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P: Yes, and Bill was the assistant.
L: Now, Bill may have. Now, Bill was closer, we've discussed this
before, to the Communist party organization that I indicated
in my first section. I said that Bill was Bill Carleton and
was an individualist. That he was, in many respects. Although
I never doubted by what he would have preferred, or rather, he
would have predicted that we would have a classless society before
"Thy will be done, thy kingdom come on earch as it is in heaven."
He apparently had associations with communists elsewhere. I was
always puzzled by Bill and by the remark that he once made to me
about Manning. I couldn't see it in Manning. I wondered if Bill
was trying to find out just exactly where I stood on Marxism, not
as a member of the party but I expect I knew a great deal more
about the Communist party than Manning or Bill or anybody else
on the campus because of my associations beginning in Syracuse,
where I had a professor who assigned us to attend the meetings.
P: I knew you told me about how he had wanted you to go to the
Communist party meetings.
L: Yes. Well, Chicago was where I had my difficult period with
psychoanalysis and the breakdown. I did stay in school and
then I went off to Colorado and that was a kind of a pleasant
interlude in my life. I rid myself, I thought at the time,
of my messianic ambitions to reform the country, and I enjoyed
life in Denver, althoughI did get involved in some reform movements
out there. The liberal wing was the Democratic party in Colorado,
and also Ibecame the president of the Consumers' Cooperative
Association in the Rocky Mountain region add I became the president
of the Consumers' Cooperative Association establishment. Then
I came back to Florida and I want to say at this time that in one
sense I feel I was indirectly responsible for the appointment of
President Tigert as president of the university. In another sense
I may have been responsible for his resignation. I want to tell
you about my experiences in that connection.
You asked me to tell you how it was, so I'm going to have to tell
you how it was. I was not biased, pro or con against President
Tigert because of what happened during his appointment. In
the extension service and taking graduate courses, I had a
fellowship. Around the middle of May, I finished all my exams,
and planned to go home. Stopping in Tallahassee for a day or
two, I ran across Dean Riley. I don't know whetherI went into
his office to see him about something. His office was right in