Hellard: [microphone noise] —your disagreement, although not a bitter
disagreement with Secretary Vinson over the repeal of the excise—excise property tax, you want to pick up that point. And I understand that had nothing to do with your—with your—your determination to return to , that you had been thinking about that for some time—: Oh, he and I agreed on it for some time.
Hellard:But you merely been there to help get him acclimated as secretary of the treasury?
:Yeah. Now, perhaps since we’re leaving , at least in a metaphorical sense, I
think I would like to summarize just a little bit, if it’s not excessive verbosity, what I would regard as the highlight of the work that I was engaged in in . Emphasizing that in many cases I was only on the outer fringes, and not portraying myself as a sort of a major figure at the center of everything. I—I was more close to the—I was closer to the center of some things than of others. But I was just thinking the other day about what those things were because I was having a visit from my friend Joe Rauh, who remembers all those things so well. And of course I’ve talked about my experience with Justice [Felix] Frankfurter and that’s been; I’ve dealt with that at some length. I think the highlights were my work in the Department of Justice with respect to reforming the practice of the immigration system, getting the refugee artists and intellectuals out of Germany. Then my—my work at the—at the Office of Emergency Management, which was sometimes known as the Lend-Lease administration, in which we worked on speeding up supplies for—for England and Russia before we got in the war, where I worked with Phil Graham and Joe Rauh, Oscar Cox, and quite a few others. And where we got involved also in the so-called Victory Program, which was a program to enlarge the defense effort in the way of munitions and planes and supplies to a—a level which would permit a victory in the war and not merely to keep alive or keep alive. And in that connection we worked very closely with a great Frenchman who was one of the most brilliant and effective men I’ve ever known in the world. He was at that time working for the British supply mission, being in exile from , and his name was Jean, J-E-A-N, Jean Monnet, M-O-N-N-E-T, who later was the architect of the Common Market and of the , which was certainly one of the great economic and political achievements of the postwar period. And we worked very closely with him. And the principle effort of all that was to raise our sights enough, because the war and navy departments, particularly in the beginning, were very slow to assess the magnitude of the task that faced us in producing enough supplies, not merely to keep the Germans from overrunning the British and the Russians, but to turn this around and win the war. And all that effort was based on the underlying and unstated assumption that we were eventually going to be in the war. We didn’t know how we’d get in it or when we’d get in it, but we never had any doubt that we would be in it. That was the second major task on which I worked, just as one of several. And the third, and the one where I probably played the—the biggest part, although not the most, not the biggest, but the biggest as far as I was concerned, was the economic stabilization effort from 1942 till the end of the war, in restraining wages and prices, keeping the civilian economy functioning and at the same time providing enough material to fight the war. And I really believe that the accomplishments of that effort to manage the economy during World War II were almost miraculously successful. It—we spent 50 percent of the gross national product on the war. We restrained inflation. We had less inflation during that—World War II than we had during the late ’70s and the early part of this decade, much less inflation, and at the same time actually increased the civilian standard of living. The civilian living standard of this country was better at the end of World War II than it was before we went in World War II, despite all the resources of manpower and all the resources of material that we put into the war. And that was a—I—I have always thought, was—was a very significant accomplishment. And it wasn’t without flaws, but it—it was significant. And I was always very proud to—to have had a small part in it. ’Course men like Justice [James F.] Byrnes and Judge [Fred] Anderson and Paul Porter, and William H. Davis, chairman of the War Labor Board, all played major parts in it, much more so than I did. But it was a—a very, very significant achievement. So when I—I felt when I left Washington that—that I was very happy and proud to have had a part in some very significant activities, even though my part in them was perhaps insignificant.Hellard:Now, before we—before we leave Washington, let me just toss out
some—some names of—and—of—of individuals and groups that may or may not have been prominent, you may have had some opinions on them, but they were certainly active during that time. Fellow named Francis Townsend, Townsend Plan.:Oh, old Dr. Townsend?
Hellard:Now, he—
:I never—I never knew him. He was a fellow out in —
Hellard:Well, how do assess his impact on the times?
