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This is Horace Peterson, executive Director and founder of the Black Archives of Mid-America, and I'm interviewing this morning Congressman Richard Bowling. What district is that? 5th District of Missouri. The 5th District of Missouri. Good morning, Mr. Bowling. How are you? Uh, Mr. Bowling, first of all,

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we need a little bit of root information about the man. Uh, where were you born? I was born in New York City. 1960. 1960. Right. Do you remember what hospital you were born? I was born in Baby's Hospital. In Baby's Hospital. Baby's Hospital. I don't know

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if it still exists. My father was a surgeon in New York. My mother was a nurse, and all I remember, all I know is that I was told I was born in Baby's Hospital. Is that right? All right. Um, where were your, where was your mother

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from? My mother was from La Crosse, Wisconsin. OK, and your father? My father was from Huntsville, Alabama. All right, what were the circumstances of them coming to New York? He was a, uh, surgeon, a young surgeon. And she was uh uh he'd he'd been educated at

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the University of Virginia. I don't know where he got his high school education. He got a rather poor medical education at the University of Virginia but was competent enough so that he got a good internship at a New York hospital. I don't know which one. She

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was the daughter of some very wealthy people in La Crosse, Wisconsin who was uh uh. Not a revolutionary, but very much ahead of her time. She's still alive. She's almost 90. She was, um. She went to Vassar and graduated, was very prominent there. She was a

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friend of Justice Brandeis. She's quite an unusual woman, and she got involved in something that nobody, uh, no respectable person did and be a nurse in the early part of this century, a respectable person would not have been a nurse. It was a very, very. Low

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grade job that was looked down upon in society and my mother was enough of a. Enough out of phase so that she went ahead and was a nurse and that's how she met my father and they married. Mhm. Uh, where was, you say your mother was

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from Wisconsin? Right. Alright, uh, where was her family originally from? Well, I haven't, I'm not much on genealogy, but the, uh, her, I do know that her grandfather moved back to Wisconsin from Minnesota. He was a railroad lawyer and I don't know the history of the

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family. It's English and German and a little bit of everything. What, on your, On my mother's side on your father's side. It's what they call Scotch Irish. It's a family that came to the country very early and settled in Virginia and the Carolinas and moved to

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a variety of states. All the Bowlings come out of one family. OK. Bowling, that is a Scotch-Irish name or what is that? I think it's an English name. It's an English name, but they're all mixed up. There's all kinds of blood in the family. I don't

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know. I, I, I, I don't know my own genealogy very well. I've never been interested, that much interested in the past, although my field was history. Uh-huh. Uh, do you have brothers and sisters? I had a brother. He's dead. All right. Uh, what was his name?

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His name is John. OK. Um, was he also born in New York? No, let's see, where was he born? Yeah, I guess he was born in New York. Yeah, he was born in New York. I don't know where exactly. I don't remember. He was 7 years,

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I was 7 years old when he was born. All I know is he was born in a hospital in New York. Um, how long did you live in New York? I lived in New York until I was about 14 or 15. I went to prep school

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in New Hampshire at a place called Exeter. Uh, what schools did you go to in New York? I went to a private school called Stevenson. I didn't go to school. I didn't go to, I didn't go to grade school. I was sick sick, grade did you

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presume then? I guess I went to school when it was about the, well I, let me see if I can get it straight, you're, you're, you go to high school when you go to the 9th grade, and I guess I went to Allen Stevenson in about

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the 6th grade. The rest of the, the earlier education came at home, at home for my mother and my mother, right, um, um, as, as, as, as well as you can remember, what kind of a person was, was, was Richard Bowling, uh, let's say at 5

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years of age or 6 years of age. I don't have. Were you a brat? Were you a, a, a. No, no, I was supposed to be sick. I read a lot. I, I was very precocious about reading. Um-hum. I read a great deal and I, I

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was supposed to be sickly. It doesn't show, but I was supposed to be sickly. Do you remember where you lived in. New York? Well, we lived in, on a place called Gramercy Park, and then we lived later in a place called, uh, In an apartment uptown.

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My father moved uptown so he could be closer to the hospital where he's the chief surgeon. Um-hum. Would you consider your family wealthy at that time? No, he was not, uh, particularly well off, although he, when he died, he died very young. He was on the

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verge of having a very lucrative practice. How, how old was he when he died? He was in his mid-40s. Mid 40s? Yeah. OK. Do you remember him? I remember him not, not well. He was a very, all I remember about him is he was a very

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busy and, uh, fine looking man. Uh, prep school, um, where was this prep school that you went to? It's at Exeter, New Hampshire. It's, it's, uh, supposed to be a very good school and I was a very unsuccessful student. Was it? No, it was not. It's

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an absolute classic old boys school. Did you like it? No, despised it. Uh, how did you excel? I played, I played good. I was a good soccer player. Soccer. That's about all I did. Did you let her? No, I got sick before I let her. Really?

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What, uh, this sickness, what, what, what was the problem? I don't have any idea. I don't have any idea. Maybe it was my mother, who knows. OK, uh, uh, what, what, what, what classroom studies did you the only, the only thing that I was interested in,

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this is absolutely insane, but the only thing I was interested in was Latin. Latin. I had a very good Latin teacher, teacher in grade school, and I studied Latin more than practically anybody that served in Congress in 100. So you can read the uh what is

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it traces. I can't do it anymore. I've lost two languages. You can read a dollar bill though, right? Yeah, I, I've lost two languages in in in my life. I, I knew Latin very well once and I don't anymore and I used to know very well

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and I don't anymore. Did, did your mother and father speak these languages? My mother still reads German, French, Italian. My mother was educated largely, uh, after she left Vassar. She was educated largely in uh in France until she came back to be a nurse. Um, then

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when did you graduate from, from prep school? I didn't. You didn't. I left prep school with I wasn't thrown out, but I might have been. I did very badly at prep school and I got hurt, um, playing football. And uh position I played end and tackle.

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Uh, I got hurt playing football and so I, I left prep school sick. And worked in a little school in New York for a few months trading tutoring in French for manual arts with you were doing the tutoring. No, they were tutoring me and I was,

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I was teaching 789, 10 year olds how to hammer nails. Where was your brother all this time? My brother was around. Is he older or younger? He was younger, 7 years younger. 7 years younger. OK, um, uh, tell me a little bit more about New York

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at that particular time. I didn't like it. Why? Because it was too busy and too crowded and too difficult, and I just didn't like it. Did it seem enormous at that particular time? Oh yeah, terribly frightening. Um, what was transportation like in New York at the

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subway and it was great. It was, it was lots of fun. I enjoyed riding. Can you reflect on Harlem at that time? That was a very affluent. My contact my contact with Harlem came through, uh, more with music than anything else. I had a friend who's

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still around who's the vice president of Columbia. Who was the developer really of uh most of the, the 1930s great jazz bands. He was and he had a lot to do with the integration of them, a man named John Hammond. He had a lot to do

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with Count Basie. He had a lot to do with Benny Goodman. He had a lot to do with all of that. He was a little bit older than I, and he was, uh, he was a very rich man that came from a very rich family which

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was related to the Vanderbilts, and he and a cousin of mine who has since become a rather, rather famous, uh. Movie producer who does most of his production and uh. In England. Spent a lot of time at. Our apartment because they found my mother interesting and

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stimulating. She was uh. She, they spent a lot of time with her because she was sympathetic to their aspirations to be, uh, artists, uh, to be, uh, uh, involved in music and things like that. And John was friendly to me and, and, and helped me uh.

