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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview C-0043, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
I. Beverly Lake Sr. describes growing up in the small town of Wake Forest, North
Carolina, in the early twentieth century. He discusses the centrality to
residents of the local church and Wake Forest College, which were intertwined
entities. Lake describes how the church provided a social outlet for students
and inculcated Wake Forest students with Christian values. The college
influenced Lake's academic, religious, and social education greatly, and his
rural background wed him to North Carolina for the rest of his life. After
attending Harvard Law School, Lake was offered a high-paying job in New York. He
chose instead to return to his home state to work at a Raleigh law firm doing
utilities litigation. His early legal work earned him the image of a charming
populist. Because of his professional success, Lake was asked to teach at Wake
Forest Law School. In 1950, he was appointed Assistant Attorney General of North
Carolina. In this position, Lake served on the prosecution for the Brown case. In 1965, Governor Dan Moore appointed Lake as a North
Carolina Superior Court judge. Lake voices somewhat unfavorable views of female
attorneys and judges and reveals his racial views throughout the rest of the
interview. Lake blames the decline of society on racial integration. He also
views North Carolina's future negatively, criticizing the population growth of
cities and the lack of white political solidarity.
I. Beverly Lake Sr. reflects on his long career as a teacher, attorney, and judge. He counsels white political unity as a means to stem racial integration.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
This is an interview with Dr. I. Beverly Lake for the Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Lake, I'd like to start by asking you a little bit about your childhood, and what it's like to grow up here in Wake Forest?
Well, I was born in Wake Forest, August 29, 1906. My father was Professor
of Physics at Wake Forest College. So I grew up there under the shadow
of the college. As to what it was like to grow up in the little town of
Wake Forest, I guess I can just summarize it by just saying it was a
wonderful privilege. Wake Forest in those days was a very remote,
isolated, little country village centered around the great college.
There were no paved streets, and there were, in those days, of course,
no paved highways in the state of North Carolina. There was a dirt
public road leading from Raleigh to Wake Forest and then on north
through various and sundry detours to Richmond. But there were virtually
no automobiles anywhere in 1906 and for several years thereafter. When I
was growing up, as a child, the passage of an automobile along the road
in front of the house was an event which called for all the children to
run out and look at it. Now we don't even bother to look at a jet plane.
The only practical way in or out was by the passenger trains of the
Seaboard Railroad. Seaboard ran a train called the Shoofly which left
Wake Forest, rather came through Wake Forest,
The students would come to college in September, and with rare exceptions
they would not go home until Christmas. Many did
There was in those days no church in Wake Forest except a Baptist church which, in the early days, met in the college chapel, which was burned by an arsonist much later on. The present church was built in 1914. It served as a place of worship for all the community of all denominations. There were a few Methodist and Presbyterians, and except for the football team, we didn't have many Catholics, but they came too. The students would go to the church in large numbers. The church was always filled. It was a large auditorium.
One of the fine things I remember in those days was the singing in the Wake Forest Baptist Church. Dr. Hubert Poteat was the son of the president of the college and himself a very highly regarded, nationwide, classical scholar, a professor of Latin. He also played the pipe organ in the church and was an accomplished musician. Later on, to show his versatility, he became the Imperial Potentate of the Shrine. He and Mr. Earnshaw, the Bursar of the college, had, in student days, won the tennis championship of the South. So Dr. Poteat was a versatile man.
There were other remarkable men on that college faculty. I suppose, I've
forgotten the exact count. I think at the time of
I thought, until I went on to do my graduate work, that all college
professors were that way, but I soon found that they were not. These men
had a very close association with their students. The students never had
any hesitancy about going to visit in the homes of the professors,
either socially or to get further assistance with their college work.
There arose between the Wake Forest faculty and the students a close
comradeship which lasted
Before going to that, perhaps I ought to give you a little description of the public schools which I attended. Now we have today—and to some extent I'm in sympathy with it—we have today a rather hysterical determination that public schools must be given an unlimited quantity of money and palatial buildings in which to operate. I know from my experience that that is not true. I do not belittle the importance of buildings and equipment. But I know that the important thing in any educational institution, whether it be the kindergarden, grammar school, an undergraduate college, or a graduate school in the university, the important thing in the institution is the faculty. That is what made Wake Forest College great.
Now the public school that I attended was about three blocks, not three
blocks, about one block from my home. There were of course, no school
buses in those days, and usually the parents of students lived within
the village. The building had five rooms, plus one room across the
street in which the first and second grades were taught by a single
teacher. There were five rooms in the, shall we say, the main building,
which was a very dilapidated wooden structure. One room was devoted to
the high school. We had in one small room, I suppose about fifteen to
twenty feet square, the entire high school of Wake Forest. It was taught
by one teacher. Sometimes the teachers came in platoons because the
college students sometimes filled in if the
The high school was, even by the standards of those days, so deplorable
in equipment that most of the people of Wake Forest, who could
financially afford to do so, sent their high school students to Cary,
which had a very fine high school under Mr. Drye, I believe. It was a
boarding school. They went there to finish their high school. I stayed
at Wake Forest. There were only eleven grades in the school curriculum.
