JOHN NEWTON THOMAS December 3, 1996 Mame Warren, interviewer Warren: This is Mame Warren. Today is the 3rd of December, 1996. I am in Richmond, Virginia with Dr. John Newton Thomas. My first question to you is, how did you decide to go to Washington and Lee in the first place? Thomas: I didn't decide. It was decided, I think, by my mother, and it never occurred to me to think about what institution I'd go to. In those days, I don't think we young people had quite the freedom that's granted today, and I'm very pleased that we didn't have it. My uncle, Charles Graves, taught law at Washington and Lee, and then for some reason went and taught law at the University of Virginia. But he and my mother were very close, and I suspect it was his influence that led mother to suggest that I go to Washington and Lee. But I remember now vividly I was driving from Bedford, where I lived and my mother was, over to Lexington one day, Mother and I, and I can see us now coming into the campus from the street down below, I forget what street that is, and when we got there looking up the hill, and then walked around in front of the chapel and then walked up to the main building, to the Washington College, and just looked around. I didn't exactly know why we were doing it, but that was my first contact with Washington and Lee. I didn't know then that I'd be going to Washington and Lee. I think Mother had this idea that if I went over there and saw it, then I would want to go there, and she was certainly right about that. So that was 1 my first contact. Many a time, during my student period, I think back on the day that Mother and I first walked up that campus. Well, I'll say this, that it never occurred to me to go anywhere else, I hadn't really given it a thought. When I look back on what I will now call the "good old days," we kids were not making major decisions about where we'd go to college and that type of thing. I trusted my parents to treat me right. [Laughter] So the time came, and I came to Washington and Lee. But I will say this, that when I graduated from Bedford High School, they invited Dr. Henry Louis Smith-is that a familiar name? Warren: Yes, sir, it is. Thomas: Dr. Henry Louis Smith to deliver the graduation address. My parents entertained him in our home while he was there. If I may say this, without seeming to brag, I had the honor of giving the valedictory for our class. What do you call it? Warren: You mean the valedictorian? Thomas: Yeah, the valedictorian for our class. We didn't have but eleven persons in it. So unless I could prove that they're all very distinguished, I would say that my being valedictorian was a modest honor. [Laughter] Warren: Well, tell me about Henry Louis Smith. What kind of person was he? Thomas: I thought he was the greatest person in the world. He had been president of Davidson College and he came to Washington and Lee. Insofar as I was able at that time to make a judgment, or that is to value, I just thought he was about the greatest person who ever came down the road. During my college days, I was in the Smiths' home from time to time for dinner and so on. His son, Leyman Smith, was a member of the Beta Theta Phi fraternity, and I had never heard of fraternities until Washington and Lee, but I was given a bid to Beta, Beta Theta Phi, by "Dupre" Smith, as we called him, belonged to and, of course, I thought that was the best fraternity in the country. 2 Have you ever heard of Miss Annie Jo White? Warren: Tell me about Miss Annie Jo White. Thomas: Well, Miss Annie Jo White, I can't tell you all her background. She had a house, owned a house on the campus-well, now, what's the street right south of our campus? Warren: Main Street. Thomas: Main Street. That house is still there, I think. There was another professor's house next to it where the Shannons lived, but the Beta fraternity lived in Miss Annie's house. Warren: The Beta fraternity was in Miss Annie Jo's house? Thomas: We didn't all live there, but that was our place of gathering. Warren: Really? Thomas: Miss Annie had an interest in some of us. I remember that she was interested in-I can't remember names anymore. Warren: That's okay. Thomas: She was interested in Eddie Crockett from Wytheville, Virginia, who was a Beta. Miss Annie was the one who chose the leaders for the Fancy Dress Ball. As a matter of fact, she may have inaugurated, as far as I know. Warren: She did, indeed. Thomas: So the first year I was there, Eddie Campbell from Witheville led the Fancy Dress Ball. Warren: Ed Campbell? Thomas: Ed Crockett. Well, you may have heard about Miss Annie. She had rather decided characteristics. Using her house the way we did, we were happy there. As far as I know, we never had any trouble with her. Warren: What was she like? Tell me about her. 3 Thomas: Oh, my goodness. I don't dare to try to tell you about her. She always had pretty positive ideas, I think, and in a sense she had leadership because she undertook a good many things. People on the campus knew her as Miss Annie Jo. Warren: Was she still the librarian when you were there? Thomas: I don't recall that she was. I'm pretty certain that she wasn't, although I wouldn't like to state that for history. Warren: Do you remember her at Fancy Dress? Did she still go to the balls? Thomas: Oh, yeah, she ran it. Warren: Did you get involved in that? Thomas: No, I didn't, but I could have if I'd wanted to. The Fancy Dress was a real institution when she was there, and I think it was