Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Len Small
Lennington “Len” Small (1862-1936) was the first of Kankakee’s three Illinois governors. He was the only one of the three born in Kankakee and the only one of the three to win re-election. At 21, he was secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, and soon was its president. He served for many years as secretary to the Kankakee Interstate Fair. President Taft appointed him assistant U.S. treasurer in Chicago. Twice elected State Senator and twice elected Illinois Treasurer, he first ran for governor in 1912, the first of six campaigns for that office. Victory came in 1920. Small won a four-way primary by 7,902 votes and then was carried in by Warren Harding’s “Return to Normalcy” landslide.
Small was a popular governor. He passed a state bonus for war veterans and pushed through a new state school aid formula to help poor districts. A state conservation department was created. A concrete marker designating land on the Shapiro campus as part of the state fish hatchery can still be seen. He is best remembered, though, for building 7,000 miles of concrete roads, the most in the nation by 1928. Construction was funded by $100 million in bonds and a two-cent-a-gallon gas tax.
A 1921 trial exonerated him of charges of conspiracy and embezzling. His wife, Ida Moore Small, died of apoplexy the day the verdict came in. Small died in 1936, a month after starting his last campaign.
Samuel H. Shapiro
Samuel H. Shapiro (1907-1987) was the second of Kankakee’s three Illinois governors, serving for eight months in 1968. A violinist, Sam Shapiro earned $4 an hour and became president of the musicians’ union while still at Kankakee High School. He worked his way through the University of Illinois law school by continuing to play the violin, selling shoes and soliciting business for a photography studio.
In 1936, during the depth of the Depression, he ran for and won the job as Kankakee County State’s Attorney. He sued state officials, charging them with malfeasance in conjunction with a typhoid epidemic at Manteno State Hospital. Shapiro lost the verdict before the Illinois Supreme Court, but established a reputation of fighting for the residents of state institutions.
A stout, short man, Shapiro did special back stretching exercises to qualify for the Navy in World War II, where he served as an anti-submarine expert. He returned to serve six terms in the legislature, sponsoring bills to raise standards in state hospitals. The Research Foundation for Illinois named him “Mr. Mental Health” for the state. The Kankakee State Hospital was renamed in his honor.
Twice elected lieutenant governor under Otto Kerner, he stepped up when Kerner became a judge. Shapiro’s re-election campaign was hindered by the 1968 Democratic convention riots in Chicago. Not well known downstate, he lost by 127,794 votes. He never ran for office again and died peacefully in his sleep March 16, 1987.
George Ryan
No man served in state office in Illinois longer than George Ryan. No man won more statewide elections and primaries than Ryan’s combined 10. He polled more votes than anyone else in Illinois history. Yet he left public office as one of the most controversial governors ever.
He is the only Illinois governor ever nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Known for his ability to pass bipartisan legislation, his political career ended with both parties running against him.
Born in 1934 in Iowa, Ryan was trained as a pharmacist and jerked sodas in his father’s store. Ryan’s political career began as a manager for his brother, Tom, who served five terms as Kankakee mayor. Appointed to the county board, Ryan rose rapidly. By his second term he was leading the county board. Elected to the Illinois House, he was Republican leader by his third term. After serving as lieutenant governor, he moved to secretary of state, a traditional patronage powerhouse in Illinois. Ryan drew attention to the otherwise quiet office by pushing drivers to sign up for organ donations and by cracking down on drunken drivers.
His single term as governor was marked by Illinois FIRST, a huge public spending bill that pumped billions of dollars across the state, including a public swimming pool for Kankakee. A licenses-for-bribes scandal, dating back to his secretary of state days, made re-election unlikely. As his tenure ended, he commuted every death sentence in Illinois, drawing worldwide praise and statewide condemnation.
He was convicted in the ‘Licenses for Bribes’ scandal, and began serving his 6 1/2 year sentence in November 2007. He appealed but lost. As we went to press, Ryan was seeking an early release through either a pardon or a commutation of his sentence.