Start of Tape 3, Side A
WARD:My initial interest in the strip mining legislation was more because of
Wetherby's interest in mining. He was committed to doing something about it and needed help.PEARCE:Who interested him in it?
WARD:Hmm?
PEARCE:Who interested him in it?
WARD:The efforts there in western to do something about it. The agitation over
at the Courier-Journal. I - I'd say it was the Courier-Journal more than anybody because I. . . . I don't know whether you all realized it what a force the Courier-Journal had been in .PEARCE:Yes. That was ( ) I never did like that strip mining down in western . I
felt that I was silent screaming in the dark there for a long time.WARD:Well, I'd -I'd say that you all pushed Wetherby ( )
PEARCE:I remember when Harry Caudill came along and started Jeremiah from the
hills that he acted as though he had discovered strip mining, but he never made a peep about it as long as it was in western . When it was in eastern , then he started complaining. Did you feel then that felt that you needed more regulatory statutes?WARD:Oh, yeah. Because there was no kind of regulation at all.
PEARCE:Were there regulations in other states? Did you have much blueprint to go on?
WARD:Yeah. had done a lot of work on it, because specifically they had done a
WARD:lot of reclamation. I went over there and looked at a lot of stuff. I don't recall
any states but .
PEARCE:Now, eastern . We said that eastern stripping hadn't really started then
to a degree. It did under, it did under , I guess?WARD:Yeah, it started at that time. I guess it was. . . .it was. . . .must have
been a pretty big push because of our - the problem now is we had more application permits than anywhere else in eastern .PEARCE:What were the other. . . .did you want to talk a little bit about
development of the state park system - what you found under Earle and what you left when you left there.WARD:Well, of course the biggest problem, always is money. Finding money to pay
for development. The combination of that and acquired sites. This was the period when some of the big Corp of Engineer reservoirs were built. The first project that the. . . .the. . . .we had persuaded the Swope administration . . .PEARCE:Swope? Willis?
WARD:Willis - Willis to establish this park on lake, at least agree take TVA. .
. .TV offered it the park which was Kenlake. And all they did was accept some land.PEARCE:, too.
WARD:No, no - Kenlake. To accept some land they had done nothing with at all.
Kenlake came in existence in 19 and 48. I had been working with TVA and I wasWARD:very close to TVA from the very beginning incidentally, they helped to build
Kentucky Dam, and I had been working with them on what was going to be the
future of when they were through with it - get through with it. And they were anxious to have somebody take it and do something with it. They didn't have any use for a lot of those buildings. And worth too much to just be thrown away or ( ) away. We even explored the possibility of . . . .I had organized a what you call it, a Kentucky Lake Association. A lot of people in the area that were interested in and becoming members of it. I was its unpaid secretary-treasurer for years. We even explored the possibility of the Kentucky Lake Association taking it over and running it.PEARCE:As a park or . . .
WARD:The project, but we couldn't, it was too big a project for us to think
about. So, the state. . . .TVA said if the state would take it, we'll agree to sell. Give the state twelve - fifteen hundred acres of land, I've forgotten what it was. And all those cottages, and all those buildings that are there, for what we considered the salvage value - thirty eight thousand dollars. Which of course is silly - but hell, the water and sewer plant alone was billions of dollars. So early in the 1940's , I sat at the '48 session, I got the legislators in the area agree to go to dinner with me, and Clements to come over and have dinner with us and I got up and outlined what TVA offered and Earle said "Well all I can say is if I were a member of theWARD:legislature, I'd introduce a bill to take them up on it." The next morning I
introduced the bill to take them up on it. So we got the original TVA for thirty
eight thousand dollars. And later on, a whole lot of other stuff which was not
included in the original deal. We got, I think, seventy-five thousand dollars.
For a little over a hundred thousand dollars, we got a lot singled to be worth
two to three million dollars. Now that was because that was the '48 session and I became the commissioner in April. The. . . .I well remember from my prices. We had those ten of those large - what we call deluxe cottages that were built for the supervisor of personnel. Well, they rivaled home, and there were more modest cabins scattered around there and, well obviously we had to charge more for these deluxe places than the others. And I've forgotten the rates we figured out, but I was afraid at the time that, god I. . . .I was scared of the rates - and people just grabbed them up real fast because they were really damned nice places, but. . . . that was the first major push . Well, that plus getting Kenlake started, building the hotel and new cabins and boating, and bathhouses and other facilities. Those two were the first big pushes.PEARCE:When was Cherokee. . . .wasn't Cherokee. . . .it used to be a black park.
WARD:Yeah. It came along. . . .oh about two years after we got started on
developing Kenlake. There'd been a push, with the black population, particularlyWARD: and . And I had a meeting with a group of them, and I said "Now, as far as
I'm concerned, come on and use it, we don't have any quote 'policy', and Kenlake is open to you as well as anybody else." And most of themsaid "Well, frankly our people just wouldn't feel right. They wouldn't feel at
home, it would be like they were going to - they wouldn't feel right. " And I said "Would you rather do that, or would you rather we establish parks of your own? " And they said "We'd rather have a place of our own." I said " O.K. " And that's when we established Cherokee. It never. . . .wasn't very much used.PEARCE:No, it wasn't very much used.
WARD:I think it was. . . .from their point a good gesture, but ( )
PEARCE:I don't. . . .used today, it's part of Kenlake, I think.
WARD:Yeah, I don't know what. . . .I think it's a camping area. It's a nice
little park with a bathhouse, and facilities, a little camp, but we - our policy - we never, never had any kind of suggestion blacks weren't permitted to go into the park.PEARCE:At that time, this is 1950, what did we have? We had , , . . .
WARD:General Butler . . .
PEARCE:General Butler . . .
WARD:Perryville Battlefield. . . .I've mentioned. . . .
PEARCE:Levi Jackson?
WARD:Levi Jackson, Old Mulkey Meeting House, Old Kentucky Home . . .
PEARCE:These were at that time called parks.
WARD:Yeah, and shrines.
PEARCE:A lot of them were shrines like , Home - now old .
WARD:It was established. It had been established earlier. In fact it was one of
the CCC projects originally. And they had a memorial thing there that was dedicated when got president. Constitution Square at was a little bitty thing.PEARCE:Yeah. The parks, we've about named them, haven't we?
WARD:Of course, , , Carter Caves,
PEARCE:Pennyrile. Pennyrile. ( ) parks lake and Kingdom Come, Breaks Interstate
that we had then, Grayson, Greenbo, and Kincaid.WARD:(also)
PEARCE:Yeah, established at this time.
WARD:The. . . .Breaks, it was an interesting problem. You know Clements started
what they call governor's tours, in cooperation with the chamber of commerce. Barney - Barney Lenahan, an old friend of mine from and I worked with Clements. Started the governor's tours. Would take one section of the state and take them over to another one. Well we scheduled going by . . .PEARCE:Was Barney Lenahan from ? Was he originally from ?
