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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 A-0123, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Political journalist Ferrel Guillory describes the state of party politics in North Carolina. This interview has two principal foci. The first is the political character—and shortcomings—of Republican Governor Jim Holshouser. Guillory describes Holshouser as essentially moderate, but his moderation seems due in part to the fact that the governor seems to focus on the minutiae of government operation rather than ideology. The second is the shockwaves that GOP victories in 1972 sent through the Democratic Party and Democrats' largely unsuccessful efforts to find direction.
Political journalist Ferrel Guillory describes the state of party politics in North Carolina.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
I can tell you about the election what I know about it but as far as citing trends—.
We understand that. We are really more saying that this is one of the things which we are seeking but in the last year and one half, which has been a very important time, and you know what is happening, and you've read enough to put it in some perspective
Ask me specific questions about what you want so I don't run all over the place.
How do you analyze the senate race in 1972? And also what you've heard.
My view of it is that it was a special case of the right person in the
right place at the right time. By right, I mean the pun in all. I think
the politicians around, the ones I've talked to, even the Republicans,
consider it a case of their party, Republican Party, putting up a guy
who had a particular attraction to a region, the east, that their party
had never done well in and that they overcame that simply because Jesse
Helms, first off, had built in exposure there and Jesse's people will
tell you that they went into rural counties and in a fact exploited his
having been on the air, the word of mouth and the way they campaign was
to accentuate that this is the guy that you've been seeing on television
or that you've been hearing over the tobacco network, TN or whatever
they call it out there. He was just a person and I think he won because
he did well in the east and I think it was a case of his
ultraconservatism, his seeming to speak the frustrations of the people
out there. It just carried it and I don't think it's any grand strategy
about it that you could point to. Particular things like his
McGovern-Galifianakis ads where he wrote him as one word and that
kind
Is McGovern-Galifianakis just one word?
How much of his appeal is based on race?
It's my view almost all of it, but that's a biased view there. I think that the racial issue had a lot to do with it.
Kind of rock-bottom, you might say.
I think that deep down, if you really get down to it, Jesse Helms was going to take the cheats off welfare, he's going to get the federal government out of our business, and he's going to stop busing and he's going to return things to local control and all that kind of stuff and I just think that deep down he was . . . that's it. He talked about foreign affairs, he talked about his relationship to Nixon, he talked about a lot of that. But I think deep down his race symbolized and his winning was a symbol of of the racial issues still having an appeal in the South. I think other races show that other people can overcome that by running a good campaign or by going to certain issues but I think Jesse Helms, I think the race issue there was a very heavy factor.
Then is there a special case? He won on the basis of race or racial causes?
I think he's a special case in terms of the way he's a special case in that he won as a Republican. OK. I think Jesse Helms could have won in the other party. OK. I say a special case because he's the first senator elected in seventy-two years as a Republican. OK. And I think that the reason that he won that was that by being a special case as a Republican. You understand what I mean? OK. But—
So you think that the racial politics would have been enough in either case, either as the Democrat or as the Republican, to have won it?
It's my guess, yes. It's totally a guess.
That's assuming one could have gotten a Democratic nominee on that slate. How big of a factor—
You know, Wallace won a primary. I think he was appealing to the same people. I haven't looked at each precinct he won and Wallace won. I guess I could spend a few days doing that, but that would be something for you to look into, where his vote was and where Wallace's vote was. He probably could have won a Democrat, given his exposure and everything else.
So I would suggest to you that the Democratic Party in 1974 with any kind of candidate is going to want it back. That will not be another special case with a Republican elected as the senator in this state.
Yes, but the Republicans keep telling me they can win with somebody like Mizell, I don't think they can. I think the Democrats run a smart race, they can beat—
How big a factor was the—
I haven't seen any of their polls. OK. But their polls say that Mizell is close enough to Ervin that they can beat. They feel that Mizell can pull the east too, not so much on a racial issue, though I'm sure that would have something to do with it, there too, I'm sure he could make a racial—
Not exactly with Jesse Helms, but close enough to it. I could see Mizell running a campaign, "I could work well with Jesse." I can see him going out east and telling his baseball stories and saying, "I'm one of you." And I think the undercurrent of race could be there, too. I don't see the Republican Party making a poor man's economic campaign out of these. I just don't see him doing that in my view and people that I talk to don't talk about it in the blatant terms that I'm talking, but I think all the code words and the undertones are there.
So getting back to what Key said, it's overall about the South about race being the basic factor in elections. Do you think that's changed substantially?
I don't know about the South as a whole. I suppose it's in the process of changing. I don't think it's been left out yet.
In North Carolina, you said it was different, and North Carolina was more progressive, and in North Carolina race wasn't much of an issue, and North Carolina was a great progressive state. Do you think that still holds?
From what I can tell, I think North Carolina's progressive image is more outside the state than inside the state. North Carolina's image increases the further you get away from it.
In other words, North Carolina is not really that different.
