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ORVAL FAUBUS:

Yeah. But strangely enough, you find a lot of people who don't think that [we/they?] are voting with those people. Because they have been prejudiced against me by the adverse publicity which has gone on for almost two decades. In central Arkansas there isn't a single newspaper that will give me, you know, even a fair, decent shake.

WALTER DE VRIES:

Why not?

ORVAL FAUBUS:

Well, some of it's personal and some of it's philosophical and some of it's based on lack of understanding by young editors who don't really know what the circumstances were when I became governor. They don't actually know what the difficulties were which we had to overcome to get the state started on its economic progress.

WALTER DE VRIES:

Is it all basically tied to Little Rock?

ORVAL FAUBUS:

Basically. Not to the Little Rock situation, but to the adverse publicity that comes out of Little Rock. See, then when the Democrat became a pale shadow of the Gazette, why the Gazette became even more dominant and more prominent. Because, like many of my friends said, "Well, if I've got to have one or the other, I'll just take the pure, unadulterated kind. I'll take the Gazette. Why get the Democrat when it's just a pale shadow of the Gazette?" Then the North Little Rock Times, Jacksonville News, unknown Courier, Pine Bluff Commercial. All out there in central Arkansas in your center of population. All of the same mind. All the same attitude editorially and through their news.

JACK BASS:

Did they support you before the desegregation problem at Little Rock?

ORVAL FAUBUS:

The Gazette supported Cherry against me, basically, in '54, when I was a challenger. Then when Cherry hit me with the commonwealth college issue, Harry Ashmore, then, was sympathetic to me. But the Gazette as a paper, I'd say it's attitude was favorable to Gov Cherry. Then it supported me against Jim Johnson in '56. But then after '57 why it was totally against me, you see, all the way. I mean I could do nothing right. Nothing whatsoever, in any field. Now you know, you and I could disagree on certain issues, certain philosophical viewpoints, but I could still give you credit, say for being honest or for paying your debts or for being a good family man or helping the boy scouts. But see, I could do no good after I displeased the Gazette in '57. And the way they do that, they suppress the news of anything good that's done, you see.