FORMER SENATOR TELLS THE STORY OF MARTYR TO FREE PRESS CAUSE

Paul Simon, a former newspaper man from a small Southern Illinois community, is best known for politics and bow ties.

But meet Paul Simon, the author.

For the past 30 years or more, Simon has been dragging out his old manual typewriter from time to time and pounding out books -- 16 of them.

Most deal with politics.

But not his most recent, which is now available.

"Freedom's Champion: Elijah Lovejoy" dwells on the life of Elijah Parish Lovejoy, a clergyman and editor who refused to be silenced about backing the abolition of slavery more than two decades before the Civil War.

"Lovejoy was one of the first martyrs of freedom of the press in the U.S.," said Simon, who was in Cape Girardeau last week to discuss his new book.

Lovejoy, said Simon, was a native of New England. He came to the Midwest in 1827 in pursuit of a teaching career, but wound up as a newspaper editor who became known as an avid abolitionist.

Although Lovejoy initially said he was not an abolitionist, he took a strong stance against slavery as editor of first the St. Louis Observer and later the Alton, Ill., Observer.

In the state of Missouri, such a view was not just unpopular. In the eyes of many, it was criminal, said Simon. The Lovejoy family suffered repeated persecution and acts of violence from angry mobs.

In July of 1836, Lovejoy, in hopes of finding a more tolerant community in the "free" state of Illinois, moved across the Mississippi River to Alton.

This prove to be a fateful move.

Mobs shattered his presses -- three times.

On one occasion a mob trapped him, threatening to tar and feather him. Again, a rioting crowd broke into his wife's parents' home and tried to drag him away from the premises.

Lovejoy continued to label slavery as "an abomination and a sin."

Finally, on the night of November 7, 1837, a mob fortified by "whiskey, weapons and overwhelming odds against a small band of armed defenders trying to once more save a press, silenced Lovejoy.

Lovejoy, at the age of 35, took a barrage of bullets which proved to be fatal.

Lovejoy was born in 1832 in Albion, Maine. After graduating from college he walked the 1,200 miles from his East Coast home to St. Louis, where he started a newspaper.

He sold the paper, and returned to the East Coast to obtain his ministerial degree from the Theological Seminary in Princeton, N.J.

After serving as minister of some East Coast churches, he once again returned to St. Louis, where he was offered editorship of a religious newspaper, the St. Louis Observer.

Although he didn't start attacking slavery at first, some incidents led him to a campaign calling for abolition of slavery in the nation. He moved across the river to Alton, Ill., to publish the Alton Observer and help organize the Illinois Anti-Slavery Society.

Owen Lovejoy, a younger brother who was a clergyman and statesman, served as pastor in Princeton, Ill., 17 years, and later served in the U.S. House of Representatives, from 1857 to 1864. Owen Lovejoy also denounced slavery, and supported Abraham Lincoln against extreme abolitionists.

Purchase information for the 232-page book is available by calling SIU Press, (618)-453-6633.

Simon, who recently retired from the U.S. Senate, has returned to his hometown of Makanda, and is now teaching a journalism seminar and a political science class at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.

Simon's newspaper background dates back to the 1940s, when he became editor and publisher of the failing Troy (Ill.) Tribune. Under his leadership, the Tribune published articles exposing gambling syndicates which led to widespread gambling raids. Simon eventually build a group of 15 newspapers, which he sold in 1966, two years before he was elected lieutenant governor in Illinois.

Simon won his first elective office in 1955, when he became a legislator in the Illinois General Assembly. He later served as state senator and lieutenant governor. He went on to win a U.S. House seat in 1974 and moved to the Senate in 1984. In 1990, he made an unsuccessful bid for president.

Simon "teamed up" as a co-author in two of his books.

"I'm Lutheran and my wife is Catholic," said Simon. "In 1964, this was a no-no. My wife, Jeanne and I teamed up to write a book concerning religion."

The second co-author was Ross Perot -- the same Texas billionaire who made two unsuccessful runs for president.

The Perot-Simon book, "The Dollar Crisis: A Blueprint to Help Rebuild the American Dream," a 148-page paperback, came about as a result of a Simon speech in the Senate discussing the dollar, the yen and the deficit.