Interview with Robert Paul

Robert Paul:

If you need a card table, I got one there. Or you can sit.

Dwayne Cox:

I'll just-

R.P.:

Or you can pull that chair, move it or do anything you'd like, just to get comfortable.

D.C.:

Just for the record, I'd like to say near the first of the tape that this-

R.P.:

Beg pardon?

D.C.:

Just for the record I'd like to say, get on the tape that this is an oral history interview with Mr. Robert Paul. It's May 22nd.

R.P.:

Does it [inaudible 00:00:38] on its own?

D.C.:

Yeah. Its May 22nd, 1977. My name is Dwayne Cox, from the University of Louisville archives. We're at Mr. Paul's home at 1809 Woodfield.

R.P.:

No, Woodfill.

D.C.:

Woodfill.

R.P.:

F-I-double L.

D.C.:

In Louisville, Kentucky. This interview is partially in connection or came about in connection with a project that the university's doing in cooperation with the Jewish Community Federation on the history of the Jewish community in Louisville. Mr. Paul's particular connection with that is that he wass a long 1:00time acquaintance with I.W. Bernheim.

R.P.:

Employee.

D.C.:

Employee, and an acquaintance and friend. A local distiller and philanthropist, and the man who endowed the Bernheim Foundation and Bernheim Forest. Today we'd like to talk a little bit about how Mr. Paul came to be connected with I.W. Bernheim and the Foundation and Bernheim Forest. I suppose just for the record, we ought to say just, or have you say just a little bit about yourself, that is where you were born and your place and date of your birth and that sort of thing.

R.P.:

Yes, I was born in October the 31st, 1893, in a small community in Scotland not very far from Edinburgh. I never lived long in Scotland, but from the time betwween a small boy up to the outbreak of the First World War, I lived in England, various parts of England. Had education with normal city schools and also private school and university. Went into the British Army in 1914, August 3:00the 4th, and served until October 1919. In December 1919, I emigrated to the United States. After several years in the East in New York City, I went "west" and arrived in Cincinnati, which appealed to me, liked the city. People were very friendly and very kind to me, and after being in Cincinnati for approximately three years, in 1926 through a combination of circumstances, I was 4:00employed by Isaac W. Bernheim as his secretary and companion.

D.C.:

What were those circumstances?

R.P.:

The circumstances were that at that time, Mr. Bernheim having left Louisville in about 1922 and having married the sister of his deceased wife, first wife Emma, no, Amanda, and then married her sister Emma. Because Emma had two daughters married and established in Denver, Colorado, Mr. Bernheim, having disposed of 5:00his home and severed most of his connections in Louisville, went and established a summer home in Denver, Colorado. Mrs. Emma Bernheim went under surgery for a gallbladder operation, and a blood clot got on the brain somehow, and she was for weeks in a coma in the hospital. The altitude over 5,000 feet did not agree with Mr. Bernheim. He was under considerable strain. He could not do anything more for his wife than provide her with the best surgical and nursing 6:00facilities, and she was well taken care of, and because he was suffering from insomnia and nervousness, he left Denver to come to Cincinnati to spend some time with one of his children who was living there. This lady was Mrs. Albert S. Roth, R-O-T-H. His daughter Helen was married to Albert S. Roth, who was in business in Cincinnati.

R.P.:

It was an extremely hot summer in Cincinnati before the days of air conditioning, of course. It was thought that it'd be a good thing if Mr. Bernheim would go to Atlantic City for a while. Thought it'd be cooler, et 7:00cetera, et cetera. The question came, who would go with him? Because he was a gentleman of approximately 77 years of age, having been born in 1848. Through pure coincidence, I was asked if I would go to Cincinnati with Mr. Bernheim for about three weeks. I mean, go to Atlantic City. This was through his daughter, Mrs. Roth, who I knew slightly. Because I wasn't doing nothing at the time and I thought this would be very agreeable, and I was told I would be compensated, et 8:00cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and I went to Atlantic City. After an interview with Mr. Bernheim at his daughter's home on Sunday afternoon, I was employed, and we left in three or four days or a week later for Atlantic City and stayed at one of the big hotels. I forgot which one.

R.P.:

It was while we were in Atlantic City that Mr. Bernheim received a telegram from Dr. Klein in Denver, Colorado saying that his wife had recovered consciousness, come out of the coma, and was apparently going to be all right and was calling for "Ike." Immediately Mr. Bernheim said we'd pack up and go back to Denver, and 9:00would I go with him? So I went to Denver with him. From then on, it was just a series. I had no intention of staying long with Mr. Bernheim. I thought we'd go out to California or Arizona or someplace, but there was always something coming up that he would ask me to stay with him a little longer for some circumstances, and this went on for 19 years.

D.C.:

Your responsibilities as far as your work with Mr. Bernheim really grew over the-

R.P.:

Yes, it was really remarkable that really as a stranger and having to be taken at face value, although I had met several prominent people in Cincinnati who were very kind to me, and I'm sure sure if they were asked about references, 10:00they probably gave me a favorable reference. But Mr. Bernheim, as I say quite amazingly, quite soon was putting all kinds of financial and other responsibility on me until I became really his, you might say confidential secretary or general factotum and business agent and everything else.

R.P.:

Our routine was that Mr. Bernheim was very fond of walking, and he'd get up very early in the morning, and I would always be up at his house not later than 6:00 in the morning. Probably start work about that, and then we'd have breakfast. We'd both have breakfast, and then we'd go out for a walk. Might walk two or three miles. During these walks, he would talk over business things with me, and 11:00he didn't like anybody to take notes. Fortunately I had a flight paper memory, so we'd get back home and we'd go up to what was part of the house which was made as an office, and I'd sit down at my desk and write his correspondence with his signature without taking any shorthand or other notes. Then he'd take a nap in the afternoon, and then I would finish up whatever work checks and stuff, and mostly sometimes we'd go out for another walk in the afternoon and come back, and I really for seven years was on a 24-hour basis.

D.C.:

Was this, I guess Mr. Bernheim, you said you first came to work with him when he went to Atlantic City. He had been in Cincinnati. This routine, did this go on wherever he was?

R.P.:

Anywhere where he was, I went with him.

D.C.:

Did he have a central residence from which all these activities emanated?

R.P.:

Well, his... he spent the summer months in Denver, Colorado, where he had a home. His wife had a home. And in the winter months he would go to Florida, usually first of all in Daytona Beach and then later on Fort Lauderdale. Then 13:00later when he didn't like the anti-Semitic climate that was in evidence in Fort Lauderdale with the signs at hotels, "Gentiles only" and such damn nonsense as that, he decided to go to California. Mr. and Mrs. Bernheim and myself, maybe a companion or a nurse or something, we went off to California in the winter time from Denver. Santa Barbara or Coronado, and then [Magalia 00:14:06] and Pasadena, and then later on to Santa Monica. When the second World War came on and it was considered unpatriotic to travel more than necessary, Mr. Bernheim decided, "Well, we'll just stay in California." That was it.

D.C.:

You mentioned that Mr. Bernheim gave up on Florida because of the anti-Semitism.

R.P.:

Oh, definitely.

D.C.:

And the hotels, was that something that wasn't in evidence when he first began to go to Florida?

R.P.:

Not when he first went, no. No.

D.C.:

Was it, do you have any ideas about how that [crosstalk 00:14:53]?

R.P.:

Well, this was during the period when Hitler was building up the anti-Semitic German and anti-Semitic feeling, and that spread over to this country with organizations such as the Silver Shirts and the German American Bund and the Brown Shirts and a few other people, and it just spread. Of course candidly the 15:00fact was there was a real estate boom, and Miami had become very popular among Jewish people. When Fort Lauderdale started developing, they decided it would be to their financial advantage if they would let it known that they didn't have any Jews there.

D.C.:

I see.

R.P.:

See? This was a place, and it was disgraceful because as a matter of fact, Mr. Bernheim was one of the early pioneer developers in West Palm Beach, dating back probably in the 1890s. He built the first movie house down there. He had several 16:00blocks of stores on the ground floor and hotels up the second floor and arcades and all kinds of things. In fact, he liked it down there so much that of the land that he owned or acquired, he gave a, right at the ferry that went over from West Palm Beach to Palm Beach, a ferry used to run across. He gave enough land and built a bandstand there because he had this European background where in the afternoon at resorts, there would be band concerts, you see? He liked it, and then in the winter time they always stayed at the Poinciana Hotel, which was then the great hotel. There was no feeling in those days of being anti-Semitic 17:00or anti-Jewish or whatever the hell you like to call it. This thing came. It was a poison that spread from Europe.

