Speaker:    
Governor A.B. Chandler

Inominate Society
Date:     December, 1973

 

Dr. Hume: ...Give you a brief background as to why I’m here.  It’s more or less a personal thing.  This trip arose out of a paper that I’m trying to get together on more or less the history of Kentucky medicine, going way back and coming up a little more recently than some of the other ones... papers have.  I think there was a big W.P.A. paper back in 1940 on the history of Kentucky medicine mad into a book, and I like, really to use this for some talks that I’m going to give in the Louisville area to various medical meetings and then If I can get it together in the form of a paper for the (           ) Journal which is the stationary on which I wrote you.

 

Gov. Chandler:     Sure.

    

Dr. Hume:     That will be fine.  My background is just, really though, as a private physician interested in Kentucky medicine.

    

Gov. Chandler:  Sir, where do you practice?

 

Dr. Hume:     I practice in Louisville.  I’m a surgeon, I’m second or third generation Kentucky doctor.  Just to give you my background, I am the editor of the (               ) Journal, which is sort of part-time job, but, went to school in Louisville, and away to school...to med school at Harvard and came back here and stayed up here and did (         ) for a while... and came back here and ...you knew, I guess, a distant cousin of mine, Edgar Erskin, who’s...

 

Gov. Chandler:     Very Well.

 

Dr. Hume:  ...over in Frankfurt, and an uncle of mine who’s in politics in the Republican house here.  That was (        ) Hume.

 

Gov. Chandler:     Oh sure, oh sure.

 

Dr. Hume:     So that was my uncle and my dad...

 

Gov. Chandler:     What is your middle name?

 

Dr. Hume:     Walter, Walter Hume.  My dad was a surgeon...

 

Gov. Chandler:     Walter, and where were you born?

 

Dr. Hume:     I was born in Louisville.

 

Gov. Chandler:     In Louisville.

 

Dr. Hume:     Yes, and our family came out of Washington County, a while back, so we’ve been around these parts long enough for my curiosity about things in Kentucky and especially medicine in Kentucky to be fairly high.  There are a lot of people...have done a lot more study on it than I have, and so I’m really using this as a learning experience for me to try to get together some information and figure out what’s going on.  I know, because I started to do this some years ago.  I know that you had a close relative...and I think it was a brother of yours and he was quite ill at one time or another, and then that you had your interest in medicine personally involved.  And beyond that, I don’t know the details, and I would like to just sort of throw it open to you and I have some...two or three little questions here, but basically maybe you could give me your background of how you were involved and how you saw the development of the medical school at U.K.

 

Gov. Chandler:     Yes, well my interest in medicine in Kentucky, of course, started in my childhood, and the nearly total absence of well-trained and well-educated doctors was apparent to me when my brother fell out of a cherry tree and broke his neck in 1914 in Edison County between (     ) and Edison City and there wasn’t any doctor that knew anything much about it, and he died in a week and I was convinced...

 

Dr. Hume:     How old was he...

 

Gov. Chandler:     ...14 and I was always convinced and still am that if they’d had some medical...proper medical attention that he would have lived, cause otherwise he was rugged, and then my second brother graduated with honors from the medical school at the University of Louisville years later.  This is years later, in the 40’s, and he was interning at Balls State Hospital in (         ) and they undertook to operate on him for tonsils.  He never had been sick I his life, and they gave him (         ) and he died on the operating table in 3 minutes.  Of course these doctors were (       ) and (        ), and they called me and we talked at some length about...I was the commissioner of (          ) then. I’d already served as lieutenant governor of Kentucky and of course the doctors were good men and they did not know that he was allergic to this (          ) but he was, and they failed to make the proper test which would have shown it, and of course we had to tell my father and broke his heart.  Of course, this was the smartest boy we produced in my family.  We have three boys and one girl and this fellow was the smartest of all of us, and so my interest in public health sure goes back to my boyhood days in Edison County.  And then of course in 1929 I was elected to the state senate of this district.  I had graduated from law school after going to Harvard and the University of Kentucky and over Transylvania, the first college west of Allegheny Mountains.  I came here in 1922 to coach the football team and teach school and to undertake the practice of law, and so I went to the state senate from this 22nd district.  In 1930, I was elected in 29, in the district that was comprised of Scott and Woodford and Jefferson Counties, and when I went to the state senate, I met Dr. McCormack, Dr. Arthur McCormack...

 

Dr. Hume:     ...a very impressive man...

 

Gov. Chandler:     Dr. McCormack gave me the finest compliment I have ever gotten and I...you never forget the finest compliment you ever get, if you get good compliments, and of course I’ve always judged that to be the finest one, and he made to me...he said he wished I could be governor every other time as long as I lived, and he knew that if I was the governor that public health would have high priority, as it out to have had...always ought to have had and I say I learned that in childhood and it was Dr. Arthur McCormack and his father who were the commissioners of public health in Kentucky for 70 years continuously, and I used to tell the people when they asked me where the department of health was, and I said, that it was in Dr. Arthur McCormack’s pocket.  Well whichever pocket...if he changed clothes, and changed suits...well the department of health went along with it.  Dr. McCormack you may remember, that Dr. Milton Board had the Whipping Bill in the 1930 state legislature to take the Health Department away from Dr. McCormack, and his associates...and along with my friend Dan Tolbert of Bardstown who was a druggist, and who was Dr. McCormack’s friend, and who’s very skillful in politics...he’s got a grandson now that’s a lawyer with a Middletown firm out Louisville, and...this is J. Dan Tolbert who live in Nelson County, and he and Dr. McCormack were good friends and as a member of the state senate I helped beat that bill and help keep Dr. Board and his fellows from passing what they called the Health Board Ripper, which would have ripped the health department much in the fashion that this fellow’s doing it now under a different guise, and I hate to se this coming back because no good can come of it, and no good is intended to come in my opinion from it the way they’re reattempting to reorganize the health department.  But Dr. McCormack faced this task...he was a fighter, and knew in my opinion more about the public health...and the two things that he and I fought for all the time were...he wanted to help the department in every county, and strange as it may seem, my county was the last one.  This little county here.  It was 20th, of course this county is fortunately well off, and the well off get well-to-do counties who thought they’d advise their own affairs and didn’t need any health department.  They thought they could take care of their own, as they’re apt to do and then not do as they’re...yeah...well anyways, we were the last ones to get a county health department.  That was one of Dr. McCormack’s great ambitions, and I helped him get it...and another thing...one of his great ambitions was to have tuberculosis hospitals so we could rid the country of the threat and the deep concern that all of us had for tuberculosis.  It was quite a disease in the early days after the start of the century as you doctors all know, and Dr. McCormack was an unusual character because he knew,...he knew...every one of our budgets...he knew how much money I had in each one of them, and if I didn’t give this money to him form my emergency funds and others, he made me feel like I killed so many people.  He played on my like a fool, because he knew my great concern and it was genuine, for the help of all our people, and he called me “sonny” and Dr...Dr., the old doctor down at Glasgow...

