Tempe Historical Museum Oral Histories

Ross Richard Rice was one of the first professors of political science at Arizona State University and served on the Tempe City Council from 1958 to 1962. He was also mayor of Tempe from April 1961 to June 1962. He survived a recall election, Tempe’s first, over his efforts to modernize Tempe city government. He was one of five individuals to serve as mayor in as many years.

Dr. Rice was a member of the City Charter Commission in the 1960s, and as such, he participated in drafting a new city charter for the city of Tempe that provided for a council-manager form of government. Previously, Tempe had a mayor-council form of government.

Born in Iowa in the early 1920s, he was drafted from the University of Chicago to serve in the Air Force during World War II in 1943. He became an instructor in history and political science at Arizona State University in 1950 and earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago in 1956.

Dr. Rice died on December 29, 2002 at the age of 80.

For additional information see:

• Obituary, Arizona Republic, 31 December 2002, B6.
• Connie Cone Sexton, "Ex-Tempe mayor, ASU professor, 80, dies of heart attack," The Arizona Republic, 31 December 2002, B5.
• Who’s Who in America 1998
• Kerry Fehr, "40-year career of professor ends at ASU," The Arizona Republic/The Phoenix Gazette, 16 May 1990, Southeast Community section, 1-2.

In this interview Dr. Rice discusses military service, academic background, teaching career, and Tempe municipal government.

BEGIN TAPE ONE, SIDE ONE

RICE: That book over there is my book on Senator Carl Hayden.

By the way, if you want any more biographical matter on myself, at least some is found in the big volume which is Who’s Who in America [for] 1998. So it’s fairly recent.

BIELO: I guess we can start off with how you first came to Tempe, how you heard about it and why you decided to come.

ROSS: I can’t say I knew much about Arizona or Tempe or [ASU]. I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and I had gotten into the University of Chicago in an entirely unexpected fashion. I got drafted by Uncle Sam in late 1943, [served in] England and Italy [unintelligible] and after several moves in the Midwest starting in Iowa – Iowa was my native state, I was born in Shenandoah, Iowa. And that city, by the way, was unexpectedly mentioned in a story in the Arizona Republic today because of the weather conditions back there yesterday. They had a combined heat value of 123, which is higher than Phoenix, Arizona has ever had. It’s a humid climate back there.

Uncle Sam sent me to Italy, and the reason I got to Italy, I guess, was my language abilities. I had studied some Latin in high school and college as well. Took quite a bit of Latin, in fact. Then I took a Spanish course, and one of the military enemies in World War II was Italy. They apparently wanted some people in the American military who had a knowledge of the Italian language and culture, history, and everything that goes with it.

I volunteered for an area language study program. And they had such a one set up at the University of Chicago. Some of the people who taught in the program we had were people from the Classics department. I guess some universities still have Classics departments. Chicago still did at the time.

I arrived in the so-called follow-up action in southern Italy. North Africa was in hands of the Germans. I have since found out that I arrived in Italy before the invasion of Normandy. The invasion of Normandy was, I think, June 6, 1944, and I arrived in Italy on May 27, [1944], having left Virginia on the 2^nd of [May]. I was sent to the town of Tartanto. After about two weeks I was sent to a town named San Severo, and I was in San Severo for several months. Rome almost immediately fell. Italy capitulated. Italy was almost out of the war by the time we arrived.

I couldn’t say that I was part of the invasion of Italy because I literally was not. But I wasn’t too far behind it. The Italians weren’t putting up much of a struggle anyhow.

I did ride in the back of a military truck between San Severo and Rome. Rome had just fallen. I was able to go to the town of Monte Casino. Monte Casino became well known in the war in that time. Monte Casino was held by the Germans and I remember seeing some of the shell holes along the road and in Monte Casino as we drove through in route to Rome.

