Tribute to Irving B. Harris

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
SENATE
Sept. 29, 2004

TRIBUTE TO IRVING B. HARRIS

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last Saturday, on September 25, the city of Chicago, the State of Illinois, and our Nation, lost a great man. Irving Harris died at the age of 94 in the city of Chicago. He was my friend and my inspiration.

I have been called on many times to give commencement speeches at colleges and universities, medical schools and law schools. When I speak to the young students about what they can make of their lives, I never fail to tell them the story of Irving Harris and his life. It is a great story, and one that I would like to share with my colleagues in the Senate.

Irving Harris was born and raised in Saint Paul, MN. He and his two brothers were raised by a father, who was a merchant, and a mother who inspired him and his two brothers, in their words, "to always be No. 1 in your class." They listened carefully to their parents and they succeeded in almost unimaginable ways.

The two Harris brothers, Neison and Irving, joined a friend and started a company in 1946, the Toni Home Permanent Company. Within 2 years, Tony home permanents had become so popular across the United States that they sold this company to Gillette for $20 million. The year was 1948; $20 million was a huge sum of money.

If you followed his business career, Irving Harris went on to do many things-to be the director of a mutual fund, to start another company in North Brook, IL, the Pittway Corporation, which he ultimately sold for some $2 billion. Just those facts and those stories alone tell you of the business success of Irving Harris. But if you were to stop with those stories, you would not understand his greatness, nor would you understand the real measure of this man.

Unlike some people who were given great gifts of wealth and skill and then used them to make their own lives more comfortable, Irving Harris saw life much differently. He was a man who was constantly looking for ways to help others, particularly ways to help children. And for over 60 years, he took his wealth and his business success and devoted it to helping other people in so many different ways.

He helped create the Yale Child Study Center at Yale University to honor his alma mater but also to try to find ways to help children born in poverty have a full and successful life.

He provided the funds that launched the center for the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, which bears his name, and the Erikson Institute for Advanced Studies in Child Development.

Irving Harris believed that children, if given the right nurturing experience and the right chance, could succeed. A lot of people believe that. But he invested his money in that belief.

He started the Ounce of Prevention Fund in the city of Chicago in the State of Illinois to prove that point again. He was one of the early people pushing for Head Start.

Let me read to you what Irving Harris said in one of his books. The book is entitled, "Children in Jeopardy: Can We Break the Cycle of Poverty?" Irving Harris wrote in 1996, "I believe that God's gift of brain potential is not discriminatory.

"Kindergarten is much too late to worry if a child is ready to learn. We must begin in the first days and weeks and months of life to get children ready to learn."

That was his passion and that was his belief. That fueled his life and his interest.

The many times that we would sit down and talk about policies, he would come back to these points about how many wasted lives of children there are in America because we didn't start soon enough and we didn't do well enough and we didn't understand the complexity of the challenges facing these children.

So this man so successful in business focused so much of his life and time on children and helping them in so many different ways.

He was certainly good at business-one of the best. But he took that success and he took that money and tried to improve the lives of others.

His philanthropy didn't end there. There is hardly a place you can turn in Chicago without seeing Irving Harris's name or the name of his wife Joan. They left their mark in our city as they left it in our Nation.

Joan, Irving Harris's wife of 30 years, whom I met just the other day, recounted her frustration when she was trying to build a new theater in downtown Chicago for music and dance to make it part of Mayor Daley's hugely successful Millennium Park. She turned to Irving one day and said: I just think we are going to have to give up. I don't think I can come up with money to build the theater.

I will not quote him exactly, but Irving basically said: I feel like that myself, and I don't think I am ever going to get the promised land. We are going to do it.

He told Joan they were going to do it, and they did. They made a massive investment in that theater-some $39 million of the $52 million price tag to build that theater. That theater is going to endure in his name and in the name of Joan Harris. It is going to entertain, and it is going to remind a lot of people of the good in culture, in music, in art that really lifts us all.

They did the same thing, incidentally, in Aspen, CO. If you go to Aspen, CO, where they used to spend some time, they decided they needed a special place-an outdoor gathering place for music festivals-you will find that Harris music gathering place, the Harris Music Center, just another part of his legacy.

The University of Chicago President, Don Michael Randel, called Mr. Harris "one of those extraordinary and too-rare individuals whose passion and humanity made a real difference in the lives of others."

Mr. Randel said:

Because of his foresight and his generosity, countless disadvantaged children have been able to fulfill their potential and to become productive citizens. And many of the most fundamental social problems suffered by children and families now have some hope of resolution thanks to the research he has so generously supported.

In addition to his wife Joan, Irving Harris is survived by his daughters, Virginia Polsky and Roxanne Frank; a son Bill, who is a close friend as well, a person who has devoted his life to many important causes such as the global AIDS epidemic and children's causes; a stepdaughter, Louise Frank; stepsons, Daniel and Jonathan Frank; a sister, June Barrows; 10 grandchildren and 26 great-grandchildren.

His legacy goes beyond his family. His legacy will be realized by others for generations to come. Irving Harris's life will not be measured in the number of dollars he earned but the number of lives that he touched, not in the assets he accumulated but in the fact that he was such an asset to Chicago and to America. The pillars of American business know of his success, but Irving Harris was a pillar of strength and hope for the poor, and in that effort he made his life a model for us all.

It is my good fortune in this business to meet many people and to meet many wonderful people. I count on one hand the most amazing people I have ever met, and Irving Harris will be in that number.

I will miss Irving Harris, but I am grateful to have known him and to be inspired by his lifetime of caring and hope.