Hard work and integrity drive White's career
White says that he has always been driven by a dedication to service, not by ambition. He ascribes his success to the respect he earned with his work ethic and his integrity.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Thomas Jackson White Jr., March 14, 1986. Interview C-0029-2. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
What's the key
to your success?
- THOMAS JACKSON WHITE, JR.:
-
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
run for governor. I've had maybe
more than a few to suggest that, but my answer has always been,
"Well, thank you very much. I appreciate your suggestion and
your confidence. But I've held the hands of too many
governors not to know that it's a sorry job." I
would just turn and brush it away like that because, to be governor, you
have to sacrifice your independence, which means a lot to me. I have
just thoroughly enjoyed serving the state of North Carolina, if I have
served it, in the best way that I knew how. To do that, you have to be
willing to get up in the morning and get on the job and stay with it and
go back to it after dinner if it necessary or even if it
isn't. But the basic thing you have to have, I think, in
order to be successful as a member of the General Assembly, is to have
the respect of the people with whom you deal. And you can't
acquire that and keep it unless you demonstrate that you are willing to
work hard enough to know what you are doing and that you are not real
fond of getting full of steak and potatoes and liquor every night, not
that I'm down on that, I just can do my job better if I
don't do that. You try to help other folks with their
problems without seeking any pay or remuneration of any kind, or even
like favors. You're just willing to be helpful to other
servants of the state, that's the way I look at it. I guess
that's about as fair an analysis of it as I can give you.
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 the basis
on which I was proceeding was, in my opinon, sound and one, I felt, was
correct and should be given my best effort.
- PAMELA DEAN:
-
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.
- THOMAS JACKSON WHITE, JR.:
-
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.
- PAMELA DEAN:
-
Well, I'd say that to have done what you've done
against some of the opposition you've had you were
determined. [Laughter]
- THOMAS JACKSON WHITE, JR.:
-
I love to have opposition.