Speaker 1: From Petco media.
Speaker 2: It's easy for me to let the American presidential experience
Speaker 2: collection go. It's not the money I don't need the
Speaker 2: money but I can use that money for more scholarships
Speaker 2: and for doing more back in the little community that
Speaker 2: I grew up in. And it's time for somebody else
Speaker 2: to own these. I've had the privilege of Orlando and
Speaker 2: the pride of Arlington. I'll let somebody else have that
Speaker 2: feeling too. This. Is prize. That.
Speaker 3: Robert Ross welcome to cars that matter today in our
Speaker 3: program we're joined over zoom by Jim Walsh. Jim Ellis
Speaker 3: North Carolina.
Speaker 4: It's probably a little colder here than out there but
Speaker 4: thank you for having me on the show it's my
Speaker 4: pleasure to be on.
Speaker 5: Today we're going to talk about some cars that matter
Speaker 5: for a very different reason. Sure the cars themselves are
Speaker 5: special but the cars we're going to talk about today
Speaker 5: matter because of the people who wrote in them. Jim
Speaker 5: is the owner of two automobiles that were used by
Speaker 5: the late President John F. Kennedy one on the very
Speaker 5: morning of his assassination. And it's not the car you
Speaker 5: think but they're really a part of a bigger story
Speaker 5: and a part of a bigger picture. Jim Wallis is
Speaker 5: owner of the White House gift shop in Washington D.C.
Speaker 5: and also founder and owner of presidential experience dot com
Speaker 5: which is essentially a traveling exhibition that appears at presidential conventions.
Speaker 5: Maybe not this year but historically you've had an awful
Speaker 5: lot to do with all things presidential. Tell us about
Speaker 5: the mission of the American presidential experience.
Speaker 6: Robert after 9/11 for two or three years most of
Speaker 6: the schools in the country quit come into Washington. And
Speaker 6: I saw where there was the chance to take the
Speaker 6: presidential memorabilia at that time and the stuff that I
Speaker 6: was assembling out to the Ozarks in southern Missouri. I
Speaker 6: went out and looked for a place and there was
Speaker 6: an old Quonset hut out there. So I worked a
Speaker 6: deal to Bob the building and I'd already assembled the
Speaker 6: airplane some first ladies gowns and other things but I
Speaker 6: didn't have a car at that time when I was
Speaker 6: given on loan the Reagan limousine. The first one that
Speaker 6: he looked at to approve the other ones it came
Speaker 6: after a museum and Michigan loaned that to me. And
Speaker 6: so I had a 10000 square foot building about a
Speaker 6: year to renovate it actually was Elvis Presley's customs old
Speaker 6: theater called back to the 50s. So I wanted to
Speaker 6: go out there because I knew those kids I grew
Speaker 6: up here in Appalachia. And it's very poor in these mountains.
Speaker 6: Those kids in those mountains were much like the kids.
Speaker 6: And when I grew up I say that we were
Speaker 6: so poor when I was a kid. When we got
Speaker 6: a rainbow it was black and white. So I went
Speaker 6: out there and we opened a museum and I purchased
Speaker 6: at the Philadelphia presidential fest for the 2000 Republican convention.
Speaker 6: I helped them and I brought in an airplane an
Speaker 6: additional launch had been used for some movie sets and
Speaker 6: it was set up like Richard Nixon's.
Speaker 4: I thought that I had some first ladies gowns made
Speaker 4: and we opened and we were the number one educational
Speaker 4: facility for homeschooling in the area for several years during
Speaker 4: that period. A lot of people kept asking us could
Speaker 4: you bring this to the state fair. Could you bring
Speaker 4: it to an area near us and travel with it.
Speaker 4: We'd got to the point that it looked like he
Speaker 4: was going to be more lucrative to do that and
Speaker 4: keep the museum going. And they built a big Titanic
Speaker 4: exhibit next to me and that's it all the water
Speaker 4: with all the other museums and everyone wanted to see
Speaker 4: the Titanic.
Speaker 5: Well it sounds like your endeavor was a whole lot
Speaker 5: more oriented toward education obviously a nonpartisan endeavor it doesn't
Speaker 5: matter which party line someone was walking this was about
Speaker 5: the presidency.
Speaker 4: I knew those kids Robert would never if they didn't
Speaker 4: get to Washington during high school they probably would never
Speaker 4: come to Washington. I think everybody in America should at
Speaker 4: some point in their life come to the capital city
Speaker 4: and they would appreciate the government a little better I think.
Speaker 4: But this was a great chance and to be with
Speaker 4: those kids and we wouldn't have games where they would
Speaker 4: find things like Lincoln's Hat and other things and they
Speaker 4: would get gifts they got it all right. But we
Speaker 4: decided to take it on the road. It was called
Speaker 4: the Presidential Museum out there we changed the name to
Speaker 4: the American presidential experience and it was nonpartisan. I bought
Speaker 4: another airplane and fixed it up the way that was
Speaker 4: when Ronald Reagan was president. So that's Reagan's Air Force
Speaker 4: One Reagan seven us to have an Air Force One.