That was the entire school curriculum in those days. When I was in the
tenth grade, I was the only student in the tenth grade. That being true,
I did not want to be the only student in the eleventh grade, although
that would have given me a very fine opportunity to be the valedictorian
of my class.
The college entrance requirements in those days were not quite so
rigorous as they are now. So Wake Forest College agreed that if I would
take a fourth year of Latin in high school without college credit—in
those days you had to have four years of a foreign language to get into
college—if I would take a fourth year of Latin without college credit,
they would let me in. So I entered college at the age of fifteen. One
reason I entered college at the age of fifteen, in addition to the one I
mentioned, that I short-circuited the high school curriculum, was
Let me ask you about your family. Tell us a little bit about those early years.
All right. My father, as I say, was a Professor of Physics at Wake Forest
College until his retirement in 1932. My father was a native of
Virginia. My paternal grandfather was a Baptist minister in Upperville,
Virginia. Served that church as its pastor for fifty years. I had two
brothers and two sisters, all older than I. My own mother died six weeks
after I was born. My father, four years later, married my mother's
sister. So I had the priviledge of having a marvelous stepmother. I
guess I'm about the only person who has a beautiful picture of his
mother and his stepmother together. My stepmother was the maid-of-honor
My two brothers went to Wake Forest College. My oldest brother left the College at the end of his sophomore year and transferred to the United States Military Academy at West Point. He graduated in 1920. My younger brother, middle brother—I was the baby of the family, that's why I was fairly spoiled I guess—my middle brother, John, is now retired from the textile industry and farming in Mississippi and lives there. He, incidentally, was one of a small group of five or six who worked for the DuPont Company and was assigned the duty of developing nylon. So he had a major part in the development and discovery of nylon. My two sisters and mother wore nylon hosiery long before they went on the market because he would send various samples down for them to try and criticize. They didn't like them at first. They said they were not comfortable. But they improved, and of course they've become what they are today. That brother now lives in Mississippi.
My two sisters went to and graduated from Westhampton College, a part of the University of Richmond, of which my father was an alumnus, and, incidentally, was captain of the Richmond baseball team. My two sisters, both widows, now live in Wake Forest about a block from me.
My oldest brother, as I say, went to West Point. He served in the Army,
commissioned, served in the Army in the Cavalry for about eight years.
Then in 1928—promotion in the army was
Before Pearl Harbor he tried to get back into the United States Army but they said he was too old. So he did not go back. So, I think strictly against the law, but anyhow, he went up to Canada and caught a ride on a little, what do you call it, banana boat going across the ocean and went over to England and joined General DeGaulle's Free French. He was a Captain in DeGaulle's Foreign Legion and in the Battle of Bir, B-i-r, Hachaim, H-a-c-h-a-i-m, I believe, in Northern Africa, he won the Croix de Guerre. That was Rommel's last break through, and it looked like he was going all the way to the Suez Canal. But this detachment of the Free French, to which my brother was attached, was cut off. They were across Rommel's communication line, and for many, many days Rommel tried to dislodge them but was not able to do so. That, I think, had a great deal to do with the ultimate failure of Rommel's offensive. For his service in that, Jimmy won the Croix de Guerre.
Then Pearl Harbor came along. For some reason, strange reason, he was no
longer too old to serve in the United States Army. So he came back and
became a Major in our Army. Went over to Burma and served under General
Stillwell. Then after the war—if I'm going too long on this, you just
cut me off—after the war he stayed in service over in China. He was
assigned to General Marshall's mission, to the Chinese Communist
headquarters when Marshall went over there to try to bring some
reconciliation
Let me ask you two more questions about growing up in Wake Forest.
Yes.
What did you do for entertainment? And also, knowing of your strong Christian feelings, what about the church in your childhood?
Well, let's take the church first. The church was, indeed, the center of
the community. It was fortunate in that we had always an exceedingly
capable pastor of the church. Now our church in those days was never a
rip-snorting, shall I say Hell-
Every year we had a revival service in which some distinguished minister
of the Baptist denomination—many from the Theological Seminary of
Louisville, and others, such as Dr. George Truitt down in Dallas, Dr.
McCracken, who was at that time, I think, Pastor of the Riverside Church
in New York, that type of men—came and preached. The college faculty and
the community were very much interested in the religious welfare and
life of the students. There was no undue pressure brought on anybody to
join the church but everybody was very happy when the students did so.
Of course, Wake Forest, at that time, had a very strong department of
the Bible under the leadership of Dr.
For amusement, like everything else, our entertainment activities centered around the college. We children would always go to the college athletic field and watch the football and the baseball practices. Wake Forest has always been noted, was always noted I should say, for excellent baseball teams. We used to go up and watch the ball games. The football was not at all good, though we had in our Wake Forest history from about 1918 to 1920. I think the finest football player I ever saw. His name was Harry Rabenhorst. He came from Louisiana. He was a marvelous ball carrier and a most expert punter. So far as I know, he still holds the world's record for the longest punt in an intercollegiate game.
Wake Forest was playing what was then called A and M, now called N.C.