primarily due to Miss Annie. Warren: Did you used to go to Fancy Dress? Thomas: No, I didn't. Warren: You never went? Thomas: Never went. Warren: Oh, no! I was hoping you could describe it to me. Thomas: Well, I have to tell you that my strict Presbyterian family didn't encourage dancing. My sister danced and my brother danced, but at that time, I never learned to dance, so I didn't bother about Fancy Dress. Not being able to go to Fancy Dress didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the university and so on. I was quite an enthusiastic Beta in my Beta fraternity. Warren: Tell me what you mean by that. What does it mean to be an enthusiastic Beta? Thomas: Well, let me see. I'm trying to think of a Beta song. "And we all filled our cups so high, the old [unclear]. All pass the loving cup around, pass it to brother thy, we know a [unclear] Beta Theta Pi, our blood flows 4 strong, bold comes our song when this fair cup we raise, so pass the loving cup around and drink in Beta's praise." Warren: Very good, I'm impressed. That's wonderful. Well, now, you just brought something up I'm curious about, "Pass the loving cup around and drink in Beta's praise." Now, you were there during Prohibition time, weren't you? Thomas: Oh, yes. Warren: How did that have an effect? Thomas: Well, that was just a song, "The Loving Cup." We had a lot of songs and that was one of them. But there were some Betas there who were of a strict background and were drinking. "The Loving Cup," of course, referred just to a particular meeting when we passed the cup around, and I suppose it was alcoholic. I think in those days it wasn't necessarily alcoholic. Warren: Was there a sense of it being Prohibition time? Did you ever see anything like bathtub gin and that kind of thing going on? Thomas: No. No. When did Prohibition- Warren: Wasn't it in the '20s? Thomas: Well, as far as I know, it was. Now, I'll tell you this about me, my mother told me when I was a boy that if I went until I was twenty-one years of age without taking a drink, she'd give me a hundred dollars. Well, now a hundred dollars, I've asked my financial friend, I said, what was a hundred dollars in '24, how much would that be today, and they say about a thousand dollars. So I got my hundred dollars for going until I was twenty-one without drinking. Well, of course, Mother's theory was if I got that far without it, I wouldn't do it. I never had any real temptation to drink, I don't know why. There was, of course, there was a fair amount of drinking at Washington and Lee, but I don't remember students being drunk. I don't think I ever saw one drunk. 5 Warren: So you didn't have any sense of, during Prohibition, that that was any kind of an issue? Yes? Mrs. Thomas: I feel very inhospitable. Warren: Oh, not at all. Mrs. Thomas: Not bringing you all coffee and cookies and attending to you properly, but I just got to go out for a little bit. Warren: Okay, I hope I see you. Mrs. Thomas: Jack Thomas, you think you can take care of this pretty lady while I'm gone? I won't be gone long. Thomas: I think I can. Mrs. Thomas You think you can? Warren: He's doing a good job already. Mrs. Thomas You take care of him. Warren: He's doing a good job already. Mrs. Thomas: Is he doing all right? Warren: He's doing great. Mrs. Thomas: Well, bless his heart. He's got a lot of interesting things, stories in here if he can just bring them up. Thomas: If I can remember them. [Laughter] Warren: He's doing it. Thomas: All right. Mrs. Thomas: I certainly hope I get back before you leave. Warren: I hope you will, too. Okay. Thomas: Just plan to stay until she gets back. Mrs. Thomas: I'm going to unlock the front door if it's locked so you can open it if she wants to leave. He couldn't find his key one day, and he had call a neighbor to come and open the door. 6 Thomas: I've got my key right now. Mrs. Thomas: You got your key? All right. Warren: Bye-bye. Well, let's go back to Henry Louis Smith. I'd like to hear more about him. Thomas: Well, he was from North Carolina, and I thought he was the greatest speaker I ever heard, the greatest speaker anywhere. I remember his graduation address for the high school, and I can't remember other men's addresses that I heard last week. Well, I'd have to say this, I've never had much contact with anyone of his stature. We had some mighty good people in Bedford, but of his stature, and I often said, and for many years, he was the greatest person I knew. I don't know how I happened to get a Beta bid, but I have flattered myself of late to think that it may be that Dr. Henry Louis put it up to his son Dupre, who was a Beta, and I got a Beta bid. In fact, I didn't know anything about fraternities when I went there. I was really unsophisticated. Warren: So tell me what fraternities were like back then. Thomas: Well, they had regular meetings. Many of them had fraternity houses. Sigma Chi house is still on the corner of Washington Street, and if they didn't own a house, they rented it. They encouraged their people to take part in activities, and if you got to be anything on the campus of any importance, that's what they wanted. I think, frankly, and it's simply prejudice, I think Beta perhaps put more emphasis on the worthwhile things than some of the other fraternities did. Now, you could write that down to my prejudice as a Beta. I have an idea, I've never said this to anybody and I never had thought about it until recent years, I have an idea that Dr. Henry Louis Smith