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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-0127, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Roger Gant describes the professional and personal activities of his father-in-law, Everett Jordan, Democratic United States senator from North Carolina. Gant recounts his early interactions with the Jordan family and how he became involved with Jordan's textile mill. He analyzes the way Jordan structured his business in terms of his relationships with workers and his use of technology. Jordan's skill at communicating with people also helped him succeed as a senator. Gant focuses on the ways Jordan negotiated political deals and how he helped Lyndon B. Johnson avoid political controversy before the latter was elected president. Gant concludes by listing some specific products that were made in the mill and comparing the personalities of Jordan's children.
Roger Gant explains the professional and personal activities of his father-in-law, Everett Jordan, Democratic United States Senator from North Carolina. Gant discusses how he became involved with Jordan's textile mill and how Jordan structured his business. Jordan's skill at relating to people helped him in business and in politics. Gant focuses on a few of Jordan's political successes, including the way he helped Lyndon Johnson before his presidential bid.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Roger, to begin with, what year were you and Rose Ann married?
1949.
Had you known Everett Jordan before then?
My first exposure to Everett Jordan was back in the depression years when the flying squadrons were coming to the textile mills in the South and trying to vandalize them. The situation was so severe and dangerous that my father put all five of us children in the car one day and drove us to Saxapahaw to see machine guns sitting on the corners of the roof of that mill behind sandbags to protect that mill from the vandalism from the flying squadrons. It was a very dramatic situation which my father recognized, and of course Everett did too. But that mill had been threatened and he had called for help from the National Guard to protect his property. That was an indication that the man believed in individual rights and believed in protecting them. He wasn't going to let somebody run over him. I didn't know him at that time but in my mind's eye I can still see that machine gun emplacement on the end of the mill closest to the bridge.
Was that in 1930 or 31?
I don't remember—I was a little boy.
When were you born?
1924.
I didn't know Everett until I started dating Rose Ann. When I went down to Saxapahaw to date Rose Ann I met him then, and then I got to know him very well after that.
How did a UNC graduate fare with the Duke powerhouse that was all Duke—the Jordan family?
Well love overcomes those barriers. I think it was a traumatic experience for both the Jordan family and the Gant family to be friends with the enemy camp after being bitter rivals all the time. But we laughed about it—it never bothered Everett, he offered me tickets to the Duke football games when he had extra ones—he included me in his count I guess.
Then when the game was at Carolina I would get tickets on both sides of
the stadium. Everett always had seats in the guest box so I never had to
worry about him and Katherine, but Rose Ann and Ann would sit on the
Duke side of the stadium and the rest of the family on the Carolina
side. That was no problem at all, I admired Everett's willingness to
work for Duke and he did—he worked hard, and he loved his service on the
board of trustees and his association with people like
Those were good contacts.
Yes. He didn't make the contacts to try to get to the Senate, he made the contacts because he believed in service. He had inherited that from his father who as a Methodist preacher spent his life serving other people.
Let's discuss Everett Jordan as a person. Assume I don't know him—describe him to me please.
I'm sure that my impressions are not like anybody else's precisely and
reflect comparisons in contrast to my own upbringing. Everett, from a
business viewpoint believed in business success through smart selling,
contrasted to my father who of course recognized that you had to sell
your
Everett Jordan had great patience, and I guess that's a sign of maturity,
I don't guess you are mature until you have patience. But after he got
into politics people would call him every free moment he had at home.
Somebody would be calling him on the telephone with sometimes big
important issues to discuss, but most of the time, fairly petty,
unimportant issues, and he never lost patience with them. Even those who
were real pests and habitual callers about one thing and another. He
never indicated any exasperation or impatience when he talked to them
either in person or on the phone. A lot of people would come to the
house to see him and interrupt him at lunch or supper or anytime of day,
which would have infuriated me, but he never lost his cool, never
indicated that it was disturbing him a bit, and felt it was a part of
his job as a representative
I remember the time the dam was built at Saxapahaw—again, my father was quite interested in complex construction problems and drove us down there on Sunday afternoons several times to see the progress made in the construction of that dam. In later years, when I was courting Rose Anne many times tales would come up about the building of that dam and the washing out of the old wooden dam that was there before, and the floods that came along when they were building the new dam and washed out the forms. And Everett and Davis and the volunteer work crew would get out in the middle of the night and try to save things—Everett right out there in the middle of the river with the rest of them.