I found a lot of stuff here that I didn't expect, the low wages, I'm
totally unprepared for the low wages that they pay here. Textile
industry and all that. As much as I've read about it, I was just totally
unprepared of that. To be honest with you. I'd been led to expect, and I
suppose it's true if you compared a lot of things, that North Carolina
state government is progressing, moving forward and everything, and I
suppose that Sanford and Bob Scott and Kerr Scott were progressive men,
and within Republicans, Jim Holshouser I think fairly a progressive guy,
but I think the government as a whole and especially the General Assembly and you got to focus on it a little too, because what it says
becomes law no matter what the governor says about it, he doesn't have
the veto power, he can't succeed himself so there is no way to test by
the vote or all those kind of things. What the governor proposes other
than by the General Assembly. In this state, the governor comes in at
the beginning of the session, he makes a speech, and then he can pull
and tug, he can trade jobs, try to convince
My experience with the legislature now runs about a year and I don't find a whole heck of a lot of vision there. There are some good people in there, some good young people who, if they emerge as leaders and all that kind of stuff, could make a significant effect on the state. But I find the legislature much more conservative than the progressive image of the state leads you to expect. Their rhetoric notwithstanding because I find this state—Key talks about it about how it's oriented to businessmen and all that kind of stuff and how the business sort of ethic has sort of kept it honest but at the government has always protected the business interests of the state.
I find it sort of works another way too, in my experience. They're always
worried about the bond market and about whether we can sell our bonds
and whether we stay with the budget has to be balanced, but how they
estimate tax collections very conservatively, how they're very careful
to balance out. And we get all this talk about can we live within our
means, or can we afford to float bond issue, or do we have a triple-A
bond rating and all that, and there is no connection between all that
talk and the fact about half the blacks, according to a study I was just
looking at, in the state live in substandard housing, about four hundred
thousand families in this state live in substandard housing. You don't
get any relationship to this conservative financial thing and how that
affects whether you're paying teachers enough or whether mental health
care here is adequate enough. They always worried first about the bond
market, about the conservative financial estimates, and all that instead
of, in my view, they ought to switch it around
So that's how I see the General Assembly. You know, it's a very limited sort of group of people because they don't take a big vision of things, they don't—they just see what they can work out, what they can get by with. They don't have a good staff, the lobbyists there have great power, not because they buy and sell but just because they are the only people there with information and the regular folks in the state just don't have any voice up there, don't have any ongoing way to get their views and needs known.
What are the most powerful lobbies in the state?
I think the banks are undoubtedly the most powerful. Senator Gordon Allen
said the other day that in the '73 session, there was a bill to put
collision coverage in a plan to shift from the assigned risk plan to
what they call a facility plan. It was a distinction between ways, how
to handle high-risk drivers, the details are unimportant. Well, anyway,
the banks oppose putting collision under the thing because the banks run
a lot of these side firms that have collision. Well, anyway, something
Gordon Allen said that over one weekend, from Friday when the session
was over to Monday night when it was thirty-nine votes out of fifty,
Who would be number two?
Well, I don't know if the banks are number one but they're pretty high up
there. Number two, I don't know. Textile people keep a low profile
How about tobacco people?
I don't know. In my experience they haven't been overpowering at all. Bob Scott got the tobacco tax through and the legislature has withstood pressure to take it off. That's the only thing in my experience. They are obviously aren't going to do anything to endanger the tobacco interests and they all run around with little tobacco leaves in their ties saying that I say support cancer and all that kind of stuff. But they aren't going to do any of that. Textiles, you remember when I was telling you about when Holshouser meeting with those southern chairmen when they went up to Washington and Clarke Reed went up there? He said in the interview I had with him the other day that that was one of the main things that he was involved in and was assuring that federal policy took care of the tobacco growers and textiles. You know the import fight they had in the early days—
I presume the electric utilties is a powerful lobby, insurance industry.
No, the insurance industry I wouldn't say. Insurance industries is sort of mixed. The attorneys there have been able to fight the insurance people off. The insurance people have been the ones supporting the no-fault insurance thing. But they haven't gotten it passed. And if they were as powerful as the banks or utilities it certainly would have gotten passed. I don't see a lot of activity in the utilities in the General Assembly but I think it's clear that the utilities have a lot of force in other agencies of the state.
Who are the real powers in the legislature?
There are very few real leaders. I—
If I were a guide or representative of special interests and really had some legislation I wanted to get through, who would I do see?
Jim Ramsey, you'd go see first, the speaker of the house, Roxboro, Person County. He's got ambitions, I guess, to run statewide in '76, probably for governor. Ramsey's undoubtedly an important man.
What's the source of his power, as speaker of the house, he's able to do what, appoint committees?
Yes, he appoints committees and names the chairmen. The speaker, too, as I understand it has been traditionally sort of been the leader, too. The caucus leader. When the Democrats have a caucus the majority leader, named William Watkins from Granville County, presides over the meetings. Because everybody knows that Watkins is Ramsey's man and they work very close together. And it's pretty clear that Ramsey's the central man there. So that he has sort of an intangible power you know, to set the agenda, to know what's going to be discussed, this tax reduction package that they voted the other day, Ramsey was the one behind that. I think it's fairly clear about that.
Could I ask you a little bit about Holshouser?
