CONVERSATION II WITH ELLIS ARNALL

STEELY:	Today is May the 29th, 1986. Ted Fitz-Simons, and myself, Mel Steely, are interviewing former Governor Ellis Arnall in his office in Atlanta to talk about his role as governor. Governor Arnall, you had kind of a strange situation with your educational background. As I understand it, you actually didn't graduate from high school but actually got your degree a little later on. Is that accurate?
ARNALL:	Well, it was a rather unusual situation. In Newnan High School my senior year, we had a good football team, and in those days I was a reasonably good athlete. I was a quarterback. We had a good record, believing that if we could keep the team together for the next year, we might be state champions. So some of us dropped the necessary courses to graduate, to keep from graduating, and I dropped some courses, so I could not graduate, and then we would be eligible to play the next year. But when school came around in the fall, some of the boys who had been good players had moved away from Newnan, and some had gone to work, and the team was decimated from the standpoint of having a possible championship team. So I decided to go to college then, but not having been a graduate of a high school, it was rather difficult. Through the influence of my grandfather, who was very close to Mercer University and had done quite a bit for the university, they let me enter Mercer University, and I went there three months, but most of my teachers there were students. Mercer was very poor in those days. The only classroom we had that I went to was in the [Tapner?] Street Baptist Church because they didn't have enough rooms, and there were student teachers. And so after three months I decided I knew about as much as some of the people teaching me, so I transferred to the University of the South at [Suwanee?], Tennessee. I [went to Moss?] College. I majored in Greek, and you either had to have a Latin [or a Greek]degree, and I chose Greek. Anyway, after I finished and got my A.B. degree from Suwanee, the University of the South, I went back to the Newnan board of education and said that my college diploma was starting to look very lonesome on the wall with no high school diploma supporting it, and I'd like very much to have a high school diploma, so I submitted my college record as a criteria essential to getting the high school diploma, and the board of education agreed to give me a high school diploma. So it's rather unusual that in my situation I graduated from college with an A.B. degree before I got my diploma from Newnan High School. So now I had the diploma from high school and a college degree, and then a law degree [...] from the University of Georgia.
STEELY:	Very good. Probably the most controversial period of your governorship occurred right at the end of it, with the infamous three- or two-governor crisis back in '47. Could you tell us a little bit about that and the role you played in it?
ARNALL:	Well, again, before I get into that, let me state something historically of interest. There are only two times in the history of the state of Georgia that the legislature ever elected a governor or undertook to elect one. I precipitated both of those situations. When I went out of office in '47, Eugene Talmadge had been elected but died before he was qualified. Died, and it was my theory that I became governor for four more years under the Constitution, and the Supreme Court so held later on. But in the meantime, there were those who insisted the Herman Talmadge, the son of the deceased governor, Eugene Talmadge, was probably governor, and the legislature could elect him because he was one of the two candidates for governor that had the most write-in votes after his father died. I took the position that that was malarkey. The legislature couldn't elect a governor. Automatically I became governor for four more years, and if I chose to resign, which I did, then the lieutenant governor became acting governor. The lieutenant governor was my former executive secretary, my revenue commissioner, M.E. [Melvin E.] Thompson. We were very close. It was under my administration that the office of lieutenant governor was created, so I knew, I thought, what I was talking about. In any event, the legislature elected Herman, and the Supreme Court held that the legislature had no authority in that situation to elect a governor. So that was the first one. I was [...] up in politics. Every time I get in, I [shifts position, moves away from microphone; ...] of some kind. I don't mean to. It just happens. It works out that way. The second time and the only time that the legislature elected governor was when they elected Lester Maddox, and that was in the campaign of '66, and the Democratic primary, and the first primary I led the field. Got more votes than anyone, including Jimmy Carter. He ran third. I ran first, Maddox second, and Carter third, and then several others candidates were further back. Up until that year, I would have been the Democratic nominee, but Carl Sanders had changed--his administration had changed the law so that in any primary, the successful candidate had to have a majority of the vote.
STEELY:	Instead of just a plurality?
ARNALL:	Right. So it was necessary to have a run-off. First time there had ever been a run-off. And in that run-off, Maddox defeated me, and I attribute it largely to my good friends, the Republicans, who thought that Maddox would be easier for Bo [Howard] Calloway to defeat than me. And then we had the race issue in full bloom then, and so Maddox won. Then there started a write-in campaign for me. I did not encourage it and did not discourage it. I took the position it was none of my business; let the people do what they want to do. So they had a write-in campaign, and there were enough write-in votes for me to keep either Calloway, the Republican candidate, or Maddox, the Democratic candidate, from being elected governor because under the Constitution the governor had to have a majority of the vote, the man who was successful. So that threw the matter ultimately into the legislature, and the legislature this time elected Maddox as acting governor. Lester Maddox was never elected by the people; he was elected by the legislature. So those were the only two instances in the history of our state that the legislature either elected a governor or undertook to elect a governor, and I precipitated both of those situations.
STEELY:	Had the Constitution been changed to allow them to elect them, or was it the same Constitution but just a different court interpretation?
ARNALL:	The Constitution in effect at that time was the Constitution that my administration wrote, and I was chairman of the commission that wrote the Constitution, the Constitution of 1945. It made no particular provision it; it just said that I, or whoever was governor, continued in office until his successor was elected and qualified. Well, since Gene Talmadge had been elected in the general election but died before he could be qualified, that automatically extended my term until the next election, which was four years off, the proper election for governor.
STEELY:	So your contention was you would swear in M.E. Thompson as lieutenant governor, you would remain in office, then resign after he was properly sworn in and qualified.
ARNALL:	That is correct.
STEELY:	And then let him succeed to the office.
ARNALL:	And the Supreme Court so held--
STEELY:	But they didn't do that when the Talmadge--I mean, not the Talmadge, the Maddox situation came up. They gave the legislature the right to choose.
ARNALL:	Because under the Constitution, the same Constitution, there was a provision that [microphone noise; ...] most candidates for governor in the general election who received a majority vote, the legislature was empowered and authorized then to elect from the two highest in the general election who did receive any votes, so that was very clear, although the Calloway people fought that in all the courts. It went through all the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court held that the legislature, under that situation, could elect the governor.
STEELY:	Since that time, though, there's been a provision, has there not, for a run-off?
ARNALL:	Yes. Well, since the Constitution of 1945, my Constitution--there's a new Constitution now in Georgia, and they made provision for it very specifically. Of course, that's like closing the door after the horse is gone, you know. But anyway, it's clear now. But in those days it was subject to argument. Although I knew what I was doing and I don't know whether I said this or not in previous [...ments?] we've had together, but I knew what I was doing, and the reason I did, I violated all the legal principles--all the ethics and everything else-- for the good, the greatest good, which was I talked with the Supreme Court, and I knew what I was doing. They told me that was the law. I could not subject Georgia to [microphone noise; ...] Republic war and controversy and get headlines all over the nation, and they wondered what was going on down here, unless I knew the ground I was standing on. So I told the court that I was violating all the rules, all the ethics, everything else, but [...] know whether to make the fight or not. Of course, I tried to get the court to announce it without a court case, but they said: No, we have procedure we have to go through.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Judges will be judges, won't they?
ARNALL:	Oh, there has to be judges. [...].
STEELY:	When the actual vote came down in '47 and they elected Herman in the legislature, were you in the capitol that night?
ARNALL:	Oh, yes.
STEELY:	Tell us a little about that night and what all happened, until you went home to Newnan. What went on?
ARNALL:	What happened was this: Herman ultimately--well, when they first counted the votes, he didn't have enough even to second man it, and suddenly, as they were wondering what to do, his crowd, enough votes came in in another envelope from the tombstones in Telfair County--
STEELY:	Is this the one where they rose up and marched single file alphabetically to vote?
ARNALL:	[...] I laugh about this. We'd been on television together, and I said: "[When are you?] going to do that?" So we've laughed about that. But in any event, he finally got enough votes from these dead people who didn't even vote to where he was the second man--the first man, I believe. And then, when they voted, the legislature elected him. But it was a close vote for a while. Then he came down to my office, he and Roy [V.] Harris, who had been my speaker of the house, and Roy and I were friends at times and enemies at times. I defeated him to the legislature. Went over there because he didn't act right and got them to vote him out, and he was mad at me, so he was for Talmadge. And he was a smart political operator. He knew people in every crossroads in Georgia. He had been in politics all his life. So Roy and Herman and a group of his I call them [pro?] goon squad [...]--
STEELY:	[S.] Marvin Griffin?
ARNALL:	Yes. He came to my office and knocked the door down and came in, and he demanded of me the office of governor of Georgia. And I told him--and this was covered in the news media; more newspaper people were there than politicians--and television, radio--I told him I would never surrender the office of governor to a pretender. He stomped out, and I told him he was nice to come down to see me. So then I went home, the new one. I'd moved out of the mansion because I knew that we were heading for controversy, and I did not want to subject my wife and children to that kind of mess. They changed the locks on the door, so the next day when I went to the office, to my office, they barred my way because they changed the locks. So I set up office in the rotunda there at the state capitol and signed papers and whatnot. The secretary of state, whom I appointed, was very friendly to me, Ben [W.] Fortson [Jr.]. He was secretary of state for thirty-five years, by the way. And he had a lot of documents, and he was with me, so he'd bring all the official documents over, and I'd sign them. We were in the state [...] rotunda. The next day, when I went to the rotunda, they barred my way to get in. This time Talmadge had mustered in the national guard, and I mustered in the state guard, and--
STEELY:	What's the difference in the national guard and the state guard?
