John Thomas, Oral History

 

Recorded: October 30, 2019

Interviewed by Barbara Hipsman-Springer

Transcribed by the Kent State University Research & Evaluation Bureau

 

[Editor’s note: both the interviewer and the narrator were participants at the time of this interview in a class being held at the May 4 Visitors Center entitled Making Meaning of May 4: The Kent State Shootings in American History. Both refer to this class during the interview]

 

 

[Interviewer]: This is Barbara Hipsman-Springer. I’m speaking on October 30, 2019, at Kent State University in the May 4 [Visitors] Center. Could you please state your name for the recording?

 

[John Thomas]: John Thomas.

 

[Interviewer]: John Thomas. I’d like to begin with some brief information about you, so we can get to know you a little better. Could you tell us where you were born and where you grew up?

 

[John Thomas]: I was born in Kent. I grew up in Kent. I’m a lifer, I’m a townie, however you want to refer to me as. But I’ve lived here my entire life, nearly sixty-five years. I’ve worked in and around the Kent area. Earned three degrees from Kent State University over the years. And my sister was a graduate of Kent State and my wife was a graduate of Kent State.

 

[Interviewer]: Yay Kent State!

 

[John Thomas]: Yeah. Trifecta.

 

[Interviewer]: What were you doing, specifically, in 1970?

 

[John Thomas]: Well, I was a freshman in high school. Then, we had our high school split between ninth grade being at the junior high because that predated the middle-school concept. And so, you really didn’t get into the high school building until you were a tenth grader, a sophomore. And so I spent the 1969-1970 school year at Davey Junior High as a freshman.

 

[Interviewer]: Cool. Well, prior to May 4, 1970, what were your perceptions of students at Kent State and the protests that had been taking place on campus right around that time? Were you aware of them?

 

[John Thomas]: Well, going back to, I think it was the spring of 1969, and I remember Rick Erickson’s name associated with the student protest in the 1969 spring term. And that caused a little bit of ruffled feathers with the community and with the townspeople, as did the previous year, the Humphrey—Hubert Humphrey campaign visit in 1968 through the town in a motorcade, an open motorcade, that went on to the gymnasium, Memorial Gym, where he gave remarks. And in fact, me and two or three of my friends were able to get out of eighth grade early, at Davey Junior High, and stand on East Main Street hill, watching Humphrey go by and we only found out afterwards about the walkout of the BUS, Black United Students, which we thought was something. So there were some of us that were aware of what was going on up on “the hill,” as townies used to say.

 

[Interviewer]: So, it’s up on what is now commonly called Front Campus.

 

[John Thomas]: Right, right.

 

[Interviewer]: And then over, I guess over by Taylor Hall, kind of in those Commons areas.

 

[John Thomas]: Right, right.

 

[Interviewer]: Did you ever go over there, to watch things going on? Participate, but as an observer or a participant?

 

[John Thomas]: We’d do walkthroughs when we’d hear somebody was coming. You know, and this is both post-May 4th and pre-May 4th. We didn’t—the day of Humphrey’s visit, we didn’t follow the motorcade up to the university, but if we’d catch somebody well-known, when I heard Ali was going to be here, Muhammad Ali, me and a couple of my classmates—by then, I was a Kent State student—we went and saw him. Can’t remember if it was the ballroom or the Kiva.

 

[Interviewer]: When did you start at Kent State?

 

[John Thomas]: In June of 1973.

 

[Interviewer]: Okay, okay. [00:04:02] You know, prior to the shootings, how would you describe your parents, the overall relationship between Kent State students and the local community, not necessarily your parents, but the local community?

 

[John Thomas]: Well, Barb, I’m glad you mentioned my parents because I think my parents were atypical, fortunately and unfortunately, in the general community and the parents of my peers. They were both immigrants to this country—Italian immigrants. My father came in 1919 by himself, my mother in 1950 to marry my father, in fact. And they had seen a war up close. My father had seen the first World War, being an Italian, which is one of the reasons he left the United States—or actually, Italy—left for the United States. And my mother had seen the second World War up close, because she came like between the distance you and I are sitting, a couple feet away from Nazi German soldiers in occupied Italy. And they both lived through world-wide depression that followed World War I and also the, in my father’s case, the Great Depression in 1929, when he was already a citizen here. And so, they knew what war was like. They had seen it up close and the effects.