Yes, let me just name a few other important people. Ramsey is pretty important. Liston Ramsey is sort of middle important. He's from the mountains, he's the chairman of the finance committee of the house. The senate, Gordon Allen is important. He's the majority leader.
He's more important that the finance chairman?
In a way, yes. He's from Person County. Ralph Scott from the senate is a
fairly important guy. He's not going to, I'm not sure that special
interests people are going to go get him too often because he's a
very
Let me put it this way. First, he's the first Republican governor in seventy-four years. What's happened in other southern states is that when a Republican governor does get elected, there is a certain period of reform that occurs. Looking back over this year, has the Republican administration been able to make as much reform as you think it should have, (a)—
No.
—(b) would the situation have been any different with Democratic or Republican? In other words, I'm trying to get that it seems to me that in the first year of this guy's in office, he makes his major moves from now on in terms of the legislature, it's got to be downhill. At least, it's got to be coasting, I may be wrong on that.
You'd better give him another year on that. Well, I'll explain that.
Did we have the kind of social change that you thought we were going have and I think the people of this state thought they were going to have?
Not the kind that I would have wanted. OK. Whether it was what I thought we were going to have. I don't know. Well, let me start again. Give me question (a) again that I answered no to immediately.
Did you have the kind of change in this year that you thought they were going to have?
That I thought they were going to have? Political change, yes; social change, no. I knew they were going to shake things up a little bit, yes. I think that was clear from the beginning.
What about the direction of state policy in education, in mental health, in roads, and so on.
I don't see it going too many places, yet. He's proposed a new roads plan
and we'll see how it works out. Let me just go back to square one and
I think if a Democrat would have been elected you obviously wouldn't had
the political, the seeming political turmoil that at least appears to be
enveloped
Now Holshouser—in my columns and everything I have probably
been fairly kind to him from this perspective—if you are going to have a
Republican, you might as well have one like him. I sense a sort of
tension within the Republican Party of the state. Nobody admits to it,
but it is sort of a tension between the bedrock
Holshouser, on the other hand, the way he has acted, leads me to believe
that he sees the way to build a party is by running a fairly decent
state government, one that keeps things in order, that doesn't cause a
lot of trouble, that keeps away from as much scandal as it can, that
dispenses the goodies around, mental health gets its share, parks gets
its share, ports gets its share, teachers get their share. You know he
sort of runs a fairly clean ship, he gets business folks together and
they run an efficiency study, and he is out there for efficiency, and he
will put into effect some of the things that are in the report. He'll be
very honest
Frank Rouse would ask, "Who else can we get party leader to build up the party from? If its not getting Democrats to switch over." He might be right, but there is a way of approaching that quest as I see as different, so on the one hand you've got Jesse Helms's approach, though I don't think Jesse is really interested in building a party and all of that very much. He's the theology type and really not all involved in party affairs. And you've got the Holshouser type proven so the people of the Helms wing, let's say . . .
Would that really be the Rouse wing?
Yeah, Yeah, I don't think you can consider Rouse a leader of it now. I think he has been beaten.
What about Gardner?
I don't see a whole lot of Gardner stuff right now. Gardner sort of slipped out. In fact, I was getting kind of worried during the campaign; you know, the Rouse-Bennett campaign that we kept writing in our stories of Frank Rouse supported Gardner last time, et cetera, as though that was the cause of the problem. But I sort of see Gardner as sort of out of it now. Not a lot of heck of whole lot of Gardner activity.
Do you see those tensions decreasing or increasing between the two wings of the party? Do you think now that the fight for chairmanship is over that the tension is going to slowly disappear?
I'm not sure . . . I don't know, it's one of those reasons I that I
haven't written this Sunday's column yet, because I haven't figured it
out. I was at the meeting with Jack over the weekend and I found the
Are you saying that there is more of that in the South than Holshouser types?
From my experience, yeah. The only problem is, you see, what I haven't
sorted out, Walter, is whether Holshouser won the fight within the party
simply because he's governor. The only reason, he's the governor. Now,
the implications of him winning go much further. OK, but that's why
people voted for Bennett, because the governor was there and you just
can't buck him and all this stuff that the newspapers had about them on
twisting and all of that, that didn't make a bit of difference. All he
had to do was pick up the phone and call a county and say, "I'm Jim
Holshouser, and I would like your support." That's all it took. That's
arm-twisting. They just couldn't beat the governor. You know, it's their
first one and it was too much a risk for them to take to beat him within
his own party. OK, so the reason that I don't know which way the
Republican Party in North Carolina is going to drift is this. I saw the
rest of the southern states more on the Rouse-Jesse Helms side. OK, and
I saw Holshouser not necessarily a part of that. OK, now I don't know
which pressure is going to be the more prevailing—whether the
pressure
Is that the way he sees it going? Or, is that his idea of what it ought to be?
That's his idea.
When you put it into historical context, is that where it's going?
Let me explain, from what I saw in Atlanta over the weekend and in my prior experience, I see the Republican Party in the South as more of a conservative with a few moderate coalitions. OK, and I think that there's a distinction there. I hope I made myself clear with all this poppy junk after you get through with it, because my experiences are so limited and this is the first time I have ever lived in a state with a Republican. So I don't know which sort of drift is going to prevail yet.