State, at Riddick Field. The State team pushed the Wake Forest team back
to within six inches of the goal line but it couldn't cross. So the ball
went over, Rabenhorst stood deep in his own end zone and punted the ball
over the head of the
Now, the college had entertainments of various sorts. Traveling theatrical troupes would come and present plays; usually. I would guess, Shakespearean plays in the college chapel which was also an auditorium. We all bought tickets for that. Other institutions, such as the Oxford Orphanage. every year sent its Glee Club over to give a concert for the benefit of the orphange, and we went to that.
Otherwise, the chief entertainment, I suppose, was going to watch the
noon and afternoon trains go by. They stopped at Wake Forest—during the
noon recess of classes and then in the afternoon after most classes were
over. So all the college students would go down to see who was on the
train and flirt with all the girls who were on the train, if possible,
and generally make nuisances of themselves, I suppose. Dr. Billy Poteat,
the President, at chapel one day was urging us to be a little more
courteous and dignified to the passengers on the train. He told us, I'm
sure he made it up, a good story. He said he understood that the other
afternoon, when the afternoon train stopped on a hot Spring day, the
windows were all up, and students were
In the summer when college was out, there was no summer school in those
days, anywhere. We all boarded the train, and we migrated, the whole
Lake family migrated, up to my grandfather's home in Upperville,
Virginia. I said he was the pastor of the church there. We spent the
summers there. The purpose was not only to visit my grandparents but the
family farm, which we call Lakeland, was five miles from Upperville.
Each morning my father would hitch up the horse and buggy, and he,
accompanied usually by one or two of the children, would drive down to
the farm and give instructions to the colored foreman who operated the
farm. He was very much beloved by all the children, called Uncle Peter
Scott. He had been with the family for many, many years. He continued to
serve the family until his death. We, in
The Baptist church—and we had a Methodist church and an Episcopal church too—Baptist church there had services two Sundays a month and the Methodist church, the other two Sundays, in order not to compete with each other. My grandfather was also a pastor for a very old Baptist church down in Loudouss County called Ketoctin Church. So every other weekend he and my father would ride the horse and buggy down to Ketoctin where he would preach. On those Sundays all the Baptists went up to the Methodist church, and all the Methodists on the alternate Sunday came down to our church. So again, I grew up in an atmosphere of tolerance and brotherhood and knowing the different denominations. I guess that's about all I need to say about my childhood. I've probably talked too much.
Well, going on into your college career, was there ever any doubt that you'd go to Wake Forest?
No, I didn't know that there was any other place to go. I thought all
people with fine sensibilities would naturally go to Wake Forest because
I had grown up here. There were great rivalries in those days between
Wake Forest, and Carolina, and what is now State College, Trinity, as
Duke was then called, and Davidson. When one of those schools would come
over to play baseball, the Seaboard would run a special train over
usually to bring the State student body, and sometimes the Carolina
student body, over to see the ball game. They would
Then, as I say, I went on to college, a remarkable opportunity under that faculty which I mentioned. One of the benefits was, by virtue of the smallness of the institution, most of my work was under the heads of the various departments. They were, indeed, scholars and gentlemen, and I learned a great deal due to their efforts.
When I graduated, I first planned to go to the University of Chicago, as my father had done, and do graduate work in Physics and Math, which were my majors in college. I had the idea of teaching. In my senior year I became interested in the possibility of studying law. So my father said, "It doesn't cost you anything to go to law school here because you get your tuition free as a child of a faculty member, and you can live at home. So why don't you take a year at law here and see whether you like it." So, I did—and a marvelous Law School faculty, the dean of the school, Dr. Gulley, and his associates, Professors Timberlake and White, great professors—and I became very much more interested in law. Then I went on to Harvard.
Wake Forest, in those days, although a fine law school and, I think,
generally regarded as the best in North Carolina, was not a member of
the American Association of Law Schools. Wake Forest had remarkable
success in getting its students to pass the bar examination. At that
time, I think, most practicing lawyers in North Carolina were products
of the Wake Forest Law School, either directly or the graduates of
Carolina or Trinity
I went on to the Harvard Law School, and there, again, I had a remarkable opportunity. I think I went to Harvard in what is called "the Second Golden Age" of the Harvard Law School. Roscoe Pound was the Dean, and on the faculty were Professor Williston, who was an authority on Contracts; Professor Warren, who taught Property; Professor Bohlen, who taught Torts; Professor Morgan, who taught Procedure; Professor Scott, who was a world authority on the subject of Trusts; and Professor Powell, who taught Constitutional Law. I don't think he was a particularly great teacher but he was an interesting man. There again, I just had a remarkable opportunity. So I enjoyed my three years at Harvard. I had to start all over again. My year at Wake Forest helped me a great deal to get along with Harvard standards, and I graduated in 1929. That was my first acquaintance with a large university. Of course, that in itself was an educational experience.
Quite a change from growing up in Wake Forest too, wasn't it?
Yes, yes, it was. Then I came back to practice in Raleigh. I had an
opportunity, an offer of a job in one of the Boston law firms,
magnificent salary, $150 a month. I tell you it was quite a temptation.
But I thought it was at least worth
A 100 percent increase.
