Mayor Victor H. Schiro: New Orleans in Transition, 1961–1970

Mayor Victor H. Schiro

Mayor Victor H. Schiro

New Orleans in Transition

1961–1970

Edward F. Haas

www.upress.state.ms.us

The University Press of Mississippi is a member

of the Association of American University Presses.

Copyright © 2014 by University Press of Mississippi

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Publication of this book was made possible in part by a

generous donation from the Louisiana Research Collection,

Tulane University.

First printing 2014

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Haas, Edward F.

Mayor Victor H. Schiro : New Orleans in transition, 1961–

1970 / Edward F. Haas.

   pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-62846-017-9 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-62846-018-6 (ebook) 1. Schiro, Victor H., 1904–1992. 2. New Orleans (La.)—Politics and government—20th century. 3. Mayors—Louisiana—New Orleans—Biography. 4. New Orleans (La.)—Biography. I. Title.

F379.N553S355 2014

976.3’063092—dc23

[B]

2013049083

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

To my wife Janis

And our children

Kimberly, Virginia, and John

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Prologue

1. Youthful Odyssey

2. Beginning a Career in Sales and Service

3. Into Politics

4. Councilman-at-Large

5. Interim Mayor

6. The Expedient of Race

7. Early Days of Conflict

8. Mayor of All the People

9. Prisons, Civil Rights, and Football

10. Politics and Progress

11. The Hurricane Mayor

12. The Luckiest Man in Politics

13. Keeping the Lid On

14. Growth and Frustration

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When I began my study of mayor Victor H. Schiro and his administration in New Orleans, I never anticipated that the work would continue for longer than a decade. I have had some interesting and frustrating adventures. On too many occasions, I worked diligently to secure interviews with key figures in Crescent City politics that did not always pan out as I had hoped. There was also that fateful Friday afternoon when I believed that after many weeks spent examining the boxes and boxes of Schiro Papers in the Special Collections Division at the Tulane University Library, I was finally done. As I completed my round of thanks and farewells with the staff and prepared to move on to other research venues, my friend Bill Meneray asked if I had seen the letter books. I replied that I had. He, however, was still unsure. Several minutes of serious conversation eventually led to a request that he show me the volumes that he was describing. They proved to be twenty bound books that commonly included at least one thousand documents each and, of course, had somehow eluded me. My research at Tulane was clearly not finished. Numerous professional and personal obligations have also intervened. The haul has indeed been long, but it has also been challenging, intellectually fulfilling, and, yes, fun.

Along the way, I have benefited from the aid of many individuals. My first acknowledgments must go to Henry A. Kmen, Avery O. Craven, and Louis R. Harlan. They are no longer with us, but their memory and their lessons remain vivid in my mind. At Tulane University, Henry Kmen introduced me to the excitement of history. At the University of Maryland, College Park, Louis Harlan taught me the historian’s craft and was always my foremost advocate. From Avery Craven, I also learned many valuable historical lessons, but what I remember most from him was the nobility of being a historian

Archivists and librarians assisted me at every step of the way. Dr. Wilbur Bill Meneray, Leon Miller, and Kevin Fontenot of the Special Collections Division, Tulane University Library; Wayne M. Everard and Irene Wainwright of the Louisiana Collection, New Orleans Public Library; Dr. Florence Jumonville, Marie Windell, and John Kelly of the Louisiana and Special Collections Department, Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans; and Dr. Clifton Johnson of Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, all friends from my days at the Louisiana Historical Center, Louisiana State Museum, again showed themselves to be the talented professionals that I always knew they were. Diana Kaylor of the Interlibrary Loan Department, Paul Lawrence Dunbar Library, Wright State University, tracked down every microfilm spool and obscure article that I requested. I also want to thank the staffs of the Wood-bourne Library, Centerville, Ohio; Franklin Public Library, Franklin, Ohio; and the Tulane University Library Digital Reading Room for allowing me to use their microfilm readers for hours on end. Without their help, this study would have been impossible and at the very least considerably less satisfying. I should also note with regret that many of the documents and photographs that I consulted at Tulane University Library no longer exist due to the ravages of Hurricane Katrina.

A grant from the Victor H. and Margaret Mary Sunny Schiro Research Fund at Tulane University allowed me to pursue archival research in New Orleans. A professional development leave from Wright State University during the 2003–4 academic year provided me with free time to complete much of the early writing. Perry Moore and Mary Ellen Mazey, former deans of the College of Liberal Arts at Wright State University, were always keen advisers and enthusiastic supporters of my work. So, too, was Harvey Wachtell, my predecessor as history department chair. Other Wright State colleagues who cheerfully listened to my tales about Vic Schiro and New Orleans politics included John Sherman, Allan Spetter, Jacob H. Dorn, Jonathan Winkler, Paul D. Lockhart, Sean Pollock, Nolleen Mcllvenna, Susan Carrafiello, Barbara Green, Carol E. Herringer and Kathryn Meyer.

My special thanks go to the many individuals who consented to interviews. Their names are in the bibliography. From them I gained insights that no reading of documents could have provided. My particular appreciation must go to Jack B. McGuire, director of public relations during the Schiro administration and the mayor’s dear friend. Jack embraced this project from its beginning and willingly granted interviews and answered scores of questions on the events and personalities of the Schiro years. On those occasions when the documents left me in confusion, I could always count on Jack to provide clarity.

Many colleagues and friends helped along the way. Virginia Gould allowed me to use her condo in the New Orleans French Quarter during one of my research visits. Judith Kellerer Schafer has been a wonderful friend for more years than it is wise to contemplate and always remembers my birthday. Warren M. Billings, Mark Fernandez, Stephen and Karen Webre, Maureen and John Hewitt, Sylvia and John Rodrigue, Neva Wall, Margaret Dalrymple, Light T. and Victoria Cummins, Lawrence Powell, Tim Schafer, Alecia Long, Arnold Hirsch, and Glen Jeansonne have been supportive friends. So, too, were the late Martha Searcy and Bill Dickens. The late Bennett H. Wall was a great friend, too. Over the decades, every one of our many conversations concluded with me attaining some new wisdom.

