HERBERT BUTLER ’28 July 22, 1996 — Mame Warren, interviewer Warren: This is Mame Warren. Today is the 22nd of July, 1996. I’m in Lexington, Virginia, with Herbert Butler, but you like to be known as Pete? Butler: Correct. Warren: So, how did you become Pete? Butler: From Petersburg. When I came to Washington and Lee in 1924, there were a number of Butlers in Washington and Lee, and so they knew me as the Petersburg Butler because I associated around with the Florida boys. And from that, they just knocked it down to Pete Butler, and never did call me by my first name. Warren: So is this your Washington and Lee name, or is this your name everywhere? Butler: It’s pretty much everywhere. In other words, most people know me as Pete Butler, except legally, I guess I have to use the name Herbert H. Butler. Warren: So coming to Washington and Lee was a real life-changing experience for you. [Laughter] Butler: Quite a bit, quite a bit. Warren: Well tell me, how did you first decide to come to Washington and Lee? Butler: Back in 1924, I was in Miami, Florida. Graduated from Miami High School. Washington and Lee was headed by Dr. Henry Louis Smith, who had grown up with my aunt. I wanted to come to a northern school, and I was going to either Vanderbilt or Washington and Lee. So I put in applications to both Vanderbilt and Washington and Lee, and Vanderbilt came back and said I’d had plane geometry, but didn’t have solid 1 geometry. Washington and Lee came back and said, "Come on." Rather than fight it out with Vanderbilt, I came on to Washington and Lee in 1924. I had relatives. My mother grew up in Galts Mills [phonetic], Virginia, which is out of Lynchburg; rather, her family grew up there. She was actually from Missouri. So it was getting to this northern school from down south. I was tired of Miami, Florida. And I haven’t ever regretted it. Never went to Miami, except to visit my relatives back there. I went here four years, graduated in 1928. Warren: You have mentioned a couple of firsts. You’re the first person who has considered Washington and Lee to be a northern school. That is a wonderful perspective! [Laughter] Butler: It’s the most northern of the southern schools, let’s put it that way, most northern of the southern schools. And I wanted to come to a southern school, but I wanted to come as far north. In Florida, of course, the temperature is the same the year round—seventy-five to eighty degrees. So it felt good to get back up here, where there was a change of seasons. We still had family up here. So I spent my four years at Washington and Lee. Never regretted it. I wanted to go on to Duke after I graduated, but I was offered a job, thanks to Mattingly, with the telephone system. So at the middle of 1928, at the end of school, I went to take a training course for junior executives with the Bell System up in Washington, D.C., and at the end of that term, I thought business was like school, which was, you’d come to work at nine o’clock or ten o’clock in the morning, and be off at two, or two-thirty or three o’clock in the afternoon. And I was also in love, so I said, "The heck with Duke," and stayed on with the telephone company. During the period of time that I was with the telephone company, I got in the National Guard. As a result, when the war broke out in 1941, I was on duty with the 29th Division, and so I resigned from the telephone company at about that time, and stayed in the service, and was offered a regular Army commission. But during the war, 2 we happened to have a second child, and my wife didn’t want to go to either Tokyo or Berlin, where the American forces would have sent me if I had stayed in the regular Army, so I resigned from the regular Army and went with what is known as the—well, it’s the general telephone system now—and headed their properties in Illinois. Warren: Now you’re skipping way too far ahead for me, because I want to concentrate our time back here at Washington and Lee. Butler: Back at Washington and Lee, okay. Warren: So let’s spend our time here, getting those memories. You’ve already mentioned somebody who’s on my list that I wanted to ask you about. You’re the first person I have talked to who was here during President Smith’s time. Can you tell me what he was like? Butler: Henry Louis Smith. He was short, rather quiet, a grey mustache. I can remember that grey mustache. He lived up in the president’s house. He had a son and a daughter. Norris Smith was his son, and I forget the daughter’s name. But I well remember, I was invited to their house to dinner, Sunday dinner, in my early days as a freshman. Apparently, some of my roommates swiped the invitation, and I never showed up at President Smith’s house for dinner, and so I didn’t hear much from the Smith family for about a year. But later on, we got acquainted. So that’s the Smith story. I lived initially in the dormitory up in, I guess it was Graham dormitory, for a year, where I could look out at House Mountain and all. The only thing I know about the story about the dormitory there is they had a fire drill. This was just before, or right around, my time. One of the students on the fourth floor got so excited, he threw his pillow out the window and threw his typewriter out the window, and took his pillow downstairs. So he ended up without a typewriter and a pillow. That was Graham dormitory. Then I lived for a year at the—what’s your alumni office now—down at Rob Fure’s office. 