Charles W. Clabaugh Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

University of Illinois at Springfield 

Norris L Brookens Library 

Archives/Special Collections 

Charles W. Clabaugh Memoir 

C512. Clabaugh, Charles W. (1900-1987) 

Interview and memoir 

23 tapes, 1157 mins., 2 vols., 316 pp., plus index 

ILLINOIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM 

Clabaugh, member of the Illinois House of Representatives 1939-75, discusses his 

years in the Illinois General Assembly: transportation, agriculture, education, 

conservation, civil rights, and WWII legislation; the 1970 Constitutional 

Convention; School Problems Commission; judicial reform; women in the 

legislature; and politics. He also discusses his years before the General Assembly: 

farm life in Coles County, Illinois; teaching; and early political activities. He also 

discusses retirement, travels, and duties as minority leader. 

Interview by Horace Q. Waggoner, 1980 

OPEN 

See collateral file 

Archives/Special Collections LIB 144 

University of Illinois at Springfield 

One University Plaza, MS BRK 140 

Springfield IL 62703-5407 

© 1980, University of Illinois Board of Trustees

I 

CHARLES 


W. CLABAUGH 

MEMOIR VOLUME I 

t 

PREPARED FOR THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL BY THE ORAL HISTORY OFFICE OF SANGAMON STATE UNIVERSITY 

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS 

Charles W. Clabaugh Memoir, vol. 1 - Archives/Special Collections - Norris L Brookens Library - University of Illinois at Springfield - UIS

ILLINOIS LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 

107 Stratton Building, Springfield, lllinois 62706 

Representative Jacob John Wolf, Chicago, Chairman 

Senator William F. Mahar, Homewood, Vice Chairman 

Representative Samuel M. McGrew, Galesburg, Secretary 

Senators 

John A. DiArco, Chicago 

Terry L. Bruce, Olney 

William F. Mahar, Homewood 

William A. Marovitz, Chicago 

Dawn Clark Netsch, Chicago 

Frank M. Ozinga, Evergreen Park 

George E. Sangmeister, Mokena 

Jack Schaffer, Crystal Lake 

Ex Officio 

Philip J. Rock, Oak Park 

President of the Senate 

James "Pate" Philip, Lombard 

Senate Minority Leader 

Representatives 

J. Robert Barr, Evanston 

Phillip Bianco, Chicago 

Glen L. Bower, Effingham 

Peg McDonnell, Breslin, Ottawa 

Ted E. Leverenz, Maywood 

Samuel M. McGrew, Galesburg 

Everett G. Steele, Glen Carbon 

Jacob John Wolf, Chicago 

Ex Mficio 

George H. Ryan, Kankakee 

Speaker of the House 

Michael J. Madigan, Chicago 

House Minority Leader 


ADVISORY COMMlllEE 

Cullom Davis, Director, Oral History Program; 

Professor of History, Sangamon State University 

William L. Day, Former Director, lllinois Legislative 

Council; Editor Emeritus, Illinois Issues 

David Everson, Director, Legislative Studies Center; 

Associate Professor of Political Studies, 

Sangamon State University 

Gerald L. Gherardini, Associate Director, 

lllinois Legislative Council 

Samuel K. Gove, Director, Institute of Government 

and Public Affairs, University of Illinois 

H. William Hey, Director of Research, 

Illinois Legislative Council 

Dan Holt, Field Sew. Supervisor, State Historical 

Library; Adjunct Professor of History, 

Sangamon State University 

Robert P. Howard, Former State House Reporter 

for Chicago Tribune; Author, Illinois: A 

History of the Prairie State 

Margaret Munn, Hearing Supervisor, 

Department of Mental Health 

J. Glenn Schneider, State Representative 

41st Legislative District 

Member, lllinois Legislative Council 


ILLINOIS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 1939-1 975 


ILLINOIS GENERAL ASSEMBLY 

ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM 

PREVIOUS TITLES IN SERIES 

Martin B. Lohmann Memoir, 1 Vol. (1980) 

Bernice T. Van Der Vrks Memoir, 3 Vols. (1980) 

Walter J. Reum Memoir, 2 Vols. (1980) 

Thomas A. McGloon Memoir, 2 Vols. (1981) 

John W. Fribley Memoir, 2 Vols. (1981) 


Preface 

This oral history of Charles W. Clabaugh's service in the Illinois House of Representatives is 

a product of the Illinois Legislative Council's General Assembly Oral History Program. The 

oral history technique adds a distinctive new dimension to the council's statutory responsibility 

for performing research and collecting information concerning the government of the 

state. 

Charles W. Clabaugh was born near Lerna, Illinois, on August 15, 1900. In the story of his 

youth, he recounts experiences typical of Illinois rural life in the early days of the 20th 

century. After initial studies at the University of Illinois he went on to earn, while teaching 

in the high school at Ashmore, Illinois, a Bachelor of Education degree at Charleston Teachers 

College. He later taught at Farmington, Illinois. After gaining experience as a district 

manager for the Chamberlin Weather Strip Company, in 1935 he formed the Champaign 

Weather Strip Company which he operated until 1964. 

Mr. Clabaugh's interest in politics was developed at an early age. He vividly recalls election 

contests and issues from as early as 1912. His first political position was as a republican 

precinct committeeman on the outskirts of Champaign, Illinois. Elected to this position in 

1930, he still held it at the time the interviews for this oral history memoir were 

conducted. After an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the Illinois House of Representatives in 

1936, he was elected on his second try in 1938 and continued to serve for 36 years, until 

1975. 

Mr. Clabaugh's major legislative achievements were in the field of education. He served on 

the House Education Committee all except his last term and on the School Problems 

Commission from 1951 on. His memoir, while focusing on such legislation, also recounts 

personal and political subjects. Of particular interest are his characterizations of fellow 

legislators. 

Readers of this oral history should bear in mind that it is a transcript of the spoken 

word. Its informal, conversational style represents a deliberate attempt to encourage candor 

and to tap the narrator's memory. However, persons interested in listening to the tapes 

should understand that editorial considerations produced a text that differs somewhat from 

the original recordings. Both the recordings and this transcript should be regarded as a 

primary historical source, as no effort was made to correct or challenge the narrator. 

Neither the Illinois Legislative Council nor Sangamon State University is responsible for the 

factual accuracy of the memoir, nor for views expressed therein; these are for the reader 

to judge. 


The tape recorded interviews were conducted by Horace Waggoner during the summer of 

1980. Mr. Waggoner was born in 1924 in Waggoner, a small farm-service community in central 

Illinois. At age 18, he enlisted for military service in World War I1 and, as a U. S. 

Air Force commissioned officer, continued to serve until 1973. Upon leaving service, he 

resumed his formal education, achieving a masters degree in history at Sangamon State 

Universtiy in 1975. Specializing in the field of oral history, his association with the Sangamon 

State University Oral History Office dates from 1976. 

Ulanda Buckhold transcribed the tapes. After the transcriptions were edited by Mr. 

Waggoner and reviewed by Mr. Clabaugh, Jean Curtin prepared the typescript. The use of 

computerized word processing was made possible by programs developed or modified for the 

purpose by Bernadette Emery and James Skufca. Florence Hardin compiled the 

index. The Chicago Tribune and the Illinois Historical Survey Office of the University 

of Illinois provided valuable assistance in the research effort. 

This oral history may be read, quoted and cited freely. It may not be reproduced in whole 

or in part by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the Illinois 

Legislative Council, Room 107, Stratton Building, Springfield, Illinois, 62706. 


Table of Contents 

Note on page location: 

Volume I: pages 1-152 

Volume 11: pages 153-313 

Preface ................................................................................................................................................. v 

The Years Before ............................................................................................................................... 1 

Family background - Farm life - Education - Family political interests 

- Teaching experiences - Champaign Weather Strip Company - Precinct 

committeeman - Marriage 

The General Assembly Years ......................................................................................................... 63 

Campaigning - Election - Getting started - Elections and reapportionment 

legislation - Transportation legislation - Special interest groups 

- Agriculture legislation - Public utilities and railroads legislation - 

Civil rights legislation - Women in the legislature - Civil service - 

Patronage - Municipalities legislation - Waterways, conservation, fish, 

and game legislation - Movie making - Legislative reform - Financial 

institutions legislation - Politics - World War I1 legislation - Education 

legislation - School Problems Commission - Fiscal reform - Lobbyists 

- Judicial reform - Constitutional Convention - Revenue legislation 

The Years After ................................................................................................................................. 287 

Retirement - Minority leader staff duty - Family history publication - 

Travels - Daughter's lives - Thoughts on a legislative career today 

Index ..................................................................................................................................................... 304 

Illustrations following page 48, 102, and 208 

vii 


Volume I 

Charles W. Clabaugh 

SESSION 1, TAPE 1, SIDE 1 

Q: Okay, we are recording, I wonder if we could first put on the record an account of your 

tenure, when you started in the legislature and how long you were there. 

A: Well, I was elected the first time in 1938. And I was elected the last time in 1972. So 

I retired in 1975; that is, you see, I went through the 1973-1974 session, then when the 

members-elect were sworn in on the second Wednesday in January, I was automatically 

retired. 

Q: Oh, I see. That was in January, then, I guess, when they do that. 

A: January of 1975. 

Q: Yes, I see. Now, that's how many years, then? 

Q: And you represented the same district that whole time, did you? 

A: Yes. Four different numbers the district had, but it was the - well, there was one - 

we had Piatt, Moultrie and Champaign Counties for more than half of the time, and then 

they dropped Piatt out and put Douglas in place. 

Q: What were the numbers of those districts? Do you recall? 

A: Well, it was 24 . . . and 44 . . . and 48, and 52. (pause) I can find it. (pauses and 

searches through notes) It was 52 when I finally ended. I don't know whether this has 

- some of the books have a listing of - yes, this will tell. 

Q: Those Blue Baoks are very handy, aren't they? 

A: Yes. (pause) The 24th District from 1939 to . . . 1969. And the 44th in the 70th 

[General Assembly], 71st and 72nd, 73rd, 74th, and 75th. The 48th in the 76th, 77th. And 

the 52nd in the 78th. 

Q: All right, sir. 

A: But there were just four counties involved altogether, only three at any one time. 


Q: Yes. Could you describe what your district characteristics were in general? 

A: Well, the two principal industries, as we would say, or occupations of people, were 

agriculture and the University of Illinois. That was before the junior colleges and the 

University of Illinois was the only higher education there was in the district. And a mere 

smattering of industry. 

Q: Other than farming. 

A: Yes. 

Q: All right, sir. Okay. I wonder if we could go back and take a little bit of a look at 

your family background. First of all your paternal ancestors. Where did they come from 

when they came to Illinois? 

A: They came from Ohio to Indiana and were in Indiana 4 years, I think it was, and then 

to Illinois in 1865. My father's father was, I think, a Pennsylvania Dutchman born in 

Ohio. His father was born in Ohio. And his father - I don't know where he was born, 

but he was married in Virginia in 1785. 

My father's mother's people were also Pennsylvania Dutch, and Huguenots. Of course, you 

see, the Huguenot immigration was from France to get away from King Louis' inquisition, 

and went over to Germany, but they didn't like it very well there. And they stayed there 

a few generations and then came on to Pennsylvania - Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Indiana 

- Ohio, Indiana. The mother state was Ohio. That's where my grandparents got 

together. 

Q: I see. Yes. What was her name, her maiden name? 

A: Her maiden name was Poland. And she was a direct descendant of a Peter Poland, an 

Englishman, who, with his brother, came to America in 1750. I don't know where in 

England he was from, but he came on board the ship PATIENCE, enroute from Rotterdam 

with a load of Palatines bound for Philadelphia. Since the ship was from a foreign port, 

bound for a place in the British Empire, it was required to stop at Cowes, Isle of Wight, 

for inspection. The Poland brothers came on board and continued on to America. When 

I was researching for my family history, I assumed that the brothers were Palatines, as 

Poland may be a German name, although it would have been spelled P-O-L-E-N. However 

I located a man in West Virginia, a descendant of Peter's brother, who had the lineage back 

to the immigrant brothers, and he cleared me on that point. Polands have fought in all 

of our wars until the Spanish-American War. 

Q: Well! Were there any particularly significant individuals among your paternal 

ancestors? 

A: Not among my direct ancestors, but the name Hilligas, during the pre-revolutionary days 

and for several years following that, was probably one if not the leading name in 

Pennsylvania. In fact, Michael Hilligas was the first treasurer of the United States and 

worked very closely with Robert Morris in financing the Revolutionary War. He was such 

a stand-out person, his father and uncles were businessmen in Philadelphia, that I could 

hardly - when I found out that he wasn't a direct ancestor - by golly, I could hardly find 

anything about our branch of the family. "You have anything on Hilligas?" I'd say at the 

library. And, "Oh, yes." And here would come reams of stuff about Michael, but nothing 

else. But I did find a little insignificant-looking book in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and it 

told the story of them back to the 17th century. And they were Huguenots, and I'm a 

member of the Huguenot Society of America. 

Q: Now how did the Hilligas enter the family? 


A: My father's grandmother was a Hilligas. 

Q: I see. That would be your great-great-grandmother, then. 

A: That's right. Yes. 

Q: Okay. 

A: All farmers. 

I , 

Q: Oh, is that right? All farmers all the way down the line. 

A: Yes. 

Q: What about your mother's side of the family? 

A: They came. from Virginia to Kentucky. Her name was Richardson. And they connected 

up with the Roy family. And when you got into the Richardsons and the Roys in those 

two states, particularly the Richardsons, there were so many of them I had to give up on 

them. And I found a family history of the Roys. 

And I copied a good deal of it in my 

family history. The first Roy that they have direct lineage on was Hugh Roy, who came 

in the middle 1600's . . . to Virginia. 

Q: You say you have collected this together and formed a family history? 

A: (pauses and gets book) 

Q: My goodness, quite a volume. So if anyone wanted to look up your ancestors, there's 

a book entitled (reads from title page) The Ancestors of Charles Wesley Clabaugh and 

Louise Zimmerman Clabaugh and Their Descendants. 

A: Yes. 

Q: Published in 1975. 

A: Yes. And these are the - here's the Hilligas family right here. 

Q: I see. Yes. 

A: This young Michael Hilligas, when his father died, he was an iron manufacturer. They 

had a lot of these little country iron puddlers in Pennsylvania. And he owned them - I 

don't know how many. In some of those counties, you'd go down through the land records 

and find scores of his properties. And when his father died, he had a large enough estate 

that - for those days - he had to give a bond of 200,000 dollars as administrator of the 

estate. (laughs) 

Q: Gee whiz! 

A: I just know it was a large bond. I don't know how big an estate it was. 

Q: And these were ironworks where, in Ohio? 

A: No, Pennsylvania. 

Q: And these were local, individual makers of the iron. 

A: Yes, with wood, burnt wood, and charcoal. 


Q: I'll be doggoned. Well. (pause) How well did you know your father's father? 

A: He died 27 years before I was born. 

Q: Oh, I see. How about your grandmother? 

A: She lived with us from the time I was 10 years old until I left home, and she is the 

main character in that book. Because she left, when she died in our home in Mattoon, she 

left a little box, so big (indicates size), that had been in the family for over a century. And 

in that I've had practically all of the tax receipts and contracts of purchase of land that 

my great-grandfather made, from the time he was married in 1826 until she died. And I 

put those things together in a book. (hands interviewer the book) 

Q: Oh, a beautiful book, yes. 

A: And - go clear back - and in there I have the letters, applications for pensions in the 

War of 1812 and the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. And then this was one on my 

mother's side. (points out copy) 

Q: Oh, so you've preserved these in binders. I see. 

A: Yes. And many of them are laminated, but some of them were not. 

Q: My goodness. 

A: (points out copies) My first teaching certificate. And my first certificate as a member 

of the legislature. 

Q: Well. Oh, yes. So this goes back many many years though. 

A: Well it goes clear back to William Poland, who was a - in fact, he was in the army 

and the marines in the Revolutionary War three or four times. 

Q: Well! 

A: And in . . . Here is his, I think it's his contract for sale of land. You see, Maryland, 

they went from Maryland, and Maryland pensioned their own soldiers; that is, they gave 

them land. I think they were the only colony that didn't get land from the federal 

government. 

Q: I see. 

A: And he got a little strip over there and that's the first one. And I traced that . . . the 

real estate holdings of my direct line clear down, until this grandmother finally sold her 

inheritance in the early 1900's. 

Q: Well. I'll be doggoned. 

A: And it's extremely interesting. And I'm sure that my daughters will appreciate it. 

Q: I'm sure they will, too. Yes, sir. 

A: And one of the things in there that - I'll get off the subject, then I'll listen to 

you. Running through one of the muster rolls of an Indian war back in Maryland, I found 

one of my ancestors one of my wife's ancestors who served at the same time in the 

same company, and their names follow. Two of them and one of ours, there's one Carmack, 


one Clabaugh and then one Carmack. The second Carmack is a brother of Mrs. Clabaugh's 

great-great-great-great- grandfather. 

Q: Well, for heaven sakes! (laughter) 

A: And that's just purely by chance. 

Q: So the families really go back a long way together, then. (laughs) I see. And this was 

in the Indian wars prior to the Revolution. 

A: The Indian wars. In 1767. I just looked in an index and saw Clabaugh and looked 

further and there were those three names. 

Q: I'll be doggoned. (laughs) What type person was your grandmother'? 

A: (pause) Well, being a Huguenot, she was an extremely religious person. She was raised 

in Ohio in a large family, married when she was 21 or 22 years old. And my father was 

born, he was the oldest child she had. Her husband died when my father was 12 and his 

youngest brother was less than a year. And they lived on a 30-acre farm out south and 

west of Charleston. And she raised the family on that. 

Q: This is Charleston, Illinois. 

A: Yes, sir. 

Q: What do you remember most about her? 

A: Well I remember her extreme piety. In that little box that I told you about, there were 

letters of exchange between her and her brothers and her sisters. And when . . . they 

spoke very religiously and - in conversing with each other and writing with each other 

about the death of two of their brothers who were lost in the Civil War. One died from 

wounds and the other one died just a month after he.got in the service. Exposure I suppose, 

in November. 

She was a very determined person, as she had to be. And coming from that part of Ohio, 

central part of Ohio, that was an extremely strong anti-slavery area. She's talked to me 

- I was the youngest boy in the family and I'd have to stay home with Grandma when 

the rest of them went somewhere. And I'm glad now that I did. And she was never - 

said many times she wasn't afraid to die anytime the Lord wanted to take her, but she didn't 

want to be killed. 

Q: Oh, I see. Well! (laughter) Wanted a natural death. 

A: We'd cross those two railroads as we drove from the little town where we lived then, 

and she wouldn't even trust us. She'd look about to see if there was a train coming. Then 

she'd say, "I'm not afraid to die, but I don't want to get killed." 

Q: I see. (laughter) Well. What was your father like? 

A: Well he was a determined fellow. As I first remember him, he was working on a farm 

for, oh, a large landowner down there. Eighty cents a day was what he was getting 

paid. We moved from that farm in 1905, and he and his youngest brother were partners 

on another farm. We called it the Miles' place. 

The families all got along extremely well. My father and his two brothers, when they got 

together as older men - Dad lived to be 77 and the - I just looked it up before you came 

- and both of the other ones lived to be 81, 83. One of them's 81 and one's 83 years 


old. And when they got together - as we quite often did, of course, in the country - they 

were just like three kids. Very, very close to each other and very fond of each other. But 

none of them died worth very much, still, for that matter. But I think they did a pretty 

good job. 

I think the thing I remember probably most about my father was that - until he went 

farming for himself, he always worked for somebody - he believed in giving a day's work 

for a day's pay. And I got a job at about seventeen, during World War I, cutting broomcorn, 

which is a horse job! There's no harder work. And for 5 dollars a day. And I came home 

and told Dad I was going to work for Mr. Norton, 5 dollars a day, and he said, "Well, I 

never thought I'd live to see it, a son of mine that would be able to earn 5 dollars a day." 

And to see that I did earn 5 dollars a day - he had been a broomcorn contractor in his 

early day - he'd cut right across the field and help me. And he would cut the south end 

of my table. He wouldn't get up where the other fellows would see him because they'd think 

then not so well of me. 

Q: I see. 

A: But he'd cut off twenty or thirty rod off of the south end. Not for anything, except just 

he wanted to be sure that his boy earned his money. And he was always that way. He 

died that way. 

Q: Now you were living near Charleston, Illinois, at that time? 

A: Well you know where the little town of Lerna is? 

Q: No, I don't, sir. 

A: Well, if you go 9 miles southwest of Charleston and 6 miles southeast of Mattoon, there's 

two railroads and where they cross, in Coles County, that's Lerna. It's about 4 miles north 

of the CumberlandKoles County line. 

And the one person - one of the few people that I couldn't find where they were born, when 

I wrote that book, was Charles W. Clabaugh. 

Q: Oh, is that right? (laughs) 

A: I don't know which county I was born in. Dad was a broomcorn contractor, as I say, 

and their main work was in August and I was to come in August. And I was just always 

told that Dad took Mother to Grandma's for the occasion. One of my grandmothers lived 

barely over in Coles County and the other one barely over in Cumberland County. And I 

don't know to which grandmother's she went. 

Q: Well! (laughter) 

A: And there's no record in either Coles or Cumberland County. 

Q: Hm. No record of your birth there. 

A: That's right. 

Q: I'll be doggoned. 

A: And when we got ready to go abroad in 1961 - no, 1962 - we had one heck of a 

job. (laughs) If I hadn't have been a member of the legislature, I don't think I could have 

got a birth certificate. 


Q: Proving that you were born at one time. 

A: Yes. 

Q: I see. Well. (pause) Now you say that you lived on one farm for about five years and 

then the family moved to another farm? 

A: Yes. They lived - then it was in 1905 that he moved away from the farm where he 

had been working for the other man. 

Q: Oh, I see. 

A: And went a distance northeast, closer to Charleston. We lived there 3 years. And both 

of the brothers - and their families were getting up then and the farm wasn't big enough 

to support two families, and we moved on over closer to Lerna and we were there until we 

kids left home and Dad sold out. 

Q: What kind of person was he? Was he a strict disciplinarian? 

A: Oh, of course I thought he was then. And he was. He expected us to work. I 

milked. I'd get up of a morning and milk. And in the farming season, we were up at 4:30 

in the morning. And when we lived on the farm from which we moved away in 1908, I 

was milking then. 

Q: Oh, you were at that time? 

A: Yes. 

Q: How many cows did the family keep normally? 

A: Oh, we had two. 

Q: What other kind of livestock did you have around? 

A: Oh, Dad was a hog raiser. 

Q: Oh, he was? 

A: Not hundreds of hogs, but forty or fifty. He'd market forty or fifty hogs every spring, 

and every fall. Twice a year. 

Q: Was he farming that farm that you lived on at that time, then? Or were you just living 

there and he was working elsewhere? 

A: No, he was - the two of them, the two brothers worked a 200-acre farm between 

them. One man couldn't handle a 200-acre farm in those days. And we went to 115 acres, 

a good farm, just north of Lerna, and lived there. And I think they left there - we moved 

there in 1908 and I think they left there in 1920. I had come up to school then. 

Q: So you left home about the time they moved from there. 

A: Yes. 

Q: What were the first chores that you had to do on the farm there? 

A: First chores? 


I 

I 

Q: Yes. 

A: Well, I think . . . the first one I remember was the milking, because, well, I was pretty 

big then, when they'd give me a bucket and let me go milk. But we just did all the other 

work, and until you - all the chores of feeding the horses and hogs and the cattle. You 

didn't feed the cattle anything in the summertime because they pastured. 

Q: Did you have any chickens on the farm? 

A: Oh, yes. But in those days, the women pretty well took care of the chickens. Most 

farms, I would say, the women took care of the cows. But that wasn't true at our house. 

Q: Oh? 

A: No. 

Q: So that was your job once you got started on it, then? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Did you like to milk? 

A: Oh, yes. I've never had a drink of milk in my life that I ever knew of. 

I 

Q: Oh, is that right? (laughter) You didn't like it or . . . 

I 

I 

I 

A: I don't know. 

Q: Well! (laughs) 

A: I eat it on cereal but I don't drink it at all. 

Q: Did you then? 

A: No. 

Q: Didn't then. Why wouldn't you drink milk at that time? 

I 

I 

I 

I 

A: I don't know. Later I found out that in my mother's family there was a couple of her 

brothers - whom I just barely knew then, but that I got well acquainted with later - that 

they were just . . , 

Q: Didn't drink milk. 

A: When our first little girl was born, I'd seen people - she was a bottle baby, of course 

- and I'd see people squirt milk on their wrist . . . 

Q: To see how hot it was? 

A: (indicates affirmative) I'd set the bottle right down and go wash off that wrist. 

Q: Oh! Well. (laughter) 

A: When I was trying to gain some weight back, and I still am, they gave me this 

Insure. Insure is a baby food. And I don't think there's any milk in it, but it looks like 

milk. And I got so I could take it, I don't mind it now, but the glass smells like milk and 

I put it right in the dishwasher, because I don't want . . . 


Q: You've had a lifelong aversion to milk, then? 

A: Antipathy to milk, yes. I always did. 

Q: Well, for heaven's sake. Hm. (pause) Did you start field work there on the farm? 

A: Oh, yes. 

Q: What was the first thing you did in the field? 

9 

A: (pause) Oh, I suppose, after I got off the hoe - I had a brother older than I who was 

an expert with horses. Dad let him go out with the team when he was eight, nine years 

old. I wasn't that good. But I hoed. But when I got off the hoe - and my father got 

pretty much crippled up with rheumatism and didn't do too much in the later 

years. But . . . Oh, I suppose harrow. 

Q: Harrowing? 

A: Harrowing. Because that, if you get out of line, why, you can turn around and go back 

and do it over again, 

Q: Yes, sir. (laughter) 

A: My father told me once that I was the only person he ever knew that could drive a 6-foot 

cultivator through a 16-foot gate and hit both posts at the same time, and so help me God 

I did! 


A: Cut it too short and put the neck yoke over one post and the wheels, they came right 

up to the other one and caught on it. (laughter) 

Q: I guess corn planting wouldn't have been in your line in the early days, then? 

A: No. No. 

Q: How about cultivating? 

A: Oh, yes. Yes. 

Q: What'd you have, a two-row cultivator or a single row? 

A: A single row. And I've plowed a good many acres with a single walking plow, a breaking 

plow. 

Q: How old were you when you finally got your walking legs behind the plow? 

A: Oh, fifteen, I suppose. 

Q: Do you remember any particular instances where you felt you were never going to make 

it through the day walking behind the plow? 

A: Oh, no. The day it - you may - I don't know whether - how long you've been in 

this country but in 1917 a tremendous tornado went through Mattoon and Charleston. Hit 

them both. Killed, oh, over a hundred people in Mattoon and almost a hundred in 

Charleston, And it came in from the southwest. And I was working for my uncle just west 


of Mattoon and a little south and the - hot! The 26th of May. And it got dark and darker 

and darker, and we couldn't see the other teams that were out in the field. 

I was plowing with a breaking plow, a walking plow. You used a walking plow in the 

stumps. This was - they hadn't grubbed the things all out. And of course, you had to 

be goddang careful because there was still some live roots in there and the plow would cut 

one of them and then an end of the root would flip right back and you'd have to jump up 

on the - get your feet up before they got hit with - on the shins. 

Q: Oh. (laughter) 

A: But generally speaking, we had riding plows. But for plowing gardens and for plowing 

end rows round along the end where the horses had packed it down, you see. Oh, I kind 

of enjoyed it, but it was hard work. 

Q: Yes, I imagine it was. Did you do any kind of planting, wheat or anything of that sort? 

A: No, we didn't raise wheat. Never did raise wheat. Corn and oats and clover and 

timothy hay. (pause) And the most onerous job that I had to do on the farm was shocking 

oats. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Had to use a binder, you know, and then you'd put the bundles in shocks. Because my 

dad insisted that when you shocked the shock, you'd set the bundles up and then one, you 

broke it and then took it in this hand and broke it down there and put it over and then 

put another one on to shield the water off of the shock. 

Q: Oh, on the top. 

A: And he didn't mean just lay the bundle up there, but he meant get that and pull it, hand 

pull it down and break it and that was pretty hard. I weighed probably 115 pounds. And 

then you reached down to get a bundle to throw up and set it down and - just sort of 

like being on a merry-go-round. And I detested it. Threshing, haymaking, I didn't have 

any trouble with them. 

Q: What did you do with the threshing crew? 

A: Well, they - threshing crew usually stayed at the house of the farmer that they was 

threshing for. So then you had the threshing rings. The farmers would come in over a 

certain area. That's what we call a community. You help thresh and that made your 

community. 

Q: Did you have one threshing machine for the community there? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Do you know who owned it? 

A: Yes. Bill Funkhauser 

Q: He owned the steam engine and the separator, I guess. 

A: Yes, and his son, George - Benchy we always called him - run the engine. 

Q: Oh? (pause) What was your job on the crew normally? 


A: Well, in the last years, I was a bundle hauler. That is, hauled bundles in to the . . . 

Q: On the wagon? Takes quite a skill to handle one of those, doesn't it? 

A: It does to load them right. Back when 1 - during World War I the average farm boy 

in Illinois wanted to go, and a lot of them did, go northwest to help with the wheat 

harvest. And I went. I don't remember how much money I had, but I didn't have much, 

and I started out. Three of us started out together. One of them dropped off at Mattoon, 

6 miles from home. Another one came to Champaign and got off here and I went on. I 

went out to a little town just south of Sioux City, South Dakota, by the name of Manila, 

Iowa. And out there, those fellows used basket racks. They didn't have just a flat rack 

like we had. Well, of course, I was just a smart-alecky kid, I said, "Well, anybody can haul 

on that." And then I tried to show that I could put more on my rack than they could put 

on theirs and I did. And one time - course, when you lay the bundles along the side and 

then another row in here and then you put - in the middle, you call that the "tie." And 

when you start to pitching, you start to pitch the tie off first, and when I got about halfway 

down, my load just split, fell off on the ground. 

Q: Well. (laughter) So you had to pitch it into the separator from on the ground, then. 

A: Yes. 

Q: I see. So there was a special technique to it. 

A: Yes, you had to load it right. 

Q: Did you ever lose a load here in Illinois? 

A: No, and no more out there. 

Q: Who taught you how to load a rack? 

A: Oh, you'd learn it from pitching. Course, the first thing you do is pitch bundles. 

Q: In the field. 

A: Yes. But of course, every kid wants to do the next thing. Nobody wants to be the 

pitcher for long. 

Q: Yes. 

A: Threshing was an interesting season. Wasn't interesting out in Iowa because they raised 

nothing but bearded wheat out there - oh, and they also raised barley, too. Barley had 

not only the spines of wheat but it added to it dust and, of course, itching and scratching, 

as broomcorn does. And you just go wild. 

The law in Iowa made it a heavy penalty then to burn a strawstack, consequently - here 

in Illinois if the wind was from the west, you put the engine here and the separator here 

and do it this way and the men pitched in from the sides, but they couldn't afford to take 

that chance out there, so they set it like this and one fellow always had the dirty side. 

Q: Perpendicular to the wind, in other words. 

A: Yes, crosswind. Well, yes, the fellow on the west side was all right. The east side got 

the dust of both of them and - pretty much the fellows followed rotation. They would 

trade sides. One time, late in the afternoon, one fellow ran in on the clean side twice and 


a real fight broke out. Pitchforks and some got neck yokes, but they all washed the blood 

off in the same washpan and set down and ate supper. (laughter) 

Q: I don't suppose he did that again, then, huh? 

A: Oh, he didn't do it any more that I saw. 

Q: Did you do any other job on the threshing crew? 

A: Yes. Most of the time out west that summer, I ran the tank wagon. 

Q: Oh? For the locomotive. 

A: Yes. You have a wagon that's a big barrel shape tank that would hold, maybe, twenty 

or thirty barrels of water. And you would always have to locate - sometimes a well. You 

didn't like a well because you had to pull it straight up with that big pump, back and 

forth. But most of them had farm ponds, and you pumped it up that way. Pretty hard 

work, but much easier than drawing it from a well. 

Q: Did you ever do that back here in Illinois? 

A: (indicates negative) 

Q: So, all you did was run a wagon or pitch onto the wagon here in Illinois. 

A: (indicates affirmative) 

Q: Never had occasion to build a strawstack off the end of the separator? 

A: No. No, because we - my father always arranged to have the hay balers come in that 

afternoon or the next morning to do the baling because straw, oats straw, that has not been 

rained on is good feed and we baled it. 

Q: Baled it immediately, then. 

A: Yes. Before it got wet, for the straw gets dusty if it is rained on. 

Q: So you didn't have the problem of building a stack. 

A: No. 

Q: Just blew it out. 

A: The first job I had for pay away from home, I punched wires on a hay baler one 

summer. I had to go over to the neighbor who had the hay baler at 530 in the morning 

and I came home - I got home after dark almost every day and I got five dollars a week. 

Q: Pretty tough job, 1 guess. 

A: Well, you were right in the dust and everybody took it. When you were punching wires, 

you would stand more than you'd work, but you had to be there. As every bale came out, 

you had to punch the wire through and then go to the other side and punch them back 

through. The wireboy, he could do all the odd jobs. He could run and get the jug of water 

and all that sort of thing. 



Q: What about working with corn, sir? Did you have much experience with corn? 

A: Oh, yes. We'd start to shuck corn - in those days, you might be able to start the last 

days in October in a good dry year and the average one of our farmers went by the rule 

to try to get the corn all planted before Decoration Day, all layed by, plowed, before the 

4th of July and shucked before Thanksgiving, but we didn't always make it by then. 

Q: Did you like to shuck corn? 

A: No. In the first place, they had to take us out of school, take time-out from school, and 

you had to catch up. Then of course, as long back as I've been able to tell about, one man 

would shuck two loads of corn, ordinarily thirty-five or forty bushel, about as much as you 

can haul conveniently. You'd get through by two o'clock in the afternoon and then you'd 

scoop the load off but, boy, you'd go to the field at four o'clock, before daylight, and pull 

up and sit on the wagon - several days have to wait until it got light enough - and yet 

you'd quit in the middle of the afternoon. 

Q: Still had to scoop it off, I suppose, though. 

A: If you didn't take it to the mill, you had to scoop it off. 

Q: Did you have sufficient hogs that you stored much of the corn? 

A: Yes. My dad and my brother were both left-handed, shoveling, scooping, and I was 

right-handed, so I always had to go - cross fired. 

Q: I see. You always parked it on the wrong side there. Did you do much shocking of corn? 

A: No. I don't know that I ever shocked any corn. That is a hard job, and it was a job 

for a man and there were usually men that rated as specialists in that. We didn't shock 

very much corn on our farm. 

Q: You didn't need to because the hogs - you didn't feed that sort of thing to hogs, did 

you? 

A: No. No. No, but the cattle like it, horses liked it. But it took a lot of space, it didn't 

pack down tightly. 

Q: You put the hay up in a barn, did you? 

A: Yes, sir. 

Q: You didn't have an outside haystack. 

A: No. Oh, we did a few times but generally not. We had an immense barn and one horse 

would pull hay up into the mow with a pulley and rope and, of course, that was my job, 

was driving that horse. 

Q: Oh, is that right? 

A: Oh, yes. 

Q: You never had to work up in the barn itself to adjust the hay? 

A: No, very seldom. Our barn was so high that if you just let it fall - once in awhile, 

we would put somebody up in the mow, but . . . It took one person to drive the horse so 


I could do a full man's job there, but couldn't do a full man's job up in the mow until the 

last years that I worked. 

Q: What kind of person was your mother? 

A: Well, she died when I was 9 years old. 

Q: Oh, I see. 

A: She was very quiet, dark . . . not too dark and I remember her quite well but . . . I 

knew her more from hearing Dad tell about her personality traits. I heard my father say 

many times he never heard Patsy ever say one evil or foul word, a critical word of anybody. 

Q: Well. (pause) Let's see, so actually you remember your grandmother in those days more 

than your mother as you were growing up. 

A: Yes. Yes, my grandparents on - my mother's parents died when I was 9 and 10 years 

old. (pause) I found a picture of these two grandparents. My grandfather was . . . a 

typical high-shouldered Kentuckian. (pause) He wasn't afraid of work. He'd go lay right 

down and sleep right beside of it. (locates picture in book) This was taken on the two 

grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. 

Q: Oh, my goodness. That's quite a beard he had. 

A: He was 70 years old when that was taken and she was 69. They lived in a little two-room 

box house, they called it, with a summer kitchen. Never had a mosquito bar or a screen 

on a window. I suppose they had some flies because I can recall, while I never could slap 

a fly, my granddad, when he was old, could pop 'em. Never had a rocking chair in the 

house. He made his own chairs; that is, he would make the hickory bottom. And I've seen 

him weaving that bark into the bottom of it. They survived on a little 2-acre farm in their 

latter days. 

Both were what we used to call hard-shelled Baptist, the primitive Baptist. We'd go down 

on Saturday morning and Grandpa and Grandma would walk up the railroad track about 

a half a quarter to town to church. I couldn't understand why they'd go to church on 

Saturday, but they did. And the old church is still standing there. It isn't used but it's 

still standing down there in the little village of Janesville. 

Q: I'll be doggoned. (pause) What kind of person was he? He looks kind of like he had 

a sense of humor. 

A: Well, I never saw it. He was a crotchety old cuss. They raised a big family. And I 

couldn't find, until he bought that little 2 acres, I couldn't find where he ever owned title 

to any property. They came to Illinois in the . . . 1860's or 1870's. And then that was one 

of the times of the great rush to Kansas. And they went to Kansas. Covered wagon. 

mother used to tell about it. And during the years before and immediately after the Civil 

War, you know, Kansas was a battleground. So many homes had been burned in the fighting 

that they'd find one of those homesites with the old chimney standing. And they'd camp 

there and build their fire under that chimney, cause it would . . . 

Q: Draw. 

A: . . . would draw. And there's a teacher down in Tolono that called me, I got acquainted 

with in working on this. And she had a lot more stories about the trek to Kansas. His 

name was Enos and they called him Uncle En. And she said that when they went out Uncle 

En, my grandfather, had written on his covered wagon, Kansas or Bust. 

Charles W. Clabaugh Memoir, vol. 1 - Archives/Special Collections - Norris L Brookens Library - University of Illinois at Springfield - UIS 

My

Q: Well. (laughs) 

A: Came back the next year and it says, Busted, by God! (laughter) 

Q: Did they stay out there very long? 

A: No, they just went one year and went right back, cause there was a good many summers 

along in Kansas I've heard the old soldiers sitting around talking about, that had gone out 

there, that they'd go to bed with a nice stand of corn, get up in the morning, a wind storm 

would come up, and sand storm, and it'd just cut it all to pieces. 

Q: Oh. Yes. 

A: My grandmother was a little woman and Grandpa was about six-two. One of these 

high-shouldered old hill people. You know them, their shoulders were up. 

Q: Yes. 

A: And when he'd get ready to milk, Grandpa would go out and get his cow, bring it up 

and - in the summer - and he'd cut a peach sprout to keep the flies off of her. And he'd 

hold the rope and shoo the flies off of it while Grandmother, poor old soul, would 

milk. She'd stand up and stoop over, she was so short. And one day Dad said to him, 

"Well, Grandpa, you're a big strong man. Why don't you milk and let Grandma hold the 

cow?" He said, "Nels, you know, it's always been this way with me. When I bent my back, 

I lost the grip in my hands." 

Q: Oh? Well. (laughter) 

A: I remember him telling Dad that so plainly. (pause) And he hadn't had children 

around the house for so long, and one of us kids would start to walk over to look out the 

window, "Huh-uh, don't, don't, don't fall through that window!" 

Q: Oh. Well. I see. (laughs) Did you ever go to church with him? 

A: No, I don't think so. (pause) 

Q: Did your folks go to church, your dad? 

A: Oh, yes. We were Methodists. 

Q: Was the church near where you were living there? 

A: Well in the . . . in Lerna we went to the Methodist church there, just a mile. But the 

first church I ever went to was the Presbyterian church. Cumberland Presbyterian, as they 

used to call it, after the two churches went together, you know. It was the oldest church 

in Coles County. And my grandmother, and grandfather, whom I never knew, were both 

buried there, And we'd go down - and this is one of those old churches that had two 

doors. And there was a center partition right down the middle of the church. The men 

took one side and the women took the other. 

Q: And they were still doing that? 

A: Yes. But that church, a bunch of young hoodlums from Charleston, during the 1960'3, 

got to going down there, or early 19701s, and having their pot parties in that old church, 

and burned it. When I drove up there that day to visit the graves and saw that church 

was gone, I just felt like something was gone out of me. Our kids had always gone with 

us when we'd go down on Memorial Day. And there was an old organ in there that hadn't 


een - the church hadn't been used for years, except some families would go there and 

use the grounds and the church building for family reunions. And it was just a landmark 

there. But it's gone. 

Q: Burned down. Hm. (pause) Let's see, when did you start to school, then? Just after 

you had moved to this second farm, I guess. 

A: Yes. I went to country school 2 years and half of a third year. When we went to Lerna, 

when it was a graded school, a four-room building, then I was in the third grade. But we 

walked 2 ?4 miles to school in the country. 

Q: Do you remember your first teacher? 


Q: Do you remember her name? 

A: Susie Faris. (pause) Large tall lady, raised just a quarter of a mile from the 

schoolhouse. And she went east, she went through teachers' college at Charleston and 

somewhere for a degree and went east and had a responsible position, like a state 

superintendent of schools or something like that. 

Q: Oh. So she must have been a pretty good teacher, then. 

A: Yes. You see, in those days, they'd have a 6-months' winter term and a &weeks' spring 

term. And we didn't always get the same teacher for both terms in the same year. I think 

that Susie Faris was our 6-weeks' teacher and a Mr. Bainbridge was our winter term teacher. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Because, even when I taught two and a half, three years, they were still issuing a 

third-grade certificate. A third-grade certificate permitted one to teach in a rural school 

providing you went in to a summer school and got a certain amount of credit hours. 

Q: Oh, I see. 

A: When I was a college senior in the spring of 1923, President Lord asked me to teach 

one course of civics, for 6 weeks, in what we called the mid-spring term. I accepted. The 

class was made up of these third grade certificate holders who had to attend and pass this 

course, which met twice a day during the term. Some were 50 years old or older, and some 

were very young, but generally they were pretty dull, and teaching them was close to "loves 

labor lost." My heart went out to the elementary kids that most of them would be "teaching" 

next year. 

Q: I see. (laughs) 

A: And , . , they would just enroll for that 6-week period, some of them. And some of 

them would go along . , . for the rest of the summer school. Summer school was always 

the big school. 

Q: Oh, in the summer. 

A: Yes. Because of these teachers that would come in. And I think I got a hundred dollars 

or two hundred dollars for 6 weeks, teaching one class a day - two times a day. Classes 

met twice a day. So they got a 3-months' exposure in 6 weeks, you see. 

Q: Well. (laughs) Well, let's see now, the Lerna school - you say you started not in 

Lerna . . . 


A: Indian. 

Q: Indian? 

A: Indian school. 

Q: Oh, I see. A one-room schoolhouse, I guess. 

A: Yes, sir. 

Q: And that was where this Susie Faris was teaching? 

A: Yes, and Mr. Bainbridge. 

Q: That was the first year. You went there 2 years, did you? 

A: Well, I went 2 and half of another. 

Q: And then you moved into Lerna school. 

A: Yes, 

Q: And you say it was a four-room school? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Did it have high school in it also? 

A: Not when I first went there, but we finally got - when I was in the sixth or seventh 

grade, anybody that wanted some high school credits, why, the upper-grade teacher would 

just teach them, too. And in fact, I went through the 3-year high school. And then I 

graduated from there, then I came up to Urbana and took my last year here. 

Q: Here in Urbana. 

A: Yes. 

Q: Did you board here for that year? 

A: Oh, yes. I lived on campus and worked in a restaurant on campus, just the same as 

a college student. 

Q: Oh, I see. Was the high school there connected with the university? 

A: No. No, it was Urbana's public high school. 

Q: I see. Yes. How did you happen to come up here rather than go to Mattoon? 

A: Well, because the university was here and I was determined to go to the university. And 

at that time, we had what we called "non-high school" down - "non-high districts." And 

a kid from a non-high district could go, with the county superintendent's permission, to any 

high school in the state that he wanted. And the non-high district paid his tuition. Each 

county in Illinois had a non-high district made up of all territory in the county not in a 

4-year high school district. In fact, when I got on the school problems commission, we 

finally got rid of the last "non-high school" territory there was in the state. It had outlived 

its usefulness. 


Q: I'll be darned. 

A: Yes. We had 1,600 - 1,607 or 1,609 - non-high school - no, no, that wasn't non-high 

school, that was school' districts that didn't operate a school. 

Q: Oh, that didn't operate a school. 

