[Begin Tape #1, Side #1]
FINCH: [inaudible]
KLEE: It's . . . it's in there. So it's fine. The following is an unrehearsed
interview with James J. Finch, Jr. for the Kentucky Oral History Commission by John Klee. The interview is being conducted at the offices of the Bank of Maysville. Mr. Finch, just to begin, could you tell me a little bit about your background? Your family and how . . . you know, where you were raised and so forth.FINCH: Well, I was born in Mays Lick, which at that time was known as the
"Asparagus Bed of the World" and it still has a sign out there that says "Asparagus Bed" but up by Sanford Roth years ago. Sanford Roth is the man, I think, that started the bank . . . the Bank of Mays Lick.KLEE: Mays Lick, uh-huh.
FINCH: Now located in the middle of town, and a nice bank, too. Nice customers.
Nice directors. Nice officers. My family . . . my grandparents came from New Jersey and Virginia, and they were all English stock, I understand, and migrated to Maysville, then on out to Mays Lick. Bought a farm or two at Mays Lick and settled there. The Mitchells did. The Finches settled in Maysville, and the Mitchell Finches got . . . the Mitchells and Finches got together and they were in the grain business here and later developed the old Mitchell Finch Bank, which was located on the corner of Court and , later was [inaudible] drugstore. And I was born in Mays Lick, but I hate to tell you how many years ago [chuckles] but I went to school there, and to kind of date myself, I started the first year in school was on a . . . the school bus service, school wagon, was drawn by two horses. And that's been two or three years ago.KLEE: Yes sir. So you're . . .
FINCH: And then later, why I rode a pony to school. And then later, why, I went
down to to school. Graduated there after two years, and went on to , to [inaudible] school in . And after about a year and a half of that, I was offered a real good job on the stock exchange, and I took it and hate to . . .KLEE: In ?
FINCH: . . . hate to admit . . . hate to admit I was there when the stock market
broke in 1929. I saw five suicides in five days. I saw one lady soon after she jumped off of the fourteenth floor of the building across the street and cut herself half in two.KLEE: Now you were . . . you were a young man at that time?
FINCH: Yes sir.
KLEE: And had gone in with a firm in , or . . .
FINCH: No, I worked for them.
KLEE: Uh-huh. Yeah. Right.
FINCH: Just a floor broker. And I learned then, in , that if you're gonna do
something, you know you're starting with the janitor, go to the top. And I'd been offered this real good job and I was more or less a kid. Didn't know who to talk to. Drexel & Company had the largest bank up there at the time. [clears throat] Excuse me. So I went in and asked the secretary if I could see Mr. Drexel. And she was nice enough to go tell him there's a kid out front wanted to talk to him. [chuckles] She took me in to see him and no one could have been nicer than that president and chairman of the board of the biggest bank in , and a gentleman that I'm sure was a multi-multi-multi-millionaire. He told me what to do and what he thought was right and I . . . since then, I've learned to . . . after his interview, I've gone to the top instead of going to the bottom many times in many places. [chuckles] He taught me the right way.KLEE: So when that . . . when that happened in 1929, did you come back . . .
come back to . . .FINCH: When the market broke, I happened to have sixteen hundred dollars left in
cash. I put that in the pocket and came back to . [chuckle]KLEE: What was waiting for you here? What . . .
FINCH: I was glad to get here. I worked for the Home Warehouse that winter, and
went to for my health. I guess it was in March, about February or March. Went to for my health and my dad called me up down there and said "You can buy a lot next door to the Home Warehouse, and your aunt and I'll help you build a warehouse if you want to. But you better come on home see about it." I did. Charlie Clarke was my neighbor and almost my brother, or felt like he was almost my brother. His dad put up some money. We bought the lot and built the Standard Warehouse. And that's where Standard Tobacco got . . . finally got started in 1932.KLEE: Now when you first entered the warehouse business, you worked that winter
of `29 into `30, and of course built the Standard Warehouse in `32. That was before there was a . . . a support price and so forth . . .FINCH: Oh yeah.
KLEE: . . . was that . . . what was the warehouse . . .
