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Chapter 20: The Later Years, 1940–1960 - Dane Starbuck, The Goodriches: An American Family [2001]

Edition used:

The Goodriches: An American Family (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Chapter 20

The Later Years, 1940–1960

The liberal party is a party which believes that, as new conditions and problems arise beyond the power of men and women to meet as individuals, it becomes the duty of the Government itself to find new remedies with which to meet them. The liberal party insists that the Government has the definite duty to use all its power and resources to meet new social problems with new social controls. . . .

franklin delano roosevelt, The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt

As the rumblings of World War II began in the late 1930s, Pierre Goodrich opposed the United States’ entering into another European conflict just as he had opposed America’s “unnecessary” involvement in World War I. He supported the isolationist views espoused by the America First campaign and conservatives such as Senator Robert Taft of Ohio.1 Goodrich also opposed conscription. He believed that mandating the draft should never precede a large-scale voluntary appeal to participate in armed conflict.2

Moreover, Pierre, like his father, was no friend of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies, which, among other things, promoted governmental expansion into business and individual affairs. The acts of Congress and the regulations of agencies and commissions in the 1930s added a new federal level to what had been previously governed by state law. One day in the late 1930s, Pierre attended a weekly roundtable luncheon of local Harvard Law School graduates at the Athenaeum Club in Indianapolis. During the luncheon, Goodrich blasted President Roosevelt. He stated that the New Deal “was destroying the country in general and lawyers in particular.”3 It was a belief he would hold for the rest of his life. At a more personal level, Goodrich passionately opposed Roosevelt’s decision to intern American citizens of Japanese descent during World War II. He hired several persons of Japanese heritage to work for him during the war, a practice that was apparently not well received in his northern Indianapolis neighborhood.4

At about this time, Goodrich became interested in a small newsletter known as Human Events. Frank Hanighen and Felix Morley were the two founders of Human Events. Early on in the newsletter’s formation, Henry Regnery, a young and upcoming Chicago publisher, was a financial backer of the enterprise, along with Joseph N. Pew, Jr., the vice-president of Sun Oil Company. Morley, a former Rhodes Scholar and Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper columnist, had been editor of the Washington Post in the 1930s and early 1940s. He was president of Haverford College when Hanighen approached him in 1944 about beginning the publishing venture. The purpose of Human Events, according to Morley, was to promote ideas that advocated means to a “durable peace” and involved “the reporting of facts which newspapers overlook.”5

Though the magazine’s circulation amounted to only a few thousand in the months immediately after World War II, its influence was far greater than its numbers would indicate.6 Goodrich met Morley in the early years of Morley’s involvement with Human Events. Pierre thought highly of the conservative publication and its attempt to deal with the problems that the end of World War II brought to the world. Morley aptly described the magazine’s approach of addressing the centralization of power, a concern Goodrich obviously shared:

Get the journalists, the professors, the clergy and the women’s leadership on your side, I argued, and the masses will in time follow automatically. . . . those who formulated public opinion must first be shown that it was contrary to their personal interests [to have the centralization of power in government]. . . . Therefore the contrary appeal, as old as that of Cicero, should be clearly and unemotionally made to Reason, on the perhaps optimistic assumption that this would in time trickle down to lower levels.7

Goodrich often sent subscriptions to Human Events to family members, employees, and acquaintances.8 In May 1947, Goodrich invited Morley to lecture at Wabash College. Morley’s three lectures at Wabash were later published as part of a book, The Power in the People. In 1981, Liberty Fund republished Morley’s Freedom and Federalism.9 Goodrich and Morley’s friendship deepened through meetings of the Mont Pelerin Society and personal visits.10 Goodrich also funded scholarships through the Winchester Foundation for an elementary school that Morley was associated with in Gibson Island, Maryland, Morley’s retirement home.11

In the spring of 1949, Goodrich became interested in another publishing venture. While on a trip to New York City, he visited the Liberal Arts Press, located on Seventy-second Street. Goodrich took an immediate interest in the small publishing company and its owner, Oskar Piest. Piest was a German native and a former economics adviser to a large Berlin bank. In 1935, he fled Germany because of the political turmoil that existed during Hitler’s rise to power. Once in the United States, Piest became involved in publishing, serving as editor in chief to the Hafner Press and publisher of the Library of Liberal Arts.12