D.C.:

That's ironic in a way since as we discussed the other day, Mr. Bernheim was an assimilationist.

R.P.:

Yes.

D.C.:

As you put it.

R.P.:

Yes, he always had been. As a boy in Germany, he had read in translation the Declaration of Independence and some of the quotations from Thomas Jefferson and Lincoln. No, maybe not Lincoln, but Thomas Jefferson certainly. He was born in 18:001848. In that period on even as a boy, this was a period of great liberation, liberal feelings in Europe, in Germany. Anyway, he had relatives, so called uncles and cousins that were already in America, and they would write and occasionally visit. In meeting him, they would tell him naturally, they always used to brag a bit more than probably that was actual about the opportunities and life in America, but compared to the small village of Schmieheim where he lived as a small boy, little town, little village that was really dying out, dwindling away because it had been bypassed by the railroads and the big highways. Actually, he was just bound and determined that he was going to emigrate.

R.P.:

Then of course, after he was in America, how he acquired this assimilation thing, I really couldn't say except that religiously, he was one of the early supporters of the Reform. It's Reformed Judaism. That's the correct term, and was a great admirer and a great friend of some of the early rabbis that were the leaders of these movements. And he believed in Americanization. In other words, when you were an immigrant and you came over here, then you were an American. All this damn [inaudible 00:20:24] connections or split loyalties or hyphenated 20:00things he didn't like. He told me once that he would have changed his name from Bernheim, which all right, it's a perfectly good name, to Burnham, B-U-R-N-H-A-M, when he was in Paducah, except that the biggest and best whorehouse [laughing 00:20:53] in Paducah was in those days was run by a Mrs. Burnham. The madam was a Mrs. Burnham, so he didn't want the connection.

D.C.:

His Mr. Bernheim's theories about assimilation, he didn't keep to himself.

R.P.:

No, no, he was very vocal. Really among you might say the establishment, and he wouldn't like to use the word Jewry or Jewish congregations. He was quite unpopular because of his views. Had a great feud with the famous rabbi in New York City, nationally known Stephen Wise. Some of the correspondence and things, pamphlets were written. This was the day of pamphleteering. Mr. Bernheim would get out a pamphlet and send it around, and Stephen Wise would get out a counter-pamphlet and denounce him from the pulpit and a few other things.

R.P.:

One of his ideas was that a lot of the troubles of the Jews worldwide was 22:00because of the influence of the rabbis, that the rabbis scared the Jews about what the Gentiles would do to them, or non-Jews would do to them, in order to have a cohesive community and so they wouldn't lose members. Therefore they had the kosher laws, dietary laws, frowned upon intermarriage, and that kind of thing. You see? Which he said was nothing but to self-perpetuate themselves in their jobs. He started and organized, taking a feather or a page out of the Unitarians and Unitarianism, which by the way Mr. Bernheim was a Unitarian also. 23:00He joined the Unitarian Church. [inaudible 00:23:29] the Laymen's League and he organized the, I can't remember exactly the name of it. I think it was equivalent to Jewish Laymen's League. Laymen's League of Reformed Judaism, so that laymen would have more influence in the congregations because in the early days when the rabbi spoke, I mean, he was the cultural leader and the legal leader and really control.

R.P.:

Then of course Mr. Bernheim had, like all people who are ability and great determination, he had some ideas that completely impacted him. One was to start 24:00another church, which he called Reformed Church of American Israelites.

D.C.:

Go ahead.

R.P.:

He wanted to get rid of the word "Jew" because in those days if you looked up in the dictionary about "Jew," you would see that it had certain objectionable synonyms. "To Jew a person down" would be equivalent to gyp a person, to Jew them. He thought, get rid of the word "Jew," the word that's being great deal of question about the etymology of the word "Jew," whether it's correct, whether it's one of these bastard words that have been corrupted over the centuries.

R.P.:

In California, started to have services in one of the public buildings on Sunday 25:00afternoon. That was one of the things that the Jews ought to have the Sabbath holiday on Sunday like everybody else, not on Friday. And then got the Sunday school with children, which some of the Reform kids themselves always went to Sunday school. It was very easy for him. He was attracted to Unitarian ministers when he was living in Louisville, and wherever, in Denver, every Sunday when we were in Denver he would walk down to the Unitarian church, and the chauffeur would come in the morning. After the services, the chauffeur would come down and pick him up and bring him home.

R.P.:

Very amusing really because when I had my interview with him, he asked me what my religion was, and I told him the truth. I said, "I'm an atheist." He said, "Oh, that's fine. That means you don't object to working on Sundays." I said, "No, not a bit." And he said, "Well, did you ever go to church?" I said, "Well, if I went to any, I'd be like Thomas Jefferson. I'd go to the Unitarian church." I briefly attended Unitarian churches here, though I haven't been in Cincinnati. I had a very good friend, John Malick, who was a Unitarian minister in Cincinnati and knew a lot of very nice Unitarian people in Cincinnati. He said, "Well, he's a Unitarian too. I don't see why a man shouldn't belong to two churches." [inaudible 00:27:27].

D.C.:

Was the reform, let me see if I've got the name right. The Reformed Church of American Israelites, was that just an idea, or did he actually-

R.P.:

No, he actually formed it and started it in California, hired a rabbi who was not employed at that time. He lived in San Diego, and he'd gotten into some trouble, a divorce. I believe he was an alcoholic. Mr. Bernheim paid him about $6,000 a year to conduct the services. Ironically I used to have to edit and write this goddamn fellow's sermon. But oh, that went on for a while, and Mr. 28:00Bernheim tried to promote it, and it really, it grew a good deal, but after a while it faded because when Mr. Bernheim thought that it was about time for those who were coming to the services and having membership were contributing somewhat to the support of it, they faded like the leaves in the fall, withered on the vine, so they just quit. But I may still have a few pamphlets.

D.C.:

I'd like to see those.

R.P.:

On the...

D.C.:

His debates with the pamphlet war with the rabbi?

R.P.:

Well, I've got those, but I've also got the pamphlets he put out and mailed out on the Reformed Church of American Israelites.

D.C.:

I'd like to see.

R.P.:

He called the Church, Reformed Church, and he also called it Israelites instead 29:00of Jews, see, Judaism. But that didn't work. It faded.

D.C.:

He advocated these same ideas with the Jewish community in Louisville, did he not?

R.P.:

Oh, yes, sure. Of course the most tragic and most amusing also thing was when he attempted to address the meeting of the, I forgot exactly what it is. No, but in Berlin, Germany, it was in the Free Church of Berlin, Free Synagogue of Berlin. Has a whole chapter devoted to his [inaudible 00:30:20]. But they wouldn't agree 30:00to have him as a delegate, but then he went anyway and got in, but they wouldn't let him speak [inaudible 00:30:39].

R.P.:

I think one of the main things was when the Reformed congregation decided to move.

zR.P.:

This was when the reformed congregation decided to move from the synagogue, on somewhere near Walnut Street. On 5th and Walnut, somewhere around there, to its most recent location on 3rd Street. He resisted it, and predicted this, wanted 31:00to go further out. Long way further out. Because he said, "In 20 years, as long as that part of 3rd Street has had nothing but boarding houses, rooming houses, assimilation houses, and places with Chinese laundries in the basements." There's no place.

R.P.:

So he wouldn't contribute to the building fund. That made him a little bit unpopular. But Mr. Bernheim is very interesting because just last night, I was at a cocktail party, and I met Mr. Hallenburg from Anchorage. And Mr. Hallenburg was telling me that the Bernheim country home, which is presently owned by one 32:00of the Reynolds, was going to be subdivided. And he said he will never forget how kindly and wonderful Mr. Bernheim was to him, and all the boys around him. Letting him come into the house, they had one of these Wurlitzer organs or ... It wasn't a Wurlitzer, it was a ... Excuse me, I know the name of the organ, it's just that it wasn't a Wurlitzer, built into the house. And they also used to ride their horses. Said he had 50 acres of woods behind his home, and so forth and so on.