With which I was able to pay my room and board and pay the gasoline, at
least, for the Model-T Ford. I worked with Smith and Joyner for three
years. It also was a remarkable educational experience. Then I had an
invitation to come back to Wake Forest as Professor of Law. The reason
was that to be accredited in those days, the Law School had to have a
faculty of at least four members. Wake Forest had about three. So I got
into the teaching profession. I suppose, on the grounds that they had to
have a fourth man and they scraped around and found me. I came over and
I taught at Wake Forest for eighteen years. Well,
There was an intermission during the war years to serve as Director of the Rationing Programs for the State of North Carolina. In those days, we had scarcities of almost everything, gasoline, rubber, automobile tires, automobiles, sugar, canned goods, meat, virtually everything, shoes. The state was divided into two districts, the eastern district composed of 54 counties. Our district office was located in Raleigh under the direction of Ted Johnson, a member of the State faculty. I was Retioning Attorney first, then Rationing Executive. So I had the duty and privilege of directing all of the 54 county rationing boards, and interpreting the rationing regulations, hearing appeals from the county boards. I generally had to administer the programs. That continued until after the war. I was there in 1943, '44, and '45.
During the war years, of course, law students had no draft deferment by
reason of occupation. So except for the halt and the lame and the blind,
all the law students were in the army. Wake Forest and Duke went down to
such a low number of students—Wake Forest, I think, had at the time, the
next year was going to start, four students, and Duke, I think, had a
total of sixteen. So, the two schools combined, and we operated a joint
program over at Duke. I did not go over to that because I was with the
Office of Price Administration myself. At the end of the war, when
rationing terminated. I went back and taught for a year in
The relationship between the Wake Forest students, and to some degree this was true of Duke also, but the relationship between the Wake Forest law students and the Wake Forest professors was remarkably close. The students would frequently come visit us. They always came to our offices at will to consult us about anything that was troubling them. We had law school on the upper floor of a very old college library building which has now been destroyed. But we turned out remarkably capable men. The two best classes I ever had. I think, were the class of 1938 and the class of 1950. In the class of 1938 we graduated, if I'm not mistaken, eighteen men. Among those eighteen men were the later Chief Justice Branch. Justice David Britt of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, and Judge Robert Martin of the Court of Appeals, who ran for the Supreme Court and was defeated by Judge Brock by some 50 votes statewide. So I came that close to having three of my students, classmetes, on the Supreme Court of North Carolina at the same time. Also in that class was Shearon Harris, who became President of Carolina Power and Light Company and President of United States Chamber of Commerce. Several of the other pupils became successful and distinguished men. The other fine class that stands out in my mind was the class of 1950. That class was composed almost entirely of returned veterans.
When the war was over, the two law schools separated, and we came back to
Wake Forest. We were all somewhat uneasy, I mean
Those men whom I taught, not only in that class but in all the others
before it, those men became the nucleus of my political campaign when I
ran for Governor in 1960 and again in
Incidentally, before I came to teach, well, I mean, before I ran for office, the college moved to Winston Salem. I did not want to go because my home was here and my roots were here. So I didn't go.
I went to Washington and had my second tour of duty as a Federal employee. That was in 1950, and as you will recall, the Korean War had broken out. There was a great deal of anxiety that it might become a third World War. And if so, there would be a need for a return to rationing of vital materials. So the Government asked me to come to Washington and assist. I don't mean to head up the program but to assist, in drafting rationing regulations which I did for a year. I was up there through the year 1950. While I was there, General MacArthur came back with his famous speech in Congress when Truman fired him. Anyhow, that was a pretty exciting event.
While I was working one morning in the office in Washington, I had phone
call from Mr. Harry McMullan, the great Attorney General of North
Carolina. Mr. McMullan invited me to come back to North Carolina as an
Assistant Attorney General, they now call
Yes sir.
But it's not a very nice place to live, and it's worse now than it was then, by virtue of the Supreme Court decision. Anyhow, I think I've skipped over the fact that, well, no—after I came back and became Deputy Attorney General of North Carolina, the Supreme Court handed down the School Segregation Decision, outlawing separate schools for white and Negro children.
Before you get into that, may I ask you a couple of other things? First of all, you went to Columbia, also, as a part of your college?
That was before. You're right. I went to Columbia. I'm getting out of chronological order. I went to Columbia in the Fall of '39. The war in Europe had just broken out.
Yes sir.
I took a leave of absence and went up there on a fellowship to do graduate work in Public Utilities in the Law School. I got my doctorate in the Law School, called it Doctor of Juridical Science—SJD. So I got back in 1940. So I had the year 1939-1940 in Columbia. My wife and my then small, six year old son, who is now a Superior Court Judge, lived in New York, and we had a very interesting and delightful experience.
There was another time that—you went into private practice, of course, with Willis Smith and Colonel Joyner—but then didn't you at one point, weren't you in practice with Mr. A.J. Fletcher?
Yes, that was later.
Later, okay, later.