The Library of Liberal Arts published a series of inexpensive, paper-bound reprints of shorter classics in the fields of philosophy, religion, political science, education, and literature. Among the authors published by the press were Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Thomas Hobbes. Goodrich entered into what eventually became a twenty-thousand-dollar loan agreement with Piest, which enabled Piest to expand the offerings of inexpensive classic texts. As a result, between 1950 and 1960, the Library of Liberal Arts was able to increase publication from a few titles to hundreds. At the publishing company’s height, its books were used in approximately eight hundred colleges and universities. Goodrich was so pleased with the outcome of this loan to Piest that he wrote about the transaction in Liberty Fund’s Basic Memorandum. Goodrich used the success story as an example of a time when the Liberty Fund directors should be willing to consider extending loans to further a cause consistent with the foundation’s philosophy.13

In 1939, James and Cora Goodrich donated $11,000 to Cora’s hometown of Lynn, Indiana, for the construction of a community library in memory of her parents.14 The donation was matched by $11,800 from the Federal Work Projects Administration (WPA). On July 4, 1941, 150 Lynn citizens began razing an old building on the site where the new Frist Memorial Library would be built.15 Cora did not live to see the completion of the library named in her family’s honor. She passed away on October 31, 1941, slightly more than a year after her husband’s death.16 While most of Cora’s life had been spent as a supporter of James Goodrich’s amazing range of accomplishments, she had assumed leadership positions in her own right in a number of state and local organizations: In 1909, she became district president of the Indiana Federation of Clubs; in 1914, she began the Madonna Class, a women’s Bible study at the Presbyterian Church; from 1925 to 1926, she served as local chapter president of the Daughters of the American Revolution.17 Moreover, in rearing Pierre, the diminutive woman had perhaps as much influence on him as his powerful father.

Pierre and his second wife, Enid, attended the library’s dedication on Sunday, June 13, 1943.18 The ceremony included the unveiling of a large portrait of Cora’s family, the Frists, which still hangs in the library.19 Also in 1943, the unveiling of another portrait of interest to Pierre took place. Goodrich had hired Wayman Adams, one of America’s great portrait painters, to rework a portrait of his father. Adams had originally begun the portrait of James P. Goodrich when the latter was still in the governor’s office, in December 1920. The portrait was hung in the Indiana statehouse, where it remains to this day.20

On February 3, 1941, in Chicago, between the deaths of his parents, Pierre had married Enid Smith of Indianapolis. Pierre had first become acquainted with Enid in 1928, when she was his nurse at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis, where he had back surgery. Enid was born in Enid, Oklahoma, on May 17, 1903. Her family moved to Indianapolis shortly after her birth. She attended Shortridge High School and received a resident nursing degree from St. Vincent Hospital and a bachelor’s degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

Enid was one of six children. She did not come from a wealthy, well-known family, as had Pierre’s first wife. The couple’s long courtship was strained by circumstances largely beyond their control. James and Cora Goodrich had never totally understood or gotten over their son’s divorce. As a result, Pierre was placed in a delicate position: He wanted very much to remain on good terms with his parents yet retain the close relationship he had developed with Enid. It was a troubled situation that only partially resolved itself in the autumn of 1941, after the passing of both of his parents.21

Throughout her life with Pierre, Enid showed great tolerance and understanding of her husband’s time-consuming interests. As for Pierre, he had considerable confidence in Enid and valued her advice. Although Enid never had the scholarly interests that her husband had, she possessed a great deal of common sense. When Pierre established Liberty Fund in 1960, he kept Enid well advised of the details, and she was made a founding lifetime board member. Enid attended Liberty Fund board meetings regularly for more than twenty-five years. She was also a director of Pierre’s other foundations: Thirty Five Twenty, Inc., based in Indianapolis, and the Winchester Foundation. After Pierre’s death, Enid continued to be active in philanthropic circles in the Indianapolis area: she was a trustee of the Indianapolis Museum of Art; a member of the President’s Council at Conner Prairie, a restored pioneer village; and a 1994 recipient of the Individual Philanthropist Award by the Indiana chapter of the National Society of Fund Raising Executives. In 1994 she was named by Indiana’s former governor Evan Bayh as a Sagamore of the Wabash, the state’s highest civilian honor. Enid passed away in November 1996 at the age of ninety-three.22

