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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview C-0029-2, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
At the time of this interview, in 1986, Thomas Jackson White Jr. could look back on decades as a civil and criminal lawyer in eastern North Carolina, terms in both houses of the North Carolina General Assembly in the 1950s and 1960s, a stint as a lobbyist, positions on the governing bodies of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a long career of influence in state politics. In this interview, White describes some of his experiences as a leader in North Carolina. He speaks at length in the first half of the interview about his eighteen-year chairmanship of the State Art Museum Building Commission, time he says he spent navigating resistance from Raleigh residents, bureaucratic mazes, the press, and party politics. In the second half, White focuses on his career as a lobbyist for the tobacco industry, offering a behind-the-scenes look at how the legislature works. This interview offers not just a portrait of an influential North Carolinian, but also insight into the intricacies of state government. White died in 1991.
Thomas Jackson White Jr. describes his leadership on the State Art Museum Building Commission and his career as a lobbyist for the tobacco industry in North Carolina.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
This is Pamela Dean. The date is March 14, 1986. I'm going to be talking with former North Carolina State Senator Thomas J. White in his office in Kinston. You had told me in previous interviews that on some occasions a governor would call you in to ask you to assist the prosecutor in some particularly complicated or delicate case. If you could give us an illustration of that.
As I have said, my law practice was largely civil, but the criminal law has always fascinated me. In the early days of my law practice, like any other young lawyer, I'd take anything that I could make an honest nickel out of, so I had experience in criminal cases as well as civil cases. And after I became a member of the General Assembly, once in a while, very infrequently, there would be a case in which the governor felt that the regularly assigned prosecutor had a job on his hands in which he needed help. More often than not such cases involved very atrocious crimes. I have been called on by more than one governor to assist prosecutors in cases which were difficult and required a lot of, maybe, special investigation and to just take a leave of absence from the General Assembly for a week or more if necessary and help that particular prosecutor in that particular case. That occurred only a very few times.
For example (or to illustrate), there was one case in which a young white
man had taken his girl in his automobile and gone for a ride and after
awhile (this was at night) they stopped in a secluded wooded area and
did whatever young boys and young girls are wont to do in situations of
that sort. And all of a sudden,
Well, the case was an important one and a very unusual one. The prosecuting officer, in those days was what we now call the district attorney; at that time we called him "the solicitor for the state." He was the prosecuting officer. He felt that he needed help and some help was assigned to him in the form of myself. The governor asked me if I would undertake the burden of assisting the solicitor or prosecuting attorney in the investigation and the trial of this case. I agreed to do it.
I felt that I had agreed to perform an impossible task. I also felt a
duty to understand that task and give it the best effort of which I was
capable. The investigation was long, careful and tedious. With great
care we explored first all the "possibilities," if any, that were open
to us. We calculated as best we could the time during which a thread of
evidence might in some way appear, as for example some chance remark by
some one other than the five culprits might be made. We had the aid of
We hoped that the pressure which sometimes arises from guilt or the knowledge of it would eventually work in the state's favor. And eventually it did. It appeared that one or more of the cuprits was a son of a farm owner or of a tenant farmer. The crime occurred in a farm section of the county. The father of one of the culprits evidently concluded that the only sure way that he could help his son was for him to convince his son that cooperation with the District Attorney's office could result in his son's receiving, in return for his help, possibly a lighter sentence or even that by his cooperation his life might be spared. As a result of advice from his father and those who were his father's friends, this one culprit cooperated with the prosecution to the extent of identifying and "involving" the other four of the guilty ones and convictions resulted.
You like a good fight.
Well, I've had a lot them and I've enjoyed some of them. I had the tar beat out of me at times; those I did not enjoy as much as those I won.
Well, you won more than you lost, I understand.
I don't know about that, that's for others to say, but I had a good time.
I think generally your reputation over the course of your entire career, from what I understand, is that most people do say you won more than you lost, that you were effective.
Well, I've never tried to figure that out but I've enjoyed the practice of law. If it's done on a proper basis and you don't try to take shortcuts or surreptitious advantages and that sort of thing, it's fine. It's an exercise in skill, it's an exercise in figuring out what a human being will do under given circumstances. It has always been very interesting to me in selecting jurors for different kinds of cases.
That's a real art.
Well, it is. I guess it's now more of a happenstance than it used to be. When I first came to the bar, no one in any county in North Carolina, was qualified to become a juror unless he was a resident freeholder in the county. And this made a tremendous difference. In a number of years after I came to the bar they abolished all the excuses and they called doctors and lawyers and a whole lot of other folks that nobody is going to have on a jury except in exceptional cases to serve. They can be excused. I guess that's good. It gives a lot of people who otherwise would not know that to serve on a jury is a valuable public service, they would never know that unless they had the experience of serving on a jury. To serve as a juror is one of the highest services that anyone can render as a citizen. You take that much time out of your life and you give it to the state and for a pittance. Of course, they can't pay but so much. This varies from state to state, and county to county sometimes. Anyway, the jury system is about as good a system as has ever been devised, I think.
I served in a jury once; I found it very informative, very illuminating. Shall we go on to talk about one of the other long-term battles that you fought and won? The other challenge which you took on, included the art museum. That was another one of your creations.
The art museum, to look at it one way, was, I guess, a lot of hard luck
and hard work for me. I don't know anything about art, never have been
particularly interested in art except to look at objects of art and
realize whether I liked it or not. I was a member of the senate in 1967.
The Honorable Dan K. Moore was the governor.
You were saying that Governor Moore had asked you to take on this project.
For many years prior to 1967, North Carolina had owned a very fine art
collection and many people, particularly people in Raleigh, Winston
Salem, Charlotte, and in several other cities, were interested in the
arts. The objects of art which the state possessed were so numerous that
many of them couldn't be exhibted in any one available place. They were
set up in various places. We had a very active state art society and
they did a tremendous work toward protecting these objects of art and
adding to them. I think it must have been when Governor Moore was
running for governor, anyhow, it was either shortly before his
nomination and election or shortly after it, Mister Smith Bagley of
Winston Salem said to the governor that "if you will use your influence
and help to build a new state art museum, I will recommend to a
foundation of which I am a member (or have an
This was after you had already demonstrated your ability to deal with these sorts of things in getting the legislative building through. Is that right?
