Illinois

...ILLINOIS Scandal makes Democrats bullish By Irving Pflaum Chicago "Sun-Times" Chicago The rascals-who in Illinois in 1956 are Republicans-are to be thrown out in November, according to their best friends...

...Knowland, at a press conference in Chicago, predicted a close national election and by inference a GOP defeat in Illinois...

...For surely some downstate voters, alienated by Republican neglect and graft, will vote the whole Democratic ticket...

...Tribune political writers are predicting the defeat of Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen, Governor William G. Stratton, and quite a few Republican Congressmen...

...And Judge Austin, who took over from Paschen, is lively, alert, and probably capable of running the executive mansion as well as Stevenson did and belter than Governor Stratton, who may be defeated quite easily...

...Louis Post-Dispatch...

...But everyone realizes that the major thievery and rascality uncovered by the press this election year belongs to the Republicans...

...Adlai E. Stevenson...

...No one looks for another such landslide, but neither will anyone be surprised if Stengel beats Dirksen, Austin beats Stratton, and a few GOP Congressmen bite the dust...

...Downstate four years ago, Ike got 426,888 more votes than Stevenson, a measure of his popularity in the Republican towns and rural areas...

...Chief cause and leading rascal, say the Trib reporters, is Orville E. Hodge, who received 672,439 Republican votes for renomination as State Auditor in the April primary only to be dropped from the ticket and into prison for wholesale embezzlement of state funds...

...If only 2 million instead of 2.5 million people get out to vote for Ike...

...For the President has nearly 2.5 million Illinois votes to play with...

...2, Gettysburg, Pa...

...His tiny Cook County plurality was due to Chicago's Republican suburbs and townships...

...Knowland told them that this isn't in the cards for '56...

...Incidentally, all four Chicago newspapers, which helped to bring Hodge and his GOP associates to justice, backed Eisenhower in '52...

...Adding to Stevenson's chances are population shifts in Cook County?more Southern Negroes in Chicago, more Chicagoans in suburbs—local depressed areas downstate, and the scandals...

...By the latter I mean the Chicago Tribune and Senator William F. Knowland of California, GOP Senate leader and spokesman for the right wing of the Republican party, which thrives in Illinois...

...Stevenson is no hero in his home state, but he has substantial strength in Chicago...

...The contract was canceled, but its excessive charges have led to indictments...

...This includes a simmering state insurance racket revealed by the St...

...For Stevenson did receive over 2 million votes in Illinois in 1952?19,205 votes more than Harry Truman needed to beat Thomas E. Dewey (by 33,612 votes) in 1948...

...The Chicago Sun-Times uncovered a very curious trucking contract—both parties to which were Republican politicians in Springfield, the state capital—for hauling surplus Federal food to schools...

...The Democrats were hurt when it was discovered that an individual in the county office of their candidate for Governor, Herbert C. Paschen, was tied in with a bank reorganized by Hodge...

...The reason: They aren't so sure the Republicans are better (or even different) than the Democrats, and they aren't at all convinced that Ike is strong enough to be a real President for four years more...

...Nor is it unusual lately for the political bosses of Chicago and down-state (Democrats and Republicans respectively) to make mistakes by nominating individuals who get elected when they're supposed to be defeated...

...Adlai, and its outcome probably depends less on Adlai than on Eisenhower and how Midwesterners feel about him...

...The most doubtful of the races is Ike vs...

...The state gave him a plurality of 443,407 in 1952 over its former Governor...

...The big Illinois question for 1956 is: How much of his downstate and Cook County following can the President retain...

...But defeat for Dirksen by young State Representative Richard Stengel of Rock Island, and of Stratton by Judge Richard B. Austin of Chicago, doesn't necessarily mean defeat for Dwight D. Eisenhower of RFD No...

...Stevenson and Democratic Senator Paul H. Douglas reached office in that fashion in 1948—with astounding pluralities...

...Paschen, who isn't too bright, looked more like Mayor Daley's sitting duck, set up for Stratton to knock down...

...Stengel is certainly one of the brightest young politicians to emerge here in many a year, while his opponent, Dirksen, is one of the most undistinguished denizens of Capitol Hill...

...the Governor could carry his state in '56...

...I personally feel he will...

...The 1954 election in the state saw Senator Douglas beat Joseph T. Meek by 240,655 votes, and a similar plurality may swing the state for the Democrats this year...

...Such bipartisan arrangements aren't unusual in Illinois...

...So apathy toward Ike and the GOP, plus Stevenson's strength in the state, could give Adlai a small plurality and the state's electoral votes...

...And this means bringing them to the polls, for a good many of his 1952 backers may not take the trouble to vote for Ike again...

...The Democrats also have the act, vantage of offering attractive candidates for the state, Senate and House posts held by Republicans...

...Douglas beat Senator C. Wayland Brooks by 407,-728 votes, and Stevenson beat Governor Dwight H. Green by 572,067...

...The graft is much more than the Hodge Podge, which took in a Chicago banker and policeman, a lady friend, and probably some big names...

...Then the political contributions of banks were revealed, and Paschen was dumped...

...For the state's Republican politicians believe they can win only on the President's coattails, in another I-love-Ike manifestation...

...Even in Chicago and Cook County, dominated by Mayor Richard Daley's well-oiled Democratic machine, Ike beat Adlai in '52—if only by 16,519 votes...