A: No. 

Q: I'll be doggoned, (laughs) 

A: At that time, you couldn't get state aid unless you had 15 pupils enrolled. All right, 

you live in a district over here and you only have 10. Well, you'd come over to the directors 

in our school district and say, "Why don't you have your kids come over to ours and we'll 

take them for 5 dollars a year," or 10 dollars a year or something like that. Because, if 

they got their 15, they got 1,048 dollars from the state. 

Q: Oh, I see. (laughter) Well, 

A: There was 1,600 and some of those school districts in the state and we had just as big 

of a job abolishing them. 

Q: Well. My goodness, Because people wanted to hang onto what they had. 

A: Sure, it was a good thing. My gosh, they'd just - they'd levy one mil every three or 

four years. 

Q: And pay the rest off with state aid. 

A: Yes. 

Q: Yes, sir. What did you think of your grade school education? 

A: Oh , . . I think that it was good, naturally I would. (pause) Some of the best teachers, 

I think, that I had in high school, was - but in all my public school - I had in Lerna. 


A: In the little high school. 

Q: Do you remember any others beside Miss Faris? 

A: Well, of course, she was down in the elementary because we only went to eighth grade 

- yes, Marion Girhart, from Newton, was my teacher for I don't know how many 

years. And he stumbled through Latin but, brother, he was a math teacher. 


A: Yes. 

Q: Did you pick up a considerable amount of mathematics, then? 

A: Yes. (pause) Yep, I took trigonometry at Urbana, when I got here. Mathematics were 

very simple to me. But when I come to the university, I picked out my courses that I wanted 

and went in to register and they says, "Oh, you can't have three reading courses, so we're 

going to give you college algebra." I said, "I don't want college algebra." "Well, your grade's 


good in algebra." "I don't want it." But I took it and I took it at four o'clock in the afternoon 

and I made a miserable flop out of it, but I passed it. 

Q: Why didn't you want to take it? 

A: I just didn't want any more algebra. There was so many other things that I wanted. 

Q: What were the courses you really wanted? 

A: History. 

Q: American history or . . . 

A: Yes, history and government. American history, I had a splendid high school teacher, 

an English history teacher in Urbana High School. Excellent. (pause) 

Q: Who was that? Do you remember the name? 

A: (pause) Miss Hoskins was her name. She told us, when we started in that course, she 

said, "Now, the first question on every examination that you'll have is to start with William 

the Conquerer and give the names of the monarchs and the dates of their reign." 

Q: Oh? Well. (chuckles) 

A: Just, "That's question number one, so you can just be prepared for it." And I don't think 

I could give them now, but I could have 10 years ago. 

Q: You could click them off, huh? 

A: Yes. 

Q: What made her such a good teacher? 

A: Well in the first place she expected something of you and she made you want to do 

it. She made you want to do it. And there were several real bright kids in the class and 

I didn't want - coming in from a small school, I didn't want to get too far back. 

Q: Yes. 

A: But now I do more reading in English history than all other reading put together. 


A: Yes. 

Q: Still kind of from that generation of interest back then. 

A: Yes. And then I came - as a freshman, I had Dr. Laurence Larson as the English 

history teacher in the university, and he was the world authority on the Danish era of 

English history. And he was a comedian. 


A: He was an old-like man, a Norwegian, with a mustache, handlebar mustache. And to 

go to his class was like going to a show. And he was a good teacher. 

Q: Really made it interesting, then. 


A: Interesting. Lectures were interesting . . . 

Q: What types of things did he do to make it amusing? 

A: Well he'd tell a lot of the personal things about the rulers and the characters that we 

studied about that the textbook just couldn't tell. We had a big athletic fellow by the name 

of McCann, a big redheaded Irishman from Chicago. And we were studying in one of the 

Irish wars and we had him for a lecture. And also for quiz sections. And he asked Dr. 

Larson some question like an Irishman would ask. And he was a baseball player, we played 

together out there. But he asked that question and Dr. Larson quick as a flash said, "Now, 

Mr. McCann, you're not gonna get me into that." 

Q: Well. (laughter) So he wouldn't accept a leading question, then? 

A: No, not that, it was just, "Which do you think was right and which wrong?" Something 

like that, that kind of a leading question. He lectured the first half of the first semester, 

and then Dr. Pease, who followed him as head of the department, P-E-A-S-E . . . 

Q: Is that Theodore Pease? 

A: Yes. Big bulbous fellow. Larson never used a note in his lectures and Pease read all 

of his. Stand right up and half the students would go to sleep. 


A: And when Larson came back to lecture the last half of the second semester, he walked 

into the room - and Pease was standing there - and three hundred students in that 

chemistry building auditorium just cheered and stomped their foot, you know. I felt so 

sorry for Pease. He was quite a scholar. In fact, in the centennial year of 1918, he wrote 

or edited a series of books on Illinois history. You're probably acquainted with them. 

Q: Yes, the centennial history of Illinois. 

A: Yes. 

Q: He also has a popular history of Illinois. 

A: Yes. 

Q: So he lectured you in . . . 

A: English history. 

Q: English history. 

A: Yes. It was two semesters, 9 months. And Larson lectured us one half of the first one 

and then Pease the last half of the first one and the first half of the second, and then Larson 

back for the second. And that was the time when the crowd gave Dr. Larson such a welcome 

it was a slap in the face to Pease, and they didn't mean it that way. 

Q: Yes. 

A: But that was just their reaction. 

Q: Way of showing - yes. Up until the time you went to the University of Illinois, what 

had been your experience with politics? Were you in any way aware of politics? 


I 

I 

A: Oh, my dad lived and died at that. Politics and crops was about the only thing that 

was ever talked in our house. 

Q: Oh, is that right? (laughter) 

A: Just about. And Grandmother was a young woman in, I think my dad was a year old, 

during the Civil War, and she lived through those days, lost two brothers in the service and 

another one was there. Lost a half-brother in the service. My dad was just - well he 

was active, very active, on the township level, and was elected the township tax collector 

in 1908, I guess. 

Q: Hm. This was in Coles County? 

A: Yes, Pleasant Grove Township in Coles County. And they abolished the township tax 

collector in all downstate counties just a very short time after that. Four, five, six years 

after that. Oh, I skipped school every election day. 


A: Yes. (laughter) 

Q: Was the township collector's job non-partisan? Or was it 

A: Oh, no, it was partisan. Republican. 

1 

Q: And which party was he? 

A: Republican. 

Q: So the family has always been the Republican party. 

A: My grandmother, I think, made a Republican out of my Virginia-born grandfather. She 

told this incident - I don't know whether you want this sort of a thing or not. 

Q: Yes. The background, yes. 

A: Grandfather died as I say in 1873, and the longer the mate's gone the more angelic they 

become. 

Q: Oh. Yes. 

A: When I was a big chunk of a boy looking through some of these papers, I'd see where 

he'd made his mark, and I said, "Grandma, could Grandpa read and write?" "Why, of course 

he could!" That's all I got. 


A: But during the war - Lincoln's second campaign, second election - he and she were 

stripping cane. Now they raised and made their own sugarcane sugar, and they'd take a 

little stick about like a broomstick, that long (indicates length), and after the leaves had 

quit growing, they would strip down on each side and knock those leaves off, so the - to 

ease the harvest and, I suppose, for some other reasons. And Grandpa went to vote. And 

she was such a Republican, such a Lincoln-worshiper, that she had no idea that he wouldn't 

vote for Lincoln. Came back and . . . "So," she said, "I thought he looked a little sheepish 

when he came back and I said, 'Harrison, did you vote for Lincoln?' And he wouldn't tell 

me." And she said, "I threw my cane-stripping stick right down and said, 'If you don't 

promise me that you will never vote for anybody else but a Republican the rest of your life, 


I'll never strip another strip of cane."' And when Grandma sppke like that, that's the way 

it was. (laughter) 

But when I found out then that his grandfather was a Virginian, why, then I - I'm quite 

sure. And I've run onto both political parties down east in the Clabaughs. They were 

supposed to have split over some political question, either Civil War or factionalism in the 

Revolutionary War. One of them left a "Y" in their name, or put a "Y" in the name, and 

some of them are spelled C-L-A-B-A-U-G-H and some's L-A-Y. And I can point out 25 

different ways of spelling our name in that book. 

Q: Oh, is that right? Yes, sir. (laughs) Well. 

A: When I started to write it, I went on the assumption that if there's a "Y" in the name, 

it wasn't our family. And down at the archives at Springfield one day - you see, in 1855 

and 1865 they had a state census between the decennial census. And my grandfather's name 

was spelled C-L-A-U-G-H-B-A-U-G-H. (laughter) So I said, "They all get in now. We cut 

nobody out." 



Q: So there are many spellings to your name. 

A: Yes, there sure are. 

Q: Now, your father was township collector. How di~ d he go about getting that job? Did 

he actually . . . 

A: Oh, just go out . . . in those days the primaries - they didn't have a primary in the 

townships, they just had a caucus. He was nominated and was elected. 

Q: So he actively went after it. Was he active in other party matters? 

A: Oh, yes, yes, yes. There were two of them, active Republicans, in our township. We 

were in the west side and the other in the east side. And they just worked at every 

election. I remember the election in 1916 when Hughes ran against Wilson. We all thought 

that Hughes would win and everybody else did. It was the next day before you found out 

that he did not. 

Q: Oh. 

A: California was the difference, you know. Hiram Johnson got mad because Hughes didn't 

stop to see him. He was a United States senator from there, and a somewhat rebellious 

Republican. 

Q: I see. (laughs) 

A: But anyhow, Dad said on Tuesday night that he had some misgivings. The way they'd 

get election returns then was to go down to the depot, railway station, and the telegraph 

would - the operator could take it off the wire. The Democrats were walking and the 

Republicans were standing still with their thumbs in their galluses. The next morning the 

Democrats were standing still and the Republicans were walking. 



A: California was the difference that year. 

Q: Yes. And did your father then talk much about party politics in the home? 

A: Oh, yes. Yes. I knew Bill McKinley and Grover Cleveland; I'd have known them if 

they'd have walked up. Their names and others were household words - like the names 

of neighbors. 


A: Yes. James G. Blaine and . . . protective tariff, free trade, the gold standard, and free 

silver. 

Q: So you were well indoctrinated at an early age into the party. 

A: Yes. 

Q: Did your father become active in the county itself? 

A: No. No, he didn't branch out that far. He was very active, he worked very hard for 

various candidates. But you were supposed to handle the township. He worked with the 

township committeeman, what we called precinct committeeman, but the precinct covered 

the whole township and they were supposed to handle the township. 

Q: Did you know any of the politicians at that time, any of the incumbents around? 

A: Oh, yes. Yes, we'd play baseball when - the season after the corn was layed by and 

the harvest was over, why, we'd be playing baseball down on the school ground. If a state 

senator - John Hamilton from Mattoon - or any one of the members of the House would 

come visiting into town, Dad would come down and get us kids and take us down to meet 

them. 

Q: Oh? So you got to know them. You knew who your politicians were, then, your 

representatives. 

A: Yes. We had no great big interest in them, we were more interested in the ball game. 

Q: Yes. 

A: Yes, I remember John R. Hamilton. He was a coal dealer in Mattoon. We was several 

years the senator from Mattoon. 

Q: Then what did you feel when you came to Champaign to go to school, to 

Champaign-Urbana? 

A: Well . . . 

Q: Did you get homesick? 

A: Oh, hell no. 

Q: Oh, you didn't? 

A: No! No, 1'11 tell you, a home isn't as much to you if there's no mother there. My father 

married - mother died in 1909 and he married a spinster lady in 1916. God never made 

a better creature than she was. But a boy 16 years old doesn't get any real affection for 

a woman 56. 


Q: Yes. And you left home, then, about two years after that, I guess. Or was it next year? 

A: Well when I came up to school - I was 18 years old when 1 came up here. Yes, that's 

right, 2 years. We called her Em and she was a real hardworking person. Come from a 

good family down south of Mattoon in the country. Her father had been an old Mississippi 

flatboat man. 


A: Yes, he'd buy chickens, turkeys, ducks, and take them . . . 

Q; Put them on a flatboat and float them down? 

A: Yes, to New Orleans. 

Q: I'll be doggoned. Hm. Did you get to know him very well? 

A: Oh, I just barely remember him. He was a very old man. I suspect - she, Em, was 

56 years old and I expect he was 80 then. And 65 was pretty old in those days. 

Q: Did you do much hunting at all? 

A: Oh, hunted - most of the money that I had to spend during high school, upper grades 

and in high school, I made hunting and trapping. 

Q: Oh. Where did you trap down home? 

A: Yes, at the barn. Skunks mostly. Once in a while a possum. Once in a while a 

coon. One mink. But skunks mostly. And during the World War I, we could get six 

dollars for a star skunk. 

L 1 


A: I kept several traps going. Our barn was sort of a meeting ground for skunks. And 

there was a fellow there in town would come out and get them, skin them. I didn't have 

to do that. I never skinned a skunk. 

On Saturdays I'd hunt rabbits. And during World War I again, I could buy rabbits from 

the other kids for a dime apiece and get a piece of baling wire and run through their 

hamstring and put, Hoyne Brothers, South Water Street, Chicago, on a shipping tag and 

put them on the 10:45 train that night, and I got my check back - and get 50 and 60 cents 

apiece for them - on Tuesday. Oh, I could rattle more silver coins in my pocket than any 

other kids could. 

Q: I'll be doggoned. (laughter) Did you clean those rabbits before you shipped them? 

A: No! There was - oh, we'd clean the ones we ate - no. No, we wouldn't ship those. 

Q: So it was pretty much - except for the shot that was involved, it was pretty much clear 

profit, then, huh? 

A: Yes. We paid 45 cents for 25 black powder shotgun shells. Go out and walk - I've 

shot a rabbit in about every 10-acre plot within 5-miles' circumference of that little 

village. (laughs) 



A: Yes. 

Q: Well. And there were a lot of rabbits I guess in that day. 

A: Yes. 

Q: Was there any other type animal, like fox or anything of that nature, around? 

A: No, I never saw a fox running wild until I was grown. And I never saw a pheasant. We 

had prairie chickens, But you didn't sell them. They were game. And when I first begin 

to hunt rabbits, there was no closed season on rabbits. But later on there was. 

Q: You couldn't very well ship them up in the summer though, could you? 

A: Oh, no, no, just in the winter. No, but by the 1st of March, every female was full of 

little ones. (laughs) 

Q: Yes. Well. Did you then go home each week from up here? 

A: Oh, no. 

Q: When did you run your trapping lines then? 

A: Oh, this was before I came up here. While I was still at home. 

Q: Oh, I see. 

A: This was when I was in - I would say the sixth, seventh, eighth grade and the first 

two years in high school. 

Q: Oh, 

A: Or three. 

Q: And you'd just take the rabbits down to the depot and tie the wire through their 

hamstrings and throw them aboard the train. 

A: Tag them. Put a piece of baling wire and run it through the hamstrings. 

Q: For heaven sakes. And you never lost any of those shipments? 

A: No. 

Q: 1'11 be doggoned, 

A: People very seldom stole anything in those days. We didn't have a key on our house 

on the farm until one time we went over to my grandmother, before she came to live with 

us, after my mother died - I had a sister younger than I am by 5 years. My grandmother 

lived over at Casey, Illinois, and we'd go over there about every other weekend and visit 

her. And one day we came back and there had been a big board torn off of the side of 

the barn. Well that was evidence that somebody had been horsing around, and Dad got 

a key for the house. We never had had a key for the house before. 

Q: Well. Hm. So other than that though, no one disturbed the place. 

A: No. 


Q: (pause) Did you have much occasion to hunt ducks or geese? 

A: No. No, we had no water around. I have killed a few geese, but that's when they would 

be going north or south and they'd stop on a farm pond. (pause) But I wouldn't - now 

I wouldn't carry a wild goose or duck home. 

Q: Oh, you wouldn't? 

A: No. 

Q: Why not? 

A: Well I don't like them as food. 


A: I don't like them. Don't like pheasant either. 

Q: Oh, you don't! 

A: No. Lot of people do. I guess they could cook them differently than I ever had one 

cooked. (laughs) And I can't stand turkey. 

Q: Oh? 

A: That's about the only thing I don't like. 

Q: Well I'll be doggoned. Hm. That and milk, huh? 

A: Yes. I don't know whether I like milk or not, I never tried it. 

Q: Well. (laughter) 

A: But our kids now - one of our daughters is wife of the Methodist minister in Urbana 

- First Methodist Church over there - and they have us for Thanksgiving dinner and 

Christmas dinner. My wife was raised on turkey. Well we never had a turkey on the farm 

and we never had turkey. We raised chickens, and when you raise chickens, we'd have 

chicken for those meals. Well they have a turkey, but they fix chicken for me. 


A: Of course, they don't limit it just to me, but there's always some other meat besides 

turkey. 

Q: Yes, sir. 

A: Oh, it's strong and I don't like to smell it cooking. But I suspect that most of the turkeys 

that I have eaten, back when I got a dislike for them, were not very well refrigerated. 

Q: Oh, I see. 

A: Now the evening after we have turkey, then I like sliced white meat with a lot of 

mayonnaise for a sandwich. I guess it's to kill the taste. 

Q: I see. (laughter) Yes, sir. What about sports when you were in high school? 

A: Baseball. 


Q: Baseball? 

A: Baseball was all we had. We didn't have a gymnasium. But I played baseball when 

- I played on the team at Charleston, on the varsity, in 1922 and 1923. 

Q: Oh, you did? 

A: Yes. 

Q: What position did you play in high school? 

A: Pitcher. 

Q: So you must have been pretty good at it, then, huh? 

A: Oh . . . middling, I guess. 

Q: (laughs) In high school, did you play other teams around? 

A: Yes. Yes. 

Q: What other teams were involved? 

A: Well they usually weren't high school teams because there was no other high school 

around close, But we'd play pickup teams. And when I went to school up here as a 

freshman, I went out for freshman varsity baseball. And was never cut off, but developed 

a corn on my left foot - still have it - and my ankle swelled up until - I was working 

in the library one night, I had to work with a house slipper on. So I had to give up 

baseball. I think I'd have gotten cut off. I don't think I was good enough to have made 

it. 

Q: That was here at the University of Illinois. 

A: Yes. But I played commercial-league baseball up until I was, I guess, about twenty-eight 

years old. 


A: And there was a building right down here where we had our office. The janitor of that 

building had a son, a great big lazy guy that was so lazy he could hardly start an 

elevator. And I went down one Sunday to pitch a game and this fellow was there. He come 

up three times and hit a home run off of me every time, so I didn't play any more. 


A: I thought my days were over. 

Q: And you were about twenty-eight at that time, huh? 

A: Yes. 

Q: I see. Yes, sir. Now, when you went to the University of Illinois, how many hours were 

you carrying? 

A: Eighteen. 

I 

Q: Eighteen hours. And you say you were working at the library, also? 


A: Well I worked some there in the evenings. And I worked for my meals in a restaurant. 

Q: Oh, I see. Right near the campus there? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Did you board at the same place for the University of Illinois that you did when you 

were going to high school? 

A: No. In the same block. 

Q: Oh? 

A: But it happened not to be in the same place. 

Q: Was this on the Urbana side? 

A: Yes. 

Q: (pause) Well let's see, you took English history and college algebra and what other 

courses that first year? 

A: Commercial geography and rhet, (pause) And then - that was 16 hours of courses - 

and then I had - you had 2 hours - of course, we had to take physical education and 

military. But I took library science because they said it was a pipe course. 

Q: Oh? (laughs) Well. 

A: Never worked so damn hard on a 3-hour course in my life . . . 


A: . . . a bhour course, as I did on that. 

Q: Did you enjoy it though? 

A: Well yes and . . . I got a lot of good out of it. I've held over and I use all three of 

the libraries here. The university library and Urbana and Champaign public, I have books 

from all three of them most of the time. 

Q: Yes, sir. (pause) During that first year - now let's see, how many years did you go 

to the University of Illinois then? 

A: I went to the university 1 year, run out of money, got a job teaching school, taught 2 

years - down close to Charleston, 9 mile, over at Ashmore - and took Saturday classes 

and took some reading courses, and then went back to the university down there in 

Charleston, 1 year, and graduated with my class. 

Q: Oh. Now, these Saturday courses were down at Charleston, were they? 

A: Yes. 

Q: And so then you graduated the same year you would have graduated if you'd have been 

up here. 

A: Yes. 


Q: That was with what, a bachelor in education? 

A: Yes. 

Q: And what do you remember about Charleston in those days, the campus down there? 

A: Oh, of course the campus - that normal school at Charleston, the teachers' college, was 

one man, L. C. Lord, the president. And a chapel - he had us at chapel every day. And 

he'd - it was thirty or forty minutes to read a chapter of the Bible and sing a song or 

two. And then he'd do the announcements and then he'd talk. And those talks, those 

lectures that he would give - although he wouldn't have dignified them by calling them 

lectures - were worth more than any college course I ever took. And I think that anybody 

would say that was true. At times Mr. Lord read to us, often from Kipling, or Dickens; 

at times from William James. He had before him people from kindergarten to college 

seniors, and he held the interest of all. 

Q: And this was done at chapel each day. 

A: Yes. 

Q: What was the tenor, a morality sort of thing? 

A: Oh, teachers. He'd talk about what made a good teacher and how to do it. And then 

he was a scholar in literature and in the arts. A good singer. Sometimes the music 

department would put on programs. But usually the program was just L. C. Lord. (laughs) 

Q: I see. 1'11 be doggoned. 

A: Yes. My wife swears that she can get in a crowd and talk 10 minutes to everyone there 

and she could tell every one of them that had gone to school at Charleston when Dr. Lord 

was the president. 


A: Yes, 

Q: What particular characteristics does she look for? 

A: Oh, just his philosophy. 

Q: I see. 

A: And . . . he hated shotgun answers. He'd ask a question and you'd start to rambling 

around and he'd say, "I ask you for a can of corn and you gave me a can of kraut." 

Q: Oh. Well. (laughter) 

A: Well now you might forget what the question was that he asked but you wouldn't forget 

that statement. 

Q: I see. (laughs) Yes, sir. 

A: And he was a scholar of the old school. And I was told by a fellow who finally came 

to Charleston to teach, that he went in - he was a Yale man - and he went in to . . . a 

faculty adviser, I guess. And he was a history major. And he said he'd like to go west, 

get out west somewhere. The adviser said, "Then go to Charleston, Illinois. Go to Lord's 

school.'' 


So he came. Mr. Widger was his name. He became an outstanding English teacher. But 

after Dr. Lord had interviewed him, asked him some questions, and - oh, Mr. Widger says, 

"Well, Dr. Lord" - and he didn't want that "Doctor" business. He said the most 

complimentary thing you could say about anybody is "Mister." And he said that, "I'm a 

history teacher." Dr. Lord named his adviser and, "He said you were a teacher. I want 

a grammar teacher. You don't go into class for another month, I'll teach you all the 

grammar you need." 


A: And he stayed in grammar and come up here [University of Illinois] and got a doctor's 

degree later. 

Q: Well, for goodness sakes. Hm. Then at this Ashmore school, what did you teach? 

A: Oh, God, whatever the other two teachers couldn't teach. There were only three of us. I 

taught algebra, geometry, American history, and Latin. I signed my contract with the clerk 

of the board, he was a blacksmith, and I was going to go right out and on back to Charleston 

and he said, "Say, I better tell you what you're supposed to teach." And he said, "We'd like 

to have Latin taught here and neither one of the other teachers can teach Latin," He says, 

"Can you?" I said, "Yes," I'd had 2 years. And, brother, I spent - it was a month before 

school started, and I spent my month on that old Latin book, I tell you! (laughs) Two years 

of Latin. Latin and Julius Caesar. 

But they didn't learn any Latin, probably; but I know one thing, I learned more grammar 

than I had in all grammar and English courses I had ever taken. 

Q: Oh? (laughter) I see. Yes, sir. Well. Let's see, you were there for what, 2 years, you 

say? 

A: Yes, sir. 

Q: How large a school was Ashmore school? 

A: Oh, I would say . . . fifty, maybe, tops. 

Q: And this was a high school? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Where did you live while you went to school there? Right near the school? Or was it 

close enough to home? 

A: No, I lived in Charleston. 

Q: Ashmore High School is in Charleston. 

A: No, no. No, no. I didn't - you said, "Where did you live when you went to school?" 

Now did you mean when I taught? 

Q: When you taught. 

A: Well I lived at Ashmore. 

Q: At Ashmore. 

A: A little town, yes. It was a town of about seven, eight hundred. 


Q: How far was it from Charleston? 

A: Nine miles. 

Q: I see. So it was no problem getting there for Saturday courses and that sort of thing, 

A: No. No, I'd go in on - there was a train that left Ashmore about seven o'clock in the 

evening. 

Q: Then when you went to the final year at Charleston, you moved then into Charleston 

itself. 

A: Oh, yes. I went to school, summer schools, for two summer schools too. 

Q: Oh. Yes. And then graduated with your BE. In what year would that have been? 


Q: Sir, I failed to record your parents' names yesterday. Your father's name was what? 

A: Thomas Nelson Clabaugh. 

Q: And your mother's name. 

A: Patsy Richardson. 

Q: Patsy Richardson Clabaugh. Okay. Now you had one brother and one sister, is that 

correct? 

A: Yes, and one younger brother who died in infancy. Brother was older and the other two 

were younger than I. 

Q: I see. What do you remember about your older brother? 

A: Oh, I remember about everything about him because in 1925 he begin to work for me 

as a mechanic and worked for me installing metal weather strips - that was my contracting 

business - and worked for me until he died in 1949. So we were constantly together during 

all of those years. 

Q: So you were very close from the beginning, then. 

A: And the amicable relationships that existed between my father and his brothers existed 

between my brother and me all the time. 

Q: What was his education? Did he go on to the University of Illinois? 

A: No, he didn't go through high school. He went through 2 years of high school. 

Q: I see. Yes. Then was he doing farm work? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Until he went to work with you, then. 


A: No, he worked at several other jobs in the meantime. He quit high school about, oh, 

1917, something like that. And he didn't go to work for me until 1925. I went in the 

weather strip business in 1925, and was in it 40 years. He worked on the railroad for a 

short time, but for several years with a roofing company in Mattoon. 

Q: And what was his name? 

A: Harry. 

Q: And what was your sister's name? 

A: Mabel. 

Q: And she's younger than you . . . 

A: And living in California. 

Q: Where in California? 

A: Yuba City. 

Q: Yuba City. I'm not familiar . . . 

A: Do you remember about four or five years ago when that man went mad out there and 

murdered and buried thirteen or fourteen Mexican workers on his farm? 

Q: Yes. 

A: That was at Yuba City. 

Q: Oh, I see. Well for goodness sakes. 

A: Some forty miles north of Sacramento. 

Q: I see. What do you remember about her in your early days at home? 

A: Well just about what you'd remember about your sister I suppose. She had an 

unfortunate life in that her mother died when she was 4 and she was brought up by, 

practically raised by a grandmother, who was seventy-four or seventy-five years old when 

she took her. And she now says that about all she remembers was where she ate and slept 

and the family religious services they had every morning in their home. Grandmother, for 

her second husband, married a United Brethren minister. He was retired then. 

Q: So this was your mother's mother. That grandmother? 

A: No, my father's mother. The one who I said was sort of a principal character in that 

book. 

Q: Yes. I see. And what education did she have? Did she go on to school? 

A: Oh, she graduated from eighth grade I think, and went to work. My parents had moved 

to Mattoon then and she had no interest in going to high school. Then she went to work 

in a restaurant. And then came to Champaign after we were up here and got a job at the 

salad bar in the Union building restaurant. 

Q: Oh, out at the university. 


A: And of course, everybody thought that I got her her job politically, and I didn't have 

any idea she was making application for that job. 

Q: Well! (laughter) Okay. You had mentioned that your father was interested in politics 

to some extent and that he dragged you away from ball games to go visit with the senators 

and representatives. Do you remember anything about those senators and 

representatives? Do you remember their names, for example? 

A: Well, I've mentioned Senator John R. Hamilton, He was a coal dealer. He was an 

elderly man when I knew him. I know he was a Republican, I know nothing about his 

activity in the General Assembly. He was there from 1913 to 1933, long enough that he 

was the only senator that I recall during those days of, oh, my juvenile years. 

And there was only one legislator that I recall and his name was Cork, and he was from 

Marshall, Clark County, which was in our district then and still is in that 

district. (pause) I recall this that despite the fact that it was the littlest county in our 

district, it seemed to swing more political weight than any county there. Mattoon was a 

Republican town, fairly strong. Charleston was a fairly Democratic town. The county was 

rather evenly divided, and whichever side that Clark County went on in a legislative election 

was usually it. And I was told - I haven't checked it - that at one time Clark County 

had all three of the House members from that district. And they've had two from that 

district several times since I have been in the General Assembly. But the senator always 

came from Coles. Practically always. 

Q: Do you remember any particular characteristics or impressions of Mr. Cork? 

A: No, just - he was a little man, that's all I recall. 

Q: Who was George Neal. I ran across . . . 

A: George Neal was - we always knew him as Bige Neal - he was a member of the General 

Assembly, a very close friend of my father's, from Cumberland County. Served from 1891 

to 1893. I've related in my book several memories of Bige Neal. And not until I got 

serioualy into the research for this article that I wrote for the county school treasurers and 

trustees, did I take the time to actually. dig him up. And we always knew him as Bige, 

but he wasn't. His name was George A. 

He was a Republican from a Democratic district. I recall very clearly be was a very ardent 

Sunday school man. And in that time in Illinois, and particularly in our area, regardless 

of the creed - the church that you belonged to - the Sunday schools had an 

association. And Bige was very influential in that Sunday school organization. 

When he was in the General Assembly, the United States senator was elected by the 

members of the legislature, you know, and - up until 1913. And I remember Bige being 

at our house one afternoon and Bige told about being offered 10,000 dollars for his vote for 

United States senator. And it was one of those years when the - and I can't tell you just 

which year it was - that the Republicans and Democrats were evenly divided and there 

were three what they called F-M-B-A's, Farm Mutual Benefit Association members. And 

they couldn't elect either a Republican or Democrat. And Bige was offered, so he told Dad, 

10,000 dollars for his vote. Well, he was just a pants-pocket man, just a little-town fella, 

I suppose maybe owned a little farm, but 10,000 dollars would have put him on easy street 

for the rest of his life. And he turned it down. And after he left, I said to Dad, "Well, 

why would Mr. Neal" - of course, I was very young then - "why would he turn down that 

much money?" "Well," he said, "Son, if it would have been $1 million, you couldn't have 

bought Bige Neal." But if you could have sold one of those two candidates as being a better 

Sunday school man than the other one, he could have probably got Bige's vote. 


Q: Well, I'll be doggoned! (laughter) 

A: Then I've thought about - my dad didn't know about it - but I've thought about 

Walpole's statement to some dignitary that he was showing around the house in Parliament, 

and he said, "Every man there has his price." Well, Sunday school activity was Bige's price. 

Q: I see. 

A: Would have been. Probably wouldn't have broken party lines, but it would have been 

- dad made his point. 

Q: Yes, sir. Were you active in Sunday school at that time? 

A: Oh, yes. Yes, I attended Sunday school regularly. Of course, in a little town in those 

days - and you usually went as far as you could walk or drive a horse in an hour or so 

- Sunday school or church were just, they just - it was harder not to be associated with 

it because most of the other kids were. I recalled just recently that I was secretary of our 

Sunday school when I was still there. So that meant before I was 18, cause I left there 

and came up here when I was 18. 

Q: As a teenager, yes. 

A: Suppose that's picking that up? Am I talking loud enough? 

(taping stopped to check recorder, then resumed) 

Q: Okay. Yes, it's coming through very well, sir. (pause) Okay. What about social 

activity during your teenage years? Did you have church socials and that sort of thing? 

A: Yes, and school socials. And for a period of around four years, I would say from 1913 

to 1917 maybe, I was very fortunate, and most of my Methodist kids were. We had a 

minister by the name of Bracewell who was a man of family. And his maiden daughter, 

which was, I suspect, probably thirty years old, talented in a small way in music and singing 

and so on. And she sort of took over the leadership of the young people. And we'd have 

parties at their house and at - well, we never had them in the church, and there was no 

other building associated - but Edna Bracewell was a good influence on the young people. 

Q: What types of things did you do at those parties? 

A: Oh, all the games from Drop the Handkerchief . . . (laughs) . . . and Go Sheepy Go 

- not Go Sheepy Go, no - The Farmer in the Dell. (pause) We passed one of the places 

the other day and I mentioned that when we were driving, and my wife sang the little song 

that went with it. But the lawn party games, in the summer, but no dancing. And in the 

winter . . . oh, Pin the Tail on the Donkey and Blind Man's Bluff and bobbing for apples 

and all of that sort of thing. Make candy . . . 

Q: Were you good at pulling taffy? 

A: Well, we didn't do that. 

Q: Oh, you didn't? 

A: No, not that I recall. And Mattoon Lake - not the one now but the first lake - it 

was over at Paradise, about six or seven miles west of home, Lerna - we'd go over there 

on Sunday school picnics. And sometimes over at the Embarras River which was about the 

same distance east. 


Q: I see. Did you swim on those occasions, then? 

A: Oh, some. But over on the lake it was mostly boat riding. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Besides playing baseball, one of our principal - and fishing in the little Sweetwater 

Creek, which was a few miles north. Once in a while we'd go to the Embarras, but it wasn't 

very good fishing. But there were various farm ponds. But we kids would fight bumblebees 

on summer Sunday afternoons, that was the funnest thing of all. Cause you always run 

a risk of getting stung. 

Q: What'd you use to fight them with? 

A: You'd make a paddle out of a piece off the side of a box, Most everything came - there 

wasn't any such thing as shipping in paper cartons then, they shipped in pine 

boxes. Sometimes we'd use an old tennis racquet. 

Q: So you'd go out and stir up a nest and then keep them from stinging you, then? 

A: Well we could locate them during the week and we'd tease them until Sunday. Tease 

them by throwing a clod into them or doing that sort of thing. And they soon learned to 

be real mean. 

Q: Yes. (laughs) Did you ever get stung? 

A: Oh, hundreds of times! 

Q: Well! (laughs) 

A: I was fortunate that a bee sting didn't bother me much more than a mosquito bite. My 

brother, he'd get stung with a bee and his eyes would swell shut. 


A: Yes. He was sensitive to those things. 

Q: Did you ever plow up a bee's nest? 

A: Oh, yes. The worst one was with a hay tedder. That was the one that would kick up 

the hay. And there was no flight from it because behind you were these, on a cam, these 

fifteen or twenty metal forks going up and down. And they'd hit a bumblebee's nest and 

throw it up in the air . . . 

Q: Oh, boy! (laughter) 

A: And you had to watch your mules - we used mules mostly in the field - because 

bumblebees would sting them. And if they'll sting a dark-colored horse or mule, almost 

invariably there'll be a little hair came out right around it and it'll come in white. And 

it damaged the sale of a horse or a mule. 

Q: Oh, is that . . . 

A: Yes. It was a blemish. 

Q: Hm. Did you ever have a runaway during that sort of thing? 


A: I never did have, but my brother had one with a team of mules. Mules differ from 

horses. Horses will get scared and then they scare themselves. And they just get scared 

more and they'll run into a brick wall. They'd run off over, like a buffalo used to, off over 

a cliff. Mule, he won't hurt himself. He'll run till he gets tired, then he stops. He'll run, 

if he's on the road, until he comes to a corner and he'll slow down and go around that corner 

and take off again. 

Q: Oh? Well! (laughs) But a horse wouldn't do that? 

A: No. I've always maintained the mule was a lot smarter than the horse. Mule will 

seldom get hurt. 

Q: Which did you have on the farm there, mules or horses? 

A: Both. 

Q: How many horses did you normally have on the farm? 

A: Oh, six to eight. And included in - if we had eight, that meant we had two teams of 

mules. A mule is a lot better in most farm work. A horse's hooves are that big and a 

mule's this big. (demonstrates) 

Q: Much smaller. 

A: And a horse, when they turn at the end in a cornfield, they just mow down the 

corn. Mule steps high, like that. (demonstrates) And they were much more desirable. 

Q: Where did your dad usually get his horses? 

A: Well there was a farmer lived over west of town by the name of Henry Allison. And 

Dad tried to buy, each spring, a team of 3 year olds. Now they hadn't reached prime yet, 

but they had been broken. And he'd get that season's work out of them and the next 

season's work and then, when they're 4 years old, sell them. That's when a draft horse is 

in his prime. And he'd get 2 years' work out of them for their feed and sell - he always 

dealt in good horses. Not blooded horses, but good horses - and sell them from 200 dollars 

to 250 dollars more than he paid for them. 

Q: Oh. Was he a pretty good chooser of horses? 

A: Yes. And the man, this Henry Allison who raised and bought - dad and he were very 

close friends and he never sold him a bad horse. 

Q: Yes. Did he also get his mules from the same place? 

A: No, we raised them. 


A: Yes, we raised the mules. 

Q: Did you have a - what would it be called, a stud mule there? 

A: No. No, you breed a horse mare to a jack . . . 

Q: Oh, I see. 

A: . . . who is a male jenny. Mules aren't fertile. 


Q: Did you have a jack there on the . . . 

A: No. There was one in town. They were scattered about the country. Now they bring, 

with horse-raisers and mule-raisers, they bring the stud - or the jack - to the farm. And 

then you took them to the town, or wherever you were taking them, to breed them. 

Little mules are lots easier to raise. They won't hurt themselves. They get fastened, 

tangled up in something and they'll get out without hurting themselves. A horse gets 

panicky. Mules were always salable cause then they were using mules in the mipes, and 

there were a lot of coal mines in Illinois. And mules were always salable, either just when 

you weaned it or one or two or three years old. I don't recall that we ever kept and broke 

and worked mules that we raised. Don't recall that we did. 

Q: Raised them for sale, then, primarily. 

A: Yes. You could sell them in the fall. They would come in April - March or April, 

usually April - and you could sell them in the fall for 75 dollars or 80 dollars. And they're 

practically no trouble to break at all. They've served man a long time. 

Q: Yes, I guess so. How many did you raise each year normally? 

A: Two. And, almost invariably, we had one that was just as gentle as a lamb and the 

other just wilder than a March hare! 


A: Raised right together. 

Q: And no explanation as to why. 

A: No explanation because sometimes the same mare would have an opposite disposition 

youngster in 2 successive years. 

Q: Did you ever have any sheep on the farm? 

A: No. 

Q: Did you have hedge at that time, hedge rows? 

A: We had a half a quarter of hedge. And that was enough. 

Q: Did you have to trim it? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Did you enjoy trimming it? 

A: No, I did not. And I got to do most of it. 


A: We didn't have clippers then. Just had a knife. And you had to learn to cut 

up. Otherwise all you did was just splinter the hedge's sproyts or twigs. 

A: Did you keep it in pretty good shape? 

A: Oh, acceptable. 


Q: What did you have to do, trim it once a year? 

A: (pause) Oh, I suppose we did. But Dad was so meticulous about always keeping his 

boys busy that I suspect that, if some sprouts got a little long, we cut it oftener. The oftener 

you cut it the easier it is to cut. One time it's like cutting brush, and when you cut it 

early, it's like cutting weeds. 

Q: Hm. I see. In regard to cutting weeds, did you learn how to use a scythe very well? 

A: Oh, yes. We had rail fences. Not all of our fences were rail - well, they were all - 

when we moved on this last farm where we finished out, why, it was all rail fence, but we , 

replaced them with wire. And rail fence rows are a great place for weeds. 

Q: So you had to trim with a scythe under the bottom rail all the way around, then? 

A: Yes, 

Q: Did you do the front lawn that way, around the house? 

Q: No, we usually mowed it with a mowing machine, and the reap hook. 

Q: A reap hook? 

A: A reap hook. A little hook . . . 

Q: Oh, I see. Yes. 

A: . . . about, oh, ten inches across. 

Q: Yes. With a short handle that . . . 

A: Yes. We didn't have a lawn mower at that time. 

Q: I see. What do you remember about that house? Was it a comfortable house to live 

in? 

A: Oh, it wouldn't be now. It was a big house, every room upstairs exactly the same size 

and shape as the one below it. The partition would run right straight up. And the room 

right above the living room was the same size and the same shape as the living room, the 

one above the kitchen was the same size. And there was no heat upstairs. The only heat 

- and not even a ventilator. And in the winter it was cold and in the summer it was so 

hot, because there was no insulation in houses then. But - oh, it was comfortable to live 

in. It faced the west, and there was nothing for - as a fellow said, there was nothing 

between the west door and the North Pole except a barbed wire fence and the top wire was 

down on it. (laughter) So we didn't use our west door in the winter at all. We had a 

big carriage comforter and we just tacked that up over that door and used the back door 

all the time. But in the summer, the southwest room was very pleasant, if there was any 

wind at all. 

Q: Oh. Yes, It usually came from the west. 

A: The house was up on a little bit of a knoll, very close to the road, and then it was high. A 

full two stories, so we were pretty high up. 

Q: Did you have a cellar there? 

A: Yes, we had a cellar. A terrible cellar. (laughs) 


Q: Oh? 

A: There was no floor in it and I've seen 3 feet of water in it. 


A: Yes. We had a big orchard, had apples, pears, and we'd put two and three hundred 

bushel of apples in the cellar. Just build a bed up about two and a half or three feet and 

then cover it with boards and then put straw on them. Never froze down there. And we'd 

dump the apples. Ben Davis here and the Willow Twigs here and the Grimes Goldens here 

and all around. And then every couple of weeks we'd have to go down and sort the apples 

and get out the bad ones and if they was half-bad, why, Grandma made apple butter out 

of them or stewed them. And take some others to town and sell them for 50 cents a bushel. 

Q: Well. (laughter) What else did you store in the cellar? Potatoes and that sort of 

thing? 

A: Usually buried them. We buried them in the garden. 

Q: Did you use horse manure to keep them from freezing? 

A: No. No, on the higher spots in the garden, we'd pile, again, pile straw on the ground, 

oh, this wide. (indicates about a yard) And then put the straw over the potatoes. And 

sweet potatoes and turnips. A turnip will just keep interminably. Won't rot, they'll dry 

up. And then we'd cover them with straw and then cover that whole pile with dirt. 

And then, when you waited until it froze, then you'd cut a little door, just a little hole, and 

reach in and get what you wanted, and close the hole. Nothing froze when covered correctly. 

Q: Did your grandmother do much canning and putting up of . . . 

A: Oh, I suppose she did. Though in her later years, Dad would hire - now for instance, 

cherries. We had a lot of cherry trees. And we'd put up gallons and gallons of 

cherries. But he would hire a lady to come out from town and process them. A dollar a 

day. And I suspect that most of the canning was done that way. Tomatoes, of course. We 

canned a lot of tomatoes. We didn't can any beans or anything like that. 

Q: Did you butcher your own hogs there? 

A: Yes. 

Q: What was your job in the butchering? 

A: "Charley, do this. Charley, do that. Charley, do this." 

Q: Oh. (laughter) 

A: I never did any of the actual cutting up. Dad had been a custom butcher back in his 

younger years in the little village. He'd butcher for people and then he would butcher hogs 

for people and sell them, and was rather expert at it. 

Q: Well. 

A: Just as soon as the weather got cool in the fall, you'd butcher one small-sized hog. And 

then up later in the winter when - middle and last of December - then two or three of 

the neighbors would get together and they would kill the hog at their house and bring it 

over and you'd use - it was always at our place where we heated the water for the scalding 


of the hog. And had an old sled put up - set the barrel down in like 

this. (demonstrates) And then they'd work on this sled and then that's where you'd 

remove the hog's hair. Hang it up on a pole to let it cool out. Put it in the smokehouse, 

outdoor smokehouse, overnight and then cut it up in the morning. 

Q: Then did you smoke the ham or the results of the butchering? 

A: I don't know that we did. There was a little butcher shop in town that we could smoke 

meat. But, if you hadn't been accustomed to smoked meat, you didn't necessarily prefer 

it. But I do remember some smoked hams. But I don't recall any other, sidemeat or 

anything like that. 

Q: Did you put it up in salt? 

A: Yes, just salted it and put it in a barrel usually, or barrels. The pig's feet and liver 

and the tenderloin - you'd take that out. And we'd render lard, of course. And cut up 

the head - cook the head and then use that for what you call headcheese. 

Q: Oh. Yes. 

A: I was down just last week, down at Arthur. They have several custom butcher shops 

down there, out in the country. 

Q: With the Mormon type - or Amish is it? 

A: Amish, yes. And they had headcheese for sale in one of those. And there was all kinds 

of headcheese. Some was - had a pickle - that is, had vinegar and seasoning in it. And 

some of it was not - if I'd have thought this had of been the season of the vinegar and 

spices, I'd have got some of it, because I liked it. 