And he always had a funny story to tell about practically any point that was being discussed. He had some anecdote to illustrate it. There was the time he found Davis working on a motor down in the pump house and he was standing in water and he grabbed the pump and he grounded the current going into the motor and Everett looked down and Davis was making a croaking noise coming out of his throat and so Everett cut off the switch or grabbed him loose and Davis said, "What took you so long?" Everett said, "Well I just saw you down there and I grabbed you as soon as I saw you—turned off the switch as soon as I saw you." And Davis said, "Well I been hollering at you for about five minutes."
He always had funny stories to tell and of course he'd built that mill,
almost as a personal task from the time
And he was a great teacher. He put me on his board of directors very soon after I married Rose Ann—not because I could bring anything to the board, but because I could benefit from being on the board, and I did benefit from it a great deal. I was just a young kid at the time of course, but he recognized that if Sellers shared its experiences with me it would improve my sophistication in my own work and of course he hoped, I'm sure, that my experiences at Glen Raven would make it possible for me to bring something to Sellers board. I don't think I ever did bring much. He and his staff knew so much more about running that kind of business than I did that I couldn't bring it much. But I appreciated greatly his allowing me to sit in on his board meetings.
How did the board function, Roger, was it kind of a sounding board or did it make decisions, or had he already made the decisions himself and just asked approval?
Well the board had great confidence in Everett's ability. His judgement
had been good so much of the time—his batting average was so high—and he
was conservative in his approach, he believed in having liquidity and
not over extending the resources of the corporation. When machinery
changes were indicated he investigated the options carefully; he had
He was a very active member of the ATMI, the American Textile Manufacturers Institute, he went to those meetings regularly and served on boards and committees.
Did he ever serve as president of ATMI?
I don't think he did, I'm not sure.
He was active in the N. C. Textile Manufacturer's Association, the North Carolina Citizens Association—he was a charter member, one of the founders of that organization I believe. He had many friends not only in the textile business but in many others and if he needed to get other opinions about equipment or management ideas such as industrial engineering or computers, why he had a dozen friends he could call on who would be glad to share their experiences with him, and he with them. So he had a relatively easy and inexpensive way to evaluate new processes or new machinery.
Was this unique with him or did other mill men do this?
I don't think he was unique; I think the textile fraternity generally feels there are not many secrets in the long run and if anybody really wants to find out almost anything that is going on in the textile industry he can. But I think the door was more open to him than it was to a great many people.
He utilized it more fully, perhaps?
He used it, and his door was always open. There are many people in this
industry like that though. We have several friends in comparative
businesses that we would not hesitate to ask them their opinion about
He kept his hand on the business all of his life, and he was very smart about not only management but about the technology of running the spinning mill. And he was smart about recognizing his limitations too. When he took over that mill in 1927 it was a spinning and weaving mill and the warps were still on the looms and the assumption was that he could continue to operate as an intergrated weaving mill, but Everett said, "I don't know anything about those looms and I do know something about spinning frames so lets crank up these spinning frames. We're not going to run those looms, at least for the time being, because I don't know anything about them." So he never did run the looms and he replaced looms with spinning frames eventually when he could afford it. So he recognized that there were possibilities—opportunities available to him in the spinning business without having to take on a new technology about which he knew nothing. He didn't know anything about the manufacturing or the selling of woven goods.
I guess his greatest business talent was as a salesman though. He didn't put on any airs about that—if he had a sample of yarn to take to Philadelphia or New York he was more apt to carry it up there in a paper grocery bag than he was to have it boxed up or dressed up fancily.
