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Interview with Leonard R. Hislope, October 7, 1991

1991-10-07 Interview with Leonard R. Hislope, October 7, 1991 Leg001:1991OH363 Leg 035 02:44:55 Kentucky Legislature Oral History Project Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries Legislators -- Kentucky -- Interviews. Political campaigns -- Kentucky. Civil rights -- Kentucky. Kentucky. Governor (1955-1959 : Chandler) Kentucky. Governor (1959-1963 : Combs) Kentucky. Governor (1967-1971 : Nunn) Kentucky. Governor (1971-1974 : Ford) Kentucky. Governor (1974-1979 : Carroll) Somerset (Ky.) Chandler, Happy, 1898-1991. Lowman, Harry King, 1913-1977 Caudill, Harry M., 1922- Combs, Bert T., 1911-1991. Cooper, John Sherman, 1901-1991. Nunn, Louie B., 1924- Waterfield, Harry Lee, 1911- Carroll, Julian M. (Julian Morton), 1931- Ford, Wendell H., 1924- Kentucky Utilities Company. Appalachian Regional Commission. Kentucky Historical Society. Educational change. Veterans. Community colleges. Civil rights. Communism. Prayer in the public schools Abortion. Segregation Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) REA (Rural Electrification Administration) Kentucky Civil Rights Bill education reform sales tax legislation egg law energy industry campaigning Key Legislation: Sales tax increase (under Nunn), Egg law, House Bill 1 (1962), Kentucky Civil Rights Bill Term/District: House (1956-1966, 1974), 84th district, 83rd district Leadership Position(s): House Minority Floor Leader, 1960 -- Senate Minority Floor Leader, 1964 Counties in District: Pulaski County (Ky.) Leonard R. Hislope; interviewee Jeffrey Suchanek; interviewer 1991OH363_LEG035_Hislope 1:|12(13)|25(12)|37(12)|54(3)|68(13)|85(10)|97(7)|113(5)|133(1)|151(11)|168(2)|182(6)|198(3)|212(10)|225(3)|237(1)|249(5)|262(2)|275(4)|298(11)|313(12)|327(15)|347(3)|362(9)|382(3)|399(7)|411(14)|429(2)|448(12)|466(4)|487(11)|504(4)|521(4)|537(3)|555(3)|571(4)|587(8)|598(13)|612(5)|630(13)|645(5)|658(12)|672(8)|690(10)|704(1)|717(8)|737(3)|753(2)|765(10)|779(11)|797(11)|821(7)|844(2)|859(3)|872(9)|886(11)|898(8)|910(7)|925(9)|940(9)|954(7)|969(2)|984(5)|1004(11)|1018(4)|1030(6)|1043(7)|1062(11)|1084(4)|1099(3)|1115(10)|1130(10)|1145(15)|1168(5)|1183(14)|1206(8)|1221(8)|1238(4)|1256(3)|1271(12)|1290(6)|1303(2)|1314(7)|1333(8)|1353(6)|1374(9)|1390(10)|1405(12)|1424(11)|1440(15)|1458(11)|1482(4)|1498(16)|1525(12)|1546(11)|1567(9)|1584(1)|1604(5)|1618(2)|1630(11)|1656(6)|1670(3)|1683(2)|1697(12)|1714(7)|1729(4)|1745(9)|1764(12)|1778(7)|1794(9)|1812(9)|1825(9)|1839(8)|1860(1)|1872(6)|1896(3)|1909(13)|1921(12)|1934(12)|1966(9)|1987(9)|2008(9)|2028(12)|2049(1)|2065(13)|2084(2)|2098(8)|2117(1)|2129(10)|2150(6)|2168(3)|2191(10)|2207(10)|2221(3)|2248(5)|2264(7)|2283(3)|2297(7)|2317(5)|2332(9)|2356(1)|2369(10)|2382(11)|2402(2)|2415(7)|2431(9)|2451(4)|2466(4)|2483(8)|2503(10)|2517(2)|2534(7)|2547(9)|2567(3)|2591(12)|2619(2)|2634(2)|2655(12)|2677(3)|2702(3)|2718(2)|2731(4)|2748(9)|2765(7)|2781(6) audiotrans Legit interview SUCHANEK: The following is an unrehearsed interview with former state representative Leonard R. Hislope who represented Pulaski County in what was the 84th District, and later the 83rd District from 1956 to 1966, and then again in 1974. Mr. Hislope was elected Republican minority floor leader in the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1960. The interview was for was conducted by Jeffrey Suchanek for the University of Kentucky Library Kentucky Legislature Oral History Project on October 7, 1991 in the Pulaski County Public Library in Somerset, Kentucky, at one o'clock p.m. [Tape paused]. At approximately 1:15 p.m. [Tape paused]. Okay, this afternoon I'm talking once again with Mr. Leonard Hislope. Mr. Hislope, we left off last time just as we were going to begin talking about your, the primary race in '59. Now, your opponent in that primary race was Melvin Wright, and he claimed that you were-he claimed that the courthouse ring was backing you, quote, unquote "the courthouse ring." He claimed that you had sold out the Republican Party to save your old friend Bill Coomer from a smashing defeat by Sam Davis in the November election of that same year. He said that on the fiscal court, Mr. Coomer had proven that he cared little about the taxpayer's money and that you were tied in with these quote, unquote "corrupt politicians." These were rather, I thought, caustic comments. Who was Mr. Melvin Wright, and what was this attack all about? HISLOPE: Melvin Wright was a teacher here at one time, and with all due credit to him, he was, in a way, a likeable person. He'd see somebody, he talked a lot, he joked a lot, and he saw a lot of humor and comedy in things, but he was prone to criticize, not only me but some other people, and his assertion that I was backed by the courthouse crowd, to consider the courthouse a bunch of people that would be called a crowd, I guess to that extent, he was right. Because they wanted me to win, and they hadn't been, in the past, as closely related with him as I had, and he had never been in politics to any measurable extent in his life. So they wanted me to win. And the assertion that there was a corrupt bunch of politicians, there might have been one or two that didn't walk the line, but they were about like every other court, caliber house, I guess. They were mostly real nice people, and they were helpful to me, or I couldn't have got on possibly as well as I did. That was my main race, and Bill Coomer was a square magistrate then, and Bill took some hand in quite a few different political activities involving different people. I never did know of Bill being in situations like Mr. Wright charged, I just didn't know it. I didn't know much about politics then, don't know too much now, but knew quite a bit less then (Suchanek laughs). I guess I was a little innocent fellow just pitched into the race and wanted to win, and I had a lot of help, and I won handily. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. I recall that, yeah, reading that. HISLOPE: You've done a very good job on checking up the past in relationship to many of we that have served in the House. You've done a good job. SUCHANEK: Well thank you. As you say, apparently not too many people paid much attention to Mr. Wright's charges, because you defeated him by a three to one margin, and, of course, you had no opposition in the general election that year. Now, at the Republican pre-legislative meeting, prior to the opening of the '60, 1960 regular session, you were elected minority floor leader, which was, of course, the leadership position for the Republican Party in the House. How did this come about? HISLOPE: Well, I learned that there was such positions after I first went to the House, and I wanted to be minority floor leader, and at that time, it was a little bit different in the House in some ways than it is now. At that time there was quite a few changes every session. There'd be quite a few new people in, yet there would be some of the old timers that were still there. And so I wanted to be minority leader, so I contacted those I knew that would be back, and then after the boys were nominated, I made a few contacts with them, and had some real good friends, just happened to turn out I had some real good friends. I remember that Nick Johnson of Lexington was there at that time, and he was on my side, and then there was another boy that, whose name I don't recall right now, his mother lives in London, he's an attorney in Lexington, so he was very nice to me, and quite a few others. And some of them over in eastern Kentucky, we made a few contacts, and they said, "Well," said, "We want you for minority leader," and the minority leader job at that time was a very transitory thing, it didn't last very long with most individuals. And so it just came out that I won the race, and I was very happy about it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Why did you want to become minority leader? What was the attraction? HISLOPE: Well, any leadership job, places, warrant at least a small extent in the forefront, a little bit more than otherwise they would be, and I just, I liked the responsibility of it, which was not too much at that time. And I guess I also enjoyed the exposure that would be coming my way because I wanted to run again, and there was some exposure. I remember when I came home that the First & Farmer's Bank, the big bank here, they had the publication of the state chamber of commerce, and in the publication, one of them brought it to me, and there my picture was in the book, and some others, and of all titles, The Powers That Be. So that appealed to your ego just a little bit, to be in situations like that, so I just enjoyed it. And then, in other instances, it would cause you to be the spokesman, not only for your own party, but in other situations on, to get one's opinion on what should be done, or this or that, so it brought you in contact with more people. And then people, not in Frankfort, but people even out of the state, if they wanted to contact somebody, and especially in our party, they would contact me, and so it was pleasant. SUCHANEK: Um-hm, um-hm. Did anyone else in the Republican Party want the job, at that time? HISLOPE: Yes, there were more that wanted it or, and there was a few that didn't want me (laughs) to have it. There was one fellow, I'm not telling his name, but he seemed to be a very good friend of mine, but in the meeting where my election took place, he had had too many nips before he came to the meeting, to the extent that he had no inhibitions whatsoever, and he was just outright with it. He says, "I wouldn't be you, you're the last man in the world I'd be for." And I didn't pay any attention to him, and nobody else did, because he was inebriated every day that he was in the session, it seemed. And, before the session would start-when the, I mean, any day when we went into session, he would be there just a few moments, and then he'd go to the restroom. And then he'd come back, and then he'd go to the restroom again, and about the third time, he'd be gone all day. He was a fine fellow otherwise, and back home, back at his home, when I'd was at his town, I visited him just like that never happened. I never saw him, I always saw him sober every other time in my life, but I reckon when he was there he just turned on. Which, to me (laughs), was very unusual. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Do you have any idea why people, some people would have opposed you or not wanted to see you in that position? HISLOPE: Sir? SUCHANEK: Is there some reason, in particular, that the people didn't want to see you have that position? HISLOPE: I don't know of any. Most of the rest of them, except those who were for somebody else, was very nice about it. And, but I'm just assuming that sometimes one down in their being would oppose somebody because privately they would want to be their self, and because they would want to be they were just a little bit jealous that somebody else would have it. But there was hardly any of those feelings that were obvious. It was, there was cooperation most all the way, and after it was over, everybody got along all right anyway. SUCHANEK: Um-hm, um-hm. Was it- HISLOPE: Just about like any other election, I guess (laughs). SUCHANEK: Well, what I'm trying to get at, is what it a real knock-down drag-out caucus pre-legislative meeting? Or- HISLOPE: The only time that I had a real drag-down, knock-out was when I ran against Marlow Cook. Of course, Marlow was an ambitious young man, and very, very able. And I was up for minority leader and Marlow, naturally, would have liked to have been, and it was a hard race. I forget how many votes we had to have, I believe it was eight or ten different votes before I finally won the election. And, of course Marlow had no malice, and was just as cooperative as he could be. He played the ball real fairly, but he was good, and he was strong, and he was hard to beat. Yeah. SUCHANEK: Yeah. How did being minority floor leader in the House change your approach to being a member of the legislature? HISLOPE: Well, I wouldn't know hardly how to answer it as to change the approach. I'd put it in my own words this way: it caused me to more or less understand just what the legislature really meant, and was. The first time-I'd never been to Frankfort, except one time when I was going to college and the teachers wanted more money, and they had all the students to go as lobbyists for them, because they wanted the legislature to do something for them. I never will forget, when we crossed the bridge in front of the capitol, they had us to break step. They said, "there's so many people, if we all make a step at the same time, it might injure the bridge" (both laugh). So, having gone to Frankfort, and never been there but once or twice or three times before, I was greatly impressed with the architecture of the capitol. I was impressed with people, and it was such an environmental change in every type and kind of way that I somewhat stood at awe during the first session. And gradually it would soak in, and I began to appreciate that I'd had an opportunity to really get up there. And then when I was minority leader and had some, you don't have to have much responsibility if you just go there as a member, but when you're elected to some position like that, you do have some responsibility. So, having been elected, I began to feel like that there was responsibility. There was meaning to it, and it amounted to something, and really you were a little spoke in a big wheel that ran the state government. And I began to realize, more or less, what it was all about. And, of course, I became more acquainted as time went by, and it was satisfying to me to know the people that I knew, because they were important people in the state. So, I just enjoyed it a lot, and it meant a lot more to me when I was elected. SUCHANEK: Well what were your new duties as minority leader? What were you supposed to do? HISLOPE: Well, you were supposed, of course, the caucus chairman ordinarily has as much, or even more to do than the minority leader. The minority leader is sometimes a figurehead, but when anybody came to you for something to be done, came for something to be done, they would usually go to the leader. And in that sense you were sought out by various people, as someone that might could help, or might could endeavor to change something or otherwise bring something about. And that thing of just being the leader, and being recognized as the leader, and having contact, various contacts with the leader, and a lot of mail, it just done something to you, it was all right. SUCHANEK: Um-hm, um-hm. As minority leader, were you expected to line up the Republican, the rest of the Republican members on a vote or anything like that? HISLOPE: Supposedly, you were supposed to use your influence in doing that. The caucus chairman had quite a bit to do with that too, and the whip, he had a lot of responsibility on lining up the boys to try to do this and that. But if there was something that was a little bit hard, or took a little bit more persuasion, the minority leader was supposed to go in and take his part when the rest of them, possibly it was a little difficult for them to get it over. Many times he couldn't do it, but he was supposed to see if he could. And, of course, when it comes to sitting policy, or agreeing on how you were going to stand, or hopefully how the group would react to certain bills, many times the minority leader done his best to see that they would do that, notwithstanding the fact that it was impossible, many times, to do it. We had more, it was more difficult for the Republicans to get together when "Happy" was governor than at any other time, because he had a strong influence on many of our group, and really had the strong allegiance of many of the Republicans. So, whatever "Happy" wanted was, if the Republican Party didn't want it as such, it was pretty hard to change some of the boys' minds. He was very persuasive, and he was a young man then, that was quite a long time ago. SUCHANEK: Yeah, yeah. As minority leader, what could you use to get the rest of the Republicans in line on a vote? I mean, what influence did you have? What powers did you have at your disposal to do that? HISLOPE: Most of the time, or I would say some of the time, an approach that would work, maybe when other approaches wouldn't work, was to somewhat tie in the allegiance to their party, and be what our party stands for, and something like that. That would work more than anything else. But even though, when you had done that, somebody else may have promised them twenty miles of a highway, and that was pretty hard to do anything with. Pretty hard to do anything with. This little song I wrote, the governor had invited all of our party over to the mansion one morning for breakfast, and everybody went, but he'd promised (laughs) various favors, and it was tremendous how successful he was on getting those things out. I wrote this little song. I believe the chorus of what it was, "Democrat or Republican, well you couldn't tell, they all fall in line when "Happy" rang the bell." And, the University of Kentucky ran off 10,000 copies of it, I don't know why, we had a lot of fun with it. And I think that "Happy" thought it was a little comical too because, one, he was addressing the whole assembly one night, and he says, "I just want the gentleman from Pulaski to know that I'm a poet too," and then he quoted some poetry. We had a little fun with it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, Harry King Lowman had been selected by the newly elected governor, Bert Combs, in 1960 to be Speaker of the House. He also selected Thomas L. Ray as majority floor leader. Now, as minority floor leader, how did they treat you? HISLOPE: I never was treated nicer by anyone than I was treated by Harry King Lowman. As far as I can see, and as far as I could understand, he was just a gentleman of the first order, and we didn't agree sometimes, but that didn't cause our friendship to be any less. Harry was outgoing, he was vivacious, he was, had a good personality and he was friendly. Now, Thomas Ray was more recessive, in a way, I don't think Tom would regret me saying this, he was sort of a kid then. He looked like one, he looked like a real young person, and he took everything a little easier, and he didn't seem as fierce about things as Harry King. But Harry King was the master in the chair. He could use that gavel fast enough to do anything he wanted to almost. And that reminds me of using the gavel fast. I made a mistake one time when I was voting, and I voted the wrong way, and I voted a way that one could be criticized very much about. And I rose to my feet to get the attention of the speaker, and this speaker was always nice to me, but seemed like he was a little bit resentful. He was a real strong Democrat and I guess he thought I was a real strong Republican. There was a few times I made some speeches that sort of warmed a few people's tails a little bit, and he resented that it seemed. Now, when I made this vote, I wanted to get it changed, or change the record, and he had that gavel in his hand, he [bangs on table]. He hit that podium just like that until nothing could be done. He sealed my vote right there (laughs). SUCHANEK: Who was that? Shelby McCallum? HISLOPE: No, that was the boy from Louisville, and his name, I'll recall it after a while, he was there a long, long time, he- SUCHANEK: Norbert Bloom? HISLOPE: That's right, it was Norbert Bloom. Yeah. Norbert, nice looking fellow, and he knew how to do what he was supposed to do. But he got beat later on by a colored boy, I believe it was. Norbert's not been there for a long time. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. I think they might have had some redistricting up there. HISLOPE: I, that might have been it, because that'll get you when nothing else will. But Harry, I was very sorry to hear about Harry, you know Harry had cancer and died some years ago. I was down at the Cumberland Falls one day, my wife and I for lunch, and there was a very congenial fellow down there, he was the chef, and I guess was acting a little comically, I said to my wife one day, I said, "Look at that hat the way, look at that cap the way it fits on his head." I said, "He really looks like a chef, don't he?" And he was so pleasant, and he learned that I knew Harry King, and we got to talk a lot, and he knew a lot more about Harry than I did because he lived there close to him, but he was a prince of a fellow. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. I noticed that near the end of the session you introduced a resolution stating with uncommon oratorical flourish, I might add, that among other things, and I quote here, "The balanced position of the speaker in the chair, is as difficult to maintain as the perch of a bird on a tender twig swayed by a strong wind." And you called for a safety belt of "groundhog hide" to be made for the speaker's safety. Now, I've interviewed several of your former House colleagues, and they've all referred to you as the "orator of the House." They've told me that you, no one could make a more flowery speech than you could. Was this resolution the start of that reputation that you earned in the House? HISLOPE: I wouldn't claim that reputation, however it is very flattering, and I was very pleased by their opinion. No, that wasn't the start of it. The start of it was the first time I was there, on the eleventh day, the Courier-Journal, I believe it was on the thirteenth, about the thirteenth page, and the second section, referred to me as a Democrat from Somerset. Well (laughs), not knowing any better, I guess, I thought, "Well, I ought to straighten that up because somebody might believe it." And I didn't know how to get the permission. We just had started the session, and no one was supposed to rise for the attention of the speaker. There's only one way that you could get up out of your chair, and I believe it was Harry King, I went to him, and I said, "How can I get the attention of the speaker?" He says, "The only way in the world you can get it is stand up and be recognized and say to the House that you are aggrieved." And I went back and I stood up, and he recognized me. He said, "Is the gentleman from Pulaski aggrieved?" I said, "Sorely aggrieved." And then I went ahead and (both laugh) made the little comments, and the House was very congenial and they seemed to appreciate it just as a matter of comedy, with a lot of laughter and we enjoyed it. So I believed that that would be the starting point, if there's any validity at all in what they said, I believe that would have been the starting point. SUCHANEK: I read some of your resolution and I think it's well-earned. HISLOPE: Thank you. SUCHANEK: Did the Democratic leadership consult with you about legislation, or did they ever ask for your support on some things, do you recall? HISLOPE: I don't recall, as of now, any particular thing, but I have, they did consult with me and ask me what I thought about it, and at some times asked me, they didn't ever ask me to do it, but they asked me if I might feel like approving it. They were very nice to me. And they would talk to me, especially people like Harry King. SUCHANEK: Um-hm, um-hm. Now, did you find that that type of arrangement was reciprocal? Would you go to them and ask for their support on some things? HISLOPE: On some things. I remember, I had a resolution on the Zollicoffer Park, that's near here, where 150, a whole slew, that's maybe a new word to you, but a whole slew of southern soldiers were killed at this place, 150 was placed in a common grave, and it's never been taken care of, to any extent. So I had a resolution calling on the governor to cause this place to be a state shrine, or some recognition so it would be permanently preserved, and I went over to the Senate and I told Senator Hubbard that this resolution was going to be over there, and I'd appreciate if he'd do something with it. And, when it came up, he done everything he could for it, and it passed, it was a ____(??) resolution. And, then some of the, my Democrat friends in the House, I talked to them, so we had no trouble at all in getting it passed. Of course, it wasn't a thing to be opposed, generally, anyway, but they were very helpful. When you need help, sometimes, if you know something could be passed, or can be passed, sometimes the time element will prevent such from happening. There will be so many other bills that people will be interested in, and yours will get left out. So, even though it's not controversial, you need a lot of help sometimes. SUCHANEK: Especially at the end of the session. HISLOPE: Yeah. And, so they were helpful with me on that, and it went through, and I think there's a copy of it down in the library now that they put on file. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Do you think your being minority floor leader benefited Pulaski County? HISLOPE: I would say at least, possibly, in an insignificant way, because if the floor leader is mentioned, usually they're, with most people, that would be a question of, "Well where is that floor leader from?" And, so Pulaski was recognized as being the place the floor leader was from, and any time a county is recognized in any sense whatsoever or if they're, the name of the county is called, it gives it a little more publicity, and to that extent, I guess it helped. And then, of course, you were invited to make some talks as this place and that, and, "We got a fellow coming, and he's the minority leader, and he's from Pulaski County." So, I would say it helped some, yes. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Did you get invited to speak at a lot of places? HISLOPE: I got invited to speak at a lot of places. I got, I was invited to speak on subjects other than politics in more places than I did political. So I was in the, I was more or less a free enterpriser, and then sometimes I was just maybe picked on, and they wanted a speaker, and they would get me, and I enjoyed going. Largest crowd I ever spoke to was I believe about 6,000 people, and I studied my speech very well, and spent about, quite a bit of time, I'd feel like that'd be good, I'd note it down, and I had it all ready, and one, I guess everybody's a little stage frightened when they first get up, and I was afraid I might miss something, and it was out at the national cemetery. And so we had a podium thing there, and the wind was blowing so hard that you couldn't hardly, well, you couldn't hold your hair down. And I couldn't put that speech on there, it'd blow away, and somebody had an old Barlow pocket knife, and they handed it to me, and I laid that knife on my notes there so it wouldn't blow away, and with that many people in front of you, when you get started, you feel like you've got power and when you feel like you've got power, you go right ahead and enjoy it. And some of the old- timers cried a bit, and some laughed a bit, and you know, you can be sometimes very influential with a bunch of people that's lost their loved ones, and when it comes to injury and sorrow and death. And so I enjoyed it very much and they might have enjoyed it some, because I was the only person that was ever invited three times to speak at the national cemetery. John Cooper had spoken there and some other people, so it gave me quite a bit of pride to be kind of within that number that had been invited there to speak, so that was the biggest crowd I ever had. And I was invited over to Virginia, and West Virginia, and some other places, and to speak on various subjects, and I enjoyed it a lot, a lot of commencement addresses. Enjoyed all of those. SUCHANEK: How did your name get known? HISLOPE: Huh? SUCHANEK: How did they find out about you? HISLOPE: Well if, the county just had one representative then, and if you are something, and there's only one of it, then a few little things happen in the Courier- Journal that are a little unusual, a write-up on something, they begin to realize, and at one time I could go up the street and all these young kids would speak to me, they knew me. And, of course I talked in their schools a few years, well many, nine years, and so you just knew everybody, and you were invited to a lot of places, and it always flattered me when I was invited because most people wasn't, and I enjoyed it very much. SUCHANEK: That's quite an honor to be invited to speak. HISLOPE: One of the greatest speakers that we ever had, of course Judge Tarter was a great one, John Cooper's uncle, but one of the greatest was a gentleman's picture, as we came up the stairs, Morrow. I remember when I was in school, the fellow that fired the furnace and baked the rolls for breakfast, an old colored man, and he said, "Is you from Somerset?" I said, "Yes sir." "Oh," he says, "That's where Governor Morrow's from." I said, "Yes," well, he says, "When he'd come down here and speak," says, "All of we niggers just cry" (both laugh). That amused me a lot. Morrow had a way of influencing people a lot when he's on the stump, and if he wanted to appeal to people's sensibilities, he could make them cry, and he did, and that colored man never did forget that. Said, "Every time he comes, we just cry when he speaks." He was the greatest. A. O. Stanley was another, and then, of course, Bradley. Let's see, I believe it was Bradley was the first Republican governor that the state of Kentucky ever had. I believe the state capitol was built while he was governor, was it not? I could be mistaken. SUCHANEK: I'd have to check. HISLOPE: And, when they dedicated that building, I wish I had a copy of what he said. It's one of the most beautiful pieces of prose and poetry that I ever heard, he changed that into a prayer, very, very beautiful. I didn't mean to get off onto that. SUCHANEK: No that's fine. Yeah. Do you think your being minority floor leader helped you get reelected the next election? HISLOPE: Yes- SUCHANEK: Did it mean anything to the, your constituents? HISLOPE: I believe it did. If it don't mean something to all of them, it means something to a few of them. And, then the few that realize that it was pretty nice to be elected a leader, what they would say would be overheard by some of the people that didn't pay any attention to it, and in a way that would help you by trickling on down influence from the top on down, maybe. SUCHANEK: Um-hm, um-hm. What was your impression of Bert Combs as a governor and as a man? HISLOPE: Bert Combs, my impression of Bert Combs has been a, sort of a kaleidoscope during my political journey. At first I didn't give Bert too much credit. Bert looked nice, Bert came from nice people, he talked like a hillbilly, like me, and he really was, but he couldn't talk when he first run for governor. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. In '55, yeah. HISLOPE: And something happened, and when he ran for governor the second time, he could just say what he wanted to in such a way that people would listen and enjoy it. And he was a down to earth man, in a sense like Henry Heyburn. He was sociable, he was amicable, he was good to talk to, and he never did try to put himself on a pedestal. I walked down the street with him, he called me the statesman, why, I don't know. I'd meet up, he called me the statesman. There was a few times that I didn't like some things that Bert had done, but I began to admire him as one of our greatest governors and have been intending to write him a letter and say some nice things to him, but have not got to it yet. I got to it with "Happy," I got, wrote "Happy" about five years ago, I got a copy of it there now, I believe. And, he wrote me a letter back, I'm telling you, and I told Don Cooper about it, that was John's brother. And John said, "He can really raise the hair on your head when he wants to." Don had had a reason to write him a letter, and he wrote back a letter to Don that was real nice, and he did to me too, and I enjoyed it very much. Bert Combs, I think, had vision. And he looked beyond the hill, and knew that there was something over on the other side that was more than just a valley. He just had a lot of good, common sense, and more sense than most people, and I think when history's, all the, when history is written down, all the facts, that he'll rank as one of our best governors in modern times, I believe. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. You mentioned that he did some things that you didn't particularly care for. Can you recall what those might have been? HISLOPE: No, I don't. It was just something that, the way one happened to feel politically, maybe according to which side you was on. It wasn't anything serious at all. But my opinion just grew, and finally it, my opinion just flared out til it was real good, and so I never had anything against him in my life, and I liked him a lot. I like him now and I liked him then. He was real good. SUCHANEK: Okay. Did you ever have any meetings with him when he was governor regarding legislation that either you wanted passed, or that he wanted passed? Did he meet with the minority leader? HISLOPE: No, I believe not, but I did, we did have some meetings on TV, and at that time, I began to lose some of my sight, and he had too, and he had some glasses, and when he would get through what he had to say on this televised program he would hand me his glasses (laughs), and I would use them til I got through, and I believe maybe that Wilson Wyatt might have been on that program with us, but I just don't remember us discussing any legislation. But we served on some panels together or sometimes we'd be in the same meeting, and sometimes we'd be on the agenda. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. You don't recall ever be called into the first floor office, the governor's office, about anything? A particular vote, or- HISLOPE: "Happy" called me in, and I believe it was on the Keeneland Bill. The Keeneland Bill was all right but I didn't understand it at that time like I do now. And, there was another bill that was going to cost a lot of money, and I don't recall what it was, and "Happy" talked to me. SUCHANEK: The cigarette tax? HISLOPE: No it wasn't, I believe it was, I just don't recall. But we had some conversation about it. He, "Happy," was sort of vindictive when you couldn't go with him all the way sometimes. I had a brother- in-law, and this brother-in-law was a contractor, he done quite a bit of work for the state, and this brother-in-law was a Democrat. And brother-in-law saw me one day and says, "'Happy' wants a certain bill passed awful bad, and he wanted me to talk to you about it." "Well," I says, "'Happy' should have talked to me himself," I said, "I'll be glad if he'll talk to me," but I don't know whether he can change my mind or not, but he talked to me about it, and it didn't change my mind, but it didn't make any difference either way I think. It passed anyway (laughs). But, I liked "Happy," he was quite different than any of the rest of them. SUCHANEK: Uh-huh. But you don't recall being called in by Bert Combs or Ned Breathitt into the governor's office? HISLOPE: No, I don't. Of course, Breathitt had us all down to dinner, and he would ask the ones of us what we think that we ought to do, and each one of us would express our mind, and I think someone else and I says, "Well, we ought to pass as few taxes as possible," and he laughed and said, "We're going to do that" (laughs). And then on this bill that all property has to be assessed at 100 percent of its valuation, Breathitt was governor then, and we talked with each other on that. And of course it was rolled back, really it didn't change a thing for it to be 100 percent, because the rate was rolled back, and maybe it shouldn't have been, but that's the way it was. Breathitt was pretty nice to get along with. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, when you're talking about "Happy," and I recall that "Happy" used to have something called the prayer breakfast? Do you recall that? HISLOPE: Yeah. Yes, I did and I was a speaker at one of those breakfasts. And I was quite elevated in spirit to get to do that before the governor and other people. And it just so happened that before that breakfast, I had been, everything I could find, after I got started, about everything I could find that related to the source of all power, I would jot it down. And I had about five pages of that, and my topic-Caleb McFadden at London was the chairman of the committee, and he invited me to speak one morning at the prayer breakfast. And I spoke, and my topic was the source of all power. It was an unusual speech in the sense that most of them had never heard a speech like it, and I'd never heard one like it either. Because I just got started on this, and it was "The Source of All Power," and it turned out real good, and a lot of them wanted copies of it, and so I was real satisfied that I could get up there and speak and let "Happy" hear me speak. So he'd been speaking all the time and I was listening to him, and then I spoke and he listened to me. Those prayer breakfasts was quite a constant thing, they were every Wednesday morning, or Tuesday, whichever one it was. And, it was quite well attended. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. How would you compare Bert Combs' administrative style with that of "Happy?" HISLOPE: Well, Bert was quite more subtle in his approach to problems. "Happy" was sensible enough that he was subtle too if it was out in the field of uncertainty. But, of course, within "Happy's" circle of friends and supporters, when he knew things that could, should be, and ought to be as he thought, and could be as he believed he could, he would push things out. And he was more, I don't want to use the word overbearing, but we'll not use it, but say some word related to it, he was more that way than Bert was. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. More forceful? HISLOPE: Yes, he was more forceful. SUCHANEK: Okay. Now, during that '60 session, you were appointed to a special committee by the Committee on Committees to investigate the administration and management of the Department of Education. This was a direct result of the increased revenue generated by the three cent sales tax that was earmarked for education. Do you recall what the outcome of that investigation was? HISLOPE: That investigation was a very, very thorough investigation, and brought things to light that a lot of people didn't realize. Such, this might seem minor to some people, when the weather was of a certain character, the kids wouldn't go to school because the weather was bad. But, when the mountains was covered with ice, and when there was accumulation of snow, the school bus would take the kids 200 miles to the ballgame. And, of course that gets the point over. And, I won't take much credit to that, I wish I had done more to it, but Harry Caudill, you know, recently deceased of Whitesburg, he was the man that really put the work, and the effort into that, and I just so happen to have this here. Harry had-did you ever know him personally? SUCHANEK: No, I didn't. HISLOPE: You look at him, and his head goes sideways, well maybe you can see it right here. He'd turn his head right just a little bit, and there'd be a dry smile, and he just looked like he might never say anything, but when he began to talk, you wouldn't turn your head, you had to look and hear everything he said, because he is one of the best talkers that I ever heard. Well, he was as good, or maybe better, when he'd go to write it down. And, so he was the kingpin of this investigation, and what he put down on paper, and what it turned out was so thorough, and so unusual, and so startling, and so surprising to most people that it had an awful lot of effect on education. A magnificent effect on it. And you know, a little bit later, he was writing the book and Bert Combs was in the book, and he talked about these powers that be a lot, and the University of Kentucky wouldn't publish it. He got it published, I believe the University of Illinois published it. So, Harry was a master at, Harry could dig a little bit, but he would say it in such a way that it seemed a comedy. You would read it, and you would smile, and then you would think, "Well, there's something to that." And, I think he enjoyed it very, very much, and he was the power behind it, and it, I think it changed our culture of education because it's taken people to think maybe things could be better after all. And it could have, and is now, now you take, for instance, what's going on right now pretty close to Frankfort, we won't go into that detail. There've been things there that shouldn't be. And there always has been things that shouldn't be in the Department of Education. I used to think that if one had the time and the money it would have been well to have sent people like Harry Caudill over to France, and Germany, and England, and maybe even to the Orient, and made a detail study of what some other people are doing other than us, because we've fallen very, very short when it comes to education in the United States in the last thirty-five, forty years especially. You take when your parents was young, in isolated communities, one, and two, or three room schools, there were some students there that learned more than they do at some of the high schools today. But they wanted to learn. There was incentive. And today it's not too much that way. I don't know whether I've really answered your question a lot, but I'll say that it had a positive effect on education. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Let me turn this over. [End of Tape #1, Side #1] [Beginning of Tape #1, Side #2] SUCHANEK: Of course that three cent sales tax was a major issue of the '60 session. You initially voted to table the bill, which Harry King Lowman warned would kill that bill, and then later on it passed 84 to 9 and you ended up voting for it. I'm supposing that you must have caught some flak from angry constituents once you got back home, because later on during the session you sponsored House Resolution 125, which urged the governor to call a special session to reconsider the sales tax and veteran's bonus. You stated that, quote, "It is common for all men to err, and customary for wise men to correct their mistakes." Do you have any comments about that? HISLOPE: The reason that I voted against it was that there was a veterans bonus involved as a tangential handle on this thing, if you remember, and the leadership of the democrat party first excluded all veterans who weren't residents of the state of Kentucky when that bill would be passed. And I said to our boys, I says, "If this thing is going to be passed, it ought to be passed right, and it ought to be passed without prejudice or favoritism, and everybody who was a veteran should be included. And I believe it would be better for us to go on the record as a person, as a man, to oppose this because it doesn't include those who were not a resident of Kentucky." And, we called a caucus, we went out, and stayed three hours, and the House wouldn't proceed. They waited on us. They knew it was very important. Because they didn't want to pass a bill where they would, as a party, exclude certain people, and the Republican Party wouldn't join them because they wanted to include everyone. But they finally passed it. And I stood at the House and told them, I said, "We'll be back, and this thing will be rearranged, and it will be voted on just like we wanted to vote on it." And I believe it was three months after that Bert called a special session. And then I got up to crow and said, "It's just like I told you, now we're going to vote with you, everybody's going to be happy, and we're going to pass this thing." And it's just like that. Politics is very amusing (laughs) sometimes. But now practically everybody in the House was with us on it, but the leadership, the ones that did, they didn't think they had the money, and I think they were right, possibly. They had a good reason to do what they were doing. And I thought we had a good reason to do what we were doing. I don't see how you research and get all this material (laughs). It's a job, isn't it? SUCHANEK: It's fun. It's a labor of love, yes. Another major piece of legislation that was passed during that, the Combs administration was the merit system for state employees. What was your position on the merit system? HISLOPE: I'm not recalling much about it, but I'm assuming that I was, supported the merit system, but I can't recall any details much about it. I'm assuming that I was for it. SUCHANEK: Do you think after thirty years the merit system, as it currently is, works? HISLOPE: It's worked better than, if we'll call it a system, which there's no system before it, it's better than what we had. It was an improvement, but there's vast times that it's not worked very well, but maybe those are glowing instances of things that don't happen very often, I don't know. But it's improvement. Some people have suffered because of the inaccuracies of it, or possibly the maladministration of it, but all in all, it's a good deal, I think. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Do you think it helps keep, do you think it serves its function of helping to keep politics out of state government? HISLOPE: It helps, but it don't work exactly all the time, but it helps. Now you sponsored House Resolution 81 which requested the establishment of a University of Kentucky extension center at Somerset. Did you sponsor this on behalf of some farm organization or a group of farmers, perhaps? HISLOPE: We had talked prior to this time, how nice it would be if we had, say, a branch of the university or a college here. There was a teacher that taught, the few years I taught, there was a teacher that often would say, his name was Herb Higgins, that we ought to have a university here, and Herb just thought it'd be a good idea, and of course everybody thought it was a good idea. And I knew it was a good idea, and I'll profess that I sponsored it because the people wanted it, and be frank enough to say that I sponsored it because it was also a very popular thing and it might do me some good. You know, you do those things sometimes, and I will admit it. And I thought, well, it's a good deal, if it does me some good that's all right, but it would be much better if it could come to pass sometime. And, it just so happened, of course, that it did come to pass and I got a lot of flake from the bill, having some opposition later on, they said that I voted against the bill. And, there was an old-timer, I said, "If I should go and show you the record where I voted for that bill, would that satisfy you?" He says, "Hell no," says, "I know you didn't" (both laugh). He wouldn't take it, he wouldn't take an honest answer for anything, because if I prove it to you, he says, "No, I wouldn't believe it" (both laugh). SUCHANEK: What is your opinion of the University of Kentucky? HISLOPE: I love the University of Kentucky. I think all in all they're doing a good job. And to show my respect to the university, I was the only person that voted against the satellite universities. Every person of the House, the president of all the state teachers colleges came in, and they lobbied and they lobbied, and they had other people to come in, they had newspaper reports, and it became evident that I couldn't support the bill. They pressured me every way in the world, and they tried to remove me out of that House. I mean, so I wouldn't' be around. And when that bill came up, I couldn't vote for it because I thought if we've got a great university that we can't eight or ten other universities competing with it and scattered all over the state. And I thought that our other colleges could be just as good and render just as great a service to let the University of Kentucky even do a better job if possible than they had been doing, and have more money than they have had, and still our other colleges would have had enough to have gotten along too. I just wasn't for it, and I guess if I had it to be done over, I'd still vote the same way I did. I didn't think it ought to be that way. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. How did they try to make sure you weren't in the House? HISLOPE: Well, one day, I don't know how in the world it happened, someone told me that someone wanted to see me. And, I went out and I believe instead of voting to against it, they voted on that thing just like that while I was out so there would be no vote against it. And, I don't see how in the world they did it. They must have just, as soon as that door closed, there was a call for it right then, and just speeded it through. They didn't want any vote against that at all. SUCHANEK: Because you weren't gone that long, were you? HISLOPE: No, I wasn't gone anytime, because I wanted to rush back, because I thought they might put it up (both laugh). SUCHANEK: They beat you on that one. HISLOPE: I used to think about, now, we've got the University of Kentucky here, come on down here, we've got Eastern, come on down the road a little bit, we've got Sue Bennett, and go on down to Barbourville, we've got- SUCHANEK: Union College. HISLOPE: Union College, and we go on over to Williamsburg, we've got Cumberland College, just a whole string of colleges up through there. And, actually, they put a college now at Corbin. SUCHANEK: Corbin. HISLOPE: That's going to be ridiculous in my opinion. Sometimes I think the University of Kentucky ought to exert itself a little more than they do and try to oppose some of these things, I don't know. But that's an awful lot of-but one time you get something started, they want a four year college for this college down here. Of course, I live here, I'd like to see that, that'd be great. But you can't listen to everybody all over the state, or you wouldn't have enough money to go around or enough students to go to the schools. SUCHANEK: Well, earlier in this gubernatorial campaign when Brereton Jones was in Owensboro, he was quoted as saying, "Owensboro would be a nice place to have a four year college." And though he didn't commit to building one- HISLOPE: Well he can say that, maybe get by with it. Yeah. SUCHANEK: Yeah (laughs). He didn't say he'd build one, but I think that's, you know, that's old as the brass band. Yeah. HISLOPE: Yeah. It appears the havoc with some of these small religious colleges, maybe they're not nearly as religious as they used to be, but anyway they've got the backing of that church, of the Baptist church over there at Williamsburg, or the Methodist church over at Barbourville, but you let these state-financed institutions get too close to them, and you'll kill them. And they're doing a pretty good job, some of them. Over at Williamsburg, they got four years over there, that's a good school. SUCHANEK: Now, in the '61 primary your opponent, W. Hobart Van Hook, really lit into you on your voting record, particularly your negative votes on unemployment benefits and raising the minimum wage. He also claimed that you were only a messenger for your employer, Kentucky Utilities, and that as such, you had helped prevent the building of an REA plant for twelve months. Now, KU's opposition to TVA and REA go all the way back to the '46 session when KU's attorneys wrote up the TVA ripper bill, which failed at that time, but became an issue during the '47 gubernatorial campaign. What was your response to Mr. Van Hook's attack? HISLOPE: I didn't respond very strongly to Mr. Van Hook because it had also been thrashed out before. The first time I had an opposition years in TVA, _____(??) beat me, and Muriel Harris, a very good friend of mine, had always been, an attorney here, he really put me down on that. And they accused me, you know, I studied what they are so, I'm a very powerful person, and if I should decide to go right and have as much power as they say I have, if we decide to do something good, I'd get it done. And kind of joke on it like that. And Mr. Van Hook, in a way, was sort of a radical candidate, and nobody happened to pay too much attention to what he said, he wasn't too influential, with all due credit to him. He was a sensible person, but he wasn't very adept at politics. But, when Muriel Harris ran, Muriel had a good mind, and good expression, was a good speaker, and a good singer, and when he said something about it, it really hurt. And, when they was counting the votes, I came, we ended up vote count one day, and I was eight votes behind Muriel Harris. He was making a race, and he was using the, he was using KU, see, KU against and TVA. I was innocent, between the two, just an innocent person, but it (unintelligible) the next morning, when we come back to the courthouse, said, "How did you feel last night?" Said, "You were eight votes behind," I said, "I felt like I was behind the eight ball." And, but that day, I began to pick up a little bit, but it was difficult opposition, because the REA had been so popular in the beginning, they were the only people to put that power up there. And, the things that KU had done in the past really rubbed off on me, and they gave me credit for being the one that could, I could do anything when it came to destroy REA. I had the power to do it. Because I had the power behind me (laughs). It was difficult, very difficult. Mr. Harris is a very good speaker, and I never will forget. It was a tight place, and I was going to make a speech, and Muriel was born here at Punkett Holler down, just a few miles from Somerset, and he was talking one day, I had it recorded on the radio session, that he was born in some city in Utah, and I said, "Ladies and gentlemen," I says, "My opponent Mr. Harris says he was born in Utah," but I says, "if you are interested enough to search the records, he was born down here at Punkett Holler." Now, I says, "In my opinion, if one would not be truthful on small things, when it comes to things of larger moment, they might handle the truth even more recklessly then than otherwise."And, that clipped just a little, and I says, "The things that have been said about me about TVA," I said, "I don't have any power with TVA, either for or against them, because I don't have any position to." But, I don't think many other people knew. But, anyway, I said something about I saw the-I better not tell this one because I'm not getting the gist of it (laughs), but it was sort of comical in a way. See, I won't do it at all, because I'm going to not recall it. But it was a fight all the way through. But we were good friends after that, and that never did bother me anymore, but it liked to have got me on that one. But the, I don't know whether you, have you got anything there about Beecher Frank? SUCHANEK: Yeah, we're going to get to- HISLOPE: He was the cleverest one I ever ran against. SUCHANEK: Yeah. Before we get to that, we've talked a little bit about Harry Caudill, and his book Theirs Be the Power, and in connection with Van Hook's attack, Mr. Van Hook's attack, you know, in relating this to Harry Caudill, in his book, Theirs Be the Power, Harry wrote that the energy industry, and especially Kentucky Utilities, has a hand in the outcome of every election in Kentucky from who sits in the governor's chair to who sits in the state legislature to who is elected county judge, and even who is elected the property evaluation administrator or assessor. How do you respond to that? Is the energy industry that powerful? HISLOPE: I would say that Harry's being excessive in making that statement. However, I would admit that any large cooperation, especially, this has been so in the past, any large cooperation might manipulate to, maybe, give something of value to the parties on both sides in a race, so if they are elected they can be friendly with either one of them. At least allegedly thinking they might be that way. Now during the time that I've been in public office there's been things happen where people were influenced with money, possibly, and I never was acquainted much with it. But before my time, I remember hearing Mr. Williams, Richard Williams, who was president of the Farmer's Bank over here, his brother was highway commissioner at one time. And he said in old southern hotels, all the doors had transoms over them, and at night, sometimes you'd hear something [bangs on the table] hit the floor in the room, and he said it was moneybag being dropped over the transom into the rooms of the various legislators who lived in the hotel, and they were going to be as the railroad wanted them to be. So the railroad, allegedly, was more guilty than any of the rest. Now, I wouldn't say that all the rest of them were innocent of it, but I just make the statements that what Harry was saying there, which is pretty pleasant gist to a lot of readers, but I believe he was excessive to quite an extent on that, but I wouldn't say he was wrong altogether either. SUCHANEK: Okay. Did Kentucky Utilities encourage you to run for the legislature? Did they provide any financial support to your campaign? And since you were employed by KU, I guess I'm obligated to ask you, how obligated did you feel towards protecting the interests of the energy industry? HISLOPE: Well, one night, I guess their chief lobbyist said to me, he said, "Why don't you go to Louisville this weekend?" And I said, "I don't have any reason to go to Louisville this weekend." Well, there was going to be certain bills come up. I said, "I can't go." And that was all there was to it. Seemed like Kentucky Utilities Company was always quite considerate and nice to me, they never did tell me I had to do anything. I understood them well enough that I knew of legislation they might be interested in. But I was never asked directly to do so and so, or I was never threatened, and I was just treated like anybody else when it came to that. I would say that on the average, many of the ideas that they had on government were conservative like, and I'm a conservative, and possibly there's a lot of times that I would vote possibly the way that they would have voted had they been there as an individual. But I never had them to say, "You do this," or "You do that." And, I thought that was pretty nice. It's a big company, but they more or less led me along. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Did they contribute any to your campaign? HISLOPE: Well, in this sense. I had a retirement with them. And I says, "When I'm not with the company, I want this retirement to continue." But, they said, "All right," and I gave them the money to pay for it, that they would have put in it had I been working for them. And when I would go to Frankfort, I wouldn't be working for the company, and if I could have worked for the company, and draw up my company salary, I'd have been, in a sense, I would have been paid off, in a sense, for something I wasn't doing. But it didn't work that way. I was separated from the company altogether. But they (unintelligible) some of my retirement, because I'd have had more time in, as such. Thirteen years, you're up there every two years, that takes quite a bit off the duration of time. And so, they were real nice to me. I would assume that they knew people that they could deal with if they had wanted to deal. But you're going to have, in that position, you're going to have the Chamber of Commerce, the Louisville Police, and county governments, and just about everybody that has anything to do with anything that would change things if the legislature does so and so. You're going to have them to, at least to see you, or to talk to you, or to tell somebody to tell you something. They all do that. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. But you never felt like your job would be in jeopardy- HISLOPE: No. SUCHANEK: if you voted a certain way? HISLOPE: No. SUCHANEK: Okay. Now, Harry Caudill also pointed out, in his book, that Bert Combs' law firm has a long list of energy corporations as part of their clientele. I guess, insinuating, perhaps, that Combs had a cozy relationship with those firms while he was governor. Philosophically, I guess, there's nothing wrong with an individual, or a company, trying to protect their own interests in a legislature by lobbying, because that individual, or that company, pays taxes like everyone else, and deserves to have their say. But where do you draw the line to prevent that individual, or that company, from having undue influence? HISLOPE: That's a hard question. A lawyer of the caliber that Bert Combs became naturally would have some large cooperations as his clients. It's a hard thing, because you can't feel-if I were a lawyer, and say I was working for, representing the standard oil company, you can't just feel like you would feel if you didn't represent the company. Because they give you money, and sometimes a lot of it, but still when it comes down to that basic point, "Should I do this to please the company?" I believe that a man, if he does the right thing, should, if it would violate any ethical principle whatsoever not do it, and I just think in the long run that that would work out better for the company, for the individual, and for everybody concerned. But we know those things don't always happen. They just don't. And, I've not answered your question, it's a hard question to answer, very difficult. SUCHANEK: Now for the first time, in that '61 general election, Muriel Harris was your opponent, and for the first time, that was the first time you had a Democratic challenger. He campaigned on the fact that being a Democrat, he'd be able to cooperate more with the Democratic administration, and Democratically controlled legislature to bring more money and more programs to Pulaski County. And, as you stated, that was a tough race, because you eventually defeated Harris by only 298 votes. While, at the same time, a Democrat was elected county judge for the first time since immediately after the Civil War here in Pulaski County. In fact, Muriel Harris beat you here in Somerset, where you normally ran strong. But you were able to pull out the election by out pulling him in the county amongst the farmers, I would guess. What was going on here in Somerset where Harris was able to out pull you here in the city? HISLOPE: Well, Somerset and it's, in general elections is almost tick and tack on which one party will win. SUCHANEK: Oh, is that right? HISLOPE: Yeah, it's pretty close. Now, we have a Democrat mayor. Of course, they run on a non-partisan ticket, but the city of Somerset may go either way quite often, it's just simply that close. It's a little Republican, but historically it's, you can't depend on it either way, it's always pretty close. SUCHANEK: I see, I didn't know that. HISLOPE: Now, out in the county, they vote county lines usually pretty strictly, and the county is heavily Republican. But in the city, it's not that way. And speaking of the county judge, he's an unusual type of fellow, he's a nice fellow, and just to talk to him you wouldn't think he was much of a politician, but anyway, he won the election, and he served twenty years. He won for 20 years, and that's something that never happened before. Yeah, and his father was an old county doctor. You call them old county doctors, you don't mean as old, but he was a county doctor. And he would take in various things for services, like land and otherwise, and this judge and his brother had so much land, that they said they don't know how much they own. Thousands and thousands of acres of land. And he was one of those- SUCHANEK: What judge is this? HISLOPE: fellows like Bert Combs. He's right down with the people. And, he'll tell you something, and you don't think anything about it. And you start to walk off, you begin to think about it, well, he really said something after all, and he's very friendly, and Democratic or Republican, there's not much any difference. SUCHANEK: I forget who that is. HISLOPE: John Garner. John Garner. G-A-R-N-E-R. And, he's quite well liked. A lot of people knew his father; they liked his father. Some of them voted for him because of his father, some of them voted for him because they liked him, and some of them voted for him because they didn't like the other fellow. And you put all those things together, he ran real strong all the time. SUCHANEK: Yeah. Now, in the 1962 session, you sponsored House Bill 1, which denied civil rights to persons that were judged to be communists. Now, the Judiciary Committee recommended that it not pass, and so it died, but I was wondering, since this occurred before the Cuban Missile Crisis, in May of that year, in May of '62, what prompted you to introduce this bill, and what did you hope it would accomplish? HISLOPE: I had always been quite a strong anti-communist, and I read some literature maybe that everyone didn't read, everything I could get a hold of about the communists, I would read it. And, for many many years, I thought about our way of government, and their way of government, and particularly I learned of the atrocities that had been committed on their side, and that black is white and white is black and up is down and anything in the world, murder, anything to get the, what they wanted done they would do it, because it became right, because in the long run, they was going to have a glorious world with no trouble. And, I was just so strongly anti-communist that I didn't think a communist should have the right to be a citizen of the United States, and I was serious about it, and I guess I didn't really think it would pass, but I was serious about it. And I wish it had of passed (laughs). SUCHANEK: Recent developments in eastern Europe and Russia kind of prove that communism wasn't a good system. HISLOPE: It would have been wonderful to change; if it could just keep on changing for the better. SUCHANEK: Now, also during that '62 session you again tried to have the Goebel statue removed and destroyed (Hislope laughs), but you also sponsored a resolution requesting an increase of the tobacco allotments to small farmers, which was adopted. Why was this important to small tobacco farmers? HISLOPE: Well, when they began to hand out the allotments, there was a lot of people in eastern Kentucky that they didn't, they just didn't get any allotment. And there were so many hills, and such a small amount of land, later on, which existed all along, that in figuring out the system, they weren't allotted any. And I reasoned that at least the person who maybe owns two or three hundred acres of mountain land, if he's got a little level land, he ought to have a chance to produce a money producing crop, and I really done it, was serious and thought that people in those mountains ought to be able to raise a little tobacco. And, of course the people in the bluegrass, they had level places to grow it all, and they had big allotments, and I just thought that the little man ought to have a little. But on this Goebel statue (laughs), I guess I wasn't too serious about that. I knew it would cause a little controversy and quite a bit of comment, and Allen Trout, you've heard of Allan Trout? SUCHANEK: Um-hm, sure. HISLOPE: I don't know what politics Allen was, but he was sensible and a good man, and I was talking to him about William S. Taylor one day, and he said, "It's a shame the way they ran him out of the state." And so I figured that Allen would sort of sympathize the way I did, and I just done it in a sense to, I just wanted to do it, I guess for fun, I guess. A little political fun. And, it raised quite a bit of comment. It was talked about a lot, in the newspapers a lot. Of course, it was in a bad place, with traffic up there in front of the capitol. But I went a little to the extreme and say that it be sold and the money (both laugh) be sent to the treasury. That was all just, I guess political- SUCHANEK: Rhetoric. HISLOPE: rhetoric, yeah. SUCHANEK: Uh-huh. Well, in regards to the tobacco allotments, did you ever talk to John Sherman Cooper about that? HISLOPE: No, I didn't. John was, of course, very heavily in favor of the tobacco farmer, but I never did talk to him about it. Washington would have been a good place to start with that, it'd have helped them a lot if it'd been on the first. But I don't guess you've been to Owsley County yet, have you? SUCHANEK: Not yet. HISLOPE: They've got some of the finest land over there, but not much of it. And they do grow some tobacco in it, have some of the finest tobacco in the state in that little county; just about 5,000 people in the county, because they've got some land that really grows, but not much. I guess the boys in Washington thought they had enough coal, they could use their coal for cash. SUCHANEK: You also sponsored House Resolution 42 in the '62 session, which requested a Social Security amendment be passed to increase benefits to widows, on the grounds that a surviving wife is in greater need of reasonable Social Security than when her husband is alive. Did you introduce this resolution on behalf of a constituent, or how did this situation come about? HISLOPE: I just introduced it because I think it had some social value that when people first begin to get Social Security, as I know it, they, some of them didn't get over $35 a month. And I personally knew people that that's about all the income they had, about $35 a month. And they just didn't have anything to get by with at all, and especially when their husband is gone, they're in pretty rough shape. And I was really serious in it. Of course, we knew that there wasn't but so much money. If money had been growing on trees, that'd have been wonderful, but at least it was of a social nature to people that needed some help, and something might have come of it. So it was to their benefit because it was introduced. SUCHANEK: Do you recall how that was brought to your attention? HISLOPE: Sir? SUCHANEK: Do you recall how that was brought to your attention? HISLOPE: No, I really don't, except I was knowledgeable of the fact that so many of them hardly got anything at all. And, you know, at that time, some of them didn't get any, and then they began to be a little more liberal with it, and if they would pay in, maybe, for two years, of course, some of them got a pretty good Social Security for just paying in two years. The people that made pretty good money, that wasn't right, of course there's a lot of inequities, but in a way, I guess, they ought to have had a floor to pick up these widows and other people that just didn't have anything at all to subsist on. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, in the '63 primary, your opponent Leslie Gay harped on the fact that you had voted for the notorious egg law during the '62 session. Many legislators bemoaned the fact that they had voted for the egg law, and at least one has told me that it was the worst vote he ever cast (both laugh). Several of the legislatures who had voted for the egg law, were in fact voted out of office by their constituents. Now, you had actually voted against the egg law. Do you think that Mr. Gay was just misinformed about your vote on that egg law, or, was this just a deliberate misrepresentation? HISLOPE: I'm not sure he was misinformed at all, but I'm a guessing that he just wanted some votes. Mr. Gay is still living, he's an attorney here, a nice fellow, and he went to the legislature once, and he got a good job, and there was one time I ran after this time that he gave me a small contribution. So, we're good friends. He could have thought that I voted for it, I really don't know (Suchanek laughs), but as you say, if you voted for it, you were in bad shape (both laugh), just terrible. I don't remember his name that introduced it. Gosh, he couldn't come back, they wouldn't have sent him back for anything in the world. See, all the, you may not be familiar with this, but on a lot of the small farms, or even some pretty good-sized farms, they'd have a chicken house, and they'd have chickens all around the place, and there was a time when I was a young boy, that a lot of our neighbors, when they needed something at the store, they'd go gather the eggs and take the eggs to the store. And they brought very little money, but they'd get salt, and pepper, and a can of salmon, salmon was fifteen cents a can, that may be hard for you to believe that, but it's fifteen cents a can. They brought back food for the table with these eggs, which they didn't need, and didn't want. They didn't even have them for breakfast, a lot of them, because they didn't eat them. Easter is about the only time they'd use an egg for breakfast. Well, when this was passed, they wasn't going to get that candling devices and everything, and look at them through light and see how they were, and they said, "Man, that boy, fellow vote to keep me from having eggs from my chickens now, and I can't have any eggs, and I can't take them to teh store," and the way they looked at it, it was a tragedy. So they just voted against whoever voted for it (Suchanek laughs). SUCHANEK: Yeah. And again, apparently most people got the word that you had actually voted against that because you defeated Mr. Gay by 800 votes, which is pretty considerable. Now, the general election in '63, the Somerset Journal, for the first time, I believe, endorsed your opponent, only they didn't do it by name, but by advocating people to vote for the straight Democratic ticket. Did the Journal's, I'm assuming that the Journal was the Democratic paper, is that right? HISLOPE: Yeah. SUCHANEK: Okay. So, that endorsement by the Journal didn't surprise you at all? HISLOPE: Not too much, because the Journal was quite partisan in their politics. Well, I guess the Commonwealth, the other paper, was too. But, I guess it surprised me a little bit, because usually the local papers here don't have, in the state elections like that, don't have much to say about it. I guess I was mildly surprised, but not too much so. SUCHANEK: Now, during that campaign, you stated that your resolution during the '62 session relative to the Supreme Court's ruling on school prayer, was the first official condemnation of the court's ruling in the United States, and that it attracted national attention. Was that right? HISLOPE: That's right. I got letters from men all over the country. The reason it was the first one, say you got the news tonight that it passed. Well, I sat up that night until about midnight and wrote my resolution, and I got over to the House early that morning, and I got it in, and so it was right under the legislative offer that morning, which was, write a response to it, write in, it was the first one in the United States. SUCHANEK: I see. So, you were just kind of waiting for it to come down? Or you just happened to be up that night? HISLOPE: Well, we knew by the papers that it was in the air, see, and when it happened, I didn't know when it was going to happen, but of course when it did happen, I said, right here is an opportunity to give an answer to that right now. And so I just put it in the next day, and it set the spark, all right. It, a lot of comment. SUCHANEK: Well, what was your reason for condemning the Supreme Court's ruling? Do you think school prayer is important? HISLOPE: I think the admittance, in general, of an almighty God or an omnipotent being, is good in any hall, any meeting, and any place. And without going into details on how it should be, I just think that if a nation is going to be a great nation, there's certain precepts that have got to be in school, engrained in an individual from the time up. And I just think that the school, at least should be related, maybe in a tangential sense, that that child can at least think that there's something going to happen after here, something after a while, something before he was and something after. And some of the text books, as we knew then and knew now, they don't even refer to Thanksgiving as a day of thanks. It was the day that the Indians done so and so. People like George Washington are said very little about, and so if we go under the concept that this nation was formed under a God-fearing people, and that people who believe in justice, and believe in law, and believe in equity, and believe in an eternal being, that concept is gone from a lot of our textbooks. And everything that happens in relationship to education, it's just gone anymore. And I thought