Frank Carter and Howard Ward oral history interview, 1995-08-22

 CHRIS LUTZ: This is Chris Lutz, interviewing Frank Carter on August 22nd, 1995 in Atlanta, GA. We'll get started. Why don't you tell us first, your name, and um, where and when you were born and then you follow up?

FRANK CARTER: I'm Frank J. Carter born 1903, October the 23rd in Tampa, Florida.

LUTZ: Tampa, huh.

HOWARD WARD: I'm Howard Ward; I was born in Harlan, Kentucky, February 12, 1924.

LUTZ: Right, uh, two of my favorite places. [laughter] I vacation in Tampa, and I was up in Harlan for a miner's [inaudible]

WARD: I was born up there; all the rest of my family was born in Georgia. I was the last one of eight kids. I was born in Kentucky -- My father, he couldn't make a living on the farm, so we moved to Kentucky and went to work there on the railroad, a machinist's helper.

LUTZ: That actually answers my first question. Lemme ask you…what does your mom do?

WARD: She's dead.

LUTZ: What did she do?

WARD: She's just a housewife on the farm, never worked in her life, she just kept house. Eight kids keeps you busy. You know how…

LUTZ: Yeah, that's work. And Carter, what did your mom and dad do?

CARTER: Well, my mother was a housewife. My father was a salesman in the advertising field.

LUTZ: Mmhmm, um, and did you grow up in Tampa? Did you grow up in Tampa?

CARTER: No, we returned to Atlanta, GA, in 1906.

LUTZ: Mmhmm

CARTER: And, his work down there, he was sent in the company to work in Florida for several years, and then he returned to Atlanta to continue on in the same 00:02:00advertising field that he was with, which eventually became a firm by the name of Brown and Big Globe. When he went to work for it, it was Brown and Company.

LUTZ: Mmhmm, um, and what schools did you go to here?

CARTER: I went to grammar school, um. We lived in the area that this printing firm is located. Instead most people -- Atlanta was only a small area at that time. [inaudible] I went to grammar school, Williams Street grammar school. Later on to other grammar schools. Grammar school being the extent of my education. I left early, went to work in the printing business. First in a 00:03:00small private plant. Then I went to a commercial printer as an apprentice in the composing room setting type.

LUTZ: Lemme ask one question and then I want to get you on [inaudible]. How old were you when you first became an apprentice? How old were you when you became an apprentice.

CARTER: Fifteen.

LUTZ: And, Ward, did you go to school where you grow up in Kentucky?

WARD: Yeah, I went to grammar school in Wyal, Kentucky. My father died, and I went to live with my brother in Lynch, Kentucky. I went to high school in Lynch, Kentucky.

LUTZ: Okay, and when did you get into the printing field?

WARD: I come to Georgia in 1941. I was in Louisville, Kentucky, on my way to Georgia in 1941 on D-Day. I come to Georgia then. And, of course I got a greeting from Uncle Sam sending me into the army. I was working at a tablet factory right around the -- manufacturing school supplies. By the time I got to Georgia, I went in the army. I went into the army and come out. I met my wife 00:04:00before -- I was working before I went in -- she told me that I had to get a job making more money than I was making then.

LUTZ: [laughter]

WARD: Well, I looked around and I said, 'The printing business would be a good job.' Went out onto [inaudible] Pressman, and tried to get a job; they didn't need anybody, went over to Ditler Brothers, they were fixin' to put on a night shift. I started work over there in 1946, I guess it was.

LUTZ: Did you start as an apprentice?

WARD: Yeah, starting. I worked up as an apprentice for 6 years, stayed over there for 6 years. I didn't like it, it was too big a place. I don't like big place. You know. I left -- went on vacation -- told the president of the union I wanted to change jobs when I got back from vacation. When I got back he told me, he said, 'I got you a job. Told me come and go see Frank Carter, Superior Printing Company.' I went back in that morning, come over that 00:05:00Monday afternoon, saw the foreman over here. He said, 'Yeah, you can have the job if you want it.' So I went back to give Ditler Brothers my notice. Next Monday I come to work for Superior in 1952 or 3 -- which was it, Frank?

CARTER: It was we'll say 1952

WARD: '52 I think it was.

CARTER: And it still continues on booming from the back end to the front end. I moved from back end early in life on my original job transcript and mechanical department to the office department and left that firm in early 1923 to go with Williams printing company here in Atlanta. When I was involved with everything that went on, it also at that time was a very small firm. And, uh, later on in 00:06:00life, the Williams Printing Company owned a small business called "Superior Leather Service." After several changes in management, Williams sent me to Superior Leather Service to see what I could do with it on the basis that he'd sell it to me. That occurred shortly after selling the business to myself and a lady bookkeeper by the name of Julia Akins who later on in life became Mrs. Frank Carter.

LUTZ: I see. Very giddy marrying your bookkeeper [laughter]

CARTER: I used to tell that story; [laughter] it, um um, amused so many people. It…that was about 58 years ago or better.

LUTZ: Okay, well, we have got you both at Superior now?

CARTER: Yeah.

LUTZ: What was your first impression of each other?

CARTER: Well, we got along fine. We've been friends all the way through. We attended some of the labor meetings. I was interested in the labor movement; Howard came with us. He became interested in it, I think, after he came to Superior. We traveled the same road. In the meantime, following World War II, in the price and wage freeze, Superior Printing Company signed the first 00:08:00contract in this country with an increase in 15 percent in wages. Which…my next step in connection to work for labor was taking part in the health and welfare insurance plan which was put together and established in the 50's.