ARNALL:	Well, the national guard is a federal agency, whereas the state guard is a state agency. This was in wartime or right after the war--
STEELY:	Oh, that's right.
ARNALL:	--and we had two standing armies, so to speak. Everybody was concerned if we were going to have a really shoot-out war there.
STEELY:	Who got the state troopers?
ARNALL:	The state troopers--
STEELY:	Who did they support?
ARNALL:	[...]. They didn't participate.
STEELY:	They stayed out of it.
ARNALL:	The national guard on the one hand, the state guard on the other.
STEELY:	Okay.
ARNALL:	And so when I was barred, rather than having a shoot-out war there, I set up the executive office in room number 1407 and 1408 at the Candler Building, my law office. I'd set up a law office there. And we ran the state from there for sixty days, I believe it was, until the Supreme Court handed down this ultimate decision. In the meantime, I had no desire to continue as governor for four more years. I couldn't because I had signed lecture contracts all over the United States, and so I made more money lecturing than anything I've ever done. I wrote books, and the books sold the lectures, and the lectures sold the books, and [...] said it was like having [microphone noise; he shifts far from microphone; ...]. So I couldn't have been governor. It would have been very, very, very problematic if I could have continued. I just couldn't. So I was out speaking, but we would come into the office occasionally [for functions?] and stayed out at the Candler Building. I called it the government in exile.
STEELY:	[laughs] There were a couple of controversial questions about that, and one of them says that when you went back in in the morning--you had gone home that night. You went back in the next morning, and the new, quote, "governor," unquote, Talmadge had you escorted out. Told you to get out of his office, and he sent you back to Newnan with an armed escort, for your protection.
ARNALL:	No, that's not quite the way it was. His executive secretary was [Bethel Hoedamark?]. And when I started into my office, Bethel and a group of his cohorts barred the way and said that I could not go into the governor's office. I could go into the reception room if I wanted to see the governor, and wait my turn. And I told them I had no desire to see a pretending governor, and I was governor; I just wanted my office. And when they declined to give it to me, I then got all the newspaper men together and brought sandwiches--had some of my cohorts buy sandwiches and drinks--Coca-Cola and all the stuff--and I invited them to go out to the governor's mansion and have lunch with me, knowing that the governor's mansion was barred. But we went out there, and at that time the head of the state troopers, the state patrol and several were there, and they barred my way, and I asked them--I said, "This is my home. It's the governor's mansion, and I'm the governor, and I'm going in with my friends, and we're going to have lunch." And he said, "I cannot let you do that." And I said, "Are you prepared to use force if necessary?" He said, "Yes, I'm prepared to use force." So then I said, "Well, we don't want to have any banana republic war, so I'll just take that for granted and that's that." So then I went back to the Candler Building, and the newspaper men went up there to my offices, and we had lunch, sandwiches, and chatted some. Then, when I finished the day's work, I went to my home in Newnan. No one drove me there. I drove myself.
STEELY:	And during that sixty days you actually signed government documents and reports and brought them over?
ARNALL:	Let me tell you this: It's right interesting. We had state funds. The depository then was what was known as the Fulton National Bank. It's now Bank South. But they'd already been good to me and close to me. We had most of the state money over there. So I wrote batches of checks and sent them over, and they declined to honor them. So I called the president of the bank, who was my friend, who shall remain nameless, and told him that I had no fight with the bank and with him; they were my friends; but I was governor, and I meant for those vouchers and checks to be honored, and he said, "We can't do it without a court decision." And I said, "Well, you're going to force me to do something that I hate to do. I'm going to get on a statewide radio hookup tonight at six o'clock. I want to see if I can schedule a time. I asked them to preempt the news, and I'm going to announce that your bank is insolvent."
STEELY:	[laughs]
ARNALL:	"And I want all the people who are my friends to quickly get in there and get their money out." [laughter] Needless to say, the vouchers and checks-- [laughter]
STEELY:	Where did you learn the fine art of blackmail? [Laughs]
ARNALL:	[...] my friend. I won't be [...] in controversy where the bank would be [shaked?] down.
STEELY:	One of the other things that happened was that after this was all over with, you did make a tour, but the debate has been for years that you really knew--from Talmadge's friends, primarily--that you really knew that you were wrong on this and that the only reason in the world that you fought it is because you were building up publicity nationwide so everybody would know who Ellis Arnall was so that you could see those books all over the country.
ARNALL:	Well, I'll say this: it did build up national publicity. I was in great demand as a lecturer, as a writer, as a performer, everything else. But, now, when you say they knew that, that is not true because I told you, although they did not know it at the time, that I spoke with the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia, who was my close friend. We'd served as assistant attorneys general together, and I told him to go back and talk with the court and then come and tell me whether I was right in making this fight. I did not want to subject the state to the fight unless I was right. And he came back, and he said, "You have a majority of the court that will support you." So I knew what I was doing. But I will say this: My Talmadge friends and the honorable opposition played into my hands in that they made me a national figure overnight, and I made more money--
STEELY:	Turned you into a wealthy man.
ARNALL:	Well, I made more then than I've ever made practicing law. Let me say that. But it was one of those things that was inevitable because in those days we had two factions in Georgia: the Talmadge and the anti-Talmadge faction, and it was inevitable at every chance that we would clash.
STEELY:	Some people say that your tour, when you were promoting From the Shore, Dimly Seen, was really nothing more than an attempt for you to get nationwide publicity to run for national office. Tell us about that. Would that go on in your mind?
ARNALL:	Well, that was not--yes, it went on. And as a matter of fact, if you'll go down to my office now, I'll show you all the magainzes of that period--Time, Newsweek, [Front Cover?], all that stuff, Life magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, all of them--and actually there was an effort made to put me into national politics. For example, Oregon. The Democrats out there wanted me on the ticket for the vice president, and we've got all the quotes in this book that's being prepared about me, the direct quotes from the president of Vassar and all the Eastern schools and [...] schools. But, you see, what was happening because of my position on the race issue, fighting for first-class citizenship for all the people, while I was tremendously popular in the West and North, to the same degree I was unpopular in the South because I was an apostate, in their view, because when I spoke about the black men having the right of franchise and equal treatment, this was an anathema to many people. So while I did have a great urging into national politics and great support [microphone noise] you don't [go into?] national election unless you've got support at home. And Georgia--we were in the position like Ireland is in the United Kingdom. You know, you're off to the side. So I do think this, though, and I say it, and I hope that I'm not transgressing too much of the truth when I say this, that the things that I did here made Georgia outstanding in the nation as a progressive Southern state, a leader. And I think that some years later, some of that brushed off on Jimmy Carter, although he came along at a time when the things that I had fought for were a little more accepted in the South. And I think yes, I've had an interest in national--I was offered national office. I think I told you I was offered the solicitor generalship with the understanding I'd be attorney general as soon as [...] was appointed to the Supreme Court, which happened, and so forth and so forth. But actually running for office--there was a great movement in this country for me to be on the ticket as vice president.
STEELY:	About that same time, you were involved in law. You restarted your law practice. Did you have a law partner then, or--
ARNALL:	No. I always practiced law in [Newnan?], by myself, in an uncle's office, until I became assistant attorney general, then attorney general, and then governor. And then, when I finished the governorship and got tired of lecturing, hearing myself talk, although there are those who laugh at that and say they can't imagine me ever getting tired of hearing myself talk, but I got tired of hearing myself talk, and I wanted to get back into my profession. So along came a mutual friend, Jack Leban, from New York, who was here, and he knew Sol [I.] Golden, and he suggested to Sol that they come out and see me, and they did. And I told Sol--I liked him--that I would be glad to form a law partnership, but I wanted to know how we would operate. He said he'd get all the business we could handle, that he had a lot of clients and could get more. And I said, "That's fine. What do I do?" He said, "You shake hands with the clients." I said, "Good, I can do that." But I said, "Don't you think we need to lawyer, Sol?"
STEELY:	[laughs]
ARNALL:	He thought it would be a good idea. When I was attorney general, one of my top assistants was Cleburne E. Gregory [Jr.], so I told Sol that he was the best lawyer I knew, and I wanted him with us, so we formed the law partnership of Arnall Golden and Gregory. And it's been a very happy relationship over the years.
STEELY:	But I'd heard that you had a Democrat, a Republican, and a lawyer. [Laughs]
ARNALL:	Well, we have some Republicans around here, and they're very good. I think I told you Ronald Reagan and I are good friends. We were in Hollywood together when I was [head of?] the Motion Picture Industry, and he was head of the Screen Actors Guild. We became good friends. And he was a Democrat. So there are some who are Democrats who turn out Republicans, and some Republicans who turn out Democrats. I like to say Democrats make a lot of Republicans because when we make a Democrat rich, he gets to be a Republican.
STEELY:	Everybody except for you. We can't get you switched over.
ARNALL:	I'm just a poor fellow.
STEELY:	Okay. Speaking of being poor, tell us about in 1946, when you started out in the life insurance business with Dixie Life and Columbus Life and then [Kunstel?] State. How'd you get into insurance?
