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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-0329, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
In this first of three interviews, four-term Democratic North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt recalls his initial interest in elective politics and the Democratic Party. His childhood in a rural community and the influence of his parents—both of whom were members of the Grange, a farming organization—instilled in Hunt a rural progressive outlook and a deep sympathy for the plight of farmers. In high school, Hunt joined the Future Farmers of America and the 4-H club. When he attended North Carolina State University in the late 1950s, Hunt maintained his membership in these clubs, where he came to understand parliamentary procedures and how to organize people. Hunt describes his work with the Democratic Party during this time; his interest in Democratic policies heightened as he worked with Terry Sanford's gubernatorial and John F. Kennedy's presidential campaigns. He joined the Young Democrats, which served as a political training ground for future Democratic politicians throughout the state. Hunt mobilized Young Voters for Terry Sanford, who won the governorship of North Carolina in 1960. By 1968, Hunt had risen through the ranks of the Democratic Party to serve as the state president of the Young Democrats. In the same year, Hunt witnessed a Republican upswing in state elections when James Gardner won his bid for the U.S. House of Representatives. Hunt cites the growth of conservatism in North Carolina as one reason he decided to run for political office in 1972 and 1975. This interview will be useful for researchers interested in the grassroots organizing strategies of the Democratic Party in North Carolina.
In this first of three interviews, four-term Democratic North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt recalls the forces that shaped his political views. He also discusses his early interest in elective politics and describes his rise through the ranks of the Democratic Party.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
An interview with Governor James B. Hunt for Wake Forest University and the Southern Oral History Program at Chapel Hill as part of a series of interviews with North Carolina former governors. The interview was conducted on May 18, 2001 at the office of Governor Hunt in Raleigh, North Carolina. The interviewer is Dr. Jack D. Fleer, Department of Politics, Wake Forest University, tape number 5-18-01-JBH. Let me make sure this thing is running.
Does that pick me up from here, you think?
It should.
Okay.
Governor, I am beginning with a series of questions about your early political interest and development. When did you begin thinking about a career in an elected public office?
Were members of your family interested in politics before that time or at that time?
Yes. Yes. My earliest memory of my family's interest was in
1948 when my family got very active in the campaign of Kerr Scott to be
governor. We'd been very active in a farm organization called
the Grange. My family had known the Scott's through the
Grange. My family were sort of these rural progressives that thought
rural people ought to have a good education, ought to have electrical
power, ought to have telephones, ought to have paved roads. Kerr Scott
proposed those things. The Democratic Party stood for those things. So I
was pretty keenly aware of our interest in the governor's
race. I guess I knew something, had heard of the Democratic Party. But I
also as a youngster gosh I was eleven years old, and I remember election
night in November of 1948, and I had been intrigued with Thomas Dewey. I
had read a comic book, one of these true comics or something, and it
portrayed him as a fighting district attorney, fighting for the people.
So Dewey sounded good to me. I remember how shocked I was that my
parents were as it turned out when I heard the returns come in, they
were all for Truman because we mostly talked about the
governor's race. That's when I found out, hmm, my
folks are Democrats. This makes a difference from the top to the bottom.
But we were still primarily concerned about state and local issues. Let
me go back because I had had one earlier experience at Boys'
State between my junior and senior years in high school that had had a
right profound impact on me. I was candidate for lieutenant governor,
did not win, was selected to go to Boys' Nation and went
there and met Dwight D. Eisenhower and experienced that wonderful
experience. That's the first time I really heard about the
parties I guess was that would've been in '54.
Thad
That impressed me. That was impressed on me.
Had your parents been active in the campaign itself? I know your father was a federal employee.
My father was under the Hatch Act. No, they didn't have a position in the campaign, but they felt very strongly about the candidates and the issues at stake.
In your hometown I guess we can call Rock Ridge home. Is that right? In your hometown in addition to your parents, were there influences that came to bear on your formulating an interest in politics?
Well, not a whole lot locally. I lived in a county that had a pretty, a
very conservative county government. I didn't live in a town.
I lived out in the county. In
What you're talking about seems to me or reflects the idea that government can be a positive force in the lives of individuals. What you also refer to in terms of your uncle and his opponent, it seems like there was a lot of conservatism and maybe some resistance to government. Why do you think—
I call it ultra-conservatism, just really opposed to spending any money for schools or anything else.
Why do you think your family took a position that government could be a positive force? Where do you think that came from because it's obviously still an influence in your life today?
Well, see it depends on how you define government. I define government as
an organization we all belong to, have an equal vote in and one that has
the authority and
Did your own family's social situation put them in circumstances where they could be helpful to other people or were they people who needed that help?