This was subsequent to the building of the legislative building, yes. The legislative building was first occupied in 1963 and this was '67.
So he knew you could get the job done, even if you didn't know art.
Well, I don't know what he knew but I knew what I didn't know. I didn't
know at that time that it was going to take me eighteen years to do what
the governor wanted me to do. And it need not have taken more than four
or five years if we had had the cooperation of the people whose
cooperation we should have had. Those who opposed the Building
Commission's efforts
All of them except you?
Except myself; that would be for others to say.
Well, we started out by having, of course, an initial meeting of our commission, and it appeared to me, as chairman, that the sensible thing to do would be to ask the commission to authorize me to appoint some committees, which they did. I appointed a committee on the selection of architects. I appointed a chairman of a committee on the selection of a site. I appointed a chairman of a finance committee. I appointed two or three other committees, one of which was, of course, a programming committee, which is very important because it's duty would be to say what the museum shall contain.
Then one of the members of our commission, who was very much interested
in the arts, Mr. Gordon Hanes, stated that he would provide the
travelling expenses of a committee appointed to visit
But anyhow, I appointed a committee, and that committee was very prompt
in getting together their plans to visit museums. We visited museums in
the United States, many of them. Some of our plans didn't work out
because of things like illnesses at the time we could see a certain
museum, but we visited museums in the northeastern and southwestern
portions of the United States and just about encompassed this country.
We visited museums in New York, Washington, and other cities in the
northern and eastern United States. After visiting some of the museums
in the southwest, we visited the National Museum of Anthropology in
Mexico, which is a wonderful thing to behold. You go into that
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Alright, we are on side two. If you will go on with your European trip.
Alright. On the trip to Europe, as elsewhere, we were seeking modern museums. We were not looking for museums like the Louvre nor the Prado. We were looking for the most modern museums which we could find because we were looking for the most sophisticated equipment that we could find to protect the objects of art which would be deposited in the museum which we intended to build.
You wanted state of the art.
Right. So we flew first to Heathrow Airport in England. We did not visit any museums in England. We went from Heathrow airport to Holland, and from there to Denmark, and from Denmark back down to Berlin. Of course we went to France. We visited museums in all these places. And we went to Athens and other places in Greece and then we headed west again and to Portugal, after visiting some museums in Southern France.
At the museum in Portugal I remember being profoundly interested in some of the beautiful silver, of which it was said, had been taken from the Bolsheviks many years before that. This silver was on display there and I think it was in Portugal that we saw the most sophisticated system of protecting objects of art. It was fascinating to see what you can do. Well, of course, we brought home much information in regard to this. Our committee made a report; all our committees made reports.
Well, by the time we got back, it seems that a group of people in Raleigh
wanted the museum to be placed right down near News and Observer
and its little flunky the Raleigh Times, and its radio
station, by whatever name it uses, zeroed in on me as chairman of the
building commission and on the chairman of our site selection
committee.
Who was that?
The chairman of our site selection committee was a very able man, Mr.
Lewis R. Holding; he was president of the First Citizens Bank and Trust
Company. Mr. Holding being a very able man and a man of foresight
employed a company whose business it was to give information to people
who wanted to select sites and to advise them about the selection of
sites. For example,
Well, the first thing I did about it was to have the state provide me with a map of every foot of land that the State of North Carolina owned in Raleigh or its environs. And I turned these maps over to the representatives of this company that we employed to assist us in selecting a site. They spent a lot of time studying the thing and finally came up with the suggestion that we build on the site where it is now located, which is about, I don't know how far it is from Raleigh, but it's probably seven or eight or ten miles. But anyway, the site was already owned by the state, which meant that we didn't have to buy a site.
So your whole appropriation could go into building instead.
The whole appropriation could be used for building the building. North Carolina has a system of allocating land which it owns for the use of various arms of the government, commissions and organizations. Now, part of that site was being occupied by the prison department. It was called Polk Youth Center, named for somebody named Polk, and, according to prison officials, it was obsolete before it was ever occupied for that purpose.
That's not unusual, I understand!
That didn't make any difference. And its still occupied but we own the
land. I say "we," the state still owns the land but its still allocated
to the art museum. A little
The first thing that happened that really started the war about the
selection of this site was that a young man who had just been elected a
member of the House of Representatives and lived in Raleigh introduced a
bill to require the State Art Museum Building Commission to build the
museum on a site downtown near the capitol. In recounting this, I did
not mention the fact that many members of those who had kept the
business of an art museum alive in the minds of people wanted it
downtown. They were accustomed to having it downtown. But how in the
world they figured that we were going to have any programs or other
activities at night downtown, I don't know, nor do I know how they
figured you could acquire the land necessary without using up your
entire appropriation. Of course, there was a special group of very
lovely elderly, what I call blue-headed women, you know the kind, who
let the hairdresser put a little blue in their hair. Those dear ladies
were going to have it downtown, regardless of all opposition. It turned
out later that one or two of them owned some of the land that it would
have been necessary to acquire for a downtown site. But that was never
mentioned in the newspaper articles.
And the newspaper said that the chairman of our commission was arrogant;
he wouldn't cooperate with the press, which he never had and never will.
Who was that that introduced that bill?
He's a real nice boy. I think he's a Republican, I'm not sure. His name is Ward Parrington. Of course, Mr. Parrington wanted his bill passed and it was introduced in the House and we had many hearings before house committees. And then one of the senators from Wake County got into the act and he introduced a bill in the senate to require us to put the building downtown. And we had hearings before his committee.
