Leland J. Kennedy Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

A: Yes I think so, had a column. Well they were very hospitable and friendly and he recognized
you and all that.
I guess the governor I knew the closest was Governor Stevenson. He followed Green and
you could watch him grow and his major domo I guess was that Molar who later - I think
he went bad. Didn't Molar get a Pulitzer Prize for journalism?
And I can say some very kind things about Governor Stevenson. Of course we didn't have
annual sessions yet. And I think annual sessions - I'm kind of like Bill Horsley, they're
for the birds. They increase the cost of government unbelievable. But I remember one time
right after the Kefauver inquiry at - I think Senator 1,ucas got beat in the 1950 fall election
by I guess Wayland Brooks and I came up on the train one time. And I'd always go up
on my change days. I was married by then. Just to - well I perceived it my duty as a
legislator. And I saw Lucas sitting down in the station there where it is right now. They
used to have trains that went to Beardstown too at that time. They called it the C & A
I guess, I don't know - the Baltimore and Ohio. I went in and told the governor just -
was allowed to go in and see him. They'd let me. I'd go in to see him, and he sent down
the - I saw that Luke was sitting down there by himself and he sent someone down to
pick up Lucas and pick him up for lunch at the Mansion.
And I know when Stevenson - after he'd been defeated for president, I went in to tell him
goodby and he had me stay for lunch with him, and just he and I. And he was a very
very fine man. If Adlai's like his dad, he'll be a brilliant man, and maybe he will. 1 don't
know. Maybe he's brilliant now.
But you could watch Stevenson grow. Of course he had some family problems with his wife,
buthe.. .
Q: In what sense of growth?
A: Well in - now this is just my own intcrpretation - in statesmanship I guess. You could
see he was - I'm sure he was as a U. N. [United Nations] ambassador. - he was just a
national leader or a world leader. The way he handled himself and you could watch him
almost daily. Maybe he'd address the assembly at the first - the two sessions I served
under him, maybe a dozen times in those four years. You could just see his approach to
the - and his wit. And his candor and his humility.
He got beat for president I guess in 1952. IIe got beat in 1952. And we had started our
family by then but I went up on the midnight train and his headquarters and his Mansion
was open. And he made that statement that he was too old to cry and it hurts too much
to laugh, you know. And that just sounds like him, see.
I think that was one of my fondest memories, being able to watch his intellect and culture
and sociability and things of that nature because he had just - oh, he had his
detractors. He had his detractors. Paul Powell I don't think got along with him at all
but Powell was a rough and ready southern Illinois politician and - not that they're any
worse than others, hut he's just a rough and ready politician. Whether he came from southern
Illinois or upstate New York, he was just that way.
Powell himself grew in the General Assembly. Recause he could make emotional talks and
intellectual talks and he was a very very capable man. He might have been - swing at
it from the far side - but he was a very capable man.
SESSION 6, TAPE 11, SIDE 2