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Get around and my memories of Harlem are really of music and musicians. I traveled one time for a week with Basie, uh, with Hammond. What was the, what were the circumstances of this? Well, I was just going along for the ride, uh, and I had a

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friend. Were you a musician at all? No, I just, you know, I just was going along. I was sort of footloose and uh I, I think this time, the time I moved around with him, I was between, uh, college and going to an old war. And

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I just think, I think I took some time and, and, uh. Went around with John as he looked for musicians and as he was going around with his friends. Sometimes it would by that time I lived in the South. Sometimes it would be in the South

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and sometimes it would be out of the South. I remember seeing Teddy Wilson up in Chicago and spending some time with Basie up in Chicago. You were born when 16 1916. Where were you the, uh, the opening of World War One? World War One. I was,

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uh, I guess I must have been in uh. I don't know whether I, I, I, well, I was born in 16. I don't know whether I was with my mother in Alabama or with my mother in Wisconsin or with my mother in New York, but I

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think I was in either Alabama or, or, or um. Or, uh, Lacrosse. See, my mother, as I, as I got the story, as I remember the story, left. My father went overseas in a, in a, in a hospital unit. And if I remember correctly, uh, My

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mother was either spent part of her time in Alabama with his family and most of her time in lacrosse with her family. I was an infant, obviously. I was, and we got into the war, what, when did we get into the war, 1617. 16 you're right

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about 17 I think. I was an infant. OK, um, where were you, let's say at the beginning of the depression? Well, I was, My first real consciousness of the depression. See, that was when I moved. The banks closed when I was at Exeter. Um-hum. Uh I

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don't ask you the date, but I guess it must have been 1930, 1931, 1932, 19933. The banks closed. I was in my last year at Exit. Yes. Uh, That was when Roosevelt first got in. Aye. Left Exeter and went. My mother moved to Huntsville, Alabama. My

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father was dead. How long were you in Huntsville, Alabama then? I grew up there from about the time I got out of Exeter until about, I guess I, you'd say I was living in Huntsville, and I'm hazy on that gap between 13 and 16. I, I,

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I really don't know whether we were living in, whether my mother was, had moved to Alabama or, Was still in New York, but by the time I was 16 and we lived in Alabama. What were the circumstances of you moving to Alabama? Well, I hated. New

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York, number one. You hated it, she hate it? Well, no, she liked it. Oh, OK. Because she was a good mother and that. I hated. New York and I was not a very, uh, a, a great success as a student. I wouldn't even say I was

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a great success as a teenager, and I didn't like New York and then she moved back to Alabama. She moved to Alabama. She was a Middle westerner. That was my father's home. My family had been important in Alabama history. My family, his family. And, uh, I

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went to a little school in Tennessee that was about 600 Alabama though was that agricultural community that that Huntsville at that time Huntsville is now called Rocket City USA. It has a population of about 175,000. When I was there, it was a typical county seat town

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of about 12,000. Mhm. With all the difficulties, prejudices, and complications that a metropolis in the South at that time, but it was a company town. It was a mill town, mill town cotton mill. OK. Did you have any association with black people at that particular time?

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a lot. What was the association? Well, in the South in those days, if you were A, a young white man who usually had a black companion. Who was your friend and companion and guardian. And mine was a young man who was one of the reasons that

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I was with that band because he was a musician and wanted to be a musician and wasn't quite good enough. And he, uh, the reasons later on, uh, we, we got him a job with Basie, and he, he wasn't good enough to play the trumpet. What's

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his name? His name is William Squires. Uh, and I haven't heard from William Squires in a long time. He moved to Canada quite a long time ago. He served in the military and, in a communications unit in World War II and then moved to Canada. I

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haven't seen him for a long time. My mother had, I guess, uh. Oh, in the late 40s or early 50s, I haven't heard from him in years, but uh that was one kind of contact, and then I went to this funny little school, it still, it

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still exists in the South. A classic. Southern. Episcopalian school. Called Sewannee, the University of the South in Sewannee, Tennessee. It's a very interesting little place because 6 miles away there was a place called Mount Eagle. Which was, uh, this is on a mountain in Tennessee, the

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edge of the end of the plateau that comes down from the Blue Ridge. And it was a resort. Mount Eagle was a resort, and it housed among its its resort community or off its resort community, two very different kinds of people. It had a uh a

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high there was something called the Highlander Folk school. And there was something called the fugitive movement, and the fugitive movement was composed of people from Vanderbilt University who um. Wanted the South to return not to slavery but to the to the modern equivalent almost they were

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called the fugitive movement. They were a group of people who later developed into very fine writers, John Crow Ransom, a group of people of, of talent. But they had this weird idea that you could go back to the old agrarian South and the and the slogan

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was sort of 40 acres of steel mule. At the same time, there was this Highlander folk school and I'm sure that you don't believe in some of these things, but it was often communist dominated and uh I spent some time with those people politically and otherwise

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and that was an integrated institution. There were black people going there. Yeah, and I knew a lot of black people because I was a civil writer in the 30s. What were some of the activist civil rights groups in the 30s? Can you remember? There weren't any.

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There weren't any. My mother was pro rights because of her background and because of her influence and the contacts that she helped generate. Uh, I was sympathetic and so Hammond was a great civil writer. He, he was a A very young and early member. When he

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was very young, he was an early member of the NAACP. That lady over there is my wife, Jim, um. And I had contacts through him and contacts through her and we were sort of a way station for people, uh. Well, labor people. Uh, I mean, what

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was your overall impression of the South at that particular time? This is, we're talking about the period of 1930. How did you like? Well, I, you see, in the South in those days. It was so unbelievably dreadful that if you had enough to eat, you knew

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you were lucky. And uh we used to ride the train into Huntsville and see dead bodies by the side of the railroad tracks. People who'd starve to death, would, uh, I guess a large number of those bodies were black bodies whites too. Poverty in the South

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in the 30s was totally without discrimination. What was your, in the 30s, was there any type of recollection? Do you have any type of recollection of politics in the South? Uh do you remember any political figures in the South at that time? Well, I don't remember

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the political figures. I don't even remember the name of the governor of Alabama that I served as a messenger for In the business of keeping a, Two black men from getting lynched. Uh, I don't remember his name, but I know. Did you ever see actually witness

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any lynchings, any lynchings yourself? I, I didn't witness any, but I helped prevent a couple. Uh-huh. Mill towns, white mill towns weren't very pleasant, and there was a an ugly. An ugly rape. I don't remember the year. I was still a kid. An ugly rage and

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murder and police picked up, Two black men And the middle mob gathered around the jail to uh get him and a completely racist uh National Guard commander who believed in, and I know key words when I hear him who really did believe in law and order

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in the non-key word way had to was called out by the governor and I can't remember. To um protect it. And they couldn't get, they tore down the, the wires, the telephones. They couldn't get messages in and out, and the guy who long since died, was

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married to a woman who was a friend of my mother's because she was a musician. He was a typical Southern. Redneck, if you want, a quick description. Uh, but he was a, a major or a lieutenant colonel, and he believed in his version of. Doing what,

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what the law said. Um-hum. And the law said you didn't lynch people. They said you tried them. And, um, they needed a messenger to go between the drugstore outside the mob. To the, to the jail and I was the messenger and I'd go talk, I didn't

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do, I didn't have to go through the mob for a couple of times, but it was enough. Um, I'd go to the telephone and talk to the governor or the governor's assistant and, and relay the order. Um-hum. And since I was a kid and a white

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kid. I got away with it and, and, you know, I never looked it back up. I wish I had, but my memory of it is that they protected the guys and they turned out to be the witnesses. So we're talking about a period of 1932, right?

