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ONE-ON-ONE - February 2005
by Ed G. Lane
'I Have Faith in Kentucky. I Have Faith in Representative Government.'
University of Kentucky Historian Dr. Thomas Clark looks at challenges Kentucky has overcome and some it still faces
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Thomas D. Clark
Thomas D. Clark, historian laureate of Kentucky, is considered to be the supreme authority on the history of the Bluegrass State. Though a native of Mississippi, Clark came to Kentucky in 1928 to study at the University of Kentucky and developed a deep connection with the state and its culture. After leaving for a short time to pursue his doctoral degree at Duke University, Clark returned to the commonwealth in the 1930s and has remained ever since. In addition to teaching history at UK for some 37 years, Clark is the author of more than 30 books. He was instrumental in building the state’s Department for Libraries and Archives and was an active advocate for the development of the Kentucky History Center in Frankfort. Clark currently resides in Lexington and is still an active speaker and author. |
Ed Lane: You were born on July 14, 1903. This year you will celebrate your 102nd birthday. To what do you attribute your longevity?
Thomas Clark: That’s a difficult question to answer, but I have pretty good genes back of me. My grandmothers lived to be in their advanced years – almost 100. My mother also was in that category. If she had had good medical care she would have exceeded 100. I’d say that genetics comes first. And then, I was born in a rural area in Mississippi where my family subsisted as cotton farmers. In my youth, I was not exposed to a poor diet.
EL: What about alcoholic beverages?
TC: My mother was absolutely against drinking. My father drank a little in his youth and she convinced him right off that that wasn’t a good way to go. To this day I scarcely know what bourbon tastes like. I do drink wine. I’m very fond of wine. I don’t drink excessively; I drink a glass of wine everyday. I’ve never smoked a cigarette. I have no notion what a cigarette tastes like.
EL: What about stress?
TC: I’ve suffered a good bit of stress in my life, obviously. I went to the University of Mississippi out of an inadequate high school. In the university, I had to make up for a lot of lost time, and that puts stress on you.
I got into a highly stressful situation when I became head of the Department of History at the University of Kentucky. Literally at the moment that I sat down at my desk to work, I had a phone call asking me if I could take care of 2,100 soldiers. Some way or another, I did work that out during three years of war (World War II). I was under enormous stress, leading two lives, keeping an academic department going and serving the army’s specialized training program on the other hand.
EL: In addition to a long life, you are articulate, vigorous and actively involved in day-to-day issues. How do you spend your time each day?
TC: Right now I’m trying to get into a book. The last one I obviously will ever undertake. It’s about the land system in Kentucky. We think of Kentucky being settled by pioneers – like Daniel Boone. Well, long before Daniel Boone got here there were speculators that were dealing in land. Big landholders in the Kentucky land system came to dominate politics, social life, and the legal business. This story has enormously interesting social and economic aspects.
EL: How would you research this book?
TC: That research is not as complicated. My problem is how do you deal with an enormous mass of material. You’ve got the whole deed system – 120 counties of records. You’ve got the land office in Frankfort with complete land records. You have, heaven knows how many volumes, in the Kentucky Court of Appeals the Supreme Court, the Kentucky Reports. Then aside from that you’d be surprised what turns up in contemporary correspondence. Every county is supposed to have surveyor’s handbooks and those documents have enormous amounts of information in them.
EL: At one time Kentucky was a frontier of Virginia.
TC: In 1749, if you had had nerve to wander through Cumberland Gap into Kentucky or East Tennessee, you would have found a blank country as far as any ownership or settlements. The old cartographers, as crude as their maps were, left Kentucky blank because they had no idea what was here.
In 1763, King George didn’t want to pay bonuses to soldiers for the French and Indian War, so the House of Commons created a system of deeding 400 acres to a veteran for free. He could also buy 1,000 more acres of wilderness for about $12.50.
EL: In 1900, about the time you were born, the average lifespan in the U.S. was 47 years. Today it is about 80 years. How has a longer lifespan changed America?
TC: A person who is living out the fullest of their lifespan either continues to be productive or becomes a charitable charge on society. And there’s always that matter of health care.
EL: Do you feel that longevity may also have an impact on marriage and divorce?
TC: No doubt about it. Now, I didn’t have that experience, I hasten to add. I lived with my first wife for 62 years and very amicably. After her passing, I married Loretta – one of the wisest decisions I ever made.
