University of Illinois at Springfield
Norris L Brookens Library
Archives/Special Collections
Edward Pree Memoir
P912. Pree, Edward (1919-1995) Interview and memoir 9 tapes, 633 mins., 122 pp., plus index
ILLINOIS STATECRAFT Pree, administrative assistant to Governor William G. Stratton 1953-57, discusses working for Stratton: the 1952 and 1956 gubernatorial campaigns, the Stratton administration and its policies, his responsibilities and duties, and politics. Also discusses family, early and mid 20th century life in Springfield, education at Northwestern University, his law practice, and his father.
Interview by Marilyn Huff Immel, 1981 OPEN See collateral file
Archives/Special Collections LIB 144 University of Illinois at Springfield One University Plaza, MS BRK 140 Springfield IL 62703-5407
© 1981, University of Illinois Board of Trustees PREFACE
This oral history of Edward Pree's participation in the administration of Governor William G. Stratton is a product of "Eyewitness Illinois," a program of the Oral History Office of Sangamon State University. 'The project was made possible in part by a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Humanities. Additional financial support was provided by Caterpillar Tractor Company, Arthur Andersen & Co., Canteen Corporation, Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation, Susan Cooke House Trust and the MacArthur Foundation. Central to tpis program is a conviction that the business of the governor deserves larger and better public understanding, and that oral history offers a distinctive way of supplying it.
Edward Pree was administrative assistant to Governor William G. Stratlon from 1953-1957. In that position he made recommendations for personnel appointments and handled some legal and legislative matters for the governor. Mr. Pree first met William Stratton in 1941 at a Young Republicans Convention when William Stratton was a congressman-at-large. Pree was active in the Republican party and continually campaigned for his party's candidates as he followed Stratton's career.
In 1956, when Governor Stratton ran for his second term, Ed Pree directed the campaign to its successful conclusion. Stratton was governor when the state auditor, Orville Hodge, was accused of taking state funds. The scandal had some effect on the 1956 reelection campaign; however, it was Governor Stratton's statesmanship in handling the situation that Ed Pree believes saved the day.
Edward Pree was born in Springfield, Illinois in 1919 and was educated to be an attorney. He was influenced by his father and followed in his footsteps as a Republican interested in both municipal and state government. This memoir adds not only to a better understanding of the Stratton administration, it is also rich in Springfield history. The tape recorded interviews were conducted by Marilyn H. Immel during the spring of 1981. Ms. Immel was born in 1943 in Wichita, Kansas. She received a bachelor's degree in Russian language and literature from Northwestern University in 1965. While raising two children she was actively involved with the League of Women Voters in Springfield, Illinois, working primarily in the areas of election laws and governmen~. In 1977 she returned to school in order to pursue a master's degree in political science. She has been associated with the Oral History Office of Sangamon State University from January of 1981 to August, 1983.
Jackie Barnes transcribed the tapes and, after the transcriptions were edited by Ms. Immel and reviewed by Mr. Pree, Linda Jett prepared the typescript. Francie Staggs compiled the index and, with Carol Marshall, assisted in the pre-interview research. Marilyn Immel supervised the artwork, photographic layout and production. The Illinois State Historical Library provided valuable assistance in the research effort.
This oral history may be read, quoted and cited freely. It may not be reproduced in whole or in part by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the Oral History Office, Sangamon State University, Springfield, Illinois 62708. -"------.
Family Background and Childhood • • • • ~". • • • • • • • • • • • • • Parents--Growing up in Springfield--Springfield Baseball--YMCA--Effect of World War II-• Springfield Schools--Orpheum Theatre--Old Capitol-• The Depression
College Education and Army years • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • .20
Colgate University--Northwestern University-• Army Years--Northwestern Law School
Pree' s Father. • • • • • • • • • • • • . . . • • • • • • • • • • ~26 Law Practice--Assistant State's Attorney-• Len Small Case--Fred Mortimer--Vachel Lindsay
Early Career Experience. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 34 Practicing Law with Father working for Stratton (Administrative Assistant). • • • • • • • • .36
First Contacts with Stratton--Chicago Ward Politics in 1940s--First Days of Stratton Administration--Appointments--Transition-• Stratton's Attitudes on Patronage and "Payroll Jobs"--Stratton's Early Political Career-- 1952 Gubernatorial Campaign
The Stratton Administration. • • • . . . . • • • • • • • • • • • .so Top Aides--Hodge Scandal--Media Campaign Defending Stratton--1956 Campaign--Pree's Personnel Responsibilities--Department Heads--Department of Personnel Established--Stratton Defeated for Third Term--Stratton's 1968 Gubernatorial Bid-• Stratton Runs for Lt. Governor, 1964.
Stratton and State and National Politics • • • • • • • • • • • • .BB 1952 and 1960 National Elections--Stratton and 1960 Fight over State Supreme Court Justiceship-- 1958 Republican Nomination for State Treasurer-• Stratton and 1954 U.S. Senatorial Primary
The Stratton Administration, Cont. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 98 Appointments for Attorney General, 1959 and 1960-• Stratton and Lt. Governor Chapman--1956 and 1960 Republican Slatemaking--Stratton and State Judiciary-• Stratton and the Democratic Party--Str'atton as Administrator
Index. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • - ~.:_ .. ..__,__..__,_~ ..-·· EDWARD PREE
January 31, 1981, Tape 1, Side 1
Q: ·Tell me first where the name comes from, Pree. Is it French or.
A: It's French. The original family name I understand was de Pree and my grandfather, Charles Pree, came over from Germany and dropped the de so it 1 s been Pree. It is a French name but most of my ancestors were from Germany and I suppose in the background German and French and English, I've been told, although I've never pursued the family tree.
Q: Well, let's start at the beginning; where were you born?
A: Springfield, Illinois.
Q: You were born in Springfield.
A: And attended the public schools here. Lawrence Grade School for eight years and Springfield High School for four years, and then I attended Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, my first year in college. Transferred to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois for two years and my senior year I was admitted to law school at Northwestern in Chicago, on the Chicago campus.
Q: You didn't actually graduate ••••
A: I got both degrees from Northwestern. Yes, I got a bachelor of science in law and then I got a law degree. The law degree that was given by Northwestern University. So I got both of my degrees frqm Northwestern. 2 ' '
Q: Tell me about your family here in Springfield. Are you an oJly child? No, I know you have a sister.
A: No, I have two sisters, Margaret Ann Pree who is presently living in Springfield and teaching school at Matheny School. And I had a sister, Georgene Pree, who married Dr. William C. Hays. Georgene passed away in 1967. She was living in Alton where her husband still practices medicine. They had six children. And I had a brother who died right after birth, Robert Eugene Pree. That constitutes our family.
My father was a lawyer, Edward Pree. Practiced here from 1915 until his death in 1968. And my mother was Irma Georg Pree. Georg was the family name and it's my middle name, Edward Georg Pree. Mother always went by Irma Georg Pree. Her middle name was Julia, it was Irma Julia Georg and then Irma Georg Pree. She died in 1964 and my father died in 1968. I practiced law with him between 1946 and 1968 when he died.
Early in his career he was an assistant state's attorney of Sangatllon County, first assistant for many years. I say many years, five or six years and he achieved considerable fame as a prosecutor. And then, in fact one of the cases he prosecuted, probably the most famous case, was the prosecution of Governor Len Small, back in 1922. He became associated in the private practice starting in 1923 with United States Senator Lawrence Y. Sherman of Illinois. It was the firm of Sherman, Bainum and Pree. Judge Noah c. Bainum had been first assistant attorney general of Illinois and Senator Sherman had just retired from the United States Senate. Before that he had been lieutenant governor of Illinois and was a very distinguished man. At one time he had been a presidential candidate. He and my father were together for the remainder of the 1920's, and then toward the end of the twenties he retired in Florida. And I believe Judge Bainum. retired also. And for a while, James M. Weldon practiced with them but for a very short time. He was in the state's attorney's office with my father. Fred Mortimer was the state's attorney during those years. Probably one of the most famous state's attorneys the county has ever had. And Jim Weldon preferred being in the state's attorney's office to private practice. So, mainly during the twenties, Dad was associated with Senator Sherman and Judge Bainum and he had a very fine association with Senator Sherman. He thought the world of him. In fact, he was one of his pallbearers when he was buried.
So after my father--well, after Senator Sherman and Judge Bainum retired then Harlington Wood, Sr. came here in the office and he and Dad were together for fifteen or more years. It was always an association, it was not a partnership but it was an association and they had a good many young lawyers who came through the office during the years that they were here. Then after World War II, I came back and began practicing with my father. And Judge Wood had been elected'county judge in 1934 and his son Harlington Wood, Jr. came back. Began practicing with .him about 1948 or 1949. But we didn1 t have space here in our suite so we could never combine forces with them. (laughs)
In recent years we've been able to get considerably more space for our office here. I might say that my father and Senator Sherman were the first tenants here in the Myers Building, in 1925, and my father remain~d here for the rest of his career, and I've been here during my entire
l 3 legal career so we're pretty much fixtures here in the Myers Building. (laughs) In fact, I wouldn't feel at home any place else, I don't believe". So, my father really had a distinguished legal career. Was noted as a trial lawyer and incidentally if you'd like, I can get some~of the clippings at the time of his death; it had a good resume of is career. I've been wanting to get some historian to prepare someth ng about him for one of the publications and I was hoping that possibly t is lady, Patricia Bassett, who is doing the work on the Georg family, 1my mother's family, might sometime do that. '
My mother was a daughter of Victor Emmanuel Georg, who was an artist and photographer. She was born in Chicago. My grandfather had a studio there in Chicago, and they lived also at one time I believe in Evanston. And then Governor Altgeld, John Peter Altgeld of Illinois, invited Grandfather Georg to come to Springfield and he did come here and my· mother was brought up here in Springfield.
She had a family that was unusually talented in the field of art and photography, and as I say, the Sangamon County Historical Society several years ago asked Patricia Bassett to do a work on the Georg family which is presently in the process of completion. I don't know When she plans to complete it; she left Springfield a couple years ago and was here about a year ago and we talked further about the book, but she 1 s taken many oral interviews and has done considerable research on the Georg family and knows a great deal more about the family than I do, I'm sure.
But Victor Emmanuel Georg had brothers who were painters in Chicago, photographers, and then he had three sons Victor, Herbert, and Raymond who all achieved renown as photographers and in the case of Raymond, as a painter. And then my mother, Irma Georg Pree, was a photographer and worked in the studio after my grandfather died as well as before. Her sister Margaret Georg Millikin was also "talented, so the whole family had just tremenqous, unbelievable talent and of course I've inherited none of that. (laughs) Neither one of my sisters inherited any of it and I don 1 t know of anybody in the Georg family in our generation who has become an artist or photographer. But it was all in the two generations there and really an outpouring of artistic talent that is very seldom seen. So, that is basically my background.