FINCH: In 1932, you could buy a hundred pounds of tobacco for fifty cents.
Today, last year, one pound of tobacco would bring a dollar and a half or a little better. That shows you how the economy's changed.KLEE: Um, hmm. Now at that time, how were farmers bringing in tobacco? Had
multiple grades and . . .FINCH: They'd bring it in and . . . lot of them bring it in in wagons and there
were many trucks too, but there were also a lot of wagons. And there was many, many grades of tobacco and the tobacco . . . the . . . of and the finally persuaded them to not mix tobacco, but not have so many grades of tobacco. And you could put a long leaf and a medium leaf together. Instead of making two grades, you could make one. And it was the same tobacco.KLEE: So that's when the . . . the switch started being made?
FINCH: Oh yeah. And then . . .
KLEE: [inaudible]
FINCH: . . . later, of course, why it came along to where you had tobacco
shipped around the country on pallets, and now it's shipped in bales like a bale of hay.KLEE: The . . .
FINCH: And the bales make sense because you can handle it much easier. Stack
them up, ship them.KLEE: What . . . who were the major buyers at that time that you were dealing with?
FINCH: The same as they are now: [R. J.] Reynolds Tobacco Co., American, Liggett
[& Myers], Southwestern. Southwestern was strictly a big dealer. And along came Parker Tobacco Company, developed by Alec Parker, Sr. and then the pool came along. I believe that happened, I believe that came along in 1938 if I remember correctly.KLEE: Were the warehousemen glad to see that come along?
FINCH: Oh yeah.
KLEE: The support price, uh-huh.
FINCH: The tobacco industry needed help, and the pool [cough] . . . excuse me .
. . you know, the guarantee of so many dollars for so many pounds.KLEE: Um, hmm. What . . . you . . . you built your warehouse then in 1932. Were
there other warehouses being built in that same time period?FINCH: Oh yeah.
KLEE: Is that when the boom was . . .
FINCH: Soon after that, the Burley Warehouse was built, and about that time,
[inaudible] Number One, the Brick House was built. And there were two other warehouses which now belong to the Browning Manufacturing Company or Emerson Electric. It was Farmers & Planters. But they're now . . . well the . . . the old Farmers is back in business again.KLEE: I see. You were in a very competitive business then, at the time.
FINCH: Still in it. [chuckle]
KLEE: Yeah. Right. The . . . how were . . . how were those early years then? You
borrowed money and this was in the middle of the Depression, how . . . how did it go for you?FINCH: My dad had some money and pretty fair credit. My aunt had some money and
between those two and Charlie Clarke's dad, why we got started. Didn't take much money to start at that time. That's when the company was living on credit. And you might say short rations.KLEE: Short rations. What kind of relationship . . . as a warehouseman, you have
to deal with the buyers and you have to deal with companies. You have to deal with the farmers. Did . . . did your warehouse . . . I know warehouses attract different . . . different crops from different areas of the region. Did you attract a certain kind of farmer or . . .FINCH: We hired an auctioneer by the name of O. G. Rucker. He was the man that
put the old Lucky Strike program on the air, on radio. There was no television then, it was strictly radio. And he was on that a number of years and worked for us for eight years. Every farmer in the country and every buyer was crazy about O. G. Rucker. He was the tops of the business. And he would come in sometime a month early and solicit tobacco with Charlie Clarke or some of the people that worked for us.KLEE: Now at that time, were the auctioneers hired by . . . were they hired
together like they are now?FINCH: Auctioneers were hired by each house.
KLEE: I see.
FINCH: They had their own house.
KLEE: This was your . . . this was your auctioneer.
FINCH: The Standard & Home hired O. G. Rucker and had him for a number of years.
And when he retired, left Maysville, he went back to his hometown in [inaudible], then went to to work on the market and died in . Had a heart attack and died on the floor.KLEE: Now you were . . . you were mentioning that he would go out with some of
your people there . . .FINCH: Oh yeah . . .
KLEE: . . . Mr. Clarke, and . . . and solicit. So you thought that was a big plus.
FINCH: It was a big plus, cause every farmer in the country was crazy about O.