LUTZ: Wait a minute. Let me go back to the end of that freeze. Let me go back to the end of that freeze. Um. How did the other businessmen in the community react to that? Did you catch flack for it?

CARTER: I was a loner.

LUTZ: Loner?

CARTER:Yeah. There was a little reaction from one of the local government officials since it was a test case. He asked me if I knew what I was doing? I said, 'Yes.' He says, 'Well, I'm going to take this to Washington and see.' So, he got on the train -- wasn't too many planes [laughter] around at that time. He took it to Washington. It was approved, and there was no trouble; I was never reprimanded. Anybody….In the meantime the local union printers did favor it because prices went up; the men had not had an increase in some time and they…they were entitled to one. In addition to that, manpower was short here in the war years. And what have you.

LUTZ: Mmhmm

CARTER: It was a good move.

LUTZ: It must have made you very surprised when you came here. Sounds like you had a pro- union company.

WARD: I have always been in favor of the unions, even coal miners. John A. William, I used him to organize coal miners in Kentucky. Part of the time I was real [inaudible] with it. That's the first thing I looked for when I come and got out and went to go to work after I got out of the army, the union. I worked a year under permit that I'd come in the union as an assistant. Worked a year and a half as an assistant, and then they put me on an apprentice training program. I stayed on it 'til I got the journeyman's permit after four years. Took four years to go through journeyman's school.

LUTZ: What is working on your permit?

CARTER: They give you a year's trial to see whether you are going to make a good member or whether you are going to stand out or what you are going to do really before they take you into the local union to start with because they're working under a permit. Cost you a dollar and a half a month for dues to be under a permit while you work.

LUTZ: Okay. Like a trial membership? Like a trial membership?

WARD: That's about what it is. See if you, whether you are going to cut the mustard or not. Whether you are going to make the grade would be another way to put it.

LUTZ: Um, so now you came here in the 50's and did you work together on the health benefits?

WARD: Well, we was….

LUTZ: [inaudible]

WARD: It was negotiated, the benefits negotiated through the union contract.

LUTZ: Okay.

WARD: We was the first company that negotiated the health benefits really, helped negotiate it. Welfare was city wide; all the employers that was on the contract came in to help the welfare reform at that time, it was negotiated a contract.

LUTZ: Wow. Um. Oh. Looking back at that period, would you say that was, uh, a great achievement? It sounds like a pretty staggering.

CARTER: It was making history at that time

LUTZ: Yeah

CARTER: Part of history. The printing industry was the second industry in 00:12:00Atlanta at that time to go into the health and welfare insurance.

LUTZ: Mmhmm

CARTER: First one known to me was the Pressmen's Union. They were the first to bring it to Atlanta. Actually I gathered the information from congressmen who went to our local printer's club who worked it out. The printers in general, employing printers, did want to establish it.

WARD: Hardest trouble we had on our side was selling it to the membership.

LUTZ: Why?

WARD: They didn't want to give up the money to buy insurance with. When it went into effect, instead of taking a 6 and 1/2 cent an hour raise, we took that 6 and 1/2 cents an hour and bought insurance with it for the membership. And now, the members are covered and we are paying…

CARTER: $438 a month

WARD: $438 a month, now. That's how much it went up.

LUTZ: Were you an union officer at that time?

WARD: I've been an union officer ever since second year got into the trade. I come out and started out, I was an assistant on the executive board.

LUTZ: What on earth made you do that thankless job? [laughter]

CARTER: They elected me to it. I held that job until the Recording Secretary resigned. When he resigned, they elected me Recording Secretary of the local, and I have been Recording Secretary since.

LUTZ: So, you caught flack from the members and you caught flack from the business community.

CARTER: Yeah

LUTZ: Lucky you were friends with each other.

CARTER: I can make a statement about the health and welfare insurance in connection with the union. The president of the Pressmen's Union at that time did not want the insurance and did not work hard, he worked against it. But in the course of time, he was the first one to draw benefits from the insurance claim. Do you remember his name?

WARD: Aldin Wood.

CARTER: Aldin Wood.

WARD: Worked the River's Front Company, telephone printer, printed telephone books.

LUTZ: Oh, isn't that right. My husband is in charge of the typesetting what's it…for Peachtree City. Some little small town [inaudible] there. 00:15:00Now, what was it like to work here during the 1950's?

WARD: Wonderful, always wonderful. You won't find a better man anywhere than Carter is. He treats everybody fair and square, he gives them the best equipment to work with, the best benefits and everything else that you got covered.

LUTZ: [inaudible][laughter] Why didn't I do this sooner.

WARD: He's straight and square and treats all of his employees fairly, gives them all good jobs, good benefits. And you can tell that, but most of them that's here has been here at least fifteen years, twenty years, twenty-five years. You keep people working for you that long, bound to be….bound to be something good about you.

LUTZ: Why is that? Why are you so different from so many other employers?

CARTER: Well, I first worked in the printing industry. And, then I became an employer, and I decided to change a few things and do it my way, so to speak. That's what it amounts to in so far as small items here and there we'd be the first ones to [Inaudible -- break]

LUTZ: Well, You must have been concerned then as a young man about the health situation.

CARTER: That's correct.

LUTZ: What else bothered you about your own situation when you were a printer? What else did you want to change?

CARTER: Later on in '68, the pension was an important item.

LUTZ: Mmhmm.

CARTER: The two of us brought it to Atlanta.

LUTZ: Mmhmm. Um. Tell me about the pension.

WARD: The pension was started on the west coast, a local and one of the councils out there started that one called a risk-proof pension plan.

LUTZ: Mmhmm

WARD: And before that we had a plan of the international; it was originally started with [inaudible] had a lot of people with TB. Had a professional home up in Tennessee. They built a sanitorium up there to treat the TB patients with. After they got TB under control, you had no more use for it. Then they took the money that they put into the TB patients, they'd get twenty-five cents a week, each member to treat patients at that time didn't cost them anything. They took that twenty-five cents and started what they call a pension plan. That's a group from the pension run out of money. Twenty-five cents a week; it wasn't enough for the members that was retiring now. So they come up 00:18:00with the West Coast plan. I was at the international union when they voted to do away with the pension plan, President Hallman. At the international convention -- That way the money was in there. They kept paying it out and they went broke, no more money went into it. When they got the west coast -- took us three or four years to sell it to membership, didn't it, Frank?

CARTER: Yes, and, um, it…it also was what was known as an industrial plan and listed with the IRS, which made it a very satisfactory plan.

LUTZ: Hmm, why is that?

CARTER: It had the necessary supervision seeing that the money was properly handled and held in reserve for the purpose it was intended -- to pay pensions, and not to be used otherwise.

WARD: That's all the money can be used for is pensions. Pensions for the membership.

LUTZ: That's key now.

WARD: Like the other pension plans, a lot of them you see these companies like airlines that got a pension plan. Eastern Air Lines, they had a pension plan, come to find out after they went out of business -- where's where's the pension plan money? This one is set up strictly for pension plan. And it's paying good benefits now. Numbers back here started out one end. Two dollars and half a unit. They are up now, six dollars a month for each unit. Six units a month which is ten dollars in or gets 66 dollars a month every year they work here on a pension plan. Some of them back there now have got, I'll say roughly between nine hundred and a thousand dollars worth of pension built up now. They're still young boys. They still got another ten, twelve, fifteen years to work. Some of them don't want to bother with the pension. -- The 00:20:00money is there; you don't have to worry about it. That's all they can do with it. So far they have just about had enough income until' 87, I guess. They have enough income that the interest in the income off the pension plan was paying the pensioneers' pensions. When the interest is up, take a little of the principal out. They got the money still coming in. Still money invested. If you die before you retire, your wife gets all the money that has been paid into the pension plan on your half of the settlement, which is pretty darn good. You can take a lesser amount. If you die your wife gets a certain amount of benefits as long as she lives. It's really a plan that anybody would be proud 00:21:00of. It's as good a one as I've come across in all the labor organizations. It's really a good plan.

LUTZ: Let me take you back to the fifties. What kind of printing work was Superior doing in the fifties?

CARTER: We was doing the same exactly work as we are doing now more or less, public relations type of printing. Some other types – um, of hotel work, benefit booklets to the industry.

LUTZ: Mmhmm

CARTER: Things of that kind. Technology, of course, is highly different today than it was when I went into the printing business to work, work in the 00:22:00typesetting department. Most type was set by hand. One letter, one figure, one character at a time. In a little device called the stick. The linotype was beginning to enter the industry, mainly in the newspapers, coming available to the commercial printers. It was not favorably looked upon by the workers that felt the linotype was taking the work away from them. Actually taking the bread off their table. It did go on and change to the type of technology that 00:23:00we have today. There is no more type and -- it's an electronic procedure that forms the type. You can add to technology.

LUTZ: You have got the computer generation.

WARD: To that technology, all I can say is that the time I come to work, Superior Printing Company, served an apprenticeship before I come; since then I served either five or six more. I started out the letter press; I went from the letter press to the offset; offset to the camera department; owned a camera; went to the [inaudible] bootlegging the camera; run the press and offset; went in the offset business; have a chance to letter press, to offset camera to 00:24:00stripping to bootlegging over periods of time. It's just been a constant change.

LUTZ: Have you entered the computer generation yet?

WARD: We are in that up to our ears right now. We just creeping over to Macintosh now. Technology has changed its pace, no way you keep up with it. You buy it today and it is outdated tomorrow.

LUTZ: Of all those different apprenticeships that you served, the one with different jobs that you were doing. What was the most difficult and what was the easiest?

WARD: I guess the camera work was probably the easiest. All you do is open the camera and lay the copy down and push a button and stick film in it, developing machine, it comes out the other end; that's the easiest.

LUTZ: What was the most difficult? The most distasteful, I should probably say?

WARD: Running the press, I guess. It was a lot of fun.

LUTZ: Um. Looking back, what was the best part of your job?

CARTER: The best part of it was wanting to come to work each morning, and early 'cause you knew that there'd be an assortment of various things to do. You'd be busy every day and your work was changed, customer to customer. And what have you. I won't say a word about the apprenticeships.

LUTZ: All right.

CARTER: In the early fifties through the local apprentice club that I was a 00:26:00member -- given various jobs. I was brought into the Southern States Apprenticeship Committee which was the western and eastern states of the South. They held a yearly meeting in which various apprentices were awarded a prize. It was a trip to another town. When they came to Atlanta, I was given the main job of doing all of the leg work necessary to bring it on. Also, it had turned out to be quite a gatherment of people that they had to use the city auditorium 00:27:00in order to hold the attendance at the banquet which was the main function for the week's time. At that time, I was co-chairman of the apprenticeship committee, Atlanta Typographical Union #48. I served on it for twenty years. After twenty years in the early 70's, I transferred to the printing press apprenticeship committee and served as co-chairman, two years on it. The apprenticeship in Atlanta began to die out. It's almost gone at this time in life when actually, they most need it. Our board is the number one existent 00:28:00plan in the printing business in Atlanta.

