Illinois Review

Paul Harvey: One of Chicago's Great Broadcasters

By Mark Rhoads

Three years ago I posted an short tribute to Paul Harvey here on Illinois Review as part of the Illinois Hall of Fame series I was then writing often.  Mr. Harvey died on Saturday, Feb. 28 at the age of 90. In the post I tried a little to immitate the way Paul sounded on radio but without much success in matching his distinctive style.  CLICK HERE to read that IR post from 2006.

One story I can share just for fun comes from my friend James R. Evans who was President of L.G. Evans Machine Tool in Lombard and was president of the Illinois Conservative Union from 1974 to 1981.  Jim and his wife Dori knew Paul and Angel Harvey as social friends through the Chicago Golf and Country Club.  I told Jim that I expected Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-Nevada) to come to Du Page County in the fall of 1975 and Jim suggested we invite both Laxalt and Harvey to lunch at the Country Club and they both came. 

The Real Heroes Who Took Down Capone

By Mark Rhoads  

In the last few years I have profiled about 200 people on IR who have been famous Illinoisans.  Pictured at right is one of the least famous, but most effective crime fighters who ever served the people of Chicago.  He was so secretive and not famous that this photo from the Chicago Daily News archives might be the only known photograph of him in the files of Chicago newspapers during the Prohibition era.  His name was Alexander Jamie, a former Chief Investigator for the Prohibition Bureau of the Department of Justice.  Jamie was married to the sister of Eliot Ness, who became far more famous than his older brother-in-law due to a book he wrote with Oscar Fraley in 1957 that led to a TV series starring Robert Stack as Ness.  If you have seen the movie called "The Untouchables" with Kevin Costner and Sean Connery, feel free to enjoy the movie as an action drama.  But please don't confuse that movie with real Chicago history.

February 6 -- American Minute with Bill Federer

A graduate of Eureka College, IL, 1932, he announced for radio stations in Iowa. He married Jane Wyman and had children Maureen and Michael.

He was a Captain in the U.S. Army Air Corp during World War II, then became an actor, appearing in over 50 films.

He was President of the Screen Actors Guild, switched from Democrat to Republican, and became Governor of California.

His second marriage, to Nancy Davis, 1952, had children Patti and Ron. His name was Ronald Reagan, born FEBRUARY 6, 1911, and died June 5, 2004.

Illinois Hall of Fame: Chester Gould

By Mark Rhoads

Chester Gould, the creator of the Dick Tracy comic strip, was born on Nov. 20, 1900 and was raised in Pawnee, Oklahoma but moved to Illinois in 1921 to complete his undergraduate years at Northwestern University in Evanston.  He graduated from NU in 1923 and was hired by The Chicago Evening American, a Hearst newspaper, to draw several different comic strips including "Radio Catts."  He met and married Edna Gauger in 1926.  In 1931 he was hired by The Chicago Daily Tribune where he created and introduced the Dick Tracy cartoon series. For the next 46 years, Gould quietly lived and worked from his home in Woodstock, Illinois.  He twice won journalism's Reuben Award in 1959 and 1977 and also received a special Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1980. 

Illinois Service Families come to DC for Tribute

by Mark Rhoads

Seventy-three military service family members from Illinois were part of 2,500 people from 45 states who came to the grounds of The Washington Monument in DC yesterday for the Day of Remembrance to pay tribute to their loved ones who were lost in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001.

The 73 honored family members included the Bitton family from Chicago, the Caruso family from Naperville, the Delatorre family from Aurora, the Eyer family from Rantoul, the Gilbert family from Downers Grove, the Hollinsald family from Malden, the Lopez family from Aurora, the Naschansky family from Byron, the Nurnberg family from McHenry, the Schultz family from Galena, the Spencer family from Sullivan, the Torres family from Chicago, the Tracy family from Palestine, and the Vinson family from Nashville.

The Dream of a Century Before the Hoopla Starts

by Mark Rhoads

I admit this is a non-political post that does comment on the importance of hope. As of this afternoon, Sept 18, the political, financial, and social worlds are in turmoil but one American institution chugs along. The magic number for the Cubs is now two.

Light years went by in the last sixty years when one would chuckle hysterically if you heard the phrase "magic number" and "Cubs" in the same breath but this year's team has our attention. Today's Cubs with 92 wins and 59 loses is a confident team atop the league and marching to the playoffs through the front door, not by the wild card route.

