Tom Kacich: Illinois' worst governor? That's saying a lot

Mar. 31—You may be distraught about this year's electoral choices — the Old Dudes Presidential Preference — but the ballot 100 years ago in Illinois featured perhaps the state's worst public official ever.

Incumbent Gov. Len Small, a Republican, had three years earlier been indicted on embezzlement charges while state treasurer. He was found not guilty by a jury that deliberated 90 minutes — likely because the jurors had been paid off. At least eight of them ended up on the state payroll.

Small, cleared but not clean, ran again in 1924. The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Daily News and Belleville News-Democrat, all Republican newspapers, lined up against him. The Tribune called him "the worst governor the state ever had." One hundred years later and numerous bad Illinois governors since, that may still be true.

Small appointed his son, Leslie C. Small, as director of state purchases and construction, even though Leslie was already a full-time editor of the Kankakee Daily Journal. Leslie Small was paid $7,000 a year in his state job, about $125,000 in today's dollars.

Len Small paroled more than 1,000 convicted felons as governor, many of whom it is believed paid for the privilege. His administration defended the decisions as humane, even though those freed included rapists, Al Capone-allied mob thugs and child sexual abusers.

"The great error which the public hears little about is that of keeping the prisoner incarcerated too long," wrote Small's director of public welfare.

Further, Small was publicly and unashamedly endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan. His secretary, George D. Sutton, was a member of the Klan, as were many other Small administration employees. In October, weeks before the general election, about 2,000 members of the Klan marched from the Statehouse to the state fairgrounds, where they held a rally on state property. A similar event a year earlier, also at the state fairgrounds, prompted a legislative committee investigation.

Small testified and was asked if he was a member of the Klan, which by then was in its ascendancy and included local "klaverns" all over Illinois, including Urbana, Champaign, Danville, Decatur, Freeport, Bloomington and Belleville.

"I don't know what they are or what they stand for," Small blithely told legislators.

Asked whether it was right to allow state property to be used by a group that advocated for only 100 percent White, native-born Americans to hold public office, Small responded that if the Legislature wanted the Klan banned from state property, he'd oblige. But he wouldn't bar the bigots on his own.

Small never criticized the Klan nor repudiated its endorsement.

Illinois Republicans had an alternative to Small in the April 8 primary election: a University of Illinois alumnus, state Sen. Thurlow Essington, who promised "honest government" as an antidote to Small's corrupt reign. (A group of Republican insurgents, including U.S. Sen. William McKinley of Champaign, had chosen Essington from a group of contenders that included Danville Commercial-News publisher John H. Harrison).

The owner of The News-Gazette, D.W. Stevick, looked beyond Small's railcar full of faults and considered only that he had brought the long-sought "hard roads" to Champaign County. At the same primary election was a vote on another state bond issue to build more roads.

"The Chicago Tribune and the men who are responsible for trying to defeat Governor Small by poisoning the minds of the people living in the country and throughout the state by advising people to vote against it are traitors to Illinois," Stevick wrote. "Would you not have thought more of the Chicago Tribune and the crowd opposing Small if they had spread the gospel truth about this bond issue and advised the people to vote against Small but without fail to vote for the $100 million bond issue? That would have been fair."

Small won the Republican primary but, to its credit, lost Champaign County by 172 votes. He won big in other parts of downstate Illinois and took Cook County by about 3,000 votes. Overall, he won by 59,920 votes.

The Urbana Daily Courier, no fan of Small, explained his statewide success: "The Essington campaign dealt with ideals — the Small campaign touched the realities. The Essington campaign was to the intellect — the Small urge emphasized the material and presented the concrete. People generally remembered the old adage about never looking a gift horse in the mouth. They were being handed something and they grabbed it, refusing to be bothered by the question of whether the hands that delivered the gift were clean or dirty. That is not a particularly high plane of action, but that is the plane that Illinois is on today, for the facts speak for themselves."

The same paragraph could have been written subsequently about Govs. Dwight Green, Otto Kerner, George Ryan or Rod Blagojevich.

In the general election, meanwhile, Stevick told News-Gazette readers that the newspaper was backing the entire Republican ticket, Small included.

Small won re-election in November, taking 70 of 102 counties, including Champaign and all nearby counties except Edgar and Coles. The outrageous corruption continued until he was defeated in the 1928 GOP primary. He ran unsuccessfully again in 1932 (finally losing in Champaign County in the FDR Democratic landslide) and in 1936.

Champaign County primary turnout

I erred last week in reporting that the primary election turnout in Champaign County in 1998 was 13 percent. It was much higher: 19 percent. We'll know next week whether this year's primary turnout is better or worse.

April showers bring ...

Those hoping to get an unobstructed look at the April 8 solar eclipse here might want to consider viewing somewhere else. Local weather records show it often rains on that day.

There's been at least a trace of rain on 14 of the last 25 April 8s in Champaign-Urbana. And the average rainfall on that date (1889-2023) is 0.15 inches. Since 1991, the average rainfall on April 8 is 0.12 inches.