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EAST CAROLINA MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
CAPUS M. WAYNICK
INTERVIEW #1 & #2
AUGUST 1, 1979 & SEPTEMBER 19, 1979

HIGH POINT, N. C.

Donald Lennon:
If you would Mr. Waynick, carry us back to your early life. Is there anything in particular that you remember from your early days in Rockingham County?

Capus Waynick:
My entry into Greensboro to become a resident occurred when I was thirteen years old. I went in on Church Street into the center of the city leading a cow. Along the route as we went from our country place down in Rockingham County to our new home in Greensboro, I was pursued by dogs barking and threatening to bite me. So that's my first recollection of Greensboro.

I lived in the sticks in Rockingham County. I went to Guilford battlefield each Fourth of July for several years. I remember my mother, who was a patriotic woman, always led the family to a picnic at the Guilford battleground. The first time that I was ever in Greensboro at all, I went in on the old Shoefly train that operated from the battleground into the city on the holiday; and my uncle John Haynes carried me and my cousin Aubrey Haynes to Linley Park where he sat under the trees and snoozed while Aubrey and I waited for him to get over his sleepiness.

Donald Lennon:
In Rockingham County, did your father farm? Were you raised on a farm?

Capus Waynick:
Yes, my father was a tobacco farmer. He grew tobacco but he never used it in any form personally.

Donald Lennon:
You worked in tobacco as a youth?

Capus Waynick:
As a boy I pulled tobacco worms off many plants. I went to a one-teacher one-room log cabin school where my brother Robert was at one time the teacher. My mother had been a public school teacher also. She was a daughter of Robert Lynch Moore, who built grist mills. Right after the Civil War as she grew up, she taught school which was then held in old Speedwell church. Speedwell was the Presbyterian church that we attended. My grandfather Moore was ruling elder there for many years and so were my father and my oldest brother.

Donald Lennon:
Now your education, aside from that log school that you attended, how did that...?

Capus Waynick:
My education was spotty. I went to the little school there in the country: one teacher, one room, and a dozen or so students. My grandfather had some rather interesting booksin his meager library, and I read his books. When I came to Greensboro I was thirteen years old, and they put me in the sixth grade for one day. They put me in the seventh grade the next day, and Dr. J. I. Foust, the principal, who later was president of the Woman's College, said that I ought to have been sent to the high school even then. I found that when I got to high school and began to read Caesar in Latin, I recognized that the same book had been in my grandfather's library in English. I was very familiar with Caesar's trips into Gaul before I really knew what it was all about. Although I had a spotty sort of education, it proved to be pretty good in the showdown.

Donald Lennon:
But they were still teaching what we would today refer to as the classics to some extent then if they were reading Caesar in Latin.

Capus Waynick:
That was in Greensboro. Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic Wars.

Donald Lennon:
Right.

Capus Waynick:
I had a copy of it from my grandfather's old library.

Donald Lennon:
Then you went from that background to Chapel Hill for a brief spell did you not?

Capus Waynick:
Yes, I did. I went there for nearly two years. I dropped out during the second year.

Donald Lennon:
This was then around 1909, 1910?

Capus Waynick:
I went in 1907. I was a member of the 1911 class,

Donald Lennon:
Anything in particular you remember about your stay-- your college days?

Capus Waynick:
Well, I remember a good many things about it. For instance Judge Parker, John Parker, was an influential student at Chapel Hill and an upperclassman when I went there. He became my friend. I was deficient in Greek, although relatively advanced in Latin. George Howe, a nephew of Woodrow Wilson, was teaching Latin at Chapel Hill at the time, and I had Latin under him. John Parker drilled me in Greek and got interested in me and wanted me to try for a Rhodes Scholarship. I got to playing poker and was less interested in my studies than I was in the poker game. I didn't go much farther into education.

Donald Lennon:
Chapel Hill was quite small at that time, was it not?

Capus Waynick:
There were nine hundred students there as I remember when I went there.

Donald Lennon:
Did you leave college to become a reporter or had you left prior to that? You went with the Greensboro Daily Record in 1911.

Capus Waynick:
After a brief tour or otherwise that carried me into Virginia and Pennsylvania, I went to Raleigh where my father was building houses. He was a contractor. For instance, he built the house that the Women's Club later had there on Hillsborough Street.

Donald Lennon:
With the red brick?

Capus Waynick:
Yes. He built General Albert Cox's home.

Yes. I went down there to work with him as a carpenter. I stayed a couple of years. Then Mr. J. M. Reece, the owner of the Greensboro Record-- I had worked with Mr. Reece as a carrier boy for a little while-- asked me to come back to Greensboro and become city editor of his paper. I never had any experience as an editor, but I had done some little scribbling. I took it up with Josephus Daniels. He and my father knew each other, and I asked Mr. Daniels what he thought of the proposition that I go to Greensboro and become a newspaperman. He encouraged me to do it. He said go up there and become a liberal expressionist.

Donald Lennon:
Once you arrived back in Greensboro you became city editor with no journalism experience at all.

Capus Waynick:
That's right. I had been editor of the little magazine that the high school in Greensboro published and I wrote editorials for that magazine when I was in high school.

Donald Lennon:
Does anything come to mind concerning your early days with the newspapers-- when you were with the Record or the Charlotte Observer?

Capus Waynick:
I was married in 1915 and went on a short honeymoon trip. I came back just about in time to attend the usual celebration at Guilford battleground. That was 1915. It was the year the federal government gave a $30,000 monument to the battleground. Champ Clark came to make the principal speech. Paul Schenck of Greensboro was park commissioner. His brother Mike Schenck of Hendersonville, North Carolina, was solicitor up there. He came down at Paul's invitation to attend the celebration marking the dedication of the Greene statue. Elizabeth, my bride, went out and helped me cover the event. During the day Mike Schenck, a slender scholarly sort of fellow, was attacked by a fellow named Tipton, a big mountaineer who looked like Jess Willard.

Tipton beat Mike up out at the battleground. I got the story and telephoned it in to the paper-- the Record. I was also representing the Charlotte Observer. That afternoon Elizabeth and I went to the Record's office on the corner of Greene and Market Streets where I was going to use the typewriter to type out a story on the celebration for the Charlotte Observer. When we got to the building I learned that Tipton, this mountaineer, had been by and had said that he was looking for the man who wrote the story about him. He was going to settle with him. I faced the likelihood of having a fight while my bride witnessed my beating, so I didn't tell Elizabeth what was impending. I heard him come in. He announced he was looking for Waynick as I opened the door to the outer office. I said, "You found him." I got hold of a ladderback chair and decided I was going to meet the issue the best I could. I said, "Now you cowardly fellow, you beat up an older man who is weak. I didn't write the story, but I phoned it in. You got what was coming to you." He then gave his side of the story and nobody got hurt.

Donald Lennon:
What was your salary when you first went to work for the Record?

Capus Waynick:
Fifteen dollars every week.

Donald Lennon:
That wasn't bad pay for a beginning reporter at that time was it?

Capus Waynick:
It was pretty good pay.

Donald Lennon:
You say you went in the National Guard before World War I?

Capus Waynick:
Yes.

Donald Lennon:
How did you get in the National Guard? Since you had such a distinguished career later with the National Guard and the military, what first led you into the National Guard at this stage in your life?

Capus Waynick:
The prospects of having a vacation at the expense of the federal government. That was about the truth of it. A good friend of mine went in at the same time-- Jim Wright. We served briefly at Fort Caswell.

Donald Lennon:
What was the National Guard offering at that time in the way of pay, benefits, and what-have-you?

Capus Waynick:
Very small, nothing that amounted to much, but it didn't take much to amount to a great deal to a poor boy.

Donald Lennon:
When World War I came on, you were still in the National Guard at that time were you not?

Capus Waynick:
No. I had run for the office of lieutenant and I had been elected.

We had a new captain, Frank L. Page. At the next meeting when I was to be announced as a lieutenant, Captain Page said that we had voted without being in uniform. We would have to have it all over again, but since we were all there we could do it then. It was a rainy wet night and my friends had not come, and Roy Case beat me out. I was defeated for lieutenant after I had been elected.

Donald Lennon:
And so you resigned from the National Guard?

Capus Waynick:
No, I went on and served for awhile. Then when the World War came, Glenn Brown was judge of the city court in Greensboro and Glenn had been a soldier. He had been in the British Army in Africa in the Boer War. He was a pretty skillful soldier, one of the best I ever knew. I had become city editor of the Greensboro News then. Glenn had gone to the border the time we had the trouble in Texas. He told me that the adjutant general of the state at that time, Beverly S. Royster, had told him the state was going to be asked to form another regiment and he wanted Glenn Brown to head it as colonel. Bickett was governor. When the regiment was formed, the governor refused to follow the recommendation of the adjutant general and named Albert Cox from Raleigh. In the meantime Glenn had asked me to get ready to serve with him in this new regiment and he said to take whatever office in it I thought I could handle. We had decided that I would become captain of the headquarters company. It didn't require very much "military" and I could handle it. I was all slated to become captain of the company that was going to France, when Bickett balked on the appointment and put Cox in. Glenn Brown then entered training camp. I had been exempted from service because of my obligation to Elizabeth. As soon as we could get Elizabeth a job-- she became secretary to Dr. J. I. Foust at the college-- I went ahead and enlisted. I was assigned to training camp Gordon in Georgia and there I was commissioned as a second lieutenant after sixty days. When the Germans heard that I had my lieutenancy, they quit.

Donald Lennon:
So you didn't go to France at all?

Capus Waynick:
No.

Donald Lennon:
How did you get involved with the Enterprise?

Capus Waynick:
Well, I bought a major interest in the Record.

Donald Lennon:
About when was this?

Capus Waynick:
About 1923, I guess.

Donald Lennon:
This was several years after the war?

Capus Waynick:
When I went into the Army, I was working for E. B. Jeffress. He was operating the News in Greensboro. Archie Joyner, Jeffress�?T advertising manager, asked me to leave the Record and come to the News. I was serving on the News when I entered the Army. When I was discharged, I came on back to Greensboro in uniform expecting to be hailed and welcomed. Jeffress didn't send me any message of one sort or the other. I walked the streets wondering if I had a job and feeling pretty lonesome about it. I met Mr. Al Fairbrother who then published a thing called Everything. He and his wife both were characters. He had acquired the Record. Fairbrother met me on the street, and said, "When are you going to work?" I said, "That is what I'd like to know." The upshot of it was that Fairbrother said, "Look, if you don't hear from Jeffress to suit you, old man Fairbrother runs a paper down here on the corner and he would like to have you." I said, "You've got you a man." And I went to work on the Record for Fairbrother.

Donald Lennon:
Then you bought an interest in the paper?

Capus Waynick:
He sold to Parker Anderson, a newspaperman who came down from Washington, who bought the paper, and he also bought the Enterprise. Julian Price and Julius Cone furnished the money that went into paying off Fairbrother when he sold, Fairbrother sold the Record, the building and all, for about $83,000.

Donald Lennon:
When did you buy part of it?

Capus Waynick:
About 1923. I owned a majority of it about two years.

Donald Lennon:
Did you buy the Enterprise?

Capus Waynick:
No. I bought the majority stock of the Greensboro Record. Then I sold it later to Julian Price. I then went as a clerk to the 1923 General Assembly. I reported the General Assembly for the Associated Press.

