Engineer Memoirs
Arkansas; Senator ILyndon] Johnson, Texas; Senator [Allen] Ellender, Louisiana; Senator [J.
William] Fulbright, Arkansas; Senator
Kansas; and others.
The congressional group included Jim Wright, Texas; Ed Edmonson and Carl Albert, Oklahoma;
Wilbur Mills, Arkansas; plus the remainder of the Oklahoma delegation. Insofar as the public
works program was concerned, that group formed a political powerhouse.
Don McBride saw the problems and the opportunities, and Kerr provided the essential leadership
for solutions and progress. I was able to learn so much about the political arena from them.
Senator Kerr's funeral was held in Oklahoma
and General Wilson, the Chief of Engineers,
came. Ultimately and properly, the Arkansas River project was named the McClellan-Kerr
navigation project.
Because of the major and continuous public involvement as part of our work, an active public
relations program was essential. Locklin L. Mouton, from Albuquerque, came to Tulsa with his
wife, Inez, about the same time as Gerry and I. Locke and I became very close. Donna, his
assistant, a GS-2, helped Locke start a public relations program that had high visibility and was
driven to keep the public fully informed on the Corps' activities. Donna was outstandingly
capable and in time moved up to the top administrative position in the district.
The Arkansas Basin Development Association [ABDA] was the energetic organizing and
lobbying group that testified in support of the congressional legislation that supported projects
in Arkansas and Oklahoma. The director was Colonel [retired] Francis Wilson. He was a graduate
of the U.S. Military Academy and former Tulsa District engineer. He was called "Babe" Wilson
because he was forever young looking, and he helped me tremendously.
When I first came to Tulsa, he, Early Cass, Glade Kirkpatrick, Charles Gannaway, Versur Hicks,
and some other ABDA leaders had me to the Tulsa Club for lunch and gave their time to bring
me into the picture and get to know them and their concerns. From the first days, the national and
local power structure became quite clear, much to my advantage. We impacted the public so
much that it was crucial that I knew the issues and executed an effective public information
program. The ABDA was invaluable.
On reflection, the two things that we undertook initially were to get our construction program in
high gear and to implement a positive plan to deal with the public based on an understanding of
local and national leadership issues.
To keep everyone in the district aware of what we were to do, I issued district goals and
objectives and had classes to discuss how to go about the business of reaching them. The list
included cost control by project with special attention to overhead costs. I was not the only one
watching the cost data, I soon learned.
General Carroll Dunn, the Southwest Division engineer, called to tell me he was to come see me
in late August or early September. General Dunn came and immediately said, "Morris, you've
done some good things in the short while you've been here, but you've got one real problem that
you've got to solve, and I mean right away. Your overhead's too high!"
I indicated I knew it and explained what we had done and were doing about it. I knew what was
wrong, but I had not made a point of telling General Dunn that this was a problem that we were
going to solve. So an old lesson was relearned. If you've got a problem, the best thing to do with
it is put it out in the open and tell the boss what is being done to fix it, rather than waiting for him
to find it.
General Dunn was the division engineer most of my tour. [Brigadier] General [Richard H.] Free
replaced him later.
Previous Page