 

Dr. Hume:     C.C. Howard.

 

Gov. Chandler:     Dr. Howard...Dr. Howard called me “Boy”, and he’d call me “boy” when I was governor the second time, and he’d come into my office and say “Boy, I want to talk to you about something” and I’d say, “oh, what, Dr. C.C. what do you want.”  It was Dr. Howard that...and your humble servant,...and I think he was mainly responsible for it, but I helped him...get up the country medical scholarship bill and I helped him with the money to find country boys who agreed to go to medical school and be educated and the go back into the counties from which they have come and help contribute to the health of their people, I think that was one of the finest things that ever occurred to anybody, and I say as far as I know Dr. Howard was mainly responsible for that in Kentucky...Dr. McCormack kept track of our budgets, and he was as genuine and determined and as sociable and always interested in public health and the public welfare of the people of Kentucky, and so he had a fellow in congress that helped him a great deal too at that time; Fred Vincent, and Fred Vincent arranged, who later was Chief Justice of the United States...Fred Vincent used to help...he used to drag on Fred Vincent and drag on me to get everybody because I say, he got on me like a fool...he got all my money that I could possibly afford and sometimes I thought more than I ought to give him, but the alternative was go home at night with the feeling that that day I killed some young people.  I couldn’t hardly stand it.  But Dr. Arthur McCormack...and then when we built the new health building which is at Frankfurt now...I saw to it that it was named for him, and I thought that was proper because as I say for 70 years, Dr. Arthur McCormack and his father had done more than anybody else to look out for the public health, and public welfare.  Now, then we also undertook to build these tuberculosis hospitals and I helped him with those, and helped him dedicate them and he...he did an unusual thing.  Every now and then some folks stopped me on the street, and thanked me for something that I didn’t know I had done, and when I questioned him, he’d say, Dr. McCormack told me to thank you because (         ) put up the money to help have his operation, which as I recall, I learned later that they took out maybe a rib or two and first thing you know the fellow was all right.  He didn’t have the tuberculosis anymore.  I didn’t understand it like he did, but he used to try to explain it to me that...absolutely, and he told me then what later developed that the doctors, through research and through great knowledge learned to control the larger of the tuberculosis and (        )

 

Dr. Hume:     You had little trouble...

 

Gov. Chandler:     Very little trouble with that now.  Well he told me that thing would come about, and I’ve always said this.  This is from my own experience.  I’ve said that the fellows in the profession do what they can...in the several professions...by education and by research and by diligence to discover the secrets that men are able to discover through research.  Modern medicine is not over a hundred years old.  I expect that about...fifty years...about modern medicine...I think it has to be said that during that time doctors have outstripped all the other fellows in finding ways and means to combat the diseases and the things from which people suffer and have made the maximum and the greatest contribution to the alleviation of pain and the longevity of the lives of our people.  That’s my observations of it.  Now, when I went back to the governors place the second time in 1955, course Dr. Arthur was gone, but Dr. Howard was still there of course and they mounted quite a campaign in Louisville...and the doctors...there largely the doctors from the University of Louisville Medical establishment against the building of that center.  That not only distressed me, but it alarmed me, and I thought they didn’t distinguish themselves and so Dr. Howard called me up one day and came in my office to see me and he said “Boy, how serious are you about this medical center at the university?”  “Well”, I said, “Dr. Howard, you know that I’m generally sober and serious about anything I undertake.  I have a feeling that this ought to be done because, “ I says, “I know this.  In the United States last year 15,000 young men, otherwise qualified and who wanted to be doctors had to be turned aside because there was no place for them in the medical schools in the United States” and I said, “I think that’s a great pity.  In 1949, this is 55 now, 5000 babies were born in Kentucky to Kentucky mothers without the attendance of a doctor at the birth of the child in Kentucky and” I said, “unfortunately a great many of the children died, but” I said, “worst than that too many of the mothers died, and” I said, “I think in 1955, I think that’s a great tragedy”.  In 16 counties in Kentucky we’ve got no dentists, and I think we need more doctors, and more nurses and more dentists, and of course they fought me tooth and nail over the whole thing and I was just absolutely astounded, but Dr. Howard, when I finished my conversation with him.  His question was “Boy, how serious are you about this medical center?”  And when I convinced him that I was serious all he said to me was, “All right boy, I’m not going to fight you.”  And he turned, put his hat on, left my office and he didn’t fight me.  And I followed him and Dr. McCormack both as far as you can all the way to the cemetery, and I loved them both very much and respected them both very much and so if Dr. Howard had fought me...I say he was a saint...he administered to the health of the people in his country there above and beyond the call of ordinary duty...Dr. McCormack did the same thing...I never could understand it.  I never was surprised by the people who were in charge of the medical school at the University and their associates and wherever they could influence.  They even to the paper, the paper was against it.  And they made...they made quite a fight.

 

Dr. Hume:     How did the idea come about in the first place.  Where...from where did it arise?  Was it really your idea or was it...or just an...

 

Gov. Chandler:     No, no we had a survey made showing conditions in the Kentucky...especially the eastern Kentucky.  The eastern Kentucky was just deserted from the standpoint of satisfactory health services, medical services, and I know one little county over here, Robertson, that had one doctor.  Well maybe that’s all it needed at that time cause there were only 2500 people in the county, but the ratio might have been higher there (              ) but there was only one doctor in Robertson county, and in several of the other counties there were one or two...or...not any more than that, and in 16 counties no dentists, and I knew about all those things.  I...we had that survey made and Arnold Hanger, a great friend of mine, who still lives in Miami, financed that study, that research.  He still lives in Miami, Florida and he’s from Richmond, and of course, it seemed to me the University of Louisville Medical Center was doing quite well.  It was a good school, but it was in Louisville, and the west...and nothing up there.

 

Dr. Hume:     Was there any group in Lexington that was really primarily interested in getting it going?

 

Gov. Chandler:     Yes, I think Dr. Massey was, Dr. Francis Massey, and Dr. Brick Chambers and a man named Steve Watkins who’s an engineer and a graduate of the University and a man named Dr. Colman Johnston, and a man named Dr. Fred Rainkins and I’m sure all those fellows all...Francis Massey’s a saint and we love him very much and he’s always looked out for me and my family and Fred Rainkens is one of my closest and best friends and I talked to all of them and they said to build it and put if over there, and in connection with the university then you can train doctors and then of course after I made plans to ask the legislature which I did, I asked them for $5,000,000 appropriations in 1956.  I went there the second time in December of 55, and I asked them for the appropriations (            ).  But we were able to get the appropriation.  The thing cost, give or take a little bit about 28 to 30 million dollars.  It costs 300,000,000, I expect now.  Of course, nobody will question it now about the wisdom of building it there, and I paid for it, indeed I’m not trying to...self-praise is half scandal, you understand, and so I’m not trying...I’m not running for anything...so doctor...I’m just trying to read the thing to you as it was, as it happened...