I would also like to thank the editors of Louisiana History and the Gulf Coast Historical Review for permitting me to use material in this work that first appeared in different form in their publications. I would also like to thank Pamela Tyler for sharing her great knowledge of the life and career of Martha Gilmore Robinson. Although our perspectives on Mrs. Robinson are somewhat different, I learned much about her and her uptown cohorts from Pam Tyler’s work and her comments on one of my essays.

I also wish to express my appreciation to Seetha Srinivasan, director emerita of the University Press of Mississippi, for having faith in this work at an early stage. I also want to thank Robert L. Dupont for his comments. He saved me from several errors. Any mistakes that remain are mine and fairly earned. I also want to thank Bill Henry for copyediting the manuscript. My thanks also go to managing editor Anne Stascavage, art director John Langston, and editorial assistant Katie Keene. Craig Gill, assistant director and editor in chief of the University Press of Mississippi, stuck with me, gently and skillfully nudging this book into publication.

My final and constant thanks are for my family. My children, Kimberly, Virginia, and John, and their young families have been a great source of pride and happiness throughout this effort. The numerous gymnastics meets, soccer games, basketball contests, wrestling matches, horse camps, school concerts, truck shows, tennis lessons, babysitting assignments, and graduations may have diverted me from work on the manuscript, but they made the process much more enjoyable. My deepest appreciation must go to Janis, my fantastic wife, a Pennsylvania native who came to love New Orleans as I do and never stopped asking if I had finished the book.

Mayor Victor H. Schiro

Prologue

During the early summer of 1961, the city of New Orleans was a community in transition. The previous year, the United States Census Bureau had reported that 627,525 people lived in the Crescent City. Of these individuals, 392,594 were white, 233,514 were African American, and 1,417 were members of various other races.¹ Although the city was no longer the South’s largest metropolis—Houston had wrested away that title in 1950—New Orleans was clearly growing.² The census figures of 1960 indicated an increase of 57,080 people over the past decade. Local population stood at its highest total ever. Civic leaders anticipated even more growth in the coming years.

Embedded in these statistics, however, was evidence that change would come in more challenging forms than simple population expansion. In 1960 the population of metropolitan New Orleans, an area that included adjacent Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes, as well as the central city, numbered 868,480. Of these people, 240,955 lived in the rapidly expanding suburbs. This figure represented a dramatic increase of 156,087 residents in the outlying areas over the previous ten years.³ Although the city of New Orleans was proudly establishing spectacular new population records, its suburbs were growing at an even faster clip. In 1960, moreover, most of the suburbanites, 206,606 of them (85.7 percent), were white.⁴

Conversely, the percentage of whites in New Orleans was decreasing. In 1950, African Americans constituted 32 percent of the city’s residents. Ten years later, the figure stood at 37.2 percent.⁵ These demographic changes in the New Orleans metropolitan area and the racial composition of the Crescent City promised to have a far-reaching impact on social, political, and economic developments in the community over the next decade, but most local leaders, though aware of racial concerns, noted and hailed only the obvious trend toward growth.

Their faith in the future was understandable. On July 3, 1961, the New Orleans States-Item applauded a recent report by the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce that proclaimed an economic boom in the Crescent City. According to the newspaper’s editorial, over the past four years, thirty major industries had invested $270 million in the metropolitan area, and the pace has accelerated greatly since January. New construction projects included the completion of the 225 Baronne Building, a 28-story, $12 million office structure, the signing of a contract to build a $3.6 million, seven-story, 130-bed addition to the Touro Infirmary in uptown New Orleans, and the establishment of Humble Oil and Refining Company’s southeastern regional office in the city. Forthcoming projects included the construction of new buildings valued at $2 million for the First National Life Insurance Company and the John Hancock Life Insurance Company, the imminent completion of the $15 million federal building and post office, renovations worth $5 million to existing federal buildings, and the expansion of Tulane University’s medical facilities at an estimated cost of $6 million. In suburban Jefferson Parish, construction was under way for a $3 million clinical addition to the Oschner Foundation Hospital, and the American Cyanamid Company had recently announced a $3 million expansion of its Fortier plant.⁶

The port of New Orleans was also holding its own, although it faced a serious challenge from Houston, its primary southern rival. Houston enjoyed a significant advantage in costs, but New Orleans annually outclassed Houston in available wharves, number of ships calling, foreign trade, employment, cargo value, [and] grain. . . . without exception. Vaughan M. Bryant, international relations chief for the port of Houston and a former resident of the Crescent City, while praising the growth of his own operation, acknowledged, We know New Orleans has more facilities than we have and can handle more business.⁷

In the early summer of 1961, the economic prospect that most captivated boosters in New Orleans promised to propel the community into the space age. The federal government was seeking a facility for the construction of Saturn rockets, which would blast Americans into space and put a man on the moon within nine years. Those in the know believed that the Michoud facility in eastern New Orleans had the inside track. The federal government already owned an enormous building on the site, which the industrialist Andrew Jackson Higgins had used during World War II, and which had more recently housed a Chrysler tank engine factory during the Korean conflict. The location seemed ideal for manufacturing the massive rockets that NASA needed for the Apollo program. New Orleans leaders confidently expected the federal award to pump millions of dollars into the local economy and to launch a revitalization of the city’s eastern section, a ragged area where marshy bogs, slum highways, and rickety fishing camps prevailed. Some even believed that the city, due to its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and the Michoud facility, might become a likely candidate for the construction of a $60 million manned-flight center.⁸

The future of New Orleans certainly appeared bright, but the city still faced serious challenges. As was true in most southern towns in the early 1960s, race was a major issue. New Orleans, however, seemed to be different. Under the leadership of mayor deLesseps Story Chep Morrison, the community had followed a course of moderation. Though an avowed segregationist, Morrison repeatedly declared that he was mayor of all the people and openly sought the black vote.⁹ Louisiana governor Earl K. Long, noting Morrison’s lengthy association with the Reverend Abraham Lincoln Davis, an African American political leader and president of the Orleans Parish Progressive Voters League (OPPVL), once asserted that the mayor had in his camp a Baptist preacher that didn’t preach nothing but Morrison.¹⁰ During Morrison’s years in office, the city integrated streetcars and buses, municipal golf courses, and the city libraries without incident.¹¹ Desegregation of public schools proved to be another matter.