:Oh, I think he had a big impact. I think his proposal was crazy, but I think
his impact on the times was great. He had a lot to do with the improvements in Social Security, with the whole, you know, in that sense he was a kind of an illiterate prophet of what you might call the age of the gray panthers. He first mobilized, he fell onto the secret of mobilizing the old people, the elderly people, as a political force, and the needs of the elderly as a high-priority item on the public agenda. He himself was kind of half nuts. And he was going to give every old person two hundred dollars a month, which at that time was a phenomenal amount of money, and finance it by a so-called transactions tax, which would have been very inflationary. But you might say that things like Social Security and Medicare, Wheels on—Meals on Wheels, and many of the things that have come to benefit the older people of this country got a great impetus from Dr. Townsend. Although I thought he was a nut.Hellard:Do you think that was a general perception of—of—of Dr. Townsend at the—
: Yeah.
Hellard:—time—
:Yeah.
Hellard:—time?
:Oh yes. I don’t know anybody, you know, any thoughtful person in public life
that took him seriously as a person, but they took the forces that he unleashed as very serious. Namely the older people that wanted better treatment.Hellard:How about Father Charles Edward Coughlin?
Prichard:A sort of a demagogue, eloquent demagogue, who at first latched on to
the discontent of the—of the ’30s and the failures of the economy and appealed very much to those people—the small merchants, the small farmers, the small business people—who were feeling themselves dispossessed first by the Depression and second by the advent of large corporations, large business enterprises. And he built and played on their resentment. He was a monetary crank, wanted to monetize silver as a solution for all the problems and he had lot of banking legislation he proposed, most of which was kind of irrational. But he had a—a great impact on stirring, what I’d say, what the French would call and the Marxists would call, the petty bourgeoisie, the small middle-class people, into resentment. But of course, he turned that resentment, like some of the dangerous European demagogues, or sought to turn it, into racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism. And he really became a kind of apologist for the Nazis before he was silenced by his bishop. And I thought he was a very dangerous man. But I think Roosevelt, through the New Deal, and particularly the second New Deal, and some of the things like reforms in taxation designed to redistribute wealth more equitably and some of his other programs, I think he defused Townsend and Huey Long to a great extent.Hellard:What about Huey Long?
Prichard:Huey Long was one of the most brilliant people that was ever in public
life. He was almost a genius. He was eloquent, bright, effective, completely cynical, ruthless, but he and, he like Coughlin appealed—he appealed to somewhat the same constituency, except his was more southern and Coughlin’s more mid-western and western, but they appealed to the little people. And Long had his program—every man a king and share the wealth. All of which was very vague, all of which dealt in generalities. And at the same time he was proposing those seemingly radical measures, he himself was trading and dealing with the oil companies and the other special interests in Louisiana. But he had a tremendous impact on the—on the feelings of humble people. And they—they—they, in a way, you know, threatened Mr. Roosevelt on his left flank, but he defused them very effectively. And then of course the assassination of Long and the coolness of the church authorities toward Father Coughlin really ended their, you know, Long never left a movement that had any vitality. Once Long was shot it was all gone. It was really a highly personalized effort. His eloquence and his brilliance was the whole thing. And there never was anybody associated with him in his organization that was capable of carrying anything long—on and there was no permanence to it. Coughlin was the same way.Hellard:Is there a—a comparison to be made between the Father Coughlin and Jerry
Falwell of the Moral Majority?Prichard:Yes, except that Coughlin—
Hellard:I know we’re getting a little ahead but I—
Prichard:Yeah, Coughlin touched on—on very real problems and so did Long. I mean
the people that they mobilized had real suffering, real problems, real deprivation, people who had been—mostly they were people who’d accumulated a little bit and then became impoverished. They weren’t so much the people at the very bottom of the heap. They were the people who had maybe accumulated enough to have a little business or a little farm or a little home or a fairly decent white collar job and had been wiped out by the depression, and who felt that they had been pushed down the scale. Falwell I think appeals to some of those same people, but Long and—and Coughlin were preaching to them about their economic grievances. Jerry Falwell is preaching to—to them about their social and moral grievances—abortion, homosexuality, loss of family ties—Hellard:What about nuclear weapons?