To get back to your question, longevity impacts society in several ways. If a person is holding property that his heirs are expecting to get, he will most likely expend the property before they inherit it. Another issue, older people may be crotchety and become a thorn in everybody’s side.
EL: You’re over 100 now and have provided for yourself for one century. How hard has it been for you?
TC: I came up in times that were hard. If someone grew up on a cotton farm, you just assume that he had difficulty. But I also came from a family that had a sense of frugality and saving. Right from the moment that I began to earn a living on my own, I tried to anticipate that I might live a long time. I denied myself many things that the average person might have spent money on. I never accumulated great wealth, but I can take care of myself.
EL: Are you eligible to receive retirement from the University of Kentucky, for example?
TC: Yes, but my retirement from the University of Kentucky is pretty frugal compared with others. I’m on that old system – I must be the only living person on that old system – of one percent per year of service. I get small annual incremental raises, they don’t amount to very much. Now that I am 100, I’m almost to the point where UK pays me more in retirement than they did when I was working – (laughs).
EL: During your extended retirement have you had any financial difficulties?
TC: No. I accidentally got into the business of timberland here in Kentucky and then in South Carolina. In my book, “The Greening of the South,” I tried to describe what was happening in that business. I got into the land business and happily made a go of it. I personally never got anything out of South Carolina, but did here in Kentucky. The love of that land, the love of taking old wood out of cotton fields, old worn out cow pastures, gutted, washed, eroded, red clay bleeding everywhere and putting it back in a cover and seeing that cover come up is very rewarding.
EL: I hope these questions aren’t too personal. Financial planning is a very important issue because a lot of people are living to be older. To get insight from somebody who has been through the system and has had to take care of themselves for over 30 years after retirement is helpful. How about book royalties?
TC: Writing a book is a long, hard, tedious job if the book is any good. In my case, I’ve never written really a bestseller. Two or three of my books have done well. Last year the royalties for “Kentucky” (written in 1937) were more than they were in the beginning, but they’re small. Authors do earn some royalties, but they are small. Laying brick you can make twice to three times as much money as writing.
EL: During your first 100 years, technology and innovation in the world have accelerated rapidly. In your judgment, what were the most important developments during the last century?
TC: I could hardly overlook the introduction of the automobile. It not only changed the whole pattern of transportation, it changed the pattern of communication, it changed the organization of communities, and obviously, was the stimulant that brought about the construction of interstate, state, local, county and district road systems.
I remember distinctly seeing the first automobile. My dad and I were in a wagon driving out to the wilderness. An old T-model Ford came chugging along the road. It couldn’t go very fast because the roads were so torn up. Our mules became frightened and virtually turned the wagon over.
Another important thing that had a marvelous effect on life was the introduction of rural-electrification (REA).
All the light my family had was either a wood-burning fireplace or kerosene oil lamps. None of them shed much light. We virtually, some way or other, walked around in the dark. We didn’t roam around a whole lot after dark – we went to bed. When REA came along and the line was extended out to my father’s farm and he wired his barn and house. I went down from the University to visit and he had every light on and he was showing me with such glee that he had electricity. I said, “Well shut off some of these lights, it’s costing you money.” His retort was, “Leave ‘em on. I spent my life in the dark and now I’ve got light.”
Electricity introduced the possibility of getting a water system – running water in houses. Thousands of houses had never had anything more than a bucket and a spring, now they had wells and the power to pump water.
The second thing that electricity did was to introduce, completely revolutionize the country farm blacksmith shop where you had electrical tools – drills, sharpeners, all sorts of things. That was important.
In the house – a woman who had scrubbed away at the creek bank washing clothes now had a washing machine. Some of them had dishwashers, even.
The fireplace was gone and you had central heating to use – there’s just almost no end to that saga of lightening the burden of living on the land.
In the opening years of the 20th century, there was an awareness that we were living in a world that was moving faster than ever. Education became a major consideration in society at every level. Take Kentucky for instance, a decade – 1900 to 1910 – when they organized three State Teacher’s Colleges. Before that, no institution trained teachers.
EL: How important is the computer?
TC: Let’s put computers in this context. Think of the frame of reference of a ten-year-old boy in 1905 and a ten-year-old boy in 2005. There’s no comparison. A ten-year-old boy today with a computer on the Internet has a source of knowledge that far exceeds anything that his ancestors ever dreamed of.
EL: If you were giving one important suggestion to high school students, what would that be?