Q: Yes. (pause) Let's see, how did you go about getting your first teaching certificate? 

A: Well, that's a story in itself. (laughs) 

Q: Oh? 

A: You had to have - to teach in a high school, the law required that you had to have 

a first-grade certificate. And the only way you could get a first-grade certificate was to write 

- you had to write an examination to get any one of the three grades of certificates. You'd 

write an examination that the county superintendent gave. I think he gave it on questions 

that were prepared by the state office in Springfield. And, to teach in high school, you must 

have 6 months of successful teaching. But there was a provision in the law that the county 

superintendent could issue a provisional first-grade certificate. 

After I got a job to teach, then I went to Mr. Minter, the county superintendent in 

Charleston, and told him that I'd like to write on the examination and get a certificate 

because I had a contract signed to teach in high school. "Well," he says, "you know, you 

have to have 6 months of teaching. And you'll have to pass that examination, all subjects 

at one time. And we've never had a student who passed the first-grade certificate 

examination in one writing." Because then you could carry over for three times. 

Q: I see. 

A: And I said, "Well . . ." "But," he says, "I could issue you a provisional certificate." And 

he said, "Charles, I'll do that if you pass that examination." And I did and he did. 



A: And at the end of the provisional certificate, then I had 6 months ~f successful 

teaching. If you hold a job, you're successful. 

Q: I see. Yes, sir. (laughs) What was the examination like? 

A: Oh, they examined you on . . . both elementary and high school questions. History and 

geography and . . . grammar, and mathematics, of course. And I don't recall all of 

them. But we used to go to Toledo, in Cumberland County, to take the examination because 

we could get a train down in the morning and back in the evening. And I took the 

examination there, but if it had been taken in Charleston, it would have been the same 

examination. And I had just -- because my girl that I was generally running around with 

then was going to be a teacher and take examinations - there would be quite a few of the 

kids would go take examinations just to try out and see what they could do. So I was 

accustomed to the routine. But I'd never taken a first-grade certificate examination before. 

Q: And it was mainly an examination of your level of knowledge, was it? 

A: Yes. Yes, that was it. 

Q: Did you ever have any training or instruction in how to be a teacher? 

A: Not until after I had taught 2 years. Then of course, I had it at Charleston. And of 

course, what you do, you follow, generally, the pattern that your teachers have 

followed. And as I told you I had one exceptionally good high school teacher in 

Lerna. That was this man, Mr. Girhart. And I think I followed his methods pretty closely. 

Q: What did you think when you reported in for duty that first day? 

A: Well I had spent, as I told you yesterday, the greater part of a month boning on Latin. 

Q: Yes, sir. (laughter) And did you feel prepared, then? 

A: Oh, sure. Lord, I knew everything. I had no questions, no doubts about it, And there 

were only three of us teachers, high school teachers, in the school. 

Q: What were the size of your classes in those days? 

A: Well, I should say fifteen. The senior class - I think there was anly about six kids in 

the senior class. And I think I had one or two juniors taking American history. And my 

second year of Latin class came very poorly prepared and I had to divide the class into an 

"A" and "B" section and taught another class each day - never occurred to me but that 

I ought to teach another class if I had time. 

Q: Oh? Well. 

A: Because I had a period. And I didn't teach them anything about Julius Caesar, that 

class, because they just couldn't make it. But that was an easy way to keep from flunking 

them, though I didn't have that as an idea. But they were not grounded at all. 

Q: Did you have to discuss with anyone that procedure with the class? 

A: The principal. 

Q: Yes. Who was the principal? 

A: Ralph Adams. 


Q: Was he an easy person to work with? 

A: (pause) Yes. Yes, Ralph was very good to work with. We roomed together and - 

when I was going back and forth to Charleston taking work. His father was a janitor at 

the normal school and they lived just a block from the school, and I'd go there and stay 

all night and eat breakfast at their place for a fee, Ralph was good to work for. He didn't 

teach very much longer. He went with Sears Roebuck. And I got a letter from him about 

two years ago. 

Q: Is he still with Sears and Roebuck? 

A: No, he'd retired. And had gone to Arizona. 

Q: Well. So he's still living, then? 

A: He was then. He was a year or two older than I. 

Q: And was it the principal and two teachers, then, in high school? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Who was the other teacher? 

A: Nell Zehner. 

Q: What type person was she? 

A: Excellent teacher. She had graduated from the teachers' college. 

Q: Oh? 

A: And excellent with young people. Her only fault was that she was so concerned that 

she let things get to her too much. But she finally ended up as the assistant principal of 

Champaign High School. 


A: I think maybe principal of Champaign High School, I'm not sure. 


Q: And you were there then for 2 years? 

A: Yes. 

Q: And then you went to Charleston for full time for 2 years. 

A: One year. 

Q: And graduated. What do you remember about the campus at Charleston at that time? 

A: Well, we had some three hundred, three hundred and fifty students in school. Now, that 

did not count the - they had a high school, they called it the training school. And they 

had a grade school for the practice teaching. And as I say, that school, Mr. Lord was that 

school. Mr. Lord visited classes and would question students, sometimes right in the 

class. You'd have a faculty revolution if you tried that now, 


Q: Yes. (laughs) 

A: But Doc Lord ran the school. And I've often said I would liked to have seen what would 

have happened in his school in the 1960's. He died in 1937 or 1938, like that. One of my 

cousins, who was at school that same time I did, said, "How do you think Doc Lord would 

have reacted to that thing?" I said, "He wouldn't have had to act. It never would have 

been that way. It never would have been that way under him," 

Q: This was the student disruption in the 1960's? 

A: Yes. Yes. Because he knew what a college ought to be and he saw to it that it was. If 

a school's amall enough, you had close contacts with all the teachers, whether they were 

your teachers or not. In fact they had faculty meetings and in those faculty meetings every 

student in the school was discussed sometime. 

Q: As to the problems that they might be having, or how they were getting along and all 

that? 

A: Yes. I had to work of course, and I got a job as a night clerk in a hotel downtown, 

it was just three-quarters of a mile. And I'd go to work at ten o'clock of night and work 

until 5 in the morning and go to school. 

Q: When did you study? 

A: Oh, behind the desk. 

Q: Oh, I see. (laughs) 

A: And slept behind the desk in the hotel. It was permissible. The only thing was, there 

was a train that left at 346 for Indianapolis. And in those days Indianapolis was a great 

center for traveling men. Terre Haute and Indianapolis both. Hullman and 

Company. And Van Camp Hardware Company always had a man. And we'd always have 

to wake those fellows for the 346 train. 

Q: But other than that, it wasn't much of a time-consuming job. You had time to study. 

A: You just had to be there. And of course, you didn't get a good night's sleep but . . . it 

was small, a family hotel. And some people lived there. And if they had a rummy game 

and they needed a hand to play rummy, you had to play rummy. 

Q: (laughs) Well. 

A: And as long as there was somebody up in the lobby of the hotel, you couldn't go to bed, 

Q: Oh, I see. (laughter) 

A: But I held out until February and I got a cold and got sick. They told me at school 

that I'd better discontinue the job and I did. And got an old friend of the family to let 

me go on the cuff for board and room for the rest of the year. 

Oh, I worked like a dog when I was in school here at the University of Illinois. My landlady 

was run crazy with people, They learned I had been a farmer and knew how to make 

garden. Make garden and mow lawns and so on. And she'd run crazy keeping track of 

my telephone calls. (laughter) 

But I never had a question, Mr. Waggoner, whether I had time to do it. I'd And time to 

do it and I'd do it. My father and mother were both just hard up. I don't remember of 


my father sending me money up here in school, and certainly not at Charleston. But I 

remember several times of sending money home. 

Q: So you did considerable gardening work, then, here. 


Q: What kind of curriculum did you follow there at Charleston that last year? 

A: Well, I had American history and . . . English literature. (pause) Biology. I have to 

think of my teachers and then by thinking of them, I can think of - and then 

education. Fifty years before they would have called it pedagogy. Methods. You had 

methods for one term and then two terms, the first term you taught in the elementary, and 

if you were going for high school teaching for a degree, then you taught in the high 

school. And I taught numbers in the third grade, elementary. And I taught American 

history in the high school. And then psychology, and that's a class that Mr. Lord 

taught. And that was a delightful experience. I took economics one term and sociology 

one term. I don't remember just how they broke that up but . . . 

Q: Then - you graduated in what year? 

Q: Do you remember the graduation ceremony? 

A: Very well. 

Q: What happened? 

A: A man from Ripon College in Wisconsin made the commencement address. Wasn't a 

boring thing at all. 

Q: Oh? 

A: No, it was very high-class. (pause) And I have recalled from time to time some of the 

things that he mentioned, some of the stories that he told. It wasn't a humorous thing but 

it was very interesting I recall. 

Q: Did you have caps and gowns in those days? 

A: Yes. 

Q: How large a graduating class was it? 

A: Oh, I haven't any idea. I would suppose - well now, that was the first year that that 

college had graduated people with a degree and I think there were six or seven of us. Now 

the one man had graduated before by taking courses that would lend to graduation and he 

got his degree. But he was the first one, only one, prior to the year that I graduated. But 

we all graduated the same time. 

Now there was a 2-year course, which was the regular, normal school course, preparation 

for elementary teaching and I would say there were probably seventy-five - no, there 

wouldn't have been in the school - well, three hundred and fifty, there wouldn't have been 

seventy-five seniors. Maybe sixty. I don't know. 

Q: Of which, then, six or seven were actually receiving the degree? 


A: Yes. 

Q: What was the difference, then? The amount of work that had been accomplished? 

A: Oh, yes. You'd just take 2 years. But if you took 2-year terminal course, then you had 

to take two terms of teaching in elementary, whereas, if you were going for the high school 

certificate, you took one course of elementary and one course of high sohool teaching. 

Q: I see. In addition. 

A: Yes. 

Q: And then the degree was a bachelor's in education at that time? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Let's see, now. What did that do to your certification? Did you have to apply, then, 

for a teaching certificate? 

A: No, you'd get a high school teacher's certificate. 

Q: That came with the course of instruction. 

A: Which was the next year above - next grade above the first-grade, it was called a high 

school certificate. 

Q: Yes. 

A: And I got a job - I was a history major - and I got a job. Pretty hard to get jobs 

in 1923. And a fellow came down from Farmington, Illinois, up west of Peoria, and 1 liked 

him and he obviously liked me and Mr. Lord recommended me. And after we got practically 

through the discussion, I said, "What history classes do I teach?" "Oh," he said, "I want 

you to teach mathematics." 

Q: Oh. Well. (laughs) 

A: So I taught the first grade of algebra and plane and solid geometry, 

Q: The two courses then? 

A: Yes. 

Q: And this was at Farmington. Did you find Farrnington a strange place to go? 

A: Yes, because there was scarcely a foreign-born person lived within 5 miles of where I 

had formerly lived. 

Q: Oh? 

A: As far as I recall there was one Catholic family that lived in the community. And when 

I got to Farmington, there was twenty-some different nationalities in the school, and many 

Catholics. It was a coal-mining town. Kind of a burnt-out mining town. It bad a very 

low-grade coal and now it's been practically taken over by strip mining. But I taught there 

1 year. Had a very happy year. But that was in the days when the Ku Klux Klan was 

going. And lots of teachers, lots of schools and churches got together and they'd get a 

teacher-preacher. 


Q: Oh? 

A: At that time there was a great deal of Klan and anti-Klan feeling in the community, 

and I didn't like the setup. Naturally I wanted to better myself, and went down to the 

nearby town of Cuba and applied for the principal position. The first question they asked 

me was what church I belonged to. I said, "I am a Methodist, but if it is that important 

to you, I don't want your job," 

I quit teaching and returned to Charleston and took my old job back as night clerk, from 

6 until 7. The hotel dining room was quite popular with townspeople, and I made many 

good acquaintances which stood me in good stead in my next business venture. 

And there was a man there from Charleston or from Chicago who was a weather strip 

mechanic, installing weather strips. A fellow had come through there and sold a lot of 

stuff. And he was anxious to get back to Chicago and he said, "Why don't you get a job 

selling this? People keep on asking me." So I took the job and stayed at it until 1964. Well 

I didn't stay with Chamberlin. In 1935 1 went in business for myself, but the same business. 

, 

Q: Yes. This was the Chamberlin Weather Stripping Company? 

A: Chamberlin Weather Strip Company. And then when I went in business for myself, I 

took on steel-roller window shades. Sold hundreds of thousands of them. And a few other 

things. Screens that went along with it. But principally, we became the Champaign 

Weather Strip Company. 

Q: Where was your first office with this company? 

A: Well of course, I came to Champaign. For one year I stayed at Charleston, but came 

up here during the week. And made quite a few sales, a good deal of connections with 

contractors and architects and so on. And then I moved up here and didn? have an office 

the first year. But we had a very successful year. I cleared more than 10,000 dollars for 

my share, which was, I think, 40 percent of what the office made. And it was a very good 

office. And then I talked them into letting me get an office in that five-story building 

right . . . (points out the window) 

Q: Right across the way there? 

A: Yes. 

Q: I see. Yes, a large brick building. 

A: Yes. And I weather-stripped that building in 1927. When 1930 came, why, they wanted 

to close the office, but I talked them out of it. Kept it 3 more years but then the company 

wouldn't keep it anymore. So by that time, I thought I knew enough about the business 

to buy my strips. (laughs) 

Q: You were a regional manager were you, or a district manager? 

A: Yes, district manager. I had central Illinois. I had Decatur, and Danville, Mattoon, 

Charleston, Effingham, Paxton, Gilman - the center of the state. 

Q: Yes. And I understand you went down and window-stripped the windows in our high 

school in Waggoner at one time. 

A: Yes. (laughter) Yes. 

Q: Well. So you did quite a bit of traveling, then, in connection with this, I guess. 


A: Oh, yes. I was on the road. Let me make a correction on that Waggoner 

business. There's a school over at Easton, Illinois, exactly like the building in either 

Waggoner or Farmersville, and I don't remember now which it is. And I told my wife that 

I told you that I had - we put on one window as a sample in one of those two schools. And 

I think it was Waggoner. , But we weren't able to go through with it. We weren't able to 

sell the job. And I can't L/e sure, but since these two buildings are alike - the Farmersville 

building then - that whs in 1933 or 1934 - was pretty much the same kind of a 

building. But I did an lot of work in that area clear down as far as Alton. And 

I lived at Auburn summer; that is, through the week. And then I'd come back 

to Champaign over 

And did a lot of business and made good money. 

Q: Did you supervise a sales group of people? 

A: Yes, I had two or three salesmen to sell. And we made a specialty of schools. 

Q: What did you do, work through contractors . . . 

A: Some. 

Q: . . . for the installation? 

A: Most of it was you just sold direct to the homeowner or you sold to the school board 

or the hospital board. 

Q: Did you then get involved with putting it on, or you just provided them the material? 

A: No. No, my brother was the - no, we sold it installed. 

Q: Oh. 

A: We contracted. 

Q: And your brother was involved with . . . 

A: He was my superintendent. And I've had eight and ten men working at a time. During 

the war, or before the war when we were making the great effort for defense, I 

weather-stripped thousands of windows at Rantoul at Chanute Field, and Fort Benjamin 

Harrison in Indianapolis, at the Fort Knox - not the gold bank, but in the field there at 

Elizabethtown. And Jefferson Barracks . . . Scott Field. (pause) Did some post offices in 

Wisconsin. Those were sold through contractors. 

Q: Yes. Now you say in 1934, was it, that you started your own company, then? 

A: Yes. 

Q: And did you incorporate that yourself? 

A: Didn't incorporate it. It was just - I named it the Champaign Weather Strip Company. 

Q: And still continued the same type of work? 

A: Yes. 

Q: So you from the beginning, then, here in Champaign, had for quite a number of years 

worked this whole area of . . . 

A: Yes. 


Q: Actually the Midwest, if you got into Kentucky and Indiana. 

A: Yes. We worked out - actually, there is no place for a weather strip salesman 

now. And the Chamberlin company, which was the big company, has gone into sideline 

businesses because there are so many metal windows. So many buildings are built - the 

school buildings don't have any windows at all. And then residents come and - Americans, 

you know, are great people to buy packages. So you can buy this window weather-stripped 

and storm-sashed and screened, and the contractor can just nail it in. The weather strip 

isn't worth a damn. 

Q: I see. 

A: If we tried to get 50 cents a window for it, I couldn't collect for it, the shape that most 

of them's in. But anyhow, we got to the place where about the only weather stripping that 

was left was on doors. And you couldn't sell weather stripping on a door for enough to make 

any money. If you put it high enough to make any money, you wouldn't get the sale. And 

I finally just - someone said, "You retired from business?" I said, "No, I got so involved 

in the legislature and School Problems Commission my business retired from me." 

Q: I see. (laughs) About what year was that? 

Q: In 1964. Yes. (pause) Sir, when did you first vote? 

A: The first election there was after I was 21. So that if there was an election in 1921, 

I voted in it if it was after August. 

Q: Do you remember anything about that election? 

A: No, I don't remember. I don't know that - there wouldn't be any national or state 

election then. But I remember in 1922. 

Q: What occurred in 1922? 

A: In that year we were to elect a county superintendent of schools, and Mr. Minter was 

running for reelection. Dad and I both were well acquainted with him and naturally as 

Republicans we were supposed to vote for him, a Republican. But after I returned to 

Charleston, I taught half-days for 1 year at Lerna High School, under the principalship of 

a grand old gentleman, Stephen A. Douglas - SAD - Harry. He was a scholar and a 

delightful person, and we became close friends. However he was a staunch Democrat, and 

ran against Mr. Minter for county superintendent of schools. So I voiced an opinion to Dad 

that I was going to vote for Mr. Harry. "Well," he says, "are you going to vote for Coolidge 

in 1924?" And I said, "Why, of course.'' "Well then," he said, "you're voting half a vote 

against him when you vote for any Democrat down along the line." 

Q: Well. 

A: "NOW," he said, "every - Mr. Harry, you vote for him because he's your friend and he'll 

be your friend afterwards. But everybody he gets in his office are going to be Democrats, 

they're not going to be Republicans. So this idea that you can he a good Republican and 

then vote for Democrats along the line at your choice, that's out. You just don't do that." 

And I didn't. 

Q: Well! (laughter) So you voted for Mr. Minter, then? 

A: Yes. 


THOMAS NELSON CLABAUGH, ca 1939. AGE 70. 

"I think the thing I remember probably most 

about my fatber was that he believed in 

giving a day's work for a day's pay." 

ALL PHOTOGRAPUS COURTESY OF 

CUARLES W. CLABAUGH EXCEPT 

WUERE OTHERWISE CITED. 


PATSY RICHARDSON CLABAUGH, 1897, AGE 33. 

"She died when I was 9 years old. 

I remember her quite well but. . . 


CHARLES (left) AND HARRY CLABAUGH, 1905, AGES 5 AND 7 RESPECTIVELY. 

"The amicable relationships that existed 

between my father and his brothers 

existed between my brother and me." 


to State government. 


(opposite page) CHARLES CLABAUGH'S MOVIE PRESENTATIONS WERE 

POPULAR AT SCHOOLS IN NORTHEASTERN ILLINOIS. (above) CLABAUGH 

PHOTOGRAPHING STEVE PRANTEAU AND FUR QUEEN HELEN CHAPESKY 

IN 1955. PRANTEAU HAD JUST WON THE 150-MILE DOG SLED RACE IN 

THE MANITOBA TRAPPERS FESTIVAL. 

I I 

I met a trapper who also was a photographer, 

sold his pictures to Walt Disney. And I made 

a movie and found out I could sell them." 


START OF CANOE RACE IN 1956 FLlN FLON, SASKATCHEWAN, 

TROUT FESTIVAL. THE CANOEIST ARE (I to r) F. L. (BUD) JOBIN, 

MEMBER OF THE MANITOBA LEGISLATURE; CHARLES CLABAUGH 

AND I. C. MOLLET, SASKATCHEWAN MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE. 

"I was the only one that didn't upset! 

And consequently I won!" 


LOUISE ZIMMERMAN CLABAUGH, 1947. MISS ZIMMERMAN 

AND CHARLES CLABAUGH WERE MARRIED IN 1944. 

"I met her in Springfield. She was working 

in the secretary of state's office." 


SENATOR WILLIAM CONNORS. SENATE DEMOCRATIC LEADER. 

WATCHES GOVERNOR ADLAI STEVENSON SIGN A BILL. THE 

SCHOOL PROBLEMS COMMISSION, WHICH CHARLES CLABAUGH 

CHAIRED FOR MANY YEARS, WAS CREATED IN 1951 DURING 

THE STEVENSON ADMINISTRATION. 

"We didn't get everything that we wanted then. 

But it was more the people in the Senate than 

it was Stevenson. " 


49 

Q: Did he win? 

A: Yes. I would never have wanted Mr. Harry to know. I expect that if he'd have asked 

me, I'd have lied to him and told him I voted for him. 

Q: Well. (laughter) Do you remember anything else about that election? Were there 

other offices that you were interested in? 

I 

I 

I 

I 

t 

I 

A: Well, I was interested in every one of them. But I recall now that Len Small was to 

be a candidate for governor again in 1924. Of course, Len built the first hard road, paved 

road, built in Illinois outside of some county roads. And that was his program and that 

was his platform. And some town like Shelbyville wanted a road through there, and the 

governor was going to be there and speak. So a bunch of us went to $helbyville. And Villa 

Grove wanted a road. They didn't have one. There wasn't a road, now where [Rgute] 130 

is, from here down through Villa Grove to Charleston and then on down. So I went to Villa 

Grove to a hard road meeting. And in the 1920'3, those were big affairs. 

Q: Did you get to meet Governor Small at any time? 

A: Oh, yes. And of course, I was a precinct committeeman in 1936 when he ran the last 

time and was beaten. About any Republican would have been beaten in 1936, but Len had 

run his string. 

Q: I see. Did you get involved in the local political structure during the 1920's? 

A: (pause) Oh, no, no more than going to the public meetings. You had a great many more 

public meetings then than now. Television has pretty much put the political meeting - 

unless it is a candidate for president or a candidate for governor involved, you don't get 

many people to a political meeting. 

But I was elected precinct committeeman in . . . 1930 or 1932. And with the last election, 

my name's been on every primary ballot in Champaign County for 50 years. 


A: Not always for precinct committeeman. I was precinct committeeman when I was 

elected to the legislature and then I got, out. Oh, you get somebody else in, you've got 

another interested person. 

And then about ten or twelve years ago, the precinct where we live now, right here close 

to town, the old man died. He was a precinct committeeman. And our county chairmen, 

they had the power to fill vacancies. And he asked me and I said, "I don't want to be, Jack." 

"Well I want you to be." Well I took it and I still am. 

Q: Well. (laughs) So that's quite a number of years 88 committeeman. 

A: Yes. 

Q: Why did you first accept that position? In 1930, you say it was? 

A: I think it was 1930. It was 1930 or 1932, one of the two. 

Q: Why did you accept the position? 

A: Oh, I wanted to be a part of the picture. 

Q: And this was here in Champaign? 


A: Yes, sir. Out to the west, outside of Champaign. 

Q: So what did you do in order to become a precinct committeeman? 

A: You'd simply get petitions signed, a certain number of names, that's not very many. And 

then run in the election and get elected. 

Q: Who did you run against that time? Do you recall? 

A: Harold Ross. 

Q: What kind of person was he? 

A: Well he was a fellow that drove a milk wagon around town. A likable fellow. I beat 

him just by very few votes. But I never have had opposition since that. 

Q: Did you have to campaign much in that first one? 

A: Oh, you'd go around in your precinct, yes. Yes, you'd go around. What you're doing 

is - usually in the primary, you're promoting some other people that are running for some 

other jobs, helping them. (pause) A fellow running for small office puts in just as much 

time as a fellow running for president. 

Q: Oh? Well. (laughs) 

A: If he's serious about it. The only thing is, he has to arrange his own meetings and write 

his own speeches and write his own advertising and so on, where a fellow running for high 

office, or higher office . . . 

Q: Has some help, huh? 

A: . . . has some help. Yes. The halls already arranged and the programs arranged for 

you. Oh, and you step right in and take off for your part. 

Q: Were there any particular issues in 1930 that were involved in the precinct? 

A: Oh, to get rid of Roosevelt and the New Deal. 

Q: Oh? 

A: (laughs) That was the big - not in 1930 - no, of course it would be later than 

there. But later. 

Q: When you first got into it, were there - I guess the depression had started by that 

time. Was there any of that involved in the - welfare . . . 

A: Oh, yes. Yes, that was the Democrats' platform, of course. Hoover caused the - there 

was just as much depression in Europe as there was in America - but Hoover caused it 

all. 

Q: Oh, I see. (laughter) So you were in the position of saying that he did not cause it 

all, huh? 

A: Well, I would just simply say to them, "Well, I guess he's the one that caused the one 

in England and France and Italy," and so on. 

Q: Yes. (laughter) Were you a Hoover supporter? 


A: Oh, yes. 

Q: Do you remember any of the elections before that? A1 Smith for example, in - what 

was it, 1928? 

A: Oh, yes, I remember Al Smith. I remember the campaign of 1908, when Bryan and Taft 

ran together, 

Q: Oh? What do you remember about that? 

A: Well, I remember that, "Hurrah for Taft, he's a man. Bryan's made out of an oyster 

can." 

Q: Oh, really? (laughter) That was the campaign song at that time, huh? 

A: Yes. The one the kids chanted. 

Q: Yes. 

A: And of course we went to town that night, listened. We went to the depot and listened, 

got the results. And drove home very happy. 

Q: Well. (laughs) Do you remember anything about the 1912 campaign? 

A: Oh, Lord, yes. 

Q: Teddy Roosevelt was running again then, wasn't he? 

A: Yes, that's when the Bull Moose came up and good Republicans split. And they had 

enough votes to have elected either Taft or Roosevelt, but they were split in the middle. The 

legislature was divided up that year and neither party could elect a speaker. And they were 

6 weeks choosing a speaker and finally chose a first-termer by the name of McKinley from 

Chicago. 


A: I didn't remember that. I knew that from history. 

Q: Do you remember your dad's position at that time in regard to Roosevelt or Taft? 

A: Oh, yes. He was a great admirer of Roosevelt but he said, "Taft has been a good 

president as far as I'm concerned.'' And he wrote my political philosophy, Now people came 

to me - I was asked to be campaign manager for Reagan in this county and I said, "No." 

The fellow says, "You don't like Reagan?" I said, "That's not true. But Ford is our president 

and I think he's done an excellent job. And I don't go back on a man in my party, who 

I think has done a good job, just to fly for somebody who is a better speaker." And then 

later it turned out I was Ford's campaign manager in the county. 

Q: And this kind of stemmed from the fact that your father's philosophy was to support 

the man if he's doing the job. 

A: That's right. If he's doing the job, support him. What incentive is there for a man to 

do a good job if you're going to vote him out just because your friend is running against 

him? 

Q: Yes. (pause) Let's see, the next presidential election would have been in 1916. Wilson 

and . , . do you remember that election? 


A: Yes, that's the one I told you that was decided by California. And we all went to bed 

that night thinking that we'd won, but Hiram Johnson was snubbed by - he thought he 

was snubbed, at least. He was a senator and he threw California to Wilson and he was 

elected. 

There was an old Democrat by the name of George Phipps who - dad was a good friend 

of him and he belonged to our church. George could pray louder and get mad quicker than 

about anybody in town. But he told Dad he kind of thought he'd vote for Hughes. 

Q: Oh? 

A: But we were in the elevator grain office along ten o'clock at night, right across from the 

railway station, and old George came in and he had his lantern in his hand, threw it up 

in the air and he said, "Hooray, Wilson carried New York and he's going to be elected!" 

So Dad said, "That's how much good my campaigning George Phipps did." 



Q: Sir, do you remember any local issues in the teens, along through there, that came up? 

A: There was a local issue, one local issue, that was in every election, in downstate Illinois 

at least, from 1900 to . . . 1915. Local option. 

Q: Oh? Hm. 

A: The liquor question entered every campaign. It didn't make any difference where it 

was. And in my - I believe I gave you a copy of my reminiscence. I discussed this. 

Q: Yes, sir. 

A: I've devoted a whole chapter to that. If you were running fur road commissioner, tax 

collector, that did not have one single thing to do with the question of local option or 

"wet-dry." But "wet-dry" was in every election. 

Q: Hm. What was your father's position in that? 

A: Dry. 

Q: He was a "dry." 

A: Yes. 

Q: Was the area there generally "dry"? 

A: I never lived - until the 19th amendment was repealed, I had never lived a day in a 

place where liquor was legal. 

Q: Oh, is that right? Hm. So your father didn't drink, then, at all? 

A: No. (pause) And it was carried out viciously. (pause) Father had a - he went to 

Mattoon quite regularly and there was a black shoeshine, John Brandywine, there. And Dad 

would go in that barber shop and John would shine his shoes. Well, John was a "wet." 

And Dad thought he was a bootlegger on the side. And he'd ask John questions about 

certain candidates from in the county, candidates. And John knew both sides. He said, 


"George Kaiser's gonna get elected mayor of Mattoon." "Well," Dad said, "if a man who 

has lived a life - and they've been in a family of saloonkeepers and gamblers - how's he 

gonna get elected?" "He's gonna join the Methodist Church," - I think it was the Methodist 

- "and he can kid the church people the he's 'dry7," John said, "but we on the other side, 

we know. So he's gonna get us both." And that's just what happened. 

Q: I'll be doggoned. (laughter) Hm. Were there aey other local people that were elected 

that you knew fairly well, in those days? The teens? 

A: (pause) Oh, I can't recall now that I did. (pause) I remember the sheriff's campaign 

- I remember a man by the name of Vincent Aye, who has a daughter, incidentally, that 

graduated the year after I did from Charleston, taught school in Champaign until, a couple 

of years ago, she retired. Florence. Never married. He was the sheriff, Republican 

sheriff. A good friend of my father's, and I knew him. (pause) We didn't have much 

contact with the county officzs. Except just Dad and Vint were good friends. We'd go to 

town together and we'd see him. 

Q: Yes. Let's see, now, when did you move to Champaign? 

A: Gosh, I came up here in 1926. 

A: Yes, sir. 

Q: As a manager for the company. 

A: Yes. 

Q: And actually, you've lived here ever since then, in Champaign. 


Q: When you became committeeman - I've already asked if there were any particular issues 

that were involved. Were there any particular things in the precinct that you were working 

for, or that helped you in the election? 

A: Yes - well, of course, then, there was a good deal of competition for the position of 

county chairman of the party, who is elected by the precinct committeemen. And there was 

the Small and the Emmerson sides. And I was on the Emrnerson side in the election of 

the chairman, when we elected our chairman. But Louie Emmers~n was governor - he 

went out in 1933. Did not run again. He was elected in 1929. (pause) I worked for 

him. But that was the issue in the Republican party. But they pretty generally got 

together. 

Q: Yes, once that was decided then they would . . . 

A: Yes. 

Q: Did you get to know Governor Emmerson at all? 

A: Oh, not very well. I have been in his office. In fact, a friend of mine, w h was ~ our 

county chairman, took me in to see Lou one day. He said, "Let's see if we can't get some 

weather strip contracts on some of the state buildings." So he got me an appointment and 

I went in. Ted went in with me, the county chairman. And I remember so well Lou saying 

- I had just assumed that all the governor needed was just to say "buy" to somebody and 

he'd buy. And that is all he would have had to have said. But finally, Lou said to me, 


"Well give me some reason why I should tell these people we should buy your weather 

stripping. In other words, tell me what you would tell me if you were trying to sell 

- me. And that's what you're trying to do." So then I got my breath and said to myself, 

"Come down off your high horse and then try to make a sale." And I didn't. But I recall 

that. 

Q: Yes. Who was the county chairman at that time, did you say? 

A: Ted Swartz. He was an insurance man in Urbana. 

Q: Hm. Yes. He's still . . , 

A: No, he's been dead many years. 

Q: I see. Yes. (pause) Did you meet Governor Emmerson any other time? 

A: Oh, I presume that I had met him at political meetings. I presume I have because I 

attended all of them. If anyways near around. Ted Swartz was a staunch supporter of 

Emmerson. But Billy McKinley was still alive then, was our United States senator. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Did you know him? 

A: Yes. I remember the day he died. I remember the word coming that he was dead. He 

died over in Martinsville, Indiana, at the mud baths. And incidentally, he died on the 6th 

day of December 1926. I learned that date because I compiled a book of obituaries of 148 

members of prominent families in Champaign County, at least one of whose family I 

personally knew. 

Q: Well. 

A: And I remember that. And one of the most prominent men in our town, other than 

McKinley, died the same day and was hardly more than mentioned in the papers of that 

day. That is, you couldn't find much about Albert Eisner, who was the founder of the Eisner 

Grocery Company, because McKinley got the space. 

Q: He was overshadowed at the time. 

A: Yes. 

Q: What was Billy McKinley like? Did you know him well enough to . . . 

A: No, I know about him. As far as knowing anything about him personally, he almost 

ruined the Republican party in this county because, if they needed 100,000 dollars in 

campaign funds, they raised as much as they could and then he made up the rest of it. And 

sometimes they didn't work too hard when they knew there was somebody - I say almost 

ruined it, he was a great strength for the party, but he got them out of the habit of paying 

up like they should. But he was a great party man, helped us a lot of ways. 

Q: I see. 

A: But Billy McKinley, his father was Presbyterian minister here in Champaign. And he 

started out working in a bank, I think, and then he got into the interurban electric lines. At 


one time he owned these lines from Danville to Champaign, to Peoria, to Decatur, to 

Bloomington, to East St. Louis. 

Q: Is that the Illinois Transit Railroad? 

A: Terminal, Illinois Terminal. They and the electric company were together, pretty 

much. They had the same office. And Illinois Power Company has the same office yet, same 

building. 

Q: Oh. Here in Champaign. 

A: Yes. It's right down there by the Inman Hotel. 

Q: Well. 

A: But McKinley was a very poor speaker. He made a trip around the world once. And 

then he went around through our district. We lived in Lerna then. Had slides, lantern 

slides. Showed them out in the school yard. And I supposed we was going to hear another 

Roscoe Conklin or Daniel Webster. Well, he was a sputtering, stuttering, poor speaker. 

But they said that Billy McKinley's main forte in getting things done in Washington was 

that he courted the secretaries. Once every year he had a big party for them. He was a 

multimillionaire, but gave most of it away before he died. Had a very modest estate. And 

he would rent a steamboat and take all the senators' and representatives' secretaries and 

their husbands, or their wives, on a trip down to picnic down to Mount Vernon. 


A: And there he would spread a picnic. And when Mr. McKinley walked in anybody's office, 

he was talking to a friend. 

Q: Well. (laughter) I'll be doggoned. 

A: And I want to tell you, Mr. Waggoner, I've learned and I've practiced that thing in 

Springfield a lot. Get acquainted with the secretary. Most bosses have respect and delegate 

a good deal of authority to their secretary. And you can find out where he is, when he'll 

be back, and just a lot. And I used it an awful lot. I knew a good many secretaries. I 

cultivated them more than I did the boss. 

Q: I see. Well. (laughter) Sounds like a good technique, sir. Who was the senator from 

the Champaign area in Springfield? 

A: Senator Dunlap. 

Q: Dunlap? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Did you know him very well? 

A: Oh, very well. Senator Dunlap was elected to the Senate in 1892 and served until 

1912. And was beaten in 1912, the Bull Moose year, for one term. And then came back 

and was reelected until 1932, and lost to Cass Clifford, a Democrat. (pause) I may say he 

served many years, but he got broken in on twice. 



A: Yes. (pauses and looks in Blue Book) Well, this isn't the book that gives all of them. I 

have one book, the centennial edition that came out in 1976. It has every legislator and 

every senator, past and present. 

Q: Then what did you know about him? 

A: Oh, well he was a great friend of the university and he and his father and his grandfather 

were orchardists. When the University of Illinois was chartered, when it was located in 

Champaign, one of the considerations, among others, many others, was that Senator Dunlap 

- not him, but his father - would give and would take care of all the plantings for no 

charge. 

Q: Oh? Hm. I'll be doggoned. (chuckles) 

A: That was one of the conditions. 

Q: And they had orchards all around the area then? 

A: Yes. He had this orchard right down - if you went down [Route] 45, there's a motel 

there now and a restaurant in the house. But that was the senator's house. And he had 

orchards there. And he originated the Dunlap everbearing strawberry. They had farms 

in southern Illinois, and after they had cut all their orchards here, they still brought in 

apples from the . . . place down south. I don't know just where it was in southern 

Illinois. Not too far south, but over a hundred miles. 

Q: Do you remember any particular issues that arose with Senator Dunlap in Springfield? 

A: Well, Senator Dunlap was a strong opponent of Len Small's, in his own party. And 

supported Emmerson. Emmerson, you see, was the secretary of state for several terms 

before he ran against Small and beat him in the primary of 1928. 

Q: Yes. 

A: And it was a pretty large issue between Small and Emmerson. But Dunlap was always 

an Emmerson man. And he was a strong supporter of agriculture, of course. His 

grandfather's obituary was the shortest obituary that I have in my obituary books. It was 

three lines. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Back in the 1850's or 1860's, they just - it almost had to he a president who died to 

get any space in an obituary. 

Q: Well. (laughs) Hm. Did you have occasion to go to Springfield, say around 1930? 

A: Oh, yes, by 1930, 1932, 1934, I was going - Ted Swartz was going over and I went over 

with him quite a lot. And I got some business in Springtield. Some. Not state business, 

but other business. One thing came to mind when you . . . asked me that but I - that 

was a little bit interesting, but now it's slipped away from me. 

Q: Anything about legislators over there? 

A: Well, I knew Roger Little, who was our senior Republican. He was elected in 1920. W. 

C. Black was elected later. And those were the two. And Black was defeated in the 

primary of 1934. And Little was - Roger Little - was defeated in the fall election of 

1934. And so I've known everyone personally from then on down. 


Q: As committeeman did you meet much with them? 

A: Oh, when we'd have meetings, county meetings, I attended most of the county meetings 

around over the county. And these candidates would be there, except Roger Little. He 

never attended a meeting, he didn't have to. 

Q: Oh? 

A: But the first time there was a close one, he lost it because he hadn't cultivated . . , 

Q: Been attending. (laughter) 

A: Did no campaigning at all. He was a fine gentleman. Superintendent for the Methodist 

Sunday school in Urbana for many years. Upstanding man in every way. And in 1934 some 

of his friends said, "Now, Roger, you're a 'dry,' and everybody knows you're a 'dry,' but you 

oughten to make so mud of it. A good many 'wet' people anymore." "Well," Roger said, 

"I'm a 'dry.' I don't intend to annoy people with it, but if the people don't want a 'dry' in 

the legislature, then they don't want me." 


A: He was just that straightforward. And his son now is one of the circuit judges in this 

county. Poor fellow. Unfortunately, he has a brain tumor and he's not effective now at 

all. (pause) 

Q: All right, sir. Well do you think that will do it for today, then, sir? 

L 

A: Well it's whatever you say, 

Q: Okay. 

A: I want to tell you that there are - I've had a many-faceted life. 

Q: Oh? 

A: This picture, and that one over there, and hundreds of others that I have . . . 

Q: Of Eskimos? (laughs) 

A: This is Mrs. Clabaugh and that's me, that's I, fishing through the ice in 40-below zero 

up in Manitoba. I told you about my trapping career. 

Q: Yes. 

A: And of course as a boy I - we're off the air now? 

Q: No, we're still on the air. 

A: I was a great reader of Bret Hart and Robert Service, Jack London. And since I did 

some trapping, I knew where I wanted to set a trap. But I always wondered, in a million 

acres, or a million square miles even, of wilderness, how would you know where to set a 

trap? And in October of 1953, I mooned around about wanting to go up north and wanting 

to go up north and my wife said one night, "For goodness sakes, go!" 


A: Bought a ticket the next morning. I went to Churchill, up on Hudson's Bay, in 

October. And 1 wrote twelve or fourteen letters back to the travel man at the News 


Gazette. And I kept copies of those letters and I put them in a little booklet, and I picked 

that off the shelf to bring it down this morning, in to you, because it affected my life from 

then clear on up - well even until now. 

And I met a trapper, a professional trapper, who also was a photographer. And he sold 

his pictures to Walt Disney, some of them, some of his movies he would take. These they 

pieced together into these various appropriate showings. And I made a movie. And I found 

out I could sell them. And I took in seven or eight thousand dollars a year for several years 

with them. And I went up there in the winter and went up there in the summer. And 

then we went - in 1955 we went out to the Maritime Provinces and made a beautiful picture 

there. In 1962 we went to Europe. Seven of us went over. And I made two shows there. 

Q: Well. 

A: We went back again in 1965, just my wife and I. Spent 2 months photographing unusual 

places, My hardest day's work with a movie camera was when I filmed Hadrian's Wall in 

England on a very windy day. 

Q: Oh? 

A: I don't know how many trips I went back to Canada to - in winter and summer both, 

and I learned where to set a trap in a wilderness on a rabbit run. But then that drove 

us on and, 2 years ago, we went to Egypt. And a year ago last . . . last February, we were 

in Africa and down in Kenya, down in the wild animal country. 

Q: Still photographing. 

A: I was photographing but I wasn't making movies then. 

Q: I see. 

A: That's hard work. 

Q: Yes, sir. 

A: It's hard work to make movies. I showed them, I think, to every junior college in Cook 

County. I pointed the discussion, the narration of the picture, toward the group I was going 

showing to. And high schools. Scores, dozens of them! Some of them, I went back every 

year. And it was a very, very - it was a delightful experience. I paid my expenses with 

them. And learned a great deal. 

Q: Well, I imagine you would. (laughs) Yes, sir. Yes, I'd like to - later on in the series, 

I'd like to go into more detail on that. Some of the technical problems, perhaps, you ran 

into with it and that sort of thing. Yes, sir. 


Q: Let's see, you were first married in 1923, as I recall. 

A: Right. 

Q: And that was to whom? 

A: Nell Zehner. 

Q: Where did you meet her? 


A: The first year I taught school, we taught together, in the little high school at 

Ashmore. We taught together 2 years there. 

Q: What was she teaching? 

A: English and - I don't know. Of course a school like that, you kind of take the 

leavings. (laughs) But I think - oh, I think she taught a class in ancient history. 

Q: What school had she raceived her . . . 

A: She was graduated from teachers' college. 

Q: There at Charleston. 

A: From the 2-year course there, which was the normal . . . 

Q: I see. So let's see, so she didn't have a degree, then, from the . . 

A: No, No. She did not. That would get her any kind of a elementary school job or a 

- usually a smaller high school. Though she was teaching in a smaller high school, it was 

an accredited high school. 

Q: And where was her family from? 

A: Lawrence County. 

Q: Lawrence County here in Illinois. 

A: That's right. Here in Illinois, yes. 

Q: Had you known her before school at all? 

A: No. 

Q: You met her at school there. 

A: Yes. 

Q: Was it a whirlwind courtship? 

A: Oh, not necessarily. It ran through 2 '/z years. 

Q: Oh. Well that's not too whirlwind, is it? (laughs) 

A: No. And it lasted until - 1937, I believe it was. It just didn't work. Everybody, when 

we finally decided that we were just going to go our separate ways, were very much 

surprised. We were living here then. And she took a position here teaching in the 

elementary school and went to the university and graduated and got her master's 

degree. And when she finally retired, she was assistant principal of Champaign High 

School. 

Q: Oh. 

A: It's barely possible that she was principal, but I don't think so. And where she is, I 

don't know. I knew where she was when she was here, but I don't even know when she 

retired. We have many mutual friends, people who she talked with. We had no particular 

disagreement - I don't know whether she felt as I did, but I just felt that I wasn't getting 


out of life what I thought I would get, and certainly not what I got out of life with the 

next two wives, although one of them died real soon. 

Q: And her name was what? 

A: She was a Noll. That was an adopted name. Her father died when she was 2 and her 

mother died when she was 3, in Chicago. And she went down to Virden and was adopted 

and raised by her mother's older sister. 

Q: Oh. And this was in Virden, Illinois. 

A: Yes. 

Q: Well. And where did you meet her? 

A: I met her in her school building. I was weather-stripping schools and she was the 

principal of one school. 

Q: Where, in Virden? 

A: Yes. And we went from there and we were married the 1st day of October 1939. 

Q: And you had one daughter by that marriage. 

A: One daughter. And Eleanor died in October - October the 27th, I think it was - in 

1941. 

A: Yes. And our oldest - our daughter was born in February before. Cancer showed up 

immediately - well when she went back to the doctor for her second or third trip back 

just to see how she was progressing. She just went right down from there. 

Q: Well I'll be darned. And what was that daughter's name? 

A: Dorothy Kay. 

Q: Dorothy Kay. 

A: Yes. And she's married now to Reverend Richard L. McGuire, who is the pastor of the 

First Methodist Church in Urbana. 