G. Rucker. He had a wonderful reputation.KLEE: And I . . . course you tried to provide service at warehouses, too. That's
another way that . . . how has . . . how has that changed, or has that changed much over the years? The way that warehouses deal with farmers and . . .FINCH: Not too much, no, I don't think so. We still solicit tobacco and we try
to be nice to everybody that comes to the front door, and we try to take a personal interest in what they do and send them home with as large a check as is possible to get them.KLEE: Those . . . those early years between the . . . the advent of your
warehouse and before the program got started, those weren't any of those years that were so low that farmers held it over or . . . there wasn't too much. Was there too much agitation? Course . . .FINCH: Not too much, no. The pool took care of a lot of the problems.
KLEE: Yeah. Um, hmm.
FINCH: I say the pool, I mean the Burley Association.
KLEE: Right.
FINCH: Yeah. What was nicknamed or called "the pool."
KLEE: Let's move to another area of your . . . of your background, and that was
the radio station. What . . . what kind of relationship have you had with the radio station over the years? And tell me about your early . . .FINCH: Charlie Clarke and I had the application all drawn up to try to put a
radio station in Maysville in 1940 or `41. And of course the war came along and that killed any application that was going in for a radio station until after the war. And in 194-, the latter part of `46 after the war, and I came home again from the Army, we applied. Took about a year to get it. I'll never forget what happened. I'd go to about every two weeks and try to twist a good many arms to get it approved. And Senator [Alben] Barkley was our good friend. And he helped us. We made a good . . . there were made a good many promises by the chairman of the FCC [Federal Communication Commission], and none of them were kept. So one day I went in the senator's office and he was then vice president. He said, "You didn't get that application last week approved?" I said, no sir, wasn't even mentioned on the agenda. "You wait here." [chuckles] I remember just as well . . . he had a big black car that chauffeured him around , government car. He went out to get in it, and the car wasn't there. He got a taxi and went down to the FCC. About a half hour, he came back in that taxi. When he came in his office, I was sitting there talking to his administrative assistant. "You'll get your application this Friday." We got it.KLEE: [chuckle] Is that right?
FINCH: It was approved on Friday. [chuckle]
KLEE: That was . . . was that another example of going straight to the . . . to
the top?FINCH: Sure was . . .
KLEE: 'Stead of worrying with the . . .
FINCH: Used to know a lot of the tops in and thoroughly enjoyed them all.
KLEE: Now it was . . . this was a pretty innovative move. There wasn't any radio
station in the area. What prompted . . . what prompted you to decide to go with the radio station?FINCH: Cause we thought at that time, and still think it today, that Maysville
was a center market, located between and . At that time, was more prosperous than it is today, and . And we were sitting here all . . . with a market all by ourselves if we could develop it.KLEE: If you could develop it.
FINCH: And . . . I'd say the public started with us in 1948, I believe it was.
In fact, it was the first minute of 1948, New Year's Eve.KLEE: Um, hmm. Okay.
FINCH: And the first person to be on that radio Ms. Ellen Walton, Ms. John
Michael Walton. I remember it real well. She sang "Ave Maria." [chuckles] She was number one. And we had a gentleman by the name of Scott True who was our farm program director. Scott lived in , and his home . . . he called it by the River. And he loved it. He went out . . . I'll tell you a story about Scott.KLEE: Go ahead.
