Interview with Al Smith

Title: Interview with Al Smith Identifier: 1981oh056 Date: 1980-12-04 Interviewer: William Berge Project: Kentucky Newspaper Editors Project

The following is an unrehearsed taped interview with Mr. Al Smith, director of the Appalachian Regional Commission. The interview was conducted by William Berge for the Oral History Center at Eastern Kentucky University. The interview was conducted in Mr. Smith's office in the Mutual of Omaha Building in Washington, D.C., on December 4, 1980, at 10:30 a.m.

Berge: I want to thank you for letting me come back here...uh... Al. It's a long time since the first half of this interview...you were in June in Bowling Green. Um...the last thing you talked with me about you told me how you came back to Nashville and went to the hospital and... I think that was in '57.

Smith: Um-hum.

Berge: And uh...What I would like to do if you don't mind is sort of get from...tell me how you got from Nashville to Kentucky.

Smith: Uh...I came out of the hospital and went uh...went home to the farm. And, that was in Hendersonville and I was feeling really uh... depressed and down. And uh...staying with my parents. And uh...I uh...contemplating what I was going to do.

Berge: May I interrupt for just a minute. You still had...you still were a newspaper man as far as you were concerned?

Smith: Yeah ...in my head. That's right. I was a newspaper man with no future. And uh...really devastated by the...by getting out of New Orleans. All my friends were there. I really was... felt very bleak.

Berge: Were you reassessing what you had done at this time. I mean seriously.

Smith: I was physically so damaged though, I mean, just really down emotionally and physically. That uh...I didn't have any great sense of independence about anything. I just was in a great slump. I was...uh...30...30 years old, almost 2:0031. And uh... I had a visit ...uh... from Eliot Frankel, a friend of mine who had gone to Vanderbilt with me. Whom I knew as a Vanderbilt friend who had married a girl from Nashville who was a producer for the uh... Huntley-Brinkley Show, a news show. Who was home visiting his wife's parents. And, he drove out to the farm to see me. I really appreciated it. And uh....

Berge: I was going to ask you that. Were you wanting to see people then? Or were you just sort of hiding?

Smith: A little bit. Yeah. And, uh... He came out to see me and ...uh... talk to me about the possibility of getting a job with NBC in Chicago. And uh...to replace a reporter...a young reporter who was leaving Chicago to go to New York named John Chancellor.

Berge: Um-hum.

Smith: And uh, of course he said you'll have to audition for it and so on. But 3:00the truth was, as I knew when he left, that I just didn't have the spirit or the confidence in myself to do anything. Uh...I had an interview...I went down to the Tennessean and talked to some people down there in Nashville. And, I got a call from uh...a columnist at the Tennessean, who was a friend of mine named Elmer Hinton, who told me there was an old lady in Russellville, Kentucky, Mrs. Byrne Evans, who needed an editor to help her through the, at least through the holidays and maybe afterwards. And uh...I was so anxious to get away from the farm and just do anything that I told him I would be glad to talk to her. So he called Ms. Evans and Ms. Evans called me and uh...uh...invited me to come up to Russellville and talk to her. So I drove up there ...uh...very shortly. And uh...she...we talked and uh...I agreed to help her get the paper out during the 4:00Christmas holidays. And, then she decided that she didn't need me for Christmas that uh... she'd like for me to help her after the holidays for a while. And so I agreed to help her for a month or so.

Berge: Um-huh.

Smith: And...uh...I went up there the first day after January I think.

Berge: In '58?

Smith: In '58. And that was the...uh...the paper was a small...uh...I uh...it...it had a circulation of around three thousand.

Berge: Which paper was that now?

Smith: This was the News-Democrat ...

Berge: OK.

Smith: ...in Russellville.

Berge: It wasn't the Leader?

Smith: No, the Leader is the paper I started ...uh...uh...

Berge: OK.

Smith: ...in 1968. Uh...gosh.

Berge: That's the Russellville News-Democrat.

Smith: Yeah...yeah, this was the Russellville News-Democrat, which claimed to have been founded in 1806 or 1807. Uh... Ms. Evans put together a kind of a 5:00genealogy of the News-Democrat, which a succession of mergers it was a descendant of the Russellville...of the Mirror...1806 I believe. Uhhh...One of the earliest papers in Kentucky or in the country. Uh...And she kept that claim and uh... I...uh...I felt comfortable with the idea that this was a paper that was...had a lot of tradition. It was a Democratic paper in politics and had been owned for and published for many, many years by the Rhea family...the Tom Rhea family...of uh well Tom Rhea, Oscar Rhea, John Rhea, the Rhea family, of uh R-H- E-A of...uh...Russellville, who were politically influential in that county for over a hundred years. In Logan County, Kentucky. Uh...The paper was a...uh...was 6:00dominated by Mrs. Evans, in the sense that everything it did reflected ...uh...an effort to accommodate to her personality and uh... her concept and picture of herself ...and uh....

Berge: And Logan County probably.

