{"response":{"docs":[{"id":"gych_rogp_133","title":"Julian Bond, 27 February 2012.","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","United States, Virginia, 37.54812, -77.44675"],"dcterms_creator":["Bond, Julian, 1940-2015","Short, Bob, 1932"],"dc_date":["2012-02-27"],"dcterms_description":["Bond discusses his early years, his education at Morehouse College, and his involvement in the civil rights movement, including his activities with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He talks about the racial and political climate in Atlanta in the 1960s, at a time when he was organizing sit-ins, protests, and voter registration drives. He also details his experience in the political arena as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives and, later, the Georgia senate.","Horace Julian Bond was born on January 14, 1940, in Nashville, Tennessee. As a student of all-black Morehouse College in Atlanta, Bond began his commitment to the civil rights movement when he helped to organize the Committee on the Appeal for Human Rights. In 1960 Bond helped to form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a student organization that provided grassroots support for civil rights in local communities. Bond served as communications director of SNCC, editing its protest magazine The Atlanta Inquirer. In 1965 he won a seat to the Georgia legislature, but was denied his seat because of his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War. Bond would be elected by his district and denied a seat a total of three times before the U.S. Supreme Court declared the actions of the Georgia House unconstitutional. Bond took his seat in the House in 1967 and served there until 1974, when he was elected to the Georgia senate. Around this time, Bond served as president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights law firm. As senator, Bond became the first African-American chair of the Fulton County delegation and chaired the Committee on Consumer Affairs. In 1971 he led a voter registration drives in the predominately black communities of Georgia. Bond retired from the senate in 1986 to run for the U.S. Congress, but lost to longtime friend and fellow civil rights activist John Lewis. He became a history professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and a chair to the board of directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).","Finding aid available in repository.","Interviewed by Bob Short."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":["Athens, Ga. : Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies"],"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","Georgia. General Assembly. Senate","Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.)","Morehouse College","University of Virginia","National Association for the Advancement of Colored People","History teachers--Virginia--Charlottesville--Interviews","College teachers--Virginia--Charlottesville--Interviews","Legislators--Georgia--Interviews","African American civil rights workers--Georgia--Interviews","African American civil rights workers","College teachers","History teachers","Legislators","Universities and colleges--Faculty","Georgia","Virginia--Charlottesville"],"dcterms_title":["Julian Bond, 27 February 2012."],"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-133/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 133 Julian Bond. Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, The University of Georgia Libraries."],"dlg_local_right":["Before material from collections at the Richard B. Russell Library may be quoted in print, or otherwise reproduced, 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":["Bond, Julian, 1940-2015"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"gych_rogp_121","title":"Rusty Paul, 27 October 2010.","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","Paul, Russell K., 1952"],"dc_date":["2010-10-27"],"dcterms_description":["Finding aid available in repository.","Paul discusses his childhood and early interest in politics growing up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama. He also gives an overview of his work as Georgia Chair of the Republican Party, Georgia senator, and city councilman in Stone Mountain and Sandy Springs. Other topics include the decision to change the Georgia state flag and the rise of the Republican Party.","Rusty Paul grew up the Birmingham, Alabama, area during the 1950s and 60s. He has worked in journalism as a newspaper and radio reporter, chaired the Republican Party in Georgia, served as a city councilman in Stone Mountain and Sandy Springs, and served as a state senator in the Georgia General Assembly.","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","Republican Party (Ga.)","Legislators--Georgia--Interviews","City council members--Georgia--Sandy Springs--Interviews","City council members--Georgia--Stone Mountain--Interviews","Flags--United States--States","Subject headings","City council members","Flags--U.S. states","Legislators","Georgia","Georgia--Sandy Springs","Georgia--Stone Mountain","United States"],"dcterms_title":["Rusty Paul, 27 October 2010."],"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-121/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 121, 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":["Paul, Russell K., 1952-"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"gych_rogp_109","title":"Milton Jones, 19 March 2010.","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":["Jones, Milton, 1936","Short, Bob, 1932"],"dc_date":["2010-03-19"],"dcterms_description":["Milton Jones discusses his childhood in Columbus, Georgia, and his subsequent education at Emory at Oxford, Emory, and Emory Law. Jones recalls successfully running for legislature in 1962 at 25 years old. He recalls the Supreme Court ruling that abolished the county unit system and explains how the system worked. Jones reflects on Brown v. Board of Education, the Dixiecrat uprising in the 1950s, and the integration of the University of Georgia. Jones recalls an incident when the clock was turned off during a reapportionment session and comments on the General Assembly's tendency to reapportion based on racial and political lines. He recalls the circumstances surrounding the legislature's decision to elect its own speaker. Jones reads Representative Bob Flournoy's 1964 speech regarding the demise of the county unit system and comments on several other reapportionment situations. Jones discusses working with Jamie Mackey, Elliott Levitas, and Denmark Groover. He also discusses voting to deny Julian Bond his seat, and the 1966 gubernatorial race. Jones recalls serving on the University System of Georgia Board of Regents and comments on party politics in Georgia. He further discusses crossover voting and party registration in Georgia.","Milton Jones was born on August 13, 1936, in Columbus, Muscogee Co., Georgia. He graduated from Columbus High School in 1954 and then from Emory at Oxford in 1956. He earned a bachelor's degree in law in 1958 from Emory University and a law degree in 1959. He served in the United States Army Reserves from 1954-1962, retiring as a Sergeant 1st class. A Democrat, he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1963 and served until 1970. In 1974, Governor Jimmy Carter appointed him to the University System of Georgia Board of Regents where he served, including as chairman, until 1981.","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","University of Georgia","College integration--Georgia--Athens--History","Legislators--Georgia--Interviews","Apportionment (Election law)--Georgia","Political parties--Georgia","Apportionment (Election law)","College integration","Legislators","Political parties","Politics and government","Georgia--Politics and government","Georgia","Georgia--Athens"],"dcterms_title":["Milton Jones, 19 March 2010."],"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-109/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 109, 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 (99 min.) : sd., col."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Levitas, Elliott Harris, 1930-","Bond, Julian, 1940-2015","Jones, Milton, 1936-","Groover, Denmark, 1922-2001"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":"Milton Jones interviewed by Bob Short \r\n2010 March 19 \r\nAthens, GA \r\nReflections on Georgia Politics \r\nROGP-109 \r\nOriginal: video, 99 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 BOB SHORT:  I'm Bob Short, this is Reflections on Georgia Politics sponsored by Young Harris College and the Richard B. Russell Library at the University of Georgia.  Our guest is Milton Jones, former member of the Georgia House of Representatives and former chair of the state Board of Regents.  Welcome Milton. \r\n \r\n MILTON JONES:  Thank you Bob. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  With your permission we'd like to divide our conversation into three parts.  First a little bit about you and your early life, then your service in the state legislature and on the board of regents, and finally your life after public service.  I know that you were born and raised in Columbus. \r\n \r\n JONES: Right. Well, I was.  Grew up there and went to school.  We were blessed with a fine public school system in Columbus in those days, at least the white kids.  I graduated from high school, Columbus High School, in 1954.  I was very fortunate.  I got to go to Emory at Oxford, a small two-year college down a couple miles north of Covington.   And then I went to big Emory in Atlanta for three quarters and then into law school.  And I went straight through law school and graduated in August of '59.   \r\n I was fortunate enough -- I couldn't have gone to Emory otherwise, but I picked up some scholarships and financial help, one of which was from the Ty Cobb educational foundation.  A lot of folks might not know it, but Ty Cobb started a foundation with the money he made in baseball and primarily off Coke-Cola stock and it educates, I don't know how may thousands of young men it's helped educate in the last 50, 60 years.  It does other things.  I believe it has a hospital up at Royston and other things, but I take my hat off and salute that gentleman again.   \r\n I married my high school sweetheart.  Went home and started practicing law, September 8, 1958, and it went on from there.  I had been interested in government, primarily in American history and government since I was in high school.  Had a great teacher --  I had many great teachers, I owe my life to them -- by the name of Mary Fort, who was the traditional stereotyped old maid schoolteacher in the '50's.  Her sister was one too.  She taught down in Thomasville Elementary School.  But Miss Mary as we called her, she taught American history and government at Columbus high school.  We figured it out at one time that out of the people she taught, over forty became lawyers.  I mean five or six guys -- Tommy Buck is one you would know for sure -- in my wife's class, the class behind me.  But she had a profound influence on a lot of our lives.  \r\n And of course, law back then was a little more admired profession than it is today.   A young lawyer getting home, I was interested in politics.  We had some local political issues that were arising in the early sixties.  I was involved and was on the winning side of one or two.  And, you know, scratching around trying to build a law practice, you know you got to build name recognition.  A seat came open, well, not didn't come open, but an opportunity came to run for the legislature in '62, and I ran.  When I started running I was 25, I was 26 by the time I was elected.  When I went to Atlanta, I was probably the youngest guy up there.   \r\n And that was in January of 1963, the year that Governor Sanders went in.  That summer that I was running was a very interesting summer, in that the United States Supreme Court, and I think it was in March of 1962, had ruled -- I believe the name of the case was Baker v. Carr.  It was a Tennessee case. But they established the one man one vote rule.  And the next month, the federal court in Atlanta -- Griffin Bell, I think wrote the opinion -- said that it applied to the Georgia legislature too.  Excuse me, he said that it applied to the county-unit system, and a few words may be in order about the county-unit system.   \r\n I'm sure a lot of people that listen to this, or that would be interested in listening to it, probably know about it, but for those who don't, there was a -- the county-unit system was like an electoral college, except it was for Georgia ruther than for federal elections.  And it was the way we elected all the state-wide offices in this state.   It also, in large measure, governed the apportionment of the legislature.  It was called, I think the technical title was the Neill Primary Act.  And I think it had started back probably in the late nineteenth century,  but in the early twentieth century I think it was given statutory form.  And back then of course, everyone was a Democrat.  That had been one of the legacies of the Civil War and Reconstruction.  The only Republicans in the county would be what we called the post office Republicans.  So they'd profess to be Republicans so the few times that a Republican got elected president they could be post master.   And then when the Democrats come back in, they'd go back to whatever they had been doing and hope for the next president to be a Republican.  \r\n  But anyway, the only game in town back then was the Democratic primary, because  \r\nthere just wasn't a Republican party.  And I always loved that term, that if you won the Democratic primary it was tantamount to a victory.  I love that word tantamount.  But anyway, the way it worked was the eight largest counties in the state of Georgia had six county-units.  The next 30 had four county-units, and the 121 smallest, there were 159 counties, had two county-units.  And if someone running for governor or lieutenant governor or insurance commissioner or whatever -- if he carried a county, he got all of that county's county-units. The same as if you carry a state today if you're running for president, you get all that state's electoral votes.  I think one or two states have now divided it up, but I don't know.  \r\n And you can see that this really discriminated against your larger urban counties.  Echols county, of course, was the smallest county down there on the Florida line in extreme south Georgia, I think it had 1800 votes.  Fulton county, which was the largest then -- may still be, but I'm not sure.  I think it had close to half a million people.  Well, if you're running for governor and you carried Fulton county with half a million people, you got six county-units.  If you were running for governor and you carried Echols county, you got two.  So you got a third as much votes for the governor's race if you carried Echols county as if you carried a county of a half a million people.   \r\n The apportionment entered into it because each county got a representative for every two county-units.  The ones that had the six county-units, they had three representatives. That would have been Fulton, Dekalb, Bibb, Richmond, Chatham, our county Muscogee.  The next thirty, which would have been in the neighborhood of Valdosta, LaGrange, Griffin, stuff like that.  They had four county-units, so they had two representatives.  And the 121 smallest counties including Echols with 1800 people, they had one representative.  And it was a highly stacked deck in favor of the rural interests in the state.  And that was what the game was at that time.   \r\n Well, after that ruling that spring, the governor's race which had already started -- Marvin Griffin, who had been governor from 19-- well, he was elected in '54 to '58, which means he served from '55 to '5.  Back then the governor could not succeed himself, so he was running for reelection in '62.  Well, not reelection, but he had been out four years since Ernest Vandiver was governor so he could run to be governor again.  Garland Byrd who was the lieutenant governor at the time, was running against Marvin.  Carl Sanders, who was a fine, young, up-and-coming senator from Richmond county, Augusta, he was running for lieutenant governor against Peter Zack Geer.   \r\n Well, that ruling came down and all of a sudden the county-unit system's out, it's popular vote all the way.  And Carl got out the lieutenant governor's race and got into the governor's race.  And shortly thereafter, Garland Byrd had a heart attack, so the race kind of devolved down to Carl Sanders against Marvin Griffin, but now it's on the popular vote rather than the county-unit system.  And I think he was the favorite from then on.  Peter Zack Geer was running against Carl, but then Carl was out of the race.  And then Lester Maddox was also running.  He owned the Pickrick restaurant there in Atlanta, and I think people know who Lester Maddox was.   \r\n But anyway, all of that happened in that summer that we were all running.  And of course, I'm sitting down here running a little, small state representative race, but it was of vital interest, because everyone wanted to know who you were voting for for governor, and all that, you know, and you'd have to try to soft shoe that.  But it was an interesting election.   \r\n Well, one week before that Democratic primary, the federal court ruled in another case that the Georgia General Assembly was malapportioned because it was apportioned based on that county-unit system.  I've just described how the House was apportioned, but the Senate had 54 senators and it was divided up -- Fulton county had one senator.  I don't believe I remember what the gentleman's name was.  And the other 158, they were divided up into senatorial districts.  Normally there were three counties to a senatorial district, and they'd rotate it.  One county would have a senator for two years, the next county would have a senator for two years, the next county would have a senator for two years.  So I mean it was just a constant fruit basket turnover.  \r\n Governor Vandiver -- I think you may have been there at that time -- called a special session immediately after the primary for the purposes of reapportioning the Senate on a population basis, and that all happened.  In 1962 we went from the county-unit system for the method of electing the state-wide offices, and then we had to go up there -- I didn't because I didn't take office until January, but they were kind to me.  I went up there just as an observer and sat around and watched it.  They reapportioned the state Senate there in October, and they had another special election after that because they had to reelect the new senators under reapportionment, and that of course is when Jimmy Carter was elected to the Senate and all the problems between him and Homer Moore down there, and the lawsuit.  But Jimmy eventually prevailed on that write-in on that second special election for the Senate.  It was an interesting year.   \r\n  \r\n SHORT:  That was an interesting decade -- the 60's.  The county-unit system was ruled unconstitutional, you had the reapportionment case, you had the strange election of 1966 when Bo Callaway defeated Lester Maddox, but the legislature elected Maddox.  And you were involved with all that.  What do you remember about those days? \r\n  \r\n JONES:  Well, it was historic times.  Because Carl was elected, and he was a very good governor.  I mean he was an aggressive guy.  Back then a lot had been going on.  In 1954, the year I graduated from high school, that was the year that, of course the Supreme Court of the United States decided Brown v. Board of Education.  Well, that caused significant unrest in the South.  You had the push on the national level, primarily in the Democratic party, for Civil Rights.  You had the Dixiecrat rebellion in the 1958 Democratic convention there, and Strom Thurmond, I think, was the nominee of the Dixiecrats, but Harry Truman won reelection anyway.   \r\n But there was a lot of trouble going on.  You  had James Meredith out there in the University of Mississippi.  Right before all of this started, the very end of Ernest Vandiver's administration, was when you had the integration of the University of Georgia. Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter and all that situation arose.  So there was a lot of turmoil going on.  And it's unfortunate, but we do have a strong racial  element in that period of history at that time.  \r\n We got through that session in 1963.  Governor Sanders, he had a right progressive program, most of it was adopted.  Then in 1964, we had to do something about congressional redistricting.  Back to the one man, one vote ruling that the Georgia congressional districts would not stand muster on the thing, so the federal court said, \"You've got to redistrict.\" And in the regular session of '64, one of the main things that occurred was that we went through a congressional redistricting in '64. And whenever you've got established political districts where you've got counties that have been together for decades, and you come in there and say, \"No, you're not going to be a district anymore, this guy over here is going to represent you,\" and they don't even know him except for his name  --  there was a lot of back and forth about that.   \r\n There was a representative from Clarke County, Athens, by the name of Randall Bedgood, you remember him.  He drew a plan up that most of us liked pretty well.  It didn't suit the governor's office too well, and I don't know why, there wasn't anything particularly wrong with their plan.  The long and the short of it was -- it boiled down to whether we were going to adopt the Bedgood plan or the other plan.  And that's when the clock on the wall episode occurred.   \r\n It was on the last night of the regular session in 1964 and Denny Groover, who was a great legislator, perhaps with the exception of Elliott Levitas, who you've interviewed, was by far and away the most effective legislators I had the pleasure of serving with.  Denny had been Marivin Griffin's floor leader in the '55-'59 period and I think he was from somewhere down in south Georgia at that time, but by the time of the '60s came along he moved up to Gray, right above Macon.  He was elected to the legislature up there.  He was very effective, he was a spellbinder.  Incidently he was a Marine fighter pilot with Boyington's Black Sheep Squadron in the Pacific during World War II.   \r\n But anyway, Denny was in favor of the Bedgood plan.  George T. Smith, who was the speaker -- we'll talk more about the speakership later, if ya'll don't get tired of listening to me by then -- they didn't have the votes to pass the plan they wanted, so they stopped the clock.  If I remember right it was 20 minutes til 12:00 on the last night of the session.  Well, we wanted the clock to go on and run so that we'd run out of time, we'd have to adjourn, and we knew if we came back in a special session -- which we had to do because we were under federal court order -- we thought we could get the Bedgood plan through.  Well, they unplugged the clock and time stopped.  And they continued to pick up a vote here and a vote there, and it was kind of remindful of what's going on in Washington today.   \r\n But the long and the short of it is Denny Groover went up in the balcony, not to pull the clock off the wall, Denny was trying to figure out how to get the clock to start running again.  He was fiddling around with the clock, he was hanging over the railing with one arm, one leg.  Everybody was aghast because we thought he was going to fall and hurt himself.  But somehow in all the scrambling and scratching he was doing up there, he pulled the clock off the wall.  The clock came falling down on the floor, it was quite a row.  But anyway, they got the votes.  About 2:00 they put the clock back running, or a clock back running and the Bedgood plan went down.  Well, that sowed some more seeds of dissension about the governor controlling the selection of the speaker, we can talk more about that later I said.   \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Let me ask you this question about reapportionment.  \r\n \r\n JONES:  Alright. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Is it fair to say that our legislative districts have been drawn primarily for party protection and racial reasons rather than binding common communities together. \r\n \r\n JONES:  I don't know.  I don't know how to answer that question. Because, see,  I haven't been up there since 1970.  And I was not involved on any of the reapportionment committees.  And so I can't say back then -- and I certainly have a clue since then.  I don't recall that being all that much of a factor, though that was the primary reason that we in Columbus wanted the Bedgood plan, because the senatorial district under the Bedgood plan that we would have, would have been centered kind of over there on the west central side of the state, with Columbus kind of in the middle of the thing.  And that is kind of the trade center of the area, and I think it probably was more of a geographic plan than others would have been.  But I don't know how to answer that, I can't say that Bob. \r\n \r\n  SHORT:  Okay, let's get back to the period we had the county-unit system that was declared unconstitutional, we had reapportionment, then we also had a constitutional revision situation when Governor Sanders appointed a commission and it made recommendations to the general assembly for a new constitution that we never got.   \r\n \r\n JONES:  Well, that was two months after the clock pulling episode in the regular session in '64.  Governor Sanders called a special session of the legislature.  I guess they'd enjoyed us so much they wanted us back in town, I don't know.  But we went up there to draw a new constitution.  And by now the House was in high dudgen, let's say.  Going back to the speakership, George L.Smith, a wonderful old lawyer from down in Emmanuel county, Swainsboro, had been speaker of the House under Ernest Vandiver, and he may have been speaker before then, I'm not sure.  I think Marvin Moate was Marvin Griffin's speaker of the house.   \r\n But anyway, he had been the speaker when Carl Sanders got out of the lieutenant governor's race and got into the governor's race in 1962.  He had been over in the Senate for about four years, but nobody in the House knew him.  Everybody knew George L. and most of the House members supported Marvin against Sanders.  I think they said it was something like 40 or 42 members of the Georgia House of 205 members supported Sanders.  So he's got a hostile crowd up there when he comes into office -- well, I'm not going to say they were hostile, but they weren't in good spirits about the thing. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  They didn't adjust to the county-unit system. \r\n \r\n JONES:   Well, it was terse, let's put it that way.  But the governor back then, he selected who he wanted to be the speaker, and he passed the word and the House went along with it, and that's it.  There's no way you can overestimate the power of the speaker of the House in Georgia government.  He appoints every committee chairman. He appoints every member of every committee.  When a bill is introduced, he decides solely what committee it's going to.  It can be a favorable committee, it can be an unfavorable committee.  If you get along with the speaker, you get on good committees, if you don't, you don't get on good committees.  If he tells the chairman of a committee, \"I don't want this bill to come out of committee,\" that bill does not come out of committee.   It doesn't make any difference.  It is an absolute power of what happens.  It's a negative power; he can't make things happen, but he can keep things from happening.   \r\n Anyway, George T., who is representing this crowd that had supported Carl, he was selected over George L., who had been everybody's buddy and had been speaker.  So that started this stuff about, \"You know, we really need to start selecting our own speaker, rather than the governor doing it.  And that started in '63 as soon as George T. replaced George L.  And it got worse.  Denny Groover was stirring the pot, and a lot of the other guys were too.  And in 1964 when that congressional redistricting situation happened and they stopped the clock, it really got hot then.  Incidentally that's when the Beatles came to town, that same month.  They came over here from England in February of 1964 if I remember correctly.  Anyway, we come back up there.   \r\n So, all the forces in the Georgia House, \"We're going to take our rights.  We're going to start selecting our own speaker.  And we're going to write it into the constitution.  The governor is not going to tell us who the speaker is going to be.\"  Well, we had the votes to do it. The 121 smallest counties, they formed the 121 club.  It was just a rural caucus.  You could be completely in sympathy with them,  but you couldn't go to the 121 club caucus.  But every one of them, they swore  that they were going to put that in there.  They selected a wonderful guy by the name of George Brooks.  You and I were talking about George a few minutes before we started this.  He was from somewhere over here around Athens, I've forgotten his county.  But he was the chairman of the 121 club.  There were a lot of people in the urban counties -- the three and two representative counties -- that felt the same way.  Our whole delegation, all three of us were in favor of it.  It's just a question of separation of powers between the legislative and the executive.  The governor ought not to be selecting the speaker of the House.  But there were a lot of votes.  Well, Governor Sanders, he was a very good governor, but he was a very effective governor.  He started working on that 121 and they kind of faded away.  And it did not get adopted.   \r\n \r\n SHORT: That was in '64? \r\n \r\n JONES:  That was in the special session in '64, whenever we were up there to draw this new constitution.  Well, while we're in Atlanta drawing a new constitution, the federal court ruled again.  We had thought -- you know the federal Congress, one house, the Senate is based on geography, the other house, the House of Representatives, is based on population.  And this is what that first '62 ruling said, was that one of them had to be -- you know.  But when we were in special session, I think it was May of 1964, give me some slack, I'm talking about stuff fifty years ago and I'm seventy-three years old.  I may be off a little on the dates and stuff like that.  They said, \"No, both of them have got to be.  You're going to have to reapportion the House.\"  And they did that when we were in special session.  And they said, \"Furthermore, you can forget about this constitution.  We are not going to let the people of the state of Georgia vote on a constitution that is draw by a malapportioned legislature.  So ya'll go home.\"  They adjourned us.  That was it.    