William A. Redmond Memoir - Illinois Digital Archives

Q: Yes.
A: No, I - it wasn't my burning ambition to be in the General Assembly. There were two
things I guess. One is that Judge Guild who was on our appellate bench until very
recently - he was a states attorney and he was a friend of mine, we went to law school
together, and he said he thought that state legislature wasn't full-time in the first place
and it was one place that you could be in politics and not put all your eggs in that one
basket, along the line that I was talking about the other day. And it was true at that. .
. . And he kind of encouraged me to enter into it and I guess maybe it was the Irish, stubborn
Irish, in me that - I wanted to be a delegate to the national convention that was being
held in Chicago that year. And this fellow that I referred to that was most instrumental
in Anderson's success, he hadn't been in the party when I had been active back in 1948. So
somebody said that Redrnond wanted to be a delegate to the convention. So somebody said,
"Who the hell is Redmond?" And then they proceeded to slate without me. So I guess
kind of in retaliation for that I thought I'd try to upset their applecart. (chuckles) Maybe
that wasn't a good motive but . . .
Q: Was it a pretty spirited contest?
A: It was a pretty good - pretty good but not vicious. Fred and I were friendly and you
know any time that two people are fighting for the same seat there's always a certain amount
of tenseness but he never said anything unkind and I never did. It was an affirmative thing
and - well they were better organized and he won, so.
Q: You said the Democratic party, in mostly suburbs, was a sort of sporadic type of
thing. Why is it sporadic?
A: Well why do people identify with parties? Sometimes they - you know, it's power they
want. Sometimes it's money. Sometimes it's prestige. Sometimes it's being with a
winner. We weren't in a position to reward anybody. I mean you know we didn't win so
if what they wanted was a job we couldn't give them a job. If what they wanted to be
was an assistant state's attorney, those were political appointments and - it's great to come
in second but you don't, you know. . . . To build yourself a political base, if you run for
something, having been the assistant state's attorney is a plus. (chuckles) Having all the
support of losers, that - you might be the greatest lawyer in the world, but that wouldn't
do. And then you know they - maybe somebody would aspire to be a judge and that would
be the reason for their political campaigning. Maybe somebody just liked
government. They'd get inspired.
I don't know whether we're going to be able to capitalize on it or not and there's always
a danger that if you try to make political capital of something you destroy the movement
and. . . . But right now the county particularly up on this end is in ferment over the real
estate taxes, the application of the multiplier. Our multiplier has gone up every year for
the last - oh I can't tell you how many years but that means that your real estate taxes
are increasing probably a hundred, a hundred and twenty-five dollars a year every year and
have for quite some time. There's a movement now, they had a meeting here in this town
and had four hundred people in it. Now that's a lot of people. I mean it takes something
like that to get them going.
I don't know what got them going against Dwight Green when Stevenson ran before but
there was something, I just don't remember what it was. If that feeling is universal now
and they blame Governor Thompson for the multiplier, and they blame the local governments
for the level of appropriations, it could possibly be that the ingredients are here for the
Democrats to do quite well in November.
William A. Redmond Memoir - Archives/ Special Collections - Norris L Brookens Library - University of Illinois at Springfield - UIS