interview on August the 11th, 1976 with Mr. W.O.
Tidman, a citizen of Baytown who has
been involved in Baytown politics for almost 50 years.
Mr. Tidman, how did you get involved in politics?
What was your early training?
Early training was in school in Missouri, our
school teacher was named Steven Sparks
who was at the time serving as the Justice of
Peace, performing marriage ceremonies at
the school at noon hour was a common occurrence
and naturally he was interested in government.
He taught government from A to Z, how laws are
made and how our government operates from
as I say from making laws to enforcing the laws.
We would elect a judge and a sheriff and a
district attorney and go through mock trials
in our school study of government, making it
interesting and very educational, I enjoyed it.
How long did you stay in Missouri?
Until I was 14, we came to Texas in the fall of
14 to Alice, Jim Wells County, Alice, Texas.
I didn't learn much government in that because
I was set back one grade because you had to
have Texas government and that wasn't taught in
the 8th grade, it was taught in the 7th grade.
So I didn't enjoy my government teaching in Texas.
I thought we had 48 states then and not just so
much interest on the history of one state.
But later on we moved to Goose Creek and worked
for Humble Oil and in the pipe department
and Mr. Dan McGarry was a time keeper in the
pipe department, also the election judge at
Precinct 100.
He asked me to be an election clerk, help with
elections, using paper ballots and in
the early days people, in my opinion, were more
interested in the government, more people
percentage wise at least voted and with paper
ballots you'd have to actually use them in
conducting elections to understand the problems
and realize the importance of government and elections.
So you got involved in politics fairly young in
your life.
How old were you when you were an election clerk?
28 years old.
I noticed in meeting you and your lovely wife
that she is just as vivacious and involved
in politics as you are.
How did you get to know her?
She was teaching school at the Ashville Smith
School where my children, my first married
wife had attended school.
Her friend and her friend's husband happened to
be a neighbor of mine and a good friend
so we became acquainted through the school and
her work and we did agree on most things
in politics and I just married the girl.
Do you disagree with her very often in your
politics these days?
No, no one that's sincere and informed will
agree all the time but I'd say at least 95%
of the time we agree on the issues and
candidates and it makes it very pleasant.
Going back to at the age of 28 becoming an
election clerk, what made you want to get
involved at this age?
Being 28, wouldn't that be a time that you'd be
more involved with starting a career or family?
What made you get involved in politics?
My early training I believe had taught me that
it was important that if you then we
knew that if we kept the school board that
liked this teacher that we liked, well you'd
have to participate in elections.
And the only time I remember my father getting
skinned up to any extent at all was a school
board election.
He was a little bit skinned up but we still
kept the same school teacher.
Was that Goose Creek?
No, that was in Missouri.
In Missouri.
So this fight for not just Baytown problems,
there were problems in Missouri too.
That's correct.
So you became an election clerk at the age of
28, can you think of any early elections
that were particularly exciting in Baytown in
these formative years?
The first was the city council elections and we
had a candidate, a candidate for mayor
and the city council who thought the people,
the city of Baytown should own their own light
and power plant.
Who was the mayor at that time?
Mr. Chris Meyers and we attempted for several
years to get this done but we had opposition
from the Houston Light and Power Company and
they continually, their attorney would find
something wrong with the city elections and
have it thrown out and we'd have another one
and elect Chris Meyers.
That went on for several years, I don't know
exactly but it seems to me like it was eight
or ten elections.
Are you saying then that Chris Meyers had to be
elected several times because it kept
being thrown out because of technicality?
That's my best recollection.
In other words, they were trying to get rid of
Chris Meyers.
Sure was, at least in city government and of
course Houston Light and Power Company
finally won, they had more money in them.
They won, got some people on the city council
and obtained a 50 year franchise but before
that happened, some of the things that the city
council raises, we blocked off Commerce
Street from Texas Avenue to Pierce Street and
put a flatbed truck out in the middle
of the street and the candidates used that for
their speaking platform and naturally
there were hot arguments and contests and I
don't like to go into detail but there was
a few of this type, mostly just verbal fights
but it was very interesting and the...