Incidentally, and we can get to it later if you want to, and I'm afraid I'm talking too much.  One of the finest speeches I have ever heard -- well, I'm not going to say that -- the finest speech I have ever heard in my life in the context of a political moment, was made on the floor of the House of Representatives after the 121 club faded away.  Not all of them, but most of them did.  By a guy by the name of Bob Flournoy, he was a representative from Cobb county in Marietta, he later served with great distinction as a superior court judge up there.  He has a son who is a superior court judge up there now, if I understand correctly.  And Bob Flournoy, he was one of those urban legilators, he was one of the three from Cobb county.  He would have been in favor of this established legislative independence.  He read them the riot act.  I've kept a copy of his speech, all those years since 1964, what is that?  Forty-six years now.  Because it was just such a wonderful speech. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  What did he say? \r\n \r\n JONES:  This is five pages.  Do you want me to read this thing? \r\n \r\n SHORT:  I do. \r\n \r\n JONES:  I've kept this thing because of what I thought was the significance of it, and I apologize for the length of it, but it is interesting -- I think.  \"Remarks made by Representative Flournoy, House of Representatives, May 20 --\" that's my wife's birthday, incidentally, \"--1964.\"   \r\n This first paragraph is just kind of introductory remarks: \"Freshman legislator, but perhaps what I lack in experience and intelligence, I hope may make up in sincerity of purpose.  For sincerity is a quality I have determined is in rather scarce supply in the House of Representatives in Georgia.\"  This was on point of personal privileges at the beginning of the morning session.   \r\n \"I take the privilege of these brief moments to tell you of the shattering of a dream of mine.  A mirage that was broken on yesterday, and a new dream yet to come true.  I was born in an apartment house in the city of Atlanta.  It was the second story over a combination delicatessen candy store.  That's a polite word for a beer parlor.  It was at the corner of English Avenue and Chestnut Street, an area long since taken over as slums by negroes.  My parents were of Georgia stock, moved to Atlanta from rural Georgia.  They were poor, but honest and proud.  All of my life I have been taught and believed that rural people were the salt of the earth and that somehow rural Georgians are the bulwark of freedom and liberty and independence and integrity.   \r\n \"The proudest days of life were when my grandfather, known far and wide as Uncle Match Hitchcock, carried me every year on the fourth of July to the sacred harp singing at the Paulding county courthouse in Dallas.  Somehow, I felt, the hand of God had painted a picture in rural Georgia and here the very soul of our political institutions were found.  I studied very hard as a student, reading nearly everything I could get my hand on about Georgia, or history, or political institutions.   \r\n \"As a boy I had ruther listen to a political speech by Gene Talmadge, Ed Rivers, or Walter George, than to eat a meal.  As an older boy, I went off to college and I continued my alliance to the most sacred esteem in which I held the face of rural Georgia, her sons and her political leaders.  As president of the Demosthenian Literary Society at the University of Georgia, many a night I debated and argued for Georgia's county-unit system and it's system of government which gave greater weight to the soil that to cities.  For I truly believed that men that were close to the soil were somehow more honest, prouder, more independent, and less apt to be dictated to.  I believed with Thomas Jefferson that an agrarian society was the most fertile soil in which a democratic republic might grow and produce fruit of liberty.   \r\n \"On yesterday, this dream was largely shaken and destroyed.  For I realized that independent men might be found in the middle of streets of concrete as well as in the furrows of fields.  And that those men who were from the farms are no more independent than those who live in the shadow of the skyscraper.  On yesterday I saw the collapse of a long overdue fraud.  The representatives of rural Georgia don't represent farmers and merchants and independent little people. The representatives of rural Georgia are stooges who would sell their birthright for asphalt and gravel.  They are Judas Iscariot, who for thirty pieces out of the pork barrel would betray their heritage.   \r\n \"You may rightly ask me, 'Who do you think you are saying such things to us, 121 representatives from rural Georgia?  You apartment born city slicker?' And I'll answer you.  On yesterday I voted for your amendment respecting secret ballot regarding the speaker's election.  Why?  Because I wanted to help those of you who don't have the courage enough to assert your convictions in the open, in the public.  I'm not afraid to vote my convictions in the open because I voted this very amendment on the board.\"  Talking about the voting light board.  \"I voted for it to try to strengthen those of you who may out of fear be scared to vote your choice for speaker of the House.   \r\n \"But I voted for it for still another reason.  I voted for it because I felt sorry for you. Yes, you 121 representatives from the small counties of Georgia.  I felt sorry for you because you are the captives and victims of the years of ubiquitous fraud that you have perpetrated on your own people.  Yes, the people of rural Georgia.  You have told them that there was no need to make the county-unit system equitable, and because of it's inequity, it was destroyed.  You have told them there would be no integration of the races in Georgia.  You said, 'No, not one.'   \r\n \"And now you are telling the rural people of Georgia in this constitution that they can have a House based on geography, when there isn't a man in this House who believes it's present apportionment will last through June the 15th of this year.\"  Within the week, the federal courts had knocked it down.  \"And when you rural representatives had the once chance to strike a blow for your own independence, you buffed it.  You the great bulwark of the democratic republic, you the men upon whom legislative independence rests, you sirs are frauds.  I must say to the gentleman from Oglethorpe, Mr. Brooks, a man whose sincerity and integrity is beyond question, you know he must mean everything he does say because he does not have the syrupy drawl of Mr.--\" I'm not going to mention that name, \"or the quick wit of --\" another one, no need in mentioning names.  \"The commanding presence of,\" another one, \"or the parliamentary smoothness of,\" another Mr. Anonymous.   \"All he has is the strength of his own convictions, and that sirs means more to me than all the glib tongues of a thousand orators.  Mr. Brooks, sir, for you I felt so embarrassed, so humiliated.  \"This group of men we were led to believe who would stand fast like the Rock of Gibraltar, the shifted like shifting sand.  They said to you, \"Lead on, we will follow.\"  And you looked back and they flushed like a covey of quail.  Yes I voted for your motion, your own lieutenants, however, left you. I didn't attend your committee of 121, but I along with county representatives like Mr. Groover, Mr. Late, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Funk, Mr. Pickert, Mr. Dicus, Mr. Milton Jones.  We helped you muster your ragged little band.   \r\n \"Some may say, \"You're not fair Mr. Flournoy.  I really believed in my position and the way I voted.\"  Don't hand me that.  When a soldier takes to the field, he doesn't choose where to fight, he fights where the battle lines are drawn.  The battle lines were drawn yesterday.  You had to either fight there or not at all, and the staunch 121 melted away.  Please don't feel badly.  I'm not recriminating you, the battle is over.  What difference ultimately will it make whether the speaker is elected openly or by secret ballot?  Very little, if any.   \r\n \"The point is when the battle came, wherever is immaterial, you would not fight.  You were afraid.  The dye is now cast, this House will not write a constitution, it will merely ratify that which is spoon-fed to it, so the quicker the better so the taxpayers will lose as little as possible.  The three branches of government in Georgia, legislative, judicial, and executive are gone in so far as this constitution is being drawn.  Oh, we in the legislature may cross a 't' or dot an 'i' or change a word evidenced to testimony or vice versa.  But your infamous 121 less thirty odd have proved your mettle.  To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, if Georgia shall last for a thousand years, men shall say this was her poorest hour.   \r\n \"While 121 represent about 22 percent of Georgia's population, you didn't have the intestinal fortitude to even represent that 22 well, which brings us to the second point I wish to make.  It should now be obvious to all, and the events of the last two days have proved it beyond the doubt of even yourselves, the representatives of rural counties of Georgia don't deserve to be perpetuated in this House.  You don't represent your people, you don't even represent geography.  It should be now apparent that you represent the governor of Georgia and his bidding is your destiny.   \r\n \"I truly wish you could be justified on the grounds that only you rural representatives are independent, self-sufficient, and only you possess integrity sufficient to withstand the autocracy of a powerful executive.  But alas, you have failed.  And now it only remains for the federal judiciary to preach the funeral oration over a legislative system of rural control that only yesterday proved itself to be lacking in vitality, dead.  We of the urban areas didn't kill you, you killed yourself with 121 votes, far in excess of the majority of this House.  You didn't have the political, intestinal fortitude to put across a meager crumb of legislative independence for this House.   \r\n \"At the beginning of these remarks, I told of my unbroken dream of the great independence of the irreproachable combination: lawyer, farmer, statesman.  And I am disillusioned to find you just men after all.  I also told you of a new dream yet to come.  Mr. Cargroan yesterday told you of his dream  of rural and urban Georgia walking down the road together.  And he also mentioned the dreaming of Reverend Martin Luther King.   \r\n I think I too should be privileged to dream a little.  I have a dream of a new Georgia, politically.  I dream of one where relatively few of you 121 faces will return to the House of Representatives.  I dream of a House of Representatives with about 100 members in it, representing a maximum of 50 counties in Georgia.  I have a dream of a general assembly where it's members are paid about $10,000 a year, \" it's more than that now. \"Where they don't have to depend on anyone putting them on interim committees to make a living.  I have a dream of a House of Representatives and a Senate in Georgia that represents no interests except the interests of the people who elect them.  Where legislators are not bribed by highway funds, but where such funds are allocated basically as school funds, on some reasonable and equitable basis.  Where the legislators don't even know who the highway director is, much less have to make weekly trips to beg roads.  I dream of a Georgia where the governor presents his legislation on the basis of it's reasonableness, it's merit, and it's soundness.  Not on the basis of doing him a personal favor, paying a political debt, or sucking a political plum.   \r\n You say, 'How are you going to take politics out of politics?' I answer, we're not going to take politics out of politics, we're just going to change some of the rules so as to conform to a government where all have some rights and no minority can stampede and trample over the majority.  Or the majority deny basics to the minority.  Where neither the rural nor the urban can gleefully apply the lash.  This new House of which I dream may not be more independent than the present House, but it is a cinch it could not be less independent.  Yesterday proved that fact.  Not through the newspapers, not through the federal government, not through the urban masses, but by your own willingness to be masters of your own fate.  I salute you and bid you a fond farewell.\"  And he did not run for reelection.   \r\n  \r\n  SHORT:  Pretty courageous stuff. \r\n \r\n JONES:  Well, you can imagine how many folks took the floor on a point of personal privilege after him.  I mean it was like someone poured gasoline on them and set them  on fire.  He didn't care.  He went back to Cobb county, practiced law, became superior court judge.  It was very strong, but he said what happened, he told what happened.  And of course, like I said, the federal court ruled very shortly thereafter that we were malapportioned, that that constitution would not be submitted to the people, and we went home.   \r\n They also ruled that the House had to be reapportioned the same as the Senate had been, congressional redistricting.  It was too late to do it for the '64 elections, they were going to let the people elected in '64 come in in January and serve that session.  But there would have to be a special election in '65 to finish up the last of the two year term.  You had an election in '64, which was in effect for one year -- the '65 session -- then we had to run again in '65 after we had reapportioned the House in the regular session of '65 to serve the second year.  And then we got back on a two year basis.  But there were two one year session in there.   \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Let's move ahead to 1966.  A very, very strange election that started with Ellis Arnall and Ernest Vandiver as the two main candidates.  Jimmy Carter ran, Herman Talmadge ran briefly, and then withdrew.  What is your recollection of that election? \r\n \r\n Jones: Well, we skipped '65.  And I hope I'm -- if time's a factor, just tell me.  But '65 may have been the most interesting of all because -- well, it wasn't more interesting than '66, nothing could be more interesting than '66.  But '65 is when we reapportioned that House.  Now that was bloody.  That was one of the most emotionally traumatic things I've ever seen happen to a group of people.   \r\n That 121 that Flournoy was talking about, most of these guys had been up there for many years.  I mean if you got into the legislature, you'd stay generally.  They were small counties, everybody knows everybody in the county next to them, and things of that nature.  They were very close friends.  And let me say this about them.  Particularly after reading Flournoy's speech, I give the impression that they were bad folks.  They weren't bad folks.  I was amazed when I got to Atlanta -- I indicate how young I was -- I mean I walked around with my mouth hanging open because these guys were so great.  People I'd read about and heard  about all my life nearly.  And they took me under their arms, they treated me like a surrogate son.  They weren't a bunch of bad guys.  \r\n I think in one of your posings to Elliot you mentioned the fact that they were rural and segregationists and all that.  That's absolutely not true.  There were a lot of really good people in that legislature.  Jamie MacKay for example.  I mean, you couldn't find a finer man than Jamie MacKay.  There were a lot of good people in there.   \r\n But they were then faced with the fact that we're going to apportion the House on  population.  We had three representatives from Muscogee county.  We had to go out and find four other people to run for the legislature.  We literally were walking the street, asking people to run for the legislature.  I mean, you can think that's a joke, and it is somewhat of an exaggeration, but not really.  I mean we'd get together and sit down, \"Well what about so-and-so?\"  \"I don't know, I don't know.\"  \"What do you think about him?\"  And we were dividing up name and calling them, saying, \"Will you please run for the legislature?\"  We went from three to seven.   \r\n But in these rural counties, you might have four counties, each of whom had one representative.  They're going to now be in a district, and they're going to have one representative.  And these guys in large measure may have been very close friends, they may have served with each other ten, twelve years.  And three of them are going to stay at home and one of them's coming back up there.  How are they going to decide?  You flip coins?  Do you say to your buddy, \"You go, I'd rather you go than me go.\"  \"Are we all going to run against each other?\"  It was really, really bad, but we got through it.   \r\n Now that was one time, Bob, and I think you were working in Governor Sander's government at that time, when it probably helped for the governor to have a very direct hand in there with George T. as the speaker of the House.  I'm not sure with all the emotional conflict in it that the House could have done it themselves.  I think that probably Carl and George T. got it done when we might have had a hard time doing it ourselves.  But anyway, that was '65.  And so we have the special election in '65.  We come back up there in '66, you know, for the regular session in '66.  Before that governor's race you were talking about.  And now we've got all of these new folks in there.  You've got a lot of old folks who are still back home.  That was one of the overlays on that governor's race in 1966 that made it even more interesting.  You also had the Jullian Bond situation in 1966.   \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.  You were there. \r\n \r\n JONES:  I was there.  And probably one of the votes -- I can think of two votes I made in the eight years I was in the legislature I wish I could take back.  And that was one of them, because I was one of the ones who voted to deny Jullian his seat.  Jullian and I later became -- I'm not going to say close friends, but we were friends.  And he understood, but Jullian of course, he was a young college student.  I think he was still out at Moorehouse at the time.  He had come down here -- he had gone to Quaker schools up north, his daddy was a president of some college up there.  But he was one of the prime movers in SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and they were probably ahead of the rest of the county in their opposition to the Vietnam conflict.   \r\n But Jullian had gone further.  He had made statement that he sympathized with those people who burned the draft cards and went to Canada.  That was kind of the triggering effect.  And the South has always been a little more conservative about things like that.  And so this fire storm broke out, \"We're going to deny him his seat.\"  And he was denied his seat January when we went to Atlanta in '66 because of that.  Because of that statement that he sympathized with draft card burners.   \r\n Interestingly enough, one of the new members we had from Columbus was a wonderful guy by the name of Albert Thompson, who was an African-American lawyer down there.  And Albert voted not to seat him too.  Albert was born on Fort Benning military reservation, his daddy had  been in the army, he was a career army man.  And, you know, I'm not saying I was justified to do it because Albert voted to do it too.   \r\n In retrospect, I wish I hadn't cast that vote the way I did.  The federal court said we were within our power to do it.  A few months later, the Supreme Court of the United States, 9-zip said, \"No, you weren't in your power to do it.  The man was executing his first amendment rights of freedom of speech, and you put him back in there.\"  Well, we had had the new election in '66, Jullian had run for his old seat, he got elected.  He came up there January of '67, nobody opened their mouth.  Jullian served from then on, he was still up there when I left there.  But that was something that happened in '66. \r\n Alright, now let's go to the governor's race of '66.  As you mentioned, Ellis Arnall had gotten in that race.  And he was going to run against Ernie Vandiver, back to the fact that a governor couldn't succeed himself, Ernie had now been out four years while Carl was governor.  He was going to run for governor.  Lester Maddox, who had run a surprisingly strong race against Peter Zack Geer for lieutenant governor in '62, he was in the governor's race.  Bo Callaway, who had run for Congress for my congressional district over there, Harris county -- Callaway Gardens is the immediate county to the north of Columbus.  And he was the first Republican I think elected to Congress from Georgia, since Reconstruction.  That was in '64.  Everybody was talking about, \"Bo's going to run for governor, Bo's  going to run for governor as a Republican.\"  And he did.   \r\n So you've got those guys in the race.  Jimmy Carter, who had served four years in the Senate now, from '62 to '64, you might say '63 to '65.  He was running against Bo for Congress.  I was right close to Carter, I mean his senatorial district adjoined my House district.  We were elected at the same time, and in large measure I had run against a guy who was pretty close to Homer Moore, the guy he had run against.  So we were fairly close.  And he was running for Congress and I was carrying around Columbus, and the next thing I know, when Bo gets in the governor's race, Jimmy gets out of the congressional race and into the governor's race.  He followed Bo into the governor's race.  So it was an interesting time.   \r\n Vandiver had a heart attack.  You know Garland had the heart attack in '62, now Vandiver's having one in '64, so the race is now -- Callaway is unopposed for the Republicans -- so they knew whoever was running would have to run against Callaway.  This is two years after '64 when Goldwater had carried the state.  You'd had the Voting Rights Act, you'd had the Civil Rights Act, you'd had a number of things that had happened in there.  So, a Republican was going to be a very strong candidate.  Arnall had been a great governor of the state back in the '40's.  He was kind of the wunderkind, you might say.  He won the freight rate cases against the railroads, and now that the governor's race is on one man, one vote, and not the county-unit system, he's a very strong, viable candidate.  But he was running against Maddox, Carter's in there.  Jimmy Gray from down in Albany was in there.  And it's taken off.   \r\n The Democratic primary, they had the elecction and Jimmy came in a very close third, Lester ran second, and Arnall got the most votes.  I think that a lot of Republicans, now they'd deny it --they voted for Lester.  Because they thought Lester would be easier to beat than Arnall.  And so they have the run off a couple weeks later and Lester beat Arnall.  I don't know if it was with Republican help or not.  They deny it, but the boy who had run my campaign in 1962 had been a friend of mine in high school -- Bill Amos -- he had run Callaway's campaign for Congress in '64 and he was running Callaway's campaign for governor in '66.  I knew a little bit about what was going on and I think they did raid the primary.  But that's neither here nor there.  They ended up with Maddox as the Democratic nominee.  Callaway is now the Republican nominee, so they headed into the general election.   \r\n Well, there were a lot of Democrats in the state that were very unhappy about the thing because Callaway had gotten more votes.  He carried my county something like four-to-one.  It was a bad situation.  But Arnall allowed a write-in campaign to be waged on his behalf, and he got about 60,000 if I remember right -- 50,000 or 60,000 write-in votes.  And even though Callaway had more votes than Lester, he didn't have a majority.  And the Georgia constitution provided that in the event anybody running for state-wide office did not get a majority of the vote -- not a plurality, but a majority -- the legislature selected.  So we wake up the day after the general election, the legislature has got to select who the governor's going to be.  And it was a situation.  It wasn't as bad as the three governor mess in '46, I don't guess, but it was close to it.   \r\n \r\n SHORT: What do you remember about that?  That was another very historical time.   \r\n \r\n JONES:  I was ten years old, I don't remember much about it.  But I remember we made national headlines.  That was before television news, but we were all over the papers and everybody was laughing at us and everything else.   \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Yeah. \r\n \r\n JONES:  P.T. McCutcheon, who was Ellis Arnall's executive secretary, he had a son that was in law school with me, Tim McCutcheon, and I knew Mr. McCutcheon later.  He could tell some terrible tales about.  He was the guy, I think, that got hit by the pistol or something there, anyway. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  That was a very dark day in Georgia political history.  But getting back to '66, there was thought and a lot of media members and pundits thought that Jimmy Carter was coming along so strongly toward the end of that campaign that if it had lasted another week or two he probably would have won.  You were involved in it, what do you think? \r\n \r\n JONES:  I was involved in it, but not very closely.  George T. was running for Lieutenant governor against Peter Zach.  George T. had asked me to help him in his campaign while Jimmy was still in the congressional race.  I tried to figure out a way to go to Atlanta and do it full time, but just never could.  I mean, money was always a problem.  I was just a young lawyer and had a wife teaching school to support my political habits, you might say.  By then we had four kids under five years old on the ground and there wasn't any way I could take off and do it.  I was more active, I think, in George T.'s race in '66 than I was Jimmy's, but I kept trying to help how I could.   \r\n The night of the election, the Democratic primary, my wife and I, we were in the Dinkler, which was where Carter's headquarters were.  And when we went to bed, it was kind of like Wisconsin in '76 ten years later.  We were in the runoff.  As I recall, we were number two, we were in the runoff.  And we figured, if we're in the runoff, we're going to win this thing.  And at about 2:00 in the morning, I heard somebody out screaming in the hall, woke me up.  I went out and we were out of the runoff.  Some votes had come in from down in southeast Georgia, close to the coast, and they had gone heavily for Maddox.  And we were out of the runoff. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  That period of time between the general election and the day that Maddox was elected by the legislature gave you time to really become an independent House. \r\n \r\n JONES:  That's right.  This thing had been simmering since George T. replaced George L. in January of 1963.  It had gotten stoked up higher with the Bedgood plan on the last night of the regular session in '64.  But in '66, we had been thinking about, \"You know, there's a chance we're going to have a Republican governor.\"  A lot of folks thought Callaway was going to win that race.  And we're certainly not going to let a Republican governor tell a Democratic House who their speaker is going to be.   \r\n Robin Harris who was one of the greatest guys I ever served with.  He was from Dekalb county, a wonderful man.  He was chairman of the House judiciary committee.  And the House judiciary committee was kind of a hot bed of trouble makers.  We were all lawyers, you had Elliot on there, you had Reed on there, I was on there, Sam Nunn was on there.  I don't think Sam was there in '66.  But anyway, we were concerned about it.  And so we started thinking that this would be an ideal time to try to strike while there was not going to be as much executive possibility or possibility of executive interference in this thing.  And we wake up the day after the general election and no governor's going to tell anybody in the legislature what to do because they're coming to us, hat in hand about, \"Vote for me.\"   \r\n So, there was a meeting, and we met out at Robin's house there in Decatur, right off East Ponce de Leon.  And we decided we would have us an arrangements committee.  We were going to call a caucus of the House Democratic members.  There had been a lot of Republicans elected the year before this redistricting -- the House reapportionment.  And they properly had organized them a caucus.  And they'd elected a minority leader and stuff like that -- a minority whip.  And so we said, \"We're going to have us a Democratic caucus, they've got a Republican caucus, we're going to have us a Democratic caucus.  And we're going to have a meeting.\"  The arrangements committee sent out this letter.  We didn't sign it with anybody's name, we just said, \"The arrangements committee.\"  And anyway, we had that meeting.  I think that was really before the general election, if I remember right now.   \r\n But anyway, had it at Stone Mountain.  It was after the legislative day over here at Georgia when all the legislators came over to a Georgia football game and barbecue.  And, you know, that letter got out, \"We're going to have us a Democratic caucus and we're going to discuss the election of the speaker and legislative independence.\"  So everybody that wasn't on the arrangements committee, they're calling each other, \"Who's this arrangements committee?  You going?\"  Stuff like that.  We lay low as Brer Fox did -- Brer Rabbit, one.   So it was funny, but they all showed up.  Everybody showed up at Stone Mountain that morning.  Reed has written something about that -- I haven't seen it, but you talk to Reed about it.  Everybody was in favor of it.  They said, \"Yeah, this makes sense.\"  And so an elections committee was appointed.  That's right, that was before the general election.  The elections committee was appointed to make recommendations about what we were going to do.  It wasn't really an elections committee -- it was we were going to select the Democratic nominee for speaker which would be, \"tantamount to election,\" because there were a lot more Democrats than there were Republicans.  Anyway, we met in the House of Representatives on the Sunday after the Georgia-Auburn football game.  I think it was November the 13th if I remember right.   \r\n And Robin Harris ran for speaker, George L. ran for speaker.  A guy named Bill Styce, who was a wonderful lawyer from Harris county, he was from Pennsylvania and he had come down to Fort Benning during World War II and married a gal from Harris county and came back after the war.  Dick Richardson from Savannah.  There were four candidates for speaker if I remember right.  And George L., of course, was selected to be the Democratic nominee.  George Busbee, interestingly enough, was once of the Democrats in addition to me and several others, who voted for Callaway in January.  