was kind enough to suggest to his son Dupre that Beta's give me a bid, in spite of the fact that he'd heard my graduation address. [Laughter] But the first position I had in the world when I graduated was given me by Dr. Henry Louis Smith, and I traveled throughout the 7 South in the interest of raising funds for the reestablishment of the Robert E. Lee School of Journalism. Warren: Really. Thomas: For the Washington and Lee campus, yes. Warren: Tell me about that. Thomas: Well, that was Dr. Smith's dream. I am embarrassed that I can't tell you more about that, I don't know that ever took place, and I'm sorry to say that. Seems that it hadn't taken place for a long time, and Dr. Smith didn't have universal agreement with his policies, and that's all I can say about it. Warren: Did you stay in touch with Washington and Lee all through the years? Thomas: Yes. Warren: Because I'm intrigued that you're talking about Henry Louis Smith as being such a wonderful orator. Thomas: Yes. Warren: You're the only person I've talked to who was in school during the Smith administration. So many other people talk about talk about Francis Pendleton Gaines. You are the only person who can compare them. Thomas: Well, Francis Gaines was an orator with magnificent command of the English language. Henry Louis Smith, before I met Gaines, I would have put at the top, but that was a limited experience, maybe, of a Bedford High School graduate. Henry Louis Smith was very, very interesting. He talked about leadership in his graduation address, and he made a great point of the difference between being a boxcar and an engine, and that we ought to be engines instead of boxcars being pulled around by something else. Well, that was simple enough for a college student to understand, and I still remember it today. Now, am I talking too much? 8 Warren: You're doing just wonderfully. You know, that is such an interesting point, because I have spent the last year trying to understand what makes Washington and Lee, Washington and Lee, why it is such an extraordinary place, and I think that's one of the things that I've learned is that it produces engines. Thomas: [Laughter] Yes. Very good. Warren: So how do they do that? How does Washington and Lee inspire leaders? Thomas: Well, I will say this, and this may sound arrogant, I think Washington and Lee was fortunate in that a high proportion of its students come from families where you could expect some degree of leadership, particularly the traditions of Robert E. Lee. Lee was a great person. Where do you originate? Warren: In Maryland. Thomas: Maryland. Well, that's pretty close to Virginia. [Laughter] That was the Washington and Lee tradition. George Washington and Robert E. Lee, maybe you'd say you wouldn't want to have two military persons in leadership, but I think these were exceptional military persons. Lee was a strongly religious man. I won't say that Washington wasn't, I don't know just how strong Washington's religion was. I was . going to talk about religion later on, I've got something to say about that, and don't let me forget. Warren: I'm writing it down. One of the things that I think we all associate with Robert E. Lee is the concept of the Honor System. Thomas: Of course. Warren: Tell me how you learned about the Honor System and what it meant to you as a student. Thomas: Well, everybody learned about the Honor System. We were told about it and it was understood that that was a principle of Washington and Lee. If you took an examination, you didn't cheat, and that's the way it came. It was one of the major emphases, and that, I think, is one thing that differentiates Washington and Lee 9 from a typical state university, for instance. Some of my prejudices may come out in this conversation. But the fact that you could associate the Honor System with Robert E. Lee meant a good bit. Now, of course, we had students from all over the country. I don't know what the proportions were from the South when I was there, but I don't think anyone coming in there without knowing about it would think, "Well, now this is just another institution," because we were a national institution. There wasn't any emphasis at Washington and Lee on being Southern; there was emphasis on George Washington and on Robert E. Lee. I'm going to deviate here and tell you something that I thought might interest you. Warren: Please. Thomas: Have you ever heard of Karl Barth? Warren: No, what's the name? Thomas: Karl, B-A-R-T-H, Switzerland. He has been recognized as maybe being the greatest theologian of this generation, and I spent a year in Switzerland listening to Barth and seeing him. He came to this country and spent about a week here in Richmond with Union Seminary. Well, it fell to me to squire Karl Barth around, and that was a great distinction. Some interesting things happened. But Barth was very much interested in military affairs, and we took Barth out to the banks of the Chicahominy River here to show him where one of the Civil War scrimmages had taken place. The local authority was telling Barth about it, and Barth corrected him at one point. [Laughter] He knew more about it than anybody. I'm afraid I've gotten started on something and I don't want it to take too long, but, of course, it was a great experience for me to, in a sense, squire Barth around the state of Virginia. He was interested primarily in the military folks. There are a lot of things in our great state that didn't primarily appeal to him. As I