CA: Radical '70s Produced a Conservative Conciliator (Bill Jones)

LA Times ^ | 10/05/04 | Scott Martelle

[NormsRevenge]

FRESNO — There was no way to anticipate it at the time, but Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bill Jones owes his political career to a black student radical with the tongue-twisting name of Bill Riddlesprigger.

It was 1970, and Jones, conservative son of a Central Valley rancher, had just been elected president of the Cal State Fresno student government. In his long-sleeved sweater with the cuffs folded back an inch, Jones had the anachronistic look of a Four Freshmen Republican in a Jimi Hendrix world, puffing on a pipe while many in his generation smoldered with rage.

There was a lot to rage against. Within days of Jones' spring election, four students were shot and killed by National Guardsmen at Ohio's Kent State, ratcheting up passions at daily rallies here against the Vietnam War. The following fall, Chicano students at Cal State Fresno erected a human blockade to stymie registration. An anti-ROTC protest ended in a melee, and someone firebombed the business school's new computer lab.

Through it all, Jones remained largely silent and uninvolved, according to campus news accounts. Activists viewed him as an extension of the administration, the youthful face of all they were fighting against. "He represented the status quo," recalled Riddlesprigger, now an English teacher at Fresno City College and a former Fresno school board member.

So after Jones vetoed a Student Senate plan to let black and Chicano students edit an issue a month of the student newspaper, Riddlesprigger, editor of the black edition, began a recall campaign. "I thought he was being unreasonable," Riddlesprigger said. But when the petition drive stalled 100 signatures short, Riddlesprigger dropped the effort as divisive.

A politician was made.

[calcowgirl]

Through it all, Jones remained largely silent and uninvolved...

Some things never change? ;-)

Good article, thanks for posting.