Prichard:Well, their they’re extremely—Huey Long never—never had much, you know,
interest in foreign policy. He was sort of an isolationist and so was Coughlin. You know both of them were—were really wanting us to turn inward. Falwell really has a foreign policy and he prevail—what he’s doing is, is preying on the emotions of those people who somehow feel that America is weakened in the world and that we can no longer make our writ run throughout the world and we’re dealing with forces that are powerful in the world like the Soviet Union and the third world. And I think in that case, Fal-—Falwell is cultivating a kind of xenophobia and a—and a feeling that we must militarize.Hellard:Well, what about, generally, Henry A. Wallace?
Prichard:Well, I knew—now you have named the first one that I really knew. I—
Hellard:Well, I was just interested in your perception of what these people were
like at the time and what the reactions to them and what impact they may have had on—Prichard:Well, I knew Mr. Wallace, I knew Secretary Wallace very well. We—we use
to take walks together, and we were personal friends. And somewhere I’ve got an autographed picture that he gave me. I think Henry Wallace had a fertile mind. He had a strong conscience. He was a very decent man. He was not a very—I don’t know how to explain it—he wasn’t a very—didn’t have a hard mind, he was a little soft. And he—his ideas about the century of the common man, and 60 million jobs, and a good many of the other things that he advocated were very sound and later turned out to seem much less unusual and unattainable then he—than was the case when he was made fun of. But I think there was a mystical side to Wallace that made him very vulnerable. You know, he got involved with a guru, the guru letters, got to believing that you could communicate with people in the other world. And that mystical side weakened him as a public man. And then when he—Hellard:Was that—was that a period of mysticism?
Prichard:Sometimes, but not generally, no, not generally. I—I would say less so
than now maybe. But he was taken up by it. And he—and then when he—when Truman kicked him out of the cabinet when he opposed the cold war policy, Wallace found that he was embraced by the Communists and their sympathizers in this country. And a good deal of the effort that went into his 1948 campaign for the presidency came—not all of it but a great deal of it—came from people who were closely tied to the Communist movement. And I think this weakened and impaired his effectiveness because he seemed very naïve about the Communists and about their influence. While I was never paranoid about the Communists, I—I think I knew their modus operandi, and I always felt that—that they could kill any movement that allied itself with them, and Wallace was hurt by that. And of course once he made that race, he was never a force again.Hellard:Did he—was he a man of ego?
Prichard:I wouldn’t have said—
Hellard:( )
Prichard:—a supreme ego, no, I would have said not.
Hellard:But he actually thought that what—it wasn’t that he was just motivated
by his own self interest in asserting his own ideal—Prichard:No, I think he was very idealistic, very sincere, but a little fuzzy. I
think he—and much of what he thought was very intelligent. His programs about agriculture were intelligent. I think his notions about the postwar economy were intelligent. But I think on foreign policy his opposition to the cold war, while it had some good points, I mean the cold war wasn’t a policy that was undebatable, there were things about it—and ultimately the cold war crea-—had its excesses and—and we had to retreat. And really the beginning of the retreat from the cold war was President [John F.] Kennedy after the Cuban Missile Crisis. That was the beginning of our retreat from the cold war. But Wallace was ineffective in his opposition to the cold war because he was naïve and didn’t see that we really did face a problem with the Soviet Union. Now, whether the cold war was the right way to deal with it is another question, although I think it would have been pretty hard to involve—to have not been involved in some heavy conflict with the Soviet Union after the war, World War II. But there might have been better ways of dealing with it than the cold war, but Wallace didn’t have them. Wallace, it seemed to me, was rather naïve about it.Hellard:What about a group called the Progressive Citizens of America?
Prichard:Well, that was the organization he formed to be his political—
Hellard:Now, he formed that?
Prichard:Well, I thought he—
Hellard:I’m asking, I’m asking about—
Prichard:I think he was the chairman of it. I think he was the chairman of it.