You use the word drift, do you really mean that? Don't you see him actively taking the role of party leader in North Carolina, and even enlarging that to the other southern states, and indeed even beyond that in the wilder moments to the entire country?
Philosophically speaking, I would like to see him do that. I don't know if he will or not. I think he is becoming visible and I don't see him yielding to conservative pressures within his own party. You know, just the other day he said he wouldn't favor cutting taxes or anything like that. He going to come with programs to increase spending in education and mental health, parks and a bunch of other things. He going to go for this twenty-five to thirty million dollar rural health education center thing. So it's hard to judge his impact yet because he keeps a very low profile, he doen't talk in philosophical terms and all that kind of stuff. I find him very pragmatic, I don't find him a pusher and a shover. People told me that Bob Scott, the way he would work was that he opposed something big and really put the issue in front of the people and say, "Look, we've got a massive problem here, and we have got to really get out and attack it." Holshouser doesn't work that way. He goes to all of these little committee meetings and he gets a little piece in here, and he goes to another committee meeting and he gets a little piece in there, and his public speeches tend to be very dry and bland and just sort of keep things calm and smooth and show people that we are getting there. And so, I don't know if he's going to be effective, his style is very much of, "Let's work together, let's see what we can do over here." Maybe he has adopted that because he's in a minority position, maybe he feels that he's got to do . . .
But is he doing what you think has to be done to build the party in this state? Is he bringing people floor of prominence, is he building potential leaders, et cetera? Do you see that kind of active effort in the party?
Just beginning.
What, does he have to get this other thing behind him first?
Yeah. Just beginning. I don't know whether he would have begun to do it before the fight, but I just see the beginnings of it. You know, the fact that he selected Bennett was sort of one. He reached down and pulled out a bright young man and put him up there. And I've seen evidence that if not the governor himself, but his people are going to be involved in recruiting candidates to run for Congress, General Assembly, and that kind of stuff. But he is also pragmatic, I don't—
Do you see him picking moderate types, people with his philosophy so far as building that sort of a party, or is it too early to tell?
I'm not sure yet, I'll tell you the first time I heard Mizell's name
mentioned. I think the first time was from a Holshouser guy who
suggested him as a real possibility and I don't know what that means.
Whether they are just thinking pragmatically to get the votes out or
whether
What does it mean?
I don't know, but what it basically means is that you run Jim Holshouser and Jim Gardner for governor, it maybe, I don't know, that you run Mizell rather than Charlie Jonas for the Senate. I don't know. It may mean that you run and it is OK to support Howard Lee. He's a bad example. It's all right to support Clarence Lightner in Raleigh.
You have all you can think about then, hypotheses. The more visible the
office, the more the officeholders tend to be ahead of the
Anderson, yeah.
What happen
I don't know. I don't know. I think he can try.
What is the key? Why is there just one guy around the governor? As a matter of fact, if you think about the executive office, only one name comes to mind. Maybe two, maybe Childs because he gets visibility as a press secretary. Beyond that, as well as one or two guys in administration and that's it after a year.
That's it, that's right. And uh . . . something . . .
How does that strike you?
Well, I wrote a column about four months ago, and the folks over there
bring it up all the time, "premature," they say. I still think I'm
right. Even after four months of experience. The drift of the column was
the governor made a comment on an interview with Dick Hatch that, "If
I'm remembered for anything, I would like to be remembered as the
governor that brought efficiency to North Carolina state government." My
whole column was about, "Is that all? You can't think of anything else?
Why limit yourself so?" And I still think that's true. Is that the man,
running a fairly decent ship you know. You can't oppose. There is very
little to oppose about what he proposes and all that kind of stuff. OK.
It is just that he doesn't propose a lot, you know. He picked when he
made his first message to the General Assembly. Basically the things
that people are going to vote for anyway.
Is it just his character?
I think it is partly that. I think that it is partly that he hasn't brought anybody around with him to do that.
Why not?
Partly because of his character, I think.
Wouldn't this be some sincere contrast with Sanford, when Sanford was governor?
That's what I was trying to get out, you make a judgment.
Seems to me you buy a politician. Does he set an agenda? If he doesn't,
he's going to be a caretaker. OK. But the second thing is, who does he
surround himself with? What is his perception of reality? Who gives it
to him? When you come to this state
Yeah, and it's still having it.
My question to you, isn't that the kind of thing this Republican administration could have done this past year or should have done?
Oh, no doubt about it. It should have. Yes, indeed.
Do you see—
Yeah, if I were an editoral writer, of course.
What are you looking at when you think of their failure and achievement or accomplishments over one year? That should be the basis, shouldn't it Ferrell, for where it's going in the next three years? Once this administration has been in office for a year, you kind of set the pattern.
I think you are right about that, yeah. The only reason that I cautioned you a little bit at the beginning was because I tend to think of it in terms of sessions of the General Assembly and they've got another one coming back. OK. So a previous governor now would have been able to act in such a way without one factor in his judgment being a session is coming up. He has had that to consider. But I'm not convinced that it made, in his case, a difference. I agree with you that there is no question that if you are going to make a change, if you're going to campaign on "It's time for a change," make it, man. Go to it.