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1933 to 1941. All right, somewhere in that'd probably be 1933, 1934. Had you met this young lady yet? Oh, no, we, we, we met much, much later. I didn't meet my first wife until I got to Kansas City at 145. This is my second one. OK.

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Um, let's see. The South is 33 to 41. Had you become politically involved at all, I mean, as a 16 and 17, just beginning, I got very involved by the time I was 18. I worked in an old battle in the South, uh, the, um, the

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fight over the TVA, which was the great liberal fight. With the power companies against everybody, and I worked with the people at Highlander Folk School. Did you work for or against the TVA? I worked for the TVA and all my friends and neighbors in the Huntsville

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thought I was a communist. Then it wasn't very popular at that time. No, no, it sure as hell wasn't, but uh. I worked for it, and I worked for some, People oriented. Public officials that were involved in the TVA fight in the little college community where

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I was. Now, this is where it gets kind of, kind of tickly. You worked for the TVA and at that time the TVA was concerning itself to a great extent with, uh, uh, uh, lower class people. The, the people that TVA relocated, right, were, were basically,

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I will say, uh, democratic constituents at that time, wouldn't you say? Well, the TVA tried to tried to begin to make some progress on uh conservation. It tried to, uh, alleviate poverty by, Making available the opportunity to farm better. It leaned where it could, uh, on

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the right side on race issues, uh, the leaning involved, uh, not integration but just a little bit, little bit of betterment in relations and attitudes and opportunities. And the first guy I worked for got elected. He got elected sheriff. This is all so corny. It sounds

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like a bad, bad novel, but he got elected sheriff. He lasted two days. They killed him. Oh yeah, it wasn't a black person. No, he's white. He's a rough, tough old boy who'd been a, who, who'd had a little old coal mine in the, in the

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mountains around there in the hills. He was a, they call it coal ride. And he, he was a hardworking guy, and he believed that the TVA might be some good to people, and something happened to him. He ended up on a telephone pole full of lead.

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You have to think about. Excuse me, doesn't want you on the tape, uh. Let me see my, um, where were you the day Pearl Harbor was bombed? Where was I? I was On a ship seven days out of Pearl toward the, the Philippines. Then you had

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joined the military by then. Yeah, I volunteered for the military and, uh, in the fall of 40 interrupted my work on a PhD at Vanderbilt. And uh in what field history history uh I was working. I then went to work at a little teacher's college in

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North Alabama called Foreign State Teachers College with a guy who had just come down to be the chairman of the Department of Education named Morris Mitchell who had been at New College Columbia, which was a very progressive, uh. Uh, college of of Dewey type education. And

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somebody down there was smart enough to hire him when he didn't have a job and he came back down and was the head of the Department of Education at Florence State Teachers and I was working with Morris, the students there and out in the out in

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the country because we didn't just stay. In the college, we did what's. Considered relatively modern, it was very new then. We went out in the country and worked with people. We worked with people to improve their schools. We worked with people to Sort of a list

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of volunteer. Very much, very much the same. Mhm. But, alright, alright. Wait a minute, wait a minute, before we get to that, were you at that time a very patriotic individual? Were you the American Uh, that's, I mean, were you, uh, the all-American boy? No, I

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wasn't the all American boy. I was already a liberal Democrat. Who, uh, I believed specifically that Hitler ought to be defeated, and I haven't changed any of my opinions on that, and I believe that it was inevitable that we were going to be drawn into that

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war, uh, because of the threat that Hitler was and the fact that he inevitably would end up allied with the Japanese. And I thought it was pretty damn important that we not lose it and I didn't happen to believe that it was a good idea for

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me to go into the military at the last moment without any training, and I volunteered. I volunteered as a, as a private and uh they didn't take me, they didn't take me until I volunteered in the fall, don't ask me a day, at 40. I worked

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at Florence State Teachers that fall and some of the winter. And they took me in April of 1941 and I, you know, wandered around the United States getting some training and then got shipped overseas on uh the day after Thanksgiving in 1941 and we were seven

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days beyond Pearl the wrong way when the Japanese hit. Where were you sworn in? I was sworn in at, uh. At Huntsville and and my first. step was to Anniston, Alabama, and I ended up and spent a couple of months at Fort McPherson, Georgia, and then

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I went on to uh. Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland and then I was shipped back to San Francisco with a unit and sent overseas. What type, uh, I mean, at this particular time, were there any association between you and and any of the black troops? You came

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in as a not that early, not that early because it was pretty strictly segregated, but I had a good deal of association with black troops later on because, uh, I ended up in a in a in a headquarters. Um, I ended up in first in a

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base section headquarters as an aide and an adjutant general to uh I went to OCS overseas. As an aide and an adjutant general to the commanding general of a of of a base section, a support section for the fighting troops, and I was involved with black

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troops and white troops and all kinds of troops. That was what the red ball express and such as well, we didn't have anything as sophisticated as that. We were the orphan area in the first year or two of the war, and we were just scratching to

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stay alive. Uh, all of us, the question, um, you were working on your PhD when, when you were inducted. Why didn't you, uh, enter OCS? Well, I wanted to go through the mall. You wanted to go the whole max. I didn't want to, uh, I'm, I

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guess I was naive. My all my friends were going in as naval officers. That was what, what a white Southerner did to me. In 1940, 1941, the ones that wanted to volunteer, they'd go in the Navy and they'd get an OCS or a direct commission, and

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I want, I don't know why I wanted to go in. Did you ever have. Because that was crazy. Did you have an association at all with, um, Uh, with, or either indirectly with, uh, General MacArthur or any of his staff, I sat outside of his door

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for quite a long time. I was, I, I, I signed his name to an awful lot of, of, uh, condolences. Did you know Al Davis in that case? I didn't know I was there. He was also on General McArthur's staff at that time. He was in

00:28:56.079 - 00:29:11.739

the headquarters. Yeah. Um, I was, I was really, I wasn't, I was an assistant to the chiefs. Um, that was my last job. General MacArthur, can you, can, can you remember anything about him? Of course, I remember a lot about him. I opened up his office

00:29:11.739 - 00:29:24.199

and closed it. I'd get there at 7 so that he'd come in at 8:30 and I'd stay till 11 so that he could leave at 88. Did you? I knew a lot about him. In my judgment, he was a fine general. Did you see, uh, did

00:29:24.199 - 00:29:40.369

you have a chance to see any? A reaction as far as race, uh, or race relations in in regards to the general. No, the army in 19 in World War Two was hardly very, very elevated on that subject. Mhm. When did, when did you leave the