Q: So you get to see her quite often, then. 

A: Oh, yes, yes. 

Q: Where did you meet your present wife? 

A: I met her in Springfield. She was working in the secretary of state's office. And we 

just met as people meet. I was in the legislature and crowds got together and we met. And 

we were married in the 9th of March in 1944. 

Q: And where is she from, Springfield? 

A: No, she's from Hancock County. Carthage, Illinois. 

Q: So she hadn't had teacher's training then, I guess. 


61 

A: No. No. 

Q: Well. And you had a daughter by that marriage. 

A: Yes, she was born November 14,1946. 

Q: And what was her name? 

A: Patsy Lee. 

Q: Patsy Lee. 1 

A: Yes. 

Q: Is she in this area now? 

i 

A: No, she's in Hudson, Ohio. She went 2 years and a half to Parsons College in Iowa and 

she met this fellow from Cook County. And he's a very prosperous and ambitious young 

man now with the Automatic Data Processing Company from - well, it's in New York City 

but it's across into New Jersey. 

Q: I see. 

A: And he's district manager now of the Cleveland district. 

Q: So you don't get to see her quite as often. 

A: No. We go over there about every two or three months. It's a day's drive, 455 miles. 

Q: And those were your only two children, the . . . 

A: That's right. 

Q: . . . two girls. 

A: Yes. 

Q: Okay. What did your present wife think about your being in politics? 

A: Well, she was in it too. (laughs) She had a job, she was working for the 

Democrats. She came from a family of very staunch Democrats. We were at their house 

the evening that Franklin Roosevelt died. And if all three of their children had died, they 

wouldn't have been any more down. He was God Almighty. 

Q: And she felt that way too? 

A: Oh, I think so. I think so. She says that when we went - we were married in March 

and the primary was in April. And of course I was very active. And we were going to 

vote, going to the polls. And she said, "Well I don't know just exactly how I'm gonna want 

to vote." I said, "Well you want to eat, don't you?" And that's all there was to it. 

Q: I see. (laughter) Well! 

A: I'm not sure that that wasn't what happened, but not that succinctly. 

1 



A: And she took over here and was a very - has been a very helpful person. Worked in 

the headquarters, first for the party just as a candidate's wife. She wanted to help, she 

didn't want to ask anybody else's wife to do more than she would do. And in 1964 when 

Bill Scott ran against' Chuck Percy for governor, our county chairman was a supporter of 

Scott. And he hired Lou - she goes by Lou everyplace. Louise is her name. 

Q: Yes. 

A: Asked her to run the headquarters for Scott. And from then on it just was - she's 

just been in over her head all the time - well, I don't mean over her head, but just . . . 

I think Lou has by far the - even though she's not been actively engaged now for 4 years 

- I think she has a longer list of good workers in this county than most. In fact I ran 

President Ford's campaign in the primary in Champaign County in - 1976, wasn't 

it? Yes. And I told Governor Ogilvie, who was the state manager and who called me and 

asked me - I'd already turned it down once, the local man who was from this congressional 

district. I said I didn't want to get into it but if Dick Ogilvie asked me, I'd do it, and 

did. And I said, "I'll do it under the condition that I can employ my wife and one other 

person in the office." And this was generally accepted as a Reagan county. 

Q: Oh? 

A: And we got 60 percent of the votes in the primary. 

Q: Well. 

A: And I attribute that as much to my wife and to her acquaintances as to my own efforts. 

Q: Did she go out and make speeches? 

A: No, no. No, she ran the office and saw that the work was gotten out. If you've never 

worked in a political headquarters, you don't have any idea of the amount of just plain slave 

work there is. 

Q: Like what, sir? 

A: Oh, getting out letters to thirty or forty thousand registered Republicans. You pick up 

the experienced people and then you get a lot more that aren't experienced. And she dished 

out the work to the people in the office and answered the phone. Took care of questions 

and complaints. Ones that she didn't feel like doing, she wrote down and said she'd have 

me contact them. But it was a job of personality. And I can say in that campaign, as 

well as 2 years ago when I worked in the office for Jim Skelton who run for state treasurer 

and won in the primary, that not one single person that either one of us called ever turned 

us down for their turn to work. 

Q: Oh, is that right? Well. 

A: Some said, "I can't do it Monday, but I can do it Wednesday or Tuesday or next week," 

and so on. 

Q: Yes. Walter Reum got a lot of help of that sort from his wife, Lucy 

A: Oh, yes. Lucy was - she was quite a cog. 

Q: Did you know her very well? 

A: Oh, very well. Walt served on our School Problems Commission. And when we'd have 

our public hearings around over the state, why, Lucy came quite often. And - well I class 

Walter and Lucy as two of my best friends. And so does Lou. 


Q: Well let's see, could we drop back to 1936. Could you talk a little bit about your primary 

campaign in 1936? 

A: Well I had been in the weather strip business in this community since 1925 - or 

1926. We'd better say 1926 - fully. I did work on schools very much in the summer, 

practically altogether. And I met a lot of people that way. I was a precinct committeeman, 

though I think there was only one precinct committeeman in the county that was for me, 

and that was I. 


A: We had more than a hundred precincts in Champaign County, each with a committeeman 

and a committeewoman, and about twenty-five in each of the other two counties. Seeing 

and talking to each of them was, and is, a must, and while there, to see several other people, 

particularly the elected township officials if they are Republicans. Nail up a few posters 

on poles and trees, and get permission to place some in the store and office windows. 

In addition I used another gimmick in the primary of 1936 which was very 

effective. Primary election day came about April 10 and the Illinois State High School 

Basketball Tournament was held about the 20th of March and everyone in the small towns 

around this area are fans. With a seating capacity of only 6,000 in Huff gym, few of these 

locals could get to see these games. Games then started about 9 in the morning and lasted 

until after 10 in the evening. I hooked two loud speakers to my car radio, placed one in 

each window, found the most prominent corner in the village, started it up and brought them 

a game of the tournament. Between games I moved to another nearby village and repeated 

the performance. Of course my picture was shown on the car, and when the meet was over 

I had brought the tournament to hundreds of voters, had distributed campaign cards and 

matches by the box, and had met hundreds of people. 

I worked every angle that there was possible to work, meeting people. 

say that in 36 years I never asked a person to vote for me. 

And I believe I can 

Q: Oh? 

A: No. I didn't want to give anybody - put anybody in a position of telling me, "No." 

Q: Oh, I see. 

A: I'd tell them what I was doing and I trusted that I could count on them but never waited 

for an answer. Never - just didn't think it was the proper thing to do. 

Q: I'll be darned. How did you come to decide to run in 1936? 

A: I can't remember when I didn't know that sometime I was going to run for the legislature 

in Illinois. 

Q: Well. Well why did you decide at that time that that was the time to do it? 

A: Basically ours was a Republican district. We then had two Democrats and one 

Republican for the second time since 1900. I thought we could get back our two, and I 

thought I could win. But I had just got ripe. I had been precinct committeeman for 4 

years. And I'd been dutiful in my work and knew most of the committeemen in the 

county. Knew nobody in Piatt County, nobody in - well I had an uncle and his family 

in Moultrie County. And they were - he was not prominent in politics at all. He was 

a Republican. But he was a very upstanding person and a person that everybody 

respected. And they immediately took me in as one of their home boys. And I won the 

primary by not a very big vote, but we had lots of candidates. 


Q: Who were some of the candidates who were running against you? 

A: Well . . . there's been so many run against me over the years . . . Of course Senator 

Peters was then in the House and he was the top man. And there was a . . . a man - 

a supervisor, township supervisor, over in Cisco, in the far corner of Piatt County, by the 

name of Harold McKinney, who was a candidate with the full endorsement of the county 

central committee over there. But they had had a record in that county of not piling up 

their votes for one candidate. And Harold didn't get quite half their votes. But I think 

I ran third in Piatt County. Yes, third to Peters and McKinney in Piatt, but the latter got 

very few votes in Champaign. I ran second to Peters in Moultrie, beating McKinney by over 

three hundred votes. I ran fourth or fifth in Champaign but, excepting Peters, those who 

beat me by a small margin there got only a smattering of votes in Piatt and Moultrie. In 

total Peters was first, I was second, and both of us were nominated. It was one of those 

things of putting enough minorities together to win. (laughs) I won by some three or four 

hundred votes. 

I can see some of these people but I have a little trouble digging their names out. There 

was an old man by the name of Swearingen, who had been a coroner in this county back, 

oh, maybe since the turn of the century. And he was a kind of an old popinjay. He 

attracted attention in the small towns in the meetings. He played the guitar, and a drum 

with his foot. He entertained people but they didn't vote for him. He was from St. Joseph. 

There was a lawyer from town here, a man of good reputation. But he didn't do - two 

lawyers from town. One was named Bond Kirk. And this other fellow, I can see him very 

plainly but I can't recall his name. Oh, yes, Charles Iungerice was his name. And a very 

prominent - wealthy, for a small community - fellow by the name of Herbert Kaiser, from 

Monticello, who was then - had an office for the, oh, the Prudential or Massachusetts 

Mutual, some life insurance company, up in the Robeson Building here in town. And Herb 

ran just merely to expand his acquaintance. He and I were very good friends. He got 

enough votes from Piatt County, kept enough votes away from McKinney, that I won. That 

was not planned at all. Herb's family and he now own the abstract company over 

there. And I think they own one abstract company here in Champaign. And probably in 

some of the other smaller communities. Very upstanding fellow, a very scholarly person. A 

man who travels the world over. It isn't anything uncommon for him and Dorothy to go 

to Paris for a week at the opera. 

Q: Well, my goodness. (chuckles) 

A: He resorted to some very unusual campaigning. 

Q: Oh? 

A: In the first place he got a young fellow with a donkey hitched to a spring wagon who 

drove around all over the district. 

Q: Well! He couldn't find an elephant? (laughter) 

A: Probably couldn't. And he put his ads - the pictures on his ads - in the paper upside 

down. And Herb is no fool at all, no clown. But he thought that that was . . . 

Q: Would attract attention. 

A: And it did. Didn't get him any votes over here much but then . 

Q: Yes. Well. 

A: He got a substantial vote in Piatt County. 


I 65 

I 

Q: Why were there so many running in the primary? Was there a particular reason for 

that? 

A: Well of course this district had had two Democrats in the legislature only one time since 

1900. And that was the - in 1912. Bull Moose year. It seemed like a chance to return 

the 24th District to the Repeblican party. 

Q: Yes, I see. 

A: The two Republican men who had been in, one had been in for 12 years. A very 

high-type attorney in Urbana. But the people elected him, he didn't go out and do a 

thing. They told me he never circulated a petition after the first time. People did it for 

him. And he lost in 1934. He lost in the election. And so there was one Republican, 

Senator Peters, a very strong candidate, never did lose an election. Elected town clerk, I 

think, in St. Joe when he was 21 years old. And died in his middle seventies as a senator 

- well he had retired a term or two before that. 

Q: Who was the person that lost in 1934? 

t 

I 

A: Roger Little. 

Q: Oh. I believe you mentioned him before. 

, 

I 

I 

A: Yes, father of the present chief judge of this circuit. And then there was W. C. 

Black. He was a very - he was employed by the then infant Farm Bureau. And he got 

beaten in the primary in 1934, by Peters. And then Little got beaten in the fall election 

and we had two Democrats for 1934. And so when there's a vacancy, there's always a 

plethora of candidates. 

Q: Then you and Mr. Peters, then, ran in the regular election? 

A: Yes, and again in 1938. And were elected then. And then in 1940 he went to the 

Senate. And from 1938 to 1958, I never had more than just a shadow of a contest. And 

more than half of that time the Democrats just nominated one and the Republicans 

nominated two so when you won the primary, you were elected. 

I 

I 

Q: Oh, I see. 

A: Between 1956 and 1958, a good many things seemed to have gone wrong which reflected 

upon our party locally, In 1957 the state Department of Revenue put a multiplier on 

Champaign County's property tax assessments which threatened to increase our real estate 

taxes sharply, The political writer for the News Gazette made a great issue of it, blaming 

the governor for the action. Because of Senator Peters' standing in Springfield, he would 

have been blamed along with the governor, but this reporter was a favorite of the senator 

and shielded him. Governor Stratton blamed the multiplier on the schools' need for more 

money, and I took a rap in public opinion on that, because of my deep involvement in the 

school legislation. Additionally our senator had had some unfavorable publicity recently, 

as had our county chairman, resulting in considerable political dissatisfaction in our district. 

More importantly for us, a popular young dentist, Dr. Dale, filed for a seat in the House 

as a contestant of Dillavou and Clabaugh. I thought he would be a strong candidate and 

would probably win. Governor Stratton was not running in 1958, nor was Senator 

Peters. It so happened that not a single incumbent official in either of the three counties 

in our district had any opposition. Therefore the only way any disgruntled Republican could 

show his resentment at the polls was to vote against Clabaugh or Dillavou. I sensed the 

situation and worked harder than I had ever done before and I outlasted him by 177 

votes. And then from then on, I had no difficulty at all. 


Q: Why were they after Senator Peters? 

A: Oh, well, they blamed Pete for not being able to - mostly, I think, because of that 

multiplier. 

Q: Oh? That had that much of effect, then. Was it a major increase? 

A: Oh, it was a major increase only to the people in districts which were levying their legal 

limits. 

Q: Yes. Hm. (pause) Did you do anything different in 1938, as opposed to your 

campaigning in 1936, that . . . 

A: No, I think it was the trend. We elected a judge of the Supreme Court, in this judicial 

district, in the summer of 1938. That was the first Republican that had been elected, except 

Senator Peters, for about four years. And that turned around. 1938 was the turning point 

and 1940 was the landslide. 

Q: Oh, I see. Well. Did you do the same type of campaigning in 1938 as you did in 1936? 

A: Yes. Of course a good many thiugs have changed. In 1936 and 1938 and long before 

those times, why, we had one or two political meetings in every small town, village, in the 

district. And there was no television. Radio wasn't cutting much ice. And campaigning 

was a personal contact affair. And the spending of money - the first 10 years of my 

campaigning, I don't suppose - I know I didn't spend half as much as I did the last time 

I ran. 


A: Yes, because we had television at that time, and newspaper and radio had expanded very 

greatly. Most of the little meetings that cost you nothing to go to were gone. And 

practically the only thing - we always - a custom here - to put at least one ad, and 

probably two, in each of the small weekly newspapers. And one or two Sunday editions 

of the two local papers, Champaign and Urbana. And that was about it - well, we paid 

150 dollars to our Champaign County Central Committee and 50 dollars to each of the other 

two. So those were our - oh, you bought matches and fingernail emory boards and 

posters. 

Posters were always expensive. If a man came in your office and asked for a poster and 

you gave him one, you'd be sort of downgrading him. Although you knew in your own mind 

that he probably wasn't going to put up over one. 

Q: Oh. Well. I see. (laughter) 

A: And several times, in years after, I didn't get out posters at all. And in fact only in 

the first year or two did I put the year on them at all. They'd be kept over. 

Q: Oh, then you could use them again. Did all the newspapers support you in the area? 

A: Well, the News Gazette here always did. And the Courier after the Decatur Democrat 

newspaper got ahold of it - they were way out, left wing. They supported me when they 

knew they couldn't beat me. 

Q: Oh. Well! (laughter) Otherwise they were against you, huh? 

A: (indicates affirmative) The last time I ran they thought they could beat me and they 

supported the other fellow, but the results were the same. 


Q: Hm. That was the only paper, then, that at any time you had any problems with? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Do you recall any incidents in the 1936 or 1938 campaigns, anyone you had any discussions 

with or altercations with in any way during the campaign? 

A: No, I didn't have altercations with people. I got so, pretty well along into the middle 

1940's' I didn't campaign country elevators. Because then the farmers would be 

in. Practically every farmer owned a truck. And they all had bitches. 

Q: So you steered clear of that? 

A: So I got so I just stayed clear of them. But I had no . . . altercations with 

anyone. Later the Champaign County Farm Bureau gave me the first plaque for outstanding 

service to agriculture they had ever given to a legislator. 

Q: What was a meeting like and where were they held normally, in the smaller . . . 

A: Oh, usually in the schoolhouse. Sometimes in the town hall, according to the anticipated 

crowd. And of course the ladies, Republican ladies, would have c~ffee and cookies 

afterwards. And it was a social affair. We all made short speeches. Actually, 

campaigning was a pleasant social affair. I would say up until 1960. Now I just picked 

that date, as you see, rather out of the air. But by that time we were having a proliferation 

of single-issue voters. Single issues, some of them right today. They are probably an 

indefinite number, but a certain number of people, that would vote for or against you entirely 

on whether you were for or against the ERA [Equal Rights Amendment]. And these EPA 

[Environmental Protection Agency] people, the bottle people, "Would you support the bottle 

bill?" "Would you support the recycling of paper?" Whether you would support it, you 

probably didn't see any need of any legislation, but those people would pile up in numbers 

and they always had delegates there to question the candidates. 

And then the organization of senior citizens. And I was a senior citizen and I'd get so 

dad-blasted disgusted with them. I remember what a campaign they put on - the first 

one they had - to reduce the cost of fishing license from a dollar a year to fifty cents a 

year for senior citizens. That kind of trivia! Their attitude was that everyone over 65 was 

living from hand-to-mouth. Always wanted something. 

Q: But they took it very seriously and it would affect the vote. 

A: Well, yes. There was propagandists in everything, you know. Gun 

control. (pause) Only for the strongest, mouthiest person on gun control was a lock - 

people run a locksmith firm here in town. And after we moved in our building - I was 

on the board - and we did several hundred dollars' worth of work, spent money with 

them. But any dang time I'd go in there, this fellow would get on that. And one time, 

I said to him, "Now, listen. You and I aren't going to agree on this. I'm not going to say 

that it's perfectly all right to license automobiles but that we're taking the right away from 

you when we ask you to license your gun. You're not gonna change. One of these days 

one of us is gonna say something that's gonna make us mad, so I'm not gonna talk to you 

about it anymore. I'm gonna keep on coming in, 'cause I like your business." 

But that kind of thing permeated. And sometimes you'd have a dozen different calls in a 

week to come and speak to one of these groups. But all they wanted you to do was to agree 

100 percent with them in their effort. All the rest of it - they might have a houseful of 

kids and what I'd done for the schools in the district and the state didn't make any 

difference. And then's when it ceased to be a good, pleasant social experience. 


Q: And you say it was quite different earlier. What kind of social experience would it be? 

A: Well it would just be you'd go see people in a small town - way down in Moultrie County 

or in Douglas County or in far points of Champaign County - people that you wouldn't 

see except at maybe a county Republican meeting, which you don't have many of them 

between campaign years. (pause) And it was just pleasant. They were glad to see you, 

glad you came to town. And you were glad they came to the meeting. 

Q: Did you normally give a speech at such things? 

A: Oh, yes. 

Q: What would you talk on then? 

A: Whatever was the issue at the time, and they varied. 

Q: Can you recall some of the things you talked about? In 1938 let's say. 

A: Oh, I was gonna work to get rid of the "innocuous" sales tax. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Oh, yes. And of course I didn't go through the first term until I saw that wasn't gonna 

do. 

Q: (laughs) Yes. I noticed also one of your campaign positions - I believe in 1938 - was 

against Communism, a statement that you were going to act in that regard. Do you recall 

that? 

A: No. No. Now in 1946 we had developed - there had developed on the campus here at 

the university the Students for a Democratic Society and Democratic Action. And they were 

bringing many Communist-minded speakers that they could find and bring them in here to 

speak. We local legislators had objected to these people being given the use of university 

property for their nefarious practice. We always got the answer from the administration 

that it had no legal way to keep them out, and "We have no authority to deny any 

organization, recognized by the university, such use of the buildings." I said, "All right, I'll 

pass a bill and give you that right," and I did. Simply put, it prohibited the use of any 

university property to any person or organization for the purpose of promoting or spreading 

un-American activities or doctrines. There was only one vote against it in the House and 

but one or two in the Senate. There were objections from no one, the law was enforced, 

and the practice was stopped. 

We heard nothing about the law for 20 years, when in 1967 I got a call from a newspaperman 

in Chicago who wanted to talk to me about "The Clabaugh Act." I didn't know what he was 

talking about. Had forgotten about it. Well it finally came out that he was talking about 

the act I'd gotten passed in 1947. It seems that some humanities group on Circle Campus 

had been denied the right to bring in some speaker for some function and they were all 

in a dither about it. A suit was filed in federal court up there, dominated by people like 

ex-governor Kerner and his ilk and they declared it unconstitutional. Well then a fellow 

that - Dick Elrod, that's now the sheriff in Cook County, was in the House then and the 

next session, he tried to get it repealed. (laughs) He couldn't repeal it. The House 

wouldn't go for it. So it's still on the statutes. But it never - didn't cause any trouble. It 

did what it was supposed to do. 

Q: Provide a support to the school. 

A: Because you'd get an awful lot of gaff when the people read in the paper - just like 

I read last night that this organization to avoid the draft is having a meeting in the YMCA 


[Young Men's Christian Association], university YMCA. Well now that sort of a thing 

rumbles me. And for that reason, because they've done that, I don't make any contribution 

to the YMCA at all. Well they've pretty much here been dominated by the few people that 

feel that way. 

Q: Yes. What did you think along in 1968,1969, and 1970 when all the commotion was going 

on out here at this school and elsewhere, Northwestern and . . . 

A: Well, I thought just like any person would feel that I thought had their feet on the 

ground. And we weren't able to stop all of it but we kept the pressure on the university 

people here. But some of these things had to be disciplined, some of these people had to 

be disciplined. 

Q: There were several attempts to have legislation passed that would cause the schools to 

take more drastic action. Do you recall those? 

A: Yes. Of course there was so many of that kind of thing. And so many of them were 

harebrained that - one legislator - whom I won't name, he's still in the House - he gets 

real excited. And I got so, when I'd see him coming down the aisle with a paper in his 

hand, I'd say, "I won't sign it. Won't sign it. Won't sign it. I'm not gonna." "Well, why 

won't you? Don't you believe in it?" I said, "Yes, I believe in it but that, you're not gonna 

pass it. If you did, the courts would throw it out. I've already read about it. And," I said, 

"I'm not gonna just reach out for a thousand letters, additional letters, a week." And that's 

what I'd get if I put my name on that sort of thing. 

We didn't handle - it wasn't handled as well here in the University of Illinois as Hayakawa 

handled it out in California, and got elected to the United States Senate for it. But it didn't 

get near as far off base here as it did other places. 

And followed it up there in the middle 1960's with a resolution by the board of 

trustees. This Irving Dillard - he's not on the board now, but he had been editor of the 

Kansas City Star, I believe. He was way out in left field - said, "We don't have enough 

blacks in the university in these courses." And so they had the so-called "500," that they 

just got a couple or three young Negroes from the campus and, my God, they turned up 

here with half of them was from Philadelphia. And they came in, they were to come in 

a week before school started, and they had a riot because they weren't pleased with their 

rooms, and they'd probably slept in the alleys. These were people that couldn't possibly 

meet the standards. And Dave Henry, who was then president, and lives here now, a 

neighbor of mine, and he is one of my best friends and closest friends and I admired the 

fellow, but he was a scholar and he wasn't meant for the rough and tumble of that 

time. And he and I had some pretty strong words. Not unfriendly words, but just - I 

said, "All you're gonna do, you're gonna bring these people in and with the minds that these 

people have you're not gonna make better citizens out of them, you're just gonna make 

smarter bad citizens out of them." And three-fourths of them flunked out, just in no 

time. That is because of course they put people in charge that would say that they were 

all doing fine, 'cause black people were in charge of all of it. 

And so anyhow that was a bard point here. And I said to Dave Henry, "What am I going 

to say to this man from up in Whiteside County, who has a girl or boy that graduated in 

the upper 10 in his class and you tell him you don't have room for him but you have room 

for people, who couldn't even graduate, from New York and from Chicago and from 

Philadelphia? What am I gonna tell him? How am I gonna defend you? When you think 

how I can defend it, you let me know." 

Q: Yes. And he wasn't able to. 

A: Why, no. He didn't believe in it either, but he was working for the board of trustees. 



Q: Sir, sometime before that, Paul Broyles was attempting to get in a considerable number 

of bills on oaths and that sort of thing. Do you recall that action? 

A: Oh, yes. Yes. Voted for all of them. But like so many people - the rightists are just 

as bad as the leftists - they just went to seed, he went to seed. That was the only interest 

he had. And he was a pretty sound, solid fellow, but that was his whole - it encompassed 

him. He was an active Legionnaire and they - he kept on fighting the leftists and they 

kept on voting for him down here. And I think - just like I think about Senator McCarthy, 

most of the things that Senator McCarthy said was gonna happen have already happened, 

or are happening. 

My dad said to me - this is on another subject, but - he said to me, before 1937, because 

he died in 1937 - he said, "Son, these reciprocal trade treaties, not in my lifetime but in 

your lifetime, are gonna cause us trouble." And now when we're - 22 percent of all the 

automobiles that're sold in the United States are coming from Japan, every once in a while 

I'll say, "Cordell Hull and his reciprocal trade treaties." 

Q: What type person was Broyles? 

A: Oh, he was a quiet, gentlemanly, nice-looking fellow. And he supported us in our school 

legislation. You see, Mount Vernon - Jefferson County was one of those counties that, 

during the Civil War days, that pulled both ways. And a lot of that hung over. That had 

nothing to do with Communism, but people were extremists. 

Q: Yes, that type person. 

A: No person who is a really devoted person is a very open-minded person. 

Q: And this was typical of Broyles and people from that part of the state. 

A: Yes. Yes. Oh, I'm satisfied he got thousands of votes down there solely because of his 

actions because there weren't that many Republicans in that area. 

Q: Well. (laughs) Were you at any time along in that period contacted by the Legion 

itself? 

A: No. No. 

Q: Do you know of anyone that was lobbying for the Legion in Springfield? 

A: Oh, yes. The present senator from over there. While he lobbied for the osteopaths, of 

which he is one, he lobbied for the - I'm sure I'm correct when I say he lobbied for the 

Legion. 

Q: Who is that, Davidson? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Well. (pause) Did he ever approach you? 

A: Oh, I'm sure he did. I'm sure he did. Thousands and thousands of them over the years. 

Q: Yes. (laughs) 


A: Many of them I'd know if I saw them but I wouldn't have the remotest idea of their 

name. They knew our names because they were standing behind us in committee and we 

didn't see them. They heard our names but we didn't hear theirs. 

Q: Webber Borchers got into a little bit of difficulty because of the way he went about 

investigating that. Do you 9 1 1 that incident? 

A: Oh, yes, very well. Web er Borchers was the fellow that I had reference to when I told 

1 

him I wouldn't sign . . . 

Q: Oh! Well! (laughs) I , 

A: I wouldn't go on his bill.$ Webber - anybody that knows Webber Borchers - and I've 

known him since 1936. J3e ran for congressman in this district in the primary of 

1936, Anybody that knows Webber Borchers knows that being dishonest would be the last 

thing he'd ever be. 

My God, he's as rich as a Jew! I guess there's just no limit to the 

amount of land that they own around - marginal land, marginal between city and 

farm. But he has very bad judgement. And no question but that that judge that - 

from . . . where was he from? Presided in that case. He ran for appellate court and just 

got the hell beaten out of him by Fred Green, from here. There's no question that he 

thought that he could make some political hay. I say there's no question in mind. Now 

I forget the fellow's name. But the people over there showed how they felt about Webber 

Borchers. And that's a Democrat county. Jim Thompson carried it when he ran for 

governor, the first Republican that carried Macon County since 1928. 


A: Yes. But Borchers has courage. In fact he dresses kind of like a tramp anyhow. And 

he'd go to these rock festivals and get right in there. And of course they'd take him in 

as one of them because he was mouthy - and smart enough to know what not to say - 

and the way he looked. And he brought us down reports on those things. And we have 

some legislation that was passed - it was mostly passed because of 

Webber! (laughter) But Webber is another extremist. And if I had a bill that I thought 

was a little shaky as far as passibility is concerned, I wouldn't want Webber as one of my 

co-sponsors. 

Q: Oh? 

A: No, because people don't take him seriously. But he finally - the - well the court found 

him innocent, didn't they, on appeal? 

Q: Yes. 

A: Second appeal. 

Q: I believe so. 

A: Yes. He told me that the first fellow that came to see him, from the FBI [Federal Bureau 

of Investigation] or whatever, he said, "I was putting in a sidewalk. I was working putting 

in a sidewalk in front of my house." And that fellow's introduction to him was, "Well, how 

did you get this money from the taxpayers? What taxpayer money are you using to put 

this in?" 

Q: Well for gosh sakes. (laughter) This was the FBI that said this? 

A: Well, I don't know. 


Q: Or investigator? 

A: I said one of the people that - one of the investigators. Doesn't sound like FBI. But 

it was from - someone. He told me that. 

Q: Gee whiz! (laughs) Boy. Back in 1938 - let's see, you would have reported for duty 

in Springfield in January of 1939, I guess, then. 

A: Yes. 

Q: What do you recall about your first days there in the legislature, when you got over there? 

A: Well I didn't do what I criticize so severely now, of these young fellows that are PhD's 

when they're born, who come down there knowing everything. They've listened to some 

college professor or some other "ismist" group and they have an armload of bills and they're 

gonna cure all the problems. We sat down there and answered the roll call and listened 

to debate and attended committee meetings. And seldom got up and expressed an opinion 

unless it was some personal opinion, some bill we had. And I don't recall any particular 

bill that I had. We people from this district all of our names were on the university bills, 

they'd put us on it. 

Q: Who did you sit by when you got over there in 1939? 

A: Well on one side of me was Rollie Carpenter. He was from a little town up in . . . oh, 

the county of Pontiac, Livingston County. Rollie ran a little store up in a little town named 

Ancona. Out northwest there. Rollie was a seedy fellow. Wore the same necktie every 

day during the first session. But sharp, and a fine man. He had been a member of the 

county board and the chairman of the county board up there. A good, solid, substantial 

fellow that, unless he had a bill, Rollie seldom expressed an opinion. That is, he didn't 

get up and talk. But on matters affecting local government, other than city and municipal 

government, I listened to Rollie. 

I recall that a fellow from . . . Ottawa, who had been a county official up there, had a bill 

to raise the fees, state license fees, on notaries public, from 50 cents to a dollar a year. And, 

it seemed to me like the state needed the money. I thought that was all right. And when 

the roll call started, I turned - because then it was an oral roll call, you know, and you 

had a lot of time to think. And if you were listening, you could listen to a lot of 

points. And I said - well, Rollie must have sensed that I was gonna vote for it - and 

I said, "Aren't you?" And he said, "No." He said, "Do you know how many notary publics 

you have in your district?" And I said, "I don't have any idea." "Well," he said, "there's 

way over a hundred thousand in the state. And you probably have hundreds. Now 

practically everything that a notary does downstate he does for nothing. Now are you gonna 

ask this fellow, who's giving his time to sign papers and notarize your petitions and all, 

you're gonna vote to double his fee, even if it is small? And it won't make a hundred 

thousand dollars difference in the state treasury. I'm not gonna run a risk of irritating two 

thousand people in my district for that little bit of money." And I saw the logic of it. He 

says, "If they were raising it ten dollars, then I would think of it entirely differently." He 

was a modest fellow but . . . he did that. 

Roger Little, whom I mentioned a moment ago, used to go to baseball games out here and 

I'd sit with him quite often. And after I was elected - no, it couldn't have been after I 

was elected because that was a winter, but in the campaign - he said, "Now, Charley, when 

you go to Springfield, pick out somebody that you think has some knowledge. More than 

you have, or more than the average fellow has, in the various fields, and follow him. And 

I'll tell you, go see Dave Hunter. If you ever have a question, you go see Dave Hunter, 

from Rockford. He's a substantial fellow." And I remember - I've listened to Dave on a 


lot of things. Dave was a farmer, a dairy farmer. I didn't know the farm - well there 

was a lot of farm legislation in those times. 

Matters of - probate matters of wills and things like that, that I knew nothing about. Bob 

Branson, from Centralia, was a small-town lawyer, been in the legislature several terms, 

seven or eight. Enough to have been a veteran as far as I was concerned. 

And on municipal affairs, I remember Mrs. Van der Vries was one of the people. I don't 

know what experience she'd had. I presumed she'd had some experience in some of the 

suburban areas up there in that. 

Q: Winnetka City Council, yes. 

A: Yes. And that was one of the ways that I got most of my information. And I got an 

awful lot of good endorsements for the next time I ran. And I did it, I think, by following 

the kind of people that I thought would know. 

Q: How did you go about contacting them? Did you do it mostly on the floor? Or did you 

talk to them over dinner or . . . 

A: Oh, no, you'd talk to them - many times at dinner. Or just go down and talk to them 

about a bill. And I recall one thing - I don't know what the bill was now - and just 

saying to Bob Branson, "Now this bill's coming up and I don't know anything about it. And 

I want to ask you this question." He said, "Now I'm gonna speak on this bill. And 1'1) speak 

on that point too, include it." 

Q: So you just waited until his time came up. 

A: Yes. I had confidence him. And I'd vote the way those people would vote, generally, 

unless I had some very definite knowledge that it didn't affect my district like it would affect 

theirs. 

Q: Do you remember your first speech on the floor? 

A: No, I don't. 

Q: Let's see, was Noble Lee there at that time? 

A: Noble Lee came in in 1940. 

Q: In 1940. Yes. Did you get to know him very well? 

A: Very well, On constitutional matters, Noble was my mentor. 

Q: Let's see, he was from the University of Chicago, I believe, wasn't he? Law school? 

A: Well, no, it was John Marshall Law School. His father was one of the founders of 

it. And was alive at that time. 

Q: Well. Let's see, now. Wasn't Maypole the speaker at that 1939 . . . 

A: He was the majority leader in the Senate. 

Q: Oh, yes, I see. Who was the speaker of the House in 1939 then? 

A: Hugh Cross. 


Q: Hugh Cross was? What kind of person was he? 

A: Very ordinary. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Very ordinary. 

Q: In what way? What . . . 

A: Well, he was a county-seat lawyer, of course. A good-looking - a handsome fellow. He 

was too affected to be a particularly good speaker. But Hugh was ambitious and did run 

for and was elected to lieutenant governor the next year. But Hugh had some associates 

that wouldn't have supported me, at least. 

Q: Oh? Well, (chuckles) 

A: But we had one majority. 

Q: Urn, yes. (pause) Uh . . . gosh, I had the question right there and it slipped 

me. (pause) 

A: I would say that from the standpoint of activity on bills in that first session, I was on 

several bills, or amendments to bills, dealing with old-age assistance. Now I'm quite sure 

I wouldn't today take all the positions I took then. But different seasoning makes different 

cake. And time and conditions generally, state or national, has a lot of effect on what is 

the proper thing. But I suspect that on some of those were some with my . . . 

Q: Yes, I noted that the level - you were attempting to get the level set at 30 dollars a 

month. What was the rate that you were increasing from? 

A: I don't know. There never was so much a month on those. It was built up on a budget 

basis. How much do you need, what is your earnings? 

Q: Oh, 1 see. 

A: What are your needs for food, what's your need for clothing, what's your need for housing, 

and those things. So there wasn't any set - and I think now, since you've recalled that, 

that probably that was to set a set figure, which I think now would not be smart at all 

to do. In fact I think we've gone too far that way in - but you see, the "Townsendism" 

- do you remember it? About it? 

Q: No, sir. 

A: Senator Townsend, a United States senator from California, introduced a bill in Congress 

to pay every person over 65 years old 250 dollars a month, which was an ungodly high figure 

for earnings. And there were a good many believers in it. In fact there was a preacher 

from . . . Danville, that's all he was down there for. And if he made a speech on the level 

of school payments, why, he'd get off into "Townsendism." 


A: But I'm sure that none of the positions that I took on that prevailed. I don't think they 

did. 

Q: Let's see, one of the issues, not only at that time but for several years apparently, was 

whether the estate of pensioners should have to repay to the state all or part of the pension 

paid. Do you recall that part of it? 


A: I don't recall that being a part, but I'm quite sure that it did. Of course I'm quite sure 

that I would then have mid that they shouldn't pay it, that the estate shouldn't have to 

pay it, but my views changed on that long ago. But that isn't the old folks, that's the kids 

that won't take care of their old folks. In taking the estate, the state is not taking from 

the old folks. They would be gone. It would be taken from the heirs, some of whom 

wouldn't care for the old folks. 

Q: Yes. 

A: As I say the positions that I took on some of those things then, I wouldn't take at all 

now. Or for many years back. 

Q: Yes. How well did you get to know Governor Horner? 

A: Oh, not at all. You see, he was ill. In fact he didn't act - John Stelle acted as 

governor. 

Q: There was a considerable to-do over a period of, I guess, almost a year as to whether 

John Stelle should actively replace Governor Horner. Do you remember that? 

A: Well I remember, but there was no provision in the law or the constitution that - just 

like it was with the president until I think it was corrected - when a president isn't, or 

when a governor - if he doesn't resign of his own free will. There was general feeling 

that the first sales tax bill that was passed, and supposedly signed by Horner, wasn't signed 

by Horner at all. 

Q: Oh? 

A: It was signed by Nudelman, who was his . . . director of finance. It may have been 

another tax bill, but there was such a rumor. 

Q: Hm. Now that would have been quite early, then, 1934 or 1935? That first sales tax 

'bill? So he was ill at that time. 

A: I think that's true. (pause) He didn't deliver any message to the House when I was 

there. 

Q: Did John Stelle - was he active in that sort of thing? Did he make any speeches to 

the House? 

A: Well, was John lieutenant governor then? 

Q: Yes, sir. 

A: Yes, he was, wasn't he? I think he - I remember of John Stelle, I remember this quite 

well. (laughs) He was a reckless, shrewd, cold-blooded guy. And he started in reading 

this speech, a message to &a joint session, and got down a little bit, he said, "Hell, you don't 

want to hear all of this." dnd he turned it over and read the last paragraph. 


A: And he was right! We didn't. We had the printed speech there in front of us. 

Q: Oh, I see. (laughter) Well. And he was reading this in the House, then? 

A: Yes. To the joint session, I suppose. 


Q: I see. Do you remember anything, any incidents, during that period - let's see, it was 

a 100-day period, was it? Or a 90-day period, when he was actually recognized as the 

governor? 

A: Well, Stelle became governor after Governor Horner died, October 6, 1940. I remember 

that there were lots of newspaper stories about he just bought paint from Gene - Gene 

Day's Paint Company over there and they said they found it stored around in various places, 

that he spent the state's money like a drunken sailor during that time. 

Q: Well. (laughs) Do you think he did actually? 

A: Oh, I think he did. I don't think there's any question about it. Yes. 

Q: Hm. Now he proposed to run for governor in the next go-around against Green and 5 

believe lost out in the primary, didn't he? 

A: I can't tell you whether - I don't even recall that he was a candidate. He might have 

been. My collection of Blue Books is at home. 

Q: Yes. Well I think he ran in the primary and lost to . . . 

A: He might have been. 

Q: . . . Hershey, was it, I believe, that . . . 

A: Hershey was elected - was nominated. 

Q: Nominated for it, yes. Who would you say gave you your most help in getting started 

over there in your first year or so in the legislature? 

A: (pause) Well, it's awfully hard for me to look back and to divide the first term from 

the second term and so on. Without doubt Elmer Schnacke~berg came first. But I always 

considered Dave Hunter as one of the men that I thought was fair, objective and 

well-informed. (pause) Bill Thon was a veteran member from Oak Park. (laughs) And 

it was said, one time, that Bill was contested - his election was contested - almost every 

time. Now Oak Park was strong Republican but that - I believe it's St. Catherine's Church 

that's right on that dividing street, at Washington between Oak Park and Chicago, and it 

was all Democratic, was in Bill's district. And Bill had to walk a tightrope on every bill 

that he voted on. 

Q: Oh? 

A: But Bill was smart. He was a lawyer from Chicago, and was free with his advice even 

when you didn't ask for it. But I never felt that he was nosing into my business. One 

time I was - the House wasn't in session yet, it was - I guess we'd broken for lunch, which 

we used to do once in a while - and I was sitting, leaning back like this. (indicates feet 

propped on desk) And Bill was sitting on the other side of me from Carpenter. And Bill 

said, "Did you see those people in the gallery from Champaign?" And I said, "No, who?" 

I looked around. And he said, "I don't believe you'd like for them to see you with your 

feet up on your desk. There wasn't any Champaign people up there, Charley, but," he said, 

"I don't think you'd want them to see you." (laughter) Now, Bill can be inoffensive. I 

never forgot that. 


A: Another thing, Bill was a hard worker. On some things he was vicious. That is, he 

would go after you if it was - you could get it from him real easily. But he was working 


one morning at his desk and a fellow came along and he said, "Representative Thon, I'm 

so-and-so and I'm with the Chicago Park District" - it wasn't that, but he said, "Had you 

seen one of our latest reviews of the bills that we had and our opinions on them?" And 

he said, "No." And Bill said, "Could I have one?" And the fellow - tickled to death - give 

it to him. They talked a few minutes and the fellow left. I said, "Bill, are you gonna read 

that?" He said, "Why, no, I'm not gonna read it. But," he said, "I might have made that 

man's day. Now he's supposed to see everybody that's on a certain committee. And he's 

now writing in his little notebook that he saw Mr. Thon and went over the bills with him 

and Thon asked him for one of the publications." (laughs) 

Q: So that was another lesson that you could pick up from . . . 

A: Yes, it was just a little more than just being polite. He knew what the fellow 

wanted. He avoided any long-winded discussion, which he didn't have time to make. And 

I remembered that. 

Q: I'll be darned. What do you remember from the other side of the aisle? Who were the 

most powerful Democratic people at that early session? 

A: Well, Adamowski was the floor leader, minority leader, and of course he was a good 

speaker. He was a fluent speaker. Not very substantial. Of course, everything was - 

practically everything was bitter. There was just barely a majority. The Democrats had 

been in for 8 years and the Republicans dared to . . . oppose them on things. 

Adamowski was fast on his feet, of course. He was real sharp. But as soon as Paul Powell 

- now, Paul was there the year or two before I was. They had a pretty weak fill-in, Bill 

Vicars . . . he was from Livingston County. (pause) And he was floor leader. And he felt 

that every Republican bill, he had to get up and oppose. 

Q: Oh? 

A: And he didn't have much standing with his own side. He's dead now. But after Green 

got in, he was in the House for some time after that. But then after Paul Powell gained 

some stature, Paul Powell was a dominating force on the Democrat side. 

Q: I understand one of the major strengths of Paul Powell was his timing. Can you think 

of an example when he inserted something at the appropriate time to better his cause? 

A: He devastated me one time with a remark that had absolutely nothing to do with the 

bill, But Chicago had not been included for the money for the transportation of school 

children. It was up to the district to ask to furnish the transportation and the state paid, 

and a certain amount. Chicago ne$er did ask for it because their board always felt that 

the state would never repay more, I think, than 40 percent of what they spent. And they 

just didn't feel like they needed it. But somebody in the CTA [Chicago Transit Authority] 

come up with a wild idea that they should get a flat appropriation for that hauling school 

children. And Paul would get up and say, "Chicago, the biggest tax-paying municipality 

in the state, is denied*" Well, they weren't denied! They just didn't ask for it. And this 

thing became not a pupil transportation question but just a way to get that much more for 

the CTA. And over and over again I had explained that on the floor. And Paul had the 

bill and he got up and made the speech on it. And I made - you can tell when you were 

making an effective speech. Paul's remark then, when we closed the debate, he said, "I don't 

care what you want to call it, I want Chicago school children to be treated the same as every 

other school child in the state, even if they have to ride on a mule." Well he got a laugh 

and - pftt! 

Q: (laughs) I see. Did he get the bill through for CTA? 


A: Yes. 

Q: I guess he was a pretty powerful adversary, then. 

A: Oh, yes. Where he got his strength was, he was - I don't know whether I mentioned 

this the other day to you - he was downstate campaign manager for several years in the 

general election. And that way, he went all over the state. And he knew every 

fellow. Every Democrat who was elected, Paul Powell knew him by his first name. 

Q: Hm. Well. 

A: And Paul can make a convincing speech. He made a funny speech. He made almost 

an illiterate speech. He'd talk about the price of "oral," for oil, and, oh, a lot of 

things. And he never said Republicans, he'd call them "'publicans." It was just a typical 

down-Kentucky's way of speaking. And when this fellow would say, "Well, I'm a candidate," 

when he'd meet him out at these meetings, "I'm a candidate for the House." "Well, okay. If 

you get down there, I'll be of help, any help that I can be to you." They'd all come down 

with some particular thing that they wanted and Paul would say, "All right. Take this note 

and go down to the Reference Bureau [Legislative Reference Bureau] and tell them what 

you want. Tell them what bill you want and what you want in it. And I'll help you get 

it out of committee." And he would! But he says, "Now, after all, that's up to you 

then. After it's on the floor, everybody has an opinion." And Paul had twenty-five or thirty 

of those fellows who'd vote for him. On anything, it made no difference what it was, they'd 

vote for it. He had them. 