My mother's family, I understand, came from Germany in the liberal revolutions of 1848, and went into Milwaukee. Now that's just family hearsay talk. I've never done a family tree or had any official genealogy on the family. My father's father was a tinsmith and a carpenter and he likewise came to Milwaukee, and my father was reared in Milwaukee. [He] got his degree at the University of Michigan and did part of his ~aw work there and then I guess he ran out of money.
He worked his way through college and then he came to Springfield as I understand around 1912 and worked on the Illinois State Register for a while. At that time they had this new night law school here, the Lincoln College of Law, and he had some additional work to do for his law deg~e and he completed it here and passed the bar examination and was admit~d to the bar in 1915. Later he was on the faculty at the Lincoln College of Law for·several years. I believe he had had one semester, too, at the University of Chicago Law School but as I say, he had to educate himself 4 and pay for his education and got no help from his family. His mother died when he was eight years of age and his father had remarried and as I understand it, my father and his brother Nicholas and their sister lived for part of the time with their uncle, Philip Pree, in Milwaukee, who was one of the brothers of Charles Pree, I don't know how many there were in the family. I'll have to get some more of that family history.
My father never talked too much about the family. He was very much engrossed in our family here. His father died in the early 1930's and so we didn't have too much contact in Milwaukee after that except now and then some of the relatives would come to Springfield during vacation--his cousin Frank Pree, One of his cousins is still living in Milwaukee, John Pree, so I suppose I ought to get more of the family tree from John. I was in Milwaukee a couple of summers ago and called on him and had a very nice visit with him and his wife, so most of the Pree family was from Milwaukee and some of my mother's family, my mother's mother, was from Milwaukee too. So, that seemed to be the route that the German immigrants would take coming over here from Germany, going to Milwaukee or going into Chicago.
Q: What was it like growing up here in Springfield with your sisters? What kind of relationship did you have with your parents?
A: Very close family relationship, And Springfield, in those years, was in my opinion as fine a city for its size as any city I've ever been in. I was always proud of Springfield and I was always proud to be from Springfield. Anywhere you go in the world and you mention you're from Springfield, Illinois, people know the city of Springfield. Of course, the association with Abraham Lincoln and its rich history in the _, nineteenth century with Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas and General U.S. Grant and other figures of the Civil War period, It has such an illustrious history that people know of Springfield. Of course, Abraham Lincoln is the supreme figure here and he has given Springfield a standing in the world that very few cities have. It's been an international shrine. Of course, it's the seat of state government and it has its own rich history aside from the Lincoln history. But in those years Springfield I thought was a wonderful city. It was more of a community than it is now.
It seems to me, since World War II, the last thirty, thirty-five years, that we've kind of burst at the seams. I notice that in the downtown district. I notice it in the zoning problems we've had. I've been in many zoning cases during my legal practice and I've seen the encroachments of commercialism in the city of Springfield and to me it's been a very heartrending thing. Now, I suppose a person who is well satisfied with his environment and his home and so forth doesn't want to see things changed and I have some kind of a similar feeling about Springfield. I've seen changes here the last twenty-five or thirty years that have been, as I say, heartbreaking; for example, some of the beautiful homes have been destroyed and just leveled and they've been replaced by filling stations and hamburger stands and used car lots. I've seen these magnificent neighborhoods--Fifth Street, Sixth Street, Seventh Street, Fourth Street, Second Street--! 've seen them radically changed and I feel not for the better. I think it's been at an awful cost--a cost of beauty and in many cases at a cost of history and traditio'$. 5
Q: Where did you live when you were growing up? Where were you born?
A: Well, I was born at the Springfield Hospital which was on Fifth and North Grand Avenue. And that building has long since been destroyed. Of course, the Memorial Hospital replaced the old Springfield Hospital. I was raised primarily on Second Street. We lived at 1415 South Second Street and then we moved to Wiggins Avenue, 1512 Wiggins Avenue, where • • •
Q: Is that Wiggins and . • •
A: Wiggins. It's right off Leland. Wiggins and Leland.
Q: Okay, yes.
A: So, I've lived here, aside from the time I was in college, in law school, and in the U.s. Army, which was about three years during World War II, I've lived here all my life. And so, I hate to see the deterioration of the downtown district for example. To me it's been a tragic thing the way this downtown has been, over a period of many years, deteriorating.
One of the worst things that ever happened was the destruction of the Orpheum Theatre, which was the cultural palace of Springfield and one of the finest theaters I've ever seen anywhere in the country, and a theater that can never be replaced. For that to be destroyed, just torn down for a drive-in bank facility to me is an awful crime. It's a crime against the community, it's a crime against the culture of our city and it has had a very bad effect upon the downtown. For example, I work here usually several evenings a week and leaving the office at nine and ten o'clock at night, you go out here and the downtown is virtually dark, and I believe that's increased the danger down here. In former years we lad the Orpheum Theater and that lit up the whole portion of this down Uwn district. And there was always activity around there and since that theater has been gone that whole area around there has been changed. Of course, we used to have maybe six, seven other theaters in the heyday of the motion pictures and they've all gone with the exception of the Senate.
So, the downtown district has given way to bank drive-in facilities and parking facilities and it's all right during the day time, but at night it's an entirely different downtown than we had in former years. And as I say, Springfield when it was, you know, fifty, sixty, seventy thousand population seemed to be more of a community than it is now. It's m111ch larger of course now and things are spread out and I don't find the same community feeling that we had in former years. Maybe it's just that I remember it as it was and maybe somebody coming in from out of town now would disagree with me and find it entirely different.
I've often thought what Vachel Lindsay would think if he came back to Springfield today. Now he's been gone fifty years, and he was a friend of my family's; my grandfather Georg and my mother and uncles and my father remember him very well. In fact, I have one of his originals in my dad's office; I'll show you that before you leave here. But Vac~el Lindsay was the poet of Springfield and probably the greatest proponrnt
I I I 6 or the greatest chronicler of Springfield's beauty and its glory as a city. Lindsay loved this city as very few people I believe have loved any city and I don't know of any American city that's had a poet like Vachel Lindsay, who had the relationship with his city that Lindsay had with Springfield. Now, I'm not saying that there weren't, but I don't know of anybody who was any more in love with his home town than Vachel Lindsay was with Springfield.
And I've often thought how Lindsay would evaluate Springfield today in comparison with what it was when he was here in the early part of the century. So, I can see much progress in Springfield in many ways and then I can see so many things we've lost here. And it might be just a general, overall condition where the big cities are deteriorating inwardly and people moving to the suburban areas but, as I say, I see so much that we seem to have lost here and of course much we have gained.
One of the great losses in recent years has been the Sangamo Electric Company which was the base for the whole north end of Springfield. That was one of the finest plants a city could have. Of course Springfield has always been primarily a government town, capital city and the center of a rich agricultural region, and the depression, for example, doesn't affect Springfield like it does an industrial city or an ordinary city. People are still working at the state government and the government goes on no matter what the economic conditions of the country are, so probably Springfield didn't feel the depression as much as other cities did. But in my opinion, Springfield has been a wonderful city and I wouldn't trade it for all the oil in Arabia (laughs) or all the tea in China, as the expression goes, and the people here have been wonderful people.
My father, in particular, came here as a young man and saw this city, found it, and I guess fell in love with it. Always said that the people of Springfield had been so good to him during the years that he lived here and he wouldn't think of going anywhere else. He loved the law practice here and he loved the community; he was active in promoting sports and was a great sports fan here in Springfield. He just thought it was a wonderful city and it still is--I'm not saying that it isn't-• but I do feel some of the beauty of the city and some of the culture has been harmed. At the same time we've had great progress in many areas I'm sure. This new Horace Mann building in particular is a beautiful building and of course the Bell Telephone Company has come in here in recent years and has added so much to the community. Brought a fine group of people in here.
We've had so many fine people of different nationalities here in the past. We've had people here of Italian descent. We've had a big Italian community here and we've had a good-sized Lithuanian group here and still do, and Irish and Germans and we've just had so many groups that have come in here and amalgamated, I suppose you'd say, and made this a city which is certainly indicative of the melting pot that America has been. And they've all contributed so much to the community and Springfield's had a good religious situation here too. We've had many fine Protestant churches and we've had many good Catholic churches and Jewish synagogues here; we've had people from all religious denominations here and I've felt that it's been an excellent situation for the community. It's been a harmonious thing through the years and we've had a good, fine colored population here. 7
I know in our practice here--it's been a general practice--my father, I suppose, had one of the most diversified law practices of any lawyer here in Springfield. In fact, one of our former circuit judges, Judge L. E. Wilhite of Carlinville, Macoupin County, made the comment some years back when he was on the bench here and my dad was actively practicing that, •s he went around to the various counties in the circuit, he didn't know of any lawyer that had as diversified a law practice as my father had. My father represented people from all walks of life and I worked with him for over twenty years and it was always a very gratifying thing as a lawyer to represent people from so many different and diverse backgrounds. Different occupations and different national and religious backgrounds, racial backgrounds, and we always prided ourselves on the many fine people who came in our office that we had the privilege of representing. And my father, especially because he was such a well-known and well-publicized attorney and had such a large following among people in Springfield, represented, as I say, people from all walks of life, represented labor unions. He was in all kinds of cases, civil, criminal cases, cases that went to the higher courts here, Illinois Supreme Court, Illinois appellate courts, and had a big practice in the federal courts earlier in his career. So it has been a very interesting and fascinating law practice for him and for me. Of course, it was a lot more interesting I think when he was here. (laughs)
Q: For you it was
A: It was for me more interesting, yes, because I was practicing with him and he was a master trial lawyer, and it was just a wonderful thing to be associated with him in the practice of the law. I guess all the lawyers make more money today than they did in former years but that's largely because of inflation. (laughs) I think as far as the actual purchasing power it's about the same, although it seems that everybody makes a lot more money today and I suppose that's true in all professions and occupations.
Q: What do you remember about growing up in Springfield? About your childhood? What kinds of things did you do? What did you do on Saturday morning? How did you • • •
A: Well, during my boyhood, I was engrossed in athletics, sports, and Springfield was always a good sports town. When I was a boy we had the old Three Eye League baseball team and my father was one of the most rabid baseball fans in Springfield. In fact, back during World War II, he was the president of the Springfield Municipal Baseball League. They had quite a league here during those years. We had to suspend the Three Eye League team during the war and they got this municipal league developed to the point where it was a very fine amateur and semiprofessional league and he was president there, I believe in 1943 and 1944.
I also organized or managed a baseball team when I was growing up, and in high school and college. Even when I came back and began practicing law for several years I sponsored and managed a baseball team around here, and we played not only in Springfield but in surrounding towns all over central Illinois. And then of course in those years, back in the years that I was growing up here we had so many other sports too. Springfie+d --- ______l 8
High School had great football teams and basketball teams. They'd win the conference, the state championships, so for a sports-minded young man growing up in Springfield there were plenty of opportunities, althou.gh today the programs have so far surpassed the programs in those years t~at there's no comparison.
