By JUDY TAPLIN A reporter for the Collinsville Herald, she covers Madison County government.

Madison County's Eulalia Hotz

County clerk for 32 years. Miss Hotz believes a controversial part of county government is the county board itself

SHE GRUMBLES a little and calls herself the "xerox queen" when, after each Madison County board meeting, she makes copies of various resolutions for the waiting line of reporters in the county clerk's office. Until her retirement in 1974, Eulalia Hotz was Madison County clerk for 32 years. Now, by her own choosing, she is a deputy clerk again, making approximately 50 cents an hour to keep her retirement pay intact.

Those who might think that tending the copy machine is a big comedown for a lady who ran things for 32 years had better raise their sights a bit — to the walls of the clerk's office, to be exact. It is no accident that the five large photographs adorning the walls of this heavily Democratic section of Illinois are those of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson — and Miss Eulalia Hotz.

Nor is it by accident that by the end of her career as county clerk she had received almost every honor conceivable for that office, topping it all off the year after her retirment by being named the "Model Clerk in the U.S.A." by the National Association of County Recorders and Clerks. Miss Hotz has a list of committees, organizations, activities and awards so long it would cover several columns of print to list them. She is currently on the Illinois Elections Laws Commission, serving since 1961. She is past president of the Illinois County Officials Association and the first woman elected to the post. In 1973- 1974 she was director of the International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials and Treasurers.

Yet, if she'd taken the advice of C. W. Burton, Madison County state's attorney back in 1942, none of it would have happened. When she asked Burton's advice on her possible candidacy for county clerk, he snorted, "I don't think women even ought to have the right to vote!" Incensed, Miss Hotz retorted, "You're living in the Stone Age!" She left his office more determined than ever. Determination, modesty and some applied psychology, whether she'd admit it or not, had something to do with Miss Hotz's success in becoming the first woman in Madison County to hold a public office, and one of only a few women in county office anywhere in Illinois. Miss Hotz remained the only female official in Madison County until Dallas Burke, the current county coroner, was elected in 1972.

A man's world
Miss Hotz was a woman in a man's world, yet she managed to win the respect of every man she knew. This wasn't always easy, she admits. Often when she sat listening quietly to a discussion, all she really wanted to do was shout, "You're doing it all wrong!" But she found out early that "men don't take to belittling," that some quiet talk to the right people at the right time can often prove to be the best method.

The Madison County clerk's office through the years has been a feminine enclave, although at least three men served as deputy clerks sometime during the administration of Miss Hotz. One of these was Jimmy Chapman, now on the Democratic State Central Committee. "It's just like an ol' nunnery around here," said one disgusted male deputy on finding his desk work much less exciting than the court cases and other activities going on throughout the courthouse. "We would have enjoyed having more men on staff, but the work is so desk-confining, it doesn't appeal to them," Miss Hotz says. On the desk of the current county clerk, Evelyn Bowles, a close friend of Miss Hotz, is a sign which reads, "The best man for the job is often a woman." Madison County's new affirmative action plan may put more men in the county clerk's office, but Miss Hotz has her doubts that they'll work out.

Through eight elections, neither man nor woman, despite his or her qualifications, was really a challenge to Miss Hotz when the ballots were counted. Among the Republicans pitted at various times against this staunch Democrat were a blind man, a rich farmer, a redheaded woman, and a double amputee. This last individual camped below her office two weeks before the election and vowed to remain until election day. Miss Hotz, trudging to work the first day of the "campout" thought the Boy Scouts had come to town. But in her office all the girls were crying. She took them into the vault and told them the tent pitched outside her window bothered her not at all. "Later in the day the sheriff called and asked if I wanted him off the lawn. I said, 'No, as long as he's there I know where he is and what he is doing.'"

