{"response":{"docs":[{"id":"gych_rogp_078","title":"Charles Campbell, 14 May 2009.","collection_id":"gych_rogp","collection_title":"Reflections on Georgia Politics oral history collection, 2006-2010","dcterms_contributor":["Short, Bob, 1932-"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, 39.76, -98.5","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018"],"dcterms_creator":["Short, Bob, 1932","Campbell, Charles E., 1942"],"dc_date":["2009-05-14"],"dcterms_description":["Campbell discusses growing up in Georgia and attending Emory. Campbell recalls his friendship with Senator Richard B. Russell, how he came to know Russell, and serving as Senator Russell's Chief of Staff. Campbell explains how Russell went out of his way to meet and interact with newly elected senators and how Russell asked the 4H club to choose his interns. Campbell discusses the Russell family and their political inclinations. He discusses Senator Russell's early start in politics, from his first election as a Representative from Barrow County to his governorship as a 31-year old. Campbell comments on Russell's leadership in the senate, explaining how Senator Russell to the Appropriations Committee and the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee. Campbell also comments on Senator Russell's friendship with Senator Talmadge. Campbell explains Senator Russell's friendship with Lyndon B. Johnson and describes his influence on making Johnson Majority Leader of the Senate. He discusses how Russell opposed the Vietnam War and his interest in national defense and agriculture. Campbell recalls Senator Russell's dislike of foreign aid and running a deficit and comments on what Russell would say of current legislative practices and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Campbell discusses Senator Russell's friendship with John F. Kennedy and his subsequent appointment to the Warren Commission. Campbell goes on to explain the deterioration of Senator Russell's relationship with Lyndon B. Johnson. Campbell discusses Senator Russell's position on Civil Rights and segregation. He also recalls the rumors that Carl Sanders was going to run against Russell in 1966. Campbell also recalls working with David Gambrell after Russell's death and his subsequent involvement in politics, including his experience working with Senator Talmadge. Campbell comments on party politics in Georgia.","Finding aid available in repository.","Charles Campbell was born in 1942 in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up in Jackson, Georgia. He attended Emory University, and graduated from the University of Georgia. He met Senator Richard B. Russell when he introduced him for a Blue Key speech at UGA. He went to work as Russell's legislative assistant in Washington, D.C., and eventually became his executive secretary. Upon Senator Russell's death in 1971, Campbell returned to Georgia and practiced law in Atlanta while remaining involved in politics and managing campaigns for Herman Talmadge. Campbell retired from the law firm of McKenna, Long and Aldridge in 2009, ranked among America's top 100 lawyers.","Interviewed by Bob Short."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection","http://sclfind.libs.uga.edu/sclfind/view?docId=ead/RBRL220ROGP.xml"],"dcterms_subject":["Georgia. General Assembly. Senate","United States--Warren Commission","Elections--Georgia","Governors--Georgia","Legislators--Georgia","Politicians--Georgia--Interviews","Political campaigns--Georgia","Vietnam War, 1961-1975","Elections","Governors","Legislators","Political campaigns","Politicians","Georgia"],"dcterms_title":["Charles Campbell, 14 May 2009."],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-078/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 078, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia, 30602-1641."],"dlg_local_right":["Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule."],"dcterms_medium":["oral histories (literary works)","interviews"],"dcterms_extent":["1 interview (96 min.) : sd., col."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines), 1908-1973","Talmadge, Herman E. (Herman Eugene), 1913-2002","Gambrell, David Henry, 1929-","Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963","Campbell, Charles E., 1942-","Russell, Richard B. (Richard Brevard), 1897-1971"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"gych_rogp_076","title":"Aubrey Morris, 08 April 2009.","collection_id":"gych_rogp","collection_title":"Reflections on Georgia Politics oral history collection, 2006-2010","dcterms_contributor":["Short, Bob, 1932-"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, 39.76, -98.5","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018"],"dcterms_creator":["Morris, Aubrey R., 1922-2010","Short, Bob, 1932"],"dc_date":["2009-04-08"],"dcterms_description":["Aubrey R. Morris was born in 1922 in Roswell, Georgia, and grew up writing for the local newspaper. He attended the University of Georgia and studied journalism. He worked as an intern for the Atlanta Journal, and edited the UGA yearbook. On the day of his college graduation, he started as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal, and covered Atlanta and city hall. He also started the first public information office at the state transportation department. After thirteen years at the Journal, he joined WSB-TV, and helped to develop the first radio news department in Georgia. He covered the major events of the day--at local, national, and international levels--including desegregation, the Vietnam War, and Martin Luther King, Jr. He served thirty years as news and editorial director at WSB, retiring in 1987. Aubrey Morris died April 14, 2010.","Morris discusses his long journalism career, including his days as a journalism student at the University of Georgia, his work at the Atlanta Journal, and his reporting at WSB Radio. He describes his experience working closely with Atlanta's mayors and reporting on major events like the 1962 Orly plane crash and the Winecoff Hotel fire. Morris also talks about reporting on events of the civil rights movement, such as an early speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., near the state capitol and the integration of the University of Georgia.","Finding aid available in repository.","Interviewed by Bob Short."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection","http://sclfind.libs.uga.edu/sclfind/view?docId=ead/RBRL220ROGP.xml"],"dcterms_subject":["WSB (Radio station : Atlanta, Ga.)","University of Georgia","Henry W. Grady School of Journalism and Mass Communication","Atlanta journal-constitution","Journalists--Georgia--Interviews","Journalism--Georgia","Civil rights movements--United States","Civil rights movements--Georgia","School integration--Georgia--Athens","College integration--Georgia--Athens","Aircraft accidents--France--Orly","Aircraft accidents","Civil rights movements","College integration","Journalism","Journalists","School integration","Universities and colleges--Alumni and alumnae","France--Orly","Georgia","Georgia--Athens","United States"],"dcterms_title":["Aubrey Morris, 08 April 2009."],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-076/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 076, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia, 30602-1641."],"dlg_local_right":["Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule."],"dcterms_medium":["oral histories (literary works)","interviews"],"dcterms_extent":["1 interview (105 min.) : sd., col."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Morris, Aubrey R., 1922-2010"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":"Aubrey Morris interviewed by Bob Short \r\n2009 April 8 \r\nAlpharetta, GA \r\nReflections on Georgia Politics \r\nROGP-076 \r\nOriginal: video, 105 minutes \r\n \r\nsponsored by: \r\nRichard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies \r\nUniversity of Georgia Libraries \r\nand \r\nYoung Harris College \r\n \r\nDate of Transcription:  September 29, 2009 \r\n \r\nBOB SHORT:  Im Bob Short and this is Reflections on Georgia Politics sponsored by Young Harris College, The Richard Russell Library and the University of Georgia.  We are delighted today to have as our guest Aubrey Morris, former Atlanta Journal Reporter and Dean of the Atlanta Radio Newsmen.  Aubrey, were delighted to have you.  Glad youre here.  Were honored. \r\n \r\nAUBREY MORRIS:  Thanks.  Delighted to be here.  Who were those sponsors again? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Young Harris College. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  I think of Zell Miller when I think of Young Harris. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes, a very famous alumnus.  \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Right \r\n \r\nSHORT:  The University of Georgia, of course. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  The University of Georgia  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And the Richard B. Russell Library. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  One of the very fine institutions at the university.  Very proud of it and what its doing. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Good.  All right, you area native of Roswell, Georgia. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Roswell, part of metro Atlanta, native all the way, several generations. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You went to school there in public schools and then you went to the University of Georgia. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Correct. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Tell us about your experience at the university. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Well, first of all you've got to get to the university.  How in the world would a guy, country farm boy from Roswell, Georgia get to the University of Georgia to the Henry W. Grady School of Journalism which I had heard about from two very good teachers I had in Milton High School in Alpharetta which is the high school I attended just up the road from Roswell in the Fulton County School System.   Well, they encouraged me to study journalism and said, The only thing you can do is go to the University of Georgia, and I thought it was predestined that I go to the university.  So I ended up at the University of Georgia with a couple of paper bags, I think, and maybe an old worn out suitcase as we called them back then and a few rag tag pieces of clothing.  One neck tie, I remember, and I remember on the day I arrived at the university at the bus station, west of the arch and the next block headed toward Atlanta well, there was the bus station.  I guess its still there today in Athens.   \r\nGot off the bus and by the way, I had been writing for the local weekly newspaper in Roswell in Alpharetta throughout high school and when I got off the bus another aspiring young university student had arrived from somewhere down in South Georgia by another bus and he started across the street and immediately was hit by a taxi cab.  So what did Aubrey Morris do?  He reverted to his original calling.  He became a reporter, got out my notepad, pencil, went over and asked the policeman the name of the student-to-be.  Oh, hes not hurt badly.  Were going to send him over to St. Marys Hospital and have him checked over.   \r\nI wrote his name down, quoted the officer and said what happened; he just stepped in front of a taxi.  I guess he was enamored at arriving in Athens, wasnt watching where he was going.  Maybe he was looking at the co-eds already.  But this student, I remember I got his name and before I went to register at the university I went to the Athens Banner-Herald within the very hour, saw Byron Lumpkin, who was then managing editor of the Banner-Herald and introduced myself.  Told them I just arrived to studied journalism and the university, told him what I just witnessed and I told him I had the name of the guy.  He wasnt hurt badly, he would be okay but he was taken to the hospital for treatment.  Hed just arrived and quoted the policeman saying he would be okay, no charges were made against the taxi driver.  That basically was the story, a couple of paragraphs.  And Mr. Lumpkin was so taken by this way of getting a news story about a new arriving student being injured by a taxi that he had decided to run a little box alongside the story about the reporter who reported it, Mr. Aubrey Morris from Roswell reported this story and he had arrived to study journalism at the university. \r\nYou can imagine how a new student at the university would have been taken aback by that sudden opening of the door to fame and fortune. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  So you studied journalism at the university and upon graduation you got a job with the Atlanta Journal? \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Well, I studied journalism at the university and during the summer between my junior and senior years I got a job as an intern at the Atlanta Journal, covered city hall and there I got to know the great Atlanta mayor William B. Hartsfield.  And he really inspired me even more to continue with my career.  So I went back to the university, edited The Pandora during my senior year and on the day I graduated from the university I lived in the old college right across from the law school and I took my few belongings outside and I left immediately for Atlanta.  Rode the bus, by the way, back to Atlanta, went to register at the YMCA and went to the Atlanta Journal that afternoon thinking, well, Id be able to go to work that Monday morning.  It was Saturday in the early afternoon and Fred Moon said, Well, hello, welcome back, Aubrey, said, Youre our new police reporter.  Youre covering the police beat tonight.  So I went to work the night the day I graduated from the university having pledged that I would come back to work.  They wanted me just to stay but I told them I was going back.  Theyd asked me to be editor of The Pandora, the annual at the university which I was proud to do.  Id already picked my staff.  We had it all lined up.  So I went back and thats the day I began at the Journal.  Dont ask me the year.  I think it was 46, 45, 46. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You mentioned Mayor Hartsfield.  Tell us a little bit about Mayor Hartsfield. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Well, as soon as he found out I was at the University of Georgia he, shall we say, took a liking to me.  He was his own best press agent.  He knew how to get in the newspapers, always with something positive about Atlanta.  But he also was a man of great erudition, is that the word?  Hes very suave, very smart, very good politician and he knew that it was good to be a member and to be caught hanging out to use a modern phrase with certain people if it were suitable.  So he found out that I was at the university, what clubs or organizations I was a member of.  Id been elected to the Grid Iron Club, the secret society, Grid Iron Secret Society at the university.  He then said, Well, can you help me get in?  Can you recommend me as a member?  And I remember this about Hartsfield in particular, I passed along his desire to become a member of this select group which it still is and he even asked me to go with him and his chauffer to their initiation meeting at the Grid Iron Club when he was initiated into Grid Iron.  And I found out a little bit about Hartsfield believing in each man looking after his own job and letting the other man handle his assigned task. \r\nOn the way back to Atlanta late that night somewhere outside Monroe, Georgia the police vehicle -- the mayor and I were sitting on the back seat, the lieutenant driving for him was sitting on the front seat and we were headed back to Atlanta and the right rear tire blew out about 2:00 in the morning.  And Hartsfield just sat back there in the back seat.  I sat there and I started to get out.  The lieutenant started getting out to change the tire.  I started to get out and help him.  Hartsfield, Get back in here.  Thats his job.  Said, You sit in this.\"  And this was in winter, a cold winter night.  Hartsfield insisted on the lieutenant changing the tire which he did.  I said, Well, this guys an interesting character.  I think Ill get to know him a little bit better, which I did.   \r\nAnd Hartsfield was a very obstreperous individual.  He let me know all about him.  Hed even invite me to his law office.  He had a lot of hobbies on the side.  One of them was mining.  He liked to prospect for minerals in the state of Georgia.  He had a wide variety of interests.  Well, he had an interest in everything, would invite me up there and then I got to know him.  And then one time Fred Moon my city editor at that time gave me a pointed question to ask Hartsfield when I arrived at city hall.  And I asked him and Hartsfield picked up a paperweight on his desk, threw it at me.  I dodged and it hit the door in the mayors office.  I said, Well, Im getting to know this guy.  Hes really getting to be my buddy I think.  So he threw the paperweight at me and then he let out a real wild laugh and his secretary came running in to see what had happened. \r\nHe said, Oh, nothings happened.  He reached over behind his desk there in city hall where he had a Coca-Cola cooler where the cokes were cooled by a block of ice and who saw to the steady supply of Coca-Cola there other than Bob Woodruff, who owned Coca-Cola himself and who was Hartsfields leading confidant among business people.  And Hartsfield reached back and got one of Mr. -- Coca-Cola came in everyday and stocked the thing with fresh Coke.  Got a coke and he and I drank a cold Coke and then we talked to some more and then he gave me the interview and I did the story, but I learned incidentally a little more about Mr. Woodruff.  Mayor Hartsfield, he consulted people all over the country -- high and low, people in high office, people in low, from the president on down whoever it was and he was just able to make decisions.  Like with Mr. Woodruff, he would ride around in a police car late at night, Woodruff would be on the front seat with the police lieutenant driving, Woodruff always smoking a cigar or chewing on one and Chief Jenkins, Mayor Hartsfield, and occasionally they would invite me.  As I say, Hartsfield took a liking to me and so therefore I cultivated that because I learned a lot that was going on.   \r\nSo we were riding around early one Saturday morning.  Hartsfield, Woodruff, Chief Jenkins -- Herbert Jenkins, and myself.  Woodruff looks out and sees people loitering on the street corner.  He takes a drag on his cigar and says, Herb, clean up that mess.  We just keep driving right along.  So thats the way politics was in Atlanta when people of power and immense knowledge of the city and its people who knew people all over the city where they could afford to make decisions in the best interest of law and order if you want to call it that, safety on the streets.  At that time they simply didnt allow people--there was an ordinance against idling and loitering.  Youd be thrown in jail if you even suggested somebody be arrested for that today, wouldnt you?  Would you?  I dont know.  Maybe you have a right to idle and loiter but not to threaten other people on the street. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Mayor Hartsfield was very interested in aviation. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Hartsfield and Atlanta are the same on aviation.  Now, I know we have Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport but lets go back to the beginning.  Hartsfield is a member of the Board of Alderman I think it was called back then.  He was head of the aviation committee and saw the chance for the city to purchase the old Candler Field which was a privately owned airport beyond on Hatfield owned by a member of the Candlers.  I think it was Asa Candler of Coca-Cola.  Im not sure.  But it was own by the Candlers and was called Candler Field.  Thats where owners of private aircraft could take these new toys and go out and have weekends for recreation, fly wherever else they wanted to.  But Hartsfield saw what was coming because also at that same time came on the scene a guy named Mr. C. E. Woolman who had been a crop dusting pilot, owned a crop dusting company.  A crop duster, by the way for you people who are not familiar was a guy pilot who flew a plane that spread poison over cotton fields and crops to kill insects.   \r\nWell, Mr. Woolmans background was in Louisiana in the cotton, the delta cotton land in Mississippi and Louisiana but he wanted to get into the airline business and he came to Atlanta to begin Delta Airlines.  And if you mention Hartsfield you have to mention Mr. Woolman who had his shop setup right there right at the edge of Hapeville at the old, old terminal.  That was Atlantas first terminal.  Now, I dont know -- there were Eastern Airlines.  There were other pioneers like Eddie Rickenbacker, the famous World War I pilot.  Rickenbacker started Eastern, Woolman started Delta and together with Hartsfield, they built the airport, taking it away from the upstarts -- Birmingham, Alabama really was ahead of Atlanta in the early days.  Hartsfield saw what they were doing and he said, I want that for Atlanta.  Birmingham almost got ahead of Atlanta a couple of times until Hartsfield boldly started expanding, you know, and convince the business community, the travel industry that Atlanta could become a travel center, which he set out to do.   \r\nWhen I talk about Hartsfield, though, having built the Atlanta Airport, well, thats because for a long time thats what it was called -- Hartsfield.  People called it Hartsfield instead of being named after William B. Hartsfield.  Hartsfield I would say was the idea man and I think in retrospect Hartsfield would give due credit to those who followed him, who picked up the cue that he gave the city not only during the time that he was mayor but the years to come even up to today because theyve all been imbued with Hartsfields spirit to push Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. \r\nI remember, for example, when Mr. Woolman was still on hand when he began service to Paris.  I dont know whether it was Delta, Pan Am, International Flight or what it was but Mayor Andrew Young was mayor of Atlanta at that time.  I remember a great speech that Mayor Young--later Ambassador Young--made in Paris about Atlanta and about the South, about the leadership that Atlanta was poised to give the world when it showed what interracial progress was meaning to a big city and would continue to mean.  Then, of course, Mayor Maynard Jackson, superb leadership.  I covered many, many speeches when Mayor Jackson bragged about the Atlanta Airport, when he, himself, went all over the country to get funding to expand to build new runways, to get new technology.  Mayor Ivan Allen, Mayor Sam Massell, all of those who have followed right up to Shirley Franklin have done--and I am indeed proud of what they have done to enhance what Hartsfield thought about way, way, way back in Atlanta history. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Speaking of flights to Paris, you were on hand to cover the story of the Orly crash that took so many Atlanta lives. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Yes, one of the--I guess in reporter and newspaper or journalist parlance you refer to a big story.  Well, I dont refer to it as a big story just for that reason.  It was a big story because it affected Atlanta in a big way because it, in effect, wiped out much of the civic and cultural leadership of this city.  I said it didnt wipe it out but it wiped out a lot of it.  Just like the Winecoff Hotel fire of years earlier, the Orly Airport crash in 1962 decimated the city of well over 100 of its leaders in the field of the arts in particular connected to the Cultural Arts Center it was called.  This is where some 120 of Atlantas leaders, member of the Atlanta Art Alliance had flown to Paris and to other major cities in Europe, Rome, London, Berlin to study what they were doing in the area of enhancing all elements of the arts for their cities.   \r\nThis group had been in these cities in Europe for about two weeks.  I covered their departure earlier from Atlanta and former Mayor Hartsfield because Mayor Ivan Allen was mayor at this time.  He had asked former Mayor Hartsfield to see the group off when they left Hartsfield Atlanta Airport at that time.  That was in 62.  Well, I imagine my horror on a Sunday morning when the day that I knew they were to return to Atlanta I got a telephone call at church.  An usher came up to my pew and said, Mr. Morris, youre wanted at WSB.  King Elliot, the newsman in the WSB Newsroom, the news announcer said the plane crash at Paris has killed the Atlanta people.  I knew immediately what he was talking about and I said, Well, Ill be at the station right away.  My wife had remained home that day with our children and I left church alone, calling my wife and telling her I was going to the station. \r\nAnd immediately on arrival, I went to the Air France Office across from the Atlanta Journal Constitution Building on Marietta Street and the Air France staff was beginning to get over the old teletype a confirmed list of those who had died in the crash.  But by then it was almost 11:00, it was about 10:30 Sunday morning and Mr. Elmo Ellis, my boss, was at the station.  He and Rev. Harry Fifield the pastor of First Presbyterian Church, we were to go on the air, broadcasting as we had done for years the First Presbyterian Service at 11:00 and it was decided between Rev. Fifield and Mr. Ellis that instead of Rev. Fifield delivering his sermon at 11:00 on the 11:00 broadcast would be taken up with my use of the telephone in calling in the names of each victim of the Orly crash as it arrived on teletype. \r\nAnd at that time, one of the prominent business men was an Atlanta banker, Mr. W. O. Duvall, ran Atlanta Federal Savings and Loan Association and he was at the Air France office and it just occurred to me to get him to tell me a little bit about each one of these people.  So we preempted Rev. Fifield's sermon with a broadcast and confirmation of each person and Mr. Duvall was able almost without exception to tell me something personal about each of those people.  They were all so important and he knew everybody in Atlanta anyway.  As for the crash itself, how does a reporter--remember back then to be on television would have been filming something and supplying the film to New York and putting it on the network.  Well, that was that and I was frustrated because Mayor Allen -- I went to city hall by the way after leaving the Air France office, I went to city hall.  Mayor Allen had arrived wearing his farming clothes.  He liked to go to his farm down in Heard County, Georgia and piddle around on a Sunday afternoon but just as he got down there, he had gotten out in the fields, called back into his telephone, got the word, came immediately to city hall.  I met him there.  We interviewed him there and I said, What are you going to do?  And he decided he and Edwin Stern, the Atlanta City attorney would go to Paris on the next flight they could get out of New York and it would be leaving at 5:00.  And I called my wife and I said, Im going to get on the plane, bring my passport to WSB, Elmo Ellis going to bring me to WSB to take me to the airport.  The mayor said I could go along.  I told him I was going along. \r\nSo he took me along and we arrived in New York.  Mayor Hartsfield, by the way, saw us off at the airport.  Stern, the mayor, and myself arrived in New York.  I told the mayor, he said, What do I do? Because every reporter in New York was at Idlewild Airport.  Well, is that Kennedy today?  I think, yeah.  Every reporter was there.  All of the TV film cameraman, radio people.  They were there and I said, Well, you speak from your heart.  Just dont be uptight about it.  Just go out and meet them and whatever they say, do it.  Answer them.  Boy, he did a superb job.  But man, I tell you, he showed his manhood in my heart by the way he handled that.   \r\nFlying out over the Atlantic about midnight that night, headed into Paris, we could look and see the northern lights of the Aurora Borealis, over the North Pole and the mayor was looking out there and just very quiet and I just put my hand on his and I said, Youre doing okay, man.  Said, Youre going to get a different audience when you get to Paris.  Sure enough he did.  A phalanx of photographers, reporters, stumbling all over each other wanting to get to the mayor and everything.  He hadnt even been to the site yet.  So I told one of the aides to the Paris mayor, I said, Well, tell the guys the mayor will meet with them but he wants to visit the site first.  How would emotionally be able to respond?  Furthermore, I knew that they would get a better story.  He hadnt even been to the site yet.   \r\nThe mayor got in a limousine, we drove to the site.  The mayor looked at all of the luggage of the victims strewn about this apple orchard and a little village at the end of Orly Airport called Villeneuve and the plane had aborted the take off and it crashed and burned in this apple orchard.  And the mayor was coming up and then is when I, sort of, kicked in as a report to the mayor, I said, Mayor, I think the French authorities a little bit overreacted.  I said, You tell them you will see the press now.  So they were all crowded at the fence some distance away and they gave the signal and they came like a horde up just as the mayor started looking at everything and they were able to record his reaction as he saw it for the first time, see.  In fact, I remember Mayor Ivan Allen looking down.  I wont call the name of the victim who died in the crash but the mayor looked down and saw a necktie that he had given one of these victims as a Christmas present.  \r\nI remember that necktie, and then he called out who he gave it to.  That was on Monday morning.  They followed all Monday, rest of Monday, Tuesday and by Wednesday Attorney Stern and I suggested to Mayor Allen that he hold an ecumenical service.  Both of us knew the dean of the American Cathedral in Paris and its on Avenue George Fifth, a very huge cathedral right in the heart of the city and since these were Americans we figured that would be the proper place and the dean at the cathedral had been dean of Holy Innocence Episcopal Church in Atlanta.  We both knew him.  So he arranged the ecumenical service which was held on Wednesday morning at the American Cathedral with the dean from Atlanta saying a goodbye to the Atlantians who had died in the crash and the most memorable music the ecumenical choir sang during that service was an old prayer from the Sarum Primer form the Sarum Rite of the Anglican Church.  It appears in hymnals under various forms.  Its called God Be In My Head, or from the Sarum Primer, God Be In My Head, the first few lines: \r\nGod be in my head and in my understanding.  God be in my heart and in my keeping.  God be at mine end and at my departing. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  One of the stories you covered while you were with the Atlanta Journal was the tragic Winecoff fire. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  That was when I was a single man living still -- as really a cub reporter, a young reporter on the Journal and I got a call from an Atlanta Fireman who was a watchman in downtown Atlanta.  His name was Swamp Walker.  They called him Swamp because he hung out in what was then known as the underground which is now underground Atlanta, the entertainment site and these were really dark, dank, under the railroad overpasses, dark corners and everything, where winos and people like that would hide out and the police would drive the paddy wagon in there and load up two or three times a night.  Well, Swamp Walker was doing his checking down in there one night to see if there was any fire danger and he looked up and saw flames coming out of the Winecoff Hotel up Peachtree Street. \r\nHe called me.  Id made great effort to promote sources at the fire department, too.  And he called and said, Scoop, the Winecoffs on fire.  He called me Scoop.  That was his nickname.  Some of my police friends were calling me that by then and you think I need some water?  My wife is handing me a glass of water.  Thank you, darling.  And Swamp Walker said, The Winecoffs on fire.  I picked up the phone in my rooming house at Juniper and Fifth Street and the dispatcher Yellow Cab Company, Bella Isle ran Yellow Cab Company, one cab company in Atlanta.  I said, Is the Winecoff on fire?  Said, Yes, it is.  He said, Theyre jumping out everywhere.  Yellow Cabs headquarters was across the street from the hotel.  He said the same thing.  People were jumping out of the hotel.  Tragedy.  So my cab arrived in no time.   \r\nI was down there, first reporter on the scene of the Winecoff which at that time was the worst hotel fire in history.  I think there may have been another one equally as bad since then.  Im not positive but up to that time it was advertised as fire-proof and it was a very popular hotel.  Now, I remember Governor Marvin Griffin was governor at that time and the Georgia YMCA, High Y, the YMCA, YWCA young men and women in those youth groups from throughout the state of Georgia were in the Winecoff that weekend for the upcoming legislative session in January.  And most of them housed there.  Most of the over 100 people who died were these young people.  There were other guests from all over the country, too, of course. \r\nAnd when I arrived the tragedy was still going on and I called the city editor and we had a whole staff of reporters and photographers in addition to me.  I remember Bill Key, our Chief rewrite man -- Bill Key, if there was a big story, I dont care if it was a star reporter anywhere out in the country he called in the store to Bill Key.  He grasped the drama of the event and the guy on an old manual typewriter hunt and peck, he wrote the story.  He wrote it just like that and handed the copy over to the city editor immediately so Bill Key did the first story and it was a big story, tragedy, tragedy, tragedy.  There were many heroes in that fire.  Some of them are firemen who rescued people.  On the 40th anniversary of the fire there was an observance at the old firehouse on North Avenue where a very touching moment occurred.   \r\nOn the event of that fire this police captain whose name Im sorry, I cant remember, stationed at North Avenue, he rescued a woman and her small baby from one floor, brought her down to another and then brought her down--the ladder truck would reach only so high and then he got her from one floor down to the other by bringing her out the window tied to sheets, she and the baby and then transferred them to that fire ladder and brought her down and saved her.  And on the 40th anniversary of the fire heres this woman about 45 years old, came up and gave this fire captain a big hug, said, Youre responsible for me being here.  Her mother had already passed away but she was there to thank him for saving her back then. \r\nI like to catch the drama of people.  People are always big hearted.  People are kind.  You have to show them the call of duty and they respond. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, after 13 years with the Journal, Elmo Ellis lured you away into radio and you and Elmo Ellis came up with probably the first full-fledged radio news department in the city of Atlanta. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  That is true but, Bob, theres a little bit of forerunner to that.  As police reporter I knew that I wanted to expand my horizon.  I really wanted it to be a broader reporter rather than just covering the tragedy, the pitfalls of human behavior as exemplified in each days television news cast.  I wanted to get out and cover a broader aspect of life.  So actually what I did, a friend of mine at the University of Georgia who was working in the Marvin Griffin administration prevailed on me to leave the Journal and to go and start the first public information office at the state transportation department. \r\nState transportation department was in the news back then, too.  Always is.  And I went over and worked for about nine months under Roger Lawson who was then director of the highway department and frankly that was when Governor Griffin was beginning a new program of road building called the Rural Roads Authority.  We really took Georgia out of the mud.  He instituted of building, of paving roads in rural communities all over Georgia, a great monument to a great governor.  Well, that lost its allure and I liked being a reporter.  I couldnt stand being away from the newsroom.  So even when I was at the University of Georgia I had wanted to be in radio.  So Elmo Ellis was general manager of WSB, our program manager I believe at that time and wanted to begin in earnest the coverage of news by radio.   \r\nThis sounds interesting today with the advent of television and all of the other technology and communications that has come about but here was this new device called radio and WSB Radio had been the first radio station in the South, begun in March 1922, the year of my birth, by the way and Elmo wanted me to come out and begin a radio and news department.  He had news announcers but they would have to come in and deliver the news on the air and there wouldnt be anybody to plan radio news coverage, so that was my job.  I was a one-man news department until I built up a staff and I hired some guys who later became great radio reporters and television reporters and we built it on the sound of the news.  After all, thats what radio is, is sound.  You know, thats the reason radio is still a creative medium.  Radio still has its place. \r\nAnd I discovered that by the use of the telephone that I could cover the news anywhere simply by direct call to the station from the scene.  If it were a live interview using the mouthpiece of the telephone simply as the microphone for radio.  And other stations started doing the same thing in Atlanta and pretty soon the networks were doing that in New York.  I wouldnt say that I pioneered that.  Im sure it was being done everywhere all over the country.  Im sure that I was not the pioneer but I certainly knew about it and I started doing it in a big way and thats the way we were able to get a lot of scoops on the news. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I can remember you also had a program called Open Mic.  \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Yes. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  That was a great program.  I remember it very well. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Is this daily or weekly? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I think it was daily. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Daily, well, it was sort of a man on the street interview type thing where you take a topic of the day, you would have your microphone.  In fact, people would see me or another WSB reporter on the street holding a WSB mic.  Hed just be standing on the street holding the mic.  I guarantee you within five minutes somebody would come up and say, Mister, would you like to interview me?  And I would. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How was covering the news for radio different from covering the news for a newspaper? \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  It was immediate and it had to be very succinct, very brief, very precise because the details were left for news casts or for print or for a more extended interview for television which soon was very much on the scene and then along came combined radio and television interview which is what we call talking heads.  You didnt see a lot of action on the scene photography.  I remember Joe Fain, one of the early photographers.  You remember Joe Fain, dont you? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Very well. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Joe Fain was a very good photographer.  He and I would go to cover a story, I would hold his mic for television.  I would hold my mic for radio recorder and we would do a dual interview and that portion of the television news would be my talking head interviewing whoever I was talking to.  Or I could have been doing a stand up alone myself, just a commentary describing something or I could have been interviewing a politician, which I often did. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, lets talk about some of those politicians you interviewed.  I guess Herman Talmadge must have been governor when you -- \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Yeah, I get a little bit personal about almost all of them.  I remember Senator Herman Talmadge.  I remember succinct quotes that they had.  Talmadge had one when we got involved in the Vietnam War.  Of course, Dean Rusk, the Georgian was secretary of state.  The cold war came along.  We got involved in Vietnam after the battle of Dien Bien Phu in which the French War of Indochina, you remember, had been fighting that battle back and forth, back and forth and we were really drawn into it but it really tied in very, very closely to the spread of communism throughout China and Russia.  So therefore it became a matter of great urgency and so all of the politicians supported it until it became an unpopular war very much as the war in Iraq.  We went in for what the politicians and what I personally think was a just and noble and real national purpose in going into Vietnam to protect freedom and to protect our country because we had become a world power and if we didnt exercise it, it would be a vacuum and somebody else would.   \r\nSo we went in to Vietnam and then we went into Iraq when President Bush, the War on Terror, these things--and this has to do with the sophistication of the media.  Everybody, every consumer of the news nowadays in effect becomes his or her own reporter or analyst or critic and while I dont like to be critical I think the news media is simply evolving.  We have to except the fact of the change of technology.  We find new ways to do it.  If were going to have a war we sure had better find a better way to inform the public as to why were there and what were doing there because when--you see for the first time as you do today the caskets draped with American flags bringing men and women killed in a foreign country back to their loved ones back here.  You've got to approach war in a different way.  This doesnt mean the wars not going to continue to happen but we have to get the United Nations more involved again.   \r\nWe have to get NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization more involved again.  These organizations that men like Senator Richard B. Russell, Senator Herman Talmadge, Congressman Carl Vinson, some of the others who are such--we called them hawks back then.  They were very much for defense.  Were it not for the fact that Richard B. Russell was head of Senate Arm Services Committee and Carl Vinson head of the House Armed Services Committee -- had headed those departments during World War II, we would not have been able, I guarantee you, to mobilize, to prepare to defeat Hitler in World War II.  We almost waited too late as it was.  So I look at some of those people, they were often the controversy of the days news.  That was the segregation/integration battle where they all got caught--history caught them at a time when the world was beginning to change, communications were changing, people were changing, their views were changing.   \r\nThe dramatic change of history in this country began, in my view, at the end of World War II.  Or maybe during the war we were beginning to see the change because even during the war when African/American citizens of this country werent even allowed to be in the same units with other fighting men and women in the military, all of that finally changed.  Well, we saw that these changes were coming and as I look back on a long career of almost a half century, reporting these changes as an observer, not a prejudiced observer but hopefully always an open-minded reporter, I was enabled to witness the appearance of Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. in police court representing black men and women who had been imprisoned or Judge Prudence Herndon -- then a black woman attorney, representing them in court. \r\nAnd then when police chief Herbert Jenkins decided to hire the first black policeman and fireman in the fire department, Hartsfield, again, when they came on the scene I was there to report it, you see.  I saw these men of good will; Hartsfield was the exponent of the idea \"the city too busy to hate.\"  Ivan Allen carried it on to its fullest during a critical period.  Progressive mayors like Mayor Andrew Young, people like that, Mayor Maynard Jackson, Sam Massell, all of these people came along and Atlanta was very fortunate along with another thing had.  Atlanta had a group of five predominantly black as they were called universities, the Atlanta University Center.  All of the leaders without exception, the leaders of these colleges, Dr. Benjamin Mays, the mentor of Martin Luther King, Jr.   \r\nI remember him.  They taught others who then taught future generations.  Andrew Young on the scene, you know, people like John Lewis, the people that got their teaching from people who knew the change was going to occur and to me, having witnessed that change was one of the high points of my career.  And I would think mentioning Martin Luther King, I remember when Martin Luther King, Jr. -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. went to deliver his first public speech from the back of a flatbed truck on the Metro Street Bridge right in front of the state capital.  Is that it on the west side of the capital?  And he made his speech.  I recorded it on a windup tape recorder, an old tape recorder that you had wind by hand and then I took this audio tape back to WSB, put it on an editing machine, cut out sound bytes or excerpts from Martin Luther King, Jrs speech.  This is about 4:00 or 4:30 in the afternoon and I said, Im going to make the 6:00 news for this. \r\nI made the decision, the announcer, we all communicated.  We knew it was coming up.  It would be the lead story that night and it was the lead story at 6:00 on WSB, the lead story at 11:00, every half hour throughout the evening it was, in fact, this thing that had happened in front of the capital.  But by mid morning the next morning Mr. Elmo Ellis had gotten a telephone call from a very irate woman--a white woman--in northwest Atlanta.  This woman wanted to know from Mr. Ellis, \"Why is WSB putting this negro\"--I use that word because that was her word--\"why is he putting him on WSB?  We dont need hear that.  And Mr. Ellis simply said, Well, let me let you talk to our news director, Aubrey Morris.  Which he did.  He transferred her in.  She repeated the same thing only she was a little bit more caustic.  She was down the line in authority.  Mr. Morris, why did you put this negro on the air?  And I said, Because its news.  Because he made a speech in front of the state capital and somebody making a revolutionary speech in front of the state capital, if that isnt news, what is?  You tell me. \r\nShe said, Well, we dont need to hear that.  I said, What do you mean, you dont need to hear it?  She said, We never heard this before.  And I said, Well, youre going to be hearing a lot of it.  If you want my opinion because youre going to be hearing a lot of it right here on WSB because our job is to report the news.  And her finally remark, Well, Mr. Morris, I just wish I had died before it all came along. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You were active then in the integration of the University of Georgia and the schools of the state. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  In the covering.  Yes, very definitely because the University of Georgia being my alma mater, I remember Charlene Hunter and Dr. Hamilton Holmes.  I sent Scott Harrington, one of my new reporters I think who had worked in Connecticut, sent him over to do the reporting from the campus at the university.  Of course my job as news director was to be in the station to see what we needed to do and oversee our coverage.  But that morning I went out to the--before he left for Athens I went out and he was escorted, as I recall, by agents of the state government -- Dr. Hamilton Holmes, a young man in northwest Atlanta who wanted to study pre-med at the university.  And I went out and interviewed his parents as he was leaving to head to Athens.  That was a way I felt we could cover it and I interviewed his mother and father and it was a great day for them and then I think any open minded Georgian says its a great day for Georgia.  It was a major day in history, wasnt it?  Great day for the university. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  It kept it open. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  That kept it open and, of course, all of that was done simply because the leadership of the University of Georgia, the Board of Regents, the leadership, the president of the university, the state leaders, the governor, the lieutenant governor, the adjutant general, state board of education certainly because they knew the public school integration was coming, too, see?  They all knew that the time had come and that Georgia would lead the South.  If not lead it, be certainly among the leaders in peaceful desegregation. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I believe you covered the Sibley Commission Studies. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Oh, yes.  You know, there are several desegregation basically of public education, public accommodation throughout the state of Georgia.  Didnt involved just leaders.  It involved progressive business leaders, education leaders, community leaders, newspaper, journalists throughout the state of Georgia.  You know, coalescing to help to make Georgia a state that we could all be proud of rather than the laughing stock of a nation or being stuck with something we didnt really believe in because we knew it was coming, we knew in our hearts that God makes decisions and that we cant be God and play one man against another.  That was the way we approached it and when the University of Georgia -- I knew there would be no trouble.  I knew it had to be covered, though.  I knew that it was an item of public interest and I look back and I have nothing but praise for everyone who participated over at the university, everyone who had a part in it.  Because it wasnt just what happened that day.  That was just the beginning of something that happened.  Its now a university of equal opportunity. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Aubrey, if you will Id like to go back to 1956 when the Georgia legislature passed a series of laws prohibiting funding for local schools that were closed.  That led to the Sibley commission. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Effectively leaving out those that integrated. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Right, that lead to the Sibley Commission and as I recall you covered most of the meetings of that commission around the state. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  That is correct.  I as news director of WSB radio made it my personal responsibility to cover not a few of them, not part of them but all of them because I wanted to know what all the people of the state of Georgia geographically thought.  So that meant Mr. John Sibley, the prominent Atlanta attorney who had held many positions of importance and the state board of regents and public positions of importance locally and very prominent attorney and banker, trust company of Georgia, highly respected, well, he was named chairman of the Sibley Commission.  And the then governor, that would be Governor Earnest Vandiver, named him chairman and asked him to write a report but there was no prohibition against news people covering the meetings.  Of course that was one of the purposes -- to air and see what the people thought.  So that provided me as a radio man a good chance to broadcast the voices of people who knew the importance of their public schools and who were not afraid to speak out.   \r\nThere were those on both sides of the question who appeared at every meeting, though.  Mr. Sibley gave each one of them their due time in a courteous manner to express their opinions but in retrospect it appears to me that the hearings of the Sibley Commission gave the political leaders every ounce of political leverage they needed to stand by a continuous operation of public education in the state of Georgia in every aspect from public schools to the university.  I went to these hearings.  I reported and as I recall they were held weekly, so they gave plenty of time to do a thorough job of reporting and this included the most vehement opposition to integration of schools.  I included the opposite end.  I included the middle of the road.  I included every aspect.  Frankly, we aired what people had to say.  And when you talk about the education of your children you speak from the heart, you speak your innermost feelings.  And it was an emotional albeit historic and certainly culturally enlightening experience for the people of Georgia. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Aubrey, its been said of you that you would go anywhere to get an interview.  Is it true that you once interviewed President Jimmy Carter in the men's room at the WSB radio station? \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  You mean Ive got to reveal all of this?  Okay, you want the wherewithal. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Exactly. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  This was during the--what happened in Teheran where some of our people were kidnapped, Jimmy Carter tried to rescue them.  What was that crisis? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Hostages were taken over in -- \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  In Teheran remember?   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  This was during Jimmy Carters presidency and it lingered on for several days, the hostage taking and this country was really getting ready for some action.  Secretly, of course, the military prepared several different plans for their rescue and I dont remember what had taken place the night before but I think it was an aborted rescue and Jimmy Carter was at his farm in Plains that Sunday night and this was Monday morning.  I went into WSB Monday morning and it was about, 5:00, 5:30 and the guard at the back door said, The presidents inside.  And I said, What?  I knew darn well it was something.  He was fixing to make some kind of a statement.  He may have been about to announce that they had launched this rescue.  Im sorry.  I dont remember the specifics but I remember it was an important day in that major news event and I went rushing inside and the man in the news room said, Yeah, the presidents downstairs.  Hes getting ready to do a national feed to the TV network.  Its going to be a joint feed to the nation.  And I said, When is he going to do it?  They said, At 7:00  I said, How am I going to do this?  I think it was at 8:00.  Little mixed up in my times.  At any rate, I knew that I had time to get an interview with Carter before he spilled the news to the rest of the country.  So I had pretty good relationships with the president since hed been in the legislature from Plains and during his time as governor.  \r\nI went rushing downstairs to the TV studio and they said hes in the makeup room where they dust him up to get ready.  Went in there, No, hes just gone to the mens room.  So it was rushing on the time for my 7:00 news.  And I think about six or seven minutes before then and he was in the mens room and I said, We got a major news cast at 7:00.  Hes going to talk to the nation.  Why should I wait an hour?  So the secrete service agents outside the mens room said, Hes in the booth.  I said, Well, how long is he going to be?  And I heard this voice say, Is that you, Aubrey?  I said, Yeah, its me.  He said, Well, come on in.  So I went in the mens room and he was there at the booth--the toilet booth.  Shall we say, you know, making the fine adjustments to his coat and everything and about to walk out of the booth and I said.  Im going on the air in six minutes.  I want you to tell me basically what youre going to say about the crisis in Iran.  And he gave me about three or four minutes.  As he came out to be rushed upstairs to get ready for the TV thing, I was getting ready to go on the air without doing any editing on the tape.  So we just got the engineer to slap it up on there. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, you interviewed during your career every president from I guess Truman to at least Regan.  Do you remember anything special about some of those interviews? \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Yes.  Harry Truman.  You know, Truman never visited Atlanta as president but he came pretty soon after he left the office of the presidency and I got a tip from one of the airline employees.  He was traveling by commercial plane and I and a group of other reporters went out and met him at the plane and walked down the steps, went in the old terminal and he sat down and all the other reporters--I usually would be ready to throw in a question and everything and I said, Lets get a sound byte.  Im going to ask you Mr. Truman, how does it feel to be an ex-president?  He shook his finger up and said, Son, Im not an ex-president, Im a former president. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Thats a good story. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Very short and to the point.  Im going to tell you another one on that.  I dont know whether you want to record this or not.  I think maybe you might not.  Truman was a very temperamental individual and you remember it was Truman at Yalta with Churchill and others and you remember the existence of the state of Israel came into being.  What was the name of the ship that kept taking refugees from Germany, getting them into Israel?  What was the name of that?  Odyssey?  At any rate I'm going to tell you this and Ill tell you what I did with it.  When Truman got off the plane the Jewish War Veterans Auxiliary was celebrating Jewish War Veterans Day which was separate from the regular poppy day, November 11th when Veterans Day is celebrated.  They have a different day of observing it and they pass out poppies raising funds for Jewish war veterans.  And this lady came up to pin a poppy on Truman.  He said, Get away, lady, get away.  What are you trying to do, lady? He didnt want her touching him.  Well, Mr. President this is a Jewish War Veterans Day and we want to pin a poppy on your coat lapel.  He gave her a dressing down just like he did me, he said, Why dont you Jews celebrate war veterans day when everybody else does.  He said, I created Israel.  And then the woman and everybody was taken aghast and I got back to WSB and I was listening to the tape.  I came to that, I just flipped it out and laid it aside.  I said, Im not going to use that.  I didnt use it.  Now, thats what you would call an old time editor versus today.  That might have been used today.  Am I wrong or not?  He was beside himself but he was mad because they were not celebrating war veterans day when everybody -- you know, he was a big World War I veteran himself. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Captain in the military, yes.  Any other presidents you remember? \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Yes, Eisenhower.  Ill give you a little rundown on President Eisenhower.  Eisenhower came to play golf at the August National Golf Course, stayed in Mamies Cabin, which they built over there.  And on this particular visit to Augusta, Mr. George Humphrey who had a plantation at Thomasville, Georgia secretary of commerce I think he was a big Rotarian and he spoke to a group of Rotarians centered around their Monday regular meeting at the Atlanta Rotary Club at the old [indiscernible] Plaza Hotel.  And I arrived there, took the elevator up to the Rainbow Roof where he was to speak.  And when I got up there these secret service agents said, You cant come in here.  I said, I cover this meeting every Monday.  Yeah, Ill be covering the meeting.  Dont you worry about that.  So they asked somebody from the rotary, Yeah, Mr. Morris, hes well-known here, yeah, he covers it.  I did, I covered it, so pretty soon Harry, this military aide that Eisenhower had, Harry Vaughan, remember him? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Captain or Sergeant Harry Vaughn arrived and I marched over to him directly.  I said, Im Aubrey Morris WSB.  I cover this meeting every Monday and, of course, if I can Id like to get a few words from the president before his speech.  He said, Well, what can I do?  He had already said, Theyre aint going to be any press.  This is going to be off the record.  So Harry Vaughn decided to open it up after I started talking to the president anyway without asking Harry.  Thats the way you had to get a lot of stuff. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, you got a lot, didnt you? \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  I dont tell it facetiously.  I dont do this at all.  That was just my technique.  Because I love people.  I love the challenge. \r\nSHORT:  How about Haile Selassie? \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Haile Selassie, not many reporters get an opportunity to talk to an emperor but his Highness Haile Selassie, emperor of Ethiopia came to Atlanta not long after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Went out to South View cemetery to visit his grave.  There were a large number of reporters there.  This was to be a very brief visit where the emperor would simply arrive, visit the cemetery, pay his respects, put a wreath at Dr. Kings grave and then leave and go back to his private jet at the airport.  And he placed the wreath, went back to his limousine.  Instead of going to where he placed the wreath, I went to the limousine and talked to his military aide of the Ethiopian army.  I said, Is it okay if I get just a few words with the royal highness before you leave?   \r\nAnd his royal highness came in and got in the back seat of the limousine.  A little lap dog, a little wire haired terrier dog that was shedding his hair pretty badly at that time.  He jumped in the emperor's lap and he started petting the little dog.  And I was invited to get in the limousine, sit right by the dog which was between me and the emperor and I turned on the machine.  The emperor's English was a lot better than mine, very well educated and he had some very profound words to say although very brief and he told me, \"Well, just dont take over a minute,\" which I didn't.  I was so awe struck by this experience that when the limousine pulled off all of the other reporters came down and said, Whatd he say? Whatd he say?  I said, Listen to it on WSB.  So I went rushing over to a service station to a telephone to do a live report, cued up the tape machine to where I could play what he said, got ready for it, learned that I had forgotten to turn on the machine.  Fortunately, my lame brain did remember the exact words that he had said. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  So you were able to report anyway. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  I reported it anyway. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Lets talk a little minute about WSB.  WSB has been the premiere radio station in Atlanta for a long time but nowadays theyve turned into a talk station.  What do you think was the reason for that? \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Simply innovation.  You know, I might answer that by saying, when you get in your automobile now do you prefer to listen to music, to talk, or to information, or do you have a special digital radio where you listen to transmissions of all sorts, all of the technology thats available in the world?  Well, the first person that ever asked me what I thought about talk radio, I said, Well, nobody ever asked me when I was putting all these people on the air who are making the news, in a way it was talk radio.  I think that the advent of talk radio -- beginning in New York, Chicago and other places, Los Angeles -- was simply an innovative way for radio to provide more variety for its listeners whether it was shock radio, shock/talk or whatever you want to call it, opinionated, political, right wing, left wing, conservative or what.  My assessment is that this type of entertainment and after all isnt communications of all type, showbiz.  Its showbiz how youre getting someones attention.  You can bore them.  You can put them to sleep.  You can get the quick turn off like I used to call people who complained at WSB.  I said, Well, just turn it off.  I would invite them to turn it off.  I said, I hope youll keep listening but if you just cant stand it, but this is the way it is.\" \r\nBut on, like--who are these people?  We had one the other day.  It was on one part of Obamas trip to Europe where some guy on CNN during a talk, he had another guy who had his same point of view.  Their idea was to blast this thing without any reply, no counter view, no opposing opinion.  In other words to me it would have been better had they had, as we did on many occasions on WSB, we held discussion programs but if it were an interview with some person about a particular book, for example.  For example, if someone wrote a book on Watergate, I interviewed principle writer on Watergate, what was his name? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Who?  The Washington -- Bob Woodward. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Yeah, Bob Woodward.  I interviewed Bob Woodward at WSB and I played the devils advocate in the book a lot, too.  I said, Well, to what extent is the news media, the press, under the guarantees of the United States constitution, what liberty does it not give --\"  As my dean at good ole UGA, Dean John Drewry of the School of Journalism told his students, This does not give you liberty to call fire in a crowded theater.  It gives you the responsibility, and I think thats what our founding fathers meant, the responsibility to open up a breath of fresh air into clouded issues, to shine some light upon a subject and to give the viewer or the listener or the reader an opportunity to assess the situation themselves where they do the thinking.  They think what they want to instead of having someone come out and never once did I attack anybody I was interviewing.  I was there to get their opinion.  You wouldnt do that.  You dont do that. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Let me ask you this question.  How in your opinion do modern broadcast journalists compare with those of your day? \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  There are probably many more consumers of modern broadcast journalism or modern journalism today than ever before.  More consumers of information getting it online with new technology; however, at my age Ill have to admit upstairs in my home I have two computers.  We have email access and I use a computer for writing today.  I was much more comfortable when I had an old linotype machine and then a manual typewriter and then an electric typewriter.  But I think you've got to be a sophisticated viewer or reader.  You got not to be a dummy and not ask questions just because somebody says something.  You dont take it as the gospel truth.  You ask your own questions.  Use your own intellect to apprise a situation like a presidential campaign, how do you come to a consensus.  For example, if youre a modern consumer, my grandchildren are far, far ahead of me.  They understand every aspect of computers.  In fact, one of my grandchildren now a junior in high school is teaching computing and working in the computer department of a local college. \r\nSo it doesnt mean you dont have these things but you got to have the overall general education.  A liberal arts education needs to be there to go with every other aspect that you focus on.  In other words, youve got to be able to -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Speaking of education, if you were asked by a young person today who is interested in a career in broadcasting -- news broadcasting, what advice would you give them? \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Get a liberal arts education focusing on economics, politics, geography and especially languages and sociology. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, Aubrey Morris, its been a great pleasure to be with you today.  Weve enjoyed this conversation and I want to thank you on behalf of Young Harris College, the Richard Russell Library, the University of Georgia and myself for being our guest. \r\n \r\nMORRIS:  Thank you, Joe, by the way, Joe is an old fellow Atlanta Journal reporter.  From how many years ago, Joe?   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I was there in the 1950s. \r\n \r\n[END OF RECORDING] \r\n \r\n       "},{"id":"gych_rogp_071","title":"George Berry, 02 February 2009.","collection_id":"gych_rogp","collection_title":"Reflections on Georgia Politics oral history collection, 2006-2010","dcterms_contributor":["Short, Bob, 1932-"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, 39.76, -98.5","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018"],"dcterms_creator":["Berry, George J., 1927","Short, Bob, 1932"],"dc_date":["2009-02-02"],"dcterms_description":["George Berry discusses his childhood in Blairsville, Georgia. He discusses attending public schools in Blairsville, going on to Young Harris College, and enlisting in the U.S. Army. Berry recalls identifying with the New South movement and his attempt to seek employment in Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen's administration. He discusses his jobs in the tax office, finance department, and administrating governmental grants. Berry recalls the larger grants being associated with the expansion of Hartsfield Airport. He comments on being appointed Deputy Chief Administrative Officer in the Mayor's Office. Berry comments on Mayor Allen's leadership during the Civil Rights Movement. He also comments on Ivan Allen's successor Sam Massell. Berry discusses the transition from the Board of Aldermen to the City Council under Mayor Maynard Jackson. He recalls Mayor Jackson appointing him as commissioner of aviation and the issues faced by the airport expansion. Berry discusses his relationship with the business leaders and misunderstandings between business and politics. Berry recalls the increase of foreign company involvement in Georgia he witnessed as the Commissioner of Industry and Trade. He attributes this to the success of the airport and recalls being appointed commissioner by Governor Joe Frank Harris. Berry discusses his unsuccessful campaign for Lieutenant Governor and his work after public service. He describes the East Lake project led by Tom Cousins. Berry discusses his work on the Metropolitan Atlanta Olympic Games Authority. He also discusses problems faced by the state and the prospective for the New South vision to be recognized.","Finding aid available in repository.","George J. Berry was born in Blairsville, Georgia, on July 5, 1937. He attended Young Harris College. Upon discharge from the U.S. Army in 1962, he went to work in the finance department of the City of Atlanta. Berry was chosen to be the deputy chief administrative officer in Mayor Ivan Allen's administration. Mayor Sam Massell promoted him to chief administrative officer during Atlanta's critical transition from primarily white to mixed race leadership. Under Mayor Maynard Jackson, Berry was appointed Commissioner of Aviation in 1978. There, he oversaw the development of terminals and runways in the Atlanta airport. In 1983, Berry became the commissioner of Industry, Trade and Tourism for the state of Georgia. He remained in that position until 1990, when he ran an unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor. He left politics, and became senior vice president of Cousins Properties, Inc., a successful property development firm in Atlanta.","Related materials held in the following collections of this repository: Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 148 George Berry on James Carmichael; Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 000-02 George Berry on James Carmichael; George J. Berry Collection of Photographs.","Interviewed by Bob Short."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection","http://sclfind.libs.uga.edu/sclfind/view?docId=ead/RBRL220ROGP.xml"],"dcterms_subject":["Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport","Olympic Games--1996 :--Atlanta, Ga.)","Olympic Games","Politicians--Georgia--Atlanta--Interviews","Civil rights movements--Georgia","Civil rights movements--United States","Civil rights movements","Politicians","Politics and government","Atlanta (Ga.)--Politics and government","Georgia","Georgia--Atlanta","United States"],"dcterms_title":["George Berry, 02 February 2009."],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-071/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 071, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia, 30602-1641."],"dlg_local_right":["Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule."],"dcterms_medium":["oral histories (literary works)","interviews"],"dcterms_extent":["1 interview (61 min.) : sd., col."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Jackson, Maynard, 1938-2003","Allen, Ivan, 1877-1968","Massell, Sam","Harris, Joe Frank","Berry, George J. 1927-"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"gych_rogp_068","title":"Glenn Anthony, 29 January 2009.","collection_id":"gych_rogp","collection_title":"Reflections on Georgia Politics oral history collection, 2006-2010","dcterms_contributor":["Short, Bob, 1932-"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, 39.76, -98.5","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018"],"dcterms_creator":["Short, Bob, 1932","Anthony, Glenn, 1924"],"dc_date":["2009-01-29"],"dcterms_description":["Glenn Anthony was born in Lenoir City, Tennessee, in 1924. He attended the University of Tennessee and studied journalism. He transferred to Florida State University and graduated in 1952. He first worked for a company newspaper at the Oakridge National Laboratory in Oakridge, Tennessee. After his marriage, he started work at the Palm Beach Post Times in Florida. When he reported for the United Press International, he covered various civil rights groups in Alabama and Tennessee. He entered politics when he went to work for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, lobbying for business interests. He was involved in establishing numerous programs, including Stay and See Georgia, a travel program. He lobbied for over twenty years with the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the Georgia Forestry Association.","Finding aid available in repository.","Related materials available in the following collections of this repository: Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 146 Bill Hardman; Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 056 Mary Anne Summers.","Glenn Anthony recalls his childhood in Lenoir City, Tennessee, and subsequent Navy service in the South Pacific. Anthony discusses his work at the Oakridge National Laboratory, the Palm Beach Post Times, and United Press International. He recalls working in Montgomery during important civil rights events such as the bus boycott. Anthony discusses his friendship with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Anthony recalls being reassigned to Atlanta to work as a capitol reporter. He discusses his experience as a journalist covering Governor Marvin Griffin, including Griffin's indirect answers and his investigations into corruption in the Griffin administration. Anthony discusses Governor Sanders' approach to integration, his ties to Washington, D.C. and his role in bringing professional sports teams to Atlanta. He also comments on what makes a good lobbyist, a bad lobbyist, and public perception of what lobbyists do. Anthony recalls being hired by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce to lobby for business interests. He discusses coordinating governmental affairs tours with political participants such as Governors Sanders, Vandiver, Talmadge, and Maddox and Congressman Landrum. He also mentions his work with Congressional dinners and the Star Student program. Anthony explains the nicknames he has been assigned over the years such a \"joree\" \"tiger\" and \"Colonel.\"","Interviewed by Bob Short."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection","http://sclfind.libs.uga.edu/sclfind/view?docId=ead/RBRL220ROGP.xml"],"dcterms_subject":["Journalists--Georgia--Atlanta--Interviews","Lobbyists--Georgia--Interviews","Civil rights demonstrations--United States","School integration--Georgia","Political corruption--Georgia--History","Professional sports--Georgia--Atlanta--History","Tourism--Georgia","Civil rights demonstrations","Journalists","Lobbyists","Political corruption","Politics and government","Professional sports","School integration","Tourism","Georgia--Politics and government","Georgia","Georgia--Atlanta","United States"],"dcterms_title":["Glenn Anthony, 29 January 2009."],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-068/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 068, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia, 30602-1641."],"dlg_local_right":["Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule."],"dcterms_medium":["oral histories (literary works)","interviews"],"dcterms_extent":["1 interview (44 min.) : sd., col."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Talmadge, Herman E. (Herman Eugene), 1913-2002","Anthony, Glenn, 1924-","Vandiver, S. Ernest (Samuel Ernest), 1918-2005","Maddox, Lester, 1915-2003","Sanders, Carl, 1925-2014","Griffin, Marvin, 1907-1982","King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968","Landrum, Phil M. (Phil Mitchell), 1907-1990"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":"Glenn Anthony interviewed by Bob Short \r\n2009 January 29 \r\nAtlanta, GA \r\nReflections on Georgia Politics \r\nROGP-068 \r\nOriginal: video, 45 minutes \r\n \r\nsponsored by: \r\nRichard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies \r\nUniversity of Georgia Libraries \r\nand \r\nYoung Harris College \r\n \r\nDate of Transcription:  September 23, 2009 \r\n \r\nBOB SHORT:  Im Bob Short and this is Reflections on Georgia Politics,  sponsored by Young Harris College, The Richard Russell Library and the University of Georgia.  Our guest is Glenn Anthony, a noted Georgia political reporter and well-known lobbyist for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.  Welcome, Glenn. \r\n \r\nGLENN ANTHONY:  Thank you very much. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You know, I told the people over at the university that I was looking forward to this conversation, because you and I are contemporaries in Georgia politics.   \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Right.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  We came along at the same time, we were both journalists and we have had many of the same friends for many years.  But before we get to that, lets talk about Glenn Anthony and Lenoir City, Tennessee. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, Bob I was born in Lenoir City in 1924 in the depth of the Great Depression and Im still haunted by some of those terrible years that I spent there.  But I graduated from high school in 1943 and went into the Navy and spent most of my career down in the South Pacific on this charter transport.  I came back to the states after the war and I went on the GI Bill to Rice University of Tennessee.  Majored in journalism and I had a friend -- a fraternity brother there -- who had an opportunity to go down to Florida State University to get some course work that you couldnt get at the University of Tennessee.  So, he came back to Knoxville with this glowing story about that campus down there.  He said, You cant believe this.  He said, They've got 1,500 men and about 5,000 ladies.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Right.  \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, it was -- prior to the Florida State University it was called Florida State College for Women and then they made it co-educational in 1946 to take the overflow from the University of Florida from the veterinary -- I mean, the vets that were coming in there.  So, I said, Well, Ive got to go down and check on that.  So, I spoke to my dad and mother about it and dad said, Well, how are you going to get down there?  I said, Well, I guess Ill ride a bus or hitchhike.  So he said, Well, okay.  Ill give you the bus fare.   \r\nSo he gave me the bus fare.  I went down.  I liked the campus down there and everything.  So, I came back to Knoxville, and at that time, I decided that I was going to definitely go.  And I asked the university to transfer my transcript down there, which they did.  And in so doing I lost a lot of credits, so I finally graduated now in 1952.  But prior to that, I met a lady named Janet Anderson.  She was a wonderful, talented lady.  She was a violinist.  She was born and raised in New York City and her family moved down to Titusville, Florida, where her grandfather had been a successful land developer down there.   \r\nSo, she came to Florida State and thats where I met her.  And we got married while we were still in college.  And the financial situation was so bleak that she went back to Titusville and worked in a dental office there to help me get through college.  So I did.  I graduated in journalism and my first job was at the Oakridge National Laboratory in Oakridge, Tennessee.  Thats where the hydrogen bomb was developed.  So, I stayed there, -- worked on a company newspaper there for about a couple years, I guess.  And Janet wanted to go back to Florida where her family was living in Palm Beach County.  So I went back to Palm Beach and got a job on the Palm Beach Post Times.  Stayed there a couple of years and then from there we went -- came back to Knoxville.   \r\nAnd at that time -- then I was hired by the United Press International.  They sent me to Nashville a year or so and then they sent me down to Montgomery, Alabama and I was there when Martin Luther King began the bus boycott.  I was there when Rosa Parks, who is one of the main movers and shakers in Montgomery, refused to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus.  So I stayed there for a couple of years, and then I was transferred to Atlanta, where I worked at United Press International as a capitol reporter.  Stayed there for two years.   \r\nI was hired by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce to lobby for the business interests.  They had about 5,000 members in Georgia.  I was recommended to the job there by a fellow named Mike Cheatham.  And Mike was a very fine young man and he had spent some time there and the Coca-Cola Company hired him.  Theres an old war horse named Bobby Davis that hired Mike to go to Coca-Cola and work in government affairs there.  So Mike introduced me to the Georgia Chamber -- Walter Tates, an old warhorse.   And they hired me and I spent 18 and a half years there with them.  And I put together some governmental affairs -- tours there.   \r\nWhen I joined the chamber in 1959 they had a pre-legislative form that theyd go around the state for about ten days.  They were taking -- they would take a lawyer, who was skilled in the labor relations, and hed take a business man along to talk about issues.  So, that was 1959.  I went on a first tour and after I got back -- I finished and got back -- and I talked to Tates, I said, Why dont we get legislators and government officials to go on this tour?  So the Executive Committee okayed it.   \r\nSo the first tour that I took was 1960 with Carl Sanders.  He was there for Governor Ernest Vandiver.  Also, there was a fellow named Frank Twitty up in Brady County, so that was a very successful trip  So, the next year we put that together and several of the lobbyists had heard about the success of it, so they started signing up.  And we would work with the Georgia -- the local Chambers of Commerce and theyd put the program together.  Then wed bring the governmental affairs people in there and they ranged from Senator Herman Talmadge to Governor Lester Maddox, and we had -- during that period wed also have a member of Congress.  I think the first one to go on the tour with us was Phil Landrum up in North Georgia.  He was one of the authors of the Landrum-Griffin bill.   \r\nSo, after that program, we had one there called a -- let's see here.  What was that?  Yeah, a Congressional dinner.  We put that on each year.  And now the chamber had been putting this together and they would invite the Congressmen, Senators and members of the House for a dinner meeting.  So I suggested the next year, I said, Why dont we invite the staff people, too?  Theyre the people that I have to deal with.  So then we enlarged it and it became a very, very big dinner.  Sometimes wed have 500 people there.  The people who were -- the business people in Georgia, they would come up and they helped us with the expenses of increasing the size of this dinner.  It became a very successful program.   \r\nI think that -- but we had another program there at the Georgia Chamber that I got involved in.  It was called Stay and See Georgia.  We set up a travel department.  And the lady in charge of that, Mozelle Christian, she invited top travel writers from around the state -- I mean, around the country -- to come in and see Georgia on about a week tour of the state.  And it became very successful.  It was copied in other states.   \r\nWe also had a very popular Stay and See Georgia -- I mean, the Star Student Program, where we would select the star student and then the star student in turn would select his favorite teacher.  So, one of the offshoots of that was I had a friend at Pan American Airways.  He was Vice President for the South and I said, Is there anything you can do for us?  He said, Yes, I can.  I can give you and this student a trip anywhere Pan American services.  So we took that and that was my -- then for the next ten years we had that and it was my duty -- and I emphasize duty -- to accompany this young student all over Europe, South America, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru -- went to all those countries --   France, London, Paris, Rome.  So I had that duty for ten years.  And so, that was a good addition to my program. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Glenn, before we get too far away from it, lets go back to Montgomery. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Yeah, okay. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You covered the Civil Rights movement in Montgomery, so you knew Dr. King. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Knew him very well.  After he made -- when that boycott -- that boycott first began, I got know him pretty well.  And after he started making some big news headlines, the Atlanta office of the United Press International called me and said, See if you can get an in-depth interview with this young preacher over there.  And so I called him up and he said, Yes, come on out to the House and well talk about what I have in mind.  So, I went out there.  I spent an hour or more with him, and this fellow was quoting poetry.  He was quoting the philosophers and he was a very bright man and I went back and told them in Atlanta.  I said, Youre going to hear from this fellow.  Hes got some talent.   \r\nSo he went on to win the Nobel.  You know what he did for the Civil Rights movement.  But that was a great part of my life during the period of two years I spent there, during that bus boycott.  I saw him even when he won the Nobel Prize.  I saw him a couple of times.  Hed always remember me and he was always very friendly.  So, I knew that he was going to make some news, which he did worldwide. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  So, you came then to Atlanta to cover the capital when Marvin Griffin was Governor. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Thats right. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Marvin, of course, was a staunch segregationist and a very colorful man.  You remember much about him? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, he had a great sense of humor.  And as I was a reporter, we'd come in this office, maybe half a dozen of us from the Atlanta Journal and the Constitution.     And it was hard to get anything out of him because he would turn our questions into humorous answers.  So the press, of course, really hit him.  He had some things going on in his administration that the public needed to know about.  So we reporters, we got down and tried to cover it all.  But even through all of those bleak days when he was going through this -- what somebody called the assassination of his character, and then somebody said, Well, what character does he have?  \r\nBut anyway, he had his brother Cheney.  He was in the office and he was his hatchet man.  I mean, he did all the gory stuff that had to be done in the administration.  We had an older gentleman there named Hamilton that was the Secretary of the Treasury.  And we had a fellow in the purchasing department; I cant remember his name right now.  But anyway, it was a very colorful administration.  Thats the part that I remember most about it. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  He called you Gentleman Jorees. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Joree, well, yes, he did.  He called all the reporters Jorees and the Joree is small bird, which traipses around in the meadows and picks up the droppings from the cattle and so forth.  So Marvin Griffin put us in with them.  After I joined the Georgia Chamber I decided to organize a golf tournament for all the news people in Atlanta and anywhere else in the state.  We called it the Joree Open and that program we carried for about ten or 12 years.  And we had all the top journalists in Atlanta -- the TV, print journalism -- we had them all.  They all came to the program and that was very good. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Were you covering the capitol when Governor Griffin and Lieutenant Governor Vandiver got into a big fight over money that Griffin wanted for rural roads? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Yes, I was there, yeah.  Yeah.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What do you remember about that? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  A little bit vague on that, trying to remember the name of the highway department --  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Roger Lawson. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Roger Lawson from Hawkinsville, Georgia, I believe. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Right. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  And I think that bill was killed as I remember. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Right. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:   So, I was there for that. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, despite all of his trouble with corruption, Griffin turned out to be a fairly progressive Governor. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Yes, he did.  He had some good points and some good traits.  But now, Earnest Vandiver came in.  He was a quality individual -- a fine man, a fine person, a man of great character.  Wed just gone through those years with the Marvin Griffin administration and it was really a bright day in Georgia when Earnest Vandiver came in.   And he came in at the time during the integration movement and he said he would abide by the will of the people in Georgia in the South, that no school in Georgia would be integrated.  But then he backed off on that, as you know, and the schools weren't segregated. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And the University of Georgia. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Thats right.  The University of Georgia and -- lets see, Im trying to remember the names.  Cant remember right now. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Of the students? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Hamilton Holmes -- \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Hamilton Holmes, yes. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  -- Was one, and the other was the young lady Charlene Hunter. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Charlene Hunter, right. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Right, and they were the first students to integrate the University of Georgia.  Griffin ran again following Vandiver's term against a young state Senator from Augusta, Carl Sanders, who defeated him.  Most people think that Griffin lost the race because of charges of corruption, but there are others who think that Sanders just out-campaigned him and won.  What do you recall about that race? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Hmm.  A little bit vague on that, but -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Some people think that the election of Carl Sanders in 1962 was one of the real turning points in Georgia history. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Absolutely.  Now, as I mentioned earlier, Sanders was the floor leader in the Senate and Twitty in the House, and there was one quality that Sanders had.  Now, when we would take this large group around the state to speak -- the Congressmen and a member of the Georgia legislature or the Georgia government -- and we had a lot of lobbyists in our group.  And after each evening session wed all gather in a room somewhere -- drink a lot of whisky, tell a lot of lies. \r\nBut the one person who did not attend those evening sessions was Carl Sanders.  He would always go to his room after the meeting and hed prepare for the next meeting.  We had a lot of times -- breakfast, noon and dinner -- breakfast, lunch and dinner, and he was very well-prepared in his statements that he made, and it was very obvious then that he was a serious guy.  And so, Frank Twitty -- he was a much better speaker than Twitty, and Twitty came at him with a -- he called the Senator my short shirted friend.  And that didnt go over too well with Sanders!  But anyway thats what it was.  Short-shirted friend! \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Actually, Governor Sanders was the first Governor that we had, as I recall, who had ties to Washington.  Most of our Governors had always cursed them and not gotten along with the federal government, but Sanders became a very good friend of Lyndon Johnson.  And as a result, it was a great help to Georgia -- from the federal government. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  And another thing Carl Sanders was instrumental in was getting the sports in this city -- I mean, professional teams.  Sanders was one of the leaders in that.  And few people know about that, but he was really, really big in that program. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  He had what, I guess, was called a moderate approach to the race issue during that period. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Yes, he did.  Yes. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And a lot of people think that when he ran for reelection in 1970 that that hurt him when he was defeated by Jimmy Carter.  Do you think thats true? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, Im not sure about that.  I really am not, Bob.  I just dont know. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Let's talk for a minute about lobbying.  What makes a good lobbyist? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, number one is honesty.  Youve got to deal with these legislators and be completely up front in dealing with them.  You cant come on and tell them two or three different tales and have to come back and say, Well, Im sorry.  So, I would say honesty is the number one.  I lobbied there for more than 20 years with the Georgia Chamber and the Georgia Forest Association, and I can say that at no period during that time did I ever have any problems -- individual problems with the legislators.    \r\nAnd I felt that -- I think they recognized me, because the House Representative commended me for my honesty and integrity.  Passed a resolution.  The Senate did likewise.  And Senator Bill English from Swainsboro, Georgia, introduced the resolution in the state Senate, commending me for my honesty and integrity.  So, those were quite a highlight of my career there.  And I was told by some of the old timers there that theyd never heard of a lobbyist in the history of this state ever being commended for the service.   So that was a very proud moment for me and my family. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, you deserved it.  But on the other hand, you took a lot of flack, also. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Yes, I did.  We had one instance that went all the way to the top with Governor Jimmy Carter.  He had Elliott Levitas, a Representative of DeKalb county, to introduce a bill, which was called Consumer Protection Legislation.  And so, after we analyzed it -- we had a table of accountants and tax lawyers and so forth -- they said, This is a killer bill for business.  And so, I rallied the troops then and we killed the bill.  And so after that, Jimmy Carter, in a press conference a few days later, he called me the most damaging lobbyist in the state, because I killed a bill that would have benefited the people of Georgia.  So, after that commendation from the Governor, my Board of Directors said, Charge on, Anthony. Youre doing your job, youre just doing it for free. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  They called you tiger. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  They called me tiger, hmm-mm.  It was a nickname. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, there must be a story behind that. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, when I got onto a project -- got onto a bill, you know, I charged -- I saw it to conclusion.  I would see that wed get the bills passed or killed and I was unrelenting in my time that I was involved in those legislations and I wouldnt give up.  So that was a -- that was an honor bestowed upon me by my fellow lobbyists.  They called me the Tiger.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Now they call you Colonel. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Colonel, thats right, yeah. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How did you get that rank? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, did you know that the Governors there, they have honorary Colonels that they hand out.  But the one who really -- Lester Maddox started calling me the Colonel and every time Id go in his office, he'd say, Colonel, what can I do for you today?  And so he was quite a showman as everybody knows. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Lets explore for a minute, Glenn, if you will, the mechanics of lobbying.  For example, what is the first thing a lobbyist does when he finds out that a bill that affects him is about to be introduced? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, what I did -- and I assume what most of the lobbyists did -- they go back to their employer and sit down.  I would go back.  If we had a bill that I could get my hands on Id take it back to my office.  Wed rally the lawyers and the accountants and so forth, and they would study the bill and they would up with some good, concrete evidence of what it would do to business.  Now we were not unreasonable over there in representing the business, but most of the time most of my energies were expended on killing bills, not passing bills.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Hmm-mm. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  And we would take down the bills that would affect the business community. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  But sometimes you might settle for amendments. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Amendments? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  To the bill. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Yes, yes, we did.  Occasionally wed settle for one. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And youd go to the sponsor and suggest those amendments. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Right. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And what if a sponsor rejected them? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, if he did wed just go ahead and kill the bill. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You know it seems, I guess, to most people, that lobbying work is done there in the capitol.  But thats not it, is it? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Oh, no, no. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Tell us about what you do during the interim. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  All right.  I had a plan every summer.  I would get out.  I would go to every legislator in the Georgia General Assembly and Id go see him in his home town.  I visited with him.  I might take him to lunch or I might take him to dinner.  And I got every legislator I saw between sessions on trips around and that was impressive to these people, going up to Young Harris or going to Walker County.  So, that was well received by these people -- that this fellow from Atlanta thinks enough about me to drive 200 miles or 300, 500 miles.  And so, that was a good program that I put together. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Representing the Chamber of Commerce, you obviously at the same time represented a lot of the businesses who had their own lobbyists.  How did you interact with those? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, that was  generally, if a lobbyist who came to me was a member of the Georgia Chamber we would join in with him if he asked for our support and we didnt take it on unless he asked us to.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Hmm-mm.  I bet you remember when there were only four or five lobbyists around the capital. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Yes.  Yeah, four or five.  I guess now you got -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  2,000. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  2,000 or more!  But I remember that the Southern Bell had a good lobbyist.  Had one of the old timers -- Bill Bryant. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Bill Bryant.  I remember Bill. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Bob Simonette. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Bob Simonette, yes, he was with the Georgia Fire Company.  He was a very fine young man and well-respected by the members of the General Assembly.   And beyond that I cant recall the names, but we had a small group. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Glenn Phillips. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Glenn 'Cookie' Phillips -- that was the nickname they gave him.  Cookie Phillips was -- at the Grady Hotel they had speaker that stayed there, Speaker George T. Smith.  And most evenings you could go there and theyd have a liquor room setup and everybody would get in there and compare notes and drink some Jack Daniels.  But that was a good program.  So we always kept the liquor bottles filled up. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I think I might have asked you this question, but Id like to rephrase it and ask you this.  What does it take to be a good lobbyist?  Personality? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, yes, thats part of it and a sense of honesty.  Theres no question about that.  And we've got some lobbyists over there that I dont want to spend much time with.  But anyway, the members of the General Assembly, they know whats going on with these people, so they just -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What makes a good public servant? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, Bob, thats a pretty tough question.  Again, honesty, thats number one and -- I would say thats the number one issue. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Hmm-mm.  What do you say to those who criticize lobbyists and accuse them of being something other than Sunday school teachers? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Lets see, how about rephrasing that? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How do you respond to criticism of the profession of lobbying? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, thats a pretty hard question.  Most of the lobbyists I would say now working these days -- most of them are honest people and they want to do whats right.  But theyve got to represent their clients.  They've got to represent their companies, but the bad ones -- the bad lobbyists, they cant make it.  Theyre ineffective and they get the reputation thats damaging to them. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Getting back to the pre-legislative forums which were so important at that time.  Tell us about some of the participants and if you recall some of the issues they discussed on these tours. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, theres a wide range of subjects and a lot of times people in North Georgia might have a different set of ideas than the ones in South Georgia.  Taxation was always a big issue.  They had -- oh I dont know, that was a big one. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Let me ask you this question.  Tell us about some of the most effective legislators that you remember. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, yes, a former state Senator named Roy Lambert from Madison, Georgia was an outstanding state Senator -- a very honest, very compelling man.  Also had Representative Harold Clark, who later went to the Supreme Court in Georgia.  A very fine statesman.  Hes a man who stood by his principles, and could not be swayed.  But hed always be upfront with you when you were dealing with him.  Those two come to mind as being exemplary good legislators. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You worked over there during the famous feud between Lieutenant Governor Zell Miller and Speaker Murphy.  How did you fair during that period? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, personally, I did all right.  You know, I dealt with both of them and Id be upfront.  I would tell them if I was dealing with Murphy, or vice versa, you know. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Glenn, as you look back over those years you spent over at the capitol, what do you think was your greatest accomplishment? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  My greatest accomplishment?  Well, representing the businesses of Georgia, seeing their programs enacted in the Georgia Legislature and killing the programs that would be not in the best interests.  So, those were some of the things. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Hmm-mm.  What was your biggest disappointment? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  You know, I really cannot -- I did not have any disappointment to tell you the truth.  Over the years I pretty much had it my way to put it bluntly, but I didnt have any real disappointments.  I feel like I served the business community of Georgia. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, I think I can say without fear of contradiction that if all lobbyists were like you, than we wouldnt have the headlines we read far too often in the newspapers today.  I want to ask you this final question.  What advice do you have for those who might want to become professional lobbyists? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  I would say that they would have to have a bent toward the government or legislature.  Personality is very good.  Personality, honesty and -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Communicative skills.  Do they figure? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Very important, yes, very important. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How is the best way to communicate with a legislator?  Is it privately in his home or in his office or is it the famous three martini lunches? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  I did a lot of my -- I did a lot of those activities.  I spent a lot of time at the Commerce Club with those so-called three martini lunches and most of us did a lot of business in the halls.  In the evenings youd go out where youd see these good folks.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Was it difficult to change votes when you needed them? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  No. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Was it? \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  No.  I was very successful in my career over there.  I cannot remember a single instance where I fell flat on my face on an issue.  So, I feel very good about my career there. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, you've had a --  \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  And those two -- Im very, very proud of those two recommendations that the House and the Senate made on my behalf, commending me for my honesty and integrity.  And as I mentioned earlier, one of the pros over there said hed never heard of anything like this -- a lobbyist being honored.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Hmm-mm. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Most of them are looked upon as lurking in the dark with their topcoats and their top hat pulled down.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Wearing those Italian suits. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Thats right, wearing those $1,500 Italian suit and silk underwear. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, Glenn, its been a pleasure having you and I want to thank you on behalf of Young Harris College and the Richard Russell Library, the University of Georgia and myself, for being with us. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Well, thank you very much, Bob, and you know, weve been old friends since 1957. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Thats right. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  So that goes back a long way. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Been through a lot together. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Yeah, we surely have. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Shared a lot of good friends. \r\n \r\nANTHONY:  Absolutely.  Thank you very much. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Thank you. \r\n \r\n[END OF RECORDING] "},{"id":"gych_rogp_063","title":"Millard Grimes, 07 January 2009.","collection_id":"gych_rogp","collection_title":"Reflections on Georgia Politics oral history collection, 2006-2010","dcterms_contributor":["Short, Bob, 1932-"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, 39.76, -98.5","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018"],"dcterms_creator":["Short, Bob, 1932","Grimes, Millard B., 1930"],"dc_date":["2009-01-07"],"dcterms_description":["Millard Grimes discusses his childhood in Newnan and LaGrange and working for the Columbus Ledger as a teenager. Grimes recall his work with The Red and Black and Pandora at the University of Georgia. He elaborates on his coworkers at The Red and Black and how his work there prepared him for work in the newspaper industry. Grimes discusses winning the Pulitzer Prize for an investigation into corruption in Phenix City with the Columbus Ledger. He elaborates on the circumstances of the investigation and his decision to begin a daily newspaper in Phenix City. Grimes discusses his later acquisition of the Opelika Daily News and how he expanded its circulation. Grimes recalls his return to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer and the series of events that led him to become the editor. He discusses his book The Last Linotype: The Story of Georgia and its Newspapers since World War II. Grimes recalls outstanding journalists he worked with, including Wade Saye, Lewis Grizzard, Ray Jenkins, Grover Hall, Jim Bane, Jim Bellows, Rheta Grimsley Johnson, and Bob Fowler. He also elaborates on what makes a good newspaper and whether newspaper editorials shape public opinion. He specifically mentions influential editorials from Ralph McGill and Carl Sanders. Grimes discusses the administrations of Governors Sanders and Vandiver, the 1966 gubernatorial election, and the demise of the county unit system. He also discusses the importance of investigative reporting and the tension between segregationist publishers and African-American readers. Grimes discusses his interest in the history of Warm Springs and President Roosevelt and party politics in Georgia. He also recalls the magazines he was involved with, Georgia Trend and the Georgia Journal.","Millard Grimes was born in Newnan, Georgia, on March 8, 1930. He grew up in LaGrange and Columbus. In high school, he worked at the Columbus Ledger first as a copy boy, then as a proofreader and sports writer. At the University of Georgia, he worked as an editor for The Red and Black, and graduated from UGA with a degree in journalism in 1951. He returned to the Columbus Ledger as associate news editor, and in 1955 the newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize for documenting corruption in Phenix City, Alabama. He then served as publishing chief executive officer at numerous newspapers, including the Opelika-Auburn News and the Rockdale Citizen. In 1991, he entered magazine publishing when he purchased the Georgia Journal and Georgia Trend. In 1999, he sold Georgia Trend, and funded the Millard B. Grimes Laboratory for Excellence in Print Journalism at the University of Georgia. Additionally, he has served on Franklin D. Roosevelt Warm Springs Memorial advisory board.","Finding aid available in repository.","Interviewed by Bob Short."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection","http://sclfind.libs.uga.edu/sclfind/view?docId=ead/RBRL220ROGP.xml"],"dcterms_subject":["University of Georgia--School of Journalism","Red and Black (Athens, Ga.)","Columbus ledger (Columbus, Ga.)","Columbus ledger-enquirer","Journalists--Georgia--Interviews","Newspaper editors--Georgia--Columbus--Interviews","Newspapers","Governors--Election","Investigative reporting--United States","Segregation and the press","Political parties--Georgia","Investigative reporting","Journalists","Newspaper editors","Political parties","Universities and colleges--Alumni and alumnae","Newnan (Ga.)--History","LaGrange (Ga.)--History","Warm Springs (Ga.)--History","Georgia","Georgia--Columbus","Georgia--LaGrange","Georgia--Newnan","Georgia--Warm Springs","United States"],"dcterms_title":["Millard Grimes, 07 January 2009."],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-063/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 063, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia, 30602-1641."],"dlg_local_right":["Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule."],"dcterms_medium":["oral histories (literary works)","interviews"],"dcterms_extent":["1 interview (89 min.) : sd., col."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Bellows, James G.","Sanders, Carl, 1925-2014","Grizzard, Lewis, 1946-1994","Jenkins, Ray, 1930-","Vandiver, S. Ernest (Samuel Ernest), 1918-2005","Grimes, Millard B., 1930-","McGill, Ralph, 1898-1969","Hall, Grover C., Jr. (Grover Cleveland), 1915-1971","Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":"Millard Grimes interviewed by Bob Short \r\n2009 January 7 \r\nAthens, GA \r\nReflections on Georgia Politics \r\nROGP-063 \r\nOriginal: video, 90 minutes \r\n \r\nsponsored by: \r\nRichard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies \r\nUniversity of Georgia Libraries \r\nand \r\nYoung Harris College \r\n \r\nDate of Transcription:  September 29, 2009 \r\n \r\nBOB SHORT:  Im Bob Short, and this is Reflections on Georgia Politics, sponsored by the Richard Russell Library at the University of Georgia.  Our guest is Millard Grimes, who is a well-known newspaper man and author.  Millard, welcome to our program.  \r\n \r\nMILLARD GRIMES:  Thank you.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You are a newspaper man.  You literally grew up in the newspaper business, working as a copy boy, a proofreader and a sports reporter for the Columbus Ledger while you were still in high school.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Thats right.  Ive never made a dollar since then in any business except publishing, newspapers or magazines.  So, I guess, yeah, Im a newspaper man.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You were born in Newnan.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Yes, I was born in Newnan in 1930, just a few months after the Wall Street crash that ushered in the Great Depression.  My father lost his job during that time, and so I only lived in Newnan a few weeks as a baby.  Although that was the county, Coweta County, was where the families of both my parents had lived for generations.  And a lot of them are still buried there around the Welcome Church, if you know where that is.  Well, Elim Church in the Welcome community.  But we moved to LaGrange when I was still a baby, as I said.   \r\nAnd so I grew up in LaGrange, which actually was a great place to grow up in the 1930s.  It was a small, small town, about 18,000, 20,000.  But it was a cotton mill town, I guess.  But we lived only about a block from what you might call downtown.  So you could walk everywhere.  You could walk to the theater or the stores on Main Street to the church.  So, actually, I had access to a lot of that stuff.  And back in those days, of course, a kid could walk all over town by himself if he wanted to.  And I mean, we were poor, I guess youd have to say.  I dont think my father ever made much more than 20 dollars a week, 25, maybe some  he was a traveling salesman for the Culpepper Company there.  Ive often said we were so poor, we could hardly afford a maid, because maids then were two dollars a week.  So we did afford a maid, which was fortunate, because my mother was sickly and stayed in the bed most of the time.  And then, my father, he traveled a lot.  He didnt get home a lot, sometimes on purpose and sometimes because he had to work.  And I think he sort of took to drinking during this period and some nights didnt come home at all.  \r\nBut my grandmother came to live with us, so I guess my grandmother sort of raised me.  But we lived right there on Broom Street.  I dont know whether you know where that is or not in LaGrange, but its just, like I say, right off the square.  But I loved growing up in LaGrange, because it was such a big difference in those days, in the 1930s.  If you lived in a relatively urban area, I guess you would call it, and about two to three miles away, outside the city limits, people didnt have running water, they didnt have electricity, they didnt have a lot of comforts we now have.  And the difference is just maybe a couple of miles.  And it wasnt how rich or poor you were.  It was actually if you lived in a town or if you lived out in the country, no matter how rich you were, you usually had to have a well, and it was a long time before you got electricity.   \r\nSo growing up in a small town, also, you had access to stores much easier, and theaters.  I keep saying the movie theater, because in the 30s, going to the movie for a dime was the big entertainment for children.  And I started buying Big Little books.  You remember those?  Comic books and things like that.  And I was always a reader and always wanted to be a writer.  And I really started out wanting to be a fiction writer.  And wrote a lot of stories.  Wrote stories for comic books and science fiction, the pulp magazines, as I got into my teenage years.  But I soon realized it was going to be hard to make a living at a penny at a word.  I just couldnt write that many words.   \r\nSo in the summer of my junior year at Columbus High, I went down and applied for a job at the Ledger-Enquirer, the daily newspaper there.  And they had a job for a proofreader during the vacations of the other proofreader.  I was only 16 years old, which I thought was a little young for that job.  And then I was a copy boy on Saturdays.  They dont have copy boys anymore, and sometimes Im not sure they have proofreaders anymore.  Everybody has to kind of proofread their own stuff.  But the copy boy was very important in those days.  He not only had to go get coffee for all the people in the newsroom, which was very important, but he had to strip the wires and, later, wind up the paper tape that was sent by the wire services that you put through the linotype machines.  Well, if the copy boy didnt come in in the morning around 5:00 or 6:00, the editors didnt have any wire copy, which back in those days was extremely important, because we didnt have as much local as they do today.  But in any case, that was my introduction.  And I worked at the Columbus paper during my years here at the university in the summers.  \r\nMy father died when I was a senior in high school, and my mother used the money to sort of send me through school.  It was insurance money, and thats how I happened to get through Georgia.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  So you came to the University of Georgia to study journalism.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And Im sure you must have worked on the Red and Black.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Absolutely.  I went down to Red and Black the first week or so I was here and worked on it til my senior year when I worked on the Pandora, the yearbook.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What was the university like in those days?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, it was, I think, great.  But Id never been anywhere much.  Id been to Athens once.  I came up here to cover a track meet.  When I was a senior in high school I started writing sports for the local Columbus paper.  And Id been to Florida a couple of times.  But like I say, we didnt travel much during the war, didnt go anywhere.  So Athens, of course, today people say its a lot different, and, I guess, sure it is.  But when I was walking over here today, I realized I could still find my way, because it was similar to the way it was when I was a student and used to walk on north campus a lot.   \r\nAnd it was right after World World II, so a lot of the men students  Id say probably more than half of the men students were veterans coming on the GI bill.  And of course, men outnumbered women about five to one on the campus in those days.  And I was a fuzzy-faced 17-year-old who came up in 1947 as a freshman at 17.  Id been about 15 when the war ended, so  I missed the war, or at least as a serviceperson.  So it was certainly really hard to get a date for a guy who didnt have much money and who was younger than most of the other men.  And we lived out in the prefabs on Ag Hill.  The prefabs there, they stayed there, I think, til the 60s.  And then I moved over on Milledge Avenue for my last three years.  \r\nBut I worked at the Red and Black and would have to say it was the best training ground for newspaper people that you could have had.  And the people who were on the Red and Black during the period I was there just went on to have very successful careers in journalism.  When I was editor, John Pennington was the managing editor who Jimmy Carter gives a lot of credit for saving his political career when he investigated a voting fraud that kept Carter from winning his first race.  Jim Mintor was the sports editor.  He went on to become the editor of the Atlanta papers.  Dewey Benefield, who didnt stay in newspapers, but who became a very prominent developer down in Sea Island, was there.  Mike Edwards, who went on to become a writer on National Geographic and is still writing for National Graphic. Glenn Vaughn, who went on to be the publisher of the Columbus newspapers.  It was an unusual group of people there.  And some of them were veterans, and some of them werent, like Jim and I werent, and Dewey.  \r\nSo the Red and Black, as Ive often told folks, was the most exacting newspaper at that time that I have ever worked on.  Every line had to fit.  Every headline had to fit just right, and we rewrote them time and time again.  And of course, we printed here in Athens in an old print shop.  But it was an experience that, if you went through all the rungs on the ladder, when you got out, you could put out a newspaper, a real newspaper, I think.  And I think a lot of those people did.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You were there during the Sinkwich-Trippi years.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, no, I missed those.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You missed it?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  I was there right after that.  However, I saw Trippi play several times, because they played the Georgia-Auburn game in Columbus every year at that time.  And so we got to usher the Georgia-Auburn games when I was in high school.  In fact, one of my great scoops when I was sports editor for the high school paper is I got an interview with Charley Trippi in the lobby of the Ralston Hotel.  I called up his room.  Im not usually that brash, and Charley Trippi answered, and I asked him to meet me down in the lobby.  And so I interviewed him a little bit about his  it was one of the Georgia-Auburn games.  But, no, they had left.  Roush and that group were here.  Zippy Morocco, whos still here in Athens, I was talking to Zippy the other day.   \r\nBut I think it was a great time to be at the university.  We had big bands come in for all the big dances, like homecoming and the commencement.  And the city wasnt as big.  Certainly it didnt have any bars.  In fact, I dont think you could serve drinks in Athens at that time, although a lot of people managed to get some.  But it was a great time be here.  \r\n \r\nBOB SHORT:  So after graduation, you wound up back in Columbus.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Yes.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Lets talk about in 1955 when your newspaper won the Pulitzer Prize for documenting evidence that there was corruption in Phenix City, which is across the river.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Thats right.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Tell us about that.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, it was an interesting year, needless to say.  And I would like to say that, as it was on the Red and Black when I was here at Georgia, we had an unusual group of people on the Columbus Ledger during that time who went on to  Bob Brown was the editor, and I think he was the person most responsible for us getting the Pulitzer.  Bob had worked with Harding Carter in Mississippi on that Delta paper, and then he went through NBC and came to the Ledger-Enquirer.  He was fairly young, I guess his middle 30s.  And he died fairly young.  But he did help us get that Pulitzer.  He was a very good political journalist, in the sense that he knew all the people in the business.  Well, we won  I mean, we overplayed the story, quite frankly.  I mean, the key to cleaning up Phenix City was that Albert Patterson, an attorney in Phenix City who pledged to clean it up, was elected Attorney-General of Alabama.  And one night, in a dark alley downtown, he was shot to death, on June 18, 1954.  Ill always remember that night.  But when he was shot and killed, that naturally created a lot of attention on Phenix City, which had been corrupt for years and years.  I mean, going back to the riverfront days when riverboats came in, it was a gambling center.  Of course, Fort Benning being across the bridge there helped create the need  not the need  but a lot of nightclubs and so forth.  And we used to go over there a lot, my wife and I, my fiance at that time, and the people from the Ledger-Enquirer.  And frankly, I never saw all that much corruption.  I mean, they could serve drinks, and they had dancing.  And I guess they had gambling and things like that in the back rooms, but I never saw any, and other things.  But, in any case, when Patterson was killed, the Governor or Alabama declared martial law in Phenix City and sent the National Guard in.  And the National Guard took over the entire government of Russell County and Phenix City.  You had a National Guardsman who was the sheriff and another one who was the police chief, and all the people who were there were ousted.  Then they brought in a special grand jury from all over the state, and a judge.  And in the next nine months, they charged and convicted a lot of the gamblers, which they felt would never have happened with the old regime in place.  So then they arrested the Solicitor General of Russell County, the Deputy Sheriff and the Attorney General of Alabama, whichever was attorney general at the time, and charged them with Pattersons murder. It was a very interesting trial.  \r\nThe district attorney was probably the most powerful politician in the county, a fellow named Arch Ferrell.  And at the trial, the witnesses testified, several of them, that they saw Ferrell and the deputy sheriff, Fuller, shoot Patterson in this alley right there.  Ill tell you a little interesting story about that alley there.  It was right on the main street of Phenix City at 9:00 on a Friday night.  So a lot of people walking up and down the street.  But it was a little off the sidewalk.  But despite eyewitnesses  and the main eyewitness, by the way, was killed in a knife fight before the trial.  Just a coincidence, according to the books and all.  And I recently read about a book about this.  Its why I remember it well, because I just read a very good new book about the assassination.  In any case, Fuller was convicted, the deputy sheriff.  Ferrell was acquitted.  The Attorney General went to a sanitarium, as they called it back then, in Texas, and was declared mentally-unfit to stand trial.  And, of course, he wasnt in Phenix City that night.  In fact, Ferrells defense was he was talking to him on the phone.  Now, I wont get into all those details.  But in any case, he was supposed to have helped plot it, though.  \r\nJohn Patterson, Albert Pattersons son, of course, was elected in his place to be attorney general and later was elected governor, defeating in 1958 George C. Wallace.  The only time Wallace ever lost an election in his career is when Patterson beat him.  But despite Patterson being the attorney general, they did acquit the guy he really felt was the person who was responsible for the assassination.  And Ferrell died in prison  not Ferrell, but Fuller died in prison about seven years later.   \r\nBut in any case, getting back to this, we played up all this stuff, of course, and ran many stories on it.  Im trying to remember exactly what we did that revealed things.  I think we kept the story alive because we bannered it every day and we had lots of news sources.  But the key was the Governor declaring martial law and sending in the troops to find out why Patterson had been murdered.  And they cleaned out all the gambling establishments.  They threw out slot machines.  They destroyed the places and, of course, arrested the gamblers.  So, yeah, we won the Pulitzer Prize and were real proud.  But as Ray Jenkins, whos still a real good friend of mine and was the main reporter at that time in Phenix City, said, we kind of overplayed the story.   \r\nBut the sequel to that is, on the day we won the Pulitzer Prize, it was announced, I had already resigned and had decided to go over to Phenix City and start a weekly newspaper.   They had a small weekly, but it was not very good.  So I got this guy who ran a radio station over there, put up two-thousand dollars.  Id always wanted to be an entrepreneur.  So I got an office in the same building that Patterson had had his office and had walked down the steps from the night he was murdered.  And so we had an office there for about two years, and I tried my hand at weekly newspapers then.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, actually you must have liked it, because even today you own several weekly newspapers.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, I dont know that I liked it that much.  And, of course, I didnt have any money much, and we didnt have a print shop.  And the pace was so different from a daily.  Still is.  I mean, you have to really make yourself on a weekly go on and do things.  Whereas a daily, sort of, the deadline forces you to.  Actually, that experience convinced me at that time that I wanted to just be involved with dailies, if I could.  And so the Columbus paper took me back, which was fortunate.  Ive been very lucky through the years to have a job somewhere.  And I went back to the Columbus paper.  And I left one other time for a few months to work on a paper in the Valley, which had just gone cold-type.  And it was owned by a guy named Carmage Walls, whom you may be familiar with.  Carmage had been publisher of the Macon Telegraph.  And he also had a hand in more weekly news dailies and weeklies, I think, than anybody in the country, because he helped young people starting.  And his stepson was the publisher, I think, in the Valley at that time.  But I went up there briefly.  But I had a family situation.  Both of our mothers lived with us, my wifes mother and grandmother and my mother.  And we almost had to stay in Columbus.  But we tried it for a while.   \r\nWhat I was going to say about the people on the Ledger-Enquirer, when I worked there as a young copy boy, Jim Bane was a news editor who later went on to Atlanta and became the managing editor there, and then went on to be a big official in Cox newspapers.  Jim Bellows was the city editor, and Jim became editor of the New York Herald-Tribune.  And Tom Sellers and Ray Jenkins and various other people who went on to pretty good careers.  Joe Hall, I think he also went to Atlanta.  So we had an unusual staff.  Carlton Johnson.  Later, when I was editor, I brought in Charlie Black, and we sent him to Vietnam seven times.  And Charlie, I think, became sort of a legend covering Vietnam during the 1960s.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  That was a good decision you made.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Yeah.  Did you know Charlie?  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes.  And you got firsthand coverage from Vietnam that other newspapers in the state really didnt get.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, Charlie wanted to go.  He had been in World War II and in the Korean War.  And he interviewed the soldiers and the people more than the officials.  So he didnt depend on news from official sources.  And we got letters from all over the country from people wanting Charlies items because they included names of their sons, fathers and husbands who were in Vietnam.  And Charlie died fairly young, too.  And it was at the memorial service, the guy who won the Pulitzer Prize for Vietnam service was there and called Charlie the greatest reporter of the Vietnam era, because he did report on the people.  The people, that is the soldiers who were actually fighting.  And I think it did give us a boost.  Because during that period, the Enquirer became the largest circulated paper in Columbus.  The Ledger had always been the top paper, and, of course, they used some of his articles, too.  But back in those days, the newspapers had separate staffs.  The Ledger was the afternoon paper.  The Enquirer the morning paper.  Of course, as we know, morning papers were then gaining traction to become more circulated than the afternoon papers.   \r\nAnd there was a period, of course, I was editor, too.  I became editor when I was just 32, in 1962, and had come back to the Ledger-Enquirer from my little excursion to the Valley.  And I was working on the desk again, the same job I had when I got out of college, making about 100 dollars a week.  And we had two children, and that was probably the low point of our career and in our lives, in a way.  But then, by a series of coincidences, I became editor in a couple of years.  The editor of the Enquirer died one night of a heart attack.  And I was already writing a column and a lot of the editorials.  I just used to do it on the side when I was really the [indiscernible].  And so I got to be the associate editor because I was writing the editorials.  Well, back in those days, the editor overlooked the whole operation, not just the editorial page.  But somebody had to write that.  So then they reorganized, and somehow I ended up as editor of the morning paper.  Well, Id never worked on it.  I always worked on the afternoon paper.  And that was a period when Carl Sanders was running for governor and was elected.  So my years as editor of the Enquirer coincided with his first term.  And that was a great period in Georgia history, I feel.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Did you ever know Bill Burson, who was a correspondent in Korea?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Yeah.  Mm-hm.  I knew him.  He was in college when I was.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  He was here when you were here?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Yeah.  Mm-hm.  Yeah.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Bill and I worked together as press agents for governors, as you well know.  In your book, The Last Linotype: The Story of Georgia and its Newspapers since World War II, you described the years between 1950 and the 80s as the Golden Age of  Newspapers.  What was so special about that era?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, first, I think newspapers values went up.  The value of the papers, that is.  It was years when newspapers began to go on the stock market, so you could judge their value, the big papers.  Small papers, if you were fairly successful, these big groups were always calling you wanting to buy you, if you were in an area they liked.  So it was certainly golden from that standpoint.  Also, we had changed from hot-type by then, most newspapers, to cold-type and offset, which allowed us to run many more pictures and local pictures.  Before offset, you had to have a plate made of every picture you ran, and it was costly, among other things.  Well, after offset, you could just run picture pages pretty easily, and eventually you could run color much more easily.  So it gave newspapers a chance to run more pictures.  Frankly, most of the  I dont know whether this is good or bad, but for whatever it was worth, most of the editors and reporters by then were college graduates because theyd gone to college on the GI bill.  Whereas, before World War II, it was people who werent.  I dont know whether that improved it.  Some of them were good and some of them werent.  Plus, there was very little competition for the advertising as there is now and later.   \r\nNewspapers were the medium in town, Id guess youd have to say.  The publishers and editors were fairly prominent people.  After the chains bought up most of the small dailies and many weeklies, of course the publisher just became another person that the chain happened to send in for a few years, rather than somebody that lived in the community for many years.  And they certainly improved a lot of papers, but they also de-proved some.  \r\nBut my experience during that period, of course  in 1969, I left the Ledger Enquirer and got some lawyers in Opelika, Alabama, to help to put some money up to buy the paper in Opelika, the Opelika Daily News. And so we did.  I became publisher and editor in March, 1969.  And that was a great experience.  Id never had a business course in my life.  And I mainly continued to do what Id always done: I put the paper out every day, and got somebody else to sell the ads and do the business.  And we had about 6,000 circulation.  It didnt circulate much in Auburn, which is a sister city of Opelika and was the key.  For six months after we bought that little daily, which was really considered, I think, the worst paper in Alabama at that time, I mean, they ran nothing on the front page except wire news.  Back in those days, you could take the wire news off the machine and fill up your paper, which some papers kept doing and still do today.  Well, we ran a lot of local.  We started covering Auburn.  And six months later, we changed the name to the Opelika-Auburn News so that we could have that extension into Auburn, and also added a Sunday edition, which theyd never had.  And those were the two keys, I think, to expanding and succeeding in Opelika.  Auburn, I should say.  The plant was in Opelika.   \r\nAnd we did a lot of photos.  We covered sports very heavily, Auburn sports.  And nine years later, we had gone from 6,000 circulation to 9,000.  So one reason I call that the Golden Age of Newspapers is, back in those days, you could gain circulation, which is very hard to do now.  But, of course, we didnt charge much.  I mean, it was like a dime during the week and a quarter on Sunday.  And Ive forgotten what the monthly price was.  And the Opelika-Auburn area was extremely competitive in those days from outside newspapers.  And there was a strong weekly in Auburn that was actually stronger when we bought the Daily News than it was.  But you had Columbus, Montgomery, Birmingham and Atlanta all sent, both afternoon and morning papers, into Lee County, Alabama. And two of them had bureaus there, Columbus and Birmingham.  Birmingham had a real strong circulation there when we first went there.  \r\nBut in any case, as I saying, we went from 6,000 to 20,000 in nine years and quadruple the income, which was lucky, in a way.  But we had this plan, as I said.  And the reason it was the golden age, we bought it for about a million dollars and sold it for about seven million eight years later to Thompson newspapers.  Thompson didnt do as good a job as I was hoping they would.  But at that time, they were the largest owner of small papers in the country.  And they owned newspapers all over the world, including the London Times.  I told the guy when we were selling, I said, Boy, Im real proud to be associated with the group that owns the London Times.  And he said, Well, thats one of the newspapers weve got that doesnt make money.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Let talk for a minute about some of the real newspaper men during that era.  Who do you recall that were outstanding journalists during that period?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, as I mentioned, people that worked on the Red and Black when I was there went on to be pretty outstanding.  One who probably doesnt get enough recognition is Ray Jenkins, who was at Georgia at that time and worked on the Phenix City story during the Pulitzer year, and then went on to be editor of the Montgomery papers.  And I think one of the really great writers of that period was Grover Hall, Jr., who was the editor of the Montgomery Advertiser.  Grover got mixed up one time when they sold it to somebody and he left Montgomery, which was really  he never became as good a writer after that, because Montgomery was his heart.  Its where his father had lived and been editor of the Montgomery paper.  But Grover was a unique writer.  He made editorials interesting, which is hard to do.  I mean, most newspapers sort of throw the editorial page in, without the kind of thought and writing that Hall put in it.  So, of course, he was in Alabama, but he was one person I feel was very important in influencing me.  And he and Bob Brown were good friends, who was editor of the Ledger.   \r\nWhen you were in Columbus  back in those days, I worked on the Columbus paper for 20 years and then on the Opelika-Auburn News for another ten.  And even though I was very involved in Georgia, it was just across the line, for those 30 years, I was much more involved with the people right there.  And although I knew some of the others  I mentioned Jim Bane and Jim Bellows came from Columbus.  I was actually on the board of the Georgia Press Association, as well as the Alabama Press Association.  So I knew a lot of those people, but I dont know if their names would be that familiar to anybody.  Bob Fowler was one who started the Gwinnett Daily News, and he sold it to the New York Times for umpteen-million dollars.  And then they closed it down.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Before I forget, Id like to ask you your opinion of what makes a good daily newspaper.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, thats a good question.  I have thought about it a lot through the years.  When we bought the Opelika paper, as I said, it was not real good, Id have to say.  I would say, both then and now, even more so, you had to cover the local news.  Television had already been a factor for nearly 20 years when we took over the Opelika paper, but, obviously, it was not the factor it is today.  You didnt have cable, and you didnt have quite as close a coverage.  And I think covering the local news is number one.  And everybody says that, but there a lot of ways you do that.  And then youve got a lot of audiences out there.  Youve got an audience that wants a lot of sports news, and probably some papers overemphasize sports.  And Im a big sports fan.  And just to compare what we did in Opelika and Auburn, we started really covering Auburns sports.  And we covered high school sports.  I dont know how many high schools we must have covered.  They had so many then, because all these counties were getting private schools in addition to the public schools.  And Alabama has a lot of public schools.  In Lee County there was Beulah and Beauregard and Notasulga and Loachapoka, as well as Opelika and Auburn.  They all had Indian names.  And so we covered high schools real closely.  We ran a lot of pictures.  We were probably  and I think thats a key for papers today.  We do that in our weeklies, is run a lot of pictures of people.  Thats one thing that is still difficult for any of the other media to do.   \r\nPlus, we ran obituaries, deaths and funerals, which very few of the media doesnt do well, except newspapers.  So I think, today  I notice the Journal Constitution has emphasized deaths and funerals a little bit more, spotlighting somebody.  And I think their Vent column has become very popular, and many newspapers are doing that now to try to give the audience a chance to participate.  But I would say that our success in Opelika and Auburn, which I think is reflected in a lot of dailies, was increasing the amount of local news and running more pictures.  We also, of course, ran a lot of columns.  \r\nId like to mention another trend that we got into.  After we sold the Opelika-Auburn News, we really didnt have that much money.  I didnt have but about 15 percent of that paper.  And I didnt have any money, of course, when it started.  Id been in the newspaper business all my life.  And I had to borrow what I had in it.  But then we got into suburban papers.  Because suburban papers in the late 70s and early 80s were about the only thing a small group with not much resources could buy.  But you could get real good bargains in suburban papers, because the dailies, the large groups, had not discovered the suburban papers.  Of course, in the next 20 years, those suburban papers became real hot commodities.  Our first one was  well, Phenix City was sort of a suburban paper.  Our first one, though, was the Rockdale Citizen in Conyers, which I got right after we sold the Opelika-Auburn News.  And we had it for 17 years.  And it was a weekly when we bought it, and we converted it into a five-day daily, and ran an all-local front page.  But we did have wire news inside, and we had comics, and we had other things.  But somehow we managed to get all local on the front page.  It was pretty tough some days.  In Rockdale County, you wouldnt think that much happened.  And Im not sure it did, but it must have.  Something happens all the time.  You just have to be creative, I think.  \r\nBut at one time we had the paper in Rockdale, Clayton County  which was a real good county back in those days for news, where Newt Gingrich was headquartered, so to speak.  Henry County, which I never guessed was going to grow like it has. And Fayette county, which obviously was a hot county.  But at the time we had the paper there, it didnt even have a motel.  You had to go to either Newnan or Clayton County to spend the night.  And all those counties, of course, became very strong.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You mentioned editorials.  Do you think that newspaper editorials help to form public opinion?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, I dont know for sure.  Thats what I have mainly done through the years is write editorials and columns.  I never was a reporter too long.  I started being an editor, that is.  So back when I was editor of the Enquirer, we had to write about two or three editorials a day and a column, and oversee the paper.  I mean, back in those days, the editors really worked.  I think today they just write maybe an editorial once in a while.  I never got a lot of feedback from editorials.  I think letters to the editor get more feedback almost.  And I say that as somebody who wrote editorials and thought they were pretty good, and still do write.  I still write a column pretty much every week.  But I think the news has more impact on people, not just for selling the paper to them, but even influencing them.  I think they look on editorials as somebody elses opinion.  So Im not sure.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Now, with your permission, Id like to get your thoughts on some of Georgias most well-known political writers and editorialists.  And, of course, the first one that comes to mind is Ralph McGill.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Yeah.  Well, I thought he was real good.  I mean, I used to read his column regularly.  Im sure he must have had some influence on the situation that evolved in Georgia.  But I think the person who had the most influence was Carl Sanders, who was the governor during the 60s, at a time when, if you remember the 60s, cities all over the South were exploding.  States  of course, living on the Alabama border, I was quite familiar with what was going on in Birmingham, Montgomery, various places.  Somehow, if you look at the difference in Georgia and Alabama during the 1960s, when Wallace was governor in Alabama and Sanders was governor in Georgia, you can see that Georgia fared much better and became the commercial capital of the South, particularly Atlanta.  Now, I dont know if you can give Sanders or McGill, either one, credit for all that.  But they were  Sanders, particularly, was in a position to sort of keep things calm.  And, as Ive said, Sanders, while he was governor, all three major league sports brought teams to Atlanta.  Baseball was the Braves, and Atlanta built that great stadium, which I still think was great, because you saw it when you came into the city real vividly and dramatically.  Brought the Falcons, the NFL football team, and then the Hawks, the basketball team.  And I think that put Atlanta on every sports page in the county, a little line every morning in the major league sports.  And then you had that stadium, which many people came to.  \r\nAnd I think also it probably gave Atlanta that boost that Birmingham  and even some of the others, Charlotte for a long time and Jacksonville  didnt have, because they had the major league teams.  And you have to give Sanders a lot of credit for that, because he personally brought a couple of those teams in.  And he and Ivan Allen working together got that stadium built in something like a year, didnt they?  You were there, Im sure.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  And that was really one of the miracles of Georgia.  It also was the period when the major hotels all came to Atlanta: the Hyatt-Regency, the Marriott, later the Peachtree Plaza, or whatever it was, Westin.  And I think Sanders cleared the way for a lot of that by convincing people outside of Georgia that we were calm.  I dont know that we were all that calm or not.  But in any case, that all came about.  McGill died in, what, 1969 or 70.  But I think his influence and Pattersons influence helped keep Atlanta  gave it an image, in any case.  And thats very important, of course.  And I think we had an image, Atlanta and Georgia did, that was much better than the other states, and has still created the atmosphere that enabled us to finally get the Olympics and so forth.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Lets talk about that period for a moment.  Preceding Sanders as governor was Ernest Vandiver, who most people believe was one of the most courageous governors we ever had because of the circumstances he faced during his administration.  What did you think about that period?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, I think he felt like he had to do what he did, which was allow integration here at the university and integration in general.  When we did this article on Sanders for Georgia Trend years later, Vandiver wrote me a letter and was upset, that he felt like he should have gotten more credit, because he allowed the integration and so forth.  But I think it was reluctant.  And in his campaign for governor, he vowed never to allow any kind of integration, which I think he carried every county but three.  So apparently the right way.  But I felt like Sanders did more than Vandiver overall, because he came in and sort of  I cant remember all the things he did.  Of course, he was a great education governor.  I havent brushed up on some of that, but I know he did a lot of things.  And Vandiver did, he had a tough time and allowed the integration of the university, two or three people.  He was a good governor.   \r\nMost of our really great governors never were elected to anything else.  I thought Ellis Arnall was a very progressive governor.  Never was elected again.  Sanders never was elected to anything again.  And Vandiver was never elected to anything again.  So we dont reward our real progressive officials too well.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Do you remember that race in 1966 when Governor Arnall ran against a group of people which included Lester Maddox?  And even Bo Callaway from down in your way was the Republican.   \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Yeah.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What do you remember about that race?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, quite a bit.  I wrote a little book about it.  I was editor of the Inquirer then and was a pretty good acquaintance of Bo Callaway.  He had become the first Republican congressman two years earlier.  And that was the district that Columbus was in.  And, of course, Pine Mountain was very near Columbus, and we would go over there a lot.  And Callaway today will admit that he ran a very bad campaign that he should have won.  What happened was, though, there were four major candidates running for the Democratic nomination.  Maybe five, I guess you could say.  And Maddox only got something like 19 percent of the vote, but that was enough to get him into a runoff with Arnall, who got about 28 percent.  And Garland Byrd was in that race, and Jimmy Carter, who came in third, and James Gray, who was sort of the establishment candidate.  So there were five major candidates, yeah.  And then Arnall beat Maddox in the runoff.  Of course, there were a lot of rumors that the Republicans voted for Maddox because they thought hed be easier to beat.  But I dont think that was true.  If you analyze the vote in the primary and the general election, the candidates that went heavily for Arnall in the runoff were the same ones that went heavily for Callaway in the general election.  So I dont think there was quite as much so-called crossover voting as people thought.   \r\nAs you recall, Callaway finished slightly ahead of Maddox in the general election, about 3,000 votes, but he didnt get a majority.  And at that time, the General Assembly selected the governor from the top two. And, of course, the General Assembly was heavily Democratic still and selected Maddox over Callaway.  And I think that delayed the Republican domination of Georgia politics for several years, because Callaway was the last Republican to get more votes in the general election than the Democrat until Perdue in 2002.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Mm-hm.  The demise of the county unit system in Georgia, which a lot of people nowadays dont understand, dont you think opened the door to better government in the state?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Oh, absolutely.  I was a strong opponent of the county unit system when I was at Georgia.  Some of my editorials as editor of the Red and Black were against the county unit system, because it just seemed to me it wasnt fair.  And, of course, we had a lot of cases where  well, it wasnt so much that we had a lot of cases where the person who got the fewest votes won, although that did happen in 1946 when Gene Talmadge got fewer votes than the guy he was running against.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Jimmy Carmichael.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Jimmy Carmichael.  But most of the time it was because the county unit system gave people who only got 35, 40 percent of the vote, they were the winners.  I think that was the case with Marvin Griffin when he ran.  Because that only applied to Democratic primaries, the county unit system did.  Talmadge twice tried to get that put into the constitution to apply to the general election, and it was defeated, actually, in Georgia.  And, of course, while it cleared the way for Sanders to win, actually, he would have won anyway.  He carried the county unit system.  Maddox would have won heavily had it been on the county unit basis in 1966.  But anyway, he went on to become a fairly acceptable governor, I guess.  And Bo Callaway finally moved to Colorado, and then came back.  And I see him quite often now at Callaway Gardens.  He lives there now.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  In Chipley.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, Pine Mountain they call it now.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Chipley.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Yeah.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Still Chipley to me.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Yeah.  I wish they hadnt changed the name, because its confusing with Pine Mountain Valley, not to mention the mountain.  And some places around there are still called Chipley.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Id like to ask you this question.   \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  All right.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Do you think theres more or less interest in todays newspapers in investigative reporting?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, I havent noticed that there is.  Atlanta still does a lot.  Columbus does some.  The paper up here in Jefferson does quite a bit.  I think its difficult for small papers to devote the resources and so forth, depending on what the investigation is.  I think if we can report the news, which is what we try to do, and report whats going on, sometimes that almost feels like investigative reporting.  We had a situation in Greenville, Georgia, recently in which the guy elected mayor was not living there.  And we brought that out and took a picture of this mobile home that he had as his address, which was obviously abandoned.  And I dont know  they finally put a judge in charge of the county  of the town.  And hes mayor now, and he claims he lives there.  But he really, I think, doesnt.  That was not really investigative reporting.  What we do is try to bring out whats happening.  And we have a little paper in Talbot County, which is certainly one of the smallest counties in Georgia.  You remember Talbot County, the Henry Jurden  Jordan and persons.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  They were from Talbot County.  And there was another prominent family.  And the Strausses were from there, who founded Macys department store.  And they have just, in this election, elected the first black sheriff and the first black probate judge in Talbot County, even though its about 80 percent black. And so coming into this year, well have a black judge and a black sheriff for the first time in Talbot County.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Speaking of that, how did you treat the civil rights movement from a news standpoint in your newspapers?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, in Columbus, we had a real strong family ownership, the Chapmans and the Ashworths, during all the years I worked at the Columbus paper.  It was later sold to Knight Ridder.  I think they had real good newspapers because they wanted real good newspapers.  But I would have to say we mainly covered it by ignoring it.  During the 1960s, we did not play up civil rights commotions around.  And we were kind of like the eye of the storm.  Not only Georgia, but Columbus, in particularly, to my knowledge never had a riot, never had any problems.  And I dont think that it was strictly because of the newspapers, but we didnt have many problems.  They integrated the schools.  In fact, my children were in the first wave of integrated schools in Columbus.  And I think Columbus probably has more problems now than it did then.  But we did not play it up big.  And Ill never forget the first time a black couple brought in an engagement and wanted to run it, a wedding.  The publisher was really against it.  So we finally ran it, but we didnt run it in the society section.  We ran it back in the grocery section, I think, and they got real upset.  I dont know.  He was an old-time Southern publisher.  And we forget how  well, not very easily.  But most of the people were, of course, strongly segregationist.  We didnt run high school sports on blacks.  And weve all changed.  Now we cant hardly get any whites in.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What happened, do you think, that changed that attitude?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  I dont know.  I dont know that the attitude changed so much as the circumstances had to, both from a business standpoint and a rights standpoint, I guess, and a readership standpoint. We forget.  We say newspapers are in dire circumstances today, and to some extent they are. But we never had blanket readership, because the blacks didnt read the newspapers down in the 50s and the 60s.  And that was true for Atlanta and Columbus.  Even though they were a huge  Id say a third of the population, we didnt run any news that appealed to them.  We didnt, like I say, run the sports.  The only thing we ran about blacks, frankly, was crime.  Maybe church news, obituaries, which were carefully segregated.  But it was 40 years ago. We forget how much that has changed.  But today, I think our weekly newspapers run more about blacks in those counties than we do about whites, including social events and so forth and pictures.  And they got mad with us, one guy, the county commissioner, because we didnt run a banner story about Obama winning the presidency.  But we dont run  we didnt run one when Bush won.  In fact, I dont think we even ran one when Roosevelt one, although he lived there in Meriwether County, so to speak.  Thats just not what weekly newspapers do.  I mean, we ran how it ran in Meriwether County, Obama and McCain.  Interestingly, Obama carried Meriwether County, slightly.  And going back, I think, perhaps the Roosevelt influence is still strong in Meriwether County.  Democrats have remained pretty dominant there.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Did you visit any with President Roosevelt when he came to Warm Springs?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  No.  No, I was just a child then.  But I was always sort of a Roosevelt historian, I guess youd say.  And Ive always been proud of the fact that we have a paper there and promote Warm Springs and promote the historic role that Warm Springs played.  Just a few weeks ago, I carried a friend of mine out on Dowdells Knob there in Meriwether County, which is where Roosevelt looked out over Pine Mountain Valley and where he went the day before he died to look out over the valley.  And the grill that he used is still there.  And theres a statue there of him now that was dedicated just last year, if you havent seen it, that overlooks the valley.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Mm-hm.  Lets talk a minute about party politics in Georgia.  How long do you think the Republican Party will be able to continue its dominance in the state of Georgia?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, I dont know.  I think it still depends a lot on individuals.  Right now, if you want to win an office in Georgia, in a lot of places you figure youve got to run as a Republican.  For many years we know that it was true that if people wanted to win an office, they ran as a Democrat, no matter how they felt at the national level or at the state level.  And at the state level, issues didnt break down along party lines.  I dont know if they do now.  Well, they make them.  As I said, I was a strong supporter of the two-party system.  But Im not sure now that one-party politics doesnt work better, because you dont have these conflicts develop as easily over issues that really arent issues, but become party issues.  And I think the Republicans have gotten to squabbling among themselves about whos going to run next year.  So I dont know.  We may develop a real two-party system.  Weve sort of gotten away from  we almost went back to the one-party system with Republicans being the party. Last time what did Perdue get?  About 60 percent, 65 percent of the vote.  And mainly because blacks still vote heavily Democratic, and I think they will continue to.  I assume Hispanics will continue to vote Democratic.   \r\nCounties change so drastically.  Rockdale County, which, like I said, we owned the newspaper there, for 17 years operated it.  It has changed from being solidly Democratic, when we bought the newspaper, to solidly Republican, and its almost back again to being Democratic, because blacks, now, make up something like almost 50 percent of the population.  And when I had the newspaper there, it was about 90 percent white.  And that does affect politics.  We cant get away from the fact that theyre a very strong influence on politics.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Many disenchanted Democrats feel the Georgia is too urban and too dependent on minorities and labor.  Do you think thats true?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, yeah.  I think that thats why the Democrats need to nominate somebody from below Macon for governor who can help them pull rural votes.  Because theyre going to get the urban vote, now, around Atlanta, and thats a heavy vote.  But if you looked at the last election last month, or November, its rural counties below Macon and up in the mountains that vote so heavily Republican.  And so I think theyve got to get somebody who can pull votes down in the southern part of the state, because were still a very  were not only party line voters; were regional  its always been a very regional basis for the vote.  And I think a guy like Dubose Porter might be able to win a statewide race if he ever runs.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Getting back to newspapering, what effect has television had on the newspapers?  And the Internet, has that affected circulation?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, yeah, obviously.  I mean, Atlantas pulled back.  Columbus was pulled back.  You cant even get an Atlanta paper now in Harris County, down there where I spend a lot of time.  And I actually hate starting the day without an Atlanta paper, although sometimes I get upset at various things.  About the way they cover news, not their positions, and about the way they  I feel that, obviously, newspapers face a challenge to their very existence right now.  Actually, when I got out of college, people were saying that, because television had just begun carrying news.  And they said, Well, this is going to mean the end of newspapers.  But it wasnt.  It was the beginning, as I said, of the golden age.  And right now, young people dont read newspapers.  My children dont read newspapers, and they were raised in the business.  So I dont know where were heading in the newspaper business.  Ive been in large dailies, fairly large, small dailies and in weeklies.  I think weeklies still have a pretty good niche.  And I think thats the key for newspapers, is to maintain a niche in the market for media, just as radio has managed to do, and as a lot of magazines have managed to do.  I think newspapers used to feel like they had to be the dominant media, that everybody had to take it.  And thats not going to happen anymore.  But what theyve got to do is aim at the market they can serve and the role they can fill and can sell advertisers on.  I mean, advertizing still pays the way for all these media.  \r\nBut the Columbus papers and the Atlanta papers did something last week that I thought was really dumb, and that was increase their price.  We dont get much money out of circulation in the newspaper business.  What we really want is circulation.  Well, when you go up a quarter from 50 cents, as Columbus did, thats a 50 percent increase.  It may not seem like much, but, I mean, it makes a difference.  I know when sometimes Im trying to buy a paper on a rack, I might not have but two quarters or three quarters when its a dollar.  Back in the old days, of course, when I was first coming along, like I said, newspapers were a nickel or a dime, because we were a mass media.  Weve got to realize theres other media out there.  Television, Internet, they are considered free by most people.  So I think weve got to hold down our costs.  The newspapers got accustomed to such high profit margins.  These groups, they had these plans, and they did make way too high of profit margins.   \r\nIf you pick up your Sunday Journal Constitution, though, if you can pick it up, its still hard to pick up, because it carries so many inserts.  The same way is true of Athens and lots of other papers.  Even a little paper like our Manchester Star-Mercury averages about six inserts a week, and thats in a county that hardly has any stores in it.  It really doesnt.  So newspapers still have a function, but its to carry inserts and hopefully get a few other ads, and tell people we still are the only medium that tells people who got born, who died, who won the homecoming queen crown, who won the local football game and who scored the winning touchdown.  So from birth to death, its the little incidents that weekly newspapers can still carry, and a lot of dailies.  But weve got to get away from charging too much, I think, to remain a mass media.  And theres just a lot of competition out there, and weve got to try to make sure were one of the competitors, the newspaper business.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Can you see any way to encourage young people to read newspapers more?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, I guess  as I said, I get discouraged watching my own children and grandchildren.  And I think they do look at sports still.  Sports is one thing they seem to still go to the newspaper for.  But you dont get that much sports off television.  Even when it carries a game, you dont know exactly what happens.  You dont know who the leading ground-gainer was.  I was watching the Tech-Georgia game last night in basketball, but I still didnt know who the leading scorer was or anything about  if you want to know the details, youve got to look in the newspaper the next day.  \r\nAnd I know my daughters, they look for stuff about their children.  If theres something about their children, its still real important.  My grandson is a pitcher for the Norcross High team.  And I used to drive over to Winder in the mornings to pick up a Gwinnett paper to see what they had about the games he pitched.  And Im sure that people still do look for items in the newspaper about events they were involved with.  Its hard to get that kind of stuff off the Internet or off television.  So this probably isnt what they teach in journalism college, but that is what weve got to become.  And we can also  we still cover all the county commission meetings, the school board meetings that nobody else is at.  And weve just got to make that kind of news more relevant to the reader on what the county commission is doing, because you can sit through a long session and not get much.  \r\nSo Im optimistic a little bit that we can continue being a niche provider of information.  But can we keep selling ads to the people?  Thats a big issue.  Because our main advertisers through the years as newspapers were grocery stores, which we no longer have; retail stores, which are fading out; and automobile dealers, which had a terrible year, and real estate.  