Q: Now when you say Three Eye League, what is • • •
A: That was the class B professional league here. It was • • •
Q: You're not talking about a little league group?
A: No, no that was a professional league, yes. We now have the American As so cia tion team here which is, as I say, far beyond the Three Eye League. But in those years the Three Eye League was one of the best minor leagues in the country and so many of our players here went into the big leagues. And when I was a boy, the Springfield team in the Three Eye League was a team supported and really owned you might say by the city. It wasn't a farm team for any big league club like it later became with the St. Louis Browns and now the St. Louis Cardinals. It was the Springfield, Illinois Three Eye League Team, the Springfield Senators. There was a tremendous amount of support and interest in baseball in those years. In fact, I can remember on opening day they would excuse the students to go and attend the opening baseball game here. I did that when I was a boy, going to Lawrence School.
Q: All of the kids in town? All of the public schools?
A: Well, I don't remember to that extent but I know that I was excused with other students to attend the opening baseball game. And it was just a community project in those years and they had tremendous support for the Springfield Baseball Club, professional baseball club. And then during the years that I was growing up, the other high schools came into being here. Springfield High School for many years had been the only high school here. And then the Feitshans High School, which is now Southeast High School, developed and the Lanphier High School came into being and then the Griffin High School at that time was the Cathedral High School, so during those years we had the four high schools coming into athletic competition and it became very interesting here in Springfield in those years.
And of course the Illinois State Fair has always been the biggest center of sports that we've had here. The Grand Circuit Harness Races brought the best horses, best harness racing horses, in the world here and still have the National Championship Auto Races and in former years they used to have National Championship Motorcycle Races, which made more problems for the community probably than they were worth, but nonetheless we bad some great events at the state fair through the years.
But I 1 d say today with the Springfield Redbirds team and the American Association and the winner of the association championship last year, it's been the best baseball that Springfield has ever had. But Springfield has always been a good baseball city and a good sports town. 9
So, in those years I was engrossed not only in school and in family life but in athletics, sports. And my father being such a great sports fan, we took in sporting events all the time. (laughs) And I remember1 a couple of years there when I was a freshman and sophomore in high schoql, the Springfield YMCA had a junior basketball team and I was a member of that and we played all over the state. And my father used to drive us around. We'd play on Saturdays and we'd play in the evenings, we'd play in towns like Decatur, and Bloomington and Quincy and Alton and Peoria. We just played all over the state against other YMCA junior teams. We had a very fine team here and most of us later played on the Springfield High School basketball team, but my Dad used to get the car and take us around to these various YMCA's where we would play.
In those years, the Springfield YMCA was over on Seventh Street, which is now part of the First Presbyterian Church. Just to the north of the Presbyterian church. And that YMCA was a fine old "Y" but it was lacking in adequate facilities.
Tape 1, Side 2
A: The Springfield YMCA in those years was a focal point for not only just YMCA activities but many community activities and especially grade school and high school boys would go there in great numbers. I spent a good part of my boyhood down at the YMCA and it was just a wonderful place to be. Good atmosphere and the leadership of the staff members there to me was just outstanding, equally as good as the teachers and principals and coaches we had in our Springfield school system. So I spent a great deal of time there, especially in the winter, in basketball and the social programs.
In those years the old YMCA had dormitory facilities and many men lived there as permanent guests. Men who would work for the state government or other jobs, people who would come in from out of the city and get a job with the state. Especially a man who wasn't married, a bachelor would live at the YMCA, and so twenty-four hours a day the place was open. And you could go in there morning, noon or night and there was activity around there. And some of the most prominent citizens in Springfield were active in the "Y." Of course they still are, there's no doubt about that, but it seemed in those years the "Y" had more social activities. The present YMCA has wonderful physical facilities but it has no dormitory and it doesn't seem to have the social atmosphere or the social opportunities that the old YMCA had.
Q: What kind of facilities did they have? Did they have a basketball court?
A: They had a very small gym and a very small swimming pool. It was all right for grade school boys but it was the kind of a basketball court-• they had a running track above--that was built back in those early years. Many of the church gymnasiums, for example, our Grace Lutheran Church has a gymnasium that was about the same size, maybe a little larger and were built back in the 1920's when basketball was in its infancy and it didn't require the courts of the size that they are today, so actually thojse
... l_ 10 facilities were long since outgrown. The swimming pool was short and narrow, it was all right for little boys, you know, but for any kind of competition or for adults it just wasn't adequate.
And as I say, the new YMCA pool and the gymnasium and the ot~er facilities, handball courts and so forth are really outstanding in tijat respect, but I do feel that in those years when they had the dormitory facilities and they had the permanent guests and they had constant activity around the clock that it was a very fine atmosphere for young men and for boys to go into. And I personally feel that in those years the Springfield YMCA was one of the most important institutions in the city of Springfield. In fact, I think it did as much good as most of our churches and schools, and certainly in my own experience it was.
Now, in those years when I was growing up, during my grade school years, latter part of my grade school years and during my high school, I went to summer camp up in Grand Haven, Michigan and we had many Springfield boys who would go to Camp Cheboygan, which was just outside Grand Haven, Michigan. I could go through the names of some of our prominent citizens today, lawyers, doctors, and business leaders, and give you several dozen who went to Camp Cheboygan in Grand Haven, Michigan during the 1930's. (laughs) It was a great thing for us here in Springfield. We had more boys going to Camp Cheboygan, I believe, from Springfield, than any other summer camp would attract from boys in Springfield.
Q: Was that a "Y" camp?
A: No, it was a private camp. They had a YMCA camp here in those years but it wasn't for the whole summer. We'd go up to Camp Cheboygan for eight weeks during the summer. Two months. And as I say, it was really the highlight of the year for us.
Q: Are there friends that you went to camp with that are still here in Springfield?
A: Yes, oh yes. Practicing law and doctors and so forth.
Q: Anybody you want to name?
A: Well, every time I run into Bill Giffin, attorney William Giffin, anytime I see Bill he says, "We ought to go up to Camp Cheboygan next summer and walk around there and see how the old place looks." And he said, "Those were the best days of our lives." All you have to do when you see Bill Giffin is say, "Well, tell me a little bit about Camp Cheboygan." And you'll get him started. (laughs)
Q: I'll remember that.
A: Yes. There are so many like Bill who went up there, and then we had a number of boys that were killed in World War II, who had gone to summer camp with us, some of the fine young men we had in Springfield. I would say, looking back over the history of Springfield during my lifetime, the midway point or the breaking point or the turning point was World War II. It seemed that after the war things had been changed so drastically that the town wasn't quite the town it was before. Of course the war brought 11 about a stimulation of industrial and commercial activity in the country and there were changes. So many people, had the war not occurred, would have probably stayed here in Springfield. But they'd go elsewhere. Some would stay in the service and some would go to other places in ~he country and live and they'd meet women and marry them and live in thair hometown. So many of the people in Springfield before World War II, especially the war generation, didn't come back to Springfield. And then it seemed that there was such a change after the war, that Springfield just wasn't quite the same town. It's really hard to explain but that's the feeling you had here.
Q: I wonder if any town was the same town?
A: That might well be, but the war did have a decided effect upon the community and as I say, it was a great city after the war. [You] came back here and you got immersed in the activities of the community but so many of your old friends never came back and of course so many were killed too.
Q: I want to go back a little. What is the date of your birth?
A: May 29, 1919.
Q: And your sisters?
A: Well, they were after I was. They were both born in the 1920's.
Q: And the brother that died?
A: In the 1920's.
Q: What was it like for girls growing up, for your sisters growing up in Springfield then? What kind of activities did girls have? You had the "Y" and sports. .
A: Sports, and of course school activities. When I was at Lawrence School, there were so many activities there for the students and parents, and of course Springfield High School was a just a wonderful institution in those years. They had a faculty at Springfield High School that was about as fine a faculty as you could find at any high school in the country, I would daresay. It had fine administrators, teachers, athletic coaches, and wonderful school spirit and good facilities. It was just a wonderful school. Now, you talk about the change in the city, the physical change. In those years we had Springfield High School and then just to the east was the old Central High School, a block away and that was a very architecturally interesting building of the nineteenth century, one of the early school buildings in Springfield. And we had that for our freshman year. Some years back they tore it down and now they have the
Q: Now where exactly was that?
A: On Adams street. Just a block or two east of Springfield High School. They have the Revenue buildings there now. Those state and federal buildings or state and federal offices are there now but the o~d
--~------~----'-~- 12
Central High School was really kind of an architectural landmark in Springfield, and I always regretted that they did away with it [because] it served a real purpose. At that time we had thirty-three hundred students at Springfield High School. Thirty-three hundred students back in my high s~hool years and we needed that building and that additional space there. I could never understand why the school board did that and later on they're needing land, they're needing space and buildings. It really should have been preserved as a kind of historic landmark, I thought.
Q: Why do you think with so much emphasis on saving Lincoln's home and the Old State Capitol building and those kind of buildings, why do you think there seems to be so little concern in saving the other buildings, like the Orpheum Theatre and the Central High School and the homes?
A: Actually, there is the concern on the part of the general public but so often these things are done and they can't do anything about it. Now, for example, the Orpheum Theatre, I've heard different atories on that and read articles about it, but apparently the whole thing was signed, sealed and practically delivered before the public knew about it; and I remember there were suggestions made or last minute attempts made to organize and raise funds to prevent that but the whole deal was consummated before the public found out about it. And it just broke the hearts of so many people in Springfield and people still talk about it. People have never gotten over that, and well they wouldn't, because we can never have a building like that with such magnificence and such grandeur and such beauty· and a building that meant so much to the community. Not only motion pictures but they'd have teachers' institutes there and we'd have stage productions there.
The fact of the matter is you talk about growing up in Springfield in those years, Friday night we used to have the best entertainment in the world at that Orpheum Theatre. We'd go down there on a Friday night and they used to have the main feature, the main movie of course, and then they'd have a vaudeville show, five acts of vaudeville, and then they'd have the organ, you'd have the organ sing-along, and then they'd have the special features like the comedies and the newsreels. You'd have about three hours down there and it was the greatest entertainment I've ever had.
Q: This was part of the Orpheum circuit.
A: Yes, it was. They used to bring in some of the greatest vaudeville shows and performers here in those years and it was just the center of the whole entertainment in Springfield.
Q: Was that a family activity? Did you go with your family?
A: You'd go with your family or your friends. Three or four fellows would go down on a Friday night or get a group together and go on a Saturday afternoon, and there was never anything like it around here that I can remember. Of course through the years they'd have the great artists come there. The Amateur Musical Club used to have their concert series there. And they'd bring in symphony orchestras and individual artists and they'd perform there at the Orpheum Theatre. Several times I 13 presented the United States Marine Band there in concerts back in 1958 and 1959 and 1962, and I had members of the marine band tell me that that was one of the finest places in the entire United States of America that they played at. And that's the kind of a place it was.
