Interview with
Hon. John C. West
Former Governor of South Carolina and
U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia

by West Forum Director, Blease Graham
April 29, 2003
DEIS Studios,
University of South Carolina

Click Red Arrows for Topics
Introduction
The Role of the Technical Education System in South Carolina's Shift From Agriculture to Industry
Technical Education as South Carolina's Subsidy to Relocating Manufacturers
How Kershaw County's Town of Blaney Became "Elgin"
Governor Hollings' Scattergun Tax Proposal
The Negative Influence of Partisan Politics
South Carolina's Legislative Process
"Paternity" of South Carolina's Technical Education System
Putting the First 500 Elgin Watches Produced in South Carolina to Good Use
Locating the Technical Training Centers and Adult High School Programs
Persuading Other Manufacturers to Locate in South Carolina
The Importance of Tourism to South Carolina
The State Development Board
South Carolina's Educational Television Program
How South Carolina's Higher Education System Might Have Been Simplified
The Political Significance of South Carolina's Credit Rating
Revision of South Carolina's Constitution and Governmental Restructuring Efforts
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Introduction

CBG: This is a conversation with former South Carolina Governor, John C. West, who also was ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the administration of President Jimmy Carter. This conversation is part of the West Forum initiative in the Department of Government and International Studies, in the College of Liberal Art. The West Forum promotes civic involvement and civic leadership among students as well as members of the Carolina community, as inspired by the career of Governor West. [Return to Topics]

The Role of the Technical Education System in South Carolina's Shift From Agriculture to Industry

Governor West, one of the things for which South Carolina is recognized internationally is its technical education system. What was your role in creating that system?

JCW: Well, Blease. I took a lot of credit for it. And that helped me along with my political career. As did others. But the background is very interesting because it came at a critical time in South Carolina’s history. In the late 1950s we were going from an agricultural to an industrial economy. The Soil Bank had come in. Farmers could get more money for planting pine trees than they could planting cotton. It had hit South Carolina very hard. Our State was running a deficit. Fritz Hollings was elected governor on a campaign of bringing industry to South Carolina. That was his major undertaking. So he started the program by having a legislative committee appointed to “determine the needs of the State Development Board.” What did we need to do to bring industry into South Carolina?

I was fortunate enough to serve as chairman of that committee as a state senator. Marshall Parker, another member, was a member of the Senate. Bob McNair and Rex Carter were House members. At that time, we did some surveys. The results were rather startling. It showed, for example, that two-thirds of our workforce were functionally illiterate. There was no real post-high school program.

CBG: What did it mean to be functionally illiterate? Did it mean you couldn’t do arithmetic?

JCW: You could write your name, but you couldn’t hold a job that required any academic skills. It was the old system, in the forties and fifties. If a person was able to work from “can-see to can’t-see,” from sun-up to sun-down, with a strong back and a willing spirit, he could make a living. But that began to phase out in the textile industry, as well as in the agricultural sector.

CBG: That was the big change that you were confronting on that Committee.

JCW: It was quite a change. So, we started surveying what could be done to bring industry into South Carolina. We were in competition with most of the other Southern States: North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas particularly. Our Committee went to look at all of these programs.

Most of the programs in the other states involved substantial subsidies. Now, today that’s a given, almost. But back in the late fifties and early sixties, it was done, but still questioned. I well remember, and I think the person who prevented us from going that route, was the late Jeff Bates, our State Treasurer. He was a very soft-spoken fellow from Wateree, South Carolina. Jeff said, “You know, if you give it to somebody, somebody’s going to have to pay for it.” [Return to Topics]

Technical Education as South Carolina's Subsidy to Relocating Manufacturers

So, we conceived the idea of training people as the subsidy. And that was the birth of our technical training program. Actually, we had no compunctions about copying other people. North Carolina had the beginnings of a good system, and we hired their key people to come to South Carolina. Wade Martin. So the system that we developed was to have what we called the “special school system.”