Morrison’s fervid desire to become governor caused him to underplay the role of blacks in his political success. Aware of general white opposition to desegregation throughout the state, Morrison occasionally joined with racist leaders Leander Perez of Plaquemines Parish and representative Willie Rainach of Claiborne Parish in legislative battles.¹²

After suffering a narrow defeat at the hands of Jimmie H. Davis in the Louisiana gubernatorial primary of 1960, largely because his foes had contended that he was soft on the race question, Morrison tried to steer clear of controversy.¹³ This studied caution led him to avoid most of the strife when federal courts ordered the desegregation of New Orleans public schools in the fall of 1960. Morrison, intending to make another run for the governorship in 1964 and recognizing the potential political consequences of race, was reluctant to take any action that would further undermine his reputation as a segregationist. His unwillingness to exert strong leadership contributed directly to the success of repugnant segregationist demonstrations at the newly integrated schools in the working-class Ninth Ward and hateful protests in downtown New Orleans that sullied the city’s reputation in the national eye. Throughout the academic year, the turmoil over desegregation persisted.¹⁴ No one knew what to expect when the schools reopened in the fall of 1961. Most observers anticipated new federal court orders and more trouble.¹⁵

The matter of municipal leadership was also in doubt. Since 1946, Morrison had held the office of mayor. During this period, his Crescent City Democratic Association (CCDA) dominated the local political scene. Morrison, young, energetic, and ambitious, always assumed that he would move on to the governorship. When he failed for the second time to capture the state’s highest office in 1960, he faced a dilemma. Under the city charter, he could not run for reelection. His initial solution to this political conundrum was to amend the charter. On April 15, 1961, however, despite a vigorous campaign, voters rejected the mayor’s pleas, defeated the charter change, and rendered Morrison a lame duck. After this devastating reversal, Morrison decided to leave city government before his term officially ended. On July 17, 1961, the New Orleanian, a great proponent of trade with Latin America and an avid Democrat, became U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States in the administration of president John F. Kennedy. The highly visible position kept Morrison in the public eye at the same time that it furnished him with a respite from the Louisiana political wars while he contemplated another run at the governorship in 1964. With Morrison’s impending departure, the citizens of New Orleans would have to determine a new leader to guide their changing city through the many challenges and opportunities that lay ahead. The man who emerged to provide this leadership was Victor Hugo Schiro.¹⁶

1.

Youthful Odyssey

To use the vernacular of native New Orleanians, Victor Hugo Schiro was not from here. Schiro’s birthplace was Chicago, Illinois. Nevertheless, from his birth on May 28, 1904, until his death eighty-eight years later, New Orleans was central to Schiro’s life.

The child was the only son of Andrea (later Americanized into Andrew) Edward Schiro and his wife Mary An Pizzati. The Schiros already had a daughter, Elizabeth Vindictis, called Bettina, who was also born in Chicago, a year before her brother, on April 21, 1903.¹ Andrea Schiro was a native of Piana dei Greci, Palermo Province, Sicily. The English translation of the town’s name is Grecian plain.² According to Victor Schiro, Greeks from the Aegean island of Skyros had been the Piana dei Greci’s first settlers, and Schiro’s ancestors had lived in the region from the beginning. The family name supposedly derived from the Italian spelling of the ancient Isle of Skyros.

On November 3, 1899, Andrea immigrated to America at the age of twenty-three. In 1966 his son recalled that Andrea came from Italy as a college student.³ On another occasion, however, Victor Schiro reported that his father as a young man had studied for the priesthood in a Catholic seminary and later served three years in the Italian military. After completing his military duty, Andrea decided to emigrate to America, the land of opportunity.⁴ Perhaps the unavailability of land in Sicily contributed to his decision. In the late nineteenth century, large landholders predominated in many sections of the island. The mayor of Piana dei Greci commented that individuals could not convince landlords to sell them land. Unfortunately, there are no small properties in this town; this is a region of large estates.⁵ Such conditions may very well have prompted young Schiro to question his future in Sicily.

Andrea Schiro entered the United States through the port of New York and in 1900 settled in Chicago, the second largest city in the United States, a town with a rapidly expanding Italian community. After his arrival, like many immigrants, he sent money home, and his brothers Michael and Victor eventually followed him to Chicago.⁶

Andrea Schiro was an educated man who spoke five languages. English unfortunately was not one of them. Learning the language of his new country immediately became his primary goal. The young immigrant, furthermore, arrived in the United States without a cent. Under these circumstances he had little choice but to become a laborer. During this difficult period, he held a variety of physically demanding jobs. Schiro worked in the cornfields and later in the sugarcane fields. At the end of many long days, he returned to his lodgings with bleeding hands from wielding long knives and other agricultural implements. He typically earned wages of fifty cents to a dollar per day.⁷

One of the jobs that Andrea Schiro held was with a railroad construction crew that laid tracks throughout the country. The work eventually took him to the small Louisiana town of Sunset. There the young man met a teacher who found him to be interesting. Schiro’s son remembered, She took a liking to him, and she taught him what she could about the English language, and that’s how he learned the English language.

