SIDNEY McMATH - DAVID PRYOR transcript four

SIDNEY McMATH - DAVID PRYOR

DAVID PRYOR: Governor, speaking of the integration crisis and the development of rural electrification and the public school system that you so strongly supported with great passion and the Medical Center, I've always associated two (2) people with you. Two (2) people who are still very prominent in Arkansas. One of those persons is Judge Henry Woods. The other is Leland Leatherman. These gentlemen became your law partners but yet early on in your career, they were your friends and mentors and advisors and if you don't mind, I've heard a story about you and Judge Henry Woods. This was many years ago when you were thinking about running for Governor and I believe Henry Woods may have come to Hot Springs, an avid President of the Young Democrats and you're trying to find somebody to manage your campaign. Do you mind sharing that with me?

SIDNEY McMATH: I remember that. Of course, Henry and I have been friends seemingly forever. His mother and my mother were friends. His sister, who was much older than Henry and my mother were friends and we both graduated from Hot Springs High School. Of course, I was ahead of Henry probably about four (4) years but when I was elected Prosecuting Attorney in 1948, of course, there was speculation about me running for Governor. And Henry, at that time was practicing law in Texarkana. And he was the President of the Young Democrats and he came over to see me in about any way he could help me in the campaign. And I said, "Well, I'd like you to be my campaign manager." Of course, being the President of the Young Democrat, well naturally as big of an organization that they were, a live-wire organization back then.

PRYOR: That's right.

MCMATH: They were well organized and active back then, probably more so than the Democratic Party.

PRYOR: That's right.

MCMATH: And so, I said, "Would you be my campaign manager?" He said, "Well", he says, "How much money do you have?" I said, "Well, I've got $1,500.00 cash and I've got $1,500.00 promised." He said, "We can win on that."

PRYOR: That's the power of positive thinking.

MCMATH: Can you imagine starting off a campaign with $1,500.00 cash and $1,500.00 promised?

PRYOR: Oh, my goodness. That wouldn't pay your filing fee. It wouldn't pay for one (1) 30 second TV.

MCMATH: Well, Henry stayed with me in every campaign I've ever been in and he was my right-hand man when I was Governor.

PRYOR: He's a real thinker, isn't he?

MCMATH: And you talk about Leland.

PRYOR: Leland Leatherman.

MCMATH: Leland, he was my good friend in Hot Springs and it's always been when I needed him and when I left the office when the good people of Arkansas retired me in '53, Henry and Leland and I opened up a law office and we practiced together for some 25 years until Henry went on the bench. And David, we did it all on a handshake. No written contract. We've never had a cross-word or an argument about a fee division or anything else. It was a perfect relationship.

PRYOR: That's great.

MCMATH: And of course, when Henry went on the Court as the United States District Judge, he had the segregation cases arising out of Pulaski County and so forth. And in his early decision he held that the school districts in Pulaski County should be consolidated. See? And of course, in 1948 one of my objectives after I was nominated, after I was elected, we wanted to consolidate the schools. There were too many of them, some 700 school districts. So, we supported that Bill to raise the millage 18 mill limit on schools and also to consolidate the schools reducing them from 1700 something to around 1500. See? And it's still too many. We shouldn't have more than, certainly more than one (1) school district per county. But anyway, Henry believed strongly that these school districts in Pulaski County should be consolidated and he so held but the 8th Circuit Court of Appeal didn't agree with him and he was reversed. But you can imagine the time and money and energy that could have been saved instead of it all being in the court room and this emotional effort of integration and segregation and so forth had been put in the classrooms. See? And so he was correct about that and had a lot of vision and a lot of foresight and a lot of courage. And then on the race issue, in 1948, in September of '48 when they changed the rules of the Democratic Party to let blacks in to the party, Henry led the floor fight.

PRYOR: It was at the State Democratic Convention.

MCMATH: State Democratic Convention down at Robinson Auditorium in September of 1948. So, we got this Bill introduced and Henry led the fore fight to get it passed. See?

PRYOR: But you had done a lot of state work before. You had worked a lot of people.

MCMATH: That's right.

PRYOR: That could have been a very explosive moment for the State Democratic Party.

MCMATH: Yeah, we did a lot of ground work on that before we went to the convention.

PRYOR: Right.

MCMATH: We had the leaders there and so forth and we tried to point out to them the direction we should be going.

PRYOR: Right.