Well going back to this Houston Lighting and
Power Company fight, was anybody ever physically
abused because of their opinions?
Sure was, the mayor, Chris Meyers, got skin up
pretty severely, he had black eyes and
Who did that?
One of the employees of the Houston Lighting
and Power Company, I don't guess it would
be best to put it on tape.
I knew him, I knew where he lived but he was a
very husky young Fella and I feel like the
employer was, of course it's an only opinion,
but I feel like the employer was the cause
of it.
They knew he was bigger and stronger and
younger than Chris Meyers and skin him up and anyway
it happened anyway right there on Asheville
Street between Pierce and Texas Avenue.
Is that person still living in Baytown today? No.
How do you think that that person got paid off
as a result of beating up Chris Meyers?
I think he was a better fighter than he was an electrician.
Oh is that right, so he got... did this man
appear to get prosperous suddenly as a result?
No, this one didn't, unfortunately, well
unfortunately he didn't.
I don't recall that he was an employee of the
Houston Lighting and Power very much longer.
I don't know what happened to him but he vanished.
Okay, so Houston Lighting and Power then got
their franchise.
That's right.
Can you think of any other elections of this type?
Did you find that this type of physical or
mental abuse was the rule of the day in these
early elections?
It was not too common but it did happen and it
continued to happen.
We had a school board election that was real
hotly contested.
I do not recall any fist fights over them but
we... whoever was the winner would
get his school superintendent elections to fire
Smith, the school superintendent, and
Roy Harvey's crew of school board candidates
were elected and Smith was gone.
Later on Mr. Roman was hired after Smith and
the same thing happened again and he lost
the school board election and he was gone and
then we had Mr. Gentry as the school superintendent
and the effort was made for four or five years
to fire him.
Why were they trying to fire Mr. Gentry?
One of the school board members got real upset
with Mr. Gentry and it was not clear to me
what he was angry about but the charge was that
he hadn't followed instructions on the
purchase of the rings, the class rings, and the
school annual and I heard some of the
conversation between the school board and Mr.
Gentry and then of course we had a hearing
and Mr. Edgar, the state education
commissioner, conducted the, I call it a trial
here in the
Robert Lee High School and nothing was proved
when it came to actual proof of wrongdoing.
They had none and as the record shows Mr.
Gentry stayed until he was entitled to retirement.
Well who was leading the fight against Mr. Gentry?
Mr. Von Stark was one of the board members and
that he never could get a majority that
was supposed to fire Mr. Gentry.
Why was our summit of the superintendents fired?
Why was it the graveyard of superintendents,
what was the problem?
There was, we had athletics, we had football
teams and the total athletic program and it
has been charged whether, well, that the
bosses, we'll say the big bosses, the boys got
a better
break in football being quarterback or whatever
it was, so I believe that was the main thing,
more about the athletic program and about the
schoolroom problems.
What type of schoolroom problems are you
talking about?
I don't believe it was the educational part of
it, I believe it was the school superintendents
evidently didn't please the big bosses about
their son getting on the football team.
Well who were the big bosses at this time?
Back in the early days it was Mr. Powell and of
course the various, we had about five department
heads out there.
Department heads where?
In the Ombudsman, the Carpenter department,
pipe department, machinist department, bar
making department, all of them were pretty big
foremen, had four or five hundred men
working for them.
Are you saying then that even at that time that
Humble Oil Company was pretty well controlling
the political atmosphere of the city?
Yes, it had to be because the record shows that
Humble kept the majority of the school
board members that were employees of Humble Oil.
So what type of control did they hold, how did
they get their men elected?
That's, well, shut it off.
Maybe I can clarify that question a little bit.
You said that Humble Oil Company did have
control over the atmosphere, political atmosphere
of the community.
How did they go about doing this?
How did they get their men elected?
What techniques did they use?
Through the financial structure of the town,
Humble of course purchased many goods and
services and supported the Baytown Sun through
political advertisements and of course thereby
they had the favorable light shown on their
candidates and gave them an advantage so I
feel it was the Baytown Sun that was the reason
they could control the school board.