Smith: And Logan County and her anxieties and needs. And she...uh...It was owned by her and her children and her children...uh...her two daughters worked there. Uh... There was some things that immediately struck me as ...uh...positive. One was that Mrs. Evans had a strong sense of her...of her...own...uh...of the paper's impor...of the paper's importance. She believed 7:00the paper was an important institution. She believed that uh... the paper uh....uh...should be professionally written. She wanted an editor to write stories the way they were. She was absolutely unintimidated in terms of coverage of things that happened in the city and the courthouse. She did not uh...uh...stand in fear of...of a straight story, of an honest story. She was absolutely uh...she never told me not to print a story. Uh...She never kept a story out of the paper. I don't know that people realize uh...how important that was or what ..uh...in 1958...

Berge: It turned out to be rare, too.

Smith: Yea, uh, how rare it was. She...uh...had a...uh...a kind of a disdainful 8:00...uh...view of most of the merchants in your town. She felt they didn't really do enough. They owed her more than they were giving her. She had been very hostile to the establishment of a radio station there. Uh...She uh... she viewed...she was...she had a growing...uh...degree of uh, I mean a certain degree of paranoia I think, uh...based on uh...her sense of insecurity of being a...a...a woman who was widowed in 1940, uh...left with a paper that uh needed uh...I mean left with a paper it's I guess the principal estate of her husband and uh....with children to raise, a war coming on. And uh...uh she felt that 9:00uh... people took advantage of her.

Berge: One of the things I was interested in that you mentioned, that very few people have mentioned it to me, but I've been struck by it is that you said she had a...a sense that her...that the paper was an important institution in the community. And, in doing these interviews with editors I've had the feeling...it's...it's just there... that some of them feel that they are doing something and some of them just...are just keeping the store.

Smith: Yeah.

Berge: And, you can...you can feel it when you read the paper, too.

Smith: But, the truth is Bill if you looked around the country...uh... it's true today. There's so many very drab daily papers. Uh...Chain papers. Uh...Particularly these mid-sized dailies that are just terrible. I've never heard anybody say a good word of...I've never heard the Richmond Register quoted by anybody in Kentucky. Uh... uh ...the Bowling...the editorial page of 10:00the...uh...Bowling Green Daily News...uh...to this day and all the years I've lived in Kentucky has never had a local column...uh...uh...and very seldom has it had any local editorials. Uh...They've just pasted up some right-wing ... uh ....conservative...uh... reports from cheap syndicates, ...uh columnists working for cheap syndicates and ...uh... boiler plate stuff. Uh... The only small daily in Kentucky in 1980 as we're talking about this that I can think of that does any kind of ...uh...well, does any kind of original work is probably the Henderson Gleaner, Walt Dear's paper...and it's significant to me that Walt Dear, who is about 45, 48, maybe 48, is probably the, one of the closest 11:00friends...well, we're not all that close but we're very confiding with each other...he's probably uh....I mean I see him maybe once or twice a year...but Walt Dear is probably the editor/publisher in Kentucky with whom I am most...uh...congenial and comfortable. And...uh Dear is an original kind of fellow with a strong sense of...uh...professionalism and a real strong sense of pride about being a newspaperman. His father was a newspaperman, his brother...brothers are. And, uh... They own two, three small dailies. And Dear is uh...uh...an original thinker. He is regarded as kind of spacy by some of the other...uh...publishers. Uh... He's presently president of Kentucky Press Association. And uh...uh... yes, Mrs. Evans really, you see one thing, she was a very well-educated woman. She had gone to Vanderbilt, and she's very important 12:00in my life. Very important... uh...figure...in a way in the history of Russellville. If I've got any...have made any kind of contribution to that town, uh... it in a way, some of the credit goes to... if there's any credit to be given, should go to her because I would never have worked for anyone I don't think with a lesser degree of commitment or a lesser degree of imagination maybe even...

Berge: How long did you work for her?

Smith: I worked for her from 1958, the first week in '58, when I went to work at the paper, until about March of 1968 when I walked out of the paper...uh, resigning, leaving, and with the intention which I...I uh... realized of 13:00starting a daily...a weekly paper in competition with her.

Berge: Um-hum.

Smith: So, I was there from January of 1958 to about March the first I believe, maybe it was the end of March, March of 1968. And we...uh...uh...we uh had...really...well for...I had to cope with my drinking problem and my inability to cope with it really. Uh, no I had to cope with it or to address myself to it and she had to confront it and deal with it from the first month I was there in '58 until...uh... the first of January of '63, which is when I came 14:00back to work after a week's lapse of maybe ten days of being away really on a bender...a bender... and I came in in '63 really...uh...uh...convinced in my mind I was...I was really free of my bottle problem. And...uh... I was right. Uh...so from '58 to '63 there was five years in which I either was drinking or... I mean excessively...or not drinking and miserable or staying sober and planning to drink.

Berge: Um-hum.

