal government no longer enforced the intent of at least the latter two of those Amendments. For almost twenty years, black Americans lost ground in relation to white Americans in the pursuit of the American dream. Fortunately, that era did not provide much opportunity for the the chasm between blacks and whits to widen overly much. What might have been an opportunity for the seizing of unfair advantage proved moot in almost every instance with the possible exception of acquisition of land which, during that time, was not only plentiful and cheap but there was also more desirable land available for homesteading.
1896 offered yet another ooportunity for the economic distance between blacks and whites to widen. The Plessy v Ferguson decision was rendered that year and blacks were officially and legally placed in a position where acts of discrimination could have adverse effects by design. Once again, there were not many areas in which white America could gain real advantage. The fact that blacks were being held in place did present a condition which bears scrutiny in regards to other effects. Perhaps the area in which the most disastrous results are to be found is in education and jobs. As the century turned, the distance between whites and blacks in educational attainments and economic development widened. The effects of those realities would continue on into the twentieth century. The quality of life for white America, as compared to that of black America, became more enhanced from year to year.
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After nearly a third of a century, the differences had become so great as to have become almost unsurmountable. Then the "crash" came and everyone was back to square one where black America and other racial minorities had been all along. While the "crash" was indeed devastating, it brouginequity to American society. Those who had lost and those who did not have had nothing to lose. The bottom line is, everyone was in the great morass together.
As America came out of the earlier stupor caused by the stock market crash of 1929, it began to seek solutions. The Hoover Dam project was one of the first salves used to soothe the wounds of many who had been mauled by the "crash." All those thousands who came to southern Nevada in search of jobs well expected that they would at least have an opportunity to work, Upon arriving here and seeing the numbers of others who had also come in search of jobs they were able to determine that only a fraction of them would indeed be hired. They remained, living however they could, with the fervent hope that 'they" would be hired and that it would be the "other fellow" who would not. It was a gamble but they all took it. Minorities, however, found that the deck was stacked against them. Even though they were as desperate as the others, they were removed from the pool simply because of the color of their skin.
Minorities, especially blacks, took exception to the hiring status quo. From the outset, charges were made that while black and other minorities were expected to fulfull their responsibilities as citizens, their rights were ignored and not protected as provided by the Fourteenth Amendment. Arthur McCants, who would later reorganize the Las Vegas chapter of the NAACP said: "When the call to arms came in the Great War or government called for American citizens, regardless of color. Many of them are unable to obtain work where 47 even foreigners are being employed,".
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Discrimination in the hiring on the project prompted black aspiring workers to organize. They formed the Colored Citizens Labor Protective Association in late 1931 and over the next year and a half they sought to change not only the minds of white Las Vegans but their hearts as well. O.K. Allbritton, one of the officers of the organization, penned the following letter to the editor of a local newspaper:
...There have been since the creation of this Association many, many colored over sea soldiers and citizens have applied in person, with their discharge papers, for work on the Hoover Dam Project, we sent a delegation in request; we enrolled in various agencies, and we called on Mr. Crowe, general supt.
The answers were: We have no provisions, I don't know. We now appeal to the just and fairminded citizens. First to the Las Vegans, to the barious Congressmen, and to the press, for assistance. The leaders of the association are law abiding citizens; standing for justice. Is it patriotic for the white community to stand by and see the eagle torn down from its lofty perch and the flag used as a dish rag? Union and liberty are inseparable. The colored man isn't a traitor to his country. The association thanks all who lend a hand to break down such activities.
Two weeks later, J.P. Liddell wrote the following letter:
All races of people are divided into classes. These classes ranges from the highest to the lowest scale of civilization to which the race has developed. The object of the Colored Labor Protective Association is to make itself a harmonious joint in the congruity of political economy. The fitness, if recognized, must be based upon the onstitution of the United States and not upon obsolete methods of bigots of past ages. We ask the superior minds of the white race for protection of life and liberty and a chance 'to breathe and be a man . This association, an intelligent and humble part of this community, pledges itself to be dependable and honorable. We ask for advise and aid from thHHe of superior intelligence from the white as well as the negro race.
The hoped for changes in hiring practices did not occur. While blacks waited for an opportunity to make a living, by comparison, whites were making a killing. Over the next several months, blacks were relentless in their efforts to bring about change but to no avail. The local office of the NAACP established contact with the national office who sent Field Secretary, William Pickens to Las Vegas both to investigate conditions and to make an
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appeal to the local labor offices and to the citizens. He spoke at the Majestic Theatre on Thursday night, April 14, at 8:00 pm. The Review Journal reported the event.
