Legendry; Interview with Former Vermont Governor, Tom Salmon on His Early Years, Part 1 of 2

Good evening. This is Frank Anthony producer of legendary. Tonight here is part one of my recent interview with former Vermont governor are Tom salmon. Unique quality of this lawyer politician is one of the strengths of America. We tend to take for granted almost as if we deserve it as Americans until we discover a Watergate. We direct the spoken word toward time Salman's dedication tonight to the old traditional values values like earned respect for authority and hard work. Here's a former leader of a half million people who talks about the importance of football and scouting in his life. Here is a man who as a professional has not forgotten the influence of religion and how his parents shaped his life as well as how John Kennedy changed it. Let's listen to former Governor Tom salmon of Bellows Falls Vermont and the people who shaped his life as a young man. As he tells how their spirit lives on. The spirit that Bill's legends.

It's really nice to have you here with us. I like to get right into our program and ask you where you were born. As my political adversaries in Vermont frequently reminded me I was born in Cleveland Ohio. And what year was that Tom. One thousand nine hundred thirty two in the height of the Depression. I do the brushing. You must have some early remembrances about that. I think I lived in Cleveland for two to three weeks my dad had a job in Cleveland in for a book publishing company the office folded and he came back to the place of his roots in Massachusetts. Your father wasn't in political life at all and you know my father had no political background whatever. Where were your parents from. My dad is a native of South from

Massachusetts about 25 miles west of Boston. My mother a native of New Britain Connecticut your grandparents my grandparents were. And my grandmother on my father's side and I believe my grandfather on my father's side were born in Ireland. I believe one of my grandparents on my mother's side was born in the United States the other a born in you know Ireland. I see you know about when they came to this country. Yes they. They they came to this country after the first major wave of immigration following the potato famine and took up residence. In the late 19th century the late 19th century. So

interesting. What were some of the early influences on you or do you remember that there were any specifically. My Both my grandfathers were dead when I reached the age of reason my maternal grandmother lived to a ripe old age of eighty six or seven and she was the Connecticut Yankee good person and very devoted to the people managing a good home. She imbued me with some very wholesome qualities my grandmother on my father's side. She died when I was six or seven years old so my memories of her are rather scant. Your education was your education influenced very much where you are

directed very much by your parents. Yes my mother and dad both were fortunate to have some higher education. College graduates they fell upon some hard times economically in the wake of the depression as did millions of people in this country. But they both in their own way had a very profound influence on me as a as a young man. They establish values in the house that I think served me well during my entire life and will serve me well the balance of my life. Specifically respect for authority and respect for one's elders respect for those less fortunate than ourselves. The notion that I. America was a land where opportunity was possible

for those who pursued excellence that there was no standard that quite met the standard of excellence. And if you achieved that in the future. It could indeed be reasonably bright. They also taught me that there is no substitute for achieving anything worthwhile other than hard work and as a young man. 12:13 I had part time jobs. I worked frequently two and three jobs and some spells throughout my law school career and these values help me in very good stead. Did you feel Tom that there was very much of a religious influence in your family. Yes I'd say there was a my mother and father were practice their religion the Catholics by

upbringing and training. Regular church goers insisted that we take our catechism lessons attend a mass a regularly. And that influence was felt later in my life when my dad who was a graduate of Boston College had some influence on me and in attending and graduating from Boston College and later for their law school. That influence and especially the the Jesuit training that I received I view very fondly at this point in time I feel that it was an excellent education and I laid a foundation for the growth that I was later to experience. Your early education before college was at public school a very very small. School public school system in Stowe Massachusetts a very small town at that time now you know

it's about a thousand people. Well I think it's bigger now it was very small and I think there were 12 in my brothers. My younger brother's graduating class and I only attended high school one year there because a very small class 15 break high school right next to the library Yes and it was you all hail high school USA allies were you in town when I burned down. Yes it did you know it did I didn't know that. I moved on. And this is part of my family's my mother's father's counsel. You know they couldn't afford the tuition. How did you feel about the education as you got hail high school. Well the one year I was there I thought it was it was adequate. My mother and dad felt that my prospects of getting enroll in a first rate college would be improved to a large a high school and so I had my first year freshman year I transferred to Hudson High School which is a it was a town then

about the size of a Bellows Falls about the size of $1 today. Morgan No it was a meltdown a blue collar working man town the educational system was considered to be better. They had a very excellent sports program there and the combination of those factors gave rise to that decision. So I went to Hudson High School and graduated three years later. In other words you might say you move from Republican territory into Democratic territory. Well I wouldn't I wouldn't say that Stowe was an overwhelmingly Republican town. Hudson as I recall at that time was a swing town but. But frankly I didn't pay very much attention to politics at that time. Well as a teenager how did you regard politics. If you remember I would say I read the newspapers to some extent. It was a part of our civics courses in high school.