 

Dr. Hume:     I’m interested in hearing it.

 

Gov. Chandler:     I paid for it, built it and paid for it with the help of the money I got from the federal government as I did everything else that I ever did for the people of Kentucky while I was there, and I tried to soften the blow as far as the University of Louisville was concerned by making arrangements to give them money for research, which was prohibited in the constitution because it’s a state university...I mean it’s a municipal university and I have no authority to contribute people’s money to anything except tax supported institutions, and I tried...this is a long story too.  I tried to get the University of Louisville to come into the state system, but they wouldn’t do it, and...

 

Dr. Hume:     Who was Dean then, I’ve forgotten.

 

Gov. Chandler:     I have too.  Anyway it’s too late now, but it was not a wise decision.  Hey paid a frightful, doctor, to be a municipal university...it was the oldest one in this country, but the tax base was not broad enough to enable them to support what they wanted to do, and I told them, I said your fighting a losing battle and I’m not the smartest fellow in the world but I saw that a long time ago.  And I said to them come into the state system, they later came in, not a good time, for them, and resulted in this whole country boy system (               ) but if they had come in while I was there, I could have arranged for them to come over on a proper basis and they’d have saved time and money.  They were losing their professors, because it’s just as natural for fellows who could get more money someplace else to leave you and there’s not much sentiment about it...they leave you and go someplace else...I’ve learned that...at the university. The rest of the university...it wasn’t easy there either, because the other professors thought that if I built the medical center tat all those fellows would suffer, that they wouldn’t be well paid, and the first thing I did, I got Dean Willard to come and build that school.

 

Dr. Hume:     Now were you instrumental in having him come?

 

Gov. Chandler:     I hand carried him.

 

Dr. Hume:     How did you know him?

 

Gov. Chandler:     Well, Dean La Parre of Yale told be about it.  Dean La Parre, the Dean of the Medical School at Yale University told me about him and mom and I went to Europe in 1957 on the boat with Dean La Parre and his wife, and he told me...he said he’d be on top of any five lists, that you would get, and if you don’t get him, he said, tear up the lists and start all over again.  Now he was in Syracuse.  And I got Willard to come down, and I offered Willard $22,000.  Well, the president only got 12.  And so I called the president into the (                ) outside of the trustees room there and said “Frank, Frank Vicky,” I said, “I have to give you $22,500.”  “Well,” he said, “Governor, I don’t know how I’m going to justify that,” I said, “You don’t have to, I will.”  I said, because I have the idea that the president ought to get the most money.  I guess that may be a foolish idea but I said if two men want to ride a horse, one of them got to ride in the truck.  Now, I said I’ve agreed to pay Willard...I agreed to pay him $22,000.  Now Donovan and I got Willard together (          ) president of the university (        ) Dean La Parre of Yale recommended him and later he said this at the first commencement, and I’ll never forget this.  He said, “except for the promises and commitments made to me by Governor Chandler,” and I was sitting on the platform, “all of which were kept better than he said, I wouldn’t be here.”  He had a good job in Syracuse.  I got him to come and got him...paid him the $22,000...and offered to pay and did pay for moving Mrs. Willard’s furniture.  I said you tell her I said so.  Anyways that was as good a thing as ever happened to us because Bill Willard...and I also told him this...I said, “I know how to build a medical center...I want one properly built and staffed and they told me you know how to do it,” I said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll not interfere with you in any way during the time I’m there and I can commit myself through 1959,” and I said “I’ll not interfere with you in any way and I’ll not permit anyone else to if I know about it and I said “you have absolute authority” so from the time we built the ground until we had the first commencement building Bill Willard said freely that nobody interfered with him.

 

Dr. Hume:     Now politically, how did that school get off the ground.  You were on the board of the university.

 

Gov. Chandler:     Oh, I was chairman of the board, the governor’s the chairman of the board and I was chairman twice.   But politically it caused me to lose the governor’s race.  I lost the governors race in 63 on account of that.  They held it against me.  Well Louisville is such a big city.  Oh, it’s a third of the population and combs was elected governor, but they kept me out of it in 63...that was all right.  I was governor twice.  I didn’t have to be governor another time.  But I got this...

 

Dr. Hume:     You think this was really...one of the...

 

Gov. Chandler:     Oh...the main thing.  I got 263,000 votes in that primary, and that will win all the governors primaries from 1792 until now except that one.  So with the Courier Journal and all of its resources and the University of Louisville...almost the doctors without exception, the doctors almost without exception set out to punish me...and they had a hard time.  I got Dr. Done to come down here from...who’s head of the medical center at Ohio State University...and I had a great party for him one night and invited them all to come in, but I’ve conveniently forgotten most of those fellows down there, because they never did unbend.  I mean I don’t want to remember them because it don’t do me any good to remember, but I invited them all to come and have Dr. Done talk to them, and Dr. Done was one of the finest men that I’ve ever encountered in my life and he told them how absolutely silly and stupid they were...to be opposed to this medical center.  He told them with as straight a talk as he could give them, and it did some good, but how much I don’t know, but they took him a long time, and I’m not sure, I say that they’re even reconciled now...because I never got any good support down there after that, and they are the doctors who are influential.

 

Dr. Hume:     ...more of a threat...I wasn’t here at the time, but it was much more of a threat than I thought.

 

Gov. Chandler:     Oh yes, oh yes.  I thought I was fighting the second battle of the (               ) and I was so shocked and surprised because when your undertaking something for the public welfare, it doesn’t occur to you that they’ll be people, even though there’s nothing in the world wrong with it, and it ought to be done, and it ought to be done quickly, and it should have been done before.  There are people who still fight you back, and they don’t want you to do it and they don’t want it done.

 

Dr. Hume:     Was there a fair percentage of the profession, of the medical profession outside of Jefferson County that was against it?

 

Gov. Chandler:     Unfortunately for me, most of the influence from the doctors comes from Louisville Medical School outside.

 

Dr. Hume:     Well, of course most of them are graduates.