WARD: We're the only local that still has the apprentice program working. I'm chairman of it, been chairman of it for thirty years, I guess.

LUTZ: How does the apprentice program work?

WARD: You got on the job training; you -- it's a four year course and the international course furnishes your correspondence course. Take the correspondence course -- get on the job training at the same time. Takes you four-year course or two-year -- apprentices comes up, you get your raise every six months for those four years. In fact, I went to the labor temple this morning and awarded three Journeymen's certificates. Had three coming out [inaudible] press over there, he had three coming out today. I went over there and presented them with their certificates this morning before I came over here. 00:29:00I served on a lot of committees. I have been on the apprenticeship committee, I've been the delegate to AFL-CIO, a lot of federation trade, attend all their meetings, done a lot of organizing during my time; it's been a lot of time. I look at it, other people have different hobbies, a lot of people do this -- a lot of people work for churches -- and a lot of them work for this, that, and the other. My union is my hobby. It's always been my hobby. I give my time to the union, just the way a lot of people give it to the church or something else, but my time has always been my union.

LUTZ: When you served as a delegate to the AFL-CIO, it just occurred to me that the AFL-CIO got together you were a union man. What did you think about the merger?

WARD: It's the best thing that ever happened.

LUTZ: Why do you say that?

WARD: They was combining instead of pulling apart this way. You know you put two horses together and give them a stick of corn over here and you put them this way and they pull that way and neither one of them get through head with mine or my head with this one. We eat this now and then we come over here and eat that way. That's what happened. Instead of pulling this way, they both got together and accomplished the same thing instead of one trying to take it away from the other one and pull it apart.

LUTZ: Carter, while we are on the fifties, too, there's something else that came up nationally, which was the Taft Hartley Act. Ah, you remember Taft Hartley, too?

CARTER: Oh, yeah

LUTZ: What was your opinion of Taft Hartley when it came through?

WARD: It stinks. [Laughter] I think that is enough said about that. It stinks. The one that stinks worse than that is the right to work law. Georgia State right to work law. That's the worst one. That's done more to hurt the 00:31:00people of the state of Georgia than anything that I know of that has been happening to the working people.

LUTZ: On to something more pleasant. What was it like being in…. living and working in Atlanta in the 1950's. What do you remember from the 50's?

CARTER: It was an entirely different ball game altogether. The city was smaller. I best remember Atlanta in working in the twenties, it was a very small town compared to now; you knew people; you knew a lot of people in the city, which you can't seem to today when the city is so large. The downtown 00:32:00area was the main area for business back then, the urban area at that time. At that time we had three newspapers in Atlanta, which was spoke well of. We have one today, two names with one newspaper. The downtown area was here because of the, actually, the drinking water, the springs in the city that absolutely covered the downtown area. When the people first moved into Atlanta -- that was many, many years ago -- they found that animals had trails leading to these various springs. That's where they got their water, that's where the people 00:33:00-- That's why it was first inhabited in this area. When I went to work, many of the large buildings in the city, if you had business in the basement, quite often you'd see those springs bubbling up right there in the basement. The Atlanta Journal Newspaper, in my first visit, it was in a basement where there was a department of the newspaper. One side of the big room was just a series of small springs that was bubbling. Later on in life they learned how to cap those. Originally they did not. The smaller the city, the more people you 00:34:00seemed to know. You knew where everybody was located and that kind of thing. That's all changed; it's changed. At times people moving out. In the period when they started moving out, they moved in every direction. Then the expressways came, and that further divided things up into certain channels as events; what it had been.

WARD: The city back in the forties, you'd say the city was from Rich's to Davison's. They was the main part of the city of Atlanta. That's how big it was back then, back in the thirties and forties.

LUTZ: What did you do in the 1950s?

WARD: 1950s?

LUTZ: Yeah. Were you organizing, and what were you doing for entertainment and fun?

CARTER: 50's -- that's when you came to Superior.

WARD: I got out of the army in '45. I got married in September '46. I come to Superior and the printing business, I guess June '46. I was just out of the army and serving an apprenticeship, getting started, fixing to get married.

LUTZ: Uh, where did you go on dates with your fiance?

WARD: Downtown to a movie. That's about all there was then.

LUTZ: [laughter]

WARD:It wasn't this night life, you know, back then. Eighty-thirty, nine o'clock at night, the city was deserted. Nobody was on the streets after that. They didn't…not a car roamed the streets after eight o'clock at night like now. Nothing going on. Wasn't all this night life then like there is now.

LUTZ: Mmm, did you all like it better then?

WARD: Much so.

LUTZ: Did you like it better then? Atlanta?

CARTER: Atlanta, I have always liked it. [laughter]

LUTZ: [laughter]

CARTER: I take it as it is, as it happens. Going back to the period of World War II, when the large aircraft factory opened up near Atlanta. Bell. Bell Aircraft -- it became a twenty-four hour day city. They worked thousands of people, they worked three shifts in the downtown section, which was alive at anytime during the twenty-four hour period. Of course, it has changed very little traffic through the metropolitan area at night, now. At one time it -- 00:37:00by the time it was six o'clock in the evening, there was absolutely no traffic then. The Marriott chain came in here and built a hotel at the corner of Courtland and Ellis Street and it opened up some fine eating rooms, banquets and that sort of thing. Started bringing the city back to life in the downtown area.

LUTZ: Mmhmm, you would just as soon that it been like comatose.

WARD: [inaudible] I like the idea of a street car. Get you a token or two at fifteen cents and then go to the movies for thirty cents and have a whole date with your wife or your fiancé or whatever for fifty or seventy-five cents and that was it.

