(Editor’s Note — I delivered these remarks at Interlochen on Aug. 6, as part of a memorial service for Governor William Milliken (1922-2019) who died last October.)
The last time I saw Governor Milliken was shortly after the election in 2018. Elizabeth and I went to see him and his son, who we will always think of as “Young Bill.”
I remember we stopped to buy him a flavor of ice cream he really loved, called … Michigan pothole.
Gretchen Whitmer had just been elected governor, and Governor Milliken – I always think of him as “Governor” Milliken, told me he was happy for her and thought she’d be a good governor. And I said, “Well, I agree with you.”
“I think she will probably do a fine job. But I want to point out to you that you served your 14 years before term limits, and you are legally entitled to eight more.”
And I added … “so, when Governor Whitmer’s second expires at the end of 2026, I fully expect you to have been reelected and be ready to get back to work in the Capitol.”
I told him “I know you have always opposed to age discrimination, and the fact that you will be 104 then is no reason to refuse to take the job.”
Governor Milliken thought for a few moments, and then he looked kind of sad and said … “But I thought you liked me.”
**
I did like him, of course. I loved him.
But more importantly, I deeply admired and respected him. I thought when he was in office and believe even more strongly now that he was what a politician and a government official and a man should be.
I suspect nearly everyone here knows the essential outlines of his career: Longest-serving governor in the history of our state; champion of the environment.
When it came to Detroit, he was a man 40 years ahead of his time. He realized in the 1970s that you couldn’t have a prosperous Michigan without a vibrant Detroit, and pushed his fellow Republicans in the Legislature to enact an “equity package” to compensate Detroit for the costs of cultural institutions that benefited the entire state.
No governor has ever done as much to protect the Great Lakes. He fought to enact strict regulations on phosphates in laundry detergents in 1977. He successfully pushed for some nation’s strongest wetlands protection laws two years later.
If you want to know more about his life and rather incredible career, Dave Dempsey’s excellent biography, William G. Milliken, Michigan’s Passionate Moderate is the place to start.
On the issues, Bill Milliken was almost always on the side of the angels, as they used to say.
But that’s not what made William Milliken great. What did make him great was his essential decency and integrity and respect for people and his ability to get them to work together.
His ability, as his friend and former legislator John Stewart reminded me the other day, to inspire and to delicately manage to get others to reach compromise and consensus
Bill Milliken was, at least outwardly, one of the least ego-driven politicians I have ever known. I knew, of course, that he had flown 50 combat missions in World War II — something very few men survived. I knew he had been hit and wounded by flak, that he’d survived a crash landing and on another occasion, had to bail out of a bomber that was going down.
He did not brag about that. Once, long after he left office, he told me a story of how he saved a crewman’s life after the man’s chest had been blown open, by putting his hand over the wound. Those planes weren’t heated, and Milliken’s hand froze solid in the blood. When they landed, getting them apart, was extremely painful, and Bill was rubbing his hand and said something like “This is a hell of a way to run a war.”
As a result, he was written up by an officer for swearing! That was his only reward for what he had done.
He told me that story over dinner at the Park Hotel one night and I said that while I had read about his military career, I’d never heard that story before. And Helen Milliken said, “Until a few months ago, neither had I.”
During his career, because he seemed mild-mannered and was always a gentleman, people made the mistake of thinking he would be a pushover. He wasn’t. He never lost an election.
At the Republican state convention in 1964 he out-maneuvered George Romney’s preferred choice to win nomination as Lieutenant Governor. That wasn’t easy.
Milliken was then elected governor three times in an era when the Republican Party was weaker statewide than it is now.
And while his first two elections were close, the vote totals hide the fact that what is truly amazing is that he won at all.
1970 was a bad year for Republicans in Michigan. Richard Nixon wasn’t very popular. Democratic Senator Phil Hart was reelected by a landslide, beating former Governor George Romney’s wife by more than two to one.
Bill Milliken had a very strong opponent in Sandy Levin but managed to win a very close race. Four years later, he faced the worst midterm election for the Republican Party since the Great Depression. Richard Nixon has just resigned and been pardoned by Gerald Ford.
Republicans were wiped out nationwide, losing dozens of seats in Congress. Governor Milliken faced Sandy Levin again, and while the race was again close, he more than doubled his winning margin. Four years later, Bill Milliken did win his third term by a landslide, even winning Wayne County.
After that, he could very likely have been elected to the U.S. Senate, or served in some President’s Cabinet, or gone off for a high-paying job in Washington or elsewhere as many other former governors have. Instead, he went home to Traverse City, and did the best he could to advance the causes in which he believed, from the environment to helping the Michigan Women’s Clemency and Justice Project trying to get women who are being unjustly incarcerated out of prison.
There is one mistake I wish he hadn’t made. He never wrote his own book about his life and what he stood for and how he saw this state of ours. I also wish more people had known about his wonderfully elfin sense of humor.
He told me that during the 1980 primary campaign, he was campaigning with his old Yale classmate, the first George Bush, at Eastern Market in Detroit. If you don’t remember, while Ronald Reagan won the Republican nomination that year, Bush beat him by a landslide in Michigan, something that helped him win the vice-presidential nomination that year.
But that day, one man came up to Bush who clearly hated him and called him every name except a child of God. When he walked away, Governor Milliken said, “I think we’ll put him down as undecided, George.”
The governor also told me once that he hated to go to the annual University of Michigan –Ohio State football game, because he had to sit with Ohio Governor James Rhodes, who always managed to spit tobacco juice all over Milliken’s shoes.
And sometimes, Helen Milliken’s as well.
I won’t say how Helen felt about this.
There is a lot more I would like to say that I don’t have time for. But I do want to add one thing. Many people in both parties said that Bill Milliken was no longer a Republican.
That simply wasn’t true.
He had a vision of what the Republican Party once was and he felt should be, a vision inspired by men like Abraham Lincoln and his own father and grandfather and he remained loyal to that. He enthusiastically endorsed Republicans who he admired.
But he put country over party. A few years ago, I happened to have brunch with Governor Milliken the morning after a group of Grand Traverse County Republicans had voted to no longer recognize Bill Milliken as a member of the Republican Party
I worried a bit about how he would feel about that. Turns out he actually thought it was kind of funny.
You know, I was teasing of course when I suggested to Governor Milliken that he run again after Gretchen Whitmer left office. But if he had lived that long and had wanted to do it …
I would have had no hesitation about voting for him. For governor or for any office.
Let’s all work to see that he is not forgotten.
Thank you.