 

Gov. Chandler:     That’s right and they put on quite a contest.  They made quite a thing of it.  And I say with exception of Dr. Howard and a few fellows, oh boy, anytime I’d encounter a fellow and he was a doctor from...that is Francis Massey, and fellows like that who are from Virginia, I mean who graduated from Virginia (         ) Fred Rainkin who didn’t graduate from Louisville School, you know (              ) son-in-law, well those fellows...no trouble about them, they were all fine, but all the dire predictions that they made about first destroying that school and second about destroying the university because of what it would do to the professors in the other departments there, in the departments of education, and so forth.  Well actually it (           ) and of course the school now...of course then after I made arrangements to build a medical center and have them educate doctors, they were determined not to have a dental school, and so they fought that too.  Well the dental school after ten years, impartial observers now...are impartial people whose business it is to decide the proper rank for a dental school rank this dental school third in the whole country.  After ten years.

 

Dr. Hume:     I was going to ask you one of my little questions.  Has the medical school fulfilled your expectations.

 

Gov. Chandler:     Exceeded...done better...infinitely better than I ever had any idea they could do in ten years, it’s only ten years, and now they have...oh they have 2000 or 2500 applications and the tenth class next year will probably be 110, 114 or something, and they’ve just done a fantastic job and they’ve got doctors over here that are just out of this world.  They’ve got the most skillful doctors and they’ve got the most sophisticated equipment.  And then the government came along and built the veterans hospital adjacent to it and that’s the last work.  I’ve been through that and of course I was chairman of the medical center board too, you know, as a member of the board of the trustees.  This little stupid governor took me off, who’s...he’s an eight grade drop out from Yellow Creek and seems to be prouder of that than anything else, but I don’t get paid for that down here.  It had to be a little thing you know, and of course I still keep my end in and the president made me a member of the athletic board and I still visit with him.  He doesn’t go over there though, and when he was sick he went to Houston and so that wasn’t a great trip a took, was it.  When I get sick...if my family gets sick we go over there, and of course he’s not going to ever to be able to walk.  I’m not a fly by night fellow.  My cousin (        ) engineer school of the university for 20 years and, the board of six them, so I didn’t just start to have an interest in the university you know...and of course this, I say, this stupid fellow, he took himself off too, but, my god I don’t blame him, because he didn’t have anything to contribute anyways.  He was an eight grade drop out over there you know, and so I don’t imagine that he was in much shape to make of a contribution to it, but that was just purely a stupid thing, because I said I don’t get paid for that, but...

 

Dr. Hume:     Didn’t I see that you know, out in Louisville(           ) didn’t I see that they took your name off the medical center (       ) put it back on.

 

Gov. Chandler:     No, no they never took it off.

 

Dr. Hume:     What was this...there was a change of something in there...that was always on...

 

Gov. Chandler:     No, no well the board of trustees, Bob Hobson did that...Bob Hobson’s from Louisville.  Bob Hobson was...his father was Judge Hobson...the Kentucky court of appeals...they were all from Virginia.  I put Bob on the board up here and Bob Hobson was a distinguished gentleman and was on the board for quite a while, and I think some other stupid governor took him off.  He had no business taking him off cause as I say he made a magnificent contribution to it, and Bob’s father was the justice of the supreme court of the commonwealth...was the kid that walked 8 or 10 miles in the dust, after the war between the states and sat on the front porch of General Lee at Lexington, Virginia, and General Lee was sitting there in a rocker and he said “What do you want son.”  He said, “I just came to look at you.”  And General lee said “All right” he said, “Go ahead and look.”  So when he got his looking over he got out off the porch and traveled back to the country on the dusty road and went back home.  He had seven or eight of the finest stalwart mannered fellows that you ever saw, but I say he had seven or eight fine sons who were all over his commonwealth, and it’s a great family you know, and of course when a fellow hasn’t got any better sense than to try to hurt an institution because he don’t approve of some fellow...that’s silly enough, I don’t have to answer for that you know.  He took himself off too, which I thought was silly, even though he’s maybe not in a position to (             ) doesn’t know anything about it and didn’t want to be concerned with it, but this fellow who’s the governor now hadn’t been governor but half the time since he was elected.  Lieutenant Governor’s been governor half the time...and that’s it, but listen I couldn’t care less, you understand, but they elected him, but I imagine they elected him to be governor, but the Lieutenant governor’s served half the time already, and I think he’s running for something else now.  But anyway that’s neither here not there.  The people in Lexington and eastern Kentucky embraced it...a great many fellows know it, I mean, the doctors, they know it, and they’re not as...but they were violent in their opposition to it, Dr. Hume.  Now, as I say I was shocked and surprised, and all I said to them was...I said, forgive them father, I said, they know not what they do, and I said I feel sorry for them, and I told them, I said...I made a speech down there once later, and I said, I don’t think you distinguished yourselves in this fight...I said I don’t think you ought to fight a medical center and a medical school.  You might not approve of it and you don’t have to approve it, it didn’t cost you anything, but I paid for it, and that’s unusual because they don’t pay for anything anymore, you know.

 

Dr. Hume:     I know that U.K. Medical School has the fond spot in your heart, but if you look at the situation now, now U. of L. Medical...U. of L.’s going to become a state school, do you think there is a chance for them to get up to paradigm again.

 

Gov. Chandler:     I don’t think there’s any question about it, if they can conduct themselves so that they...I don’t think that they can escape it.  I don’t think anybody would have any wish or desire not to put them up there, and if they come in when Dr. Done and I was trying to get them to do it then why, there wouldn’t have been any discrimination against them and I say I was the first governor that ever undertook to go out of his way to help them beyond the call, you know, and it wasn’t that anybody wanted to do anything (          ) health of the people in Louisville and western Kentucky’s just as important as it is up there...so I wouldn’t make any distinction between people who are sick you understand.

 

Dr. Hume:     The state has resources to carry two big schools?

 

Gov. Chandler:     Well, we always have had...we always have had.  While this man wastes enough money in one six months...well recently he said...had 140,000,000 dollars surplus and didn’t know what to do with it.  Well, what do you do with $140,000,000.  Of course you oughtn’t to have any surplus in the first place.  State government surpluses...this is a horrible thing, and all my lifetime, in two administrations of governor, and the record will show, we lived within our income, we under-spent our budget.  We refinanced the state debt that we had and we re-organized the government, and we just didn’t conduct it this way, and in 1959 when we left there, we didn’t worry about anything.  Now, we’re over two million dollars.  This is a silly thing, and then when you claim then you haven’t got enough money to look out for the reasonable expense of health and welfare and education, well that’s just not so.  It’s just what you do with your money.  You put out money in the proper place, put out money where it’s suppose to go in order to do...that’s what Dr. McCormack said.  He knew every amount I had, every budget that I had, and he knew how much use I was going to need, when I was going to need it, and what time it was going to come due, and if I didn’t need that money then I had it stashed away there someplace, while he wanted to use it until such time as I need it for whatever I was suppose to have it for, and he got most of it too...and I say (               ) I wish you could be governor every other time, as long as you live.  Well he didn’t want me to be governor just because to make Chandler governor, he knew that I had at heart the health of our people, and what it took to help the people as reasonably well as we could.

