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him and asked himif he would send me a story about what happened.
He wrote back and said he thought there was no one in Gainesville
or around in Florida who knew where he was and asked me how 1 got
the information. Well, I did find out that he had gone to a
seminary, after he's been there I got the information, and wrote
to him. He didn't tell my anything about what had happened but
I heard a great deal from Alton Morris.
P: And Ed Moore was another person.
L: Ed Moore, and I think there were two or three others, I don't
know. I could have talked to Ed, I guess, although he may have
been away from Gainesville at the time I found out about it.
Anyway, Alton told me about it, how it happened to come up and
about how it was handled. If it had been an ordinary person,
he would have been fired and prosecuted. I have always felt
and tried to insist that a university professor should be treated
like any other citizen. I was on the grand jury once that investigated
A & M University when they had that celebrated investigation. Three
grand juries investigated and found nothing. I was on the grand
jury and we found something. We didn't bring any indictments
because we did not get a unanimous vote, and there were certain
members of the grand jury who would not vote unanimously. Well,
we decided that we would issue a statement anyway, to say we couldn't
get an indictment. We did indict one person, couldn't indict
others, and I thought there were several. Why should I act
differently from what I felt should be done to white faculty
members when I knew. .
P: So this is what you deplored about the Farr case, that he was
being treated differently than other faculty might have been.
L: Not only other faculty but other individuals might have been
treated. That was why I didn't like the fact that the ordinary
people on the WPA were fired for what the University of Florida
people had done.
P: Let me ask you about another person that I'm sure you knew very
well and that's James Miller Leake.'
L: I was extremely fond of Dr. Leake. I have regretted a little bit
not emphasizing that more to you.
P: Now we have an opportunity.
L: Yes. You asked me about my professors and I told you that my
favorite professor, the one that I got the most from, was old Dr.
Haley. But the person who meant most to me, of course, was Dr. Leake.