Scope and Content Note

The Jerris Leonard Papers chiefly document his legislative career in the State Senate, although some correspondence from his earlier years in the Assembly is included. For the most part, the papers document his legislative actions and views, as well as the opinions of his constituents on numerous legislative issues, with lesser material on the progress of his political career. Virtually no personal papers are included.

Although the Leonard Papers share the depersonalized, bureaucratic character of most legislative collections of their era, they are, nevertheless, exceptional political documentation. This is due to the relative rarity of their contents (other important Republican political files of the period such as papers of Ody Fish having been destroyed), the high level in state political circles in which Leonard operated, and the unusual frankness of his correspondence style. Without doubt, the collection is one of the better research resources for studying the 1960's in Wisconsin.

The papers received from the senator have been weeded in the Archives in order to remove routine and ephemeral material. The discarded material included duplicates, form letters and orchestrated mail from constituents, routine requests and case work, documentation on legislation more accessible elsewhere, and publications.

The Leonard Papers are arranged as Biographical Material, General Files, and Publicity. BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL consists of xeroxed biographical clippings gathered from throughout the collection.

The GENERAL FILES, which make up the bulk of the collection, are subdivided into General Correspondence, Subject Files, and Political Files. The general correspondence is arranged by legislative term and alphabetically by correspondent. Unlike the practice of many legislative offices, the Leonard General Correspondence files were used for correspondence of great value concerning pending legislation and politics, although some discussion of case work and other more routine matters in which Leonard was involved is included. Unfortunately no indexes to these files were received in the archives, and the files for individual letters of the alphabet are extremely disorganized. Although by no means a complete index, the following listing of prominent correspondents will serve as an aid to searching:

1959

Claude Jasper, Philip Kuehn, Arthur Padrutt, John Reynolds, Philip Sellinger, Nile Soik, Roland Steinle

1961-1962

Lloyd Barbee, Patrick Cudahy, Edmund Fitzgerald, Ody Fish, Kirby Hendee, Sam Hay, Connor T. Hansen, Philip G. Kuehn, Warren Knowles, Robert Knowles, Gerald Lorge, J. Earl Leverich, Delbert Kenney, J. Curtis McKay, Robert Pierce, F. James Sensenbrenner, Merrill E. Stalbaum, Carl Steiger, Robert Travis.

1963-1964

David Adamany, Allen J. Busby, Raymond Bice, Richard Cudahy, Charles Davis, Harold Falk, Richard S. Falk, George Greeley, John Gower, Walter Hollander, Edward Kersten, Clifford Krueger, Warren Knowles, Walter Kohler, J. Curtis McKay, Richard McDonald, Jack Olson, Daniel Parker, Arthur Padrutt, Talbot Peterson, Frank Panzer, Maurice Pausch, John Reynolds, Dena Smith, Philip Sellinger, Carl Steiger, F. James Sensenbrenner, Henry Schadeberg.

1965-1967

Raymond Bice, Louis J. Ceci, Charles Davis, Ody Fish, Connor T. Hansen, Claude Jasper, Robert Knowles, Ernest Keppler, Melvin Laird, Reuben LaFave, Bronson La Follette, Richard McDonald, Henry Maier, John Mitchell, Richard Nixon, William Wesley Peters, Merrill Stalbaum, John C. Shabaz, F. James Sensenbrenner, William Steiger, Philip Sellinger, Jess Unruh, Robert Warren

1967-1968

Don Anderson, Allen J. Busby, Manny Brown, Gordon Bubolz, Raymond Bice, Louis Ceci, Art Cerilli, Walter John Chilsen, Charles Davis, Glenn Davis, Lee Dreyfus, Robert Dineen, William Draheim, Herbert Grover, Ann Gaylor, Robert Hubert, E. Harold Hallows, Connor T. Hansen, Robert Hansen, Claude Jasper, William Kellett, Ernest Keppler, Robert Knowles, Warren Knowles, William Kraus, Gerald Lorge, Melvin Laird, Henry Maier, John Mitchell, John K. MacIver, Frank Nikolay, Richard Nixon, Jack Olson, Richard Pabst, Vel Phillips, Gordon Roseleip, Nile Soik, Carl Steiger.

The Subject Files are divided by legislative term, although the division is not strict and some files contain material spanning more than one session. For the earlier sessions in which Leonard served, the files are arranged alphabetically by subject; for the 1965-1966 and 1967-1968 sessions, there is also information concerning specific legislation filed in numerically-ordered bill files. Most of the Subject Files contain a mixture of material types, ranging from correspondence and reports to working drafts of bills. Several files, which are restricted until 2019, consist of material assessing political appointees made by the governor. Filing in the Subject Files was frequently inconsistent, and some correspondence pertaining to topics for which there are individual subject folders may also be found in the General Correspondence. Among the most extensively documented topics in this group of records are files pertaining to budgets and taxes, the Governor's Commission on Human Rights and open housing, the Governor's Scholarship and Loan Committee, the Kellett governmental reorganization bill, alleged Communist influence of the Daily Cardinal, and pornography.

The Political Files are arranged basically by year, with the files spanning the period 1960 to 1968. Some fragmentary Leonard campaign material is included, chiefly in the form of committee correspondence. The rest of the material deals with general Republican Party matters. The researcher should note that political correspondence was not segregated from the general correspondence until 1964, and even after that time filing was not precise. As a result, the General Files should be searched by researchers interested in political history. Especially notable are files on the Republican State Senate Campaign Committee and the publicity produced by the Senate Republican Caucus.

PUBLICITY FILES are arranged by type and then filed in chronological order. Included are speeches and statements, press releases, constituent newsletters, scripts from a radio program broadcast in 1963, and evaluations of Leonard by a university political science class.