Speaker 4: Well we ended up having two airplanes and then we
Speaker 4: switch the next an airplane to the Kennedy airplane. We
Speaker 4: got both sides so to speak. We had Bill Clinton
Speaker 4: Oval Office at a time and you know another one
Speaker 4: Ronald Reagan Oval Office but we actually now have six
Speaker 4: oval offices. We have one in California and we have
Speaker 4: two in Washington and three or four down in Atlanta Georgia.
Speaker 5: Well that's fascinating. Let's put a hold on the cars
Speaker 5: for a second I want to know more about these offices.
Speaker 5: How do you actually replicate these.
Speaker 4: I tell you where I got the idea. Robert my
Speaker 4: store is across the White House. And when people tour
Speaker 4: the White House when they come over to our store
Speaker 4: right after they come out we asked how they like
Speaker 4: their tour. People were actually disappointed sometimes because they think
Speaker 4: they're going to go in the Oval Office or see
Speaker 4: their homes and they really only get to see three
Speaker 4: or four rooms and a waited in line and they've
Speaker 4: waited for months to get a ticket. And so I
Speaker 4: always said if you could go see an Oval Office
Speaker 4: a tour one would you and to know. Yeah. And
Speaker 4: so I had this studio in California. No one for me.
Speaker 4: And I brought it in for Bush's inauguration and the
Speaker 4: old train station in Washington under the rotunda. I had
Speaker 4: a George Bush lookalike who sat behind it and talked
Speaker 4: to people and signed autographs and stuff like that. People
Speaker 4: loved it just around the corner from the store. We
Speaker 4: have a political presidential Gallery and we have an Oval
Speaker 4: Office set up there and people come in and have
Speaker 4: their picture make sitting behind the desk. And we also
Speaker 4: have a press podium with the backdrop. And so there
Speaker 4: you have the picture made. They're all set. They get
Speaker 4: to the White House was like the Oval Office. They
Speaker 4: get to see a limousine a presidential limousine and they
Speaker 4: get to see a presidential airplane. Those are the three
Speaker 4: main things when you think about the presidency is how
Speaker 4: do they travel. Where do they work. How they travel
Speaker 4: in the air and car so it really wrapped it
Speaker 4: all up for people when they do.
Speaker 5: That is fascinating you're absolutely right. I mean a trip
Speaker 5: to Washington and seeing all the monuments the museums and
Speaker 5: just understanding how rich and complicated the history is. It's
Speaker 5: something that can't be equaled but hey if the mountain
Speaker 5: can't come to Mohammed sometimes the kids have to go
Speaker 5: to the mountain. And obviously that's what you're doing. You
Speaker 5: talk about presidential vehicles and those probably attract more attention
Speaker 5: among the public and certainly even car enthusiasts as any
Speaker 5: other kind of vehicle you can imagine. They're special They're
Speaker 5: imbued with special ambiance. And of course none probably incorporates
Speaker 5: greater piece of history than the cars that JFK rode in.
Speaker 5: And the one that was of course the last car
Speaker 5: that he rode into which is now in the Henry
Speaker 5: Ford you happened to own two of those cars and
Speaker 5: they're coming up for sale at a bottoms auction this
Speaker 5: October 14 at auction called the American presidential experience. Tell
Speaker 5: us about the auction and then let's talk about those cars.
Speaker 7: About three years ago I had this project that I
Speaker 7: wanted to do.
Speaker 4: It's called the workers Legacy Foundation project. We had just
Speaker 4: done the Oklahoma State fair two years in a row
Speaker 4: with the exhibition we'd been in Philadelphia for the Democratic
Speaker 4: convention and 16 and I'm getting older and it's a
Speaker 4: lot to put up the Oval Office and set up
Speaker 4: a fifteen thousand square foot show. I decided I could
Speaker 4: use that money for that project to do scholarships for
Speaker 4: kids and as much as I love the Kennedy items
Speaker 4: and cars and very proud to own them. It's fine
Speaker 4: for somebody else to own them and then I can
Speaker 4: put the use of that money to that project that
Speaker 4: I really love and I need to get done.
Speaker 5: And we'll talk about that later on in the program.
Speaker 5: That's a very compelling and very worthwhile endeavor. Can you
Speaker 5: tell us a little bit about the auction what the
Speaker 5: process could be like given the current pandemic scenario. This
Speaker 5: is going to be a live auction but it will
Speaker 5: happen online. Is that right.
Speaker 7: Yes. On October the 14th at 1:00 Robert. This auction
Speaker 7: has been postponed twice. We were supposed to have this
Speaker 7: back in January and it was going to be in
Speaker 7: New York and the cars were going to be exhibited
Speaker 7: in the atrium at Trump Tower in New York and
Speaker 7: such would have been appropriate. We're going to put an
Speaker 7: Oval Office up and have the exhibit there and have
Speaker 7: the auction broadcast live online and could come and review
Speaker 7: everything and so then we postpone it again until July
Speaker 7: and then we did not get any better. So we
Speaker 7: said let's play it off to October and we just
Speaker 7: made a decision recently that we got do it only online.
