Tom Roeser in Remembrance
From Pat Hickey
Tom Roeser was a true conservative -politically and theologically. His life warned against the Roads Most Travelled -group think. Tom Roeser was an original thinker who stood upon the texts and traditions that best preserved what is best in our politics and in our Faith. Though Catholic, Tom Roeser was a catholic (universal theologian). Tom Roeser was God’s watchdog and fearless intellectual combatant. Tom never once said that he had all the answers. Rather, he pointed all of us in the direction of where the right answers were to be found. Tom Roeser disagreed, but always welcomed debate; even with singularly disagreeable people, all were invited to Tom’s feast.
From the Chicago Sun Times
Chris Robling, a friend and fellow board member with Mr. Roeser at the City Club of Chicago and at Haymarket Center, a rehabilitation center, said Sunday that Mr. Roeser always showed “a ton of verve” and “an excitement about anyone with big ideas.” Though Mr. Roeser looked like a corporate executive, he was thoroughly anti-status-quo, Robling said. “He was ‘Tea Party’ long before there was a Tea Party,” Robling said. Robling said Mr. Roeser, a native of Evanston, discovered his anti-establishment side after he got into a dispute with the Nixon administration while serving as an assistant commerce secretary. Mr. Roeser believed the powers-that-be were not serious about the program he led, which provided help to minority businesses. While in Washington, D.C., Mr. Roeser befriended Andrew Young and Maynard Jackson, both former mayors of Atlanta and civil rights activists. After Mr. Roeser left the Nixon administration, he became “the radical Republican reformer,” Robling said. Robling also credited Mr. Roeser with keeping the City Club alive during fallow years in the 1980s, and supporting many other local institutions. Jay Doherty, president of the City Club of Chicago, has spent his 17 years as president with Roeser as chairman. “Tom led the way for the City Club of Chicago to be Illinois’ premier public policy forum,” said Doherty, who had known Roeser for 35 years.
From the Chicago Tribune
No one was safe from his fairness’ — on radio, in print or on website
From Time-Out Chicago
“Tom Roeser was a valued member of the WLS on-air lineup for 17 years,” the station said in a statement released Sunday by operations director Drew Hayes. “He was heard primarily in his regular Sunday night slot where listeners could participate in his radio ‘plebiscites,’ weighing in on the political issues of the week past, and looking forward to the week ahead. He was devoted to his principles and stalwart in his advocacy, respected by friend and foe alike. WLS sends condolences to his wife Lillian, and to their children. He will be missed.”
Tom was a man’s man when it came to his firm beliefs. He was a solid child of Christ, and always spoke his heart when it involved the emotional subjects of abortion and so called homosexual “marriage.” I admired Tom for this steadfastness and moral courage. He certainly stood in front of Our Lord for the final judgement we will all experience with a smile on his face as he heard the Lord’s voice, “Welcome, good and faithful servant.”
In eulogizing Tom Roeser, we must not overlook that he had a sense of humor and, unlike, many of his foes, he was a great deal of fun to be with. Having lunch with Tom at the former Chicago Athletic Club was highly educational, but also incredibly entertaining.
In Tom’s memory, let us raise a toast to the Cherry Circle!
I looked forward to reading ALL of Tom’s articles and I loved his story telling of the days when he followed Hubert Humphrey around Minnesota (where I grew up). (He had a gift for telling stories the envy of Will Rogers.)
But most of all I looked forward to his colorful Wanderer articles because they reinforced my own impressions of the difficulties we have all had being conservative in a declining Christian culture. When I related it to Tom, he broke out into a wide smile: “Oh yeah,” he said,”that’s about the only place a writer can set his own pace. They let you go on and on”
I will surely miss those columns. I extend my deep sympathy to Lillian and the children. May they be so blessed with the gifts that God bestowed on their progenitor.
Sad to come home and read this news. I’ll miss his histories and recollections of past politicos.