Well, was the Baytown Sun the only newspaper in
town at that time?
What about the Goose Creek Gas?
It went out of business because of the lack of,
the newspapers are sport and mostly by advertising.
It is not the subscribers who will finance the
newspaper, it's the advertising.
And Mr. Meyers was not in the newspaper
business much longer after he lost the mayor's race.
Oh, this is the same Chris Meyers that was
fighting for Houston Lighting and Power.
Was Humble Oil receptive to the idea of Houston
Power and Light Company getting this franchise
or was there any opinion on that?
Well, Houston Lighting and Power Company is
tied in directly to the Humble plant.
Humble in the early days had to produce most of
their power before Houston Lighting and
Power Company was big enough but very evident
that they can buy the power from Houston Lighting
and Power where the hookup is cheaper than they
can produce all of their own.
Now they have some power plants out there yet
but the major portion of it is evidence
when Houston Lighting and Power Company only a
few years back, about six years ago, shut
off the power.
They notified them, all right, they said we
shut off the power and Humble had to pump
out their plant.
Well, I've noticed in recent years that Exile
now has a number of their employees on various
boards and commissions in the community.
How do they go about selecting which man is
going to run for a position or do they actually
do this?
Yes, they have control of who is a candidate
for any public office except the ditch digger
or the low-late mechanic and not many of those
have served on school boards at least since 1938.
So a monthly man has to get permission from the
employer to be a candidate for public office.
And so naturally they can say who can be on the
school board or who can be on City council
and who cannot.
Can you remember a specific incident where this
happened where a man wanted to run for
a position but was told he could not?
Yes, on the school board race during the
attempt to fire a gentry, Mr. Jess Stovall wanted
to be a candidate for a school board and he
couldn't get permission for a long time.
In fact, it was almost filing deadline and in
the afternoon he came over to the paper
with his hard hat on to get his picture made
and made the announcement.
And a little conversation had been had with the
Houston Light and Power Company boss and
was about to get one of their employees to be a
candidate and it wasn't about an hour
later until almost turned their mind loose and
let him be a candidate, Jess Stovall.
When you talked about management being involved
in Baytown politics, what about labor unions?
What effect do they have on politics in Baytown?
In 34, 36, 38 we were successful.
The local 333 OCAW had people on the school
boards and city council but we didn't let
that last long.
They found a way to put in the system that I
just mentioned.
Okay, is that union still part of Exxon today?
No, the union lost the election in 64, I believe.
How did this come about?
Were there any unusual techniques that they
used to get the union to lose the election?
It can be a little difficult but they can take
a man that's eligible to be a member
of the union and promote him or transfer him.
So some were promoted and some were transferred
that were leaders in the union and take away
your leadership.
Do you think they do that today when a man is
elected to a public office and they're
not too thrilled about it?
Do you think they might transfer him?
Some on the city council through the years have
been transferred out of town and I felt
like it was because they didn't like what he
was doing on the city council.
They didn't want to just up and fire him so
they would transfer him and then you have
a vacancy on your school board or your city council.
Did I hear a story one time about a man that
got elected to a position and they didn't
like what he was doing so they sent him off to
an island somewhere, to an Exxon refinery
in some remote island?
It was not on an island.
It was in the coal country.
His name was Claude Foster and they sent him
to-anyway, he was transferred out of
town and, of course, naturally he can't serve
on the school board if he's transferred
to Montana.
Have things like this occurred more recently or
are all these types of things in the past?
That's in the past.
I don't know of any in several years that have.
Could you think of-what about a precinct judge
or something?
What about Jim McWilliams who was a member of
the city council?
Well, that's a pretty good example of it.
A good friend of ours.
The Houston Humble Law wanted the city of
Baytown to run the sewer lines closer to the
main office they were building on Decatur Drive
than was customary and Jim McWilliams
on the city council would not vote for that.
And he lost his job as the dean of Lee College.
What about Mr. Cig Osterhus that was recently
elected a precinct chairman and then all of
a sudden got transferred?