We returned to San Severo because I was not transferred to any other location. One of the locations the American Army had taken was Florence, which was to the north. I was newly assigned to the 12th Air Corps of the U.S. Army. We flew to Florence and I was there for about ten months. Then when the war ended in Italy altogether because the Germans were finally defeated to them, I was assigned to Naples, which was on the west coast of Italy. At least it was the way home! I was there almost up until the end of 1945 and came home on an aircraft carrier.

During the war I was sent to the University of Chicago in the Army special [unintelligible] training program. I had read all about Italy and that part of the world, northwestern Europe as well. I did get out of Italy once during the time I was there to go to Switzerland. Switzerland was neutral during the war and there were special travel programs for the military, and I got in on one of them. I was already working in Naples.

I got to Arizona because I returned to being a student after the war. I had no degree. I had been drafted in my junior year of college. They made it possible for G.I.s to get a so-called G.I. Bill of Rights. You could use it for your degree and some money was available for living expenses.

To this day, I still do not have a bachelor’s degree. They gave me credit for a number of courses I had the equivalent of. In fact, I took my foreign Ph.D. language requirement in the Italian language, and didn’t have to take any more courses or special exams. So I got my master’s degree from University of Chicago in 1949, and I took the job at Arizona State University in 1950. I finished up my dissertation and doctoral degree at the University of Chicago in 1956.

In the meantime I was teaching a combination of history and political science courses. They did not have anyone on the faculty when I came who had been really trained in political science. Some people [taught] courses in political science in the field of history. It was really a multidisciplinary program when I came here. I considered myself a history major. I moved over to political science at the University of Chicago. At least the history gave me a foot in the door to get a teaching position here. I was here every since.

BIELO: So you got here around ‘57 or so?

RICE: I got here in 1950 as an instructor in political science. I lived on Mill Avenue [and] 9^th Street. [We were] there about six years and bought a house in a development called Date Palm Manor, which is near Mill Avenue and Broadway Road. We were still there when we moved here [Friendship Village] early last year.

BIELO: So, when did you first get appointed to the City Council?

RICE: I was elected to the City Council. Tempe when I came was a city that had the mayor-council form of municipal government, with an elected mayor and city council -- one mayor and six council members. I ran unsuccessfully for the City Council in 19[54?], and I didn’t expect to win.

Four years later I had finished up that illusive Ph.D. degree and no longer had that in my hair, and in 1958 I was successfully elected for a four-year term and completed that. Toward the end of that four-year term, I had the experience of finding that the Tempe city government was going through sort of a phase, some ways different, some ways similar, to some of the phases going on still today. I found that the mayor was out with one year to go, and I was elected from the Council and by the Council as the mayor of Tempe. I finished out my term in 1962 and a full four-year Council term, the last year of which I was mayor of Tempe.

Tempe must have had somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 people – real small. We just didn’t have any idea that really the whole American West was going through a great change in where people lived and how they lived. The war years had made a big difference. I had been away from the United States during some of the war period, but people were moving west, and I simply was being part of it. My wife had been a student at the University of Chicago. We had met there, and we were married in Chicago and came to Tempe, and later we had four children born in Arizona.

Now some of the things we did: the city charter. Tempe had not had a city charter up until then. It was a "general law" city in the legal sense. We simply operated under the laws of the state of Arizona pertaining to cities and towns. We were large enough to be considered a city because of our population, which was still by our standards very small.

Realizing the city should have a charter -- that was accomplished after I left the Council -- it was 1964. I ran for election to the City Charter Commission, and so I got to participate in the drafting of the new city charter for the city, which by the way is still in effect. That provided for a council-manager plan of government. This was a different plan than what I had came under. I came under the mayor-council system. Now we’re going to have a council-manager system.

The manager type of city government comes from such sources as American business. The corporate form of American business is similar to the way cities like Tempe are set up now. A city manager is much like a president of a corporation. The names have been changed as they so often are, and now they are called CEOs, chief executive officers. The charter is still in effect. The council-manager plan is still in effect.

