Warner interview

[Begin Tape 1, Side 2]
Warner: Kit Carson was another basketball player.
Warren: Kit Carson?
Warner: Yeah, that's what we called him. His name was Carson, I think the nickname
was Kit. They had good basketball teams and they were well-attended. They were fun.
Norm Iler was another basketball player, and he was good. All three of those guys
were good. Good basketball players. They'd win the conference and the conference
then is bigger than it is now. Now they've split it up. The Southern Conference used to
have them all in it. It was a big conference.

         Well, we've about talked enough, haven't we?
Warren: Well, no, we're not quite done yet. We're not quite done yet.

         Now, one thing I'd like to ask you about. You were there at a time that was
extremely, not only were you there during the end of the Depression, but you had
World War II coming over your shoulder.
Warner: Yeah.
Warren: Was there a sense of that while you were there?
Warner: Oh, yeah, sure.

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Warren: Tell me about that.
Warner: Well, I knew I was going to go in the Army. There was no question about it. I
went to Fort Bliss and ended up in Burma with a mule. I was with the last cavalry unit
and it was nothing glamorous about sending you on a horse. You left your horse
behind. We had mules. We'd hang onto their tail going up the hill and they'd carry all
our equipment, including their own feed and everything, ammunition, guns and
everything else, cannon.
Warren: So before you left, what was the mood on campus as events were unfolding
out there in the world? Did you have a sense of what was going on in the world?
Warner: Oh, yeah.
Warren: Tell me about that.
Warner: Well, you certainly knew that we were preparing for war. They really weren't
prepared, even in the beginning. I wasn't one of those, but they say they'd have
wooden guns and things like that. We weren't prepared for World War II. I sometimes
wonder whether we're going to be prepared for World War III. But, no, there was a
sense that we knew we was going. We thought maybe, you know, that we'd go, and
like most wars, you thought you would go and get out in a year and then you'd be
home. Revolutionary War, the same idea. Civil War, the same idea. The kids—
Warren: Never quite works out that way.
Warner: —that fought in them all thought that they would be home within a year,
which was an illusion. You got home in four or five years maybe.
Warren: If you were lucky.
Warner: If you study the Revolution, they all thought they were going home. In fact,
they'd sign up for just so long and then they thought they'd go home. There was that
thought that the war wouldn't last long and maybe we wouldn't even get involved right
there after graduating to the degree that we'd have to go overseas. You'd think it

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would all go away and you'd go home. But the more you got involved, the more you
realized you weren't going home. You were going somewhere else.
Warren: There are certain things about Washington and Lee that aren't necessarily
unique, but they're pretty close to unique, and one of the things is the Honor System.
Do you remember how you first learned about the Honor System and what it meant to
you while you were there?
Warner: Well, you just absorbed it. Now, they had a Freshmen Camp that you would
go to, and it was optional, and I didn't go to it. Billy and myself, we were prep school
guys, we knew we didn't need any of that stuff and we just went directly in. But you
became absorbed in it. In other words, we didn't have that, what was it, two weeks
orientation, I think it was, but we got there in the deadline to when you had to be there.
You certainly knew about it, not only knew about it, but knew all about it.
Warren: Okay. We were talking about the Honor System.
Warner: Well, golly, I think W&L should exploit that, the Honor System and
Washington and Lee. In other words, to me, they've never really taken advantage of
their heritage, other than the chapel and the old houses and all that. I feel that they've
never emphasized Washington enough at W&L. I mean, the $50,000 that he gave was a
lot of money in those days and the school might have not existed, probably wouldn't
without it. Liberty Hall, they were in trouble and he not only gave his name to it, which
was terrific, more than the money.

         I think with Lee having come to W&L after the war, they became so absorbed in
Lee, who was perfect, there wasn't a crack in his—that's what's kind of sad about it,
they made him such a hero, he's hardly human. They did the same to Washington, I
guess. I think Washington's coming out now as a very human sort of a person, and
W&L should exploit that factor. Here was a person, for instance, in the history I have
read of Washington, the latest book, they mentioned W&L just one time and it said that
he gave his money, the canal stock, to some little inconsequential college up in Virginia.

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Well, that made me mad, because that's not true. It's not a little nobody college. It
might be a little nobody college because we've never really taken advantage of the fact
or exploited the fact of the money that was given to W&L by Washington, and
Washington himself.

