 My name is James Davis. I've been employed with the Johnson for 41, going on for 42 years. But my first encounter with the president was back in... When I first went to work for him, which was the 22nd of September 1959, Ms. Johnson came out and interviewed me. He meant my wife. And we got a notice that we had been accepted as employers for the Johnson. Well, Mr. Johnson, I didn't see him until later on. And when he came to the ranch, it was hunting season. So that morning I got up and I was instructed to get his guns and get him some hot coffee ready and etc. So I did. And the first thing, at that time, he's a majority leader. The first thing he said to me that morning, he says, James says, I had on a coat that looked very expensive. Nogger heart or something like that. Anyway, he says, James, that's a nice looking coat you got on. After I put his gun in the car and his car and so forth. And I said, yes sir, thank you. Well, things started running through my mind. That ain't what he really wants to know. The next day he says, James, he said, sure as a nice looking coat you got on. So the third day he said, James, how much do you pay for that coat? And I can remember to this day it was $12.95 and I got it from Sears. But you know, it was new and it looked expensive. So okay, that was one of the first things, but I was alerted to his attitudes and how to get along with him. A guy by the name of Gene William, Helen William, which they were there before I was. James says, his bark is better than his bite. And he gave me some pointers how to stay out of trouble and don't say the wrong thing. And that hunt season later on, that week he didn't take me, none of the rest of them, to help him harvest the deer. But later on, we had to go with him. When him and George, his friend was George Mosin. And we'd go and get with George Mosin and Senator, they'd kill several deers and we would, you know, cut them and take them to the locker plant. Well, that Christmas, at that time, the president did not have any grandkids. So what he normally would do would invite all the help kids to the house to celebrate Christmas. That went on for a time, every Christmas that he would have. I didn't have any kids at that time, but he'd have kids from the help to come in and celebrate Christmas. And what I liked about him is that Senator respected everybody and suspected everybody was intelligent. And anybody that he would invite to the ranch, regardless to the caliber, he would bring them through the kitchen and introduce them to every member of his staff. And some of them, later on down the line, I'll tell you some of the favorite, some of the favorite that I wanted to favorite that I didn't like. I'll put it that way. But, and all my time with Johnson, I learned to respect him because he would, he had someone that he had respect to fix, a little harder to get everything fixed and keep the ranch running smoothly. He had a gentleman by the name of Lawrence Klein, which was the maintenance person. I understand he's still around. He retired from a long time ago. But anyway, between me and with Klein, he had a battery of cars, about eight or nine cars that sat around that he wanted, kept running it. Anytime he come in from anywhere to get one of those cars, they expect to run it, to crank up and run. And if it didn't, somebody's going to be brought on the carpet. And the first person he meet, that's the person he read the right act to. And between I'd slip and try to keep the car, if Mr. Klein wasn't around, I would, everyone who I cranked the cars up, see that one. If the president come, that, I mean, not president, but he was a senator at that time, come that none of us get the right act. We wouldn't get our, brought up on the carpet. And that worked pretty good for all of us. He had a ranch farm, at that time when I come to the ranch, he had an old man working, I forget his last name, but anyway, shortly after I was working for him, they employed a young man named Henry Blackburn. And me and Henry, and we got along all right. And Henry was responsible for taking care of cattle, seeing that they was, you know, vaccinated and brand at that time. Occasionally, during the winter months, I would help the ranch hand because it was slow, the Johnson was in Washington, it wasn't much to do in the garden around the house. Incidentally, I was, when I hit the ground there, I was given the responsibility of taking care of the vegetable garden, which I was familiar with, because I was born and raised in the country and we had gardens, and I was familiar with that, with taking care of the garden. Well, I would take care of the garden and seeing that during the year, that it was irrigated and that we kept the grass and everything out of it. And harvested, when the time for the vegetable to be put up, me and my family and adopted kids would pick the beans and harvest the corn and put it in the deep for it. He liked black-eyed peas and he loved corn so that I would make sure that every year we would have a good corn crop and a good black-eyed pea crop. And then later on, a senator, he got to be vice president