In 1931 I became a legislator accidentally. A man committed suicide to make me a member of the House.

Donald Lennon:
Who was that?

Capus Waynick:
W. C. Jones. He had been chosen for the legislature as a representative from Guilford County. Just a week before he was to take office, he shot himself to death in his office right across from mine on Main Street. The committee wanted to pick a man to go on and take it. The election was the following Tuesday. The committee nominated me.

Donald Lennon:
During the twenties your time was taken up entirely with your newspaper work except for the time in 1923 that you went down as clerk at the General Assembly. Everything else was purely newspaper.

Capus Waynick:
That was the time of great agitation about sales taxes. As a member of the House I backed the judgement of Maxwell, the commissioner.

Donald Lennon:
A. J. Maxwel1?

Capus Waynick:
Right. I voted against the sales tax. Jeffress was elected a member of the same House, and he was the only member of our foursome that voted for the sales tax.

Donald Lennon:
How did you first become acquainted with O. Max Gardner?

Capus Waynick:
The first time I ever saw Max Gardner-- he went to both Carolina and State College. He played on the football team for both colleges. The first time that I ever saw this handsome gentleman was on Summit Avenue in Greensboro,

I was walking in from a football game at the old park just off Summit Avenue, and falling in step with me as I walked toward the center of Greensboro was this good-looking man. He identified himself as O. Max Gardner, At that time I think he was lieutenant governor. When he became governor, he had a lot of trouble with strikes and continual labor discontent. He started out with an administration of good will and friendliness which became rather bitter because of the economic conditions.

Governor Gardner had a big "live-at-home" dinner at Raleigh, and it was one of the worst nights you ever saw-- snowing and a blizzard. I went to that dinner. I didn't see much of Gardner except he was governor when I first became a member of the House. He was governor and he was insisting that the state could get along without sales tax. I thought he was right and voted accordingly. Then when I changed my vote-- the next time I got to vote on it when I was in the Senate-- I was accused of double-crossing some of my supporters.

Donald Lennon:
The situation had changed in that two-year period rather drastically. Why did you change your vote?

Capus Waynick:
Because I made a close study of the situation and decided there wasn't any way to finance our obligations and meet our indebtedness without the tax.

Governor Ehringhaus succeeding Gardner. told the people that we would repeal this as soon as we get through the emergency. I told him, "Governor, don't make that promise because if you get this tax on, you won't ever get rid of it."

Donald Lennon:
Can you tell us about the 1932 strike in High Point?

Capus Waynick:
It was a period of increasing labor unrest. Gardner was in his last year as governor. High Point felt it as Gastonia and some other points of the state felt it. The boarders were the operatives in the hosiery mills who put socks on shaping boards. The boarders as a group walked out of the mills in High Point. They began a general hosiery strike. The strikers developed a slogan for their campaign: "If we've got to starve, we'll starve under the shade of the trees." That was the challenging attitude of a good many of the workers.

Donald Lennon:
Who owned High Point Hosiery Mills at that time?

Capus Waynick:
Adams Millis was the biggest owner. Willis Slane was one of the main operators as were Harris Covington, Bob Amos, and Charlie Amos.

Donald Lennon:
Was there one mill or were there several mills involved?

Capus Waynick:
Several mills. It finally involved the whole structure of manufacturing in the community. I could not be other than interested in it because it was vital to the city that production continue. I talked to some of the strikers and tried to bring the two groups together for negotiations. Finally we got a committee of strikers and a committee representing the owners working together trying to agree upon a settlement. When we finally got them to the point where they would agree on what would restore peace, we called on the governor to come up here to High Point and signalize the treaty of agreement by his presence. At that time he was very much interested in what was happening over the state generally in strike situations. Max Gardner did come up and met with the two committees, and they issued a statement in which they restored peace in the community. Edwin Gill, who was secretary to the Governor at that time and later state treasurer, accompanied the governor in his limousine. I helped to make as much of an affair of the occasion as 1 could to take advantage of the popularity of the Governor. Incidentally,

his popularity had shrunk due to the disorder in the state's labor service, and he was very pleased when he came here and helped to restore peace in this community.

Donald Lennon:
Was the major complaint of the strikers lack of pay?

Capus Waynick:
Too little pay-- low wages was the chief complaint.

When the governor got ready to return to Raleigh, he told me, "Waynick, if I were head of a different kind of state I'd have you high on my list for New Year honors for what you've done here." I said, "That's fine Governor, just make me the Duke of Guilford."

Donald Lennon:
You mentioned that you first met Governor Gardner after a game here in Greensboro, Do you remember any more about your relationship between that time and the time that he called on you to help settle the strike? Surely you had had some contact with him or he would not have requested that you go in and try to mediate the situation.

Capus Waynick:
As a matter of fact, he didn't ask me to do it. I did it and then called him in and gave him the credit for settling it.

Donald Lennon:
You took the initiative in it?

Capus Waynick:
That's right. I didn't have close contact with Gardner.

Donald Lennon:
Was there any violence with the High Point strike?

Capus Waynick:
There was some talk of disorder, but there was not much violence actually committed.

Donald Lennon:
At that time with so much unemployment and you were in the depression, I'm surprised there wasn't a major effort at strike breaking by people who didn't have jobs and would've been willing to work for any kind of wages at all.

Capus Waynick:
At that time there was the beginning of the Communist movement, and it had a lot of influence among local communities like this and like Gastonia. There was definitely a Communist touch to the situation there, so it is said. In fact, some of those boys from Gastonia, I think, went to Moscow later.

Donald Lennon:
But there was no hint of that type of thing here in High Point?

Capus Waynick:
Some workers took interest in the political disorder.

Donald Lennon:
After the High Point strike problems were settled, it was shortly after that that the problems developed in Thomasville?

Capus Waynick:
It was while that strike was being settled here that the trouble developed at a little mill owned by the Cannon family-- the Monarch cotton mill. It wasn't a hosiery mill, but a cotton manufacturing operation. Charlie Cannon's sister, Mrs. Blair, of Winston-Salem was the chief owner of the property, but she had Charlie marketing its output. There were about 400 workers there in that little mill. The strike had lasted for about four months. They had gone on strike and Charlie Cannon had closed down the mill. One evening the leader of that strike came to see me at the Enterprise office and asked me if there was anything that I could do for them. He said that Cannon wasn't paying any attention to him at all and just told him to go jump in the lake. Cannon had declined to discuss things with him beyond telling him that they were getting as good a deal as the company could afford. He asked me if there was anything I could do for them. I told him that I would see if I could. There were 400 people out of work and hungry. I called up Governor Gardner and asked him if he knew Charlie Cannon. Of course he did; he knew him well.

He said he was a splendid fellow. I asked him if he could make a date for me to see him about a matter that was none of my business; it had to do with the strike at Thomasville. He said that he would make a date. I was called up and told that I had a date with Cannon. I proceeded to go down to Concord, where his home was,to see him. I went to Kannapolis on that trip, and I told Cannon that the people wanted better pay. He called in his manager and showed me the books. It showed that the workers at the Monarch Mill there in Thomasville were on a better pay scale than the ones at Kannapolis and it was a pay scale above the cotton mill market. When I looked it over I couldn't help but see that Cannon was pretty clear as far as that little mill was concerned. I told him, "Mr. Cannon, you have satisfied me that what you say is true-- that the workers there are getting as good pay as you can afford to pay under the circumstances. I accept that as true, but there is something else." He said, "What else is there?" I said, "Do you know that you have men and women on your payroll there in Thomasviliie who haven't seen the color of your money in years?" He said, "No, what do you mean?"

"The superintendent is operating a store, and the workers get due bills and credit at the store, and they have to do business with him to make a living." He blew up. "Cannon Millis hasn't had anything like that happening in their circles in thirty or forty years. That will end right away and that man will be retired from his work. If the folks want to go back to work, they can go back to work on Monday." I said, "Mr. Cannon, I didn't come down here to get a man fired. I came own to get those workers back to work." He said, "You can be assured that that will be done." So that was the settlement that occurred in that instance. About this same time I became involved in efforts to settle a strike against the Thomasville Chair Company. Austin Finch was head of it. J had already started my work on the Thomasville Chair situation when I took up the Monarch strike.

Donald Lennon:
But they were all just about the same time?

Capus Waynick:
Same period.

Donald Lennon:
So you were actually settling and responsible for three separate strikes that you became involved in?

Capus Waynick:
Two at Thomasville and one here. There was a pretty big struggle in the labor circuits. I went to Thomasville to present a proposition from the Finches. The strikers heard me out in the meeting. I had been told that they were going to beat me up if I came over there. A fellow by the name of Bradley was the leader of the strikers, a very keen chap. He made big speeches to the strikers and he hadone favorite statement he made, "I'm hard to get off my mule, but if I get off my mule you've got me to whup."

Donald Lennon:
What actually happened when you got into the Thomasville strike?

Capus Waynick:
The strikers heard the proposition and turned it down. Then they called me into the building to reaffirm that they were refusing the settlement. This fellow Bradley said, "All those who want to refuse this outrageous settlement, please rise." It looked like nearly everybody rose. Then he let them sit down. He said, "The ones who want to accept this and settle in a cowardly way go ahead and rise." To my surprise, quite a number of the strikers did rise. I could see they were hungry. Then he turned to me out on the platform there at the high school, "Now, Mr. Waynick, go back and tell his excellencythe answer you got from our people." I said, "Mr. Bradley, that is no answer at all. You did not present that thing fairly." The strike commenced. A state policeman had been assaulted by one of the strikers, and people in Thomasville called on the governor to "send troops; we can't control this situation." Governor Gardner called me on the phone and told me what the problem was, and I asked what he was about to do. He replied, "What would you advise me to do?" I said, "Governor, I won't give you advice without making contact. I'll drive over to Thomasville and call you back." So, I went to Thomasville. I went back after talking to the leaders of the strike. I then advised the governor not to send troops.

Donald Lennon:
Well, you said there in the auditorium that you told Bradley that he had not presented the case fairly. Did it progress from that? Did they then give you a chance to present the other side?

Capus Waynick:
No, they closed it for the evening. I walked outside the schoolhouse where the meeting was held and sat down on the steps. One fellow was doing a lot of talking and I recognized him. I said, "I know who you are. You're the big fellow that knocked out the policeman Saturday morning. If I were in a war I'd rather have a bunch of men like those who stood up in there and said they would like to settle than have a lot of them like you." It was my own foolish challenge to his attitude.

Donald Lennon:
From the State Senate you became director of the North Carolina Agency of the National Reemployment Service, is that not true?

Capus Waynick:
That was a federal job. I held that job under Colonel Bob Fletcher of the Labor Department. I resigned it to come back here to edit the paper. Bob Terry wanted me to come on home. That is when Governor Ehringhaus called me to his office and offered me chairmanship of the Highway Commission. I didn't know what to say. I had told Terry that I would come back here to edit the paper, and now the governor was asking me to head the Highway Commission. I waited a week before I even told my employers here what had happened. I told Joe Ramey and I said, "You and Terry talk it over and I will do whatever you think I should." They did talk it over and said they had agreed that it was too important a responsibility to refuse and that I ought to take the job. I became chairman of the Highway Commission.

