Mac

When today's Arizonans think about the state's most important U.S. Senators, they go to Barry Goldwater and John McCain. A few will remember Carl Hayden, one of the longest-serving members of the Senate and, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, third in the line of succession to the White House.

Yet Goldwater, although the father of the right-wing takeover of the Republican Party, had a thin layer of legislative accomplishments, and McCain did almost nothing for the state he made his home. Hayden was undeniably the most important figure in winning the Central Arizona Project in Congress.

The Arizona Senator who casts the longest shadow of accomplishments is nearly forgotten: Ernest McFarland. First elected in 1940 when he defeated incumbent Henry Fountain Ashurst, Mac was an important partner with Hayden in fighting for Arizona's share of Colorado River water. His most significant accomplishment was sponsoring the GI Bill, which provided benefits for returning benefits for returning World War II veterans, including educational benefits.

Mac was the father of the GI Bill. He also served as Senate Majority Leader from 1951 to 1953, followed by Lyndon Johnson.

It was a long way from the log cabin in which Mac was born in 1894. Like many Arizonans at the time, he was from Oklahoma, Pottawatomie County in the central part of the state. He came to Arizona in 1919 after serving in the Navy during World War I, first working in a Phoenix bank and joining Central Methodist Church.

Soon, he enrolled in Stanford and received a law degree, then opened his practice in Casa Grande (where he also made a Homestead Act claim on 160 acres nearby). Getting to know many Arizona politicians including Gov. George W.P. Hunt, Mac was elected Pinal County Attorney in 1924. And he was on his way.

Yet for all his accomplishments, Mac was surprisingly defeated in 1952 by Phoenix City Councilman and department-store heir Goldwater. It was a close election, and Mac was dragged down by President Harry Truman's deep unpopularity over the Korean War. Goldwater ran a campaign overseen by Stephen Shadegg, who went on to play a big role in Goldwater's 1964 presidential run. And Arizona was changing, with the influx of Midwestern Republicans.

Hard as it is to believe today, at the time Arizona was a solidly Democratic state (Mark Kelly's election in 2020 marked the first time since 1952 that the state had two Democrats in the U.S. Senate).

Back home, Mac was elected governor in 1955, serving two terms. Improving public education was one of his big priorities. He signed the proclamation enacting the results of the 1958 voter initiative that turned Arizona State College into Arizona State University. He also helped picked the site for Glen Canyon Dam and created the state parks system.

By far Mac's biggest accomplishment as govenor was the controversial removal of star lawyer John P. Frank (mentor of future Gov. Janet Napolitano) from the Arizona v. California lawsuit. 

With his experience in water law and work in the Senate, Mac chose the relatively lesser-known Mark Wilmer and Charlie Reed as lead lawyers. They shifted to a risky and novel argument in the case, yet it proved successful. In 1964, Arizona finally prevailed in the lawsuit, opening the way for the Central Arizona Project.

Mac proved there were second acts in American lives — second, third, and fourth. After his governorship, he failed to unseat Goldwater. But he ran KTVK, Phoenix's third television station, which he established in 1955 and practiced law. In 1965, Mac was named to the Arizona Supreme Court, becoming Chief Justice. He also became involved in preservation, purchasing the historic Pinal County Courthouse in Florence and donating it to the state.

When he died in 1984, he remains the only Arizonan to have served in the legislative, executive, and judiciary branches of government, with a monumental legacy.

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My book, A Brief History of Phoenix, is available to buy or order at your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.

Read more Phoenix history in Rogue's Phoenix 101 archive.

 

 

Comments

[Cal Lash]

Hayden and McFarland were Political exceptions. Like Eisenhower they were Honest and respectable human beings. They didn’t seem to have mob and corrupt baggage hanging off to the side. But those days are gone. Nixon got the country going sideways while Eve Mecham tried to do what the Arizona GOP does now.
But of course I must say, Mac picked the site for Glenn Canyon Dam – BAD, BAD, BAD.
Speaking of dams, An Idaho Republican talks about breaching some?
We need salmon for our daily bread.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/gop-congressman-pitches-34-billion-plan-to-breach-lower-snake-river-dams-in-new-vision-for-northwest/
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/environment/article248988810.html
The CAP was another huge mistake! Only less so than towing Icebergs to the VALLEY OF THE SUN.
Arizona population should be 296,529 not 7.17 Million. Hopefully given my age I soon be able to help reduce the numbers. But them pale faces keep coming searching for Del Webb.
And the American natives are making a comeback. They got a lot of Spanish horses.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-says-much-of-eastern-oklahoma-remains-indian-land/2020/07/09/7bdc42d4-c1e2-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_story.html