Having control of the manufacturing as well as the selling he could
translate the customers needs into manufacturing requirements and
conversely he could help the customer understand the limitations as far
as manufacturing went and work out a compromise plan. So he was a
superior salesman; the customers had great confidence in him and the
fact that he owned the business made them understand that if he made a
commitment to them it would be fulfilled. So while he had sales agents
that made routine calls on his accounts, any of the principal accounts
he saw several times a year
Is that normal among businessmen in general?
I think it was normal but I think it was true with Everett to a larger
degree, I think Everett just liked people—his father liked people, or
else he would never have been a Methodist preacher—and Everett inherited
that and Everett never met anybody that stayed a stranger very long. He
just liked them for what they were whether they were business related or
not. He just liked all kinds of people—understood them, and understood
that they were all human and had their frailties and he never belittled
anybody because of any frailties they might have. He was very
big—generous and understanding of the way people were put together and
the way they acted and what they needed. He had very close associations
with people of all levels in his mill; he didn't value the friendship of
the mill superintendent any higher than he did the floor sweeper. Went
to church with all of them; in Sunday School class with them. He was not
impressed by class or clothes or material ownership of the people he
knew. As far as I could tell he equated them all which, I think, is
unusual. As his representing them in the Senate goes that was certainly
true. The person with the lowest ranks of society had just as much
influence with him as the business person had—business owner had. And I
think he judged issues on the merits and in a way there was much less
bias then most business owners could have done. Most business owners
think of issues in so far as they concern to business—I certainly do—
Can you give me an example?
I'm trying to think of one. Whose that ex-boxer with the beard that use to worry him all the time—
I did not always agree with his evaluation of issues in the general assembly or the congress. I'm having difficulty thinking of any specific one.
When you disagreed, what happened?
Well he respected my right to disagree with him and I didn't respect his as much as he did mine. I couldn't see sometime how he would be on the side of an issue that would adversely affect business. I'm too far to the right I guess—
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Yes, I'm further to the right than he was. I feel that business is the
backbone of the country—backbone of the success of this country and
everything should be done that can be to encourage its support—the
business community, especially the businesses that create wealth. I
think the more wealth the country has the more wealth can be distributed
amont the population and therefore the greatest chance of the highest
standard of living for everybody. Those business that create wealth in
manufacturing is the principal creator of wealth. You take a hunk of
dirt and make steel out of it and that creates a useful product; or you
take a hunk of cotton and spin yarn and make a garment out of the fabric
woven from the yarn and that creates an item that improves the standard
of living for somebody,
On wage scales, Roger, you were aware of how his mills wage scales compared to comprable mills?
We compared them with ours here at Glen Raven a couple of times and
generally speaking the wage levels were a little bit lower than ours,
but we never did make a comparison of the total picture. Sellers
furnished a whole lot more mill houses to its workers than we did and if
you throw into the formula that an employee was renting a house for so
many dollars a month, that offset, at least to some degree, the
difference there may
How many employees do you have now?
We have about 3,000 in 10 or 15 plants from Georgia to the Virginia line and it's just hard to get to know them. I guess the real reason though is the style of management. I tend to manage from my office by paper more than by getting out in the mill and talking to the employees.
Everett Jordan managed as a one-man type operation; many companies operate with committees or many key people who have much responsibility—didn't you find that to be true with Everett Jordan?
Yes I think so. Everett, as I said earlier, created that mill from
An operation as large as yours could not do that could they?
I don't think that operations as complex as ours could do it. There may be a few people that could run this company that way but I certainly don't have the capacity to do it that way. I don't think anybody at management level in this company has the capacity to run it that way. I'm sure there are geniuses that could do it. Everett Jordan would never have created this company. He wouldn't have allowed the business to get as complex as ours. Rather than going off in a dozen directions as we have done he would have gotten bigger and bigger in the yarn spinning business.
