William A. Redmond Memoir - Illinois Digital Archives

we didn't know what was going to happen. Obviously they knew and I didn't know what
in the world to expect.
Q: (pause) Why were the senate people allowed to leave the room and pick their own
leaders?
A: They've always done that. Well there were two separate elections. They all ate
together - and cocktail parties together - but they, you know, they elected their peo~le,
we elected ours. So. And they always let them do it themselves. I don't know why. But
since that time the house is a little better organized than it was. The house has a caups
leader and so forth. The state committee doesn't do it any more.
Q: (pause) So maybe then it was just that the senate was better organized?
A: Yes. See they had four-year terms and there was probably more continuity. And a
smaller body and probably not so many new people and things like this. See there would
be some continuing officers there with a four-year term probably too, although they ran -
they ran two and two, they had staggered - there was always some senator running. But
there were some that were on the second two years of their term whereas the house members
were all coming in to a new term. I don't know why they did, or how they, you know, how
they arrived at that but that's the way it was.
Q: When you came down did you have any members of the house in mind that you wmld
seek out for explanation or advice? I guess even at that time . . .
A: The only one I knew was Kenny Wendt. Well I guess I had Paul Jack Bairstow to ask
his advice on the Speaker vote. And I called . . . Sam Shapiro, later governor, to ask his
advice and Francis Loughran who came out of Will County. I called the collar county
guys. The only cme of the collar county people who went with Powell was Jerry Hill of
Aurora. The other collar county people all voted with the regular party. And I never knew
what that was, what relationship, because Jack was a freshman. I don't think he klcew
Powell. (pause) Jack's the mayor of Aurora now.
Q: Did he later become close to Powell and that group of people?
A: Well not to my knowledge. Later on his clo~st associate was probably Toby Barry who
is now an appellate court judge. They lived together. I don't think Jack was ever &at
close.
Q: (pause) You mentioned that Representative Ebersbscher was your seatmate. How was
the seating determined?
A: By seniority. They send everybody out and call them in in terms of seniority and you
pick out a seat. You get what's left. Obviously being one of the last ones, why, there wasn't
an awful lot of choice. But I never did want to sit down front. I always sat in the rear
in all my years in the General Assembly. And I think another reason is that although I
was always reasonably friendly with the Chicago people I never really felt like I was art
of it. And they had many people there with extremely long terms and they always sat d ! wn
together toward the front of the hail. And the downstaters would kind of scatter around
more. I wanted to sit with the downstaters.
Ebersbacher, I kind of picked him out because he seemed to be kind of a leader of the thing
and I thought maybe I could learn something from him. You know aside from that
rumpus about Powell and De La Cour I had a lot of regard and respect for him. He
to know his business. It turned out I was right. He was one of the leading
the mnate and now ha's on the appellate caurt. He had been state's
Shelbyville. He was a very outstanding legislator.
William A. Redmond Memoir - Archives/ Special Collections - Norris L Brookens Library - University of Illinois at Springfield - UIS