We would go to an industry and say, “Okay, you come to South Carolina. We’re not going to give you any tax breaks, or anything like that. But if you build a plant and it takes you three or four months, we’ll train your workforce so that the day you open your plant you’ll have a trained workforce and you’ll be making money right away.

Well, that was a good sales pitch, and fortunately we were able to meet those obligations in a lot of cases. So, the technical education program started with two phases. The “special schools,” which were to train workers for an immediate project. Then we envisioned 14 projects all over the State. The idea was to have a post-high school education facility within easy driving distance of each citizen of the State. We decided that we wouldn’t have any dormitories and we wouldn’t have any football teams. It would be strictly an educational thing.

It was an idea whose time had come. We soon were being copied by virtually every other state in the Southeast, and in the nation. We were able to develop the technical school program to industry’s specifications, and it was a very effective tool. [Return to Topics]

How Kershaw County's Town of Blaney Became "Elgin"

So, that got our technical education program started. I have many memories of the successes and failures we had. I particularly remember one that I benefited from personally, involving an industry in Kershaw County. I was a State senator finishing my second four-year term. Now, Kershaw County had a history of turning the rascals out after two terms. Nobody had ever served a third term. But I had ideas that I’d like to serve a third term. It was in the early sixties.

So I started doing the normal politicking that one did – going to the country stores and talking to the old-timers there. I got this recurrent theme. “John, you have done a great job over there and have got a lot of publicity. But, I don’t see any industry in Kershaw County? Have you forgotten the people that put you where you is?”

I went to then-Governor Hollings and said, “Fritz, I need an industry, and need one bad.” I said, “You need one too because they’re saying the same thing about you in Charleston.” He was running for the United States Senate. He said, “I’ll see what I can do.” Sure enough, a few days later he called and said, “I’ve got the ideal industry for you. The Elgin Watch Company wants to move to South Carolina. It’s the kind of industry that you ought to have.”

So, I met the Elgin Watch people and we showed them sites all over Kershaw County. They were concerned about the labor supply. So we zeroed in on the Town of Blaney, which was close to Columbia and had access to the Columbia labor market. I-20 was just opening at the time. It had not been formally opened.

They said, “You know, we get a lot of publicity from Elgin, Illinois, the home of Elgin Watch. Do you think we could get a sign put up on I-20 saying “Blaney: The Home of Elgin Watch”?

I checked the Highway Department, and they said “No way,” because that’s against the regulations.

CBG: It’s almost commonplace today, isn’t it.

JCW: Yes. The Elgin Watch fellow then said, “Well, then let’s go on over to Lexington County.” I replied, “Before you do that, suppose we change the name of Blaney to Elgin.” He looked at me, and said, “Is that possible?” I said, “I think so.”

Well, the Town of Blaney then had maybe 100 to 120 people. They had three factions there. I knew them all. There was a lot of good-natured rivalry there. I said, “Now, fellows, you’ve got a chance to get a major industry here that will make this town. We may have to change the name.” They all agreed. They said that the Town of Blaney had no historical significance. It was named for a vice president of the Railroad that had come through.

So, I called the Elgin people and said, “I believe we can do it, but I need a little notice.” Well, they were having an internal battle, having to do with a take-over – raiders coming in. And all of the sudden the announcement was made that Elgin Watch Company would move to South Carolina, and that the Town of Blaney would change its name to Elgin.

Well, I knew that was a little premature. So went over to Blaney. The head of one of the factions, and the mayor, was a delightful fellow named E. C. Potter. I saw E. C. before a WIS-TV camera and could hear him say, “Well, I’m not sure we ought to change the name.”

As soon as he got off the camera I called him in his office and said, “Just two weeks ago you said it was no problem.” He replied, “Yes, but several old ladies started giving me hell, so I decided I’d hedge a little bit.” So I asked, “Well, then do you want to change the name?” He said, “Sure.” I said, “Then let’s get your city attorney and get it started.” He said, “We don’t have a city attorney.” So I said, “You just got one. I’ll volunteer.”