WARD:No. He was from . Barney was originally there, but moved to from . We went
to Pineville. Been up there a couple times, and go up there and take us Jeeps, and go up the mountains, go up to the Breaks . . .PEARCE:In Pikeville. . . .
WARD:Pikeville. We were there one night and we had dinner out at the . And
everybody was talking enthusiastically and they had the usual local people talking about what a great thing Breaks park would be. Well, I had heard this speech so often, I got up and said "Look, I 'd like you local people bill's sponsors - I want to have a meeting with you after we get through here." So we got together. And I said "Now, I want to be real honest with you. I think this is the third time I've been in Pikeville and made the same kind of trip, and heard the same kind of talk about ( ) . In my judgment, you're no closer to having a reality than you were the first time I saw you." Of course, everybody "Ah, we knew it." Norman Chrisman, who was a friend of mine, got up there "I knew you weren't interested, just the tell the truth now - I knew you weren't interested!" and he just gave me hell. I let them talk and I said "Now, cool off. Why do you think I asked you to have a meeting? Why do you think I had the guts to talk the way I have? Because if you want to do something, for god's sakes, let's get busy and do things right!" I said "Do you know for example, that it required an act of congress to authorize an interstate park? It required an act of the legislature of and to authorize an interstate park. " "No, we didn't knowthat. " Well, I said "It does."
PEARCE:Did they know that the about Land of the Lakes? Most of it, ( )
WARD:So I said "Now the reason I got you here is to talk some sense about the
things right, I'm willing to work with you. I can't guarantee you we'll get a parkestablished. There's no real way win the money or anything except that these
steps have to be taken. And if you want, if you want to really try to do something let's get those things done." Well, that's. . . .they agreed. So I wrote the bills. And got people who were interested in it to introduce it in and got it passed in and I got Clements. Old-old Senator Ralston it was of at the time , sponsored the bill in and got the legislation through. It took of course , a couple of years to get the legislation through. And we got the commission established, and got some money, made something historic. It never was going to be the thing they thought it was going to be, but realized they had because locally it was a very spectacular thing. But in terms of national scenery, it definitely doesn't belong the among the spectaculars.PEARCE:Well they don't have enough population to ( ) park to make it a big park.
WARD:No, the highways are too remote from . . .
PEARCE:It's a long way, I loved the park.
WARD:Yeah, it's nice and I'm glad we got it done. But so often local people in
their zeal to get something - just simply don't have the knowledge of how to do things. And that's the best example of how I could recall.PEARCE:You had then, you had, started, Kenlake, Cherokee. This -
WARD:Yeah. And we had to, of course, acquired the site for . The
Corp of Engineers finished.
PEARCE:Under Earle? Or ?
WARD:Started under Earle. I don't think we finished acquiring land. . . .I don't
know. I think it's -that it finally finished acquiring the land and started the development but didn't get the new lodge built until it was under Combs. We. . . . The state had some land at , we had to buy a lot more. And. . . .got the first development underway and of course, it . . .PEARCE:Lodge at ?
WARD:. Jenny Wiley acquired the property under Wetherby and developed mostly
most under Combs. Same thing with . . .PEARCE: We hadn't developed it. There was one building, in the early forties.
WARD:Yeah, we didn't do much with it until we built the new lodge under Combs.
Same way with , we didn't do much with it.
PEARCE:( ) a lot of people.
WARD:I'm afraid I would have not gone along with building a ski lodge.
PEARCE:That's the problem with ( ) Where did you go from there, now?
You were conservation commissioner under , too.
WARD:Yeah, I was there almost eight years.
PEARCE:Yeah. You. . . .wrote the first, first strip mining bill. It was sort of
a demonstration project bill, and filed mainly to regulate strip mining as practiced in western .WARD:Primarily, except as they say, eastern would come very much into the
picture.
PEARCE:Did you have any - did you have any visibility on the strip mine
legislation that was written under Ned? Under Ned Breathitt?WARD:No.
PEARCE:Did you consult or anything like that? You were involved in highways and,
after Combs put you over in highways you were still on the parks board.WARD:Yeah, I'd forgotten that. That thing was created before I was in highways.
But I remember now Combs asked me to be commissioner of conservation. And I told him I wouldn't do it. But I said "What I'll do, they ought to have a parks board." And Bill Creed won - I'll serve as chairman without any pay. " He said "O.K." Got the bill passed and was appointed, and I attended. Oh, I think legally, if anybody were to raise the point I couldn't serve as chairman of that board.PEARCENobody wanted the job, - [laughing] a headache. So even under Combs and
Breathitt you were highway commissioner, but under Combs you were still very influential in parks. You got along well with Ned in parks, didn't you?WARD:Oh, yeah. He was my protégé.
PEARCE:Did it?
WARD:See, I had to hire Ed Fox when I was commissioner of conservation.
PEARCE:During whose administration?
WARD:Wetherby. He was a graduate of , and a major in
accounting. And I hired him first to work at as business manager, then brought
him into as assistant director. He and Bob worked both closely together. Bob Bell was my assistant as commissioner of conservation at the time. I hired Bob in '49. And when was elected, Ed Fox went to and got a job with the CIA as an accountant. And when Combs appointed the park board and gave me authority to find somebody as commissioner, I called Fox and offered him a job. And he said, "Well, I can't be ( )." But I kept talking to him. Of course, he was extremely interested in and he finally agreed to do it. I knew that Fox was an excellent manager, and wouldn't - with the board, worry around about the politics, or the pressures, or the contacts with the governor, and working on the financing, he wouldn't have those problems. As a manager, he'd do a damn good job. When Ned was elected, see. . . .in the latter part of Ned's administration, when Bert. . . .Combs administration. . . .his commissioner of finance started drinking a lot, and Bert had to . . .PEARCE:Was it Bob Hoffman?
WARD:No. Bill Maslin. . . .memory slipping on names again.
PEARCE:Yup.
WARD:Anyhow, Bert had to do something. So he talked to me one day and said -
told me he had a problem in the department of finance, and "I've just got to do something. How about you letting me have Bob Bell? " And I said "Aw, for god's sake, I – don't do this again. Bob replaced Wilson Wyatt when he became lieutenant governor, wanted to hire somebody as assistant and asked me what I thought, and I said " Bob Bell." Well- he hired Bob. Crazy about him. So [laughing], here's the commissioner of highways. I called , I said " , you told me to take this damn job, I gotta have . " [laughing] "No, don't do that to me", but everybody was crazy about , so Bert took Bob over as commissioner of revenue the last four or five months of his administration. When Ned came in, he was committed to somebody who wanted to be commissioner of revenue, and it was a matter of trying to find something for Bob. And he talked to Bob and asked him what he wanted. Bob said he'd like to be commissioner of parks. He and Fox were very close friends, and that was when Fox was deputy commissioner. So they had a good relationship.PEARCE:Do you recall ( ) together the proposal was made to us that the state
take over Shaker town? And develop it?WARD:Yeah. I don't remember details- any details. I remember the proposal and
that we decided we couldn't do it.PEARCE:I remember that Tommy and I'm suggesting to you that it was Tommy . . .