Do you remember that was the number one reason people voted for Holshouser is that they really believed that he would make more changes than would the Democrat, in this case Bowles?
That's right. Well, what he perceives as changes, very much administrative type changes.
Do you mean in the delivery of services?
Yeah, in who runs things and how efficient they are running and all that
kind of stuff. I think it is pretty obvious once you take a
Do you think that it is really in some cases an obsession with the processes and machinery of government? If that's the case can you generalize from that . . .
Obsession maybe too strong a word but . . . certainly too much of fondness for all that.
Didn't that carry over, in a sense, for the fight for party chairman?
Perhaps it does. I hadn't thought about it that way, but perhaps.
It's a way of looking at life, isn't it? Not just a way of looking at government.
Yeah, I think Holshouser is very much a man of mechanics and procedure
and all that, from what I know about his experience in the General Assembly was very much that type, you know. You knew when to knock on
someone's door and all of that. Look, the guy, they tell me, sits over
there and really ponders over who he is going to appoint to things. It
took him an enormous amount of time to just appoint people.
I think an example that came to mind was the school textbook commission. It seemed to be a fairly easy kind of . . .
Yeah, OK. Let me use the textbook commission to make two points. OK, first is it takes him a long time to make appointments. OK, part of that problem I suppose is is the difficulty of setting up a Republican administration. He really didn't have a shadow cabinet readily available. Republicans are fairly rich and they don't really pay a lot over here, so that has some consideration to it. OK. But at the same time the government has some attractiveness to it that money . . . that you can't put money off to the side. OK, so that problem—is that the pool of manpower just wasn't that big—even now he has had to switch his Secretary of Commerce to the utilities commission, he has just switched the head of the Division of Registration and Motor Vehicles to the Efficiency Coordinator. He switched his personnel man to the Personnel Office and Transportation. He took the Assistant Secretary of Commerce and put him back in his office. You know, it is all this working around that leads me to conclude that he doesn't really have a lot of people to draw on. He is having to use his own people to switch them around to fill spots. OK.
Does that go back to your original point that the pool of talent is not there?
That's . . . let me make my second point. I think that's one factor. The
other factor is that that is what he likes to do. Not that he likes to
switch people, but that he spends a lot of time on that type of matter.
Who goes where? Who gets appointed to what? Should I put this guy
over
He would have gone.
No, he wouldn't. He would have sent his man there for a specific instructions, this is my view on this, and you tell them, and you do everything you can to carry out my instructions. Bob Scott didn't sit in the budget meetings but Jim Holshouser did. At everyone of them he was there.
Do you see any significant change in the operation then of this administration over the next three years based on the last year? Do you see . . .
I would like to see something.
Do you see writing an agenda for the state?
No, no. He set up . . . not he set up but actually some of the others . . .
But is his objective to do that or his objective, which is based on his
whole political history that has been basically one of party building.
Is his objective to try and establish firm control of the political
machinery of the state in the hands of the Republican Party
This what I think is . . . ask him. I think his objective is to go through four years without any major problems, to show the people of the state that if you elect Republicans things are not going to fall apart, that government is going to provide you with some services, it's going to do it as efficiently as it can, as well as it can, cut out waste, it's going . . . it's just going to be a businesslike, sound, stable, concern that if you elect Republicans you'll get people in there that you don't have to be nervous about, that you can rely on and keep their promises. Promises aren't going to be some grand visions, no Great Societies, just keep government rocking along. We are going to change things, we are going to change some employees around, we aren't going to pave roads just because of the way you vote on your road. You are going to get a road if you deserve a road. He has fairly well carried through on that sort of thing. Spread services around, mental health over here, put some parks over here and all that kind of stuff. And what I see him doing is very methodical type, you know, build a little here, build a little there.
But is he also now going to try to start build . . . scheming for increasing Republican minority in the legislature, to have another Republican governor after him who's got a Republican majority in the legislature . . .
I don't think there is any question about that. You go over to the basement of the Hilton right now and they have got three staff members. They are Tom Bennett, Grady Franklin who is party executive director, and one other guy over there and I can't think of his name right now. But you ask him, what are you doing here? He says, "I'm in charge of legislature recruitment." So I don't think . . .
What have the Democrats been doing since they got beat?
They don't know. I don't think . . . the Democrats have any clear idea what in the hell is going on.
Do you really think that they believe they were beaten and that 1972 was not some kind of aberration that is going to go away?
I'm not sure whether they believe that or not. I don't know. I think that . . . we are just focusing on the Republicans because they are in power right now but it's all confused, they don't know what's going on. I don't think the Democrats have a sense of what their party is right now. I tried to list the other day all the wings in the Democratic Party, all it has got is wings and no body and it's just flapping. You know, it's got Sanford wing, Bowles wing, and a McGovern wing, a labor wing, and a black wing, and a rural wing, and a city wing, and a western wing, and an eastern wing, and it has got some women out here, and it's got some people in Greensboro that are little bit different from the people out here. And it's got the old-time guys, the courthouse wing, and nobody has brought that all together.