Of course, when you'd go in there you'd be in a different world. If any• body wanted to escape from the troubles and the turmoil of life, all they had to do was walk in the Orpheum Theatre and the minute you got in there, whether it was winter or summer or when, you were just in a different world and it was the finest entertainment, the finest theater that I have ever known. And it's an irreparable loss to Springfield.
Another thing--you talk about the change in Springfield--this of course is highly controversial--but the Old State Capitol building has been restored as it was in the Lincoln period, in the 1800's. Now that, of course, had been the Sangamon County Courthouse, and for most of my father's career he practiced there and for the first years that I practiced, the first seventeen, eighteen years that I practiced law, that was our courthouse. And it was the best courthouse that I've ever practiced in or been in. I thought it was a wonderful old building for a courthouse and it was the center of everything in downtown Springfield.
We had the circuit court there and the circuit courtroom, which was the old house of representatives chambers, had enough seats in there to accommodate five, six, seven hundred people. They had the balcony and the main floor there and you'd get a big trial over there and the place would be jam packed. And also it was used for civic functions. I remember one year when I was president of the Sangamon County Historical Society--! believe it was 1963--we brought in Major General U.s. Grant III and we had a meeting there in the old circuit courtroom, the old state representatives chambers. General Grant spoke there. It was big enough we had the Springfield Municipal Band play that night. And then after the meeting on the third floor, we went down to the reception on the second floor in the probate courtroom where General Grant had had his office in the early months of the Civil War.
Q: Isn't that interesting.
A: So, we had so many functions there and that was so much a part of our downtown life. Now, of course, it's strictly a tourist attraction. And while it has many great advantages in that respect, I miss it terribly and I can say here too, unequivocally, that the present Sangamon County Building, that houses the Circuit Court of Sangamon County, is woefully inadequate for its purposes and it doesn't have any atmosphere; it doesn't have one single large courtroom, ceremonial courtroom. As one lawyer put it, "It was obsolete the day it was open." Now, it's fine, I guess, in many respects for certain offices, but as the courthouse it has never filled its purpose.
And I still go around to some of these other county seats here, Carlinville, Jacksonville, Petersburg, Lincoln, the various county seats in the central Illinois area and they still have their fine old courthouses. Many of them are just magnificent buildings, but are the kind of courthouses that the whole system of law and justice deserves. It creates a higher respect for the law and for the system of just:Lce 14
than to go into one of these functional buildings that's just another business building.
So, one of the most decided changes that has occurred here in my lifettme came in 1964, 1965 when the Sangamon County Courthouse was changed over. And then as a historical purist I've always had my serious doubts about the way they handled that. By tearing the building down and taking the stones out to the fairground and then coming back and rebuilding it. It's not the original building as it was and they went down and excavated and they put a parking lot down there, parking facilities. That might help the merchants, and certainly with these new shopping centers, and the White Oaks Mall in particular, they need help downtown because it's a serious situation for all these fine stores here. It might have helped them at that time, but it's not the same original historic structure that we had which was said at one time to be the most historic building west of the Alleghenies, I believe.
Q: Do you think they should have left it with the bottom story on it, that had been added to it?
A: In my opinion, they should have lowered it like they raised it. Now, one of our eldest citizens in Springfield now is Murray Hanes, the archi teet. Murray 1 s well up in · his 90's and his father was the architect, as I understand it, who was in charge of raising the building when they added the bottom floor. And it was his opinion, he told me, that they could have lowered it for one fourth of the cost and you would have had the same building.
Now I can give you two examples of a different approach where they maintained the original structure. The first one is the White House in Washington. Some years back, I understand the whole interior of the White House was done over. But the outside was unchanged. The structure remained intact. It wasn't taken down and rebuilt. And the same way with our governor's mansion here. The restoration of the governor's mansion these past years has been one of the finest examples of historic restoration that I know of. How they went in there and got the original stairs and the original rooms and restored it the way it was at the beginning without dismantling the building, the house. And I have strongly felt that this should have been done the same way. They should have kept the Old State Capitol intact at all times and they should have lowered it. And as far as putting in an underground parking facility, we've got parking facilities all over town. We've got too many of them. And I feel that they've lost a great deal of the historic significance that the building had.
The fact of the matter is, I expressed myself along these lines to the Sangamon County Historical Society in 1973. It was the tenth anniversary of my presidency of the Historical Society and as is the custom, ten years later they have the president of the previous ten years come back and make remarks. This last year it was Bob Howard and three years ago it was Frank Sullivan. And I introduced Frank Sullivan that night when he spoke, but ten years later the president comes back and speaks. And besides going over the activities and the accomplishments of the year that I was president, I spoke on the general topic of historic preservation. I expressed myself most vigorously about what has happened in Springfield in destroying many of the fine old homes. 15
Now for example, just in recent years the Logan Hay mansion on South Grand Avenue West has been destroyed, and for years that was the mansion in Springfield. Originally, when I was a boy it encompassed the whole block, and then they began selling lots and putting in houses and additions, and then put in those apartments on the east of it and replaced their garage there with those apartments and that was the beginning of the end, and then they brought in that City Day School and I guess they just gave up. But to me, that's another irreparable loss to the city of Springfield, to have the Logan Hay mansion destroyed. That could have been taken over by the state of Illinois and used for visiting dignitaries or used for events by the executive department or the legislative department. It could have been used as a state building, a state home, kind of like the Blair House in Washington.
Two other examples--there on Second and South Grand Avenue when I was growing up, on the southwest corner the whole block there was the Edward Payne mansion. And as a boy, I used to play there in the yard and it had one of the old horse and buggy or carriage entrances there to it. It was a stately old home and in the back Ed Payne had his own vineyard. It was just a showplace for Springfield. He died of course in the late 1930's and it was eventually taken over. I believe, for awhile the state had it and then Sears Roebuck came along around 1950 and they came in and bought all the homes around there. All the pieces of property on Second and First Streets going down about two blocks, and one of those was our home, our family home.
My mother wouldn't even think of having our home destroyed so she just moved it down South Grand Avenue to Holmes. And it's presently there on Holmes Avenue and South Grand directly across from the Laurel Methodist Church on the corner there. It's the white frame house with the shutters. It's facing to the south. In those days it faced east on Second Street. It was a beautiful home and the home was very dear to our family. My youngest sister, Georgene, was born there and my mother and father acquired it from her mother, Mrs. Anna Georg. But the whole neighborhood was bought by Sears and they destroyed that magnificent old mansion and now you can see what's happened to Sears. It's been vacant for several years. So, it's the commercial interests that have been largely responsible for the damage that has been done to Springfield.
One of the best and the most simple explanations was given to me some years ago by the late Johnny Connors, the famous boxing champion of the late nineteenth century who had the Empire Hotel here for many years. Johnny Connors was a little man. He was a world champion flyweight boxer. During his latter years he was kind of the official greeter over at the state capitol. You'd walk into the state capitol and there was Johnny Connors who would greet all the dignitaries and the common people, but he had the Empire Hotel here on Jefferson. It used to be kind of a sports center in those years. And Johnny Connors was one of the most famous sporting figures Springfield ever had. He lived out on North Fifth Street.
Then one afternoon here some years back, before he died at the age of ninety-eight, I drove by and I saw him sitting out on his porch and. I stopped and went up and visited with him. We talked for almost an hour and talked about the history of Springfield. And he had much the s~me 16 feelings that I did about what had happened to Springfield. I said, '~r. Connors, who do you feel is responsible for this?" And he said, "The wolves." That's the way he expressed it. He went on to explain that business--the commercial interests that think nothing but profit--they're the ones that come in and do the things that are so harmful to a city and destroy the buildings and the structures that have the real historic significance that should be preserved.
Another example of a magnificent home was the Diller home on Carpenter Street. It's now where the Dirksen Nursing Home is. That was a magnificent old nineteenth century house, I suppose of the Victorian period in the 1870's, 1880's around there, and it was situated on about five or six acres. It was just a beautiful home and of course here some years back that was sold and it was leveled and the Dirksen Nursing Home was put up there. Now, the Dirksen Nursing Home I'm sure is a very fine nursing home and it's a good addition to the city of Springfield, but why couldn't it have been put some place else? Why didn't they maintain that beautiful historic old home? And there have been so many other homes here that have been destroyed on Sixth Street and Fifth Street and Second Street. I can think back years ago and they're gone now and they're gone forever. And it's just, in my opinion, a tragic loss to a city.
Q: Did you grow up knowing the insides of those homes?
A: Many of them, yes. And of course my mother would take me so often to visit people in some of the fine old homes in Springfield. Probably the finest home still in Springfield is the Edwards Place, and being owned by the Springfield Art Association, it's going to be cared for, I'm sure, forever. And it should be. That has beauty which is so outstanding for a nineteenth century home and it has such historical significance, of course, and it's just a delight to go in that building. The year that I was the president of the Springfield Civil War Roundtable, we didn't have any particular headquarters at that time to hold our meetings, and I got the bright idea of having our meetings to be held at the Edwards Place and for a number of years they permitted us to meet there. We'd meet the third Friday of the month, Friday evening, and after a business session we'd have the presentation of the paper, the topic by the speaker. Then afterwards we'd have maybe coffee, hot chocolate, cake and cookies and we'd stay around another half hour or so talking. And it was the finest place for that sort of a get-together, that sort of a meeting, that I've ever had. It was such a beautiful setting, of course, and such historic atmosphere and we would be discussing the Civil War and the topics relative thereto.
Q: What was the Roundtable? Was it descendents of the Civil War?
A: No, really students of the Civil War. It was organized back in the 1950's by George Cashman and Benjamin Thomas, the historian, and a few people like that. I joined it in the late 1950's and they met once a month and discuss topics pertaining to the Civil War. And we've had so many prominent people in Springfield who have been members of it and still are. We still meet once a month but we've never had a place like that to meet. (laughs) 17
Q: You mentioned earlier that your father drove you around for the sporting events all over the state. Were your parents very much involved in your life?
A: Very much, yes. My father being such a rabid sports fan brought me up that way, and I can remember as a boy we'd go down to St. Louis on a Sunday afternoon to see the St. Louis Cardinals play. Dad and I would go to the ball game and Mother and my two younger sisters would maybe go to a movie or go over to the YWCA, which was right near the ball park. And then as I say, we used to go to football games in Champaign and, well, all over the Miqwest. Dad was a Michigan University graduate, as I said, and we made trips up to Ann Arbor, Michigan and Evanston, Illinois for Northwestern games. My younger sister, Georgene, went to Northwestern, graduated from Northwestern University. So, we did this all during my boyhood and during the years that Dad was alive. He kept doing that up until the last years of his life. He remained an avid sports fan and follower and we'd go to football games, baseball games, basketball games, all over. Judge Wood, Hartington Wood Sr. was a great sports follower. In fact, he was on the track team at the University of Illinois. And I can remember the years that he and Dad used to go to games. They'd come down here on Saturday morning and work and as soon as they could get all the clients out of here they'd get in the car and we'd barrel over to Champaign and get in there by the kickoff. (laughs) Judge Wood was a great Illinois rooter and graduate and alumni and my Dad was Michigan so we had a great rivalry up here in those years.
