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

Q: What kind of social life did you and your wife find yourself in? Did you play bridge,
for example?
A: We did play a little bridge, but that was largely during the period after law school and
before I entered the legislature. Now others did. One of my law school colleagues was Milt
Shadur, now a federal district judge, who was a phenomenal law student, the best of the
whole class. Old Milt would be down there playing bridge day after day. He could do it,
but I couldn't. I did not have the capacity to lead the kind of life that I did, and still be
down there playing bridge.
Q: Well now you had mentioned earlier that you generally felt yourself being on the outside
looking into these groups. Did you have that same sense here at the University of Chicago?
A: Yes. I did not spend my time down in the student lounge playing bridge and drinking
beer with my classmates. I got along with my classmates, and a group of us studied
together when exam time came. But I was not in the mainstream of the social life of the
law school.
Q: What about Professor Gregory's thinking? Were you really in sympathy with him? Or
were there things that you found that you thought he ought to be thinking differently on?
A: We were not writing a political book. In terms of general philosophy in labor law, we
were sympatico. He was a delightful human being. It was a pleasure working with him.
He is not pompous in any way. He doesn't maintain a barrier between professor and
student. He treated me as a friend. To this day we have remained good friends.
Q: Well let's see, your tenure there at the University of Chicago wasn't too long after the
- what was it? - the Walgreen episode. Did you have a sense that there were undesirables
as far as the United States were concerned on the campus?
A: No. I had no sympathy with the Walgreen kind of thinking. The University of Chicago
was a place where free inquiry could take place. The price you pay for free inquiry is that
some people may espouse ideas that you don't agree with. One of the reasons why I was
so fond of the university was precisely because it was that kind of center of free inquiry. I
was angry with the people in Springfield who were looking into the university to try to find
subversives in this place or that place. There is no subversion in the arena of ideas.
SESSION 4, TAPE 7, SIDE 1
Q: Then asking a little bit more about law school, now let's see, you were almost entirely
tied up with your schoolwork and the work for the school, for Dr. Millis and Professor Grego-
ry, at that time. You had no other work going on.
A: No. I was a full-time student in the law school.
Q: I assume that the type of work you were doing was something like a graduate assistant
or a research associate for these individuals.
A: Yes, that would accurately describe what I was doing.
Q: Did this type of work at that time or this association in any way cause you to think
about a teaching career?
A: Yes, I did think about a teaching career but decided that I would like to practice law. I
have never been sorry I made that choice. I have enjoyed the action, the variety, the inde-
pendence of private practice, particularly as it has been coupled with my legislative activities.