Authors: Jim Ridings
Chicago to Springfield:: Crime and Politics in the 1920s (Images of America (Arcadia Publishing)) (15 page)
Pictured here from left to right are Sandy and Mrs. Fyfe, Governor Small, Dr. John Dill Robertson, and Ike Volz. (ALPLM.)
Gov. Len Small is pictured at right with his grandson Len H. Small in the 1920s. Len H. became publisher and built the Kankakee Republican Printing Company (now Small Newspaper Group) into a chain of respectable newspapers. Below, Governor Small signs a bill. (At right, ALPLM; below, KCMPC.)
Governor Small is seen here addressing a crowd and enjoying a ball game with Mayor Thompson. (Both ALPLM.)
Small poses above at a bill signing in 1928. Below are, from left to right, Big Bill Thompson, Sen. William E. Borah of Idaho, Len Small, and Sen. C. Wayland Brooks. (Both ALPLM.)
Pictured above from left to right are Leslie Small, his wife Grace, son Burrell, Governor Small, Ida May Inglesh, Arthur Inglesh, and Len H. Small. At left is the official portrait that Governor Small used continuously for the last 20 years of his life. (Above, ALPLM; at left, JR.)
THE GOVERNOR AND THE COLONEL
PUBLISHERS AND PARTISANS
Len Small hated the
Chicago Tribune,
and the
Tribune
returned the feeling. Here is an excerpt from an April 5, 1923 editorial:
Len Small was made governor by Thompson and Lundin when their control over Chicago was tightest. Small is even worse than either Thompson or Lundin. He has always been bad. Twenty-five and thirty years ago, his connection with the corruption of public institutions such as the Kankakee insane asylum was notorious. He always has been notorious.
Temperamentally, he is timid, but he is so unscrupulous that his lack of principle gives him the appearance of audacity. When he was shaking in his boots for fear a Lake County jury would send him to the penitentiary, he was amazing some of the stoutest rascals in the state by his boldness in offering voters the bribe of good roads in exchange for legislators who would protect him.
He is not guided by courage, shrewdness or strength, but by his lack of principles. He is stupid, and his stupidity plus his indifference to public decency allows him to do the outrageous things for which any governor ought to be impeached.
He was a public nuisance when he was a little grubbing downstate politician, picking up offices which would allow him to control coal contracts for an institution, levy an assessment on poorly paid institution employees, and gather in nickels and dimes where he could find them.
He had been a small minded, realistic gangster, but aping Thompson, he tried to be a flannel-mouth and to spout phrases regarding the people and the profiteers.
His whole political life has been one of profiteering at the expense of people who pay taxes, and even now he is trying to dodge a civil accounting for $2,000,000 of interest on public money which disappeared while it was in his hands. Until Mr. Small remembers where it went, we are entitled to believe that a careless janitor burning up bank records did Mr. Small a great favor, and made it greater by conveniently dying.
Wherever Small puts his hand, he leaves a black spot. This unprincipled governor, in his stupidity which appears as audacity, is now bulldozing the state. It seems to be easy if an unscrupulous man tells a county it must stay in the mud and cannot have good roads unless its politicians protect him.
Col. Robert McCormick, owner and publisher of the
Chicago Tribune,
was a larger-than-life figure with plenty of his own flaws, quirks, and eccentricities. Both McCormick and Small were fiercely partisan and opinionated publishers, unafraid to use their power. McCormick, a staunch Republican, said the Cook County Republican Committee under Thompson and Small was “a criminal organization conducted to the protection of crime for profit.” The newspaper also crusaded against gangsters, corrupt politicians, and Franklin Roosevelt. (At left, KPL; below,
Chicago Tribune.
)
A defiant Gov. Len Small poses for the camera. When Len Small was indicted for his theft as state treasurer, the governor had his lawyers argue in court that he was immune from prosecution based on an old English doctrine that “the king can do no wrong.” His defiance was answered by a judge who said there was no king in Illinois and that Small would have to stand trial. (CHM-DN-0072509.)
This is the Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue, and on the left is the Wrigley Building. Len Small hated the
Chicago Tribune
with a white-hot passion. Small rarely made a speech where he didn’t excoriate the
Tribune
; one hour-long speech in Gilman in 1923 included 57 denunciations of the
Tribune
. The
Chicago Tribune
was hard on Small on the editorial pages but fair in its news coverage. It was the contention of Governor Small that the
Chicago Tribune
“championed a cause against the governor,” which was the root of his troubles. (JR.)