The Speaker From Texas; Jim Wright -- Weatherford Beta 20 21 22

A whole lot dangerous and could end their lives at an early age, solutions are rising slowly. To save more lives, we need to take more actions against drug abuse. If we all join together to help our own family and friends, maybe we will have a longer and happier time to live with them. To me, the best way to combat drug overdose is education and simply helping each other. And the best way to combat drug abuse is teaching our kids of the danger of drugs and publiccy, both moist and misdynchial. Thank you. Hello, Karen, Carrie, Miranda. Thank you and thanks to all I have for having joined us today. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. And I guess I'm eating at a joint.

Let's get some pictures here. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, stand by. Bob Ray, these trees I planted when I was, I guess about 16, they were saplings. These trees, you can see how well they've grown in this parkie county soil with a lot of tender loving care. The old house was newer than, not new by any man who remains. Still look pretty good. Had parkie hardwood floors, high ceilings. Built that way in the days when you had to open up the windows and let the air in. Wasn't any air conditioning in those days. Big wood burning fireplaces in five of the downstairs rooms.

Bedrooms upstairs, spacious and big. I love this house. I really have an nostalgia for it. Right over there, once he was a fish pond, my dad built a fish pond there. Once during the war he wrote to him and said that the fish had all died. He had left the holes running in the fish pond and he said he decided that the cleanliness for next to godliness, the fish run ungodly lunch. They didn't seem to like the water running in. What brought you back here? Been away from weather for a while. You came back to this house. We had traveled around a lot in those days, Bob Ray. You had to go where your dad can make a living. It broke my heart when we left weather for it. We went over to Fort Worth to live with my grandparents. That was an economic necessity. My grandfather who had worked for one national company for 22 years was dismissed

as where all the people arbitrarily put off and out of work who had as much as 20 years seniority with the company. The idea was that after 25 years the company contract provided them a retirement plan. But he didn't have anything if he was discharged before the 25th year. All of them were that year in 1931. There wasn't any social security in those days. There wasn't any unemployment compensation. There wasn't even any FHA to help a fellow keep the dogs away from his door with his mortgage. My grandfather was 63. I remember seeing him every morning as he would go out and get Fort Worth store telegram and look for all of help wanted ads. Light out on foot, open his eyes trying to find a place that would give him an opportunity.

There weren't any jobs in 1931 and 32 for a man 63 years of age. And so I guess a lot of my political philosophy was born at that time. I always wanted to live back here in Weatherford. And when we came back in 1939 after I finished high school, I was ecstatic. I was joyous. It always had been a place of returning from me. It was the old family home of both sides of my family, Weatherford. My mother and my father both had grown up here as young people. And it still is a place of the heart. I have a tie to it that won't be severed. You know, you talk about it being an economic decision that your parents moved to Fort Worth with your grandparents. What economic, how did economics play a role? Well, you see, it was necessary for us to go over there and live with them and pay rent to them so that they can make payments on their home. So that their home would not be foreclosed after my grandfather had been dismissed by this company.

It was just one of those things. Families did that in those days. After a couple of years there, my father was offered a job as manager of the Chamber of Commerce in Duncan, Oklahoma. We moved up there. They sent money back to my mother's father and mother to help them over the rough spots. But meanwhile, some things that happened. Franklin D Roosevelt had become president. The new deal had begun. There was hope in the air. People realized that their government cared what happened to them. Social security came into being. FHA and the homeowners loan corporation gave them a new breath of life on their mortgage and their home. We moved around from there to Seminole, Oklahoma and then back to Dallas. My father, meanwhile, had organized a nationwide company and was trying to claw a toe hold on the road to recovery. Finally, when we came back here, we had gained that toe hold.

We could come back and live where we wanted to live. This house seems to me in 1939 to have been a sign of prominence and well-doing. You guys were living all right there. I don't know what my dad paid for it. I've heard and have forgotten. It would be ridiculously small by modern standards, but in those days it was a nice house. My dad never liked old money. He kind of liked pay for what he got. And he paid it off in about three or four years and didn't do anything on it. He was doing pretty well then and for the rest of his life did well. This is where my dad began, I guess, as a kid. It was tough in those days. He didn't have the same privileges and opportunities that I've had. And I guess the passion of his life was to see that his kids got a better break than he got. And a chance to get a formal education, which was denied to him. Though in many ways, I think he was the best educated man I've ever known.