All, however, was not work with Andrea Schiro. While he struggled with the problems of assimilation in a new land, he carried on a correspondence with a young woman in New Orleans. Schiro’s father had known Mary Pizzati’s family in Sicily and arranged the introduction. Although the two young people had never met, their communications developed into a courtship. They finally decided to get married without having seen each other.⁸

In 1902, Andrea Edward Schiro and Mary An Pizzati, daughter of Lorenzo and Mariannina Pizzati, married in New Orleans. Mary Schiro belonged to a prominent New Orleans Italian American family. Her uncle, Captain Salvatore Pizzati, was a well-known capitalist and philanthropist who had made his fortune in shipping. Pizzati, a member of S. Oteri and Company, enjoyed the distinction of being the first captain to take a steamboat to Spanish Honduras for the purpose of bringing back bananas to the United States. In 1900, after the Oteri company sold its interests to United Fruit Company, Pizzati retired from commerce and devoted his life and fortune to charitable activities. He was a honorary colonel on the staff of governor J. Y. Sanders and a special officer of the New Orleans Police Department. For many years, he served as a director of the Interstate Bank and the Whitney Central Bank.⁹

After the wedding, the young couple returned to Andrea’s home in Chicago, where their two children were later born. The Schiros named their son and daughter, respectively, for their paternal grandparents, Vito and Vendictis Elisabetta Schiro of Piana dei Greci. The parents gave young Victor the middle name of Hugo because his father had been a great admirer of the French novelist Victor Hugo.¹⁰ In Chicago, Andrea Schiro began to work as a customhouse broker. His improving language skills and inherent intellect were clearly elevating his economic status.¹¹

In late 1904, after young Victor’s birth, the Schiros returned to New Orleans. The business connections of the Pizzati family may very well have been the lure. Perhaps Mary, like many New Orleanians, particularly young mothers with small children, simply wanted to be near her family. In the Crescent City, Andrew (no longer Andrea) embarked on a career in banking that would eventually carry him to various parts of the United States and Latin America.¹²

At first, New Orleans provided the base. For eight years, Andrew Schiro was connected with the banking business of New Orleans. He began as a clerk for the People’s Saving Trust and Banking Company in the southern metropolis. He then became the manager of the French Market branch of the City Bank and Trust Company at Decatur and Ursulines streets. He held that position for seven years. The young banker also served on the board of directors of the French Market Homestead Association.¹³

In 1913, at the urging of friends, Schiro retired from banking to become secretary-treasurer and manager of the Glee-Nol Bottling Company in New Orleans. Glee-Nol, a soda water beverage, was the latest drink on the New Orleans market. Schiro’s partners in the bottling concern were an interesting amalgam of local entrepreneurs. Marco Antonio Pizzati, Mary Schiro’s cousin, the nephew and adopted son of Salvatore Pizzati, became the president. First vice president was William Waterman, a well-known New Orleans businessman. Waterman was the son of J. S. Waterman Sr., the former private secretary of mayor Walter C. Flower and head of J. S. Waterman and Company, a firm that specialized in the sale of flour and grain. In 1910, William Waterman had taken control of the flour branch of the family interests and expanded the business into the export trade. O. H. Simpson, a local attorney with ties to the homestead industry, was second vice president. Simpson, too, had political affiliations. Since 1908 he had served as secretary of the Louisiana Senate. In 1926 he would become governor of the state.

The four partners operated an elaborate bottling works at 509 Dryades Street that produced Glee-Nol and other soda water drinks. The men had high hopes for their product. They emphasized that their corporation was purely a local concern that intended to bottle the very best in accordance with the approval of the pure food law. The company slogan was Quality for Us. One account of the drink’s success proclaimed its instantaneous popularity and noted that hundreds of retail grocers and saloonkeepers are stocking their places with Glee-Nol.¹⁴

Despite these rosy projections, Glee-Nol could not keep up with Coca-Cola and other powerful rivals in the highly competitive soft drink bottling business. By 1915, Glee-Nol had no listing in the city directory, and Pizzati, Waterman, and Simpson had returned to their previous business pursuits. Andrew E. Schiro’s name, however, was completely absent from the directory’s pages.¹⁵

Schiro, like his partners, had also returned to his previous business, banking, but his new duties took him beyond the borders of Louisiana. Schiro became associated with the Banco Atlántida in Honduras. The bank was the creation of the Standard Fruit Company, a corporation with a strong base in New Orleans. The rapidly growing shipping firm operated in a region of Honduras where financial institutions were in short supply. The Vaccaro brothers, Joseph, Luca, and Felix, and Salvador D’Antoni (the owners of Standard Fruit) decided that the best solution to this problem was to create their own banking firm. The unique endeavor soon acquired the blessing of the U.S. Department of State. Carmelo D’Antoni, Salvador’s brother, became the bank’s president; John Plauche of New Orleans became the manager; and Vincent D’Antoni, another brother, was one of four directors. Victor Schiro later recalled that his father was one of the original founders of the bank, but he was probably mistaken. In February 1913, when the bank opened in Honduras, Andrew Schiro was still in New Orleans, bottling Glee-Nol. Schiro was perhaps an original director of the institution, but he most likely joined the Banco Atlántida in 1914 after the demise of his soda drink venture.¹⁶

Time was critical for the growing financial institution. On March 9, 1914, the building that housed the Banco Atlántida, the largest in the town of La Ceiba, burned to the ground in a fire that destroyed twelve blocks of the business district as well as the Vacarros’ waterfront office. Rebuilding was a priority, but the Vaccaros also wanted to establish branches of the Banco Atlántida in other towns as well. Since the Vaccaros knew the Pizzati family in New Orleans and occasionally did business with them in Honduras, they were certainly aware of Andrew Schiro’s background in banking and also his availability. The Vaccaros and the D’Antonis consequently brought Schiro to Honduras to organize branches of the Banco Atlántida in San Pedro Sula, Puerto Cortés, and Tegucigalpa and to rebuild the headquarters in La Ceiba. Andrew Schiro would remain in Honduras for five years.¹⁷

Andrew Schiro’s move to Honduras had a profound effect on his family, particularly his young son. Victor Schiro had attended elementary school at William O. Rogers and McDonogh No. 28. on Esplanade Avenue. During his early years, he enjoyed various activities, particularly climbing. Schiro later recalled that he was a very agile boy who became the little leader of all these kids in the neighborhood. Years afterward he asked himself, How I didn’t break my kneck I don’t know. In the Crescent City, the boy enjoyed a generally average childhood.

