Maddox Oral History

GEORGIA GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTATION PROJECT GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY SERIES

GEORGIA GOVERNORS NARRATOR: FORMER GOVERNOR LESTER MADDOX
INTERVIEWER: JOHN ALLEN INTERVIEW DATES: 11/22/88, 7/26/89

ALLEN: Let's go a long way back, Governor. When and where were you born?

MADDOX: I was born in Atlanta on what we call "Northside Drive" today. It was Grove Street then, right there one block from the Atlanta Water Works.

ALLEN: Grove Street used to be 41--

MADDOX: Grove.

ALLEN: And that's Northside Drive today, right?

MADDOX: Yes, sir.

ALLEN: That was the main North-South thoroughfare?

MADDOX: No, sir, Hemphill Avenue was the main thoroughfare, Northside Drive was not there but when constructed it replaced Grove Street and became the main North-South thoroughfare, as U.S. Highway 41. I was born on Grove Street on September 30, 1915.

ALLEN: 1915.

MADDOX: That's back when they didn't have any pavement on Hemphill Avenue or Luckie, 14th Street or 10th Streets.

ALLEN: Hemphill was not paved in 1915?

MADDOX: Oh, no, sir. I can remember back as a child when the old trolley cars would come down Hemphill Avenue. This was when Hemphill passed by Georgia Tech rather than as now of being a street which dead-ends into the Tech campus. I remember well the crossties beneath the car-rails, and all of the ditches in the road, as well as the mud during and following the rains.

ALLEN: What are some of your earliest memories from your very earliest childhood, about being around your house and the neighborhood and all? MADDOX: Well, I remember being poor and when I wasn't in school or sleeping, I was usually working--Daddy would have it no other way. But nothing is more vivid in my memories than recalling my going in and out of small neighborhood groceries, hardware stores, drugstores, etc. Those buildings were generally all about the same size--

ALLEN: All gone now.

MADDOX: --as the larger dens and living rooms in our homes of today. But more than that, I got hung up on the fact that the owners and operators were in business for themselves, very real participants in the American private free enterprise system. I determined then that someday, I, too, would become a successful business person. It was a goal I set that I never departed from and even today I am a stronger supporter of our economic system than ever before.

ALLEN: I remember that. Your mom and dad, had they moved to--This is in Home Park. Had they lived somewhere else before that? How long had they been married?

MADDOX: They married in 1912, and I was the second child. I believe this to have been the first residence of their marriage.

ALLEN: The second--how many brothers and sisters did you have?

MADDOX: Three brothers and three sisters. A

LLEN: And you are the second oldest one?

MADDOX: Yes, sir.

ALLEN: What about your dad and your mom--where was your dad from?

MADDOX: He was from out in the DeKalb County area, his family. They were out there, some of his people living in the area served in the Civil War.

ALLEN: From DeKalb County.

MADDOX: From DeKalb County, like some of my mother's people--they were up in Forsyth County, Cumming, Georgia.

ALLEN: That's where your mom came from?

MADDOX: That's right--or her people, the Pirkles. And my mom's mother was a Pirkle who married a Castleberry from up in Cumming, Georgia, Forsyth County. But both Dad's and Mom's parents had earlier moved into the Georgia Tech-Atlantic Steel area and upon my parent's marriage they stayed in the area. However, back then most of the area was not in the city limits of Atlanta, it was generally rural and people living around Georgia Tech grew their own vegetables and raised their hogs and milk cows. You could even buy butter milk at five cents per quart and sweet milk at ten cents per quart; with the cost of chickens being ten cents per pound and eggs for ten cents a dozen from neighbors who lived on what is now part of the Tech Campus.

ALLEN: How did your parents meet--being from different parts like that?

MADDOX: Well, mother lived with her parents over near Home Park School, which has now been converted to apartments for Tech students, and about one-half of a mile from Georgia Tech. It was while living there that she lost her father from a heat stroke while working on the earlier Carnegie Library in downtown Atlanta. And my Father's parents, as I mentioned previously, were living on Grove Street about one mile away. They were in the same general neighborhood, but how they met I do not know, and it is much too late to find out now. However, I would suspect that they probably met around Tenth Street and Hemphill Avenue where my Mother started attending North Atlanta Baptist Church in 1896, and also being the location of the only shopping area.

ALLEN: What kind of work did your dad do at that time?

MADDOX: He was what is known in the steel industry as a roll turner. It was a highly skilled occupation that required absolute precision in machining heavy and large steel rolls that are used to form angles, channels, rods, steel strips and bars from the red-hot steel passing through the rolls. If my memory serves me right, I believe that at that time and for many years to come that Atlantic Steel only had three roll turners and from what other people in the plant later told me, my Dad was a master at his work. Without precise machining the products could not be produced, meaning that the plant could not operate. ALLEN: He worked at Atlantic Steel?

