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UF 51AB
Sub: Professor Felic Muehlner
Int: John Partin chn
6-3-77 completed



Tape A side 1





P: We're at an interview with Professor Felix Muehlner. It's June

3, 1977. We're in the Ford Library. OK, Professor Muehlner

when and where were you born?

M: I was born in 7 Germany, on June 23, 1899.

P: 1899, alright. OK, could you tell us a little bit about your

early educational background, and perhaps what your parents did

also.

M: Well, let me first start with my father. He was a teacher, elementary

and and a middle school. But he turned into the into whatAyou call

a coach. He a was very much interested in physical education. And

the a cities had for these for these particular jobs they had a

position which was called a turmrat it's very much like...

P: Could you spell that for us?

M: ...like a... T-U-R-M-R-A-T, turmrat is a counselor. And those

were city jobs.

P: Um hum.

M: And a he succeeded very much and landed up in the vcWi ai one

of those few large city jobs which were called _,

that means city. Turmrat in the same way. And these were very

well paid. ii-Lw--ee-uut W il in Germany in the early

1/20s there were only about five of those jobs. And my mother was a




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singer, and was a migqm member of the Royal Opera of Hanover.

That's where my father was born.



=P ar he broke her contract over some family problems they had,&

and a dropped out for #while, tut then continued again with other

smaller collegeSwith smaller theaters. I think one was at a N/'t/a 4e,

r# i an ffi y orL-and also one somewhere down ;f*a ga

sggEijB in southern Germany. But alsoI think) once in Vienna.

dj-she gave also individual concerts for quite while. She was
i;" C;-Y ]
quite an influence on agagA because



M: _..she had an artistic tempeimentf and I thought I had it too



90 So much about the background as far as they are concerned. Now I

got practically all my e lS62M formal education in Germany. 4adet-



P: Was it in state schools?

M: 4s that means starting with middle schoolrandnt theremy father

was my teacher for r hES first or second years. Then I went

to a gymnasium in 2 which was called _.5ia;, A__&fia .

tot that is ai.SBaes still in existence, only the building is not AL-

existence anymore they built a new building at __I've a

card from some friendAsent me a picture of that. Amd ~ama my father

was transferred, he got one of those bigger jobs. I think it was

either 1910 or 1911. JA that got us from, so to speak, from the

west to the east. In other words, we went to ____ from

Hanover. And my father became a turmrat in _
B^-s /a




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~: Which is today i in Poland.

P: 9gs that would be in p Poland.

M: That-=: today it's in Poland.
7
P: Right at the Czechoslovakian border.

M: No, isadapwmS m it's on a is on the on the

was on the Polish border.



hba4M now it is Polish.



AnAnd that is where IfgEb finished out the gymnasium. But of

course this was interrupted when the war broke out* temw1 e


P: It broke out in 1914.

P: It broke out g i in 1914.
M: It broke out in 1914.



S0f course we all were out of...

P: Surplus.

M: ...we didn't have to go back, we didn't have to go to school for

quite awhile.

P: <4 even though you weren't old enough to be in the army.

M: Oh no, rist^S $ when the war broke out...

P: You were fifteen.

M: ... I was fifteen years old.

P: But they quit, they skipped, discontinued school?

M: f^tt.he I s e no, i aaeed for at least for ahile we we

told the schools te needed for barracks












S@ 4:06@ 4i11-- aI was called to the army on the 15th of June, 1917,
z C6U-
"s I was a suppose) after short training MS artillery aretwtae

man in Germany. It was the sixth artillery battery. *rn I had

all that you do what you call _officers services while

I was staying because I had finished soE the gynasium to an extent

that if I would have been called regular into the army) if there

would be no war I would have been entitled to a one-year service

S/rec_ / in the army.

P: Niig@nM right.

M: dB after a very short while)t RppdJRFw~Be I was supposed to

be called and sent out for replacement with the artillery. Well

for some reason I was pulled out of that andAsaid, you need some

more more education. And they sent me to _

And 1100 there I was trained on a new gun)which was a anti-aircraft

gun.



0 It was about a4 four-meter or twelve-feat barrel, one of aBBmme

the motorized". There are only two 4W guns to a battery.



pD iAnd this was right away into %B artillery. Well, I stayed there

qg with that battery until somewhereAthe summer of 1918.

P: Where was this battery?

M: The battery was asa laetr wi th 4e started out first in

S___, then they went to ._



lp /And from i we 9imaoB were immmaP put into aaWae-1ti a




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stationary post which was ah just outside of :; ,. in

Flanders in Northern France.

P: OK, so your

M: Whe 9an n -m they are one interesting part e if that

is of interest here at all, i~s hea every battery of course

wanted to have f good _f1ed;ti that they shot somebody down.

Well, we didn't shoot anybody down.

P: Did you try to fake it?

M: Iwe succeeded in getting credit for one, and that

was hti-e an interesting story really for for my own memory. 4

the captain of my battery was also a painter, a portrait painter.



(a 'VigS:a 'so from time to time he said, oh come on~ Be B we may have

here some somebody we shot down. So well, we a thought we had gunned

one down. It was a plane which had come back from --gsffasg the

Germany side, apparently from observation or so. It was a British

plane.



P Od of course all the batteries around shot at him, you know, and they

shot off one wing. The thing came down this way, you know. Well,

when he finally came to the place where it had come downjit was in

in $t shii big (-manure pile in front of those old french homes which

look like this) 4il piles high like a house, you know. And there they

crawled out of it, without the slightest ~ iiaB hurt.

P: Well they had a cushioned landing.

M: But JSI smelling like the dickens, you know. And my -m captain was
he
a very friendly person. He let them get a bath and thenAgave them a




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luncheon, and then he turned them to Pg prisioner-of war.



I VSo that was my experience. s, e l we understood we were

getting some iron crosses for it, but I didn't get any of that.

P: Oh really.

M: But I was amiezemias.. then transferred to an officers training

camp.



]Ms.mM-aKAd -manima~w4-- I think it was abveae something like four-

weeks training. Usually what it is, if you pass an exam they
then
sent you back to your battery, andVat the next go-around you get

your first stripeseBipswu-Bw. I never got anything of those

because the day we were supposed to get the exams we all arrived

there, the 9 SUd l said, all the officers have been called

last and you all have to go back to your battery. Qkwe didn't

know what it was. They didn't want to tell us anything. So on

the way back to our battery we run into troops which are coming

back from 4-M the front. And they said, well)you better get

home. The British and the French have broken through at __

I looked this up 6sag91'Ia-- M much later T:SA 1,' i -*.., this

was the 8thAl918gwhich was supposed to be the breaking point.

P: Right.

M: Well, I got back to the battery. And when I arrived at the battery

they had already blown up the steeple of the church and everything*

they had burned everything. They said, p-Tn am get on the

gun and off we went.

P: The Germans had blown up the church ?a i.?




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M: I thought we had i* blown it up, anything that could have been

used



5.or w shooting i' r Imi .E "*-*-'ta' from then on we went

back and back and back, you know. But then I had one very peculiar

from other bad situations, because

Opwe were then used, of course, constantly for i9 firing at any

plais wlJh came over Undr 4& -- And I couldn't see the planes

for some reason, and my sergeant threw me off the seat.



M6. _'ef aAIt hee said, you have to carry ammunition. So I did, you know.

And in carrying annunition) somebody turned around and hit one of

those things right over here on my eye,-he'i. So it looks s as if

I was wounded.



SS- F0f course, it wasn't anything serious. But nevertheless that sergeant who

never liked me) sentAback with the next agggg transport ^d said

let them take care of it. AB I never got back to the battery.

................... ..

t4 The man who took my seat on the gun ~g a day latergot a big splinter 0

in his behind and I understand he died fm it.

P: That's really strange.

M: You know, sometimes you feel that you say, my gosh I just got MB

I from under it.



Sv But call it whatever you want. Anyhow, then they sent me to a

blinker group. There were only three people.




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P: Oh, yeah.

M: And that was...

P: Single line?

M: Single line. That was opposite the AdM6') Mountain. And

we were supposed to age observe from there all flight movements

of planes coming in and out. Oh, we were attacked there, but

we haimBma weren't hurt. BB then one day,we're just MR
Coldj I
given the notice and ~eu, you've gotta get out of here because

'youre already jiipIe: t' -y it was in the

lines of those
passed it, you know. Well,. WB we uwe just went back on
-?
it, got a.boat, and went on the as far back. And then

I joined the battery again. And that was elaeppretty much QML

the end, you know.



But going back now jWBRof course had to go back to school, because

I still wanted to finishowe I wanted to go to college.

P: So you went back to the Jymnasium?

M: lumm"k wIell no they had what they calla saii vi* special course,

Jilggglo for 400-veterans. That took me a year. I just passed it,

just made it, MSamos,



dh> *Just got through. Beao then ieaaS I registered with the

University in an art course but I never tookcp the course at all.'

-a-~em I hooked up with some of those painters I mentioned to

you and then I thought I was on my way to the next Rembrandt. aI

P: (~ how did you you follow your career as a painter, after the war?




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M: Well, really until 1922& V Pf course I started YoiWNy when I

was young ma V. must have been close to sixteen --ei)geatu

itwaS, but until I was about twenty-two4twenty-three.



M" \And then it seemed to me that the situation as it was in Germany)

My fathers salary when he was paid wasn't worth a nick, because

we were paid at the end of the month. PWy- t.m- F R

P: Was it during the great inflation?

M: The great inflation, yeah. So I decided IAbetter ald go

to college. But I didn't know what to what to take. So I

registered with the department of philosophy. But at the same time

I took -KBstL-a IS t physics, I took chemistry, I took

oriental economic history, I took philosophy, I took history, I

took GreekeO



,4p--"""""---waad I to*o allo morphology or geology of the earth. -9S in

order to find out what I really wanted you know. Well, after the

summer was over I had to get home. I took that in Frankfurt c aP
was
here I visiting a friend of mine who was -atsa=4-e- e

-4gaggEr architect and a painter. He tried to persuade me not

to give it up. But I made up my mind, I wanted to g e-a degree.



SSo when I came back to raslu th2 qu -i t ;.i.-,i u-mmt-a that

was 1922 Iuasl#4 a -4!MI in October or so, the question was to earn

some money somehow. At I accepted a job as a volunteer in an
G0.
iron works. The man who owned that,* iron workswas $8 e-man who

was very gaaL interested in sports. ASi I belonged to a sports club.




UF 51AB
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I wasc=Ga pn a high jumper W and this type of thing. So

he took me on. This was was originally note-a payed job,

but they gave you just a little bit here a little bit there,

you know, so you're satisfied. And/Alet me work as an assistant

to the treasurer.

P: ikt. did they give you room and board or something.--

M: No, no.

p: \A 2/\\. -\ 6 4/ just a little bit or gan

M: It was jju ust from time to time.



> VBut w a-t any money 0 immediately went) of course for

1 was helpful. ct-bMe aaama this is just on the side,

but he had a very good-looking daughter, -you know. But iE LGi

dMs- he thought that I mightA some ideas with her) he threw me out.

P: OP you were living with him?

M: So -a that was the end of it. But Idoaamm I tried to get another

job. aa~*e '|e I wanted to go over to America. But I didn't

succeed on tha ~ m~-...u.u. -e talked to en<*---- ~

another friend of mine. We both wanted to do it. We talked to

!j p/mI i ~c-ap-tian. He said, well)he might have a possibility

as a cook or something like that. But it didn't work, no. So we went

hmea* back and etssaaeBgd I heard that the bank was interested in

having somegr P part-time students Vms~.ism t\



<. 'Because I was always a student and decided on going for law and

business. VMS I had to follow this particular line. So I worked

During the day-time Abiby at the setas% college and during the night--




UF 51AB
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I mean the other way, during the day time I got job...

P: You worked during the day, at night...

M: ... aS-during the night I college. So the bank took me.

I was D iAi-he-Snk, and they put me in the foreign department.







L \That's one of the big fours, big 4 Ar(/&S ;re?..r At, xls.



Then a- 44 was merely a job where you had to go over old records, and

see that they jived, you know. They called it the desk file, t4rtetsk

Mnot--- e,,.-w..*- something that was ndtusd 4e -? r;Iv- vf fnore.

But we had to see that lL_ t the tally, you know, was cash

specials things like that. Anr because I was studyingfand had accouning

and something like that they said, oh youifajmiliar with this. I was

paid by a young woman there who knew all the details on it. S I

rQn s.6 ea into gV a very pti4ar situation. Once they didn't

jive.


Wso
=% at-we finally got all the records on it, and brought it to the

attention of the ash top man. aS he said, I knew 1m-ak that we

had that position. That involved the position of something like

60,000 W8EaWenmB Dutch guilders,4 very substantial amount, even with

inflation. Well w)AMs= after he said, SSMSI35g mlin do you want

to stay with us, y-aw-i- .w We -dan give you a full job here. Well)

I was very a8s tempted, -ma to take that job. Bake it we~oa cd4

-- a fight between the quick money and my education@ I decided (ma better




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stay with the univesitys t- 'ith t 444 i vrsi And this L

what I did. Ot this particular year I was with the bank

was from 1922 to 1923. I think I got outAthere in June

1923. Now at that the dollar had n4e r: had changed from

about the original four iarksto one dollar



M" .. to something like fifty thousand mark

: -- T ^^.-n -*-----..

f-t---- -..to one dollar. aQwie after I'd gotten back to college

ris.in the one month of November the change was from that

figure first to about six hundred million and within a week to

*the highest it reached to eleven trillion.

P: Eleven trillion

M: Trillion, that means twelve zeros.

P: Twelve zeros.



(To one dollar?

M: That didn't mean, to one, that didn't mean anything. They finally.

*'t-r. f.jll. tzi~y fincll- en


'- -.-. t. -- "^"^
M: .,to new currency when it fimahiy was set up.



-They tried everything. They tried they tried the freqf/y "mark

first, which was just simply mortgages on .aay whept and on things

like p coal. Then the gold mark. abs all of these things. I can
f/ IoIre.
pr not give you digits, but that's all e /l f rtad you know

historically.


/




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91P AdwVot until a year later until October 1924)the currency the

new backlog came through and then the old relations again one

dollar for a gold mark,kA fe~#omark was established, you know.
good
A-shoim from then on of course my father's salary was again and

Msa. we got &g pretty much in shape. -*ARCtae I stayed f finished

a.ist d my a period there. In 1926 I got my my doctors degree.