and we all know the story about that. And then he assigned me to, when he was vice president, he decided he'd run for president and they assigned me to one of the planes as the stewards on the plane. So we flew all over the United States and our goof one time was in North Dakota someplace and I left his pillow. And well, as long story on that, I won't go into that. But during the campaign, we would step all night and then the plane would take him back to Washington and the plane would come back to Texas. The plane was stationed here in Austin. But anyway, after we got that finished with, I'm kind of going around him here, but I love at that time, I keep saying the president because the last of all what I'm going to see is about the presidency. He was a fellow that respected everybody, as I said, and began being intelligent. And if you wasn't smart enough, you get to go to school because you get to tell you about it. And he kept you, if you had a brand, you'd use it working for London Johnson because that's what he required of you. He was good at having people, good people around him. But he wasn't good. He didn't get good to do the things he wanted, to maintain his livelihood and his style of living. And he also talked politics with all of us. When he was president, he once told us how he appointed Thurgood Marshall. He didn't want to appoint him to black, but he'd had to first appoint one to solicit generals so that when it come up before Congress, they wouldn't say it wasn't qualified to be served as a Supreme Court justice. And he would explain to us how politics went, and he'd always given us all a hard time by buying stuff on credit. Myself and a guy at that time named Jacque Wade, he'd have us to bring all our bills to him, and he'd pay him and give us a ride. I'd say, now, don't go around here charging these people. Take advantage of them. Well, I couldn't say he was taking care of us, but I mean, you know, sometimes things you need, you couldn't pay cash for it, so we had to charge. So I remember the second time, he said, I don't owe anybody anything. Well, you wouldn't owe anybody a lie to him because he had a way of knowing that you find out anyway. So we said, yes, I said, oh, $2,000. He had me to bring the bills, and he paid it, and said, I don't want to have you charging anything. So I was very skeptical of charging because he'd furnish his car, gas, and place to live right there in the big house. At that time, he had two rooms set aside for the staff for the house to stay there, and that went on for a long time until he, when he got to be president, then he needed those two rooms, you know, to extend his gas. So then the ranch foreman, he had built a ranch foreman house, a new one, from the hill, or the ranch foreman, and they moved, and then I moved into the house of the ranch foreman house. We used to stay. I understand not even to the house down, but I find working for the president one of the greatest experiences I've ever had, and I have nothing but praise to say for the man because he didn't treat all his employees according to my observation the same. Later on, he had wanted me to come to Washington when he was vice president at this time. So I went up to Washington and was intended to move up there, but the couple that they employed to take my place wasn't taking care of the ranch. So I was only in Washington six months before I got shipped back to Texas to take care of the ranch. But in the meantime, in the six months, he had his secretaries, they were going to teach me and Gene, William, and Type, and the office, because it was in the office all the time, you know, running errands, and we was kind of a male cat, you know, take care of the male. Anyway, he had me and Gene and the secretaries were trying to teach us how to type, and I had no idea what we were going to type and do all the rest of this stuff. Well, before I could get my hand on the typing, in the six months I was back in Texas in my routine taking care of the ranch. And I remember one time he had left something on, I'm trying to remember the name of this person, because it was West, yeah. He had a friend by the name Wesley West, which is a very good friend, and a lot of times Mr. West would, he was playing with comedy and taking the Johnson to a different place anyway. One day, something was left on the plane and the plane couldn't take off. He said, Gene, go out there and stop that plane and it wasn't there it was, I forgot not where it was, but then I went out there and the plane was on the run, taxing on, and anyway he stopped and gave him a problem that the president wanted something, he wanted off that plane. And I often wonder if he really figured that everybody could do what he asked him to do and if an air conditioner wasn't working, he said, Gene, go in there and fix that air conditioner. Well, I know how to fix no air conditioner, but he'd learn you how, if it was something that simple that you could adjust, you'd learn how to do it right away. I'd call a client, but the client would come out and take care of the situation, where I consider one of the best persons