Speaker 7: In fact we have the two cars that cannot be
Speaker 7: cards sitting in New Jersey. The convertible the other one
Speaker 7: is up in Rhode Island at a storage antique storage
Speaker 7: place so we've got to bring the cars back together now.
Speaker 7: They tell me that online auctions are doing better than
Speaker 7: even sometimes lab auctions.
Speaker 5: What got you started on this mission.
Speaker 7: Jim I remember going to Mount Vernon my aunt and
Speaker 7: uncle took me up down.
Speaker 6: Twelve years old just being in Mount Vernon I should
Speaker 6: say George Washington walked around here where I'm walking my
Speaker 6: gold Danza had to get back to Washington one day.
Speaker 6: That was my dream my gold and I finally did.
Speaker 6: But how I got into Kennedy was 1960 and the
Speaker 6: third grade. They brought a TV in to the auditorium
Speaker 6: and we got to watch the inauguration. I was fascinated
Speaker 6: by the pomp and circumstance and with John Kennedy and
Speaker 6: then like many of us in 1963 were in the
Speaker 6: classroom on that Friday afternoon. And it just changes your life.
Speaker 6: I made a trip then in the eighth grade 1965
Speaker 6: to Washington and I wanted to go see Kennedy is great.
Speaker 6: And I bought a little souvenir a little John Kennedy
Speaker 6: bus and I still have that bus today. I think
Speaker 6: I paid 50 cents right then that turned me on
Speaker 6: I wanted to go to Washington and work. And so
Speaker 6: even as a young boy got involved in politics and
Speaker 6: leafleting cars and stuff I started collecting political buttons and
Speaker 6: then I went to Washington and I wanted to design
Speaker 6: some buttons to pay for a trip to the convention
Speaker 6: in New York for Carter and the convention in Detroit
Speaker 6: for Ronald Reagan. And I worked for a congressman so
Speaker 6: I took some vacation time. I drive all night to Detroit.
Speaker 6: I sell my buttons on the street and I make
Speaker 6: more money in a week.
Speaker 2: And I did the year with my congressman. So I
Speaker 2: came back and I said I'm gonna have to quit.
Speaker 2: He was in a hot campaign race and talk about capitalism.
Speaker 2: And so I quit and I threw buttons in the car.
Speaker 2: I did it Reagan buttons and then Carter buttons went
Speaker 2: to New York and sold in New York and I
Speaker 2: traveled around the country I did a rally every day
Speaker 2: by myself. I had a great time. Got to see
Speaker 2: the country. And then every four years I would do
Speaker 2: this and then I got to where I would get
Speaker 2: college kids from Labor Day until the election.
Speaker 4: They would travel and sell buttons out position Southern California
Speaker 4: some out of Atlanta Columbus Ohio. And they wrote about
Speaker 4: it and I got college credit for their experience and
Speaker 4: how the speeches changed in the crowd so they really
Speaker 4: got a lot out of it and they sold a
Speaker 4: lot of buttons from many too. So it got started
Speaker 4: really from selling buttons and then I just a memorabilia
Speaker 4: store in the old train station in Washington. And 1980.
Speaker 4: Bill Clinton used to come through on his way to
Speaker 4: fundraisers and he would buy every Truman button I had.
Speaker 4: He was a big Truman. The store is called political
Speaker 4: Marikana was its first political memorabilia store in the country
Speaker 4: and it became a big hit. So I opened one
Speaker 4: in Chicago. I opened one in Boston at Faneuil Hall
Speaker 4: Quincy Market open one in Baltimore and I had three
Speaker 4: in Washington at one time I had six political and
Speaker 4: repave stores. And that is hard to keep off course
Speaker 4: when you have six stores you got three to do
Speaker 4: great and three that topped. And yeah I was constantly
Speaker 4: traveling so I decided to not do that stores in
Speaker 4: other cities anymore then opened the White House store across
Speaker 4: from the White House. It first was the Obama inauguration store.
Speaker 4: Then we eventually turned it in and a few months
Speaker 4: after he became president in the White House gift store
Speaker 4: from that then we started looking about black and other
Speaker 4: items that we could take on the road with the experience.
Speaker 4: So I got to this auction in Boston in 2013
Speaker 4: in October and they had two cars they have one
Speaker 4: which was in 1960 Lincoln an armored car makes specifically
Speaker 4: as the presidential car. They had several when the motor
Speaker 4: pool this car never traveled they had a hard top
Speaker 4: and had a two way radio and it phone like
Speaker 4: in the back first. It only carried Kennedy around Washington.