And there was a lot of concern about -- he was selected to be the Democratic floor leader for the House.  And that's when Lester Maddox appointed Tom Murphy to be the administration floor leader.  So, you had Tom Murphy who was Lester's administration floor leader, you had George Busbee who had voted for Callaway as a Democratic floor leader, and it was an interesting situation.  But the long and the short of it is the House then and ever since has elected it's speaker.  The governor no longer tells the House who the speaker is going to be.   \r\n Now, there again, looking back, I've had second thoughts about that.  You know, no good deed goes unpunished.  And now you've got all that power that we just talked about an hour or so ago now -- about appointing every committee member, every chairman, assigning every bill, what bill is going to be called, what bill is not going to be called, stuff like that -- is concentrated in one person who is selected by a very small geographic area in the state of Georgia.  You got the governor who's elected by the whole state, you've got the lieutenant governor and the Senate that's elected by the whole state, you got the speaker of the House that's elected by one district.  And if you've got a good speaker of the House, you've got a good situation.  If you've got one though who might not be quite so good, then you've got an intolerable situation.  Because with the power he's got, he can pave every square inch of the whole district.  Nobody's going to vote out their local representative because he's speaker of the House.  You might have a situation there in perpetuity.  But anyway, so far we've stumbled through and it's working I guess.   \r\n \r\n [Audio gap] \r\n \r\n SHORT:  We've got Maddox elected.  We've got that period of time between the election -- \r\n \r\n JONES:  Maddox is nominated \r\n   \r\n SHORT:  Nominated. Yes.  The period time between the general election in '66 and the convening of the legislature in '67. \r\n \r\n JONES:  You're right.  You're right. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Where the legislature -- \r\n \r\n JONES:  See, that was about two months.   \r\n \r\n SHORT:  A lot of time.  It gave each of those candidates time to really do a lot of lobbying with the members of the General Assembly.  What do you remember about that?   \r\n \r\n JONES:  Are we running?  Well, as you had pointed out, Bob, it was two months.  I was kind of involved in the Callaway thing.  You know, it makes it sound like I'm Forrest Gump and I was involved in everything, and I don't mean it that way.  But Bill Amos, who was Callaway's AA when he was in Congress and managed his congressional race in '64 and gubernatorial race in '66, had been one of my closest friends in high school -- Columbus High School.  He was a year older than I was. And he had managed my campaign in '62.  In fact, the fact that we won that race is the reason Callaway wanted him to run his campaign in '64 and then carried him to Washington with him.   \r\n So, they wake up and here they are, they had the most votes, but they're going into a Democratic legislature that's going to have to pick them, and what are we going to do?  I was, I think, called fairly early on.  There was no way, in all respect to Governor Maddox, that I could support him.  I could never have supported the man.  When I was at Emory and at Emory Law School, he was running those full-page, on page 2 of the Atlanta Constitution or Journal ever Saturday, small type ads going on about everything in the world, and running the Pickrick and doing all those things that I just could not have supported.  And my county had gone heavily for Callaway.  I would have changed parties -- as much as I'm a yellow dog Democrat -- I would have changed parties nearly before I'd have done it -- and Charlie Weltner did, if you recall.  Charlie Weltner refused to run on the ticket with him as the nominee.   \r\n I knew I was going to be helping.  Ellis -- Lester -- I'll get it in a minute -- Elliot Levitas, who was the representative from Dekalb county and a close friend of mine, he was a law partner of Ellis Arnall who had gotten the 60,000 vote write-ins -- the 50,000 or 60,000 that denied Callaway the outright win.  He was interested in helping and he helped.  Busbee helped.  You know, later Democratic governor of the state of Georgia.  But my recollection is that George was involved with it.   \r\n We started calling folks, but it's kind of like we were preaching to the choir.  My close friends in the legislature were going to vote for Callaway.  You know, I was preaching to the choir.  But, we did.  We tried to call folks, and they were scratching around.  They were doing things.  I think that they mounted somewhat of a campaign with the business leaders of the state.  They had bank presidents calling legislators and stuff like that.  Because Callaway was a very popular guy.  Bear it in mind now, two years before Barry Goldwater carried this state heavily against Lyndon Johnson.  So they were not without resources, it was just marshaling them.   \r\n Bob Elliot, who was a long serving judge in federal court in Columbus, had been Herman Talmadge's floor leader during the two governor mess back in '46 and during his administration.  And by then -- I think Judge Elliot was appointed in '62 by Kennedy -- but I remembered that he had been Talmadge's floor leader and he had been the floor leader during that situation where they would try to resolve the two governor -- three governor, however many you want to call it -- mix up in '46.  I asked him, \"What did ya'll do?  And he referred me to the House journals, the Senate journals.  And you know what the House and Senate journal is, a voluminous book that deals in painful detail with every bill, every House, every resolution, everything that happens in the House and the Senate during the session.  And we got that thing and went back -- 'cause Bob Elliot is one of the smartest men that's ever lived.  And we figured out what he had done from a parliamentary standpoint, the motions he made.  And we knew it was an uphill battle, and we lost it eventually.  There wasn't any question we lost it, lost it badly.  The legislature was heavily Democratic, and they selected Maddox over Callaway.  But we got a lot more votes than they thought we were going to get.  And what we did -- Peter Zack Geer had been defeated by George T. Smith for lieutenant governor.   \r\n Well, in Georgia the way it operates, the legislature convenes on the second Monday in January.  And when there's been a governor's election, they are not inaugurated -- sworn in -- until Tuesday, the day after the legislature convenes.  So, on the second Monday in January of 1967, even though George L. is going to be the new speaker, George T. is still the speaker of the House.  And Peter Zack Geer, even though he's been defeated by George T. for lieutenant governor, he's still the lieutenant governor.  When you have a joint session, the lieutenant governor presides.  So, here you've got this situation.  Peter Zach, who's been defeated by George T., sitting up there besides George T., presiding over this session of the general assembly, the second Monday in January, 1967.  And we're going to select who the governor is.  A small group of us, we went to talk to Peter Zack Geer.  I kept quiet because I was too closely associated with George T., I guess. But we told him kind of what our legislative strategy was going to be.  I've heard Elliot's tape with you, and Elliot indicated that he thought P.Z. treated us kind of roughly.  My recollection is that P.Z. listened to what we had to say and I was very favorably impressed with the way he conducted the thing.  That's a 73 year-old man talking about something that happened close to 50 years ago.  I may be wrong, Elliot may be right, probably the truth is somewhere in the middle.  But I thought that Peter Zack Geer, he dealt the cards off the top of the deck with us that day.  When the day was over though, Lester Maddox was governor of the state of Georgia. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  That was only after an attempt -- I know representative Reed Harris introduced some sort of legislation to send it back to the people. \r\n \r\n JONES:  That was the whole idea, was to try to get it -- there wasn't any way they were going to vote Callaway governor.  But we were trying to get them to go back and have a rerun without any possibility of a write-in and whoever got the most votes.  That was the strategy that was adopted.  Because we knew we couldn't win directly, but maybe we could get it  indirectly.  We didn't get it either way.   \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Let's talk a minuted about the Supreme Court decision.  That case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court.  The question being, as I recall, \"Is the legislature legally empowered to elect a governor under those circumstances.\"  Or, \"Was that provision in our constitution constitutional.\" \r\n \r\n JONES:  Well, I don't remember that much about that, Bob, so I can't answer it.  But obviously it stood. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Yeah, 5-4 vote.  In fact, Justice Black ruled that the legislature had the power to elect the governor in the first place, going back to colonial days, I presume. \r\n \r\n JONES:  I was worrying about other things by then.  I wasn't involved in that lawsuit.   \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Well, let's move along.  Lester Maddox was elected.  That didn't play well with a lot of people in Georgia.  But at the end of his term he seemed to get a passing grade.   \r\n \r\n JONES:  I think that's true.  I think Lester surprised a lot of us.  I'm not going to say               -- I think that he didn't do any harm, any particular harm.  And one of the things he did that you've got to give the man credit for.  He made more appointments of blacks, of African-Americans, to positions of responsibility in the state of Georgia than I any governor had done before.  Lester did something else, though.  I think that one of the things about being a chief executive of a political situation -- be it president, or governor, or anything like that -- is to, let's say, \"show the flag.\"  To be accessible to the people.  You remember he to have the little people's day, where people could come and go through his office, or go through the mansion, or something like that.  And they could see the governor.  Lester would get out -- I think you were in his office.  I mean, he'd travel all over this state.  I mean, if you invited Lester to come somewhere, for a pig-picking or anything else, Lester was going, he was going to show up.  He was accessible to the people.  All of those hundreds of high school groups that come to the capital during the legislative session.  He was out there with every one of them having his picture taken.  And I think that is good.  The office of governor is so demanding that I think that good executives, they tend to just hole up in there and make all these big decisions and they become encapsulated.  But Lester didn't do that.  He was accessible to the people.  I think in large measure, though, you had a pretty good Senate running.  You had George L. in the House.  I think the legislature kept the state on a pretty even keel that four years when Lester rode his bicycle and got his picture taken.  But we got through it and it was alright. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  He was not an overpowering governor, was he? \r\n \r\n JONES:  I wouldn't say so.  I mean, I don't want to say anything ugly.  But you know, I don't think he did much harm.  One thing that I've never forgotten though, the departments, the various departments of state government, if they've got something they want enacted into law, the first thing they do, the carry it to the governor.  \"Governor, how about making this part of your administration package this year?\"  And you know, the governor can't take everything.  So he takes some, he doesn't take some.  But they've still got this bill they want introduced.  And so then they get out and try to find them a legislator to introduce the bill if the governor's not going to do it.  And I somehow got to where -- what we used to call the Highway Department -- now the DOT -- and Public Safety, they would use me quite a bit on some of their legislation that didn't make the A-team, let's say.  And one of them was -- the drivers' license folks wanted to implement eye exams every four or five years.  Now, we do that now.  Well, I said, \"That makes sense to me.  People who are blind shouldn't be driving.  So I introduced this bill to require over a certain age -- I'm over that age now, I might add -- that you had to have your eyes examined every five years, I think.  And we got it passed.  I mean, it's hard to argue with that thing.  Lester vetoed it.   I never will forget what he said.  He said, \"Well, I know some people that've got poor eyesight that are safer drivers than folks that've got good eyesight.\"  You can't argue with that, I'm sure that there are some out there that way.  But he was interesting. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Well, in 1970 you decided not to seek reelection.  Why? \r\n \r\n JONES:  Oh, a number of things.  I'd been up there eight years.  I never was very wealthy.  Didn't have any money to speak of.  We were doing alright -- had a law partner Lee Grogan, great guy from up in Cherokee county.  In '68 we had started growing our firm.  We had started picking up some folks.  I needed to spend more time there.  My children were 9, 8, 7, and 5.  I started having to think about financial concerns.  Because when you're in the legislature, particularly if you're an active legislator, it takes a lot of time.  And I needed to start doing that.  Carter was running for governor again.  He never stopped running after '66.  He just kept running for four years.  I wanted to try to help him.  I hadn't been able to do as much as I'd wanted to in '66 because I was tied up with George T.'s race a little bit.  So I wanted to help some more there.  So it was just a myriad of things.  And it's kind of one of those things.  You know, in the army, you either go up or get out.  And in politics it's pretty much the same.  I knew I wasn't going up, and there wasn't any sense in hanging around.   \r\n \r\n SHORT:  You were close to President Carter.   \r\n \r\n JONES:  Well, somewhat.  We were both elected at the same time, as I indicated earlier -- '62.  His senatorial district included Chattahoochee county, which is the county immediately south of Muscogee county.  We were part of that freshman class, he was in the Senate, I was in the House.  Jeanette and Rosalynn got along fairly well, he and I got along fairly well.  He helped me with some legislation when it got to the Senate, and we became fairly close.   \r\n \r\n SHORT:  He appointed you to the Board of Regents.   \r\n \r\n JONES:  Yeah, that was in '74. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  '74.  Tell us a little bit about the Board of Regents.  A lot of people don't understand what the group is and what it does.   \r\n \r\n JONES:  A lot of us regents aren't sure sometimes.  But, no, it was a governing board -- Dick Russell.  We're sitting here in the Russell library right now.  When he was governor of Georgia back in the early '30's, he reorganized state government.  Jimmy Ca \r\nrter, I think, was the next one that did it in 1971.  He put all of the state colleges under the university system.  And the Board of Regents when I was on it -- I don't know what the make-up is now, but we had 15 members.  I think it was one from each congressional district, and then you had five at large.  I don't even know how many congressmen we've got in Georgia now, but I know it's a lot more than it was back then.  But we had 15 people, and they are theoretically the ones -- the board -- who run the university system of Georgia.  Which includes your research institutions, such as the University of Georgia, Medical College of Georgia, Georgia Tech -- I don't know, Georgia State and Georgia Southern may be what they call research institutions now, but back in the '70's when I was on it, those were the three.  All of the, what we used to call four year colleges, which are now state universities, all of the junior colleges, which are now colleges.  But that's what it is.   \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Let's talk for a minute about party politics in Georgia.  We've seen a vast  change from the time that you were in the House of Representatives back in the '60's.  The Democratic party has lost a lot of ground.  Some people think that the state party is too urban, too dependent on minorities, too controlled by labor unions, and too liberal.  Do you agree with that? \r\n \r\n JONES:  Well, I can't address the state party.  I'm not that familiar with the state party.  But I think that you would hear those same criticisms from some circles, let's say, non-friendly circles, toward all Democrats, not just the state Democratic party in Georgia.  Obviously, there's been a sea change in politics in Georgia.  When do you want to start it?  I discussed back when I was getting into it, the courthouse Republicans.  Back then everybody was a Democrat.  That was in the '50' and '60's.  Then you started having all of these upheavals.  You had Brown v. Board of Education, you had the Civil Rights movements and pushes of Truman in the late '40's.  You had the Dixiecrat rebellion, I think it was in '48.  You had the other Civil Rights cases coming along.  You had the election of Kennedy in 1960.  You had more pushing, more federal court intervention in a lot of things in the South.  You had Kennedy's , in November of '63.  You had LBJ becoming president.  You had the Civil Rights Act, you had the Voting Rights Act.  You had the Goldwater/Johnson race in '68, where the South, Georgia went for Goldwater.  They'd also voted for Strom Thurmond if I recall correctly in '48, if I'm not mistaken.  I may be wrong on that.  And you've got things going.  Two years later in '66 you had Bo Callaway getting the most votes for governor. He didn't end up being the governor, but he had certainly had a plurality.  You had a growing presence of Republicans in the legislature.  And then you had the Nixon Southern strategy.  You had a lot of things that caused people in Georgia to reassess their situation as to whether they were Democrats or whether or not they were Republicans.  Now you can call it conservative versus liberal realignment, you can call it something else if you want to.  But I think that the things that you just said about, \"They're too close to this, they're too much that, and so forth,\" that's the same thing you hear on a national level as well as Georgia.   \r\n \r\n SHORT:  You mentioned Republican cross-over voting in the Maddox-Callaway race.   \r\n \r\n JONES:  I can't prove that. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Well, do you think that we out to have party registration in Georgia? \r\n \r\n JONES:  No, I really don't.  Cross-over voting is always a problem.  There were a lot of things in the legislature that I just didn't worry about a lot.  And election law was one of them.  I guess it comes from the fact  that I was from Muscogee county, Columbus.  We've always had honest elections in Columbus.  We've never had the first hint of any voter fraud or anything else in Columbus.  And it was my experience that the guys in the legislature that were always worrying about election laws, and trying to get this tinkered with, they were from the counties where they had the problems.  We didn't have that problem, and I never worried too much about it.  \r\n \r\n SHORT:  So you weren't surprised in 2002 when Georgians elected a Republican governor. \r\n \r\n JONES:  No, no.  Callaway, all things considered, would have been the first one.  There was another guy from Columbus by the name of Ed Smith, who ran in 1962 for governor.  He was running for governor as a Republican.  He was killed in an automobile wreck there in Woodberry, Georgia.  He was out driving himself, been to a meeting in Atlanta, and he's in a car going home about 2:30 in the morning.  Trying to practice law the next morning and didn't have a driver.  Went to sleep and ran off the road there where 85 East and West separate in Woodberry, Georgia.  Killed himself.  You know, I think that J.R. Allen, who was from Columbus, who was a bright and rising star, but like a lot of others,  he'd started off a Democrat and he'd changed over.  I think J.R. Allen could have run for and been elected governor of the state of Georgia.  But there again, we had consolidated our city and county government in Columbus and he was out speaking around the state in favor of consolidation of city and county governments.  Had been to Rome one night, I think it was in '74, maybe '75   Flying home on a late plane, it went in, and J.R. was killed.  So, it was just a question of time, in my mind, before it happened.  Now we're sitting here, you've got a Republican governor, you've got a Republican controlled Senate, you've got a Republican controlled House.   \r\n \r\n SHORT:  And the majority is increasing every year.  How long do you think it will take for the Democrats to get their House in order and regain control of the legislature?   \r\n \r\n JONES: Well, I'm not sure they ever will.  I mean, you're asking the question.  There's a lot of demographics in it.  And you know as well as I do, a lot of times luck enters into politics.  You know, being in the right time, at the right place, and stuff like that.  But,  unless there's a -- how long was the South solid Democrat? \r\n \r\n SHORT:  One hundred and thirty-seven years. \r\n \r\n JONES:  Well, we've got a few to go, haven't we? \r\n \r\n SHORT:  What's life been for Milton Jones after public service?   \r\n \r\n JONES:  Wonderful.  No, I did go home.  I helped Carter a little bit in that first session in 1971.  But I went home April 1st of 1970 and then he appointed me to the Board of Regents in '74 and I served 'til '81.  And that was my last involvement on any official basis in public service.  I practiced law forty years.  As soon as I was able to, I retired.  I've been retired 12 years, the best 12 years of my life.  And I have been a truly blessed individual.   \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Good.  Let me ask you this question.  What do you think is your most satisfying accomplishment as a state legislator? \r\n \r\n JONES:  Well, oh Lord, Bob.  In Georgia, there was a doctrine called the time-price differential.  And what that was was the appellate courts of this state had said that if I sell you a watch for $50 and you pay me $5 a month for ten months, that that is not a loan of money, that is a time-price.  And the usury laws control only interest on loans of money.  So in effect, anything that was sold on time in the state of Georgia could be charged a time-price differential unlimited, anything.  And when you look at all the automobiles that were sold in the state of Georgia, all the refrigerators that are sold in the state of Georgia, all the revolving charge accounts that were in the state of Georgia -- this was before credit cards, this was '65, '66, '67 -- you can see that there were abuses like you could not imagine.   \r\n There was one fellow they called the Bedspread Man in Columbus.  And he'd load up his car with those Chenille bedspreads they used to make up there in Dalton.  He'd go out through the poorer sections of town -- black.  And he'd sell bedspreads.  And he'd sell bedspreads to these ladies for $2 a week, stuff like that.  And he'd get two dollars, and he'd go back the next week and collect it.  And eventually they'd miss a payment.  Would never get them paid for.  He'd take the bedspread back, put it in his car, sell it down the street.  They call it the bedspread game.  But that was an abuse.   \r\n But a particularly flagrant situation arose in the mid-60's, '65 in particular, where these people were out making second mortgages to unsophisticated borrowers.  What they would do, is they would go by and they'd tell them, \"You need a new roof.  We're going to put some shingles on there.\"  Or, \"You need some siding on your house,\" or \"you've got termites, we need to go in and do your floor and your house is going to fall in if you don't.\"  And they'd get them to sign a contract, \"We're going to fix your house for $2,000.\"  But the contract -- they'd end up paying over $5,000.  They'd put on an origination fee, they'd put on exorbitant attorney fees. They didn't pay the lawyer, they called it that.  This kind of fee, a $10 notary fee, stuff like that.  And then they'd charge them 20 or 30 percent simple interest on the loan.  A typical example would be a $2,000 job, which was probably a jacked-up price to start with, and a $5,000 payback.  And I saw it kind of as a young lawyer, when people started coming in to me, \"I'm losing my house, I'm losing my house.  What can I do?\"  And I went to the legislative counsel's office -- Veron Slatondon, Harvey Finley, and some of those great guys.  They're the legislature's lawyers.  They found a bill that the state of Florida had introduced and passed and we copied that bill ver batim.  And we got it passed.  It was a terrible fight.  We got it through the House, had trouble, but we got it through the House.  And you talk about Carter, Jimmy Carter, he owned me lock, stock and barrel after that bill, because I had a fellow over there, a great guy, good friend of mine, he was handling that bill over in the Senate.  And you know about the rules committee and how you've got to not only clear the Senate committee, but you've got to clear the Senate Rules committee to get on the rules calendar.  And it's two days before the end of the session.  It was on the Senate rules calendar, but somebody -- I won't mention his name, he was defeated for reelection that following election -- he got it off the rules calendar.  He got it removed from the rules calendar.  And Jimmy just happened to be in the rules committee and saw it.  Even though he wasn't my floor manager, he came, he hunted me down and told me, he said, \"Your second mortgage act is off of the rules committee calendar.\"  And I went back over there and I acted badly, but we got it back on and we got the thing passed.  The following year, it had been very widely received, well-received.  Probably the first piece of consumer protection that had been passed in that century, to be honest with you.  That wasn't a high priority back then.  Like environmental measures weren't a high priority either back then too when Reed started on the marshes and stuff like that.  But the next year, we got passed the automobile sales finance act, and retail installment sales.  And I'm not real proud of those bills, because in order to get them passed, we had to give them, in my opinion, exorbitant rates of return, but at least there was a limit, if you follow what I'm saying.  If I had to say anything, those would be the things I'm proudest of, because we were able to kind of bust up that racket.   \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Your biggest disappointment. \r\n \r\n JONES:  Well, I don't know.  I think probably the way that thing worked out in 1967 about Governor Maddox ending up as governor and Robin Harris not being elected speaker of the House.  I think that if we'd had Callaway and we'd had Robin Harris as speaker of the House, the bar would have been set very high for future speakers.   \r\n \r\n SHORT:  We haven't talked about the 1970 governor's race between Jimmy Carter and Carl Sanders.  What do you remember about that year? \r\n \r\n JONES:  Well, like I said, Jimmy never quit running for governor in '66.  I think he went home long enough for -- Amy was born a little later.  But he kept running.  And he travelled this state, I think day and night for four years and he really built up -- well, Jimmy was a personable guy.  It'd be hard not to like him if you got to know him and he made a lot of contact.  He was very active in Lions, if I remember.  He was just a governor, and he ran very long and very hard.  Brooks Pennington, of Pennington Green, had been very prominent in Jimmy's gubernatorial race in '66, along with Ford Spinks from down in Tifton.  They were two guys who had served in the Senate with him.  Brooks, of course, supported Governor Sanders again in '70 when he ran for reelection -- well, not reelection, but election for a second term.  But you had Hamilton Jordan closely involved in the race, you had Jody Powell, you know they were driving and doing things like that, handling press.  But you had people involved in that race like Charlie Kirbo and others in Atlanta, and it was a different race than the '66 race.  And it moved right along.  My law partner, Lee Grogan, he chaired Jimmy's campaign in Columbus that year.  I was fairly active in it. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Two schools of thought I've heard over the years about that campaign.  One was that Governor Carter ran sort of a tough, dirty campaign and the other school of thought is that everything's fair in love, war, and politics.  What is your reaction to that?   \r\n \r\n JONES:  Well, number one, I don't think it was a dirty campaign.  I would dispute that highly -- strongly.  I think Jimmy did move to the right a little bit and that caused some concern among some of us.  There were discussions about that.  But we understood and we stayed with the program, won the race.  And in his inaugural address, in his inaugural address, Jimmy Carter said, \"The time for racial segregation in Georgia is over.\" \r\n \r\n SHORT:  If you had your political life to live over again Milton, would you do anything differently? \r\n \r\n JONES:  Not run.   \r\n \r\n [Laughter] \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Did you ever think about running for a higher office? \r\n  \r\n JONES:  I think everybody thinks about running for higher office.   And there was speculation about me running for Controller General in '66 after that second mortgage situation.  Because the Atlanta newspapers were all over it and Baldy was drawing cartoons and I was the guy in the white hat and all that.  You know, you get back to it, I'm a young lawyer in my early '30's and I haven't got any money.  And you know, unfortunately, particularly in secondary races, the most folks who give you money are people you're going to end up regulating.  And then you find yourself in that situation, \"Well, if I do that, am I going to be able to do this?\"  Stuff like that.  And it just never was a real possibility to me.  If I had been older and I had been wealthy, maybe so, but I wasn't, and I didn't.  \r\n \r\n SHORT:  How would you like to be remembered? \r\n \r\n JONES:  I guess that presupposes that I want to be remembered.  I'm sure there's some folks that I'd just as soon forget about me.  But I don't know.  I'm glad I did what I did.  