I remember one newspaperman demanding that I turn over to him, for his
newspaper, the report of the company that made the recommendation for
the site selection. I told him I would not give it to him. "Oh," he
said, "you're withholding state property from the public." Well, I
didn't tell him that it wasn't state property, I left that for him to
find out about a year later. I wasn't under any obligation to give him
that information. It belonged to us; it didn't belong to the state. It
was not public property at all. But I didn't tell him that it wasn't
public property because I wanted him to become as angry as he could.
Anyway, there was an old gentleman who was, I think, born and raised in
my hometown of Kinston, his name was McDaniel
Which was not where….
Which was in downtown Raleigh and a number of miles from the site we had
selected.
What was he charging specifically in this suit? Do you recall exactly what the point was?
I don't remember. I haven't read that complaint in many years, and I probably never will again, but he complained about everything he could think of, mostly me, I think. He seemed to take some degree of pleasure in castigating me, which was alright with me, it didn't bother me.
What did he say about you?
I really have forgotten.
The main thing that I knew I was doing was placing that museum at a place
where it would be available to all of the people of North Carolina. In
that connection there are more people who live west of the site of that
museum than live in Raleigh and all of eastern North Carolina put
together. But these people that were raising so much sand were members
of a little group that had grown up believing that the museum was sacred
to them or they were sacred to the museum, I never did find which it
was.
But anyway, one point that some of the Raleigh folks and their newpapers
made in the supreme court was that a part of this land was occupied by a
prison, and certainly a prison was no suitable neighbor for a museum. To
this the supreme court in its opinion, holding with the Building
Commission on most points, observed that it certainly wouldn't hurt
prisoners to look at the
I see. So there wasn't an actual ruling on it?
Well, the Court ruled in favor of the Building Commission on enough important points that the Commission's adversaries could discern they were not going to be successful.
So, prior to the end of 1972, North Carolina had nominated and elected its first Republican governor it had had in fifty years. This was Governor James Holshouser. Of course, this meant that everybody that had been running the state government for all these years were going out of office by the end of 1972. Within the space of about four days I had to get the board of directors, I think they called it, of the prison department, to which a portion of the land had been allocated, to meet with me and let me explain to them how we needed that land. I had to get the land allocated to the State Art Museum Building Commission by the council of state. This required a meeting of the council of state. We had the meeting of the council of state and the allocation was made but due to an error the allocation was not made; this made it necessary to get them back together to make the allocation to the Building Commission correctly.
And this is all while the government is changing?
This was in the last three days of Democratic rule in North Carolina at that time.
Why was this deadline? You wanted to get it done before the new government came in, that was why you had this timeframe?
I wanted to get it done, period. And I didn't know what kind of luck I might have with the Republicans, being a Democrat. I think the Republicans probably would have gone along with me, but I couldn't be sure of that, but I thought I was sure of what I could do before January 1, 1973. I was sure I could try to make the allocation come to pass. And this is what occurred. I got all these people together in the space of almost a few hours and I've forgotten many of the details about it but I had good help.
I ran into one snag I wasn't expecting from (I will not call his name) but from an official who was in position to be a lot of help. He tossed in a little bombshell that caused me to have to call on the council of state to meet a second time. And I only found out about this problem by overhearing some people talk about it in a restaurant at lunchtime.
Now, what was this again?
It was the manner in which the land was allocated, I don't remember the details. But this man had to sign a paper that authorized the reallocation of the Prison Department land to the State Art Museum Building Commission and it was either inappropriately signed, or it wasn't signed, or something else was not exactly as it should be.
One of those bureaucratic snafus.
Anyway, it was something that I had to get right on and get it done, and it was done at the last minute.
That which I have told you up to this point was just the beginning of the
museum fight. The Raleigh News and Observer and Times being what
their editors make them, plus the way they train their reporters,
continued to criticize the site selection, our Building Commission, and
they saw to it that our Commission's Chairman received his full share of
criticism and catigation. Well, eventually, I can fill you in on the
date, I think, it must have been about 1977, the building contract was
let. The contractor who was the successful bidder as construction
contractor was named Middlesex Construction Company of New York. On
state bids like that one you have four "prime" contractors. You have the
general contractor, the plumbing and heating contractor, the electrical
contractor, and one other. The general contractor usually is the one
whose duty it is to coordinate everything. It used to be that you just
had one general contractor and he called the shots, and that was a much
more satisfactory way of dealing. Unfortunately, the contractor in the
position of being the general contractor, the building contractor
(Middlesex Contruction Company), and therefore the one whose duty it was
to coordinate the efforts of all the four contractors who were
successful bidders, chose a man to perform this duty who was very
abrasive and eventually incurred the displeasure of the people he was
trying to coordinate as fellow contractors. I suppose this man could not
help being what he was, and he just seemed to be unable to lead his
fellows who represented the other three contractors who were successful
bidders nor inspire them to get the job done and get it done right. The
contractors, or some of them had many arguments with the man Middlesex
placed over them. These arguments began to
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
This is tape two of the March 14th interview. If you will go on. You were talking about the prime contractor for the art museum.
To begin with, I assume that this general contractor's man knew that
water would run down hill, but if he did know it, he didn't make any
provision against it because the first thing they did out there in that
red clay land, and on a hillside, was to start the excavation for a
tremendous building without making any provision to keep the water from
running in the hole they were digging.
Where was this company from? You say, "Sending down here." Were they northern?
New Jersey, I think. I'll get you that address.
Had they been chosen because they had experience with this kind of thing?
No, they were chosen because they were the low bidder. They were the low
bidder on the general construction and there were four or five of these
companies and we didn't have much trouble with the rest of them. Except
that there was one that evidently did a very poor job with one section
of the News and
Observer said that this is a pretty bad job.
But anyway, this was a large building. It would look better from the
outside if it were white, but the brick of which it is constructed was
chosen by a committee which our commission appointed to choose the
brick, and there was some, I assume, good reason they chose this
particular brick. If they are ever successful in moving that building
downtown, they've got 1,100,000 bricks to move. That's how many bricks
there are in that building.