00:29:40.369 - 00:29:57.449

military? I left, uh, I, I came off terminal leave in 1946. I spent 4 years. In Australia and the rest of the places to Japan and I spent some time in the Japanese occupation. I spent 5 years and some months in the military. 5 years and

00:29:57.449 - 00:30:11.300

something. What, what did you do immediately after? I went to work out here at the University of Kansas City, which was then a private university. Mhm. Also, I was Davis went to university. OK. I, I didn't go to school there. I was a veterans advisor and

00:30:11.300 - 00:30:32.599

director of student activities of Veterans Affairs. Alright, when did you start? When did you get into politics I was involved in a liberal veterans organization called the American Veterans Committee which had a slogan of Citizens First, Veterans Second, which still exists. You see, it was completely

00:30:32.599 - 00:30:48.079

integrated, and I, I can't tell you how many black people there wasn't any tokenism. It was real. Uh, Uh, uh, hold it right there. Tell me about, uh, Kansas City when you returned from the war. When I got here, yes, when you got here. Well, I

00:30:48.079 - 00:31:03.060

got here about when, because when they finally sent me back for the first time from overseas. After 40 months over there they were kind enough to send me to the command of General Staff School which is up here at Leavenworth, of course, a short course and

00:31:03.060 - 00:31:20.790

that's where I met my, I met my first wife in Kansas. Her name was Barbara. Stratton. She knows she doesn't she, I can't remember to tell you very well. Uh, she had another, another, her last name was Shannon. She was married to a guy named Shannon.

00:31:20.869 - 00:31:37.079

She was in the process of getting divorced, so I liked her, and we stayed here and I got involved in the University of Kansas City, and Larry remembers this little veterans organization. Was a very active in good causes. We believed we were going to remake the

00:31:37.079 - 00:31:54.430

world right quick. And uh we were involved in all kinds of education causes, civil rights causes, so on. At the university, for example, where I dealt with all the veterans, all the guys that were there were the own, with no exceptions, were people who'd been through

00:31:54.430 - 00:32:15.380

World War II. Let's clean up the period between, let's say your birth in 1916 to 1946, ending ending the ending of World War Two. did you have A chance to talk to anyone. Booker T. Washington, WB Du Bois, George Washington Carver, any of these people, I

00:32:15.380 - 00:32:33.819

met Mr. Carver. Where did you meet Carver? I don't even remember. I met him somewhere in the South when I was traveling around. I talked to people who were less famous, but I talked to a great many. Black leaders, sub-leaders. And I don't, I, I simply

00:32:33.819 - 00:32:47.400

don't remember that well. I don't remember the white leaders I talked to, so I just simply don't remember. What was your first elected office. What I'm sitting in now, I never ran for office before I ran for Congress, and I never have wanted to run for

00:32:47.400 - 00:33:08.589

anything else and you got to understand that I'm a complete political accident. The first time I ran, I was just a fluke. But what happened was I got involved in the political process here in Kansas City. Um, And. I got involved in in education issues and

00:33:08.589 - 00:33:28.089

all kinds of issues. Through this veterans organization through a little group called the. What the, what do we call it, the independent groups, independent voters league. And we were, you know, pretty far out in front. This is a heavily controlled machine town in those days. The

00:33:28.089 - 00:33:47.849

Democratic machine produced all the votes, uh, north of 31st Street. Uh, there were white precinct, uh, workers in the black wards. There were organization workers who ran the Italian wards, you know, it was like that. And I didn't have any, uh, was was Pendergast a name

00:33:47.849 - 00:34:03.290

to remember at that time? Jim Pendergast, but that's, that was not old TJ. Old TJ was, uh, uh, gone to jail and was and died very soon. This is the new Pendergast machine. Well, it was a REM machine that was beginning to split up and I

00:34:03.290 - 00:34:21.060

wasn't supported by any of them, but I, we worked on education. We worked on all kinds of things. Were you supported by the citizens association? No, no. Who supported you for Congress? Nobody. It was excellent. When I got in, nobody supported me except the do-gooders, and

00:34:21.060 - 00:34:38.179

the do-gooders were allied with the worst faction of the bunch. They were allied with the anti-Pendergast faction led by a man named Beagio who was later shot. Who was later murdered in front of a picture of Harry Truman and his political club out here in 15th

00:34:38.179 - 00:34:54.489

Street, but he supported me by accident. Because the guy that they expected to support went down to Jefferson City to win the state convention and double crossed them. And they didn't have a 10 and they were alive with the do-gooders and the do-gooders were for me.

00:34:55.159 - 00:35:09.790

And I was the only surviving do-good candidate. Mr. Truman had not been for me in the primary. He was for the other fellow because he came from a faction that he understood. And from a background he understood and he thought I was half communist and half

00:35:09.790 - 00:35:25.830

uh half uh gangster. Did, did you know, uh uh uh I've met him. I've met him, but I had, uh, I was not supported by him. Who was your platform like the Truman platform. I, I ran because I wanted somebody that believed in Truman's program, but

00:35:25.830 - 00:35:39.840

that didn't help me with Truman. When I got to Congress after having been elected in this fluke, nominated by accident, and then of course Mr. Truman couldn't win in 1948, and everybody around here told me I shouldn't talk about him and all I did was campaign

00:35:39.840 - 00:35:56.739

on his coattails. So when he carried every precinct in Jackson County, I went in firmly attached to his coattails, one of the happy accidents from my point of view, and before the year was out, before 1949 was out, he decided I was all right. Because I

00:35:56.739 - 00:36:15.199

really did believe in this program and Mr. Truman became my, you could almost say patron. And in 1950 I went through the same exercise. I couldn't have won because Donagio had been killed. Pendergast had come back into power. And they were gonna dump Binagio before he

00:36:15.199 - 00:36:28.679

got killed, said he, I was gonna be a one term congressman because I didn't mind, which is lucky for me since, you know, and then Pendergast was gonna dump me because they've been against me to begin with, and Mr. Truman was still president, so he just

00:36:28.679 - 00:36:42.949

told them not to, not to be mean to me, that he wanted me back. So I got renominated in 1950. Um. And then I was supposed to get defeated in the general that time too, because I was running against something that maybe makes any sense to

00:36:42.949 - 00:37:04.979

you. I don't know. But I was running against a. A Pendergast Republican. Pendergrass, yeah, he was a man who had been very close to the in those days, the, the, the, the machines, the Republican Democratic machine worked together on peripheral things, and this fellow had been,

00:37:05.409 - 00:37:21.889

uh, their appointee to the election board, hadn't he? What was his name? What was his name? Yeah, Dick Jensen. Uh, and he was supposed to beat me because he'd get so many Democratic votes. Well, he didn't. And from then on I would claim that I've had

00:37:21.889 - 00:37:42.370

something to do with my own reelection. Both elections, did you carry the black community? Yeah, uh, I didn't. I didn't, it's, it's unclear exactly how it happened the first time around. But you're talking about in general, yeah, sure. Well, you see, I, I have the experience.

