Battleground 1948: Truman, Stevenson, Douglas, and the Most Surprising Election in Illinois History

6. The Curtain Falls

165 w 6. The Curtain Falls October 1948 You could tell October had arrived. All candidates for state offices hit the downstate roads for the first couple of weeks and then switched to campaign in Chicago and Cook County. Plans were firm for Truman and Dewey to appear in Chicago back-to-back in the last week of the month. Most newspapers unveiled their endorsements for top offices, with a few surprises. And Jack Arvey cranked up the Democratic faithful by calling on them to vote a straight ticket. The Chicago Tribune responded with the same appeal to Republicans. Historically, the final month of major elections in Illinois contained few ballot-shaking surprises. Usually all the cards were on the table by the end of September, with only the rhetoric expected to increase. The gambling and corruption scandals uncovered across the state, but concentrated in Springfield and Peoria, had caused some nervousness among Republicans, but people in politics figured the unsettling wave was momentary. The status quo, backed up by conventional wisdom, is hard to overcome at election time. The Progressive Party’s efforts to get on the ballots in Illinois came to an end in October. In a 6 to 3 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court, the party was denied placement on the 2 November ballot.1 This ended a period of intense curiosity among officials of the Democratic and Republican Parties, who had a vested interest in the outcome. If the request had T h e C u r t a i n F a l l s 166 been granted, Democrats would have expected many liberals to support Progressive candidates. Republicans hoped the Progressive request would be granted, as the outcome likely would help their candidates. The decision ended a months-long court battle involving the Illinois version of the national party and state officials. After initial jockeying through state and Cook County courts, the state electoral board late in August ruled the party had not met requirements for new parties set forth in a 1935 amendment to the state constitution. The party appealed the board’s decision to the state supreme court but lost in a decision handed down on 25 September. Progressives appealed to a federal appeals court, with the support of Attorney General George F. Barrett, whose staff argued that the state law was unconstitutional. Three judges on the appeals court—notably all Democrats—voted unanimously to deny the party’s request. Among the three, Judge Michael L. Igoe was the Chicago Democratic machine candidate who had run against Scott Lucas for the U.S. Senate in 1938.2 Another of the judges, Otto Kerner Sr., a former Illinois attorney general, was the father of Otto Kerner Jr., who would serve as Democratic governor of Illinois from 1961 to 1968. Attorneys for the state of Illinois and Cook County appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court on 18 October. The state argued for the Progressive Party, and the county state’s attorney argued against. Progressives stated that the Illinois law violated due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth and Seventeenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The Cook County argument was that the time had passed when names could be included on the printed ballots.3 Four days later, the Supreme Court stated, “It is allowable state policy to require that candidates for statewide office should have support not limited to concentrated locality.” Chief Justice Fred Vinson made the announcement, although individual justices did not sign the decision. The outcome, and the fact that the Dixiecrat Party had not asked to be put on the ballot, meant the two major parties in Illinois would fight out the election without major influences from third parties.4 The Centralia mine disaster never stopped giving when it came to politics . It gave Adlai Stevenson plenty to talk about all across the state during the campaign for governor. It gave Governor Green constant headaches during the same time period. The disaster that killed 111 men was back in the headlines in October. O c t o b e r 1 9 4 8 167 In a letter to Green, the Centralia Trades and Labor Assembly withdrew an endorsement of the governor that had been approved in June. The assembly took the action in a unanimous vote of members on 7 October. The first public announcement appeared in newspapers on 18 October. The...