Well, I just don't know why my philosophy developed. I think that it . .
. I didn't have any near relatives in politics, except that my father
ran for deputy sheriff one time, and chief of police, a farmer and a
merchant, all of that, but he never did succeed very much in politics. I
didn't have any other near relatives, except an uncle who was
superintendent of public instruction in a south Alabama county. But I,
from early days, had an aptitude toward politics. When I was in grammar
school, I was president of the Heflin Literary
Society and then later on, I was editor-in-chief of the Camp Hill
Radiator, the little magazine that we put out. Then, I went to Dothan,
Alabama, and taught school for a year when I was seventeen years old,
that would have been in the early days of the war. And then I took an
interest in BYPU and was president the following year and my first year
in college, I was president of the Alabama BYPU. Then at college, the
University of Alabama, I was a member of the executive committee from
the freshman class, my first year. Later on, I represented the
University on the debating team and at the Southern Oratorical Contest
at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I ran for president of the student body
in my last year. My third year, I took the course in three years and one
summer. And fortunately lost. And then I went to Harvard Law School and
I was president of the Beale Law Club, one of the law clubs at the law
school.
Then, I went to the University of Arkansas and taught law for a year and
then moved to Florida, to Perry, Florida, down below Tallahassee. And I
hadn't been there quite three years when I was elected to the Florida
legislature, the house of representatives. And then I was named to the
state Democratic executive committee. Then I was defeated for reelection
there in 1930 and moved to Tallahassee and in '34, I ran for the U.S.
Senate against an incumbent senator, lost by 4,050 votes. They stole it
from me, but I didn't complain about it. Two years later, both senators
died, in '36. I first announced against the one that I had previously
opposed and when the other one died, I switched over, I made an effort
for his seat, and no one ran against me in the primary or general
election. So, I was nominated and elected when I had just become
thirty-six years old, to the United States Senate.
So, when I came here, I had taken a liberal position in my first campaign
for the Senate in '34. My first plank in my platform was for federal aid
to education. And my people were relatively poor people and I had a
deep sympathy for the problems of the South, I
knew something about those problems. I worked in a steel mill one summer
at Ensley, Alabama, and I did some summer work on the farm and all that.
But I still, in '38, participated in a filibuster here against an
anti-lynching bill in the Senate. Because I thought that a senator from
the South had to do that. But instead of talking about pot likker and
reading the Bible and so-and-so as a filibuster, I talked about the
economic conditions of the South. And I said, "If you people from the
North would help us to improve our economic position in the South, we
wouldn't have so much of this problem that you are trying to deal with
in this way now."
But from then on, that was in '38, from then on, I never again
participated in a filibuster. I voted for every resolution of cloture. I
voted every time to include the rules to prevent a filibuster. I voted
for every civil rights bill that came up. So, I guess that I came
probably under the spell of Roosevelt more than anything else. I was
groping for . . . well, my first speech in the Senate, June 17, 1937,
they had up an appropriation bill for the relief administration. And I
got up late one afternoon and made my speech and it was a liberal
speech. One of the things that I pointed out was that in every period of
the past, whenever there were problems to be met, there was somebody
raising the red flag of danger and saying, "You can't afford to do
that." Or, "We musn't do that." And I said, "But the progress of
humanity has been achieved by those who have said, 'Let's go ahead.''"
And so on. And so, Bob Wagner came to me the next day, Senator Wagner
from New York, and said, "Pepper, I was down to see President Roosevelt
this morning and he said, 'What sort of fellow is young Pepper who made
that speech yesterday afternoon in the Senate?'" And he said, "Well . .
. [unclear]," and he said, "Well, I knew
that he was here, but . . . tell him to come down and see me, I would
like to talk to him." And that had caught his eye, the idea that a new
senator from the South would get up and make that kind of a speech. And I got into a colloquy with Bailey from North
Carolina. And I got the laugh on him a time or two, for which he never
forgave me.
But anyway, I have grown generally, I grew more liberal as I grew older.
Whereas, it is just the opposite here in most instances. Men like Pat
Harrison came here as a great liberal and wound up as a great
conservative. A noble man and my dear friend, but that's what happens.
And that's what generally happens here. But I happen to have gone in the
other direction, I don't know just why, except that I just saw what the
colossal problems and needs of the people were in so many areas,
education, health, and job training, and housing, and all the things
that have to do with the amenities of life. And I didn't know any area
where was this potential aid equivalent to the federal government. This
was a great country and if we could get the federal government behind it
. . . you see that statue right on my desk, that's a Samothrace, the
Winged Victory, given me by the Lasky Foundation with a ten thousand
dollar honorarium for being the author of five bills for setting up
institutes in the National Institute of Health, like heart and different
ones, heart and a whole lot of others. So, I saw all those needs and
here was a great government that had a power to help and it seemed to me
that there was a place to turn if you wanted to do anything. As I often
said, I didn't have any money, I couldn't be a Rockefeller or a Ford,
but if I could get the United States government behind it, I could do
things even more than they could do. And so my ideas, the best thing
that I could do to explain it is that just by having a conscience that
was concerned, about the problems, turned to what seemed to me to be a
ready source of aid. Now, if you want to call that liberalism, that's
what it was.