[soleri]

Carl Hayden used to say there were showhorse senators and workhorse senators, and he was in the latter group. Henry Fountain Ashurst was in the former, virtually Shakespearean in his grandiloquence. When Ernest McFarland beat him in 1940, Arizona had two, which lasted until it elected a showhorse in 1952. Barry Goldwater was probably the first of the Sunbelt radicals, a Robert Taft-style conservative at the outset who soon made Arizona synonymous with hostility toward the federal government (and its necessary role in securing civil rights for blacks). Hayden and McFarland knew the type well. Hayden had to fend off an energetic challenge from the hayseed ideologue Ev Mecham in 1962.

My father was McFarland's personal physician in mid-50s. I can remember him bending over to shake my little hand and smiling beneficently. He was old-school in most respects, courtly and dignified. His career was important but it was never a major political force in our governance. Had he won re-election in 1952, it might have been different. One way of looking at the scope of any transformative career is the presence of a magisterial biography that usually attends it. There was none for McFarland, or for that matter, Goldwater. There simply wasn't the necessity although both figures made Arizona proud in their different ways.

As long as we're talking about Arizona political figures, I note the passing of Barbara Lubin, who died a few days ago of a brain tumor (Barbara had even given it a name: Donald Trump). She was head of Arizona's Clean Elections Institute and helped spearhead the ballot proposition in 1998 that enabled it. The Anti-American Party (aka, GOP) fought it in court for years but she and her allies beat them back. Without that act, Arizona would be as gerrymandered as Georgia. Her career and life were consequential for the betterment of her state. She was 63.

[Ramjet]

A very good biography of McFarland does exist.
It is "Ernest W McFarland" by James Elton McMillan Jr.

[Rich Weinroth]

So Wendy Rogers wants to designate Arizona State Route 260 as the Donald J. Trump Highway. Yes, we all know how much Trump contributed to Arizona and how deserving he is of the honor of having his name on an Arizona highway. What a sad and pathetic joke. Virtually no one in Arizona knows about McFarland. He might as well have lived his entire life in Timbuktu. Rogers' proposal just about perfectly sums up the current state of the Arizona Republican Party and the ignorance of Arizona history.

[Cal Lash]

Suicide
Were on a train raging about bull shit not caring that the bridge has collapsed.

[Mike Doughty]

“ He also became involved in preservation, purchasing the historic Pinal County Courthouse in Florence and donating it to the state.”When was the last time a politician did that. They can raise millions on the internet but not one dime is ever used for something that tha people can use.It is disgusting,for both parties.

[Marc Cavness]

Mac told me about meeting FDR in the oval, in 1944. He told the president “you’re about to win this war, and bring home 7 million soldiers and sailors. We don’t have jobs for them, and their wives who are working in defense plants are going to lose their jobs. I’ve got here a bill to send some to college; others can buy houses with nothing down and low interest loans, which will make jobs for home builders, furniture and appliance manufacturers, car makers and road builders.”

FDR replied that we don’t have money for that, we are borrowing money now. Mac put his papers into his folder. As he was shuffling out (his term), Mac looked back over his shoulder and said “well, I guess the veterans will call the encampments outside our great cities Rooseveltvilles. It isn’t as easy to pronounce as Hooverville, but they’ll get used to it."

Roosevelt told him to come back. And with that, and legislative work that followed, the GI Bill was born. It changed American society and its economy, more than any act until the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act.

[Cal Lash]

Marc, what do you suppose Mac would tell FDR now?

“humanity is running an ecological Ponzi scheme”
Within the lifetime of anyone born at the start of the Baby Boom, the human population has tripled. Has this resulted in a human endeavor three times better — or one-third as capable of surviving? In the 1960s, humans took about three-quarters of what the planet could regenerate annually. By 2016 this rose to 170 percent, meaning that the planet cannot keep up with human demand, and we are running the world down.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/avoiding-a-ghastly-future-hard-truths-on-the-state-of-the-planet

[Ramjet]

I have said many times before: We are screwing ourselves a place to stand.

[Cal Lash]

The Reverend Thomas said it first.