IV> I~ got it with with honors.

P: A JJT2.

M: Yd that is 4 good here$ to you as a doctor, which means you -ea

trqsfer) ~a it means two laws, canonic law and civil law.



tiV, CYou had to use canonic law because the German law is based on

canonic law, on Roman law, you know.



fS \In other words, tc~~Sia I was taught Roman law by Jesuit who has

a nice name of a W ,--yn -r' e~,fr; C .7 C-L recently because

I've forgotten he names of so many people~-ye"-4umr. Well, anda

-I liewr I got my degree in May 1926. My father had an invitation

from the German-Americanj a Iwol I guess physical education.

private organization.

P: Here in the United States?

M: In, yeah, in a they had a in Louiville, Kentucky, they had their

100th year/ anniversary in 1926. knA my father was asked to come

over with seven of the best athletes of the Pf- in

$g au L MAll took took physical education then, I still have




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pictures of that at home! it was a whole group. A-r they

came over and whm-m of course)it was all cake there. iad I

asniiS said to my papa, father take me along. Well,Ano money

or i ag hat nevertheless he borrowed some money and he

took m long. That got me into the United States. I have

American relatives here.



W NMy mother's sister was married here, and there 4as'three boys

they're all still alive.

P: Is that the first time you were ever outside of Germany?

M: h L- tle L LrXILe I yesj it was the first time I had ever
be6CA P
et- out of Germany. 9) except yQQ-S the war, you know.-



.M I was in France. A!4-eqw.- aw

P: Well before we go on there's a couple/\I'd like yamo



P: -.ask you about. I take it then they really didn't have any

kind of GI bill for the soldiers after World War I in Germany.-..

M: N0, no.

P: .,.rc you had to pay for your own education then?

M: wa_-XS_ I got out @= =** Mig in January 1919. "*-r

_peal-w nm-uat.x..i. "'3W&a I was given tae my uniform,

one heavy overcoat, a pair of shoes, and a hundred marks--that was

about twenty-five dollars--and that was the end of it.

P: That was it.

M: Yeah.


~i~fsa




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{B VThey had no no a pension ) -m -nothing f -' -", .

P: Was the university system in Germany at that time similar to

what it is in the United States now.when it 1aI state supported

schools, like theUniversity?

M: Well now yov-se- all the universities are Ib state universities.



-preA .no private university. Sh this was all but they w"ra i.n i i"

ios3l-t.ey hadAcertain independence, you know. But nevertheless en.

thw"aPe there's some literature about gioai f the way 4~a they

Bew handled maf i.x (,r has been very well known as a

oci/oc Si O> 'always said of course. it was always the iron
-t h N so
fist an-a,-glove-yew-jI amk I-p m ege-E fto you had to

stay within a certain range of of a You see,

IEd I like anybody else we were all fr rpD, we were all

released from our oaths to the monarchy, right away after the

llth of November. Sm*.

P: You took that first when you were in the army?

M: I was in the army'



f.,. .it was my one year oath, and I had never taken any oaths after

ito agiaps the second oath I ever took was to the United States.

4ransse I was never asked to give an oath to the Weimar Republic,

;nage oh yes) I was asked to give an oath to

Hitler.



pa* t And I refused not I refused it, but I said that wouldn't be very good

if I want to work overseas, you know. Q at that time I decided I




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better get out.

P: AIight. NT-.~- after you graduated iaw-you came to the

United States. Did you start working in the United States then?

M: Welljthis was one of those things, apparently I wasn't supposed

to work, you know. But 0I didn't know that. I took on a

job, imt-a night job only for a very short time. That's not

in there because it was only...

P: Right.
that
M: ~-aait -'s I realized'I couldn't do it so I had to drop

out. But nBt in <~4g between I got permission asf Taame this

thie4s ik must:be qw in my files o-en-emem my basic files in -4A

United States. They realized that I hadn't done this intentionally,

entwartu 4+m* I just simply saw well I needed some money and so
L A.
i somebody said ,iel you want to work 7-T,; / /, r /, -


..-i~-v---'i .-r--- -- '
3 But 0a=SSa3s at that time I was staying in the International

House as a student. When you stayyou have to take one course.

I took a course at University of New York in French. JSth there

was a man who was working with the a German commissioner for

revaluation of the 0EGerman pre-war bonds.


^"-'M" *memberg-o-the
\'That was the Csm eWe A German Minister of Finance of the Weimar

Republic. An his young man said listen my boss is looking for

somebody who has a doctor's degree, and .un-Sunderstand you got a

doctor's degree. He wanted somebody from Germany, but they couldn't

h get ta m.tl..- ....... 6-s
the boss was told to look for somebody here6 y-ta ean Are you interested?




UF 51AB
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And I said, sure I'm interested. So that t I really got a-

rty b'i ...--1---0 job and because I got a job as a German E with

-'*f r.aif-E of the German ha government, I got

official permission to stay here.

_. -i.. m .. o. ._ aa.....

S "So I worked for them, orl: =et a and that was as {SS WVVS

very interesting job.



Sfg V bThat w "as- hats-s;aa t was a contact with the banks and with private

individuals who had bought German government bonds, or municipal

bonds before the cut-off date,I think that was somewhereAl918.

* ........ E..... ... ......... -. .. .. .

dA> fL they were given a [cswma reevaluation I think about 5 percent

of the value, but on a lottery basis. Afi my job was to make sure-

esr first of all where they were, whether the records were original

or an, not. 4zRft at the same time my job was to make sure that

all those bonds which came in were destroyed. 4n 6H'-- i:WTrMd-e

I had to4in the deposit bank was the First National City Bank of

New York, and I had to work with them. St I was their the liaison

between the commission. damt



1 I stayed with them until I think maff% March 1928, then the

commission had practically done their job and they were ready 4Iff

beft disolved.

P: Was this part of the O arrangement between the United States and

Germany for loans?

huwr- s ay




UF 51AB
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H: No, this had nothingee



S to d, this was h w a commission which was set up by

the Germans, because that was a German law--that everybody who

had German was entitled to that that meant foreigners as well

as the...

P: I see. So that wasn't part of the peace treaty...

M: No, no.



.. .that had nothing to do with it) as far as I know. I may be wrong.

A I never considered that.aeI- th tl,,thff- this was just simply

part of the execution of the German law. And that was interesting

i, -- I was very much concerned of going back without knowing

whether I had a job, you know. A1928) i6job'b'sttuabion:-as already -

there were problems of unemployment ca in Germany. trt it just

happened so thata man whoAat an office just across the hall where the

commission had 49SE their office4, ~ms at 42 Broadway.

P: In New York City.

M: bei 6 I knew him. eI t-taheda is name was Bendi I don't

know whether he had something to do with the Bendia Corporation but

I think he had, ae be said, *isten, I know a man here who is representing

the Central Union Bank And Trust Company in Europe over in Berlin. He

has just talked to me,Awhether I know a German who speaks good English

and who would be interested in that job. I should go over and see him.

Gave me the address. I went over and ims he said, OI have to talk






UF 51AB

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to your commission. -01 h~~i '.,, he came over a couple of days later

and spent quite a time with the commissioner. When he came out he said,

$ell,~ l S SMhaS ~kt I would like you to talk to one of the vice-

presidents of the bank. Will yournatki.= come over?A 46alt I did

and apparently I passed most* mst, l was told that they wanted me to

come over as an assistant to this man in Berlin. So thatMigr started

me out in the banking business again.

P: And ~ you w~e stationed in Berlin?

M: ZeSs I stayed-tt h.rf~. saS in Berlin with the, Wa~s at that time it

started off as the Central Union Bank and Trust Company. Then it became

the Central HanOver Bank Interest Company. Then it became the Hanvoer

Bank and Trust Company, and now it's the Manufacturers and HanGover Bank.

You know this is the development.

P: f=~F *t were kf dealing with American money?

M: Is w-Wssce=1si,"mayes .traa we were dealing with

American money in Germany in the export and import fieldeana of course,

when C GQOMl the real trouble started qi a // pof ?/IA rn,!/ feelit.

the crisis here and there,Aeffects of 1929. Amd then the change of govern-

ment and tbfs you heard suddenly that the Germans had become 0 i' r e- P

hadn't got the money.

P: Right,kmoratorium.

'1: Then they started the moratorium, what they called the Standstill Agreement.

%T my boss, at that time) 7bwas very active in it. I had to help out

Wh tiA ~ that, too. V I got about an idea what was going on, but inadim






UF 51AB

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I wasn't, trained enough. c=ggaa-n--i --lIrflaa tt r .
/
P: Your boss waspe4-ia mvn an American, right?

M: T'tF ra Bo, he wase Ss es a German and very smart, a very

capable person really. MW-be AK--is he said, 4Well,

we'll see what we can do., 0 aW^SSKS So he got ? that was quite

a good deal of money, thirteen, thirteen I/ Vz/fJ > Certain_ _/_

would get some money out aM with permission of the Germans. I almz3B

esain there was always a need of invention. There was not any hanky-

panky or anything like that. Couldn't afford that, you know. It was not

possible. But there I learned qspM. a great deal of things which I

would have never believed possible. There was a time when the Russians

were oAg very heavily and ~L kIg.,3iae they came around 4 lr

bundles of notes in foreign currency. This discounts, 39M substantial

discounts, but nobody thought they were deprived, yan:s Qg s ome

people made a fortune.

P: Yes.

M: I know one group of people who probably made within four years or three

years, fifty thousand dollars and a couple of million dollars, only

by taking e7Xm S the interest, put right away the interest back

and take that money that, of course, the Russians paid. Crazy you'd say.

'We M1d0A6e6. I wouldn't have dared to dwiP(dle away, lyd/c / a~s "/'4i/

p4h.y make soai myself if I had ity*a-r=m. Only I didn't

have it.

P: You worked with the bank until 1934.








UF 51AB

Page 21. dib



M: Until 1934 and by that time, of course, Hitler had come into power. We
.a-
had all those pogroms and all that'ituation there. The president 6i568

of the bank came over there. He arranged a meeting with Hitler and

Massaaig all those people.

P: %: c ith Hitler himself?

M: With Hitler himself, yes. B~eaa I had not very much to do

with it except that I had to talk to Rosenberg. He came to our office,

ye~4r ma. But .'- --n I T I "" I was only second man and I had

to cooperate. I was curious what was going on more than anything

else, but I had an idea what would come out of it. oeTI'hit

Hitler would make all the speeches and those people would hardly

understand what was going on. Well, Mb I had an idea what was hap-

pening, what actually happened a very short time later. But just about

that time it doesn't really fit into this, but I may say this might

explain something I had married and lost my wife within, within six

weeks ~blood poisoning. So getting pencils out and

'< -.> cJtJ,~ iand they got the best people and they said, e are so

near that we find a way to...' If they we.4e known what they use now)

that girl, she was a young woman twenty-five years old she maSl

4~6it could have been saved without any problem. She couldn't make

it, but that taag me SO a loop.

P: I bet, when was this?

M: 1933.)



.' ust after Hitler COLY C into power. AaA I had a friend, who's still my






UF 51AB

Page 22. dib



friend, tremendous people who brought me over here, a man by the name of

Harry Eldridge. ----He g2 S~,Si5CKl-.s. belonged to a family who

owned one of the paper manufacturing companies.

P: Harry who?

M: Eldridge, and he's still a good friend. He's still aliveoai hbe came

over here and he had married a Norwegian girl and came to Germany.anaf

egggaaB I had met his mother before because he was on > the


I-- Eovoer r Louflf aO+ He invited me to come over the summer of I= r

to spend about a month with him.





- rrs

M And. \ *34 \ was also the time when Hitler got rid of all his fa-

vorites, you know. 4deZwe were on the ship, Harry and I, to come to the

United States$ ra we arrived here just about when all "//, c.- io

S Q pagSo the President called me and said,O ell, I know you are

here on vacation, but aagSfS B could you -Sa g A talk to some

of our people who have big interests in Germany.O So I had to talk to

IMSMM a group of peopleswa-.... I was so unaware of this, but one of those

very hot days in New York, you know; I must have made a very lousy impres-

sion.



g Because I ~a could only tell them I know this may mean that Hitler

is. 9 utij4tVthe army and is getting conservative, but it can mea aso war.

I said,0[ don't know what it means. But at least for the time being, maybe

there will be gLlgaZ something quiet.0 Which, of course, it was eeatuSe.






UF 51AB.

Page 23 sjm



if you figure (I// r~1e936 the Olympic Games



M-^ajcam~~zgW mE a1a Two months later, kt4A

CL- Odd in Germany)otold me that he had met the President again in France,

and that definitely they were closing out. It's no use to stay in Berlin

anymore, you know. And he said,- *6 the best thing for you is 0agagIef

gS to send in your resignation and I will see that we can get you 4a

4 another job. Well, they gave me six months, and fe~ia in that time,

SE-rISa : g% with their help, I got a connection with the Berlin /cr

Scn, wiaigI was one of the big banks. OM they needed a man in Holland

So I got one year in Holland. There they had a separate dependency, what

they called the --~ 7_ __~ You know that's the same like Ber-

liner -- -.gewirtschaft only in Dutch -.---- __

iAm there they wanted 4 somebody to manage their barter business. That means

only commodity exchange, that's what I did.



I VIt was between Germany and the world



S"All these other permissions, I had to travel back and forth, back and forth.

P: Thatl*gAptCS a program set by Hitler, wasn't it? To help their economy?

M: hT1t==a yes, that was set y Schaft. Schaft was ~c ____b__i_~_

!ti Hitler'sf 9i2Sc man. He knew Schaft, I had to work for Schaft

before.

P: (ft on a personal basis or just on a professional level?

M: No, only professional, only professional.

P: What was he like? Very competent?

M: I still think he was one of the wizards of the world, you know.







UF 51AB

Page 24 sjm



SHis English, his English -f-&the~ -, the Bank of England. No.

Well, better~ag:=iTS that I stop here just now.

P: We can talk about your job in Hague --..

