Oral History Interview with Frank Burke

ETHEL WHITE: I had asked you as we were turning over the tape whether you had ever heard Martin Luther King, and it reminded you that his brother had a church here.

FRANK BURKE: I think I heard Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. speak here one time. His brother, the Reverend A. D. Williams King, was pastor of a church in Louisville. He tragically, you know, left here and went to be pastor of a church in Atlanta and drowned. That’s how Doctor A. D. Williams King passed away. But I think, and this is an unclear memory, but I think, when A. D. Williams King was here, that his brother Doctor Martin Luther King Jr., was here on occasion. I think I heard him speak. I’m sure I never met him.

WHITE: And that would have been the early Martin Luther King.

BURKE: Yeah, that’s right.

WHITE: Well let’s move on to some of the poverty initiatives 1:00under Kennedy. Did you have anything to do with, or do you remember anything about either the Area Redevelopment Act or any of the Appalachian programs?

BURKE: Yes, I certainly do. This was, of course, very important to Kentucky. There have been a number of pieces of legislation which come within these general descriptions, so we must be talking about ones which were passed maybe in sixty?

WHITE: That would be about right.

BURKE: Or ‘sixty-one, maybe.

WHITE: ‘Sixty-one, maybe.

BURKE: Yeah. Well you see Carl Perkins, among other people, was the, probably the principal supporter of the Area Redevelopment Acts and the Appalachian programs, and did a heroic job. So you know, not only because Carl was the leader, but because Kentucky participates in those programs, and we all need it. 2:00I do remember, I remember the classical struggles as to whether this was a thing the government should do, and you know, how it should be applied, and the sort of textbook divisions within the Congress in support of and opposed to these programs. But yes, I do remember them.

WHITE: Do you remember any overtures on the part of say, Carl Perkins or the Kennedy Administration to the more urban Congressional delegations, of which you were a representative? I mean you represented a city. Was there any problem with getting city representatives to buy into these rural poverty programs?

BURKE: Well, you know, I take it that there could have been. I’m not sure. For example, 3:00you remind me that I served in the Congress, and then we were mayors together with John Lindsay from New York. I don’t know how much the Appalachian....But you’ve got to remember that politics is the art of the possible. And you must remember that the people who were in the big urban centers had a lot of things they wanted too. So I’m sure there was a lot of reciprocal assistance, if that’s a good term. But sure, I’m sure that the congressman from Orange County, California, whoever he was at that time, was probably not too interested in Appalachia. But yeah, I mean that would have been a typical composition of views.

WHITE: Well, aside from the poverty initiatives and the civil rights, so much of the Kennedy Administration was bound up with Foreign Policy 4:00which was his interest. And of course, things were what- exploding in various parts of the world?

BURKE: That’s right. They certainly were.

WHITE: Now as a congressman, how much did you have to do with Foreign, with these foreign issues, say?

BURKE: Well, the House of Representatives is concerned, you know, only as all Americans are concerned with the Foreign Policy of the country. Concerned, I guess, a great deal with appropriations, so called “foreign aid”, most of which is spent in the United States. But now the Senate is the Foreign Policy effective part of the legislation. But as all Americans were much concerned at that time, with the Foreign Policy of the United States, certainly everybody in the House of Representatives was.

WHITE: Do you remember any particular responses or reflections 5:00in the Congress to the Berlin Wall, let’s say the Berlin Wall or the Cuban Missile Crisis?

BURKE: I remember both, and I tell you what, these are long stories and I think maybe we need to take these to our next session.

WHITE: Okay, fine, we’ll pick up the long stories next time.

BURKE: That’s right.

WHITE: (Continuation of prior conversation) Today is November second and we are going to continue our conversation. Mr. Burke, shall we move on to the Berlin Wall?

BURKE: Well, that would be fine. Of course, all of us, including those who were in Congress, but I think everyone in the United States was very delighted at the time that the Berlin Wall was breached. The Congress of course, had little or nothing to do with it. That was all 6:00administrative, diplomatic, defense oriented; but obviously it had a great effect, not only on this country, but on the whole world. We all remember when Mr. Churchill had made the Iron Curtain speech at the College of Missouri a long time before. And I guess this was the most significant demonstration of the fact that finally the Iron Curtain had been raised. The Berlin Wall was a symbol of the, not only the division, but also the strength of the Eastern European powers. So I do remember, but pretty much as other people do. I don’t have any specific memories of the Berlin Wall coming down, except like every other American, we were delighted and in admiration. We all remember, I think, the famous speeches and so on, which followed that. President Kennedy 7:00went to Berlin and spoke at that time, I think he made the speech, in which people have wondered whether or not he pronounced the words right: if his speech writers were right or if some of the German newspapers were right. You know, in German, and I won’t attempt to say it although I may know how. You know, the great boast of people in Berlin for a long time, as distinguished from the rest of Germany, they used to say in German, “I am a Berliner.” Well, President Kennedy began his remarks at that time, saying “I am a Berliner”, but some of the people knowledgeable in the German language claim that what he said meant, “I am a Berliner,” but the word he used is a particular kind of hard roll, which is called a “Berliner.” Like you have Vienna sausage and all those things. (Laughing) What the president 8:00had said was, “I’m a hard roll.” (Laughter--White) But I doubt if he really meant to say that. But we remember the humorous as well as the serious things about that significant event in history.

WHITE: And you were also - and so you were in Congress when the Berlin Wall went up in August of ‘sixty-one, but you didn’t...

BURKE: Went down. The Berlin Wall went down...

WHITE: Went up under Kennedy.

BURKE: Up under Kennedy, yeah that’s right. Up in ‘61, that’s right.

WHITE: And then you were also in Congress when the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred.

BURKE: That’s correct.

WHITE: But did you have much to do with either one being...

BURKE: Well we didn’t have much, didn’t have really much to do. My memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis are a whole lot more vivid. Those things which I was saying earlier about the Berlin Wall, I’m afraid I was transposing time 9:00and giving you some of the impressions all of us had when the Berlin Wall came down. Of course, it is the opposite effect when the Berlin Wall went up and maybe you can edit that so that it makes sense. Yes, in October of nineteen sixty-two, I have very specific memories, that was an election year; and I was running for re-election, and so was everybody else in the house. In fact, that was just a few weeks before the election, and there was a lot of talk about it. For example, in order that the members of Congress should be informed on the progress and so on of the Cuban Missile Crisis: Congress had adjourned in October, just before the election. 10:00And each member of Congress was invited to a briefing by the Administration, and the State and Defense Department. They were done regionally, for example, those of us from this part of the country, were invited to a confidential conference which was held in Chicago. I’m sure the ones from the East were in New York, and the ones from the West probably were in California and so on. But I remember spending a day or two in Chicago being briefed by people high in the administration and in the Defense Department, and in the State Department, concerning just how this thing was progressing. It was sort of bone chilling. They were really there. And these people were staring eye to eye. And you know, 11:00I don’t remember the date when it was finally resolved, but this was a sort of terrifying time.