Smith: And...uh...there were times four or five months that I'd just stay on the wagon and I'd get drunk and then have to be hospitalized. I believe I was admitted to the hospital in 1962...uh...oh...maybe a half a dozen times. Uh... I think that to digress a minute that one of my strong emotional attachments to 15:00the Logan County Hospital and of trying to keep it as an independent institution and surely some of the ...uh...passion with which I resisted the takeover of the hospital in 19...by Hospital Corporation of America in 19....uh... probably '74 I believe was when I was... '70... '73 perhaps, '73, '74, when I really successfully campaigned them out of the county, I know as I look back I was acting out some of my fierce feelings of...huh...real gratitude, and uh...the emotionalism ...I mean of...of...you know a sense that this place was important as a humanistic place that had saved my live, that people...(unintelligible) ...and I had strong...uh...memories of feelings of gratitude about the way that 16:00place was. And I think perhaps I was telling the people...uh...of the county in the editorials that I wrote against the proprietary chain taking the hospital over. Look, you've got many great things have happened in this place when it was really the people's hospital. When the doctors cared, when the nurses cared, when the...people... poor people who worked there as orderlies, and ...uh...uh... maintenance people. When they all took an interest in the patients and knew who they were and it was a community institution. Do you want to give this away and let some outsiders come in here and just run this thing on speculation?

Berge: Let me ask you a question. Do you think this ... this kind of ... of experience has influenced you any in the amount of autonomy that the newspapers you have...uh...the autonomy the editors feel in your newspapers? Do you think that has something to do with it?

Smith: Yeah...but uh...I think that uh. Yes, of course. But, I think that ...uh...I would always have...uh...

Berge: Just from your newspaper experience?

Smith: Yeah, as the kind of newspaperman I probably already was when I got 17:00...uh...came to Logan County. But, I tell you....I...

Berge: Did you learn a lot about newspapers in those ten years Al, that you were...

Smith: New Orleans years?

Berge: No, I mean the ten years you were uniquely in Russellville.

Smith: Uh...oh yeah...really 20, uh 19 years...

Berge: No, I mean the first ten you were there before you quit.

Smith: Yeah, before I quit drinking. Now wait a minute. Let me see. We got to go at it this way. There's five years in which I was drinking.

Berge: And, there were ten years all together that you worked for her.

Smith: For her. That's right. Yes. I uh... I had I guess the most productive year of my life there with her. It was in 1964. Uh...In '63, I suddenly realized in the spring of '63 that I was like a pitcher with a no hitter...uh...a pitcher with a no hitter... that I was, I was sober and I was enjoying it. And that 18:00...uh...it looked like I was living without liquor and feeling better than I had since I was a child. And ...uh...it was, you know, it was three or four months into it. And, then I began to say, what am I going to do with my life? I was writing stories and beginning to feel better. And, uh...

Berge: And when you say writing stories what were you doing? Mostly politics?

Smith: I was writing a lot.

Berge: Politics?

Smith: Uh...Writing about politics. Writing...but I was writing...I was beginning to write for the Courier-Journal and the Tennessean some. And getting stories ...uh...into those papers. Getting bylines into those papers. Beginning to ...uh...to create...uh...beginning to get the sense of pride, the old sense of pride of seeing my name in a story in a metropolitan paper. And, you know here I'd been for five years really almost like feeling like I was in exile and...uh...and...and...uh...doing a sentence out there.

Berge: When did it occur to you that you were going to stay in Russellville?

Smith: Uh...in the late summer of '63 I began to think that ...uh...what I really wanted to do was to buy an interest in that paper and maybe keep me there. And I...that I think that I was afraid that perhaps if I left I would lose this kind of equilibrium or serenity...inner serenity that I had now. I was in an intensive period of going to AA meetings in Russellville at that time. And it was like a...a free therapy, which it was. And uh.... And, I was putting into my life the...uh...the fellowship of working with an AA group, of going to their meetings, and also putting into my life the new pleasure, the rewards of attention from people who were so delighted to see that I seemed to be doing better.

Berge: And shaping up?

Smith: Who'd been there all along. Yeah. And...uh... I was getting gratification from there in the sense of esteem, and uh respect, and uh encouragement.

Berge: And by that time you really felt like you were part of that community, I guess?

Smith: Yeah. I'd been there, see, I was in my fifth or sixth year there then. It was '63. And uh...I...uh...uh... really began to...to...to appreciate the people in the community...in the whole. And to see them as a fascinating ...uh...uh...microcosm of Kentucky. Macrocosm? Microcosm?

Berge: Micro. Micro.

Smith: Micro, yeah. The whole city, the county, as a microcosm of Kentucky. I've used that image many times in the county and away from it. That, uh, Highway 68 running east and west divided the county almost equally. The people 21:00in the north...uh...were poorer, tended to be Republican, they worked in the factories, they paid their bills, they were very independent, and were hard- scrabble farmers. They took the money from their factory...uh factory paychecks and went back and built homes on their father's property...their parents' farms. The people in the south end were Democratic. Uh...The land was...was very fertile. Uh... They were more easy going. Life was a little easier for them. And, uh...

Berge: A lot of good old boys.

Smith: Yeah. And Ms. Evans used to say they took longer to pay their bills. And, uh...they were a landed kind of gentry. And, uh...they tended to control the courthouse.

Berge: Um-huh. How long did you have...how long were you in Russellville before you understood where the power was there? How long did it take you?

Smith: I think I knew it within a week or two...that I, I uh... And there was a tremendous power center there and a tremendous political tradition of 22:00courthouse politics. The first day I went to...and Mrs. Evans was a ....very close to Emerson "Doc" Beauchamp who was the chairman of the Democratic Party and a friend of hers and who had been a...uh...a friend of her husband's. Her husband apparently, Pig Evans as he was known, Byrne Evans, was the original good ole boy.

Berge: How do you spell Byrne?

Smith: B-Y-R-N ... B-Y-R-N-E.

Berge: Uh-huh.

Smith: And, Byrne Evans had coached a baseball team at...uh...uh... Bethel College where I guess he met his wife. I think she came there. Her name was Ailene Chambers. And, I believe she was from Fulton, Kentucky, Fulton, Tennessee. She'd gone to Vanderbilt, she was a German major, I think a German major at Vanderbilt, and she came to Bethel to teach. And, he married her. He and his brother, whose name I think was Settle Evans, who was a...uh... colonel 23:00in the Army. Those two brothers were raised by an aunt, Ms. Jessie Settle, who I knew, was a nice old maid lady, spinster, who owned a jewelry store that was called Settle- Evans. And, I think before that it had been called maybe Settle- McLean. Uh...her partner had been [unclear] McLean, maybe. But, anyway Ms. Settle was in her eighties and lived with Ms. Evans who called her Aunt Jess. Uh... Lived with Mrs. Evans on Sixth? Seventh? Seventh Street? Sixth Street? And, uh... Sixth Street in Russellville. Uh...The Evans house was...was...uh...occupied when I moved to Russellville by Mrs. Evans who was in 24:00her 60s, early 70s, I guess late 60s. Uh...by a daughter named Beedie, who was married to Harold Knox. Beedie was a nickname, I think her name was Lilly. I've almost forgotten what it was. B-E-E- D-I-E. But at any rate, Beedie was married to the Reverand Harold Knox who was a young Presbyterian minister in the church next door. And Harold and Beedie ...uh... lived in the Presbyterian manse up the street, but Beedie could barely cook and they came home and took their meals with Mrs. Evans and they spent most of their time in Ms. Evans's house and went back to the Manse to sleep. They had a little son, David. Her husband's name was Harold. OK. And then there was Dan Knotts. Knotts. K-N-O-T-T-S. Who was Ms. 25:00Evans' son-in-law, and who was married to Dorothy Evans Knotts. And, then the Knottses had one small child who was about nine or ten then named Michael Ann Knotts. And, they all lived in this house, together, spent most of their time together, under one roof, dominated by this matriarchal lady, who graduated Vanderbilt, a German teacher at Bethel College, widowed at...in 1940 ...uh...at an untimely season, and who thought she was better than everybody in the town, and in some ways was, I guess. And, uh...who took all the daily papers. They had books. It was a place of...of interesting discussion. I used to go up there and talk to them ...uh...a lot. Ms. Evans and I both were verbose and garrulous and 26:00we'd go on for hours chatting with each other about the world. And, uh... she was a...a handsome woman. I guess she had been red-headed at one time. She had a terrible temper, and she would scream and complain. And when I say scream ... carry on. But, ...uh...she was a...she had a good sense of humor despite all of that. And, I found her about as interesting to talk to as anybody in town. But, she was one of a whole list of interesting people that I collected as...as kind of characters or ... I mean I began to see around, both as I was drinking and sober. I guess as I got sober I would be more emotionally attached to people. There people who had known me...one side of me and then had remained tolerant of me. And, as I grew into another kind of person, they uh... they were still there and were encouraging. And I really...

Berge: Became friends.

Smith: Became friends. And, I...I...uh...I never have been snobbish about 27:00anyone in Russellville or in that county. And, I...I've taken a kind of...I viewed it as the world. And, what really happened to me was...in the '60...in the '63, '64 mindset I was in, I figured if I couldn't make it there I couldn't make it anywhere. If I couldn't live with myself there....and...and take myself as I was...

Berge: As tranquil as it was...

Smith: Yeah, but if I couldn't accept myself there, that moving back to the city was not going to change me.

Berge: And might even be worse.

Smith: It might destroy me.

Smith: So, I had to come to terms with myself. And, once I came to terms...in that setting.... And, once I accepted myself in that setting and accepted the setting there, I really developed a great attachment for the people there and for the way of life there. And, faith in my ability...to ...uh...to make 28:00things...to support things that would make life better there.

Berge: In your uh...in your uh...life in Logan County, I guess you could say politically then Doc Beauchamp was the most important man in the county?