After the college moved to Winston Salem and after I had served as Deputy
Attorney General, as I was saying a while ago, when I was Deputy
Attorney General, the Court came down with the School Segregation
Decision and ordered a re-argument, a second argument not a re-argument,
a second argument on the question of whether it should put that decision
into effect immediately or give the states time to make necessary
adjustments. Mr. McMullan invited the Attorney Generals of the southern
states to go up with us as amicii curiae to present their views to the
court which we did. Mr. McMullan asked me to write the brief for North
Carolina, which I did, and present the argument, which I did—my first
appearance in the Supreme Court of the United States which was also
quite an interesting experience. I presented that argument and the
Court, as you know, granted the states an indefinite time but required
them to proceed with what they called "all deliberate speed." I had told
the Court that if it required the State of North Carolina forthwith to
admit Negro children to the schools of their choice, they would create
such disruption in the public schools of North Carolina that there would
be no public schools whatsoever. The state would abolish the public
school system, and it would have
Yes sir.
He was a great men, a splendid gentleman, one of the most delightful persons to work with I've ever met, and a fine lawyer. He had a remarkable ability to promote an espirit de corps in his staff which you do not ordinarily find in any organization, let alone a State department. One reason was that in addition to his ability and enjoyable personality, Mr. McMullan almost always, when anything was done by the Attorney General's office that was approved, said, "Mr. Moody or Mr. Bruton or Dr. Lake or somebody else, handled that." When anything was done, and sometimes it was done, which merited criticism, Mr. McMullan would say, "I was responsible for that;" that is, he, himself, was responsible for that. It's a marvelous tribute in the Commander in Chief. Be that as it may, I enjoyed my work in the Attorney General's office. I handled, at that time, all of the Public Utility rate cases before the Utilities Commission and on appeals to the courts from the Commission. I tried the first public utility court cases that I ever saw. We held the electric power, gas telephone, and railroad rates down far below what the companies were asking.
After Mr. McMullan's death, I decided the time had come to go back into
private practice. My friend, A.J. Fletcher, who was a
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
to be his partner, which I did. Our partnership lasted then for ten years. Mr. Fletcher actuelly retired before that time. Then I took in as junior partners in the firm. Eugene Boyce, who is now practicing law in Raleigh, and my son, I. Beverly Lake, Jr., now a Special Superior Court Judge. We had a very fine time practicing law in the old Capitol Club Building. building. It was reasonably rewarding financially. At least we didn't starve. So I got along with that.
One of my most interesting cases was the Wilson Tobacco Market case in
which Center Brick Warehouse sued all the other operators on the Wilson
market, alleging violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The bone of
contention was what was then a system of allocating selling time among
the several warehouses operating on the Wilson Tobacco Market. Time [was
allocated] on the basis of floor space in the various warehouses, which
brought on a wasteful expansion of warehouse floor space. The more floor
space a warehouse had, the more selling time. But anyhow, we tried that
case in New Bern before Judge John Larkins in the United States District
Court. That trial lasted six weeks. We were successful. The jury
returned the verdict in our favor. While the jury was out. I had a
telephone call from Governor Dan Moore, who had been, incidentally, my
opponent in my second campaign for Governor in 1964, and always my very
good friend. He asked me to come by the next morning to the mansion. He
had something he wanted to talk to me about. So I waited to get the jury
verdict, which was in my favor, and then I came on home, and
I then had the most delightful experience. Work on the Supreme Court was
extremely interesting. Some of it, of course, was a little dull but very
interesting work, very pleasant work. The associations, particularly
associations which I had with the other members of the Court, were
delightful beyond description. I served with Chief Justice Denny, who
swore me in, Chief Justice Parker, Chief Justice Bobbitt, and Chief
Justice Sharp. United Chief Justice Sharp. I was the Senior Associate
Justice, so I sat on her right and, figuratively, became her right hand
man on the Court.
Well, the Supreme Court, of course, had many differences of opinion.
Those discussions in the conference room, of course, were and should be
strictly private. Those discussions in the conference sometimes became
rather animated but never discourteous. We had a remarkable fellowship
on the Court due in part, at least, to the fact that it was then the
custom of the Court to have lunch together. At twelve o'clock the Chief
Justice would buzz each justice. We then met at the elevator and
Chief Justice Sharp, when she first came there, one of her lady friends
said, "Oh, I envy you the opportunity to sit with all those gentlemen at
the Round Table. You must have such very interesting discussion of
points of law and state policy." Judge Sharp said, "You were never more
mistaken in your life. All they talk about is football and
grandchildren."
Incidentally, Chief Justice Sharp was an excellent Chief Justice, and
earlier an Associate Justice. She and I, not infrequently, dissented
from each other. But our companionship, on and off the court, was very
pleasant. She had a remarkable ability for the law and, as I have told
people frequently, I'm not personally—I can say this now since I'm
retired from all active participation in anything—I'm not personally
enthused about women lawyers because to put it somewhat rudely, I guess,
I just don't like to see a sow's ear made out of a silk purse.
Yes sir.
Somewhat inconsistent.
