Word: thiem
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Stuffy" Walters, an oldtime reporter himself, passed the tip along to the Daily News's top expose expert, Capital Correspondent George Thiem (pronounced theme), told him to start digging. As Thiem, 59, began to turn up pay dirt, most other Chicago papers ignored his story. But by last week Thiem's digging had unearthed the biggest state scandal in years, spread it across Page One in Illinois papers from Waukegan to Cairo. Fearful that the scandal could rock Republican chances at the polls in November, Governor William Stratton last week ordered Auditor Hodge to 1) withdraw...
Unaudited Auditor. Reporter Thiem, a 1949 Pulitzer Prizewinner (with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Reporter Roy Harris) for his series exposing state payoffs to 51 downstate editors during Governor Dwight Green's administration (TIME, May 9, 1949), started out by delving into Auditor Hodge's payroll. Right off he found that the list was padded with a Hodge-podge of political bosses, cronies and relatives of the auditor, even included Hodge's personal airplane pilot as a $525-a-month "clerk." Asked why Saline County's Democratic Chairman Harry Erton was on the auditor...
...Newsman Thiem soon discovered that the cost of running the auditor's office was so high that in May 1955 Hodge had been forced to ask the legislature for an emergency appropriation. Of $1,450,000 in six key accounts that was supposed to last two years, only $33,000 remained; in one account, a two-year budget of $197,832 was down to $8.33. Thiem also found that the auditor's office, which is required by law to check the books of all Illinois state departments, had not turned in an audit on its own books since...
...Unsuspicious Circumstances." Thiem reported that Hodge had charged the state $5,267 for his suite in Springfield's St. Nicholas Hotel, used state funds to pay for maintenance of his own Beechcraft Bonanza and twin-engined monoplane. Hodge angrily barred newsmen from his records. But Thiem had foresightedly jotted down the numbers of some checks he had spotted in Hodge's office. From microfilmed copies of the checks in the state treasurer's office, Thiem was able to track down the recipients. He reported that one $9,000 check had been made out to Chicago Attorney Thomas...
Interior Decorators. The Southmoor Bank, Reporter Thiem disclosed, held a $24,000, low-interest (35%) mortgage on Hodge's $25,000 lakefront Springfield home. The News also reported that some $450,000 in checks from Hodge's office had been paid in two years to Fabric-Craft Sales Corp., a one-room Chicago interior decorating service headed by Mystery Man William Lydon, a policeman who was once indicted (and later acquitted) in the murder of a Chicago madam. Fabric-Craft and two other companies headed by Lydon listed two Hodge aides as officers: Chief Personnel Officer Lloyd Lane...