And he had polish that was self-taught. He was self-educated. My dad had a quit school in the fourth grade. His father had died. And his mother was an invalid. She had polio. They didn't call it that in those days. I guess they called it roomatism. They didn't know what to call it. But he was paralyzed from the waist down and had to go in a wheelchair. Some of dad had a quit school along with his brothers and got to work. He did what kids from the Southland did sometimes in those days. What poor kids from the ghettos do today. He found out that the only way to get a real pocket full of money was in professional athletics. And my dad became a professional boxer for a time when he was in his very early 20s. I went to Detroit and Chicago and places like that. And had enough sense to quit before he got his brains bashed in. Got enough money to come back to Weatherford and buy a tailor shop.

And so he opened the business and a tailor shop here in Weatherford. This is the family home. I told you the story about my mother's folks. My maternal grandfather's people came over from Australia and took an original land grant from a state of Texas out here east of town. I had a ranch out there. So the good times came, but before the good times, you went through the depression in Weatherford. Yeah. Your father was on a road a lot? Yes. In those days, he was trying to promote another company that he had tried to start in a very inauspicious year of 1931. Quite a terrible time to try to start a nationwide business. My dad's idea at that time was that since there were so many small towns that didn't have budgets or money enough to put up street signs, he would put up the street signs for them. And he would sell advertising on the street signs for the local businesses. Also, it's a national company.

And he tried that for a year and a half and it was a tough thing. That was the year we later laughingly referred to as the year we ate the piano. You moved one. You moved that year, I think. And the piano didn't move with you. That's exactly right. Someone asked my mother Marie what happened to the piano and she said we ate it. It was just one of those times. We also ate the car. We had to convert whatever there was to cash to feed the family. That's what happened. Those were tough years. But thanks to parents who really managed to shield us from any sense of being deprived or mistreated. I don't think my sister's and I felt that we were poor. We never felt that at all. My dad, in particular, was in egalitarian, I guess, Bob Ray.

He taught by precept and by example, never to look down on anybody. And never to let anybody look down on you. Hobos came to the back door at one house. You learned something from them, didn't you? I sure did. People called them framps in those days. In the house over on Water Street, I'll take you by there in a minute if you want to go. And every day when the train would stop to take on water, you'd see them coming over the hillock out behind the house. They'd stand there like something that had grown there among the purple festivals and the yellow sunflowers. And they'd look up and down the street and dark gray dust to the railroad still on their clothing and their hair. And they'd pick a place to come and come knock on the back door. And typically one of those fellows would say, mother would go to the door, gee, ma'am, a guy should say anything I thought I might do to earn a price of a meal.

I'd be glad to do anything he got around the house. Well, there wasn't anything to be done and there was we couldn't have paid him. Mother always gave him something to eat. She always said to me, don't call him framps or Hobos. Don't look down on him. They're good people that just down on their lock. All they're doing is trying to move around and try to find a place where they can work. All they're looking for is a decent chance to earn a living. But there weren't many jobs in America and those depression years. And so they were moving westward across the country. I guess I learned something from them. Part of the general heritage I was mentioning a moment ago, don't look down on people who are hard-up or down on their luck because often they're fall. They may not have gotten the same breaks I've had or someone else has had. And give them a hand if you can.

Not a hand out, particularly, though if they're hungry, you're darn sure ought to be grateful that you're not and share with them. But better than that, if you can, give them a hand out. Give them a chance. That was my dad's philosophy. He was always really helping somebody he had had a real rough break. Even people who had been in the penitentiary sometimes they'd come and my dad had helped him find a job. This is a strange, but it's one of the things. You love your father, I can tell. I just heard a beep right. It changed quickly. I want to get this question in before we break. It's for you that you had a real love for your father. Yeah, yeah, I did.