 

Dr. Hume:     But what percent of the state budget is spent on health, a lot?

 

Gov. Chandler:     Not enough, not enough of course.  I don’t know what the latest percentage figures are.  The education gets the most of course.  They’ve been getting 63 and 64, 65 cents.

 

Dr. Hume:     ...what went on and what’s going on...

 

Gov. Chandler:     Now you ask whatever questions you want to ask.

 

Dr. Hume:     I think we’ve covered most of the background. My basic idea was where did the idea for the U.K. Med. School come from and...

 

Gov. Chandler:     Yeah, it came from a survey (         ) financed.

 

Dr. Hume:     Now whose idea was the survey?  Can you trace it back that far?

 

Gov. Chandler:     Well, I think maybe one fellow there who was connected with the university, Dr. Brick Chambers.  Old Dr. Brick Chambers...He’s dead now, but he was a health doctor at the university, and well, there’d been a great deal of talk around about a medical school in connection with the university.

 

Dr. Hume:     Well this is interesting of course, because as you know, Transylvania from 1890...

 

Gov. Chandler:     1960...that’s when it closed it’s doors and I graduated there...1921.

 

Dr. Hume:     It was the prime school...

 

Gov. Chandler:     Oh yes, oh yes and I said to them, strange as it may seem, strange as it may seem we had a medical school in Transylvania and it closed it’s doors in 1860, and of course ever since...I went to Transylvania in 1917, and I heard the talk about we’re going to get another one...I said...we didn’t get it till a hundred years later virtually, you know, and we were (         ) of course.  It took a hundred years to do it.

 

Dr. Hume:     I thought there might have been some traditionalists in there that...

 

Gov. Chandler:     No I didn’t think so, I don’t think that had anything to do...

 

Dr. Hume:     ...facilities that...

 

Gov. Chandler:     Yeah, the need for it.  I was convinced, I told you about the children who were born without...Kentucky mothers who produced children...and no dentists...no adequate medical care, especially I say, in Eastern Kentucky, and up through this whole hill country up there.  It was a little better in other places.  Now I’m from western Kentucky.  I was born in Henderson County, but I told you at the turn of the century they didn’t have much down there either, and...

 

Dr. Hume:     ...In general, would you say that from what you can see now, that Kentucky’s health care and education in health care is about on the par of the national level or are we ahead or behind as a result of all of this...Kentucky has a sort of a backward image sometimes, in some areas...where are we in...

 

Gov. Chandler:     We’re rapidly making up the difference.  We are behind...we were way behind and one medical school at the University of Louisville wasn’t going to put us ahead of anybody, you understand that.  But I say that this...we’ve got a pharmacy school up here that was ranked about 5 or 6 in an independent survey and the dental school was ranked third, and I think the medical centers ranked at least 3rd or 4th now in the United States.

 

Dr. Hume:     Have you been over there as a patient?

 

Gov. Chandler:     Oh yes, yes.  I’ve been over there every way.  Every way, Mom and I been both over there, fortunately we weren’t too bad off, and the dentists were wonderful and the doctors were fine, and our friends go over there and they call me and I always recommend those fellows over there because they’re as dedicated as they can be, and I don’t hear anything from people who use the center, except good, and I don’t hear anything from the students.

 

Dr. Hume:     I may be getting off your particular (          ) here a little bit...do you think there’s any reason for the doctors at the medical center to have private practice or not to have private practice?

 

Gov. Chandler:     No, I don’t think there’s any reason why they shouldn’t have it, as long as they don’t interfere with their (        ) cause after all you shouldn’t ask a doctor with the knowledge and information and standing that those fellows have to come here and take a small salary, it is a small salary, the president only gets 36,000 so I take it that not many of them get any more than that.  I established the thing firmly that the president was supposed to be paid the most...and I think that’s right...and so I don’t think there’s any reason why special services that are available to people shouldn’t be on a volunteer basis...

 

Dr. Hume:     How about a big clinic arrangement like Mayo, just something...Can you visualize Kentucky having it develop out of U.K. or out of any other area?  Medicine (         ).  Do they appeal to you as a political...in your political instinct.  Does it make sense.  Is that what the people want...

 

Gov. Chandler:     The people want health services.  They’re not especially interested in the politics of it.  If they did want politics...because I say I suffered over it, because of it, and I didn’t make the political issue.  To me it was a health issue.

 

Dr. Hume:     I just wonder if we as physicians hear so much about what the people want and we sort of hear that they want a change in medical care.  I just wondered if you thought that...

 

Gov. Chandler:     Oh yeah, over here they’re organizing now and young Dr. Roach is in charge of it, Dr. Ben Roach, who’s our personal physician here in this country, a family health service.  A family...I’m awfully strong for that.  That’s what we had in the country in the early days, and I used to drive the doctor with...one horse (         ) and drive him in the middle of the night.  Those old doctors got up and went all hours of the day and night, you know, and you used to carry the horses cause you went through the mud, you went through the mud to take the doc...but I can’t imagine anything better than to have at a given moment the services of a skilled physician when a fellow is sick.  When he’s sick he wants that,  I think in our days he ought to have it...oh yes...oh my.

 

Dr. Hume:     You think that people would be satisfied to go to a clinic arrangement or to a health maintenance organization which is the big thing we hear about...or would people really want their own doctor to come to them more.

 

Gov. Chandler:     Well there’s never going to be any time I think when the people wouldn’t like to have their own doctor and like to have him come see them if they can pay for it, you see...but if that can’t be done at a given moment, why I think nothing can be better than to have clinics where they’re available to the people, and where people can go and where they know they can go, and get some skilled medical attention.

 

Dr. Hume:     Let me phrase it another way.  If you were the governor now, and you were setting up something to combat this...we keep hearing about this mal distribution in health care...the people in the mountains can’t get out here...people in small rural communities, what would you think of...I’ll throw that out at you.

 

Gov. Chandler:     Just like Dr. McCormack used to...he started it with the health department in each country.  What do you think he did that for?  And he had only one doctor...a county health doctor...and he had a little office there, county health unit and he had some medicine there, and he had a nurse there, a county health nurse.  He had a county health nurse...and Dr. I told you we were last.  Why, yes I’d have it and then I’d have a clinic, I’d have a clinic and together the county and the state and the country can ay for those things.  They haven’t done it and oh I tell you I think it’s a crime.  I think we got the graveyards full of people that ought not to have died, at least not when they did and oh, how that hurts me, that hurts me all my life and as I said we suffered that ourselves, and when you suffer that yourself...my brother died and I’m just as sure that he wouldn’t have to die, but...

 

Dr. Hume:     Did he know that he was sensitive to...

 

Gov. Chandler:     What was that?

 

Dr. Hume:     Did he know that he was...