I don't think it is going anywhere.
I don't think so either. Anyway, the building was never completed by the original construction contractor (Middlesex), the subcontractors, yes, but the construction contractor, no.
Middlesex?
Middlesex, began to have just partial crews of men working. They weren't doing a good job. They didn't have anybody overseeing the job that seemed to be interested or wanting to do a good job. And finally, they were conducting their work in such manner that the architects, who were of course vitally interested in it, couldn't approve what they were doing. It was more what they were not doing than what they were doing. They weren't doing much of anything. They'd have skeleton crews on the job.
So they were getting way behind schedule, too, were they?
They got behind schedule early in the game and stayed behind schedule. So finally, on the date which I'll have to provide you with, and after many efforts to work things out in many, many conferences with Middlesex and its attorneys, we finally (I say "we," I'm talking about the building commission), the building commission finally found it necessary, advisable, and their duty to declare the contract in default.
That would have been November of '81, I believe, according to what I've got here. Does that sound right?
That sounds right. Anyway, we declared the contract in default after making every effort to keep from having to do that. We notified the contractor's bondsman, which was the Travellers' Insurance Company, and it declined to take any action at all. The Middlesex Construction Corporation kept claiming that it had done all it was supposed to do and called for specifics on what it had failed to do. To get this up was quite a job; it took a lot of time, it cost a lot of money, but our architects got up the necessary reports and, of course, Middlesex agreed with nothing. Then Middlesex employed counsel and brought suit against the state.
I'll have to explain to you how you sue the state for different things.
This case is entitled Middlesex Construction Corporation ex
rel., which means "on the relation of," the State Art Museum
Building Commission. That suit was started and we had our initial
hearing on that before Judge James K. Pou Bailey, and
They are on record.
Yes. They kept on undertaking to prevail through the courts, and the thing's been heard by the supreme court I think three times now. And it's now pending in the superior court of Wake County, to be heard by a judge without a jury.
Now, do they keep bringing up new points? Is this is how they keep it going?
No, same old things. The same points have already been ruled on about three times.
It's basically a question of did they fulfill the contract and it's a haggling over individual points.
I don't know what it'll wind up as but it's going to be a right serious
question for either side. I think that Middlesex is suing for a whole
lot more than they expect to get. And, of course, we don't think they
are entitled to anything. As a matter of fact, I think we may have filed
a counterclaim. I'm not sure; I don't have the record before me. And
it's very foolish to talk about a record if you don't know what's in it.
And I can't remember what's in it; and if you don't have the record in
front of you when discussing it you have to refer to the record itself
for accuracy. But anyway, that suit will probably not come to trial
before July of 1986, if then, and it will go on for quite a while
because there will be many
Now, are you actively involved in this case anymore?
Well, I'm just the chairman of the commission that's being sued, or rather on whose relation the state is being sued. And of course I'm quite sure I'll be subpoenaed as a witness. Let's see, I've already got eighteen years of my life invested in this museum, and now I've got to have some more, which I can't help, I'll just have to do the best I can.
But there is one thing that I ought to point out which I think is
outstanding, and that is that neither I nor any other person who is now
or has ever been a member of the State Art Museum Building Commission
has ever applied to the State of North Carolina for reimbursement of
even so much as a postage stamp. I don't know how many thousands of
hours nor thousands of dollars that I have invested in that museum out
there. But all of us were glad to do that. We were that much interested
in the state having a museum because we felt that we were building a
museum which would serve the people of North Carolina for at least a
hundred years, and that we were thinking of all the little children who
in a hundred years, or even twenty years, can have the benefit of seeing
the fabulous paintings and sculptures and other objects of art which are
owned by the State of North Carolina and are out there now where people
can ride up and park their cars in a safe place day or night and go in
and look at them for free. The newspaper said that nobody would ever go
to the museum out at that place where it is and there have been
Another thing is that we took into consideration in building this museum and this came poignantly to my mind when I was in another museum in San Francisco. If our commission has trained people in our museum competent to handle and care for objects of art, we can get art on loan from other museums. Let's begin at the bottom, people trained in building a crate in which to ship a painting, or how to take apart a crate that contains a painting, and how to protect them in transit, and how to protect them upon arrival at either place, how to care for them, that if we did that in a manner satisfactory to other museums all over the world that the people of North Carolina would have the benefit of seeing many, many objects of art that they could never see unless they left the country.
You'd be able to take travelling exhibits because other museums would trust your expertise. Yes. It's very important.
Right. I saw some, well I'll call them objects of art, that were on
display in a museum in San Francisco that had come there from the
Louvre, I believe, I can't remember whether it was the Louvre in Paris
or the Prado or somewhere else. But anyway, they were fabulous to look
at. Now, the way our museum is constructed, with these things in mind,
and meticulously cared for, our people in North Carolina, without
leaving their homes any farther than to go from where their homes are to
the museum out here on the edge of Raleigh, can see those things and
enjoy
And you feel satisfied that you have fulfilled that duty?
Yes, I think our commission did a real good job. I really think it did. They were all conscientious people. I suppose the one on the commission that knew less about art was I, but I didn't have to know about art to get that building built. I didn't think I did.
You had to know how to make things work.
Anyway, it's out there and it's going to be there for quite a while, I think. I think that museum will be still in operation a hundred years from now.
One of the repeated charges, I understand, that some of your opponents made and the newspapers made, is that you held a lot of your commission meetings in closed session. Is that true and, if so, what was the reason for holding closed sessions?
Well, the best reason for holding a closed session is keeping newspaper
people out of it. But I don't think we held closed sessions. Well, we
held some closed sessions but we did it in accordance with the way the
law provides that you may do it which is: there are certain things that
you can consider in a closed session, of course, when these lovely
newspaper people write things up they don't tell the public about this
sort of thing, but if one of the things that you are going to consider
is, for example, somebody's salary was going to be raised or some
Did they suggest that you were going into closed session at times that you shouldn't have been? Or they just generally objected to closed sessions, period?
