harold a. katz memoir volume 1 - University of Illinois Springfield

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I was planning to resume my formal education. I lived in Hyde Park for many years, until I moved to Glencoe in 1952. Q: Well now, let's see, with the scholarship and some help from your wife - what type of work did she take up to keep you in school? A: She worked for a large mail order house in Chicago. Chicago used to be the national center of mail order. She would take three streetcars to get to work every day, and the same number coming back. She worked in a very unexciting kind of job, just to earn money to enable me to complete my education, as if one could ever complete one's education. Q: Formal education. A: Yes. Q: Well let's see then, it would have been about 1946, I guess, that you started in the law field. A: Well I started law school in 1945 and was graduated in 1948. I could have graduated at the end of 1947, but I stayed an extra quarter because I was working on that labor law case book with Gregory, as I think I mentioned. When I graduated I went to work for a lawyer for a relatively short period of time, a matter of some months. And then a dramatic event took place in the American labor movement that affected the course of my life. About this time Walter Reuther was assembling his forces in the United Auto Workers. That union had been under the control of leftwing elements for a number of years. Right after I got out of law school, Walter Reuther was able to win the presidency of the United Auto Workers' union. When that occurred, there was a change in the regional directorship of the union in Chicago. The new regional director decided to get a new regional attorney. He selected a very fine lawyer in Milwaukee named Max Raskin. While I was in law school Ethel Mae at one point had been working at the industrial relations center at the University of Chicago. And she was friendly with Ralph Showalter who had been an officer of a large UAW local in Chicago, Local 6. He had been appointed to a staff position in Detroit, and was on leave from the UAW to get additional education at the industrial relations center at the University of Chicago. Ralph got to know me a little through Ethel Mae. He knew about my labor background, about my writings with Professor Gregory. And just as a total coincidence Ralph met Max Raskin somewhere and told Max that he had just the guy who could do Max's work in Chicago, where both the UAW and the NLRB had their regional offices. One day I got a telephone call from Max Raskin, whom I had never heard of, and he said he wanted me to come to Milwaukee and see him. The call came the day my older son was born; I thought of an old aphorism: a first child brings good luck. I went up to Milwaukee. The lawyer that I was working for didn't want me to go particularly. He said, and I quote those immortal words, "You never get business from another lawyer." I said I was going to Milwaukee. Max asked me if I would do the UAW's work in Chicago under his general supervision from Milwaukee. I accepted and went out on my own. And that's how I started doing work for the UAW. The UAW grew. They divided the region and Milwaukee became part of a separate region. Max became the regional attorney of that region. The director in the Chicago region asked me if I would be the regional attorney here. And so that little happenstance, my wife knowing Ralph Showalter, significantly affected the course of my career. Representing the UAW became an entree to representing other labor clients. As a result, my labor law practice has been my life's principal professional activity when I was not engaged in political activity.
Q: I'd like to pick up there again. But right now I'd like to go back to the University of Chicago and Professor Gregory. Now the book that came out was entitled Labor and the Law. A: No, this was a different book. That was a subsequent book I did with Professor Gregory in 1979. Th.e book that came out in 1948 was Labor Law: Cases, Materials and Comments. It was about a 1400-page case book that was used in more than fifty-five law schools at the time in the teaching of labor law. It was that book that Ralph Showalter was familiar with and that gave him enough confidence to recommend this student who had just graduated from law school to the new regional attorney for the handling of labor law matters i.n Chicago. Q: Well, did you have a sense that getting involved with writing this book would help you in your career at that time? Had that thought crossed your mind? A: Well I wrote the book because I was excited about the opportunity to publish a labor law book with a distinguished law professor. But it is also the case that I was certainly aware that in getting started in a profession, the publication of a book would be a great help. I did view it as a stepping stone to establishing myself as a person with competence in the labor law field. I have liked to be able to sit down and write. I'm basically the writer type. I like to write, whether it's a book or an article or a brief or a speech. I always have done my own speechwriting. Q: What about publication of articles at that stage? Were you being published prior to leav- ing the college? A: No, but I was on the Board of Editors of the Law Review at the University of Chicago. And I published in the Law Review in the usual way in which student notes appear. After law school I continued writing articles from time to time, usually for law reviews. Q: While you were in law school with this load of things to do for the two professors, was there a group that you felt a part of at that time? Or were you kind of separate from the other part of the law school body? A: Well, the law schools were very small at that time. The great influx of students into law had hardly begun. It is undoubtedly the case that most of my spare time was spent in the office, working with Professor Gregory. I did get to know many of the other students, but I was not active in any law school organization other than the Law Review. I spent a lot of time, an enormous number of hours, doing research for and with Professor Gregory. Q: Did your wife get involved with that or was she kind of left out? A: No, she was somewhat left out. There was no way that she could do legal research. Undoubtedly, she didn't have a husband around much of the time. Maybe, in a sense, that was good training for Springiield. I spent more time than most around the law school. She was working during the period. And soon we started to have a family. Q: Now was it Alan that was the first-born? A: The first-born, yes. He was born the year that I graduated from law school. I had become what my wife fondly calls a workaholic. I have found it very difficult to do sustained work and special projects without putting in a lot more than eight hours a day. Q: Was she generally sympathetic to that, or did that present problems in your early life? A: I think that she was generally accepting of it. I would not want to use the word sympathetic. She has seen many movies without me.
