Oral History Interview with Allan Grant

401 Pages·2008·8.97 MB·English

California State Archives
State Government Oral History Program
Oral History Interview
with
ALLAN GRANT
Regent, University of California, 1967-1974
April 29, 30 and May 1, 1991
Visalia, California
By Dale E. Treleven
Oral History Program
University of California, Los Angeles
RESTRICTIONS ON THIS INTERVIEW
None.
LITERARY RIGHTS AND QUOTATION
This manuscript is hereby made available for
research purposes only. No part of the manuscript
may be quoted for publication without the written
permission of the California State Archivist or the
Head, Department of Special Collections, University
Research Library, UCLA.
Requests for permission to quote for publication
should be addressed to:
California State Archives
1020 0 Street, Room 130
Sacramento, CA 95814
or
Department of Special Collections
University Research Library
405 S. Hilgard Avenue
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90024-1575
The request should include identification of the
specific passages and identification of the user.
It is recommended that this oral history be cited
as follows:
Allan Grant, Oral History Interview, Conducted
1991 by Dale E. Treleven, UCLA Oral History Program,
for the California State Archives State Government Oral
History Program.
Information [phone]
California State Archives
March Fong Eu Research Room [phone]
1020 0 Street, Room 130 Exhibit Hall [phone]
Secretary of State
Legislative Bill Service [phone]
Sacramento, CA 95814
(prior years)
PREFACE
On September 25, 1985, Governor George Deukmejian signed
into law A.B. 2104 (Chapter 965 of the Statutes of 1985).
This legislation established, under the administration of
the California State Archives, a State Government Oral
History Program "to provide through the use of oral history
a continuing documentation of state policy development as
reflected in California's legislative and executive
history. "
The following interview is one of a series of oral
histories undertaken for inclusion in the state program.
These interviews offer insights into the actual workings
of both the legislative and executive processes and policy
mechanisms. They also offer an increased understanding of
the men and women who create legislation and implement
state policy. Further, they provide an overview of issue
development in California state government and of how both
the legislative and executive branches of government deal
with issues and problems facing the state.
Interviewees are chosen primarily on the basis of their
contributions to and influence on the policy process of
the state of California. They include members of the
legislative and executive branches of the state government
as well as legislative staff, advocates, members of the
media, and other people who played significant roles in
specific issue areas of major and continuing importance to
California.
By authorizing the California State Archives to work
cooperatively with oral history units at California
colleges and universities to conduct interviews, this
program is structured to take advantage of the resources
and expertise in oral history available through
California's several institutionally based programs.
Participating as cooperating institutions in the State
Government Oral History Program are:
Oral History Program
History Department
California State University, Fullerton
Oral History Program
Center for California Studies
California State University, Sacramento
Oral History Program
Claremont Graduate School
Regional Oral History Office
The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley
Oral History Program
University of California, Los Angeles
The establishment of the California State Archives State
Government Oral History Program marks one of the most
significant commitments made by any state toward the
preservation and documentation of its governmental his
tory. It supplements the often fragmentary historical
written record by adding an organized primary source,
enriching the historical information available on given
topics and allowing for more thorough historical analysis.
As such, the program, through the preservation and publica
tion of interviews such as the one which follows, will
be of lasting value to current and future generations of
scholars, citizens and leaders.
John F. Burns
State Archivist
July 27, 1988
This interview is printed on acid-free paper.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTERVIEW HISTORY • • i
BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY iii
SESSION 1, April 29, 1991
[Tape 1, Side A] 1
Family background--Religious inspiration--Early
interest in agriculture--Supporting family
through farming--Brief academic career--Early
farming experiences--Expansion into dairy
business--Meeting his wife.
[Tape 1, Side B] 37
Service on the Tulare County School Board
Association--Marketing milk to Knudsen Creamery
Company--Resolving labor conflicts--Health
hazards for farmworkers--Leaving the dairy
business--Moving to Coarsegold and building a
cattle ranch--4-H--Organizational affiliations-
Heifer Project--Church activities.
[Tape 2, Side A] 73
Service on Tulare County Farm Bureau Federation-
Cooperative marketing--Appeal of the Farm
Bureau's independent thinking--Distribution of
wealth and farm land--Efforts to draft Grant
into the California legislature--Consequences of
the New Deal--California Farm Bureau Federation.
[Tape 2, Side B] 111
More on California Farm Bureau Federation-
Governor Ronald W. Reagan appoints Grant to
California State Board of Agriculture--Winning
the opposition over to his point of view-
Eisenhower Conference on Education--Philosophy
behind his positions as regent.
SESSION 2, April 30, 1991
[Tape 3, Side A] 137
Managing the farm--The farming community-
Working with the Reagan administration--Cesar
Chavez and farm activists--Service as a regent
of the University of California--Events leading
to dismissal of President Clark Kerr-
Ideological shift on the board of regents.
