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L. E. "Tommy" Thomas

This is an interview with L. E. "Tonnmy" Thomas, state chairman of the Florida
Republican Party. The interview was conducted by Jack Bass and Walter De Vties in
Panama City, Florida, on May21, 1974. The interview is from the Southern Oral History
Program in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library,
Chapel Hill.

pp. 1-2: Thomas discusses filing fees for campaigns, which is "almost kind of a public subsidy
of party organization." He feels that the Republican Party chairmanship in Florida should
eventually be a full-time, salaried position.

pp. 2-5: Thomas recounts his political background. He speaks humorously of trying to register
as a Republican in Birmingham, Alabama, where the Republican Party didn't exist on a local
level about thirty years ago. Out of frustration, lie voted in the Democratic primaries. The
Republican Party was only an organization on paper then. He cites a relatively unknown
historical fact: During the Civil War, an Alabama county, Winston County, seceded from the
Confederacy as a Republican county. Thomas recalls his term as regional coordinator for the
Republican Party in Alabama overseeing a five-county area, including Winston County. This
county presented the most problems for him because its residents wanted to assert their
independence from receiving government subsidies.

pp. 5-8: Thomas then covers the subject of getting involved in Florida politics. His participation
stems from his years in Alabama, a Democratic stronghold, and getting some Republicans
elected on the local level in his five-county jurisdiction, including a congressman. In the mid-
1960s, Thomas moved to the Florida Panhandle and found the Republican Party organization
dormant, hut Republican Claude Kirk was running for governor. Thomas became the party
chainnan for his county and soon after meeting Kirk, lie became party coordinator of all North
Florida. Thomas, however, soon became disillusioned with Kirk as a governor due to the
governor's antics and felt that Kirk tore the party apart.

pp. 8-11: Thomas praises Bill Cramer at length and calls him, as other Republicans do, the
"Father of the Florida Republican Party." Cramer was elected to the Florida House in 1954, and
that year may have been the beginning of the Florida Republican Party, according to Thomas. It
was Cramer who spread the Republican philosophy throughout the state and built up the two-
party systent Thomas cites examples of how Claude Kirk tore the party "asunder." One
example lie relates is Kirk trying to take control of the party machine by asking Harold Carswell
to run against Cramer for the U.S. Senate so Kirk would have his own mnan in the Senate rather
than better known and more respected Bill Cramer. The party split.

pp. 11-13: Thomas discusses Lawton Chiles's record in office as a state senator and calls it
"mediocre." He addresses the subjects of Republican U.S. Senator Ed Gurney's possible
indictment and the need to get some Republicans elected to the Florida Cabinet.