I ever worked for, because he really respect everybody's intelligence and some of the things that he'd hold in confidence and tell them how he had to do to get bills passed and Congress was fascinating. You know, we, as blacks always discuss that I met President Kennedy and I liked him, but we all said that President Kennedy would never be able to get the civil rights bill passed because he did not know enough stuff on people in Congress to get them to accommodate him by voting on the bill. But anyway, the president told me, he said, look, I'm going to get the civil rights bill passed, but I'm going to lose a lot of friends. And he said the country might go Republican. The South might go Republican. He told me that. And I know one of his best friends, Senator from Georgia, what is his name? Russell. He used to come to the ranch all the time in Hunt. Hunt's seen Senator Russell come to the ranch in Hunt. Well, after that civil rights bill passed, I've never seen Senator Russell from that day to this. This day, but I have, his wife used to come to the ranch afterwards, but I never did see Senator Russell. And like he said, he lost a lot of friends when he persisted on getting that civil rights bill passed. And the bad thing about, he really suffered during his war, not the Korean war, the Vietnam war. He had one of the hardest pills, I think, that I've seen him dealing with. I'm trying to, because he got some good advice and bad advice, but anyway, we all know the whole story that it caused him to decide not to run for president anymore, which was, I really regretted that he didn't, because shortly after that he didn't, but in the meantime, I had, my wife was pregnant, and he'd say, James, if it's a boy named Lennon, I'll give him a care. Well, it wasn't a boy, it was a girl, I'll name her Lennon, he'd still give her a care. So, and we had several, we had cows, I had a few cows from this calf, up until I got height, about 11 years ago, when Miss Johnson decided to move to Westlake, I was, she redid it was during the house and all the old doze and wonders, I was taking them back and forth to the ranch, on Saturday, I was en route to the house to pick up some stuff, take to the ranch, and a young couple run into me and took my truck and I didn't know I was hurt, I had a head injury, I didn't know I was hurt until about a week later, I started talking to Strud and wobbling and one morning I woke up, my head was hurting so bad, I didn't know what to do, my wife took me to the doctor and the doctor wouldn't let me go home, he put me in the hospital right away, I hit my head against the cab, they hit me from the side, in my head it hit the side of the truck and my brain had swollen, so right away they had to take me and operate on me and I'm surprised I did it as well as I did after that operation because once they get messing with your brain, you never know what you're going to be whole again and out, but so far I don't retain things as well as I used to, but so far I'm doing okay from that accident, but anyway from that accident on Ms. Johnson decided that there was no use of me going back and forth to the ranch, so since then for the last 10, 12 years I've been just taking care of her at West Lake and go out there every morning and she decided that four hours a day should be enough for me to maintain her and make a living, so that's what I've been doing. Tell us about Ms. Johnson. Ms. Johnson, I learned early on when Ms. Johnson put you on observation and after about four or five years she said, well, he's one of the gang and we can deal with it. She would like, the president, when you walk on the premises, you, his man, you get to doing the things that need to be done and Ms. Johnson will observe you and watch you closely and if you prove in four or five years that you could pass the grade within smooth sailing from then on and I've been there for 41 years and I consider her with my best friend and she seems to think that I'm her friend but she got into the wildflower business and she had everybody that worked for the Johnson mixed up in it for a long time but after I got hurt, well then I didn't go out and help her with the wildflower situation. What about LBJ's sense of humor? Well, I don't know how to say this diplomatic but we used to have a saying that the president had, I don't know how to say this, his sense of humor, or as long as he was playing pranks on you, it was all right but you know, you don't pull those nuts on him but I got the same for that but I don't think it's appropriate to say it in this interview. It wouldn't be any worse than some of the things that California said on tape. Well, we used to say he had bad personality. You know, they say as long as the bear is pushing you around, as long as you don't push him back, you know, in good, that's the way it should be but if you push the bear back, he'll get mad at you so we used to say cut it off that way but he did have a sense of humor of course, not being on the same status wasn't equal, you wouldn't contest it anyway so he did have a good sense of humor I admit that. I remember one time he