18 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
“got into a rip-roaring argument about something we can’t remember,”
Mike says, laughing at the memory. “To diffuse tension we all more or
less got up to leave. As Slade opened the front door, Pop picked up a base-
ball and fired it at his head. His aim wasn’t that good so it harmlessly flew
over Slade’s head, out the door and into the yard. That ended the argu-
ment and released the tension!” Mike Gorton says the strong-willed old
fisherman and his equally independent and opinionated namesake had
“a deep-down fondness and respect for one another.”
Three years older than Mary Jane, nearly six years older than Mike and
10 years older than Nat, Slade was a good big brother, particularly to the
boys. Mary Jane says he would punch her in the arm from time to time to
make her tougher. She admired her big brother but was resigned to being
the odd girl out among three competitive, sports-nut boys. Since Pop
worked long hours in the seafood business, including many weekends,
Slade was Mike and Nat’s male role model. They’d go to the movies, watch
him and his pals play pickup baseball, football or pond hockey. As they
grew older, he’d make sure they were included in the games. There were
no Little Leagues. You just got your friends together and played baseball
or touch football on the nearest vacant lot. Sometimes they’d see the
Cubs at Wrigley Field or the Blackhawks at Chicago Stadium. In the sum-
mertime, Pop would actually take a break. He and Slade taught the
younger boys how to sail, fish and dig clams, also encouraging their in-
terest in tennis. In the winter, they’d go sledding and skating. Pop ended
up with a back brace one year after an exuberant game of ice hockey. “My
father’s great pleasure in the fall was getting together a number of our
friends and going up to Wilmette Beach on Sunday afternoon to play
touch football,” Slade says. “However, none of us were ever any good. I
went to a big high school. There was no chance I was ever going to be on
a varsity team.”
Slade’s favorite places growing up were the Public Library, Wrigley
and, surprisingly, church. By 12, he had plowed through Plutarch’s Lives,
the classic study of notable Greeks and Romans. Around the dinner table,
Slade and Pop also talked politics. At 14, Slade discovered what he wanted
to be when he grew up. It was the spring of his freshman year at Evanston
High School. America was at war when Dr. Walter Judd addressed an all-
school assembly. A physician and devout Christian, Judd had been a med-
ical missionary in China, ultimately driven out by the Japanese. He came
home in 1938 to urge America to reject isolationism. In 1942, Judd was
preparing to run for Congress in Minnesota. He told the teenagers that
public service was the highest calling—that they had the power to make