R.P.:

And Mr. Hallenburg, whom I only know slightly, was just staying, "Oh, he was such a warm, wonderful person." Well, as a matter of fact, he was with children. He loved little children and was very kind to them. And liked young people. But 33:00with adults and people, he was an extremely severe disciplinarian. Which, matter of fact, when I first came to Louisville, many men would come up to me and say, "You don't know me, but I was employed as an office boy back in 17th and Breckinridge, Mr. Bernheim's office." And they'd tell me the most gruesome stories of the discipline and hard work and whatnot. And then they say, "Yes, but I owe everything I have to the training that I got from Mr. Bernheim." He's made them become successful executives and successes in the insurance business and whatever it was. And it paid off.

R.P.:

And he was always charitable, because I have in my possession his little cash 34:00book that he kept when he was a young man in Paducah, before he was married. And in there, you will find 10 cents, 15 cents to go to the showboat, when they were coming down for a little theatrical thing. It was 10 cents that he paid to some kind of a remittance or ... Anyway, a fella that kept bar. He was an Englishman. So he'd go in after hours and pay him 10 cents for English lessons. And that will be 10 cents for charity.

R.P.:

And then, when the flood of 1887 came along, and there was no Red Cross and stuff like that down in Paducah, he was the man who went to the baker and told, "Bake bread! Keep on baking and have bread for anyone who wants it." And he brought in trainloads of coal, and did everything to help.

R.P.:

And he was like that all his life. People though he was very much wealthier than he was because of his charitable contributions. Personally, he wouldn't give you a dime. He'd lend you money. He'd lend people money for business reasons, you know? And many a time, either acquaintances, or distance relatives, and they'd want money, and then he'd say, "No, I'm not going to give you anything." Like a loan. A loan they got to pay off, and then it wouldn't be long before he'd turn to me and say, "Paul, write so-and-so and tell them [inaudible 00:36:15]" That was his way of giving them more money. He wouldn't admit that he was being kind 36:00and nice [laughing 00:36:26].

D.C.:

So he had a rough exterior-

R.P.:

Oh, yes. And basically, he was a very shy man.

R.P.:

He loved vaudeville, when vaudeville was vaudeville, you know? He loved the theater, and he liked the old operas. He kept humming Martha, you know things from Martha?

R.P.:

And he was a constant reader. Oh, way back, there were these little five cent books, blue books brought up by Haldeman, probably somewhere in Pennsylvania. And they were on everything. Bertrand Russell or philosophy, or Jefferson and 37:00history, and all kinds of things. And he'd always carry one of those things in his pocket. And it wouldn't matter, whether he was in the toilet or waiting for somebody. He'd pick one, "I'll read."

R.P.:

And he didn't like novels. He like biographies. So at Christmastime or birthdays, anybody wanted to give him a present, they gave him biographies.

D.C.:

Was there anyone that he particularly admired in history?

R.P.:

Well, I think anybody that made a real success. I know he liked Pulitzer, the [inaudible 00:38:06] the publisher. No, I don't think there was anyone in particular. He had no ... I don't think he ever had any heroes. He liked Teddy Roosevelt. He thought he was a great guy. And then of course, Senator Barkley. 38:00Kentucky Senator Barkley, because he'd known him down in the old days and helped him along in different ways, and Barkley was very loyal to him. Anything that Mr. Bernheim wanted up in Washington, or anything that a little influence would pay, Senator Barkley was right on the spot, he'd say.

R.P.:

And that's one thing I'll say about Mr. Bernheim. Matter of fact, I think it's characteristic of Jewish people that they will ... They'll never forget a favor or decent treatment, and you can bet your bottom dollar they'll never forget an injury or an insult. And in my adult life, I've had many, many dealings with Jewish people, business-wise and otherwise, and I like them. Because you know 39:00where you stand. A Jewish man, if you're negotiating, he'll hammer at you. Hammer and tongs. And then you shake hands. Make a deal. One or two. And then it's finished. You go out to lunch, and it's okay.

R.P.:

But for some of these WASPs, W-A-S-P, those are white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants, that have a social background, they are smooth. They are glib. They are very, very nice, but that's surface. We don't know where the hell you stand. But Jews don't want to play with you. They'll tell you. It's the same thing with charitable things. You go to a Jewish man, "You think this is something you'd 40:00like to support?" They say, "This is a load of bull. I wouldn't have anything to do with it." Now, chances are that a non-Jewish person, at least, the average establishment person, wouldn't say that. Say, "Well, we'll keep [inaudible 00:40:42] under consideration." That's all.

R.P.:

No, no. Mr. Bernheim, he was tenacious. He was a bulldog. He instituted a suit for very, very good reasons, against the L&N Railroad. I won't go into the details, but, went on for years, and years, and years, and years, and years, and finally, the L&N Railroad was beaten in the Court of Appeals in Kentucky. And after that time was the only time that the L&N Railroad had ever been beat.

D.C.:

What was the suit over?

R.P.:

That is so complicated, it's no use. But it's all in the law reference books, and it's a classical case.

D.C.:

Was it I. W. Bernheim versus L&N Railroad?

R.P.:

No, it was the minority stockholder. A committee representing the minority stockholders of the L&N Railroad. And this involved ... I won't go into it. But it would have never have occurred except when Mr. Bernheim went to a stockholders meeting of the L&N Railroad, and as a stockholder, he asked to see the books, which he had the perfect right as a stockholder, and the then President of the L&N Railroad promptly said, "I'm not going to open the books of the L&N Railroad for any God-damn Jew to look at." See? That started it. And 42:00immediately, Mr. Bernheim organized a committee, and of course he was the committee.

R.P.:

And judges died, lawyers died, and everything went on for [inaudible 00:42:41] By now, it doesn't look like it.

D.C.:

I'm just curious, [inaudible 00:42:48] you know what his family decided?

R.P.:

I really couldn't ...

D.C.:

It was after you came to work-

R.P.:

Oh, in the late 30s or ... Yeah. In the very late 30s.

D.C.:

It stayed in the state courts?

R.P.:

Oh, sure. Court of Appeals. Oh, it's famous. All the lawyers know it.

D.C.:

So you described a man who was a hard-nosed business man, he had charity, who had a rough exterior, yet was very kind-hearted.

R.P.:

Yeah.

D.C.:

A philanthropist.

R.P.:

Yeah.

D.C.:

Could you say some more about his philanthropy? Some of the things in Louisville? For instance, you came to work with Mr. Bernheim, he was 77 years old?

R.P.:

That time, yeah.

D.C.:

And you spent hours a day transacting his business. What business was he transacting at that age?

R.P.:

Well, he was out of the whiskey business then, so it was mostly stocks, securities and that kind of thing. Cotton speculation. Cotton and wheat.

D.C.:

Besides the foundation, which I'd like to talk about a bit by itself, was he working with any other charities of this kind?

R.P.:

Not in that sense, no. He build the library for the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. No, I would say it was a broad contribution to community chests and diverse charities, I'd say. That's about all. No, there wasn't anything 45:00particular. He was a great friend of Hutchins of Berea. That would be the grandfather of the Hutchins'. Oh, the father of the Hutchins' had just died.

D.C.:

Robert Hutchins, yeah.

R.P.:

Yeah. And you know, he did different things. Well, of course you know about the Lincoln statue at the library. And then he and his brother gave the Jefferson statue outside the courthouse, which incidentally, the files of the courier journal will show you, probably, that there was great resistance on the part of some people in Louisville against that, because they claimed that Mr. Bernheim, 46:00or the Bernheim brothers were not doing this. This was for their own selves. They were going to bring out a brand new whiskey known as Thomas Jefferson Whiskey.

R.P.:

In similarity, when Mr. Bernheim and I happened to be in Washington and oh, he'd like to go to art galleries and walk around places. We were in the capital, and we noticed the fact that every state was represented in Statuary Hall except Kentucky. He said, "Poor old Kentucky, it's a damn shame." So then, he started to work on getting two statues made to represent Kentucky. Well, the idea was to have a competition of the schoolchildren. Well, of course that was really nonsense, because they were all going to say Lincoln. But Mr. Bernheim said, 47:00"Well, the statues of Lincoln, Mount Washington are dime a dozen."