[Cal Lash]

From Rogue Arizona pages. WATER. And Glenn Canyon Dam.

https://kjzz.org/content/1657844/new-study-examines-colorado-river-flows-loss-beaches

President Biden recently suggested that he wants to “make America California again”.
“Once the ultimate land of youth, the Golden State is now ageing 50% faster than the rest of the country. In time, the wheelchair could replace the surfboard as the symbol of the state.
Rather than the state where dreams are made, in reality California increasingly presents the prototype of a new feudalism fused oddly with a supposedly progressive model in which inequality is growing, not falling.”
https://unherd.com/2021/02/the-collapse-of-california/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3

Why is it that the destruction of something created by humans is called vandalism, yet the destruction of something created by God is called development?
Edward Abbey

Note: Joel Kotkin quoted here will not be popular with some on this blog.

“Kotkin argues that the model of urban development as exemplified by pre-automobile cities such as New York City and Paris is outdated in many cases. Kotkin believes in a "back to basics" approach which stresses nurturing the middle class and families with traditional suburban development. He states that the current trend of growth of suburbs will be the dominant pattern around the world.[10] As a result, one of his arguments is that rail transit is not always ideal for modern cities and suburbs.[11]
From Wikipedia

[Kevin in Preskitt]

Thanks for sharing the story of Ernest McFarland. As an Arizona native, I don't recall ever learning about him in school. Yes, an Arizona highway should be named after him. Maybe a now-meaningless street name, such as Northern Avenue in Phoenix, could also be renamed to honor him.

[Cal Lash]

I'd rather it be Dunlap that got replaced.
I liked it when it was still Olive.
I would stick with Northern.
I don't think MAC would approve and
now he doesn't care.
The east valley is big on family names for streets?
I am not a fan of naming streets after people at all.
But then I am not a fan of statues of people.
Well maybe one of Camus in Algeria.

While once on vacation I passed through Gettysburg with not even a glance at all the iron and concrete memorials.
The motel was nice the food was terrible.

[Rogue Columnist]

RC peeps: Can anyone answer the new question on this column:

https://www.roguecolumnist.com/rogue_columnist/2016/05/phoenix-101-the-forties.html

It's at the bottom of the comments. Thanks.

[Scott Jarson]

I met him with my Dad and a grape packing shed... I was very proud to have met him.

[Ramjet]

I believe it was probably Skaggs Homes

[Cal Lash]

Skaggs seems right.
Hoffman wasnt building that far out in the early 50's.

[Rogue Columnist]

Please answer on the Forties column below her question. Thanks.

[Ramjet]

Hoffman was more centered in the 27th Ave & Indian School - Camelback area

[Crypto]

Excellent Talton article on Go Big stimulus.

The conservative financial networks and pundits are parading Larry Summers, a Clinton Democrat, front and center in their efforts to substantially weaken Biden's proposed $1.9 trillion legislation. Summers, as an Obama administration official, was instrumental in watering down Obama's 2009 rescue package for the Great Recession. Sluggish growth, much unnecessary pain to America, and Republicans regaining control of Congress in 2010 resulted.

Summers is a regular pundit on Bloomberg TV. With a Phd in Economics from Harvard, Sumners demonstrates the political and economic acumen of a not very bright cost accountant.

[Joe Schallan]

I'll post here and to the original post, as there may be interest in both places.

Skaggs was the drug store chain, with the outlets in my part of Phoenix often attached to a Bashas' grocery store (32nd St. and Indian School being an example).

Ralph Staggs with a "t" was the homebuilder. Here's a list of the housing developments he built:

https://arizonareport.com/staggs-bilt-homes-phoenix/

Freeway Park (what a name, there) at North 23rd Avenue and West Butler seems the closest Staggs match to the location the poster is remembering.

The Arizona Report, btw, is produced by a real estate salesman with an interest in real estate development history. It appears to be well researched and written, though the author does not source his findings.

Looking at Google satellite views, I see nothing that looks like a tract home development south of 29th Avenue and Northern, but north of that intersection, along the east side of 29th Avenue, we have Alta Vista which, from ads in the Republic, appears to have been launched by Hoffman Homes in 1953. To the west of 29th are what looks like later infill houses, plus townhouses (Northern Manor) by Hallcraft, 1973.

[Cal Lash]

Good work Joe.

[Cal Lash]

Looks like my parents house in Alta Vista at 30th Avenue and Butler was a Hallcraft. That sounds familar. For some reason i considered houses built with small red brick walls as built by Hoffman.