So, we prepared the papers for an election several weeks off. On election day – it was a Tuesday – I was sitting in my law office in Camden, and I heard this fairly loud voice saying, “Is the Senator in?” I recognized it as the Mayor. So I jumped up and said, “Mr. Mayor, what in the world are you doing here? You ought to be over there working the boxes, making sure that we win the election.” He said, Now, Senator, calm down. You want the name changed, don’t you.” I said, “Yes sir. You know darn well that I do.” He said, “Well, it’s changed.” And I said, “How do you know?” He said, “We only have 109 registered voters, and by 12:00 we had voted 82 of them. I opened a box, and we’ve got a clear majority.” He then said, “Then I took a little drink to celebrate, to come over and tell you.”

So, we changed the name of the town to Elgin. We had several other experiences which I won’t say were typical, but they were not unusual. We were getting a grant from the Federal Government. I was filling out the papers as the unpaid attorney. One of the questions was, “What is the tax rate, or the mill rate, for the town.” I said to the Mayor, “You don’t have a tax rate. Our law firm has checked titles over here and we never bothered to check tax liens.

He said, “Oh yes, we’ve got a tax rate.” So I said, “Well, what is it?” And I thought, my Lord. I could see going to have to go back and re-do all of that work.

He said, “But you don’t understand our system.” And I said, “Well, what’s your system?”

He said, “Well, we have that tax rate, and we collect from the railroad, utilities, and the telephone company. From the time we collect from them we’ve got enough money to run on, so we don’t bother nobody else.”

CBG: That’s a type of informality that would be hard to find in a South Carolina city or town today, wouldn’t it.

JCW: Yes, there was a system there. It worked, of course. I’d say personally that it worked because we announced the plant just ten days before the filing date, and I became the first senator in history to run without opposition for a third term. So it worked from my standpoint. [Return to Topics]

Governor Hollings' Scattergun Tax Proposal

CBG: As you think back, in a poor state like South Carolina, running a deficit at the time, with inability to subsidize industry with what today would be called a system of tax incentives. How in the world did the legislation pass to create a tech school system?

JCW: Well, Governor Hollings, to his everlasting credit, showed more leadership during that period than he gets credit for, certainly. He realized that we could not go to an industry and ask them to come to a state that was running a deficit. So he proposed, and I was passed in the House, what was called the Hollings Scattergun Tax Proposal. It taxed all the sin things -- beer, liquor, wine, cigarettes – and it took away a lot of the exemptions. I remember that one of the exemptions it took away was the funeral home exemptions. Well, of course, he had all of the special interests in the State against him. But he was popular and the Legislature wanted to go along. So it came to the Senate.

Edgar Brown, who was the patriarch of the Senate, and leader. He, of course, was a Hollings supporter. So the Bill came out of the Senate Finance Committee with a favorable report. But as soon as it got to the Senate floor, Senator Gressette proposed an amendment to eliminate all of the Hollings scattergun taxes, and to substitute a one-percent additional sales tax.

Well, at that time we had three percent and nobody else had a higher sales tax. Hollings felt that was not good. But the feeling in the Legislature at that time was that the sales tax was the only tax that the Blacks had to pay. And there still were no Blacks in the Legislature at that time.

CBG: South Carolina was still segregated at that time, wasn’t it.

JCW: Completely segregated. So, anyhow, the Bill came up. It was a close vote in the Senate. I saw the Gressette Amendment was going to pass by, probably, one vote. So I changed my vote from No to Aye, so I could move to reconsider. So, as soon as the vote was over, and Hollings had lost. Muller Kreps, who was his executive assistant, summoned us all over to the Governor’s Office. Fritz was in high dudgeon.

Sitting there was Edgar Brown. He said, “Well, Edgar, what happened?” Edgar said, “Well, Governor, we didn’t get enough votes.” Fritz looked at him and said, “Edgar, any time you tell me you can’t get Lawrence Hester, and he named a half-dozen of Edgar’s cronies to vote with you, you are lyin’ or you ain’t tryin’. Which is it?”