was swimming in the pool and he didn't like no debris to be in the water when he was in the pool so I was skimming there's a few leaves in the pool and I would take them out of the pool and walk around to keep the pool clean he said, Jane, he says you thinking about it and watching you but they are he says what time of morning did you get up and go to work? I say eight o'clock I say I get up at eight o'clock and go to work but I don't eat breakfast or drink coffee I just get up and go to work and I use it sometimes, it'll be eight o'clock at night before I start work he said, well, you keep this place clean I just want you to know that you're doing a good job and I says not when he first says made that remark, I say sir, what you say? he said, oh hell, you heard me the first time and he was right, I did hear him but I wouldn't see if he could even say it again and him and Jesse Kellam used to sit around the table and they would ask him a question and I'd be a little evasive and the president would say did Mr. Kellam say, Jesse, did he answer the question? he said, hell no, he didn't answer the question well, I was if a person asked me a question out of the blue something running around my mind what's leading on here and I'd become evasive you know I wouldn't come right out unless he's pertaining to the job and he used to say all the time Mrs. Johnson would give me instruction and tell me what to do and he'd say but he'd say it's going in one ear and right out the other a lot of it was but I mean if it's appropriate and I knew it was unnecessary well, I'd take action but I mean you know you had to say yes ma'am no ma'am regardless and sometimes you'd say that you know for respect you always did say yes ma'am no ma'am but a lot of time like he said he was right and he could figure you out right away he'd say a lot of times that I would just just letting it go in when I'm right out there but I mean Mrs. Johnson was one of the finest person in fact the Johnson was the finest people he ever worked for I worked for a private home here in Austin and the man never talked politics and he never knew what other Democrat and Republican but London would want to you to know he had radios TV he had TV in the kitchen so that everybody could watch the news no one was going on and he was right the more you know about the news the better decision you can make when it comes down to voting I mean there's a lot of things that I could mention like I say since I had my head you know some of the stuff if somebody reminded anybody what I can remember and discuss it November 22nd, 63 I know when President Kennedy was assassinated they were supposed to come to the ranch were you working at the ranch at that time? Precisely I was watching TV when when he was in Dallas and the motorcade on TV and we were standing in the kitchen watching it we had Kenny had been to the ranch President-elect but he hadn't been there as president and he liked pecan pie and he cooked with cooking pecan pie and we had everything all set up for the president when he came to the ranch but you know the story he had been making to the ranch Yeah Who are some of the most interesting people you met over the years? Well I thought even though Senator I thought Senator Russell was one of I tell you one person that I met I didn't take on too good because he wasn't in the president cabinet that was uh uh hmm Henry Kissinger I didn't me and him didn't have the same vibes but most of everybody that the president invited to the ranch was somewhat we all accepted as our friends and friends of the president and friends of this country but I'm not trying to put him down but he he didn't accept people that in my category he didn't seem to there was nothing I mean you know what I'm trying to say but uh most of everybody even candidate brothers came there I don't think he'd ever hunted because the first time he shot the deer the gun uh caliber up and hit him in hit him in the face and he had a bruise from shooting shooting the deer he did hit the deer but he got he had never hunted before and the president think everybody could hunt and could ranch and everything else but everybody he brought he put him in the car and take him show him the ranch and they hunted and he used to have uh uh we what's the name of this place they're soloing over the lake lake uh we used to go to the lake all the time at least once a week when he was home we used to go there and he used to go riding you know go boat riding and we used to have a place called they named it mayor margaret he eventually gave it to mayor margaret when he was secretary and he had a lake place over there and eventually he they gave the name of the house mayor margaret I think he gave it to he finally got rid of it but uh um you were there when um chancellor erhard came down to the ranch? oh yeah yeah chancellor i was there uh he I liked him very much I ain't forgot about that that you mentioned yeah i remember chancellor really enjoyed him being there uh you think they had a lot of press out there oh yeah oh you bet there's a lot of press all over the place but we stayed out the