Speaker 4: I won that bid and wasn't going to bid on
Speaker 4: the other. But the price looked pretty good. And I
Speaker 4: ended up bidding on that one and getting it also
Speaker 4: in attendance at the way am I gonna get the
Speaker 4: money to pay for these two cars. I just went crazy.
Speaker 8: You know you do that well an auction I'll do
Speaker 8: that to you. And I'll bet you're glad you did.
Speaker 6: Now I am I worked it out. Now I got
Speaker 6: the cars and got more items that will be in
Speaker 6: the auction on October 14th.
Speaker 3: That's great. Here take a short break but we'll be
Speaker 3: right back.
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Speaker 3: We're back with two more like Jim. Let me ask
Speaker 3: you first of all JFK is probably the most beloved
Speaker 3: president in what would be modern U.S. history.
Speaker 5: I'm a postage stamp collector and you look at stamps
Speaker 5: issued by nations around the world and Europe Africa Asia
Speaker 5: South America. He's on stamps from almost every stamp printing
Speaker 5: nation in the world. He was really a heroic figure.
Speaker 5: That of course his assassination was a shock to the world.
Speaker 5: Most people when they think about Kennedy's automobiles they only
Speaker 5: think about the so-called death car the car that he
Speaker 5: was shot in in Dallas. That car I guess went
Speaker 5: to the Smithsonian Institution after Johnson had it all cleaned
Speaker 5: up and now it's in the Henry Ford in Dearborn.
Speaker 5: But that car really bears no relation to the car
Speaker 5: that Jackie Kennedy and the governor were riding in the
Speaker 5: day he was shot. It's a different color it's got
Speaker 5: a different top honor. I mean it's completely redone.
Speaker 6: You know they actually used that car through Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 5: That's amazing. I'm kind of surprised any president would want
Speaker 5: to even write it. I mean it was almost a
Speaker 5: sacred artifact and just to use it as a livery
Speaker 5: vehicle not to mention whatever black cloud was sort of
Speaker 5: hanging over it. It's strangely continued to be used. And
Speaker 5: I guess just to put that in context all our
Speaker 5: listeners would recognize it as the exquisite Lincoln Continental design
Speaker 5: from early 1960s that has endured so well in an
Speaker 5: aesthetic sense. That was really an important American car.
Speaker 6: Harry Truman switch the presidential cars remade by Lincoln. He
Speaker 6: got mad at General Motors because they wouldn't let many
Speaker 6: cars during the campaign. Interesting fact Teddy Roosevelt would not
Speaker 6: ride in a car. He rode in carriages and they
Speaker 6: had a car who would follow him with security behind
Speaker 6: the horse drawn carriage. Is that right. He thought it
Speaker 6: was not manly a man and a horse is what
Speaker 6: you get a ride on a president. That's that's fantastic.
Speaker 5: Well unfortunately President Kennedy got in that Lincoln and never
Speaker 5: got out alive. But what most people don't realize is
Speaker 5: that there were some other cars that were associated with
Speaker 5: his tenure and one very closely associated that he had
Speaker 5: in fact written in that very day. That's the car
Speaker 5: you have for sale. So 1963 Lincoln Continental is a
Speaker 5: beautiful ivory car with a red interior and that's kind
Speaker 5: of the star of the auction which should tell us
Speaker 5: about that.
Speaker 6: Well it's unusual for one time I've seen a president
Speaker 6: ride in a car that was not a presidential limousine.
Speaker 6: And that was Jimmy Carter when he announced in 1980.
Speaker 6: But they had two or three parades. They needed to
Speaker 6: do and they did not plan for a parade in
Speaker 6: Fort Worth. He was going to get into Fort Worth
Speaker 6: late on Thursday night November 21st. So the car was
Speaker 6: to pick him up at the airport at Carswell take
Speaker 6: him to the hotel and then back to the airport
Speaker 6: quickly the next morning. And so the Secret Service asked
Speaker 6: Golightly auto business if they had a car. They were
Speaker 6: the Lincoln dealer in town right. Yes they said yes.
Speaker 6: And so they drilled in the fender amounts to put
Speaker 6: the flags on the car of the presidential flag an
Speaker 6: American flag. And so it took Jackie and the president
Speaker 6: up at the airport. I think about 11:00 p.m. that
Speaker 6: night that got into the ring there at eleven forty.
Speaker 6: And they were exhausted. They got up the next morning
Speaker 6: and one of the other things that will be in
Speaker 6: the auction. Kennedy called Lady that a decorated the hotel
Speaker 6: room with great pieces of art. He called and thanked her.
Speaker 6: Boy what a touch of class. Ruth Carter Johnson was
Speaker 6: her name. It was the last time you would ever
Speaker 6: pick up a telephone as his last phone call. Also
Speaker 6: those two phones over in the hotel room will be
Speaker 6: in the auction so Kennedy comes down. It's raining that morning.
Speaker 6: He's going to speak out in front of the hotel.