I served on the Court until I reached the mandatory retirement age of 72. So I was on the Court for thirteen years. Then I retired and came back, well, I've always lived in Wake Forest. I went down the following fall to Campbell University and taught as a visiting professor in the Law School, teaching Constitutional Law. Fine class there. Campbell is, indeed, an excellent law school. I think that it is the closest approach to the Wake Forest Law School, that I knew, of any of the schools in the State. In the years to come it is going to be recognized as a seed bed for fine lawyers.
When my son was practicing in Raleigh—when I retired, occasionally I would drift over and sit in on conferences, listen to cases he and his partners were involved in at that time. Technically, I guess I became a member of his law firm. I had an office three doors from his, but I did not spend all my time studying law. But we had and have a very fine relationship. I was associated with him in some of his cases. He did the work. I made suggestions from time to time. Then when he was appointed to the Superior Court—he is now a Special Superior Court Judge—when he was appointed by Governor Martin, he, of course, had to withdraw from the cases he was then handling. His partnership dissolved. So some of those cases, three of them particularly of some importance, fell on my shoulders. So I went back into active practice in that sense.
One was an annexation proceeding by the Town of Wake Forest, which was
endeavoring to take in an extensive area to the south
Let me go back to the times when you were Assistant Attorney General. You were right much a Populist when you took the cases, weren't you?
Well, I guess that was the way I was characterized. Incidentally, at that
time, I was almost the fair-haired boy of the News and Observer which
changed very quickly when I began running for Governor. The utilities at
that time, were, I thought, outrageously successful in the Utilities
Commission in getting almost any rate increase they sought. One morning,
when I was over in the staff meeting, Mr. John Paylor, who was the
Assistant Attorney General, assigned to the Utility Commission cases,
said, at the close of the staff conference—this was on Friday—he said,
"Mr. McMullan, I've got to be in Washington all of next week." Mr.
McMullan said: "Well, that's all right, John. Go ahead." John said,
"Well, what are we going to do about the Duke Power rate case, which
starts on Tuesday morning?" Mr. McMullan said firmly, "Beverly, didn't
you do graduate work in Public Utilities?"
I went into that hearing with, literally, my heart in my throat, fearing
I would make some comment and everybody would start laughing.
You probably had as much to do as any other person with maintaining reasonable utility rates in North Carolina.
Well, I like to think I did. We had to carry many, many cases to the Supreme Court because the Utilities Commission was composed of very fine gentlemen and very able gentlemen, appointees of the Governor. I thought they had been for years pretty much selected by the then Governors largely on the recommendation of the utility companies, which was understandable because the utilities attorneys knew more about public utilities than anybody else. So the Commission was heavily slanted, I thought. Now, I do not mean any improper influences.
Yes sir.
But just by virtue of their backgrounds, their interests were heavily slanted in favor of utilities. So I took a number of cases to the Supreme Court and was rather successful in many of them. So that's how I got my characterization as a Populist, I guess. Since before the war I had always considered myself a Conservative and still do.
Going back to the Brown vs. State Board of Education, in North Carolina in response to that, the Pearsall Plan was one of the answers North Carolina came up with. Did you have a role in putting the Pearsall Plan together?
Well, the Pearsall Plan really had nothing to do with our presentation in the Brown case because the Pearsall Plan came afterwards. The Legislature, just before we went to Washington to argue that case, the Legislature passed a resolution, unanimously, saying that if integration of the public schools in North Carolina were attempted forthwith, it would destroy the public school system, and it would have to be abolished. The State would have to rely on only private schools to educate children. So we urged the Supreme Court not to put that into effect immediately. I presented that resolution to the Court.
The Legislature then had a special session to decide what to do, which was after the second decision of the Supreme Court came down saying, "You must proceed with all deliberate speed," and so forth and so on. So the Pearsall Plan, well first, before the Pearsall Plan, first, while I was still in the Attorney General's office, Mr. McMullan asked me to prepare what was called the Pupil Assignment Plan, which I prepared. It was presented to and approved by a committee appointed by the Governor of which Tom Pearsall of Rocky Mount was Chairman. The committee actually had very little to do with that plan, except we conferred. After I drafted it, Mr. McMullan approved it and the committee approved it, and it was adopted.
That pretty much gave each school board rather wide discretion in assigning pupils to the schools, not on the basis of race, but on the basis of residence and other, what I thought, material, educational and sociological factors. That was approved and was put into effect. It was held to be valid by a state superior court. Then the same plan was adopted by one of the southern states. I believe Alabama or Mississippi. That plan was attacked in the Federal court of that State and was upheld by the Federal court. So the assignment plan which I prepared was held to be constitutional.
The Legislature then—after the second decision of the Supreme Court the following summer—the Legislature had a special session. That was when the committee—I was back in private practice and I had nothing to do with the committee at that time officially—the Pearsall Committee then came up with what we know as the Pearsall Plan, which was the only plan that North Carolina ever had authorizing the closing of a public school. The assignment plan which I prepared didn't say anything about the closing of schools. The Pearsall Plan provided for closing public schools if it was found that they could not be operated with safety on an integrated basis, not the schools generally but a particular school. That was the Pearsall Plan. It went into effect to a resonable small degree. I do not remember just what happened to it offhand. My recollection is that a comparable plan was adopted in Virginia, and that was attacked in the Federal courts of Virginia and held to be unconstitutional. The Pearsall Plan faded out in North Carolina.