It was the beginning of his third party in 1948. This is what happened, as I recall. In 1944, you know, Mr. Roosevelt always had not only the main-line Democratic Party, but he always had groups in his campaigns that—that were allied to progressive forces and nonpartisan forces outside the mainstream of the Democratic Party. I believe that in 1944, in his campaign, you had two of those forces. One was the CIO Political Action Committee headed by Sidney Hillman, which was primarily bent on mobilizing labor in the Roosevelt campaign, and the Progressive Citizens Political Action Committee, which was formed to enlist the intellectuals and the nonpartisan progressives. And I’m not sure that Henry Wallace wasn’t the chairman of that. He certainly— Rex Tugwell was in it. Henry Wallace was in it. And then when the cold war came they split off from the Truman administration and became the Progressive Cit-—Citizens Political Action Committee and that was the nu—nucleus of Wallace’s third party, the Progressive Party.Hellard:What about the Americans for Democratic Action?
Prichard:That was formed in reaction to Henry Wallace. When Wallace carried the
Progressive Citizens Polic-—Political Action Committee, in effect, into opposition to the Truman administration and to the policies of resistance to the Soviet Union. Many progressives, left of center people in the political structure, felt there was a need for a liberal or left-of-center organization that was not compromised by connection with Communists and Communist sympathizers. And it made clear the opposition of the progressive movement in this country to Communism and totalitarian methods. It was what used to called then a movement to mobilize the non-Communist left. Not to lead the left, or what passed for the left in our political structure, to the Communists. And a group met in I believe 1946 or early 1947 for the purpose of organizing liberals and progressives for independent political action friendly to the Democratic Party, but not wholly its captive, and clearly separated from those elements in the left and in the labor movements which were sympathetic to the Communist cause.Hellard:Now, are you active in—
Prichard:I was one of the founders of it, along with Joseph Rauh; Eleanor
Roosevelt; Reinhold Niebuhr; Bishop Shield of Chicago, Catholic Bishop; Paul Douglas, later senator from Illinois; Ken Galbraith; Hubert Humphrey; Senator Joe Clark of Pennsylvania; many others if I could think of them; Wilson Wyatt, who was the first national chairman of it. And I attended the organizing meeting in Chi-—in New Yo-—in Washington that set it up, and was on the board for a few years.Hellard:Well, what—at—at the time that it was organized and—and Wyatt became
first chairperson, what did—did he do anything to gain national prominence?Prichard:Yes. He had been—of course he was mayor of Louisville and attracted
some national attention as a big city mayor. And he—he had been named as federal housing administrator during the [Harry] Truman administration, that attracted him some national prominence. He was seriously considered for appointment as solicitor general, which attracted national prominence. And he was well thought of by Mr. Truman and Joe Rauh had been his deputy in the Housing Administration. And through that, perhaps with his contacts with me and Joe Rauh, he became interested in the Americans for Democratic Action when we found it, and he was the first chairman of it. His interest in it waned after awhile and he wasn’t active in it in later years, and I was not either. Not because I didn’t sympathize with it, but I had other problems. But it continued through many years to have a real impact on our—on our politics though.Hellard:What about Strom Thurmond?
Prichard:[laughs] Well, I had no, you know, whatever contact—I never had any
contact with him, let’s put it that way. He was not in Washington when I was in Washington. I knew of him only at a distance. I never had a very good opinion of him. I always thought he was a demagogue and a racist and a reactionary. But he was not in the Senate, he had—governor of South Carolina. I don’t know whether he was elected that until after I came back to Kentucky.Hellard:Has he done anything over the years to make you change your opinion of him?
Prichard:No, [Hellard laughs] none whatever. [Hellard laughs]
Hellard:But he was a Dixiecrat presidential candidate?
Prichard:He was indeed. Supported by Mr. [A. B. “Happy”] Chandler and the
Woodford Sun. The chairman of his party in Kentucky was O. W. Baylor, the editor of the Woodford Sun. The first name on the petition to put the Dixiecrat electors on the ballot was Mildred W. Chandler.Hellard:What—as you were getting ready to leave Washington, what—what—how would
you describe—and this I guess are two hard questions—how would you describe your image that you envision having with your friends—or your friends had of you? And on the other hand, how would you think your critics would characterized you, and—and excluding President Truman, because we’ve already talked about what some of his perhaps opinion of you? But you’re bound to—Prichard:Both—
Hellard:—you’re bound to have had a friend—
Prichard:—I hope I made it clear that we got to be kind of good friends later.