WARD:Nelson?
PEARCE:Yeah. Tommy Nelson was very high on that, he wanted us to take it over.
WARD:Yeah, he was.
PEARCE:Got very mad at me because I voted against it. But I was - I just thought
that private money was going to develop that then we could use our money for something else.WARD:There was a fellow in . . . .
PEARCE:Earl Wall.
WARD:Earl was very much interested in that thing.
PEARCE:He still is.
WARD:Yeah, they sent me invitation to come up and made a ceremony honoring him.
I didn't get to go.PEARCE:I wish you'd been there.
WARD:He's the one that talked to me and I agreed that we'd build a highway. Yeah
I did that when I was commissioner of highways. Relocate the highway.PEARCE:Well, then, straightening - straighten out 68 outside of Harrodsburg and
taking it across one big jump there where the bridge is. I don't know if it was worth it. Shakertown's been a good project.WARD:Yeah, done a marvelous job with it. I've been by there several times.
PEARCE:They-they make a lot of money on it. Paid off its bonds already.
WARD:Yeah, they've done a much better job than the state to take it because,
you'd lost that public-private support.PEARCE:Do you think of any difficulties you had with the creation of many
specific parks?WARD:I don't recall any opposition to any of them.
PEARCE:Did it never occur to you that we might have made a mistake in taking
land for such parks as Buckhorn or from the army engineers? We mighthave done better to go somewhere else and buy some land?
WARD:Yeah. They. . . .in the first place Buckhorn isn't a kind of lake to develop.
PEARCE:I thought we made a mistake.
WARD: .
PEARCE:'s a pretty place. It's very populous, I mean. . . .
WARD:Well. . . .pretty good location.
PEARCE:Yes. There's a lot of population down there - , , , E-town.
WARD:I think ( ) developers around .
PEARCE:You think you will? It's small.
WARD:The location to .
PEARCE:Yeah. The location's great. The park system's bigger now. Do you remember (
) ?
WARD:Know her very well.
PEARCE:She was always interested in . In early days the park system was nothing,
almost non-existent.WARD:I hate to see that old lodge burned down.
WARD:We had done a, I thought, a beautiful job restoring-rebuilding practically
- and using a lot of stone. We had a man - you remember old Lee Rhodes who worked the park system for years, and he was in charge of building/ remodeling. Did a beautiful job. Was a wonderful carpenter . He loved to get right out and workwith men. Worked hard as any of them. And he made a special project out of
Lodge because he lived up close there to it. What a beautiful job. I had a early
experience as commissioner of conservation. I had - with the highway department and our park planner. You remember there was no road up to the lodge at . And I wanted to get one built. Hell, people didn't want to climb up that ledge and carry luggage. So I talked to the highway department and they agreed to do it. And. . . .they reported back to me that they couldn't get an agreement with our park planner. And he said who wants to build a road we can't build the way he wants to build it. And I talked to him and he said "Well, they want to cut our trees." And uh, cut trees, so I got them togetherWARD:So I got them together, and we went up there, and the engineer pointed out
to me what was necessary. That we were going to have to take that tree out before they build a road. And the park planner nodded - you can't take our trees. Of course, we wound up taking the trees out because you can't build a damn road without taking out the trees. The commissioner job prior to the time that I took it, and you all gave me such publicity was not very well known, and I've got examples of theat. When they'd start laying out the road in Harrodsburg, the Old Fort Harrod, they - one of the fellows, and he introduced me to an old lady who's in charge of the park, she said " Mr. Ward, how do you do Mr. Ward- what do you do Mr. Ward?"PEARCE:[laughing]
WARD:And he said "Well, he's the- he's the new commissioner." "Well, they change
those fellows so much, I can't keep up with them."PEARCE:[laughing]
WARD: Well, of course the highway department was worse. I did some figuring with
Brad Grey, who'd been the civil highway engineer, since 1948 - twelve years. And in the time he'd been highway engineer, there'd been twelve highway commissioners. Eleven highway commissioners in twelve years. And after Iretired there, there were - the next administration I think had four or five.
PEARCE:Yeah, they had quite a few there for a while. Did they - did Bert Combs
the forestry building, and then open it up I think just for forestry? They used to havePEARCE:all sorts of things, it was part of parks. And they took it away from
parks and I never did figure out why. Had a good shot there - don't have it anymore. And information for tourists, don't have that, that part of John Y. Brown's ( ) the state.WARD:Ed, there's certain things that you need to do, certainly to ( ) , I got a
lot of kick out of Happy, of course criticized talking about Ward's privy. We built the first rest area on an interstate system. And on 64, then go over to . The first one in the nation.PEARCE:Was that the first?
WARD:Uh-hum. You know, another thing that gives me a lot of satisfaction. You
remember the fight the herald building Interstate 64 to and Cochran . . .PEARCE:Cochran Hill.
WARD:Hill. Huh! I had to fight everybody in order to get the right of way get built.
Had to fight the federal government over design. And I said now it's going
through a park. Now I fought like hell to get it located through the park. Now we want to build the goddamned thing to fit into the park atmosphere. We're going to landscape it beautifully. We're going to be using native stone. We're going to put tunnels through Cochran Hill instead of old culverts they were insisting on, and we're gonna face it with native stone, and really dress it up. Make it look like aWARD:parkway through a park. I fought the dear old federal government - "Oh, we will"
after finally just say that when they said they weren't going to approve the
tunnel. I said " O.K., you go to hell, we're going to build a tunnel. We'll use 100% state money on it . Do what you damn please - we're going to build a tunnel. " We built it, and of course, they participated finally. Two years after that, they put out a publication listing it as a model for highways through park areas. [laughing] This area there – Cochran Hill, tunnel and all sort of damn. . . .talk about justification. . . . I was - felt pretty good about that.PEARCE:And when you went out with the. . . ., and then came back with Bert, what
did Happy do with him, then? Did he do anything with conservation much? Did he put in - now we already had General Burnside. He named it , I remember that.WARD:Yeah, didn't do anything with it. He took it over.
PEARCE:It was a county park wasn't it?
WARD:I don't know - I think he built a causeway across to it but didn't do any
development at all.PEARCE:What else had happened, do you recall?
