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As a young lawyer in Chicago, Stevenson enjoyed the North Shore social life, and rode to hounds at Lake Forest. He also began to take an active interest in international affairs; he joined the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and eventually became president. He met and married one of Chicago's most attractive debutantes, petite and spirited Ellen Borden, of the milk family. They have three sons, Adlai, 21, and Borden, 19, students at Harvard, and John Fell, 15, at Milton Academy, Milton, Mass.
Stevenson's public service began in the pioneering days of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. In 1933, he went to Washington as special counsel under George N. Peek, administrator of the new Agricultural Adjustment Act. At the end of 1935, he returned to Chicago to practice law.
Decision in Italy. In the summer of 1941 he was back in Washington again, this time as a special assistant to Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy. Stevenson wrote Knox's speeches and acted as his troubleshooter. In 1943, he led a civilian mission to Italy to work on occupation plans. There he "saw a public-opinion poll in which seven out of ten American parents said they didn't want their boys to enter public life. Think of it! Boys could die in combat, but parents didn't want their children to give their living efforts toward a better America and a better world. I decided then that if I ever had a chance I would seek elective public office."
Later, Stevenson served as an assistant to two Secretaries of State, Edward Stettinius and James Byrnes. He went to the San Francisco United Nations Conference and worked with the U.S. delegation to the U.N. General Assembly. His Washington experience provided him with a story which always gets a chuckle at Illinois political meetings. The Russians had provided specifications for a complicated project and the U.S. Navy was to furnish blueprints. One day a Russian colonel came to Stevenson's office to complain that the blueprints had not been delivered. "We are behind," admitted Stevenson. "But the reason is that you fellows were two weeks behind." The Russian glared at him and said: "Mr. Stevenson, I did not come here to talk about my behind but about your behind."
When Stevenson returned to Chicago in 1947, Illinois was in a political uproar. The press was filled with charges of bribery, payroll padding and other political shenanigans in the administration of Governor Dwight Green, serving his second term.
Like Ronald Colman. A couple of admirers of Stevenson (one of them a Republican) got together a Stevenson-for-Senator committee and went to see the boss, Jacob M. Arvey, chairman of the Cook County Democratic Committee.
Arvey listened, and then dashed their hopes. He already had a candidate" for Senator: Paul Douglas, professor of economics at the University of Chicago. Democratic slate-makers would have preferred Senator Scott Lucas or Chicago's businessman-mayor, Martin Kennelly. Neither would run. So Arvey decided on a gentleman-and-scholar ticket—Stevenson for Governor and Douglas for Senator. Although Stevenson was more interested in the national post, he agreed to run for the statehouse.