I remember in particular, for several years we always had the chiropractor's 

bill. Chiropractors were wanting a chiropractor on the medical examining board. And so 

Paul always supported them. And this fellow from Rock Island - they were located right 

across the river there, you know, and was one of the quad-cities' industries, was the Palmer 

School of Chiropractic. And I was in the Appropriations Committee when the bill came 

up in there. And Paul got up and he made a rip-roaring speech and told about how his 

mother had suffered and so on and so forth. He never did say she went to a chiropractor, 

which she wouldn't have done. 

Q: Oh. (laughs) 

A: But he hung all the glories of accomplishments of the medical people on this chiropractor 

bill and he got the bill out. It took him two sessions of the committee, in two different 

weeks, to get it out. 

Q: To get it out of the committee. 

A: Yes. But, of course, when it got on the floor, Paul made a speech for it and he voted 

for it but no soap. But that fellow was his man. 

Q: Well. (laughs) Okay. How well did you get to know Governor Green? 

A: Very well. Well enough that, on the last night of one of the sessions, and I think that 

was his last session, we stayed in session 'ti1 way after midnight and he had invited the 

legislature all to come over to the mansion for a visit and to say good-bye. Well we went 

over. My wife and I were married then, so that was after 1945. And along about sunup, 

there were about six or seven of us left there. And so the governor said, "We ought to 

get something to eat." And my wife went with him out to the kitchen and they cooked the 

bacon and eggs and toast and coffee for us - after the sunup! 




A: The hierarchy of our party, in Champaign County, was not for Pete Green when he ran 

against Dick Lyons. 

I 

! 

i 

Q: Oh? I 

I 

A: But our last congress n, Bill Springer, and I and a fellow who later became our county 

chairman were the only 7 hree people in leadership positions, who were really active in 

politics, that were for Pet Green. And yet, the wrong people were all for Dick Lyons. And 

Green carried this county nd carried it by a good vote. Pete never forgot it. 

Q: Hm. And you supported him also here, then? 

A: Yes. 

Q: What type person was Be? 

A: Oh, he was an elegant fellow. He was a swell fellow. And until he got ambitious to 

be vice-president - he was the principal speaker at the 1944 Republican National 

Convention, but he talked too long. He was not a good speaker, but to look at him was 

a delight. He was a handsome devil. And he was away a good deal and when the cat's 

away, the mice will play. And he was continuously having to explain away something that 

some of his employees did. And Pete got on the bottle. 

Q: Oh? 

A: I've gone in to talk ta him sometimes and would be talking to him and then I would 

stop and wait for his answer and he'd say, "Huh?" Then I'd have to go back through it 

again. Well, I wouldn't. I'd just say, "Well, you think about it." But he was a good 

i 

governor. 

But of course the outlaw press had him making lots of money out of the office, being on 

the take. But I think that the Chicago Tribune pretty much killed those rumors after he 

died. In the memorial editorial in the paper, it said - well the very fact that Colonel 

McCormick had to loan Pete Green money enough to buy his lawbooks and establish his 

law office, after he got out, ought to put to rest any of those stories and reports. 

1 

Q: How often did you hav contact with the governor? 

6 

A: Oh, quite often. Bec use in those days the state government still belonged to the 

legislature as much as it id to the governor. And the governor had jobs to give and we'd 

quite often go over the head of the directors, if it was an important job, to the governor. We 

three Republicans - Peters, Dillavou and I - always went together. And I've heard it said 

many times that we three went to the patronage office over in the Armory [Illinois State 

Armory] - that when sornebody'd come in and wanted a job, and they found out that either 

Peters, Clabaugh, or Dillarvou were over after that same thing, they'd say, "Well, it's no use 

for us to fool around with them." People told me that that had been said. And I know we 

had very good luck. We usually got the job. 

But I was very fond of the governor. 

Q: Where'd you usually talk to him? In the Mansion? Or was it in . . 

A: No. Generally in the office. The meetings in the Mansion, mostly, were taken up with 

policy matters and budget. 


Q: Were you in on many of those? 

A: No, not many of them. 

Q: Were there any particular assignments that he gave you or bills that he asked you to 

handle? 

A: (pause) No. (pause) I can't say that there was. (pause) But I think back now, when 

the last - I've said this several times - my last 4 years in Springfield - and I think I 

rose as high as a good many of them, above the average in prestige among the members 

- but if somebody came to me and said, "Charley, I've just got to have a job," I would 

have to say to them, "I haven't the slightest idea about how to go about it." Because in 

those years that transpired, in the past, we got so damn many young PhD's, that obviously 

you had to have in a campaign, and they took over for the governor when he was elected. 

Now Dick Ogilvie and I were personal friends. Our county was the first - or our county 

chairman of the central committee was the first county chairman in the downstate that 

endorsed Dick Ogilvie for governor. We were closer than - I think closer with Dick than 

I was with Pete. But he was so insulated by John Dailey, who was his first in command 

as governor's assistant, that, it didn't make any difference, you couldn't get to the 

governor. I complained to the governor one time. I said, "Governor, I can't get any word 

out of John Dailey." He'd say, "Speak to John." I said, "Speak to John, hell! In all the time 

that you've been governor, John Dailey's never returned a telephone call that I've ever made 

to him." And he said, "This is my private number, you can call me, so you can always get 

in." And I had no trouble doing it. Because by 1952 or 1953 I was handling the school 

appropriations. 

Q: Why do you think these staff people were brought in? Or the staffs were built up so 

much? 

A: Oh, I think a great deal of it has been brought about by the kind of campaigning that 

must be done today - where less and less of it is through personal contact and more and 

more is through the media, television in particular. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Yes, the media are everlastingly asking candidates for their positions on this or that 

subject, many or most of whom are technical and complex and must have answers in kind, 

and this makes the specially trained person, the consultant, necessary. To write position 

papers and television speeches can't be bought over the counter. So the campaign must have 

some of these people. This process goes on from the president down to House members, 

although on a smaller scale. 

These people are not politicians, never ran for office, they know nothing about constituents 

as such - they're college-bred and college-trained with a sort of disdain for elected 

officials. Some belong to public relation firms and some are free-lancers, and when the 

election is won by their man, some or most of the latter try to become part of the new 

administration. And partly out of need and partly out of gratitude some are appointed to 

the new apparatus. And this is the beginning of the ferment. Their interest is the officer 

whom they serve, not the public whom their boss is supposed to serve, and a screen gradually 

builds up, and lest the headman is wise, insulates him from his public. 

In the House, beginning with the speaker's assistants, this system spreads through the 

House. In some cases they appear to take over the real duties of the members - of 

initiating measures, leaving the member to either vote for or against them. 

Q: Rather than bring it up themselves? 


A: Yes. Sometimes I've wondered if some lazy members did not willingly permit this. Also 

I have found that when a committee chooses a chief consultant, that it is practically 

impossible for an outsider, regardless of his knowledge and experience in the field, to get 

on as an assistant. Like swivel chairs, they beget only their own kind. 

Annual sessions - which has doubled the work of the House - for instance has tripled 

the number of the consultants and advisors. And the tragic result has been that 

government is removed further and further away from the people. 

While we're on the subject of television and its influence on government, let me recall an 

experience of several years ago. I was visiting in the home of a man well acquainted with 

government in general and the Illinois legislature in particular and we were watching one 

of the Sunday morning network shows, or one of those panel talk shows. After listening 

through it, I said, "Harlan, realizing that we live in a republic and not in a democracy, I 

think that damn thing will wreck this republic." "How do you mean that?" he asked. I said, 

"Its tendency is to make elections mere popularity contests without being a question of 

substance. Further," I said, "what we have heard here is not necessarily how it is. It is 

what those TV panelists think it is and they are just persons with the same prejudices that 

you and I have. They build up and tear down according to their personal opinions, likes 

and dislikes." 

In recent years I have watched programs on our local stations and have noticed how they 

reflect the thinking of the reporter. Most of these people are young, the age to have been 

in college during the hell-raising days of the 19601s, and so, often they let the thinking of 

that day come through. Much TV reporting is not news, it's propaganda. 

I still think that what 1 said to my host that day is true. Newspapers have some effect, 

but people look over the newspaper and look for the items they want and they throw it away 

and they don't pick it up anymore. But that damn television just bing-bongs all the 

time. All the time. Propagandizing. 

Q: Being told what the person said that you had listened to. 

A: Yes. And then, just after the president makes a speech, a bunch of these high-binders 

come in and tell you what he said. As if you didn't have sense enough to know what you 

had heard. 

Q: (laughs) Yes, sir. 


Q: Back in 1939 and 1940 there seemed to be some disagreement between Horner and Mayor 

Kelly. Do you recall that episode? 

A: Oh, yes. Sure. In 1936 the Chicago machine, led then by Pat Nash, the Democratic 

county chairman, and Mayor Ed Kelly, tried to dump Horner in the primary and couldn't 

do it. It was as a result of a veto. The quarrel came up I understood - I wasn't there 

- as a result of a veto Horner attached to one of the Chicago bills relative to public 

gambling. Now it may have just been a wide-open gambling bill such as those fellows would 

have been glad to have had. But Horner vetoed it and of course he knew what would 

happen. And they ran a fellow - a Polish fellow with a great, long name - and Horner 

beat the life out of him. And also, Judge Jarecki was a very prominent Polish county judge 

in Cook County. And they attempted to dump him. And they failed. 

And Pete Green I think - we all thought at that time - owed his election - because 

Roosevelt was still riding high - owed his election to the fact that there were two stabs 


made to the Polish people by the machine and they felt that they'd been the underdog against 

the Irish up there long enough. And they had both went over and supported Green. And 

he was elected by just about what the estimate, the number of . . . 

Q: The Polish vote. 

A: . . . of those - people who had deserted the party. 

Q: Hm. Well. Did you see any reflections of the conflict between Horner and the 

Kelly-Nash machine there in Springfield? 


Q: Can you think of an example of something that was going on? 

A: Oh . . . If I looked at a digest I could tell. There were . . . Now, Horner was not a 

vindictive man at all and didn't take out on the party, on the Democratic bills that were 

sponsored by the other faction. But of course he didn't survive the second session of the 

legislature after. And the downstate generally supported Horner. And went with 

him. And the Republicans, politically-minded Republicans, in the legislature went with the 

Kelly-Nash people when they could. 

Now our senator here was a well-to-do man. It was Cass Clifford, an industrialist here in 

town. He stayed with the Democratic organization, though Cass was not a wild-eyed 

Democrat. In fact after he got out as senator, he told me one day, just after the election 

in which he was a candidate for trustee at the University of Illinois, "Well," he said, 

"Charley, I voted for every Republican on your ticket except I voted for myself and Ed 

Hughes for secretary of state." 


A: So it was only an occasional downstate Democrat that stayed with Kelly-Nash. Sam 

Shapiro, the Democratic organization in Kankakee County, went with and stayed with 

Kelly-Nash. And they paid Sam Shapiro off in the years following, nominated him for 

lieutenant governor. 

Q: Who were the representatives of the Kelly-Nash machine in the legislature? Do you 

know any individuals? 

A: Oh, yes. The floor leader for them, for awhile . . . Again, if I had that old 

Book. Joe Rategan was their floor lead for some years. Practically every Chicago, Cook 

County, Democrat stayed with him. Very prominent in the number was Ed McCabe. Ed 

McCabe had been in one of the county offices up there. Not as an elected one but as an 

assistant to the city treasurer or to the county treasurer. And - oh, I can't think of that 

other man's name. He and I had a good-natured fight that ran for several 

weeks. (chuckles) But it was good-natured, it was a purely partisan thing. 

Q: What was it over? 

A: It was over the fact that I had said, in a debate on the floor on the reapportionment 

bill, that I wouldn't support any bill that would give Cook County a single extra member 

of the legislature. 

Q: Oh? This was about when? 

A: Oh, it was in the early 1940's. But I supported the Stratton compromise that gave the 

House to the downstate and the Senate to Cook County. But it was - you know, after you're 


in the legislature a little while, you find out that a lot of these provincial positions that 

you took because it was popular with your people isn't just the thing to do. 

Q: I see. 

A: And I used to tell the Republican members of our commission, "Now, let's don't get party 

politics into schools. Let's l+eep clear of that." And we never had any of it in the commission 

until Kennedy's brother-in-lqw, Sargent Shriver, got to be president of the board of education 

in Chicago. And it was 

of the governors to appoint the president of the board 

of education in Chicago 

of our commission. 

Q: This was the School ~robbms Commission you're speaking of. 

A: Yes. 

Q: Back in 1939 you went on the Reapportionment Committee. How did you come to be 

put on that committee at that time? 

A: Well there wasn't much agitation right then about it. I don't know. I doubt very much 

if I requested it. I know I requested Appropriations, which was then the big-name 

committee, but first-termers were not put on it, so I didn't get it. But I was put on 

Education. And then we had a catch-all committee called . . . 

Q: Economy and Efficiency? 

A: Efficiency and Economy! And it was said it was neither efficient nor was it 

economical. (laughter) But after Green was elected, Eill Thon, that I told you about from 

Oak Park, was the chairman of it. And he was a crackerjack chairman and Speaker 

Schnackenberg put responsible members on it. 

Q: What was the purpose of the Efficiency and Economy Committee? 

A: Well, it was a - there are bills that don't fit any of the committees. Now we call the 

committee License and - for awhile it was License and Miscellany. And of course it got 

to be - they just dumped most of the more or less irresponsible fellows into it. They 

just decided they were gonna be that way. And they weren't the only ones. And so just 

put them all in there and then don't send them many bills. 


A: But it has a different name now even than that, that's more - because it's licensing 

and regulating of licenses. And pensions used to be - pension bills used to be in it. And 

it was a chance for a shakedown deal. But there wasn't no shakedown when Bill Thon was 

chairman of it. 

After my wife begin to work for the state, after the kids were both married and gone, she 

worked for the House as a committee clerk. And she clerked this committee. John Wall, 

who was convicted of bribery and mail fraud and all, was chairman of the committee at 

that time. (laughs) 

Q: Oh? Yes. What type of - you mean like a fetcher bill sort of thing where . . . 

A: Yes. 

Q: Can you think of an example of that? 

A: No particular single one. Later, those regulating currency exchanges, but for years the 

real fetcher bills in the legislature was strip mining bills. 


Q: Oh? 

A: And they grew out of a split that there was in the miner's union. You see, the miner's 

union was not in the AF of L [American Federation of Labor]. It was in the United Mine 

Workers. Well then they had a row and they split off - there was a Progressive 

Miners. Well the Progressive Miners were deep-miners. And they were strong in the areas 

around Taylorville and Springfield and around there. And they got - these bills got to be 

SO bad, so - just so much of a "come see me" bill - that any member of the legislature 

that had any conscience at all wouldn't even introduce one of them until it had gone, I 

suppose, ten years. And then there was a new fellow came in - and I don't remember 

who it was but I remember he was from that district in around Galesburg and Farmington, 

where they had strip mines - and brought the bill up and it was passed. And there wasn't 

any - Progressive Miners were back in the United Mine Workers then. 

Q: Oh. 

A: And then this chiropractic bill to put a member of the chiropractic profession on the 

board got to be quite a fetcher bill. 

Q: Hm. This was one that Paul Powell had gotten involved with, I understand. 

A: Well, he helped this native, a member from up there in the Rock Island district, with 

it. Paul knew he wasn't going to pass it. It was just too flagrant. 

And then in later years the bad bills, as evidenced by what's happened in so many of - 

to these fellows - was the currency exchange bills. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Yes, they got bad. 

Q: Hm. In what way? 

A: Well, the banks didn't want the currency exchanges. And the currency exchanges were 

split up - this fellow by the name of Thillens, who was a great propogandist. I don't know 

who was right. They said it was a great accommodation to the laboring people for a mobile 

exchange, a truck to come around and cash their checks at the site on Saturday or on Friday 

afternoon, or whenever they came off work. But those bills got so twisted up, and the gangs 

got into them, that even if you thought it was a good bill, you didn't vote for it. 

Q: Oh? Well. (laughs) Hm. What type of mining bill would be introduced that 

would . . . 

A: Well it was ones that would force the mining company to sign a contract under the law 

to put the earth back, the topsoil back on top. In other words to do just exactly what they 

are now doing under the law. There was a short TV skit this past week, or maybe this 

week, showing the condition that they required leveling down. Well of course it was 

costly. And they . . . people wanted it, that were in the strip mining areas. People in an 

area like this didn't care a damn about it. And it got to be a - the fight came, the 

deep-miners didn't want the competition of their cheaper coal, which was always a poor 

grade of coal, but at the same time for certain purposes it was just as good and much 

cheaper. But the edge went off of that when the United Mine Workers got the progressives 

back in their union. 

Q: Do you remember any fights within the unions that reflected in legislative action? 

A: Well the progressive people were always against those bills, because they were 

deep-miners. 


Q: Did they have any representatives in the legislature? That is, lobbyists? 

A: Well, they had lobbyists. And, also, an area like Taylorville - Christian County has 

a lot of mines, deep mines. Sangamon County had some, not as many. And those 

legislators favored the ones that their people, that were interested in it, wanted. And most 

of the mines in southern Illinois are deep mines, were then. Danville, Vermilion County, 

had a lot of strip mining. Fulton County had a lot of strip mining. Knox County had a 

lot. And there was some in Will County. They went according to their, generally speaking, 

to what their constituencies wanted. 

Q: Yes. Well let's see, the Centralia mine disaster occurred when, about 1947 or 1948, 

somewhere along there? 

A: One of them occurred during Pete Green's administration. And then another occurred 

in Centralia during the fall campaign of 1952 when Adlai Stevenson was governor and a 

candidate for president. And of course Adlai loved to make speeches. And he could make 

good speeches if you didn't - if you just listened at him speak and didn't pay much attention 

to what he said. 

Q: Oh? 

A: And he was to - this mine disaster happened down there in - well, he was in 

Massachusetts and was to speak I think at Harvard University that afternoon. And some 

people asked him to come home and he said he had this engagement, he just couldn't possibly 

do it; but they finally just told him he had to come home. And I recall that when he got 

off the plane at Centralia, he said, "Well if the legislature had passed the mining code that 

I proposed, this wouldn't happen." Well the facts were, he didn't introduce one. 

Q: Oh, he didn't? 

A: He wanted to introduce one, but the chairman of his Finance Committee was Peabody 

that owned the Peabody mines, and said, "No soap." But that was a typical Stevensonism. 

Q: What was the outcome of those crises down there? Wasn't there legislation for mine 

safety? 

A: Oh, yes. A mine explosion is like a fire, it's like a tornado, it's like a riot. You never 

have enough firemen if you have an enormous fire in a community. And you can't afford 

to have enough all the tiwe. You can't have enough policemen. And you can't have enough 

mine inspectors. I knoq nothing about mines, but I know that that's always a prize 

accusation. And if they /didn't dust them down as much as they should - I don't know 

what they use. Limestone or something like that to . . . 

Q: Settle the dust, huh? 

A: Yes. But that was the outcome of both of them. And there was some legislation passed. 

Q: There was a commission, or a study group, that went down to study the first one I think 

it was, the Centralia mine disaster. 

A: Oh, I think so. 

Q: Do you remember anything about that commission? 

A: No. I just would have assumed that they had a commission. I see that Carter wants 

to have a commission now just to tell him - I believe it's just how bad a shape we're 

in. Well everybody knows how bad a shape we're in. It's just one of those dodges. 


Q: I see. (laughs) Yes, sir. Now this strip mine business got into the conservation end 

of it, and as time went by, in the last years of your tenure there, there was quite a bit 

about the environment business. 

A: Yes. 

Q: Do you recall legislation activity concerning that? 

A: Well as it related to the mines or as it related to the whole environment? 

Q: Well the mines specifically, first. 

A: Well as I said the bill was passed without any real great opposition when it was 

passed. And it obviously is a good piece of legislation. If you would have had it, you 

wouldn't have had these one hundred or so square miles of what we call "the polywogs" 

between here and Danville. Maybe they're a good game and fish environment, the coverage 

for game and water for fish and so on. But, oh, yes, the environment got to be a real 

hassle. And a Republican governor - it was Ogilvie - during his administration, George 

Burditt, a very high-classed lawyer and member of the House from La Grange Park, was 

the main leader that handled that legislation. And of course the Democrats 

screamed. George was a corporation lawyer and they claimed that the bill was drawn to 

favor business, which is an awful bad thing, you know. If you have legislation to help the 

labor people - but if you have anything to help business, that's bad. The Democrats sniped 

at it all the time. 

And we had a typical example in this district. Down at Tuscola. There's a chemical plant 

down there and when the paint begin to fall off of the people's farm buildings and the metal 

gutters begin to be eaten up by the acid that come from them, the EPA, under Ogilvie's 

administration, came in on them. One of the real fellows that was asking for punishment 

to make these people do it was our Democratic legislator in this district who had voted all 

the way through - said these bills wasn't strong enough. But when it got strong enough 

to light on some people in his district, well then he . . . 

Q: Voted with them. 

A: . . . voted with them. But I don't think there was any legislation came out of that. But 

there hasn't been a session of the legislature since the, well, I'd say since the 1971 session, 

that there hasn't been just a flock of EPA bills in. 

Q: Yes. What do you think of the EPA's move? Are they going too fast? 

A: Well they did. And were, next to the energy division, probably the least effective, I think. 

Q: How did they go about going too fast'? 

A: Oh, they - for instance we were having a big farmers meeting in this county, one 

Saturday, when Ogilvie was governor. And the people that - all these starry-eyed people 

were - 9 times out of 10 are Democrats, And he appointed a man. And when we gathered 

out there at the park - this was a farmers meeting but farmers in this county are 

practically all Republican - and it was in a campaign year and they said, "What do you 

think about this new EPA regulation?" Half of the country elevators couldn't operate under 

it. 

Q: Oh? 

A: And Ogilvie g ~ over t here and they told him about it and he just immediately called 

over and said, "Call that off." You could've said it was a definite attempt to hurt the 

governor. But if it weren't, it hurt just the same. 


And then they came up - no town under fifteen hundred, I think, could burn leaves in the 

fall. And they didn't have the facilities, machines, to sweep them up. And I talked to our 

county chairman in Moultrie County and I said, "Well how's it look for the governor's 

election?" He said, "He's gonna have trouble." And I said, "What kind of trouble?" He said, 

"These people in these small communities, they can't burn the leaves and they just have 

to let them sit. And it's,stopping up their sewer systems." And wet leaves, you know, are 

very dangerous to drive id. You can hardly stop a car in them, it's just like grease. And 

he pointed out this one libtle town, Bethany, that was just almost a solid Republican town, 

the governor barely carrieg it. 

Another thing that caus4 us a lot of trouble was this safety - OSHA, they call it? It 

was a federal law, but one of those crazy things where states agreed to enforce it, and we 

just caught all kinds of hell. There was one specific incident. A friend run a country 

newspaper here at Tuscola. Had just built a new building. I suppose he had a half a dozen 

employees, men and women both. And they come in and said, "You can't operate. You've 

got to have a toilet separate from the" - his toilets backed up to the same partition wall. 

Q: Oh? Yes. 

A: As they do in many filllng stations, to use one set of . . 

Q: Drainage. I 

i 

A: . . . drainage, and pluqbing. He called me and I went down there and he said, ": can't 

possibly rebuild this building the way they want. My lot line and all just won't do it." And 

these fellows just - the federal men, or state men, as the case may be - but they were 

going under the federal law - and they just raised hell with the small employer. 

Q: Hm. Was there legislative relief on that? 

A: Well, there was administrative relief. They just told these fellows, "Now, you can just 

be reasonable." And there was a meeting held in Effingham, just prior to the time that this 

fellow called me to Tuscola, and I didn't go to the meeting. But this one fellow just told 

about some of the ridiculous things. They came in and told this fellow, "You have 15 

violations in here and it's gonna cost you 10 dollars apiece." And, "Well, what is one of 

them?" "Well," he said, "dusting these cases and so on." And the fellow went and got a 

dust cloth and dusted. "Why," he says, "this thing has been dusted. It's decent. It's clean 

enough." He laid the cloth down on a chair and the fellow says, "That's another violation." 

Just that - they just went wild. And you get that kind of thing quite often when you get 

a federal law with the states - may or may not enforce it. And, of course, our governor 

said, "Well, we'll enforce it." They said this was an agreed thing between manufacturers 

and the unions. 

Well, Fred Tuerk, who was an official of the Caterpillar people from Peoria, was a seatmate 

of mine. We were very close friends. And this thing came up one day. And he said, "Why, 

that's a good bill." He said, "There's nothing wrong with that." He said, "The business people 

were represented. We were represented." I said, "Sure you were represented. General 

Motors was properly represented. But things that apply to people who have 150 or 200 

million dollars in a cash reserve fund can play hell with a fellow that has 50 or a 100 dollars 

in his fund.'' 

Q: Yes. 

A: And there weren't any of those little fellows there. But that was another one where 

the - there was no change - I think there was some change in the federal law. But mostly, 

the state people took the gaff because it was state people that was doing . . . 


Q: The administrating 

A: . . . the administration. 

Q: Yes. 

A: The stargazers got a slaughterhouse bill in the legislature - or, in the Congress - some 

ten years ago. And we have down - the Amish people, down around Arcola and through 

there, had these little country butcher shops. Well, the women's clubs and the League of 

Women Voters and all of those stargazers, were in for it and they testified for it, this is 

public health. Well, God, nothing was more of a bait to the big slaughtering houses than 

what - one of the provisions for this act was that there had to be a meat inspector on 

the job all the time. Well that was no problem to Swift, or Armour, or those people. They 

had them, of course, all the time. But this place that butchers two or three beeves and 

a half a dozen hogs a week doesn't have one. 

Q: What happened with that legislation? Did you speak against it? 

A: Oh, that was federal legislation - again with state enforcement. 

Q: Oh. Well where were these people speaking? At the legislature in committee hearings 

or something? Like the League of Women Voters? How were they . . . 

A: No, at Congress. That was in Congress. That was a federal act. I used the names of 

those two groups only because they generally go all out for this sort of legislation. 

Q: So your recourse, then, was administratively - to get to the administrators and . . . 

A: Yes. Of course I think it's silly on the part of a governor to take that. If you're gonna 

have federal law, then enforce it with federal people. 

The freezer people were the first time we heard about it. And I couldn't find anything in 

our digest to suggest that we passed any such bill. And I finally called Bob Craig, who was 

an active member from Danville, and a very - he kept up on things and he was a 

farmer. "Now," he says, "that's another one of those damn federal laws that the state 

agreed to enforce." 

Q: Hm. Well, I'll be darned. This was quite recently, you mean. 

A: Well, it was in the 1970's. 

Q: Yes. (pause) Sir, going back to that Reapportionment Committee in 1939, do you 

remember any specific action in 1939 that . . . 

A: No. I don't. 

Q: You don't recall whether the committee met, then, at that time or not? 

A: No. Oh, I presume it met. Election laws - you see, Election and Reapportionment was 

the name of that committee. And a good many election bills came to it. I can't even 

remember who was the chairman of that committee at that time. Later on I was a member 

of the Reapportionment . . . 

Q: Yes. Well you were chairman in 1945, I believe, of the Reapportionment Committee, is 

that correct? 

A: (pause) Was I chairman or vice-chairman? 


Q: The report said that you were chairman of the committee. 

A: Oh. I just - I don't remember. I remember we got involved when Arthur Sprague - 

he went into the legislature the same time I did. He went to the Senate later on. But 

we had so many contests that year that he called me one day and asked me if I would chair 

a contest committee, 

Q: Contest? 

A: Yes, a subcommittee, to contest the election. 

Q: Oh. 

A: And this was in the Rockford area. And I remember he said, "I've used all of the lawyers 

that I will trust as members of that subcommittee." (laughs) There was four, five or six 

contests. And the subcommittee members had to all be members of the Elections 

Committee, 

Q: Oh? 

A: Which was a fairly good-sized committee, just for that reason. 

Q: Yes. What happened in the Sprague case? 

A: Well, Sprague wasn't - he was the chairman of the committee. 

Q: Oh, I see. 

A: He wasn't being contested. 

Q: Oh. 

A: The one that I chaired, the subcommittee that I chaired, was in a contest between two 

Democrats, Ted Hunter and Bill Pierce. But when votes are divided between all three 

members - Dave Hunter was in no way involved in the contest part, he was the high man 

- but since the votes are spread the way they are, they are always one of the parties 

involved. 

Q: Yes. Because of the cumulative voting system. 

A: Yes. And so Hunter's people were holding out - Ted had been just a rubber stamp 

Democrat, rubber stamp for labor. Rockford used to be, before the CIO [Congress of 

Industrial Organizations], a strong Republican area. And the Swedes, and they were all 

Republican, they were the carpenters and the bricklayers and furniture makers and so 

on. But then when the CIO come in and the machine tool industry built up in Rockford, 

a lot of Italians and other people came in. And Rockford became a swing-city. And still 

is, for that matter. And some members of the committee was holding out for - you see, 

the state pays the lawyers involved in these things. And the expenses, per diem expenses, 

of the members of the committee and subcommittee, that handle the bill. And some of them 

were holding out for a count of certain precincts. So finally my position was against the 

count. I thought it was obvious enough what it was. It was a labor fight, a fight - a party 

fight among the Democrats. 

And so finally we agreed that we would count. And there were seven members of the 

legislature, who was used to counting legislative votes. (laughs) We counted this 

precinct. 

And there was a wider discrepancy between the count that . . . (laughs) 


Q: Oh? 

A: . . . the commission members, the subcommission members, made. Their tallies were 

farther apart than the difference in the votes for which they were being contested! 

Q: Well. (laughter) Gee whiz. How did that get settled then? 

A: Well, there was - one or two of the fellows that were on the committee were not the 

public-minded people that - the lawyer gets - if you count even one precinct, he gets about 

five hundred dollars more. 

Q: Oh. 

A: And that's why they were holding out for count. 

Q: Well. So it really didn't make that much difference, then. 

A: No. 

Q: Well. 

A: All it did was made a Republican out of Ted Hunter. 


A: He lost. 

Q: I'll be darned. (laughter) Well. Did you have any other occasions like that? 

A: I wasn't on any of the others. I wouldn't have been on that if there had been - that 

was the most contests that I knew about. And we had some, as I indicated, some members 

that, well, he said, "Some of these fellows, I wouldn't trust them with the contest." Because 

he was a straightforward, straight-shooting fellow himself. 

Q: After the 1940 census, there evidently was a move to reapportion at that time. 

A: Yes. 

Q: What happened that they didn't reapportion? 

A: Well just didn't have enough votes. Cook County - you see, we were going on - the 

reapportionment was set up in 1901. And Cook County wasn't anything like half of the state 

at that time. And so there just weren't enough votes favorable to - everybody that was 

there got elected in the district the way it was, so they didn't want the district changed. 

Q: Oh, I see. (laughter) Yes. Who was pushing for reapportionment at that time? 

A: Oh, all the newspapers and all of the stargazers. (pause) 

Q: Do you remember any individuals, particularly, that were raising the issue? 

A: Oh, yes. The League of Women Voters. We had a strong chapter here then, and do 

yet, I guess. They were for it. They wanted a new constitution. I asked one of them one 

time, I said, "Why do you want a new constitution?" "Well," she said, "the one that we have 

is just so bad that I just think that we couldn't possibly get one worse." Well I think we 

got one worse when we finally . . . 


Q: Well. (laughs) Not the way it's working out? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Was Samuel Witwer around at that time? 

A: Oh, yes, Sam was another one of those stargazers. No Republican would trust Sam 

Witwer as a Republican. And I mean they don't have a - it's no reflection on his morals 

or anything like that. But Sam was always for any kind of change like that. Like - who 

was that other fellow that was - helped - when Nixon's hearing before the Senate . . . 

Q: Bert Jenner? 

A: Bert Jenner, another one of them. 

Q: How did they go about pushing this back in the 1940's? 

A: Oh, they got in all the newspapers. Of course Cook County wanted it. And had the 

right to have it. But they were more avaricious than the others and we didn't - we 

wouldn't have had some of the things that we do have now, we wouldn't have the state 

putting millions and millions of dollars into their public transportation if we had the old 

provision. But it got clear out of hand. There was a terrible growth between 1941 and - 

1956 was the first legislature that was elected under the new apportionment. 

Q: Well, do you remember any of the appearances of Witwer or Jenner before the committee 

back in 1945? 

A: No, I wasn't on the committee, I'm sure. I wasn't on the committee that handled it. 

Q: Did these individuals approach you individually at that time? 

A: Oh, I can't tell you, Mr. Waggoner. I don't recall. I presume they did. 

Q: After the 1950 census there was a move again - I believe Stratton was pushing it - 

for the change. 

A: Yes, and that's when they gave the . . . the Senate to the - had one extra senator from 

Cook County, one more than downstate. And one more legislative district downstate. 

Q: One of the things that was put in the constitution at that time was to divide the state 

into three parts; Chicago, and then the balance of Cook County, and downstate. Do you 

recall that maneuver, or how that came about? 

A: Well, you said three parts. Was that the city as separated from the county up there? 

Q: Yes. 

A: And then the downstate. 

Q: Right. 

A: No, I don't recall. I remember that there was that, that entered into it. But there were 

three or four sessions we had several changes. 

Q: Well, that was a constitutional amendment at that time . . . 

A: Yes, that's right. 


Q: . . . that was voted on in 1954. I've been wondering why it wound up that there were 

59 representative districts and only 58 senatorial districts at that time. Do you know why 

they changed . . . 

A: No. I knew at the time, but I don't know. And that was bad. Because as it had been 

before and as it is now, the three legislators that represent me and the senator all have 

the same territory. 


A: . . . Senator Weaver was our senator here. He was also the senator in DeWitt County, 

though DeWitt County wasn't a part of our representative district. That type of 

thing. And that's just the one - it was confusing to, in campaign times, to scheduling 

meetings. And it left - this senator had two sets of people to satisfy. (pause) And really 

just wasn't any sense to it. 

Q: He had to work with at least six, then, representatives, for some of the same matters. 

A: Yes. 

Q: At that time of course there was the federalism system instituted, that the House of 

Representatives would go by population and the Senate would go by area. 

A: Well, it had always been that way. 

Q: Did you recall any activity when they put that in the constitution at that time? 

A: Well, no, that had always been in the constitution. They were both by population but 

we didn't require - well, the Senate - we didn't require that they be the same number 

of people. The "one man-one vote" wasn't it. There were some people - and I still 

maintain - that you have more problems in 10,000 square miles than you will have with 

the same number of people in 5 or 10 square miles and that territory has a right, and a 

reasonable right, for representation. 

Q: Do you think we should have stayed with the area concept for the Senate, then? 

A: Yes, I think so. I think so. But we had - in order to - I just don't know now because 

I'm running about twenty years of thinking into one. 

Q: Yes, sir. (laughs) 

A: But when you've got the House and the Senate back again so that their lines were 

conterminous, then if the House was based upon equality of population, the Senate naturally 

would be. 

Q: Yes. And that, of course, occurred in the 1960's then. 

A: Yes. 

Q: Do you recall the 1963 - I guess you'd call it "fiasco" - when they attempted to 

reapportion and couldn't do it? And it finally went to the at-large . . . 

A: Yes. And we're riding right into that same thing again. 

Q: Oh? 


A: I think we are. There were four, three or four, Republicans from extreme southern 

Illinois. One of them was Branson - not the Branson I spoke about yesterday, but a son 

of his - who had all of his dad's bullheadedness and none of his common sense. And 

Williams, from Murphysboro. And I can't recall the other one. We had an edge, majority, 

of one or two is all - Republicans. And we had to have all the Republican votes to pass 

a fair bill. The population called for southern Illinois to lose two legislators, and a bill to 

do that was drawn. Southern Illinois people, all too many of them, have the idea that a 

hundred thousand people i southern Illinois should have the same number of legislators 

that a hundred thousand ple anywhere else - plus probably one because it was southern 

Illinois. 


A: They finally agreed to give up one member, but these fellows just absolutely refused to 

go along with the bill as drawn, that all the rest of us was for that would - so we had 

to redraw it, giving them back one of the districts. It's like dominoes. When you change 

something in southern Illinois, you're going to have to change something all the way 

upstate. And the result was, by putting that one district back in, Lake County lost 

one. And it gave Kerner a good excuse to veto the bill. Then we have a commission. The 

law provided we had to have a commission that would draw a map and bill. Well that 

commission split even. 

Q: Do you remember any 04 the activities of that? George Dunne, I believe, was in charge 

of that commission. 

I 

A: Well, he was . . . well, I don't know how he was in charge of it. I don't know what 

your meaning is. 

Q: Well, the chairman of the commission was George Dunne, I believe. 

A: Was it? Well, it might have been. But then the bar association, or the courts, some 

way - fellows like Jenner and the other one you mentioned . . . 

Q: Witwer? 

A: . . . Witwer, they always believed that the judges, or the courts, should settle these 

things. Well the court settled it. They couldn't get an agreement, so we had an at-large 

election. Now that's the plain open and shut. 

Q: There was an indication that the Democrats were all for the at-large election and may 

have been maneuvering to cause that to occur. Do you feel that was true? 

A: Yes, I think it was true. I think that political savvy would have led them to 

that. Because we realized, some of us did, that if we went into an at-large election - that 

was then obvious that we were going to - that we couldn't have Pete Granata and various 

ones of those groups that have been tabbed as the West Side Bloc, we couldn't have them 

on our ticket. 

Q: Oh? 

A: And so we said we'd just - we'd change the primary law so that the candidates were 

appointed by the legislature itself, the Republicans would choose the Republican candidates, 

the Democrats would choose the Democratic candidates. And* we cut out six or seven of 

those fellows that had committed political treason in the past. 

Q: I understand Senator Percy had something to do with that. 


A: Well, he was candidate for governor. That was 1964. And he approved it, which didn't 

have much effect. 

We are talking right now about this Committee for Political Honesty - have to get it on 

the ballot to reduce the members of the legislature, the number. I think it should be. I 

would support an issue to reduce the members of the legislature. But, if that resolution 

is the same as it was, it also provided that we have single-member districts. That I oppose. 

Now we haven't been able - for fifteen years or more, the legislature hasn't been able to 

redistrict itself, with 59 districts. Now you'd have 118 districts, if that thing is passed on 

there, and you never on God's earth would ever be able to redistrict into 59 legislative 

districts, and then divide each of them into two representative districts. Failing that we 

go back to commissions again, with the Supreme Court finally deciding it, and I believed 

in 1964 and still believe that court control is what these highbinder lawyers want. You 

would be just turning over, to some nonelected people, the reapportionment of the 

state. And if there's any one function that should be the function of the General Assembly, 

that's the one, apportioning itself. 

Q: Why is that so? 

A: Well, it's - what is more important than to decide a method for choosing the General 

Assembly? 

Q: And they should be in a position to do that themselves. 

A: Yes. 

Q: If the basis is population, why couldn't it be done mechanically? Just have a group take 

a look at it from the standpoint of population, purely? 

A: Well now these are people. These are people whose jobs are involved. You just can't 

take . . . Illinois has got 56,000 square miles in it, so we'll just divide it up 116 ways. You 

can't do that sort of thing! You can't do it with people! What would happen if some power 

could say, "Now I want every person who has an office in this building - lawyers, doctors, 

architects and so on. Now we're going to reshuffle these offices." Now are all these people 

going to say, "Well that's just fine?" 

Q: I see. 

A: And you obviously will have what they like and they feel that it's their premise to have 

it. And you just don't pull 177 or 116 people together and get that thing done. To have 

116 districts in the state of Illinois is absolutely ridiculous! I don't know whether that is 

still in or not, but it was in the petition that I saw a long time ago. In fact I wrote a 

paper for the Sangamon State Illinois Issues - hello, Chet! Girls have been calling for you 

all morning. 

(taping interrupted to greet visitor, then resumed) 

Q: Well, you definitely are for the cumulative voting procedure, then. 

A: No! 

Q: Oh, you're not? 

A: No, no. I would say I go for single voters. Take the same number of districts we have, 

have two from each district and let one person have two votes, that is, he'd vote for two 

people. But you can't pile them up, no bullet or plump votes. If you just vote for one 

person, that person gets a vote, he doesn't get two votes. 


Q: Oh, I see. 

A: The Constitution of 1870 of course followed - was right in the midst of all the ill feeling 

and mistrust that people had of government following the Civil War. That's how we got 

minority representation in the House. And it worked too well. Well the curse of it was 

that it worked too well. You could elect people with it that couldn't possibly be elected 

otherwise. Now there are some districts where a good strong man can very often jump 

party lines. That is, people will go over and vote for him. And increasingly so, 

unfortunately. Some people, who are good members of the legislature, are in districts too 

one-sided but after all they want to be in that district. 

Q: Yes. (laughter) Well. I wonder, could we think about the 1963 effort to reapportion 

fn the legislature? A commission was formed. I believe Senator Partee was on the 

commission, on the Democratic side. Do you remember John Touhy's participation in 

that? He was leading the Democrats at that time. Do you remember his efforts at that 

time? 

A: John Touhy was in the legislature several years before anybody ever heard him say one 

word, except to answer roll call. I was on the Appropriations Committee with him and one 

or two sessions before they picked him to run for speaker, John Touhy began to take some 

part. But I know of nothing he ever took any part in, other than that. 

But Johnny had such a short fuse that, even when he was speaker and when he was floor 

leader, you cross him up or dispute him or oppose him, John - and John and I are good 

friends and he treated me as well as he treated any Democrat - but he just had a short 

fuse, quick temper. And of course they said that he had a telephone directly from the 

mayor's office right to his desk, when he was speaker. And they presided up there, all he 

did was wield the gavel. 

Q: Can you think of an example when he lost his temper on the floor? 

A: Oh, God, he did it so many times I can't . . . I can't tell you. 

Q: Did he ever ask you to help with anything? 

A: No, because when he wasispeaker, they had 116 members and we had 59. 

! 

Q: So he didn't have much abroblem of leading at that moment. 

A: No. 

Q: I see. (pause) Did you know Thomas McGloon? 

i 

5 

i 

A: Yes, I knew Tom. Of course he was in the Senate all the time I was in the House. He 

was an easygoing fellow. He was a regular fellow in the machine up there. But Tom was 

the type of fellow that, if you went and talked with him about a bill, a motion of some kind, 

and it wasn't just out of the question - and of course after you'd been there awhile, if you 

had any gumption, you knew what to ask and not to ask one on the other side. But I always 

considered him one of my friends. He was a particularly good friend of Senator Peters, 

who was a hard-line Republican. But he'd support Pete about any time he could, when it 

wasn't something that was . , . against orders. 

Q: Yes. (pause) Do you remember any particular issues, that were quite apparently on the 

basis of orders from Chicago, that came up along that time? 

A: Oh, any big issue was. 


Q: What about - let's see, now - this was earlier than that but - the Chicago Transit 

Authority, I believe back in the late 19409s, was coming in, or early 1950's? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Do you recall the push to get CTA . . . 

A: Yes. 

Q: What do you remember about that? 

A: It was one of the few votes that I voted and voted for it, because I didn't think that 

we could possibly have anything any worse than the old streetcar-bus system, elevated 

system, that Chicago had. I think probably it improved what would have been the situation 

now. But of course it was a glory hole for the Democrats. My God, practically every 

Democrat member of the legislature, they tell me, if he isn't directly on the payroll of some 

other agency, he's a public liability injury case lawyer defending the CTA. 

Q: Representative Sandquist, I believe the governor asked him to make a study on the CTA 

as a requirement for CTA. Do you remember the Sandquist report? 

A: No. Sandquist was an ideal - a real nice fellow, but he was pretty light in timbre. 


A: But he wasn't any such a radical as his son. 

Q: Oh? 

A: No. (pause) He is clear out in left field on practically everything. 


A: That's not a position that a Swede ordinarily takes. 

Q: Oh? Well. I see. But you don't recall the Sandquist report. 

A: No. 

Q: Do you recall him promoting CTA at that time? 

A: Not any more than some other Republicans. 

Q: Was Mrs. Van der Vries - at that time, do you recall her concern over CTA? 


Q: (pause) Let's see, way back, I believe it was just before you went to the House of 

Representatives, there was the farm-to-market road bill. Do you recall that bill? 