Smith: Beauchamp was the most important man in the county, but he had a fascinating ...uh...network of political friends and then there were...there were...there were business people in that community who had influence and...uh... who talked to Doc and could get favors out of him and...uh... for the most part who voted with him...uh...or did other things, maybe they didn't always vote for him. I think they voted for him in state government most of the time, and often would cast their votes, uh...would vote Republican in national elections.

Berge: Uh-huh.

Smith: I have a feeling that Main Street businessmen in Russellville voted Republican more often than I realized when I was...uh...younger there, and voted Democratic to have a vote in with Beauchamp and...uh...because Beauchamp could 29:00take care of whatever their business needs were. You've got to understand that the Rhea organization dominated that courthouse for perhaps...I've got to check my history...maybe a hundred years.

Berge: 'Til when? When did that die out?

Smith: Until Tom Rhea's death, which was in the early...uh...'50s, and...uh...or late '40s. And, then Mr. Rhea's faction split in two parts. One faction dominated by Emerson "Doc" Beauchamp, and...uh...another faction headed by John Albert Whitaker. And, Whitaker was a congressman, I guess it was the Second District then, but he was the congressman for that section and I think it included perhaps Bowling Green at that time. And, Whitaker was a protege of Beauchamp's, and so was, I mean Mr. Rhea, Tom Rhea, Thomas Rhea, and so was 30:00Beauchamp. And, Whitaker was in Congress. He was a....but, he died of a heart attack, I think in Russellville, ...uh...as a relatively young man. And, I think his seat was then filled by Bill Natcher. I believe Natcher has the seat that Rhea had. And, then when Happy Chandler became governor in '50...uh...'53, '54 that Chandler rearranged or got the legislature to rearrange the districts and to separate ...

Berge: Warren and...

Smith: Yeah...Warren, Bowling Green and Russellville. It was partly to cut down the power of...uh...Russellville as I always understood it. And...uh...to kind of cut the...the, uh...yeah, the Warren, that's right...the Warren/Logan County relationship. Well...uh...shortly before I....

Berge: Hold it. Let me turn this. [Tape changed]

Smith: ....there were all sorts of, uh...shocks from that...those disagreements, I mean the split in the courthouse organization, that were still being felt, tremors still being felt in Russellville, when I arrived there in '58 that were fascinating to me. And...uh...that continued to have little...uh...send out little tremors into the course of Kentucky political life in the years that were to follow. Ummm...let's see...Beauchamp had had to choose sides in a fierce, uh...maybe four years before, in a fierce courthouse 32:00race for tax assessor, [unclear] no, county court clerk. And, he had decided to back a woman named Hester McClendon...Hester Hunter McClendon, who had a special relationship with him that used to be referred to very darkly, and I could never figure out whether it was sexual or financial or political. And, I think it was probably the latter two...political and financial in some way. Hester Hunter was the county clerk and four years before, when I came in '58, they had just had a 33:00big county election in '57 and the first week I was there in '58 all the new county officials were coming in.

Berge: Hm-hum.

Smith: And, it was my baptism into Kentucky politics. Beauchamp, a friend of Mrs. Evans, was introduced to me by Ms. Evans's son-in-law.

Berge: In other words Mrs. Evans kept her husband's alliances after he died.

Smith: That's right. And, uh...Ms. Evans's son-in-law, Dan Knotts, was general manager of the paper and advertising manager and very taciturn...uh...uh...somewhat chronically depressed fellow...who, uh,...with some good reason...uh, who kind of pointed toward the courthouse and said that's where it was and...uh...left to go drink coffee with his friends on the Square. The first day I came to work, the first Monday in January after New Year's Day...and, uh...maybe it was the first Tuesday. And, uh... The courthouse was 34:00over there and all the courthouse offices were being...were turning over and a new...new session was beginning. And, I went over there and met Doc Beauchamp who took me with him and sat down...we sat down in a room and as these magistrates would come in and different members of the courthouse...uh...clique, Beauchamp would introduce me to them. I met Rayburn Smith that day. Rayburn was an ally, and a hanger-on, and a lieutenant of Beauchamp's who carried Beauchamp's body to the grave in 1971...thirteen years later. And,...uh...uh...I met Beauchamp's lawyer...James Coleman Lyne, who was to be a friend of mine and my attorney, and...uh...until his death by suicide in 19...maybe '76... 35:00'77...oh, I know when it was, it was in '76, the week after Jimmy Carter's election or the week of the election, right after the election, four years ago. And, Lyne played a very colorful part in these alliances, too. Jim Lyne was married to Lucy Linton Lyne...

Berge: Hold on just a minute...and that...uh...I guess I'm just trying to imagine things now. But, I guess after '60, between '64 say and '68, it was apparent to you probably that you were running the paper and like a lot of people who run these papers they realize that they're on a dead end street unless they own it.

Smith: Um-hum, that's correct.

Berge: And, that's probably a problem you have with young editors that work for you in a way. They get thinking about it. The good ones do.