January 31, 1981, Tape 2, Side 1
Q: Let's talk a little about your mother and what life was like for her when you were growing up.
A: She was one of the most active women that you could imagine. She, of course, was a mother and raised a family and supervised the home and did a lot of the cooking and housework herself, but she was active in so many, many organizations. I suppose the Springfield Art Association was about as close to her heart as anything and she painted out there. ~nd the Ceramic and Crafts Club was one of her great loves. She was one of the organizers of that, as I understand, back in the 1920's. She clid that type of work. She enjoyed anything artistic. Of course, she loved the theater and music. You could always get mother to go to the movie or go to a show with you and she loved the historical groups. She loved people and loved to be out with people. So, the night we had the organizational meeting of the Sangamon County Historical Society, she and my sister Margaret Ann were down there--! didn't attend it--and they came home that night and said they'd elected me vice-president. She was always at things like that.
And she was active in the Republican Women's Organization. She used to love politics. In fact, she went to a couple of national conventions. In 1960 up in Chicago, we were up there for several days and she went up to that. She just loved activity. And as I say, between her home and children and her painting and art work, crafts work and music and fhe theater and movies and so forth and historical things, she just k pt 18 herself active. When she passed away, the newspaper account listed so many of the clubs she had belonged to and many of the organizations and associations and it was just really impressive. You didn't realize that she had included all that in her life.
She was a lot older than she appeared to be when she died. She never showed her age. She never had any gray hair and I don't think she ever got any wrinkles in her face. (laughter) So, she had a Georg family characteristic of never showing their age. But she was very devoted to her own family. Her father had died in 1911 and was supposed to have had one of the largest funerals in the history of Springfield according to the reports. And my mother was very devoted to her father. In fact, she was much closer to her father than she ever was to her mother. And then she carried on the studio there and helped her raise the children. So, her life was a very interesting, and I'd say, wonderful life. She had some difficulties in those early years when her father died at an early age. He was about fifty-two I think when he died.
Q: She helped to raise her brothers and sisters?
A: Helped raise her brothers and sisters, that's right, and that will eventually be touched upon when this book is completed by Patricia Bassett. As I say, she knows much more about the family now than I do because she really has made a study into the Georg family. But Mother was a very talented woman and whether it was painting or cooking, she was wonderful in it.
Q: She did all her own housekeeping and cooking or did she have help?
A: Well, she'd have help come in, yes. It was a large home on Wiggins Avenue and if she needed help [she would] have somebody come in, but she still kept active all those years and practically always did the cooking except if she had guests in or something like that. She'd have somebody help her but she was a wonderful cook and as I say, I used to kind of object to her showing a preference to painting over cooking. (laughter) We missed her cooking but as I look back I just wish that she could have maybe spent all of her time painting because she loved it so much. And she continued to paint all during her life. She had that great natural talent of the Georg family.
She had her formal education cut short when she was a girl. I was told that she had had pneumonia and I don't believe she was able to finish high school, but she did go to the Art Institute in Chicago and studied art up there. So, she had the equivalent of some college training, but really, the family didn't need it I'm sure. Herbert Georg, who became a noted photographer here, still widely known, never went beyond high school. Now, Raymond Georg, the photographer and painter, went to Yale University. As I understand, he went through all their art courses out there in a couple of years and had no more worlds to conquer, so to speak.
Q: Now, were these brothers younger than she? 19
A: Yes, except Victor. Victor was the oldest of the children. And Victor had a great career. I don't want to dwell on it too much because as I say, this book one of these days is going to be published and it will have a complete history of the family. And Victor, that is the son of Victor Emmanuel, went to New York and achieved national fame out there. Photographed celebrities you know, the wealthy people out there and the state celebrities and the royalty, the visiting royalty, and he just had a fascinating career there for a number of years. And I'm hoping that we 1 11 get this book ready for publication before too much longer because it has the whole history of the Georg family and it 1 s going to have illustrations and it should be a fascinating work.
Q: Now you were born after the First World War.
A: Yes.
Q: And grew up to be a teenager during the depression.
A: Yes.
Q: And you said that it didn't affect your family life very much.
A: No •
Q: Your father worked all during the depression?
A: Yes, he was a practicing attorney and of course he had a very good income as an attorney, although I 1m sure if he had charged fees and received fees that he should have, he'd have been a much wealthier man. I can remember during those depression years he would help people and sometimes the compensation was very little in comparison with the work done and the responsibility assumed. But, he always had a very fine income as a practicing lawyer. He had a big law practice and so it just never affected us like it did so many of the boys and girls I went to school with. So many of them were deprived of the opportunity of going away to college. I remember case after case when I was in high school of boys, and girls too, who had outstanding abilities scholastically and in athletics and so forth, who just didn't have a chance to go to college.
Q: And there weren't scholarships available?
A: No, not many. Of course, it was a lot cheaper but money was much more valuable in those years.
Q: What year did you graduate from high school?
A: Nineteen thirty-seven.
Q: And then you went on to Colgate, is that right?
A: Yes, I graduated in January of 1937. My teachers in Lawrence School had skipped me when I was about in the fourth grade and put me in the midyear class. And I graduated in January of 1937. And then for the following semester I did some postgraduate work there at Springfield High School. And I did some work at the Brown's Business College.
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Q: And then that fall 0 0 0
A: That fall, 1937, I went to Colgate University.
Q: What was that like?
A: I've often said that if I had been living in the East I would h~e gone through the four years there. It was a boys' school at that time, limited to one thousand. It was situated in the Chenango Valley in Hamilton, New York and I can show you some pictures here of Colgate. It was one of the most beautiful college campuses I've ever seen. It was originally a Baptist college organized in the early part of the nineteenth century. It had a great athletic tradition, especially in football. Its teams in former years were just phenomenal. One year they had a team in 1932 that was undefeated, untied, and unscored upon. And for a little college like that, limited to one thousand boys, they'd come out and beat teams in the Big Ten and beat teams all over the East. Syracuse, Penn State, all those big powers out in the East they used to beat by big scores in those years.
But, it was the kind of a college that you would think in terms of going to. In other words, you'd hear about going away to college and everything that college was supposed to be and supposed to mean--well, that was a school like Colgate. They had the great school spirit there. For example, on Friday nights before a football game the band would assemble up on the hill, and all the freshmen, and then they'd come down the hill and go down to the street past all the fraternities on fraternity row. And they'd go down to the square in Hamilton, which is a little town of about fifteen hundred, two thousand, and they'd have a big pep rally. The band would play and the cheerleaders would be out there performing and they'd have all kinds of school songs sung and cheers given and the coaches would make speeches.
It was the kind of a thing you used to see in the movies and read about. You know, you'd read these books when you were a boy about college and football and everything and it was just that kind of an atmosphere, and it was a very fine school scholastically. And as I say, it had such a beautiful campus that you were in kind of a wonderland out there. It was in the Chenango Valley, forty miles from Syracuse, and when I was a freshman they had the deferred rushing and so we couldn't join a fraternity our first semester, in fact, until after the spring vacation. And so the freshmen were very close together and that year they had built a new student union. We had our meals there and we were very close knit. That is, our freshman class, we had about three hundred in the freshman class.
And the only real entertainment we had was on Saturday nights. We'd go downtown to'the Shines State Theatre and see the Saturday night movie and then after the movie we'd stop at the Greek Confectionery, the Sugar Bowl Confectionery. The kind of a confectionery you'd see in the funny papers, you know. (laughs) Just a typical _Greek confectionary where they'd have homemade candy, you know. And then on Sunday mornings we'd go to the First Baptist Church in Hamilton, New York, which is a beautiful red brick building with a golden spire and just a typical upstate New York nineteenth century type architecture. And most of the campus was
j ------" 21 situated on a hill there and down below were the playing fields and the fraternities. So, Colgate was an unforgettable experience for me and I just have always regretted that I wasn't able to go there for my entire undergraduate work. But I felt and my family felt that it would be better to be a little closer to home. To be out here in the Midwest, and so I transferred to Northwestern. And as you know, that was a great school. In those years it was kind of a "Joe College" school, too. Northwestern
Q: Were you in a fraternity?
A: I joined the Delta Tau Delta at Northwestern.
Q: But you didn't join at Colgate?
A: I didn't join at Colgate because I was planning to go back to the Middle West and I had thought maybe I should join at the next school. I'd thought about going to Michigan because my father had gone to Michigan but at the last minute I decided to go to Northwestern. I never regretted that decision. And then went into Northwestern Law School my senior year, which was possible in those years where you could complete it in six years. But I still think about Colgate and now and then I'll have a dream that I'm out there in college or I've gone back to Colgate, you know, and I have in the last few years gone out there several times.
I went out in the fall of 1976. They had an unbeaten football team. They'd won eight games in a row and they were playing Army at West Point, so I flew out there that weekend and drove to West Point and saw the game and spent a weekend at the college. And then the following year I went out there, and they'd won about nine or ten games in a row that year. And they almost had an unbeaten season. I spent the weekend then. I went out again in the fall of 1978, I believe. I try to get out there in the fall sometime. Now, I haven't made it the last two years but I hope to get out sometime again this year. It's just an inspiring thing to go back there and see the campus, which hasn't changed too much in the years. And it's kind of a renewal of purpose there, so to speak, when you go back to the old college and kind of retrace your steps and see how things are.
At Colgate, I still have my freshman debate coach, John Hoben; he's retired now but he still lives in Hamilton and I call upon him and maybe have dinner with him. I've maintained some contacts with the university. Well, it's Colgate University but they refer to it as the College. In fact, I'm a member of the President's Club in perpetuity, which is for contributors to the university.
Q: You feel much fonder about Colgate than Northwestern?
A: No, I don't. I suppose it's because it had such an impact upon me, going away to college. That first year of college had a greater impact upon me than any year I had. And it was, I suppose, a combination of many things: going from high school to college, going from home in the Middle West to the East, and then the whole new academic program. The year that I was at Colgate, they instituted a new program of cours~s. They would have survey courses. They call them survey courses and you'd 22 take one course which is a survey of the physical sciences, one which is a survey of the biological sciences, one which was a survey of philosophy and religion, and one of the social sciences. And by the time you finished your freshman year you had a broad perspective of the whole field of education and were in a better position to determine what course of study you wished to pursue.
And then we had what they called the preceptor and the tutorial system. Every freshman was assigned to a member of the faculty who was a preceptor and you'd meet with him every few weeks and report your progress and if you had any problems you'd discuss it with him, and it kept a close relationship between the student and the faculty.