No, they never suggested that because they knew that it didn't make any
difference whether they knew it was so or not. I don't think they ever
accused us of that because they couldn't prove it. I also want to say
this, that we occasionally when we
For a formal record.
Yes.
Can you give an example of when that might have happened? What kind of things you might have been dealing with?
Well, I remember, we had a group of people that lived in a small
residential section on the north side of this site and they were very
offended that anybody would build a museum close to the property that
they owned. They didn't like that. Later on, they didn't like the noise
that came from our little power plant. They didn't like this and they
didn't like that. They didn't like anything and they frequently appeared
before our commission, and they would write letters to the editors, and
of course they were always opposed. They finally came to the point where
they couldn't agree among themselves about what they wanted done. They
didn't like the way we were going to plant trees. They didn't like
anything. Then some of the state politicians, some of the Raleigh
politicians, got into the act. They were going to use the people in this
little community as a nucleus of vote-getters for themselves. It got
real sticky and these people would come to our meetings and they would
collaborate with the newspaper reporters at the meeting; Times reporter if he was present to report the news or
if he was there in support of these people who were going to be heard.
Whereupon this reporter informed me that that was none of my business.
This was characteristic of the kind of meetings we occasionally had. The
politicians whose attention these people (called "The Meredith Woods
People") attracted, finally got around to getting up some state funds to
build first one thing, and then another, in an effort to appease these
Meredith Woods People. First, they wanted the state to build what is
called a "berm", which I think is a mound of dirt. Then they were going
to set out certain trees and all these things were designed to satisfy
these people. They finally did satisfy them. I don't know how they did
it but it was done in a way that didn't bother the museum. And when they
got to that point, everything was rosy, it was all right. But I think
they are still fussing over the thing among themselves. I hope they are.
Do you have some particular questions about this?
Why don't you just start again telling me about the atmosphere of the construction meetings with the contractor and the other contractors.
All right. Long before the contract between Middlesex and the state was
declared in default, those of us who were trying to get the museum
finished and trying to keep things on an even keel learned that there
was much dissension going on
You characterized him as abrasive.
Yes, he was very abrasive and I guess he enjoyed it, he seemed to like to be that way. He may not have been, I may be mistaken about that, but all I can say is how it seemed to me. The reason I say "it seemed to me" is because I attended the meetings. Things reached the point where many people interested in the museum and its construction felt that somebody ought to go out there and sit down with these people and try to get them to agree and go ahead and finish the job. So, Mr. Hanes also attended some of these meetings with me and I don't recall how many we attended, there were not very many; but it didn't take but one to find out what was going on. And the Middlesex man was very disagreeable and it didn't take much to set him off, but if anybody disagreed with him on anything he became very abrasive. At one meeting, which I attended, a number of the contractors began to become angry at which point I said, "Well, gentlemen, if you have problems let's get them all out here on top of the table and look at them together and see if we can't solve them one at a time. Give them the necessary thought and reach conclusions which will permit all of us to go ahead."
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
OK, we are on side two. So you were at this meeting.
At one of those meetings which I attended with the contractors when it seemed that no progress could be made satisfactory to anybody. They were at odds with the Middlesex man, or some of them perhaps with each other, I don't know about that, the main thrust of it was that the man who Middlesex had there was supposed to be sort of coordinating the thing and supervising the whole business, and either he couldn't get along with any of them or some of them couldn't get along with him. I know not what the trouble really was. But they reached the point at one time that I finally said to them, "Well, gentlemen, let's just calm down now and if you have problems, we'll take you one at a time or all of you at one time, however you want to do it. Let's get all the problems out here on the table and let's take them one by one and consider them, consider the points of the different contractors, and consider the points made by Mr. whoever it was representing Middlesex, and let's try to settle them so that we can get this building off dead center so we can go ahead and, sometime in the future, finish it and finish it like it ought to be."
We had lots of problems about the way some of the work was being done.
Some of it was very, very sloppy. We finally wound up by waiving some of
that sloppy stuff because it was holding up things that were more
important than that one was. And I remember telling them one morning
that if they couldn't get their problems out here without fighting and
fussing over them, that I thought we ought to take one of these empty
rooms and put a
And all your travel was funded by Mr. Hanes, that's right?
No.
I mean the travel, wasn't he the one… ?
No, that was just on two or three trips of a committee.
Just on the two or three trips? Otherwise you all paid your own expenses when you went to museums?
Everybody paid his or her own expenses. No, Mr. Hanes paid the expense for the travel when we were going visiting all these museums to see what we wanted to put in our museum. And I'll say this, Mr. Hanes did it in a first class manner. He didn't hold back on anything. He was very, very generous. But the members of the commission, everybody that was serving on that commission, of course had some expense. I did the clerical work, I guess, myself. My law office made a tremendous contribution in the way of time, typing, and payment of stenographers and secretaries and telephone calls and postage and I don't know what else, but of course when I was working for the museum it was costing my law firm money. But they've never raised one question about it. They made a tremendous contribution and you couldn't ask for it to have been done in a more graceful way than the way they did it. They just did it as a contribution to the State of North Carolina. I never asked them what they thought about my giving so much time to the museum, but they never questioned it. And it took a tremendous about of time.
But, we have a wonderful, beautiful museum now.
Well, that museum is great inside. I don't think it's so beautiful outside but it's good and it's located properly; and once you get inside of it you would never suggest changing a line of it.
Since the museum has been dedicated and occupied and so many hundreds of
visitors have come there, it has been necessary to build an additional
parking lot to prevent mud being tracked into the building from cars
parked on the ground. So who did they
And how did you do that?
Made a few suggestions.
Did you have to go to the legislature for an appropriation?
No, you asked me how I did that. I cannot say that I did it. I just spoke to a few people who were in position to help with that sort of thing as a sort of an emergency matter. I never asked them what they did. All I asked them to do was to get the money and they did.