3 Warren: Was that a fraternity then? Butler: That was a fraternity then. It was known as the Arcadis Club and became DU— Delta Upsilon. Warren: Oh, so that’s what Arcadis is. Butler: That’s what Arcadis is. Arcadis Anbo was the name. Warren: Arcadis what? Butler: Anbo. Warren: Anbo. What does that mean? Butler: Brothers both. There was a lot of socializing and bridge-playing and things like that. So I took the only single room, which was Rob Fure’s closet, stationery closet, and I lived in that for a year. Warren: How many people would have lived in that house? It’s not that big a place. Butler: No. I guess maybe eight, ten, something like that. I can remember the meals. We had a steward and his wife, and we always had sausage and fried apples, round the year, for breakfast. I still like sausage and fried apples as a result of it. The Sigma Chi folks were across the street, and back in that—they had rocking chairs. I can remember the rocking chairs, in the fall and the spring, when we’d sit out there and rock and watch the girls go by to the Dutch Inn, and the Sigma Chi across the way, they’d sit out and rock and watch the girls go by, when dances for VMI, or somebody like that, was happening. Lived the year there, and then my last year, I lived at the Presbyterian Manse, and shoveled coal for my room. In other words, I got a free room at the Presbyterian Manse for shoveling coal and taking care of the furnace. The Presbyterians had just had two new pastors come in from Edenburg. I guess they were both graduates of University of Edenburg, Reverend Murray and Reverend Morton. Reverend Murray married very shortly, and Reverend Morton and I lived upstairs. I still remember—well, maybe I shouldn’t talk about this. Reverend Morton, he married the girl that I first dated in Lexington. He asked me what I thought about 4 marrying Frances, and I thought it was the greatest thing in the world and a matter of good judgment on his part, because I was then in love with someone else, my own cousin, in Lynchburg. But those were rather happy years, and I maintained good grades. I was valedictorian of the class of ‘28. Warren: Really? Butler: I remember the senior ball. Harry Neil [phonetic], whom I still contact. Harry Neil is in Albert Lea, Minnesota, a doctor. Harry Neil was president of the class, and I was valedictorian, and we led the ball, senior ball, that year. Warren: What does that mean, to lead the ball? Butler: Well, it means that you and your date head the chain that goes around. They had the formations back in those days. So that it was a procession, I guess you’d title it. The procession started the dance, and that’s the way it opened. I don’t guess they have that anymore, do they? Warren: I don’t think they have a formal dance at the end of school. Fancy Dress is still held. Butler: Fancy Dress is still around? That was done in the middle of the year, wasn’t it? Warren: Tell me about Fancy Dress when you were here. Butler: I don’t know that I participated in Fancy Dress Ball when I was here. Most of the time, every weekend, I was on cross country and indoor track and outdoor track teams, at least participating. I didn’t make my letter until my senior year. But I would be out of town on weekends, and when I got a chance to be out of town, I used to spend the time with my cousins in Lynchburg. So I didn’t see much of Washington and Lee until eight o’clock Monday morning, when the train pulled in, or backed in, down here at the railroad station. Then I worked hard all week, participated in the meets, and then got over to Lynchburg if I could. Warren: So you would travel by train? 5 Butler: Always. There were virtually no cars here at that time. The boys that had a car, any boys that had a car were just—I would guess there weren’t twenty, twenty-five cars in Washington and Lee at that time. People forget that, and they forget the socializing that we did on the trains. Warren: Tell me about it. Butler: I remember, normally Lynchburg—Clifton Forge was the Lynchburg C&O, and you’d take the train up to Balcony Falls, and then they would have a small train that would go from Balcony Falls into East Lexington, and Lexington. That carried the VMI boys and the Washington and Lee boys. The station was right down here, and they had to back in from East Lexington. So that you could count on the fact that Friday afternoon, after classes, they’d all be headed out on the train, and Monday morning, eight o’clock or nine o’clock, when the train backed in, then they’d be on the train coming in. So we didn’t have cars much in those days. You were lucky if you got a ride. Warren: So what kind of socializing went on, on the train? Butler: Well, there was virtually no real socializing, except the students that—we didn’t have girl students around. In other words, it was all men. So it was only when there were dances that you’d find girls around town in Lexington. Most of the eligible girls in the last years of high school would head out of town and go to school. So if we wanted to have date, we’d