M: Oh, 40 Hague, tBright. t1Mg3E0tStheeAsb Dutch and the Germans decided

that wouldn't work antnore, this exchange, PC 3a S (b I think the agree-

ment wasas*ehir terminated and they asked me to come back to Berlin.



r-n ss hey said," al, gl have a spot here for you4 But after Schaft died,

they said,d&%^ js you've got to swear allegiance to Hitler.dgoBa

P: tg his would be when, Iq36?

M: That was in 1936, I think, in January, Caqf somewhere around thea. So4 I

g*rN give some thought, and orn I made up my mind, I better qV3&-pack

my things and emigrate.

P: Whatg~gSf convinced you to leave Germany and come to the United States?

M: First of all, If I'm pretty sure they're going to war/ And I didn't

want to go to war. But there was also one thing that, 4BaIytLhtt'.

probably in/ German. Wanderlust. ,Ba'g a L- lsl, Is, .y'* g

I just couldn't see myself being stuck there with such an uncertainty. ap

as this friend of mine said, ell, Felix, I will vouch for you if you

want to come over. S

P: It was4~A=dME more personal reasons than any gll,9 political c ";.....

M: QLaE no, because OG first of all, tu!i I didn't understand the

Nazis at all. I saw the effect of speaking, but it never made sense to me.

"eal y closest friends were Nazis, and they always said, 8) you idiot,

why don't you join us? You can do it, the way is open for you.







UF 51AB

Page 25 sjm



P: What was the appeal to the Naziso to the German3 C=BE3aB of the

Nazis to the German people?

M: The Germans g' ie= RPBgtesmmtBmL fell for it. They just loved it.

P: Was it the impression, or was it something else. a Some people

ti.1 it's some kind of German mentality, bhelsaL.L=W.

M: I think it's more the German mentality.

P: Mentality, right. It's almost a direct link between ////'

M: Well, "ctT' g. I think it was a nostalgia of going back to the



P: Othery.atWwe historians try to explain it, saying it was SM the depression

and all the inflation and everything hit the small businessman so much

that they turned to-# ~JO-is. ,

M: Yeah, but not at that time.



1&) oNo, : -4i'aL~1- -a -af I can understand one thing. If you've ever

bee L badly~ss sma and you come back Bl you think,0bsaffluf I

am somebody again.4"



4." 'The one thing has always interested me, merely as an observation. Put your-

self in the shoes so you would have been an officer of the German army. If

one of my friends was in that situation. You come back, ~iSgSgi I talk

about the professionals, and then you are selling cigars, you go to your

friends. And sometimes they buy some from you, sometimes they don't. And

you live a very sedentary life$ yD=znE% Then suddenly somebody comes and






UF 51AB

Page 26 sjm



puts you back into your old rank, and puts you places ie you sudden-

lygh somebody else. Well, that's hard to think ---------

Don't forget this is what's been a very, very short periode~ 3Sd from

the defeat of 19184 to 1933. And with so much OX American money that

Sc/d _Ctoming in, 4e6 at least there was ~( t ECgrtW

a c;-iftlere ws a sort of buoyancy.-_CSP' ey until 1929, what hap-

pened in the United States. This I saw coming ...

P: The Great Depression?

M: Oh, yeah, I saw that coming.

P: 4glt the stock market* -LACM

M: The stock market I saw coming.



0 ''hThis didn't make sense to me, 9EbIh that much I knew about money.

P: Right.

M: And L i4m 6eUyI T told the bank, th'c-.k, thdWam except my own feel-

ing on that, too, for whom I was working.

P: Well, did your bank get into ,IlaA buying stock on margin or

anything?

M: This I don't know, this I don't know.

P: But it wasn't hurt by the depression, the crash?

M: No, we were all tied upe JOA we couldn't get out# eam I don't

know what happened in 1929 as far as the Bank of __r__ is concerned.


f *-. rl~ad_~ ___~~I---
WS 'But after this,.-you-p o we were torn* we were stuck, of course with that
*B.
substan ial 3I sai_-_afd s kt-Tr3f investment which we still had. Because

nobody could pull it out. .ee .s if we had started to pull it out, we
S"








UF 51AB

Page 27 sjm



would have always been blamed for the consecutive problems. I can see

that, I meanlI don't think ChL;=53 S=33~33 that any bank would have

done it differently, at that time. a I couldn't see it all.



NfrIt was too bigao"pd 4-=ftSCA a situation for even any a_ genius couldn't

have handled it.

P: So you came to the United States in 1936# a@SMa ,fO I noticed you started

work with the Royal Typewriter Company.

M: Yeah, right. Now it was a question of finding a job.



MS ? 'Yestgg ~gA agM^Tks I probably should have, e LLo. emiS SWg

thought I should have at that time not indicated that I wanted to stay in

Germany ---------- ----- bank might have taken me .

I was a Christian, I had / 4lhf7 c helped in a Royal Typewriter on

some of their problems of getting money out. As= there was a man who was

in charge of central Europe, a man by the name of Dachmann, very capable /,.

fellow, very pleasant person. Also an Army officer and a /JFs- bf-it '

He was in charge for central Europe. Good salesman, very capable man. 6S5

he said to me, i Mlbii tisten,a3g S y if you need a job, why don't you-

talk to my president, r/i o n1 i Zs'J, Ve might be able to work out some-

thing. Well, it turned out that *-wa=EtaB=M= I simply had a different

idea than he had. But he said,4 hy don't you try to get several people to-

gether to give you a small amount~pecdwi for helping them out with their

problems, and then you can 'twe&y make a living. ilBnsas the first arrange-

ment 1fs' -I --- ,/ ~ I would say about two, two hundred








UF 51AB

Page 28 sjm



dollars a month. But the interesting part was, that dollar of mine I

could use for buying irrthe g c ",,re/" wl

woo.i meant I oould a15= ae get a raisey- irWr1e so that I could get

a very nice salary on the basis of that, plus my expenses paid. That was

the only thing I could doodSSo, I accepted that jobs C '1 uMi -i.

SBw mE~hexteue t.ape ,.over., .and then.we-can-ete gg





TAPE A: SIDE 2



M: Of course, I was shopping around for gettinggJr*l=aVE~3~Li, but maS

don't forget that 1936 was still pretty critical unde-r United States





MY aas far as employment is concerned. BAni M I thought maybe on rgaqs

account of my special experience in this particular field, I might get

hold @Osomebody who still has problems on the other side. So, I just

happened fto f ;//0L qe n ..'.7' -" from what I had worked

with someone in Berlin, solve their problems, eZ he suggested that 3= T

talk to their president. EPBt they said,/e still have a problem over there to

get something out, something must have come close to a dollars, which

was also tied up. Now, maybe you can help us & develop some of those or'fr

things t you did on\r-~et? e to get the money out that way, with permis-

sion-

P: Was this royal money invested in Germany?








UF 51AB

Page 29 sjm



M: Germany. They were most people's inventory, too.

P: Oh, I see.

M: Defense, getting the machines out, you know.

P: Okay.

M: g~egpg! BgZ they toone ono and we went over there, 0S we arrived

there just about the Olympic Games in Berlin. tM we went to the opening

of it. It was very interesting, because yof' /j^ rbabiy/ ."'-> .S' " /';;
/ u --
ast e the Americans were the only ones who didn't dip the flag. All the
OCessi1
rest of them dipped them for Hitler. And then this thing with Owens, when

Hitler refused to shake hands,all these silly things. But nevertheless,

this apparently was where Hitler was riding on the crest, and said, dow

we got all, also the sympathy of all the rest of the world." He was on

the right track, you know. That was of course two years after tgEE

he got rid of the more radical elements,\

C I-- h.

^V).Who at that time ase wanted to force themseg into the army. IBCMgaSS,

tbsisi "aiass eai of course I have always been helped, 43E6CiR I don't

know why, but I have always been helped somehow. So,AI'd really a deal

Si made sense. And even 2Evjd who was at that time active, he

just recently died. But 'VnArJ- even agreed to it,that we had some kind
r---

of-. &-m c,-' agreement whih wo n l'1 that we could get some money out





$ 7ut this neededg~BgMERAEMA a permit 40 one of the members of the A/os /7

Sthe top Nazis who were members of the Blut or Blood Order, they C".'r-.:/ !//,

some little thing, /. ,' the 1945







UF 51AB

Page 30 sjm





IE5 .7 4u6 '/t bi his was highly intelligent man,

gf^^ ^ ^^f c'lf b e said,/ell, thiseM thing we

you suggest here, that we caLg Stfgt S cannot doofTGWwe can use this

ourselves, and if necessary, we can do without it, %rEAMM9 Ami I tried

everything, and he said,11~Bqg I sympathize with you, and it makes good

sense in many ways, but I'm sorry, it's out. I know that some of my

colleagues may think differently, and so that was outz, Ye-4Rim



SVAt that time, ,MM he said, (3a A/ v, aaybe you can help us

in the selling of something.* Well, of course, that sounded like nothing

good at all. But by that time, we had gotten into ag3AM November.

Oh, let's see, SSSS I came back there in June of \36. Of course, I w-

--'grs.aa' officials/ ,'f r"-r ,i'Q/ ,rnd I was still on a German

passport that was (CCn.'i to the end, and aBoI could come back without

any 1',-. .iv They sentpto me, and I got that. So, I got a call

$451 from the Consul, and he said, Felix, you better get out, if you

still have a German passport. I cannot tell you why. And don't bother

about packing. Go tomorrow on the express.

P: This -s in November?

M: That was (, M fl l the end of November. And I took that, and I woke up

the next morning in Brussels with "EXTRA,EXTRA, EXTRA". Hitler had ham

SSE A tA'idP it 'from the League of Nations, and had reinstituted the

'German General Staff. Any German from the age of eighteen to forty-eight,

or something //.', e-S is not permitted to leave the country without
)







UF 51AB

Page 31 sjm



the special permit of the reinstituted General Staff.

Pa::-: ;**:1im.- ... -------*------*- -

0 1Well, I was out. I always considered that I got out from under the

wrath of something. I could never forget thd~ "F

P: Who was it that advised you oget out? V.

M: He was 7.' the American Consul in Germany.

P: He was an American, then?

M: .// aJ ,'ca r; ib .abt I had become a good friend of them,

and I know I met him often, he knew my philosophy.j w



SBut I talked sometimes about Qei/ philosophy



He probably sawlit, that he better get the fellow out, you know. He never

told me why, and he'S d~1d AcO,;i SJ rc'urose, r > cj s// / But' that's

the way, and then, of course I went back by way of gg

S -bgm. the Royal Typewriterhey must have known
something about that, too, about this coming out. ehad sent me a letter

of credit, without a letter of credit I couldn't have come out



P: Right.

M: So I came backagg by way of England and that was'h &. n W, agks3L

SI was a guest of some people by the name of Wiechers, ;i, e a news-

paper man. Newspaper printer. OM they had a beautiful place up gCg on theV

( Tis C4~a e near Hastings. And I stayed there with the Wiechers and

heard, of course, all these conversations going on cause. i4e- rhSp tbt very







UF 51AB

Page 32 sjm



very rab upset.. But the atiad Fp g9-4athe Qu'een

Maryback to the United States. And there was such a bitterness ouoa

aSSS on the part of the British who were on that ship, that the king

abdicated. GE1 the night I arrived back here, -ijanditmaw t the

Royal Typewriter said, MkCb will you now make us a report? say everything.

Then tell us what we should do.4 I worked with them until April, until

the man from Germany came over, and I think he had probably the idea to

go the other way, and stay with the Germans, and said, XWe can probably

work that out. Hitler will have his way." Now whether that was his

philosophy or not, only he can tell, and he wouldn't tell us, ,S@WS .

But I don't know this. Mja it was amgb this idea of the same a vu

happened between the banks, too, ,:.'/ -A .. I think that first, that

possibly4 one of the large banks SSS had a vice-president in charge

over there. I met him. ..- 4 AV", He had suggested SB staylyw

Fkp 'with the whole German development, that would be perfectly ealiv tL &iLk

wouldn't be any ,:, u ; There was a whole other group who said,

o, this is perfectly clear, this is going to happen, 3LaMMOSWWho could

prove who was right? ~AzmBgE I was asked that question from my presi-

dent, and I said,~f h I can only say, if I xse xpee in your position,

I would pull-everything out, and sell it at a loss.V



Rj. ViHe apparently did this, but it could have gone the other way, too.



b I didn't know.
naturalizedby Pearl Harbor, in 94?
P: VSS e naturalized^^a^^Sti byyIaar Pearl Harbor, in i94(?







UF 51AB

Page 33 sjm



M: I wasp yeah, axF that's when 3 I iliaEs need another

job, ylkni


1 Because by W the man came back sb the 0)/\ Grmany was

representing then? he fired me. I didn't accept that firing. I said,

09 you're going to settle this with your president, or I'll go

there.'So he AC//,., -P6 fir me then he

said, will you other We don't want to think the
A 4-b
same 0 Well, by that time, I had commit another contact. And

that was with the people with whom I stayed, then, for nearly ten years,

with a i;4-arpart opr-S where I became a vice-president. dSsP

iSs-t a today a hundred-million-dollar outfit. It was at that

time a fifty-million-dollar outfit.



dtP 4Then I became VcDamg e


t? v4,researcher. I did f~ucrygs practically all the research. And -fJ/ I/ i "-k

w-tere, and of course during that time the war came and he put me on

the, the jeeen board. He ORe was also responsible for hiring some

people for the Air Force.

P: Who's this?

M: Fred .f',p/ That was, he was the principal man there

01 He SSS was, very influential, his son was, is ,
JUise.a. one of the top officers of their aircraft. /'' -T.~ -7 *,''.-.

/ .. -'-'' .- C- He was 4 .s'e a very, very capable fellow.








UF 51AB

Page 34 sjm



That's the one that eventually shot himself.



Wf ell, and, the old man this is a very interesting story Sa after

the depression in 1929, in 1931, before theCOSMMS final break,he g

and lkishr-Air still had on record, an asset value of a hundred and

ninety million dollars. In 1931. M38 he hired me. for a very low aoJuA~ -

gBMi of moneyebecause he wanted, he first took me on by telling, ask-

ing what to do with the German securities, and I told him what to do.

Put them in the market today.

PzZUh1T1th.