R.P.:

Anyway, there was a committee of three. It was the President of the Louisville University, Dr. Hutchins from Berea, and that wonderful President of the University of Kentucky. Dr. McVey, at that time. Again, Mr. Bernheim delegated to me. I met with these three gentlemen in the Kentucky Hotel. And ... I don't know, they didn't really want Kentucky, Lincoln, and ... Well, of course Clay, that was a natural. Henry Clay. And the other one. Well, it just happened that I had read of Ephraim McDowell, who performed the first ovariotomy. And I hopped 48:00over to the medical library to phone up on him, and came back and met these three gentleman. So that was it. So we decided it'd be Ephraim McDowell and Henry Clay. And then Mr. Bernheim hired this ... It doesn't exactly help, but anyways, it was this ...

D.C.:

This doctor in Louisville. Anyway, the [inaudible 00:48:58]

R.P.:

There were all kinds of pressures put against having the damn statues accepted and put in Washington if it hadn't been for Barkley. They didn't a Jew to do it, because nobody else had thought of doing it. You see?

R.P.:

And then a replica of him was made and given up to Franklin. It's ridiculous. 49:00Nobody else had thought of doing it, but they didn't want ... Was the irony of the insistence against all the rules and regulations, I managed to get Mr. Bernheim's name put on the bottom of those statues in Statuary Hall, because I told them afterwards, "Around London they have an awful lot of statues, and usually statues, over the centuries, are only known for one of three things. One is, either because, who the status is of, you know? Often, they've forgotten who the hell the guy was, but it's known because of the sculptor. And then sometimes both of them are forgotten, but they remember the man who gave them." So I said, "Just write down the base in little letters." So, anyway.

D.C.:

That sort of settled antisemitism in that way, a statue-

R.P.:

Yes. It's a basic thing. It's part of life. It's hidden. It's a thing that's developed over the centuries. Centuries, centuries. There are very, very nice people, and I've got great, many friends who wouldn't hurt a fly, you know? But if someone of the Jewish faith or Jewish connection comes belong, just sense that the Jewish community bought a house next door to them or across, on the next street, so they're backed up ...

R.P.:

One of them said to me, "You know, the people to the back of us, their garden's just lovely, and the house, and it's just a nice view ... But my Lord, I didn't 51:00know just now that they're Jews." See? I was very upset about it. I said, "Well, my God, they've been living here for two years, and they've been awfully nice neighbors. What the hell does it matter if they're [inaudible 00:51:38]" So there you go.

R.P.:

Don't know. It's a grave problem and I don't know what the answer is.

D.C.:

Did that sort of thing upset Mr. Bernheim, or did he learn that it was inevitable?

R.P.:

Well, he didn't ... Somehow or other, it didn't seem to affect him, personally. He really had more friends, in a way, that were non-Jews than ... He didn't seem to have personal friendships, but he had business friendships. I mean ... Friendships ... He used to have a saying.

R.P.:

"Build friendship on business, not business on friendship." But he'd get to know people, in business transactions, and then it develops socially and so forth, and become friends. But ... Oh, he had good friends. The [Seleguins 00:52:46]. The wonderful [Seleguin 00:52:50] family that were lawyers here. They were very good friends of his. And others in the community. Great many, oh yes. He wasn't ostracized in his community by any means.

R.P.:

But they would have liked, I think the ... I think the great difficulty with the Jewish community in Louisville, I'm being frank, was that, when he set up this Bernheim Foundation for the Bernheim Forest, the general feeling in the Jewish community was that he should've done something specifically for the Jews. 53:00Whereas he didn't. And then, of course, they felt badly, they criticized, because on the board of trustees, except for the very beginning, when he had a lot of his grandsons and people on it, did not have any Jewish people on the board, except his half nephew, Louis W. Cole, who was a great man and one of the favorites, a good friend, and very devoted to his, as I say, his uncle. So there was a feeling that way. And I think there was some feeling that the money could've been left was more definitely Jewish.

D.C.:

Did he anticipate that, or?

R.P.:

I only had the end result. But I'm sure that if anybody approached him, he'd 54:00say, "No, I want to do something for the people of Kentucky." He liked the people of Kentucky. He said, "They've always been so kind to me." He called them clever people. A kind people. Clever people. And that's why he wanted to do something for them. More of less Louisville, because this is where had this whiskey business many years, and made a great success. But generally speaking, the whole thing, Bernheim Forest, is for the pleasure and benefit of the people of Kentucky and their friends.

D.C.:

Did he ever ... I think you said that he was out of the whiskey business by the time he drew you in, but did he ever talk about his business? What happened to 55:00his business?

R.P.:

Well, when Prohibition came in in 1920, they ... He was out of the whiskey business. The ... I don't know too much about the whiskey business. Never was in it myself. But Mr. Bernheim did one thing. They all thought he was put in. Before Prohibition was put in, he could see it coming. And he had the distilleries that they owned making whiskey day and night. As much as they could, because he took a gamble. Said they might pour beer down the sewers, but they're not going to pour whiskey down. And so it could be used for medicinal purposes, or blending, or something.

R.P.:

And he had 10 thousand barrels of whiskey in his own name, which was a fortune, 56:00but Mr. Bernheim had given his stock away to his children and to his employees, so he no longer controlled the company. Therefore, when Prohibition was repealed, which was about 1934, I think. It was 35, 36. And he would've liked to have gone back into the whiskey, but he was too old. Louis W. Cole, who was his favorite nephew here, and a very successful businessman, was too busy with his own chain stores. He had grocery stores. His sons-in-law, the sons that were 57:00still alive, had their own businesses. They were living in Cincinnati, or New York, or something. And the sons-in-law also had their own businesses. See? So there's really no one to rebuild the distilleries and get back into business.

R.P.:

However, he figured that we'd make a stab at it, and we raised about two million dollars, see? But it just happened that the Bernheim Distilling Company basically was owned, 49, 51% by Isaac W. Bernheim, and his brother, Bernard Bernheim. His brother had died, in about 1921. About that. 1922.

R.P.:

And anyway, it was difficult. There was no ... The two sides of the family did not agree on things. However, briefly, Mr. Bernheim did not control the stock. He only had 103 shares in his own name. And therefore, when the chips went out ... I won't go into all the details of it. The majority vote, so forth, the distillery was sold to a couple of ex-bootleggers. Schwarzhaupt and Gerngross. Schwarzhaupt was a wonderful man. Bachelor, bootlegger, the highest order. Dealt in fine whiskey, brandies and champagne. He was very generous. Loved art, music, 59:00and so forth.

R.P.:

Anyway, his partner, Gerngross was a real, rough time. Anyway, they got it and they didn't want the buildings. They wanted the stocks of whiskey. They good old whiskey, which could be blended. You would mix it with alcohol to make blends. And so then they ran it, and they, in turn, eventually sold it to Schenley. And that's the story of Bernheim Distilling Company.

R.P.:

And the Bernheim Distilling Company has a subsidiary of Schenley's in existence. 17th and Breckinridge.

D.C.:

And I guess ... I'm just curious. Under what brands did-

R.P.:

I. W. Harper. That's the big, famous brand. And there's a lot of different 60:00opinions and legends of how that name came about. Mr. Bernheim told me that he wanted an American name, so he chose Harper from Harper's Ferry. And he put his own initials in front of it. I. W. Harper. Some people said he had a cracked salesman with the name of Harper, but I don't think it's true. That's the story Mr. Bernheim told me.

D.C.:

It's just the historian in me that makes me have to ask, do you know if Mr. Bernheim's business records of the distillery went with the transfer to I. W. Harper?

R.P.:

I haven't the thinnest idea. I have some of the old ... The old business 61:00records, I do not have, and what they become of, I don't know. I have some of these journals and personal things, and I've also got things down in the office. I've a pretty good print-out genealogy of the family, and I'm trying, if I ever room, get some of the goop kicked out of the foundation's office, where I can have good filing cabinet down there. I want to assemble these things before it's too late. So ...

R.P.:

So... but what became of the business records, I don't know. And all the personnel you and Mr. Bernheim led now they're gone.

D.C.:

Now, I'm not exactly clear on this but were you saying that with Mr. Bernheim 62:00owned the business that the brand he made was called I.W. Harper?

R.P.:

That was the chief brand, yeah.

D.C.:

What were some of the others, I understood [crosstalk 01:02:31]-

R.P.:

I don't know, I don't know, don't know.

D.C.:

I didn't know this.