One typical boyhood experience stood out in Victor Schiro’s mind decades later. He recalled that everyone came to my house. We had a big enough house, a big yard and everything else in front. The neighborhood boys decided to try smoking. They got corn silks, rolled them in paper, and made crude cigarettes. They then went under the house and smoked this thing. Although they knew that they were doing something wrong, the boys thought they were great. We were having a lot of fun. Mary Schiro, however, discovered the young experimenters. She took no action; she only said, I guess I’ll have to tell your daddy that you’re smoking now. When Andrew Schiro came home, he called his son into his study and took out a box of the cigars he smoked. The elder Schiro said, I understand you’re smoking now, and I [also] understand you’re smoking trash. You’re smoking corn silks or something. He said, I don’t want my son to smoke that. You don’t have to, son. The father then offered his son a cigar from his personal stock, remarking, You don’t have to hide from your daddy. If you want to smoke, you can smoke. Andrew Schiro next led his son through the ritual of cutting off the tip, lighting the cigar, and inhaling deeply. He particularly stressed the instructions on inhaling. Young Schiro recalled that he drew in a couple of times. About the third time I drew in, I was getting yellow. Then I got green. Andrew Schiro continued to coach his son in the protocol of smoking. Well, now, son, I’ll get a cigar, and we’ll smoke together. By that time, Victor was getting greener and greener. Deciding that smoking had lost its allure, the youngster pleaded, Papa, do you mind if I put this down? His father acceded readily, advising, No, son, you don’t have to smoke unless you want to. A much older Victor Schiro recollected, From that day ’til today, I have never touched a piece of tobacco or cigarette or cigar or anything. Andrew Schiro understood the nature of young boys as well as he did banking.¹⁸

After the older Schiro moved to Honduras, life changed for young Victor. Although Mrs. Schiro maintained their home at 2625 Ursulines Street in New Orleans, the couple spent much of their time in Honduras. Victor apparently accompanied his parents initially, but the Schiros eventually decided to enroll their son in the Gulf Coast Military Academy, a boarding school. It was a lonely time for Victor. On November 16, 1917, he wrote his father in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, to ask permission to visit his sister Bettina, who was also at boarding school in New Orleans, and to request some stamps so I can write to you and Bettina and every body.¹⁹ On the same day, Schiro asked his mother, Why don’t you write me a letter. . . . I have been waiting very long for a letter. The boy said, I am very well, and then asked about their dog. Pet him for me. He wished he could be with you all[,] but I am trying my best to study hard and so don’t forget to write to me. He concluded with another request to visit his sister: Bettina wants me to go with her for Christmas time. But I have to ask your consent.²⁰

On December 2, 1917, young Schiro again wrote his father. Permission to visit with his sister for Christmas was not forthcoming, and the boy was homesick. He wrote, I hope that you had a good thanksgivin day and I wish that I had a plate of nice macrones that mama makes. He dreaded a Christmas away from his family. I wish you all a happy Christmas an[d] I would be so happy if I could only be with you all for Christmas. I am goin[g] to be all alone for Christmas when all the boys leave. He again asked about their dog and promised to study hard. Schiro also inquired about the family’s new house in Honduras: Is it many stories high? He concluded with his wish that the time will pass quick so I can see you all again and the obvious admission, W[h]en I write I feal a little homesick for you all. His last words were Pleas[e] write to me.²¹

The youngster, however, was not completely alone at the military school. On February 1, 1966, nearly fifty years later, Schiro wrote to Mrs. Linfield, who had befriended him while he was on the Gulf Coast. He reminisced, I will always remember how wonderful you and your husband were to me when I was a little boy at the Gulf Coast Military Academy. Schiro particularly remembered the night the boys took me on a snipe hunt and I managed to return to the campus before they did. The other cadets all became concerned about having lost me!²²

Although the youngster could not visit his parents during the winter months, he did visit them during summer vacations. In Honduras, Schiro lived a privileged life. He remembered, I had my own little horse, and I’d go into the interior and talk with the natives, and I got very familiar with them. Learning Spanish came easily to him, and he was soon conversing in the language of Honduras without the trace of an accent. He recollected years later, I had the Latin in me, because I’m Italian, and it was no problem for me to pick up the language. Speaking fluent Spanish was a skill that would prove extremely helpful to him to New Orleans public affairs. Many who met him when he reached adulthood assumed that Schiro was a native Latin American.²³

The Schiros’ sojourn in Honduras nonetheless took its toll on young Victor. Although he would attend Warren Easton High School and ultimately graduate from Ferrel’s Military Academy in New Orleans, Schiro later believed that the constant moving from New Orleans to Latin America and back again hindered his education. This situation weighed heavily on the banker’s son, who was trying his best to study hard and listened attentively when his father admonished him to go to school and learn. Don’t go to school and mess around. Andrew Schiro repeatedly told his children that to get anywhere in life, you have to know things. You have to get educated.