And I had a professor there who was a professor of romantic languages, which I never took at Colgate, but he was one of the longtime members of the Colgate faculty. Professor Ward, Bobby Ward, they called him. And he had an apartment or upstairs living quarters in one of those quaint little New England or nineteenth century houses, you know. It was interesting to go into some of those houses there in Hamilton, New York. And I remember I would look out from the library down below or look out from one of the buildings on the campus, all the way down below and see the whole town of Hamilton. It looked like a lot of little playhouses down there. Such a cute little town.
But Professor Ward would always ask me to accompany him to the concerts and lectures. We had a concert and lecture series at Colgate and we'd have some great artists come in. Gladys Swarthout and Roland Hayes and General Smedley Butler of the U.S. Marine Corps. We had some outstanding artists during that freshman year and I would always accompany Professor Ward and he used to sit on the right side about two-thirds of the way back. So, ever since, whenever I go into a theatre or go to a concert or a movie or something, I always sit on the right side about two-thirds of the way back, (laughs) which is a very good vantage point. But I had an unforgettable year there and I suppose the way things came out, it was for the best that I transferred because I got in law school my senior year and I went to summer school twice.
The first month I was in law school at Northwestern we had to register for the draft. And after our freshman year so many of the fellows went in the service, of course. That was in 1941 and we hadn't gotten in war then but the draft was in effect and they were taking them right and left. They were deferring college students. So, I was able to go to summer school twice--two years in a raw--and finish before I had to go in the army. I tried to get in the Marine Corps my freshman year but they told me I was color blind; I couldn't pass the test. I went down in Chicago there, to the Marine Corps recruiting office and they gave me the test. And when it was all over I guess I saw the things I shouldn't have seen, and I thought I was passing it easy and then they said, "Well, you're color blind so you're not eligible for the Marine Corps," so that eliminated me until the draft. So, I was able to graduate from Northwestern Law School and take the bar examination, which I was successful in passing.
I 23
Q: And that was what year?
A: Nineteen forty-three. I graduated from law school in January and I took a bar review course in Champaign for a month and then took the bar exam in March and passed it, and then in April I went in the army. So, I just got through in the nick of time. When I finished service and I came back in 1946, I had been admitted to practice and I was ready to practice law. Although I did go back for four or five months in Chicago. I took some night work at Northwestern University in the downtown campus. And then during the day I took some review work at the Lawyers' Postgraduate Clinics in Chicago in day and evening both. So, I spent about four or five months up there in taking refresher courses and then I took two courses in night school at Northwestern. Took one course in American political theory and another course in Shakespeare. Then I took private voice lessons up there at Kimball Hall. And got myself ready to come back and start practicing law.
Q: Singing or speaking voice lessons?
A: It was speaking but I did singing in connection with it. I was referred to a former concert singer up there. Mrs. Lee Gareissen, who had been the teacher for Professor Irving Goldstein, the author of Trial Technique. He was on the Northwestern faculty and taught trial technique for many years and I studied under him at Northwestern. And then he had the Lawyers' Postgraduate Clinics and so many of the returning service men were taking his clinics there. In fact, I remember Otto Kerner was in one of his courses there on trial technique. I believe he came down, maybe it was on Monday evenings, for that course. I came on Saturday afternoons or vice versa but anyway, that's an example of what was going on there. The returning servicemen would come back and take some courses there to kind of refresh themselves before going back into the practice. So, Professor Goldstein, who was a practicing lawyer too, referred me to his voice teacher. She had a studio there at Kimball Hall in Chicago, where you have all the studios and conservatories and music and so, I took voice lessons with her, along with the other work I was taking. Really a very interesting period.
Q: Tell me about your years in the military.
A: Well, I was just in the army for three years as an enlisted man.
Q: Where were you during those years?
A: All over the United States, and then for about a year and a half down in the Caribbean Defense Command. But I was in army training at Fort Sheridan, Illinois; Camp McCoy, Wisconsin; Camp Grant, Illinois; Fort Custer, Michigan; Pittsburgh Replacement Depot in California; then sent all the way over to the Atlantic Coast in Virginia. I started out like so many law students being placed in the Counterintelligence Corps, and so many of the fellows in law school had gone in out at Fort Sheridan and they were placed in military intelligence and so that's where I went. In fact I was inducted through the Evanston draft office. In fact the morning that they sent us off to Fort Sheridan they had a big parade in Evanston and the townspeople were out there to see everybody march down to the "EL" and take the "El" out to Fort Sheridan. (laughing) 24
Q: Were most of that group graduates of Northwestern?
A: No, they were just the young men, townspeople from Evanston and Northwestern students and some were there from the law school. When I got to Fort Sheridan we were sent up to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin for our basic training. As we neared the end of our basic training we were informed that they had reached their quota at that time for the Intelligence so we were sent back to Camp Grant, Illinois for reassignment. And then later sent up to Fort Custer in the provost marshal's training center.
Q: What was it like when you were in the Caribbean? How long were you there?
A: About a year and a half.
Q: And what were you doing down there?
A: Well, I first started out in military police work down in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and then they established a special training center there and I was reassigned there. I became in charge of athletics and recreation at the special training center which turned out to be a very good assignment, very interesting. I was in charge of the whole athletic and recreation program there at the training center, and in fact I came back and spent a month at Washington and Lee University at the special services school there. By the way, that's a beautiful campus if you've ever seen it. Washington and Lee in Lexington, Virginia.
Q: You were there while you were still in the service?
A: Yes, they had a special services school at the Washington and Lee and then down the road at Virginia Military Institute they had a coaching school. And I finished my course there at Washington and Lee and at that time the war was just over, and I was sent home on a furlough. I'd applied for coaching school at VMI but the orders didn't get through in time so I was sent to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. My orders came through too late for the coaching school at the VMI which I've always regretted and I finished up at the Jefferson Barracks and got out on Valentine's Day in 1946. Then I went to Chicago and went to Northwestern and did this additional work and I came back and began practicing law in August of 1946 here in the office.
Q: Tell me about law school. What people did you meet there that continued to be important in your life?
A: Northwestern Law School at that time was as fine a law school as there was in the country or the world. We had some of the most eminent men in law on the faculty, headed by Dean Emeritus John Henry Wigmore, the great legal scholar. The most prolific legal scholar in American history and a man who, I suppose, wrote more legal books and articles than any man in the history of the law. He was dean emeritus at Northwestern Law School. He's the one who built Northwestern Law School. He took it back in the latter part of the nineteenth century or the early part of the twentieth century and built the law school. And at that time, he had retired as dean but he was still teaching a few courses, 25 seminars. I took a seminar from him in international law. And Wigmore, as I say, was the supreme figure in American legal education. So, with him being there, being alive and being active and he was very active--on Fridays we'd come over after lunch and he'd go in Lowden Hall, and sit at the piano and start playing and the students would be singing and marching around there just having a great time for a while. It was kind of a traditional thing. He was that kind of a man. He was nearing eighty. He was in his upper seventies. But he was still vigorous and dynamic and his mind was as good as, I suppose, it ever was. So, with a man like Wigmore at Northwestern Law School, we had the greatest legal figure in America there.
And we had other distinguished faculty members there that made it a faculty that was second to none. Leon Green was the dean and Walter Wheeler Cook was on the faculty. Homer Carey, Edwin Albertsworth, and people like that. Albert Kokerich had retired but he was still teaching some courses. Colonel Robert Millar was retired but he was still teaching courses. They had been associated with Wigmore for many years.
Then they had a younger group of faculty members. Many of whom became prominent in later years. Carl McGowan was on the faculty. He's now judge of the United States Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia. Has been for many years. Willard Wirtz was on the faculty; he later became secretary of Labor during the Kennedy administration. Walter Schaefer was on the faculty. He later went on the Illinois Supreme Court until his retirement here the last few years. Professor MacChesney, Brunson MacChesney, was on the faculty. Nathania! Nathanson just retired here this past year. We had so many outstanding men. Older men like Wigmore and Kokerich and Millar of that era. Walter Wheeler Cook, who was in his sixties at that time and then Leon Greene and Edwin Albertsworth and Homer Carey. Men like that were all middle-aged. Very vigorous men and it was a school that had a lot of interesting things going on.
Whether it was legal or political. Those were still the days of the New Deal and Leon Green was the strong New Dealer and Dr. Albertsworth was a strong conservative, and you had different members of the faculty who were of different political persuasion and philosophy and it was very interesting in those years. Of course, the war was coming on and that changed the whole complexion. But, the faculty in those years at North• western was just wonderful. It just couldn't be surpassed. And then of course, Northwestern Law School, the physical properties were the products of Dean Wigmore's genius and his love for the Anglo-American legal system and tradition.
The Lincoln Hall, of course, is modeled after the House of Commons in the British Parliament. The law building there is one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever been in and it was just a wonderful building to study law in. That year Abbott Hall, which is just a block away, was completed for the dormitories, and we lived [there]. At that time they were beginning the naval training program, the ninety-day program to make naval officers, commissioned naval officers. And that was beginning at that time in Abbott Hall. So, it was a very exciting period. 26
The war in Europe had started in 1939 as you know and there was a great controversy in those years as to whether America should intervene. And Chicago was the center of the isolationist movement in the country and of course most of our law students were noninterventionists. We were all against going into war and there at the Chicago Arena which is just a few blocks away, and they used to have big meetings and they'd have Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh speak and Senator Wheeler of Montana and Senator Nye of South Dakota and all the leaders of the nonintervention movement in the country. The America First program. So, it was very exciting in that area there.
On the downtown campus, of course, you have the medical school and the dental school and the night school and the school of journalism there. The downtown campus at Northwestern University is really a center of tremendous activity. Students by the thousands going to that night school. Then, of course, the law school was a small school but the medical school is a good sized school. It had the Passavant Hospital there and the Wesley Memorial Hospital was just being built at that time, just opened around 1941 or 1942. It was a great place to live and study law.
The one thing I've always regretted is that the war came on at that time and our law school was changed so markedly; in other words, after the end of the 1941 school year so many of the fellows went in the draft or went into service. And our class, our freshman class had around 100 or 110, as I remember, members of the class and when they came back after the summer of 1941, we had about half that. And then they began dropping out all the time. I was very fortunate to be deferred so I could finish my legal studies. But, it was such a wonderful school during the freshman year when everything was intact before the draft began making inroads. And I've always regretted that it wasn't possible to have gone through three years there during normal times.
Q: Why were they not all deferred?
A: Well, it depended upon the local draft board.
Q: I see.
A: We had here in Springfield a couple of lawyers on the draft board and they were very sympathetic to a law student, you know, and at that time I was able to be deferred to finish. And, of course, what I also did at that time, I joined the Illinois Reserve Militia up there in Chicago and we used to train at one of the armories on the north side of Chicago. So, I was beginning to get some basic training while I was finishing my law work. And it worked out pretty well so, as I say, I was able to get my degree there and take the bar examination before I went in the army.
