National Reports
JR, WILLIAM K. WYANT
National Reports Hodge Scandal Perils Illinois GOP By William K. Wyant Jr. St. Louis The precipitous decline and fall of Orville Enoch Hodge, ousted State Auditor of Illinois, is a reminder in...
...He came to public office from Granite City, which is on the east bank of the Mississippi a few miles from St...
...A report of his stewardship proved most unsatisfactory...
...Although Hodge was vague about what had happened to all the money, his scale of living may have accounted for some of the outlay...
...apparently...
...The former Auditor, a tall and affable gladhander who at one time had his eye on the Governorship, told the State's Attorney at Springfield that more than a half million dollars in state warrants had been cashed at a Chicago bank...
...He said he did not know just where he had invested all the money, since he had no records...
...Another was the question of the Republican Administration's responsibility for Hodge and his financial activities...
...Louis area...
...There is still a vivid recollection in Illinois of the corruption that was spaded up against the Republican administration of Governor Dwight Green in 1918...
...He was a broken man...
...Lloyd Morey of Urbana, president emeritus of the University of Illinois and a man of the most scrupulous honesty, took over as interim State Auditor...
...There seemed to be no limit to his open-handedness and generosity...
...He was reported to own four automobiles, two airplanes and a yacht...
...Adlai Stevenson won a landslide victory over Green and the stale went for Harry S. Truman...
...He was too ill to testify at the inquest of a former associate who drowned himself in Lake Springfield...
...A number of questions remained to be answered, however...
...He said he got the money and used it to pay his expenses, for investments and the like...
...Taxpayers could be certain that under Morey there would be no trifling with vouchers and warrants...
...a fellow-Republican, forced him to resign July 16...
...when he emerged from his home on August 13 to enter guilty pleas to the state charges...
...Louis The precipitous decline and fall of Orville Enoch Hodge, ousted State Auditor of Illinois, is a reminder in this Presidential election year that dishonesty and corruption are not confined to one political party...
...It came out rather quickly after the scandal broke that Hodge had carried on business dealings with southern Illinois gangsters, notably in the East St...
...That was one inviting line of inquiry...
...The scandal will be excellent campaign material for Democrats, provided their own skirts are clean...
...Disclosure has followed disclosure this summer as the well-nigh incredible story of a million-dollar scandal in Hodge's office unfolded...
...He gave lavish parties...
...He was put in jail and then sent to a hospital, under guard...
...He had an interest in a $600,000 Florida hotel...
...Investigators dug into a mare's nest of warrants and records while Hodge, ailing, went into seclusion at his luxurious home on Lake Springfield...
...Hodge was also charged in 46 state indictments with embezzlement, forgery and confidence game...
...Precisely how Hodge expected to get away with his raid on the treasury remained as difficult to ascertain as the precise amount that was missing...
...Hodge, his executive assistant and a Chicago banker were indicted by a Federal grand jury in Chicago for conspiracy to misapply Federally insured funds...
...Friends said he never let anyone else pick up the check at a night-club outing...
...Hodge served as the elected watchdog of the state's coffers from 1952 until Governor William G. Stratton...
...In the aftermath of the disclosures...
...It might be very harmful...
...Governor Stratton is running for re-election, and it was a reasonable certainty that he would not find the Hodge expose helpful to his candidacy...
...A former assistant in the Auditor's office said he once gave an office typewriter to a visiting politician who admired it...
...Later, he offered to make restitution by turning all of his assets over to the stale...
...The judge did not impose sentence immediately...
...His attorney valued Hodge's assets at between $650,000 and $700,000...
Vol. 39 • August 1956 • No. 35