SS \'Then one of the former officers of the bank for whom I had worked .ji

p / ,, r. -. *~i'ce-president. And he told V P7'hV k! -Le fl-r co ,*

and they took me on as a research man. And fin a very short time, there

must have been a fallout between this man who had been made executive

vice-president, and my boss. My new boss, Mr. i



V 'Because he dropped out of itt o6-ti S1 Well, I was asked to stay. They

were apparently satisfied with what I did. Iat I wase.4 out,fSM they

made me vice-president of it, until, I think,'situation developed that

they hired somebody else from a decision in policy. A&W I couldn't see

that the company could make headway if this weOei continued* By that time,

when I was hired, they had fifty million.

P: Right.

M: When I left, they had thirty million. It--was--n the next ten years, rr-

they had gone down to eighteen million. Then he died. And the man whom






UF 51AB

Page 35 sjm



I had helped to train/ then became the next president, much later With

whom I'm still corresponding from time to time. He accepted this whole

idea, but everybody would have accepted who had used his brains and a

different policy. They _if from eighteen million back to a hundred

and twenty million. From 12: 2M1950 up to, .

P: -Bt~s *im-s, what exactly is the Niagra Share Corporation

M: It's a i( S who buys and ftb has r i /tr ,C/., .

just like any of those big ineNSTw, yeauano a i he built it back,

they built it back, and CEES I remember SsEE B a when

IBM was still s a hardly anything. f g IBM on the list#* t

4 /b /A/AAsubstantial investment, they borrowed something like auae
CL
thirty-three million Ar^o -/ -a -. j shares rSB for relatively small






But every very Le r,/
P us 'In every si1e rars.
9 J
And I can understand it. Somehow, he just wasn't an investment man. He

vasa~8 ams m-gishad inherited a fortune. and he listened very often to

the wrong people.



)S lBut he had always treated meycTaa I had no complaints, aeiaa 3 S

Ct ePSe ._.o ..., .I liked the man personally. And even after he.~ a B&

.ai4#zk- hired somebody else( and he was losing, and I said to him OWke

once in a discussion, probably what I shouldn't have done. I just simply

.said,how can you i eqk-. O You are OXPr-ymses just on to the right

thing. I said, young fellow, ., and he is a Y f04S Q 2^ ,






UF 51AB

Page 36 sjm

0

He said,t1f you feel that way, I think we better call it quits." Of

course, you don't fire anybody, itL ~5l' /-A- in a very nice way

now, g"4 if4 I pay you until that date, and by that time, I hope you

have made your own. -.



VD But years later, I ran into him, and we shook hands and, and he was in

Florida here, and he said,4seA Felix, next time I come here, I'll make

it a point to see you in Gainesville. TwojTBo or three months later,

he was dead. One of those things.

P: Tell us a little bit about what you did during World War II.

M: Well, I was, I was i qkta j put on the OPA for food stamps, and you know

the J J we were seeing people o
waJcU> ;4f-
P: Were you paid for this? Volr~ ;-v ~. ~!

M: No, no .

P: Your (F? C

M: I don't think ------ pictf ari rit And this I think I put

there as a date fromt(41 tol|(45, I think that we didn't get on it in i42.

I must have written that down by memory Of ------- i u>/. B they
c, r(~44j~4es~f / A' / ''*
gave us a eBa a- you f- /y ga these
r-cwitcl)MLorc -y
comment-at-ion or whatever you call ite yeou~-i -The one was written





i \oosevelt. I can't find that 4 I knew I had it 6af
)


t.[-^ i-_ t-' .__-_ -Beceuaa -m .. I was married between and I had a divorce.

Some of my papers went the other way, and I never knew where they were.







UF 51AB

Page 37 sjm



and some of the others were found.

finally when everything was over, and we finally had to fold up OPA, be-

cause OPA had that big scandal there with the top man there in Buffalo. I don't

know whether you heard about that. He landed in jail. aEM
P: ^N' th .-:i r ic?

M: I don't know. I don't know the details. I only heard that, I heard that

later. Didn't even know the man, you know.





P: g you got up-~t President Truman, too, didn't you?

M: Th'e- wa ga:thatf -,." 1 .'" "this is a standard one, you may have

seen that.



a '0-
alsoA printed signature, J4agi amm But it's a standard one MB> I've seen

it, other friends (2 $hi of mineshouses 6fiETI *Svh they gave

us these dMtC -g iJe two silver beads, /don't know what that meant.

P: Two silver beads?

M: Two silver beads.

P: ". c:t S -+- ,f, rl; ya.' i /!*).,i i .- victory. I don't know.
I / 4- fJl'A
M: I don't know. It was always on a ggam one of ggga ,those, that you're

wearing, I ~ Ti like most of these medals are carried. I've never

even displayed it, I just put it in here. When I lo/e -V -: - ,'" ,that
*AIl saj,
was when I thought, -AjI- faglMT-e- well, somebody A what did the

fellow do to earn it during the war, yFe-4aaow B~emmst I was just# made







UF 51AB

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paJggis a citizendggOVsI before the outbreak, yvash=wak Am~4eaSan E s

ayes~c,-ry I'm pretty sure I must have been pretty cass3ES3 closely

surveyed for quite a while .

P: Probably so.

M: ., a;' the Nazis didn't send me there, you know.

P: Yeah.

M: And of course I was always scared about it.

P: That was a crucial area, too, with all those immigrants.

M: I tell you, I was veryggh very scared about one thing. ThesBSf
6'
German Consul, honorary Consul, to Buffalo av Meo .-. SCars, must

have made a point to talk to me, aesesa That was dSif when

the war was on E_~_ He was agaeas an American, but of course

he was not~,any tmore CIctin., aMWa s But he
Consul ere. It may have been even before the war broke out. Oh, yeah, it

was even before that.



4 definitely before that. aMsag- -- i somebody said, well,
r -
I may have said, ~ 4, I wouldn't want to be in that situation over there.'*

And he said, ell, you have your parents living over there." And I said,

Aih, my gosh.



P \-So he put some pressure on me, what am I going to do? .5> am



P: But you didn't have any kind,'asP

M: ---- '_C' never was done. Now there may be something.with it, qrmm

?: Were your parents still alive then, during World War II~--t-=tfEe








UF 51AB

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M: \(



.tt apyvjaa=maw, this is something I stilleikhave not been able S;Q

to find the papers on.t beeeaeea I know my father had written me,

sending me the history of the family which an uncle of mine had prepared.

The family on my father's side came from a farm which had been in the

possession of the family since seventeenth century. ee knowJ that from

the books; they were all found in a church burned down in a tiny village,

it's now in East Germany.



Lo *iny little place there. Only two hundred acres. And in 1938, I was al-

ready here, but I know my father sent me that. Well, what happened to it,

I haven't the slightest idea. And he said,'In 1938, we'll go and we will

Be at the farm, where we eie-agT from. Hitler has declared this farm

to Be one of the Sla- ad~C/J7 family, because they have been on that

plot of land for three hundred years. I have nothing for it, but Vrbh L

even said that there was a -Ip-- ut on the at &r' I know the place.

I have been there the last time in 1928. So, this may have be" something

to do with it, but I was considered the black sheep, and this had nothing

to do with my parents, they're a. '-f-La h ,a. ay.w-y--i ir-em-..
NazI
P: Did they join the party? Your parents?

M: No.

P: Any of your-rc t .Cv

.At-M4a-llia
,





UF 51AB

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M: No, I have no blood Nazis, no.

P: s~ ansa I ask you a little bit more about, about World

War II,since I'm interested in it myself?



r;9 Exactly what did you do? You passed out coupons to restaurants so they

could buy food, is this right?

M: Yea~.g s we did g gagi EfG not give stamps out. We were responsible

for evaluating the applications, checking it against the figures. We were

sort of auditors.

P: I see. But it was just for restaurants?
S
M: C~g only for food/ for restaurants, yeAS. Ad~ ie.a I don't what V&

ran into it, but we spent Joat at least, I think, all during the week,

at least three days out of the week, or so, over at t, .---a L --

th t~ii-pr-Lve ofogo taen, Tis.~i am a City Hall.

P: Probably.

M: And mekS 0i G/ V a 'epeople)we had to divide our time.
/
But at least we fela;eo doing something9

c.Jka
...a"' ..h ... .' ..3 .

a / fAgaZ~ in fact I had aqZC a asked Mr. SAilv'r adg-e was in charge

of recruiting trainees for the Air ePwse. He said,'f I don't have to fight

against the Germans, would you take me in, can I get a desk job? VffS W %SSB

And he said, o.'o



f./ Let me tell you, he said flatly,l0no./ Of course, I could add two and two

together, you know. /.tr &v14/ c1 --e~,------ *"







UF 51AB

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sjm


JsC Particularly 0Oyou didn't want to go to war in the first place.

P: Y e. ----/i fO at the end of the war,you're on the CED.

M: CED.



yrVwt ey' ve; ,jp .K~.i-'a sp.s, hi s- I think this had been de-

veloped, CED, together withA te.' 9r--t-: r z.:l.i' .. -. .~-

Chamber of Commerce with some newspaper people yesetsl= Andy Sl0UM9an

ygSlUga we came out with the suggestion that I thought they would have

a labor shortage within one year after the ~1v-Cf U?),a dnJj o- LZ o e,4i

P: So you did work projecting what would happen when the war ended ..

M: That's right. That was, that was printed by ----- I still have a copy

of that. That was printed

P: That was for the committee of ~frw~. 'i .j-, . *..

M: $Nma Committee of Economic Development r-t, County division.



4ta adCd was the chairman of the Research Commission, which had forty.qe-

I had a banker, an educator, and a newspaperman and another professor .

P: I recently saw a program on TV where two professors from some university

in MiamierniC were trying to argue that economic controls or price and

wage controls during World War II were a failure. Could you compare what

happened during World War II to what happen ed in Germany, say, in the

early 1920 s to correct inflation with controls imposed by the OPA in the

Office of Economic Stabilization %an

M: I don't -l8Bh think I could compare it, but I learned, perhaps

purely by observation, that it's aLwASr to have price controls, but you








UF 51AB

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sjm


have to realize that with it you get a black market, and you cannot

prevent it.

P: Uh hum.

M: In other words, one of the /i people will have to do with

lessagtzb because he cannot pay the price under the table.

P: But will he actually give up less?

M: Oh,4black market ; .r ; ---'<- Americans know that too well.

P: NoMt L =-.-'skoak w&s ..-a.pe in the depression'

during the eht as, w a'a ..E. a lot of people didn't have jobs

and a lot of people weren't making a whole lot of money, S6 then when

they got jobs during World War II, and were able, they had decent incomesMp

I would think g2Mggs the standard of living probably went up during

World War II.

M: Yeah.

P: w < were they actually doing with less of the necessities*

I know they didn't have a lot of the ,V I'm just curious -

M: Now, you see, you are speaking agrabout World War II-

P: Right.

M: And I was already here, jeo j...-..



* O I don't know how the situation was in Germany at that time.

P: Well, I meant tha situation in the United States.

M: I in the United Statese

P: YeaS, I didn't make that very clear.









UF 51AB

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P VDo you think the price and wage controls were necessary during World War

II for the United States to keep down inflation?
Wc
M: Well, I'm afraid it.zi4s f course, you see 4EVS3@S aothe Germans were,

let me see, _, you point out, I remember that. That was a

discussion which had come out. He w- --' L didn't want

regional price controls Out he wanted to finance everything out of taxa-

tion.



gP t would work indirectly that way. But politically that is hards~a

P: You can't do that.

Lfc -- .1 1 V e--Z.. 1 ,.1 e-- 4--





M: I think, I don't know exactly, I cannot remember this, even those years

JdSaitpq when I was here# youmbSgP h m~ I didn't feel that I missed

anything, personally. 4M mzSCSSSB how much p! wage control/ did we

have in w.M, Zn--au during the war?

P: Well, they tried to e *

M: Rent control, we had.

P: That's right, rent control, and wage control 4W for blue-collar

workers particularly, and salary controls, also, for white-collar4 But the

wage controls were limited to the so-called Little Steel Formula. a

je!5-
M: Now, this I cannot even remember.

P: 4QQL it was imposed in May of I42. It 4NM- -a itft n l LtL Ln T L -the 6;-







UF 51AB

Page 44 sjm



M: rF--wh.;-t.iti I can't even remember it. Because personally, I

never felt that I was missing anythinga- a-n uic uf,

P: Well, you would have come under salary control, probably, in your job.

Ma eane in fact Roosevelt had /.'v S i e y twenty-

five thousand dollar salary selerar.h, ==a salary limits.

M: ZtyS well, I never (ag E HB had any -y of, money, you know.

P: No, but I was just saying, that they didn't try to impose any-SaLy 0 C.J-ifD

M: No, no.

P: sadrsB Wi they put a top on it. The Ccpg; itfi oided that.

M: Now, you see 4f0 ,; I cannot even remember. MIliNMan, I really did not

work on that, in that field, at all. _lgfl at that time, my job was

really to see what we could do a a far fr i/ ; whether

we thought the market would close this way or would close that way.

And I tried to get him qtL t h -----doing again what he

had done before that 1 -- seven years. He comes one day and said,

0 Well, I just agreed to putting a million dollars in some kind of

beauty-type operation, some kind of cream, it seems.



s l/Y T nW i,.i; it took only a year ,.-:., one million Ic };/!., -,-.

-Asi I had a very serious argument with him on the *ae'/
Brownsville, Texas. iftg I think that may have been some of the reason which

broke the camel's back. 3AS3Bi5S

P: What was this for, iCh'C A and gasoline?

M: No, -, ';, G s.



%hmks SI opposed that not on the benefit of whether it's good or not, but







UF 51AB

Page 45 sjm



that we had not the funds available for that type of ,ciqmfyt M de-

velopment. Because it was too risky, and we would not know whether

we would get any income out of it. W d his answer was at that time, CX

he said,bell, if bank so-and-so, bank sb-and-so, and these people are

putting so-and-so, ad~g we can afford this.o And I said, Well, you're

violating what you have already agreed upon as a policy.:" I was a mem-

ber of a committee, but I really had no voice, Iaanu this was

run very strictly by a few.

P: By family?

M: By family, it was a family enterprise, you know. So, that reY/ turned
/
out to be a very substantial loss.

P: ~afsesmsa you left the company in 1946.

