Illinois Governors III: Dwight Green, Adlai Stevenson II, and William Stratton

Dwight Herbert Green (1941-1949) Republican

Green was born in 1897 in Ligonier, IN.  He went to college at Wabash College and then went to law school at the University of Chicago.   He served as US attorney for the Northern District of Illinois from 1931-1935 and was one of the prosecutors who finally put Al Capone away.  After failing to win in an election to mayor of Chicago, he went on to be elected governor of Illinois in 1940 on the strength of his reputation as a prosecutor and opposition to the Democratic Chicago machine.  While he was a popular governor, he was held responsible in regulatory negligence for the deaths of 111 miners in Centralia, IL, and was defeated in an upset in 1948 by Adlai Stevenson.  He died in 1958 and was buried in Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago.
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Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (1949-1953), Democrat.

Adlai Stevenson II came from an illustrious Illinois political family, his grandfather having served as vice president under Grover Cleveland.    He was born in Los Angeles, CA in 1901, but grew up in Bloomington, IL.  He attended University High School, but transferred to Choate, an exclusive private school in Connecticut,  from which he graduated in 1918.  Although he enlisted in the Navy shortly afterwards, it was too late to participate in the First World War.  He attended Princeton University and went to Harvard where he did poorly and withdrew.  A while later he had a renewed interest in law and got his law degree at Northwestern University in Chicago, was admitted to the Illinois Bar and worked for a law firm in Chicago.  He and his wife built a home on a 70 acre tract of land in what is now Mettawa, IL., but what was at the time Libertyville, IL.   He and his wife had three sons, one of whom became Adlai Stevenson III.  

In the first term of the Roosevelt Administration he took positions in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and then in the Federal Alcohol Control Administration, but left in 1935.  In 1940 he returned to government service as counsel and assistant to the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox.  Postwar he worked in the Foreign Economic Administration and in the State Department in efforts to establish what became the United Nations. 

In 1949, put forward as the Chicago Democratic Organization's candidate, he was elected Governor over the incumbent,  Dwight Green.  The same year his wife divorced him.  He never remarried.

As governor, he reorganized the state police, removing political considerations and introducing a merit system for employment.  He vetoed a bill that would have made it a felony to belong to a "subversive group" and required "loyalty oaths" for anyone working for the state.  He famously vetoed a bill passed by bird lovers declaring that letting cats run loose was a public nuisance.   He was a character witness in favor of Alger Hiss in 1949.  

In 1952-1960 he made what would be three consecutive runs for the US presidency, losing twice to Dwight Eisenhower, and failing to get the nomination a third time, when John F. Kennedy got the nod from the Democrats.  In later years he served as ambassador to the UN.  He died in 1965.  
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William Grant Stratton (1953-1961), Republican

acquitted of tax evasion

Stratton was born in 1914 in Ingleside, IL he was son of William J. Stratton.    He attended the University of Arizona, where he majored in political science.  He served one term in the US congress in 1941-1943 and another in 1947-1949.  He was elected state treasurer in 1943-1944, served as lieutenant in the US Navy 1944-1946.  He was elected again for state treasurer in 1950-1952.  In 1952 he was elected Governor of Illinois, reelected in 1956, but defeated for reelection in 1960 by Democrat Otto Kerner. 

He was acquitted of a charge of tax evasion in 1965.  He attempted a return to the Governor's mansion in 1968, but was unsuccessful.  He maintained a home in Morris, IL and operated a livestock farm in Sangamon County.  He died in 2001. 
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