Interview with Don Cooper, March 18, 1985

Interview with Don Cooper, March 18, 1985 John Sherman Cooper Oral History Project Principal Interviewer:Bill Cooper

The University of Kentucky Division of Special Collections and Archives Oral History Program, University of Kentucky Libraries

Oral History Program, University of Kentucky, Margaret I. King Library, Lexington, KY 40506

The transcripts included in this project have been dirived from the original interview source tapes. Introduction

The following is an unrehearsed interview with Don Cooper for the John Sherman Cooper Oral History Project. The inter- view was conducted by Richard C. Smoot in Somerset, Kentucky, on March 18, 1985.

Interview

Don Cooper, 85OH63, Coop69, 3h

[An Interview with Don Cooper]

SMOOT: Mr. Cooper, let me . . . let me ask you a little bit, first, about your parents. Your father was a . . . had a back- ground in government here and . . . in Pulaski County and in the state government as well, and your . . . and your mother, of course, obviously had to help him and obvious-. . . ob- viously also, from my own research, I have found that your father was very much involved with business practices in the area; coal, timber, banking and so forth. Why don't you tell me a little bit more about your . . . your parents? COOPER: Well, over the years my early childhood, it . . . it has some very vague spots always. I know that my father was, when I was born, and John, we were born right into politics. My father was the chairman of the Republican old 11th District and was on the Republican State Central Committee, and this was a . . . how long he held that after . . . I don't believe he was still in the office when I was born in 1907. I don't believe it. I think he'd . . . it had been prior to that and, of course, the 11th . . . the [Governor William] Goebel assas- sination brought in people who ran on the Goebel issue down here and succeeded very well. Caleb Powers for one and Gover- nor Taylor. I think Powers was . . . I don't know whether he was . . . he was tried and maybe convicted, but when he was re- stored, I . . . he was elected to Congress here for several terms. But I . . . I . . . I ramble. My father was a lawyer. He had gone . . . he was a school teacher. He died in 1924 at [age] fifty-eight, early according to modern . . . today's medicine. He had taught school and had gone between schools . . . that's county schools, those old schools where each school had it's separate board of trustees and they pretty well picked the teachers the way they wanted to. My father continued his education at the University. He did not graduate. He was elected . . . or however it was done back in those days. I know when I was growing up the county school superintendent was elected. He was . . . he was . . . served as county school su- perintendent for some time prior to 1900. My mother was from a very prominent political family in this . . . in this county. Her father had been county judge and was into his second term when he drowned on a creek down south here, [inaudible] Creek, flood waters. My mother taught school and I think my father met her as school superintendent. And he rode horseback all . . . on the visitations to schools. Of course, I don't . . . I wasn't born when this happened, but . . . and I don't know the date they were married. Somewhere along 1898 or `-9, I think. I don't know when my father moved in . . . in town. He st-. . . he started law, undoubtedly, in somebody's law office and was admitted to the bar. In those days the circuit judge would ap- point two or three lawyers to interview or examine into the man's fitness and qualifications. He practiced law to some ex- tent but he early, apparently, . . . well, then he was elected county judge. Well, that's [points to piece of paper] got the political . . . what he did. SMOOT: 1899. COOPER: Was it then? SMOOT: Yes, sir. COOPER: And he resigned that to be . . . he was appointed the collector of internal revenue in the . . . the old 8th Kentucky District. I don't remember anything about that. I went to Danville with him later on, I was sure, on that job. I wouldn't have been . . . I was three or four years old. His headquarters were up . . . up there. And he ca-. . . it came then into around 1912, say, or whenever, when the . . . T.R. [Theodore Roosevelt] broke with Taft and I think my father must have been a Taft man. My uncle . . . well, I'll go back and pick that up. And my father never held another political office until Ed Morrow, from this town, was nominated for governor. And I remember my father was sick and that was in 1917. And I remember distinctly that he was called to the phone and it was Ed Morrow who wanted him to agree to run. These offices were, in those days, nominated in the convention and maybe this was in Lexington at the state convention of the Republican party. I remember that he came back and said that he'd . . . he wasn't a bit interested, but he agreed to run for railroad . . . SMOOT: Commissioner? COOPER: . . . commissioner in whatever district this was. There were three of them, I think. And in those days, the com- mission had something to do, you know. The local . . . local transportation inside the state. The . . . the detail of it, I . . . I can't go back and do, but I used to go with him pretty often to Frankfort. I know I was impressed that he could stop the train down here, [chuckle--Smoot] hold it for him. [laughter] He didn't like to, but it happened occasionally. Or sometimes he would ride up on a caboose. That was the way to travel then. We had a car, but to go from here to Lexington or Frankfort was just . . . particularly getting out of this county was just a days [chuckling] run almost. SMOOT: Do you remember what kind of car you had? COOPER: The first car we had was a Kline. It was in . . . it was made . . . K-L-I-. . . I-N-E and I've never heard of one before or since. It was a very fancy looking car. Wire wheels and lines somewhat similar to what you see . . . maybe it was a little box-type. That . . . a very good looking car, a touring car. My sister, the oldest in the family, just loved it. She just . . . I couldn't drive then. I was . . . [chuckle Smoot] and it was . . . it was assembled in Virginia. And where father . . . how he got on to that, I have no idea. Yeah, un- til it was brought home, I don't even know how they got [chuckling] it over. Maybe from Lincoln County by rail. I don't . . . I think they did. Anyway, he accepted. He . . . he told Ed Morrow that he would and I don't recall any vigorous campaigning. Ed, having been defeated narrowly by A.O. Stanley in the preceding election, was on a binge and he . . . you know, he had things going for him. And my father had been ac- tive in this whole area for so many years in politics that I don't think there was really much of a race to it. I didn't really know . . . I know he did some advertising in newspapers around, over the district, and I don't . . . I was too young really to . . . although, I'd been going out with him to political meetings since 1916, [inaudible] campaign. We had school . . . school . . . he'd been to the Republican national convention and . . . as a delegate and I think had been before in 1912. But he won and the job required and he was made chairman and that gave him the salary, as I recall, of thirty- six hundred dollars for the chairman. And they had an old . . . in the old Capitol. I think they met once a month. They had business, the railroad commission. Now, as I say, I can't elaborate on it. But he never ran again for office. In the meantime, starting, I'm sure way back, he had virtually . . . the earliest recollections that I have of going to his office is from the time I was able to walk. I lived half the time in his office. Dad, he was in staves and lumber . . . white oak staves and . . . for whiskey barrels. He was a pretty dry man himself, I would think. I never knew him to have a drink. I'm not much like him in that respect, [chuckle--Smoot] but I think I am in a lot of other respects. He had gotten out into that in timber, coal in McCreary County and coal in Bell County and coal in Pulaski County, and the timber, staves in Arkansas and eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and I don't know anyplace else, maybe in West Virginia. I don't recall that. SMOOT: Involved in banking, too, wasn't he? COOPER: He organi-. . . helped organize one of the banks here in the . . . around 1907 or `08, somewhere in there, the Farmer's National Bank. He was the first president, and I don't know how long he held that, but he was never . . . of course, in those days, the way they were run by whoever . . . the cashier running the bank. And they imported, usually, the cashier and I think that was . . . you know, somebody then that experienced in that . . . that thing. The other bank was much . . . had been founded in 18-. . . 1870, The First National Bank. They're now merged, now, the State Bank. They used to be . . . well, they got involved, I mean the one bank got involved with Mr. Butcher. SMOOT: Oh, I see. COOPER: And [chuckling] . . . SMOOT: I seem to recall something about that. COOPER: Yeah. Anyway, he . . . if he practiced law after that any . . . after early . . . after, say, 1910, I'm not aware . . . I don't think he did. I don't even think he had a law office on his office window. Anyway, he was in that and some politics. He continued [to be] very active in just local, county politics. And they . . . it . . . there were two Republican factions. I . . . I want to go back to show you the . . . how . . . what we had. My brother . . . I mean, my mother . . . mother's . . . mother's brother . . . brother, Roscoe . . . Roscoe Conklin Tartar, [chuckles-Smoot] T-A-R-T-A- R. He insisted on that. SMOOT: Roscoe Conklin Tartar. [chuckle] COOPER: Named for the great senator from New York. And ran for county judge shortly after my father . . . I . . . I guess, maybe a term intervened or so, but ran for county judge and was in the office when I first knew anything about it. And I would go . . . I spent more time downtown as a kid than any member of the family. I was on the streets all the time. Either in my father's office or my uncle's office. And they were on op- posite sides of the political fence factionally. So, well, I . . . I . . . I made . . . I . . . I remember the campaign . . . I never heard it discussed in . . . in my family, the rivalry or the f-. . . but I wondered a lot why father . . . my father hired him . . . or not hire . . . what . . . he was in the In- ternal Revenue's office in Danville. He hired his brother-in- law for some sort of clerical work. But they . . . and Roscoe was [an] ardent "bull moose" and there was a . . . certainly a political divergence in the . . . within the Republican party. Whether there was any more than that, I . . . I . . . I really cannot say. My recollection is--and it may be faulty--when my father was home, I don't think that Roscoe was ever in our house. One of the other brothers . . . my mother's brothers, Chris, was a lawyer, he . . . he actually went to law school, the University of Louisville, graduated, and very jealous of his brother in politics, and that jealously lasted damn near for their lives. But Uncle Chris couldn't hold a candle, politically, to his brother. There was just no way, in demeanor or temperament, although really a man of . . . really a fine speaker and a good lawyer but lazy as hell and pretty slipshod in meeting and, you know, forming the contacts you have to have. I don't know that there was any enmity at all between Roscoe and my father and I wouldn't want to manufacture it. I never s-. . . heard Roscoe say an unkind word about it and . . . or my father about him. It was . . . we never . . . I don't recall any. I know that in later years, when I came back here and knew Roscoe much better than I ever had, he talked with the greatest respect about my father. And I think that father was a highly respected man not only locally but around, and he . . . he was a quiet sort of person. Reserved, tall, 6'1" or so, slender. He was very proud of the way he dressed. SMOOT: What had happened to your father? He . . . he died when he was fifty-eight years old or . . . COOPER: Well, I . . . SMOOT: . . . or [inaudible] . . . COOPER: . . . I want to go on with that, about . . . he . . . he maintained these businesses . . . SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: . . . and I never heard any . . . this . . . I knew that the rivalry existed, the factional thing, because in those early days, as I say, I was going out with him as a kid in 1916, . . . SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: . . . to schoolhouse speakings, and I can remember old Reed Smoot, through other voices, talking his head off. [chuckle] He could tell you all about what the duty was on an egg from China. [laughter] But for . . . I don't remember father going into that. I don't believe that there was . . . I don't recall any discussions of . . . between my father and my mother about that situation. I must say the children, as far as I know, the ones who . . . certainly I was very much for my uncle as against the candidate my father favored, and I remem- ber one time when they . . . they spoke all day down here at the courthouse when they'd speak and I mean, you know, people loved it back in those [days]. That's the only place they had . . . had to go for entertainment. And they would jam the place. And my uncle humored me. He'd put me up on his desk and stand me up there and recite little speeches to me. He had a great flair for old time oratory and he had a speech hesita- tion, but . . . and I understand that as a kid, it's the old story of doing . . . who was the Greek who put pebbles in his mouth? Demosthenes. My . . . I've heard that and people said that he would come up Main Street, going up to where they lived . . . the Tartars