And dad was a great inspiration to me. And my mother too, of course. My mother was a petition. Dad was an egalitarian. That they got along so well is really remarkable, I think. Mother's heritage always was to seek the best and to associate with people somewhat discriminatingly in a sense. You know, she picked and chose her friends. Dad knew nobody but friends. There may be a little bit of each of them. And me as there is of each of our parents and each of us. I guess penitenti, I'm a little more like my dad. I recall one story, a swimming hole. And a young black came to swim in the hole. Yeah, yeah, that was a courteous creek.

That was when I was in the fourth grade here in Waterford. And the boys would sneak off and go swimming in courteous creek. One day there was a young black who came and Leon was his name. He knew one of the fellows who was in there swimming. Glenn Quanti. Glenn was a friend of mine. He killed him World War II. Leon said, Mr. Glenn, could I come in and swim? Glenn looked around. He said, I don't know why not. I guess so. Kind of funny in those days. None of us cared. What damage would it have made for crying out loud? We found out later when my mother came home from a PTA meeting that all the women were heartified by the thought of anybody going to swim in courteous creek because there were some 23 privies that rained into that creek above where we were swimming. Outdoor talkings.

My mother made me vow never again to go there and swim in that spot. One time in town Creek, north of here, when a following year, Granny Byron, who was the school principal, came and found a bunch of swimming in the creek after school. The weather was turning bad and she just knew we needed to go home and she made us get out. And James Bodyford and I said, but Mrs. Byron, you will have to go. We have our clothes on the bank. And she said, that's all right, you just come. I'm going to stand right here until you get your clothes on and get home. And we did. She was a very preemptory lady, Mrs. Byron. She was a school teacher who broke no foolishness. What is it about weatherford or is it Texas or towns like this that produces Sam Rayburn, Lyndon Johnson and James Wright?

Sam Rayburn used to say that he loved to go back to Bonham because he said it's a place where people know it when you're sick and they care when you die. Maybe that's what it is. A sense of community. We lose that when towns get too big. Play to an Aristotle, both used to think that any community that got more than 40,000 citizens was no longer a place fit for civilized habitation. Maybe they had something there. And yet there is one high rise apartment area in the Washington D.C. area where there are at least 40,000 people in one square mile. The town grows up instead of out. But there isn't any sense of community. People live there but they don't abide there. They reside there but they're not part of the community.

They don't know one another, don't know their neighbors and I guess don't really want to. Most of them don't belong to any local church. They're not registered to vote there. Weatherford was different. Bonham was different. Johnson City was different. It was a kind of an ambience about small town Texas that made you earn your own way. You couldn't get by on what your dad was or your mother was. They had certain expectations of you to live up to certain standards but you had to develop what you were and you had to prove what you were. And you borrowed money on your face and on your word. There are just an awful lot of people in my age and my generation who have been quite successful here in Weatherford who would never have been except for a man named George Fant who was president of the First National Bank who had faith in him because he thought he knew what they were made of.

And you give him a break, give him a chance. Give him a chance that probably wouldn't have been warranted by the strictest interpretation of some distant banker running a bank holding company. Maybe what they were able to show by way of collateral wouldn't have held up on a computer. But George Fant looked him in the eye and took their word and believed in him and gave him a chance. And they lived up to it. For all the world wouldn't have let George Fant down because he believed in him. That may be part of what it is. I think a man's word is his bond. That's what my dad used to say. My mother too. You see, mother believed in me. She just never could believe that I would do anything wrong. Dad knew better. Mother, when I, one time, high school, wound up in jail and down us for a foolish infraction, nothing serious, nothing serious. We would run down the streets and leap, you know,

to hit a sign, a swinging sign that hung from an overhead awning. And this time we knocked it down. And it was a pretty good size sign of a hardware store out there in Oakcliff and Dallas. And Kenneth Landry's in the eye. He played in and I played half back on the football team and we were, you know, friends in a lot of ways. Thought it would be fun to pick that up and carry that sign down to the pig stand where we had just left a bunch of our kids having revelry. On the way there, oh, here comes a police car and they say, what are you boys doing to that sign? Well, our explanation just didn't hold up. We wound up down in the Dallas jail. And they said, we'll call one and call your parents, whoever they call my mother. She said, oh, fine, Sergeant, you treat him well now. I just take good care of him. She had the faintest idea, you know, it was for real. Sergeant called back three times.

