Archives/Special Collections, University of Illinois at Springfield

A: Probably was I think, yes. I didn't know nothing about
Q: Now you were on Industry and Labor Relations that first time
A: Yes. That's the one I shouldn't have been on. Put me on that on account of I was arhitrator
for the Industrial Commission, I guess that's the reason they put me on that one.
Q: Do you remember anything that occurr~tl
A: In that particular - no I can't recall too much. Oh I remember one hill. I can't recall
too much about it though. A fellow by the name of - it wasn't Cosentino - there's a
Cosentino running now. It was Constidine, it could have been Constidint,. And we were
seatmates then. And I always rerall how we'd discuss a certain bill pertaining to some -
I ran't recall what it was anymore in that respect. Wr agreed all the time on it and how
we was going to vote. Then when it come time to vote, he had ~ Irhange I his vote. And
he sat there and cried because he had to change his vote.
Q: Oh, really? (chuckles)
A: But he was obligated to somebody. (pause) And I just swore I'd never want to get in
that position. I never was in that position. I could vote any way I wanted to vote. Nobody
ever high-pressured me to vote. Oh they used to try. These women, I remember one time
they had this, oh, what was it - inserticide, you know, and garden clubs and things like
that. They'd go fanatics on that stuff. And they don't know nothing about it to begin
with. They was getting ahold of everybody. Every time you went in the door or out of
the door of the house. I finally told one of them, I said, "Lady, I own about six hundred
acres of apple orchards. And lady," I said, "I own about six hundred acres of orchar~ls and
it's costing me" - I don't know if my spraying hill then it was thirty-five or forty thousand
dollars a year. And I says. ''1 only hope you have some solution \\'here I didn't have to
spend that." I said, "I happen to have a few acreages that I've kind of neglected and the
Lord sure as hell didn't take care of that."
Q: e l (chuckles)
A: She didn't knou what the hell to say
Q. Xoxv in the middle of the 1950's was there a Chicago hloc against a downstate bloc?
A: They called it bloc. That's what this Hagen used to say about the Chicago blor. I c:m't
remember if it was Divinski - not Divinski . . .
11: Derwinski and I don't know - a bunch of names hut - I don't know if it really existed
or not. They called it a \Vest Side Bloc, seven or eight. of them. And Paul Powell was supposed
to have their support.
In fact, whtan I got my ferry bill through, the West Side Bloc voted for me. The)- used to
kid about it, "What in the hell does the Nest Side Bloc know about :I ferry?" But they
were for me for some reason or another. I don't know why, whether 1 voted for something
with them. But they nwcr did put any pressure on me or ask me to - not that I ever
rerall anything about that thing.
Q: Ko\v they were Republicans
.4. They were Kel~uhlicans . . .
Carl Wittmond Memoir -- Archives/Special Collections, University of Illinois at Springfield