WARD:Hmm?
PEARCE:I remember there was a lot of concessions in the parks that had to be
caught up.WARD:Oh, yeah. He practically gave it away, the parks, the concession areas. He
had , for example. He gave Joe Gray, who was state-
WARD:representative of , concessions to operate a Ferris wheel and rides.
Everything down there would make any money he gave out as concessions to somebody. Gave somebody a concession on the golf course.PEARCE:How about the boat docks?
WARD:Yeah.
PEARCE:They had, I heard, an ice creams concession or something like that.
WARD:No, they had. . . .they just practically turned it into a carnival. The
concessionaires let them operate the paddle boats. Everything. In all the parks he did the same thing. He didn't give a damn. They weren't his ideas. The weren't his parks, and he never got any credit for building them, so the hell with them. That was his attitude. Happy was like that about everything that wasn't his. He was - people didn't go along with him on everything, wound up as not Happy's friends. Two of his firmest supporters in - Strother Melton, who was state senator, and Ray Stewart, who was county judge of , were two of his closest supporters, and he ran against Barkley. Ray Stewart was his state campaign chairman. He did it to try to bury Barkley, get Barkley to go chuck it, and Strother was his party organization chairman in the district down there. Later on, when Ray became associated with Clements, and Happy and Clements were ( ) got bitter about what Ray did to destroy the vote. And they wound up bitter about Happy. They wound upWARD:very strongly - they were very strong for Combs, when Combs ran against .
And Happy never forgave them and he never forgave him. He was that way.PEARCE:Who was Happy's parks man, Lady? Lady Jackson?
WARD:He appointed Violet Kilgore.
PEARCE:And filed for Senator later?
WARD:Technically.
PEARCE:And Violet ran the parks?
WARD:Well, yeah. They didn’t. . . .They didn’t have. . . .You see, I told you
that when I told Clements that I wasn’t going to have a. . . .a relationship with his chairwoman Lucy Smith. She’d been state chairwoman and she had a right to feel that she’s going to run the parks and he told me "No, that’s not going to happen. Now, I’ve got an understanding with her. It's going to be fine with her. " And it was. She was perfectly happy. All she wanted was a job and a car and expense account, and she was perfectly happy to have somebody else go ahead and do it. She was a nice old lady and we got along fine, but Laymon and ( ) didn’t get along well.PEARCE:Did you have a lot of trouble getting rid of the concessions in parks?
WARD:Uh. . . .
PEARCE:I remember under Combs you got rid of them.
WARD:Yeah. I think. . . .I think they were afraid they’d sue us, but . . .
PEARCE:And did.
WARD:Maybe, I think. . . .both of them, as I recall - a couple of them. They
wanted - .PEARCE:Who was responsible for the blueprint under which the parks got about
twenty million dollars under Combs, an unprecedented debt. Who gave him the idea of that bond issue? Remember it was ninety million for roads and ten million for parks and included a revenue bond for ten million I think?WARD:A whole lot of us. I guess you were part of it.
PEARCE:But I never had any ideas specific . . .
WARD:Park board, and we. . . . I. . . . again. . . . with not being very modest
about it, I guess I had a lot to do with it. I knew that the highway part of it was going to carry and that it was an opportunity to get - really get some development of the parks . . .PEARCE:There was a rider on it . . .
WARD:rider, because it wouldn’t have done. . . .the bond wouldn’t carry I don’t
think, and so yeah, it was my idea to tap in. That was a difficult campaign. We really organized that one. John Sherman Cooper’s brother, Don Cooper, of , named Don. . . .no . . .PEARCE:Dick?
WARD:Dick.
PEARCE:There were two of them, Dick and Don . . .
WARD:Dick . . . .Don wasn’t ( ) Dick was a fine person, and Merle Robertson, was
co chairman of the committee and organized with some of the really ( ) people of the state and kept on the campaign, they were organizing just like you organize a political campaign. I asked ( ) I remember.PEARCE:Yes, it was.
WARD:Of course Bert was enthusiastic about it. Both the parks and the highway
department. I guess everybody wanted to see things done. In favor of it.PEARCE:Do you recall that Erndon Levon was opposed to naming the lodge at Jenny
Wiley for Andrew Jackson May –May lodge?WARD:I don’t remember the details, but I was . . .
PEARCE:Bill doesn’t remember you. If you - if you approached – he says he
doesn’t remember ( ) He’s still sore about it.WARD:Maybe it was a matter of letting Herman take a lead on it. I don’t know.
Did he write about it?PEARCE:Who?
WARD:Herman.
PEARCE:I think he wrote and he spoke out against it.
WARD:Well, he may have. That’s the reason he got tagged with opposition. I
didn’t write about it, and I don’t think. . . . didn’t make any speeches about it outside of the places where it counted. Of course I was opposed to the Jenny Wiley.PEARCE;Opposed to the park?
WARD:Getting the name.
PEARCE:Oh, the name.
WARD:Didn’t mean anything. To no one, except a few people at the Courier ever
heard of Jenny Wiley - was she dead, or why she did it, or . . .PEARCE:That’s true. Do you think of yourself as a conservation man, a highway
man or both?WARD:Hmm?
PEARCE:Do you think of yourself as a conservation man, a highwayman or both?
WARD:Primarily conservation.
PEARCE:Conservation.
WARD:That was my first love and one which I had the deepest personal interest.
Highways was more a job of getting it done and it didn’t have the interest that parks and conservation were so those programs meant.PEARCE:In his later years, did you get along well with Earle or did you see much
of Earle?WARD:I didn’t see a lot of him. I got along with him fine when I did see him. We
-we corresponded some.PEARCE:Did you come for the dinner? You didn’t come for that dinner, did you?
WARD:No. No, I couldn’t come. Gladys can’t travel anymore. Her arthritis. . .
.gets stiff and . . .PEARCE:It wasn’t as good a dinner as I had.
.
WARD:In addition to that, hell I can’t afford to be. . . .nobody is paying my expenses
PEARCE:[laughing]
WARD:And, practically, I didn’t want to because I left . Really, one of the big
reasons I came to . I just wanted to get away from being where I’d be
reminded daily of old things. People talking, and particularly a lot of friends
who felt they had to tell me "Oh it’s a damn shame you didn’t get elected. " I had so much of that I just wanted to get away from it. I wanted to get away from. . . . it was over with, and I didn’t regret having what I’d done. I didn’t regret running for governor, either. To tell you the truth, I didn’t think I was going to get elected, and I didn’t regret that at all. But I just don’t want to rehash it, keep on living with it and also, found it was damned unsatisfying to be right in the middle and not be a part of it. I just couldn’t stand it. I. . . .when I went back to with the Kentucky Independent College Foundation, I found that I was dissatisfied, not being more a part of things. When Frank Burke asked me to on the riverfront commission I jumped at it because it gave me an opportunity to be a part of things. But I just wanted to get away from it and so I didn’t really want to go back to that old gang and relive a lot of the old political fights and backbiting. Not that I mean I. . . .I like all those people. The few times I’ve seen them I’ve enjoyed it, but I just as soon not.PEARCE:We had an awful good time for Pritch.