He then said “Well, John says that at least we get another bite at the apple. So let’s see who we can change.” At the top of the list was Burt Rodgers, the senator from Beaufort. He was a grand old gentleman, a tugboat captain who was serving his last term in the Senate.

Hollings said, “Well, what about Burt.” I said, “Oh no. He’s a strong segregationist. And besides his only concern is freeing the Hilton Head toll bridge.” Hollings looked up and said, “You mean, he might trade with us?” I said, “Governor, that would cost us several hundred thousand dollars.” He said, “That’s Highway money. It doesn’t come out of my budget.”

He said, “See if you can trade.” So I went back over there to see Burt. He was puttering around there. He was my desk mate. I said, “Burt, the Governor would sure like you to change.” He said, “Oh no, no way I could do that.” So I said, “He might even work with you to free the Hilton Head toll bridge.” He said, “Goodness, that would be a crowning achievement for my service. But I just couldn’t do it.”

So, I said, “Burt, what if word got out that you had a chance to free the toll bridge and didn’t?” He said, “They’d run me out of the County. The Governor wouldn’t do that to me, would he?” I said, “I’ll bet he’s on the phone now.”

So, next Tuesday I made the motion to reconsider. Burt was sitting there and in a very low voice he voted “Aye.” Marion Gressette jumped straight up. I couldn’t help grinning a little bit. He pointed his finger at me and said, “So you’re the rascal.” So the Hilton Head Bridge was freed by one vote, Burt Rodgers' vote. And the Hollings Scattergun Tax proposal passed by one vote. So, that’s a part of the politics of maneuvering, I guess you would call it.[Return to Topics]

The Negative Influence of Partisan Politics

CBG: Do you think politics is any different today? Or is it just different players and different issues?

JCW: Different players, different issues. And there’s the partisan element, which I think is bad for the system. A lot of people feel they have to vote for the Republican or the Democratic side. I think that’s bad.

CBG: They lose some ability to attend to local needs, like an industry for Kershaw or a toll bridge change in Beaufort County.

JCW: And, of course, I take strong exception to this no-tax pledge that many of them sign. That’s to me an abdication of your responsibility. Because, if you see, as there is today, the educational system going into chaos because we don’t have the funds. I think a legislator who blindly votes against any tax increase is not really doing his job.

CBG: It really destroys flexibility, doesn’t it. In the situation with the Hollings Scattergun Tax there was a deficit and a need to do something, to do something bold, to do something for the future of the State. And legislators found among themselves the capability of doing that, making the kinds of trades and reaching an understanding to make a commitment to the tech school system, and the future of the State. Under a no-tax pledge, as we see today, would be awfully hard to do, wouldn’t it.

JCW: Yes, it would be almost impossible, given the partisanship that seems to exist. [Return to Topics]

South Carolina's Legislative Process

CBG: Students ask a lot about how an idea gets translated into legislation. How were Bills drafted during your time in the Senate? Was there something unique about the tech school system legislation? I know we talked about a study committee report, and then about the report of the Finance Committee in the Senate. But what happened in between?

JCW: Actually, the Legislative Council did have a group of very well trained professionals who would draft the Bills that the legislators wanted. I tell a story, somewhat immodestly, perhaps. When the tech program became so successful, the question arose who was the author. Actually, I authored the bill that was an amendment to the Appropriations Bill. I wrote it on the back of a yellow pad. Interesting enough, this was 1960 or 1961, we still had the segregated school system. Two groups ended up opposing the tech program. One was the agriculture teachers who saw they were threatened. The other was the segregationists, who raised the question, “Do you have a separate school for Blacks?”

Of course, we had neither. One Member, whose name I won’t mention, was an ex-agriculture teacher, and also a strong segregationist. When the Bill that I had proposed, the amendment to the State Appropriations Bill, came up, he got up and made a fiery speech, just giving me a hard time. I got up to respond, and Edgar Brown, who was the President Pro Tem, grabbed me by the coattail and said, “John, never get in a pissing contest with a skunk. You’ll never win. If you sit down without saying anything, I’ll pass your bill.”