Hellard:Oh yeah, you did, you did, but you—you had made a comment that you knew
that President Tru— [end of tape] You want to say something for me, Prich?Prichard:Five, six, seven, eight.
Hellard:This is side two of tape nine of the Edward F. Prichard interview, this
is the thirteenth day of April 1983. Now, I just asked you about the—the images that your friends and—and the characterizations your critics might attribute to you as you left Washington.Prichard:Well, that’s hard for me to assess. It assumes perhaps a bit too much,
you know, that I was a highly significant figure [laughing] and that everybody lined up and took sides. I—I don’t know that I was that important, but I would suppose that—I don’t know—I would suppose that what my friends thought about me would be better said by my friends. I—I certainly had lots of good friends who have been devoted and loyal through all the years in and out of season when I was in good times and in bad.Hellard:Wait, Audrey needs to see you.
Secretary:Mr. Prichard, Dennis ( ) is calling you. Shall I tell him you’ll call
him back?Prichard:No, I’ll talk to him right now. I’d better. Please stop a minute. [tape
turned off and on]Hellard:Okay, now we’re back on. Now in reading—your bound to have had
friends—like Philip Graham I’m thinking about, or Joseph Rauh, or Henry Royce—who—who you had conversations with about your aspirations, and they would give you some idea of—of where they expected you to go in life or—Prichard:Oh, I’m sure that some of the good many of them expected me to come
back to Kentucky, run for high office with a chance of success, I'm sure. But that, some of that was romance, some of that may have had some basis. They all wanted me to come back, or most of them did. But as to what they thought about all the particular traits of my character and personality, I’d—I’d rather leave them to say. I can tell you what my critics would have said, that I was ambitious and brash and bumptious, and smart-alecky, and inclined to be indiscreet and reckless.Hellard:Incompetent, would they have said you were incompetent?
Prichard:Well, I don’t know. I would have said, I don’t know, I—I don’t remember
very many people ever being caught saying that I was stupid or incompetent, [Hellard laughs] but if they said it, it didn’t get to me.Hellard:Yeah.
Prichard:I—I would think, I’m sure there were some that thought I was too smart
for my own good.Hellard:Well, in your own perception, what was the difference between the Ed
Prichard leaving Washington and the one that came there as a clerk to Justice Frankfurter?Prichard:Not very much except that I’d had more experience, met more people, had
a little broader perspective on things. But I don’t think there’d been any fundamental change. You know, I just had a bigger canvas to paint on and a bigger scene to play in, but I don’t know that I had played all that major a part. But I—I don’t really believe I’ve changed much more since been, since I’ve been here than I ever changed in the years I was there.Hellard:Well, now at what point did you—did you actually decide to come back to
Kentucky, and at what point did you start making preparation, such as decisions about where you were going to practice law, with whom you were going to practice?Prichard:I don’t know that there ever was a time when I didn’t intend to come
back to Kentucky. I had always had it in mind to—to come back here and practice law and be active in public affairs. I don’t think I had any specific ambition, —even though some people may find that hard to believe—that I ever had any specific ambition to be—hold some office. I certainly never ruled that out, but I never believed that it was wise to set one’s whole life to the goal of some specific ambition because that made disappointment too galling if one didn’t get it. But I certainly was—was interested in public office, public life. Justice Frankfurter, from the time I knew him in law school, always encouraged me to return to Kentucky. He and his mentor [Louis] Brandeis always felt that young people ought, in greater measure than was a fact, go back to their own communities and try to play an active part in life and affairs. So I—there never was any time that I didn’t intend that. I don’t know that I ever considered going to New York or practicing in Washington. Never a time in that period. And it was always just assumed by my friends that I was going to return when the war was over.Hellard:Well, did you ever have any offers to—to, overtures from law firms or
friends, to practice in New York or Washington?Prichard:Never serious ones because they always knew what my intentions were.
