Paul Simon, 1928-2003

His legacy of honesty and integrity will be remembered

By Bob Sampson

Future U.S. Senator Paul Simon in 1971, a year before his unsuccessful campaign for governor of Illinois. Photo courtesy Illinois State Historical Library

For those of a certain age and inclination, news of Paul Simon's death was a shock. Although he was 75, he seemed like someone who could live on at his self-imposed steady and productive pace well into the future. Television screens and newspaper columns were filled with tributes and instant assessments of his life and career. The professional historian in me believes it will be the judgments of five to 10 years from now that will secure his place in our history.

For many of us, Paul Simon was an inspiring figure and arguably the inheritor of a rich reform tradition flowing from Gov. John Peter Altgeld through Chicago mayor and Illinois Gov. Edward Dunne on to Paul Douglas and through Simon and those he inspired into the 21st Century. What Paul Simon meant to public service is defined in legislation addressing problems such as open public meetings, missing children, foreign language education, and countless other laws and initiatives. He not only believed in but literally defined public service.

Not afraid to tell voters the truth as he saw it, he lost the one race everyone thought he would win the 1972 Democratic governor nomination and persisted in that trait despite the setback. How different might Illinois politics and government have been if Simon had won the nomination and the election? We will never know.

It was my privilege to work in the Washington office of then-newly elected U.S. Rep. Dick Durbin, who had himself been a staffer for Simon in the lieutenant governor's office. Durbin and Simon worked closely together in the House and because of that I had the opportunity to observe the "inside" story of Paul Simon's conduct. He was the same man that voters knew on the stump when he was behind the closed doors of his office. That is not always the case. With Paul Simon, what you saw was what you got. Idealistic in a cynical age, honest and forthcoming in a state whose political climate perfected the secret deal and secret riches, a believer that public service was a chance to make a difference rather than a pile of dollars, Paul Simon stood like a beacon drawing us to the better part of our nature.

The first time I met him was in the spring of 1969 when, with a group of fellow Eastern Illinois University student politicians, I traveled to Springfield to share our concerns about a number of campus and state issues. In retrospect, it seems startling that at a time when the Illinois State Senate (over which he presided) was considering all sorts of laws to "crack down" on anti-war students, Paul Simon not only was willing to meet with a number of that suspect class but actually welcome them with open arms. Several months later when we were trying to establish scholarships for minority students at EIU funded by a modest student fee, we reached him by phone and he offered some valuable advice on improving the plan. His defeat in 1972 sickened me on politics and it was a decade before I could once again become enthused over the possibilities of political action. He never lost his enthusiasm and two years later was on his way to Congress.

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Typical of his courage and concern was the stand he took in the late 1980s on Chief Illiniwek. It would have heen easy for him to ignore the petition calling upon the U of I to drop the mascot, especially as his own reelection approached. He could have come up with a dozen or more good reasons not to lend his name to the effort. However, the only thing that counted for him was the justice of the issue. Was the use of the mascot ultimately degrading to Native Americans; were significant numbers of them offended by it? The answer for him was easy: yes. The year he took the stand, he came to the U of I campus to receive an award during halftime of a home football game. Before the game, he appeared at a press conference coordinated by the office in which I work. He surely saw the signs just off the interstate highway reading "Dump Simon" but he gave no indication the message bothered him. He was secure in the knowledge that he was doing the right thing and that justice is always more important than transitory popularity. He calmly explained his position and then went on to the game, where he was booed by the crowd. When the day finally comes that the Chief is retired and, eventually, when Illinoisans look back and wonder why such a simple and correct move was so controversial, one can hope that someone remembers the man who took the stand first. Paul Simon's career, however, was much more than a stand on an athletic team mascot. It was about service, honesty, persistence, optimism, and civility. In those five things, his successors, both officeholders and citizens, can find reassurance, inspiration, and, hopefully, emulation.

Bob Sampson is a Communications Specialist in the News and Public Affairs Office of Information technology and Communication Services,College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. rsampson@uiuc.edu

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