Nick Ford 471

 http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/playback.ht…

Interview with Claude Pepper, February 1, 1974.
Interview A-0056. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
For my interview transcript I decided to go with an interview done with Claude Pepper, a former liberal senator from the state of Florida. The interview was done in 1974 and takes the view of Pepper looking back at his career in politics. What I found most interesting was how he describes the changes of politics in the South, going from liberal to a much more extreme conservative view to politics. Pepper speaks numerous times of how areas have changed but how he felt he was still right for what he believed in. Being a man born and raised in the South, Pepper stated that he felt a need to give back to his people, many of whom were very poor. The way he best saw fit to do this was to get the backing of the federal government, which meant having liberal views. Speaking of how he could have stayed in office longer if he had gone against his views, Pepper said this,
“You know, if you are ever going to have a battle, you’ve got to have somebody that’s got to be up in front. Now, they may not last through the battle, but somebody has to be a part of the advance. And, I reckon that I just had to pay the price of losing what could have been a long Senate career, because I did have some convictions and principles.”

This passage hit a nerve with me as it shows a piece of politics that I believe is seldom seen in our time.

As far as the interview, there were large amounts of time where background noise and what I assume is the interviewer messing with the microphone throughout. It was extremely distracting and I found that I had to read the transcript to get through those times where there was large amounts of audio disturbance.

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