LUTZ: Not bad, yeah. [laughter] What they say about having a cheap date, then they really meant it.

WARD: It had to be cheap, 'cause you weren't making no money.

LUTZ: Well, coming up to the sixties, things really started changing Atlanta around civil rights too. Because you had King here. Did that affect Superior at all? Civil rights movement.

WARD: I wouldn't say it did. Would you Frank?

CARTER: No, I don't know if it brought us more business. There is some black organizations that came into being. We still print for them.

LUTZ: Like who?

CARTER: Ervin Lee for one, they have been a customer for years and years. Various and sundry organizations that need printing. Some of the unions have a 00:39:00large black membership. Again only part here is that it's for urban customers. Many of whom we still serve.

LUTZ: Um. And now I'm going to talk about a tough one. In terms of the late 60's. How about the women's movement? [laughter] Did you get any women come in here saying, "Can I be a printer too?"

CARTER:Mmmm, I didn't get that.

LUTZ:I was wondering how the women's movement might have affected Superior. Any women want to be printers?

CARTER: Years ago, going back to the fifties, there was a woman's organization that we printed for -- I couldn't tell you the name now. It was the basic women's organization in the country through the local chapter.

LUTZ: National Organization of Women, NOW?

CARTER: I can't recall the name of it. I seldom read about it anymore. I guess the main thing they had in mind in addition to the meetings, and the various and sundry items at that time was the political arena. That's when they would come actively in politics. We prepped one lady's organization, how, the executive women incorporated. I guess you would call it a fraternal 00:41:00group. They don't preach politics, they go about their business of living and having fun, and put on a couple of parties a year for their sponsors, that is, their employers. And so on.

WARD: The women seems to take more to the bindery work than they do the press work or the composury work.

LUTZ: Is that right?

WARD: They take more to the bindery since it's easier work. They're better at it than the men. They like [inaudible] work [inaudible]

LUTZ: Mmhmm

WARD: My experience has never been too many women in the press room. There's been a few, not too many never took to it to well. Too manual labor, I guess, for them.

LUTZ: Is it heavy work, or should I say was it back in the late '60s?

WARD: Yeah, press work is heavy anytime. You're unloading and loading the presses. You get a sixteen sheet of paper hundred by sixty or something like 00:42:00that and have them miss a stack like that -- It's manual work.

LUTZ: Yeah, mmhmm. Well, that probably explains it. Tell me. If you could look back at the sixties and the fifties, what would you relive? What would you say, "I want to do that again?"

CARTER: I never really looked on it in that manner. I do each day with with sort of getting something out of it and -- putting something into it. If there is any unfinished business from yesterday, I attend to that as quickly as 00:43:00possible. After a good night's rest and a good morning's breakfast, I decide to get out and get with it. See what's going on and take part in the business as it is. I find very few things that I do not find a good point in connection with, no matter how serious or how bad. If you look hard enough, there's a good point there somewhere. Maybe it's educational, but it's there.

LUTZ: Can you pick out something from the sixties and fifties that you'd say, "I'll do that one more time."

WARD: Not necessarily. I'm glad I went through them. It was an experience getting through them. After the war was over, everything boomed out and everybody got going. Looking back, I wouldn't trade none of it in the past 00:44:00with what I have gotten now. I think the whole generation all the way around, we're better off now than we were back then. It's just one of the things that coming by here -- the times has changed things. I have been happy all through my life. I have enjoyed every minute of it. I wouldn't trade it for nothing. I wouldn't want to go through it again.

LUTZ:You lived it right the first time [laughter]

WARD:It's been an experience, it's been a lot of enjoyments of getting through it. Meet a lot of people, a lot of customers.

LUTZ: Um, who stands out in your mind as a memorable person not necessarily 00:45:00famous, just a memorable person of the past years that you knew? Who would you say that was a person I'm glad I knew?

CARTER: Uh…h…how far back can you go?

LUTZ: As far as you want.

CARTER: When I first entered the printing business as an apprentice, the Atlanta Printing Pressman and Assistants Union, a pressman by the name of Sid Tiller, he worked with the Ruralist Press at that time. Later on he was connected with 00:46:00politics. Went on to become one of the well known people in the city. In connection with my work when I was there as an apprentice, every time he came to the printing company he also visited with me a few minutes, took up time. Pointed out a few things along the way. I never forgotten it 'cause of my position and my age. His way of looking after things -- Incidentally he probably dealt with a lot of people in that area was the best president that they ever had all the way through. He went on to some job with the city of Atlanta -- connection with public housing, wasn't it, Howard?

WARD: I think he was tax assessor, wasn't he?

CARTER: The what?

WARD: Something to do with the tax assessor or tax appraisals or something.

CARTER: It was political.

LUTZ: How about you for a rememberable person?

WARD: About the one man I admire the most is the one that I think done as good as any of them was Tom Donahue. No, Major Berry. No, Tom Dunwoody come down from Major Berry. Major Berry was the one responsible for the Pressman's Union really.

LUTZ: It's Major Berry.

CARTER: Major Berry or Senator Berry -- you could call him by either one, but you certainly better give him one of his two titles.

LUTZ: [laughter]

WARD: He was the one that founded Pressman's home in Tennessee. He built the headquarters up there -- technical school, [inaudible] training in printing to 00:48:00pressman job. And uh, he was, he was quite a man to do the job that he'd done and the way he done it, what he done -- anybody would have to admire him.

CARTER: As well as the TB hospital when it was there. The Pressman's home in Tennessee.