Do you think that has anything to do with
Ex-Arm being upset about him winning that election?
I do not know specifically.
I know he was defeated.
He was elected an election judge in May of 76
and a couple of months later, well, he
was transferred.
There's no proof that that was a political
reply at all.
Well, isn't the job of Precinct chairman a
fairly powerful job?
It is to this extent in that the election
judges or the executive committee of Harris
County Democrats and fill vacancies.
The last one here of any importance was when
the constable passed away between the primary
and the November election and the election
judges in the constable precinct named Jim
Douglas as the candidate and he is still
serving as the constable.
That is the latest one, but down through the
years, the election judges have appointed
probate judges, criminal district judges,
county Democrat chairman and many of the offices
that are refilled.
So in that way, the election judges are a
pretty potent political force.
Would you then, taking this into mind, don't
you think that an industry, if they had one
of their team as an election judge, they would
be very thrilled for this to happen?
If they can keep control of it, but they don't
think about that ahead of time enough to seemingly,
at least Exxon hasn't always been able to
control them.
I don't know if they for sure they want to.
They're going to have their number of criminal
district judges and their number of people
in public office, sure, if they should have some.
But we've been able to put several of the
people that we like in there also.
So Hummel Oil or Exxon has had a big effect on
Maytown politics, but now you've had some
different industries coming in.
What about U.S. Steel?
What effect have they had?
Have they caused competition for Exxon?
Well, we have at least one, as I recall, that's
on the Lee College Board of Regents that works
for U.S. Steel.
That may be agreeable between Exxon and U.S. Steel.
They're a pretty big company, though.
You know, U.S. Steel is and actually would be
entitled to some representation on our
city council or school boards or board of regents.
How would you compare Exxon's feelings towards
the schools and the school boards today with
the old leaders of Hummel Oil, say, 40 years ago?
Forty years ago, it was a one-job town, and
most of the citizens of Baytown were employees
of Hummel Oil.
And the management, I'll call it, of Hummel Oil
was interested in the schools.
They really were and would support the schools
by paying quite a good sum of the taxes voluntarily
and would pay them in advance so we didn't have
to borrow money.
They really saw the need of education.
The employees of 19 and 28 were handicapped,
but they wanted to promote them to department
heads by not having enough education.
So they wanted some employees right here that
could read and write.
So they were very much behind the school system
in building these schools.
What about the controversy about building
Sterling High School?
How did Hummel Oil work towards getting this
school being built?
It was delayed.
The school board, Humble Employees, did not
want to build Sterling High School.
We needed it at least four years before it was
built, and we were so crowded in Lee High School.
So why did they not want it built?
I feel like you would have two high schools,
you'd have two football teams.
I felt it would be more difficult to run two of
them like they could the one football team.
That's my opinion.
And anyway, they said we didn't need another
high school and some of them were told that
we have to have another high school and we have
to get another school board to get it built.
We'll do it, and we did.
It was done.
You told me a story one time about your
daughter and what she stated about getting more
students into Lee High School.
We have four junior high schools in Baytown.
The graduation ceremony of all four of them
were held on Elm Field.
And there was quite a bunch of youngsters to go
to high school next year.
And I remarked to my daughter Janice, well, you
have plenty of room at Lee High School
for these kids.
The school board members say we do.
So Janice said if we get many more students in
Lee High School, you'll have to have some
Vaseline and a slipper spoon.
Okay, we've talked about industry.
We've talked about some of the early leaders,
about school boards.
There's another part of Baytown political
history I'd like for us to get into for just a moment.
Tell me something about the early days of the
clans in Baytown.
How did they affect politics?
Goose Creek was so far by the rough roads we
had from Houston, the county seat.
And evidently the Houston people didn't think
that Goose Creek would ever amount to much.
So we didn't get our share of law enforcement.
And things were pretty rough.
But the production department in the oil fields
was employing a number of people and they fluctuate.
And we had a pretty rough bunch of people
living in Baytown, pretty rowdy, cursing and fighting
and drinking and quite a bit of stealing going on.
