This interview originally aired on "In the Moment" on SDPB Radio.
Every election year, voters make new South Dakota political history. For today's Dakota Political Junkies conversation, we explore the history we have inherited.
Jon Hunter is publisher emeritus of the Madison Daily Leader and a member of the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame. He recently wrote commentary for the Leader about the political legacy of former Congressman Karl Mundt.
Kevin Woster joins for his analysis into the life and legacy of Sen. Mundt.
Plus, former U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson passed away on Tuesday night. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and Drey Samuelson remember South Dakota's last Democrat to hold statewide office.
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The following transcript was auto-generated and edited for clarity.
Jon Hunter:
The thought first triggered when I was thinking about presidential debates. Now Mundt was a champion debater. In fact, he was national president of the National Forensic League for 38 years or something like that, even during his time in Congress. A renowned public speaker, much more of the style of that day than today.
But that's what really triggered that. And then I started looking into a few things and discovered that it's the 125th anniversary of his birth early next year.
And he has a big presence in Madison. The Mundt Library is there, the Mundt Archives. The Mundt Foundation was there until it was absorbed into the Dakota State Foundation.
He's considered a native son. If there was a sign on the interstate, it would say, "Hometown of Karl Mundt." But I'm not sure many people remember him anymore.
Lori Walsh:
He served for an astonishingly long time.
Jon Hunter:
I know.
Lori Walsh:
Tell us a little bit about his longevity in the U.S. Senate.
Jon Hunter:
And not only in the U.S. Senate but in the House as well.
Lori Walsh:
Oh, sure.
Jon Hunter:
A lot of people forget he served 10 years in the House. He really was remarkably young when he did things. Right out of college, he went to Bryant, South Dakota, and taught. And after a year he was named superintendent of the school district. So he's 23 years old or something like that. Then he taught at Dakota State.
And he ran for Congress, served for 36 years. It's certainly the longest by some distance. Tim Johnson is the second at 28 years. That's a long time to serve in Congress. And he did it all the way up until a stroke wiped him out and he retired.
Lori Walsh:
So 1936 through 1972 he is in public service on behalf of the people of South Dakota.
Jon Hunter:
And think of what happened during 1936.
Lori Walsh:
A few things.
Jon Hunter:
Yeah. World War II, the civil rights unrest, Vietnam, all sorts of stuff. The Cold War was a big part of what he did. And growth. EROS Data Center is here because of Mundt. The interstate highway, I-29, going up the east side of South Dakota was intended to go up the west side of Minnesota and Mundt insisted that it came to South Dakota.
Lori Walsh:
Obviously, also serving that long there are going to be things that he has to deal with that we look at with a different eye today, including his participation on the House Un-American Activities Committee, which is widely seen as a place where they were trying to root out disloyalty in America. This is a Cold War artifact.
But you think that is not necessarily a stain on his record, how come?
Jon Hunter:
Well, the committee, right? Try to think of the perspective of the time that it was in. We certainly were fearful of the creeping communism during that time. And then, of course, McCarthyism really took over where you got this paranoia and really untruths about lots of U.S. government officials being communists.
With today's lens, I think we'd look at the Hollywood thing where you'd have all these accusations of communists, and blackballing, and so forth. By today's lens we'd think that's terribly unfair.
But there was a lot of fear in those days. Mundt's role on that Anti-American Activities Committee, at least through what his biography and people at the Mundt Foundation which a lot of them worked for Mundt and so therefore are probably biased toward Mundt, really talked about him as a voice of reason within that thing. Let's try to find the truth here and let's just not run with popular soundbites.
Whether that's true or not, I don't know. Again, I've only heard that one side. But that he served with distinction on that committee.
Lori Walsh:
How is he remembered in Madison today, or in South Dakota today?
Jon Hunter:
His Senate papers and Congressional papers are all housed at Madison.
Lori Walsh:
Okay.
Jon Hunter:
And so researchers come there. Certainly, around the fall of communism there was a great interest about Mundt and his time there. But other things as well. So we do get researchers come to Madison. A lot of it's gone online so you can do that otherwise.