 

And so, they were, number one, not a fan of Nixon. Number two, not a fan of individuals or institutions that disallowed the exercise of free speech because, as I always tell my friends and other people, my parents realized they had to take a test to stay in this country, a citizenship test. And those types of ideals, and those types of things that they had to learn, part of the United States history, really stuck to them. Passed those values and those ideals along to me and to my sister. So I think, definitely, my parents were more tolerant and certainly they’d be one of the first to say when it came to the shootings, Barb, that how do you equate a bullet with a stone or a rock? You know? They couldn’t comprehend that. And also I grew up and they settled in the south end part of Kent, which was a conclave, a mixture of southern European immigrants as well as the Black community. And I saw firsthand, what we discussed the first two [Making Meaning of May 4] class meetings, how difficult it was for, especially Black students at Kent State, to find boarding. And there were many homes where, in our end of town, where I knew Blacks were picking up a couple extra dollars by renting out a room to a student. I used to deliver the Record Courier for five or six years in the south end, so you pick up a lot of those things along with growing up in that community. And you observe a lot.

 

[Interviewer]: Sure, sure. And of course, your own personal history is such that, as you became an adult,  you ran for city council.

 

[John Thomas]: Yeah, that’s correct.

 

[Interviewer]: So how old—because one of the questions is, “Were you politically active?” Well, maybe not when you were in ninth grade, but certainly as you—because you were a city councilman by the time you were, what—?

 

[John Thomas]: By the time I was twenty. And I was elected in fall of 1975, which is just over five years after the shootings. And I never thought of myself really, as one would think more so in this day and age, Well, he’s the student that’s on city council, because I was from the community—

 

[Interviewer]: From the southside, yeah.

 

[John Thomas]: —so it was kind of like a larger subset of being in the community. In fact, I always thought, and this is another distinction which I never understood. So many of my fellow students growing up, my friends, their families, made a distinction between Kent State and Kent, the community. I used the expression a few minutes ago, “up on the hill.” Well, it was almost like there was a Mason-Dixon line. From my memories about—you differentiate, even individuals that were employees, academic individuals. I don’t think they were thought of as members of the community and accepted as members of the community. At least not as quickly as someone born into the community, someone who had been there for a long time.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:09:13] So, your neighborhood is kind of over here by Williams and Oak? [referring to a physical map]

 

[John Thomas]: Yeah, further to the south it would be—in that area. Franklin Avenue, Cherry Street.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, in this area. So, behind the—to the west of Water Street down by the L-K Restaurant, which is now Family and Consumer, or Family and—Social Services. And over here by the Kent Floral—

 

[John Thomas]: That’s right.

 

[Interviewer]: So back in the neighborhood to the west of there would be—and south. So, that’s kind of over by Holden School, as it’s commonly known.

 

[John Thomas]: Yeah, in fact I went to Holden School, and I went to South School prior to that, which was across the street from Holden School.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, that’s an old school. That’s now used as a Kent rec center.

 

[John Thomas]: Yeah, right.

 

[Interviewer]: Would you just, do you have any memories that, well, from that week, let’s go to that week and then we’ll come back to your political career, because I think you had some anecdotes for us from your political year and from Mayor Satrom.

 

[John Thomas]: Oh yeah, yeah.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:10:09] What are your memories of that week?

 

[John Thomas]: That week-

 

[Interviewer]: Just being in the south side there. Where were you in town?

 

[John Thomas]: You know, I think the—maybe it’s not as up there as the shootings (but being part of the community), as say the day Kennedy was assassinated, but still. My memories begin with Saturday morning when one of my parents got a call from their friends.

 

[Interviewer]: So, May 1, 1970?

 

[John Thomas]: Yeah, yeah. That—actually, wouldn’t it be May 2, I suppose, that—

 

[Interviewer]: Yes, May 2 would be Saturday.

 

[John Thomas]: —that the town was in ruins, basically. So, you know, I don’t know if I or my sister bothered my father to take us downtown or if he went downtown and he took us along, but I remember seeing the broken window in what was then the Portage National Bank, which is where Huntington Bank is. I remember seeing a few windows broken in the what was known as the Getz Block, which is where most—Hometown Bank, on the street level, is located—and most of it had been cleaned up, but those things I remember. And then, from that into—

 

[Interviewer]: Did your dad kind of tell you what happened, or you sort of knew by that point?

 

[John Thomas]: Well, you know, he was kind of looking around too, because he was the kind of individual, Barb, that wanted to see things for himself, and I’ve shared he kind of weighed and measured whatever, if he took the call, whatever that caller told him, you know, the whole place was—well no, the whole place wasn’t in ruins. It was basically North Water Street that had had vandalism. And then, on Sunday, I remember this distinctly, I don’t know why, Barb, but I went over to the Red Barn Restaurant, which was on East Main Street, which is now Henry Wahner’s as you know. And I was—it was a beautiful spring afternoon and I was just sitting right there on the sidewalk eating a sandwich with whomever I went there with. But there was a Guardsman, I remember this, there was a Guardsman with a rifle, you know, right on the sidewalk on that side of Main Street. And if he had even been across the street, he would have been basically where the United Church of Christ is. And I’m thinking nothing of it, because I assume that there were Guardsmen that were dispatched all over Kent. And then I find out that, from this class [Making Meaning of May 4], literally, that they were dispatched to campus, but how they meandered down East Main Street, east of Music and Speech [Building]—

 

[Interviewer]: Maybe they were hungry.