No, we were in a position to help. We were not rich, but we were not
poor. We had the benefit and the power that a good education gives you.
So while we were not wealthy, we had enough. We were not beholden to
anybody. We had the freedom to
You mentioned Kerr Scott. Would Franklin Roosevelt have been an important person in your political development and your family's political development?
Yes. I was not, I remember Franklin D. Roosevelt. I vaguely remember some
fireside chats. I remember his death, and they played ‘Home
on the Range.’ I remember where I was when he died as you
hear people say. But I knew and my family knew what Franklin D.
Roosevelt had done to save us as a country. We were particularly
grateful for the farm programs. The more you're asking about
this Jack, the more this is coming back to me. I would say the primary
federal government issue so to speak in our family's life
were the farm programs. Farmers had traditionally had boom and bust,
mostly bust. They were poor as church mice. I've just been
reading Jimmy Carter's book An Hour Before
Dawn. Have you read it?
I have read that, very recently.
Well, the people who live around me were like that. The farm programs of giving the farmers some control over how much they produced so that it would get a good price and make a profit and feed their families and have something was probably the strongest issue that we associated with government and with the Democratic Party. In fact when I was in FFA [Future Farmers of America] in my high school years, the speech I gave in the public speaking contest was about farm programs and my advocacy of them and how much good they had done for the farm people and for the country as a whole.
So you were spreading the word of the good deeds.
Yeah and talking about why this was important. In a world where most of the people were not agricultural, but where the truth needed to be told about production. They call it the production control and supply management programs now. Telling the truth about them instead of the people who criticized them and told things that were not true and just pretended like they were, farmers were a leach on the society.
In the Kerr Scott-Johnson race in 1948 did you see that particular race as or campaign as being an important choice for the Democratic Party?
Yes, but not because I knew Mr. Johnson. I've learned a lot
about it since. It was a crucial turning point both in terms of the
issues and the new generation of leadership that came along associated
with Kerr Scott. So I didn't know the other side. I just knew
that they were the standpatters, the what did we call them, the kind of
like the vested interest. The term may come to me while we're
talking. Kerr Scott was for us, the people out there in the country
where they didn't have paved roads; they didn't
have electricity; they didn't have telephones. They
couldn't get to town. We were held down.
Was that something that you and your parents and you have one brother, is that right? That you would talk about?
No. No.
This was a very early part of your life.
No, I'd hear them talk about it, and it's hard to know how you were so conscious of it, isn't it? I can't answer that question. I wish my parents were, my mother's dead. By the way she was a strong, I guess you'd call a liberal, on race issues at that time like growing out of her days at Woman's College and so forth. I mean she wasn't an activist, but I knew how she felt and what she taught. It took a while for it to fully affect me. I don't know how that happened.
But you don't recall sitting around the kitchen or—
No, I don't recall that.
Table or anything.
No, I don't.
And talking about these things.
It just kind of I heard them talk to other people. I knew, I'm sure I heard them talk to each other. Mainly I think it was a matter of issues. We did talk about issues. I knew how they felt about education. I knew how they felt about the importance of spending money to improve schools and give people a chance in life. I knew how much they valued education and thought that everybody ought to have it and it was necessary for a good future.
And your mother taught while your—
Yes.
At this age.
My mother did not teach. She'd been a teacher earlier in her life. By the way have I given you one of my books [First in the Nation]?
I have this, yes. Thank you very much.
It tells a lot about my mother or a fair amount. Some good things. But she was a stay at home mom until I believe I was a junior in high school, and she went back to teaching in order to earn enough money for me to go to college and continue until my brother finished at Wake Forest.
Your brother went to Wake Forest. I didn't realize that. So that showed her commitment to the importance of education for you as well as her contribution for other people. I know you mention in there the portion that I read the first couple of chapters that she was very close to the students, felt—as Bill Clinton would say—their pain if they had pain.
Or give them a little pain.
That they were just not students, they were a part of her life. It seems to me that's part of what you're saying in there.
Yeah, she cared about them. My mother was a very loving, caring sweet
person, sweet as she could be, high standards, loved the English
language, hurt when somebody misused it. But she really she thought
every child was equal whether they were rich or poor, black or white.
Not that we had integrated schools then, we didn't. She
genuinely was committed. She thought there was the potential for being
special in
Right. Right. What about your father? What kind of influence did he have on your thinking?
