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Corporation News
'Mentor
to the World'
By
Fred Wertheimer
Tuesday, February 19, 2002; Page A15
John
Gardner was a true American hero.
He
was a unique and extraordinary leader who pioneered the modern movement
for citizen activism and fathered the modern movement for campaign
finance reform to protect the integrity of our democracy.
Gardner
died on Saturday, just three days after the dramatic campaign finance
reform victory in the House of Representatives that has set the
stage for fundamental reform of the federal campaign finance laws
for the first time in more than 25 years.
On
Thursday, I tried to get a message to him in California about the
win. I'm not sure he ever received it, but it probably doesn't matter
all that much. John Gardner knew he had set all of this in motion
more than 30 years ago, when he first began educating the country
on the corrupting dangers of big money in American politics.
Gardner
was a Renaissance man -- a leader, a philosopher, an educator, a
communicator, an author, an organizer, a role model, a mentor, a
public servant and a citizen activist. He was an intelligence officer,
a foundation president, a Cabinet member, an adviser to presidents
and a movement leader.
He
also was a creator, providing the ideas and inspiration for such
public ventures as public television and the White House Fellows
Program and founding such institutions as Common Cause and Independent
Sector.
One
of Gardner's founding principles for Common Cause was the notion
that "everyone's organized but the people," and he set out to change
that.
Gardner
believed deeply in democracy. He believed in citizens getting involved,
in being active in their local communities and nationally, and in
shaping their own destinies. He spent decades working toward that
end.
Raul
Yzaguirre, president of the National Council of La Raza, said of
John Gardner: "He was an unsung hero, someone the average man on
the street wouldn't have heard of but whose influence touched almost
every American."
Above
all, John Gardner was a powerful moral force in our society. He
was a man of remarkable vision, creativity, insight, optimism --
and fearless integrity. He never moved away from his values and
principles, no matter what the personal cost might be.
When
Common Cause got involved in the anti-Vietnam War effort in 1971
as its first major battle, Gardner, a registered Republican, lost
a number of longtime friends over it. He was undaunted.
When
Common Cause had to decide in 1972 whether to sue President Nixon's
reelection committee for campaign finance violations, something
unheard of at that time, he made the decision without a moment's
hesitation. He was unfazed when, shortly afterward, Nixon's campaign
lawyer wrote to the Internal Revenue Service asking the agency to
revoke his new organization's tax status.
John
Gardner was mentor to the world. Untold numbers of individuals had
their lives shaped by him, through either personal contacts or his
books, such as "Self-Renewal and Excellence."
Gardner
hired me in 1971 as a lobbyist for Common Cause and, unknown to
me, set my life on a 31-year journey to reform the nation's campaign
finance laws. Twenty-four of those years were spent at Gardner's
Common Cause, including 14 as its president from 1981 to 1995. Fortunately,
Gardner taught me early on that fundamental reform is not for the
short winded.
The
current Enron scandal with its influence money implications and
its unethical corporate practices brings into sharp focus what Gardner
once wrote in his publication, "National Renewal":
"The
identifying of values is a light preliminary exercise before the
real and heroic task, which is to make the values live. . . . Moral,
ethical or spiritual values come alive only when living men and
women recreate the values for their time -- by living the faith,
by caring, by doing. It is true of religion; it is true of democracy;
it is true of personal ethical codes."
I always
used to think of John Gardner as "a radical in pinstripes," a man
who was made for the days of the Founding Fathers and surely would
have been one of them if he had been there.
Supreme
Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said, "The most important office
in our democracy is that of private citizen."
John
Gardner was the citizen of his era.
The
writer was president of Common Cause from 1981 to 1995 and a John
Gardner friend for more than 30 years.
©
2002 The Washington Post Company
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