TC: My answer would be don’t make up your mind what you want to do during your first two years in college. Get yourself well grounded in the language of your mother tongue and in some other language. Understand what a free open society is. If you’re going to live a full life, an interesting life, beyond that a productive life, then get yourself prepared to be able to see over the hill of where you’ve come from and make a sound guess as to where you are going. But most of all understand that every generation has made some kind of contribution that has added to the tapestry of civilization.
EL: In the last five years, what is the most important new revelation or idea from your perspective?
TC: I have some deep regrets about my academic background. I wish I’d had good training in mathematics. This is an age where mathematics is fundamental to the function in modern life. I wish I’d had good training in music so that I could have some cultivated sense about music. I wish I’d had a touch of art somewhere going along the line. I have no dissatisfaction with the area in which I did specialize (history). I’ll go to my grave wishing I’d written a better book or taught a better class, but I did the best I could.
EL: In 1928, with a flip of a coin, you decided to attend the University of Kentucky instead of the University of Cincinnati. Have any other decisions in your life been as significant?
TC: That’s true. That sounds a little ridiculous, but maybe I’m still that boy who came up from a long line of rural agrarian people. On the campus of the University of Mississippi, I was on the newspaper staff. Throughout the entire time I was in school, I reported on the chancellor’s office and he spotted me I guess – he knew who I was at least.
One day I was walking along across campus and met him. He stopped me and said, “I’ve just talked to President McVey of the University of Kentucky. He asked me to have one of our boys make application for a scholarship.” He said, “I want you to do that.” I did. I also made application to the University of Cincinnati. I received scholarships from both schools. I got a telegram from Dean Funkhouser, asking me to make up my mind whether I would accept at UK or not. I was never so befuddled in my life. I had a nickel in my pocket – I flipped it up – it came down Kentucky. That’s true.
EL: Did you enjoy what you did for a living? Was going to work a pleasure that energized you?
TC: It would be foolish of me to say that I enjoyed everyday I went to work, because when you’re in a teaching business you have classes that just lift you up to the sky; you have classes that sink you down. But I’ll say this: I never stepped over the threshold of a classroom door that I didn’t realize I had a heavy responsibility. I could turn a student off in a minute, or something I did accidentally could catch his imagination. I was always aware of that. Without any reservations, I genuinely liked the classroom.
EL: At this time, what is your No. 1 concern from a personal point of view?
TC: Obviously, if you’ve ever been around an elderly person you’ll find they’re pretty reminiscent about the past. I do live in the past, often, recalling early days and remembering a lot of things and I get a lot of comfort out of that. At this age you’re also in that classical situation that the old become critical of the young.
There are some things that bother me. I think we have really created a generation of people, children on up, that have never felt a pinch of a real crisis – financially, physically, whatever. I get concerned about lax morals. You see it in so many places.
EL: Name the two best governors while you’ve been in Kentucky.
TC: I had great respect for Lawrence Wetherby. Not because Lawrence exercised robust leadership, but because he had the courage to act when this state needed courage. When Brown v. Board of Education was handed down, The New York Times got hold of me and got hold of Lawrence at the same time. Lawrence uttered, “Kentucky would do what it takes to obey the law.” You cannot imagine what Wetherby’s position meant to Kentucky, as contrasted with Mississippi, or Alabama, or South Carolina. It saved Kentucky a tremendous amount of emotion, prejudice and political wear and tear.
Martha Layne Collins possibly had as great an impact on this state as anyone who ever served as governor. She helped bring Toyota Motor Manufacturing and hundreds of related automotive manufacturers to Kentucky.
EL: Do you have a closing comment?
TC: I have faith in Kentucky; I have faith in representative government. Currently, there is an enormous threat to free and open government in Kentucky. The legislative deadlocks in Kentucky’s General Assembly have shredded the separation of powers.
Three times Kentucky legislators have deadlocked the budget. Every time there is not a budget, it costs twice as much to recover the lost momentum the departments of government lose. That disturbs me to no end. Kentucky is a poor state. We can’t afford to waste time and money in futile efforts. Our endeavors must be positive or Kentucky is going to continue to be ranked low on the competition scale. Kentucky has made progress – heaven above – I’ve seen this state change radically in the years that I’ve lived in the borders. Many of those changes have been positive ones, but there are so many challenges for Kentucky.
No. 1 is education. Not because I participated in the educational profession; because I believe deep in my heart that in this technological age all Kentuckians need a good education so they can compete for jobs in the global economy.
Ed G. Lane is chief executive of Lane Consultants Inc. and publisher
of The Lane Report.
edlane@lanereport.com
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