WHITE: Do you have any sense about whether you were....what you might have....This was a long time ago, but what you might have been told, as opposed to what the American people were told?

BURKE.: I don’t think there was any difference in what we were told, and what the American people were told. But I think we probably were told in a great deal more detail. And that when you knew more detail of what was actually there and where they were placed, it was even more scary than that which had been told publicly.

WHITE: And can we talk a little bit about that re-election campaign, because that obviously was dominant in your life in the Fall of 1962.

BURKE: Yes, that was an 12:00interesting re-election campaign for me. I do think the Cuban Missile Crisis had a little bit to do with it. I think that maybe there was some disappointment with the way it had been handled by the administration. But in my opinion, the thing that I remember most about the nineteen sixty-two election, is that all of the House was being elected. I was being elected. And a third of the United States Senate was being elected. And one of those Senate seats was the one for Kentucky, in which there was a big senatorial election between the incumbent Senator Thurston B. Morton and his Democratic challenger, Mr. Wilson W. Wyatt. And I’m afraid that those of us running for other offices 13:00were pretty far down the ticket. And what happened to that election and those two races--and these numbers will not be exactly correct, but not only was this--were these elections all in Kentucky, but both Mr. Wyatt and Senator Morton lived in the Third Congressional District. So I had the Chairman of the Republican National Committee and an incumbent United States Senator and his Democratic challenger, who we all know and love, Mr. Wilson Wyatt. Two very popular people running against each other for the United States Senate. And I will put it this way, I think these numbers are about correct: Senator Morton beat Mr. Wyatt in the Third Congressional District by about twenty-five 14:00thousand votes, and I lost by about twenty-five hundred. Now in 1960, I had won a slim margin; but President Kennedy did not carry the Third Congressional District in nineteen sixty, and I ran considerably ahead of President Kennedy in nineteen sixty to get re-elected. In nineteen sixty-two, I ran considerably ahead of the rest of the Democratic ticket, but did not get re-elected.

WHITE: So you, there must have been some coat tail effect.

BURKE: Oh yes.

WHITE: But you did better than the...(Laughing) than some of the people on the top end of the ticket.

BURKE: That’s right. That’s right.

WHITE: And was it generally a - I believe it was generally a Republican year, was it not? 15:00BURKE: Oh yes, yes.

WHITE: That’s when the Republicans came in and displaced many...

BURKE: That’s right, they were.

WHITE: So it was a national, also part of a national...

BURKE: It was indeed.

WHITE: National trend. Well how does a defeated candidate, I mean even though you can be philosophical about the reasons, but how did it effect you?

BURKE: Well, you know losing an election is a very tough experience to go through, as you would find out from anybody you talked to who’s ever lost any election for anything. But you know it is like everything else, which of the Greek fighters at Troy was it, who said, “That he would go back in his tent and bleed a while, and then come out and fight.” (Laughing) I think that is what you do. Everybody in their lives has disappointments, and you’ve just got to accept them as best you can 16:00and get up and go on from there.

WHITE: And then before we move on to your, what I call “the interim years”; (Laughing) between that and you’re becoming mayor. Kennedy was assassinated, and I know you weren’t in Congress anymore...

BURKE: No.

WHITE: But do you have any comments other than just as a citizen about that?

BURKE: Well, I think probably that I do. Not that I was a close personal friend of the--President Kennedy and his family, but I certainly knew him and would hear from him now and then. So I felt the loss that every American felt, but a little more personally because I knew him. I’m like everybody else, I can remember precisely where I was when I heard the President had been shot and who told me 17:00and listening to the radio until the time that it was announced that he had died.

WHITE: Well, where were you?

BURKE: At that time, my law office was in the old Columbia Building at Fourth and Main, which has since then been torn down and replaced by another modern office building. I was in the office, and the letter carrier who delivered our mail, came into the office that day and said, “You better turn the radio on, I just heard in the office downstairs that the President had been shot.” So I turned on the radio, and the letter carrier and a number of people in our office sat there and listened to it for a while. We didn’t know at that time, not only was it the tragic loss of the President of the United States; but it was the beginning of the broadcasting career of a person who has become very famous in broadcasting. Dan Rather at that time was the local news anchor in Dallas, for I guess, well 18:00whichever station and network he was working for then. That was the beginning of anybody outside of Texas knowing about Dan Rather. He just happened to be the person who was on duty. And he is still on duty as far as I know.

WHITE: Yes, he is. All right, so did you spend the next six years or so in that law office in the old Columbia Building in what term was it?

BURKE: We were there until urban renewal came and tore it down. (Laughing) I don’t remember exactly what year. But I certainly did spend my time practicing law either there, or we moved to another building over on 310 West Liberty Street.

WHITE: And you were, who, with whom were you associated during those years?

BURKE: Oh, various people. I was with my old associates, Charlie Farnsley, Bill Hotell, Ray Stevenson for part of the time. 19:00And I’m trying to remember what years it was. Marlo Cooke was in our office. And I was with that group of people all the time.

WHITE: It seems to me that I have come across something or some things that tell me that you had been approached during those years to run for Congress again. Is that correct?

BURKE: Well, yes.

WHITE: Or is that not correct?

BURKE: No, that is correct. But there were capable candidates and capable congresspersons. Gene Snyder beat me in nineteen hundred and sixty-two, but then Charlie Farnsley beat him in 1964. And 20:00there were numerous other people. And yes, it was mentioned to me by various people that I should run for Congress; but I determined that it was not a good thing for me to do.

WHITE: Okay, that was behind you?

BURKE: That’s right.

WHITE: But then what happened about being mayor? About running for mayor, how did that come about?

BURKE: Well, you know, I had for a long time wanted to be Mayor of Louisville. (Laughing) I’ll have to tell you that. You see we’ll have to go back and do a little history for you.

WHITE: Please.

BURKE: In nineteen sixty-one William Cowger, a Republican, was elected Mayor of Louisville. In 1965 Kenneth Smead, a Republican, was elected Mayor of Louisville. And this was one of the challenges that I always looked at. 21:00As we talked before, when I was first elected to Congress in 1958; the Republican representatives of the Republican party had held the Third District Congressional seat for a long time. And I defeated an incumbent Republican. Of course, in ‘69, I could not defeat an incumbent mayor; because at that time the constitution would not permit anyone to succeed him or herself as mayor of Louisville. But there had been eight years of Republican mayors in Louisville and I decided that based upon the experience that I had, had before, when I worked in the City Hall in the fifties, that I would run. There were some things that I wanted to get done, and I did.

WHITE: And can you talk a little bit about the campaign? Well, first of all, first of all the Primary, 22:00you ran against a number of people in the Primary. Did you not?

BURKE: That’s right, that’s right.

WHITE: Thornberry and Mazolli?

BURKE: That’s right.

WHITE: William Martin.