Speaker 6: Jim Wright introduces him. Kennedy is the only one was
Speaker 6: out of town. He speaks and then he goes back
Speaker 6: and changes as he's going to speak to the chamber
Speaker 6: there that morning in Fort Worth. This great video of
Speaker 6: the car was brought up to the entrance. So when
Speaker 6: he came out it would be right there and it
Speaker 6: had the top up. And while he was speaking the
Speaker 6: sun came out. Secret Service said let's take the top
Speaker 6: down and that this is a normal Lincoln it's not
Speaker 6: a big presidential car and they take the top down.
Speaker 6: And then Kennedy Jackie and Governor Connally come out and
Speaker 6: all three of them get in the backseat with Jackie
Speaker 6: in the mantle.
Speaker 8: And so they're all squeezed and you see this picture
Speaker 8: that is a great picture I had a chance to
Speaker 8: see it talk about Camelot. I mean it really was
Speaker 8: their white horse wasn't it it was a white Lincoln
Speaker 8: and it looked pretty special.
Speaker 11: And there were great crowds along the way to the
Speaker 11: airport at Carswell and then when you look back and
Speaker 11: see the film when they get out of this white
Speaker 11: convertible and then they get to the fence. This is
Speaker 11: the first time Jackie had traveled with the president on
Speaker 11: the campaign. She had lost a child earlier in the spring.
Speaker 11: And so she hadn't traveled and this was the first
Speaker 11: time some I said they looked so happy together because
Speaker 11: they both went to the fancy degree people and then
Speaker 11: you think well that's the last time you ever get
Speaker 11: out of an automobile. And so sometimes when I described
Speaker 11: the car to people it's hard to say. So the
Speaker 11: last car he rode he had because it's not that's
Speaker 11: the assassination car. It's the car. He wrote it and
Speaker 11: successfully and got out and 12 minutes later they're in
Speaker 11: Dallas and within an hour of getting out of that
Speaker 11: car he had been assessed one of the things we
Speaker 11: did that the state says we would ask people can
Speaker 11: you remember. And we recorded them where you were on
Speaker 11: November 22nd 1963.
Speaker 4: And everybody it came back as though it had happened
Speaker 4: 10 minutes ago and everybody wanted to tell their story.
Speaker 4: So we set up a whole table and we would
Speaker 4: do interviews with people just telling them about that day
Speaker 4: and what they thought about Kennedy and assassination.
Speaker 5: I think back to I remember walking home from school
Speaker 5: coming home from elementary school and walked through the door
Speaker 5: and my mom must've been in tears. She was a
Speaker 5: fairly elegant lady and probably got a double for Jackie
Speaker 5: certainly represents a moment in time and also a moment
Speaker 5: in time when American cars were pretty presidential in their demeanor.
Speaker 5: I can't imagine a more appropriate one to put up
Speaker 5: on the auction block. That's a great piece of history
Speaker 5: and a great car. You've got another one as well
Speaker 5: the one you alluded to earlier the big armored monster.
Speaker 5: That's a Lincoln Continental limousine from 1960. So it had
Speaker 5: a completely different look. They made them bigger than that
Speaker 5: one is 22 feet long.
Speaker 6: It's an armored car one the first ones windshields all
Speaker 6: the glass. It is a heavy duty car.
Speaker 8: They must've paid some money to have that thing built.
Speaker 8: If the government pays 900 bucks for a hammer I
Speaker 8: shudder to think what that thing caused back in 1960.
Speaker 4: You know the cars now cost almost three million dollars
Speaker 4: so it was a better deal than the ones that
Speaker 4: get now.
Speaker 8: I was talking with a fabricator recently who actually has
Speaker 8: done some work on presidential vehicles or part of his
Speaker 8: team have. And he says they may look like Cadillacs
Speaker 8: or whatever but there's nothing having to do with a
Speaker 8: Cadillac underneath that skin because they're essentially armored tanks.
Speaker 6: It was said that in one of the Reagan's limousines
Speaker 6: that had an opening in the back the seat would
Speaker 6: fall down and it was a private security. They would
Speaker 6: go in that in the back of the car. I
Speaker 6: don't know if that's true or not. But after Clinton's
Speaker 6: limousine they should have put him in presidential laboratories but
Speaker 6: they don't do that anymore. They actually use them for
Speaker 6: the Secret Service to train them and they shoot the
Speaker 6: cars up and destroy them. They get all kinds of
Speaker 6: intelligence equipment and they probably can fly. We don't know
Speaker 6: what they probably can.
Speaker 7: These two cars Robert had been in storage for more
Speaker 7: than 10 years. Nobody had seen them. And so something
Speaker 7: like that only people to see it. That's why we're
Speaker 7: perfectly for me with presidential experience traveling show.
Speaker 5: I guess there's other pieces of important JFK memorabilia that
Speaker 5: are coming up on the block too. You'd mentioned these
Speaker 5: two telephones which I've seen a picture of.
Speaker 8: It's kind of amazing a little white house emblem in
Speaker 8: the theater and they're very special back when rotary phones
Speaker 8: are all we have.
