Leland J. Kennedy Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

A: Well legislative process, committee process, and the introduction of bills, and the amendments
of various bills, and the political process naturally was always spoken about. At that
time, in the Sixty-fifth General Assembly when I went in, why, Jerome Finkle was head of
the Legislative Reference Bureau. And I found him to be a - well he was Noble Lee's type
I think. He'd talk to you and he had some assistants - assistants, I don't say they were
assistants, they were probably on the same level. They had a man by the name of
Peterson. Well I used to go to Springfield a lot. When I met my wife, I was dating her
then and I'd have days off and I'd just go up on the train and visit there and visit with
them, and like we're visiting now more or less, and I always got along with them. I could
learn something from them.
Q: Did you use their library very much? I understand they had a very good library there.
A: Oh I guess, yes, as much as I could. Maybe not as much as I could but as much as I
dared to I guess, if that's maybe true.
But I always thought the council was one of the - well, hell, you could find anything out,
or they could find it out for you. I always was a great believer in the council and this shows
that this - if they were running this along with Sangamon State, it shows their
knowledge. They're doing this for posterity.
Q: Did you know Jack Isakoff then?
A: Oh yes yes. He was a brilliant man. Did you tell me he passed away'?
Q: Yes. He has. I don't know whether I mentioned it or not.
A: Just recently. Oh, I think maybe I heard that somewhere. Oh he was a brilliant . . .
Q: I don't think it was just recently but
A: Jack Isakoff and Jerome Finkle, and I don't know whether this man's name was Peterson
or not - I'd mentioned it as Peterson - they became fast political friends. I use friends
- people you could go to for advice, seek opinions on. And you found that in the various
directors or the assistant directors of code departments. You got along with some, and you
just felt easier with some people than you did with other people. I found that.
Now here's something that may fit into our discourse. There was a fellow by the name of
Tom McNalley. Hell, I didn't know him from nothing when I went in the city council. I
don't even think he was there, Straube fired him. I mentioned that we had ward funds and
people would complain about maybe a gutter here or an alley or a street light there. And
I'd never been in the street department before as a nonalderman. And I went down to see
him one time and talked to him and found that I could get along with him fine. If you'd
ask him to do something, or get something repaired for you, Tom would take care of it if
he possibly could. Now of course if it was a big job he had to have some money, and you
could see that he got maybe some part of the funds from your ward fund if you had any
left. But you could go to him and he'd go out there and make his presence known so at least
the person, or the persons, who made the complaint would find that at least you were trying
to take care of it. I use the word complaint, it might be just a suggestion.
Between Alton and East Alton was the - well it's old Broadway, I guess they call it Broadway
yet. It used to be the main thoroughfare to get to go to Edwardsville and it was always
dark at night and, oh, through the state and the county and the city they put in street
lights. It's just all lighted. Of course that's been - hell, that's been thirty or forty years
ago. It was just - you know get things done that are reasonable to get done, of those
nature.