I like that description.
That's a beautiful description.
Man, listen. Give them a body, and maybe it needs a head before it gets a body, but I know . . . it's just . . . you know, I had a lot of trouble describing the Democratic Party in this state. It just . . . you know, they go and get Wallace, like you know, man, that's going to bring the recalcitrants back in. It ain't going to bring them back in. One visit by Wallace, so they go get Dale Bumpers. Bumpers made a pretty decent speech, he really did. He put some thought into it, and I haven't heard one of them mention his speech since then.
Is it apt to go any other place in say—the next three years?
Yeah, if Sam Erwin runs and everybody else drops out.
But the way things look now, he's not going to run. So what you'll have then is a lot of personality politics.
Are you sure?
Everything I hear is that a winner at the top, where else would you go?
I've been getting different signals, well . . .
But you're right, the only thing that can hold them together would be that candidate.
But yeah, see Sam Ervin isn't "a party man" for all the speeches that Sam Ervin has been giving about "I'm a Democrat" and all these jokes—he tells about Uncle Fiddle Diddy knocks on a guy's door at night and says, "I'm not praying for you because you're not a Democrat," and all that kind of stuff, he's really not a party building man.
No, but he's a unifying force.
He not unifying, but keep them from each others throats.
Until November 6, 1974, and they will be at it again.
There is something about which all the various factions can rally around as a rallying point.
No, they don't rally around him.
No, they don't rally around him, they accept him because he is no one to fight. You know, it's a negative sort of thing, rallying around.
Think down the road to 1976. If you are rallying or unifying anything you have to be thinking of, say, early 1976. You know, that's a couple years away. So what is there on the horizon to suggest that there is going to be a way to unify that party? They talk in cosmetic terms, they've got to get together again . . .
Right.
What to hell does that mean, that we've got to get together again? And nobody knows what it means. You bring Wallace in, that's one thing you're doing. You bring Bumpers in, that's another thing you're doing. But how do you reunite all these wings and make something out of them realistically?
I'm not sure they have the people can do it. Uh, I think, the way they should or could do it is to begin through their executive committees, through their people getting out and making speeches, through—maybe even running around the state making speeches, getting county chairmen together instead of having the county chairmen . . . to let them talk and bring in people, you know.
But who can do that?
Let me just say what else they ought to do and then. And what I think they, Democrats, should be searching for is an agenda for themselves. They've got to find issues which kind of bridge all these gaps, it seems, and sort of put the cartilage between all the wings and all that kind of stuff, and I think they can find these issues. I think economics has been a long or traditional Democratic issue and I think in this state that it can be an effective issue, the wages are low and all that kind of stuff. And . . . wait a second. And they look upon Wilbur as a kind of funny old duddy over there, you know, but if they begin to work with him a little bit, not write him off too soon. This is advice I shouldn't dispense to anyone, but if I were campaign chairman of a Democratic candidate, I would run up and down the state yelling health care all over the place.
But what do the Democrats do?
Just ECU med school, nothing else.
That's a crushing blow to most people.
No, I don't think so. That's personal judgment, I have had not expertise.
I would much rather hear a guy talk about health care services than to talk about Leo Jenkins and his medical school.
Well, I wouldn't put it in quite those terms. I would say, "Look, you can't get a doctor, you know, and your hospital is overcrowded, and you can't get an ambulance service when you need it," and all that kind of stuff. It takes some research to find out how to approach the issue.
Do you see Leo Jenkins as a potential candidate for governor?
No. Well, he is potential, but I don't know if he can build on that basis.
Go back to your general . . .
Well, health care is one thing, the economy is another, and education,
and certainly education. For all the money that has been put into and
all the stuff that has been done about it. Really, what did Holshouser
do? He gave it all to the teachers. He raised their salaries, gave them
a longer work time and he reduced the size of the class, all that adds
up to is more money in the teachers' pocket. It will help the kids a
little bit, you know, fewer kids in the class will help. And if some of
the teachers use the extra time it may make them better teachers. But it
is the same teachers, so education—all sorts of new things
there. If they put all the money in education, into building new
buildings and giving it to teachers. OK, I am not saying that career
education is the answer either, but they've got all sorts of things you
can do in there, you know. Really, this area of health and education
thing has got a thing going between the technical institutions and the
hospital over there to train nurses. They've got all sorts
Do think that can overcome all of these personal factions you now see?
I don't know. OK, I don't know. But I think if they begin to isolate what they are talking about, OK, they can bring them together. OK, now whose going to do it. Right. Is that the next question?
No, what I was going to say was, was there factions. The assumption was that one of the reason the party went down in defeat was because there were personal feelings of the Bowles faction, Sanford faction, et cetera. But we used to think that when that happened and the party was defeated that somehow the factions would somehow reunite.
Yeah, I'm not sure. We described the factions by the personalities. But I'm not sure that it is just on personality that the factions work.
Is the identification with personalities?
With personalities, yeah. I think there was a difference between
Do you think now to bring this back together is based on issues? But that runs contrary to what we have learned in the past. That in faction on politics is the emerging of a strong personality that pulls it together.