A: Oh, yes. Farm-to-market roads have helped. I think I helped pass the farm-to-market 

road. And I quite often say to my downstate members, who are raising the devil about the 

state helping of CTA, I said, "Let's class this all under the classification of moving 

people. Now moving people downstate, and products, is something very dear to us, roads 

that farmers can haul on and that people can travel on. But they don't have any of them 

in Cook County. But their money goes in to help us with these farm-to-market roads. So 

I'm not going to say that I'm not going to help them with their traffic problem. And their 


traffic problem is mass transportation. I don't agree with a good many of the things that 

they do and the way they handle it, but . . ." I've used that example many times, of the 

farm-to-market roads. That comes out of the state pot. And we shouldn't say, "Well now 

we'll take this and now we're even." Well let's go on from there. We're ahead. After one 

or two terms in the legislature, I didn't think that everything that Chicago wanted was bad, 

or was bad for downstate. 

Q: I guess one of the first big expressways up there was the Congress Street 

Expressway. Do you recalk that legislation? 

i 

A: Yes. I remember readi 

.I 

g 

. 

in the Sunday Tribune, 25 years before it passed, them telling 

about . . . proposing and d agrams on the paper. And they built it with their state gasoline 

tax money that they had c ing. That was their right to allot it as our county has a right 

to allot ours. 

Q: Was there other state money involved in developing that? 

A: I don't think so. I don't think so. 

Q: So the legislation involved with it was just to permit them to use that for expressway 

purposes? 

A: Well, I think they already had - I think the county board and/or the city administration 

had the power to use the money, under certain conditions, that they wanted to use it 

for. Now like we have, every year, thousands and thousands of dollars worth of state gas 

tax money used, fix a street corner out here and blacktop this street here. Now we don't 

go to the state for the authority for that all the time. That other was a big project and 

a good many years ago, but I don't recall any legislation concerning it. 

Q: What kind of requirements for road development occurred in your district? Were there 

particular road projects that you pushed to help the district? 

A: Oh, yes. The allocation of the freeway, which now is Route 1-74, that was - the point 

was, before it finally was laid out as 74, it was to be a bypass. But it wasn't built as 

such. Finally it was built as a road. Oh, yes, this road from here to Monticello, which 

is now Route 72, grew out of an effort we made, for awhile. And I happened to just hit 

the iron when it was hot and got the governor to agree to build that road from Champaign 

to Monticello. 

Q: Oh? (pause) That's 1-72 now, is it? 

A: Yes. Yes. 

Q: Yes. Running on through Decatur to Springfield. 

A: Yes. But for a long time - they started in Monticello and came this way. Because we 

had friends in Monticello that we'd play cards with, oh, a couple of nights a month, there 

and two here, like that. And we always hated it when we run off that west end where it 

was four lanes, especially if it was foggy or stormy or something like that. We got the 

first four-lane highway in the state of Illinois, outside of Cook County, was Route 45 from 

Urbana to Rantoul. 

Q: When did you start working to get that? 

A: Well I don't know. Thdt was one of those things that came up when Chanute Field, in 

1939 and 1940 - and then /when the war came along that traffic was just - we just killed 

them up there on those nar$w bridges just like flies. 


Q: Oh? Hm. (pause) So this was really a federal help sort of thing, then? 

A: Well, I suppose probably it was. I'm not sure. But I know that the state had the move 

and probably there was some federal money then. I don't know whether they were funded 

with federal money that far back. And that road from Arthur north, connecting with Route 

136, that was another out-of-county project. And it was a county-line road. And on one 

side was one of our counties and on the other side was Douglas, which we didn't have 

then. Now we have both of those counties it runs through. 

Q: I see. So it took some cooperation between the two districts. 

A: Yes. And, oh - I'd have never thought of these things. In this turn - out of Ogden 

there was a sharp curve came in and the road goosenecked around a little restaurant out 

there and we had a lot of agitation to get that curve straightened out. The old fellow that 

had the little restaurant there was a friend of all of us and so we didn't push it too much 

on him. And then a car came through there one day and killed him. 

Q: Oh? Well. So it kind of made the point, huh? 

A: That's another one of them. After the university airport was built, we got the 

broadening of the road from town, Route 45. 

Q: From town out to there. 

A: Which is Neil Street now. And those - I suppose if I ran through all the old digests 

I could pick out fifty. 

Q: Yes. What other types of requests did you get for action from the constituency here 

in the district? 

A: Well, you've seen the digests. 

Q: Yes. 

A: Well, we'd get our share of all of them. 

Q: I see. Yes. Any particular ones that caused any problems for you? 

A: (pause) Oh, I'm sure there were. I'm sure there were. (pause) One of the ones that 

I engineered, along in the 1960's - you see, I think 30, 35 percent of all children in the 

Urbana schools were children of state employees, university people. Well now they pay 

taxes on their home like we pay taxes on our home, but there were no taxes levied on their 

place of employment. Consequently Urbana taxes were sky-high. And finally I railroaded 

through our commission where there was a certain percent of the population, the school 

population, that lived in a district that had that situation, where no tax was on the place 

of employment, there would be an allotment of money from the state, on a formula basis, 

that would make up that difference. Now of course we got the help of everybody in the 

Bloomington district, the Charleston-Mattoon district, because . . . 

Q: The various schools . . . 

A: The schools there. 

Q: Yes. 

A: And Macomb and so on. I turned it down for a session or so. Urbana came to me with 

requests several times and I said, "Well you've got to build up a better case than you've 


uilt up for me." And finally they got a fellow, a man that was an assistant superintendent, 

and he set up what looked like a reasonable proposition. And it wasn't a pushover to pass 

it in the legislature, but we got it. And it meant, I would say, roughly a million to a 

million-and-a-half dollars for these twin cities' schools. 

Q: Did they provide you with a draft of the bill? Or did you work out 

A: No, we drew the bill. 

Q: You did. 

A: This fellow had just gotten his doctor's degree in educational administration. And I got 

well acquainted with him when he was principal of the high school in Clinton. He was one 

of my good customers over there in business. And he worked out a good reasonable basis, 

so that it fluctuated with the state formula, with this other part in it. That was the last 

big . . . job that I did, almast single-handed, for the district. 

Q: And you say you had a problem getting it through the legislature? 

A: Oh, it - no, we didn't have any problem. We got it through all right. The first reading 

- I mean, we didn't have to postpone it. But we had strong opposition from some people. 

Q: Who would be opposed to it? 

A: Well, Dan Pierce, from up north of Chicago, always said, "You people gets all this state 

money. You're just riding them forward." Well of course you don't have an institution like 

that, of 35,000 students plus close to 5,000 employees, that don't present some problems. 

Q: Yes, it would. (laughs) Yes, sir. 

A: The census bureau in Washington realized that when - I think in about 1951 - they 

begin to count students gnd service men as citizens of the place where they were 

stationed. Rantoul's popul$ion jumped from 1,600 to 21,000. 


A: In one year. 

Q: I see. Yes, sir. Just by census count. 

A: Yes. 

Q: How did your constituents normally approach you? Did they write you or just talk to 

you or . . . 

A: Oh, both ways. Both ways. I refused to be an office boy for my constituents. And if 

they had something that was galling them and something that they wanted changed or 

something, and I knew there was no chance to change it whether I wanted to or not, I just 

told them, "Well, you just can't do it," and, "I won't take it." Half of the bills - oh, no, 

not half - a third of the bills are thrown in because somebody asked a legislator to put 

them in. The pride of authorship is strong in new members oftentimes, to see their name 

on one and pass it. And I never got - I don't say I never, but I didn't make a business 

of just carrying armloads of license plates home, and such errand boy jobs. 

Q: And some people did, huh? 

A: Oh, yes. Yes. One fellow told me, he says, "The biggest job I have is getting license 

plates for people." 


Q: Oh, is that right? (laughs) They wanted particular numbers, I suppose. 

A: Yes, or they just didn't want to make out the form. Some way or another - YOU know, 

there's something queer. If you can get somebody in government to do something for you, 

while you might be able to do it yourself, it kind of puffs you up a little. 

Q: Oh? 

A: I always remember the example - there was a - during the days when legislators got 

4 or 5 or 6, 10 tickets to the State Fair - which I have never used, I don't go to 

fairs. (laughs) Now, the admission then was 50 cents. And a fellow and his wife wanted 

to know if I could get them some tickets to the State Fair. And I said, "Well, yes." Well, 

I had them. They made three trips, 20 miles down, before we were able to meet and to 

give them those tickets. They went over there, you know, "Well, Clabaugh got me these 

tickets." (laughter) 

Q: They were proud of the fact, huh. 

A: Proud of the fact, yes. (laughter) 

Q: Hm. (pause) How did you handle your mail over there in those early days? 

A: Well you just - there was a pool of secretaries. They were usually just loaned by the 

different departments. And you always got the poorest secretaries that they had. And you 

did the mail up in their room and there was a - called it the secretaries pool. And you'd 

go in and see if you could get one. And generally you settled down and got one that suited 

you and you suited her and you used her. And sometimes during the hours of the session, 

she'd come down and take letters at the desk. But I never did have a secretary that I could 

just give her a letter and tell her to sign it and send it, because they just weren't that good. 

Q: Oh, I see. (laughter) Yes. 

A: But there were some dandies. The Senate always got the pick. They always paid higher. 

Q: Did you receive your mail there at your desk? 

A: Well the post office was right on the same floor. For a while it was at the southwest 

corner and then they moved around and put it over in the other part. And you would . . . if 

you didn't pick up your mail by the middle of the afternoon, why, the pages would bring 

your mail to your desk. 

Q: How much mail did you usually get a day? 

A: Oh, it varied very much. I'd get a good deal of mail the first two or three weeks because 

business organizations and labor organizations had already decided what they were going 

to ask for and they'd send their stuff to you. And sometimes you'd acknowledge receipt 

of it and sometimes you wouldn't, if it - it was according to the shape it was. I read all 

my mail except when I would get fifty or a hundred letters all on the same kind of envelopes, 

all with the same handwriting. Then I knew that some group of teachers had gotten 

together and decided that they were going to send a letter. They'd make up a form letter 

and every one of them would sign it. And I got so I could tell those and toss them aside. 

Q: And just not pay any attention to them. 

A: That's right. I've talked to hundreds of groups of teachers, and I'd say, "Instead of doing 

that, why don't you get together and decide on a letter and then write that letter. Let one 

letter come, because the members are gonna read that letter. And just say, 'This is a letter 


that our committee . . . and our teachers all have approved it . . . and there are 28 

teachers, 32 teachers, 140 teachers.' Then," I said, "that letter'll get looked at. But you'll 

be very lucky to get one with this pile. . ." I made such a speech to teachers and the teachers' 

union of Chicago, like that, one April day. The next week I got just the same kind of thing 

again, (laughs) They heard me talk but they didn't pay any attention to what I said. 

i 

Q: Yes. (laughter) Did y4u ever have any situations like - Mrs. Van der Vries got mailing 

like that, hundreds of letters, all addressed to &. Van der Vries. Did you ever have any 

situation like that? 

A: I had everything. And had every kind of spelling that you can consider of my name. 

Q: Oh? (laughs) 

A: My wife got a letter the other day in answer to a letter she wrote, so they had'her name 

there. And it was Mrs. C. W. C-U-L-A-B-A-U-G-H. 

Q: Well. (laughs) My goodness. 

A: I have had a few letters - I have a letter in my file in there that I - I'm not sure 

that I ever opened it. I couldn't even read the address. I don't know how the postmistress 

knew who to give it to if it was for me. I might have opened it and there were - I guess 

I did - there was two or three pages. And you just looked at it and you just couldn't make 

it out. It came from Charleston I think and I suppose it was from the university down 

there. I had a few letters that I couldn't read. 


A: Yes. 

Q: You mean the handwriting and that was . . . 

A: Yes. 

Q: . . . just too rough. Hm. How did you usually respond? By letter? Or did you have 

any card mailings that you used? 

A: Oh, the first session I did have some cards printed, because it was some one of these 

things you was going to get a lot of mail on. Until Senator Peters, who was in the House, 

said that there was an old Dutchman up here in Gifford - Gifford was just a solid 

Republican Dutch community, German community. And they had a writing in on 

something, probably their road or bridge. And Pete sent them a postcard. And said he 

went in to campaign that fellow next year, he says, "I'm not going to vote for you." "What's 

the matter?" He says, "You didn't take the time to write me a letter. I didn't care for the 

postmaster knowing what was on my card, but I don't like other people reading my mail." 

Q: Well! (laughter) So you took that to heart, did you? 

A: Yes, I did. 

Q: Well. (pause) I notice in 1941 you first put in a city manager type bill. 

A: No, Mrs. Van der Vries was the main sponsor of those. Several sessions we had them. 

Q: Do you remember the trials and tribulations of getting that through? 

A: Well, we didn't pass it. 


Q: Not at that time, huh? 

A: No. 

Q: It took several years. 

A: The city of Chicago was unanimously opposed to it. And labor opposed it. It didn't have 

a chance, but I thought it was a good thing. I'm not so damn sure now, since we have one. 

Q: Oh. (laughs) Do you have it here in Champaign? 

A: Yes. And I don't say he's not a good city manager, but we don't think that he has any 

feeling that he is any part of the citizenry. I'm precinct committeeman of my precinct - 

well your hotel is in my precinct. We live in that big apartment building just right across 

the corner there. And we vote at the church just on the south end of the block, and you're 

the north end of the block. And there's a busy street there, but there is parking on it. And 

for years I'd go down to the city building and they'd either give me signs Parking for Voting 

Only - with a rubber band on it, and I'd put it around the meter - or a sack that said 

that. And I went down there this past year, I went in the police department at 5:30 in 

the morning, to be ready to go at 6 - and the fellow said, "Well you'll have to get that 

up at the city clerk. They'll be open at 8 o'clock." So I said, "All right." So I went down 

there and they got me what I asked for. And she said, "That'll be ten dollars that's 

refundable when you bring them back, and two dollars a day for each one of them." I said, 

"Forget it." 


A: And I happened to be in a meeting, a party, with one of the aldermen, or councilman, 

as they call him, just within 2 weeks. And I said, "Did you fellows pass an ordinance or 

was that just another one of the things that this nonpolitical manager did? If you fellows 

passed it, I have no objection. But I strongly oppose just some bird like that who has no 

more interest in this community except as he'd try to make a record. Always the policy 

seems to go away, don't take anybody in town, go away, always get them." And the fellow 

said, "Well, I don't remember it ever being discussed." And I told him about it. But I don't 

know how long - Mrs. Van der Vries, I think, was gone from the legislature when the city 

manager bill finally passed. 

Q: Well, it came in - in 1951, I believe, it . . . 

Q: . . . finally passed. 

A: She was still there, then. 

Q: Yes, she was still there. 


A: Let me just answer a little better now, this question, "How do your people get things 

to you." Now the individuals get to you in any number of ways. But usually Farm Bureau, 

the labor groups, grain dealers, pharmacists, retail merchants, and on and on and on, they 

have well-organized groups, they have programs, and they usually invite the members of 

the legislature, sometimes the candidates, before the election, in and tell them what they're 

going to ask for. And sometimes it enters into a discussion and you say, "Well I don't favor 

that, but that doesn't make a difference, you can't pass it," and tell them why. Well we 


CLABAUGH 

STATE 

REPUBLICAN 

FOR 

REPRESENTATIVE 

48th DISTRICT 

' 

- - Champaign Douglas Moultrie 

* A VOTE TO RESTORE LAW AND ORDER .k 

". . . only in the first year or two did I put the 

year on them at all, they'd be kept over. " 



COURTESY OF ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL LIBRARY 

(opposite page) MEMBERS OF THE ILLINOIS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

GIVING THE OATH OF OFFICE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 70TH GENERAL 

ASSEMBLY, 1975. CHARLES CLABAUGM IN LIGHT SUIT SECOND FROM 

RIGHT IN SECOND ROW FROM BACK OF THE CHAMBER. (above) THE DESKS 

HAD CHANGED, BOTH IN TYPE AND NUMBER, FROM THOSE PROVIDED 

DURING CLABAUGH'S FIRST SESSION IN 1939. 

"I've been for the reduction of the size 

of the legislature before it went from 

153 on up to 177." 


COURTESY OF PEORIA JOURNAL-STAR 

EACH LEGISLATOR'S SET OF THE "BILL BOOKS" (shown 

above on Senate desks in 1967) GOT LARGER AS A SESSION 

PROGRESSED. 

"Well I just am opposed 100 percent 

yet to annual sessions. All in 

God's earth they've done is just 

got us about 50 to 75 percent more 

bills. " 


(I to r) CHARLES CLABAUGH. GENE HOFFMAN, AND EUGENE 

SCHLICKMAN DISCUSSING A LEGISLATIVE PAPER IN THE 

HOUSE CHAMBER. 1974. 

"Gene Hoffman is very humorous 

and witty, can handle almost any 

situation. Gene Schlickman sat 

next to me. He was deep, He was 

very intense. 


CHARLES CLABAUGH'S SECRETARY, JOELLA ANDERSON, 

TAKING DICTATION IN CLABAUGH'S OFFICE, 1974. 

"A lovely person. She was a friend 

of my oldest daughter." 


had good relationship - teachers, another one of these groups of people, and endless 

numbers of organizations of one kind or another. 

Q: Who was your contact with the Farm Bureau? 

A: Oh, well we knew all the people. They were from the county. Of course the - usually 

the farm advisor. And they had a public relations man. They had a farmer that was 

chairman of their legislative committee. 

Q: (pause) I'm trying to think of someone from Sullivan, Illinois, who was . 

A: Well sure - Shuman. Shuman, Charlie Shuman. 

Q: Yes. 

A: He was president of the National Farm Bureau for several years. 

Q: Did you know him very well? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Did he have much influence, or propose much legislation? 

A: Oh, as queer as it may seem, he was a Democrat. But he wasn't a Democrat when he 

went out of office. 

Q: Oh, I see. (laughter) Well. 

A: He was a very influential fellow, a man of means, and I don't know how well educated 

he was in formal education, but he was a good speaker, good voice. 

Q: Do you remember any particular issues that he discussed with you, or was pushing? 

A: No . . . He would be for their regular program. The only program that the Farm 

Bureau ever had that I didn't support - early in my - probably 1942 - they wanted a 

price fixing bill for milk. And of course the dairy farmers were for it and they supported 

them. And I wouldn't go for it because I'd had enough Roosevelt price fixing, setting. And 

voted no and told them I voted no. In most things farmers are very reasonable people. The 

next session they came around and they said, "We got another bill." "Well," I said, "that 

last one was a stinker." They said, "We know it." (laughter) 

Q: What was their new bill? 

A: I don't remember. But it wasn't very long until they were fighting any kind of price 

fixing. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Yes. They got enough of it. I'd tell them, "The power to fix prices in your favor is also 

the power to fix them the other way, so don't forget that. You got a 50-50 chance of losing." 

Q: Who represented the grain elevator people? Was there a large group there? 

A: (pause) Well Senator Peters had been an elevator operator and of course they usually 

came to Pete and told him what they wanted. Most of the legislation they wanted came 

in later when there was so much storage and the matter of bonding the elevators so that 

they were guaranteed against loss. And it's still a problem. 


Q: Yes. Do you remember any state legislation that was involved with that bonding? 

A: I do remember that we passed some legislation that they wanted, for bonding. 

Q: But you don't remember the details of it? 

A: No, I don't remember the details. It was a financial responsibility question, that's what 

it was. 


Q: There are a couple of other items I'd like to ask about in regard to agriculture. How 

much were you involved with the support of fairs, like the county fairs for example, providing 

appropriations and that sort of thing? 

A: Well I always supported the fairs in the legislature. I'm not a very keen fair man. I 

guess during the first part of my political career, when the fairs were someplace, we were 

always supposed to go, and every little village and hamlet and some country churches would 

have a fair. And they'd tag you for all they could get out of you besides tickets, and I just 

got a dislike of fairs. I haven't been to the Champaign County Fair for years. And don't 

go to the State Fair at all. But I supported the fairs. I think they're a fine thing to have, 

as long as somebody else supports them. 

Q: I see. (laughter) Yes, sir. 

A: But I was not one of those landmark legislators on fairs. 

Q: Do you remember any particular problems that arose in the legislature concerning fairs? 

A: Oh, of course there was always the - or for many years Springfield legislators were 

trying to make the State Fair a free fair. And we said that "You want a Sangamon County 

carnival, free." But they never got it, it never did pass, I don't think. There was a great 

deal more talk and writing in the newspapers about the fair losing money than I thought 

was necessary. I thought the fair was an educational production for youngsters. I thought 

it was good promotion for agriculture. And I didn't think that it was particularly bad if 

it cost money. I wasn't so disturbed about that. 

Q: I understand it was Governor Stevenson that wanted to try to get it to pay more of its 

way. Prior to that time, apparently they had been sending out free passes to all the 

legislators for distribution. And I understand he attempted to cut that off. 

A: Well I don't remember that he did. And I don't remember that he didn't. There was 

a time when they gave a certain number of free passes. I suppose I took them. I never 

tried to get them. I don't like to have free things to give away, because if you think you're 

helping yourself, you are with the people you give them to, but you aren't to other 

people. And I never went for that. 

Q: Do you recall any particular problems with the management of the State Fair? 

A: Oh, I remember as I say what you read in the papers about it. My worst complaint I 

had was the fact that organized labor seemed to just have a complete monopoly of 

everything. And as usual they were exorbitant in what they asked for, in exorbitant 

amounts of money, in favors and so on. But I wouldn't consider my reaction to fairs, or 

the importance of the various controversies that arose over the fairs, ranking very high. 

Q: What about Paul Powell's push to get harness racing at the fairs, and pari-mutuel betting 

and that sort of thing organized? 


A: Well of course Paul would. Paul had a vested interest in all of those things. He stood 

to profit by them and did profit by them. And I have always been against any kind of 

legalized gambling. Because all you have to do is just look around you. Up until probably 

the last couple of years, we've just had one scandal after another in the pari-mutuels. I 

was sorry to see the Du Quoin fair go to pari-mutuels. I guess it got to the place where 

they had to to compete for the patronage of the people that they appealed to, but it always 

seemed a kind of a good breath of fresh country air to go down there and not . . . 

Q: Be bothered with it. 

A: . . . not be bothered with that. Because I find that the people, generally speaking, that 

attend racing at the tracks, they don't go to watch the horses run. They could care less 

who won except the one they're betting on. And I think it's a sport that, like baseball and 

football, a great deal of the sport has gone out of it, to business. But they don't have 

pari-mutuels in the State Fair yet, I don't think, do they? 

Q: No, I don't think so. 

A: I don't think so. I think the people, as a whole, would be opposed to it. 

Q: A lot of the income from the racing that came to the state was put into the county fairs 

and that sort of thing. Do you recall when the controversy came up as to whether 

McCormick Place should be financed from those funds? 

A: Oh, yes. I remember that quite well. And I was one of the few downstate members 

who voted for the McCormick Place, because - and being paid for out of the pari-mutuels 

- because with the exception of a little fair, a tiny, little fair compared to the size of the 

county - that is held up in the northwestern part of Cook somewhere, I don't know 

where. But they got absolutely nothing from the fair fund in the way that the fairs did 

in the other counties. And so I thought that, if that was the kind of thing that the Chicago 

members wanted, to the extent that the Chicago members reflect the thoughts of their people 

- which isn't always a very good barometer, but it's the best one we had - well there 

just was not at that time any apparent way of giving Cook County people a share. And 

I was for it. 

Q: Did you get involved in any way in the controversy between the new McCormick Place 

and the old International Show out at the stockyards? 

A: Well, got involved just this way, that - of course the - I can't think of the name of 

the owner of the stockyards place . . . what was his name? I was in some meetings where 

he was and made a presentation. Of course it was self-serving. 

for trying, but I thought justice lay on the other side of it. 

And I didn't blame them 

I know Frank Johnson is dead now, but he was a very valued member of the legislature 

and quite a cosmopolitan fellow. He was from Kewanee . . . And Frank was on the 

opposite side from me and we talked about it. But he wanted to help protect the property 

rights of the people who - well the stockyards owned the - what do they call it, 

amphitheater? 

Q: International Amphitheater, I believe, was the name, yes. 

A: Yes. He had friendships that went back further than just himself, his parents. 

Q: Was there much controversy the second time they had a go at it, after the first 

McCormick Place burnt down? 


A: I don't recall that there was. (pause) Of course the Sun Times opposed that because 

it was going to be called "McCormick" Place. They were the vehicle that - oh, I can't think 

of that man's name that was president of the International Stockyards. 

Q: Was it something like Carlson? 

A: No. No. Not the man that we dealt with. But it turned out to be a newspaper fight. 

Q: Oh, I see. 

A: Now, the second one, I just don't recall any controversy involved there. 

Q: The issue had already been settled by that time. 

A: Yes. 

Q: All right, sir. What do you remember about the oleomargarine situation? 

A: Oh! (laughs) That was an interesting thing. Of course the dairy people were - you 

mean the coloring of the oleo? 

Q: Yes. 

A: Well I was one of those people from the agricultural area, that I said 1 thought it was 

absolutely ridiculous that you have a 200 dollar electric washing machine and you have a 

dryer and you have an ironer, you have all kinds of electrical equipment and yet my wife 

has to sit down and churn those two little acorns of color in oleo, because the dairy people 

want it. Well the Agricultural Association was strong then. That was before the 

redistricting, when you got more districts up - more legislators from upstate. 

Q: Yes. 

A: And they held a close rein on that. I wouldn't vote with them on it at all. I just said 

it was foolish, just ridiculous. But when soybeans got to be such an item, they flocked. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Oh, yes. Then they supported it. 

Q: Oh. (laughs) Well. 

A: And John Cox, who was a member of our commission and a good friend of mine, and 

one of the several lobbyists that the Agricultural Association had, came to talk to me about 

that one time. I said, "Now, John, I voted with you. I feel just exactly the same 

way. You're voting now just opposite and you people are throwing your strength with it." 

And they gave the bill to Paul Randolph. That's the reason that it was passed. 

Q: Oh? Otherwise it would have still been delayed, then. 

A: It would have been. But again the Agricultural Association was the big difference. You 

had no real organized opposition to it after they were out. 

Q: I see. (laughs) Well. You mentioned soybeans. Was there any action on the part of 

the legislature to encourage the introduction of soybeans in the area? 

A: No. No, that's a little before my day. Dr. Burlison, here on the campus, was the 

granddaddy of the soybean industry in the state. 


Q: Here at the University of Illinois? 

A: Yes. But I don't know that the legislature did anything other than that one 

thing. There might have been some others but . . . 

Q: I see. Yes. Fairly redently there's been established an Asian office and a European office 

for the state of Illinois. as that being discussed at the time you were there? 

YI' 

A: I can't remember that; it was. Seemed to me like . . . seems to me that we had some 

representation in China o l Japan, one. But it wasn't any highlight. 

I 

Q: Oh? And there was ng particular legislative action that you recall that set those up? 

A: There was no landmqrk legislation. I'm sure that they were set up by legislative 

action. At least the appropriations were made. They would have been set up under - well 

I don't know whether it qould have been under the . . . what is that department now that 

looks after foreign trade? I'd think it would be under agriculture. But there had to be 

an appropriation that haa to go in some one of them. But there wasn't, as I can recall, 

there wasn't one set up for that. 

Q: Back just before the war, and again just after the war, there was a problem with the 

licensing of trucks. They were brought under control just before the war started. Were 

you involved with that in any way? 

A: Oh, everybody in the state of Illinois was involved in it in 1950, 1951 or 1953, I can't 

remember. I think it was in 1951. I mentioned it in that sketch book. 

Q: Yes, sir. 

A: I give a whole chapter to it. Because that was one of those cases where the press lined 

up with the administration who was wanting to increase the truck taxes and license 

fees. They took the position, the press took the position that they wanted higher taxes on 

buses or trucks. And if mu opposed it you'd have been seen. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Oh, yes! Yes! And of course the road contractors, whom the metropolitan press, as well 

as some of the other press, had eaten out time after time because of their collusion - the 

local fellow practically always getting the bid. And if he didn't get it on a pavement, why, 

he was - they made him sorry of it through the unions and so on. But they took that 

position. Even if you voted for any amendment, they decided what was right and holy and 

they would tolerate no variance from it. Well they finally won. Of course Adlai was for 

it. 

Johnny Lewis, now dead, who later became speaker, was probably the leader in the House 

in opposition to the measure. But Johnny was speaking for- his farmers, all of whom owned 

trucks. And many times they seemed to be more interested in their trucks than they did 

in their farms, their crops. (laughter) 

Q: Did you have any particular input in your district here from the farmers on the issue? 

A: Oh, yes, farmers wanted a raise, but they didn't want to raise it on farm trucks. 


A: That was the old Agricultural Association's position. They'd come in, a whole corporal's 

guard of lobbyists, to oppose some measure. But then they would finally say, "But if you 

will take agriculture out of that, then we'll - well we'll go along with it." 



A: But I supported the increases. I was for it. I thought it was good legislation. Low 

license and tax on trucks have given trucks real advantage over railroads. I never owned 

a dime's worth of railroad stock in my life, but I think that the railroads have been abused 

and kicked around by government more than anybody. And now we're paying for it. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Yes. Of course railroads had a pretty bad record, a hundred years ago. And they paid 

for it. And now the governments have a bad record with the railroads, and we're paying 

for it in no rail service. Here we're trying to save gasoline and the only other way that 

people have of going, had of going, has been practically destroyed by government regulation. 

Q: Was the state legislature involved in that regulation in any way? 

A: You mean in the - well in the . . 

Q: Railroad, and control of the railroads. 

A: Oh . . . there was always a lot of silly bills trying to regulate the length of the 

trains. And they always brought up the safety measure. And so all - but what there was, 

they were simply wanting more places for railroad men to work. 

Q: Oh? 

A: But on this matter of the truck license increase in - I think it was 1951 - that was 

really one of the high marks in legislative action. Just about everybody was strong for it 

or strong against it. There wasn't very many middle-grounders. 

Q: So it was pretty well clear-cut as to - and it passed, I guess. 

A: It passed, but it didn't pass by any overwhelming majority. (pause) The leading leading 

proponents, organized proponents, were the road builders. They were for it. And the truck 

people were against it. Quite often now you'll see a sign on the back of a big truck, This 

Truck Paid 11 or 12 or 13,000 Dollars Taxes. Well it doesn't compare with what the same 

amount of carriage would be for railroads. They pay taxes. And government was always 

against them it seemed. Everything they were doing to the railroads, and rather than doing 

anything for them. 

Q: (pause) Since we've touched on the railroads, what about public utility legislation? Do 

you recall any particular issues that came up on public utilities? 

A: Well the last year or two - yes, last year or two or three - that I was there, we had 

a flush of bills against the utilities. Of course utilities are like railroads, they're always 

a good whipping boy. (pause) They - I can't think now who the members were - they 

had several bills to not permit the cost of advertising. That when utilities advertise, they 

can't use that as part of the cost of doing business, upon which rates are set. 

Q: Oh. Did that get through? 

A: No, it's never passed. 

Q: Well were there any particular companies that this was directed at? 

A: Oh, I don't think so. I think it was directed at - the people's reaction was whoever 

- if you're in a CIPS [Central Illinois Public Service] area, why, you thought it was against 


them. And if you were in an Illinois Power area, why, it was against them. I think that's 

it. 

And my argument always was, "I own no utility stock and never did own any, never worked 

for them, never got a dime out of them. But we get more for what we pay for." That is, 

the bills are always high, your electrical bill is higher than your water bill - maybe there's 

a reason for it, I suppose there is - but if you had to do without either one of them, you'd 

pay five times what you're paying now to get it back. 

Q: Yes. Hm. The Illinoisl Power Company, at least over around Decatur, back in, I guess, 

sometime around the wai or the late 19309s, was nailed for excessive lobbying and 

bribery. Do you recall tha/ situation? 

A: Oh, I wouldn't have, but when you said "bribery," yes. (pause) And I remember the 

little fellow that - a lobbyist that was accused of having bribed some people. And I knew 

him. He never made a pass at me, though one time, somewhere in the lobby or in a bar 

or probably the hotel or somewhere, I mentioned I had to drive to Champaign and back, 

some meeting over here, and I didn't feel like it. And he said, "Well, my driver will take 

you over." I said, "Okay." And he did. And there was nothing ever said about it. I don't 

remember what the bribery was about, but I recall that there was. I hadn't thought about 

it from that day till this. 

Q: You don't recall his name, by any chance? 

A: No. He was out of Peoria. He was with Illinois Power Company. 

Q: Was his name Jarvis? 

A: No. No. I know it wasn't that. (pause) He was kind of a shadowy figure. But . . . I 

can see him just as plain. (laughter) I'd know his name if I had - but that's - was - 

been way back in the 1940's. 

Q: Yes. I understand that, after the indictments or the legal action, that they became very 

very strict and wouldn't buy a coke for anyone after that. 

A: Yes. Well, I don't know that they ever bought coke for anybody. (laughs) I have never 

had any. I just had that one experience. 

Q: Sir, could we talk a little bit about civil rights? What was your involvement with Fair 

Employment Practices Commission? 

A: Opposed to it every vote I cast. Absolutely. It wasn't fair employment at all! It was 

forced employment. 

Q: Oh? 

A: That's what it amounted to. Just like fair housing. It wasn't fair housing at all! That 

was just an euphemistic name that was hung on it. And I always had a set speech on 

that. I believed that the owner of a piece of property had just as much right to say who 

he would rent to, or why, as the person who was looking for a piece of property to rent 

had the right not to rent it. You'd say, "Now, you can't stop me. You can always rent 

certain pieces of property in a certain part of town." Now to me there's just as much sense 

to that. 

And I know, right here in town, one of the - we had an extra room that we could have 

rented to somebody if we could have chosen some student, but the university told us who 

we could not reject. So we did not rent to anyone. If we could have chosen our person, 


they wouldn't have been black, they wouldn't have been Latino. And as far as treating. black 

people, I don't think anybody ever treated their own help that have been black, or their 

associates that have been black, any better than I. But raise the question, "Am I less a 

bigot when I vote for somebody because he's black than if I vote against him because he's 

black?" 

Q: Oh? Hm. (pause) How well did you get to know Corneal Davis? 

A: Oh, real well. 

Q: What did you think of Corneal Davis? 

A: Oh, he was a conscientious old fellow. He got high at a party one night and said he 

was the "best crapshootin' preacherJ' in the crowd. And laughed about it. He was sincere 

and he was honest, but I never voted with him. But . . . he never held it against me. He 

was one of my best friends. After I retired, I was the oldest, I had number 1 license plate 

because of length of service. And when I went out, then Corneal was the oldest one for 

a term or two. 

But those were stock-in-trade bills with those people. A new fellow would come in, they'd 

get him some kind of a bill, not as good a ones as some of the others. 

Q: Hm. Did you know Charles Jenkins very well? 

A: Yes, very well. 

Q: What type of person was he? 

A: He was a brilliant legislator. A good speaker. And I believe if Charlie had lived, he 

would have turned his back on most of these radical things that blacks have gone after. Yes, 

Charlie was . . . a very capable fellow. 

Q: Were there any particular areas that he was pushing? 

A: (pause) Well, he had a fair employment bill, that was the first - well the first bill was 

- and I remember I voted for it during the war. That no . . . Well I don't know just how 

the state came into it, but it prohibited discrimination in race on contractors building for 

government. And that came up and passed during the war. 

Q: Because of the labor situation during the war, I guess, then. 

A: Well it was a good time to hit the iron, it was hot. And I saw no reason at all for cutting 

them out of that. But that wasn't something that got right down into the personal life of 

people. 

Q: There was, I think, a bill on golf courses and - I don't recall whether it was swimming 

pools, but I remember golf courses particularly - that said there could be no discrimination 

on golf courses. Do you recall that? 


Q: It might have been a little later with perhaps Cecil Partee. 

A: I remember the time - oh, this has been , . . oh, the fellow that, John Porter, that was 

elected to congress from the Near North Side recently. He was a new member of the 

House. And he was from Evanston. And, you see, they . . . those cities up there charged 


a fee for non-residents to use their . . . the lake beach. 

up to outlaw that. 

And some blacks in the House came 

And the first half of my term down there, the Republicans out there on the North Side voted 

with people like me on these bills. And then - I think it's because there got to be more 

Jewish people out there in those areas. And they got around and when this bill came up, 

I said, "Well," - Gene Scblickman was in the legislature then - I said, "Now, some of 

these fellows will come ar 

1 

und and ask me to oppose this bill." And I recall John . . . I 

said, "Now, I'm gonna vote with you fellows on this bill. But if I've ever seen a bunch of 

phonies, you guys are. No you're telling us about your paying for this and so on. That's 

not the reason. You don't jwant colored people on your beach. But you want them to live 

next door to me. And I ' voting ~ for it on the same principle that I would vote against 

you sending them in there. But you guys are phonies. And every time you . . . ask 

somebody, you want to say, 'Well, just how would I vote on these other things?"' But the 

colored people never passed it, I don't think. They never passed the bill. 

John Porter was elected to take Mikva's place here just within a year. It was in 1978. Or 

was it in the primary of 1980? (pause) No, they had a special election. And John - that's 

been within a year. But he wasn't the only one, but he was just the one that happened 

to kind of talk to me on this measure. 

Q: I see. Yes, sir. I guess Senator Wimbish was around early in your career there. Did 

you get to know him very well? 

A: No. No. He was light timbre. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Yes. He was one of the last Republicans - I think he was Republican. (pause) One 

of the last black Republicans in the Senate. 

Q: How about Cecil Partee? Did you get to know him very well? 

A: I knew Cecil real well. We disagreed on these fundamental things. But we agreed - 

he had a bill that he passed in the Senate and brought it over to the House. I was chairman 

of the House committee. I can't think just what it was. And I said, "Well, Cecil, I can't 

support the bill in the shape that you have it in. But if you'll do this to it, it'll do everything 

that you tell me you want." I can't think just now what it was. And he said, "Okay. You 

fellows put that amendment in it, I'll offer it in the committee and then I'll see that the 

Senate does it." And we did. Yes, Cecil and I got along fine. We didn't have a lot of 

associations. 

Q: What kind of legislator do you think he was? 

A: Oh, I think he was an excellent legislator. I think he was. If you could just get that 

blind spot out of these fellows' eyes. But Davis told me one time, he said, "You know, a 

black man that doesn't do these things is down." Now Elwood Graham - did you know 

Elwood? 

Q: No, I didn't know him, but I know of . . . 

A: A little fellow, sat right in front of me. A real high-class fellow. They were 

well-to-do. He was a bachelor, probably sixty-five years old, a musician. Oh, he despised 

that Alabama and Louisiana and Arkansas - blacks and whites both. His mother - he 

was raised in this particular community there in Chicago and intended to live their life out 

there. And told me one time that they had to put safety guards to every window and every 

door around their place. Next thing I knew, they had moved out. 


Q: Hm. (pause) Did you know Otis Collins? 

A: (pause) Yes. Now, Otis Collins - oh, he was a black fellow. 

Q: Yes. 

A: He used to have a high-pitched voice. 

Q: Yes. 

A: Yes. Well I - he was very agreeable, very pleasant. He was active, but mostly in that 

type of legislation. 

Q: (pause) What about women in the legislature, sir? Who was the most outstanding 

woman legislator? 

A: Oh, Mrs. Van der Vries. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Why would you say that, sir? 

A: Well, she just had all the qualities. And was sound. Always came to a committee well 

prepared. She knew what it was about. And she was just - she was a royal lady. She'd 

been a teacher in Kansas. And unfortunately she was one of the first - the first lady in 

the House, woman in the House, was Lottie Holman O'Neill. 

And she got an awful lot of 

credit, but . . . I think Senator Peters probably . . . tabbed her when he introduced 

her. In 1958 when Douglas was in the Senate, Joe Meek, who was the lobbyist - a very 

popular lobbyist - for the Retail Merchants Association - and was our candidate for U.S. 

Senate, was nominated. The legislature practically all voted for him. Pete introduced him 

to the Senate, presented him to the Senate and . . . well Lottie was there of course. And 

Pete introduced Lottie as, "the best Republican in the House between sessions." 

Q: (laughs) Well. Was she a hard worker, then, behind the scenes? 

A: Oh, she was a hard worker. She was a busybody. She was a sly old fox. 

Q: Oh? 

A: I had her on my commission about six or eight years. And Lottie was always for 

education. And she was always for the taxpayer. And she was smart enough to always 

keep them apart. 

And so many times we would iron out something. We would yo over it for two or three 

study sessions. And then we would have one of the times that we were taking action - 

and we'd seem to have gotten all the bugs out. And we would get ready to vote. It would 

come to her to vote and she'd go clear back to some one of the problems that we had settled 

- not formally settled, but had agreed on - and raise that. Just throw it - I got so I 

paid no attention to her. 

And I've seen her operate. But they'd swear by her and of course because she was from 

that area up in there. You could be a pocket-robber and the Chicago press will always stay 

by anybody in Cook County, that you would say was from the "better" areas. Now this 

- what I'm going to say now, I don't want it to get into this thing, but just tell you. 


(taping stopped for related aside, then resumed) 

Q: Who were some other women that you recall from the legislative period? 

A: Well I think if I had to class them, I would say the next in line with Mrs. Van der Vries 

was Mary h u Kent - Mrs. Kent, from Quincy. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Yes. She's a high-class legislator. 

Q: -What were her particular interests, do you recall? 

A: Well of course it's easier to think people are good legislators if you agree with them. She 

was the secretary of the Association of Commerce or Chamber of Commerce in Quincy for 

some years, and maybe still is. And consequently we saw alike on most things. But she 

was just sensible and steaay. (pause) And those two women were far above the average 

member of the legislature, men or women. And then I would say I think the rest of them 

were more or less . . . fell in with the . . . 


Q: Did you know Mrs. Schlagenhauf? Wasn't she also from Quincy? 

A: Yes. She was in the Senate. 

Q: Yes. I've heard some of the women, like that person, that - how was it 

expressed? Every train has one or two locomotives and a whole mess of boxcars, and a 

lot of people are the boxcar type instead of the locomotive type. 

A: Yes, I've used that same expression. And we certainly need more boxcars than engines. 

Q: Yes, sir. (laughs) 

A: I would think that Schlagenhauf fell into that line. She was - her father was a popular 

- I think he was a lawyer. She was a lawyer too. She was a very attractive lady. Real 

heavy, but she was an attractive lady, always looked neat and clean. Friendly. But she 

wasn't a world-beater. Ant made no pretenses to be. 

I 

Q: Yes. Shortly after the iwar, Mrs. Van der Vries was involved in attempting to get into 

the Republican platform, at one of the state conventions, the platform of having 50-50 in 

all positions throughout +e Republican party. That is, a female for each male in a 

position. Do you recall thy activity? 

A: No. I 

Q: She also had pushed it in the legislature, but as she said, it was kind of laughed down 

and didn't get very far. 

A: Well I certainly am not anti-feminist, but I am anti-feminism as it's being pushed by 

these people who are neither consistent nor honest in what they do. I'm surprised that 

Bernice had that position. But she would have been sensible about it. 

Q: (pause) I understand in 1973 that this NOW [National Organization for Women] 

organization - and I've forgotten what NOW stands for - they rated you as zero in your 

support of women. Do youlrecall that? 


A: No, I didn't even know they did. (pause) But of the things that they were bearing on, 

I earned that. Yes. 

Q: Did you know Phyllis Schlafly? Had you met her? 

A: Oh, yes. (pause) She wouldn't know me. (pause) 

Q: I understood that there was a part of the business of not voting for ERA [Equal Rights 

Amendment] in the legislature was because of pressure from Phyllis Schlafly and a number 

of people down there. 

A: Well Phyllis Schlafly held her own . , , she wasn't wowed by them. Now my observation 

is that these people are confusing - they're confusing women's rights with putting it in 

the constitution. They're two different things! There's a lot of things, a lot of laws, that 

I'm for. But I wouldn't vote to put them in the constitution. I had no particular feelings 

on the ERA until one morning I was having coffee with some fellows across here, and I 

was just going over there, was going to park the car around the corner in front of the railway 

station, And some woman came on, and she was the woman who had just been elected as 

president of NOW, and was being installed as president of this organization of women - 

National Organization of Women, that's the NOW! 

Q: Yes. 

A: And she scared me to death! 

Q: Oh? 

A: When I thought of the number of people that I knew, real fine high-type women. She 

told me, she said, in so many words, that she believed that people, women and men, ought 

to be able to do those things that they want to do, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. In 

other words complete moral codes - as we know sexualities in moral codes - were out! She 

just rubbed out the fidelity in matrimony, just like that. And I said to Virginia Macdonald, 

who is a real nice lady in the House from over at Arlington Heights - I saw her a day 

or two after that - I said, "Virginia, did you hear . . ." I referred to it. She said, "No, 

I didn't hear it." I said, "I don't think you'd support this thing if you heard that." 

Q: Hm. And was she for the ERA? 

A: Yes. Yes. Mary Lou Kent, she stood right out against it. And most of the women that 

have been elected since I left have been against it! 


A: Yes. I haven't counted noses, but I've just checked votes a few times. 

Q: Do you remember any affairs in the legislature itself on ERA before you left there? 