ARNALL:	Well, in this book that's being published hopefully this fall, you'll have some direct quotes on the fact that I'm a great believer in chance, luck--call it what you will--predestination, God's will. I don't know what you--you can call it what you will. So the way that came about: I was attorney general of Georgia, and enjoying it. There was so much--the only problem with being attorney general, there's so much politics in it, you can't be a lawyer, and so much law in it you can't be a politician and just have to kind of do the best you can. There was a man named Claude [H.] Poindexter, who lived in Baxley, Georgia. He was a funeral director. In those days, we ran funerals in small towns out of the furniture store. In the back they had an undertaker, and he had caskets. And Claude was around the little undertaking place down at Baxley in a furniture store. Well, there was an outfit in Waycross that was into weekly premium burial business, and he conducted their funerals. They way that worked in those days--it was in the days of the Depression--an insurance agent would come around and offer you a policy for twenty-five cents a week, and he would give you a five hundred dollar [$500] funeral for you or the members of your immediate family. So it was very popular. And Claude would conduct the funerals, and this company kept all the money, until finally he went to collect and they just said, "You can have the company. We can't pay you." So he took over the company, and so then he was in the weekly premium burial business, which was very popular in the South in the Depression days. Well, as attorney general I had to enforce the laws, and so the funeral directors of Georgia got together and got the legislature to enact a statute saying that if you wrote insurance for a funeral, you had to pay off in money, not in goods or services. They contended that Claude and others like him, for example, although it was never proven, would take a pine box--you know, a five hundred dollar funeral--a pine box and put some muslin in it and put it away; it cost about forty dollars [$40], and he got five hundred [$500] for it, so they said that's wrong; you've got to pay off in money. So then it became my duty to run down Claude, and I chased him all over the country. There were all kinds of lawsuits, and he'd appeal and whatnot, and finally I called him, and just as we were about to issue the order to put him out of business, he converted his burial association into a fraternal. And the way he did that: He went around and gave everybody the oath that they had to abide by fraternal rules.
STEELY:	That was a different section of the law.
ARNALL:	And so the next session of the legislature, the legislature passed a law [against?] funeral directors that fraternals had to pay off in money and so forth and so forth. So then I sued him again and chased him all around, all kinds of appellate decisions and whatnot. Just as I caught him and was about to put him out of business, he converted into a stock company.
STEELY:	You should have got his lawyer to have been your partner!
ARNALL:	[laughs] Well, he was a good man.
STEELY:	[laughs]
ARNALL:	So about a stock company: In those days, you had to put up a hundred thousand dollars [$100,000] and [have?] an insurance company under the insurance commissioner. So he converted into a stock company. I later said I made him a multimillionaire, which I did. So in the meantime, somewhere down--after I finished--while I was governor--some of my friends in Newnan came to me and said that Newnan is one of the wealthiest towns in America. It is, too. It was, anyway. I was [...]. "We've got everything but a life insurance company. We're organizing a life insurance company. It'll be the Dixie Insurance Company, and we want you to e president." Well, they contributed so heavily to my campaign, really, financially, that I was caught, so I said, "All right, I'll be president." So when I finished the governorship, I became president of that. I said, "There's one condition: I will not draw a penny of salary until the company makes money. I want that understood." They said, "That's fine." So after two years, me out lecturing and doing other things, including the law and all, I checked into it and found the company had not written a single policy after two years. [They spent?] their money. They got tied up with a drunken actuary, were all ready to go do it, and did it wrong, and so forth. So I was confronted with what am I going to do? How am I going to get out of this dilemma? And I remembered old Claude Poindexter, so I called Claude. He had a legitimate life insurance company called Coastal States Life Insurance Company. It's still here. You can see the building. I'm chairman of the board today. And I told him, "I want to sell you my company or buy yours." And so we had several meetings, and finally I said, "Claude, make me a buy-or-sell proposition." And so he made me a proposition, and I said, "You've bought the Dixie Insurance Company." So he bought it. He was hooked. And then, after he got it, he said that he wanted me to be chairman of the board, so I became chairman of the board. And, as I said, I'm still chairman of the board of Coastal. And that's how I got into the life insurance business, by the circumstance of having been attorney general and chasing this good man. As a matter of fact, I found in the law practice that the best way to get clients is if John Jones is a defendant and you're trying to give John Jones [un...ed] hell, rough him up every way you can and make him wish he'd never heard of a courthouse, because then when he needs a lawyer, he's going to come and get you. [laughter] And that's true. You don't pull any punches. And so Claude knew that I was tough, and so he asked me to be chairman and it worked out just fine, and he was a great friend of mine. He's been dead now two years. But he was a great man. That was circumstance. And you've heard me tell the other stories of circumstance. I got to be governor. I drew a slip of paper saying, "Governor [...]." And I knew I was going to be governor. I believe in these things. I hope my wife is here.
STEELY:	She made it in.
ARNALL:	Circumstance, I met this lovely lady. If you check back--you, Ted; you, Mel; and anyone listening--if you check back, your life has been dominated by chance, circumstance.
STEELY:	Did chance extend to all of your other business interests? For instance, you were involved with hotels, with banking. You even got into--
ARNALL:	Oh, yes.
STEELY:	--what?--industry, through your association with [Alvin?] Foods.
ARNALL:	Oh, yes. One thing led to another. It just happens that way, yes. I've been very fortunate in the fact that [...] business. It's [...]. Let me tell you how we developed the law business. We started out--he had a lot of clients, but we decided that we ought to get into some branches of the law that would [...], so we decided the food business was a good one. We had one client here, [Capital?] Foods. The head of that was very personable man, and we told him what we needed to do here to get a southern food organization together, so he organized a southern, and we got that going. And then we said, "Now we need a national." So then they organized a national. And one thing led to the 'nother, but we created it through [the] circumstance of knowing the right people to put together these organizations.
STEELY:	How did you get into hotels and banking?
ARNALL:	Well, again, Atlanta about twenty-five years ago had not a hotel in sixty years. Sol and I decided we ought to get in the hotel business. So we got together some wealthy clients and persuaded them they ought to build a hotel, so we got together and built the American Motor Hotel. So they wanted me to be chairman of the board, so I became chairman of the board. And we were their general counsel, and it's worked just fine. That's what you build. You know, if you give America an opportunity, you don't sit around--when I began to practice law down in Newnan, you sat in your office waiting for somebody to come and see you. Now you go out and develop clients, and with a developing country and a developing area like we live in, there's a fruitful field here to develop clients. There's always new things coming up. And the law has gotten increasingly interesting because we're no longer bound on what was the law yesterday; every day the law changes, and the Supreme Court changes the law every day, and we all change it. We construe it differently, and we move forward. But we in this law business have gotten to where, for example, among many things, we are supposed to be experts in that these clients, many of ours, have better lawyers and [...] general counsel, but when they get into a problem they don't know how to come to grips with, they come to us because we like to think we're imaginative and we come up with new concepts and new ideas, and courts are quick to buy them because then they'll get written up in the American Law Journal and all that sort of thing. So it's a wonderful [thing?]. For those who are willing to play, it's a new [trade?]. [?]
STEELY:	One of your most famous business ventures, probably one of your most profitable ones, I guess, was with motion pictures and the Disney family.
ARNALL:	Yes.
STEELY:	Would you tell us a little bit about Disney and your work there?
ARNALL:	That's fate, too, and we can trace it all back. As attorney general of Georgia and as a private practitioner, I've always been interested in antitrust law. I think if we're going to keep this a land of opportunity for little people, we've got to let them be competitive, and I eschew the day a few big companies will dominate America. In any event, we in the South had been penalized since the War between the States on account of the freight rate discrimination against us: it cost more money to ship the same merchandise the same distance the same way from the South to the North as it did from the North to the South, as manufactured goods. With raw materials it was exactly the reverse because the South was the feeding ground for Eastern industry. We shipped our wood, our natural resources, up there, the cheap rate, and then when they made it into finished goods, it came back to us at a high rate, so we couldn't compete. So I brought suit against the Pennsylvania Railroad and twenty other of the leading [railroads?] of the nation, contending that they conspired illegally to damage of the welfare of Georgia and our people. Strangely enough, much to the railroads' surprise, the Supreme Court took that case, and ultimately the ICC [Interstate Commerce Commission] brought about equality of transportation rates. So much for that. There was a man named Hiram W. Evans, who was head of the Ku Klux Klan; he was an imperial wizard, and he had a monopoly for the plan to sell highway materials--gasoline, asphalt, all that kind of thing--to the state highway department--not only of this state but of the southern states, many of them. That came to my attention, so I brought a suit against Dr. Evans and the Ku Klux Klan and all those involved--antitrust violations, the Sherman Act. Strangely enough, the Sherman Act provides that any person aggrieved can bring an act, and we brought the case in the district court, which held we were not a person; the State of Georgia was not a person. Then we went to the circuit court, and they held that--not a person. Then we went to the Supreme Court of the United States, and I was very active in the Association of Attorneys General, and I got all the attorneys general to file amicus briefs. I wrote them or my department wrote them, but they signed them, and when all of these forty-eight amicus briefs hit the Supreme Court, they really came to grips with it, and the court held that it's unthinkable that the Congress would mean to deny the states the right to avail themselves of the Sherman Act, that every person, every corporation, every partnership can sue under the Sherman Act, and the federal government has [p...] sanctions. To say on it that the states can be victimized is ridiculous. So the Congress meant to include the states. So we became, then, under that decision, Georgia versus Hiram W. Evans et al. (Ku Klux); we ultimately broke up the monopoly and got a lot of money out of all the people involved. So now the motion picture people, who are reading all this stuff in the papers and keeping up with what we were doing in Georgia, sent a delegation over here to see me. They said the major companies, the major companies--there were eight major companies that made film[s]--owned all the theaters, and therefore we little people like David Selnick, who did "Gone with the Wind," Walt Disney, and Samuel Goldwyn, Stanley Kramer, [Tom Noon?], all down the list--they made the great pictures, but they couldn't sell them because their competitors [microphone noise as he shifts position and moves farther from microphone; ...]. So they came to me and said, "Can you break up this monopoly?" And I said, "Of course I can break it up." So they said, "Fine. We have an organization in Hollywood, and we want you to be president of it, and we want you to break up the monopoly."