Smith: Um-hum, sure.

Berge: Um... Can you tell me why you...why you walked out of the paper in '68. Do you mind?

Smith: Yeah. Because, uh...I owned ten percent of it, and...uh...I had found...uh...that a...a couple things. That ...uh...Mrs. Evans was...was...uh...did not want to do any planning about the future. She liked to talk about it but didn't want to do anything about it. She didn't really want to modernize...

Berge: She was sort of at that age, I guess. Yeah.

Smith: She was indecisive. She had a...she continually worried me with speculation about bringing in her grandchildren and their relatives to work there. She worried me with a tremendous amount of complaints about...uh...her dissatisfaction with Dan Knotts, her son-in-law. Uh...and his unwillingness to do much more than he did. He just kind of....

Berge: But, he was taking money out of the paper all the time.

Smith: Well, no, he put a lot in. He worked there. He had a very wretched 37:00married life with her daughter who was very neurotic and ...uh...who was in possession of an amazing cluster of ...uh...phobias and diseases real and imagined, I guess, and...uh...who finally withdrew from everybody and her husband and went to...uh...Key Biscayne where she lived, separated from her husband, under the real pretext of, wasn't even a pretext of being sick, of being unable to breathe the air in Russellville.

Berge: If you can't breathe it there there's no place in America where you can breathe the air.

Smith: Well, no. But Dan and I got the paper out, and he had to live with Mrs. Evans and took his meals there and had a very, very...uh...uh...unhappy, uh...uh...single, uh...Benedictine kind of life...and...uh...he...uh...uh...uh...played golf and she complained all the time about him being at the golf course. And, he drank beer out there to get 38:00away from her. His wife was gone, and he had to still keep up with her mother.

Berge: Mother-in-law problems when you're single are a pain in the butt.

Smith: Yeah. Right. And, uh... He had a...a brother-in-law, a colonel, who owned part of the paper who would not come back and try to get the paper out with Ms. Evans. And, he was left then with the one sister-in-law who was married to the Presbyterian minister and in desperation they moved to Birmingham. And, that left me and Knotts, and ...uh...when I say desperation, they had... they had to make some progress in their lives, and that left me and Knotts with the paper. And, then Knotts...

Berge: And, you sort of had it on your shoulders because of his problems.

Smith: Yeah. Right. And...and, uh...anything that I felt excited about, Dan would go along. He was kind to me and a friend. He was honest and loyal. But, he was just apathetic and depressed. And, I had to break out of this. And, I tried to buy the paper from her. And, she talked about it. But, ultimately, uh.... 39:00she didn't really want to sell. And, I finally gave her an ultimatum that either she sold or I would sell my part of the paper back. So, she bought back my ten percent. And, she enlisted the help of Jim Lyne, the attorney who had drawn up the contract for both of us as partners, to try to persuade me to sign an agreement when I received the money back for my ten percent that I wouldn't...uh...practice ...uh...journalism in the county. And, that...there was no "no compete" agreement in the original contract. And, on the advice of some other people I told her that I had no obligation to...to uh...to receive my, you know...to promise that in return for getting my money back. It was a dissolution of a partnership.

Berge: What kind of a...of a circulation did you have then in '68?

Smith: We had about...uh...maybe four thousand.

Berge: And, did you immediately start your paper?

Smith: Um-hum. I walked out. I took the money, $13,500 was my share of ten percent of the paper, which she valued, which I valued at $135,000 and she said was worth a hundred and fifty but she still didn't want to sell. So, I had the $13,500. But, I also had some really good friends. Bob Kirkpatrick, who was executive vice president of Southern Deposit Bank and is still a partner with me in a paper business, devised a...a little corporation plan by which the $13,500 became 51 percent of the...uh...corporation. And...uh...we sold stock to get enough money to...

Berge: That was the Leader at that time.

Smith: Yeah. We created a company called Logan Ink, Incorporated. And we sold enough stock...

Berge: I-N-C?

Smith: Uh...yeah. Logan Ink. No, Logan I-N-K Ink.

Berge: Oh...Ink. OK. OK

Smith: Logan County Ink, uh...Incorporated. And, we...

Berge: Logan Ink, Inc. then.

Smith: Yeah...and uh...we raised $25,000 in stock with thirteen thousand five hundred of that stock being mine.

Berge: Being 51 percent.

Smith: And... Right. And, then the...each stockholder who invested...uh...loaned the company two for one, for $1 invested $2 in loans. So, I...

Berge: So you got seventy-five thousand.

Smith: Fifty thousand. I had twenty-five plus...uh...twenty-five.

Berge: So one dollar for each dollar they invested then.

Smith: One dollar for each dollar...

Berge: Oh, fifty...

Smith: ...they invested uh...uh...they invested uh... No it was two for one.

Berge: So they...so you ended up with twenty-five thousand you sold plus fifty....

Smith: In stock and twenty-five thousand in loans.

Berge: So that was seventy-five thousand plus...

