Leon Despres and Barack Obama
Leon Despres is 100 and ½ years old.
Throughout his long political career as an independent in Chicago, he has served as a special role model for those who believed in positive change and in achieving it against all odds.
Now, he is deeply encouraged to see Senator Barack Obama on that same path of independence and idealism seeking to climb new and higher mountains.
In the Chicago City Council from 1955 to 1975 and speaking out whenever he could during the third of a century since then, Despres has shown that courage, perseverance, social concern and most especially integrity can ultimately conquer the sheerest and most challenging political faces.
It was a deep personal commitment to integrity that 53 years ago kept the new alderman from accepting the patronage and payoffs that gave so many of his fellow alderman control over hundreds of jobs and almost unlimited opportunity for personal emolument.
Still very alive and alert, centenarian Despres recalls an incisive prediction, which a distinguished University of Chicago
professor made to him 83 years ago. It is one that Despres feels is about to be fulfilled.
In the mid-1920s, few experts in the world were more concerned with the meaning of a word than U. of C. Professor Leonard Bloomfield—noted in linguistics for having introduced rigorous scientific methodology to the study of language.
In this instance, the word was “democracy.”
“We cannot call this nation a democracy,” he told the U. of C. class in which Despres sat, “until we have elected a Negro President.”
“Negro was the term then used for African-Americans,” Despres says. “He brought science and understanding to linguistics and deserved all the accolades he received.
“I found myself deeply impressed with Professor Bloomfield’s statement and have recalled it on many occasions since then.
“I see Obama’s race for President being a great advantage, just as I see his appeal among Hispanics being anther one,” Despres said. “He knows about the needs of the ordinary as well as the poor people and he has a feel for their problems and that is crucial. He started on a course as a social worker to learn about and help others even before he entered politics.
“Senator Obama will bring a rare quality to the Presidency, a breadth of integrity not in that office in a long time. He is a good man, highly intelligent, but not an elitist. And I see him staying that way.
Despres also sees Obama’s tradition as a socially concerned person, an idealist and a man with integrity as being crucial to what we have a right to expect from him as President.
He watched the young man who was elected to office from his own former district carried through n his promises. Obama, he was very aware, was being supported by many from the same core group who had come together around his candidacy a generation earlier.
“Those people and I broke the mold,” Despres said. “We especially did it in my second election when Richard J. Daley and the Cook county Democratic mchine threw everything they could into the campaign to defeat me. It was a major turning point for independent politics in Chicago. They did not ever again bring their patronage army from all over the city into Hyde Park to take on an independent.”
Despres sees integrity as a day-in, day-out mark of all but one or two of the dozens of independent, socially aware candidates elected as alderman, representatives and senators in Chicago over the last half century.
He judges this integrity by the bribes elected officials did not take and by their rejection of the small freebies and favors so readily available to those holding office.
He perceives such integrity as a key and essential part of Obama’s character.
“I personally believe,” he continued, “that Barack Obama will make mistakes but that he will be 100% on the matter of integrity. He is ambitious but he is not out for personal gain.
“I have seen him up close and I feel his love for his wife and his children will help keep him grounded.”
He does not believe that Obama is either perfect or completely committed to the exact same political agenda as he is.
“I am steeled for disappointments from him, plenty of them,” Despres added. “Despite these, the positive things he has going for him are so great that it will take a lot to overcome them.”
Despres elaborated that he believes Obama will bring in people who are unselfishly interested in fields such as agriculture, heath and the interior just as did Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy.
“Unlike the reason for choosing so many during this administration, it will not be a simple opportunity for office holders to acquire as much as they could for themselves or their friends,” Despres predicted.
When Marian, Leon’s wife of 75 years, died a year and a half ago, Senator Obama sent him a long, highly personal condolence letter.
“He knew Marian personally and his letter demonstrated how much he cared,” Leon said. “He did not need to write it, but he did and it was a personal tribute.”
“The letter is not why I believe so much in him, but it did affect me.”
________________________________________________
Kenan Heise, elected to the Chicago Press Hall of Fame, is a former Tribune editor and is a regular columnist for The Chicago Daily Observer.
It is unfortunately accurate that many who support Sen. Obama for President do it for the same reasons that Ald. Despres does.
They ignore the fact that Obama is as thoroughly corrupt as any other Cook County politician but subscribe to the lunacy that Obama will be “100% on the matter of integrity”.
Sen. Obama purchased his home in partnership with a man he knew (or should have known) was a felon, Tony Rezko. Sen. Obama endorsed the Stroger Family for Cook County President. Sen. Obama champions import tariffs on fuel, while the nation suffers record high gasoline prices; prohibitions against Wal-Mart on the South Side, while his former district wallows in unemployment; the public school monopoly, while his own children get a free ride a a tony private school.
Sen. Obama’s integrity is as bad or worse than the average Cook County politician. His integrity should surely disqualify him for any public office subject to the scrutiny of the voters outside of the most corrupt county in the United States.