He did, and the interesting thing about it was that several years later one of the technical people came to me and said, “Who wrote this Bill.” I said, “Well, I did.” I still was a little bit proud of it. He said, “Do you realize you didn’t provide for the terms of the Members, or anything like that? It was a sorry-written Bill.” I said, “Yep, but it did the job.” It simply gave to seven people the responsibility of making and implementing a program of technical and vocational education. I cannot praise too highly that original committee. Stan Smith from Columbia was chairman. Boone Aiken from Florence, Clarence Rowland from Camden, I believe, Alan Sapp from Greenville. They were not education-oriented in the sense that they were hide-bound by rules and regulations. They wanted to get the job done. They had a tremendous staff with Wade Martin and his group. It just took off and was a great success. [Return to Topics]

"Paternity" of South Carolina's Technical Education System

In fact, one of my favorite political stories, Blease, is about the election of 1966. Fritz Hollings was running for the Senate; Bob McNair was running for Governor, and I was running for Lieutenant Governor. We were having a big political rally down at Charleston. The legendary Congressman, Mendel Rivers, was the master of ceremonies. We had each given him a little script on how we wanted to be introduced. Fritz was first. The script said, “He is known as the Father of Technical Education.” That was fine. Bob McNair was second. Rivers read, “He is known as the Father of Technical Education.” Mendel sort of frowned at that. He came to me and said, “He is known as the Father of Technical ….” He said, “Stop right there. John, you and Fritz and Bob are going to have a paternity suit before I go any further.”

Fortunately, there was enough credit for all of us to benefit. It was a great system.

CBG: In passing that legislation, did the House play a particular role, or was it done primarily with the leadership of the Senate?

JCW: It was done primarily in the Senate, although the Governor pretty much had control of the House at that time. [Return to Topics]

Putting the First 500 Elgin Watches Produced in South Carolina to Good Use

I tell one other story about the Elgin Watch situation. As part of our program of training, we brought Elgin Watch people down and set up their lathes in the gymnasium. The basketball team never forgave me for taking over. But they produced watches. It actually was an assembly process. They produced about 500 watches. We suggested to them that they make the hands in the form of a palmetto tree.

When we got those 500 or so boxes, there was the question of what to do with them. So we got the Elgin Watch Company to put them in boxes. We put a little squib stating this watch was produced by the technical education training program. People who a few months ago were working in the field produced this high-tech product. In fact, it’s so good that the Elgin Watch Company will give a warranty equal to their own. Well, of course, they didn’t give much of a warranty, to start with.

Anyhow, we decided that the best way to dispose of those watches was to give one to each member of the legislature. So, we gave one to each member of the legislature. Some wanted two, for wives, girlfriends, or what have you. You know, the technical education program for that year passed unanimously, without a dissenting vote. It proved to the average legislator what the tech program could do.

CBG: Wade Martin was a unique individual, wasn’t he. He brought the legislation into reality.

JCW: Yes. He was a genius, in the sense that he took the program and made it work. [Return to Topics]

Locating the Technical Training Centers and Adult High School Programs

CBG: Was there any difficulty deciding where the tech centers would be located.

JCW: We decided early on to have, I believe, either fourteen or sixteen. And the test was that it should be located within easy commuting distance of any person who wanted to attend. Of course, the tuition was free then, the idea being that a person who either didn’t have a high school education, or who wanted to get a technical education, could do it.

Incidentally, one of the things we did as part of that often is overlooked. We started a high school program for adults. I made many graduation addresses over the State to the older people, gray-headed people who were getting their high school diplomas. It was a very rewarding, exhilarating process for me to see that happen. So, we were educating those who had been left behind, and giving to the so-called younger generation another opportunity for post-high school education that would fit them for jobs. [Return to Topics]

Persuading Other Manufacturers to Locate in South Carolina

CBG: What, in addition to the Elgin Watch Company, were some of the major industries that you would connect with the technical education system?

JCW: There were a lot of industries in the Greenville area particularly. The automotive industries, and the textile group. We would work with the textile industries. We would come in and work with the textile and the machinery industries. One of the major accomplishments was Georgetown Steel, down at Georgetown.