She said, don't you think this is enough? That jokes gone far enough. She wouldn't believe that her boy could be in jail. Well, I knew it was close to time. We covered what you wanted to cover. Okay. All right. Like work. Yeah. Should we get two cameras instead of one? Yeah. Okay. She's not on us. Yeah. Yeah. She's going to his family. She better get busy with it. Okay. Oh, we're going to walk into the thing. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And, uh, you're seeing, uh, whatever. Yeah, the trees and whatever. There's a swimming pool over there on the inside of the fence. Over there. Uh-huh. But, uh, she made into a bathhouse. He had it as a little study, a little office out there. And, uh, he, uh, he grew the cane. A lot of, a lot of cane along the big fence out there. And long hair. He didn't, he didn't want to have a fence like this.

There is a cistern over here that catches rain water from the spouts and the gutter. And, uh, we used to, mother used to think that, uh, best used cistern water to wash your hair. Somehow, properties that were good for fortune. This is a house I lived in when I was 16 and, uh, for a long time. Well, I don't blame you. I appreciate you. We went up and rang the bell and tried to get them. And, uh, they weren't there. We were going to go in, but we can tell ourselves with the kind of, uh, little interview here. Tell you some really serious things. You'd look serious if I said some funny things. You'd look, uh, amused. And then if I said some stupid things, you'd look dumbfounded. It's just a variety of things I thought I can tell on an occasion like this. I was trying to think something safe. A lot of people are taking pictures of you.

What the hell is funny? Tell me something funny, by the way. Do you hear me? Yeah. But you're picking up this. No, you're not. You're not going to say whatever I wanted, man. You're a boy. I'm liberated. Say what? What I really want to say without fear of being quoted on the pesky machine. You've been doing pretty well about that. But sometimes, when she had the mic, when she had the camera on them, they'd clam up, you know, they're just free. And, uh, so I said, when you stay back here with the camera, I go up there and I'll talk to Charlie Langel. And he won't know. He won't notice him bugged. And he won't know you got your lens on him. Now, I'll lure him into a conversation. So I go up there and I'll start talking to Charlie about getting stained. Okay. Behind the fence back here by Ray was the swimming pool. Along this old iron fence.

I planted roses. We had a great big compost pile out back. I brought a compost and other stuff. And planted roses all along that fence line. I see they're not there anymore. They haven't blasted like the trees have blasted. My, um, up back is, uh, a sister with, uh, rainwater caught from the gutters, uh, the rain gutters and carried by the spouts into the big old sister. And my mother used to think that rainwater was better than any other kind of water to wash your hair with. She would make my little sister's wash the hair with the rainwater. I don't know what properties she thought it had. I guess it's softer water. Somehow it doesn't have a mineral hardness or something. But, um, this was a, okay. Okay.

Thanks, she got, she got what she wanted there. She's a lady coming out of that other house over there. I wonder where it is. Hello.

Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. I'm Brad C. Ladies. Hi. Hi, Jay. All right. All right. Well, they don't have one of them. That's probably, but that's all right. All right. All right. Yeah. Hey, you're done. Your honor. How you doing, Howard? That's all right. All right. All right. You know Howard Spencer. Nice to meet you. Virginia. Hi, Virginia. How are you doing? Oh, that's good. One heart. Oh you high. Hello, Ed. How are you? All right, got it? How you doing? I'm the one. I'm the one. It's all right. Well, that's the one. Virginia says not, you know. They'll be more sophisticated than that. That's another one too. But this... Great. You're going to get a party. How you doing? How are you? How are you? Where I want to say it, hello? Hi. How are you? How are you? Good, man. Have a seat. Sorry.