Life in Honduras also began to affect the elder Schiros. Although the couple held a prestigious place in the community, the numerous political upheavals that beset the nation greatly disturbed Mary Schiro, who undoubtedly feared for her family’s safety. The frequent revolutions also vexed Andrew Schiro. Reflecting on his father’s perspective, Victor Schiro remarked that it was very inconvenient when you have to lie down on the floor and wait ’til machine gun fire stops, you know. Although Schiro’s father managed to protect his banks and suffered no personal injury, he decided he was gonna get out of there now.²⁴

Schiro’s deliverance from Honduras came at the hands of Amadeo P. Giannini, founder of the Bank of Italy (later the Bank of America) in San Francisco. Giannini had been a successful commission dealer with the Italian-dominated fruit industry in California and later became associated with the Italian-American Bank. One of Giannini’s goals was to provide banking services for average immigrants, people who commonly did not trust banks. When the directors of the Italian-American Bank proved reluctant to follow Giannini’s suggestions and censured him for his views, Giannini resigned his position and created the Bank of Italy with a capitalization of $300,000. Under Giannini’s direction, the bank grew rapidly. By 1913 the institution had deposits of $12 million; new accounts were increasing at a rate of 1,500 per year. Soon the Bank of Italy had branches in the Mission District of San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Barbara, Stockton, Los Angeles, and San Jose, Giannini’s birthplace. The financial institution also began to absorb several of its competitors. L’Italia, the West Coast’s largest Italian newspaper, reported: Most immigrants were unfamiliar with banks when they arrived. But Giannini’s idea was to make the bank a part of every Italian neighborhood, something Italians could see and learn to trust, and an institution serving all of them regardless of regional origin. Breaking down the barriers between immigrants from various sections of Italy was another of Giannini’s ambitions. His decision to hire Andrew Schiro to manage the prosperous bank’s foreign exchange program achieved several key purposes. Schiro, a native Sicilian with extensive experience in international banking, would be working in an economic environment where people from northern Italy, mainly Genoa, made up the majority.²⁵

The Schiro family was again on the move. Andrew Schiro bought the home of California’s attorney general, a four-story English chateau-style house on a hill, according to Victor. The house was narrow, but each floor was something. One floor was a dining room and kitchen. . . . One was a living room, and then the bedrooms. Young Victor occupied the top floor. He recalled, You could see the Golden Gate Bridge from my little window. He attended Polytechnic High School in San Francisco, and his sister went to Lowell, the other nearby school. The Schiros stayed there one year and enjoyed it very much. Mary Schiro, however, began to have problems with the climate in northern California. The fog that rolled in every evening at four o’clock and the dampness did not agree with her. Although Andrew Schiro was doing quite well with the Bank of Italy, Victor Schiro recalled that his father decided he was gonna make my mother happy and to hell with it. So he told Giannini he was gonna move. After one year in San Francisco, the Schiros again relocated.

The family sold their house in San Francisco and moved to San Jose. While Andrew Schiro was working for the Bank of Italy, a representative of the Del Monte Corporation, another Italian American business venture with a bright future, repeatedly visited with him. The man from Del Monte wanted to organize a bank in San Jose. Schiro finally agreed. According to his son, he figured the weather was better, and my mother would like it, and he didn’t want to leave California. Together the two men established the Growers Bank and Trust Company in San Jose.

While the family lived in San Jose, Victor Schiro studied at Santa Clara College, only ten miles away. The young man took the streetcar to school. He recalled, It’d run right straight in front of Santa Clara [College] and back in front of our house. During summer vacations, he worked in a cannery and made boxes. He received eighty cents per hundred for the boxes. He commonly earned eighteen dollars a day, big money, in his eyes. He then used his wages to go around and take girls out . . . and have fun.

In San Jose, he endured another youthful rite of passage; he got his first car, an Overland with a red seal Continental motor. The automobile cost $600. Although Schiro did not yet know how to operate the vehicle, he had watched carefully how people drive cars. He believed the process would be simple. When he and his mother picked up the car from the dealership, the young man assured the salesman that he could drive. Actually he was scared to death, but I wouldn’t let my mother know this. On the street, the new driver had to share the right of way with a trolley. Soon his inexperience became evident. He followed the streetcar too closely. When the trolley stopped suddenly and the motorman opened the door and lowered a set of steps for the passengers to descend, Schiro knocked it off, and I didn’t stop. I kept going. His mother cried, Oh-oh, you’re in trouble now, but Schiro never looked back. That was the young man’s first episode behind the wheel; he later declared, I’ve been driving ever since.

The Schiro family remained in San Jose for one year. Mary Schiro, however, again began complaining that she couldn’t take it in California. Andrew Schiro, despite his personal wishes and successes, yielded to his wife’s wishes. He said, Well, all right, we’re going back to New Orleans.²⁶

Andrew Schiro’s contacts in the financial world again paid off. Schiro had once gone to banking school with Rudolph Hecht, president of the Hibernia Bank and Trust Company in New Orleans, a financial institution that had close ties with Standard Fruit Company. The two bankers became good friends. At the time Andrew Schiro expressed his desire to leave California, Hecht had a corporate problem. The French Market branch of his bank at Decatur and Ursulines streets was going down the drain. Hecht appealed to Schiro: Andrew, I’d like you to come back and take this branch over and see what you can do with it. It’s about to fail. Schiro accepted the offer and returned to New Orleans. Within a year, the branch was solvent, with a capitalization of over one million dollars. One of Schiro’s secrets was a schedule of unconventional banking hours. He would keep the bank open every Saturday night until eight o’clock. Victor recalled that his mother would often go down and stay, sit with him ’til about 8:00, whenever it was that they closed the bank, or she’d go out and go in the market [directly across the street] and shop and then wait for him.²⁷ Andrew Schiro would remain in the employ of the Hibernia Bank and Trust Company for the next two decades.²⁸

With the return of the Schiro family to New Orleans and the achievement of stability, young Victor began an odyssey of his own. In 1922 he graduated from Ferrel’s Military Academy in the Crescent City.²⁹ From September 25, 1923, until February 1924, he attended Tulane University in New Orleans. He clearly sought a career in business. He enrolled in courses in accounting, business economics, business English, college algebra, marketing, business talks by business men (public speaking), and physical training. Schiro, however, was not a serious student. He was either absent or failed all his courses. He received no credit for his courses at Tulane.³⁰ He later enrolled in a night school program in prelaw at Loyola University, but the result was the same as at Tulane. He never completed the work. His only successful college work was a course in personnel management at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Schiro would later claim, Politics has been a university to me.³¹

