Urbana, Illinois, February 1973
Reuben attended class at law school irregularly. As always, he was able to cope. Here, doing so required a combination of tactical reading before the exams, carefully tuned collaboration with fellow students when papers were due, and a certain reliance on his continuing power to make friends. There was the exception of the starchy dean, who called him in twice to complain about his poor class attendance. “You have a place in our law school, Mr. Castle, coveted by a great many applicants. We gave you special consideration because you are a veteran—”
“Yes, I appreciate that, Dean. And I am very eager to do well at the University of Illinois Law School. I will certainly pay greater attention to class attendance—”
“Yes. I trust you will. No doubt you have heard it said that while it is difficult to get into our law school, it is also difficult to fail once admitted. But you are a man”—the dean looked down at a document headed, “CASTLE, Reuben Hardwick”—“who appears to have broken many records in the past, as a student at the University of North Dakota, and as an unharmed officer in Vietnam.”
That was the first session with Dean Blankenship. The second was more perfunctory, and more threatening.
“If you don’t do better in the exams in May, you should not count on entering second-year studies in September.”
Reuben nodded. Yes, sir, he understood. Yes, sir, he would do something about those late papers and poor exams.
But he didn’t, and in May he was given a probationary grade. He would be entitled to register for his second year, but only after submitting to examinations to make up for work not completed in his first year. He would be entitled to take these examinations twice if necessary, on dates arranged with the dean.
There was also the problem of money. The GI Bill looked after tuition and most of the cost of room and board, but it left Reuben with nothing for casual expenses, and he did not relish living with the intrusions of financial concerns. Restless, he answered a summons from Henry Walford, chairman of the Illinois State Democratic Party. Word had gotten through to Walford, from the party head in Bismarck, North Dakota, that young Castle had been, sure, something of a hell-raiser as an undergraduate at UND—“one of those continuous rebels. But he swept the opposition away in everything he got into, and he is a fine speaker. I’ve invited him to speak at this year’s state Democratic convention in Fargo. We’re nursing our wounds since the McGovern collapse last fall, and we need a little spirit from young people. I’ll let you know how it goes.”
It went very well. Reuben was cautious in his references to the Vietnam War. He made certain that the state chairman knew to introduce him as a veteran of the war, with twenty months of active duty. It was not yet time, he sensed, to speak routinely of the “disastrous war,” or of the “Republican war.” Too many citizens of different ages had invested in the war, directly and indirectly. “There was a lot that some good people were fighting for—some South Vietnamese are still fighting for, ladies and gentlemen. The president of South Vietnam couldn’t pass a political hygiene test in the state of North Dakota, but he wants something better than the South Vietnamese would get from the Vietcong.”
He spoke of the need for American Democrats to press “the war against corruption in our own government” and predicted, no less, that President Nixon would be impeached.
“He got an uproarious cheer,” the North Dakota Democratic leader reported to his Illinois counterpart. “That Watergate business is moving very fast, Henry.”
“I’m not sure we want this young man going around at Democratic meetings in Illinois calling for the impeachment of the president,” Walford replied. “But I’ll get in touch with him.”
It proved to be an immediately productive association. Reuben’s appearance at the Democratic Labor Day rally was cheered a full four minutes before the speaker was let go. Henry Walford’s desk was deluged with invitations from organizations wanting young Castle to speak. They were mostly political at first but, after a few months, not confined to Democratic Party events.
It was after the speech to the Young Presidents Club in Chicago that Reuben thought to approach his situation with strategic attention. He told Walford that he hadn’t yet decided whether he was going back to law school in September 1974. Meanwhile, he would be willing to work formally with the Democratic Party organization, or informally with Walford and his law associates in Urbana and Chicago, and see what came of it.
In six months, Reuben had emerged as the voice of young progressive America in the northern part of the state: a voice unconstricted by Republican cynicism, unburdened by responsibility for the dissolution of democracy in Vietnam, eager to foster opportunities for young Americans and “long comfortable lives for older Americans.” A few weeks after opening his own office in Springfield, he traveled to Denver as a speaker for the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. He was escorted to the head table by Priscilla Avery, a local girl who one year earlier had been crowned Miss America.
His speech, centering on the great mission of the United States in the latter part of the century, was warmly received, and when he returned to his seat at the table, Miss America gave him a kiss, which he returned ardently, bringing on cheers from many of the 300 diners.