Pickins wasted no words on the subject, and exhorted all colored voters to remember this fact: "Hoover and the Interior Department s failure to provide for the employment of blacks on the Boulder Dam Project, when it came time to register their choice in the fall." "If we're not good enough to work on the Boulder Dam project, we're not good enough to vote for President Hoover", he declared dramatically. "There are twelve million colored voters in the United States and we're getting organized. We'll wield plenty of power next election. We were powerful enough to stop the confinnation of Judge Parker as „50 United States Supreme Court Judge, and we can defeat President Hoover." Pickins returned to Las Vegas in May of that same year because even though some promises had been made, employment practices had not changed. His May visit was highlighted by an open meeting in which several prominent white Las Vegans were in attendance. Nye Wilson, Mayor Ernie Cragin and Leonard Blood of the Las Vegas Labor Office were among those. Pickins' address to the group extolled the contributions minorities had made in the historical development of the nation.51 Due to his determination and that of Arthur MeCants of the local chapter of the NAACP, O.B. Albritton of the Colored Citizens Labor Protective Association and others, additional pressure was brought to bear on the issue of minority hiring. In a meeting between the above mentioned, representatives of the Six Companies, Senator Tasker L. Qddie and Secretary Lyman Wilbur of the Interior Department, it was finally decided that there would be "no further discrimination against the employment of Colored labor on the Hoover Dam."52 By this time, the project had been underway for two and a half years.
The Las Vegas Age reported on June 18, 1932 that Secretary Wilbur had said that "when additions to the force are made the Company will arrange to give employment to Negro labor."53 By inference, it is suggested that negro
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will be given preferential treatment when, in fact, white labor had been given preferential treatment from the very start. W.A. Bechtel, President of the Six Companies, chimed in, saying "he had never heard of any refusal to employ colored people and that he would take the matter up immediatedly on his return to Boulder City, and see that provision was made for their employ- ment on the work when and if they had the necessary experience." As stated earlier, such prior experience had not been prerequisite for workers.
Two and a half years after the project had been underway and in light of the constant turnover of workers, there was an abundance of white ex-dam 55 workers who would have more experience than would minority hopefuls. Under those circumstances those minority members without experience because of prior exclusionary practices would be at a distinct disadvantage.
Two months following Pickins' open meeting to discuss the concerns of minority employment on the project, on July 8, 1932, the first ten blacks were hired on the project.56 Two months later the first Native-Americans were hired. They were not local but Apaches from Arizona. The Las Vegas Review Journal reported on their arrival. "Six trained Apache Indian high scalers will perform in the dangerous reaches of Black Canyon on work being done on Hoover Dam."57 While highscaling was indeed dangerous, it was the glamour work of the project; the hero in Zane Grey's novel, Boulder Dam was a highscaler. Of those Apaches, the newspaper reported that "they have been trained in this work, having worked on the Roosevelt Dam years ago in Arizona and having worked more recently on the Coolidge Dam, also in the Apache country of Arizona."5^
Blacks who had found it necessary to petition time and again in search of employment opportunities on the dam; similarly Indians found it necessary
to do the same. "These sure-footed brawney men were placed on jobs here through
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the efforts of an Indian who is Indian Agent for some of the tribesmen who are wards of the government, and who has been in Boulder several times in their
59 behalf, working in cooperation with Construction Engineer Walker R. Young,"
For the duration of it construction, only a handful of minority people were allowed to work on the dam project. No Asian-Americans held any positions, due to a restriction in the contract, and those who were those other minority group members who were fortunate enough to secure employment were left to their own devices in obtaining housing. The dam project did indeed do much to alleviate some of the economic hardships of the country. It provided work, not only in southern Nevada but in other parts of the country as well. All of the equipment and materials, with the exception of sand and gravel, were manufactured elsewhere. For every wheelbarrow, hammer, nut, bolt, foot of rail or wire, turbine, generator, truck and from work clothes to the food consumed by the workers, someone in another part of the country was put to work. In spite of all this, minority people were forced to do without work on the project until it was nearly a third completed.
Had the federal government taken the opportunity presented it in the throes of the depression, to give all the runners an even start and not some a false start, there is a likelihood that there would be no need for such a thing as affirmative action today. Additionally, it is important that such subject matter be included in history texts for all levels in order to help dispel the convenient notions which so many have concerning the state of minority America.