This was somebody in the legislature and people in state government also?
Yes, this was the 1985 session.
So your contribution was knowing who to go to?
I wouldn't say that. Now you're acting like a newspaper gal.
I try not to!
Well, I tell you. If it isn't clear to me I couldn't make it clear to you, could I? I don't want to get into the details; I might find myself in error. Maybe I didn't have much to do with it except for suggestions. I did talk to two or three people, but….
And I expect that goes a long way.
Well, I don't know about that but I am told there is another parking lot out there. That it is a very useful and a very good one.
Well, I'm going to go sometime soon and check it out.
I was told that another parking lot had been added; that the cost of it was about $105,000; and that it was a boon, very good. And I don't know how they got it built so quickly. What I'm telling you now is what I hear.
Shall we turn from the museum to talk a little bit about your work over the last several years as a lobbyist? You have a reputation for not only having been very effective in the General Assembly but since then to have been one of the most effective lobbyists in the state.
Well, some people have been very generous to me in making remarks of that
kind. I probably have been given more credit than I am due. But I hope
my clients don't think that.
I represent the most maligned and unjustly maligned industry in North
Carolina: the tobacco industry. Were it not for the tobacco industry we
wouldn't have Duke Hospital; we might not have the kind of hospital we
have at the University of North
The history of tobacco is very interesting in itself. And of course, as
you remember from your grade school history, tobacco was used as money
at times, and tobacco played a good part in keeping the British from
defeating the colonists. These organizations like the Cancer Society,
the Lung Association or whatever it is called, and dozens and dozens of
organizations that call themselves anything from Protect Babies from
Cigarettes to no telling what are out to get money for their purposes.
These organizations send people out who go around levying on people that
have some money, or those whom they think have some money, begging for
"help". They collect money from anybody that'll give them any money, and
I suspect it would be very enlightening to see what becomes of that
money they collect, under the guise of "protecting from cancer." There
is a whole lot of fraudulent talk against tobacco, unsupported by
scientific facts or even reason and common sense. Some of the statements
being published today are apparently designed to frighten women. Eminent
scientists report on some of these and many of these rash statements are
not based upon complete and accurate tests. I
I would not want to offend any lady and certainly I would not want to
offend you but in considering women's reactions to public statements —
take women's lib, for instance. The most insulting group I have ever
seen appear before the General Assembly was a group either for or
against the so-called Women's Lib Amendment. Present publications appear
to be designed to excite women into condemning the right to smoke or not smoke.
Is this one of the times they were trying to pass the ERA?
Yes. There was a bill pending to ratify the ERA.
Ratify the ERA?
Oh, yes. There was a bill there to ratify the ERA and when it was not ratified it was amazing to me to see human beings walking around looking like ladies and acting like dogs.
What did they do?
What did they do? Oh, they were squaling, yelling. They were snarling, and I said acting like dogs, I mean they were snarling and barking and raising hell because they didn't get what they wanted. That's the most insulting group I've ever seen.
Do you think that is one of the reasons that ERA that failed to pass? Was just the attitude, the approach of those that were working for it?
I think it failed to pass because the General Assembly didn't think it was a good idea. I agreed with the General Assembly.
You think that even if the women hadn't been quite so offensive that it still probably, on its merits, wouldn't have passed?
The height of their offense did not occur until after they had lost. This
is when they showed their true colors. You could see which ones wanted
it and which ones could get along without it. That may be an impolite
thing to say as far as women are concerned, but I can't imagine my
asking any woman to vote for me for anything else at my age.
So you don't have to be polite now?
There is never any real occasion to be impolite but I won't worry about
that now. I was embarrassed for those women. I really was. I was sorry
for them. I regretted very much that we had that many women in North
Carolina who acted in a fashion unbecoming a lady. Of course, I probably
am too altruistic about that anyway.
That was something of a digression, an interesting one I think, but we were talking about your lobbying work for the tobacco industry. What sorts of things do you do as a lobbyist for them, as a representative of them?
I guess the thing to do would to talk about my responsibilities to my
client. In the first place, you need to know what's going on and you
need to know from sound sources what's going on. You need always to be
aware of what's going on. You need to be abreast of any changes that are
coming on and you have to be alert to the filing of any bill affecting
tobacco and analyze it, and of course you report it to your client
A lot of people sign bills maybe because the bill is being introduced by a good friend without taking the time to analyze the bill because the legislators don't have that kind of time here in the thick of things. So you need to see where that bill is coming from and try to evaluate its chances. And, of course, you report everything to your clients. Then you go to see members of the General Assembly and state whatever position you have about the bill and you ask them either to support the bill or to kill it, whichever would be desirable. You attend every committee meeting that time will permit which could have any effect on that bill. And you always want to know how the presiding officers feel about the bill. There are lots of things you don't do like you don't harangue people; you don't take too much of their time; you don't bust in on a legislator when he'd dictating his morning mail.
So knowing sort of the routine of how a legislature works, I would assume from all of your experience with that, makes you more effective. You know when and where to approach somebody.
I've lived a long time and I have come to the conclusion that almost
everything that any of us has to deal with is a matter of either
economics or timing, or both. You can think about that a long time and
you won't get away from the truth of that. Of course, there's a book in
the Bible which says there is a time for everything; I don't know which
one it is but
They don't make contributions to any legislators. They pay me a salary. And yet I have even legislators come to me for contributions. And they'll come to me for contributions to pay off the debt of some politician that ran and didn't win. You'd be amazed at what they ask for. I was going down a hall in a hotel in which there was a meeting going on, a group assembled to raise money for some state official who happened to be running for governor, and I heard one of the group say, "Here comes old Tom White. He represents all these tobacco companies. He'll give us $25,000." He came on out and jumped on me. I said, "Well, that would really be nice to be in that position. But my clients have people like me in fifty states. In some of those states they have two people like me. They have to pay them. They'd be out of business if they had to make political contributions to folks like you in every state or anywhere." It just doesn't work that way. But you'd be surprised at the gall of people who ought not to be asking for contributions that'll ask you for a contribution anyway.
