Karl Monroe Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Karl Monroe 16
did. He told me one time that he lived most of his first year up there
on popcorn. Rented a room and got by with almost no money. Didn't go
out on dates. Of course, he didn't drink anyway. He didn't run around.
He could live pretty cheaply.
He came in there and bought this old layout. They had an old beat-up
press that he couldn't make run. We printed his paper for him for a
while. He'd get the type set up and actually put into the forms and then
he'd throw it into his car, manhandled it into his car, which wasn't very
easy because those forms were heavy, and bring them down and we'd put
them on our press and run a few papers for him.
He was always grateful to us for kind of helping him get started that
way. I think we stretched his credit pretty far in the beginning too.
He paid his bills, though. You didn't have to worry about Paul Simon
paying his bills. He's an honest guy.
But Paul was a big Lutheran as I said, and got very active in the Walther
League which was a Lutheran youth group and became sort of a small hero
to the whole Walther League organization in this southern Illinois district.
He was a discussion leader and when they went off to camp, he was in the
organization group that set it up and so on.
And he had a considerable following of extremely loyal, devoted, sincere
people that didn't want a thing politically but when he ran for office
they were for him about 2,000 percent and they went knocking on doors all
over this county.
And that's the best kind of worker, the fellow who doesn't want a thing.
They weren't in it to get a job or they weren't in it to get any kind of
preferment of any kind. They just thought he would be a good man in
office and they put him in. Be wasn't an organization man and he ran
against the organization many times subsequently.
Q: What do you mean by the organization?
A: Well, the regular party organization didn't care for Paul Simon. He
didn't have any strings on him.
Q: You mean in Madison County?
A: Right. In Madison County. The district when he started included, I
think it included, Bond County in those days. Gradually the geography
got smaller as the population got bigger. He was in the house a good
many years and immediately made a reputation for himself for independence,
hard work, and he was voted the outstanding legislator several times for
the independent Democrats of Illinois.
And he became a sort of a leading figure in this independent Democrats of
Illinois group. He always stressed his independence. He was against the
party, the organization. And sometimes they tried to beat him. They
never succeeded. One of his big stakes in life was the Kefauver Commission.
He went down and testified. Now, I don't know how much he knew about
gambling in this area, but he was willing to go in before this commission