By CHARLES B. CLEVELAND
Dick Cooper
THE SECOND thing Dick Cooper learned about politics is that Illinois has 177 state representatives and 59 state senators. The first—which led to the second—was that a businessman better do his homework if he's going to run for governor of Illinois.
Cooper, who made millions by investing in Weight Watchers, flunked an early press conference when Neil Mehler of the Chicago Tribune tested him on the breakdown of the state legislature. Cooper promptly memorized that bit of political data and, since that first blank, he has not made a major slipup in his campaign to upset former U.S. District Attorney James R. "Big Jim" Thompson in the GOP primary.
At least he hadn't when I sat down for a far reaching interview earlier in the campaign at his "Coopervision" office in Oak Brook, a business complex west of Chicago. Like many businessmen, Cooper is revealed in the trappings of his office. Behind his desk are two flags, an American flag (it's always been there) and an Illinois flag (added after he became a candidate). The same two flags stand back of the governor's desk—the governor's desk. This is more than symbolic. Cooper says he's running for public office not as a candidate trying to sell his ideas to the public, but in an attempt to mold his campaign around the solutions to problems he would impose if he were governor.
On Cooper's left is a television set, which is indirectly the reason he's running. "I haven't had in the past — as most people haven't — a particular interest to involve myself in party politics," he explained. "Watergate brought it on ... when Gordon Strachan was asked by Sam Ervin his advice to other young people who might like to get involved in politics, he said 'Stay away.' I thought that was an outrageous remark. While everybody else's political interest was being turned off, mine was being turned on."
Why hadn't he become involved earlier? He has an answer that, in somebody else's delivery, would be a quip: "I've been a productive member of the private sector, going about my business, trying to make a pact with the government that if they'd stay out of my life, I'd stay out of government. And, so far, the government hasn't stayed out of my life, my business life, and I've decided to get involved in government."
But it doesn't come off as a bon mot;
Dick Cooper doesn't strike one as a funny man, but as a man in dead earnest. He is pleasant enough, but not a latest-joke-slap-em-on-the-back businessman. He's more likely to say things like: "I was able to go from holes in my shoes to reaching the theoretical heights the American dream offered; I didn't want to see that become a nightmare."Cooper gives the impression of a man who had to overcome problems in life. If none existed, he would have had to create them. In his case, he didn't have to invent them and, as he tells his early life, it sounds like the classic Horatio Alger story. He was born in Brooklyn, New York; his father sold storm windows. "We didn't have heat in winter. I wore army surplus clothing, not bought in a surplus store, but handed down to me by my uncles from World War II and the Korean War. What is being poor? Poor is not having money to pay the rent, to buy clothes, having to put the cardboard from Kleenex boxes as inserts in your shoes instead of having them resoled. And you go to bed hungry."
But, rather than a handicap, Cooper views his early privations as a plus. "People have become very blase, they've come to expect things. I was born in 1940, the very beginning of World War II. Then nobody took anything for granted; our very survival was at stake. I was taught I couldn't rely on anybody but myself; that with hard work, effort, determination you could succeed. I believed that if I worked hard, I would succeed; I didn't know how, but I believed it."
In retrospect, he thinks he may have been on the verge of going the other way—into trouble. The turning point, he feels, came when he was encouraged to join the Boy Scouts. Later, he served on the national board of directors. A. plaque from the Scouts hangs on his office wall among others awarded for philanthropic endeavors.
A second major decision was to go to college: "I didn't know how, but I knew I was going to go." He had already learned the work ethic. He delivered papers, hunted for bottles to return for deposits. He also learned a habit which persists today — looking for money in the streets. "I still find it," he says. He also remembers his first earnings — a dime — for "helping" a man move his trash cans. He was only about five at the time, so helping — in retrospect — was probably just walking alongside. The family helped him bore a hole in the dime and he carried it on a string around his neck for years.
