John W. Morris
The only confrontation I had with him had to do with a racial issue in Mobile District.
Colonel Drake Wilson was the district engineer, and I received a call one day from the
secretary's office about a latrine which had "black" and "white" signs on it.
Secretary Hoffman asked me to come over and see him about this report. I asked for a little
time to get back to him. It turned out that it was true. It was an abandoned building which had
not been in use for some time. Colonel Wilson had it tom down at once.
So I went back to the secretary, and I explained all of this to him, and he indicated we would
have to take our lumps on this one. That was that.
In January 1976 he was replaced by Clifford Alexander. Alexander also was an astute
politician. He carried the equal rights program every place he went. That was a top item on
his list of things to do.
There was a sincere ongoing effort by the Corps to resolve the racial issues, but Secretary
Alexander made sure. He came to our division engineers conference in the Land Between the
Lakes, Kentucky, raked the Corps very hard, and told those present what he expected in
strong terms.
If Alexander intended to make an impact on the Corps leaders he was successful. Having him
attend the conference was good because he saw the division engineers and staffs discuss
politically sensitive issues, criticize each other, and try to find the right answers. He saw the
committees working on current problems and on long-range objectives. So it was good for
him to come, but he did give us a strong and critical message, which everyone remembers.
My association with Alexander, though, improved. Improved may not be the right word. It
matured, because it started off with each not knowing the other and having to get acquainted,
and there were some uncertainties following my meeting with President Carter.
I didn't know his priorities initially. So we had several meetings early on, and shortly after
he came in, he again brought up the toilet problem in the Mobile district. The same people
who had raised the matter with Secretary Hoffman had apparently brought it to Alexander's
attention, not reporting that the thing had been destroyed.
When he brought it up, I mentioned having been down this trail already with his predecessor.
I assured him there was nothing there.
He seemed to appreciate the advice I had given im on the way to the White House about the
h
hit lists, and the dam safety inspection programwas handled with some political correctness.
In a matter of weeks after that, Lock and Dam 26 surfaced as a critical issue, and Secretary
of Transportation Brock Adams wanted to make another study.
Secretary Alexander made an appointment to go see Secretary Adams and asked me if I'd
come along. I remember I didn't think we needed another study, and I was sure we could not
have other elements of the government making a study of our projects. If there was to be a
study made, it should be done by the responsible agency, and that was the Secretary of the
Army and the Chief of Engineers. So the Army just had to stand tough on that with Secretary
Brock Adams.
So he did. Secretary Alexander handled that very well. I thought it was the end of the deal,
but it wasn't. I didn't realize that Alexander had agreed to take 18 months to do a re-
evaluation.. In the meantime, work would be delayed. I wrote a letter to the secretary
explaining that we'd never brought up the subject of safety before, but this project was in bad
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