A: Oh, yes. Of course I got so I just made the stock answer to them. I said, "I don't want 

to drag women down to the level of men." 

Q: Well. Hm. (pause) Do you remember any of the particular attempts to pass ERA? 

A: Oh, yes. Christ, they would have voted on that every day if they could have. ~ n this d 

Bill Redmond has allowed them to violate the rules. The rules of the House say that you 

cannot postpone - call up a postponed bill more than once unless it has been materially 

changed. 


Bob Blair was speaker the first term that it was up. And they didn't have the votes. And 

then they got after him again and Bob said, "Now when you can show me your votes, show 

me the number, I'll call it." Because on second reading, and every time there was an attempt 

to amend it, they just, the; same people, both for and against it, made the same speeches, 

only each one was a little nger than the one before. In fact that's one of two issues that 

I've oftentimes said that I I could vote against both sides. 

Q: Oh, I see. Yes, sir. ~u/t to get it out of the way. 

i 

A: Well just because I got 40 antagonized. And first at the pros. And then the cons. They 

actually got into a hair-pqlling contest in one of the committee meetings one time. And 

my wife was clerking the cmrnittee. 

Q: Oh? Who got into the hair-pulling contest? 

A: Oh, some of the women in the room. 

Q: Hm. My goodness. What does your wife think of all this? 

A: She just feels exactly like I do. She came out of those committee meetings several times 

and she said, "Im just - I'm ashamed that I'm a woman after I see this." 

Q: Well. Now what capacity did she have over there? 

A: She was a committee clerk. 

Q: A committee clerk. 

A: Started in in 1965. 

Q: Why did she take that up? 

A: Well the children gone, married off, gone from home. And she had been a state employee 

before. And . . . she took it. She wasn't in it very long until she was practically - though 

she got no extra pay for it - she was practically the mother confessor of all of the girls 

in the Republican clerks' pool. When they . . . you know, there's no group of people that 

nip with each other's back like a bunch of women working together. 


A: Jesus criminy, yes. And some of the things that they get into rows over. And some 

way or other, my wife was able to . . . keep peace among them. 

Q: Where did she work from over there? What area in the Statehouse was her primary 

office? 

A: Well, she worked for the state treasurer and the secretary of state. She was working 

for the secretary of state when we were married. 

Q: Yes. 

A: And then she was clerk of various committees. Education . . . Licenses and 

Pensions. License and Miscellany. I don't know, they've changed the names of some of 

those committees. 

I 

Q: Pensions and Annuities I think it is now. 

! 


A: Is it, now? 

Q: Yes. 

A: After I was out of the legislature they got her to work trying to help out . . . Harold 

Katz's clerk. (laughs) Had things so absolutely messed up, no records of meetings. He 

just lets things go, just like that. 

Q: Well my goodness. (laughs) Well. Is she still working over there? 

A: Oh, no, no. 

Q: Not now. 

A: No, she worked the first - part of the first term after I retired. 

Q: (pause) Sir, you served from 1939 to 1944 on the Committee for Civil Service, And you 

chaired it from 1941 to 1944. How did you come to get on the Civil Service Committee? 

A: As a sophomore, I thought I was an experienced legislator. 

Q: Oh? 

A: And I had supported Elmer Schnaekenberg in my first term when he ran for speaker, 

and he didn't get it. And the next time, after Green was elected, he asked me and several 

other members who had supported him before if - and he named a half a dozen downstate 

members. He asked me if I would go see them and talk to them about supporting him for 

speaker. And I did. And then later, Green came out for him and that would have took 

care of it anyhow. Then I felt that maybe he owed me something and I asked him for the 

chairmanship. And when they read off that I was chairman ~f the Committee on Civil 

Service, I was surprised. I had interest in civil service, having been a teacher of government, 

I thought I knew - most of the things that I taught, I've taken back. 


A: But I thanked Elmer one time for it and he said, "Well you might be interested to know." 

He was a great stickler for precedent and he said, "I wanted to do something for you, but 

I didn't want to upset precedent." He said, "I looked back through to see if any other 

second-termers had been chairman of a permanent committee and," he said, "I found out 

that in my second term I was chairman of the Civil Service Committee, so I gave you the 

chairmanship." 

Q: Yes, sir. (laughter) What particular things came up while you were serving on this 

committee? 

A: Oh, a lot of chaff. I sponsored one bill and it was passed and the governor signed 

it. (pause) We've made a mockery out of civil service in this country. (pause) We left 

the front door open, anybody can get in. But we closed the back door, and made it 

practically impossible to get rid of anybody if they weren't convicted of a felony, or at least 

indicted. 

For many years the law provided that an employer wanting an employee notified the Civil 

Service Commission which submitted to him the three top names on the eligibility list, from 

which the employer could select the person he wanted. It was called the "rule of three," 

which gave the employer some choice. A few years before, the law was changed, providing 

that the top name on the list was submitted to the employer and he was given no choice 

of an employee. I introduced and passed the bill which reinstated the "rule of three," thus 


giving the employer some choice of his employee. And it was a son-of-a-gun to pass. The 

Democrats made a party issue of it but we got some of their votes for it, and lost but a 

few - two or three - Republicans. 

Q: What particular problems did you have with it? 

A: Oh, well just those people that - of course organized labor was against it. Organized 

labor used state civil service to hold their people in jobs. 

Q: Oh? Now how did they do that? 

A: Well jukt . . . they got this "rule of three" taken out. They got the force of law behind 

anybody and it was just, the civil service law, was just written for the employee. Now the 

purpose of civil service - going clear back to Garfield's day - was to improve the public 

service. But it was used for the benefit of the public servant. 

I heard Lynn Smith - he yas county chairman of Livingston County - and he was Horner's 

director of the Department of Public Works when highways was under that, as well as all 

buildings and so on. And! he had a hearing. He was accused of some misdeeds by the 

Republicans. And of course they were very anxious to get something on somebody and get 

him out. And to smear the party. And I went to one of those hearings. And the question 

was brought up about a person whom he had discharged. I think maybe Charlie Jenkins, 

or Clint Searle, one, said, "Well, Mr. Director, would you fire that person again, knowing 

what you know now?" He said, "No. I would never fire anybody that was getting less than 

150 dollars a month. I don't have time, as a director, to spend the time that it takes coming 

to meetings, coming to hearings, that this person can just drag on interminably. No," he 

said, "I would just let them stay on the job until they died in it or they quit of their own 

accord or something. I couldn't afford it. The state can't afford to fire people." 

Q: Because it's so difficult to get it done. 

A: Yes. 

Q: I noted in that 1943 bill that part of the bill was to allow a discharge and then the 

hearing, as opposed to a hearing before the discharge. Do you recall that? 

A: I don't remember that being . . . I just remember the "rule of three." 

Q: The Civil Service Protective League was involved in opposing your bill. 

A: Oh, yes. Sure. It was that league. I can see that fellow's face as plain. A big 

fellow. He ran one of the stockyards welfare groups up there. And it was labor and city 

hall and - oh, yes, they . . . 

Q: This was in Chicago, you mean? 

A: Yes. He got out with them up there and told me how ridiculous some of the things 

were, And I said, "Well, you know, I thought they were ridiculous, that you people were 

doing, at the time." Meighan. M-E-I-G-H-A-N. 

Q: Hm. (pause) From Chicago. 

A: Yes. 

Q: And this Civil Service Protective League, then, would send him down to the hearings and 

that sort of thing? 


A: Yes. The man that was the head of that league was a brother of this fellow that was 

the . . . head of that welfare group up there. Oh, labor was just hand in glove with civil 

service people. 

Q: Do you recall the attempts to get the secretary of state's department, as it were, converted 

to the merit system? 

A: Well I remember that they had done it. I don't recall any particular legislation at any 

time, no. 

Q: I ran across what was called the "parity-merit system" applied to the state police. As 

I understand it, the state police positions would be divided between the Republicans and 

Democrats, the parity part of it. And then it was to be merit from there on. That didn't 

quite make sense to me. 

A: I don't recall that at all. 

Q: Do you recall anything regarding the state police in the merit system? 

A: Well I remember the merit system coming into it. But any way you work it - it's just 

like getting the judges out of politics. Now what they mean is get them out of Republican 

and Democrat politics, but get them in bar association politics. 

Q: Oh? 

A: That's what it amounted to. And I've often told people that I've been involved in lodge 

controversies, church controversies, school controversies, political controversies, but the 

cleanest ones of all of them are party controversies. 


A: Yes. (laughter) 

Q: Well. The cleanest in what sense, sir? 

A: Well the sense of the word that you . . . you don't have the backbiting in men and 

women that are in politics that you have in those same people if they get in any of these 

other controversies. Now if I'm a Democrat and you're a Republican, and I ask you to vote 

for me and you say, "Oh, I can't do it. I'm a Republican." Okay! All right! I don't get 

mad at you. But if, "Vote for me for a member of the school board," you lie to me or you 

make me mad, one of the two. Because I have to tell you that I don't think you'd be as 

good a person. Or I've got to lie to you, one of the two. 

Q: Yes. Hm. So politics is much cleaner than . . . 

A: Yes, party politics is much cleaner than - of all of them is - bar association politics 

- great God! 

Q: (laughs) What was your association with the secretaries of state over there? Like 

Edward Hughes, for example? Did you . . . 

A: Edward Hughes never did know me. Edward Hughes was a very popular man. Of 

course, Edward - a secretary of state is a good deal like a county clerk. It's a service 

office. And there's not very many chances of making anybody mad. He doesn't have to 

do anything only follow the law, 

I remember the day he died. The Republican convention was in Chicago. And we were 

eating dinner in there with - or lunch - in the La Salle Hotel - Senator Peters and 


somebody else. And the word came that Ed Hughes had died. And it just put a kind of 

a damper on things. Because Ed was very popular. He went through that Kelly-Nash fight 

and had both those people for him. 


A: Yes, kept them clear out of it. 

Q: I'll be darned. (pause) Did you ever have any problem with getting license plates for 

people? 

A: Not much. I didn't do very much of that. 

Q: Didn't get involved in that. 

A: Once in awhile there would be some particular reason why somebody would come to 

me. But you build up a reputation. There's C. L. McCormick, for instance. A real popular 

legislator, runs a little stope down in Vienna. And every week when he'd go home, he'd 

just carry armloads of licen6e plates. 

I don't suppose I got 25 license plates for people. The last one was our minister, bought 

a new car and was going to Florida, two or three or four days from then. And he just 

wanted his title. He had to change it. And I got that by telephone. I don't know who 

was secretary of state then. (pause) But I knew them all. 

Mike Howlett, I knew Mike quite well. In fact, Mike gave my wife, by his direction - her 

maiden name was Zimmerman and Z's were not - Q's and 1's and Z's were the letters that 

weren't used. And I got a Z for her. 


A: And now we have LZC. Just that, no number. 

Q: I'll be darned. (laughs) 

A: Now I've seen numbers, three Z's, since I got that. (laughter) 

Q: Started a trend, then. 

A: Yes. I never could see any reason why a Z should be - unless they might think that 

it would resemble an S or a 7, if there was some dirt on the bottom of it. But anyhow 

very little of that that I did. 

Lisle Laufer, from up in Kane County, used to get a lot of license plates for people. He 

died some fifteen years ago, I guess. People get accustomed to it if you - "Well you got 

a nice license plate." "Yes, Clabaugh got that for me." "Oh, I'll get him to get me one." 

That's the way the thing builds up. 

Q: Yes. Hm. (pause) Sir, what about patronage in the district here? What types of jobs 

did you have available that you were able to fill in the district? 

A: Well, the same - university, none. Never tried it, didn't want it, no more than if I live 

in Champaign-Urbana would I want to be a trustee of the university. But jobs all the way 

from top-notch jobs down to road employees. 

We always got along well here in our county. For 18 years, Senator Peters and Dillavou 

and I were the three Republicans, 18 consecutive years. And Peters was a powerhouse. I 


suspect probably the most influential member of either House in the 20th century. And we 

did these things together. Or if one of us did them, we knew it was going to be all right 

with the other one. But our county chairman was a fellow, really, that we just more or 

less turned them over to him. Jack would always tell us, "I got this job for this fellow, 

and that for that." So we'd know who they were. But that got to be of less and less 

importance. We are too high an income area for many state jobs to be attractive. 

Q: Oh. Yes. Hm. Who was the county chairman? 

A: Well, Jack Martin, who died about three years ago, was the county chairman since the 

middle-1940's, down until he died. 

Q: So he covered quite a long period of time. 

A: Yes. And we worked perfectly compatibly with the ones in the other two counties too. 

Q: Sir, back in 1939 through 1946, you were on the Efficiency and Economy Committee. I 

think that there was a change in name to License and Miscellany at one time. Were those 

the same committees? Under those two titles, was that the same committee? 

A: Well, we've had both. I don't believe, at least when I was on it, I don't think that it 

was the License and Miscellany. Because that was the "despair barrel,'' that 

committee, You always had a bunch of thieves in the House. You would have. If you had 

177 preachers, you're gonna have some rascals. And these, a conscientious speaker, to the 

extent that he could, he'd put them all on that committee and then not send them any bills 

of any importance. 

Q: What about Efficiency and Economy? Do you recall 

A: I know it. I can't think who was the chairman of that committee the first term or two 

I was here. But Bill Thon, and I told you about Bill Thon. 

Q: Yes. 

A: He was chairman of it. And, boy, he was a no-nonsense member. And Elmer 

Schnackenberg was speaker for 4 years. And he gave us some real rough bills. 

Q: Like what, sir? 

A: Well, one, probably the most ridiculous . . . two. One was, the druggists had legislation 

in to prohibit the sale of any kind of a drug that has poison in it from being sold by anybody 

but a pharmicist. Now right offhand, that sounds all right. But it also made it so that 

paint, all paint, would have to be sold by a druggist, because there's poison in it, white lead. 

Stock food, because there's poison in it. You have to limit the amount of poison. So we 

had that bill for years, and it would come before that committee. And always beat it. 

But one time it got pretty strong. And we had an old medical doctor by the name of Doc 

Thompson, from Bridgeport, Illinois. He was a rough old cob, talked like 

this (demonstrates with voice change) and swore like a sailor. And we had that bill 

up. Doc was against it. And we were talking before a meeting one day, he said - Doc 

said, "Let me handle it." He says, "I've got one." And after they'd - and they got 

Adamowski to come down and speak for this bill. 

Q: Speak for it before the committee. 

A: Yes. (laughs) And when we got to the amending stage, then Doc Thompson offered an 

amendment. He told us, "But vote for my amendment." His amendment was that an 

establishment that sold pharmaceuticals could not sell anything else. 


Q: Oh. (laughter) Well. 

A: And we put the amendment on it! Of course it died. 

Q: Yes. (laughs) Well. 

A: Another one was that t. this was my first session, because if you would say what class 

of legislation do you rem+ber the most, well, I remember that we - this was the end, 

beginning to be the wani* time of the New Deal. When they had just regulated about 

everything for 

5 

governmen ' And some of us just took the position opposing any bill that 

was regulation. And the lasterers' association of the state presented legislation that any 

building except - they eScepted barns and stock buildings - had to have one coat of 

plaster. In other words if you built a summer place out where you just used it to go fishing, 

you had to plaster one coat of plastering. And Bill Thon was chairman then. And we had 

a meeting at night up there on the fifth floor of the Statehouse. And these plasterers - 

this wasn't the first one, they never had got it out - they came in there, you know, and 

they had some thugs in there. And we fellows that were opposed to it - and we beat that 

bill that night - we all walked to town together, because they just didn't look good. 

Q: Oh? 

A: No. 

Q: Actual thugs, then? 

A: Oh, yes. 

Q: 1'11 be darned. (laughs) 

A: Yes. 

Q: Well. (pause) Had that ever occurred in the legislature? In your memory were there 

any instances where someone was actually attacked? 

A: No. Not that I knew of then. I've known of some since, but it was over different kinds 

of things. 

The plumbers, plumbing association, got a bill passed in the 37th session, or 35th, that no 

person could get a license as a plumber unless they were a master plumber in the 

organization. Now they grandfathered - you know what I mean when you say you 

"grandfathered in"? 

Q: Yes, sir. 

A: They grandfathered in all of the employees then. But, in a few years - and I remember 

this particular case down in Bement. There was an old man and his two sons that ran the 

plumbing shop, along with the hardware store, as is a common combination in small towns, 

or was then. And the old man was given - he was grandfathered in, he was issued a master 

plumber's license. Well he died. They came to jerk the license of the sons who continued 

to run the business. 

And this thing just caused so much hell all over the state. Of course labor was back of 

it. And they ruled that - you see, deep wells, farm wells, used to be run by 

windmills. Have leathers on them, clear down to the bottom, almost to the bottom of the 

well. And every so often those leathers would have to be taken out. That was always a 

job that we did at home when I pumped water. But they ruled that that would have to 

be done by plumbers. And, hell, in these rural areas, there weren't enough plumbers! And 


finally it got dragged clear on up into the 1950's and the court - well somebody took that 

to the court and they threw it out as unconstitutional. And any - where you thread two 

pipes together, that was plumbing. Now that's how ridiculous they were. 

Q: Well. Hm. 

A: But Bill Thon made a good committee out of that. But it was changed. And I don't 

know . . . it had been the kind, one of those "despair barrel" committees, before. 

Q: Let's see, you served on the Committee on Insurance from 1939 to 1940. And then again 

in 1943 and 1944. Do you recall any particular incidents? 

A: I don't remember about it at all. 

Q: You weren't on any? 

A: No. 

Q: All right, sir. 


A: In those days it was the custom to put a majority member on five committees and a 

minority member on four. Now nobody can give justice to five committees, when there was 

really no particular set time as to when they were to meet. And some of us - I don't even 

remember that Insurance Committee, I don't remember being on it. So I didn't take it very 

seriously. 

Q: Yes, sir. Also in 1939 and 1940, you were on the Committee on Parks. Do you recall 

anything of that nature? 

A: No. 

Q: So it must have been the same type of thing as the Insurance. 

A: Yes. 

Q: From 1941 to 1944 and again from 1951 to 1952, you were on Municipalities. Do you 

remember anything particular about that? 

A: Well I recall the efforts, under Mrs. Van der Vries' sponsorship mainly, on the city 

manager bills. 

Q: Yes. We covered that earlier. 

A: Yes. And about the only other thing I remember - and she was chairman at this time, 

too - was Tom Keane, who went to the penitentiary, you know. After he was 

alderman. He was a member, or maybe chairman, of the Senate Municipalities 

Committee. And he drew up a - or had drawn up - a revised municipal code. And our 

committee handled that. And I recall, after he presented the bill and we discussed it, he 

told us, in no uncertain terms, that any of us that had any bills, if we voted against his 

bill in the House, "you don't need to send any of your bills over to the Senate." 



A: He'd see that they were beaten. Well, Mrs. Van der Vries called his hand. And then 

told us, she says, "I hope that no member of this committee will be influenced by what the 

senator has said, because I'll assure you that he doesn't run the Senate." 

Q: (laughs) Well. You say she called his hand. Did she . . . 

I 

A: Oh, she just took him task, right there before the committee. Said, "I take that as 

a threat. And I don't reac to threats." 

Q: Well! (laughs) What did he respond to that? 

A: I don't recall. But you'd have thought that he was the chairman of the committee. He 

had a couple or three secretaries with him. And he said, "We'll do this and we'll do this," 

and this was his meeting, ybu see. And he was that same pompous ass - that's what finally 

got him in bad, as I said, in the penitentiary. 

Q: Did you know much about him otherwise? 

A: Oh, I just knew that he was a hateful member. 

Q: Do you know of any othq type things that he was pushing in the legislature? 

A: No. 

Q: (pause) So Mrs. Van &r Vries, then, told him where his place was in this particular 

instance. 

A: Yes. 

Q: Do you remember anyt,hing else about Municipalities at that time? Was there any 

discussion at that time about home rule, at that early stage? It came up later, of course. 

A: Oh, I suppose there was. I can't remember when I didn't hear about home rule. 

(pause) And home rule of course was another one of those things, if it favors me, I want 

it; if it doesn't favor me, I don't want it. 

This had nothing to do with that committee but on home rule Piatt County has always been 

a strong county government county. It's a little county, but the county clerk over there was 

the secretary of the County Clerks' Association in Illinois. And he was always for home 

rule, home rule, And a bill came in from a fellow up in the, oh, Mercer County district 

to . . . it provided that county . . . clerks' offices should not be open on Saturday. And of 

course I got a letter from Harry - that was this man - wanting me to vote for that. 

I stopped in to see him one day as I come home from Springfield. He said, "You're gonna 

support our bill, aren't you?" "No, Harry," I said, "I'm not." "Why?" I said, "You've sold 

me on home rule. 1'11 support it if they'll put an amendment in it saying that the county 

may vote for it in an electiog." 

Q: What did he say to that? 

A: Well he didn't think that would be the thing. I said, "You know damn well it wouldn't 

make - you want this to be closed, but you wouldn't go out here in Piatt County and 

electioneer for that bill. But you want me to pass it. If somebody comes up and says to 

you, 'What's the matter? Why ain't you open today?' 'Well the legislature said we 

couldn't."' I said, "That's what your answer would be." 

Q: I see. (laughs) Yes, sir. What was his last name? 


A: Bickell. He died at about fifty years old. 

Q: Is there anything else you recall on Municipalities that came up? 

A: (pause) No. I suppose I could go through one of the digests and see bills that I knew 

about. 

Q: In 1965 and 1966 you were on the Waterways, Conservation and Fish and Game 

Committee. Do you recall - why did you get on that? 

A: I got on that - I asked that I be put on just two committees, Appropriations and 

Education. But that was the year that we had 59 members. The Democrats had 118. And 

Hachmeister was the Republican floor leader and he said to me, "Charlie, I got to put you 

on another committee." And he said, "I just don't have enough men, members." "Well," I 

said, "all right. I will go on it. But," I said, "I'm not interested in it as a committee. And 

I'm pretty busy with the others. But I'll serve on it." 

Butch Radcliffe, from Beardstown, was the chairman. (pause) Most of the bills were 

nothing bills. We had one bill that I got my foot in it over, simply because I was so 

disgusted that we took two whole sessions on this bill. A fellow from over at, oh, one of 

the little towns on the Illinois River over there - can't think now which town it was. He 

made novelties, among them birdhouses, martin houses. And back in the 1920's, the 

schoolchildren in Illinois, in a statewide election, named the cardinal as the bird, state 

bird. And Johnny Morris, from up at Chadwick, Illinois - a very serious member of the 

legislature - and how he got wound in on this, I don't know - moved to make the martin 

the state bird. 

And the meeting started and this fellow, with his birdhouses, was in there. Well he didn't 

bring his birdhouses in, because we finally made him admit that he - that martin houses 

was one of his lines. And they let him run and let him run and let him run. He was from 

Butch's district, Butch Radcliffe's district, chairman. So finally Butch says, "Well, we'll give 

you five more minutes." "Why," he said, "I'm not even started yet." "Well you got five more 

minutes." And we got into the roll call and when it come to my name, I said, "I vote no, 

a dozen times no, because I think it's ridiculous, that this committee of the House of 

Representatives in Illinois, is wasting its time on such a stupid piece of legislation!" 

Well, Lord God - I knew it. That if any domestic animal, except porkers, or cattle, gets 

in legislation, Lord God, the people go crazy! And the newspaper people there said, "What 

have you got against the martin?" or, "Why are you for this or that?" And just on - and 

I got letters, I got telephone calls. I even got a telephone call from a news service in New 

York City! 


A: I refused to answer. And I told the people that come to me, I said, "I'm not gonna say 

another word. I thought I was saving some time and now I'm in clear over my head 

again. So I - nothing can do. Forget it. I don't give a damn what the bird is. I'm 

satisfied." 

Q: But it lost. 

A: Yes. He never called it. He got it out of committee, but he never called it. 

Q: (laughs) So that was the highlight, then, of your service on that particular committee. 

A: Yes. That's the only real - only bill that I remember. 


Q: I wonder - let's see, I think this would be a good time to insert a description of your 

1953 trip to Canada. We've covered most of the early period in the committees and I do 

have some other committees I'd like to discuss but - why did you decide to go to Canada 

on that excursion in 1953? 

A: Well it was my own excursion. There wasn't anybody else involved except me. The 

reason was - I told you @at, the last years in the elementary school and in the high school 

in the little town, I was a,professional trapper and hunter. And made most of my spending 

money that way. And I +as of the age then - 15, 16, 17 years old - when Robert Service 

and Jack London and Zanh Grey and those people were writing. And I knew where to catch 

a skunk, or set a trap toicatch a skunk or a mink - we had a few mink, possums. But 

I wondered, in a wildern~ss of hundreds of thousands of square miles, where you'd set a 

trap? And I always thought, "Gee, I just gotta shoot a deer sometime. I gotta go deer 

hunting." Well I never did. 

So I looked at the farthest place on the map, the most remote place that you could go on 

the railroad. And that's the Hudson Bay line out of Winnipeg, clear up to Churchill, on 

Hudson Bay. And I dressed like a traveler and - it was in October, beautiful weather. In 

fact I was in Winnipeg on Columbus Day. Of course it didn't mean anything to them up 

there. But then from Winnipeg on up to The Pas, which is 500 miles, and then another 

525 miles to Churchill, on the west shore of the Hudson Bay, was a railroad train they called 

the Muskeg Express. It took 3 days to run from The Pas, 500 miles, to Churchill. 

They ran in the daytime and sat on a siding at night. And it had one coach. And that 

coach was for the dining car for the trainmen to eat. Because there was - oh, there was 

two little towns with hotels. One with about ten rooms and one with about eight rooms. 

And I stayed around TheaPas and over in the Indian reservation and up to Flin Flon and 

back for a week. And then I went on. And it took them 3 days, as I say. The first day 

they went to Wabowden, which was 137 miles, I believe. And I naturally got acquainted 

with the railroad men. And got on the good side of the old Englishman that ran the dining 

car. And I took - I didn't take any movies, I made slides. 

I took this slow train because it stopped at every place. The first 500 miles was rather 

uneventful, a lot of it through the wheat country. And then it swung into the regions of 

the forest and Indians are the only people living up in that part of the country. This train's 

function was as a local freight, it wasn't a passenger train as such. And Old Tom just about 

had the say-so as to who ate on it. (laughs) 

Q: Who was Old Tom? 

A: He was the . . . 

Q: Dining room attendent? 

A: . . . dining room man. I guess they had a cook. I don't believe he cooked. But the same 

train crew took it up and back. So - it took a week to go up and back. 

The roadbed is on muskeg, permafrost - six, eight inches or a foot down - and that roadbed 

works all the time. And there were, oh, every ten miles anyhow, or less - in that book 

that I gave you, there's a train schedule in there and shows you the number of stops that 

there are. They name them, but they're not towns. Not over four or five that could be 

called towns. They don't raise anything. There are no crops in there. There are no 

roads. You can go 500 miles out without ever crossing a road. Now there's some in there 

now. And these Indians - well they took supplies to these families where they had built 

up around the . . . 


I 

I 

I 

I 

Q: Railroad itself, huh? 

A: Yes. Around the section hands. 

Q: Oh. 

A: And there were some fishing camps close there, or on the road. Some of the rivers and 

lakes. God's Lake and God's River is out halfway up. And it's a great fishing resort. It's 

a fly-in, but you don't carry a canoe on a - well you can send it on a train. And you can 

get off, they'll stop for you to get off about anywhere along that you want. 

It was a real experience. And I stayed 5 days in Churchill and came back. The passenger 

train ran every 3 days. It took it 2 days to go up, 2 days to come back. 

Q: Didn't have many places to stop, I guess, along the way. 

A: No. No. Since - well at the last part of the time that we were going - my wife and 

I went up there in 1959. And there's a town by the name of Thompson built up around 

a mine. They set a mine out there and there's a town now. And the last I heard it's around 

thirty-five or forty thousand people. Biggest thing north of Winnipeg. 

Q: What did you find Churchill like? 

A: Oh, it was like about any of the Alaskan towns. It's an old town. In fact the first place 

that the British flag was raised in Canada was at - the Prince of Wales Fort it was called, 

and then later, Fort Churchill. It's on almost solid rock. The tree line that goes through 

- Churchill is all north of the tree line, just a little. The tree line is determined by weather, 

water, and soil. And . . . 

Q: There's no soil, then, around Churchill. 

A: Practically none. And there's nothing raised. Oh, there's a lot of berries. Wild red 

raspberries grow profusely in the short summer. Not quite that far north, but 150 mile 

out of . . . The Pas. And they're all in Manitoba. Flin Flon is on the line between - part 

of it's in Saskatchewan and the rest of it's in Manitoba. 

I met a man in the newspaper office, Bob Taylor, in . . . The Pas. Bob was quite an 

energetic fellow in promoting the north. North of 53, that's what they were promoting, the 

53rd parallel. And he told me about the Trappers Festival that was held there every 

year. And it grew out of the custom of the trappers, in the days of - the commercial 

trapping days. 

In the dead of winter, not much game is running. And then those fellows would come in 

to the market, wherever the market was, and sell their furs, buy the provisions they need 

for the rest of the year. And then to carouse and drink and fight and race, race their dogs, 

pole climbing and all those . . . certain types of fish catching, net setting, bannock baking, 

and so on. And in its attempt to promote conservation of the fur-bearing animals, 

Manitoba, the provincial government, latched onto this Trappers Festival idea. 

And it's 3 days, all outdoors. So we went up there in 1954 - 1954 or 1955 - and my wife 

went with me. And it's all out-of-doors, except one thing that's indoors. And the 

temperature was only - got above 40-below zero just once during that time. 

Q: (laughs) Where was this held then? 

A: At The Pas. 


127 

Q: The Pas. 

A: Yes. And they had dog races, 150-mile dog races. Fifty miles a day. (pauses and 

searches through book) 

Q: For 3 days, then. 

A: For 3 days, yes. Clocked the time. 


I 

I 

A: (pauses and continues 6 search through book) 

Q: That isn't you taking t+ picture there, is it? 

A: This is. (pauses to shok photograph) 

Q: That's you there? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Well you look pretty chubby in that parka there. 

A: Well you're kind of chubby then. And then this is the man who had won the race the 

year before. And he won it that year. 

Q: Oh, I see. And this is the same person here. 

A: Yes. And they have a queen contest. And they have tremendous prizes, that queen 

contest. In fact the Trappers Festival is the biggest thing in Canada, outdoor thing, in the 

winter, except the Calgary Stampede. 


A: And that's another scene out on the street there. (points out photograph) This is the 

queen and I standing with the fellow that was the . . . 

Q: Oh, the winner, yes. 

A: Yes. (pauses and searches through photographs) And I took the movies. They were 

very popular. And I went back, oh, I expect I was to three or four of the Trappers Festivals. 

And then the next town up there - a good deal bigger town than The Pas, but a new town 

- 1928, when they discovered a mine there. And they built a big smelting works there, 

that they hauled the ore down from this Thompson town that I told you about. And Lynn 

Lake, another one that's 250 miles north. They had the Trout Festival. 

Q: Oh, This is at Flin Flon, is that the name? 

A: Yes, in the summer. That's two words, Flin Flon. And we went to a couple of 

those. And took good movies. I mean, it was a good place for a movie. 

Well this first night that we went up there, and we were guests of Bob Taylor and his wife, 

and we went to the Trappers Rendezvous, which starts at one o'clock in the morning The 

purpose of it - it's inside - mostly a drinking bout - but the purpose of it is to keep 

these Indians off the street so they won't freeze to death, Because they'd lay down and go 

to sleep. (laughs) That would be the end of them! 


Q: I see. Yes, sir. 

A: And I met a professional trapper, Ralph Bryenton, and his wife. And they invited me 

to come up. I said, "Oh, I've always liked to do it." And a year later, I went up there. And 

I spent 2 weeks out in their . . . Well, they took me 35 miles back in the country from the 

railroad to their . . . home. And then those trappers - now a white man can't get a license 

unless he had a license as - was grandfathered in. 

Q: Oh? 

A: They're keeping it for Indians. But the Indians have all gone welfare up there. And 

it's easier to raise fur than it is to catch it, but it isn't as good a fur. 

And I've made three trips back to Ralph's. Once, in 1959, my wife went with me back 

there. And he made his living as - trapping. But he finally retired and moved out 

west. We correspond but I didn't get an answer to a Christmas card a year ago. Avd I 

wrote his wife and she said that Ralph had lost his mind. That is, he just didn't remember 

anything. But he took care of himself, and so on and so forth. 

And I became quite an authority, from a picture standpoint, on that. I had three sets of 

pictures. One was at the Trappers Festival and one was at the Trout Festival. And then 

out on the trap line. 

Q: Now these were movies, you mean? 

A: Yes, 16 millimeter color 

Q: So where did you find the trappers set their traps then in the north? 

A: Practically every animal in the north, except a squirrel, lives on the rabbits, snow-shoe 

rabbits. White rabbits. And in the bush - now they never speak of the woods nor the 

forest, but the bush. And 30 feet down is the height of the trees. There's practically 

nothing - unless there's in some swale, where it's protected, and plenty of water. Although 

that country is semi-arid, despite the fact that, if you look out an airplane, it's just lakes 

all over. 

But the snow is very soft in the bush where the wind doesn't blow it. Out in Churchill, 

snow drifts all the time when it's - they've got two kinds of blizzards. They call them 

ground blizzards and sky blizzards. And a ground blizzard's just blowing of the snow. And 

it'll go into drifts that, when you walk over it with a pair of mukluks and moccasins on, 

it just sounds like you'd thump a china plate. 


A: And then the wind will just grind it away. But in the bush, it's soft. 

And the trapper has about five out-camps. And he goes around about every two weeks, 

around through his various camps and his traps. His dogs know where his traps are as 

they're going down through. 


A: They'll stop. It was New Year's time when I was up there and going out with him. And 

they'd been over it with their toboggans. The sleds are toboggans, because they couldn't 

use runner sleds. In that soft snow, they'd go right through with the toboggan. And then 

as he keeps going over it and over it, why it gets just built up so there's a rut. Just a 

channel about, oh, a foot, foot and a half, deep. And a foot and a half wide. 


And those places are where the rabbits run. And so you get on a rabbit run and the 

trappers, they always carry their axe with them. And he'd get off with his axe and dig 

a place in that snow and set a trap in there. Sometimes they'd bait it with something that 

will smell or something t~ eat. But the lynx is one, the lynx and the beaver - of course 

they don't catch a beaver there, they catch a beaver in the water, in the fall and in the 

spring. Open water, you have to have open water for the beaver, because you can't dig into 

their houses, that's illegal. And the Canadians do respect the game laws. And maybe he'd 

just reach up and get a handful of pine needles. Or a little piece of red cloth, Something 

to attract the attention - a cat's curious. A lynx is curious. And then he covers it over 

with a layer of that soft snow. It takes the scent of the man away from it. 

And the traps aren't nailed like we nail a trap. They don't tie them to a tree. But they'll 

cut a sapling anywhere from six to eight feet long, that'll bend. A willow or something 

that's limber, And they'll fasten the trap to that. So that he can move, he can get 

around. He doesn't get caught like that. And this sapling will bend also. And he finally 

wears himself out and lies down and goes to sleep, freezes to death. Now we found one 

alive. Most of them are dead when they get to them. And that's where you set your traps. 

Q: Oh, I see. 

A: Now the squirrels - he catches a world of squirrels. And he makes a little hole in the 

snow right down at the foot of a tree. And it's something new, they're curious. They go 

down and see what it is. 


A: The mink is - I think he had - that's New Year's Day - he counted his furs and I 

think he had fifty-some mink. They were worth 60 dollars a piece then. 


A: And the . . . more squirrels than anything else. And they were worth - and the 

weasel. They don't call them weasels, they call them ermine. But an ermine is merely a, 

Canadian weasel who turns white in the winter. The ermine is the fur that's used on all 

of the coronation robes and - anyplace where royalty uses fur, they use the ermine. He's 

a little fellow about that long. (demonstrates with hands) 

Q: About a foot or so. 

A: Yes. Some of them have a little - a few spots of black on them. 

Q: Hm. 

A: There's another . . . the beaver is the interesting one. Of course it was for the beaver 

that, really, the trappers went out in the early days. And they didn't use the beaver as 

fur. They shaved the hair off in the factory and made the felt hats. The beaver hat? 

Q: Yes. 

A: Every gentleman had to have two or three beaver hats. 

Q: Yes, sir. 

A: And the beaver is the only fur that - when you skin the squirrel or the mink or a skunk, 

you cut up the . . . 

Q: Legs? 


A: . . . legs, inside. And then cut across the anus. And then pull the legs out. And the 

fox. And then take it off like you do a sock, although you have to cut because the skin's 

very tough. But the beaver, you cut him right down the belly. And they put him on a 

board that's round. And they stretch - because they're not going to use him in the way 

they use other skins or pelts. Queen Elizabeth, I think they said there were twenty-five 

thousand ermine used in her coronation robes. 


A: Yes. 

Q: My. Twenty-five thousand. 

A: Yes. Now the fur man told me that the wild fur is preferable, in one way, to ranch 

fur. You know, Louisiana is our biggest fur raising, bearing, state in the union. And that's 

with muskrats. Now a muskrat fur down there is just as good a fur, but it's long point 

is that, in that hot weather, to resist the hot weather, the skin gets tough. And you don't 

tear them. They don't have to be reinforced. Now fur from that extremely cold country 

has to be reinforced, although the fibre is better. 

Q: Reinforced with cloth, you mean? 

A: Cloth. Cloth reinforcement, yes. And in the mink farms they can get absolutely all 

exactly the same color, because the water that the animal, mink, drinks determines the color 

of his fur. 


A: Yes. And they can give them all the same water. Consequently the sorting is - you 

don't have to . . . 

Q: Yes. 

A: Because you don't take a very big piece of fur out of a pelt. Out of the weasel, just 

a little bit, right down out of the back. 

Q: Well, I'll be darned. 

A: The rest of it you use for various ornamentation of one kind or another, and so on. 

Q: Now all this type information you put in the movies that you made of the . . . 


Q: So your movies do include this type of information. 

A: Yes. I narrated them. I narrated them. I did put in - had a firm in Chicago to dab 

in the narration. But it doesn't work. Just doesn't work to hold high school kids 

attentions. And I used it more on American history side, that the country was actually 

explored by trappers. 

Q: Oh, yes, I see. Now these summer excursions to Flin Flon, I understand you were in 

some contests up there, fishing contests. That you actually got involved in it. 

A: (laughs) Yes. They had - they called it the International Fishing Contest. And the 

- well I got to keep these straight. One year the attorney general of Manitoba, who are 

legislators - you see, the parlimentary system, they don't have a governor, they have a 


prime minister or a premier. And then the year the - a man from New York was 

there. Another time the agricultural - we'd call him director of agriculture - secretary 

of agriculture in Saskatchewan was there. But this one year, in the International Fishing 

Contest, the man who was the attorney general of Manitoba, he and I went 

fishing. (laughs) And we had the luck that you'd expect, Got one fish about that 

long. (demonstrates with hands) 

Q: (laughs) About a foot long. 

A: And got arrested! 


A: Yes. (laughter) They told us that we didn't have to get licenses for this. And we were 

way out, And this warden came up to us and we told him the story. He said, "They didn't 

tell me that." And he got to a telephone at some other fish station and called them and 

they kfiew nothing about it. "So," he said, "I'll just have to take you back." Well here was 

the attorney general of Capada . . . (laughter) . . . or of . . . 

Q: Saskatchewan? Or Mqnitoba? 

A: Manitoba. But by the time we got there, to the headquarters, they had realized that 

they had neglected . . . (laughs) And so at the - they'd have a show every night, like 

a State Fair show and sq on, on a smaller scale. And they gave us two fishing licenses, 

just about as big as the front of that case there. (points out piece of furniture) 

Q: About four by six, huh? 

A: Yes. 


A: But they took care of us. They housed us and fed us at the . . . company headquarters 

of the smelting company. And it was really a delightful experience. And we got acquainted 

with the member of the House representing the Flin Flon area. And he is now the 

lieutenant governor of Canada - or of Manitoba. And they invited us to come to his 

inauguration. And we thought - that was the last year I was in the House - and I thought 

we couldn't go. But* I'm sure that they felt like they had been snubbed. Of course we 

correspond, Christmas cards and so on, all the time. 

Q: I understand you were also in boat races there at Flin Flon. 

A: Yes, at Flin Flon I was in - canoeing. I had never been in a canoe before in my life! 


A: Yes! (laughter) It ended up - I don't remember. We went out to a little island and 

back. But I was the only one that didn't upset! And consequently I won! 

Q: Oh, is that right? (laughter) You won the race. 

A: Yes. I've got a picture. 

Q: Yes. Well. Well all right, sir. So you've actually made about four trips up 

A Oh, I've made more than that, Yes. I made those, I made this first tramp trip. Then 

I went to each of the festivals twice. And went several times more - in 1959 - when my 


wife went with me. And we went there because she wanted to go out to Ralph's 

place. They had lived out there about thirty years. And when they moved, there was a 

mine - it's a gold-mining town. It was then about six hundred people. But it was all run 

down. When I was there the last time, there were just two little shops there. One was 

a grocery store and I suppose . . . There's not much fishing in there now, too many 

mosquitoes in the summer. 


Q: All right, sir. You say we missed Frances Dawson yesterday. 

A: Yes. 

Q: What do you recall of Frances Dawson in the legislature? 

A: Well of course we expected great things of Frances, following Mrs. Van der Vries. And 

I understand that she beat the regular Republican organization in that district up 

there. They did not recommend her. But she won out, the first time. As far as I know, 

had no difficulty after that. I know she retired of her own free will. 

She was a studious person. She tended to her business. I don't recall of her speaking as 

often as Bernice did, people listened to her and everybody respected her. A very sweet 

person to be around. She was on the Education Committee all the time she was there, when 

I was on it, and that was - well all the time she was there. And she was orderly in her 

procedure as chairman. (pause) And studious, came prepared. 

Q: I understand that you had relied on Mrs. Van der Vries for the specifics of the school 

situation up in the Chicago area. 

A: Pretty much so, yes. 

Q: Did you rely on Mrs. Dawson, then, for . . . 

A: Well by that time, by the time she came along, I had pretty well gotten grounded in 

it myself. 

Q: So there was less reliance on Mrs. Dawson, then, than on Mrs. Van der Vries, for that? 

A: Yes. 

Q: Do you remember any particular things that Mrs. Dawson was pushing in the 

legislature? What were her primary interests? 

A: (pause) Well, no. She was active in education matters. I think that she'd been on a 

school board in her local district. I think that's true. But she was well versed on the goings 

on. And then, I asked the speaker to put her on the School Problems Commission. And 

she was on that. She came prepared. She knew what it was about. We didn't always 

agree, of course. But that didn't mean that she was wrong. 

Q: I see. (laughter) Yes, sir. All right, sir. Sir, yesterday, when we talked about your 

Canadian trips, you indicated that you became quite well acquainted with some officials of 

the Canadian government. Did you ever discuss with them any differences in legislative 

procedure or anything of that nature? 

A: Yes. Yes, I did. This Bud Jobin, who is now the lieutenant governor - or - yea, I 

guess they call him lieutenant governor, though they don't have a governor. They have a 


premier. But in the many days that we were together, we talked a great deal about it. I 

was in their House once, rather early in our acquaintance. And of course many things are 

very different because the party in power, the one that has the most members in their 

legislature, which is 

is the premier. And then all of his, what we would call 

directors here, are 

appointed from the majority party. So the whole thing 

is parlimentary. 

We hear of the prime minister of these various countries who aren't parlimentary 

governments, although some have crowned heads, some have presidents, but you hear that 

the government had a 

‘P 

te of no confidence. They bring in a budget, fairly early, in 

total. And the vote is ken on that budget. And the . . . government stands or falls 

on... 

Q: On whether that's accepted or not. 

A: Yes. And then if it fails a new election is called, which - for instance, the man - 

Hyrorochuk was the name of the attorney general whom I fished with all day and we, both 

couples of us, lived in the executive house of the Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting 

Company. We visited together quite a lot. Mike was a Ukrainian. There's quite a 

Ukrainian settlement out some miles north and west of Winnipeg. We drove through there 

two or three times. 

And to know that he was 

is something you have 

except in one or two 

policemen and what we 

possibly with the 

member of the House and at the same time was attorney general 

about. And the attorney general appoints all policemen, 

think Winnipeg, the city controls their policemen. All 

of the peace, everybody in the judicial positions, 

of Winnipeg, are appointed by this attorney general. 

Q: Now this is in Manitoba, is it? 

A: Yes. - And I think probably the same, close to the same thing maintains throughout the 

rest of the provinces. 

Q: Did you find common interests? For example, they were concerned, I'm sure, with 

mining and minerals and that sort of thing. Were there any common interests, problems 

there that existed in Illinois also? 