But we could get no help from law enforcement
in Houston.
So as this happened, and in no opinion this
happened, we know that we had lawlessness.
I worked at a grocery store on Texas Avenue one
evening about three or 4:00.
I left the store and came back.
There was bullet holes in the front door of the
store and blood all over the street.
Had a running gun battle right there on Texas Avenue.
So the Ku Klux Klan was formed.
I knew their voices.
I went to church with some of them and I worked
with them.
I knew their voices.
And they gave us a few of the rough ends going
over and told them to either straighten up or
leave town.
So finally there was an incident that happened
that got the Ku Klux in trouble.
The meanness did stop.
We stopped so much of the meanness going on.
I know that.
And then the Ku Klux was blamed with an
instance of cutting off a woman's hair.
Well, cutting off a woman's hair in those early
days was a terrible thing.
And it got to be a political issue.
And the anti-Ku Klux man, Mr. King, Langston
King, was elected criminal district judge on
the anti-Ku Klux ticket.
Of course, we did clean up the town and then
that got the attention of the county
authorities and they sent us a good share about it.
So what effect has the Klan had on politics
since that point?
Has it really been an effective political machine?
That brought the relief from the county
government that had been asked for for a long time.
So we've had deputy sheriffs out here and they
decided that Baytown was going to be here to
stay so it's a part of the county now.
We've talked about the effect of Humble Oil on
some political institutions.
Were there any real political machines in
Baytown in the early years?
No, it was just everybody was interested in
government more so than seeming today.
A higher percentage voted. That's the record.
We know that.
Now, we had no organization by name until 58.
People, the Democrat election judges, decided
on a program and would do the politics.
Well, if there weren't machines, were there any
groups of individuals that got together and
selected maybe a group of people that they
wanted to have elected?
Something similar to a slate card that we call today?
That's right. Mostly oil workers because the
oil workers of the county, whether it be
Pasadena and Houston and Baytown together, had
representatives from each local union.
Of course, all of the labor organizations had
at least one or two men from each local union
who would meet monthly.
And about 58, I know we had them in 58, we
would have a candidate for county chairman and
his name was Bob Tucker.
He run a printing company. So we printed a
slate card with Bob Tucker's picture and the
County Democrat chairman on one side and on the
other side we had all the other candidates
printed and it was very successful.
That went on from 58 I know through 68, about
10 years.
Well, who came up with this idea of a slate card?
I did.
And you think that it proved to be worth trying?
We were very successful in the union. Of
course, the printer was happy to do all the
printing. I suppose we paid him just for the
printing, but it was effective and we used it.
Of course, it was used throughout the county.
It was a countywide organization, local 227,
367, 333 and all the other labor organizations
in Oink. We had the Harris County Council, AFL
and CL was now on the wayside and telephone.
So that was our political organization. They
put Albert Thomas in as congressman.
So there was a kind of machine.
Yes, there was. Then it was through labor
organizations and then when they sort of lost interest.
Anyway, that organization doesn't exist as it
did in those days and hasn't for some 12 years.
Speaking of organizations, you now have the
East Harris County Democrats. Where did this
get its start?
As the county became larger and when I guess to
fill the void and when the labor unions tired
and quit, why, an attempt was made to keep some
sort of organization.
And then you have Area Five Democrats in
Pasadena and the East Harris County Democrats
in Baytown and North Shore Democrats in
Yosemite City and that area.
So that has done some good.
Did the candidates get much support, let's say
the Democratic candidates, do they get much
support from the East Harris County Democrats
or the Baytown Democrats or other organizations
as far as money or manpower?
Some, but it isn't as effective since we have
been redistricted. We only vote for one man on
state legislature and there's 23 from the county.
It's discouraging to get out and work and you
only vote for one of them and they're not
coordinated throughout the county.
So when you can go to polls and vote and you
know that if you elect all the representatives
from Harris County that go to Austin, we kept
the state sales tax off.
But now it's not as interesting as it was.
We're not as effective as we were.
Were you opposed then to the single member district?
