Edgar Uihlein Jr.’s second child, #Dick, born in 1945, grew up in the wealthy Chicago suburb of Lake Bluff and got the same sort of blue-blood education
(Phillips Andover, Stanford)
as his father (Hotchkiss, Princeton).

Amid the social upheavals of the ’60s, #Dick #Uihlein didn’t waver:
He married Liz before graduating from college in 1967,
joined the family business and immersed himself in conservative politics.

He worked on the 1969 Illinois congressional campaign of Phil Crane, who won a crowded Republican primary in an upset on a hardline anti-tax and anti-communist platform.

In one of the only interviews he’s ever given, Dick Uihlein told National Review in 2018 that he got his politics from his father,
who often went by Ed.

At the family breakfast table growing up, Uihlein recalled,
“My father would talk about the importance of capitalism and the evils of socialism.”

Dick said that same year that
“my father shared many of the same values that I have, conservative values.”

Dick and Liz Uihlein continue to revere Edgar Jr., who died in 2005.

Dick Uihlein named the family foundation after his father, and it now sends tens of millions of dollars to right-wing institutions.

Among the recipients of the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation’s grants are the
#Federalist #Society and think tanks that have pushed misleading claims about the 2020 election, such as the #Conservative #Partnership #Institute
and the
#Foundation #for #Government #Accountability,
as the Daily Beast reported.

Tucked in toward the back of the Uline catalog released this summer,
sent out to millions of homes and businesses,
was a long tribute to the “wise” Edgar Uihlein Jr.

“Father Uihlein, the head of the family, had a towering presence, and we respected his values,” wrote Liz Uihlein under a picture of her husband and father-in-law,
recalling “frequent dinners at his house, where business, issues of the day, fishing muskies and, always, politics were discussed.”

She ended on a note of nostalgia tinged with bitterness:

“Living your life and raising your kids were easier in an easier time.
There was no legalized marijuana, defund the police or social media.

We, like so many families, were raised with a sharp moral compass.

The rules were the rules, but it was OK.”

The Uihleins’ political giving reflects these longings for a bygone era.

Dick Uihlein is a major funder of the #American #Principles #Project,
which runs ads attacking what it calls “#transgender #ideology,” #abortion and the teaching of “#critical #race #theory.”

Last year, Uihlein weighed in on recalling four school board members in a small town north of Milwaukee because of their support for COVID-19 #safety #protocols and “#equity” training for teachers.

More recently, in his home state of Illinois, Uihlein has spent more than $50 million to back the Republican gubernatorial candidate #Darren #Bailey, who has drawn criticism for saying the #Holocaust “doesn’t even compare” to the toll of abortions and for accusing Democrats of “putting #perversion into our schools” for adopting a sex ed bill that includes information about gender identity and same-sex couples.

The Uihleins were huge beneficiaries of a tax provision promoted by Sen. #Ron #Johnson, R-Wisc., that was included in the Trump tax overhaul and are continuing to support the Wisconsin senator and fund attack ads against his opponent.

For all the Uihleins’ dismay at the disorder they see consuming the country, there is one domain where they can exert near total control.

Former employees of Uline told ProPublica the couple’s traditionalist politics govern the smallest details of how the company is run.

For new staffers, it begins with the #dress #code in the employee handbook:
Women are not permitted to wear pants except as part of a pantsuit or on Fridays;
hose or stockings must be worn except during the warmer months;
dresses “that are too short” and corduroy of any kind are strictly prohibited.

The handbook defines “tardy” as one minute past an employee’s scheduled start time.

Just four personal items are allowed on employees’ desks,
with maximum dimensions of 5 inches by 7 inches.

One former staffer at Uline’s headquarters recalled a coworker who was forced to remove several drawings done by his young child.

“Liz would walk up and down the aisles, and if your desk looked off, you’d be written up,” he recalled.
#Uline #Dick #Liz #Uihlein #Doug #Mastriano #Jim #Marchant #election #falsehoods #antisemitic #speech #Edgar #John #Birch #Society #fluoridation #segregation #Edwin #Walker #George #Wallace