Interview with Jim Edgar # ISG-A-L-2009-019.23 Interview # 23: November 8, 2010 Interviewer: Mark Depue
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Interview with Governor Jim Edgar Volume V (Sessions 23-26) Interview with Jim Edgar # ISG-A-L-2009-019.23 Interview # 23: November 8, 2010 Interviewer: Mark DePue COPYRIGHT The following material can be used for educational and other non-commercial purposes without the written permission of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. “Fair use” criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. These materials are not to be deposited in other repositories, nor used for resale or commercial purposes without the authorization from the Audio-Visual Curator at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, 112 N. 6th Street, Springfield, Illinois 62701. Telephone (217) 785-7955 DePue: Today is Monday, November 8, 2010. My name is Mark DePue, the director of oral history with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. This is my twenty-third session with Gov. Jim Edgar. Good afternoon, Governor. Edgar: Good afternoon. DePue: We’ve been at it for a little while, but it’s been a fascinating series of discussions. We are now getting close to the time when we can wrap up your administration. So without further ado in terms of the introduction, what we finished off last time was the MSI discussion. That puts us in the 1997 timeframe, into 1998. I wanted to start, though, with talking about some things in Historic Preservation. Obviously, with myself and our institution— Edgar: Let me ask you a question real quick. Did we do higher education reorganization? DePue: Oh yes. Edgar: We did? Okay. DePue: We did. Edgar: I can remember what I did twenty years ago; I can’t remember what I did two weeks ago. DePue: Yes, we talked about that at great length. Edgar: So in ’97 is where you think we are? DePue: Right. But this is kind of an aside here in terms of Historic Preservation. I wanted to ask you to begin with your initial involvement with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. Jim Edgar Interview # ISG-A-L-2009-019 VOL V Edgar: I think the ’98 State of the State address is when I said we were going to do it. Then in the budget message a few weeks later, we had the money in for the first time; there was money to… For several years Lee Daniels had always stuck money in the budget which never got used—I think I didn’t veto it, but we never spent it— but this was the first time we finally were in financial shape to do something, and we said we’re going full force. So it seemed to me that it was at the Lincoln Day Dinner when I first formally announced publicly that the administration was going to push on the presidential library. DePue: I know there was some discussion even in the Thompson administration. Do you remember how involved that was? Edgar: No, I don’t remember anything in the Thompson administration. I don’t remember anything before—there was never any money and there was never any talk. Julie Cellini might have talked about it before. 1 I don’t think I ever saw anything about it, never heard about it. I can’t remember if Dick Durbin had said something at one time, because he was the congressman from Springfield. So I don’t remember anything. I just remember right after I came in, Lee Daniels came down, because his wife Pam was on the Historical Preser—whatever that thing, (laughs) that structure in state government that shouldn’t have been there, but… DePue: The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency? Edgar: The board that runs it, the governing thing. DePue: The trustees. Edgar: Yes. See, that’s the only agency run by trustees. That was for Julie. (laughs) I used to tell Julie—I think she’s great, but I said, “Governmentally, you shouldn’t run an agency by a board. That was the old way they did government, and they changed that.” Pam was on that, so I think that is where Lee got interested in it, and it probably came from Julie through Pam. I remember him talking to me, then Julie came in, too. This is ’91; I just said, “We don’t have any money to do anything.” But I don’t remember if anything had happened before. That’s the first I remember it. DePue: Do you remember how much money? Edgar: It was like—don’t hold me to this—a hundred thousand or something in there he passed. But when it comes to that kind of money, it doesn’t mean anything because you’ve got to release it. I never did veto it, I just never released it and told him I wasn’t going to release it because we couldn’t afford it. So that was always there, but nothing ever happened with it. I’m pretty sure it was ’98 versus ’97, because I remember going to the Lincoln Day Dinner that night; they always have the 1 Gov. Jim Thompson named Julie Cellini chairman of the board of the Illinois State Historic Preservation Agency in 1985. She is the wife of William Cellini, who was a former secretary of transportation under Gov. Richard Ogilvie, real estate developer, and major Republican powerbroker. 957 Jim Edgar Interview # ISG-A-L-2009-019 VOL V governor say a few words. 2 I just announced that the administration was now going to push this, and that was the first time. I think it was the State of the State, but after I talked about it in one of those speeches, I remember I went to someplace over in the Quad Cities area. Kids met me, and they were already collecting pennies. They had signs up. And it was interesting because you talk about a lot of things in a speech, but that resonated with the kids in the other part of the state, so you knew there was a lot of interest. It was obvious to me that that hit a chord with folks; they could understand it. DePue: The next subject here is a little more personal for you, and that’s your official portrait. Is there a story behind that portrait? Edgar: No, not really. DePue: And there’s a Lincoln-Douglas connection to that, from what I understand, because isn’t their picture in the background? Edgar: There’s two stories, actually. I think we got the wrong painter. They had brought in things to show me. I think I picked one guy, and they brought the other guy. The guy turned out to be fine, but that was always… DePue: Do you remember the name? Edgar: What, the name of the artist? DePue: Yes. Edgar: I can’t remember. I remember what he looks like. (laughs) DePue: We’ll figure that out later. 3 Edgar: He was good; I was glad I picked him. But I actually think, from the preliminary stuff they showed me, they brought the wrong guy in. (laughs) The thing about the portrait, which was done in ’98, was that he said, “Is there anything you want in the background?” I said, “The Lincoln-Douglas painting.” I’m pointing to one here in the office, a replica that one of the staff members had given me, of the Lincoln- Douglas debate in Charleston, which hung in my office both as secretary of state and then I moved it over as governor. It was supposed to be hanging on the second floor in the lobby. Back when they were renovating that part of the building when I was secretary of state, they were going to put it in storage, and I said, “No, put it in my office,” because I had this huge wall, and it’s a huge portrait of that debate. That stayed there. Then when I moved over to the governor’s office, I realized that while it was going to be a lot smaller wall, it would fit right behind my desk, so we moved it over there. The last thing I did as governor, my last day as governor, 2 Not to be confused with the annual circuit of fundraising dinners celebrating Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party, this is the annual banquet held in Springfield, Illinois, by the Abraham Lincoln Association. 3 William Chambers was the artist. 958 Jim Edgar Interview # ISG-A-L-2009-019 VOL V I moved it back out where it’s supposed to be. There’s a frame, actually, in the hall; if you ever walk down that hall, you’ll see a frame. I put it there. I said, “This is where it belonged, and now that I’m leaving I’m going to put it back, because there’s nobody from Charleston now.” And George Ryan moved it back in, a few days after he became governor, so it’s still in there. It (laughs) watched over Governor Ryan. It watched over Governor Blagojevich. So it’s seen a lot of things. DePue: (laughs) It didn’t do much good, then. Edgar: Yes. That portrait is of the Lincoln-Douglas debate in Charleston, my hometown, but it also was the cover of a book on Illinois history I had when I was a student in sixth or seventh grade, something like that. Maybe it was sixth grade. So I was always conscious of that painting. When I came to Springfield and saw it in the hallway, it always was my favorite painting in the capitol complex. So I said, “Well, if you’re going to have something in the background, it ought to be that, because that’s always been with me as secretary of state and as governor, and it’s Charleston, it’s Lincoln.” He said fine.