Or maybe the combed yarn business—something very close akin to what he had, and he may have been able to run a company of our size as a one man show, but it wouldn't be as complex a business as we have.
You have a great variety of end porducts?
Yes. We have a dozen different product lines and in each of those product lines there is a lot of variety. We are quite decentralized in our management philosophy. We have division managers who are general managers. They control the manufacturing, the selling, the purchasing—they're responsible for the bottom line profits at their division. A division can mean either a product line or manufacturing unit. We give them a great deal of autonomy. And this is quite different from Everett's business, but he stuck to the combed yarn business and didn't have the complexity that we have. He shut down those looms—he stuck with the things that he knew how to do and was very successful. Everett could manufacture at lower cost than the big mills because he did not have all that staff to slow things down or increase cost. His wage levels might have been a little lower but the real economies of his type of operation were in the entrepreneurship that one man's judgement was the final decision point, and that judgement was very good. He guessed right a whole lot more than he guessed wrong.
. . . This grabbing the wires and going "ugggg ugggg uggg" he used that to illustrate a point sometimes and another one he had was about the country preacher who started his sermon by saying, "Well today, brethren and sistern I'm going to preach about the sin of adultery—if it is a sin." He would illustrate a point or two with that occasionally.
. . . and they lived in Morganton and he was about 16. Everett was
always resourceful and so to earn some extra money—he had a little wagon
and he would go around Morganton gathering up junk that people wanted to
dispose and he would take it to the junk yard and sell it. He was
earning
Everett's father sent him over to Rutherford College to get him educated—I don't think he stayed very long—Everett didn't finish college—his English wasn't perfect—his grammar—but he was educated in the important things all right.
Katherine says that Everett never put any restrictions on her that she
could do anything she wanted to do so far as fixing up the house or
village or anything. And he never adhered to a budget and told her that
she couldn't do anything, so if she wanted to get a new rug for the
house or new draperies for the windows she always felt she had the
freedom to do that. She claims she never abused the privilege and I
guess she didn't really. She never certainly spent beyond Everett's
ability to pay for it. He was very generous with her and their
relationship was extremely close. I have never heard them have a sharp
word with each other at all despite the many difficult times they came
through. They were always working together rather than apart. They
seemed to carry the same opinions about how problems should be
approached and solved. I never heard a cross word between them. I knew
them from 1949 until Everett died in 1974. I never heard either one of
them have anything but very positive approaches to their lives or any of
them around them. If other people weren't doing the things they ought to
do why Everett and Katherine's comments would not be critical of what
the other people were doing bad, but only how they could help them do
things right. Quite different from my own
Rose Ann made a comment in one interview on this subject—something like: For me to talk to you to get you to discuss Everett Jordan's philosophy concerning money as compared to the Gant philosophy.
Well we've delved into that a little bit. As I said, my father believed
in saving money—having money to spend through saving money, and Everett
believed in making money and having money to spend through making it. My
father was always looking for bargains. My father would go to the
OPO—One-Price-Only store to buy his suits, because they were $30 instead
of $60. If he could save $30 on the suit then that would be $30 he would
not have to come up with or $30 he would have to spend on something
else. Everett believed on going out and making $30 more and buying the
$60 suit, but figuring some way to make $30 extra to spend on something
else. Everett thought the reason you were in business was to make money
and the reason you made money was so you could improve your standard of
living and other peoples too. He was very generous; he improved other
people's along with his own, but he stayed in good hotels and ate in
good restaurants. My father would stay in a decent but cheap hotel and
eat in decent but cheap restaurants. Quite a hundred and eighty degree
difference in attitudes about things. Everett knew that if he could get
an extra half-cent a pound for yarn or sell a hundred thousand pounds
more of yarn, then it would be more profitable and he'd make more money
and everybody else in the chain would too. Not that daddy didn't believe
in selling the product—he had to sell the product before he could make
any money at all—but my father was very much more of
At your Sunday dinners, Roger, what was your chief topic? —with the Jordan family. Was it mill business, politics, family?