Speaker 6: I thought this from a man who was the telephone
Speaker 6: guy who installed the phones but after he just tipped
Speaker 6: them and thought well I'll just take him home with me.
Speaker 6: I guess I hopefully paid the telephone company but he
Speaker 6: had them for years and years before he really thought
Speaker 6: how viable they were. Since it's the last phone call
Speaker 6: Oh Peter we have a Kennedy shaving kit.
Speaker 4: Also the Knox case which is a national stolen it
Speaker 4: got a razor and the brush and blades and everything
Speaker 4: in it. And we have one of Jackie's bathing suits
Speaker 4: that will be in the auction. Also it's framed beautifully.
Speaker 4: I wonder if it's still in style. She made that
Speaker 4: famous trip to Paris. The world loved her French loved
Speaker 4: her and she got accolades for that trip. She had
Speaker 4: a pair of beautiful shoes she wore on that trip.
Speaker 4: And they're seen in a lot of the press pieces.
Speaker 4: So those shoes are going to be for sale also.
Speaker 5: Well you really cover the gamut in terms of the
Speaker 5: president's personal life. That's pretty amazing. Obviously JFK is a
Speaker 5: key figure but as I alluded to before your mission
Speaker 5: really is kind of decidedly nonpartisan. I mean you have
Speaker 5: great interest in all of this presidential history and history
Speaker 5: of Washington.
Speaker 6: I try to inspire and kids when they come to
Speaker 6: the show is the way I felt in 1965. And
Speaker 6: there are a lot of great kids out there who
Speaker 6: get it and who know their history and they love it.
Speaker 6: And you can quiz kids and they know more than that.
Speaker 6: There was a little boy that we brought in from Atlanta.
Speaker 6: He's 6 years old and he does. John Kennedy is
Speaker 6: the inaugural speech and uses the voice on young African-American
Speaker 6: kid but he uses a Boston accent six years that's
Speaker 6: not what your country can do for you.
Speaker 3: Oh that is fantastic. It's so gratifying to think that
Speaker 3: this is still an inspiration for young people like. That's
Speaker 3: just fantastic. Well we're going to take a quick break
Speaker 3: but we will be right back.
Speaker 12: A moment of your time. A new podcast from Kirk
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Speaker 9: Currently 21 years old and today like magic Reed appended
Speaker 9: from her fingertips down to the blood to take care
Speaker 9: of yourself because the world needs you. And for every
Speaker 9: do gooder that asked about me was ready to spit
Speaker 9: on my fingers her face you can feel like your
Speaker 9: purpose in your work is really being called to stop
Speaker 9: me from playing the piano she buys walkie talkies wonders
Speaker 9: to whom she should give the second dance don't love.
Speaker 5: We never did. We never will.
Speaker 13: We just find the beauty of rock climbing. Is that
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Speaker 14: Welcome back. The cars the better. I shudder to ask
Speaker 14: how many other things are in your collections. You talked
Speaker 14: about campaign buttons before. Would you venture a guess at
Speaker 14: what that collection entail.
Speaker 4: After I started making buttons I started designing campaign mature
Speaker 4: for campaigns. So I ended up doing 14 presidential candidates.
Speaker 4: There are buttons and bumper stickers and buttons and that
Speaker 4: was my business for 10 years before I opened the
Speaker 4: memorabilia store in Washington. John Glenn Gary Hart Jesse Jackson
Speaker 4: Fritz Hollings South Carolina.
Speaker 8: So it doesn't matter which side of the aisle they're
Speaker 8: on you're going to give them some good quality work
Speaker 8: in the old days.
Speaker 6: At the end of the campaign they still owe you
Speaker 6: money and they run out of money. And so what
Speaker 6: I would do is they give me back what you
Speaker 6: didn't distribute around the country and I'll give you credit
Speaker 6: on it. So I got some back that way but
Speaker 6: I think Gary Hart still owes me twelve thousand. John
Speaker 6: Glenn owes me ten but not their fault. They can't
Speaker 6: under the federal law. They've said they'd love to pay
Speaker 6: me personally but they can't.
Speaker 8: That's a little detail I wouldn't know I to go
Speaker 8: into politics save them money.
Speaker 7: I did the inauguration for Clinton and ninety two. I
Speaker 7: did all the inauguration items and set six or eight
Speaker 7: stores and did the posters.
Speaker 6: There was a big big project we are 300 people
Speaker 6: to work these boats around the city during the inauguration
Speaker 6: with all the posters and buttons that I have from
Speaker 6: all these candidates and the ones I've collected I have
Speaker 6: around one point two million political campaign buttons.
Speaker 8: Good heavens what kind of warehouse does that take to house.
Speaker 6: It takes about a eight thousand square foot eight hundred
Speaker 6: crates and many of them in bags never been opened
Speaker 6: before still when the original plastic bags that came in
Speaker 6: I set up a foundation to give those away and
Speaker 6: I've been trying to give them away to schools and
Speaker 6: places in the last five years even to address libraries.
