By - ROBERT P. HOWARD
An observer of Illinois politics and government for 45 years, he is author of Illinois: A History of the Prairie State. Before retirement he was Springfield correspondent for the Chicago Tribune.

IN THE broad galaxy of past and present Illinois politicians, Chuck Percy holds an all-time distinction. Although he did not mention it when he officially entered the 1978 campaign, Percy is the only candidate from either party, in any election, who carried each and every one of the 102 Illinois counties. He did it in 1972 when he won a second term in the United States Senate. Other Republicans, specifically Gov. James R. Thompson and Atty. Gen. William J. Scott, have polled more votes, but only Percy has swept the entire state, including such Democratic strongholds as Christian, St. Clair and Union counties. He also carried Cook County in 1966 when he replaced the eminent Paul H. Douglas, one of the great Democratic vote getters.

But nothing is certain in Illinois politics, and no one is predicting another clean sweep for Percy, who 30 years ago was the boy wonder of the corporate world. For one thing, the 1972 balloting was somewhat tainted, since the Democrats helped by running George McGovern for president and Roman C. Pucinski, hardly a household name downstate, for senator. This time to oppose Percy they slated Alex R. Seith, a lawyer from DuPage County with a modicum of political experience who presumably must be conscious of the betting odds. He probably hopes that in the last six years the senior senator has alienated important voting blocs. And undoubtedly Seith knows about the Republican right wing, whose gurus wish that someone else could get as many votes as Charles Harting Percy.

Percy likes being senator, and professionals consider him an overwhelming choice to accumulate more seniority in Washington, assuming that he is re-nominated. His hair might be graying and he does wear a hearing aid, but he won't observe his fifty-ninth birthday until five weeks before the November 7 election. Around him is still the aura of the grade school lad who was Country Gentleman's best urban salesman and the young man who at the University of Chicago was named student marshal, the highest honor that President Robert Maynard Hutchins could bestow upon a graduating senior. Now he is a millionaire who turned public official after a business career in which he was closely involved with international affairs.

Freethinking and outspoken, Percy is supported by a broad-gauged coalition His voting record attracts both liber and conservatives, and he gets the vote of many independents and some Den crats. The business community a proves his senatorial record. Each ye by invitation, he addresses the state AFL-CIO convention, an opportunity never granted Everett McKinley Dirk sen. Farm polls show that he is w regarded in rural areas. For a Republi can he runs well among blacks. Nation-ality groups are at least not unfriendly Jewish leaders protested when Percy gave them unwelcome advice about the Mideastern situation, but communica-tion has been maintained without rancor. Educators and professional groups have a friendly attitude, and the senator has carefully cultivated social security and medicare recipients.

A recital of strength does not negate possible anti-Percy trouble. The senator is vulnerable to hostility from I influential Roman Catholic clergy because he has been a consistent sup porter of federal financing of abortions. (In the same position is Gov. Thomp-son, who unsuccessfully vetoed anti-abortion bill.) So far Percy has not announced a stand on the Panama Canal treaty, a potentially explosive issue now being considered by the foreign relations committee of which he

8 / January 1978 / Illinois Issues

is a member. On another emotional matter, Percy supports the Equal Rights Amendment.

The biggest obstacle to Percy's future vanished with announcement that he would not be challenged in the primary by the far right's superwoman, Phyllis Schlafly of Alton, for whom petitions had been circulated by her anti-ERA followers. Schlafly stands on the far side of Ronald Reagan and her rallying cries of opposition to the canal treaty, abortion and equal rights for her own sex could have wrecked the G.O.P., which already has the status of a schizophrenic minority party. A Percy-Schlafly contest would have been memorable and the senator would have been forced to spend the cold weather months in an arduous and expensive campaign. One reason why the conservative heroine stayed on the sidelines no doubt is that the Percy camp, having counted noses, was confident of the support of the bulk of the party's hierarchy. It is difficult to conceive how a Schlafly candidacy could have succeeded in anything but giving a boost to Democratic hopes in November. Still remaining, of course, are the G.O.P.'s basic troubles, one of them being a cloud no larger than the Panama Canal.