lived, right over the hill up on North Main Street, scarcely ha-. . . half a mile out of town, and he would come up at midnight and speaking at the top of his voice [laughter] up . . . up that he . . . and doing it . . . all . . . it was usually at night. He drank, in his early days, considerably and I . . . I think maybe that my father didn't like that. That would be my guess. But we never heard that. I remember Father . . . I . . . I w-. . . I . . . one of father's strong political lies . . . allies, I know father helped him hell, a lot more than Adams. Help was the other way around. There was a fellow by the name of Adams . . . Napier Adams, and he ran against my uncle for county judge, and my uncle would rather be county judge than hold any office in the United States. And I feel sure that later on he could have gone to a higher office, Congress, if he . . . maybe he did for interim period while John M. Robsion, who was the Congressman, not at that particular time that I'm talking about, 1915 or so. I got up at the back . . . I was up in the courthouse and I cheered Tartar on. And when I got home for lunch, in those days it was always dinner at noon, and a lot of people went home for lunch. And when I got there, mother said that father had . . . he'd heard about it across the street, that I had . . . he didn't say misbehave, I think he said, "Acted up." [laughter] And I said, "What did he do?" She said, "He just smiled." [laughter] I think he was well aware that the children pretty generally liked Roscoe. Of course, none of us could vote at that time. Anyway . . . or do any . . . have any influence for that matter. But I never saw any friction about it in the house . . . at home. I . . . I don't remember any. And my father and mother might have talked about it, [laughing] but no, I . . . I don't think there was any . . . anything. You know, it was just something that was accepted and, after all, he was her brother. Well, by . . . after father ran the . . . for railroad commissioner and served that out to 1921. Of course, he died within three years after that. And he'd been . . . I know he was sick, in . . . in bed, at home when he received that call from Morrow in 1919 . . . `17. I . . . I . . . you've got all these dates. Well, he was dead in 1924. SMOOT: Had the cough . . . had the cough . . . COOPER: He had had what was called--and I didn't know too much about it--he had Bright's disease and it must have some kinship to cancer of some . . . in some way. And they knew very little about it. He'd been going to doctors in Cincin- nati, and I remember I went up . . . I had just finished military school in 1924 and I came home and I needed a suit, long . . . long trousers, and he was going to Cincinnati and I went up . . . up with him and he bought the suit and things for me. And we were staying in some hotel, and when I got back that night a note was there that he was in the hospital. And that was around June, I guess, maybe late May, and my mother came up there and she sent me home on the train. And he came home and stayed home, I . . . I think, nearly all the time. People came up there about politics and, you know, and his business that he was operating in some timber in Tennessee that he'd just bought. And he died, it was July or August. I don't know, is it . . . [inaudible] . . . I . . . I don't understand it yet. I . . . I . . . I just remember it was . . . it's blurred, it's just blurred. I was seventeen. Our . . . our family . . . my mother maintained a pretty strong discipline. Things we had to do and I . . . I know that . . . well, I . . . you know, just things like keeping the furnace going and all those odds and ends, and I was always into businesses of various kinds. I had a junk company. Father looked on all this with great amus-. . . amusement. [chuckle--Smoot] I . . . I never . . . I . . . you know, I can't really recall any serious talks about life or about how babies are produced or anything of the sort. We went to church, the First Baptist Church. He was active in the church. He was moderator, a school superintendent through all those early years. The preacher was a . . . just a . . . he hated the Holy Roman Empir-. . . I mean the Roman Catholic--they called it "Cath-o- lick" [laughter]--and none of that ever rubbed off on us. And we had Jews here, not many. Nothing tha-. . . and we had a few . . . they were called "colored" people there, blacks. I don't believe there were over five or six hundred of them in town. And there were some fine, excellent farmers who were black. They would come up from that way [from] slavehood, and they were fine and they brought produce and . . . around through the streets and downtown and on the square. Am I just rambling, to . . . SMOOT: Not at all. COOPER: . . . to no purpose? SMOOT: No, no. No. COOPER: Well, I . . . I . . . we just never seemed . . . any of us, seemed to have any of that kind of animosity. Now, I . . . I played with black boys. Got the hell beat out of me several times by . . . [laughter--Smoot]. Have . . . we . . . we had the Baptist Church right down at the foot of the hill on the main street in town. SMOOT: These were Southern Baptist churches, I imagine? COOPER: No, this was a African Im-. . . whatever. It's been there . . . SMOOT: A.M.E.? COOPER: . . . for years. It's still there. SMOOT: African Methodist Episcopal? COOPER: Something like that. It . . . it's still there. SMOOT: Okay. COOPER: It's rather neat looking now. It's been . . . been worked on I don't know how many times, and they've got a little parsonage right next-door to it. We had help at the house. We never called any of them servants or even thought about the word, but they came there to help mother and they were black people, two or three of them. But mother never thought that anybody was competent at the kitchen . . . in the kitchen ex- cept herself. And I . . . I must say, she was a . . . a wonderful, wonderful cook. I still think so after all these years. [chuckle--Smoot] Mother had taught school, and when father died, we never felt that . . . we didn't know what money was about. We didn't know whether . . . how much father had. That just . . . they . . . they treat-. . . they let . . . we'd go downtown. He rarely ever gave us money; we just charged the things in town. And I think most of us were . . . exercised some reasonable judgment about it. After all, you could buy candy . . . you could buy five cents worth of candy [laughter] and there was a sack full. Or we just charged and he would . . . we had a great garden up the hill. A very long . . . I mean, a long, deep lot from Main Street back over to the next street, Vine Street. I guess that lot had the depth of, oh, it'd be, I'd say, two hundred feet, maybe more. And the front, oh, seventy-five [or] eighty [feet]. But the rear half of that lot, separated by a rather tall . . . rather high white fence . . . board fence with separated planks, that was a garden back there, a vegetable garden. And we had that whole, fairly good sized lot with a garden every year, and I remember I had the plot up front that I had to work, and my sister, who was a couple of years younger, had hers. And I was very diligent. And my father would . . . he'd tell you . . . he would pay me to do the whole potato . . . all the plants, de-bug them, one cent a bug. [chuckle] I remember one day, I . . . I had the count of four hundred and fifty. [chuckle] I don't think he . . . I . . . I think he thought I was . . . had counted too much. [laughter] But discipline was switches, and my mother was the enforcer; I mean, as far as I was concerned she was. I don't remember father ever . . . he . . . he just seemed to leave that to the schoolteachers and she was a schoolteacher in the old-fashioned sense. And I remember one time I was just outraged because it was for something that I hadn't done, and I mean I had not done it. I remember just as well today as . . . I started to say, the way . . . the day I did it [laughter] . . . I was accused of doing it. And she told father about it. Very rarely did she do that. It had something to . . . or spoke very rarely, but she told him however that night [at] supper and he asked me to go out to the garden with him. And he administered to . . . I think he used a paddle, I don't know, but very light taps and handed me a dollar bill. [laughter] I didn't mind his [chuckling] whippings. But he rarely ever did, but he always paid me. But . . . SMOOT: May . . . may I digress just a moment? I . . . I've seen different [chuckling] accounts of . . . of the arrangement of the family or the . . . could you tell me the children from oldest to youngest in . . . in that order? COOPER: The first was my sister Faustine--and the correct name spelling was F-A-U-S-T-I-N-E--Grant Cooper. She was born, I guess, in 1900 and she was undoubtedly my father's number one. No question about it; always, as long as he was live . . . alive. Then John . . . John Sherman, although that name's never even considered. Nobody used it. My father, who's Sr., that was never used by either one of them, to my knowledge. My father signed his name, J. S. Cooper. I could imitate it back in those days to a [chuckle--Smoot] fair-thee-well. John signed his name, John S. Cooper. Then another sister came along, Margaret, and she must . . . John was nineteen-one [1901] and Margaret must have been around nineteen-three [1903]. And her middle name was Tartar. Then, I don't think she ever [chuckling] . . . I don't know. I think she used it. Then I came four years later, and I was sort of out there in between, you see? I was was dangling off to a side. And when you helped in those days . . . the other children are four years yo-. . . older and more than you are, it makes a hell of a difference of your relationships with them. And how . . . how really closely you . . . how well you know them. And then the other three children, Helen, is about two years younger than I am, and Mary . . . Mary . . . Mary Shepard is about seventy-two now, or three, and the youngest is Dick . . . Richard, who was seventy last Oc-. . . October. So there . . . between the first and last you've got fourteen years there. And I was in the middle; seven years older than my eldest sister and seven years . . . I mean, seven years younger than she and seven years older than Dick. A little . . . maybe a little more than that. I'll be seventy-eight in April. Dick was . . . he was seventy in October. So there was a . . . I didn't fit in really either way except with one sister; Helen and I . . . we were fairly close. I think we were all sort of . . . somehow there were individual . . . somewhat individual . . . individualistic. SMOOT: What's your earliest recollection of . . . of your brother, John? COOPER: Well, John and . . . I really can't say the earliest. I know that in time I started . . . I want to put one thing in here. John never showed the slightest interest in politics, to my knowledge, all my . . . if he did, he . . . it was not ap- parent. He . . . I went to schoolhouse speakings. I stayed downtown in the courthouse with my uncle and my father. I wanted . . . I thought I knew what was going on on both sides. Of course, I didn't know anything, really, [chuckle] but I loved it. And I liked to . . . I . . . I always wanted to be with older people. Now, I had a group up on the hill that had . . . we enjoyed sports and, you know, activities of that kind, but I . . . I never was very athletically minded and John was. And those things interested him, and he liked to read, really, before I . . . I did and read . . . read . . . I can see him now sitting out under a tree reading. And he read historical things within the range of . . . I . . . you remember the books . . . [inaudible], he wrote a kind of historical novels or . . . I guess. But he read, and John was a . . . a . . . he did his . . . his school work without any problems successfully, although he . . . he had . . . I'm sure he had things much more interested in . . . interest. He . . . he loved sports, and the group from . . . he . . . he knew in school, they were up . . . they were home and up on a great vacant lot behind us and they were there every afternoon if the weather was, you know, and played football and maybe baseball. I rarely, if ever, went up there, because the gap then of six or seven years in age made a . . . you know, made a difference. SMOOT: Excuse me. [End of Tape #1, Side #1] [Begin Tape #1, Side #2] COOPER: I do . . . and John worked every summer when . . . when he got of . . . of any size. He went over to the coal mines one summer in Bell County. Four Mile . . . Kentucky's . . . called Four Miles. It's four miles from Pineville. And then he worked in the Ferguson shops . . . the railroad shops here, which was a . . . between Cincinnati and Chattanooga on the old Cincinnati-New Orleans-Texas-Pacific Railroad, which is now, of course, part of the Southern. And he worked down there for one summer as a machinist's helper. Then the . . . my father had a coal yard here that he actually ran with other people, and I . . . I think he had really financed the thing. And John worked down there one summer hauling coal in a one horse wagon. And I remember the . . . I can see things going on. John milked our cow. We had a cow and it was . . . we had a house . . . the house . . . the carriage house had a barn . . . a very stable barn. I think three stalls in it. My father loved horses, see. He loved saddle horses. Loved to ride. But I would . . . see these jobs . . . the cow thing. Well, John was going away and I . . . so it was my job to milk the cow and take her out to . . . half a mile to a pasture and keep her there all day, go back and got her at night [inaudible] late afternoon. John loved to milk the cow. He [chuckle] . . . he'd drink that damned milk right out of the tit . . . the udder. [laughter] It made me sick. [laughter] I . . . I couldn't . . . I . . . I . . . I think it was twenty years before I ever even looked at a glass of milk, [laughter--Smoot] and John just loved it. He'd take a glass out there with him. He always called it . . . we all did this, "sweet milk." [laughter] And we made butter and churned and I did a lot of churning. I don't know that John did. But anyway, I had to take that job on. And then he had a newspaper route, one of the Cincinnati papers, and I guess it must have been The Cin- cinnati Post, and it was a pretty difficult route in the morn- ing before school. It all . . . I remember Sunday we got . . . and I didn't carry those Sunday papers, somebody did. It was on the train. You see, it came into town from Cincinnati on the early morning train. We had about a dozen trains . . . I mean passenger trains coming in and out of the station down there every day. It sounds unbelievable that [inaudible] the old schedules. [chuckle] Oh, we just loved trains. Go up to Cincinnati and . . . Louisville was inaccessible to here cer- tainly by roads, and . . . and you couldn't . . . I . . . at that time, the Southern had not put in a line from . . . from Danville over to Louisville. So we . . . we just never went to Louisville. I can't recall going to Louisville until up in the `20s. And I went to some political meetings up there but . . . not with father, he was dead, but with some other people here. Why, I loved all that thing, thinking I knew ev-. . . every- thing on both sides. And John never showed the slightest in- terest to my knowledge in any of it. But he was . . . he was . . . had a rep-. . . he was . . . he read a lot, he played a lot. He liked to . . . even back in those days of the little social world, and I . . . I . . . I wasn't much on that. SMOOT: Let me ask you, if I may, when your father died in 1924, your brother had already gone to Centre [College] and . . . COOPER: Yeah. SMOOT: . . . and graduated from Yale and . . . and was taking . . . COOPER: Two years . . . two years at Harvard. SMOOT: . . . at Harvard Law [School]. COOPER: Yeah. SMOOT: He came back in 192-. . . COOPER: I was getting ready to go into that. SMOOT: . . . please. COOPER: In the meantime, my father first went to Yale . . . my brother, and I think this is true, that my father decided that he wanted John to go to Yale, although there was no con- nection to . . . imaginable. And he found out that Yale would not accept him from Somers-. . . Somerset High School as a graduate, and they recommended or suggested that they send him one year to Centre College, and he went up there in 1918. He finished high school in `17. And he went up and played foot- ball. I don't know that he made . . . he might have made the squad. He . . . he made basketball. And then after a year he entered Yale as a freshman. And I remember he took me . . . when he was at Yale, he took me to the school over in Fort Defiance, Virginia; Augusta . . . Augusta Military [School], and I went there two years as a graduate. I guess that was as a close a day as I've ever had with him, in some ways. We went up to Lexington, and John had been in the east then, and I remember father . . . I . . . I handled my allowances over at military school fairly well. I remember one time writing him a letter, hating to . . . just telling that I just hated to write, "I needed five dollars." [laughter] He told me, he said, "I wish John would learn some of those things." [laughter] Well, John took me and we went up . . . up into Lexington and he ran into somebody he'd known and we went out to the old racetrack, and I've forgotten where it was now. It was . . . and John would excuse himself at the intervals, you know, to make a bet, "I'll be back here in so long." But I got . . . you know, I was in awful doubt of all those things. [laughter] He was betting. And we got on the old C.& O. [Cincinnati & Ohio] that night and went over to Stanton, Vir- ginia, and he took me out to the military school. And I remem- ber that afternoon he was going back on the train. It was kind of a sad farewell. I . . . I can see him now walking down the long drive to the road and to the railroad station. And it was pretty sad, I guess, but I'd . . . I'd really never been away from home before, you know, to any extent all by myself. And I was seventeen and I was very slight. I . . . when I finished military school, I weighed five . . . I was five feet tall and weighed seventy-five pounds. John went on to Yale and . . . and his friend that he'd met there, George Norton of Louis- ville, he's dead now, a very prominent family in Louisville, was going to Harvard and so John went. He . . . he had finished Yale in nineteen hundred and twenty-three. Went two years. My father died in 1924. As I say, none of us ever had the slightest idea of money in our family. Not that we thought we had it all, but we just never . . . I don't recall thinking about it. And we just . . . it just never . . . anyway, my father died at a time when the export [inaudible] sold a lot of wine st-. . . wine staves, casks and ex-. . . they were export items. At one time, I think he was one of the very top producers of barrels; choice, prime white oak for aged . . . you know, whiskey and wines in this whole area around here. But he spent . . . he was always doing some things. Got into . . . he bought farms in those later years, and one farm out here . . . right now, of course, it's . . . if you had it, it'd be worth two or three million bucks! [chuckle] And farms out in . . . over in the western part of the county near where he was born. And I think when he . . . he died, he was in pretty precarious financial . . . well, he was building a new house on Main Street. He'd bought a lot and was in the course of build- ing. Looking back, it seems to me that he was never a man afraid of the next day, on that scale, of making it. He wasn't afraid that he . . . that things weren't going to change. But he died and the estate was rather large, and what the values were at that time I have no idea because I was away at school. And my mother was administrator; he did not have a will. And my uncle was a lawyer--not Roscoe, this was Chris--and as I said a little earlier, he was smart enough but he was as lazy as he could be. And I don't think they were really . . . my mother really wasn't . . . you know, she was able to do a lot of things but she couldn't really untangle . . . it had legal things in it and complexities and . . . the extent of which, I . . . I don't know because I was going to school. But anyway, John, I think, came home and it may be that . . . I think he could have gotten the money if he had wanted to go to school, you know, to finish Harvard. And I think he has always regretted that he didn't, although it's pretty academic. [chuckle] SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: Anyway, he came home and Roscoe and father's friends, or at least the principal ones of them, sort of re-. . . regrouped and, for John anyway, amalgamated the . . . their operations to support him for the state legislature. My hunch is that . . . and I don't know when he . . . that was nineteen hundred and twenty-six . . . no, twenty-. . . twenty-five. He went to Harvard . . . that was 1925. And, I guess, the next year he ran for state legislature unopposed [by] either party. I think . . . I really think that what he . . . the practicing of law he did was just . . . you just . . . it was just ex- tremely difficult to make any money. If you weren't estab- lished and had clients like Southern Railroad or Stearns . . . Stearns Coal and Lumber down the road or something of that sort; and insurance companies didn't pay anything in those days even to . . . considering the gap between what things cost then and what they cost now. I . . . I think money must have been a factor. And it took years to untangle that estate and I know John worked on it and finally had to sell a lot of things. But through all of that period, to my knowledge, none of us ever gave money a thought. We just drifted from a very easy way of going to . . . right into . . . and I know I didn't have any money to go to school; I borrowed some. And then I finished school in Virginia [in] two years without the remotest idea where I was going to college. And John said, well, we'd just have to go . . . have to go up in Danville, go to Centre. And I went and I was out one year. I finished there in 1929. Same thing. I didn't have the remotest idea what I was going to do after college, whether I was going to have any more education. And John had been to Yale and he said, "I think that you've got the . . . the grades. I could . . . you could . . . you can get a . . . you can get a scholarship." And he wrote and I got one. I've forgotten lots of . . . seems to me it was $750 [or] somewhere. So I went off to Yale and was met there by some friends of his who installed me and found me a place to live, and finished in 1932. But I . . . he . . . those are the recollections that come back to me. And then in 1929 . . . in the meantime, in 1925 Adams had defeated Roscoe Tartar. SMOOT: Do you remember Mr. Adams' first name? COOPER: What? SMOOT: Mr. Adams' first name? COOPER: Yeah, Napier, . . . SMOOT: Napier. COOPER: . . . N-A-. . . SMOOT: I see, yes. COOPER: They called him "Napper". SMOOT: "Napper". COOPER: Yeah, that was the only name he was ever known by, "Napper." [laughter] And Roscoe had been elected circuit judge in four counties. Well, father's main or-. . . organizer and Roscoe joined forces and supported John for county judge and it was a vicious race. Adams was a pretty wealthy man for this . . . he . . . he was the most unlikely looking politician you could ever imagine. He looked like . . . literally, he looked like Andy Gump. [chuckle--Smoot] Do you remember that cartoon? SMOOT: Yes. [laughs] COOPER: And it was a vicious primary race between two Republicans. And . . . and I remember that it was down to the wire and people . . . I don't know. I . . . I was home that summer and working every day wi-. . . in . . . with the cam- paign manager w-. . . working every day, and John spoke the Saturday, I guess it was, before . . . in those days the elec- tions were held in August . . . primary election, and spoke the prec-. . . I guess, the preceding Saturday. It was a packed house because they . . . people came out then. They . . . oh, they loved that stuff. In the meantime, we knew at home that my father had backed Adams financially in what would be con- sidered in those days a rather substantial [amount of] money. And Adams got rather abusive, and I don't . . . can't give you the details of it. I remember, though, that John, as a matter . . . we've had those checks and, as I recall, they amounted [to], oh, ten or twelve thousand dollars. And he produced those during that speech, [saying] that this man Adams, talking about the son of the best friend he ever had, politically. And I think they were close and really personal friends. And this is what my father did for Judge Adams, those checks. The ef- fect was [chuckle] electric. SMOOT: I bet. COOPER: Well, I don't know that it was a big win. These votes are recorded somewhere. But John won and I . . . I . . . I don't know. I think . . . you know, in the 1930s, those of- fices didn't pay anything but, after all, it was . . . it was some income. And law, certainly, with few exceptions for boys starting out, didn't offer a great deal. The salaries were . . . were kept low in large part because the incumbents voted on what the salaries would be and didn't want anybody else [to] run. I know my uncle was that way. [chuckle] And, of course, he got right into the Depression, and I was in New York at that time because I was all finished at Yale and then went to New York. It . . . it . . . they were . . . they were . . . they were really troublesome, hard, difficult years; eight years in the county judge's office. And I wasn't here enough to know, really, everything but I knew enough, and with the salaries and with the demands that people had and the need, he . . . you know, you . . . if you had any money it was gone in no time. I came home every summer. I . . . in New York for all those years, I never took a vacation anyplace except Somerset, Ken- tucky. Came home and there were people all around needing help and wanting help and asking for it and I . . . I'd be here a month and I would help some and they . . . John told me one day, he said, "These people [are] coming around here and they say, `Well, Don bought me a whole sack of groceries. Why don't you do that?'" [chuckle--Smoot] When he's down here . . . well, he . . . of course, he couldn't do it every day, you know. [laughter] And he held that job, [inaudible] . . . really, it . . . the monies was available and, of course, without the . . . some New Deal things like the C.C.A. [sic C.W.A., Civilian Works Administration]. I know that that did some really good road work. And the P.W.A, [Public Works Administration] Public Works, they [inaudible] W.P.A., Works Progress Administration, furnished some aid, jobs on construc- tion and then road building. And actually some of those roads lasted and lasted longer than any other roads in this county ever lasted. And in the . . . his first time, he . . . they floated a bond issue for road work. I don't remember the figures; two hundred thousand [dollars], maybe. And they . . . they were sold and managed by the Coldwell empire . . . finan- cial empire in Tennessee . . . in Nashville. And the Coldwells went under and the bond issue was . . . well, for all practical purposes, out . . . out the window, although through friends in Nashville that John had made on various trips down there, they wound up with some security. I remember one of them was a hotel in east St. Louis, and they ran that . . . Pulaski County ran that hotel for several years. And the J.P.s, [Justice of the Peace] the magistrates they'd call [them], you know, used to be called