“Success never really mattered so much,” says Willard Wirtz’33, a man who would rather talk about his granddaughters and ponder why the popular Japanese game Go has never caught on in this country than dwell on his adventures in government service or speculate about their historic significance.
One might think that the man who managed Adlai Stevenson’s second run for president, who traveled the world as a member of the U.S. Cabinet, who sat in the backseat of a limousine poring over a speech with President Kennedy, and who had the courage of conviction to tell President Johnson that he was wrong about the war in Vietnam, would revel in reliving his place in the thick of the political upheaval of the 1960s. But not if that man is Bill Wirtz.
“You gradually learn that great big people are not very different than great little people,” says Wirtz. “ … What I enjoyed most was my wife and our life together in a farm community in West Virginia.”
Wirtz, the oldest living former Cabinet member at age 97, served as Secretary of Labor in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, while his beloved wife, Jane Quisenberry Wirtz’35, was the toast of the town in Washington, D.C. In those years, she appeared frequently in the society pages, where she was envied and admired for being among the best-dressed women in D.C., often while wearing stylish gowns she designed and sewed herself.
Her real hallmark, though, was the tireless work she did on behalf of people with disabilities, advocating for their right to the dignity of meaningful work.
The story of Bill and Jane Wirtz and their winding road to Camelot and beyond has just been published by Beloit College Press. In the Rear View Mirror, by Willard Wirtz, is a memoir of sorts, organized as essays and reminiscences that commemorate four generations of the Wirtz family and certain seminal events of the last century. Noted journalist Bill Moyers, who served with Wirtz in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, wrote the book’s foreword. He calls Wirtz “a man for the ages.”
Wirtz spent his last two years of college at Beloit, where he quickly made his mark as editor of the Round Table, president of the student body, and president of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He also was a leading orator, debater, and football player. Perhaps his most important accomplishment at Beloit was winning over his wife, Jane, with whom he would have a love affair that spanned seven decades.
Following graduation, Wirtz taught high school for a year, then went on to Harvard Law School. In the meantime, Jane finished her degree at Beloit and then studied fashion design at Washington University in St. Louis. The two were married in 1936. After Bill finished his law degree, they moved back to the Midwest, where he joined the faculty of the University of Iowa Law School and later Northwestern University Law School. He lost that job after Pearl Harbor was bombed, drawing the United States into World War II.
The war meant that young men would be soldiers and not students for the foreseeable future. Wirtz did his part, however ambivalently, on the Board of Economic Warfare, which focused on the speedy procurement of materials from sources that were threatened by World War II. A serendipitous lunch meeting brought about his appointment as a public member of the National War Labor Board in 1943, setting Wirtz on a course that would lead to the upper echelons of government service.
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President Kennedy offers Jane Quisenberry Wirtz'35 a congratulatory hug after swearing in Willard Wirtz'33 as Secratary of Labor in 1962.
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In his story—funny and charming at times, but also circumspect and logical—Wirtz eventually finds himself a partner in the law firm of Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson and then manager of the governor’s second campaign for president,
a battle which resembled in many ways the struggle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary. When the dust settled, he was eventually named Undersecretary of Labor in the Kennedy administration, then Secretary of Labor, until he wound up being one of Lyndon Johnson’s closest advisors during the Vietnam years.
“He was a consummate arbitrator of differences, never seeking celebrity for the victories he achieved quietly behind the scenes of many a strenuous wrangle,” writes Moyers in the introduction to In the Rear View Mirror, “but while he was deft at compromise and the taking of other men’s measure, especially those who would rather change their principles than their shirts, Bill Wirtz knew the difference between a weathervane and a compass. And all these years later … he still has his compass.”
That compass led him to a grand falling out with Johnson over the Vietnam War, a story he tells for the first time in his book.
“It was tough,” Wirtz says of his decision to confront Johnson. “We had been very close, and then I began to realize that I thought he was wrong, and it
wasn’t easy to say. But [the failings of Johnson’s position on Vietnam] gradually became clear, and there was disappointment that he stayed with his position.” Although Wirtz later lost his friendship with Johnson for speaking up to him, he says he doesn’t have any regrets.
And his convictions have won him the admiration of many.
