Chicago to Springfield:: Crime and Politics in the 1920s (Images of America (Arcadia Publishing)) (18 page)
Authors: Jim Ridings
A PROUD TRADITION
SLAVES AND SHOEBOXES
This chapter looks at other politicians from the state (not including Chicago). Since 1972, more than 1,000 public officials and related businessmen have been convicted in Illinois (including 19 Cook County judges and 30 Chicago aldermen) according to University of Illinois-Chicago professor Dick Simpson, and to create an account of their purported crimes would take a set of encyclopedias.
Of the state’s first seven governors, four (Shadrach Bond, Ninian Edwards, Edward Coles, and William Ewing) were slave owners and three (John Reynolds, Joseph Duncan, and Thomas Carlin) were pro-slavery. Two governors (William Bissell and Len Small) were constitutionally ineligible to be governor but were elected and served. Once both the governor and lieutenant governor (Bissell and Hoffman) were legally ineligible. One governor (Richard Yates Sr.) was too drunk to give his inaugural address. Three governors have been convicted of felonies and sent to prison. Two former governors acted as attorneys at corruption trials for two other governors (Joseph Fifer for Len Small and James Thompson for George Ryan). Once both the incumbent governor and lieutenant governor (Small and Sterling) stood indicted for embezzlement. One governor (Small) was acquitted after gangsters bribed the jury.
Only in Illinois could convicted felon George Ryan be rewarded for his actions by being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by his pals, while impeached former governor Rod Blagojevich gave a lecture on ethics in politics at Northwestern University.
Gov. Ninian Edwards (pictured) owned slaves and ordered the slaughter of friendly Native American villages. Gov. John Reynolds believed in the moral and legal right of slavery and once offered a $50 reward for an escaped slave. Gov. Thomas Ford mishandled the volatile Mormon situation, causing the murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Gov. Richard Yates was so drunk on inauguration day that he kept Abraham Lincoln waiting 30 minutes before staggering down the aisle and collapsing in a chair. (KPL.)
When Joel Matteson (seen here) became governor in 1853, he found a trunk and a shoebox filled with $338,000 in canal scrip that had been cashed; the scrip had not been cancelled or recorded. Matteson was able to cash it in again as well as cashing in unissued scrip. By repaying most of the money he claimed he had not stolen, Matteson avoided prosecution. (JR.)
William Bissell (pictured) made a speech that brought a challenge to duel from Sen. Jefferson Davis. Bissell accepted, but Davis backed down. Illinois banned state officials from dueling or accepting a challenge to duel. This made Bissell ineligible to serve, and he thereby committed perjury when he took the oath. Bissell died in office of what some say was syphilis. An audit in 1894 showed the state treasury held $50,000 in promissory notes from Gov. John Peter Altgeld, who borrowed money to finance a real estate deal. Political friends repaid the money and covered up the scandal. (KPL.)
Gov. Dwight Green, who built his reputation as a prosecutor that sent Al Capone to prison, was accused of overlooking gambling rackets and accepting campaign contributions from gangsters. Gov. William Stratton (pictured) was indicted in 1965 on charges of income tax evasion for alleged improper use of campaign funds but was eventually acquitted. Gov. Richard Ogilvie, as sheriff of Cook County, had a reputation as a man who took on the Mob. But his chief investigator was Richard Cain, a corrupt Chicago police officer and a ranking member of the Chicago Outfit. Cain was gunned down by the Mob in 1973. (KPL.)
Gov. Otto Kerner Jr. (on the right, campaigning for reelection in Joliet in 1964) resigned in 1968 to become a federal judge. In 1969, Marge Everett, manager of Arlington Park Racetrack, admitted bribing Kerner to get choice racing dates and expressway exits for the track. Incredibly the scandal was revealed because Everett deducted the bribe on her federal income tax returns, believing that bribery was a normal business expense in Illinois. Kerner was convicted on 17 counts of bribery, conspiracy, and perjury. He was sentenced to three years in prison. Gov. Daniel Walker was convicted of improprieties with a savings and loan in 1987 after leaving office. He served 18 months in prison. (JR.)
Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested by FBI agents in 2008 and impeached in 2009. Blagojevich was indicted on charges of racketeering, attempted extortion, bribery, and more. Among the accusations are that he tried to sell Pres. Barack Obama’s former senate seat and withheld $8 million due to Children’s Memorial Hospital while trying to extort $50,000 from its chief. Blagojevich (pictured here) was convicted in August 2010 of lying to the FBI. A mistrial on the other counts will result in a second trial. (KPL.)
When the state indicted former treasurers Len Small and Fred Sterling in 1921, it also investigated the previous 10 treasurers for having kept interest on state deposits. This included Andrew Russel (pictured), who put $3 million of state money in a bank he owned and gave no interest to the state. Russel, later convicted of bank fraud, died in a federal prison. Henry Wulff, state treasurer from 1895 to 1897, stole thousand of dollars, which the courts forced him to repay. That decision said all state treasurers and their bondsmen, going back to 1872, had to pay a total of $321,000. (JR.)
Jerry Cosentino (seen here), state treasurer from 1979 to 1983 and from 1987 to 1991, pleaded guilty in 1992 to bank fraud. Alexi Giannoulias, elected state treasurer in 2006, saw his family-owned Broadway Bank in Chicago seized by federal bank regulators in 2010. Giannoulias presided over a $150 million loss in the state’s Bright Start college savings program because of bad investments. (KPL.)
Paul Powell was elected secretary of state in 1964 after 30 years in the legislature. Powell never earned more than $30,000 a year, but he left an estate of $4.6 million, including $750,000 in shoeboxes found in his home, after his death in 1970. A good part of that money consisted of checks not cashed made out to the secretary of state for license plates. For all his decades of legislative work, Powell will forever be a legend in Illinois for his shoeboxes. (JR.)