         Washington, to me, in college was a secondary figure, kind of off in the distance,
whereas Lee was it. Washington was perched up there, but old George, he was there,
but he was almost a myth, whereas Lee was the patron saint of the school, and I think
he should continue to be, but I think of the two, Washington's status ought to be even at
least equal or even a little more so than Lee, because I think in the future the image of
Washington will be more valuable than the image of Lee. Lee was a great guy, the
greatest guy of his century in my opinion, but he was a loser. He lost. Washington
won. When history is finally written, I think our association with Washington has been
underemphasized. Concerning the two, maybe Lee was overemphasized.
Warren: Very interesting point. Very well said, too.
Warner: Yeah, and we ought to get more of Washington in the chapel and in the little
museum. Washington was really a more interesting man than Lee. He was something,
Washington was. He controlled the extreme right and extreme left all in his Cabinet
and took advantage of their abilities, no matter where they were, and about the only
guy in the world that could do that. I mean, he could use Jefferson, he could use
Hamilton, he could use all in between. He wasn't one side, he was a centrist and was a
very, very—he used intellectuals even writing his speeches, but he was in awe of none
of them. He was really the kind of a leader that was—he didn't have all the Ph.D., he
hardly had a grade school education, but he was country smart and he knew how to
handle people and he knew how to lead a nation. He was the glue that held this
country together. It might well have just fallen apart, easily fallen apart without him.
Warren: Well, he needed you for a spokesman.

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Warner: Yeah, that's right. Well, he's going to get me. He's going to get a lot of the rest
of us, too. We should get Washington, really, back into the picture in a big way. After
all, it will be—he died in 1799, too.
Warren: Nice coincidence of years there, isn't there?
Warner: Yeah, coincidence of years, and we should emphasize that. He's become an
enigma with people. They don't know who he was. They've taken him out of the
school books. Washington and Lee should be in the vanguard of getting him back into
the school books. You got to be an activist to get in the school books of some kind.
Warren: With you and Jim Whitehead at the head of the charge—
Warner: We'll get him back in here where he belongs.
Warren: George will do just fine.
Warner: He was a very human person, too, very human. Interesting. Very interesting.
Warren: Well, I know we need to wind this up, but there is one time I would really like
you to tell me about. What was it like to be at the dedication of the Warner Center?
Warner: It was great. I loved it.
Warren: How did you find out about it? When did they tell you they were going do it?
Warner: They just hardly told me at all. They really didn't, except the dedication, I
really didn't think that Doremus Gym and all that. It was great. Washington and Lee
will be here forever, as far as I'm concerned. There will always be those that love it.
What's that song that goes, "Whether friendships fail or friends be few, we'll love thee
still, our alma mater, our dear old W&L U." I think there's real heart in that. College
Friendships, I think they called it. Yeah, people remember that. You remember your
friends. Some of them fail, some friendships failed and friends be few, but you still look
upon them as friends.
Warren: Now, you're not taking me to that day, though. Tell me about the dedication
of the Warner Center.

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Warner: Well, really, I don't care about the dedication of the Warner Center much, but
what I want to do is to maybe help W&L recognize their heritage more and let's have a
dedication of maybe some Washington paintings or something like that that I'd give
them. I'd love that much more than the damn gym myself. We got to get some art
appreciation there. I think art, by the way, is going to be a big thing in universities.
Every school I go to are all extremely interested in—I think it's due to the country
becoming more mature and art becomes more important in people's lives. Young
people—my grandson is just crazy about art.
Warren: I should think so.
Warner: He's just barely eight and he'll go to this artist, this fellow here in town that
paints, just as a hobby, and he sits down there and talks to him. He said, "I'm interested
in art. Would you show me some pictures?" The artist was telling me about it. He said
Cabe was just like a client coming in there and he said he'd show him some and what he
was interested in and what he wasn't. He said, "I've saved my money that my
grandfather gave me last Christmas and I'm interested in buying a piece of art." This
guy was talking to me and he said, "Well, this picture's real nice, but this one might
appreciate in value a little bit more than the other one." He said, Cabe said, "Well, I'm
not interested in appreciation and value because I don't intend to sell any of my art."
[Laughter]
Warren: That's marvelous.
[End of interview]

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