It was never used. It was there?
Well, it was never used to the extent of closing any public schools. I think the Pearsall Plan incorporated much of my Pupil Assignment Plan, giving the school board considerable discretion in assigning children, which they exercised. Under that plan, first the school board requirements—if I mistake not. The school board in Greensboro, Guilford County, had admitted some colored students to white schools in Greensboro and likewise in Winston Salem under the influence largely of my good friend Irving Carlyle. He and I disagreed sharply on that point. Winston Salem began to integrate its schools, and I anticipated that would spread from place to place. Again, if I mistake not, the Pearsall Plan had more or less faded out. You probably know more about that than I do because you were active in the newspaper world at that time.
I did my master's thesis on the Pearsall Plan.
I thought you did.
Yes sir. Apparently it was never…
I know. I may have misrepresented it because I never had any confidence in it.
No sir! Going on, what prompted you to run for Governor in 1960?
Well, my opponents thought that I was running for Governor because I
wanted to ride in on the racial program and racial animosity. That I can
truthfully say, always have said, that was not my motive. My motive was
that I could see, as the
What I foresaw has actually happened, perhaps not as completely as I
thought it would, still, remarkably so. The white children, with the
natural ability, would be withdrawn from the public schools and be sent
to private schools. The remaining white children in the public schools,
to a large degree—of course not universal, there are always
exceptions—but to such a large degree, would be composed of white
children who came from underprivileged homes; homes not quite so
interested in education, not affording the background of culture. Those
children going to the private schools would leave the public schools—I
mean the other children going to private schools would leave the public
schools crowded with colored children who, for various reasons, and no
need to go into all of that, various
I knew from my own teaching experience that the success of the school depends on two things: one, as I said, was the ability of teacher, and the other is the ability of the pupils. A good teacher with substandard children cannot produce as good a product as a good teacher with a cross section of students. The students do their best work when they have to do good work in order to make good grades. When you take out all of your top students, or most of your top students, and leave the class composed of, well I'll say, mediocre students, for one reason or another, either in ability or background, then your quality of teaching and instruction goes down. I have always said, as I said in my campaign, it is one thing to keep the school physically open. It's another thing to keep the school efficiently operating as an educational institution.
I thought the Legislature was right in saying that to integrate the
schools completely would destroy the schools of North Carolina as an
educational institution. I think the result of the last twenty years,
twenty-seven years now, have pretty well born out what I said. That is
more especially illustrated in the schools of Washington, D.C. which,
under Eisenhower's administration, were supposed to become a model for
the country. Well, the Washington public school system became a model
but not the kind that he was talking about. The schools in Washington
became disorderly, in extreme, unsafe for teachers and students, and
basically did not produce good education. I wanted to save
At the time you ran for Governor, you were somewhat of a political novice weren't you? Had you been active in politics?
Somewhat! I was a rank political novice! Durham Herald,
thanks to you—you were a reporter over there—most of the newspapers in
the state did not give my campaign a fair deal.
I remember you made some outstanding speeches, I thought, on fiscal responsibility of the government.
That's right. I thought that the administration of Governor Hodges was
not a remarkably business-like administration.
No sir, I was just turning it over.
I thought we'd run out.
No, I've still got plenty of them.
Oh! Well, I haven't got much more to say. I had, I thought, an excellent
highway program. At that time there was no really good highway through
the mountains in the West. This was 1960. I advocated the construction
of a four lane highway running from our ports, Wilmington and Morehead,
to the Tennessee line, so as to open up the Middlewest markets to North
Caroina products, which in those days basically had to go by railroad to
the northeast. That was one of my plans and, as you say, fiscal
responsibility. Governor Hodges' administration, in my opinion, was a
rather extravagant administration. I still think so. The only thing that
saved him was his so called windfall tax, which was not a windfall tax.
It was a collection of income tax twice
Yes sir.
I thought that was not only intellectually dishonest but was fiscally irresponsible.
I understand you wrote every one of your speeches too. They were rather remarkable.
Well, I never made a speech that I didn't know what was coming at the end
of it. Governor Moore was one of my opponents in the '64 campaign. After
I lost out in the second primary, which, as you recall, was extremely
close between the three of us, I supported Governor Moore in the second
primary. I liked Judge Preyer—Judge Preyer was a fine gentlemen—but I
thought he was an extreme liberal, economically and philosophically.
Moore was, he called himself a ‘Middle-of-the-Road man’ but I think that
was a political gimmick. I kidded him by saying, "The worst accidents
always happen in the middle-of-the-road." I didn't intend to be a
Middle-of-the-Road man. I was a Conservative. But there's a difference
between being Conservative and being intolerant of change and opposed to
improvement. Governor Moore, asked me, "Do you have any suggestions on
my speeches?" Now Governor Moore. Justice Moore as he later became, was
a very fine gentleman, very able man, but was not a good speaker. He
read all of his speeches. I always
In the 1960 campaign, you ran against Terry Sanford.
Terry Sanford, John Larkins, and Malcolm Seawell. Mr. Seawell had been the Attorney General of North Carolina.