STEELY:	That was the Independent Motion Pictures Producers?
ARNALL:	The Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers. They had fifty-eight members. That was how I got into motion picture industry: again, through my activities as attorney general--circumstance, luck, whatever you call it. They tried to get me to move to Hollywood, but I never would do that; I was too smart because I knew if they got me under their thumb, they could call the shots. This way I could stay in Atlanta. We had offices in New York and London and Hollywood. I could [...] occasion, go to see him and see what he had done right. So this ultimately resulted in the Paramount decree, which made the major theaters, major producers give up ownership of the theaters, and they could own one theater as a showcase in certain larger cities, but they had to get rid of the others. So that enabled--again, I used to tell Walt, and he used to tell me--Walt Disney--I made him a multimillionaire. I helped a lot of people. But unfortunately, I haven't--
STEELY:	Well, you and Disney were good to each other, then.
ARNALL:	Oh, yes. We've always been good friends.
STEELY:	You ended up owning a good bit of his stock, didn't you?
ARNALL:	Yes. And it's been fantastic, too. [laughter] I won't tell you how much because it varies from time to time, but Walt's brother was Roy Disney. Roy was his older brother, who is a businessman, and Walt was a creative genius. If Walt wanted to build a park, as he did, and Roy said, "Nothin' doin'; we don't have the money," Walt wouldn't speak to him in six months, until finally Roy would capitulate and give the money to [...], but [...]. In any event, I finally told them--I said, "I want to buy some stock from your boys before you go public." And they were [...]. And so Walt sold me fifty shares, and Roy sold me fifty shares for seven dollars [$7.00] a share. That was seven hundred dollars [$700]. And they told me I was foolish to do it, [...] one jump ahead of the shares. Well, through the years--that's been many, many years ago; probably forty years--I don't know--a long time ago--it's doubled and split and split and split and split and reinvested the dividends until it's a right good little nest egg. Yes.
STEELY:	You're saving it for your old age.
ARNALL:	Well, yes. We have a law partner here, [Albert Mayer?], who is ninety-six. The older I get, the more I believe that there's nothing in the world that takes the place of experience. I want you to know that. The nearer I got to ending up my term as governor, the kinder I was to former governors. You know, your attitude [changed?]. We have a partner here, Albert Mayer, who was the oldest living graduate of Harvard University up until he died a couple of years ago. And one day I ran into Albert out in the hall, and he said, "Governor,"--he was ninety-six years old--he said, "I want to ask you a question. What do you think of this stock or that stock?"--whatever it was. I said, "I think it'll be fine." He said, "I'm awfully worried about it." I said, "Why are you worried?" He said, "Well, I'm saving it for my old age." [laughter]
STEELY:	I'd like to go back just a second on this comment on the Hiram Evans business. About when was that?
ARNALL:	Well, I was attorney general in '39, so it would have been 1940.
STEELY:	Did you get any static from the Klan on that?
ARNALL:	Oh, yes, sure. As a matter of fact, if you sometimes read one of my books, you will see how they cast lots at the East Point Klan to see which one was going to assassinate me. [...]. The head of the FBI was John Prost, P-r-o-s-t, here in Atlanta, and he called me. They had the FBI men and all the [Klanners?], they called them all the time, and he said last night they cast lots about my assassination.
STEELY:	Well, the Klan was keeping sort of a low profile by the forties.
ARNALL:	As a matter of fact, they began to act up a little bit, and one day they were going to have a big mass meeting out in front of the capitol. There was a man named Drew Pearson, who was a columnist, a national columnist, and he and I were [big? good?] buddies, and he wanted to come down to see the thing, and I said, "Fine. I'll tell you what we'll do. When they start the affair out in front of the capitol, I'll go out and cuss them out real good, and then I'll let you cuss them a little bit." We were in the governor's office, and [it was] almost time [for them] to come. I looked. He was just trembling, and his wife was named [Luby?]. She was with him. And I said, "Luby, you're going to be a rich widow." [...] [laughter] Then we went out and cussed out the Klan pretty good. They got pretty obnoxious, so then I called [Dan Hewk?], who was a prosecuting attorney here in Atlanta, to [...] out the Klan. I wanted to invoke the charter, break it away rather than--the state gave no legal sanction to it. So he was very active, and we really put them out of business. I spoke to B'nai Brith on occasion in Chicago when I was elected, right all this stuff happened, and one of them rose up and--I always take questions after the speech. I enjoy that more than the speech because you come into things that would not have occurred to you. And so [noise; ...] member of the B'nai Brith said, "Governor," he says, "why are you outlawing the Klan and all that by invoking the charter? Why didn't you pass a law that it was illegal to be a Klansman and so forth?" And I said, "Because I believe in the B'nai Brith. And if we did away with any [excuse of yours?] [j...], you'll be out of business. And second, I believe in freedom of speech. If somebody wants to [...] believe, I think they have the right to say it."
STEELY:	You would extend that to the American Nazi Party and all of them?
ARNALL:	I think it's true of anybody anywhere in America, yes.
STEELY:	So you would--
ARNALL:	As a matter of fact, Macaulay, the great English author, said that ideas ought to be displayed in the marketplace, like merchandise, and let the people pick that which they want. And I believe--look, I've debated Joe McCarthy on a national network when he was after the--he said everybody in Hollywood was a Communist and everybody in Washington. [...]. I debated him. I'll never forget that debate. I did something then I wouldn't do now. I said, "Joe,"-- when we started, I said, "Senator, first of all let's define the terms. What is a Communist? I hate Communism, and most Americans do, but I don't know whether we know what we're hating or not. I don't know what it is." And he said, "Well, it's taking orders from a [...] potentate. It's being subservient to those that preach a doctrine that may be inimical to our concepts. It's those who take orders from someone [...], organization that espouses a program." And then I said something I say I would not say now, but I said it then, and it's in the books, in print, [...]. I said, "Senator, let me ask you a very personal question before we go on with this debate. What is your religious faith?" And he said he was a Roman Catholic. Well, then I said, "Now, explain the difference." And he never got off the floor from that time on. My point is this: I think you ought to have the right to speak out and say what you want to, and [ideas?] ought to rise or fall by reason that it's [...]. In a democracy, we're not going to take away freedom of speech from anyone, if I have anything to do with it, and I think most people feel--
STEELY:	So you'd be a strong supporter of the ACLU, for instance.
ARNALL:	I'm a strong supporter of any group that espouses an idea, even though I hate the idea, don't agree with a bit they say or a bit they do. They have a right to express their views.
STEELY:	Back in 1952, President [Harry S] Truman appointed you director of the Office of Price Stabilization, which was one, I think, of two national appointments, offices, you had. Tell us about your work at OPS.
ARNALL:	What was the question?
STEELY:	Office of Price Stabilization. Tell us a little bit about your work there. What did you do?
ARNALL:	Well, this was during the Korean War, when the Congress established the Office of Price Stabilization. The head of it was [Mike LaSalle?], who was from Ohio. And after he'd been in office for a while, he resigned to run for the Senate from Ohio, and he was successfully elected to the Senate. Truman called me and wanted me to be head of price control, and I said, "I don't know anything about prices. I don't do that." But he just kept [going?], and I finally agreed that I would be head of price control for six months. Now, that agency controlled the economy of America. You couldn't sell a package of cigarettes without us telling you what you could sell it for, putting a ceiling on it. And it was the most interesting job I ever had because it was the easiest job. All you had to do was say no. But you had to do it sweetly and politely and nicely. I remember once I had the oil people that came to see me in Washington, representatives from California, Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma--all the oil-producing states. And they wanted a price increase. They came to the office, and I said, "I appreciate you coming, but there's no need to be talking about this because I know what you want, and I'll tell you before we start, I'm not going to do it. You're not going to get a price increase." And the chairman said, "Well, that's the [oddest?] thing that's happened. Here we are, spent all this money coming up here, and you didn't even let us state our case." I said, "There's no need." So they got mad, and I got mad, and finally I cooled down a little, and I said, "I'll tell you what you can do. You go back home. I'm not [...] to talk about this again. But call me again. I'll give you the phone [number]. And arrange to see me, and I'll cut off the phone, bar the doors, and I'll listen to every word you say. You can have a whole day to present your case. I want to be courteous and hear everything you've got to say. And I'll feel better about doing that, and I think you'll feel better." "But," I said, "I want to tell you one thing: the answer is still going to be no." And they said, "Well, we'd feel better about doing it." So they did. They called and came back and we talked all day and set up a meetings, and the answer was no, but I meant to be more courteous, you know--not fly off the handle and tell a fellow no. You can say it sweetly: You'd like to do it, but you just can't do it. As a matter of fact, when I was governor--you might be interested in this one--practically everybody that comes to see the governor wants something. Applies to everybody. And they would come in to see me, and all they wanted was some scheme where they got some money out of the state treasury. I'd say to them, "I can't do that." And they'd say, "Well, we supported you and contributed to your campaign." I said, "I appreciate it, too. But you should have known--I'm sorry you didn't--that I'm the most selfish fellow you ever saw. I'll do anything in the world for my friends that doesn't hurt the state or hurt me. But [...] sure hate to spend [...]. Do you blame me?" They said, "No, we don't blame you." You know, there's ways to do things. But the Office of Price Stabilization was a great pleasure, great fun. As a matter of fact, the time they got into the issue of the steel mills, the wage board gave the steel unions a price increase, wage increase, and the steel barons came to me for a price increase, and I said no. We had a regulation. We took five years, the last five years--we took the three best years of the five, and we would give them whatever price increase they needed to average that out. But if they could absorb additional taxes or inventory cost or labor cost, they didn't get it. And we applied it, and they weren't entitled to it, so they couldn't get it. Every weekend I went to Newnan. Waiting for me when I got home would be [Admiral Rail?], president of Bethlehem Steel, and all the presidents of the steel mills would be sitting out there, and I was courteous to them, but the answer was always no. So finally they decided they were going to close the mills. [They?] called [banking? ...], whereby they would not produce any more steel. So Truman called me and said, "Now, what are we going to do?" I said, "We're going to seize the mills." I said, "You're going to call [Terry Sawyer?], Secretary of Commerce, and run up the flag, and we're going to continue to make steel." So we did. But shortly thereafter the Supreme Court held that he did not have the right to commandeer the steel mills. So ultimately, when he had to break the line to give the steel mills a price increase, I took the position if we can't hold it against big people, we're not going to hold it against little people. And resigned. And OPS went out of business right after that.