END NOTES:
1.
Thomas Sowell, Race and Economics (New York: David McKay and Co. Inc., 1975), p. 162.
2.
Eric Goldman, Rendezvous With Destiny (New York: Vintage Books, 1956), p. 258.
3.
John Hope Franklin, From Slavery To Freedom: A History of Negro America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), p. 393.
4.
Ibid.
5.
Ibid. 394.
6.
Ibid.
7.
Ray Lyman Wilbur and Northcutt Ely, The Hoover Dam Power and Water Contracts and Related Data (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1933), p. 6.
8.
Bernard Frank, Water, Land and People (New York: Alfred A. Knopf Co., 1950), p. 11.
9.
Wilbur and Ely, p. 8.
10.
Paul L. Kleinsorge, The Boulder Canyon Project (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1941), p. 301.
Las Vegas Age, January 2, 1930, p. 2.
11.
Las Vegas Age, February 10, 1931, p. 1.
12.
Las Vegas Age, February 14, 1931, p. 1.
13.
F.A. Waters to Water Bracken, August 3, 1909, Union Pacific File, Special ’ Collections, UNLV.
14.
Walter Bracken to H. I. Bettis, August 10, 1909, Union Pacific File, Special Collections, UNLV.
15.
Walter Bracken to H. I. Bettis, March 21, 1911, Union Pacific File, Special Collections, UNLV.
16.
Ibid.
17.
Las Vegas Age, May 17, 1919, p. 4.
18.
Robert P. Ingalls, Hoods: The Story of The Ku Klux Klan (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1979), p. 19.
19.
Louis A. Ferman, ed., Negroes And Jobs (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968), p. 11•
20.
Las Vegas Age, February 14, 1931, p. 1.
21.
Las Vegas Age, Apri12,1931, p. 1.
22.
Ibid.
2
23.
Las Vegas Review Journal, January 25, 1932, p. 3, February 5, 1932, p. 8, June 28, 1932, p. 2, June 22, 1932, p. 1.
24.
Telegram, H.C. Gardett to Leonard Blood, July 9, 1931, 590-50 NL-FX, Los Angeles, California, Leonard Blood File, Special Collections, LINLV.
25.
"Investigation Regarding Discrimination Against Clark County Residents", Leonard Blood File, Special Collections, UNLV.
26.
Las Vegas Age, January 5, 1930, p. 3.
27.
Las Vegas Age, September 11, 1930, p. 1.
28.
Ibid.
29.
Wilbur and Ely, p. 96.
30.
Las Vegas Review Journal, February 5, 1932, p. 2.
31.
Henry Reining, Boulder City Nevada (Washington, D.C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1950), p. 13.
32.
Ibid, p. 39.
33.
Author's interview with Mr. Ramon Garralaga, July 17, 1974, in San Bernardino, California.
34.
Ibid.
35.
Author's interview with Mr. Joe Kine, December 2, 1975, in Boulder City, Nevada.
36.
"Investigation Regarding Discrimination, loc. cit.
37.
Las Vegas Age, August 23, 1932, p. 1.
38.
Ibid.
39.
Deborah B. Pentz to Leonard T. Blood, August 22, 1932, Blood File, Special Collections, UNLV.
40.
Kleinsorge, p. 147.
41.
Garralaga interview.
42.
Ibid.
43.
Author's interview with Mr. Morgan Sweeney, December 14, 1975, in Boulder City, Nevada.
44.
Ibid.
45.
"Elwood Mead, Irrigation Engineer and Social Planner", Unpublished Dissertation by James Kluger, University of Arizona, 1970, p. 205.
46.
Las Vegas Age, February 3, 1932, p. 8.
3
47.
La£ Vegas Age, December 19, 1931, p. 3.
48.
Las Vegas Age, January 7, 1932, p. 2.
49.
Las Vegas Age, January 20, 1932, p. 2.
50.
Las Vegas Review Journal, April 15, 1932, p. 5.
51.
Las Vegas Age, May 11, 1932, p. 2. See also interview with Mr. J. David Hoggard, Executive Director of the Economic Opportunity Board in "West Las Vegas At The Crossroads", p. 39, Special Collections, UNLV.
52.
Las Vegas Age, June 18, 1932, p. 4.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55.
Las Vegas Age, December 20, 1931, p. 5.
56.
Las Vegas Age, July 8, 1932, p. 4.
57.
Las Vegas Review Journal, September 1, 1932, p. 3.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid.