[Deathwatch] John W. Gardner, cabinet official and Common Cause founder, 89

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

John W. Gardner, cabinet official and Common Cause founder, dead at 89 

Sun Feb 17, 4:07 PM ET 
By JUSTIN PRITCHARD, Associated Press Writer 

SAN FRANCISCO - John W. Gardner, who helped launch Medicare, founded
Common Cause and became known as "the father of campaign finance
reform," has died. He was 89.
  
Gardner died Saturday at his home on the Stanford University campus,
his daughter, Francesca Gardner, told The Associated Press.

"He was a good American father," she said. "He was honest,
straightforward, earnest, funny, but he knew how to get a laugh in a
speech."

The trailblazing advocate of democratic participation and volunteerism
also led the Carnegie Corp. and kept engaged in the nation's
intellectual life until he was bedridden in January from complications
of prostate cancer.

Gardner went to Stanford to teach in 1989 after decades of public
service, which by 1964 earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

"His life should remind all of us that education and public service can
work together as a powerful force to improve the world in which we
live," Stanford University President John Hennessey said Sunday.

Gardner introduced Common Cause in 1970.

"We are going to build a true 'citizens' lobby — a lobby concerned not
with the advancement of special interests but with the well-being of
the nation," he said.

As its membership swelled to hundreds of thousands, the nonpartisan
Common Cause wielded tremendous political clout, helping reform the
nation's campaign finance laws to limit money politicians could make
from politics.

"When Americans attend open meetings or read their government's
documents, or take part in our battered but resilient public finance
system for presidential elections, there is a memorial to John
Gardner," Common Cause President Scott Harshbarger said. "When we turn
on public television, or when government ensures no senior or poor
person goes without health care, we take part in programs John Gardner
initiated."

Gardner brought to Common Cause a keen understanding of the ways of
Washington influence and power and a belief in the nation's model of
government.

"He loved American democracy, the possibilities of it," Francesca
Gardner said.

Gardner was secretary of health, education and welfare at the height of
President Johnson's Great Society, the only Republican in the Cabinet.
He held the post from Medicare's first year in 1965 until he resigned
in 1968.

Earlier, he had been a frequent government adviser, even though he was
busy as president of the Carnegie Corp. beginning in 1955.

He also was a prolific author of books on leadership and self renewal,
and edited "To Turn the Tide," a collection of John F. Kennedy's
speeches.

Gardner is survived by his wife, Aida, a brother, two daughters, and
two granddaughters.

___

On the Net:

Common Cause: http://www.commoncause.org/

PBS profile: http://www.pbs.org/johngardner/