 

[John Thomas]: Maybe they were hungry, yeah. But I remember he was standing there kind of casually, and then I remember later that day or the next day in the morning at school hearing about either Sandy Scheuer or [Allison] Krause, which one, I can’t remember which one of the women came up and gave one of the Guardsmen a flower. And that went around, so I must have heard about that at the, at school.

 

[Interviewer]: Did anybody comment about the size of the National Guard? Because one of the schools, I guess, had National Guard trucks and stuff in its parking lot.

 

[John Thomas]: Yeah, yeah. Well, I wouldn’t know that, but I’ll get to May 4th because that’s where I live—where I live, Barb, is relevant to what I observed after the shootings. But I think there was just—people were just bewildered because, at least at my age, at seeing soldiers in your town. And, you know, What’s going on here? Why is it, at this point, and I’m thinking, what I saw the previous day on Saturday morning, there were just a few windows broken. Big deal, you know? They broke windows down at the shopping center, you know. Kids, vandals, or whatever. All of a sudden now, there are Guardsmen, you know, soldiers. I didn’t even think of it as Guardsman, they were soldiers—anybody with a uniform and a gun with a helmet, I think of as a soldier. I said, How does it get to this point? And then, the other distinct memory I have of it, then after we were told by PA around two o’clock that buses would be there within a half hour to pick us up from Davey [School] to bring us home—

 

[Interviewer]: And this is?

 

[John Thomas]: On Monday after the shootings, about an hour and a half. And I remember going through town on a bus and I guess, and we were whispering, there was a rumor about Kent’s under martial law. And some of us knew what that was. And I remember seeing Guardsmen on every single corner with my bus driving through downtown Kent on the way home. Then later that day, we lived right across the street from the now Kent Recreation Center, and whomever was in charge, and that’s a question, and that’s kind of like a sarcastic comment, too.

 

[Interviewer]: So, down on the south side? I mean, because that’s probably where American Insurance Agency—down this way [referring to a map]. Closer to Holden [School].

 

[John Thomas]: On Franklin Avenue.

 

[John Thomas]: Actually, it’s another street—

 

[Interviewer]: Another block over from Water Street, off the map.

 

[John Thomas]: Yeah. Across the street from Holden at the Recreation Center, I guess local authorities had given state authorities the permission to use the Recreation Center and the parking lots around it,  including Holden School, as a staging area because all of a sudden, we began, over the next few hours on Monday afternoon, to see military vehicles there, to see emergency vehicles there, to see vehicles from other surrounding police departments, fire departments. And then, later that evening, going back to your first question, wondering about how my parents were about this whole era and those four days.  We were eating dinner and there’s a knock at the door, and these two young fellows come in, my dad let them in and they, I can’t recall, Barb, if they were BBC reporters, radio reporters, or TV reporters. But—and I can’t recall if the entire town—if phones were out or not, or, they were really in search of a phone, which they could make an overseas call on. But my dad let them in the house and, and I can’t remember if they got through or not, but they offered my dad money because, as you recall, then—before all this—overseas calls, that would take, a pretty good piece of change, even ten minutes.

 

[Interviewer]: Yeah, it was like ten bucks a minute.

 

[John Thomas]: Yeah, something like that. And he said, “Oh no. This is free. We’re not going to charge. I’m not going to take any money from you.” And so, I remember that very clearly. And I felt—made me feel good about my dad, yeah. But, you know, it stayed as a staging area for the next—the Recreation Center—for the next three or four days. At least through Friday of that week. So, that’s where he was coming from—

 

[Interviewer]: Almost in your living room.

 

[John Thomas]: Right, right. And even the press briefings were held there until, you know, sanity began to creep back into our community.

