William A. Redmond Memoir - Illinois Digital Archives

A: I was in grammar school. I would have been less than thirteen. That's pretty young.
Of course they were great shows. I mean they had trucks and red, white and blue bunting
and they'd have bands, and you know they'd go out in the neighborhood and pound the big
drums and it was quite a thing, you know. Of course it was entertainment too. There was
no tube to look at. And, oh, I'm sure it was before I finished grammar school that I went
to them. (chuckles) They used to do some dirty tricks. Sometimes they'd get a real noisy
band and put their opponent's name on the side &the band and then go into the residential
neighborhood about midnight and wake everybody up . with .their
opuses. (chuckles) They'd get so mad that they'd vote for their opponent. I've never
known whether it worked, but they did it. (laughter)
Q: Well did your father talk about politics quite a bit before when you would hear about
it?
A: Quite a bit, yes. (pause) My mother wasn't that interested, but dad was.
Q: I almost suspected it would have been the other way around . . . that your mother, you
know, maybe because of her family's business, you know, would have had more political inter-
est.
A: She was family-oriented. She didn't care much about anything but family.
Q: What were your father's politics?
A: Democrat. And my uncle in Canada is a liberal, which is the counterpart of a
Democrat. I never could quite understand why dad was such a strong Democrat because
he never had any - I'm not too sure he ever knew any political figure. He knew some
national ones. His job on the railroad was - as district passenger agent - was t~ ~olicit
business from convention groups and that sort of thing. And Vice-president Dawes, Charles
Gates Dawes, was one of dad's accounts and my father was very fond of Mr. Dawas. In
fact the Dawes people owned the City National Bank where dad went to work after he rretired
from the railroad. He was very fond of him.
(chuckles) He tells a funny story. One of his jobs was to greet important people that came
to Chicago. The Papal . . . I forgot what his name was now, but the Papal Nuncio, I forget
what was his name, came to Chicago and dad knew him. But the funny story is that when
Max h r fought Joe Louis, and Joe Louis really did a job on him, and Baer came to Chicago
and he had a drawing room - they used to all travel by train then, that was before the
airlines were there - and dad knocked on the door of Max Baer's stateroom to see if he
could be of any service to him. You know, whether he was going to transfer
at t4is station to station - and so forth. So he handed his card in to Max
eyes were shut and he said, "How can that be?" So he shut the door -
he shut the door and then he opened it another place. He
Max Baer,'' and dad said, "He thought I had gotten up at
coma down and get his autograph." (laughter) Here was
beat; he got pummeled pretty good."
But, you know . . . he met some very famous people like the opera singer, ~bdame
Schumann-Heink, she was one of dad's accounts . . . and I don't remember some of the
others, but I do know that General Dawes was one of dad's favorites. Of course Dawes was
a Republican.
Q: (pause) Was your father a big Woodrow Wilson supporter then?
A: Yes, yes. Well Wilson was quite a distinquished man, he was president of Pripceton,
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