Page 1 and 2: University of Illinois at Springfie
Page 3 and 4: Joint Committee on Legislative Supp
Page 5 and 6: HAROLD A. KATZ ILLINOIS HOUSE OF RE
Page 7 and 8: Readers of this oral history should
Page 9 and 10: Harold A. Katz SESSION 1, TAPE 1, S
Page 11 and 12: A: Yes, there were an uncle and an
Page 13 and 14: A: Very few. He did not encounter a
Page 15 and 16: s Q: Well let's see, in the communi
Page 17 and 18: mental faculty that I developed. It
Page 19 and 20: A: I recall acting as manager for a
Page 21 and 22: classmates. That made life easier f
Page 23 and 24: ideas. The notion that one could ta
Page 25 and 26: Q: Were there individuals there at
Page 27 and 28: Amendment rights. Except for this e
Page 29 and 30: you can say what you want to say. T
Page 31 and 32: greatly from the fact that he was a
Page 33 and 34: poet and critic. And I knew Randall
Page 35 and 36: I was in left field in Nashville, h
Page 37 and 38: Vanderbilt, So there was a general
Page 39 and 40: mark an important turning point in
Page 41 and 42: Kelly was presiding, and I will nev
Page 43: A: Yes. I remember her saying to hi
Page 47 and 48: PATERNAL GRANDFATHER ISAAC KATZ IN
Page 49 and 50: HAROLD KATZ IN HIGH SCHOOL DURING T
Page 51 and 52: PORTRAIT OF ELEANOR ROOSEVELT ( 1 9
Page 53 and 54: FAMILY PORTRAIT TAKEN NOVEMBER 2, 1
Page 55 and 56: HAROLD KATZ VISITS WITH PROFESSOR C
Page 57 and 58: HAROLD KATZ AND DOUG FRASER, INTERN
Page 59 and 60: Q: Did you have any experience at t
Page 61 and 62: had there. Incidentally, one of the
Page 63 and 64: A: Well, in order to supplant a uni
Page 65 and 66: IL A: There was an opening in our p
Page 67 and 68: A: Frances and I were on opposite s
Page 69 and 70: Q: Well, why, I wonder, did it cont
Page 71 and 72: Q: Let's see, did you have children
Page 73 and 74: A: Yes, I believe that it helped. B
Page 75 and 76: A: Well, we went to the national pa
Page 77 and 78: much enjoyed working over the years
Page 79 and 80: anyone. But there were clearly some
Page 81 and 82: A: There's no question but that it
Page 83 and 84: in regard to my 1966 campaign when
Page 85 and 86: A: I remember going from polling pl
Page 87 and 88: in terms of electing leadership. Ob
Page 89 and 90: to get that kind of excitement beca
Page 91 and 92: A: Yes, you would tend to use one m
Page 93 and 94: them. We had very little in the way
Page 95 and 96:
A: Part of it is from your experien
Page 97 and 98:
young Adlai for its creation, I thi
Page 99 and 100:
to use-your organ or organs for med
Page 101 and 102:
Q: One question I have is why did i
Page 103 and 104:
C 1 i I stopping. You have to conti
Page 105 and 106:
Politics plays a part. Governor Tho
Page 107 and 108:
We went into other areas, but with
Page 109 and 110:
A: It was possible to work even wit
Page 111 and 112:
A: From the time I went into the le
Page 113 and 114:
the subject, or that committee is u
Page 115 and 116:
1 I A: Well,4 have always had a gre
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