February 14, 1981, Tape 3, Side 1
Q: I'd like to go back to some things you mentioned the other day and talk about first your father's career as an assistant state's attorney. You said that he was probably the most, the best known case he had was 27
the prosecution of Governor Len Small. Would you like to talk about that?
A: Yes. My father was in the state's attorney's office for perhaps five or six years and became the first assistant state's attorney of Sangamon County; and the reason it became so important was that the good part of that time the state's attorney, Fred Mortimer, was ill and for one whole year, as I recall my father saying, he was out of Springfield, Sangamon County, and was out in Colorado. During that time my father was in charge of the office and directed the criminal prosecutions.
And, of course, the Len Small case was the first case in which the governor of Illinois had been prosecuted criminally. He was represented by Charles LeForgee of Decatur, a very prominent Decatur and downstate attorney and a very brilliant lawyer, as I've been told. Also, among the defense counsel was Werner Schroeder who became quite prominent in later administrations and in the Republican party nationally. And on the prosecution staff, my father and Fred Mortimer, the state's attorney of Sangamon County. The attorney general at that time was Edward J. Brundage, and I suppose a good part of the background and perhaps the motivation for the prosecution apparently grew out of a bitter feud between the attorney general and the governor. Brundage had as his representative in the trial, James Wilkerson, who later became famous as the federal judge who sentenced Al Capone. And my father engaged as local counsel up in Lake County where the case had been transferred, Ralph Dady, who later became circuit judge and served for many years on our appellate court here in Springfield.
Q: Now, why was the case transferred to Lake County?
A: The defense said that the governor couldn't receive a fair trial in Sangamon County, as I remember, and he was transferred up to Lake County, which was a very fortunate move for Governor Small. Now, the trial lasted I believe some eight or nine weeks. I could check that but I remember the case was widely reported and my father used to tell me about it--that Governor Small would come in from time to time. Of course, he wouldn't be there all the time. He couldn't be there day in and day out because he was governor and was transacting state business. But he would come back and forth and participate in the trial in that respect.
Q: Now, what was the charge against him?
A: Well, it was really a charge of having taken the state funds as state treasurer and using them without taking the interest for the state, keeping the interest himself. What I'd like to do here sometime is find the book; there was a book published with all the closing arguments of all the attorneys, and perhaps I should try to locate that. It's around the office here somewhere and then I could give you a little more facts on the case. But there were many interesting things about it.
I guess one time the circus came to Waukegan and Governor Small attended the circus that night and when he came in, the band played "Hail to the Chief." (laughs) And then I guess a number of the jurors, after the case was over--they acquitted the governor on that case and he was later charged on a civil case for the recovery of the money--a number of the 28 jurors went (laughs) in to state government afterwards with some quite interesting asides on the case. One of the tragic things was, of course, that after the verdict was announced that Governor Small's wife died and
Q: Immediately thereafter?
A: As I understand it, yes. The historical facts on this could be checked but that was my understanding that she passed away right after that. And one of the people who knew a great deal about Governor Small, who was in the Stratton administration, was Stillman J. Stanard, the director of Agriculture under Governor Small and under Governor Stratton. Stillman Stanard was a very close friend of my uncle Herbert, Herbert Georg, for many years and, of course, I knew him throughout my early life because I used to see him with my uncle. And then, of course, when Governor Stratton appointed him director of Agriculture, I began working with him very closely for the next five years or more. And Stillman Stanard used to talk about the Small administration and about that trial and he used to refer to Governor Small's reelection campaign in 1924 as his campaign of vindication, and he was reelected in 1924.
But my father was just a young prosecuting attorney and he was assigned the case and he spent about a year working on the case. He had no personal animosity toward Governor Small. In fact, he said the governor was always very pleasant to him and he liked him, personally. But he was placed in that role and he apparently did very well in the prosecution of the case. I understand that the newspaper reporters covering the trial more or less voted his closing argument the outstanding closing argument of the trial, although there were some very brilliant speakers at that trial. And Fred Mortimer, the state's attorney of Sangamon County, was noted as a courtroom orator, a very brilliant speaker. My father used to talk about him, what a master he was at marshalling facts and presenting facts, interpreting facts to a jury. He was a very skilled trial lawyer and especially with regard to his influence on juries.
My father became very fond of Jim Wilkerson, Judge Wilkerson. And I remember when I was a boy, on Lincoln's birthday one year, when Governor Henry Horner was in, that we had a big Lincoln birthday celebration at the state armory, and Wilkerson was one of the principal speakers. It was right after the Capone trial when he had sentenced Al Capone to the penitentiary. After the. ceremony, after the meeting concluded, we went up and I was introduced to Jim Wilkerson. Of course, he and Dad were old friends. Dad used to love to tell about what a brilliant man Wilkerson was and how he could quote Shakespeare. Dad said they'd be working on the case, you know, night after night, week after week, and he said that from time to time, Jim Wilkerson would have a few drinks to relax himself and then he'd start quoting Shakespeare. And Dad said you never heard anything like it. The way he could quote Shakespeare's plays and on and on and in such a truly dramatic fashion. My father had the highest regard for him.
Q: Did your father ever talk about whether or not he thought the governor was guilty or innocent? 29
A: Well, he felt that he was.
Q: Guilty?
A: Yes. He felt that they had made a case, but he realized that when you're prosecuting a governor there are so many factors that enter into it. And incidentally at that time up in Lake County, the chairman of the Board of Supervisors, I believe, was Governor Stratton's father, William J. Stratton. And he later became the first director of Conservation of the state of Illinois, appointed by Governor Small and then he became secretary of state, was elected secretary of state, I believe in 1928. But that was a famous trial • • •
Q: Did the state's attorney's office decide not to appeal it?
A: Well, of course, a criminal prosecution where there is not a guilty verdict, you can't appeal. You cannot appeal.
Q: Oh, oh.
A: But as I say, there was a civil case later on and as I understand, the state recovered much of the funds that allegedly had been taken by Governor Small when he was state treasurer. Apparently it was the common practice in early years for state treasurers to loan out state money and keep the interest themselves.
Q: Was the civil trial a jury trial?
A: I don't believe it was. I'll have to check that. I can go back and get that volume for you in the Illinois Reports and have that explained a little more.
Q: Tell me some more about Fred Mortimer, the state's attorney.
A: Fred Mortimer was the state's attorney who served, as I remember, two terms as state's attorney. He was the spokesman, I guess, for the Republican organization in Sangamon County, which at that time was known as the Sullivan organization. Dick Sullivan was a famous political leader of that era. He served once, I believe, as county treasurer of Sangamon County but he was considered the political boss in those years and was probably one of the most famous politicians Sangamon County ever had and a very well liked figure. Mortimer was the spokesman, you might say, for the Sangamon County Republican party, and as state's attorney he was highly publicized and was in the big trials and
Q: Can you remember one of those trials aside from Len Small?
A: Well, I don't remember names of trials but I know in those years my father was very active in prosecution of trials. He'd told me, I believe, when he got back from the Small trial after being up in Lake County for about eight or nine weeks, he came back and prosecuted three murder cases in a row. So, they used to do a lot of that in those years and, of course, we had the Old State Capitol at that time which was the Sangamon County Courthouse and the circuit courtroom was on the third floor. And that would seat hundreds of people for a trial. And Dad said 30 that the courtroom used to be packed in those years when they'd have these sensational criminal trials. They had seats downstairs and then up in the balcony too, so they could seat probably five, six, seven hundred people for those big trials, as I believe I mentioned earlier.
Q: A murder trial then was not an unusual occasion?
A: No. They had quite a few of them in those years. Of course, in the 1920's, you know, that was the prohibition era too. And of course they had, in those years and later years, they had labor problems around here, the mine workers unions and they used to have almost armed combat. The United Mine Workers and the Progressive Mine Workers of America. Those were tum\}ltuous times. Then of course, my father left the state's attorney's office in 1923, when he formed his partnership with Senator Sherman. But he thought Fred Mortimer was a great speaker, political speaker, and courtroom orator. And he of course was very close to him.
Q: You talked the other day about your family's relationship with Vachel Lindsay. Could you go into that further?
A: That probably started when my grandfather Georg, Victor Emmanuel Gaorg, had his studio here. As I remember at that time, the studio was in the Pierik Building on the east side of the square. I believe that's correct. And my mother remembers Vachel Lindsay very well and knew him. Apparently the studio was some kind of a meeting place for artists and so forth, and Vachel Lindsay used to frequent it and also Edgar Lee Masters. Mother and Dad knew Lindsay very well and my grandfather, of course, knew him as did the other Georg boys. My father used to remark about Lindsay, what a fine man he was and what a tragic situation he had in his life. Not only because of his tragic conclusion, but he said Lindsay was such a great idealist and that so many of the people in Springfield never really appreciated him or gave him the recognition he should have had.
In fact as Dad said, some of the, I suppose you 1 d say, some of the business people and others around town used to laugh at him because he was that type of personality where he'd go around the country and write poems for meals. In fact, he wrote a little poem to Mother and Dad when they got married. (laughs) After my mother passed away, we went through her papers and we found that poem that Lindsay had written to Mr. Pree. So, they were both very fond of Vachel Lindsay.
I remember as a boy I attended Lindsay's funeral. It was at the First Christian Church here in Springfield. And then shortly after that, Mrs. Lindsay and her two children left Springfield. I remember one afternoon in particular, we had a picnic for Mrs. Lindsay and her two children, the one son and the one daughter. And we went out to some, either it was an amusement park or there was something in Springfield at that time but I have a faint recollection of that, that we had a picnic with Mrs. Lindsay and the children right after Vachel Lindsay had died. And that was right before they were leaving Springfield.
Vachel Lindsay's son was back here a year ago in November [1979] for the observance of his father's lOOth birthday. And I met him at that time and talked with him several times. Of course, he doesn't remember that; he was just a little fellow at that time, about five years old I think, 31 and his sister was a few years older. But the Georg family and my father had a long friendship with Lindsay and they thought very highly of him.
Q: You spoke of his tragic end. Would you elabo.rate on that?
A: Well, as I understand, it was a suicide. And there were other factors in that, I don't know about for sure, reports you know, rumors, but it was as I understand, a suicide. And I remember as a boy going to his funeral, I sat up in the balcony in the First Christian Church. But he was a great dreamer and an idealist as many poets are and he dreamed of Springfield. His universe I guess began here in Springfield, The Golden Book of Springfield. He loved this city as very few men or women ever have before or since and realized its significance in the world. Some of his poems, I believe, are among the finest by any American poet.
And of course when Lindsay would portray them himself, they were just powerful in their effect. I heard him as a boy. He would give readings of his poems, really powerful presentations. You couldn't forget h:iJn.
Q: And even as a boy, as a young boy, you were impressed?
A: Yes.
Q: With what he's had to say?
A: Well, I was just impressed by the man. Those are boyhood recollections. But I was impressed by the man and by the way he would portray his poems.