FINCH: He went up to Washing- . . . went up to to a national convention as their
guest. Radio convention. And of course he took Ms. True with him. And they were sitting in the auditorium in the . . . I forget which hotel it was . . . I forget which hotel, but anyway, Scott was back of the stage, back of the stage watching through the curtain, and a lady was sitting in front of Ms. True and when Scott told me this himself, he said, "I was watching through that hole in that curtain, and the closer it came to my time to go out and get behind the microphone and give them my talk, my knees were hitting together." Said, "I was scared to death." And said, "When I was introduced and walked out on that big stage, about two thousand people in the audience," said, "I forgot everything that I was supposed to say." [chuckles] And . . . and said, "When I got to the microphone, I started telling stories and jokes." And said, "Finally my speech came to me. But," said "I still mixed it with a lot of jokes and stories." And Scott was a natural at that business. He . . . people loved him for that reason. And the lady sitting in front of Ms. True got up and went out and came back and brought a big heavyset fella with her, and they sat there and listened, and she leaned over and said, "General, you never heard anybody like this man. He should be on NBC." And he turned out to be General Sarnoff, president of RCA, Radio Corporation of . Well they got Scott backstage and offered him a . . . made him an offer to go on NBC on the farm program coast to coast. Scott says, "General, you don't know how much I appreciate this, but, " said, "I live in a little town, Dover, down in . . . on the Ohio River in Kentucky between Maysville and Cincinnati and," said, "my farm is named Eden by the River. And I love . . . I'll always love what you offered me, and I'll always have a lot of respect for you, but I'm going back to live and died on by the River." [chuckle]KLEE: He didn't want leave again. Well that . . . that program, I guess, started
almost from the beginning.FINCH: It was. It was on the on the first day and it's still on today.
KLEE: Still on today.
FINCH: That's right.
KLEE: The radio station has always, through, I guess your guidance, has always
been interested in agriculture.FINCH: Oh yeah.
KLEE: In the area.
FINCH: Yeah, this is an agricultural community and we cater to the farmer and
try to give him the best we know how. And now we have a gentleman by the name of Bill Stewart. Bill does a good job.KLEE: Yeah. That was one of your original intents then, I guess, for the radio station?
FINCH: Oh yes. Sure was.
KLEE: And you located it there on the square where you have . . .
FINCH: That's right. We started where we are now.
KLEE: Uh-huh. Right there with the tobacco warehouse.
FINCH: We have . . . it was an AM station then. We still have it. Now we have
added an FM station, three thousand watt FM.KLEE: The call letters, did you choose those or . . .
FINCH: Well, that's . . . I'll tell you a story about that. In their
application, I put in the request for WFTM, which would stand for the "world's finest tobacco market." We were turned down because they had been assigned to a little police station up in upper . I think it was . Well, after we were turned down, and I found out about it. I called the chief of police up there. Told him who I was, what I wanted, where we were, and why I wanted WFTM was to . . . stand for our tobacco market. He said, "Tell you what I'll do." Said, "If you'll send me an old country ham and a twist of chewing tobacco, I'll ask the FCC to assign this . . . our call letters to you and to give us some more." [chuckles] [cough] Excuse me. And that's the way we got them.KLEE: You were able to . . .
FINCH: That's the way we got them.
KLEE: [inaudible] The . . . course that's . . . the radio station's been not
only a benefit to ag-, to farmers, giving them information and promoting local tobacco market, but also as a . . . as a resource, community resource. Let's . . . let's talk about that just a little bit, and I know this is a little bit off farming, but your role as a community leader, you've always been interested in promoting this region. First let me ask you, where do you see agriculture fitting into that promotion? How important is agriculture to our area?FINCH: Well, not too long ago, I guess it was a year ago now. Maybe a year and a
half. I was at a bank meeting there in , and each bank president was asked to stand up and say something about his hometown and his home business and his bank. And when my time came around, I got up and told who I was, where I was from . . . , and president of the Bank of Maysville, the oldest bank in . And I said, I think I'm probably the luckiest man in this room, and I'll tell you why. Said in about two miles of my desk, up the Ohio River, as far as I know, we have the largest electric power plant in the . I think it cost around a billion dollars. And two miles down the river from my desk, we have another plant, electric plant, that was about half that size. And regardless of the economy, those two electric plants are gonna operate and serve the public. And there are a lot of ways, big payrolls, good salaries and good jobs at those two plants. I said, in addition to that, we just finished a tobacco market that put . . . I believe it was about $80 million dollars in the . . . in our community, in the farmers pockets. And I said, you can't find many small towns with two big industrial payrolls like those power plants, and an $80 million dollar farmer economy for one product, plus in the summer time, many more incomes from hogs, cattle, sheep, and whatever we have. And I said, I think I live in the charmed spot of the world right now.KLEE: [chuckle] So agriculture is central to us?