way of the press uh I remember when the place moved out there the press wanted to interview us mr killamy kind of got the press going so we never got into trouble got into trouble by something on the press I would ask you and you'd call yourself else and put your foot in your mouth we never had that kind of stuff going on he was a hard worker wasn't he? oh yeah oh you bet he was a hard worker and he expected if you work for him to be a hard worker and I think that's why some other uh bad press world that I some people thought he was too hard because he worked hard he expected everybody else to work hard I remember the longest uh the longest day wake day for me in my life was 22 hours we went hunting got up at 4 o'clock and went hunting that morning and I forgot who the guests were but anyway we parted till till I went hunting at 6 o'clock parted till 2 o'clock and had to get up another 2 hours to go hunting and guess what he said he said James said I mean uh he told he said James said you and Jean y'all can go hunting today who after we had been in the woods all day we got about 6, 7 days and we had to take him to John City you know for the process he really stopped me from hunting because I mean they would hunt every day and me and myself and Jean who would have to take got together and take it to John City for the process anyway the longest day the work day of my life was I was up 22 out and that's the day that one day he didn't go hunting he decided he wasn't going hunting I think he got the best in him too but we did a lot of hunting a lot of deer hunting and a lot of and I used to a lot of times like I said in the beginning I used to help the ranch farming uh uh move irrigation pipes and help them you know they have to round up cows and help them uh vaccinate cows and we used to do that in January uh January or February because and uh so I got my experience I did everything I tell everybody I did everything in the ranch I fly the plane and I say Dale Meeks don't give me some points on that but uh uh what happened they all quit I got married or something anyway I didn't get to fly the plane but I did everything on the ranch but fly the plane he was a hard man to work for but he was a very thoughtful man too wasn't he? yeah well I didn't find him hard to work I just found I found that people wanted to work and he socialized and Lennon wanted you to work and he socialized with you when he wanted to so somebody wanted people to do I never had no problem I mean there's a lot of hard work but uh I find that that uh if work did proportionately it helps you to live long you know I'm around here 82 years and I ain't it's not been I imagine not being able to have a job and would bother me more than having a job that required me to work hard but uh he was a very fair person and I found out through my own observation that uh why he should have been Senator Milden and uh civil rights is that when he finished college he was he went to south Texas and taught school and he was teaching school with kids walking around in the wintertime with no shoes and uh I remember one time he he mentioned that uh uh if you get one of those kids nickel he turned around he wouldn't got all his buddies so they can get a nickel too but uh I think he really did get his school in poverty when he was teaching school uh in south Texas because he I heard him say several times that people sure had a hard time they didn't have nothing and I think in the back of his mind that was there when time come for the action he take on civil rights no never forgot it once you've been exposed to something you can put it back on the back button but eventually something will come around and it it exposes itself to you again and uh one other thing I forgot to mention that during uh January and February middle of February we had another employee by the name of Loupe Bravo he used to do all the pruning of the trees during that time you know it was a slow time so we did all the pruning of the trees and the arch on the river on the uh banks of the Puttnallis I mean this this fellow a friend of mine we used to do all the pruning of the trees at that time and uh we kept him in pretty good shape uh Bailey cut an oreo with everybody that called that was his cousin and that's why I forgot about the practice he used to pull on me between the men uh Miss Bailey cut an oreo they called Oreo Bailey he would catch it going and tell me to go up and clean a house and I'd go up there and clean house and uh she would uh say James they was up there taking all my stuff out of my house and uh learned them to get a kick out of him because when the people tell him he knew I wasn't taking anything I would just go up there and clean it and uh uh they would give someone would give uh constantly giving her stuff that she would store under the bed and store at places and she'd come along couldn't didn't see it couldn't find she'd say somebody to take but cut an oreo used to uh uh she used to drive on and go to Stonewall and she was an old lady and she had several wrecks running and then she eventually they stopped it from driving but uh she'd