Political Quotes

“Rockford, Illinois, lost a giant in industry this past week with the death of Edson Ingersoll Gaylord, leaving his wife, Jane, and children, Charles, Will, Susan, Mary, and John. Edson Gaylord, one of the last of the manufacturing giants; one of the great minds of this century; one of the people who took the innate ability to see things in his spirit, to be able to construct them in his mind and with his hands and the people who surrounded him, was able to manufacture some of the largest machines, actually, in history. Rockford, Illinois, is at a tremendous loss over the death of this man who took a company in 1947 from 400 people to over 4,000. Edson Gaylord, the free trader; a person whom I met a few years ago when I first ran for Congress. I sat in front of him and looked at him with those very piercing eyes of his and that squared jaw as he examined me on a number of issues, and whenever I agreed with him there was this slight nod, a little bit of a smile, and he said you know, Don, if you would only change your mind or modify your position on a particular point of view that I had with which he disagreed, he said, things would go better for you. I said Edson, I said, that is like me asking you to change your mind on free trade. He looked at me totally without expression, sat back in his chair, the corners of his mouth went up slightly and he said, you have my support to be our next Congressman.”