My daddy was a very strong-willed, active, determined person who would speak out and who would work through organizations to make change. He was the major leader in the Grange in eastern North Carolina and one of the major leaders in the state of North Carolina focusing on farm programs. He was a soil and water conservationist, one of the first to join it when it was established but active in every county issue, schools, the hospitals, whatever came along. He was on the progressive side, and he was vocal, not shrill but vocal, and again he was a free man. He didn't owe his livelihood to anybody. He didn't work for some boss who would tell him, ‘Shut up. Keep your mouth shut about that. You can't speak out. You can't—.’ He could and he did. So I saw an example in my father I guess in a sense my father was the strong active community leader, very engaged in the issues. My mother was the very highly educated, liberal minded person with regard to equality with high, high standards about education and a sweetness and a caring and a love for human beings. That's kind of the mix that I had.
That you had.
Now when you got into high school, Rock Ridge High School, is that where you went?
Right.
You mentioned the FFA, which obviously was an important part of your life there—
I was in the 4-H [a youth education program of the Cooperative Extension Service, a program of the USDA] a before that.
4-H before that.
But actually the FFA was the one that had the most leadership activities.
What kinds of leadership positions were you involved in, or what opportunities did you take while you were in high school that might have had some influence on your political development?
I was engaged in everything you could be engaged in just about. I guess two of the most important things I got involved in were the FFA, what we called parliamentary procedure contest. You ever heard of that?
Oh yes.
Were you on one?
I wasn't. I did not belong to the FFA.
The teams—
But we had it in my high school.
And we had public speaking contests, and I was in all of it. I was
probably the youngest person to ever make what we called a parliamentary
procedure team in which you made motions and seconds and all kinds of
things. [I] learned how to do it which was the reason I could become
lieutenant governor, start presiding over the senate without ever having
served a day in the legislature. But I was active in Beta Club, on the
teams football and basketball, president of my class as we
didn't have student government at that time. But I was
president of the junior class and senior class and as I said active in
those contests. So about everything where you had an opportunity to
develop leadership
Did you have any thoughts during these times when you were involved in these campaigns, I mean these leadership positions, that you would have a public career or was this just Jim Hunt being involved in high school government?
No, I didn't. I think two things were happening. One, I was developing a concern and an interest and a caring about issues kind of how good your schools were, whether or not you could attract good teachers and keep them, whether or not you had health care in your community. Probably you've read somewhere we'd go to town to the medical clinic and have to sit there and wait three hours. I got [it], burned me up that you'd have to wait three hours to see a doctor. I said, ‘I'm going to do something. If I ever get the chance to do something about it, I'm going to.’ Roads, if you've ever lived on a dirt road and wanted it paved badly, you never get over that. They're always bad of course. Later on I learned the term infrastructure and all that stuff. But I was developing an interest and caring about the issues, and I think I was developing some leadership skills in order to express myself, to motivate people, to pull them together, to build teams, to set goals and objectives and work towards them.
So you did feel like that was occurring at that time.
Yeah. Yeah, that's what you do in these youth organizations. That's what I later did at NC State in student government.
Is it true as I've read that when you were on the farm you actually had some cows named for political persons?
Oh yeah. Later for my girlfriends, but that was common though. We named dogs, cows, everything. Oh yeah. I named, I had one named Adlai Stevenson. I had one named Hubert Humphrey. So that was kind of early on but later—
Was that typical among people your age?
Oh, but when I really started buying some with my own money that I earned in the summertime, I started naming them for girlfriends. You've probably heard some of those stories.
No, I'd be interested.
There's one that's, see I would name. I would buy a new heifer. God, I'd spend hundreds of dollars. I might spend four or five hundred dollars for a pure bred Holstein heifer. We had a dairy farm. I'd milk in the summertime. That's part of how I earned my money and some other times during the year. But so I thought it would be neat if I would name my fancy new high priced heifer for my girlfriend. The only problem was I would change girlfriends. So one year I went out to the state fair, and I took two heifers. One was named for my current girlfriend, and one was named for my ex-girlfriend. These heifers would be in generally in different classes. They were different ages you see. Lead them in and lead them around. You'd get a blue ribbon or a red ribbon or yellow ribbon or something like that. That was fine as long as they were in different classes. But I then they'd take the top ones and put them all together. That's when the trouble came—
I can imagine.
Because the heifer named for my previous girlfriend ranked higher than the one named for my current girlfriend, and the word got back to Rock Ridge High School, and it was not funny. You might think it was funny.
It was painful.
It wasn't funny then. That girlfriend of mine said—. I talked my way out of that I guess.
I guess. Apparently you did. But you did have such an interest in politics that you would chose the names of political leaders.
Yes. I don't think it was all that serious, but somebody I admired.
It's an unusual.
That's right.
You went on to North Carolina State University. It is said about your class at North Carolina State that it might have been one of the most talented, ambitious classes in the history of North Carolina State. There are a number of people in that group, and I don't know whether it was just your class or people during that period of time. Can you talk about that group of people that you associated with?