There wouldn't be much mill business discussed at the dinner table. There might be some if Ben was there and if Everett had been away and had not been able to talk to Ben about a mill problem or mill issue. They may have discussed it briefly or Everett might have Joe Neel or somebody else in the mill come by—Ben Bulla or somebody come by and answer a question they might have or bring a paper to be signed or something like that, but not very much mill business. There would quite often be a discussion about village matters. If there was somebody in the village who had gotten married or if there had been a death in the village or somebody whose house had caught fire or something like that. That would often be discussed.
How about politics?
Yes, there'd be politics discussed. I don't know that Everett would initiate those discussions, but if there was a political issue in which I was interested I didn't hesitate to raise a question about it, or as I say, he had these telephone calls coming in all the time—they might initiate or stimulate a discussion about politics. Often the discussions were about Duke or members of the family—in a large family you've always got something to talk about in relation to the family. Church—there would often be discussions about the church.
As head of the house he was the dominant factor in the conversation wasn't he? Did the children play much of a role in the conversation?
I guess you would say he was the dominant factor, but Katherine—yeah
Was that Edith Sellars Walker?
Yes, Everett's first cousin.
Let's talk about the 1972 primary against Nick Galifanikas. Other than health and age reasons, Roger, do you know of any other aspects or factors that could have been involved in his defeat?
Well I think they are the two primary ones, Ben, they are the two that Nick kept saying he wasn't going to talk about. I guess he said that several dozen times, but even then Everett was very charitable to this opponent who was using, at best, questionable tactics in his campaign. Everett was very reluctant to even criticize even that.
No, I think they were the real issues; certainly age—Everett was not too old to be elected—if age had not been brought into the campaign, because there had been dozens and dozens of very able politicians—less able than Everett—who had been elected at an older age than his was. Health was questionable and I guess in the final analysis it was just as well that Everett did not get reelected the last time.
Was there a change in this country from the so called ERA people, the younger folks and the John Kennedys and Robert Kennedys—a youthful group. Was that a sort of mass type of thing at that time where youth versus age was taking a bigger role?
Yeah, I guess so. The mood of the country changes from time to time.
Do you think the Democratic Party had become complacent?
Ben, I'm no political strategist. Gosh, I don't know, I don't understand the way the public behaves. I think the fact that these issues of health and age were constantly touted in the media and by the other side, certainly were the principle cause, whether they were legitimate or not is not the question, but the fact that they were constantly brought to the public's attention certainly had an impact. I don't know about the general youth syndrome because there were a lot of older people who were—look at Walter Jones. You talk about age and health, Walter Jones should have been gone from the Congress years ago. That guy can't even get to the floor to vote but about one time out of ten his health is so bad, but nobody has made an issue about it.
. . . protective of the people that worked for him. Look at the people
on his Washington staff. When he knew that he wouldn't be back he found
good jobs for everybody on his staff I think, that wanted to stay there,
from Bill Cochrane right on down to the newest clerk. He placed them all
and I think that's a great credit to the respect that other people had
for him. If they hadn't had that respect then they wouldn't have found
jobs for these people. It was a much less friendly capital than it would
have
As far as textiles go how do you appraise his performance as a senator? Did he do a good job representing the industry?
Oh yeah. I'm trying to think of some specific issues that were raised at the time.
You know the got the two price cotton system changed for one thing.
Yeah. He was a very strong representative of the industry. Very strong. Everett was a much better arbitrator than anybody we've had since I think. One of the things that would irritate me at times about Everett's political life was his compromising and supporting opposing issues when I just really felt deep down he must feel the other way about it. But Everett knew how to get the better end of a trade, and if he made a compromise if you'd look back a couple of years later you'd see that his compromise hadn't been as great as the other man's compromise.
He was a born trader. He would trade his position on a minor issue for somebody else's position on one that was more major to his constituents.