You're good. Ready? Come here, Benny. Benny. Come over here. They're voting you. I thought they were voting you. I thought they were voting you. Yeah, they are. Thank you. Good to see you all, obviously. Nice to be home. Appreciate the nice weather that we've got. It's not too dampishly hot. But old James Budford makes up that warmth of his house. Nice to see so many Democrats. Found a bigger crowd gathered at him. Thener than he supposed to be there. He said, It trails my heart and delights the innermost recesses of my soul to see such a dense crowd gathered here. I know you're not a dance because you're on right feet. And you're helping the right candidate. And I wish you well. And I thank you for it. And I want to enjoy the rest of the weather and take hands with all

before we get away from here. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Are you good? I'm very impressed. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet y'all. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. That's nice to meet you. Nice to meet y'all. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, thank you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Good to meet you. Nice to meet you, thank you. Nice stunning shirt. Thank you so much. Glad to meet you. Nice to meet you. Yeah. Thank you. 10 99jd. Very good. Good to meet you. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. 121. You had $3 million left. Very good. Very good. You have $3 million. Very good. That's a real thing. I'm $2. I'm $2.

You've got $2. That's right, you're right. I'm doing good, just like gross. Are you doing okay and everything closer? You look great. Okay. I but you have to try. You find a million drinks for everyone. It's pretty easy. But for one or two. We are. We arez starting. Oh, my god. Good working. Good morning. Good morning. Come on, coming in here. How you doing? Good looking. How you doing? All right. Shoot. Come. All right. You are doing great. How are you? What are you doing? Look. It's午. Good morning. Good morning. Here we are. Hello. Hello. I think we are doing good. I think we are doing good. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. You should take care of all the things I have done. I know a family in Jack can be very easy.

He is your day. And Louis is of course Louis is his wife. Louis came from Brown School though. And she had a family. I had an assistant named Helen. Is that right? And her older brother, Vandal. Yeah, that was alright. Well please don't look. I used to visit out there. I sometimes go out to cool them and I would always wind up having lunch with your grandfather and grandmother out there. Well, when you see her, tell her that that formerly red-headed ex-mayor of weather. If you just come out and have lunch with her, sends his regards. She cooked a wicked grand fried chicken and always biscuits and gravy. And she was a gracious hostess. Your whole family means a lot to me. Tell Jack hello.

Jack is a great guy. I've known him. Always I had forgotten for the moment the connection. Now he comes back to me. Very well. There I'll tell you something. Yeah, his mom always talks about you. Everybody at Weatherford College talks about you going to school. Well, I'll tell you how. I'll just come over there one of these times. I'll tell you something. We'll have a homecoming. Well, that'd be good. That'd be good. Let's do that. Thank you. Oh, dear. Oh, beautiful. How are you, honey? I'm just fine. I'm glad to see you. You've called us. Good evening, pal. I'm glad to see you too, Alice. I had sense enough to come. I tried and weigh on everything. Yes, sir. Ready? Look, who's here? Hello, Alice. Do you recognize this girl back here? Can you see Katie dead? Yeah. Give her. Well, she. Well, she. I'm going to call her. Yes. Well, if she didn't know, and if she knew,

people would play it in. She might have done it. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. We'll take a rain check someday. Well, she's already put in the application. All right. Two signs. That's what I was hoping. Carlos was my campaign manager. Many of my political endeavors for a long time back. Katie, then. Right. That would be nice. I wish you would. You know, a lot of things. Not that. You're just jumping out. And I get hung on the board. You still got a copy of that old ad in the start there. My dad bought them. And he had a bunch of them printed up. Oh. And I've got a role of them. I know that one at a time, but the paper is crisp and brittle. And yellowed with age. And yellowed again. What? Left eye.