FINCH: Oh yeah.
KLEE: And always . . .
FINCH: Yes sir.
KLEE: Have you seen that, in . . . in your years of experience, is that . . . is
that role declining? Your . . . your businesses are . . . you have multiple businesses and of course, you know, I I'm sure the warehouse is an important part of your business, as is the radio station and your work here at the bank. Have you see one ebb and flow at the expense of the other or . . .FINCH: Mister . . . Mr. Klee, I think that's a good question and I'll tell you
why. Cause I think we have to make up our mind, all of us do, that we're living in a world market. Not just a little local market, but a world market. If you think I'm wrong, look . . . since Chrysler . . . I don't mean Chrysler . . . since started shipping cars into this country and now building them here, that's brought the price down of other cars. Since they started shipping crude oil into this country through the gulf, Persian Gulf and back in that part of the world into Kentucky and through the . . . all over the United States to refineries, think how it's brought the price of gasoline down. We're in a world market and we might as well make up our mind to adjust to it, and live with it. I think the farmer has to make up his mind to make a lot of changes because the price of . . . the high price of tobacco in the last few years, ten years, twelve years, has crowded a lot of other products out of the farm, off of the farm. I'll go back to Mays Lick. We were talking about Mays Lick a few minutes ago. Many years ago, that was world famous, or nationally famous for raising the finest asparagus in the country. There was a big hemp market out there. Make . . . use hemp to make ropes. I think the farmer has to begin to diversify and . . . and . . . and realize that tobacco is . . . is fine. It . . . it'll always bring good money. It'll always be useful, regardless of what the surgeon general says. But I think that tobacco has crowded too many other good products out of the neighborhood that . . . that could support them. And I'm going back to asparagus. Mays Lick, I think, community has the finest ground in the world to gra-, to raise asparagus. And the asparagus is an expensive crop.KLEE: Sure is.
FINCH: It's a garden crop, but it's an expensive crop. And to back up that
statement, I think history shows that soil from Mays Lick was displayed at the World's Fair in back in the 1800's as the richest soil in the . I think the farmer can do a lot of things to help himself, and he has to make up his mind to make a few changes.KLEE: So what you're saying is that in . . . in your day, you've seen tobacco
become more and more important to the farmer at the expense of some of these other things.FINCH: That's right. That's a good . . . that's a good way to . . . that's a
good way to look at it, too. At the expense of other good things.KLEE: Okay. Yeah. But you think agriculture's gonna remain important to our
area? You don't think it's gonna be completely replaced by industry or . . .FINCH: Oh no. No, no. This will never be an industrial community. I think that
we have overlooked the value of the transportation on the . I think it could be used for heavy industry, and I think it will be used for heavy industry. And I don't know why it's been overlooked all these years. I believe we're . . . we're beginning to realize that. The is a real asset. [cough] And now you can ship from, I believe, it's to and save somewhere around six hundred . . . or two hundred and eighty miles in that . . . for freight on that trip. And there's a huge port in . . . in . . . well, and two or three good ports down there.KLEE: Let me . . . while we're on this subject . . .
FINCH: Wait just a minute . . . excuse me, the coal . . . part of the coal that
comes out of Kentucky, I think the public knows it, but it goes down this river and you'd be surprised how much of it winds up in Japan. It goes . . . a lot of that coal goes to , transferred into ocean-going barges and winds up at the factories in . And that's the way it should be, too.KLEE: It's another market for our . . . one of our products.
FINCH: Why certainly.
KLEE: While we're on this idea about the business and industry in the area, I
know about some of . . . your leadership role in, for example, the Chamber of Commerce, bringing in a full-time director. That's been in my experience here. Could you relate some of those . . . some of those things that have happened over the years in promoting this area?FINCH: Well, I remember one real well. I was chair-, president of the Chamber
here for three years. And the DuPont Company owned two thousand acres of land down the river, almost a stone's throw from this far end of town. And they were gonna build a plant there to make corafam . . . coraflam . . . corfram. [spelling?] Well, that's a . . . that's a simulated leather. They built one in and I . . . well, as you might say, it laid an egg. So that killed the idea of building a plant here.KLEE: I see.