STEELY:	We're going to break and let him put a new tape in. [End Tape 1. Begin Tape 2]
ARNALL:	--to Paris. I was official delegate to that meeting. And we held a meeting, I remember, at the Majestic Hotel. That had been the headquarters of the Germans when they had Paris under their domination for about five years. The thing that impressed me most about it was number one, everything was done with instantaneous translation, where there were people in the booths and we had on earphones and whether it was English or Russian or French or whatnot, everybody was following it. And one of the first things that impressed me most: When we got ready to elect officers for the meeting--chairmanship--we of the Western democracies proposed the nominees, and the Russians objected. Their delegation, instead of being independent citizens, were all in the embassy and that type thing; they were government people, and they said, "You don't do that way." They said, "You get the best person. You don't do all this voting and all that kind of business. And we propose so-and-so." And the very conflict in their philosophy and ours about how to elect someone shocked me very much. That was the first time I encountered in actuality their position. They just didn't believe in letting the will of the people dominate; they said it was always the best leader; that's the man [voice trails off; ...].
STEELY:	But he was always their man.
ARNALL:	Always their man. But UNESCO served a very useful purpose. In those days--for example, one of the things I worked for at UNESCO, which came to fruition, was the international copyright protection. Up until then, we didn't have international copyright protection. They did many things worthwhile in education and science and so forth. I made a speech to the U.S. national commission, of which I was vice chairman, in Washington, and it caused quite a promotion. Now, my speech was this: that I think that all of the United Nations organizations ought to reevaluate the membership. Instead of letting some alleged country having the same vote that a big legitimate country has, we ought to have criteria, not only in saying we're a nation but in population, in area, in economic stability, and so forth--in language, in culture, and not just say we're a nation. At that time, we had some nations that had less than fifty thousand people in it, and they had the same vote that we do. They do now. And so my commission in Washington endorsed my resolution to let the UNESCO study this concept. So when we got to Paris and submitted it to the international meeting of UNESCO, they voted it down because all of the small have-not nations were against it. And this is one of the great troubles in the U.N. As you know, we've withdrawn from UNESCO now because we were carrying the burden of it and yet they could gang up on us all the time. I think there ought to be some criteria other than saying, "We're a nation." Not that we're just a geographical area colored on the map, but we have stability, we have population, we have area, we have economic welfare stability, so that we're not just a blot on society. And we've overdone that. Of course, we went through that in Georgia in the county unit system, the same thing exactly, where, for example, a small county that didn't have a single town in it got two votes, whereas the biggest county in the state only got six. Well, that was out of order. I'm glad we did away with the unit vote. I'm glad we have popular vote. But sometimes I think probably there ought to be some criteria other than one man, one vote. There ought to be some other criteria so that we don't run the other way too strongly. But my experience in UNESCO was very interesting. I went to a number of conferences. I was very active in it. The way it got into it was because of the motion picture people because they were so interested in copyrights, you see.
STEELY:	Yes, yes. Tell us a little bit about Harry Truman. What sort of man was he to deal with, to work with?
ARNALL:	Well, I grew up under the time when [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt was my great ideal, but I didn't get to Roosevelt until most people turned against him. I'm for the underdog. But when so many people who had been for him turned against him because they said he was getting socialistic, then I got strong [...], and he and I were very close friends, very close. I thought he was a great President. And I have to say this: From my association with the two men, which was very close, with Truman and with Roosevelt, I had to in my heart and mind say that Truman was the greatest President. That may shock many people when I say that And the reason I thought so: He had courage. He had guts. He called the shots. He used to tell me--I remember one day I was over to the White House in the oval room, helping him write a speech. It was during the steel crisis. And he said, "Gentlemen, I've got to go out in the Rose Garden just a minute. The newspaper editors are having a meeting out there, and I've got to go out there and speak to them, but I'll be back. You wait for me." So he went out in a little while, and came back, and he said, "I really wound up a little ol' newspaper editor's clock." I said, "What happened?" He said, "A little ol' newspaper editor came up to me and said, 'Mr. President, you seized the steel mills. Do you think you can seize the newspapers, the press?'" And he said, "I looked at him and said, 'Friend, if the press needs seizing, I'm the one who will seize.' I said, '[...].' And he said, '[What I can. ?]' I said, 'Listen, I'm the only man elected by all the people of the United States with any authority to represent their interests. The congressman represents his constituents; he also represents the national interest, but he's got to get reelected. The senator represents his constituents.' I said, 'I'm the fellow that has to call the shots.'" And he said, "I'll do what I think's right, if it [...]." And that's what [...]. [laughter] Harry Truman will go down in history as a great, great President. You see, he came out of Missouri, [...] state. There was a [Pendergast?] machine, which was a disreputable organization. But I remember this: When boss Pendergast died and he was President, he went to his funeral. He didn't deputize. He had courage.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Governor, in 1960, when the crisis came over the integration of Georgia's schools, you came back to the political forefront again. Tell us about this.
ARNALL:	Well, as I recall--let me see now. I think Ernie [S. Ernest] Vandiver [Jr.] was governor, and Ernie was a good man, had a good administration, but he got caught on this race business, all overboard. Do you remember, he said, "No, not one." He wouldn't have the same [...], yet--and this is going on [unannounced?], that if it was necessary, I would run for governor again. And Jim [James S.] Peters of Manchester, was head of the party, a Talmadge man, wrote a letter to all of them and said that if they didn't bow to the court decision, Ellis Arnall will be elected governor again without any [...]. So they finally bowed to the decision. But I took the position that the law of the land is the law of the land, whether I like it or not. No [thief ever felt the halter draw?] with good opinion of the law. No matter what it is, it's the law, whether you like it or whether you [...] or not. And I took the position that we would bow to the law, and we did, although they put the lash on my back for saying that. But it was right, and I'd do it again [in a minute?], [constantly?]. I've said that we've got to have first-class citizenship, all the people. Everybody's got to have a chance. Then let them do with themselves what they will. I think we swung over too far to this affirmative action program, by the way. I think it's making discrimination in reverse in some situations. I believe in the scales of justice being color-blind, being blindfolded, and I think that's the way it ought to be. But [in '60?] I was very influential in taking positions that forced the state government to finally accede to the decision of the United States Supreme Court.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Some twenty years after you left the governor's office in 1966, you made another run for that office, which we've alluded to before. What led to that decision?
ARNALL:	Well, the things that I'd advocated in state government had come to pass. My position had been supported in state government. Everybody publicly said they were for first-class citizenship for our people, that we wouldn't discriminate and so forth and so forth. And because of what the newspapers wrote and the television and radio and what I heard, I thought that was true, so I thought it would be an easy matter for me now to be elected because all of the programs that I'd advocated and the positions I'd taken became accepted publicly. Second, I at that time had accumulated a few dollars to where I thought I could probably afford a race for governor, and I thought it would be fun, after having been out for twenty-three years, I believe it was, twenty-three years, to be governor again. I had terrific support. All the press supported me, some 90 percent of them, I suppose--radio, WSB-TV even endorsed me, the only time they ever endorsed a candidate, and I had national backing. I had the banks for me, the labor union heads--everybody for me except the people. And the reason I say the people weren't was because I learned, sadly, that while they gave lip service to the views that I had fought for, when they got into the ballot box--the secrets in ballot box--they voted against those views. And I think they still do, [...]. We've still got a long way to go. But I thought it would be fun, Ted, to be governor again. I'd enjoyed it the first time. I thought I would have a lot of fun doing some things. I'm a shaker, and I like to do different things and shock people, and I thought I could shock them some more, but they didn't give me that chance.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Were there any particularly--you mentioned a number of people had supported you. Any key people or groups that supported you in that election?
