Illinois Governors II: Louis Emmerson, Henry Horner, and John Stelle

Louis Lincoln Emmerson (1929-1933), Republican

Emmerson was born in Albion, IL in 1863.  Emmerson started out as a merchant and banker in Mount Vernon, IL.  He ran first for state treasurer in 1912, was unsuccessful, but four years later he was elected Secretary of State, and remained in that office for 12 years.  In 1928 he defeated Len Small for the Republican nomination for governor and was elected the same year.  In 1929 the great depression set in and in the tribulations brought on by that event, he eased the penalties for late tax payment and instituted a gas tax to help pay for better roads around the state.   He also started the first unemployment commission in Illinois and received a grant to complete a Lake Michigan to the Gulf Waterway.  Republicans were not popular by 1932 and he chose not to seek reelection.  Emmerson died in 1941. 
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 Henry Horner (1933-1940), Democrat

Horner was born in 1878 in Chicago.  He went to the University of Chicago and became a lawyer.  From 1915 to 1932 he served as a probate judge.  As governor, faced with a fiscal shortfall he instituted the first Illinois sales tax of 2%, which he increased to 3% in 1936.  He was a reform candidate who was opposed to graft and stoutly opposed the Nash-Kelly machine in Chicago, but was reelected in 1936 anyway owing to support from downstate.  In 1938 he suffered a stroke and spent the last two years of his life as an invalid.  He died in October of 1940, in office. He was buried at the Mount Mayriv Cemetery in Chicago. 

Horner was a collector of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia and donated his collection the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield.  A park in Chicago is named Horner Park, and the housing project Henry Horner Homes is also named in his honor.  
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John Henry Stelle (1940-1941), Democrat

Stelle was born in 1891 in McLeansboro, IL.  He was Lieutenant Governor of the state when Governor Horner died, so served the remaining 3 months of his term.

Stelle received a law degree from Washington University in St. Louis, MO.  He became state treasurer in 1935 and became Lt. Governor in 1937, which he held through most of Henry Horner's second term as governor.  In that short time he spent as Governor he lavishly rewarded his friends and supports in the state.  In one example, he appointed George E. Day as state purchasing agent, and then authorized the painting of yellow lines on all state highways to denote unsafe passing zones.  Day was a paint dealer and bought the paint from his own firm, to his great financial benefit.  

He was a fervent supporter of the military, and promoted the GI Bill of Rights later in the war.  He supported and campaigned for John F. Kennedy, who won Illinois with a narrow margin of 11,000 votes.  He died in 1962.