WARD:I bet it was.
PEARCE:That was good. It was done right.
WARD:I was very, very fond of Pritch. We. . . .we - my daughter was crazy about
Pritch. Pritch offered to be very active in my campaign, in fact he was at headquartersEnd of Tape 3, Side A
Start of Tape 3, Side B
PEARCE:After you , after you left the . . . .the Breathitt administration, um,
you ran for governor.WARD:Yeah. ’67.
PEARCE:Against - against who?
WARD:Well in the primary, against Happy, primarily, and two or three others.
PEARCE:I don’t know any of them.
WARD:Well, in , I’ve forgotten his name, too. You see, it didn’t amount to much.
Happy ran second, and Harry Lee third. I won over one hundred thousand votes in the primary. Then, uh . . .PEARCE:Who was your campaign manager?
WARD:Well, when it started out, you see, there was talk about Bert running in
the middle of the summer of ’66. And he conferred with it considerably, in fact he encouraged a lot of expense to develop Combs’ campaign. And, I thought about me running, too, but I knew that to run I couldn’t get over it, because you have to have administration support and Ned be committed to go with him. But, I remember maybe sometime in October I think, Ned had a meeting with ( ) one night - just he and I and Bert, to talk about the whole thing. And Bert said finally" I just can’t run. " Because one of the stories was Mabel had said "If you file - I’ll file." - which meant " I’m going to file for divorce." She’s against him running and he had already been involved in that affair with Helen, so Bert figured, I guess, if he got involved and his wife filed a suit for divorce right in the middle of his campaign and the scandal came out, it'd be harmful, so he couldn’t actually run. So they took it for granted I’d run. I said " I’ll be damned if I will. " I said "You ruined me. You got out here and encouraged your friends to promote you, and in the process in promoting you - you’ve been running me down. What a weak candidate I’d made, how many enemies I’ve made in the state - I don’t know about it. " And so they ruined me. I’d be silly to get in the race a situation like that. Well they kept arguing around about it. I said "There’s only one way that I would consider it because of what the situation. . . . Bert - you all are good friends - that is - if you’ll be the campaign chairman. " (Because that was quite your friend). And Ned - , Ned jumped on it said (" said he’ll do it") Bert finally agreed to do it. So we opened the campaign, and he made the announcement, and he was there at my open press conference and we started organizing and got along fine and then they came along with this offer for a federal judgeship, and he just told me " I just can’t turn it down, it’s too much. It's something I’ve always wanted, and if I turn it down - ask them to delay it - they won’t hold it up." And I said "Well, I can’t blame you. Hell, I’d do the same thing." So he had - had insisted that Foster Ockerman help in the campaign, help carry quite a load too, so Foster had alreadybeen working at it when Bert took the judgeship. That the logical thing was to make Foster the campaign chairman.PEARCE:What do you remember about that campaign? A lot, probably.
WARD:Very frustrating.
PEARCE:In what respect?
WARD:[long sigh] Well, we. . . .the headquarters operation was badly organized
and I felt very unenthusiastic. Foster didn’t want to do it. He. . . .just, in the first place because Combs – he felt obligated to Combs, but he wasn’t obligated to me. But he couldn’t – felt he couldn’t very well back out of it entirely. The other people I got in, I guess felt – I didn’t feel that they had personal interest in me at all. ( I was ) which was probably right, because I wasn’t in a position to claim they had any loyalty to me or enthusiasm so I was very unhappy about the whole organization. I didn’t think they were committed. I 'd be out in the state, for example, all week long, from morning late at night, and I had been accustomed to – back when Clements – when I worked the Clements campaign, with Barkley, to coming in on Sunday, and have meetings, strategy meetings. Make plans for the coming week. I could never get them to stay over for a Sunday meeting. Foster would go on back to , Ed Farris was working on the schedule, and go back to . And so I could never get to a meeting, and consequently because I was busy all week long, I just had – had damn little contact with headquarters. Very little advance planning on issues. There were people around writing position papers that they thought I would issue, which didn’t appeal to me. Most of them didn’t appeal to me a damn bit, and I didn’t think they meant anything. They didn’t have real meaning. So it was a combination of that, plus the fact that I’m convinced that most typical campaigning is waste of motion. Your supporters organize a rally, a meeting for a speech. Tradition has been that the state puts the bite on the employees to come in and pack the courthouse and meeting place so you have the crowd. So the candidate’s there making the speech to the people who are already committed to, to him. And I – after a while it’s a waste of motion, except for the publicity you might get out of it. It’s just a waste of motion. The typical hand-shaking tour of going to a town, and local supporters insist that you go up and down the street, and every store and shake hands, it was just – I felt it was a waste of motion. In the first place, it just wears you to death, and no consideration, none of them, have any consideration for the damn candidate. They’re killing him! It’s a killing thing when all the damn pressure that’s on you, and the worry about details, worrying how you’re getting along, everything else that comes along, while you’re worn out all the time. I – in I was always subject to sinus problems because of the atmosphere right there, and all during that campaign, particularly the fall, my damn sinuses was killing me.PEARCE:[laughing]
WARD:All trying to maintain humor and all that sort of stuff, and all the
headaches, allthe frustrations, and all the feelings that things weren't being done. So it was
just damn frustrating. I – the one final example that just irritated the hell out of me. I had – I personally wrote an ad to be put into all of theweeklies – final week of campaign, full-page ads. "Vote for Henry Ward – A
Louisville Man" , you know, and I said "Now put it in, in the last week, so that out in the state they won’t see it, and it will be too late for anyone to pick it up and try to do anything about it." Cause, hell, I was known as a man, not a man. Yet I’d lived in eleven years, and people didn’t really know it, and I thought, god just one final plug. "Vote for a Man." And just a hell of a lot of people didn’t pay any attention to the campaign much, but they’d say "Man, you’re a fella." and "Damn, we’ll vote for him because maybe that’s helpful. " So I had orders to put it out. I had to raise the money right back to pay for it. Well, after the campaign I discovered that they didn’t run it. They ran the damn page ad advertising the full Democratic ticket. I said "You son of a bitches, how, damn it , this isn’t typical of what’s happened to this whole goddamn campaign." This is one example, but it – I thought it somewhat typical. Now I’m not ( ) self if I was a poor candidate . I’m not a good candidate. I’m not a glad-hander, back-slapper. I’m – I – I'm all right, congenial enough if I felt I needed to. But I. . . .I’m not. . . .I haven't got that old charisma that. . . .appearance, I always thought was anattractive candidate, I know that, but that wasn’t the only thing. Ofcourse, worrying around about what Happy was doing, and his crowd. You see, if
I. . . . had lost a lot of his points and I realized that and a lot of his influence, but I – I’d say Happy ( ) the first fifteen thousand votes.If I’d had fifteen thousand votes I’d have won. Won one by twenty-six thousand,
so the switchover, if that’d been ( ) I’d have won. Give him credit, but that was just part of it. It was . . .PEARCE:Happy still insists that he has always supported the party’s nominee.