362 / Illinois Issues / December 1975
Cooper says he tries to mold his campaign to fit the solutions he sees to problems a governor must solve
Cooper chose a local school — New York University — easily reached by
subway. He worked nights at a photo
lab which processed film for the United
Nations and sold advertising premiums
to businessmen. Meanwhile, he jammed in enough credits to graduate in
three years and then tacked on a
master's degree. After college he joined
a friend in a trucking concern in Pennsylvania. He returned to New York two
years later and got into real estate. Both
proved to be highly successful, and had
he stayed with either enterprise he
might well have achieved his goal of
becoming a millionaire by age 30. But
as with Horatio Alger's heroes, his
golden chance came almost by accident.
He was by now 27 and was carrying 230
pounds on his 6-foot-1 frame. He
dropped in at a Weight Watchers' meeting at a temple near his home. Edwin
Darby, financial editor of the Chicago
Sun-Times quotes Cooper as saying, "It
cost $4 to join and $2 a week for each
meeting you attended. I signed up and I
immediately decided it was all a put-on just to get my money. I had never seen
anything like it before. It was like an
old-fashioned revival meeting. But, by
the next week I was clapping like
everyone else when someone got up to
tell about how much weight she had lost. "By the second week I was also counting heads — 100 people at $2 a
week indefinitely. By the time I was
halfway through the course I was saying to myself that I could become a
millionaire if I could open Weight
Watcher franchises all over the city of
New York." New York was already taken, but
Chicago was open. For $5,000 and an
agreement to pay $100 a month for two
years, Cooper was in business — and in
debt. He gathered his new wife, Lana,
two Weight Watcher scales, all their
earthly belongings and $1,500 (from
hocking his wife's jewelry) into their car
and drove to Chicago. He found a location (a Greek church
recreation room on Chicago's Northwest side), put a one-inch ad in the papers and called the first meeting of
Weight Watchers in Chicago. Fifty
persons showed up, and they've been
showing up in increasing numbers ever
since. In those early days Cooper —
trimmed down 40 pounds himself — was
the instructor, a role he continued to
play until the organization swelled to
20,000 members a week and he moved
to a desk job. He's now board chairman
with holdings valued at $7 million. Like everybody else in Weight
Watchers, he continues to watch his weight. He's officially weighed in once a
week like every other employee. Those
who get overweight are first warned,
then put on a leave of absence to lose
weight, and finally are fired if they don't
slim down. His relaxation is reading—not unusual for many people, but in Cooper's
case another illustration of an intense
drive to overcome handicaps. He suffers
from strabismus—a fancy word for
"cock-eye," he says. A series of operations haven't helped and, as a consequence, reading is exhausting, He began to overcome his handicap
as a youngster, memorizing spots on a
basketball floor until, despite his vision
problem, he became, and still is, a good
shot. He also consciously added (rather
than limited) his diet of reading. He
even included the word "vision" in picking the name "Coopervision" for his
business operations which now include
real estate and other investments. He
also uses the word "vision" in its other
sense: an ability to forecast trends in
business. Cooper does not see his entrance into
politics as a gamble. He started out to
run for Congress against Democrat
Abner Mikva, then switched to governor. He believes Thompson is no better
known downstate than he is, and, with a
break, he can win the nomination, then
take on Dan Walker. He has several
ideas which he feels will give him the
votes he will need, including the leasing
of real estate and equipment by the
state at a savings of $l billion. He also
has an energy program which could
employ up to 100,000 persons and
utilize Illinois coal reserves.
|
Cooper has contributed to political
campaigns. In the fall of 1974 he gave
money on two occasions to the effort of
Republican Sen. Charles H. Percy in
his bid for consideration as a presidential candidate. Cooper also contributed
to the campaign of Democratic Sen.
Adlai Stevenson in the 1974 race
against George M. Burditt, a Republican, for the U.S. Senate.
Can he make the switch from business to the governorship? "People with my background go from industry to industry. It's a pretty common thing for people with managerial skills. In my business career, I've always counseled with people who had more information than I. Today, being a success is being able to interpret information; bringing together information; being a decision maker." |
|
December 1975 / Illinois Issues / 363