Schiro also received an education through his father, a prominent member of the Italian American community in the Crescent City. Andrew Schiro, according to his son, was a very studious person. He spoke English without an accent and developed a formidable library. When learned individuals, bishops, businessmen, and philosophers, came to town, they commonly sought out Schiro to engage him in conversation. Their subjects ranged from socialism to theology to economics. Schiro was well versed. And he read all the time. During these meetings, Andrew Schiro permitted Victor to sit with the guests and to contribute his views to the conversation if he so desired.³²

Young Schiro, however, had other things on his mind. He worked at a variety of jobs. In 1922, for example, the New Orleans city directory listed Victor Schiro, grocer at 2833 Melpomene Street.³³ Three years later, he was a clerk at J. W. Berengher, an export firm in adjacent Jefferson Parish.³⁴

Although Schiro understood the value of a formal education and a steady job, his goal at this time in his life seemed mainly to have enough money to enjoy a good time. He always liked to be around people and to have fun. Going to parties and dances became a major part of his life. He began to organize his own dances in the French Quarter. He rented the Courtier Club near Jackson Square and hired a band to come down there. His dances attracted the high school and college crowd. Everyone would bring a date. Schiro called the affairs script dances because everyone had to pay one dollar to gain admission. He used the gate receipts to rent the club and to pay for the bands. Among the musicians who played were Johnny Detroit and Papa Celestine, a noted African American jazzman. Schiro recalled that he always had good relations with blacks. An elderly African American man whom the family called Old Uncle Dave lived with the Schiros for many years. Victor claimed that he did not make any money from the dances, but he enjoyed the excitement and the people.³⁵ The script dances revealed much about Schiro’s emerging personality: a desire to accommodate a variety of people, a willingness to take charge, a craving for activity and excitement, and a love for the spotlight. These were understandable traits for a young man who had spent many of his formative years in military schools, away from a beloved family that seemed to move constantly from place to place.

In 1925, however, Schiro decided that the Crescent City had become too tame for him. He and a friend had bought a surplus airplane from World War I and were in the process of repairing it when they decided to go to Hollywood and find work in the embryonic motion picture industry. They sold the plane for $400, and his friend sold his automobile, a secondhand Stutz Bearcat, for $4,000. They used the money, plus the financial aid of Andrew Schiro, to buy a new automobile called a Jackrabbit and pay their travel expenses. The car had been the prizewinner at an automobile show at the New Orleans Fairgrounds. The vehicle had two aluminum headlights, white wheels, a large chrome radiator and a canvas top. Schiro had the blessing of his father to begin the adventure. One day, Victor declared to Andrew, I want to go to California. When Andrew asked the reason for the trip, his son replied simply, Well, I want to try it. Andrew, always the student of human nature, then said, Go ahead, but he warned his boy to be careful, and don’t do anything to make me, you know, disapprove. Victor agreed, No, Dad, I won’t bother you, and I’m gonna go, and I think it’s a good experience for me.

Twenty-one-year-old Schiro and his chum set out overland in their car. They traveled across deserts on roads constructed of railroad ties. On several occasions, the highway was so narrow that the young travelers had to pull to the shoulder of the road to allow cars and trucks coming from the opposite direction to pass. The two stopped along the way in the then small towns of Houston and Dallas to fill their gasoline tank. On the large fenders of their Jackrabbit, they always had cans with a full supply of water, gasoline, and oil. They also carried shovels to free their car from blowing sand, a chore that became necessary much too frequently. They experienced sandstorms and mud slides. The trip took more than a week.

In California, the young adventurers rented a small apartment for forty or fifty dollars per month. We didn’t have a job or anything. In Hollywood, Schiro hoped to rely on contacts that he had made years earlier at Santa Clara College. One of his friends was a man named Cleve Morrison. Morrison’s sister was Colleen Moore, a movie star whose husband, John McCormick, was the head of United Studios. Morrison also worked for the studio. Schiro figured that he would go to the United lot and get into moving pictures. He recalled, I wasn’t a bad-looking kid. When he arrived at the studio gate and asked for Morrison, he quickly discovered that admission was not that simple. The guard denied him entry, but Schiro was relentless. He told the watchman, Look, I came all the way from New Orleans. This is a buddy of mine. I went to school with him, Cleve Morrison. The guard finally agreed to call Morrison’s office, but a secretary said that he was on the set and could not be disturbed. Schiro persisted. He asked, Will you do me one favor? Just call, pick up the phone and tell him, and I’ll stand right here. Schiro agreed to follow whatever instructions Morrison gave. The secretary complied; she told Morrison, Vic Schiro’s out here. The film executive asked, From New Orleans? She answered yes. Morrison then said, Tell him to stay where he is. Morrison soon came running out, put his arms around Schiro and brought him inside the studio to meet Colleen Moore, his brother-in-law, and the assistant director on the movie they were shooting, a man from New Orleans. The assistant director looked at Schiro and asked, Would you like to do something in pictures? The reply was an eager Love to.³⁶

The assistant director promised to put Schiro in a motion picture with Constance Bennett. The fledgling actor was to report to the studio the next day wearing an overcoat and a slouch hat. Schiro became an extra. His salary was eight dollars a day. In the morning, he reported to the costume department, where the makeup artists applied greasepaint and adjusted his clothes. He remembered that it was great. His role was to escort another extra, the younger sister of the actress Dolores del Río, across a platform at a train station. Schiro continued to work as an extra on the film until its completion. He relished the theater business. He liked the excitement.