FINCH: And that good river land, land exposed to the river and railroad too laid
there for a number of years. Well, I went to a number of times and tried to get that land for the Chamber of Commerce here at Maysville, and finally wound up eating dinner with the president of DuPont twice, and maybe through that friendship, I got the land for : fifteen . . . optioned at fifteen hundred dollars an acre. Came home and it was written up all over . Well, East Kentucky Power either heard about it or read it, and came down to see if they could get it. Well, I got the DuPont people down here, the head of the real estate division and one of the vice presidents, and they had no trouble trading with to take it all. And that's the way that plant happened to be two miles from this desk down the river.KLEE: Yes sir.
FINCH: That was the nicest experience I had with the Chamber. I had a lot of
good ones, but that was the big one, of course.KLEE: Yeah. And of course, you're still . . . the bank's still very active in
the Chamber and I recall when the . . . again, a leadership role when you . . . executive director was coming here.FINCH: Well, I'm not a director any longer. I was for twenty years.
KLEE: Um, hmm.
FINCH: I think I was a director of the Boys Club for twenty years.
KLEE: I saw that, uh-huh. [chuckle]
FINCH: I was a director of the Chamber of Commerce for twenty years [chuckles],
I was a director of the Small Business Administration for twenty years. And I decided it was time to quit taking care of the other fellows' business and [chuckle] take care of my own. So I resigned from all of them.[End Tape #1, Side #1]
[Begin Tape #1, Side #2]
KLEE: This is side two of a tape with Mr. Finch of the Bank of Maysville. I
wanted to talk about . . . you talked about how the family was in banking. How did your experience with banking here start?FINCH: Well, my dad was president of the bank, and after I got pretty active in
the tobacco business and other things around here, he thought he and Mr. Jim Kehoe, who was president of the bank before that, decided I should be a director and [cough] I was elected to take someone's place. I forget who now. But anyway, when my dad died, they elected me president of the bank in 1958. I guess I've pretty well fooled them ever since. Been here ever since 1958. That seems like a long, long time ago.KLEE: Now, you've mentioned it once, but I know it . . . you know, it's a mark
of pride for the community and the bank, but this is the first bank in .FINCH: That's right. The Secretary of State called me yesterday and said, "I'm
gonna write you a letter that makes it official that the Bank of Maysville is the oldest bank in the state of . Started in 1835." And said, "You can quite me as Secretary of the State of ."KLEE: State of . Tell me about your relationship with farmers. You've been the
head of this bank. Has . . . have farmers been an important part of this business?FINCH: Farmers are an important part of any business in the agriculture part of
, certainly. We like them. We cater to them. We do the best we know how. We've got a lot of . . . I don't know whether you saw them in the front window, a lot of small animals. And we finance those . . . try to finance livestock [inaudible] for the farmer. And I don't mind telling you, we believe in the hog business, if one sow can have, we'll say fourteen pigs a year, or twenty pigs a year, look at the odds. Eight . . . fourteen to one or twenty to one. You can't find that in any other . . .KLEE: [inaudible]
FINCH: . . . product on a farm that I know of. And we believe . . . we certainly
believe in hogs. And all kinds of livestock, but particularly hogs. Brood sows.KLEE: And . . . and have supported that . . .
FINCH: Sure.
KLEE: . . . pretty strongly. Course this section of the bank that . . . that
we're in, your farm officer, you know, you've had a farm . . . Bert Collins, of course . . .FINCH: Oh yeah . . .
KLEE: . . . was a farm officer for a long time.
FINCH: We miss Bert Collins, too. We were crazy about him.