WARD:Heh! I don’t recall any, except, well, slowed my brain, didn’t it?
PEARCE:Did he support Ned? Didn’t Ned beat him in the primary?
WARD:Well, no. He came out for. . . .Louie.
PEARCE:I thought he did.
WARD:Yeah. ( ).
PEARCE:Had for Louie against you and he. Let’s see. He came out by Harry Lee
after the Combs Harry Lee primary. Harry Lee came out pretty well for you.WARD:Yeah.
PEARCE:And campaigned.
WARD:Uh-huh.
PEARCE:And Happy enough and he was for backed the party, then backed off from that.
Said he wanted an apology from Bert for all the lies people had told about him.
[laughing]
WARD:Well, he’s a . . . .he’s a very friendly person . Personally, he and I got
along fine.( ) But Happy was a very selfish individual. You were all for Happy or nothing.
PEARCE:After the. . . .go ahead and tell me more about the campaign.
WARD:[sighing] Well, it was primarily just a grind. The kind of thing you
schedule . . .PEARCE:You said that you won the primary too big.
WARD:Yeah. After everybody - just as soon as it was all over. And that was the
general feeling that "Aw, hell, you had it made", and it looked like that’s true. I mean, the polls indicated that. The polls indicated it’d be me well up until October and started showing that Nunn was cutting into us fast. End of damn story, I guess. As I say, the primary was just-just an awful grind. You-you. . . .a typical day was get up and have breakfast and then get in the car and rush over to the next town. Make speeches. In the summertime, out in the open air. In the fall, inside. Every morning - generally another one in the afternoon. And winding up with one at night and lasting until ten or eleven o’clock at night. And then trying to get a few hours sleep – same thing the next day. The trouble was – just wound up – worn out physically and worn out from loss of sleep because you can’t get very much sleep in those – sleep in a different bed every night. And not eating right because the kind of stuff that’s served at political dinners is generally pretty indigestible. Surprised me, one of the little things a problem on campaigns is having the proper advance work done. The advance man would go ahead – I never was able to get a good advance man. And anyway, they’re willing to get – the candidate has tohave someone traveling with him to drive the car and try to take care of some
details. I never was able to get somebody that I thought was effective.PEARCE:Earle always had Dick (Spongeton) and Dick also drove the (fur) a little
bit . . .WARD:Well, you know in Earle’s case, he wasn’t very important. Earle was his own
- Earle was an excellent campaigner. With an enormous physical stamina.PEARCE:But Earle liked, Earle liked personal campaigning.
WARD:Oh yeah. Loved it. And I didn’t.
PEARCE:He liked to work .
WARD:Yep.
PEARCE:He liked small groups. He liked Rotary Clubs - that sort of thing.
WARD:I didn’t mind Rotary Clubs those were very enjoyable. Because generally in
the first place, most people you knew weren’t necessarily your supporters. Claims that got me were just going to those meetings where hell, you knew that half of them were city employees or hangers-on. Weren’t accomplishing anything. The. . . .a little thing that I used to – I’d get a kick out of – normally these little country radio stations – you’d go to visit them and they’d put you on the air. Interview you and give you free time.PEARCE:Sure did.
WARD:I took advantage of every one where I went. And I, I'd tried to say hello to
WARD:newspaper publisher of course. I – the combination- to say I was
disappointed inmy own campaigning and disappointed with their positions, but that wasn’t what
beat me. It was a combination thing. The primary thing beat me was the national situation. I had – after the primary, I went up to Washington and Earle organized a delegation that had lunch for me , and Earle got Johnson, called the White House, to see Johnson. And Johnson wanted to ask me what I was. . . .what I felt. . . . what I really thought about the public feeling. "What is the situation in ?" "What are they saying about me?" ( ) "What do you think about it?" And I said "Well, I’m sorry, but you asked. I guess you want me to tell you the truth." "Well, I do." Well, I said " I think the polls are right. There’s general unrest and dissatisfaction. That’s . . ."PEARCE:What year was this? ’67?
WARD:’66. ’68 one of them – summer of ’68. And I said "I think the polls are
right in reflecting your present situation , lack of support." He said "What’s causing it?" And I said "I don’t know, but a lot of things –". . . . I said "Most of it, you can think about mistakes that have been made. And I can think [laughing] of one little one, because I had some recent experience with it. " I said "I’ve had more trouble in the last year with your dissident" . . .PEARCE:yeah . . .
WARD:organizers . . .
PEARCE:yeah . . .
WARD:in
PEARCE:yeah . . .
WARD:stirring up trouble in the counties. Organizing delegations coming down to
me to raise hell because they’re not getting their share of money and they’re not getting projects they’re entitled to it, their people. . . ." I said "These people are causing more trouble in than anybody I know of. " "Well," he said " I hear that everywhere. " I said "Well, that’s the damn truth in . " But I said "This is just one example." But I said "These are the kinds of things -people get dissatisfied. Hell, they’re dissatisfied with the war, and dissatisfied about everything, I guess. " And I guess very unhappy about the national situation. So the national situation had deteriorated and hell it hadn’t affected , it always – naturally it will. Look what happened this last year in . And what happened the next year in was Nixon. But it was it’s dissatisfaction with Democratic party had developed to such an extent that in ’68 it started rolling in and in ’69 it started to snowball. It was a combination of things.PEARCE:Now what’d you do after that? Did you go back to the chamber?
WARD:No, I uh - went back to as publisher of the paper.
PEARCE:Oh, you did? Sun-Democrat.
WARD:I was there two years and didn’t . . . .didn’t want to stay. I . . .
PEARCE:Well, had Ed left then?
WARD:No. He was still there.
PEARCE:Jack headed the radio station, I guess, the T.V. station.
WARD:No - Jack still worked at NBC. Frank had been publisher. His Dad bought an
outfit in and he went up there to run it. And they, Jack and Fred and Frank all came over to see me, and asked me to come back. And, but I found out – in the first place, – it just seemed to me it was dead. And after I’d been out . . .PEARCE: What year did you go back to your hometown?
WARD:At the beginning of December. It was dead. And I tried my best to stir up stuff.