 

[Interviewer]: Did you go over and watch stuff? Sit on the on the curbstone with your buddies and—

 

[John Thomas]: Yeah, yeah. You know, we couldn’t get into the building and so, there was a perimeter where they would not let members of the public through, and that was before the yellow-tape era started. But we knew we’d better not cross that imaginary line. And then, here’s another odd thing about my end of town. Speaking of rumors and sanity resurfacing, and I can’t recall if this was Sunday night, May 3rd, or Monday, May 4th. I think it was Sunday night, May 3rd, and this would have affected our end of town, but there were rumors, and at the time there used to be at the end West Elm Street, which ran perpendicular to South Water [Street] and Franklin Avenue and headed west to a dead end. At the dead end of Elm Street, West Elm Street, there was a liquified natural gas works, Cal Gas, as you call it. And there were rumors circulating that somebody, some ones, plural, were going to attempt a sabotage. And they never did, and I don’t know to what level that worked.

 

[Interviewer]: So, rumors were rife in the in the neighborhoods.

 

[John Thomas]: Oh yeah, in the neighborhoods. And that’s how, and I’m sure in other parts of town, there were other rumors going around. You know, the old hysteria, “Oh, we’re all going to die!” Or whatever, you know. That kind of creeps into it.

 

[Interviewer]: Well, what made you get into politics then? I mean, you went through high school, things were quiet then, but I’m sure there was still a lot of politics out there, because it was a time of dissent, ’75, you mean.

 

[John Thomas]: And you remember, Kent State, it’s always been an international community, a cosmopolitan community. And it’s always been a hotbed of political activism, even before the shootings, if you look at Kent history. More so than a lot of other communities around here. And I think part of that, especially since 1910, was the growing presence of the university. For good, as far as how I speak. So, I think it was a combination of a lot of things, my parents being naturalized citizens, the values they held, the interest I had as I was growing older in the community being both Kent State student and also a lifetime resident of the community. And I think it just had a natural metamorphosis, you know.

 

[Interviewer]: How long were you a councilman in Kent then?

 

[John Thomas]: About thirteen years. And then I became a county commissioner for four years, county auditor. I was on the council from about 1976 to about 1991.

 

[Interviewer]: So yeah, some good years in there. Some years that I covered myself. [00:22:04] I was curious though, you know, in 1975 you probably heard some stories about what the mayor and the governor had to do in the town. You were telling us the other day, maybe start that story for us, because that’ll be a fun one, about the mayor and his little paranoia.

 

[John Thomas]: Yeah. And you always find out about these things, we always do, the rest of the story or however you say it, the story behind the story, years afterwards. But, you know, Roy Satrom, he was a well-intentioned guy, in fact, he was a political supporter of mine. But I think he let the—I don’t want to say he created a tidal wave, but I guess what I would say would be that he tended to be on the nervous side. In fact, he spoke—his voice—kind of nervously, but he was a smart guy. As far as being trained as an engineer and—but, I don’t know if that linear thinking, as they say most engineers have, and I shouldn’t say that because my son’s an engineer, but I think he’s a Renaissance kind of guy. I think that got to the better of him during those four days. A good friend of mine, he was in the cabinet at the time, who’s still alive, so I prefer [not to disclose]—

 

He told me when I was on council the first year or sometime thereafter, he said that Roy, Mayor Satrom, had a phone installed in one of the removable ceiling panels in the second-floor council chambers because he was afraid that they’d be cut off from the outside world or whatever. And he told me, as well, that there was a cabinet meeting: the city engineer, the finance director, the law director, and a couple other individuals, Safety Director Fisher Roberts, most of whom I knew or knew by name at least, the police chief, the fire chief, that Saturday morning, May 2nd. And my friend sat in on that and his recollection was that they spent most of the time trying to calm Satrom down, trying to calm Roy down, you know, this is still our town, you know, words to the effect. Let’s see what’s—how to get a handle on this.

 

And his recollection of the way the police chief, Roy Thompson, and the fire chief, Fred Miller, were acting, he said, well, I think he told me, “What do you expect from the police and the fire chief?” They want to not use the characterization, what do you expect of guys in uniform, but they wanted to, you know, put clamps down on things. And I think that’s how the idea of calling the state mushroomed, began to mushroom—calling the National Guard or calling the Governor’s office. And, you know, what happened after that was just a proverbial snowball going down the—unabated—down the hillside between that Saturday morning meeting at city hall, and the Sunday morning press conference with Rhodes coming in that was held at the new fire station there, right across the parking lot from city hall. And then, the decisions that emanated from that where, these are my words, Barb, but I just think the city defaulted, city leaders defaulted.

 

[Interviewer]: Well, Rhodes was up for reelection.

 

[John Thomas]: No, he was running against Bob Taft in the Republican Primary for U.S. Senate. So, he had had his second and he was term-limited as Governor, as they still are now. So, as I saw in the movie that we were asked to watch, he was going to be Nixon’s local equivalent, an Ohio equivalent of law and order like Nixon ran on in 1968. And I think by then, as Rhodes found out on election day, people were kind of growing out of, nationally, and at least in Ohio, that law and order stuff. So—

 

[Interviewer]: [00:27:15] What do you think is maybe one lesson for the city that’s come out of that? I mean, since you then served with the city for a good, long time, more than a decade.