All four of those areas are hurting right now.  Walmart kind of killed the retail business, because they dont advertise much.  And they showed retailers they didnt have to advertise to be successful.  And so about all retailers run now are inserts.  Wed come to rely a lot on auto dealers.  They were kind of the new supermarkets.  And then last year they had a terrible year.  And I just dont know.  If they come back, maybe itll help us.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You mentioned magazines, which brings up the Georgia Trend.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Yeah.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Tell us about the Georgia Trend.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, after I got out of Opelika-Auburn News, as I said, we mainly ran these suburban dailies during the 1980s.  And then in 1991  Id always really loved magazines.  As I said, when I was a kid, buying comic books and science fiction magazines is what really got me interested in writing.  And so Id always thought, If I could ever get a magazine, thatd be great.  And Georgia Trend, when it first started, was started by Gene Patterson when he worked on the St. Petersburg Times.  And they had a Florida Trend, and it was a business and political magazine.  Well, the recession of the early 90s was very hard on print media.  I was reading an article yesterday which finally compared the recessions of the post-war era.  And the one in the early 90s was pretty bad.  I dont think a lot of folks realized how bad it was.  We did in the newspaper business.  Because, I know in Rockdale County, we had never had a year in which we did not do more business than wed done the year before until 1990.  And the magazine trade got hit very by it, the Atlanta magazine, Georgia Trend.  \r\nAnyway, St. Pete decided to sell its magazines.  So we got Georgia Trend in a pretty good deal.  But, I mean, it was like losing about a million dollars a year, so you had to kind of act fast.  But it was in this tower in downtown Atlanta.  It was great, the Atlanta Gaslight Tower at Peachtree Center.  We had an office up there on the top floor, and you could almost reach out and touch the blue dome there on the Hyatt Regency.  And I really enjoyed  it was the highlight of my career, almost, was running Georgia Trend.  And we later moved it  well, we moved out to Norcross to an office, but we also had an office here, which is where we actually put it out.  It was in Athens, because I lived here and I didnt want to move.  So we had an Atlanta office, but we actually put Georgia Trend out here in Athens.  And I thought it was a great opportunity to tell stories about Georgia that I had not been  I did have another magazine, Georgia Journal, it was called.  You may remember.  And it focused on tourism and gardens and towns.  And it was very popular with some people, but not enough.  And you couldnt get ads for it.  But you could sell ads in Georgia Trend, because it went to  we mailed it to everybody in tourism and government and CEOs and so forth.  If they just asked for it, they got it.  So that was the way you had circulation.  And you had about 50,000 of the key people.  And it had a lot of features folks still like, like Top 100 and the Georgian of the Year.   \r\nSo it was a lot of fun.  And I got Bill Shipp to come over from Atlanta magazine and write a column.  Bill was never involved in production, but he did write a column every week.  And we had some terrific photographers, which I think were very important.  But I sort of burned out, because I wanted the magazine to be a certain way.  And so I think I kind of burned out trying to do much on it, writing every headline, every cutline.  But my children worked with me on it, two of them did, and what a great experience.  And I thought they wrote some great stories, like I said, the one on Carl Sanders.  And I remember one article Jim Minter wrote for us called Is Henry County the Next Gwinnett?  And actually, that was in 1992, and it did become the next Gwinnett, almost.  Not quite.  I think its on its way to becoming what Gwinnett is becoming now.  And we did an article on Vandiver later on and his role, which was very important.  He was still bitter with Carter for not appointing him to the Senate when Russell died.  And I did a series on Bo Callaway and how he ran for governor, his life, both in tourism and in politics, which Ive got a little booklet of Id like to give you.   \r\nBut, in any case, we managed to write it up.  I mean, it became a strong advertising medium during the 90s as the economy improved.  And then, after we sold Georgia Trend back to the people wed sold our south metro Atlanta papers to, Neil Young and Tom Cousins, 10 years ago, 1999.  Ive got these little weeklies down around there where Charlotte, my wife, and I had grown up.  And thats what weve done for 10 years, and its been sort of a tough road.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I imagine you stay pretty busy with that number of weekly newspapers.   \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, not real busy.  Because Im here.  Im in Athens.  I live in Athens, and theyre all 140 miles away.  So you dont have to be quite as involved, but Im pretty involved with them.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, youve certainly had a brilliant career.  Youve also introduced some people into journalism, Lewis Grizzard.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Yeah.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Tell us about Lewis.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, Lewis was a sports writer on the Athens Banner-Herald when a couple of guys and I got this idea to start a paper here in Athens back in 1965.  Glenn Vaughn and Claude Williams were the main  well, they turned out to be the main people.  But I went to Claude, who had a little weekly here, and asked him about what he thought about turning it into a daily and challenging the Banner-Herald, which at that time was a fairly weak newspaper.  And we knew it was going to be sold, because the person who owned it had died and it was in his estate and had to be sold by the end of the year, in 1965.  And about the only thing I did for that paper, except kind of give them the idea  I was still in Columbus at that time.  I was editor of the paper in Columbus  was hire the sports editor of the Banner-Herald, which was a guy named Wade Saye.  So we felt like, Hey, if we have a really good sports editor and section.  That will give us a start.  I think Wade was making like 60 dollars a week, and so we offered him 70.  He said hed come if he could bring this intern he had, and that was Lewis Grizzard.  So thats how Lewis came to the Athens Daily News.  And in his book, If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, he recounts his experiences on the Daily News, which he remembered very fondly, in particular Glenn Vaughn, who came up and was the publisher.  Glenn was in Columbus with me at that time.  If I decided I couldnt come, he came.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Rheta Grimsley Johnson.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Yeah.  I remember Rheta when she was still here writing for the Journal-Constitution.  She worked for the Opelika-Auburn News while she was a student at Auburn.  Met her husband there.  He was working as an assistant sports editor, Johnson.  And Rheta was a great columnist, even when she was very young, and went on to become a  shes still a columnist for Scripps Howard, I believe.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Mm-hm.  Yes, she is.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  But I have not seen Rheta in several years.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  If someone asked you for suggestions for a young journalist who is just beginning a career, what would you tell them?  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, I dont know.  I might tell them to try to get into the electronic media some way.  Because its a hard  well, I wont say its a hard job.  Its difficult in a way, although I feel very fortunate to have been in a position in the media for so many years.  Theres no heavy lifting, as we say.  And you usually get to stay out of the hot and cold, unless you get sent to one of these foreign assignments.  But it can be long hours.  It kind of depends on the individual.  Ive had people who worked 12 hours a day and others that worked four or five and do the same amount of work.  Some people just get married to the job and like going there.  I think newspapers, as I said, have a niche role to play.  Theres also magazines, which most newspapers are now putting out magazines.  Its amazing to me how many magazines theyre selling, have sprung up in the last few years.  That was a lot when I was in the magazine business back in the 90s.  But Mark Smith, who used to be here in Athens as a publisher and worked for Morris for many years, his father, his family owned the paper in Eatonton.  And Mark took it over when he retired from Morris and has done a great job of expanding it into the Lake Oconee community.  And he puts out two or three magazines and puts them in there.  He has a real estate health magazine and then a regular magazine.  And the Newnan paper puts out two magazines, I think, and Columbus puts one out.  Its real funny.  Everybody puts one out now except Atlanta, which started the newspaper magazine business many years ago.  \r\nI was looking at these questions you sent me about great experiences, achievements, disappointments  I guess Im mainly a news journalist, I guess youd say, and so I enjoy that part of it.  But my greatest achievement undoubtedly was in Opelika, where we increased everything so much.  I think there was a lot of luck involved.  By going into Auburn, we became a border-based paper.  And then somebody opened a big shopping mall between Opelika and Auburn, and that always helps when youre a publisher.  And, of course, I had two great circulation people.  One of them was a real good friend of Rheta Grimsley Johnson, in fact.  They managed to get our circulation just expanded all of a sudden  and back in those days you could do that  into the Valley and into the surrounding area. \r\nAnd I think my greatest disappointment is that I havent been able to develop a successor.  I have three children, two of whom have worked in the business.  But I dont know whether theyre going to be able to be a successor, and I havent been able to find any people that work for me.  I think you need a good business type.  And most of the successful papers of other companies have had that.  Ive never had a really great business type.  And Im sure thats hurt our company.  We're probably poorer today because of it.  But newspapers took a real hit during the past year, as did a lot of companies.  And weve just got to hope for the whole nation and worlds sake that 2009 is going to be a better year some ways.  And Im 78 years old.  As I said, I was born just a few months after the Great Depression started.  Looks like Ill be going out that way.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, lets hope not.  Millard Grimes, a great journalist, a great Georgian, Id like to thank you on behalf of the Richard Russell Library, the University of Georgia and myself for being with us today.  \r\n \r\nGRIMES:  Well, thank you, Bob.  And I really enjoyed it.  And I appreciate you asking me.   \r\n \r\n[END OF RECORDING] \r\n \r\n \r\n "},{"id":"gych_rogp_060","title":"Harold Murphy, 15 December 2008.","collection_id":"gych_rogp","collection_title":"Reflections on Georgia Politics oral history collection, 2006-2010","dcterms_contributor":["Short, Bob, 1932-"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018"],"dcterms_creator":["Murphy, Harold Lloyd, 1927","Short, Bob, 1932"],"dc_date":["2008-12-15"],"dcterms_description":["Related materials available in the following collections of this repository: Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection 092 McCracken Poston.","Harold Lloyd Murphy was born in Felton, Georgia, in 1927. He served in the U.S. Navy and attended the University of West Georgia, earning his law degree from the University of Georgia. He first practiced law in Buchanon, Georgia, and then in Tallapoosa, Georgia. In 1950, he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, and served until 1961. He also served as an assistant state solicitor general of the Tallapoosa Judicial Circuit in 1956. From 1971 to 1977, he served as a superior court judge for the Tallapoosa Judicial Circuit. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter nominated him as a federal judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. He has presided over numerous high-profile cases and rulings, including Knight v. Alabama (regarding segregation in Alabama's historically black colleges and universities), Georgia Voter ID cases, and the Tri-State Crematory case.","Finding aid available in repository.","Harold Murphy discusses growing up in Haralson County, Georgia, and his education at West Georgia and University of Georgia Law School. Murphy recalls being elected to the Georgia House of Representatives from Haralson County in 1950. He discusses his service in the legislature from 1950 to 1960. Murphy recalls serving under Governors Talmadge, Griffin, and Vandiver. Murphy discusses his cousin Tom Murphy, the Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives from 1973 to 2002. Harold Murphy explains that he never intended to be a judge and discusses his appointment by Jimmy Carter. Murphy discusses several famous cases he was involved with, including Knight v. Alabama (regarding discrimination in all the public universities in Alabama), the Georgia Voter ID case, U.S. v. Thevis (regarding racketeering), and the Tri-State Crematory case. Murphy discusses the United States federal sentencing guidelines, Georgia's indigent defense system, striking jurors, and challenges of being a judge.","Interviewed by Bob Short."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection","http://sclfind.libs.uga.edu/sclfind/view?docId=ead/RBRL220ROGP.xml"],"dcterms_subject":["Georgia. General Assembly. House of Representatives","University of West Georgia","University of Georgia--School of Law","Judges--Georgia--Interviews","Judges--Selection and appointment--United States","Segregation in higher education--Law and legislation--Alabama","Crematoriums--Georgia","Sentences (Criminal procedure)--United States","Crematoriums","Judges","Judges--Selection and appointment","Politics and government","Segregation in higher education--Law and legislation","Sentences (Criminal procedure)","Universities and colleges--Alumni and alumnae","Georgia--Politics and government","Alabama","Georgia","United States"],"dcterms_title":["Harold Murphy, 15 December 2008."],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-060/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 060, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia, 30602-1641."],"dlg_local_right":["Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule."],"dcterms_medium":["oral histories (literary works)","interviews"],"dcterms_extent":["1 interview (64 min.) : sd., col."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Murphy, Harold Lloyd, 1927-","Talmadge, Herman E. (Herman Eugene), 1913-2002","Vandiver, S. Ernest (Samuel Ernest), 1918-2005","Carter, Jimmy, 1924-","Griffin, Marvin, 1907-1982","Murphy, Thomas Bailey, 1924-2007"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":"Harold Murphy interviewed by Bob Short \r\n2008 December 15 \r\nRome, GA \r\nReflections on Georgia Politics \r\nROGP-060 \r\nOriginal: video, 65 minutes \r\n \r\nsponsored by: \r\nRichard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies \r\nUniversity of Georgia Libraries \r\nand \r\nYoung Harris College \r\n \r\n \r\nDate of Transcription:  September 27, 2009 \r\n \r\nBOB SHORT:  Im Bob Short, and this is Reflections on Georgia Politics, sponsored by the Richard Russell Library at the University of Georgia.  Our guest today is Judge Harold Murphy, who has been a Georgia legislator, a super court judge, and was appointed federal judge by Jimmy Carter in 1977.  Welcome, Judge Murphy. \r\n \r\nHAROLD MURPHY:  Well, thank you very much.  Im honored to be participating in this program. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You come from a well-known family in Haralson County of distinguished lawyers and political leaders.  Please tell us about your early life growing up in Haralson County, Georgia.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Well, I was born in a small community of about 200 people in Haralson County called Felton.  It was an unincorporated community.  My father was a rural mail carrier and a farmer and a businessman.  My mother was a schoolteacher and a school principal.  And I went to a little country school.  And there was a time when I was in the primary school that the schools were so poorly financed we had five months of school.  And my parents then sent me to school over in Polk County, which had nine months of school, and went there for a couple of years.  And the little community we were in still only had school seven months at the most, so they sent my brother and me to Buchanan School, where they had nine months of school.  So I finished grammar school at Buchanan and then went through high school at Buchanan.  \r\nSo my father put my brother and me to growing cotton when we got about 13 or 14.  He thought boys ought to be busy, and he sure kept us busy.  And then I worked in a grocery store as a bag boy in a small grocery store in Cedartown beginning when I was 14 or 15, and did that all the way through high school on the weekends.  And then I went to West Georgia College when I finished high school at Buchanan, Georgia.  Went to West Georgia for four quarters and took extra courses. \r\nJoined the Navy when I was nearly 18.  The Navy called me in the spring of 45.  I was in boot camp when Japan surrendered.  And I went through boot camp that summer, and then the Navy sent me back to college and sent me to the University of Mississippi for a year in the Naval ROTC program in 1946.  The spring of 46, the Navy discharged me.  And Id been out of high school two years and had three years of college credit.  So I applied for law school at Emory and the University of Georgia and was accepted at both.  And I went to the University of Georgia, finished law school there.  And at the time, you could finish in eight quarters if you went straight through without a break.  I took a break the second summer, which required nine quarters for me to finish law school.  So I finished law school in March of 1949.  My cousin Tom Murphy and I were in every class in law school together all the way through law school.   \r\nAnd I began then practicing law in Buchanan, Georgia, on April 4, 1949.  Id been admitted to the bar.  I was 21.  In March of 1949 I became 22, and I started practicing law on April 4, 1949.  Practiced in Buchanan with a man named Don Howe.  And we then moved our office to Tallapoosa some years later.  I practiced there a while with him, and then with his son also practicing with us.  And then I was appointed to the Superior Court bench by Governor Carter.  And President Carter was in office when I was appointed to the federal bench in 1977.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You were elected to the Georgia House of Representatives from Haralson County in 1950.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Thats correct.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And served five consecutive terms.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Thats correct.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And if Im not wrong, there was only two years in a 40-year period that a Murphy was not in the State House of Representatives representing Haralson County.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Even longer than that.  James Murphy, Toms brother, went into the legislature while Ellis Arnall was governor.  I dont remember what particular year that occurred.  But then James Murphy was there when we had the three governor contest.  I dont remember if he ran for reelection after that contest or if he just did not run.  But a young man named Charles Smith ran, and he served for two years.  I qualified to run for election in 1950.  Charles Smith did not qualify to run, but another man, a lawyer, older than I, named Claude Driver, qualified to run.  And, fortunately, I won.  And I never had opposition again.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Mm-hm.  Before we get too far away, lets talk a little bit about your cousin, Tom.  What was he like as a young man?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Well, as a young man he was gangly fellow.  We were not particularly close while he was growing up.  He lived in Bremen, and I lived on the north side of the county in the little community of Felton.  I did visit with him some and knew him some when we would have maybe a family gathering of some kind, which were really infrequent for the entire family.  And Tom is my fathers first cousin.  I remember smoking rabbit tobacco at my uncles farm with Tom and my brother and my great-uncles sons, and a few other mischievous things.  But then we were in law school together, and Tom got married while we were in law school.  We studied a little bit together while we were in law school.  Participated in the moot court together while we were in law school.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Tell us, if you will, a little bit about your service in the legislature.  What was happening during that period from 1950 to 1960?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Well, it was an interesting time for Georgia.  When I was in law school at the University of Georgia, and when I was in the legislature, the first few years I was in the legislature, it was kind of like a Petri dish of youngsters who were ambitious and people who ultimately became leaders of the state, politically, in the judiciary, and even the business world.  I was there when we passed the sales tax and Governor Talmadge was the governor.  We passed the sales tax and substantially increased funding for the schools.  Governor Talmadge was a rather progressive governor, without appearing to be as progressive as he was.  But he was very much attuned to the views of the people and what the public wanted.  And he had these strong supporters who would have done anything for him. I heard him comment one time that there was one particular fellow who was such a strong supporter , he said, I believe if I asked him to burn down the State Capitol, hed do so. \r\nBut then, after Senator Talmadge, we had Marvin Griffin as governor.  And there was a sense of things not being absolutely the way they should be during Marvin Griffins term of office.  That appearance did not come from him. He was a very charming rascal.  But some of his cronies, and particularly his brother, Cheney, gave kind of a smelly reputation to his administration.  And then there was a young man married to a Russell, Governor Vandiver, who was very well-loved by the Georgia people.  Hed been a lieutenant governor, and then he became governor. And he was a handsome young man.  And people in Georgia seemed to want to elect and support leaders who were young.  If you think about it, Governor Talmadge was young.  Richard Russell was young when he went to the United States Senate.  Carl Sanders was young when he became governor. George Busbee was young when he became governor.  So Vandiver was a popular man when he went into office.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Had a lot of problems, though, during his term.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Had bad problems.  He was governor at a time when it was very difficult for state leader in the South with the ending of segregation and the difficulties that were rife with all the civil problems and community problems occurring at that time.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Why did you not seek reelection to the House?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Well, I got married.  I needed to make a living.  Its very difficult to be a lawyer and be in the legislature unless you have somebody looking after your business while youre gone. And while I was practicing law with another man, nobody looked after what my responsibility was while I was gone.  In addition to that, I had observed enough until I saw either you better make politics a career and be big in it, or you better get out of it.  I met these people for whom I had a lot of respect who would come to Atlanta with one administration and hold a job running a department.  Another governor would get elected and hed fire that person, and hed go back to south Georgia, stay there four years, eight years.  And his friend would get elected, and hed come back to Atlanta for a while.  And they just spent their life like a yoyo, back and forth, from their communities back to Atlanta.  And I did not see that as a career for me.  And, frankly, I dont know how people who did, why they wanted to do it.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  So you never thought about running for a higher office?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Well, I was asked to run for higher office.  I was courted by people who came to see me and ask me to run for Congress years ago, and they told me, You will not have to get out and raise a penny.  Well raise it for you.  And Ill tell you a story nobody much knows.  When I decided not to run, about two weeks after everybody had qualified, I had a telephone call from Phil Campbell, who was Commissioner of Agriculture at the time.  And he said, Weve seen that you did not qualify to run.  And I said, No, I didnt run for reelection.  I said, I told the Speaker at the end of the last session I was not going to run for reelection.  And he said, Well, he didnt realize that.  The Speaker did not.  He didnt know that.  It must not have gotten through to him, because I called you to tell you we had decided over here that we were going to elect you Speaker Pro Tem of the House.  I says, Well, its too late now.  He said, Well, can you get your cousin Tom to withdraw?  And I said, No, I wouldnt even approach him about it.  So thats made a lot of difference in my career.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Mm-hm.  How early in life did you decide youd like to be a judge?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  I never intended to be a judge when I was in law school.  When I went to law school, I thought Id be an FBI agent.  Because to be an FBI agent, you had to be either an accountant or a lawyer.  And I had read these books as I grew up about the FBI and whatnot, and I thought thatd be a good career.  But I was too young to get in the FBI when I finished law school, so I started practicing law.  And I never intended to seek a job as a judge.  After my law practice became successful, I was making a lot more money as a lawyer than a judge is paid.  But ultimately, as time passed, I needed to make some changes in my career.  And I had the telephone call that said, Come over here next Friday to the Capitol.  The Governor wants to swear you in as judge.  So I went and took the oath of office.  I never asked for it.  I had sought an appointment to the federal bench prior to that occurrence.  But the Republicans were in power, so I didnt get anywhere with my efforts at that time.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  But youd served as a solicitor.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  I did work as the assistant to solicitor general in our circuit for about a year.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  So you had some good experience.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  I tried a lot of cases.  I tried the cases that year.  But my partner and I, we had a broad practice.  I tried dozens and dozens of major homicide cases when I was practicing law as a lawyer.  And tried a lot of civil cases.  And by the time I went on the bench, I guess 40% of the work I did was helping other lawyers with their cases.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  So then you got the call from President Carter . . .  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yes, sir.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  . . . asking you would you like to be on the bench, the federal bench.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Well, no, he didnt call me.  When Carter became president, there was a vacancy for a judicial seat in the Northern District of Georgia.  And I spoke to Senator Nunn about it and I spoke to Senator Talmadge about it.  And those are senatorial appointments, really.  They call them presidential appointments, but its a patronage position of the party of the president.  And the President was a Democrat, and we had Democratic senators.  And they recommended me to the President, and the President submitted my name for confirmation by the Senate and I was confirmed.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How does that process of confirmation work?  Does the president do the heavy loading, or do you have to do it?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  No.  The people who  you have to do it if its for a district court position, now.  And you have to do through the political process.  That is, if the senators or one senator or both senators of your state belong to the party of the president, then that senator or those senators have the right to nominate  or send the name to the president for selection.  If the president happens to be one party, and theres no senator who belongs to that particular party in office in Washington, then the decisions are made by the political patronage people in the state, who might be a congressman; it might be several congressmen; it might be political chairman of the party of the president.  Thats something that differs from state to state when the president is of one party and the senators are of another party. \r\nNow, when it comes to circuit judges, those are strictly presidential appointments.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, before we get too far away, lets talk a minute about how the federal court system works in Georgia.  Im afraid too many people dont really understand the federal courts as they do their local superior and state courts.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Youre exactly right.  The federal courts try cases that involve federal law, cases that involve issues on the Constitution of the United States, and cases that involve claims or issues between diverse parties where the amount in controversy is $75,000 or more.  The federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction.  The states courts are courts of general jurisdiction.  They can try anything, basically.  But the federal courts try cases, and Im repeating myself, such as patents, antitrust, civil rights, copyright cases, securities cases, automobile wrecks where, for instance, a person from Alabama is involved in a wreck here in Georgia with a Georgia citizen and the claim is over $75,000.  They can come into federal court on what you call diversity of citizenship.  And thats true with business transactions and contracts, those type things.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Lets talk about some of your more visible cases.  I remember Knight v. Alabama.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Well, that case is a big part of my career on the federal bench.  Paul Roney was the chief judge of the 11th Circuit in 1989, I believe.  And he called me and asked me to preside in a case in Alabama in which they disqualified one judge who had heard the case, and then disqualified most of the other judges, if not all the other judges, in Alabama from handling the case.  And it involved the vestiges of discrimination in all the public universities in Alabama.  And he asked me to preside in the case, and I did.  And ultimately we had try it.  It took six months to try it.  The order I wrote was 1,000 pages long.  The 11th Circuit reversed  well, it didnt reverse, but they remanded a portion of it.  So I had to go back six more weeks and tried that portion of the case for six more weeks.  And then I presided over the case for about 15 years, and I terminated that case two years ago this month.  It is interesting to note that the University of Alabama has the reputation of being a most segregated school as a result of Governor Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door, so to speak, at the University of Alabama when they attempted to integrate the school.  The University of Alabama is one of the most integrated universities in the South.  And they have two traditionally black universities, one at Huntsville and one in Montgomery.  I had to do a lot of work to bring those universities up to par, so to speak, in facilities and in payment of professors salaries and in getting white people into those traditionally black schools.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You heard the Georgia Voter ID case.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yes, I did.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How did that get in your court?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Well, I guess one of the reasons is, a defendant in the case was the lady here in Floyd County who runs the election here.  She was one of the defendants.  And there were other defendants over the state that were named, but that gave them jurisdiction here.  I enjoined the effectiveness of the law, because it required people to pay $20 for a voter ID if they did not have a valid drivers license or some other government identification.  And we ruled that was akin to a poll tax and enjoined the operation of the law.  Then the legislature amended the law, removed that provision and requirement.  And they also ultimately adequately advertised the change in the law.  So then I denied the request for a further injunctive relief.  Thats on appeal now to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and was argued in the circuit about two weeks ago.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  U.S. versus Thevis.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  That was a classic case.  I tried it here in 1979.  It was indicted as an Atlanta case and publicity was very high, and I moved it here.  And surprisingly, here, very few people had ever heard about that case, even though people take Atlanta papers here and listen to the Atlanta news.  I realize how diverse this state is.  So many people from this area and north of here watch the Chattanooga news rather than the Atlanta news.  So we had no problem getting a jury.  It was estimated itd take 16 weeks to try the case.  We tried it in nine weeks.  Mr. Thevis was a pornographer, and he was indicted with other people for racketeering.  And the racketeering acts involved five murders, bribery, arson.  And there were fine lawyers in the case.  And so we tried it in this courtroom, and it was a most interesting case.  Mr. Thevis had been in the penitentiary.  He escaped the penitentiary and was a fugitive for some period of time.  While he was a fugitive, there were two witnesses whose testimony the government wanted to preserve.  And I was in Atlanta taking the testimony of those witnesses and doing it in the Fulton County Courthouse, where they had the TV facilities and recording facilities, the day they found Mr. Thevis up in the northeast United States.  And by the time that word got to all the lawyers, my lawyers were deserting me that afternoon to go make sure whether or not they were hired by Mr. Thevis.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  He got a rather long sentence for that.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yeah, he had got life plus 20 years.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And I imagine hes still in the . . . \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Hes still in the penitentiary.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  . . . federal penitentiary.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yes, he is.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I know that you had mentioned that you had a very interesting murder case as a private lawyer.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yes, I did.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And that was the Ledford case.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yes, it was.  I wont go into great detail about it, but Mr. Ledford had been in the penitentiary at Reidsville and was released.  And when he was released, he took up with a woman of the evening.  And from there, they robbed a man who was one of her customers and beat him over the head and whatnot, and put him in the trunk of the car that they had and started out West with him.  And they got over into the Dallas, Georgia, area and were pulled over by a local police officer who told the lady, Your taillights out.  And she said, Well, well go down the way here and Ill get it repaired.  So they did go down the way, but they went out in the country to a secluded area, and went back, opened the trunk.  And, of course, this gentleman had pulled the wires loose on the taillight.  But they opened the trunk, and Mr. Ledford, Hoyt Ledford, took his pistol and he was going to shoot him, and his pistol wouldnt work.  Hed bent it beating around on the poor fellows head.  And so the woman said, Well, here, use my pistol.  So she gave him her pistol, and he shot him in the ear and killed him.  And they closed the trunk door and took him out and dumped him off the mountainside near Fort Smith, Arkansas.  Some squirrel hunters found the body shortly afterwards, notified the law about that.  But in the meantime, the undertaker who owned the vehicle that they were in from Lawrenceville had notified the law his car was gone.  So a couple of Indians named Longacre, who were bounty hunters in Norman, Oklahoma, on Route 66, stopped the car and arrested them.  So our client, Hoyt, he gave about four confessions.  Anybody who would talk to him, hed confess about what hed done.  And we were defending him in Polk County down at Cedartown: Jimmy Parker, the lawyer from Cedartown, Don Howe, my partner, and I.  And our defense was insanity, which is a tough defense, incidentally.  And the only people we could find to testify about him were people who were in the penitentiary with him and his relatives.  So he had a brother who was a barber up in Chatsworth, and we called him as a witness.  And I had his brother on the stand, and I said, Mr. Ledford, in your opinion, is your brother Hoyt sane or insane.  And he says, I've thought he was crazy ever since he killed that other man. \r\n \r\n[laughter] \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  I think thats the worst  I know thats the worst answer I ever had in court.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Its hard to overcome that.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Oh, it was bad.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  The crematory case.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  That was a novel case, a most interesting case, that involved a crematory up here in Walker County, where the crematory did not cremate bodies, but stored them around over the properties.  And there were hundreds of them, and we had a class action.  Ultimately got it all resolved, but it was a very sad situation, a very strange situation.  The fellow running the crematory has been prosecuted in state court and is serving some time in the penitentiary, but we had the civil case here.  And I thought we were going to have to try it, but ultimately we got it all settled and worked out without having to try it.  But it was a very sad thing for people, very tragic thing for members of the family.  It brought back a lot of grief.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Has your caseload increased very much over the years?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Its decreased, really.  When I first came here, my caseload  Im the first and only district judge ever signed to Rome in the federal court system.  Judges would just come and visit here for a week or two in the spring and a week or two in the fall and handle the business.  When I came, about 40% of the caseload was here, and about 60% of my caseload was in Atlanta.  And the civil caseload was running around 500 cases a year, plus the criminal caseload.  We ultimately got additional judges for the Northern District of Georgia, so my case load went down.  And for the last year or so the civil caseload has been less.  People are arbitrating their cases more, mediating their cases much more than they were.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Ive been curious about the impact of the demise of the federal sentencing guidelines.  Has that had an effect on . . . \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Theyve really not been terminated.  For about 20 years, 18 to 20 years, they were mandatory.  The Supreme Court that they were not absolutely mandatory.  They are advisory, but theyre highly advisory.  And anybody whose sentenced, I have to appropriately consider the United States sentencing guidelines and determine correctly what is the sentence that the guidelines would mandate.  That is, the sentencing range that would be required.  And then Im required to give consideration to another provision of the law that speaks protection of the public, respect for the law, matters of that kind, and then impose what the court believes to be a reasonable sentence and a proper sentence.  Generally those sentences comport with the advisory of the United States sentencing guidelines.  But there are also many statues that have been passed by the Congress which require minimum mandatory sentences at least.  Some drug cases you have to sentence people to at least 10 years.  Some at least five years.  If they are subsequent or second offenders, and proper notices are given, you may have to sentence them to 20 years as a minimum.  So the discretion of a federal judge is not what people might think it is.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Who determines which judge hears what case?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Thats an automatic thing, and its not a discretionary matter.  The clerk of the court maintains a docket system in places such as Atlanta where there are multiple judges.  And its supposed to be a blind system, and that system determines which judge gets which case.  For instance, if its a patent case, they have a system whereby each judge gets his or her share of the patent cases.  They rotate down the list.  If its an antitrust case, they have a system whereby a list is maintained.  Judge so-and-so gets the first case, Judge so-and-so gets the second case, and Judge so-and-so gets the third case, all different judges until it goes through the system.  And then it comes back and rotates over again.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How often do federal judges communicate with each other? \r\n  \r\nMURPHY:  Well, frequently if they have lunch together.  I dont get to visit with my colleagues nearly as much as I would if I were in Atlanta.  But when I would be in Atlanta, I would have lunch with some of them every day.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I mentioned to you earlier the new sentencing of life without parole and its effect on the death penalty.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yeah, we mentioned that briefly.  Particularly its a matter for talk now and thoughts now in view of the Nichols case, which has just been completed in Atlanta on the trial level.  Sentencing of life without parole, I think, is tending to do away with death penalty cases.  And I think itll do more of that in the future.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  There seems to be a feeling among some Georgians that the wheels of justice in Georgia turn rather slowly.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  People may have that opinion, but if they turn slowly or they turn fast, they grind exceedingly fine.  In the federal system, things move fast.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What is your opinion of Georgias indigent defense system?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  I think its very nice and very fine that we have such a system.  Its been needed a long time.  When I began the practice of law, lawyers were appointed to represent indigent people and were not compensated.  That didnt ever both me, because I enjoyed representing the people I was appointed to represent.  And I found, for some strange reason, that in these criminal cases where you were appointed to represent indigent defendants, it seemed easier to me to win their cases than the cases of people who hired lawyers.  It may have been, for some reason, the prosecution just didnt prepare as much in those type cases.  But then they began to pay some fees on occasion.  The State legislature passed a law years ago that the counties could be required to pay up to $500 in a capital case.  I never got paid in a capital case in which I was appointed but once by a county.  And another lawyer and I were appointed to represent a man for murder.  And we tried the case, and the county paid us $200, $100 apiece.  And then I was never, ever paid any other fee by a county or the state of Georgia for representing an indigent defendant.  I was paid on a few occasions before I went on the bench for representing people by appointment in federal court.  And its a very basic thing now for people to be paid by the federal government for representing indigent defendants in this court.  Georgias long needed it.  Its not adequately funded, but it is an improvement over what did exist.  Unfortunately, cases such as the Nichols case are so expensive that it weakens the financial ability of the state with reference to other defendants across the state which have lesser cases, smaller cases, but important to them.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Have you enjoyed being a federal judge?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yes, I have.  Ive enjoyed being a federal judge.  I enjoyed being a state judge.  I tremendously enjoyed practicing law.  I missed the practice of law.  A lawyer can do a lot of good for people.  You can certainly help many, many people who need help badly if youre a conscientious lawyer and youre representing people rather than corporations or what you might all legal entities. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What is the most enjoyable part of being a judge?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  The mental requirements, the mental exercise you get.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, whats the worst part?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  The worst part is piles of paper that you have to go through sometimes.  But there are things worse than that.  The difficulty of sentencing people.  Being as fair as you can and as responsible as you can.  It also results in a lonely life if youre a judge, particularly if youre a federal judge.  There is a loneliness to the job that is different from that of a lawyer.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What makes a good judge?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  A reasonable knowledge of the law, an excellent knowledge of the rules of evidence.  But more important than those two things is that you need to respect every individual with whom you deal, whether that person is a lawyer, or a party to the litigation in a civil case, or a defendant whos before you for sentencing.  And be patient and be courteous.  Those are just basic important requirements.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You deal with a lot of trial lawyers.  What makes a good trial lawyer?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Preparation, preparation, preparation, and then ability.  A sharp mind and experience, experience and experience.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, I appreciate that.  Because if I ever need a trial lawyer, Ill know now what to look for.  \r\n \r\n[laughter] \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Times change and people change.  Has the nature of the cases you hear changed much over the years?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yes.  Yes.  When you say the nature of the cases, maybe not so much the kinds of cases, but cases themselves.  When I began the practice of law, I have seen judges in the federal court try two cases a day, criminal cases.  For instance, interstate transportation of an automobile across the state line and maybe a liquor case, try one before lunch and one after lunch.  Now, that may sound extreme, but it is not.  Ive tried cases myself that way in federal court and in state court.  I have tried as a lawyer conspiracy cases in federal court thatd take three days.  Now a conspiracy case, if you try it in a week, youre doing quite well. Most of the time itll take two weeks, 10 days.  The rules now require absolute discovery, in so far as criminal cases are concerned, so the defense lawyers know what the evidence is going to be against their client.  Also, even the defense has to disclose certain information so the government knows that information.  And so it just takes much longer to try a criminal case than it did.  Civil cases have become more complex because lawyers take more depositions and more discovery before trial and then spend more time trying the cases before a jury or before the court.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How is the jury selection process?  Does it differ in federal court from a superior court?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  It differs, yes, some.  Both are supposed to be a cross-section of the community.  The jury box for the federal system is gathered by going to the voters list for the Northern District of Georgia, the Rome Division, all the counties in the Rome Division.  And they also look at drivers license and other sources to get names of people who may not be voting.  And then theyre all by lot put into the system by computer, and then theyre drawn by computer.  In the state system, they originally came from the tax rolls.  But they come from the tax rolls and the voters rolls and otherwise.  And theyre put into what was a jury box when I was practicing the law and a superior court judge.  And then the judge would go to the county courthouse and, by lot, pull out names.  And I dont know how they do it now, but its supposed to be a cross-section also.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What about striking jurors?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Well, all lawyers will tell you thats an art.  And the striking of jurors differs somewhat from state to state.  Here in the federal court system, each side is required to take so many strikes.  In a civil case, each side has three strikes.  And what that means is you remove three names.  People call it picking the jury.  You dont pick the jury.  What you do is eliminate people from the jury.  So we can try civil cases in this court with six people or more.  And usually I try them with eight people.  So I put 14 people in the jury box vior dire, and then have the lawyers each remove three names.  And they alternate in removing the names. And that leaves eight people left to try the case.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Thirty-one years on the bench.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Thirty-one years on the federal bench, six-and-a-half years on the state bench.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Whats ahead for Judge Harold L. Murphy, retirement or more years on the bench or run for Congress?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Well, Im delighted not to be running for any office.  And one of the benefits of the office I have is that, after youre ultimately appointed and confirmed, you dont have to run for office.  Im aware that one of these days Ill have to retire, take senior status.  Ive not done so because I didnt take my job looking forward to retirement.  If I werent here, Id still be practicing law, if anybody wanted to hire me.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, its preparation, preparation, preparation.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Thats true.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  If youre willing to do that, youll get hired.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yeah.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, finally, looking back over your life and your career, is there anything you would have done differently?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Well, of course, there is.  I would have tried to be a better lawyer.  I would have tried to be a better person.  I enjoyed practicing law.  I enjoyed being in the public office because public service is a  part of my family history.  My parents were very public-spirited, and my familys been very public-spirited.  And so I dont know that theres really anything I would have done differently.  Probably I would have married earlier, not waited as long to marry my beautiful wife.  And I might have wound up practicing law in a larger community.  Theres more opportunity in larger communities, professionally.  \r\nAnd that Thevis case I talked about, theres a lawyer from Nashville, Tennessee, named James Neal.  I severed out one county in the Thevis case involving a lawyer from Atlanta in which they were claiming bribery.  And I tried it separately.  Took a week to try it.  Hes one of the best lawyers I've ever seen in my life.  I had a hearing here in the courtroom, took an hour or so, before the trial.  I walked back in my office and I said, I can tell you whos going to win this case, this particular facet of the case.  Mr. Neal.  And so we got through with the hearing and I said, When will you be available to try this case?  And he said, Im available anytime you want to set it down, Judge.  He said, I only take one case at a time.  Of course, he charged this fellow $100,000 for representing him.   \r\n \r\n[laughter] \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  And we tried it, and he got him acquitted.  Hes the same lawyer that represented Ford Motor Company when they indicted them for  I believe it was indicted Ford for murder in connection with a Pinto that caught fire and burned up in Kentucky.  And he defended them in that case.  Charged a million dollars for that.  But hes also the lawyer who prosecuted this big labor boss that was head of the Teamsters that somebody did away with and they never found his body.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Jimmy Hoffa.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yeah, Jimmy Hoffa.  He prosecuted him for jury tampering up in Tennessee.  So its a pleasure to see some of those great lawyers occasionally.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah, Ill bet.  Why cant we use that?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Well, you can.  Yeah.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  We got it on tape, dont you? \r\n \r\nMALE SPEAKER:  If it's okay to use it I'll leave it in the show. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah.   \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Sure.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Nothing wrong with that.  I mean, thats not Georgia lawyers.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Its an example of a fine lawyer.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I meant to ask you about staff.  Im sure that you need a professional, adequate staff.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  I do have.  I have two law clerks.  I keep a law clerk for two years usually.  And that one leaves and another one comes for two years.  And theyve rotated through the years.  I now have a career law clerk, a young woman, whos been with me 10 or 12 years now.  A brilliant young woman.  And I have a young man whos been here now since September.  His predecessor was a young woman who was here for three years.  So basically I have two law clerks.  I have a secretary.  And I have a courtroom deputy assigned to me that handles the scheduling.  And of course, theres a court reporter who is assigned to me who takes down and the reporting of all the trials and all the conferences in my office.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Normally, how many trials would you have, say, in a week?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Oh, in a week?  Seldom will I have more than one jury trial in a week.  But I will have a lot of guilty pleas, hearings, sentencings, conferences, in a week.  For a number of years, I was in the courtroom between 750 and 850 hours a year.  Thereve been years when I was in the courtroom a thousand hours a year.  That is a long time and a lot of time in the courtroom.  And in doing that, Im not counting any time in recess, any time for lunch.  Im talking about actual trial time.  In recent years, 200 or 300 hours a year is as much as I will spend in the courtroom, because, as Ive indicated, litigations seems to have lessened.  There are more mediations and more arbitrations.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How do you deal with those cases?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Well, they are handled just as a regular case.  And then when the parties reach the point where they know what each sides evidence is and what each sides position is, they will agree to mediate.  And theyll meet with a lawyer whos gifted and trained as a mediator.  And the parties will be there as well as the lawyers, and they will speak separately with the mediator and some time together with the mediator and see if they cannot resolve the case by settlement.  Frequently, quite frequently, theyre successful in resolving them.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And those decisions stand?  Does that come back to you?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  It doesnt have to come back to me.  They just make the agreement and they settle the case.  And they agree on it, and they file a dismissal.  Now, if there are minors, of course, they have to come back to me and I have to approve the settlement.  If theyre minors, that is, incompetent people involved.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Sounds like a pretty good way to deal with a lot of cases.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  It is.  And lawyers have found that to be very effective. Trials are very expensive.  Preparation for trial is expensive and very time-consuming.  And then the trials are very stressful for the parties and the lawyers.  \r\n \r\nMALE SPEAKER:  Do you ever hear from the people youve sentenced?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yes.  I have letters of admiration from some people Ive sentenced.  I have people who write me and thank me for saving their life.  I have some of those Im going to give to the library, some of those letters.  Some I get a Christmas card from every year that Ive sentenced.  And some, of course  Im smart enough to know that some of them who are in the penitentiary are writing me trying to soften me up for some reason.  But some are really serious about it.  You do not have to be a snarling individual when you send somebody to penitentiary.  Its not pleasant for them.  At least you can treat them like a decent human being when you sentence them, and you dont need to call them bad names and say bad things about them.  My gosh, sentencing to serve times enough without you telling them how sorry they are and all their relatives and what a heel he is or she is.  And Ive known of judges who do that.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  The old expression is throw the book at them. \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yeah.  Yes.  There are people who want everybody to be in the penitentiary except themselves and their families.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah.  Not a nice place, is it?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  No.  Frankly, the people with whom you associate may be one of the worst things about being in prison.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah, Im sure thats true.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yeah.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Come out worse than you went in.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yeah.  Oh, yes.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Im concerned about all these drug cases among young people.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Well, my son is a juvenile court judge, my older son, and he agrees with what Ive said.  The problem in this country is the parents.  Its not the children.  Thats where our problems are coming from, poor parenting and no parenting and sorry parenting.  And thats the sad thing about it.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Do you get many drug cases?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  A lot of drug cases, yes.  The ones we get are big drug cases.  The United States Attorneys Office wont take minor drug cases.  But there are occasions when state people will go right to the federal authorities to get them to prosecute a case so that the person will get a lot of time in a federal prison.  And theres no parole in the federal system.  People serve about 85% of their time.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Is the federal attorney for this Rome Division in Atlanta?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yes.  Yes, sir.  The Northern District of Georgia sits in four places for holding court: Gainesville, Rome, Newnan and Atlanta.  The grand juries meet in Atlanta.  The United States Attorneys Office is in Atlanta, and his assistants are all in Atlanta.  And they come out and prosecute cases out in the district in the divisions.  And each court is called a division: the Atlanta Division, Newnan Division, Rome Division and Gainesville Division.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Does the system have,, for lack of a better word or from ignorance, an administrator?  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Yes, we do.  Theres a clerk of court in Atlanta, and he has deputies in Rome and Newnan and Gainesville and deputies working for him in Atlanta.  In addition to that, we have in the Northern District of Georgia what you call a court executive, district executive, and that person looks after a lot of the management matters for the court, such as renovations to courtrooms, courthouses, acquiring of certain facilities for the courts. \r\n  \r\nSHORT:  Well, youve certainly been a good person, a good lawyer, a good judge.  And I want to thank you on behalf of the Richard B. Russell Library, the University of Georgia and myself for being with us.  \r\n \r\nMURPHY:  Well, thank you.  Im honored to participate in this program.  \r\n \r\n[END OF RECORDING] \r\n \r\n \r\n "},{"id":"gych_rogp_055","title":"Louise McBee, 03 November 2008.","collection_id":"gych_rogp","collection_title":"Reflections on Georgia Politics oral history collection, 2006-2010","dcterms_contributor":["Short, Bob, 1932-"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018"],"dcterms_creator":["McBee, Mary Louise","Short, Bob, 1932"],"dc_date":["2008-11-03"],"dcterms_description":["Related materials available in the following collections of this repository: M. Louise McBee Papers; M. Louise McBee Papers, Series VIII. Audiovisual Materials.","Mary Louise McBee was born on June 15, 1924, in Strawberry Plains, Tennessee. She holds degrees from East Tennessee State University, Columbia University, and Ohio State University. Prior to joining the University of Georgia, Dr. McBee taught English in the Netherlands as a part of the Fulbright Scholarship Program. McBee also taught physical education in Virginia for three years, and served as the Dean of Women at East Tennessee State University for two years before joining UGA in 1963. At UGA, Dr. McBee served as the Dean of Women, the Dean of Students, the Assistant Vice President for Instruction, and the Vice President for Academic Affairs. In 1968, she served as the Dean of Women for Chapman University's World Floating Campus program. In 1988, Dr. McBee retired from the University of Georgia and participated on an expedition to Mt. Everest. In 1991, McBee ran for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives representing Athens-Clarke County. Representative McBee served on and chaired several committees, including the Appropriations Committee, the Retirement Committee, the World Congress Center Overview Committee, and the Women's Legislative Caucus. She was elected Head of the Education Committee and contributed to the beginnings of the HOPE Scholarship in addition to working on several House Bills related to higher education. McBee was also instrumental in supporting pension plans including the Teachers' Retirement System as well as advocating against the development of a landfill in Arcade, Georgia. After serving five unopposed terms, Representative McBee retired from the General Assembly in 2004. She has continued to serve the Athens-Clarke County community through her membership on several local organizations including the Athens League of Women Voters, the Athens-Clarke County Chamber of Commerce, the Athens-Clarke County Hospital Authority, the Salvation Army Board, the Youth Empowerment System of Athens, the Arch Foundation, and the Red Cross. She has been recognized and awarded for her services and accomplishments, such as the Outstanding Alumnae Award from Eastern Tennessee State University, the University of Georgia Blue Key Award, Athens Woman of the Year, and the Second Annual Eldridge McMillan Lifetime Achievement Award.","McBee describes her life before she moved to Athens, Georgia, when she lived in Strawberry Plains, Tennessee. McBee discusses being an educator at the University of Georgia during desegregation. She also recalls climbing Mount Everest. McBee discusses the development of her interest in politics, her election to the Georgia General Assembly, and the various committees on which she served. She specifically mentions topics such as the HOPE scholarship, vouchers, the Equal Rights Amendment, and No Child Left Behind. McBee discusses the education legislation she introduced in the General Assembly as well as her work on retirement legislation. She also discusses the importance of education in the home. She also talks about party politics, campaign finance, term limits, and female politicians in Georgia. McBee recalls interactions with Phyllis Barrow, Barbara Dooley, Tom Murphy, Zell Miller, Roy Barnes, and Cathy Cox.","Finding aid available in repository.","Interviewed by Bob Short."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection","http://sclfind.libs.uga.edu/sclfind/view?docId=ead/RBRL220ROGP.xml"],"dcterms_subject":["Georgia. General Assembly. House of Representatives","United States","Georgia's HOPE Scholarship Program","No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (United States)","Women legislators--Georgia--Interviews","Women college administrators--Georgia--Athens--Interviews","Women educators--Georgia--Athens--Interviews","College integration--Georgia--Athens--History","Educational vouchers--Georgia","Equal rights amendments--United States","Educational law and legislation--Georgia","Political parties--Georgia","Campaign funds--Georgia","Women politicians--Georgia","Campaign funds","College integration","Educational law and legislation","Educational vouchers","Equal rights amendments","Political parties","Women college administrators","Women educators","Women legislators","Women politicians","Georgia","Georgia--Athens"],"dcterms_title":["Louise McBee, 03 November 2008."],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-055/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 055, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia, 30602-1641."],"dlg_local_right":["Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule."],"dcterms_medium":["oral histories (literary works)","interviews"],"dcterms_extent":["1 interview (69 min.) : sd., col."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Barnes, Roy E. (Roy Eugene), 1948-","McBee, Mary Louise","Miller, Zell, 1932-2018","Dooley, Barbara","Murphy, Thomas Bailey, 1924-2007"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":"Louise McBee interviewed by Bob Short \r\n2008 November 3 \r\nAthens, GA \r\nReflections on Georgia Politics \r\nROGP-055 \r\nOriginal: video, 69 minutes \r\n \r\nsponsored by: \r\nRichard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies \r\nUniversity of Georgia Libraries \r\nand \r\nYoung Harris College \r\n \r\n \r\nDate of Transcription:  June 26, 2009 \r\n \r\nBOB SHORT:  Im Bob Short and this is Reflections on Georgia Politics sponsored by the Richard Russell Library at the University of Georgia.  Were honored today to have as our guess, Louise McBee, who is a former educator and six term member of the Georgia General Assembly.  Welcome. \r\n \r\nLOUISE MCBEE:  Thank you.  Good to be here. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Its a long way from Strawberry Plains, Tennessee to Athens, Georgia. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Thats right. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Please tell us how you got here. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, I had graduated from East Tennessee State University having been born in a little community called Strawberry Plains.  Graduated there, worked a couple years after I graduated and then went to  eventually to Columbia University and got a masters degree and then to Ohio State University and got a doctorate.  Came back to East Tennessee State and served for two years as the Dean of Women and then the Dean of Students from this institution, the Vice President for Student Affairs they were they called, came to Johnson City and wanted me to come to Georgia.  I finally agreed to do that and have been here ever since.  That would have been in 1963 and it was the best move I ever made and its been a happy life here. \r\nI was born in a little community, as I said, Strawberry Plains unincorporated.  My grandparents owned a farm there.  My father worked for American Zinc Company and I had two brothers.  As little children starting seven, eight, and nine years, we were close together.  We carried the paper for nine years in Strawberry Plains.   My dad insisted that we go up on the porch, put the paper behind the door.  We had our routes divided.  But we learned a lot of lessons.  We learned about people who pay you or people who would try to not pay you, learned to save our money.  We made 20 cents a week by carrying the paper every day to people, and in Strawberry Plains the houses were not in blocks.  You walked distances sometimes between a house for 20 cents a week.  It was in some ways, we did it for nine years, the best experience as a child you could have.  You learned to take care of your money, to save enough money to pay for the paper for the next week, thats what we had to do.  And then we would divide the  keep us a little kitty, we called it, to take care of things, but divided the money so that we could use the 10 or 15 cents a piece that we would make during the week a piece for ourselves.  We learned the people that would pay, the people who would try to avoid paying you, so on.  So it was a good experience.  We learned to take care of money and we did that, as I said, for nine years.   \r\nWe all went to school there. It was a country school.  There were 15 or 16 in my graduating class.  Only two of us went on to college out of that class.  It was not a thing that you just did then.  You elected and made preparation to do it.  I worked during the summer in Gatlinburg as a waitress in a hotel and then the next three summers I worked at Oak Ridge.  That was during the war.  You had to have college experience to work in the job.  I was with Carbine Carbon, worked all summer, lived out in Oak Ridge, and was there the nigh the atom bomb was dropped.  Having no knowledge of what an atom bomb was really, but they were selling papers as we came out of the midnight shift, saying that the atom bomb had been dropped. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Did you know when you left for college that you wanted to be an educator? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Yes.  I got two degrees  I mean two certifications by my work.  I was certified to teach in elementary school.  They used to separate it.  They may do that now; I dont know, but I was certified to teach by law in the elementary school and in high school and ended up one year  I worked one year in a high school in Virginia and then came back to East Tennessee State.  They brought me back to the institution there to teach, and I stayed there three years and then went on to my masters and my doctorate.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What did you teach? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Physical education. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Physical education.  Youre a prime example of what a good physical education  \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Thats right.  Thats right.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  -- major should look like. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Thats right.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:   You came to the University of Georgia after the crisis they had whether or not...  \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  To admit Charlene and  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Yes, that was all over and they had graduated, but the problems were not over by any stretch.  There was still some anger.  There were not many blacks on the campus, practically none.  The day I went to work I was in -- my office was in academic building that looked down on the Varsity, which at that time was a restaurant. The day I went to work the blacks, the African-Americans were marching around the Varsity because they were not allowed to go into eat, and I know being bothered by that.  And we continued to have demonstrations, small demonstrations on the campus and students on the campus  black students. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Youve seen a lot of change here. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Lot of change.  Lot of change.  It was under my administration as vice-president I had put one of my assistant vice-presidents -- associate vice-presidents to work.  That was his job to try to bring more African-American students to the campus and he did. Not only the students but principally faculty, to find African-American faculty that could do the job on a college campus and try to  and I know we hired several under my administration.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You climbed the academic ladder here all the way to Vice-President of Academic Affairs.  \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  I did. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  That was before your campaign for the Georgia election. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Yeah.  Well I started  I came here as Dean of Women and then I was made Dean of Students, which is the top position in Student Affairs and has the other offices under it. I stayed in that a while and then the Vice-President for Academic Affairs asked me if I would like to come and work in his office.  We had just gotten through some of the demonstrations, the Vietnam War, Kent State killings, and I was ready to try something else having gone through that. So, having the opportunity open to me to move into Academic Affairs, I did it and stayed as an assistant and then an Associate Vice-President for Academic Affairs and then eventually Vice-President for Academic Affairs.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well the academic ladder is not the only thing youve climbed.  Tell us about Mount Everest. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  The year I retired, 1988, I had a student come to  that previous summer come to work with me in my yard to help me sod my yard and he said \"Will you help me get permission from the Chinese government to go to Mount Everest.\"  I knew he was a climber, a young guy who did a lot of climbing.  I said, Well, sure I will.  And he said, \"Well take you with us.\" I considered it just a light moment. But I did get permission for them to go to China.  It got in the paper that Dr. Sanford, who was the president, and I were going to go with them. So, without much thought  more thought about what it would be than that, we did indeed go. At that point, after we finished the climb, according to the records, I was the oldest woman who had ever gone to the base camp at Mount Everest, which was 18,000  about 18,000 feet.  It was a dangerous journey, one I never would have dreamed would be as difficult as it was, but I did okay and Dr. Sanford who was 20 years older than I was  or Im not sure of that  but much older than I was, he made it as well.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How did you get interested in politics? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  My parents always voted; one was a Democrat and one was Republican and we used to  they talked about canceling out each others vote and we always knew voting  or was told it was important and that it was your public responsibility to do it and as soon as I was old enough I registered to vote   but you take on a new interest in it when you get into academic settings where the quality of legislators you get has a lot to do with the support for education. So, I had never had any intention of running but Lawton Stephens, who was in  well, was a legislator and lived here in Athens, was called to  what do you call it?  A judge. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Superior court  \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  A judge.  And his sister called me that afternoon and told me  just she was calling about something else, that Judge Lawton had just been made a judge.  He was in the legislature and it had just happened. So I turned around, went to  as soon as I finished that conversation went to the telephone and called the paper and the radio station and said I was going to run for his office.  Some people had encouraged me to run for mayor of Athens.  They called it something else then.  City Manager or something.  But I was not interested in that. I had been out of my job at the university for a year or so. So, I just, on a whim, almost without really giving it much thought went and called and said I was going to run.   \r\nAnd then I called Phyllis Barra, who was a Democratic delegate to several of the conventions and so on, and was a friend of mine, and I called her and I said, \"Ive done this, what in the world do I do next?\"  She told me what to do.  She said \"Sit down now and call everybody you call this weekend and ask them to support you.\" It was going to be a nonpartisan election, which was good.   So, I did that.  I did exactly what she said and asked them to support me. So, I had a whole list and I set me up a committee.  Well, during the next week  to make things interesting, during the next week Barbara Dooley called me and said, \"Would you come over here and talk with me.\"  I knew just as well as anything that she was getting ready to run against me, but I went over there and she said that she had thought about it and she wanted to do that.  And she said, What do you think?  And I said, \"Well, of course Id rather you didnt but its your right and well have a good race.\" So, she got in it and so did Chester Sosbee, who was a well known, popular pharmacist at Hodgson's Pharmacy.  And so there were three of us in the race and I didnt think I had a clue -- the possibility of winning it, certainly not outright, maybe on a runoff with three people.  But I won the race with  won it without a runoff.  I got 60% of the votes, 61% of the votes. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Thats the only time you had opposition. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  I didnt have any opposition any time else.  And I served for 13 years. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Thats a compliment to your service.  \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, I hope so.  I really did  I gave it my all.  I enjoyed it thoroughly.  Speaker Murphy, I had heard about him and knew about him.  He was a wonderful man.  Unfortunately, not until he died did the papers and all the people who knew and admired him secretly and privately come forth.  He got criticized probably more than any politician I ever saw in the paper.  But he was a good, kind, honest man, and he was particularly sensitive to women being in the legislature and tried to help them. So, I went to see him when I first got over there.  I knew my main interest was going to be education.  He put me on the Higher Education Committee. So, I had 13 years of good service under Tom Murphy.  Well, not the last year I didnt, because he got beat.  He was defeated in his last run, the same time at my last run. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I imagine with your background and education and your work here at the University of Georgia made you very important to the Speaker and to the leaders and the governor. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, I was only one of two at that  when I got there.  I think there may have been others later who were tied to higher education and just three or four who were actually teachers that came out of that background.  So, I was made eventually chair of higher education and certainly worked at a crucial period in higher education because it was when the HOPE Scholarship came along and we had to work with the provisions along with president  I mean Governor  who had been responsible for bringing it to bear.  You know, I cant think of the governor  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Governor Miller? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:   Miller.  Governor Miller.  And so, it was a wonderful opportunity to work with him and later with Roy Barnes in developing and expanding and testing after each year the amount of money we spent and what we could continue to do to give students more assistance and so on.  The Hope Scholarship, in my opinion, was the best thing that happened to this state in that century.  Why?  It kept the better students in the state.  Because when they had good grades parents said \"No need for you to go to wherever, go here and go to the university, go to some college in the state.\" Secondly, it gave hope and promise to students who would have never seen it as an opportunity until -- they could make good grades but school was too expensive for them and they never saw it as an opportunity.  Once that opened up they and their parents saw it.  And so, higher education became a part of their aspiration.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well since weve passed the lottery and since the people have approved it, weve spent a lot more funds on public schools  \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Thats right.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  -- than ever. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Thats right.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Are we getting our monies worth?   \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, we still have a long way to go.  Theres some data that is really interesting to me.  It was Roy Barnes data but I expect its still accurate.  He says for every ten boys and girls that go to college  I mean that go to school, public schools, six of them finish the eighth  lets see, no  nine of them, ten of them finish the eighth grade, three of them go on to college  no, three of them go on to high school  I mean to college, and two of them finally get a degree.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  So we still dont have a high percentage of  I mean they need to correct that data on it.  Ill look to be sure that Im right on that, but its one out  it amounts to about one out of ten.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  We hear suggestions from time to time that the state should provide vouchers for students in order to attend the school of their choice.  Is that a good idea? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, in effect, they have a voucher, if they come out with a B average in high school they can go to any college in the state.  It costs more in some of them and some of the schools done admit them, but they can go somewhere in the state because private schools get it as well.  So theres no reason why if they have done the work in high school they cant go wherever they want to go and where the college will admit them. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Ive been asked to ask you your position on ERA, Equal Rights Amendment.   \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, I dont have any problem with it.  Georgia hadnt passed it yet.  Why not?  Why shouldnt there be?  Why?  Why not?   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Lets go back for a minute to the composition of the Georgia Legislature when you were there.  According to my calculations, only 10% for the House of Representatives was female.   \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Uh-huh.  Its a little higher now.  I think its maybe up 15, maybe  seemed like there were about 45 of us.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Forty or forty-five when I was there.   There are a few more now.  But not nearly enough.  But country wide I think its what?  About 23%.  So, aside from Arizona, we do about as well as anybody.  But its not high enough anywhere.  That was one of the things that I admired about Speaker Murphy.  He gave women leadership positions. He saw that they were listened to on bills, he put them on committees that they requested and had some expertise in, like children's and education and so on and tried to support them in their  and help them with bills.  He was a great help to women.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Tell us, if you will, your role in educational legislation while you were down in Atlanta. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well I had four bills that are my picks for what I have  what I did while I was there.  Im going to get them so I can give you  even give you the numbers of them.  