When I became chairman of the Highway Commission, I was appointed by Governor Ehringhaus and the legislature was in session. About the first thing I did was to report 6000 dangerously substandard bridges in use in the state and asked for $3,000,000 from the emergency fund to do something about it, and I got it immediately. I will say that I got all sorts of backing when I needed it.

Donald Lennon:
Was that in part due to support from Governor Ehringhaus or what?

Capus Waynick:
No, the Governor really kept his hand off of it. He left it to the Board and the Commission and its experts. We did a pretty good job I think. I was the unexpert.

I had considerable liking and respect for Gregg Cherry, and when Hoey was governor, Gregg was Speaker of the House. When people were backing me in my opposition to the diversion of highway funds to general funds purposes, I was opposing Hoey's objectives and he asked me to come up to his office. That was the first time he recognized that I was in Raleigh after he became governor. I went up and he asked me what kind of compromise we could agree upon. The House had adjourned in confusion after a defeat for the administration, a defeat led by men working with me. I said to the governor, "Governor, I'm against your diversion of highway funds to general funds purposes except in an emergency, schools having to stop or something of that sort. If you will write into the bill that there will be no diversion of highway funds until after all the reserves have been exhausted and the state was still unable to meet its necessary expenses without the limited diversions of $2,000,000 for the two years."

He said, "I will accept that as Governor. Go down and tell Gregg that that is agreeable to me and have him to write it into the law tomorrow." I went on down to the Sir Walter Hotel, and Cherry was already in his room with Sam Blount, his good friend from eastern North Carolina. He was pretty tight. I sat down in the waiting room to wait for him. He came in, and I told him the message the Governor had given me. Gregg said, "There are too dam many people that listen to what the goddamn highway chairman has to say." I said, "Mr. Speaker, this is a message from the governor to you through me and you can stick it if you want to." They went on back and accepted the amendment I had had Charlie Ross to write.

Donald Lennon:
You and Gregg Cherry were not good friends, I take it.

Capus Waynick:
Quite good friends. As a matter of fact, he came to me when he was running and said that he knew that I knew more about the government of Raleigh than he would ever know but that he hoped that I would help him. I did do all I could do to help him. I had a good deal of faith in that man's basic character. He was honest and he wasn't for sale.

Donald Lennon:
He was a pretty colorful character though wasn't he?

Capus Waynick:
I knew the girl that he married. He married a girl over here in Greensboro. She was the daughter of the former mayor of Greensboro and the family were friends of ours. I was very close to Gregg, but it didn't keep me from telling him.

Donald Lennon:
How long were you head of the Highway Commission?

Capus Waynick:
I held on until Hoey was made governor. The night that Hoey appointed a successor to me I was at a dinner party at Wrightsville Beach with John Bellamy and other distinguished people of Wilmington. They had named a road for me. Oscar Pitts went to the telephone and came back and whispered to me that my successor had been appointed. I let him announce it there. Bellamy strode up and down the floor and said, "If the people of North Carolina had know that, he would never have been governor of this State."

Donald Lennon:
You were not allied with Hoey in any way were you?

Capus Waynick:
I had no political alliances because I grew up in the country and stayed pretty well in my little segment.

Donald Lennon:
Gardner and Ehringhaus had great respect for your abilities and utilized you.

Capus Waynick:
Gardner quite probably respected me, but it didn't induce him to save my job when his brother-in-law became governor. As a matter of fact, when I went in to tell Hoey goodbye, he offered me another job, in fact most any job he had except chairmanship of the Highway Commission. I answered, "Governor, you are being so frank you have forced me to be candid. Your distinguished brother-in-law paid $26,000 to help you in your campaign fund on the condition that you get rid of me as Highway Chairman. You know now why I don't want a dam thing to do with your administration."

One day after that, George Ross Pou was sitting on his porch at Morehead and I was walking down the beach and he called to me and said, "Capus, I understand you've been telling people that I handled $26,000 in this way for Hoey. You are wrong, it was $39,000."

Donald Lennon:
Why did they want you out as Highway Commissioner?

Capus Waynick:
The road contractors who furnished the money said they were not after me; they said they were after Vance Baise, the chief engineer. He was a very hard-boiled, competent engineer. As a matter of fact, one of these contractors who was in on this deal came to me as I was waiting to be discharged and told me, "Tf you will just promise that you will not keep Baise, we'll go to the governor and get him to change his position." I said, "You get the hell out of here before I kick you out." I left Raleigh and came on back here. Jack Blythe, one of the leading contractors in Charlotte, made an engagement and met me here in High Point acting for the contractors who wanted to hire me to become "Judge Londis" of their contracting business. As they expressed it, "Judge Londis" was at that time the head of baseball. He offered me a bigger salary than I got as chairman of the Highway Commission. They had gotten me fired as Highway Commission chairman, but they offered me a job running their show

When I turned it down, Nello Teer here at Durham said, "Waynick, you don't know what youtre talking about. You would make over $40,000 at this job that we have offered you." Forty thousand dollars a year was a lot of money back then. I turned it down and Jack Blythe talked to me for quite a while trying to get me to go with then, to run their business, the things they had to do together. Jack said, "You can't turn me down. I'm supposed to get you. You can't do that. You'vegot to meet with the whole crowd of contractors." They set up a meeting at the Tarheel Club there at Raleigh. I went down to attend a meeting of the contractors. I again thanked them and told them I appreciated their compliments, but that I was going to stay where I was. Three of the contractors offered to put $100,000 in the pot to get me to run for governor if I would.

I never talked about these things then, only since I've been urged to remember.

Donald Lennon:
You were named chairman of the Democratic Party here in North Carolina in 1948. Why?

Capus Waynick:
I had gotten involved with W. Kerr Scott in the primary when he was nominated for governor. When we had our victory, I was wondering whether I wanted to stay in the active leadership of the party any longer. Scott came to me. and said, "Capus, if you want to be chairman you have the first call, but if you don't want to be chairman, Everett Jordan would like to have it." I said, "Governor, I've been sitting around here on my fanny wondering if I wanted to fool with it. You've just made up my mind for me. You have before you a very willing candidate for the chairmanship."

Donald Lennon:
How did you first get tied in with Governor Kerr Scott and his political group?

Capus Waynick:
I was working in Raleigh on a subsidy furnished by Dick Reynolds to fight venereal infections. I had set up a campaign against the infections that was worldwide at that time. We got into big circles. We actually had some of our literature exhibited in distant places. We sent 5,000,000 copies of one book to India. I was doing it on a subsidized basis. I got a part salary from the U. S. Public Health Service, and Dick Reynolds made up the differential that I required to work there. Under those conditions I was just on leave of absence from the newspaper. I was staying down there to help in this urgent emergency, as Dick Reynolds saw it. Scott came to me and asked ie to run his campaign. I told him that I could not consider such a thing. He kept after me. He said, "I have a feeling that if you will do it, I will win and if you don't, I can't." I said, "If you feel that way about it, I don't think Charlie Johnson should be governor of North Carolina and I don't have any particular objection to your being it, so I will see what I can do."

I suggested to Scott that we fly down to Miami to Sunset Island and have a conference with Dick Reynolds. We went down and Dick met us very cordially with his new wife, a little freckled face Irish girl. He said, "Waynick, if you want to do it, do it. I cannot back you in it because I am in too questionable a position about my divorce and my ownership of property in North Carolina and in Florida. I have got to be very careful about getting mixed up with any political operations that would indicate statehood." Itemus Valentine was with us. He flew down in Drew Miller's little Cessna. When we came on back, I told Scott, "That just settles it. I can't afford to quit my job because I've got a good paying job. You'll just have to get somebody else." He came back and urged me to change my mind. Itemus offered to get out
and try to dig up a little money for me if I would do it. Finally I agreed. I told Elizabeth, "I'll do this thing at whatever risk."

Donald Lennon:
Where did the money come from for financing the campaign? Did Scott have much money of his own?

Capus Waynick:
I remember standing in the lobby of the Sir Walter Hotel with a member of the Supreme Court. Littleton, wno worked with the Organization of County Commissioners, was standing there talking with the member of the Supreme Court about what was going to happen in the campaign ahead of him. He said, "T'11 tell you this Judge, Charlie Johnson will be elected by the biggest vote in the history of North Carolina. He has every county commissioner, every county officer, and the employees working for him. He is known all over the State and worked for the counties for so long that he is just unbeatable." The Judge agreed with him. I spoke up. I said, "Gentlemen, you may be correct, but Charlie Johnson should not be governor of North Carolina, and if I can help it he isn't going to be." That was back before I had any connection
with Scott.

Donald Lennon:
What was your opposition to Johnson based on?

Capus Waynick:
I may have been unfair to him, but Johnson had strange connections. His chief friend here was also my friend but not a trusted friend. He was trusted in a way but not to do the ethical thing. His chief friend down in Johnston County was a bootlegger. I knew his connections here and there around the State and I didn't like them. I may have known too much or maybe too damn little. I wish I could play it over in a way. I think I would have played the game differently. I might have run for office.

Donald Lennon:
Any other particular incidents that you remember from that campaign, such as conversations with Scott or with anyone else that were revealing?

Capus Waynick:
When Truman came down here, my advisors here in the party did not want me to invite Truman or Alben Barkley to the state. I kicked off the campaign with Alben Barkley and finished it up with Truman at Raleigh before the State fair. So strong was the anti-Truman feeling that Willis Smith, who later became the United States senator, would not go to hear him speak at the fairgrounds when I introduced him there. So strong was the feeling that people would give me some money to help with the campaign and they would say that Il must not use it to help elect Truman as president. I could use it for the other candidates, but not for Truman. Bill Umstead wrote me. I called him in Washington and told him that I wanted certain information as chairman of the party. Bill said, �?oWaynick, you don't want to fool around with Truman. You can't help him. Hets beat. There's no chance for him." I said, "What makes you say that?" He said, "All around me in Durham are lifelong Democrats and we're not going to vote for a civil rights son-of-a-bitch." So that's the situation that I was in with the campaign. I had a meeting over in the hotel. We had the heads of our tickets in the state congressmen and senators. I got them in the room and fed them. I got them in the upper room at the hotel and asked them, "Now what shall we do? Shall we bring the president and vice-president into the state." "No, let's not fool with those fellows. Let's keep it quiet." At one point Bob Doughton said, "Mr. Chairman, you will get the whole ticket beat if you don't look out."

Hoey wrote me a note after it was over. He said, "You gave great leadership. When we needed courage, you had it." He wrote me a very fine letter. I turned to Hoey at the meeting and I said, "I want you to stick your neck all the way out, Senator. You are not on the ticket and I want you to take it on in stride." He said, "I'll do the best I can." Old man Doughton thought I was going to get them all.

Donald Lennon:
Did John Larkins help you at all in that campaign?

Capus Waynick:
I never knew whether John Larkins was very helpful or not.

Donald Lennon:
He was trying to raise money. He was supposed to have been the major campaign fundraiser for Truman in that campaign.

Capus Waynick:
I never had any connection with him on money. In fact, I refused the money. The whiskey interests wanted to put some money in, and I made the statement: "My man is running as a 'dry' and if I can help it not a single dollar of whiskey money shall go into this campaign."

Donald Lennon:
So you didn't support Umstead in '52 then, did you?

Capus Waynick:
No, I didn't support anybody. They denied me the right to vote. I was going to vote for this boy over at Lexington with no enthusiasm.

Donald Lennon:
Hubert Olive?

Capus Waynick:
Yes.