Smith: No, I had twenty-five thousand in stock and $25,000 in money loaned by the stockholders to the company.

Berge: OK. So they loaned you one dollar for every dollar they invested.

Smith: Yeah, I didn't put any in because I...everything I had was in...

Berge: So you started with sixty-three then?

Smith: I started in '6...no I had $50,000.

Berge: Well, plus your own thirteen.

Smith: No, that was part of it.

Berge: Oh, I understand...OK...I understand it now.

Smith: $13,500 became....

Berge: OK. OK. I understand.

Smith: ...became 51 percent...

Berge: OK. I understand.

Smith: ...of...of...of a corporation with $25,000 worth of stock.

Berge: OK, I understand what you're saying now.

Smith: And, the people who owned the stock except for me...uh...when they bought it to get a share of my stock they...they put a dollar in and for...loaned two dollars.

Berge: And, they loaned you $25,000.

Smith: So, they loaned twenty-five to the company...roughly. And, so I had $50,000.

Berge: How long did it take you to get a paper out?

Smith: We got one out May the first. And ...uh...we named it The Logan Leader. We...uh...were selling subscriptions from the very first. We used the radio very effectively to promote...uh...and I wrote these radio ads promoting the paper...rather comical. We'd get two announcers talking, "Do you know that Al's going to start a paper?" "Well...what's...what's it going...an offset paper." "Well, what's an offset?" And it's going to be colorful, we'll have color in it. And...uh... a lot of kind of...uh...Bob and Ray sort of clowning around. And, we 43:00had a little contest to name the paper. And, you'd send your money in for $2 to subscribe and then you could suggest a name. And, the name we wound up with was the name I wanted all along The Logan Leader. So we brought the Leader out in about three months...in mid-summer. Uh... That was a terrible year. That was the year that Martin Luther King was killed.

Berge: Sure.

Smith: Bobby Kennedy was killed. It was an awful summer. And, I felt like I was committing a regicide, I guess...matricide...regicide. I would... Both. Uh... Killing my mother. I felt very guilty about being in business against Ms. Evans.

Berge: Did she talk to you during this time?

Smith: Noooo, [unclear] she was mad.

Berge: I bet she hated that radio, too.

Smith: Yeah...she hated the radio...

Berge: ...you were the thing she hated the most.

Smith: That's right. She wrote that I...on the front page of the paper I guess...that I had promised her I wouldn't go in business against her. And, some 44:00others things. Said some very harsh things about me in the paper. And...uh...she brought in a fellow as editor and...uh...paid him a lot of money. And, brought in her son...her granddaughter and her granddaughter's husband to help her. And, they...they just all got demoralized on that side because of several things. The wealth of the people who had invested with me bothered them. I...

Berge: Was their paper slipping?

Smith: ...the bank. No, it wasn't slipping all that much, but we got some of the revenue out. And, she could see the handwriting on the wall. But we had a president of the bank invested with us. We had a manufacturer with me. And...the wife of a circuit judge and also the...uh...city attorney, who was the son of the town's former mayor. Uh...they were the principal stockholders. Outsiders. And, then I had Virginia Page who was my managing editor and who was a farmer. And...uh...and uh....a woman named....uh...uh...Wanda Scott who had 45:00been the bookkeeper. I took with me her bookkeeper and her...uh...circulation manager. So, uh...there were three of us...no...and...and the society editor, Chuckie Kent. Uh...so there were...let's see there was Kent, Page, and Scott and Smith. There were four us from the paper involved in the new paper...from the old paper involved in the new one.

Berge: So that really saved you a lot of problems that a new paper has.

Smith: Not one of 'em. Didn't save us a damn problem. It gave me...uh...but it gave me strength to go on. I could not have made it without the morale...

Berge: Did your paper pick up its circulation pretty quickly?

Smith: Yeah, we gained circulation. But, we could not get the grocery ad. We got one grocery ad, Murphy's Grocery, because Virginia Page bought her groceries from Bob Murphy and...uh... every week and the Evans family would never set foot 46:00in that store and so Bob Murphy gave us an ad. And...uh...uh...we tried to get Krogers, we tried to get ...uh...Houchens, we tried to get...uh...

Berge: How come the chains wouldn't fool with you?

Smith: The chains as a rule won't go with a paper until it's been in business about a year. And, the grocery thing was just killing us.

Berge: Oh, I know.

Smith: And...uh...so in June I got a call, about a month to six weeks after we started from a newspaper broker named Bill Matthews in Florida. And he said, "I'm Bill Matthews in Clearwater, Florida." William Matthews. And, he said, "I have been engaged by Mrs. Byrne Evans to sell the News-Democrat." And, I said, "Yes." And, he said, "She instructed me...she gave me two instructions. One was to sell the paper. And, two, to make sure...that I...that I sold it... whatever I did I did not sell it to you." And I said, "So?" And he said, "So, I'm calling you." And I said, "So you're calling me. Why?" And, he said, "Because you're 47:00the logical buyer." And...uh...so I invited him to come up and visit me. And, he came to see me about a week later. And we engaged in a strong and spirited conversation and he persuaded me that of course I had to buy that paper. And, I agreed with him. And...uh... I then persuaded my stockholders we should do it. But, they weren't all unanimous. They thought we were doing well enough and the price scared 'em. They thought where are we going to get the money? But, Bob Kirkpatrick, under...my banker, understood it. And, we went back and forth. And, we managed...Matthews managed to make the deal, and we bought the paper for $115,000, some $35,000...