There are four that I take great pride in.  One was House Bill 202, which gave teachers credit toward retirement for unused sick leave.  No teacher in the state, man or woman, whatever, had got credit for unused sick leave when every other state employee did.  It took us two years to fund it, but Roy Barnes, Governor Barnes helped me get it funded by splitting it into two years.  But now teachers get retirement just like other state employees.  And that was something that I was really pleased to be able to do.   \r\nAnother bill was House Bill 424 which established a college saving plan.  Parents or grandparents can deposit monies, tax free, in a saving plan thats managed by the State Treasurers Office and when the student starts to college the money can come out interest free.  Theyve made interest on it but its theirs to use for that childs education. We encouraged parents and grandparents at the birth of a child, as we  as I worked for the bill, to do that, to put a little bit of money in each  into the childs plan that would be tax free so that they would be ready to go to college.   \r\nThe third bill was the one that  the work that I did with the Hope Scholarship after it had been in practice, we had used it for a while in the years that I was there, we thought it needed a study and I led the study commission bill on that.  And then a fourth bill that I worked on that not many people even knew about but probably did more for Athens than anything in terms of the environment of Athens, and it was one that  there was a person who tried to set up a landfill in Arcade.  The way it would have been there would have been a truck every three minutes coming from all over the country, brining in garbage to put in Arcade, 15 miles from Athens. I was able to work on it in the House, and with help in the Senate to stop that bill.  The bill that I wanted that  for which there was  I had the greatest disappointment was a bill that I had put in that would have put up dollar tax on every pack of cigarettes.  Why?  Because theres all kinds of data that show that the cost of the cigarette is a deterrent especially to young people.  The bill that beat it was one that the current governor had in that put a 25 or 50 cent  25 cents, I think, tax on it.  My bill would have produced over $600 million each year and could have been used for so many things, and in addition, kept young people  would have reduced teenage smoking.  So those were the things that I was  that I did in the legislature that I was most pleased with.  And I was on the Retirement Committee and on the Budget Committee and on Higher Education, and those were three that gave me an opportunity to work for the things that I knew the best and to try to bring funds into the thing that I knew the best.  \r\nThe Speaker was good in that he would try, if possible, to put you into committees where you could be the best advocate and the best sponsor and know the most about it.  And so, that was what he did for me and I feel like I did a lot for education when I was over there, and particularly for the teachers in terms of getting the same retirement that other state employees had always had, and that none of us who had worked for it got.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  We hear a lot about our students average on the SAT scores and what is considered to be an awful dropout rate.  \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What can we do to improve those two and maybe bring them up to the national average? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, of course we all know that the best education the child gets is what he gets home starting at three years old when parents read to them, encourage them to read and start with books and keep them away from TVs and so on. So, a part of the job is to educate parents. We have particular difficulty I think with that where the parents both work and thats the situation generally in the poorest families.  Both parents work, mother has to come in, get supper, get the clothes ready for the next day and all the chores of a housewife, and not much time left to work with the children. Unless children are encouraged to read from the time  or are read to by the time theyre three years old, they say they never catch up.  Ive seen data on that.  I dont know it to be a fact but I assume since they put out as a fact that it is, that unless a child is read to starting at least by the third grade that theres a lapse there that never allows them to catch.  And when both parents work and particularly in the homes where theres not help and homes where the financial situation is not as good, thats the place where they dont get read to and they put them down in front of the TV set and they eat too much and get too much weight on them and dont learn the things that they need to learn to get through. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How effective has Governor Millers pre-kindergarten program been? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well I think great.  We know from all kinds of data that the better the student the earlier the start.  And unfortunately, at this point anyway, there are not enough of them.  Theres students in this state who are eligible for it who cant get to it, they dont have enough programs.  But the lottery money is there for it.  I dont know what the hold up on that is, but they say that there are still places that they dont have adequate pre-kindergarten. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Going all the way back to Governor Herman Talmadge in 1948, every governor has called themselves the education governor.  Which one has come closest to being a true educational governor?   \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, in my opinion, I was not here until in the 60s and I didnt know as much about it, but in my opinion, Zell Miller, because of the HOPE Scholarship.  I dont think there was anything in that century that did for this state what that did.  As I said a little earlier, it did two things.  One, it kept good students in the state.  They were going to Chapel Hill and Vanderbilt and places, but the HOPE Scholarship, when they were eligible for it, parents would say, well, you just stay here; you got that, you need to just stay here and then you can put the  money on your masters degree  and so on.   So it kept the better students in the state  good students in the state.  And secondly, it provided an emphasis and a feeling among the children who had not seen a higher education as a possibility.  It gave them hope that that was a possibility and opened the doors to more people. Theres no question about it.  Weve had  what is it now?  Over 900,000  maybe its over a million now whove gone to college on the Hope Scholarship.  And then it also encouraged students to make better grades.  The students who saw that as a way to get into college, to have help to get into college, to do well while they were in high school. \r\n \r\nSHORT:   Besides education, what were some of the other issues you were interested in when you were in the legislature? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well I asked to be on the Retirement Committee because, as I said, teachers  I was the first one to get  I left the university without a retirement committee.  I was able to put that in and work for other benefits for people  teachers who were retiring.  Theres a thing going on right now that the governors behind that  its a terrible thing.  Hes trying to take that one and a half percentage that teachers get each six months, make it optional for them to get it.  Maybe you get it if theres money available.  Well, there is money in that fund.  Theres $50 billion in that fund right now.  Plenty in it but hes wanting to look at it for other things.  When its teachers money who have gone into that with that idea.  We have teachers now all over this state whove made $25,000 and $30,000; that was their salary.  Without that one and a half percent that comes in addition to their salary that comes now every six months they cant make it.  And I have  I just came here out of a meeting where we are encouraging them to write the committee thats making a decision on that, to keep them in that where they dont have  where that cant be taken away from them by the governor.   We have not had an education governor this time, unfortunately.  He has not  hes a Georgia graduate, and Im sorry I cant  I have to say that, but I must say it, that his greatest interest has not been in education. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Getting back to your service in the House, who are some of the most effective members with whom you worked? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Dubose Porter, whos chair of  or he was chair of the  some of the large committees.  Bill Cummings, who himself was a teacher, the current Secretary of State -- right now his name slips me  who was in the house then and was Governor Millers floor leader.  Kathy Ash, who is still there.  Shes into her probably 18th to 20th year, Nan Orrock, those are some of the ones.  Now most of those are Democrats because I was there when the House was predominantly  House and Senate predominantly Democratic and certainly the leadership was Democratic.  Its not the case now and I dont  so I've had no opportunity to observe them in the same way that I did when I was there.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Did you have a mentor in the House? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  I guess Bill Cummings.  He had been there 20 years.  He was a teacher.  He was chair of the Education Committee and I served as vice-chair of it with him.  He  and he particularly knew public education more than higher education. There were only  there were just two of us that were from higher education in the whole Senate, the whole House  the whole Senate and House.  There were just two people from higher education.  I was one and an African- American from Atlanta, who was at one of the black colleges. We were the only two that represented higher education.   \r\n \r\nSHORT: You were also on the Appropriations Committee. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Yep.  And I fought in that for education.  That was first and foremost my whole time over there was to do what I could for education.  And unfortunately, thats  that has slowed down some in recent years, and not to our credit.  Not to the credit of the  of the leadership.  Education is job one for  if were going to have a good state.  Its job one.  Were just not putting the money and the interest and the time on it that it deserves. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  The local school boards seem to be concerned about the governors order to spend 65%, at least, of the state appropriations in the classroom.  Is that a good idea? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, I would want to see the  I have not seen the details of it.  Im pleased that hes interested in putting more money and emphasis on education.  I have not been pleased thus far with what has been done under the current Secretary of Education, Cathy Cox.  I think  I dont know much  I dont know how much of it is interference from other areas but it doesnt seem to me that she has had the freedom and the energy, the direction or whatever is needed to move us forward in education.  We dont  were not graduating enough of the people who start in the first grade. Until we keep them through and graduated from high school, students  students who dont graduate from high school cant get jobs. We can never raise the level of this state without working with those people and more deliberately and putting enough emphasis on it that during their  around the 7th and 8th grade and freshmen is when we lose them. Theyll stay that long and then they pull out. We just cant  the state cant move up with its about  what?  Arent we about 45% black? A lot of that happens in the black community.  They drop out and go to work.  Ive just been in a meeting where weve been talking about that and where if we could keep them in the technical colleges where they could learn a trade or some way to make a good living.  Plumbers, electricians, those people make as much  make more than teachers. If we could keep those students in until they were eligible to get into the technical schools, they could go even though there are college  there are college level courses they can take now in the technical college, which I thought was a mistake.  But its done so its there.  But there are also the technical roots they can then take where they can learn to be plumbers and electricians in areas that dont demand high academic skills but where theres a good wage that goes with it when they get trained in those areas. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Has the Federal No Child Left Behind pact been effective? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  All Ive heard about it, it sounds good, but I dont know anything its done.  I have not seen any data that show its been effective.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Talking about the Appropriations Committee, are you familiar with The Green Door? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, I always heard about it but it was not one I was every behind or even knew where it was.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Really. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  I heard Paul Broun was supposed to be on it and he was from Athens.  I dont know that I ever asked him about it.  I guess if I had he would have certainly told me.  I thought it was more kind of a charm and mystique or something than it was  I knew that there was a meeting after we did appropriations and so on and there was always one up in one of the large meeting rooms and anybody could go and sit around the edge and try to hear what they were talking about and what they were saying, and I use to do that, just to show them that I was there and that I was interested in what they were putting on higher education.   But if there is indeed any kind of a room  a green room where the final decisions are made I never saw it.   But it could be  I think its maybe another room  maybe has a different color now but they  still call it green because in the time I was over there I dont remember seeing any green door.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  It seems that the General Assembly spends a lot of time on appropriations considerations. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  They do. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And you were on that committee.  Tell us how the State Legislature appropriates our money. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well there are subcommittees that look at  you know, at different parts of it, that look at county governments and city governments and universities and public schools and different committees handle those and then it all comes back -- funnels back in later to a full committee. A lot of attention is paid to that because no one can  no one can know the full budget.  You have to put people  the chairs of those committees who know about it and can make wise decisions. Then they appear before the full committee and make their case and I dont have any particular problem with how those things are done.  I think sometimes its changed after its been put together.  I mean when you think its been put together it gets changed that I object to  or objected to the green door, glass door, green door, whatever kind of door it was that have final say.  And I remember the one who had a lot on that is now in prison. The guy from Augusta. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Charles Walker. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Charles Walker.  He was the chair in the Senate and very powerful. What he said went and I remember that last year he was there and I was on the committee and how he would roar into the room and make pronouncements.  As it turned out, you know, he was not completely ethical in his own private life and he appealed to be let out early not too long ago but it was denied.  I think we have three in prison right now from the legislature.  Hes one of them.  The other guy was  I had his name in some of my notes  was from the same town. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Robin Williams. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Robin Williams, thats one.  And then there was one that was put in this past year just as an  African-American from there in Atlanta. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Ron Sailor. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Right. I knew all three of those. When things like that happen its  it puts a distrust in the larger population for the legislature whole when it mostly theyre good, honest people who want to do whats right. So, Im for locking them up and keeping them there.  Im angry enough at what they do to disillusion the public about it.  Because a lot of people who are on those committees work long and hard and are honest and want to do whats right.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How did you look at lobbyists? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, I knew a lot of good people were over there and gave  were able to give you good information and I went to some of them when I didnt understand things. They stayed  most of them anyway -- well informed about different bills and so on.  I didnt ever have one influence me.  Ive had some talk to me but not in an effort to persuade me to vote a certain way.  Theyve asked me why I took certain stands on it and would I consider doing something else and  but they were always  most of them were past students at the university. Thats what I found when I was in the legislature that most of them, they knew me and I knew them.  A lot of them called me Dean McBee because they had been students here when I was a dean.  It made it easier to work with them having known them as a student and there having known me and we respected each other and it was a large percentage of Georgia graduates in the legislature.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  The university has been very fortunate over the years to have some strong representation -- \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Thats true. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  -- over there, including you.   \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Starting way  starting way back with  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Chapel  \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Chapel Matthews, and then of course with Paul Brown, who was there thirty  what?  33 years? Part of that was while I was there.  The one who now has certainly, in terms of years, a status is Keith Heard.  He doesnt live in Athens which limits his influence.  I thought you were supposed to live in the town where you serve but maybe thats not the rule.  I dont know.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  In the district. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Or in the district.  Well  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  That brings up an interesting thing that to me at least is reapportionment. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Weve had several reapportionments and each time theres always some sort of confusion and opposition. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Its the most political, in my book, degrading, dishonest thing that goes on.  What does it do?  For example, the smallest town in Georgia is Athens and it split it.  Ralph Hudgens did it.  Why did he do it?  I dont know.  Hes never given me a good explanation.  He said he thought it strengthened the city.  Well how do you strengthen it? He took the reapportionment away from Madison County, said it was not best for them, but then he divided Athens.  I thought it was so he could get tickets to the football game.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Is it fair to say that our legislative districts have been drawn to protect parties... \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Thats right.  No question. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  ...and for racial reasons rather than binding communities together -- \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  No question.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  -- that seem to be falling apart.  \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Why would you split Athens for any reason other than to afford you a seat in it so it would give you leverage?  No reason at all.  A lot of the -- some states do it different.  Iowa is one state I believe that does it different.  I dont know whether I put in a bill  I think I maybe did put in a bill.  I wanted it so much to be some kind of a citizens committee that would work with the legislature.  I dont know -- I dont think the committee  Im pretty sure I had the bill drawn. Whether it ever got  it didnt get out of committee if I did.  But to stop that kind of unfair, unjust, wrong kind of things like splitting Athens, the smallest town in the state for no reason, for no reason other than political reasons. So, and Im sure there would be some that go on even if you had Citizens Committee, but I believe it would be limited.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh.  Getting back to Louis McBee, you decided in 1994 not to run again. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Right.  Two reasons.  I had family problems in Tennessee where I needed to be free to go back there and see about them.  Then I saw that it was going Republican; I knew I would lose my chair, my position on higher education, and so, those were the two things that entered into it.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Now, speaking of going Republican, Id like to ask you a question or two about party politics.   \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Okay. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  As we all know, the Republican party has now taken control of the legislature.   \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Right. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And the governors office.   \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Right. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What happened?   \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, I really dont know.  But thats when I left dodge, as they say, because I knew that things were going to  going to turn and that I would lose my chair and not be able to do as much.  And as I said, and because of personal problems.  But I think were going to see a shift back to a more balanced party this next year.  I dont think the Democrats will take over but I think there will be more of them there.  I may be wrong.  Well know day after tomorrow.  But what interested me this year, and Ive asked several people and they have no explanation, why so few had opposition.  Not a one of ours had opposition.  Well I guess  I know Keith didnt and the other one didnt.  Well I dont think any of them did.  Yeah, Kauser, a womans running against him.  Thats right.  Kauser, you know, the senator had opposition, not formidable opposition I dont think, but opposition.  But why dont they run?   One, its costly.  When I ran the first time in 19-- was it 91 or whatever? I put up $15,000  well when Barbara Dooley got in it I knew she would raise a lot more money and I finally raised 35,000 but I didnt spend it all.  Now they tell you up front you got to raise a $100,000, got to have that to start with and it will take more than that.  Well a lot of people  and that means you got to ask people for money or put your own money up.  I know one senator over there, a woman, who put $500 -- $5,000 of her own money up.  Well, you got to want it a lot to do that kind of thing. So, that was one of the reasons I backed off.  Then I saw it was going Republican and I'd lose my chair and then I had some problems in Tennessee, so all of that together, I decided to back out.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Some people, Democrats, believe that Tom Murphy in the House of Representatives was the key to Democratic politics in Georgia.  Do you agree with that? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Thats probably  thats probably true, yeah. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  With Murphy as Speaker?  \r\n \r\nMCBEE: Yeah.  But also, a difference in population trends.  Atlanta grew rapidly. Whered they come from? They didnt come from south Georgia; they came from all over the country.  I think that new mass that moved into Athens  I mean into Atlanta and Georgia, and particularly Atlanta, came with Republican leanings, and its going to be interesting.  Some people are predicting Obama will take Georgia this time.  I dont much believe he will but I think it will be closer than it would have been a few years ago.    \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Now speaking of that, politics in Georgia certainly have changed, but perhaps not as much as politics in other areas.  What do you think the Democrats need to do to regain their majority in Georgia state government? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, I dont know.  They say  Ive talked to several of them.  They think theyll take back a few seats this time.  But if youve got a Republican contingency, I mean population around you, and youve got a governor who pours money into it and other people who support people in their races.  I noticed in yesterdays paper the man who owns the Falcons had given $65,000 and it listed a whole bunch of other people.  He just happened to be the name I recognized.  Did you see that?  Where theyd given $65,000 to candidates?  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  When it gets that expensive it causes people to back off on running.  And Im sorry to see that happen because it restricts people who would be good legislators.  And it tends to turn it to the wealthy or the people who have influence and tend to leave out the  more moderate and the poorer people.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Some disenchanted Democrats believe the state Democratic party is too urban and too dependent on minority and labor support.  Do you agree with that? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, its probably pretty accurate. A lot of people are concerned about what Obama will do if hes elected in terms of the people who will have elected him and what the expectations there are from those people.  Some people, particularly Republicans, are very concerned about what will happen to the country with  Im  hoping he will have a proper perspective on it and wont be  try to make too many changes too rapidly.  But there are some people that thing that hell be -- that hes a risk because of that, because of his promises to make life better for people who are poorer and many of those, or in this state anyway, are the black, but well just have to wait and see on that.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Now many states require party registration to prevent cross over voting.  \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Should we do that in Georgia? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  I dont have any problem with that.  I believe you ought to vote on  for what you consider to be the best person and make party less of an issue than it is.  I know that that doesnt sound like somebody whos run as a party person, because you have to, but I wouldnt have any problem with  and I vote  I cross party lines to vote.  I vote for Republicans as often as I do Democrats.  I voted for Republican presidents.  I try to vote for the person that I think is the best for the country and I know that thats not strong political ties but thats the way  thats the way I do it anyway. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Do you believe in term limits? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Im torn on that.  Generally I do.  I think they should be lengthened maybe to  not just ten years.  You know, we got people  that guy thats been stealing us blind in  Washington that they just sent home, you know, has been up there 27 years or something.  Thats too long I think.  If you had a procedure where you didnt rotate them all out at the same time, I mean, youd have to get some kind of  pattern to keep the people with experience  some experience in, but I think that some limit on it might be good. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  But you agree theres power in incumbency? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Yeah.  Yeah, theirs is.  Theres no question.  No question.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Some people think that one reason the Republican party in Georgia has been successful is the quality of candidates.   \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, maybe I look too hard but I dont have to look very far to find a few Republicans that I dont think were good choices.  I think our  of course, and hes the first Republican weve had in  the current governor is the first  Republican weve had.  I believe people will  there will be a Democrat the next time.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh.  Well, back to Louise McBee.  Very wonderful, academic and political life.   \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well thank you. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Did you ever think of seeking higher office? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  No.  No.  No, I didnt.  No.  One, the cost of it, the  I look at Jim Martin whos a good friend of mine.  I sat in front of him for 13 years and on vote and policies that I was not sure on I discussed them with him.  Hes a good man.  He is really a good man.  I see the punishment hes had to take to be  have his life criticized when hes been so good.  Of course hes criticizing his opponent at the same time.  I never did have to do any of that when I was running and I dont think I would do it if I were running, but I dont like that part of it where they tell things about the other person that if theyre not untrue theyre certainly bordering on untruth, and where theyre so unkind to the other person.  Women do that less than the men I think.  I think women are going to be increasing their running for public office.  They make good candidates because theyre conscientious, theyre generally more honest.  If theres been any dishonest woman put out I dont know about it.  Has there been?  For taking money?   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Not to my knowledge. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Not to my knowledge.  They certainly are more dedicated and theyre interested in things that we need to look at, like family, and home, and children, and strengthening the American fabric, and I think were going to increasingly see  its about 23% now across the country, about the same here in Georgia, of women in public office, but I think were going to see more than that going into public office and I think it will put a better quality on the total body for having them there.  Dont you? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes, I do.  Yes.  If a young lady came to you today and asked your advice on getting into politics what would you tell her? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well I would tell her that its a very challenging thing to do, its a costly thing to do.  It takes a lot of your time.  It sets you up for criticism that sometimes hurts.  But its a wonderful way to serve and that I hope they will consider it and do it, knowing that those things are part of the  a part of it.  Because I think where women have been elected they serve well and they perform well.  I dont think -- theres one exception to it right now that Im concerned about.  The Secretary of State, I think she has not  been as accommodating as she could have been in trying to help people get the vote.  I think its important for people that they want to vote and need to be able to vote.  And to wait 12 hours seems unnecessary to me.  She has, either because of the regulations in her office, but apparently just because of her own unwillingness to make any changes, has kept people who want to vote at very difficult circumstances, where they have to stand hours and hours and hours in trying to get other hours  the hours extended or an additional voting places.  It looks like to me that we could do that when people are wanting to vote.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh.  Well, as you look back on you career, what has been your greatest accomplishment?   \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well I think probably in terms of public service, and all of it has been public service, whether its higher education or the legislature, in terms of the legislature, I think it was the three bills  four bills that, really three that I mentioned to you in the beginning, that I was most proud of.  Then in terms of higher education, I think it has been to have been in a position in a  primarily in a wonderful university where I had the opportunity to make it better, which I think I did in my 25 years and that I have been able to work with some of the leaders of this state and some of the best, finest young people in this state who now themselves have taken leadership positions in the state and its a source of great pride to me when I see students like Cathy Cox whos now the president of Young Harris and who was a very fine Secretary of State and then others who are over there now who  that I had an opportunity in their young life to have some influence.   \r\n \r\nSHORT: Your biggest disappointment? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, I dont know.  I think probably it was a piece of legislation that I failed to get through that I thought would have brought money into this state that could have been used in so many ways and would have stopped people from smoking.  That bill that I had put a dollar on a pack of cigarettes for tax.  I forget how much, just the 25 cent tax, how much money it made, but I think it was 600,000 a year maybe in tax money. Would one, stop students from smoking, young particularly who another dollar would just be too much for them, and so protect health but also provide money that could be used for education purposes, not be able to get that bill through. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How would you like to be remembered? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  As somebody who was honest, open, cared about people, and tried as best I could to do what was right. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, thank you very much, Louise McBee, for being our guest today. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, thank you.  Ive enjoyed talking with you. \r\n \r\nSHORT: Good, thanks.  Anything we missed? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  No, I dont think  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Oh, theres one thing that I didnt ask you to do which I would like to ask you now if you will is tell us about some of your extracurricular activities that has resulted in your winning all kinds of awards.  Some are education, some are community. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well I won the first Regents Award for Excellence where they take you to Atlanta and its called the Eldridge McMillan trophy, but I got the first one.  That was for my work in higher education.   \r\n \r\nSHORT: You were also a Fulbright Scholar. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  I was a Fulbright Scholar in Holland for a year.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What happened over there? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well I taught in a [Indiscernible] a high school  a higher school. Its a higher level student  women students who were going on to university.  I taught for a year there and then went to the Holy Land during the end of the year and then traveled in a car that I bought while I was there.  A friend came over and we traveled all over Europe that next summer.  So that has to be one of the highlights to have lived a year in Europe and taught in a wonderful school.  I lived in the home of the master  of the  he was the harbor master of Rotterdam, which is the largest  was then, I guess it still is the largest port in the world.  Then climbing to 18,000 on Everest is something that at least the data that I have seen, theres no woman beyond that high on Everest yet.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You still do a lot of physical activity. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Yeah, I do.  I do.  I was  I played tennis  I was still playing tennis on a team until when that car hit me and knocked me down in the shopping center.  It messed up my rotator cuff and I cant  I cant do it any more.  The doctor said it was too bad shape.  I cant raise my arm enough to hit a ball down.  But  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  But you do like  you do  \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  But I walk two miles every day and work in my yard. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You like water canoeing. \r\n \r\nMCBEE: Yeah, well I  yeah, Ive gone several times down the Chattooga.  You ever done that? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You know thats my home area. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well, Ill tell you its exciting. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes, it is. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Yeah, Ive gone down that half a dozen times.  Then I went down the Colorado River on a raft.  Ive traveled all over the world.  Really the only place I have not been is in the Middle East where they fight so much over there you cant find the time to go.  You know.  But other that that, Ive traveled all over the world.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Do you still maintain an interest in politics and -- \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Oh yeah. Oh boy, you better believe. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  -- campaigning? \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  You ought to see how many times I contribute to their campaigns.  Thats one of the problems.  I try to help local people but the people that are running for office in Atlanta and for the legislature, they know that I was there and theyre still there so they want you to give money.  Well you can just give so much.  But yeah, oh, I stay interested in politics for sure.  I was going to look on this page that I was trying to think of things.  I think I mostly told you.  Ive had a good life. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, youve certainly been successful.   \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Had a good life.  Had a good life.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Youve done great things for the state of Georgia. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Had good parents and two good brothers and I got a lot more Im going to do.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Bless you. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Im not through.  You may want me back in five years. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah, of course.  Well youre very well respected and have done great things for the state of Georgia. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Well I appreciate it.  But the states been good to me.  When they wanted me to come to the University of Georgia I said no, and the guy that -- Dr. Sorrells came up there and he said well at least let us bring you down there one day.  You know why I got this on dont you? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah, you told us. \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah.   \r\n \r\nMCBEE:  I said, \"Well I will come down there.\"  So I came and met all the staff and so on and  but when I went back I said I dont know, but I agreed to take it.  Well, after I got back I thought Im just not going to do it, I dont want to leave here. So, I had been meaning to call the paper and I mean say Im going to write up a reason why Im not, and it came out that I had been appointed and so I got to  and I cried all the way down here but the minute I got unpacked, from then on it was pure sunshine. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well that's wonderful.   \r\n \r\n[END] \r\n \r\n "},{"id":"gych_rogp_053","title":"Erwin Mitchell, 20 October 2008.","collection_id":"gych_rogp","collection_title":"Reflections on Georgia Politics oral history collection, 2006-2010","dcterms_contributor":["Short, Bob, 1932-"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, 39.76, -98.5","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018"],"dcterms_creator":["Mitchell, Erwin, 1924","Short, Bob, 1932"],"dc_date":["2008-10-20"],"dcterms_description":["Mitchell discusses his childhood in Dalton and how he became interested in politics though his father's involvement in Al Smith's campaign in Whitfield County. Mitchell recalls his experiences at the Citadel, the University of Georgia, and in the Army Air Corps as a fighter pilot before returning to UGA for law school. Mitchell discusses working for the solicitor's office, being elected a Superior Court judge, and running for the House of Representatives to represent the 7th district. He talks about his work on the original Committee on Science and Astronautics and discusses his votes regarding Hawaii's statehood, the National Defense Education act, and other bills which set him apart from the rest of the Georgia delegation. Mitchell explains his decision to leave Congress in favor of returning to practice law in Dalton. He recalls the turmoil of the integration issue, the Sibley Commission and his subsequent decision to run for State Senate. Mitchell discusses the Three Governors Controversy, the University System's loss of accreditation during the Talmadge administration, and the River-Arnall and Talmadge factions of the Georgia Democratic Party. Mitchell recalls his work with the Georgia Project and discusses the health of the carpet industry in Georgia. Mitchell mentions working with Phil Landrum, Richard Russell, Carl Vinson, M.E. Thompson, Prince Preston, Bob Shaw, and Prof. Victor Zuniga.","Finding aid available in repository.","Harlan Erwin Mitchell was born in Dalton, Whitfield County, Georgia, on August 17, 1924. He attended public schools in Dalton, Georgia, and attended The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. He received a LL. B. from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1948. During college, Mitchell was a member of the Gridiron Honorary Society, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity, and Delta Theta Phi Legal Fraternity. During World War II, he served as first lieutenant in the United States Army Air Corps from 1943 to 1946 and again in the United States Air Force in 1951 and 1952. Mitchell received the Air Medal with two stars and Pacific Ribbon with two battle stars. He was admitted to the bar on April 17, 1948, and commenced law practice in Dalton, Georgia. He served as solicitor general for the Cherokee Judicial Circuit from January 1, 1953 to December 31, 1956, and from January 1, 1957 to January 8, 1958, he served as a Superior Court judge in the Cherokee Judicial Circuit. In early 1958, Erwin Mitchell was elected as a Democrat to the 85th Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Henderson L. Lanham (7th District) in November 1957. In 1958, Mitchell was re-elected to the 86th Congress. In total, he served from January 8, 1958 to January 3, 1961. Mitchell served as the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Patents and Scientific Inventions, with the Committee on Science and Astronautics, and as a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Although Mitchell was not a candidate for renomination to the U.S. House in 1960, he was elected State Senator (Forty-Third District: Whitfield, Gordon, and Murray counties) to the Georgia General Assembly, serving from 1960 to 1961. He did not seek re-election, however, and resumed practicing law in Dalton. In 1996, Mitchell founded the Georgia Project, a teacher exchange program for Spanish-speaking teachers in Mexico and teachers from Dalton, Georgia. In 2001, Mitchell received the National Education Association's George I. Sánchez Memorial Award for his work with the Georgia Project.","Interviewed by Bob Short.","Related materials available in the following collections of this repository: Erwin Mitchell Papers."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection","http://sclfind.libs.uga.edu/sclfind/view?docId=ead/RBRL220ROGP.xml"],"dcterms_subject":["United States--Army--Air Corps","United States--Congress--House","Georgia. General Assembly. Senate","United States","Georgia--General Assembly--Committee on Schools","University of Georgia--School of Law","Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina","University System of Georgia","Democratic Party (Ga.)","Georgia Project","National Defense Education Act of 1958 (United States)","Legislators--Georgia--Interviews","Political campaigns--Georgia--Whitfield County","Race relations--History","Rug and carpet industry--Georgia","Legislators","Political campaigns","Race relations","Rug and carpet industry","Universities and colleges--Alumni and alumnae","Hawaii--History","Dalton (Whitfield County, Ga.)--History","College integration--Georgia--History","Georgia","Georgia--Dalton (Whitfield County)","Georgia--Whitfield County","Hawaii"],"dcterms_title":["Erwin Mitchell, 20 October 2008."],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-053/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 053, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia, 30602-1641."],"dlg_local_right":["Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule."],"dcterms_medium":["oral histories (literary works)","interviews"],"dcterms_extent":["1 interview (82 min.) : sd., col."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Mitchell, Erwin, 1924-","Preston, Prince H. (Prince Hulon), 1908-1961","Vinson, Carl, 1883-1981","Thompson, M. E. (Melvin Ernest), 1903-1980","Landrum, Phil M. (Phil Mitchell), 1907-1990","Russell, Richard B. (Richard Brevard), 1897-1971"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":"Erwin Mitchell interviewed by Bob Short \r\n2008 October 20 \r\nDalton, GA \r\nReflections on Georgia Politics \r\nROGP-053 \r\nOriginal: video, 87 minutes \r\n \r\nsponsored by: \r\nRichard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies \r\nUniversity of Georgia Libraries \r\nand \r\nYoung Harris College \r\n \r\nBOB SHORT:  I'm Bob Short, and this is Reflections on Georgia Politics sponsored by the Richard Russell Library at the University of Georgia. Our guest is Erwin Mitchell, former member of Congress, former member of the Georgia State Senate, solicitor general of the Cherokee judicial circuit, and superior court judge in the circuit. Welcome, Mr. Congressman. We are delighted to have you. \r\n \r\n ERWIN MITCHELL:  I'm delighted to be here with you Bob. I've enjoyed our preliminary memories that we've shared together. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Good. Well, you had a full and enviable career in Georgia politics, but before we get to that, I would like to start by having you tell us a little bit about Erwin Mitchell and growing up in Dalton, and how you got interested in politics.  \r\n \r\n MITCHELL:  Alright. I was born in Whitfield County. And my father was born in Whitfield County. My grandfather was born in Whitfield County. And my great-grandfather moved here but that was about 1818 and he was a Confederate veteran and is buried at the Mitchell cemetery, which adjoins the Conasauga River, which is the dividing line of Murray and Whitfield counties. So, my roots are all here and I've managed to stay here and love it for 84 years. My father was Dwight Mitchell, a lawyer. And my uncle was John Mitchell, a lawyer. And they both attended the University of Georgia as almost all of the Mitchells that have come along since, including my family. But I say I was born in 1924 and I think most people try to reflect as to what event you an can relate to an age that you were. And you say, \"Well, Bob, you asked me how did you get into politics?\" The first thing that I can remember that relates to my age, was being with my father at the old red brick court house in Whitfield County when they were tabulating the votes between Herbert Hoover and Al Smith.   \r\n And my father was the campaign chairman for Al Smith in Whitfield County. And of course, you know, Al Smith was a Catholic and you know how that was back in those days. But I was 4-years-old at the time, and my father and my Uncle John were active and my father only had one elective office. He was mayor at one period of time and that was back during World War II, and then was asked by Governor Ellis Arnall to come to Atlanta as a part of the attorney general's office, which he did. My Uncle John became solicitor general, district attorney, and also superior court judge. So, that's sort-of the background in which I grew up. I was fortunate that I didn't have to go through the agony that the majority of young people have in determining what they want to do with their lives. I'm getting to go to the court room, with my dad and my uncle, when I was probably 9 or 10-years-old, just absorbed by the atmosphere of the court room.  So, it was all that I ever wanted to do, was to become a lawyer. And that decision was made before I was in double-digits. \r\n And, so I went to the schools in Dalton and I played a little football, played a little basketball. That's the only athletic teams we had back in those days. We had intramural track but we didn't have baseball, we didn't have golf, we didn't have the other things because the high school at that time was probably about 300 to 350. And of course it was only the eighth through the eleventh grade. And, I graduated from Dalton High School in May of 1941. Before that time, from the time I was 9 or 10-years-old, my father had carried me to bulldog football games. We always went back to --- down to Columbus for the Georgia-Auburn game. If you'll remember old Memorial Stadium down there. I think it would seat about 15 to 20,000. But we'd make that trip every year. I remember one trip when I was just a kid! When Huey Long was Governor of Louisiana, and LSU had this huge -- I think maybe it had 300 or 350 member band that they'd brought up. And, LSU just beat the devil out of us that day. But I remember walking out of the stadium and my dad's friend that was with us, his name was Ed Strain, he was right in front of me and somebody back of us yelled, \"To hell with Huey Long!\" And somebody in front of Ed turned around and knocked him flat on his -- [Laughter] -- so that was another taste of strong political feelings -- that was demonstrated very vividly to me at that time.  \r\n My father was an ardent supporter of Dick Russell. My uncle John had been a classmate of his at the University of Georgia Law School. So, you know, Senator Russell had very little opposition when he became Governor and when he went to the United State' Senate. But, we were always strong supporters and admirers of his. Gene Talmadge came along and this was not my dad's and my uncle's and my mother's cup of tea. And so we never supported Eugene Talmadge, nor did we support Herman when he came aboard. So, there were political clashes in northwest Georgia, which my family was one of the leaders on one side and others on the other. Sometimes we won, sometimes we lost. Most times we won, until people started saying, \"Well, you're always supporting the loser!\"  So, we think maybe we better join the other side, because we're not getting a lot of the fruits that come from winning in state politics back in those days.  \r\n But, I digress and move way on to Washington, where I served when Herman Talmadge was the United States Senator and became a friend and very fond of Herman personally. And, I thought much of him personally. We still didn't have a lot of political agreements, but I'm very fond of him. But that's sort of the background of my history and how I got into politics. Because it was just almost preordained by my father's influence and my uncle's influence. I headed to -- I'll say I graduated from high school in May of 1941. Of course the British were already at war, and one of the things that our family always did was, righteously, with my father and my mother we'd listen to the evening news. Always, every one of FDR's fireside chats, I heard. And, I would hear about all of the aircraft being shot down. The British aircraft and the raids over Europe back in World War II. And, of course our ships were being torpedoed by the German submarines and it was clear in my dad's mind and therefore in my mind that we were going to go to war.  \r\n So, I really knew nothing much about the Citadel till Tom came to go off to college. I'd always said, \"I'm going to be a bulldog. I'll be over in Athens as soon as I can be there.\" But, I decided to go to the Citadel and was a freshman there at the time of Pearl Harbor. I was on our intramural basketball team and our covenant commander to the armory Sunday afternoon and told us that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Well, I didn't know where Pearl Harbor was. But it was obvious that, you know, that everything changed. We had the old M3 rifles. They came and got our rifles so they could hand them out to the draftees that were going to be coming to parade for the army.  \r\n But as soon as I finished my freshman year, the love of my life who --- we began, I guess, steady dating. You really can't date when you're in seventh grade.  But she was my girlfriend from the seventh grade on and all the way through high school. And, we sort of planned to go to college together, except there weren't any girls at the Citadel. So, she went over to Shorter. But then after my freshman year I transferred to the University of Georgia so she could transfer and we could be at the University of Georgia together. And we were.  \r\n And, those were glorious gridiron days. Frankie Sinkwich, George Poschner, Charlie Trippi. Charley Trippi is still living and I'm sure you won't remember this, but I had an ROTC class with him. And I'd been to the Citadel, and I probably knew as much about the military as our instructor did.  Charley always sat next to me, and we had a lot of conversations. And of course I can very incorrectly claim that I got him through ROTC. But, I do remember him and I remember him very fondly. After Pearl Harbor and war was declared, I applied both to the Naval Air Corps and the Army Air Corps. And that's before we had an Air Force, it was the Army Air Corps. And heard first from the Army. I was accepted and so I went ahead and signed with them. Later heard from the Navy, I don't know what I would have done if it'd been reversed. I'm sure I would've gone with the Navy. \r\n But anyway, I was too young to serve, so they just put me in the --- I don't know what they called it then, but I was just on a waiting list to get old enough so I could go in cadet training. And I did the following February. But in the mean time I'd gotten enough undergraduate credits at the Citadel and the University of Georgia that --- this is before you had to have a graduate degree to enter law school --- so when I finally got out of World War II I could go straight into the University of Georgia Law School. But, I went on into the Army Air Corps. I was first called to, I think, Montgomery, Alabama, and then they sent me down to Biloxi, Mississippi, and then to San Antonio, and then to Fort Worth, and then to Winfield, Kansas, and then to Victoria, Texas, and Mt. Agora, Allen, Texas, where I was classified as a fighter pilot and that's where I transitioned and learned how to fly a very difficult airplane to fly, and that was the old P40.  \r\n Then, I spent a little time in Moody Air Force Base at Valdosta, and mainly just waiting for delivery of latest fighter that we had, and that was the P51D at Sarasota Army Air Base. And when the P51s arrived, and they sent 18 of us down there to transition in those air craft for, as they said, operational training. And we had no idea what they had in mind for us at that time. But I remember that in addition to the 18 of us that went down there, there were 2 Iranian pilots. They were captains of the Iranian air force. What a difference now. I doubt if we would have any Iranian pilots in the air force today. But when we completed that they put us on a Pullman, and for 5 days we were on that Pullman, going from Sarasota to Seattle, Washington. And of course when they said our destination was Seattle we knew we were going to the Pacific. Then, with our air craft loaded on an escort carrier, we headed out to Honolulu with our air craft aboard. And, when we got there, then our air craft went on to Guam, which we had already taken --- acquired Guam. And they flew us to Guam to join our air craft. Then from the there, the battle of Iwo Jima was about to take place. I was not involved in the -- this was a Navy and Marine operation, the battle of Iwo Jima. But we were there waiting for -- for Iwo to be secured so that we could move in as fighter groups to escort B-29s in their rage over Japan. And that's what happened. Now, you know, I just keep going on Bob, and I think your question was, \"How you got into politics? \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Right. \r\n \r\n MITCHELL:  And I'm talking about World War II. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Well, that's history. That's what we want. But let's talk for a minute now about your --- after service you went to the Law School at the University of Georgia. \r\n \r\n MITCHELL:  Yeah, but one thing I've got to tell you -- because we've got some old bulldogs and other researchers that have an interest in flying, I'm sure, and World War II history. But I've got to tell you about this Georgia boy's first escort mission escorting B-29s over Japan. And it was over Tokyo itself. That was my very first mission. And, what we would do is the bomber's would be in a bomber stream, and we would just fly alongside of them to protect them from any air craft that might be coming. Of course, I looked down below and there was the city of Tokyo. \r\n At that time, in order for us to do these long-range missions, the ingenuity of the air craft mechanics had devised a 163 gallon external wing tank on each of the wings of the P-51. Now the P-51 was designed for only a 75 gallon tank, and that could be operated internally, switching tanks. The 165 gallon tanks, we were told, we had to manually switch. We had to keep time as to when you were going to run out of fuel and make a switch to the other tank. And if you didn't do that, if it ran out, you might fall in vapor lock, and your engine would shut off and never start again. And there I was flying over the city of Tokyo, and all of a sudden all of my other pilots were up here and I was going down there. And everything was quiet. And I realized that my engine had stopped. But I switched over and it caught back up. \r\n But I just couldn't resist telling that story. But that was my first experience. Anyway, I finished the air force and immediately came back after I was separated. And, as a matter of fact I was separated in February of 1946, I guess it was. And the next month I went right onto law school. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Let's stop for a minute. I want to get your -- get your mouth a little there. \r\n \r\n MITCHELL:  Talking too much! \r\n \r\n SHORT:  No, you're doing good. You're doing good. \r\n \r\n BREADEN:  Great. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Yeah. This is what we love. Okay, so now, we've got that. Now, I'm trying -- we're trying to get you back into Dalton from the University of Georgia. You did come back to Dalton after you finished the University of Georgia. \r\n \r\n MITCHELL:  I came back to Dalton. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  And practiced law.  \r\n \r\n MITCHELL:  Yeah, after finishing law school I came back and joined my father and uncle in practicing law. The firm Mitchell \u0026 Mitchell was founded the year of my birth, 1924. And, later my older brother, who served in the Navy during World War II -- he had gone to law school before Pearl Harbor, but when the war was over he came back. He had married, and got a job with Judge Jule Felton at the court of appeals. And went to Emory and got his law degree there. And he also joined us. So, that was the foundation I had in starting the practice of law.  \r\n I'd been practicing for about, oh, less than three years when -- when I separated from service. I say separated instead of discharged because I signed on in the inactive reserve. And, you know, all you did was just get something in the mail every now and then. You didn't have any meetings and you didn't have any responsibilities, but a lot of times I wouldn't even open the mail. But this time, this one looks sort of official and I opened it. And they said, \"Lieutenant, we want you to come to Montgomery, Alabama. You're going on active duty during the Korean War.\" And so, I was recalled and --- because I'd gone to law school instead of putting me in the exotic jets that I'd never flown, they said, \"Well, we need a legal officer up in Prescal, Maine. We're just going to make you a legal officer and send you to Prescal where they have two seasons: winter and the 4th of July.  And so that's what happened. They sent me up there and I said, \"My Lord, this is a Georgia boy in this kind of weather?\" And you know, I was married then and had children and I noticed the first thing was that the houses along the roads were all right next to the roads. And I said, \"Why would people do that because of all the traffic noise?\" Of course I realized it was because of the snow. \r\n But anyway, before my family could join me, they transferred me to Wilmington, Delaware, at the New Castle Air Force Base, where I stayed until I was separated from the service in the Korean War. I spent about 16 or 17 months in the Korean War, and during that time a very fine man who became a dear friend of mine was the current solicitor general. But people were unhappy with his service. And some people were prevailing upon me to give it a shot at running. And I was in the military now, keep in mind, and my dad said, \"Well, you know, we'll help, but you've got to come home now on weekends now and do your campaigning,\" and I did that.  \r\n And while I was in JAG at New Castle Air Force Base I ran and was elected solicitor general of the Cherokee circuit, which consisted of Murray County, Whitfield, Gordon County and Bartow. That's Cartersville, Calhoun, Chatsworth and Dalton. And I was released, I guess, probably in November, about a month before my time expired. And that's because my Uncle John contacted Senator Russell, and said, \"Erwin needs a little preparation time. Get him home.\"  And so Senator Russell got me home about a month early. And that's my beginning in politics. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  So then as I recall, Henderson Lanham passed away. He was a congressman. And you decided to run for Congress. \r\n \r\n MITCHELL:  Well, before that I spent 4 years in the district attorney's office, the solicitor's office. And, the presiding judge that I worked with announced that he was not gonna run for reelection. Well, I was only 31-years-old. And, folks would say, \"Well, look, this is time for you to run. And, you've been on the circuit for 4 years.\" And I said, \"Yeah, you think I can get elected?\" \"Oh, we'll help you, we'll help you.\" And so I did run and was elected Superior Court judge at the age of 31.  \r\n And, I enjoyed that service very, very much. But, after I'd only been on the bench for a little over a year, Henderson Lanham, who was the congressman from the seventh congressional district, was killed in an automobile-train collision. And, the seat in Congress came open. And here again -- and Bob, you know, the -- every person's got a right to say no. But, all of my adventures in politics were brought on by someone else encouraging me. Literally, it was not an ambition I had, because I had no thought. I'd gotten to know Judge Lanham real well. Had great admiration for him. We were supporters of him, and I was just saddened about his death and the loss to all of us. But the folks kept coming, including some folks over where he lived, in Rome, saying, \"We want you to run.\" And I did.  And, we really had a short but rather --- rather heated contest.  \r\n A very distinguished criminal attorney named Bobby Lee Cook was one of the candidates and Judge Manning from Cobb County was the other. So we had a 3 man race. At that time the Cherokee -- the 7th District was comprised of 14 counties: Murray, Gordon, Whitfield, Catoosa, Dade, Walker, Floyd, Gordon, Bartow, Douglas, Haralson, Polk, all the way down to the --- actually below Atlanta in Douglas County and Haralson. So, I ran and I was very fortunate in that election. And won 12 out of those 14 counties. This is a time of the county unit system, as you remember.  Of course, that's another story.  \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Yeah. \r\n \r\n MITCHELL:  But anyway, I went to Washington and without -- just as happy as I could be, sitting on the bench. I love the law. Still love the law. It's been my life. But somehow I always seemed to get entangled with the political adventures. And so I began my first term, which was during the Eisenhower administration, and served with people like Lyndon Johnson, who was the majority leader. Jack Kennedy, of course both of them were vying to become the Democratic nominee, you know. Of course Richard Nixon was the vice president. Probably the greatest speaker ever was Sam Rayburn from Texas. He was the speaker of the house at that time. And, Carl Vinson from Milledgeville was the Admiral. He was known as the Admiral of our country's Navy, because he was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. And Dick Russell, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And at that time, Senator Talmadge had been elected. So, those are the notables that I served with, including Phil Landrum, and he may have been your Congressman. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  He was. \r\n \r\n MITCHELL:  Yeah, and he was a dear friend of mine. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Georgia back then had a Congressional delegation that had built up a lot of seniority. \r\n \r\n MITCHELL:  Oh yes. And that we miss so much today. Because all of the military facilities that we have relate back to the Talmadge/Vinson times. But they were, you know -- they were respected not only within the Congress, but they were respected everywhere for their knowledge and their service.  \r\n \r\n SHORT:  If I remember correctly, you were on the space program. One of your committees. And that was before we went to the moon! \r\n \r\n MITCHELL:  That was when --- if you remember it was announced that, \"We're going to go to the moon.\" And the 7 original astronauts came before the --- this was the House Committee on Science and Astronautics. As a matter of fact, right over your left shoulder is a photograph of that committee and us receiving our Congressional flag. But, we had Senator Glenn and all of the other astronauts came before us. They were just --- of course, I was a kid. I was 32-years-old at the time. But, John Glenn I guess was older than I was. But he and the other 6 came and were just unbelievable. It was a fascinating experience, because I -- Overton Brooks from Louisiana was Chairman of the Committee. And, even though I'd only been there a short time, I was the fourth-ranking majority member on the committee.  \r\n And I know a trip I'll never forget. He asked me to come down to Alabama to register my arsenal. And that was the time, if you remember, we had hypothecated the one who had designed and implemented the -- what were they called? Back in World War II? The unmanned bombers that were coming from Wernher von Braun. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Right. \r\n \r\n MITCHELL:  Was there, heading the regular arsenal and preparing us for the boosters for the space committee. And, he was really a fascinating man, and if he was anything other than a scientist, I don't think he ever was a --- not saying he was just a scientist, and this was just part of his inner being. But yes, I was on the original space committee, and I still have that interest. But those were quite remarkable days, back in the beginning. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  So you were elected to fill out the term of a former congressman, and then you were reelected for another term.  \r\n \r\n MITCHELL:  I was reelected, you know, I'd had no Democratic opposition, but I did have Republican opposition. I just --- you'll have to explain why, but I always seemed to have opposition. But I was reelected. But now, this is an oral history of, not just me, but what I observed, what was going on in Washington and in Georgia and in the world. My antennas had been really --- although interested in politics --- had been directed toward the law. When I got up there, of course, it was all politics. And, I began quickly to find out that my philosophy was probably not the prevailing philosophy in the state of Georgia. And there were things that were coming up for our vote, that I was having a struggle voting for. But for a year I did that. And I didn't like it one bit, but I did it. After I was reelected I said, you know, one member of our delegation told me the first day I arrived. He said, \"Now Erwin, you just be quiet. Stay away from those damn newspapers. And you can be here as long as you want.\" And just voters and delegation votes.  \r\n But my second year that became harder and harder and I had some votes that were not earth-shaking, but yet --- they stirred a little --- a ripple or two back in Georgia. For example, when the statehood for Hawaii came up for a vote, I couldn't find any reason not to vote for Hawaii to become a state. But I was the only member of the Georgia delegation who did that. When the National Defense Education Act, which was, you know, sort of akin to the --- it was federal aid to education, and course I had benefited immeasurably by the GI Bill, putting me through law school with my dad's help. And I couldn't find no good reason to vote against it. I voted for it, but I was the only member of the Georgia delegation that did.  \r\n And then, my dear friend Phil Landrum sponsored with a Republican Congressman for a while named Griffin. Landrum/Griffin Bill, which was a labor bill, and it was one that never had any committee hearings on it or anything, and I this is probably the vote that bothered me the worst. Not because I voted against the bill, but because it had the name of my friend that I really admired and respected, Phil Landrum. But I voted against that and that caused all kinds of activity by the folks in Georgia who felt like that was a pro-union bill. I did feel like it was a pro-worker --I mean it was an anti-worker bill. It was not in the best interest of workers, but I thought it had nothing to do with unions. But anyway, I told you some of the things that began to cause people to be concerned about me and me be concerned about whether I was, you know, in tune with the people that sent me up there. But after the time passed with the Landrum/Griffin bill, people began to -- those that had not really agreed with me about my vote on that bill, were telling me, \"Well, you know, tomorrow's another day. You'll get seniority. You'll stay.\" But I didn't stay and didn't run for reelection. Whether I could've been reelected or not, I don't know. I think I could, because the friendships that I had built up throughout the district were good, strong friendships. But that's not why I didn't run.  \r\n I didn't run for two reasons. I had three children. Back at that time the Congress didn't stay in session from January till December. Usually broke about Labor Day. What I would do is I'd put my children in school in Virginia -- I mean in Georgia, and then in January move to Virginia and put them in school there. I had a son and 2 daughters. Son was the oldest. He really -- this was really bothering him badly. The girls were alright. My wife was alright. But it was really not a good situation. And besides that, when I ran for the Congress, we decided that I would break completely with my law firm. I thought that any conflict of interest questions wouldn't be possible, so I received absolutely no income from Mitchell \u0026 Mitchell. So there I was with a wife and three children, trying to maintain a home in Virginia, and one in Georgia, with 2 mortgages. This is mortgage time now, and a salary of 22,500 dollars a year. And, because of good friends at First National Bank in Dalton, I was able to borrow the money and I in fact subsidized myself from the time I was in Washington till we decided it was just a frugal thing to come on back and start practicing law. And that's what I did.  \r\n I had no intention of running for the Senate, the State Senate, initially. But, the last year that I was up in Washington, the integration situation was getting worse and worse as far as Georgia's concerned. Of course, the Supreme Court had already ruled. We were making very little headway in Georgia, as you remember. And so I was being very vocal on my feeling that this was the law and we didn't want the University of Georgia or the University system of Georgia or the public schools of Georgia being radically affected by the anti-integration forces that were prevalent in Georgia at that time. And, so I was invited and made speeches all over the state, advocating that we keep the public schools open. That we go ahead and comply with the law where the University was concerned. And, my dad said, \"Well, son, you know, the best platform to keep that going is just go to the State Senate and get elected.\" And I did. And I was elected to represent the senate district in Atlanta for 2 years back during the county unit system.  \r\n \r\n SHORT: Those were very historical times.  \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: Those were historical times, and you know, I look back at that and think about the folks that I joined in the state Senate. And, if you'll remember, and this certainly is your cup of tea, Bob. Of course, Governor Vandiver, who I admired, had great respect for, made that famous, \"No, Not One\" speech. Well, there was one bill in the state Senate that -- I can't remember what it was, but it involved the schools --- and it involved integration. There were only 4 no votes against it, and that was Zell Miller, myself, Ed McWhorter from Athens-Clarke County, and Charlie Brown from Fulton County. And back then Charlie Brown, you know, it was the old county unit, he was the only senator. In those days it was really serious, and you may remember the days of the Sibley Commission. The Sibley Commission had a tremendous amount to do with changing public opinion. And of course the business community said, \"We can't think about, you know, having tuition grants to our public schools. We can't think about the lack of accreditation, maybe, from our colleges and universities.\"  \r\n So almost overnight, Governor Vandiver changed his mind, and all of those wonderful people that I was serving with changed their minds too. And it really was an example that the people that were elected to serve, the majority of the people that were elected to serve in the general assembly of Georgia at that time, their heart was in the right place. They felt like that the constituents didn't really appreciate that. And as a consequence it sort-of put up a barrier to moving forward on the integration-segregation course. But as soon as they made that bill, I don't know of anyone that lost his seat by following the governor's lead, and the lead of Charlie Pannell who was the majority leader, and Carl Sanders. And others of course.  Carl Sanders became governor, and was an outstanding governor, as you know. \r\n And, but those were historic times. And, that stayed around for a while and at that time, because of -- I guess a certain notoriety that I'd achieved because of being the sole vote on a number of national legislative priorities, the news media and some influential individuals were advocating that I run for governor. And I'll tell you that I knew, there's no way that this fellow from Whitfield county, with a track record like mine, at that time in life, was going to be elected Governor. But it was a setting where my views, which I did not think were radical, could be exposed to all of Georgia. And I was invited to Albany, to Valdosta, to Gainesville, to Rome, Atlanta, Athens, where I would voice these views. And I say that they were simple things like, \"Keep our public schools open. Let's have a two-party system. Let's do away with the county unit system. It's absurd, it's ridiculous.\" \r\n And things of that nature, which a lot of people didn't like, but it turns out that all those things happened. And they happened for a reason because that was the right thing. And so I hope that my voicing those things, and the media picking up on those, caused some people to begin to think. You know, maybe it caused us to make those changes a little bit quicker than we normally would, but it was just going to happen. \r\n \r\n SHORT: Do you remember the three governors' fight? \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: Yes. \r\n \r\n SHORT: Tell us your memories of that.  \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: Well, they -- of course we were supporters of M. E. Thompson at that time. And as I remember Herman just took over the office. And M.E. had to find him someplace else. And, of course I think the courts finally ruled and that was accepted, but that was one of the trying times -- another trying time was back during the Gene Talmadge administration, where the university system actually lost its accreditation, because of the governor interfering with the board of regents. And I think that really was what brought Gene Talmadge down to earth, but here again it was the county unit system back in those days and south Georgia was ruling the roost.  \r\n \r\n SHORT: Well, in that year, 1946, Jimmy Carmichael actually outpoled Gene Talmadge, but the county unit system kept Talmadge. \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: Jimmy Carmichael from Cobb County. \r\n \r\n SHORT: Right. Right, he was a heavy choice of the modern thinkers in Georgia at the time. And quite an individual. \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: Yeah. And back at that time we were really laboring, and I say laboring under the illusion, that we only had one party. But we really had two parties back then. And, when I was in Washington, all of us were elected as Democrats, but we certainly didn't think alike, all of us. I felt my thinking to was more akin to Phil Landrum and Prince Preston who was down in Savannah if you remember, and J.L. Pilcher of Meigs, Georgia, and that's just about as south Georgia as you can get, down in Meigs. And he was a wonderful, wonderful man and a very progressive individual and a tremendous asset to Georgia. Yeah, those were interesting times. And with the two-party system, that I was such a strong advocate of, I didn't intend for the republicans to just take over. \r\n \r\n SHORT: Well, you know, it's said, and I believe that we actually had two parties all along.  \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: Oh yeah. \r\n \r\n SHORT: You had the Rivers-Arnall faction, and you had the Talmadge faction. And today, and I hope you'll agree, the Talmadge faction of that day would have been republicans.  \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: Yes. No question about it. No question about it. But I think the delineations between the parties is slowly becoming more defined, but we've got we've got religious issues involved that I don't think we had back in those days. There was no issues concerning, you know, gay marriage or abortion. And now, that seems to play a tremendous role in Georgia. And the evangelicals have a -- churches are so influential in Georgia politics. And the race issue is going to be very interesting in that regard in Georgia as well as nationally. \r\n \r\n SHORT: What do you think caused the, I won't say demise, but the loss of power by the democratic party in Georgia. \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: Well, you know, I don't profess to be an expert in that, but when the schools became integrated, that did not change the depth of feeling in a lot of Georgia. Civil rights movement and, of course, Martin Luther King is one of my heroes. I mean, really, what a wonderful person. But when I was coming along and had this great admiration for Martin Luther King, he was being demonized by a lot of prominent political figures in Georgia. He was a communist. And a man of bad morals. Just, a lot of bad things. So, that feeling has taken some generations to pass. And so, the civil rights activity in Washington with Lyndon Johnson -- and I had tremendous respect, and I think was a wonderful president. And I think he still could have been elected even because of Vietnam. I still think he could have been elected if he'd chosen to run.  \r\n \r\n*Break* \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: I'll tell you one thing that I didn't tell you that I haven't really told a few people in my life. But this is the Richard Russell Library, and --- \r\n \r\n SHORT: Do we want to get this? \r\n \r\n BREADEN: Yeah it's on. \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: The first year I was up there and I was just getting settled, and I say Senator Russell and his family, and the Mitchell family had already a long history. And I was elected, you know, what they termed a landslide, but I went up there. I've been a younger superior court judge in the state. The youngest prosecuting attorney in the state. And Senator Russell had the Georgia delegation in a little place up in the capital where we had a quail supper.  And, which was very enjoyable and I, of course, knew everybody, but I was really still getting to know them and feel my way around.  \r\n And he said to me, just the two of us. He said, \"Erwin, I expect you to succeed me when I retire.\" Now, you talk about a scared young man. I mean, that just absolutely blew the boots off of me. Dick Russell wasn't wrong very often, but he was wrong then.  It just wasn't my destiny to succeed him. I would've had to change a lot of what was within me to have continued to be reelected for the period of time it would've taken to succeed Senator Russell.  \r\n \r\n SHORT: Let's talk about one of your favorite projects of all time, and that is the Georgia Project.  \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: Okay. Now that is -- now we're really getting up to date right now. Back in the --- you know, I guess it was over 15 years ago in the early '90s, this area began to have an increase in the Latino population. My youngest daughter was a paraprofessional at a Roan Street school in the city of Dalton, and about 1993, she started -- literally, tears would come in her eyes, about what was happening. She said, \"We're getting all of these little Latino children who can not speak a word of English, and we have no teachers who can speak Spanish. And everybody's just wringing their hands and the school board's not doing anything. They're just acting like it doesn't exist.\"  \r\n And the truth of the matter, the school board was --- because this was such a strange thing to happen in northwest Georgia, they had no idea how to go about it, nor did anyone else. But they were sending people out to say, \"What do you do in a situation like this?\" Well, they weren't getting any answers. They weren't getting any Spanish-speaking teachers either. Then I would tell Leslie, my daughter, \"Well, this is horrible. Something really needs to be done. I'll talk to some of the school board people.\" But I'd say, \"I'm not an educator.\" \"Well, Daddy you can do something.\" And I know one of the media people asked my daughter, Leslie, \"Say, why did you think your Daddy could do something about it?\" She said, \"Well, he always did.\"  \r\n And, anyway, the next year it really got more pronounced, and she enlisted the aid of the teachers. Then the teachers started coming to me, and saying, \"You know, don't get me in trouble. Don't reveal what I'm telling you, but here it is. We've got a horrible situation. These kids keep coming into our school. They're wonderful little kids. They behave, they are not a problem, except we can't talk with them. And they can't speak with us. And it's just getting worse and worse. We're trying as hard as we can, but we're making no progress.\" And, so with that I just said, \"Well, let me think about it the last day in.\" And the editor of the newspaper, he was a friend who was sort-of a political ally, and I got him and about that time the chamber of commerce asked me to chair a committee that would be a group of us older guys, the mentors. And we would just gather together a group of mentors that could talk with young people about what we had learned through life and all of that and that was to be my project. And I turned it down. And then I was asked again if I would, and I said, \"Well, wait a minute. I'd accept that role if I could chose the project.\"  \r\n And so I told them my project is to try to do something about this influx of non-English speaking children in our public schools. And they said, \"Okay.\" So I got together a committee of just four people. But that gave us an aura of legitimacy, rather than me just getting a group of people and saying, \"Look, we want to go into the school system and find out what you all are doing wrong.\" That doesn't really make you welcome, you know. But since it sort of had the auspices of the chamber of commerce and I contacted them and the folks at Roan Street and they said, \"We're delighted to have you and we'll schedule where you can go in and with whom you can talk.\" And I told my folks. I said, \"We're not going to pay any attention to where they tell us to go or to whom we have the ability to talk. We're going to talk with anyone we want to.  \r\n And now that time, the teachers had told me some folks for us to talk with. And we went in, and our eyes --- I will never forget it. I've lived here all of my life. I had noticed more brown-skinned folks living in the community, in the automobiles and things. But I hadn't no earthly idea what was happening in Dalton, Georgia, in northwest Georgia, where you would see at that time, one out of every three children was brown-skinned. More brown-skinned than black-skinned. And, so this was really shocking. I began to write everyone. I wrote the governor. I wrote the chairman of the board of regents. And all of these people would reply to me. I wrote to the superintendent of schools. I wrote to the -- about that time Zell Miller had appointed Johnny Isaacson to the chair of the state board of education. I wrote and talked with Johnny Isaacson. And, all these folks got interested. Not that they really did anything to help.  But they thought this was a -- finally, and this was when superintendent -- what's her name -- Schrenko was the -- and she just passed it on down, but it got down to a person that really understood what I was talking about and she contacted me. And she sent me material to read and the people to contact throughout this country, which I did.  \r\n And we began to formulate an idea as to how we could do something to help the teachers and students in the public schools of Dalton. And there the enrollment and Latino rate was growing from one out of three to -- it finally got up to nine out of ten! Ninety percent Latino enrollment. And it's just unbelievable. But in the meantime we were making some progress, as that went along. And I was getting a lot of cooperation out of the leaders in the community, the industry, because certainly the industry was the reason these folks were coming -- to fill the jobs that were really critical at that time. Because the carpet industry was just running out of people, and they needed these people. And they were good workers. And with the rare exception were all, you know, model contributing members of the community.  \r\n So, finally, Bob Shaw, who is chairman of Shaw Industries and founded of Joy Industries,  lifelong friend of mine -- he and I would talk, and he was aware of what I was interested in and he asked me one day. He said, \"What are you doing?\" And I said, \"Well, Bob, we've finally reached a determination as to what we had to do. And that is we've got to get some teachers from Mexico or somewhere in Latin America, to come up here and work in our schools. Because these kids -- I mean, you could bring an Anglo-Spanish speaker, but they're not of the same culture. And that cultural aspect is absolutely a dynamite thing.\" And he said, \"Well, you know, I've got a partner down in Monterrey, Mexico, he's connected with some school down there. Would you like for me to contact him?\" I said, \"Go get it!\" And to his everlasting credit, I don't think that Bob's partner was all that enthusiastic about it, but I think Bob was very tenacious and stayed after him.  \r\n And finally, out of the clear blue, I got a letter written by Dr. Victor Zuniga from the University of Monterrey. It told me that he had been designated as the Mexican director of the Georgia Project. Not our name. It was their name. And that he wanted to begin communicating with me. And that started a communication, and that was back in about 1995 -- or '94. Anyway, we kept saying, \"You've got to come up here and see what this situation is.\" He'd say, \"You come down here.\" I said, \"No, it's not down there, it's up here! This is where this has to be addressed.\" \"You come down there. You come down to us.\" And so finally, they prevailed, and I took the superintendent of schools, the chairman of the board of education, a teacher or two, and some of the people that were working with me.  \r\n And we went down and met with people at the University of Monterrey. The first day that we got there, they put us in a little room that'd be just half the size of this office. But we had a good meeting. And so, we got a call the next morning at the hotel to say, \"Okay, we're changing locations. We came about three times as far and about three times as many people. By the third day we were almost a ballroom of folks at the university who were listening to what we had to say. And now, one of the folks that I've continued to work with, who's now a professor at UCLA, and written a number of books about the Georgia Project. I asked him. I said, \"Hernandez, tell me. Why is that you all insisted that we come down here, rather than you all come to Dalton?\" He said, \"We wanted to find out if you were real. We have.\"  \r\n And so, just a couple or three weeks later, they came to Dalton, and the project was well underway. The funniest thing, is the folks down at the University of Monterrey, I think they felt that the carpet industry was going to fund us and pay the bill. Of course, the carpet industry hadn't promised us any money at all. Nobody'd promised us any money. But we had done this elaborate planning, and we had a plan and force that we were going to put into operation, the fall of 1996. And we didn't have one dime to fund it. And this was the spring of '96. Well, you know, this is oral history and you don't need an old man not telling you the truth. Out of the blue, the city of Dalton, composed of five folks. And I kid them, they were all bright and intelligent, and I'd say, \"Here you got five fellows who can't speak good English!\" Say, look here, we're going to give the Georgia Project $750,000 over a three-year period to get you off the ground. And that was just like manna from heaven.  \r\n And believe me, we had kept them informed after everything. We kept the whole community -- and the newspaper. This is why I have such respect for being open with the news media to let people know what's going on. They came to our aid and we got that $750,000 plus we got about half a million dollars from the federal government, plus we were beginning to get, through Max Cleland and Paul Coverdell, federal funding. And we continued to get it, to a lesser degree, through Johnny Isaacson and Saxby Chambliss, till it got to be such a hot issue that I -- and it just ran its course in the money. But, what we had done during the 10 years, over 10 years we had operation -- we had brought 60 some odd teachers. These are graduate teachers, experienced teachers in Mexico to work in Georgia schools. Now, it's not just working with the immigrant non-English speaking kids, but what these teachers did, was to teach Spanish to Georgia teachers. But they taught them the little gimmicks that what only one of the same culture has, to where they could take an Anglo teacher and say, \"Now, in this culture, this is the way kids will react.\"  \r\n So they have been a tremendous help to our -- as much help to our teachers as to both the English-speaking and non-English speaking. And through a connection that we made with the Center for Prime Linguistics in Washington, we've provided staff development for several hundred English-speaking teachers. Teaching them the tricks of the trade to teach immigrant children. And that's a book in itself to tell you how we've made contact with them and how that developed. We took that money and we provided scholarships to Georgia graduates from high school who are bilingual, and gave them two years of full scholarships to Dalton State College.  \r\n And later on, we went to South Georgia, and did the same thing at ABAC. And we had teachers down in Colquitt County, and of course had them in Chatsworth and Dalton and Calhoun,  but it was a very expensive project. And we did get considerable volunteer funding by local businesses and individuals. But it was too big to be funded by the community chancellor, or whatever you call it now. Because it was a million-dollar operation. The local schools that we worked with, would have had to put up half a million dollars a year, and we would get half a million dollars a year to help provide this program. But the beauty of it -- why it's really sort of been the love of my life -- is that although we're, theoretically and in reality, non-functional, we still continue to operate, because we've got at our local school districts, teachers that we've brought from Mexico that are still there, and will be there. They have become citizens, or they have married. And what we've taught the American teachers, has been taught by those American teachers to other American teachers, to other American teachers, to other American teachers. We've got those kids that have got scholarships from us, that have gone through school, and are now becoming graduate teachers. And they've gone into the school system teaching. They've gone into Georgia Tech and become engineers. They've become architects. They've become bankers. They've become contributing members of society.  \r\n So, all of my life, as you know, if you've ever had sort of a prominent role in your community, people are going to call on you to do public service things. Well, public service to me is -- anyone who goes into public service is automatically my hero. Because it is a wonderful undertaking. But anyway, I did a lot of things in the community that I've never, in my eighty-four years, ever had one thing that I saw produce results as quickly as the Georgia Project. When we brought that first teacher into the schools of Dalton, it changed the whole attitude of the school. I told you about the meeting, me taking four folks to go to Roan Street. It was a sour atmosphere. There were no smiles. The children weren't smiling. The teachers weren't smiling. It was just like,  this is sad, this is pathetic, this, you know, it made you feel bad. As soon as we got the first teacher and those brown-skinned kids saw that person of their culture, that told them that my white-skinned teacher, and my white-skinned principal, she respects us. They're going to get somebody here to help us. And it wasn't a couple of months later that you'd go there and see the whole atmosphere in the school had changed. Both the Anglo teachers, Monterrey teachers, the administrators, and, in particular, the kids. \r\n \r\n SHORT: Is the project still alive? \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: The project is alive only in that respect. But we have no funding. I'm sure it's alive in part, in many parts of the country, because we had so many inquiries as to how to do it, you know, and we were happy to share what we did. We won many national awards. And, you know, not that that necessarily means it was that great, but it was because I'm telling you it was. I saw it. And, it just helped so many people. And continues to. \r\n \r\n SHORT: What is the health of the carpet industry today. \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: Carpet industry is having tough times, very tough times. As about all industries are. And it's probably a mature industry now. I think we've seen our growth. I think the carpet industry is going to stay right here in the center of it. Of course, it's diversified solely into all kinds. It's not really the carpet industry anymore, it's a floor covering industry. You've got laminates. You've got woods. You've got acryllic. You've got everything, besides carpet. And all of the majors have gotten into those things. But I say it is a mature industry. It hasn't tended to go overseas, like so many industries. I can't ever say that won't happen. But it's so situated with all these service industries that supply the carpet industry at hand, that it might be difficult, and I think their shipping costs rise and makes it more difficult for the Chinese to, you know, we can still compete because of certain costs.  \r\n \r\n SHORT: As you look back over a very illustrious career, what is your proudest accomplishment?  \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: Oh, my proudest accomplishment! And I'm sure everybody says this, but I can't say it with any more sincerity than me. It's my wife and children. And grand-children. And great-grandchildren. That the wife and I had three children and I'm proud of the fact that they all had some identity at the University of Georgia. My son, he graduated from the University of Georgia. Well, I did have a daughter who lives in Atlanta now, that she went to Queens College in Charlotte. But she's a Bulldog, through and through. And my grandchildren all went to the University of Georgia. Now my great-grandchildren are coming along, and my first one is graduating from Lovett this year, and she's applied. And I'm sure that the rest of them are too young to be thinking about college, but she'd be the first of my great-grandchildren to go to the University.  \r\n \r\n SHORT: What about your biggest disappointment? \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: Looks like I could come up with something like that. I feel like George Bush when they asked him what his greatest failure was and he couldn't think of one. Ah. Gosh, Bob, that's a wonderful question, and I wish I had an answer that I could give you. Honestly, it would take some -- I've had, you know, many disappointments. Last Saturday in Baton Rouge was not one. I loved that!  And I don't want to be disappointed in Jacksonville this Saturday. \r\n But I've been very fortunate with the health of my family, the success of my family. Well, I guess one of the great disappointments of my life was losing my boyhood friend who stayed my very best friend until the time of his death when he was on in his early '40s. You know, this is a man whose son owns this building now. He was a lawyer. His son is. But this Ray Bates, we started school together and, you look at every school picture, from the first grade on, and I didn't realize it till a couple of years ago with people bring out these pictures -- we were always side by side. But we did everything together. And, he is as close to me, I guess, as a brother can be. And I hated losing him so early in life. \r\n \r\n SHORT: If you had your life to do over, would you do anything differently? \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: Oh, heavens yes. I mean, I would have to think of the many things I would do differently. Do I think my philosophical view would be different? No. I think so many of us are a product of our environment and our upbringing. And I'm a product of my mom and my dad. I mean, they involved me and all their children in everything that was going on. And, when you've got kids sitting around listening to the evening news with their parents. When they're listening to Fireside Chats with FDR with their parents. When they're listening to Amos \u0026 Andy on the radio with their parents.  \r\n You know, I feel like I was taught that honor was something that was important and truth was something important. My mother, she was -- and all of us, the whole family, my dad too. We were all Methodists. We were Methodists since John Wesley came, practically, I guess. But, she told me, \"Don't ever call anyone a liar. That's just not the right thing to say.\" And I've remembered that all my life. And I know somebody was talking about McCain on the stump and some things he was having to say about Obama. And I just said, \"You know what, my mama told me never to call anybody a liar, but that fellow is testing my upbringing.\"  \r\n \r\n SHORT: Well, Erwin Mitchell, on behalf of the Russell Library, and the University of Georgia, and Bob Short, I'd like to thank you for being our guest. \r\n \r\n MITCHELL: Well, Bob, thank you. Thank you for having me. I hope there's something in there that can be of some use to scholars as they dig into it in the years to come. because I love the University of Georgia, and it's just getting better and better and better.  \r\n \r\n SHORT: For some reason, I observed that. "},{"id":"gych_rogp_052","title":"Jim Minter, 06 October 2008.","collection_id":"gych_rogp","collection_title":"Reflections on Georgia Politics oral history collection, 2006-2010","dcterms_contributor":["Short, Bob, 1932-"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018"],"dcterms_creator":["Minter, Jim","Short, Bob, 1932"],"dc_date":["2008-10-06"],"dcterms_description":["Minter discusses his childhood in Inman, Georgia, during the Depression, and his mother's family, the Harps. Minter talks about his education, his work at The Red and Black student newspaper, and about being a sports reporter for college football. Minter discusses his career at the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. He mentions troubles with in-house unions. Minter discusses the political influence of the Cox Family, owners of both the Journal and the Constitution. Minter explains that the Constitution was meant to be more liberal while the Journal was meant to be conservative. He discusses the powerful influence of the newspapers' converage of politics and the state capitol. He discusses how the editorial board decided which political candidate to endorse and what role the newspapers played in the Civil Rights Movement. Minter also discusses Reg Murphy's kidnapping and subsequent ransoming. Minter recalls working with John Pennington, Mike Edwards, Ray Jenkins, Dan Magill, Ed Pope, Eddie Barker, Guy Tiller, Bill Fields, Reg Murphy, Harold Raines, Bill Shipp, Hal Gulliver, and Zell Miller.","Finding aid available in repository.","Related materials available in the following collections of this repository: Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection 004, Bill Shipp; Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection 147, Bill Shipp.","Interviewed by Bob Short.","James G. \"Jim\" Minter was born in Inman, Georgia, in 1930. He attended North Georgia College, and graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Georgia. He worked as a sportswriter for UGA's The Red and Black newspaper, and then went on to the Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Constitution, working with Lewis Grizzard, Bill Shipp, and Reg Murphy. He was appointed executive editor of the newly combined Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He retired from the vice presidency of Cox Enterprises in 1988."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection","http://sclfind.libs.uga.edu/sclfind/view?docId=ead/RBRL220ROGP.xml"],"dcterms_subject":["University of Georgia","Red and black","Atlanta journal and constitution","American newspapers--Georgia--History","Journalists--Georgia--Interviews","Press and politics--Georgia--History","Civil rights movements--Georgia--History","American newspapers","Civil rights movements","Journalists","Kidnapping","Press and politics","Universities and colleges--Alumni and alumnae","Inman (Ga.)--History","Georgia"],"dcterms_title":["Jim Minter, 06 October 2008."],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-052/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 052, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia, 30602-1641."],"dlg_local_right":["Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule."],"dcterms_medium":["oral histories (literary works)","interviews"],"dcterms_extent":["1 interview (82 min.) : sd., col."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Murphy, Reg, 1934-","Gulliver, Hal, 1935-2016","Miller, Zell, 1932-2018","Minter, Jim","Cox family","Harp family","Magill, Dan","Shipp, Bill"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":"Jim Minter interviewed by Bob Short \r\n2008 October 6 \r\nAthens, GA \r\nReflections on Georgia Politics \r\nROGP-052 \r\nOriginal: video, 80 minutes \r\n \r\nsponsored by: \r\nRichard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies \r\nUniversity of Georgia Libraries \r\nand \r\nYoung Harris College \r\n \r\nDate of Transcription:  June 24, 2009 \r\n \r\nBOB SHORT:  I'm Bob Short and this is Reflections on Georgia Politics.  We're happy to have as our guest, Jim Minter, well known author and former executive editor and editor of the Atlanta newspapers.  Welcome, Jim. \r\n \r\nJIM MINTER:  Well, Bob, I'm glad to be here.  I remember when you were a great journalist.  As a matter of fact, I take responsibility for you being in politics because I'd been in two colleges, North Georgia College, the University of Georgia, School of Journalism with Sam Caldwell.  And then I was in one army with him, it was the American Army, the same regiment at Camp Rucker, Alabama.  And Sam and I were well known to each other.  As a matter of fact, when we were at North Georgia College that newspaper was The Cadet Bugler and we both ran for office.  And I beat Sam by one vote.  Sam had not perfected his political skills at that time.   \r\nAnyway, Sam called me one day and says, \"I'm getting another job,\" and he was in the state wildlife commission or whatever it was called, Game and Fish Commission.  And he said, \"Wouldn't you like to have my job?\"  And I said, \"What does it pay?\"  And it was about a $5 raise, maybe about $65 a week, and I said, \"Sam, let me think about it.\"  I thought about it and then I told my friend, Bob Short, I said, \"You might be interested in this,\" and is that a correct story? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  That's true.  As far as I know, yeah. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  And you've had this distinguished political career and I'm proud of you. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, thank you, Jim.  I'm proud of you also.  You've not only been a great journalist but you have been a great author, and I have read your books with great interest and with a smile on my face. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Well, my book didnt exactly make the New York Time bestseller list, but a few of my friends read it.  Like my friend, Lewis Grizzard said, it's sort of a book of columns and so forth.  Said they make nice gifts because you don't have to read them.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Inman, Georgia. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Inman, Georgia's in Fayette County.  The tag number used to be 112 and before that it was less than that.  Remember when they numbered the tags by the size of the county? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Mmhmm. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  But Inman, Georgia was a farming community.  It had a railroad until 1938 when they took the railroad out because the business was not that good.  I remember my dad telling a story that they got a group of people from Fayette County to drive to Atlanta before court.  The judge, it was a hearing, some sort of a hearing, I don't remember that he knew exactly what it was.  But anyway, he said there were two car loads that went up there for the hearing about not doing away the railroad.   \r\nAnd the presiding judge or whatever listened to them to say that we just can't do this because we'd have no way to get to Atlanta to the doctor, would have no way to go to shop and so forth, that this is our way to Atlanta.  And daddy said at that point the judge went down the list.  \"Mr. Minter, how did you get here today?\"  \"Well, I drove.\"  That was short, and he said that he knew that their protest was over.  But Inman was a farming community.  It had gin, a gin house, and of course there was a railroad station, which incidentally I restored and have a little office there, and two or three stores.  It was getting smaller by the time I grew up, but the main thing I remember about it was it was sort of, the roads, the way they ran it really made sort of a square circle, do you know what I mean, a rectangle.   \r\nWell, we lived here.  Had an aunt who lived here, my grandmother was here, another aunt lived here.  And I loved to eat.  They were great cooks so I would sort of go around and sniff and if I smelled fried chicken, I'd stop here and eat.  If I smelled something that was down the road -- but we ate well, but of course I grew up in the Depression.  There was no money.  My dad had planned to come to the University of Georgia to be a county agent.  He had made one trip over here to scout the place out and so forth, but then his dad died.  That was about 1929 and so he had to stay home and run the farm at 17-years-old, and then the Depression and so forth, and so he wound up losing our land to taxes and so forth.  He was very proud that he didn't go bankrupt as a lot of people did.   \r\nBut Bob, after he died I was going through his desk and I would see what he would do.  He'd go to the bank in Fayetteville and borrow $50 for a plough.  A plough was one crop, you know, and I think he had about 13 families living with him.  So he had borrowed $50 for each family to raise their crop -- sharecroppers.  And then when the bad times really hit, that little note he borrowed for $50 from the bank in Fayette would be sold to somebody in Atlanta, and then pretty soon it'd be sold to somebody in New York, sort of like the crisis we're going through with the banks now in 2008.  But there was no money, I mean there was no money at all.  And I remember, I think it was about 1936 that my dad kept a ledger, and I was an only child.  My mother was a schoolteacher but she was not getting paid, and that year our total cash expenditures not counting fertilizer, and clothes, and all that stuff, the total was $60, most of that being for Prince Albert tobacco, my dad smoked.  He smoked Prince Albert during the week and rolled his own, and smoked Camels on Sunday.   \r\nBut it was a great place to grow up.  I mean, you knew everybody.  The black family next door, my great treat on Sunday morning was to go out and eat Sunday breakfast with them.  They had smoked link sausage and I used to do that, and I remember that when I was growing up, we took the Atlanta Georgian.  My grandmother Minter took the Atlanta Journal.  My grandmother Harrell took the Atlanta Constitution.  Well, I read all three to the finish and the Georgian had great funnies but they went out of business, and -- but this tenant family that lived across the road from us had papered the house with the colored Georgia comics, and for several years I guess I would go out there and see my old comic friends on the wall out there from the Georgian that was extinct. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Tell us about your mother's family, the Harps. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Well, the Harps came around in here behind the Indians, and as a matter of fact we had traced it back and one of our Harp ancestors probably was an Indian agent, very likely might have been married to an Indian woman.  But, because that went back before the Treaty of Warm Springs.  But my mother's family, the Harps have been in Fayette County since about 1820.  My great grandfather Harp, his name is on the cornerstone of the Fayette County Courthouse, which for many years was the oldest operating courthouse in Georgia.  It's now a chamber of commerce building.  But anyway, they've been there a long time and they were saw millers, farmers, and so forth.  And my uncle Harry Harp was quite a character.  He had a lot to do with, he was the one who went around the county signing up people for the OEA when the electric lights came through here.  And he was Senator Russell's Fayette County campaign manager when Senator Russell ran for governor.   \r\nAnd after -- this is a story my daddy told me -- and after Russell was elected in the governor, youngest in the state and so forth, was that 1932? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  '32. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Yes, but anyway daddy said Uncle Harry was invited to go to Winder  to sit on the rostrum, the podium or whatever at Russell's speech, the celebration of the victory.  So Uncle Harry was a terrible driver, so he asked my dad who was not related to him but married to my mother to drive him to Wynder.  So dad said he'd drove him over there and on the way they stopped to get a Coca-Cola, and remember in those days at little country stores, you sat on nail kegs.  And Uncle Harry started drinking his Coca-Cola sitting on a nail keg which had a little nail in it, and when he got up he tore his pants right in the seat of his pants.  And daddy said, \"Well, Harry,\" he said, \"Now when you're up there on the podium with Senator Russell,\" he said, \"just keep your feet on the floor and nobody will see.\"   \r\nAnd according to my dad, Russell was introducing his guests and he said, \"Now, my great friend from Fayette County, Harry Harp,\" and he said Uncle Harry was smoking a [indiscernible] cigar, put the cigar in his mouth, crossed his leg and said everybody giggled, he showing his underwear.  Uncle Harry got to be mayor of Fayetteville and he was always into something, but I've always said if he hadn't tore his pants that time he might have been elected to statewide office.  But anyway, when I had graduated from Fayette County high school, and of course I went through Fayette County high school during World War II.  At the time, we had seven and a half miles of paved road in Fayette County.  It was Highway 52, went from Jonesboro to Mr. Charlie Redwine's [ph] place of business.  You know who Mr. Charlie was. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Mr. Charlie, yes.  Well, let's tell folks who he was. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  He was for many years president of the Senate and when the -- and I think it was the year when Gene Talmadge ran against Senator George  that year, Mr. Charlie Redwine ran for governor.  He got beaten pretty badly, but anyway, he was very powerful in state politics.  So the paved road came to his house and it stopped, and there were no other paved roads in the county.  But anyway, I was saying that the Fayette County high school, because there were no paved roads and the train had been taken out, and I guess we had maybe you could ride the mail bus to Atlanta, but during World War II we couldn't get any teachers because they didn't have any gas to come to Fayetteville and there was no way to get there.  So we had housewives.   \r\nSo my education was pretty skimpy, increased by the fact that when I got old enough to go to school, we lived about a mile from the bus stop and my dad thought I was too scrawny to start school.  I was only five years old, you know how it works in those days.  So my mother taught me at home my first year.  So I only had ten years of schooling when I graduated from high school.  What I'm getting around to, my Uncle Harry who said he was a great friend of Senator Russell drove down to our house right after I graduated from high school and said, \"I saw in the paper where they're making appointments to the naval academy.\"  And said, \"I called Senator Russell,\" and he said, \"I can get you an appointment at the naval academy if you would like it.\"  And I said, \"Well I appreciate it but I don't think I'd last very long up there.\"  So I don't know whether I could have gotten -- whether Senator Russell would have given me an appointment to the Naval Academy or not, but I know one thing, if he had I would not have lasted long. \r\nSo I went to North Georgia College, which was a great place. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And then transferred to the University. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Transferred here after two years and one quarter at North Georgia College. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  When did you decide to become a journalist? \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Well, we had a great teacher in high school, Ms. Francis Carter who's been deceased about two years from Union Point.  And she was -- she came to Fayetteville I guess when I was in about the -- right after the war, and she started the school paper called The Fayette High Times, done on an old mimeograph machine, which was a mess cutting those stencils and so forth.  And she made me editor of that paper and she told me that I ought to go to journalism school, so I said, well, I guess, you know, I had no idea what to do, you know.  So I said I'll go to journalism school.  And my mother and daddy judged that the University of Georgia was both too large and too expensive, and I think the enrollment was approaching 6,000 with a big boost from the veterans coming home. \r\nSo for some reason, I went to North Georgia College.  For one reason, you got free uniforms and you didn't have to buy clothes, and I remember my mother wrote the dean of admission, Dean Will D. Young, a great man, North Georgia, and said, \"My son wants to study journalism.  Can he learn journalism at North Georgia College?\" And Dean Young wrote back and said, \"We are starting a department of journalism next year,\" which was an outright lie.  So I went to North Georgia to study journalism and of course there was no journalism there.  But after I beat Sam Caldwell for the editorship of the Cadet Bugler and served in that capacity for one quarter, I decided to transfer over here.  And my mother and my daddy said, \"No, we can't afford it.  We just -- you just stay where you are.\"  So I transferred myself and went home that Christmas and told them I had transferred, which incidentally was the time that Dean Drewry got shot and I had to wait for a while to be in his course.   \r\nBut anyway, you know, North Georgia was a school of about 600 and over here it was about 6,000.  And I never had -- I was pretty naive and got a room in Joe Brown Hall, and my two roommates were from New York State, and they were veterans of the 101st Airborne at Bastogne, and they brought liquor to the room, and women to the room and everything, and I was terrified.  And so as soon as I could, I managed to get transferred out to a room with my friend Ray Jenkins from Camilla.  And Ray was a journalism student, and he went on to be an assistant to Jody Powell in the White House.  He was on the staff of the Columbus Ledger when they won the Pulitzer with the Phenix City investigation, and of all, I've never believed it, but he wound up in H.L. Mencken's chair at the Baltimore Sun.  As editor there, Reg Murphy hired him, and so anyway I've had a checkered career.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You were on the Red and Black here? \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Oh, yeah.  My one great experience, I transferred from the Monitor over the Christmas holidays and I was assigned, really my ambition was to be a political writer, but at the Red and Black they assigned me on the sports staff.  And it came time for spring practice, football, which I was to cover.  And of course I had never seen a college football -- well, I had, but, you know, I'd never been anywhere I didn't know anybody.  So I introduced myself to Coach Butts and then saw him a couple of times.  And then Frank Leahy from Notre Dame was coming down to observe the Georgia practice and study Coach Butts' famous passing game.  And Leahy was, well I guess, Touchdown Jesus -- know that he was next to God at least at that time.   \r\nAnd so I was assigned to go down and talk to Frank Leahy and get a story about him, and I was terrified.  So I went down in the stadium and I'm sort of backed up in the hedge because I was really nervous, you know.  Anyway, Coach Butts who barely knew me, walked over to me and says, \"Frank and I are going to watch this from the stands.  Would you like to go up and sit with us?\"  And I did, but that was a great thing about Coach Butts, he could be so nice and, you know, not many coaches would have done that to a little, old scared kid, you know.  But he was helping me out.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Who were some of your contemporaries on the Red and Black at that time? \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Well, let's say, of course there was John Pennington, you know, who discovered -- played a big role in Jimmy Carter's getting in the legislation, getting elected and so forth.  John was our star.  He had been on the Stars and Stripes and the Pacific, I believe.  And then there was Mike Edwards who went onto the National Geographic, and of course there was my roommate Ray Jenkins was not on the Red and Black.  He was the editor of the Pandora, which we thought was a pretty lowly job compared to being on the Red and Black.  And then my great friend, Glen Vaughn who became the editor and publisher of the Columbus Legend-Enquirer, and also with Claude Williams started the Athens Daily News here in Athens.  But Glen has had a distinguished career.   \r\nThen there was a guy named Dick Brooks who was a correspondent for Stars and Stripes in Korea and made quite a name for himself over there.  And of course, one of our stars was a guy named Dewey Benefield who really never got into the newspaper business after he went through law school and wound up a key player at Sea Island with the Jones Family.  And gosh, before me there were other people like William Atierson [ph] and they were just running up.  It was a good bunch of people that came along.  They did well. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And you caught the eye of the Atlanta Journal. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  I caught the eye of Dan McGill who was the PR person for the Georgia Athletic Association.  He worked through Guy Tiller who was the assistant to Ed Danforth, and arranged for me to be hired, and this was in the -- after I graduated from here in 1951, I was waiting to be called in the army.  And the deal was, I'd go work there for the summer because I was going to be called in about September, and because of the rule you had to get your job back if you were called in service.  So I knew I'd have a job when I came back.  So anyway, Dan got me that job and pretty soon after I got that, Danforth called me in and says, \"Son, you know what's the matter with you?\"  And I said, \"No, sir, Mr. Danforth.  What is it?\"  He said, \"You're suffering from acute youth.\"  He was right, but I've been cured. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You worked with some mighty good people, Ed Pope. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Ed Pope was my boss for a time, the greatest boss I've ever had.  Bob Christian who, we didnt get along too well while we were working together, but became great friends after when he became a vice president for Eastern Airlines.  Your friend, Eddie Barker, well he was on the other paper though, wasn't he?   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Eddie was on the Journal. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Oh yeah, that's right.  Yeah, but now, Eddie was writing a column for a while too, after he got out of sports. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Syndicated column, syndicated. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  And of course, Ed Miles, that was the great golf writer, and of course Guy Tiller was the -- was probably the finest reporter I ever knew, and Guy liked to drink a little, and he -- I remember when he died, I think there were more women that showed up in black since Major John Pelham from the Confederate Army, and I think Tiller held the record until Lewis Grizzard died, which you know I hired Lewis four times. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Had a good relationship with Lewis. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Oh, yeah.  He was a wonderful person. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Great writer. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Great writer. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Big Georgia fan. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Great Georgia fan, but the thing about Louis was, he probably had the best newspaper mind that I've ever known.  I wouldn't say he was the best newspaper man I've ever known, but he had the best mind on how to get it started, what people wanted to read and so forth.  And he was -- he was offered the job as editor of paper in, I think, North Carolina, maybe Greensboro or somewhere.  He was offered the job as editor of the Cox paper in Austin, Texas, which is a good sized newspaper in the capital city in Texas, good job.  And then in one of his sabbaticals from the Atlanta Journal- Constitution, he went to Chicago, and he was about to be made managing editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, which he felt like he had to commit to being there a while, so he called and said that he didn't really want to be in Chicago, and so he came home to write the column, which he had never really done before. \r\nBut I thought when we brought him -- when I brought him back to Atlanta to write the column that I had no idea that I knew he would be okay.  I didn't know he would be great, but I thought we were really bringing him back for an editor's job, and I told him, I said, when he started writing the column and it got sort of successful, I said, \"Lewis, you know, you can't do this forever.  You can do it ten years at the most.  You'll have to do something else or you'll just burn out.\"  So in his last days when I was visiting Lewis at Emory Hospital every day, he was in his hospital bed and had his typewriter beside the bed, because every day he was going to feel like resuming his column and be able to write one tomorrow.   \r\nSo I went by one day and he had his typewriter, and he said, \"Well, I think I'm going to be able to write one in the next couple of days.\"  \"You know,\" he said, \"You told me when I started this column that I could only do it about ten years and I'd burn out and have to do something else, and I just wanted to remind you it's been over ten years and I'm still at it.\"  And I said, \"Lewis, that's amazing, how do you do it?\"  And he said, \"I got a secret.\"  \"What's that, Lewis?\"  He said, \"I remember a lot of things that never happened.\"  He was the best. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Tell us about now ascending up the ladder into a big management position with the, at the time, both newspapers.   \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Well, I never really thought that I would go into management.  I thought that I might be sports editor when Furman Bisher retired.  Good thing I didn't count on that because he still has it, but I thought I would have about ten years writing the sports column after Furman had retired, but that didn't work out.  But anyway, I don't know exactly why that they decided to move me from sports to the Constitution, except really I do know.  We had a union movement at the Journal and it was pretty tight, and of course the management was not in favor of a union.  Well, the Journal's sports department was unanimous against the union, and so they said, well this guy must be pretty good, take him to the Constitution where they had a little in-house union that they wanted to get rid of.   \r\nI imagine that, just between us, I was probably sent to the Constitution probably to bust the union, which was no trouble to do because there was not much of a union anyway.  Just had to treat people a little better because the union, when they negotiated for a contract, because the Constitution had a union, they made sure that the Journal people got paid more than the union people.  So all you had to do was just start paying them the same thing the non-union people were making and the union's gone.  But anyway, it was a great experience.   \r\nOne thing sort of bad about it was that the editorial page where they carry who's who, you know, well, it said Reg Murphy, editor.  Well, and the way it worked, Reg Murphy was not really the editor.  He was editor of the editorial page.  Had no control over the newsroom and so he answered to the publisher.  I, the managing editor of the newspaper, answered to the executive editor, who was Bill Fields, and by the way, the most underestimated, underappreciated journalist in the state of Georgia ever.  And so I answered to him, and I had -- the managing editor had nothing to do with the editorial page.  The editor had nothing to do with the rest of the newspaper, but the public didn't know that.  So, you know, the people were always calling Murphy wanting him to do this and do that, and Murphy didn't want to -- couldn't say, \"Well I had nothing to do with that.\"  So anyway, Murphy and I, well at the time, bitter enemies and didn't get along at all.  And it was too bad because, you know, Reg went on to a great career, and if Reg and I had had the gumption and had the help from other people there to have formed an alliance, Reg brought a lot to the table.  He knows how to deal with people and he's a good salesman, which I'm not, and I think if Reg had stayed there that maybe the Dayton takeover could have been fended off and the history of the newspapers, and even the history of the state of Georgia might be a lot different.  But it didn't happen that way. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Let's talk for a minute about the newspapers.  They finally merged, but the newspapers were owned by the Cox Family, Governor Cox of Ohio, who ran for president. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Ran for president with Franklin D. Roosevelt as his running mate, right. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And his heirs have continued to run the newspaper. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Right. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What sort of political influence do they have with the management of that newspaper now? \r\n \r\nMINTER:  I don't really know.  I know this, while I was there, see when I was first there, Jim Cox Jr., who was a good newspaper man, ran the -- Jack Tarver answered to him.  And I only met him once.  Anne Cox Chambers, who lives in Atlanta, who is listed as, I think she's officially the president of the Atlanta newspapers or something, that's all legal, corporate stuff.  I never got a telephone call from her the whole 40 years, the 10 years, the 20 years I was in management, I never got a call from her.  She didn't recognize me if she met me somewhere, you know.   \r\nSo I got nothing from the family.  And then Jim Cox. Jr. died and the funeral was in Dayton. I remember Tarver coming home from the funeral, stopped by my office and he said, \"Well, this is probably the end of it\".  And I said, \"Why is that?\"  He said, \"Well, you know, the two sisters who -- \" Governor Cox had left it so that the two sisters would have no say so in the management of the company, only Jim.  And then with Anne Cox's neighbor, the great lawyer, Buster Kilpatrick, they -- and some of the family, they decided to break the trust and will or whatever it is.   \r\nBut anyway, they wanted to take the newspapers over from their brother, who was -- did have a drink now and then, and fooled around with women and so forth, lived in Miami, and they wanted to declare him incompetent, and take over.  Gene Patterson, who was then the executive editor of the Journal-Constitution, they tried to enlist him.  Well, when they did, he instead went to Tarver and told him about the palace revolution.  Tarver went to Jim Cox, and they had a big meeting, and Tarver said he was there and Jim, and his sisters, and so forth, and Tarver said, \"I said to the sisters, 'I said, girls, your brother knows more about newspapers drunk than you all do sober.' \"   \r\nAnd now the brother's gone, and so Tarver says, \"Well, I think I'm in trouble.\"  And sure enough, then Barbara Anthony lived in Hawaii, and her husband came in and was made the -- took Jim Jr.'s place.  And pretty soon Tarver was gone.  I mean, he officially retired, but he didn't, and then things changed.  Now, the Dayton people who had been subservient to the people in Atlanta, Tarver had been their boss, they were always jealous of Atlanta.  Dayton's really sort of a hayseed town, but I remember we had a meeting at the Commerce Club.  The editors and the Dayton people were down.  The guy who was publisher of the Dayton paper at the time was with us.  We had a big room and Tarver was the host.  Waiter comes around for you to order drinks and so stopped somebody over here, [indiscernible] said, \"What will you have?\"  Said, \"I'll have a scotch on the rocks,\" and gets to the Dayton publishers, and he says, \"I'd like a scotch too, but make mine Chivas Regal.  I don't want the bar scotch,\" and the waiter said, \"Sir, Chivas Regal is a bar scotch at the Commerce Club.\"  There was a lot of that, you know. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Let's talk for a minute about Tarver.  As I recall, Tarver was a pretty heavy hitter in the Atlanta business -- \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Big time, big time. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  -- and political community. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Yeah, Tarver was, he sat at the table with, I don't guess mules sit at a table, but he shared the story what they call the big mules, you know, Mills Lane, and Richard Rich, and bank people, and so forth.  Yeah, Tarver was really locked into state politics and he was in a meeting, I remember.  He told me, when the bankers and some of the money people invited Carl Sanders over to talk about running for lieutenant governor, and they met with him an hour or so, talked with him, and after he left, they said, \"Well, you know, this guy probably ought to be governor.\"  So they called Carl and said, \"No you're not running for lieutenant governor, you're running for governor.\"  So that's kind of -- that's the way they played, and of course Mr. Woodruff, you know I never met Mr. Woodruff.  He's the one person in my era that somehow I just never -- didn't know him.  Ivan Allen was a great one.  He and Tarver were the, I guess they were the closest of anybody. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What happened when Tarver left? \r\n \r\nMINTER:  When Tarver left, they made Tom Wood, incidentally he and Dick Nick Smith had gone into the community newspaper business and probably the greatest newspaper story of the last decade, and they were just tremendously successful, brought Tom in, but they didn't make him publisher, they made him president.  And then they moved Cox Headquarters from Dayton to Atlanta with Chuck Glover as head of Cox Enterprises.  Well, they immediately wanted to start running the Atlanta papers, which they couldn't do when Tarver was there.  I mean, they couldn't even touch them.  As a matter of fact, Tarver rode them pretty hard.  So it was a little bit of get even here, you know. \r\nAnd, but what they could not understand about the Atlanta newspapers was that we had all these people over at the capitol, and that we sent reporters and photographers out in the state, and that nobody was interested in politics.  It was dull.  Of course, they weren't interested in it.  They didn't know anything about Georgia politics, and of course they had grown up in Dayton, which Dayton is not a capital city, and there's a difference in a capital city newspaper and one that's not.  So anyway, that's when they began to fiddle with the Atlanta newspapers, and when you would -- I did not ever get a call from Jim Cox Jr., I did get one, but I can't tell about it.  [Laughter]  Has to do with some -- might come out a little racist.   \r\nBut anyway, well at my level there was never any contact with the Cox family.  There got to be a great deal of contact with the family through Garner Anthony, nobody else but him.  And because he had his ideas about what a newspaper ought to be and so forth, and didnt really understand that, for example, a Cox news release, he would say you want to run it exactly as it's delivered to you.  That would never happen in the old days, but anyway.  So they began to, first thing, they considered us all to be terribly racist.  I mean, we were just Southern racists, and then they considered the readers wanting to read about Hollywood stars, and music, and entertainment, and not politics.   \r\nSo that's when the papers began to change.  But at the end of the Tarber-Woods regime when I was there, the Journal-Constitution grew to the largest newspaper in the South, exceeding the Miami Herald.  And our after tax, our pre-tax revenues were tremendous, around $20 billion a year, and now I think they're about zero.  Of course, a lot of that has to do with internet, but it's like one of my newspaper friends in Nashville told me, said recently a newspaper can survive the internet and it can survive bad management, but it can't survive both at the same time, and I think that's what's got it finally.  Terrible management, which is surprising to me because Jim Kennedy, the grandson, is a great fellow and I don't know why this has happened, but Jim is a -- he's in the tradition of his grandfather and his uncle.  But Cox Enterprises is making tons of money, at least it was until the current crisis.  But I think it's obvious to everybody that the newspapers have changed a great deal, and it's not all due to the internet. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  There's been a public perception over the years that the Constitution is a very liberal newspaper and the Journal is a very conservative newspaper.  Was that by design? \r\n \r\nMINTER:  By design, yes, and of course in many ways if you look back to the Constitution, it's never been as liberal as it was said to be, and the Journal has never been as conservative as it was thought to be.  But yeah, you had to have a liberal editor for the Constitution.  We didn't necessarily have to have one as liberal as Tom Teepen, whoever they've got now, which I guess we're talking about Cynthia Tucker who is editor of the editorial page, and of course has no influence over the news guiding operation.  But yeah, it's picked that way, and of course McAllister who was the Journal editor was picked to be, of course he was not especially a liberal, but he certainly was not conservative.  But it's sort of a phony house arrangement. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  When did the Atlanta Journal-Constitution change from the days when Marvin Griffith called them \"those lying Atlanta newspapers\"? \r\n \r\nMINTER:  I don't know.  It's not been too long because when I was there, there was still a lot of -- you still heard that from time to time, and I remember, Bob, when we were going to South Georgia to cover sports, you know, used to have those staff cards with the name Journal-Constitution on there.  You know, I didn't care too much about going to [indiscernible] with one of those cards.  Did you? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  No, I really didn't.  I really didn't. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  But the strange thing is, my son who works there now said that he was covering something, the road race in Atlanta last week and he said, one of his colleagues is a photographer.  Not necessarily from around here, was -- said he was surprised to hear the photographer complain that, \"Gee, you know, it's getting as hard to interview people because people don't like us because the paper's so liberal.\"  Well, you know, that's not new.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Let's talk for a minute about covering the capitol.  Did you have an overall plan of how you would cover politics and the state capitol? \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Oh, yes.  Of course, you know, first we had a political editor who was really about the, in-house, about the third ranking person on the paper.  You know, Bill Shipp was a political editor, and my friend Tyler Raines who is another story.  Charlie Pew, remember him? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Charlie Pew. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  And they were the chief political writers and wrote a column.  And then you had people assigned to the House, several of them, people assigned to the Senate, the Governor's office.  And I guess even when we had a very small staff back in the '70s and early '80s, we probably had, maybe the two papers had maybe as many as 15 people every day over there, plus covering the state courts and so forth, and everything.  And maybe we did over-cover a little, but to be a successful paper that makes money and has circulation.  There's also this thing called power.  I mean it's got to have a stick.  The Dayton people didn't understand that, that you've got to have a stick.  And for example, when I was editor of the Constitution, of the Journal-Constitution, you know, I wasn't in great shakes, but I had that job.  And if I wanted to call the Governor, I mean he'd pick up the phone.   \r\nThey tell me that doesn't happen now and, you know, they pay attention.  I remember when George Busby and Tom Morland made the deal with the Feds to get a lot of extra money that was laying around for the highway program, I mean he comes over, wants a meeting with the editorial boards.  He comes over and he wants to, before he does that, he wants to explain what he's doing and get you on his side.  They don't do that anymore, but gosh, it was -- the newspaper was a powerful influence at one time.  You know, I've always said the governors come and go but the newspaper stays.  Well, it's probably not staying anymore, but it was a -- the Atlanta Journal Constitution was almost a third branch of government, and another thing, the other papers pretty much followed their lead on a lot.  I mean, not totally, but particularly on news coverage and so forth, they dominated.  \r\nAnd had great statewide circulation.  Remember the Journal Predate?  The Journal Predate was like today's Journal -- it came out and then we would go into composing and change a little and chip off the datelines and send it to the people in South Georgia.  It was a morning paper and it had a circulation of 40,000 and then our accountants who didn't understand what they were doing said, \"You know, look, let's get rid of this paper.  And we will resell those 40,000 in the Atlanta paper.  It would be cheaper, would be more attractive to our advertisers and we'll have more circulation, and have more money.\"  And so in one day we lopped of 40,000 newspapers, the Journal Predate.  Know what that was, Bob? That was the third largest newspaper in Georgia. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Gee, whiz. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  And our geniuses in the circulation department, in the business department had no success in getting those papers resold in the Atlanta area.  So it's -- but when we began pulling out of the state, I think the papers just lost a lot of their clout and changed a lot of things. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Let me ask you this question speaking of this big stick and power, how did you decide which political candidates you would endorse? \r\n \r\nMINTER: Well, I really never played much a part in that.  The editorial board, of course the Journal had one and the Constitution had another, presided over the editorial pages, and at that time I think it included a cartoonist and two or three other writers.  Well, they pretty well decided that by themselves.  I'm sure they might talk to Tarver a lot and see how they were leaning, but only one time did Jim Cox ever mandate that somebody would be endorsed. He ordered his newspapers to endorse Richard Nixon over McGovern and that's when our friend Greg Favre resigned in protest in West Palm Beach. But the Journal and Constitution both endorsed Nixon. But that's the only time to my knowledge that the ownership ever played any role in endorsement other than, you know who the ownership is and why you're working here and so forth.  And I guess that has some influence, but actually the Cox operation was a great one, I thought, and very open, and let people do their job. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Do you think those endorsements are effective? \r\n \r\nMINTER:   Not anymore.  I think they might be -- I think they might be effective to endorse the school of superintendent of Raybun County or something like, I mean of your county, but not that that's wrong.  But I'd say one of the minor offices in Fulton County , the Dekalb County where people don't know, they might just pick it up and read it.  But as far persuading anybody, they may even hurt.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What was the role of the Atlanta newspapers in the Civil Rights Movement? \r\n \r\nMINTER:  I'd say it was a large role and not particularly in the Civil Rights Movement, but it was a large role in making Atlanta sort of an oasis and keeping the violence out of Atlanta.  That's what it did.  I think the main [indiscernible] truthfully was protecting Atlanta, because I'm not sure that, you know, those like Tarver and Ivan Allen at that time, and Mr. Woodruff, and all those people, I don't think they were great liberals.  I don't think they were on the cutting edge of change.  But I think they were -- I think it was pretty much a protective thing.  They wanted to keep business in Atlanta, safe, and moving ahead, and they did.  But Ralph McGill and Gene Patterson, they were -- and that relationship with Dr. King, they played quite a role.   \r\nGot a lot of criticism, Tarver did for not covering the Selma march, and of course that led to a lot of trouble in the future and Gene Patterson particularly was very critical of it.  He was -- because Tarver did not -- told him whether to not go, well they just should have gone.  One thing about Tarver, I was at home at Inman one day putting up a pasture fence and Tarver liked for you to work seven days a week, and I might have had Saturday night off, after working Friday night, but about eight o'clock got a call from Tarver Saturday morning.  He says, be at the paper at ten.  He says, Jimmy Carter's coming by, and of course Carter was running for governor.  So we all go up there ten o'clock and meet Carter who's all by himself.   \r\nGo down and sit down in the library and Bill Shipp is there, and Shipp's got his tape recorder, and Murphy is there.  Murphy won't speak to Carter.  And of course, Tarver didnt like Carter either.  So we go in and sit down, and Carter essentially says this.  Says, \"Look, you know\", says, \"I'm running for president, as you know.  Got a lot of things going for me.\"  Says, \"I can win this election.\"  Says, \"There's one thing that I desperately need and he says, I need somebody from my hometown newspaper covering my campaign.\"  He says, \"If the Journal-Constitution would put somebody on the road with me, I could wrap this thing up.  I could be president and so forth.\"  And of course, he was a next door neighbor of Anne Cox Chambers, you know, had been when he was governor.  And she was his principal financial backer, and so, but that didn't phase Tarver.   \r\nSo Tarver turned around and says, \"Well, governor,\" he says, \"I'll tell you something.\"  He says, \"I don't think you've got a chance to win,\" he said, \"but if that changes and if I see where I think you are a real candidate,\" he said, \"I'll put somebody on the road.\"  He said, \"Meanwhile, we're just not going to do it.\"  And you know Carter, you know that look he gets.  I knew then we were about to be up the creek.  So anyway, also at that meeting Carter was talking about some issues and Shipp turns and faces Carter and says, \"Well, governor, you said this then, then you said this then.  How do you explain the difference?\"  It was an awful, awful meeting.  I mean, it was embarrassing and so at the time we had a rule that you had to get Mr. Fields' permission to send a reporter out of state.  But Carter, next week he was going to Chattanooga to talk to Jody Powell and so I was feeling sorry for the little son of a gun.   \r\nBut, you know, I called in Rex Granum and I said, \"Rex, go up to Chattanooga just across the border, and cover Carter's speech up there.  So he went to Chattanooga and covered the speech, came back and wrote the story, and I was waiting for Tarver to come down on me.  It never happened.  Rex Granum stayed on him for the rest of the campaign and Tarver never said a word.  That's the way he was.  If he knew he was wrong, he would -- he would not admit it but he just wouldn't say anything about it.  But so that's how we got a -- how Carter got somebody from the Journal-Constitution to cover his campaign. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Jim, if you will, let's talk for a minute about some of your prize pupils.  You mentioned Hal Raines.   \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Well, that's an interesting story at least to me.  We had a TV editor named Paul Jones and a movie editor.  Paul was a character, but in those days, we didn't have a TV guidebook, and the TV editor, who was also the movie editor, had to call the station every day and find out what was going to find out what was going to be on every night and so forth and everything.  Well, Paul was not very good at details, complicated by the fact that Jack Tarver was a great TV addict.  So every morning, Tarver would come in just raising hell about the TV clock that Paul had gotten wrong.  \r\nSo we had a guy named Dick Greene who was -- who had been working in Alabama, an old friend of mine.  He walked in one day and Dick was [indiscernible] and he said, \"I know how you can get that TV clock fixed and get Tarver off your back.\"  And I said, \"For God's sakes, tell me how\".  He said, \"There's a TVmovie that's in Birmingham that I worked with in Tuscaloosa named Harold Raines.  He's a smart boy.  He'll fix it for you.\"  So I called Hal Raines, asked him to come over to be interviewed and he came on the fourth of July which, the newspaper is closed down.  So I picked Harold up at the airport, drove into the office, we had a long talk and as soon as I found out that he was not going to be a union organizer, we started talking about a job.  And I said, \"Harold, the standard question, what's your big ambition in this business?\"  He says, \"I want to be the nation's premier gossip writer.\"  He said, \"I want to do Hollywood stuff and so forth.\"  I said, \"Well that's fine, and in the meantime, would you be the political editor.\" \r\nSo I was still, you know, I hadn't entirely made up my mind.  And he asked a question that really wrapped it up for me.  He says, \"If I come to Atlanta, do you know where I can keep my bird dog?\"  And I said, \"Well, my, you're one of us.\"  So we had a great relationship and when my, our friend Harold Gulliver was leaving the paper, I took Hal to lunch at the Ritz Carlton downtown, and that's so many years ago.  And I offered him -- at the time, Harold was, I think he was a bureau chief of the New York Times in Atlanta, and I was trying to persuade him to be the editorial page editor of the Constitution.  And he said, \"Well, you know, I appreciate it,\" but he said, \"I've got a good crack of being editor of the New York Times.\"  And I said, \"Harold, you know, \" I said, \"I'm sure you do.  To burn that bush is a pretty good ways off.\"  And he said, \"I really think I've got a crack at it.\"  He says, \"I'm going to go for it.\"  \r\nSo anyways, some years later when he got the job I sent him a note and I said, \"You know, Babe Ruth called his shot and you called yours.\"  But he was -- Harold Raines, my second best hire.  I put Lewis first, Harold second.  He was quite good and it's too bad what happened to him at the New York Times. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You mentioned Reg Murphy. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Yeah, Reg, you know, it's turned out Reg was fortunate to get kidnapped because --  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I was going to ask you about that.  That's a great, great, great story.  Tell us that story. \r\n \r\nMALE SPEAKER:  Can we pause before we tell the story?   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah, you okay?  You having fun? \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Am I doing all right? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You're doing great. \r\n \r\nMALE SPEAKER:  Here's a some water right there. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Yeah, I need a little shot.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  -- this stuff is to people.  Yeah, I do that class up at Young Harris College.  Sill, this is where this started and I used to have people come up.  Poor old Matt Mattingly drove all the way from St. Simon's to Young Harris just to do a little program and drove all the way back, and I said, well hell, that's just too much.  We're going to put him on -- record him.  And so I use these at the class up there now and these people go crazy over this. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  I was talking to Earl Leonard this morning.  He was talking about going up to be interviewed by you.  \r\n    \r\nSHORT:  Yeah, Leonard did a Russell thing. \r\n \r\nMINTER: He's a good talker, isn't he?    \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Oh, yeah. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  He's great.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah, Leonard.  He's something. \r\n \r\nMALE SPEAKER:  We're ready when you are. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Let me take another sip.  Where are we?  Do I need to ask the question again? \r\n \r\nMALE SPEAKER:  Yeah, go ahead and ask the question again.  Be careful when you raise your left hand because when you raise it too much it goes in the frame.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Okay, show my ears. That's what somebody said to me.  He said -- of course, I love George Busby.  Somebody says to me, he says, \"How'd you get along with George Busby?\"  I said, \"You know, George Busby to me has been one of our most effective governors.\"  But you know, I like him for another reason and that is when George Busby walks by, people look at me and say, look at that guy with those small ears.  \r\n \r\n[Laughter]  \r\n \r\nMINTER:  I got big ears.  Somebody told me that that's because I probably -- come from the south of London.  Says, people from the south of London have big ears.  That's what one of my friends told me. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Okay, where are we? \r\n \r\nMINTER:  They grow though as you get older. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I have said, you know, you mentioned Reg Murphy.  Can we pick it up there and let you go about the story?   \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Well, the Reg Murphy kidnapping, which you know a little about, Bob.  But anyway, it was during when Patty Hearst was kidnapped.  One afternoon a special agent in charge of FBI from Atlanta came by the office and wanted to meet confidentially with Murphy and me.   And he says that we have arranged to recover Patty Hearst, that she's going to be picked up, we can pick her up at the Atlanta airport tomorrow night.  But first we've got to have a classified ad in the paper to notify the people we're dealing with and it's got to say, \"Pat is okay\" in capital letters, and it can't be anything else but that.  And so, he says you can't tell anybody about it. \r\nSo of course he left and we told Tarver, and it was agreed that we'd put the ad in the classifieds section, and it was agreed that I would stay throughout the evening to see that nothing was changed and it came out, \"PAT IS OKAY\", exactly like the FBI agent had it.  So the ad ran and we expected the FBI to recover Patty Hearst.  It never happened.  We never heard any more from them.  So that was out there, you know.  And then about a week later we had a nine o'clock news conference in my office.  I'm then managing editor of the Constitution.  Reg is the editorial page editor.  I get a call from Murphy.  He says,  \"I've been kidnapped.\"  I said, \"Well Reg, you're in a hell of a fix because nobody would pay no ransom for you,\" and he screamed.  He says, \"But I'm in the trunk of somebody's car.\"  And then this voice comes on and says, \"We'll be in touch.\" \r\nSo people at the conference said, \"Well, what was that about.\"  I said, \"I think Murphy and Gulliver are out drinking again,\" and so then they left.  And George Tysinger was our copy desk chief.  Baldy was our cartoonist.  Well, Baldy was a great cartoonist but he couldn't spell and he always had something wrong with his cartoons.  So I said, walked down there and said, \"George, call Murphy's house and just be sure he's there,\" and I said, \"if Virginia answers, just don't alarm her, just tell her that you were trying to get in touch with him about the nightly correction to the Baldy cartoon.\" \r\nSo George calls and Virginia, Reg's wife, said, \"I'm concerned, he left with a man about some heating oil who had got some heating oil for the Atlanta school system,\" which there was a shorting of heating oil. And said, \"he's been gone about two hours and I haven't heard from him.\"  And then about that time we got a call from the television station that the man had called there.  The colonel in the American Revolutionary Army, and so anyway, at that time, I called Tarver.  Tarver says, call the FBI.   \r\nI did and the FBI swarmed down to the newspaper and put a recorder on my phone and everything, and they had guns on and so forth.  And we had a news editor named Glenn McCutchen, and so one of the FBI agents walked over to the newspaper and said, \"We need a picture of Mr. Murphy to send out on our -- \", you know, wherever they send them.  He said, \"Where can I get a picture of Mr. Murphy?\"  Well, we've probably got a file of them down in the reference room, but our news editor says, \"Well there's a lot of them on his wall in there in his office.  Go in there and get one of those.\"  So anyway, the special agent goes in there and there's a picture, a framed glass picture with Murphy and Lyndon Johnson, and Lyndon has got his arm draped around Murphy and says to Reg, to my good friend, Reg Murphy, Lyndon Johnson.  So the special agent takes his shoe, cracks that glass with his heel, takes his pocket knife and cuts Reg's face out of the picture.  Reg blamed it on me, never forgave me, and that was Reg's great picture with Lyndon Johnson. \r\nBut anyway, so there are a lot of telephone calls back and forth, and the guy rode Reg around for about two or three days, and also the calls to discuss ransom and so forth, and everything.  And finally it comes down to a call relayed through a little girl, a high school girl who was working part time in a lawyer's office, that the instructions that were to -- how the ransom was to be delivered -- the $700,000, which also insulted Murphy.  He thought he was at least worth $1 million, but anyway, in the meantime the instructions were to deliver it up here on 400 and 400 was desolate countryside then, to drive an open jeep, and to wear tennis shoes and a short sleeve shirt. I don't know that why was necessary, but he did.  And to have no bugs and no surveillance.  If that happened, then Murphy and I both would be eliminated.   \r\nAnd so of course I was elected, I had to drive the jeep, which was disappointing to me because I had been going over to this FBI building.  They had an automobile over there that I was to drive and I was to drive that car, and they would have an FBI agent with a machine gun in the back.  And we practiced that.  He had a compartment back there, and so -- but instead, I had to go it alone and it was sort of a cold, rainy day.  But anyway, drove it up there and saw the man.  Got to the place where we were going.  Dropped the money out and had two suitcases.  One had a $500,000 in twenties.  The other one had $200,000.  They got wedged in there and I couldn't get the damn thing out, and so I thought, this is going to be embarrassing.   \r\nIn the meantime, Reg and the kidnappers are waiting for me down the road to get it out.  And I tried to get that thing tugged out from under the seat, and I finally got it out, and anyway, just as I was about to get it out, this airplane comes down the middle of the median, you know, flying down the road obviously, looking over the situation.  The guy threatened to kill us, and I looked over to across the road and there's a guy out there, old farmer, trying to catch a horse, had the bridle chasing around.  And of course, the next day they was no farmer and no bridle and there was a cab that was broken down there.  We found out later we were covered by high powered rifles.  They were everywhere, you know.  So, but the FBI had already found out who the kidnapper was from a source in Miami and they just followed the guy home and got all the money back except $20 that his wife had spent for groceries.  And Terry Adamson who became one of Griffin Bell's lieutenants in the justice department was a law student at Emory who had worked some with the Constitution.  He picked Murphy up and took Murphy home and it all came out, we all lived happily ever after.  We only had a few problems.   \r\nI remember Tarver walked in and told Tom Wood who was then our business manager, said, \"Tom, call down to Murphy's house and tell his wife that if there's anything we can possibly do, we'll do it.  And just let us know.\"  So he called out there and came back in the room, and Tarver said, \"Does she need anything?\"  He said, \"Yes, said there was a lot of family and there was a lot of extra people there.  They were running out of toilet paper.  Could we bring over some toilet paper.\"  So we took care of that.   \r\nAnd then I'd been up forever and gotten no sleep and so forth, but then they had a press conference after I got back from my jeep ride and Murphy had been recovered in the lobby of the Journal-Constitution building. And I had no idea and -- what was going on really down there.  But Bill Fields comes to me and says, \"You got to go down to be interviewed at this press conference.\"  So I went down there and people were, you know, just full of folks, you know.  I had no idea, scared me.  But anyway, Aubrey Morris comes up with his microphone and he says, \"How did you feel heading out of town in an open jeep, in a short sleeved shirt and $700,000 in the car.\"  And I said, \"Well Aubrey, I felt sort of like Furman Bisher headed for spring training.\"  Because, you know, he always got a convertible from somebody else, and the expense account, and left.  But the happy ending to that story was that because of Patty Hearst being in captivity, Reg having been captivity even for a short time, Patty's father and mother got in touch with Reg.  You know, Randy Hearst worked here when Hearst owned the Georgian and then Patty's mother is from Atlanta.   \r\nSo they got to know Reg talking about the kidnapping thing, you know, what she was going through and so forth.  And since Reg didn't like me very well and had a great offer in San Francisco, he went to the San Francisco Examiner to be editor of Hearst's paper, and did a good job, and then got to be publisher.  And then Hearst made him publisher of the Baltimore papers.  That's in the newspapers worth a lot and Hearst sold the Baltimore paper to the Los Angeles Times Company. And the Wall Street Journal had a story that said that Murphy said that stock was $14.5 million.  So I sent him a wire.  I said, \"Next time you get your behind kidnapped, don't call me, write a check.\"  But Murphy and I have patched that all up and I say I admire him very much. He's had a great career and I just wish that we had -- I wish that he had stayed in Atlanta. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  So you retired from the newspapers, but you're still very active in journalism. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  No. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You've stopped writing? \r\n \r\nMINTER:  I don't write anything except checks.  I am wrote out. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You're wrote out.  I remember you telling me one time about, I think it was you, that when you became a journalist working for the newspapers that you told your mother that since you turned pro you didn't write home free.   \r\n \r\nMINTER:  No, you know, I've never -- writing has never been real easy for me.  I'm happy enough not to write.  I've never considered myself a writer.  I just was, I don't know, I really enjoyed the editing part of newspaper more than I did writing. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  But you established a lot of friends.  You were good friends with Senator Talmadge, for example.   \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Yes, he was -- Herman may be the smartest man I've ever known.  But it's amazing he didn't hold grudges -- a great line of his, he told me that he never really got angry with anyone at the Journal-Constitution except Bill Shipp and Hal Gulliver -- and he had reason to.  He said, \"If all I knew about myself is what I read in the Atlanta Constitution, I'd have voted against myself.\"  I don't know whether -- I guess you all can cut these things if you want to, but have you heard that story about our reporter who asked Herman what he really thought of Zell Miller?  You know they had that nasty campaign against.  Said, \"Well, Senator, well what do you really think of Zell Miller?\"  \"Well, I knew his daddy.  He too was a son of a bitch.\"   \r\nBut like I say, I used to go and eat breakfast with Herman when we were both out of office and he cooked breakfast.  I went over there one morning.  He was sitting there in his coveralls with his spittoon over there and chewing tobacco, and reading the Carl Sanders book that Carl had written.  I had read the book and so I said, \"What do you think of Carl's book?\"  He said, \"In his book, Carl comes up well ahead of Thomas Jefferson,\" but Herman was quite a character.  He was -- but he would talk nice about Zell and what the great things Zell had done with the Hope Scholarship.  He'd talk nice about, I forgot who he was going to talk nice about, but -- Carter.  Carter with these homes he's building and so forth and everything.   \r\nAnd I asked him one day, I said, \"Senator, of all the people you've served in the United States Senate,\" I said, \"who were the ones you really admire and respect?\"  He thought and he said, \"I would have to pick Ted Kennedy near the top of that list.\"  He said, \"He did his homework, he was a good senator.  I'd have to put him near the top of that list.  I told Rogers Wade about that.  Rogers said, \"I don't believe he said that.\"  But Herman was different.  I said, \"Well what do you consider your greatest accomplishment?\"  He said, \"I'd have to say that one of my greatest accomplishments was the establishment of the Georgia Forest Commission.\"  And he ticked off, when he started it and how much it had grown and so forth, and everything, and of course he had his own forest.   \r\nAnd we'd go out and we'd eat breakfast, and we'd go out and feed his bird dogs, and we'd get in his old, beat up pickup truck and we would go out there and cruise his timber.  He'd say, \"when I planted these pines back in 1948 I thought they might be useful at some time.\"  He said, \"now they are,\" but he sold a bunch of timber.  We'd go out and he knew how we would look at the top of the tree and take so many steps out, and look, and then we'd measure how tall the tree was by where were standing and we would count the trees in circle and he would figure out how much money he had -- he had a lot.  But he was a very, very -- I just liked him a lot. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  He also had served on the board of trustees at Young Harris College with Zell Miller. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Yeah.  Well, Zell and Lewis and Lee Walburn and I used to go to the country music thing in Nashville.  And I remember coming back after I guess he ran against Herman, we were driving back and Zell said he was going home and getting out of politics.  He was fed up and he was going to get out and go teach at Young Harris and he was not going to be in politics anymore.  That didn't work out, but one time we went up there and Zell had had a speech in Kentucky or somewhere.  So he came through there and was going to ride back to Atlanta, and got back to the building in Atlanta.  He had his bag in my car and we pulled up alongside of the building.  Took his bag out.  I did.  Put it on the sidewalk. Zell hopped out and got in his driveway and left for the capitol.   \r\nAbout 30 minutes later I was in my office cleaning up my desk, my secretary says, \"They want you downstairs in the lobby.\"  Said, \"There's a bomb in the lobby.\"  And I said, \"There's a bomb in the lobby?\"  Well, then of course, Colonel Ortega from Nicaragua had been visiting with Andy Young had come by.  So they thought that it was the reason the bomb got down there.  And I got down there in the lobby and there was this suitcase sitting in the middle of the lobby and they had everybody backed up, and our chief of security had a stethoscope that he got out of medical gear.  And he was listening to the bag, and [indiscernible].  And the bomb squad was on the way, and the bomb squad got there and they were about to open the suitcase and I said, \"You know, don't do that, it's the lieutenant governor's suitcase, we'll see his dirty underwear.\"  And they didn't take my word for it, but about that time Zell's driver drove back up and got his suitcase, but it caused a big commotion.   \r\nWe had great trips on that, and -- but one time I was in my -- sitting in my office which was sort of down at the end of the hall and there got to be a loud noise out in the -- shouting out in the newsroom.  My secretary comes in.  She said, \"Something's going on out in the newsroom.  You'd better go out there.\"  And Bill Shipp had a little glass office off to the side.  Zell was lieutenant governor.  And I got out there and Shipp was sitting in his office not saying a word, and Zell was out there, had his fist up, red in the face.  You know, and when Zell gets made he reverts to his mountain twang.  And Zell was shouting, \"Come on out, come on out, I'll whoop your ass, I'll whoop your ass.\"  And I got so tickled, I was doubled over laughing.  And anyway, they got him quieted down and I guess they probably went off and had a drink together.  But they fought one day and were friends the next. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Love hate relationship. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Yeah, uh-huh. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Jim, looking back over, what do you think is your greatest accomplishment? \r\n \r\nMINTER:  I'd say my greatest accomplishment, what I'm most proud of, I thought I brought -- I really thought with some help from Bill Fields and a lot of good folks, I was lucky to have a great, great staff at the Constitution, I thought that I had a big hand in making the Constitution a lot better newspaper than it had been.  And the one thing I guess I'm really proud of -- when I got to the Constitution, Bob, I found out that those folks wasn't making any money at all because they had that little in-house union.  As the executive sports editor of the Journal I was making considerably more than the news editors and the key people on the Constitution.  And so I just went down and asked for more money and I got it, and I often wondered why McGill and Patterson, with their prestige, didn't do the same because the newsroom payroll is not the big expense of a newspaper.  It's newsprint and a lot of other things. \r\nBut I was pretty successful in raising the payroll of the Atlanta Constitution, and therefore raising the quality of the newspaper, and I guess that's what privately I'm most proud of. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You have a son in the newspaper business. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Sort of.  They've cut back, you know.  They -- he was covering NASCAR, so now they have not -- they're not covering NASCAR anymore.  They do cover the Atlanta race, but for example, this past weekend they think it's better to cover the Road Atlanta than Talladega.  Now, you a little about readership.  You know a little about people, you know, who you think's going to read the most.  Does Road Atlanta have the most readers or Talladega? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Oh, Talladega by a big margin. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  So he is -- he actually is a contract writer now.  They're not covering really anything like that out of state except maybe the Falcons and pro football team. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, he must have the Minter genes.  He's a very good writer. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Well, thank you.  I'll pass that onto him.  He'll be pleased to hear that. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Please do.   \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Jim Minter, thank you very much for being our guest.  We could sit here and talk forever, but we've enjoyed it and thank you very much. \r\n \r\nMINTER:  Well, thank you.  I'd like to interview you.  You've had a great career and somewhat varied, I must say. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Snaky, I'd call it.  \r\n \r\n[END] \r\n       "},{"id":"gych_rogp_051","title":"Betty Vandiver, 03 October 2008.","collection_id":"gych_rogp","collection_title":"Reflections on Georgia Politics oral history collection, 2006-2010","dcterms_contributor":["Short, Bob, 1932-"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018"],"dcterms_creator":["Vandiver, Betty Russell","Short, Bob, 1932"],"dc_date":["2008-10-03"],"dcterms_description":["Vandiver recalls growing up as part of the Russell family in Winder, Ga. She talks about meeting Ernest Vandiver and their early courtship. She recalls moving to Atlanta so Ernest could work for Governor Herman Talmadge's campaign, and Ernest's subsequent appointment to Adjutant General. Vandiver discusses her tenure as first lady of Georgia, including governor's conferences, campaigning around the state, and moving into the Governor's mansion. She recalls Ernest Vandiver's struggles with integration in Georgia and their conversations regarding the topic. Vandiver recalls her work in establishing the Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia, including her work with fundraising, establishing a church on the hospital grounds, and her personal friendships with the patients. She also discusses her work with the Mayor's parade in Milledgeville as well. Vandiver talks about Governor Vandiver's experiences working for Senator Richard Russell's campaign for President, and his disappointment in not being appointed to succeed Senator Russell. Vandiver recalls her husband's 1966 run for Governor and his 1972 race for U.S. Senate. Vandiver recalls working with Billly Bower, John Greer, David Walker, Bobby Kennedy, Bobby Baker, Lyndon Johnson, Carl Sanders, John Sibley, and Jimmy Carter. Vandiver discusses her children and extended family as well as Ernest's other work in prison reform, infrastructure, and the port authority.","Related material available in the following collections of this repository: Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 013 Betty Vandiver and Jane Kidd on Ernest Vandiver; Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 107 Betty Vandiver; Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 108 Jane Kidd; S. Ernest Vandiver, Jr. Papers.","Finding aid available in repository.","Interviewed by Bob Short.","Sybil Elizabeth \"Betty\" Russell Vandiver was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1925. The niece of Richard B. Russell, she grew up in Winder, Georgia. In 1947, she graduated from the University of Georgia and married Samuel Ernest Vandiver of Lavonia, Georgia, with whom she had three children. She helped him campaign successfully for lieutenant governor, a post Vandiver was elected to in 1954. In 1958, Vandiver was elected governor of Georgia. As first lady, Betty Vandiver was instrumental in setting up Milledgeville's Central State Hospital, Georgia's first mental institution. Ernest Vandiver's subsequent campaigns for governor (1966) and U.S. Senate (1972) proved unsuccessful, and the Vandivers retired from politics. They remained active in the business and community affairs of Lavonia."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection","http://sclfind.libs.uga.edu/sclfind/view?docId=ead/RBRL220ROGP.xml"],"dcterms_subject":["Central State Hospital (Milledgeville, Ga.)","Georgia Ports Authority","Governors' spouses--Georgia--Interviews","Governors--Georgia","Political campaigns--Georgia","College integration--Georgia--History","Prisons--Law and legislation--Georgia","Infrastructure (Economics)--Georgia","College integration","Governors","Governors' spouses","Infrastructure (Economics)","Political campaigns","Political participation","Prisons--Law and legislation","Race relations","Georgia--Race relations--History","Georgia"],"dcterms_title":["Betty Vandiver, 03 October 2008."],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-051/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 051, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia, 30602-1641."],"dlg_local_right":["Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule."],"dcterms_medium":["oral histories (literary works)","interviews"],"dcterms_extent":["1 interview (98 min.) : sd., col."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Kennedy, Robert F., 1925-1968","Carter, Jimmy, 1924-","Sanders, Carl, 1925-2014","Vandiver, Betty Russell","Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines), 1908-1973","Russell family","Talmadge, Herman E. (Herman Eugene), 1913-2002","Vandiver, S. Ernest (Samuel Ernest), 1918-2005","Sibley, John A. (John Adams), 1888-1986","Baker, Bobby, 1928-2017","Russell, Richard B. (Richard Brevard), 1897-1971"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":"Betty Vandiver interviewed by Bob Short \r\n2008 October 3 \r\nLavonia, Ga. \r\nReflections on Georgia Politics \r\nROGP-051 \r\nOriginal: video, 98 minutes \r\n \r\nsponsored by: \r\nRichard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies \r\nUniversity of Georgia Libraries \r\nand \r\nYoung Harris College \r\n \r\nDate of Transcription:  June 23, 2009 \r\n \r\nBOB SHORT:  Im Bob Short, and this is Reflections on Georgia Politics, sponsored by the Richard B. Russell Library at the University of Georgia.  This is a special program in our salute to Georgias first ladies, and our guest today is Mrs. Betty Vandiver, wife of former Governor Ernest Vandiver.  Welcome. \r\n \r\nBETTY VANDIVER:  Welcome to yall.  Im glad to have you in Lavonia. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You have had a very interesting and exciting political and personal life, and we are anxious to hear about it.  So lets begin by asking you to tell us a little bit about your early life and growing up in the Russell family. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Goodness, you got more time than I have.  Anyway, Bob, I appreciate yall being here, and I think this is a great idea actually, to have the first ladies and the history that they bring to it, because weve had some real interesting ladies.  Weve had people that are -- have got -- we -- so diverse that you cannot believe it, really.  But now, back to the Russells, thats -- of course, to me, it was a great experience.  I look back on it and I think how fortunate Ive been, because I grew up in a political family.  It was -- and I always swore I would never marry a lawyer and I would never marry a politician, because it was a different kind of life and I just thought, well, Im not going to do that.  But anyway, thats another story.  But I was born in -- actually born in Decatur at Emory University, and I -- we lived in Atlanta for several months before Daddy went back to Winder to practice law.  And he was studying law, which is interesting, under his father.  He was his clerk and a student, and back then if you did that and you took the bar exam and passed it, you were a lawyer.  So Daddy passed the bar, and my brother, Bob, and I were the children at the time, and we moved to Winder, and we lived in the weaning cottage, which by itself is an interesting story.  It was a house next to Grandmother and Granddaddys -- Papas.  And anybody who didnt have a place to live, or anybody who wanted to get started in Winder could live in the weaning cottage.  So we lived in the weaning cottage until, well, Richard was born, and I guess it was about 1932 or 3 -- we built our house on the other side of Papa and Grandmamma.  So therefore, I was fortunate in being able to run in and out and see my grandmother and grandfather.  Also, my mothers mother and father lived in Winder, and so I could visit with them.  So it was wonderful, I had four grandparents and -- because we were all -- you know how grandchildren are.  Theyre special, well, so you just kind of had this great love, and Daddy was busy and Mamma was busy, but you always had your grandmammas.  So that was a good feeling, and I had 36 first cousins.  And every summer they all came to visit Grandmamma.  And so I got to know my cousins up to a point, then I got too old to play with the babies, but the first 13 were pretty special.  Thats about where we stopped, and we laugh about it all the time, because lucky or unlucky, there were 13 of us until the babies started coming.  And you have to understand, Mamma and -- Grandmamma and Papa had 13 children.  So at the time that I was, like, 15, my younger aunts and uncles were at an age that I could almost -- I could almost duel with them, because I was 15 and they would be like 21.  And so, I mean it was close enough so your aunts and uncles were more -- just like your friends.  Anyway, we played all summer, and then I would always be hurt because I couldnt spend the night with Grandmamma, because I lived next door, but they were here for two weeks and so I -- but they spent the night.  But anyway, growing up in Winder was just great.  My school experiences.  I still have dear, dear friends that I went through school with.  I go back to reunions.  Winder was a great place to grow up.  It was one of those, if you do it, you're going to get caught, so you knew you didnt do -- everybody was watching out for everybody else, and my Mamma was looking after my friends, and their mammas were looking after me.  So it was a great place to grow.  And -- now let me see.  Thats really that.    \r\nNow, can you think -- well, I guess you want me to get into politics.  At the time I was growing up, Uncle Dick became Governor, and then I got to go visit Grandmamma in the summers because she was living in the mansion. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  She was the first lady. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  She was the first lady, and -- alright, here I go with another side story.  Youll have to get me back on track.  But at the family reunion this year -- we always have an auction and people bring things that belong to them that they would give up for other people -- anyway, its a good way to keep the cemetery going -- but anyway, they had Grandmothers cookbook, and its Ms. Ina Dillard Russell, 205 The Prado, which was when she was in the mansion.  And so I just -- we just had a -- well, wed have a silent auction, so I just flat closed them all out so I could get the cookbook that Grandmother used when she was in the mansion.  And Im sure she was a lovely hostess.  I dont remember much except playing at the mansion.  She took one room and put in double decker cots so the grandchildren could come and they could be there all the time, and see, that was Grandmamma, so its just a -- I have so many good memories of the mansion and playing around the round thing.  And dont remember much about Uncle Dick, of course, but I remember they dedicated the Ina Dillard Russell Library at GSCW, which was GENI and is now Georgia College in Milledgeville.    \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And I remember the ice was on the driveway, and I can remember looking out the back of the car and seeing men holding the car back so it wouldnt slide down the hill there at the mansion, and thats just one of those memories, you know, that sticks out with you.  So, dont remember the dedication, but I remember those men holding the car back.  And then, lets see, from Uncle Dick going -- oh, I remember the night he was elected, and I was just a little girl.  I have a picture of me with my bangs and all that kind of stuff, with Papa in the middle of town.  They put a platform under the one red light, and had a huge celebration when he was elected Senator.  Now, see, I can remember that, but thats all I remember, is just a crowd of people and Im hanging onto Papa in that picture, so I probably was a little bit scared.  But anyway, after that, I just finished high school and I went to school -- my daddy believed in girls going to a girl school for two years, so I went to Sullins in Bristol, VA, and loved every minute of it.  I loved that -- it was during the war, and I think now its because it was just -- the girls were so close because everybody had somebody they -- in service. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Either daddy or brother or sweetheart or something.  And it was just a closeness there that I had never had with that many people before.  But it was a great experience, and I still keep up with five or six of them.  We get together -- or try to -- were getting thinner.  Our groups are getting probably fatter, but thinner.  We dont have as many people anymore, but we get together, and so thats another segment that I really enjoyed.  Sullins, its there -- its not there anymore.  They made lots of different things out of the building, but the school is not there. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Then you transferred to the University of Georgia. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  I transferred in 1945. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  I finished Georgia in 47. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How did you meet S. Ernest Pinkney Vandiver? \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Oh, throw that Pinkney in there, he would shake.  *Laughter* That was always something we -- S.E.P.V. is what it turned out, and I was S.E.R.V., see?  So we always -- *Laughter* yes, that was one of my jokes too.  But, well, actually Im glad you asked me that, because when I was a senior in high school, Ernie came to Winder to practice law, waiting to be -- he had -- he was going in the service, but he had, like, four months before he was going to go, so he came to Winder to just kind of intern with Joe Quillian, who was a lawyer there in town.  And I eyed him and he eyed me, but he said, The judge would have shot me if Id asked you for a date.  Thats his excuse for not asking.  But anyway, he would come to the basketball games, and I was a cheerleader, and so we -- and he would -- I dont know.  We knew each other, but we didnt know each other, you know. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  But that was our first encounter.  And then he went off to the service, and I went off to Sullins, and then I came back and went to Georgia.  And the -- oh, Bob, you will remember this.  The summer we had the 16 people running for governor?  Okay.  Well, that was the first date I ever had with Ernie, and he was such a staunch Talmadge man. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, of course, you remember that in 36, Uncle Dick and Talmadge had run against each other, so therefore I had this little feeling about the Talmadges, and he had this little feeling about the Russells.  So -- but that night, the 16 people running -- I had decided I was going to be for Hoke O'Kelly, because I could stay out of it that way, *Laughter* and he was the Bluebird man, remember him? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes, yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, okay, the Bluebird man, I decided, well, rather than get into this discussion of 16 people -- and plus, they were all pretty good people, if you think about it.  Can you imagine that many people now running for Governor? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-uh.  Uh-uh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Anyway, I think it was 16, wasnt it?  I think it was 16, because it was Hope Willis, and Hoke O'Kelly, and Fred Hand, and all those old people that -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  -- People that -- really anyway, too many people.  But I decided I was going to be for Hoke O'Kelly, because that was just simple.  And so we fought that night.  He tried to convince me that I should be for Talmadge, and I -- back then, I would not have ever been for Talmadge, because it was -- that was an ugly name in my family.  So anyway, that was our first date, and then we didnt see each other again for -- I guess it was about a year and a half, I guess.  Then he came back to Winder to practice law when he got out of the service.  Then he was Mayor over here for a year, and then he moved to Winder, because he had to take the bar.  He never got to take the bar before he left for service.  So, he moved to Winder, and the rest is history.  I think -- I do think its funny, because he called me.  Daddy and I were sitting in front of the bank building and he came out, and I didnt know he was in town.  And I kind of nodded because he kind of nodded, and Daddy said, Who is that?  And I said, Oh, thats the new young lawyer in town.  And Daddy said, Well, hes a nice-looking fellow.  And I said, Yeah.  And about two days later, Ernie called and asked me to go out to supper with him.  Well, my brothers gave me the hardest time.  Nobody had ever invited me to go out for supper in Winder, Georgia, because we only had one little restaurant, and it wasnt -- I mean, it was nice, but we didnt go because Mamma -- we cooked and ate at home.  So anyway, when he asked me out for supper, the boys just gave me a hard time.  But anyway, we went and we had fun, and I said I never told my grandchildren this, but I have, of course.  But it was -- it could -- it must have been love at first sight, because -- I dont advise this for anybody but me.  But we had our first date on May the 1st.  I got my ring on June the 8th, and we married on September the 3rd -- there in that little thing of time.  And it worked.  I mean, it was just fine.  It was wonderful.  I dont regret a day of our life together.  And I miss him terribly, of course.  And, but anyway, we got married, and we were practicing law -- he was practicing law in Winder, and I thought we was going to be there the rest of our lives.  I really did. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And the -- I guess it was -- I dont even know.  We married in September, and I guess it was about December that Herman Talmadge called him and asked him to manage his campaign for Governor. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And, well, I guess that would be the 48 campaign. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  48, 1948, Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  48 campaign.  And so, we moved to Atlanta and we rented this little house out on Piedmont Avenue which was just almost a dull street back then, and we rented this house, and we lived there all summer.  And I will say, I was pregnant and I had said, I am not going to have my baby in Henry Grady Hotel lobby, Ill just tell you.\"  So, thats why we rented the house, because I really didnt want to be down there with all the things that were going on. \r\n \r\nBOB SHORT:  Yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And so we stayed there, and our lease was up on August the 31st, and Chip was born the 1st of September.  Went to the hospital that night.  And, by George, I just -- I didnt have that baby in the lobby.  I went down a lot, but I didnt -- I just didnt want to live down there that summer. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  But anyway, Chip was born, and now its the joke in the family.  Gosh, I dont know.  Anyway, it used to be that Chip would have his birthday on September the 1st and we would have our anniversary on the third.  So he grew up thinking his birthday was two days before Mamma and Daddy got married.  That was just -- and so we laugh about that now. *Laughter* \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Is that he was born two days before Mamma and Daddy married, but it was not.  It was a whole year around there, but anyway, thats one of our family jokes that we love.  So then, after that we moved to Atlanta and we lived out in Colonial Homes Apartments, and made a lot of good friends there, because we all had babies and we would stroll together and wed play together and they would play out in the playground.  And so you made a lot of good friends, and of course, so many of the young married people -- the couples -- were people that Ernie or I had gone to Georgia with, so it was just kind of like a -- you know, a homecoming, because you were with friends that youd been with. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  At that point, as I recall, Governor Talmadge had asked Governor Vandiver if he would like a position in his administration, and he chose Adjutant General. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  He chose Adjutant General, and you know, when you look back on it, it was a good thing, I think.  They built 26 armories during Ernies term, and I -- well, anything Ernie did, he just did so well.  I mean, he did completely, and it was things like -- well, I'll get to the trade schools, because thats one of my favorite things, but he did.  He did a good job.  He got to be -- I wish I had one of my little folders in front of me, but he was President of the National Guard Association.  At that time, we were talking about civil defense terrible, you know, that duck and cover?  He was head of the Civil Defense and was the National Chairman of the Civil Defense.  So as I said, anything he did, he did just completely.  You know, he did everything that was supposed to be done, and did it well.  But anyway, he was civil defense.  He was Adjutant General, and he was that for six years, because you remember, Herman was reelected for the fourth term -- four-year term.  And so we were in Atlanta for six years, bought our first little house, had another -- had two more children, and -- Beth and Jane.  And we loved that life, because we were real fortunate in that Herman and Betty would take the Adjutant General to all the Governors conferences.  So we had some wonderful trips, and I -- we were young enough to enjoy them, and I just felt like I was -- it was great, because you did get to go to all these wonderful places for the Governors conferences.  And then in 53, we -- or he -- was -- we were running for Lieutenant Governor. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And that was another experience, because theres something about going into every county in Georgia, making that your aim.  And Ernie did that.  He said we were going to hit every county in Georgia.  Well -- oh, gosh.  The memories I have about that trip.  Theres no air conditioning.  Fuzzy hair.  And it was so hot you could not stand it.  So we got so we traveled at night, because it was just so hot in the daytime.  So wed travel at night and get up the next morning where you were supposed to be, rather than come flying in there, you know, in the -- running late.  So it worked out fine.  It was, like I say, no air conditioning.  I can remember very well the first air conditioning -- first air conditioned car we had, and it was one that was a military car.  And they had -- out at the  shop -- they had improvised an air conditioning unit.  And I didnt ride in that car much, but when I did, it was making ice up there where the air came out, and the ice was being made.  Now, that makes me feel old.  I hadnt thought about that in a hundred years either, but I do remember that, and I -- it was better than no air conditioning, I will put it that way. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  At the completion of Governor Talmadges second term, Governor Vandiver had a decision to make about running for higher office. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And as I recall, Governor Talmadge was a great friend of his and a great supporter of his, and he suggested that he run for Lieutenant Governor rather than Governor. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  I think thats probably right, Bob.  I dont know.  You know, Ernie was a -- Im sure he probably got some advice from different people, and I think that Herman would have had a big influence on what he did.  And of course, Lieutenant Governors, there hadnt been but one other, or maybe two other, I believe.  Melvin Thompson-- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Melvin Thompson. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  He was Lieutenant Governor, and then-- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Marvin Griffin. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Marvin Griffin and then Ernie.  So see, I mean, it was practically a new office-- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  --at that time, because -- and then of course, they had had all that mess-- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  --with Thompson. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And so, I mean, it wasnt like a pretty -- it wasnt something that -- I dont think everybody knew about Lieutenant Governors back -- well, of course, it -- well, there hadnt been any until -- but anyway, thats -- Im sure he got advice.  But we -- and mine too, come to think of it.  But anyway, it just worked out nicely.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  It was a good stepping stone.  And he had the National Guard behind him solid. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  That was the year he had been elected one of the five young Georgians -- what is it -- by the Junior Chamber of Commerce. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And he had made so many good friends. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And he had a good background to run for something. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And of course, he ran -- we ran hard.  We ran hard. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Everybody did.  I remember Billy Bower and John Greer. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  I believe those-- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Those were the main opponents.  Right. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Those were the main -- Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, Governor Vandiver swept that election very easy. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Yes, that was -- that was the beginning, and gosh, that was wonderful, because it was a hundred -- no, I dont know how many he did in that, but I know it was such an overwhelming victory.  I know in the Governors race, he carried all the counties but three. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And we always could count on who they -- who would -- we counted on them.  In fact, let me just throw in something.  I ran into -- Ive been trying to clean out closets and give stuff to the Richard Russell Library, because Ernies papers are there. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And I have just been finding things over the house that are just -- really all over, but I found a speech -- you remember Shel Hartley? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Very well. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Okay.  Shel used to send us everything out of the Tifton paper. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And everything that he could get his hands on, he would send us a copy of it.  And I ran into a letter the other day from Frank Branch to Ernie, and he had made a speech on the floor of the House to say that Tift County was one of the three counties that did not go for Ernie.  And he had never known the difference, that Ernie had been just as fair to him as he was to any county.  And I just thought, doesnt that -- you know, that really says something, because so many Governors do take out after you or dont give you that road you want, or whatever there.  But he made a speech on the floor saying that Ernie had never shown any favoritism. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And I just thought that was -- and I just ran into that.  Im trying to fill up a box and I might send it back with yall today, because I just -- Jane said, Mamma, just do it and Ill take it.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  But thats -- anyway, I got off the track, but I did think that meant a lot to me for Frank to realize that Ernie did not ever show -- he didnt show any difference from a county that was carried and a county that wasnt. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And of course, we had Tift, Worth, and -- whats Bainbridge?  Ive forgotten. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Decatur. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Decatur.  Decatur, Worth and Tift -- are the three counties we didnt carry. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, and you had opposition from a citizen there, and Bainbridge-- \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, thats right.  We did.  He was completely -- but anyway, thats another -- we could go off on that.  Thats another story. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes.  So he gets elected Governor and you move into the mansion. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Yes. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I imagine it was difficult to make that move. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, I dont know.  You -- well, it was, because the children were in school.  Well, see, my baby was starting kindergarten.  She started kindergarten at Spring Street, and the other children were in the third and fifth grade, and -- but thats funny.  I found kind of a little diary I kept about the first two weeks, and I didnt do it after that.  I couldnt do that and write a diary too, but anyway, I was talking about how Jane went into kindergarten, and I talked about how Beth named Miss -- oh gosh, I remembered it the other day.  Anyway, I had the teachers listed and all that kind of stuff, and it really -- I dont know why, but I just think -- I think we were just meant to be there.  I really do.  I just think I -- it wasnt that hard.  We took a cat and two dogs and left, and the children -- and this book I was writing, is -- we stayed at the Henry Grady for three days so we could get the children in school before Ernie was even sworn in.  We had to get the children in school, so we lived at the Henry Grady and took the children to school every morning, and at that time my Daddy was ill too.  And so, I mean, its -- just the whole thing was a funny time.  Oh, in the meantime -- no, thats the Senate race.  Well get to that.  But anyway, no, it really wasnt, and the children just adapted so well, and it was a whole different time, Bob.  Its not like it is now. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  You lived out there and you didnt -- it was just like home.  But we worked it, having it as home. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  We -- I took the children to school everyday.  I was in a carpool.  I bought the groceries.  I helped cook, because we didnt have it.  We didnt have a staff.  We had a cook that would come out every -- theyd bring him, because he was in jail.  And of course, he ended up being one of our best friends, David Walker.  I have to -- hes so dear.  He loved us and we loved him, and he was paroled while we were up there.  And so he just stayed.  He moved in the garage and stayed with us, and then when we came home, David came home.  And he came to Lavonia, he got to know everybody, he was -- and he got elected President of the PTA and he didnt even have a wife and children.  He just -- but over -- where he was living, thats what you do.  You just elect the finest man you can get to be the President of the PTA.  So David was President of the PTA, and of course, we were so proud of him.  But anyway, thats another story too.  But anyway, it was a different time completely, and thats something that, in thinking, you know, you would get around to asking me this, so Im just going to throw it out.  When youre with the other Governors wives and they had lived in the mansion -- the mansion now -- and they talk about all the dignitaries that visited and so forth, and what they served, and what they had to do -- we had supper at home every night -- almost, unless Ernie had to go make a speech or I was somewhere.  We had supper together as a family.  And because -- its dawned on me in the last two or three years -- is the reason that we didnt have all of that, is because Ernie had the first trade mission, and he went over and broke the ground to have dignitaries coming and the ambassadors and the Presidents of big companies over there and that kind of thing, because -- and I think its because Ernie did it, but I know anybody that had started trade missions and so forth, it would have done the same thing to Georgia, because weve got such good ports and so forth.  But I think its that first trade mission-- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  --That got -- that put Georgia on the map.  Now, we had lots of company.  I remember Bob Kennedy -- Bobby Kennedy came by one night and Bobby Baker.  Do you remember Bobby Baker? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Bobby Baker. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, Bobby Baker and Lyndon -- President Johnson came by.  We had people that we knew, so we were entertaining, but we werent -- its not like it is, and of course now, theyve got that staff that they can throw dinner for a thousand, and you know, its alright. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And they have the room and the space. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  They have the rooms, and you know, when we used to have the legislative dinners, it was -- move all the furniture upstairs, bring in all the tables and the chairs, and you had to divide it up into two nights because there were so many of them, and you would have the legislative dinners, we called them.  So we entertained, but it wasnt like it is now, that there's something going on every night.  I had luncheon -- I could go speak at a luncheon for cerebral palsy or Red Cross or something, and then still be home and go by and pick up my children.  I mean, that was what -- we tried so hard to have a normal home life. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And I think we did pretty good.  Ive got three of the -- I love -- Ive got the best children in the world. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh.  Lets talk for a minute about the administration.  A very, very tough time for any Governor.  And that Governor happened to be Ernest Vandiver.  All the decisions regarding the change in America at that time fell right during his term in office.  How did that affect him? \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, as I've said, he is -- and I know Im prejudiced, but -- oh, Im sorry I hit this thing.  I hate that thing.  Im prejudiced, but I really believe Ernie was the man at the time.  I do believe that Ernie -- I think its almost providential that he is -- was governor, because we -- Georgia didnt have any of that -- I mean, didnt have all that discussion standing in the door and just defying the federal Governor.  He -- he just always did what he thought was absolutely right and honest, and if anybody else had been there, there might have been more hedging.  In fact, this is interesting.  They just got through dedicating a dormitory to Ernie over at the University.  They did that last Friday, and it was such a great day.  In fact, Adams, bless his heart, he just read the book -- well, he had read the book before, he said, but he just reread two chapters that proved to him what a great man Ernie was, and one was the way he handled that situation.  I remember one thing -- gosh, I guess -- but one time they were going to be marching through Georgia and Ernie sent the patrol to South Carolina line and said, Escort them right through, if they -- because they were on their way to Alabama, but, anyway, he just knew what to do at the right time.  Ive just always feel like he was supposed to be there.  He had a lot of sleepless nights.  We did -- he thought about it so much because it was coming, and everybody had been saying for twenty years it was coming, and of course, it hit under Ernies administration. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  So, of course, its -- and he knew that was -- he said it was suicide as far as his political future.  \r\n \r\nSHORT: Now, we're talking now -- just for the benefit of our listeners, about school integration in Georgia, and particularly at the University, where we had -- he had to make a decision whether or not to keep the university open, or close it, as he was required to do by the state laws. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And federal. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And federal laws, yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, at that time, but then the federal law had changed. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And said that our laws were outlawed, and they had gone into every court, all the way up to Supreme Court to -- remember Eugene Cook?  I hadnt thought about him in -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Gene Cook?  Yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  But he was the-- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Attorney General. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Attorney General at that time.  And he -- and of course it was a losing battle.  You knew it, but it just -- everybody had just kind of kept putting it off.  Everybody went as far as they could go, and then they would get knocked down and so theyd get up some more walls, and that would get knocked down. And I remember the night that Ernie -- it was the first night session that Georgia had ever had, and back then television was pretty new, but he wanted to go out to the people of Georgia.  So, his legislative session that night was on television and it was the first night session, and he asked the House and the Senate to repeal all-- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Seventy-seven. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  All of them.  And thats how many-- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Seventy-seven statutes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  I didnt realize it was -- I mean, I didnt -- I dont know that Ive ever heard that number, but he asked them.  And I have to back up just a minute now and say that this is in great opposition, and -- because he had had 50 of the leaders out to the mansion on Sunday beforehand, and went around the room and asked each one what should he do, because the Civic Committee had come back and they were not unanimous, but they did think that we had to do something to preserve the schools, but it was certainly not unanimous, and they had gone into all ten districts of Georgia and asked the people, and they had had open forums.  They had people come in and they -- for or against, whatever.  But Mr. John Sibley, I got to tell you, that man, he knew what he was doing, he was a Georgian that everybody knew that -- they respected him.  But back to the Sunday meeting.  There were 50 of them out on the porch, and Ernie asked them what they thought they should do.  And all but two said close the schools.  And Carl Sanders and Frank Twitty.  You remember Frank? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Anyway, Frank and Carl -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  He was the Governors floor leader in the House. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Yes he was.  But some of his other leaders were there also, saying close the schools.  I mean, it was a terrible -- nobody can believe that now because everything has happened so well, and everything -- you know, everybody gets -- it doesnt even come up.  But it was a time of great turmoil back then, but anyway, just the two of them said weve got to save education in Georgia.  And Ernie just deliberated and thought and prayed, and he did what was right, just like I knew he would.  But I didnt know what -- but anyway, I was proud of him. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Hes been called the most courageous Governor in modern Georgia history. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, see, Im for that.  I think he was.  I also think he made so many good changes in the government.  You know, that was truth and honesty.  It was one of his best -- is to get it down so that the state couldnt trade with any of the Representatives and that kind of business. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, there had been corruption in the previous administration. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, we certainly thought so.  Im sure they didnt think so, but we thought so. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, there were several convictions and-- \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Uh-huh, yes. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  So he had that to contend with, and-- \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, and of course, he had a hard -- they were so against him when he ran for Governor -- that faction -- that its a wonder he did as well as he did, except that the state -- the people in the state, they got, you know, they got good sense. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Smart Georgians. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Smart Georgians.  I want to go back for a minute, if you will, to 1958, when Governor Vandiver campaigned for Senator Russell for President. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Isnt that funny?  Im -- see, wed just gotten through with this convention, and -- both conventions -- and I sat and watched in just awe, because theres no comparison from the way we did it, and the way its done now. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  But back then, that was one of the most fun -- and I was trying to tell my children that this is not the way it usually is, that the way it is, is that you go out there and you dont know whos going to be the one that gets the most votes, because you dont know until you count them on the floor. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Right. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And it was a whole new world.  Ernie did.  He took an absence -- a leave of absence, and he went out west in Arizona -- I believe it was Arizona -- I got to stop.  That goes -- I got to go to the church for just a minute. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Okay.  Thats fine.  Thats good. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  During the campaign -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  -- Of Uncle Dick when Ernie took -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What year was that?  I think I might have-- \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  52. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah, okay, youre right.  \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  I was pregnant with Jane.  We were just talking about Jane, and the Arizona committee came every morning to find out what Ernie wanted them to do.  And back then, of course, you were going to have the demonstration.  You were trying to see if you could talk other people into being for your candidate.  And Im sure Uncle Dick knew he could not ever be President, I mean because its just -- his stand on certain things and so forth.  He could not.  And then he had several people say if you were from anywhere except Georgia-- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  -- or the South -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Harry Truman said that. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Yes. Said he would be if he was anywhere, and of course, that was an exciting time, and the Arizona committee would come to the room every morning to find out what Ernie wanted them to do, because they had -- really, he had gotten them.  They were all pledged to Uncle Dick.  I think they stayed with him.  I think some of them stayed with him. I ought to look that up sometime, because Im sure Ive got that somewhere, but I think a few of those Arizona boys just could not leave Ernie.  I mean it was just one of those things.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  But -- and how impressed I was with that.  And but that was the most exciting time, and I remember we all had our hats and our flags and our whistles and so forth, and when Georgia nominated -- I dont even remember who nominated him, but anyway, who -- when his name came up, well, you were supposed to put on the biggest show you could put on. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And gosh, our cousins had come from all over everywhere to help Uncle Dick and we all had our noisemakers and our hats and our flags, and we marched around the Chicago -- was it the livestock arena or whatever, where they had the convention? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I dont remember that. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  That year, I think it was -- that is the livestock area, because we ate supper there at the wonderful restaurant every night.  And gosh, that steak was good. *Laughter*  But anyway, that was quite a time, and Uncle Dick, of course, we were all so proud of him.  And he had worked hard too, you know, he really had, but you know, we knew that it wasnt going to happen. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You had a special relationship with him, didnt you? \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  I did.  Well, see, there again-- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What did he call you? \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Lady Betty. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Lady Betty, yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  But see, he would come home and Im living next door, so I was the one he saw.  Now, every niece thinks they were his favorite, because he treated all of us so regally and so great, but everybody thinks that they were his favorite, but I know I was.  I wasnt.  I really wasnt, but I just know we did have a very special relationship. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Lets talk for a minute about your duties, I'll call them, as first lady.  You did some wonderful things, particularly in the area of mental health. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, that probably is one of the most rewarding things Ive ever done, because you could see it happening just every time I went down there, and gosh, I got so I was going down once every two weeks-- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Up to the mental hospital in Milledgeville. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Uh-huh, in Milledgeville.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And -- because I got so close to so many of those people, and some of the patients -- I was it.  And all of a sudden, they felt like they had a friend, and they really had not felt like they had friends.  And anyway, thats the most rewarding thing I think Ive ever done, and it worked out and it ended up taking the whole state of Georgia to complete -- what weve tried to do there. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Bob, when we got there, they -- it was awful.  I can still see the smells *Laughter* -- smell the smells and see those poor patients sitting on the floor holding little dolls and patting and-- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Just the smell, the -- everything was just -- it was just a mess.  Just a horrible mess.  And of course, you have to say that for 12,000 people, and they had something like 20 doctors, and very few nurses, then those poor people -- the people that did it, they were doing the best they could. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  But you just couldnt take care of 12,000 people. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Right. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  I mean, thats more than Lavonia.  Lavonia -- six times more than Lavonia has, and they were all in these houses.  They had patients cooking for patients.  The flies -- gosh, I remember the flies.  It just was the worst situation I had ever seen, and I remember, Ernie and I, it was just something we couldnt believe, and I remember one thing Celestine said when I went behind the door and cried together, because you could not look at this without -- it just was -- nobody can understand it.  So, you know that we just knew we had to do something, and the time was right, there again.  The time was right because the doctors that were there, as we said, were good.  They were doing all that they could, but they couldnt do it.  They didnt have the right supervision.  Nobody knew exactly where to go.  They were just doing what they could where they were.  And so Ernie got Dr. MacKinnon.  I think he was from Kansas out there with Miniature Clinic or something like that, and Dr. MacKinnon came.  No, maybe he was in New York -- it doesnt matter.  He came and took over the administration of the hospital, and then, at the right time, there again, Cuba was having a worse situation.  And doctors were leaving Cuba, mad, just get out.  And theyd leave everything they had at home and get out if they could.  And so they came to -- they wanted work, of course, and so I guess at one time we had 20 or 25 Cuban doctors that were well-trained in psychiatric care, because they had to -- they were leaving Cuba and so they heard about us and so they came to Georgia.  And I guess a lot of them are still down there.  I dont know.  Gosh, no, theyve probably all died by now, *Laughter* but I forget how long its been.  But anyway, at one time there were a lot of them, and then they decided to make the smaller regional hospitals rather than one central. \r\n \r\nBOB SHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nBETTY VANDIVER:  And so, now, theyre all over Georgia, and thats probably better.  But at the time, it just wasnt feasible.  But I think that those doctors down there figured that was the best thing -- was to get them closer to home, so maybe family would come see them and they wouldnt be so alone.  So anyway, we did that, but then -- Ill get back to Mr. John Sibley again.  He and I were chairmen of raising a million dollars.  It sounds easy, but it wasnt, because back then -- were talking about 45 years ago.  But every little church had envelopes, and we had building -- had blocks, bricks, and of course this was all ad group, but it worked.  Everybody was going to build a brick for Milledgeville.  Buy a brick, buy a brick, and everybody did, and we raised a million dollars, and its the most beautiful -- we -- the people of Georgia, Mr.Sibley and I just worked and you would know the advertising agency.  Im not sure that I can get all that name together, but they -- Hess.  You know that woman that was so good?  Anyway, the people of Georgia and the big industries got into it and the big -- I remember the other night I ran into a picture of Little Joe.  Was that the Cartwright boy? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Little Joe Cartwright.  He came to Albany, and Jim Grey, who owned the TV station, put on a telethon.  And I went down, and Little Joe and I ran into that -- see, Im trying to get everything up where -- Im finding things I had forgotten about completely, but Little Joe and I had -- we were together at the telethon in ALB or WALB, I think it is.  And JBG, whatever, anyway, it was an all-night telethon.  It went on and on and raised thousands of dollars.  I mean, it took things like that and thats what I would do if somebody wanted to have a fundraising.  I know I did not ever make speech -- talks until that came up, and then I started making talks just asking for money, is what it was, for the chapel.  And its a beautiful, beautiful chapel, and still there and being used, because those people didnt know the difference between a church and a basketball game, because they didnt have a church.  They had religious services in the basketball court.  And so they didnt really know the difference between a church or a basketball game, a lot of them.  And of course, they were so pitiful.  And so when they had that church, when they had a church, they came to that surroundings, not a basketball court.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  So anyway, it was a great experience, yes.  And the people of Georgia were so great, because they helped every way they could.  And we started the chaplaincy program.  Then every chaplain -- then, I guess they still do -- have to have a quota or a semester, whatever, at Milledgeville, so that pastors can recognize people in their church who might need--  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  -- Some psychiatric care or some help in that line.  So I mean, it was a rippling effect really, because it got preachers involved all over Georgia who could recognize people who needed help. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Youre also responsible for the Mayors parade in Milledgeville. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Yes, *Laughter* in fact, you know, thats the funniest thing.  Last week I had an interview with this girl -- you may know her -- but Lynn came over, and this is never -- this is the 50th year -- I must not have turned it off, please excuse me.  Oh, I dont have to do anything now.  Yes, it is,  and we -- thats something that is just amazing.  Shows you what good people Georgians are, is what it really proves, because that was the first year after we went down there, they -- we had the mayors would -- wait a minute, Im -- anyway, gosh, Betty, you are -- we went down there and asked -- well, the mayors did it, they started it, but I think we probably helped them because Elmer George -- you remember Elmer? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Oh, yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  He was the GMA man and he decided that was a good idea, well get the cities involved, and so he got out all those press releases, got the Mayors all excited.  And all the Mayors tried to outdo the others in seeing how many gifts they could get.  And actually the people who had jean factories -- the blue jean factories in their town, they got -- everybody had to give blue jeans and everybody gave sweaters and blankets and throw rugs, the carpet people -- you know, and then the little towns, they were wrapping gifts.  And I tell you, I saw a picture the other day -- it's somewhere around here, because I borrowed it and showed it to Lynn -- of us sitting in all those gifts.  And it was just a mound of gifts, and they didnt ever get all the boxes unloaded for the celebration because there were so many.  People came -- trucks came with loaded -- now they ask you to take it to the units, you know, that are closest to you and that kind of stuff, and the Mayors still do that. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  But isnt that wonderful that thats -- you know, that was the first year we did that.  And those people were so happy.  They were like little children to get a gift.  Gosh. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Getting back for a minute to the integration situation in Georgia, I want to read you a quote and I want you to respond to it for me. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Okay. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  It came from the -- Governor Vandivers biography regarding school integration.  And the quote is, He also turned to his wife, who he admitted to have great influence on him as he struggled with his decision.  And thats the end of the quote.  What advice did you give him? \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  You know what?  I dont really remember advice.  He and I just talked about everything, and I think we both -- I wanted him to do the right thing, because I'm so proud -- I was so proud of everything hed done.  Still am.  And I just -- I think we both knew, because he had told me, Its coming.  We had talked about that, we knew that.  We knew -- but you know -- well, there again, we old people -- all of us old folks grew up differently.  It was a way of life we didn't even think about.  We played with them all -- played with the -- I dont know.  Now, theyve changed the name, so to find a name, but we played with little colored children, is what I played with. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  I didnt call them anything but little colored children, and they were my best friends because we lived out in the country.  And as a matter of fact, I was a member of the black and white football team, and the other team were the white boys.  And I played -- I was the white of the black.  Anyway, I mean, we grew up together, we played together every afternoon after school.  Never occurred to me that there was anything different.  But -- and Ernie was more so than that, because he worked with them.  His father was a believer in working, and he picked cotton and he had an acre that he had to take care of by himself.  I mean, he knew -- we both just grew up with them, so it wasnt anything to us until it got to be made an issue, and Ernie always felt like, leave it alone, it will happen sooner or later by itself, without all that dissention.  I dont know that we -- I advised him.  We talked about it.  He knew how I felt, I guess, which might have -- might have something to do with how he felt, and he knew I felt.  No, but I think deep in my heart, I knew what Ernie was going to do, because we had talked enough.  We discussed it.  I think deep in my heart I knew what he would do.  But I dont know that I ever advised him do or dont do.  I just think we had talked about it so much that I felt like he was -- I knew he was going to do what was right.  But I wasnt sure, you know, that's a hard decision.  I mean, when you start talking about closing schools and children in the streets and that kind of stuff, and I dont think I -- I dont know that I would call it advice.  I would say that we certainly counseled and we discussed. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  But I wouldnt call what I said advice so much as just that closeness we had.  We just discussed everything.  So I dont know.  I dont think it was advice. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  He was his own man.  As one of my children said at that dedication the other day, Mamma, oh I wont say it right, but she said something to the effect of that, Mamma was the only person Daddy would listen to, *Laughter* and thats about it.  He was his own man, and she said that Mamma was the only person he listened to.  So maybe that -- he didnt listen, we just talked. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh.  After his term ended, of course he couldnt succeed himself. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Couldnt. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Thats right. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  See, nobody knows that now.  They always wonder -- wonder why he didnt run again, or well, did he get beaten?  And I dont want anybody to think Ernie ever was beaten. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Except once.  But he could not run again, and thats important that that -- I believe George Busbee did that, didnt he?  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  George Busbee changed the Constitution. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  George Busbee fixed it so -- I mean, during his term it became-- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Right.  Right.  What did he do between that point and when he ran for Governor again in 1966? \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  He practiced law in Atlanta, and he went in on Monday and came home on Tuesday and went back on Thursday and came back on Friday.  And so we --  there again, we were not -- it wasnt a long-term thing or something.  He came home and did with the children, planned it around their games too. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh.  And then in 1966, he announced he would run for Governor. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Uh-huh.  And you know, I know he would have gotten elected, because of just the things people have said since then. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And I just know he would have, but its funny, we went to -- tell you everything.  *Laughter* I told you I would.  But we went to a powder puff game over at the grammar school, over at the high school.  And one of our girls was playing football, and I dont know whether yall know about a powder puff game or not, but the girls were playing the girls.  And we went to that game and had a good time, and on the way, we had to kind of come up a hill at the stadium.  And when we got to the top, Ernie said, Im having trouble.  And he had -- now, we have to remember, he had had a heart attack in 1960 while he was Governor.  And so we knew he had that possibility, and he had been having some angina, but only when it was a strenuous something he was doing, and -- you know, I dont know what.  I cant remember.  But we would have to take his nitro from time to time, and that night he took his nitro and it didnt stop.  And so we came home and it kept up, and so I called family.  Back then we didnt have 911.  You called your funeral home person who had the ambulance and Freddie came and we went to Athens.  And there he was having -- he was having -- I dont know that he was having a heart attack, but he was having such angina that I guess he was -- I dont know -- you know, dont even want to think about things like that.  And so, after he got -- they sent us home two days later and they said he was fine and so forth.  But he kept having that nag.  So we went back to Dr. Carter Smith in Atlanta, who is supposed to be the best, and had a real good exam, and Dr. Smith said, Well, if you want to see your children grow up, I believe I would not try the race.  And of course it broke our hearts because there were so many things Ernie wanted to finish, and so many things he wanted to do.  But thats a pretty good indication you better get out, if somebody tells you it might kill you. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And it was going to be strenuous, you know, it would -- theyre always strenuous.  You dont get enough sleep.  You get on, they say, the ham and pea circuit, and it is the truth.  You eat English peas and ham, and its really good, but thats what you -- you dont eat right, you dont sleep right, you stay up.  Just running is not that easy.  And so he made that choice that he just couldnt do it, and I will say this, because I think this is an interesting story.  Ernie sent back every check that had been sent to him.  Ive got the book upstairs, and thats another thing that Jane said, Well, Mamma, give it to the library.  Well, I dont know whether they want all that kind of stuff or not, but its the checkbook where he was writing, you know, just sending back at least part -- of course, he had some expenses, and so he had -- he had it all figured out that -- pro rata -- pro rata -- he could -- he sent everybodys money back that he could. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  After he left the race, did he take any part in it? \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Now thats a hard question.  He did.  I remember several of the candidates right now.  Bob, youre going to have to -- is that the first year? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  That was-- \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Tell me who ran in 66? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Ellis Arnall. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  James Gray. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Lester Maddox. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Jimmy Carter. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Garland Byrd. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Gosh, Id forgotten about all that. \r\n \r\nBOB SHORT:  And of course, Bo Callaway ran. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  A lot of them jumped in after Ernie got out. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Thats right. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Because they thought -- I think they all really thought Ernie would win. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  It says so in the papers and from what I-- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah.  Well, he was -- he was by far the favorite, no question. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Uh-huh.  But you know, I remember Jimmy Carter coming here.  Somebody -- we had a man here in town who was really for Jimmy, and he flew Jimmy up here, and I remember sitting in the breakfast -- we had lunch, and I remember Lester coming, and of course, Jimmy -- well see, a lot of those people were Ernies -- he couldnt have taken sides because there were too many of them that had been too important to him.  Jimmy Gray was Chairman of the Democratic Convention -- he was Chairman, wasnt he? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Chairman of the Democratic Party, yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Yes, uh-huh.  He was chairman, and then all those people -- Garland Byrd had been the Lieutenant Governor when Ernie was Governor.  I mean, it just was -- Im sure he didnt take part, except these people who came and asked advice or wanted to ask him for his vote and that kind of stuff.  But I dont believe he endorsed anybody.  I bet he didnt.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  So he withdrew from the race and what happened then? \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  It was a hard time for him.  He really -- I mean, it was a disappointing thing, and I guess any man who got the sentences that youre not able to do what you want to do. I've never thought about it this way, but if you get a sentence of you cant do what you really want to do or feel like you should do, then I guess that does hurt you.  But he went through a time of, I guess, feeling like he wasnt as strong or as -- gosh, I dont know.  Ive never thought about this.  But he did, he had a hard time after that.  It didnt last long.  It was just disappointment that he couldnt do what he wanted to do.  And Id never thought about it. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Theres one question that I really want to ask you, and Im not sure youll want to answer, but there was a great feeling that when Uncle Dick died, that Governor Vandiver should be appointed to the Senate.   \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Oh, I will not -- oh boy, turn me loose on that.  No, I never -- you know, there was an understanding between Governor Carter and Ernie.  And I dont have the words, but I have the fishing trip that it happened, and because -- Im bitter about that, and Ernie was bitter too, because Uncle Dick -- I think Uncle Dick really wanted Ernie to succeed him, and he knew he was not long.  I mean, he knew he was a sick man, and Bob, that week was something that was a blur.  My Jane was Miss Junior Miss from Franklin County, one of the 12or whatever of the finals.  Uncle Dick had died.  Of course, we thought -- I mean, we expected it, and we were in the motel because Jane was -- had to go and perform for Miss Junior Miss, and the funeral was going to be -- and that week is something that you just cant believe, but it seems like thats the way it goes.  But anyway, I was very disappointed for Ernie, because -- and this is in that book, anybody thats read the book, Im repeating.  But when he was a little boy -- I mean, well, not a little boy, 15 or 16, his daddy got him to sit down and make a list of things he thought he might like to accomplish someday.  And so, Ernie at -- I guess sure he was 15 or 16, he put down that he wanted to graduate from Lavonia High School, he wanted to go to the University of Georgia, he wanted to be a member of the honor societies, and he wanted to be a leader.  He had put that.  And he wanted to be President of his fraternity.  He wanted to be the Governor of Georgia, and he wanted to be a Senator of the United States.  And this was a young man who had just -- his daddy had probably trained him thats the way -- you know, I dont know.  But anyway, he wanted to be Senator, and he thought he would be, and I think Uncle Dick thought he would be.  But then when it came out that he wasnt, of course, that was a big disappointment, and it happened in the middle of all this other stuff with Jane going -- all this stuff.  And it was -- it just compounded and it was a bitter pill to swallow, thats all. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  But you say there was an agreement? \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  I say there was an agreement.  I know theres a difference of who said what, when, why.  But Ernie thought there was an agreement, because of just -- I dont know that there was -- I know it was nothing written down.  I dont know whether it was --  Ernie would -- is not the type of person to take -- just to make up something like that.  So, he either heard what he thought he heard, or he didnt hear what he thought he heard. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And thats what it gets down to, because he came home from that fishing trip with the understanding that if and when and so forth the Senator, that he would be-- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Appointed. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And now see, Ernie would have known how to hedge around that question.  And you said, I may not want to answer it.  Im a person of many words, and sometimes I say too much, but that was Ernies understanding when he came back from the fishing trip, and as I say, I just -- thats all I needed, you know, to think that thats what happened. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh.  But he later ran for the Senate. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  He got in the race, and did well, but didnt win. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Yes.  Didnt win.  No, but you know, that was funny, because we did it again.  He -- as we laugh and said from 72 on, well, we ran an old-fashioned race in a time you dont run old-fashioned races.  Because you could have stayed in Atlanta and talked on television every night of the week, and you would have hit more people than you would going to every county.  We went to every county in 1972, just like we did in 1954, 58.  And we met a lot of good people and we saw a lot of the same people we saw before.  But it just wasnt the same as running against television.  And Sam Nunn, we were always together, you know, at rallies and so forth, and so, Ernie and Sam, we really got to be good friends, and it was a matter of running against Gambrell, actually, both of them.  And it was, if you win, Ill -- if its a runoff and youre in it, Ill be for you. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And so Sam and Ernie kind of agreed that whichever won, one would help the other one. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And I think it was 1 and 1-1/2 percent difference or something between Sam and Ernie. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  But Ernie was glad to help -- to do for him what he could. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  But it was, there again, you just -- it really was -- I think it was worse than getting out of the 66 race, just because it was something he wanted to do. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, that was the end of his political career, but not the end of his life. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Oh, no. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  So what happened then? \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, you know, Ive always said the Lord works in funny ways, and Im kind of Presbyterian when it comes down to that -- that its the best thing that ever happened to us.  I dont think Ernie could have gone to Washington and lived through the Nixon thing, because he never could believe that a president of the United States would do something like that.  He really didnt, and by -- I had a couple -- I had a child or two that just believed every word of what they were saying about him.  From the very beginning they thought he had done wrong.  Well, Ernie would not -- would never -- he just could not believe that a President of the United States would lie to the people and would do something dishonest.  That just wasnt his nature.  I mean, it -- and he could not believe it, and I dont know -- the child that was so adamant, she never -- that child never said, I told you so.  But it was a thing around here for a while, that when he said he was a crook, or it came out he was -- or he said he wasnt one, but I remember that he must have known he was not telling the truth.  Anyway, he just couldnt believe that a -- and I think being up there in the middle of that, Im really not sure he could have stood it.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  I think it would have crushed him, and he might have had a heart attack, and then, you know, that would -- *Laughter* Id have blamed Nixon, so its just as well that he didnt go.  Like I always said, I just thought it was the best thing in the world that he didnt win.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  So he came back to Lavonia. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And I guess, practiced law? \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  No, well, he didnt really.  His daddy had had quite a bit of land and a business and so forth, so Ernie kind of took over that.  Then he became the -- he and this other man bought the bank business that -- Mr. Walter sold it -- was selling it, and he and this other man bought it, and then he was Chairman of the board, and he was real active in banking for several years -- many years.  And then -- and he was President of Georgia National -- Georgia Independent Banks for two years, I guess, however long that term was.  And so then, he -- let me see.  Well, he mainly took care of the farm and business, and then the bank, and then, well, we kind of retired and we started going fun places and Ernies always has been a kind of a trader and a swapper, and hed swap one place for another, you know, and do all this messing around.  And we had a lot of fun.  We played a lot of golf.  We -- and our children were all either in college or out of college, so Chip was in Alaska for ten years practicing law. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And so we had several trips to Alaska, great trips.  And we just kind of kept on the move, doing what we wanted to. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Whats your handicap? \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  *Laughter* You wouldnt ask that.  Its been a long time since I played golf, but -- well, I wont tell you that.  I will tell you one time Ernie, I think he got down to about a 20 or 21.  *Laughter* We dont have good handicaps.  We just played a lot.  I was not a good golf widow, and around here, there were very few people who could take off at 1 oclock in the afternoon and go play golf.  And we played -- he played some in Atlanta and trained Chip at the Ansley Golf Club.  Theyd go over there in the afternoon and play nine holes and -- and we bowled a lot.  You know, we did things that people do that are not Governors when we were up there.  But we had -- weve had a good life. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Has Chip ever considered public office? \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Not at all.  And Beth, my middle child, she wont -- she doesnt even like to get in a room more than four or five people.  So it really didnt hit her, but it hit Jane.  Shes got it all.  I mean, shes all political, and -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Shes been in the House of Representatives. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Yeah, yeah, and represented -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Chairman of the Democratic Party. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Yes. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Very active politically. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Oh boy, she is active.  You know, I think she does more than -- I think she goes and -- she goes to Atlanta every other day from Athens. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  So shes full-time and she goes -- she calls me when she gets in the car.  Thats when I talk to her, and she calls, and the other night she was leaving Rome at 9oclock coming back to Athens.  Well, you know, that doesnt suit mammas very well for her to be out on the road at night like that, but shes -- doesnt bother her. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, youve had a very wonderful political life. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  I really have, and gosh, youve brought up so many good memories, Im trying to -- youve sent me off on a couple of trails I havent been on in a long time.  But lately its been interesting, because -- like with the dormitory -- its brought back a lot of memories, and then the GMA having an anniversary that they want to celebrate a little bit, its brought back some great times.  Because I really did -- because, you know, you have to think about when Ernie was AG -- we talked about this -- but we got to go to all those lovely places, and then it just kind of continued, and then we just kind of ebbed down, but it was a wonderful life.  I feel like theres so much I need to tell you, because I dont want anybody to forget what kind of Governor and what kind of man Ernie was.  I really -- Ill do anything to carry that on, and I feel like I missed something, Bob.  I feel like theres something I need to tell you that I -- because I cant -- I dont know.  I just feel like theres so much that needs to be said.  Because do you know -- can I just mention a few things that I think he did that never gets down into footnote?  But you know, he really took care of the roads of Georgia, because thats what he really got in, was when Marvin Griffin had that -- the road fight, we call it.  Weve got that bill framed, who voted for what.  He did -- oh, we were going to talk about the -- there were two industrial technical schools.  They called them industrial back then, but they had two technical schools in Georgia.  He added 24.  There are now 26 technical schools all over Georgia in different places so people can go and be used and get that education and get to work.  His jail -- his prison reform was something that -- I remember Bob Balcombe, but they really reformed -- they did so much with the prison system, and of course, his truth and honesty in government is one of the biggest things.  That was when he went in to get rid of that, and he had good people.  He said he was the kind of hands-off people.  If you appoint good people, people you trust and you know will do a good job, then you just kind of leave them alone.  Because you dont meddle if theyre doing a good job.  If you dont, you get rid of them.  That was his theory.  He had some of the finest men in Georgia in his administration, and you think about them and you look at that list, and it really is a Whos Who of honest, good, efficient government.  They didnt blow -- toot their own horn all the time.  They just did the job, and you look about -- Bill Bowdoin, he took over the finances, and just got it all taken care of.  Dixon Oxford was the revenue man, and he really straightened that out, now, I mean, he -- was he a Senator then? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  He had been. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Later?  Or had been? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Had been. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Anyway, he did -- Mr. Jim Gillis, boy, straight as an arrow, and get out of his way if you didnt like which way he was going.  But -- and he just -- theres so many people.  I was thinking about the Industry and Trade.  You remember Jack Minter? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Very well. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, Jack was the first Industry and Trade, and then Abit Massey who now has just gone on, and his good friend, Bob Norman was Chairman of the-- \r\n \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Ports Authority. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  -- Ports Authority.  And what progress was made in that Ports Authority.  And then the trade mission started bringing -- helping the ports, and now, my gosh, I think its Brunswick.  They bring in something like -- how many thousand cars do they bring in -- and when I get the Anchor Age, because they keep Ernie on the list, and I read all these things.  But the Ports Authority is just something you cant believe -- the change, and thats a funny story. Somebody sent a picture of the Ports Authority being something, and I'm standing there and the people -- they said that the people couldnt believe Bob and Ernie were so young, that they couldnt believe that I had on high heels and a hat, and there I was with a dress on, of course, and high heels and a hat.  When you wore high heels and a hat all the time.  *Laughter* Look at those heels.  And we just had such good times, and Im trying to think, because he did so much for so many different things that you just dont know, and a lot of that is that good leadership.  If you get people who can do good and who know what to do, and do it right, then you dont have to worry about it.  You know its going to get done.  The State Patrol, Billy Trotter, he was so good in his job, and he knew how to handle it, and the education, gosh, the -- or a lot of those education leaders that were so good.  And then I think about all these different people that we knew and how fortunate we were.  And just -- its just been a good time. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  He was also a good steward of state finances. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Oh.  He was. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Im sure he was that same way with-- \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, no, he -- no, thats the difference, see?  Well, he was with all of us as far as wastefulness, but the children, they just-- he was a good daddy.  He -- they will tell you he was strict and he was firm, and if he said no, he meant no.  Now, Mamma might flex a little bit, but if Daddy said no, then it might as well go no further, because it was -- *Laughter* we were careful what we asked him.  Oh, but he was a good daddy, and a real perfect husband, really.  He was always conscientious to take care of all of us, and we came first.  And we knew that, and well, he came off first with us, so I mean, it didnt -- Daddy was boss. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Do you know -- you remember Bill Shipp? \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Oh, gosh, yes. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Bill Shipp who had very few kind things to say-- \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  About many people. *Laughter* \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, he called Ernie Vandiver the best governor of modern Georgia, and I think thats true. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  I think.  Thank you.  Have you seen his new picture? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  No. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  His new picture on his article? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Oh, of Bill Ship? \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Yes. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Hes got a new picture. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Ive been meaning to get in touch with him about that.  Because, well, you know, thats something too.  Let me tell you -- I dont know whether yall want all this mess or not, but the reason we got to be -- well, not the reason surely.  But Ernie had good press, and of course, at first it was thats what was good. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  But he had good press, but we had a relationship with the press that I dont believe anybody else ever had, and it would be a good idea, except now its all changed.  But back then, they were -- the Journal and the Constitution were pretty much in competition all the time.  Well, we had a bird supper.  We had -- every year we had a bird supper, and we had it once at the Piedmont and several times at the Henry Grady and places, but we would have the press, and we would have the birds and the wild rice and that kind of stuff, but we got to be such good friends, and I mean friends, pals, with all those boys.  And now so many of them have gone on and making such big names of themselves.  But they were young -- I think about Reg Murphy, all that crowd, they were young fledglings *Laughter* -- really young reporters, and we all got to -- you could ask any of them.  We had more fun at the bird suppers, and all that competition was forgotten, and I know Celestine used to write articles about it every year -- every time we would have one.  And of course, we kept it up when we got in the mansion, and they were -- that was one of those things that we did that we just thoroughly enjoyed, because it got to know them as people, and they got to know Ernie as a person, rather than somebody that they --  you know, Ernie even turned one room of the capitol over when TV got to be such a big deal.  