Justices of the Peace and they also formed your Fiscal Court. And they loved to go to east St. Louis. [laughter] They loved that. SMOOT: Did the . . . COOPER: Huh? SMOOT: . . . did the failure of that . . . the financial . . . the Coldwell financial empire in Tennessee, did that cause your brother a great distress? COOPER: Chicago? SMOOT: No. No, sir. The . . . was it the Coldwell empire in . . . in Tennessee? COOPER: Tremendous, yeah. SMOOT: Could you tell me a bit about that? COOPER: Well, I . . . I just know . . . see, I . . . I wasn't at home. SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: At this time I was in New York, and I was home once a year, maybe, at Christmas, two . . . for a week or three or four days. Yes, he was distressed. The burdens in . . . well, I tell you the . . . the governor . . . highway commissioner for this . . . for this . . . this district was Gatliff from down Williamburg . . . Williamsburg. He was a Democrat, but he and John were very close friends. And Ed Gatliff did every- thing in the world to restore the road building thing to just . . . basically over the period to the equivalent it would have been anyway. And John got help from the state highway people and salvaged something out of the bond, but it looked . . . you know, it looked like to run again in 1935 was going to be a . . . I mean, 1933. John basic-. . . he served as county judge from nineteen hundred and thirty--eight years--[to] 1938. John had a . . . had a breakdown during this . . . these years with a . . . this accumulation of things and took a leave. I never can quite understand this, but how he went to . . . up to . . . went to Massachusetts, Berkshire. And I went up there once to see him and . . . and he left Uncle Roscoe as acting county judge. And I guess he was up there . . . I remember I met him when he was going to leave, in Boston. I guess he was . . . I don't know. I guess he was up there . . . he was there, I know, several months, and I went up there and I want tell you, he was . . . there's no doubt that that just had damn near killed him before he went, particularly the needs of the people and, of course, the bond issue. I know [inaudible]. But he was re-elected and I . . . oh, I think Adams was running . . . running again, but he didn't . . . John had a much easier race. I think people . . . there's always something that to me is the key. Everything . . . where he's been in school at Yale, Centre, and I don't know too much about Harvard because it was different. They . . . you know, to go to Harvard Law School is a lot different in some ways because you've got a . . . people who have been together before and so . . . but all . . . it seems to me that everywhere that he has made lasting friends, people who . . . agreeing with him or not, were . . . were for him. I wouldn't worry about that. [laughing] But I . . . I think that you'll see it everywhere. He served in the state legislature and friends . . . and friends stayed there and, of course, in the county judge, when he started out in Fiscal Court, Adams' people composed the court and they were rather substantial people; farmers and merchants and . . . and it took a while but within a year, why, John had them, I won't say in control, but he had . . . well, they were . . . they were father's friends too, you see. It hadn't been that long. They were. Anyway, he made friends in the state legislature, al- though I remember [chuckling] that writers . . . political writers used to say that he loved the . . . the Frankfort so- cial world. [chuckle] But I think he . . . I know he had a break with then Governor [Flem] Sampson over some legislation having to do with medicine. SMOOT: The "ripper" bill? COOPER: Doctors or regulation of medicines. I was at Centre and I . . . Sampson's office, through my aunt who was working in his office--she was mother's sister--she called me to come over there and the old people think you're awful damn naive. I knew what . . . at that time, I knew what the bill was and I knew there was no way that John was going to be for that and I just sensed that. So, I went. I went to Lexington some way and got on the old interurban and went over to Frankfort and saw my aunt and she wanted to know whether I'd talk . . . and she told what [it was about]. Well, I . . . I went up outside of the chamber and milled around. They had . . . I just didn't . . . you know, I finally . . . I remember I saw . . . "Have you talked to him?" I said, "No." [laughter] And she said, "The Governor's going to give you a commission as a Kentucky Colonel." [laughter] The pay-off. And I finally . . . when he was out there in the outside of . . . the rear there of the chamber and I said, s-. . . I said, "Well, of course, I won't tell you what is going to happen to . . . of course, as you know, I . . . I know you're not . . . not for it, but I want to do what I was asked to do." [laughter] And I went back and reported on it and I didn't see Sampson at all and I have never yet seen his commission. [laughter] And I . . . I j-. . . I knew . . . of course, later on after that, I knew Sampson as well as I knew anybody and his great sidekick [John] Robsion, and who was really a tremendous . . . tremendous Congressman. And my father was against him. He was with the . . . the other faction, the old . . . old district. But . . . and we . . . we . . . we . . . my uncle, though, was the on-. . . I think he was . . . never had a disloyal moment as far as John Marshal Robsion was concerned. They stayed hitched together year after year after year. But I think John made those . . . then in 1939, a political group in Louisville, primarily, R.C. Tway and in Frankfort, John Perkins, Republican National Committee and J. Graham Brown, although Gra-. . . Graham Brown didn't ac- tually . . . you know, he wasn't one of the politicians but he was a contributor. There was a Republican convention in Louis- ville and some effort made by Tway and people in Louisville, Harris Coleman and maybe Charles Middleton and others, to wrest control from Robsion and they, I think, put John up for the chairman of the convention. And I remember that . . . no, that was nin-. . . I don't know when that was, but it might have been. It was `38 or `39. I remember my uncle made . . . Roscoe . . . I wasn't there, of course--I don't know why I said of course, because I just wasn't there--made somewhat more than a vague suggestion that John had been off in this sanitarium with maybe some trouble up [points to head] here. [laughter] Oh, I remember how my sister was up there and just resented that for ever and ever. SMOOT: Which sister was that? COOPER: It was Margaret. Just res-. . . oh, I'm sure I did, because all . . . I don't know that Margaret ever . . . ever made up to Roscoe for that matter and I don't know one way or the other. I know that John did and when he'd come over here, he'd spend more . . . he told me one time, and I don't want this to be put in his mouth, but it just . . . he just said that there's not too many people that you could really talk to in Somerset and, of course, he was one of them. And I . . . I . . . I was with him when he died when I came back. He was circuit judge. Very, very close, and I know that he and John were very close through all those last years of his life. Well, the move didn't succeed, but John ran for . . . ran for governor that year in the primary and was . . . these people in Louisville and some others over the state. One fellow was Har- lan circuit judge, Judge D.C. "Baby" Jones. [chuckle] He wouldn't . . . he . . . he . . . he was far from being a baby. [laughter] He was . . . I think he just quit being judge up there and went to Florida. Practiced law down there. Probably dead. You know, that's one thing about this. The people who really knew so much about all these things are dead. I tried to . . . after you called me to think of people, and it just absolutely . . . they're just gone. People who really knew the day to day of all these things that happened during years that I . . . I wasn't around. SMOOT: He was defeated in that primary by King Swope out of Lexington, wasn't he? COOPER: King Swope filed at the last minute, and I was down here during the summer and John said, "Is there any way you can take a leave of absence from your firm up in New York, just un- til after the August primary?" And this, I guess, was about . . . I usually came in May so it meant two months. The office up there . . . I . . . showed some reluctance about it but they did it. And I . . . my hunch is I . . . I might have quit if they hadn't, I don't know. I w-. . . I could do that. [chuckle] Anyway I did. And it just wasn't the organization people and, of course, for Robsion and my uncle was against him too then down here. They all know he carried this county, as I recall, were . . . pretty heavily. I . . . we had no financing to speak of. John was unknown over the state, then . . . not really well known in the east part in this district. But he made a pretty good campaign over the state, but we were not well financed. Some people helped us in Louisville. I made one round with somebody else who'd tried to be able to be of some financial help to other counties. But when you parceled it out among twenty or so counties with the size money we had, it . . . [chuckling] it really wasn't too important. This was what everybody calls "election day money." It's supposed to get the voters out they say, and hauling voters out to the polls. They used to do it in a wagon and anyway they could go. It's a . . . you know it's . . . looking at it objectively, of course, it's a . . . I'd don't know what you'd call it, it's . . . sometimes the people who receive that money, it just goes in the pocket. I remember years ago when they would distribute "election day money" . . . who . . . precinct leaders. Very prominent people, all of them substantial farmers and mer- chants. I asked John one time, "Why does a . . . a man of that kind accept money?" He said, "It's just to . . . it makes them appear great in the . . . in their little area . . . com- munity." I remember after that money would be distributed before the primary, because that's when the real races were among Republicans between two factions, occasionally a Democrat in all that medley, he would emerge the ultimate winner [chuckle], but not often. Well, hardware stores and implement concerns, well, they would [chuckling] sell more farming imple- ment and gear then they'd [chuckling] ever sold any . . . any other time of the year. [chuckle] [End of Tape #1, Side #2] [Begin Tape #2, Side #1] SMOOT: We were discussing . . . COOPER: Let me go back to pick up something . . . something that . . . that is a . . . John always had the ability to get people to do things for him, chores, you know, errands of all kinds. My . . . all of my family were that way about helping. If any us is reluctant about doing some things, I am. [chuckle--Smoot] I . . . I . . . I do . . . I've done an awful of work for him and so has Dick, for that matter. But I . . . I've been in headquarters. Tho-. . . those jobs were . . . did not . . . there were things I w-. . . that's what I was there for, things I wanted to do. But I'm talking about jobs like when he was driving the coal wagon with a horse, he somehow persuaded me to go down and do the hitching every morning. [laughter] John liked to sleep and he had a great reputation . . . all his life a great reputation for not being on time. I must say his schedules politically, and the kind of campaigning that he did and most statewide candidates did, up until recently when it's T.V. and . . . and communications and things like that. We had some T.V., but it . . . he . . . his last race statewide was `66 and that's . . . that's twenty years now. We never were, at any time, overly or even well financed. That T.V. costs money and you've got to go to four or five places if you're going to cover the state of Kentucky on . . . on T.V. and, of course, the expenses now with inflation and everything else, is just . . . well, I think they're obscene, really. Absolutely. And P.A.C.s [Political Action Committees]. I . . . I often wondered what John would have done with this P.A.C. business. He . . . he would . . . he would want to know every detail of what was going on. [chuckle--Smoot] I was never officially installed in any campaign as the campaign manager. I was more there to see that something didn't happen at a time you . . . you wouldn't it to happen. And that's a fact. SMOOT: Could you give me an example? COOPER: Well, I don't want to. I know that . . . that . . . and I don't know you do this. You just going to . . . you don't make attributions to anybody. I don't want to talk it. I know that the Nunn brothers . . . Lee was just not likable to me that way. He's just unredeemed as far as I was concerned. Louie was a very likable person; still is. I liked him. I mean, I like . . . he . . . he . . . his prejudices, his at- titude about . . . about the black people is . . . well, anyway, I guess Marlow Cook. I think John would have gotten into that . . . he didn't get into it until hardly ten days before the primary. Congressman [Tim Lee] Carter got into it and John . . . some people had been urging John to do it, I for one of them, and Ralph Holman in Lawrenceburg. Do you know him? SMOOT: I know of him. COOPER: Well, I won't tell you. He . . . he . . . he's eighty-three. I stopped by to see him the other day. I . . . I stop occasionally and he wasn't in. He dates back to the ad- ministration of Governor Sampson. He was in Governor Sampson's office. And at one time, anyway, he had the most fabulous memory for political people in this state I ever knew. He managed one of John's campaigns. Henderson D-. . . Henderson Dysart managed one, 1954, and I never will [chuckling] forget Henderson trying to explain to a reporter from New York, and I think it was [chuckling] The Wall Street Journal, how . . . we were sitting there having lunch in the Brown [Hotel] and the . . . the Wall Street Journal reporter was pinning Henderson down on how John was going to carry the state of Kentucky over [Alben] Barkley. And I sat there and I saw him manipulate those figures. I never held out the slightest expectation that he could . . . under the circumstances he could beat Barkley. The old guy, he had no business running, really, to his age and infirmities. Well, I want to say that when John went up there in nineteen hundred and forty-six at the end of the year, and the relationships between the two offices were cordial in every respect. Alben Barkley had a lot of his office then. He had all women in his office and they was, most of them, from here and some in west Kentucky and one girl from Somerset. I spent an awful lot of time down there. [chuckle] I was with John two years up there. But we . . . I think sometimes he got along with a Democrat as the other . . . he got along better than you do with a [chuckling] Republican. SMOOT: Something to the effect of opposites attracting, you might say? COOPER: Well, no, I think that this . . . the Republicans tried to out do the other one in some way or other. I don't mind saying that I don't . . . Marlow Cook was an [inaudible] for crediting things. I don't know whether John will tell you this or not, but I know it because John told me. [chuckle] I wasn't there. Our relations though . . . and, of course, his relations with Thruston Morton were . . . never any problem there. I don't know . . . well, Virgil Chapman won in . . . SMOOT: 1948. COOPER: . . . 