Clyde Hill Collection

Manuscript Collection No. 213

• Introduction
• Biography
• Scope and Content
• Contents List

Introduction

Clyde Hill, a Republican State representative from Yates Center, Kansas, created a collection of papers relating to Kansas politics and government. Included in the collection are eighteen boxes of correspondence, clippings, speeches, programs, and other items dating from 1948 to 1989. The bulk of the material is correspondence and clippings from 1955 through 1975. The collection was donated by Hill to the Kansas State Historical Society in 1990. There are no restrictions on its use.

Biography

Clyde Hill was born on a farm in Woodson County, Kansas, in 1912. During his childhood he attended a one-room country school. Hill graduated from Yates Center High School in 1931. For several years he taught at one-room schools. In 1935 Hill entered Kansas State Teachers College in Emporia, but he transferred to Washburn College (now Washburn University) in Topeka, Kansas, where he obtained his undergraduate degree in 1938. Hill continued his education at Washburn, graduating from law school in 1940.

After graduation, he opened a law practice in Yates Center, Kansas, and later in the year was appointed Woodson County attorney. Hill served in the military during World War II achieving the rank of second lieutenant. After the war, he returned to law practice in Yates Center. He held a number of responsible positions in the community including Woodson County attorney and Yates Center Library Board president. In 1954 he ran as a Republican for the Kansas House of Representatives, pledging to serve only two terms. Despite this vow he had a twenty-year career in the House holding a number of important positions including serving as chairman of both the Judiciary Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. In 1965 he was elected unanimously speaker of the House. The next year he served as speaker pro tempore.
One of Hill’s special legislative concerns was the acute shortage of general-practice physicians in rural and western Kansas. He sought to remedy the problem by encouraging the State legislature to appropriate money increasing residents’ stipends and to establish a Wichita branch of the University of Kansas medical school.

After his career as a State representative, Hill continued to exert an influence on the State legislature. In 1974 he campaigned for Robert Bennett, insisting that Vern Miller lacked the qualifications to be an effective governor of Kansas. After Bennett’s victory, he appointed Hill a legislative liaison. When Bennett was defeated in his bid for re-election the new governor, John Carlin, recognized Hill’s experience and offered him an appointment to a committee for evaluation of the State Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. Hill declined the appointment.

He received an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, from his alma mater, Washburn University, in 1985.
Hill has belonged to a number of religious, fraternal, public service, and business associations including the Episcopal church, Masonic groups, the Rotary Club, KTWU Public Television Advisory Board, the Chamber of Commerce as well as serving as a director of the State Exchange Bank of Yates Center.
Hill and his wife Mildred had one daughter, Shirley (Hill) Vaughn.

Scope and Content

The Clyde Hill collection is strongly focused on Kansas State politics during the years of Hill’s service in the Kansas House, 1955-1975, although there are some papers as early as 1948 and as late as 1989. Hill’s collection is composed almost entirely of clippings and correspondence although there is a scattering of other material such as programs, financial records, and invitations.

There are a large number of files identified by campaign and year. These contain material about races for state offices including governor and state representative. There are clippings about the candidates and political hand-outs and correspondence.

Many files labeled Election are included in the collection. These contain clippings about the election returns, often including specific data about Hill’s elections and the number of votes he received in each precinct. In many of these files there are also certificates of Hill’s elections and financial records regarding Hill’s expenditures for the campaign.

The collection contains a great deal of information on the state legislature. This includes a large amount of material on the position of speaker of the House, including reunions of past speakers, correspondence regarding choosing a speaker, clippings of Hill as speaker, and correspondence during Hill’s tenure as speaker and speaker pro tem. There is also a significant amount of material on the legislature’s relationship with the governor, especially Robert Docking. In fact, the collection has more material on Robert Docking than anyone except Hill himself.

This collection should provide valuable information to anyone researching the office of the governor in Kansas. It contains a multitude of clippings regarding budgets, quarrels with the legislature, campaigns, inaugurations, and defeats. One particularly interesting item in the collection is a newspaper of the McCarthy era called “Charles H. Tucker’s Crusade” which hinted Kansas governor Fred Hall was linked with communism. There is also correspondence regarding the governors as well as a smaller amount from governors, especially William Avery. One letter in the collection is particularly noteworthy. In 1951 correspondence with Hill, Frank Carlson discusses the possibility of Dwight Eisenhower running for president.

The Hill papers provide little information on the passage of specific pieces of legislation. There are very few copies of bills and virtually no correspondence regarding individual bills. However there are some clippings about legislation enacted.
Many constituents wrote Hill about the issues of the day, especially abortion, pari-mutuel betting, and liquor by the drink. Although these letters do not provide a scientific sampling of public opinion in Hill’s district, they do reflect the impassioned views of some Kansans. Other constituents wrote hill letters of request. For example, many children expressed their desire to be legislative pages. Others wrote asking Hill to intervene with state agencies on his behalf. For example, several citizens requested assistance in gaining admission to graduate programs in Kansas colleges and universities.

Although most of the collection deals with legislative matters there are two significant subsets. The first is Hill’s papers regarding the disbarment case of Alvin Strosnider. Hill was appointed commissioner of the case by the Kansas Supreme Court and the materials document the trial held in 1956.

The second subset of the collection are papers dealing with medical care and education in Kansas. Many Kansans, including Clyde Hill, were concerned by the shortage of physicians in the state, especially in rural and western regions of Kansas. Other people charged that it was less a problem of numbers and more a problem of distribution.
Clyde Hill’s collection reveals Hill’s and other Kansans’ commitment to examine the problems of medical care in the state and to find ways to remedy the situation. The collection contains much material on the shortage of doctors in rural areas including charts, studies, correspondence, and clippings. The wide-ranging material provides personal and anecdotal views of the problem and analytical and statistical data including the ages of physicians and the distribution of doctors in each county of Kansas. There are several accounts of the experiences of general practitioners in rural areas, as well as promotional materials of the small towns attempting to lure doctors to their locales.

Western Kansas towns found it especially difficult to snare physicians and the shortage of health care professionals exacerbated the feelings of many citizens of western Kansas that they paid taxes to support the state but received few services in return.

The collection reveals that Hill and other state leaders sought to improve access to health care in Kansas. One plan that was implemented was to increase the number of doctors in the state of Kansas by enlarging the number of students admitted to the University of Kansas medical school. This increase in students precipitated an enlargement of facilities at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City. This expansion was well documented in the collection.

The Hill papers are a rich source of information on the University of Kansas Medical Center including material on the dean of the school, Dr. William O. Rieke, and his resignation; the opening of a branch of the school in Wichita; and the question of specialization versus general practice in the training of physicians. There is a wide variety of data on the medical students including data on age, sex, race, ethnicity, and home town, and where the students settled after graduation.

Overall, the Hill collection provides a wealth of information on Kansas government and politics from 1955 to 1975, the Alvin Strosnider disbarment proceedings, the shortages of family physicians in Kansas, and medical education in Kansas.
Penny Clark
Lela Barnes Intern
August 1990

Contents List

Folder List

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