it would maybe do some good to, maybe it was overstated, but would do some good to put it in there. Now, if I thought that way then, and I still think this way now: if a child in school, everyday, should say this, "My dear Father, protect me this day, and may I live this day as I should so those who occupy the high seat in heaven can smile on me tonight when I go to bed." That prayer is legal in any place in the world, don't matter what the amendment of the Supreme Court says. Because it don't refer to any sect, or any religion, or any practice of any people on earth. And the whole concept, as I said- SUCHANEK: Except the atheists. HISLOPE: Huh? SUCHANEK: Except the atheists. HISLOPE: Yeah. That's right. Now, if we live in an Arab world, we've got to be pretty careful if they're in the majority, but of course, we are the majority now, and while we've got it, we better exercise some of the power we've got with it, because the days are coming when we're not going to be in the majority. But, I don't know, there's a lot of changes happ--, taking place in the last forty years that's changed this country an awful lot. Humanism as such, you know, places man; man is the one that drives the cart. Man is the one that makes the decisions. Man is the one that causes to be what is to be, or prevents from being what would have been. And God used to have that position, whether you are a Muslim, or whether you're a Quaker, or whether you're a Catholic, or a Methodist, or what not. But anymore, some of these kids don't know God who is premier of Nepal (laughs). They just don't do it. I was pretty serious about it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. I'm going to need a new tape. [End of Tape #1, Side #2] [Beginning of Tape #2, Side #1] SUCHANEK: Okay. Now, in'63 you also endorsed Louie Nunn for governor, which is kind of strange that a candidate for the state legislature who had opposition would be endorsing a gubernatorial candidate. I assume you must have been pretty confident of Nunn's popularity in Pulaski County, because that usually, that wasn't done, for fear that it could backfire, is that right? HISLOPE: At that time Nunn was quite popular here. They needed a candidate here, and he fulfilled the need. And he was known by some people here before he ran, and he was, at that time, he was a pretty nice looking fellow, he looked nice, and he would make a pretty good talk, and he slanted it down so everybody could understand it, and, when he was out among the old timers he'd tell some jokes that'd cause them to laugh and everything. So they went with him pretty good, especially farm people, and the people around town. SUCHANEK: So, you felt pretty safe that that was- HISLOPE: Yeah, I didn't feel like I'd be hurting. SUCHANEK: wouldn't hurt you. HISLOPE: I didn't feel like I'd be hurting, you know. And, see at that time Marlow Cook was-no, yeah? Did Marlow run that time for governor? SUCHANEK: I don't recall. HISLOPE: I won't pursue it, because I can't recall myself. But I believe he did, because there was a personal friend of mine south of the river that was for me so strong, that she just came out that what we need is men like Marlow Cook and Leonard Hislope for state representative. Well, there's not Catholics here hardly at all, and some people would stir up, you know, they stir up religion sometimes, and that made some of them think that Leonard Hislope was for that Catholic. But she meant to help me, but she done me harm (both laugh). Because, but Marlow would have been a good governor. We would have been as satisfied as him as much as we did Louie Nunn. SUCHANEK: Uh-huh. Now, during that general election, Muriel Harris attacked you by saying that your employer, Kentucky Utilities, had been responsible for the defeat of legislation that would have put a dam at Devil's Jump. Do you recall that issue about Devil's Jump? HISLOPE: Yeah. The Devil's Jump thing was a real hot issue here for quite a while. There's an awful lot of opposition to Devil's Jump with people other than the utility people, because it would have destroyed some of the most magnificent scenery there is in, I guess in the Eastern United States, and there were some groups of people that opposed Devil's Jump that wasn't related to the utility people. And they'd done a lot to nullify, or sort of quiet down that opposition that would have existed had it been for that. I know I was in Whitley City one day, and they were going to have a meeting down at the hotel, I believe it was, and they asked me to go with them. And I was going with them, I just happened to think, well, I told them, I said, "I guess I better not go, because you're advocating Devil's Jump, and I work for the company that's opposing it. So, I'll be between a hard rock and the sea either way I go, so I better not go, because I'm on a trip now for Kentucky Utility company, I'm under their employ, and it'll be in the paper," and I said, "you know what it'll do. And, maybe it'll do just as much if I don't," but I said, "I won't accept the invitation this time." And so I didn't go. But there was an awful lot of interest. Then they began to prove that if it were dammed, that'd be only a small part of the year there'd be enough water to generate electricity anyway, and it is one of the most scenic, really gorgeous, gorgeous place. So everybody now is glad that they didn't, but at that time, some of them thought it would make power cheaper, and- SUCHANEK: Yeah. Did you make a trip there just to look around to see- HISLOPE: No, other people made trips, a lot of my friends, and I had a lot of pictures of it, and I never did take the time to go down and see it, but it's a great place. But I would say that that it hurt me some in the race. SUCHANEK: Now, in the '64 regular session, you not only were re-elected as minority floor leader, but you were also nominated for Speaker of the House. Obviously you had no chance to be elected speaker because, of course, the House was still controlled by the democrats. But, still, this must have been quite an honor for you, and a measure of respect among your fellow Republicans. HISLOPE: In a sense it was, of course it was rather, as you intimated, sort of a hollow order, because we knew that it was absolutely impossible. But just suggesting such, it was sort of like tasting a honeycomb a little bit, it was sweet, and it was nice, but we knew it wasn't possible (laughs). SUCHANEK: Now, two Republicans, Victor Howard from Cumberland and Albert Dempsey from Inez, bolted the party and voted for the Democratic nominee who was Shelby McCallum. Did you have any problems with Howard or Dempsey that would have caused them to vote against you and break ranks with the Republicans? HISLOPE: No, I didn't have any trouble with them, but they were pretty strong- headed, and sort of mavericks in a sense. Dempsey listed that, he was a young fellow, but on, he was in our little book, he has retired you know, all the information that he has already retired. And he's kind of an odd kind of a person, but he's all right. He didn't- and then, Mr. Howard, he was sort of a radical, but he's all right too, but they just went the way they wanted to go, I guess, and we didn't pay any attention to it. SUCHANEK: Okay. In '63, Ned Breathitt, who was Bert Combs' hand-picked successor was elected governor, and Harry Lee Waterfield, who was Chandler's man, was elected lieutenant governor. I was wondering if the republicans anticipated that another split in the democratic ranks, similar to what had occurred in 1958, would occur during the Breathitt administration, and if you made any plans to take advantage of the situation. HISLOPE: I didn't make any plans. We were aware that there could be a split, but we just weren't cognizant of it, and I don't remember anybody making any plans much about it. Most of us were real good friends of Waterfield. I was personally a good friend of his, and (laughs) I never will forget the time that we had a resolution in the House. And there was some kind of expenses that were supposed to be revealed and everybody know about it, and the majority wouldn't let it be that way, and I wrote a resolution about that dream, that you may have read of, and when Waterfield he saw that, he just chuckled, it done him so much good (laugh). That Waterfield was a real nice person. SUCHANEK: Yeah, tell me about him. HISLOPE: Sir? SUCHANEK: Tell me about Harry Lee Waterfield. HISLOPE: Well, you know the lieutenant governor's job, Harry Lee didn't even occupy the office. The lieutenant governor don't have anything to do, whatsoever, except preside when the House and, or when the Senate is in session. SUCHANEK: And run for governor. HISLOPE: And run for governor anymore. And Harry Lee knew that, so Harry Lee had the headquarters of his insurance company in a building downtown, and so Harry Lee was in the office some of the time, but most of the time he'd be down in his office at work. Knowing that that had no function whatsoever, he just treated it as such. And his daughter, there was always somebody, some secretary would be there if you wanted to see him or wanted something done, you could see her. He was a very lovable person, he was an humble type of person, down to earth, and he wouldn't think about politics when you talked to him. You wouldn't think about politics when you talked to him. Wouldn't think about him being a Republican or a Democrat, either one, he was just all right all the way around. And had quite a few rough bumps when it came to politics in his own party. He aspired to be governor, and never reached it, but I think he'd have been a good governor. He was all right. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Did you ever meet with him in his office? HISLOPE: Well, talked to him a lot of times, (coughs) excuse me, yes, but for no specific purpose other than just to be friendly and say hello. And not anything desired, or any wanted, or anything for him to do, but just to drop in, like one would to a friend and talk with him a while. He liked to talk to people. I was on the LRC with him, and it was, that's one of the good things about Frankfort, the Legislative Research Commission. I served on it twice and, for eight years, and it's really a nice organization. Not too much politics in it. If there is it's not obvious; they've got some good leadership. Wendell Ford is the chief man. Used to be head of the LRC, and as Mr. Fleming used to be, he's a good man. So, it's a good organization. SUCHANEK: I think Harry Lee was one of the initiators of the LRC, was he not? Back in the- HISLOPE: Who? SUCHANEK: Harry Lee Waterfield. HISLOPE: Yeah, that was one- SUCHANEK: Back in the late 40's. HISLOPE: Yes he was. Sure was. That all was brewing before I went to the legislature and, so it's become a- they've got quite a good library there, and they've got a lot of information. A lot of information. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Well, would you like to stop for today? It's getting a little nosity up here. We've still got, I've still got lots of questions for you, so I'm going to have to come back anyway- HISLOPE: You can go ahead a little while if you want to, I'm not tired, or just anyway you want to do it. We'll do it any way you want to do. SUCHANEK: Well, why don't I ask a few more questions anyway. HISLOPE: Okay. SUCHANEK: All right. Now, I know that having Breathitt as governor and Waterfield as lieutenant governor created dissention in the Senate, but I was wondering if this dissention also trickled down into the House. HISLOPE: There was some. It wasn't obnoxious, as to say, and it wasn't too hindersome. But, of course, there, one of the factions felt one way, and one another about some things, but they got along fairly well. SUCHANEK: Okay. Did Waterfield ever ask for your support to strengthen his hand against the Breathitt faction? HISLOPE: I don't recall him ever asking it. Don't recall him ever asking it. SUCHANEK: Okay. What was your impression of Ned Breathitt as governor? HISLOPE: Sir? SUCHANEK: What was your impression of Ned Breathitt? HISLOPE: It wasn't negative, and it really wasn't positive. I just didn't feel either way about it for a while. I began to give him some credit before too long. Maybe it was because there was, it was a time of non-eventful happenings or something. It just seemed like that his tenure as government was sort of a time in state government when it wasn't restive, it was sort of peaceful, but there wasn't much going on. Just the day to day initiation of necessary things without anything great, and sort of small things, in a way. SUCHANEK: Such as the sales tax that Bert Combs- HISLOPE: Yeah. SUCHANEK: There wasn't any sales tax of that nature. HISLOPE: Yeah. He didn't have too much to do, it seems. SUCHANEK: Do you call him more of a caretaker then? HISLOPE: I would say so. I wouldn't much want him to know I said that, maybe he won't. But we were pretty good friends. You know, you walk along the way, and sometimes there's just not anything to bother, or anything too much to worry about, so he had a lot of things that had already been done, and it wasn't time to do the other things, so he was kind of in between, I guess. SUCHANEK: Okay. What was your impression of Shelby McCallum as Speaker of the House? HISLOPE: Shelby was a nice man. He was all right. He wasn't as alert as fellows like Harry King, wasn't as quick on the draw, and maybe wasn't as diplomatic, but I think he was just as sincere as any of them. Harry King could do something that might irritate you a little bit, but he could talk himself out of it if he wanted to. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. And Shelby didn't have that ability? HISLOPE: I don't believe he had it to the extent that Harry King did. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Did you ever have any run-ins with Shelby McCallum? HISLOPE: No, I never did have any run-ins with him. I somewhat knew that, how they felt, and when they done like I didn't feel, or I done like they didn't feel, we just took it and would smile and when we saw each other out of the House we always got along. SUCHANEK: Um-hm, um-hm. What was your impression of Mitchel, Dr. Mitchel Denham, who was the majority floor leader? HISLOPE: As a person, they don't come any better than Doc. He was a very, very nice person, he was very calm, not excitable at all, and he was a man that wasn't moved with too much emotion either way. Or if he was, it wasn't obvious. He took everything pretty calmly. Though he was dedicated to his party and dedicated to the cause, he was pretty quiet. He had a pretty quiet way of doing things. Maybe he was able to do more that way than some people who would be more noisy about it, but he was real nice. I hated to hear it, but he died. I thought he was a wonderful person. SUCHANEK: Do you think Ned Breathitt was his own man, or do you think that perhaps the power behind the throne, so to speak, was still Bert Combs? HISLOPE: I really, it's always been a little hard for me to figure Ned, or Breathitt. I really don't know. It seemed like so many things had already been decided on that I just don't know. I just don't know. He told me one day, he said, "Leonard," he says, "My grandfather was a Republican" (both laugh). And we were pretty good friends, I guess, or he wouldn't have said that. And, of course a lot of people, some time ago, because there's more Democrats than there are Republicans, some Republicans would change their registration so they could vote for people that would win, or in some cases so they could run for office themselves, and its turned out pretty successful that way. We've got a situation here in the courthouse. The county judge used to be a Democrat, or all of his people was, tax commissioner was a Democrat, and they just changed, and then they run as Republican and they get elected, and it's a pretty good deal for them. So, in this county they do what they have, Republicans have done in the state, they change so they can vote to get something, or be elected for something, or so they could vote for who's going to be elected. SUCHANEK: So party loyalty is not that strong. HISLOPE: Yeah, um-hm. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, in 1966, James Caldwell was elected minority floor leader. Did you not want to be minority leader again, or why was he chosen? HISLOPE: Louisville, see, when I first went to the legislature Louisville had one representative. They got this one-man, one-vote, and so they have a whole bunch of representatives, and they had a lot of power to do a lot more than they used to have. And I already had it, and I realized there was going to be some opposition. Not, in my opinion, as against me, but because somebody else wanted it. They were all friends of mine, and I considered that it would be doubtful if I could win, so I didn't try for it at all. SUCHANEK: Okay. HISLOPE: He's nice, he's a nice fellow, and he done a good job. Don't know what ever went with him, I've not heard about him in a long time. But he was all right. SUCHANEK: Did this reflect any change in the direction that the Republican Party was taking in the legislature? Any new philosophy or anything of that nature? HISLOPE: No. Well, this is not an answer to that question, but there's a lot of difference in the Republican Party and Democrat Party too, since I first began to go. There's more qualified people there than there were when I first went. And possibly, maybe more public minded people there. They're certainly better educated people there, and, but one thing is happening, and I'm sorry it's happening, this has happened to both parties: there's more lawyers there than there used to be. And if there's too many lawyers, there's too many bills that will be slanted to benefit lawyers after the, (coughs) excuse me, after the session's over. There's too many there now. So, I don't see much, any difference as much, except those. (Coughs), excuse me. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Would you agree that the coal lobby is one of the, if not the most powerful lobby in the state? HISLOPE: It may, it possibly is, especially maybe in the past more than it is now, because they're not doing too good now, they're not making much money now. But when the coal people were making money they would move about anything to get what they wanted done. And, of course, they've been fortunate enough to have some friends in the governor's chair. Governor Combs was over there among them, and, well they get to a governor, don't matter where he's from. They have qualified people to contact him, so I guess they're about the strongest there is, and the railroads used to be the strongest that was, and I don't know about the utility companies because there's not too many of them. Being a limited monopoly, they, well, you take eastern Kentucky, REA, and REA itself, Kentucky Utility Company, and, of course, American Electric Company, one of the biggest of all, they might send agents in, but I just don't believe there's enough utility people to be as strong an influence as the coal people is. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. How about the KEA? HISLOPE: The KEA has been very strong. I would believe right now that they may not be as strong as they used to be. But they used to be tremendously strong. Before there were labor unions in the schools, they would come down, and they'd do their work, and they'd find they were succeeding in getting a lot of labor unionism in the schools. One day one of the ladies in Louisville met with me and reasoned with me about it, and I just told her I thought that people who received their substance and living from taxpayer's money possibly should not belong to the labor union, and of course she didn't like that (laughs). And, I somewhat feel that way yet, of course some of them have not been treated too well without the union, but this thing of the raise they got last year, and the raise they get this year, and then in our county, some of them go out on strike for three weeks. If I was the superintendent, they wouldn't come back unless they decided on their own to come back, and that's just the way I feel about it. But they've been very strong. SUCHANEK: How about the KMA? The medical association? HISLOPE: I never was aware of too much that they were doing. They might have been doing it and I didn't know. I wasn't wise enough to know, or they didn't want to tell me, one, I wouldn't know which. But we, I never did know much of their influence. There's some people that's tried awful hard, some local organizations like Louisville Police or, they're the ones that really try to get things done, but they don't have enough other people to support them. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, in 1966 you voted against House Bill number 2, the Kentucky civil rights bill, why did you vote against that bill? HISLOPE: I don't remember the contents of the bill, as of now. I'm not, as civil rights, and such, I would be surprised to learn that I voted against it, but I don't remember enough details to answer your question sensibly. So, I just don't know. There must have been other things other than the surface of the bill, as I read, that caused me to vote against it, because in a way I wasn't against civil rights, but I don't know what else was in the bill, I don't know. SUCHANEK: Because the federal civil rights bill was passed in '64, and then the Kentucky civil rights bill came up in '66. HISLOPE: I just don't feel like commenting, because I don't know enough about it to do so. SUCHANEK: Okay. Now, in the '66 session, you co-sponsored House Bill 50, which, if it had been passed, would have established a supervisory committee for the federal Appalachian program. Now, of course, in '64, President Lyndon Johnson had initiated the War on Poverty programs as part of his great society. With some of the poorest counties in eastern Kentucky being Republican strongholds, I was wondering if this bill was an attempt by the Republicans to have some input into what programs and projects were injected by the federal and state government into these counties, and how much of a voice did you have, did you all have, end up having? HISLOPE: Not much, as I remember. I co-sponsored that, as you said, didn't I? SUCHANEK: Yes, uh-huh. HISLOPE: As I remember, not knowing too much about the bill, but knowing enough to be interested somewhat, I co-sponsored it as a favor to the other person who introduced it. And I wasn't as familiar as I would have been had I introduced it myself, so I don't know. However, I will say that many of us believe that the Appalachian Regional Commission should be done away with, because much of the work that they do is done already by 121 different agencies, and so they're a hanger-on from the days of Mr. Wiseman. He was the one that got it started, he went from place to place, and sometimes would sleep with somebody else in the hotel because he didn't have the money to stay all night, and he just devoted his life to that commission. Finally got it for him. But now, other agencies that knew him, what they were originally supposed to do, and the poor counties in eastern Kentucky that it was supposed to help are now in worse shape than they was when it was organized, and it's pretty hard to go with a lot that they do when there's so much other people to do it. Now, what we do here, if there's a grant going to be made, they'll look to the Appalachian Regional Commission, even if it's very small, if we get $10,000 from it. Well, they've done that when the funds were available other places, and it is hindered. Now, this road that Louie Nunn got started, the east-west road through Kentucky, that was built in Somerset with great speed under his administration, a lot of it was. But, when it come to, and then some of this, but when it come from here to Manchester, they quit. They laid their tools down and waited for the Appalachian Regional Commission, which they didn't have to do, and I think it was three years delay because they waited and waited until they could get some of the sparse funds that they had, because their funds wasn't as lush as they used to be. So, we possibly should do away with the Appalachian Regional Commission because we don't need it anymore. SUCHANEK: Okay. Well, do you think the various War on Poverty programs, such as, not only ARC, but VISTA, the Appalachian Volunteers, were worth the time and effort and expense overall? HISLOPE: Some of those programs turned out real well, and there were some of them that turned out absolutely terrible. In New York City, there were people that was getting large salaries, and they would manipulate their figures inasmuch as that there'd be millions of dollars spent not for the purpose that it was appropriated for, but according to the whims of an inner core of people that was promoting this, and some of them would be unqualified (laughs), and especially where there was projects for the dark people, black people. They just spent money for this way and that without doing anything whatsoever. And when it came time to bring a suit against them, they wouldn't bother them. I think about half to two-thirds of the War on Poverty was wasted. And some of the, a lot of the relief money. Now some of the most sensible dark people in this county said they made slaves out of the dark people, and now they've got three generations receiving relief money, and when the little girl or little boy grows up and gets out of school, they don't know anything to do but to look to the federal government. They don't even try to get a job. And, that's pretty rough, and a few more generations, it's going to create a society in some places that's going to be hard to cope with. SUCHANEK: Um-hm, um-hm. Do you think those programs had any effect on Pulaski County? HISLOPE: Very little. Very little indeed. SUCHANEK: Okay. Now, in the '65 primary, your opponent was Michael Amon who was the manager of a radio station, WFFC, and you defeated him by about 900 votes. Do you recall any, if there were any issues in this race or was it a, apparently it wasn't a close race. HISLOPE: There wasn't too many issues in the race, the REA-KU thing had already been brought out, and was still being used undercover, but Mike was a very popular person here, he was very sensible, he was a good talker, he gave the news everyday, Chamber of Commerce every week, he would give the news to Chamber of Commerce, and Mike was at everything there was to be done. And Mike was not too adept at politics. He would put a piece of in the paper, and he would list all the things he belonged to, or been into, and gosh, it would be a column that long. Well, when an old- timer looks at that, well, he sure did belong to a lot of stuff, and they begin to question, they don't know, they don't understand. Or, a lot of other people. In other words, tooting your own horn, and they didn't go for that too much. He done a wonderful job as a radio man, and he's a good friend of mine, and I believe that Mike just thought so certainly that he'd be elected, that he just knew he'd be elected because he'd had so much exposure. And it was logical, I guess, to think that. But it just didn't work, and he didn't do very well, and it seemed like it done something to his spirit after that. He thought he ought to be elected, and after a while he sold his station and went down to Florida, and seemed like he just went down financially, and he was a well-to-do man until he made that race. It's sort of like the race sort of ruined him financially, and he's out of work and everything else. He just didn't do much good after that. One, we were down to Burnside at a meeting, and Mike was running against me, and Henry Ward was down there. And (laughs) Henry, you know, ran for governor, and Mike got up and said, or Henry said, "Mike," and everybody knew, everybody knew Michael Amon, and Henry says, "Mike, I thought you was a Democrat." Well, that didn't do Mike any good in that big crowd (both laugh). But, he just didn't do too good, and I think it ruined him, and like when other, some people, if they get beat in a political race, it just kills their spirit, they just don't- SUCHANEK: Takes it too seriously. HISLOPE: Yeah, too seriously. SUCHANEK: And, in the general election, you defeated Beecher Smith Frank, and I think I got his name right. Is that right? Beecher Smith Frank? HISLOPE: I guess it's Beecher, yeah, that's right, he's been, probably, the first billionaire we ever had here. Beecher Smith. SUCHANEK: And again, you didn't have any trouble defeating him. By the margin of your victories in both the primary and the general election, there doesn't seem to be any indication that you were losing support. And yet in the '67 primary, you were beaten by Lavey Floyd by almost 400 votes. What happened in the interim between '65 and '67 that caused you to lose support, or why was Floyd able to defeat you? HISLOPE: Well, some people told me that Beecher Frank attempted to pulverize me to such a degree that it weakened me down. Now, if there ever was a person expertise in communications verbally, he was. And, on the first, people didn't pay no attention, and the next day, he'd say, "Now listen, I want you to come around and take a chair, at this same time, and this same place tomorrow, I'll give you another story on little Leonard." And every day it was that. And he talked so fluently, and his voice was so nice, and- SUCHANEK: This was Lavey Floyd? HISLOPE: No, this was Beecher Frank. So, he was cutting me up, some people said, getting me ready for Buddy Ellis to beat me. And, gosh, he really cut me. Now he's- SUCHANEK: So he was supporting Floyd? Is that it? HISLOPE: No, he was, Floyd hadn't yet run. SUCHANEK: I see. HISLOPE: And so now he would say, "Little Leonard goes around this place and that, and he goes into other states, and he's teaching, preaching free enterprise and that, and he's supposed to be a good speaker," but has-he says, "He's just like a man of clay," says, "When the rain comes, it'll all pulverize him, and his feet will go last." And he says, "You'll never hear from him anymore." And he says, "He's got a hound dog over there, and the steak bones is knee-deep all around his kitchen door." He says, "He can afford to buy the best meat for that dog that there is in the grocery store. And he says, "You know, he works for Kentucky Utility Company. And said, "I don't think he gets awful much money, but," said, "if he'd have asked them two or three times that much, they'd have given it to him just as easily as they pay money for what he gets." And so he just kept on talking that way, and he was supposed to be a man that had plenty of money. His grandfather was a millionaire, but he thought that I could, I was the big man going; I had all of the money, and I worked for KU. And he would say it so often and so regularly, and they said, "Now, hey listen, you come around tomorrow at the same time and I'll have you another story about little Leonard." And, he had been to radio school, he'd been to, I think in Louisville, for a while, he managed a program up there, and he could speak so wonderful that people began to listen to him. They said, "That's the best speaker I ever heard in my life." But, they'd begin to ask me, said, "Why don't you answer it?" I didn't pay any attention, I just went on. And I wrote one speech and answered him, and evidently it began to cut into him a little bit, because he'd pick up parts of this, of what I said, and say, "Now this is what little Leonard said about me," and there's a bomb went off in his yard one, a homemade bomb? And he said, "Well now, I wouldn't have thought this," said, "He's supposed to be a nice fellow anyway," said, "somebody put a bomb in my yard, and it could have killed somebody." And that was him, but I don't know who done it or what it was. But when I made the one speech, that's all I made, I came out fairly good and, but he really poured it on. But then the next time I ran, Lavey Floyd. Lavey Floyd had been a magistrate here for twenty years, and he was one of these fellows that come up that wanted to be on the batch at the courthouse. He come up with a joke with them. It might be dirty and it might be clean, but he could make them laugh, and he'd been here a long time, and he was the old-timer; he was supposed to be the underdog; he was a farmer's friend, and he was everything to everybody. And I think Judge Tarter was for him because Judge was related some to him. And, it just happened, well, Hislope went up there long enough, some of them would say, "Well, he's pretty slick, he knows how to get around, but now this is an old country boy, we ought to give him a chance." And, it just got around until it turned out that way, and that was it. But, they said Beecher Frank hewed me down, and it was Lavey ran with it (laughs). SUCHANEK: Um-hm, okay. And after having served for ten years under Democratic governors, here you were not being re-elected and able to, you didn't have a chance to serve under the first Republican governor in your term of public service, and it seems almost (laughs)- HISLOPE: Well, seems a little ironic. SUCHANEK: a shame, yes. HISLOPE: A little ironic in a way. I had known all governors from Earle Clements on up to the present time. SUCHANEK: And since you had supported Louie Nunn- HISLOPE: Yeah. SUCHANEK: back in '63, I'm sure you'd have gotten along famously with Louie Nunn. HISLOPE: But, when Lavey went to, was elected, they had this other part of the sales tax to make it a nickel? SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: He went to the governor, he was pretty clever, Lavey didn't have any education, but he was pretty clever. He went to the governor and said, "If I vote for this, are you going to help me out if I run again?" And Louie said, "I'll help you." And he did. He done everything in the world for him. I ran against him another time, but the governor and all of his forces was for Lavey, and there was just too much to contend with. SUCHANEK: Even though you had supported Nunn back in '63. HISLOPE: Yeah, uh-huh. Of course, those things happen, you've got to just smile with it. SUCHANEK: Uh-huh, uh-huh. Because I was going to ask you, in '67 and '69 and '71, you ran against him again. HISLOPE: Yeah. SUCHANEK: And he was able to win out in the county where you had previously been strong, while you won against him here in Somerset, which is where you had been weak before. How did that come about? HISLOPE: Well, these country people, they get something in their mind, these farmers, and they just go with you, and they just stay, I guess. Now, for instance, I was down at the college, go down to the college, where all the college students, they was with me all the way, and the Chamber of Commerce, they had a mock election. Of the college students, Lavey got one vote, I got all the rest of them. Kiwanis Club, I got the votes, Chamber of Commerce, I got the votes. But Lavey beat me. So, it's hard to figure out those things, sometimes. SUCHANEK: Yeah, you did well out with the farmers- HISLOPE: Yeah. SUCHANEK: And you did well in the city, which is the exact opposite of how it used to be when you were winning. HISLOPE: Yeah, it's sort of hard to explain. But, some of them would say, "Leonard's been there a long time, he's been there maybe too long, we ought to let somebody else have it." I'd been there fourteen years, but up until that time, it's not that way now, when one would run for office in this county, or when I would run, the leadership of the Republican Party, they took, laid hands off. They waited til after the primary, and then they got in there and they pushed for everything. Well, some places, I know some of my Democrat friends still in Frankfort, when they run for office, the Democrat Party is right behind them, and they can't lose. I couldn't have lost here if I'd have had the leadership of the party for me in the primary, but they didn't do it that way. They do it now, but it's hard to win if you've got the, unless you've got it. That's all there is to it. SUCHANEK: Yeah. Well in this '71 primary, you claimed that you had the support of the outgoing governor Louie Nunn. Floyd, in turn, claimed this was not true, and Nunn appeared to back off any endorsements that he was giving for you. Do you remember that in the '71 primary? For some reason you thought Louie was going to back you against Lavey Floyd. HISLOPE: No, I don't remember. I don't remember believing that he would. I don't know how that came to be understood that way, because I thought he would still back Lavey. I really don't know how it was. I just don't remember. SUCHANEK: Okay. Now, again, during this time in the late '60's and early '70's, you were still working for KU. HISLOPE: Yeah, that's right. SUCHANEK: Okay. Who did they support in your campaigns against Floyd? Did they show favoritism one way or the other? HISLOPE: Oh, they wanted me to be elected. They didn't do anything that would have helped me out. Of course, they wanted me elected. Of course, they was in Lexington and I was here, and there wasn't anything that they could do about it that would be any help, you might say. The way I used to run, they just thought I'd do all right, but they were mistaken. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Were you friends with Lavey Floyd? HISLOPE: Sir? SUCHANEK: Was Lavey Floyd a friend of yours, or- HISLOPE: Yeah, oh he was my friend (laughs). Then, after it was over, we still were friends (laughs). But, I'm going to tell you, he was the hardest man I ever ran against. Because he could make an enemy with someone, and they would say, "I'll never vote for him as long as I live." Well next week they'd change their mind. And he was a person that could say anything about anybody. If I had said something against people like he had said against people, I'd be afraid somebody'd kill me, but it always turned out all right with him. And if they ever approached him, he'd just laugh and say, "Oh, that was a darn lie, wasn't anything to it." And you seen some people could just play it both ways and nobody ever think anything about it. Well he was one of those persons. And- SUCHANEK: How did you feel after you lost? HISLOPE: I felt pretty bad, and of course I knew somebody had to lose. I know the first time I lost, they interviewed me, and I said, "Well, somebody's got to lose." They said, "Did you want to win?" "Of course I wanted to win it. And now I've lost, and I want this other fellow to do the best he can, if there's anything I can do to help him, I'll be glad to do it." There's work to do up there, and I was, I guess a little philosophical about it, and I didn't let it bother me too long. Maybe that night, and the next day and the next week I regreted that I lost, but after that I just let it go. And I'll tell you the one that I, the last time I ran was the one that I regretted more that I lost. We didn't get much money, and money always comes in handy, and the first time that I wasn't there, they passed this bill, if you're there so long, you can get $27,500 a year for life, after you're old enough, and if I'd have been there, this seems Pollyannaish in a way, but if I'd have been there, I'd have voted against it. I don't think that one should get that much pension for being a legislature when they're not paid hardly anything in it. And some of them haven't but that's the way it was, and they'll pass it again, model their raises after the Congress of the United States. Got a little committee now, and that committee decides they need a raise, they'll propose a raise for them, so they'll get some more raises. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, it seems like when you were losing to Mr. Floyd, you didn't, you kept to the high road, you didn't make any personal attacks on him- HISLOPE: No. SUCHANEK: Was there anything that, you know, that, any issue that you could use? It just didn't seem like, you know, your campaigns were very vigorous. At least you kept to the high road. HISLOPE: He, Lavey, was a person that if one had gone the low road, a lot of people would have believed it, and a lot of people wouldn't. He was a person that a lot of people wouldn't have put anything past, yet he could do those things and they didn't much blame him for it. It's strange to say but, you know, there's some people that way. And some people say, "Now Lavey was telling a big story on you the other day over there, and it was terrible," and, well, that man might say, well, he might laugh, I said, "Lavey will do anything like that. I'm not surprised at him." And he was just one of those persons that seemed like he was immune to every dart that ever came, it wouldn't hurt him (laughs). It just wouldn't hurt him at all. And, he had a personality that if he was ever attacked on anything, personally, he'd just laugh it off, and he wouldn't pay any attention to it. But he used the KU-REA thing, and it was very effective. Because, little REA and big KU, and people didn't have any power and now they've got it. When I went to work for Kentucky Utilities, it hurt me a lot politically from then on. SUCHANEK: Um-hm, um-hm. Let me turn this over, and we'll- [End of Tape #2, Side #1] [Beginning of Tape #2, Side #2] HISLOPE: Talking about losing the election, when Governor Morrow ran the first time, he lost. And just 400 votes, something like that, I believe. And they asked him, "Why didn't you contest it?" "Oh," said, "I wouldn't contest it," said, "I'll just be for setting up you know what next time." And he would fraternize with his Democrat opponents, and allegedly they met down here at Monticello one day, and the race was getting pretty hot, and the Democrats would invite Ed over to their headquarters on the other side of the street for a drink. And Ed was known to drink quite a bit. And Ed went over and he drank with them, and they saw Ed was getting pretty tipsy, and they thought, "Boy, we've got him now. He's going to make a mess out of himself, and we'll beat him real bad down here." Well, they went over, and it was, came Ed's time to speak first, and this little wooden platform that had a railing on one side of it, and Ed went up the steps rather slowly and pulled on that railing as he went up, and they thought he looked pretty rough, says, "Boys, we've got him this time." And he said, "Ladies and gentleman," didn't talk very plain, he says, "the very thought of the Democratic Party always turned my stomach." And he leaned over the podium and vomited all over the place (both laugh). Oh, he said the Democrat Party, when it first started said, "It rose up like a pink son over the side of the mountain, undefiled, clean, beautiful, high (unintelligible). Everybody looked up to it, everybody loved it, and it done great things for this country." But he says, "You know, one day, just like a great storm came and just, the sky was filled with dust and debris and the pink sun could be seen no more." And he said, "The Democratic Party just went down and down until it just went straight to hell." And said, "It's never amounted to anything else." He won the election (both laugh). Which, I never heard a story to beat it, and they say it was actually so, because there's people in this town that was down there. SUCHANEK: Uh-huh. That's funny. HISLOPE: It was something. SUCHANEK: Uh-huh. Well, why did you keep running against Lavey Floyd? What made you want to go back to the House so badly? HISLOPE: You know, I had always won so easily, and I just thought, well, I can go back. And one time I didn't intend to run at all, and I said to my wife one day, I said, "I'd kind of like to run," and (unintelligible). And then people asked me to, and possibly some of my friends, and then it went far enough that I said, "Well, I'll just go ahead and run," and I shouldn't have, because it costs money to run, but I just ran it out, and I should have known better. But you know, politics is a thing, you just get going, and you, a lot of people don't know when to stop, and frankly I didn't know when to stop. I would have been a lot better off if I had stopped a lot quicker than I did. SUCHANEK: It's intoxicating, isn't it? HISLOPE: It is. You want to be there again. I don't care how long you're there. You will always think, "Well, if I were there again, these things I would try to do." And, the time that you were thinking the things that you ought to introduce, or should be introduced, is not the time that you're there. It's the time that you're not there that you have time to think about it. And, so I reckon it gets, sort of gets in your blood, and you just want to go. I guess that's the way the old timer's used to fight it out, they couldn't do it any other way (laughs). SUCHANEK: Okay (laughs). HISLOPE: So they fought it out, I guess. SUCHANEK: Uh-huh. Now, in 1973 Floyd decided, for some reason, to run for county judge instead of for re-election to the legislature. Do you know why he decided not to run for re-election? HISLOPE: He didn't like it too well after he'd served one time and the rest of the time he went back. I understood from some of his friends up there that he just didn't enjoy it too much, just didn't want to run no more. SUCHANEK: Okay. Now, I know he caught a lot of flak for his vote on Senate Bill 274 during the '72 session, which lessened the penalties against first time marijuana offenders. But, I assume that his vote on the bill would have been used against him in his race for county judge as well or am I wrong on this? Do you recall? HISLOPE: It possibly caused him to be beat as county judge. See, he'd never lost a race in his life. He had not. And we had a fellow here by the name of Earl Garner, a newcomer, and he'd served, he ran for county judge, and later ran for county judge too, and this Garner boy, he was a pretty rough campaigner. And he says, "When it comes to this marijuana and so forth," he says, "You don't want young kids running out and dealing some marijuana in your pocket, but now look what Lavey Floyd tried to do?" It was very effective, and it beat Lavey. Beat him. Oh boy, he took it hard. First time he'd ever had anything, he took it hard. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, your opponents in the '73 primary were Larry Sears Nichols, who was a schoolteacher, and Desoto(??) Vott, who was a state employee. You managed to defeat Nichols by a scant eighty-two votes while Vott trailed far behind. Do you think that the fact that there were three other candidates hurt or helped you in this race? HISLOPE: It's sort of hard to say. I would believe that some campaigns before that, I believe some candidates before that done more to hurt me than it did the present time, but Nichols was a clean, young, handsome, never run for office, and who had some pretty nice family. He was well-known, and he was a fellow preacher. And, he had pretty strong support. So I'd just say he was a real rich fellow, and he'd liked to beat me. And, he would have beat me if it hadn't been for the absentee votes, and when we got them in I had enough to be carried over. But he was a clean clear-cut boy, and all the people that I'd run against for all these years, I'd had some people that was against me, and I guess they accumulated, and they were for him, and then the people that were really for him and his own merit were for him too, and sort of was in trouble, but Nichols was a difficult candidate. He sure was. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Well how do you think you ended up wining? How were you able to win? HISLOPE: Well, I just had possibly enough support all through the years, and enough of them stayed with me. I didn't, you couldn't say anything against the boy. There wasn't a thing in the world against him. So we just both run a clean race. He ran a clean race too, and- SUCHANEK: Do you think it was name recognition maybe? HISLOPE: Sir? SUCHANEK: Name recognition, maybe? HISLOPE: Well, he didn't have that much, well, my name recognition possibly helped me, and it wouldn't have helped him, because he didn't have much, but he was known by a lot of people, but he was clean and done all right. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, during the campaign, Harold DeMarcus ran an ad in the local newspaper supporting your candidacy. Did you solicit his support, or did he offer it to you? HISLOPE: I think he'd mentioned that he'd be willing to help me out, and I told him I'd be glad if he would. So, I guess half and half, he offered to help me and I told him I'd like for him to help me. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. What can you tell me about Harold DeMarcus? HISLOPE: I really, sometimes, don't know all I know about Harold. Harold was a pretty good politician, I guess, and he's the only person that I had known up to that time that held the minority leadership as long as he held it. And, he was a very hard worker, a very, and I guess he was all right. SUCHANEK: Um-hm, um-hm. Now, you defeated your opponents in the '73 general election quite impressively, but John Garner claimed he had lost the election because of, quote, "election irregularities," and claimed he knew he had lost the election the Friday before the election was held. Do you recall what the basis of his complaints were, and if they had any validity? HISLOPE: No, about the only thing that I recall was that Julian Carroll came down here, and I had a billboard out there at the intersection toward London and Mount Vernon, and Julian passed that, I don't know what comment he made, but John made the statement that he knew he was beat after the governor came down here. In other words, the governor wasn't doing anything to help John out. SUCHANEK: I see. HISLOPE: And Julian and I were pretty close friends nonetheless, and one time he told me, he said, "If I can ever do anything for you, I'll be glad to do it." I didn't ask him to help me, but I believe he was sympathetic to my campaign. I believe he was. Don't have any proof of it. But I know that John did say, after he came. Now, irregularities in the election, I didn't, I wasn't aware of that. I don't know. There would be, if they could get by with it, there's a lot of them, but I, that's pretty hard to violate the law when you've got two parties running a political system. And if there's anything irregular, I didn't, I wasn't aware of it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Well that was really quite a comeback for you. Not many people who have been out of office for three terms manage to come back, even though you had lost in the primaries, so you didn't totally disappear. I was wondering, first of all, were your colleagues in the legislature surprised to see you come back? HISLOPE: It seemed like that they were glad to see me back. It seemed like they were surprised to see me back, and I didn't understand the surprise of it because that's one thing I didn't learn about politics. I didn't know then, if you're out, once, or twice, or more, that you may be out for good. And I know Goldwater said one time, "Now when I go home, they won't know my name in six months from now." And, I just didn't know it all ended that quick, or I'd have been afraid (laughs) I'd have been afraid to run again. But, as you say, when you're out, you're out. The phone don't ring anymore is what I'm saying. And so- SUCHANEK: Do you think that they were glad you were back because they felt they could work with you better? HISLOPE: I think they was, because most of them were glad because we'd had a good time together and the Democrats, we'd joke together, and the Republicans, most of them, we'd work together. Now, the first thing I did, when I got back, I went down to the pension office and paid up what I owed. But "Happy" was governor. You didn't have to put that money in for a pension, you could put it in, or leave it out. And I just didn't pay any attention to it the first time I was there and I didn't put anything in. But I was eligible to put it in, and so when I got back up there I put that in, and that made me (laughs) eligible for a state pension. And so, I wanted to go back, for one reason, on that account, because I'd get me a little pension then. And I wanted to go back because I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed that time really good, and then that was it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm, um-hm. When you went back to the legislature in '74 had things changed at all since you'd been there last? HISLOPE: About the only change that was noticeable is those who wasn't there anymore. But having been that long, as it was, it was surprising how many was still there. But there was always those you would ask about that you would wish that were there again, and I guess that was the only thing. Another thing that they changed that I didn't like was that when you introduced a resolution, heretofore, when it came time for that resolution to be brought up, you could read that resolution yourself and explain it. But when they changed it they took the resolution, and they would refer to the chief clerk and refer it to the Speaker of the House, and they would just put the resolution up and they would vote on it. Well, that wasn't nearly as effective for the individual resolution as it was before. And I was quite a resolution man. I liked to, I always wrote my own and I liked to read them, and you couldn't do that when I went back, and that was-and then they changed the motif of the bill. When the bill, I mean when the, come out to a journal rather. The journal had been slick, and it was pretty, and it was concise, and you could read it, and it would last a while, and then the last time it was that cheap paper that wouldn't hardly hold together, and it just didn't seem the same. That's just the only two things. They were minor, but that's what I noticed the most. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, when you went back, they had the interim committee system set up. HISLOPE: Yeah. SUCHANEK: Uh-huh. What did you think about that? HISLOPE: I guess it's all right. But there's a lot of those people that are wanting to meet annually, and I just, I don't favor that at all. SUCHANEK: You don't favor annual sessions? HISLOPE: No, it's not needed. Even the Congress of the United States, some think it's not needed. They have continual sessions. But, Harold Baker's father went to Congress, he said he wanted to rush back home, and talk to his people, tell him what to do next time, but they made a profession out of that, those boys in Washington. SUCHANEK: Um-hm, um-hm. Now, it seems like when you went back for the second time in '74, Mr. Hislope, it seems like, at that time, the days of the colorful politician, people who were good oratorical speakers like yourself was almost at an end? Do you see that as a major change? HISLOPE: I didn't think of this when you first asked me the question. Yes, people like John Breckenridge and Foster Ockerman. They were fellows of pretty high caliber. There wasn't as many people of that type and ability the last time I was there as there was before. Now, maybe, of course they pay more than they did, but some of those people who are capable people make a lot more money than they used to. And maybe they can't really go, can't afford to go back, but I miss the people that had a lot of ability, there wasn't as many there anymore. Young lawyers just starting out, there was plenty of those, and there's a few of the old-timers that just let the days go as they are and they liked to go back. And, to that extent, it wasn't the same. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. What was your impression of Wendell Ford as a governor? HISLOPE: Well, I liked Wendell pretty good. Wendell was just one of the boys in a way. He wasn't highly tutored, but he was very sensible, and he had time to talk to you, and he had time to reason with you. And I liked that and I liked him because he was a personal person, and he would talk to you, and he'd reason with you, and he was just one of you, in a sense. There might be other things that might not be so likeable, but Wendell's got a lot more ability than a lot of people thought he had. I'm mistaken a lot of times because he's got more ability than I thought he had. He was a pretty smart fellow. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Did you ever get called into the governor's office to discuss things with him? HISLOPE: No, not really, but we have happened to discuss things, just happened that way. SUCHANEK: In the hallway, or- HISLOPE: Yeah, just run across each other, or be in just some meeting with not really any particular purpose. He was down here one day, I guess after he, while he was governor dedicating some project here, he and I were standing together, and they asked about something, and he'd always given the other fellow credit. Now he said, "I can't talk like Leonard can here but I'll just explain it the way I see it." And he made a good little talk. And, you can't help but like him, he's just all right. SUCHANEK: Um-hm, um-hm. Now, some of the pressing issues during that '74 session were the abortion issue and school bussing. What were your positions on the issues, and why? HISLOPE: I was very strongly against abortion. I possibly couldn't have been stronger against anything than I was abortion, and this reasoning that the Supreme Court made that a fetus is not a person just galled me completely throughout. Because in my opinion, I'm a geologist by profession, I majored in geology, and I couldn't realize any man that had the ability to even get a law degree, whether his grades were high or low, would adhere to any thought that would say that a fetus is not a person. I just couldn't realize that, and I was against it, and I consider it murder just except in some cases, just as if one would kill some other person that had been here twenty years. And we were taking ourselves down to the same principle that some of the oriental nations has practiced for thousands of years, and becoming more like some other foreign nations that don't consider life too precious anyway. And I was against that abortion thing altogether. SUCHANEK: Um-hm, um-hm. And how about the bussing issue? HISLOPE: I'm against bussing, I thought it done both parties harm instead of good. I think that the motive was good and the motive was right, but taking a person out of their own environment and putting them with people they don't want to be with, and that was more than half the time the way it was. And it cost, even if it would have been neutral, to have done no good at all, or no harm at all, there's a tremendous amount of money involved from funds that were insufficient anyway, so I just couldn't support it. I hoped that Louisville had banned it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. It's a current issue now, right. HISLOPE: Sir? SUCHANEK: I said that's a current issue in Louisville now. HISLOPE: Yeah, just, kind of a warm issue with some of them. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. And then in '75 you ran for the State Senate. Why did you decide to run for the Senate at this point in your political career? HISLOPE: I thought I'd like to finish off my political career by running for the Senate, and the way was clear for a time, and my friend John Rogers who managed my last successful campaign, he wanted to run, I found out. I went to John, and I said, "John," I said, "If you'll wait until next time," I says, "I will help you out in your race, and I'll contribute it, contribute to your race if you could wait until next time, because I'd like to make this race." But he wasn't willing and I ran anyway, and John was young, handsome, as some people thought, young lawyer, and he made a good race, and I just couldn't win it. But what made me lose was, possibly, was there's another boy that was connected with the rural people, somewhat like I was in connection with, and he decided he wanted to run, and he ran and he made a good race, and of course John got enough to win, and so I made another mistake by running again. SUCHANEK: Was that Bill Van Hook? HISLOPE: Bill Van Hook. Yeah. Bill had a lot of friends out in the county. And, if I hadn't run, and Bill had run, John, I don't know which one would have won. But, if Bill hadn't run, and John and I'd have run, I thought I would have won, and possibly would, but I don't know. John's still there. And-not now, I'll tell you later (both laugh). SUCHANEK: Okay. Did you ever have any aspirations for running for even a higher office? HISLOPE: No. I never did. I've always thought if something would happen and I could be appointed to the United States House of Representatives I'd serve one term and quit. And if it should have happened to have been that I had run for two terms, I would have been for the things I thought the country wanted, and I know I never could have went back (laughs). Those people want something to be paid for with money if there's no money to pay, and things they don't need, and it's getting the country in pretty terrible shape. One thing I'm terribly disappointed with. In a way, the Republican Party, the great debt obligations have been attributed by the Republicans to the Democrats, but then when the Republicans are elected they do very little to do anything about it. And this country's in dire shape, and it's going to get worse, and the picture's dark, it looks to me like, from a fiscal sense. And, actually, from a fiscal sense, in all senses, it gets so bad everything else gets worse, and it don't look good. SUCHANEK: Yeah. And, so after you lost your senatorial, state senatorial race, you never had any desire to run again, even for the House? HISLOPE: No, my wife hadn't wanted me to run for years. And then I guess it was good for me, because I didn't want to run anymore, and I was happy to be at home, or just around where I am, and never did want to run anymore. I got enough of that defeat, and had almost enough of the victory too, I guess (laughs). SUCHANEK: Okay (laughs). Well, I thought I'd like to finish up now with some general questions, if I may. HISLOPE: Okay. SUCHANEK: We've already talked about annual sessions for the legislature, and you're against that, but in the old days legislators would serve maybe one or two terms, or three or four at the most, and then retire from the legislature. Nowadays, legislators, both on a national level and a state level, (coughs) excuse me, are serving multiple terms and staying many years, and it seems like it's very hard to defeat incumbents these days, although it does happen occasionally. Do you think the state legislature, as a career, is a good idea? HISLOPE: That's another hard question. It might be a good idea for a person who was self-centered and likes it well enough, but it wouldn't' be a good idea for the state at large, because people that stay in office from year to year usually get a feeling that they have quite a bit of power, and they ought to be here, and we can do this and do that, no matter what other people think. So, generally, I would say it's not a good policy. SUCHANEK: Okay. Now, there are several states that have recently enacted laws which limit the number of consecutive years a legislator can serve. Oklahoma, for example, I believe, now limits it to twelve years. Do you think these kind of laws are the way to go? HISLOPE: On some circumstance it might be. Now, a few years ago it wouldn't have been the way for Kentucky, because there wasn't many people that stayed there very long. But in the last few years, some of them are beginning to be fixtures, and they're never going to be defeated, these people, and it is, has reached the place that possibly one should give strong consideration to it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm, okay. In the past decade, the General Assembly has really asserted its independence from the governor's office. The legislators picked their own leaders instead of having them picked by the governor. Do you view this independent legislature as a positive development? And where do you think the General Assembly is headed? HISLOPE: I think that a great amount of independence is good for the, not only the legislature, but good for the state. But I think the legislature can go too far in trying to build power, and would unbalance the powers that belong to the courts, and the governor, and I think one should be careful in promoting too much power. Now, they had a bill not long ago that would have caused the legislature to be able to come back, and vetoed what the governor had approved. Now, to me, that's self-defeating, because the constitution allows the governor to veto, but if you give the legislature the power then to go ahead and undo what he's done, I think that's going too far, and they're getting out of their legislative power according to the constitution. They shouldn't be allowed to do so. I think the governor has his place, and his realm, and that should not be invaded one iota by the legislature, and so it should be with the governor and the legislature, but the legislature is catching up. They're getting more power, and that's the way it should be. Now, the courts take care of theirselves, they won't let them get on their toes. SUCHANEK: Now, your having been there under Chandler, or when Chandler was governor, and then later on, almost twenty years later, under Ford. Did you see, in '74, a difference in the independence of the legislature than when you were there in the '50's, late '50's, under Chandler? HISLOPE: I could just feel, I could feel a difference. They felt different. They felt more independent. And they were. Yes, I could tell a difference. But, when I began to perceive the difference more was when I was not there, but learning what was going on when Brown was governor. They just took his place over a time or two. SUCHANEK: Um-hm, right. During your years in the legislature, was there one person you served with who really impressed you with his or her intellect, or political savvy, or speaking ability? Maybe there were several? HISLOPE: There's a Smith in the Senate, Leslie Smith, impressed me by the way he could speak. SUCHANEK: From Louisville. HISLOPE: Yeah. And he was designated as one of the best speakers of the Senate. He, and the way he can handle himself on the floor. Fred Morgan impressed me by the way he could handle the floor. SUCHANEK: From Winchester? HISLOPE: Paducah. SUCHANEK: Okay, right. HISLOPE: Yeah, he was under Chandler. Fred could really handle that floor. And, he knew a lot of parliamentary law, and he could just do it so easy, just as easily as I could eat breakfast. And, not knowing what I was talking about, just after I first went, we became friends very soon. I said, "Fred, why is it you can support all of these things?" Well, I didn't understand it, he had to be for what the governor had to be, and he smiled, and he said, "Leonard, well," he says, "Because I'm the floor leader, I'm supposed to put all the governor's, whatever the governor wants, I'm supposed to put it through. And, it began to enter my dumb head then (laughs)- SUCHANEK: How it worked. HISLOPE: I just thought everybody was supposed to do what they thought was the best, but I learned that, a little bit more about how government, how the legislature worked then. But, he was very adept. And Harry King was adept in the chair, and there was various other people I could give a lot of credit if I could just recall very quickly, but I can't. But, you met a lot of nice people there, and sometimes some of the quietest ones seemed to be the deepest when they had something to say. But- SUCHANEK: Now, you served with Julian Carroll, didn't you? HISLOPE: Yeah. SUCHANEK: What did you think of Julian Carroll? HISLOPE: Well- SUCHANEK: That was before he was governor. HISLOPE: Julian was just somewhat like I thought the rest of us. He was just Julian, that's all I thought about him. And he introduced one bill about TVA one time, and I got up and spoke against it. And I says, "TVA has a lot of lawyers that pays me quite well," and I said, "Maybe this bill shouldn't be passed anyway" (both laugh). But we were good friends, but I wasn't impressed, really either way much about Julian, he was just all right. And when he became governor, he seemed to possibly be more able than I thought he was when he was in the House. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now you served also with Bill Kenton, didn't you? HISLOPE: Yes, uh-huh. Bill Kenton was a smart man. Had very, very (unintelligible) very, very good head on him. I considered Bill a man of intellect. He was very forceful, but to the point, and when something was supposed to be done, Bill went after it and he got it done. And I think when he had a jbo to do, he just finished it up right then, and my compliments about Bill would be good. That's all I would know to say about him is he was very intellectual, very brilliant, and a very hard worker. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, as a representative from a rural area, did you feel you had much in common with representatives from Lexington, Louisville, or Covington? HISLOPE: I didn't feel any different from them. I didn't feel they was any different than I was. And I felt comfortable with them. There was a few of them that had been exposed to opportunities that some of we country boys hadn't been exposed to. Like I said, I admired boys like Breckenridge and- SUCHANEK: Foster Ockerman? HISLOPE: Foster Ockerman. Because, as I say, the- SUCHANEK: Leslie Smith. HISLOPE: Yeah, they were good boys. They had a lot of ability. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Did you feel you had much in common with the western part of the state? The representatives from the western part- HISLOPE: Yes, I did. I felt, I just felt the same as they did, and felt like they were just like I was. I, in fact, I didn't make any difference to different locales of the state, we all just seemed to be alike, and, in our own ways different, but yet the same, and- SUCHANEK: Um-hm. You didn't feel like the urban areas- HISLOPE: No. SUCHANEK: representative, represented power blocks in the legislature? HISLOPE: I knew that they represented various interests that wasn't ours. They, particularly were strong on Whiskey bills and labor bills in particular. I said to one of them, I said, "How is it you always come up here?" "Well," he says, "Labor pays my way" (both laugh). I thought that was pretty bad, but that's the way it was. And I reckon you take a boy that was real strong on labor, and if he was from a strong labor district, he couldn't be beat by anything. An angel run against them, they wouldn't faze him (both laugh). SUCHANEK: Now, I also notice that you have a rather long affiliation with the Kentucky Historical Society. How did that begin? HISLOPE: That's a strange thing. And, of all things to be a, having a resolution to remove that Goebel statue and other things to do to it, Bert Combs (laughs) appointed me as- SUCHANEK: Curator, wasn't it? HISLOPE: Curator of the Kentucky Historical Society (Suchanek laughs). Well, on account of that damn curator, and the Kentucky Historical Society being associated with me, then I got into vast other phases of it. And I said-who was the president of the University of Kentucky before, about three or four times ago? SUCHANEK: Well, Oswald was- HISLOPE: Oswald was president when I spoke to the National Conservation Conference up there. SUCHANEK: And Dickey- HISLOPE: So that just throwed me into a lot of different directions, what Bert done to me then. And, I was the regional director down here of about thirty counties, and Colonel Chinn and Mr. Wentworth being in the state office there, so I saw them very often and we got some markers put up in a lot of places, and it was quite a jungle, you met some nice people. SUCHANEK: Um-hm, um-hm. Where did you stay in Frankfort when the legislature was in session? HISLOPE: Well, the first time I, the second or first time, I think on Sunset Drive. They'd gone to Florida and some women told me that they were going to Florida, and they'd like to have a nice couple there to stay in there. So my wife and I stayed there. The first time I was there I stayed at Briar Cliff on my own with a very nice couple there, he worked for the Department of Education. And then the next time, my wife was there and we stayed at Thistleton Terrace, which is not an apartment, it's not a, they don't have apartments anymore, something else. And, then I stayed at another place over on Briar Cliff, we had apartments over there. That Thistleton was a real nice place to stay. When we stayed there it was sort of new, and a nice place to stay. SUCHANEK: Well then the last question I have for you is how would you like to be remembered as a legislator? HISLOPE: I would like to be remembered as a person that not always sought my own decisions, but under all circumstances done the thing that I thought was the right thing to do, and one that could not be bought, or sold, or changed when I was convinced that I was right. And I believe that would be about as far as I'd go with it. And then of course, you could add that also to have the good will of everyone you could, and it's always nice to have people that are nice to you, and so I enjoyed it. And that'd be about what I would want to be remembered by, I guess. SUCHANEK: It seems like in times past the legislators, there was more of a congenial atmosphere than perhaps there is now. Do you think that's true? HISLOPE: I think it is, because they really roll up their sleeves now. And back then they were more temperate with it. They worked just as hard back then as they do now to have their own way, but seemed like they were more gentlemanly about it. Like that Governor Morrow used to run and against a Democrat opponent, and they would ride the same trains together. They'd have speeches to make, and they'd be on the same platform, and they'd both talk to the people in the same platform (laughs). Of course, that's about over for anybody, but people, they seemed to get along real good, and everybody seemed to be real happy, and there wasn't many people worried about anything, and they seemed to cooperate and get along together, and got along together quite well even though they disagreed with each other politically. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, it's been seventeen years since you've served. Do you think if you were in there today, if you went back today, do you think you'd feel comfortable? HISLOPE: Not as comfortable as I was when I first went. I would know a lot more when I first went than I did then, and I know now that I couldn't do many things. I had an idea I could do a lot more when I first went than I would have an idea I could do now. You have to learn those things, you know. But I wouldn't be as well satisfied there now as I was then. I'm much older now, and I was sort of blooming out in the world then to get started, and after you get older, I don't think you would enjoy it nearly as much. And that's why I believe that many people follow it too long, and why I believe that about half of the people in Washington ought to be, went home like I am and enjoy their garden or something. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. I want to thank you so much for taking the time over several periods to talk to me about your days in the legislature and your political career. It was helpful. HISLOPE: I want to thank you for going through the trouble of coming all the way down to Lexington to talk to me, you've talked to me more about it than anybody ever did, and your conversation with me has caused me to recall people and events that I haven't thought of for a while, and it's been very pleasant, and you've been a very pleasant interrogator, as you call it (Suchanek laughs). I've enjoyed it very much. SUCHANEK: Well thank you once again. [End of interview] Hislope (House 1956-1966, 84th district; 1976, 83rd district; Republican) picks up with his run in the 1959 primary, and discusses rumors of his backing from the “court house ring,” political opponents, his impression of several governors and legislative leaders, his time as Minority Floor Leader, his reputation as an orator, key legislation, and political philosophy. Highlights include the perceived conflict of interest between his employment with Kentucky Utilities, and the ten year gap from 1966 until regaining his seat for a final term in 1976. Part 3 of 3. Kentucky Legislature

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