And I was president of the Mundt Foundation for a while. We promoted a tour. Hired a couple of actors who would be Mundt and other people and did a couple of hundred school districts in the state to try to keep his memory alive. As I recall, that was around his 100th birthday. Now it'll be his 125th. So we tried to keep that alive. Other than the Mundt Library, I can't think of anything. Maybe Kevin can think of things that were for Mundt other than that.
He was big into conservation so there may be some wildlife refuges or something.
Lori Walsh:
Kevin Woster, thoughts on Karl Mundt and his political legacy in South Dakota? What are some things that you think are worth asking questions about?
Kevin Woster:
Well, I remember in about 1981 I was sitting in the Argus later newsroom, and Anson Yeager, who had been the editor and was the editorial page editor then, walked by, and I was writing something, and I said, "Anson, is this how you spell Mundt?" I was just double-checking myself. And he stopped and he said, "I never thought I'd hear that question asked in the newsroom."
And remember, that's 40 some years ago and so you can imagine how far removed people have gotten from Mundt. I certainly know how to spell McGovern and Kneip.
Jon Hunter:
Daschle.
Kevin Woster:
You know what really struck me about the short conversation we had by email with Jon when we talked about the stroke that the Senator had in what November of '69 or somewhere in there.
Jon Hunter:
It may have been the peak of his career, the dedication of the Mundt Library. President Richard Nixon made his first speech outside Washington by coming to Madison and speaking on behalf of his friend, Karl Mundt. And then five months later, Mundt has a debilitating stroke that wipes him out.
Kevin Woster:
And you brought a point up that I hadn't thought about in years, what would've happened? He was so impaired that he couldn't really function. His wife was overseeing the office for him, and the staff was working the job. People, including the staff, were just trying to get him to resign eventually and resign his office. Instead of serving it out the rest of that term, who knows who would've been the next U.S. senator in that spot had Republican Frank Farrar, the governor at the time, been able to fill it.
Lori Walsh:
How did he serve it out if he was incapacitated, Jon?
Kevin Woster:
Well, not very well.
Lori Walsh:
Not very well.
Jon Hunter:
And Kevin and I talked a little bit about that. A smudge on his record, but really not of his own fault, right? It's not his fault he had a stroke.
Lori Walsh:
He was incapacitated.
Jon Hunter:
Completely incapacitated. So they were even testing to see if he could nod yes. He couldn't speak at all, couldn't really move. They concluded that he could not even nod yes or no effectively. So the idea of resigning that office fell to his wife Mary. And the staff led by Bob McCoy and there are other names that you would know, Kevin, who were in that office, worked really hard to try to get him to resign that seat with honor. The Senate had 99 seats for three years so it was an awful situation then. Congressional leaders and so forth were very sympathetic at the beginning but that wore away. And then it went to frustration and then eventually to anger. So by not resigning it really was a steep downhill slide for Mundt.
If you remember at the time Frank Farrar was the governor. Two year terms at that time. So he was governor from '69 to '71, January of each year. So if Mundt had the stroke in '69 he could have resigned and Farrar, a Republican would've replaced him with another Republican but he didn't. Dick Kneip came in two years later. He never did resign.
Lori Walsh:
So Kneip is a Democrat, for people who don't remember.
Jon Hunter:
Right. So Jim Abourezk, a Democrat, took that Senate seat afterwards. It is a rough thing.
At least from my view and others, it was Mary Mundt who caused that stain at the end of his career. Karl didn't cause his own stroke. It was a sad ending. I remember the funeral in Madison. He's buried in Madison. I think his legacy in Madison is still strong. You'd have to be fairly old to have known him at this point. But I think his reputation is good.
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Lori Walsh:
Jon Hunter and Kevin Woster and I recorded that conversation yesterday. Now, you heard Jon Hunter mention U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson.
You may have also heard by now that Senator Johnson died today.
His former chief of staff Drey Samuelson said in his statement that Johnson died surrounded by his family and also surrounded by love and admiration.
