Indiana Historical Society - Manuscripts and Archives Department

SENIOR LAWYERS PROJECT
COLLECTION, 1968-1991

Collection #
M 0574
CT 0460-0561, 0518-0567,
BV 2597-2604, 2616-2620

Collection Information
Historical/ Biographical Sketch
Scope and Content Note
Box and Folder Listing
Cataloging Information

Processed by
Charles Latham
6 February 1991,|
15 May 1992

 Revised by Glenn McMullen, 
20 April 2000

COLLECTION INFORMATION

HISTORICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

The Senior Lawyers Project was jointly sponsored by the Senior Lawyers Division of the Indianapolis Bar Association, the Indiana Historical Society, and the public history program at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). It was funded by grants from the latter two organizations. The purpose of the project was to record the memories of lawyers connected with recent historical events. The two areas first chosen for investigations were rural electrification in Indiana, and Unigov, the united government for Indianapolis and Marion County which was put into effect in the 1970s. Interviews were conducted by Philip V. Scarpino, director of the public history program in the School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI, and Linda Weintraut, graduate student in public history.

Rural electrification—bringing electric power to isolated rural communities through the formation of state-aided cooperatives—was a project of the New Deal in the 1930s, both through the Farm Bureau and through the Rural Electrification Administration. Two major questions concerning the cooperatives arose in comparatively recent times. One had to do with defining the territories to be served by each utility and protecting these areas from being annexed by municipalities. The other question was whether the cooperatives should be allowed to operate their own generating plants. These questions were addressed by the Indiana General Assembly in a law passed in 1975 and subsequently amended in 1980-1981.

In this area, four senior lawyers were interviewed. Charles W. Campbell, a 1940 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, joined the law firm of Evans and Hebel, which in 1947 disbanded and became the legal department of Public Service of Indiana. He continued in the PSI legal department until his retirement in 1981, at which time he was vice president and general counsel.

James F. Maguire (b. 1947) was associated from 1974 to 1980 with Indiana Statewide Rural Electric Management Cooperatives. From 1977 to 1980 he was legislative counsel and counsel to the general manager.

Willett Parr, Jr. (1903-1988), a graduate of Indiana University and its law school, was senior partner of Parr Richey Obremskey & Morton, which did work for the REMC. He died two days after his preliminary interview.

David S. Richey (b. 1932), also a graduate of Indiana University and Indiana Law School, joined Mr. Parr's firm in 1960 and succeeded him as senior partner. The firm serves as general counsel for Indiana Statewide REMC.

Unigov, a concept associated with the name of then Mayor Richard Lugar, required legislation in the General Assembly to authorize forming a unified government in the City of Indianapolis and the nine townships of Marion County. The Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee did a great deal of the groundwork for the legislation.

Three lawyers were interviewed with regard to Unigov. James W. Beatty (b. 1931), a graduate of University of Michigan Law School, was active in Democratic politics for nearly forty years. From 1964 to 1970 he served as Marion County Democratic chairman and in the 1960s as legal counsel to the City of Indianapolis under Mayor John J. Barton.

Lewis C. Bose (b. l9l7) was a graduate of Swarthmore College and Yale Law School. He served on the Indiana Code Revision Commission (1969) and the Indiana Supreme Court's Character and Fitness Committee. He played an important role in drafting the legislation for Unigov, and also in defending Warren Township in the school desegregation case.

L. Keith Bulen (1926-1999) graduated from Indiana University, and from Indiana University Law School in 1952. He served in the Indiana House of Representatives in 1961 and 1963. From 1966 to 1972 he was Marion County Republican chairman. He ran Richard Lugar's campaigns for Mayor in 1967 and 1971 and for U. S. Senator in 1974. He held various other party offices over three decades.

A third group of lawyers was interviewed on a subject loosely defined as legal culture and civil rights. In this case, legal culture is taken to mean changes in the legal profession during recent decades: changes in professional training, in technology, in the growing size and specialization of legal firms, in the size of professional fees, and in professional organizations like the state bar association. The area of civil rights is taken to include both the changes which have occurred for minorities and women within the profession, and activity by those in the profession to ensure the civil rights of others.

