Senator Eastland's Christmas
Ullman, Victor
Senator James 0. Eastland, Mississippi Democrat is, as president pro tern of the Senate, now second in line to succeed to the Presidency of the United States. He is chairman of the Senate...
...See, she had two bad operations on her leg and so I tried to get help for her but they didn't do it...
...Department of Agriculture...
...That's right...
...He is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and of its subcommittee on Internal Security...
...I could say I cook for him most often when he comes in...
...He is also the biggest landowner in Sunflower County, Mississippi,reigning over more than 5,000 acres of flat, fertile delta land and collecting handsome crop subsidies—$169,967 in 1972—from the U.S...
...Q. Well, are you going to be able to get work outside...
...Cause can't get them and they's quitting and losing time...
...Q. What about welfare...
...Q. What do you mean by tough days...
...I ought to have a big pile now...
...I don't know, sir—I ain't never tried it...
...Q. You Ve been living here for nine years—have you cooked for the Eastlands all that time...
...So he said I don't see the place where I can do that...
...Q. And in the past, you asked him for money, and did he give it to you...
...Q. And you asked . . . . Mr...
...Yes, sir, t h a t ' s right...
...Now he cut me down to $3.50...
...I tried to get welfare when [my daughter] had to have an operation— that was in '64.1 tried to get welfare and the state was taking care of the operation, and I tried to get welfare for her...
...Either you or your husband...
...Q. He took out Social Security...
...I cook for him...
...Just $3.50...
...t give me anything...
...3.50...
...Q. Without you folks, can they run that plantation...
...And when he'd take out Social Security it would be forty cents...
...Around Christmas time, I was working there in Mr...
...You mean how much money we would get...
...I went there and worked for him nights when he's laying up there on the bed, sick, hisownself...
...When they worked, what did they get...
...He was here week before last, and t h a t ' s all he give me...
...Q. When did he do that...
...Just like it's when he comes in I still go and cook for him...
...He pretend that he can take tractor man and work his crop, but he's going to have to need us...
...Q. And what about your children...
...I said surely as long as I been here with you—I said now I've put in some pretty tough days with you, that I had...
...It didn't cost a whole lot, I said, but I do want to try to save my car and get my children some shoes and keep them going on to school...
...Several years ago, Victor Ullman, a free-lance writer, conducted taperecorded interviews with some of Senator Eastland's plantation hands...
...He said last year that he wouldn't need us to chop none, and when we started to work, we chopped up to September...
...I don't see how he going to do it...
...Christmas...
...And the last one they say was more than that...
...Eastland's house...
...Whenever we asked him for it, he'd give it to us...
...Q. That was Christmas...
...Q. He takes it out...
...If I can get any work anywhere to do I 'm willing to do it...
...What did he put in your hand at the end of a day...
...I got my card, my paper at home—every day I worked...
...Cause I need to be working right now...
...Q. That's a lot of money...
...That's from six o'clock till six at night...
...Q. Then, it was Christmas Eve you asked him for the money, and he wouldn't advance it...
...Yes, sir...
...I kept what we got...
...No, sir...
...She's not able to do no kind of work...
...Nobody else—and helped turn him about around and also his mother too...
...End of a day...
...But this year, he didn...
...When I worked, how much he took out and how much I make...
...2.40...
...Q. This Christmas...
...Q. What does he pay for chopping...
...And I hadn't made no money...
...He takes it out...
...Eastland for some money, and he refused to give it to me...
...If you 're not working, can V you get welfare...
...We'd pay out $4 and I think forty some cents...
...Every day go back home, wait on my children and go to the field and work on the crop...
...Let's see, he'd take out ten cents, sometimes I believe he would take out fifteen cents...
...I cooked for him...
...What would he take out...
...I cooked for his mother two years and I cooked for him just about three...
...Well, now, he had been paying me $5 a day but then he quit and he's paying me $3.50...
...Yes, sir...
...The following excerpt is from a conversation with Mrs...
...I don't know how much the operation was, but the first operation was 700 and some dollars...
...He wouldn't give it...
...Q. What if you can't get work around here, you and your husband...
...Well, they would get some time the same thing—if he got a little behind he'd cut 'em...
...You take just one person working and you see I have all those children—I got two boys in high school and the rest of them goes to grammar school...
...Let me tell you how much—what I would pay out for Social Security for me and my children...
...When did he cut it down...
...Q. And that's a full day...
...He even take out Social Security if you're only making one dollar...
...Irene Taylor, who had worked for the Eastland family for nine years...
...I'd have to go somewhere else...
...He had been paying me $5.1 had to cook for two meals, t h a t ' s breakfast and dinner, and clean up, and I would get $5 each time I went to the house...
...It sure was...
...But the state took care of that...
...As well as work on the land...
...I got four going to have to stop school because they ain't got shoes...
...And you know, it's a day or two to Christmas, and you all have to have money you know, at Christmas time, and so I told him, I said I'm going to need some money, I said, and you know ain't nobody been working but just me, I said, and I got a bunch of children, and I don't have no clothes and shoes...
...Q. Then if you are getting $3.50 a day, you 'd get less than that...
...Well, I'd have to try to go somewhere else, and make arrangements, 'cause, see, I got too many kids to try to stay here and starve them out...
...And I said, I got a car...
Vol. 38 • December 1974 • No. 12