have to go to Randolph-Macon or Sweet Briar or Hollins or Mary Baldwin or wherever. So Lexington was a pretty desolate place on the weekends, unless there was a dance. Warren: Did you go to the different women’s colleges for dates? Butler: No, I primarily went to Lynchburg and was chasing my cousins in those days. Warren: So this was a time that I can’t help but characterize as the Roaring Twenties. Were the twenties roaring in Lexington? Butler: I wouldn’t say, particularly. I can remember practicing the Charleston against the wall with the phonograph record. Of course, it was the era—I guess the first 6 amplification took place around that time. Normally, the phonographs were not too loud back in those days, until they got amplification. I can remember the boys in the fraternity house all lining up against the wall and kicking their heels, practicing the Charleston. I can remember that after the dances, our fraternity house would be in shambles. But there was not much in the way of entertainment in Lexington, except during dance periods. I can remember, too, that when the VMI would bring their girls, our boys would try to date them. They’d have a curfew at ten o’clock, or eleven o’clock, and they’d date the girls after that. I can remember that the inn down here, it was probably the place where most of the girls—Dutch Inn—or many of girls stayed, or the houses. I can remember, in the early days, too, that the Presbyterian church and the Episcopalian church were the two outstanding churches. The VMI boys would march to church on Sunday morning. In the Presbyterian church, for example, which I went to, the students would sit in the balcony. They wouldn’t sit downstairs. The Washington and Lee students would sit on one side, and the VMI students would sit on the other side. The Presbyterian church would have—I think they had evening services there, too, and there were young folks going to the evening services, but not many. But it was about the only avocation that you could have on Sundays was to go to church. Doc Howe, after whom the Howe building is named, was head of the Presbyterian Sunday school class. He played the piano, and sang in his voice. His students attended, and I guess there were—I can’t remember how many there were in the class. Let’s say twenty-five or thirty students in his Sunday school class. And I remember one thing. That first year, a couple of missionary sons and I formed a little orchestra. I played the flute, and I think someone else played the violin, one of the missionary sons, and so forth. We formed a little orchestra in the Presbyterian church there, with Dr. Howe playing the piano, and served his group. It turned out very nicely, because at the end of that year, there were four freshmen that 7 made A in Dr. Howe’s classes. And I was the only freshman that played in his Sunday school orchestra, so I got the only freshman fellowship that year, and I credit it to my playing. I trust my scholarship was better than my playing, but anyhow, if I hadn’t participated in that Sunday school activity, I’m not sure whether—well, they’d given more consideration to whom they awarded the freshmen fellowship in chemistry. Warren: Were you a science major? Butler: No, I was an English major. I got a B.A., and I also got a certificate in business. Dr. Shannon was my proctor, if you’d call him that, and his son became president of Washington and Lee. You remember his son was— Warren: Of the University of Virginia. Butler: University of Virginia. I think he came back to Washington and Lee [sic]. Doc Shannon was head of the English department. Warren: Tell me about him as a teacher. Butler: I’d say he was an excellent teacher. The courses I took—for example, I took Greek, and I took Latin, and I took Spanish. I remember Doc Easter, who was a Spanish professor, head of—what do you call the arts department? But anyway, he was—I lost my train of thought on that. Mattingly was the registrar. I got my job through Mattingly. I remember the day that the Bell system folks were in Washington and Lee, recruiting people in my senior year, and Mattingly calls to me, and said, "Butler, come in here. These men have nothing to do. You be interviewed." So I was interviewed by the telephone system, AT&T, and at the end of the spring session, they sent me a letter and offered a job. I was headed on to Duke, I thought, and the letter offer came in before the Duke offer did, and so I accepted that and went on to Washington on this training course that I mentioned. Warren: Were there any teachers who were really very important to you, that you can remember were particularly exciting teachers, or were not exciting teachers? 