BURKE: Yes, and somebody else. Yes, there were three or four other people, Jim Thornberry, Ron Mazolli, Bill Martin, somebody else. The principal opponents were Jim Thornberry, who ran second in the Primary and Ron Mazolli, who ran third in the Primary.

WHITE: And then there was something about an all black unity Democratic slate. Do you remember this?

BURKE: I remember there was such a thing.

WHITE: And Neville Tucker left it to join your campaign. Do you have any memory of that?

BURKE: He did, he did. He ran for....Neville Tucker ran and was elected Police Court Judge. We had an elected Police Court 23:00Judge at that time. And yes I do remember, but only what you have mentioned; that there was such a movement and that, that happened.

WHITE: Do you remember on what basis you ran against these other Democrats?

BURKE: I think that the basis was that I ....ran against the other Democrats?

WHITE: Yeah, in the Primary.

BURKE: I think what the basis that we tried to use on that one was: that we want to win and that I had the best chance of defeating the Republican and taking the administration of the government. And we also had a pretty, had a strong county ticket.

WHITE: Would it be fair to say that you had the best name recognition of all these people? At the time.

BURKE: I think that’s probably true, yeah, Ronnie Mazolli was a State Senator.

WHITE: He was a newcomer.

BURKE: Jim 24:00Thornberry was a member of the Board of Aldermen. I think probably, and for the Primary, especially that I probably had the best name recognition among Democratic voters.

WHITE: And do you think that’s why you won?

BURKE: I think that’s one of the big factors, yeah.

WHITE: We’re still on the Primary.

BURKE: Name recognition is very important in all elections.

WHITE: And what about the campaign itself, the general campaign?

BURKE: The general election?

WHITE: Yeah.

BURKE: Well, in the general election, I ran against a gentleman named Sawyer, A.B. Sawyer, nice guy. And I think that the campaign itself--as all campaigns get to be--some of it gets to be on personalities. But I think that one was, that I tried to say that I was going to try to make Louisville move forward from where it was. That I did not see that too many things 25:00had been done, that needed to be done. And that I did have some visions; and that we wanted to move the city forward.

WHITE: And I believe that Todd Hollenbeck was...

BURKE: County judge.

WHITE: ...running for county judge.

BURKE: He was.

WHITE: And won.

BURKE: And won.

WHITE: What about the, did you, did you co-ordinate strategy? I mean, how did, to what extent did you work together; to what extent were you out of sync--in sync?

BURKE: No, no, we ran absolutely as a team. I have got some, around here some place, some of his things that I could show you. I have bumper stickers, we had campaign buttons which had both of our names on them. So, no we ran as a team, no question about that.

WHITE: Do you remember anything about how you 26:00worked behind the scenes or any of that? Or did you leave that to your lieutenant?

BURKE: No, no, no, I did know a lot about how we worked behind the scenes. We did a very intensive seeing the people campaign. We went door to door. We had Coffees in every neighborhood you could think of; we went to every organization that you could think of; we had face-to-face debates with our opponents. It was very early in the time of television as an advertising media, and I think all--I say all--substantially all of our television appearances were live. If we were going to make a thirty second or a fifteen second television spot, we would report to the television station and submit the script. They always made you do that, and they also were very wise, business-wise. They made you pay 27:00in advance, and we would do live television ads.

WHITE: If I could read a quote to you?

BURKE: Yes.

WHITE: I want to see if you remember it and if you know what you meant by this? You described the preceding Republican administration or administrations as: “Pompous little men in demanding positions, who have allowed civic life to stagnant and who have made a farce of local government.” (Laughing) Do you know what you meant by that?

BURKE: I don’t remember that. Well, I probably meant what the words say, that they hadn’t done much. I don’t remember that specifically, but I certainly can’t deny that I said it.

WHITE: Well it was in those scrapbooks that you gave to Spalding. (Laughter) BURKE: Was it?

WHITE: So why do you think you won, is it because of what you’ve just been saying? 28:00BURKE: I think so. I think the people were ready to see Louisville take some progressive steps.

WHITE: Do you remember your first day in office?

BURKE: I do, because I’ve got pictures. (Laughing) WHITE: And what do the pictures tell us?

BURKE: Well the pictures show a lot of people all dressed up, and the mayor’s office full of flowers and all kinds of things. We had the Inauguration right on the steps of City Hall, built a platform out into Sixth Street. And just as they do at the State Capitol and in a minor way of what they do in the Nation’s capitol, they built a wooden platform--closed Sixth Street from Jefferson to Market, and built a platform which went out into the street--so that all the persons appearing on the platform could come from within City Hall 29:00and out onto the platform. Had a pretty good size crowd. Judge Sam Steinfeld was the Chief Judge of the then highest court in Kentucky, the Court of Appeals. Judge Steinfeld administered the oath. And I think the first day in office was largely ceremonial, but I do remember it. After the inauguration we had a luncheon over at the Oak Room of the Seelbach and it was quite a festive day.

WHITE: I have to ask you about your family in this contest.

BURKE: Yes.

WHITE: How did your family take to--you were in politics for several years, six, eight years as a legislator, state or federal, then you decided to become Mayor of Louisville. Now, do you have a family that enjoys politics or do they just, or do they suffer it? (Laughing) BURKE: Well, 30:00you know, if they suffer it, they have never said that. My family has always been extremely supportive, beginning with my good wife, who has participated very much in any campaign I was ever in, and took an active part, not only in the organization of it and helping me organize it. But in day to day, she’s knocked on lots of doors, she’s stuffed lots of envelopes. And my children have always been the same. My children claim that they learned, some of them, claim that they learned about how you keep careful arithmetic numbers, because we took them up in the gallery in the Legislature in Frankfort. And at that time they had not advanced far enough that they had electronic voting; so the Speaker would call the roll, and they would hear the votes Aye and No, and my children would have the tally sheets 31:00just like the ones that the clerk used. And they claim that’s how they learned to keep accurate records of numbers in votes cast in the General Assembly in Kentucky. They have always been very supportive, as I think you and I discussed one time, when we did not have a microphone, during the years that we were in Congress, my children went to school one semester in Louisville and one semester in Washington. Which I’m sure was very hard on them, but they certainly never complained. I’ve had a wonderfully supportive family.

WHITE: And I didn’t ask you at the time why you decided to do it that way. What was your thinking?

BURKE: Well I think that Evie and I decided it was the best thing to do for the children. At that time, Congress adjourned in the Fall. Congress was not in session as long as it is now. And it worked out pretty well. Our children would start in school in Louisville in September, 32:00and go till January. Then Congress went back in session in January and the whole family would move back to Washington in January, and we would stay there and they would go to school the second semester in January in Washington.

WHITE: So it held the family together, probably...

BURKE: Oh we stayed together all the time, yeah. Our family was always together, we were in Louisville, we were in Washington, we moved back and forth. We had lots of times that we made that drive back and forth to Washington; which was hard then, because we didn’t have all these roads we have now. And I’m sure it was very hard on the children, but they never complained.