MADDOX: Yes, sir.

ALLEN: Did he know that before he came there, or did he learn that working at the mill or--

MADDOX: He started there. He was there when he was married. He started there about, I believe it was about 1905 or '06--and he wasn't married until 1912.

ALLEN: Did a lot of the people in the neighborhood work at Atlantic Steel?

MADDOX: A lot of them did, yes, sir. I worked at Atlantic Steel.

ALLEN: You did.

MADDOX: Yes, sir.

ALLEN: I had thought that your first job was the same as my daddy's, selling newspapers--selling the Atlanta Georgian.

MADDOX: Well, that was one of my first jobs. It may have been the first one, but there was a lot of things I was involved in back then. I used to sell chickens. After I raised them, I would hang five of them on a string and sell them in the neighborhood. ALLEN: In Home Park over there? MADDOX: Yes, sir. A

LLEN: You raised chickens over there?

MADDOX: Yes, sir, and sold them for twenty cents a chicken, five of them for one dollar. And I sold Coca-Colas from our front yard. The Coca-Cola Company would furnish you a stand and a wooden tub to ice the Cokes in, provided you bought a case of Coca-Colas from them for eighty cents, (twenty-four to a case) and became a regular dealer. Well, with the Cokes retailing for five cents and twenty-five pounds of ice costing ten cents, you could make thirty cents a day on selling a case, provided you did not drink one of the Cokes. They were better then but I couldn't afford them.

ALLEN: [Laughing.]

MADDOX: I was about twelve years of age at the time, but it was doing what I had wanted to do since I was about six . . . be in business. However, one day when I had sold all of my Cokes and was still in our front yard on Fourteenth Street, a man drove up in about a 1925 Chevrolet coupe and told me that he was looking for someone to help him nail up some signs, stating that he would pay me fifty cents. I promptly got permission from Mom to let me accept the job and climbed in his car to go nail up the signs. After we reached a rural road about one mile north of Buckhead and about seven miles from my home I got suspicious when after looking around inside the car I did not see any signs, nor a hammer and nails to put them up with--and said, "Mister, where are the signs we are going to nail up"? His response was something I never expected to hear in my life--"Son", he said, "I didn't tell you the truth, I don't have any signs to put up. I am a man that plays with little boys . . . ..". I hit the door screaming and never in my life was I so frightened. By the time I jumped from his car the man had almost brought it to a standstill. He did not leave his car, but called to me and promised that if I would get back in he would take me back to Buckhead where I could catch a trolley to Atlanta, promising also that he would not bother or harm me in any way. I finally consented to go back with him on the condition that I hang on the outside of his car. He carried me back to Peachtree Road, near Buckhead and I jumped off his car and caught the first trolley back to Atlanta. I thank God that that was the first and last queer to proposition me, and especially that I was not harmed. Evidently he was not a violent person for we were in an area without homes and no passing cars, and he never touched me. I never again went out to nail up signs, (except my own) but even as a child continued to do what I liked best, selling everything I could. From our home gardens on Fourteenth Street I sold tomatoes, beans, corn, okra, etc. However, it was not always easy to do for every time our vegetables were ready to harvest, so were those of most neighbors. What we could not sell we had to eat, can or throw away.

ALLEN: Did you grow them yourself? Were you a pretty good gardener?

MADDOX: Yes, sir, well, me and--Daddy insisted that I do so. I wasn't all that interested in gardening, but it was not my decision. Dad gave the instructions and I dared not do otherwise. We raised and grew our own hogs, milk cows and chickens--right there on Fourteenth Street where Georgia Tech owns and will develop the same land.

ALLEN: How did they taste compared to what you buy in the grocery store today?

MADDOX: Well, with modern day scientific means and methods of growing and raising vegetables, fruits, chickens and hogs, cows and chickens; including electricity, equipment and housing, irrigation, refrigeration and fertilization . . . we are getting better products--at unbelievable low prices if compared with what it would be under our old way of growing and producing. In fact, if we were still operating as in the older days, most of the world population would be starving to death. However, I don't believe that from a taste standpoint that modern day poultry growing will ever equal the high and desirable quality of the earlier day home-grown yard fryers. We didn't confine them like prison inmates. They ran without any restraints, so much so that they were hard to get big enough to eat. It would take eight to ten weeks to get them up to some two pounds and ready for eating or marketing . . . and you had to trick them to catch'em, but man, the taste was so good you couldn't hardly stand it. Now the growers can produce four pound fryers in about six weeks or less, and if they had to grow them like in the early days they would probably cost us ten dollars or more a pound, and there would not be enough to go around.

