Leland J. Kennedy Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Of course there were war clouds hanging over the country at that time and in 1941, why,
I remember Alton, the city of Alton, is nonpartisan, but there were a number of Democratic
committeemen on the Alton city council. At that time we had seven wards. And I lived
in the Seventh Ward and the incumbent, the Seventh Ward alderman, was a man - they
had two. Well this would be - this is kind of interesting. One of the aldermen was George
Shane, who lived on the other side of our double house. He was the owner of the house.
Q: Well. (chuckles)
A: He wasn't up. He had two years yet to serve. It was a four-year term but a man by
the name of MacPhearson was retiring so I just decided to run. Well of course some guys
said, "Hell, they ain't going to have two aldermen in one house." Well that was - if they're
going to use it, they're going to use it.
But the Seventh Ward at that time had four precincts. I lived in the Nineteenth. They had
the Nineteenth, Twentieth, Twenty-first, and Twenty-second. The Twenty-second Precinct
was the precinct that was called the silk stocking precinct. Maybe it was up at Western
Military Academy and Shurtleff College and hack near the railroad station, and near what
was the railroad station at that time was the cutoff. But there was all middle class. Well
I was - if I'm allowed to say it - 1 was a Catholic, and "Hell, they aren't going to elect
a Catholic in Upper Alton anymore than they're going to elect a Protestant in North
Alton." Of course that didn't bother me and I think I went to every house I could and that
was in April of 1941 and I only had one person ever ask me what church I went to.
Now my dad died in 1936 so he wasn't here to see me commence my political career, but
my mother was. She was a German Protestant. She didn't become a Catholic until her
deathbed. But she and a lady by the name of Mrs. Hoppe had what they called the Billikan
Club, and most of those people lived in Upper Alton, and she'd get ahold of me and my
mom - we went to every church dinner they had. They used to have a lot of church dinners
you know, and Upper Alton has a number of Protestant churches. And I say that
respectfully. And we went to all of them.
I'd go out every day and every night and send a little - at that time we had penny postal
cards, and I'd send out a little penny postal card that would remind the people of my visit
to them and I was still a candidate for alderman. There was two other men running, a
man by the name of McHutchinson, who was a Republican precinct committeeman, and
another man by the name of Robbison who was a native of Upper Alton. They were both
nice people.
And I worked, and I won. It was kind of an upset victory. I won pretty good, and I don't
say that - I mean I won with some to spare.
Talking about that precinct up there, that Twenty-second Precinct, they said, "Well,
Kennedy, you'll get beat there bad." I remember I carried it by fifteen votes. I could go
home and I'd take each street, write down the people's name and just figured how many
people were going to vote for me for alderman, and I estimated I could win it on nine hundred
votes. And I think I got nine hundred and thirty. And I carried that precinct by -
that silk stocking precinct I guess you could call it - by fifteen votes as I said. I lost the
precinct in the upper end where there - oh, there were a number of black people but I
only lost it by fifty votes. And the man who ran in second, he was a Republican committeeman
down in the business district, and he carried his own precinct maybe by, oh, around
a hundred votes. But down in the old Nineteenth where I was born and raised in that area
and carried papers and knew everybody and hoped that they knew me well and knew my
family, why, I carried it by - oh, I got a tremendous vote there. 1 must have carried it
over my closest man by around two hundred votes.
Q: What types of things occurred at that time?