Yeah. That's why I may be all wrong.
Let's follow that for a moment. Who would then do it? Who could do that in the Democratic Party?
I don't see that strong a person right now to be honest with you. Uh, If Jim Hunt were maybe ten years older and ten years wiser he might be able to do it. Hunt's got a good head. Hunt might be able. Jim Hunt, talking about lieutenant governor. Hunt is not dumb and Hunt has a grasp of what is going on, what people are interested in, and all that kind of stuff. I'm not sure he's the man to do it now. I'm not sure he's got the style to do it or he's got the confidence of the other party leaders to do it. And I don't know.
At this point you don't see anybody in that position or emerging.
Not right now.
Aren't you perhaps somewhat comparable to Florida in 1970 where nobody, Reubin Askew came out of the pack as a complete unknown? And then the party apparently just decided that they almost had to go behind whoever won the primary and you had sort of a coalescence there.
Maybe so.
I don't know.
I don't know, I'm not sure. Everybody says Hunt is the frontrunner and all that.
You have got a unique situation now, really in a sense now you have a potential head of the Democratic Party, Skipper Bowles, and on the other hand you have lieutenant governor, and normally in this state you go from lieutenant governor to governor. This time it is unique. With both guys interested.
And secondly, too.
You really don't have much of that in North Carolina though.
There is another thing here, too. Since Bowles didn't win the Council of State, people feel independent too. And so, there is Jim Graham making a little noise about running for governor. He may never run. Why not make a little noise? Maybe, it will be me. You know, you . . . the Republicans just suggested the other day . . . let me just make it . . . that if Ervin doesn't run, OK, as of now only three names have been mentioned for the Senate. Democratic Party—Henry Wilson, Bob Morgan, and Ervin. That if Ervin doesn't run, then Morgan is the answer. You've got two left. Even the Republicans don't think it is going to work out that way. Who's going to go to market free. All sorts of persons are going to want in. It may be too late for them to plan a really good campaign, but there are enough others around. I can't name any of them right now because I haven't heard of any. I don't know if Nick would want to try. I don't know if Pat Taylor would want to get back in, and I don't know if Terry Sanford would want back in. But there might be enough of a opening there for somebody. And the party is in such of a . . .
Have you heard if Preyer is a possibility?
I've heard his name, but I don't know. I saw him the other day and he didn't . . .
Isn't part of the dilemma that the party has practically never been confronted with this situation? In the history of many of these people's memory.
Oh, yes. Certainly. That's the Republican Party's problem too. That don't know how to govern.
Not only that but they campaigned that "It is time for changes, changes," now it's time and they don't what to change to. They did.
They did like this, it is what they call the "golly gee whiz school"—here I am governor and I didn't expect to be, now what do I do?
Yeah, I think he had certain things in mind. I think he had to put Gene Anderson right here and, you know, Dave Flaherty over here. And I think he knew he wanted something in the budget, you know. But, he never developed, before he became governor, any essential vision of the way one is governor.
My question really is one of . . .
But the Democrats—just let me finish this—on the
other side of course don't know how to act as the party out of power.
Though they sort of share it in a way. They are caucuses in the General
Assembly, they have what you call caucuses now. People keep telling me,
"Don't worry about them." I said, "Yeah, but, if they get themselves
together they would be a powerful force." They kept saying, "Look, there
are secret meetings and all of that you had a blast by going into the
caucuses." I said, "No you don't, that's how they put themselves
together. That's a way to do it." But they haven't got it, they go in
there and they talk for hours and they don't pull it together. Do you
know what came out the caucus one time last year? To hold open meetings
of committees and then they went out on the floor the next day and and
it passed and it went over to the senate and it died, because the senate
caucus was kind of
My question . . .
Do you think they ever will?
Not with the leaders they've got now.
Does something else emerge here that you don't see?
Yeah, yeah, I don't see it right now. You know, Ramsey is a bright guy and all that generally, but, I don't see him as a . . .
Jim Ramsey is from what county?
Person County.
And the guy in the senate is also from Person County.
They don't talk to each other much. They aren't best friends or anything. No, no, it isn't anything like that. There are no big deals, they just happen to live in the same county. Uh, Ramsey is a strong force and all that kind of stuff. But, Ramsey worries about narrow special interest more than he should.
He's a legislator. That's what legislators do.
Yeah.
Let me ask you this question.
Yeah, right, and he sees leadership there as leadership statewide and I . . .
That's the old Lyndon Johnson, you know.
Yeah, yeah.
The two just aren't . . .
Except Ramsey is not Johnson, because Johnson every now and then at least
had a sense that you vote for the civil rights bill because it was
right, and you may trade off and may do dirty deeds, but you vote for
that civil rights bill because it's right. Ramsey would never even think
of that. Never even think of voting for the bill. He may trade off on a
lot of other things, he's all hot now about cutting inventory taxes and
all that kind of stuff because he might make a little money to run next
time. You know, those folks will remember him as being
You said in the executive office we ought to talk with Anderson because he's key. You said in the legislature we ought to see James Ramsey, Liston Ramsey, and Gordon Allen. Is there anybody else?
And Ralph Scott.
