 I hope you are. Well, I'm feeling pretty good for an old man. I thought you was getting younger by the day. Yeah, I wish I was. I got a call today. I wanted to talk to you confidentially about it. I won't involve you and don't want to quote you, but I just want to be sure I handle it properly. Your governor called Watson and said that he was coming to Washington on two occasions. I believe he said February the 2nd and February the 6th, 7th, and 8th. That he would like to bring in the senators and the congressional delegation to call upon it. What about the governor you told him that? Governor Georgia. Addiction? Yeah. And Watson said, what is the subject matter of it? Well, he said I just want to talk to him. One of the members of the delegation, if you could. And Watson explored a little further, didn't quite get it clearly, but I think it concluded there's something about highways. The press stated that he was coming up here to see you by releasing one of Georgia's highways. I saw that article in the paper and this boy from over there in the board district. Is the same one that's cutting these, holding back these non-essential expenditures? Oh, yes, yes. Oh, God, he gives everything except the highways and a few other things like that. Who is he? It's that plant, you know. Well, I don't see, I think, it to it to the people of the state if you want to see it or see it. On the other hand, I never have sat down and talked to a man that said many mean things about me. And I don't want to be insulting or I don't want to be petty at picky units. But I, my inclination be that any governor of any state that wants to see the president any time, he ought to see him the day that he wants to if he possibly can. Well, I don't say the day that he wants to. Well, if he can, I say if he can, he ought to keep him sitting around. I think about the United States. Our system would have to talk to a governor about what he had to smile. The indication he wanted to submit. But I think you can be cold as hell, any way you want to. It's pretty hard for me to do it. And this fellow, if he knew you, he's a matter of truth upon you, fellow. I just saw his TV stuff all the time and it was pretty ugly about me. I'd be surprised if he wanted to come here. But I think it, that's my, I just want... Paper that you want to see, I saw an article in the Atlanta paper looking at this afternoon in which he stated that he was coming to Washington to see the president try to get him to turn into this highway money. How has this takeover come about? Is he handling it all right? Somebody write him a good speech? He had absolutely astonished the state. He made one of the finest inaugural addresses and talked about how the races all had to get along together in peace and empathy. And how he was going forward with the educational program for Georgia. He had to do that because Maddox had to come up the hard way. He had to put a spoon to six years old and carry three paper rods. He had his mother feeding his little brother and sister. The truth about it is, I think he'd make a better done than Calaway would have made. That philosophy is about the same except Maddox is more for the poor people than Calaway is. He doesn't have the bane of the culture. I think probably Jim Gray wrote that speech for him, he defined speech and he turned out he was the first one he made. There's a section for many points. There's a collective internal revenue, which is one of the most important jobs in the state. It's the best little road we've had down there. It's obviously points eight and hard. It's a man of a technical integrity. A strong sport of yours, interestingly. That's good. I hope if he asked y'all that you'll come with him. I think it'd make it easier on all of us if people that I know in the delegation, I think you'd be less inclined to have the pundits provoke a big fight and start sickening him if the whole delegation's coming and making it. He has been wonderfully moderate since he's been in. I don't know how long he'll last. They get up here though and get on the steps of the White House. They like to tell the President where to head down. I don't think you'll find him that way. I found old Romney. He came in and opened his goddamn mouth and he went out there in front of the television and he just really got strong. I had everyone these governors in. I talked to them about holding up these expenditures and asked them to hold up theirs, told them I'd hold up ours. And I thought in the first of the year, if we did, that we could cool this economy down. And some of them helped. Some of them didn't do a damn thing. Fellas like Rockefeller, he held up a hundred million dollars. Well, I think just cut about twenty million dollars out of Sam's flesh. Sam is a spirit. I think Sam is a total Weed government. He got up and put you in the Spirit House. You should have. I think just cut about twenty million dollars out of that. Well, we'll... I'll come over there with him. I've got about what I did now. Yes, that means to me if I left them now. Well, we're males, and we've tried first. I tried first to get y'all to hold expenditures and send it to the Appropriations Committee and I asked him to go to every member and urge him to stay with the budget and cut it down and so forth. He did that. Fowler religiously did it. Then he went to Dirksen. He appealed to Dirksen. He went to Mansfield and he had separate meetings with all of them. Well, to make a long story short, it ran from about a little under $3 billion to $8 billion over our budget and then I got all the members down here and I got the governors in. I got everybody that I could and I made a deal with Wilbur Mills and Russell Long and John Burns, ma'am, that if they would repeal or set aside this 7% thing that investment credit that I would put it back on when it slowed down if they'd give me that authority, they didn't, but we may want to put it back on any time. But that I would defer withholds, postpone at least $3 billion in federal programs, emphasize programs and I announced that in my press conference and I announced it in a state statement here and I had the budget director announce it to the Congress and all of them on their testifying on the bill. Now, there's a hell of a lot of difference between $3 billion in the federal program and $3 billion in expenditures this year. You've got to have a good deal more. You know the difference between the authorized expenditure. All of them said Johnson pledged to cut $3 billion in expenditure and we'd call them up, AP and UP and ask them, correct? And they won't do it. They just holler about my credibility. So when I got ready to do it, I had to stretch everything I could to get $5 billion something in programs in order to get $3 billion in expenditures. And I've just caught hell and the two big items were the $7 billion item that you all voted to buy housing mortgages with and the $2 billion for roads. That's $2 billion, two of it. And then we just went across the board with everything we could deferring here and postponing there and hoping we could get by with it. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if by spring, if they keep talking like they are and everybody talking bad, I wouldn't be surprised. We won't need to add some of this. And I won't be a bit surprised. I don't need to get that 7% investment credit back on. I had it in my speech the other night. I talked to an awful smart businessman and they said he'd been a mistake. Well, he said if I had said that, I asked for the authority. He said everyone of them would have quit buying anything. And they said, hell, we just wait a little bit. He's going to put that back on and he said you'd throw us into the depression so I'd take it out of my speech. But anyway, that's where we are. And they are talking about holding up another 3-400 million of highway funds until we can really see what crappy economy there's not a whole lot being done in the winter and most of them got the contracts underway anyway. They've got more than they ever had before. It's up between 4 and 5 billion. And it's 4 to 5 billion, you see. We used to have a 2. We used to have 2 and a billion program and 3 billion. Eisenhower came along with his trust fund and then we all upped it. Now we've got 4 billion something. And they've got the damn sloppy, the highway contractors and so on. But they've gotten by pretty well by telling y'all generally they haven't spelled it out, you see. So these associations in Washington don't know what I've deferred. I've been surprised as to how well they took it down on the contractor raising hell. They don't know too much, Dick. And the fellow that was looking for a contract on his road right away and been told he'd get one, he may be raising hell. But generally speaking, the people down there have not complained too much about it. They haven't. This budget director tells me the reason we haven't had the more hell is we didn't spell out that we're going to take out a billion or two out of roads and here's the states it comes from and here's where it comes from. Now he's got to do that when he comes up to see y'all. And he's got to show every item right to y'all and say, where the hell did you get it? Now put it on the line. When he does, each association is obviously here. Well, read it, you see. And then he'll get out wires that night and say, let's start housing, housing. Well, they'll have to be on housing. Now, just give me hell. But it's held since September, so I guess... So it's on me cooling off some. Yes, yes, yes. It's just about what they want now. They want it just about. They're sorry the two or three sons of bitches, the metal people that have got down to selfishness and they've had good profits, but they use them. They use copper, they use aluminum, they can use militant, they can use anything they do it. They're made up of a bunch of... If you made a bad mistake, that president turned seven, that copper wheel always dealt in competition. Well, if we ever needed it, we needed it now in war. Yeah, but you've done a lot. That copper is for the Indian, the ordinary channel, the best trade. Well, sure, but we haven't got the reason we have to turn it loose, because all we're using for shells, isn't it? No, this is, I'm not talking about shells. But they take up, they take up the other supply, you know. They're supposed to replace it, but they ain't going to do it in time soon. And all this trouble in Chile and everywhere, we could get coal tight there. That's the only one I got to blame about. That's what this is. The economy, we added last year. Down to 220 million tons. The copper, they might have put a good size in the war. Well, but if we did that, we'd go get some more, too. We could open up these damn little mines and don't allow them to live, that'd be all. Dick, you don't understand the problem we had last year. Let me tell you, let me tell you, let me tell you one thing you hear, that you all didn't pay attention to the other night. The first 18 months of World War II, your prices jumped 16 percent, and you had OPMWPB. I did, I did that. The first 18 months of your Korean War, they jumped 11 percent. Now, I moved half a million men out there, since July 1965. And I've had reasonably full employment. I added 2,900,000 jobs last year. And I kept it to 4.6 without a control of any kind. That wasn't lost to me. I never heard a comment about it. I never heard a comment. I thought the next morning that fellas like you would be saying, oh my God, you know, that's the finest stabilization record I ever saw. He didn't let them sell him a bunch of economic professors on OPA. He didn't have all this red tape. He didn't have WPB. He didn't have war labor board. And yet, by God, he kept prices to 4.6 when they went up 11 percent when you had these. And they went up 16 percent from World War II. I think it's a, I think it's... They have a lot more confusion this time. I saw a cartoon last night. I decided to review it again. Big Pats on the head of Bigger Stubborn. I saw this one. One Atlanta paper to carry. Pulling that belt around him. No, yeah. He's just a board director. In his big Mahogany line room, he says, I have to tell you, I report to you as chairman of the board that this is notwithstanding all the harassment of the federal government and notwithstanding all the bureaucratic red tape delays. Your company has made the greatest net profit since grandfather founded it. I didn't see that when I was doing that, so... Well, he just gave me hell that he wound up with the greatest net profit. So that's what's happening. Okay, I'll be seeing you then when Governor Mattis gets up here. I'm glad that he come bring you to see me. Yeah, I don't get into any way, Mr. President. I don't, I don't write shit. Well, you don't never get in my way. It's always a pleasure, Dick. Well, thank you. Bye. And I'll see you soon. Bye.