Do a lot of companies or organizations make those kinds of contributions? Do you know?
Yes. Some of them are afraid not to. They get in a situation occasionally that they feel that they have a choice of making the requested contribution or their cause goes down the drain.
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
This is side A, tape three. We were talking about contributions and about the fact that, at the very least, if you don't make the requested contribution you can't really depend on the person who is asking for it really being receptive when you ask him for favorable consideration of a bill or something.
I would not want to give the impression that legislators of any kind would toy with the idea of putting a price on their votes. But it stands to reason that if anyone is displeased by what you do it does not make them, to say the very least, look with favor on what you want them to do. So it's just that sort of a psychology. You have to avoid getting in situations like that as much as you can.
How do you turn down a request for a donation to some cause, campaign, what have you, without creating that kind of….
Well, it's pretty difficult to do. If somebody asks you for a donation they don't like to be put off. They'd almost rather be turned down than to be put off because if you say, "Well, let me think about that and see you later," then they'll get at least the notion that you are turning them down but you just don't have the courage to say no flat out, which isn't healthy either.
So it's better to just say no?
Well, there isn't anything good about it so you can't say anything is
better.
Are there things that you can do for legislators that do create that kind of sense of reciprocity of "I've done something for you. Can you help me with this bill?" Are there some sorts of things that you do?
Well, there are many possibilities of action that you know you couldn't
even sit here and define. There are things that are helpful to
legislators that they don't even ask for that a lobbyist can do. For
example, there might be a legislator who has not had any legislative
experience before and you realize that, and without making any point of
it but just if you have an opportunity, present yourself. You can give
him some of your time; you can enlighten him about how committee work is
carried on. He may have some questions. I can remember when I first went
to the General Assembly. The people who were most helpful to me were the
lobbyists because they knew the legislative process, I did not. You
don't want to wait until you have some reason to help a fellow, you
know. You just help him when you know you can help him. You take
advantage of every opportunity that presents itself to honestly give a
legislator the facts and the import of legislative questions which arise
on bills, and sometimes you can be of invaluable help to them. You may
not see him again for a year but he isn't going to forget that, you
helped him at a time when he needed a little help. So you try to
So you sometimes suggest to a legislator who to talk to about what he's doing, or what procedure to follow to get his bill through, something like that?
No, I wouldn't say that. But I would say that if he requests my opinion
about something and I'm sure about the facts I'll give him my honest
opinion about it. If he wants to know who to talk to, I never pick out
any particular person—I say "never," never is a long time—I don't make a
practice of saying, "Well, you need to go see Mr. So and So." I'll give
him a list of the people whom I knew were interested in that bill and
which way they stood. Then he could do his chore whichever way he chose.
Because if you told him one way to go and he went that way and it didn't
pass he'd think, "Well, you're playing hell with me. You told me to do
so and so and I did it and the bill didn't pass." On the other hand, if
there was something about the bill that neither he nor you knew about
it, and the thing didn't pass, the next time you see him he could not
say, "Why in the hell didn't you tell me this?" So you have to be very
careful and cautious about how you talk to legislators, but always be
honest with them; always tell them the truth. The know because I'm not a member), that
if you challenge a man about what he told you he'll say something like,
"Well, when we were talking I didn't understand it that way." He'll give
you some kind of a dodge like that. That, of course, relates to the
character of the person you are talking to. There are people who will
give you any kind of talk. I enjoyed my legislative experience and you
soon learn the identity of those on whom you can rely and of those on
whom you can't rely. And you don't have fights and fusses with them
because there might be some things that you've got in your repertoire
that that guy is highly in favor of. If you cuss him out for telling you
a lie about something he isn't going to vote for it. It's a delicate
tightrope to walk.
You don't want to make overt enemies out of anybody.
No, ma'am. I like to convert my enemies into friends if I can, and I've
done some of that in my lifetime. I had a good time doing it.
How do you do that?
How do you do it?
Yes.
I don't know. I guess you kind of luck out. I can remember having savage trials with people who wound up being some of my best clients.
You did such a good job on the other side.
In my hometown there used to be an old gal that was every once in a while in the toils of the law, and she became so angry with her lawyer in court that she picked up an ink bottle and hurled it at him because he had bested her in the trial. And later, she employed him, she retained him annually as her lawyer.
That wasn't you, that was somebody else?
No, it was not I. When that happened I was in knee pants.
I'm trying to think of what else we can explore. From what you've been telling me, my impression of the way that the General Assembly works is that most things are fairly informal. My guess would be that any kind of speeches that are given on the floor are really not that important. That it's the conversations and the relationships you have with other members that are more decisive. Is that a fair picture of how things work?
That is not an accurate picture, no. Of course, what you speak of is
involved but there are not a great many bills, as they procede on their
courses change course by reason of eloquent or other speeches on the
floor. I say not a great many, yet sometimes, there are. I have known
bills the passage of which appeared to be a foregone conclusion be
completely turned around by a speech not so much of eloquence as
practical
Can you think of an example of that happening? I mean, do you recall a specific case?
Yes. In 1947, I think it was, there was an appropriation bill to appropriate $1 million from the general fund for the purchase of objects of art and, at that time, I would say perhaps the majority of members of the General Assembly were as bad off in their knowledge of art as I am. Certainly, in many counties of this state, there were no art societies, no art councils, no art this, no art that. That was not the kind of an object for which to be appropriating money that the average appropriation committee was interested in. The appropriations committee was primarily interested in the fiscal well being of the state and its institutions. Art had no special appeal to the committee. One man got up on the floor of the house and made a speech in favor of that bill and changed just about every vote that was against it. That was a great event in the history of North Carolina and its now having such a wealth of good art. That was a great speech. I didn't hear it, I wasn't there. But that is accepted as common knowledge in art and legislative circles. That's one example that I recall. Another example didn't involve a speech but it involved some doing.
