The Essential Paul Simon: Timeless Lessons for Today's Politics

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Abraham Lincoln once sat. I did not expect moral perfection when I first went to Springfield In my home district , in southwestern Illinois, criminal elements had seriously infiltrated both major party organizations until Governor Adlai Stevenson’s courageous state police raids of 1950 slowed down their inroads. Illicit bookie joints and vice dens operated as freely as groLaw School in Chicago and has served eleven terms in the House, estimates that one third of the members accept payoffs. In the light of my own observa tions,Iagree.Mostofthesearerecorded as legal fees, public-relations services, or “campaign contributions,” though a campaign may be months away. If ques tioned, the recipient simply denies that the payment had anything to do with legislative activity. This makes it tech nically legal. A somewhat smaller Recently, for example, the spokesman of a professional association visited a legislator, whom I will call Mr. X, to en list his help with a bill. “Did you bring the money?” Mr. X asked. “What money?” the visitor asked. “Money for the committee, of course.” Mr. X replied. “It will cost two hundred to five hundred dollars a vote to get the bill out of committee.” His caller dropped the subject and left. Similarly jolted was a representative of the food industry when he sought a powerful Senator’s support for a bill. “Be glad to talk to you,” he legislator told him. “For othyears ago in the cery stores in one town, and muggings, bombings, and gang killings were common -place. However, this experience and a realistic attitude about society’s shortcomings did not prepare me for the shock of seeing from the inside how the Illinois legislature – the lawmaker and “public conscience” of the nation’s fourth-most-populous state – actually works. This is the legislature which last year enacted a redistricting plan so blatantly unrepresentative that the Illinois Supreme Court upheld Governor Otto Kerner’s veto of it. As a all members of our House of Representatives will be elected at large – the first such election, I believe, in American history. At least 236 names will appear on a special ballot almost three feet long, out of which the voter must select all 177 members of the House. This is only one of a series of breakThis is only one of a series of breakThis is only one of a series of break downs so frequent and so serious that I feel compelled to speak out about them. My colleague, Republican Noble W. Lee, who is Dean of the John Marshall One of the most admired public figures in Illinois’s history, journalist and politician Paul Simon dedicated his life to public service for more than four decades. He often used his prolific writings as tools to establish a straightforward dialogue with his constituents. In The Essential Paul Simon: Timeless Lessons for Today’s Politics, editor John S. Jackson carefully selects the best of Simon’s decades of writings, which include newspaper columns, editorials , lectures, and newsletters—works that, while written to address the challenges of Simon’s own era, still resonate with practical wisdom today. Jackson provides an introduction to each chapter, setting Senator Simon’s work into the context of its time and emphasizing the connection to today’s continuing political questions and conflicts. He also contributes an annotated bibliography covering all of Paul Simon’s twenty-two books, which will prove to be a handy guide to Simon’s publications. Every period of Simon’s career is represented in the volume, from his early days as the owner and publisher of the Troy Tribune in the 1940s and his crusade against corruption in the Illinois legislature, to his time in the United States Congress and his unsuccessful 1988 bid for the presidency. Simon wrote frankly about matters that continue to mark political debate and polarize the nation to this day, including the national budget and deficit, foreign policy, the separation of church and state, the crucial need for bipartisanship, energy and the environment, the conduct of American election campaigns, and immigration reform, among countless other topics. While Simon covered a broad spectrum of topics in his written works, his mission throughout the years remained the same: to urge his constituents to study and understand issues that affected their daily lives and to make The Essential Paul Simon: Timeless Lessons for Today’s Politics the complexities of politics accessible to the average citizen. Above all, Simon urged the need for civic instruction, factual political debate...