In fact, I remember as soon as I went back, the Rotary Club asked me to make a
speech. So I got up and just raised hell. I said "Here we are meeting in the Irvin Cobb Hotel." I said "When I came back down here I lived for two months in the Irvin Cobb Hotel and got my wife to move down here. And I said, I was ashamed, every day I was ashamed, at what this hotel has become. I sat in this hotel when it was opened with Irvin Cobb - when it was dedicated and see what’s happened – this is a dirty damned shame." And I said "You look around . Look right here at Broadway. The damn rutted streets, ruts all over it, it’s a shame, to have visitors come in here and look at what kind of condition this place is in. " I just raised hell about a lot of stuff. And I finally said “Now, why am I saying all these things? Just to be nasty? Hell, no. I doubt that I came back to live here –if I’m going to live here I’m going to live here – I’m going to help do something about it. So for god’s sake let’s get busy and do some things. " Well, I stirred around, and raised hell and got the city to do some road work and resurface Broadway and do some things and I kept on raising hell. But it didn't give me much satisfaction doing that, because I just felt it was hopeless. Then the paper situation was hopeless. The, that is, the Paxton family paper, ever since it was founded in 1900, the old people around there that worked for Paxton, Ed Paxton – and they resented somebody who wasn’t a Paxton. And I think they resented me personally because they felt that here’s a damn fella who lost his job as governor back here trying to tell us how to run the paper and they resented that too. And so I was just not happy with it. And to me it wasn’t what I wanted to do at the damn paper anyhow, so it was just dragging’ along. So I finally decided that hell, I don’t want to stay here. That’s when they had the Kentucky Foundation job. And I heard it was open. And I called Thomas Regans and asked him if it was still open and he said "Yes it is, why?" and I said "Well, I might be interested. " "Oh you are. " "If you would let the board know. " So he did, and they had a meeting of the board of directors by telephone, called me back, which was. . . . I liked it and it was, I thought, a good program, I believe in these colleges and they ought to be kept alive. But in terms of personal satisfaction, damn little. I enjoyed it, but . . .PEARCE:Well, after you’ve been in government I think a lot of things tend to
pall. Youhad quite a lively attraction.
WARD:Yeah. So when I decided to leave , I wrote a long memo to the board of
directors. Made several recommendations. The first was to go to ( )publish that printing. A lot of new modernized plant, and I said "Don’t- don’t
elect anybody except a Paxton as publisher. Because these older employees just won’t accept anybody except a Paxton. And they took the advice and made Fred publisher. Which I think that was the right thing. Those Paxton boys – Frank is a live wire. He came back. They sold – they bought a camera outfit in and sold it and he came back and they ( ) one of the local the banks. Ed had of course retired when Jack came there.PEARCE:He’s down here.
WARD:Who, Ed?
PEARCE:Uh-huh.
WARD:Yeah, he lives at .
PEARCE:He was ( ). You stayed there until you retired?
WARD:I retired at 65.
PEARCE:Been here ever since.
WARD:Yep. Gladys came down here a year before I did. She came down here and
decided to – she bought the old place and had had to have a lot of work done. So she – we bought the place about a year before I retired. And I was down hereWARD:three times and she spent most of the time down here while they tore the
place up. Did a lot of work. Had to have the bathrooms done over - a lot of things. And I came down ten or eleven years ago. Been working ever since.PEARCE:[laughing] I apologize. I’ve stayed too long. I didn’t mean to stay all
afternoon but I would like if when you have time, to go over with you, just one or two moreepisodes in your public career in with a special emphasis on highway
commissioner under Combs and Breathitt and your experience in parks. Just a little bit more on those. Anything you liked best about both. About your years in state government. Tonight if you should have a chance, why, if you think of things we haven’t covered, I would like to cover them because I would get everything about your career that we could get on tape.WARD:I guess a seventy-five year old man’s better off in his memories about it.
The questions or recollections. Your recollection of some things are better than mine. For example – I don’t know that I ever knew about Clements having shoved you against the wall over the REA bill…PEARCE:[laughing]
WARD:It’s as I say, somewhat amazing what you forget. For example, you asked me
about the campaign. I – I just honestly can’t remember much detail. Because it all sort of runs together. Everyday is all too much like the last day.PEARCE:I’m always interested in the parks. And as I said today, I was wondering
if we didn’t make some mistakes – if mistakes haven’t been made. I think that Kincaid , maybe Greenbo, Buckhorn - I think they may have been mistakes. I think maybe we could have done better if had been bought land in a different place rather than take land at the ( ) at Buckhorn. We just took the advice the engineers gave us . . .WARD: Well, a lot of it goes back really to Buckhorn. That’s my theory. What the
state tried to do. It’s trying to involve and operate a system of resort parks. Then you got these little parks that may be a mistake. You’re just wasting your money on those. If you’re trying to develop a regional system of parks that are more for the benefit of local people than they were a mistake. It’s over. It just depends on what you’re trying to do.PEARCE:But has Buckhorn been much for local people?
WARD:I don’t know. I doubt it. I doubt it. The location’s bad. Too far off the
highway. That’s the reason I said that the thing might develop because it’s locally situated with a close population area there. I don’t know. Then it goesWARD:back to the theory of what you’re supposed to do. One might use as an
example. How you started with a – hadn’t a damn bit of reason to have any of
that park down at . . .PEARCE:the . . .
WARD:No. Tom Sawyer, that’s a county park.
PEARCE:I think now it’s a state park.
WARD:Well, I know that Nunn tried to. . . .but I’m talking about .
PEARCE:. Oh, that doggone thing.
WARD:Yeah.
PEARCE:Uh. . . .yeah that’s - that's a city park.
WARD:You haven’t got any business with it.
PEARCE:No.
WARD:Kind of silly. And it’s just because at the time, the federal agency that
developed the thing had wanted to get rid of it - was the only one who would take it. And I told ( ) , this doesn’t make any sense at all, if anything it’s logically a state park. Not a city park. If any money ought to be spent on it a park way down there like that. I got a strong theory about parks. It goes back somewhat to strong theory I have about the whole matter of government. The proper distribution of governmental functions on the basis of what purposes they serve. Now there’s an easy distribution of functions of parks national, state and local. Easy. There’s about highways, too. And in that sort of relationship thatWARD:park down there doesn’t belong to the city of . It really doesn’t belong to
the state either, it’s not big enough, it’s not. . . .it doesn’t have the scenery, the location, it doesn’t justify . . .PEARCE:I think Kingdom Come might have been a mistake. Uh, it’s pretty and I
think that there was a justification for the preservation aspect of the park. Have a unique area or a sensational, special area, you might preserve it.WARD:Yeah, but not the city of .
PEARCE:No, I mean the state, now.