And I—I don’t recall a serious overture or offer that I had. Now, I had one—I had one sug-—you know, suggestion when I was about to come back. Tom Clark, who was that time in, who was attorney general at that time, and Robert Hannegan, who was chairman of the Democratic National Committee, suggested that I become the head of the antitrust division in the Department of Justice. And I told them with thanks that I wanted to come back here, and that I didn’t think that would be consistent with my intention to come back here. But that was just always my—my intention, and I—I had my time set to come back when the war was over.Hellard:Well, at what point did you—had you always kind of thought to come back
and practice with Phil, Phil Ardery?Prichard:I don’t know about always, but we had talked about it even when I was
in law school. And we discussed it when he got out of the service, and we just decided to do it.Hellard:Well did he—he didn’t have an on going practice, or set up practice at
the time then you all opened together?Prichard:That’s right. I—it was right when he got back. He perhaps had opened an
office in Frankfort a couple of months earlier, but we had always had that intention. And we had, you know, my office was in Lexington and his in Frankfort, we were partners, and we’d go back and forth, but—Hellard:Well, how was it starting in law practice then? Was it difficult, or did
you find there were clients ready for you to open your doors?Prichard:Well, I—
Hellard:Did you have a particular kind of law you wanted to practice, or did you
want to be a small country lawyer?Prichard:I don’t know that I had ever thought all that much about it. I—we did
well. We—we had just the kind of clients you would ordinarily get in a place like Lexington or Frankfort. We represented the rural electric co-ops for several years. I suppose originally when I opened the office, there were probably a goodly number of people that wanted to employ me, or employ us—but primarily me in this aspect of our practice—on matters in Washington, tax matters, Price Administration matters, things in the Department of Agriculture, things of that sort. There was some of that in the early stages. But, you know, we did well. I don’t know how phenomenally well, but we did well. Had no—no great problems.Hellard:Now, at what point did Bob Houlihan come into practice with you, or was
he ever a partner, did he just share offices—Prichard:No, no, he was an—he was an associate. He got out of the service and he
was looking for a place to come and he came and—in Par-—Lexington and worked with me till he went with Stahl, Keenan and Park. Al Funk was in with us, he had just gotten out of law school.Hellard:Now, what year would this have been, Prich? ( )
Prichard:Well, I came back, we opened up in the fall of 1945.
Hellard:Forty-five. And how long about—were you back before you began to take
part in state politics, or local politics for that matter?Prichard:Well, I don’t guess I was back at all, I expect, you know, I did a
little of that before I ever came back. You know, when I was in Washington I would keep in some touch with Kentucky politics. And when I was in Washington, Earle Clements had been elected to Congress and came up, I believe he was elected in the fall of 1944, and so he got to Washington in January of 1945. I had known him before. He and my father had been in the legislature together, he in the senate and my father in the house. And my father liked him very much. And he and I formed a close friendship almost from the beginning. And that friendship has continued ever since. And I suppose he was my—that my two closest allies or friends in Kentucky politics in that period were Earle Clements and R. P. Moloney Sr. Dick was in the state senate, was the floor leader, Democratic floor leader in the senate. And his office was in the same building as mine here in Lexington. And we got in the habit of eating lunch pretty nearly every day out at Bud Adams’, you remember that place?Hellard:Yes, indeed.
Prichard:Well, we’d to out to Bud Adams’ and eat lunch. Bob Stilts use to eat
with us sometimes, Bob Houlihan, and—Bob wasn’t all that much tied up in politics, but—Prentice Douglas, who was an insurance man here in town, has—still in business. His office was in our building. We were all cronies, politically.Hellard:What kind of—what kind of—how would you describe R. P. Moloney?
Prichard:Well, he was a unique person. He was witty and bright, very astute
politically, had a little something of a temper, had a razor-edged tongue, rather inclined to be sarcastic, didn’t have many of the graces of a politician in the sense he was not a great hand shaker, he was inclined to be somewhat abrupt, but he had a sharp tongue that he could turn easily on himself. And he was a great wit, a good organizer, and I think through the years of his service in the legislature became more and more addicted to really a concept of public service. When Dick started out, he was kind of a precinct politician, strictly an organization man, but his legislative experience greatly broadened him. And he probably was the most effective legislator that I have ever known in Kentucky, became that. More skillful at organizing the legislature, more skillful at piloting legislation through or killing bad legislation. He was a man of great brilliance and yet in many ways kind of a shy man. But I enjoyed him very much and admired him very much.Hellard:Do you recall any anecdotes or—about Mr. Moloney?