KLEE: I was able to interview him many years ago. Is . . . farmers, obviously I
guess, are having a very difficult time today. Have . . . have you seen those kinds of problems before? Is this something . . . is this nothing new, or do you see it as unique or . . .FINCH: Farmers . . . oh yeah. Back in `32, my golly, you couldn't . . . you
couldn't hardly give an acre of land away if you had to pay taxes on it. But President [Franklin D.] came out with the best thing that I think's ever happened to the farmer. Back in 1930, he started what they called . . . I believe it was 1931. He started what they called the CCC [Commodity Credit Corporation]. And the government, if the farmer couldn't afford it, the government paid for terracing land, ditching land. Finan-, I don't mean financing . . . fertilizing land. And put a lot of farmers, instead of putting them off the land, or kicking them out of their farms, put them back into business and helped them financially and . . . I'd say physically, hold on to what they had and finally they began to pay their bills. They done pretty well right up to now. Our farmers are not in good shape, and they're not in bad shape. I'd say they're . . . they're medium. And they're lucky. If they lived out in the west, the corn and the wheat section, they would really hurt. But we have enough diversification here to have some pretty solid farmers.KLEE: From what you said earlier, that sounds like something that obviously you
recommended, too, is to maintain diversification and . . .FINCH: Oh yeah. Yeah, there were two lawyers here yesterday from . And they
couldn't imagine the few farms or the good farm loans that we have. "Why," they said, "we thought everybody was going to the government to be financed." I said, no we take care of our own farmers the best we know how. And we have plenty of good farm customers.KLEE: I know that this is . . . this has been something . . . I know that you've
done some lobbying on behalf of . . . on behalf of tobacco. Talked to people, congressmen . . . sent letters to people. Could you discuss that with me? Is that . . . that's something that I think's been relatively late because before, I guess, you didn't have to defend tobacco.FINCH: I'm gonna cut that a little short because my dad did some of that. I
haven't done too much on the tobacco business. I have on other things. But my son, Jim Finch, is president of the Burley . . . chairman of the board of the Burley Auction Warehouse Association. He was chairman . . . president for three years and now he's been chairman for two. And he goes to all their meetings and he does a lot of lobbying. He's been to , he'll be there again pretty soon. But he knows more about that as of today than I do.KLEE: Yes sir. Yeah, well I had talked to him too and . . . and . . . about
that, about his role in that. How that's been important. Let me get off the tobacco subject for a little while. I'd like just to talk to you about . . . about this community and . . . and some of the changes you've seen over the years. Some of the people you've known. If you had to characterize it, what . . . what are some of the most significant changes you've seen? Course the community's kind of got two different areas now. We've got what they . . . what some people call the top of the hill and others call, I guess, the business district or whatever . . .FINCH: Some people are interested in the old part of town, downtown. The other
people are interested in the top of the hill. And I don't mind telling you, Mr. Klee, I've got a chip on my shoulder [cough] on that subject. I think there should be one and everybody else shut up on . . . on the two subjects.KLEE: Um, hmm. Yeah. Did this . . . you saw . . . you saw that growth taking
place over the years.FINCH: The best thing that's happened to us for growth is this . It'll go from
Ashland, which hooks into the interstate highways up there . . . two of them, one east and west, one north and south . . . and it'll hook into the interstate highways at Alexandria and that'll take you on out to the Cincinnati Airport or it can turn north and go into Cincinnati or go on north anyplace you wanna go.KLEE: Just whatever, uh-huh.
FINCH: Sure. So that really . . . AA Highway will put us on the good road for
the first time. And I don't mind telling you, if John Y. Brown is governor, I'm doing my best to get him to improve the road from Blue Licks all the way to . I don't wanna get in that fight at between and .KLEE: And , right.
FINCH: If he'll take it from Blue Licks to , why I think the rest of it will
take care of itself in time.KLEE: Um, hmm.
FINCH: And that'll put us on another section of interstate roads, good ones.
KLEE: That . . . course when you listen to WFTM today, you still hear that
comment about the center market. Now that would really bring it to fruit in a way.FINCH: I think so. We hope so. [chuckles]
KLEE: What about some of the individuals you've known and . . . and you've
talked about the vice president, Barkley. Have there been other people of note that you think really . . . that this area has . . . is particularly indebted to, or people that you had good working relations with?FINCH: Well, yes. I was fortunate enough to be on the train coming through with
President Harry Truman when he was running for the second . . . let's see. He filled out one term, and then he went in a second time . . .KLEE: Right. And then he was running on his own.