Yes sir. That was a pretty formidable field.
It was. I came in second. We eliminated Larkins, who had been Chairman of the Democratic party and State Senator for several terms, and eliminated Seawell, who had Hodges' support.
Had been Attorney General.
Was Attorney General until he retired to run for Governor in the primary.
What do you attribute your success to in that campaign?
I think that my success was due to the fact that the people of North
Carolina who listened to what I said, and I spoke on television
frequently, saw that the newspaper characterization of my campaign was
not true. That I was not advocating racial discord. I was advocating
racial harmony and racial cooperation. My program for the schools was a
practical, educational program. One time I made a speech, for example,
down in Albermarle—all
Any teacher, who's worth a salary, should not ignore the bottom of his
class. He should try to do something for them. The best way, he should
probably sort of pitch his program to the middle of the class, hoping
that the best students would go on further and the bottom students will
get something. Now I think we're having a school system—maybe I'm wrong,
I don't know—but I think the school system is too much inclined to
devote its time to the bottom students and not do enough for the
Yes sir. Push them ahead.
That's right. I know that's what they're trying to do now. They're trying
to put that pressure on the top students by lifting the bottom ones. But
th bottom's got so many holes in it that you can't lift it very well.
After you ran in 1960 and were not elected, what prompted you to run again in 1964?
Well, I guess it was basically the same thing. Of course, Terry Sanford had been Governor for four years.
Yes sir.
I guess you might say he prompted me to run more than anything else.
There were several who were considering running, just as there are now,
considering to run for the Democratic nomination, but most of them
dropped out of consideration. Judge Moore vacillated back and forth as
to whether he was going to run for a long time. It looked for a while
like I'd be going alone with Judge Preyer. Justice Moore, who was then
Judge Moore, did some very fine things in his administration as
Governor. He made an excellent Governor, especially when it came to
appointing me on the Supreme Court.
Going back to Mr. Sanford, I thought that he had appointed to the Superior Courts in North Carolina some men who were not as well qualified as some others. The school system under Mr. Sanford's regime, the school system and the court system were being jeopardized. I thought that the promoting and the bringing into existence of the sales tax of food was an unjust burden on the poor people of North Carolina, and I still think so. I think it's here to stay. I think that Mr. Sanford put in the sales tax on food as an educational measure to get more money for the schools. I thought money was not the crying need for the school system. You always need money. I didn't think that was the crying need. So I guess you would say that the record of the Sanford administration was the reason I decided to run again in 1964.
In two campaigns, if you had them to do over again, would there be anything you would do different?
I have, as I say, I have all of my speeches of both campaigns. I have
gone over them several times. I find nothing
How would you like to be remembered?
How what?
How would you like to be remembered?
I think certainly that as a teacher you have attained that. Just looking back over your career, I think that the impact that you had on so many young lives coming into the Wake Forest Law School…
Well, Charlie, I'm really very proud of the accomplishments of the men I
taught at Wake Forest Law School. Now, I don't, I'm not so vain as to
say that I deserve all the credit for that. I don't. Wake Forest had
other good teachers.
I think that the way that your former students rallied to you during your political campaign …
Well, I think that's …
A great deal of respect and admiration and appreciation.
That's right.
And I'm not certain that you didn't leave a greater legacy of service through your teaching than you would have had you ever been Governor.
I suspect so because those values go on and on and spread out.
Yes sir.
They may not know, and I might not know, where they got the incentive to do this or that particular thing but I think may be they got some of it from me.
Where do you see North Carolina going in the future?
Well, it's always impossible to look very far into the future. I think
that North Carolina will continue to develop as an industrial state. New
industries, which you and I cannot now perceive, will be developed as
the result of inventions which we've never dreamed of. I am concerned
about the growth of many of our North Carolina communities. I think
we're about bursting at the seams. I know we are in Raleigh, and I know
we
I don't know where North Carolina's heading. With all due respect to the
members of the last Legislature. I thought the performance of the
Legislature was a disgrace. I have a letter sent to me by a friend from
a man who was prominent in politics in North Carolina and still carries
a great deal of weight. The man to whom that letter was sent was
critical of the Legislature for making the birthday of Martin Luther
King a state holiday. I also think it's a disgrace to have a state
holiday for a man of deplorable character like Martin Luther King. It
bothers me. This former legislator and prominent lawyer was defending
that action. He said, "I think it was disgraceful to make Martin Luther
King's birthday a holiday in North Carolina. But I must remember that
the eastern counties of North Carolina politically lie in the hands of
the Negro block vote. Any legislator from eastern North Carolina who had
not voted for that would not have been re-elected." I don't think that's
right. Now this man said the remedy is, "You've got to get the white
people out to vote as white people." Now that's different from my
position
No sir.
And he said, "You've got to be elected." I say that I was ashamed of that statement. A man who has held high office in North Carolina said that he would vote contrary to his moral principles and his belief as to what's good for North Carolina in order to be re-elected to the Legislature. Now, when we've got legislators who are imbued with that philosopy of politics, I am concerned for the future of our State and the happiness of our people of both races.
END OF INTERVIEW