R.P.:

That is a famous brand, I.W. Harper, and it sold all over the world. And it's still a good whiskey. By the way, anyone want a drink?

R.P.:

That is not, does not happen to be I.W. Harper.

D.C.:

What about... that's a...

R.P.:

Would you like a cup of coffee?

D.C.:

Oh yeah, sure.

R.P.:

Holly! Could you get us a cup of coffee? The two of us? Just warm up so of what he had for breakfast, please.

R.P.:

You know, I.W. harper was a very, very fine high class fine whiskey. I think it's kept up to standard but I don't have any connections with the Bernheim distillery anymore because they never gave the foundation a damn bit of help or cooperation. We'd given them a great deal of left-handed publicity, we'll say. Always think that, people think that Bernheim Distilling Company either owns us 64:00or we own them, or something or other and I think it's such a nice thing, you know. But just one of my own idiosyncrasies, I won't drink that damn whiskey anymore. But I like Old Fitzgerald because...

D.C.:

The reason I ask you is you probably know, or probably have heard of Tom Clarke, the Kentucky historian?

R.P.:

Oh, sure.

D.C.:

I heard him say once that he had tried, that he had wanted to write a definitive history, of the whiskey industry in Louisville and Kentucky and that he had had a hard time and had been unsuccessful in gaining access to the records of the various companies.

R.P.:

Quite likely because ... the whiskey business is naturally secret formulas and a 65:00lot of bull, really. All whiskeys are basically alike, you know, and it's just that they build up prestige through advertising and quality. If you haven't got the quality you're not going to get the on-air advertising. The world won't make lousy whiskey into good whiskey but.. and there's a great deal of... when I use the word finagling I don't mean that in a derogatory sense but there is such an enormous tax on whiskey that a lot of the things that distillers do are for tax advantages so its an extremely financial industry. And the top executives, usually the sharp pencil boys are no longer tax [inaudible 01:06:20].

R.P.:

But incidentally, there is a good book that was written probably ten years ago 66:00called The Social History of Bourbon and it was written by a gentleman that lives up in the Connecticut valley. I don't think I've got a copy of it any longer. And, curiously enough, he spent six weeks in Louisville and never contacted me or knew anything about the Bernheim Distillery. So when I got the volume of it somewhere, I picked it up somewhere, I wrote him. And I had quite a lot of correspondences and he said, "Well, sure, if there's a second edition"... which as far as I know there has never been one ..."then I will make these corrections.

D.C.:

I heard you when I was down at your office the other day you had a phone call and it was someone who was complaining about having gone to Bernheim Forrest and 67:00the gates where closed. And you explained to them that when the place fills up that the gates just have to be closed and can't let anyone else in. Now, how many times have you explained that to people? How many phone calls like that have you had?

R.P.:

No, that would be impossible to estimate because... Strangely enough be have very few calls. Now, for instance this year, I think on four successive Sundays... see we open on March the 15th and then really the people don't start coming out much until April, and four successive Sundays and one Saturday we had to close the gates. But very, very rarely do we get an inquiry or complaint.

R.P.:

I think we have Rangers at the gate that try to explain to people and we put 68:00signs up. But strangely enough, most of the complaints we get... any mugs will do Holly, you don't have to get the fancy china out... strangely enough the complaints we get are people who completely misunderstand the place is open but they try to get in the exit gate instead of the entrance. And we have... the gate is closed there for some reason so we keep people from coming in though, because then we don't have any control of them, you see. But at certain times we use [inaudible 01:09:10]. And people see a sign on it "Closed" on that gate and they don't read the sign that says "Use entrance one mile west". See? Then they 69:00call and ask, want to know what we are closed for. I say, "We weren't closed."

D.C.:

What's the most... there surely must be common misconceptions about just what Bernheim Forrest is, what-

R.P.:

The greatest difficulty that we have to get over to the public, is that it is a privately owned property. People think it is either a federally operated park or it's a state park. And somehow, just because of its size, or it's because it's 10,000 acres, and the facilities, and it's entirely different from anything else you can find anywhere and it never crosses anybody's mind that one person could 70:00have made it possible.

R.P.:

And yet we have, in the nature museum we have here, and there and everywhere, on our literature, on our folders, everything, explaining ",This is not a state or county or so forth and so on." This is privately owned and operated by the Issac W. Bernheim Foundation, endowed by so and so, and so and so. And it is impossible to reach everybody, because you can put it out on the radio.

R.P.:

Now if we're going to close down on Memorial day, which is most likely, we may be close by 11:30 in the morning. We don't know. Probably the people would be lined up at 9 o'clock in the morning waiting to get in. And the people that come in on the holidays, they're not going to move. They're going to be there all day long. So there's no turn over. So we probably have to close when actually 71:00attendance is fewer than there would be on a normal Sunday.

D.C.:

Yeah.

R.P.:

But, if we're going to close down, just like in the fall, if the government gives a proclamation that all forested areas or wooded areas have to be closed to the public because of fire danger, well we get on the radio. And the radio people in Louisville are very, very cooperative. WKLO and WHAS and all the rest of them. All we have to do is we call them up and they get it out on the spot announcements all the time. But, not everyone's got the radio tuned.

R.P.:

You can put ads in the county papers and we've covered the... see people come to us mostly from Jefferson County but then we have Bullit County, Nelson County, Oldham County you know? About five counties. I mean we're trying to ads in the 72:00weekly newspapers telling what the hell Bernheim is. Something really good. But you can't help it.

D.C.:

I guess while we're on it we might as well talk about the evolution, the origin of the Trust and...

R.P.:

Well, I think the easiest way to explain it is that Mr. Bernheim was always interested in what is now known as conservation. And the early days of the National Forrest and the National Parks, and belonged to various societies and supported these things and donated money and whatnot.

R.P.:

And then somewhere around ... he had distributed two thirds of his estate among 73:00his children, in roughly even parts. And he told them, at the time, that he was retaining one third for his own use and he intended that, either by will or otherwise that we would devote it to some public purpose which he had not made up his mind about. And of course the children were grateful. They said, "Father this is your..." I have the letters, as a matter of fact. Children wrote them saying, "Father this is your money, do what you want with it. So, out and thank you very much."

R.P.:

But any way, I really think that, he was inspired by Mayor Jacobs of Louisville 74:00who, on his own was responsible for getting a hold of Eric [inaudible 01:14:31] and then... Also, there was time when after World War I when in various parts of the country, people dedicated forested or wooded areas as memorials to World War veterans. I think that was the way our Jefferson County Forest was started, as a memorial.

R.P.:

Well, this was turning around in his mind and then finally... I mean he used to talk it over morning, noon, and night and it developed and finally came around to the idea of getting a sanctuary. Buying up sufficient land near enough to 75:00Louisville to establish a kind of a park. But it would not be a park in the normal sense of it. It would be an area large enough to be used as a sanctuary for all desirable wildlife. It was in that park, there would be developed area. I mean within the sanctuary, there would be a developed area which would be along park-like lines with circulating roads. And under certain circumstances there would be a natural history museum, which was down because of finances. It was impotent. Or, a nature museum, similar to the ones they had in state parks.

R.P.:

And also, later on we had developed... and I want to be frank because I'd put 76:00the idea into his head of an arboretum, because I had visited a home in Belgium that had been occupied by Napoleon during the Napoleonic War, and it later became an arboretum. And I talked to him about it. And as, in the development of his country home in Anchorage, he'd employed Olmsted the famous Boston...

D.C.:

...landscape architect

R.P.:

landscape architects and two of them, they knew of the Arnold Arboretum in Boston and kind of meshed in, you see. The idea it was to have an arboretum within this complex. And Olmsted, matter of fact, drew up the first... well thank you darling -

Speaker 1:

Well, it's not really needed.

R.P.:

You can just put it there for me, that would be all right.

Speaker 1:

Mmmhmm.

R.P.:

You're wonderful, thank you. Well let see ... no you don't have to pull the... don't have to pull that.

Speaker 1:

Frankly said, that coffee isn't very good.

R.P.:

Well, it's good enough.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

R.P.:

Thank you, darling.

Speaker 1:

Coffee [crosstalk 01:17:44]

R.P.:

Don't you downgrade your coffee, this coffee... Look I want to show you, look at that. That's a sterling silver spoon with MB on it which is Mandy Bernheim, which is. Mr. Bernheim gave Holly a whole set of those spoons which he had had six of them for his first wife. I don't know the date on them, but you see they're well used.