get a kick out of her complaining about me taking her stuff and uh he would give a quarter whiskey every crystal and when she passed she had all the her relatives come up to you know clean the place and and distribute the furniture to who never wanted this and wanted that but anyway they found about two cases of whiskey on her bed and you know she didn't drink it she just she'd take it they'd give it to her and she'd take it on and put it under the bed and huge people taking it in the ad world and and she used to understand uh she would listen to KTBC and would they would compensate a little she'd report to them that some of the programs she liked and what they didn't do and all that and it was a scheme I guess to keep her busy but she that was one of the jobs that she had was to monitor the TV station and radio station I remember she used to drive that car like a bat out of hell oh yeah that's right she'd hit that cattle car room yeah she was she was pretty rough with the car a lot of stories about her cutting the radio in the car I don't can't put my hand on a lot of it but I do know that she would often run into people she'd never hurt nobody but I mean she run into people and but they kept her happy President kept her pretty happy I didn't elaborate on we used to put up peaches from the time the garden was producing vegetables we would be busy until about August the first and we'd be we now would put up about a hundred quarts of peaches and about a hundred quarts in the freezer I didn't talk about the preserves themselves we put up seventy five boxes of peaches for him to give away and we'd put up corn we put up fifty bags of peas I don't know how many bags of corn quarts size we had a couple of deep freeze that we put all this stuff in and we'd be finished with the garden about the first of August but then we would take our vacation from August the first until about the fifteenth then we'd come back at that time we'd go down and gather pears from Canaria she had a couple of pear trees we'd go down and gather and that's when we'd put up the pears we'd come along in late August or the first of September but all year long we was busy doing things and by the time we'd get the pears put up then it'd be time for hunting season and that's when the president would come and we we were busy all year long we had something to do the first we my first experience the first year over there they used to have people people to come out and prune the trees but after a few years after I was there and me and Lupia then we took over that responsibility so all year long we had something to do the first of the year we'd do the pruning of the tree and then coming along planting the garden also in the garden we had flowers we planted cut flowers in the garden for the house when I first went there we'd plant them in the yard but it didn't have enough space to plant cut flowers in the yard so we had a space in the garden for the cut flowers also but then in spring we'd start doing the garden by the time we'd get the garden while we had get it all situated and it'd start producing then we'd start picking and putting up stuff mostly until around August then we'd have everything put up the peaches and all because the peaches was in a triangle putting up there peaches was putting up vegetables and then when all was looked we'd have everything done around August 1st that's when we would take out a vacation and I so planted that away for 42 years 41 years we started on August 1st because my birthday was on August 12th so I wouldn't have to make an excuse that I had a birthday because it would always fall in between the slack time and until right now I usually take my vacation in August I don't think anybody has told the story of how he went into the egg business after he left office well now I was mixed up in that but I didn't make a good mental note of that and why we kept the chickens and really you just put up eggs by the creator eggs I think it's 36 done anyway we used to I was responsible for feeding the chicken gathering the egg gathering the eggs and washing them and sending them to KDBC and I don't know the whole story all we do is get the eggs and send them over there I didn't know how he got rid of them but anyway I know we used to send crates of eggs and they'd take them to KDBC at that time we'll get cactus to tell us how they got up to KDBC yeah cactus he was there when the beginning and then I guess he'd be there till the end I had someone give me a tape of the brown building and cactus I didn't know that they started KDBC in the brown building and anyway cactus was just a youngster when he started broadcasting and it's fascinating all the stories that they would tell the story was about the brown building and London and all the people met over there and went on but cactus would know and he seemed to have a bit he'd keep that stuff pretty well well you've been terrific well I guess 10 years ago I would have been better like I see I had this head injury and I don't retain stuff like I used to you would never know I don't think any of us know what we got well I hope I've been