The Illinois Roots of Memorial Day

by Mark Rhoads

In Decatur, Illinois in 1866 a national organization of Union veterans was founded called the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR).  It would eventually include more than 400,000 members in the 1880s.  Former Union Democrat Congressman John A. Logan of Murphysboro, who later became a Republican to campaign for the re-election of Abraham Lincoln in 1864, stood against popular sentiment in southern Illinois to support the Union.  He became a major general during the Civil War.  After the war, Logan was a Republican congressman who managed the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson.  He later became a US Senator from Illinois and the 1884 GOP Nominee for Vice President on a ticket with James G. Blaine which lost to Grover Cleveland.  It was Logan, who as Commander of the GAR on May 5, 1868, issued General Order Number 11 to create Memorial Day, the object of which was primarily to decorate the graves of those who had fallen during the Civil War with flowers.  For many years in the South, the same day at the end of May was called Decoration Day.  Today, Logan is remembered in the Illinois State Song in verse four: Not without thy wondrous story, can be writ the nation's glory, on the record of thy years, Abra'm Lincoln's name appears, Grant and Logan and our tears, Illinois.

Illinois-born actor Charlton Heston died last night.

by Mark Rhoads

Illinois native Charlton Heston died last night in Beverly Hills at the age of 84.  Heston was born in Evanston on Oct. 4, 1923 and his name at birth was Charles Carter. His parents moved to St. Helen, Mich., where his father, Russell Carter, operated a lumber mill. Charles's parents divorced, and she married Chester Heston, a factory plant superintendent in Wilmette. After a few lonely Michigan childhood years, Charles had some trouble adjusting to the large New Trier High School where he took refuge in the drama department.

"What acting offered me was the chance to be many other people," he said in a 1986 interview. "In those days I wasn't satisfied with being me."

Calling himself Charlton Heston from his mother's maiden name and his stepfather's last name, he won an acting scholarship to Northwestern University in 1941. He excelled in campus plays and appeared on Chicago radio. In 1943, he enlisted in the Army Air Force and served as a radio-gunner in the Aleutians.

In 1944 he married another Northwestern drama student, Lydia Clarke, and after his army discharge in 1947, they moved to New York to seek acting jobs. Finding none, they hired on as codirectors and principal actors at a summer theater in Asheville, N.C.  Heston was best known for his roles as Moses in The Ten Commandments, Judah Ben Hur, Andrew Jackson, and other great character roles.  His political views were varied at different points on the spectrum.  In the 1960s he was considered a liberal for his active involvement with Civil Rights marches.  But in the 1990s he took on the presidency of the National Rifle Association.

The Mood at CPAC on Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008

by Mark Rhoads

I attended a dinner last night at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. I did not get there until about 5 pm after the speeches by Romney, McCain, and Ron Paul. There were several thousand people wearing the CPAC ID name tags but I was told only 500 could be admitted to the room where those speeches were made. The speeches were covered live by CSPAN, CNN, CNBC, and MSNBC. While in Virginia earlier in the day, I saw both the Romney and McCain speeches live on CNN. Both seemed to me to have a very positive message but of course McCain had the more difficult assignment of trying to make his points and still honestly acknowledge his mistakes and differences of opinion with some, but not all, of the conservatives attending.

Cook County Board Passes Resolution Honoring Hyde

by Tyler Jones

Kudos to Commissioner Tony Peraica - and the Cook County Board for unanimously passing - a resolution honoring the life and accomplishments of former Congressman Henry Hyde ... interestingly enough, the resolution contained language that may make this the most conservative accomplishment of any Cook County board in recent memory:

WHEREAS, the Republican Party had no better spokesman for its traditional views on life, liberty and fiscal discipline; and

WHEREAS, Henry Hyde was deeply committed to protecting the lives of the unborn in America and he was the author of the pro-life Hyde Amendment which ended the funding of abortions by the federal government; and

WHEREAS, Henry Hyde was a larger than life figure who was not afraid of tackling controversial issues head-on; and

WHEREAS, when many sharply criticized Henry Hyde for leading the House Managers in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, Hyde responded: "The Members of the House who voted to impeach a president for actions many members of his own party concede were felonious have nothing to apologize for. We did our duty;" ...