Well, they weren't all in the same class.
No.
But we were within a couple of classes of each other. There was me, Tom
Gilmore in my class, Eddie Knox and Phil Carlton in the class right
after us. We were all together in student government. The truth is the
people that had come along in the FFA many of whom had sort of been my
proteges were the, became student government officers. In fact I think
Norris Tolson—. I think we had six student body presidents in
a
Yes, I read about that. Back to when you were at North Carolina State, other than that group of close friends many of whom had been in the FFA were there other developments or influences that came to bear on your political thinking and your interest in politics that you could mention?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I would say in my political science courses,
particularly those I took under Abe Holtzman, I began to see the
difference in the parties. Remember these are the days when the
conservative party was dominated by the old guard, the Taft element. By
the way some of the Tafts are good now. I've got a good
friend named Taft in Ohio who I guess is Robert Taft's son,
grandson. So I became, I began to be sensitized
What was this, agricultural education?
Agricultural education, yes. And became more and more aware of how badly we were doing in our public schools and how unfair it was and how counterproductive it was for our economy. So when Terry Sanford came along, I was ready for him. North Carolina was ready for him. I was ready for him. I threw myself into his campaign wholeheartedly.
Now you had been a student government leader also at North Carolina State. I think you had been student body president on two occasions.
Right. Right. Right.
Was this group that you were associated with and Abe Holtzman and these
people like Phil Carlton, Tom Gilmore and Norris Tolson and others were
these people
I don't think we saw ourselves as running for office at that time. I think we saw ourselves as being a part of a team that was making a difference then and could make a difference in the future. My guess is the first time we ever signed up in a campaign was in the campaign of 1960.
The Sanford campaign.
Yeah.
All of them were in that group.
Yeah.
No division at that time.
Yeah. Exactly right. Not much since.
And not much since. Yes, I understand that.
There were others. You've got David Weinstein down here who managed, co-managed my campaign for student government president. And a number of others, if I had time I could go back and think of some others. But anyhow we weren't thinking about running for office, but we wanted to make a difference, and we were activists by nature, and we had some leadership skills. So I guess we were kind of coming along and getting ready even though we didn't know what we were getting ready for.
But you were ready you said for Terry Sanford.
Right.
What was it about the Terry Sanford campaign and candidacy that appealed to you?
Well, he was a continuation of the Kerr Scott tradition of standing up for the average man and being for jobs and opportunities, a general progressive image and being willing to fight the old guard. That's what we called it, the old guard. That's what I couldn't think of a while ago. Second and most important, he was for education. The way he was going to change the state was to change the schools and give us a far better education. Third, he was a young vigorous charismatic figure, political figure that young people, modern kind of people I think could identify with and feel strongly about and want to be involved in helping be a part of the team.
What did you do in that campaign?
In that campaign I was chairman of the Young Voters for Terry Sanford, Young College Voters for Terry Sanford, I guess. I'm not sure of the name we used. It was my job to organize the college campuses for Terry Sanford. I recruited a number of people, two that I can mention to you. One was Bill Wichard, now former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, before that a state senator, before that member of the house and now dean of the law school at Campbell University. He and one of his colleagues led the Terry Sanford campaign at Chapel Hill. I went to the campus and recruited them. I went to East Carolina and recruited the student government president, Glenn Jernigan, former state senator and others around the state. So I was working for Terry; we were working for the schools. We were excited about a new wave, a new generation of leaders. I guess John Kennedy called them a new generation of Americans. But we were also developing a lot of new leaders. This was the first time colleges had been organized for a political candidate. I was getting to do it.
Was that your idea to organize on the college campuses?
No, it was not my idea. No. Wilson Woodhouse recruited me to do that. He was head of Young Voters for Terry Sanford. I remember him coming to my house. I was living in a mobile home. We call it a trailer, thirty-six by eight. I can tell you exactly how big it was out here in a trailer park in Cary. He and his wife came to our house and recruited me. I don't know if he was married then or not. Maybe he just came alone. But he came and talked to me about being chairman of College Young Voters for Sanford. I liked it. I believed it was a good thing to do. So I took it on. I traveled all over the state to college campuses.
Did you find at that time a lot of interest on those campuses?
Yes. I mainly went to see people who were active in Young Democrats because I was already active in that. In fact I was probably that year college vice president for the statewide YDC, a position we had created a couple of years before that.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Activities of course, state student legislature and so forth. I'd just go see the student government president and try to get him or her to be the leader for Terry Sanford.
Had there been an organization, you as a student government president at North Carolina State, had there been an organization of student government presidents that provided you with contacts.
