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Interview with Leonard R. Hislope, March 11, 1991

1991-03-11 Interview with Leonard R. Hislope, March 11, 1991 Leg001:1991OH34 Leg 25 2:22:54 Kentucky Legislature Oral History Project Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries Kentucky. Kentucky -- Politics and government. Republican Party (U.S. : 1854- ) (U. S. : 1854- ) -- Kentucky. Kentucky. Governors (1955-1959 : Chandler) Kentucky. Governors (1959-1963 : Combs) Rural schools -- Kentucky Western Kentucky University Kentucky Historical Society Clements, Earle C. (Earle Chester), 1896-1985 Chandler, Happy, 1898-1991 Combs, Bert T., 1911-1991 one room schools campaigning Tobacco farms Term/District: House (1956-1966), 84th district, (1974), 83rd district Leadership Position(s): House Minority Floor Leader, 1960 -- Senate Minority Floor Leader, 1964 Counties in District: Pulaski County (Ky.) Leonard R. Hislope; interviewee Jeffrey Suchanek; interviewer 1991OH034_LEG025_Hislope 1:|18(3)|36(9)|56(3)|74(9)|102(2)|120(4)|136(10)|157(5)|184(3)|206(12)|225(7)|252(3)|273(9)|289(8)|309(5)|327(8)|368(5)|395(9)|429(10)|464(4)|489(2)|507(14)|542(3)|564(5)|591(8)|613(7)|650(7)|672(11)|693(10)|715(3)|728(3)|757(11)|787(7)|809(4)|837(10)|857(9)|870(8)|894(8)|923(1)|944(2)|971(1)|991(2)|1014(2)|1038(2)|1065(7)|1091(3)|1115(9)|1140(13)|1154(1)|1172(11)|1193(6)|1220(15)|1244(10)|1269(8)|1287(7)|1304(11)|1318(6)|1332(11)|1355(13)|1376(10)|1395(12)|1410(6)|1430(6)|1451(3)|1477(2)|1489(8)|1503(4)|1513(12)|1543(3)|1561(9)|1585(5)|1605(1)|1624(3)|1642(14)|1658(6)|1681(2)|1699(11)|1717(3)|1744(5)|1775(16)|1800(13)|1828(6)|1854(3)|1880(8)|1907(1)|1927(5)|1958(2)|1987(3)|2011(10)|2035(3)|2057(11)|2085(10)|2113(9)|2126(10)|2142(2)|2170(3)|2189(13)|2210(9)|2230(2)|2241(9)|2271(6)|2287(6)|2302(12)|2324(9)|2365(14)|2392(7)|2425(5)|2446(8)|2461(9)|2476(3)|2498(13)|2528(5)|2550(8)|2570(10)|2585(7)|2612(2)|2634(6)|2669(2)|2694(3)|2711(1)|2726(9)|2745(10)|2767(5)|2798(2)|2825(2)|2855(8)|2883(6)|2905(11)|2935(7)|2948(3)|2971(12)|2993(10)|3016(9)|3042(4)|3056(9)|3075(2)|3096(8)|3114(5)|3136(5)|3167(7)|3189(12)|3210(17) audiotrans Legit interview SUCHANEK: The following is an unrehearsed interview with former State Representative Leonard R. Hislope, who represented Pulaski County in what was the Eighty-Fourth District, and later in the Eighty-Third District, from 1956 to 1966 and then again in 1974. Mr. Hislope was selected Republican minority floor leader in the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1960. The interview was conducted by Jeffrey Suchanek for the University of Kentucky Library, Kentucky Legislature Oral History Project on March 11, 1991, at Mr. Hislope's home, at 107 Church Street in Somerset, Kentucky, at 1:15 PM. [Pause in recording.] SUCHANEK: Okay. Testing, testing. Testing, testing. [Pause in recording.] SUCHANEK: Testing, okay. This afternoon, I'm talking with Mr. Leonard Hislope. Um, I'd like to make a correction, uh, we're actually doing this interview inside the, uh, Citizens National Bank in downtown Somerset rather than at, uh, Mr. Hislope's home. Um, Mr. Hislope, can you tell your parents' names and what they did for a living? HISLOPE: Uh, yes, sir. My father's name was Russ Hislope and my mother's name was Stella Floyd before they married. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And, uh, he was a small town farmer. We lived by the side of a meandering little stream, and there was fields nearby, some was rolling and some was level, and there was woodlands. And so, uh, in a scenic sense it was a wonderful place to live. Wasn't much money to be made there, but there's a lot of happiness and a lot of love and a lot of plans, I guess, for the future made in that little valley. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: So, it was a wonderful place to live. That's twelve miles out of Somerset. Now, at that time, there were no paved roads whatsoever. No telephones, no radio. Of course, uh, no television. And we don't have a lot of things that we really didn't know existed. And I guess by some standards we were lacking many things, but we didn't know that, and we had plenty to eat. And we'd have plenty of room to do what we did and plenty of work to do. And so, that was a happy, real nice. [Pause in recording.] SUCHANEK: Okay. Do you remember your grandparents at all? HISLOPE: Oh, yes, I do. My grandfather's name was William Washington Warren Hislope. And he was sort of a philosopher in, in his own type of way. Uh, he would take the Cincinnati Enquirer or Cincinnati Post, if they had one back then, and he would sit under his big shade tree and laid back in a cane-bottomed chair and read the paper. And he never did find a word he couldn't pronounce. He pronounced them all. (Suchanek laughs) And so, uh, he was quite an interesting person. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: His wife's name was Sarah Jane Tartar(??). SUCHANEK: Now, where did they live? HISLOPE: They lived--oh, by the way they lived just up the hill past the graveyard where(??) my father lived. In fact, my grandfather and my father and all of my uncles and all of my cousins, and all of my direct relatives had land that was adjacent to each, each other, all the farms were adjacent. So, there was one part of land and it belonged to them. And it was referred to by many as "Hislopetown." And at one time the post office was named Hislope. So, they had a little-- SUCHANEK: ----------(??) HISLOPE: --well it was in the village, but it was a little area there in the sense that it all really belonged to them, to them only. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. How did they come upon that land? HISLOPE: Uh, my grandfather's father, uh, owned that land. and, uh, the, when he died my grandfather and my grandfather's brother, he left the land to those two people, and there was enough of it that it could be subdivided, and when I was a young man, they all had land-- SUCHANEK: --um-hm-- HISLOPE: --that came from their great grandfathers. So I believe that he came here from, uh, Tennessee and before that from South Carolina. And how he got a hold of the land, I, I don't know, but it was a pretty good track of land when he came, and he stayed with it as long as he lived, and most of our(??) people stayed with it as long as they lived. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And I left when I began to go to school, left for down(??) in the valley. SUCHANEK: Well, how far back do, in Kentucky, do your roots go? HISLOPE: Uh. SUCHANEK: Would that be mid-1800s? HISLOPE: Uh, yes, sir, it goes farther than that. Uh, my grandfather- -to, to prove it goes farther than that, my grandfather, he was, uh, around when the Civil War was going on. And so, uh, evidently he sympathized with the Union side because he had a piece of ----------- -(??) clothes that, a shred of it that he had put in his watch pocket. Go back to those days; they all wore Stetson hats, and gold watches. And they had a watch pocket in their overalls (Suchanek laughs). So he, he put this in his, uh, over-, overall's watch pocket. And he, uh, they called them Rebels, the Southern boys came by. And they said, "Mrs. Hislope," said, "We hungry," said, "we've got to have something to eat." And so she got everything she could find and cook them up a big meal. And they said if they knew of a person that had a shred of, a thread of -----------(??)----------- clothes in their possession, they would shoot his brains out right then. So, as soon as they left, my grandfather took that little piece of clothing out of his pocket, and he threw it in the fireplace fire. But to go back and his father lived there before him, and then on the other side of the family, there was another of our kinsmen that lived there before them. So I imagine it went back 1700 and something. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And, uh, I've been wanting to tell this, but, uh, my great- great-great-grandfather had a pretty high temper they said. And he has little bottoms of the meandering stream there and corn, and it was a exceedingly rich land. And there was a large storm came up and it blew it all down in one direction and just about ruined it. And, uh, he showed his temper up a little bit and he said, "I wish the Lord had just sent another one back the other way" (Suchanek laughs). And in less than half an hour, the winds came the other way and broke it all off. Then he didn't say anymore about it (Suchanek laughs). Then, uh-- SUCHANEK: --and I'm sure a legend was born. HISLOPE: He, this is a great-great-grandfather and his wife, uh, they both had high tempers and they made, made a covenant that they would never get mad at each other anymore. They got mad at each other one time and she took a single tree and just about downed it. And before that, a neighbor had come to the place to buy some tobacco and quite a, all the tobacco it was and gave my grandfather a dollar. And my grandmother, the dollar bill was somewhat used and folded and wrinkled and she put it under the iron to straighten it out. And, uh, the fellow started to leave, and she forgot, she, she took up the iron, and it wasn't there. And so she almost gave him a whipping(??). SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And, uh, he told her to look at the iron maybe it stuck to it, and she looked at it, and it was there, and she was very apologetic and they was good friends from then on. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, did your mom ever work outside the home? HISLOPE: Sir? SUCHANEK: Did your mother ever work outside the home? HISLOPE: Uh, hardly any at all. In case of what we now would call an emergency, if there was some crop that had to be saved, uh, she did maybe just a little. My brother and I did. Uh, now in the garden, she would always work in the garden. She didn't consider that work. Every morning she'd go out and she would look over the fence to see how her garden had grown the night before. So she enjoyed it and it was somewhat of a therapy to her. She enjoyed seeing things grow. So, other than the garden, she hardly done any work at all. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Now, when my grand-, when my father--back then if you had a new cultivator, you really had something. And that is the kind you rode. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: So my father would go through the field, and even though there was hardly any weeds, I would go through with him, and if I found a weed I'd cut it. And when he got back, my brother would take the round with him then. And, uh, while I was not going I would lie down under a sassafras bush and put my old straw hat over my face and just lay there and relax. And, again, they got back, I'd be almost a dozing and then it was about time to go again. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But it was pleasant. SUCHANEK: What crops did you, uh, your grandfather and father grow? HISLOPE: They grew a lot of corn. Uh, I, I was around and don't remember it well, but in World War II, in, in the World War I, corn went to almost five dollars a bushel. And they had quite a bit of corn, so they made some money on the corn then. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But ordinarily it was just subsistence living. You raised the corn and you raised some hay and you fed the mules or the horses and they then helped you do the work. A little later on, it was cattle came and raised cattle. And then when I was a real young boy they began to raise tobacco. And tobacco didn't bring much in those days. My father had a crop one time, and though(??), in this part of the country big crops of tobacco would be considered four, five thousand pounds, not like it is in the Bluegrass. So he had what we called a big crop. And he didn't get it all away that year and had to keep it over until next year. And after he sold it in Lexington he owed the warehouse the expense money. It was so cheap he, he, he done worse and had nothing on his tobacco (Suchanek laughs). He lost money. So it didn't bring hardly anything at all. So, those was the mainly the things that we raised on the farm. Of course, everybody had a milk cow. Everybody had chickens. Everybody had a garden. And, uh, nobody had any way much of preserving anything to eat except, well, say they had maybe a bottle of brine, of, uh, cabbage, a big kraut, fifty-, a fifty-gallon barrel. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And the salt for apples, a fifty-gallon barrel, and they had salt for pickles, fifty-gallon. And we didn't, but one of the neighbors would gather the corn, and put the corn in the fifty-gallon barrel of brine and leave the shuck off on the cob. We went to their house one day and, for lunch and, "Would you like to have some fresh corn?" It was wintertime around Christmas. And I didn't know what to think, but they took the corn out and shucked it and cooked it and it was just like it was out of the patch. SUCHANEK: Is that right? HISLOPE: Um-hm. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And my grandmother said, uh, that when she was a young girl that they took, the cows all gave milk in the summer. And in the wintertime there wasn't much feed and they wouldn't give any milk hardly. So, in the summer they'd make all the butter they could. And they would put this butter in a barrel of brine. Then when the cold weather came, and the cows had not much to eat, and there wasn't any butter, they'd take off one of those rolls of butter, and they'd eat the salt off of it, and they had fresh butter. So they had ample to eat, even though there wasn't, they improvised by way of preserving it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And in the garden, in the cabbage patch, they'd take the, uh, turning(??) plow and they'd go down with that, my father would go down by the side of a row of cabbage and turn out a furrow. Then one of us would take our foot and push the cabbage head down in the furrow, then he would come back on the other side and cover the cabbage head up, and the root of the cabbage would be sticking straight up. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Then in the wintertime, you'd go out and you could pull one of those up if the ground wasn't frozen, have fresh cabbage. Uh, or otherwise they'd dig a hole, put them in a hole, and put straw around them, and over the hole, and they'd done their potatoes and their cabbage and other root vegetables that way too. So, they always had some fresh vegetables. SUCHANEK: Hm. Did your mom can much? HISLOPE: Uh, yes, she did. She canned, uh, in our, we, our home was heated by an old-time fireplace. And, uh, built in next to the fireplace she called it her canning closet. And the many cans of various types of vegetables she had would be placed in that canning closet next to the jams of the fireplace. You couldn't tell it was there, about the same like this coffee compartment; it was there but nobody knew it but her. And it would be sufficiently warm that they'd never freeze. And other root vegetables that, uh, we'd bring it, they'd put them upstairs on the floor, the upstairs was not, uh, finished for use other than storage, they put them close to the fireplace and cover them up, and they would be preserved all winter. We wanted to keep them up there. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Well, what kind of house did you live in? Was it a brick house or a frame house? HISLOPE: On the first, we lived in, I guess, what would've been the finest home in our whole community. We had a house that was built by my great-grandfather. It was built by enormous poplar logs that was hewed by hand. They'd be as much as eighteen-inches wide. As the house was in a T-shape, it had three fireplaces. It had, uh, on the inside, it had cherry-based floors and cherry stairways. And it was a magnificent thing. All kinds of room. Uh, then they came along with sawed lumber. And this house was my grandfather's and then later been ours, and because they had sawed lumbers they thought that looked nice. They tore the house down. SUCHANEK: Hm. HISLOPE: And they built a house out of what they called sawn lumber. And that winter my grandfather took pneumonia and died because it wasn't as warm as the old house they thought. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And so it was a fine home, and then after that, my father built a house. And he cut the timber himself, or with the help of me or grandfather. And he took the logs on a wagon and hauled them four miles to Nancy, a little village not so far, four miles away. And they sawed it into lumber. And then he went and hauled them four miles back home and let them season. They weren't kiln dried but they were seasoned in the sun. And then he got an excellent carpenter, and with the excellent carpenter's help, they built a, a pretty nice home, and that was the home that I lived in as I grew up. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. How many rooms were in that home? HISLOPE: Oh, there was a, a living room and a kitchen and three bedrooms. And there wasn't bath; hardly anybody had a bathroom back then. SUCHANEK: Indoor plumbing, you mean? HISLOPE: Uh, no sir, there was no indoor plumbing. And then later on, some of us went to a place where they had, uh, some indoor plumbing, and we was said, well, that place over there has got a outhouse on the inside of the house. And some old timer said, "I wouldn't want to live in a place like that." (both laugh) But that was quite a few years ago, and, of course, in that area now there's fine homes, and the farms are well taken care of, and some of the finest cattle in the state, and some of the finest tobacco field. And homes just as modern and just as fine and just as good and just as affluent-looking as anywhere you'd find in, in cities or even in big cities. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: It's changed a lot. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Technology, as we mentioned a while ago, meant an awful lot to farming. SUCHANEK: Sure. Now, you just had one brother, is that it? HISLOPE: No, I had three brothers. SUCHANEK: Three brothers. HISLOPE: Yeah. My younger brother died, uh, when he was a little more than four, and the other brother I have is still living. I was the older one of the family. SUCHANEK: What are their names? HISLOPE: Uh, my brother was named Herman who was next to me, and my younger brother was named John. SUCHANEK: No sisters? HISLOPE: Yes, three sisters. SUCHANEK: Okay. So you had a large family? HISLOPE: Uh, yes, it's a large family, and most people at that time did have a large family. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: There was always something for us to do. There was one job that I hated worst than anything else was when I'd come in from school, grade school, was, uh, sort of cutting corn or setting up fodder. When sort of the fodder was real dry and it was windy, you know, take the corn on the cornstalks to dry, you put them in a shock, and you tie them together. And it's very difficult work because it's was windy weather. And there was --------(??), sting and bug, you know, gets on you. Gets(??) pretty bad. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, do you have any children? HISLOPE: No, I don't have any children. SUCHANEK: Okay. HISLOPE: By the way, we went to school about, uh, I went to school, to the same school that my grandfather went to. SUCHANEK: Which school was that? HISLOPE: Uh, it was called Pole Bridge, because in the old days there was a stream that crossed the road there and, uh, the old timers took poles and put across that stream and then put, uh, base poles under them on each side and made a little place you could get over the stream, and they called it Pole Bridge. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Then when the school was built there they called it Pole Bridge. It was, uh, a log structure, but, uh, it was veneered over with fine poplar lumbar and it was a pretty nice building after they remodeled it. SUCHANEK: Just a one-room schoolhouse? HISLOPE: No, it was a two-room school. We had quite a school, two rooms. (Suchanek laughs) Most places had only a one-room school. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: I taught at that same school later. SUCHANEK: Oh, did you? HISLOPE: Yes, I did. SUCHANEK: Did it have central heat or-- HISLOPE: --no, we had a big, uh, had a stove that was as tall as I am, it had a fire ----------(??), and then up at the top it'd be a large area for the heat, to radiate heat. And it was, I don't know what you call it, but we burned mostly, we burned coal in it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: They'd have a contract; the coalfields were not very far away from here. And so there, there'd be some coal brought in, and we burned coal to heat it. It would make the room warm but we had to take care of it. There was no janitor, we done it all, and sweep the floors and build the fires, and keep everything going. SUCHANEK: Was there-- HISLOPE: --and by the way, that little school was, uh, I've studied many times about it, there was some of the best farmers that came from there, and one of the, one of the girls made a missionary and spent her life in India. Uh, two of the other boys made doctors. And we just tried to count up one time the people that went to that little one or two-room school. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: The large percentage of them became prosperous or well-to-do citizens in the sense of contributing something to society. And some became well-to-do money wise. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: So they, they had some nice graduates. It turned out, I imagine just about as good as anywhere schools with all the modern conveniences for us today. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But, as I say(??), they had books in arithmetic then that collage students couldn't work today. They raised mathematics as quite complicated mathematics. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Were there desks for the students in the school? HISLOPE: Sir? SUCHANEK: Were there, did they have individual desks for the students? HISLOPE: Yes, there were individual desks. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But, uh, something that's hard to realize today that they would've had, they had one water bucket. And we were supposed to have each one an individual drinking glass. But there was one water bucket to, to furnish water for all the school. And where we got the water, we went diagonally across the neighbor's field to what was called a boiling spring. Do you know what a boiling spring is? SUCHANEK: Unh-uh. HISLOPE: Well, there's, the water was under the ground and the pressure in the earth was just right where the, there was an outlet for the water to come out of the ground. It came up just like water boiling in a tea kettle. SUCHANEK: Hm. HISLOPE: Just like it's under great pressure. And they, uh, also had a piece of wood around that spring and some of them called them gum springs. They'd take a gum tree that was hollow and place it down in the ground and then it would last almost indefinitely and that wet place, it was wet all the time. Then this water would come just boiling up through there. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And so they carried their water. And everybody wanted to go to get water and they'd go to get water to get out of the schoolhouse. (Suchanek laughs) Had a lot of volunteers wanting to go to the spring. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. How many students, uh, would you teach at one time? HISLOPE: Uh, I would say in the small room there were about thirty students, and in the large room there were at least that many or more, maybe thirty-five. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Of course, you'd have one grade and then you'd have the other grade and then you'd have another grade. And I taught, later I taught on what was called Tick Bridge, which is close to Wolf Creek, uh, close to Russell County. Had all, uh, eight grades. Of course, we'd have one grade every other year approximately. And some of those children done amazingly well. There was one old timer lived down there by the name of Wilson. He had a little boy and I know the boy now, and I put him in the fourth grade the first year in math. SUCHANEK: Is that right? HISLOPE: Yeah, he just could take it just like that. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And a pleasant thing about it, in a place you've always lived, some of the people I went to school with and some of the people I taught, I still see them and I still know them. And we know each other. And later on when I taught in high school as many of those students that I know today and just see them all the time and it's pretty nice. You get a lot out of it. SUCHANEK: It must be a similar situation that I found in Mayfield where Lon Carter Barton lives. HISLOPE: I would imagine so. SUCHANEK: Everybody it seems he meets on the street they know him cause, cause he's either taught them-- HISLOPE:--yes-- SUCHANEK: --in school or, you know, he's grown up there. And, and, uh, Lon is kind of like the, um, um, almost like Mr. Chips-- HISLOPE: --yeah-- SUCHANEK: --from the movie Mr. Chips. HISLOPE: Well, uh, uh, there's a lot more people who knew me here than I do now. Uh, Irvine Nichols who used to be with the, uh, Kentucky Tuberculosis Association, uh, was down here some years ago, and when I was some younger I associated with the young people more. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And we'd go up to the high school and in fact they would holler at me across the street. He says, "How in the world can everybody know one man?" Well, I said, "You live with them. You've gone to school with them. You taught some of them, and everybody just knows each other." And it's amazing, uh, if somebody comes in new into this county, they could spend half a lifetime and never know who's who. But if you've always lived here, you know who their cousins are, who their parents were, and you just begin to almost know everybody in the county, except the new ones that's moved in lately. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But Lon has a good personality. He, he'd get along with everybody. I bet, I bet he gets a kick out of it too. SUCHANEK: (laughs) Yeah, he does. Now, when you were growing up and you had three, in that three-bedroom house, did you have a bedroom all to yourself or did you share it? HISLOPE: I slept with my brother, my brother that's, uh, next to me in age until the time that I went to college. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. And the sisters had one bedroom then? HISLOPE: Sir? SUCHANEK: All three sisters slept in one bedroom? HISLOPE: No, they had, uh, they had two. They had divided up two. SUCHANEK: Okay. HISLOPE: Then when we'd, when they'd have some company, they improvised and put a bed upstairs. (laughs). SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Do you remember what holidays were like around your house and in Somerset? HISLOPE: Uh, I don't remember so much about the holidays, but I remember Sunday. Every Sunday to us was holidays. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And we were so glad for Sunday to come. If it, if we were busy with the crops, well, we wasn't anathema to work but we worked and we enjoyed it, but knowing the times were to come that we'd be off a day and we get to go to Sunday school or we'd get to go to somewhere else. And we always looked forward to it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But, of course, when the holiday did come, we took advantage of it. One of the, uh, big days was, uh, they called it the Thirtieth of May; uh, now, some of them called it the Declaration Day, they'd all go to National Cemetery, you know. SUCHANEK: Oh, yeah(??). HISLOPE: And they went when I was, when I was young, they'd be there literally by the thousands. And there were concession stands all along the highways. And, and hearing my wife talk about it, her grandfather, when she was a young girl, they went to what they called the Thirtieth or the Declaration Day. And it was still that way when, uh, I was a young man. I was invited to address the, uh, to make the address at the, what they call the Thirtieth of May. And well in fact I was invited three times, and I reckon I was the only non-veteran that ever made it. Now, the first time I made a talk out there, there were thousands of people. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And then later on over the years the last time, there wasn't nearly as many people. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But they took that seriously, that Declaration Day, that was to go to honor the soldiers and just about everybody went. And, of course, in the old days they went in wagons. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Now, when it came to, uh, somebody's birthday, like Lincoln's birthday or Washington's birthday, it was just any, that was just another day. We didn't, didn't pay much attention to it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Now today you hear about it on the radio and see something in the newspaper about it, but we didn't have any radio or newspaper. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And that was just another day. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. How about holidays like Christmas and-- HISLOPE: --oh, that was a great time. On, uh, Christmas Day we all went to my grandfather's house. That is all his side of the family, all of his children and their children. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And some grandchildren. And they would have a whole ham that they would boil, my grandmother. Every type and kind of pie, every type and kind of jelly, all kind of pastries, and I don't know, uh, I imagine it would take, uh, quite a bit money to buy all the food that was consumed there that day. They had a long table. But they had to serve three different tables full. And I think the women folk then they ate with themselves after everybody else was served. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Then the second day they came to my father's house. Then the, the day after that to one of my uncles, and the day after that to another uncle, and then the New Years came, they went to my other uncle's, so they had a week of fasting. SUCHANEK: I was just, right. HISLOPE: And there were a lot of food. And a lot of work. I wouldn't have gone through that if I'd had to --------(??)--(both laugh) But they all enjoyed it and they seemed oblivious to their going in and going out, and the youngsters, and they seemed to have a good time too. SUCHANEK: Yeah. You mentioned earlier that, um, after a while cattle came into prominence here in Pulaski County, uh, about when that, when would that have been? HISLOPE: I would say cattle didn't play too much of a role in our economy until, uh, uh, possibly 1929, along there they began to raise some cattle. And before that, they had began to have some sheep, but the cattle, they just kept going with the cattle. And the cattle served two purposes. Uh, they had some land that was, uh, hadn't been cleared up too long, some rough land, and the cattle would clean it off. And then they began to realize there was money in the raising of cattle to sell for beef. And some of the farmers, for lack(??) of funds, they would begin to build up their own herds. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Others would buy outright and they kept on until now we are ranked up at, at the top of, uh, beef cattle in the state. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And some, there're quite a few dairies too. Tremendous amount of work there but they, they done all right with it. And they had quite a few dairies that began to come in, I guess, maybe in the thirties. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Well, when did you move into town? HISLOPE: Never did move--well, back then, I never did move into town. When I got ready for high school, I reckon not many people went to high school where I lived. There wasn't any high school around. And, uh, some of the parents didn't realize the importance of going to high school, or maybe some of them did and couldn't send them. And I told Dad and Mom I was going to school. I said, "There's not anything in the world that would keep me from going to school." Well, they wanted me to go too. So, when it come time to go to high school I had to come here to Somerset. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And that was twelve miles and it was a dirt road or a gravel road. And so, uh, my dad came out of town, or my father rather and there was a Sampson Board House, Boarding House on South Main Street. It's just one block from the courthouse, and that was the most sumptuous food I've ever known anywhere, anyplace. Uh, the circuit judge and the judges and the lawyers and everybody would eat there at noontime. They had everything to eat. So he lodged me there. I came in on, I came in on a horse on, uh, Monday morning with a saddle bucket, with the saddlebags and my clean shirts in the saddlebag. And, uh, came in on the horse and lodged at the Sampson Boarding House until Friday afternoon. Well, a little bit later in the spring, the farmers were all busy on the farm. Well, we got out of high school at 3:15 and that was a day before night to date, long time before sundown and I said to my dad, I said, "There wouldn't be no need to coming after me." I said, "I'll come on home myself." So I walked from Somerset home, twelve miles, just about every Friday afternoon. And I kept it up, and one time there was a big snow came, the largest snow of the winter, eighteen inches. I should've known better. And well, I decided I, I'm going home. Well, four miles to Oak Hill the road was broken. And the eight, the rest of the eight miles nobody had been there at all. And I walked through that snow, eighteen inches home. And when I got to the home my father was just rejoiced. He said, "If you had sat down on Fishing Creek Hill, you would've went to sleep and froze to death." But I didn't know any better. I should have. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But I walked it and made it. And I never will forget when our first week that I went to high school, and I, when I came home that Friday, Friday that night, mom had a big pot full of chicken. They was so glad to see me come home. They'd been without me one week. And I was just so glad to be there as they were to see me. And that was the way we started the high school. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And-- SUCHANEK: --how much-- HISLOPE: --did that for four years. SUCHANEK: How much would that have cost your dad to put you up at the boarding house? HISLOPE: It didn't cost much; it was a dollar a day. And some, well, let's see, I stayed on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and for noon on Friday, and so it was just a dollar a day. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And he told me, he said, "If you have to have anything," says, uh, "you got my permission to write a check." And the biggest deal I ever wrote a check for was, T.V(??) ------------(??) had a clothing store, he had good clothes. And he had a suit for that was on sale. And it was just fifteen dollars. And it was such a bargain I bought that suit and I wore it for many years and I wrote a check for it. But I'd go one, sometimes I'd go a week with a quarter in my pocket; I didn't spend any money. I knew we didn't have to spend, so I didn't drink a Coca-Cola or ice cream and anything(??) like that, I didn't need it. I had plenty to eat down at the house. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And so I didn't spend no money. So, it didn't cost much but a little was hard to get then. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: There's just, there was no money circulating. SUCHANEK: Well now, you said, uh, the county judge and lawyers would, would eat their noonday meal at the boarding house-- HISLOPE: --yeah, and on Sunday too. SUCHANEK: And so you got to, uh, uh, listen to their conversations-- HISLOPE: --yes, I got to follow-- SUCHANEK: --of politics and-- HISLOPE: --the Circuit Judge Sam Duskin(??) and Judge Tartar who was an uncle of John Cooper, and I knew the leadership right from the beginning. And that was, sort of helped me because I looked up to them and thought that they were, they, they were people I kind of liked to be, and I said to my dad and mom, I said, "I'm going to school, I want to try to, I want to try to do something, that(??) A lot of kids around here that's got done." And so I encouraged my own self, and they wanted me to too, and so it all just turned out that way. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Then when it come to, uh, time to go to college, uh, that depression just hit. There wasn't anybody anywhere. And Dad said, "I'll tell you what we'll do." Says, "This field here," said, "we'll put that up with corn and when it's harvested you can have what it brings and it gets you started off to college." And I said, "All right." Well, that field of corn, it was just seven acres but it was good level land. And that corn only brought thirty-three cents a bushel. SUCHANEK: Wow(??). HISLOPE: And I bought, bought me a new suit out of it. And, uh, went over to Bowling Green. And, uh, we, we went on a train; it was some cousins of mine went, and we stopped Lebanon and Junction, and there wasn't supposed to stop for us. And the conductor says, and he says, "Now," said, "I cannot stop this train." he said, "I'm gonna slow it down until it just crawls like a worm," and says, "You all board on it while we're going that way." Said, "------------(??) And stop." I never will forget. So, we got on that train, and that's the first time I ever rode a train-- SUCHANEK: --is that right-- HISLOPE: --was when I went to college. SUCHANEK: Hm. HISLOPE: And there wasn't much transportation back so I stayed over there, uh, a semester without even coming home. And for a young boy who hadn't been away from home that's pretty hard to do. SUCHANEK: And you were by yourself? HISLOPE: Well, in a way, I had a, uh, there's a couple of girls that were cousins of mine. They were over there from home. And, uh, a boy from Nancy and then another boy that went to school with me up(??) at Pole Ridge we talked about. So there were four or five, six people that was over there from my community and that helped a lot. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Did your dad own an automobile? HISLOPE: No, Dad, Dad never did own an automobile. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And not, not, not hardly anyone down there, uh, owned an automobile at that time. SUCHANEK: Do you recall who some of your neighbors were when you were growing up? HISLOPE: Uh, yes, I, I knew all of the, the neighbors. Uh, we had one by the name of Cleo Critch Mahonick(??), that was his surnames and his name was Hudson. And he belonged to the old timer class of people. Uh, he had a farm and he would work the farm but long before sundown when other farmers was working, he would get out in the front yard and take half a bushel, a half a bushel, a pail, and wash his feet. He sat out there and wait for his wife to get supper. He'd go to bed at dark. (laughs) And, uh, would get fairly early the next morning. And, uh, most of the people lived about like, uh, we did in our family. They were all good people and anything that anybody ran out of, they could borrow it from somebody else. They were all honest. And there wasn't a thief in the neighborhood. Uh, the smokehouse, you know what a smokehouse is where you keep that meat. Uh, we always had, uh, hog meat, as we called it. And there never was a lock on that door. And there never was a lock on the place where we lived. Nobody locked their doors. And they were just all good, hardworking, honest neighbors. And everybody tended to their own business. Most of them went to church on Sunday. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And they were just, uh, honest down-to-goodness, hardworking, good people. SUCHANEK: Would church have been like the big social activity that they would've, uh, done together, or did they go to dances, uh? HISLOPE: I never knew of anybody going to a dance, except, uh, later on some of the younger generation that begin to have cars, we would hear them say we go to dances. Now, I asked my grandmother, I said, "Grandma," I says, "Did young boys and girls kiss each other back when you was a young girl?" "Well," she says, "Leonard," she says, "A few of them did but everybody knew who, who they were." (Suchanek laughs) So, uh, it was more or less an austere life; there wasn't, the only place there was to go to was to church or some function of the local school, whether there be it a one- or two-room school, uh, there'd be what they call a pie supper. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And the girls would, uh, bake pies and anybody would, uh, buy those pies that wanted to. Now, in some places, not nearby, there would be some old-time square dances they called it, but I, I never did see one of those. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: I never did, uh, want to go to and they just wasn't any worth to go. Another person-- SUCHANEK: --your parents didn't go to those either? HISLOPE: Sir? SUCHANEK: Those, your parents didn't go to the square dances either? HISLOPE: No, they, in fact, they were not any close enough. And, uh, another place that a lot of the young people went was revival meetings. If a church was four miles away, uh, there'd been a lot of what they call "the foreigners come," people four, four miles away come to, the young people, you know. And the young boys and the, uh, the boys from across the creek four miles away began to come over and go over to some of the local girl friends, some of the local boys objected to those foreigners come over here, they're going with our girls over here. And they had a few fights occasionally but not many. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: About the only way most of us had to getting over to this, uh, revival meeting, if it were four or five miles away, we'd ride a horse or even a mule; that's the only way we had to go. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Very few of them had cars, very few. But they did go to those revival meetings, and especially the local ones that the churches would be so full that, uh, there'd be as many people on the outside as there were on the inside of the church. And, of course, another thing they always went to was funerals. You would think that everybody died was a friend to everybody else, cause everybody went to his funeral. And it was just a custom and they, they went to the funerals. SUCHANEK: Just time to get together. HISLOPE: Yeah. That feeling, that gregarious instinct I guess, to get together, something it does to people, and now they had a way, they, they got together. And there's another, uh, get-together with the women folk, it wasn't so, I didn't know so much about it in my time, but some places they did, and before, especially before I came along, was quilting parties. They'd be together and, uh, they took a great pride in making quilts. And so some of the antique quilts that you'd see on the market today were made, quite a few years ago. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And some of the stitches was just the tiniest fraction. Well, just as close as it could be without going through the same stitch, you know. And it's gotten worth quite a bit of money today. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: I still have some of my grandma's quilts came about. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: They made them at quilting parties, and, of course, they made them at home too. And then, uh, uh, later on was a few places they called parks. and it, some church would have a celebration or somebody would have a reunion, that's where a lot of other people went when it would be a family re-, reunion. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And then when there was a family reunion, and most of them had an awful lot of kinfolks because everybody went over, whether they were related to him or not. (Suchanek laughs) So they, one of the great sports then was horseshoe. We had a country store nearby where I lived, and the people that would operate that store had become wealthy. Back in the old days they didn't take time to go to Somerset or Burnside or Nancy; uh, they got what they got at the country store, even buy shoes. And some real clothing. And so many traded at the store that the merchant got wealthy, and on Saturday afternoon, when they laid down their emblems of labor, they'd go to this country store to loaf or just to see who'd be there and they'd play horseshoe. And then, of course, the man that made the most ringers he was quite renowned as one of the best horseshoe players around. They'd also have shooting matches-- SUCHANEK: --um-hm-- HISLOPE: --turkey shoots and things like that. They had a way to keep, uh, reasonably busy. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Do you remember the name of the family that owned that store? HISLOPE: Yes, uh, Charlie Brown used to live where Somerset. Uh, he owned it for a long time. And he had a brother, they called him Tanker Brown. One day Charlie took off his hat, said, "Do you see this hat here?" And one of the old timers said, "Yes, that's a John B. Stetson, cost me fifty dollars." And Tanker Brown lived in town. And Tanker had a car. And when Tanker would come down to Charlie Brown who owned the store, Tanker would drive that car as fast as he could on that road and that road was dusty. He'd cover everything from Nancy all down to that country with yellow dust. He wanted people to know he had a car, I reckon, and so he just stirred up that dust something terrible. Then a little later than that one of the river-bottom farmers, before the lake went in, he's a man who had some money, some substance. And after Brown got old enough to move away, he bought the store. It always had a post office there, so that meant some extra income. So, he, he ran the store for a time too. And the store is still in existence. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But only a shadow of what it used to be. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And some of the best leaders(??) we had in this county were, uh, years and years ago country store owners. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And the, the store originated as a matter of necessity; they didn't, had no other place to go to get anything, you might say, unless they go long, long ways. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. I have to turn this over. [Pause in recording.] SUCHANEK: Okay. Talking about this country store, if you stood in the doorway and looked inside, what would you see? HISLOPE: In the wintertime, you'd see quite a few people sitting around that, uh, stove. On a Saturday, you'd look in there and you'd see, uh, a beam of activity. There'd be as many as seven people working on Saturday. They had shoes, just everything. And you'd just see people, there's a counter on the left and a counter on the right, and then there was a stairway at the rear, and then there was a balcony all around in the, in the second story. And there'd be people up there trading and there'd just be a lot of busy people. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: There'd be as busy in there as they are in some of the town stores today. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: That is, in the old days. SUCHANEK: Would it be cracker barrels or pickle barrels or-- HISLOPE: --they had cracker barrels and they had, uh, I believe they had a pickle barrel. They didn't have an awful lot of canned food, they had some, but they always had a lot of crackers. Had a cracker barrel. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And another thing they had was cheese. And candy. I remember one time my father and I was up there, I believe it was around Christmas. And this fellow there with his wagon and team, as we call it. And there's a little boy sitting on the spring seat. And his father had got him a little bag of candy, and he took a hold of that, he ended up that bag was holding it so tight, and somewhere or something had happened that frightened the mules, horses. And they lunged forward and this little boy just went backwards, turned a summersault out of that seat, and rolled over on the ground. He got up, twisted his shoulder, but he still had that sack in his hand; he never did turn it loose. (Suchanek laughs) The boy(??) held on to his candy. And where our store was is a place where they voted, had a voting house there. That brought in a lot of people all day long, and that enhanced the business of the store. Store about, the store man(??) just sell about everything, and he bought one of kernel's(??) and he bought, uh, different kind of hides, furs. And so he was just a, a merchant in general all the way around. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Even bought eggs, some people wouldn't eat their eggs because they saved them to buy sugar and salt with. SUCHANEK: I see, so they would trade-- HISLOPE: --yeah-- SUCHANEK: --for things they needed? HISLOPE: Yeah. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. What would the store smell like? HISLOPE: Well, uh, in the wintertime you could open that door and all you could smell was them big red apples. Oh, they certainly did smell. Uh, at that time you didn't find any apples hardly anywhere except in the store. And it would smell like apples and further, all the time it would smell like coffee. There were people who get their coffee ground. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And when you ground that coffee it smelled real good. So, tobacco and coffee and then sometimes it would smell like shoe leather. They had harness for sale, and you could smell, smell the harness where it had been processing, smell the shoes. So those three odors, I guess, was about the most prominent(??) ones I remember. SUCHANEK: That's real good. I wouldn't have thought of the apples. HISLOPE: Yeah, oh, them apples, oh, they smelled! See, we have apples every day but if you ever do, don't have an apple, and go into a place where apples are, they really have a very pungent, pleasant odor. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, you went to, stayed at the boarding school here in Somerset, what did you do in the evenings? HISLOPE: Well, not a boarding school, I, I-- SUCHANEK: --I mean the boarding house-- HISLOPE: --the boarding house. Well, there was some, uh, railroaders that stayed at this place. And then there were other people like me. The, the leading salesman of the Chevrolet garage, he stayed there, and there's other local people around town. There was always somebody to talk to. And they had some swings on the front, upstairs and down. And there was just always somebody you could stop and chat with or they'd stop and chat with you. And that was about all I did was talk to somebody, but then study my lesson a little bit. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And I didn't stay up too late. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And that's about all I had to do. SUCHANEK: What would you talk about? HISLOPE: Uh, well, they would talk about what they'd done that way or what happened that, that, that day. And I don't remember any what I would talk about, I was learning, but I was in a sense out in the world with different kind of people. And, uh, I was learning different things that goes, went on. I always thought that was interesting, those railroad people. I'd never been used to the railroad people. I remember there was one fellow there, his name was, uh, Frank Hay, uh, Bob Hayes(??). And Bob was getting up in years a bit and Bob was a peaceful old gentleman. And every night he would take him a drink or something, and I found out it was alcohol. And he took that drink so it would lull him down to sleep. And so he'd take that drink of alcohol and he'd get go to sleep. And then one of our most prominent high school teachers, he, he stayed there too. So, uh, many times he and I would get together and talk some. Uh, I, I never did go out on any of the social life. Um, had a few girlfriends but never did go anywhere. And, uh, a large building just about a block and a half down the street was the Beecher Hotel. It was the finest hotel then between, uh, I believe, Cincinnati and Chattanooga, a very modern, beautiful building, well equipped. And I remember, uh, this teacher that stayed there, uh, he had a girlfriend by the name of Marie, Marie Coleman, and I thought she was a beautiful woman, and she was. Now, they had a dance there at the Beecher Hotel. So, I'd go over and stand around over there and watch them dance. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: So I thought that was really something. But other than that, I had a, I had a good life but it wasn't a very exciting one when, when I was going to high school. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Who were some of your teachers? HISLOPE: Well, Glenn Gover(??) and there's a Mr. Gapp(??), he lives in Lexington now. And the last reunion we had was about five years ago, he was down. And there was Purdome(??), from, uh, Lanc-, from Lancaster, he was the principal. And Lon Allen(??) was my teacher, he's a very fine fellow, broad-boned, tall, common sort of a man, still living, very nice man. And, uh, I had a Mrs. Gentry(??) that taught English and taught Latin. And, uh, that's just a few. I might think more as time went on. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But most of them are, most of them are gone. SUCHANEK: Did you have a favorite subject in school? HISLOPE: Well, I, I wasn't too good at it but I. I liked literature, I liked literature very much, and the English part of it. And, uh, I guess that was about as, my favorite. I liked history to some extent. I liked history more in books other than history books. And the history book I didn't like it as well as the history I found in, in relationship to other things. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Did you participate in, uh, any extracurricular activities? HISLOPE: After all, the one I participated in was the debating club. And we, we enjoyed it very much. I took a pretty good hand in it, and my side happened to win, and I was pretty happy about that. We got some medals on it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. How long did you that? HISLOPE: I guess about two years. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: I think we have, I believe I belonged to some debating clubs when I went to college too. I always, uh, liked to talk to people. When I was thirteen years old, I was a Sunday school teacher in the church I went to. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And I, I like to talk to people. SUCHANEK: Which church did you go to? HISLOPE: I went to a Nazarene church, which was, I guess, about the closest it was to our home, and then I'd teach a class down at the First Methodist church here. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: I like to try to do things with people when I would talk. Uh, uh, if I could be before a group of people and I could see that I was feeding into what they was, if they was responding to me, that made me feel like, I guess, a great singer. I always wished I were to able to sing and I wasn't. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And I thought if I get before a crowd and I could sing, then I could, uh, cause people to be in my command with the way I could sing, I'd be one of the most happy people in the world. Well, to some extent, I tried to do that when I would speak to people. I know at one time when I talked at this national cemetery, uh, I didn't, I didn't try to make things too sad, but there was a lot of people crying. And- -(laughs)--well, that impressed me to look out there and see the tears coming down people's eyes. And then in a little while see smiles come on their faces, you know, it just kind of does something to you. You enjoy it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: So I always liked to talk to people. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Well, that obviously had something to do with your speaking style, and the fact that you were eventually called the "Orator of the House of Representatives" in the Kentucky legislature. HISLOPE: Uh, that, that House of Representatives thing was, I, I enjoyed that. I, I guess, uh, well, I guess I enjoyed the first, but, you know, you know, we're gonna talk about that now-- SUCHANEK: --right. HISLOPE: I guess I enjoyed some of that the most I ever enjoyed anything in, in my life. Uh, when I first went, Happy was elected governor the second time. SUCHANEK: Right. HISLOPE: I believe that that as a whole was one of the happiest bunch of people I ever saw. As we had say, he come riding in on that big white horse, and everything was just lovely. And there was more, there was more people than I ever saw in any one place. Uh, maybe they were too many, but maybe there weren't too many, but there was an awful lot of people there. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And all of them, they was all happy. (laughs) And so it was just a wonderful place. But while we're talking about it, uh, the eleventh day of the first session, I served, I believe I mentioned to you--(laughs)--uh, the Courier-Journal referred to me as a Democrat. Well, that was all right, but I just thinking, being younger and inexperienced, I thought, I want to set that record straight on that. And I got up and I set it straight, and the House wasn't supposed to do it, but they cheered the House down when I got through. (laughs) But we, we enjoyed it very much. (both laugh) Enjoyed it very(??) I believe that it will take about a minute to read those remarks if I got it here. Do you want me to see if that's it? SUCHANEK: Sure. HISLOPE: It's supposed to, supposed to be here. [Pause in recording.] HISLOPE: --"that he's no Democrat," and this is the one that was published everywhere where you UP had, uh, outlets. And the Paducah Sun-Democrat had it on the first page next morning. Well, you know, the Paducah Sun-Democrat, I imagine, is the strongest Democrat paper in the state of Kentucky, even stronger than, than the Courier- Journal used to be. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And so I, uh, I wanted to say something, but the proceedings of the House were in session. And you can't just get up and say something. And I didn't know how to get up. And I whispered to one who had a lot more experience than I had. And they said the only way in the world you could get on that floor is to be aggrieved. Well, I says, "How do I do that?" (both laugh) Well, he got word, he got word to the speaker that I was gonna be aggrieved, and when I stood up, he says, "What does the gentleman from Pulaski, why does the gentleman from Pulaski arise?" And I said--"Have you been aggrieved?" I said, "Sorely(??) aggrieved, Mr. Speaker." And so I, I began then. Uh, there's some more comments the newspaper made, but here is how I began: "A publication from this chamber has involved my pride, dignity, and my sacred, sacred honor. I refer to Section One, Page 18, Column 8, Paragraph 1, Line 3, which refers to this speaker as a Democrat. Now, with all the emphasis in my command, I wish to assert that that statement is not so. With Democrats I have slept, supped from the same cup, warmed my shins by the same fire, walked through the same shady groves, and went them I've taken repo-"--no--"and with them I've taken repose in the same shady groves, and at times like the doctor, the jackass, and the elephant I was well in peace together. I've been classified, declassified, and I've been called many names." (Suchanek laughs) "But this is the first time I was ever placed in the same species and nomenclature as a Democrat. I don't regret it so much now because I've set the record straight, but what solely aggrieves me is when much time has passed and speechless sleep is kissed down the eyelid still and this august body is no more that future generations might by chance turn to the dusty, faded pages of the Courier-Journal and find the line that Hislope is a Democrat." (Suchanek laughs) Well, the House went wild. (both laugh) Then I became acquainted with everybody. Uh, there're some who I called the "big boys" in Lexington, you know, there was an industrialist, and there was lobbyist, and there was a politician. And then I noticed when I would go to the, uh, cafeteria they'd always speak to me. Well, it was because of that little speech. So that little speech helped me a lot. And some of the closest Democrat friends I had, uh, they reveled at it as much as I did. And we had one from Louisville, they called Dumps Miller, I, I don't know whether Dumps is a living now or not, but Dumps was a jolly soul, and sometimes he'd come up with his head a little sideways with a smile, and he says, "You know what Isaiah 14:6 says?" And I made on like I knew. And he just all the time was jolly and going on. And he took everything real, real good. And when I made that little speech on Goebel's statue, boy, he thought that was really it. And so, we had a good time, was always good. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Harry King Lowman was a wonderful speaker. SUCHANEK: Well, how did you learn about how government worked? Had, had you had a civics course or a government course either in college or-- HISLOPE: --you know, everybody has-- SUCHANEK: --high school-- HISLOPE: --a little bit in their schooling of what, of how government works. But I'll say this, and I don't mean to criticize the school system: the thing that I knew about how the state government really works was practically nil until I went to Frankfort. And I would say that even yet with the improvement we have in our curriculum, uh, you, one may think they know how it works, but they don't really know much about--(laughs)--how it works until they get there and sees it, and see it work. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But as far as the general mechanics were, were, I guess, one they knew something about it, but it was so much more plain when I went there and saw it work. I, I was surprised when I first went because about the first three weeks you don't do anything at all. You, you go in there and you, uh, you meet and you adjourn, and they're organizing, and, of course, one being new that wasn't anything. There was nothing going on up there I saw and there wasn't. And I thought it was a waste of money. But, uh, when I first went I got twenty, I believe, twenty- five dollars a day. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Fifteen dollars expense. And, again, you come home and ran again, you didn't, you didn't have any money to spend on a race to go back to it, there wasn't enough of it. But now you average is about, uh, pretty close to $25,000 a year. And when you got to your other job or your profession, and so forth, it's, it's a nice sideline now. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And the pension is--(laughs)--uh, I knew, I remember when Happy was governor, we started paying into a pension fund. Well, it was so insignificant in time past I didn't even bother with it. A lot, a lot more people didn't either. And so, uh, time went on and, uh, uh, I didn't have any pension forthcoming. And so after I dropped out in '66, I ran again in '74. And the first thing I did when I got to Frankfort was go down to the, uh, to the, uh, Kentucky, uh, not the finance office but where, where they keep the records on your pensions, and I paid what I owed which was just a few dollars. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And so, I'm eligible now for some pension. But the year that I, the first year I didn't go back they passed the law and now they get $27,500 a year for life after they quit. And that's not a bad pension. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But it was great days. (laughs) One time I recall is, some bill the administration was interested in, I guess I was for it; they lacked one vote having enough to get it over. Well, there was one fellow that, a good-natured fellow, he was always there, but I don't know what reason he didn't want to vote on it, if he didn't want to vote. Well, he was missing. Well, everybody began to look for this man. And they even, I think, temporarily adjourned. Looked everywhere. And finally there was a lady that someone, knew what was going on, she came in, and let us know that there's a pair of the biggest shoes in one of the stalls in the lady's restroom that she ever saw. (both laugh) They went in and there he sat. (both laugh) And he was good natured. He came on in and he voted and the bill passed. Uh, another, I think of these comical things, of course there's a lot of important things, but I think you can't get along with important things unless-- SUCHANEK: --sure-- HISLOPE: --you sort of understand and enjoy the frivolous things. There was a man, I don't know whether he drank much at home or not, but when he got up there he was on that bottle from the time he got there until he went home. Well, some of the boys had gone out to the game farm, and they got a turkey out there. And, you know, you've heard of turkey bills. There's a lot of talk about turkey bills. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: They had this turkey concealed. I don't know, don't remember how they did it, but it didn't make any noise at the time until the bill was voted on. And so, this fellow that was always inebriated, his, his wife called him. And just before she called him, this bill was on the floor and they turned this turkey loose. And it took to the air. And flew over the assembly this whole distance and I don't remember how it landed. And it flew over this fellow's head that was drank too much. And they told him his wife was calling him and he went and got to the phone and his wife, uh, he's out of breath when he got there, and his wife said, "What, what in the world is the matter with you?" "Well," he said, "a great big bird just flew over my head, oh, the biggest bird I ever saw." And she kept on talking to him, and she could tell that he was drinking, and she, she thought he was just in a terribly shape, she came up there to see about him. (both laugh) And it was on the account of him talking about that bird. He was telling the truth. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But he, he was excited about it. SUCHANEK: (laughs) That's funny. HISLOPE: I know, uh, uh, Larry Hopkins used to talk about that, and he'd talk about the highway patrol, and he'd call him Smokey(??) and that ----------(??) on his head and he thought, I don't know the connection but he talked about this turkey. And Larry got so tickled he couldn't even talk about it. There was a lot of talk about the turkey. SUCHANEK: (laughs) I'm sure you had a lot of those. HISLOPE: Uh, one of the most unusual experiences, I guess, that I had was, there was a fellow from Knott County. Uh, he's an old timer, he played the guitar, and he sang songs, and he made, made up a lot of songs. Everybody liked him. SUCHANEK: Is that "Banjo" Bill Cornett? HISLOPE: Yeah. You know about Banjo Bill? SUCHANEK: Sure. HISLOPE: Well, Banjo Bill told me one afternoon, now he says, "Leonard," he says, "I want you to write a resolution for me tomorrow." He says, "Will you do it?" I said, "I certainly will do it, if I can, I'll, I'll do it, naturally." He's a good friend of mine. I said, "All right." Well, that night, I don't, I don't guess you ever knew where Putts Restaurant was? SUCHANEK: Unh-uh. HISLOPE: The old hotel that stood downtown right in the middle of the town, right across the street, right across from the Kentucky Historical Society of the old Capitol building, on the corner was Putts Restaurant. A fairly good place to eat and quite a, uh, few people patronized the place, especially quite a few of the boys in the House. So that night we met down at, uh, Putts. And O. O. Duncan from Whitley sitting, a Hardwick boy from Wayne County, Monticello, and quite a few more and Banjo was there. Well, this Hardwick boy he sang in church sometimes, and he was another one that sometimes, you know. Well, that night, uh, Hardwick wanted to sing. And he had a voice that would shake these walls when he would sing. Well, he got up and he sang "God be with us until we meet again." Banjo looked over to me and I believe there was tears in his eyes, and he said, "I'd give anything of the world if I could sing like that." Well, I think Banjo did sing. And after a while, everybody was pretty jovial and some of the boys had a them, some food and a little to drink, I guess. I looked over and I said to whoever was sitting, I said, "There's something the matter with Banjo Bill." Blood was trickling down the corner of this mouth. They got him and took him to the hospital as quickly as possible, but he was dead when he got there. Well, I sat up that night and I wrote a resolution and tribute to Banjo. And the, uh, majority leadership also, Tom Ray, I believe, was majority, was floor leader at that time. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Uh, they wrote, somebody in the majority leadership wrote a tribute to Banjo. And for some reason they had mine to pass on through, and they withdrew theirs. And LRC had it ready at the time that we met that day. And I was invited up to the chair and gave that resolution and Allan Trout wrote an account of it, and he said there was hardly a dry eye in the House. Well, I'm not superstitious at all, but that was the thirteenth day of the, of the legislative session; Banjo sat in the House seat number thirteen; and my resolution was the thirteenth resolution of the session. And, uh, Mr. Brown, who went to school at Bowling Green when I did, he had about three or four hundred of those resolutions wrote out, so he could distribute some of them. And the resolution requested that a honor guard be accompanying Banjo back home. And they had his funeral in the high school gymnasium, and it was full of people. That's, that's the story of Banjo Bill. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Now, that's one, that's one of my most loved resolutions that I wrote was that one. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Do you know what the cause of death was? HISLOPE: Uh, we, it was reported that his blood just was so thick it just had strands in it almost. Evidently he had neglected to check in with his doctor. And, uh, I imagine it was a heart attack that he had, and I imagine he had a lot of cholesterol, and his circulatory system was in real bad shape. That's would be my guess at it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: It definitely was a heart attack. But he was a jolly fellow that. Very independent person. But I thought them 13s were quite unusual(??). SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: So, are we getting along all right or not? SUCHANEK: This is fine. Yeah. HISLOPE: I've got plenty of time and I'm not tired. SUCHANEK: Okay. When you were growing up and you studied history, did you have a favorite historical figure? HISLOPE: Uh, I, I didn't, I didn't study a lot of history when I grew up. Uh, learned what little I knew about by hearing people talk about people. I guess Abraham Lincoln was, uh, my favorite person in the, in the history books, what little I had. We had a Kentucky history that I read. And when I would read history, I would think, Well, those, those must be, they must be mighty fine men. And I just thought it would be wonderful to be, to be a person like that. But I thought of it then as a, that's all in the past and they just don't have any more people like that, and I didn't have the perspective of history like you were talking about a while ago. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And I just sort of just failed to realize that these things all, they're gonna pass over, and everybody's got their place and everybody is at least a facet, large or small, in the historical cycle of time. I just didn't think about that. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And none of us ever thought about John Cooper as being an historical figure, or might be an historical figure. He was too much one of us. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Uh, I remember when, well, John had begun to practice law, I don't know whether he told my father or who he told, he told someone, that he had this case, and he got five dollars, and that five dollars was the biggest-looking piece of money he ever saw, about the first money he made when he was practicing law. But this father of his was, I don't know whether you ever heard of him, Roscoe Tartar. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Now, Roscoe was an orator of the old days. And he taught the Sunday school class in the Methodist church that I later taught. Uh, his class filled a whole auditorium of the Methodist Church, and at that time the auditorium was quite a large auditorium. And if you walked up on the front steps of the church, you could hear his voice. And well, he just made everything just, well, it was not a fairytale, but it was a great story, everything he told. And he had a way and a mode and a message that, uh, you couldn't help but listen. And he was the orator, I guess, in that generation of people. I guess one of the last greatest orators that we've had around this part of the country a long time. Uh, Montgomery that used to be in the attorney general's office, I don't remember. He, uh--no, no, the court, court of appeals, he's from Liberty(??) and I don't remember his first name. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Uh, when I went to the legislature he talked to me about Judge Tartar, what a great speaker he was. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. How close were you to your father when you were growing up? HISLOPE: Now, very close, very, very, I was very close to my father and very close to my, to my mother. We were, we were all very close in our families, and we couldn't realize any family that wouldn't be close. We just thought, well, we didn't think anything about it; we were just close. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Just, that was all. SUCHANEK: What do you think you learned from your parents? HISLOPE: Well, I didn't know I was learning it, I was learning it, learning it then, but, uh, uh, I learned from my parents, when it finally sunk in, that, uh, they were honest, hardworking, uh, loving people. They cared for each other and they cared for all of the(??) children. And whatever they could do for us for our good they always did it. And, uh, what advice they gave us was always good. And, uh, we just had a family(??) relationship there that was just understandable and pleasant and satisfying, and we had a happy home to, to live in. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. How closely did, did you identify with Somerset and Pulaski County? Did you ever think of leaving? HISLOPE: Uh, never thought of leaving. Did leave when the war went on for, uh, about three or four years. Worked for the Air Corps at Patterson Field. But I never gave any thought to go and live anywhere else other than Pulaski County. Uh, I love Pulaski County. And, of course, I didn't know much about Somerset when I was a small boy, because I never was here many times. And I remember when they brought me up here to send me to school, they was riding them livestock down the street, and the streets was paved, and the horses', uh, hooves would hit that paved street and echoed on the buildings on each side. I never will forget that. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: That seemed strange to me and I thought Somerset was quite some place. And I went up to the high school and in that auditorium and I sat pretty close to the radiator and it was cold weather and I felt the warmth from that radiator and I thought, That's wonderful, that's a good heat, that feels so good. I never had anything like that until, uh, with what little Somerset had it was a great place to be. Uh, I just always loved it and I loved our people back home and I knew everybody and I just thought it was a great place to live. And I never was away from it except when I went to high school and went to college, but then when I came back, uh, I lived here in Somerset and always lived here since. But, of course, if my father and mother was living, I was down, back down there very often. SUCHANEK: What made you want to live inside town? HISLOPE: Uh, well, I hadn't thought too much about it and we found a place. Uh, it was, it was sort of difficult to find a place to live. So, uh, we found the place that we live now and bought it, and, uh, have lived there ever since we, a little while after we got married, and we spent about four times as much on it as we paid for it, and it's, it's a nice home, and it's walking distance of the post office, church, the banks, and every place there is that you have to go to you can walk. And I just thought you can't beat that. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And I thought I wouldn't want to live in a subdivision, because if I, if I or anybody close to me got sick, it'd take longer to get to the hospital. And, uh, then if you get up there, there's so many people trying to keep up with the Jones, and I felt better satisfied to have a nicer place where I live than most people had where I live than to be out there some other place lost in a subdivision. Just never had any desire in it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And I always thought it was so good to, uh, just to be where you could just a minute, five minutes, like I walked over here. Just being able where you need to go. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. When you think back on it, did any teacher in particular, uh, make an impression on you, or perhaps have an influence on you in, in anyway, either in high school or in college? HISLOPE: I, I don't think of many teachers that had much influence on me except I remember, uh, there was a man by the name of Lonnie Taylor(??) that was my teacher when I went to the grade school. And, uh, sometimes he would use words that I didn't know and I would wonder about those words and he was a likable person. He, I, I realize now he wasn't much older than I was. And that he used "converse." I thought that seems like a well nice-sounded word, I'd like to know what that meant. And I, I learned what the word "converse" meant, and I never did forget it. And I believe he had some influence in causing me to want to know what words were that I wasn't used to, because I'd write in the margin of my books words I didn't understand. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And I have in some of my old papers now just, uh, oh, scores or hundreds of words that I would write down like that. And it was always a pleasure to learn what, what those words were. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And then, of course, when I went to college, I, my perspective of, you know, you've heard the little story about, uh, the little duck that got out of the nest and went all the way down across the horse lot to the pond. Came back and told his mom, said, "I didn't know the world was so big then, I went all the way down to the pond." So, when I went to college and had some professors that, whose, uh, scope of understanding of some things began to broaden, I began to enjoy them, and I don't particularly know of anyone that had too much of an impression on me. I've had some of the kids that, uh, went to school with me that have, have told me to my pleasure that I had a lot of influence on them. I know one time, and I don't mean to be flattering when I say that, we went to a funeral of a young man that died suddenly, and everybody knew him, and most everybody knew him at the funeral. And this girl was there that I taught in the grade school. And my wife was there, and a lot of my friends was there, and this young woman came over, well, she was young to me; she's a little younger than that, but she seemed young to me, she came over and just threw her arms around me. Well, I didn't hard, I hardly recognized who she was, and she says, "Listen," she says, "I've always said if I ever saw you again, I'd be, I'd tell you how thankful you were for causing me to go to school when we got through(??) Pole Bridge," and says, "I always liked nursing and you told me that I had to go to nursing school," and says, "I wouldn't have been hadn't it been for you." And that just made me feel so good. SUCHANEK: Sure. HISLOPE: But I never had any teacher that influenced that way. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: I just never did, but, uh, I liked most all of them. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Some of them was a little more difficult than the rest. SUCHANEK: Well, what made you want to attend Western? HISLOPE: Well, the only reason I can think of, uh, my understanding of different schools was so nil, and I known such a little bit about it that I, I never had been to a lot of other schools; I hadn't been over there. But there was this boy at Nancy that had gone over there a little bit, and he told somebody what a nice place that was. And I met him one time at a cemetery, we're at a funeral and got acquainted with him and he said, "It's a real nice place over there; I believe you'd like it." And I guess really that's about the only reason I went. It's just, just a happenstance. SUCHANEK: Now this was at that time called Western Kentucky Teachers College. HISLOPE: That's right. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And there's only about fifteen hundred people over there. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And it was a pleasant place, a southern town. And, uh, people were nice and the teachers were nice; it was a wonderful place. SUCHANEK: Now, Bowling Green at that time was a little bit bigger than Somerset, is that right? HISLOPE: Yes, it was. It, I believe Bowling Green was, oh, I guess, I guess it was about as big as Somerset was at that time. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But it made it, it made it seem to me like a pretty big school. It didn't have any dormitories for boys; we had to stay in private homes. SUCHANEK: And you paid rent? HISLOPE: Sir? SUCHANEK: You paid rent for room and board? HISLOPE: Paid room rent and then there was a Mrs. Field(??) over on State Street, and that was the only other place I knew that had everything in the world to eat. (Suchanek laughs) Oh, it was wonderful place to eat. I believe it just cost about four dollars a week. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And that'd be three meals a day and so we really had it made. SUCHANEK: What was your major and minor? HISLOPE: Uh, majored in, uh, biology and minored in English, kind of an unusual combination. I got a BS degree. If I had a son and he was going to school, I would want him to major in what he would want to major in, but I would also want him to, I'd want him to take courses in the Bible, and I'd want him to, to get a law degree. Anymore, I think a law degree, and another thing, let's see, what is the study of the earth and the earth's crust, it slips me now? SUCHANEK: Geology? HISLOPE: Geology. I would want him to be a geologist, because a human mind without the knowledge of geology is devoid of a lot of things. And so, if he had studied the, the Bible and geology and studied law, and then an inquiring mind should study a lot of other things. And then whatever he wanted to be, he'd be a knowledgeable person. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Now, I've known some lawyers, not only here but elsewhere, uh, they know the law, and some of them are good lawyers, but when it comes to branch out, they, they don't know it and they'd have to study for a case. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And there's so many more things, well, a lawyer ought to know some of everything. A lot of them don't. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, you also did some graduate work at Eastern Kentucky, is that right? HISLOPE: Yes. I went up there, and I wanted to be superintendent of schools at one time, and a little later on I dropped that, uh, ambition. And it didn't pay any money. (laughs) It's like teaching. First school I taught, I made thirty-three dollars a month. SUCHANEK: Is that right? HISLOPE: The county was broke. And I bought a ----------(??) and went to Western at Christmas. (laughs) And it seems impossible that(??) I did. Then I just, uh, I wished after I had gone to college that I had gone to a law school. And, uh, I took courses at the ----------(??) extension of the University of Chicago, and I just lacked one exam of getting my degree in law, which would've been because ----------(??), but I wished I would've done it, I'm, I made real good grades in the law. I just wanted to get common law-- SUCHANEK: --this is where-- HISLOPE: --common law is what it is. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: The lawyer he has common law and the other he has to acquire. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: So I made real good grades in law, and I liked it. And I always wanted to, to be a lawyer that would plead cases. I studied about a fellow that whose name I don't recall now, but he went to a council meeting. He was tall and he was thin, he had a long nose, and he had stooped shoulder, he looked anemic. And he never had talked to anybody except just in person. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And they called on him one night to express his opinion. He'd done a good job of it, and he'd thought he'd done a good job himself, and he decided right then that he was gonna do something that he could talk to people. And he studied law. Became a very famous lawyer. Won cases here and abroad and all over the world. And just because he found out he could speak. And so, uh, I thought that was a wonderful thing. SUCHANEK: Now, you studied law where? HISLOPE: Well, it was, it was an extension university. SUCHANEK: Okay. HISLOPE: Yeah, I got my lessons by correspondence. SUCHANEK: Okay. HISLOPE: And that was during the Depression. I just had got through school and was already married and I got a big kick out of it, I made good grades. And, but I gave up the idea of being a lawyer because it maybe, it wasn't too late but I thought it was a little late. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But I, I, many times I wished I had, I'd liked to take that case and I sat in courtrooms so many times, and hear a case, and just think, maybe I was wrong but I thought if I had been the lawyer-- SUCHANEK: --um-hm-- HISLOPE: -- that I would've done it differently. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: You know, Clarence Darrow, sometimes he had that cigar and he had a wire(??) at the end of it. And the ashes be two or three inches long on the end of the cigar. He was a pretty good-sized man and his shirt was as white as snow and it'd be all around his back and the jury would be awaiting for that ash to fall on that white shirt. He'd win his case. (both laugh) I thought that was a pretty good illustration. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Well, your study of the law it sure helped you in the legislature, did it not? HISLOPE: Uh, no, I don't believe it did. A lot of people thought I was a lawyer, but I can't, uh, remember of, of any time it really helped me any. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Well, I remember reading, uh, uh, in one of your campaigns, uh, if it was Harold DeMarcus, or, or someone else, uh, write, had, had written to the newspaper that you were one of the few legislators who they knew actually wrote their own, uh, bills and, and resolutions. HISLOPE: Uh, there might've been others who wrote their resolutions, but the first resolution I ever wanted written I got John Breckenridge of Lexington-- SUCHANEK: --um-hm-- HISLOPE: --and, uh, to write it for me. I didn't, I didn't know how you wrote a resolution, I didn't know what a resolution looked like. And I wanted to make a resolution requiring a community college here in Somerset. Well, he wrote it for me. And, uh, then I began to get, it seemed like sort of the hang of it, like you could get the tune of the song. And I decided I wanted to write my own resolutions. So, from that time on, I always wrote my own. And I don't know if anybody else did or not, but I always wrote them. I wanted to get my feeling into it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And, uh, uh, they recognized that the resolutions were mine, they began to recognize they were mine because of my style. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And so, I enjoyed writing them myself. And I felt a little bit flattered when I, I went back to Frankfort after I'd been out. And there was a lady on the elevator, she says, she worked for LRC, said, "I was just now looking through some of the books the other day and I saw some, some resolutions you wrote." And she says, "It done me a lot of good(??)"; says, "I laughed out loud one time." (both laugh) That done me a lot of good. SUCHANEK: Yeah. HISLOPE: Now this girl up there that died, I can't recall her name, you know, got shot, and went to see her brother and she was shot and died? She'd been with the LRC for a long time. SUCHANEK: I don't know who that is. HISLOPE: Uh, you would know if you would just think. She's one of the smartest women I ever, people I ever saw. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Great person. Uh, I asked her one time, I said, "I wish I knew all the people that ever served in the legislature from Pulaski County." She said, "I'll get it for you." Of course(??), a tremendous amount of work. Well, she got it for me, and she didn't take credit for it; she let the LRC staff, uh, that is, the head of the LRC put their name to it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And of all the people who ever served in, from Pulaski County, there was only one person that they couldn't find. I believe it was the second one. SUCHANEK: Hm. HISLOPE: And, uh, John James that was the first county court clerk here and there's a house over on, uh, Limestone Street he'd built still, still standing there. He was the first but this second one, they, they just couldn't find him. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. [Pause in recording.] SUCHANEK: Okay, this is the, um, this is the second, uh, tape of the Leonard Hislope interview on March eleventh. Okay, we're talking about, uh, you going to college, and, um, uh, what I want to do is to get the chronology here, uh, as far as your educational background goes. Uh, when did you graduate from high school? HISLOPE: I graduated from high school in 1932. SUCHANEK: And you graduated from college? HISLOPE: In 1938. I'd done some work while I was going through college. At that time, you didn't have to have a degree to teach school. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: So I taught some school, and then I'd back at the end of the year, after, after Christmas. So, uh, it was 1938 when I got through college. SUCHANEK: And what was your first school that you taught at? HISLOPE: First school was, uh, Pole Bridge. SUCHANEK: Okay. HISLOPE: And I taught there, I believe, two years. And I taught at a school called Okolona, which was not very far from where I lived, but still further away than Pole Bridge. And then another time, I went farther away to a school called Liberty, and it was the one-room school. That was the one where the little boy went to the fourth or fifth grade in math the first year he was in school. After that, I taught at Eubank High School. Then after that, I taught at Nancy High School until the Japs, uh, I mean it was the same year(??) that Japs dropped the bomb on Pearl Harbor. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But after that I didn't teach anymore. SUCHANEK: Okay. HISLOPE: It didn't pay(??) much money in, and I thought that's better, faster degrees then than teaching school, but I liked it very, very much. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. You taught about nine years then? HISLOPE: Nine years, I taught nine years. SUCHANEK: Okay. Well, let's talk about, um, Pearl Harbor for just a second. Um, well, no, let's talk about, um, a little bit more about your teacher career. You said that your first salary as a schoolteacher was thirty-three dollars a month. Do you remember what your last salary was? HISLOPE: Yes, sir. Last salary, I believe, was eighty-six dollars a month. SUCHANEK: (laughs) Okay. What motivated you to become a schoolteacher? HISLOPE: Uh, I, I guess the only thing in the world that caused me to want to teach school was that it would be a way to make a dollar. And at that time in my life, there was hardly any way that one could make any money. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: There wasn't any jobs to go to and for one to have made any money at all they would've been some specialist, like, uh, well, like a doctor or something like that. There just was no, there was no job unless you'd leave home. And if you left home, well, it wouldn't pay hardly anything. And I'd never been used to making any money. And at least there was a few hard dollars to be found. So, I just taught school. I could be with my father and mother. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And I could take in a few dollars while I taught and then I'd go back to school. And that was the only reason. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And then, uh, after I had, uh, gotten through school, uh, I really wasn't, I liked to teach, I liked the students, and I liked the school, but I knew there was something else I had to do. There just something else that had to be, and at that time I didn't know what it was. There wasn't any counseling in those days much, and nobody advised you, and you sort of had to play it by ear. Then when the war came that was an excuse to quit. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And I taught no more. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Well, how did you get your first teaching job? HISLOPE: Well, uh, back when I had the first teaching job, there were trustees. And there'd be so many trustees in, uh, a, a school district that'd be trustees. Well, you went, you went to see one of these trustees, and tell them you'd like to have a job. Well, if there was no reason for him not to want you to have it, it was pretty easygoing. Sometimes there's competition if somebody else would want it. But if you had somebody that, uh, knew him and maybe used a little persuasion, you usually got a school you wanted. And so that's who you used to go to; you didn't go to the superintendent. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: You didn't go to the high school principal; you went to what they called a trustee, which they'd done away with those many years ago. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, were teachers hired on a year-to-year basis, or-- HISLOPE: --uh, they were hired on a year-to-year basis, as far as I can remember and as much I understand it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. So you weren't assured of a job every year then? HISLOPE: Sir? SUCHANEK: You weren't assured of the, of teaching at the same school-- HISLOPE: --uh, no, well, you felt like you had a job, but it wasn't a, it wasn't a definite thing. Now, you might want to teach somewhere else anyway, and so you might want to see somebody else about teaching somewhere else. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, when did you meet Stella Griffin, who has become your wife? HISLOPE: I had about two and a half or three years of college in. And, uh, I believe school was out. And a few friends and I, we came from Bowling Green and we was in Somerset one afternoon. And I saw this girl with dark piercing eyes, as I saw it(??), and with dark slightly waved hair, slim, and a little bit tall. And she had on a little red dress with white dots in it. And I said to, uh, this friend of mine, Lindsay Bowling(??), I said, "I'm gonna see about that girl." And, well, he smiled, and he just wondered if I would, and I didn't know who she was. And we was going, then a little bit later I saw her again. And I had a box of chalk in my hand. And she was parked in front of the courthouse. And there's a, a lady with her who I assumed was her mother and later I found it was. So I wanted to find out who she was, so I brought my box of chalk in front of the car, or right close to where she was sitting in the car, the lid flew off and some chalks scattered. And, and she looked at what was going on and smiled a bit. And I walked over to the car and introduced myself and found out who she was. And I expressed a slight interest that I might want to see her some of these days. And so, uh, she said she was pretty well booked up. Uh, she was kind of overstating the thing, and so that discouraged me. Well, I thought, well, I'm not too much interested, and time went on a little bit, and I found out that she wasn't booked up that way, or she wasn't hitched up with anybody. And so, it just began as relations like that, such do begin. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. What year did you get married? HISLOPE: Got married in, uh, nineteen- and, about nineteen-, about 1937, I guess. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Believe it was. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. You were teaching school? HISLOPE: Yeah. SUCHANEK: Did she have a job? HISLOPE: Uh, no, she, she never did work in her lifetime, except during the war. Then she was ------------(??) operator at, uh, Fairfield, Ohio, for some of the duration of the war. When I first went she came later, and then she worked for a little while, not long. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But she has always, uh, sort of cooked a little for me and enjoyed, uh, being around the house. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. So you went into the Air Force for four years. Is that right? HISLOPE: Uh, really I wasn't in the Air Force, I worked for the Air Force. Uh, I went up there and I didn't know, I, I just wanted a job. And I got this job and, uh, they, on the questionnaire they asked what you had been doing, and I put down teaching. And, uh, odd to say, they put me with a bunch of officers there. I called them officer training school; everybody is an officer but me. But we, we had to study about how to supply and demand(??) of the Air Force. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And even study weather conditions, cloud formations, and stuff like that. So they classified me as a teacher. I didn't do much teaching, done a little of it. And, uh, then I, they placed me as the head of the statistical control commission, uh, a department rather, and that would reflect how many, all of the material from the different satellite air bases controlled depots that came in, and the material that was shipped out. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: So our office was they kept the tabulation of that, so if the general wanted to know what was going on that he could contact our office as far as that headquarters is concerned. And another thing I did was, which I really didn't know I could do until actually I did it, when I was gonna do it, the base, uh, regulations, everything, every job that was to be done there was a description on how to do it. And they were so doggone complicated that a lot of people couldn't understand them. And somehow they asked me if I would, uh, rewrite those regulations and simplify them. Well, that seemed to be like a big job. But, uh, I got at it and I, I, I kind of enjoyed it, and I began to do it and when I began to do it, it sort of unraveled and became, uh, easier to do. And I wrote many of, we wrote many of the base regulations, so they would be easy to understand by the people that are doing the work. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, this is up in Dayton? HISLOPE: Yes, that was up in Dayton. SUCHANEK: Okay. What were you doing when you heard about, uh, the bombing of Pearl Harbor? HISLOPE: Uh, I was, uh, teaching high school. Uh, so, uh, being December seventh, it wasn't long to Christmas vacation. Then after Christmas vacation, we finished that term out, and then that was the last time I taught-- SUCHANEK: --um-hm-- HISLOPE: --uh, the students. And I went up to the, with the Air Force. SUCHANEK: And then after the war what did you do? HISLOPE: Uh, I came, uh, home before many people came. A lot of people stayed around. I came on back, uh, down to Somerset. And, uh, uh, I'm almost at a loss to know what I almost done immediately. And then later on after that, uh, I went over to talk to, uh, Mr. Asher at Pineville, Kentucky, about a job--oh, it wasn't long until I went to legislature. Well, that was quite a little while too. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But after a time I went over and talked to Mr. Asher at Pineville and told him I'd like to work with Kentucky Utility Company. Well, I didn't know anything about, well, I think what gave him the idea that maybe he could use me was, uh, I wrote some kind of a resolution that was in the, uh, not the state Chamber of Commerce, but Raymond Watkins was the head of it. It was kind of an industrial paper that comes out, and this resolution was in that industrial paper. Then I was elected minority leader and the Kentucky Bankers Association had all the officials of the House and the Senate in the front page of the Kentucky Bankers Association. And I was over there one day and he said, "I saw something about you in this Kentucky, uh, Bankers Association or this, uh, industrial paper," and I just by happenstance I had stopped in to see him years, before I worked for the voluntary Tuberculosis Association, and it put me in contact with a lot of people all over eastern Kentucky. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: So, knowing that he was an influential fellow and a real nice man, I learned about him, I'd go in over there to talk to Mr. Asher on my trips. So, I knew him personally. And then when I decided I wanted a job at KU, I already had the ground broke, and I asked him about a job and he said, "I'd like to have you so I'll check with Lexington." SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And it wasn't long until I in to-- SUCHANEK: --what year was about that you started working for KU? HISLOPE: Sir? SUCHANEK: What year did you start working for KU about? HISLOPE: I believe it was '58-- SUCHANEK: [Nineteen] fifty-eight. HISLOPE: Uh, and after I began to work for them a little bit, uh, there's a mayor over at Middlesboro by the name of Collier(??) and he decided to take over Kentucky Utility Company in Middlesboro. Of course, the company was adverse to that. And somehow Mr. Asher had, uh, read a little bit about some speeches I wrote or something and he says, "Can you write a speech for us? I want you to go on the radio over there." Well, uh, I said, "Well, I believe I can." And I'd always been sort of a free enterpriser, and so kept a few little notes, something I'd read different places at. So he said, "Well, get out and see what you can do." And so, and I got, uh, to working on that thing, and I wrote up a speech that took, uh, fifteen minutes on radio time. And Ken Meeker, you're possibly too young to have known of him. SUCHANEK: Unh-uh. HISLOPE: Ken Meeker was from(??) Germany, and Ken Meeker says, "You don't know," says, "you think Roosevelt could make a good speech in his fireside chats, but have you ought to, you ought to have heard Adolph Hitler. If you were raised to speak German, knew German," says, "he could put you to sleep or he could cause you to dream dreams." Well, they had Ken Meeker down there to tell us how to talk. Well, it so happened that, uh, Ken says, uh, "This Hislope boy don't need much to tell about how to, how to make a talk. It seems like he is all right. And so I believe I'd just turn him loose." Well, they turned me loose, and I made that speech--(laughs)--I made that speech at Middlesboro, and we had quite a time out of it. There's a cartoon of me carrying a briefcase, and the mayor said, "That fellow from Somerset has got one of the slickest tongue ever I saw. And you go down the street and he's carrying a briefcase." Said, "He goes in all the banks and all the business places, but I never saw a fellow like that." And, uh, we carried on with it, and they had an election, and, uh, he got beat over that. And so that endowed me with, uh, a pretty good relationship with Mr. Asher. And so, I began to work, but never will forget, I didn't know what it was gonna to do, and I remember I said, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is Leonard Hislope speaking on behalf of Kentucky Utility Company." And I says, "Permit me to say as I came to Middlesboro the day that I was reminded of, uh." Well I said, "I noticed the mountains and the undulating hills and the beautiful surrounding of this place and I, I just thought of handicraft. The master of all handicrafts." And, uh, no, I, I, I have to back up now, I forgot what I said. But it went pretty well with them. And so, I got along pretty well with Mr. Asher. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And I, I enjoyed all of it. I'd got to go to the leadership of all the people in all the counties practically all over Kentucky. And that was good. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And then, I was related to the, uh, Kentucky Historical Society. First Bert Combs appointed me, uh, uh, in some official, curator of the Kentucky Historical Society-- SUCHANEK: --regional curator, yeah. HISLOPE: Then John Breckenridge appointed me while he was president, and as president of the sights and signs committee(??). And then I became appointed as president of the, regional president of Kentucky Historical Society. So I had a run of the leadership of all of these counties coming my way both ways. And then it was left up to me to appoint a man who'd be local, uh, uh, head of the historical society. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: That gave me a lot of doors to open. John Lair over here at Renfro Valley, I appointed John-- SUCHANEK: --um-hm. is that right-- HISLOPE: --he was a good man to know-- SUCHANEK: --yeah, we have an interview with John, yeah-- HISLOPE: --and we learned a lot from him. I learned a lot from all of the people that, uh, I had contact with there and I enjoyed it very much. And we caused some historical markers to be placed in quite a few places where there wasn't any. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And enjoyed it very, very much. SUCHANEK: My wife works for the Historical Society. HISLOPE: Uh, she does now? SUCHANEK: Yes, um-hm. HISLOPE: Oh, that's fine. SUCHANEK: Yeah. Um-hm. HISLOPE: That's fine. She work in the office at Frankfort? SUCHANEK: Yes, um-hm. HISLOPE: Colonel Chinn was a fine man. And, uh, I knew the colonel for a long, long time. And he was a, uh, when Happy was elected governor, I reckon just to pass the time that he was appointed sergeant-at-arms. And you may not remember Joe Creason; Joe Creason died playing, well, you know-- SUCHANEK: --um-hm-- HISLOPE: --and this, uh, Daniel Boone series of, uh, The Adventures of Daniel Boone-- SUCHANEK: --um-hm-- HISLOPE: --now, Joe was somewhat displeased with the, with them-- SUCHANEK: --I remember reading that resolution-- HISLOPE: --okay, you know the story. And, uh, they asked me if I would write a resolution relating to the series. And I said, "Give me a little advice." So he gave a little advice and Colonel Chinn said, "Now, the way to get him to write it is just let him alone," and I wrote it and Joe seemed to be very pleased, and I'm glad he was. He was a fine man, Joe Creason was. I had a very nice relationship with him for a long time. I was sad when he had to go. He was, looked like he was just a fine and a very sensible person. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: That, that Colonel Chinn was quite a man. You know, he, uh, wrote books for the Ordinance Department of Guns. He was supposed to be one of the best experts on guns there was anywhere. SUCHANEK: Yeah, I think he wrote the manual on the machinegun. HISLOPE: Yeah, he, he gave me one of the copies; I've got it now. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But I'd go up to, uh, Harrodsburg to, uh, what's the inn, the famous inn at Harrodsburg? Beaumont Inn. I asked that lady in there, I says, "Does Colonel Chinn come in here?" She said, "Yeah, he's in here every once in a while." I always would ask about him. And the last time I went I asked her and says, "Well, he passed away." And I wanted to see him again. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: When he was going to college, John Cooper's brother, Don, was a going. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And we had a fellow here by the name of Max ---------(??). And you look at Max, you wouldn't think he'd ever been to school but he is a graduate of Harvard. Well, he went to school when Colonel Chinn and Don Cooper and Happy Chandler went. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And, uh-- SUCHANEK: --we have an interview with him too. (laughs) HISLOPE: Yeah. And, uh, Max said that Happy was going over there to, uh, Transylvania. And said, "Every time we'd see Happy he'd be singing a song or wanting to, wanting to bark an order." (both laugh) But they were all good friends. SUCHANEK: Sure. HISLOPE: Well, I wanted to see the colonel some more. Well, uh, Don got sick and died, then the colonel died, and just about a year ago, uh, Max ----------(??) died. And Max had a world of--it would've been wonderful to interview him. He knew who built, build ------------(??) houses here, and he drove Governor Morrow around when Morrow was electioneering for governor. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And he drove him around not because he was of taxicab caliber, but because he was a friend of his, and he had to have someone to take him. And one night, uh, uh, Governor Morrow was supposed to make a speech the next morning. And, uh, --------(??) says, "Governor," says, "you going to make that speech tomorrow?" He said, "Yes." "Well," he says, "you better get out here, hadn't you?" Well, he liked to read certain kind of books, and he said, "Well," said, "I don't think I'll," I says, "When I get up there on the rostrum I'll think of something to say." And you know he was, he belonged to a great school of orators, he was(??). SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Well, when you were growing up, uh, do you think your religious upbringing had any influence on your political philosophy or your actions in the legislature? HISLOPE: Uh, I guess, I guess it did. Uh, growing up with, my father was all right, but my mother was a very devout person. She saw that we went to Sunday school and to church. And, uh, she was the person who had prayer everyday in the home. And living around her and with her, you just sort of sensed that there was always something good and there was always something right. And I guess that I absorbed enough from her that I think there's a right and a wrong in about everything. I know one time a, a cousin lived right across the branch from us, and there were some doves over on our side of the farm, and he was gonna set a snare and catch this dove. And my mother believed that everything should be protected that lives, and this dove had some eggs in that nest. And I, I says, "Cecil, I don't want you to do that." I said, "That dove's nest is over here on our place and the dove's all right, it's not bothering anybody, and I don't want you." "No, I'm gonna that snare that bird and I want to catch it." "Well," I said, "you're gonna have me to fight if you do." And so he put the snare up there and we really had a good one. Of course, it was over right away. So, my mom just always, uh, she saw things, as I later saw it, right and wrong. Uh, and I still think in, in government there's honesty and there's things that are right and things that are wrong, and things that are good and things that are bad, and things that will produce and make for the good, and other things are either, neither, or might be wrong. And so, I, I guess it did. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, once you got out of the service or working for the Air Force, um, what did you do between, in that period of time between, say '46 and your election to the legislature in '56? You said you did-- HISLOPE: --I guess that I worked for this, uh, they contacted the Louisville office for me to do some work with the tuberculosis association. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And, uh, I did some work for them and traveled, uh, over a lot of eastern Kentucky. SUCHANEK: So, you made enough to live on? HISLOPE: Uh, not much, just enough to get by. It was work that I, I knew I was gonna do something else, but I was doing that. I liked the work and I liked the people, and we'd have a meeting in Louisville every, every month, and we worked closely with the health department. And finally I got to a salary, for that time that was fairly decent. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But I, I knew it wouldn't last because I would have to go to Louisville to live and I wasn't going to Louisville for a good salary because I didn't want to go up there. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Why not? HISLOPE: Huh? SUCHANEK: Why didn't you like Louisville? HISLOPE: Well, I liked it, I liked to go up there, but I liked to come home. And I just didn't want to be where that many people was. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And I just didn't think it would suit me to live in a place like that and it was too hard to get where you was going. There was too many other people going in the same direction. (both laugh) SUCHANEK: Well, when and how did you begin to get interested in politics? HISLOPE: Uh, well, I had, uh, created a habit when there was campaigns here, like it was, John Cooper or anybody else, and when they was running here in the courthouse, they'd want me to help them, or go out and speak for them, or something like that. And so, uh, that -------- (??) presidential elections, I would speak for the president just like I knew all about him. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: I, uh, enjoyed it. And then the time came that somebody said, "Why don't you run for the House?" And well, I said, "I haven't thought much about it." I, I said, "I guess I'd like that," but they first began, they wanted me to run for county judge, and I didn't want to run for county judge. And I thought the county judge had a real hard time and I didn't want to get involved with it. And at that time they did; they tried all the cases and it was a burdensome job and you could do your best to be a good judge but you displeased almost half of the people with the best you could do, and I didn't want to fool with it. So, uh, the, uh, we had an old timer here, C.I. Ross, that he and Judge Tartar grew up together. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And, uh, C.I. said, "Why don't you run?" Says, "We'll help you out." Well, see, C.I. was county chairman. And most of the chairmen all around they'd listen to what he said, "Well," I said, "If you all want me to run I'll do my best a do a good job in the campaign," and so I ran. And then, of course, everybody else was running, and we all ran together, and that made it a lot easier to, a lot easier to win, if you had a lot of opposition. But in, in those days I didn't have a, I didn't have very hard opposition. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But always had opposition. I, I had Republicans and Democrats all along the way. I had a hard time when it comes to opposition because I always had them. SUCHANEK: Well, we'll take them as, as they come, uh, one, one at a time here. Um, now, had anyone in your family ever been involved in, in politics before? HISLOPE: No, there wasn't anyone in my family ever involved in politics. SUCHANEK: Now, when you ran for the General Assembly, what was the local political situation like here in Somerset and Pulaski County? Were there political factions, uh, in the city and the county? HISLOPE: Uh, yes, uh, Judge Tartar and C.I. Ross, uh, became at odds years ago. And I don't know what the reason was. Well, the judge was easygoing when it come to politicking itself. And C.I. was one of those, uh, workhorses. And he'd, uh, once you get out after, if you'd have a meeting he'd want you to leave at nine o'clock at night and go to see somebody. Well, Ross -----------(??) took it easy. But they, they were at end, they were at odds with each other but C.I., the C.I. faction they always won out, because the judge wouldn't work much. The judge wouldn't even work for himself. Well, one year they said that, "We're just not gonna help Judge Tartar this time," and he got beat. Now, the famous judge, the great orator got beat, and he went over to, uh, uh, uh, Tandy's Barbershop that morning and after he got beat." And somebody shook hands with him and says, "Judge, how are you feeling?" He says, "There's not a cloud in the sky." Well, that's the way he was. He just took his defeat and went on, and he ran next time he won. But there were factions, but the courthouse crowd, as such, was always dominant. Any other faction was, uh, well, it didn't compare with it. If you had the courthouse crowd with you, uh, you had pretty easy sailing. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But later on, it got so that the courthouse crowd didn't, they didn't get involved in the, in the, in the, uh, primary; they would wait until after the primary was over, and whoever win they would go with. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: So, it was a lot easier to win when they was all with you all the time. SUCHANEK: Right. Now, would you, uh, would you say the factions were-- HISLOPE: --sir? SUCHANEK: Would you say the factions were divided between city and county, uh-- HISLOPE: --no, there wasn't a much division between the city and the county. Uh, the city, they had a unit of its own, what little division, there wasn't too much division within the city really, but what little division there was, it was just between the factions of the city and not the county. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And they pretty much, they pretty well left each other alone, the city and the county did. SUCHANEK: Okay. HISLOPE: One time we had a fellow here that would all, that would always run. And he, he was really a great speaker. And he was out here in the county here someplace and Judge Tartar was running, I believe. And there was a gristmill close by. And this other fellow began to speak, and he was a good speaker. And they whispered, somebody said, "Go turn the gristmill on." Oh, they turned that thing on and you couldn't hear one thing he said. That was a terrible thing to do. (both laugh) And then they would laugh about it, yeah. SUCHANEK: Now, in order, um, in order for you to run for public office, did you have to, um, seek support from, uh, the courthouse, uh, circle, or did you, when you decided to run, who did you go tell? HISLOPE: Well, uh, they, they came to me mostly, and then when, when I decided I wanted to run, automatically, uh, C.I. Ross, the chairman of the Republican Party here, he was for me. He said, "We'll support you." Well, it seemed like everybody just fell in line, so I didn't have to ask any of them; they were already for me it seemed. SUCHANEK: Okay. HISLOPE: But then I would go out from house to house in the county, and that was a job. And that was in the days when you'd stop at a country store and get a piece of bologna and drink a coca-cola. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And I developed an ulcer doing that. SUCHANEK: Oh, did you? HISLOPE: Yeah. (laughs) SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And then I learned not to take it too serious and relax and ate a little better and got well at it right away. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. So campaigning was real hard? HISLOPE: Uh, the way I took it, it was hard. I worked at it hard. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But I worked at it so hard that I knew an awful lot of people, and it seemed like practically everyone knew me, and it became sort of a family affair then, and I had real easy sailing for quite a while. SUCHANEK: I was gonna ask you, what did, what did your family think of you getting involved in politics and running for state office? HISLOPE: What did they think about it? Well, uh, my wife's father, he wanted me to run for county court clerk. And I didn't care much about it, and they didn't care much about my running for state representative. But at that time, a state representative was sort of a, its, its measure on the scale of politics was pretty low. Most people around here didn't think the people that represented them amounted to very much. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: In fact, I've got a lot more respect for them now than her dad and more than they had because I realize now it's quite an important office. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But they didn't think so. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, this is a three-part question: what professional qualifications, personal qualities, or personal experience or knowledge did you feel you had in 1955 that qualified you to represent the people of Somerset and Pulaski County? HISLOPE: In '65? SUCHANEK: [Nineteen] fifty-five. HISLOPE: [Nineteen] fifty-five. Well, it, it, that, that is sort of a hard, uh, question to answer. Uh, I would say this without flattery: uh, I didn't think too much about me being maybe more qualified than other people, but I did believe that there were some people that wasn't too well qualified because they wasn't concerned. And I was concerned. I was concerned about the benefit of the county; I was, I was concerned about the benefit of the state; and I believed that I would enjoy serving, and in, and in serving I believed I would have the people of our county and the people of the state at heart, and would try, in all ways I could, to do something to benefit, uh, not only the county but the state. I had that feeling and I was pretty serious about it. And so, I didn't think too much about my qualifications, but I just thought, well, I believe it'd be all right for me to serve and be elected. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Well, what did you think you brought to the job that would make you effective in state politics, that would make you effective in the, in the state legislature? HISLOPE: Uh, I would believe that, uh, my early recognition of the power structure as a person, it just so happened by happenstance that, uh, we knew each other, or they knew me too, uh, fairly quick in the session. And I would believe too that the circuit judge, uh, I, I don't recall his name, he was there with me, and I, I got a letter from him some years ago, and he said, "I, I remember so well when you were so much outnumbered, and the Democrats would really beat you down." And said, "You took it so good naturedly and was so pleasant through the whole thing." And if I were pleasant and if I was good natured, I believe that that thing alone would qualify me to work with people, because I think you got to be that way to get along with people. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Tell you the third part, have you asked it or not, I, I don't-- SUCHANEK: --yeah, I think we, we covered, uh-- HISLOPE: --two in one. SUCHANEK: Describe for me the, the ethnic, economic, and religious makeup of Pulaski County and your constituency in 1955. HISLOPE: Well, our county, uh, is basically an Anglo-Saxon set of people. Now, what other except ethnic? SUCHANEK: Economic and religious. HISLOPE: Uh, the, in 1956, the economic picture of Pulaski County was, it was a stable picture. But at that time, uh, the income of the general public in Pulaski County was relatively low. And most of them were farm people. The farm classes at that time were relatively low. And it hadn't been, but a few years before that I believe Earle Clements or a few years before him, the governor only got $5,000 a year being governor. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: So the pay scale, even the pay scale then, the people that worked for public works was so low compared to what it is now, but we had a good stable economy for the type of economy it was. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But it was sort of a low-layered(??) economy compared to other places. There wasn't any large industries. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Most of it was, uh, medium to small farms, and the railroad shops had disappeared, and we didn't have any large factories then like we do now. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: So, uh, money was hard, and some people took care of it, and some, and most everybody got along fairly well. Before the world ----- ------(??) come there was nobody poor. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And after that they classified everybody, well, I said, even the families where I lived and my own family, we would have been considered paupers by the scale they measure today. But everybody had plenty to eat and they were satisfied and they got along well. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. And then religious makeup of the county-- HISLOPE: --well, the religious makeup of the county, like it is in many other southern locals, uh, this county is predominantly Baptist-- SUCHANEK: --okay-- HISLOPE: --in its religious, uh, consistency. We have in this town about a five million structure; you might have noticed the new church that's just finished where the old church out here was(??). A very nice -----------(??). We have a nice Methodist church. The Methodist church is, would be, I guess, second in number. We have a nice Christian church and the Church of God has, uh, quite a few members. The Presbyterian church, we have a Presbyterian church that is the only church that was in existence during the Civil War. And it's still an attractive building. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And to their credit, I understand they are the highest educated personnel in the religious field when it comes to pastors and workers in the churches. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Is this a dry county? HISLOPE: It is a dry county, a dry and some of it is wet but not ------- ---(??). (laughs) SUCHANEK: Okay (laughs) HISLOPE: You know what I mean. (both laugh) They go to-- SUCHANEK: --sure. HISLOPE: --a ----------(??) other places to get it, but, uh, the drinking problem was not too bad in this county. SUCHANEK: Now, your predecessor in the House from Somerset was Varna Holt. HISLOPE: That's right. SUCHANEK: Uh, do you recall why Holt did not seek reelection in '55? HISLOPE: Uh, it just wasn't his, uh, ambition, I don't believe. I, I believe he ran because they, they urged him to. Now, his brother was county court clerk, uh, circuit court clerk for thirty-five years. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Just the last term he didn't run. His brother was very wealthy and Varna had always been a very energetic person and made a good living. And at that time it didn't pay enough money for most people to fool with it. And I just don't think he was interested in running anymore. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: He could've been elected more if he'd ran if he did it. He just wasn't interested I don't believe. SUCHANEK: Okay. HISLOPE: Fine man(??). SUCHANEK: Now, your opponents in the '55 primary were Jesse Price of Silence Hill and Clinton Kennedy Cundiff. And I know Cundiff owned the seed store in Somerset, but I don't know anything about Jesse Price. Do you recall what Price did for a living? HISLOPE: Uh, Price, I believe, had a small farm. And, uh, he taught some schools. And he was a fine fellow. Now, some years after, he moved away from here. He was a, uh, he was a good friend of mine. In fact, he helped me in a campaign or two after I beat him. SUCHANEK: Is that right? HISLOPE: He was a nice fellow but nobody, nobody knew him very well except in the northern and, uh, eastern part of the county. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And that Cundiff was getting his start at that time. And he goes now by the name of Fescue. He began to develop fescue that came from, that they grew, they found in the streams and ----------(??), you know. And he began to develop it when it was a rare seed. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And if you had a hundred acres out here, he'd furnish the fertilizer and cultivator, if he'd let you use the land, and he'd give you part of the seed. And so, he made a tremendous amount of money. SUCHANEK: Hm. HISLOPE: And now he has the, is the largest, has the largest rental units for business and otherwise than any man in Pulaski County. I imagine he's a billionaire. And a little background, and when he gets his head set, he could hard(??) it on. (Suchanek laughs) If he got his way, got the Cundiff way. But ----------(??) went to Berea College. Uh, A.J. Cook's son went up there, and Cook's son told Mr. Cook, says, "This fellow, Cundiff, that he's gonna be a pauper, or he's gonna be a millionaire, one of the two, there's just be no comprise." And he's made, he's worth a billion dollars. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Now, he would've run a lot better race. He was so confident that he was gonna win that he predicted, uh, how much he would win. SUCHANEK: I didn't read that. HISLOPE: That, that didn't go well for him, but he, he's a fine man. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: He's a member of the big church, there, the Baptist church, and I knew his father, fine man(??). One day his father came into town he had some chickens, and it's so hot, they was about to die. I said, "Listen, take them up there in my yard and put them under that maple tree." And he did, it saved their lives. And he always, he always appreciated that. I was a friend of all of his family. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And we talked together, he's a good friend of mine. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: -------------(??)------------ SUCHANEK: Do you remember anything at all about your first election campaign, your first running a primary? Uh, did you have a platform or anything of that nature? HISLOPE: Uh, I was, I was like everybody else; I was for roads and schools. And I didn't do, know too much about what it meant to get roads and schools, but, uh, I was gonna learn as much as I could on how to work to benefit the county with schools and roads. And it just so happened that Happy was, he was a great road builder. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: He reorganized the highway department and he, this road between Somerset and Burnside was the first four-lane road in this part of the state. And he built it back then. SUCHANEK: Oh, is that right? Um-hm. Now, you received, um, 2,460 or 57 percent of the votes in the primary election, uh, and Price received just over 1100 votes, and surprisingly Cundiff received only 738 votes. Uh, do you think your affiliation or, or backing of, that you received from the courthouse, uh, was a major factor in-- HISLOPE: --uh, Cundiff belonged to a nice influential family, but those things don't spill over into an election much. Uh, I imagine it was my, I had had association before with the people, with, with political friends. And Cundiff had none. Now, Cundiff just decided he wanted to go and he had certain things that he was gonna do; he was gonna change the agriculture department, see. He ran(??) in farming and seeds and so forth, and he just got into that race possibly without too much thinking and, uh, maybe his overconfidence caused his smaller vote. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: He's a fine fellow, a fine as there ever was. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: But I think my association with the courthouse probably me more than anything else, and my other relationships with a lot of people before then, but my friends mostly with the courthouse contributed to my success. SUCHANEK: Now, before we actually discuss your actual participation in the General Assembly, I'd like to address some philosophical questions to you. Uh, first of all, had you been up to Frankfort while the legislature was in session and seen it in action and what all went on prior to your being elected yourself? HISLOPE: I'd never been to Frankfort but two times in my life before then, and one was when I was at college at Bowling Green and the teachers wanted a raise. And, uh, maybe I didn't realize it at that time but they got all the students and herded us up there. (laughs) And we visited the, the Capitol. And that was to get influence for education support. I never will forget the walk cross that bridge on Capitol Avenue and we broke our step, so we wouldn't break the bridge down. (Suchanek laughs) The only other time, uh, we built a large -- ---------(??) there for a rural director, friend of mine, I did and we had to get a license to operate that, had to pay a tax on the tickets, and my brother-in-law flew me up there to get the, where the revenue department to get those licenses. That was the only time that I was ever in Frankfort. I never saw the legislature in session. I never was on the inside of the Capitol maybe about that one time before I went up there. So it was really a treat to me. Uh, those, uh, thirty-eight granite columns around on the nave of that Capitol, I looked at those with awe. There was beautiful, they were wonderful, and they are. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. It's one of the most beautiful capitols in the nation. I enjoyed it all. I'd get up five o'clock at morning and walk up to the cafeteria just to sit there and, uh, leisurely have breakfast and talk to people. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And I learned a lot about people, and saw a lot of people before other people get in at nine or ten o'clock and I'd been there half a day before they got there. (Suchanek laughs) And that gave you plenty of time to -----------(??) a little and talk with people. SUCHANEK: Sure. Let me turn this over. [Pause in recording.] HISLOPE: I didn't know it'd be so easy. SUCHANEK: Well, we try to make it as painless as we can. (both laugh) HISLOPE: Good. SUCHANEK: What did you think the role of government was in society? What was government supposed to do? HISLOPE: Uh, government in my view is and has been that there're certain services that has to be performed by the general public, and the government should be of such caliber and should be trusted to put together the facilities that would make possible certain services, such as, uh, roads, schools, sanitation, health, and various other services that is necessary to live in a maybe in a complex or well-balanced, happy society. That is the way I thought of -------------(??). SUCHANEK: Okay. HISLOPE: And, of course, when that's done, it's gonna to take revenue. And they usually try to get it where it hurts the least. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. How intrusive should government be? HISLOPE: Sir? SUCHANEK: How intrusive should government be? HISLOPE: Uh, I, I didn't get it. SUCHANEK: How intrusive should government be? HISLOPE: Intrusive. SUCHANEK: Intrusive, right. Um-hm. HISLOPE: Uh, only to the extent that the law allows, and with some laws, tread very lightly on the place that they intervene. Never beyond the law. And where the law is necessary but unpleasant, as, as small as possible. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, when you first went to the legislature what did you think the role of the legislator was? You know, if you, if you daydreamed at, at all, uh, how did you envision yourself when you pictured yourself in your mind before you went to the legislature for the first time? HISLOPE: Well, uh, like I said a while ago, I thought I knew a little bit about state government, and then when I got there I found, I learned, I knew very little, and I learned as time went on. So, I thought it was my role to, uh, possibly think about some bills that would be good for my people and introduce those bills and try to get cooperation from others to get them passed. And I thought that there shouldn't be too many laws because I thought we had almost enough laws. But I found that, that don't work; there's still more and more every session. But I thought that we would provide legislation that would make possible through budgetary losses the, uh, operation of government as we have had it, and in some fields hoping to find revenue to improve it, and especially on improving education and building more roads. That was the theme when I went. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And, of course, it was very badly needed, and they were, they were attended to some extent, as much as at that time was able, I guess. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Now, when you were first, when you first went to the General Assembly in 1956, did you feel you were elected by your constituents to vote in their best interest, to vote the way they wanted you to vote, or did you feel free to use your best judgment? HISLOPE: Well, I felt that I was obligated to the people because they had sent me up there, but then I always understood that there would be times that there would be occasions arise that one's own judgment would have to be exercised in deference to your obligations to the people that elected you. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: That's just a necessity you have to be, Then hoping and believing that the people will understand it if they didn't agree. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Well, at times you have access to more facts than your constituents would-- HISLOPE: --yes-- SUCHANEK: --which would be a determining factor perhaps. Um-hm. When you first went to the legislature, Mr. Hislope, did you have anything in particular that you wanted to accomplish? Did you have any type of legislative agenda? HISLOPE: Uh, not other than I possibly, slightly referred to before, if there was anything that be good, could be done for roads, because I grew up with no blacktop anywhere. And I was going to high school this road from here to Nashville wasn't even blacktop. So, really we didn't have any roads. And, of course, the schoolteachers always want more money, and they didn't get much then. And I thought, Well, they possibly need more and I would help them if I could. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And there's one way you can always help, when that budget comes around, you don't dare vote against it, because when you exercise your, except for the budget, you do all the good things or maybe a few other things not to -----------(??). SUCHANEK: (laughs) Um-hm. Now, prior to you going to the legislature, did anyone give you any advice on what to expect, especially given the fact that you were a member of the minority party? Um, did anyone from the courthouse kind of help prepare you? HISLOPE: No, I, I don't recall anybody, uh, some people would tell me, says, "You can't do very much," because actually nobody could do very much because there's so many other people you got to work with you. And then I don't recall from where it came, but some people says, "Just work with them the best you can," and that's the way you can do more is to work with people and you got to cooperate to do any good at all, and. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. Well, I'll ask this final question for today and then I think we'll, we'll call it quits for today. HISLOPE: Okay. SUCHANEK: Um, prior to your first regular session, the Republicans had a pre-legislative meeting, uh, taking into account the, the ------- ---(??) battle that had occurred between Happy Chandler and the Bert Combs/Earle Clements faction of the Democratic Party, do you recall, recall discussing the fact that the Democrats might split during the session? HISLOPE: The Democrats might what? SUCHANEK: They might split during that session? HISLOPE: Uh, no, except I, we just understood that Happy was consulted about everything. And I don't remember any conversations about the split. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And I do remember that there was, uh, some disagreement with the leaders of the party, but I, I don't remember hearing much about it. SUCHANEK: Okay. HISLOPE: Possibly I wouldn't have heard as much about it as some other people would've, but I just didn't go, I did go to some, uh, a lot of boys was going around the bars at night and be around until twelve o'clock, so forth, or one o'clock, there's where you got most of the information. And I, I didn't, I didn't go around those much and didn't stay out too late, so I, I guess I would've gotten a lot more information if I had stayed out a little later than I did, but I didn't. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And then, of course, the opposition party, if they'd got problems they're not gonna tell you about them. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: They keep it pretty quiet and some of the leaders always had a feeling everything's gonna calm down, it's gonna be all right. SUCHANEK: Did the Republicans have a strategy to take advantage, um, of any possible Democratic split that-- HISLOPE: --not too much because Happy Chandler was the most popular candidate, I guess, this county ever had, because, uh, an awful lot of Republicans in this county voted for Happy, more than any other, uh, governor that ever ran, I guess, as a Democrat, more Republicans voted for him. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Uh, so, there was a lot of harmony, I guess, between the two parties. And there wasn't much going on on that. SUCHANEK: Okay. How important was it during your tenure in the legislature for the Republicans to stick together and how successful were the leaders in keeping their fellow Republicans in line? (pause) You know, you are the minority party, how, how important is it to stick together? HISLOPE: Uh, being out, being outnumbered as much as we were, uh, the biggest benefit of, uh, sticking together, I guess, would be the principle of it. There wasn't many times we could stick together and change things, not many times. There's a few times we could have. Uh, but the thing of standing firm for what you believe in and what you think was right, uh, I guess, the principle of it was the strongest thing. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Uh, that's maybe a funny way to put it, but oh, there were times that a few more votes would change things. I remember on the co-, uh, the coal severance tax. Now, most of the Republicans, if I remember, was for it, some weren't, some Democrats weren't but, uh, Dawahare, you know about Dawahare? SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Uh, they promised to let Dawahare put an amendment on it, and they didn't recognize it, they didn't let him do it, and he got so mad he went out. And I went out and I says, "Dawahare," I says, "the only good you could do is to go back in there." And I says, "If you go back, just be calm, we might be able to pass it." And so, we went back in there and, uh, we got together again. Everybody, everybody could say my vote did it. Well, I could say my vote did it. It passed with one vote. And so, Hoover was glad he went back in. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: And that time it showed that, uh, you felt like that you'd really done, you'd really done it, because he was the man that done, turned the big wheel, and he was, because one vote did it. SUCHANEK: Um-hm. HISLOPE: Hoover was quite a boy. SUCHANEK: Well, I think we'll stop here for today. And, uh, next time let's start up with the, um, Chandler administration-- HISLOPE: --okay. SUCHANEK: And, um, go through Happy's days, your days with Happy, and, um, get into Bert Combs, and see how far we can go. HISLOPE: All right. SUCHANEK: All right? HISLOPE: I think I'll enjoy that. SUCHANEK: Great. HISLOPE: I'll enjoy it. [End of interview.] Hislope (House 1956-1966, 84th district; 1974, 83rd district; Republican) discusses his early years growing up in rural Pulaski County, Kentucky, teaching, and other early employment. He describes his political involvement and election campaigns. His views on the role of government and Kentucky Governors Chandler and Combs are covered.. He concludes by highlighting his priorites as a legislator as well as Republican strategies as a minority party. Part 1 of 3. insert here

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