I'm really glad I did what I did.  I wouldn't take anything for the experience.  It was one of the most educational experiences I've ever had.  And while there was a lot of heartache and disappointment and a lot bad nights and stuff like that, overall it was a wonderfully positive thing.  I've met some of the finest people I've ever known in my life.  Those ole' boys, that country boy legislature when I went down there, despite what Bob said about them, and with some truth, they were wonderful people and I made friends that'll be my friends the day I die.  Most of them are already dead, 'cause they were quite a bit older than I was.  But people like Elliot Levitas, Robin Harris, Jimmy Carter, Sam Nunn, you know.  I wouldn't take anything for the experiences I had and the friendships I made.  That's not necessarily how -- that doesn't answer your question, but I'm proud of what I did.   \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Have we forgotten anything?  Is there something else you want to talk about with us? \r\n \r\n JONES:  I'm sure that I've already talked five times longer than you wanted to listen to me, so let's just call it now.  \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Milton Jones, thank you very much for being our guest. \r\n \r\n JONES:  Thank you.   "},{"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_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.  Ive enjoyed it. \r\n \r\n[END] \r\n \r\n \r\n       "},{"id":"gych_rogp_024","title":"Tommy Irvin, 17 April 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":["Irvin, Thomas T., 1929","Short, Bob, 1932"],"dc_date":["2008-04-17"],"dcterms_description":["Thomas T. \"Tommy\" Irvin was born July 14, 1929, in Lula, Georgia, and was the son of sharecroppers. He grew up on a farm in White County. After the death of his father in a sawmill accident, Irvin was forced to drop out of high school to support his mother and siblings. He went on to make his father's sawmill business extremely successful. He moved to Habersham County, and in 1956 was elected to the school board. He later became chairman and president of the Georgia School Boards Association. In 1956 he was asked to run for the state legislature. He won, and at 33, Irvin was one of the youngest members of the Georgia General Assembly. Lester Maddox asked him to manage his gubernatorial campaign. Upon Maddox's election, Irvin became floor leader and executive secretary. In 1969, Maddox appointed him to be agricultural commissioner. He became the longest serving agricultural commissioner in the United States, retiring in 2010.","Irvin discusses his early life working on a farm and his public service career, including his role on the Habersham County School Board, his later service as chairman and president of the Georgia School Boards Association, his election to the Georgia General Assembly, his management of Lester Maddox's 1966 gubernatorial campaign, and his role as Georgia's Commissioner of Agriculture from 1969 to 2011. He covers issues related to agriculture on state, national, and international levels, such as food safety, foreign trade, food prices, and the effect of immigration on production. Irvin also addresses the broader sphere of Georgia politics by discussing issues related to segregation and the legacy of several former governors.","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--Department of Agriculture","Georgia--General Assembly","Political campaigns--Georgia","Governors--Georgia","Legislators--Georgia--Interviews","Agriculture--Georgia","Agricultural laws and legislation--Georgia","Segregation--Georgia","International trade","Produce trade--Georgia","Agricultural laws and legislation","Agriculture","Governors","Legislators","Political campaigns","Political participation","Politics and government","Produce trade","Segregation","Georgia--Politics and government","Georgia"],"dcterms_title":["Tommy Irvin, 17 April 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-024/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 024, 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":["Irvin, Thomas T., 1929-","Maddox, Lester, 1915-2003"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"gych_rogp_013","title":"Elizabeth \"Betty\" Vandiver and Jane Kidd on Ernest Vandiver, 09 February 2007.","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","Vandiver, Betty Russell, 1925"],"dc_date":["2007-02-09"],"dcterms_description":["Ernest Vandiver's wife Betty and his daughter Jane recall memories of the former Georgia governor. They discuss the efforts to improve conditions at Central State Hospital, integration at the University of Georgia, Governor Vandiver's military career, and the role of political parties in Georgia in the mid-twentieth century and in 2007.","Finding aid available in repository.","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 improving the quality of care at 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.","Interviewed by Bob Short.","Jane Brevard Vandiver Kidd was born February 12, 1953. As the daughter of Georgia Governor S. Ernest Vandiver (1959-1963) and grand-niece of Senator Richard B. Russell, Jr., Kidd was involved in politics early, serving as chair of Youth for Herman Talmadge in Talmadge's 1968 Senate campaign, and campaigning for her father during his 1972 US Senate campaign. She graduated from the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism in 1975, and in 1980 she won a seat on the Lavonia City Council, which she kept for three terms. In 1992 she was Don Johnson's campaign manager in his successful run for Congress, and served as Johnson's district director. In 2004 Kidd was elected to the state house, serving for one term before mounting an unsuccessful bid for a state senate seat. In 2007 she was elected chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":["Athens, Ga. : Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies"],"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--Governor (1959-1963 : Vandiver)","University of Georgia","Central State Hospital (Milledgeville, Ga.)","College integration--Georgia--Athens--History","Legislators--Georgia--Interviews","Governors--Georgia","Political parties--Georgia--History","College integration","Governors","Legislators","Political parties","Politics and government","Georgia--Politics and government","Georgia","Georgia--Athens"],"dcterms_title":["Elizabeth \"Betty\" Vandiver and Jane Kidd on Ernest Vandiver, 09 February 2007."],"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-013/video"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 013 Elizabeth \"Betty\" Vandiver and Jane Kidd on Ernest Vandiver. Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, The University of Georgia Libraries."],"dlg_local_right":["Before material from collections at the Richard B. Russell Library may be quoted in print, or otherwise reproduced, 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 (109 min.) : sd., col."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Vandiver, Betty Russell, 1925-","Kidd, Jane Brevard Vandiver, 1953-","Vandiver, S. Ernest (Samuel Ernest), 1918-2005"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"gych_rogp_005","title":"Carl Sanders, 01 October 2006.","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","Sanders, Carl, 1925-2014"],"dc_date":["2006-10-01"],"dcterms_description":["Sanders discusses his upbringing in Augusta, his rise to Governor of Georgia in 1963, the 1970 gubernatorial race, and his career after politics. He shares his political philosophy on such issues as civil rights, education, and transportation.","Carl Edward Sanders was born in Augusta, Georgia, on May 15, 1925. He attended the University of Georgia, where he accepted a football scholarship. In 1943, before he could finish his college education, he enlisted in the Air Force and trained as a B-17 pilot. After World War II he returned to the University, finishing three years of law school in two years and passing the bar in 1947. Sanders entered private practice in Atlanta and eventually started the law firm of Sanders, Thurmond, Hester and Jolles. In 1954, he made a successful bid for the Georgia House of Representatives. In 1956, he won a seat in the Georgia Senate. At the time, the seat rotated between Richmond, Glascock, and Jefferson counties. Sanders was subsequently elected to the same seat by both Jefferson and Glascock counties due to his overwhelming popularity, becoming the only man to serve three consecutive terms in a multi-county district. In 1959, Governor Vandiver named Sanders floor leader of the senate. He went on to serve as president pro tempore of the senate from 1960 to 1962. Sanders took the next step in his political career by running for governor in 1962 against Marvin Griffin. Sanders won the election, making him at 37 the youngest governor in the country at the time. Sanders could not succeed himself as governor and, therefore, retired back into private life in 1967. Instead of returning to Augusta, he and his family remained in Atlanta where he started a new law firm. Sanders' final campaign for public office was in 1970, when he was defeated by Jimmy Carter in the governor's contest. Sanders never ran for public office again, but worked for many other Democratic candidates such as Zell Miller, Andrew Young, and Sam Nunn. He also went on to serve as finance chairman for the Democratic Party of Georgia during George Busbee's term as governor.","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. Senate","Georgia. General Assembly. House of Representatives","Legislators--Georgia--Interviews","Governors--Election","Governors--Georgia","Civil rights--Georgia","Civil rights--United States","Education--Georgia","Educations--United States","Transportation--Georgia","Transportation--United States","Civil rights","Education","Governors","Legislators","Transportation","Augusta (Ga.)--History","Georgia","Georgia","United States"],"dcterms_title":["Carl Sanders, 01 October 2006."],"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-005/video"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 005, 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 (50 min.) : sd., col."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Carter, Jimmy, 1924-","Sanders, Carl, 1925-2014"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":"Carl Sanders interviewed by Bob Short \r\n2006 October 1 \r\nYoung Harris, GA \r\nReflections on Georgia Politics \r\nROGP-005 \r\nOriginal: video, 50 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 BOB SHORT:  I'm Bob Short, and this is Reflections on Georgia Politics here at Young Harris College.  We're delighted to have you as our guest, and we're anxious to speak to you about yourself and your administration.  \r\n \r\n CARL SANDERS:  Well, I'm delighted to be here and I'm looking forward to talking to you.  \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Good.  Before we get into a serious discussion about your administration, would you mind telling us just a little bit about your early life and family and growing up in Augusta? \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  Well, I was born in 1925.  My father was with Swift \u0026 Company, the meat packing plant -- a salesman with them.  I grew up in Augusta and I grew up in an even-handed family that was god-fearing and dedicated to doing the right thing.  My mother was one of the most wonderful individuals that I have ever known.  And so, I had a very fine childhood.  \r\n When I was about seven or eight years old, my mother took me down and enrolled me in the YMCA.  They taught me how to swim.  They taught me how to play football, basketball, baseball.  Those sports were not in the public schools at that time.  And later, as a result of that, when I went to high school in Augusta at Richmond Academy, which is one of the finest schools that I have ever attended, I had played enough football that I got a scholarship -- a football scholarship -- to the University of Georgia.  Otherwise, I would not have gone to college.  I was the first individual in my family that ever attended college, and if it had not been for the athletic scholarship -- if it had not been for that training that the YMCA gave me -- I doubt if I would have gone.  So, I grew up in a family that was not very poor, but was not considered to be well-off.  I doubt seriously if my father ever made more than a couple hundred dollars a month.  And back in the Depression, much to my -- without my knowledge -- everybody got their salary cut in half in the Depression, including my family.  We had to give up buying a home and rent a home from the insurance company because of that.  But I never knew that, because I always had a good, healthy family relationship.  I had a brother.  As I said, my mother was just absolutely dedicated to her two sons.   \r\n And I assumed the opportunities in leadership that I could at a very young age.  I was captain of the school board patrol.  I used to stand out on the corner and protect the children coming and going from school.  I was President of my class in high school.  As I said, I made the all-state football team.  I had many good opportunities, but they were because I had a good family.  And I always look back on my life and treasure my mother and my father for helping me grow up and grow up in an environment where I could continue to go on and do other things.  \r\n Of course, when I left the University of Georgia after a year, I -- World War II came along.  There I was at Georgia, playing football, when I was on the freshman team of the University of Georgia's Rose Bowl team in 1943.  And I went to Georgia because I was -- at a very young age -- because back when I was in school, you only had eleven grades.  You didn't have the twelfth grade.  So, I went into the University of Georgia at a time when I was sixteen.  When I became seventeen-years-old, the war had broken out, and I did what every red-blooded young American boy wanted to do -- I came over here to Atlanta, and enlisted in the naval air corps.  They took my papers, filled them out, and after taking the papers, the Naval instructor said, \"You've got a problem.\"  I said, \"What kind of problem have I got?\"  He said, \"You're only seventeen years old.  You've got to go home and get your parent's consent.\"  So I said, \"Ok.\"  So, I went back to Augusta that weekend.  I got to thinking about trying to land an airplane on one of those carriers out in the ocean, with it bobbing up and down!  And I thought, you know, I don't believe I want to do that!  So, I went out to the air force base in Augusta and enlisted in the army air corps, at eighteen years old.  I went through pilot training.  I went through World War II as a first bomber on a B-17 bomber, which was the largest air craft that we had there, except for the B-29 at the end of the war.  I was the chief bomber.  The first bomber.  I had a ten-man crew.  I was the youngest.  I was nineteen years old, flying that plane.  I was the youngest man on the crew, but I was responsible for the crew.  \r\n I -- the war came -- ceased in 1945, when we dropped the atomic bomb.  I was headed to the eighth air force, having finished my overseas training, and the war ended.  I had a choice -- either stay in the air force for four more years, or get out and go back to school.  I chose to get out and go back to school.  In 1945, I went back to the University of Georgia.  I re-entered my athletic scholarship.  My brother and I -- who had come up -- who was two years younger than I was, and had not been in World War II, but later went to the Korean War, he and I played on the 1945 Georgia football team.  We went to the Oil Bowl, which was in Houston, Texas.  We beat Tulsa.  \r\n At that time, I had taken exams.  I really had only -- as I said -- a year of college work before I went in the service.  Georgia had an opportunity -- or gave me an opportunity to take exams -- as a returning veteran -- and anything I could pass, they'd give me college credit.  I took enough exams that I was able to go to law school with one quarter's work as an undergraduate.  So, I went into the law school, and when I did, I went to see Coach Butts, and said, \"I can't play football and go to law school.  It's just impossible for me to do both of those things.\"  Plus, the fact -- I was backing up to Johnny Rauch, who was playing -- who was an All-American that year, so I was playing more defense than I was offense.  So, it wasn't a big decision on my part. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  *Laughter* \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  So, I went to law school.  And, the law school at that time was crowded with World War II veterans returning.  The law school takes three years, normally, but they gave me an opportunity -- and others -- if we wanted to, to go around the clock.  Twelve months out of the year rather than just nine months.  I finished three years of law school in two years.  When I was in law school, switching over to politics, there were lots of people that were already running for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and so forth.  I had no interest at that point in politics, other than trying to get through law school, go back home, and get a job and go to work.  But anyway, I went around the clock for two years.  I took the bar exam before I finished law school.  You can't do that now, but back in those days they would allow you to do it.  I came over here with some friends who were taking the bar exam for practice.  I lucked out and passed the bar exam before I got out of law school.  Knowing that I was a lawyer then, and I could practice law, I asked my present wife of fifty-eight years, if she would entertain a marriage.  We got married in September of 1947, which was six months before I picked up my law degree.  We went back to Augusta, and I entered a small law firm in Augusta, Hammett \u0026 Kennedy.  It later became Hammett \u0026 Kennedy \u0026 Sanders.  I practiced law, primarily trying cases in the court room in front of juries for two or three years.   \r\n Richmond County was in the control, back in those days, of what was known as the Cracker Party, which is sort-of like the Tammany Hall was in New York.  One of the big participants in that was Roy Harris, who had previously been the Speaker of the House and the Georgia legislature, and who was an avowed segregationist in every way, shape, and form and fashion.  Some of us that had served in World War II and were veterans, decided that we didn't like the idea of having the county and the city controlled by the Cracker Party.  So, we joined the Independent Party, and took on the Cracker Party and beat them.  That was my first election in 1955 to the House of Representatives.  I came to Atlanta.  I served for two years in the House of Representatives.  \r\n Vandiver was running for Lieutenant Governor at that time, and he was getting ready to run for Governor.  I then decided to run for the Senate.  I ran for the Senate, which was a rotation back in those days of two or three counties for each Senatorial district.  My district was Richmond, Jefferson, and Glascock County.  I ran for the Senate as a -- for Richmond County.  I won the election.  I ran for the Senate for Jefferson County.  They gave up their right to have a Senator appointed, and I got elected again.  I ran for the Senate for the third time for Glascock County.  They gave up their right to have a Senator, and I served three terms in the Senate.  I was Vandiver's floor leader.  I later was elected President Pro Tem of the Senate, and that's when I then decided that maybe I ought to try to run state-wide.   \r\n Well, at that time, the Lieutenant Governor's position, of course, was not a very strong position, but it existed.  The candidate of the -- of the Vandiver group, initially, was Peter Zack Geer, who was Ernie Vandiver's Executive Secretary.  I was President Pro Tem of the Senate, so I announced that I was going to run for Lieutenant Governor and Peter Zack Geer announced that he was going to run for Lieutenant Governor.  We started campaigning.  This was in 1961 and '62, and while I was campaigning for Lieutenant Governor, I was down in Dublin, Georgia, making a speech, and the editor of the local paper came up to me and said, \"Have you heard the news?\"  I said, \"No. What's the news?\"  He said, \"A retired Atlanta policeman, who's now a lawyer by the name of Carl F. Sanders, has just announced that he's going to run for Lieutenant Governor.\" \r\n \r\n SHORT:  *Laughter* \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  I said, \"You've got to be kidding!\"  He said, \"No, it's on the news.\"  So, I went back to Atlanta and I thought about how I was going to get people to distinguish between Carl E. and Carl F. Sanders.  I knew that Peter Zack Geer and some of his friends had gotten that guy to get in the race.  So, I said to myself, \"That seems like an impossible thing.\"  So, I said, \"I'm going to run for Governor.\"  And then all of a sudden these people from all over Georgia started coming in, saying, \"Don't get in the Governor's race.  We've got the county locked up for you for Lieutenant Governor.\"  And I said, \"It's too late.  I'm in the Governor's race.\"  \r\n So, I started in the Governor's race.  Marvin Griffin announced -- who was the former Governor -- with Garland Byrd, who was the Lieutenant Governor, and two or three other non-descript candidates.  And we started running in 1962, campaigning for the Governorship for Georgia.  I opened my campaign in Statesboro, Georgia, which was the home of my wife.  And, of course, I didn't know at that time how much it took -- what kind of effort it took to really run a state-wide race, but I learned very quickly.  It took a lot of money back in those days, not the kind of money that it takes today, but it also took an all-out effort.  The county unit system was still in existence when I announced.  And I knew that.  But I still believed that I could win.  The county unit system in the middle of the campaign in 1962, the Supreme Court of Georgia -- of the United States, not Georgia -- came down with a decision outlawing the county unit system, and putting it on a popular vote.  I campaigned, both under the county unit system and under the popular vote system.  I won the election over Marvin Griffin.  I would have won it whether we were under the county unit system or under the popular vote system.  I would have won it if we'd been voting just with white votes.  I would have won it if we'd just been voting for black votes.  And I won it anyway you could win it.  And, of course, that was a wonderful experience, and something that I'll never forget.  \r\n But, right after I won the campaign for Governor, the -- Vandiver announced -- or the courts announced that we had to redistrict the state of Georgia, the Senate, the House.  And Vandiver said to me, \"You are now the Governor elect.  I don't have anymore time other than to serve out my term.  That's your responsibility, not mine.\"  I said, \"You've got to be kidding.\"  He said, \"Yeah, you've got to redistrict the Senate.\"  So, I had to take on -- before I became Governor -- I was still a member of the Senate -- the responsibility of recreating the legislative districts for the Georgia Senate.  I saw men and women -- not too many women in the General Assembly back in those days -- stand up after I explained to them that most of them, when they were in their new districts -- would never again be able to sit in the Senate and serve, because they were -- their district wouldn't allow it.  And I was able to get enough Senators to agree that we had to go ahead and redistrict the Senate, even though many of them would never come back -- to put that bill through the General Assembly.  Therefore, that took me up to the inauguration.   \r\n At the inauguration, of course, we had the normal things that you have when a Governor.  We moved from Augusta to Atlanta, and moved into the old mansion out in Ansley Park.  The Ansley Park mansion was a -- recently had been a residence -- a home.  It was a big rock house.  And it was not the most delightful place to live.  In fact, many of things didn't function that normally would function in a house.  The type of labor that you had was prison labor.  My wife, god bless her soul, said to Ben Fortson, who was the Secretary of State, \"I don't know whether I would like to live in a house being manned by prison labor.\"  Mr. Fortson said, \"Well, if you don't want to do that, we'll hire some civilian labor.\"  Well, he hired some civilian labor.  He was in charge of the upkeep of the mansion.  Of course, civilian labor came to work at eight o'clock in the morning, and got off at five o'clock in the afternoon.  Prison labor came to work at whatever time you needed them in the morning, and didn't go back to the prison till sometime when you needed them -- when you finished later in the evening.  So, after that short period of time, my wife said, \"You know, I wouldn't mind going back to prison labor. See if we can do that.\"  So we did that.  And, of course, we lived in that mansion through the four years that I was Governor.  But we knew -- and I knew -- from the very beginning, that that was not the kind of mansion that Georgia needed for the kind of state that we were.  So, I undertook while I was Governor, the job of building the new mansion, knowing that I would never live in it.  Because you can't build a mansion for yourself, you've got to build it for whoever will succeed you.  We were able, through my wife's efforts and the efforts of many other good Georgians, to put together the land out on West Paces Ferry Road to build a beautiful new mansion.  While I was building that mansion, the biggest critic -- one of the biggest critics in our hair -- was Lester Maddox, who was writing a column in the Atlanta papers every week, telling me what an idiotic fool I was for building a new mansion.  And the irony of it was that he wound up being the first one to live in it, and he never wanted to move out after he lived in it! \r\n \r\n SHORT:  *Laughter*  Well, there's no doubt, Governor, that you and your administration completely turned Georgia around.  You were responsible for a lot of the programs and, particularly, the national image that changed while you were in office.  Would you explain to us how the state of Georgia survived the great crisis of school integration and the loss of the county unit system? \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  Well, I think one of the most important decisions that I ever made was the decision that I was involved in before I became the Governor.  Ernie Vandiver had run for Governor on a campaign of \"No, not one.  Not ever one in the public schools.\"  Meaning, not ever one -- not having a black student.  The Supreme Court and the federal courts had come down with the order of integrating the schools.  The University of Georgia was under the gun for the admission of Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes, who were two black students.  Ernie Vandiver called a meeting out at the Governor's mansion in 1961, I guess it was. '61 or '62.  And said to the group that was there -- and I was invited because I was the President Pro Tem in the Senate -- that, \"I've got to make the decision of whether or not to close the University of Georgia.  And I'd like to go around the room to find out what the sentiment is as to what I might want to do.\"  There were fifty-some odd leaders from all over the state.  He went around the room asking for an indication of what he should do.  Forty-eight out of the fifty said close the University of Georgia.  Myself and Frank Twitty, from Camilla, Georgia, who was a House member, were the only two individuals at that meeting that said to Governor Vandiver, \"You cannot shut down the University of Georgia.  If you did that, you not only would ruin the state, but you would create a generation of illiterates.  And you shouldn't do that.\"  He took our advice and the advice of the others, thought about it, and fortunately decided that he would not close the University of Georgia.  So, that was a decision that was made by me, and I think it helped him.  He -- he certainly gets credit for not closing the University.  But I think the decisions and encouragement from me and Frank Twitty had a heck of a lot to do with him making the decision that he wouldn't go through with closing the University of Georgia.  Therefore, that was a very important decision in the dynamics of the state of Georgia.   \r\n After I ran for Governor, and, of course, I ran on a ticket of what we needed to do for this state, not on a ticket of what we were -- shouldn't do so far as races were concerned.  I have never run a political campaign, either as a legislator or as a candidate for Governor of Georgia, and used racial division as the basis of my campaign.  When I ran for Governor, every Governor that I've ever known prior to that time, had always had some racial card that was involved in their gubernatorial campaign.  I don't know what caused me to think that way.  Maybe it was my mother, maybe it was some co-chairs or maybe it was some people that I grew up with.  But I just never had the feeling that there was a big difference between whether my skin was white and whether your skin might be a different color.   \r\n I had a paper route when I was a kid.  Made seventy-five cents a week.  Gave my mother fifty cents and kept a quarter.  I didn't know how to throw papers -- to throw them up on the steps of the people.  There was a -- a black paper carrier named Charles Butler, who told me how to fold the papers so that I could throw them.  He later became the principal of the high school in Augusta, Georgia, and I put him on the state Board of Education when I was the Governor of Georgia.  But I grew up with no bias, no prejudice, and I never had any prejudices or bias.  \r\n I have always been a strong supporter, as you know, of the YMCA.  The YMCA eventually encompassed no racial division.  I work out, now, three times a week, with one of the best friends that I've got.  I met a black trainer by the name of Tony McKlinnon.  He and I have been working out for twenty-five years, starting at the Luckie Street YMCA in Atlanta, Georgia.  And I've got friends on all sides.  \r\n But I never did -- when I was Governor -- I never did get -- I kept Georgia from being dragged down the path and the race that took over in Alabama and took over in Mississippi and took over in Arkansas.  I kept pointing to the future of Georgia as a place where people can come and live in peace, people can raise their children, people can get a good education.  And those were the things that I kept focused on while all this other turmoil was going on all around us.  And as a result, Georgia became the leader of the South.  Georgia -- Atlanta still maintains, I think, the leadership in the South.  People move into Georgia that wouldn't have moved in otherwise.  Companies came to Georgia -- industries are located here.  