00:37:44.179 - 00:38:02.989

which white men like me have often had in that in those days. I, uh, In the black community, the politicians said I was a fake, but I wasn't that I wasn't really prose. And in the white community, they said I was an Edgar lover and they

00:38:02.989 - 00:38:19.360

really worked at it. They really worked at it. Well, the fact of the matter was that I had had so many contacts with blacks and so many blacks had been in my house before I ever got in politics that they knew I was real, and that's

00:38:19.360 - 00:38:40.560

the older generation of blacks. Uh one of my close friends in those days was Old Man Holiday was a contemporary. Well, let me ask you this before I go on, uh, before we pass the period of 1949. Well, where are we right now, really? Well, right

00:38:40.560 - 00:38:57.729

now I got my 50. Uh, this is a question that, that is probably, uh, superficial. How do you feel as a US congressman, a white US congressman, that you have the support, the total, almost the total support of the black community of Kansas City, Missouri, doing,

00:38:57.810 - 00:39:13.439

I mean, in, in, in your elections? Well, I'm pleased, and I've, I, you know, I think on the record that that they have that much confidence in you as an individual, you know, I, I'm delighted. I've never, I've never had, there's never been a veer in

00:39:13.439 - 00:39:29.560

my career. I, I, that's just the way it came out. I have been a civil writer as best I could be from the beginning of my adult life, and I intend to go out just exactly that way. I'm just pretty, I just think it's real simple.

00:39:29.679 - 00:39:49.629

I just think people are people, period. Before reapportionment of the, of the congressional districts, uh, can you? Outline for me what your congressional district was when you were initially elected. Well, I can give you a map. Have we got, we, we got old key chains. What

00:39:49.629 - 00:40:19.379

it consisted of was of what I've got now less. Left the southeast quarter. It was essentially the same district but less the southeast quarter of Kansas City. I have always had the western bar. I had all of the black community as it existed then. Some of

00:40:19.379 - 00:40:35.810

the community that now is, is, is, uh, black or integrated was pure white back in those days. This, this town had a complete southern pattern in 1946. It was damn little difference, but 27th Street was the, was the, uh, what Southern boundary at that time. Yeah,

00:40:35.889 - 00:40:58.080

that'd be about right. Uh, This place, Kansas City, Missouri was very like Huntsville, Alabama when I got here in 1945. Were there any mentions? I didn't, I don't know that that there was that fundamental difference about that Missouri. Missouri was just out of that. You see,

00:40:58.159 - 00:41:13.939

North Alabama is different from South Alabama. Very different. Yeah. It really is. Um. It was different then. It's TBA land. And they're, they're, they're, you know, they're a lot more liberal but not liberal enough to make any sense. In your, in your own words then at

00:41:13.939 - 00:41:28.610

this point, what is your, uh, could you outline your congressional district right now? Sure, it's all except the part across the river. Is it a part of Independence for your district? I don't have any independence. I've got part of Raytown. I've got Grandview. Uh, but I

00:41:28.610 - 00:41:42.330

don't have any of Independence. That's all in the next door district, and I don't have anything north of the river. I've got all of Kansas City except that. What do you think of, uh, minority challenges for your, for your particular seat, for instance. You know, uh,

00:41:42.719 - 00:42:01.919

that's, that's fine. Are you a confident, um, um, campaigner? Am I confident? Are you, are, I mean, do you, are you a confident campaigner. I, I, I have, uh, I have a reasonable amount of pride in the work I've done on a variety of things. I

00:42:01.919 - 00:42:16.120

have very strong opinions and I'm confident in the sense that I have, I, I don't, I don't have to pretend to be anything I'm not. And you know, I, I don't think I own the office, and I think someday I'll get beat and it's gonna upset

00:42:16.120 - 00:42:31.010

me, but I'm not planning to for a while. What was, what was the political game like in 1950? What, what, what were the issues? Can you remember? We're talking about your second. Your, your second, uh, term. What can you remember what the issues were? Yeah, we

00:42:31.010 - 00:42:46.540

were having an awful fight over a whole bunch of important issues which are still the issues today. In 1950 we had a bloody fight with the AMA over health insurance. I was for it. They were against it. They did their level best to beat me. I

00:42:46.540 - 00:43:03.590

was the only survivor. In the whole Middle West of the people who were for health insurance. National health insurance. There was something called the Brannan Plan that had to do with agriculture. That was another major issue. This is, of course, an agricultural town, a weird town.

00:43:04.209 - 00:43:21.179

I your business And I was strong for it. I was part of the Truman program, and everybody was against it, and I survived that. Those were the two stick out issues. We were just barely on the edge of getting towards some action on civil rights. And

00:43:21.179 - 00:43:43.500

I was, you know, just pretty frank about my position. I was pro-civil rights, anti-lynching, pro FEPC. The employment facts is just very straight about it. All right, in, in 19, let's jump from. From the period of 1950 to 1960. Anything significant happened. To to to Congressman

00:43:43.500 - 00:44:10.939

Boling during the period of 1950 to 1960, OK. I worked by 1952 or 19953. I had the good luck to be included in the, uh, In group in in in in Congress and I began to have influence on leadership and I began to have influence on

00:44:10.939 - 00:44:25.929

legislation majoring. Uh, by 1955 I was on what I consider to be still the most important committee in the House, the Rules Committee. Had you met Adam Clayton Powell at this? Well, I knew Adam way back. He was a friend of both my wife's and mine.

00:44:26.979 - 00:44:40.760

OK, I didn't always support him, by the way. Why? Because when I thought he was wrong, I treated him just like everybody else. When I thought he was wrong, what was he wrong about the way he handled his chairmanship. You really think he was wrong? Absolutely,

00:44:40.840 - 00:44:53.800

and I thought he was absolutely wrong in the Powell amendment. I thought that was a way to prevent us getting the education, the federal aid to education. I'm pretty frank about it. I got in trouble with Lucille, for example, Lucille Blu way back then. I think

00:44:53.800 - 00:45:06.840

she figured out before it was over I was right, never for his being thrown out of Congress. Oh, that's what was my next. Never, never. I didn't think he deserved his chairmanship any more than I thought Wayne Hayes did, but no difference. At the same time

00:45:06.840 - 00:45:18.229

I was trying to get him out of his chairmanship. I liked Adam a hell of a lot better than I liked Wayne. At the same time I was trying to get, get him out of the chairmanship. I was trying to keep a reactionary Southerner from being

00:45:18.229 - 00:45:33.459

chairman of my committee. Unfortunately, because of the nature of Congress, I won one and lost one, and they were the wrong ones because I'd rather have had Adam as chairman than Bill Calmer from Mississippi as chairman of the Rules Committee. Why did you think that that

00:45:33.469 - 00:45:45.340

that Adam Clayton Powell should not have had that seat? Well, he shouldn't have had that seat. He always should have. I never wanted him. I, I never, I thought it was totally wrong to throw him out of Congress. I thought it was totally wrong to do

00:45:45.340 - 00:46:06.280

that, but he, the way he behaved when he was chairman. Hurt the cause that he was for the civil rights cause, and it was just as destructive of the reputation of Congress as this goddamn haze was. How did he act? Tell me. Well, I, he, he

00:46:06.280 - 00:46:22.510

did what he did. It was, it was sort of wonderful and one we, Adam and I stayed friends all the way through it. What he did was he, he, he was at the beginning of a time really and he showed everybody that he could do everything

00:46:22.510 - 00:46:46.310

that a white man could and he did it all and he added it all up into a lump. Every Strange and wonderful and irresponsible thing that he did. Uh. Somebody else had done, but he did them all. He misused his funds. Just as Mr. Hayes has.