 

Gov. Chandler:     No, no he didn’t know, he couldn’t have known, and of course what are you going to say after your brothers dead and I’m talking about 1947 or 8 and the doctors in Ball State Hospital, state hospitals at (            ) and I know they didn’t deliberately kill that boy, but they killed him.

 

Dr. Hume:     He died at how old?

 

Gov. Chandler:     About 20 or 30.  He graduated with honors down here, and I told those fellows down there one day, I said “My brother graduated here, and he’s not here anymore but he graduated with honors and he was interning.  He was married and had a child that he never saw, a child born after his death, he never saw him...I say that was a great tragedy, it broke my father’s heart, and I said no, no, (             )it’s an improvement over my friends Dr. McCormack’s county health department.  I’d have an enlarged thing, a clinic you know, and I’d have as many of those as were necessary and I would have them staffed and I would have medicine, and all the latest medicine that the people know about.  Wouldn’t cost too much money to do that, and it would be money well spent.  I can’t imagine.  I’ve traveled all over this commonwealth. I know more about...I suspect than anybody living or dead.  I’ve been in all corners of it.  I’ve seen all sorts of conditions of our people.  I’ve stood by and watched them suffer and at a given moment nobody could do anything for them...Wasn’t anybody there...that’s a terrible thing, and I (      ) that and I haven’t contributed to it and I’m not going to and I think a doctor of all people who spoke explicitly take the other side of it, supposed they hadn’t built a medical center over here.

 

Dr. Hume:     There would be a lot of empty spots, wouldn’t it?

 

Gov. Chandler:     Well, even suppose you try to do it now. (              ) fortune, but if you dally...he who dallies is a bastard and he who doubts is damned.  You know it and I think (              ) Shakespeare said better than everybody, “Once it’s done tis done then twere well it was done quickly”, and I never hesitated if I thought what I was about to do was in the public interest and in the public welfare, I never hesitated.  I don’t have to answer for that, but I never have understood, in fact I don’t understand now...and I’m not running for anything now...land I’m not going to run for anything, and the people of Kentucky been better to me than I’ve deserved and they don’t owe me anything so I’ve nothing now except to tell you  the truth and to tell  you that as I understand it, and as I observed it as it passed under my observation.

 

Dr. Hume:     Let me...I think I’ve got my answer on the medical school...let me just ask you a couple of questions that aren’t medical at all...just cause you were here...you’ve got a lot of knowledge I’d like to get at...what have been the greatest thins that you have seen done in your administration or in our lifetime in Kentucky.  What really has been achieved that you’re proud of, what hasn’t been achieved that you’re not proud of, in other words as you sort of look back at what your doing, forget about health care or medicine and don’t think of me as a doctor for a minute, but what really are some of the things that you’re proud of or some of the things that you wish you could have done.

 

Gov. Chandler:     Well doctor, there are things which you always wish you might have done, and the things that you have done, you wish you might have done them better, you know, but when I went to the Governor’s office in 1935 I was just 36 years old...I’d been for 4 years Lieutenant governor with a fellow that was a stranger to government.  You know the capacity of the people to electrify to public office one that ought not’ to be elected.  They’ve got perfect genius for it...You just wouldn’t believe it, and some of these fellows I’ve seen elected not only didn’t know but didn’t give a damn, you understand, so if you get the combination why it’s deadly.  I made up my mind when I went to the governor’s office that I was going to reorganize the state government of Kentucky, form top to bottom.  Well, we did it, and it was so successful and the record will show other states copied it.  We cut the boards and commissions down from more than 130 to 23.  13 of them were required by the constitution.  Well then they’re required by the constitution there isn’t much you can do about it.  And we haven’t got a bad constitution.  I have helped defeat several efforts to change it, which would not have been in the public interest, at least I didn’t think so, so I opposed it, and the people not because of me, but because of their own good judgment.  They’ve been slow to change the constitution.  We live under the constitution of 1791...92, and it was not a bad one, it’s a pretty good one.  And...but when I went there in 1935, we owed about $30,000,000...Well it’s prohibited in the constitution to have the state in debt more than $500,000, unless you vote for it.  So I was shocked, I said (                ) you know, how do you go about putting the county people in debt when the constitution says you can’t do it.  Well the court of appeals said there wasn’t a debt, but there was evidence of debt, but we owed the money, and of course the other side of that of that is if we don’t pay people won’t do business with us, and then if we do business with them, they add 25 to 30% to the price of what we buy from them, cause they know they’re not going to be paid, they know they’re going to take a (             ) Well there were warrants issued against casual deficits.  Well I was very lucky, I went to Washington to find out if I could find some fellow that was expert on taxes and government, and the fellow told me up there he said, “What you come up here for Governor.”  I told him, and he said, “Well, why don’t you go back home, you got a fellow at the university that knows more about that than anybody, the University of Kentucky.”  I says “Is that right?”  He says “Yes sir.”  Well there’s always some smart fellow somewhere if you just can find him, you know, so I was trying to find him you know and it’s Dr. Martin, Dr. James Edgar Martin.

 

Dr. Hume:     Right.

 

Gov. Chandler:     Dr. Martin...I came down here, and I got Jim Martin.  He went down and I said, “Jim, I want to reorganize this government from top to bottom, and I’ll name you 25 or 30 fellows and you go over the whole thing and it will take 3 months.  Go over the whole thing with them and tell me what we can take out and tell me what we can put in if we have to, and give me a complete reorganization bill, and then I’ll call the legislation in an extraordinary session and that will be the only think may say so myself everybody says now that was one of the finest things that was ever done, but we did it, and except for the fact that they whittled on it and hacked on it and changed it...they haven’t bettered themselves and (         ) Our next thing was, I said, “What are you going to do about this bill” $30,000,000 at 5%?  “Well,” I said, “let’s refinance it”.  Of course (                  ) so two or three of the bankers said to me “We’re sorry governor, but we’ll not go along with you”.  “Well,”  I said, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to reorganize it, I’m going to refinance it and I’m going to offer you 3% more so take your 5% or (                 ).  I didn’t tell them then, but I meant to go, and I did.  I went from 5 to 3 and from 3 to 1 and then paid the thing off, and I said the state of Kentucky’s credit ought to be good.  We ought not have to pay 5%.  That was a whole lot of money then.  Not now, but a whole lot of money then.  The interest charge on the bed was one million, five hundred thousand a year, before we spent a single cent for the health and welfare and education of our people, interest charge, I never liked that.  The school per capita was six dollars per pupil.  I made it 12.  I doubled it...I got sharp...I doubled it right there...after a fight, I arranged to go and get somebody to help me with that, so I got one set of fellows to help me over in Ambush and they helped me, so then the bank called me and said...I’ll never forget...”Governor, we’ve decided we’ll go with you”.  I said “uh-uh.  I’m going to pay you.  I have made arrangements”.  I said when you’re warrants are due, you send them in and I’m going to pay,” but to make a long story short at the end of four years we had cut the debt from &30,000,000 to $4,000,000 and had the money in the bank to pay it off, and I told the people in a speech to the legislature, I said if you let me reorganize the government, and refinance the state debt and prepare a careful budget I’ll not overspend the budget...I’ll under spend the budget.  I will come to the legislature in 1938 and say to you to say to the people through you, that we’re out of debt, we have no increase in taxes, none anticipated and that you’ve got a decent government.  I also said to the legislature “You have fixed it so that I can be the governor” and indeed you’ve taken any excuse away from me that...(             ) a good governor...you’ve taken any excuse that I might have for not being (        ) I also told them that, I said if I had to make an excuse now, Dr. Hume, I say I wouldn’t have any, because you’ve done exactly what I’ve asked you to do.  So in 1931 I faced the legislature and I said well, our books are balanced.  We’ve lived within our income.  We’ve doubled our appropriations for school children.  We brought 3 textbooks.  We built country roads, and if I may say so I built more roads for the people of Kentucky than all the other governors from 1792 to the present hour and all of them are free.  Governor Colsky once tried to build a toll road, and we got (             ) by the United States and only one of them is paying for itself...and while I was...during two administrations, we under spent our budget and lived within our income and paid our bills...discounter bills...we took ten days discount...just like you would in any other business, and when I left there in 59, I said, we got cash in the bank and no debts.  Now we owe over $2,000,000,000.