D.C.:

You don't see things like that too much anymore.

R.P.:

No. Help yourself. Would you like sugar or cream?

D.C.:

I just take it-

R.P.:

Black. So anyway it -

Speaker 1:

[inaudible 01:18:22]

R.P.:

That's alright honey, it looks good. It's fine.

Speaker 1:

That's right.

R.P.:

But, anyway, it went along. So Mr. Bernheim gave the directive down here to Louisville and as Mr. I. Sydney Jenkins, who was then an officer in the real estate department, I think of the old Louisville Trust Company who managed to find, or ran across this piece of land already built up in Nelson County. I. Sydney Jenkins J-E-N-K-I-N-S. And, it was about 13,000 acres, 12,500 acres which was owned by Dr. Wheatican. I... want to remember his first name... who was an 79:00Optometrist in Louisville at his place of business then on Third Street. Around Walnut. And... no, yes Walnut. And Mr. Wheatican had become land poor, so he had gotten a loan of about $100,000 or so from an insurance company, I think it was the Columbia Life Insurance Company of Cincinnati.

R.P.:

As the only security for the loan was the timber on the land and Dr. Wheatican was cutting it off and selling it without paying off on his notes, the property was foreclosed and it was sold at the courthouse steps in Bardstown. And it just 80:00happened at that time Mr. Bernheim... so Sydney Jenkins was looking this kind of thing and immediately just bought it. And, of course his directive was to get the largest acreage or wild land like Iroquois Park originally, as nearest you can to the Iroquois. And that seemed to be it. So they bought it and it was bought in the name of the United States Trust Company. And then the same time he caused to be... that was 1928. And then in May 1929, he caused the foundation to be incorporated and also set up a trust fund, I.W. Bernheim Trust Fund into 81:00which the idea was he would put securities which would accumulate. And then, after his death, that would provide the endowment income for the foundation which owns the property and oversees the development along the lines he wanted it to be.

R.P.:

And, within the limits of finance, and practicality and everything else, his wishes have been carried out. And I think he would be very pleased.

D.C.:

When did... I see the land was bought by Mr. Jenkins on the step of the Nelson County Court House in 1928. When did the actual work to develop the forest as it is today begin?

R.P.:

Well, it started almost right away. 1930 I would say. First of all, you had to 82:00have a survey of it. Then we had to have boundaries established. And this was rough land. There was no roads in it, there was scarcely a road to get down to it. In fact, you went down what was known a poor farm road off highway 61 and if that was impassable, you came round by Chapeeze Lane and then you went down a bit and further on were our present entrances. And you had to cross the creek about two or three times to get into the damn place.

R.P.:

And then, the next thing to do was to get a fire tower up. A crew, men, and then finally employ the forester. The first forester was a college man, and this was really his first job. And, unfortunately, he found out that he was allergic to 83:00everything there was in the forest environment which gave him asthma. So he had to give it up finally.

R.P.:

Then, Tom McKinley was hired and he was a marvelous man. And he put in the fire trails and cleaned up inside. We had to take out all the interior fencing, you know. You see, it was a bunch of farms, and lands, small holdings and what not. And it went on, and on, and on. And of course, the depression came on. It was the 1930's. The stock market crashed in 1929 and the depression really got hold in 1932 and so forth. So, finances were difficult, and labor. You could get all the labor you want, my god, they were paying people 15 cents an hour in those days.

R.P.:

But, the work went on and Mr. Bernheim financed it out of his own personal 84:00pocket. And then the war years came on, the Second World War, where you couldn't do anything, practically. But he always kept a crew out and they did a certain amount of work, preliminary work which was all necessary. It would have had to have been done. And then, plans were made, surveys, Olmsted came down, made most elaborate plans which were entirely impractical, you know. Then, we had successive forest managers down there and then Mr. James W. Brown went out there about 1937, 38, and he did a lot of work and he was very fine. He was really an 85:00amateur, but he was an excellent man and he'd been office manager for Mr. Bernheim's young distillery. But he had a green thumb and he wanted to get out in the country and do work. Anyway, tremendous amount of work was done. But, my god in those days you had mules, and skids, and hand labor. There wasn't any of the bulldozer business, you know.

R.P.:

Everything was necessary. And then later on, the question of water came up and we got to build the big lake which we named after Hugh Nevin, who was an architect in Louisville who was on the board for a number of years and also 86:00president of the foundation. While he was away in Florida... we didn't really want to call it lake number one or number two, or number three so we thought it would be a nice thing to name it after him. And it's a water supply, it's sanitary for the facility, picnic areas, clearings, plantings. That was one of the first things we did. Planted thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands of trees. And as conditions change, you change with them.

R.P.:

Then, Jim Brown died in 1949 and he was succeeded by Frank Buntz as the forest manager. And he was an excellent man. He'd been down at Otter Creek, well-known. He was a trained man. Bernheim Foundation has always been lucky. We've always 87:00had the right man, the right type of man at the time he was needed. And Jim Brown...McKinley was a marvelous man. The only rat that we ever had was... poor fella is dead now so I won't mention his name but he was only there briefly.

R.P.:

Then, Buntz came down and he stayed with us almost 20 years until he retired and he has been succeeded by a young man, C.K. McClure. Charles Kay McClure III. And that's the reason that I'm drinking this whiskey. Because he is a grandson of 88:00the founder of this [inaudible 01:28:30]. Old Fitzgerald, see. Pappy Van Winkle. He's one of the Van Winkles. His grandfather was, see?

R.P.:

And this is a very interesting sideline. I don't know if this should go into your records or not, but when young Mac, who has been sounded out by some of our trustees and [inaudible 01:28:57]. But then he [inaudible 01:28:57] in courtesy, brought in to be interviewed, or get to know me a bit. So I told him, I said, "Well, Mr. McClure, you [inaudible 01:29:12] Mr. Bernheim and your grandfather would be turning over in their graves if they knew you were going to be employed by Bernheim Foundation. They were bitter rivals. And your grandfather never had 89:00anything good to say about Mr. Bernheim." I said, "As a matter of fact, years ago through coincidence, somebody picked up a copy of Outdoor Sports of Outdoor Life, or something like that on a library on trans-Atlantic ship. And in it was an interview with Mr. Van Winkle on the early-day distillers in Louisville. And he panned Mr. Isaac W. Bernheim unmercifully. Said he was stingy, dishonest, and that he used to ship the whiskey down to that place on Main Street and dilute it. Well, of course, every distiller did that because it had to be brought to the correct proof, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera."

R.P.:

And, as an example of Mr. Isaac W. Bernheim's stinginess, Pappy Van Winkle said... everybody called him Pappy... said that on some special occasion, Mrs. Amanda Bernheim... that was his first wife... asked him for a pearl necklace and Mr. Isaac Bernheim was to stingy to give it to her. Well, I happen... all the Bernheim family have been wonderful to me and Holly, my wife, married me after I went to work for Mr. Bernheim. I've been one of the family. There isn't anybody 91:00who could have been kinder or nicer to me. And that's gone down to the grandchildren. And it didn't matter, whatever differences, or complications, or personal feelings they might have had about one another, or a cousin, or whatever, they have been just wonderful. And until very recently, used to keep a close [inaudible 01:31:51]. Only one knew what the hell anybody else in the family was doing, because they [inaudible 01:31:56].

R.P.:

And at Christmas they'd said, "Well, have you heard from so-and-so and so-and-so." [inaudible 01:32:00] Well, anyway, wonderful people. And I happen to know that [interview cuts off 01:32:07]. I don't read the damn thing. And I 92:00demanded a retraction... yes dear?

Speaker 1:

You still talking?

R.P.:

Well, you know when I get started... it's 11:46.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I didn't know when you started.

R.P.:

Well, you can come in, honey. Just lie down on the couch and make yourself comfortable.

Speaker 1:

[inaudible 01:32:44]

R.P.:

And anyway, I demanded a retraction, an apology, and a few other things, which, naturally, I never got.

D.C.:

That's interesting about the rivalry among the Louisville distilleries.

R.P.:

Oh-

D.C.:

They're rivals. The rivalry among the [crosstalk 01:33:04].

R.P.:

Oh, oh it was terrible.