ARNALL:	Well, I had all the educational forces for me, and that's a strength. That was my whole program was the education program. I think the hope of the future is education. You can't too much education for poverty, for ignorance, bigotry. It's a cure for disease, it's a cure for all the ills that afflict society, adequate education. And the one thing I like about Joe Frank Harris' program, it is emphasizing education, and the state's got plenty of money to [...] for education. We need to go all out. For example, our regional counties, like west Georgia, we support--we need to take more education [down to?] people [...].
FITZ-SIMONS:	Interestingly enough, Lester Maddox agrees with you on this thing about education.
STEELY:	There's been hardly a governor that we've had in modern times that hasn't had that as a major priority.
ARNALL:	I hate to say this, but look at my record. Over 50 percent of all the income of the state when I was governor went to education. It's never been equalled before. And we had just a little thing. Gosh, today--I don't know why they can't do more rather than talk about it. Lester Maddox--I'm sure every governor's for education. But when you get down to the [lick a log?] of financing it and whether it's taxes or whether it's [...], that's a different story, you see. It used to be popular when I was in politics [...] have appropriations for everything and against every tax.
STEELY:	For all the spending bills and against all the taxing bills.
ARNALL:	But I'm sure that every governor has said when he gets out [...] realizes that the hope of this state and the future of our country and the world is in education.
FITZ-SIMONS:	It was about this time that we began to see the rise of Republicanism, with a capital "R", in the South. Did this bother you?
ARNALL:	Well, when I came along there was only one political party in Georgia, the Democrats. The Republicans in those days--there were a few Republicans, but they didn't want anybody else to be Republicans because they played it close to their chest so when the Republicans had an administration, they could get all the tax [...] and all that. They weren't as restricted. If you'd want to have been a Republican, you couldn't have been when I first entered politics. I think it's good that we have two parties in Georgia. I only wish that each of the two parties [...] spelled out, their concepts, because it's there that there's a great disparity of misunderstanding about what one believes and what the other. The Democrats, for example, are great [...]. Will Rogers used to say, "I don't belong to any party. I'm a Democrat." Well, that's the way--but it doesn't bother me at all. As a matter of fact, nationally, just as the Republican Party has grown in the South, so has the Democratic Party grown in New England and the North. When I came along, who ever heard of a Democrat being elected to the office of [...] New Hampshire up in there? And now they do. So I think with mass media, as we get more information and see more candidates, the parties mean less. And I regret very much that there are too many independent voters in this country--in this country and in this state. I would be a Republican before I'd be an Independent, as much as I'm a Democrat, because I think they [turn?] not and neither do they spin. All they do is exercise a veto power, and that's not right. They ought to participate in a party function, one or the other. I inherited my politics. Most of us do. Some people move about and change views. Some people change their parties. I spoke with Ronnie Reagan. When I knew him, he was a liberal Democrat. He was more liberal than I was in those days. People change. But I'd like to have the Democrats and Republicans to agree, if it were humanly possible, which I don't think it would be, on the meaning of the two parties: what they stand on. When you try to analyze them, they end up standing for the same thing. But it doesn't worry me that we've got a Republican Party. That's good. [...]. [...]. But I want the Democrats to get active. I think, just like I said with the Republican Party, it used to be a closed house, pretty much, in the early days. I'm afraid that the Democratic Party is getting to be a closed house, pretty much. It's [...] that want to control the machine and not let anybody else in.
STEELY:	So essentially they're talking about there being two Democratic parties now. There's the national party and the Georgia party. How do you feel about that?
ARNALL:	I don't believe in that. In '66 probably one of the things that caused my defeat, one of the things, was that I said I was a national Democrat, a state Democrat, a local Democrat, and anyone that doesn't like it can go to hell. I don't see how you can half goose and half gander. I think you've got to belong to one--
STEELY:	Well, they sure do it now, though.
ARNALL:	Oh, yes.
STEELY:	They've got candidates [...], "I don't have anything to do with these national Democrats. Now, I'm just local."
ARNALL:	Well, they ought to outlaw it. If someone--they can go?] support the party, the Republican Party or the Democratic Party at every level, they're not true Republicans or true Democrats.
STEELY:	They took an oath to do that, now.
ARNALL:	Oh--
STEELY:	Democrats have got an oath you have to take to support them all. After they take the oath and take the money, then they say, "I don't have anything to do with them"
ARNALL:	Well, I don't think that's right. I think I told you in the '66 campaign I voted for Lester Maddox.
STEELY:	I remember that.
ARNALL:	For the very reason that I had taken an oath to support the nominee, and he was the nominee. That was run reason I did. There were several reasons. But I have no complaint with the Republicans. More power to them. But I wish they would agree on what they stand for, and I wish the Democrats would agree on what they stand for. Neither one would be national at one level and state, another, and all that. That would be all the way down to [...].
FITZ-SIMONS:	Didn't you in the 1930s, Governor--you had Democrats in Georgia who could vote time and again for Roosevelt and vote time and again for Talmadge? You had a conflict in philosophies there.
ARNALL:	Actually, at the time Talmadge was elected to office, they elected Roosevelt's [office in?]. But they were both Democrats.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Oh, all right. Just different levels?
ARNALL:	Right.
FITZ-SIMONS:	You said that you thought the race for governor in '66--you saw it as a challenge, would be fun.
ARNALL:	Fun.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Yes. Does this make it any different to the earlier race? I mean as far as campaign strategy, funds? You had more in the way of your own funds, you said.
ARNALL:	In any political race, the easiest way to win is to have an issue, a popular issue. In the '42 race I had a popular issue: education. Talmadge had interfered with the schools, the university system, and my own program was he was a home-grown dictator. Let's take the withering hand of the politician off the throat of the educators. That was popular. Everybody agreed. Even his crowd who had children in school agreed he was wrong on that. In '66 there was no issue, just the usual issues, like the [run-on?] today. No fiery issue. So it was a more difficult race. I'd say if you can get an issue--and that's pure luck, whether you get one or not. When I was running against Talmadge in '42, if he during that campaign had gone before the public, through mass media and whatnot, and made a confession, said that he was wrong, and he asked forgiveness, he would have won, [...]. You've got to have an issue, and this is true in national politics. [Bill Murray?] used to tell me--governor of Oklahoma--when I was fooling with him, helping him some--he used to say, "In politics there's only one issue: bread and butter, bacon and beans." If the Republican national administration, if the economy goes sour, the Democrats would walk away with it. If the economy is good and they have the election, [...]. And you can't pick these issues; it just happens. Sometimes war [... ... ...], national crisis, but issues are [...] equation in politics.
STEELY:	This run-off in the primary in '66, what did you emphasize in the contest with Maddox?
ARNALL:	Law and order. I didn't make a speech [...]. I couldn't imagine anyone electing a man who had a baseball cap--
STEELY:	[laughs]
ARNALL:	I just couldn't believe it. My position was the people of Georgia are law-abiding, and whether you like the court decision or not, we're going to support it, and we're against taking the law into our own hands. I had a law book on this side and a baseball bat over here, both on television [...], [we're all going to be using a baseball bat?]. That was the issue: law and order--in my book. And his issue was the black man.
STEELY:	The black man and private property.
ARNALL:	Right.
STEELY:	When did you really feel that you had lost the race? Was there any particular--
ARNALL:	When the Stokely Carmichael race riot occurred here a week before the primary. I thought I would have gotten the majority of the votes in, but in the run-off, it never dawned on me till all the votes were in that I'd lost the race.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Where were you when you found out you'd lost?
ARNALL:	Oh, at the Americana Hotel. That was our headquarters, and it was all [...] there, and they were tabulating votes. Toward the end of the evening, when it looked like Maddox was going to win, Lester came over there--I remember that well--and offered me his condolence.
FITZ-SIMONS:	How'd you feel about that?
ARNALL:	Well, naturally, I didn't like it, but--
STEELY:	What are you going to do?
ARNALL:	You accept the inevitable gracefully.
FITZ-SIMONS:	He was gracious in his--
ARNALL:	Oh, yes.
STEELY:	He had come to you and asked you to get out of the thing, hadn't he?
ARNALL:	Oh, yes.
STEELY:	And not to let the Whig thing--
ARNALL:	As a matter of fact, he called me one night in Newnan. This was in the write-in campaign. After he became the nominee of the Democratic Party and Bo Calloway, the Republican nominee, and some people who thought neither was acceptable had the write-in campaign for Arnall. Lester called me in Newnan one night and said, "Governor, if you don't stop this write-in campaign, I'm going to [...]." And I said, "Well, Lester, I didn't start it, and I'm not going to stop it." As a matter of fact, I think without the write-in campaign, Lester would have been defeated. He thought that after the write-in campaign he would have gotten [noise and his voice drops off; ...]. I never thought so.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Still, that's interesting. That is interesting.
STEELY:	You know, [...] feature, something just to mention now, in Carroll County, I don't believe the governor's name was on the ballot, was it?
FITZ-SIMONS:	No, it had to be write-in.
STEELY:	Well, the thing about it is, the interesting thing about it--I took this up with [Doyle?]. Do you remember Doyle in political science?
FITZ-SIMONS:	[Doyle Mathis?].
STEELY:	Doyle Mathis. In order to vote the write-in vote, you had to pick up a white envelope there at the polls, which really destroyed the secrecy of the ballot in a sense.
ARNALL:	And they threw out all the votes that did not spell my name right.
STEELY:	I saw that happen. I was at the computer center.