One of the things we tried to do when I was on the Council was professional staffing, particularly in the area of finance, budgeting in particular.

I was teaching more and more political science courses and less and less history. And they even had me teaching Western Civilization at least one semester. I knew next to nothing about ancient Greece. At least I had been in modern Italy during the war!

I introduced a number of new courses and got to set up the department of political science at ASU. That department was inaugurated in the 1960s. I taught in the areas of U.S. federal, Arizona state government, and also regional government to some extent. Now there is the Maricopa County regional commission in existence. It has something to do with football stadiums, if you’ve been reading current events.

One thing that we saw the need for – not I but the whole Council – four out of seven – was a new municipal building. You’ve got to have the votes to accomplish anything. We did not have good permanent buildings for the size (and times) that Tempe was becoming. The new city municipal building was designed and built in the 1960s, really after I had left the Council. We knew it was coming and should come.

I was active in some social and social science events. The president of the Tempe Historical Society, I guess I had that two years, and president of the Tempe Historical Museum, which is now on Rural and Southern.

BIELO: You mentioned a few of the issues that the Council was dealing with. Which ones do you think took the most precedence over the others?

RICE: One of the most pressing issues was to fill the position of the first city manager. Tempe had had a good person from another background, but he didn’t have all the authority that [the position] came to have.

BIELO: What qualities was the Council looking for in the city manager?

RICE: Some experience in city government certainly was desirable. But there was more [needed] than just the barest minimum. We’ve had a number of city managers since my time. The first one we hired [Cooper] when I was on the Council had been an assistant manager in the city of Fresno, California. He had had experience a number of years in Fresno, perhaps in another city earlier than that. He was tragically killed in an airplane accident not long after he took the position here. His wife [Dottie Cooper Nelson] still lives in this area. He had been from California, and California had become one of the leading states in the nation. Arizona has kind of had to look to California in a number of ways. They seem to have the money, the wealth that other states didn’t quite have.

BIELO: Do you think Arizona is using California as an example?

RICE: Yes, we used California as a model.

BIELO: Was the redevelopment of downtown an issue while you were on the Council?

RICE: The redevelopment of downtown was something we mostly talked about at that time. We didn’t have the time or the money to do much more. We sort of had to play it by ear in some respects. We didn’t have a literal blueprint to follow. Chances are I wouldn’t have lasted as long if I had a literal blueprint.

BIELO: Were there a lot of differing opinions as to how to handle that situation?

RICE: Oh, yes. Some people liked the idea of going outside for a manager. There were a good many other positions to recruit for. We recruited a budget officer, and the budget officer was put in the finance department. We recruited eventually for the chief of police and fire and other departments that cities need.

And one thing, of course, was Tempe’s location. Arizona State University has given the city of Tempe the opportunity to do a lot of things. I wouldn’t even have been here if there hadn’t have been a college or university. The university was changing. It had been a state teachers’ college, and then earlier a state normal school years before I came. We’ve had a lot of history and development to build on.

I was appointed by the president of the university to serve as a faculty member on the athletic commission. So here I was dealing with the football program or the basketball program and baseball and other sports that we had at that time, and I wasn’t the world’s greatest athlete myself. And also I had to kind of live down the University of Chicago connection. Chicago had a controversial president who had a program dealing with competitive athletics. He didn’t want anything but intramural football. That was Robert M. Hutchins, whose name was quite well known in academic circles at that time, in the 1950s and ‘60s. ASU is quite well known for some of its sports activities [such as] football, basketball, and track, and baseball, and now women’s athletics, of course, are a major factor.

BIELO: You had to live down that connection with Chicago because of Mr. Hutchins?

RICE: In a way, but it helped me with some people. Some people wanted to be part of a university that had a strong academic connection and not just sports.

BIELO: You mentioned the fire and the police chiefs. Were those different city services a big deal as well when you were on the Council?