M: In Il46, I got outs sad it happened so (ggSE that I was out, of course I

was there, they say it's a sa- ll : ; but I thought I had a chance,
altfS p /
this was ga jp. rE G D rC.,rof the c .sSS":X GS group with

whom I worked. tSSAEOR there was one of our friends in Buffalo, they

were the people who a5BE sEa a family enterprise, Aem obnW I7

You may have heard of fthoah Corporation .\ M



*j They had some ----- o -- ,and _g r8_--_ .a .m-'a i,

one of the _Gn & brought that to my attention, and because I was a

officer gaZ Int h /jas;tW2hought maybe I could interest our people

in it* F~4tFghs > He thought that if that could be handled right, there was

something of value there, but it was mismanaged or whatever SS~3E A when

I succeeded e persuade'my boss, he said,Well, Felix, you're on vacation,








UF 51AB

Page 46 sjm



why don't you go now and take a look at it? -eseaa And I got

involved in this, and it iad a very complicated situation, because it

was a mine with a mill, which was apparently sitting on a very wealthy,

very substantial deposit/ that would have required a very great*4tM

amount of money. That money wasn't available-o L -- So, it

m-zr* back and forth, and it looked so that they wanted to say, ell,

would you take it? We'll give you .a.aaa an option that

you can run the show for five years, if so-and-so much money is brought.')

AgLI brought that to the attention of my people, and they turned it

down, but they thought that I was trying to get that for myself. And

that may have also had something to do an aa with that my boss

thought, 4'gh, well, that fellow is out for himself ij'



BS So, g ~( Q, I don't put any blame on anything, the circumstances

developed dme that way. But that brings this thing c .an .. is HE

that I have in S aa-efSs h my vita there, that I got involved

in the exploration of two -------- mines. Because it developed into

something else, which became a very peculiar situation. iU I would

like to go intoAhere, because it's nothing to do with education or any-

thingo

P: si5 fine.

M: It's a purely personal situation.



d ~ell, 4g*f my family brought another man in there, and he had his own

ideas about it. 0S I certainly felt myself, this, the proposition of







Uf 51AB

Page 47 sjm



which I had not the slightest idea that that was already made, so in

other words, ----_ ---- apparently stuck to what I had tried

to do, and soirt-- t the enns-r /je / f. c., 5 of the things.



g otherwise, I probably would have ------ to others, brt- o l 'e



P: So, then you worked for Merrill/ Lynch, i$A44IddaE

M: Yt f.li "e "s t ,ig.B.'. '"Y that was I 1 iPi w well

after I had lost my job. Then I tried to look for something else and

the, the man who was running Merrill, Lynch at that time, Mr. -- i: s'ed . i

the top salesman, a.I...E.B said, ell, Felix, you might be good man

for us. .f .

P: As a salesman, or what?

M: As a salesman.



S What they call,-1yS-Dl an account executive, which is a glorified

salesman.

r-'Sa' m.es

o You get so-and-so much, and they get sixty percent of your forty percent.

But, it lasted two years, and I cannot 5-6



g> So it turned 4g 4';-iWf t' a out an absolutely bad situation.



( And when he finally said,"e better call it off, <~ I couldn't blame

him.






UF 51AB

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9 \/I would have done the same thing. But by that time, jaGB it was

just one of those thingspaB= j well, by that time : be

-20walready continued to teach one course at the University of Buffalo.



j VPrivate finance course.

9 ----nr**T ----
4?
VThl, Yell, we can give you a little bit more, so they gave me 49f two

or three more courses. So, I think I made a couple of thousand dollars lv

though I had no job then.

P: That, that was enough to carry you over

M: ------- at least. *5AMS it happened so that tWE:dSMrFN the

vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce, Mr. fisc, ner, I had just

recently, I had took over some Corerf=n detc



M: I had forgotten even his name. He used to be a dean somewhere. n iY

Canada, or somewhere. It must have been some of the northern provinces there.

And, he had written to Mallory ; Mallory was a friend of his.

P: Here at the university.

M: Yeah, Mallory*

P: Dean of the-

M: Mallory kd F T&i JX-. 4

P: To who?

M: o teu u



-7J.. f-, the Director of the Bureau. \
TL -T 1.. .:~i "h o.-~~l~ f.








UF 51AB

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. r The Bureau of Economic and Business Resources.



f ~6He had been just made Director in 1948P,



1d he assaueSSd Sag;Shad taken on Wiley Kilpatrick, who was another

professor really became one of my best friends, a very fine man.

He's dead now, too. He was really also a crackerjack in government finance#

Bum'immn. So, like I said, I have always been helped. If it wouldn't have

been for some of these men, I would have never even made the grade, you

know. O

P: Something always seemed to keep opening for you.

M: Well, ._ 32 it just happened 'arr-yoitMWk that I fell into it. And,

--. asked me to meet him in Pennsylvania, and h//{" T ar 9" M

So, in order to make a little bit more money i r'-edt.e. Te, .e.

--,- r _.-_, :"....;_ ei therrbecantsieraftT-rsthaty I had another in-between

job, a very short one, with (f5 4 Company. FMZrp-ftptTC=Ent?

-ts this Cleveland fellow you probably have heard about, I can't remember
/ CA
his name Mle'sCCM very famous enterpriser, the one who got a toy car from

the Russians, as3Ljas you probably heard about this. Oh, youAknow if I

were to tell you the name. He's still around. -a'72. *__- __.
4'1
He took me on, I think, for three months. ? *s was sellinggcrg O

securities ,pSi3 But he thought that maybe because I had worked as a
,-/ '- I
f.t 7,-/..'r, < I might be able to bring in something#92 It just didn't

work. And then, --came suddenly on, and .xs t Ce -- job as

an associate professor.

P: t this was in )1q49?








UF 51AB

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M: ,in es, at the end of 1149. Al z lSa Allen was

d=;R acting President. Jeact--: it.k, ,&;- ir' CI ftlm.

No, Allen was at that time)vice-president,

Miller was president. 14 ik-yh~i, *hre.

P: What attracted you to Florida? Just the job itself?





M: The need of a job.
7
P: It wasn't the weather .





M: Oh, bf course I thought Florida would be a good idea to beiB--.-.-

P: Had_1g. you gS heard of the University of Florida before then?

M: No. In fact, I wrote the letter to Lake City T

P: To Lake City.

M: Because I thought -~A.t .,rr'.,- 'i/.' ''- i



A $ University of Florida at Lake City. A small world.



\MS Now we are hereca at the University, and however you thinkalr I can
i
contribute ,

P: Right. S8pe Zou started with the Bureau, in 1950 and you stayed up there

until 1159, can you tell us what the Bureau does?
50
M: Well, the Bureau developed of course,A that Sa their~-hpcAtei?

SiMI main thrust) as I understood it, was to attract industries.

P: To the state.








UF 51AB

Page 51 sjm



M: For the state.



F And in addition, they hadadga to build upp statistics for the state.

IgE I think, particularly, cor" industries, because that seemed to

have been & OI u- s approach. d,,5 if I am not mistaken,

I think he? also met m f and haafE particular eaMAM

people from Florida Power -and Light, and for some reason, it just didn't

work tag-- IbBvery well. The reason for it, I can't tell you. But-Sfies

S I was hired in 1950, and I was held

~ft 4 nearly at the same salary, really, until t58 ~ya emw



W- aBa he made it perfectly clear to me that he qM thought maybe he should

not have brought me hereV yowsasan

P: This is geiS

M: Ye t,4g. -: Of course, I don't blame him on that, because I was

already fifty-four years old, and did not have any particular training for

this field, and I might not have been satisfactory to him. But, I did my

kIg job as best as I could, xgasms

E: What did you concentrate on for the Bureau?

M: I concentrated on particular iW4 statistics for bringing industries in. And

ad agp because &, I realized that I may have to shift eventually from

the Bureau to teaching or something vs I said,4fiy not let me have one_

full trade on things I understand.? And they let me teach courses in that,

so I think some of the salary may have beenA I don't know the details of that,

really.

n-N-.-- 2







UF 51AB

Page 52 sjm


.'> -Some of the salary may have come tgM from teaching p m for
the C aghteL ypfri F e Department of Economics.

P: 'Miian So you did this during the 6rf4Etes?

M: Oh, yes, I did. I taught a full trad I think that was.
And then I got really moved into management 1.. i-aa
Rtes^l&aayMt* ___ .._.-------J

M: VAfter, C you see qj Mr. / had always taken a liking to me
for some reason, QhodV taBFn, At least he said that to my wife mS

I can only draw it from there, because he called up sometimes, and said,

/,Can Felix drive me?O Because he 4g2 already t must have known that
something was wrong with him. I drove him several times eif D ;7t0 C-

or some of those places, and whenever I sat next to him,
when he made his speeches, I always got uneasy when his hand trembled0 -a


dP ou didn't see that unless you were sitting very close to him. And I told
him, "QWSell, Dean, why do you do all these things?O~t y4WMMa And

he said,,ell, I Ft^ have to build up some money.'

P: GFywead do you think he was instrumental in building up .- rEes 9

M: Oh, (;2 I think so, I think so.


iOf course A Ea "a".- I .'as never that high in, daSMAt where

I could see some of the inside of workings. (rsatm Y I told you that be-

fore, I considered myself second. Second not in command

i ._.,. ... .a second-string man...
V But lr_Sa^ a second-string man.
R .,Mr1imml l ImII






UF 51AB.

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P: W~ ~eb~~ a e, when was the Bureau formed, do you know?

M: Oh, this goes back earlier before 1J48. I think this goes back some-

where to
set up, as it became in 1948. You see, Utzler, I think was at that time

taking care of the Bureau. And' Utzler gave that upf He9@ was named.



jP' And it question woe-it HRf got the job, or muilS Wiley Kil-

patrick got the job. I cannot judge who would have been the better

administrator, I don't know those things. I cannot judge. qf I'm not

very good in administration myself. Theoretically, yes, I can teach

management, but I wouldn't want to do it myself. It's not my field.


oil rmf
M: I'd rather like tog g I'd rather like to say,'0g1i t, this is

what we want to do. Now you use your intelligence, and see how we can

do it.w qp~8 jhagS And of course, the idea was to build someone up to

these statistics. I've always been epe over conservative in estimation.

I'Nd TM!i JrathFSQ6S underestimate 0 than overestimate and go a to the

public on that. Because you i"At are not hurt, business isn't hurt,o ia

itAturn out so much better, ~yo 1-nw.
Would
P: Right.

M: That's only losing j profits, but if you expand on an estimation

and you fall short too far, the cost of adjustment is just too great.

P: How big was the Bureau when you came, how many employees? Do you remember?

M: We started out withp-maybeaag about twelve. There was Her, and

Wiley Kilpatrick, and I was hired# I was the third, and I think there were

two girls, five people.








UF 51AB

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P: 10 yas it funded from state money, or was it privately funded from

corporations a

M: I don't know, this must have been state money. 7

P: Partd of the & a aac B di ii50i0A- '

M: I think t aa I.tl. t i, g ypou are asking a

question I cannot answer



M'P becausee I did not know, f I never looked into things, you know.

P: Okay.

M: A Zheir funds came from, I never knew.

P: But now, it's grown considerably.

M: Oh, yes. Now, of course, you know, I think i .', -..,- ,



me a few months later than I came.



Elise, Jones was taken on, and then Carter. And Carter and E Jones

and I, wedpB became sort of a trio trhn riIa i. kA /D
;, F
because she was a top woman and aaVlwam^ CprW l. *'

She never let anything go wrong out of her hand, before she said, ~ ay,





n other words, she was a l 3 aboutt figures, really, did it beau-

tifully* f w stayed together all these years,,
Bp, after I was only in the management field, he still let me

work M on some of the research, ejQfi Well, I had the







UF 51AB

Page 55 sjm



experience in it.



T12 v'But then I saw it going, we thought it out, and I think that I was hired

inO50. We had only that one room, which wasn't even finished, in the

old student union. And we had three desks somebody had to get up to get

up to open the door, because it was so close, 9arm Mrn



i? hto order to be able to come in and out.



40 cAnd then of course, from there we g.p.SS.i ai-aries m moved

to the Q~lAqfloor of the East Library, the old Library.



A5 4e that is a SiC why I worked so hard on the first study of

Gainesville,4first economic study, which came out very well.

'P: The survey aI

M: The survey. .n T --. -..h.a"-ld I had I real help ail from

Professor Ca-,/1. i fromAfederal government, from the Agricultural census.



S'He really taught me exactly.

P: Is this sampling?





M: T0@ a e Without him and the mathematician, I would have never been able

to do it. And then we moved from there. We were moved into building

D.








UF 51AB

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P: 4Ai The temporary buildings are still around.

M: Building D. f Oh, I mean to tell you that place was hot. He, from

time to time)put a thermometer on the table and said, /O5 '7

Let's all go home. We cannot work.9 fgS then they built Matherly Hall, and

that was fr Everyone of us got -- -

each of us. That was Hlf, Wiley Kilpatrick, Carter (k^^'J We

were C the official staff members. Of course, we had, Hueff

had gotten jobs fromfederal government on Hfousing, on Fortgage financing -

all this is on record there.



14 ublication which you will see there. So we had a heck of a job to do.

We %S S had jobs to do for the F e/k// s-t council and fore

4lDAbb practically all those state counselling people.)



S then from Dean Weil, we got five thousand dollars,

whi he gave) ~ i not him personally, but the development agentQ rTm-ts
(r7,
Ilrldevelopment 0j :, alI gave us for finding out where

all the new industry came from : Pi that I did with Jim
-4
Richards# Jim and I work on that.

gb that is cBft where the government gave us 4AVIEjt introduc-

tory write-up on it. That came out very well. Well, this is the type of

job aifgo we had, you know. alel I always said, At least I seem to earq

with Hueff whatever money I goto g* x And at my age, I -a0l1B11

) J









UF 51AB

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P: Nomr. howslpsg2M the salary compare to what you'd been earningcbA in

private business? Was it much less or the same?

M: It wasod-a.m less. Not too much, but it was about five thousand dollars

less, originally. But then I made it up later, you know.



2. But I did not vt SbCZ2A#AiiYt really get ahead until after I had been
)
here fifteen years when 431a0 I had that possibility

of going overseas, gEIUSkgft that meant a jump immediately. They said

they guaranteed me fifteen thousand that I was making AJ:i:l 3p~.-/"'/',r o.