I first met Tom in the early 1980s, when he formed the Illinois Republican Assembly. The purpose of this organization was simple: organize the conservative membership of the Republican Party to give conservative guidance and leadership to the Republican Party. One could say that was one of Tom’s many missions in life. Since I shared that vision with Tom, I became fortunate to become of friend of his and his charming wife Lillian over many years. Without question, my life has been enriched due to my friendship with him. He was a standout among men for reasons too numerous to recount here.
Political leader, business executive, radio show host, newspaper reporter and columnist, Catholic apologist…Tom was all these and more. In addition to the Assembly, Tom was the founder or inspiration for the foundation of several other important organizations, not the least being Catholic Citizens and the Chicago Daily Observer. However, for me, one of the more important distinctions achieved by Tom in his life was that of being a writer. I am sure he would attribute his skill to his early days as a journalist. Over an ample lifetime of experience, Tom became a cogent, artful, and memorable writer. Happily we have many years of Sun Times columns, CDO article, and personal blog writings that the intellectually curious can read for many years into the future. Tom’s skill was such that he could distill complicated intellectual concepts into accessible and stimulating prose. Whether it be market economics, American history, or Catholic apologetics, Tom could write about them all in a style that could touch almost every reader. I for one will dip into Tom’s many writings for many years to come.
For me, one of the great things about Tom Roeser was that he was the antithesis of the stereotype of the traditional conservative. Gratefully, his prolix autobiographical musings on his blog can give those who never knew him a feel for this aspect of his personality. It has already been observed that upon first meeting, Tom exuded the persona of the staid, “dead white male” conservative curmudgeon, but that upon further exposure to his outsized personality, this impression was soon dispelled. Witty, optimistic, genial, and prone to surprise you with his opinions (such as his lifelong admiration of liberal Senator Eugene McCarthy), Tom crashed the smug liberal image of the American conservative, and enlightened many as a result.
Tom’s passing has already left a hole in my heart. As a fellow faithful Catholic, I take comfort in the knowledge that his life’s journey has led him to a more perfect communion with Christ and the Heavenly Host. May we all do just as well.
A true voice of Chicago conservatism has been lost. Who else is up to the task?
Last Saturday night at home (while unknown to me Tom was dying) I watched “The Adventures of Errol Flynn”, an excellent video biography of that great actor. Flynn was not just a great actor but a skilled sailor, an author, a knowledgeable art collector and all round adventurer. I found his love of life and his appetite for enjoying it to be admirable, but Flynn never had an over-arching sense of purpose to direct and discipline that love. As a consequence he overindulged in the obvious vices and died relatively young and burned out. Tom also was an adventurer, an adventurer in politics, religion, ideas and family, and his love of life was reflected in the many adventures that he recollected and wrote about for our enjoyment and edification. But Tom’s love of living wasn’t just an adventure, it was a commitment, informed and directed by a greater purpose, the purpose to serve God and humanity….and what an example that is to the rest of us.
I’m sure that Tom would send forth a hearty horse-laugh if he heard himself being compared to and rated more highly than Errol Flynn. God bless you Tom.
I contemplate the passing of the singularly eminent conservative philosopher king Thomas F. Roeser with an agonizing mixture of joy and sorrow. The joy comes from the fact that I was privileged to know and collaborate with this great intellect, writer, humanitarian and conservative social/political activist on the most personal level, that being of a profound personal friendship. The sorrow stems from knowing that this great man is uniquely irreplaceable and that I will not hear from him again in this life save for the legacy of the great writings and commentary that he leaves behind.
Mr. Roeser plucked me from utter obscurity and advanced me to at least the level of relative obscurity when he requested my presence on his WLS radio show after being bombarded by my continual calls in support of one conservative proposition or another. He saw something in me that I didn’t see myself and before long I was a regular contributor to the various radio airwaves forums in which he was a party to on several AM and FM radio stations throughout Chicago for quite Roeser number of years. Allied with us in this collaborative effort were at the formidable argumentative talents of the chairman of the Republican Assembly of Illinois, Jim Leahy, like me just another prole in whom Tom Roeser saw great promise. Together the three of us would engage the political social and cultural left and many of its more significant leaders in intellectual combat and debate and more often than not prevail over them.
