Samuel P. Goddard Interview -- One-Man-One-Vote

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PS = Pam Stevenson - Agave Productions

SG = Sam Goddard

PS (Interviewer): What was Arizona politics back, uh, in the late fifties and early sixties what was Arizona politics like? It was a lot different than it is today.

SG (S. Goddard): Well, the first thing was that - like in many other states of our kind - we, we were an agricultural state, okay. And the thing that actually motivated politics in the early days were the kinds of things that they were interested in. Price of commodities, the, uh, kinds of things - and I regret to say cheap labor. Uh, they wanted then just about the time I got into politics the cities - You see in the old days, Arizona was formulated on the old style, two senators from every county. You can imagine - and I knew 'em all. The senators from Cochise County had the same amount of power as the ones from Maricopa County. It was, uh, a static environment and run on that basis. Uh, it, it had no semblance of democracy. And, and as a result, we got a terrible reputation. Uh, because they, these two senators. Now a lot - I have known a lot of them in that period that were high-class wonderful men, but there were a lot that weren't. And it was a bad system. And (clears throat) when one man, one vote came in, then we complete change. Uh, because then the agricultural counties didn't swing the heft that they used to. I mean, golly they represented more cactus and more cows than they did people. And, uh, it was a big change and it happened right around in that period of the late fifties -