END OF TAPE ONE SIDE ONE BEGIN TAPE ONE SIDE TWO WHITE: Let’s pick up on moving back and forth. I mean, now jet travel is such that people in Congress simply hop planes, and they spend often--seems to 33:00be, that they’ll spend three days in Washington; four days here, or whatever. But in those days everything was slower.

BURKE: Everything was slower and it was more expensive for the members. Not only have the salaries of the members of the House and the Senate increased by something like five hundred percent, but at that time, the Congress paid for one trip--one round--two round trips back and forth per session. Now there is no limit. Now they travel at congressional expense every day if they want to, or every week. So as you say many people do not move their families, they simply go back and forth. Now that had always been true for the East Coast people, who move by train. But for those of us who lived farther away, just stayed there. But now, not only as I say, could you afford it if you had to pay for it yourself, 34:00but you don’t have to pay for it yourself. (Laughing) This intensive travel which members of the Congress are able to do now, is paid for as an expense of the Congress.

WHITE: Also you had, you had, had two legislative positions.

BURKE: That’s right.

WHITE: State and national, but this would have been your first executive position.

BURKE: Elective, that’s right.

WHITE: Elective, executive position.

BURKE: Yeah, I had been involved in the administration of the city of Louisville when Charlie Farnsley was mayor for quite a while. I was close to the administration of city government although I was not elected to it.

WHITE: And so you felt that you were well prepared? Were there things that you were not prepared for as far as being an urban executive?

BURKE: I don’t think so. I think I understood the job pretty well. 35:00WHITE: Were there any surprises in those early weeks?

BURKE: In the early weeks, well, yes there were some surprises because the reality of city government, I guess, is like the reality of all government and personal administrative things: the budget is the great controlling item. And until you really get a hold of the budget. For example, in the very early weeks we discovered--and I do not say this in any derogatory sense about my predecessor, who was a friend of mine. We discovered when we took office in November, I guess December the first of nineteen sixty-nine. Now, if that sounds wrong in your records, I will tell you the law has been changed since then; but it used to be 36:00at that time that you took office the first of December of the year in which you were elected in November. We discovered that, although they had made plans for what you and I call the Belvedere and the Plaza and all of the development down there, that the funding had not yet been provided for totally. That the bids had been taken, but the time for accepting the bids had run out and something needed to be done; because that Riverfront project needed to get started. So, I talked with my predecessor, and during November of 1969--and actually before I took office--we arranged with all of the financial institutions in Louisville, except one, that they would 37:00issue bond anticipation notes; which were going to pay for the beginning of the Riverfront and Belvedere development, and they did. And we arranged that there would be a situation that these bond anticipation notes would be sold against the eventual bond issue for doing all of this work on the Riverfront. And we got all that arranged so that shortly after December the first nineteen sixty-nine, we actually broke ground on the Riverfront and plaza. Now, that is a very interesting financial arrangement, because a number of things are involved. Many people don’t know this, the Gault House belongs to the city of Louisville and is leased to the operator. 38:00So that the lease payments from the Gault House pay off the Riverfront bonds, as do all of the income from the riverfront parking garage, which was under the Gault House; and all of the income from the parking meters in several blocks surrounding Main Street and the Riverfront. And we got all that started and all that money coming in, and I will say this in tribute to the financial institutions and others who were involved; those bonds began generating a surplus from the first day they were sold. And there is a provision in the indenture of those bond issues, that when the debt retirement amounts and the necessary reserves are provided for; that the excess income to those bonds goes into the general operating 39:00funds of the city of Louisville. And that has happened every year. So that was something that happened very early in the administration.

WHITE: Well now is a bond anticipation note...

BURKE: They never had to use them.

WHITE: Is that a promise that a bond is going to be sold? Is that what that is?

BURKE: Yes. That’s right, and they never had to use them. They sold the bonds.

WHITE: Perhaps we could talk about the problems you faced other than that one. And perhaps put it in a national setting; because I have a sense that trends in Louisville were sort of moving along with urban problems generally.

BURKE: Well I think they were.

WHITE: Can you talk about that?

BURKE: Sure. And I think something that we have mentioned before, because I know of your interest; and the project about which you are working interests having to do with civil rights and the relations among 40:00the various types of people that are in the community. We had, had in Louisville some very stressful times in 1968, as you will recall, and we need not go into those; but there were some very stressful times. And as you say, an African-American person left the Unity ticket in order to run for Police Court Judge on our ticket. I thought it was important to do a number of things, not only symbolic, but real, in order to bring African-Americans and the citizens of African-American descent into prominent places in Louisville. So I named the first Administrative Assistant to the Mayor, who is African-American and still very much around, our friend William Summers. The 41:00William Summers, roman numerals, I think this is the third. Bill was my...

WHITE: And you hired the first.

BURKE: I hired the first, he was Administrative Assistant to the Mayor. As far as I know, the first person in the mayor’s office in Louisville--at least in my recollection--except clerical people, who was of African-American descent. Also, some of the most sensitive things which go on in city government involve both the police and fire department, the Department of Public Safety. So I named the first, and as far as I know, still the only African-American Director of Public Safety in the city of Louisville, Colonel Wilson Edwards, who had been a Louisville Police Captain. Interesting story about Colonel Edwards. When he was a Louisville Police Captain--there 42:00is a custom in Washington, D.C. that they borrow police officers from all over the country on the occasion of Inaugurations--because they, they, at that time, needed additional police presence in Washington; not only because of the large crowds, but because of the presence of so many international people of importance. Colonel Edwards then Captain Edwards of the Louisville Police Department, was sent to Washington. This was the inauguration of President Eisenhower, now which year, I don’t know. But he was a person--he took over as the Head of Security for the head of one of the African states. And the people for whom he worked were so impressed that Colonel Edwards, Captain Edwards then, retired from the Louisville Police 43:00Department and went to work for the State Department, and was sent to Africa and organized a police force in one of the African countries. Thereafter and later in his career, he was sent to Viet Nam, where he helped organize the local police forces in the Republic of Viet Nam. But he had come back to Louisville from Africa in nineteen sixty-nine or seventy, and I had known him when he was a Captain in the Louisville Division of Police, when I was Director of Public Safety. And I convinced Colonel Edwards to come out of retirement and named him Director of Public Safety of the city of Louisville. He did a wonderful job. I don’t mean that he was by any means a symbol, he was not. He was a very able Director of Public Safety. 44:00But I think that appointing Mr. Summers to work in the Mayor’s office and Colonel Edwards as Director of Public Safety had a very salutary effect on the racial picture in Louisville.

WHITE: Yes, you alluded to nineteen sixty-eight being quite a stressful year. Nationally of course, and mostly the open housing demonstrations, I guess in Louisville.

BURKE: Oh there were riots here. There were riots here.

WHITE: All right, riots. And you were elected right on the heels of that. Is that right?

BURKE: That’s right, that’s right.

WHITE: And was the city--obviously divided from your description--but was it calm by the time you came into office?