P: This was in mid-simtes?

M: That was in sL e.



^---------"s^^^^^s^--'-6"^

P: Before we go on, I'll have to get a new tape.



TAPE B-SIDE 1



Ji| k. not-.Ofl..o-T ::sy''~^^ t he -1-as .LJ,.is tr-Y-Qe<3aPa



P: You mentioned that you did surveys to help bring industry down Could you

explain exactly what you did. Si~9Eb to promote industry in Florida.

M: agg ae, the study
go to about, I think, two hundred companies in Florida which had come to
A.
Florida within the last ten years after a certain date?-'Fto ask them, first

of all, Oft) what brought them here, what their requirements wee, how their








UF 51AB

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financing was, and what their experience was. dgB this was put out

in a study. E 4~h ia e we never, never gave the names outs a e

had to provide g3paaS confidentiality. But of course, anybody who

could add two and two together ic- c ;'-



B 'Because we came tolocation where they were. ASfIthis gave an idea
AO
of whatAdo, what people want, had been looking for, how they got it,

what were the shortcomings. qM the idea was, by having a publication

like that, -ha could be used for anybody else like, 'il let's say

County X who wanted to get industries in. To say aUs, A is here, 4a2igt

that gives you an idea what the problems are, Ot and where.

-r
]g yIn addition, sawa of course, we brought outAyou will see that

also on 1B the leaflet there. We brought out what people were looking

for, what's required. ~a frankly speaking, there's so much available

on how to attract industries. it developed really into something

rather simple. You said water, say electricity was a tax situation,

a certain climate alright. cirE are thereW opposition maybe on

part of the population towards certain things, how about the schooling

for children? All this alf of course W3p had been just simply taken

one, two, three, four, five, checking off, and then develop that for

those individual things. .BA. ...=

an o sto jt _a ....l -tn., ;... --ai There was some place, some

place down in, near Okeechobee where we got, all the ,____ they wanted

f MaKe f a small little study to show all of the advantages)








UF 51AB

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y3SS S M jw /ut we wanted to stay away from the Chamber of Commerce

propaganda



3A" type of information. That means you put all the things which might

under the tabled%*;QSS and put it away out of sight of the

--- _-__ W didn't want that ye want statistically something sound.

Now that required a lot of diggingo.ia.ba .



M: VAnd/ I wasn't an expert at it, you see. 4IuwMa*fg I had to, at my age,

whwMewe really learn it if-g practically from nowhere. From reading

and 4WBB from using my brains. It's about that I could do.



4emA it is not an easy field. I learned that because it got me in touch

with people who were doing this 4MOSMB as civil servants either of

the county or go of the ta7eople or something. That's the way I.r

we developed itj yawvhwam

P: So you're actually performing a service for the state, then.

M: IL t-u Ji-l1, wtis-nso- -- wst- aa" Iame we were really AGf not

on the side A the industries would hire us as a consultant. TNmOiggB

AL"t ayaa 4a~a. I think, one, in the beginning

400 was jctIS in Daytona. He 1'| i... w=~---~gwas a builder,

if I'm not mistaken, and I think he was interested 4i'gft more housing

somewhere, in Cocoa or so.



:**=-=.^u= he got some money, and so he went to Hueff, and Hueff asked me whether






UF 51AB.

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I would do it. But these were more the exceptions, this was not

not the rule.

P: Do they get more funding from industry now than they used to?,Uh..



M: This I don't know. I think if you want this, clsatBp you would have

to talk to Tom Murphyswas probably the man who 4Wgapw n -ySAdIEtyp

wuSBAMW raise5money for the college in order to have industries and

so forth. But I don't know how that is handled.



t' I haven't even asked Carter about this very much. I don't know, I'm (i"L IC_

not in on a It s the present workings of Si

P: ~;g tS ll waw.t59 that you becamenProfessor.SE

M: Ye~J 159. was an associate professor from the beginning.



S- = ,s in ~159, Van Hart came. cgiB he had apparently seen that~WaSga

40K%& already 0oim 1 iS6 :z: &Oz -flufrph I

I think I must have had something-Ae W Q Bph himself, on which I did a

little help on that. Not very much, b~u met

P: Who's this?

M: Dr. Hart, Dean Hart. He became dean.

P: Right.

M: And, I was just told that I would be counselor to the management depart-

ment, because I had already worked in V5g this field, 4 ans

P: Was this agreeable to you" a "m

M: ~ >:. C /what I was looking for, because I didn't think that

Dr. Hueff would be honest if he a .i didn't think I had ite

*-wsssSSSS^Z~T








UF 51AB

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P: He didn't want you to continuethen?,ws4

M: ffl no he did noto be did not sayg because he had given me tenure,

he said,fWell, I gave you tenure. I brought you down here" /Which

I fully understand, SummUaR-

....h humz. so-

e9 V Which ise quite right*, IiUstm maybe I felt a little bit sorry about

it, that it happened, jy-.-ignah But, I gave some thought. First of

all, I was a man who did not start out in that particular field.

P: Do you enjoy teaching more than doing4SBB research?

M: Well, g to be quite frank, I enjoy both.



S nd I still would like to) -" somebody would

say, would you want to teach a course?", provided c
9Pit.



~ I have becomesvery igSB doubtful of that, but I taught so that it

would stand to the light today. Under so many new developments, you

know.



.1 Take for instance in management, a*hoa because I was not a behavior-

ist manbr







y /I was brought up on hamsgiES9,1SM basically autocratic hierarchy. And I








UF 51AB

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said,O~ L you S cannot jgt simply say because

you don't like what your boss tells you. Then you have to get out:"

gO I didn't like confrontation/ becausec
coward . I don't know,~0 V --



k I just don't like that.
7
P: B420gif Did you ever do model theory, Mas

M: No, I didn't., bd2WAOdAMM I didn't think thatkmodel, except

a very good modeluov



B \rBut that would be only quantitative. In other words, to see how a cer-

tain amount of effort is put into goods, how many people are necessary,
I'S
how much capital investment is necessary, how long et the circleAbefore

it comes back in the form of sales. ff I don't mean credit sales, but

in form of cash coming out. And make this balance in other words, try

not to be forced to borrow money because you did not build the circle

round. dM that is something whith makes good sense to me.



p But then it came into the questionegwiAl how to get the right man into

the right niche, v=S and to
I always shy away from it "because I know myself too well.n !-.(,, /

I-A',rUt'1'_ if I would have said, /es, it would work that way, when

it doesn't. So, I said,Well, have I a right to teach ef9 a textbook

which represents a certain approach which honestly I don't believe to

ig2 that way.0ys S









UF 51AB

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b V1And -SaaiEat I don't feel I have the right to cut, let me

say, an -- down to so much, and only pick out what I think I

ought to teach.

P: *tS%*h You started teachinggd -MMbA ful time iJ a in

1959, and continued qH t969,4 ijefadw S?

M: That's right, yes, Mi St I also taught -&aaems full-time over

(Fi in Africa.

P: Right. 4B0 pu told me you taught-, .i i part-time from 19500 ontb~

M: ,//1$ ye I think, I don't know when they started, but

I must have started /l&c- 'rather early

P: Did you notic-ae l jgpi~IW r y any

changes in the students!2-pstAtv /o*. j(o/cf two-decade time span

that you taught here? lE.gkM enrollment must have increased dramatically



M: Well, you know, I'll tell you, at the classes, the so-called classes

which I li 'i -- which usually were hardly more than about,

maximum maybe fifteen. I always thought I had pretty good students, to

be quite frank.



D hThey seemed to be interested. -f_ s ss* I cannot recollect that I

really ever had qMBEa troubles with students. Now, you have to keep in
i+-
mind one thing, and that may have something to do withI but I don't know

how that happened, and I can't even remember exactly what yearsess3awi aa,

I would have to go back to 'i (SIg%3 the official records of the University.








UF 51AB

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But, in order to make sure that I was fulfilling the requirements

gjEIith of the semester, I think I was put for quite a number ofap&

ILmB.iaiMf*- years, semesters, 5m on teachingOOy counselling~l"~

Aver at Tigert Hall. IJS I liked that very much.

P: Who Baet e*?~ba.atmfaama were you counselling? The business majors?

M: No, g3SgcS3 University College.



WIgSSa A-l ... There were a lot of very difficult problems, sometimes maw

SI felt there that. y -f psychological background

for that yeaawdhm I'd be very careful of what I suggested.

P: 7itE ~id your management background help you any?

M: Well, "-4mJ. r.-.kpnyol: t- me n o-f -d=s =qyu_ *; I'm aware

of, 9@ i~arSy S ordinary human beings, and that is justifying some-

thing very fair .g&SB B It because I felt that myself too often. So,

I was always a littleAon AMBs my guard when a student seemed to try to

bring a conversation on counselling into a certain direction where I said

I couldn't help tfhm.



U. I justAto draw him out to feel where he might really do well# yeae=Men

P: Sfthwa -Waa ggp did you enjoy your work with the students? 9Wae
-S
M: Oh, I always enjoyed the students, yeaO.

P: NM;Ef I guess you were around-tdg in the late ssin when they had

the demonstrations on campus and everything about-'1 ri.

M: It was these things I just didn't understand.

P: You didn't.








UF 51AB

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M: Of course, 40Me I was young myself, but I worked. tWmS I don't think IVBg

have the talent to be an activist EyS~BMMIam



SIt seemed to me as if they f 9a I k fi ~s their own time.

P: c~SSnS in the mid-slm- ie, ar a you went to the University of Khar-

toume for gg two years

M: Ye, two years, two full academic years.

P: ~TiVrjsb s were' a visiting professor 'through a contract signed with UCLA,



M: YedEUCLA had a



Vrcontract with the Department of Education of the federal government.

P: ~TSO T 5M, awi government or KV\arJrAmn ?

M: No, federal government.



, gAETE'", l.-n i m Tm. And it gpi9f was Professor Dittman whoaama tE

comes out of UCLA. 4go he was an accounting professor here. A1!%gqa E=^a

we became friends and 4W had always talkedog79 I said, listen to

this, I am so attracted about this idea what you're doing, going overseas,

ostggy9 4S German14anderlust, coming d4 again into it.

P: Right.
ic.
M: My wife liked to say,yy dear, g5jS EM Felix, I go with you anywhere you

go.& So, I said to him, (SSS^ we could go somewhere,

you know.~ ------- /-~ //'- to Africa. And it looked so that

tSSta te there was a very good chance that we could have gone








UF 51AB

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to Indonesia. It seemed to be cfESMBIall settled, (ss*M a Jjust a

question of-e *

P: This aB a Fullbright, e .aes

M: No, that was under AID. A-I-D.



os3If, ^ut pei there d-o-ai. al.- l old,

si.political implications, that in the end, this 492M% didn't work.

Then he suggested, that he had talkedA4 ~P- ,L,, yg some-

body in Sumatra*,.SS4boa 'BIl I corresponded with them and alM that

seemed to turn out very well. But nothing came of it in the end, for

some reason. But, Dittman left thern"---aai aa-imim and took the job

in Khartoum. As you know, ,; in Khartoum.



q pflSMl apparently, that was when he had the chance to make a much better

deal with West Africa JAR so he recommended me and apparently they

listened, !sia- to him.



Because there ..g... e ut mgY. was another man who

was supposed to come there. But for some reason he persuaded, and aISS

ggTg they gave me the l d offer and I accepted immediate-

ly. Though I thought I would never get it, g I never trustedABB0MM

in- .. unless I was over there. tkthat was an interesting experience.

Of course, we ran right awayaftaB into the October Revolution in 1930, in lk



@> 6'4, there. dAM Dr. Donovan was with us, Glenn Donovan0 mSIs So










UF 51AB

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qufit*ij~fi .r..:.e....e.sB9 S we had planned during the winter

vacation to take a trip. This was in the neighborhood, you know, one

of those safaris?



M: So when that revolution started, we said,"We better get out, now.",

you know.

P: Take your vacation early.

M: Take it early. And, the embassy didn't want us to go back until a cer-

tain time, because it must have been pretty bad. So, well, that was a

chance to see something of the world, you know.

P: So where did you go?

M: Oh, we, we visited, we visited Uganda, Tanzania, Kilimanjaro, Ethiopia

and then back, you know, and saw all the game parks.

P: Hm. That-

M: Of course, Uncle Sam paid for it, indirectly, because we, we -

P: You were on a salary?

M: No, when you figure that I stayed out of, if I stayed out two years, that

was the idea. Of course, I did not know that.we would r ..'

the same-thing.

P: Uh hum.

M: But I played that and said,"Well,'it's at least quiet, you know." So,-

P: How long did you have to stay out of the Sudan?

M: Eighteen months, all in all. No, eighteen months Sudan at

that time, I think we stayed out-

P: At that time of the Revolution.








UF 51AB

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M: We stayed out, I would say, about six weeks, all in all, yeah.

P: Six weeks? Must have been a nice trip.

M: We tried to get back in, we were, we were together with, Scotes, he used

to be a professor of law here at our university. He was also over there.

And he had his wife, and two children, and I had my wife, and our boy,
dndir
and we had had, we had another young man who was a, who was one of

those scholarship of, either inter-, from these international groups, you

know, the, not, Rotary, it wastRotary scholarship. And so we hired a

bus, you know, and then we made this all together, the whole trip.

P: Hm. So you "11,

M: oviC. -7-- Saw quite a great deal. C----, ~-fr -- -'La"

Then, thnc I realized how big that continent is, and ---- continent,

there's no doubt about it. There's just no doubt about it my mind, you

know. It's just seething for an identity.

P: Uh hum.

M: No two ways. You just, you just feel it, you know.

P: Yeah. ,-,,- 3r:

M: It may, it may, it may, it may be ain-- 1if. /;/ .,, you know, but it

it's just, it ------ very surprising, you know.

P: Hm.

M: So, that, and I was glad that they gave me the second year, because it was

a question of money. I mean, I never had any, any, any particular-

P: And this is when you, they were paying you considerably more-

M: They paid, ----- I left all the money at home !,-t -z,' ovr here,

you know. And lived on that what they paid out there. And we lived very








UF 51AB

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simple. We had, of course, we didn't have to pay rent, you know.