A: Oh, yes, agriculture, of course. And while several of the provinces in Canada openly 

claimed to be labor governments, my opinion is that there's none of them as much of a labor 

government as the United States. 

Q: Oh. What do you mean by that? They're not as influential? Or . . . 

A: No. They don't carry the clout that they do here. 

One thing that I noticed particularly, since my great interest there was the trapping and 

trappers and the wildlife, I was very much interested, pleased, to realize how few violations 

there were of game laws. Here, you know, you'll speak about some new law. Well almost 

the immediate reaction of the average American is, "Well, gee, these are ways that they 

can get around that." They don't seem to think of that up there. 

Now I questioned Ralph B enton, my trapper friend, who had been a trapper all of his life 

- but not all of his life but for many years. They only take so many beaver 

from a beaver house. I immediately raised the question, "Well how would they know," and 

so on. That doesn't seem to be a concern. Now I don't say that there isn't some 

p0achi~. But that's the then that's what you do. Every fur that you market has to 

be tagged with a tag that to you when you get your license. And if you have too 

I 

Charles W. Clabaugh Memoir, vol. 1 - Archives/Special ! Collections - Norris L Brookens Library - University of Illinois at Springfield - UIS

many beaver, you either trapped too many or you stole them; they know what your range 

is. And they know how many beaver houses are on it. And if you come up with too many 

beaver, why, you're in trouble. 

Another man that I met and got well acquainted with, up in Churchill, had been a trapper 

and a fur trader way on north. Way up in the far north part. 

Q: What was his name? 

A: Smith, I. H. Smith. He married a girl, woman, who had graduated from the University 

of Illinois and was writing her doctorate thesis - I think it was her doctorate thesis - 

and their professor, head of the department of zoology, took classes up there several different 

years to study various things. And she got acquainted with this old gentleman who was 

unlearned, uneducated, but certainly wasn't dumb, and they married. And she was born 

and raised in Murphysboro, Illinois. And they finally sold out and went there, went back 

to Murphysboro. 

Q: Oh, I see. And he trapped - it was a different type of trapping, then, north? 

A: Yes, most of it was foxes. And during the time that "Windy" - as he was known as, 

because he could pitch some pretty big ones, sometimes. But you never knew whether they 

were true or not. But generally he'd prove it to you. But the fox was the fur that they 

went after more than any other up there. But the silver fox lost its prominence during 

the first part of World War 11. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Number one, the slenderella took over women's styles, and they didn't want big puffs, 

so they didn't want long fur. The short fur, like the sheared beaver and so on, was - and 

the mink, and the ermine - were the ones they went after. But silver foxes, a good tipped 

silver fox, would bring a thousand, fifteen hundred dollars on the market. That was one 

of the reasons. And the fox market slumped. 

Plus the fact Norway produced an awful lot of fox fur. And a fox fur is seasoned a 

year. They say, in Norway, in a trapping area, every kitchen in the house of a trapper has 

the furs hanging down. And you can smell them for a long way. But when the Germans 

came into Norway, I believe in 1940, they threw these green furs on the market and it glutted 

the market, plus the fact that they were second and third rate furs, if useable at all. And 

those two things practically blotted out the real profit in the fox market. They still buy 

fox. (pause) 

What I was going to say a moment ago about dealing with the respect for 

law. (pause) Two or three times - the first two or three times I was up there, I always 

went on the train, never flew. But the train left at 830 at night. So during the day, while 

it was daylight, I would take my bags down and leave them in the depot, just set them in 

there. Then after this town of Thompson was built up, and was building up, in 1959, I said, 

"Well let's take these grips down before dark." "No," Mr. Smith said, "it wouldn't be 

safe. There's too many Americans around here now." 

Q: Oh. I'll be darned. (laughs) 

A: Yes. And he wasn't trying to be nasty. He just told me . . . 

Q: Yes. A change in atmosphere. 

A: . . . the way it was. 


Q: 1'11 be darned. Hm. You mentioned the foxes up there. Do you recall your experiences 

with fox hunting laws here in Illinois? 

A: Well of course they huqt foxes for profit up there and they hunt foxes for fun here. I 

suppose they sell the fur Of the fox here. But in the north, an Indian would come in, or 

an Eskimo, at Churchill dith his furs. Now some of them the buyer didn't want at all, 

but because he was a customer he bought everything he had. 

Once in a great while the e's a blue fox. Just as good fur as any other, but there were 

so few of them that th y didn't want them. There weren't enough to specialize on 

them. And a lot of thes i people didn't ship them to Montreal - that's where the fur's 

practically all shipped to, is Montreal - they just kept them around. And in the agreement 

in 1670, when the Hudson Bay Company was given its charter - the king's brother, Prince 

Rupert, was one of the head stockholders - the government's agreement with the Hudson 

Bay Company was that, every year, one black elk and one blue fox fur would be given to 

the crown. Well they usually got out of it. But one time, I think it was after Elizabeth 

I1 was crowned, she visited Canada. And they gave her a blue fox. And she used it in 

some kind of a robe. And that made a rush of popularity of the blue fox. And a great 

many of the fur traders had just piled some of those back, and the price went up on those 

things. (laughs) And those fellows made killings on them! 

Q: 1711 be darned. (laughter) Well. All because the Queen took up her heritage, I guess. 

A: Yes. 

Q: Well. Do you recall any legislation regarding fox hunting here in Illinois? 

A: Oh, yes. You see, Illinois is divided into zones. And the fox hunting, the dates for fox 

hunting in different zones differ. Because of the warm weather, they obviously breed earlier 

in the south than in the north. And there were many bills over the years to change the 

legal hunting dates. Somebody wanted a little longer fox hunting season. Because, as I 

say, it's for sport. 

Q: Yes. 

A: And that's where I learned that if you have any kind of a domesticated animal other 

than livestock that's sold, like hogs and cattle and so on, brother, when you get a piece of 

legislation dealing with them, you've got a dinger! That's just gonna ring the bell! 


A: And actually the press enjoyed it, because it surely was a break. And some of the 

greatest speeches that 4 have heard on the floor was on some of those fox hunting 

bills. (laughs) 

Q: Do you recall any of t b speeches? 

i 

! 

A: 1 was trying to think - a fellow was from Salem, (pause) And he made the most 

humorous speech. He didn't confine it all to fox hunting. But he was just one of those 

fellows that would make a good Rotary Club speech or Lions Club speech, that sort of 

thing. Oh, I can't think of his name. I might before it's over, or 1'11 get it to you. Because 

he was just there one term. Begins with M, but I can't pick it out now, 

Johnny Lewis, who was from Marshall, was a prominent member of the legislature and was 

speaker one time. Johnny took a great deal of interest in the fox hunting. I don't think 

he was a hunter, but anything that his people wanted, John wanted. 



A: And if they would have turned and convinced him that they were against it, John would 

have been against it just the same, He believed in representing the people, not using your 

own judgement. (laughs) 

Q: Oh? Well. (laughter) Yes, sir. What was your philosophy in regard to that? 

A: I always remind people that this is a republic, not a democracy. A republic is where 

you choose people that you think will know how to handle situations. And the most pieces 

of legislation don't fall in what you would call great administrative policies. There's no big 

public policy involved. But some of those things, I wouldn't care. Oh, I'd care. I'd like 

for the people to agree with me. But I wouldn't bend my vote simply on the basis of how' 

many letters I"d get. Because you don't get enough letters anyhow to make any judgement 

about it. But I believe in - if I can go to the legislature and sit for 6 months every 2 

years, or every year, and associate with people from all over the state, if I'm not better 

prepared to render a judgement to fit the whole state than somebody who isn't there, then 

I'm too dumb to be there in the first place. 

Q: Well. It's a matter of how much information you actually have available, then? 

A: Yes. I've left here many times on Monday - we'd usually go into session on Tuesday 

- in latter years we'd go in on Monday afternoon, dinner time or a little before. But 

various organizations, farm organizations, business organizations, medical, whatever, they 

would come with some proposition and point out how they think that the statute should 

be changed. And having no knowledge about the problem, I'd go down to Springfield and 

think, "Well now that's a good thing." And have a bill drawn and introduce the bill. And 

then you'd begin to hear from other members. And from people in other areas. And you'd 

find out what you thought was a very solid piece of legislation, and a helpful piece, it might 

ruin some people somewhere else. 

Q: Can you think of an example of that in your experience? 

A: Well I could just tell you that it happened more to me in education, because of the - 

we had no central - we had an office - the superintendent of public instruction, he was 

an administrative officer, not a lawmaker. The school board would come to me and say, 

"Here's a situation that we just can hardly get along with. And we'd like to have it 

changed." But when you found out that there was four or five thousand other school districts 

in the state, you might ruin half of them. 

Q: Yes. Hm. 

A: I can't just right now recall a particular one. 

Q: Back on the fox hunting thing, do you remember John Fribley . . . 

A: Oh, yes. 

Q: . . . and his taking the licensing of fox hunting to court? 

A: No, I didn't know he did it. I probably knew at the time. I knew John, knew him quite 

well. 

Q: Yes. Evidently his people down there were quite concerned about fox hunting. 

A: Oh, yes. He came from Pana and the district lay mostly to the south. And the farther 

south we went, the more fox hunting. 


137 

Q: Did you have much fox hunting around here? 

A: No, I don't think so. 

Q: Not much here. 

A: No. 

Q: Another one of the bills that caused quite a bit of controversy., having to do with animals, 

was the vivisection business. Do you recall that? 

A: Oh, yes. Oh, do I recdll it! It . . . not all people, but the leaders throughout your area, 

my area and the state at large, those people that opposed that vivisection, were absolutely 

insane! Just fanatical! It was the year after my second wife died, died with the cancer 

- she was 37 years old - one of those bills was up. And I voted for it in committee. And 

there was a railroad man here in town - I didn't know him - and he wrote me a letter 

oppoeing it. And I saw pothing wrong with the letter that he wrote. And I wrote him 

back and told him that I liked animals. I didn't own any animals, I wasn't a dog lover 

or a cat lover, but as as boy I was raised with a dog. It was just about the same as one 

of the other members of the family. But "having gone through the trauma of having the 

mother of a less than a year old child die with cancer, I would be willing to sacrifice every 

dog in the state of Illinoisi if by vivisection they were able to find something to prevent some 

other person from having that same situation." 

And he wrote back and h4 said, "I have a dog," Of course they pictured everybody that was 

involved in this bill as jugt bloodthirsty and that the scientists, so to speak, were . . . well 

they gleefully tied cats and dogs down and cut them up, and so on. Ignored the fact that 

a dog that was suffering, was tied down, would be useless. And he wrote me and he said, 

"If this bill is passed and they ever get my dog, 1'11 cut you up in little strips and hang 

you out at the window," or something like that. "And the very fact that your wife died 

of cancer ought to prove to you that it doesn't do any good to do these things. And if you 

have any more wives, I hope they die with it, too." 

Q: Well, my gosh. 

A: Mrs. Van der Vries was practically attacked! Onti day she noticed a commotion out in 

her front yard and there were people had all brought a wholc gruup of children with their 

dogs and their cats. And they were all barking and raising hell out in front. 

Q: This was at her home. 

A: Yes. 

Q: Well. 

A: And she showed me some of the letters that she got. And some of them were just as 

vicious as that letter I refe~red to. 

I 

Irene Castle, the dancer, was the one who led this group, And she was an actress and a 

beautiful lady, for people who would care for that kind of beauty. And she was testifying 

one day and she said, "If this law is passed, I won't pay any attention to it. I'll disregard 

it." And so I raised a point of order and told the chairman that, "This person is declaring 

herself to be a scofflaw and I don't think she should be given the courtesy of hearing 

anymore.'' And the chairman - and I don't remember which chairman it was and I don't 

remember what committee it was before - but he told her to, "Don't have anymore of that 

kind of talk." But he let her go ahead and . . . But it was a long time. They had to water 

the bill down, several sessions, a long time, before they were able to pass one. 


Q: Hm. I understand Mrs. Castle did an awful lot of lobbying in Springfield regarding the 

bill. 

A: Oh, yes, she did. 

Q: Do you remember any particular activities that she pursued there? 

A: Not any more than that., (pause) Randolph Hearst, the wealthy publisher in California, 

had a sweetheart. And she was one of the then leading movie stars. I can't think of her 

now, which one it was. If it wasn't going in print, I would name one that I think it 

was. But anyhow he furnished the money. His sweetie was of that trend, the same as Irene 

Castle, But he furnished the money for opponents of the bill. 

Q: And therefore his newspapers, I guess, backed the . . . 

A: Oh, yes! Yes! Yep. That was just one of those things that people were fanatical on. 

Q: Were there any groups here that assaulted you as they did Mrs. Van der Vries? 

A: Oh, no! No. (pause) It may have been the Municipalities Committee and it may have 

been . . . but she took a very prominent part in - she may - I guess she was one of the 

sponsors of the bill. 

Q: Yes. 

A: (pause) And the Hearst paper in Chicago, which was then the Herald American, they 

ran a picture of these people out in front of her house. The cameraman was in front of 

her, out a distance, and she put her hand out like that (demonstrates), talking to the 

group. Well the way the picture came out, you might well have interpreted that she was 

slapping at one of these kids. And they captioned the picture. 

Q: Well, my goodness. 

A: I bet you Bernice has that picture. I'll bet she kept that in her files. 

Q: I understand that Mr. Hearst died in the middle of this and that the newspaper went 

180 degrees and all of a sudden supported her position on it. 

A: Well I didn't remember that he died. But I think that I do recall that the paper turned 

around on the thing. 

Q: It's amazing the way things happen. 

A: Yes, it's amazing that something . . . I don't say that was an unimportant thing, but 

it was a piece of legislation that the average citizen had no interest in. But what the press 

can do with a dog or a cat . . . 

Q: (laughs) Yes, sir. Or when they're trying to replace the cardinal, I guess, too. 

A: Yes, and the cat bill that we had before the legislature for years. 

Q: The cat bill, sir? 

A: Yes. Had you heard of it? 

Q: No, sir. 


A: Well this old lady was an ornithologist. She came down there year after year with this 

bill, that proposed that cats running loose should have bells on them, so as to frighten the 

birds away and thus save them. And it was a joke, she never got anywhere with it. But 

she finally got it out of the 

! 

ommittee. Pete Granata, who would do anything for a - within 

reason - as a joke, got u one day and - the bill was on the third reading - maybe he 

was one of the sponsors t at called the bill - and pointed out Miss so-and-so, sitting up 

in the gallery, "Let's make Jthis a birthday present for her." 

Q: A birthday present? 

A: And, by God, they passad it! 


A: Stevenson was governor then and when it got over to the Senate, it came up for passage 

over there. Senator Peters didn't make very many speeches. Influential as he was, he 

didn't make many speechep. But he hadn't any great love for Adlai Stevenson. And Adlai 

was a great quibbler, you know. He could turn a beautiful phrase. And Pete said, "I'm 

voting against this because I don't want to give the governor an opportunity to make a cute 

remark when he vetoes it." And that's exactly what he did. 


A: And I quote that in that . , . 

Q: Oh, in the reflections? 

A: Yes. Something about that he thought that the state of Illinois had many more things 

to profitably do than to interfere with the love life of a tomcat. 

Q: I see. (laughter) Yes, sir. 

A: Of its tomcats, something like that. It's the kind of thing you would have 

expected. And Pete says that's the reason he was voting against it. 

Q: (laughs) And it passed and then was vetoed by the governor. 

A: Yes. And I think it was a birthday present over in the Senate. I think that they sold 

it as a gift to this dear lady, that had worked so hard, on her birthday. 

Q: Sir, what can you tell me about Reed Cutler? 

A: (pause) Well you can say about anything about Reed you want. He was extremely 

brilliant, a parliamentarian. (pause) Unfortunately he wasn't an affluent speaker, but he 

was a powerful speaker. If he opposed a bill, or opposed a person, he was very 

venomous. Reed was a good friend of mine and I voted for him for speaker one time, against 

another friend. He lost by one vote. And when the vote was being counted, when it came 

down that they had three more votes to count, they were tied. 

Q: Oh. (laughs) 

A: Warren Wood got two of them and got elected by one vote. 

Q: But Reed was elected first, I think, in 1923. And Reed had been state's attorney, a former 

schoolteacher and state's attorney in Fulton County. But he got mixed up in 

the . . . famous light pole scandal in Chicago. The sanitary district was wanting to, or were 

dealing, to turn more water from the lake into the Illinois River with the Illinois-Michigan 


canal - or, Illinois sanitary canal. And about every - this was before I got down there, 

fifteen, twenty years - and practically every lawyer whose district touched the Illinois River 

was put on the payroll of the Chicago Metropolitan Sanitary District. And Reed was one 

of them. 

And there was a drive out there, I think it was McCormick Drive - it was north and west 

along the river. They lighted the road along the river. And the money that the district 

spent, per light pole, they told it, that was a great amount. And Reed got beat the next 

time he ran. But he got elected the next time and was there until finally a young fellow 

from Havana I think it was, beat him. 

But Reed, he did many questionable things. But he was a valuable man in this way: how 

he would straighten out the procedure sometimes, to make it comply with the rules, when 

he had no particular interest in the piece of legislation. 

Q: How would he go about that, sir? 

A: Well he just knew the rules, real well. And I think, many times, the position he took 

the proper position. It was according to the rules. He'd save lots of errors that might 

have been used against the bill if it had passed and become law, because they can go back 

to what - the procedure in the House. 

But . . . he took offense at people. Now Mrs. Van der Vries and Art Sprague and Bob 

McClory all voted against Reed in this close election. And he hounded them. Every time 

they had a bill and get up, then Reed would take in after it. And he had a way of simply 

bellering. He weighed almost four hundred pounds. 


A: And he had a tic in his neck. And the more excited he got, the more his head would 

jerk. And he'd put two fingers up to his neck and could, some way or another, rather control 

it. 

And Bob McClory sat down in front. He and Sprague and Mrs. Van der Vries sat on the, 

right next to the aisle, on the right hand side. And Reed sat in the back row. And I sat 

in the back row, too. And I could see everything that went on. (laughs) And Bob 

McClory, when he got up to speak one day, he looked around at Reed and Reed said, "Go 

on and talk, Bob. This membership's not a gonna vote for the kind of crazy bills you have." 


A: But - oh, he'd take after Mrs. Van der Vries and Art Sprague, both well-respected 

members. 

Q: So his primary aim was against the individual rather than the bill itself. 

A: Yes. Yes. 

Q: I understand he spent an awful lot of time killing bills. Was this a personal sort of 

thing? 

A: Yes. Senator Peters told me one time, after Reed was gone, at least gone from the 

House, that a fellow came to him - somebody from this district, I don't know who it was 

- and a friend of Pete's - and said, "There's a bill over in the House that will hurt us 

pretty badly. Who could we see to get somebody to oppose it?" And Pete said, "Well go 

see Reed Cutler." So the fellow went to see Reed - and he and Pete were very good friends 

- and he said, "Senator Peters told me that you might be able to help me." "Well what 


is it you want?" And he told him. And then Reed said, "Okay," he said, "I'll help you." 

And the fellow begin to explain to him. Reed said, "You don't need to tell me about it. I'll 

kill it. I'm not interested in that. If Pete's against it, his judgement's good and his 

judgement can be mine in this case." And he beat the bill. 

Q: Well I'll be darned. (laughs) It didn't make any difference what the bills were 

then. He would just go after it for any reason. 

A: Yes. (pause) He was one of those fellows that opposed most changes. (laughs) 

Q: Oh? 

A: For instance when we had school bills up that went against the practice when he was 

in school. And his area over in there was kind of a educational wilderness anyhow. I recall 

one day, when I was sponsoring a bill and called it for passage, made a speech for it, Reed 

got up and he just floundered, just - like I said, like an ox on ice with all four legs 

broke. And just floundered and bellered and made noise and whooped and just scared people 

off. 

Q: He wasn't speaking, you mean, he was . . . 

A: He was - well he did. He took after the bill after I'd explained it. 

Q: Oh, I see. I see. Yes. 

A: And so after he'd gotten through and before - the speaker always calls on the sponsor 

of the bill then, to answer anything that's been made in opposition. I said, "Now that you've 

been entertained by the gentleman from Fulton, who has put on quite a show but hasn't 

discussed anything that's in the bill, now let me go over again what the bill 

does." (laughter) And we passed the bill. 


A: One of the big events of the year, fun events of the year, was St. Patrick's Day 

dinner. And Reed always wore a great big orange shawl. 

Q: An orange shawl. (laughter) Well. That must have gotten a reaction from some 

people. (laughs) 

A: Well it's what you'd expect from Reed. 


A: But he was a good legislator. He was a sharp legislator. And yet - he was our floor 

leader one year, early in my time down there. And he got to the place where he couldn't 

get any votes, even for his own bills. 

Q: Well. (pause) Now he never became speaker of the House at all? 

A: No. 

Q: What about some of those that did, like Hugh Green, for example? What type person 

was he? 

A: Well Hugh was a good legislator and one of the poorest speakers, if not the poorest, we 

had. In the first place, Hugh assumed that he was the speaker and, by God, he spoke most 

of the time. 


Q: Oh. (laughs) Well. 

A: We spent more time, some of the nights in the latter part of the session when he was 

trying to take some shortcuts, by grouping bills together and calling them all on one roll 

call. There wasn't a mechanism worked out then to do it. And we'd spend more time trying 

to find a shortcut than we would have if he'd just have called the bills. In fact it got so 

bad during his second term as speaker, Pete Green - that was Pete's second term, the end 

of his second term - that he put Cy Murray, who was assistant state auditor, up on the 

platform to help him keep things going. 

Q: Oh? 

A: Yes. He was a scholar and he was a lecturer. And 2 weeks after the session opened, 

regardless of the new members, he could call the roll without looking at the roll at all. 

Q: From memory, you mean? 

A: From memory. In fact, I had him over here twice, when I chaired our big annual state 

Elks meeting here, as the speaker. And the first time he was a wow when he called that 

roll. And I got so I'd know just when the crowd was going to laugh, when you got down 

to the Polish names. 

Q: Oh, I see. (laughs) 

A: But the second time he'd gone over the hill, age wise. They said Hugh used to play golf 

quite often - he was about 6 feet 1 or 2 inches tall and weighed 130, 135 pounds - and 

that he always carried just one golf club, and an umbrella. 

Q: Well. (laughter) And played the whole round with one club. 

A: Yes. A fine small-town lawyer and a good legislator. But he wasn't an administrator. 

Q: Do you recall any of his particular interests in the legislature? 

A: No, I would say that it was nearly just across the board. 

Q: Whatever was important at the time. 

A: Yes. He was a very lucid speaker in explaining a bill. (pause) His mind . . . his 

uncataloged mind was very much cataloged then. 

Q: Oh, I see. Hm. 

A: It was a loss to the state when Hugh went away. 

Q: What about Warren Wood? He was there for a time as speaker, was he not? 

A: Oh, yes, he had four terms, I think. I think Shanahan's five or six terms was the most 

of any speaker. Again, in my sketchbook, I give a section, several pages, to Warren 

Wood. Warren was a very poor legislator before he was speaker. He was an excellent 

speaker. An excellent speaker. 

Q: In what way, sir? 

A: Well in the first place the record of when we closed shop. At the end of a session, only 

one time did we have - in his four terms, only one session did we run even till ten o'clock 

on the night of June 30th. 


Q: So you didn't have to stop the clock, then? 

A: No. And we never had a night session when Warren was speaker. 

Q: How did he go about doing that? 

A: (pause) Well . . . I wpuld say it just simply - he was an easy man to serve under. He 

wasn't a brow beater, 

he'd call the fellows up, say, "Now if you want to stop the clock 

and run till the 4th of why, I can stay with you. But . . ," 

i 

Q: Here's a way to do it. . 

A: ". . . here's a way to do it." And he just did it. In fact one time when my wife and 

I were going to the Trout flestival . . . 

Q: Oh yes, Flin Flon. 

A: . . . we wanted to go, oh, on about the 29th of June. And I spoke to the speaker about 

it. And I was chairman of the Education Commission and our bills were all out of the way. 

And I told the speaker, 'What I'd like to do," - I had the plane tickets and everything, 

because . . . I just thought we'd have ourself all out of the way. And he said, "Well we're 

gonna get out of here Friday night anyhow." And this was Friday . . . I wasn't down there 

Friday. 

And one time we - well I got the journals and got the closing time. And everything 

went. He was punctual. When ten o'clock came, or whatever time, he was there. And we 

didn't waste nighttime, and nighttime was pretty much wasted. Because the fellows work 

hard and your butt gets awful tired in the chair during those long hours. And especially 

before the days of air conditioning. You just had two fans, one in each corner, You 

couldn't have those on because of papers on your desk. And they'd go out for dinner and 

have drinks and supposed to be back at eight o'clock, and they'd be stringing in. And the 

later they came, the more hilarious they were. And a lot of foolishness went on. 

Q: Do you remember any particular occasions of foolishness? 

A: (pause) No. One time I recall that I got so provoked at two or three or four fellows 

that I got up and requested that the speaker do something about these "mouthy freshmen." 

And several freshmen took offense at it. And I said, "Well now you know damn well I didn't 

mean you." 

Q: Oh? Well. (laughs) 

A: But they were hard to control. And Warren just got around it by not having them in 

after dinner. 

I said he had no night sessions. He had one night session. And the lawyers were all, most 

of them, at least some of them, were urging the adoption of a new constitutional convention, 

the calling of it. And Warren said, "Well now I'm gonna give you that, but I'm not gonna 

waste a day on it, because if we call that in the daytime, you fellows are gonna get up and 

you lawyers are the only ones that are gonna talk, and everyone's gonna talk on it. And 

you'll come out just about evenly divided. So I'm gonna call a session for such and such 

an evening, at eight o'clock - we're not gonna take a roll call and nobody needs to come 

but lawyers - and let you talk it out. And that's the only time that we're going to, we're 

just not going to have it." And most members liked it that way. 

Q: Is that what occurred, the lawyers then went and talked to each other? 


A: Yes. And as Warren said, there were as many different opinions as there were lawyers. 

I 

Q: Well. (laughs) I understand that Paul Powell wasn't quite as punctual as Warren 

Wood, then. 

A: Oh, he was terrible. 

Q: In what way, sir? 

A: Well he just wouldn't come in. You never knew when Paul was gonna be 

there. (pause) I recall one last night, and this was just the epitomy of the abuse that the 

members had to take from him. The last few days, why, he wasn't in the chair very 

much. Allen Lucas was a member from Springfield that presided a great deal of the 

time. And Allen was a good fill-in. Paul came in one evening about 6 o'clock, and we were 

tired as a dog, and feelings get ruffled very easily. And he said, "Well now we're going to 

recess now until 7 o'clock." Well, Lord, that gave you no time to go clean up! And we set 

up an uproar about it and he said, "All right, we'll say 7:30, then." And rapped the gavel. It 

was 9:30 before Paul came. 

Q: And the rest of you were all back at 7:30. 

I 

A: Most of them were. And there we sat. And that was typical. That was the worst that 

I remember. But you hardly knew when . . . but as a presiding officer, Paul Powell was 

a good one. 

I 

Q: Did he have a backlog at the 30th of June where you had to stop the clock? 

A: Oh, yes. One time we went over, we even went over a day or two in July. And I recall 

the records would show there was a sales taz increase bill that was passed in that 

time. And a taxpayers group brought a suit and went to court questioning the validity of 

the bill. Also they claimed that since the bill was not passed until July 2nd, na tax should 

be collected on the 1st and 2nd of July. But the court ruled that the journal of the House 

showed it was passed before - in the legal time which, of course, it did. 

Q: Yes. (laughs) So the courts actually accepted what the journal statement was, in that 

sort of thing. 

A: Yes. 

I 

Q: Sir, do you remember when they put the voting machinery in so that you could 

electronically vote, as opposed to voice voting? 

A: Yes. I voted against it. 


A: Yep. 

I 

I 

Q: Why? 

A: Because I just thought what would happen was what has happened. 

Q: What's that? 

A: It multiplies the number of bills you can act on. And I never worried much when a 

bill lost. What I worried about was the number of bills that were passed. And then when 

you got the electronic typing of bills and all the use of the computers in them, every one 


of those things has resulted in more bills being passed. Of course, granted, there's more 

people and maybe more problems, maybe not. All the problems that you have in the 

legislature are big at the time. 

Elmer Schnackenberg said to me one time - he was a great walker, he'd walk every morning 

and I walked with him sometimes - and I was lamenting about a bill that had passed and 

wondered if I voted right on it or not. And he said, "Well I used to worry about it but 

now," he said, "next election time come, you won't even remember how you voted on most 

of these bills." And that's true. 

Q: Hm, Yes, sir. (laughs) 

A: Yes. But from another standpoint, a more direct standpoint. when 150 others, or 120 

or 25 or 30, are in attendence and a bill is important, probably 10 or 15 people will talk 

on that bill, some against it and some for it, as they explain their vote. And you knew 

a lot more about a bill than you do now. When if you're not in the committee that handled 

the bill, you may know little about it. 

Q: Yes. With the electronic voting then, there wasn't as much talking about a bill as it 

was voted on. 

A: No. No, nothing like the amount . . . 

Q: Hm. (pause) How about Mr. Schnackenberg as a speaker? What was his . . 

A: He was a perfect speaker, if - I wouldn't know any way to say that he was anything 

but a perfect speaker. He was a very good lawyer, as his record shows. To my knowledge, 

he did not have a parliamentarian. He didn't need a parliamentarian. 

He was fair. He was a friend of mine. Came to Champaign one time in a campaign and 

made a speech for me. But I never did feel that he would have given me 1 inch because 

of our friendship. He might have gone a little farther to find a way that he could do it 

within the rules - I told you the other day, about putting me on the Civil Service Committee 

as chairman. 

Q: Yes. 

A: Chairman the second term. If you were in Elmer Schnackemberg's office and . . . 30 

seconds before the time, and you were having a conference with him, he said, "Well, I got 

to get out on the floor. Cqme up and talk to me up there." Ten o'clock meant ten o'clock. 

Johnny Lewis was a punctmal speaker, very punctual. 

Q: I understand that Mr. Schnackenberg and Mr. Adamowski used to have some good debates 

on the floor, Do you recall any of those? 

A: Yes. I don't recall . . . when Adam was there - he was the floor leader my first term 

down there - he was a Democrat then. He later ran and was elected state's attorney in 

Cook County on the Republican ticket, you know. 

Q: Yes, sir. 

a 

A: He was a gadfly, but hat hadn't shown up yet. But we'd had eight years, practically, 

of Democrat rule and a od deal of Cook County, city of Chicago, rule and there was an 

awful lot of grabbing to y to get back to the legislature some of the authorities that had 

been taken over by the Chicago machine. And of course one of the big issues that first 

session was the establishment of an investigating committee to investigate certain 


individuals and certain departments and certain activities. And it took - and we just had 

one majority. I think we started in with two majority and one of them died. He was sworn 

in, took ill and died, and never attended a session. If he did, it was very very few. A fellow 

from down at Flat Rock. (pause) Crawford County. But that took a long time. And we 

finally were able to pass that bill. And had the investigating committee. And hung up a 

lot of Democrat dirty linen that was about. 

Q: Yes. Now this was of Chicago departments, you mean? Or departments in Chicago? 

A: Oh no, there in the state legislature. 

Q: Oh, I see. 

A: I mean in the state government. 

Q: I see. 

A: I mentioned the other day, when you were talking about civil service, about Lyndon 

Smith, the director of the Department of Public Works, accused of violating the civil service 

law by dismissing a Republican clerk. 

Q: Yes. 

A: And of course our position championed her. Clint Searle was chairman of that 

investigating committee. And it was one of the hearings that it held. Maybe it kind of 

put a damper on some of the things, but it wasn't - when it was over with - it wasn't 

worth the time that it took doing it. 

Q: Well. (laughs) What do you recall about Clinton Searle? 

A: Well Clinton Searle was a great legislator. He was a keen mind, a good lawyer, very 

good speaker. I mean, he could make a good speech. He wasn't a speaker [of the 

House]. He was sort of one of those fellows like Reed Cutler, in this way: the old 

saying. You know, the fellow said to the old man who was eighty or ninety years old, said, 

"Well you've seen a lot of change." And he said, "Yes, and I been ag'in 'em all." 

Q: Well. (laughs) I see. 

A: We had to battle with Clint quite often on some of our school changes. He was a fearless 

fellow. And a fellow told me one time - I was up in Rock Island where he's from and 

told them about some of the things that Clint had done - and he said, "Well Clint leads 

a life here that he never needs to worry about anybody throwing up anything to him about 

what he's done." He was a model citizen, I guess. I guess he retired before he died. Always 

smoked a pipe, came down, hung down here, (demonstrates) And he had coal black hair, 

although a few gray hairs were getting into it. And he combed it back in a long pompadour. 

Q: Oh? I'll be darned. (laughs) 

A: And I've heard him get up on that floor and chew out some lobbyist over - we spoke 

yesterday about the plumbing code. 

Q: Yes, sir. 

A: They had a great big fellow by the name of Bill somebody - Chet was a plumber, next 

door here, that knew about him. And he was a woman chaser and he was out in the 

drinking spas every night with one or more different women. And there was a bill up that 

he was sponsoring. And he was right up in the front gallery where every member of the 


House was looking him right in the face. Clint got up to oppose the bill and he said, "And 

the bill is just about as popular as needful. It's the same kind of a bill as that fellow that's 

sponsoring it, sitting right up there, That's the fellow." He said, "Never was a plumber, 

never worked a day in his life, never lifted anything heavier than a fountain pen, writing 

checks on somebody else's bank account," 

Q: Well. (laughs) Pointing right at him, 

A: Oh, pointed right at him! Didn't name him but pointed right at him. And everybody 

laughed about it - except the fellows that were just slaves to labor. Had that same feeling 

about him. 

Q: What was the fellow's reaction? 

A: Well you . . . (laughs) He wasn't nearly as big when he got through. He just slumped 

down in his seat. 

And there was another fellow from over there, from Rock Island, that was down in 

Springfield every session for a long time - but he was never down there after Clint got 

through with him one day - for the disabled veterans. And was making a living, that was 

his job. And their bill was up one day, for this appropriation for disabled veterans. Clint 

took out after him. Said, "You fellows know him around here with crutches. He doesn't 

use crutches at home." 


A: Fearless. He didn't need to worry about what they might say about him. 

Q: Well. And did this disabled veterans' position then go on through? Or . . . 

A: No, I think it was beaten. And then . . . I think it was Stevenson. We had what they 

called a Christmas tree bill, something for everyone, a bill that just all these little 

appropriations would be put into. And I think Stevenson stopped that. 

Q: Oh. (pause) Sir, what . . . 

A: This fellow was never around again. 

Q: Oh, he wasn't? 

A: No. 

Q: I see, (laughs) He took his crutches and went home, huh? 

A: Yes. 

Q: What about filibustering, sir? Were you ever involved in a filibuster? 

A: Oh, just once, one. Didn't amount to much because there were not enough of us in 

it. Johnny Lewis was the prime filibusterer. He could filibuster over about anything. But 

I've been in some pretty long filibusters. Sat through them, I mean. 

Q: Can you remember any in particular? 

A: Yes. One of them was during World War - early part of World War 11, when - and 

it related to legislation to provide voting for service men and women who are out of the 

country. (pause) Of course one of them was an administration bill. Pete Green was 


governor then. And it provided the same kind of safeguards that we had in our election 

laws here. Well the Democrats wanted always to go further. They always wanted to give 

more to old-age pensions, and more to schools. They try to hurt the administration by 

forcing the administration to be negative. And they wanted - for instance if I had a son 

in the service, or I had a cousin or a brother or so on, I could go in and ask the county 

clerk to send him a ballot. Well of course they could have had ballots floating around by 

the hundreds of thousands. And the Roosevelt administration had some people in these 

camps that did nothing but process these applications, etc. And finally we got it passed 

without the - they didn't have the nerve enough just to stay with it and deny the passage. 

Q: Well what kind of filibustering did they do? What techniques did they use? 

A: Well one of the things of course, get everybody to make a speech, within the limits. And 

then have them call for a roll call and verify the roll call. And just the - everything that 

you could to extend the time. 

Q: And did these hold the House in session then, past hours, into the evening and that sort 

of thing? 

A: Oh yes, and days and days and days. The Democratic floor leader at that time was Bill 

Vicars from Pontiac. One time before when we were talking, I tried to think of his name 

and I couldn't. And Tim Sullivan, Democrat from Springfield, a mouthy singsong 

lawyer. They were the principal ones. And one fellow named it the Victor-Sullivan 

comedy. 

Q: Oh. Well. (laughs) Hm. So you were involved - actually you were involved in only 

one filibuster. 

A: Yes, and I can't remember what it was about. I always thought that opposition, just 

plain opposition for the sake of opposition, was not the thing to do. But it seemed that 

this particular time, that somebody had broken their word or something, on a piece of 

legislation we were much concerned with. I don't remember what it was now. And my 

seatmate and I and Johnny Lewis and two or three other people made up our minds, got 

together and said that, the next day, we were gonna filibuster this thing. 

And read the bills in full, that's one other thing. And it only takes very few votes to do 

that. And then if you lost, then you would question the roll call and have it verified. "Let's 

go through and - just how did Mr. Waggoner vote?" "Well he voted aye." And that would 

take twenty or thirty minutes at a time. But read the bills in full was one of the prime 

methods. 

Q: Normally just the titles were read. 

A: Yes. 

Q: (pause) All right, sir. I wonder, we had gotten part way through some of these other 

committees that you served on, the lesser important ones, perhaps. There are about two 

or three more that I'd like to ask about. In 1945 and 1946 and then again 1971 and 1972, 

you were on the Banks, Building and Loan Association Committee. It was called Financial 

Institutions, I believe, in 1971 and 1972, a change in the name. Do you recall any action? 

A: I don't recall it at all. I can't recall being on that committee at all. Did you get that 

from the records? 

Q: Yes, sir. So this must have been another one of those that you were put on for . . . 


149 

Q: Yes, sir, 1971 and 1972 on Financial Institutions Committee. You don't recall anything? 

A: I don't recall it at all. 

Q: In 1947 and 1948 and again in 1953 and 1954, you were on the Committee on 

Executive. Do you recall activity with that committee? 

t 

I 

A: No. Because the Executive Committee, in the House, really didn't amount to much. In 

the Senate it was an important committee. In the House the Education Committee was very 

important; in the Senate, it wasn't, until recent years. No, I don't - I think, since you've 

recalled it, that I was on it. Executive was a good sounding name. 

Q: Oh? Good for the stationery, then, huh? 

A: Yes. But in later years - it used to be the only thing that went to the Executive 

Committee were resolutions. Not adjournment resolutions, just common chiffchaff. But 

resolutions, constitutional amendments and that sort of thing. I don't remember whether 

there was any constitutional amendments up on - I don't remember who the chairman 

was. I don't recall the activities at all. 

One reason that I'm so surprised, at being on it then, in 1971 and 1972, was because for 

the last several years, with the exception of that time that I was on the Game - Fish, Game 

and Conservation, I requested to be just on just one committee. 

Q: Yes, I noticed that it had narrowed down. There were two others. In 1965 and 1966 

you were on Contingent Expenses Committee. Do you recall anything of that? 

A: No. The Contingent Expense, really - I don't think they have one now. They were 

supposed to pass on the expenditures but - the chairman had a secretary - and the 

expenditure was - that is, expenses of the House and that sort of thing. But I don't 

remember it. It was only a three-member committee. And I don't remember being on it. 

I 

Q: In 1971 and 1972 you were on the Committee on Pensions. Do you recall that? 

A: Yes. Yes, I remember being on that committee. I didn't want to be on it, but - that 

was what year? 

Q: 1971 and 1972. It would be the 1971 session. 

A: (pause) I was glad to - I don't know why I requested it, if I did request it. I doubt 

if I did. But it was considered a minor committee. 

Q: Do you remember any particular legislative activity in regard to pensions? 

I 

A: Oh most of the bills were on the Chicago policemen, firemen and that sort of thing. It 

was always to pay in lesr and get more out, or to be able to retire at an earlier age with 

full pension. 


A: That's what most of them were. 

Q: Yes, sir. 

A: And I made some very good friends. (pause) But any particular one right now, I don't 

recall. 


Q: Do you remember any of those particular friends that you made in connection with that? 

A: Yes, Tom Duffy. Duffy's a professional lobbyist. I had correspondence with him just 

not long ago. He's on La Salle Street in Chicago, has an office there. 

Q: What was your association with him? 

A: Well just that he was just a hale fellow, well met. Real nice big man, ruddy faced, but 

always friendly. My wife knew him too, because he'd be in committees that she was 

clerking. And we liked him and . . . 

Q: Was he a particular help to you in regard to the pension systems? 

A: He was helpful to me on one that wasn't a pension system. The Cook County school 

treasurers and . . . trustees - it's the only place there are school trustees now, is in Cook 

County. And we had sponsored legislation to abolish the positions in all the other 

counties. And I protected, as best I could, the status of the treasurers and the trustees in 

Cook County because I thought they were necessary up there, because they handled so much 

money. It made it worthwhile for a treasurer, and they were well-paid people. And there's 

been bills every session to abolish them up there. And Duffy lobbies for the trustees and 

treasurers. And I didn't lobby for him, but I was in the committee one time that he was 

supposed to have been there, and for some reason or another he didn't come. And they 

were just about ready to pass a bill and I took a position, asked if I might, although I hadn't 

registered, might I be heard. And they did and we killed the bill again. 


A: And that was the one bill that I always - the school administrators, in Cook County 

- of course they - actually they said how much money you can save if you abolish that 

job. But it was a miniscule amount of money considering the amount that they 

handled. And it was another case of just reaching out to take more kingdoms in. 

Q: Yes, sir. 

A: And Duffy and I became real good friends through that. 

Q: Yes. Did you visit with him in Chicago very often? 

A: No, I never have. Unless I'd just meet him on the street or something like that. I never 

was in his office. 

Q: Sir, on that financial institutions area, what do you recall of the branch banking 

situation? 

A: Well of course branch banking has been the battle for several years. And all the banks 

in our district was against it. I was against it. This last session, the last two or three 

sessions, there was another bank here in town, the president took a position favoring branch 

banking, and then this bank came in to it. 

Q: That's the First National here? 

A: Yes. I know what happened in a lot of places, and I think it would happen now when 

- building and loans, for instance, were always something that was home people, they had 

them. Now one of our building and loans here in this town has bought at least a dozen 

building and loans at Monticello and all around. Well that takes the hometown atmosphere 

out of it. 


We had several bankers in the legislature and they were always against it, downstate was 

always against it, and some places in the suburbs were, because the big banks would buy 

up the other bank. And If a school board needed to borrow some money, they couldn't go 

to their own people in tht bank. They'd have to come to Champaign or go to a branch of 

an out-of-town bank. 

And we had a fellow fromiover in the west part of the state, gone for several years now. He 

said his brother was in 'bank in California. They had a bank out there. And they had 

a branch banking law in qalifornia. And the big bank out there, the Bank of America, kept 

trying to buy their bank. And finally they'll raise up the figure so that the people that own 

stock in it can't turn it And then the hometown goes out. And I'd always say to 

these people, "Oh well, the only businesses we have that are home-owned anymore 

is the banks and the 

I want to keep them both that way." 

Q: Well. (laughter) Ye4 sir. 

A: As an answer, it didnlt:solve anything. 


Q: On the financial institutions sort of thing, was there any other particular area than 

branch banking that came up during your experience over there? 

A: Well I don't know. You see, if you'd have asked me before you mentioned branch 

banking, I wouldn't have told it. Because I just don't remember that committee. That's 

the only thing that I recag, affecting banks, that I had any memory about. 

Q: So your interest was not great in the financial institutions? 

A: No. I'm sure I didn't ask to be on it. 

Q: I see. Yes, sir. In regard to pensions, one of the things that some people complain about 

is the fact that the pension funds are not fully funded. Are you aware of this situation? 

A: Oh, sure. 

Q: Are you concerned with that . . . 

A: I'd be far more concerned if they were all fully funded. 

Q: Oh, is that right? For what reason? 

A: There isn't enough mopey in the United States to fully fund all the public pensions! 

j 

Q: Oh? 

1 

I 

A: Or all the money that we have would be there! There wouldn't be anything to buy a 

bowl of soup with! (pause) Many times the parallel is drawn, which isn't a parallel at all, 

between building the legal requirements for banks, insurance companies and so on. But 

that's not public money. The full faith and credit of the state and the county, whatever 

the branch of governmeat is, is behind the pensions, because it's law. And if it ever got 

to the place where the~~weren't able to meet the obligation, then simply a tax would be 

put on automatically, thq 

a 

constitution calls for it. So it's a good argument. The party out 

of power always complai s about the small funding, low funding, of the state pensions. And 

the one in power alway defends it. As long as they're paying in enough to pay out what 

their current obligations are, you don't need to worry about it.

Charles W. Clabaugh Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

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