BURKE: Well, it probably was a little calmer, but we worked very carefully to be sure in every way possible that we tried to bring the two races together. And I think we were able to do that. 45:00Spent lots of time working on that project. I point out the mayor’s office and the Public Safety Department, but all through city employment, all through city Boards and Commissions, we tried to be sure that there was representation of everybody.

WHITE: And was that, do you think that representation was carried out in an obvious enough sense that the black population felt that their needs were being, at least attended to?

BURKE: I think that is a symbol that they were, but I can tell you that we also did a lot of other things, all of us in city government. We attended meetings in predominantly black neighborhoods, and we tried to understand what the wishes and desires were 46:00of the whole community. I’m not saying we only tried to take care of the African-American people, but yes, we paid a lot of attention to a potentially dangerous situation.

WHITE: So there was a rather high profile in this regard?

BURKE: Oh yes, and as you know, we had the sixty-eight riots, and then in the years after I was mayor; we had the school bussing problems. So we were in a time when the potential for racial problems was very high.

WHITE: Do you remember....I mean the police department has just been an ongoing problem with--just right along those lines--with all kinds of accusations of racism. Do you remember any--the ways in which that was handled, I mean was it very much the same and did it work as far as going to the neighborhoods and that kind of thing?

BURKE: Well, I think there’s no novelty. 47:00I think the pressures were there, and we had, I’m sure, many things that we had to address; and we did, and we were able to handle a lot of them. But we worked extremely hard on that subject.

WHITE: And what about the general domination of the East End, which was described in newspapers then as much as it is talked about now? I mean aside from race, you have the East and the South as well as the West. Do you remember divisions along those lines? Do you remember having to, having to, you know work on the other divisions besides racial divisions?

BURKE: Well, you know in any large number of people you’re going to have divisions. I think one of the great assistances that we had there, we had very talented people on the Board of Aldermen, 48:00and representatives of all parts of Louisville. And we were able to bring the interests of all the neighborhoods together through paying attention to the interests and attention of the members of the Board of Aldermen.

WHITE: Do you remember anything specific about working with the Aldermen?

BURKE: Yes I do.

WHITE: Did Thornberry go back to being president? No.

BURKE: No, no, no. I have to tell you about the people that ran against me in the primary in nineteen sixty-nine.

WHITE: I should know.

BURKE: Maybe even before I was inaugurated, but I went to both Mr. Thornberry and Mr. Mazolli, whom I had known for many years, and said, “Okay what do you want?” And Jim Thornberry said, and I guess he first became maybe Director of Safety. Jim was both Director of Safety and Director of Law at various times during my administration. And Mr. Mazolli said, 49:00“I want to run for Congress.” And I said, “I will be your campaign manager.” So I managed Ronnie’s first campaign in nineteen seventy when he won, and was involved in every campaign of Congressman Mazolli until he didn’t want to run anymore. But Jim Thornberry became Director of Safety and Director of Law at various times during my administration.

WHITE: Now did, so Thornberry must have become Director of Safety after Wilson Edwards?

BURKE: Uh huh, Jim became Director of Law.

WHITE: Okay.

BURKE: They, though they were there at the same time, but I can’t tell you the exact years which went what. Jim would not, maybe Jim never did go back to being Director of Safety. I guess Jim was Director of Law at all times.

WHITE: Law? Okay.

BURKE: Yes. He had been Director of Safety many years before. 50:00Yeah, Jim was Director of Law, Wilson Edwards was Director of Safety.

WHITE: And are you indicating that you worked easily and well with the Board of Aldermen?

BURKE: Yes, indeed, and I am paying great tribute to the quality of people we had on the Board of Aldermen. We had about three physicians, Doctor Carol Whiten was President of the Board of Aldermen. A doctor who was an anesthesiologist from the Second Ward was on the Board of Aldermen. I’m trying to think of his name. I didn’t look him up.

WHITE: That’s okay.

BURKE: But we had very high quality people from every Ward.

WHITE: And they were all or mostly Democratic then the way they are now?

BURKE: They were all except one. When I became--the first--maybe for two years, I can’t remember; I’m trying--I think 51:00Mrs. Reynolds, who was a Republican, was on the Board when I was elected. I believe that she was an Alderman for two years, I’m not sure. But then they were all Democrats.

WHITE: How else did you expend your energies as mayor, other than in the racial division?

BURKE: Well, as we were talking earlier, we got the Riverfront started. Then nationally the Cabinet member, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Renewal told us that the Riverfront development, and I’ll tell you its official name, and then I’ll tell what it is. The East Downtown Urban Renewal Project on the riverfront, he said were the two most successful urban developments in the country. 52:00Sometimes we call the East Downtown Urban Renewal Project the Medical Center. We had to go in there and acquire public--all of the institutions, except for the University are private--we had to go in there and acquire all that land; put in all new sewers and water lines. You may recall that in the early seventies the area up there, which now is the wonderful Medical Center, looked like it had been bombed because we had to acquire all that land. You see what you do is you acquire the land by condemnation and then you sell it at write down prices; and that’s where the Medical Center is, that’s an urban renewal project. That’s East Downtown Urban Renewal. And it was a tremendous project. Now I didn’t invent it. Some of those institutions 53:00had the idea, but it was done. Now it kept going, many of these things were not finished in 1972.

WHITE: But it was started on your watch, as they say.

BURKE: Oh, more than started. The buildings were going up. Now that also had to do with taking the Interstate 65, which the state did, through that area. The whole area up there in the Medical Center. But we did those two things, a number of other things.

WHITE: Can I back you up a minute on I-65?

BURKE: Uh hmm.

WHITE: This was something that was done aside from Louisville? Was the decision made by the Federal government? Were you consulted?

BURKE: Oh sure, and the State. Well, I’m sure the local administration was consulted...

WHITE: Did you want it?

BURKE: By the time, you’ve got to get into the Farnsley years...

WHITE: Okay. 54:00BURKE: And a lot of other things. Yes, Interstate 65 was a project of the United States of America and of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. I’m sure at all times that local governments were consulted. But that’s a Federal government, Bureau of Public Roads project.

WHITE: I just wondered if it was welcomed by the community.

BURKE: Well, by some people; and of course, it displaced so many people. If you can remember the wonderful old neighborhoods which were in downtown Louisville, which were just desolated by the building of the North--what we all call the North-South expressway. It was somewhat welcomed as a, you know, as a great mover of traffic, but there was opposition. But that was all done before I got to be mayor. 55:00WHITE: Okay so the Riverfront and the East Downtown Urban Renewal Project were important.