Donald Lennon:
And they wouldn't let you vote?

Capus Waynick:
They tried to find me later on my way to Raleigh. I left here. Elizabeth and I were refused the right to vote. We came all the way here for the purpose. They didn't catch me. They had the state police looking for me to tell me that I could vote.

Donald Lennon:
One thing that you mentioned earlier was the proposition that you may run for the U. S. Senate against Hoey. Would you mind repeating that?

Capus Waynick:
I told you that Governor Scott came to Cartagena in South America and spent most of the day begging me to get ready and come back here and run for governor to succeed him. He said, "If you don't do it, we will have to run Hubert Olive, and I am afraid we can't win with him." Now that was Scott to me down in South America. I just told him that I had gotten into this business of diplomacy and I found certain puzzles that were interesting to me and I had still some work to do, so I would stick with it a little longer. Then I came back here and he urged me to run against Hoey for the new elections for the Senate. I declined that. There was a heck of a lot of talk about me for governor back there.

Donald Lennon:
You said that Mr. Hoey called you when it was announced that you would not run for the Senate.

Capus Waynick:
Hoey got in touch with me and told me that he hoped that he would not have to run against me for the Senate, that his heart was in the same condition as Max Gardner's, his brother-in-law, when it killed him. And he did not know whether he would outlive his term or not. He knew that in case of his death after he was elected, there was no question about who will be senator. He said that I would be appointed. I told him, "I haven't made up my mind yet, but when I do I will let you know." When I did make it known there in Washington by press conference, Hoey called me up on the phone to thank me for eliminating myself. But I don't think I could have beat Hoey. He had a pretty smooth way of getting votes and I am pretty tough.

Donald Lennon:
We saw clippings in the newspaper concerning your running for governor in 1940. This was after you were removed from the State Highway Commission in '37. The next election after that would have been 1940. There appears to have been support for your running for governor at that time.

Capus Waynick:
There wasn't any special movement then that impressed me in all my memory. I reckon I was regarded somewhat as an irregular, a fellow that sometimes ran and sometimes didn't.

Donald Lennon:
Until you managed Kerr Scott's campaign and got him elected, an irregular had never been elected governor, had he?

Capus Waynick:
My wife wasn't particularly enthusiastic about my staying in politics; however, she was very pleasantly concerned about our diplomatic service. I got hooked on the president's Point Four Program. I was down in Nicaragua when I was called by Jimmy Webb. He was undersecretary of state at that time. He had just left the president and Acheson at the airport where the president was seeing Acheson off to Paris, and they both had instructed him to call me on the phone and get me to come back to Washington and run the Point Four Program. He called me on long-distance in Nicaragua. I said, "Jimmy, I don't want to leave Managua right now because the election is impending, and I want to see that the damn thing is straight and I want to stick around here until the election is over." He said, "When is it?" "On May first." "Come right after the election."

So I agreed, protestingly. I went on up and they asked me to take over and organize this movement for aid to underprivileged and internationally deprived human beings. So I got mixed up in that thing. Acheson never said much to me about it, but his assistants did try to get me to keep the thing. Elizabeth didn't want to stay in Washington, so I spent nearly a year there running that Point Four Program.

Donald Lennon:
Then you went back to Nicaragua after that, did you not?

Capus Waynick:
Yes. You know, I still remember with a sense of pleasure the representatives of five different departments in the Washington government; when they heard that I was retiring from the service and going back to the field, they came to me to beg me not to leave Washington. They said, "You're like a fresh breath of wind blowing through the city."

Donald Lennon:
When did you first go to Nicaragua? How long had you been in Nicaragua when the Point Four Program came up?

Capus Waynick:
I came back May first and went down to Nicaragua the first of the year. I'd been there about six months-- five months.

Donald Lennon:
How had you been appointed down there in the first place? You were here in North Carolina as chairman of the party under Governor Scott. Give me the transition from that to your going to Nicaragua.

Capus Waynick:
Jonathan Daniels was working in the White House at that time. Jonathan Daniels, acting for the president, came to see me and asked me what appointment I wanted in the government. I said, "Jonathan, you tell Mr. Truman I don't want a damn thing from him except four years of good government. Tell him that I have a job and that I appreciate the offer, but no thank you." Jonathan came back and told me that the president insisted that I name something and that Nicaragua was going to be open and that Belgium, the Netherlands, and Hungary were going to be free. He said that the president would like to know if I wouldn't be interested in one of those jobs or the job as Commissioner of Conventional Armament of the United Nations. By that time I was being bedeviled by people who thought that since I ran Scott's campaign for governor, I would have influence with him. They bothered me about this, that, and the other. I couldn't get any sleep much at night. So finally I told Elizabeth, "Let's take this Nicaraguan job and try out our Spanish on the natives at the expense of the United States Government."

Donald Lennon:
Someone who was making quite a name for himself in North Carolina during the same time that you were-- a man also with a journalistic background-- was Clarence Poe. Were you and Dr. Poe good friends? Clarence Poe of the Progressive Farmer. What kind of a relationship did you have with him?

Capus Waynick:
We were very close friends. I've been out to his beautiful home just outside of Raleigh a good many times. In fact he tried to sell it to me when he got in sort of tough luck. We were fellow members of a club that claims credit for formulating the coming in to being of State College-- Watuaga Club. I was one of the seventeen members of the Watuaga Club and so were Clarence Poe, Jonathan Daniels, and J. M. Broughton. We thought it was a pretty spiffy club.

EAST CAROLINA MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
CAPUS M. WAYNICK
INTERVIEW #3
JANUARY 30, 1980

HIGH POINT, N. C.

Donald Lennon:
In 1949 you were appointed to go to Nicaragua. Was this before you were involved in the Point Four Program or was this after you had completed that phase of your activities?

Capus Waynick:
I had not had anything up to that time to do with the Point Four Program.

Donald Lennon:
So you were in Nicaragua first.

Capus Waynick:
I was in Nicaragua when I was called to come back and take an interest in it.

Donald Lennon:
Can you tell us something about your appointment to Nicaragua-- how things were when you got there-- your impressions of the country when you arrived?

Capus Waynick:
When I went to Nicaragua, I took a boat from New York down to Panama. I avoided flying as much as I could. I was always a little skittish about flying, although I have had to do a great deal of it. I went to Panama and then back the relatively short distance to Managua. I was greeted at the airport in Managua not only by the first officer and members of the staff of the embassy of the United States but by the future president of Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza, and his wife. I was very mach impressed with the friendliness of the people. It was perfectly clear that while Somoza was not president, he was really calling most of the shots. He was in the position of dictator. His relative, Dr. Roman Reyes, was president when I went to Nicaragua. I found myself domiciled in a tremendous residence which was called Piedracitas-- it means "Little Rocks." Somoza had quite a little group of officers of the embassy that went with my wife and me out to Piedracitas. When we got there the whole place was engulfed with grasshoppers. We went in the residence and had champagne at quite a little party on our arrival.

Donald Lennon:
Somoza had a reputation for being a very good-natured outgoing individual who knew how to manipulate people, didn't he?

Capus Waynick:
Yes. He had a very friendly personality with a background of violence.

Donald Lennon:
He made an effort to prohibit all opposition to his control of the country, did he not?

Capus Waynick:
Well, the opposition was led by an old Indian leader, Chamorro, and when I left Nicaragua to move to Colombia, both Somoza and Chamorro gave dinner parties in my honor.

Donald Lennon:
So you managed to bridge the gap between both sides there.

Capus Waynick:
I think so.

Donald Lennon:
What was your primary responsibility while you were there? What were you directly involved with?

Capus Waynick:
It's rather difficult to answer that question because it was nothing very important. We were cooperating with Nicaragua in building a road across to the Atlantic from Managua. I went before Congress shortly after my appearance in the role of ambassador to advocate a $2,000,000 appropriation for this road. We received that evidently.

Donald Lennon:
Although Somoza was a dictator, it was kind of a benevolent dictatorship in some ways, was it not?

Capus Waynick:
Yes, he had good points. This son of his, Anastasio,who has been deposed as president, was a graduate of West Point. He married his own cousin in Miami. The Somoza family was a mixture of aristocratic blood and vowed determinism.

Donald Lennon:
Nicaragua and many of these other Latin American countries are known for their constant civil war and the battling between the liberals and the conservatives. None of that was visible at the time that you were there, was it? It was a fairly quiet time in the country?

Capus Waynick:
I remember on one occasion, Somoza told me that if I said so, he would unify Central America by force if necessary.

Donald Lennon:
Do you think that he had the forces and the ability to have done that?

Capus Waynick:
I wasn't sure; he had a strong little army in his National Guard.

Donald Lennon:
I suppose that a great deal of your time was probably spent in social life. The responsibilities of an ambassador include a lot of socializing with visitors and dignitaries.

Capus Waynick:
Yes. My first close relationship with royalty occurred in my diplomatic experience. 'The heir apparent to the Hapsburg throne visited us and I declined 'an invitation to go to a party in his honor. Then the Prince told my officer that he would like to meet the ambassador, and I told him to come out to Piedracitas. I would be glad to receive him. I did have a very pleasant meeting with him.

Donald Lennon:
I imagine protocol in the diplomatic service is something that has to be very carefully attended to, is it not?

Capus Waynick:
It has to be sort of the rule of the operation.

Donald Lennon:
Any particular incidents or events that you can think of in connection with that? Here you were coming from Piedmont, North Carolina into what was a new situation for you. You had never been involved in protocol and dealing with foreign governments. Did any problems arise from that?

Capus Waynick:
In the first place I was given very special treatment by the government of the country when it came to a matter of location at dinners, etc., and rather pleasant preferences were shown. I got very close to Somoza. I have reason to believe that he wasn't unaware of what was said on the telephone.

Donald Lennon:
You do think that the embassy was probably bugged? Or at least the telephone was?

Capus Waynick:
It had a possible connection with the palace.

Donald Lennon:
That made you kind of uncomfortable at times did it not?

Capus Waynick:
No. If I wanted to get a special message over to the president of Nicaragua, I would tell Washington over this possibly bugged telephone.

Donald Lennon:
But you did have to be very careful about what you said.

Capus Waynick:
Incidentally, I developed in my short diplomatic career a distaste for the CIA that I never have overcome. One of my officers in Colombia received a message from his superior to set up a mailbox system for the CIA and in the communication, which he had sense enough to show me, he was advised that the less the ambassador knew about this the better. I didn't think much of covenants not openly arrived at so I declined to cooperate and congratulated the officer on telling me about it. Shortly after that I took a plane to Washington where I visited General Bedel Smith, then in charge of CIA. He was Chief of Staff under Eisenhower and I had heard that he was a pretty tough customer. I expected to lock horns with him. I went into his office on the fifth floor of the State Department building, introduced myself, and told him why I wouldn't cooperate. He said, "Mr. Ambassador, you have done the right thing and I congratulate you and I thank you." My contact with Bedel was all right.

Donald Lennon:
You didn't have a chance for a confrontation after all. In Nicaragua, were you expected to be involved in intelligence operations at al1?

Capus Waynick:
No.

Donald Lennon:
There was no intelligence gathering through the embassy?

Capus Waynick:
Nothing except reports bearing upon economic conditions and things of that sort.

Donald Lennon:
No undercover?

Capus Waynick:
No. There was a CIA man on my staff.