I think you ought to talk with Ralph Scott.
One of our problems of interviewees is some potential since it has been so long. Who else, say, in the executive, legislative, or even judicial were among your colleagues in the press or other places?
I think Childs might be a good person to talk to.
Do you think so?
Yeah, Childs had the job that I've got now about four or five years ago and then he went to Duke for about a year or year and one-half. Then he went with the governor. So, uh, he covered Bob Scott. I think he was here part of the time for Luther Hodges. Not Luther Hodges but Dan Moore. So, he may be able to give some of that perspective and then what's going on, you know, he's going to be an apologist for Holshouser. You should take that into consideration.
Let me ask you just one question about Holshouser and that is this: You
could be a man of vision in that position and say, you know, we are to
really get something done, that is to build a majority in the
legislature, but on this good government and show people that
Republicans are sound. Recruit the sort of candidates to build the kind
of party I want. Get the kind of leadership and develop programs that
will go, or, you could just be sort of doing that because your drifting
and there is no vision involved. My question is, which is the case
with
Perhaps a little of both. I don't think it's clear. I think he's pragmatic enough that he's going to go out there and get people who can win. OK, if it takes in a Senate race in Nash County a rock-rib conservative to win, he'll probably recruit him. OK, Nash County is out in the east. But he will bring him in the General Assembly and then he will do what he can to get him to support his programs. I'll give you an example. A lot of the folks in the senate are angry at Charlie Taylor. Charlie Taylor is the senate minority leader, they say he is too liberal, he is the closest guy to the governor. So if they are saying he is too liberal, they are sort of talking about the governor, too.
Maybe they are.
Maybe they are, but they won't say it. I sort of sense they are. But they
are both in the center as a bloc. You know, I sort of see parties
Well, you could use the scapegoat theory on that, couldn't you?
I wouldn't be surprised if Holshouser would go recruit a conservative in order to win and take the gruff that they might give to a guy like Charlie Taylor.
Yeah, but do you see a chance of Holshouser succeeding in building a Republican Party that gains political control of the state and because of what you saw in Atlanta and what you have seen here with Helms running ahead that it ends up with the conservative wing and then taking over the Republican Party.
I don't know, I don't know if one Republican can do it. If one Republican governor can do it. It may be good for the Republican Party to lose in '76. It may be what they need to get themselves really stronger. You know, if they win and they are ready to gear up to win again and lose by a little bit and it gives them that real incentive to go after it the next year in '80. Maybe. I don't know. I don't necessarily see Holshouser being the salvation of the party in terms of really gain . . .
. . . "I think the leaders that built this party are the niggers."
Oh yeah, I'd forgotten that.
. . . or however he termed it.
Who was it?
A guy named Sim DeLapp. He was state party chairman in the '40s. And I went down to Lexington and I talked to him one Sunday afternoon for an hour or so. An interview with him about what he thought about the Rouse-Bennett thing.
Where was he philosophically?
Oh, he was one of Helms's advisors. But, in the Rouse-Bennett fight, he supported Bennett. Because he's a conservative over here, but he's a party man, too. And so he felt that the governor should have his man in there. He wrote a letter to the governor saying that you shouldn't put that black woman there as head of the welfare department.
And he told you what?
I can pull his quote out over there, something like that. I've got it filed away.
I'd really like to get that.
So, I think that DeLapp is on the right track, I mean as far as his analysis. I'm not sure that it's Holshouser that has built the party. He's obviously been a major force in the party. In the General Assembly, as minority leader, it's clear that he was an important man. In fact, a lot of people have told me that the Board of Governors and a lot of government reorganization wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for him swinging Republican votes over there and being a solid workman-like leader, you know, in the Assembly. But at the same time, he went over there and fought all those taxes and everything. I don't necessarily, I'm not sure that you can attribute the growth of the Republican Party in North Carolina just to him.
I'm not attributing it to him, I'm just asking if he has been the key figure in the mechanical building of the party. The machinery.
It's hard for me to say. My gut instinct is no. But I might be wrong. I didn't see him as party chairman.
But there is no question in your mind that as of now, he is in control of the party?
Yeah. I think that he's in control of the party machinery. I think he's
the dominant personality in the party, though he doesn't have much of a
personality, but he's the predominant figure in the
—Mizell and he'll run on a race issue and all that. I don't know that yet, OK. But you know, if a guy like Reagan runs in '76, he may, you know, the folks around here may get so enthralled with Reagan that they may not support the same way that the governor might necessarily support if he were free to choose himself. The fact that he's the governor and that he has control of the party machinery, the Republican Party in North Carolina has a better chance of resisting the trend that I've been describing, that I saw in Atlanta, that my experience has shown me. The Republican Party in North Carolina has a better chance of not necessarily going through a southern strategy type party or a party just of disenchanted Democrats who are in the party merely because they are disenchanted. I think the party has a better chance of going another way with Holshouser there, with him in control of the party. But I'm not saying that it's necessarily going to do that, simply because he is there. I think the way the Nixon administration has just sort of set the temper of things and having Jesse Helms around, I think these will have another influence on it. In fact, some people you know—
END OF INTERVIEW