All of those things took place because people looked at Georgia as a different type of state in the South -- than you could find in other Southern states.  That, I think, is one of the legacies that I have helped leave to the people of Georgia, and one that I am most proud of.  \r\n \r\n SHORT:  You also opened Georgia on the national scene by cooperating, instead of criticizing, the federal government, which all your predecessors had done.  You became a good friend to President Johnson and the national administration, which we all believed helped Georgia.  \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  Well, I did become a good friend of Lyndon Johnson, because in 1964 -- when he ran for the Presidency -- and I was the Chairman of the Democratic Party and he was the Democratic candidate, the two United States Senators from Georgia -- Senator Russell and Senator Talmadge -- Senator Russell went to Spain and spent the summer in Spain inspecting military bases, Senator Talmadge went underground and wouldn't show up at any of the functions.  So I carried that Democratic banner.  And I carried it to -- to my political disadvantage, later in 1970, when I offered again to run for Governor.  But I felt like -- that Lyndon Johnson had been good to Georgia.  While he was President, we got the largest contract ever granted out in Lockheed to build the C-5A transport plane.  I got to be Chairman of the Appalachian Governor's Commission.  We got all kinds of federal funds for hospitals and schools and other types of things in northern Georgia that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise.  But you know, I -- I would have been an ingrate in 1964 if I had done what others had done and had refused to ride with -- step up with and vote for the individual who done so much for my state.  So that's why I did it.  Later, it was used by my opponent in 1970 as a way of defeating my campaign.  But I don't regret one minute of it.  I would do it over again if the circumstances were still the same. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  When you took office, your prime goal, as outlined in your inaugural address, was education.  If I recall correctly, you said, \"If there is a star in the show in the next four years, it will be the Georgia child.\"  \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  You got that right!  And I meant to -- and we accomplished that.  And I'll tell you why I did that.  To me, the most precious thing that any individual can have, is freedom.  Freedom to think.  Freedom to act.  And the only way you can have freedom, in my book, is through education.  Education creates freedom, and therefore, it was my intention to make sure that we had the best educational program that we could ever have.  \r\n When I was in the Senate, I went to California.  I stood at the California community college system.  I found that out there you could go to a community college any time you wanted to, tuition free.  And I came back to Georgia and said if I ever got elected Georgia's Governor, I was going to create something similar to that.  Because you couldn't put all the boys and girls who lived in Georgia -- either up in Athens or in Atlanta -- at Tech or the University of Georgia.   \r\n So, we built eight or ten junior colleges and converted four junior colleges into four-year community colleges while I was Governor.  Those colleges allowed boys and girls to stay at home and go to the community college, and later go to the senior colleges if they wanted to, when in many cases, those junior colleges became senior colleges.  And that elevated the educational opportunity for boys and girls in Georgia, to a greater step than they had ever been elevated before.  I put sixty cents out of every dollar of revenue into education.  No Governor has ever done that since, no Governor has ever done that before.  I raised the faculty salaries of the University of Georgia faculty thirty-five percent.  I built more buildings and more brick and mortar in four years, than had been built in the entire previous history of the University of Georgia system.  So, education was primary in my administration.  I was awarded the National Golden Key award, for the best education program in America at that time.  It's in there on my -- in my conference room.  And, of course, I had the privilege of taking my seventh-grade school teacher up to New York with me to receive that award.  But I had been as proud of the education program that we put into effect when I was Governor, as anything that I have ever done.  \r\n We did many other things.  You know, to me -- people ask, \"Well, what does the Governor really do?\"  A Governor takes advantage of the opportunities that come before him while he's Governor of Georgia.  And he either takes advantage of those opportunities and makes things happen, or he let's them go by and doesn't let them happen.  And that's what leadership is all about.  You have leadership, you've got to take some risks and you've got to step forward and take -- take advantage of the opportunities when they come before you, or something's going to go by and it's too late to do it.  I took advantage of every opportunity that I could possibly take advantage of when I was Governor of Georgia.  \r\n Another program that we got a great deal of industrial development out of was the building of airports.  I campaigned in 1962, in a little single-engine Comanche airplane, because I'd been a fighter pilot in the war.  We only had about twenty-five to thirty airports in the entire state of Georgia, and half of those were auxiliary fields in World War II.  I landed on tops of mountains, in cow pastures, in other places that you've never dreamed about.  They'd have to shoo the cows off the pasture for me to be able to take off!  So, I said to myself, when I became Governor, \"I'm going to look into what we can do about airports.\"  I went to the County Commission Association meeting and the I said to the County Commissioners, \"Wouldn't you fellows like to have an airport developing program?\"  They looked at me like I was crazy and said, \"No, we are interested in roads, not airports.\"  And I said, \"Well, thank you very much.\"  So I went back and I checked into the -- the airport funds in Washington, D.C., and I found out I could get a grant for a community airport provided that the state put up half the money, and then the national government would put up half the money, and all the County Commissioner would have to do is provide a strip of land -- three thousand feet long -- to build a community airport.  My administration built seventy-three community airports in the four years that I was Governor.  That was the number one airport development program in America for every one of those four years.  What that did -- that allowed industries who were located -- were looking for locations in Georgia and who lived outside of the state -- to get in their King Air's airplanes, and fly to a community that had an airport.  Probably a rural community that had an industrial site that needed a plant.  They could fly in there, look at this industrial sites, fly back and make a decision.  Before, they would have had to go to Atlanta, get in an automobile, drive two or three hours to the location.  And they wouldn't do that!  So, we brought in more new industry than we could have ever imagined, because we had those airports!  You can't get ten thousand feet in Georgia today, and look around in an airplane, and not see an air strip in Georgia.  We've got more community airstrips than any state that I know of, and -- that was a great program.  We just had a variety of programs. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Well, along with that, you created the Department of Family and Children Services.  From the old welfare system --   \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  I did do that.  I did that because back in those days they'd take kids -- juveniles -- that had gotten into trouble and they'd put them in the common jail for the weekend with the hardened prisoners.  And god knows what they would learn over in that three or four day stay.  We didn't have juvenile detention centers.  But I built juvenile detention centers in every one of the Congressional districts of Georgia, so that it was not a prison, but if a kid got in trouble, they could take him into the juvenile detention centers.  We had psychologists there that could train them and work with them for the weekend.  They weren't thrown into a prison with a common criminal.  And as a result, we saved many -- many of the young people who otherwise would have gone down the road of the criminal life.  But we made them productive and brought them back into our society and gave them an opportunity to become good citizens. \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Another hallmark of your administration was the Governor's Honors Program.  \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  That was another program that we developed.  We took the top students from the high schools around Georgia, and sent them on down to Macon, Georgia -- I think Wesleyan College is where we located it -- and let them learn for the first time.  They were sort of like me when I went to Georgia on a football scholarship.  We had sixty freshmen football players.  I thought, because I'd been an all-state football player, that I was one of the best football players in the state or in the southeast.  When I got up there, I found out that it was -- a lot of them could outrun me, were bigger and stronger than I was, and that I wasn't nearly as invincible as I thought I was when I was playing football at Richmond Academy.  I used that same theory on these high school students.  Kids that thought they were the smartest kid that had ever come down the drain in their particular school went to Wesleyan.  Went down there for eight weeks or ten weeks in the summer, and found out that they weren't nearly as smart as some of the kids in other parts of the state.  They had to work harder, but they went back home with a whole different attitude about what they needed to do to improve their old situation.  That was a very successful program.  \r\n \r\n SHORT:  You had a great administration.  You left office as one of the most popular Governors Georgia has ever had.  But it was rumored at one time that you were considering running for the United States Senate.  \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  That -- that rumor went around.  It was rampant.  It got so hot that President Johnson and Senator Russell called me up to the White House and said to me, \"Would you like to be a judge?\"  This is my last year, I'm getting ready to get out.  And they said, \"How about the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals?\"  I said, \"No, I don't want to be a judge.\"  They said, \"Well, how about being the ambassador to the Philippines?\"  I said, \"What would I do in the Philippines?\"  They said, \"Well, you'd help us get rid of those Communists over there.\" \r\n \r\n SHORT:  *Laughter* \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  I said, \"No, I don't want to do that.\"  And finally, they said, \"What about something like the Secretary of Commerce?\"  And I said, \"No, I'm not interested -- I'm really not interested in coming to Washington.  What I would like is -- I'd like for the next appointment to the federal bench in the northern district of Georgia to go to Hiram Undereofler, who I had taken away from his law practice in Americus to put him as the Revenue Commissioner.  And I knew that after four years he had had difficulty going back home to try to recreate a law practice.  Senator Russell said, \"No problem.  He'll get the next appointment.\"  Well, the next appointment came up, and he didn't get it.  I found out, which most people already know, if you don't get your half of the political deal up front, you better watch out.  \r\n \r\n SHORT:  *Laughter* \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  You may not ever get to the other half!  So, the appointment came up and Neil Redfield got it, who turned out to be a very good judge, and I had no problem with him.  But I had been promised the appointment for Hiram Undereofler.  Fortunately, I had in my coat pocket when that happened, the resignation of one of the justices of the Georgia Supreme Court.  And I was able to put Hiram Undereofler on the Supreme Court.  He later became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and had an outstanding career.  \r\n But I never really wanted to go to Washington and serve in the Congress.  Most of the Governors that I served with, when I was Governor -- who later went to the United States Senate -- said to me, \"It's different.  You're not in charge of your own decisions.  You can't make the decisions like you made when you were Governor of Georgia.  You sit in there with a body of 110 individuals, and you sit and vegetate for about twelve years before you get enough influence to be effective at all.\"  At that time too, the -- my children were teenagers.  My wife was not anxious to go to Washington.  The hippie movement was moving through the country.  I did not want to take my children and my wife to Washington during that period of time. I -- I didn't know what might happen to them, but I knew that if I stayed home and I looked after them and they looked after me, then I'd have a much better situation than I would if I were sitting in the Senate in Washington, D.C., waiting for my time ten or twelve years later to do something effective for Georgia.  So, I didn't do it.  I've never regretted it.  I  glory in the people who have done it and who have had successful careers in Washington.  I made up my mind when I left the Governor's office, that I would stay in Georgia.  That I would go back to the practice of law.  And that I would look after my family.  \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Well, in the interim between your leaving the office in 1970, you established this law firm.  \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  I started this law firm in 1967 with two lawyers -- Norman Underwood, who you know, and another lawyer who graduated from the University of Georgia named Dale Schwartz.  I moved into the commerce building with the two lawyers, and started to practice law.  I could have gone into any other one of the big law firms in Atlanta, but I would have been just a partner, and I would not have been the originator or the founder.  I chose to build the law firm myself, rather than do that.  Some others have done that, and that's not a bad way to go.  But I've always liked to build things and try to stay in charge of my own destiny.  So, I started with the two lawyers.  I continued to attract more lawyers to the firm.  I was able to increase the business of the firm.  Today, almost forty years later, we have 650 lawyers.  We have offices all over the world.  We're in Hong Kong, Shanghai, London.  We're in New York.  We're in Washington.  We're in Richmond.  We're all over Virginia, North Carolina, and Atlanta.  And the truth of the matter is, it's gotten too big.  I get on the elevator and I don't know whether I'm looking at a partner, an associate, or a client, or some fellow who just got on the elevator by mistake! \r\n \r\n SHORT:  *Laughter* \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  But it's been a wonderful experience to be able to go back to the field of law, the practice of law, and be able to find the heights that I've got now.  And, of course, I'm now at the point in life where I recently told them, \"Make me the Chairman Emeritus, and I will do what I need to do and what I want to do.  And I won't be worried about getting up every morning -- early in the morning, and working till midnight at night.  But I'm going to let the rest of you do that while I try to relax for a while.\"  \r\n \r\n SHORT:  And then we come to the 1970s.  You had made the decision to run again for Governor. \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  Correct.  And I thought that it was a good opportunity because I still had some things in my mind that I hadn't finished, and some things that I thought I might want to do that had come to mind during the time that I was out of the Governor's office.  So, I announced for Governor, and, much to my surprise and my gratitude, I got the endorsements of most of the newspapers in the state.  I got the support of most of the business community in the state.  And, of course, I found my opponent to be Jimmy Carter, who had previously run against Lester Maddox, and who was running again for the Governor's office.  That didn't bother me, because I thought we would have a very solid campaign, and we would discuss the issues -- education, the industry, and things of that kind.  But much to my surprise, we didn't have that type of campaign.  He took the position that I was now an Atlanta lawyer, and that I was a friend of Lyndon Johnson, and I had had something to do with integrating the public schools, and that that was not the kind of things that you wanted in a Governor.  He took the position that he -- that he believed in segregation, that George Wallace was his cousin, and that the segregated type of operation in government was preferred over the kind that I had stood for.  I got positioned and politicked as an Atlanta lawyer, who was a friend of Georgia's integration policy.  He positioned himself as a south Georgia redneck candidate, who didn't believe in that.  But, contrary to everything else, people, when they voted -- because of the race card that they had been played -- voted in favor of his election, and not mine.  I look upon that sometimes, as a disaster.  But, in reality, I look upon it as an opportunity for me to do the other things that I've done in life -- in business and in law.  Ironically, the inaugural address of Governor Carter was that if you've come to him to talk about segregation, you've come to the wrong place.  Integration is here, segregation is over, Martin Luther King, Jr. is the man that I most admire and the things that I told you during the election, you forget about those, and discard those.  They were just campaign opportunities.  I'm a completely different person.  And I think he is.  And I -- as a result of serving as Governor, he didn't have an easy role, because Lester Maddox got elected Lieutenant Governor at the same time he got to be the Governor.  So, everything that he tried to do as Governor was always a fuss and a fight with Lester over whether it could be done.  But later he undertook the campaign for Presidency of this country.  He got elected, much to the surprise of many of us when he first started.  And, of course, he's been -- I think, a better ex-President than he ever was a President.  He has gone out into the world and done some great things.  And I admire the things that he's done.  \r\n I've come to the conclusion that politics, you know, is a tough business.  Sometimes it's dirty.  But, you've got to be willing to take the good with the bad if you want to participate.  And I've had a little bit of all of it.  But, I've come out of it, and in good fashion.  And I've still got my family and I've got my friends and my law practice and I've got my former political career.  I'm not mad at anybody.  I'm not trying to get - trying to take retribution on anybody who didn't support or didn't vote for me.  I'm as happy as a clam can be.  I'm 81 years old.  My health is still good.  My family is in good shape, except for the loss of a grandson a few months ago.  But I thank the lord everyday for what he has provided me with, to do the things that I've done in life.  \r\n \r\n SHORT:  You've been a great public servant.  Now, may I ask you one more question?  What do you think about today's party politics?  \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  Well, it's hard to figure out what party is which party!  When I was in politics, many of the so-called Republican party supporters were Democrats.  Today, the Democratic party in Georgia is not made up of the same types and the same groups that it was made up of when I was in office.  When I was in office, the community leaders  Ivan Allen in Atlanta and a lot of others all through the state -- they ran as Democrats.  Today they would run as Republicans.  I don't know how this thing is going to finally balance itself out.  But, too often, people say, if you're a Democrat, you're a wild-eyed liberal.  If you're a Republican, you're a conservative.  That's a lot of malarky!  People -- good people -- can be found in either one of the parties.  But it looks like Georgia, for the time being, has taken the road that they're going to be Republicans -- for how long, I don't know, over the fact that the Democrats ran and ruled this state for a hundred years.  \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Thank you, Governor.  \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  Amen! \r\n \r\n SHORT:  Amen!  \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n "},{"id":"gych_rbrl1750ohd_009","title":"Carl E. Sanders interviewed by George Justice, 17 August 2004.","collection_id":"gych_rbrl1750ohd","collection_title":"Richard B. Russell Library Oral History Documentary collection, 1986-2006","dcterms_contributor":null,"dcterms_spatial":["United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018"],"dcterms_creator":["Sanders, Carl, 1925-2014","Justice, George"],"dc_date":["2004-08-17"],"dcterms_description":["Carl E. Sanders was born in Augusta, Georgia on May 15, 1925. He attended the University of Georgia, where he accepted a football scholarship. In 1943, before he could finish his college education, he enlisted in the Air Force and trained as a B-17 pilot. After World War II he returned to the University, finishing three years of law school in two years and passing the bar in 1947. That same year he married Betty Foy of Statesboro, Georgia. Sanders entered private practice in Augusta and eventually started the law firm of Sanders, Thurmond, Hester and Jolles. In 1954, he made a successful bid for the Georgia House of Representatives. Two years later, in 1956, he won a seat in the Georgia Senate. At the time, the seat rotated between Richmond, Glascock and Jefferson counties. Sanders was subsequently elected to the same seat by both Jefferson and Glascock counties due to his overwhelming popularity, becoming the only man to serve three consecutive terms in a multi-county district. In 1959, Governor Vandiver named Sanders floor leader of the Senate. He went on to serve as president pro tempore of the Senate from 1960 to 1962. Sanders took the next step in his political career by running for governor in 1962 against Marvin Griffin. With his positive campaign, Sanders emerged victorious, making him at 37 the youngest governor in the country at the time. Sanders could not succeed himself as governor and, therefore, retired back into private life in 1967. Instead of returning to Augusta, he and his family remained in Atlanta where he started a new law firm. On April 25, 1970, Sanders reemerged to announce for what would be his last attempt at public office. His campaign for governor, however, ended in defeat, with Jimmy Carter taking office. Sanders never ran for public office again but worked for many other Democratic candidates such as Zell Miller, Andrew Young, and Sam Nunn. He also went on to serve as Finance Chairman for the Democratic Party of Georgia during George Busbee's term as governor.","Interviewed by George Justice.","Finding aid available in repository.","Related collections held by this repository: Carl Sanders Papers; Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 000-10 Carl Sanders and Norman Underwood on George Busbee; Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 005 Carl Sanders.","George Justice interviews Carl E. Sanders about his activities as a Georgia state senator, governor, and business leader. Sanders discusses his early life, his involvement with the YMCA, and the state of youth during the Great Depression. He recalls serving in the ROTC, Army Air Corps, and World War II. Sanders comments on his time in law school at the University of Georgia and his competitive spirit. He reflects on his campaigns the general assembly and for governor. Sanders recalls the integration of the University of Georgia, the establishment of Augusta College (later Georgia Regents University), and the effect of World War II on young politicians. He discusses his relationships with John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard B. Russell. Sanders discusses his political legacy, Georgia's progress, and the effect of press on the office of governor."],"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":["Richard B. Russell Library Oral History Documentary collection, 1986-2006","http://russelldoc.galib.uga.edu/russell/view?docId=ead/RBRL175OHD-ead.xml"],"dcterms_subject":["College integration","Legislators","Press and politics","Governors","Governors--Georgia--Interviews","World War, 1939-1945","Georgia--Athens","Legislators--Georgia--Interviews","College integration--Georgia--Athens","Universities and colleges--Alumni and alumnae","Political campaigns--Georgia","Press and politics--Georgia","Georgia","Georgia. General Assembly. Senate","Political campaigns","Augusta College (Augusta, Ga.)","University of Georgia. School of Law"],"dcterms_title":["Carl E. Sanders interviewed by George Justice, 17 August 2004."],"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/RBRL175OHD-009/ohms"],"dcterms_temporal":null,"dcterms_rights_holder":null,"dcterms_bibliographic_citation":["Richard B. Russell Library Oral History Documentary Collection, OHD 009, 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":["interviews","oral histories (literary works)"],"dcterms_extent":["1 interview (95 min.) : sd., col."],"dlg_subject_personal":["Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines), 1908-1973","Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963","Russell, Richard B. (Richard Brevard), 1897-1971","Sanders, Carl, 1925-2014"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":"JUSTICE:  Hello. I'm George Justice. On behalf of the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, the University of Georgia, it's the 17th day of August 2004 and we're at the Van Der Kloot Film Studios in Atlanta. We're here today with former Georgia Governor Carl E. Sanders to discuss the highlights of his most distinguished public service career and to provide an oral history documentation that will accompany his papers at the University. Governor Sanders is a former state Legislator, state Senator, Floor Leader, and President Pro Tempe of the Georgia Senate before being elected to the governor's office in 1962. He was the first Georgia governor to be elected by popular vote and was, at age 37, the youngest governor in the nation. Governor Sanders led the state during a time of tremendous political, social, and economic changes in the 1960s and brought both energy and professionalism to a reform agenda unmatched by many of his predecessors. Currently he is the chair and co-founding partner of Atlanta's prestigious law firm of Troutman Sanders and has been involved in numerous investments, corporate boards, and charities. We appreciate your taking the time to speak with us today Governor. \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Glad to do it.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Let's begin with our first question. Governor Sanders, you grew up in Augusta, an old Georgia city with a very colorful history and one of its most interesting and important  legacies is the political leaders the city has provided to the state. This is especially true in the twentieth century; people like Tom Watson, Roy Harris and even yourself rose to political prominence and became indelible figures in Georgia history. But even the local politics of the states second capital has included a very contentious, often contentious, political history with party strife and I was wondering whether or not that during your youth whether you were aware of any of the partisan struggles?  \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well Augusta of course politically was dominated and ruled by a party called the Cracker Party for years and in fact it got to the point where if you wanted to hold public office of any sort or you wanted to work for the city or the county you had to go through the Cracker Party in order to achieve employment. I was aware of that as a young man growing up but I was not so concerned about it until I came back after the war and after I went to law school and returned home to practice law. We had a situation where the Safety Commissioner who used to be the head of the fire department, by the way was named John Kennedy, control the Cracker Party. And after I had returned from the Air Force I practiced law in a firm called Hammond and Kennedy, later Hammond, Kennedy, and Sanders and I was approached by some of the local elders who had decided that the Cracker Party needed to be broken up because it was like Taminy Hall in New York. And they prevailed upon me and a few other young veterans to run against the candidates proposed by the Cracker Party. That was my entry into politics; that was in 1954 I believe it was and I ran as a member of the Independent Party and we successfully broke up the Cracker Party's hold on the public offices in Richmond County. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  As a youth were you aware of--was politics a topic of household conversation at your home? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Politics was not a topic of household conversation in my home. My father was employed by Swift \u0026 Company, the meat packing company. He grew up in Rex, Georgia south of Atlanta. He went to work for the company in Atlanta and then they transferred him to Augusta. He was with them for forty-four years. When I was growing up he didn't indicate any interest in politics and I had no interest in politics. I was more concerned about whether I was going to go to the YMCA and learn how to swim or play basketball of football or all the sports programs were not in the public school but were in the institutions like the Y. My father later, after I came back after the war, did become a County Commissioner and he became a County Commissioner when the Cracker Party was still in its heyday. I learned in short order that that was not a very attractive job. Everybody wanted you to pave their driveway or pick up their trash or build a new road somewhere. So when I went to law school I really had no political ambition. My ambitions were to go through the University law school and come back home and practice law. And when I was in law school there were a lot of students who were already running for Governor, running for Lieutenant Governor and Officers. Most of them, for reasons that I never understood, never really achieved much success politically. But I came back to Augusta. I finished law school in--really in December '47 and I returned in January of '48 and joined the law firm. They worked me to death. I didn't have time to be worried about politics. I was worried about making a living. My wife who I married in September had--actually in August, September was our anniversary--anyway, my wife became seriously ill so I had to try to provide for her. I not only had to practice law during the day but I taught law school at the Augusta Law School three  nights a week so I was fully occupied and employed looking after my wife and practicing law. When I was asked about running for public office, I really didn't know whether I wanted to do that or not. I went home and I talked to my wife about it. She was not too happy about it but she said if you decide to do it fine. I thought about it at length and decided that maybe the time had come for me to try to do something about what the situation was politically in my home town, so I ran. And I luckily won, led the ticket, ran against a boy that I had played YMCA football with, another lawyer-- \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Billy Barton? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Billy Barton. Later he was the District Attorney in Augusta some years later. But we had a very vigorous race but there were no monumental issues. The issue was, are you going to vote for the Cracker Party candidate or are you going to vote for the Independent Party candidate? And that's how I got started. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  So, was your lack of interest then, in politics when you initially came back to Augusta, because of the experience that you'd seen your dad go through? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  No, my lack of interest really was just what I said. I was so busy trying to make a living. I made $150 a month practicing law. I got a $600 bonus at the end of the year. In 1954, my first year's salary and bonus was $2400. So you can imagine how I was trying to live and in addition to that my wife was sick. I finally took her to John Hopkins Hospital. They diagnosed her condition as Regional Ileitis--she had to have surgery. At one time earlier than that right after we were married, she was in the hospital in Bullock County, her home of Statesboro. The minister told me one night that she'd never live through the night. I got down on my knees with the minister and prayed as I never prayed before. Fortunately she lived through the night. She recovered. We didn't think that we would ever be able to have children. Fortunately we had a daughter and a son and so I was really busy trying to make a living more than trying to determine whether I wanted to get into politics. But I knew that a political job like the County Commissioner was not everything that people thought it was cracked up to be, that it was a tough job. So, when I got into the legislative race it was different--I knew then that I would be going to Atlanta if I was successful and I would be serving in the General Assembly of Georgia.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  You've talked about before a couple of things that had a lot of impact on you in your youth and one of those things was the YMCA.  \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  The YMCA has had a great impact on my life. That's why I'm so interested in supporting the Y today, why I've tried to give back some of the material goods that I've acquired over the years back to the Y because my mother took me down to the YMCA on Broad Street in Augusta, Georgia when I was about seven, eight years old. That's where I learned how to swim, first. Secondly, I learned how to play basketball. Thirdly, I learned how to play football. I went to the YMCA camps in the summer time. They were not very sumptuous camps but I went there and I developed an athletic ability and it was as a result of that athletic ability that when I went to high school at Richmond Academy I played football and I eventually became the most valuable player on the football team, I became a member of the all-state GIAA football team, I earned a football scholarship to the University of Georgia. Had it not been for some of the programs and so forth that I learned from the YMCA I doubt if I'd ever had an opportunity to get an athletic scholarship to go to Georgia. I don't know whether I would have gone to college because my mother and my father neither one of them had ever gone to college   and my father's income working for Swift \u0026 Company was not such that you could just automatically put a kid through college. But I had worked in various and sundry forms before I went to college when I was in the high school and my dad, since he was with Swift \u0026 Company, got me a job with the Big Star supermarket. I worked from 7 o'clock on Saturday morning to sometimes 8 or 9 o'clock at night. I started out sacking groceries. I wound up catching flour sacks in the back of the store and when I was in college I came home, I carried the mail. During the Christmas holidays the postmaster was a friend of my fathers and I knew him. When I was in school, even in grammar school and during the summer time when school was out I had a paper route. I made seventy-five cents a week. I folded the papers in the morning and I gave my mother fifty cents to save and I spent a quarter. But I grew up in a wonderful middle class family but I grew up with a work ethic that I still have today. I grew up realizing that if you really wanted to get something, get ahead, you had to work and things were not going to be handed to me on a silver platter but if I was going to achieve anything in life, education or otherwise, I was going to have to go out and work for it. My mother was a very wonderful woman. She worked before she married my father she was a cashier at S.H. Crest and Company in Augusta and as I told you my father was a salesman with Swift \u0026 Company. So, growing up when I did, I was born shortly before the big stock crash in 1929. I was born in 1925 and of course I grew up in the depression. Now I didn't realize that the depression was a severe as it really was. But what happened is that we had a little brick bungalow house on the corner of Johns and Wrightsboro Road that we were buying, that my family was buying. My father's salary was cut half in two like many other people during the depression. We had to give that house back to the bank or to the insurance company and rent it instead of purchasing it. But I never really realized that I was suffering as a part of that depression. I didn't have wonderful play toys, but I had skates and I had a football and I could play cops and robbers and we had some woods not too far down the street from where I lived and we had wonderful opportunities. We had a nice neighborhood with a lot of kids. We had some football games in the street. We had a basketball rim in somebody's backyard. We just enjoyed a wonderful upbringing in my   early years. I walked to school, to Monta Santa Grammar School. I served as a captain of the state patrol--safety patrol. Get there early in the morning. Make sure that the kids got across the street when they were coming to school and not get run over by an automobile. I, as I said earlier, I was active in the Y. I had a bicycle. I never had an automobile until I came back out of the service and I bought a black Plymouth Coupe; paid $640 for the automobile, brand new automobile by the way. You can imagine how that compares to automobiles today.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  So, these middle-class values, the values that you learned from the Y, do you think any of those values translated over into your political career? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Yeah they did, for instance when I went to the paper route, you had to fold the papers in order to throw them so you can hit them on somebody's front porch. I didn't know how to fold the paper into the form that you could throw it. And one fellow that I got to be a good friend was a fellow named Charles Butler who was an African American. He taught me how to fold my papers so that I could put them in my sack and I could ride by bicycle and throw the papers. I learned from him right off the bat that he was a good solid individual and became a good friend of mine. Later when I was Governor I appointed him to the Board of Education. He later became principal of one of the high schools in Augusta and his name was Charles Butler but they called him \"98\" because that was the route, the paper route that he threw. So I learned early on that it really didn't make any difference what the color of your skin was it was what the people--the person that you dealt with, what they stood for and how they felt about you and how you felt about them. So I really learned early on that I didn't have any prejudice, racially, against anybody because of the color of their skin.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Tell me about the ROTC and what kind of impact that had on you as a youth.  \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well, Richmond Academy when I went there was a thousand boys, military ROTC. We wore uniforms every day except Thursday and that's when you supposed to put them in the laundry and you could wear civilian clothes. I didn't fully realize what an impact that would have on my life. It was a fine school. The girls had a school several blocks down the street called Tubman High School but Richmond Academy was fully all male. So I initially started in the military ROTC program. I became a Corporal, a Sergeant, later became an Officer, later became an Officer, later became one of the top officers at the high school. I was elected President of my freshman class in high school and as I said I played athletics. But I learned how to do left face, right face, about face, and all the oblique left, oblique right, and how to march in the parades and how to take an old Springfield rifle and take it apart and put it back together. When I was an officer I wore Saber and had the tassels on your shoulders like a military thing. Well, all that was wonderful and I enjoyed it but what really happened was when I enlisted in the United States Air Force after I'd gone to Georgia for a year and I was seventeen and I had an alternate appointment to West Point that Congressman Paul Broun had awarded me but I thought the principal who was at the Citadel would not take the principal and he took the principal appointment to West Point so that left me out. And so I went over and enlisted in the Naval Air Core in Atlanta and they told me that I had a problem and I said, \"What's my problem?\" They said, \"You're seventeen years old. You've got to go home and get your parents' consent.\" So I went home the next week to get my parents' consent. Thought about trying to land a plane on one of those aircraft carriers somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean and I said, \"You know, I don't believe I want to do that.\" I went out to Daniels Field in Augusta and enlisted in the Army Air Core. Well, a month later they called me up and my first stop was Kessler Field in Biloxi, Mississippi. Well that was just a beginning of a military career. I began to realize, though, that most of the people that were--that I was in the service with had never had any military training whatsoever. They didn't know left face, right face, about face or anything about the military. So when I went into the service the military experience and training that I had in high school stood me very well. I later became the wing commander when I was in primary training, flight training. I had an official officer position all throughout my training to become a pilot and I even had a choice at a time to decide where I wanted to go to take advance training but much of it was because all the military had come so easy to me and so difficult to some of the others that I was miles ahead of the, militarily wise, and that was because of the ROTC program at Richmond Academy which, by the way, was one of the finest schools in the country. Was actually started, originated before the adoption of the United States Constitution. And I went back some years ago to the 200th Anniversary of that school. They had a faculty that was as good as any college faculty and it was a wonderful educational process.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  And this military experience led to your participation in World War II, is that right? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well, that's right. I mean, you know, I was like every other young man at that time. I was anxious to go out and defend my country. I didn't want to stay at home and I certainly didn't want to be classified as some people were back in those days, 4F is the terminology that was used. But I was anxious not only to go to the service and defend the country but I wanted to learn how to fly. I wanted to be a pilot. I didn't know whether I could fly or not. I eventually went to Santa Ana, California where they had preflight school and they classified you bombardier, navigator, or pilot. I took all of the tests of written and the dexterity tests that they gave you and I came back and thought, \"Man, I'll never be a pilot.\" Some of my friends and buddies said, \"Oh, that was easy. We going to get to be pilots.\" Well they wound up becoming bombardiers and navigators and I wound up as a pilot. But, there were a couple--in fact there was one boy from Augusta that was with me at that time named Ben Popkin. Ben Popkin later, I think, became a navigator. Ben's dead now. But Ben was in the military about the same time that I was. I went in at--enlisted at seventeen, went in at eighteen, became a P-17 bomber pilot at 19 years old, first pilot with a ten man crew and of course was in the military almost three years and returned to civilian life and went back to the University of Georgia.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Did the war itself have any impact on you?  \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Yeah, the war had a lot of impact on me. The first thing it did, it matured me far beyond my teenage years. I didn't have those sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen year old experiences that some of these kids have today because I was in the service and we were at war and I was trying to make the best of whatever I could do to help my country. What it did for me was when I was at Richmond Academy and I made reasonably grades, I had some good grades in Chemistry. So I thought, \"Well, someday I'll be a chemist.\" I didn't know what a chemist did other than it was in a lab and had a uniform of some sort on and tried to look at test tubes and things. But I said that because I really didn't know anything else at that time that I wanted to do. While serving in the Air Force and in the military I began to realize that I didn't want to be a chemist and I began to think about what I really wanted to be. I think the war matured me to the extent that it gave me an opportunity to make some judgment calls that I don't believe I would have made if I had not gone to war. When I came out of the war I knew that I did not want to be a chemist but I had decided that I wanted to go to law school. The reason that I decided that I wanted to go to law school was because almost everybody that I heard about that were leaders and movers and shakers in the country at the time, in the world at the time had some type of legal education or legal background. And I thought if that's the kind of education that it takes for you to really become successful in life in what you want to do, that's what I want to do. So when I came back out of the Air Force September '45 I'd only had about one year of academic work in college. But they gave veterans an opportunity to take tests and if you could pass the test in any subject that you took they gave you credit because we had all types of educational courses when I was training for pilot. I passed enough tests to where I needed to take only one quarter to qualify for law school. So that was in '45. I played football that year. I returned to the football dormitory. Went back on the football team; played in the Oil Bowl which later became the Blue Bonnet Bowl. And then I applied to law school. I went into law school in January of '46. It didn't take me but a few weeks to realize that I could not continue to play football and get through law school. Law school was very competitive and I wanted to get in and get through law school as quickly as possible. So I went to Coach Butts and told him I was going to give up my athletic scholarship and I was going to continue to take my GI Bill of Rights and go to law school. That's another thing, before I went into the service I played that year of football under Wally Butts and the University of Georgia football team and I promise you I thought the war was easier than playing football for Wally Butts as a freshman because it was tough. We not only had to play football on the football field but we had rat courts at night, we had belt lines, we had to run through--we had all kinds of obstacles to stay on athletic scholarship. But anyway, I got in law school. Law school normally takes three years. They allowed us to go around the clock, twelve months instead of taking the summer off. So I was able to finish law school in two years rather than three years. And back then, which they do not allow you to do now, you could take the Bar Exam if you felt like you could pass it. I went over at the end of my second year in law school, took the Bar Exam thinking I was taking it for practice with a couple of students who lived in the same house that I lived in out on Springdale Street and I lucked up and passed the Bar Exam after my second GI still had a year to go in law school but I passed the Bar Exam so I knew that I could practice law no matter what. That's when I got serious about marrying my wife who was at Georgia at the time and who was in art school. And so we actually got married about three months before I finished law school and about six or eight months before I picked up my diploma. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  You're talking about law school and you're talking about the football at Georgia. You were very competitive, weren't you?  \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  I was very competitive, but I don't think I ever realized how competitive I was. I mean, I was competitive because I enjoyed what I was doing. I enjoyed athletics, I enjoyed flying, I enjoyed responsibility, I enjoyed work but I was never obsessed and never felt like it, you know, I'm a real competitive guy. I never felt that way.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Did you take that competitive spirit with you into politics? \r\n  \r\nSANDERS:  Well, I think I did. I'm pretty sure I did because I never would have run for Governor if I hadn't taken that into politics with me because when I went to the Legislature in '55 and served two years in the House I sat the first year and listened and kept my mouth shut and tried to find out how the General Assembly operated. Second year I became a little more involved in taking on some issues and then I went to the Senate and of course when I went to the Senate. The Senate back in those days, except for Fulton County, rotated within three counties for each district. Fulton County had the only permanent Senator. My district was the eighteenth Senatorial District. It was Richmond, Glascock, and Jefferson County and I first served the first term in the Senate from Richmond County. After two years in the Senate from Richmond County, Jefferson County allowed me to serve and for the Jefferson County term so I served a second term. The third term that I served in the Senate was for Glascock County. They allowed me to serve as their Senator. I was the only Senator and have been the only Senator in the history of the state that served in the Senate for three different counties representing those counties. If I had not done that I would not have been Governor today. But as a result of that I was Vandiver's Floor Leader in my first term in the Senate. I later became the President Pro Tempe of the Senate. That's when I decided before I was having to practice law and serve in the Senate at the same time so I was going to the political arena when I had to in Atlanta and I was coming home on the weekend and trying to cram in a weeks law practice and I decided that I either had to get in or get out of this political thing because it was taking too much time to try to squeeze in both ventures. So I decided well I think I'll run for Lieutenant Governor. The county unit system was in full bloom. Segregation was still the law of the land. And I decided to run for Lieutenant Governor. Anyway, Ernie Vandiver--Peter Zack Geer had a closer relationship with Vandiver than I did and he was going to run for the same office that I thought I would run for. So I started campaigning for Lieutenant Governor and going around the state and visiting the various counties. And I got to Dublin, Georgia one day and the head of the newspaper down there was a gentleman by the name of Champion and he said, \"Have you heard the news today?\" And I said, \"No, what's the news today?\" He said, \"There's a former policeman in Atlanta who's got a law degree from a night school named Carl F. Sanders. He has announced that he's going to enter the race for Lieutenant Governor.\" Well I knew what had happened. I mean, I knew that Peter Zack Geer and some of his friends had gotten this individual to offer for Lieutenant Governor. That would leave me in the position of having people to go to the poles and decide whether they wanted to vote for Carl E. or Carl F. and that would have been impossible. So I said to Mr. Champion, \"Well, you know, if that's the way they going to play the game I'll just run for governor.\" And that's when I got in the governor's race. Believe it or not it was as a result of that particular incident. At that time when I went back to Atlanta to my office I had phone calls and I had people coming in saying, \"Oh, don't do that. You're making a mistake. We've got the county locked up for you for Lieutenant Governor. We can't carry it for Governor. Don't make that change.\" And I said, \"It's too late. I've decided to make the change.\" So I got in the Governor's race. The county unit system was still in full force and effect. I didn't have any wonderful political machine. I was a bright young man on the white horse but I had a long way to go to get to the Governor's office. But I had made up my mind that I either had to get into the political arena full time and serve the people of Georgia or go back to Augusta and practice law and be satisfied with that.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  That was a very bold move going from Lieutenant Governor-- \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well it was a crazy move when I think about it in retrospect because I had no campaign funds of any consequence. I knew that I had friends in my home town that would help raise money but I really didn't have--I was not a Talmadge, member of the Talmadge dynasty. I was not a member of the Russell family. I was from Augusta, which was one of the metropolitan areas in the state. The county unit [End Side 1, Start Side 2] was willing to work hard so I thought, you know, everything else being equal it's just another opportunity to exceed and I got in the race. \r\n  \r\nJUSTICE:  In all fairness, you had made quite a name for yourself in the Legislature, hadn't you?  \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well I had and I had gone out on the legislative tour as when I was President Pro Tempe of the Senate the year before I announced and at that time the big question was \"What are we going to do about the public schools in Georgia?\" The Supreme Court Brown v Board of Education had already been decided. No longer were we supposed to have segregated schools but the Separate but Equal doctrine that the Supreme Court for so many years used to keep segregation in the country had been done away with. I realized, thinking about my own life and thinking about the lives of other people, that you could not have a state with nothing but private schools for the people who could afford them and have public schools, if any public schools at all they would be sub par. So I took the position that if I was elected to any public office in this state we were not going to close the public schools. Frank Twitty who was the member of the House that was on the tour with me initially took the position that we had to close the public schools and we had to build private schools and we had to succeed from the Union or whatever we had to do. But by the time we got through traveling around the state and speaking three times a day in various cities and counties, he finally came to the conclusion that I was right and he was wrong and we both wound up advocating that the public schools of this state would stay open no matter what. Now that translated into the situation with Governor Vandiver who was confronted with the problem of whether he was going to allow the two African American students Hamilton Holmes and-- \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Charlayne Hunter. \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Charlayne Hunter was going to allow them to enter the University of Georgia. He called fifty some-odd leaders, legislative leaders, business leaders, political leaders, out to the mansion one night and said, \"I've got to make a decision about closing the University of Georgia and I want to know how ya'll feel about it.\" He went around the room and took the statement from all fifty people. Forty-eight out of the fifty said close the University of Georgia, Frank Twitty and I said, \"Do not close the University of Georgia. You can't do that. We can't wind up with a generation of illiterates in this state.\" Vandiver took our advice and kept the University of Georgia open but it was that close. It was only two of us out of the fifty people that he called in to give him advice and counsel that were willing to stand up and say, \"Let's keep the schools open.\" \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Why do you think he listened to the two of you over everyone else? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well, I think inherently, I think, he felt like we felt that you couldn't have these private schools. But he had campaigned and gotten Roy Harris being one of the supporters when he was elected Governor had gotten him and a few other people to make this wonderful speech about \"No Not One\" not ever one will we ever admit to the public schools of Georgia. And I think he was confronted politically with that in mind and he knew that he would be going against what he had said in a political campaign so he had a lot of reservations. But basically and fundamentally, he was a good man, is a good man and I think he understood that education is a centerpiece of anybody's life and that we couldn't have private schools on the one hand for  white students and public schools, if we had any public schools at all, on the other hand for black students. So I think he took our advice. Twitty was well known in South Georgia from Camilla and I was from Augusta and I think he believed that we had analyzed the situation properly and he followed our recommendation.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Education had been high on your agenda early on in your political career. \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  That's because I had to work for it. That's because if I hadn't had to work for it I wouldn't have gotten where I'd been in life and I realized early on in life that the only free people that I know anything about are people who've had the benefit of an education. When you're educated you're free to make choices; you're free to analyze situations. When you're uneducated you're blocked; you're not free to do very much of anything and you're imprisoned in your own life because of a lack of education.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  In fact you helped get Augusta College established, didn't you? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  That's right. Augusta College started out as--they had a junior college attached to Richmond Academy, a local junior college. And it, to some of the faculty members there, used to also teach in the high school. When I was in the legislature property that was formerly known as the United States Arsenal Property up on Walton Way in Augusta, beautiful track of land of fifty something acres with buildings on it had been declared surplus. I went to work with the local people there to get that land transferred to the local board of education to move the junior college from the Richmond Academy building up to the arsenal property. I also went to work when I was in the legislature to get that two year junior college into the university system to become a part of the University of Georgia system. I was able to do that. When I was elected governor I made it along with three or four other junior colleges into a four year community college and created another ten or twelve junior colleges throughout the state. When I was in the Senate and serving in the Senate I went to California. I studied the community college system in California. Out there you could go to school free of charge in any community college that you wanted to enter. And I came back and realized that we couldn't educate everybody at the University of Georgia in Athens or Georgia Tech in Atlanta. And so I came up with the idea that we needed to create a series of junior colleges, community colleges where kids could stay at home, could go the first two years and then back in that day and time transfer to a four year college if they wanted to. Many of those junior colleges today are senior colleges and of course that program turned out to be a wonderful educational program for the state of Georgia. At the same time we created these junior colleges. We created these vocational-technical schools which are a different type of educational process where kids could learn a trade, learn how to operate machinery and if they wanted to if they were not going for an academic degree in the junior college or the community college they could go back and forth between the vocational-technical school and the liberal arts junior college or senior college. It was a wonderful educational program. For instance, in Augusta a kid can go to high school, go to college, go to medical school, and get a medical degree without ever leaving home. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Another issue at the top of your agenda early on in was honesty and efficiency in government.  \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  That's right. I was on the Honesty and Efficiency Committee that was set up when Marvin Griffin was governor and Ernie Vandiver was lieutenant governor and I was a member of the Senate. And I saw first-hand what could happen when people decided to become corrupt and use the resources of the government and the offices that they served in for corrupt purposes. So I realized that you couldn't serve in government and if--unless you were going to be totally honest and if you couldn't serve in government and be partially honest you had to be absolutely honest and you had to make sure that whatever decision you made was made with an honest intention and an honest purpose and not to feather somebody else's nest or to try to do something that would benefit you personally for something that you should not be entitled to. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  And that was one of the focal points of your platform for governor, wasn't it? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  That was a big focal point for my platform for governor because the Griffin  administration when Governor Griffin was in there had a very corrupt administration. Readers Digest had written an article, \"Never Have So Few Robbed So Much from So Many,\" and they had rural roads that were built with a little grease on the road and that was about it. They bought gasoline and saving up machines that came off of boats and tried to put them on trucks. They favored some of their cronies and in all kinds of purchasing of equipment and so forth and that was one of the big issues in my campaign along with the racial issue.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  So, how were you able to garner all the support that you did in your campaign for governor, enough to win? How were you able to win that race? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well, I think--well another thing happened too in the meantime. After I got in the race, after we were campaigning the county unit system went out of the window. So this was the first time that we had the popular vote. I just outworked the rest of the people; I outworked Marvin Griffin. I went from morning till noon till night every day. I campaigned in every county in the state. I was supported by many of the people that I had gone to college with. I was able to get the support of Mills B. Lane who headed up the CNS Bank in Atlanta at the time. He had initially was going to support Garland Byrd who was the Lieutenant Governor who had a heart attack and dropped out of the race. He helped me raise financial funds. I later, when Byrd dropped out of the race who Ernie Vandiver was supporting up until then, I got the support of some of the Vandiver people such as Jim Gillis Senior and some of them. But basically and fundamentally I just outworked the Griffin crowd. I knew that if I went every day as hard as I could go to as many places as I could go that they were going to call him up eventually and say, \"You better come down here to this county and talk to some of these people. This young man has been in here shaking hands and garnering votes and if you don't come down here we don't know what's going to happen.\" He had the politicians; I had the people in that race. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  When you won that election you were part of a whole generation of young politicians across this country.  \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Generation of young politicians--young men and women who had returned from World War II who now wanted to do something that they had seen the rest of the world, they had fought for the freedom of the world and they wanted now to make some of these changes in their local communities and they were active and they went to the polls and voted when before the only people that generally went to the polls and voted were the professional politicians who had a hardcore supporters most of whom they gave jobs to after they got elected.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  And you also were part of that generation that had a special connection to John Kennedy.  \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well, John Kennedy was a young, handsome, energetic senator who decided to run for President after he had tried to get the nomination several years before. He was a returning World War II veteran. And of course he had a lot of charisma and a lot of people like myself and others of that age and that ilk liked what we saw in John Kennedy and supported him. And he carried Georgia percentage wise with the greatest percentage of any state in the union. But he, of course, his career was eclipsed by the assassination. I knew him well. He did me some great favors; one great favor he did for me was something that I will never forget. After I was elected in August of the primary of 1963 before I took--'62--before I took office in January of '63 Fort Gordon, which was located in Augusta, Richmond County--was the biggest payroll in my county. And the United States Defense Department announced that they were going to close Fort Gordon. Well, I said, \"This can't happen.\" I'd just been elected governor. I can't afford to let the biggest payroll in my home town get shut down. So I went to see Senator Russell who was the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee in the Senate and who was a senior Senator from Georgia. And I said, \"Senator Russell I've just been elected. I can't allow Fort Gordon to be closed. Can you help me try to keep them from closing Fort Gordon?\" Senator Russell said, \"I'm sorry but I've already signed off on the base closings in Georgia. There's nothing I can do about it now.\" I said, \"Thank you very much.\" I decided to go see President John F. Kennedy. I went to see John F. Kennedy in the Oval office at the White  House, explained to him my predicament, told him that I was elected and they were about to shut the fort down, could he help me? He said, \"Let me see what I can do.\" I went back to Atlanta. A week later he called me up and said, \"The order to close Fort Gordon has been rescinded.\" I said, \"Can I make that announcement publicly?\" He said, \"Yes.\" I made the announcement; it made Senator Russell mad because I had gone to the President. But John Kennedy was the one who kept Fort Gordon from being moved from Fort Gordon, Georgia to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Later, several years later, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey was moved to Fort Gordon, Georgia and it became the largest military telecommunications center in the world. But had it not been for John F. Kennedy more than forty years ago Fort Gordon, Georgia would have been shut down and would have been moved to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  But you actually had a fairly close relationship with him. \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Oh I had a close relationship with him. I did. I visited him many times before he was assassinated. I had a very close--very close relationship with Lyndon Johnson who later became president. I campaigned for the democratic ticket in 1964 when I was the only state-wide official that was willing to campaign for the ticket. I knew at the time that it was not the popular thing to do but I had been elected by the Democratic Party. I was head of the Democratic Party. Senator Russell went to Spain and spent the summer inspecting military bases, Senator Talmadge went underground and didn't surface for the campaign so I was about the only state-wide candidate when they would come to Georgia that would stand up and appear on a platform and try to help him get elected. Goldwater carried Georgia and there wasn't much I could do about it but that still--I knew that it was my responsibility. I had been elected head of the party, I had been elected by the Democratic Party as governor and I felt like it was my responsibility to continue to lead the party and not abandon the party as a lot of the other public officials did.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Is it true that John Kennedy had considered putting you on the ticket in '64? \r\n  \r\nSANDERS:  Well I've heard that rumor, I've heard that story. There was always a very bad relationship between Bobby Kennedy who was John Kennedy's brother and who was of course the Attorney General--he and Lyndon Johnson didn't get along at all. And I think Bobby Kennedy would float names every day about who they were going to put into place of Lyndon Johnson when Jack Kennedy ran for reelection. And my name might have been put in there along with others but I never had any serious consideration to my knowledge about being on the ticket. Nobody had come to be and said, \"Now we going to put you on the ticket.\" I think they were--Bobby was using that for leverage to keep Lyndon Johnson in line for the programs that he and his brother were advocating. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  But did that ever create any tensions between you and Lyndon Johnson? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  None whatsoever. In fact, I sat in the family's box when he made his inaugural speech to the Congress. I was the only other outside member of the family with one other exception and that was Mad Dick Daily from Chicago. He and I were the two members--non-members of the family sat there. I hunted at the Johnson ranch. Johnson was good to the state of Georgia. Johnson, later part of our state qualified for the Appalachian Region and we got hundreds and millions of dollars for hospitals, roads, schools, and all sorts of things through the Johnson administration. Dora, I think it was that hit--the hurricane hit the Georgia coast and just about tore up the whole seaboard the whole Georgia coast. He allowed me to put huge amounts of rock along the coastal lines of Georgia. Johnson's administration paid for every dime of it, didn't cost the state a nickel, but it saved the Georgia coast. The people of Georgia benefited from Lyndon Johnson's administration in many ways.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Your relationship with Johnson, did that affect your relationship with Dick Russell?  \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  No, Dick Russell and Johnson were very close when Johnson was a majority leader of the Senate. And based on some tapes that I've been hearing recently they still, even after Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act, Dick Russell apparently still had a cordial relation with Lyndon Johnson but I think the relationship that they used to have before Johnson advocated the Civil Rights Bill had tempered their relationship to a great degree. But it did not affect my relationship with Johnson and it didn't affect--I didn't have a close relationship with Dick Russell. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  You didn't? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  No, no, and when I was in the Senate another experience that I had, when I was in the state Senate the first time they made me head of the Veterans Affairs Senate Committee which was a do-nothing, know-nothing committee. But anything it had to do with the state military was involved with it. And we lost an Air National Guard pilot flying an old F-84 Dog they called them back them and he died. He crashed. And I went to Washington to see Congressman Carl Vinson who was the head of the Armed Services Committee in the House and who absolutely built the United States Navy as part of his duty as a chairman of the Armed Services Committee and told him about the loss of the pilot. And he asked me what I wanted and I said, \"I want fifty new aircraft for the Air National Guard of Georgia.\" And he said, \"What kind of aircraft are you talking about?\" And the hottest aircraft in the world at that time was the F-100 so I said, \"I want fifty F-100s\" and he laughed and said, \"What'd you say Senator?\" And I said, \"I want fifty F-100s.\" He laughed and he said, \"Well, we'll see what we can do.\" I knew and he knew that I was not going to get fifty F-100s but a few weeks later I got a call from the head of the National Guard Bureau in Washington who I could tell was mad as a wet hen because I'd gone to Congressman Vinson and told me that they were going to send us new aircraft, F-86s, which were much more modern than the F-84s. They were not F-100's but they were going to send those aircraft. Now this was in the 50's. This was still when the schools were segregated in Georgia and everything else was segregated. So, sometime later I got a notification that they were going to deliver the first F-86 aircraft out at Dobbins Air Base in Marietta and so we had a big event. We had bands and we had people and we--here comes this F-86 aircraft in and he rolls--it's a beautiful plane and I thought what a wonderful plane this is our first aircraft. And the band's playing and all that and the airplane taxies up to the ramp. The pilot pulls back the canopy and out steps the blackest pilot you've ever seen and I knew that Air National Guard general said, \"I'm going to deliver the aircraft but I'm going to deliver it with a pilot that they wish we hadn't delivered it with.\" It was funny. And of course he was a good pilot and we were glad to get the airplane. And, of course, subsequently to that point all the racial discord and so forth began to heat up and it was in full bloom when I became governor. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Back to Dick Russell, you considered running against him in '66, is that right? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  '66, I thought about it. But Senator Russell was suffering from emphysema and I didn't know whether he was going to offer for re-election. He had come to the legislature to make a speech and he used to have to carry one of these oxygen bottles around with him. So I didn't know whether he was going to offer for reelection or not. I thought about it, but he was determined to continue his service to the people of the state and to the nation and I finally decided that that was not what I wanted to do for two reasons. One was, it would have been a very difficult race and the second reason was my wife was not interested in me going to Washington. My children were teenagers, that was '66, that was when the hippie thing had started and I had seen too many families that had left their home states and moved to Washington for a year and then the family would move back and the senator would stay up there, the congressman would stay up there and they'd wind up in the divorce courts or the kids would get in trouble. So I decided that rather than do that I had an opportunity to build a law firm and I decided that I would build a law firm and if I wanted to get back into public life that I'd run for governor again four years later because I had to leave the office for four years under the Constitution at that time.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  When you went into the governor's office--let's talk about goals versus achievements. What did you hope to accomplish when you became governor? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well, I hoped to do as much as I could possibly do within four years that anybody had ever thought about doing. And I hoped to reform the educational system of the state, particularly the higher education system. I hoped to bring more industry in than anybody had ever brought in before. I hoped to elevate the teacher's salaries of the state. I hoped to build airports. I campaigned in a little 250 horsepower Piper Comanche aircraft. The first time anybody in Georgia, a politician had ever campaigned in an aircraft. And we only had thirty paved airports in Georgia; most of them were auxiliary fields from World War II. When I left office we had 100 paved airports in Georgia. We built seventy paved airports. All I ever asked the county commissioner to do was furnish me a strip of land 3,000-3,500 feet long. I'd put up half the money, the state would the federal government would put up half the money and we'd build an airstrip. And so we had the number one airport development in the country for four straight years. That brought more industry into this state than you can ever imagine because people before were not thinking about flying to Atlanta and then driving two hours to look at an industrial site in a rural county but if they could fly to that rural county, land on that 3,000 foot strip of airport they would go out and look at the industrial sites in those counties and many of them built plants that never would have been built in Georgia.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Was there anything that you had hoped to accomplish that you didn't achieve? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  No, I accomplished much more than I ever thought I was able to accomplish. I had one disappointment but it was not because I didn't accomplish what I sought out to do. And that was I decided to rewrite the Georgia Constitution which it had not been rewritten in years and there was no place in the state where you could sit down and actually read the Georgia Constitution because it had been amended thousands of times. So I had a special session to rewrite the Constitution and remodel the election laws. And that was in 1965 or 1966 in the summer and of course I rewrote the Constitution which was one of the toughest jobs that you could ever have and I rewrote the election laws. Immediately somebody filed a petition saying the legislature was mal-apportioned. They went to the federal court and the federal court to this day, I'll never understand, it was a fifth circuit court of appeals, they decided that both of those pieces of legislation had been done in the same session that it was all right to rewrite the election laws that they were not going to declare them invalid because of mal-apportionment but it was not permissible to rewrite the Constitution and they were going to declare that unconstitutional because it was mal-apportioned. I appealed that decision from the court but by the time that the Supreme Court of the United States voted upon it which was too late to get it on the general ballot in '66 I was not able to get it on the ballot. That was a big disappointment because that was a big piece of work that I had done and I was unable to get it finished.  \r\n \r\n[End Tape 1] \r\n \r\n[Begin Tape 2] \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  You were succeeded by Lester Maddox as Governor and the 1966 gubernatorial race was contentious and controversial.  \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Very much so. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  And, with the Republican Party running Bo Callaway as their nominee and with Ellis Arnall and Lester Maddox. James Cook, your biographer, writes that you had some very strong reservations about that election. \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well, what happened in that election, the truth of the matter is Bo Callaway, if he had played his political cards correctly, would have been elected Governor. But Bo Callaway ran as a republican candidate and of course Ellis Arnall--I don't know Ellis Arnall and Lester Maddox--but I think Ernie Vandiver at one time was in that race. There were several candidates that were trying to run for governor. Maddox wound up in a run off with Ellis Arnall in the democratic primary. Bo Callaway had no opposition in the republican primary and he was supported by a lot of the business leaders in Atlanta, some of whom are my good friends. And Ellis Arnall had a campaign deficit after the run off. My recollection is something like $50,000 that he still owed for his campaign and his run off against Maddox. Some of Ellis Arnall's friends in Atlanta went to see Bo Callaway and said, \"If you'll help us, when you get elected Governor pay off Governor Arnall's campaign deficit we'll throw our support to you.\" For reasons that I never understood, Bo Callaway declined that opportunity. They said, \"Well if you're not going to help us get rid of Ellis Arnall's campaign deficit if you get elected Governor, we're going to run Ellis Arnall again as a write-in candidate in the November general election.\" That's what they did. Ellis Arnall polled enough write-in votes to keep either Bo Callaway or Lester Maddox from getting more than fifty percent of the vote as required by the Constitution and the election laws. Under those circumstances at that time the Constitution said in that event the election of the governor will then go to the House of Representatives and the governor will be elected by the members of the House of Representatives each of whom will have one vote. The democrats were not very happy about Maddox but they didn't want Callaway as a republican governor. So the democrats sort of held their nose and voted for Maddox and that's how he got appointed Governor and Callaway got defeated for Governor in that particular situation. Subsequently, the Constitution was changed and now today if you have that type of a situation you have a special election, it does not go into the House of Representatives.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Tell me about Maddox's stint as Governor. How would you rate it? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well, Maddox did pretty well. He did better than I thought he was going to do for one reason:  all these people that had been called Maddox supporters that had been running around with Ax handles and egging him on in his campaign he realized that they were not  qualified to hold the high positions of office in the state government. So he kind of took the position that he was not going to change many people that were already running departments in the state government. In fact, I made up the budget for the two years, his first two years, and he didn't change a bit of that budget so I really had six years of budget to submission for the state. But his position was that he was going over and take the Governor's office and protect the public from those scalawags that he might find in government but he was not going over there and try to change all the offices and change the people. So he left most of the people that had worked with me in office and he didn't meddle too much with--the only thing that he did that I regret was that he allowed the General Assembly of Georgia to take over much of the executive power that the governor previously had. And they created their own budget and they became independent and ever since Lester Maddox, the governor of Georgia has been a lot less politically forceful than he was when I was in office. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  You think if Maddox had of been a stronger executive that that would not have happened? \r\n \r\nSANDERS: I think if he had ever held public office, I think if he had ever been in the General Assembly like I had been before I was elected governor, I think even if he had been mayor of Atlanta or something I think he would have been much stronger in controlling the executive power and not allowing it to be taken over by the legislature.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  You think that that--that a strong executive could have survived much longer in Georgia? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Yeah I do. I think that's the best form of government. I think the governor goes out and lays his program out in front of all the people of the state. The people vote on that program. And I think the governor ought to have the responsibility of implementing the program that the people had voted on rather than the way it is now. Legislators, they don't represent the entire state; they represent their own county or district. And they now put programs though the legislature that the governor may not want or other people may not necessarily have ever approved. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Well, after Maddox's term as governor you decided to run again.  \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Talk about that campaign. \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well, that was not a very nice campaign. I stayed in Atlanta and built a law firm. I probably should have gone back to Augusta and returned to my law firm in Augusta rather than doing what I did, but I had an opportunity to represent companies and clients in the Atlanta area that were national and they were much more interested in good legal representation than I would have had if I had gone back to Augusta. If I'd just wanted to be a politician the rest of my life I probably should have gone back to Augusta. So I didn't do that. Jimmy Carter, who had been in the Senate when I was governor, had spent--and who had been in the race in '66 with Maddox and that group and who had failed in that race, spent four years traveling around the state, planting seeds to run for governor in 1970. I thought, just like many people think, that the people of the state or the people of the country have a memory of the things that you did when you were in public life and the accomplishments that you were able to achieve for their benefit and that I had such a good administration, no scandals, a lot of progress, a lot of opportunity for people that they never had before, that to run in 1970 that would give me a good edge to be reelected. Jimmy Carter, much to my chagrin, took the position that he was going to play the racial card. He took the position that he was supporter of George Wallace, which I was not, and that I had not allowed George Wallace to come over and take over the Georgia legislature that he would if he was elected. I happened to--while I was in Atlanta--happened to own a part of the Hawks, Atlanta Hawks basketball team. They took pictures when they won the Western Division in the locker room with me and some of the ball players pouring champagne over my head and these were African American ball players. Carter's campaign took those pictures in all spread them all over South Georgia, all over the rural counties of the state and took the position that I was a rich Atlanta lawyer and that I was a--one who favored integration. That he was a southern peanut farmer in south Georgia who supported segregation and who was a big friend of George Wallace and I got positioned as an Atlanta lawyer who supported people regardless of their race and he put himself in the position as a south Georgia farmer who supported the white race and not the black race and that's how that campaign was run. It was a mean, dirty, campaign. But it was politics. And the truth of the matter is everything is fair in love and war in politics. Now the irony of it, if you go to the Carter library today and ask to see the gubernatorial papers of the 1970 campaign they will tell you that those papers are still being processed some thirty, forty years later because immediately when Jimmy was elected governor at his inaugural speech he said, \"Forget about all this racial stuff that I've been running on and all this stuff that I've been telling you to vote for me on. That's not me. The greatest friend that I've got in America today is Martin Luther King Jr. and I believe in integration and I don't believe in segregation and I ran that kind of race to get elected and now I'm going to put that aside and operate in a completely different manner.\" \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  He used race and class, didn't he?  \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Yeah. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Because he called you \"Cufflinks Carl.\" \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Oh yeah, well course he claimed that I was wealthy and finally we disclosed our net worth and he was worth more money than I was. But for the time being I was the rich lawyer living in Atlanta, and the truth of the matter is too nobody up until that point running for state-wide office had ever lived in Atlanta as their permanent home. All the officer holders that ran the state government lived outside of Atlanta in some other section of the state. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  So how would you rate Carter's stint as governor? \r\n \r\nSANDERS: Carter didn't have a very good gubernatorial experience but I've gotta say this in his behalf: one of the reasons he didn't have such a good four years was Lester Maddox was his lieutenant governor. And Lester Maddox and Jimmy Carter disliked each other tremendously and they never got along and everyday they'd have a fight over what kind of legislation that they were going to try to entertain. And Maddox would be in one corner and Carter would be in another. And that went on for four years. So he didn't have too much of an opportunity to do too many things without having to run through Maddox and try to stomp him down in order to get something passed.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  What was the source of tension between them?  \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well, Maddox believed Carter was hypocritical and dishonest when he ran as a segregationist and then turned into an integrationist and Maddox says you know, \"I'm a segregationist, have been, always will be,\" and Carter has changed his stripes and his colors and I dislike the man because he hadn't been honest. You know Maddox all--for all of his faults one of the things that he believed in and one of the things that I think he tried to do was he tried to be honest no matter how different or how un-political some of his views might have been. He at least said, \"This is my honest viewpoint. I'm not going to change on you if you elect me and I'm not going to be something that I said I was not before I ran for the office.\"  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  How do you explain Carter's winning the presidency in '76? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  He just absolutely outworked the rest of the candidates who thought they were going to sit back and somebody was going to nominate them and put them into the democratic nomination. Carter, I'll say this for he and his family and his friends, he started--that's another reason he didn't have as much opportunity to do as many things as governor as perhaps he would have been if he had not been already looking to run for President. The last couple of years of his office--of his tenure as governor he was out in the country campaigning for President. And of course a lot of these people in Washington who sit in the congress thought they could sit in the Senate and the House and never have to go out into the rural areas or the other parts of the country but they were just going to go to the convention and they'd get nominated. Carter just outworked them. He out politicked them and he got the nomination of some of these states that they never dreamed he'd get and that's how he got the nomination for President. The people never thought he had a chance but he just absolutely outworked and out-campaigned the rest of the people who thought they were going to be President. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  And it doesn't seem that the press seized on this characteristic of Carter from switching from one side to the other. \r\n \r\n SANDERS:  Well, they didn't do that in the Presidential race. He had already spent his four years of redeeming his self as a racial George Wallace supporter when he ran in '70 and the press didn't hop on him for that when he ran for President. He--what they did do they gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was an outsider and all these other people who thought they were going to run for President at that time were insiders, inside the beltway in Washington. And Washington was in such a mess that it was time for an outsider to come in and clean it up. And that's what Carter ran on primarily as, \"I'm not one of the insiders in Washington but I'm an outsider. I'm a governor and if you'll elect me I'll go to Washington and I'll straighten out this Washington mess that's created by all these people who spend all their time inside the beltway.\"  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Do you think he was a better President than he was a governor? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  No, I think he had a tough time being President. I think he tried to be a good President but I think he got caught up in inflation and I think he got caught up in the Iran hostage situation. I  think he had a lot of problems that were not necessarily his making but you know, interest rates during the Carter's Administration for the President got up to be twenty percent. People didn't have jobs. People couldn't afford to borrow money. The hostages got taken over in Iran. He just had a huge--you know in politics, let me tell you something:  you can be smart but you've got to have a little luck along with it. The economy went bad. He couldn't turn the economy around. The hostage situation went bad. They even waited to release the hostages until the day Ronald Reagan was sworn in as a President. They could have released them earlier; they didn't do that. And Jimmy went up to Washington, I think, with the idea that he would straighten out a lot of the old pros that had been around. And he had a terrible relationship with Tipper O'Neal, Speaker of the House and some of the other old Washington pros. He liked to micromanage too much. In my opinion, if he had delegated more authority to more people he probably would have had a better administration. I think he's learned that since he left the presidency and I think he has done some rather remarkable things following his tenure as President. He certainly has continued to campaign and work harder as an ex-President than any ex-President I've ever known. Some people, some of these sitting Presidents have sort of resented maybe some of his meddling, as they would put it. But he's been out here trying to relieve problems in the world. Most ex-Presidents go back to their ranch, they go back to their home and don't do that. He's taken a different approach and I think as a result he'd been elevated; history has elevated him higher as an ex-President than they give him credit for being a president or a governor.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  After 1970 you considered one more office in 1972; briefly you considered a run for the Senate, didn't you? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well, that's when Russell died. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Right. \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  And I thought about it again. But I had a good law firm being built at that time and I was involved with my family as I always am and I decided again that I didn't want to go to Washington. I had talked to too many governors that I had served with when I was governor, some of which went to Washington. And they told me, and just like most people know, that you got to sit in the Senate for about twelve years and vegetate before you get enough influence and power to do anything. And I was helping build a bank and I had some other business ventures that I was involved in. So Sam Nunn who had never run for state-wide office and who was a member of the General Assembly who was Carl Vinson's nephew decided he was going to run and I like Sam Nunn, knew him, and I took Norman Underwood who was one of my law partners and asked him to go over and help Sam Nunn run his campaign which he did. And Sam Nunn got elected to the United States Senate and served twenty-four years in the Senate. Came out with his reputation in tact. And I never regretted making the decision in '72 that I thought about going to the Senate again because most of the people, as I said earlier that I knew that had served as governor and when you serve as governor and you're Chief Executive and you can run the state (it's like running a big business) that's different than being one of one hundred in the Senate where you sit there and hope you can get your name on a bill. And in the mean time you just almost vegetating for years and years and that's not my demeanor. That's not my personality and they told me, most of them said after they served one term they wanted to go back home. Herman Talmadge, when he left the governor's office and served in the Senate for a number of years, every six years when--every four years when the governor's race would come up you'd always see where Talmadge is thinking about coming home and running for governor again. It's much more fun to be governor than it is to be a United States Senator.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Well why didn't you consider running for governor again? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Why didn't I consider running for governor again? \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Right. \r\n \r\nSANDERS: Well, I felt like that I had accomplished a great deal as governor the first time. I felt like that the people had decided that they were going to elect somebody else to be governor and I still at that time when I ran in 1970 I still had in my mind a lot of programs that I still wanted to do more about. But by the time that I got an opportunity to run again I had gotten so immersed in my own personal affairs and my family's affairs and building a bank and building a law firm and getting involved in some real estate transactions that I felt like, \"Well, I gave the people the best I could give them for the four years that I was governor. Now the people selected somebody else, rather, when I ran for reelection.\" I'm going to look after my family and look after my personal business and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. Because otherwise I might, I don't know what'd I be doing today but I wouldn't be where I am today with my family, with my business, with my law firm, none of those personal accomplishments I don't think would have taken place if I had continued just to devote my time to the political arena.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  So you weren't really dissuaded by the bitterness of the '70 campaign? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  No, you know, I--politics--I've been there and done that. And I've got a good record and I put sixty cents out of every dollar into education. Nobody's ever done that before or since. And I accomplished all those things and I thought too, you know, if I go back ten years later I may not be able--the Maddox thing the legislature had taken over the power, I wouldn't be able to accomplish the things that I accomplished when I was governor and instead of having the record that I have I'd probably have a good record back then and a mediocre record later. So I said, \"Look, the people decided that they wanted somebody else to carry the flag in 1970. I'm going to look after my personal business and be happy,\" and I've got no regrets and I got no ill will toward anybody.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  What would you, if you had to put it in a sentence or two, what is your political legacy? What have you left to--? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  The most progressive administration in the history of Georgia in all aspect of the operation of the state government. If you look at every department in the state government and you look at the accomplishments that were made and the programs that I inaugurated, nobody has come close even when the governor's served eight years have come close to putting into full force and effect what I put into full force and effect in all the areas of government and done so without scandal and done so--I left $140 million in surplus funds when I left the office. Nobody had ever done that before.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  In the end, do you think that you were more affected by Georgia politics or that you affected Georgia politics more? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well, I think I affected Georgia politics more in that a lot of things back before my term as governor was sort of accepted politicians, you know, could do things personal benefits and things that politicians today wouldn't dare do but they could get away with it. Gene Talmadge, when he ran for governor, they said, \"You stole so many bales of cotton when you were the commissioner of Agriculture.\" And he said, \"Yeah I stole them but I stole them for you.\" And the people said fine and voted for him. Well you couldn't get away with any kind of statement like that today and I think that I was at the crossroad at the time in history when the political arena in this state changed. I think, too, because of that particular time with all the Civil Rights and all the changes that took place I took the high road. And some of the other southern states around us, Mississippi and Alabama and Louisiana, they took a different road. But because I took the high road and I accepted the law of the land as being, we being a government of laws and not a government of men, I think Georgia came into the limelight--at that particular time when I was elected governor Birmingham, Alabama was better situated economically to take the leadership of the south in Atlanta, Georgia but because we took the high road when I was elected governor and accepted the law of the land and eliminated all these racial barriers and things. I opened up the National Guard, I opened up the State Patrol, Atlanta and Georgia took the leadership in the south. People living in other parts of America moved to Georgia that never would have moved here before. Educators came into our schools that never would have moved into Georgia and taken jobs in our schools. We captured the leadership of the south and that's what we have today and I think I happened to be at the right time with the right attitude about what we needed to do in the state in order to do that. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Many of the issues that were on the table in the 60's such as the national and state economy, civil rights, international relations, are still at the forefront of controversy today.  \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Yeah, the racial business is still very much involved. People don't call it racial but it is. It's still involved. And the economic situation is of course very much involved today. The foreign relations is a tremendous problem. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Do you think we've made progress since the 60's? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  I think we, in the south and particularly in Georgia, I think Georgia has made a lot of progress but I'm not so sure many other places have made as much progress as we have. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Why do you think Georgia has--? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Because I think we had more enlightened leadership at the critical time than other parts of the country had. And I think enlightened leadership brought on more enlightened leadership later on and it's just like anything else, you get into the habit of enlightened people seeking public office. They give you a better form of government and a better economic opportunity than if you put people in there who are not enlightened, who still want to live in the past and who still want to fight the Civil War over again and all that sort of stuff, who still want to keep this country isolated from the rest of the world. I think we, fortunately, went down a more enlightened road in this state than most any other state that I know anything about. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  What do you think is the most critical issue facing us today, politically speaking? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Politically I think the most critical issue is that we are not looked upon today in the world in the same manner that we used to be looked upon. We used to be admired and respected all over the world for our political beliefs, our economic beliefs and everything else. I think we are, today, more isolated economically and more isolated foreign relation wise than we've ever been. I used to take my grandchildren, when I was out of office, at least on a trip once a year somewhere else in some other part of the world and did that so that they would have a benefit later on in life to being better educated about the world. Today I wouldn't do that because I think there are too many places in the world today if you come in there and say you're an American instead of them saying, \"We're glad to see you. We respect you so much and your country,\" they say, \"Well, you're an American. We don't like you. We want to harm you,\" and we've got a long ways to go to regain the credibility that we are a nation of--free nation who believes in freedom for all people and we've got to do something about it or I don't know where we're headed.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  How do we go about fixing that? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  I think we're going to have to do what we said earlier and that is we're going to have to elect more enlightened leadership in this country in order to do that.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Philosophically speaking, and the bigger picture, what are the marks of a good governor? What are the benchmarks that make a good governor? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well, I think he first has to understand the government and he has to understand that he's representing all of the people of the state. And secondly I think he's got to lay out in front of him and in front of the people that he's serving a program that they understand. And then thirdly I think he's got to be willing to pay the price to whatever it takes to work as hard as he needs to work to implement the program that he has run on. And most people sometimes get the impression, I think, that they can run on some issues and then once they get elected they can discard those issues and forget about them. I think a good governor has got to stick to his guns and stick to his programs and tell people that he's doing exactly what he told them he would do when he ran and asked them to vote for him. And I think if you abandon that process and you say well I may have said that but I lied, I shouldn't have said what I said you never make a good governor. And you gotta be independent enough where you're willing to accept the fact that you're not going to win every battle and you're not going to be able to accomplish everything that you feel like you would have liked to accomplish but you gotta be willing to say, \"If I lose a battle I'll win another one and I'll keep on until I accomplish what I said I would accomplish  when I went in front of the people and said 'Elect me and I'll do what I said I'd do if you elect me.'\" \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Are there any governors since your term in office that have distinguished themselves in meeting these benchmarks that you've laid out? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Oh, I think a lot of them have. It depends on what you mean by distinguishing themselves. I don't know of anybody right off the top of my head that I think has not distinguished themselves in the office. I just think that they haven't had the tools or the power to work with that I had. Now Zell Miller when he was governor did something, when he ran for governor, did something that I probably would not have done. He ran on creating a state lottery and of course I thought that was sort of living in the Bible belt and living in this thing. I didn't think that was a [End Side 1]--Good governor's, in my opinion, some of them have been impeded with reluctant Speaker of the House or reluctant lieutenant governor at times and they just maybe haven't been able to accomplish as many things as they would have liked to accomplished.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  How much effect do you think that the press has on the effectiveness of the governor? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Oh the press has a lot of influence. The press can take a piece of straight bread every day and twist it into a French roll and if they twist it there's not much you can do about it. You can say something and if they twist it the way they want to twist it won't look anything like what you said. So the press has a great deal of influence on anybody's public chair. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Now has that changed since the 1960s? \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  Well I think it's worse now than it was back then. Now they go after your family and they go after--go into your bedrooms and things like that. Back in my day and time they didn't do that. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  The press was fairly kind to you in your day. \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  I thought they were very kind to me.  \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Well, thank you for your time and speaking with us today. \r\n \r\nSANDERS:  I enjoyed it. I hope somebody later in history will take the time to listen to it. \r\n \r\nJUSTICE:  Well, thank you very much.  \r\n \r\n[End of Interview] \r\n \r\nBiographical Information \r\nRBRL OHD 009 \r\nCarl Sanders \r\n \r\nb. May 15, 1925 \r\n \r\nOccupation: \r\nU.S. Army Air Force \r\nHammond Kennedy and Sanders Law Firm \r\nGeorgia House of Representatives \r\nGeorgia Senate \r\nTroutman and Sanders LLP Attorneys at Law \r\n \r\nSubject Analysis \r\nRBRL OHD 009 \r\nCarl Sanders \r\no Early political life \r\no Involvement with the YMCA \r\no Youth during the depression \r\no Time in the ROTC \r\no Time in the Army Air Corps \r\no Involvement World War II \r\no Law School \r\no Sander's competitive spirit \r\no Time in the Georgia House of Representatives and the Georgia Senate \r\no 1962 Gubernatorial Race \r\no Sanders role in Segregation \r\no Hunter and Holmes admission to the University of Georgia \r\no Sander's role in the establishment of Augusta College \r\no Honesty and efficacy in politics \r\no The effect of World War II on young politicians \r\no Relationship with John F. Kennedy \r\no Relationship with Lyndon B. Johnson \r\no Relationship with Richard B. Russell \r\no Accomplishments as Governor \r\no Election following Sander's term \r\no Lester Maddox as Governor \r\no 1970 Gubernatorial Race \r\no Jimmy Carter as Governor \r\no Jimmy Carter as President \r\no Sander's Political Legacy \r\no Sander's affect on Georgia politics \r\no Progress in Georgia \r\no America's current position in the world \r\no The affect of the press on the office of governor \r\nAlphabetical Index \r\n \r\n \r\nArnall, Ellis Gibbs, 29, 30 \r\nBarton, Billy, 4 \r\nBroun, Paul C., 9 \r\nBrown v Board of Education, 15 \r\nButler, Charles, 7 \r\nButts, James Wallace (Wally), 12 \r\nCallaway, Bo, 29 \r\nCarter, Jimmy, 33, 35, 49 \r\nCracker Party, 2, 3, 4 \r\nGriffin, Marvin, 19, 20 \r\nHarris, Roy Vincent, 2, 17 \r\nHolmes, Hamilton, 16 \r\nHunter-Gault, Charlayne, 16 \r\nJohnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines), 23, 24, 25, 49 \r\nKennedy, Bobby, 24 \r\nKennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 2, 21, 23, 24, 48, 49 \r\nMaddox, Lester, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 40, 49 \r\nMiller, Zell, 46 \r\nNunn, Samuel Augustus, 39 \r\nReserve Officers' Training Corps, 8, 49 \r\nRussell, Richard Brevard, 22, 23, 25, 26 \r\nTalmadge, Herman Eugene, 23, 39 \r\nThe University of Georgia, 1, 5, 10, 12, 16, 18, 49 \r\nTwitty, Frank S., 16 \r\nVandiver, Ernest, 14, 19, 20, 30 \r\nVinson, Carl, 25, 39 \r\nWallace, George C., 33, 37 \r\nWatson, Thomas Edward, 2 \r\nYMCA, 3, 5, 49 \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n23 \r\n \r\n "},{"id":"uwg_phc_mackay19990115","title":"Oral history interview with James Mackay, 1999 January 15","collection_id":"uwg_phc","collection_title":"Georgia Political Papers and Oral History Program","dcterms_contributor":["Steely, Mel","University of West Georgia. Georgia Political Papers and Oral History Program"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018"],"dcterms_creator":["Mackay, James A. (James Armstrong), 1919-2004"],"dc_date":["1999-01-15"],"dcterms_description":["James Mackay (1919-2004) was born in Fairfield, Alabama, the son of a Methodist minister. During World War II he served on a Coast Guard destroyer escort in the Mediterranean, where he earned the bronze star. After his service, Mackay returned home to earn a law degree from Emory University in 1947. He was a liberal Democrat in a mostly conservative state, representing DeKalb County in the state legislature from 1951-1952, and from 1955-1964. Mackay was elected from the 4th Congressional District to serve in the United States Congress in 1964. He was one of two Southerners to vote in favor of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and was not re-elected to a second term. Among his accomplishments were founding the Georgia Conservancy in 1967, acting as a mentor to future Senator Max Cleland, and serving as an attorney for Martin Luther King, Jr. Mackay spent much of his later years working on environmental issues and died in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee in 2004 at the age of 85.; Interviewed by Mel Steely on January 15, 1999 at Mackay's home.; The interview begins with Mackay discussing his family and upbringing. His mother was born in China, the daughter of missionaries, and he was born in Fairfield, Alabama. Mackay talks about the various places he lived growing up, as his father was a pastor who moved around to different churches. He talks about his years in college leading right up to World War II, citing his friends and most influential teachers. Mackay then answers questions about his military service and being stationed in Florida when the war broke out. After a year of enlistment, Mackay came back to finish law school and entered politics, aiding Mack Mattingly. He discusses his elections, his committee appointments, and alliances he made in Washington. Major issues discussed include the Vietnam War, segregation, and the changing of the Georgia flag. The interview concludes with Mackay citing some of his favorite book passages in relation to his political and spiritual philosophies."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":["Carrollton, Ga. : University of West Georgia Special Collections in association with the Digital Library of Georgia"],"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Georgia Political Papers and Oral History Program oral history interviews. 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He twice beat newcomer Newt Gingrich in the 1970s for his congressional seat. Flynt chaired the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct while a congressman.; Interviewed by Dr. Mel Steely on April 22, 1998 at the home of Flynt's friends, Harrell and Phyllis Fountain, in Carrollton, Ga. This interview is a continuation of the interview conducted one day prior at the same location.; Flynt begins the discussion by providing more detail on his paternal family, the Flynts, beginning with their move into Wilkes County, GA, through his grandfather's service in the Civil War and his father and uncle's political involvement in the Georgia State Senate. He goes on to tell how his father rose from working as a furniture sales clerk and funeral director to becoming a lawyer, state representative and judge. Flynt then talks about his time at the University of Georgia School of Law, the Emory University School of Law, the George Washington University, and the time he served in the Army. After being offered a position at George Washington University, Flynt was given the opportunity to serve as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia with the help of Richard B. Russell, Jr. and chose to return to Georgia. Flynt discusses his decision to run for the remainder of Congressman Albert Sidney Camp's term upon Camp's death and providing anecdotes of his successful campaign for the seat of the fourth congressional district of Georgia. Flynt then discusses the presidency of Eisenhower, segregation, the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. He tells of his and his wife's attendance at the 1960 Democratic National Convention and goes into a discussion of JFK's campaign for president and of his relationship with the Kennedy family. He discusses JFK's presidency, the Vietnam War and communism and briefly talks about corruption and arrogance amongst politicians. Flynt then goes into his decision to retire from politics and expresses his gratitude for his supporters throughout his political career, and discusses the opponents he faced throughout his career, most notably Newt Gingrich. Flynt ends the discussion by reflecting on his twenty-four year political career, remarking that he had done his best, and commenting on politicians Alexander H. Stephens and Robert G. Stephens."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":["Carrollton, Ga. : University of West Georgia Special Collections in association with the Digital Library of Georgia"],"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Georgia Political Papers and Oral History Program oral history interviews. Annie Belle Weaver Special Collections, Irvine Sullivan Ingram Library, State University of West Georgia"],"dcterms_subject":["Emory University. School of Law","University of Georgia","University of Georgia. School of Law","United States. Federal Housing Administration","Democratic National Convention","United States. Civil Rights Act of 1964","Confederate States of America. Army. Department of Northern Virgina","George Washington University","United States. Works Progress Administration","Georgia--Politics and government--1865-1950","Georgia--Politics and government--1951-","Legislators--Georgia--Interviews","Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka","Interstate Highway System","Prohibition","Segregation","Abyssinian Baptist Church (New York, N.Y.)","Georgia. Convention of the People (1861 : Milledgeville and Savannah, Ga.)","United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865","Tonkin, Gulf of"],"dcterms_title":["Oral history interview with Jack Flynt, 1998 Apr. 22"],"dcterms_type":["MovingImage"],"dcterms_provenance":["University of West Georgia. 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(Dwight David), 1890-1969","Gingrich, Newt","Griffin, Marvin, 1907-1982","Hosch, John Alton","Jackson, Andrew, 1767-1845","Jackson, Stonewall, 1824-1863","Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines), 1908-1973","Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963","Kennedy, Robert F., 1925-1968","Lee, Robert E. (Robert Edward), 1807-1870","Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr., 1902-1985","McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009","McRae, Floyd W., d. 1921","O'Brien, Lawrence F.","O'Donnell, Kenneth P., 1924-1977","Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr., 1908-1972","Rostenkowski, Dan","Russell, Richard B. (Richard Brevard), 1897-1971","Stephens, Robert G. (Robert Grier), 1913-2003","Stevenson, Adlai E., III (Adlai Ewing), 1930-","Taney, Roger B.","Vandiver, S. Ernest (Samuel Ernest), 1918-2005","Vinson, Fred M., 1890-1953","Warren, Earl, 1891-1974"],"dcterms_subject_fast":null,"fulltext":null},{"id":"uwg_phc_barnard19971201","title":"Oral history interview with Doug Barnard, 1997 December 1","collection_id":"uwg_phc","collection_title":"Georgia Political Papers and Oral History Program","dcterms_contributor":["Steely, Mel","University of West Georgia. Georgia Political Papers and Oral History Program"],"dcterms_spatial":["United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018"],"dcterms_creator":["Barnard, Douglas"],"dc_date":["1997-12-01"],"dcterms_description":["Douglas Druie Barnard, Jr. was born in Augusta, Georgia in 1922, where he went to school before earning an A.B. degree from Mercer University in 1943. He served in the United States Army from 1943-1945, and then returned to Mercer, where he obtained his law degree in 1948. Barnard entered the banking industry after college, and served as executive secretary to Governor Carl E. Sanders from 1963-1966. He was a delegate to the 1964 Democratic National Convention and was elected to represent the 10th district in Congress in 1976. Barnard's major emphasis in Congress was on banking reform and he tried repeatedly to revamp banking laws with little success. He left Congress in 1993 and currently lives in Augusta.; Interviewed by Mel Steely on December 1, 1997 at the University of West Georgia.; Barnard starts the interview by discussing his childhood in Augusta, Georgia, and talks about his parents' professions and his education. He talks about what he remembers about life during the Great Depression when he was a child; he said his family had to scratch and save in order to maintain themselves. He says that he went to Mercer because his parents were against him going to the University of Georgia. After the outbreak of World War II, Barnard went through several hoops only to end up discharged in Fort Benning, when he decided to go straight into law school. Upon graduation, he decided to get employment with the Georgia Railroad Bank and Trust. He brings up the domination of his community by a clique called the \"Cracker Party,\" which he said was not good for them. Barnard then transitions into a discussion on the politically independent party. Barnard then spends a great deal of time discussing his time with Carl Sanders and his tenure as Sanders' executive secretary. He answers questions about his relationships with and opinions on other Georgia politicians, then begins talking about his election for Congress."],"dc_format":["video/mp4"],"dcterms_identifier":null,"dcterms_language":["eng"],"dcterms_publisher":["Carrollton, Ga. : University of West Georgia Special Collections in association with the Digital Library of Georgia"],"dc_relation":null,"dc_right":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dcterms_is_part_of":["Georgia Political Papers and Oral History Program oral history interviews. 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