Cecil A. Partee Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

industry. We were concerned about making sure the curbs and gutters were kept
in good order, that the streets and alleys were clean, that the trees were
pruned, that the garbage was picked up. We were always concerned about
getting new sewers and the kinds of things that would keep the houses from
having overflows in their basements and things of that sort. Those are among
the more basic reasons. You would organize clean-up, fix-up campaigns and
the kinds of help that a city could give to the people to make the quality of
life more palatable. Over the years we started building neighbarhood health
centers and making sure that the social services were granted people.
We always kept a lady in our office who was there to answer questions as to
where people could go to get certain things done. Like, you know, the social
security questions and the welfare questions and other kinds of social
questions that people would encounter and wouldn't know how to go about doing
them. We would make sure that we wauld be there to give them that information.
Q: Do you remember any specific problems that arose at that time th8t were
difficult to solve?
A: Well, the problems pretty much remain the same throughout the caurse af
history. People have the same kinds of basic needs for the improvement
of the quality of life. You know, you've got a kid finishing high school,
where should he write, where should he go to try to get a scholarahip--ah,
just the same problems over and over.
Q: Were there major educational problems in the precinct?
A: Major educational problems, no. You would give people whatever kind of
advice you could about schooling and where to go to school or how to get
into those schools, for trades, for other job skills, and things of that sort.
But 1 wouldn't say major educational problems, no.
Q: There was a fairly good school system, then, in that . . .
A: Well, that all depends on your point of view. Pretty much across the
nation there's a feeling among a lot of people that the schools, particularly
the high schools today, are not of the same caliber and quality that they were
years ago, and I think, perhaps, that may be so, Or maybe our methods for
evaluating education are not constant or we're evaluating education based on
how we saw it rather than the way it is today. I personally think, though,
that the schools are not as sound as they were 20 years ago, or 30 years ago,
anywhere in the country, so far as the high schools are concerned. Their
methodology of just sort of pushing kids along and not letting anybady fail
and making sure they get out is, I think, probably responsible for it. 1
notice out in Ohio the other day somebody filed a suit against a school board;
a fellow said that his son was graduated from high school and he couldn't read.
And he felt that he was entitled to be compensated for that. So that is what
that's about.
Q: Yes, sir. Sir, when you went to become a precinct committeeman, you at
that time didn't join any other organizations. How soon was it that you