Donald Lennon:
In the situation in Colombia, do you suppose their rationalization for not informing the ambassador was possibly for his own protection?

Capus Waynick:
No, I don't think that had anything to do with it. The man who brought the information to me that I acted upon was a native of Goldsboro, N. C.-- Tom Campen. Tom died about a year or so ago.

Donald Lennon:
Did he come back to Goldsboro after he retired from the diplomatic service?

Capus Waynick:
He went to Pinehurst and Mrs. Campen is living in Pinehurst now, I think. I remember when I was leaving Colombia, Campen asked for an interview with me. He said, "Mr. Ambassador, I want you to advise me about my career. I want to know what you have to say about how I've behaved." I said, "Tom, I wouldn't have mentioned it if you hadn't asked the question so directly, but there is one thing in your activity here that I greatly disapprove of." Tom was sitting on the edge of his chair. He said, "What is that, Mr. Ambassador?" "You draw far too damn many inside straights."

Donald Lennon:
He was a career diplomat was he not?

Capus Waynick:
Yes.

Donald Lennon:
You had not been involved in diplomatic circles prior to this time. Coming into it as an outsider rather than as a professional diplomat, did you see that as a handicap or as an advantage?

Capus Waynick:
There is quite a conservative concern among diplomats for the professioal side of it and I think it is almost a matter of personality and objectivity. I was honored on occasion; for instance, I was chosen by the department to help with the inauguration of three presidents in Central America. I remember when I was appointed the head of the delegation for the inauguratim of Arevalo of Guatemala. The New York papers said there was objection to my appointment because I came from Somoza's court with which Guatemala had no connection and no communication. Of course at that time the control in Guatemala was sort of on the Sandino side of the controversy in Central America, and Somoza had frequently commented on his hostility toward Sandino.

Donald Lennon:
I didn't know whether some of the career diplomats looked upon freshmen diplomats more as political appointees rather than looking at you for your abilities and capabilities.

Capus Waynick:
George Shaw was the ambassador in Nicaragua whom I replaced and he had served with old man Josephus Daniels in Mexico. George wrote to Jonathan, who had been taken into the White House, to ask him if he couldn't help him hold his job. He said that some damn politicians were about to take charge. Jonathan wrote back and said that he had approved the appointments of some politicians.

Donald Lennon:
What was the view of diplomats fron other countries in Nicaragua of the favored status that you enjoyed with Somoza? Did the British or French or other diplomatic corps resent the fairly high standing that you had with the government?

Capus Waynick:
I could not say. They probably did. I was treated with kind consideration by fellow diplomats.

Donald Lennon:
Any other particular events or circumstances that you recall from that stay in Nicaragua?

Capus Waynick:
In the first place that period was really pregnant with possibilities that I only recently have realized fully. For instance, the president not only asked me to come to Washington to organize the Point Four Program and get it going, but he and the State Department asked me to stay on and run it. In October of 1950, I turned over to Iran one-half million dollars as the first cooperation of the Point Four Program with that country. We made Iran the first recipient of Point Four money. If I had gone the way that the State Department wanted me to go, I would have been involved in a lot of this controversy that exists presently in the world. It was an opening that I failed to take partly because Mrs. Waynick didn't want to stay in Washington and did enjoy being a Mrs. Ambassador.

Donald Lennon:
Before we leave Nicaragua, I have one last question. How did you get rid of the grasshoppers?

Capus Waynick:
They ate their way out into obscurity.

Donald Lennon:
When you were in Nicaragua, you were asked by the Truman administration to come back to Washington to head Point Four?

Capus Waynick:
Jimmy Webb called me over the telephone. He was the Undersecretary of State. He said, "I've just left the President and Acheson, the Secretary, at the airport." They were seeing Acheson off to Paris. "Both of them asked me to call you and ask you to come back here and to start this program."

Donald Lennon:
How long had you been in Nicaragua at that time?

Capus Waynick:
That was in April, I believe, and I'd been there since the first of the year. I said, "Jimmy, I don't want to leave here at the present time because there's an election coming up May 1 and I want to see if it's honestly conducted." He said, "Well, how about coming up right after the election?" That was agreed upon and I left right after Somoza's election to the presidency. I think it was a fairly honest result in that one case.

Donald Lennon:
Well, he was really fatrly popular with the majority of the people.

Capus Waynick:
Later when I went back to Nicaragua on a visit at the invitation of Somoza, I told him one night that I wanted him to trade his fortune and his family into security from a very perilous position, that he was in danger. He had lost a lot of the support that he originally had there, and I was afraid that something very severe would occur. At that time he was figuring on another election for another term. I asked him to change his mind and drop that ambition. His answer was that he had some unfinished work and he wanted to continue one more time. You know what happened.

Donald Lennon:
He was assassinated.

Capus Waynick:
Fisenhower tried to save him by sending him to Panama after he'd been shot in the belly. He died in Panama.

Donald Lennon:
So you came on back to Washington to organize the Point Four Program. Had anything been done on the program at that time or did you have to start from scratch in getting it under way?

Capus Waynick:
I had to start from absolute scratch except that the State Department had assigned a few personnel to the operation. The man to succeed me as the head of the Point Four Program was the head of an institution in Oklahoma. Incidentally, he flew his own plane; and shortly after he took over in command of the program he and a large number of my personal associates, who had been in the movement, were killed in a plane accident against a mountainside in Iran. Bennett was his name.

Donald Lennon:
How did you set about getting the program off the ground and getting things organized?

Capus Waynick:
I had to appeal to the Congress for money. A member of the staff of the State Department, Mr. Thorpe, was working with me. We appeared before the Congressional committee.

Donald Lennon:
So Congress had not even funded the program at the time that you took over.

Capus Waynick:
No, and they were hesitant to do it. They weren't particularly enthusiastic about it.

Donald Lennon:
So you had to use some of your diplomatic experience and some of your political experience to win congressional funding?

Capus Waynick:
I hadn't been on the job long before Thorpe and I went to New York to "Quaker Meadows," I mean to the United Nations, and there Thorpe proposed cooperation in this movement. The senator from Tennessee got upset in the committee meeting and said, "Mr. Thorpe, what do you mean by going to New York and promising them some millions of dollars when you haven't got a damn cent?" That's the kind of opposition that we confronted and it took a little work to get the thing going; but it was going pretty well when I left there.

Donald Lennon:
What kind of criteria did you use in deciding which nations and developing countries needed support?

Capus Waynick:
Well, that was largely the decision of the State Department officials. For instance, I did not pick Iran, the Department had already picked it. I had a conversation with the Secretary of the Arab League. An Egyptian came to see me in the interest of Egypt and asked me what we were up to with this program. I could see his suspicion in the matter. He asked me, "What trade agreement, what cooperation do you expect from us, from Egypt, as a condition preceeding to this?" I said, "Mr. Secretary, we want no trade agreement with you and no other agreement except what has to do with the operation itself. It's intended to be helpful in equalizing some of the inequalities in the human society." When I got through talking with him, he said, "Mr. Ambassador, I'm going home and tell Egypt to get everything they can out of this. We will all work together with you."

Things like that occurred. It occurred to me recently that if I'd done
what the President wanted, to stick with it, that I might have been able to
influence this whole situation having to do with the embassy in Iran and
having to do with conditions along the Gaza Strip, because I had to consider all of those in connection with my work with Point Four.

Donald Lennon:
You didn't see any evidence that American corporations, such as oil companies, that I'm sure would like to improve their position in these various strategic countries, were trying to use Point Four to their advantage?

Capus Waynick:
No, I did not.

Donald Lennon:
They could see the advantage, for instance, if the United States went into Iran to pour money in there to help the Iranian people, it would give them greater leeway for what could be considered exploitation.

Capus Waynick:
Of course, at that time the energy problem hadn't made its appearance. It wasn't too obvious at least, but it was probably operating.

Donald Lennon:
But the petroleum companies were in those countries by then, were they not?

Capus Waynick:
I had no experience with them.

Donald Lennon:
During the period that you were setting up Point Four, you didn't fly around to any of the countries investigating conditions, did you?

Capus Waynick:
No, but I did a little flying in the United States. When I returned to Nicaragua, I canceled engagements to speak-- to make six or seven minute speeches on the matter of internatimal cooperation. I had been invited to make them and had agreed to make them. I went out to Iowa, for instance, and addressed the farmers covention on the subject. I went to Denver and made two speeches, one over the radio and one before a group of students who were studying land cultivation.

Donald Lennon:
I'm sure there were opponents to Point Four not only here in the United States but around the world. Did they consider Point Four as an example of Yankee imperialism?

Capus Waynick:
There was no evidence before me of any hostility.

Donald Lennon:
Other than the Egyptians wanting more knowledge of what it was about.

Capus Waynick:
They couldn't understand whether it was an authentic concern for their welfare or ours.

Donald Lennon:
But you were never under any kind of pressure to set the organization up so that the United States would benefit in some way?

Capus Waynick:
No. There was no abuse of it at that time.

Donald Lennon:
Did you pretty much have free rein by the administration to set this up as you saw fit?

Capus Waynick:
I might say yes. Everybody was hoping that I knew what I was doing. I guess that I would have stayed with it except for Mrs. Waynick's preference for the foreign field.

Donald Lennon:
So you stayed with it only long enough to set it up and get the first programs initiated.

Capus Waynick:
Yes, and to help get Bennett appointed.

Donald Lennon:
These were primarily programs for sending experts into these countries with technical know-how and skills to assist the people.

Capus Waynick:
Yes, that was largely the purpose. For instance, we provided farm help for India and China. We had some pretty wide programs. Of course, the old Point Four operation was finally merged into the Peace Corp.

Donald Lennon:
This sounded like it was in some ways a Peace Corp type of undertaking.

Capus Waynick:
It was the republican response to the need for work -in this field.

Donald Lennon:
Did you go back to the State Department and ask for another foreign assignment?

Capus Waynick:
I just went back to my job. I was on a leave of absence.

Donald Lennon:
You went back to Nicaragua from Point Four.

Capus Waynick:
Yes.

Donald Lennon:
So you remained in Nicaragua until you were appointed to Colonbia?

Capus Waynick:
Yes. One ex-ambassador was sent down to see me about the Colombia appointment. He said, "I was sent here by the Department of State to see to it that you don't refuse this promotion. You refused one before and we want to be sure that you don't refuse this one." At that time there was a lot of concern in Colombia about religious persecution.

(Did he convince you without any trouble to go to Colanbia?

Capus Waynick:
At first I declined the idea saying that I'd rather stay where I was. Somoza knew that I was being asked to go to Colombia. He said, "Truman can't do this to me." That was a complimentary attitude towards me.

Donald Lennon:
At that time, as you said, Colombia was in great turmoil whereas things in Nicaragua were pretty peaceful. You had a government that was pro-United States. Did you have any misgivings from the point of view of going from a situation that you knew was positive and responsive and friendly and going into a situation where there may be a great deal of turmoil?

