"No," he replied slowly. "The only place it concerns me is socially.

"I am willing to give every man an equal shake. Economically, it's high time we judged people as individuals...Educationally, too. Every other way except socially.

"A man has a right to associate with whom he pleases," Flowers said. This sounded like the beginning of a standard conservative argument. But then Flowers added, "Public places have got to be open to all."

It is up to the person who doesn't want integration to leave an integrated facility, he said:

"Suppose there is an individual next to me in a picture show whom I object to. I have the choice of moving or staying there. I have moved in theatres many times because of white people I didn't want to sit beside."

Would he prefer two sets of comparable facilities, one for Negroes and the other for whites?

New Ideas

"I don't know," he replied after a pause. "I doubt it. I have always been willing to try new ideas."

Flowers said he believed that much of the whites' present hysteria comes from their exaggerated fears of what integration would bring. "Ninety-nine per cent of the people have no idea who stayed in a hotel room next to them," he said.

To calm these fears, Flowers called for "sound-thinking men" who will act "realistically."

He did not include the Rev. Martin Luther King among such "sound-thinking men." He said King was an extremist. "King and the Klan feed on each other," Flowers said. "Maybe King has accomplished something, but he's more of a deterrent now."

Flowers also strongly criticized "demagoguery" by Alabama politicians. He blamed many of the state's problems on "improper leadership...by those who have played on people's emotions and things up to get themselves elected."

But Flowers is not seeking change. Rather, he is concerned with adjusting to changes which he considers inevitable. He said he frequently included two phrases in his speeches:

"Those were the good old days," but "Those days are gone forever."

Where they really so good? "No," he answered, "but we thought they were."

"If we could write history, we might write it differently," he said. "That's the reason I say I'm a segregationist. I'm a Southerner.

"But those days are gone forever--I don't have my druthers. So I'm going to live good and enjoy it, and try to improve it so that others can live it good and enjoy it."