Again, it’s interesting, Blease, that for a time there in the fifties and sixties, recruiting industry for the up-country, particularly the Greenville/Spartanburg area, was relatively easy because we had workforce there, relatively cheap land. We soon found, though, that below the Fall Line we had a difficulty. And it wasn’t hard to spot the difficulty. It was that a large percentage of the population there was Black. And the general feeling among the Fortune 500 was that if you had a major Black population there were susceptible to unionism and would not make good workers.

CBG: Yet, that’s the area of greatest need, with the negative heritage of segregation, that was the most deprived and most needful population, wasn’t it.

JCW: Right. Fortunately, we were able to get Willy Korf to put Georgetown Steel in Georgetown in, I believe, 1966 or 1967 when it was finally done. His manager, Wolfgang Johnson, a young 27-year-old, came there. He had no preconceived ideas about unions or segregation, and he worked beautifully. So, Willy became our best advertisement. We started, then, in the sixties, and continued throughout the seventies, to go to Europe on these solicitation programs. We would have a meeting in Frankfurt or Munich, or somewhere. Usually Willy would show up. He would say, in his broken English, “If you want to really make money, come to South Carolina. They have the training program. They have the labor.” So we were able to break that perception that the Black population was not as trainable, good, or efficient, and also susceptible to unionism.

CBG: Both of which are, as it turns out, stereotypes. Were you involved in the effort to recruit BASF to South Carolina?

JCW: Only at the tail end. Beaufort was one of the areas very much under-developed in the sense of a labor market. They landed this BASF. Well, the environmentalists suddenly raised their heads and it became quite an issue. It wouldn’t go away. I became governor and saw that the controversy was not very easily solved. We got the State Ports Authority to buy BASF’s property. Today it is the site of two or three of the most high-priced developments on the whole East Coast. [Return to Topics]

The Importance of Tourism to South Carolina

That brings up another subject: tourism. Bob McNair, to his everlasting credit, recognized early on that tourism had great potential, particularly with the textile industry being faded out. So he created the Parks Recreation and Tourism program, put some top-notch people in charge: Charlie Fraiser, Dwight Holder, Bill Close, and others. And the program started to take off, particularly at Myrtle Beach and then at Hilton Head.

We used to make speeches, Blease, and tell people: “You know, tourism is great. You can make as much money from a single tourist as you can a bale of cotton. And the tourist is a whole lot easier to pick.” Tourism now, probably is our biggest industry. It’s environmentally friendly and generally a good thing for the State. [Return to Topics]

The State Development Board

CBG: Another Agency that grew up with the tech system was the State Development Board. Did you have a relationship with that Agency as well?

JCW: That was the original Committee of which I was chairman. At that time, in 1961 or 1960, the State Development Board consisted of five people. Fritz [Hollings] and our Committee recommended that we expand it to fifteen people, one from each judicial circuit. He picked some real leaders. Francis Hipp, Jim Self, and others, to head the State Development Board. They are the ones who really mapped and supported the programs of industrial development. Of course, Jim Self was in the textile business. He was facing competition when industries came in. Bill Close the same way. But they all were very public-spirited citizens, and made a real contribution.

CBG: Even though their industry was declining, it was an opportunity for them to change with their industry as much as they could. South Carolina is famous for developing change while maintaining existing order, or being able to balance those two forces in a positive, forward-looking way.

JCW: Governor Hollings, I think, did a tremendous job in a very critical time there. Of course, he was followed by Governor Russell, who didn’t stay very long and was never really very happy in the governor’s office. And then Bob McNair came along and followed what I call the “Hollings Concepts.” And I came after that. [Return to Topics]

South Carolina's Educational Television Program

CBG: Thinking about technical education we also think about educational television. Wasn’t there a close relationship between the use of educational television and the tech system?

JCW: Yes, there was. Incidentally, educational television got its real boost in the fifties because of the segregation situation. When the Brown vs Board of Education was decided in 1954, we were still holding to the concept of separate but equal. The United States Supreme Court said the schools would integrate with “all due speed.”