I'd have to say that, I'd say we can be more
effective if we can vote on at least six, but
that's the case we only vote for one and I
would be in favor of at least dividing the
county into four areas and at least vote on say
six of us.
Okay, tell me something about the folks in
Baytown. What type of political animals are
they? Have they changed much in the past few years?
I think so. It was easy up to 58 and 64 to
elect some good solid state representatives who
did keep the state tax sales tax off and other
things beneficial to the working man.
But when they get $8 an hour, $9 an hour, $10
an hour, two automobiles, air conditioned
house, color TV, well then they will tell you,
well I vote for my contract to vote for union
officers and pay my dues and sit back and watch
my color TV and then drink my beer and let the
rest go.
Are you saying then the more affluent they
become, the more conservative they vote?
That's right. That's the record anyway. They
don't vote and they'll tell you they don't vote.
Or is it that they don't vote? What you're
saying then is they no longer vote, not even
conservatively or liberally, they just don't vote.
Their percentages drop down and they don't keep
up. They're too lazy to keep up. When a man is
looking at his meal barrel and it's getting
low, he begins to take no interest in government.
Do you think the inflation rate today is going
to make a difference in the percentages in November?
I hope it does and I believe that we will have
a better vote in November than we've had the
last presidential election. Hope we do anyway.
If you could do something to make Bettonians be
better voters, what do you think that would be?
Or do you think that's possible? The average
citizen doesn't have the resources, the
facilities. We do not have a newspaper.
It's our command. We can put something in the
paper by paying for an ad or we can write
letters to the editor.
But the newspapers and the public media fairly
well control the political.
This is the Baytown sign. Yes, it is in Baytown.
But throughout the county, the people depend,
as I say, on their TV and the newspapers.
And it took away the effectiveness of the
individual local political organizations unless
they would see the need.
And they don't see the need as much as they
should presently.
Do you think then that the people deserve the
type of Watergate situation that they got?
Hard to say, but the message is what it's
about, I think.
If you were talking to young people today, how
would you tell them to get ready for politics
in Baytown?
Is there any special training they can go
through to become effective makers of political
decisions in Baytown?
I know of no avenue at present that they could
just say, I want to get a course in political science.
I know of none in Baytown. Do you think that
it's best that they just jump in and get their
feet wet?
And get beat? Get lose? If they have a desire,
well, they'll find some means to work.
But they get discouraged because of what
they'll run into.
And they started in and was, I'm going to take
part in the election of a president.
And the next four years from now, they'd get
terribly disappointed in the result.
But that's the only way you learn is by, you
learn to be a prior spotter by getting knocked
down a few times.
So you think young people in Baytown are
welcome in politics if they want to join?
Sure. We would love to have many of them
participate in, we would find a way for them to learn.
They could come into the polling place and
watch the election machinery set up and watch
it closed up and ask questions of the election judges.
They're here to inform if they're asked, but if
no one shows an interest, we could have
meetings and have courses in it if there was
any opportunity or any demand for it.
But people get what they demand. And so far,
they haven't asked for any educational information.
Well, Mrs. Hidman has been sitting here during
the taking of this interview.
I was wondering if she had any last-minute
questions or comments that she would like to make.
I heard two mistakes. We used the slave cards
beginning by 1948, not 1958.
Also, when he mentioned Roy Harvey in a school
board race, he meant Walter Harvey.
But he covered the topics of February.
I do think he's pretty well covered.
Well, Mr. Hidman, I'm very grateful that you
have spent many hours in preparation for this
oral history interview.
Do you have anything else that you think you
could add to the tape?
I guess not. The people should be interested in government.
I don't know how to get them into it. It's up
to the parents to see the need and to talk to
the children and tell them that after all,
we're subject to the laws of the land and we
make them or someone makes them for us.
So that's all I can say.
We hope that you will allow us to use this oral
history interview in the Baytown Oral History Project
to be used by citizens in the future who are
interested in finding out how politics was in
the early years in Baytown.
Will you give us this permission to put this in
our collection?
I sure will. I hope it will be of some value.