After they were married, Pierre and Enid went to Hawaii on their honeymoon. While in Hawaii, the newlyweds visited Admiral Husband Kimmel, the officer in charge of the soon to be infamous naval base at Pearl Harbor.23 Pierre took along on his honeymoon a suitcase full of books. Albert Campbell, Pierre’s longtime law partner, joked that one of the first things Enid would have to get used to in married life was Pierre’s preoccupation with reading. Goodrich could become so immersed in a book that he became oblivious to anything else going on around him, even a honeymoon.24

Several years later, another marriage took place in Goodrich’s immediate family. In May 1952, his daughter, Nancy, married a Polish prince, Edmond Poniatowski, at the Vincent Astor estate in Rhinebeck, New York. Pierre was concerned that whoever married his daughter might find his wealth the primary attraction. The couple later lived in Paris for several years, during which time father and daughter seldom saw each other. It was the beginning of a strained relationship.25

In May 1946, Pierre and Enid moved to 4220 Central Avenue in northern Indianapolis, where they would live during the remainder of Pierre’s life. Set in a lovely neighborhood across from the St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church, the home is a beautiful example of Georgian architecture. In the late 1960s, Goodrich had extensive renovation done to the home, including surrounding it with an iron fence and building a carriage house.26

Despite his father’s longtime involvement in politics, particularly partisan Republican politics, Pierre himself was pretty much a bystander in the political arena. During his fifty years of residence in Indianapolis, however, many a Republican candidate came knocking at Goodrich’s door seeking his support. In February 1972, Dr. Otis Bowen, then a Republican candidate for governor, visited Goodrich, looking for a campaign contribution and endorsement. Bowen was treated no differently from any other visitor. Goodrich proceeded to engage Bowen in a lengthy discussion, challenging Bowen on what he believed were the candidate’s less than conservative beliefs. After a fairly virulent exchange, Bowen left, disgruntled. The future two-time Indiana governor was not the first candidate who left Goodrich’s office shaking his head. Bowen left with empty hands, not receiving the campaign contribution he had sought. Instead, Goodrich sent him literature, including Lord Acton’s letter containing the admonition that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” As Bowen recalls, “Those who knew of my appointment were very interested in the outcome. [My campaign manager] asked if I thought a follow-up appointment would be productive. I advised that I had no desire to face [Mr. Goodrich] again.”27

The 1952 Republican National Convention in Chicago marked an exception to Pierre Goodrich’s tendency not to become directly involved in politics. In this contest, the stakes were high. Goodrich had been a longtime supporter of the United States senator Robert Taft, who was challenging Dwight D. Eisenhower for the Republican presidential nomination. Goodrich, like most supporters of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, was suspicious of Eisenhower’s “internationalist” views and believed that he would do little to roll back Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies. Almost all political insiders and columnists believed that the race between Taft and Eisenhower would be extremely close. Therefore, every delegate was deemed critical. A hotly contested battle for control of Indiana’s delegates to the convention ensued. What added fuel to the controversy was the power play that had developed between Goodrich’s business partner Eugene C. Pulliam, an Eisenhower backer, and Indiana’s two Republican United States senators, Homer Capehart and William Jenner, both strong Taft supporters.

As publisher of Indiana’s two largest newspapers, Pulliam was not content to report on the bruising tug of war in Chicago. He had finagled to get himself “elected” as a delegate to the convention in a deal with Senator Jenner that many considered highly suspicious. “We decided it’d be better to make him a delegate than have him hounding us all the time,” explained Lisle Wallace, chairman of the Taft campaign in Indiana.28 Nonetheless, Jenner and the other Taft supporters wanted a delegation that was 100 percent loyal to Taft. This is where Goodrich came in.

The controversy began with the issue of whether the Indiana state Republican convention could force Pulliam or any other delegate to vote for Taft. Pulliam took his fight straight to the readers of his newspapers, threatening to sue the Republican Party if he was not allowed to vote as a delegate for Eisenhower.29 After Pulliam won a minor victory that allowed him free rein to vote for whomever he wanted, the challenge was to hold onto Indiana’s other delegates who had earlier committed to Taft.30 Goodrich, in an uncharacteristic role, worked the Indiana delegation both on and off the convention floor. He tried to persuade them not to defect to Pulliam’s (and therefore Eisenhower’s) camp.31

