Illinois. Governor (1941-1949 : Green)

Dwight Herbert Green (1897-1958), Republican governor of Illinois, was born on Jan. 9, 1897 at Ligonier, Ind. For two years, Green went to Wabash College, before serving in the Army Air Force during WWI as a flight instructor at Mather Field, Calif. Green resumed his education, first at Stanford, then the University of Chicago, receiving an undergraduate degree (1920) and a law degree (1922) while working for the Hearst newspapers as a reporter, legal intern and columnist. He began his legal career as an Internal Revenue Service Attorney (1925), but his marriage to Mabel Victoria Kingston (1926) returned him to Chicago and a new job. Green, the only tax specialist on the District Attorney's staff, prepared the income tax case against Al Capone (1931) and was rewarded by President Hoover with the U.S. Attorney slot in Chicago. Although the Democratic Senate failed to comfirm Green, a Republican, the faction-split Illinois Democrats could not agree on a successor and Green held the office for three years. After a good showing in the Chicago mayoral race (1939), Green was elected Governor and served in that post during WWII. After losing his bid for a third term to Adlai Stevenson, Green opened a Chicago law office and remained active in Republican politics until he died of lung cancer on Feb. 20, 1958.