Q: Do you think he had an effect on you as an attorney?
A: Well, probably a contribution to your cultural development. I'm sure any man like that has an effect upon you. I remember, for example, one night when I was in high school we had the great Polish pianist and statesman Paderewski appear and perform. And my mother took me to that concert. I'll never forget the excitement that I had at hearing Paderewski. I was studying piano myself. Of course, I was more interested in sports, but I did have to take some time for piano. My mother insisted upon that. And I heard Paderewski play at the Springfield High School and I never had such a, an effect by any musician, by any artist, as he created. He seemed to cast a spell over the audience when he sat down to play. I can still see him.
And then after the concert, mother took me down to the Chicago and Alton station and we met Paderewski. He had a private car and mother would go where angels feared to tread and she (laughs) went right up there and met Paderewski and introduced me. And I can still remember him looking down upon me. He had such a kindly smile. And I was just so affected by meeting him. Not only by hearing him perform but by meeting him, and I can still see his kindly smile as we stood in front of the Chicago and Alton station here late that night after his concert.
Things like that have an indelible effect upon you, upon your cultural development, upon your education, upon your attitudes. You just don 1 t forget those things. And every time I hear a pianist, whether an 32
individual performance or with an orchestra, I suppose subconsciously, compare them with Paderewski and nobody compares with him. No artist that I've ever heard compares with Paderewski. And of course he became the premier of Poland after World War I and one of the great Polish national heros and I can see where he would be. He's just one of the great men of the twentieth century. But things like that I believe are part of your development. I can remember through the years I've heard some of the great orchestral conductors. Leopold Stokowski, Arturo Toscanini, Serge Koussevitzky, Eugene Ormandy, Dr. Frederick Stock, some of the legendary conductors of the twentieth century and it leaves its mark upon you.
Q: Do you think it gives you a sense of goal • • •
A: I believe it's an inspiration to you in whatever field of endeavor you're in. Because an artist like that strives for perfection and they're concerned not only with the technique, the perfection of technique, but also with interpretation. And when you get into that field, you can give full expression to your ideas and your feelings and your dreams, for that matter. And that's how I feel that music is so important to people, especially to the enrichment of their lives as well as to their education and to their cultural improvement in their lives. So, that should affect people. I think it should make better human beings of them. People who are exposed to great music for example, and art, whether painting or sculpturing, should have their lives improved and their characters developed. I remember going to Rome back in 1977 and going into the Basilica there and seeing the works of Michelangelo and some of the other great Italian artists. Those things should leave an everlasting impression upon people and they should not only contribute to your own personal development and to the enrichment of your life but they should actually bring you closer to the perfect person which we all strive to be and which the Christian religion stresses: the development of the individual, the enrichment of his life, and the uplifting of his soul and so forth.
So, to get back to our situation here in Springfield with a man like Vachel Lindsay, the town is forever enriched and he's immortalized this city in his writings as well as Lincoln has and some of the other great figures of the nineteenth century, especially Stephen A. Douglas and General u.s. Grant, men like that. And of course we've had some great men come here in the state government.
Some of our governors have been national figures. Illinois has sent men to the Congress and to the national government who have made great names. For example, when I was out there last month for the presidential inauguration [1981] I noticed that there were two of the builpings named for Illinoisans. The Dirksen Building, and the Cannon Building, for Uncle Joe Cannon of Danville, the former Speaker of the House, who, at his time, was one of the most powerful men in the history of the United States Congress, Speaker for many years--they have a building named for him. So, Illinois has a rich heritage, political and otherwise, and Springfield has been really the center of it, having been the capital, and having had the closeness to the great men of our state's history.
I . 33
Q: I know that you were very strongly influenced by your father. Were there other influences besides the artists that affected you so greatly?
A: Probably my mother's religious influence was strong, especially in the early days. She was strict in bringing up the children and we went to Sunday school and church every Sunday at the Grace Lutheran Church here. Mother was more concerned about her religion than anything else, really. That was even more important to her in her life than her art. So, I would say that that was a very strong influence on me. My father used to leave the disciplining mainly to Mother except if we got out of hand too much and then he'd step in. (laughs)
But, primarily Mother was the one who pushed that although my father was an active member of the Grace Lutheran Church and he was very close to the pastor, Rev. William H. Nicholas, who was our pastor for all of my childhood and early manhood. In fact, he died when I was away at Colgate University. Rev. Nicholas was one of the great men in my life's experience. And he and my father were very close. My grandfather, Victor Emmanuel Georg, had been on the church council at the Grace Lutheran Church in the early part of the century before his death in 1911. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, he was on the church council at the time he died or had been shortly prior thereto.
Q: What kind of activities were there in the church for young people?
A: We had a large Sunday school and I regret that the Sunday school has gone down so much in recent years at the Grace Lutheran Church. But in those years the Sunday school was a tremendous organization. And we of course went through all the departments of the Sunday school and that was a big thing for me as a boy. Sunday school seemed to be more important than church. And I began activity in the Sunday school. Not only as a student but when I was a senior in high school, I believe, I was elected secretary in the Sunday school and then when I would come home from college in the summer, I used to have a boys' class that I taught, a class of high school boys. And of course I was taking courses at Colgate and Northwestern on religion and philosophy and I had plenty to (laughs) teach. I was just filled with it in those years. I took the course at Colgate, which I believe I mentioned earlier, in philosophy and religion and it gave me a broad perspective of the whole field of religion.
Q: Did it give you a different perspective from what you had grown up with?
A: Well, it was probably a broader perspective in that they strove to give you the whole field of philosophy and religion. To give you kind of an overview of the Whole thing. Which I got. I had a professor at that time, Professor Jefferson, Howard Jefferson who later became a college president out East. And he was a brilliant professor and lecturer. In fact, I thought he was one of the finest that I had all through my college days. Then when I went to Northwestern University I took one course, I know, from Professor Charles Braden who, as I remember, was the head of the religion department at Northwestern University. It was the course in the teachings of Jesus, a very fine course, and studying under a man like that, it was especially fine. But at Colgate I used to go up to the First Baptist Church of Hamilton on Sunday mornings. That was 34 kind of the official church. It was the main church in Hamilton and of course Colgate had been a Baptist institution. And so, I enjoyed that so very much. Going to the First Baptist Church of Hamil ton. It was a beautiful church building. It was red brick and kind of a golden dome, and I guess in the early days we used to have some of the college graduations there.
Then when I went to Northwestern--Northwestern was a Methodist school originally--! used to go to the First Methodist in Evanston, which was a wonderful church. One of the finest I've ever been in. And the minister at that time was Dr. Ernest Fremont Tittle who was one of the leading spokesmen of Protestantism in the country at that time. I met him personally when I was there. And a few years later when my sister Georgene went to Northwestern, she was in the Methodist church choir. She got in the choir they had there. There was a big choir in those years and a beautiful church, just a perfect church.
Q: Where was that church?
A: Just off the campus or right next to the campus. It was right across from the Homestead Hotel and a couple blocks from the Orrington Hotel, and really among some of the campus buildings there as Northwestern has extend~d itself. So it used to be, I felt, kind of the unofficial church of Northwestern University.
Q: Did you ever consider any other career besides a law career?
A: Not seriously. I believe that people have much of their lives planned out for them as soon as they're born. First of all, you're born either a man or a woman. You have no control over that and in my case I had a father who was a lawyer and my mother and father were Lutherans and my father was a Republican, (laughs) so I became a lawyer and became a Lutheran. I was raised in the Lutheran church although I've gone to most Protestant churches, and have attended Catholic church services many times. But that was all set up for me. I was baptized in the Lutheran church before I knew what was going on. (laughs)
And as I say, my father was a Republican, so I grew up in that political background. Used to go to political meetings with him when I was a little boy. He used to do a great deal of political speaking. In those years before a radio became so prevalent, and in the early days of the radio, they used to have schoolhouse meetings in Springfield. They'd have big political meetings at the various schools. And my father used to be one of the principal speakers. In fact, the late J. Emil Smith, who was the publisher and editor of the Illinois State Journal, and who had been mayor of Springfield, used to say that my father was the best political speaker they ever had around Springfield. He was always very laudatory about my father. Of course, when Emil Smith was first campaigning for city commissioner and then for mayor, Dad used to make speeches in those days and Emil Smith used to refer to my father just in glowing terms about what a great speaker he was. And about the great meetings they used to have in those years. The political meetings at the churches, I mean at the schoolhouses, and all over the city and the county. Those must have been interesting times because people didn't stay home and watch things on television. They came to meetings. And they were great social gatherings as well as political. 35
Q: Would your father give speeches for a particular candidate?
A: Well, yes, he'd speak for the Republican party in the party elections and then in the city campaigns. Of course, we had the commission form ;of government and there were no partisan politics, so he would speak for candidates. As I say, Emil Smith had run for commissioner before he be• came mayor and Dad was in the same political group in those years with Emil Smith and of course knew him very well and had a high regard for him. And I always liked Mr. Smith. In fact, he was always especially nice to me. He wrote me up in his columns from time to time and I believe it all stemmed from his long-standing friendship with my father and he never ceased feeling grateful to my father for the political campaigning he had done for him in early years when Mr. Smith was coming up.
Q: Was it ever difficult for you practicing with your father?
A: No, it was never difficult. It was a great experience day in and day out. When I started practicing here in 1946, my father was really at the peak of his career. He had a law practice which was varied and large, and he had me in almost every conceivable type of case. In all kinds of trials. Civil and criminal and appeals to the appellate court, Supreme Court of Illinois and in the little cases in the justice of the peace courts and the police magistrates court, the lower courts as well as the circuit court and the upper court, so it was about as broad an experience as any young lawyer could get. And of course he was considered a great trial lawyer and I saw that he was. I sat behind him in so many trials that I had a chance to observe him very closely and to see how he would try cases and the psychology he would use and the tactics and so forth.
Q: Can you remember a particular example?
A: Well, there are so many of them; I'd have to think about that, but we were in all kinds of cases. I'd have to go back and really start thinking about that. We had some very difficult criminal trials I was in. He used to defend a lot of criminal cases in those years and we had some big civil litigations we were in, some interesting cases. And the point of it is that in the first five years that I practiced, as I say, he was at the peak of his career and he'd had such great success. In fact, I remember as a boy, whenever I'd be introduced, people would say, "Well, are you Attorney Pree's son? Are you Ed Pree's son?"
Tape 3, Side 2
A: I was always so proud when people would say, '~ell, are you Attorney Ed Pree' s son?" or "Are you Mr. Pree 's boy?" People had such great respect for him and he was so well liked and admired that it was a very gratifying thing for me and a thrill, really a great thrill, to have the name and to be living here in Springfield in those years when my father was such a prominent man. And of course when I began practicing, I had shall I say, his protection. (laughs) I guess any young lawyer starting out needs all the help he can get and I'm sure that I got considerable respect and cooperation from other attorneys and from judges because I was his son. And I was practicing with him.