No, there was not. There was a state student legislature. That came the closest to being an organization. It seems like the student body president at Carolina and NC State and maybe at that time Woman's College but those are the only, aren't there four universities in the Consolidated University before we had the whole system.
Yes.
What was the other one?
Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Greensboro—
Greensboro. Is there a fourth one? I can't name a fourth one. Maybe it was just those three.
Just been those three.
They got together from time to time but not like they do now and have for the last probably twenty years or so.
Now did those contacts that you made at that time with these leaders on these various campuses were they contacts that have been beneficial to you in later years?
Absolutely. They were the base of my support. All the contacts that I
made, my friends at NC State who went out to become agriculture teachers
and county agents and farm leaders all over the state, my contacts in
law school, students that I went to law
So you were at this point at least accumulating lots of names as you were building a team.
I didn't know what I was going to run for. I didn't know I was going to run. But I just I've always been a team builder. I've always had goals that I've worked for. I was finding people who could get a job done, who cared, who would be involved and who could make a difference.
So you had farmers; you had attorneys; you had student body people, presidents and other leaders. What other components of that team would be most important?
Educators.
Educators.
These guys who were in FFA and who majored in agricultural education were vo-ag teachers, became county agents. They also became school principals and superintendents and community college presidents.
You kept in touch with these people.
Yeah.
Would these be what you called the keys in various counties?
Well, at that point they were my keys.
Eventually.
Later on that became kind of a, these were key friends I would say. Later on we developed a, which Terry had done, a system of having a key person that was the key one person in that county, maybe a couple. But yes, they were sort of early on, I didn't use that term, but they were my friends. They were people I knew; they were people I knew could make a difference.
What do you think it was, Governor, that caused you at some point to say, ‘Yes, I am going to run for public office’?
Jack, I don't know. I was practicing law in Wilson County,
active in Young Democrats, beginning a family, caring deeply about the
schools, dissatisfied with the stand pat leadership and had seen Terry
Sanford give us a new kind. Richardson Preyer one of the finest leaders
ever to come along proposed to continue that. I had seen Bob Scott come
along and supported him very strongly. That was when I was state
president of the Young Democrats. I didn't talk about that to
you I guess. I ran for state president of the Young Democrats in fall of
'67 and was no, yes, fall of '67, served during
the fall of '67 and '68. When during the campaign
(and Tim Valentine was the state party chairman) I vigorously and
actively organized the counties and the colleges. I really built it up a
lot with others' help. But in thinking about it Kerr Scott
had come along and led us in the right direction vigorously, strongly,
powerfully. Terry Sanford did a, took it again especially in education
which to me was the most important issue. Dan Moore I know in retrospect
was a good governor. Because I had worked for Preyer I didn't
think
You said you had already contacted Bert Bennett by this time. What was the nature of that contact and would you talk about the role of a Bert Bennett in your political development?
Bert of course had been the campaign manager for Terry Sanford and had been party chairman. I can't remember exactly what Bert said to me, but he was at least open to the idea.
Had you written him to say I'm interested or—
Thinking about it.
Thinking about it.
What do you think? I might have even talked about several possibilities in terms of the council of state. I don't know if I've got that letter, what he wrote me back. I don't know if I've got it or not. One of these days I've got to go through all my stuff.
That's right.
In any event Bert was open to the idea. Those were during the days when
Bert was very active, not trying to be a power. He'd lost his
race for the senate up there. But completely loyal to his friends and
supportive of progressive candidates and
Now did that mean that you were sort of adding to your resources to build support in the state or was Bert Bennett part of the organization?
No. No. I would say that was stepping up to the major leagues. I'd worked with all these what do you call these farm teams. I had a strong support from the farm team organization around the state. But when Bert supported me and put his full resources into my campaign and wrote and contacted every friend he had in the state, and if you were a friend of Bert Bennett's, you were a friend. He was your friend.
Yeah.
I remember he would always, if I ever see him at something, he didn't start talking about politics. He started talking about your family, your children. It was that kind of relationship. People would do anything in the world for him. The most honest man I ever saw in politics. Never doing something so he could get something out of it. I might add making John Brown sure his candidates didn't.
Didn't get anything out of it?
Didn't get indebted to people. His term was don't let them have a string on you which means they could pull your string and get you to do something. It's not right.
If I remember correctly, Bert Bennett was actually considering running for the governorship or at least some people were promoting him during the late 1960s.
I believe that's right. I think that, well now let's see here. Terry served '60 to '64. Didn't Bert run for the senate in '66?
I think that's right because it was right after I went to Winston-Salem.