1948 and [Edward] Prichard has been immortal- ized ever since. SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: I can tell you a lot about that guy, but I'm . . . I knew him in World War II. SMOOT: When he was in Washington? COOPER: Yes. Not . . . not well, but I . . . I knew quite a bit. And, after all, he is a . . . The Courier-Journal and the writers have played down the enormity of that offense. SMOOT: You know that . . . that offense is made out that he was . . . COOPER: He was [inaudible] didn't amount to anything. Well, reporters . . . I remember it right well. I was there. I remember the . . . when the news first came in and it was linked with operations on a much larger scale than over in Bourbon County. After all, the race was for a Republican and a Democrat, twenty-four thousand just wasn't all that substan- tial. When you've got notorious count-. . . notorious counties like Logan County used to be in those days, and Floyd County and other counties, why you . . . it doesn't take too . . . it doesn't take an awful lot to . . . to divide that twenty-four thousand dollars . . . I mean twenty-four thousand votes. And I must say I don't think I've ever seen John as distraught as he was that night when the people . . . when William Wallace from Lexington, who was the Republican chairman of that dis- trict and a very fine person, a lawyer--he's dead--called in to Louisville headquarters and, I think, it was at [inaudible] building at that time, and said that this had been detected and that, "I think we've got our man,"--it was Prichard--and that, "I have put the court order . . . I've locked everything up un- til in the morning." In the meantime, of course, Prichard made a confession in effect to his lawyer, the judge over there. He made a mistake in the law that was a very serious consequence. Whereas the boy . . . the other boy, Mr. [inaudible], he kept his mouth shut and he was acquitted. [chuckle] Anyway, we got on phones in the headquarters and down at the Brown for, I don't know how long, until midnight at least trying to learn the counties whose votes who were not in to, you know, be ex-. . . extra careful. I don't know how much of that is ever effective. It's hard to . . . to know. I remember coming down from Republican headquarters . . . the [inaudible] building, I had stayed up there to do some things and I was later than the rest, and I came down Fourth Street to the Brown, past the Seelbach [Hotel] where the Democrats usually had their head- quarters and met historically . . . their headquarters. And I looked behind me and here came down the street Virgil Chapman, and I wondered about him. He'd passed his hotel, or at least I thought it would be the Seelbach, and Mr. Chapman--something that John would not allow to be used--had some pretty severe liquor habits. SMOOT: I heard that. COOPER: I went to . . . when we were up there, I went over to the Washington police headquarters and got out his dossier or whatever you call it, and while they don't arrest a Congressper-. . . man in Congress, they make a report. Now, usually, it might [inaudible] his general condition. [chuckle] Well, I had a [inaudible]. [laughter] John would not let that be used, and there were also other serious things said about him. And I think you've heard it, that Mrs. Chapman wrote John after that election thanking him for . . . for not . . . not making public anything that he could have. In other words, she knew all about his misconduct. The same thing's true with Alben Barkley. We knew . . . people from Paducah, that Mr. Barkley had taken advantage of inside information with respect to the atomic operations in Paducah, and he . . . not through his own name, but through family members, as I recall, had bought up the land that would be resold and pretty handsomely. And I don't know how many delegations came up to him, and the same people mostly, insisting that that be . . . you know, you can't do that unless you can button it up. You just can't. And I don't think John was ever disposed to because there wasn't any way of buttoning it up. And if it . . . you could button it up, somebody else was going to button it up first. You know, somebody's called [inaudible] politics. It's going to be . . . it's going to be made public. So that was never used. Although, that was a . . . SMOOT: What? COOPER: . . . well, that night I picked up . . . [interruption in interview] . . . SMOOT: What do you want? No, no. COOPER: . . . huh? . . . escorted him down to the . . . he said, "I'm going to the Brown." He said, "I've got a room there." I escorted him down and I don't believe he . . . he could have made it without me. I honestly don't. I took him down there, got him on the elevator, took him to his room, and bade him, "Goodnight, Senator Chapman." [laughter] But the hardest, by all odds, race was, of course, Alben Barkley. I think I . . . that was the one time that I didn't get down to Kentucky. I was then with Standard Oil of New Jersey in the law department. It's Exxon, now. And I think the . . . all the others I was in Kentucky all fall through the campaign, though. But it was onl-. . . I didn't . . . I remember we were . . . the lawyers were down in Washington and the . . . we were getting ready to leave for New Yo-. . . for New York. This was about ten days before the election. And I remember my general counsel said, "Don, you're going to take another plane. We're going to let you go home for the last week." [laughter] Well, I . . . I was there and the first night out of . . . close to it, John was at . . . over [in] western Kentucky and that he . . . he said, "Meet me in Hopkinsville. There's going to be a Junior League debate here in the morning." Some women's clubs were putting . . . not Junior League, I mean League of Kentucky Voters. So, I went down there and went to that and Alben and his . . . Mrs. Hadley and his wife. I sat with her at one of the tables. And they debated or discussed the issues so that, frankly, I think . . . I don't know how [inaudible]. John told me one time I was the most severe person on him of all as a critic. [laughter] I thought that there was just no com- parison. Actually, Barkley was . . . you know, he was . . . he had . . . he . . . he was a sympathetic figure at that time and, of course, he was going to win and I never had the slightest doubt about it. John worked like . . . I've never seen him work in a campaign, and I really . . . I think he thought he was going to win that campaign. I remember we came back up from Hopkinsville to meet [Dwight D.] Eisenhower who was flying into the airport out at the little field stat-. . . a little field out there, not the main airport. Flying in they had [time] just for a stop-over at the airport and for a short speech. This was `5-. . . `56. He . . . he . . . he . . . he came into the state for a big . . . big rally, I think, in Lex- ington. One of the biggest rallies. But when we got up within sight of the airport John said, "I've just . . . we can just stop here on the side of the road." And I've never seen a man so exhausted in my damn life. Literally. I . . . it . . . and I was worried about the time and, of course, John had never worried about time [laughter] in his life. He would crowd his speaking schedules up and, you know, so it . . . it was just hard to make and how . . . he had one . . . only one driver and they . . . he wouldn't be allowed to call himself a driver, none of them would. They were the . . . what they call them now, the people who do all of the scheduling and [chuckling] routing and . . . that was a fellow by the name of Anderson from Mayfield, Andy Anderson. And John would . . . was more comfortable with him than . . . he said, "Get Andy up here. He's the only one who can do this." [chuckle] Do the schedul- ing and . . . and do it comfortably [inaudible]. Anyway, we got out there and the . . . finally just reached the point where we had to go on to the airport. And he got back up, you know, feeling pretty good. Went down then and went to that ceremony and then went on in Louisville and I don't remember. It was the last week of the campaign and I don't remember. I hadn't been in the office at all and knew nothing about the arrange- ments. Well, of course, he . . . Alben . . . I remember down in Hopkinsville after the speech . . . after the two speeches or maybe a rebuttal, I don't know, Barkley said, "Don, you're going to be for me, aren't you?" [laughter] And you know, I don't think he was . . . I think that he was ser-. . . half . . . half serious. I was so . . . he was so used to me, to seeing me in the office. [laughter] Well, I responded to that. But, you know, when I went back up there after the loss, about seventy-five thousand, I went back up there and I was waiting out the last two months and . . . or as soon as . . . that was a full term he was running for, so he was . . . he was [inaudible] and it did . . . I think it was full term, but I . . . I don't know. I could . . . I could piece it down on paper. Barkley said . . . I . . . I met him in the hall one day. He said, "Now, Don, you don't have to worry about leaving here." He said, "You get . . . you won't have a problem get- ting a job. I'll take care of that." [laughter--Smoot] He meant it, too. We never had any kind of . . . but I had no . . . I was going into law pr-. . . you know, going back into law and wasn't but a few months that I did go back to New York at that particular time for Standard Oil, the law department and through the interven-. . . not through the intervention but . . . well, through the . . . a friend of mine who I had known since law school who was up there and he said they had a vacancy, and also the chairman of Standard Oil had married a girl who later on moved here to Somerset. SMOOT: Is that right? COOPER: So I went up and got an interview with the general counsel and with the chairman, Holman, Eugene, and got the job and stayed there until I came home. But John was distressed about that election, I think. I know . . . I . . . things like that just rubbed off me some way or other. I felt them but . . . I know John told me before an election, it might have been that one [inaudible]. He said, "Don, you don't indicate any change in attitude whether we win or whether we lose." He said that [chuckle] at the Brown Hotel. [laughter] He said, "You just . . . you're the same." [laughter] Well, I don't know, what . . . it's . . . it's over, it's done. That didn't neces- sarily meant that I didn't feel it. Now, where were we? SMOOT: Well, he's . . . let's just carry on. The . . . he lost that election in 1954 and was appa-. . . appointed ambassador to India and Nepal. COOPER: After that, wasn't it? SMOOT: Yes, `55. COOPER: `55. Yeah, well, I was . . . I was back in New York and I . . . I had . . . the way I've always heard it was that Eisenhower and John were . . . I don't . . . I don't think they had a decent respect for each other, but they . . . Eisenhower had . . . didn't like some of John's votes. And I remember particularly one, the so-called Dixon-Yates business in Memphis having to do with T.