WARD: Frank and I went up there and paid a little visit a couple of times. Look the place over and see what it was. Quite a place up there, had a lot of acreage.

LUTZ: Tell me about it. What did they teach there?

WARD: Printing. The whole phase was done in a hotel up there. The students went up there and lived up there. They go to school. They raised all the food they have, cattle and farms and everything.

LUTZ: How did they support themselves besides from raising their own food? Did dues go to pay for it?

WARD: It cost you to go to school up there. They were very cheap, though. Probably a dollar a day for a place to live. Meals didn't cost that much. You'd go up there, and it didn't cost really compared to what it would cost today.

LUTZ: Gentlemen, would you please explain the process of printing, for the future? Here comes the customer and says, "I've got a job." What happens then?

CARTER: Somebody takes the order. Nothing happens until the order is taken. After taking the order and going through the routine and finding out the desires of the customer, it sometimes goes to a layout person or artist, if you will, to 00:50:00make it into a job. The type and artwork is put into proof form and submitted to the customer for approval. Quite often there are changes made, but eventually it's approved and it goes to the plate department where the negatives and plates are made. Going then to the pressroom for it to printed in the meantime. The paper the customer has ordered is there in the pressroom. It's printed. Then from the pressroom, it goes to the binder department, which is really the finishing department. Folding and doing whatever is 00:51:00necessary to complete the job, wrap it up and deliver it.

LUTZ: Well, do you want to throw some more in there?

WARD: He's pretty well covered it.

[Break]

LUTZ: We were talking before we came back in the room about how you still have a union card.

CARTER: It's a retired union card, but I have one. I'm a member of the book binders union, #96B. It's got some years on it. Originally I could have gotten the card in any one of the unions because [inaudible] any work in the shop. I could take an order; I could set it up; and I could print it; and I could bind it; and also could deliver it and collect for it. Early on, I got 00:52:00into [inaudible] group, got into that one. The place I've started as an apprentice. It didn't take me long to graduate to the office. And at the age of eighteen, I was supervising and running a small printing firm, about twelve people, for an estate. I left there in early 1923 and went to work for Williams Printing Company where I was still running them and sales and going out and picking up some – doing certain part of the production work in the place -- supervision. I was also the grief man of Williams Printing Company. I have 00:53:00been somebody's grief man every since my own pressmen's time.

LUTZ: Does that mean you give grief or take grief?

CARTER: I live with it, I roll with the punch. I'm still here after all of these years. I have worked in the neighborhood of maybe seventy-five years.

LUTZ: Planning on retiring?

CARTER: I…my wife, when she was still alive, said that she'd hoped that when I did go that I'd be in a printing establishment and that I'd just fall flat on my face.

LUTZ: What's the union card, Ward, that you carry in your wallet?

WARD: I carry a graphic communications. [Inaudible] Merged them together [Inaudible] newspapers, bookbinders take it back and merged it -- newspaper and 00:54:00[inaudible] the local three years [Inaudible]

LUTZ: You mentioned before that you had done some organizing jobs. Can you tell me about a couple?

WARD: The biggest defeat I ever had was trying to organize WRV. They come up wanting the union. Then come election day and time to vote, then they vote the union out. Have some success organized. We have not been able to organize now in the last ten, twelve fifteen years.

LUTZ: Why do you think that is?

WARD: That's the way the labor laws are more than anything else. If you win 00:55:00an election, you can't get the contract with an employer. The way the laws are, there's something missing somewhere that there's more teeth into it. The way the company sell and negotiating in good faith. They can drag it out and drag it out. After such a long time, everybody lost interest in everything.

LUTZ: Do you agree with that, do you think that is why it is so hard to organize now?

CARTER: I guess we all think differently, what have you. I don't think there has been any time spent in recent years to speak of in organizing work over at the last national meeting at the AFL-CIO. They talked about living on organized campaign. I'm still looking to see it happen. No doubt it will. It's 00:56:00organized, it's been with us quite a while. In the past number of years, I won't say how many. Ten, fifteen maybe twenty years, it has been practically no effort to organize here, for certain reasons, which I don't know [inaudible]. There's another side of labor that both Howard and I have been in contact with that's a thing called the Workmen's Circle Banquet. Every year in which various labor leaders are honored, but then people have an 00:57:00opportunity to talk and to make their statements. We also are connected to the Georgia Union Labor Management which meets with several days each year; so far it's been at Jekyll Island. Ours is just back with the last one, which was probably the 15th or 18th of August [Inaudible]

LUTZ: What do y'all talk about?

WARD: It's just to get together with labor and management to try to carve a better relationship, so each one can understand the other side of it.

LUTZ: [inaudible]

WARD: It's good and informative for both sides, I mean labor and management. It teaches them our side and it teaches us their side. We started out, I guess 00:58:00this was the sixth one they've had. We started out, I think, probably fifty -- seventy-five people.

CARTER: Yeah, just about

WARD: This time I think, uhm we had three hundred fifty delegates, the guests -- the whole total was about five hundred and fifty people.

LUTZ: [inaudible]

WARD: It's growing, see, all the time getting more popular now. It's put on the abbreviation for [inaudible]. They want to get it together and post it now. It's turned out to be the most popular thing that has come into…kind of happened to labor lately. Lot of good information stuff about it.

LUTZ: Do you, ah, think that labor management cooperation along this sort of line is the future?

WARD: It's going to have to be – It's going to have to be if both survive.

LUTZ: Would you agree, Carter?

CARTER: What?

LUTZ: Would you agree that union management cooperation of this sort is the future?