Even if they would prefer a certified conservative, the G.O.P. county chairmen and their blood brothers presumably did learn something from the Goldwater debacle of 1964 and the Ralph T. Smith defeat of 1970, in which rank-and-file candidates suffered heavy losses. In both cases the ticket leaders disregarded Rule One for political campaigning, which advises candidates to take a firm position in the middle of the political spectrum, since special circumstances are needed if extremists are to succeed. Smith, who had been appointed senator upon the death of Dirksen, ran for a full term by appealing to conservaties. Thereupon Adlai E. Stevenson III moved into the vacated center and won easily. Two years ago by hard work former Gov. Richard B. Ogilvie kept the Illinois delegation from going to Reagan. Since the Republican rank-and-file has shown its willingness to vote for Percy, the leadership has no option but to back an incumbent who has twice been a winner. Long-established Democratic doctrine is that there is small merit in nominating a loser and, conversely, that the ability to win is more important than fraternalism and orthodoxy. The danger to Percy would be that a low voter turnout in bad weather might leave the outcome to followers of Schlafly and Congressman Philip Crane (R., Mount Prospect).

Like most politicians, Percy has never had experience competing with a woman who is personable, fluent and well-financed. Back in 1930, Sen. Charles S. Deneen lost the Republican primary to the well-heeled Ruth Hanna McCormick, but the nomination was valueless when she ran against the urbane and courteous James Hamilton Lewis who

His voting record attracts both liberals and conservatives,
and he gets the votes of many independents and some Democrats

won in the first of the depression-era Democratic landslides. As a political shortcoming, it might be hazarded that in certain situations Percy is too much of a gentleman. In his losing campaign for governor in 1964, he failed to go for Otto Kerner's jugular. The Republican nominee kept to the high road while Kerner quickly replaced his campaign manager and revenue director, Theodore J. Isaacs, in the first of that administration's scandals. That time it involved the impropriety of the state purchasing envelopes from a company organized by Isaacs, who thereafter used the back door to the governor's office. In time, both Isaacs and Kerner became prize exhibits in the prosecutory record of the present governor. The 1964 defeat no doubt was a good thing for Percy, since latter-day state executives have trouble winning second terms and not for 84 years has one of them gone directly from the Executive Mansion in Springfield to the Senate Office Building in Washington.

Other men of considerable wealth, some of them in the millionaire class, have served in the legislature or as local party leaders, but they don't feel a kinship with Percy, who in his twenty-ninth year became president of Bell and Howell. Privately, some resent Percy's political success on the ground that he started at the top. It is true that he was a precinct committeeman in 1946, but Republican majorities are automatic in Kenilworth. So far as party workers are concerned, he first came to their attention in 1955 as president of the United Republican Fund of Illinois, a position in which he raised more than $4 million in three years. Then, as a young protege of President Elsenhower, he held major national posts.

Republicans who want their senator to be true-blue conservative do not give him bonus points because he is the father-in-law of the Democratic governor of West Virginia, one of the Rockefellers. In truth, the basically moderate senator has carefully mixed conservatism and liberalism in a manner that has grass roots appeal and has been the foundation for the coalition support he has assembled. Old-line Republicans do not criticize his handling of economic problems. The difficulty is that he isn't a conservative all of the time. Worse yet, he never gave complete loyalty to Richard M. Nixon. Percy opposed the Supreme Court nominations of Judges Clement F. Haynsworth Jr. and G. Harold Carswell, and he voted against the supersonic transport and antiballistic missile programs. In the first unfolding of Watergate he went further into the doghouse by advising that a special prosecutor be appointed. Those black marks were starkly visible on Percy's record in the 1972 campaign when he carried all 102 counties.