-. . . T.V.A. [Tennessee Valley Authority]. I was in New York and I . . . I was just . . . I just think that . . . that John was just . . . he just wasn't a regular in the Bob Taft sense of the word, see, as long as it was Bob Taft's business. [laughs] SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: He was a lot like that, although a perfectly honorable man and, I think, in many ways a very admirable man. He's not . . . he didn't suit my fancy, but I knew him just casually more than anything else. But John was not a . . . he just wasn't a man who could be counted to go down to . . . through the turnstile on one side of the . . . one side. He . . . there were two of them down there, yes or no [inaudible]. [chuckle] SMOOT: And he was more independent . . . COOPER: Huh? SMOOT: . . . than they liked? More independent? COOPER: Yes. And more than a lot of Republicans liked. But, basically, they . . . they . . . they stayed with him. Now, he didn't . . . he was not a Republican wheel horse, say, of the type of King Swope. Not at all. Not until that . . . in those days. King Swope got more Republican votes than anybody known in those days, up . . . for governor for example. A couple times, I think, he ran. But King couldn't get any Democrats, [laughing] and you . . . of course, it was mathematically im- possible to [chuckle] . . . I think John made a solid reputa- tion in his two years up there at first, `47 and `-8, basi- cally. And . . . well, of course, there were facts. People were sick of the war and they . . . and they were sick of O. P.A. [Office of Price Administration]. And John, I think, though, worked and he made friends. And I don't remember . . . he won. He beat [John Y., Sr.] Brown by forty thousand votes. Brown, though, was a . . . we'd known Brown ever since we went to Centre College. He'd married a girl down here and I've known Brown for sixty-five years. But he's . . . he was iden- tified very much with the United Mine Workers and labor groups, and not that that was anything against him, but it . . . it creates some cleavages with other groups. I remember when we opened . . . labor . . . Kentucky labor had it's convention down in Bowling Green--it seems to me it was Bowling Green--and John was . . . he . . . he and John spoke down there. That was another time I . . . I just think John completely carried the day, and not by promising labor anything, but just convincing them, I think, that he'd be fair. John always had some good labor support. Working at the railroad shops down there, he p- . . . people would . . . in the railroad unions would work this state up and down the railroad working for him. And I don't suppose that he ever was in a un-. . . he was just down there vacation working. SMOOT: Let me ask you about the . . . something about the 1956 election. You were involved in the `56 campaign, were you not? COOPER: Yes. I was down there all the time, I think. SMOOT: Of course, that was the . . . COOPER: [inaudible] . . . SMOOT: . . . race against Lawrence Wetherby for the four years remaining on Barkley's term, and Thruston Morton was run- ning for a full term against . . . COOPER: Earle Clements. SMOOT: . . . yes, Earle Clements. COOPER: Well, of course, that was a . . . I don't think that John's race was ever in . . . in doubt. For some reason or other, Wetherby really . . . was not a man really . . . I think he was a better man than he appeared to be, in some ways. But he just wasn't a man who was considered to be by the voters, by and large, as a man of any particular stature. I think he was un-. . . under-rated some. Morton, of course, had a . . . a mean thing. And you might think that Louie Nunn . . . somebody wanted me to come down there to do . . . be the manager. I . . . I was never a managerial type. Number one, I had a . . . a lot of the detail and a lot of things that people wanted, my answer was . . . was pretty . . . pretty blunt. If it couldn't be done, it couldn't be done. Some people have the knack of political talk, and that when you see all these different . . . even in the Republican party who couldn't afford any of it, the factions and the [inaudible], trying to appease everybody, was somewhat beyond my range. [chuckle] John was . . . as I told you earlier, in factional things, he . . . he . . . he could do a lot with it. Anyway, we had the . . . Thruston had some New York talent down there and I can't remember the names, and they [were] un-. . . unaccustomed to Kentucky and . . . and they did a lot of, I called it, paperwork more than anything. Then we had some people that . . . well, those people, I don't remember names. One of them was a . . . a man with the ch-. . . Com- mittee for an Effective . . . SMOOT: Congress. COOPER: . . . Effective Congress. SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: And John and Charles Taft, of Cincinnati, for some reason or other, at . . . at Yale, I . . . I assume, were great friends. And I must say that Charles Taft was about as pleasant a person as I ever had . . . I met in any of those campaigns. And I went to see him two or three different times. But he and John were pretty close. Well, you know, not . . . but good friends. They helped us and one of these men was as- sociated with us from New York. But other than that, we just had the usual Kentucky groups. Plus, that time, somebody came in there who formerly had been with or helped the Republican National Committee. I can't think of his name. He stayed on and helped Louie Nunn run for governor. SMOOT: Let me ask you something about the . . . COOPER: But I think we got along extremely well. There were some disruptions. After all, Thruston had one hell of a cam- paign against Earle Clements, and I . . . I . . . I think that . . . I've heard stories, I . . . I know it's true because I saw the aftermath of it, that Thruston was a . . . I'll have to say that he was a . . . a politician, a runner for political office unique. He had no lust for that kind of stuff. He was very . . . he was a shy fellow, really. And I knew him pretty well because we'd go out . . . he'd be in the headquarters and we'd go out somewhere to lunch, maybe out on the river . . . I lived with him in his apartment in one of the hotels up in Washington for three or four months. I must say that he kept his privacy. He was not . . . and on the campaign trail, he was . . . he was reserved. And I remember the first time I ever saw him in action was over in Manchester, Kentucky, celebrating the hundred and some odd birthday of some old woman who was actually about eighty, I think. [chuckle] Now, Thruston's brother was just as . . . very literally the op- posite. Rogers C.B. [Morton], who actually went to Maryland and he was elected to Congress over . . . to the Congress over there two or three times. But Thruston wasn't. But anyway, these old people that you would never associate Thruston Morton with, they liked Thruston. He kind of stood apart from them as something that [laughing] . . . they liked him. And you couldn't do any-. . . they . . . they . . . of course, he . . . he was a pretty effective sp-. . . speaker. Had a lot of wit about him. I don't think he particularly enjoyed it, but he was an effective speaker. They liked him. He . . . he made people jump up and down, stomp the floor. John was a quiet speaker, but I thought John was always underestimated as a speaker. They . . . remember how they used to write up that stuttering . . . not stuttering but stumbling and . . . I al- ways thought he was a far . . . far better speaker than that. I think because of . . . I think the main thing you try to convey is that you're sincere. And I . . . I think that's it. Not that Thruston didn't, but he was a different type of [speaker]. Anyway, he was . . . he was . . . it was amazing how being the Louisville representative in the Congress for the, by and large, people up there was one thing, but how he got hold of this state . . . the voters out through the state, to me is a . . . is a . . . an amazing thing for a man with his natural sort of temperament and his natural disposition. I'd been with him when . . . well, I . . . I . . . he was down here with just . . . when he thought he was going to run for another term and he wanted me to go back to Clay County [chuckling] with him, of all places. And I could tell that he had no heart for it any more, and he went over there and saw one or two people and said, "Donald, let's go home," and then he went off back to Louisville and withdrew and, you know, said he wouldn't . . . wouldn't run again. Anyway, that . . . that campaign . . . naturally, with two . . . those two friends, it . . . it presents a lot of . . . lot of difficulties. When one man is obviously way . . . having a hard, hard way to go, and the other one looks like no problem. SMOOT: That . . . COOPER: It's inevitable. SMOOT: . . . that . . . that brings to mind the question, because of . . . I have heard from one other person--I listened to an interview--Charlie Taft gave fairly considerable finan- cial support to Senator Cooper in his campaign in 1956. COOPER: Not that . . . no, none of that magnitude at all. SMOOT: I . . . I saw the figures as high as fifty thousand dollars. COOPER: How much? SMOOT: Fifty thousand dollars. COOPER: Oh, I wouldn't think so. No. SMOOT: Not that high? COOPER: No, I don't think that his organization ever . . . they contributed to John two or three different campaigns, but the only money . . . no, that committee . . . I . . . I can't give you the . . . the figures, but I . . . you know, I saved my campaign files, the ones I kept, the figures . . . financial things for . . . oh, I don't know, for ten years. Well, be- cause if something comes up you want to know the answers, and I . . . I think we were pretty meticulous. I know we were. Of course, the regulations were nothing like what they are today. No, it never approached fifty thousand dollars and I seriously doubt that it approached ten. In fact, I . . . I don't want to . . . you know, the thing is, I can't remember every figure, but I . . . I just seriously doubt that it was even five. SMOOT: Let me ask . . . COOPER: I think I would know, because I ha-. . . I . . . I handled most of that money and I don't remember any such figures. SMOOT: Okay. COOPER: Now, we had a hard time raising money. We hired people . . . telephone people who were on the phones using books put together by the Republican . . . all the . . . you know, printed lists of people who'd contributed all over the country, and we hired a couple of people in northern Kentucky. And it was fifty-fifty. And it was the first time it had ever been done. And I . . . John wasn't too much for it. We did it in Ro-. . . John Robsion, Jr.'s campaign. They didn't raise all that money. After all, if they had taken fifty percent of it, and a lot of these Republican contributors over the country are conservatives, they weren't all that too anxious to give money to John Cooper. [chuckle] You know, he was a little bit . . . SMOOT: Liberal. COOPER: . . . too liberal for them. But we raised some money. I'd say . . . I'm . . . I think one year we probably raised somewhere around forty thousand dollars that way. The Robsion campaign, I don't remember the figures. Anyway, it . . . I think we used that for John twice. Anyway, one time in the middle of the last time we used it, people from Louisville com- plained. I remember one, Archibald . . . Archibald Cox, a very fine fellow, called John and said that, "You are . . . your people over there on that telephone are cutting into some Louisville money." Of course, I . . . I doubt that, because I . . . I don't believe we actually cut in on a dime of Louis- ville money, and it didn't really matter to me because Louis- ville never made any effort to help finance us. Never. And I remember we had a meeting one time . . . they . . . and they were collecting money . . . payroll money all during that period. See, you had a Republican mayor over there at some of those times, had the Republican mayor twice, and I . . . I thought Cowger, William, was a wonderful fellow. I . . . I voted for Cook, but Cook was a . . . he just wasn't the same kind of man in my view. Although I voted and did all I could to get John to support Cook against Louie Nunn. But I'm sure John made his own mind up. I wouldn't tell him anything that he wasn't personally aware of. He spoke for himself. No, I . . . the only money we ever got there of any size at all, oc- casionally somebody from the Republican National Committee or . . . they didn't actually in those days distribute money, but some campaign committees would come by there. And I remember one time Lee Nunn came by in some race, and I don't know which one, it probably was the last race John made, and brought with him a . . . a package of money. I think it was maybe ten thousand dollars, [and] a list of each of the people who con- tributed and how much, [inaudible]. Every bit of that business we had an old campaign treasurer, John Petot of Louisville, who handled, I think, the books in every campaign we were in as long as he was able to physically. I turned all that directly over to him to be sure that the money would go . . . it was strictly campaign. This was not . . . this was brought to the campaign headquarters. And I . . . you know, candidates in the field collected money, which they had to report to . . . had to report to the secretary of the Senate on some regular forms. And John kept . . . oh, I . . . I kept them for him and we fussed occasionally over whether something should be cashed or not. I remember one time, I won't . . . we had some labor checks in there, and I think they amounted to around seven thousand dollars, [chuckling] which was an awful important money to . . . [End of Tape #2, Side #1] [Begin Tape #2, Side #2] SMOOT: Okay. We were talking about campaign money. COOPER: Leonard B. Hall was Republican national chairman . . . SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: . . . and a lot of those people, particularly when [Richard M.] Nixon was running, the Republican national chap- . . . chairman didn't make a bit of difference, because Nixon had his own campaign manager. And I remember calling the chairman up in Connecticut that time, a former senator. He was very amiable, very pleasant, willing, but the truth of the matter is that everything was under the control of the Nixon people, and you got nothing if it didn't come that way. Leonard Hall was a . . . had a very good relationship with . . . I think with Eisenhower, and I don't know whether he was . . . yeah, I'm sure he was. Leonard B. Hall was a lawyer up in New York in one of the boroughs, a great friend of the Rockefellers, politically. He . . . he . . . he was . . . well, he was the best from my standpoint. The only man I ever felt who'd made a serious effort really to . . . and was in a position to help, of course. That's important. SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: Had the . . . had the . . . some say about it. Well, in the `56 campaign, I . . . we . . . we got some money from national sources and . . . in any