News Progress

•October 17, 2018•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

In 2000, a national group that knows about such things declared Illinois to have the best higher education offerings among the states for quality and affordability. Today, in contrast, nearly half all Illinois high school grads headed to college flee to institutions out of state. This can be turned around, but not without a renewed collaboration among state leadership on affordability, focus and understanding of the new realities.
Some background. Though not everyone needs a bachelor’s degree, every youngster who can benefit needs post-high school training and education. To meet these needs for three-quarters of a million of our citizens, Illinois offers four “layers” of higher education.
There are graduate research universities (think University of Illinois) and teaching universities (such as Illinois State University). And private colleges (e.g., Northwestern and Knox, which in total educate more four-year college students than the publics), and community colleges, which blanket the state. There are also for-profit colleges, which range from good to rip-offs.
There was dramatic growth and lavish spending on higher education and student financial aid post-World War II up to the 1980s, when student numbers boomed and the state had some money. Read More

•October 10, 2018•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

Illinois Democratic House Speaker Mike Madigan is not the evil Darth Vader trumpeted by opponents’ ads—but he has shut down democracy in Illinois, and must go.
Mike Madigan is simply an old-fashioned Chicago pol who has had half a century in office to hone his skills and thus accrue unprecedented power.
In the Illinois legislature, absolutely no bill—not one—introduced by representatives of the people will ever be heard and voted upon without the express approval of Mike Madigan. Every bill, indeed every amendment to every bill, must first be approved by the small Madigan-controlled House Rules Committee.
Even if a back-bench lawmaker wanted to overrule the Rules Committee so as to afford a bill a hearing, such is impossible, as it takes unanimous consent(!) to break a bill loose from the Rules Committee.
Democracies also offer opportunities for voter participation through referendums on issues of major importance, such as on wildly popular matters such as term limits and independent redistricting of legislative boundaries.
Yet Madigan has blocked repeated efforts to give the people a vote on these issues. Read More

Credit: Steve Davis/The Register-Mail
Tablets of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas adorn the east entrance of Old Main on the Knox College campus in Galesburg. The tablets were hung during a celebration honoring the 100th anniversary of the Oct. 7, 1858, debate in Galesburg.

•October 3, 2018•

By Owen W. Muelder
For the Register-Mail of Galesburg

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates are among the most important events in the United State’s history.
The seven debates were conducted throughout Illinois in the summer and fall of 1858. Not only significant in their own time, the debates have since been recognized as an ultimate example of our political process - which has continued throughout the centuries as most office seekers nationwide debate each other every campaign season.
Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln were respectively the Democratic and Republican party candidates for the U.S. Senate. The primary question these men discussed was whether slavery should be extended into the nation’s territories.
Lincoln was not an abolitionist, but he loathed slavery and looked forward to a time when it would disappear. He also maintained that it should be forbidden from being established in new states that desired to join the Union. Douglas defended the concept of “Popular Sovereignty,” whereby the people who resided in western territories should have the right to decide if slavery would be allowed.
The slavery question was so important then that no other political issue was raised by either candidate during the debates.
Public oratory was popular in the 19th century; both candidates often used harsh language and outspoken mud-slinging to characterize each other. People attending these contests also shouted out derogatory comments and catcalls toward both men. Spectators came from every part of Illinois to hear the speakers and newspapers throughout the country published detailed accounts. Read More

Photo Joe Lewnard/jlewnard@dailyherald.com
Railway fans greet a vintage Nickel Plate 765 or “Berkshire” steam locomotive traveling near Libertyville in 2016.

Railroads made Chicago, stealing commerce from steamboat hubs like St. Louis. But it’s a love-hate relationship in the suburbs and Chicago today.

•September 26, 2018•

By Marni Pyke
Of the Daily Herald

Trains brought Abraham Lincoln’s body home to Illinois, transported southern blacks escaping Jim Crow laws to Chicago, and now carry a labor force of thousands between the suburbs and downtown Chicago daily.
Freight, passenger and commuter trains pass through the Chicago area at the rate of 1,300 a day, Illinois Department of Transportation says, and rail lines fan out in every direction.
“People in Illinois are as intimately tied to railroading as anywhere in the country,” DePaul University transportation professor Joseph Schwieterman said. “Millions live close to busy rail lines, use commuter or intercity passenger trains, or cross busy sets of tracks every day, giving them a strong psychological connection to railroads.”
But being the rail hub of the nation also has its downside: Meager funding for commuter rail, crossing delays, and freight gridlock are among the challenges facing the state in the 21st century. Read More

By Jerry L. Ginther
NP Guest Columnist

I’ve been hard pressed to find anyone who has ever received an old fashioned Western Union Telegram. I have to admit that I have not seen one in many years, and I do not recall ever receiving one.
However, I do recall my grandparents receiving a couple of telegrams concerning the deaths of close relatives who lived in other states. At the time there was no telephone in their home, and telegrams were faster than the U.S. Postal Service. These messages were hand delivered by the station agent from the C&EI Railroad depot located on the west side of Sullivan, Ill.
I was a young boy, probably in the first or second grade, and happened to be present on one such occasion. The agent, knowing the contents of the telegram, expressed condolences and departed. He did not wait for a tip nor charge anything for the delivery.
Interestingly, later in life, that very same agent would become a good friend, mentor and teacher. When I was 14 years old and out for a bicycle ride one afternoon, I happened to stop by the depot. Having learned something about the inventor of the telegraph in school, Samuel F. B. Morse, I was curious to see this method of communication in operation. Also, in scouts we had learned a little bit about the Morse code. Read More