D.C.:

Do you know of any other stories about that?

R.P.:

No, except that I know that out at Clermont, old Colonel Beam, who was head of the Beam distilling company. He was violent. See, Bernheim either owned or 93:00partly owned some of the distilleries that were scattered along in Nelson County, see? And oh, there was a [inaudible 01:33:36]. But old Colonel Beam he was always decent to me after I made his acquaintance, you know, but he didn't like I.W. You see, another thing, Mr. Bernheim was always an independent. He wouldn't go in with any of the whiskey trusts. He was kept as an independent distiller.

R.P.:

And also, the whiskey business was very bad in this way. When one distiller started, they'd all start up and then they'd flood the market and get too big, and the price would go down to hell. And then they'd start reusing the output to get the price up again, and they'd have agreements among themselves and no one would ever stick to these agreements.. But that's all old stuff.

R.P.:

But I think just for the purpose of the record I'm going to tell you something about Mr,, no, Dr. Wedican. I've got to think of his first name. Because he was a very unusual man. I think he might have gone over to Vienna and studied eye stuff, and ... hand, eye. He wasn't an oculist or anything like that, I think he was more an optometrist. Operating on them, putting glass in. And he invented some of the early instruments for measuring refraction. Anyway, but he was quite 95:00a character. And he believed in spiritual-he was a spiritualist and belonged to a spiritualist colony up here in Indiana. And Dr. Wedican ... In the early days if you wanted to look over the property, which is now Bernheim Forest, you had to do it on horseback, see?

D.C.:Mm-hmm (affirmative).

R.P.:

So, Dr. Wedican and I, well he used to come down occasionally. Mr. Bernheim would ... Because he was pretty bitter about having to sell the thing off you know. But anyway, these knobs out in Bullet County, they're really more a series of ridges. And we, Dr. Wedican and I were going down on one ridge, and he turned 96:00to me and said, "Mr. Pole, do you see those horsemen going down that other ridge?"

R.P.:

I said, "No, excuse me, Dr. Wedican but your eyes may be better than mine because you're out in the country, and you see these things. I'm short-sighted, a stigmatic city man."

R.P.:

He said, "Don't you see the men on horseback?"

R.P.:

I said, "No."

R.P.:

He said, "Don't you see those men in armor?"

R.P.:

I said, a little bit surprised, I said, "No."

R.P.:

He said, "They're the conquistadors."

R.P.:

And of course he didn't know the conquistadors never got up to Kentucky, but anyway, that was his story. But he was quite weird. And the interesting thing is this, after I came to Louisville--after Mr. Bernheim died in 1945--and then he had arranged with me that at his death I would come down to Louisville and 97:00become Executive Secretary or whatever of his foundation, take care of it and as the saying goes, get the show on the road. Which was a great compliment of course to me, and it's all written up in documents. So, I hadn't been here very long and Dr. Wedican contacted me and asked me to come over and see him at his place of business after they were closed. In the evening.

R.P.:

So, I went up and here's this store on the right hand side of 3rd street going south. The blinds pulled down, went in a kind of reception room, took me into the back and sat me in one of these old-fashioned, looked like a dental chair. 98:00You know, an old-fashioned chair. He said, "Well, first of all, I wanted to tell you that Mr. Bernheim's all right. And we're all working for him, and we've got him from the 7th level up to the 3rd level, and we're working on circle, on the circle, and he's going to be all right." And he said, "Now I can see you're all right because you've got [inaudible 01:38:55]."

R.P.:

Isis was on one side of me, and I don't know who the hell else was some other, Egyptian, or some spiritual counselor was on the other side. I said, "Well, that's very nice to know that."

R.P.:

Well then, Dr. Wedican got down to brass tacks. He said, "You know, I've been 99:00informed by my," he didn't use the word leader, but whoever this contact he has with the spiritual world who had been giving him the information about Mr. Bernheim's progress up through the very circles and stuff like that, up through, I guess heaven or Nirvana or whatever. He said, "I have been informed that Mr. Bernheim has given you his personal desk, and in that desk there's a secret drawer, and if you will open that secret drawer you will find there's a letter there addressed to you to be opened after his death. And in it, he gives instructions that anytime that I wanted the property of the foundation (it was then known as the foundation they hadn't called it Bernheim Forest yet), it be 100:00given back to me, so that I could sell it and start a spiritualistic church in Louisville."

R.P.:

So finally, I said, "Well, Dr. Wedican this is an extremely curious coincidence because Mr. Bernheim did give me his personal desk. I have it upstairs. And there is not only one but two secret compartments in it, which I have opened. But I'm very sorry to say, there's no letter in it." See?

R.P.:

And Dr. Wedican used to bother me and bother me about this and write me letters and so forth, but I never, after one or two times going over to see him I just dropped it. Because he was going a little bit wacky.

D.C.:

So he was serious, it wasn't a bluff.

R.P.:

Oh, no no no, he believed it, sure. Sure. But that was a curious ... There are 101:00relatives of the Wedicans here. But Dr. Wedican assembled this land out there and most of it there was called Rock Ledge Farms. And apparently he got land poor, he used to run camp, they had a dairy and stuff like that. But he was a very curious man. Very brilliant apparently at one time. ... Boy, you could talk a lifetime on these things. But if there's anything particular you want to know I'll be glad to tell you.

D.C.:

Well, I don't think of anything right off hand. We've just about gone through. I brought two hours worth of tape and think we've done about an hour and 45 minutes. A lot of times people, I'll interview people, and they'll think of things later that they wanted to say, and they'll call me and say, "Do you want to come back?" And I'd be glad to come back.

R.P.:

No, I-you can go on, you ... Mr. Bernheim wrote two books, primarily. One was The Bernheim Family. And they're in the public library and the Philson Club and other places, which was written primarily for his own family. That gives the family history and some of the ancestry. And that was written I think in 1911 or 12. And then in 1930, he wrote a book called The Closing Chapters of a Busy 103:00Life, which was a kind of continuation, and I think I have a spare copy of it somewhere and if you want these things for your archives I'd be glad to give you a couple.

D.C.:

I'd like to have it, yeah. I'm just curious, of course, I think it was Mr. Bunce who wrote a fine article for the Philson Club about the life of-

R.P.:

Well, all that information was taken from the two books.

D.C.:

Do you know of, and again it's just my historian's curiosity, do you know of a ... I guess what I want to ask, you're saying there's the two books that Mr. Bernheim wrote, which are partially autobiographical. I guess the last one is-

R.P.:

Both of them.

D.C.:

Exclusively autobiographical. And then the other day at your office you showed 104:00me a couple of personal letters that he had written, and documents and things, and then the newspaper articles. And I was asking too about the records of the distillery. Just in your estimation and to your knowledge, do you know of enough personal papers and things to support a full-scale autobiography?

R.P.:

No. No. No. That's, in a way, it's ... I don't think so, no. See we, Mr. Bernheim and I, the 20 years that I was with him roughly, we were moving around so much, it was absolutely impossible to keep copies of all the letters. A lot 105:00of them were family letters, too. And nothing of any great importance. At least that's what they seemed at the time. You just destroy these things, you know? But I have some very nice letters, one that he wrote from board ship when he was taking a cruise to [inaudible 01:45:48], one of the selling rooms here in Louisville. I've still got that original, also got an original of the letter that ...

R.P.:

And I'm worried myself, what to do with these. Because you don't know whether they should be in the foundation or kept in the foundation. Who knows? Time goes on and people don't give a hoot about these things. Maybe I would take it up with the Board of Trustees and ask them, would it not be wise to assemble 106:00everything that I have in the way of archival character and give them to the university?

D.C.:

Yeah. We'd like for you to do that. In fact, even if the board decided not to do that. Which I think it would be a shame if the records of I.W. Bernheim's life and of the foundation didn't stay in Louisville and weren't available for-

R.P.:

And that's why I have resisted some of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren have been asking me. I said, "I'll send you a xerox. But I'm sorry, I can't give you the original document." But I have no official authority to have these things, they were just in my possession. And also because various relatives here 107:00in Louisville and different people, when somebody died and they ended up going through their papers, they found something referring to Mr. Bernheim and said, let's send them over to Robert Pole. So I've got them. In fact, I'm designated the historian for the foundation now. But it's just a... just a... That's all, but, uh ...

D.C.:

Honorary.