BURKE: Physically. Physically those were very important. Other things on which we worked, having been involved in city government and so on. I noticed--I thought it was time that we modernized and professionalized public employment. And although there had been a lot of tough things done before, I think I signed the first collective bargaining agreement between the City of Louisville and a labor organization. There had been a sort of informal arrangement which was done before between the City of Louisville and the Teamsters Union. It was never signed by the mayor. It was sort of negotiated by the Board of Aldermen. But we set up a professionalization, 56:00a labor relations for the city employees; and for the first time we took the city employees into the Kentucky Employees Retirement System, so that we established--not established, it was there. We provided for the city employees actual retirement benefits, which are portable. So that you’ve got a situation with local government employees in Kentucky now, that all of the city--now the county was in before--because that was done by state legislation. But I’ll tell you this time, cities had to go in and voluntarily pay millions of dollars in back credits. So that we took the city employees into the State, and county employees--the county Employees Retirement System and professionalized county employment. So that if you go to work for the State, or the city, or the county now, and change jobs 57:00into another city in the system, or with the State or with another county; your retirement benefits are portable. So I think we went a long way toward professionalizing employment in local governments.

WHITE: I understand that there was a certain amount of needed nuts and bolts stuff. I mean, unsafe, dirty streets and transit. Can you talk about those?

BURKE: Yes, we did a lot of things about the streets and the parks. We were able to spend some money. Now, fortunately we were going through a time, and this no longer exists, when the Federal government set up a thing called Local Government Capital Funds. I was on a committee of the United States Conference of Mayors, when President Nixon 58:00was President, who negotiated with the administration and Congress passed the Federal sharing--revenue sharing.

WHITE: Oh right.

BURKE: And that came up, so we got some money and we were able with revenue sharing money to clean up and fix a lot of streets, a lot of parks and then you mentioned transit. The private Louisville transit company found out, as I guess every other private transit company in the United States, that you cannot run a transit system from the fare box. The revenues are not there anymore.

WHITE: Were they ever? I don’t mean to interrupt you. They were?

BURKE: I guess they were a hundred years ago, yeah. I guess the fares paid. But it was necessary that some, because the Louisville Transit Company just served notice, they were not going 59:00to apply to renew their franchise. We were going to be without a public transit system. So Judge Hollenbeck and I got together, and we took money from the federal revenue sharing money for both the city and county and in effect, bought and set up what has become TARC. Now it was thereafter in Mayor Sloane’s administration that the people voted to apply a bond issue, and then to apply the local payroll tax to help support TARC. But we were able to use some federal revenue sharing money, and Judge Hollenbeck and I set up the Transit Authority; and got it started and got the system running. Now it needed more money and that was done under Mayor Sloane’s administration. 60:00But we did set up TARC.

WHITE: Well did you ever debate whether or not it was needed? I mean, was it a foregone conclusion?

BURKE: Oh yes, areas have to have public transportation.

WHITE: Well, I have to ask you in this auto driven society today, whether it was apparent then.

BURKE: Oh yes, well as you see, TARC, the number of passengers they carry even today. Yes, you need public transit.

WHITE: And what about air pollution control? You did some work in that area.

BURKE: Yes, we did. Air pollution control in Louisville started in the nineteen fifties, when by ordinance, the city created what was then called the Smoke Commission. And the first Director of the Smoke Commission was a man named Ralph Bourne, B O U R N E. And they tested the opacity 61:00of smoke by a thing called the Ringolman scale. They would hold up a card which had various divisions of black on it and compare it against smoke. And if your smoke was too dark, you were in violation. So Louisville had a Smoke Commission going back to the fifties. But we worked very hard on real air pollution control. I don’t remember when the Air Pollution Control Commission was set up, but it became a reality of modern times. And we did work. Of course there are now state laws, there are lots more federal laws, there are the air pollution control standards and so on. But we did work very much in the area of air pollution control.

WHITE: So you’re saying the actual Pollution Control Commission was set up before 62:00your time?

BURKE: Yes, it was called the Smoke Commission.

WHITE: Yeah, okay, and it just simply remained essentially the same thing under a different name.

BURKE: Well, well, it’s, evolution has brought it forward; it’s a lot more modern, it’s a lot better, they have a lot better standards and so on.

WHITE: You had certainly an underlying program, I mean so much hasn’t changed. But local government was fragmented then, the way it is now.

BURKE: Yes, absolutely.

WHITE: Do you remember what you had to contend with in that line? Or was it just generally working...

BURKE: Well pretty much, you see I worked on the Mellon Plan, I guess in nineteen fifty-three. And we, I have always believed that the local government should be combined. Sure, it’s the same thing that we are talking about this very time.

WHITE: Was there a merger plan while you were mayor?

BURKE: No. 63:00WHITE: Not during then.

BURKE: They tried it in ‘53, and thereafter we were able--Judge Hollenbeck and I worked very closely together and we were able very much....Now I did a couple of things, which I thought were important. Louisville was doing things which a city should not do. All over the state, for example, public health was operated by the County Health Department for reasons only that they had to do it, I guess, in the nineteenth century. The City of Louisville also had a City Health Department. So there was a City Health Department and a County Health Department in Louisville and no place else. So we decided the way to get rid of that was simply do away with the City Health Department. And we did. 64:00We also looked at the fact that the City of Louisville was appropriating a lot of money, a lot of money by its standards, not by modern standards, to support the University of Louisville. Well, under the Statutes and the Charter of the University of Louisville, Louisville had no business trying to support a University. It was a disservice to the city and it was a disservice to the University. So with a couple of years notice, as we did with the health department, we withdrew the support of the City of Louisville from the University of Louisville. So we were trying to let Louisville render the services which it should render and we did.

WHITE: And the county continued to support it? Or the State?

BURKE: The county had, the University of Louisville? Neither. The county had never supported the University of Louisville, 65:00and then thereafter, the University of Louisville went into the state university system. On the health department the county had no alternative; counties’, health departments were the standard for the state.

END OF TAPE ONE SIDE TWO BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE ONE WHITE: ...two thousand and we are going to continue our conversation. Let’s start with the fact that we are right now living through what is probably a unique election in American history. Unique for its closeness and unique for the fact that it is being contested in Florida. So, I wanted to ask you what you remember about a somewhat similar election, since you were in Congress in nineteen sixty when Kennedy defeated Nixon.

BURKE: Well, I remember the events surrounding it of course, because not only was I in Congress, I was re-elected to Congress in that election. And it was a very close election, 66:00and I ran considerably ahead of President Kennedy in the Third Congressional District of Kentucky. But it was close. So I do remember the controversy surrounding it. And as I recall--and this is a long time ago--as I recall, there was controversy. Some people who supported Mr. Nixon, alleged that there were vote frauds, or at least miscounts or something in Cooke County, Illinois; and there was talk about all the various things that could be done. But nothing really was ever done, except a lot of talk. I assume there may have been talk about reciprocal allegations of election misconduct in other places, 67:00but nothing ever happened from it. I do remember--as you may know--the presidential electors make their report to the Congress, and there is great formality about it. The report of the presidential electors is brought into the House of Representatives chamber in a great, big wooden box and is placed up on the Speaker’s desk; the Speaker’s platform, if you please. It is bigger than a desk. And since the joint session is presided over by the Speaker and the Vice-president--Vice-president Nixon was one of the presiding officers who had to receive the report of the presidential electors, saying that he had come second; 68:00which was a fairly dramatic day, but all in good humor. Well, of course it was a long time after the election.

