ObituarySidney YatesThe death of former Congressman Sidney Yates last October was an occasion for historians simultaneously to mourn the loss of a friend and to note the passing of a truly historic figure from the political stage of the country. When Sid Yates retired from the House in 1999, he was its longest serving and oldest member. Yates came to Washington in 1948 with Harry Truman and went on to serve twenty-four terms in the House. Those twenty-four terms were not consecutive, however; they were interrupted by a failed run for the Senate in Illinois against Everett Dirksen in 1962. Had he not taken Dirksen on, Yates' seniority would eventually have made him the chair of the House Appropriations Committee. As it was, another native of Illinois, Dan Rostenkowski, held that position instead, until he was chased from office by scandal. Yates's public career, on the other hand, while occasionally marked by controversy, was one of unblemished integrity and honesty. Yates was a New Deal liberal, perhaps the last true example of that now-extinct species of political animal. Throughout his career, he supported the capacity of government to make a difference in people's lives with consistency and enthusiasm. Representing Chicago and a part of the North Shore, he managed never to run afoul of the Daley machine, while simultaneously being untainted by its excesses. At his death, he could claim many friends on both sides of the aisle in Washington and countless awards for public service from arts, humanities, and environmental organizations, large and small, throughout the country. Yates was probably best known to members of the Organization of American Historians for his courageous and unstinting support for the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities when he chaired the Interior Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. During the Reagan and Bush administrations, as well in the Republican congresses of the Clinton years, Sid's voice remained clear and unambiguous on the need for national support of the arts and humanities. The many controversies of that period, whether over the art of Robert Mapplethorpe, a television history of Africa by Ali Mazrui, or any of dozens of other controversial subjects, always found Sid Yates an eloquent and persuasive spokesman for the value of free artistic expression and unfettered scholarship supported by federal dollars. Those of us who testified before Yates in those years (in my case the subject was the need for continuing support of the NEH fellowship program) knew that we would find in Sid not only a real friend, but also a man who genuinely appreciated the work of scholars and artists and understood it well enough to explain it to others. Indeed, while Sid was best known for standing firm on the NEH budget and other matters, he also championed the less sexy cause of preservation for brittle books. Indeed, he was so effective in that effort that he persuaded Lynne Cheney, an NEH chair who was no friend of her own agency's programs, to continue NEH's very valuable work in the area of preservation. Yates's work in the arts and humanities cause, for which he was best known, came relatively late in his career, however; after all NEH and NEA only came into existence in 1965. In the fifties, in fact, he exhibited even greater courage and devotion to principle. During his first term, for example, he was one of the very few members of the Congress to vote against the McCarran Act. When he ran for re-election in 1950, his Nixonesque opponent distributed pink leaflets that accused him of being a Communist. He simply responded that he had voted against a bill that he believed to be unconstitutional and that he would do it again, and he won reelection by a narrow margin. Yates did not begin as a spin doctor, and he did not become one. When Hyman Rickover was passed over for promotion to Admiral, it was Yates who came to his defense, identifying anti-Semitism in the United States Navy as the cause. Indeed, Sid later reflected that this was among the moments in his public life of which he was most proud. At every point in his life when he might have been a trimmer, might have shifted a fundamental principle to accommodate an immediate need, Sid Yates remained a steady supporter of those causes closest to his heart. Very few people in politics can claim a comparable clarity of conviction. When I became President of the Chicago Historical Society in 1993, I visited Sid in his Washington office to renew the acquaintance we had made when I was Vice President of the American Council of Learned Societies. I also wanted to shake the hand of the man who was now my Congressman. I also had an ulterior motive: I hoped to persuade him to give his papers to the Historical Society so that scholars would have access to them there as they did to the papers of other significant Chicago and Illinois political figures. At first, he demurred, protesting that most of what he had was 'junk.' As we sat over soup and sandwiches, though, he turned to me and said: 'But you might be interested in this.' At which point he tossed across the table a handwritten note from Eleanor Roosevelt congratulating him on his courage in the Rickover case! Soon thereafter Sid announced his retirement, and his papers were deposited at the Chicago Historical Society. Sidney Yates's death is thus a moment for members of the OAH to mark well. We had no firmer supporter or friend in the Congress than Mr. Yates, and it is unlikely that we will soon again find a politician who so completely values and supports historical scholarship and history education. Equally important, Sid's passing marks the closing of an era in the history of American politics; his career is one with truly historic significance. He will be missed by all who knew him as a man of unique capacity and vision. Douglas Greenberg
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