Well, the idea, more or less as a holding pattern, was to create equal opportunity for the minority groups. Educational television came along as a method of doing that. Edgar Brown bought into it very heavily, as did the late Bill Workman, who was editor of the State, a prominent Republican. They all felt that having educational television was good for the educational system. And it still had that advantage of postponing segregation for a time.

I, of course, was an early supporter of it, as a Young Turk in the Senate. John Cauthen, who was really one of the great leaders of our State, more than anyone else probably is responsible for making it a success. Today when you see students able to get MBAs largely through educational television, it’s a very satisfying sort of thing.

CBG: In spite of those earlier reservations about segregation, it really does make education a lot more potentially democratic, available to people, much like the tech system. People who couldn’t afford to move to a college town, live in a dormitory, and pay tuition without a clear job at the end. [Return to Topics]

How South Carolina's Higher Education System Might Have Been Simplified

As you look back over the tech system, is there anything you might do differently?

JCW: The only thing that I think probably was a mistake was not combining the tech system into a community college system that also would have absorbed branches of the University. That became a highly controversial thing in the sixties. The alumni of the University were very much opposed to any encroachment. But there was overlapping and duplication. A classic example is that at Sumter Clemson had a two-year college there and the tech program had one. Fortunately, over time we were able to minimize the duplication, and to give college credits, and so on. Had there been a formal merger of the system into a true community college program, it probably would have saved us some money and been a little more efficient

CBG: The big issue, was that courses taken in one of the job training programs really wasn’t college credit and couldn’t transfer.

JCW: That was remedied somewhere along the way. Now you can go to Midlands Tech, get credit, and transfer immediately into the University. The whole idea which made sense then, and probably more now, was that if you were going to have a research institute there should be a limited enrollment. The top students should go there while the students looking for the ordinary degrees would be given a lesser role.

But again, there’s a matter of college pride and a lot of politics there. Just like Governor Sanford’s proposal for a Board of Regents. Everybody has studied that and everybody probably agrees that it has merit. But in my judgment it’s not going to happen because you have entrenched Boards at the University and at Clemson. They are not going to give up their supervision of these colleges.

CBG: Those Boards do make politically necessary decisions. Clemson got out of the branch business at a certain point, for what reason I’m sure was well studied and well thought through. And now some of the University branches now are four-year colleges themselves. So it’s give-and-take on both sides.

JCW: It’s had the pluses and minuses. Certainly you see the four-year colleges at Francis Marion, at Horry, and at Spartanburg. You can’t say that’s been a waste, because it’s been a plus.

CBG: There was a time too, in the state, in the sixties, when there had to be a lot of optimism about the future, the feeling that growth might outweigh a sense of reservation about being able to finance all of these things, over time. [Return to Topics]

The Political Significance of South Carolina's Credit Rating

That brings to mind the discussion of the importance of a triple-A credit rating for our State. I know that Senator Brown and Mr. Bates were great advocates of the triple-A credit rating. What does that mean? What is its significance?

JCW: I have never been as dedicated to that as our present Treasurer, Grady Patterson, and the rest. The triple-A rating means that you can borrow money as cheap as anyone else. My thought, and I guess that I could be called a Liberal tax-and-spend Democrat, is that if you are not giving the educational opportunities or the health care needed, what difference does the triple-A credit rating make? Wouldn’t it be better to spend a little more money to give educational opportunities, or eliminate some disease or childhood problems?

CBG: Do you think that comes from a tradition in the state of being resource-starved, or of seeing things happen during the Depression when borrowing money suddenly became a burden?

JCW: Yes, and I mentioned the late Jeff Bates, who was very conservative but who had great influence. Certainly he didn’t believe in spending money you didn’t have. [Return to Topics]

Revision of South Carolina's Constitution and Governmental Restructuring Efforts

CBG: Another contemporary issue that discussing these issues brings to mind is that in South Carolina we might make the argument that there are many executives. There’s a governor, but there’s also some other executive branch officials, like the State Treasurer or the Comptroller General, who from time to time can play very important roles. Do you recall working with some of these officials as governor or as a State legislator.