[Tape 3, Side B] 172
Regental committee assignments--Relations with
individual regents--Logistics of regents'
meetings--Reagan's doodlings--Grounds and
Buildings Committee duties--Appraisal of Santa
Cruz campus.
[Tape 4, Side A] 207
Controversy over acquisition of land at the
Irvine campus--Perceptions of University of
California, Riverside--Impact of university
agricultural research--Audit Committee--Special
Research Projects Committee and national defense
work--Realignment of board of regents.
[Tape 4, Side B] 239
Transition from board of regents to presidency
of American Farm Bureau Federation--Student
demands for administrative power--Professors
Herbert Marcuse and Angela Davis--Why policy
makers sometimes have to become administrators.
SESSION 3, April 30, 1991
[Tape 5, Side A] 269
University finances--Tuition--Affirmative
action--Open versus closed sessions of the
board of regents--Regental relations with the
legislature--Comparing the board of regents to
the Farm Bureau governing boards.
[Tape 5, Side B] 299
Impressions of individual regents with whom he
served--President David P. Gardner.
SESSION 4, May 1, 1991
[Tape 6, Side A] 310
Regental committee assignments--Why regents
felt compelled to assume administrative duties-
Student unrest--Regents' meetings--Equa1
opportunity--Influence of partisan politics on
appointments--Ideological split on the board-
President Charles J. Hitch.
[Tape 6, Side B] 344
Presidential 1eadership--Impressions of
university chancellors--University investment
policies--Medical education and health sciences-
More on university finances--Reagan's proposal
to sell rare books to raise money for the
university--Highlights of Grant's tenure on
board of regents.
[Tape 7, Side A] 379
Grant's travels throughout the world--Foreign
trade--Grant's global perspective.
INTERVIEW HISTORY
Interviewer:
Dale E. Treleven, Director, UCLA Oral History Program
Interview Time and Place:
April 29, 1991
Meeting room at the First Presbyterian Church,
Visalia, California
Session of two and three-quarter hours
April 30, 1991 (morning)
Meeting room at the First Presbyterian Church,
Visalia
Session of three hours
April 30, 1991 (afternoon)
Meeting room at the First Presbyterian Church,
Visalia
Session of one hour
May 1, 1991
Meeting room at the First Presbyterian Church,
Visalia
Session of one and three-quarter hours
Editing
David P. Gist, editor, checked the verbatim manuscript
of the interview against the original tape recordings,
edited for punctuation, paragraphing, and spellings, and
with the interviewer verified proper names. Insertions by
the editor are bracketed. Gist drafted the table of
contents and the interviewer prepared the introductory
materials.
Grant reviewed the edited transcript and returned it
with only minor corrections.
Papers
There exist no private papers which the interviewer was
able to consult for this interview.
i
Tapes and Interview Records
The original tape recordings of the interview are in
the university archives at UCLA along with the records
relating to the interview. Master tapes are preserved at
the California State Archives.
ii
BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Patrick Allan Grant served as an ex officio member
of the University of California Board of Regents from
1967-74 while president of the California State Board of
Agriculture as an appointee of Governor Ronald W. Reagan.
Grant's eight-year regency concluded after the California
electorate approved Proposition 4 on the November 1974
ballot. Proposition 4--Regents, University of California,
Legislative Constitutional Amendments--included several
modifications to Article IX, Section 9, of the California
State Constitution, among them eliminating ex officio
regents' seats for presidents of both the board of
agriculture and the Mechanics Institute of San Francisco.
Grant was born on November 22, 1906, in Perry,
California, the son of Patrick Charles Murray Grant
and Katherine Elizabeth Trankle Grant. After attending
elementary schools in Gardena and Lomita and graduating
from Lomita High School (1924), he attended Montana State
University and the University of California, Los Angeles
(at the time named the Southern Branch), from 1924-26. The
Montana State University awarded Grant an honorary doctorate
in agriculture in 1979.
From modest beginnings as small dairy and livestock
farmers during the onset of the Great Depression, Allan
and Irene Amanda Chinowth Grant, who wed in 1931, built a
substantial agricultural enterprise near Visalia, Tulare
County. They also became active leaders in many community
groups, and Allan Grant in agricultural organizations at
levels extending from local to international. His leader
ship activities included: Willow Elementary School Board
(nineteen years); Visalia Union High School Board (eighteen
years); State School Trustees Association Board; 4-H leader
and president of the Tulare County 4-H Leaders Council;
Presbyterian Church elder and Sunday School teacher and
superintendent.
In 1976, after having served as president of the
Tulare County Farm Bureau Federation, president of the
CalFarm Insurance Company, and for twelve years as presi
dent of the California Farm Bureau Federation, Grant was
elected president of the American Farm Bureau Federation
(AFBF), the nation's largest and most powerful general
farmers organization. He served on foreign trade advisory
committees at the request of several United States presi
dents, was a member of President Reagan's Export Council for
four years, advised Secretary of Agriculture Earl L. Butz
during agricultural trade missions to six countries in the
iii