Pat Morris has a lot of mementos after six decades of civic life as a school board trustee, prosecutor, judge and mayor, from 2006 to 2014, of San Bernardino.
His memorabilia includes letters from President Bill Clinton and then-Sen. Joe Biden and photos with former President Jimmy Carter on a “blitz build” in Mexico with Habitat for Humanity.
Of the most interest to posterity, though, may be a hat.
It’s the Stetson worn by President Lyndon Baines Johnson on his Oct. 28, 1964 visit to San Bernardino. LBJ was the first sitting president to come to San Bernardino in its then 154-year history.
Johnson’s wife gave it to Morris as a thank you for helping get out the vote.
I learned that detail from the book “San Bernardino Bicentennial 1810-2010,” a copy of which I was given last summer. It was written by John Weeks and published by The Sun.
Reading the sentence about the gift of the hat, my jaw dropped.
You see, early last year I’d written about LBJ’s visit, based largely on news coverage at the time. A gift to an obscure young lawyer was not important enough to have made the news in 1964. But years passed and its recipient went on to local and regional renown.
Weeks, the retired Sun columnist and editor, died July 8 at 75. In August, I attended a memorial tribute to him at the Historical and Pioneer Society headquarters. So did Morris.
I buttonholed him to ask: “Did LBJ really give you his hat?”
“I still have his Stetson,” Morris affirmed with a smile. “It’s up in a hat box in my closet.”
He offered to show it to me sometime. Interested as I was, I was also busy with other columns. Thus, I didn’t immediately jump on the hat. So to speak.
Now, though, American presidents are on our minds. We recently lost the 39th, are saying goodbye to the 46th and on Monday will welcome back the 45th as the 47th.
It seemed as good a time as any to see the 36th’s chapeau.
Besides, it’s a journalism truism that if your mother says she loves you, don’t take it on faith. Check it out. Same if a man tells you he owns LBJ’s homburg. What if Morris had been talking through his hat?
When I arrive at his house Wednesday afternoon, after first sharing lunch and conversation with him at nearby DJ Coffee Shop, Morris already has the hat box laid out.
On the box’s side is written in marker “Brown felt hat (Pat)” and “LBJ hat (Pat).” Crossed out is “Purple painted Mardi Gras hat.”
A little respect for the president, please.
To refresh your memory, Johnson, a Texan, lived in San Bernardino for about a year, 1925-26, working as a law clerk for his cousin in the Platt Building and operating its elevator. Then, sobered by his foray into the adult world, he returned to Texas for college and later a political career.
As vice president, Johnson ascended to the presidency when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Almost a year later, Johnson was campaigning as the incumbent against Barry Goldwater for a full term (which Johnson won in a landslide).
On Oct. 28, 1964, after a campaign stop in Riverside, Johnson came to San Bernardino. Some 20,000 people crowded into downtown to catch a glimpse as the president spoke on a platform outside the Platt Building.
Morris’s own journey to San Bernardino was a winding one.
The Needles-born Morris, whose father had been mayor of that desert hamlet, graduated in 1959 from the University of Redlands, got his law degree from Stanford University and began practicing in Palo Alto. Morris was inspired by JFK’s energy and fresh ideas.
Kennedy’s assassination rocked him so badly, he watched TV coverage for three days straight. In tribute, he decided to devote himself to public service and to do so in his native San Bernardino County. Wife Sally agreed, “as long as it’s not Needles.”
The district attorney hired him as a prosecutor. They moved to San Bernardino.
When LBJ visited, Morris was president of the Big County Democratic Club, the name a nod to San Bernardino County’s status as the largest U.S. county by size. “It was mostly young lawyers,” Morris recalls Wednesday. “All these people were inspired by the possibility of change.”
Club members got to shake Johnson’s hand. They escorted him inside the Platt Building, where LBJ used the elevator lever to take a few people up to the fourth floor. Back on the ground floor, the president announced with pride: “I see that I can still run it, after 40 years.”
Now for the John B. Stetson hat. In a spontaneous gesture, Lady Bird Johnson, the president’s wife, offered Lyndon B.’s John B. to the club.
“She took it off his head. He laughed, this raucous laugh of his,” Morris says. “She kept him always a little off balance. She was aggressive that way.”
Lady Bird — not the 2017 Greta Gerwig movie character, kids — signed the hat’s brim. Morris takes the hat into the light streaming in from the patio to read the faint inscription aloud.
“To the Big County Democratic Club in support of their efforts to encourage young people to vote! Lady Bird Johnson.”
Because Morris was president of the club, he got the hat.
Sally died in 2021. Pat continues to live in the ranch house the couple purchased in 1965. That’s where the hat has resided too.
“It doesn’t fit my head at all. It’s relatively small, actually,” Morris says. “Do you want to try it on?”
Even with my shaved head, the hat was snug. But it fit, kind of.
“You’re another LBJ,” Morris declares.
Friends, if elected, ah promise — well, never mind.
The hat is a tangible reminder of the visit by a U.S. president. Donating it to the Historical and Pioneer Society is a possibility.
“Who among the great leaders has come by to say hello to us?” Morris muses. “And he had a connection here because he lived here.”
Morris was 26 when he got the hat. On Tuesday he turned 87.
San Bernardino is lucky that the president’s topper ended up with him instead of almost anyone else.
Think about it. A lesser recipient might have misplaced the hat during a move, sold it on eBay or lost it in a poker game. But not Patrick J. Morris.
My hat is off to him.
David Allen writes Friday, Sunday and Wednesday, but keep that under your hat. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on X.