JCW: Among my many sins, I was chairman of the Constitutional Revision Committee. We studied the Constitution beginning in the mid-sixties, and were able to get an effective new Constitution by the mid-seventies through the process of amendment. One of the questions we always had was about governor’s appointees. The classic case that was brought up was why shouldn’t the governor appoint the Adjutant General, then? The answer that we got during our deliberations was that we’ve had great adjutant generals. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it!

The Budget and Control office is somewhat unique to South Carolina. But I think overall it’s a constructive part of our government, because it is a check on the executive. But at the same time, it allows the government to move forward when you have a crisis, or if you need action taken when the legislature isn’t there.

CBG: It also gives some key legislators a sense of what the budget is going to be like before it is presented in January since they are a part of putting it together. Though I know that now there is the parallel executive budget from the Campbell Administration. But there is a history of the Budget and Control Board itself as a reform intended to bring about better decisionmaking in government, at least more sharing of information.

One of those issues that comes up every decade or so in South Carolina about trying to restructure our government along broader lines that may not reflect the experience that people in our State have had over time.

JCW: I thought the restructuring carried out under Carroll Campbell was basically good. At the same time, relating to my own experience, which certainly was not typical, I never found that I was constrained by a lack of power. I worked very closely with the legislature. I was a part of the legislature for 16 years, and I knew where the bodies were buried. If I saw legislation coming to me that I didn’t like, I would go to the legislative leaders and the authors and ask, “Can we change this or can we adjust it?” As a result, Blease, I never vetoed a legislative act, except on constitutional grounds, plus the Death Penalty Act, which was promptly over-ridden. Some historians already have said that the fact I didn’t use the veto power was an indication of a weak governor.

I remember an incident right after a legislative session. Jimmy Carter was governor of Georgia, and we were talking about the legislative session. He asked, “How many acts did you veto?” I said, “None,” and asked, “How many did you veto?” He said something like 76. So I said, “Jimmy, you ought to get along better with the Legislature. That’s one of your faults, I think, or one of your shortcomings. He looked at me and said, “Have you ever tried to deal with Lester Maddox?” So, that answered that.

CBG: Of course, the veto is a negative power, and one that you don’t want to use unless you had to, I suppose. Do you think that given the current experience in our State with lots of vetoes that it might be a problem resulting from partisanship that’s crept into our State, as opposed to a good two-party difference, the way we …

JCW: Certainly partisanship plays a part in it. And, there is the technical point that Governor Sanford had used that these so-called local acts are of doubtful constitutionality. I used to take the liberal view that if it’s doubtful, let it become law, and if anyone wants to question it, they can.

CBG: Do they use the term “bobtails” on the budgets, or budgetary provisos.

JCW: As a matter of fact, the Technical Education Bill, of which I spoke earlier, would have been a bobtail. We put a proviso on the General Appropriations Bill.

CBG: That’s been a target of a lot of the vetos by recent governors too. It’s interesting to hear the discussion about the power of the governor’s office. Maybe that will be a good topic to focus on with respect to some other issues that I know would be of interest. The whole discussion of the founding of the second Medical School certainly is one that, I think, bears deeper discussion. Maybe we can get into that discussion next time.

JCW: I’m looking forward to it. We’ve got a whole raft of subject. As you can see, Blease, if you push the button I start talking, telling stories, some of which shouldn’t be told.

CBG: But it’s a part of our history, and a part that the students can reflect upon. We professors talk about the machinery, but we don’t always put the gloss on it, so to speak, what all of this really means and how to interpret it. We may search for patterns as scholars. But really making these things work truly is the art and practice of government for which we look to you for inspiration and guidance in the future.

This has been a conversation with former South Carolina Governor John C. West, a part of the West Forum initiative in the Department of Government and International Studies in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of South Carolina. Thank you very much, Governor West.

JCW: Thank you Blease. It’s been a pleasure being with you. I look forward to our next session. [Return to Topics]