substantial amount, the only time in any campaign we ever . . . that was ever run . . . that John ever had. And it came in . . . I think it totaled to somewhere on the order of seventy thousand dollars. And I remember when I told Thruston one morning in the Henry Clay Hotel, coming into . . . broke off on a mezzanine type thing, it was the headquarters and I was coming up and Thru-. . . Thruston was leaving. And I said, "Thruston, we've got the money." He said, "Oh, no, that's John's money. He got that." I said, "Thruston, you're wrong. It's both . . . it's yours. I'm taking it right back here now to give it . . . give it to Louie Nunn, and that's the way it is." I didn't even have to talk to John about that. I knew that's the way . . . after all, two people running up there together, what kind of goes . . . what goes on here? How could you . . . you go . . . to me that's just silly. [chuckle] You can't separate . . . it'd be a . . . why, Lord, it would be an act of really criminal dimen- sions, wouldn't it? [chuckle--Smoot] No, I . . . so that was that and I think . . . of course, it . . . after all, in `56 Eisenhower was running and he was a tremendously popular . . . and I . . . and, of course, John helped Thruston immeasurably. And it's . . . has to be a fact, because although John out got the votes, you know, Thruston gets . . . that helps him, too, in the natural order . . . order of things. You're going to get the votes. I'm [inaudible] . . . Thruston won by seven thousand and we saw it was going to be very close. I remember we were tabulating and calling all over the place up there, calculating, and I came out one time, [chuckling] I said, "Thruston, you're going to win by about six thousand." "Oh," he said, "hell, you've been drinking." [laughter] "Well," I said, "so have you." [laughter] But [chuckle] he held on to it and it came . . . they called and called. Lord, I think that . . . going back to the hotel they were calling there all the time. And I . . . I think it . . . it . . . it paid. You know, when you see somebody that you did not think . . . that it's right within, or looks to be . . . I think it sort of spurs the tabulators. Sometimes, you know, they just walk off and when they reach a point of disparity, they just . . . I'm not talking about any fraud of any kind, just . . . they just don't work. And there may be some fraud that will happen. [chuckle] SMOOT: Yes. [Interruption in taping] Okay. COOPER: Well, going back . . . is it ready? SMOOT: Yes, it's ready. COOPER: Going back to 1956 and the campaign where . . . in which John and Thruston ran together, that's the only time we had any commitment, that I'm aware of, about money we . . . other times we'd had some vague indications of financial help in the campaign from the Washington committees up there. The . . . the Congressional campaign, the Senatorial campaigns, when they were . . . started functioning much along the lines they are now, I'm sure that we always got the contribution from them, the maximum, whatever that happened to be at the time. It's, I think, somewhat more now, maybe considerably more. But anyway, it . . . you know, money . . . people run campaigns now, primaries, with . . . in the order of, say, two million dollars spent. Well, of course, even allowing for the dif- ference between those days and now, I guess my feeling is that . . . of course, we had no primaries, really. Spe-. . . I don't remember any primary of any consequence for John, except to . . . except . . . no, I don't remember any one that . . . of any consequence that he had. He had some nominal opposition; people that . . . who just run all the time. Various names that you've maybe seen and crackpot people, a lot . . . or some place around, of no consequence. Of course, in the fall, it was a different matter. Somehow or other, Wetherby didn't . . . really just . . . he just didn't go anywhere in his race. Of course, Earle was entirely different factor. But anyway, they had made the commitment of this . . . the largest money that certainly we ever heard of in a campaign and it was my job to keep Leonard Hall pinned down on it all the time. And I loved that fellow. He . . . you could bother him any hour and he was the most agreeable man I ever saw. And he'll tell you the problems, and I know they . . . they . . . they have problems. It . . . this . . . this money, in those days certainly, it wasn't . . . it just didn't appear over- night. I remember that I . . . I . . . how many times I . . . I never could go out and raise money. I can't ask people for money. I could write to them about money. I can't really ask people for money. I never could. I hadn't been able up in school . . . college. I . . . I just can't do it. But if I know that some money is there and it's committed, I can . . . I can [chuckle] bother the hell of them. [laughter] And I . . . I . . . I'll never quit. I called him and called him and he would . . . he would . . . well, he'd give me . . . a time . . . it was . . . it was fulfilled. And I remember the last month of the campaign, he had it all down there--and I'm just giving you round figures--I think it was twenty thousand dollars. And I knew him pretty well by that time, and . . . and he'd been to Louisville several times. I liked him and I . . . I think we got along very well. I know we did. Anyway, I g-. . . he was fifteen or twenty short and I . . . it was getting up to the time we had . . . we had to be there. And I . . . I finally told him one night . . . one afternoon, I said, "Leonard, we're not just talking about one anymore. We're going to have two down here." [chuckle] You know . . . you've got a feeling in that last . . . you can tell when you're going to win a cam- paign. You don't know why, but you . . . you know. You see the people, you see what they feel and you . . . you know. I told him and I . . . I must say, I . . . we had that feeling that somehow or other Morton was going to win this thing, too. I told him, "Leonard, we're not talking about just one any more, we're talking about two." [laughter] He said, "Will you . . . will you let me forget five thousand dollars of it?" And I said, "Yeah." [laughter] SMOOT: Let me ask you about something I found very interest- ing in . . . in the studies that I've done on Senator Cooper. I've noticed throughout most of the campaigns the . . . the backing that he received from "Happy" Chandler. COOPER: Have you actually been able to delineate that? SMOOT: Well, in . . . in . . . in certain ways I have. You could . . . he certainly came out in 1946 in The Courier- Journal and said, "No friend of mine is going to vote for John Young Brown." COOPER: Well, of course, they . . . SMOOT: And . . . COOPER: . . . they had a very . . . and "Happy" and John had known each other. "Happy's" amazing. He can do that. He can . . . being a candidate himself, he seems to have no hesitation about breaking over and going for the Democrats [sic Republicans] and he was . . . I know he was very much for Thruston . . . SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: . . . and I think he supported Louie for governor, . . . SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: . . . much to his regret. I . . . SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: . . . I know that to be a fact. And I called "Happy" up at that . . . at the time and just absolutely lambasted him for supporting Louie Nunn. He told Dick, he said that, "Don did it. He called me. I can't get mad at you Coopers." [laughter] And . . . but he . . . he found out that Louie wasn't . . . he wasn't going to be anywhere with Louie. Anyway, I . . . yeah, I remember the first campaign . . . no, when John was running for governor. When did "Happy" support Strom . . . SMOOT: Strom Thurmond. COOPER: . . . Thurmond? SMOOT: That was . . . COOPER: For president in . . . SMOOT: . . . well, that was in `40, I guess, wasn't it? COOPER: . . . I guess it was `48, wasn't it? SMOOT: Oh, well, yeah, the Dixiecrats . . . COOPER: Yeah, the Dixiecrats. SMOOT: . . . [inaudible]. Yeah, certainly. COOPER: I guess it was `48. I . . . it seems to me that I stopped by there one time. He had the newspaper over in Ver- sailles then, The Woodford whatever. Somebody really . . . some other . . . I mean, some fellow was the editor and ran it, but I think "Happy" owned a part in it. I stopped but I did not see "Happy". He wasn't there. I saw the editor or whoever, I can't remember his name, a great big fellow. And got . . . I mean, really found out nothing beyond what we knew about being for Thurmond, and Thurmond was . . . I remember one of the first people John saw in Washington. He and Strom Thur- mond were on a television program in Washington one Saturday morning . . . I mean Sunday morning, I . . . I . . . Sunday, yeah. And, of course, their views were very divergent and, of course, they all respect Strom--they called him "Strom"--and his beautiful, young wives and his physical abilities. [chuckle--Smoot] I really haven't ever been too fond of him. John has a great faculty about him. He . . . he got along with practically any of them. [laughter] And some, oh, great friends like Aiken--George Aiken--and . . . oh, I . . . just practically any of them. Of course, one that he disliked, John Stennis, down in Mississippi, and I must say that I . . . I've never been able to bring myself to people like Walter George and Dick Russell, one of the ablest men I guess, in the Senate in years and years. I just never have been able to take their attitude on race issues. I just can't erase it. I'm a damn fool, [chuckling] but I . . . I . . . I mean it. I kind of . . . Scar-. . . Fulbright. Some very, very able men. But to me that just stains the whole thing and puts a scar on it. You know, it's the same old thing. We found out that you cannot compromise on that kind of an issue under the spirit of our laws. There's just no way. And Henry Clay tried it, "the Great Compromiser". You cannot compromise on that principle. SMOOT: No. COOPER: Abraham Lincoln finally came to a complete understanding of that. SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: And there's no other . . . to me, there's just nothing . . . no answer . . . other answer to it. Anyway, that's . . . you got me way afield. SMOOT: Well, why . . . let me . . . let me direct it a little bit, if I can. COOPER: Hmm? SMOOT: Let me direct you a little bit, if I may. What . . . why did "Happy" Chandler . . . COOPER: Oh. SMOOT: . . . support Senator Cooper the way he did? Why did . . . was it . . . was it for his own purposes and . . . COOPER: You know, . . . SMOOT: . . . [inaudible]? COOPER: . . . I do not know. Of course, "Happy" always said that he . . . that he never would run against John Cooper. SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: And, of course, "Happy" . . . they knew each other from Centre College days, I'm sure. SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: And "Happy" was lieutenant governor under [Ruby] Laffoon and they . . . and . . . and, of course, you know, it's damn difficult to be disagreeable with "Happy" Chandler. "Happy's" got some fixes on things like Truman, for example. I ran into Harry Truman one time and he told me on . . . on the ship going . . . on the United States going to Europe, and he got up early and I . . . I did, too. And we [were] just walk- ing around up there . . . the truth of the matter is, I spotted him down there on the lower deck [chuckle--Smoot] and I went down and introduced myself. So we saw each o-. . . saw each other every morning; and in Paris and London that way. We stayed at the same hotels. [chuckle] He just said, "Harry . . . `Happy' Chandler's not worth a damn." [laughter] "Now," he said, "your brother did a good job for me . . . for me." Did a good job for him. That was U.N. [United Nations] and some of the things with [Secretary of State Dean] Acheson. SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: But I don't know why. I . . . you know, in a way, I think he . . . he was pretty . . . of course, he was very clear about being for Louie Nunn. He was . . . maybe it was just the intensity of his wrath at any given time, or maybe it was just that he thought he could help somebody better that way. "Happy's" an old fool, you know. SMOOT: He seems to . . . COOPER: Huh? SMOOT: . . . he's done pretty well. [chuckle] COOPER: Yeah. I don't know. But then he was . . . it was pretty clear that he was for Thruston Morton. I'm sure he was for John but, I mean, so far as actually being able to document anything, . . . SMOOT: Well, in . . . in 1956, President Eisenhower came to the airport in Lexington and there was Senator Cooper and there was Sena-. . . soon-to-be Senator Morton and there was "Happy" Chandler and Bob Humphreys there to meet him, as well. COOPER: You know, Bob Humphreys met . . . John met him. I guess he had a little drug store up . . . and he went to the Senate, you know, one time, to fill an unexpired term. SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: And I remember, John must have met him up there at the state legislature . . . the General Assembly, that one two- year hitch he had. And I remember going into that store very often with John to . . . maybe I'd get a milkshake or some- thing. I liked him and he was in . . . in the Senate. He . . . he served. I guess . . . SMOOT: He was filling out Barkley's term, before . . . COOPER: What? SMOOT: . . . he was filling out Barkley's term before your brother was elected to fill the term . . . the rest of the term. COOPER: Humphrey was? SMOOT: Yes. He was . . . he was appointed by . . . COOPER: Yeah. SMOOT: . . . Chandler who was serving . . . COOPER: Yeah. SMOOT: . . . as governor again. COOPER: Well, I liked him. I don't think he was any kind of a statesman [chuckling] to put it mildly. [chuckle] A li-. . . very likable person, as far as I know. I . . . I don't know. "Happy" . . . about