The Heroic and the Notorious: U.S. Senators from Illinois

15. “The Wizard of Ooze”

153 ★ 15 ★“The Wizard of Ooze” As a young veteran of military service in World War I, Scott W. Lucas had recruited one of his friends from a nearby river town to join the American Legion. Both had political ambitions, and both understood the added strength at the ballot box that active legion membership might give. They shared that understanding and that advantage with other Illinois politicians such as Senator C. Wayland Brooks, Governor Dwight Green, and Lieutenant Governor and eventually Acting Governor John Stelle. It is quite possible that Lucas in later years looked back with some regret on his suggestion to his friend Everett Dirksen that he join the legion. In 1950, Lucas, the majority leader in the Senate, in his effort to win a third term, was beaten at the polls by Dirksen. It is an irony that Senator Dirksen, who also became the floor leader of his party in the Senate, seldom had the strength of majority status yet on the whole wielded more power than Lucas, who had headed the majority party. Everett McKinley Dirksen (1951–69) Everett M. Dirksen was born in Pekin, Illinois, on January 4, 1896. His parents were emigrants from Germany. The family name, how- 154 ★ “THE WIZARD OF OOZE” ever, was Danish. Like so many who had come to the United States from Germany in midcentury, his parents, Johann and Antje, were solidly Republican in their politics. Everett’s middle name was given to him in honor of President McKinley. He had a twin brother who was named Thomas Reed after the Speaker of the House in Washington , and their older brother Ben had been named for President Benjamin Harrison. Everett and his brothers grew up in a home where hard work was the accepted way of life. The family lived in a large, old house on a sizable plot of ground at the edge of town. Part of Everett’s chores was tending the garden, and he continued to enjoy growing vegetables and flowers for the rest of his life. His father suffered a stroke when Everett and his brother were five and was totally incapacitated . He died four years later, leaving his sons more chores and family responsibilities. Everett attended high school and gained a diploma. Neither of his brothers finished the eighth grade. He was an honors student—first among the males in his class—played football, and ran the distances on the track team. Indicating talents to be employed in the Congress in later years, he was a finalist in a national oratorical contest. He thought of attending the University of Illinois but felt it was beyond his means. Instead he went to work for a corn refining company in Pekin. After a year, he took an unpaid vacation and visited a half brother in Minneapolis. There he discovered that jobs were plentiful and that he could afford to attend the University of Minnesota. That he did, with his mother’s encouragement, beginning in 1914. The course of study he favored was directed toward the law. He became active in campus and presidential politics, campaigning and speaking in behalf of the Republican candidate, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, in 1916. When the United States entered World War I in the spring of 1917, Dirksen enlisted. One of his objectives was to demonstrate the patriotism of his family, in spite of its German background. Eventually, he was commissioned a second lieutenant and survived several weeks of hazardous duty as an artillery spotter in a hot air balloon, thirtyfive hundred feet above the ground, vulnerable to enemy aircraft attack and with only a rudimentary parachute as an escape device. Dirksen traveled widely in Europe before returning to the United States. He became enamored of a German woman and thought of marrying her. His mother opposed the match, fearing it would dam- 155 ★ age his political opportunities later in life. Apparently, she was already thinking of him as one who would enter politics. Dirksen yielded to her judgment and returned to the United States alone. When he did, it was not to go back to college but to begin a life of work in Pekin. He was employed in a grocery run by his two brothers and then in the family bakery. In the life of the community , he was active in amateur theatricals and wrote a number of plays, poems, and short stories, and five novels...