ALLEN: That doesn't seem natural, does it? So you were selling food on early? You had an interest in selling things early in life.

MADDOX: It may not seem natural to many who are aware of our past methods of productivity, but I suppose all others see it as natural--with limited knowledge of what happens before farm products reach the supermarket things may appear as what they always have been and should be. Yes, sir, I sold food and other items early in my childhood life. The art and practice of selling is a major factor in making the private free enterprise system work. I did sell newspapers, too, starting at the age of twelve or thirteen. I bought newspapers for two cents each and sold them for three cents. That was a big profit, but I never made over twenty five cents in one day because I had a lousy location. I could almost scream my head off hollering "EXTRA!EXTRA!, READ ALL ABOUT IT" and not do well because of the location.

ALLEN: Where were you?

MADDOX: Directly across Marietta Street from the Georgian American, where I bought my papers, and I believe they were giving them away over there.

ALLEN: Where was the Georgian office, the Atlanta Georgian, the newspaper?

MADDOX: The newspaper operated from the exact site where the Atlanta Journal-Constitution are headquartered today, only the old building was removed and replaced with the current structure.

ALLEN: You went to Home Park Elementary school there, I guess.

MADDOX: Yes, sir.

ALLEN: Do you have any recollection of any of the teachers that influenced you, had an effect on you there at Home Park?

MADDOX: Yes, sir. I believe that all of the teachers influenced me. I don't recall ever having one that I did not like, nor one that ever had to discipline me. The children in our home did not go to school to be disciplined, we attended school to learn--to be educated--we were disciplined at home. Back then I really thought Dad was overdoing it at home, but as I look back I have no regrets. Teachers did have problems with some students back then, but not to the extent of today. Teachers really had much more time for teaching than they do now. There has never been a time when people, children and adults, did not have to be disciplined; misconduct is no respecter of persons--I mean it goes on so long as people can get by with it. ALLEN: I was a teacher about twelve years. I've seen a lot of it.

MADDOX: It was easier on the educators back in those years. If you misbehaved you paid for it. The parents and our society generally accepted the correctional policies used by educators to punish students who misbehaved. I believe that was of benefit to the students, the teachers, the parents and to education. It appears to me that our society and most parents who have children causing behavioral problems in the class room are now saying, "Leave the little rascal alone. He'll grow out of it," or "If you mistreat my little child, little brat, I'll sue you". It's simple, if teachers aren't allowed discipline--teachers can't teach.

ALLEN: Did they use corporal punishment? Would they spank you?

MADDOX: Yes, sir. I never was spanked or whipped for misbehavior in class, but it happened to many others. Sometimes, it happened right in the class room, but most often in the hallway or off to the principal's office. I was in disagreement with the corporal punishment taking place in the class room, but had no objection to it taking place outside of the class room. I really wish that such punishment was still allowed. If so, in my judgment, we would have better behaved and better educated children and adults.

ALLEN: That was, I guess, World War One was going on about then, was it not?

MADDOX: World War One was over. I did not start to school until 1921.

ALLEN: Do you have any--remember any particular heroes or villains from your early elementary school, people you really looked up to or thought a lot of? MADDOX: You know, our history books back then told of how people like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Patrick Henry, Nathan Hale and others contributed to the forming of our nation and to our freedom, and they were all heroes to me and other students. We had love and respect for them, and I still do. Of course, that was a long time ago, my school days, back when we were not only taught in our churches and homes about God's love for us and our need to love and trust Him, but it was the same in our public schools, thank God. ALLEN: Was it more patriotic times during the 20s, you might say?

MADDOX: Oh, yes, sir, absolutely. You didn't have the left-wing media, and their counter-parts in elective office and in some churches and other professions always attacking our country and system of government, while too often praising and giving aid and comfort to America's enemies. You were a misfit in our society if you didn't love our country and Ole Glory, and our real heroes were those Americans in our midst and elsewhere who proudly wore the Army and Navy uniforms--standing ever ready to defend our lives and country. Yes, sir, back then we even had great respect for law enforcement officers, judges, public officials and ministers.

ALLEN: What about President Wilson or Harding, ones after that--were there any particular feelings about them around the neighborhood--that they were good guys or bad guys?

MADDOX: Not to my knowledge. There may have been particular feelings expressed by the adults of our time, but it was not a part of the children I associated with. I recall Wilson and Harding as being our presidents, and the Herbert Hoover-Al Smith campaign, with Hoover being elected president--and, of course, the campaign and election of Franklin Roosevelt. I was attending O'Keefe High School when during Roosevelt's campaign he spent the night at the Atlanta Biltmore Hotel and we turned out at O'Keefe to greet him on Fifth Street as he made his way by our school to a campaign rally at Georgia Tech.