What was that?
That was when the hunters and fishermen of North Carolina who had organized themselves into an association of wildlife clubs.
You had something to do with that process.
Yes. We had all these clubs all over the state and we were trying to get a bill passed to take the management of the state's game resources out of the hands of the Department of Conservation and Development.
We talked about that in, I think, the first interview. You mounted quite an effective lobbying action in that case. Broad-based, I understand.
We organized these clubs all over the state and I was chairman of the legislative committee and I conducted the hearing in favor of that bill in the hall of the house. I had never been a member; I had just been beaten running for the house. The way we organized that thing was we wanted the members of the house to know every county, we didn't skip any of them. Every county had people interested in and in favor of that bill being passed. We chose people, of course, who would make a speech. We have a hundred counties in this state and the legislature isn't going stand hitched for very long at a time. So I told each one of these people who were going to speak saying, "If you speak more than one minute, I'm going to embarrass you and I'm going to ask you to sit down."
So you had it really tightly organized.
That's right. The estimate was that we wouldn't get any votes, then the
estimate got up to where we'd get a few votes, and it actually wound up
we got all but about three or four.
It's known as doing your political homework.
To do that it took a lot of doing. We had a lot of good help. We had help from all over the state. Those boys were on fire.
So sometimes a speech, sometimes a good representation at a hearing will make a real difference.
It will make a good difference and it makes a good difference in committees oftentimes. But usually, to change the course of anything of that sort, the speaker, number one, must have the respect of the people to whom he's speaking. Number two, he's got to have his facts straight. And if there are things wrong with the bill that he is presenting—maybe "wrong" is not the right word. If there are parts of the bill to which there is a general objection, he must be prepared to explain why it's that way and go farther and explain why it should not be that way. These are some of the principles that you follow.
He can't just go in there and present a biased argument. He's got to give the full….
Well, the last time that I said anything to a committee on a tobacco
bill, it was the bill to tax cigarettes, when they called on me, I said,
"Mr. Chairman, all I want to do is to make a statement and announce a
position." It was the cigarette tax bill and I pointed out how the
tobacco industry felt about it; the kind of investment it had here in
North Carolina; finally got around to what its value was to North
Carolina, to how it contributed to the welfare of many other
[END OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE B]
We have talked quite a bit today. We've had quite a session and I'd sort of like to wind up and ask you if you could take a minute and, I think you've touched on a lot of things that relate to why you have been, whether you wish to admit to it or not, a power in the General Assembly when you were there, an effective legislator in getting the art museum and as a lobbyist since you have been out of the legislature. Can you sum that up for me. I mean, if you will grant that you have been effective in what you have done despite your modesty, why do you think you have been?
What's the key to your success?
First of all, it would not be for me to say if or how I have been
successful. But if I had to stand off and look at it and feel detached
from the total effort, I would say, basically, that I have always loved
my state and wanted to serve my state in some capacity. If I did, I
wanted it to be useful, conservative, and constructive and whatever I
did I certainly wanted it to be honorable and I was not afflicted nor
tainted with any burning desire for power. I've never aspired to being
governor of North Carolina. A few people have suggested that I
But the thing that I would never want to lose would be the respect of the
members of the General Assembly, the judiciary, and other lawyers,
whether I appeared with them or against them. I would want them to know
that when I was advocating a cause that
I think from what you have said and from what I have read, even in the newspapers that you were battling with, that I don't think anyone's really questioned that.
Well, if I've ever had my integrity questioned I don't know when it was. There are two other ingredients which one has to have to be successful in the kind of thing that I have spent my time doing. Well, really there are three, we've already mentioned one of them, but I say you've got to have, number one, integrity. Then you've got to be enthusiastic about what you are doing. You've got to have courage to do what's right when it's uncomfortable to do what's right. And you've got to have an absolutely inexhaustible supply of determination. That's what you've got to have.
Well, I'd say that to have done what you've done against some of the
opposition you've had you were determined.
I love to have opposition.
I think you mentioned to me once that your wife had commented on that in reference to your ongoing battles with the press. What was that she said?
Poor little darling, I'll tell you about her. When we went to the General
Assembly, of course it was a strange world for both of us. The News and
Observer and one of its reporters came with an article, intellectually
dishonest in design and calculated to be extremely critical of me as a
legislator.
So you took them on, gave as good as you got.
My wife finally said to me, "I believe that if they didn't get on you at
least every other week that you go spitting out at them, make them mad
enough to do it." Times which was in his poor way something in
the nature of an apology, an admission that I was right and the press
was wrong about locating the museum where it is.
Really! Who was that?
Who was it? The only thing I remember is his name was Paul.
Well, it's not crucial; I was just curious who it was.
I can find out for you if you want. I think I've got a copy of the thing. Incidentally, I saw him one day. He was down at the legislative building, and this was a year or so after the museum had been occupied, and we were having all the visitors we could accomodate. He stopped me to say this: he said, "Senator White, I took my family out to the museum." He said, "I want to tell you it is really great!" And I took his hand and pushed back his sleeve so that I could see his watch.
Checked his pulse!
I said, "Paul, are you alright?"
I think we had better wrap this up for today, and let you go home and me, too, probably. I want to thank you officially on the tape, on the record, for all the time you have given me and how gracious and generous you have been. We really appreciate it.
Thank you very much. I appreciate the privilege and I hope I haven't been too difficult about these things.
No, I don't think you've lived up to your reputation.
I thank you for your generosity. I probably could have done more but I
don't know any way to begin.
Well, I think you've done a great deal. I think we've covered a great deal of very interesting material that I think is very valuable and I'm delighted its to be preserved and available.
Well, I appreciate the opportunity of doing it. I'd have never done it had it not been for you good people, and these things would have faded from my memory. A lot of them already have. I'll probably think of dozens of things that I'd liked to have told you about.
You call me up if you think of a dozen more.
END OF INTERVIEW