00:46:47.120 - 00:47:04.659

He had his, uh, is there that much of a comparison between him and Hayes? Not really. Hay is a shit. Powell was a was in my judgment, a very fine leader who got off the track. I'm sure I shouldn't be saying shit on. It's twice now.

00:47:04.810 - 00:47:22.070

I'm go ahead. It doesn't, it doesn't worry me, but Adam was very strange. He was the kind of leader that was useful to get some lift, but he sure was harmful. He wasn't much of a help on civil rights legislation either, believe it or not. You

00:47:22.070 - 00:47:36.949

don't think so. Oh, I know he wasn't. I, hell, I was the operator of the first act. I spent two whole years working on that. The coalition that put the, the concept together. I was a part of. There were about 4 or 5 of us, Republicans

00:47:36.949 - 00:47:52.620

and Democrats, I guess. Clarence Mitchell in those days was a Republican. I don't know, but a fellow named Hugh Scott, who served in the House, and, uh, I and Clarence and some others came up with the legislative concept that made it possible to pass the first

00:47:52.620 - 00:48:10.310

Civil Rights bill. Had you met Thurgood Marshall at this point? Oh, sure, sure, I knew all at that stage. I knew all the. At least casually, but the fellow I worked with was Clarence Clarence Mitchell, OK. Uh, what type of a person was, I mean, you

00:48:10.310 - 00:48:31.510

knew Thurgood Marshall, what type of individual was Thurgood, uh, younger Thurgood Marshall, let's say, brilliant and effective enormously effective. In that phase of uh. Of uh of progress in civil rights, he was, he was fantastically skilled and able and persuasive. Did you vote for him, uh,

00:48:31.550 - 00:48:49.070

uh, when he came to the Congress for his, uh, he wouldn't have been before the House. He doesn't come before the House. No, no, the confirmation would be in the Senate Senate. I'm sure I would have. Uh. Were there any other black leaders at that particular

00:48:49.070 - 00:49:02.899

time that, that, that perhaps you had some association with, for instance. Well, name them. I think I had association with everybody that was that I that I know of that was at the national level. I was working at the national level. I knew Martin Luther King

00:49:02.899 - 00:49:22.620

very well. Well, we hadn't gotten, well, we're at the period of 1953 to 19, let's say 50 to 1960. Well, we were working on all the stuff that happened in 1964 in in those years. Bill Dawson was my first chairman. They remind me. Dawson was my

00:49:22.620 - 00:49:34.600

first chairman. The first committee I went on was government operations. How did you select him? Well, I was selected to go on the committee, and it was the year he became the first black chairman since Reconstruction. And he was a friend of mine and very effective,

00:49:35.449 - 00:49:50.669

very effective. He, he quit being just the Chicago leader and came up and was a damn good committee chairman, Chairman of what committee? The Committee on Expenditures and executive department, which is now called the Committee on Government Operations, and it handled the whole of the Hoover

00:49:50.669 - 00:50:11.969

Commission, and he was, he, he was one of my patrons. He, he, he helped me. Um, We, we, we've talked about all, any number of presidential administrations. We've talked about, uh, Roosevelt. We've talked about Roosevelt no, but you lived through those particular eras. You live, you

00:50:11.969 - 00:50:29.939

lived through those eras, the Roosevelt era, the Truman era, and now we're entering into the Eisenhower era. Uh, let's deal with those three, which one? Which, which of those three did you, uh, could you? Live with the best to say. I mean, which one of those

00:50:29.939 - 00:50:44.409

eras did you Roosevelt and Truman were one was the extension of the other and of course obviously I thought more of those than I did of the Eisenhower era. We did some things in the Eisenhower era that we could do perhaps because of the Republican president,

00:50:44.500 - 00:51:01.530

but Eisenhower, I thought was. Pathetically inadequate president. But not a bad old boy if you can put it that way. Tell me about Adlai, Adlai Stevenson. Well, I was fond of Adlai and worked for him and supported him, but he was, he was more conservative than

00:51:01.530 - 00:51:19.860

I thought the Democratic presidential candidate. Why didn't, why did, uh, why was Adelaide defeated? Because of Eisenhower in part and the fact that the Democrats have been in so long. Mhm. Those are the two main things. Eisenhower was a war hero and it's hard to believe

00:51:19.860 - 00:51:36.770

the infinite popularity that he had. The Republicans were bitter, and the, and the country perceived that the Democrats had been there too long. Could MacArthur become president if he won. I've always believed the country had better sense than that. OK, uh, Martin Luther King, tell me

00:51:36.770 - 00:51:55.790

about Martin, when you first met him, let's say, I don't know when I first met him when he was obscure. See, I knew them all in one way or another because I had started. I went on the Rules Committee in 1955. And I have believed for

00:51:55.790 - 00:52:18.919

years that we had to pass civil rights legislation in order to provide an umbrella. In particular in the South. For, um, The organization of labor, which is generally sympathetic to the causes that I believed in. I knew that in the South, civil rights and oil and

00:52:18.919 - 00:52:35.459

other things have been used to prevent. The organization of labor. Um-hum. So I was a strong supporter of, uh, An SEP, which was called in those days. You've always been a labor man, right? Always pro-labor still I am. Uh, that doesn't mean I'm mad at anybody

00:52:35.459 - 00:52:52.050

else. Uh, It really doesn't. I mean, there's a difference. I don't want to get tagged as just being this or just being that. I'm a lot of things all at the same time. And sometimes the groups that I'm for fight each other. When I find myself

00:52:52.050 - 00:53:13.399

in very embarrassing and difficult circumstances and usually you can find out just where I am by asking, but, uh. I, I think labor was, uh, was the, the growth of organized labor in the 30s and the 40s was. The predecessor of vital movement. that made possible

00:53:13.399 - 00:53:32.350

the civil rights. I think they're related, although I'm well aware that there are some people today who don't believe that. Why do you, why, why, what, what's your account that uh it took LBJ? Uh, it took us 100 years exactly from 1865 to 1965 to pass

00:53:32.350 - 00:53:49.709

a civil, uh, an adequate civil that bill passed before Jack Kennedy was shot. We had it put together, but it had not. It was put together. It was already together. It was all together and it was going to go. Now that doesn't take a thing away

00:53:49.709 - 00:54:13.840

from Johnson. I put in the. The, uh, Discharge petition. To speed up the action on that 6064 act. After consultation with him before he made his first speech to Congress in which he reversed the Kennedy priorities, there was a tax bill and a civil rights bill,

00:54:15.040 - 00:54:30.000

and the civil rights bill was 2nd on the Kennedy. Program and Johnson, because he was a Southerner, was smart enough to switch it. And make it first, and I, I put in the petition that put the pressure on the rules committee of which I'm a member.