Prichard:Oh, I can recall some of his—he was inclined to be rather abrupt and
inclined to have strong likes and dislikes. I can remember some of his—some of the things he use to say. If he got mad at somebody and was fixing to operate on him he’d—great phrase was, “I’ll make his ass pop like new leather.” [Hellard laughs] Meaning that he’d give him a good whipping. He was—he knew how to operate in the realm of ideas and policies and in the most practical ways also. He—he became a very powerful force in the Clements organization, a very powerful force in the legislature. He became the dominant force in Fayette County Democratic politics. More or less before him the dominant forces at year—here had been people like Ernest Thompson and Walter Rhodes Sr., some of the old-timers. And he just annexed them, and really was pretty much a supreme force in the—he had come out of the old Billy Klair organization originally. And he probably had a power that was equal to or more than that that Billy Klair had had in his heyday. He—he was sharp tongued, short tempered, but—Hellard:Did he always remain with the Clements faction?
Prichard:Who me?
Hellard:No, no, Mr. Moloney.
Prichard:Not really. He—he came close to a breech during the period when Wilson
Wyatt was running for governor and Bert Combs was running too. Because, ’course, Earle Clements was the—was the main force in the Combs organization. Dick Moloney was for Wilson Wyatt. He got impatient because Combs couldn’t make up his mind whether he was going to run or not. So when Wyatt got in the race, why Moloney was—Moloney was very much for him and was probably one of the principle forces in his campaign. Then when Wyatt and Combs came together and formed their ticket, Earle and Dick came back together, but they never were quite as close as they had been before.Hellard:When you got back in the fall of ’45, I guess, as always, the Kentucky
governor’s race was—was getting under way for, what, ’47?Prichard:Right.
Hellard:And that would have been [Harry Lee] Waterfield and Clements?
Prichard:Right.
Hellard:And you, I believe, were the Clements—on the Clements side, and your partner—
Prichard:Was on the Waterfield side.
Hellard:—was on the Waterfield side. What that by design?
Prichard:No, it certainly was not.
Hellard:Like Congressman Rouse and Paul Ring use to do—
Prichard:No, no.
Hellard:—he on one side and one on the other?
Prichard:No, no.
Hellard:Was this philosophical differences or—
Prichard:Well—
Hellard:—personal differences?
Prichard:Waterfield had served in the legislature with my father. My father had
been a—a supporter of Waterfield, you know, in the—in the legislature, and they were good friends. And one of the clients we represented was the rural electric co-op. And in the 1946 session of the legislature, there came very prominently to the fore a piece of proposed legislation called the Moss Bill, which was introduced by Senator Ray Moss, a Republican from Bell County, but was really supported and sponsored by Kentucky Utilities. And the purpose of that bill was to modify the existing legislation relating to the acquisition of private power companies by public authorities and make it more difficult, put barriers in the way of public ownership of electric power. Well of course our firm—in the first place that was our belief, and in the second place, it was our client’s position, that we were opposed to that legislation. And we had a very dramatic series of hearings and confrontations that occurred during that session. And we beat that Moss Bill. It was a dramatic hearing over there in the house one night. It passed the senate. And I made a big speech against it, and it was credited by some people with being instrumental in its defeat. And Harry Lee Waterfield helped us in that. And I really felt very bad about the situation that put me in personally. Phil was for Waterfield and continued to be for him. And Waterfield had—Phil ran for United States Senate in nineteen and forty-six in the primary, the primary in which John Y. Brown Sr. was nominated. And of course John Sherman Cooper defeated him in the—in the fall in 1946. And of course I supported Phil, contributed heavily to his campaign, raised money for him, worked for him, but he got beat narrowly. And Waterfield, at least to some degree, supported him. Earle Clements I think sort of stayed on the sidelines, but he didn’t really do anything to help Phil. And that aroused resentment on Phil’s part. As far as my own relationship with Waterfield was concerned, I liked Harry Lee all right and would have been glad to be for him, but I was already committed to Clements