Speaker 8: What's amazing is those are important historical markers if you
Speaker 8: will just kind of like the scurrying King Tut's tomb
Speaker 8: two thousand years later imagine what archeologists will think when
Speaker 8: they discover all those buttons. If you haven't been able
Speaker 8: to distribute it.
Speaker 6: I was in the warehouse the other day and I
Speaker 6: found some Biden buttons I did.
Speaker 7: Biden's campaign in 1988. And so I just don't have
Speaker 7: my Joe Biden campaign buttons that make direct campaigns or
Speaker 7: he wins means value will go up.
Speaker 8: That is fantastic. We certainly keep politics out of our program.
Speaker 8: But I can't imagine a better way to broach the
Speaker 8: subject than getting a presidential expert on our show.
Speaker 5: Jim whatever you're buying a car for a private party
Speaker 5: or maybe looking at a car at auction or whatnot.
Speaker 5: The first question people seem to have is maybe with
Speaker 5: a little bit of suspicion or why are you selling
Speaker 5: this car. Well what's the matter with it. What makes
Speaker 5: you want to get rid of such a nice car
Speaker 5: or whatever the line would be. That's an obvious question
Speaker 5: to you. But you alluded to a program and a
Speaker 5: purpose that was really it has some real meaning to
Speaker 5: you personally and to a lot of the people in
Speaker 5: the south. Tell us about your foundation.
Speaker 4: Robert I've been very fortunate because I grew up very
Speaker 4: very poor and every day has been extra. I've been
Speaker 4: so so fortunate when I was collecting all these things
Speaker 4: and I was putting on an exhibition at the local
Speaker 4: museum back in the little town that I grew up
Speaker 4: in and what towns at Joe Morgan to North Carolina
Speaker 4: Senator Sam Ervin was from Morgan when I was a
Speaker 4: kid I handed out Sam Ervin buttons and stickers and
Speaker 4: get in trouble putting stickers in people's mailboxes. People said
Speaker 4: that's a federal property you can't do. When I was
Speaker 4: in the museum we saw a lot of pictures and
Speaker 4: things about the owners. The males were my people were
Speaker 4: male workers. My mother went to work in a house
Speaker 4: room male at the age of 16 worked at the
Speaker 4: same sewing machine for 33 years.
Speaker 5: That's unheard of nobody stays at a job for 33 years.
Speaker 5: And of course today people don't start work or they're
Speaker 5: 16 but by the way she was old to start
Speaker 5: working at 16 because some of those kids looked like
Speaker 5: they were half that age.
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right Robert child labor was a big issue
Speaker 1: up until the late 40s until after World War Two
Speaker 1: kids 6 and 8 years old worked in mills even
Speaker 1: around the town that I grew up in. It was shameful.
Speaker 1: And so mom got up every morning at five thirty.
Speaker 1: She got us dressed she has breakfast and then we
Speaker 1: would catch the bus she would catch her Rhonda worked
Speaker 1: with other mill workers. She raised three kids and did
Speaker 1: honorable work. I don't think I ever remember her missing
Speaker 1: a day's work. She made eighty dollars a week and
Speaker 1: raised three kids over the years I've always went to
Speaker 1: pay tribute to my mother. She passed away seven years ago.
Speaker 2: I had this idea about doing an exhibition of metalworkers
Speaker 2: and then it got bigger and so I set up
Speaker 2: a foundation and put some mining in it and we
Speaker 2: have scholarships now for first generation kids first family and
Speaker 2: their family has gone to a college at the local
Speaker 2: community college in mortgage and where I went to school
Speaker 2: full scholarships for 10 kids each year and we just
Speaker 2: had our first kids get scholarships this year we're doing
Speaker 2: a documentary on metalworkers that we're going to show in
Speaker 2: the schools because kids don't get an appreciation. People who
Speaker 2: are mill workers have an inferiority. They think that they're
Speaker 2: just mill workers. The first woman I interviewed one of
Speaker 2: the things we do is StoryCorps type thing and so
Speaker 2: I brought in this elderly lady. She's 94 years old.
Speaker 2: Miss Madeline Newton we got ready to do the interview
Speaker 2: and she said Mr. Warnock she said I don't have
Speaker 2: a story I'm just a mill worker. And I said
Speaker 2: you give me a little time then I found a
Speaker 2: story in you she talked for two hours and then
Speaker 2: she called back a week later and said Tell Mr.
Speaker 2: Warwick that I'll come back up there and talk some more.
Speaker 2: He wants me to. When she left there she was
Speaker 2: so proud. No one had ever made her feel that
Speaker 2: her work in a mill was great work. And she
Speaker 2: raised the family.