ALLEN: Did people feel good about him in your neighborhood during that time?

MADDOX: Yes, sir. People were out of work, families were hungry, ill-clothed and ill-housed . . . and cold and praying for anyone who may be able to help.

ALLEN: Let's see, this is the early Depression. In 1930, you were fifteen when the Depression began. Do you remember that, the onset of the Depression? MADDOX: Yes, sir. I was fifteen in 1930, but the beginning of the Depression was in 1929, following the stock market crash. I remember that well.

ALLEN: Were you selling newspapers then?

MADDOX: It was during that time in my life that I was either selling or delivering papers, or roasting and selling peanuts.

ALLEN: I just wondered about that day.

MADDOX: I remember first hearing of the stock market crash at school. As best as I can remember I was carrying an afternoon paper route at the time. However, back in those days when I did go to Atlanta to sell papers or peanuts, before I was fifteen years of age, I would walk from 14th Street to Atlanta and back because it would cost a nickel to ride a jitney or Atlanta streetcar.

ALLEN: What's a "jitney"?

MADDOX: It was a Model T Ford or other old car, privately owned, that you could ride to or from Atlanta for a nickel. They operated in competition with the electric trolley, but I didn't have the nickels. However, all of those downtown activities in my early life were only during school vacations in the summertime. I walked from my home near Atlantic Steel to the downtown Farmer's Market, located in what was downtown Atlanta until the Pryor, Whitehall, Broad and Forsyth Streets viaducts were constructed; converting the area into what is now known as Underground Atlanta. After purchasing a ten-pound bag of raw peanuts for fifty cents, I would walk back to my home, build a fire in Mom's stove and roast the peanuts. If I did not burn them, which I very rarely did, I would bag them and walk back to Atlanta the following day and sell thirty small bags of my peanuts at five cents each, giving me a total of $1.50. After deducting fifty cents for the cost of my peanuts and five cents for the fifty paper bags--without any deductions for the cost of coal for the stove, or for the two trips to and from Atlanta--, I had a profit of ninety five cents in two days. And, friend, that was big money. ALLEN: How long would it take you to walk down there?

MADDOX: Well, it's about two and a quarter or two and a half miles. So a round trip would give you about four and a half or five miles.

ALLEN: That's a pretty good walk.

MADDOX: It would take you about an hour or an hour and fifteen minutes for the round trip. ALLEN: When the Depression hit in 1929, was there any big change in your life around Home Park, or did it affect Atlantic Steel or the neighborhood?

MADDOX: Yes, sir, we were--in our particular family, much affected. Daddy lost his job at Atlantic Steel. And just prior to the Depression which followed the stockmarket crash, we had sold our property on 14th Street, including both land and the house, for $2,500. However, before closing the sale Daddy learned who was purchasing our property and refused to go along with the sale because he had not been informed as to the name of the purchaser. He refused to close the transaction until the purchaser agreed to give him $5,000.00 instead of the original $2,500.00 for our house and land. The purchaser also agreed to allow us to move the house from the property. So we moved the house that Daddy had personally constructed, which originally didn't even have a bathroom in it, after the property was sold to Firestone--No, it was Silvertown--Whoever Silvertown is, or was--

ALLEN: Tires?

MADDOX: I think it was Goodrich.

ALLEN: Yeah. MADDOX: I believe it was Goodrich Silvertown. And being unable to complete the moving of our house from 14th Street to the new location on State Street in one day, the house with our entire family had to spend one night in State Street.

ALLEN: How did they move the house?

MADDOX: Daddy contracted with a firm in the house moving business and the house was moved by the firm's employees in the normal way houses are moved from one location to another. And in further reference to your previous question as to the effects of the 1929 Depression, I want to remark about additional ways in which our family was affected. Actually, most of what we had to eat came from what we were able to grow and raise on our property-- ALLEN: During the Depression. What you could raise. MADDOX: Mother and daddy had to start taking in laundry. Daddy would go out and knock on people's doors and pick up their laundry and take it home, and he and mother would wash it and iron it, and Dad would then deliver the laundry back to his customers.

ALLEN: It was pretty rough for everybody during that time.

MADDOX: Yes, sir, but, you know, it didn't really bother us a lot, even though I had to quit high school.

ALLEN: My daddy had to quit in the ninth grade.

MADDOX: Well, I always heard that my Dad had to quit in the third grade, but often felt that maybe he didn't get to go to school at all. You didn't mind that you had to put cardboard in the bottom of your shoes to get back and forth from Tech High or O'Keefe High in the winter time. However, it finally got to where the holes in your shoes got so big that the cardboard would no longer work, and you could not repair your shoes with new "stick-on" soles from Kress's for fifteen cents, because you did not have the fifteen cents. It never did bother us. I think it really taught us something. I remember one Christmas me and my older brother, Howard, went to the Salvation Army's Christmas party so we could have Christmas (laughing), but that never did bother us because you know, that was part of the United States of America, that was part of life.