Washington is only a few hours away from the state's airports, but incumbents find that the congressional workload makes it difficult to meet the demand for speeches and handshaking tours. Nevertheless, Percy goes into his third term campaign in a position of strength. He has advanced in seniority until he ranks thirty-ninth among the one hundred senators and twelfth in the Republican minority. Retirements and attrition will permit advancement by several more steps after the election. The senior senator's name is attached to important legislation and he will tell his constituents that, if they approve, he has the opportunity to accomplish more.

Before the November election he will talk much about reform of the federal bureaucracy. As an accomplishment in the Senate, Percy points to the budget reform act of 1974, which he co-sponsored with Democrats Sam Ervin

9/ January 1978/ Illinois Issues

and Edmund Muskie. In hope of budget balancing, it requires annual resolutions setting ceilings on federal spending. In a third term, Percy says, he will see to it that the law "makes a reality of efficiency in government." As unfinished business, he predicts early passage of a regulatory reform bill, a major piece of legislation he sponsors with Robert E. Byrd (D., Va.), the majority leader, and Abraham Ribicoff (D., Conn.). It seeks to promote efficiency and economy by "getting government regulators off our backs and mountains of paperwork out of our hair." President Carter also advocates regulatory reform and can achieve it only through Percy's bill.

Percy maintained independence through the long Senate debates on energy. Critical of many of the stands taken by his Senate colleagues, he sided with the President by holding that a crisis exists and that reliance on foreign oil must be reduced and ultimately ended. His major emphasis has been that energy sources must be conserved by reducing waste. To that end he is chairman of an Alliance to Save Energy, a private, nonprofit and bipartisan agency he organized to focus attention on conservation. The Senate accepted his gasohol amendment to exempt from federal taxes any fuel containing alcohol. He also won approval for experimentation with blended fuels in a test fleet of 1,000 cars. Rebating of wellhead taxes to states that support conservation also was accepted by the Senate, an idea for which Percy gives credit to Gov. Thompson.

The television exposure the senator received during the Bert Lance hearings came from his best committee assignment, that of ranking Republican on the government affairs committee and its subcommittee on investigations. It had an unfortunate aspect in that the senator, handicapped because corporation presidents are not trained as prosecutors, at one point apologized to the budget director for making an unverified allegation. The committee minority won its point when Lance resigned, but Lance was the only man in the Carter administration with whom Percy's old friends in the business world could talk over their problems.

The senator, who has specialized in international matters, also sits on the foreign affairs committee which for several weeks had conducted hearings on the Panama Canal treaty. Presumably a ratification vote will come before the primary. A vote against the treaty would be out of character for Percy, who in the current uproar has kept silent until all the evidence is in. He is the top-ranking Republican on subcommittees dealing with international relations and with arms control, oceans and international environment. The second especially is important in view of the possibility of an agreement with Russia on limitation of strategic arms. In the Senate Percy has worked three years for a law, which he expects to be enacted soon, to cut down on nuclear proliferation.

Access to sizable voting blocs is provided by the senator's membership on a special committee on aging and a select committee on nutrition and human needs. He has been concerned about the prices of eyeglasses and abuses in the hearing aid industry. His own hearing aid, needed because of World War II service as a naval gunnery officer, is a badge of courage since it was the first worn by a U.S. senator.

Until Gerald R. Ford moved into the White House, Percy was an unannounced candidate for the 1976 presidential nomination, regardless of whether the conservative party leadership in Illinois would have supported him. Now he says that time has passed him by and that he has no ambitions to run for president. One reason, of course, is that in 1980 it will be Gov. Thompson's turn. Congress is not covered by a mandatory retirement law, however, and Percy could be excused if he dreams of reelection in future years, as well as 1978. If he gets his third term he will rank eighth in length of service among the 41 men who since 1818 have been U.S. senators from Illinois. The champion in that category is Shelby M. Cullom (1883-1913), who was elected five times. 

10/ January 1978/ Illinois Issues