Tim Johnson served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1987 to 1997, then South Dakota sent him to the U.S. Senate. He never lost an election, but after a brain hemorrhage in 2006, followed by an inspiring recovery, he decided not to seek reelection in 2014.
I reached Stephanie Herseth Sandlin via phone this morning. She's currently the president of Augustana University in Sioux Falls. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2004 where she went on to serve four terms. She was the first woman elected to the U.S. House from South Dakota and the youngest woman serving in Congress during that time.
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin:
Yes, this is a sad day. So many of us loved Senator Johnson. Well, I just greatly admired and respected his service to South Dakota and our country, and it was an honor to serve with him and an even greater honor to call him my friend.
Lori Walsh:
When he talked about South Dakota, whether it was about South Dakota politics or what the people needed or just the state, what's one thing that you remember came up again and again? What was one of his themes of this place in these people?
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin:
A rich heritage, diverse perspective. People that stayed grounded, practical, wanted the best out of their government and their representatives, and he represented that, right? He was the consummate statesman and listened well to all of his constituents. He loved South Dakota. We both made our home in the state in Sioux Falls after we left public service. And it was his dedication to everyone he connected with, whether in agriculture for our farmers and ranchers, whether it's deep commitment to our state and country's veterans, the trusting relationships he developed with tribal communities and leaders, business leaders across the state. He was South Dakota. He clearly put state and country first.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Were there ways that you learned about him, about leadership, either something he told you or something that you picked up by watching him that you still apply today?
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin:
Yes. Tim was a humble servant leader. His humility from the time I knew him as a young girl when he and my dad were serving the legislature together to interning with him in Washington DC when I was in college to then running for office alongside him in 2002 and then serving with him.
He just remained so grounded in the values of South Dakota, reflected those in the very best way in a service, both in peer and in Washington. And he was a role model for me, and I felt I could always talk to him about anything, the things that we were working on together in public policy or sometimes the things that were really hard on the campaign trail, but we also celebrated great joys together. I remember when his first grandson was born, I remember how great he was to me when I was first serving South Dakota and after the special election. I felt he was always in my corner, and he was someone I could always talk to and trust.
Lori Walsh:
And here is Senator Tim Johnson's longtime chief of staff speaking with SDPB's Lee Strubinger.
Drey Samuelson:
It's hard to imagine someone living a life more meaningful and impactful than Tim's. And in the end, impact and meaning are really the best that any of us can hope to achieve. Tim succeeded in reaching the goals of meaning and impact way beyond what I'm sure were his wildest dreams when he was a young man. But that success obviously doesn't make saying goodbye to him any easier, I know.
And there's nothing that anyone can say that will help that much as I wish otherwise.
Somewhat ironically, considering the name in the second book of Timothy, it says, "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith." Those words fit Tim Johnson perfectly. He fought the good fight. He finished the race, and he did keep the faith.
Those of us who mourn his loss today also celebrate his life and the lives of all those whom he touched and will continue to touch in the future through his good works.
Lee Strubinger:
How did he accomplish that as a politician?
Drey Samuelson:
Well, he was smart, obviously. He worked very hard and he was truly one of the most determined people that I've ever known, if not the most determined. It was a combination of those things. He had great work ethic, he was really smart, and he would work like a dog to achieve a goal. When he was in high school, he had the record for the most touchdowns in Vermillion High School for decades. It wasn't because, in my opinion, that he was such a great athlete. He was obviously a good athlete, but I think it was mostly because he was just so determined. He refused to get tackled, and I think that showed up in his later life. In fact, I know that it did.
Lee Strubinger:
What was it like working with him and can you remind me a little bit about your time with him in DC?
Drey Samuelson:
Well, I stayed with Tim. I was the only chief of staff he had in his entire congressional career, and that was 28 years. I found it easy to work with him. He was a wonderful human being. He was kind. I mean, he could be demanding as he needed to be, but he treated people with great respect, even if he didn't agree with them.
Lori Walsh:
We'll bring you more on the legacy of U.S. Senator, Tim Johnson, as people gather to remember, find the latest online at SDPB.org.