All his experiences, however, were not as easy as his introduction. Although he had the endorsement of the assistant director, the top man was not so sure. He wanted evidence that Schiro really was willing to pay the price to get into the movies. The director instructed Schiro to come to the studio the following day in old clothes. When he arrived, the director told him: This is a bull gang. You’re on the bull gang now, and here’s the foreman. He’ll tell you what to do. The job was to dig a hole thirty feet by one hundred feet through hard clay soil to create a pool of water. The pond was for a film starring Ronald Coleman, who would leap into the water. Schiro arrived on time at six o’clock in the morning and worked to the point of exhaustion. He recalled, I had corns. I had never done anything like that, corns on my hands and everything else. When the director arrived, he asked the foreman for a report on Schiro’s efforts. The foreman answered, He was wonderful. He worked awfully hard. That was the proof that the director wanted. Schiro continued to work in motion pictures until his return to New Orleans.³⁷

The young man, however, decided that he preferred to work on the other side of the camera. He learned that the soon-to-be-legendary Frank Capra needed an assistant cameraman. Schiro applied for and got the job. He would work for Capra on a film that was shooting in the California desert. There was only one difficulty. Schiro knew as much about the operation of a motion picture camera as he had initially about driving an automobile. The moment of truth arrived after the film company got to their location and began to set up the equipment. When the unsuspecting Capra instructed his new aide to load a camera, Schiro gulped and admitted his deception. He remembered, Capra jumped three feet, and Schiro thought that he was about to hit me over the head. The director instead smiled, put his arm around the young man, and said, Son, you sure got guts. Capra then began to give Schiro a crash course in the rudiments of operating a movie camera. All was well. Schiro remembered, I had one more experience under my belt.³⁸

The young New Orleanian loved the motion picture industry, but the times between films were often difficult. Twice he went broke. On one occasion, he went without eating for three days. Although he had no money, he wouldn’t write home. Schiro instead tried to make ends meet with a variety of odd jobs. One of the most unusual was as manager of the Buckeye Mine, an unsuccessful mining venture in Minden, Nevada.³⁹

After two years in Hollywood, Schiro decided to return to New Orleans. He left California with an abundance of extraordinary achievements and amusing stories to his credit and an assortment of fascinating friends who would remain close to him throughout his lifetime. One of these friends was an aspiring actor named Gary Cooper. Whenever Coop traveled to the Crescent City in later years, he always found time to visit his pal Vic Schiro. The young man also honed a skill in Hollywood that would prove incredibly valuable in his subsequent careers in business and in politics: the ability to sell oneself.⁴⁰

In New Orleans, Schiro again pursued a series of jobs, mainly in sales. In 1928 he sold real estate for Mathews Brothers.⁴¹ Two years later, he became a salesman for the General Outdoor Advertising Company, but he did not make much money. The commissions were too small; he wasn’t selling enough advertising. In his own words, he was starving to death. Schiro finally decided that he would continue in this thing, but I would get in on my own. He became president of the Nu-Way Advertising Company. He and his partner, an artist, opened a little sign shop on Frenchman Street. Schiro sold signs to the St. Charles Hotel and other local establishments. Some of the firm’s signs were on display as far away as Bogalusa. Although Schiro’s partner was a great artist, he was unfortunately also an unreliable alcoholic. Schiro recalled, The next thing I knew, I was in trouble because he just squandered the money.⁴²

The young entrepreneur, who lived with his parents, first at 1824 Dupre Street, then on Orleans Parkway and later at 130 Mound Avenue, also experienced personal tragedy. On May 16, 1930, Bettina Schiro died. Her adoring brother recollected, If you know people that knew my sister, they say they’ve never seen any girl as beautiful as she in their lifetime. They still say that. We always were together, the four of us always.⁴³ Bettina Schiro, however, had a difficult life. On December 21, 1923, she had married Warren Kuntz, president of the New Orleans Furniture Company. A year later, on October 13, 1924, she gave birth to a daughter, named Warrene for the child’s father. Bettina’s husband, however, was not faithful. In 1927 she filed for divorce on grounds of adultery. She later married Joseph L. Scheuerman, but her life proved to be short. Three years after her divorce, Bettina Schiro Kuntz Scheuerman was dead at the age of twenty-seven.⁴⁴

After the failure of the Nu-Way Advertising Company, Schiro returned to show business. He became the early morning announcer for WJBO, the voice of New Orleans, a radio station that broadcast from studios in the basement of the Orpheum Theater on University Place, directly across from the Roosevelt Hotel. Schiro took the position because he liked the glamour of it, and in those days it was still glamorous to be a radio announcer. He often convinced many of the entertainers who performed at the Blue Room of the Roosevelt Hotel across the street to appear on his radio program. Several of these stars were people whom Schiro had first met in Hollywood. For the ordinary citizen, it was exciting to recognize the man who had introduced Rudy Vallee on their favorite program, the man who was the first to announce on the air one morning the death of Huey Long, the Louisiana Kingfish. Schiro, moreover, was just as thrilled to meet these people, both the celebrated performers and the average citizens, as they were to meet him. Outside the studio, he was also pursuing thrills in another way. He, Fred Kramer, and several other friends were barnstorming in refurbished airplanes around southern Louisiana.⁴⁵

Schiro’s job with WJBO appealed to his personal cravings for excitement and attention, but it also led to a momentous change in his life. One day in the spring of 1931, Schiro was sauntering along Canal Street after his broadcast. He stopped to talk with one of the owners of Rubenstein Brothers, a clothing store, when a young lady came walking by. Schiro recalled that she was a nice looking girl, beautiful, someone he did not know. Suddenly interested, he gave her a serious look. While Schiro continued his earnest appraisal, the clothier turned away and greeted the young woman, a person he obviously recognized. After the woman had walked on to do some errands, Schiro asked his friend, Who was that lovely lady? Rubenstein said that she was in town with her mother, preparing to take a tropical cruise. He then asked Schiro a very silly question: You’d like to meet her? The smitten young man enthusiastically responded, You’re doggone right I’d like to meet her. The lady’s name was Margaret Mary Gibbes.⁴⁶

Margaret Mary Gertrude Gibbes, the daughter of Dr. Charles Elliott and Henrietta Gibbes of Charleston, South Carolina, had been born in