D. K. Muse expressed it this way: "When Everett Jordan compromised he extracted a price."
He got the better end of the deal. He may have compromised on an issue
that was unimportant to N. C. but very important to Idaho and in
exchange he got an Idaho vote for an issue that was very important to
N.C. and not very important to Idaho. He knew how to put those
combinations together. He always got more than he gave for his
constituents, and I don't think we have anybody that can do that now.
Jesse Helms has given up his ability to do much trading and I don't
think Terry knows how to do it very well. Everett was charitable in
letting other people to take credit for things that he had done.
Specifically the U. S. government environmental health facility at the
Research Triangle—that agency came to N. C.
Bill Umstead—Everett was quite instrumental in getting Bill Umstead
elected and having Luther Hodges appointed to take his place. There were
times when Everett did like to get the glory, but there were many times
when he stepped aside and let somebody else get it. Everett liked the
privileges of being a senator. He liked having a good parking place;
having a senatorial license on his tags so he could swing and park in a
great many places that were prohibited to other people. He liked the
privileges that came with that job, and he liked running the inaugural
proceedings and being able to get his family placed on the platform and
letting people he wanted to to go to the inaugural balls and all that
kind of thing. He liked that. I don't
He had one hot potato while he was up there that was somewhat controversial and he was criticized—Bobby Baker—how do you appraise that?
Bobby Baker. Yes. Everett saved Lyndon Johnson's skin on that. Again, Everett's ability as a trader and a negotiator kept that matter about as quite it could be kept and Everett certainly pulled the attention away from Lyndon Johnson on the matter and let the heat fall somewhere else. He couldn't keep Lyndon Johnson's name out of it completely but the heat stopped with the Senate and when Lyndon Johnson went to the White House the heat didn't follow him, and Everett maneuvered that.
He and Johnson were very good friends.
Very good friends until after the Baker case was settled and then Lyndon didn't have much more the need of it. Everett did not agree with Lyndon Johnson on very many social programs that Lyndon had adopted. Lyndon changed a great deal. Lyndon was a great politician and certainly controlled the Senate and therefore to a large degree the House also, when he was the majority leader. After he got to the presidency Lyndon changed his attitude about a lot of things. He looked to the country rather than Texas—his stand changed about a lot of things and it got farther and farther away from Everett, and therefore Lyndon couldn't count on having Everett vote the same way he wanted the Senate to vote, because Lyndon's requirements changed, so he no longer had this very close voting ally that he had had before, and he didn't need Everett very much any more. I think he kind of turned away from—turned his back on him. He couldn't ever give him credit for the Bobby Baker saving—saving his tail on that—he couldn't let that issue rise again—I don't know whether it's in his memoirs or not—
Did Everett ever comment on the Baker case in your presence?
I don't ever remember discussing the Baker case other than commenting on what was in the papers. Everett didn't talk about it much. I don't think I ever heard him discuss it, certainly never heard him discuss anything that wasn't already in the papers.
He was very discreet in those matters.
Very discreet. He certainly was. I never heard him criticize Lyndon Johnson ignoring him.
After Lyndon Johnson got to the White House for the first few months Everett had his ear, but after that he didn't. I think Everett could still arrange tours through the White House for his Washington guests and that kind of thing, but as far as being a close confidant of Johnson, he no longer was.
In the Senate they worked very closely together.
Very close. Lyndon Johnson was much more conservative or middle of the road in the Senate than he was after he got to the White House. He didn't have the Great Society ambitions when he was in the Senate, or at least if he did they weren't voiced. Lyndon was a very conservative Democrat in the Senate like Everett was. He was one of the Democrats that was trying to keep the Democratic Party from becoming so liberal. He felt the way to do it was to stay in the party and not desert it as Everett did. But after he got in the White House he just completely forgot all those conservative trends and seemed to realize that the more voters he could do things for why the more they were going to idolize him. Rightly or wrongly, he thought that.
When Everett pulled away from his southern bloc and became a dove instead of a hawk in the Vietnam war—did he ever comment to you about his decision to make that change?
No.