But I would say it was no factor in my life. You mean the Boston Globe newspapers. Well I don't think I read. I read the sports pages avidly. Sports became an avocation for me as a young man and I played football and hockey and baseball Hudson High School and Hudson High School. And that was actually a very salutary very important aspect of my early growth. I was fortunate to be strongly influenced by the football coach who was his name was Stanley bond a level which he went on from Hudson High School to become one of the most successful football coaches in the history of Massachusetts schoolboy football. Moving on eventually to Swampscott High where he had a string of unbeaten teams. The man was a fundamentalist by

training a man who had the enormous respect of his players. A man who taught all of us that football could become a very important ingredient in your overall development in life and particularly from the perspective of developing aggressive attitudes. Learning the rules of the game very importantly learning how to win and how to lose. Graciously. His influence probably had more to do with the fact that I had never smoked a cigarette in my life than any other influence he was. Very very strict on the issue of athletes being conditioned if they're going to play the game productively. He was certainly a person that influenced my early life.

Were you a member of the Boy Scouts of the 4H for anything like that. Yes I was very active in the Boy Scouts. And that opportunity represented the first exposure I had to leadership. At an early age and with the help of the scout leader in the town a star who was a minister the Reverend Howard Smith. My interest in Scouting was was wetted and I moved along to become patrol leader and eventually the senior patrol leader of the troop. And that was a very important experience. When I was governor. Every time a group of young men made Eagle Scouts we had a ceremony in the state house I thought that was a special achievement my early training relationship to Scouting indicated that. I'm still that interestingly intensely interested in

scouting on the executive committee of the Green Mountain Council or the Scouts here in Vermont and it's an activity whose idea not only is come but it's endured and it's a program that every boy ought to be involved in. You know I played three years of high school football back in Minnesota and you look like a pretty good sized fullback to get down on the ground to me I imagine that's what you played. No I actually I played and and I wasn't invited. Well no I was I was about the same size as my 15 year old son now. I was tall probably about 5 11 but i only way one hundred and fifty hundred fifty five pounds in high school like I grew later in life. You know I was a hundred and thirty five pound guard. And in those days it was my job to bring down the fullbacks if possible.

You know I just imagined you know what was it always law there at Boston College where you always headed towards law. No my major. Interesting Lee was in history in government. And it wasn't a law it was a notion that was drummed into me by my mother and dad and and enlarged upon by the faculty many of whom with Jesuits at the Boston College the writing wasn't there that was a no no. But I met Father Dryden when I went to law school he he taught and became dean of the law school. I was there it wasn't always the law the law seemed to surface as a career by a process of elimination. Frank. About my junior year I started to get my act together so to speak my grades started to significantly improve. The long

laboring hopes of my family seemed to be paying some dividends. I was a member of the debating society. I did well in English I did well in history government and philosophy and the courses of that description languages. I seem to do less well in mathematics and science and. More technical courses and I concluded that a profession that would maximize my capacity to express the spoken word. As an ex journalist was the likely direction my career should take and that conclusion tended to point to the law and I pursued a career in the law at Boston College initially and there after a year of graduate study at University Law School who was head of the law school at that time. Father William Camille Lee was Dean my first year at

Boston College Law School and then father Dryden a very young man who became the youngest of my second right youngest Dean the over head of the law school. Yes he was in his early 30s at that time as I recall and he assumed a big burden and thanks to him and spirit faculty of Boston College Law School was I think generally considered one of the finest law schools in the country and very difficult to gain admittance to. Tom we all have crisis points in our life. You know it's interesting to find out from other people people especially people who have served in public life and who have met challenges can you remember. Not necessarily in a governmental sense but can you remember some of the maybe one or two of the important crisis points in your life and how they might have shaped you. Yes I think one crisis point was.

After finishing the year at New York University in The Graduate School of very tough program a very excellent program to obtain a master's degree in taxation a field the specialty. I found I needed an extra course to complete my to Grigory requirements because I did not do well and you know a major course in the course of that year. And I I decided to go to summer school to try to complete my degree requirements as it worked out. I needed an A in the summer school course. It was a tough course dealing with closely held corporations as I recall. I was getting married later that summer. I very much wanted to obtain that degree and to make a long story short. After eight weeks of effort in steamy New York City that summer I did complete the course I did get

and I did get my degree. The next crisis point came very quickly. What to do with my life I had some opportunities in terms of a job and after looking them over I chose to come to Vermont. And the rationale for that 1958 was rather simply this I'd lived in Boston New York for the past eight years of my life. My wife grew up in chickadee Massachusetts outside of Springfield. We were both in a sense urban oriented but we both made a judgment that we want to live our lives in rural America and the opportunity to come to Vermont was in a sense a crisis point decision we made it and have never regretted it. What was that opportunity. It was an opportunity to work with an insurance company that did business here. And to have some income coming in while I began the