But youll remember how they all used to have to walk around with their tripods and the cameras. And let me tell you, Craig, that tripod looked like a steel crane compared to that thing you have there with those big, heavy, wooden things, and they were heavy.  And all this equipment was carried like this, and they just would come in there for the press conference on every Tuesday, I think it was.  Ernie finally found a room in the capitol that had not been used, and set it up for the TV boys, *Laughter* because the press people could get the news back to the office before they could get their cameras all put into boxes and gone.  So Ernie found a room for them in the capitol, and then after that it was the press room and you just -- they could set their cameras up and leave them if they had that many.  But back then they didnt really have that many, if you think about it.  I remember Chip used to sit and watch the test pattern, you know, from 4:30, because thats when TV came on.  And I see Craig over there, boy, he just doesnt remember that.  *Laughter* No, you didnt sit in front of a test pattern and get it just right at 4:30 so Howdy Doody would come on.  Anyway, thats back -- I remember the first TV Ernie walked in with, and it was the ugliest piece of furniture I had ever -- it was bent over like this.  You couldnt surround it.  You couldnt do anything with it.  It was just there.  And Im not the biggest TV fan yet.  I just got Jeopardy and a couple that I really like, and not much more.  But its been a great life.  Golly, Pete, I have really felt like I have been really blessed, because Ernies family was always so good to me and for me, and my family loved Ernie -- just -- and it was a big one -- when we had the reunion, see?  We still have it every year.  We meet over in Winder, and weve gotten -- my sister and I have a lasagna supper every Thursday night for the out-of-towners, and its gotten to be over a hundred people.  And then we -- Friday night we do barbecue -- hot dogs and hamburgers -- and on Saturday we do a memorial service up on the hill.  Have you been at the cemetery? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Isnt it beautiful? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  It is. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Anyway, we have a service up there on Saturday morning and have barbecue and silent auction.  I mean, its the same thing every year, but its just wonderful.  And we have like 200 people on Saturday.  And -- did you ever know Uncle Fielding?   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  He was a professor-- \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  At Georgia? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  At the college I attended. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Georgia Southern. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes, and he was one of my professors. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  He was -- thats his first and only job. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  He went there when he finished. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes.  And I turned out to be a sportswriter for the Atlanta Journal, and I-- \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  I remember that. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  --give great credit to him for encouraging me to write. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Isnt that great?  I wish -- Ive got a daughter that needs to write.  She needs to write, and you know, she doesnt -- anyway, Uncle Fielding was one of our favorites.  And Uncle Fieldings family still has a blueberry pancake supper -- a breakfast on Sunday, and thats the last thing, and then everybody departs.  But Uncle Fielding -- well, thats another thing.  How amazing it is to be surrounded by so many uncles and aunts when youre growing up, and they didnt have children.  Because see, I remember when Uncle Bill -- well, I remember when some of them got married and started having children, so thats that difference in the first 13 and the rest of them, because the ones that -- Uncle Jedd and Uncle Alex and Uncle Bob, they were young people.  Mamma used to call them the little boys, because they were so young -- so much younger than Daddy was.  And I remember -- but to have all those people -- it was -- it had to influence you to have that many people loving you and looking at you.  You know, because youre just not supposed to do wrong if everybodys looking. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  That was a very distinguished family. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, I think so.  Thank you.  Grandmother and Papa must have done -- have you read that Roots in Evergreen?  You would love it.  I see Craig there.  He has.  But it really is.  Its the book -- my Grandmother Russell wrote letters, and how she had this houseful of children, when the oldest ones started going off, but she wrote letters to all of them, and I dont know how the mail got to be so good back then, but she could -- except it got on the Silver Comet, but she could mail a letter in Winder and it would be in Washington two days later, sometimes one day.  But anyway, she -- its -- then she would tell what the littlest ones were doing, you know, the ones that were still at home, and it must have just been something, and of course, Papa was an individual in himself.  Papa Russell was a -- if you -- well, Sally has written a book about him too, but he really was a pretty much amazing man, and he raised all these -- helped Ms. Ina -- and my Mamma and Daddy, of course, dont get me off on them because I just think they were the finest people in the world. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Because Daddy died so young that -- he was 55, and -- but he was already on the Court of Appeals.  Theres no telling.  You know, you dont know.  And then Bobby.  We didnt get off on Bobby. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Bobby, yes, we need to talk about Bobby. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Oh, thats my big brother.  Yeah, Bobby is -- bless his wife, Betty Ann, is my -- shes the one I call my sister, but shes the one, we had the lasagna supper together.  But she was left with five small children, and of course, we all feel like we helped her raise them because we missed Bob.  But Bob was 40 when he died. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I remember. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And oh, that was just a -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  A very, very intelligent man. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, you know, hes another one that theres no telling, because he and Lyndon Johnson were really -- Lyndon -- President Johnson would have Betty Ann and the children up there at the White House because he loved Bob so. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  He thought Bob had the sharpest, quickest mind he had ever seen.  And he was.  He was -- and of course, he was one of Ernies best advisors.  I remember he and Ernie decided, when the Governor asked Ernie what he would like, as you mentioned before. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  I remember he and Bob got out the red book that has the different offices and the different things that you could be or you could ask for, and they were sitting out on Mamma's porch, and he was probably after Ernies college friends, which he had so many wonderful, wonderful -- and those were the people that were in the administration that he went to school with and he had seen how they operated.  They were all leaders of whatever they were doing.  They knew how to do and when to do and so forth.  But after those bunch, then Im sure Bob was his closest friend.  He missed Bob so much.  Let me show you something, and then Ill quit talking.  Oh dear.  I mean, I think its going to do, but I was thinking, in talking about these old friends -- oh, and heres that picture.  I knew I had it out for that girl and Id forgotten it.  But there we are with -- sitting there with all the gifts. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And all the Christmas presents to the -- \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Yes.  That was the first year. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  -- Patients.  Yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Yes.  Isnt that wonderful? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  That is.  Yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  But anyway, this is what I got up to show you, is when we got through in -- well, it was presented in 66, so that must have been when they -- this is all his college friends who paid his entrance fee. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Oh, really? \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Every year -- every time he ran for something. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And this was in 66 when he didnt run, and they all signed this.  Bob, you see -- you would -- you know all of these people.  Jim Owens -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Jim Owens. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Buster Matthews. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Oh yes.  Yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Louis Sohn.  Howell Hollis. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Howell Hollis from Columbus. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Yes, Tom Green from Macon. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Tom Green, yes, from Macon. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Dean Covington, Rome. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Rome. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Robert Troutman. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Bobby Troutman.   \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Griffin Bell.  You know, hes not well. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I hear. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  You cut out whatever you want, Craig.  Hes not well. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Governor Sanders told me the other day that he wasnt expected to make it. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  No, but I got a letter from him a couple of days ago and he said, Im still losing weight and weak as a kitten, but Im not hurting.  So see, thats a blessing right there. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Thats a blessing.  Thats right. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Bob Norman.  Now, do you remember Bob? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I remember Bob Norman. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  John Langdale. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  John. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Jim Dunlap. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Gainesville.  Bubba. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Bill Jenlat -- Bubba. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Bubba Dunlap. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Bubba.  You know Bubbas gone.  All these people are gone.  Bill Jenlat, did you know him?  He was not in state government. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah, I knew Bill Jenlat. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And Walter Rylander from Americus, do you know him?   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah, yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  He never was in state government.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, but I-- \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  He couldnt leave his Ford business. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah, he was a-- \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  You know, some of them, it really is a sacrifice to work for the government.  At least it used to be.  Do you know Ernies salary was $12,000.00? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And now its up to like, what?  187 or something like that? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes, 200. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Harry Baxter, do you remember him?  He was a lawyer in Atlanta. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes, Atlanta. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Cook Barwick.  Bob Jordan. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Bob Jordan, thats-- \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Never a finer man. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Good fellow, yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Bill Trotter and Gordon Jones. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Gordon Jones. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Scoot Scruggs.  Now, I know you know Scoot Scruggs. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Very well. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Yes, from Valdosta. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yes. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  And then Bob Heard. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Scoot worked up there in the capitol. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Yes, well, he was there after us.  He was a photographer. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  For the -- oh, he died -- anyway, and Bob Heard.  All these people that were so dear and such good friends.  Well, I got off the subject.  We were talking about Bob, but these were the ones that were his just dearest friends all the way through school, college, anything he ever wanted to do. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  They all were fine, fine Georgians. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  They really are.  We were very fortunate to have so many good friends.  Walters still there, and some, you know, some -- there are very few of these actually that are still living.  Griffins still living, and hes not very well, but I dont know, I just think Ive lived a charmed life.  I wouldnt change anything -- if I could just get Ernie back, that would be alright.  But thats about it.  Its -- Ive really had a charmed life all my life.  I would consider myself very, very fortunate. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, were very fortunate to have had you as our guest, and we appreciate it. \r\n \r\nVANDIVER:  Well, thank you for coming.  Ill talk about Ernie anytime.  Come back.  Oh gosh.  \r\n \r\n[END] \r\n \r\n "},{"id":"gych_rogp_049","title":"Helen Lewis, 15 September 2008.","collection_id":"gych_rogp","collection_title":"Reflections on Georgia Politics oral history collection, 2006-2010","dcterms_contributor":["Short, Bob, 1932-"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018"],"dcterms_creator":["Short, Bob, 1932","Lewis, Helen, 1924"],"dc_date":["2008-09-15"],"dcterms_description":["Helen M. Lewis was born in 1924 in Cumming, Georgia. While at Georgia State College for Women she helped form the Student League for Good Government, in order to campaign for Jimmy Carmichael's 1946 gubernatorial race. When Carmichael lost the race, Lewis went to graduate school at Duke University, but returned to Georgia, where she answered letters for Governor M.E. Thompson. She finished her master's in sociology at the University of Virginia in 1950, and a Ph. D. in sociology at the University of Kentucky in 1970. She was an advocate of integration, and was involved in the Long Civil Rights Movement of the 1940s. As an educator, librarian, and administrator Lewis worked for the University of Virginia's College at Wise, Berea College in Kentucky, and the Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee. She has been active in Appalachian issues, including labor, poverty, and education.","Lewis discusses her student activism at Georgia State College for Women in the 1940s. In particular she focuses on her support for progressive Democrat Jimmy Carmichael in Georgia's 1946 gubernatorial race and her civil rights advocacy with the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA). She also discusses her career teaching and addressing issues of labor, poverty, and education across the Appalachian region.","Finding aid available in repository.","Interviewed by Bob Short."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection","http://sclfind.libs.uga.edu/sclfind/view?docId=ead/RBRL220ROGP.xml"],"dcterms_subject":["Georgia State College for Women","Young Women's Christian Association","Governors--Election","Civil rights movements--Georgia--History","Civil rights movements--United States--History","Student movements--Georgia--History","Poverty--Appalachian Region","Education--Appalachian Region","Labor--Appalachian Region","Civil rights movements","Economic history","Education","Labor","Poverty","Student movements","Universities and colleges--Alumni and alumnae","Appalachian Region--Economic conditions","Appalachian Region","Georgia","United States"],"dcterms_title":["Helen Lewis, 15 September 2008."],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-049/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 049, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia, 30602-1641."],"dlg_local_right":["Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule."],"dcterms_medium":["oral histories (literary works)","interviews"],"dcterms_extent":["1 interview : sd., col."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Carmichael, Jimmy","Lewis, Helen, 1924-"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":"Helen Lewis interviewed by Bob Short \r\n2008 September 15 \r\nAthens, GA \r\nReflections on Georgia Politics \r\nROGP-049 \r\nOriginal: video, 69 minutes \r\n \r\nsponsored by: \r\nRichard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies \r\nUniversity of Georgia Libraries \r\nand \r\nYoung Harris College \r\n \r\nDate of Transcription:  September 25, 2009 \r\n \r\nBOB SHORT:  We're glad to welcome Dr. Helen Lewis, former college professor, a long time educator, and a campaigner for Jim B. Carmichael in 1946.  So it's 1946.  Jimmy Carmichael is running against Eugene Talmadge for governor and you were there. \r\n \r\nHELEN LEWIS:  I had just graduated from college, Georgia State College for Women where we had gotten really interested in politics.  Ellis Arnall had allowed 18-year-olds to vote and I was one of the first to be able to vote.  As a matter of fact, I was able to cast my first vote for Franklin Roosevelt the last time he ran.  And so we became very interested in trying to maintain the progressive government that Ellis Arnall had produced.  And since he could not secede himself and had selected Carmichael, we became big Carmichael supporters in the college.  And we formed a league of women voters, one of the first of young people, young women students, but we also formed something called the Student League for Good Government.  And that was sort of, I think throughout the state.  I know the University of Georgia had a Student League for Good Government.   \r\nAnd so when the campaign started, they asked me and George Doss from the University of Georgia to come and be in the campaign headquarters and organize students for Carmichael.  And so we did, and we lived in the campaign headquarters at the Piedmont Hotel all summer and had an office called the Student League for Good Government.  And we organized students all over the state of Georgia.  We had students in every county.  We had them in giving out sound trucks.  We had some Allen Collie, who was from Grantville, whose mother ran the women's campaign for Carmichael.  He was running around in a sound truck.  He also flew an airplane and dropped leaflets in some places.  We had students writing radio spots and doing those letters to the editor, making speeches at Kiwanis Clubs and anywhere that they were allowed to.   \r\nBut we had students organized I think in every county of Georgia.  Well, in the headquarters they thought we were kind of a joke and we were called the children's crusade and so there was a lot of joking with us and a lot of students hanging out there all the time.  It was a very lively place and very exciting summer, and we were so sure we were going to win.  And actually, we did bring in I think we always said 100,000 extra votes into that campaign more so than any campaign prior to that had ever had voted in Georgia.  And so we took full credit for all of that, which probably wasn't exactly true.  But anyway, that's how I was there and we were very excited.  We were so sure we were beating both Rivers and because Ed Rivers was running, as well as Herman -- as Eugene Talmadge.   \r\nAnd the night of the election, we were just, you know, exuberant.  We were so sure we were winning.  We went over into the -- visited the Rivers' Headquarters and talked about didn't he look natural and treated it like it was a big funeral.  And so we were just a -- and then when the county unit votes came in and we had lost the election, it was a very, very sad place if you can imagine so.  It was a really important time for me because I had just graduated from college and I was going to graduate school that fall.  So I left the state and went to Duke University that fall.  So I missed all the excitement when Talmadge died and Herman claimed the office and we had three governors.  And so I was very -- I just wanted to be back because it convinced me that I wanted to go into politics. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, did you have a political career after that? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Well, not really.  My idea at that particular time was I was going to go to -- I'd already been accepted at Duke and I was going to go to Duke for a year and then I was going to come back and buy a county -- a newspaper.  And some of the people in the Democratic Party were all in favor of that and were going to help me do that.  And then I would get into politics.  So I was all determined to get into politics.  Instead, I go to Duke.  It's right after World War II.  Veterans coming in.  I'd been at a woman's college for four years and so what did I do is get married to a Virginian.  Ended up at the University of Virginia and -- but I did come back after the year at Duke and worked for Melvin Thompson.   \r\nThey called me after the court had decided that Thompson was the legal governor and I had made friends with Dewitt Roberts.  And Dewitt Roberts was the sort of public relations ghost writer, he was called, the real ghost for Ellis Arnall's books.  As a matter of fact, I helped him do some research for The Shore Dimly Seen and so he just insisted I come back and work with the Thompson as Governor and be one of the ghost writers.  So I worked there for the year after from '47 and we had a house across the street from the capital, which Herman Talmadge called the haunted house.  And I think in one of his big editorials, I was named as the littlest ghost, or the smallest ghost or something and one of the things that I did was, well I answered a lot of letters.  You know, the governor gets a whole lot of requests for information about certain things, about departments and what's going on in this.   \r\nSo I just, I answered letters.  He was doing a sort of a weekly sort of fireside chat kind of thing.  I wrote some of those speeches and other speeches when he -- I remember Dewitt Roberts had me write one he was giving to a fraternity here at the University of Georgia, and it was supposed to be glorifying the Old South.  Well, I was pretty much an activist and a radical in those days and this was sort of a joke that I was going to have to right something supporting the glory of the old confederacy or something, which was not the sort of thing I wanted to write.  So I did that.   \r\nAlso, one of the things I did was one of the legislators had a son in college who needed a term paper on the prison system.  So I wrote a research paper for him on the history of the prison system in Georgia.  So those were the kinds of jobs that I had in the haunted house.  And I stayed there until June of '48, I guess, and that summer I -- I'd married.  I had married in that Fall of '47 so that while I was working there, I was married and we were living in a trailer out at Emory University on the campus for veterans who had come back from the war and who were -- because what happened was my husband, who was a graduate student at Duke with me, when I came back to Georgia he came and enrolled in Emory.   \r\nAnd we married, and I lived in this trailer in the middle of the campus between the post office and the cafeteria.  So it was one of those little trailers that didn't even have a bathroom in it and you had to sort of go up the walkway to a big trailer, which had all the bathrooms and here were all these wives, and children, and people running up as the students were going between the post office and the cafeteria.  And I wondered how many young men decided never to get married based on seeing how we were living in this little slum in the middle of Emory University.  But okay, that's another story.  But anyway, that's where I was living.  So that summer, I got asked to work with the YWCA office in Atlanta and I had been very active in the YWCA at Georgia State College for women and we had been actively involved in what I call the early civil rights movement because we were going to integrated meetings and things like that. \r\nSo I was very interested in the YWCA.  So I worked in that office that summer and that's another story that I'll tell you later, if you would like, about how a group of us got arrested and made the front page of the Atlanta Constitution for mixed dance.  But that's another story. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Let's get back to --  \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Carmichael. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  -- the election of 1946.   \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Okay. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Actually, Mr. Carmichael received more votes statewide than Governor Talmadge, but he was defeated by the county unit system.  What was his reaction to that? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Well, we were all just devastated.  I mean and at that time, I think that stirred up the whole movement against the county unit system and then with James Mackie, who was at Emory, who began to lead a real campaign against that.  And all of us were really, I mean it was a sad place that evening in our headquarters and a lot of people came by, and everybody was, you know, just sort of devastated because we had done, we thought, such a good job and we had brought in the votes.  And it was -- so I don't remember any personal reactions that he had.  I mean, I just remember the whole sense of distress on the part of everybody who was there.   \r\nHe was in and out of the campaign office, and as a matter of fact I had a room in the Piedmont Hotel, which was also used during the day for anybody who was there including Jimmy Carmichael, who would be need to change clothes, or dress, or take a shower, or shave.  And so I was oftentimes going back to my room and finding Jimmy Carmichael's clothes and this got to be quite a joke with the other students who would come and visit, and they'd say, uh-oh, what's going on here.  What is your role in this campaign.  But he was not, I mean we were so busy, you know, organizing the students and keeping all of that going that there was not a lot of interaction with him.  So in that sense, I'm not that clear on -- I don't think he hung around the office a lot that night.  I think he probably went home to his family.  I'm not sure.  So that's not --  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Do you recall what part, if any, Governor Arnall played in that race? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  No.  He must have done some campaigning, but I don't know.  And I never saw him much either. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  That race was typical of Georgia's two-party system at the time.  You had the Ed Rivers group, which included Governor Arnall and Mr. Thompson.  Then you had the Talmadges who had prevailed for at least 20 years prior to that election.  Did Carmichael have any real interest in politics after that election? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Not that I know of because I was away during that next year at Duke and then I was back for a year in the -- in the office, you know, working for Thompson.  And I don't remember him ever showing up, or hanging out, or anything.  I think he just disappeared, went back home.  We of course was in the haunted house, which was this house across the way and it was more like a press room.  There were reporters in and out of there.  They came to us for information.  The Atlanta Constitution, Ken Turner, was that his name, Ken --  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Ken Turner, yes. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Yeah, he would show up and check with what was going on with Dewitt Roberts and all of us, and it was -- so we, there was things going on.  I think this was the time when they bought Jekyll Island.  There was a lot of that going on at the time.  So I dont think Carmichael, you know, had any relationship.  Now, if he did over in the Capitol, that was kind of across the road and we would maybe go over to the office to pick up mail, and get our assignments, and that sort of thing.  But that was our main responsibility.  And after that, I don't know that they -- I don't think the Student League for Good Government even continued on college campuses.  I think it was a -- such a state of depression and such a state of repression because up until that time, there had been sort of a safe period I felt, call it in Georgia under Ellis Arnall.  And we were still going to integrated conference at Atlanta University, Paine College in Augusta.  The YWCA was very active in opposing segregation, but there had been crosses burned on campus at GSCW.  The woman who headed up this organization for the preservation of white women said that GSCW and Agnes Scott were communists schools because students were going to integrated meetings.  So there was a lot of sort of activism going on in the '30s and the '40s. \r\nBy the middle of the '40s, there was this, as I say, safe period.  But Guy Wells, who was the president of GSCW, came to the YWCA and said, \"I want you to keep doing these integrated meetings, but don't tell me.\"  So what happened was all the activism went underground and I think, and that continued into that summer of '48.  These things were secret, you know, and they were not recorded.  I mean, you can go to the college newspaper now, look at all the '40s.  There's never a mention of any of those conferences or any of those things that were going on.  In the '30s it was very open and in the newspapers.  By that time it had gone underground and by the '50s, the Y had just sort of gone out of business almost.  It became just Bible study and devotions, and all of the really activism, I mean when I was there, we had Clarence Jordan coming and speaking.  We had Frank McAllister coming and speaking.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Tell us who Clarence Jordan is. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Clarence Jordan was a Baptist preacher who had bought this land down in South Georgia and started an integrated farm.  And he was harassed by the Ku Klux Klan.  People in Americus wouldn't even sell him seeds.  He was run out of the Baptist church.  It was a dangerous place there, but he continued and developed this Koinonia from which Habitat for Humanity developed and grew.  And it still exists as a communal farm with -- and they sell pecans, and fruitcakes, and things like that, and still have an ongoing operation.  He died and after that it was not as active as it was before, but it's still a business and still a cooperative farm.   \r\nAnd Jimmy Carter even went there as a student, I think, and did a little work.  And I mean it now has a good reputation.  But in the early days it was like something that to be destroyed, something of a scourge on the good old South, you know.  And anyway, those people came and talked, Lucy Randolph Mason was a real impressive, wonderful woman, a labor organizer.  So those were the things that were happening.  By the '50s, all of that was gone and the college no longer gave financial support to the Y and they encouraged the denominations, the religious denominations to take over.  And so the whole activism, by 1960, a student got suspended and had to leave the college because she attended black conference in Paine and also went to black churches.  So all the sort of student activism left the campuses and became part of SNCC, and SOC, and all of those other organizations.   \r\nSo if you wanted to be an activist then, you couldn't do it through the college as you did in the '30s, and '40s, and '20s even.  There were interracial meetings in the '20s and a lot of sort of activism on the part of in women's, southern women's colleges.  When I tell that story to people that I was doing all this stuff in the '40s, that it was early civil rights movement, they say, \"Oh, no, that didn't start then.  It started after '54.  It started in the '60s.\"  But that was happening at that particular time.  And so, but after Arnall and when Talmadge came back the segregationists really put such pressure on the colleges that they were afraid to do anything.  And they soon got rid of Guy Wells, and he ended up working with the Southern Regional Council and supporting, working for the integration of the schools.  And so it was a pretty interesting period of time. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  In looking back in history, what do you think was the turning point in people of Georgia accepting racial integration as a way of life? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  I guess when Eisenhower sent the troops to Little Rock, when there was a real and Lyndon Johnson signed the civil rights act.  I mean, it became clear that there was going to be a lot of pressure.  I was in Virginia at that time teaching in a branch college of the University of Virginia.  Prince Edward County and the Virginia schools, you know, refused to integrate and there were schools all over, and of course that was the beginning of all these little private Christian schools so that people could go -- not go to the integrated schools.  But it -- there's still a lot of racism and there's still a lot of people homeschooling, and sending kids to private schools still in the south.   \r\nBut there's a whole lot more acceptance and I think that's why young people -- some of the younger people who've grown up in integrated schools don't have some of those phobias and problems that some of the older people in the -- in -- their parents or their grandparents had as credible changes, really, in terms of the amount of fear which they had had.  I remember spending a week when it was back in the '40s, '44, I guess.  I spent a weekend in the dormitory at Spellman living with black students, and eating in the cafeteria with black students and that was, you know, like the first time I'd ever been in a social relationship with black people, you know.  And you couldn't go out and eat together in public.  And that was the same time when we all got arrested, I mean a little later, it was '48 when we got arrested in Atlanta and I was working with the YWCA. \r\nBut anyway, I remember going, eating in the cafeteria and sitting by this, with black women.  And one of them got up and left that was sitting next to me, and the other woman on the other side said, \"Oh, I'm real sorry, but you know, she's prejudiced against white people.\"  And it just shocked me because I thought, I'm supposed to be the one that's prejudiced. I didn't know prejudice acted both ways.  So all of these were real eye opening experiences, which was sponsored through the YWCA.  It was one of the very earliest of these sort of, you know, early civilized activities.   \r\nAnd let me tell you about that summer of '48, if you don't mind.  Do you want to hear that? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Sure. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Okay.  I was -- had been working in the haunted house and I was getting ready to leave and go to Virginia.  So I took the job that summer.  They needed somebody in the YWCA regional office, which was located I think on Lucky Street.  It was and it was a building which had next to it the CIO offices and they had sort of a training center there where they were training union organizers.  And we were next door.  And so a group of seminarians came to Atlanta to do sort of work with poor people and help build houses, or ramps, or so forth.  And there were two blacks in the group and the rest, they were from Vanderbilt, Yale, different colleges and seminaries.  And they were sponsored by the interracial commission of Atlanta, I think and they were living on the black campus at Atlanta University.   \r\nAnd, but they asked the YWCA if they would have a little reception for them.  So we asked the CIO if we could use their little training room next door and so we had a reception for them.  And I was there in the office so I invited all the YWCA women from GSCW who were in Atlanta that summer.  Some had just graduated and had jobs, and one was working with the Red Cross, I think, or the Girl Scouts.  It was the Girl Scouts.  Others had jobs and others were just home for the summer.  So we had a group come in and we were having a little reception, and we were doing some little dance like a little get together thing like the Virginia Reel.   \r\nAnd the police come in.  And they said, oh keep on, keep doing what you're doing.  And we looked at them and then they had us all sit down, and they called us out individually and said, what would your daddy think if he saw you dancing with a black man.  They used the N word of course.  So individually they did that to each one of us, gave us a ticket for disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace and then told us to go home and come to court later.  So they didn't take us to jail.  And there was some preachers there and their wives.  There was another black couple.  So I think there were at least three black people and 18 white people.  Something like that was the numbers.  And so we went home. \r\nThe next morning on the front page of the Constitution was mixed dance and listed everybody's names and addresses.  So I mean I had to call my father up in Cumming, Georgia.  And I said, \"Look at the paper.\"  You know, explain to your neighbors what's going on.  And so luckily he said, \"Well, I'm proud of you.\"  But because he had been a pretty liberal anti-Talmadge person for years and the -- but other students and other people, some of the girls lost their jobs.  Some of them lost their -- got run out of their apartments. Parents were really upset and, you know, wrote all sorts of letters back and forth, and telegrams to their daughters about, you know, what do you mean being in a mixed dance and that sort of stuff.  Well, it appeared then again in the Sunday papers.  It appeared in the Journal and the Constitution, which were two separate ones.  And then of course, Herman got hold of it.   \r\nSo when we were supposed to go to court, the Klan was out.  And so we got James Mackie from Emory as our lawyer, and I have a piece -- he wrote up a piece describing what happened and for everybody's family and for everybody to know.  And there was a lot of complaints to Ralph McGill and everybody for doing that, and it was kind of a mistake.  The police had been watching that place because they had integrated training sessions at the CIO.  So they wanted to catch a CIO training session and instead they caught this bunch of YWCA girls and preachers, you know.  And so it was a little embarrassing, but it was a very, I mean, a shocking experience for all of us.  Finally, we all -- Mackie got the charge dropped to disorderly conduct, got that and just disturbing the peace and we all paid $25 except for two or three people who lived in Atlanta and agreed -- decided to go ahead and fight it through.  But the rest of us had going back to school or had things to do.  I was moving to Virginia and so we paid our $25 and that was the end of it. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Who was Mayor back then, do you remember?  Was it Mr. Hartsfield? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Might have been.  I'm not -- this would be '48.  I'm not sure.  But we should have -- and I imagine the people who lived here and continued to probably made their complaints to the Mayor.  But the rest of us just went our way and got out of it.  But that was --and so, the whole, I mean there was this sort of open period I think when Ellis Arnall was there.  There was, well, because he did not fight against the primaries being integrated.  He did not fight against the transportation that was integrated during that period.  There was a lot of little changes that happened and he was urged to, you know, try to fight against it and he didn't.  It was open and then he allowed 18-year-olds to vote and that's how we got involved in politics and we were the first state to do that.  And so I feel real proud that I was one of the first 18-year-olds that got to vote. \r\nWell, by the time I was in the campaign I was 20, 21, I guess at that point, but I was still pretty young and sort of idealistic.  And it was right after the war, and we were going to have peace and never have war again.  And I know one student and I were going around making speeches at Kiwanis about the United Nations and how important that was.  So it was like, we thought, you know, the New South was with us until the segregationists came back and put such pressure on schools so that the schools have never -- well the activism, students became active, but they were active without the cooperation of the administration because Guy Wells was a pretty remarkable president of that college.  So anyway, that's where we are. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Let me ask you a question about, again about Carmichael.  I have here a statement that he made at speaking to students at Emory University in 1950 in which he told the audience, \"I sicken of these people who are always waiving the confederate flag and telling us what a glorious heritage the South has.  No one denies this heritage, but too many of our people want to keep on living on who they are and where they came from.\"  And he encouraged Georgians to embrace change and my question about Carmichael is, if he had been elected, do you think he would have taken steps towards racial harmony in Georgia? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  I think he would have tried.  I mean I think, you know, he was still up against sort of a strong, powerful group of people in Herman and that crowd.  I mean, Herman's newspaper, the Statesman, New Statesman was just on everybody's case.  And so there was -- and there was, but I do think like Ellis Arnall, he would have continued that more safer period for other groups to be active and do stuff.  He might not have been able to do as much with his legislature as he would have wanted to do, but I think he would have made a period where -- and I believe, well they did of course get rid of the county unit system.  And that was, so there were progressive things happening in Georgia, but it was harder.  It was much, much harder when you had, you know, Lester Maddox and the whole crowd, you know, in power there's a limit to what, you know, colleges can do because they're going to lose their money.   \r\nAnd colleges were, I mean I know during the '30s, a group of YWCA girls at GSCW went to Fort Valley and had a day talking to black students and faculty.  The word got out that they had caroused and had an orgy with black male students and this was, this woman who headed up, I've forgotten her name.  Do you remember the name of the woman who headed up that Society for the Protection of White Women?  She called Talmadge and sent letters to all of the legislature about this affair and Guy Wells had to fire the YWCA Secretary named Polly Moss.  They claimed that she had negro blood because otherwise there would be no way in which she would have allowed those students to go down to Fort Valley.   \r\nWell, it was at that point that she -- that Talmadge, you know, when he got the whole school system discredited, you know, he required Guy Wells to get rid of the accountant firm because they were progressive democrats and had been working with the Y and taking students to interracial meetings.  And made them fire another teacher and hire this woman who was a real segregationist.  And the only way he was going to get any money was at that time.  So having a segregationist, a strong segregationist in power meant that the colleges and universities, well all people who were relying on state funding to tow the ground.  You know, so it would have made a big difference.  It could have made a big difference in the activity of students and in the type of teaching that you got.  I know that the faculty got really, really scared.  I read some things.   \r\nThe YWCA kind of went underground as well as in the '50s and they formed, their conferences were no longer called interracial conferences.  They were called human relations conferences.  And they, Ella Baker, Casey Hayden, Mary King were all on the payroll at the YWCA as they were helping SNIC get organized and they were doing these interracial conferences still and calling them human relations conferences.  And they would offer to go to a college.  The YWCAs were, in many of these colleges, were no longer being supported by the college, but they would call people in the sociology department or political science department and suggest that they come.  And they would talk, do a lecture on human relations.  And they were able to get into the colleges under that, under human relations rather than the YWCA.   \r\nSo I mean there was a whole lot of underground work that was going on, but it was hard to do, much harder to do in the '50s and '60s.  And the black colleges were more open, of course, and the private colleges were more open, but the state colleges pretty much, I mean, you know, suspended students, they were careful not to let things be written, editorials for integration.  There was one woman at Auburn who's a novelist now.  I read in the paper the other day that she got suspended -- she got suspended because she wrote an editorial for integration at Auburn University and she -- Seton, her name is Seton.  She has a new book out, doing book signings lately.  She wrote the book On Peachtree Street and all of those. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Anne Rivers. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Anne Rivers.  Yeah, Anne Rivers Seton.  She got suspended from Auburn for writing in the college newspaper about a pro-integration.  So it was -- the colleges clamped down. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Atlanta's business establishment supported Ellis Arnall in his race against Eugene Talmadge in 1942 and Mr. Carmichael again in 1946, but they never surfaced again until Carl Sanders ran in 1962.  Some people give Sanders credit for being a New South governor because of his moderation on racial issues and his progressive program for Georgia.  What was the civil rights movement at that time? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Well, by then I was -- what was his day? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  He was elected in 1962. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  1962, I was in, living in the coalfields of Virginia and it was kind of like I had disappeared from the civil rights movement.  I'd been active in those early days at GSCW.  By the time I got to the University of Virginia in '48, the first black student came into the law school there and he and I were on panels together and talked about stuff.  But then I ended up teaching way out in the coalfields and the issues there were strip mining, black lung disease, union reform.  And so my students and I got very much involved, and I got very much involved in the United Mine Workers and all of the problems there.  \r\nSo the civil rights movement just kind of passed me by.  I would read about it in the paper. I'd read about it Selma and say, oh my gosh, if I had been, stayed in Georgia I would be there, you know, I would be involved.  I would have been involved probably in the sit-ins in Atlanta and stuff like that.  But I was not -- I was not there.  And I was involved and got in trouble, actually, as a teacher and with my students in some of the protests against strip mining and working with community groups and activist groups in the mountains.  So I left the civil rights movement. So when I came back to Georgia, I was out of Georgia for 50 years.   \r\nSo I moved back to Georgia ten years ago and it's kind of like the politics of something I don't even understand anymore.  I mean, it is another world.  I mean, we had no republicans when I was here.  Now, I mean we had the conservatives and the liberal democrats and so it's probably better that they call themselves what they are now instead of pretending to be democrats when they weren't.  So it's like just it's -- I've had a hard time relearning Georgia politics and it was -- it's sort of sad because that was going to be my life at one time.  But then marriage and becoming a college professor, teaching sociology and anthropology and being in the coalfields for 40 years really got me involved in the Virginia politics and then -- but only on sort of that.  And Appalachian studies, is I started one of the first courses in Appalachian studies and have been very much involved in Appalachian regional kinds of issues and particular around mining. \r\nAnd so I lost -- I was no longer involved in the sort of real southern civil rights movement.  But I followed it in the newspaper, but that's all.  So Georgia politics, I just disappeared from my life. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You hear a lot of criticism of federal programs nowadays.  What effect do you think the Appalachian Commission has had on Appalachia? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  It's modernized a lot of stuff, but it also -- it opened it up with big roads.  I was always critical of it.  As a matter of fact, when Jimmy Carter came in as president I was on his list to be the Director of the Appalachian Regional Commission.  There was no way I would have been selected because I had been fairly critical of the Appalachian Regional Commission for putting their money into such -- not really doing anything.  For instance, land reform is one of the biggest problems in the mountains.  When you have 80% of the land and minerals owned by coal companies, there's no way that those counties can really, you know, make big changes.  They don't have the resources.  So you can put in big roads that helps people get out, but the mechanization of the mines, the consolidation of the mines, the lack of safety in the mines were such big, big problems.  And what happened was the coal companies kind of co-opted the politics in those states and in those counties.  \r\nAnd it was just -- so they did not -- I had to force, I was with a group that forced the Appalachian Regional Commission to do a land study on land and minerals. They had never even done a study which said how much land and how much minerals we even owned or do anything about the tax structure.  There was no severance tax on coal when I got up there. And I started with some of my students and people in town.  And some of the little local coalminers, operators joined in trying to get a severance tax on coal.  The small operators were told by the big companies where they had to sell their coal.  Get out of there.  And it took several years, but eventually there was a severance tax on coal and now all those states have it.  So but there was -- it was -- they, okay, they've done some good stuff.  They built some schools.  They did some water systems and I used to go with groups and they've done some good stuff with education, but they have not gotten to some of the root causes and maybe they never would or could.  But so I've been sort of a semi, I wouldn't vote to do away with it, but I also would like them to be more involved in sustainable grassroots community development. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What did you think of Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  It was helpful.  It was really helpful.  It was good.  I guess they lost the war, but there's -- there's still a lot of poverty because nobody's dealing with the root causes.  And so you have continuing problems with poverty, out migration.  I don't see, you know, maybe -- I mean, right now the mountain top removal type of mining and the real push now for more coal and using more coal in our energy crisis is -- is absolutely devastating what's left of the mountains.  And what's so sad is it's going to effect -- it's effecting the water resources for the whole eastern seaboard because they're covering up rivers and covering up streams with all that overburden, and water tables are dropping.  I mean, this is not the way, this is not sustainable.  There's never -- it's not at all sustainable.  So. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What do you think are the root causes of poverty?  Is it education as most people think? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  It's the great division between the rich and the poor, which is the greatest we've ever had and the tax system which favors corporate businesses.  I mean, we need land reform in many places too and we need, I guess that's why I'm an Obama supporter.  I don't think even there he will be able to do all that needs to be done, but this sort of the way in which corporate capitalism has taken over without any sort of criticism of it, you know, the market is going to solve it all.  It is not.  We've got to have more regulation and we've got to have a greater distribution of the wealth and we've got to put some resources in the of hands of rural communities, and rural policies, and agro business policies have got to be changed.  We got to go back to more regional agriculture and it's -- there's just a whole lot of structural changes I think that need to be made.  I mean, the economy is not a moral economy and so that's it, I think, is that distribution of wealth.  We need some jubilees.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  If you were asked to give advice to a young student in Georgia College and State University now, who is interested in becoming involved in politics, what would you say to them? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  I'd say do it.  I mean they need to participate.  They need to not just vote, but they need to really get involved and as 18-year-olds they can, you know.  I -- when I did the inaugural lecture for the new president down there and what I did was talk about the '40s and the kind of civic education we got, the kind of participation in trying to develop integration and I just said they need to go back to having more civic education, more political education, and more participation in politics by young people.  I think -- I don't think the League of Women Voters still exists down there because it's now a coed school and the YWCA hardly exists, and there's no other organization pushing.  The denominations don't push it.  The social gospel is kind of dead.   \r\nAnd so I would like to -- I think it's happening and some of it is happening through service learning.  Students have been asking for more responsibility to the communities where they live and to the communities they come from.  And they go and work with, you know, poor or what's communities and sort of that has sort of brought forth a group of students now that are pushing to be more activist.  So I see movement in some of the colleges and so it's time the administration got on board and made this more possible.  And because those were the experiences that educated me more than a lot of the classes.  It was those extra -- I went in 1945, I took a bus from Atlanta, Georgia to Hartford, Connecticut, three day journey and worked -- I was with a YWCA project called Student in Industry. \r\nWe all had to go out -- we lived at a coop house.  It was interracial.  There was a young Japanese there who had come out of the concentration camps.  There was a black student from Harvard whose parents were afraid for him to even come to that summer project because there were two young girls from Georgia going to be there, white girls, and they were afraid that they would mistreat their son.  But we became really good friends.  We all had to get jobs and at night we had seminars on labor and industry.  I mean that was an incredible education.  I worked in a place that made the Norton Bomb Site and they put me on as an expediter to run around the factory to put things together to make things produce, but they did it mostly as a joke because I spoke with such a southern accent that they thought it would amuse the workers.   \r\nSo that was my job for the summer until they discovered that I had worked in the library and they put me then in a room with all the patents to develop a library system for all of their papers and things.  So they finally put me to work at a decent job, but that summer was an incredible education and so I think through service learning at colleges today that students are beginning to participate more.  And so my advice is to get involved in politics.  It's pretty important. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, you certainly have and you've had a wonderful career.  I want to thank you on behalf of the Richard Russell Library and the University of Georgia for being with us.   \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  I'm pleased to have been asked.  Thank you for letting me tell some of my story.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Anything else you want to say? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  I don't think so.  You may want to read this thing that I wrote about the -- well, you have a copy here.  That's mine.  He'll give you a copy, but you need a copy of that because it really gives you a lot of names of everybody in the -- who were involved in this project in the Carmichael campaign headquarters.  I think -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  One of my great heroes in this life has been a fellow named Walter Brooks.  I guess you won't remember Walter Brooks.  He was associated with Senator Talmadge, Governor Talmadge.  He was my mentor as a speechwriter and he had -- he had the most respect for Dewitt Roberts you'd never believe.  Dewitt Roberts was his hero. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Well, Dewitt was a great friend of mine.  He was so upset that I went onto Duke.  He wanted me to stay and be part of that.  They had my whole life planned.  Dewitt had my life planned.  Allen Collie whose mother was the head of the women's campaign and they were big politicians and came out of mill owning families in Grantville, he was at that meeting when we all got arrested.  And he and I were kind of boyfriends that summer.  I mean, they had the idea that he was going to be governor and I was going to marry Allen and then we were going to be the first family of Georgia.  That was the scheme.   \r\nWell, I said, you know, that he had just graduated from Princeton and he was kind of a Kennedy sort of person.  He got killed next summer.  He was a pilot and he was with the National Guard and there was a crash and he died.  And so that ruined that little episode.  Besides that, I had gone to Duke and then met someone and so that romance was gone.  Wasn't much of a romance.  It was just kind of a little flirtation and it -- so but they were -- Dewitt had it all planned and then he had it planned that I would buy this county newspaper.  And a friend of mine, Amelia Nodeler was running a newspaper in the town and she was a GSCW student.  And so then I would run for the legislature.  They had it all -- my life planned and I was excited about it until I changed my -- changed my plans and became a college professor instead.   \r\nBut I've always was, as a teacher, I must say that I was all more of an organizer of students than I was the proper lecturer.  I got them involved in grassroots groups, involved in United Mine Workers and black -- but this was the -- their families problems.  I mean the students started Virginia Citizens for Better Reclamation.  As a result, I got fired and it was for nurturing radical students, the dean said.  So I must say that I was politically involved with my students in all these social movements in the mountains and that to me was -- I told the dean, well I thought that was what teaching was all about, nurturing radical students.  So anyway, so I continued to be active and active politically wherever I was, but which made it difficult, I mean somewhat difficult, you know, in terms of, you know, the administration. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Did you know Doug Wilder? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  I mean I didn't know him personally, but [indiscernible] yeah, I know who we was. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  He was a great friend of mine. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Oh, great.  Great. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  When he ran for governor, well he was lieutenant governor.  When he ran for governor, I helped host a series of fundraisers for him --  \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Oh did you?  Good for you. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  -- in the city of Atlanta.   \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  All right.  Good.  Yeah.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  He was elected and then reelected.   \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Very nice guy. \r\n \r\nCRAIG BREADEN:  Can I ask a question while the camera's still rolling, because I just, I didn't turn it off. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Oh, you didn't turn it off?  Oh.  Yeah. \r\n \r\nBREADEN:  I wanted to ask one more question and Bob can chime on this too, but what impact do you think World War II had and the end of the war have on the election in '46 for governor?  Or was there an impact?  Because Ellis Arnall was obviously elected as the war was beginning for the United States and taking this more progressive path.  And then with the close of the war, did that have impact on what happened in '46? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  I don't know.  I think it was more the sort of, the beginnings of a rise in the sort of beginning to integrate facilities and things that really produced more fear on the part of people that influenced it more.  Because actually there was sort of a euphoria at the end of the war.  I mean, you know, about peace and prosperity and that should have helped more than hinder.   \r\n \r\nBREADEN:  And he did win the popular vote. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Yeah.  Yeah. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, the problem being was the county unit system. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  When you take three small counties with a population of 30,000 and equal a vote in Fulton County, which has a population of 400,000, there's no way in the world you're going to -- winning the popular vote is going to get you elected.  You got to run in those counties.  You got to have county organizations.  You got to have the sheriffs and the county commissioners and all those people out there turning out the vote for you.  And that's why the machine in Georgia was so powerful.  It started with Eugene Talmadge in 1926 when he ran for agriculture commissioner and extended through 1962 when the county unit system was abolished.  And the county unit system elected all the governors between that period and therefore you didn't get candidates running because they feared losing because they couldn't win out in the ustings. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  He was an incredible speaker too.  I mean I went to one of those big rallies and the first thing he'd do and get up on the stage, and it was an outdoor stage, and he had people up in the trees that were going to yell to him.  And he would, you know, and they'd say, \"Take off your coat, Gene.\"  Red suspenders.  \"Tell us about your son, Herman.  Herman's fitting in the war\".  And then he did this whole thing about the farmer has three friends, Sears Roebuck, God Almighty, and Gene Talmadge, you know.  And he was incredible.  I mean it was just the show.  It was a wonderful show and he was just that real populist leader among -- he had bragged that he never carried a county with a streetcar in it.  You know -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Didn't want to carry a county with a streetcar. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Yeah, didn't want to carry it and he could jump on the media and all this media against him and that just proved to be fine.  When I got to the coalfields, it was kind of like the coal companies had the same kind of control over local politicians in the coalfields, that Talmadge and his gang had over Pine Tree counties, you know. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You know, if they gave Oscars to politicians for acting, Eugene Talmadge would have a mantle full of them. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Oh, wouldn't he. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Because you know he was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of the University of Georgia.  Brilliant man. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Smart as a whip. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  But he was a 135 pound lineman on the Georgia football team.  He was an accomplished boxer, but you would think that he was just an old dirt farmer from Telfair County.  And he had people convinced of that and they never, never saw through his acting ability. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Well, my family were always anti-Talmadge.  My father was a rural mail carrier.  He almost got fired once, I think, when I think maybe it was when Ellis Arnall got elected.  He put aspirins in the mailbox of this man he argued politics with, a big Talmadge supporter.  Well, he got reported and he almost got fired from carrying the mail because he had done this with this aspirin in this mailbox.  And so I grew up pretty strong anti-Talmadge, but I must say I admired the old man for his acting ability and his, I mean he was incredibly entertaining as well. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What do you think caused all of his demagoguery? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  How you get elected.  It's how you get elected. \r\n \r\nBREADEN:  Did he lose to Arnall in '42 because of the UGA scandal and -- ? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  I think it was.  I think regardless of, you know, poor farmers and wanting the small, you know, cheap tags and all that sort of stuff and feeling he was on their side, they still believed in education and they wanted their kids to get a good education.  So I think that whole thing, that allowed Ellis Arnall to get elected.  And so if that was the main thing was to get those colleges reaccredited so that people's kids would have a decent education.  And --  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And Arnold had a lot of plusses.  Arnold had been, you know, attorney general.  He was very well liked.  He had the legislature behind him and that's important. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  I was sorry that he never got a real good federal position or continued in politics, or was able to continue in politics.  I mean he just kind of was not, I mean he was thought -- I mean I know he was recommended for several positions in the federal government.  I mean 'cause he was a good politician and a good statesperson, statesmen.  So but I did do some work on his book. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Shore Dimly Seen. \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nBREADEN:  What did you do for that? \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  I just did some research.  Dewitt Roberts wrote the book.  I mean mostly. \r\n   \r\nSHORT:  You know, ghostwriters aren't supposed to say things like that.  \r\n  \r\nLEWIS:  I'm not supposed to say that.  He helped with the book.  He did the major research.  He did some of the research.  We did some of the research. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I used to face that all the time.  People said, who wrote his speech.  He did.   \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Yeah.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  He did.  And I wrote speeches for governors and never saw them until they walked out the door with them.   \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  Well, I think that -- the few little speeches I got to write for Thompson, his little fireside chat things he did, you remember those? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Oh, yeah and I always felt sorry for Melvin Thompson because when he served those two years he really never had a chance.  The legislature was opposed to him because it had elected Talmadge and they were angry because the courts had overturned them.  So they didn't give him any money.  They did nothing for him and he sat there for two years, you know signing executive orders and making civic club speeches, but he really never had a chance.   \r\n \r\nLEWIS:  No.  And so that was my big moment in politics in Georgia, which is not much of a big moment.  So I left and went to Virginia, but we all were kind of scattering at the end of that campaign.  I tell you, we were talking about leaving the country.  Bill Allen, who had been one of the PR people there and everybody was talking about leaving.  Ed Bridges I think was one of the reporter's names that worked with us and it was some possibility of my going to work with the Atlanta Constitution and I was kind of thinking about that and had talked to them about it.  And then, but then that the whole marriage, going back to graduate school and becoming a college professor.  So but because I was a little bit more of an activist as a college professor, that career was fraught with danger too.  Okay.  Well, thank you so much. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you. \r\n \r\n[END OF RECORDING]"},{"id":"gych_rogp_045","title":"Dawson Mathis, 20 August 2008.","collection_id":"gych_rogp","collection_title":"Reflections on Georgia Politics oral history collection, 2006-2010","dcterms_contributor":["Short, Bob, 1932-"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, 39.76, -98.5","United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018"],"dcterms_creator":["Short, Bob, 1932","Mathis, Marvin Dawson, 1940"],"dc_date":["2008-08-20"],"dcterms_description":["Mathis talks about his early life, recalling working in his father's store as a child, working for Flowers Baking Company as a young adult, and how he became the news director at WALB-TV in Albany. He comments on events of the Civil Rights Movement that occurred in Albany. Mathis discusses memories of Maston O'Neal, Harry Wingate, Jr., Fred Hand, Jr., James Harrison Gray, Bunny Pritchett, Tom Ragsdale, Guy Maddox, Richard Russell, Phil Landrum, Ed Jenkins, Wilbur Mills, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Hamilton Jordan, and Zell Miller. Mathis discusses how being a news anchor became an asset when running for Congress, including how his position helped him befriend many sheriffs in the district. Mathis speaks about his experience campaigning, including advertising, funding, and logistics. Mathis also discusses his career after being elected to Congress, including his time on the Ways and Means Committee, the House Administration Committee, the Elections Subcommittee, and the Steering and Policy Committee. Mathis talks about issues that polarized the American people while he was in Congress, including the Vietnam War, Watergate, Nixon's resignation, the Abscam scandal, and the Iran hostage crisis. Mathis also talks about running for U.S. Senate in 1980 and party politics in Georgia.","Marvin Dawson Mathis was born in Nashville, Georgia, on November 30, 1940. He attended South Georgia College. He began a career in broadcasting, working with at WRPB in Warner Robins. He went to WCEH radio for a short period, and from 1964 to 1970 he served as the news director of WALB-TV in Albany, Georgia. Mathis campaigned successfully for Congress in 1971. He served on several committees, including Agriculture, House Administration, and Steering and Policy. During the Watergate Scandal, he served on the Elections Subcommittee, and was involved with election and candidate donation reform. In 1980, he ran an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate, retiring from the house in 1981. After his political career, he worked as a private advocate in Washington, D.C., and retired to Nashville, Georgia.","Finding aid available in repository.","Interviewed by Bob Short."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":null,"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection","http://sclfind.libs.uga.edu/sclfind/view?docId=ead/RBRL220ROGP.xml"],"dcterms_subject":["United States--Congress--House","WALB (Television station : Albany, Ga.)","Legislators--Georgia--Interviews","Legislators--United States--Interviews","Civil rights demonstrations--Georgia--Albany","Civil rights movements--Georgia--Albany","Broadcast journalism--Georgia--Albany","Political campaigns--Georgia--Albany","Political parties--Georgia","Vietnam War, 1961-1975","Watergate Affair, 1972-1974","Abscam Bribery Scandal, 1980","Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981","Broadcast journalism","Civil rights demonstrations","Civil rights movements","Legislators","Political campaigns","Political parties","Albany (Ga.)--History","Georgia","Georgia--Albany","United States"],"dcterms_title":["Dawson Mathis, 20 August 2008."],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies"],"edm_is_shown_by":null,"edm_is_shown_at":["http://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL220ROGP-045/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 045, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia, 30602-1641."],"dlg_local_right":["Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule."],"dcterms_medium":["oral histories (literary works)","interviews"],"dcterms_extent":["1 interview (112 min.) : sd., col."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Carter, Jimmy, 1924-","O'Neal, Maston, 1907-1990","Miller, Zell, 1932-2018","Jenkins, Ed, 1933-","Jordan, Hamilton","Landrum, Phil M. (Phil Mitchell), 1907-1990","Ford, Gerald R., 1913-2006","Mathis, Marvin Dawson, 1940-","Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-1994","Russell, Richard B. (Richard Brevard), 1897-1971"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":"Dawson Mathis interviewed by Bob Short \r\n2008 August 20 \r\nNashville, GA \r\nReflections on Georgia Politics \r\nROGP-045 \r\nOriginal: video, 112 minutes \r\n \r\nsponsored by: \r\nRichard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies \r\nUniversity of Georgia Libraries \r\nand \r\nYoung Harris College \r\n \r\nDate of Transcription:  June 21, 2009 \r\n \r\nBOB SHORT:  Im Bob Short, and this is Reflection on Georgia Politics.  Another in a series of oral histories sponsored by the Richard B. Russell Library at the University of Georgia.  Were in Nashville, Georgia today in the home of Dawson Mathis, former Congressman from Georgias second district, who served five terms in Washington.  Welcome Congressman Mathis.  Thank you for sharing some of your memories of your political career with us on our series. \r\nYou were born here in Nashville.  Tell us a little bit about your early life, your family, and growing up here in Nashville. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, I don't know that theres very much that would be of interest, Bob, but I did grow up in Nashville, in Berrien County.  I was born here in November of 1940.  My family  both  both my mother and fathers side were natives of Berrien County and had been in this county for generations, so it was kind of a small town growing up experience, but one that  that I treasure.  My father, when I was like six years old, managed to borrow enough money to open a little grocery store, and he and my mother ran that store from 1947, I guess, until 1964, when the Internal Revenue Service came in and put a padlock on his door.  But most of my afternoons were, and a lot of times early in the mornings were spent in that  in that grocery store.  So I knew something about hard work and discipline, and back in those days on Saturdays in particular, we wouldnt get out of that grocery store until 11:00 or sometimes 12:00 at night.  And particularly during the tobacco season, as we call it, when they were selling tobacco, it would be particularly chaotic, and as long as there was a potential for a customer to come in, my father wanted to keep those doors open.  Because, even the 1940s and 50s, things were still pretty tough down here. \r\nBut, I guess, looking back on it, I had a fairly typical, small-town kids life.  I enjoyed school.  I enjoyed sports.  I enjoyed my friends.  I made a lot of life-long friends that we still have contact with, and it was a wonderful experience.  I wouldnt have traded it for growing up anywhere else.   \r\nMy high school classmates were foolish enough to elect me class president of the graduating class of 1958, and I did not know at the time that it was a life time job, but they still call on me today when were getting ready to do a class reunion or something like that.  Im the first one to be in the  in the van.    \r\n \r\nSHORT:  So then you went away to South Georgia College? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Yeah  another good experience.  I did not complete my course of education at South Georgia.  I was interrupted by a marriage and a child, foolishly, but happily.  But I started there in the fall of 1958 and completed two quarters and then dropped out, got married.  Went back in the fall of 59 and completed one more quarter, and then my wife became pregnant with our first child and I had to seek full-time employment rather than continuing to unload box cars for the Alfred Dorm and Grocery Company in Douglas. \r\nI then left  when we left, I was able to secure a job with Flowers Banking Company running a bread route in Valdosta, which was a unique experience, but also a good one.  I made a lot of friends in Lowndes County  Valdosta in Lowndes County, and learned a lot about real life.  When you get up at 3:30  4:00 in the morning to unload box cars and run bread routes, life is a reality. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Then you went into television. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, actually, I didnt go directly to  from the bread truck to television, Bob.  It was a little more securative route than that.  I was actually doing some  I started doing some part-time radio work for a fellow named Hanson Carter, who later served in the legislature here and headed the Farm Services Administration during the Clinton Administration, but Hanson had a radio station here in Nashville and  and I started doing some part-time work for him, which led me to accept a full time radio job at a station called WRPB in Warner Robins, Georgia, which is where my wife was from, so we went and moved to Warner Robins and I worked at that station, and then came back following a disagreement with the stations owner about the 1962 gubernatorial race where I wanted to support Marvin Griffin and he was supporting Carl Sanders.  We decided that we would  it would be to our mutual interest to part company, so I came back to Nashville and worked for Hanson for a very short period of time, like six months or so, and then I moved to Hawkinsville and I went to work for WCEH radio, where  with a fellow named Jim Popwell, who was a great influence on my life.  I met a lot of people in Hawkinsville and enjoyed my time there. \r\nAnd then, from there, through a fellow I had worked with in Warner Robins, who had gone to WALB-TV in Albany.  He called me and told me there was a job opening at WALB for the news director.  Well, at that time, I was 24 years old and I didnt know that I was qualified to be the news director for the television station, but I went down and interviewed and got the job.  Actually took a little pay cut.  I was making $100 a week in Hawkinsville, and they offered me $85 a week to come to Albany to the television station, but I thought that, at that time, television had more of a potential than radio did, so I  I took the job and that led to a lot of other interesting things in my career when I went to Albany.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Albany at one time was the focus of a lot of national attention in the Civil Rights Movement.  Were you involved in any of that? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, not really.  That  that occurred primarily, Bob, before I got to Albany.  That was 62 and 63, and I didnt get to Albany until 64  in August or September  I think it was August of 64 when I went to Albany.  Um  but the  the  the King arrest, and the Albany  the Albany movement was still there.  That was primarily led by an attorney named C.B. King, who was a lawyer there in Albany, and a very articulate man, and a very knowledgeable man, and a man I came to  to admire and like.  Im not sure he ever really liked me, but I liked C.B.  He had a very dry sense of humor and  Im getting off the subject, but that  the movement was still going on, but it was past its heyday.   \r\nKing had been arrested and he had been  he was gone from there.  And there were some, even in the black community in Albany, that felt like King came in and used them to raise money and focus attention on himself and then  then hed gone on to other things when the Albany movement was met by  I guess they would  it was passive resistance.  It wasnt water hoses  it wasnt  you know, billy clubs in the streets, or whatever.  It was just, Lloyd Pritchett, who was chief of police in Albany  this happened, remember, prior to the time I got that, but he and--Asa Kelly was the mayor of Albany at the time, who later served as the head of the Department of Corrections under a governor that you served, and then became a Superior Court judge in Albany.  Asa Kelly and Lloyd Pritchett decided they were going to diffuse the situation as best they could.  This knowledge comes to me after the fact.  I wasn't there when it was going on, but obviously they were successful with what they did. \r\nBut during the period of time I was in Albany, there were continuing protests and demonstrations going on in some communities surrounding Albany:  Americas, Cordele, Moultrie.  Cordele is where I first saw an American flag burned in front of the courthouse in Cordele.  I was there with a camera  excuse me  with a camera and we recorded that, or filmed it at that time.  We were using 16 mm film at the television station, but  they  a group of protestors, black protestors, took down a flag and burned it, and thats the first time that I sold a piece of film to a national network.  NBC wanted that film because there was nobody else there, and in those days, burning the American flag was just unheard of.  But I was there for Cordele.  I was there for Moultrie.  There was  there were problems in Moultrie in the  in the late 60s, and those were interesting days to say the least. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  At what point did you decide to run for Congress? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, I don't know that I can actually say for certain that there was a particular day.  I guess it probably was when my predecessor announced that he was not going to run again. Maston ONeal was  I don't know if you ever saw a picture, or whether you ever knew Maston, but if you saw a picture of Maston ONeal, youd say that guys a Congressman.  He had a full head of silver hair.  He always wore a dark suit and a beautiful white shirt and a polka-dotted tie.  You never know saw him with anything other than that polka-dotted tie.  \r\nBut Maston was the kind of guy that he took everything too seriously. He had three heart attacks in the six years he served in D.C. because he was so  my judgment is that he was so stressed out about making the right decision on every vote, or every action that he took and he didnt say up there.  He was elected in 64 and served three terms and in in April of 1970, in his sixth year, he announced that he would not be running again.  And after he left Congress, he lived probably for another 25 years.  So the stress, relieving himself of that stress obviously prolonged his life.   \r\nBut he was an interesting fellow, very conservative.  Once told me that  that there were two ONeals in Congress and  and if he needed to know how he was going to vote on any issue, he would just look and see how the other ONeal voted and he would vote the opposite way.  So I think its safe to say that Maston was a pretty conservative fellow.  Of course, at that time, and Im wondering off the point, but at that time, most of the Democratic members of Congress from Georgia, and from the South, were pretty conservative in their politics. \r\nI had kind of laid the ground work for  for a run from Congress over the three or four years prior to the time that Congressman ONeil announced he wasnt running again.  I began to speak around at some civic clubs and make appearances here, there and everywhere.  And, of course, my  my greatest asset in that race was the  the name identification that I had from being on television, because when I went there, it wasnt just that I was the news director, I was the news man.  I was the anchor on  I did it at 7:25 in the morning, 8:25 in the morning, at 12:00 noon, and 6:00 at night and 11:00 at night.  Not generally all in the same day, although that had happened on occasion, but over a period of those five and a half years that I was there, I was  I was in the living rooms of people of the district more than any other candidate possibly could have been.  I mean my  my exposure from that television was worth millions of dollars.  You couldnt have bought that kind of publicity.  \r\nWhen I would go into anywhere, almost anywhere in the district, walking down the street people knew who I was.  I mean, that was a tremendous asset in that race, which, as it eventually turned out, Bob, it was not about a lot of issues.  You couldnt have probably driven a wedge between us on very many issues with Harry Wingate, Jr. and Fred Hand, Jr. and myself.  There was a black candidate in the race named Tom Chatman, and he might have differed with us on some issues, but by and large, we were pretty much the same on issues, so it turned out to be a beauty contest and I won the beauty contest is essentially what happened.   \r\nBut I made the decision that I was going to run when Congressman ONeal announced he wasnt  I knew it was my time.  I was 29 years old, had four little children, and less than $500 in the bank, but I just felt like it was  it was time for me to run, so I went down to the  to the office of the general manager of the television station who was a friend of mine until the day he died, a guy named  Ray Carrow, and I told Ray what I wanted to do and asked for a leave of absence, and he said, Yeah, thatll be fine. \r\nWell Jimmy Gray, James Harrison Gray, publisher of the Albany Herald, also, at that time, owned the television station, almost entirety  in its entirety, I should say, so I felt like it  I owed Mr. Gray the courtesy of going to him and telling him what I intended to do, so I got in my car and drove down to the Albany Herald and asked to see Mr. Gray and was shown in and he and I were not very close.  I mean, we knew each other very casually, but he didnt have anything to do with the day-to-day matters of the television station.  But I told him I was going to  what I planned to do and he obviously made it known to me that he was committed to Harry Wingate, who had run against Maston and lost by 500 votes in a run off in 64, which was only six years before that.  And I told him I understood that.  I asked him to be fair to me and to Harold in his news coverage, and he assured me that he would, which didnt turn out to be quite the case.  But, when I got back to the television station, I had a note on my typewriter at the news room that said Ray Carrow needs to see you, so I went down there to see Ray and he said, Dawson, I got to tell you that I cant give you that leave of absence.  So, I said, well, let me go type you up a letter of resignation, Mr. Carrow, because Im going to run. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Mm-hmm. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  And obviously Jim Gray had called him before I got back to the station and said you cant  I told Jim Gray that Ray had agreed to give me a leave of absence at the station, but later on, during the race, I had a couple of people come to me and said I could have my job back at the station if I would drop out of the  drop out of the race, but I think I made it pretty clear to them that if I ended up shining shoes, I was going to stay in that race.  I thought it was very winnable.  And as it turned out, it  it was.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  In those days, and today, theres quite a black voter population in that district.  How did you go about campaigning among \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well I campaigned among them just like I did with  with everybody else.  I mean it  I always had the philosophy that it doesnt make any difference who or why they put them in the box with your name on it.  I just want them in the box.  But, in 1970, its kind of hard to believe as we look back from it from the perspective of where we are in 2008, but it  it was a different world out, particularly down here in south Georgia.  There was one of the candidates in the race, which will remain nameless, who wouldnt shake hands with a black man.  And that word got to me.  I had a couple  a couple of guys tell me of having seen it where he refused to shake hands.  In a white country store, he would go and speak to the white people, but he wouldnt  he wouldnt shake hands or ask the black people for their vote.   \r\nI had had some experience, obviously, through my years in television, I had made some in-roads in the black community in my coverage of the Civil Rights Movement and I think I had gained the trust of at least a part of the black population by the way that I reported on what was  what was happening in their community, and I  I know that that was beneficial to me during that  during that race.  I might also have said that  or say that it helped me that I had established relationships with a lot of law enforcement people and a lot of local officials, mayors, and county commissioners and whatever.  A lot of these people felt that the national media:  NBC, CBS, ABC was less present in those days, I guess, but that they were not reporting what was going on accurately.  Now whether or not that was true, I mean, Ill let others be the judge of that, but they felt like it wasnt and they felt like  that our coverage at Channel 10 was actually more accurate than what was being reported by the national media, and that gained me some confidence in the  in the  in the  in the local community.  I  I think I can safely say that, of the 23 counties in this district, when I ran in 1970, I had the support of most of the Sheriffs, and that was a big help.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And you finished first in the primary, and then had a run-off, and then you had the great pleasure of facing a Republican in the general election.   \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Yeah, it was more of a pleasure in those days than it would be now, Bob, because in those days Republicans were not very numerous in south Georgia, but yeah, the people in this  in that district gave me like 40  48 and change percent of the vote in the first run-off, I mean in the first primaries, and we missed  and we narrowly missed wining it without a run-off.  But then I was in a runoff with Harry Wingate, whose father had been the president of Georgia Farm Bureau Federation, and he had been on Senator Russells staff in D.C. for several years, and had made  and had made a run for Congress in 1964 and came within 500 votes of  of beating Maston ONeal for that open seat, so he was the prohibitive favorite, and I think most people thought he was  he was going to be the winner.  And Harry  Harry was  he was an interesting fellow.  After that race in 64, he came  he stayed in Albany.  Hed gone back to Washington.  He ran for Congress actually the first time in 1954 when Gene Cox died.  There was a special election and J. L. Pilcher won it and Harry rammed in and he was like  about the same age I was when I was elected.  He was 28, 29 years old, but he had been in D.C. and came back down to Georgia, ran in that race, and then, when he wasnt successful, he went back to Washington and Senator Russell put him on the staff of the Appropriations Committee, if Im not mistaken, and he served Senator Russell in that capacity until the 64 race, when Mr. Pilcher announced he wasnt gong to run again. Then Eric came back to Albany and got in that race, and as I say lost by about 500 Votes to Mason ONeal.  Well, after that race, he stayed in Albany and began a practice of law over there and was into, you know, Rotary Club, and got active in civic affairs over there attempting to establish himself as somebody who was from the district, as opposed to being  coming down from D.C. to run.  I, on the other hand, was a newcomer.  I  Berrien County, my county, was not in that district at that  at that time, and so I was an outsider.  I was the  the intruder, but that didnt, uh  that didnt  that didnt work.   \r\nBecause the run-off turned out to be a pretty bitter affair on his part.  He went after me tooth and nail, and I understand  I understood at the time.  I understand it today, it was his only chance.  This was his third run for Congress and if he was going to be elected, it had to be now, and  and we had televised debate on Channel 10, and they had a  they still have a noon time show over there called Town and Country, and they invited both of to come and participate in a  mini-debate, as it were, and, of course, we agreed, and Harry called me.  He said, You know, we almost elected a boy to send to  to Congress, and, you know, hes not a member of the church, which I was not at  at that time, even though my father was a Holiness Baptist preacher and  and most people who knew me personally knew that fact, that I wasnt a member of any civic club, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, which wasnt quite accurate, but, nonetheless, he went after me tooth and nail on that program.   \r\nAnd when  when that program was over, the phone  every phone line at WALB was lit up.  I sat at the front desk for about 30 minutes until they finally re  told me that the receptionist had to have her desk back.  So they moved me to an open office, and I literally sat there from 1:00 until 5:00 taking call after call after call of people calling in to tell me how treacherous they thought Harry had been and how nasty he was, and I knew then that the election was over.  But what  what I also knew, I had a call, and I dont feel like Im betraying a trust, but there was a  the Ford dealer in Albany was a guy by the name of Bunny Pritchett, and Bunny was and is one of the finest people Ive ever known.  Very active in the community, very community spirited, and he did a  lot for Albany, and everybody loved Bunny.  Hed served as  on city council over there.  Just a good guy, and he and Harry were close friends, and he was in Harrys brain trust.  When Harry had run for Congress in 64 and when he was in this race against me.  But I was in my headquarters that morning.  I dont know why  just there doing something, and the phone rang and it was Bunny Pritchett, and Buddy said, Dawson, I want to tell you something.  He said, I just cant be a part of what is about to happen.  Hes coming after you tooth and nail on issues that I dont agree ought to be brought up in this race, but I just want you to be aware that hes going to come after you. \r\nMy wife worked for a contractor over there named John Jay, who was a friend of mine, and John had actually loaned me a little money, and maybe a thousand dollars, and he said, then, but John had a liquor store, so I became the candidate of the biggest liquor dealer in Albany on that program, and Bunny told me that he was coming after me for my wifes employer, who owned that liquor store, so it wasnt as if I werent a little bit prepared for what he was coming with, thanks to Bunny Pritchett, but Harry destroyed himself that day on that debate.  He  the race would have been a lot closer had he approached it in a different way.  In my judgment.  Harrys dead and gone and  and, uh  I sent flowers to his funeral, but I never heard anything back from his family.  I guess they resented what I had done, even though I never attacked Harry, and I never attacked any opponent I ever had.  I just couldnt run a race like that.  Even when I ran against Senator Talmadge in 1980, I never attacked him.  I attacked his record, but I didnt  I wouldnt attack him personally.  And  and again, Im digressing [Overlapping Conversations] \r\n \r\nSHORT:  No. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  [Overlapping Conversations] \r\n \r\nSHORT:  No, thats wonderful.  This is history, and were interested in history, but we didnt mention your Republican opponent. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, he was a very nice young fertilizer salesman named Tom Ragsdale.  A good looking guy.  Dark head of hair and fairly articulate, but he was in the race, and then after I won the primary, he announced he was not  he was going to withdraw and then a couple of weeks later,  I don't know, somebody talked him into staying.  Well he  his name was on the ballot, so that he was still going to be a candidate, so he got back in, but he didnt do much campaigning, and he didnt  he was probably about as underfinanced as I was.  He didnt have any money, so we were fortunate enough in the general election to end up with 93% of the vote, and I guess thats probably pretty much unprecedented in Georgia history, and I dont think therell be a congressional race in this state in the next 50 years where a Democrat will get 93% of the vote.  It just aint going to happen anymore.   \r\nBut my  the biggest problem I had in that race, Bob, was money.  As I say, I didnt have any money.  My wife was working, I had four little boys, and I had no source of income.  I mean I was  I was out of work and then  and I  when I was the  at the television station, when I left there, I was making $1,000 a month -- $12,000 a year, and raising the money was the problem.  And I just  I had no source for it.  It was $25 here and $50 there, and a fish fry here and a barbecue there and just catch as catch can.  I remember one instance where I had a  I had bought a 30 minute television program, if you can believe it in this day and time, for  and we set the  the taping schedule for this certain night, and the cost of a 30-minute program was $500.  Well, I didnt have $500, but I was campaigning in Early County that day in Blakely, Georgia, and I had made the acquaintance of a business man over there.  He owned a large part of a bank, if not the whole bank.  Had a peanut company and was a very prosperous and very respected pillar of his community.  The mans name was Guy Maddox.  And I had met Mr. Guy on previous occasions.  I had spoken to the Rotary Club in Blakely, and he was a member.  And all that particular day that I was due to schedule, I was scheduled to tape the program at 7:00, 8:00 that night, at WALB, I didnt have $500 in the bank, so I went by to see Mr. Guy, since I was in Blakely, and asked him for his support, and he said, Yeah, Im going to  Im going to vote for you, Dawson.  And then he said, Do you need any money?  Do I need any money?  Does a farmer need rain?  Uh, yeah, I need money Mr. Guy.  I said, Yes, sir, I would appreciate anything you could do for me.  And Ill never forget, he pulled open his center desk drawer, and took out one of those big check books that, you know, have three checks in it, and he wrote me a check for $500.   \r\nYou never forget that.  I came straight back to the TV station endorsed check, headed over to them, and we taped the program.  Excuse me.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  So, then its off to Washington. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Yes. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Freshman Congressman, what 435 members.  You must have felt like a needle in a haystack up there.   \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, I didnt feel out of place.  I felt like thats where I was supposed to be.  I had  I had never had any political experience, Bob, youll have to excuse me.  I get a little  I buried an uncle yesterday and Im still a little emotional.  I had, as you know, covered the legislature for the television station, so I knew a little bit about how the legislative process worked.  And I thought I was fairly astute politically, so, even though I was the youngest member of Congress, I felt like I kind of fit right in.  I was 29 when I was elected.  30 when I  actually when I was sworn in, and I didnt keep that title very long.  There was  um  one of the long serving, and most distinguished members of Congress was from South Carolina  a fellow by the name of Mendel Rivers, and Mendel Rivers died on Christmas day of 1970, and a special election was held in April, and his successor was a friend  a guy who became my closest friend in Congress, named Mendel Davis, and Mendel was the  he was 28 when he was elected, so he took that title away from me in April.  I held it from January to April in a way, but no I didnt feel lost.   \r\nI felt like I was capable of doing the job, but I guess you  if you are going to be in politics, youve got to have a certain amount of confidence in yourself, or you wouldnt be there in the first place, but I never felt lost.  I felt like I was where I was supposed to be. \r\nWe went up there.  Again, I still hadnt had a paycheck since April, and my wife worked right on through November, I guess  maybe even December.  John Gay may have paid her for December, but I now am faced with the task of getting my family to D.C.  Youve got to find a place to live  this, that, and the other.  I made a couple trips up there.  We did find a house.  We were in a community where I thought that the kids could  out in Virginia where they had a good school system, and the kids would be comfortable.   \r\nSo we moved in late December of 1970, and I had no other way to get up there so I rented a U-Haul truck and we loaded her up and  and headed out to D.C.  Thats the first time I made national news when they reported this young idiot from  who got elected to Congress from South Georgia, moves his family to D.C. in a U-Haul truck.  Well, Ill tell you something else, Bob.  I stayed up there until 2005 for various reasons.  Not all that time, not in Congress obviously, but when I came back to this cabin where you are sitting, I came back in a U-Haul truck.  So we went up there and came back in a U-Haul truck.  But, I digress, as usual.   \r\nBut, no, I felt very comfortable being in Washington.  Actually the term of office begins on January 3.  The previous Congress, the Ninety-first, did not adjourn until literally New Years Eve in 1970, so when they adjourned, they adjourned, they adjourned with a resolution to come back on the 21 of January of 1971.  Even though I was  I assumed office on January 3, I wasnt sworn, didnt take the oath of office until the 21, which, as you know, was the day that Senator Russell died.  And, I took the oath of office at noon, and he died sometime after 3:00 that afternoonif I remember correctly.  So, its one of the great pleasures of my life in saying that I served with Dick Russell, and I met him, of course, on more than one occasion.  I went to see him after my primary victory, I went to see him and called on him and Senator Talmadge when I had gone to Washington, but I  I never saw him after I was actually elected in November.  I only saw him after I had won the primary.   \r\nBut, so  yeah, we  we just jumped right into it and started getting, setting up the office up there.  One of the best decisions I ever made was to keep the staff of  of  largely of my predecessor, Congressman ONeal, since I had not challenged him, there was no animosity there.  He was extremely helpful to me.  He had a chief of staff, executive assistant, administrative assistant, whatever you want to call it, by the name of John Ellis.  And John had been in D.C. for years and years, and years, and had worked for Congressman ONeal for the whole time he was there, so I asked John to stay on, and to retain whatever staff he felt like would best serve the needs of my district.  And John said, Congressman, you know, Im eligible to retire.  And I said, Yeah, I know that, John, but, you know, I need you, and I need help.  And he said, Well, Ill give you a year.  And he did.  And that was the best  the best decision that I made as far as staffing my office was concerned was to keep John on.  And we had some people had  I had a young man from Brinson, Georgia, who was working as press secretary for Congressman ONeal, by the name of George Watts, and George agreed to stay on and  and we had  I guess there were three other secretarial types, administrative types that had worked for Congressman ONeal that stayed on with me, which they were a tremendous help. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How did you meld with the party leadership?  You had an orientation session?  \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Yeah, we did, and it was  it was helpful.  Actually it was a bipartisan  that  in those days the orientation session was more bipartisan than I think it is today.  I haven't had any recent experience with it, but Mo Udall, who was the Congressman from Arizona, was one of the  one of the people that did the orientation, and I was very impress with Mo and  and with what he did, but as far as leadership is concerned, see it was  there was a majority leaders race going on and Mo Udall was in that race.  It was him and Hale Boggs and two or three others  I forget who all it was, but this was  John McCormick was leaving the speakership, and that had opened up, and it was clear that the then majority leader, Carl Albert, was going to become speaker, and he did.  So the race was for majority leader, and it was a pretty hotly contested race.  And I  my first exposure to leadership  well after  on election night, I got telegrams from all these people congratulations, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah.  But, my first experience with the leadership was when I was sitting in my office and one of the secretaries came in and said, \"Hey Boggs, Congressman Boggs is on the phone,\" and this  so I, of course I answered the phone, and he said, Dawson, this is Hale Boggs.  I need to see you.  And I said, Yes, sir.  Ill come right over.  He said, No, no, no, no.  Ill come to you.  And I said, Mr. Boggs, that aint the way I work.  He said, Sit tight.  Can I come over?  And I said, Yes. So he came over and asked for my support.   \r\nWell, I had already made up my mind that I was going to vote for Mo Udall on the first go around and Mo and his personal politics was a lot more, I guess the word would be liberal, progressive, whatever then  then I was and  but, I felt like that  that  that the institution in some ways needed to be shaken every once and a while, and Mo was shaking  he was shaking the tree, and, of course, it ended up in a run-off, but the final two candidates were Hale and  and Mo Udall, and Hale Boggs one.  Of course, he later died in  in the plane crash in Alaska with my friend, Nick Begich.  So, Mo Udall and his concession speech in the caucus made one of the most memorable statements I ever heard in all my time in politics when he  he  he knew  both of them had counted votes, and Mo knew he had enough votes to win.  Of course he didnt, but he thought he did.  And he said, My friends, during this race, I have discovered the difference between a caucus and a cactus.  On a cactus all the pricks are on the outside.  And I have never forgotten Mos concession speech. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You know, they say that new Congressman tend to gravitate toward people of their own professions, like lawyers to lawyers and businessmen to businessmen.  I doubt that there were any television celebrities in Congress at that the time. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Yeah.  Well actually, there was one.  There was Lionel Van Deerlin from San Diego, California who had done commentary on television.  He wasnt a real reporter, but he had done commentary on a TV program out there and had gained some exposure.  Its interesting you asked that question, Bob.  The Washington Post did a story following my election to track, I believe there were twelve races around the country either at a congressional level or a gubernatorial level where television so-called personalities were involved in these races.  And of the twelve candidates, there was only one that won and I was happy that that one was me.  But, that has changed.  You know, Jesse Helms went to the Senate based on a television career in North Carolina, and there have been others since that time.   \r\nThere also have been any number of professional athletes that have gotten elected:  Jack Kemp, and, of course, when I went to Congress I served on the Ad Council committee with a fellow by the name of Vinegar Bend Mizell.  Wilmer Mizell had been a baseball pitcher and gained a lot of notoriety.  And I also served with Bob Mathias, who was an Olympic champion in the  in the '50s and '60s from California.  So, a lot of those guys had gained notoriety by their athletic accomplishments.  But there werent a lot of people from my profession.  But, you know, thereve always been a lot of newspaper men involved in politicsnot the least of which was Harding, who owned newspapers in Ohio before he became president.  You know, its not as if the presses or the media has never been involved in politics.  Its just a new world. \r\nAnd, one point  let me back up just a bit.  You were talking about my race for Congress.  You must remember that in 1970, we didnt have satellites, we didnt have cable, we didnt have all these  we didnt have computers, of course.  You didnt have all these media outlets when people watched television in my Congressional district, there were two stations that they had an option for.  For the largest part of the district, they either watched me or they watched Channel 6 out of Thomasville Tallahassee and we were the dominant station.  So it wasnt like I was competing with CNN or ESPN or all these others, and that made a big difference in that race, too.  They just  they were exposed to me whether they wanted to be or not. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Mm-hmm.  One of the first jobs you had was to talk about committees.  How did you go about selecting committees, and which committees were you appointed to?   \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, my predecessor had served on the agriculture committee, and I had made a commitment that thats the committee I would try to get assigned to, and of course in those days the committee, the Democratic Committee on Committees was the Democratic members of the Ways and Means Committee.  And Phil Landrum was on the Ways and Means Committee and he was my advocate to get on the Agricultural Committee and he was successful in doing that.  I think there were six or seven of us freshman who went on the committee that year and Phil got me on ahead of everybody else, which gave me -- \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Seniority. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  -- A leg up on seniority.  Even though I was the youngest guy, I had the lead on seniority, which proved to be valuable in terms of sub-committee chairmanships opening up.  I was next in line.  Phil Landrum, by the way, he was wonderful to me.  He took me under his wing and he  he led me and he guided me and he kept me out of trouble on a lot of things.  And he and I did an interesting deal in 70  I guess it must have been in 72, Nixon had a  a proposal to reduce the tax on automobile  new automobiles being sold.  I forget what his package was, but he would take the  the luxury tax off of automobiles and sent that proposal to the Ways and Means Committee.  What I discovered that what he had done was pertaining only to automobiles.  It didnt pertain to pick up trucks.  Well, behold, Ive got a few pick up trucks in my district, so I went to Mr. Landrum and his eyes lit up.  He said, I think weve got us a good issue, so he  we dropped the bill in together and eventually when the bill passed, it had exemption for pick up trucks, as well.  Phil Landrum was a giant of a man. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Were there other committees besides agricultural? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  No, I didnt even try for another committee the first year.  They came  Phil came to me at the beginning of, I guess it would have been '73, the beginning of my second term, and said they  they need  we need you on the House Administration Committee and thats the committee that does housekeeping.  It runs the restaurants.  Its responsible for parking.  Its responsible for office staff allowances.  Its  its just  its a members committee more or less, and no glamour, just a lot of work.  But it also is good for  you can develop a little power base off of that committee by doing favors for other members.  You know, Ill scratch your back, you scratch mine kind of thing.  So, I said, \"Well sure, Ill be glad to serve if  if leadership wants me to be there.\"  And they also were looking for somebody that they thought had some staying power.  You dont want to put somebody on that thats going to be up for re-election that might get beat because he voted to increase staff -- the money for hiring staff by two slots next year, so they thought I was pretty safe, and  and I guess I was, and so I went on the House Administration Committee at the beginning of my second term.   \r\nAnd he  it was chaired by a crusty old fellow from Ohio by the name of Wayne Hayes, who later found himself in some hot water about a young lady by the name of Elizabeth Ray, and Wayne ended up resigning from Congress as a result of that scandal.  But I enjoyed that service on the  on the House Administration Committee.   \r\nOne of the subcommittees I served on there was the Elections Subcommittee and following the Watergate situation with Nixon, we passed some new election laws, including the public funding for presidential elections, and some other election reforms, which we placed  tried to place some limitations on contributions, limitations on spending, and the Supreme Court knocked down several of those.  We had to go back and redo it in '76, but that was interesting work.   \r\nWhen they started talking about the funding  public funding for presidential elections, I offered an amendment in committee that said prior to the time that any candidate could receive federal funds for  to spend on his election, hed have to take an IQ test, and they didnt have to pass it, but the results had to be made public.  And Ive often thought in recent days with George W. Bush in the White House how the future of this country might have been changed if my amendment had passed. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You later served on the Steering and Policy Committee. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Yeah, as a result of  as a result of Watergate, we elected a huge class of Democrats in 1974, that came in in 1975, and they were reform minded to  to  to say the least.  They knocked off three committee chairmen  long-term committee chairmen  Democratic committee chairman, because until that time it had been just the seniority system that dictated who was going to be the chairman of the committee.  Nothing but seniority.  And this new class decided, well  along with some reform-minded Democrats who had already been there and decided they wanted to change that, so they took away the ability of the Ways and Means Committee Democrats to be the Steering and Policy committee and they established a new form of selection and basically it was that there would be 13 zones around the country that would have one member elected by the Democratic members within that zone, and then the speaker and the leadership would have the other 13  the speaker having the seat, the majority leader having a seat, the  whip having a seat  chief deputy whip  caucus chair, blah, blah, blah.  So, I got myself elected from the zone that represented Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee, so I had the pleasure of serving on the Steering and Policy committee for four years, which at that time was well out of my  my term had expired, but you could only be there for four years anyway. The Steering and Policy committee was a very interesting committee because it  it makes committee assignments for incoming members or members that want to move from one committee to the other, so that also gives you a little... \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Clout  a little clout \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  I wouldnt have used that word, Bob, but I wouldnt disagree.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Ed Jenkins told me that you are responsible for him getting on the Ways and Means Committee as a freshman. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, Ed probably gives me a little too much credit, but I think I might have had something to do with it.  That little knocker would not give me any alternative.  I had a handful of freshman coming in that year, including three from Georgia  not only Ed, but Billy Lee Evans from Macon, and Doug Bernard from Augusta.  And Evans wanted Public WorksI can do that.  Bernard wanted BankingI can do that.  Jenkins wants Ways and Means.  Well there hasnt been a freshman on the Ways and Means Committee in 50 years.  A freshman Democrat.  There may have been a Republican or two.  I don't know.  But I kept telling Jenkins, I said, Jenkins, you know, Ive got to have some back up.  Give me some way out.  He said, I cant.  I dont want anything else.  I said, Well, Jenkins, you  if we dont get Ways and Means, which is one of the last committees thats assigned, you may end up on the D.C. Committee.  Jenkins said, Well, Ill be the best member the D.C. Committee ever had.  So, he held out, and we were able to  we were able to prevail, but I got to tell you Bob, in all seriousness, and Jenkins knows thishes never admitted it to me, but his predecessor Phil Landrum had something to do with that too, because he had a lot of friends that he left in congress, and he  Ed had  had worked for Phil  had served Phil for a number of years, and I know Phil called on his friends to help Ed.  But we also have had another Georgia  we put Wyche Fowler on the Ways and Means Committee and, actually, I had four  I put four  well, I nominated and was able to help get four members from my zone on that committee  in one year, and I must say thats   its a little unusual to be able to do that.  I had Harold Ford from Tennessee, and Kenny Holland from South Carolina, Ed Jenkins from Georgia, and Wyche Fowler later in the year, from Georgia.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Isnt it unusual to have two members from one state? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Depends on the size of the state, but yes, it is, but particularly a state the size of Georgia.  I mean, at that time, I think we had 8 Democratic members, but its a  a little unusual. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Lets get back to you.  There is an expression around Washington, which Ive heard many times is that freshman should be seen and not heard.  Do you remember your first floor speech? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  I dont.  Do you? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Do you remember your first vote? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  No, I couldnt tell you that.  No I couldnt.  I just know that whatever  whatever I was talking about, I must have been as nervous as a cat, but I dont remember today.  I couldnt tell you that.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Could it be for Speaker, in the caucus?   \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well that would have been in the  well, yeah, it would have been even in  in  in the uh  yeah that would have probably been the first vote.  It would have been the first vote for the Speaker.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  And that would have been for Carl Albert.  \r\n  \r\nSHORT:  Carl Albert, yeah. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Okay.  Uh  Jenkins also told me that he had a mentor, who was Phil Landrum.  Did you have one? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Phil Landrum. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Phil Landrum. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Yeah, Phil Landrum was extremely kind and generous to me.  He kind of took me under his wing as they say and he introduced me to a lot of people, and he helped me a lot.  He  the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee at that time was Wilbur Mills from Arkansas, and Phil and Wilbur Mills were very close and this is prior to the time that it was known that Wilbur had an alcohol problem.  You know, he ended up in with a young woman who was somewhat notorious as a dancer called Fanny Fox and jumped in the tidal basin one night after she got out of Mr. Mills car, but  Wilbur had a little hideaway right off the floor of the house at 208  H 208 and about bull bat time every day, a lot of the older members, including Phil, would go have a pop with Mr. Mills in that little hideaway there, and they started inviting me to come by there and socialize with them, and then I was  you know, I was taken aback at first, but then it was a  I realized what a high honor it was to be accepted by the Old Bulls, and, parenthetically, I never saw Wilbur Mills take a drink.  I had  I was  I couldnt have been more shocked when all this came out about him, but he certainly, Wilbur Mills was certainly one of the most knowledgeable and intelligent men Ive ever  ever known in my life.  He was the tax code and he ran that committee with an iron hand, but Phil Landrum had a great deal of sway with Wilbur and they were very, very close friends and when they invited me into that inner circle, I felt like I had  I had arrived, as it were.  But they were very good to me.  Particularly Phil Landrum.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What was the interrelationship between the Georgia delegation.   \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, by and large, it was good, particularly among Democrats.  But I  I guess Stuckey was the newest member of the delegation until I got there.  He went there in 66, or was elected in 66, sworn in in 67.  But I came in 70, but other than that, they  some of those guys have been around for a while.  Phil  I think Phil Landrum went up there in '54, and Jack Flint went up there very shortly after that.  And, you know, John Davis and Bob Stevens, and some of those guys have been around for a long time, so I was kind of a new kid on the block, but they  we had a good working relationship within that delegation.  Brinkley was  Jack Brinkley was there.  I would say it was extremely  we tried to help each other and we kind of, you know, spread out over the various committees.  I had Agriculture, Phil had Ways and Means, Jack Flint had Appropriations, Bob Stevens had Banking, and if we needed something from those, one of us needed something from one of those areas, everybody worked well --- very well together, I would say.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Okay.  During your time in Congress there were several issues that actually divided the American people.  Lets talk about some of them, like the Vietnam War. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well you are right.  It was very divisive and  and, um, even more so  far more so than the situation in Iraq is today, but it was  it was a very trying time.  Of course it was  every  every night, even when I was at the television station it was so many casualties in Vietnam today, but they also did the body counts of the other side.  You know, we lost 24 soldiers today, but we killed 216 Vietcong, North Vietnamese, and you never knew how accurate any of that was.  But it was  it was bloody.  People were very divided over it, but the attitude of most people in my congressional district was if you are not going to win it, get out.  And, of course, there was no winning it.  In my judgment, even looking back at it now from the perspective of 35 years having gone by, there was no way to win it.  Theres no win.  You  youre fighting, you dont know who you are fighting. You  you see them in the street right today, and tonight they are shooting at you.  I mean how do you know who they are?  And Im afraid we got ourselves bogged down in that kind of situation in Iraq.  I hope Im wrong, and, of course, the casualties  the number of fatalities in Iraq is not nearly approximated that of what we had in Vietnam, but I think the total  the dollar cost and the cost  and the prestige and the damage that has been done to the reputation of our country, will exceed what happened in Vietnam over a long of period of time, but thats not what you asked me about.  \r\nPeople were divided and my stance was not any different than that, of the majority of the people in my district and that is lets win it or get out.  But I continued to vote to support the appropriations for that war.  I didnt feel like we could abandon the troops, and I voted right up to the last to fund it.  But the big push was to cut off funding for the war and the theory being that if you didnt have the money, then obviously you have to bring the troops out.  But Im convinced that we could have gotten out of Vietnam a lot earlier than  than we did.  I think that it was prolonged unnecessarily by the actions of the Nixon administration.  And thats, to me, regrettable.  One of the great failures of the Nixon administration to not have ended that war earlier.  He knew that there was no way that we were going to win it. I mean we  it couldnt be done.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Dawson, President Nixon resigned on August the 9th 1770[sic], 1794[sic]. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  1794? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Yeah, under the -- \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Bob, I was not there in 1794. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Under the threat of impeachment. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  I may have been there in 1974.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Do you think the House of Representatives would have voted impeachment?   \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  I dont think theres any doubt about it.  Yeah, they would have.  Uh  for a number of reasons.  Ill tell you a little story, and you probably want to edit out when you make the cut on this, but, when they had the famous 18-minute gap on the tapes came out.  They had  up until that time, the Nixon administration had made the conscious decision politically that they were going to stonewall it.  But after that disclosure, they decided they were going to let it all hang out  they were going to tell it all.  So he invited a group of mainly southern Democrats who had been largely supportive of him on Vietnam and a lot of other domestic issues to come down to the White House and have dinner and he was going to have a  a tell it all, answer any questions youve got kind of session with us that had generally been supportive of him.    \r\nSo the, after dinner the question and answer session began and the first question that was asked was by a crusty old Floridian by the name of Bob Sikes, who happened to be a native of Worth County, Georgia, but Bob lived in Crestview, Florida, and represented the panhandle there for many years, and he was a senior member of the Appropriations Committee.  And it just happened over that previous weekend , there had been some threats by Russia to go in to Israel because Israel and Egypt were in a little tiff.  Well Nixon had put our armed forces on alert to be prepared to go in in case Russia went after Israel, and I  you probably would remember that.  Not many people thatll be watching this would remember that, but it happened and Syches asked a question, Well, do you think that you putting the troops on alert caused the Russians to back away from their threat?  Well Nixon went into a 15 minute dialogue on the history of the Middle East, and it was obvious that he was very well informed.  He knew the issues.  And then at the end of that time, he said, But let me tell you one thing.  He said, Mr. Khrushchev has his finger on a button that can kill 50 million Americans, and I know it.  And I have my finger on a button to kill 150 million Russians, and he knows that.  And in his exact words, He Goddamn well dont want to F with me. \r\n I walked out of the White House that night, Stuckey was with me.  I think we had ridden down there together.  We were still on speaking terms in those days.  But, we walked out of the White House that night.  We both were shaking.  I mean, this  this man had just lost it, and I would have voted to impeach him if for no other reason than I thought he was insane.  And I think that  in many ways he had a good presidency, and he did many things I agree with, but at the end, and understandably, the pressure he was under had to drive anybody nuts, but  but I think he was just over the  over the edge.  I never saw him, Bob, and I dont want to sound like Im dumping on him because I say I agree with a lot of what he did, but I never saw him when he didnt have make-up on.  Wed go down to the  to the White House for any function and he had this pancake  you know, he had that dark beard. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  It probably cost him the election against Kennedy and -- and, uh, he was very conscious of it, but by the time youd get to the White House at 7:00 at night or so for a reception or dinner, it would be down on his collar.  The only man I ever saw that wore make-up consistently.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  The question at the time was, what did he know and when did he know about Watergate?  Do you have any theory on that? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  No, I  I think thats pretty  been pretty well documented that he  he knew it.  I dont think he knew it beforehand, but I think he knew it pretty shortly after it  it happened, and  and  and did do his best to  to cover it up.  If he had come clean, or if he had taken those tapes out on the side lawn of the White House and called the press, and said watch me poor gasoline on these and burn them, it would have never happened.  But it  but he was concerned, as every president must be, about his place in history, and how hell be judged, and I think he  I think he thought he could stonewall it, which is a mistake most politicians who find themselves in trouble make.   \r\nThey try to cover it, they try to deny it, and by and large the American people are pretty forgiving, and if you come out and say I made a mistake, you know, we believe in redemption.  And if you say I made a mistake, and Im going to do better, they might let you get away with it, but if they catch you lying, in a bold face lie, they dont respond to that very well.  But the remarkable thing about the Nixon situation was the night that he left, or the day left  that Jerry Ford took over, uh, there were no tanks in the streets.  You know, there was no armed rebellion.  It was  it was very peaceful and very tranquil and it worked.  Our system worked.  But that was one of the toughest times in the history of this country, and I will always treasure the fact that I was there while  while that was going on.  I had several friends  good friends who served on the  on the Judiciary Committee with Chairman Peter Rodino, and Rodino was a dear, dear, dear friend of mine.  Walter Flowers from Alabama and Larry Hogan from  Republican from Maryland, and these guys were close to me, and I know what they were going through.  Walter Flowers from Alabama had  had the Nixon folks.  I dont know whether Nixon did or not, but the Nixon Folks called George Wallace and  and got George Wallace to try to put pressure on Walter, and Walter told me that hed gotten a call from Governor Wallace about  about his vote.  But, Walter was in the White House that night Nixon made the Khrushchev comment, too, and I think that rattled him as much as all the things that he had done to try to cover up the Watergate.  But the most remarkable thing, as I say, was that it was so peaceful.  A very traumatic time, but the country survived.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Gerald Ford.  He became president.  What was the mood of Congress at that time? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  I would say that most members of Congress wanted to see Jerry Ford succeed.  Jerry Ford was a decent, good man.  We might have disagreed on some issues, but I can tell you I voted with Ford probably more often than I did with  with my leadership on a lot of issues of  fiscal issues and those kind of things.  I had a good relationship with Ford.  In those days, unlike today, in the post Gingrich area  era, you can get along cross-eyed.  You can  you could work with each other.  You  and  and we got things done for the country, and Jerry Ford was a large part of that.  He  even though he was highly partisan on some issues, he also put the country ahead of his party.  And Jerry  Jerry Ford was a decent guy, and I think most members, Democratic and Republican wanted to see him be successful.  Of course when  when Jimmy Carter became a candidate on the Democratic side and I, obviously, my support went to Carter.  I didnt support Ford for president, but I wanted him to be successful.  I want every American President to be successful.  But  but Jerry deserved better than he got in retrospect, and as far as the reputation he had for  for clumsiness and, you know, the Chevy Case character off of Saturday Night Life.  That wasnt Jerry Ford.  Jerry Ford was a good athlete.  He wasnt a brilliant man  I certainly wouldnt say that he had the  the IQ of an Ed Jenkins or Elliot Levitas, but Jerry was nobodys dummy, either.  A good  good man, good guy.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Do you think that Watergate was the reason for his defeat? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, Im not sure if Watergate, per se.  Watergate had a lot to do with it.  Theres no doubt about that.  But I think the fact that  that he pardoned Nixon probably as a result of Watergate, probably had more to do with his defeat than anything else.  Plus, Carter was a charming candidate.  He was very attractive candidate.  A fresh face.  An alternative to business as usual in Washington, and  and, you know, that million dollar smile and I will never lie to you.  All those things contributed, but I think probably pardoning Nixon probably cost Ford more than anything else.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Do you recall the Abscam scandal.   \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Shoot, I reckon. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  What are your memories of that?   \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Bob, I  my belief always has been that it was pure and simple entrapment.  Um  now you can argue that that didnt justify what happened with these members of Congress, but, you know, Eve couldnt resist the fruit and they  they went after these guys big time.  And its  and theres no doubt in my mind either that they went after the Democrats because--  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You're speaking now of the FBI. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Even the FBI.  You see, they  they got six Democrats and I think one day somebody down there in the FBI woke up and said, whoa, wait a minute.  We got to go get us a Republican, and thats when they went after Dick Kelly from Florida, and he was the 7th Abscam victim, and when they got him, they shut the operation down.  Now what does that tell you?  Um  I regret it.  Theres no justification for it.  Um  I, at that time, the time that Abscam was going on, had been through a divorce.  Financially, I was strapped.  I got four kids, two of whom are approaching college age, and despite the fact that you're making forward of $250,000, which was a raise from the $1,000 a month I was making at the television station, when you have a house in D.C. and a house in Georgia, and you are back and forth, the money doesnt go very far, but, long story short, I was strapped.  And I dont know what I would have done if they had walked in there and offered me $50,000 to do what I had already done for nothing for people.  I think I know what I would have done, but I dont want to face that temptation.   \r\nAnd what  what these guys were asked to do was to introduce a bill to prohibit Bob Short from being expelled from the country.  He had been here on a visa and he wanted to stay, and if you introduced a bill to say you cant expel him, that bill would be referred to the judiciary committee.  And until the judiciary committee acted on that bill, Bob Short couldnt be expelled.  So, I mean that  its a  I had nurses who were here from the Philippines who had over-stayed their visa, but they needed the hospital where they were working needed them.  So the way you keep them here is to introduce a bill.  And  and it  it, you know, you do it for nothing.  If somebody comes in and says, you know, something you do for nothing, Ill give you $50,000 to do, so, it  it  it could be a  it could be a pretty big temptation.  Im glad I wasnt exposed to it.   \r\n  \r\nSHORT:  You mentioned having a home in Georgia and having a home in Washington.  How did you balance your duties as a Congressman and your need to campaign in the district.   \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, I guess that came pretty easily to me.  I told you I moved my family up there in December of 1970, but they didnt like it.  My wife didnt like it, my children werent happy, so we decided to  wed move back to the district.  I  when I was there, it was like I was coming home almost every weekend to campaign, or to  to  to do events or whatever the reason might be.  And so, we moved back to Albany in 72.  And that way I did see more of them actually than I did while I was in D.C., but still I didnt see nearly enough of them.  Thats what politics does to you, particularly when you have a young  a young family as I did.  In retrospect, I didnt  you cant change anything, and theres not a lot I would change, but I probably  I probably got into it too early.  My kids should have been older, because I  I missed a lot of things with them that I regret.  I just guess I wasnt the kind of father I needed to be.  Ive tried to make it up to them since.  I dont think you every really can, but Im closer to all my children than I ever was when they were small, and I feel like that I missed a great part of their lives.  But when youre  when you are  when youre in politics, that happens.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Uh-huh. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Unfortunately.  It takes a toll on the family. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Mm-hmm.  Just before you left office in 80,  Carter was president and we had the Iranian hostage problem.  Do you think that this country could have done more to have them freed while Carter was president?   \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  I dont know what it could have possibly been, Bob.  I mean, I really dont.  The only way I guess you have a chance of getting them out of there outside of diplomatic channels is to do what they tried to do, and Carter didnt screw that up.  He took the blame for it as he should.  He was the chief  he was the Commander in Chief.  He was President, but that was a military snafu, when they had the  the  the disaster out there in the desert.  But I dont know what possibly could have been done more to  to get them out of there than what was.  And there is no doubt in my mind that the  the Reagan people cut a deal with the Iranians to  to have them released, if he were elected.  I mean it has got to be more than coincidence that they were released the day he was sworn into office.  And, of course, we know later on what happened with his arms for hostages deal, which is just, to me, one of the darkest episodes in American history, but most of the people down in our part of the country think that Regan was probably one of the finest presidents weve ever had.  I have a little differing opinion on that.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Mm-hmm. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  I think some ways he did do a good job, and in other ways he nearly bankrupted the country. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Carter became president and he was accused of not having good relations with Congress and not having good effort to get along with Congress.  Is that true? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, I dont think he did all he could to get along with Congress.  It was kind of like when he was Governor of Georgia.  I think that when the legislature didnt do what he wanted to, he kind of went directly to the people and thats just not going to work in a Congressional setting and he also was a  a little  maybe not him personally, but his staff was a little reluctant to let his friends help him in Congress.  And theres no  theres no doubt that there was some antagonism between him and the Congress.  He and  he and Tip ONeill  speaker ONeill, never had the kind of relationship that ONeill later developed with Regan.  I think that Tip and Ronald Regan got along a lot better than Tip and Jimmy Carter did.  Tip had a particular dislike for Hamilton Jordan.  He called him Hannibal Jerken.  And he  Hamilton kind of--they had the attitude, well we want it and its ours, and were going to run this thing and you  you know, youve just got to have some help.  Youve got to  you cant dictate to the Congress what they are going to do because, particularly on the house side  they  you know  the only way you get to become a member of the House of Representatives is to be elected by the people.  You can be appointed to the Senate.  You can be appointed Vice President and become the President, as Jerry Ford did, but if youre a member of the House, youve been elected by the people.  And, I love the institution.  I always will, and I've got a great deal of respect for it, but we can be pretty independent cusses because we aint got to answer to Jimmy Carter.  We answer to the people in our district, and I think the President has got to realize that if hes going to be successful.  Hes got to learn to deal with  with the  with the  particularly members of the House.  I think sometimes the Senate is easier to deal with for a President than the  than the House is. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Another rap on Carter was that his staff was too inexperienced and too Georgian.  \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  I wont deny it.  I think theres a great deal of truth to that.  Billy Evens told me one time when Billy was a member of Congress from Central Georgia  Macon  he said, Mathis, do you ever have trouble getting to the President?  I said, Yeah, I do.  He said, Well, I  Ive figured out  No, Do you ever trouble getting to Hamilton Jordan?  And I said, Yeah, I do.   And he said, Well, I figured out how to get to Hamilton Jordan.  And I said, Well hows that Billy?  He said, Well, I call the White House and say I need to speak to the President.  And he said, Hamiltons going to call me back.  If I call Hamilton, hell never call me back.  But he wants to know what I want to talk to the President about.  So I started doing that, and dog gone if Billy Evans wasnt right.   \r\nSo it  but that  but Hamilton, may he rest in peace  I liked Hamilton, and he was  he was a good guy, and went through a lot of travails in his final years, but I think that  that there was an arrogance there that we want it, we earned it, its ours, and yeah, I think it may have been  he needed more, a broader base of experience than what he brought with the crowd that he brought to Washington.  But there was some very, very competent, capable people.  Bert Lance, uh, you know, very, very talented man.  Jody Powell is still in D.C. and has done very well for himself in private practice.   Im  there are  there were a lot of good people, but I think overall they  they needed more diversity and a wider background of experiences than what they brought to the White House. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  In a situation where you run for President as an outsider, usually when you arrive in Washington, you are an outsider. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Thats correct.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How do you work your way inside? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, I think you have to do it very, very carefully.  You have to  you have to show first of all that you are willing to work with the  with the Congress, and  and I think thats integral to it  to be open to them.  You  you  as I said earlier, you cant dictate to Congress what they are going to do.  You have to reach out and say, you know, how can we accomplish this.  How can we working together get this done.  And I think thats the only way it happens.  You cannot run rough shod over the Congress, and  and I think that, uh, some people have learned that the hard way.  Reagan was an outsider, but he  he worked well with the Congress, including the Democrats.  He never could have accomplished what he did legislatively without some Democratic support.  And as I mentioned earlier, he and Tip ONeill had a great personal relationship.  They might fight like cats and dogs about some issue, but at the end of the day, Tip would go down to the White House and they would have a drink.  And thats the way I would like to see it be today.  Unfortunately, it has gotten to be so much of a cat fight on both sides of the aisle, that they just dont seem like they can come together to do anything thats good for the country, and I regret that. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  1980, you decided to run for the United States Senate.  What prompted that decision? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, I thought I could win.  That ought to be fairly obvious, Bob.  No it was  it was very clear that Senator Talmadge was in some trouble.  I saw polls.  In fact I had a polling done that said he was not going to be reelected and  and  and those  those polls were correct, and I was correct.  What I didnt foresee was that there would be so many people  other people in the race, including Zell Miller and Norman Underwood.  I thought, and I still think if I could have gotten him one on one, that I could have  I could have won.  I knew Zell couldnt.  Zell, at that time, was perceived, if you can believe it, based on his actions in the past few years, he, at that time, was perceived as being too liberal for Georgia, and once he got in the run-off with Senator Talmidge, Senator Talmidge just kind of annihilated him, but I  I thought that  that the time was right.   \r\nSenator Talmidge had had the problems  the ethical problems.  And then he had had the alcohol related problems, and I thought he had been weakened to the point where I could take him on.  And, as it turned out, you know, I was correct that he wasnt going to be reelected, I just didnt foresee that it would be a Republican that would do it.  The Republicans were just beginning to come into prominence in Georgia in those days, but Mack Mattingly who was a nice guy, probably about as weak a candidate as youll ever see, and certainly was about a weaker Senator as you are ever going to see getting elected to the Senate, but it  and several people  not several  well  many people talked to me about switching parties and running as a Republican, and probably if I had done that and were able to secure the nomination, I might have won that seat, but I wasnt going to walk away from the Democratic party.  Not that I had  well it did  I just  to me it wouldnt be right.  You dance with the girl that brung you, unlike Zell Miller, who I think is a real turncoat and has betrayed many of his friends and loyal supporters who helped him over the years, and he just turned his back on them and thumbed his nose at them in these last few elections, and Ive lost all respect I might have ever had for him.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, getting back to that campaign in 1980, financially were you in good shape? Were you ready to run? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  No.  No, we were not.  And I guess all told, during that period of time, during that entire race we probably raised about a quarter of a million dollars.  I was severely under funded, and I knew weeks ahead of the election that I was not going to win.  And we couldnt raise the money, and I guess probably the hardest period of my life was getting up every morning and going out to those factory gates at 5:00 in the morning and shaking those hands when you knew you were not going to win, and trying to keep your staff going and keep them buoyed and keep their spirits up.  And it was a tough time, but you know, we had no choice but to go forward with it.   \r\nNow, I must say that I had gotten a little bored in the House.  You know, you sit through the same peanut hearing year after year after year and hear the same witnesses talk about the same problems, it gets a little boring.  I enjoyed my service in the house, but the time had come for me to move on either  either to go to the Senate, which I think I would have been fairly good as a member.  In fact I know I would  and I know I would have enjoyed it, and I know I could have done good things for this state, but, Ive often said that  making that decision to run for the Senate in 1980 was the best mistake I ever made.  If I couldnt go to the Senate, it was time for me to get out and try to make enough money to educate my children and  and move on to the next phase of my life, so I have no regrets about having done it, even though it was a mistake.   \r\nAnd Ive had people  many people in my district tell me I could have held that seat as long as I wanted it and I think there may be some merit to that.  A Democrat still holds the majority part of that district, Sanford Bishop  but it was time  it was time for me to do something else. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Even in politics, you must follow your heart. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Yes.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Lets talk for a minute about party politics in Georgia, since you mentioned that.  1964, President Johnson told our Senator, Dick Russell, when he signed the Civil Rights Bill, that he had turned the South over to the Republicans.  That eventually happened, but in Georgia it took 40 years.  How do you account for all the other southern states becoming Republican, while Georgia held on to the Democrats for that 40 years? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, Im not sure it took 40 years, Bob.  It began to happen in the 70s.  My service on the Steering and Policy Committee, with Mendel Davis from South Carolina, Walt Flowers from Alabama  fairly conservative, at least middle of the road Democrats from our part of the country, we told the Steering and Policy Committee time after time where we are going to lose our seats in the House is going to be in the South, and you could see it happening.  And it wasn't happening that fast in Georgia.  Bo Callaway was the first Republican elected to Congress from Georgia, and he was elected in 1964.  But it was happening in other states, and  and I think we clearly foresaw it was happening here, if you keep making the Democrats take the gas, as it were.  But there is no doubt in my mind, that in 1968 Lee Atwater, who was Nixons primary strategist, made a  forced Nixon into making a conscious decision to go after the white southern vote, and ignore the northern black vote.   \r\nIt probably happened even earlier than that.  In 1960 there were signs of that.  If you remember correctly, Jack Kennedy called Martin Luther Kings wife while he was in jail down here, to say that they were going to do everything they could to try to get him out, and I think that probably turned the election.  Now, in spite of that, Jack Kennedy carried Georgia by the second largest margin of any state in the country.  But the Republicans, for years, saw that the white vote was up for grab in the South, and they did everything they could to go after that  vote and theyve done that consistently since 1968.  The way they win elections is not on issues any more.  I mean, you talk about issues like war and peace or the economy and  its race and religion.  Its smear and fear.  Its gays and guns.  And thats  unfortunately, thats what its become.  And that, as I said earlier today, when I was in Congress and Jenkins and Evans and these guys were in Congress, you could work with your counterparts across the aisle.  It didn't matter that they were Republicans or you were Democrats.  Lets get something done for the good of the country. \r\nBut, since then, its like they are at each others throat.  They  they run on these issues, and I think Newt Gingrich is more responsible for this than anybody in the country when he started going after Jim Wright with all these half factual things that destroyed Wrights career.  But, pick out your opponents weak points and go after him.  Attack him personally, and thats what it has become, unfortunately.  And I think we need to get back to the day where men and women of good will can sit down across the table, no matter what their political backgrounds and try to do whats right for the country, and, unfortunately, were a long way from there today, and its regrettable.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Here in Georgia, how do you see the future of the Democratic party over the years? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  I think that itll swing more back Democratic as the minority population continues to grow, and even, I think some  some people will come to realize who now are more inclined to be Republican, that they really have been duped over the years by what these Republicans are telling them.  They are going to do something about abortion.  They are going to  you know  and when I go into the polling place, Im not going in there to call a preacher.  Im going in there to vote for who I think would do the best for the country, and sooner or later a lot of these folks are going to realize theyve been fooled.  The Republicans are going to look after the pharmaceuticals, and the big bankers, and the big oil, and the insurance companies, and they do that at the expense of the working folks, and the working folks are told, \"Well, were not for gays.  They are  the Democrats -- are against guns.\"  You know they get all these wage issues that they never do anything about, and they cant do anything about them because of court decisions, but people continue to buy into it.   \r\nYou know, I drive by some  some pretty dilapidated mobile homes down here a lot of times and see a junk heap sitting in the front yard with a Bush 04 bumper sticker on the back of it.  What in the world are these people thinking?  I mean, I dont know.  But I think  I think thats going to change over time.  Clearly the minority population of Georgia is growing and I think they are going to tend to vote more Democratic.  And the Georgia delegation now is closer to back to a balance between Republicans and Democrats than it was.  It was almost all Democratic for years and years and years, and then it was heavily Democratic, and then it was heavily Republican, and now its swung back to a degree.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  You hear a lot of complaints  at least I do  from old time Democrats that our state party is too dependent upon minorities and labor unions for support and they arent happy with that.  Is there a balance?   \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  There has to be a balance, Bob, and I think theres some legitimacy to that perception.  Im not true that it  I mean, Im not convinced that its actually true that the party is dominated by minorities and labor unions and liberal academics, or whatever it may be, but I think thats the perception thats out there.  And, of course its, you know, its gotten to be at least in South Georgia  I dont know how it is in the mountains up there where you are, but its socially correct to be Republican.  Its  its  its part of  you know, if you are going to belong to the  to the Kiwanis Club, or the Country Club, or the Rotary Club, you  you know, youre just Republican.  Its  and at one time it was that way with the Democrats, but thats all been changed by these other things that we were talking about.   But, uh  there is  there is certainly some truth to the perception that the party is dominated by minorities and labor, but it  and I don't know how  I don't know how you fix that over a period of time.  I just dont know.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well up in the mountains where I came from, youve already hit the nail on the head  its  its God, gays and guns. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Yeah \r\n \r\nSHORT:  And  and NASCAR. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Yeah.  Oh, yeah.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Thats how they vote and you can have counties with  my home county up there now, for example, every office holder is Democratic, but they have voted  the people have voted Republican in state elections and in national elections for years.  And its that  which brings up a question I want to ask you  crossover voting.  We do not require party registration in Georgia.  Is that good, or is that bad? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  I think its good.  But there are  but theres legitimate arguments on both sides of it.  But I would prefer that it stay the way that it is  that you could vote, you know, either Republican or in the Democratic or Republican primary.  For example, back in the presidential preference primary in February, I voted in the Democratic primary.  My wife chose to vote in the Republican primary.  And I think that choice is good, but there are a lot of people who wont vote in those primaries because they dont want to have to make a choice where they are going to vote.  Im not going to tell them whether Im going to vote Democratic or Republican.  Ive heard that more than once.   \r\nWhen we had our first really contested statewide Republican primary in Georgia, and I believe it was in 78, my office was just flooded with calls from people who say I went into the polls and they asked me if I wanted or if I was going to vote Democratic or Republican, and Im not going to tell them how Im going to vote.  So thats been a little   people have been a little slow to come to be educated about that.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How about public financing of a political campaign.   \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Only if they take an IQ test.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  [Laughter] \r\n \r\nMATHIS: No  I  seriously, Bob, Ive  when I served on the House Administration Committee, we talked about those days when I served on the elections committee, I opposed public financing.  I ended up supporting it in the presidential election.  But I have come to believe since those days that that is the answer  that public financing is the answer.  Now you have to have some sort of threshold to have a candidate qualify to receive public funds.  Now what that threshold is, I cant tell you.  That maybe youve got to collect individual contributions of a minimum of $100 from 500 people, but you set some sort of threshold, and then you take the private money out of it.  You allocate a certain amount of money for every registered voter in whatever congressional district the guy is running in.   And you know, they argue against that is were spending tax payer money to have somebody be elected to office.   \r\nWell the other side of it is, friends, were paying for it today, because people that are financing these elections, whether they are Democrats or Republicans, certainly are expecting a return on their investment, and you look at what  the way this country's being run, and the kind of deficit that weve piled up, wed be far better off if we had people who were serving in public office who did not owe debts to labor unions or big business or whoever.  If they only owed the tax payers.  Yeah, Ive  I reluctantly have come to the belief that thats the only way we are ever going to get out of  if we ever can get out of the mess were in, is to go to some form of public financing. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  1978 Jimmy Carter made a speech that became known as the malaise speech.  As I look back on that speech and the conditions of this country today in 2008, I see a similarity.   \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  I think Carter was right on the money.  People didnt want to hear it, and, of course, it gave his critics something else to  to pounce on him about, that he was putting the country down, but I think Carter was pretty well  pretty well hit the nail on the head with that one and he was right.  And I agree with you, Bob.  I see a lot of similarities today.  The malaise is  maybe its not as pronounced now as it was then, but I think its certainly there and  yeah.   \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Carter was a  well, as they say, he was a great prophet, but not really a savior, but what can we do, Dawson, from your experience in the Congress, and your wisdom today, to overcome this feeling among the American people that things arent right? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, I don't know that I have  certainly, if I had the answer to that question, Bob, I wouldnt be sitting in a 150 year old log cabin in Nashville, Georgia, but I think  I think that a lot of it is that weve got to have some leadership in the Executive and the Congressional branch of  government thatll get us back to doing the things that we ought to do.  Were destroying this country.  I mean, we are  and were giving it away at this  youve seen, and everybody in the country have by now, this T. Boon Pickens ad where were sending $700 billion a year to foreigners to support our addiction to oil.  That money is not coming back.  Or, if it comes back, itll be to buy American businesses where theyll take the profit from that back over there.  And were a bunch of idiots for letting it happen.  And  and theres no relief in sight.  And its  its just sad to me that weve allowed the country to deteriorate to this point.  But, weve got no leadership.   \r\nI mean, when this idiots term of office is over, he will have put this country in debt.  He and his father and Ronald Regan are responsible for more than 80% of the national debt.  Now that is inexcusable, and the Republican party holds themselves up to be the party of fiscal responsibility.  What a bunch of B.S.  And what he's done in Iraq is just in excusable and unconscionable.  How do we get it back?  I don't know.  I don't know that the answer is Barack Obama, but I know the answer is not four more years of George Bush.   \r\nBut, it seems to me, Bob Short, that of all the people that are capable of leading this country, we've come up with some of the poorest candidates on both  on both sides.  I mean its just  its almost embarrassing.  I think its sad, is what it is.  Its pathetic and its terrible for the country.  I think that when you had political party conventions that actually selected the nominees of the party, prior to all this primary stuff, where they are out there pandering and the Democrats are  party are pandering to the far left; and in the Republican party, they are pandering to the far right.  The country was far better off and had better candidates and better presidents when men and women went into that convention and set out in that so-called smoke filled room and selected candidates.  I think we were far better off when you had men like Eisenhower and Truman and Roosevelt that were not selected through the primary process.  They were selected by party leaders, and the country was far better off and better served by that.   \r\nBut today  I mean, I dont see how you ever get back to that.  The McGovern Commission set up the primary process for the  for the Democrats, and how you ever now go back and say we are going to take away the peoples right to choose their own nominee, I don't know that you can, but we should.  Wed be far better off if we had political professionals:  governors and mayors and congressmen, senators, selecting who they thought the best candidate would be, rather than turning it over to the special interests in both parties.  \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Well, since we probably never will go back to that system, do you think that a one day national presidential primary in each state would help solve this prolonged period of campaigning that has gone on in recent times, where, for example, this one has gone on now for a year and half. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Bob, I think most any change would be constructive and would be better than the process we have now, but I actually  and Im not sure who originally proposed this  it wasnt me, but I actually prefer what would be a series of regional primaries, deep south, far west, northeast, mid-America, and rotate it where they come in differing orders every four years.  Say in the deep south states would be in 2008 first, and then followed by the far west, followed by  you see what Im saying, and just kind of rotate it around where nobody had it first every time.  I think that would be a more preferable system than what we have today. \r\nYou know, it was going to  the super Tuesdays were going to be the answer and solution to the problem, and that turned out not to be the case.  Maybe the one day thing in my judgement would be an improvement, I don't know how a candidate would handle it.  I don't know how you could possibly campaign nation wide in a primary, but it would be a tough go. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Whats been your proudest moment in politics? \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Ooh.  Thats a tough question, Bob.  I never thought about it.  Um  I guess just getting elected probably would  at the time at least  was my proudest moment.  I had some legislative victories in the Congress and committee and on the floor that I was proud of.  We  we did  we did a total reform of the food stamp program in 1977 that I led the fight on, and I was very proud of that as a legislative accomplishment.  We passed those election laws and after  post-Watergate that I took a great deal of pride in.  Um  and there were other legislative victories in the farm area.  We rewrote the peanut program and the rice program and brought them into the twentieth century, and I was proud of that.  But Id  Id guess Id be real hard pressed to point out any single thing as my proudest political moment.  Um  it would just be too hard to pin it down. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  I think I know the answer to this question, but Ill ask it anyway.  What has been your biggest disappointment.   \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Oohpolitically? \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Politically. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Um  well, I guess the biggest disappointment was not being successful in that Senate race, even though I knew it was going to happen, because I honestly felt that  Id be a good Senator.  Id proven my ability to legislate in the House, and I was with all  all the modesty I can muster, I will say for myself that I was a good legislator.  I did it  I built coalitions; I put together people on both sides of the aisle on various issues, and there were some that would tell you that at any given time that I probably have from 40 to 50 votes I could deliver on any given issue, and that put me in a position of some influence in the House, and I enjoyed that.   \r\nAnd it was  it was recognized by some.  There were some newspaper stories in the Atlanta papers in the late 70s that talked about my -- sometimes called me a river boat gambler, and a cowboy and a rogue, but they acknowledge that we were able to build these coalitions and deliver these votes, and so that  Im  I regret that I wasnt able to take that ability and that energy to the Senate on behalf of the people of Georgia, but, there again, I cant look back on it, and I  if I had to do it again, Id do the same thing.  Id  I would make the try.  Youve got to grasp for the ring even if it eludes you. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  One question that I failed to ask that I would like to ask is the practice of earmarks.  There have been a lot of criticisms recently about earmarks.  Whats your opinion of that. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Im of two minds, Bob.  I think some of them have just been totally ridiculously outrageous.  Like my good friend, Don Young, from Alaska tried to build that bridge from Ketchikan and over to that island for $214 million.  I mean its nuts.   \r\nThe other side of it is, if youve got a railroad crossing in Valdosta, Georgia that ties up traffic trying to get to the hospital by an ambulance carrying a patient out there thats about to die, and your train gets stuck there, and you can solve that problem by earmarking a little money in the public works bill that would appropriate a million and a half dollars to find a way to get a bridge over that railroad serving that hospital, thats a different thing.  And I have always believed that I, as a member of Congress, knew more about what was best for my district than some bureaucrat sitting in the  some bulk office in  rabbit warren of an office in Washington.  So I can, as the preacher said, I can preach it round, or I can preach it flat, but there are arguments on both sides of it.   \r\nPersonally, I think the practice of it has been outrageous.  The necessity for it in some instances is unquestioned. \r\n \r\nSHORT:  How would you like to be remembered. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Well, Id like to be remembered as a  as a good son, a good husband, a good father, a good friend, a good neighbor.  I failed the test as a good husband on two previous occasions.  I hope Im doing better.  Certainly pray that I am, Id like for my children to remember me as somebody who loved there very deeply and cared about their future.  Ive done my best to educate them and help them all I can, and I wish that I could call back a lot of those years that I did not spend with them and  and redo that time.  Of course, you cant  obviously you cant do that.  But  and Id like to be remembered by the people that I served as somebody who cared about their interest and did their best to make their life better in some way, whether it was a farmer or small businessman in South Georgia, or whomever.  And I think that I carried that reputation with me when I left Congress.  Id like to think that I  I still have people that I havent seen, or theres a lot of people I dont even know.  I might be walking down the street in Valdosta or Tifton and somebody will recognize me and say,  you helped my uncle Joe get his VA check.  And, of course, I dont remember that.  In most instances, it was something that my staff was able to do, but I have always drilled into my staff that I know that this is the 500th Social Security case you have handled this year, but to you, its another case.  To that widow woman down there in Doerun, Georgia, its her life. \r\nSo we did a good job, staff wise, and Id like to be remembered for that kind of constituent service.    \r\n \r\nSHORT:  Thank you very much Congressman Dawson Mathis. \r\n \r\nMATHIS:  Thank you, Bob.  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