MCMATH: Now, you know, it's so basic. You know, when you go back to the Declaration of Independence, our forefathers were inspired that all men are created equal. Well, if they're created equal, they should have an equal opportunity to find their talents, to hone their skills, to be competitive, to be good citizens. See? And then the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States. "We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union establish justice." Justice requires that everybody be treated equally, that everybody be given an equal opportunity in this land. See? That's why so many people want to come to this world. You know, they're beating down the doors to get in to the United States because of the freedom. And, of course, that's another thing about the '57 incident. See, that gave the wrong impression. See? That flag stands for freedom. Run that flag up to the top of the pole, people say that stands for freedom for every man, woman and child. See? And so, Henry, he's a great Judge and he was a good friend and Leland, when we began practicing law together, he took the attorney job representing all rural electric cooperatives. So, we maintained our relationship with rural electric coop.

PRYOR: Well, now speaking of a real visionary, Leland Leathererman, in my mind, is truly an Arkansas visionary.He saw there was so much earlier than the rest of us did. You've always had a great impact on, not only have they had a impact on you and the young men of Arkansas coming up, but you had an impact on them and vice versa but one...

MCMATH: A perfect relationship.

PRYOR: One of those young men that we've not mentioned that you've touched early in his life, was a young bond salesman, a young financier by the name of Jack Stephens in Little Rock and you, if I'm not mistaken, he became the youngest member of the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees and you appointed him.

MCMATH: That's correct, David. Jack and I became acquainted early in the campaign and he supported me, I guess, in every election I ever ran, certainly in the early days and I thought he would be a great service on the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees because he and I had a shared philosophy about educational opportunities for everybody, you know. And Jack was on the Board for, I guess, ten (10) years and did an outstanding job.

PRYOR: He certainly did. And let me put in a plug, if I might, Jack Stephens today is a primary supporter of this program that we're initiating to teach Arkansas history in our school systems.

MCMATH: I'm proud to know that.

PRYOR: And we had a seminar not too long ago in Fayetteville and we brought 50 Arkansas teachers there to teach them how to teach Arkansas history and to teach other teachers how to teach Arkansas history and he was a very, very generous financial supporter of that cause and remains so to this day. He's done a wonderful thing in all of these years but in recent years what he's done with the Arts Center and many, many other causes.

MCMATH: Well, that's an indication of his vision and his willingness to be a public servant.

PRYOR: That is correct. Well, Governor, Henry Woods and Leland Leathererman and Jack Stephens and all of these people that you have watched in your productive life, and by the way here you are, two (2) more years you're going to be 90 and you still have passion. You are known basically as a winner but you did not always win. Let's talk about that election, if we could, and we won't go in to it in great detail of 1952. By the way, I lost a race one time and still, I don't know, I think I've won nine (9) or ten (10) races or 15 or so. I've been on a lot of ballots but I lost one one time to John L. McClellan in 1972. Still in the grocery store people say, "David, I'm going to tell you why you lost that race in 1972." They don't talk about the ones that I may have won but they talk about that one that I lost. You lost one in 1952 and it was a big blow. Tell us about that.

MCMATH: Well, the '53 race, when I ran for the third term, I shouldn't have run.

PRYOR: '53 or '52?

MCMATH: '52. The '52 race, yeah, '52. It was a new term again.

PRYOR: Okay. I see. Right.

MCMATH: I should not have made that race. See? The power aligned against me was just overwhelming. See?

PRYOR: You had taken on a lot of groups.

MCMATH: Oh, man, yeah. You know, they said that they had the highway audit thing. See? And that was spectacular, used, and they held it until the beginning of the race in 1952 in the spring by releasing all of these charges about my administration.

PRYOR: And let me say this. Ultimately no wrongdoings were found.

MCMATH: And three (3) Grand Jury went through this business. And the Chairman of the Highway Audit Commission was a member of the Board of Directors of Arkansas Power and Light Company. On each of the Grand Juries, they were either members of the Arkansas Power and Light Company Board of Directors or representatives. See? So, and so then in the second Grand Jury, they had private funds to hire a private prosecutor to see that, you know, everything was covered and then the opportunities to get an indictment were passed over. Well, after three (3) Grand Juries in succession, they came up with two (2) indictments of the highway employees and the first indictment was thrown out by the Trial Judge for lack of evidence and the second trial went to the jury and the jury was out four (4) minutes and returned a verdict of not guilty for that particular defendant and all of that was a result of the highway audit.

PRYOR: But your attention and your focus and your resources of energy were focused on this episode. I mean, you were consumed with this.

MCMATH: And of course, you know, it's hard to defeat the allegation.

PRYOR: Sure.

MCMATH: To defeat the allegation. See? You've got a Blue Ribbon Grand Jury coming out with all of these charges and so forth. The first Grand Jury found no indictments but two (2) members of the Grand Jury were associated with the Arkansas Power and Light made a dissent. There were a lot of statements about, well, they should have been indicted and so forth, putting so much heat on the Judge that he called another Grand Jury and that was the one that they hired private prosecutor and the Prosecuting Attorney, the regular Prosecuting Attorney didn't know anything about it and the Judge didn't know anything about it. When he found out, he dismissed that Grand Jury and then they called the third one and then they came up with the two indictments.

