Politics has changed greatly throughout the 150 years the News-Democrat, in its various incarnations, has covered the area.
The metro-east is a region with a strong Democratic bloc in Madison and St. Clair counties but a growing Republican fringe in the communities outside Belleville, East St. Louis and Granite City.
"According to the political base numbers, this is one of most Democratic areas in the state," said state Rep. Tom Holbrook, D-Belleville, a veteran of local politics.
Edwardsville claims to be home to five governors of Illinois, although Charles Dineen was only born there and stayed a couple of weeks until he could travel with his mother to Lebanon.
Before the Civil War, German immigrant Gustave Koerner stumped for Abraham Lincoln for president and was rewarded with an ambassadorship.
Several U.S. senators and many U.S. representatives have come from the area.
The region has been through much political strife, from pre-Civil War anti-abolitionist violence in Alton to vote fraud as recently as a few years ago.
Politics always has been a rough-and-tumble game in the metro-east. There have been few elections where there wasn't some kind of clamor about the legality of the results.
But it is mild compared to years past.
"We've gone from the Wild West to being tame over the last 60 years," Holbrook said.
Those in power have always taken great measures to make sure they remained in power. They call it organization. Opponents call it a machine.
One example is Alvin G. Fields, East St. Louis mayor for 20 years and the last of the big Democratic political bosses in East St. Louis.
When Fields died, obituaries talked about how he controlled an effective political machine.
"He went on to forge a bipartisan political machine that was second in Illinois only to that of Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley," wrote the Metro East Journal.
Fields was first elected to the St. Clair County Board in 1928. He won a seat on the East Side Levee and Sanitary District Board in 1932. He became an East St. Louis city commissioner in 1947 and was elected mayor in 1951.
The Journal reported that Fields' "organization was built primarily through patronage, first by dispensing jobs through the levee district, then through City Hall and later though the County Board of Supervisors."
The News-Democrat said that Fields "molded and then pushed buttons that operated one of the most efficient vote-getting machines ever assembled in the nation."
Although corruption stories often surfaced and there were some scandals, Fields never paid much attention, always saying he was no reformer.
St. Clair County is home to a rarity -- two election boards in the same county. East St. Louis has a separate Board of Election Commissioners, which controls and administers elections in its 44 precincts while the St. Clair County clerk administers elections in the rest of the county.
Many point to this as one of the reasons East St. Louis Democrats are able to effectively control their vote. Republicans on the St. Clair County Board often have proposed eliminating the East St. Louis election board.
Steve Reeb, a Republican St. Clair County Board member from Swansea and former candidate for board chairman who has sponsored measures to cut the amount of money given by the county to the East St. Louis election board, said it is not so much the board as the way the districts are set up that frustrates Republicans.
"It's redistricting, the way districts are set so they run from west Belleville clear down to East St. Louis," he said.
More uniform districts would help add Republicans to the County Board.
"It's important that we have more of a balance on the County Board," Reeb said. "It's changing, but it's going to take a little while."
Colorful history
The Belleville Daily Advocate noted the power wielded by the East St. Louis political machine in 1900 when Berman Harnickel, St. Clair County sheriff at the time, was killed by escaping prisoners. His successor was chosen in a special election.
"East St. Louis elected Democratic candidate John Kickham sheriff over John Beaird Jr., Republican candidate, without the assistance of the voters of any other portion of the county," the paper said. "The various factions of the democracy of that city united and in one solid phalanx marched to the polls and cast their votes for Kickham."
But the News-Democrat opined in November 1902 that the power went against the Democrats in 1902 when former U.S. Rep. William Rodenberg came back to defeat incumbent Rep. Fred J. Kern, who had beaten Rodenberg in 1900.
"The old City Hall ring was out, knife in hand, against the ticket. There exists a notorious bargain between this City Hall ring and the Rodenberg politicians," the News-Democrat wrote.
Francis Touchette, long-time Centreville township supervisor also had influence that went far beyond his small area. When he died in 1997 at age 84, the political power broker was characterized as a man to go to for help who knew every one of his constituents. He was variously categorized as a man who never compromised and a man who knew exactly when to compromise, perhaps a perfect politician.
Touchette was elected as a Centreville Precinct committeeman in 1932, six months before could legally take the office at age 21. He was on the County Board for 41 years and served short terms as chairman three separate times.
During his tenure, he helped found Touchette Hospital in Centreville Township.
Rise and fall of East St. Louis
Politics played a part in the decline of East St. Louis, an All-American City in 1960. Although the problems of urban decay and poverty have escalated in the last 40 years, people point out that the city was never as strong as some people thought.
In his book, "East St. Louis -- An Illustrated History," Bill Nunes noted that often throughout its history, East St. Louis lacked money to spend on projects because politicians made sure any money available went to maintaining patronage jobs.
In 1920, the city asked Harland Bartholomew, a St. Louis planner, for an extensive detailed report. He recommended new parks, improved streets and economic growth.
"Deciding the changes would be too costly, the city fathers rejected most of the recommendations," Nunes said. "The planner also found that of 131 cities in the United States with populations of 50,000 or more, East St. Louis was 130th in income from taxes and value of public property."
Then along came the Volstead Act, or Prohibition, to make things worse for the city and the region, which had several breweries. Taverns were closed, depriving East St. Louis of half of its income. That resulted in organized crime and bootlegging illegal liquor.
Still, after World War II, people in the city thrived. Taxes were low, utility rates minimal, jobs plentiful and streets safe. Behind the scenes, vice flourished, but it was generally accepted as long as no one died, Nunes wrote.
The 1950s and 60s were the good times in East St. Louis. Then industry left and the jobs vanished. Some people walked away from their homes as poverty began to take its grip.
In 1971, the city elected its first black mayor, James Williams, who ran as an independent on a reform ticket. It was the "first time since 1916 that 'the Machine' loses control of the city," Nunes said.
In 1975, another black man, William Mason won the mayor's race. "There is no Republican opponent," the Metro East Journal reported.
In 1979, Carl Officer began 12 years in the mayorship, becoming at the time the youngest mayor in the United States. Many problems came to a head. City finances plummeted. National television shows came to broadcast about the city's plight, including state control of the city and school system budgets, patronage, payoffs and kickbacks.
In 1991, Gordon Bush defeated Officer and it was hailed as a new day. Fortunes were revived somewhat by the opening of MetroLink and gambling boat revenue from the Casino Queen, but still the city languishes.
Politics today
Politically, East St. Louis still has power. In the 2004 County Board chairman election, winner Mark Kern, a Democrat from Belleville, pulled an 8,000-vote margin in East St. Louis precincts and won the job by a total of 4,000 votes.
Kern moved to county politics after eight years as mayor in the city where his family watched and participated in politics as publisher of the News-Democrat.
In the mid- to late 1990s, the area saw one of the biggest Democratic players -- powerful Belleville attorney Amiel Cueto -- indicted and later convicted of obstructing justice in connection with a federal investigation into illegal gambling in the metro-east. At the time, there was a Democratic U.S. attorney leading the probe and a Democrat in the White House.
While change sometimes has come slowly, still there is capacity for change, Holbrook said.
"People get fed up with something. Demographics change and you get change," he said. "We're seeing more balance."
Holbrook said a large sea change happened 70 years ago in Belleville.
"Long before I was born, Belleville was solid Republican," he said. "Franklin Roosevelt and the Depression changed all that.
"Still, I am told, Belleville as a city did not vote for Roosevelt until the third time he ran." Holbrook said.