One of those years when it was just a Republican landslide. After that I do not know what his thoughts were. All of us loved him and would've supported anything he wanted to run for. But I think he probably made it clear after that state senate race that he wasn't going to run.
It was a disappointment to him.
You said you explored possibly different offices, council of state offices, but you did decide on the lieutenant governorship. Why did you do that?
Well the office had been made full-time at a very modest salary I might add. But I thought it was, it offered potential. I mean what are you in this business for, to make change and in my case especially to improve education dramatically. I wasn't running for an office. I was running to get something done. The lieutenant governor was the president of the senate, and he was the presiding officer of the senate, appointed committees, and referred bills. It was a powerful position. When I got in it, some of the older senators tried to take that power away. They didn't do it.
During your term.
Oh yeah.
Which they did do of course eventually.
Yeah, later on. But yeah I could, I knew I could change things. I could improve things. I very actively worked at that when I was lieutenant governor.
Now you said you were particularly interested in maybe even motivated by education and there is a position of superintendent of public instruction that could have given you maybe or would it have given you maybe as much of a platform to promote education as the lieutenant governorship did.
That's a very important position I had always associated with a full-time professional, long term educator which I now realize it doesn't have to be. We've got an excellent man there now. But I know I was interested in the policies and the budgets that come through the legislature, changing education that way. Back in those days if you want to say what's the number one thing, you say teacher's salaries. I now know it's a lot more complex than that. It's standards and salary and student standards and accountability for the system and all the things I talked about—
Early development and all that.
Yeah. But in fact Terry used the term quality education. That was enough back then to tell us who was who. Later on it wasn't nearly enough to tell us what you need to do. But I was thinking about how do we change this state. Do I get involved in it? Do I need to get involved in it? Can I be a real factor here? I thought I could. I didn't have a, though I talked about some very good issues in that race. I don't know if you know much about the issues in that race.
If you would talk about them.
I'll talk about some of them. I ran on putting in kindergartens. So did Jim Holshouser incidentally. I probably talked more about it than anybody did.
Bob Scott had already started that program to some extent.
I think there was a little pilot project.
A pilot program.
I forget exactly how much. I talked about land use planning. I talked
about modernizing the legislature, putting in electronic voting, having
staffs for the legislature,
That's fine.
Those are some of them.
Let me get to the larger question about using or occupying that particular office because while Bob Scott had occupied that office and did become the governor in 1968. You had to go all the way back to (O. Max) Gardner to any previous lieutenant governor in modern times who had used that office. Maybe Mr. Philpott might have been able to use it if he had lived. We don't know. I know that Terry Sanford thought that was a possibility for him. But a lot of people didn't see either the potential in that office or thought the possibility of realizing that potential by being in that office. If you were interested in changing the state and you probably knew you weren't going to be able to do that simply in the lieutenant governorship, you could get started there but that—
It's logical to say, ‘Well, you were just getting
ready to run for governor.’ But I wasn't. I
thought Skipper Bowles would be elected although we did have a one-term
limit in those days. I wanted to be a part of a progressive team to move
North Carolina forward. Of course when I won, especially when Skipper
lost, then I had a whole lot more responsibility as the party leader. I
worked very hard at it, and it was very hard to do. I worked actively
for getting the Coastal Area Management Act through. Holshouser
supported it and proposed it. But I got it through the senate, and
Julian Allsbrook would've killed it. I supported, actively
supported education appropriations.
Governor, we were talking about the idea of using the lieutenant governor's position to be a factor in the state in terms of moving the state forward. Can you talk about how you saw that happening in that position?
Well, first let me say to you that I was a very active lieutenant governor. I might have been the first one ever with a quote program, not necessarily with a program that I sponsored and got initiated but taking a position on virtually every issue and pushing hard and working actively to get them through. That was the case on education issues especially appropriations, passing public school kindergarten, phasing that in, later phased in Smart Start in a similar kind of way, working for conservation and environmental issues like the Coastal Area Management Act, supporting what I thought was good whether it was Governor Holshouser's program or not. A lot of Democrats didn't like that. They thought I ought to fight the Republican governor. I was issue oriented. I was in it for, I agreed with Governor Holshouser on many things. I still do and have a great, great admiration for him.
Now a number of people at that time might have felt, a number of people let's say in the North Carolina Senate, might have felt that you were not a part of the North Carolina Senate. You were an executive official. You had not been in state government—
Prior to that I hadn't been in the senate.
Had not been in the senate.
Can I get you anything to drink here?
If you have something, sure that would be fine. Turn this—
The senate. Listen, I was young. I had never been in the legislature. I might have been viewed as an upstart. I had all these ideas about issues. There were several things that made it tough to work effectively.