ARNALL:	I think they tabulated--finally gave credit to the write-in campaign 69,000 votes, but most of the people [...] thought that there were write-ins in excess of 150,000.
FITZ-SIMONS:	There were a lot of them that spelled it Arnold, A-r-n-o-l-d.
ARNALL:	As a matter of fact, I tell this story, which is right interesting: My son, Alvin, had a little boy born at Piedmont Hospital, and I went out to see him, and they had all the children in a room there, and glass here. And he said to me--he said, "Daddy, when I came here this morning, the name tag on little Taylor's crib or whatever it was was spelled A-r-n-o-l-d." And he said, "I had them correct it, to spell it right." And standing by me, strangely enough, was Bo Calloway, who had a grandchild there, see. And Bo said to Alvin--he says, "I don't understand how it could be spelled wrong. There are seventy-eight ways." [laughter]
STEELY:	He'd figured it all out, huh? [Laughs] Okay. Who led the effort on the Whig movement?
ARNALL:	I don't know.
STEELY:	Do you know anybody, any person that would have been responsible?
ARNALL:	Well, yes. Some of the labor union people led it. [Montague?] was the man who was head of the agency, and [Marvin Goldstein?] led it. He was one of them that was interested in it. [I read the paper?]. And a lot of people who were so-called liberals, who felt that--and a lot of blacks were in it.
STEELY:	The [GEA?] people.
ARNALL:	A lot of them were. But, you see, during that time of the write-in campaign, other than a couple of days, I was in California visiting Walt Disney, so I didn't have a thing to do with it.
STEELY:	So you stayed out of it.
ARNALL:	Stayed out of it. And then, as I told you, in the general election I voted for Maddox rather than the write-in because I was obligated to.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Do you have any regrets about not getting in and telling people to drop it?
ARNALL:	No, none at all. It worked out fine. As a matter of fact, the Calloway family and the Arnall family are good friends. Bo's father, [Casey? K.C.?] Calloway, was one of my early supporters, in the '42 election. I put him on the Board of Regents. We were very close. So what I'm going to say is not meant to be critical of Bo, but just stating the fact: I did not want Bo to be governor because with his background and his philosophy, shown in Congress and also in life, he was very reactionary and he was very popular, and I knew he could get through the legislature measures that would restrict and restrain the development of the state in many capacities, because he had knowledge, he had personality, and his political philosophy was so counter to mine. On the other hand, I knew that Maddox would be an honest governor. I believed he would be. He had no connections. He had no knowledge about how to get anything done, so I knew he couldn't get any laws through that would damage the state in any way, so I thought it was just a safer thing to do.
FITZ-SIMONS:	[laughs]
ARNALL:	And I still am crazy about Bo Calloway, hold him in high regard. But when you clash politically, you clash politically.
STEELY:	Yes. The next decade after this, you practiced law and tended to your business interests. You dabbled in politics a little bit here and there. And, in fact, I think you had three congressmen went to Washington out of this very office, this law office.
ARNALL:	That's right.
STEELY:	Would you tell us a little bit about that period and what you were involved in with politics, and who the men were that you sent on up to Washington?
ARNALL:	Well, most of my lawyers in my law firm eschew politics. They don't like it. Many business people don't like politics. You've heard me sound off on mandatory voting registration. Many of the people who bellyache the most about government don't even participate in it, and it's regrettable. [...] doing something else. I don't know what. [That's the story?] for most of my law partners, and a few of them don't like politics because it's foreign to them. I like it because it's my nature. And so as we brought men into the law office, I encouraged them to get into politics, but we had to do it rather discreetly so it wouldn't damage their law practice. But I encouraged them. One of the first ones we had was Charlie [Charles] Weltner, who I [noise; ....] very much. He's now on the Supreme Court of Georgia and makes a great justice. He was in Congress for years. You know, he was nominated but he resigned the nomination because he refused to be on the ticket with Maddox, and Maddox was the Democratic nominee. But I encouraged Charlie and have always been in his corner. Then we had a Republican here, [Dan Laptham?], who was in our real estate department, and he was a nice guy. He was elected to Congress. And then [Elliot Levittus?], strangely enough, ran against--who was another partner of ours--ran against [Ben Blackman?] for the congressional seat, and defeated Ben. Elliot was recently defeated by a man, a young man who [...] the Republican [vintage?]. In addition to that, we had a man on the Superior Court in Fulton County, [Joey Pryor?], who was voted by the lawyers the most popular judge because he listens. It doesn't mean he decides with them, but he's patient. Let me say it that way.
STEELY:	Kind of like you were with the steel people or the oil people.
ARNALL:	What?
STEELY:	I said like you were with the steel and oil people. You listened to them.
ARNALL:	There's many [...] jury--there's many judges get on the bench and make a great record, [trying that they get you?] where they're bored to death, and the lawyer gets up and talks about something that has nothing to do with the case, he'll call it to order and stop it, whereas a good judge will listen, as though it's right on point, and so the client [give issue?]. We had Joe Pryor, who was on the southern Superior Court. We've had our share of politicians. But we had more lawyers than politicians now. We don't participate in politics.
STEELY:	How does that relationship work, Governor? We've heard--government talk around the capitol is that there were some hard feelings between the firm and Mr. Levittus because part of the understanding is that he get permission to run and come back if he lost, et cetera, but if he got elected he was supposed to try to send business this way. Is that done or not done or what's the situation?
ARNALL:	That rumor is absolutely not true. So far as I know, when Elliot was in Congress, we never got a single case [...]. We didn't want to. We wanted him to be a congressman. No, we've never tried to use political office to--although now occasionally we get matters: somebody will call me up and want us to handle something and knew the fact that we were friends politically. We take that kind of stuff, but as far as being in office and trying to [...], we don't do that. It would be damaging to him and to us, so we never did [that?].
STEELY:	I would think a good bit of that would just happen normally, with people talking to him and saying, "You know a good law firm that can help me do this or help me do that?"
ARNALL:	It may, but it never did.
STEELY:	It just doesn't--
ARNALL:	I don't know a client we got while Elliot was in Congress, [...]. [Another?] client we lost and we got a client. [?] As a matter of fact, let me tell you about the law [noise; ...]. People want a lawyer who wins cases that you litigate and the [...] who handles things well. That's the greatest hallmark of a good lawyer: being successful at the law, not at politics. I confess that politics sometimes plays a part in it, but sometimes it works against you. Let me give you an illustration: When I was governor, I [brought in?] a majority of the Supreme Court of this state, created the seventh judge so there'd be no even decisions. And I appointed--out of the seven, I appointed four. And every time I went over after I went out of office and argued a case, I knew there were going to be four against me, no matter what came. Those four that I appointed always voted against me because they wanted to show they were impartial and thereby were partial. No, I don't think--sometimes politics--let me say this: We get cases now from substantial business interests in this state and elsewhere, who are much closer to another law firm than they are to us, but they come to us because they are concerned that one of the members of the law firm is politically oriented, and they don't want to get involved in that. You know what I'm saying?
STEELY:	Mm-hm.
FITZ-SIMONS:	You have politics generally [...]. We had a senator from our area that by rights should have worked very hard for west Georgia counties, but in the process of trying to be a good statesman, he had to bend over backwards not to help west Georgia and help everybody else, to prove he was--
ARNALL:	That's right. As a matter of fact--
FITZ-SIMONS:	It works that way.
ARNALL:	As a matter of fact, a judge, in order to show his impartiality, has to be against those he's close to, and that's wrong. But most of them go that way because that's the easy out, if they [...]. For example, if the Supreme Court has voted for me and the men I appointed voted for me in a case, whatever it was, and we had many, the newspapers and mass media would say, "Ah-huh."
STEELY:	That's right. Who's the greatest judge you know or have known in Georgia? You've been around a good while in law.
ARNALL:	[William] Henry Duckworth. I'll tell you why. He had courage. He didn't care if you liked it or not; he'd call it like he saw it. And because I was very close to him as assistant attorney general--he never went to law school [...]. He studied law through a correspondence course. Some people have ability, and some don't. But we've had a lot of great judges. I [...] off the top of my head, I'd say [...] because I was very close to him. But we've had a lot of good judges. As a matter of fact, I don't know any that I think have brought dishonor on the courts.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Okay. In 1976, former Governor Carter came to you and asked for your help in the campaign he was running for the Presidency. You spoke for him in Florida and Pennsylvania--
ARNALL:	Right.
FITZ-SIMONS:	You helped mobilize the Atlanta media--
ARNALL:	Right.
FITZ-SIMONS:	--behind him when they thought he couldn't win.
ARNALL:	Right, right.
FITZ-SIMONS:	What was your impression of Jimmy Carter, and why did you go to work for him? Why did this happen?
ARNALL:	Well, I did it simply because he had a good name, good reputation, but primarily because he was a Georgian. I thought we ought to support our own people. And I have a number of letters from Jimmy, where he thanked me for a good many [...s] and all that. I've got it on file, and they'll be in the book which is coming out this fall, hopefully. I thought it was only proper to support Jimmy Carter. I think it was a miracle he was elected President. I felt it at the time. I didn't think he had a chance, but he was a Georgian and a good man, former governor, and I was for him. I thought it was a miracle that he was elected. And I think history will deal kindly with him. He was an honest, honorable man. But [...] specifically, I supported Jimmy largely because he was a former governor and was a Georgian. I had calls from the news media all over the North and whatnot, wanting me to criticize his administration as governor during the campaign. And I said, "No, you had a good governor." Any public official, and somebody's looking for something to criticize. [...] do good [...].
