Editing Adlai Stevenson II (section)

==Governor of Illinois, 1949 to 1953==
[[File:Adlai E. Stevenson II (IL 2).jpg|150px|thumb|Stevenson as governor.]]
[[1948 Illinois gubernatorial election|In 1948]], Stevenson was chosen by [[Jacob Arvey]], leader of the powerful Chicago Democratic political organization, to be the Democratic candidate in the Illinois gubernatorial race against the incumbent Republican, [[Dwight H. Green]].<ref>(McKeever, pp. 107–114)</ref> In an upset, Stevenson defeated Green by 572,067 votes, a record margin in Illinois gubernatorial elections.<ref name="McKeever">(McKeever, p. 126)</ref> President Truman carried Illinois by only 33,612 votes against his Republican opponent, [[Thomas E. Dewey]], leading a biographer to write that "Clearly, Adlai had carried the President in with him."<ref name="McKeever" /> [[Paul Douglas (Illinois politician)|Paul Douglas]], a University of Chicago professor of economics, was elected senator on the same ticket.<ref>Robert E. Hartley, ''Battleground 1948: Truman, Stevenson, Douglas, and the Most Surprising Election in Illinois History'' (Southern Illinois University Press; 2013)</ref>

Principal among Stevenson's achievements as Illinois governor were reforming the state police by removing political considerations from hiring practices and instituting a merit system for employment and promotion, cracking down on illegal gambling, and improving the state highways.<ref>(McKeever, p. 137)</ref> He sought, with mixed success, to cleanse the Illinois state government of corruption; in one instance he fired the warden of the state penitentiary for overcrowding, political corruption, and incompetence that had left the prisoners on the verge of revolt, and in another instance Stevenson fired the superintendent of an institution for alcoholics when he learned that the superintendent, after receiving bribes from local tavern owners, was allowing the patients to buy drinks at local bars.<ref>(McKeever, pp. 133–135)</ref> Two of Stevenson's major initiatives as governor were a proposal to create a constitutional convention (called "con-con") to reform and improve the Illinois state constitution, and several crime bills that would have provided new resources and methods to fight criminal activities in Illinois.<ref>(McKeever, pp. 134)</ref> Most of the crime bills and con-con failed to pass the state legislature, much to Stevenson's chagrin. However, Stevenson agreed to support a Republican alternative to con-con called "Gateway", it passed the legislature and was approved by Illinois voters in a 1950 referendum.<ref name="McKeever, p. 136">(McKeever, p. 136)</ref> Stevenson's push for an improved state constitution "began the process of constitutional change...and in 1969, four years after his death, the goal was achieved. It was perhaps his most important achievement as governor."<ref name="McKeever, p. 136"/> The new constitution had the effect of removing the structural limitations on the growth of government in the state.

Stevenson's governorship coincided with the [[Second Red Scare]], and during his term, the Illinois state legislature passed a bill that would have "made it a felony to belong to any subversive group", and would have required "a loyalty oath of public employees and candidates for office." Stevenson vetoed the bill.<ref>(McKeever, pp. 159–160)</ref> In his public message regarding the veto, Stevenson wrote:<blockquote>Does anyone seriously think that a real traitor will hesitate to sign a loyalty oath? Of course not. Really dangerous subversives and saboteurs will be caught by careful, constant, professional investigation, not by pieces of paper. The whole notion of loyalty inquisitions is a natural characteristic of the police state, not of democracy. I know full well this veto will be distorted and misunderstood...I know that to veto this bill in this period of grave anxiety will be unpopular with many. But I must, in good conscience, protest against any unnecessary suppression of our ancient rights as free men...we will win the contest of ideas that afflicts the world not by suppressing those rights, but by their triumph.<ref>(McKeever, pp. 160–161)</ref></blockquote>

Stevenson proved to be a popular public speaker and gained a national reputation as an intellectual, with a self-deprecating sense of humor to match. One example came when the Illinois legislature passed a bill (supported by bird lovers) declaring that cats roaming unescorted was a public nuisance. Stevenson vetoed the bill and sent this public message regarding the veto:<blockquote>It is in the nature of cats to do a certain amount of unescorted roaming... the problem of cat versus bird is as old as time. If we attempt to solve it by legislation who knows but what we may be called upon to take sides as well in the age old problem of dog versus cat, bird versus bird, or even bird versus worm. In my opinion, the State of Illinois and its local governing bodies already have enough to do without trying to control feline delinquency. For these reasons, and not because I love birds the less or cats the more, I veto and withhold my approval from Senate Bill No. 93.<ref>(McKeever, p. 134)</ref></blockquote>

On June 2, 1949, Stevenson privately gave a sworn deposition as a character witness for [[Alger Hiss]], a former State Department official who was later found to be a spy for the Soviet Union.<ref name="McKeever, pp. 144–145">(McKeever, pp. 144–145)</ref> Stevenson had infrequently worked with Hiss, first in the legal division of the [[Agricultural Adjustment Administration]] in 1933 and then in 1945, 1946, and 1947 on various United Nations projects, but he was not a close friend or associate of him.<ref>(Martin, pp. 405–407)</ref> In the deposition, Stevenson testified that the reputation of Hiss for integrity, loyalty, and veracity was good.<ref name="McKeever, p. 145">(McKeever, p. 145)</ref> In 1950, Hiss was found guilty of perjury on the spying charges.<ref name="McKeever, pp. 144–145"/> Stevenson's deposition, according to his biographer Porter McKeever, would later be used in the 1952 presidential campaign by senators [[Joseph McCarthy]] and [[Richard Nixon]] to "inflame public opinion and attack Adlai as 'soft on communism'."<ref>(McKeever, p. 144)</ref> In the 1952 campaign, Senator Nixon would claim that Stevenson's "defense of Hiss" reflected such "poor judgment" on his part that "doubt was cast about Adlai's capacity to govern."<ref name="McKeever, p. 145"/> In a 1952 appearance on NBC's ''[[Meet the Press]]'', Stevenson responded to a question about his deposition for Hiss by saying, "I'm a lawyer. I think that one of the most fundamental responsibilities... particularly of lawyers, is to give testimony in a court of law, to give it honestly and willingly, and it will be a very unhappy day for Anglo-Saxon justice when a man, even in public life, is too timid to state what he knows and what he has heard about a defendant in a criminal trial for fear that defendant might later be convicted. That would to me be the ultimate timidity."<ref>(McKeever, pp. 185–186)</ref>