00:54:30.929 - 00:54:46.540

To get that bill moving. And it was part of the strategy. Now he's the symbol, and I'll give him the credit. I knew Johnson terribly well. I'm the guy that forced him to take up the bill in the Senate, the first one that made the 2nd

00:54:46.540 - 00:55:04.449

1 possible, and the 3rd, what moved LBJ. By the time he was president. A different thing that moved him when when he passed that first civil rights bill in the Senate. Yeah, I've written a book that has a long chapter on this, this, the first civil

00:55:04.449 - 00:55:25.709

rights bill, and there's no point in going into that, but. Johnson Was 3 or 4 different things in his career. And he was always a Texan until he got to be president. And in 1955 and 1919596 we devised a strategy for passing a bill with the

00:55:25.709 - 00:55:42.810

support of another Texan, a guy named Raven, who was the Speaker of the House and who had vast influence on Johnson. And in 1955 we figured out how to do it. It was a problem of pulling down the hot rod politicians who were talking the impossible

00:55:42.810 - 00:55:59.010

and pulling up the conservative politicians who were decent. The ones who didn't feel that they had a right to say that a black didn't have the right to vote, you might discriminate against them in 200 other ways, but they, they, they, they wouldn't say publicly that

00:55:59.010 - 00:56:15.239

they were against the right to vote, and that was the basic strategy that carried that bill through. And we fought it out in the house and got a bill passed too late. In 1956. And we just told Johnson that there wasn't any way he could not

00:56:15.239 - 00:56:30.540

have to face that bill in '57. We were going to throw him, throw it at him early in '57, and then he performed brilliantly in the Senate. But he was a reluctant performer in 1957 because he was a Texan and he was part of a conservative

00:56:31.040 - 00:56:47.729

Democratic coalition in the Senate in 1957. He hadn't gotten the presidential bug. When he got the presidential bug a few years later, then he got a little farther down the track on civil rights. Now I'm not saying he was anti-black, anti-Negro it was in those days.

00:56:48.469 - 00:57:10.969

Yeah, it, it, it wasn't that. He just wasn't pro and he wasn't for doing anything. By the time he'd been. He'd succeeded to Kennedy in that horrible situation. Where Kennedy was shot and the country was really falling apart. He jumped Into an entirely different position and

00:57:10.969 - 00:57:27.030

I'm not trying to take the thing away did he do it because he was president. He, he, he responsibility, he had the responsibility the responsibility and he just he just shifted and I think that instincts were allowed to come forward. Does the presidency warrant that type

00:57:27.030 - 00:57:47.110

of, let's say personality change? Does a person that becomes president, does he suddenly understand his position? No, he's he's he's got a different constituency. You always look at your constituency if you're a politician. If you don't, you're crazy. And uh I've, I have never wanted to

00:57:47.110 - 00:58:03.979

have any other constituency than the one I've got. You've never aspired to be president. I never aspired to be president, vice president, or senator. I was offered a Senate seat in 1960, an appointment to the Senate. Back up, JFK was JFK as puritanical as people considered

00:58:03.979 - 00:58:26.550

him as far as race relations are concerned. Well, he was always, we always were my wife and I both worked on the Kennedys on race race matters and uh. We had a hell of a time with him on two things, with both the candidates. We had

00:58:26.550 - 00:58:41.929

a hell of a time with him on, uh, The two key things in the, in the bills, in the big bills. But we got them persuaded in one fashion or another with a lot of help from people who had more influence than we like King and

00:58:41.929 - 00:59:00.570

others. The two key things were the withholding of funds. Uh, where programs were, were discriminatory. In other words, the withholding of funds in the South, of federal funds. And that was a terrible tough one for the Southerners to even think about because they knew that was

00:59:00.570 - 00:59:13.850

gonna make a difference and they knew that if they, if that happened they'd have to come to talk they'd have to inevitably the right to vote would be established and so on and so on and so on. The other one was the one that nobody ever

00:59:13.850 - 00:59:39.330

seems to understand. Which was critical to the restoration of the South as a moderate liberal democratic area. And that was the Elimination of race as an issue to bust bust up unions, we called it the FEP in those days. Now it's equal employment opportunity. Uh, we

00:59:39.330 - 00:59:53.010

had trouble with both of them on that, both Bobby and Jack Kennedy, but they finally agreed to it, and it was in the final bill, and the reasons it was in the final bill were all kinds of reasons, and they came from pressure from the outside

00:59:53.010 - 01:00:05.229

and pressure from the inside and so on. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to take credit for the whole thing. I just played a role in the very early time uh in conceiving of things and working things through and who else, who were some of the

01:00:05.229 - 01:00:17.709

other key people that played well, in the first bill, and I'd have to, you know, I have to, this is a long time ago and I have to remind myself, as I say, I've got a pretty good chapter in my first book on the subject, House

01:00:17.709 - 01:00:33.939

Out of Order, but a key guy was Hugh Scott, who's now retiring as a minority leader of the Senate. He, he was then, uh, moving from being a conservative to being a relatively liberal. He's always good on race, and he felt politically and otherwise that we

01:00:33.939 - 01:00:51.739

needed to do something, and he was part of our key group. But the guy, the main guy was always Clarence, who was Clarence Mitchell, who was far and away the best legislative operator that, uh, has ever been in the, in the, in the institution on uh.

01:00:52.570 - 01:01:07.810

Uh, in, in that area on, on civil rights. Now he then, you know, we would use all kinds of things. To, to pass these bills, the first bill and the second bill and the third bill, and I can't give you detail about the second and the

01:01:07.810 - 01:01:25.760

third, I think they, they were 3 before 64, uh, tell me, um. Is there anything that that that black people should know about in regards to Sam Rayburn? What type of uh I I know he was from Texas. A basic southerner, but he was an extremely

01:01:25.760 - 01:01:42.689

powerful man. Uh, I think he influenced, well, not only the the, the Kennedy administration, but the, but the, uh, Johnson administration. He was dead after 61, but he did influence Johnson. Well, he had a lot of influence and we never would have passed the first bill

01:01:42.689 - 01:01:56.850

without him. Because he believed he was very straightforward and very simple, he believed that everybody ought to have the right to vote, and that was one of the reasons that we built that first bill on the right to vote. It was a very little bill when

01:01:56.850 - 01:02:12.110

it finally got through, but it was the key. Did everything has everything revolved around the right to vote as far as I've been concerned, I figured that. In this country Political power is the beginning. And unless you've got the right to vote and use it, you've

01:02:12.110 - 01:02:30.330

given away your beginning power if you've got the right to vote and use it, then you can move in all the other areas you can use the leverage of political power. To accomplish equal educational opportunity, etc. etc. all long and tough, but it gives you the

01:02:30.330 - 01:02:44.449

lever and if you got the lever then you can move. OK, the march on Washington, what did you think of it? I thought it was great and I think it played a major role. In our ability to pass, so it was not just a picnic. Oh

01:02:44.449 - 01:02:57.169

no, hell no. Did you participate? No, I didn't participate. I was working on the legislation. I've never been. I've never mixed up my roles. OK. A. Philip Randolph, what did you, what, what type of individual would you? I thought he was great. I thought he was

01:02:57.169 - 01:03:10.030

a guy who played his cards just as tough as he could, just as long as he could, and did very well with them. Uh, as a labor faction, it hasn't been that functional. Oh, I think he's been very useful. He's the man I guess that I

01:03:10.030 - 01:03:24.860

told. When he was visiting here in Kansas City and I was, I guess I was, yeah, I was in Congress. I was in my first term. And I was invited to go to a party and I for him and I went and I guess I was