Capus Waynick:
No, I didn't take that too seriously. After I went to Colombia I got a call to my residence one night that a mob was attacking a Baptist Church in the edge of Bogota. I dressed and drove down to the church. There was a great mob in front of it and they were. throwing rocks at it. A quietude fell over the crowd when I arrived. I walked up to the end of the church. Some guy clipped me by the side of my head with a rock, but I never did admit that it occurred. I had called the authorities and asked for protection for the American pastor and his church and the soldiers had arrived. I said to the young lieutenant in charge of the detachment, "Are you going to protect these people from this attack?" One young soldier with him spoke up, "They're not entitled to any protection. They're opposing the Mother Church." I said to the officer, "Are you going to listen to absurdities like that or are you going to do your duty?" He promised to do his duty and he did. That little experience, by the way, broke into the American Press and got into Time and spread all over the country.

Donald Lennon:
When you arrived in Colombia, Gomez was president, was he not?

Capus Waynick:
That is right, and his assistant who served when he was unable to was Urdeneta.

Donald Lennon:
Tell me about Gomez. Here you've had the rather attractive dictator Somoza and now you have...

Capus Waynick:
Quite a different atmosphere. When I presented my credentials, Gomez said, "If you people mean a New Deal as a promise, we welcome them; but you stole Panama, and it takes some forgiving to forget that."

Donald Lennon:
You did not get the kind of welcome in Colombia that you had received in Nicaragua.

Capus Waynick:
In a way it was a little colder, but it was satisfactory.

Donald Lennon:
I've always heard that Gomez was somewhat hostile to the United States originally in his earlier years before he became president in 1950.

Capus Waynick:
I really think that in his heart he was. I don't think that he was particularly friendly.

Donald Lennon:
But he tried to put on something of a facade for diplomatic purposes.

Capus Waynick:
He treated me very well in the final analysis. I was given the highest decoration of the country when I left. American ambassadors are not supposed to accept decorations from foreign countries, but I have three of them, I have the highest decoratio of Nicaragua, the highest decoration of Colombia, and a decoration from Ecuador, and several other ornaments from Colombia. Normally, when a diplomat receives a decoration, he turns it over to the department until the end of his service, he doesn't refuse it.

Donald Lennon:
I read that Gonez had been a rather open admirer of Adolph Hitler and of Franco of Spain. Was his attitude reflective of that kind of mentality?

Capus Waynick:
I wouldn't be at all surprised if there wasn't some truth in it. I haven't any way to prove it. Gomez had a rather checkered career as president of Colombia.

Donald Lennon:
Except for the incident where they were throwing rocks at the Baptist Church, did you see any evidence of violence or turmoil between the conservatives and liberals or toward Protestant missionaries?

Capus Waynick:
No, I didn't see anything of the sort.

Donald Lennon:
This was still the period that they called "La Violencia"-- the period of violence. So your duties and your responsibilities and your life in Colombia was not that different from Nicaragua?

Capus Waynick:
Not much difference. I had some interesting visits. Cardinal Spellman came down. At that time he was not only Archbishop of New York and Cardinal, but he was also a prospect for the papacy. I gave him a dinner party in the embassy and I accompanied him to the palace to be presented there. When we came out of the palace, a great street mob went wild. Spellman said, "Mr. Ambassador, my gracious, what is all of this?" I said, "Your Excellency, guard your language. These people are greeting you as the next Pope."

When I left Colombia, I had a visit from the head of the coffee-growers association. I told him in our conversation, "One of the regrets I have of leaving your beautiful country is that I am leaving such good coffee behind." When I got home here to High Point, in about two weeks, I received a 135-pound bag of green coffee. I gave some of it to Inglis Fletcher, the author, and some to my sister-in-law and I solid $50 worth of it to a coffee dealer over in Greensboro. Incidentally, they serve coffee free in the airport at San Salvador.

Donald Lennon:
Tell me some of your impressions of Colombia upon your arrival there.

I know that it is a very mountainous area. In many ways it had some sections that are quite remote.

Donald Lennon:
Did you get outside of Bogota at all?

Capus Waynick:
Scott was governor while I was there and he came down. I met him over at the Atlantic port. He spent the whole day urging me to come back and run for governor to succeed him. He had had an opportunity to appoint me to the United States Senate, which I would have accepted with pleasure, but he really begged me to come back and run for governor, He said, "If you'll run, we can elect you. If you won't run we'll have to back a chap over in Lexington, Hubert Olive, and I'm not sure that we can elect him."

Donald Lennon:
Why didn't he appoint you to the Senate?

Capus Waynick:
Scott liked to do unusual things. The day the office came open by the death of Melville Broughton, he called me up before I got out of bed. Scott said, "Many people are saying that that fellow Waynick will make a good senator." I said, "He'd probably make a great senator, but if it will be any embarrassment to you to appoint me, don't do it. I'm not going to put any pressure on you whatsoever." Jonathan Daniels or somebody persuaded him that he ought to put Frank Graham in the office. I went to Washington while the controversy over who was to succeed Broughton was in its last stages. Up there they gave me a dinner party at the Mayflower in which they gave a representation of the arrival of Senator Waynick to the Senate; and I told Hoey, who was senator then, that I wasn't coming, that it was going to be somebody else. I was received as the probable senator.

Donald Lennon:
The only embarrassment that Scott could have had at appointing you was the fact that you had managed his campaign. Was there any other reason there?

Capus Waynick:
When Scott and I were in the campaign, I told him that he had no office in the state that I wanted if he were elected, but that I would be interested in going to the Senate. HQey was the man I was expecting to succeed if I went because he was a westerner and Broughton was the easterner. So when Broughton died and Heaey continued to live, I told the governor that I had same respect for the east-west tradition of representation and I would understand if he wanted to change his mind. At that time I really thought that he was going to appoint me senator. He had indicated that he would.

Donald Lennon:
Well, Graham couldn't really be considered to be from the east.

Capus Waynick:
He was from near where Broughton was from.

Donald Lennon:
He probably stirred up more controversy in appointing Graham than he would have in appointing someone from the west. Graham was always something of a controversial figure around the state among those that really didn't know him.

Capus Waynick:
Scott didn't mind a little controversy. He liked to do unexpected things. For instance, his secretary told me that a few minutes before he appointed another man to the Supreme Court, that he was threatening to ask me to go on the Court. I'm not even a lawyer, but the Constitution doesn't require that you have to be a lawyer to be on the Supreme Court. I would not have accepted it if he'd offerred it to me.

Donald Lennon:
Why did you decline to run for governor in 1952?

Capus Waynick:
At that time I was interested in the work I was doing in the diplomatic field and I didn't want to interrupt it. I also wasn't sure that I could be elected. Looking over some of the scrapbooks I have, you'd think that I was a favored candidate.

Donald Lennon:
You weren't afraid of a scrap were you?

Capus Waynick:
Not particularly.

Donald Lennon:
Can you think of any particular events or incidents that took place in Colombia, personal incidents, that involved you in any way?

Capus Waynick:
I encouraged the Rockefeller and Kellog Foundations to set up a college for the teaching of agriculture and I have a gold medal for this service.

Donald Lennon:
Why did you decide to leave Colombia?

Capus Waynick:
Because I was being replaced by Mr. Eisenhower. Milton Eisenhower and his wife came down to visit me. One night we went to the palace and he led me up into the presence of the president. He said, "Mr. President, we have a new set-up in the United States. As you know my brother and I are members of one party and the ambassador here is a member of the other. But I want to say to you that I'm convinced that regardless of who we send to replace him, no one will be a better representative than the one you have presently." When Milton got back, he wrote me to thank me for staying on a while. I wrote him and told him that I wanted to be relieved and to ask his brother to please accept my resignation.

Donald Lennon:
So you resigned rather than being replaced. They had not told you that you would definitely be replaced, although that is what would be expected.

Capus Waynick:
That is right. I then got a letter from the State Department telling me that I could proceed to the United States when I wished. The President was in Denver at the time and would accept my resignation after he came back.

Donald Lennon:
Did they normally replace all the ambassadors every time you had a
change in party?

Capus Waynick:
Every ambassador offers his resignation to the new administration as a routine matter.

Donald Lennon:
Had Gomez been overthrown before you left? He was overthrown in 1953.

Capus Waynick:
That was after I left.

Donald Lennon:
You didn't see any hint of it coming at the time that you departed from
down there?

Capus Waynick:
No. It was in the air.

Donald Lennon:
Did the lack of freedom of worship cause any problems in Colombia? I know that you mentioned the stoning of the Baptist Church. The restrictions on worship and the very anti-Protestant feeling, did that permeate the air?

Capus Waynick:
Yes, it was pretty strong.

Donald Lennon:
But they didn't force the Protestant missionaries to leave the country?

Capus Waynick:
They had a limitation on where they could serve. They were pretty strictly controlled.

Donald Lennon:
Gomez's replacement, Rojas Pinilla, did you know him? He had a reputation as being a very savage individual.

Capus Waynick:
I knew him very well. He had a daughter who was pretty savage.

Donald Lennon:
Did you have any contact with him before he came to power?

Capus Waynick:
I had more or less casual contact.

Donald Lennon:
With your return to the United States, you had to get reoriented to life back in the United States and in North Carolina. Did you come back to the newspaper?

Capus Waynick:
I did not return to the paper at that time. Smith Richardson hired me for part of that time from 1953 to 1957. I lived in New York and acted as head of the Smith Richardson Foundation. I was vice-president.

Donald Lennon:
Any other thoughts at all concerning your diplomatic career?

Capus Waynick:
No, it was more or less routine, Governor Hodges asked me to come back to North Carolina and be the head of the National Guard.

Donald Lennon:
How did you get along with Hodges?

Capus Waynick:
Very well. I had this temporary spell with Richardson. Then I was urged to come
back to take this generalship of the Guard, and there was a lot of opposition to my becoming commander.

Donald Lennon:
Why was that?

Capus Waynick:
Tom Turner represented this county in the legislature at the same time that I did in the 1930's. He wasn't really a great admirer of mine and he made a speech to a veterans group over in Greensboro in which he said, "Do you know that that fellow could lead your boys into war?" That kind of sentiment was expressed. It didn't concern me very much. I finally yielded to the suggestion that I become commander and served until we inaugurated Sanford. I was largely in charge of the inauguration and in the meantime I had sent my resignation to the governor. After Sanford took over, he came to my office for a conference and said, "I didn't intend for you to quit here and I hope to keep you on as Adjutant-General." He wanted me to do some things or him in the government. I remember that I agreed to do one thing. I had been helpful in trying to establish a policy of water control in North Carolina. I agreed to help him on the continuation of that service. Then I spent a short while as a member of Louis Wooten's firm in Raleigh. He was an electrical engineer. I quit that to return to New York to become vice-president of the Richardson Foundation.

Donald Lennon:
That's right. You were with the Richardson Foundation in New York in 1961. Were you just tired of the Adjutant-Generalship?

Capus Waynick:
I hadn't supported Sanford.

Donald Lennon:
I thought as an old Scott man that you would have supported him, since Sanford was a Scott man himself.

Capus Waynick:
I told Sanford that I didn't support him. He said, "Except for your influence, I wouldn't be governor of North Carolina." He credited me with helping him to land the governorship. When Scott ran for the U. S. Senate in 1954, I approved Sanford as his campaign manager. That was the beginning of Sanford's political career. But I didn't give him my vote for governor.

Donald Lennon:
You supported Malcolm Seawell.

Capus Waynick:
That's right.

Donald Lennon:
You mentioned Inglis Fletcher a few minutes ago. Were you good friends with her?

Capus Waynick:
When we celebrated an anniversary at Roanoke Island, Inglis got me involved at the time when we had a visit from an English lord who was a son of the Old admiral, Lord Jellicoe. I was a guest in her home and got to know Inglis very well.