Five lawyers were interviewed in this phase of the project. Jeremiah L. Cadick (1902-1996), born in Grandview, Indiana, graduated from Indiana University in 1922 and earned a law degree from Yale. Having practiced briefly in Boston, he moved to Indianapolis, practiced for nine years with John G. Rauch and Eugene H. Iglehart; then for ten years in his own office; and from 1946 to 1980 in partnership with Floyd Burns. He was active in the Legal Aid Society and the Indianapolis Bar Association, and also with rural electrification (see Willett Parr, Jr., above).

Cleon H. Foust was born in Columbia City in 1907. He graduated from Wabash College in 1927 and from University of Arizona Law School in 1933. After five years of private practice in Columbia City, he moved to Indianapolis, and taught part-time at the Indiana University School of Law at Indianapolis. In 1943 he was appointed Deputy Attorney General of Indiana, and in 1947 Attorney General. He continued his teaching at the Indianapolis branch of the IU Law School, served as Dean from 1967 to 1973, and taught for many years thereafter.

Jeanne S. Miller, born in Fort Wayne in 1925, earned both her undergraduate and law degrees at Indiana University. She practiced law in New Haven, just east of Fort Wayne, both on her own and in partnership with her husband, her son, and Doug Runyon.  Highly active on committees of the Indiana Bar Association, she became its first woman president in 1988. She brings to the study the perspective of a small practice as well as that of a woman.

Alan T. Nolan, born in 1923 in Evansville, earned a bachelor's degree from Indiana University in 1944 and an L.L.B. degree from Harvard in 1947. After clerking for a year with Supreme Court Justice Sherman Minton, he began working for the firm which became Ice Miller Donadio and Ryan, of which he is now a senior partner. He helped found the Indiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, and served as an officer of the NAACP.

Willard B. Ransom (1916-1995), born in Indianapolis, attended Crispus Attucks High School, then graduated from Talladega (Alabama) College in 1936 and Harvard Law School in 1939. During the Second World War he advanced to the rank of captain in the Judge Advocate General's Department. Returning to Indianapolis, he was active in the Madam C. J. Walker Company (general manager 1954-1971), in the NAACP (state chairman 1947-1951) and in the law (he joined the firm of Bamberger and Feibleman in 1971, and was a member of several bar associations).

Sources:

Materials in collection

Indiana Law Register

Indiana Biographical Series (Indiana State Library),Vol. 78 p. 104

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE

This collection consists of five boxes of manuscript material, 107 audiocassettes, and thirteen bound volumes. It is arranged alphabetically by narrator; the section on legal culture and civil rights is a later addition.

Each narrator was interviewed in from one to four sessions, of which the transcriptions run from about fifty to eighty pages. Interviews generally begin with a discussion of the narrator's preparation and background. In the interview with Willett Parr, Jr., there is considerable material about what rural life was like before electricity.

The manuscript material is in two parts. Boxes 1-3 contain material on rural electrification, centering on Indiana Statewide REMC. Box 1 contains background material about rural electrification, including some correspondence, 1971-1975; a consultant's report on "Strategies for Securing REMC Territories"; a report by Dr. Harold Wein on "The Consequences of Municipal Annexations on Indiana Rural Electric Cooperatives" (1979); and clippings about utilities.

Boxes 1-3 trace the REMC Act through the years 1975-1981, including background material, negotiation, lobbying, court decisions, and final legislation. A useful guide through this rather complicated material is a History of the Indiana REMC Act, written in 1980 by James F. Maguire, in Box 1, Folder 6.

Boxes 4-5 contain materials loaned for copying by Lewis Bose as background for his narration.

In Box 4, Folders 1-26 are Memoranda of the Greater Indianapolis Work Group, taking up various aspects of city and county government which would need to be combined by Unigov.

In Box 4, Folders 27-34 are a long unnumbered memorandum of the Work Group about the Marion County Board of Commissioners; the text of the Consolidated City Bill, with marginal notes by Lewis Bose; changes in the bill suggested by Christian J. Litscher and by the Department of Public Safety; a memo from Bose on the mechanics of achieving metropolitan government in Marion County; copies of the Senate and House Journals when the Unigov bill was being discussed; and a memo on "Indianapolis Local Government in 1970."