ALLEN: You didn't think of yourself as "poor."

MADDOX: No, I didn't find that out until Roosevelt went in office--No, Lyndon Johnson started talking about poverty. I found out then that I had lived in poverty for about thirty years and didn't know it.

ALLEN: There were black kids in that neighborhood, weren't there? Did you associate with--

MADDOX: Oh, yes, their property adjoined ours. When we lived on State Street a number of black families lived on the street, Crawford Place, behind us, and we associated with the black as well as the white children in our neighborhood.

ALLEN: I grew up near Piedmont Park, and they were like--There were black families like in the alleys, in small houses, behind that area over there near Ponce de Leon ball park. But I don't know Home Park, was it pretty much the same thing--black families scattered pretty much throughout the neighborhood?

MADDOX: Well, not scattered so much. They were generally--in our immediate neighborhood, less than a block from Home Park School. Our home faced the school on State Street, and as I earlier stated, their property was adjoining and in the back of our home, on the street named Crawford Place. Also, near Marietta Street, in the Sixth and McMillan Streets area, there was quite a number of them. In addition, there was another neighborhood of black people who lived off of Fourteenth Street on--I can't think of the name of the street at this time.

ALLEN: So you associated with and played with black kids when you were growing up and had friends and played baseball with them, and that type of thing?

MADDOX: I didn't play a lot of baseball or other such games. I was a little bit on the thin side, the small side, and I was badly nearsighted--and Dad made us stay close to home as small children, insisting that we spend most of what otherwise may have been time for playing in cleaning the yard, feeding the chickens and the hogs, grazing and milking the cows and taking care of our vegetable gardens. My eyesight was so poor that when I caddied for the golfers at Piedmont Park, several miles from our home, I was unable to see the golf ball in the air and had to follow the golfer instead of the ball. Finally, it got where the golfers would not hire me as a caddy. (Laughter) But back to our neighborhoods--we had separate schools for blacks and whites, as approved by city, county, state and federal laws, but we did not have separate neighborhoods. However, when there was a time for playing we played with our black friends as well as our white friends.

ALLEN: You were no stranger to black people, then.

MADDOX: No, sir.

ALLEN: What about your parents' political beliefs, and/or religious beliefs--how did they influence you?

MADDOX: Well, my dad had a problem. He was an alcoholic during most of our childhood, and it was an even greater problem following the 1929 stock market crash and the loss of his job at Atlantic Steel. However, he was a good dad and very industrious and worked day and night to try and provide the best he could for our family. He not only worked fifty-five hours weekly at Atlantic Steel, but he traded cows or automobiles or anything he could--

ALLEN: A kind of rural-urban combination there.

MADDOX: He was a gifted trader and every few years would sell our house and either build or purchase another. He worked up to one hundred hours weekly trying hard to provide for our large family. It was this hard work and his dedication that made a great impression on me. Dad was anything but lazy, and for the benefit of me and my sisters and brothers he would not tolerate any of us doing less than our best. And Mom really made a great and lasting impression on me and all of the children. Regardless of the problems and difficulties of giving birth to and caring for seven children; along with the hardship of never having adequate income to meet the basic needs of our family, and being confronted with the drinking problems of my dad . . . .she kept loving, caring, working, praying and giving her best. Mom never complained and I never heard her use one ugly word. Mom had a very serious illness when I was twelve years old and while she was in the hospital and later until she had recovered I dropped out of school to cook most of the meals and help clean our house. I was in the sixth grade and failed to get promoted that year.

ALLEN: Wasn't she a right religious lady?

MADDOX: My mother was and still is very religious. I really don't believe I have ever known a person with faith in God and a love for and trust in Jesus Christ that equaled Mom's belief and service. Her Christian life and service to God is what impressed me most--she carried us to Sunday School and to church. Although she is now confined to a nursing home and due to her advanced age has difficulty with her memory, she remembers the church hymns and the Bible verses and chapters that she taught and studied since her childhood. That's something God gave her the ability to keep within her. It's as real as anything. It is unbelievable. It is amazing. We can stand by her bedside and start quoting a Bible verse or start singing the words of a hymn and Mom will pick up the verse or song and finish it--at times finishing the Bible verse or the words of a song when others are unable to do so. ALLEN: So your strong religious faith, you think she influenced you that way?

MADDOX: Oh, yes, sir, absolutely. In fact, I have been going to North Atlanta Church since 1917 or '18 and Mom is the reason for my having attended there all these years. The teacher that taught me in the beginner's class is still living, and she is still a member of our church.