If you were sympathetic to Holshouser on issues, even on issues, that was also a problem wasn't it.
That was not a plus in the eyes of some of them. That wasn't clear early on. He'd won, and these were Democratic kinds of issues. Good gosh. But I really had my hands full leading that senate.
How could you do it because I've talked with Governor Scott for example who had also been lieutenant governor with Governor Moore? You get the impression from not only him but other reading that I've done that the lieutenant governor is not supposed to be an active leader. He's supposed to be just a figurehead.
That's not what I ran for. That wasn't what my life
was about. Mine was about being active and being a leader and getting
things done. That's the I think the theme you'll
see running through my life getting things done, change things, make
improved opportunities for people especially for people who
haven't had much of a chance. I just worked at it, Jack. I
remember after being elected lieutenant governor being up here when we
had a big snowstorm and I couldn't get home because I was
living in Rock Ridge. My wife was building a house the year I was
running. I stayed up here days on end trying to figure out how to
appoint the committees. I asked, I got some input from the senators. But
also was figuring out who would get something done for me now or for
North Carolina but be willing to respond to my leadership. I
wasn't going to
[Thank you so much.]
[Thank you Sheila. Sheila I'll be leaving at five. So if y'all can just have my stuff ready for me, hear.] I remember asking Kenneth Royal if he'd be willing to be on the education committee. I found out he had been on the school board in Durham County years before. He hadn't been on the education committee in years. He was about the boss of the legislature. I don't think he wanted to be on the education committee. But I wasn't, I don't think I asked him to be the chairman. I just wanted him to be on it because I thought he had a good background, and he was a strong man. He was willing to do it. I tried to be fair to the members of the senate. But I was picking committees not just to put them somewhere or to give everybody one of their first choices. I was picking committees to try to get action on issues that I thought were important actions that were important for North Carolina.
Did you face resistance doing that?
Yeah. Some of them didn't like what I appointed them to, but
not overwhelming. We developed a good relationship. I worked well with
them, and I won't say I won them over, but we developed a
good I think working relationship. I think they thought I was a fair
presiding officer. But again I was the president of the senate. In the
debate on the Coastal Area Management Act, Senator Julian Allsbrook was
determined it was not going to pass. He was a powerful man, had the
longest seniority in the senate, sat on the front row right to the right
of the, when you looked down, there he was in the front. Longest serving
man in the senate. Very articulate in those days. When the
So you used your power or your ability to preside and to recognize in a way that fostered the particular issues that you were interested in and that did not cause you great difficulty?
Oh yeah. Sure it did. There was a fair amount of resentment among members of the senate, about all Democrats.
Yes.
Although the Republicans got a pretty good group the second I guess 1974,
one of those years when you had a big turnover. The house speakers well
Carl (Stewart)—Gaston County—Carl, I'll
think of it. He and I had were generally on the same wavelength
politically in terms of political philosophy, but Jim Ramsey, a pretty
moderate guy but didn't have an interest in legislation. I
remember trying to sit down and say, ‘Look if
you'll help me with this bill, what are you interested
in?’ He didn't
The other part of your relationship was of course your relationship with the governor. During this time some in the senate were trying to make it difficult for Governor Holshouser to be governor.
Oh yeah. Trying to take his powers away.
Take his powers away, doing a variety of things. How did you handle that?
I opposed taking his power away because I thought it was wrong for the state. The governor had little enough power. He didn't have succession; he didn't have the veto. I didn't do it for Governor Holshouser even though I like and respect him and had a good, I think he'll tell you we had a good relationship.
He has told me that.
But I just thought it was wrong for North Carolina. Why would you come in here and strip his powers? He's the leader of the state. So I opposed those things, and some of the party faithful got upset with me, not out, it wasn't any vote or huge outcry. They couldn't understand why I wasn't helping strip this Republican governor especially after he had had that helicopter fly around and fire all those people.
That didn't endear him to people. Who were the major, what
were the major factions in the party that you had to deal in your party,
that you had to deal with at this
I guess they were. There was a kind of [a] power vacuum to be honest with you. We didn't know how to deal with losing the governorship. Skipper remained the titular head. He had his people, his party chairs and things like that, state party chairs. But I just worked at doing my job. I literally had not decided early on to run for governor. I knew why I was there, to try to do things, same kind of things that I'd run on. I'd always worked on and for other people's campaigns. So I just worked at it day by day pushing hard, leading on issues, trying to get the senate to come along, dealing with the house as best I could, supporting good things that the governor was proposing. He proposed raising teacher's salaries, very significantly. I told you about kindergarten, and I was a very active supporter. I probably supported his education proposals and Coastal Area Management Act and things like that stronger than any lieutenant governor had ever supported a governor. I think the lieutenant governors by and large had been kind of neutral on issues.