P: Hm.

M: And we ,. they had just finished a Ford Foundation building,

on the campus, which I think this, in a way I think this is, built so

badly. I mean, somebody made some money off of it, I'm pretty sure.

And when we moved in, it rained right away in, and we had only one

room to stay in. And it took a long time, then the whole floor came

out y/.. i.2 "

P: Yeah.

M: But nevertheless, we managed and, and we-

P: Hm.

M: That gave us, that gave us, of course, the,.the, whole summer, where no-

body stays in Sudan. -T:
P: ---- the monsoon?

M: -how much, 105,115.

P: Hm.

M: Then we went back to,
1936. That was after thirty years. I visited England, my, my wife's

brother had a child in, in Plymouth-town in England, and we wanted to

see the child.

P: Hm.

M: And that gave us a chance. And then I visited the Black Forest, where

I met an old friend. But, when I saw all those places where I used to

go and where I lived j:: -,. :., it was, was a pretty sad experience.

P: Did you get to East Germany so you could see your old ?i .. .: ?

M: No, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't dare, you know. I wanted to go last year,










UF 51AB

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but-. -c -l/ --/-.' --'

P: How did you like teaching in the Sudan? Was it different from teaching

college students here?

M: Listen, let me tell you something. This is, this is what, I wanted to

write a book on that. And I had already worked on it and I thought I

had a publisher. We had, I had good rec-, good recommendations, and all

these things. They said,"Yeah, we want to do it", but then that man who

was responsible for it, as the acting editor there, he disappeared. Appar-

ently was fired or something. They said,"No, well, we can't do this thing."

They sent the original back. But this is to give you an answer on that.

We, I realize that we could not just use our teaching methods, to teach to

those students. You had to them like, in a way, a combination, between
rv
teaching on elementa- school level, plus to pick a figure out and lead

gradually to the better, to the more complicated things. They were just,

entirely different. Oh, some of those, some of those were amazing things.

Some of the blacks, not the Arabs. They were, they were very smart cookies.

Because the Arabs were so different.

P: Uh hum.

M: This, and then, they were of course, they had all a very strong program

oriented where they could memorize unbelievably. But did you then try to

explain it or so, it didn't seem to go over.

P: Hm.

M: So I tried to develop a very simple way of, what you might say, really
eleentaeconomics.
elemental! economics.









UF 51AB

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P: Is that what you were teaching?

M: 40a teaching management.



S nd definitely Introduction to Business.



rpT I didn't teach economics.

P: I see.

M: But the man with whom I worked, Professor Hannaker, who was, he came

really, he was, he came from, from Czech family, and was made, was An-

glicized, became an English citizen, and apparently contributed pretty

much to, as a businessman, to the war. And he was a fellow of the Cheshire

College.

P: Hm.

M: He was given the chairmanship of the Department of Business, you know.

And I worked with him pretty closely. But he developed some, he had

some different ideas about how to teach, and how also to interpret what

was going on as far as industrialization, you know, Sudan is concerned.

But who was right or wrong, this I could not even judge, you know. This

was in some ways, far over my head, to be quite frank.

P: Hm.

M: The only thing I knew I could, the textbook would not mean very much to me.

P: Yeah.

M: Somebody had to write another textbook, in a much more simplified, but with-

out throwing out the gist I mean basics-

P: Yeah, the basic principles.








UF 51AB

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M: Basic things, they need to be in there.

P: Yeah. . .hm. Sounds like you teeter on a fine point.

M: Oh, this is, it's just you have to, you have to practically play it by

ear.

P: Uh hum.

M: Otherwise you will lost students.

P: How big were your classes over there? Were they equivalent to graduate level,

or were they-

M: Forty, forty or fifty.

P: So, they were probably undergraduate classes then?

M: Yeah. This were, these were only undergraduate, this was no graduate

courses.

P: I see.

M: In fact the graduate teaching was with my, our college, more or less,

you know. We had one who was, who had, had his undergraduate level in

Boston University in, in, in Massachusetts.

P: Uh hum.

M: But this was to me an eye-opener, I must say about the problems of edu-

cation. Now they spoke English, you know, and some spoke good English,

there's no doubt about it. But the Arabs are very peculiar. The Arabs

have a, at least, I cannot say the Arabs. I can only speak about the

Sudanese. I mean, that's who I met there.

P: Right.

M: They seem to, this idea of,"Well, it's Allah's will". This, there was a,

there's a peculiar fatalism in their attitude.










UF 51AB

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P: Hm.

M: Seem to have permeated even on simple things in business, and when you

teach it, of course, it always came in there, you know. And I don't know

what the answer is, how to overcome this peculiar easiness for justifi-

cation of errors. I don't know, I mean, by, by, with a whip you can't

do it.

P: Right.

M: I mean, they'll never work that way.

P: Hm.

M: No sense about that. But which type of persuasion will work? I don't

know. Now, I could not understand that, that those people, // ,, /- .

publishing house in New York. They wanted, they wanted to give me a

contract but it didn't come to it. Who, who publishes Business Week?

P: Uh, I don't know, I don't know.

M: r' ;- u ------ because that's what I'm still hearing from them.

They, I talked to those.people, and I said, well, they said,"We are, we

are bringing out now." That's where I came in, they wanted to take my

manuscript, that I had given to them. They thought it was, was usable

for them. They said,"We realize, of course, it's much too high for hard-

bound books, so we can use, just use only paperback." And they have to

be printed outside of the country. And they have hired this man from,

from Uganda, who's an Engishman. But he was married, and was, lived down

there. He had to come here,and, and had to come to New York to become

the editor. And he had, it was he with whom I had tried to work this out.

They had created a international management series. And only one -,'








UF 51AB

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paperback has been published on it. And when they sent my manuscript back,

they said,"This thing doesn't work".

P: Hm.

M: "We will not publish anything anymore. We wish you all the luck,but-".

And I wasn't sure whether that was, was really so, but I checked it out

later. Actually, they have removed that series, and whatever was in that

field, they have put into other, other _----- So-

P: Hm.

M: So, I think that probably must be much bigger than I even imagined when

I was faced, when I came face to face with --- /c .

P: So you spent what, almost two academic years over there?

M: Oh, two academic years.

P: Uh hum.

M: But they were fruitful. I mean, I must say that. I got the, I became a

feeling of, this is not the end of the world yet. There's so much still

coming, and then development, you know, that I said,"I better see what I

can still contribute."

P: Uh hum.

M: Instead of trying to talk to somebody over thz!t heads.

P: And then you came back here, and resumed teaching. Did you work with very

many graduate students, here at the university?

M: No, I was not on the graduate faculty. I think I was given two students

as a sort of, that was an international field. But both did not carry through.

P: Uh hum. When you-

M: I had only one man with whom I worked, which you might not remember.









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M; That is -----,-~. .- !-'. He's not in,in, in some good positions with

Lewis, this article. .

P: Uh hum.

M: I thought the man had enormous potentialities. And he got, I don't know

whether he got his Ph.D, yeah, I think he went through a Ph.D. But I

never had any vw' close contact with graduate students. I wish I had,to be

quite frank.

P: When, while you were-

M: They, they,they just...maybe that my background was not solid enough, you

know.

P: Uh hum. When you were in the bureau, you told me once that you had students

that helped you on some of the surveys. Were they your graduate student?

Do you remember?

M: No, I don't think we used, I think we used the undergraduate students.

P: Undergrads?

M: That, now I'll tell you, that was, that was foremost on the, the first year.

P: Uh hum.

M: And that was when I, when we got from the Chamber of Commerce a couple of

thousand dollars for making this first study. It was an economics study.

I had, had looked at it just because I knew I'd have to talk to you today.

I took another look at it. I had forgotten most of it.

P: Uh hum.

M: And I think we / ____ we could hire something like about a dozen.

P: A dozen students.

M: And I, they were very helpful with the exception of one who apparently goofed








UF 51AB

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off of it then.

P: Well...

M: Then we thought among it, and /;, said,"Well...". But then I learned

again, with, with the help of Mr. Calendar, how to spot those things; And

I showed him the rjs '5 and I said, "This doesn't make sense to me."

He said,"Neither to me. You have to check whether the boy actually did the

job. You may have gotten :.., This seemed to be so out of line."

P: Did they do this, these students that you had working for you, did they do

this as a part of a course work, sort of on-the-job training for a course?

Or was it just strictly as a job?

M: No, this was, this was still, I think this was just a part-time job.

P: A job.

M: They got an hourly pay for that, you know.

P: Uh hum. Did you ever have any-

M: I don't think, I don't think they ever got credit for it.

P: Uh hum. Did you ever have any experience with students who were work-, doing

course work that came through the Bureau to help you do research? Or was it

just simply-

M: Well, let's see, I think, ':C -/-/. tell me, u ,-, ,*. -,- // sent

somebody to me. Oh, maybe just only recently, that somebody sent to me, I

think, ;,, sent to me-

P: Well, it seems like that would be a good way to-

M: I tellyou, I tell you this. This was rather interesting, I think. :'_,, sent

to me in connection with the.hyper-inflation.

P: The-?

M: The hyper-inflation.








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P: -inflation.

M: Yes, it was that inflation in Germany where eventually you-

P: Uh hum, uh hum.

M: A woman who was supposed to make comparison on the value and the volume

of steel, and raw-, and and, wheat and things like that set up, you know.

To see what volumes were and how this, how the inflation affected the move-

ment of these goods.

P: Uh hum.

M: And she came to me, and I became really interested when saw what she was

doing, you know. And though I helped her quite a good deal by r: /;jy 'to,

to try it where we could get this thing, I don't think we came up with a,

with a too workable answer. But I think it was in the right direction. And

the way how the girl worked it, that seemed to be, that's a good way to, if

somebody can now stay with this, and help people that way, that would help

a great deal.

P: Uh hum.

M: From the outside, you know.

P: How much has the, the College of Business Administration grown since you've

been here? Considerably?

M: Oh yeah. I told you, I told you, no, maybe I didn't tell you. Well, I think

just about -- ,/ LS last September, the Dean had, DeanALanzillotti

last August asked our people, ~Qi old faculty to meet the new faculty,

you know. And when I came there of course, i, ,. - / .; i:c, -.i: i, o'

I said," :i.,^: I don't even know anybody." And just casually, I said

to the Dean, I said,"Dean, I'm sorry, you know, I feel completely like a fish

out of water. All new faces." He said,"Now, Felix, do you realize that since










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you retired in '69, we have added seventy people?"

P: How many?

M: Seventy, seven-o.

P: Seven-o? Wow.

M: I said,"No wonder, those who died, you know, whom I know too." But there

you can see how this thing has grown.

P: How many new ------

M: I don't know that, I can't remember. I mean this was, I just happened to

remember that figure.

P: Hm. Do you think that Lanzillotti has really helped the college?

M: I would think so. Of course, I don't, I hardly know him, you know.

P: Uh hum.

M: I understand-

P: But he was important in the Nixon Administration?

M: This, of course, I'm not a Nixon man, so I mean I hesitate to make any

statement.

P: But he has a national reputation as being-

M: Oh, he has : 2 I think he is a, he is

active enough, and young enough, you know. Because, the question is, in

what direction the whole world will go, you know. How much can you shift it?

P: Yeah. I talked to you a little about the funding, and, did you have any

problems about funding with the college?

M: No. I, you see, this, about these things I just don't know anything about it

P: Okay.

M: In spite of the fact that I've always been so much interested in money as a,








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as a concept, but this is always monetary policy affecting economy.

P: Uh hum.

M: And as far as money directly is concerned, directly-

P: As fTr as policy's involved-

M: -I really can't do much about it, you know.

P: Well, I think you were here when they dedicated the, the building, Matherly

Hall?

M: Yeah, yeah I was there, but, that speech, poor, poor old '/+/er He nearly



P: They, they have permanent building there?

M: ---- I/ r.St' ( c i^ ''* '

P: Uh hum.

M: Of course, you see what happened even to the Bureau. We are sitting practi-

cally on each other.

P: Uh hum.

M: And I was surprised at the, you saw the professors' what, where I'm sitting

now. I would have never believed I was seeing this like that before. And can

look out of the window. I usually had a tiny little place somewhere in the

corner.

P: Yeah, yeah.

M: Because there was no room. I fully understand that. No, I think it's for

our, of course, I think Dr. Osterbind is doing a splendid job in the way how

he is, he is getting some of these things done.

P: Uh hum.

M: And how he is getting the contacts,apparently.








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P: Yeah.

M: But I don't know of when it comes to who's getting what out of that

cake. I, I'm just a babe in the woods, I just don't know.

P: Do you, did you meet any personalities while you were here or did you

know the presidents, or any famous students, or anything like this?

M: No, no. Now don't forget, I'll be, a few, few more days, I'll be seventy-

eight-

P: Uh hum.

M: I'll be pretty far out of the running, you know. I feel myself, I'm

sitting a little bit on a prri and looking from the outside in, and

saying,"What's going on there?", you know.

P: Uh hum. Well, do you, do you remember anything in particular about any

students you had that turned out well, or-?

M: I'm just trying to think, I told you /r-w :; is one things He

has always impressed me somewht. But I have not followed too much. I

mean, I probably should, but this, for some reason...

P: J-^___ --- -

M: -Maybe these long years of not being active, of not being anymore on faculty

meetings, of not being exposed to students.

P: Uh hum.

M: But, oh some people have written me back, I know, and said well, that I

helped them, and my wife sometimes passes them, and somebody says,"My boy

thinks he did a good job", or something.

P: Hm.

M: How can I judge that, you know?

P: Uh hum.








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M: I just don't know.

P: Well, it's a nice compliment anyway.

M: Well, I mean, I just don't know, this is a-

P: Well, what struck you so much about the growth of the university, from 1950

to M69, when you retired? Just a physical growth, or I mean-?

M: Well, I cannot speak for what is going on in the, call it in the educational

field, as far as buildings are concerned, sometimes I wonder. Maybe some-

times less building, and-

P: Uh hum.

M: -better quality and something or so might be the better answer. This I

don't know. Because I don't know what's going on in the walls.

P: Well, have there been a-

M: Like for instance, I hate to say it, an enormous place like the Student Union,

the Reitz Student Union, is to me just like a palace, you know. And I admire

it, it's beautiful.