long before this legislation came up. And Clements had assured me that if he became governor, he would not to anything to injure the electric co-ops. And I felt confident that he would keep that promise, which he did. Indeed, they got their first what they called G&T certificate of authority during his administration. That was a certificate from the Public Service Commission that allowed them to build their generating and transmission plants, which they were very eager to get into. And that was the origin of Big Rivers in east Kentucky. They both got their—got into business as a result of decisions made by the Public Service Commission during the Clements administration. Nevertheless, Phil felt that he was obligated to be for Waterfield. And he felt some resentment that the—that Clements and the Clements people hadn’t really gone to bat for him in his race against Brown. Moloney, by the way, supported Phil and worked hard for him, and we carried this county [Fayette] over Brown by a small majority. There wasn’t much vote cast in the whole state. So that was the origin of our having been divided in that race. It certainly was not a situation in which one of us decided to be on one side and one the other because the—the race caused some bad feeling between Phil and me.Hellard:When did—did you—did you realize that Phil would probably run for
office? When you entered in practice with him, or was that kind of a revelation after the fact?Prichard:A little bit of a revelation after the fact. I didn’t get him in the
race. He wanted to get in, and when he wanted to get in, I—I helped him all I could and contributed very substantially to his campaign.Hellard:Do you think that he felt like you had done all that you could do?
Prichard:Oh yes, don’t think there was any—
Hellard:No, no problem there?
Prichard:You’d have to ask him, but I—I don’t think it is. I had no indication
that he felt that way. But I think that he did get a resentment against Clements on that, and maybe thought that I had not done what I should do for our clients because I supported Clements. I not only supported Clements, but I went out and made speeches for him.Hellard:I was going to ask you what your role in the campaign was.
Prichard:Oh, very active. I worked with him all the time, went with him on
speaking tours, made speeches for him all over the state, helped write his speeches.Hellard:At that time, did you pretty well know people all over the state, I
mean, talking about county contact people and judges and so forth, or was this kind of a part of your learning process and introduction process to that—that phenomenal network of people you seem to have out there?Prichard:I’d known them for years, lots of them, because I had been, remember
that I had been active off and on in Kentucky politics since I was a boy, and certainly since the first Chandler campaign [in 1935] when I was very active for Chandler. I had supported Mr. [Frederick A.] Wallis of Paris in the first primary, but I knew he wouldn’t win. And I had made my mind up early in that campaign in 1935 to support Chandler in the—in the run off primary. And I had something to do with the—even as a kid—with helping pull together the Klair crowd in being for Chandler. They’d been for Wallis in the first primary. And course as you remember, Chandler lost the first primary. And when the second primary came along he won. So he and I were on very good terms and I—through that I got to know a lot of the local people and a lot of the others. I’d known a lot of the local politicians since I was a boy. So I don’t—I never felt that I acquired, but I extended my knowledge of it during the Clements period, no question.Hellard:Can you—can you recall any, oh, particularly colorful political
characters of that time?Prichard:Oh, [Emerson] Doc Beauchamp. I got to know Doc early. John Y. Brown
Sr., whom I’d known since boyhood. Judge Irvin Turner from Breathitt County, who had served with my father in the legislature.Hellard:Is that Marie’s husband?
Prichard:Yes, that’s right, certainly was. That’s when I got to know Marie.
Virgil Chapman, Lewis Cox, Dan Talbott—Hellard:Now, what I—I realize—
Prichard:—Bob Humphreys—
Hellard:—were all these people that were initially in the Clements organization?
Prichard:Well, some of them were initially in the Chandler organization. Some of
them were initially in the Tom Rhea organization. I got to know them back in those years. Some of them were—ended up in the Clements organization certainly.Hellard:Well, there—
Prichard:Doc Beauchamp did—
Hellard:Our tape’s about to go Prich.
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