“He was amazingly successful as a member of the Cabinet, as a lawyer, and as a public voice for many years,” says Judith Miller’72, an attorney who came to know the Wirtzes through two decades of service with Jane as a fellow Beloit College trustee. For many years, Miller was also based in Washington, where her legal career included serving as general counsel for the U.S. Department of Defense. She and Jane Wirtz often traveled together to Beloit to attend board meetings.
“Bill never allowed arrogance to get in the way of being an effective leader,” Miller says. “That magnified his ability to make the right calls for the country.”
Miller and her husband, Peter Buscemi, were so moved by the public service legacy of Bill and Jane Wirtz that they recently established a merit scholarship at Beloit in their honor. The Wirtzes and their story similarly enchanted Susan Cleverdon, another Beloit friend. It was she who coaxed Wirtz into sharing his story with the world.
“I felt blessed to get to know Bill and Jane because I came of age during the time when the Wirtzes were key players on the Washington scene,” says Cleverdon, who is the executive director of gift planning at the College.
In her position, Cleverdon often traveled to the Washington, D.C., area to visit the Wirtzes and other Beloiters. That’s how she discovered Wirtz was writing his reminiscences.
“About a year ago, he told me he had been doing this writing. I asked him if I could read it, and later told him it ought to be published,” Cleverdon recalls. “We wanted the book to have a general appeal and be perceived by readers—both those who knew Bill personally and those who are interested in the era—as an account of a time long distant in the country’s history, but which is nevertheless important.”
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| Willard’33 and Jane Quisenberry Wirtz’35 as they appeared in the Washington Post in 1963. An accomplished seamstress who designed and made her own clothes, Jane sewed a “This is Your Life” vest for her husband. During their Washington days, Jane was called “one of the ten best self-dressed women in the world” by a Post reporter. |
It wasn’t easy to convince such a modest man that he should publish a memoir, but Cleverdon cajoled him to move ahead by suggesting that the book’s proceeds be used to build the endowment for the Wirtz scholarship fund. She also appealed to his devotion to his late wife.
“I told him that Jane was not well-remembered and deserved to be given that respect,” says Cleverdon. “Her story needed to be told.”
By all accounts, Jane Quisenberry Wirtz was a quintessential Cabinet wife, raising their youngest son (the eldest was at Amherst College), gracefully supporting the efforts of her husband, and taking up charitable causes. An active life member of the Beloit College board of trustees, she also served on the board of the University of the District of Columbia.
Jane was active in politics for a time, having been asked by her good friend Lady Bird Johnson to accompany the first lady on a series of 1964 campaign appearances. The shy Jane Wirtz agreed, on the condition that she not be asked to deliver speeches, but she soon became widely known on the Democratic speaking circuit for her graciousness and humor.
But her greatest satisfaction of those years seems to have come from the President’s Committee on Employment of the Handicapped—she chaired its arts and crafts subcommittee. She recruited famous designers to lend their names to high quality products that could be produced by young people with disabilities and sold in swanky department stores without labels appealing for pity sales.
Jane, who had been stricken by polio as a young woman, also served on an advisory committee to the National Easter Seals Society and was the national chair of Goodwill Industries of America. Her volunteer work was recognized by Beloit in 1979 when she received the College’s Distinguished Service Citation.
In the Rear View Mirror is available through Turtle Creek: The Beloit College Bookstore (608-363-2375).
Proceeds will go toward the merit scholarship program named for the Wirtzes at Beloit. |
At the time, she was quoted in this magazine as saying, “To have had a part in helping handicapped people obtain their due rights and to be able to see some progress in that direction has been particularly rewarding.”
In the late 1960s, Bill and Jane retired to a lovely old farmstead known as the Tannery after their storied years in Washington. They spent their evenings playing dominoes and enjoying each other’s company until Jane Quisenberry Wirtz died in 2002 at the age of 89.
“We had a good time for a long time,” says Wirtz. “We were pretty lucky.”
Miller recognizes that the Wirtzes’ lives of service continue to reflect well on Beloit.
“They are incredible examples of how people can get a great education, make a real difference, and be selfless about public service,” Miller says. “I think of them as amazing role models that Beloit can be very proud of, who are consistent with our current commitment for Beloit students to make a difference in the world.”
Shannon Luckey’92 is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and freelance writer who resides in Sheboygan, Wis.