JBP
I agree with the preceding comment completely. Eight decades ago, Leon Despres lived in Mexico and associated with a variety of radicals and a few the Bolsheviks exiled by Stalin. While I doubt that Despres ever was a card carrying member of the CPUSA, I suspect that he favors Obama for his left of center politics (which must of course be disguised from the public until the election is concluded).
Les Despres is a brilliant man, as were Diego Rivera, who painted a portrait of Despres’ wife; and Trotsky, who is the Bolshevik he was hanging out with. Whether or not you think Communism is stupid, we are talking about the mid 1930s here, when it was a new idea. And Trotsy was an IDEALIST like Despres and Obamma. Idealists are not the maniacs or fools conservative think they are. They are open-minded individuals who don’t let prejudices and preconceived notions about people and things prevent their ideas from flowing freely. And furthermore, anyone who thinks the USSR was an excercise in communism, idealistically speaking, is as much a fool as those who think the USA is a democracy.
Park,
Something about being open-minded and Bolshevik doesn’t ring true.
JBP
Truth rings differently sometimes, depending on one’spoint of view. I did not imply that all Bolsheviks were open-minded or brilliant. Many were violent revolutionaries. Trotsky, however, was a great thinker. And he was certainly punished by less tolerant commies for being too open minded. Do you follow, or are you not sufficiently open minded? I mean, for heaven’s sake, the guy opposed Stalin! What could be a _more_ idealistic move for a communist, eh?
Furthermore, some of our greatest thinkers were also American Revolutionaries, and idealists. I salute them too!
Park Rogers should stand up and be a real American… Hey pinko, go buy something you don’t need, instead of fomenting unrest among the consumers!
I have no doubt that the man that wrote this was a real charming fellow:
“An army cannot be built without reprisals. Masses of men cannot be led to death unless the army command has the death-penalty in its arsenal. So long as those malicious tailless apes that are so proud of their technical achievements—the animals that we call men—will build armies and wage wars, the command will always be obliged to place the soldiers between the possible death in the front and the inevitable one in the rear.”
Reprisals included the death penalty for deserters and traitors, and the use of former officers’ families as hostages against possible defections:
“[...]I ordered you to establish the family status of former officers among command personnel and to inform each of them by signed receipt that treachery or treason will cause the arrest of their families and that, therefore, they are each taking upon themselves responsibility for their families. That order is still in force. Since then there have been a number of cases of treason by former officers, yet not in a single case, as far as I know, has the family of the traitor been arrested, as the registration of former officers has evidently not been carried out at all. Such a negligent approach to so important a matter is totally impermissible.[19]”
Sounds like a a joy to be around!
JBP
Yeah, OK, you got me there… I cannot deny that ultimately Trotsky was too extreme. He was wrong about threatening the families of deserters, and any other, similarly extreem tactics. Still, I stick to my point that Les Despres was and is open-minded and idealistic, and that is not a bad thing. Reprisals against a traitor or deserter, including military execution, is practiced by the US too. It may be a rarity, but back in the days of conscription and revolution, civil war, etc., that penalty for treason and such was a real issue for Americans on the at-home battlefied. Soo, in support of human rights, I will agree with you that going after someone’s family is totally over the line. You go there, it’s next stop, Cambodia… and nobody liked the Khmer Rouge much. But it is also dangerous to think we Americans are immune from having our government cross that line of what violence is OK for a government to dish out. The death penalty… abortion… lethal force used by corrupt cops… not to mention America’s very selective role as Cops of the World… Again I will gladly concede that many great communists were screwed up beyond belief. However, torturing prisoners and keeping them locked up endlessly with no trial does not make our current leaders look virtuous, eh? Back to my real point: Les Despres is open minded and honest. Not a puppet promoting others’ secret agendas. So by all means, wave your flag! But remember always that being American must include liberal values too, like tolerance for the expression of a diverse range of views. So lighten up, and try not to attribute liberal open-mindedness to weakness and subversion. In the mean time, I have some American Flags to burn in honor of the 1st Amendment. Call it degenerate art. If the brown shirt fits…
If George Washington was alive today, he’d be rolling in his grave.
Where is Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, Richard Nixon, and all the other “commie” hunters when you need them.
Give it a rest boys, this country has been ruled by fear and ignorance too long. Let’s give intelligence a try elect Barak Obama President.
One never knows. Do one?
Even though, I moved away from the city that bestowed me with social purpose. I live and breathe the activism of many “liberal” Chicagoans. They molded this person from the inner city. I am one of those that liberals worked so hard to educate and give them an opportunity to contribute to society. If it were not for the idealism of Les Despres, I wonder if I would be a 26-year veteran educator. I, too was given a “free” education and have used it for the betterment of society. So, if there are any children out there receiving a “free” education, it does come with a great responsibility. By the way, I do believe that Barack Obama is the best choice for our next president.
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