ALLEN: So that has influenced you throughout your life, has it? MADDOX: Yes, and I have been around long enough and studied the Bible and history, and people long enough to know that the only sure thing I positively know is that I can count on God and that my faith in Him makes life better for me. I know, too, what faith in God has meant to others who trust and follow Him, and what faith and trust in God has meant to the development and greatness of the United States of America.

ALLEN: What about politics? What did they think about FDR and the New Deal? Was that filtered through their political ideas, your opinion about it, or did they know -

MADDOX: Back then, we didn't have radio, and, of course we had never heard of television. We didn't have radio until 1922, and then we only had the earphones when WSB Radio opened and started broadcasting from the top floor of the Atlanta Biltmore Hotel. And there being a lot of children in our family and our mother and daddy, we had problems getting to hear radio. So we didn't know much about politics unless we read it in the fishwrapper--whatever you got there. Actually, I don't recall having ever heard either Mom or Dad talking about politics or political candidates. It must have been that their never-ending efforts to provide the children with adequate food, clothing and housing left no time for politics.

ALLEN: Oh, people had real strong feelings about President Roosevelt. My grandmother thought he took his orders directly from the Kremlin. (Laughing)

MADDOX: I don't know. He really came along at a time that was important, I think, to the nation. As you probably know, somebody else got blamed for most of our problems, even though that person, former President Herbert Hoover, may not have been responsible. However, even though the thinking and beliefs of your grandmother never reached our family, many Americans then, and even more now, look upon Roosevelt as having been bad for our country. And I have joined that crowd. I also think that during the next four years that somebody in state government is going to get blamed for problems crated by others, but Roosevelt did get a majority of the people to believe he was doing what was best to bring us out of a tragic economic situation.

ALLEN: Right.

MADDOX: Whether we would have been able to come out of the Depression any other way at that time, I don't know. We really didn't do much to come out of the Depression until World War II came along. ALLEN: World War Two really ended the Depression?

MADDOX: Yes, more than any other one thing.

ALLEN: --And the New Deal, I've heard that. I understand that you at one time briefly worked in a WPA job and formed bad opinions about it from that. Is there any truth to that?

MADDOX: Yes, I did work for several days with the WPA. However, before working with the WPA for a short period I had worked with Jewellers Wholesale Supply in the downtown Atlanta Flatiron Building. That job paid me $4.00 weekly for some sixty hours each week. Following the Jewellers Supply job, I worked for the Sixth Street Pharmacy some eighty-four hours each week and received $4.00 and seven meals weekly. It was during my time at Sixth Street Pharmacy that the owner-druggist ws shot and robbed, leaving him in such poor physical condition that he was unable to maintain the drugstore, and business was such that he had to close. On the day of closing he was unable to pay me for my last week's work and gave me the company bicycle. Upon leaving the drugstore I obtained a job with the Chandler Dental Lab on Marietta Street where a black dental technician taught me how to make dentures. This job paid $4.50 weekly and I only had to work fifty-five hours each week. I left the dental laboratory in September, 1933, when I obtained a job at Atlantic Steel Company. President Roosevelt had just gone into office and had succeeded in getting the Congress to pass the first Minimum Wage Bill, which resulted in the bottom wage of fifteen cents an hour being raised to twenty-five cents per hour. This resulted in our being able to make $10.00 for each forty hour week, rather than the old pay of $9.00 weekly for sixty hours. It was at about this same time that the national WPA, Work Progress Administration, was implemented, paying workers thirty cents per hour or $12.00 for a forty hour week. this appeared so attractive to me that I quit my job with Atlantic Steel and obtained one with the WPA. It was during my time at Atlantic Steel, while making $10.00 each week, that I started giving my mother $5.00 weekly to help provide food and other necessities for our family and placed $4.00 each week in my personal savings account, leaving one dollar weekly for my personal spending money. Every Friday I bought myself a Coca-Cola when the soft drink and sandwich man would drive through the plant. That was back when you could buy your dress shirts for fifty-nine cents and your trousers for only sixty-nine cents at the S. H. Kress stores. In fact, I bought my first dress suit as a young adult at the Sewell Mens Store on Whitehall Street for only $12.50.

ALLEN: What kind of work did you do for the WPA?

MADDOX: It was ditch digging, leveling and grading the ground for future roadways, curbing and sidewalks. They didn't have tractors and heavy equipment for the idea was to provide work for as many of the unemployed as possible. A

LLEN: In the city here? MADDOX: Yes. People got out with shovels, picks and wheelbarrows to excavate and grade the ground in preparation for later paving the roads. My part, for the few days I was there, was to help move the dirt where they later paved what today is called Techwood Drive, between Fourteenth and Tenth Streets.

