Paul Simon of Illinois: Teen Newspaper Crusader Turned Bow Tie Senator

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

So, when you picture a politician running for president in the late 1980s, you probably have a very specific aesthetic in mind.

SPEAKER_2 (0:08)

Oh, definitely. The heavily produced, poll-tested kind of guy.

SPEAKER_1 (0:11)

Right. That was the dawn of the slick television optics. You know, the focus group talking points, the blow-dried hair, the perfect teeth.

SPEAKER_2 (0:19)

Yeah, the entire industry was pivoting toward these candidates who just, well, who looked flawless on screen and could deliver that perfect 10-second sound bite.

SPEAKER_1 (0:27)

Exactly. But then, right in the middle of all that polished perfection, there was this candidate who looked like he had just wandered out of, I don't know, a mid-century university library archive department.

SPEAKER_2 (0:38)

He really did.

SPEAKER_1 (0:39)

He steps up to the national debate podium wearing these thick, heavy horn-rimmed glasses and a very prominent bow tie. Just carrying this mild-mannered, almost grandfatherly demeanor.

SPEAKER_2 (0:50)

Yeah, we're talking about Paul Simon today.

SPEAKER_1 (0:52)

Just to clarify for everyone listening, that's Paul Simon, the American politician from Illinois to distinguish him from the musician.

SPEAKER_2 (1:00)

Right, totally different guy.

SPEAKER_1 (1:01)

So today, we're taking a deep dive into the life of a man who somehow managed to be a complete throwback to an older era of American politics, while simultaneously operating as a maverick who was decades ahead of his time.

SPEAKER_2 (1:15)

And we're basing this on a range of biographical texts, historical records of his life, his legislative record and a lot of his own writings.

SPEAKER_1 (1:22)

Which he did a lot of. So, our mission today is really tracing this trajectory of how an uncompromising writer accidentally became a massive political powerhouse.

SPEAKER_2 (1:33)

It's such a fascinating paradox. Because most people who remember him today, they visualized that 1988 presidential run. They remember the bow tie and the image of this old-fashioned gentle intellectual. But that mild-mannered image totally obscures the reality of his origins.

SPEAKER_1 (1:48)

It really does.

SPEAKER_2 (1:49)

Because long before he was a United States senator, he was this 19-year-old college dropout who literally walked into a local Lions Club, asked for a loan, bought a dying newspaper, and launched an absolute crusade against the mob, illegal gambling, and government corruption.

SPEAKER_1 (2:05)

That origin story fundamentally upends that quiet bookish image we all have of him.

SPEAKER_2 (2:11)

Totally.

SPEAKER_1 (2:12)

But to understand how he got there, we have to look at the environment that built him.

He was born in 1928 in Eugene, Oregon. But the geography is actually way less important than the household itself.

SPEAKER_2 (2:25)

Right. His parents, Martin and Ruth, were Lutheran missionaries who had previously served in China.

SPEAKER_1 (2:30)

And you really cannot overstate how much that specific upbringing shaped his baseline worldview.

SPEAKER_2 (2:35)

No, absolutely not. I mean, when you're raised by missionaries, the concept of service, of this moral obligation to your fellow human beings, it isn't just some abstract philosophical idea.

SPEAKER_1 (2:45)

It's the literal operating system of your household.

SPEAKER_2 (2:48)

Exactly. That deep-rooted religious and service-oriented background was basically the engine for his entire life. Just to give you a sense of that family dynamic, his brother Arthur later went on to found the prominent anti-hunger advocacy group, Bread for the World.

SPEAKER_1 (3:02)

Oh, wow. So they were really raised to be fiercely dedicated to social causes.

SPEAKER_2 (3:07)

They were. It was baked into them.

SPEAKER_1 (3:09)

So he bounces around a few different colleges. He spends time at Concordia in Portland, the University of Oregon, and Dana College in Nebraska.

But he never actually graduates from any of them.

SPEAKER_2 (3:20)

Which is highly unusual for a guy who ends up being perceived as this towering intellectual later on.

SPEAKER_1 (3:26)

Right.

But instead of finishing a degree, we hit 1948 He's 19 years old, and he somehow manages to secure a loan for $3,600.

SPEAKER_2 (3:37)

Which is a substantial amount of capital for a teenager to convince a civic club to just hand over in 1948 Yeah.

SPEAKER_1 (3:44)

Think about that pitch. But he takes that money and uses it to take over a defunct newspaper called the Troy Call in Troy, Illinois.

He renames it the Troy Tribune, and overnight he becomes the youngest editor and publisher in the entire nation.

SPEAKER_2 (3:59)

And he does not use the paper to report on local church bake sales and town parades.

SPEAKER_1 (4:05)

No. He goes right for the throat. He immediately starts investigating the local crime syndicates.

SPEAKER_2 (4:10)

He's writing these fiery, incredibly detailed editorials exposing prostitution, illegal gambling operations, and, and this is the big one, the local government corruption that was providing cover for all of it.