Interview with Mike McCormick # ISG-A-L-2010-028.1 Interview # 1: July 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 Note to the Reader: Readers of the oral history memoir should bear in mind that this is a transcript of the spoken word, and that the interviewer, interviewee, and editor sought to preserve the informal, conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library is not responsible for the factual accuracy of the memoir, nor for the views expressed therein. We leave these for the reader to judge. DePue: Today is Thursday, July 8, 2010. My name is Mark DePue; I’m the Director of Oral History at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. This morning I’m with Mike McCormick. Good morning, Mike. McCormick: Good morning. DePue: This is going to be fun, because Mike McCormick has worked for many, many years with Governor Edgar. You knew him when he was secretary of state, I believe; worked, especially during the second half of his administration; and have done an awful lot of work as an assistant with him. What would the official title be for your post-governorship years with the governor? McCormick: I’m an assistant to the distinguished fellow at the University of Illinois. DePue: Mike, as we always do, we’re going to start with a little bit of background on you and your family. Where did you grow up, first of all? McCormick: I grew up in Vienna, [pronounced VIE-enna, not VEE-enna] Illinois, in Johnson County. DePue: And you were born when? Mike McCormick Interview # ISG-A-L-2010-028.1 McCormick: I was born May 22, 1959. DePue: How did your family end up in the southern part of Illinois? McCormick: I guess I really don’t know that. The original person in my father’s line came from Scot-Irish and ended up in Summit Point, West Virginia, and owned a property that is still referred to as the White House, in Summit Point. It’s still standing. He was a Dr. John McCormick. If you look through the history, it looks like my family may have somehow come from the West Virginia area to probably the Kentucky area and then settled on into southern Illinois. In fact, my father was born in Pope County, Illinois, in a town named after my family, McCormick, Illinois, which is now—I started to say a spot in the road, but I’m not sure it’s even that anymore—but it used to be a fairly thriving, very small community in Pope County, Illinois. My dad was born in Pope County, but then his family moved to Johnson County to start businesses. That’s how he ended up in Johnson County, and other than being born in Pope County, he lived there all of his adult life. DePue: It sounds, then, like your family fits the classic model of the mid–nineteenth century migration from the northern tier of southern states—Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee—into the southern part of Illinois. McCormick: Yes, I believe so. That’s my understanding, anyway. DePue: What’s your father’s name? McCormick: C.L. McCormick. DePue: Does the C.L. stand for something? McCormick: No, it doesn’t. That was something that he had been asked about in all of his years of public life, and he used to joke that maybe his parents thought when he was born that he was going to die early or not be worth anything, so they didn’t give him a name, they just gave him C.L. My great-grandfather was Christian McCormick, my grandmother’s maiden name was Lay, and my dad’s brother’s middle name was Howard Lay McCormick, so I always speculated that they didn’t give him a name, but that’s what those two kind of stood for; but I have no basis for that. When my dad was in the legislature, at one point in time there was an effort to find out what his name was. He had always told everybody that it wasn’t C.L., and a reporter had found his Army record, which called him Franklin C.L. McCormick. So they kind of thought they had a little bit of a scoop and came to my dad. The story he told me was that when he went into the Army and they asked him what his name was, he said, “C.L. McCormick,” and they said, “Well, what does the C and what does the L stand for?” He said, “I don’t have a name. It’s C.L. McCormick.” They said that wasn’t good 2 Mike McCormick Interview # ISG-A-L-2010-028.1 enough; (DePue laughs) “From the Army standpoint, you’re now Franklin C.L. McCormick.” So in his Army official papers it says “Franklin C.L. McCormick.” When my dad passed away, because he was a veteran, he was entitled to a plaque on his gravesite. The problem with the plaque was that to the veterans folks, he was Franklin C.L. McCormick, and of course my mother didn’t want that on the gravesite because that wasn’t his name. I remember I actually called Paul Simon. I couldn’t get anything done, and I gave Paul a call, who, when my father passed away was the first politician that called my house. I called Paul and I said, “Paul, my mom’s going a little crazy on this thing because they want to…” He said, “I never knew your dad’s name was Franklin.” I said, “No, it wasn’t.” I explained the story, and Paul in very short order got that taken care of, so his little marker shows “C.L. McCormick,” not “Franklin C.L. McCormick.” DePue: That’s quite an interesting story for something as straightforward as, “What’s your father’s name?” (laughs) McCormick: I’m sorry to take so long on that. DePue: No, that’s great; that’s fine. Your mother—what was her maiden name? McCormick: My mother’s maiden name is Irma Lee Turner. She is originally from a little town called Cypress, Illinois. That’s C-y-p-r-e-s-s. That’s also in Johnson County. DePue: So southern Illinois boy all the way through. McCormick: Yes. DePue: Talk about growing up and especially what your father did for employment, because this is very much part of the story of your life. McCormick: Before I was born my father served in World War II. He served in Germany. He came home and ran for office—for alderman in one of the wards in Vienna, Illinois—as a young man out of the Army, and he won that election. In addition to running for alderman of the city of Vienna, he and my uncle ran a restaurant and a taxicab service in Vienna. Vienna was a small town, but because the war had used up a lot of the materials for cars and things like that, a lot of people didn’t have cars. So even in a small town like that, a taxi service was a good business to have because people would call you to take them home. My dad and my uncle ran that business. My uncle said that my dad got the political bug and started running for office; he got stuck with doing most of the restaurant work, and my dad went out politicking. My dad was elected to the city council. I believe it was the early fifties, he ran against the Johnson County political establishment. 3 Mike McCormick Interview # ISG-A-L-2010-028.1 DePue: Which was? McCormick: Names escape me now. DePue: I’m not necessarily looking for names, but was that part of the state traditionally a Democratic or a Republican stronghold? McCormick: That part of the state was Democratic, but our county was Republican. It has always been, with some dips—unless you’re a Democrat; they would call those rises—but it has been a pretty Republican county over the years. But southern Illinois, that deep part of southern Illinois, is traditionally Democratic. Although if you would take a poll on issues and say, Do you believe this and that, there would probably be very little difference in what people believe in most of their political issues. But there are very strong family ties, social ties, to the parties down there. So the powers that be were actually some folks who ran the Republican Party for many years down there. My dad decided to take on an incumbent county clerk that had served for many years; he took him on as a young man coming home from the war and time for new leadership. 1 It was a tough race, and my dad ended up winning that race as a county clerk. He was reelected four years later as county clerk. Then, in the middle of that term as county clerk—it would have been in the mid- to late fifties—he ran for the general assembly from that district and won his election by just a very few votes.