 

Dr. Hume:     %2,000,000,000?

 

Gov. Chandler:     Yeah, over two billion, but I wouldn’t...the constitution is still there.  The constitution says you can’t go in debt over $500,000, unless you vote for it.  I practiced it carefully and frugally.  In other words, the governor’s got a right to ask for emergency funds.  I never asked for more than $500,000 because on the theory that the governor’s got...if you can’t go in debt more than $500,000 the governor’s got no business having a 3 or 4 million dollar emergency fund that defeats the purposes of the constitution.

 

Dr. Hume:     With all this did you ever have the wish that the constitution didn’t limit you to one term?

 

Gov. Chandler:     I have feelings about that...I think it’s too short for a good governor and too long for a bad one.

 

Dr. Hume:     That’s true.  It sounds as if...is your momentum going...

 

Gov. Chandler: If I could have kept it on but they were good to me that year because they elected another lieutenant governor and I went to the United States senate...and of course this is unprecedented and I like to say this, because when you realize that from 1929 to 39, that’s a ten year period, I was a state senator, and lieutenant governor and governor and a United States Senator and I don’t expect that’s been duplicated any place in the United States...I don’t know.

 

Dr. Hume:     When you become senator you were still a young man weren’t you?

 

Gov. Chandler:     Yes, about 39.

 

Dr. Hume:     39

 

Gov. Chandler:     Yes, just old enough to go...yeah, yeah, and so this experience though in the governor’s office and I have undertaken to detail important things that happened during that first administration.  Now the Courier Journal has never been...well they’ve been both ways...Judge Bingham was for me when I ran the first time, and then Rosen took his board away from...then they came back, and then the last time I ran they gave me the best treatment that I ever had in my life and of course for that I was very grateful, but they said that my performance on the television and undertaking to tell them what the state situation was a virtuoso performance and was way out and beyond anything these other fellows (             ) have to be elected.  But I ran because I thoroughly disapproved of the characters and conduct of (        ) I tell you another thing that...

 

Dr. Hume:     What about local...what about the national political climate and the local political climate, what’s happening?  Where are we going and why?

 

Gov. Chandler:     Look here.  Here’s another think that I wanted to mention to you in connection...well it’s difficult for anybody to forecast where you’re going...

 

Dr. Hume:     When you started to mention what’s happening in the Kentucky arena...and I wanted you to ease in if you would...comment about the just political...what’s happening to lawyers, to the practice of laws to the political process, is it being perverted some way or subverted or is it as viable as it used to be?

 

Gov. Chandler:     No, I don’t think so. I’m distressed of course as anybody would be and I don’t think it’s just because I’ve been here a long time, just because I’ve been involved in it a long time, as you can observe...I’m past the age of statutory senility, but I’m not senile, and my recollections...

 

Dr. Hume:     No you’re pretty young.  Let me ask you how old you are?

 

Gov. Chandler:     75.

 

Dr. Hume:     Are you really?  You’re pretty vigorous.

 

Gov. Chandler:     And my recollection of things as I go along is real active, and with all the things that they’ve undertaken to do, and I know what I was going to say to you, just recently they put that second amendment back on the ballot, and (          ) sections of the legislature, ..Well that question was on the ballot in 1969 and section 256 of the constitution says expressly that when a people defeat an amendment it can’t go back on the ballot for five years...well they put it back in four.  Now, why the members of the house and the senate should practice a fraud on the people of Kentucky, and it went on the ballot, and only two of us that had been in politics in my lifetime opposed it, John Brown, John Young Brown Senior, and your humble servant.  We went on the television, on the radio and spoke against if of course, and first I can’t understand why they would submit it.  In the face of constitutional prohibition that said “you just can’t...they don’t pay any attention to it.  The thing...the point I’m making now is if the constitution says expressly this you shall not do, they do it, and they don’t pay any attention to it.  They raised every bodies salary down there during the term for which they were elected.  That’s expressed in the constitution as being absolutely prohibitive.  You cannot do that and the legislature has overwritten one veto of the governor in the last ten years.  That veto...(              ) and that was in defense of their own pay raise.  And they raised their own pay, that was the legislature, three times in the last ten years.  Close that door, partner, will you . . . But the only time they’ve ever written the governor’s veto in the last ten years was when Nunn vetoes their pay raise.  And now they get $400. a month . . . expense account for which they do not have to account for . . . each month, and they only meet annually.  Well, there isn’t any excuse for that at all.  They meet 60 days every 2 years.  If there’s a public emergency, the governor can call an extra ordinary session.  The business community which is entitled to some consideration waits (      ) for three months to pass, cause they’ve got to make plans and they don’t know how to make plans with the legislature in session.  Well, after the three months have passed, well, they can breath easy at least for a time.  The governor can call an extra ordinary sessions if he needs them for a public purpose, and the public would let them know, you understand.  Nebraska’s so much smarter.  Old man George Nice in Nebraska was so much smarter and I served I the United States senate with him.  They only have one house in Nebraska . . . 35 members . . . that’s enough . . .25 would be better, but we got 138 . . . and I told them . . . I told the people on television, I sand John Brown and I probably know more about the legislature than anybody living or dead . . . I said . . . we’ve served in it . . . we’ve presided over it . . . we’ve dealt with it, you know, on the local level and on the national level . . . now I said for gods sake don’t do this because 10% and that may be high of the legislature will do the business of the legislature, 15 or 20% of the others . . . 30 maybe will go along one way or another and try to (          ) 50% of them won’t give a damn and they don’t care whether they lie or not and they just as soon be someplace else and they won’t vote and they won’t read a bill . . . I say why should . . .

