APRIL 30, 2008 PRESS CONFERENCE Vic Roberts: "What are your qualifications to be a Congressman?" Fellow citizens, I am Vic Roberts, an old retired coal miner Green Party candidate for Congress in the Illinois 19th Congressional District. While campaigning for public office, I wear my coal minerıs hat as a symbol of the everyday way of life of the laboring class people because I am one too. Fellow Citizens, "What are your educational qualifications to be a Congressman," is a question that ha been asked frequently; because the answer to that question is rather lengthy, I have not given a comprehensive answer...until now. As each of us go through our journey in life there are a multitude of events and challenges that come with each and every day; through coping with those events and challenges comes a degree of knowledge and understanding, yes, perhaps even a form of wisdom. Therefore, I submit to you that my main educational qualifications to be a Congressman is based on my 75 years of age, and the advantage of a form of wisdom that comes with the privilege of advanced age. My formal education ended upon graduation from high school in 1952, at which time my adult everyday way of life major learning experiences began. Over the years those experiences include jobs such as: Working as a farm laborer for $3 a day, and being an underground coal miner for $10 a day. My learning experiences include four years in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War era, with around three of those years being spent in France and England. My learning experiences include being a steel worker in the south Chicago area during a record breaking steel worker strike. My learning experiences include being a small farmer and livestock producer for several years. My many years of informal education and experience include three marriages, and raising four children and three stepchildren. It also includes standing in unemployment lines, while being the sole provider for a young and growing family, at a time and place when available jobs of any kind were almost non-existent. My 75 years of experience among the struggling masses include applying for public assistance for badly needed medical treatment for my family, because I was too poor to afford health care insurance coverage when my family needed it most. My educational experiences include many years of being an underground coal miner, which included being a Federal Coal Mine Inspector for several years. Also, my educational journey in life includes such challenges as relying on Social Security benefits as my major source of income, along with Medicare being my primary health care insurance provider. Being the Democratic Partyıs 1978 nominee for Congress in the former Illinois 20th Congressional district, along with being a perennial Congressional candidate since 2002, has been among the everyday way of life events and challenges that have taken place in my 75 years of age. My informal education experience includes many, many hours of my retirement years being devoted to political study from many, many different sources of information. Those are but a few events and experiences that have occurred in my life that qualifies me to best represent the people in Congress; and, I am especially well qualified to represent us of the struggling masses as I continue my journey in life. I thank you. Vic Roberts, Candidate for Congress
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