Bygone Muncie: Hurley Goodall, J. Roberts Dailey and the spirit of bipartisanship
The recent partial shutdown of the federal government is a bellwether of our hyper-partisan government, showing that a failure to compromise is as unproductive as it is disconcerting. But this isn’t anything new.
In 1800 the Democratic-Republican party of Thomas Jefferson sparred against John Adams’ Federalists in a particularly nasty presidential election, the Jacksonian Democrats and Whigs churlishly opposed each other over competing visions for the Republic, Northern Democrats sided with Republicans against Southern Democrats over slavery, which culminated in the Civil War, and the hyper-partisanship of the Gilded Age matches the political rancor of today.
However, refreshing examples of bipartisanship exist throughout American history, even among bitter political opponents. President Lincoln appointed his three Republican rivals to his cabinet and made Edwin Stanton, a Democrat, his Secretary of War. The Hoosier Wendell Willkie traveled to Great Britain on behalf of President Roosevelt as an informal ambassador in 1941, after losing to FDR in the 1940 presidential election.
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President Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill rarely agreed on anything but found common ground on tax reform, supposedly over late afternoon cocktails. This was mirrored years later in the working relationship of Speaker John Boehner and President Obama, their Rose Garden meetings a mixture of tobacco smoke, nicotine gum, and compromise.
Locally, my favorite example of political bipartisanship occurred in the working relationship of former Indiana General Assembly representatives Hurley Goodall and J. Roberts Dailey. Both men represented Muncie in the Indiana House, with overlapping tenures in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Dailey, a prominent local real estate businessman and Republican, entered the Indiana General Assembly in 1976. In 1981 he became the Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives, a position he held until 1986, when he lost his fall reelection campaign. Goodall, a Democrat, was first elected to the Indiana House in 1978 and served until his retirement in 1992.
Both men represented the Muncie area, but that’s about all they had in common. Goodall was, in his own words, “a black middle class former factory worker, firefighter, and school board member” and J. Roberts Dailey “a fairly well-off self-made person who had developed a thriving real estate business.” Dailey’s district at the time encompassed the north and west sides of Muncie, while Goodall’s included the city’s east and south sides. Goodall described himself a “fairly liberal black Democrat legislator” and Dailey as “a very conservative white Republican.”
Yet both representatives sought agreement on a number of issues and often held Muncie and Delaware County matters above partisan politics. For instance, during Goodall’s first session, he worked closely with Dailey and State Sen. Allie Craycraft to (re)secure $65,000 for the city’s Fire and Police Pension Fund, which had been lost due to improper filing.
In 1986, Goodall worked with other members of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus to create a legal holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. After several failed attempts, Goodall and his colleagues worked to introduce the legislation via a parliamentary procedure known as stripping a bill (pulling the original contents of a bill and inserting new material). Goodall needed Speaker Dailey’s permission, which he obtained, allowing the measure to pass the House. The bill eventually became law that session.
For Muncie, Dailey and Goodall collaborated on a number of projects including several tax bills, which provided funding for the Muncie Visitors Bureau and the Horizon Convention Center. Both representatives also cooperated on efforts to support Ivy Tech and Ball State University. Dailey once wrote that he was “always very interested in (Ball State’s) funding.” But as Speaker, he was reluctant to show vociferous backing, so Dailey and Goodall worked out a plan where the latter would be the more outspoken supporter of the university, while Dailey approved measures behind the scenes. Goodall later joked that he was “the son-of-a-bitch out in the hallways shouting that Ball State was being screwed in the appropriations process.” When “members of the Ways and Means Committee went to the speaker and asked him if he agreed with Goodall, (Dailey) would say, 'Yes.'”
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Goodall and Dailey didn’t agree on everything, but their friendship, their mutual respect for one another, their love of Muncie and Delaware County, and their cognizance of the practical realities of governance afforded them the ability to accomplish a great deal for our community. In an era where partisanship prevents the realization of even the simplest of plans, the Goodall and Dailey relationship serves as an example many should emulate.
For those interested in learning more, I recommend Hurley Goodall’s, “Inside the House: My years in the Indiana Legislature, 1978-1992” and J. Roberts Dailey’s “Mr. Speaker: Inside Six Sessions of the Indiana House of Representatives.
Chris Flook is the president of the Delaware County Historical Society and is the author of "Native Americans of East-Central Indiana." For more information about the Delaware County Historical Society, visit delawarecountyhistory.org.