STEELY:	They do an awful lot of that, I'm afraid. How did you feel about Hamilton Jordan and his working out the strategy to help Carter win? He's generally pictured as something of a genius in that area.
ARNALL:	Well, I never had any close contacts with Hamilton Jordan. I understand he lived down in Americus, and he was out gardening one day and Jimmy Carter came by and struck up his acquaintance, and they got to be friends. I think Hamilton is related some way to the [Lecraters?]. Howard Lecrater was president of the Senate before we created the office of lieutenant governor. A good friend of mine. I'm not close to Hamilton. Don't know anything about him other than what you know [...]. He's running for the Senate now.
STEELY:	Have you picked your candidate for that yet?
ARNALL:	No, I have not.
STEELY:	Okay.
ARNALL:	I will support the Democrat against [Mattingly?], although I would be less than honest if I didn't say that most people are pretending that Mattingly has made a good senator.
STEELY:	So this won't be seen until after that race is over with anyway.
ARNALL:	But I think the Democrat, whoever the nominee is, is going to have a very difficult job defeating Mattingly because of two factors: number one, at the moment the popularity with the national Republican administration; and second, the money. He's got a heavy war chest. I think he'll be difficult to defeat, although it's quite a while until the general election.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Yes. I'd have thought you'd have been a strong supporter of [Wites Fowler?]. You philosophically tend to get along better together?
ARNALL:	Well, as a matter of fact, this won't be played till after the election--
FITZ-SIMONS:	No, sir. You asked us not to release it until your book came out, so nobody's going to see it until you get your book published.
ARNALL:	I will vote for Wites, yes, because of our close friendship through the years. You see, he was Charlie Weltner's executive secretary, and when Charlie retired, then Wites went in. So all that washes off [...].
FITZ-SIMONS:	I'd have been surprised if you hadn't supported Wites.
ARNALL:	Well, when you say "support,"--
FITZ-SIMONS:	Well, I mean vote for him. Your personal support.
ARNALL:	I have had a wonderful career in politics, a wonderful time, but I'm seventy-nine years old. I feel that I served my time. I paid my dues. And I think that I'm entitled to a little bit respite. Not a mail that comes that I don't get calls, not a telephone rings during the day I don't get calls--want me to help them, financially and otherwise. And I thank them very much, but I tell them, as I'm saying now, I've paid my dues; I've served my time; I'm entitled to a respite.
FITZ-SIMONS:	You're entitled then to be a spectator for a while, instead of being involved.
STEELY:	A fairly influential one, I might add.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Yes, well.
ARNALL:	You know, I was once an eagle scout, Boy Scout eagle scout. I think that's the highest it was then you could go.
STEELY:	That's right. Still is.
ARNALL:	And I'm all for scouting. But I don't want to be a Boy Scout and get active in-- [laughter]
STEELY:	But there are times when you do, like with Jimmy Carter, when you feel it's important, you do jump in. You may not now. That's been twenty years.
ARNALL:	Well, it hasn't been twenty years.
STEELY:	Well, then, what? Ten years? Seventy-six to '86. Ten years.
ARNALL:	Well, at that time I was much more active in politics than I am now, [...]. But I can't envision anything happening that's going to get me hot and bothered about politics. I think the people will just make their own decisions, and I'll make mine.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Let me ask you about something else, Governor. How did you get elected to the Transportation Hall of Fame in '77? That puzzled me. I couldn't figure out how in the world you got in that.
ARNALL:	That [results?] back to Georgia versus Pennsylvania Railroad, when we brought about [...] trying to get transportation all over the nation, like postage rates. [...]. As a matter of fact, I like to say this, and I think I told you before: I like to think that the great progress of the Sun Belt is due to a large extent in the Georgia versus Pennsylvania Railroad case. The West profited from it and the South, and it brought us more into unison as a nation. Of course, some of the union states [...] because industries left there and whatnot, and because the climate is better and we have more workers here and all that, but still, if you have a nation, you've got to treat everybody alike. One of the good things that came from our wars, if anything good came from them, is that Southern boys trained in the East and West--and the Northern boys, Southern--and we intermarried, and we built a community interest, and I think that's good. So I was elected to the Transportation Hall of Fame because of Georgia versus Pennsylvania Railroad.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Looking back over your life, is there anything significant you have done differently?
ARNALL:	No, no. I've had a good life, good family, good friends, and I wouldn't change it for the world.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Which of all your accomplishments have brought you more joy and pride?
ARNALL:	Well, if I must answer quickly, I would say that when I became the nation's youngest governor, when I became the state's youngest attorney general in history, the fact that at an early age I could make these accomplishments probably brought me greater satisfaction, not only in winning the office but in doing the things that needed to be done. The time was right to do these things. So I would say that while I had many high spots, if I had to name one, I would say that when I drew that slip of paper that said [governor?] [...] in the first grade grammar school, that came to reality. That would be the high spot.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Somehow I expected that. I don't know! What advice would you give someone who's about to embark on a legal or political career today?
ARNALL:	Well, on a legal career--and I see some of my associates out here--I would say I may have told some of them [...] legal field, as soon as they finish law school to forget all they were taught, because the whole purpose of [legalistics?] is to engage in dialectic intercourse whereby you evaluate and come to your own conclusions. And the reason I say that you forget all you learned because if you remembered anything, it would be obsolete the day after tomorrow. The law changes so rapidly. The court decisions are really [working?] the Constitution so quickly. So I say if you get a law school that teaches you how to come to grips legalistically, through dialectic, studying both sides, to come to the right conclusion. We have trouble sometimes when we bring lawyers up here who clerk for judges because they look at the case, and they can talk to this side or that side, [what was right?]. I tell them to forget that, that a lawyer only has one side. He can only be on one side, and he's got to be on the right side, and he's got to come up with solutions to the problems whereby he's got to believe in it and convince others that he's right. If he doesn't believe it, he can't convince courts. If he does, he can. So I say that's why I'm a great believer in the fact that a young lawyer ought to come to grips with the things that are in dispute. He can't sit in judgment. He's got to take one side. And fortunately, we always have the right side up here. We've never been on the wrong side of a case. And our job is to keep the court from doing ill service to the law. [If you side with?] us, [...] right. Now, politically what I would say is cultivate people. I don't care how much you talk about mass media, television, [noise;...] Madison Avenue candidates, it's still a basis of personal relations. We are egotistical. Anyone that argues that is wrong. The first man in my community thanks God that he's [...]. If a candidate for office calls me or comes to see me, [noise; ...], I'm inclined to vote for him. And I say that if I were advising anyone what to do, it's not to rely on radio and television and all that stuff, but get out and mix and mingle with people. Get to know people. If you know people, and that's all politics is, you've got the case won. I don't think you can jump into a race unprepared. I think it takes years of cultivation of people. I'm amazed at how somebody will jump into a race and run for governor and never been elected to city council or anything else. I think you've got to come up through the school to better [...] people. So I would say two things: One, in politics the heart of the future of a man or a woman's political career is cultivating people. And in law I would say it is you better be innovative, new approaches to old problems.
STEELY:	Okay. Governor Arnall, if you could make one more major contribution, what would you pick? What would you want to do?
ARNALL:	Are we talking politics?
STEELY:	Anything. Business, politics, personal. What would you want to do?
ARNALL:	Hmm. Politics--I think the greatest need in our nation today and our state and our municipality, counties, is more participation in the voting process by people, so I would say that in politics the greatest thing that could come about is mandatory registration in voting. And it will come. The [nine Western? non-Non-Western?] democracies have had it now. But it's ridiculous when people have fought and died for the privilege of voting, not to participate in voting. We ought to have to vote. We have to pay taxes, we have to serve on juries--these are things that are mandatory. So I would say politically the great future of our country is requiring the people to participate in our government, so we can take it away from machines or little groups that nominate. And from the standpoint of society, I would say that we should work constantly toward inspiring every man and every woman to become a capitalist, encouraging them to get into the system and make of themselves what they will. From the standpoint of religion, I would say that every man and woman believe what they will that gives them comfort and solace. From the standpoint of personal effect, I would say if I could do one thing, I would like to live to be a hundred and eighty years old, to see the great world around us unfold and to see our [state?] and our people continue to grow [...].
STEELY:	You've had a good time these almost eighty years, haven't you?
ARNALL:	It's been a picnic.
FITZ-SIMONS:	[laughs]
ARNALL:	A lot of fun.
STEELY:	Can you think of anything else we ought to add here, Governor, that we haven't asked you about?
ARNALL:	No, I think we've covered the waterfront, and if you didn't, I tried to. [laughter] I want to thank you and Ted for coming here and the camera--video people. They're real nice. Appreciate it. And I went to wish West Georgia well. You know, I knew West Georgia when it was the Fourth District A & M, and in athletics I used to compete, and in debate.
FITZ-SIMONS:	Dr. [Ingram's?] group over there.
ARNALL:	Yes. So [I'll always had a million of my people from county?] to go there, and my neighbor and our friends. So we wish West Georgia well.
STEELY:	We certainly appreciate--
FITZ-SIMONS:	We do appreciate that. We really do.
STEELY:	And your help here. We couldn't have completed the project without you. It's greatly appreciated. Thank you, Governor.
ARNALL:	Thank you very much. Thank you all.
[End of Interview]