Speaker 1: They got educations and a lot of them in their
Speaker 1: school teachers in their analysis of the mill workers built
Speaker 1: a good community. My idea was we need to honor
Speaker 1: these people and we'd better do it fast because they're
Speaker 1: passing on. So this foundation does to scholarships the documentary
Speaker 1: we've got a monument that will be going up on
Speaker 1: the history easily home grounds. We're gonna do it in
Speaker 1: October but with Kenwood we gotta wait till next year
Speaker 1: to that. Hourly workers can get there but in the
Speaker 1: center of that monument will be my mother. Twelve feet
Speaker 1: high and then my uncle who worked in the furniture factory.
Speaker 1: I have 32 aunts and uncles. We didn't have time
Speaker 1: to think about the former because everybody was hiding you
Speaker 1: and kissing you and loving you So that's what got
Speaker 1: me through. I had a wonderful family and they were
Speaker 1: only workers. The women worked in the textile industry. The
Speaker 1: men worked in furniture factories and then we had this
Speaker 1: wonderful still living African-American woman who represents the textile work.
Speaker 1: This monument would tell the story of the mills and
Speaker 1: the lives of the mill workers and it will honor
Speaker 1: and pay tribute to what an incredibly magnanimous and worthwhile endeavor.
Speaker 5: It's called The Worker's Legacy Foundation.
Speaker 6: It is and that's the reason it's easy for me
Speaker 6: to let the American president to experience collection go. It's
Speaker 6: not the money I don't need the money but I
Speaker 6: can use that money for more scholarships and for doing
Speaker 6: more back in a little community that I grew up
Speaker 6: in Afghanistan for somebody else to only stars. I've had
Speaker 6: the privilege of Orlando and the pride of Arlington. I'll
Speaker 6: let somebody else have that feeling too.
Speaker 5: I think that's the way every car owner should look
Speaker 5: at their automobiles or whatever historical artifact they have. We're
Speaker 5: just the custodians of these things. But certainly your workers
Speaker 5: Legacy Foundation has a broader mission and one that will
Speaker 5: certainly endure. The South is interesting I think. People who
Speaker 5: don't come from the south or have had little experience
Speaker 5: there whether it's Mississippi or Alabama Georgia Florida or a
Speaker 5: place as far north as North Carolina don't really understand that.
Speaker 5: There was so much industry and so much commerce done
Speaker 5: there that so greatly affected not just that region but
Speaker 5: the entire economic prosperity in America. Virtually everything that was
Speaker 5: fabric or woven carpet all the as you say the
Speaker 5: furniture all the woodworking that was all done there and
Speaker 5: under certainly less than ideal conditions you have a 6
Speaker 5: year old kid go to work. I have to wonder
Speaker 5: if that didn't somehow really create a strong strong generation.
Speaker 6: It's interesting you touch on that because when I started
Speaker 6: this project Robert I was going to put a lot
Speaker 6: of emphasis and expose the child labor and my exhibition
Speaker 6: was gonna be about child labor. When I started interviewing
Speaker 6: these workers I realized they enjoyed their work and they
Speaker 6: raised families and what low income they did get. I
Speaker 6: decided it was not my place to make them feel.
Speaker 6: I thought they would feel that they had been exploited
Speaker 6: working in the mills and they had a happy story
Speaker 6: and I thought I must tell their story. We do
Speaker 6: have some in the exhibition we're going to do about
Speaker 6: child labor. It's not going to be the focus which
Speaker 6: I originally intended because I want them to be proud
Speaker 6: and to when they tell their story have some pride
Speaker 6: and they should.
Speaker 5: Well Jim we're sure excited to see what happens at
Speaker 5: the upcoming bottoms auction. Of course this program will continue
Speaker 5: to be aired long after that the conversation on the
Speaker 5: subject is going to be just as evergreen because presidential
Speaker 5: cars and the presidential experience and all that will continue
Speaker 5: to be alive online. Yes. Yeah sure.
Speaker 8: Well Jim I really do wish you the best of
Speaker 8: luck on this sale because it'll mean to us that
Speaker 8: many more scholarships. What a great thing you're doing. I
Speaker 8: want to thank Jim Wallis owner White House gift shop
Speaker 8: the presidential experience for joining us today and really taking
Speaker 8: a fascinating drive down Pennsylvania Avenue so to speak and
Speaker 8: talking about the presidency and some of the cars that
Speaker 8: played such an instrumental role in the history of that office.
Speaker 8: Jim thanks so much.
Speaker 4: Thank you Erin. You're so kind and having you on
Speaker 4: the show and talking about the cars and the election
Speaker 4: and hope history and the worker's Legacy Project. Thank you
Speaker 4: very much. Come back next time as we continue to
Speaker 4: talk about the passions with drivers and the passions we drive.
Speaker 3: This episode of cars that matter was hosted by Robert
Speaker 3: Ross produced by Chris border edited by Chris Porter sound
Speaker 3: engineering by Michael Kennedy theme song by Celeste and Eric dick.
Speaker 3: Additional Music and Sound by Chris Porter. Please like subscribe
Speaker 3: and share this podcast. I'm Robert Ross. Thanks for listening.
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