Right, they had been.
I was very active in support of what I thought was good.
So while you were lieutenant governor, when did you begin focusing on, you had a limit on your term, what's next?
Well, the question was what do you do at the end of it? I very
consciously put off that decision. You ought to work at the job
you're in, and if you do that job well and other
opportunities open up, then you'll have a good shot at it. If
you don't do your job well, you ought not to get it. So I
never spent my time thinking about that. People
You came to Boys' State I recall.
Listen. I bet you, I bet I made more speeches during the four years than anybody ever served in any office. Elaine Marshall may be making more now. I was really active out there getting around, but I was learning the state see. That's one of the bad things I see about the television age we're in now. You can run for governor today and win and never been in half the counties and not have a picture of them. I've got a picture of every county in North Carolina. I can tell you how to get to the county seat. I can tell you friends there. I can tell you experiences I've had there. I can tell you what the economy is like, what life is like. I've been at most of the schools, I mean in most of the counties I've been in their schools. It's imprinted on my mind every area of the state which I am just very grateful for. I think it's been invaluable in helping me be an effective leader for North Carolina.
Must be.
But that's the way I worked at it as lieutenant governor. If I'd never run for governor, I'd still have been proud of what we got done, what I was a part of.
From that experience as lieutenant governor did you feel that the governor and the lieutenant governor should be a team as they're elected?
I didn't have strong feelings about it one way or another. I
found as I attended lieutenant governor's conferences around
that you had a split situation in a lot of states and some of the time,
plenty of times you'd have a Democratic governor and
You mentioned that was a very important legacy of your mother that that was something she had felt very strongly about.
Yes. It was just a matter of right and wrong. But when we went through the segregation debates and all of that, I can remember hearing Al Lowenstein speak. Did you ever hear him speak?
I did.
How powerful he was. How dramatic he made these issues. It just came clear to me, ‘Hey, you cannot be a Christian and believe in what Jesus taught and be committed to making it happen on earth and support discrimination and segregation.’ You can't do it. It's wrong. We've got a responsibility to change it. I never believed you could just bow something and go away. If you believe in it strongly, if it's a really important issue, you'd got to get involved and fight for it or against whatever it is.
The race like in 1972 when you ran for the lieutenant governorship, was that an issue at that point?
Not really. There was a little mumbling around that I had been in a civil rights march in Wilson County. I had gone on the, I'd been asked as a young lawyer there to be on the what we called the Good Neighbor Council way back then set up by Terry Sanford. I said, ‘No, I just don't believe I've got time for it.’ Then Martin Luther King was killed, and I told them that I, I think I called up the mayor or somebody else and said, ‘Listen, I'll serve on it.’ They said, ‘Well, we've got a kind of a memorial service that's going to be held at a black Baptist church.’ We want you to come. So I went. At the end of the service they announced now we're going to have a vigil or procession down to the courthhouse. I never thought about it being a march, but it was a part of the service and we're going to conclude with a prayer. I joined in. Some people around the edges tried to say I was a civil rights activist, and I'd marched in this that and the other. It was pretty, that was still had a lot of potency in those days now.
Back when you were in Chapel Hill those marches were going on.
Right.
When you were in the law school because I was in school at the same time that you were. In fact my wife and I were talking last night about these memories that we had about the marches in Chapel Hill and members of my family coming from Missouri and being sort of startled by these marches on Franklin Street. But those were not part, you didn't become involved in those activities.
No, I was not an activist in that sense. I had come to feel pretty strongly, and I increasingly felt strongly about what was right and wrong and giving people full and equal rights. I feel more strongly about it now. Every year I feel more strongly about it, that and protecting the environment are two things that I feel more and more strongly about and giving everybody an equal opportunity for good education. But to get back the, some of that, there were people who, there were some people who picked at things in those days, but in the race for governor I don't think that was ever much of an issue.
I still want to if we can get back to the idea of when did you decide that you would be—
Running for governor.
A candidate for governor.
Jack, I think I announced about October.
Of '71, '75. Excuse me, '75.
'75 right. I'd have to go back. My guess is I made
the decision within a couple of months of that time. Typically you would
wait until the legislature was over with, and these were, as I said I
was working hard in the legislature. By the way we had some tough, they
think we've got a tough time with the budget here. Let me
take them
The second half of that was a very difficult time.
Oh tough. So my recollection is we finished the legislature, and then I contacted all my folks. I was in constant touch with them. But I didn't make a decision until after—
END OF INTERVIEW