Vermont law clerkship requirement the six month apprenticeship program that everyone must be involved in before they were admitted to the bar. So I embarked on that program in late 1958 concluded in 59 and became a member of the bar that year. So you came to Vermont 58 59. Did you notice any significant difference between the general people atmosphere in Vermont and Massachusetts. Yes there was a big difference. I'd say I was I had been exposed to a very urban setting a great deal of activity in Vermont 20 years ago was still a fairly bucolic quiet place. And the chemistry to change that so affected us in the mid

60s and early 70s and during the time I worked at high levels in the government had not come to pass. The people were. Quiet. They looked you over very very carefully and during the early years I went through a process of I guess what I'm on I would describe as getting mode in getting accepted and oh eventually we were accepted just to digress and go back for a moment. I know that Jack and Bobby Kennedy were both over at Harvard there were a different side of the street so to speak. But did you ever have the opportunity of meeting either one of them while you were in Boston. Well President Kennedy of course had a home on Hyannis and Cape Cod. I worked several summers in college and law school there. And I would relatively frequently see the well than the senator. At

church on Sunday but I never met him formally during his his life. Hello interesting Lee he did have a profound influence on my eventual political career. I came to Vermont without the foggiest notion of ever being involved in politics I came to have much to practice law. The John Kennedy presidency changed that. In this way for the first time in my life I began to recognize that the style of his administration and what he stood for I meant something meant something very important to me. I thought John Kennedy really stood for something. And. It reawakened my interest possibly in a political career. And I know what

stimulated my interest to actively support representative Philip HOF when he ran for the governorship successfully in one thousand sixty two and that was really my beginning in Vermont politics. So on a very definite way John Kennedy did have an influence on her. Yes although I never met him I met briefly his brother Robert during his life actively supported Robert for the presidency before his own timely unfortunate assassination in 1988. And I came to know Edward Kennedy. Personally and much better than either of his brothers. Do you feel like there is a quite a difference between Ted Kennedy and Jack Kennedy. Well of course they're different.

Different people. I think the most remarkable thing about Ted Kennedy is his capacity for growth. When he ran for the United States Senate 962 as a new 30 year old a novice. In that famous debate with Ed McCormick then the attorney general of the commonwealth of McCormick turned to Kennedy as we all recall and said. Teddy if your name were Edward Moore your candidacy for the United States Senate would be a joke because you are Edward Moore Kennedy. Yours is a serious candidacy. That was true. Had I lived in Massachusetts the time I probably would have voted. I know I would have voted for Ed McCormack based on the qualities of the respective candidates and not the novice

brother of the president of the United States. But Teddy swallow that criticism for a while and he's become in the view of even some of his various critics one of the most effective members of the United States Senate he's become a good legislative man something his brother Jack did not pay nearly as much attention to. Well you know it may not seem this way but actually we're not too far away from the New Year. This is November and so I just wondered if possibly you know you've always been concerned about young people if you might have some advice for the young We've been talking about the old and the poor. But how about the young people you feel that and maybe perhaps in a political sense Also you might have some feelings about that. Well my advice to young people you know as a father of four young people. Is essentially

this. My advice would be Do not despair on any relative standard. Most of us are the most rep or the most privileged people on earth. And I say this having traveled as governor but principally around the world. Having spent two weeks within the Soviet Union where I obtained perspectives that could not be duplicated in any set of books or experiences. Having read American history very very carefully. The United States of America. State of Vermont. Operates as a democracy. Democracies by the nature of the essence of inefficiency. And how many of the problems that people have do not lend themselves to easy simple and simple already solution. But given all

of the drawbacks of our system when compared to any other system on the face of the surface in our judgment. We have a society that still reflects hope for the people who populate it. My other piece of advice to young people would be this. If you're unhappy about the political system if you're unhappy about the action of the present Congress or the governor of the state senators and representatives who make decisions in the state instead of playing the role of the ostrich and borrowing your head in the sand why don't you individually and collectively try to do something about it. Because this is a republic and your vote your interest in politics is just as important as that of any other vote to be the president United States the governor of Vermont or

whoever. Thank you Tom I'm looking forward to our next program next Saturday. You know I thank you for being on legendary. Very good to be here. Next Saturday part two of my interview with Tom salmon discusses some of his more significant achievements as governor of Vermont. He gives the credit for EC 250 word belongs to Dean Davis. He tells about the most outstanding person in government in Vermont and nationally during his administration. And he tells of why he considers this knowing administration dull. This is Frank Anthony. Join us next Saturday at 7:00 p.m. on the legendry. Good evening. And.

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