Donald Lennon:
Someone who was active in the period of your diplomatic interests was Robert Lee Humber. Did you know him?

Capus Waynick:
I knew Robert Lee quite well. He lived for a long time in Paris and he worked for a man named Getty, a multi-millionaire. He was a right interesting chap.

EAST CAROLINA MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
CAPUS M. WAYNICK
INTERVIEW #4
JULY 29, 1980
HIGH POINT, N.C.

You asked me if I knew Carl Goerch well. The answer to that is yes. Carl was reading clerk to the General Assembly when it met in 1932-1933. One morning as I walked from the Sir Walter Hotel to the capitol, Carl fell in step with me and we walked on together. That is when he told me of his plan to start a state magazine and asked me what I thought of it. I said, "Carl, I'll tell you what I think of it. I havea prospectus ready for consideration now. I've thought about starting one myself. Ney Evans has worked up a prospectus for the two of us and we're thinking about producing such a magazine." That is the first I ever heard of Carl's plans for the State. He went ahead with his plans. We dropped ours.

Donald Lennon:
Did you drop it because he was starting one and you realized that two of them would kill each other off?

Capus Waynick:
That had something to do with it, yes.

Donald Lennon:
What was he doing at the time to make a living? What was he involved in prior to starting State magazine?

Capus Waynick:
He broadcasted the news of the legislature every day.

Donald Lennon:
On WPTF?

Capus Waynick:
On the radio station. I believe it was. He did a lot of broadcasting from the streets of Raleigh. He talked to the citizens as they went by. It was quite a feature-- these street broadcasts.

Donald Lennon:
He was quite a colorful individual himself, was he not?

Capus Waynick:
Yes, Carl was in a way. It would be hard to characterize Carl properly. He was a New York boy who went to Texas and then came to North Carolina. He operated a newspaper down in eastern North Carolina before he came to Raleigh.

Donald Lennon:
You mentioned Ney Evans a moment ago. His wife was quite a prominent figure in politics, was she not?

Capus Waynick:
She still is.

Donald Lennon:
I have a note here cmcerning her campaigning for Roosevelt in New York.

Capus Waynick:
She went to New York to help campaign for the Democratic Party in the city. She went around New York in some sort of vehicle and made speeches on the street in favor of Roosevelt. She campaigned in New York City for him.

Donald Lennon:
When was this? When he was ruming for president the first time or later?

Capus Waynick:
No, it was the second campaign.

Donald Lennon:
As a Southerner from North Carolina, would that have any impact on New Yorkers?

Capus Waynick:
Not a bit. You would meet friendly ones usually.

Donald Lennon:
You were connected with her as a close persmal friend for many years.

Capus Waynick:
She comes to see me now when she comes to town. She and two other widows came to see me about a week ago. She was secretary to my committee when I was in charge of the Constitution Committee in the state Senate.

Donald Lennon:
That was in '33?

Capus Waynick:
Yes. She was from High Point. She and her husband lived under rather difficult conditions here in town during that period of stringency. I knew her casually and knew Ney also. I was elected to the Senate and I asked Sandy Graham, the lieutenant governor, to give her a committee to handle, to make her secretary to some committee. Sandy didn't do it, but he named me head of the Constitution Committee and told me I could put May Evans on the payroll if I wanted to. I did have her as secretary to my committee. She was a very keen politician.

Donald Lennon:
Was that her first involvement in politics?

Capus Waynick:
No. She was the first woman head of the Young Democratic Party in the state. That was before I knew her. She looks like a young woman.

Donald Lennon:
Does she really? Well, she mst be about in her eighties by now.

Capus Waynick:
She is nearly 81.

Donald Lennon:
And she still gets around?

Capus Waynick:
She lives now at Fredericksburg, Virginia,

Donald Lennon:
You were telling us several weeks ago about the time that Harry Truman visited Raleigh in 1947.

Capus Waynick:
He came to town in a special car-- a railroad car, and I went aboard to welcome him. There was quite a little jam in the car. I just did get to speak to him casually. The president did not recognize me at the time, I don't think. He later said that he did not see me when I was first in the car. I was almost lost in the jam. I had a few words of a conversation with him at the time. Old man Daniels, his daughter's father-in-law, was his host that time. He lived in a little town down in Wake County.

Donald Lennon:
Now at that particular time, President Truman was not very popular.

Capus Waynick:
President Truman was a very unpopular man with most of the people that I saw.

Donald Lennon:
How was he received in Raleigh?

Capus Waynick:
Willis Smith, who later went to the United States Senate, declined to go out to hear him when he spoke there as a candidate for president.

Donald Lennon:
On the basis of Truman's progressive record?

Capus Waynick:
Actually it had something to do with his racist attitude.

Donald Lennon:
Well, you were deeply involved with Truman in '48. Had you had any contact with him prior to his 1947 visit?

Capus Waynick:
While he was president?

Donald Lennon:
Yes sir.

Capus Waynick:
No.

Donald Lennon:
You had had a pretty good relationship with the president since his 1947 visit. I mean he was aware of who you were and of your capabilities and everything.

Capus Waynick:
I doubt it.

Donald Lennon:
Well, you had been very active in his '48 campaign, had you not, raising funds and what have you?

Capus Waynick:
Most people didn't even want to consider Truman. Most Democrats in North Carolina that I had cmtact with had sworn to give up and wouldn't agree to support him. Truman himself was of course a surprise to himself. He was chosen by all the people who wanted to get rid of Wallace, and Truman seemed to be sufficiently innoxious enough to make a good candidate for vice president. He was a man that we both admit did a good job as president. He was honest, direct, and a pretty dependable fellow. When President Herbert Hoover made this speech at King's Mountain at this celebration when he was president, I drove down to hear him and report the speech to the Greensboro News. The president lost a lot of his speech. It blew away in the wind. I remember I could not get home that night because I could not find my little car that I had parked in the woods somewhere near the celebration and I had forgotten where I had put it.

Donald Lennon:
How did he make up for losing part of his speech?

Capus Waynick:
I think he shortmed it a little bit. Nelson Rockefeller was just a rich man as far as I knew. I didn't know him personally at all. Yet I liked the way he was handling himself in some of the work he was doing. So when I was asked to handle the Point Four Program, I decided that Nelson would make a good chairman for my advisory committee for the Point Four Program. I went to New York. I had not met Nelson. I went around to the fifty-seventh story of his office building and called on him. I found this youthful-looking, attractive young man. He.sat at a large desk somewhat like Mussolini would have ordered. He jumped up vigorously as I came in from the elevator. Rockefeller walked over to me. I liked him the first time I saw him. That was my introduction to Rockefeller. So I asked him if he would agree to be chairman of the advisory committee to Point Four if the President would ask him to. I hadn't even asked Truman if he would ask him, but I thought he would do what I asked him to do about it. He had asked me to come up and start the thing and I thought he would do what I wanted him to about Rockefeller. Rockefeller said, "That sounds like an answer to prayer. I have been sitting around here thinking that I wanted to do something about the Latin American countries. I would rather get into the work than to do what I planned to do, which is to write a book about it." He said, "Yes, I would accept the committee chairmanship if the President can answer one question for me." I said, "What is yor question? Is it secret?" He said, "No, it is not. The Rockefellers have two kinds of investments in Latin American countries. Some of them are strictly eleemosynary. But some of them are capitalistic and could produce profits. They never have but they could. I want to ask the President if that complicity in interest would make it improper for me to serve in your committee."

I went back to Washington and checked with the President and Averrell Harriman, who was then sort of assistant president to the White House. He was a New York politician who had found himself in oppositio to Nelson, but they worked very finely together when I brought them together in this work, The President immediately agreed to his appointment as chairman of the canmittee , so Nelson was in the office as long as I remained with the movement.

Donald Lennon:
The President didn't react at all to naming a Republican to that post then?

Capus Waynick:
Not the slightest. I didn't have a moment's hesitation on my recommendation. As a natter of fact, I had a little influence somehow. I do't know how it happened.

Donald Lennon:
This isn't related to that, but you mentioned Nicaragua awhile ago. I have a note here concerning the idea to build a canal across Nicaragua and your involvement in that. This would be an alternate canal to replace the Panama Canal?

Capus Waynick:
There was always a possibility of running one through the San Juan River part of the way and part of the way through Lake Nicaragua. There is a line through there that would make a possible canal. We kept a man down there, a Major Shaw I remember, an army man, who looked after that and we would pay him to run the canal there if we decided to. We had under consideration several possibilities. One was in Yucatan in the lower part of Mexico. There was a possibility of combining a rail land transportatim through the very southern part of Mexico, and we considered that. We considered two sites in Panama, one where we are and one paralleling on a different line, and that was under cosideration. We had three different places that we cmsidered for the canal.

Donald Lennon:
Was this discussed mich or any actim taken at all in any of these directions while you were in Nicaragua?

Capus Waynick:
Major Shaw kept contact with my office and reported to me his operations to some extent. Somoza and I went together to the Isledel Maiz (Corn Island), about forty miles off of the coast of Nicaragua. We had some sort of rights to fortify if we ever needed to strengthen our defenses with Panama. I remember being m that island with the President.

Donald Lennon:
Of course you were well known for your talents at negotiating and arbitrating and you were involved in El Salvador in some negotiations for Jones Construction Company. What was that all about?

Capus Waynick:
Jones Constructio Company built a dam in the Lempe River there in El Salvador, and there was about two and a half million dollars in question after the dam was built because of a dispute over the quality of the job. It went into arbitratim and a very able Mexican statesman by the name of Swarez, Edwardo Swarez, and an El Salvadorian involved with the National Monetary Fund was one of the arbitrators, and I was the other one.

Donald Lennon:
How did you get named to that?

Capus Waynick:
It was Jones. I was recommended to him as a matter of fact by the Secretary to the governor of the state.

Donald Lennon:
So you had to go down to San Salvador to investigate?

Capus Waynick:
This one my wife went with me, and Jmes drove me up there to where it was.

Donald Lennon:
Was the construction faulty?

Capus Waynick:
I thought it left something to be desired. It was quite a dam. It practically electrified the whole little country. Somewhere in the other room I have a silver dollar issued in honor of the cmstruction of that dam.

Donald Lennon:
How did a North Carolina firm get a cotract with the government of El Salvador anyway?

Capus Waynick:
El Salvador had no cmtractors of cmsequence in general. They had to use either Mexican or American contractors when they had a big job. Jones worked then all over the world.

Donald Lennon:
I didn't realize it was that large a firm.

Capus Waynick:
Jones Construction Company was quite a big operation. Jones is dead now. Jones asked me to serve because I knew Spanish and at the hearing he had to include Spanish testimony.

Donald Lennon:
Were they made to improve the quality of the dam any?

Capus Waynick:
No. They adjusted payment to make allowance for some work that was not seen as perfect.

Donald Lennon:
It didn't endanger the dam did it by the shoddy work?

Capus Waynick:
No. It was a pretty good job. When Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941, I was in Richmond, Virginia, playing comtract bridge. I played bridge in the Massey Hotel when Arthur J. Jacobi was also playing there in those days. Miriam Lindau, a Jewess from over here at Greensboro, was also playing bridge, and she came in where I was playing bridge in the ballroom and announced that Pearl Harbor was under attack by the Japanese.