said, I 10 was given charge of his program, so where would we go? Well, we went, of course, to Fort Appomattox and other places I don't especially recall now, and after we'd gone to Appomattox, I could see how interested he was in history, and it occurred to me, well, why not take him to Lexington where both George Washington [sic] and Robert E. Lee were buried. So I proposed that to Barth, and he said, "I'm not interested in where men are buried, I'm interested in where they fought." How about that from a theologian? [Laughter] Warren: That's fascinating. That's fascinating. Well, now, you talk about going to Lexington. I'm interested in what the town of Lexington was like when you were a student. Can you describe the town for me? Thomas: Well, I think so. The town of Bedford had about three thousand population. Lexington was a bit smaller, I think, than Bedford, and I recall being taken over there by my mother. Uncle Charlie was teaching law at the University of Virginia at that time, so I didn't see him in Lexington. Does the name John W. Davis mean anything to you? Warren: Yes. Thomas: Well, he's Washington and Lee, and he had been a student of Charles Graves, my uncle, and met me. That gave me some standing with him. He says, "Charles Graves knows more railroad law than anybody in the United States." Well, when he said that, the railroads were the thing. Airplanes were just maybe remotely coming in, and so, of course, that pleased me to hear him say that. Now, you asked what Lexington was like. Well, Lexington was a Presbyterian town and was a religious town, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't a lot of things going on in Lexington that wouldn't be very compatible with the best Christian church. But there were a great many good people in Lexington, and I don't mean goody-good, I mean good people. There were certain families that for one reason or another I had contact with, I guess through my home. The Penick family, 11 he was the head of the finances of the university, Paul Penick, they were Washington and Lee people. Well, there were a good many others. I'm not doing satisfactory on this question. Warren: One thing that, I think if I remember from my research, when you drove into Lexington, were the roads paved at that point? Thomas: Oh, no. I suppose when I drove into Lexington, yes, they were paved in a good many places, but not everywhere. I remember the good old days when we drove on dirt roads. [Laughter] My father was a hardware man, he had a hardware store in Bedford, but he also had a large farm right on the outskirts of Bedford, and he believed in making his boys work. So I did my stint on the farm, plowing, cutting corn, chopping wheat, everything that was to be done, and finally then drive the tractor on the farm. I liked it. That, to me, was a valued experience that I haa. Now so many Yankees have moved into that area and bought some of our farm so that my sister-in-law, who grew up in Lynchburg, but still lives in Bedford, she speaks of it as South Manhattan, there are so many Yankees around. [Laughter] Now, ask me again what you asked. Warren: I was looking for a description of the town of Lexington. Was the Robert E. Lee Hotel open yet? Thomas: The Robert E. Lee was not opened- Warren: I think that was just after you were there. Thomas: -when I was there, but it may have been opened before I left, I just don't know. Warren: It was somewhere around in there, but I'm not sure about the exact date. Thomas: The Robert E. Lee Hotel is not a historic Lexington building by any means. Of course, you've got Robert E. Lee's house on the Washington and Lee campus, where the president of Washington and Lee lives. 12 By the way, the president and his wife made a call on us recently and we let them in through the kitchen. We've got a driveway out there behind and that's where all the people come, they get off, then instead of walking around the grass and coming in the front, they come in through the kitchen. So I enjoyed seeing, and I welcomed the president of Washington and Lee and welcomed him through my kitchen. Warren: Well, he told me he had a marvelous time visiting you. Thomas: He did? Warren: He did. Thomas: Well, I think he'd have a marvelous time visiting with most anybody. I don't know him, I haven't seen him personallY. a great deal, but it's perfectly obvious that he is a gentleman through and through, and kindly, and I hope he's got enough force about him to stand for the right things. There's one thing that I will speak about later on-well, now I've been wandering. Warren: Go right ahead wherever you want. It's fine. Thomas: Well, you asked me about Lexington and I think that's about all I can- Warren: All right. Thomas: It's a lovely, lovely town, it's a good atmosphere for a university, but actually Lexington in my day didn't play a particular role in the Washington and Lee program. Warren: Did you live at Annie Jo White's the whole time that you were there? Thomas: I did for a while, yes, but I didn't live there-I lived next door, which was occupied by the Moffatts, he was an English professor. The Betas didn't necessarily live at Annie Jo's house. I think maybe occasionally she might have had one there. Down there on Main Street, the south side of the campus next to Annie Jo's was Dr. Desha's. He was chemistry. 13 Warren: Now, how about teachers? Were there any particular faculty members who were very important to you? I'm going to flip the tape over before you answer that.