PRYOR: There were a lot of people in that campaign and I guess in '52 that was the race that Francis Cherry of Jonesboro ultimately won.

MCMATH: Yeah.

PRYOR: He had, as we call it, a "gimmick" that worked that year and that was, of course, the talk-a-thon. Do you remember his talk-a-thon?

MCMATH: Yeah, I sure do. Yeah, that was Francis. He was a Chancellor. We were in law school at the same time. We ran on the same ticket for when I ran for President of the Student Body, he ran for President of the senior class. We were on the same ticket. See? And so, I've always known Francis but he's a Chancellor.

PRYOR: Sure.

MCMATH: And Judicial and so forth. The President of the Arkansas Power and Light Company was against me at that time naturally. He saw, he came up with this talk-a-thon because a candidate in Florida had used it and had won and it was a natural for Francis. So, he prevailed on Francis to use it and it was great for him. See? You had to call in, you know, and you have people call in and ask questions about me.

PRYOR: Oh, yeah, he would on those little radio stations for hours and hours as long as people would drive up and give the money to the station owner or manager. They'd bring cherry pies, and the cherry ice cream and all of that business.

MCMATH: He's the one that Orval beat for a second term.

PRYOR: That is correct. So, a few years later...

MCMATH: And again, there were several interesting characters in there. One was a former Judge and Prosecuting Attorney. See? And another was a former Congressman and they were all from different parts of the state and another one at the time or would be Attorney General.

PRYOR: That's right.

MCMATH: And so, the Arkansas Power and Light Company had each of the headquarters. So, when I was eliminated in the July primary. I mean, when I was second in the July primary, no, I lead the ticket in the July primary and so Francis and I went in the run-off. Well, they all joined, all of them and our senior Senator and the President of Arkansas Power and Light Company gathered in Jonesboro and endorsed Francis. See? And so, I was defeated and as I say, I shouldn't even raced.

PRYOR: Well, you didn't stay out of politics very long. You still had, you're still that fire horse and you still had that passion in you. You wanted to do something. So, the thing you did is two (2) years later, you ran, not for Governor again, but you challenged John L. McClellan. Senator John L. McClellan in 1954.

MCMATH: Right.

PRYOR: And this was kind of at the peak of the Joe McCarthy era.

MCMATH: Right.

PRYOR: And you took on John L. McClellan. Talk about that race a little bit.

MCMATH: Well, in the first place John McClellan and I had been good friends. I campaigned for him when he was first elected for Congress. See? And, but we got cross-wise because of the power issue, you know, and he was against President Truman's program. See? So, I ran against him in 1954 and was defeated. That was, at the time of the McCarthy era and this is, I think is a little interesting antecdote. McCarthy was running for re-election at the time Eisenhower was running for President and they were on a joint program in Minnesota. And McCarthy had been accusing General Marshall of being a Communist. Well, President Truman revered General Marshall was one of the great generals we've ever had. See? And so, of course, he took exception to that but Marshall, he would have been the Commander of the Forces in Europe except he was needed by Roosevelt and he was needed by Truman. Anyway, President, General Eisenhower and Senator McCarthy were on the same platform in Minnesota and McCarthy had been attacking General Marshall and the candidate for President, General Eisenhower was going to respond that he made that attack on this particular occasion. Well, General Eisenhower listened to McCarthy make his tirade among, he's running against everybody and his accusations against General Marshall and when General Eisenhower made his talk, he didn't say anything on behalf of General Marshall. He didn't take exception to McCarthy.

PRYOR: Did not defend him.

MCMATH: Did not defend him. Well, President Truman did not like that. He did not like that and when President Truman was going out of office and General Eisenhower was coming in as President, you know, the custom is that the incoming President go up to the White House and escort the outgoing President down to the limousine and they ride together out to the Capitol for the swearing in ceremonies. Well, General Eisenhower didn't get out of the car and he didn't get out and open up the door for the President to come in. Well, of course, President Truman didn't like that. He didn't care what you thought or did to Truman but he revered the Presidency. See? And so on the way out, things were kind of tight and...

PRYOR: To say the least.

MCMATH: Yeah. General Eisenhower said, Mr. President, he said, "I want to tell you for a long time why I wasn't at your inauguration." He said, "Well, you know, that was your day and I didn't want to interfere with your inauguration and your day to take publicity away from you on that day." And the President Truman thought about that for a minute and he said, "General, do you know why you weren't at my inauguration?" He said, "By cracky I didn't send for you."

PRYOR: Wow. That was tough stuff, wasn't it?