I should. Here it goes. I should have gone. Really? I should have gone. Really? I should have gone. I should have gone. Really? Stop it now. Thank you, Mom. I don't know. I'm going to pick up Music. I'm going to pick up Music. Hold it. You can put music in there. What? Music. You can put music in there. What? Music. You can put music in there. Why? Okay. Where's my computer? It doesn't job. See my computer broke. Wait a minute. Do you have Syntheside? Do you have Syntheside? Cash register? Why would Mom help me speak about that? For children, I did it. Yeah. If she didn't like it. Yeah. You got it. I was- Yes, I met her. You were watching right. Number two, I was, and everyone, already, had her problems and i felt we were having troubles under that. And we've been talking long time ago. It's more about safety and alcohol used. I'm hearing good music. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm fine. I'm fine.

How are you? Well, it's good. Yeah, we're damn bad. All right. Very good to see you. Very good to see you. How are you? Very good. Hi. How are you? Very good. Hi. How are you? Very good. You're okay. Good to see you. I'm Jim Ryan. You're trev. I'm sure we had the lead. Very good. Very good. Well, very good. Very good. Good. Very good. Very good? Very good. Good. Very good. Very good. Well, LAheidX better. Thank you bro. Is that the Raiяла of OKOS? Yes. Oh, OK. You could just talk to me in a call. Then that's better chance. Great. You were his campaign manager back in 1950. głosing They're the first time he ran for congress. Yeah. I'll tell you, someone asked how we were able to do it. And I said, well, we made all the mistakes that a campaign could have been made and that, I guess, it confused the opponents and they didn't know how to cope with somebody

that didn't know what they were doing. But we won and won big. Now, you're running against even Carter, right? Basically, that was... Well, Mr. Carter was a great supporter for Wingate Lucas, who was the opponent, of course, at the time. But later, I'm sure that Mr. Carter became a very staunch and a very good friend and supporter of Jim. As a matter of fact, his son-in-law was the first president of the Jim Wright Congressional Club. And not only that, but his successor was Damon Carter Jr. who was the president of the Jim Wright Congressional Club. And that, as you know, is the club that backs to him and helps him out. Now, there was a story, though, at the last minute about an ad that was placed in an even Carter's paper. How did that come about? Well, Jim's a pretty straight-speaking gentleman. And he wrote this ad because he felt that maybe Mr. Carter

thought that he wouldn't be supportive and working for all the people, which Jim was. He wasn't going to favor anyone over someone else. And so he wrote this ad. And it was quite an ad. And so it was a direct letter to Mr. Carter. It wasn't offensive. It was just a statement of facts. And so how went? Well, it just was in so many words that Mr. Carter I'll represent you, just like I represent everyone else. But he said, I can't just represent what person. But it was well put. And of course, the start telegram ran it. And of course, we didn't have a lot of money. And that ad cost us $780. And back then, that was a lot of money. Do you remember, you said the campaign made...

Oh, okay. This is the campaign made all the mistakes. There's so many beside that, I mean, some kind of style. He was the only speaking gentleman, I know. No, we, we, of course... Not asking to tell stories out of school? Well, it was not not necessarily interesting. Just like a bunch of amateurs who were trying to run a campaign. We had a committee of about four of us that worked together. And we met our meeting places down in the Presbyterian Church here in Guadalford. And we would make caravan trips around to Glen Rose and over to Fort Worth. And we were working closely with the people. I think that's what helped us as much as anything else. And then Jim is a fine speaker, a fine archer. But we didn't have enough money to keep him on television. And for some reason, they wouldn't let us ask for contributions on television, on the television.

But that was understandable. But we scratched and scrounged and got enough money to carry the campaign off. You bet. That's right, it's down. I can't believe it now. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is.

I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. Where you get a close-up. Just a tender, you don't have to cut them. They have this ball apart because you try to slice them. I'm tempted to just grab one and go to work on it. I don't know what it is.

I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. That's the guy responsible for it right there. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is.

I don't know what it is. You want to tell me your name. How long did you know Jim Wright? I told you that. I was playing roosters together. Did he play them? Yeah, and his was the main one. Jim's wife. He beat everyone all along. One thing I also remember here in the last five, maybe been six or eight years ago, Jim says, did you know I used to be in love with you? I said, Jim, I was older than you. He said, I don't care. I didn't love with you. I told you. Yeah. I can't be serious. I can't be serious.

I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is.

I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is.