01:03:24.860 - 01:03:42.909

the only white man in the room. And uh we have this long discussion about politics and it was all baloney. And I said, you know, that's a funny thing, Mr. Randolph. I'm the first pro-civil rights congressman. That's ever been elected from this area. And if I

01:03:42.909 - 01:04:02.219

get defeated in 1950. It's going to be by blacks. Voted by whites. This guy, gents. Uh, and I didn't know who it was gonna be, but I knew the machine might very well be against me in 50. Remember that story? They might very well have been

01:04:02.219 - 01:04:17.899

against me, and they still controlled all the black votes. I said if I get defeated the only pro civil rights congress. And you know there was an awful silence in that room. People thought I was saying something very unpleasant and then somebody had the guts to

01:04:17.899 - 01:04:31.989

say, well, you know, he's right, Mr. Randolph, he's right. Nixon, what do you think of a son of a bitch. I mean, you're not saying that because you are a politician. You are a politician. Wait a minute. You're not saying that because you are a politician

01:04:31.989 - 01:04:49.909

and that's a very favorable thing to say before he even got in trouble. I campaigned for. Jack Kennedy, I had a responsibility in 50 states. I spent about 3 or 4 days in my own district in the 1960 election. I was so desperate to beat Nixon.

01:04:51.580 - 01:05:03.389

Dick Nixon, uh, Mr. Truman thought he was a despicable so and so. Mr. Raven thought he was a despicable so and so. I thought so on my own before I ever heard what they thought. And I thought it from the day I met him, I served

01:05:03.389 - 01:05:20.159

with him. He was in Congress in 1949. I've always thought I've kept my trap shut about calling him the son of a bitch. In public, I've slipped once and called him a bastard in public, but nobody noticed. Because, you know, it's, it's not effective when you're

01:05:20.159 - 01:05:36.929

dealing with somebody like that. But, uh, I never saw anything more. Nor more just in terms of the end result and what happened to him. Do you think that he was going to ultimately be impeached? Yeah, sure, I, I know. You think the process was going

01:05:36.929 - 01:05:53.179

to get absolutely we had invalidly, and it was a terribly difficult thing to achieve. What do you think of Gerald Ford? He's a decent, honorable conservative, you know, he's, he's so far out. I know him very well. I, he's such an improvement over Nixon because I'm

01:05:53.179 - 01:06:12.479

quite sure he won't steal and he won't try to. You know, destroy the government by becoming a tyrant. I just think he's so conservative, he's unreal. Have you heard of the book The Washington Payoff? Which one is that? OK, that's good. We're going past that. Um,

01:06:13.030 - 01:06:32.199

Julian Bond. I don't, I've just met him, uh, my, uh. My favorite guy, uh, from Georgia is named Young, Young, close person. What did you think of Julian Bond being nominated? For the vice president's, I, I didn't, it didn't look to me like it was going

01:06:32.199 - 01:06:47.189

very far, but I got nothing against it. Jimmy Carter. I think Jimmy Carter's gonna be a good player. You think he's gonna win? Yes. Who's gonna get the Republican nomination here in Kansas City for Gerald Ford over over uh and I think that's good because I

01:06:47.189 - 01:07:03.439

think Reagan is totally irresponsible. What if he picks up, um, what if, what if either of the two of them picks up, uh, um, um. Texas John Conley. Well, I know John Connolly about as well as I've known most people. He just did, in my judgment,

01:07:03.520 - 01:07:23.620

he isn't gonna add anything to the ticket. He's tough and able in many ways abler than the man who raised him, Lyndon Johnson. He's he's not in tune at the time. Where will Carter beat him? Where will we beat him, beat, um, 4. Well, I think,

01:07:23.719 - 01:07:37.139

I think Carter is a looked as a vision of the country that makes some sense, and I think the majority of the people are gonna see that it does. I think Ford has a vision of a country that doesn't make any sense. Grand Rapids, 1930 looking

01:07:37.139 - 01:07:56.570

to the 19th century. Um, what do you, I, I'll, I'll be as quick, I know you have. Um, What is your opinion or your idea of our association? What, what would our future association be with the, with the, uh, continent of Africa? That's a very tough

01:07:56.570 - 01:08:13.649

question. I don't know the answer. My, uh, my inclination on that, and I don't usually, uh. Say things like this, but my inclination on this at this stage is that. Keep on following the advice of my friend Andy Young. He knows more about it than I

01:08:13.649 - 01:08:28.729

do. And he understands he knows the leaders better, and I think, I think he knows the situation better. I don't know how we're going to deal with the developing nations. I just simply don't. I can't figure it out. What about South Africa and Rhodesia? Well, clearly,

01:08:28.810 - 01:08:46.689

if you look at my record, I supported all the attempts to make them behave a little better. I'm I'm up for apple. Portugal. Yeah, you know, same, well, the, the, the same thing, but I'm hoping that Portugal is going to get better. What about, what about

01:08:46.689 - 01:09:04.479

the nationalization of, of, of, let's say various coun uh, companies, uh, uh, Bell's Telephone Company for instance in this country, in this country, listen, if you could persuade me that the government is gonna do it more efficiently, I'd consider it. I, I'm not, I'm a liberal

01:09:04.479 - 01:09:23.549

Democrat who doesn't believe in automatically increasing the bureaucracy. I don't think I'm not anti-government, but I have seen too many times where I'm not sure that. That's the route to go. You can't, you can't tag me as anti-government. I'm a big spender and all of that,

01:09:23.640 - 01:09:38.049

but I just am not sure that I want everything to turn into the government. We don't do that well in this country with it. We may end up having to have the railroads because we gotta have railroads. We gotta have railroads because we need, they're more

01:09:38.049 - 01:09:58.339

efficient. We need, you know, in terms of energy. We gotta do something about energy. Conservation. But you've got at the same time maintain or achieve full employment. Do you think that's practical full employment. What is full employment? That's, that's in my judgment, it's frictional unemployment, which

01:09:58.339 - 01:10:13.600

means that the only people that are unemployed that don't have an opportunity for useful work at decent wages are people who are between jobs. I'm not much on percentages, but I don't think it can be done just by the government. You know, paying people to work,

01:10:13.609 - 01:10:30.109

I think we have to create the conditions for the exercise of the federal power and the leadership of the federal officers. To have a full employment economy and we have to have the government. As an employer of last resort and that there's where the fight comes

01:10:30.450 - 01:10:42.500

as to what kind of wages the people who are there, we gotta do something about welfare, so there's so many people that don't get welfare, but there are a few people that bribe the taxpayer by cheating on them. You know we got all kinds of problems

01:10:42.500 - 01:10:57.879

to deal with, but the base issue in my judgment in this country is full employment, public service employment. What, what is your opinion? Well, I'm strong for it as a last resort. But I'm, I'd much rather generated other ways because it's pretty expensive and pretty inefficient,

01:10:58.379 - 01:11:10.399

you know, I, I, one of the things about me is I do know this country a little better than most. I was born in New York, grew up in Alabama. Mother up in Middle West. I've been in every state except one for more than a plane

01:11:10.399 - 01:11:30.240

stop. Uh, country often complicated. And it's awfully hard to put things together. But I think the one key thing that we have to put together is some kind of way of having an opportunity for people to work. Thank you, Congressman. Thank you very much.