RICE: Yes, fire and police were big deals. One person who was on the City of Tempe’s employment [rolls] when I came was a man by the name of Art, Arthur Fairbanks [the police chief.] Fairbanks has a son who is presently the city manager of Phoenix, Arizona. The father, Arthur Fairbanks, had been one of my contemporaries. Although we didn’t know each other by name or physically, we were both in Italy during the war. He was in the 15^th Air Force which was long-range bombers, and I was part of the 12^th Air Force which was short-range fighter planes.

I was never trained by the Air Force as a pilot or anything of that sort. I later received [unintelligible] training and I was assigned to aerial photographic intelligence. That was the kind of unit I was in in Italy. We had planes, transformed fighter planes, used to photograph military installations of the enemy, behind the lines. Part of the whole bureaucratic operation eventually found some of its way into the present Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Oh, I was going to mention the fire department. When I came, to show you the contrast, Tempe did not have a full-time department. They were all volunteers. They did not have a paid fire department, but during my time we recruited our first paid, professional fire chief. We hired a number of people who joined him. We did a number of things to improve the fire situation. Even where I live today, at Friendship Village, even though it has a quasi-self-governing arrangement about it, it is still protected by city services. Of course, our water supply here comes through the City of Tempe.

BIELO: When you were on the Council, was there any interaction between neighboring cities, let say the Mesa or Scottsdale city councils, with the Tempe City Council?

RICE: Good question, because I left it out. Yes, fortunately there was a working arrangement already in place when I came which was has become the League of Arizona Cities and Towns. It was called the Arizona Municipal League when I came, but it has now been titled the League of Arizona Cities and Towns. At least one of my former students has an administrative position with that office which is in the city of Phoenix.

The League of Arizona Cities and Towns held a series of meetings or conventions around the state, many of which I attended as an interested faculty member here at ASU. One of the courses I taught for quite a long time was municipal (city) government. Later I [broadened it to] U.S. government and state government here in Arizona. In fact, one year I was visiting professor of political science at the University of California at Santa Barbara. And what did they require me to teach as one course? California state government. No, my eclectic background....[Laughter] Fortunately, I had some eclectic preparation.

One thing I tried consciously to do when I was mayor was learn the names of the city streets, because suddenly I didn’t know the city as well as I assumed that I did. I noticed in the paper just a few days ago an article on Tempe street names. So there are still controversies involving the name of the streets in Tempe and in other cities elsewhere.

We became familiar with the city of Phoenix, being our largest city, and downtown Tempe and downtown Phoenix were only nine miles apart. Mesa and other cities were likewise. Because of the series of meetings that were held at least annually, I had a chance to visit other cities around the state – Tucson, Flagstaff, Prescott, Yuma, and others.

I can now say that my wife and I rafted down the Colorado River, 225 miles by river raft. That all got started with my being on the City Council.

BIELO: Were there any collaborative efforts between Mesa and Tempe and Scottsdale for any central issues?

RICE: For one thing, we put in the city charter provision whereby Tempe could cooperate on fire protection services with nearby cities. So if a hook and ladder truck needed to fight a fire, and the rescue people in Tempe weren’t around, Phoenix would send theirs over. Municipal horse trading, you might say in a way was made possible, for the benefit of both sides in any such arrangement.

BIELO: As far as the Tempe City Council, what was the relationship like among the Council members?

RICE: It went up and down. Government is a social institution, so you don’t see people agreeing on everything. An issue today, a bone of contention, may not be six months or a year from now. At one time there were those who were skeptical about hiring a professional city manager with much authority and resisted that quite actively, I might add. There was an attempted recall election for myself as mayor of Tempe back in my time, but I survived it. One reason I survived [was because] I wanted to keep that position. As mayor of Tempe I got $50.00 a month salary instead of the former $25.00 a month that all the councilmen got. The most I ever was paid by the City of Tempe was $50.00 a month during the time I was mayor.