CARTER: It's absolutely beneficial. Without it, you are not going to have too much. That's where it is. Today's people getting to know each other. Having enough confidence in each other to sit down at each other's word and proceed from there.

LUTZ: Mmhmm

CARTER: The…the day of the strike is gone, it's of no benefit to anybody, both sides lose.

LUTZ: Mmhmm

CARTER: And, even in today's market, union membership has been dropping. You 01:00:00still have 95-96 percent of the contracts to settle just on the regular business basis, whatever term, five year contract, three year contract, one year contract. People get together, work out their differences.

LUTZ: Mmhmm

CARTER: And, those are people who are in the human resources department, formerly the personnel department. They are the ones that meet in this Georgia Union Labor Management, and of course the reason is that they work together, they have seminars, you know. They can play together, have a little golf, a little fishing, a little of this, that. Few groceries along the way. Several…several meals that here in the Fort Lee area. It's real nice…real 01:01:00nice that they a --

WARD: Georgia State had been involved in it too in this building before the union [inaudible].

LUTZ: Oh, is that right?

WARD: Yeah [laughter] [inaudible] LUTZ: You turn up there all the time [laughter]

WARD: [inaudible] Pretty hefty guy.

LUTZ: Now do you agree that the day of the strike has passed?

WARD: Not quite. We've got one that hadn't been settled yet.

LUTZ: Would you tell me about that please?

LUTZ: The day of the strike not quite being over.

WARD: The signator brought it out or supposed to and then approved it out of the bank settlement. I think Fuji bank got a hold of it. And when they did, they come in and posted the conditions for the employees. And I won't say they posted the conditions, they fired all of them. Fired everybody in the company, and then they posted conditions of the look under took all their benefits away from them, seniority and all that, so they went back in tried to get a contract, 01:02:00couldn't get one. So, after they posted the conditions and hired some of them back, the ones they didn't want didn't hire back. They didn't like it, so they went on strike. They've been on strike now for about over about a month now. I don't know whether it's going to end or not. The way it's going now, they ain't making no progress. Just one of those things, it's happening in a lot of places now. [Inaudible] they have been on strike for god knows how long; can't get a contract with them. They supposed contract here. It's just one after the other, it's getting harder and harder. That's why I say, the future of it is labor and management get together and use your heads 01:03:00and work out something. The thing -- that's the future of it.

LUTZ: Do you feel that's what happened here? At Superior? Is that…would you say that characterizes Superior?

WARD: Right. Always has -- never failed to come up with an agreement. Carter has been generous.

CARTER: Put that with your file, take it with you and look over it some time.

LUTZ: Yeah, um. Supplementary material, thank you. Now, speaking of strikes and trying to work things out, was there ever a time that you wanted to take a poke at somebody? Not each other. [laughter]

CARTER: No, I never did get into that sort of, um, thing. I don't try to get too mad at anybody to begin with. [laughter] I'm out to make friends, if possible.

LUTZ: That was the optimist; now go to the pessimist, Ward.

WARD: I never had any problem with Frank whatsoever.

LUTZ: Oh, no, I was kidding about him. I meant in general, is there someone you want to take a poke at the past; rememberable in a bad way?

WARD: Not that I know of. Yeah, there was. One time, since I can remember. It was in the boundary union, I wanted to poke him one night.

LUTZ: Well, tell me about it. [laughter]

WARD: He called me a bad name. It was during the strike in 1970 when the whole city went on strike [inaudible] he spouted off. I started to crawl over the desk after him. They had to, they had to restrain restrain me. That's the only time that I ever, as long as I've been in the business [inaudible]

LUTZ: Huh

WARD: The word he called me, I can't take it. He did come back and apologize for it.

LUTZ: Well, what happened in 1970? What was going on in 1970?

WARD: Employees of all the….all the companies were negotiating at the same time. One contract city-wide. [inaudible] In 1970 they couldn't reach an agreement with the union, so they had to hold a whole city strip.

LUTZ: Superior too?

WARD: Yeah, every in the city.

LUTZ: Frank, did you have a debate in your mind about whether to walk the picket line or not? [laughter]

CARTER: The picket line was at Superior for one day. Actually, I had worked out a contract with all four unions in the city that had not been signed, and they were out here for one day only technically. Only. And then they -- at twenty minutes to four, the day that one strike, I called up the president of the 01:06:00pressman's union and asked him how we stood. He stuttered a little bit. I said, 'At four o'clock, I'm going to start negotiations with the Amalgamated Pressman's Union.' He called up five minutes later and said that we are meeting at ten o'clock in the morning. That's what actually happened. They should not have been out for the one day. I had come to an agreement before that would [Break].

WARD: More strikes than anyone people struck.

LUTZ: [inaudible]

WARD: All those at one time back then demonstration and that 70' strike, it just ruins decision. Ever since then, each individual company has been negotiating their own contracts.

LUTZ: Ooh, that works out…that works out better with Superior, though, 01:07:00doesn't it? I mean, I suppose, to save having to deal with Fuji Bank?

WARD: Yeah, I guess you might say that, but back then you didn't have that much trouble. Up until then, ever since it started you'd been negotiating all about that at one time, all in one, all the crafts. Pressmen, [inaudible] and the bindery all went in with their employers. They all sat down and come out, you have a contract and all in print.

LUTZ: Uh huh, that's what you did in '70, right?

CARTER: Yeah, in fact, that telephone conversation that I just called your attention to, and the words that I said that brought him back to the job, proves that I had already negotiated the contract and we were in agreement. It was just a technical point, that contract. In fact, they didn't have anything for you to sign at that time. On the Monday that they were out, that's when they 01:08:00got busy and drew up the contract.