ALLEN: Was Techwood Homes built there, or was that being built--across from Georgia Tech stadium, the part that--I remember that President Roosevelt came to town to dedicate Techwood Homes. I just wondered if that was a WPA project or y'all worked on that?

MADDOX: No, sir, I didn't work on that. I don't believe that was a WPA project and the road project for the extension of Techwood Drive was north of the Tech Stadium between Tenth and Fourteenth Streets. But anyhow, out of the first four days that I worked for the WPA it rained for two days and I had to go two of those days without pay. Knowing that if I had stayed at Atlantic Steel I would not have lost any pay during those four days, I realized I had made a bad mistake in leaving the company.

ALLEN: You didn't get paid if you didn't work? MADDOX: That's right, so I quit WPA and went back to Atlantic Steel and begged the superintendent to give me one more chance. Thank God, Schukraft gave me back my job.

ALLEN: In 1936, that was the year that you married Virginia; is that correct?

MADDOX: That's correct.

ALLEN: Where did you meet her and tell me a little about that courtship?

MADDOX: The first time that I recall seeing Virginia was up on McMillan Street at Lynch Avenue. A lady had--in the front of her home there, a little sandwich shop and ice cream stand, operated from her enclosed front porch. I did not know Virginia, nor did I recall ever having seen her before. But as I walked down McMillan Street I saw a beautiful dark-haired and blue-eyed girl, sitting on her bicycle and eating an Eskimo Pie. I guess it was love at first sight for I said to myself at the time, "Wow, that's the girl I want for a sweetheart and later as my wife."

ALLEN: She's a pretty thing--She's still pretty. I'll bet she was pretty when she was young, too, wasn't she?

MADDOX: Yes, sir.

ALLEN: Stole your heart right away?

MADDOX: Yes, sir. Right then. I just--you know--some things you make up your mind as to there really being no substitute and you go all-out to reach your goal. I wanted Virginia as my sweetheart and wife and I started working towards that goal upon first seeing her. Making my getting her as my wife was something like the goal I had set as a child to some day become a successful businessman. Thank God, that as an American with the benefit of the great American private free enterprise system I also reached that goal--

ALLEN: Yes.

MADDOX: A lot of people, especially politicians, Democrats, Republicans and others, act as though they are the cause of our states and nation being great, prosperous and free . . . and many of them have made contributions as public servants, but what helped much more than politicians to make our states and nation strong, free and prosperous resulted from our great economic system. I believe that any good business person that had to grow and develop a successful business from the ground up could make a successful congressman, mayor, governor or president. Such successful business leaders have served as their own chief executive officer, secretary, treasurer, etc. They are proven achievers and producers. However, I also believe that we have many good elected officials in government who could never make it to success as a business person. Generally, elected public officials become professional politicians and captives of the political establishment. Too many of them become followers, not leaders. Strong leaders in high elective office are too rare.

ALLEN: [Laughter]

MADDOX: So, knowing what made the greatest contribution to our nation becoming great, free and prosperous, I set my goal to become a successful businessman. Likewise, I set my goal to woo and win Virginia. Thank God, I reached both goals.

ALLEN: How long did y'all court? MADDOX: That's--You know that's one of my earliest memories of real sincere prayer.

ALLEN: Praying that she would marry you? [Laughing.] MADDOX: I don't know if anybody else ever prayed for their wife-to-be or not, but I know I did.

ALLEN: And your prayers were answered.

MADDOX: Yes, sir. And as to our courting, it was for approximately two years. Virginia was fifteen years of age when I first met her, and I was eighteen. When we married May 9, 1936, she was seventeen and I was twenty. Getting married to Virginia was not so easy for when I first proposed I was only making $16.00 per week and she accepted my proposal subject to my advancing to a weekly salary of $33.50, which was the company's standard salary for plant foremen at the time. However when it later looked as though I would never reach the salary goal of $33.50, she agreed to our marriage when my salary had reached $19.75 per week ($1027.00) annually.

ALLEN: What about the early years of y'all's marriage? I understand that you were in Birmingham at the outbreak of the War. How did you happen to end up over there working for the Nashville Bridge Company?

MADDOX: Several years after leaving the WPA job and returning to Atlantic Steel I had advanced to taking charge of the company's steel strip, bar, and job galvanizing operations plant.

ALLEN: Yes.

MADDOX: This was in 1940-1941 period and the AFL-CIO, or maybe it was just the CIO, started an organizing movement at Atlantic Steel, which later proved to be successful.

ALLEN: What did you think about that?

MADDOX: I thought that some improvement in employer-employee relations was badly needed. I fully realized that the company had to be tough and require top production from all employees, maintain adequate cost control and be extremely efficient in order to be competitive and survive during the Great Depression years, but I believed that, along with most small and large industrial plants, Atlantic Steel was somewhat oppressive toward too many employees. It appeared to me that too often industry looked upon some employees as being no more than another piece of equipment, or even less. If an employee was injured on the job or maybe missed a day at work, justified or not, he could easily lose his job. There was little or no provision of providing for employees who were hurt on the job and too often neither Workmen's Compensation or unemployment insurance was available for the injured or those who lost their jobs. It's a fact that many of us holding industrial jobs were actually afraid to go either to the rest room or to get a drink of water too often to suit management. And, if you were off of the job for one shift you had cause to believe you had to report back to work with a letter from your physician in order to verify that you were ill. However, to a certain degree, employees appeared to be captives of management and something needed to be done. But management alone is not always the guilty party, for I have seen both Labor and management go to unfair extremes. It was as a result of the Labor organization activities at Atlantic Steel that I had to leave Atlanta and move to Alabama with my family. Someone had advised Atlantic Steel Management that two of my black employees had been seen riding around with union organizers and my superintendent phoned and informed me as to what was taking place. He also demanded that I immediately fire both men, but I informed him that, "I can't do that." My superintendent's immediate response was, "You have no choice, you have to fire them." I then stated to the superintendent, E. E. Schukraft, "Well, what excuse do I have?" His response to my question was "Just write on the discharge form that the men are no good." Upon being told to state that the two good employees--key lead workers in our operation--were no good, I responded, "Well, I don't have any better men than these two are, they are two of my best workers." Schukraft responded, "Then make the reason for their being fired that of your having to reduce your labor force." My response to this order was, "I can't do that. That would not be telling the truth because I just added the third eight-hour shift. You know that we have gone from one shift to two and that we are now on three eight hour shifts because of increased business. I am not reducing force." It was then that the superintendent angrily responded, "Well, as long as you work for Atlantic Steel Company, you are going to carry out the orders of management, or else you will not work here anymore." This was one of the most difficult times of my life for I was only making $29.00 per week with a good wife and two baby daughters at home and with no other job available in Atlanta, or Georgia, that I was qualified and/or able to get. My response to my superintendent's demand that I fire the two employees even if I had to lie about them, was, "I like my job, and I have got to provide for my family, but the minute I must mistreat good employees and lie about them in order to carry out the orders of management, is the very minute that I will have lost my job."

ALLEN: That was a tough thing.

MADDOX: That's why I wound up in a distant city, Bessemer, Alabama.

ALLEN: I'll be danged.

MADDOX: I visited Atlantic Steel five years later and found that the two black men were still working there on the same jobs I had been told to fire them from; and although I had lost my job and had to save up and borrow enough money to finally be able to move my family to a distant city, I had saved the jobs of two good black men. It pleased me to see that the two men still had their jobs at Atlantic Steel for when I had lost my job because of refusing to fire them, the superintendent directed me to send them to his office. However, as much as the company wanted the men discharged, the superintendent was evidently afraid to do to the men what he had demanded that I do to them. ALLEN: He wanted you to do his dirty work for him, didn't he?

MADDOX: He was afraid to fire them.

ALLEN: Good employees were hard to find--

MADDOX: Now you know why me and Virginia and our two daughters had to move to Alabama.

ALLEN: Because they had a steel mill where you could do a similar type of work?

MADDOX: No, they did not have a steel mill. I went to work for Nashville Bridge Company and not a steel manufacturing company. However, I went to work for Bessemer Galvanizing Works, a subsidiary of Nashville Bridge. This did afford me the opportunity to do similar work as I performed at Atlantic Steel in Atlanta. Bessemer Galvanizing Works, located west of Birmingham, had a large galvanizing operation, much of which was especially designed to process huge steel ship plates and other steel items and assemblies. However, their management and employees had little more than on the job training and did not have the benefit of a continuous research program as we had on an on-going basis at Atlantic Steel. Thus, although my starting wage was only eighty-five cents per hour, I was able to work long hours and assist in improving the quality of the work and bring about a more efficient operation due to our research with the various steel cleaning acids, proper temperatures for the molten zinc, the designing of more modern equipment, and some three years of metallurgical research with many grades of steel for processing and fabrication while employed at Atlantic Steel. The extra long hours, which included considerable overtime, proved to be a real blessing in helping me to provide for my young family in a strange city. It was during 1941 that I lost my job at Atlantic Steel and succeeded in finding employment and moving my family to Bessemer. And, as you know, it was on December 7, 1941 that Japan made a surprising and nearly devastating attack upon Pearl Harbor. It was most shocking and frightening to me when I heard the news that Sunday morning.

ALLEN: What do you remember of your feelings about that day when that happened?