FINCH: . . . on his own. And I was lucky enough to be on the train with
President Truman and his wife, Bess Truman, and daughter. And half a dozen other people. Certainly had a fine time and I got crazy about him. And I should have had sense enough to know that he was gonna win.KLEE: [chuckle] Nobody else believed that.
FINCH: No, nobody else believed it, but he was a . . . he would to out on the
observation car. He would stop in a town and go out on the observation car and he'd make about half of his talk. Almost same thing every place, but that was all right. He'd get about half through, and all at once he'd say, "Is Lucy Jones here?" Well, he knew Lucy was there because he had had a man . . . men in advance locating people like that.KLEE: [chuckle] Yeah.
FINCH: And Lucy would holler, "Here I am, Harry." "Lucy, how . . . how is my
cousin Lucy?" [laughter] And he . . . and the whole crowd would love it.KLEE: Yeah. Yeah.
FINCH: But he was a wonderful, I thought a wonderful president too.
KLEE: What about . . .
FINCH: of common sense.
KLEE: . . . what about some of our governors? Course some people mention Combs
as being someone that, you know, from having local . . . local roots here or had some connections here, that he was good for the area. Was there any . . . any of those individuals that . . .FINCH: We've never had a governor come from this town that I know of, not in my
lifetime, anyway.KLEE: No, huh-uh. Yeah, that was . . .
FINCH: But I admire the ability of a number of them, and one of them is Happy
Chandler. Happy and I are still good friends. I hear from him pretty often, and one thing I liked about him, he ran a good, common sense . . . see he was governor twice.KLEE: Yes, sir.
FINCH: The first time, why he was fair. But the second time, he was a fine
governor. And when he left the office, he had done a good job. But instead of leaving a lot of debts for the other fella, he left a balance, he left money in the bank. And I think the whole state still respects him for that. Everybody that knew him. I'll tell you a funny thing about him. I knew him in pretty well. And he had a national reputation up there for many things, but one of them, the outstanding thing was he lived in the Mayflower Hotel. And people would come, "Happy, how are you? Glad to see you." "Oh, Harry, I'm glad to see you too. Come on and eat dinner with me tonight. Bring your wife." And he would run into somebody else and invite them too. "Meet you down in the dining room at seven thirty. I'll have a table reserved." All right. You'd get there and he had maybe a half a dozen or a dozen guests. They'd all ordered deluxe dinners. Happy would entertain the crowd, have a grand time with them. When the ticket came around, the check came around to sign it or pay it, Happy had a reputation of having the second-fastest hand in reaching for a dinner ticker. [laughter] Not the first, but he had the secon-fastest. [chuckles] [cough]KLEE: You . . . you're fairly optimistic about . . . as you said, you know, your
son's been more active in . . . in the politics of tobacco, but as far as the community and how everything pulls together, you're pretty optimistic about . . . about where we're going here and how . . .FINCH: I'm optimistic about where we're going if this big huge $2 trillion
dollar we have in doesn't choke us to death and cause another 1929.KLEE: Um, hmm. Yeah.
FINCH: I'm a great person to believe in cycles. And I know sometimes that's
gotta catch up with us. The answer is when? I don't think it's gonna . . . maybe it won't hit in the next year or two, but it could hit anytime.KLEE: Since you brought that back . . . brought that topic back up, that event
obviously altered your life the first time, and maybe . . .FINCH: Sure did.
KLEE: . . . brought you back here to sooner than you might have or . . . or
maybe not at all. No, you had no regrets about . . . about coming back here to your home and . . .FINCH: Oh no, I came . . .
KLEE: . . . building the businesses?
FINCH: . . . I came back because I wanted to. I still had a job in with the
brokerage house if I wanted to stay. Or in the east. I don't mean . And I came back, I . . . I love home, enjoy it here and the old saying is, I'm gonna stay around here as long as I got my boots on. [chuckle] And keep busy if I can. I enjoy every day. Enjoy my friends, enjoy my family.KLEE: Uh-huh. I appreciate you talking to me.
[End Tape #1, Side #2]
[End of Interview]
1:00