WHITE: Okay, let’s just go back and pick up a couple of things. First of all, I wanted to ask you about the cancellation of city support for the Health Department and for U of L, while you were Mayor. And what was the process behind that, how did you go about doing that? Was it unilateral, did you talk to the county, how did it happen?

BURKE: Well it certainly wasn’t unilateral, nor was it done suddenly. It was the determination of city government. This was no individual determination by me, that the city could not and should not, even theoretically, be supporting a Health department; which was probably 69:00the only independent health department in Kentucky. The structure of public health services in Kentucky is such that there is a State Health Department, and then each county has a County Health Department over the previous couple of hundred years, I suppose. Because the Louisville population was so much larger than any other city in Kentucky and so much larger than the county, that although there was a Jefferson County Health Department, there was also a Louisville Health Department. And it had become an anachronism. The way the structures were made up was that there should be a county health department. So, it was determined on that instance that, with a good deal of notice, I forget if it was one or two fiscal years, everybody who was involved was told that after such and such a date, 70:00the city would not include in its government structure a health department. It was not mandatory. So that was done simply by a re-structuring of city government; just saying to the County Health Department, this will be like it is in the other one hundred and nineteen counties in Kentucky, after such and such a date, the county’s public health will be your responsibility.

WHITE: And did you, were they part of the process? Did you talk to the County Health Department all along?

BURKE: Oh sure, oh yes.

WHITE: So they were in agreement.

BURKE: I’m not sure they were in agreement, but they had no choice. They had no way they could require the city to have a health department.

WHITE: And what about the U of L?

BURKE: That was simply a matter of appropriation. The University of Louisville, a great institution of which I’m 71:00an alumnus, and almost everybody in my family are alumni. (Laughing) The city--the University of Louisville had a very, very tough time financially. And one of the ways that their ability to finan, to finance their needs was that, it had become customary that the City of Louisville just plain appropriated certain amount of money each year to the University of Louisville. Well, in the first place it became obvious once again--as was the situation with the Department of Public Health of the city--that that was not an appropriate expenditure for the city’s tax money. The University is not a department of the city, nor a joint city-county agency; or 72:00any of the other ways that the city expends its meager funds. So, once again, over a couple of fiscal years, the city simply informed the University of Louisville and its Trustees that this relationship was going to end; and that such and such fiscal year would be the last one in which money was appropriated by the University--by the city, to the University. That was done. And as we know the history since then, the University ultimately became a part of the state system and functions very well now. It was sort of a crutch that this independent municipal university was leaning on, obviously it was not realistic.

WHITE: Did the U of L have a hard time with that?

BURKE: They did.

WHITE: So they had to go out and find other means for its support?

BURKE: I think they did, 73:00 yeah.

WHITE: Okay, on to another thing you mentioned, which was being campaign manager for the Mazolli, all of the Mazolli campaigns...

BURKE: But I wasn’t campaign manager for all of them. I certainly worked in all of Congressman Mazolli’s campaigns. I was the named campaign manager for his first one in nineteen seventy. I worked in every one of the eight after that.

WHITE: And how can you describe, let’s start with the first campaign. What do you remember about that campaign?

BURKE: Well, now we must put this all in perspective. When I was in Congress, in the late fifties and early sixties, the description of congressional districts in Kentucky was such, that the Third Congressional District consisted wholly 74:00of Jefferson county. It was not as small as it is now. The Third District of Kentucky was one of the probably unconstitutionally large districts in the United States. This one, and in Harris county, Texas, which was Houston; which at that time had one congressman. But by the time Congressman Mazolli ran in nineteen seventy, the congressional districts had been re-described; and it consists, as it does now, of the City of Louisville and certain other areas. As we know, a part of Jefferson county now is in the Second Congressional District as well as what--but at that time, the portions of Jefferson county which were not in the Third District were in the Fourth District. And so I was in the Third District, 75:00Gene Snyder beat me in nineteen sixty-two in the Third District. Charlie Farnsley beat him in nineteen sixty-four. That was the last election in the Third Congressional District, I think, held under the old description. I may be wrong on that. But by the time Ron Mazolli ran for Congress in nineteen seventy, he was running against the incumbent, who probably was Bill Cowger? I think. And that was the smaller district; that was the district as had been reconstituted. And Ron was a very popular state senator, but he was running against an incumbent congressman, who had been mayor, and who was very popular. And the election was about as close as the one we’re talking about now in the year two thousand. 76:00I do recall, that on election night, it appeared that Congressman Maz--that Mr. Mazolli, at that time, had not won. And among others, I suggested that he go home, and certainly not concede; because, not that we were contesting the election, but it was close enough that we were going to have what is called a re-canvass. A re-canvass is different from a contest, there is no allegation. Any candidate can get a re-canvass. At that time we were using the voting machines which you used to click down little handles, and then you operated a big handle, which cast all of your votes. What you did at that time--so that there could be a re-canvass, under the supervision of the County Court Clerk and the Election Commission and representatives of all candidates--you 77:00went to the place where the voting machines were brought on election night; which was in the basement of what we now call Louisville Gardens, the old Armory. And they opened the back of each machine and they got out the tally sheet, because what had happened in each precinct at that time--and as far as I know--well it is computerized now. What happened is they took--you took the back off of each machine and the polling place people then read the numbers from the back of the machine; which were written by hand onto big sheets, which were then sent to the election commission. Well you can see with several hundred machines in which the numbers were being copied by hand, the opportunity or the occasion for any possible transposition of numbers or addition errors, is tremendous. 78:00And it was very close. I don’t remember if the original numbers looked like Congressman Mazolli had won. It was extremely close. And it took till about Thursday or Friday of that week to get all that done, at which time it was determined that Mr. Mazolli had been elected to Congress, where he stayed for about sixteen years.

WHITE: Do you remember anything about the issues on which he ran?

BURKE: No.

WHITE: Okay, it’s been a long time. And does anything jump out in your memory about subsequent Mazolli campaigns? He was a very popular congressman.

BURKE: He was very popular, certainly kept getting re-elected. He did have a couple of--a couple of very close elections; but I would have to do a little research to try to make specific comments on those campaigns. 79:00WHITE: Well that’s okay, but nothing sort of leaps out?

BURKE: No, no.

WHITE: All right, perhaps it’s time to move on now. You were Chair of the Certificate of Need and Licensure Board.

BURKE: That’s correct.

WHITE: And do you remember when, and do you remember what that involved?