That probably gave him more acclaim than any other one thing he did—so far as national acclaim.
Yes that may have lost him votes on the conservative side. No, I don't remember us discussing that. It was one of the issues that I didn't agree with him on, but I'm sure that his convictions about it were completely honest.
Everett used to tell some stories of when he was in WWI—what are some of those. Then he used to tell some stories about when he was out in Kansas with Uncle Fred about fitting eye glasses. That was one thing he did in the jewelry store. They really did the same thing then that these very complex machines do now. They had a tray of lenses in the back room and somebody would come in that needed new eyeglasses and Everett would ask them if their arms
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
Everett was going to run—
For governor.
Well this was in the early planning stages and Everett was considering whether he ought to run or let Henry run and Everett was seriously considering running, and Charlie Jordan came to him and said, "Look here Everett, Henry is the one that's been laying the groundwork for this job and he's been the highway commissioner and he's been the one out organizing the team to work on this thing. If you step in and—it wouldn't be fair for you to come in and take over on the groundwork that Henry has done if he wants to run. For once, you just step back and let somebody else be NUMBER ONE." Finally neither of them ran, but Charlie had stepped in and said that Henry was the one that deserved this opportunity rather than Everett, and asked Everett not to screw it up for Henry if he wanted to run.
But Everett was the oldest of the four sons and he might have thought that Henry should stay still the younger brother or the second brother.
Yeah he did. And he always felt that he had the privileges of the senior
member. And I think he felt that he was more
Custom made shoes had made in Boston didn't he?
Yeah, I believe it was in Boston; had a special last made and had his shoes handmade.
He'd buy two pair; one brown and one black didn't he? Or were they both black? Probable both black.
Well in later years they were certainly both black.
He always wore the same color dark grey suit.
Dark grey or navy blue—almost black. Katherine gave him a sport coat and slacks one time. They would go off on these cruises with Carl Cline and Albert Garrou and everybody would be wearing sport coats, or they would go to the ATMI meeting—and so Katherine gave him a sport coat and he wouldn't wear it. It stayed hung up in his closet all year so Katherine wrapped it up again that Christmas and gave it to him again. He never did have it on I don't think—never would wear it.
. . . he tried to help people as long as he could. Whatever he could do for anybody he tried to do it as long as it didn't hurt somebody else.
. . . The house at Montreat was the only real estate he owned. The mill
owned the house he lived in and he bought that farm down there and he
owned that but that was kind of a—the Montreat house and that farm
were
The mill was his consuming interest wasn't it?
Well, I don't think it was his consuming interest. I think the mill was a way to do the things he wanted to do. I think his consuming interest was these people that he knew and associated with and talked to all over the country. Other mill people—the ATMI, the family, these people involved in state affairs before he really got into politics formally. The N.C. Citizens Association for instance. He was interested in the political process long before he became formally active in politics. The citizens association is a good example. That was an outlet for this urge he had to try to improve conditions in the state.
. . . was talking about—something about theis NC Free—about how screwed up I was about political issues and things.
Are you still chairman?
Carl Jessup the head of the Weyerhouser operation in North Carolina.
How about David Stedman, did he play a key role?
Yeah—quite involved in it. The Carolina Telephone Company guy was chairman a year, Carl Jessup is chairman this year.
You were Chairman in the beginning weren't you? Are you one of the charter members?
Yeah. I chaired it for two years while the thing was trying to get organized and going.
How about
No, not yet, I expect he will.
Did David ever sell his company?
Yeah. I don't know whether he's been paid for it. I assume he's being paid over a period of time, but he has sold it.
