2 3 could be reelected at least. We are at the Wisconsin HistoricalSociety Headquarters in madison, deep in the archives stacks where the public never gets to go. Mrs. Is what the inside of archives look like, silk with boxes of unpublished paper filled with boxes of unpublished taper. This was donated by the family of proxmire. He is best for membered for the Golden Fleece award. He was a senator from wisconsin who took the seat of joe mccarthy when mccarthy left office in 1957. Won inone in 1958 1978 1958. One of the most remarkable dedicated towas clean government. He thought the Campaign Financing was one of the major sources of corruption. He spent as little as possible. Two elections, refuse to spend any money at all. He managed to get elected because his constituents loved him. ,e mustve had iron hands because he was standing on sidewalks everywhere, shaking hands or giving speeches to local groups. Thousands of government voters felt like they had a personal relationship with him. He understood that there was unhappiness among his constituents with how things were done in washington. He himself was frugal. Insee that euphemism frugal many accounts of biographies, he was excessively tightfisted. There are stories from his friends about him niggling and diming him for icing cones and and dimingckeling him for ice cream and coffee. In the mid1970s he decided to issue press releases, one per month on what he thought were items, hes greatest issued one a month until the end of his tenure. They were press releases, they look like any other press releases coming out of his office. His junior staff was in charge of coming up with ideas for these. Make sure theyth have the precisely correct ironic or sarcastic tone. This is the first of the Golden Fleece awards from march 11, 1975, typical of how he wrote them. Proxmire for the month of march, it has to be the squandering of the Science Foundation figuring out why people fall in love. The senator says this is the first of a series which will be climaxed by the annual biggest waste of the year award the national Science Foundation is studying people and their dependence on each other in what is called romantic love. They say they want to study this in men and women, i object to this because no one can argue that falling in love is a science. If they spendse any amount they would not get an answer anyone would believe. Im against it because i do not want the answer. I believe that 200 million other americans want to leave some , rightin life a mystery at the top of the list of things we do not want to know is why a man falls in love with a woman and vice ursa vice versa. He is always pointing a finger and appealing to what the reader is supposed to think is common sense. Here is another from a summer issue where he is criticizing congress itself. He says he is giving his award to congress for living high off the hog wildly rest of the country is suffering. The senate has just approved the addition of three new employees person in her of a salary of 33,975 each. While all senators may not use their full allotment and add three and employees at a cost of 10. 2 million it is estimated at about half of them will. Republican member will take up the implementation of the genocide convention. I would like to speak briefly on that subject. The genocide act of 1988 clears the way at long last for the United States to finally approved the genocide convention. Another issue that was centrally important to senator proxmire was that the United States should ratify the u. N. Genocide Convention Prohibiting genocide. Of course, a preeminent example was the deliberate murder of 6 million jews by fiddlers hitlers nazis. These were women, men, and children who committed no crime, but they were starved and gassed. He made a speech every morning proposing such a bill, proposing that the senate take action. Or 25 years, they didnt. During his last weeks in office they ratified the treaty for it in his own office is the speech from 1988, marked up at the last minute with new points to be made, urging that the United States embrace the convention, which they did. In his last months of office, this document from president reagan, november, 1988 congratulating him and saying he just signed the bill. He was a person motivated by what was inside. I do not think he had political goals. He just thought it was the right thing to do. He thought many things were right or wrong, he could be extremely stubborn about them. This is something he thought a country with our ideals, based on the 18th century values we were raised on, has to step up to. We could not gods the issue, we could not be a renegade on this issue. He was an icon, after his death, his family and friends approached us to say, why dont we supplement the papers with interviews with people who knew him . We were able to contract with an excellent oral historian who interviewed 40 different people, family members, personal friends. One of the people we interviewed was mark shields who was on his staff in the mid60s. With the same vigor and colorful language you say on the news night,n pbs on friday mark shields talks about his time with proxmire and what a mentor he was. Taking on the major institutions and merchants of the country on truth in lending was sort of a great example. And not comfort comprehend the resistance there was. Giving information to consumers would be disarming. It would put them in a noncompetitive position, it would be so unfair and unjust. And these guys with 600 suits and 200 shoes, now 6,000 suits, whatever. Andde the argument with paul douglas, stood up to him. He was unmoved. He was on threatened. That was the wonderful thing about him. That was the wonderful characteristic, how liberating it is to know what you believe, terrified be moved or or inhibited. , he was a a saint public man, he was a wonderful boss. Longong the best are two interviews with his wife. She is very candid, very sharp minded, clearheaded and honest about his successes and feelings. Failings. There for everything, he rejuvenated the Democratic Party in wisconsin. There had been no Democratic Party to speak of until the early 1950s. Until people brought it back to life. Party did nottic exist in wisconsin. There was a small group of when began who murmurs of a political unit that would be different from the Progressive Movement in the republican party. He ran three times and lost. We thought his career was over. We had no plans to run again for anything. Then mccarthy died in the spring of 1957, people started calling bill and telling him to run. In the second interview about how she found, and his top researcher or near the end of his career, a pamphlet he picked up about alzheimers disease and recognizing the symptoms in oneself. In 1988, no one talked about alzheimers, no one knew it was. Some years after he left the senate, i found a pamphlet. He knew mind something was going on. I dont think he knew what it was. He maintained after he left the kept writing columns, making speeches, and going on tv. He had always been a health fanatic. He was a runner before anyone else. They called it jogging. When he recognized the symptoms of alzheimers coming on, he started to learn more about it. He did not talk to anyone about it. The interview talks about how the two of them went through the process about how he was losing his mental capabilities. He continued to speak around the country when he was asked. He would write a press release and he would say on a saturday night, have to get in the car thehand deliver these to star and the post. It was bizarre. He would get lost. Served on a variety of boards and organizations interested in the same things he was, Consumer Protection and so forth. Certainly by the late 90s he had withdrawn from public life. Livingd in an assisted center in i believe maryland. Towards the end of his life he would get up and try to go back to his office in the capital. The legacy he left behind was two fold. First, government should be clean. The second was he could make a real difference. He passed lots of successful legislation that guarded consumer interest or the genocide treaty in the end. Legacies fore two the nation. It is hard to imagine today an elected official who could be such a maverick. He went after the opposite party and people in his own party hated him. Lbj hated him. He quickly learned he could not raise money to run for president. That is because he took orders from his conscious, not from people who had money or marketing consultants. It is hard for me to imagine any politician being able to do that today. I suppose i would want people ,o remember that i worked hard i did what i thought was right, i followed my own conscience, i helped some hope i hope to prevent the terrible holocaust of a nuclear war. Announcer the two are of madison, wisconsin continues with a visit to the citys native american effigy mounds and what they reveal about early cultures. W