 

Well (          ) got up a constitutional convention and I was the only one who opposed it when he got through . . . I was a member of the convention

(          )presiding over it and they were going to rewrite the constitution and I said “uh uh, no good,” and not solely for that reason, but the people beat it.  They got suspicious of it, well one thing there, and I’ll show you a sample of it – a corporation in Kentucky at the moment can hold all the land necessary for the conduct of its business.  It can hold it forever if its necessary to the conduct of its business.  But once that land is surplus and is not necessary to the conduct of its business, he can only hold it for five years, and then he’s got to get rid of it and make it available to the people.  Well they wanted to get rid of that.  I cab envision a time . . . they’re not making any more land, making a lot more people, but no more land, appreciably. I can envision a time when the corporation would control all the land and alienate it from the people and that’s what they want of course, but I didn’t want it, and the people didn’t want it . . .Well that shows you to what extremes they’ll go to try to get things done that ought not to be done, and so in two administrations, I, at the governor’s place, you learn a great deal, about your fellow man and about . . . suffice it to say, we lived within our income during all that time.  We under spent the budget.  We avoided debts.  I don’t think the government ought to collect any more money from you that isn’t necessary for public health or public welfare or public education.  A great many of things that they’ve undertaken the government hasn’t any business to be there at all.  And, we did all that too without the sales tax.  I was always opposed to the sales tax, because the sales tax is an income tax turned upside down.  It’s a total tax on the average fellow, and when you press down the crown of thorns on the brow of the fellow that has to spend all of his money for...and doesn’t have much left for ulxories, and if he hasn’t got enough, he’s going to get it from you...he’s going to get it somewhere you understand...and so...I have a strong theory that’s correct...taxes ought to be levied, and collected at a time and in a manner that would cause the least inconvenience to the people.  They ought not to take a single cent and there oughtn’t to be any state surpluses or government surpluses...money, what for...take the money from the people, so some fellow down there can spend it at his whim and caprice and for something that you’re not interested in...maybe never, and not in the public welfare maybe.  These fellows got control over a lot of money that they could just spend according to some whim or caprice of his own, do you understand.  That’s not right, and so we did our lot, that I am telling you about, without the sales tax, now they said, and I say they said we couldn’t operate the gambit without the sales tax.  Well now we got it, and now we’re two billion dollars in debt.  Now whats the other side of that?

 

Dr. Hume:     Can you use the surplus to pay off part of the debt?  You could, I guess.

 

Gov. Chandler:     Well they son’t do it, it won’t do it.  If I had the surplus I’d give you a tax relief...no sales tax...automobile license plates for five dollars...I thought that that was enough, you understand.  They just brought the poor automobile over as a debt.  They bumped him everywhere they could bump him.  You don’t turn him over and bumped him again...you know...it was horrible, but these people are tax gatherers.  They don’t need their arms to be Lincolns, you know, my god.  They urge to collect taxes, they urge to raise pay, they urge to spend money at the people’s expense...it’s a horrible thing that we’re going.  Now we’re doing that not only here, but we’re doing that on a national level too, and the government of the United States owes $45,000,000, and of course stupid fellows like Barkely, he used to be there.  He’s one of the stupidest men I ever saw.  He said we owe it to ourselves.  He says (              ) and I say suppose some day we decide to pay ourselves, you know, it would break every bank and every insurance company in the United States, and then break all those who had government bonds...you understand.  They’re absolutely break all those who had government bonds...you understand.  They’re absolutely stupid.  They had no sense of...no intention.  Now, if you and I are in business or if we buy something...we go over to the store and buy something...we may buy it on credit, but we think that say in 2 months or 3 months or 4 months we can pay it off, and we have an idea on it, well they don’t have an idea about ever paying it off at all...and they don’t have...they can add and subtract...they don’t know how to add and subtract, they can just multiply.

 

Dr. Hume:     What about the idea of morality, is it gone from...

 

Gov. Chandler:     It’s gone, virtually gone...

 

Dr. Hume:     The administration doesn’t look very good.

 

Gov. Chandler:     Oh no, oh no.  They haven’t got the same old-fashioned...they don’t believe in the old fashioned principles of common decency and common honesty, no sir.  But that’s not so of politicians, that’s so of the rest of the people too.  No better or no worse.  Bankers or doctors, or our business men are the same way, and I tell you it’s frightening, it’s just frightening.  At this stage of the game, getting to be 75 and having a nice wife, and four nice children, and 12 grandchildren and one young child...great grandchild, and conducting my own affairs just like I have the...people’s business, and being able to save anybody...I don’t owe anybody anything except my good will, and I could withhold that it I wanted to, and payment (        ) debts and the taxes, my daddy did the same thing.  It’s a question of old-fashioned honest...principles of old-fashioned common sense and common honesty and common decency.  If you repeal those, then where are you going, and they don’t give those much consideration or much concern.

 

Dr. Hume:     I guess that’s a family breakdown problem and a (            ) problem.

 

Gov. Chandler:     It’s both.  My daddy...well, you learn that from your father.  Yeah, you learn those things from your father and from your grandfather, and we didn’t have a lot of things, but we...we...nobody gave us anything...and we were proud...we worked...we all worked hard...worked hard, worked real hard.  Look it here.  Isn’t this most remarkable.  Just sit there where you are, and take a look.

 

Dr. Hume:     Yeah, that’s a lot of muscle.

 

Gov. Chandler:     75, (           ) You don’t know anybody over 75 that’s as (           ) as I’ve been and that’s because I worked hard...when I was a boy, and no whiskey, no cigarettes, no fast-living.  I never put in for that you know, never put in for that, and there’s some reward for...I think so, I think so.

 

Dr. Hume:     Well, of course...everybody says that every generation...it’s a changing world, but it doesn’t see to be a very pleasant one, at the moment.  Things are getting out of pot...out of...

 

Gov. Chandler:     Oh no, no, no, I hate to say it...I thought maybe it was because maybe I was getting to be an old fogey, but I don’t think so.  You know to the country if there’d been no fellows like me, you know...the old timers you know, but that’s not necessary...either a reason or an excuse for the breakdown but generally there seems to be...figure out some way to beat somebody out of something...or use some sort of gimmick to get ahead of somebody.  I told my wife when (        )

 

Dr. Hume:     Well I appreciate it, I think I’ll zip along.  I appreciate your time.  I hadn’t intended to spend more than an hour with you.

 
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