WARD:Oh, yeah. When I was commissioner of highways, of conservation, I ought to
have taken it over, if the state would agree.PEARCE:I thought that, that - I thought Shakertown would have been justifiable,
very justifiable, but I just felt it’s in private hands, where it was. It was probably better. Pennyrile’s – is nice. I’m not sure we could have done without that one.WARD:No, it was strictly a – it’s a little park, county park.
PEARCE:It should have been a county park. Didn’t cost enough to be a state park,
[laughing] in the first place.WARD:Pennyrile is not really up to date standards.
PEARCE:It’s a pretty little thing.
WARD:Yeah.
PEARCE:Ben Hall down in is strictly a boondoggle, it-Wendell
shoved up on the state.
WARD:Did they make a state park out of that?
PEARCE:Hell, yes! It was just a city park. That Lincoln Homestead down there in
probably never should have been a state park. It’s called a shrine, but it should be a county park or a private thing. There’s so many of them like that.WARD:Yes. That was really just a little county park.
PEARCE:It’d be cheaper for a golf course. We had a lot of parks. . . .I doubt
the state canever get rid of them. Now that they’ve got them, they’ll be hell to pay.
WARD:Hard to do that. You just hope you can get enough state appropriations to
provide the basic maintenance.PEARCE:Grayson, . . .
WARD:Columbus-Belmont.
PEARCE:Columbus-Belmont. Have no business with them. I’ve taken your day, I’ll
say that.WARD:It’s been enjoyable. You going to stay overnight?
PEARCE:Yep.
BREAK IN TAPE
WARD:. . . .because there’s probably so much to cover, and a long career and a
lot ofWARD:activities that it’s hard to pick out specifics, so much to cover.
PEARCE:Well, just pick out any anything. Almost anything about your career is
very relevant to what we’re trying to do or to your life, or to anything having to do with life in , or government.WARD:There’s one thing I remember that might be of interest. It relates to Alben
Barkley. I think I mentioned I was very close to Barkley. And after he discovered my grandfather had been his first preacher, we. . . .it led to other things. In addition to that, he was, he knew Gladys before I did. He used to stay at the Cobb all the time when he was there and so we were very close friends. I had mentioned that I was his state publicity chairman in 1938 campaign and, in let’s see. The national democratic convention's an even year, isn’t it? But it must have been the ’44 convention. In. . . .forty. . . .it must have been sometime in ’43, his son in law called me from . And he said the, the Senator wants you to write a story saying he definitely is going to be a candidate for vice-president. He’s in the race and going to stay in the race. I said "Well, I’d be glad to write a story, but why me?" Well, he said "It’s known or it certainly will be known how close you are to him, and that you wouldn’t write such a story unless it was true. " Well, I did, and he was right. It attracted attention and I got a little call at the Guardian. And at the convention, in , he asked me to go up there with him. We stayed at the old Blackstone Hotel. And I remember oneWARD:evening I was up in the suite with him. Harry Truman walked in. And Truman
said "You know, the stupidest damn thing, they’re now talking about me being picked for vice-president. It’s ridiculous with you available tothink about me." And of course Barkley said "Well, I agree I’m a candidate. I’d
like to have it." But he said "I understand what the situation is." Roosevelt never forgave Barkley for making a crack about him growing Christmas trees, and held it against him and he was determined he was not going to be vice-president. Of course he had an influence. And it worked out. But you know the whole history about what happened in ’48 when he was nominated in and they went on to get elected. I happened – I’ve been – I was with Barkley the night, incidentally, of the final election. He always came to to wind up in the campaign. And for several years I had worked with him. We organized a motorcade through the eight counties in Purchase and I’d go ahead of him with a truck and a P.A. system and get meetings started, and talk until I saw his crowd approaching, and I’d high-tail it to the next stop. So I did that that day too. And then ends with the last speech at . And go back to his house, after the thing was over. I told the Senator "It's all over, now. What do you really think?" And he says "Well, we fought the good fight, but we lost." Of course the next morning, he was delighted to read the Chicago Tribune and read about it. Then, after the. . . .his term as vice-president was over, and Lawrence, and Clements and everybody else up there figured the best they could do was try to persuade him to run against Cooper. And because I was known to be close to him, I was designated to go down to see him and see what he thought about it. Well I found pretty soon he was not a bit reluctant, because he missed being in Washington and he wasn’t particularly anxious to do a lot of work or anything, but just missed being up there in the Senate and he indicated a willingness but also was somewhat reluctant to be associated with Clements. He was really bitter about Clements. See, in the ’52 convention in he had wanted to be nominated for president. And he claimed Clements double-crossed him and wouldn’t go along and anyhow he was extremely bitter about Clements and didn’t want to be associated with him.PEARCE:Was that he wanted to be vice-president, or president?
HW:President. You see, he was vice-president.
PEARCE:Right.
WARD:But he thought he was entitled to be nominated. And he was also bitter at
the labor because he’d always been a great labor man, but labor refused to go along with him because they thought he was too old. But as I say, he was extremely bitter about Clements and I did all I could to try to smooth that over, that difficulty. In any event, he agreed to go, agreed to run, finally. With the understanding that I would, for all practical purposes, manage his campaign. And, I protested that, after all, I had a state job to think about, but he said "That’sWARD:the way it’s going to be."
PEARCE:What, what were you then?
WARD:I was still commissioner of conservation.
PEARCE:Conservation.
WARD:That was in ’54, wasn’t it? ’53, something like that. I’ve forgotten. Well, let’s
see.
PEARCE:They were elected, he was elected in ’48. This must be ’52.
WARD:Well, ’52 was the convention.
PEARCE:Yeah.
WARD:So it was after that.
PEARCE:Let’s see, that was in the summer, this could have been, wait-wait. . .
.it was.WARD:Clements was having to run wasn’t he? See, Clements had served out an
unexpired term of Gary Weathers. And they had to - he had to run for the full term. It must have been ’51. Or no, it was after ’52.PEARCE:Uh-huh.
WARD:Well, let’s see.
PEARCE:You see, Clements was Governor from ’48 to ’52. He was elected in ’47.
WARD:Well, then, I know when it was. It was. . . .I’ve got my times all mixed up.
PEARCE:No.
WARD:It was ’56.
PEARCE:Oh, this was in ’56.
WARD:You see, Earle had to run for the full term.
PEARCE:Oh, yeah.
WARD:That’s when it was. And I was - I was in with Earle as an assistant at the
time. You see, I’m trying to remember the details. But in any event. . . .no. It couldn’t. . . .Earle left. . . .because I was in in . . .PEARCE:It’d have to be that because Happy came in, in ’55.
WARD:Yeah. It must have been fifty. . . .
End of Tape 3, Side B
End of Interview
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