Donald Lennon:
I bet that broke up the bridge game, didn't it?

Capus Waynick:
Yes.

Donald Lennon:
Well, you know during that period was when you were involved in the VD education program. How did you come to get involved in that?

Capus Waynick:
Dick Reynolds was very much interested in the VD program, the whole problem. Dr. Reynolds, no kin to Dick, was an Asheville doctor who was head of the state health department and got after me to conduct a sort of campaign against the infection. Dick Reynolds urged me to do it, and he offered me some pay in connection with it. I got involved through Dick Reynold's influence.

Donald Lennon:
Did he provide the money for the program, or how did it work?

Capus Waynick:
He gave quite a large amount of money to Dr. Reynolds to run the North Carolina program, and the United States Health Department cooperated. Tom Parran, the Surgeon General, was a very close friend of mine during this period. Tom Parran was a great doctor. He was an admirable man as the Surgeon General. I wrote the first speech he was invited to make on the Boss Catteren program on television and radio. Tom told me that he would go on the program. Up till that time he couldn't get anybody to mention syphilis or gonorrhea on the radio. Tom Parran was an authority on the subject. He wrote a very fine book called Shadow on the Land dealing with the infection of syphilis. Dick Reynolds and the Reynolds family furnished quite a bit of money to fight the disease. Dick Reynolds and Dr. Reynolds together and Dr. Vonderleher of the State Department of the federal government-- in the health department-- had conducted an anti-syphilis campaign in one of the islands. I got things through the influence of Dick Reynolds and Dr. Reynolds. They first encouraged me to help with the work.

Donald Lennon:
He just provided the money and gave you carte blanc to plan it and proceed with it as you saw fit?

Capus Waynick:
No. We set up an office in Raleigh and hired some artists and writers. For instance, Mrs. Safran was one of my writers, and one of the books she wrote for me was What Every Woman Should Know, and it was about syphilis in particular. We published five or six million of those books and sent them to India.

Donald Lennon:
And you worked very closely with the state health department, I take it?

Capus Waynick:
Quite. Yes. Dr. Reynolds was the man who got ne involved, you know. He and Vonderleher from Washington came to High Point to see me to urge me to change my mind and go with them and run this campaign.

Donald Lennon:
Well now, Dick Reynolds at that time had been mayor of Winston-Salem and was involved in national politics. Did you have any political ties with him at al1?

Capus Waynick:
Blitz invited me over for some party they were having, and I was delighted. I went over to spend the weekend with the Reynolds at their beautiful new home out in Brolling Hill, and on the way to the Robert E. Lee Hotel that night to get dinner, we were going to spend Saturday night and Sunday with the Reynolds family, Blitz Reynolds suddenly handed me a book. It was on etiquette. It was explaining the invitatio to the White House and the order of command. And finally I said, "Blitz, what the hell is all this about?" I had already suspected it, you know. She said, "Well, the Roosevelt family has extended an invitation from Mr. and Mrs, Roosevelt for dinner Sunday at the White House." I said, "Who in the hell are the Roosevelts? You have guests in-- the Waynicks." I turned to Blitz and she said, "Well, I'm not going unless you say so." I said, "Of course you're going, Blitz. We will go on back home. It is just a few miles away. You go om and eat with the Roosevelts." Dick became very close to Roosevelt. Dick let him have money at times for the Democratic Party. Blitz said, "No, we aren't going unless you and Elizabeth will stay." I said, "No. We won't do that. We're going back home Sunday." "Either you stay or we won't go."

So we ended up with Mrs. Reynoldst mother looking after us and we spent a weekend there in Dick Reynolds' home as his guests in his absence as he yielded to Commander Roosevelt. Dick at one time I think loaned the party over half a million dollars.

Donald Lennon:
I'm curious about something. You were good friends with and knew Dick Reynolds, and the same thing is true of Carl Goerch and Pat Taylor and a lot of these other people like that. I believe ya told me me tire that you never had any contact with Jom Larkins.

Capus Waynick:
I saw John. He was in the Senate. I did not have a very deep concern for John at the time. You know, in my rather up and down political career, I remember as one of the highest compliments ever paid me as that by Angus D. McLean. When we got through the legislature in 1933, I had maneuvered the new constitutia's successful passage. Now it is true that was invalidated later as the Supreme Court decided that we had missed the boat by failing to present it to the electorate at the first general election after passage of the bill, and it was thrown out. But we got it successfully through. The boys there at the legislature that were working with me gave a dinner party and made some nice observations about me. I remember old man Angus D. McLean making a speech in which he complimented me m the work that I had done in the legislature. He said, "Waynick came to us a newspaper man. He leaves us a great constitutional lawyer." I've never forgotten that. The day the Senate adjoumed that year Angus D. McLean came to my seat-- he also was in the Senate and had come over from the House--he came to my seat and sat down.

Donald Lennon:
What kind of problems did you have there in the General Assembly with the constitutional question?

Capus Waynick:
For instance, I remember Brumitt was opposed to it and was in a very difficult position about the matter, but we were luck enough to carry it.

Donald Lennon:
Why would Brumitt oppose it? He was attorney general at the time, was he not?

Capus Waynick:
Yes. I remember his opposition, but I have forgotten exactly what it was about.

Donald Lennon:
So he was the primary leader of the opposition to the whole thing.

Capus Waynick:
He was the most cutspoken one.

Donald Lennon:
He seemed to have quite a political career ahead of him when he quite unfortunately died so young, did he not?

Capus Waynick:
Yes. He was a very effective man in his political life. Yes.

Donald Lennon:
He was quite young when he died, and it looked like he was developing as a major political figure in the state at the time.

Capus Waynick:
I think he would have. I sort of classify him with Dick Fountain. I remember very much that he was very close to Dick. I never got very close, politically to Brumitt.

Donald Lennon:
Well, after '32 Fountain's star kind of waned. His career was all downhill after the loss in '32, wasn't it?

Capus Waynick:
It was, yes. Gardner was accused of almost electing Fountain.

Donald Lennon:
Oh, how was that?

Capus Waynick:
Mostly by calling attention to the Gardner-Ehringhaus axis. Gardner boasted of carrying the election for Ehringhaus.

Donald Lennon:
Kind of a backlash to Gardner supporting Ehringhaus so strongly?

Capus Waynick:
Yes. You see, Gardner wasn't very popular right at the last of his administration because he had very unfortunate economic conditions to develop in the state. When Ehringhaus led the ticket, Gardner was trying to take some credit for it.

Donald Lennon:
Well, there were some charges of irregularities at the polls too in that election, weren't there? Some claims there had been som ballot box tampering?

Capus Waynick:
There may have been. There usually was back in the old days on occasions. I remember for instance when a man over here in Alamance County , a Republican, was running for Congress against Mr. Charles M. Stedman, a very distinguished old gentleman. When the election returns came in, he had won the election until Granville County came in. I think it was Granville. Granville reported enough Stedman votes to swing it enough to save Stedman. I had some questions as to whether that was strictly cricket or not.

Donald Lennon:
Your close ties with Governor Hodges puts you in the unique position to comment on something that I have observed and that most people tie to Hodges. I get the impression that he had a very strmg feeling that the people who were associated with him should be completely loyal to hin, and if they failed to support him on a particular question that they had more or less turned against him. Did you ever get that feeling in dealing with him?

Capus Waynick:
The strange thing perhaps is the fact that Hodges would turn to me at all in view of my background. He came into political life as a non-politician, you understand, and I had been closed with my contacts with politics for some time, and yet he insisted I become Adjutant General to North Carolina.

Donald Lennon:
You know he was accused by many Democrats of going outside of the party for a lot of his appointments, going to Republicans and others like that rather than filling appointive positions with good Democrats.

Capus Waynick:
I think there was a lot of truth in that. For instance, his secretary, I think, went to him as a suggestion from the Institute of Government. That is the man that served all through his career and went to Washington with him. There was some question as to whether he was a Democrat or not. I know Hodges hired him without questioning him as to what party he was under. Hodges came pretty near being of Independent Party affiliation himself.

Donald Lennon:
Could he take criticism?

Capus Waynick:
Not readily. I remember when we had trouble over in Henderson, you know. His secretary recommended martial law and I told him nothing doing. I told the governor, I suggested that he didn't realize the significance of martial law. It was a very radical thing todo. He didn't do it anyway. It was the secretary that was in favor of it.

Donald Lennon:
I imagine Malcolm Seawell was in favor of it too, was he not?

Capus Waynick:
I don't remember how Malcolm felt. Hodges and I both supported Malcolm for office. Hodges was for him.

Donald Lennon:
Did Hodges take an active part in his campaign?

Capus Waynick:
Pretty fair. A little bit of activity. He helped all he could without too much effort.

Donald Lennon:
You know he claimed he was not supporting any candidate, that he was taking no part at all in the campaign.

Capus Waynick:
I know who he was for. I don't remember how he worked with his actions.

Donald Lennon:
I heard one source that claimed that he was the one who talked Armistead Maupin into serving as campaign manager for Seawell, that getting Maupin as campaign manager was Hodges' doings.

It is quite possible. Governor Hoey told me that he made his first campaign speeches at twenty-one, just short of turning twenty-one, and that he spoke with the loaded revolver right in front of it.

Donald Lennon:
Governor Hoey said that?

Capus Waynick:
Yep.

Donald Lennon:
I didn't realize Shelby was that wild and woolly a place.

Capus Waynick:
There were some pretty hot spots. I remember the day that Charles Brantley Aycock was elected Governor. My father was a precinct captain over in Rockingham County. That night we were at dinner, and my second brother, Jess, suddenly jumped up from the table where we were sitting and ran cut the door to where a farmer in the neighborhood had stopped to have an argument with my father-- the neighbor being a Republican and my father being captain of the precinct and a Democrat. My brother heard something and went out the door and as he did he got a shotgun fran over the door.

Donald Lennon:
Was the argument that heated?

Capus Waynick:
Yes, The next thing I heard was a horse and buggy going lickity split out of the long drive. It was that kind of times.

Donald Lennon:
You were about ten years old at the time, weren't you?

Capus Waynick:
Let's see. That was about '99, wasn't it?

Donald Lennon:
The election was in 1900.

Capus Waynick:
Yes. 1900. I was just about ten years old.

Donald Lennon:
Things have really changed during this century. At that time it cost very little money to run for office too, didn't it? There was very little expense involved.

Capus Waynick:
When some friends of mine, some old men, wanted me to run for governor, urged me to run, I told them I would not think about running for governor unless I had around $200,000 to use in the campaign. Three contractors at a party said that they would lay $100,000 each in my hand the day I announced. These were the men who tried to get me out of office and who later wanted to hire me. So I've always had friends, even those who were fighting me.

Donald Lennon:
Did they think that if they supported you for governor that later they would be able to get favored treatment?

Capus Waynick:
I don't think so. They found out that they had a fair deal and that was all they really needed.

Donald Lennon:
What do you think of the scandal that has come up in the last few months concerning the highway paving contractors?

Capus Waynick:
I think it is a terrible thing that a scandal touches something that in past times has been free of that sort of thing. Now how long it has been free of it when it was touched with ugliness it would be hard for any one person to say. I think it was honestly operated during the years that I was in contact with it. I don't mean I carried special honor to it, but I think we kept it honest. I don't understand who manipulated this particular deal.