As an interesting side note, at the July convention, Goodrich was introduced to William Casey by Henry Regnery. At the time, Casey was a New York City tax attorney and a strong Taft supporter.32 While Goodrich met with most of Indiana’s thirty-two delegates to the convention privately, Casey campaigned for Taft in a tenacious manner similar to Pulliam’s. Casey had set up an underground newspaper. Each morning on the doorstep of every delegate and alternate, a paper appeared with headlines that read, “We All Like Ike, but Ike Can’t Win” and “Ike’s a Me-Too Republican—Let’s Nominate a Real Republican.”33

The significance of Goodrich’s meeting with Casey is not that the two men ultimately succeeded in helping Taft garner the nomination. They did not. Eisenhower won on the first ballot in an unexpected landslide. The important thing about their meeting is that Goodrich had made contact with a man who would later play a very important role in Goodrich’s establishment of Liberty Fund. Casey did much of the legal and tax preparation work involved in forming the foundation between 1960 and 1962. He would later hold high public office, becoming chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and chairman of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign.

As Goodrich came to know Casey, he saw a man much like himself: unflappable and impatient, a voracious reader and lover of ideas, a lawyer with such tremendous energy that he often kept three secretaries busy at once. Casey’s shambling manner totally belied his considerable intellect and scholarly erudition. Moreover, like Goodrich, Casey possessed the ability to absorb new information and new ideas like a sponge yet relentlessly held to the moral traditions of his middle-class Catholic upbringing in Queens.34 Because he met Casey there, Goodrich’s work at the Chicago convention proved to be not totally fruitless, despite Taft’s landslide defeat.

Goodrich’s numerous businesses generally enjoyed a string of years of strong success. In the late 1950s, however, his fortune turned when a business deal went sour. In December 1947, Pierre’s uncle, Percy Goodrich, had struck a deal with Indianapolis businessman and attorney Samuel Harrell. The purchase arrangement involved the sale of the Goodrich family’s twenty-four grain elevators in central and northern Indiana to Acme-Evans, a large grain and milling company in Indianapolis. The resulting company became known as Acme-Goodrich. Harrell took over the presidency of Acme-Goodrich while Percy Goodrich, at the age of eighty-six, became chairman of the board. The Goodrich family received $1.8 million plus preferred stock in Acme-Goodrich. Moreover, approximately one hundred other stockholders received preferred stock in Acme-Goodrich.

After Percy Goodrich died in 1951, Pierre was the largest minority shareholder and the second major force, behind Harrell, in the company. By that time, the company was the dominant grain business in Indiana, owning thirty-seven grain elevators across the state.

In Harrell, a hard-nosed and successful businessman, Goodrich had met his match. Harrell was a large, imposing man who was also bright, ambitious, and polished. He had grown up in Noblesville, Indiana, and had served as a World War I navy pilot before graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and Yale Law School. In the mid 1920s, Harrell returned to practice law in Indianapolis and became involved in the grain and milling business. He later served as chairman of the board of directors of the Indianapolis Board of Trade, founded Indiana’s honorary order the Sagamore of the Wabash, and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1952 and lieutenant governor in 1956.35

In the mid 1950s, Harrell had the idea of creating a grain company that would be structurally similar to General Motors, having five independent divisions, and he established General Grain. In 1958, Harrell’s plan was to make General Grain the umbrella company for the five divisions, which were Acme-Goodrich (rural Indiana grain elevators), Acme-Evans (a milling company based in Indianapolis), Early and Daniels (Cincinnati), Cleveland Grain (Cleveland, Ohio), and the Tidewater Grain Company (a Philadelphia grain export company).36

From the start, Goodrich and the other minority stockholders in Acme-Goodrich were against the merger. They believed that the preferred shares, which they owned, were considerably undervalued by Harrell. At the August 10, 1958, stockholders’ meeting, the minority shareholders formally voted against the consolidation plan.37 Under Indiana law, any stockholder who opposes a merger has the right to have his or her shares purchased by the new or surviving company at the price of the shares on the effective date of the merger. Harrell proposed such a purchase price and the Indiana Securities Exchange Commission found the merger fair and equitable, but the minority stockholders objected to the appraised value of the stock. Goodrich and a Winchester dentist by the name of John Beals (Pierre’s second cousin) subsequently brought a legal action on behalf of all 104 minority stockholders.38