I did manage to get around the state [as mayor]. Tempe is an important part [of the state]. A former governor of Arizona elected was a Tempe resident, Howard Pyle, well-known in radio and broadcasting. I had one of his two daughters in one of my first classes at ASU.

END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE ONE

BEGINNING OF TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO

BIELO: Did you spend any time outside of working on the Council with the Council members going out and doing things as friends, or was it just business?

RICE: I did not live in the old downtown center. I lived at 9^th Street and Mill Avenue, which was right across from Tempe Center today and owned today by the university. Our home was at Broadway and Mill Avenue. We lived there continuously.

I got the opportunity to do the research work that eventually was funded through the university, and I did biographical work on the late Senator Carl Hayden from Arizona. He had been born in Tempe clear back in 1877. It was published by the University Press of America in 1994. Then I did research and teaching and have also been in local government myself. Earlier [in his academic career] I had the experience of being a combined research assistant to a former city councilman in Chicago and former president of the American Political Science Association, Charles E. Merriam, who had been at the University of Chicago for many years. He spent almost his entire career there, and was on the Chicago City Council. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Chicago in 1913 or thereabouts. He had lots of stories about the old Chicago he had known. He was one who advocated the government we eventually set up in Tempe. But we were more successful in doing it than some of the older cities in the United States.

BIELO: Why do you think that is?

RICE: There had been a few more political scientists other than myself who had become involved in local politics. Some academic political scientists are not too thrilled with the idea of their brethren getting into local politics. Even I had to be a little careful when I made a so-called witty remark about something in my background that might not be fully understood and appreciated by some of my colleagues.

BIELO: Were there any social effects or consequences in the community from your becoming a Council member?

RICE: Finding myself involved in a recall election was a lot more excitement than I ever bargained for or expected when I ran for the Council. I fought back with a lot of help from my friends. No guns or violence was used, but words were used a lot. The newspapers and radio and other means of communication were used, so I learned how to deal with the press to a certain extent.

[Tape recorder was turned off for a personal remark.]

BIELO: From the time you got here in 1950 to now, what are the biggest changes you have seen happen to the city?

RICE: Oh, I suppose, growth and development have to be the key words. I would say in some ways I was kind of disappointed looking around at Tempe in 1950. There was a high school directly across the street from us on Mill Avenue, and we were told the high school was old and out-of-date, and so it was, and was going to be replaced. The new building was already underway down at the intersection of Broadway and Mill Ave. So there have been lots and lots of changes, some of which I have approved of and some of which I haven’t [laughs]. But that’s par for the course. I could and did say a good deal about some issues, and I found myself as part of the Tempe citizenry as a whole. So I’ve had a mixture of military, which was basically unexpected, but I didn’t get to finish my formal education, and I got my degrees after I got out. I’ve had a rather interesting life.

BIELO: What do you think caused the big population boom [in Tempe]?

RICE: From where I sit, I’d say it was the effects of the war. People were working in different places. I live in a retirement community now, Friendship Village in Tempe. It receives services from the City of Tempe, but it is right next door to Mesa, quite close to Phoenix, and so the effects of those other cities make a difference. Scottsdale and Glendale and the Indian Reservations are more active. I followed with interest just shortly before I retired a student who came from the Navajo reservation in northeastern Arizona. He was admitted to law school. I think he was the first American Indian student admitted to law school and he subsequently didn’t finish it.

The growth of the university, people coming here many to retire. Here in Friendship Village we have become acquainted within a short period of time with a lot of people, and many with very interesting backgrounds. Many were quite successful in their former careers. My wife didn’t want to come here to start. She wanted to stay where she was. Her neighbors, she knew certain people. She was active in several civic opportunities. She became president of the Tempe Historical Society at one point. She had taught school here in one of the community elementary schools.

[Several minutes of general conversation and about his time in Italy.]

END OF INTERVIEW