I was privileged to receive from Mr. Roeser the best possible education as to what true conservatism meant because Tom understood and explained conservatism by analyzing the most profound and fundamental philosophical, intellectual, and historical antecedents of this belief system. Tom was absolutely brilliant at taking some current event and weaving it into a matrix which explained the reasonings of long dead but immortal minds associated with the best of Western philosophical tradition, Burke, Locke, Hume, Aquinas, Montesquieu, the founding fathers and a whole host of other names I had never even heard of before I met Tom Roeser. The Western canon was largely unknown to me before Tom Roeser had me scurrying to catch up on the gaps in my knowledge by endless hours spent studying the works of these greats.
To those of you who have not done so I really think you should treat yourself and read some of Tom’s columns and essays on issues great and small at http://blog.tomroeser.com/ You will discover what a truly great writer he was. He would write with a singular ability to employ sarcasm, erudition, and piercing wit and combine it with his prodigious knowledge of Chicago and Illinois history to produce the most entertaining and informative commentary in the news business. He was an utter professional and accomplished in every way imaginable in the journalism business, a real pro’s pro. His insight and analysis of the political process was fearless and peerless. What I really loved about Tom was that he would never compromise his core principles to accommodate Illinois’s political establishment which often led him to being at odds with it. Practically all of Tom’s outlook was informed by his Catholic perspective and his reverence for the philosophies of the great fathers of the church. It is safe to say that time believed in the magisterium and that he rejected much of Vatican II, but he certainly believed in the great and abiding transcendent moral principles that are enshrined in the declaration of independence and the canon of the holy mother Church. Tom was a patriot of the highest order who believed what he believed because he thought that keeping America the greatest country in the history of mankind was to conserve the very best of its founding philosophies and traditions. He loved this nation in the best sense and for the best reasons and decried anything that would serve to weaken and unmoor it from those uniquely special underpinnings.
Despite Tom’s steely conservative insight he was really just a big old soft bear at heart. I used to get a real kick out of his devoted wife of decades little Lillian Roeser leading Tom to and fro as though he were some big old St. Bernard on a leash. To me those two appear to be the very epitome of long-term wedded bliss and cooperation. Tom was a family man par excellence.
Jim Leahy and I would often tease Tom about how he was becoming a mushy moderate in his old age and that he really needed us to buck him up and call him back to true conservative principles. It was all just in jest Tom, just in case you ever thought we were serious. To paraphrase that old James Bond movie tune, “nobody did it better.” Here’s to you sir, until we meet again at another great kaffeeklatsch and exchange ideas.
Frank Penn
P.S. For ever your devoted acolyte and friend I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you taught me and that I am continuing to share with others
In many of my ventures in life, I’ve found I could learn a lot from those who had experiences those ventures. In my political world, Tom Roeser wss that person who shared many of his ideas with me as he did with so many others. I often told him he was my political Godfather as he was a very sharp person to talk and listen to. His WLS radio show, Political Shootout, was the best and became my favorite thing to do on Sunday night at 8:00 PM. I would often tell Tom and others, “on Sunday night, I’ve got a steak on the grill, a beer in one hand, and the phone in the other.” His interviews of his various guests were the best, as not too much would go past him.
When I started to write op ed pieces for the old Illinoisleader.com , the Illinois Review, and now the Conservative Magazine of Illinois websites, to have Tom Roeser compliment me on what I wrote was indeed a supreme compliment from the best writer around.
Thank you Tom Roeser for the time spent teaching me what you did, making suggestions for events & groups I became to enjoy with those of similar mind. You were the best. Jim Economos aka “Jim from S. Elgin.”
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