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for office if theyhave to divulge all of what they own and everything. I

will tell you, in the climate that we are living in today I had a

daughter that just graduated from college Sunday out of Queens in Charlotte.

And she did television commercials there for us for several years, beginning

when she was about twelve years old. And did a fantastic job, it really

worked. But it scared the hell out of me, I was afraid that some crazy

son of a bitch would kidnap her or something, you know. And I think, I'd

hate now I mean, I wouldn't mind at all giving somebody that I

trusted, some judge, or some bi-partisan panel, I would be glad to turn

over my income tax returns, and my financial statements to them, but I

would sure as hell to put it in the paper. Because I would be inviting

all kinds of kooks to shoot at me from all different angles. And I think

that a lot of people feel the same way. If in the original form that

they had two or three weeks ago, where they were going to ask committeemen

and committeewomen, hell, if they did that, we couldn't get a committeeman

or a committeewoman, if they had to file a financial disclosure. Hell,

we have enough trouble getting them as it is. And if they had to do that,

I don't figure that the Democrats or the Republicans, we wouldn't have been

able to get them to do it. I think that they have pretty well got them

eliminated from what you are talking about right now.

J.B.: When you talk about the Republicans being well organized as a

party, say in this county, to what extent are they organized?

Thomas: Well, they probably have precinct committeemen and committeewomen

for, oh probably, 35 or 40% of the precincts, which represent probably 75

or 80% of the votes. Some of the small precincts where there aren't

very many votes, we may not even have a Republican living in the precinct,

you know. Or maybe just have one or two. But we have them organized enough


From the Southern Oral History Program, #4007, Interview /4-0 in the Southern Historical Collection,
University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill. FOR REFERENCE ONLY: PERMISSION TO
PUBLISH MUST BE REQUESTED. WARNING: MOST MANUSCRIPTS ARE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT.