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GARY EICHTEN: And coming up next now on Midday, conversations with three of Minnesota's most prominent philanthropists and Republican activists. On this edition of Voices of Minnesota, we're going to hear from Sally Pillsbury and her brother, Wheelock Whitney, and retiring Twin City Federal CEO Bill Cooper. So let's get started. Here's Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson.

DAN OLSON: Sally Pillsbury says one of her most exciting moments in life was as a young woman working for Dwight Eisenhower, just before the famous World War II military leader was elected president.

SALLY PILLSBURY: He was so open and honest. And he was very outspoken. He was very Kansas.

DAN OLSON: Wheelock Whitney has been a financial backer of the Twins and the Vikings. He says pro-sports supply a much needed emotional outlet.

WHEELOCK WHITNEY: If they can get up in the middle of a game and just start to boo and say, get out of there and raise hell with the ump. You try and do that at the Minnesota orchestra. Get up in the middle of the concert and say, what's the matter, you bums? Why don't you get out of here?

DAN OLSON: Bill Cooper's attitudes toward education reform grow out of his experiences in school.

BILL COOPER: I flunked the third grade. If you promote, if you do social promotion, you promote somebody into the fourth grade out of the third that can't make it, you're doomed. You're never going to catch up.

DAN OLSON: Today on Voices of Minnesota, conversations with Sally Pillsbury, Wheelock Whitney, and Bill Cooper. This hour, we span the Republican spectrum from liberal to conservative. Sally Pillsbury defines herself as a moderate to Liberal Republican. She's a lifelong party activist who supports legalized abortion and homosexual rights.

Sally Pillsbury was born and raised in a prominent and wealthy St. Cloud family. Her father was the manager of the local power company. While a teenager, she attended a private high school in the suburban Washington, DC area.

Pillsbury is a graduate of Smith College. She says she intended to use her degree in government to take a job with a public opinion survey company in New York City. Marriage changed her plans. She and her husband, George Pillsbury, settled in Minnesota and raised four children. The sexual orientation of one of her daughters has affected Sally Pillsbury's outlook on attempts to ban gay marriage.

What was your reaction as a parent when one of your daughters came to you and said she's a lesbian?

SALLY PILLSBURY: Well, actually, I never told my mother because I thought that this Portland Maine woman would not understand it at all. But what was actually a fantastic thing is that my mother-in-law, who was much older, she guessed it. And she asked my husband if Katharine was a lesbian.

And George said, now that you've asked, yes, that she is. And she says, well, I'd really like to talk to her, she said, because if she isn't happy, I want to have her see a good therapist. But if she's happy, I hope she finds a good partner.

DAN OLSON: What an interesting reaction from your mother-in-law. Did you expect that?

SALLY PILLSBURY: No. I was absolutely amazed because she was a very kind of, I don't know, kind of hoity-toity in a way [CHUCKLES] and grande dame and things like that. But it turned out that she's born Catholic. And she had gone to a seminary in Rome. And one of the nuns approached her one time. And that made an indelible impression on her.

DAN OLSON: Has this caused your family to confront the so-called gay marriage issue? And if it has, what side has Sally Whitney Pillsbury taken?

SALLY PILLSBURY: Well, I just think that it's just such a non-issue. And I think it's an issue that we're obviously going to have to work our way through like we have many, many other issues. But it really-- I mean, what effect does the fact that my daughter, who does happen to live in Massachusetts and has been with her partner for 24 years.

And she said, of course, we got married because they're allowed to, as you know, in Massachusetts. And she said because the benefits are so much greater. I mean, many people think that the benefits are the same for civil unions, but they're not. And they are much more for marriage.

DAN OLSON: You're extremely well connected politically. Do you have much to do with the most conservative wing of the Republican party? Are you in conversation? Do you still have a rapport, an easy telephone, even person-to-person relationship with people who are frankly probably quite a bit more conservative than you?

SALLY PILLSBURY: Well, I don't have a close relationship, but I have an OK relationship. Because the political arena amazingly is very small. And it's the same kind of relationship I've always had with the Democrats.

I mostly voted Republican in my life. And as I say, it's so small. You're all good friends because you share the same experiences. I just went yesterday to an organization called the Dome Club, which are the spouses of legislators and actually of Supreme Court judges and things like that.

And so it goes way back. But one of the questions they wanted to have people share was how many parades did you have to go through every year? So you share all those funny experiences.

DAN OLSON: Are you pretty satisfied with the direction of the country currently in terms of the effort to cut taxes for some people, including some of the country's wealthiest people? Is the country going in a good direction in your view?

SALLY PILLSBURY: No, I really don't think it is. It makes me very sad. I think that you mentioned the cutting of the taxes that just I was reading an article the other day about what a surplus we had just a few years ago. And we're going to move into a deficit in record time. And the deficit is not going to be paid for by me, but it's going to be paid for by my children and grandchildren because I have grandchildren now in their 20s.

DAN OLSON: Our politics now more divisive than when you started in politics? And if so, what does that matter?

SALLY PILLSBURY: Well, I think it's just very, very divisive. And I don't think the tax issue is the thing that divides people so much. Certainly, people take different sides on it in that. But the social issues are the things that have really divided people. And it's really, really unfortunate because there are things like tax issues and there are things like education issues and health issues and all these things that are very important. And I think we just get enormously sidetracked, and then also work up a lot of anger in people. And it really makes me really sad that that's happening.

DAN OLSON: There is, of course, a wave of religion sweeping across the country, which is a good number of people saying this is one nation under God. And the injection of religious values into our public discourse is exactly what this country needs. Because, quite frankly, too many values have fallen by the wayside.

SALLY PILLSBURY: Well, I think the values have probably always fallen by the wayside. I don't see that-- I mean, I think there have always been stealing and there's always been rape and there's always been these things going on.

And I don't think it has to do with-- I think religion does help it. But I don't think it really helps it in the way it should be helping it in the governmental arena. I think that religion and politics don't mix. Well, obviously, it's happening right now really terrifically.

DAN OLSON: Are you a religious person?

SALLY PILLSBURY: I feel that I am, yes.

DAN OLSON: When you compare your religious views with the views of others who claim to be religious, especially in more conservative Republican circles, how do you sort it out in your mind in terms of what kind of judgment you make about what sort of people they are?

SALLY PILLSBURY: Well, I think they're very sincere people. And even within religious people have different views in this whole case of abortion, which has just gone off the wall. It really is a case of when life begins. And within religions, there are very different points of view. And I also think on that same issue is that really the Roe v. Wade decision was really settled on the wrong-- was settled on the wrong idea. They said it was settled on the right to privacy. And it really should have been judged on a health issue.

DAN OLSON: You're listening to Voices of Minnesota on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Dan Olson. Sally Pillsbury is a lifetime board member of the Guthrie Theater. She traces her devotion to theater back to high school. She traces her devotion to politics to the excitement generated among Republicans by Harold Stassen and Dwight Eisenhower.

One of Sally Pillsbury's daughters is a successful filmmaker and philanthropist in California. Her son is a prominent social activist and philanthropist on the East Coast. She says all four of her children live lives based on the principle of giving back to society, a lesson she says they learned as children.

Pillsbury was a young mother when she took a week away from family for one of her most interesting jobs. She was stationed at the front desk of General Dwight Eisenhower's hotel campaign headquarters during the 1952 Republican National Convention in Chicago. Here's more of our conversation.

You're a major patron of the arts. Where did your instincts and values for supporting the arts come from?

SALLY PILLSBURY: Well, I think just as a little girl that I was always-- the part about art that I'm the most involved in and active in is the theater world. And so when I was a little girl, I was always-- I've always been very outgoing and kind of a show off. So I'd always be in plays at Sunday school and plays in school and things like that in high school.

And when I went off to college, to Smith College in 1942, I read in the school newspaper that there were going to be tryouts for this play. And I thought, well, I've done this a lot in my life so I guess I'll do that. And it had one very exciting side to it as history moved on is that the lead was Nancy Reagan.

And her name was Nancy Davis then. And that was her maiden name. And she was a lead in the show. And I'm sure that I got the part because I had a Midwestern accent.

Anyway, so that was lots of fun. What was not lots of fun was the fact that I didn't-- everybody else surrounding the whole play was in the drama major and I was not. So I had a hard time with my marks. And so that was the last time I went out.

DAN OLSON: Your calling to the stage has continued. I mean, I want to get a little particular and maybe slightly embarrass you a bit. How much do you suppose you've given to the Guthrie over the years? I think you're a lifetime board member, is that right?

SALLY PILLSBURY: I am a lifetime board member. I've given more energy than money. I was made a lifetime member because number one, I was old. Number two, that I am a very hard worker. And I would love to be able to give more to anything, to lots of things.

And our name belies our wealth. We have a brand name and everybody says, oh, they'll take care of that and they'll help us out. And we'd love to do more than we can so sometimes it's very hard. But both George and I really make up for it and work.

But I think people are starting to step up because it means so much beyond-- theater is much more than entertainment. Theater is a great cultural force in one's life, particularly in children. It's just to say-- they say that children who are exposed to art have a better chance learning than the ones who have not been. So it's very impacting.

DAN OLSON: What's been your favorite project, whether in politics or arts, after which during which you said, gosh, I'm having fun here. I'm with people I like. And this is a good cause. What's been the favorite?

SALLY PILLSBURY: Oh, I guess one of the most exciting thing that ever happened to me well, I should say backwards to living in New York and working in Harold Stassen's eastern states headquarters. That I worked with a woman there who then went on in 1952 to Chicago. She and her husband were both very involved. And I became, through the invitation of this woman, to be a receptionist for General Eisenhower. And I was only like 25 years old.

And it was just-- and I just saw history passing me by. I sat at the Blackstone hotel in a hallway. And I had this desk. And everybody that went to see the president or went to see Tom Stephens who was his appointment secretary or going to see his speechwriters, whoever, they all had to come pass me.

And so I just met all kinds of-- I didn't shake hands with all of them, but I saw them. And I did meet quite a few senators, congressmen, all kinds of wonderful people. And a lot of wonderful people in the press, like Scotty Reston, that he sat right next to me.

They has a couch right there. And he was very-- even though he was a reporter and later a great columnist and an author that he had a great thing about General Eisenhower. And so he was always writing these little kind of notes and sending them back to the people in the office, not to the gentleman himself. Anyway, that was a really thrilling time in my life.

DAN OLSON: What a great experience! What was President Dwight Eisenhower like?

SALLY PILLSBURY: Oh, he was wonderful! He was just-- he was so open and honest. And he was very outspoken. He was very Kansas. He was very Midwestern, which I think I am too.

DAN OLSON: How would a personality like President Eisenhower's fare on today's political scene, do you suppose? Or do we have anyone like him?

SALLY PILLSBURY: I don't think we have anybody like him really because he was so kind of down to Earth. And I don't think you find that so much in people. I think that actually, you're talking about money earlier. Money is just a terrible things to politics. And It's really kind of pushed politics in awful directions.

We see what's happening with this Tom DeLay right now. It's just shocking. And people have found out that if they step up to the plate, that they can be part of the answer. And often their answers are inexperienced and wrong.

DAN OLSON: So there was President Eisenhower and then Mrs. Eisenhower. How long did you hold that job?

SALLY PILLSBURY: For the whole convention, just for the convention, just the convention. They asked me actually to go on the campaign trail and to go on the train. So we have different-- more media and more transportation. But I obviously couldn't do that because I had three little children back at home. I could go away for a week, but not longer than that.

DAN OLSON: What are some of your times that you'd care to forget, politics, whatever they might be, where you thought, darn it. That sure didn't turn out well.

SALLY PILLSBURY: Actually, one thing I feel very badly about in my life, and it isn't the political arena. That I was never able to excite moderates to work. They say where is the flaming moderate? I mean, there aren't. I mean, I can't even get them to come to caucuses anymore.

DAN OLSON: Well, by the way, where are they? What are they doing? What are they thinking? You're a moderate.

SALLY PILLSBURY: I know. But I think that they complain a lot. But of course, I've been in Asia. I have a lot of friends who are in that field, the field of complaints. But even others, they really don't step up to the plate that much. And there are certainly some representing us in Congress. And I supported an organization called the Republican Majority for Choice. It's a group of women and men. And they really have been doing extremely well in stepping up to the plate but more on the East Coast they are, not here. So that's been a great disappointment in my life.

DAN OLSON: Were your kids growing up during the rebellious '60s?

SALLY PILLSBURY: Oh, very much so. Our oldest son took a year out after graduating from high school. And he was on a program for the experiment for international living and lived in France.

And then he went from that sort of a summer program, he went to the University of Grenoble. So he got to know these young French people that said we just don't understand your country, how you should get involved with the war like that. And so he became a very early on protester of the war, and then became a very innovative protester of the war.

Because rather than marching, what he did is that one of his focuses was here in Minneapolis of the Honeywell company with their anti-personnel fragmentation bombs. But what he did was that he bought some-- and with the help of his father. His father says the only way you can get things done is to get the board of directors to make a decision. And so you've got to be part of the company.

So he bought 10 shares. And he got into his suit and went to the annual meeting. And it was written up in Time magazine. And it's been used many, many times since.

DAN OLSON: What kinds of discussions did this elicit around the family dining room table, these thoughts that your children were having about politics and war and everything?

SALLY PILLSBURY: Well, we kind of agreed with them. But on the other hand, we had this sort of patriotic thing, so it was hard. And I really just gave so much admiration to my husband who just loves to argue. I don't like to argue too much, that much. But he would stay up until 4 o'clock in the morning talking with Charlie about that.

DAN OLSON: So on raising children and raising children in an environment of considerable wealth, did you and your husband make an effort to explain to the children about their social station in life and try to in some way, shape or form, explain to them responsibility or what comes with wealth?

SALLY PILLSBURY: Well, I know that we did because we have two children who organized and founded foundations. One in Boston, my son George founded an organization called Haymarket Foundation. And my daughter Sarah later founded one called Liberty Hill in Los Angeles.

And Liberty Hill in Los Angeles is an organization that probably does more for Los Angeles than almost anything that all Los Angeles, that Los Angeles also split it up. But what these foundations do is that they give money to new organizations. And they try to encourage young organizations.

And there are organizations who might be third world country type things or they might be immigration or they might be-- one of them that our son George early funded was a thing called 9to5 that became a movie. But that was about organizing people who are secretaries in them. Anyway, and there are several organizations.

There's one here in Minneapolis called the Headwaters Foundation. But they're now-- they're not running them anymore but having found them. But they're quite larger organizations and they really do wonderful things in their communities.

DAN OLSON: Sally Pillsbury, a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for your time.

SALLY PILLSBURY: Thank you so much.

DAN OLSON: Sally Pillsbury is an arts patron, a philanthropist, and a Republican Party activist. She lives in Wayzata. You're listening to Voices of Minnesota on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Dan Olson. Later in the hour, a conversation with Bill Cooper, the retiring CEO of Twin City Federal.

Wheelock Whitney is Sally Pillsbury's brother. He's a Minneapolis investment banker and a Republican Party activist. He's run unsuccessfully for two public offices for US Senate against Democrat Eugene McCarthy in 1964 and against Democrat Rudy Perpich for Minnesota governor in 1982.

Wheelock Whitney is a major figure in Minnesota's professional sports scene. He played a central role in getting the Washington Senators to move to Minnesota and become The Twins. He's been a part owner of the Minnesota Vikings in years past.

Whitney is a major donor to groups promoting sobriety. Like his sister, Sally Pillsbury, Whitney left St. Cloud to attend a private high school in the east. After World War II, he graduated from Yale University.

Whitney is a Navy veteran who served in the Pacific. In 1945, near the end of the war, he was part of an American force occupying a town in Japan. He says the experience made a deep impression on him.

WHEELOCK WHITNEY: I'll never forget the day that I went ashore in this little village where our ship was anchored. They didn't know what to expect, this little village. And we didn't know what to expect. We were all given .45 pistols and we didn't know whether they were going to be angry, whether they were going to be frightened, whether they were going to be belligerent or welcoming or what.

And, of course, they didn't know what we were going to do. Were we going to come in there and grab the women and rape them? And were we going to do things that were terrible?

But as we approached the shore, it was obvious that they were all-- the whole village was down at the shore. And they were bowing as they do. So obviously, they looked friendly.

But it was a moment in my life's history that I won't forget coming ashore and thinking to myself later, I wonder how I'd feel as an American if some foreigners had taken over our country, and they were coming ashore for the first time. I think I'd be scared to death. I think they were. But it was a very peaceful get together. And we learned a lot about the Japanese then. And they learned a lot about Americans.

DAN OLSON: Why did you and your late wife, Irene Whitney, become involved in promoting health issues and also in fighting chemical addiction?

WHEELOCK WHITNEY: Well, it began in 1964 when we became interested in it. Prior to that, my wife Irene who I married in 1948, had an obvious drinking problem. But I certainly didn't think she was an alcoholic.

I didn't know what an alcoholic was. I thought they were somebody that lay on a park bench with a wine bottle and a brown paper bag. And she was a very beautiful, very good athlete, a mother of four wonderful, intelligent human being. And I couldn't imagine her as being an alcoholic.

But in 1964, she was diagnosed with alcoholism and went to treatment at Hazelden, out in Center City, Minnesota. And that changed our life. And that was the cause of our interest. And together, we worked in that field for the rest of her life. And I continued to work in it today.

DAN OLSON: I'm interested, I think, like so many other people in your point, that many folks who find themselves addicted don't see that sometimes for a long time. How were the emotions at that point when the diagnosis came? What were the dynamics?

BILL COOPER: Well, let me just say one thing, Dan. The alcoholic, the chemically dependent person never sees it. It is a disease of denial. That's the most common thing.

Different ways it affects people. Some people get happy. Some people get sad. Some people get crazy. Some people get silent. But denial is totally ingrained in every single chemically dependent person. There's never a time when they have a spontaneous insight and they say, oh, now I know what's wrong with me. I'm alcoholic. That doesn't happen.

Somebody has to intervene in their lives, whether it's an employer, whether it's a judge, whether it's a doctor, whether it's a minister, whether it was a spouse, a dad, a husband, a wife. And that's how they get help. And of course, I was scared.

At the time that she went to treatment, I was the Republican candidate for the US Senate. And I remember telling Vern Johnson, who intervened on my wife, that she can't go to treatment until after the election. It's bad enough, hard enough being a Republican in Minnesota running statewide. But if your wife is a drunk on top of it, I might as well quit now.

And he convinced me-- this was in March that she might not live until November. And I better get my priorities straight. She went to treatment. She got. well. She died in 1986. She had 22 years of sobriety. And during that period of time, we together worked very hard in the field of alcoholism and drug addiction.

DAN OLSON: So what was that '64 campaign like against Senator Eugene McCarthy? Did it, in fact, become an issue in the campaign?

WHEELOCK WHITNEY: No, no, it never did. And 1964 was a bad year to be a Republican, especially in Minnesota, because that's the year that Barry Goldwater was the Republican candidate and Hubert Humphrey had been chosen by Lyndon Johnson to be his running mate. So he was on the national ticket. I think the Republican Party got wiped out nationally in 1964, and I got wiped out right with him.

I was 37 years old and the only political experience I had was that I was mayor of Wayzata, my hometown here. And I just had a great year. I went throughout Minnesota. I learned so much about the state that I love then and have come to love more.

I learned a lot about politics. That was my first really big political effort. And I have continued my interest in politics right up to today.

DAN OLSON: Where do you fall in the Republican political spectrum whereabouts are you?

WHEELOCK WHITNEY: I'm a moderate Republican. I was a supporter of George Bush despite the fact that I don't agree with many of his domestic program. But I supported his initiative in Iraq. I supported his leadership in the war on terror. I thought he would-- those were the primary issues in the campaign.

And I thought that he would do a much better job for our country there than John Kerry did. I proudly supported him. But many of my Republican friends couldn't stand George Bush and voted for John Kerry. And when Kerry carried Edina, that was a pretty good showing of how many Republicans supported him.

But I have a gay son. And I am absolutely, totally opposed to his Bush's initiative on having a constitutional amendment to deny same sex marriages. I have a lot of trouble with the party on that issue and many others, gun control. But I'm still a Republican. I'm just a moderate Republican.

DAN OLSON: Are you another moderate Republican still active in the party? Do you still contribute? Do you still have political capital?

WHEELOCK WHITNEY: I do not contribute much to the Republican Party. I contribute to candidates. I was very active for Arne Carlson. I was the chairman of his campaign committee during the eight years that he was in office.

And today, I'm the chairman of Tim Pawlenty's finance committee. I have a lot of respect for Tim. And I continue to visit with people who come and see me about whether or not they should seek office. And I was a delegate to the Republican state convention in 2002 when Tim Pawlenty won the party endorsement over Brian Sullivan.

I continue to be a thorn in their sides because I find that I am not in tune with most of the delegates. But I am not going-- I'm not about to become a Democrat. I find plenty of issues with them that I don't agree with. So I'm going to stay and fight the battle within the Republican Party.

DAN OLSON: Wheelock Whitney. You're listening to Voices of Minnesota on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Dan Olson. Wheelock Whitney's devotion to professional sports is long and deep. He says pro sports supply people with an emotional outlet. Here's more of the conversation with Wheelock Whitney.

So do you want to enter the stadium debate here for just a couple of minutes and tell us whether or not you think there should be a new baseball stadium, a new gopher stadium and a new Viking stadium?

WHEELOCK WHITNEY: I've had a lot of concerns about the ability of this community to support for professional teams in four different venues. The Timberwolves, the Wild, the Vikings, and the Twins all selling suites to people. There's a limited number of people that can afford that. And then on top of that, a new stadium for the Gophers.

It's been hard for me to swallow to think that all of those can be supported. I have felt that the football team should be a facility that houses both the Vikings and the Minnesota Gophers. And they only play eight or 10 games there a year. And to have a separate building for that purpose I think is something that I don't not sure our community can afford.

I think we need professional sports in Minnesota in the worst way. We're out-- we're off the main stream. And in order to attract people here and keep people here, I think professional sports is a great way to interest people in moving and staying in Minnesota.

I realize that the same is true with good arts and good schools. But I think sports are something that give people pride in their state, in their community no matter where they go-- on a trip to Europe, on a trip to China. They watch to see how the Twins made out or the Vikings. And I think it's healthy and I think we ought to do whatever we can to keep them here.

DAN OLSON: Do you predict expansion or contraction in professional sports across the board? Are the ticket buyers, are fans, are the public-- is the public becoming tired of the antics, becoming tired of the salary levels, becoming tired of the squabbles? Are we going to witness the buyer becoming less and less inclined to buy the ticket?

WHEELOCK WHITNEY: I have mixed feelings about that. In spite of all of the antics of these players, it's just deplorable some of the behavior of these people that are making so much money. You see the same thing in the acting, in Hollywood and yet people flock to the movies. And I think the same is true of sports.

I think sports are an outlet for people. If they can get up in the middle of a game and just start to boo and say, get out of there and raise hell with the ump. You try and do that at the Minnesota orchestra. Get up in the middle of the concert and say, what's the matter with you bums? Why don't you get out of here?

I mean, it gives people a chance to get rid of their anger and hostilities. It gives people a chance to cheer. And I think that sports is a good thing for Americans, good thing for people in general, and a great thing for Minnesota.

And some will tire of it. But I think sports are going to be around for a long time. I don't see much expansion coming in any sport. Now, they've expanded to the limit. And we've got most of the major cities in this country blanketed with professional sports. I think that the surge in expansion is largely behind us.

DAN OLSON: You're quite a philanthropist. You've given away a lot of money, you and your late wife, Irene Whitney. What are your attitudes towards giving money away?

WHEELOCK WHITNEY: Well, I intend to share my good fortunes with the community that I love and with organizations that I believe in. That is ingrained in me from my parents. And I ingrained it in my children and grandchildren.

The problem I have is, how do you decide what to support. The demands are endless, and the demands are huge. And to have to say no to people hurts. Everybody who comes to you believes that their cause is the most important cause. That their organization is the best organization going and needs to be supported.

And you just cannot-- but you can't support everyone. You have to try to select from all the different places who approach you. But it's worth it. I'm going to continue being a philanthropist. And most of my philanthropy is dedicated to agencies here in Minnesota.

DAN OLSON: The distribution of wealth in this country is increasingly uneven, for whatever reason. Are you optimistic about the future? Or is the increasingly uneven distribution of wealth worrisome?

WHEELOCK WHITNEY: It's worrisome. I feel this way about it. If you decide you want to be a teacher, if you decide you want to work for the government, if you decide you want to work for the church, if you make decisions where you're going to have a limited amount of income but no risk, you're not likely to be able to amass very much capital.

If you take a risk, if you're a salesman, if you go out and you take a chance and work on commission, you have an opportunity to earn a lot more money, I think that people respond to the incentives of capitalism better than they do to the not incentives in socialism or communism, which has proven not to work.

DAN OLSON: Wheelock Whitney, a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for your time.

WHEELOCK WHITNEY: Thank you. Dan. I've enjoyed it myself.

DAN OLSON: Wheelock Whitney is an investment banker, philanthropist, and Republican Party activist. He lives on a farm in Independence, west of the Twin Cities. You're listening to Voices of Minnesota on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Dan Olson.

Both Sally Pillsbury and her brother Wheelock Whitney are native Minnesotans from families of considerable wealth and social standing. Bill Cooper, by contrast, is a native of the Detroit, Michigan area who was not born to wealth. Cooper is preparing to leave his post as CEO of Twin City Federal. He worked his way through college as a police officer working the night shift. He graduated with an accounting degree.

Cooper has said he knew in 1978 he wanted to run a bank. After banking jobs in Michigan, Ohio, and Florida, he was hired to run Twin City Federal. Cooper's willingness to voice his opinions has won him a wide following among the state's conservative voters and politicians. He's a former chair of the state Republican Party and the former finance chair for governor Arne Carlson's campaign.

Cooper is one of the founders of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota. The league has convinced a number of Republicans, including Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, to sign its no new taxes pledge. He attributes some of his success to a good education and to the influence of a mentor.

BILL COOPER: My father died when I was a boy. And my mother worked for the New York Central Railroad as a ticket clerk. And actually, I worked pretty much almost full-time from the time I was about 14 or 15 years old.

And I got a really good opportunity in my youth to go to a school called Cass Tech, which is in Detroit. It was almost kind of like a charter school in downtown Detroit. And it was very good school, much better school than the schools in the neighborhoods I grew up in.

And then I went to Wayne State University, which is a big city school. And I had all kinds of jobs in my life. But the primary job I had while I was in college, I worked my way through college as a Detroit policeman.

DAN OLSON: Backing up just a moment. You were not born then to a life of privilege, a family of wealth.

BILL COOPER: It's a great country. It really is. And that's true. And a matter of fact, most people here at TCF were not.

DAN OLSON: What kinds of values did that impart to you? What kinds of values did you grow up with as a result of ending up having to be part of the breadwinning yourself or the family? What did it teach you?

BILL COOPER: Well, it depends on what you mean. It teaches you-- it taught me a lot of the values of America in terms of the capacity of people to do that, which we're still the only country in the world where that really can happen. And from a business perspective, most banks are run by people of substantial means that come from a different place. And what that really did for me was to understand the value of the working people and how that was a valuable customer. And it's been our target customer as a result of that.

DAN OLSON: So how long are you a police officer?

BILL COOPER: Just about four years.

DAN OLSON: And what was that like?

BILL COOPER: Well, it was an interesting experience. And I didn't-- that wasn't a career goal. It was simply a job that was available. The interesting thing, it was a very good job to go to school because I worked the midnight shift, which was 12:00 to 8:00 in the morning. And I worked the weekends. So I had two days off during the week.

And frankly, I guess I can tell this story now the way it actually worked. The senior guys all worked with me. This is when you had two policemen in a car. And from midnight until around 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, it was busy and when the last guy beat up his wife or whatever.

Then from 3:00 to 6:00 or so, it was not busy. And there wasn't much to do. And we'd go park somewhere and my partner would get in the back seat and go to sleep. And this is the reason that the senior guys wanted to work with me because I did my homework and stayed awake to listen to the radio.

And if you think about it, back in those days you went to school, if you did three hours of homework a night, that's a lot. And so that system allowed me to-- because I had two days off during the week as well and work the weekends, it allowed me to go to school full-time, which is what I did.

DAN OLSON: Well, what did you think of police work? I mean, what kinds of individuals did you run into? And how did it frame your view of life?

BILL COOPER: Well that is the seamier side of life. And where I worked as a policeman was a pretty tough place. And that led up to the '67 riot. You may or may not know, one of my real passions is education. I do a lot of stuff with education.

And what it taught me was a passion for education and the doorway out of those problems for people who are trapped in that criminal environment or dysfunctional environment is a good education. I was lucky I got one. And it's what has given me a passion for making sure that everybody has the opportunity to get a good education.

DAN OLSON: Now, I think you've told others about a mentor. No doubt you've had numerous mentors along the way in banking. But apparently, early on, you had a fellow who was an older gentleman who kind of showed you the way, including all the way to banking fashion.

BILL COOPER: That's true. And I'll say this. I don't care who you are. People talk about bootstrapping themselves up. Everybody either got a hand either through birth, luck of birth, or somebody helped them. That's the way it is.

Now, there was a fellow at Michigan National where I went to work. I was recruited out of Touche Ross to go to Michigan National. And there was a fellow there by the name of George Pierson, who was vice chairman of Michigan National. George Pierson only had an eighth grade education. And he came up through the finance company route.

He didn't have any children, and he kind of took me under his wing. And he told me-- he taught me to take off the clip on tie, and you can't wear white socks, and to put a napkin on your lap when you have dinner, and so on and so forth. And an awful lot of things about banking. Gave me a real education, particularly in retail banking.

DAN OLSON: Well, as a businessman now for a long time, what's your reaction to the business dealings of Enron, WorldCom, and other companies that I guess in the view of quite a few business people have given business a black eye?

BILL COOPER: I don't care. There's been crooks in business forever. They're always going to be crooks in business. I think probably, if anything, the ethics of businessmen is better today than it was years ago.

Certainly, the whistle gets blown a lot louder and maybe not soon enough, but a lot louder. And hopefully, at least, that these bad guys-- you read about it in the paper every day. They're on trial and going to go to the slammer, which is what should happen. But it's always been there and it always will just like every other vein.

DAN OLSON: Even from your days in college, maybe your early banking days, have you always been active in politics?

BILL COOPER: From the very beginning days of my business career, I was active in politics. Not prior, no.

DAN OLSON: And then what led to the big activism, the big splash, if you will, creating the Taxpayers League and that?

BILL COOPER: Well, first of all, I didn't create the Taxpayers League. I was one of the people involved in it. Mike Wigley can take credit for that. I was party chair and so forth.

I've looked at my political activities as charitable activities. The government determines a lot of things of what happens to a lot of people. They take your money and most people can't afford it.

And they provide things like schools and safety and so forth. And in many cases, I don't think very well. So I think the leverage that I've had in connection with my political activities is really charitable activities.

DAN OLSON: Bill Cooper, the CEO of Twin City Federal and one of the founders of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota. You're listening to Voices of Minnesota on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Dan Olson.

Bill Cooper says education is one of his biggest interests. He's a major backer of several private education initiatives, including an inner city Minneapolis parochial school and a suburban academy. He promotes 10 principles, which he believes will improve a public education in this country that he says is in trouble. Here's more of the conversation with Bill Cooper.

These 10 rules come from--

BILL COOPER: These are Cooper's 10-year rules of education of what makes a good school. You have to have a leader who can hire and fire teachers and believes in the other nine rules. You need a content-based education system that teaches basic skills, the ED Hirsch system and Saxon Math. You need a high expectation of success, a no-excuse philosophy. You have to teach a culture of discipline, duty, and respect, what's right and wrong.

You have to have a high level of testing to find out what students don't know so that you can fix it. You got to hold back students who don't perform at grade level. You have to flunk students. I flunked the third grade. If you promote-- if you do social promotion, you promote somebody into the fourth grade out of the third that can't make it, you're doomed. You're never going to catch up.

80% of the spending has to be on teacher salaries, not all the other bunk they do. You need a longer school day and a longer school year. We have the shortest school year in America in Minnesota.

The concept of equality and individual achievement are incompatible must be eliminated in our schools, which is a culture that exists in our schools. And we need smaller schools and smaller school districts. That's what you need to do for a successful school.

DAN OLSON: Turning for just a moment to the national level, how is the reduction in federal individual income taxes working out? Is the money being used productively? Is it being invested? Is it helping grow America?

BILL COOPER: Well, I think the tax cuts have obviously worked. I mean, the economy was drifting and there was a lot of trouble. They cut the taxes and the economy got better.

Now, what they didn't do is cut spending. I mean, the Republicans are just as bad as the Democrats. And the only difference between a Republican and a Democrat is that the Democrats want to overtax you and overspend and the Republicans want to overborrow and overspend. That's the difference.

DAN OLSON: What a change. What a remarkable change historically for Republicans.

BILL COOPER: Right. It's not good news.

DAN OLSON: Do you want to run for political office?

BILL COOPER: I would rather have my nails pulled out than run for political office.

DAN OLSON: You don't sound like a fan of being a big part, a public part of the political system. Why not?

BILL COOPER: I'll tell you what. I really do admire the people who do this thing and do the best job they can. But it's interesting. Even to the degree I've been involved in the political process, it is an unsavory thing.

People do things to you. I mean, I am often flayed in the press as this ogre. This Air America show that they had me on as starting 15 for private schools and using TCF's money to do it. They just make things up about you. It's an unsavory business.

DAN OLSON: What has money done to politics?

BILL COOPER: Well, money is actually a necessary part of politics. I don't believe, frankly, in the limitations on money. What I believe should happen is that people should be able to contribute to-- it's part of free speech. It's part of our Constitution.

And what should happen is anybody that gives any money should immediately be disclosed on the internet to anybody who wants to know. And that let people invest money in the political area that they wish to invest in. All this-- what all this campaign finance reform is designed by incumbents to keep incumbents in power. That's what it is. And that's not good.

DAN OLSON: Has the increasing amounts of money in the political system helped foster the entrance of folks who don't have money or has it limited the folks entering the political system to those folks who can either afford to write the check themselves or find the donors and backers who will help pay for their campaigns?

BILL COOPER: It's actually interesting. If you look at the history of politics, many of our political mavericks got started because they could find some people to back them and give a start.

What happens now, unless you've got a name to start off with or a lot of your own money, it's very difficult to start from the ground up to get started in politics. So that shrinkage down of how much money each person can give and so forth limits the number of people who can just as citizens enter the political process and be successful.

DAN OLSON: Would a plainspoken guy like you last very long in the current political scene where there's so much emphasis on image and cultivating the image of the candidate?

BILL COOPER: I think the biggest mistakes politicians make is talking to their polls and saying things that people want to say. If you look at Minnesota, a great example-- two great examples of that is Jesse Ventura. Here's a guy. The first thing that appeared in his mind he said. But you always knew you were getting what he believed and people liked it.

Paul Wellstone. I think Paul Wellstone was far to the left of most Minnesotans. But he said what he believed, regardless of whether people liked it. And I think that a way to be successful in politics in Minnesota is to say just what you believe, regardless of whether that's popular or whatever, and cultivate that image of somebody who's just saying what their principles are.

And I think you'll be successful in politics. It's just the experts all moving in the other way is what happens. And they all get swept up into this polling and the rest of this. And they end up not saying what they believe.

DAN OLSON: Are you pretty optimistic about the direction of the country?

BILL COOPER: Yeah. Politics-- there was an old saying. You don't want to watch the way sausages are made or the way laws are made. It's still by far the best country in the world.

And Minnesota, as a matter of fact, is by far the best state in the United States. It's a great place to live. But citizens have to participate in that process in an active manner, what I would call a Roman manner, to keep it that way. Otherwise, it'll slide off and not be what it is today.

DAN OLSON: Bill Cooper, thanks. A pleasure talking to you.

BILL COOPER: Thank you.

DAN OLSON: Bill Cooper is the CEO of Twin City Federal. He lives in Wayzata. You've been listening to Voices of Minnesota on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Dan Olson.

GARY EICHTEN: And Mr Olson, of course, is the producer of our Voices of Minnesota interview series. If you missed part of the program today or simply want to hear it again, we'll be rebroadcasting this program at 9:00 tonight. And, of course, it will be available on our website minnesotapublicradio.org. That's it for Midday today. Gary Eichten here. Thanks for tuning in.