At a lengthy trial before the Boone Circuit Court in Lebanon, Indiana, in July 1962, Beals and Goodrich succeeded in winning a jury verdict for the minority shareholders that increased their preferred stock value almost twenty dollars per share. Harrell appealed the verdict. Finally, in December 1966, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled in General Grain, Inc. v. Pierre F. Goodrich in favor of Harrell.39 Goodrich appealed the decision to the Indiana Supreme Court. In June 1967, the state’s highest court affirmed the decision of the court of appeals in favor of Harrell.40

The lengthy legal contest between Goodrich and Harrell is interesting for two reasons. First, it was probably the first large dissenting shareholder case in Indiana, therefore setting an important precedent for later case law.41 Second, it is an instance in which a conflict of personalities came back to haunt Pierre. Goodrich was accustomed to being able to control events that involved his business interests. In this situation, however, he did not have the votes to control the direction of Acme-Goodrich, and he could not move Harrell to oppose the consolidation plan. As a result, the two men had a falling out, and the legal battle that ensued was inevitable.42

After the Indiana Supreme Court decision, settlement negotiations resulted in Harrell’s returning six elevators to the preferred (minority) stockholders in exchange for their releasing all claims against General Grain. With six elevators, the minority stockholders formed a company called Indiana Elevators. The company was based in Winchester, the original location of the Goodrich Hay and Grain Company seventy years before. Unfortunately, the lengthy legal battle had taken its toll on the grain elevators’ business. The substantial legal costs, combined with Harrell’s failure to maintain the grain operations, resulted in a substantial loss of business for Indiana Elevator. It folded in 1968, less than a year from start-up. It was one of the few business deals in which the Goodrich family came out on the losing end.43

[1. ]Henry Regnery said that Goodrich’s opposition to the United States’ getting involved in World War II was well known (interview, October 3, 1992). Stephen Tonsor believed that Goodrich might have belonged to the America First campaign in the late 1930s and early 1940s. If Goodrich was not a member, then at least he appeared to be in sympathy with its tenets. The organization, whose most famous member was Charles Lindbergh, opposed the United States’ entry into World War II. It claimed a membership of some 800,000 in 1941 before the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor. America First was based in Chicago. Henry Regnery’s father and Robert Hutchins, both of whom Goodrich knew personally, were leaders of the organization. Stephen Tonsor, interview, December 5, 1992. Goodrich’s opposition to “Wilson’s War” (World War I) is summarized in exhibit 5 of his “Memorandum No. 1” to employees of the Indiana Telephone Company.

[2. ]W. W. Hill, interview, May 5, 1993. According to Hill, Goodrich argued that a few should not have the power to risk others’ lives and fortunes. Goodrich believed that a true patriot will risk his life for his country because of his desire to defend it, not because he is compelled to do so. Goodrich’s views regarding the draft seem very similar to Leonard Read’s, whose views on conscription can be found in Government—An Ideal Concept (Foundation for Economic Education: Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y., 1954), p. 62.

[3. ]Harry T. Ice, History of a Hoosier Law Firm (Indianapolis: privately printed, 1980), p. 143.

[4. ]Letter from Anne C. Lawrason to author, September 20, 1996.

[5. ]Felix Morley, For the Record (South Bend, Ind.: Regnery/Gateway, 1979), p. 401.

[6. ]Articles in Human Events in many ways anticipated and advanced ideas that were later developed and adopted in both the Marshall Plan and the European Common Market. Such essays included Edmund H. Stinnes’s “The Unification of Europe,” May 31, 1944. See Morley, For the Record, p. 401.

[7. ]Morley, For the Record, p. 422.

[8. ]A number of acquaintances and family members, including Dale Braun, Ron Medler, Don Welch, and Elizabeth Terry, recall being sent free issues of Human Events by Goodrich.

[9. ]Morley’s book, which was partially funded by Goodrich, was The Power in the People (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1949). Morley edited Liberty Fund’s Essays on Individuality (1977), a collection of essays by such well-known contributors as Milton Friedman, Friedrich A. Hayek, and John Dos Passos.

[10. ]Morley was a founding member of the Mont Pelerin Society. Several letters between Morley and Goodrich are located in the Felix Morley Collection, Archives, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, Iowa.

[11. ]Gibson Island Country School in Gibson Island, Maryland. See letter from Goodrich to Morley, May 1, 1959; letter from Morley to Goodrich, May 7, 1959; and letter from Morley to Goodrich, July 26, 1955. Felix Morley Collection, Archives, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library.