P: Do you have a problem in your department about rl;: / plaie-ng before

you retire, like you're talking about now?

M: That was not, I wasn't, that I've never gotten even into it, you know?

P: So you always tried to maintain the same standards then, basically through-

out your career?

M: When, when, if, while I was teaching, you know, I just simply said,"I'm not

going to let the standards down."

P: Do you have a certain-

M: The only thing that I just sometimes said, well, I, I became uneasy about,

sometimes about, maybe a certain sloppiness in writing as if nobody cared

very much about it. I sometimes even suggested to my students,"Please, if









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you, if you have to write that way, then better type it. It's just too

hard for me on my eyes."

P: Uh hum.

M: It seemed to me that the, that, that, of course I've been brought up so

much on orderly writing and prompt and clean appearance, and all that stuff.

But that, has to be gone a little bit by the wayside I'm afraid, you know.

Not in gen-, I mean merely as an impression. I can't say that that is

general.

P: Uh hum.

M: Only as far as that concerned papers, and so on.

P: I think since your retirement you've gone on and, and ti-e4 other univer-

sities on, haven't you? At LZr,-r :/ ?

M: Oh, oh you mean -i;^ , yes.

P: Yeah, since your retirement.

M: Yeah, I taught in ---- I'm sorry, just for a minute, my mind was still

on what I did here.

P: That's sort of a big jump.

M: No, I tell you, I was, I had, of course I had an interesting experience in

Durango.

P: Colorado.

M: In Colorado. That used to be, that used to be an Indian school.

P: Hm.

M: But then we gave them the four year college status with the requirement in r-

constitution, the ?'- I-.t.--aiv

P:r Uh hum.









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M: //! v' r' needed special permission to hire me at the old age of

seventy. From the legislature, they got it. They had, they have a rule

they must let twenty percent of the enrollment be Indians.

P: Oh.

M: American Indians. Mostly Navahos.

P: Uh hum.

M: From the reservation.

P: Hm.

M: And they are coming in tax-free. I mean,-

P: Tuition-free?

M: Tuition free. And you know there were some very interesting chaps in that.

No fools. And some were really hard working.

P: Uh hum. How, did you know somebody out there? Is that how you got on?

Somebody invite you to come out to...?

M: No, this, I tell you, that was one of those crazy things. When I realized

that I had to be out ea the end of June, 1969.,,



/
OR VI wrote somebody and sent right to the, to a outfit which is called



rip Ia had been told that I was 'a ti't f (ecMmefrcJ F.'- ^ i

So I said," Well, I just will write and see what is coming, and send it in,"

you know. And I got a letter from the Dean of the school in, in Durango.

: ,...i he had written a lot of those letters, we'll talk about

that later. But he said that they had contracted for a chairman for the

Division of Business and Economics, but the man cannot come before;December,








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add they understand that I had retired, that I was a full professor,

whether I would be interested to take the job, provided that I would

agree to be Acting Chairman. I don't like administrators' jobs-

P: Uh hum.

M: And I really didn't want to answer it. But then I rh'. -: -,/ anyhow.

I said to my wife,"You mind if we go for awhile to out to there?" Well,

she wasn't quite sure because she didn't like to go that high in the

mountains. She has some respiratory trouble. But so I wrote, you know,

and answered," Yes, I would be interested." Well, got a telephone call and

said,"Can I, are you, are the f\ you gave as recommendation, are they,

are they available?" I said,"Yes." So he said," I call you back, in about

a couple of hours." He called a couple of hours and I had the job.

P: Hm.What part of Colorado is this, the southern part?

M: It's just in the south, of the New Mexico border, near the New Mexico line.

P: Is that the first time you've been in the mountains there?

M: Yeah, there, yes, but I know the mountains from the other side, you know.

P: Yeah, but they're not quite like the Rockies, though, are they?

M: Oh, no. The Rockies, I don't know. You see I've never been in them. I, I

the farthest I went was to -.---- .- N.. New Mexico and Tuscon. That's

the farthest I've gotten.

P: Did you see the cliff dwellings?

M: No. My wife went -/,'.- ----- / friends of ours came up and they-but I

had a class, so I said...he took my wife up there. They said it was the

most interesting experience.

P: It is, it's fantastic out there.

M: Well, I could have stayed another year. Of course, I -'/-: because that








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man didn't appear for a whole year later. And then he came, and he

said,"What I'm doing with you?", and I said,"Well, I'm going home."

And he said,"Well, I've got a job for you. I need somebody to teach

finance." I said,"Listen, if my wife would, if not for her trouble with

her breathing, I would take the job", you know. Because they had hired

another man there who was at that time only six years older than I, seventy-

six.

P: Hm.

M: As a mathematician, and he had been there already four years, and they

said,"We told him he can stay as long as he wants."

P: This was Fort Lewis College.

M: That's right, Fort Lewis.

P: Okay.

M: Now then the other job I got so, one of one of our graduate students

here was working for a Ph.D, and I ran into him at a at a, a, an outing.

I think some professor had something at their house. I think it was at

Coker's house. And, he said,"One of my, one of our, one of our professors

of business administration had a stroke and died suddenly, and the pres-

ident wants, president wants a replacement quick. And you said that you

just came back and you are available. Would you be interested?" I said,

"Oh, sure. Why don't you come and find out," you know. But I thought no-

thing would come out of it, you know. And then I suddenly got a call from

the president.

P: Hm.

M: And he said,"We would like you to come, work. Can you come and talk to us?"








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So I flew in and they paid for it. And when I came back, I had the job.

P: This at ?

M: That was, that is, -- __

P: ------ administration?

M: But just before, I had a had a written offer from some southern, southern

Florida Southern, in Lakeland.

P: Hm, yeah.

M: We had visited those and they had said they were interested, and they of-

fered me a job. And in a way, I'm probably glad that I did, that this

other came up, because they are very strong on drinking. And when I s/._//

-': ,' I like my beer, and they...

P: It's a German school?

M: No, no, the Germans didn't bother about it. But the -;: the Lakeland

people, they were, they were pretty strict on that, you know.

P: Uh hum.

M: Well, so that is the way how it worked.

P: How were the students at these two other colleges? Were they comparable to

the students here?

M: This is how to say it, you know, this is entirely different. Because first

of all, the, in Durango, I had to deal quite a great deal with-

P: Indians?

M: With Indians. And also with a much more native Colorado. It's a different

type of people, you know.

P: Uh hum.

M: Like mountain, some mountain people.

P: Yeah, yeah.









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M: But I had, I had, I must say I never had problems with students. I don't

know, maybe I'm too easygoing. I know what they have to learn, but I

can also understand sometimes if they don't performs well as I think

they should, you know.

P: Uh hum. There's one other area I'd like to ask you about. Now you're a.

interested in the, I guess it's some kind of retired professors' associa-

tion here at the university?

M: Well, that is some, that is, that was set up just about a year ---

---- I was asked to come in on the beginning, so I, I'm one of the

charter members. We started out and then they asked me to, to take the

take the chairmanship of the membership committee.

P: Membership. What's the precise title of this organization?

M: It is called Retired Faculty of University of Florida, Inc. We have a

charter, we have one 'hundred and eighty-five members just now. They just

had their annual meeting.

P: These are retired professors and, or their widows, or-

M: They have, they are all people who have been ten years with the University

of Florida or more, and the widows of professors, and there it doesn't make

any difference how long they have been with it. And, of course, the idea

is to : ;..- also to have fun, but we can help, help the university on

problems. In addition, :~': f.: -even maybe helping out as substi-

tute teachers if necessary.

SIDE B, TAPE 2

P: Retired Faculty Association. It's more than a social organization, isn't






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it? You try to lobby the legislature-

M: Well, the idea, of course I had, this was my own personal idea that I

thought, well, when I joined it, I said,"This maybe something that as

a group we might be able to get a better deal on pensions."

P: Uh hum.

M: And I referred this merely to the group who retired before 1971, because

the difference as far as setting the pensions are concerned, those people

who retired before 1971, their pension was figured on the average of ten

years the highest.

P: Okay.

M: For those who retired after '71 or '71, only the last five, only five

years average had to be taken of the highest. And in my case-

P: That includes the salary-

M: And in my case, in my case, it makes a great deal of difference, because

I was bypassed for at least six years, you know.

P: Uh hum.

M: Salary increase. So I came up with _____ -. at the end, but this had

to be spread over ten years. Not that it really mattered, but I thought

well, if we are organization like that, we might raise some issue. But I

understood that that issue had already been taken up, even before we or-

ganized as retired teachers, American Association of Retired Teachers.

P: Hm. Was it a success?

M: Yes, partly, but not as far as that is concerned. That will not go through.

I have an idea that that will not work, because from, only listened to one






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conversation where Senator McKay from Orlando, from Ocala-

P: Ocala, yeah.

M: I think, I just drew enough out of the, out of the discussion, but I

didn't talk to him about it, but I listened to the discussions, and I

thought, "There's no feeling for it, one way or the other, as far as

going back to some of those things." But, the idea is still what I

understand from, from, from ,: .- .,, from education ,l 7',-.r O

11st, that he apparently thinks that there may be a ,i ro -' r '

settlement on some,1for those people you know, give them just a flat

amount. But even that I doubt. You know anything retroactive is, I don't

blame people in the legislature.

P: They put it off long enough, and they don't have to worry about it.

M: They got enough, they got enough problem now. So I mean,.but, but it is

I think it's a combination now between a sort of social get-together, just

/ 'e 7., !, ,''oh, what's that man, ;. ;r n,'- n- t'hey, they showed

some slides, S';i things of that type, and things of this type that it's

more of a social thing. Then we get together for a dinner where we hae

-a_ _'__ .: you know.

P: Oh, did he give a talk?

M: Yes, he gave a talk and a very good one. Dr. Donovan introduced him.

P: Yeah, he's a splendid speaker.

M; Well, he's a, he, he's a, he is a, he is a, he is a pretty erudite man,

I mean there's no doubt about it. Even when I, if I feel I just don't,

I just try not to accept this apocalyptic concept.

P: Yeah, you may not agree with what he says... Y"' \ ? ,mi -\.

M: This is, this is, it's not so much, I mean I think his facts are alright,








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and I, but the. interpretation, you know, it becomes in the _r__ .

Everything becomes interpretation. I realize so much now about theolo-

gical concepts, because after I came back from Africa I said,"Well, I

used to go with my wife to the Baptist church, you know, but never as

a member." She is a Baptist. And I did that also with my former wife,

from whom I was divorced. She was an Episcopalian. But I am basically

a Lutheran, you know. I was brought up as a Lutheran and baptized. But

then I came out of Africa, I said,"Well, I better support the church at

least somehow, you know." And so I support the church here, the University

Lutheran Church at, here across the street.

P: Uh hum.

M: So, I I became interested again, to go over interpretation

of concepts with which I've always worked but which I've never given too

much-

P: Never analyzed them.

M: ; #o o, > -oit, you know. It's, it's nothing of importance. But

now that I'm getting old and have more time, I try to reread a great deal.

And I think that somehow we cannot just consider that is just a little

special department. It has to work into the educational concept somewhat,

you know. But not from a, not from an ecumenical viewpoint. i{'j% from

a strictly orthodox viewpoint, you know. Because when I mention that to

you, this problem with the Arabs, you know.

P: Uh hum.

M: This, this, using that as an excuse. Or those people who have said, speak

of, of manifest destiny, and things of these things. These are things which

are popping'in anybody's mind. Doesn't make any difference who it is, in








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what language it is, you know. And I don't think we can just by using

only quantitative methods to bypass some of those concepts-

P: That you can't quantify.

M: Which we cannot quantify.

P: Yeah, I agree with you.

M: In other words, I think we ought to pay more, become more attention to

quantify, quantify. Because what is the sense in the, in the end I can

teach an Arab to, to, to, to memorize the whole Koran. What does it mean?

There are the values in it, but if it has to be somehow worked into a prac-

tical, into what I call, a practical life philosophy.

P: Uh hum.
iJI ', r i' u '
M: But there's a value system. And every, ev&ry, every //'t,. value system

out of it. I'm afraid we are, we' 11 have a,; c- of confron-

tation for a long time. As long as we are all,- .'./ / '-- ,- '-. .'.'-

P: Was the Retired Faculty Association, do they also try to get more money

for the University as a, in general, more funding?

M: Whether theyipersonally put some more money into funding,or-

P: No, did they try to lobby the legislature or, you know, try to-

M: I would think so. I, I mean I, I mean, anyhow we feel that we are the

grandparents somehow, you know, I mean, we are-

P: Right. Protect the grandchild?

M: You feel all this, you feel sympathetic.

P: Uh hum.

M: But maybe somebody here,' t-ey a-e, :- : .. ------ you know. But I

think that would be the exception.








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P: How often does it meet? Your group.

M: Well, we meet not too often, but I think in a year maybe three times.

P: Three times all told.

M: Three times. It's like everything else, you see, whenever I ----

sometimes -------- I have to take this man out for this, and

take that man out. You see, you have coming into this period, where you

shrink somehow, even if something else coming in here-

P: Uh hum.

M: So, the tendency, really, is that this _______ d go to the young

ideas of the time and let's say somebody retires at sixty-five. And

most people now would retire at sixty-five. I was also retired at

seventy and in a very short time of being ---/ .*. feet o-te

ground, you know.

P: Uh hum, uh hum.


M: Besides that, when, when you get older, a lot of people just don't

don't have the interest anymore.

P: That's true. Is there anything else that you'd like to comment on, your

career here at the University?

M: Well, I tell you, I, I, I'd be grateful at the opportunity.

P: We appreciate your taking your time to come to help talk to us.

M: Well, I thought, you know, I, at the beginning I felt I probably cannot

contribute anything, but I thought, well, I cannot say no.

P: Oral History /,: :,, .'

M: If somebody feels, if somebody feels it might be helpful, you know.








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P: No, it's interesting and-

M: So, if you, if you cut out most of it that will be alright with me.

P: Well, I told you this before, but this tape will just be used, it'll

be transcribed on, onto paper and it will be used just for historical

research and-

M: Goodbye.

P: Goodbye, and, and and thank you very much. When we type itEp and

everything, we'll want your signed release, and the scholars can use this

for research in history. And, appreciate you very much for, for taking

your time .to do this.