R.P.:

I've tried to keep these things, but a lot of people don't appreciate these things. It's like pictures and things, and things disappear. But I almost saying something about-it had nothing to do with the case and I don't want it on a tape. No, at one time Mr. Bernheim did think of having a biography written of 108:00him, a professional biography, but the people that he contacted were not interested in doing it.

D.C.:

Do you know Dr. Neovani out at U of L? Israel Neovani.

R.P.:

I think I know of him, and I may have met him once, or I may have written to him once and gotten some information.

D.C.:

This, the whole oral-

R.P.:

Isn't he the gentleman who had the Jewish school here?

D.C.:

He was for quite a while was head of Jewish Bureau of Education or the Bureau of Jewish Education-

R.P.:

Yeah, The Jewish Day School or something like that. Has that gone out of existence?

D.C.:

I don't think so. Because I met him I just happened to run into him at the 109:00Jewish community center the other day, and he took me up and introduced me to a fellow named Schwartz, Bill Schwartz, who is now the head of something like that. Would seem to be that same thing even if it's under a different name. But this oral history project that we started with the Jewish community in Louisville, working with the federation, as far as I know was Dr. Neovani's idea. And originally, his idea I think it was a good one was that we would not only interview people but at the same time we would make an effort to try to survey some of the written records of the Jewish community.

R.P.:

Well, I'd be glad to send you a xerox of that regarding the Young Men's Hebrew ...

D.C.:Association.

R.P.:YMHA. Sure.

D.C.:

Funny you mentioned that. When I first went out to the center we had some workshops mainly just to show people how our tape recorders worked, and that sort of thing. But I poked around the library there a little bit and came upon these old bound magazines. The YMHA Chronicler, which was published in Louisville as the official organ of the YMHA and it was in the nineteen-teens and twenties that this was published. And I asked them if we could market them and he said sure. It's an interesting source for local history and never had been market billed before and as far as I know it was relatively unknown except to-

R.P.:

Certainly.

D.C.:

To the people out there and ...

R.P.:

The great tragedy of this kind of thing is it's only recently that this thing has started taking, because I remember when there were some of the great people [inaudible 01:51:43] and so forth, we started to try-like Dr. Fields and those people-to go and interview and talk to them, we didn't have the tape recorders, but they were too old. Too late. No, I think it's, you can't clever up everything. But you never know because nowadays we have so much paper. That's it's almost a deluge. And then of course a historian, so much, it's like in music. Everything has been covered. So the deeper you go down the more you get 112:00to the insignificant, and the, well, it may be important later on.

R.P.:

And of course revelations always changes. Now the great thing is the Black History. Which up until just recently, no one cared, they didn't think they had any history. Or even the United States. And then of course the ethnic or ethnicity in America has waned and come and gone. And I might change my mind, but years ago I had a lot of correspondence with some of these people, and I was always opposed to the Balkanization of America. It's all right to maintain your cultural connections. One of the most difficult things to do, because the 113:00children of immigrants don't want to have anything to do, as a rule, with either the parents' language or their customs, or anything. And then the grandchildren, they couldn't care less. And that's the way life is. And now it's coming up again.

D.C.:

Yeah. One historian recently said, following along with it coming up again. That the grandchildren of immigrants want to remember what the children of immigrants wanted to forget.

R.P.:

Sure. Certainly. Yep.

D.C.:

One of the paradoxes of oral history. People tend to make, try to shroud it in some sort of mystique, like doctors try to make themselves mysterious. And lawyers I guess do the same thing. But one of the paradoxes of it is, today we 114:00have a deluge of paper, which is true, but ironically, many of the most significant things today are transacted over the telephone.

R.P.:

No record made of them.

D.C.:

No record. We have more record-

R.P.:

Come in darling, make yourself comfortable. [crosstalk 01:54:50]. We're just yacking.

Speaker 2:

[inaudible 01:54:53].

R.P.:

Come in. We're just waiting for this tape to run out.

Speaker 2:

Oh.

R.P.:

Yeah, but the great difficulty is two things. Is to try to prevent your own, I mean in giving an interview, like I've been talking, to try and keep any personal. Subconsciously, there might be some tinge of ... And also over time we must keep it down to facts because things get changed around and misconceptions 115:00arise and then a lot of things even in documents and writings are put in for, I won't say for ulterior motives, but for certain motives. You might want to prove that somebody had some ideas many years before they had, in case of lawsuits. So that you want to establish something that might not actually exist. And one of my habits obviously has been tracking down, correcting misinformation, because there's more misinformation going around.

R.P.:

The thing that I don't like is you pick up a book, and they give you references, 116:00but the references may not be worth a damn. Who knows but what the guy wrote previously the copy of what somebody else said, what somebody else said. And you go back and go back, and you may find the thing is ... But if you, unless you have really means and time to pursue these things ... And of course in Europe the archives are tremendous. I mean ports, have records of sailings of ships going back for centuries. How in all the wars and fires and revolutions and things it's still things have been preserved. It's amazing. And the great, great tragedy in America, at least in Kentucky and different places, is what I call the rape of the courthouses. People go in and they think nothing of tearing a page out of a record book.

R.P.:

Of course, Mr. Clark, Thomas Clark he's a great historian. Up in Lexington. And then of course, newspapers, you can't rely on them all together. I mean, might go back and quote some damn newspaper, but who in the hell provided them with the information? And then of course, history changes, the way it's written, and all this psychological history and stuff. And then the thing that I don't like is fictionalized history. If I wanted to read history I'll read history, if I wanted to read a novel, I want it to be a novel. I don't want it to be messed up so that you can't tell which is something that's been introduced by the author 118:00to spice the thing up a bit, make it more interesting.

R.P.:

And there's another thing, as a historian you ought to get busy making sure that they change the methods of writing history textbooks for schools. Children aren't interested in American history. In my opinion, it's that most of it is too modern. It's politics. All of it politics. People like history when it's a sweep, you know, The Civil War, the Mexican War, expansionists, and so forth. But I found here even when my daughter was a young girl, went up to Kentucky Homeschool these kids used to come around and always come over to me, ask me stuff. They have no conception of time. What about The Civil War? Do you think 119:00your father...? No? Well, how long ago did you think it was? Twenty years? No conception. Have no conception of geography.

D.C.:

Yeah, it's true.

R.P.:

You ask them a question, which is the most northerly city Oslo or Hammerfest, you know up in Norway. And they could tell you but they couldn't tell you how to get over to [inaudible 01:59:48]. I like the way they did when I was in school in Liverpool in England. In History, they started off with a city. Everything about it, the founding of the city, the history of the city, everything. We went out on walks, we saw this, that, and the other. Then we went to the county of Lancashire, then we spread out to England, then we went to Scotland, Wales and Ireland and stuff. Then we went over the continent. Then you did Continental History and then you finally got World History.

R.P.:

And another thing in what would be the equivalent of high school, we got a certain amount of regular records. Like Charles, second period. We'd have to go into the documents. In school, high school. And some people like it, some boys don't like it. But those who do like it will get something out of it. I've always loved the early paper. Now one of the fascinating things in Europe is you get hold of these Fugart newsletters. They were a banking house and they had their correspondence in different places in Europe and when they went about transacting their correspondence, an agent would tell them what the hell was going on. Whether it was an [inaudible 02:01:26] of Spain, or massacre or some, 121:00Bartholomew's massacre or what else. And then you get a on the spot ...

D.C.:

I didn't know that that family, I'm not that familiar with that-

R.P.:

Fugr. F-U-G-T-E-R.

D.C.:

I didn't know that they had published a newsletter.

R.P.:

Oh, sure.

D.C.:

Interesting. Was that the-

R.P.:

No, it was a correspondence. It came to me and then somebody got their archive and put it together.

D.C.:

Ah.

R.P.:

Yeah.

D.C.:

That's interesting.

R.P.:

Although, I tell you one of the nicest of the magazines I get is this one. It's British History, illustrated. Kind of popular but it's ... Get it every two months, I think.

D.C.:

Have you been back to Britain very often?

R.P.:

No. No, I'm not interested. I've got no connection to it. Never go back, go forward.

D.C.:

Yeah.

R.P.:

There's always more places to see.

D.C.:

I was over there a couple of summers ago, and the thing I think that I liked best was Speaker's Corner.

R.P.:

Oh yeah, in Hyde Park.