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P: You realized all this is getting on the tape.
L: I don't know whether you remember it or .not.
P: I've tried to block that out of my memory.
L: I see, yes.
P: All right, we're taping the second day of the interview
with Mr. Angus Laird at his residence here in Tallahassee.
This is Tuesday morning, December 11. Angus, we want to go back
now and talk a little bit more about President Murphree. I
know you were a very good friend of his, and you were active
on campus as the editor of the Alligator, so you obviously
had occasion to talk with Dr. Murphree in his office in
what was then Language Hall, now Anderson Hall. You were telling
me about once, in 1927, being in his office, and I'd like you
to tell me about that.
L: Yes. You mentioned that I was a friend of Dr. Murphree's, and
I was, but as editor of the Alligator, I felt I knew how to
run the university better than he did. If you read the Alligator
back in those days, you'll see that I had quite a number of
critical editorials about the way in which certain affairs were
handled on the campus. But that was not what I wanted to tell
you about.
P: No, but I was going to say, since you mentioned that, that you
started a tradition of the Alligator's opposition to the
administration and the president, and it continues right
down to the present moment.
L: I'm not sure whether I started the tradition or not, but at
least we tried to be independent. And that's a long story
too, another)-Sunday.
P: Yes.
L: Well, one of the things I liked about Dr. Murphree is that he
didn't seem to hold certain things against me. While I
criticized him in editorials, and also Idiffered with him
about the director of the athletic department, he was always
very friendly. And he seemed to respect me. Well, in the
spring of 1927, after we had had the victory on the campus
and I thought the mission had been accomplished, I had the message
to go see Dr. Murphree. I.went to his office and he had some
small matter to take up with me. It didn't take but a minute