[12. ]Once Goodrich met Piest in the spring of 1949, he wrote to Roscoe Pound, inquiring about Piest’s background and qualifications, especially Piest’s intellectual capabilities and integrity. Goodrich wrote to Pound because he learned that Pound was an adviser to the Hafner Press. Pound responded with a recommendation of Piest. See letter from Goodrich to Pound, May 6, 1949, and letter from Pound to Goodrich, May 9, 1949, Roscoe Pound Collection, Pierre F. Goodrich file, Archives, Harvard University Law School. The subsidiary of the Library of Liberal Arts that actually published the books was the Little Library of Liberal Arts.

[13. ]Liberty Fund Basic Memorandum, exhibit II-f, pp. 53–55. Piest makes reference to the first loan that Goodrich agreed to extend to him in a letter to Goodrich dated August 12, 1950. Piest went on to sell the Liberal Arts Press to the Bobbs-Merrill Publishing Company in 1961. He went to work for Bobbs-Merrill before becoming employed by the American Fletcher National Bank and Trust Company in Indianapolis. Piest later returned to Europe and worked as a representative out of American Fletcher’s Brussels, Belgium, office. See file of Oskar Piest, Liberty Fund, Inc., Indianapolis.

[14. ]See “Jonas L. P. Frist Estate Makes Contribution to Town of Lynn Which Will Enable Town to Complete Construction of Library with No Expense to Local Taxpayers,” Lynn (Ind.) Herald, December 22, 1939, p. 1, col. 6; “History of the Lynn Library,” on file at Washington Township Public Library, 106 North Main Street, Lynn, Indiana.

[15. ]“Lynn Residents Celebrate 4th by Working for Community,” Richmond (Ind.) Palladium-Item and Sun-Telegram, July 5, 1941, p. 1, col. 4.

[16. ]“Mrs. James P. Goodrich, Widow of State’s World War Governor, Dies,” Indianapolis Star, November 1, 1941, p. 12, col. 4.

[17. ]“Services for Mrs. Goodrich to Be Sunday,” Indianapolis News, November 1, 1941, p. 4, col. 2. Cora Goodrich was responsible for the establishment in Winchester of the Caroline A. Palmer chapter of the Indiana Federation of Clubs. She was also a charter member of the Woman’s Club of Indiana.

[18. ]See “Frist Memorial Library Building” (program for the building’s dedication, located at Washington Township Public Library, Lynn, Indiana), Lynn, Indiana, Sunday, June 13, 1943, 2:00 p.m. Goodrich’s attendance at the dedication was mentioned in a letter from Merl Chenoweth, then Lynn clerk and treasurer, to Goodrich dated June 9, 1943, in which Chenoweth specifies when Goodrich is to transport the speaker to the dedication. An article in the Lynn Herald also mentions the presence of Pierre and Enid Goodrich at the dedication. See “Dedication Successful,” Lynn (Ind.) Herald, June 18, 1943, p. 1, col. 4.

[19. ]The dedication speaker was William Hough of Greenfield, Indiana, a longtime friend of James Whitcomb Riley. Hough reminisced about the poet and read from Riley’s writings. He also spoke about the war and the needs of the new library. “Dedication Successful,” Lynn Herald, June 18, 1943, p. 1, col. 4.

[20. ]During his lifetime, James Goodrich refused to allow the portrait to be hung. See Wilbur D. Peat, Portraits and Painters of the Governors of Indiana, 1800–1978 (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1978), pp. 70–71; “Portrait of James P. Goodrich by Wayman Adams,” Indianapolis News, December 25, 1920, p. 1. col. 2; “Portrait by Wayman Adams Bought for Statehouse,” Indianapolis Star, October 25, 1941, p. 4, col. 5.

[21. ]Elizabeth Terry, interview, November 16, 1991; Florence Dunn, interview, July 18, 1992; and Kathryn Emison, interview, November 24, 1992.

[22. ]Gilbert Snider, interview, December 23, 1991. For more information about Enid Smith Goodrich, see her obituary, “Civic Leader Enid Smith Goodrich Was Fund Director, Museum Trustee,” Indianapolis Star/Indianapolis News, November 28, 1996, sec. D, p. 7, col. 1; Muncie (Ind.) Star Press, November 28, 1996, p. 12A, col. 1; Winchester (Ind.) News-Gazette, November 27, 1996, p. 2, col. 1.

[23. ]“When [Mr. Goodrich] decided he wanted to talk with someone about something, he didn’t give up,” said Ruth Connolly. “He always had great connections” (interview, October 25, 1991). Goodrich’s connections were indeed strong. For instance, twice he met with the West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer (Ronald Medler, interview, June 9, 1993).

[24. ]Henry Regnery (as told to him by Albert Campbell), interview, October 3, 1992.

[25. ]“Anne D. Goodrich, Polish Prince Wed,” Indianapolis Star, May 3, 1952, p. 6, col. 1. Rosanna Amos, interview, December 10, 1991.

[26. ]Letter from Dr. Marvin Vollmer to author, August 5, 1996. Marvin Vollmer and Alicia Byers are the current owners and occupants of the home. The house was built in approximately 1905 by Robert and Alta Hawkins. In 1946, it was sold by Iris T. and Jack Adams to the P. F. Goodrich Corporation, which owned the home from May 1, 1946, to May 4, 1965, when Goodrich liquidated the holding company. The holding company sold the house directly to Pierre and Enid Goodrich. For a chronological history of the ownership of the house, see memo attached to letter of August 5, 1996, from Dr. Marvin Vollmer to author (in author’s possession).

[27. ]Bowen visited Goodrich on February 24, 1972. Just as he did with all his guests, Goodrich sent to Bowen Lord Acton’s letter and the Federalist, nos. 6 and 51. See “Memorandum to Staff, Liberty Fund, Inc.,” from R. Amos, December 1, 1982. Dr. Bowen, who later served as secretary of health and human services in the Ronald Reagan administration, wrote:

The appointment with Mr. Goodrich was arranged by my campaign manager J. B. King. I was warned that the interview might be difficult but was not quite prepared for the ordeal. I don’t recall all the conversation but do remember that the conversation was one-sided and dwelt mainly on trying to convert me to his views. I thought I was quite conservative but left with the idea that he thought I was a “wild-eyed liberal.” He did give me literature to read and either sent or gave to me Lord Acton’s letter and other papers. . . . (Letter from Bowen to author, September 3, 1996) Edgar Whitcomb said that to the best of his recollection Pierre never contributed to his campaigns for secretary of state or governor (interview, April 18, 1992). Richard O. Ristine said that Goodrich did not support him in his bid for governor in 1964 (interview, February 15, 1993). W. W. Hill, who ran for the state senate and United States Congress, also said that Goodrich did not contribute to any of his campaigns (interview, July 9, 1993).

[28. ]Quoted from Russell Pulliam, Publisher Gene Pulliam, Last of the Newspaper Titans, p. 158. Technically, Pulliam was elected from the Eleventh Congressional District to the national convention, not at the state Republican convention.

[29. ]At the state convention on June 7, 1952, Homer Capehart was able to get passed a voice-vote resolution that purportedly bound all Indiana delegates to vote for Senator Taft. Pulliam threatened legal action if the Taft forces insisted upon controlling all delegates. See Farwell Rhodes, Jr., “Fight to Keep Muzzle off Indiana Delegates Taken to National GOP,” Indianapolis Star, July 2, 1952, p. 1, col. 4; see also Ben Hibbs, “Will GOP Commit Suicide at Chicago?” Indianapolis Star, July 3, 1952, p. 1, col. 1. Hibbs’s editorial supports Pulliam’s views.

[30. ]Ibid. The next day, Pulliam and the Republican state chairman and senator Homer Capehart reached an agreement that the delegates would not be bound. See “Anti-Ike Yoke Lifted for State Delegates,” Indianapolis Star, July 3, 1952, p. 1, col. 2.

[31. ]Henry Regnery remembers that Goodrich was one of the leaders in successfully holding the Indiana delegation to support Taft (interview, October 3, 1992).

[32. ]Ibid. Regnery said that he introduced Casey to Goodrich on the floor of the convention. At the time of the 1952 convention, Casey served as a director on the board of Henry Regnery’s publishing house. See also Joseph E. Persico, Casey (New York: Viking, 1990), p. 93.

[33. ]Persico, Casey, p. 92.

[34. ]This attribution of characteristics to Casey is detailed in Joseph Persico’s biography Casey, pp. 41–42. A closer examination of Casey reveals an extraordinary number of traits that he shared with Goodrich. See Persico, Casey, p. 45.