. . . balance on 50/50 blends. We have a carded yarn cotton mill in Macon Georgia that used to belong to Bibb, and we have a combed yarn mill in Kings Mountain that used to be one of the Johnston Mills and they are both balanced on 50/50 cotton and something else. Kings Mountain mill is 50/50 polyester/cotton combed and the Macon mill is usually 50/50 cotton/polyester but it can be cotton and rayon or cotton and something else. And we make heather blends in that plant. That's carded yarn, and those two mills operate as one division of our company. Division manager Jack Davis who comes sales agents perspective, and he reports to Eddie, my brother. Then we have a division that Charles Grady runs which makes acryllic yarns primarily. We do make some polyester yarn. And we make some specialty yarns that have nylon in them and crazy things. That's mostly dyed yarn operation. We've got a yarn dyehouse over here similar to the one at Saxapahaw—not nearly as nice, but it dyes about 300,000 pounds a week. Yarn from these three spinning mills that Grady runs. And also he spins yarn for our canvas business in two plants. One plant spins the heavy shades and one plant spins the light shades.
Is canvas a heavy item for you?
Yes. That's a good business for us we've been in it a long time. We're
dominant in our part of the market. Grady does some of the yarn spinning
for them, some of the weaving. We bought a plant in Anderson
How about panty hose, are you still in that?
Still in the pantyhose business. Bruce Voncannon runs that; we sell about 35 or 40 thousand dozen a week of panty hose and knee-high ladies stockings.
Any men's hosiery?
No. That's a good steady business for us. We don't have a big share of the market but we do some specialty things in that area. We make a very high percentage of outsized goods—queensize which require an extra panel to be sewn in, and we make a very high percentage of boarded goods so that look nice in the package. Both of those are premium priced products. We try to stay away from the real commodity, highly competitive part of the business.
We have two filament yarn texturing operations one at Norlina which was started by Harriet and Henderson as a polyester texturing mill. And they got out of it and Bob McCorkick took it over and went broke and killed himself over it and then we bought it out of bankruptcy and started making nylon hosiery yarn instead of polyester. We were already in the nylon hosiery business. We had some machines at Altamahaw. We consilidated all of them at Norlina and have expanded that unit right much and we have about 20% of that market and want to build it up to about 30%. Dick Ferro runs and reports to Alen Gant.
Then we have another filament yarn texturing operation that air textures
filament yarn. We air texture in the finer denier range. It's been
around a long time in carpet yarns and upholstery yarns, heavier
Then we have a weaving mill at Burnsville that makes heavy tafetas. We don't make the cat goods stuff—the 70 deniers and the 50 deniers, but from 150 denier up to a 1000 denier, and those fabrics are used for some apparal—parka shell fabrics, policemen's jackets, collar interlinings, cloth for soft sided luggage and back packs, some upholstery. We're the largest customer of Du Pont for cordura—specialty areas.
You don't do any denim?
No. I guess in '75 we made some.
. . . make commodity products. We make them at very low cost and sell a little bit below the general market. We don't make commodities. We do make some but the polyester combed yarn business is a commodity business I guess, and we wonder whether we ought to be in it, but we have a little section of the market that we are doing very well in, after some start-up pains and problems. They make a very good quality that sells to the underwear trade—t-shirt trade. That's certainly a commodity product.
Then we had two commission finishing plants
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
I think Rose Ann is more like her father than either one of the other two. Ben is much more like his mother; a heck of a nice guy; he's real nice and gives everybody the benefit of a doubt. He tends to see everything through rose colored glasses.
Everett had a great stubborn streak in him and John has that to the extreme. Rose Ann has a lot of it, but I think she has more of her father's ability to judge situations and people involved in them and adjust to them. Now John tends to be more analytical in sizing up people and situations than Ben.
Yeah. Yeah, Rose Ann should have been a man. She'd have been the image of her father. She wouldn't have had to play a woman's role such as women have to do because they're born women. She would have played a man's role and been just like her father.
I don't think she has any trouble making decisions, but she analyzes . . . situations where a man is inadequate . . . she would analyze as her father.
I think John often makes his decisions before the fact based on what happened in the past, and a decision made in the past needs to be modified—John was reluctant to do. I think he has the flexibility to adjust to the situation that his father had.
Mr. Jordan was a good listener.
He was a good listener but he didn't always
END OF INTERVIEW