LUTZ: [laughter] [inaudible] Um, well, 1970 was the…was the reason that the strike…that the strike had…had to happen or did happen was that because of other printing . . . ?

CARTER: The reason that strike had occurred was because the International Unions passed word down that they were saying it would be done, like the wage increase was the main thing. Incidentally it's twenty-five percent, which is a pretty hefty increase. It was instigated by the International unions. The locals were told to follow through, and the strike here in the city of Atlanta lasted about six weeks.

LUTZ: And, uh, was it…do you remember it that way too?

WARD: Yeah.

LUTZ: I would like to get that labor management view sometimes too. Now, since we are on the city of Atlanta, um, you both have been around through many mayoral administrations. Ultimately, what mayor was best for labor? What mayor works best for management…or not management, best for business I should say?

WARD: I can answer that on both sides. Mayor Hartsfield.

LUTZ: Mayor Hartsfield.

WARD: Right, he done more for this city more than any man or mayor ever had done or will do, I think. Nobody come close to beating him yet.

LUTZ: Mmhmm

CARTER: Incidentally, I was his printer from 1923 on at his death, I printed the program for his funeral for his wife.

LUTZ: Um, would Hartsfield be right up there with your --

CARTER: I was on the Hartsfield team all of those years. He…[inaudible]. Printing and other things too. He called me on the phone, I answered it; he said, 'Hartsfield. I need you over here.' I'd immediately quit what I was doing and go to City Hall. And, eventually there was no parking there, the city hall building was on a full block and they only occupied part of it, the rest of it was just grass and what have you. I used to just pull up there and there was always a policemen on duty, and I'd just tell him, you know, I said, 'Mayor called for me to show up here immediately.' He was a fine man. That the water that you drink in Atlanta today was one of his favorite topic 01:11:00subjects. He spent a lot of time on it. Lake Lanier was built because of him and the Army Corps of Engineers. Lake Altoona was likewise built. He had a message for everybody connected with water and the amount of it that the city of Atlanta was going to use. Also, while he was mayor, it was always the purest water in the nation. He got all those [inaudible] together and grade them, what have you. Since he left office, the water department has not been run as well, as my full intention. Somewhere down in Atlanta, I don't know where we stand. 01:12:00Sometimes at times on the television they tell you about your water, talk to you about bottled water and that kind of thing. They'll never be another one that even can make a down payment on what he did to the city.

WARD: The airport is a good example of that. Airport is a good example. He hadn't of done that, Atlanta wouldn't be the international city it is today. When he left office, he had the city working under a balanced budget. If you had the money, you spent it. If you didn't, you didn't spend it. That's out of the education the federal government ought to take. City governments now, it would be a good idea for them to shoot for it. He did -- if he didn't have the money, then don't spend it. He had a balanced budget every year, and it worked out.

CARTER: He used to be his own chauffeur and drive his own car on city business. Since then, every mayor we've had has had a big fine Lincoln or car of that kind, with a city policeman driving that car. It was never with him. He also spent a lot of time on the job. After he got off from his office duties in the afternoon, he would get in his car and tour the city. He was looking into just about everything that went on -- police calls, fire calls. He attended meetings just about on little bit of gold powder was talking about Senator Berry when he came to Atlanta from the time he came here, sometime in the forties. Hartsfield 01:14:00was mayor. He attended that meeting, that type of thing. He was just wherever the people were, wherever they met. They had a need for him to let him speak like he did. After a famous movie called Gone with the Wind, he met with the entertainment people, the stars. [Inaudible] The Ponce de Leon Hotel there. The Fox theater. Right across the street was a big publicity affair. They had the microphone, he was there speaking at that event. Everything of importance was going on, Hartsfield was there. Great man. After he left the city, he was put 01:15:00on the Ford Foundation and several of other things of that type. That…I…I don't know what it was -- whatever he made as mayor, when he left the mayor's office, he went on to these different boards. He was earning three times what he did as mayor. And he…he kept his own salary down. In addition to that, he got the state legislature to pass a law that the city of Atlanta could not make any purchase unless they had the money to pay for it. Since he went out of office, a lot of it has been rescinded by other mayors.

LUTZ: Such is the fate of politicians in politics [laughter]. Let me ask you both, if you had a chance to stand on a stage, and talk to a thousand young 01:16:00printers, what advice would you give them about unions and about work general? Why don't you go first, Ward.

WARD: Lord, that's a hard question to answer, I tell you this here. So many things that bother me now. To me, I think it's as good a way to make a living as it is. My advice to them is steady work, it's inside work. It's work, but compensation for it is good. I take it over outside a big basement or something like that way out in the world cold all the time. Warm in the winter, and cool in the summer. It's one of the easiest, skilled crafts -- it's as good a job as any that I've come across. Its [inaudible] better than plumbers 01:17:00or whatever. I tell them there's a future in it. There will always be a demand for printers, always. That's the way this country works. [inaudible] Protect new technology is taking away part. [inaudible] It's got a good a future to it than anything that I know of.

LUTZ: What would your advice to the young people be?

CARTER: I'd say that the printing business is a good way to make a living. I'd say to the young people that are going into it, to learn their trade, and stick with it, work hard, don't worry about money. If…if you stick with it and work hard; if you are entitled to it, it's going to come to you. 01:18:00[inaudible] Well, look at it this way. It should be with us forever. Just imagine walking into a grocery store without any labels on the cans, and finding the string beans that you wanted with…without a printed label. You stop the presses and you stop time.

LUTZ: Mmhmm [inaudible]