Sunday Conversation with ... Mel Steely, retired University of West Georgia professor

By Bill Torpy

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mel Steely, a retired professor from University of West Georgia who specializes in politics, has had an active and unusual role in documenting and studying his craft. Steely was on the committee that hired current presidential candidate Newt Gingrich to then-West Georgia College in 1970. He watched Gingrich blossom as a teacher, helped out in his political campaigns, debated and advised the future speaker of the House, and wrote a biography, called “The Gentleman From Georgia,” on his old friend.

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File Mel Steely, a retired history professor at the University of West Georgia, was on the committee that hired Newt Gingrich as a young teacher four decades ago.

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Steely also started a political archive that includes Georgia politicians’ official papers, campaign memorabilia and bric-a-brac. There’s more than 4,000 boxes for Gingrich alone. This spring, the school will unveil an exhibit featuring the artifacts of former Speaker Tom Murphy, who ruled the state House for 30 years.

Q: Describe the campus that Gingrich came to. It was a time of protests and all sorts of changes.

A: West Georgia was usually behind the rest of the country. Our streakers came a couple years later, but were spectacular when they came. We had a couple of parachute streakers. They came down buck naked.

We also had a march down to the Carroll County Courthouse with the professors and students. Our county commissioner came out and accepted a petition that we end the war in Vietnam tomorrow. I don’t know why they thought he would be able to do that. But they were very sincere, and he was very solemn.

Q: The times were wide-open politically.

A: The people involved in demonstrating then weren’t necessarily those supporting Newt and yet there were some who did, including one or two on his staff.

Terms like liberal and conservative had very little meaning at that time. You could be against the war and still be conservative.

Q: Some of Newt’s colleagues say he was like a sponge for ideas. One of the studies then was humanistic psychology, which talked about self-actualization and was seen as either cutting edge or far out. Newt got involved with that, right?

A: Mike Arons (the late professor who started the course on campus) had an influence on getting Newt to open up with his feelings and to identify with other people. I watched the change in that. Newt was able to see the other side in people, even if he didn’t agree with them. That helped him as Speaker. He was able to work with those from the other side with some bills.

Q: He could reach across the aisle?

A: Yes, he could. In his personal relationships, I’ve come across in his archives, papers and notes from [former Speaker] Tip O’Neill and his wife, of them thanking him for coming to visit her in the hospital.

Q: You have Gingrich’s collection.

A: It’s very large, we have everything from his first race in 1974, his handouts and his mailers and all the campaign stuff and material from congressional office. We have some of his old scrapbooks and even some of his stuff from his time as a professor.

Q: The collection isn’t just Newt, though.

A: We have other stuff from [former congressmen] Bob Barr, Mac Collins and even Pat Swindall. I was in Washington after he lost and his staff was just taking stuff out of drawers and throwing it into a cart to go dump it. I called him and asked, “Can we have it?” He said, “Sure.”

The Georgia Political Heritage program here began with former Sen. Herman Talmadge, Newt got him to give us some interviews. We set up almost 80 hours of interviews on politics and other sundry topics. He was our first major interview. Then we got the rest of Georgia’s governors up to Sonny Perdue, who’s agreed to do it. We go back to Ellis Arnall, back from World War II.

Q: You’ve been a chronicler of Newt. What does this presidential run mean for your book?

A: I’ve added about four or five chapters since Congress.