8 Butler: I can’t think of the professor of economics that we had. He was top-flight. He had been in World War I at the Navy recruiting, or something like that, down in the Navy Yard in Norfolk. They all had good teachers. When you came here to Washington and Lee, you got the top. Because there weren’t many teachers, you got the best of the departments. In other words, I had Shannon and Howe, and who was the Spanish teacher? The classes were small. There were about twenty-five or thirty in the class. There wasn’t much to do in Lexington except study during the week. I can’t complain about my education. Warren: It sounds like you certainly flourished here. I want to go back to that experience in your freshman year when the other freshmen swiped your invitation from Dr. Smith. Pranks like that, did things like that go on all the time? Butler: I don’t know. I don’t know whether it was intentional, or what it was. And I didn’t learn about it. They just knew, as far as I know, that I just didn’t show up, and here was a distant relative, not showing up, and was a freshman, so they— Warren: I’m just wondering about what kinds of fun things went on. This was the time of Prohibition. Was there any bathtub gin going on, that kind of thing? Butler: Well, there was the bootlegger. The fraternity boys bought bootleg corn liquor at three dollars a gallon, something like that, and would bring it in. I imagine there was a fair amount of consumption around here on that, but it wasn’t any branded liquors, or anything like that. It was really distilled out in the backwoods some place. Warren: How did students get hooked up with bootleggers? Butler: Oh, they’d come around at the fraternity houses. Warren: They’d come calling? Butler: I reckon they did. I never met any of them. I think they would go to East Lexington or someplace over there, and they could buy it. Warren: So, at fraternity parties, was liquor available? 9 Butler: I don’t remember that—I would say no. But they all had their own flask if they were interested in drinking. I really didn’t drink until I was, I guess, in the military. I didn’t get an opportunity to drink wine or anything else around here. Prohibition was in effect, you remember, and it didn’t go out until 1932, so that it was a pretty dry town. The YMCA had some influence in Washington and Lee. They put on affairs, brought the Glee Club from Buena Vista over, Southern Sem. I remember driving the secretary’s car and taking the girls back to Southern Sim. So the YMCA was a reasonable force, a good force, in the campus of Washington and Lee. The athletics—I remember class of ‘28, I think, built the bridge at the end of the gym there, and that was our project. It was heck going down the gully and up into the athletic field. Washington and Lee had a real team during that period, ‘24. I guess they were Southern Conference champs one of those years. But those were the years that Centre College also had a top team in the country. If you had eleven men, they played throughout the game. There was no substitution, no second team, or anything like that. There weren’t many games at home, because we didn’t make any money on those. The football team—for example, the first game was in Lynchburg with VPI. The football team supported the other athletics, really. In other words, they made the money. They played University of Maryland up in the Maryland area. They played in Richmond, I can remember University of Richmond. And then they played in the Southern Conference, all the big teams down there. Anybody that was on any of the other teams, such as cross country, or track, or baseball, or something, had to be supported by the funds that came from the funds that were generated by the football team. Warren: Why would more money be made at away games? Butler: Well, they’d be at bigger cities. There would be virtually little, or very small, attendance that you could have here in Lexington, so that the VPI game, for example, being in Lynchburg, would draw a fair crowd over there. The Maryland game would be 10 held at the Byrd Stadium up there in University of Maryland, out of Washington and Baltimore. So it was the football team that provided the funds for the other sports. Warren: You mentioned something I’m really glad you brought up. You were here for the construction of the footbridge. Tell me what you know about that, about how that came to be. Butler: Well, everybody hated going down the gully and up into the field. And I guess the transportation getting over to that field was difficult, and if you had to take any dates across, or family, or anything like that, that was difficult. So you drew little or no attendance over there. So we wanted to have a project, and the powers-that-be thought that would be the good project for the class of 1928, so they raised the funds for that bridge over a period of time. I don’t remember how it was done, exactly, except that the class was solicited for funds, and we all contributed. Warren: Do you remember the actual construction? Butler: No. I guess the construction pretty well had been taken place after we left. I think the funds came from the class of ’28, but the construction was not done then. And if you climbed up and down those hills, getting into the athletic field, you’d say we certainly needed a bridge across there. Warren: So can you remember the first time you went across the bridge? Butler: Oh, it was after the war, when I came back. So that’s roughly the first time when I—rather surprised at how nice it felt walking across that way, instead of climbing up and down the hill. And, of course, after you’d been in practice, track and cross country, it was pretty tough climbing up the hill, all [unclear] and so forth. So I think it was a worthwhile contribution. I guess the first time I saw it, some of the