 

[John Thomas]: Yeah. You know, I think what’s happened over the years, this is a good thing, I think the city has, and the university, have come together more certainly than they did at the time of crisis, or were at the time of crisis. And that’s good. And I think the city still has to—and I think at times they really don’t—and I’m talking about appointed and elected officials. They don’t look at this community as a cosmopolitan, international community. You know, still we’ve only had one female firefighter, since 1976 when the fire department became full time. That’s forty-five years, forty-four years. I don’t believe currently we have any African American or other minorities on the police force. We have Michelle Lee, a female police chief—good. And we have female police officers, which is good, but I think in having to deal as we—as the city had to—with students, nearly fifty years ago in crisis, I think our city has to be a reflection of the community and that includes the university, and all the races and nationalities, ethnicities, that are found within the university.

 

[Interviewer]: Oh yeah, because you go to Holden School and it’s like a mini U.N.

 

[John Thomas]: Yeah. Right, right.

 

[Interviewer]: Very international.

 

[John Thomas]: That’s exactly it. So, I think that’s a lesson that we’re still struggling with, but I think more good has resulted between the university and the city than not.

 

[Interviewer]: [00:29:36] Is there anything in this class [Making Meaning of May 4] that you’ve learned that’s been enlightening to you?

 

[John Thomas]: Oh, yeah. Well, I’ve learned a lot about myself, because it’s been cathartic, if I’m pronouncing that correctly. Because, and I’m not in any way likening this to—the grounds—to Disneyland, but it’s kind of like when you grow up in Anaheim, how many times do you go to Disneyland? When you grow up in Kent, other than when family or friends who still want to see it come from out of town, and I come up here. I spent a little bit of time in 1977 in the spring quarter, when I was on council then, just observing what was going on with the Tent City and the Gym Annex issue. But what I’ve learned about myself, it’s some of this is still difficult for me as a resident here to come to terms with. And I’m going to be sixty-five now, I’ve slowly come to terms with this. This class has been instructive.

 

[Interviewer]: Because of the deaths or because of the invasion of the town? What is the hardest?

 

[John Thomas]: Yeah, I think because of all the mistakes that happened that resulted in four young individuals dying, and nine other young people being hurt, and one being paralyzed, Dean Kahler, who I got to know later on, especially as you know, he became an Athens County Commissioner. And I think about that and I think about how could this all happen, but then I think about how could we be in Vietnam again in my own lifetime, not having learned the lessons, and have been for the last twenty years in continuous war in another part of the world? Because we’re doomed to repeat ourselves if we’re unwilling to learn from ourselves and from what we’ve done well and not have done well in the past. And so, it’s at times been emotional for me, Barb, thinking back and it’s made me want to get more involved in the months and weeks and days leading up to the fiftieth anniversary, honoring the lives of the individuals whose lives were taken as well as those who are still with us, that were injured. I think Dean passed away, or he’s still alive? I can’t recall. But—

 

[Interviewer]: He’s still going, I think.

 

[John Thomas]: Yeah.

 

[Interviewer]: Laura’s [Davis] a good friend of his. You should ask her.

 

[John Thomas]: And, you know, I’ve heard Tom Grace speak a couple of times. Most recently I attended his presentation at the Kiva in July. And I have always been struck about his sincerity from reading the book, I can’t recall the title, but that we had to read. [Kent State: Death and Dissent in the Long Sixties]

 

It really struck me about how he got involved, starting with going to the rally on Monday, May 4th, and how he’s been involved since. And of course, the Canforas, and I got to know Chic personally during the Kerry campaign in 2004. And those are sincere people, but I think the thing, and this might be a way to close our conversation, the thing that still bothers me is that—and I’ve got still friends that think like this that I grew up with in high school, and I’ll put it under this phrase, I still hear that, “Well, if they only hadn’t protested, they wouldn’t have been shot.” And I think about that and I think two things; I’m trying to think about the circular logic involved in that, but more importantly, I’m trying to think, here are my contemporaries, they’ll probably go to their grave thinking that. And that’s a second tragedy, to have your life end, but to have it end with something that was so abhorrent, and something that happened right in front of your eyes and not coming to terms with that themselves other than this wheel that they’re on.

 

[Interviewer]: I agree. Well, thank you for your comments today.

 

[John Thomas]: Yeah. Thanks for your interest.

 

 

[End of interview]

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