Leland J. Kennedy Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

A: Well, we had one big hassle, it was citywide, and I guess it might have been
countywide. It made me quite unpopular with some of the police and firemen. Tt seems
like that the General Assembly set up a minimum wage some time in the late 1930's for
police and firemen in cities maybe thirty-five to fifty thousand, you know, how they grade
- twenty to thirty, and thirty to forty, and forty to fifty. Like Alton was a hundred and
thirty-five dollars a month they werc getting at that time, and the city never had the money
to pay them the additional forty. So that went on for several years.
It had started before I was swore in, I was swore in in April 1941, and we passed an ordinance
in the city council that we would float a bond issue to pay the firemen and the policemen
their back pay. I don't recall the amount, maybe it was a hundred and forty thousand
dollars, or it might have been greater. But the firemen and the policemen were anxious, each
one had maybe two years back pay coming. And maybe five hundred dollars a year, a thousand
dollars, why, that's quite a bit of money. It was a lot of money in those times
anyway. But the city council by ordinance - it was a close vote, we had fourteen aldermen,
seven wards, two men from a ward - voted to issue bonds without competitive bidding.
Q: Oh?
A: And - well I thought it was unfair and there was an alderman by thc name of Roy
Geltx who thought it was unfair, and we might have been the only two people that opposed
it, and we made several objections to it in the council. And it fell on dead ears. And then
we went to St. Louis, Geltz and I did, on our own to a bonding firm down there to see what
they could sell those bonds for at competitive bidding. I think the firm's name was Charles
and Tronic - I don't remember their business. Some of the local people who felt that the
bonds should be competitive suggested we go see Chapman and Cutler in Chicago. So we
went up there, we went up and back in maybe - overnight, that's all. But there was quite
a bit of publicity generated about it. And they didn't sell the bonds in competitive bidding,
but they sold them at the same rate of interest they would have paid if some bonding firm
of the stature of Charles and Tronic or Chapman and Cutler would have bought them.
Q: I see.
A: And I got a lot of favorable publicity on it. So did Roy Geltz. We hoth receivcd editorials
in the paper. And by that time of course the war was going on and before my even two
years was up I guess - maybe two and a half years - why, I was going in the service
like everybody else was going. So I just got drafted and went too, that's all.
My mother was a widow. I worked out at Shell, I could probably have got another six-month
deferrment, hut I thought, "Hell, what's the use, let's go." So I went in the service and . . .
Q: Well let's see - you - did you run again in the spring of 1943 then before you went
in service?
A: Well that was the first year that the alderman, I believe, were four-year terms. They
went to four-year terms either that time or the time before. I believe that was the time
they went to four-year terms. So I didn't have to run for the two . . .
Q: So you were in the middle of a term?
A: We had two aldermen in each ward. No, I'll tell you what happened, il was the term
before when they voted to go to four-year terms, they had some lap-over so they had a drawing
you know. Some guys drew four-year terms and some drew two-year terms. But when
I ran the first time in 1941 it was a four-year term so I didn't have to run in 1943. But
I did run in 1945. They got my petitiions filled out and sent, them to me to sign.
Q: Well now during your first term how often did the board meet?