[35. ]Goodrich and Harrell also served together as trustees of the National Foundation for Education for American Citizenship. For a summary of Harrell’s life, see “Samuel R. Harrell, President, Acme-Evans Company, Inc.” (unpublished typescript, Citizens Historical Association, Indianapolis, November 20, 1948), Indiana Division, Indiana State Library. See also Noble Reed, “Harrell Seeks GOP Gubernatorial Nomination,” Indianapolis Times, January 25, 1952, p. 8, col. 1; “Lieutenant Governor Job Sought by Harrell,” Indianapolis Star, June 17, 1956, sec. B, p. 4; “Samuel Harrell Was Grain Broker, Lawyer,” Indianapolis News, August 6, 1986, p. 51, cols. 1–2.

[36. ]Ivan Barr, telephone interview, March 27, 1993.

[37. ]See General Grain, Inc. v. Pierre F. Goodrich, 221 N.E. 2d 696, 698 (Ind. Ct. App. 1966).

[38. ]See John Beals et al. v. General Grain, Inc., and Acme Goodrich, Inc. (filed in Marion County Superior Court and venued to Boone Circuit Court, decision July 18, 1962; General Grain, Inc. v. Pierre F. Goodrich et al., 221 N.E. 2d 696 (December 7, 1966).

[39. ]At the trial of John Beals v. General Grain, Inc., and Acme Goodrich, Inc., in the Boone Circuit Court, the jurors found in favor of Beals, Goodrich, and the other minority shareholders on July 18, 1962. The jury awarded the total sum of $585,180.19 to the minority shareholders, which included costs plus interest from August 12, 1958. The Indiana Court of Appeals, however, reversed the trial jury’s award. Reversal was based on the grounds that the jury instructions were improper because they stressed that the jury should apply the book value of liquidating value of the stock instead of the fair-market value (221 N.E. 2d 696, 702–03 [Ind. Ct. App. 1966]; rehearing denied January 3, 1967).

[40. ]See General Grain, Inc. v. Pierre F. Goodrich et al., 227 N.E. 2d 445 (Ind. Sup. Ct. 1967).

[41. ]Alan H. Lobley, telephone interview, April 16, 1993. Lobley was one of three attorneys from the Indianapolis law firm of Ice, Miller, Donadio and Ryan who represented Goodrich and other minority shareholders in the appeal.

[42. ]Goodrich may have suffered from another relationship that had gone sour. Donald R. Mote was an associate judge sitting on the Court of Appeals in 1966 that reversed the jury verdict in favor of Goodrich. Mote’s brother, Carl H. Mote, had been a top adviser to James Goodrich in the governor’s administration and Pierre’s law partner from 1923 to 1926. Donald Mote not only sat on the court of appeals that heard Harrell’s appeal, but was also elevated to Indiana’s supreme court just before Goodrich appealed the decision of the court of appeals. Donald F. Elliott, Jr., an Indianapolis attorney who represented the minority shareholders before both Indiana’s court of appeals and supreme court, believes that a longtime grudge between Goodrich and Judge Mote may have influenced Mote’s Appellate Court and Supreme Court decisions. “[Donald] Mote had an animus against Pierre that went way back and he carried it onto the court’s decision,” claims Elliott (telephone interview, April 15, 1993).

[43. ]Ivan Barr, telephone interview, March 27, 1993. Joe Ebert, who had been a sales representative for Acme-Goodrich, headed up operations of Indiana Elevators. Most of the other grain elevators originally owned by the Goodrich family were eventually sold by General Grain, many of them to the operators who had run them for Acme-Goodrich. Once Harrell won and Goodrich exhausted all appeal rights, Harrell sought costs involved in the appeal against the minority stockholders. The Indiana Court of Appeals awarded Harrell $17,439.20. See General Grain, Inc. v. Pierre F. Goodrich et al., 233 N.E. 2d 187 (Ind. Ct. of App. 1968).

Richard Hilts, an Acme-Evans employee since 1951 who held the position of president after Harrell, remembers that Harrell did not spend any money to maintain the grain elevators. That, coupled with the loss of business to larger grain elevators, the elimination of many railroad lines to the small grain elevators, and the increased grain storage capacity that farmers had on their own farms, resulted in the small elevator’s becoming a thing of the past (telephone interview, May 13, 1993).