In Box 5 are portions of the transcripts and some of the briefs in the school desegregation case, U. S. v. Board of School Commissioners of City of Indianapolis. In the transcripts, the testimony of Richard Lugar, on pages 158-193, is notable.

BOX AND FOLDER LISTING

SERIES I: Rural Electrification

Box 1: Biographical; Rural Electrification; 1975 REMC Act; Negotiations 1977-1978

Box 2: Local REMCs; Rate Making; Negotiations, 1978-1979

BOX 3: Legislation, 1979-1981

SERIES II: Unigov

BOX 4:  Memoranda of Greater Indianapolis Work Group; Final Legislation on Unigov

SERIES III: School Desegregation

BOX 5 U. S. v. Board of School Commissioners of City of Indianapolis

LISTING OF TRANSCRIPTS AND CASSETTES BY NARRATOR

BV 2597 James W. Beatty  (Unigov)

            5-23-1989 CT 460-461

            6-5-1989  CT 462-464

            6-26-1989 CT 465-466

            8-9-1989  CT 467-469

BV 2598 Lewis C. Bose  (Unigov)

            6-21-1989 CT 470-471

            8-11-1989 CT 473-475

            8-29-1989 CT 476-477

            8-31-1989 CT 478-479

BV 2599 L. Keith Bulen  (Unigov)

            5-24-1989 CT 480-482

            6-27-1989 CT 483-485

            7-26-1989 CT 486-487

            8-9-1989  CT 488-490

BV 2600 L. Keith Bulen

BV 2601 Charles W. Campbell  (Rural electrification)

12-20-1988 CT 491-492

            12-23-1988 CT 492-494

            1-13-1989  CT 495-496

            5-12-1989  CT 497-499

BV 2602 James F. Maguire  (Rural electrification)

            6-1-1989  CT 500-502

            6-20-1989  CT 503-506

BV 2603 Willett H. Parr, Jr. (Rural electrification)

            7-28-1988  CT 507

BV 2604 David S. Richey  (Rural electrification)

            1-5-1989  CT 508-509

            1-27-1989  CT 510-511

            3-3-1989  CT 512-513

            4-18-1989  CT 514-516

BV 2616 Jeremiah L. Cadick (Legal culture & civil rights)

10-5-1990  CT 518-519

            10-10-1990 CT 520-521

            10-25-1990 CT 522-524

            11-14-1990 CT 525-527

BV 2617 Cleon H. Foust (Legal culture & civil rights)

            10-23-1990 CT 528-529

            11-6-1990  CT 530-531

            11-20-1990 CT 532-533

            11-28-1990 CT 534-535

            1-6-1991  CT 536-537

BV 2618 Jeanne S. Miller (Legal culture & civil rights)

            2-7-1991  CT 538-539

            2-18-1991  CT 540-541

            2-19-1991  CT 542-543

BV 2619 Alan T. Nolan (Legal culture & civil rights)

            3-19-1991  CT 544-545

            3-27-1991  CT 546-548

            4-10-1991  CT 549-550

            4-17-1991  CT 551-552

            4-23-1991  CT 553-554

BV 2620 Willard B. Ransom (Legal culture & civil rights)

            10-31-1990 CT 555

            11-21-1990 CT 556-557

            12-5-1990  CT 558-559

            1-23-1991  CT 560-561

            1-30-1991  CT 562-563

            2-20-1991  CT 564-565

5-22-1991  CT 566-567

CATALOGING INFORMATION

For additional information on this collection, including a list of subject headings that may lead you to related materials:

1. Go to the Indiana Historical Society's online catalog: http://opac.indianahistory.org/
2. Click on the "Local Catalog" icon.
3. Search for the collection by its call number, using the letter or letters designation and four digits (e.g., M 0715, SC 2234).
4. When you find the collection, go to the "Holdings" screen for a list of headings that can be searched for related materials.