MCMATH: Eisenhower was the Commander of the NATO Forces at that time.

PRYOR: Wow. Well, do you remember, I never will forget, we were in high school at this time when Harry Truman fired Douglas MacArthur, General MacArthur and our whole school got to listen on the intercom to that address and then it came out in 45 rpms, that address that old soldiers never die, they just fade away. And I committed great hunks of that speech to memory and shortly after that I became a Page in the Congress and I used to think about that great, some of those great, not only his speech but that was one of the great orations ever delivered to the Congress.

MCMATH: Of course, MacArthur was a great General, there's no question of that. But he had some conflicts with President Truman on foreign policy. President Truman was trying in the worst way to keep from getting into a III World War. See? See, the Russians had gone in and trained the north Koreans and equipmented them and then the Chinese came across the Yaloo in November of 1950 and it looked like we were going to get involved with China and are troops were being driven out of south Korea and so forth and he had some big decisions to make and Eisenhower, it looked like, I mean General MacArthur was taking issue on the President's foreign policy issues by using the bomb for example, by using Chang Ca Chek and so forth and so President Truman, you know, he made a trip to Wake Island to visit...

PRYOR: That's right.

MCMATH: ...to visit with General MacArthur and get from him his evaluation of the situation and see if they could come to an understanding and the main issue he wanted, the main question he wanted answered is whether the Chinese are going to come in. See? And those Marines up around Choce Reservior and were making contacted the Chinese patrol. But General MacArthur assured him that, well, he says, "All this commotion about the Chinese coming in, their statements they've made, that they're not going to come in to this war." And so, President Truman went home and he hadn't been in the Oval Office very long and so the Chinese forged on, the armies were coming across the Yaloo and of course, things deteriorated and of course, he had to release MacArthur and of course, he had the advice of General Marshall and the Chiefs of Staff and so forth. They had problems with him.

PRYOR: That was a momentous time in our country's history and MacArthur was almost God-like figure there.

MCMATH: He was God-like. He was running for President.

PRYOR: Yeah, he did run for President. By the way in 1954, a little tid bit of history, we're talking about some of those campaigns. I believe it was in September of '54, that Joe McCarthy was censored by the United States Senate. A censor came down against him. In the war, in World War II, I've heard you speak of this often and I know that you feel very strongly about it and you've probably developed an expertise in this field that no one knows much about. Tell us about Bauxite, Arkansas in Saline County, very briefly, and its contribution to the World War II war effort if you would.

MCMATH: David...

PRYOR: Very few people know about it.

MCMATH: David, I appreciate you asking me that question. You talk about history. This is a dramatic chapter in the history of Arkansas and the history of the country nobody knows about. That the average person doesn't know anything about it. You know, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt announced to the world that we're going to build 100,000 airplanes. Well, you have to have aluminum to build airplanes and the experts didn't think that he could do it, that we could do it. Hitler didn't think we could do because at that time the bauxite that we were using was coming from South America and the Nazi naval blockade had sunk these ships bringing up bauxite and at one time, I mean, blockaded the South Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico and so we weren't getting that source of bauxite. And Alcoa had had a very conservative policy of conserving their resources for the future. See? So, they were using this South America bauxite. Well, Roosevelt knew something that the experts didn't know and that Hitler didn't know. He knew about Bauxite, Arkansas. 95% of the bauxite in North America was in Bauxite, Arkansas and he knew about the people that would be called upon to go in and dig it out. The people at Bauxite and central Arkansas went in and worked around the clock to dig out that bauxite and aluminum was produced and planes were built and battles were fought and victories won and the 8th Air Force, we just observed "D" Day on June the 6th. They had a mission and that mission after they made the landing was to prevent Rommel and three (3) crack Nazi divisions from launching a counter attack against our beachhead. Well, Rommel had his divisions ready but he was waiting for orders from Hitler and Hitler was asleep and nobody would even wake him up. And when he got the orders it was too late because the 8th Air Force had destroyed the lines of communication, the railroads, the highways and so forth leading down to the beaches and so the Nazi troopers never got there and the planes that the 8th Air Force was flying were made from aluminum mined out from Bauxite, Arkansas.

PRYOR: What a great story.

MCMATH: Isn't that a great story? It is a thrilling story. Bauxite was mined to make that aluminum.

PRYOR: One, I think was developed, has developed to this as a story and once again it's a great part.

MCMATH: And to say this about Alcoa, it's a great company. You know, they just scarred the earth down there to meet the defense demand. If you'd flown over it, it looked like Mars or the moon but do you know what they're doing? They're working with the Game and Fish Commission to rehabilitate that land and restore it to its natural state and turn it all into state parks.

PRYOR: That's great. That's just great. Now, here you are, you're practicing law. You're out of office. You've run against....