BURKE: I do. I was appointed to the Chairmanship of the Kentucky Certificate of Need and Licensure Board by Governor John Y. Brown, Jr.. We may be able to go back and find which specific year, but it was during the administration of Governor Brown. And I served on that Board for maybe, I don’t know, either eight or twelve years. I served until I finally convinced Governor Collins that I didn’t want to be on that Board anymore. (Laughing) But the Certificate of Need and Licensure Board and its structure has been changed now. Under the uh, 80:00really the federal laws, as well as the state laws, if you wanted to provide a health service; and that means, build a hospital, substantially increase the expenditures of money or the investments in a hospital or a nursing home, or almost any other health service, you had to get permission from the state. And it came in two forms, first you had to acquire what was called a Certificate of Need, that was intended to keep unnecessary duplication from being built; then you had to have a license; and the applications of all of the hospitals in the state and the nursing homes and other suppliers of health services, had to be approved by that Board. For example, I remember the long controversy that took place concerning 81:00the competing applications, in Louisville, between what was then Humana and Jewish Hospital for various licenses and permissions to provide heart surgery, both adult and pediatric. But that will give you an idea of what that did, it was a very demanding thing, went on for a long time. It’s a little different now, the Board is made up differently. But it was a very challenging and I hope valuable service to the state.

WHITE: Do you--was that a time when hospital beds--there was a time when there was a controversy over how many beds a hospital needed. And hospitals were...

BURKE: That’s the Board that decided where there--there was a State Health Plan; 82:00but that’s the Board that under law interpreted the State Health Plan to determine where and in what portions of the state and all kinds of things, hospital beds, nursing home beds, all of the facilities were needed. That was what the Certificate of Need was for.

WHITE: Right. Okay and how about the Kentucky Employees Retirement Systems Board of Trustees?

BURKE: All right. I was elected, as a retired member of the County Employee’s Retirement System, to the Board of Trustees of the Kentucky Retirement Systems. The Kentucky Retirement Systems consists of three retirement systems: the State Employees Retirement System, the County Employees Retirement System and the State Police Retirement System. It does not include the teachers, which is a separate system. The 83:00Board is made up in this way: there are two members elected by the active and retired members of the County Employees Retirement System. There are two members elected by the active and retired members of the State Employees Retirement System. There is one member elected by the active and retired members of the State Police Retirement System. The State Commissioner of Personnel, Director of Personnel, whatever that job is currently being called is an ex-officio member; and then there are three members, citizen members, appointed by the Governor; and that Board administers those three systems. The County Employees Retirement System consists of persons who are in 84:00public employment by county, city, board, everybody around the state except state employees, who are in the state system. But service within those two systems is portable, if you’re working today for Franklin County and go to work for the state, you can take your service from one of those systems into the other.

WHITE: Could you then?

BURKE: It became so while I was on the Board. The Legislature did that.

WHITE: Do you remember whether there were any controversies about benefits while you were...? Major ones?

BURKE: Well there were, there were, yeah. In every retirement system there are always controversies about benefits. The people who draw the benefits want more, and the Legislature who has to provide them sometimes listens. And it is the duty of the Board to consider what you can afford to pay; because 85:00you’ve got to be able to provide benefits not only for somebody who’s going to retire next year, you’ve got to provide benefits for an eighteen year-old person who came to work today, so that the money is there when they retire forty years from now. (Laughing) Yes, there’s always controversies on that. And without going into detail there were a number of controversies having to do with the fact that at one point, while I was on the Board, the Legislature wisely provided that from a certain date forward, everybody who was in local government, in state, in public safety, as police and fire, had to be in the county system. This did away, prospectively with a number of small retirement systems around the state. And there was great controversy 86:00about the transferring of people from one system to the other.

WHITE: And then lastly about that one, how serious and did they exist, any controversies about unionization?

BURKE: About unionization?

WHITE: Or does that not come under the retirement? Maybe it doesn’t come under you.

BURKE: No, that doesn’t come under the retirement system. We certainly--I went through a whole lot about collective bargaining in the city of Louisville when I was mayor. But collective bargaining is not involved in the retirement system.

WHITE: Do you remember anything in particular about the collective bargaining while you were mayor?

BURKE: Well we had a firefighters strike.

WHITE: Was it long lasting?

BURKE: Less than a day.

WHITE: Okay. (Laughing) BURKE: But it was a little frightening when you realize that the fire houses were 87:00being manned only by people who were willing to come to work under very difficult circumstances.

WHITE: But you solved that within a day?

BURKE: We did.

WHITE: Okay. Well, as often happens in these oral histories, you get to a year, like nineteen seventy-three, when you went back into law practice.

BURKE: Right.

WHITE: And you are aware that, that was almost thirty years ago.

BURKE: That’s right.

WHITE: And you know—what--is there anything you would like to say particularly about...?

BURKE: Well, I enjoy practicing law. However, some of these things that you’ve talked about, you’ve got to remember, happened since nineteen seventy-three...

WHITE: Right.

BURKE: The retirement system...

WHITE: That’s true.

BURKE: The Certificate of Need and Licensure Board, those are things that I did, in addition to practicing law. I’ve been involved also in a number of other civic things, which I still try to pay attention to. At one time 88:00I was a member of the Board of Overseers of the University of Louisville. I’ve been a member of the Board of Trustees of Spalding University. I am now a member of the Board of Directors of Kerry Todd’s Health Systems, which has succeeded the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Health Systems. I’ve been involved in a number of civic enterprises and Boards and Commissions and so on, which I think we all owe to our community.

WHITE: Anything give you particular pleasure?

BURKE: I...all of them.

WHITE: All of them.

BURKE: I enjoy public service. (Laughing) WHITE: Spoken like a public servant. (Laughing) Any other, anything else you want to comment on before I ask you to wrap this up with some kind of a perspective, just as a citizen or as a walking around human 89:00being, as Judge Gordon used to say?

BURKE: I don’t know, you know, we can wrap this up about some comments, any way you want to.

WHITE: Well, let me ask you to comment on anything you have learned or found or think from the perspective of a citizen of two thousand, who has been a public servant, who has been in politics, just any thoughts that you might have now, looking back and looking at the present.

BURKE: Yeah, I sure will. You know, you hear about people talking about the “good old days”, I think these are the “good old days.” (Laughing) I think things are vastly improved over the years. You remember the first day that we did some of this conversation. We looked out the window from this very office, and I could show you, down on Eighth Street where my grandfather’s tailor shop was. 90:00If we look over to the right, your left, on there, you see a couple, pictures of a couple of my great-grandchildren; so we’re talking about--I have known in this community, six generations of my own family. (Laughing) And I know there are other people who have known a lot more than that. But I think things are a lot better. I think we live better. I think, I hope the behavior of people is better. We’ve come through a great many things. We’ve come through situations where we used to have divisions in this community by race. We used to--you know, it was a year after I was born that women could first vote. (Laughing) And I think the rights of all kinds of citizens have been vastly improved. And I think overall--although certainly 91:00we’ve got a lot to do to help persons who have been left behind--but I think economically that this community, and the world--the United States is a lot better off than it used to be. Government probably runs more efficiently than it used to, I think government, local government, state government, federal government have adapted, or adopted, however you want to look at, the modern means of communication and of record keeping and all that sort of thing. I think things are better. I hope so.

WHITE: Thank you very much.

BURKE: All right.

END TAPE TWO SIDE ONE END OF INTERVIEW