By Dan Rylance
October 28, 2002
Death silenced what his critics could not; the heart, soul and voice of Minnesota
Senator Paul Wellstone. He died tragically Friday morning in a fiery plane crash
on the Iron Range of northern Minnesota. He was not alone in death as he had
not been in life. His constant companion, Shelia, his wife, and his only daughter,
Marcia Wellstone Markuson, along with two staffers, two pilots and Dr. Mary
McEvoy, a national leader in early childhood education at the University of
Minnesota also died in the crash. Hopefully a future song by Bob Dylan, who
grew up on the Range, will better express what my words fail.
On Tuesday mourners will gather at the University of Minnesota to say goodbye
to the Wellstones. Soon after stressed by a Thursday legal deadline, former
Vice President Walter Mondale, will carry out the wishes of the two Wellstone
sons and the pleas of so many Minnesotans, and replace Paul Wellstone on the
Minnesota ballot for the November 5 general election. Mondale is 74 but he is
also a wise and caring Minnesota liberal. From this pen only a Vice President
can succeed Wellstone and carry on his legacy in the United States Senate.
Observers and commentators will cover Paul Wellstone's casket with works like
a Populist and a Progressive. In life, however, he was neither. Wellstone was
an unabashed liberal. Period. There is no other word that captures who he was
and what he stood for so strongly. He was not like Bob LaFollette or Senator
Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. He was a Viking not a Packer! Wellstone was simply
a Minnesota liberal who walked in the shoes of Hubert Humphrey. He agenda opines
his legacy. In the words of the St. Paul Pioneer Press editorial "As a
boy Wellstone came by his gut-commitment to human dignity by way of absorbing
the impact of his family from the crushing costs of paying for the care of his
mentally ill brother. As a man, the senator from Minnesota worked always to
include mental health benefits in medical insurance, in the care of juvenile
offenders, in every possible venue for advancing humane and fair treatment.
He worked for children, for expanding educational opportunity, for other learning
disabled people like him.
He became a lion for international human rights, capping another bipartisan
legislative drive by enacting meaningful law to combat the sex trafficking in
women. Wellstone's energy poured into the commitment to farming in Minnesota,
into health care access, into kids, into education, into rural technology development,
into raising wages for working people, into the union halls, into the campuses,
the veterans' halls, the cafes, the parades and the reservations of Minnesota.">
I met Wellstone on several occasions, the first, however, was the most remembered.
It was late in October (1990), 12 years ago almost to the day, when his green
bus pulled up in front of the Grand Forks Herald. He wanted to chat with the
newspaper's editorial board of which I was a member. Although the Herald was
published in North Dakota, as a border city with Minnesota, we had many readers
on the east side of the Red River of the North. He sought our endorsement in
his uphill battle to defeat his Republican opponent, Senator Rudy Boschwitz.
Wellstone always ran. He never seemed to just walk. He entered our newsroom
like the college wrestler he was on the balls of his feet, talking a mile a
minute and trying to shake every hand within 10 feet. He was never caught off
guard or flatfooted. He was a little giant with the heart of a big liberal.
The decision of our editorial board was to give Boschwitz a slight endorsement
over Wellstone. It was the publisher's call, one of the few he made during my
stint as editorial page editor. I was told not to overdue the endorsement and
say something good about Wellstone as well. The next morning I walked up the
stairs with the publisher, who commented to me that it was "a nice editorial
if you didn't start reading from the bottom."
There are many ways to honor the Wellstones. Barbara Sanderson of Minneapolis
wrote her ways to the Star Tribune a day after their deaths. "We can all
honor their sprit," she wrote by:
# Basing our actions on what we care about passionately.
# Being of service and acting to make the world a better place.
# Fighting for those who are less fortunate than we are.
# Respecting everyone, even those with whom we disagree.
# Taking a stand, even when outnumbered.
# Making our actions match our words.
# Refusing to give in to self-pity and defeat, even when we face illness.
# Creating alliances across party lines to accomplish important goals.
# Admitting our mistakes and changing course as needed.
# Having the courage to love deeply and long.
Rylance is a former editorial writer for Knight Ridder newspapers who now resides in Oshkosh and is a frequent contributor to this website.