concrete pedestals were decaying. It was that many years after. Let’s see, it’d be here in ‘28, and I didn’t get back until, I can’t remember exactly. Fifty years, probably, before I really saw it. 11 I don’t know what else. Oh, the post office was sort of a social event. Everybody had a mailbox. They’d go down. They knew when the mail was put up. We counted on the mail every day. Of course, you didn’t have the newspapers that you have today. So mail call was one of our recreations. We didn’t have telephone service, such as you have today. I can’t even remember the type of telephone service we had, and I don’t remember even using the telephone at the fraternity house. So our communication was primarily mail, and our transportation was primarily railroad back in those days. Warren: Did you ever used to go on outings or out of Lexington? Butler: I guess some of them did, but, you see— Warren: You were headed to Lynchburg. Butler: I was headed to Lynchburg, or on a trip. I remember, it wouldn’t make any difference, I can remember the Southern Conference track cross country I guess it was, down in Athens, Georgia. That’s a long ways back in those days to come back to Lynchburg, and yet I managed to make it to Lynchburg and spend a day there before I got on the train and backed into the railroad station down here at eight o’clock the next morning. Warren: How did you get to Georgia for that? Butler: Train. We didn’t use airplanes in those days. Oh, another thing. The year that I came up, in 1924, not many Miami, Florida, students had ever come to Washington and Lee. By some strange coincidence, about a dozen of us from Miami came up in 1924, from Miami, so that you had a fairly large roster for this Miami, Florida, contingent. And I would go home on the train. I can remember I used to—you had your choice of going—you had to go through Lynchburg. You either went through the L&N Railroad on the Atlantic coastline along through Richmond, or you went down the southern through Atlanta. Your biggest expense—oh, tuition. Tuition of Washington and Lee, my first semester, was $220, tuition. I was granted fellowships. Fellowships and scholarships 12 were plentiful. I often say, whether correctly or not, but my education at Washington and Lee cost me, well, $220-plus, and that was for the four years, because I had scholarships and fellowships throughout that period. I’m exaggerating probably a little bit on that, but anyhow, tuition at Washington and Lee was remarkably low. On the other hand, my job at—oh, my job at the telephone company, I got $125 a month for the first six months, and $150 a month after that, as a junior executive for the Bell system. I remember Brown, Doc Brown. He was in sociology or something. In 1928, he was the Republican candidate for the governor of Virginia. Back in those days, the Byrd machine, and the Glass machine were dominant. And I remember my relatives said, "Don’t you dare vote Republican." The fact that Dr. Brown ran on a ticket was almost a scandal. You remember, ‘28 was the Hoover-Smith elections, and Hoover won by a landslide. Wait a minute, something’s wrong in here. I’m wrong, way wrong. Maybe not. Warren: No, you’re right. Hoover was 1928. Butler: Hoover ran in ’28, and won in ’28. Warren: Now, you’re reminding me, though, that the fall of your freshman year, the Democratic candidate was a Washington and Lee man—Davis. Do you remember that? Was that a big deal here? Butler: Sure do. It was quite a big deal. I think Davis was also nominated by the Mock Convention, as I remember. John W. Davis. He was an unbelievable dark horse back in those days, and we were so thrilled that the Mock Convention had picked him and that he was selected as the candidate for the Democratic party. Warren: Did you get involved in Mock Convention? Butler: I don’t think so. I think they weren’t quite the event they are now. I can’t recall any activity in connection with the convention. I can remember—now this, of course, was after—I took my cousin to the inaugural ball. That’s in ‘32. That was the day they had one inaugural ball. [Franklin D.] Roosevelt was elected, and Mrs. [Eleanor] 13 Roosevelt, I think, attended the ball. But that was in ’33when Prohibition—and the bank holiday followed. Warren: You’ve mentioned VMI several times. Was there any interaction between the two schools that you remember? Butler: No, there was not. I guess there had been trouble between VMI and Washington and Lee. I just know that some of the boys enjoyed sitting down at the Lee Chapel, because the VMI boys had to salute Lee as they marched by. They would have a good time watching the VMI boys come by and salute, and we didn’t have to salute Robert E. Lee, but they did. But, no, there was no great interaction. We had no games between the two. The fact is, I don’t remember even going through VMI grounds back in those days. They were also segregated at church. The VMI boys marched to the Episcopal church, and marched to the Presbyterian church, and then they marched home. So then they’d come into town on Saturday afternoons. That’s about the only time they had off, Saturday afternoon and Sunday. I wasn’t here during that period, so I didn’t see much of them. Warren: I need to turn the tape over.