Berge: Did she know that you were buying it?

Smith: Yeah. Yeah. He talked her into it.

Berge: Well, you know, the truth of the matter is it didn't cost you all that much more because you'd a probably had to pay a hundred and fifty the year before.

Smith: Yeah, that's right. And, uh...so we bought it. And, I had...uh...maybe $25,000 left. So, we...it took all the money I had just to get the down payment 48:00together. And, then we set up, through his ingenuity, we set the payment up on a basis of fifteen years. And, now as I look back with amazement at six percent interest. Uh, you know you just don't have mortgages like that anymore.

Berge: No...no.

Smith: And...uh...Matthews taught me a lot about buying newspapers. He...uh...had owned a paper in...uh...Cookeville and never made any money as a publisher. It was only when he got out in the brokerage business he really...he really got smart. And, as he went along he got better at it. And, the next year he made nearly a million dollars brokering some big papers in Florida. And, he told me after...after our sale it was the hardest sale that he ever made in his life because there was so much animosity toward me from Mrs. Evans, and so much animosity toward her from some of my partners.

Berge: Did you ever have a rapprochement with her at all?

Smith: Never. When she sold the paper she wrote a farewell piece that said "farewell" and she packed up and left town and never came back. And...uh...about two years later her son retired, Colonel Byrne Evans, and moved back to...uh...uh Russellville...and...uh... I was...I was very worried about his coming back because I liked Byrne and I felt it was going to be awkward living in the same town with him. But, he displayed none of the animosity that his mother felt toward me. And, we resumed our friendship. See, he was one of the partners. It was a family partnership, and they'd taken me in and from their point of view I had betrayed them by going out and starting a business against them.

Berge: Yeah.

Smith: And...uh...Byrne and I stayed friends. He helped me some, and I helped him some. Uh... He was ailing. And...uh...his mother died first and I wrote a very strong story about her. In fact, I wrote a really strong editorial about 50:00what she had meant to the community when the papers were sold, but uh...uh...she...uh...uh...she never responded to it, and I guess just took it as my smoothing over a bad situation...a breach. But, when she died, I wrote a piece, that's probably one of the best things I ever wrote editorially about her and about the courage that she had displayed in maintaining the paper over those years, in establishing its independence. And, she did. The paper really was a rag of the Democratic Party until she inherited it. And...uh... she also removed it...she bragged about it...she had removed it from local politics. She had those alliances with Beauchamp and others in this town, but she never...she would not let the paper endorse people for city council or for magistrate, for 51:00these lower race...things. We always took a stand under her leadership and then later under mine in...in Congressional races, legislative races...uh...gubernatorial races, presidential elections...

Berge: But, not local.

Smith: ...but we just didn't do the local ones. And I have...

Berge: You think that is a good idea.

Smith: Yeah, I have. It seems a little inconsistent because I've also insisted that we do things on local referendums, and...uh...and...and...take a view and try to express ourselves on all kinds of tax issues. But, I feel that in a small town where there is only one newspaper, and were the people do indeed know each other. And, where two members of the...uh... bar let's say, live in the same neighborhood and their kids go to the same school, and the same class, and the same Sunday School, and they...uh...belong to the...to the one Rotary Club in town which has maybe twenty-five members. That to get out there and 52:00do...uh...uh...an analysis of the fitness of Joe to be...uh...the county attorney as against the fitness of Jim creates...uh...scars and traumas, that the realities are it creates...uh... emotional problems for those people and their perception of the paper and what the paper has done to them in the community that offset any kind of ...uh...value you might...the public might get from knowing that in the viewpoint of Al Smith, editor of the News-Democrat, Joe is better than Jim to be county attorney.

Berge: You kept both papers going, didn't you?

Smith: All right. We get the Leader. And, Matthews taught me that. That the way we were going...I said how are we going to pay for this? He was suddenly giving me a $135,000 worth of debt. And he said, "You're going to gen up the money. You're going to generate the money by running twin weeklies." He said, "Get out 53:00The News-Democrat one part of the week and the Logan Leader the other part of the week." Keep them separate. And, I did. And, inflation took off. And, I guess the paper was grossing about a hundred thousand dollars that year we bought it...1968. And, the Russellville News-Democrat and Logan Leader together will gross...uh...$400,000 in 19...uh...this year...19...uh...

Berge: '80.

Smith: '80. Uh...Uh... I guess at this point, I'm going to have to...

Berge: OK. OK.