that, although it was pretty clear, in some way, that "Happy" was fo-. . . for John. But I don't know any specific way of identifying that. But it seemed to me that it was much plainer that he was for Thru-. . . for Thruston. But I . . . I don't know. SMOOT: Well, of course, Clements headed the faction that fought . . . COOPER: That's right. Yeah. SMOOT: . . . "Happy". COOPER: Yeah. Yeah. SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: Yeah. That's correct. SMOOT: Speaking of factionalism, what of . . . what of factionalism within the Republican party, over . . . COOPER: Now? SMOOT: Well, not just now, back . . . COOPER: Well, of course, . . . SMOOT: . . . you were involved . . . COOPER: . . . you know, it . . . it's a . . . we never went to Louisville. I don't remember going to Louisville until way up in the `20s, . . . SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: . . . and I remember going with . . . I don't know really with whom I went. My father was dead. And I remember going up there and meeting . . . just, you know, not . . . I was . . . I was twenty-five or six. I remember meeting Morris Galvin from northern Kentucky. He was a great political power. And the Louisville people, Chesley, Searcy, S-E-A-R-C-Y, and his confederate, J. Matt Chilton. Now, Searcy had died when John got into these races, but Chilton was still living. And then my uncle Roscoe got on the state senate committee [inaudible]. There was a faction that emerged up there about the time that . . . betw-. . . Jouett Todd had a faction, with his man Eddie Black. Eddie's a good friend. He . . . he worked for R.C. Tway. Tway was a Harlan County coal operator who hit it in the boom days, basically. Moved to Louisville. He had that . . . the great saddle horse farm out at Pl-. . . out near St. . . . St. Matthews, Plainview . . . Plainview. And Tway was a coal operator in Harlan and I think involved in a lot of that union . . . unionization struggle, anti-, of course, he was. Harlan County, I don't know. I went over there with John Robsion in . . . he . . . there were I don't know how many murder cases [with] miners involved but Robsion was defending at least twenty of them. He's a powerful man, Robsion. He and John wound up as very staunch allies from ear- lier days. Louisville had some Republican mayors and I can't give you the names back in those days, but they . . . they had a run . . . had a shot for it all the way up until the William B. Harrison. It was in the late . . . late `20s and there were two factions up there, and I honestly, I . . . I . . . I . . . I just cannot give you enough on it to . . . to mean anything with any coherence. I don't know that much about it. But later on, of course, in . . . I remember when John was . . . served the first on . . . the short term, the mayor was up there often on various matters. A very nice fellow. He was a Democrat. I've forgotten his name. I . . . I could . . . I could spot it on a list. But then they . . . the . . . they did not have a Republican, as far as I know, in those interven- ing years until Bruce Cowger . . . I mean, William Cowger and he was succeeded by Schmied, Kenny Schmied. I liked him. A very pleasant, agreeable fellow, but I really don't think he was much of a heavy weight. And then Marlow was . . . they . . . Cook and Cowger. Marlow was a county judge. And so you had some . . . and then we had a congressman up there off and on. Thruston and For-. . . and . . . Robsion then went in for a time. I always regretted Henry Abert not winning, a very fine person. Not that the others weren't fine, but I . . . I just regret it. Of course, Thruston won. And . . . and I think Robsion, according to his attitude about what the government should or should not do, and I . . . I think he . . . and I think the people had no doubt about his attitude on those things. And I . . . I think he was effective. He just . . . he just never seemed to have any . . . he couldn't hold on to any strength. And besides, there was . . . he had real opposi- tion up there from the Democrats. There's something else. Oh, I had it, but I . . . SMOOT: If you were going to point to anything specific, or perhaps . . . perhaps it would be broad, in . . . in the sense of the times, but if you were going to point to any particular thing that was difficult for your brother do deal with as a . . . COOPER: What? SMOOT: . . . Senator . . . any particular thing that was difficult for your brother to deal with as a Senator, what would you point to? Would it be Vietnam, would it be civil rights, would it be one of these major issues? COOPER: Well, I think it . . . I . . . I think my brother . . . it might be more . . . you see, these are the years now in the main that . . . I know that his party regularity, or lack thereof, got him off base almost the first day out with Taft. They had organized it, the Senate, that particular two years, hadn't they? SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: And I . . . Taft was leader, although I don't . . . Taft was . . . John was . . . was with Taft, you know, on all of the educational measures. But that got him off. I remember John came back to the office and said, "Senator Taft just stormed up to me, `I thought you are a Republican.'" And John said, "I am, but I want to be right if I can." [chuckle] They got along. They were together on a lot of things. I think most of these things were originated by Taft, but then . . . I . . . I don't think . . . I think some of these things gave him problems at home [such as] the black thing, . . . SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: . . . but surprisingly it . . . it . . . and there are some areas in this state that you still . . . still feel strong reservoirs of that resentment. And an amazing thing, one fellow over Rockcastle County, Sayler is his name. [chuckle] I'll immortalize him. [chuckle--Smoot] They got one black in the county at that time. Just absolutely . . . he was a kind of a political man over there. Just absolutely . . . oh, just outraged that he . . . John Cooper could vote for a black for any . . . any issue. And he said, "John must just live with them up there." [laughter] You know, the root of all that is . . . is the ignorance. SMOOT: That's right. COOPER: And it's usually . . . you go back and read after the Civil War when they tried to get the blacks and slaves and what really kind of low-class whites, if you want to call them that, to try to work together in various projects. And the white people, the only claim they had to existence was that they were better than the black, any black. [laughs] SMOOT: That's right. COOPER: And it's true today. You've got people around here and I'll tell you, it's a . . . and they're all ignorant people. Absolutely ignorant people. SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: Oh, I don't . . . that caused him some trouble here, but I would say a minimum considering everything. And because, by and large, the integration of schools and so forth went off fairly well, I think, over all anyway. And I know we did here. We'd had a black school, Dunbar. My mother educated a black boy. He was one of our hands up at the house for years. She put him . . . she did all of his work here in school and sent him to Kentucky State University. [chuckle] SMOOT: That's great. COOPER: And John took him . . . took him up to Washington when he went there in 1947 and put him on . . . he was running an elevator in the Senate Office Building. And I want to tell you, that raised some eyes. He was the only one that had been on an elevator in the Senate Office Building. And some of those Southerners [chuckle] . . . SMOOT: What was his name? COOPER: Arthur Brooker. SMOOT: Arthur Brooker. COOPER: He was the grandson of an old sort of a midwife of a kind and she always claimed that she beat the doctor to John and she brought him forth into the world. And it be . . . it may be so. It may be so. Elvira Adams, and she was a . . . old when I first knew her, and large and round there everyday, but mother had a-. . . her grandson. And after father died, we moved to . . . a couple of times and finally lived over on Maple Street and he stayed there everyday and he learned to p-. . . to play the piano and finished his education here and then went on up to K.S.U.. I think mother did all his written work. [laughter] You know, my mother, when father died, within a year or so she was back teaching school in the public schools here. It . . . these had to be . . . back in the old days, I . . . I think teachers were just . . . if they had any . . . I don't know how much education early they had to have. In- dividual trustees of individual schools, I think, picked them that far . . . that far back. Anyway, she was a . . . a cer- tificated teacher. She rarely missed a summer of going away to school to Eastern Kentucky . . . University of Kentucky. Went to Centre College several summers. Herman Donovan was the president up there and, of course, she had known him when he was . . . he was . . . he was . . . he was the president over at Eastern. I . . . I . . . I . . . I'll never get over the damage that was done to my . . . some poli-. . . politicians and Bob Martin and Adron Doran, this grotesque, expensive, su- perstructures of so-called universities that are not. This state cannot handle that load. But she . . . I don't think that Donovan was that type, particularly. I . . . I think he did a lot at the university in foundations . . . starting some things. But anyway, mother had known him over there. She'd gone to school [chuckle] under President Donovan for I don't know how many y-. . . different summers. And so he went to . . . he [inaudible] and mother had I've forgotten how many . . . [chuckle] how many credits, [chuckle--Smoot] way more than any . . . requires for, you know, graduation, but the . . . the rules or the law or whatever [said that] to graduate, you've got to have a . . . a term in residence. SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: And I don't think she ever forgave Donovan. [laughter] SMOOT: How much . . . how much of an influence would you say your mother was on . . . on your brother? COOPER: Well, everybody said that . . . I . . . now what this means influence wise, I can't really answer. My father was, I . . . I think, very fond of my oldest sister. Incidentally, my father was a twin. John Sherman Cooper and Ulysses Grant Cooper. SMOOT: Really? COOPER: You can tell that they were Union people. SMOOT: Yes. COOPER: Right out here in the western part of the county eight or ten miles or so. Ulysses died very soon after birth, and my sister, the oldest sister, is named Grant, her middle name; Faustine Grant. They told John down in western Kentucky that he had the . . . he . . . he certainly didn't have a name . . . a proper name and very little pol-. . . if any politics. [chuckle] And maybe some religion I think he said. I don't know. Mother was a . . . we always thought that mother was very, very partial to John as the oldest son. I . . . I don't know. Mother had . . . I'm sure, by observation, she must have had an influence in a tremendous industriousness, although John, on the face of it, would not appear to be all that in- dustrious. But it . . . it was deceptive. He was late. I don't think he attempted to be any . . . even a student, al- though he had no difficulty, as far as I know, in his classes. We all did pretty regular homework. Well, I think mother, by her zeal and her . . . the way she picked up the thing after my father died and . . . and went back to teaching and on the very meager salaries and retired after she taught for, oh, Lord, I don't know how many years, I think until she was seventy. My mother was much younger than my father. My father went back right after the Civil War and my mother died . . . she was about ninety-three years old, somewhere I think about `69 or so, somewhere in there. That, I think, had to impress and I'll tell you, mother was a . . . knew how to handle the . . . what money was around and I'm sure that . . . I . . . you just don't . . . I don't know how in today you can realize what the Depression was here in this county in the `30s. The amount of need that was all over the place. I . . . I . . . I remember going into homes out here, if you'd call them that, and the filth in them was just unbelievable. Now, of course, I'm not . . . I'm not talking about the majority of people or anything like that, but just widespread poverty and need and no money. The county had small revenues, and I have no doubt whatever that that made the strongest impression on John than any ex- perience he ever had. I don't have any doubt. I . . . I can't answer. I . . . I feel that there was. I think my father in- fluenced me and it'd be difficult for me to . . . I just respected him. I . . . I just absolutely . . . I wanted to be . . . I wanted to follow him around all the time. It just . . . and sometimes to think about whether I'm anything like him or not. I just conclude that it's a hopeless quest and go on. [chuckle] I don't know. Those things are so . . . they're . . . they're beyond my . . . I think they're really beyond any . . . anybody's . . . and I . . . I . . . I could be very an- tagonistic about my mother. I didn't like the discipline, [inaudible]. I have a little rebellion in me. My superior up in Washington . . . I was . . . went in the army, I was in New York--I was drafted--and went down to Fort Jackson, got to be a corporal. And cried because I was being relieved of K.P. [kitchen police] and other duties of that kind. I . . . literally, when I was promoted out there on the field, to cor- poral, I cried. [laughter] Thirty-five years old. [laughter] I just hated it. My superior officer in Washington and I went downtown with him one day and he said, "Don, don't you ever salute an officer?" And I said, "Not if I can help it, I don't." [laughter]

[End of Interview]