Despite the fact that she always won, the night before each election Miss Hotz cleaned out her desk and took all her personal belongings home. "I was never that positive I'd win." Each election sent her to the bank to borrow enough money to finance her campaign. She had what she describes as "a tremendous amount of volunteer help," but accepted

8/ August 1976/ Illinois Issues

no extravagant campaign contributions. She cooperated with the party but never actively sought the organization's backing. At the end of her era the party had its own ideas on who to nominate to replace her, but Miss Hotz backed her own candidate. And Evelyn Bowles, her protege, succeeded Miss Hotz as county clerk without the party organization's endorsement. Of her many election campaigns. Miss Hotz says, "I didn't want to be beholden to anyone, and that got frowns from the precinct committeemen." Although she didn't realize it at the time, Miss Hotz's distinguished career began when she went to work part time in the Madison County clerk's and treasurer's offices in 1926. Her father, Joseph, was county clerk at the time. Miss Hotz, born in Edwardsville in 1908, attended St. Boniface parochial school in Edwardsville, Ursuline academy in Alton, and then went nights to Miss Hickey's Secretarial School in St. Louis. In 1933, the day before the judicial election, her father died. The county board, in a special meeting, quickly named Eulalia's brother Norbert, then a deputy clerk, as county clerk pro tern, with the understanding that Miss Hotz would be made a deputy clerk so that she could support her mother.

In the 1942 election, with Norbert no longer seeking the county clerk's job, and nobody else having filed, Eulalia decided to. "Oh, my heavens, not another politician," was her mother's reaction. "She made me promise never to use my alias, as she called it — 'Uke,'" Miss Hotz says. Over the years "Uke" became her affectionate nickname, though, and at a testimonial dinner given in her honor in 1975, a huge pink ukulele hung over the speaker's stand. "But I always honored her promise," Miss Hotz says.

For 32 years she was, as county clerk, responsible for compilation of all the records for births, deaths, and marriages in Madison County. Her office wrote the assessor and collector books, determining valuation of each taxing district and the tax rate. It was the duty of her office to extend those tax rates to all parcels of land in the county. She was in charge of all county wide elections, purchasing all election supplies, ordering all ballots. She was clerk for all county board meetings; she was chief clerk for the county's voter registration. A van to register people throughout the county was her idea, as were registration booths in grocery stores throughout the county. She was clerk of the county court, too, until 1964, when all cases were combined into a single court system. Before 1964, the county court handled all cases that involved up to $1,000. This included twice-monthly jaunts to Alton State Hospital, where with two doctors, a judge and Miss Hotz, mental competency cases were decided.

The county board
Her almost 48 years in county government have given Miss Hotz some valuable insights. The controversial link in county government currently is the county board itself, Miss Hotz believes. The Illinois legislature has given so much power at the county level to county boards that it has interfered with the departments of county officials, she says. "I feel each county official should be permitted to hire his or her own help, to pick people who feel they can do the job adequately. They don't want to be held down by the county board or any political reasons."

As to the continuing money problems of Madison County and others. Miss Hotz believes the legislature should "take another good look at the financial situation" of Illinois counties. "The county has been hamstrung by legislative action that curtails fees we got before," she says. Inheritance tax fees, she says, are one example. "I think many departments of state government are striving to dispose of township and county government by their regionalization plans," she says. This would be a big mistake, she adds, because "local people are acquainted with their locality's problems, they know the people, they are responsible to the people who elect them."

Miss Hotz believes Madison County is "moving ahead" despite some local problems. A new jail will be under construction soon, and she hopes to live long enough to see a planned county administration building go up in Edwardsville, the county seat. Only in the area of public involvement in government does Miss Hotz express discouragement. The current apathy is seen ever so clearly in voter turnouts, she notes. "You go to great lengths to get people to register so they'll vote — but then half of them don't." She has no solution.

Miss Hotz says she is looking forward this fall to the election of a new governor "who will surround himself with Illinois people capable of holding the responsible positions now held by out-of-state people." In Madison County, for all those many years she served, just such a responsible person was in charge in the county clerk's office. "Her accomplishments are legendary," said the report that accompanied Miss Hotz's selection as "Model Clerk." And apparently the drawbacks to this long- term public service were few. So few, in fact, that a question concerning such drawbacks drew a contemplative silence from Miss Hotz. "You know, I can't think of a single one," she said finally.

There remains the inevitable question: how did she win the respect of all those voters, who time after time put her back into office? Her answer might well be heeded by county clerks and other public officials: "I was always available at my office — which meant I took few vacations," says Miss Hotz. "I think I was county clerk all those years because my office provided service to the people. Whether a Republican or Democrat stepped up to the counter, they all got the very best service."

Today her desk sits just outside the inner office of Miss Bowles and sports an undistinguished nameplate which reads, "Eulalia Hotz, Deputy Clerk." She's still serving Madison County. ž

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