Prof. Kenneth W. Colegrove, who served as chair from 1940 to 1949, was one of the most notable and controversial persons in the office. There are four major dimensions to his fame and controversy:

• An established scholar on Japanese politics, Colegrove expanded the library's collection of Japanese publications, especially in the 1930s. As consultant to the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II, in 1946 he advised General MacArthur's military staff on writing the postwar Japanese constitution.
• From 1937 to 1946, Colegrove served as secretary-treasurer of the American Political Science Association, which put him at the heart of activities within the profession.
• In the mid-1940s, Colegrove was the plaintiff in a suit against the Governor of Illinois, Dwight Green. His suit sought to reapportion the state legislature, which heavily overrepresented rural areas--a common situation in virtually all states then. In a famous case in constitutional law, Colegrove v. Green (1946), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that legislative reapportionment posed a "political question" outside its jurisdiction. This decision was effectively reversed in Baker v. Carr (1962), which launched the wholesale reportionment of state legislatures.
• Serving as department chair from 1940 to 1949, Colegrove stayed at Northwestern until 1952, creating controversy until his departure by his public support of Senator Joseph McCarthy. In June 1950, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Irving Pflaum reported that Colegrove, who was soliciting funds for McCarthy's crusade against communism, praised the Senator for doing the American people "a great service."[1] Colegrove also authored a twelve page pamphlet defendind the Senator that was nationally distributed by Freedom Clubs, Inc., whose advistory committee included Bing Crosby, Cecil D. deMille, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, former Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, and other notables.[2] Speaking in Gary, Indiana, in early 1952, Prof. Colegrove described communism as "soft liberalism" that is out to destroy the country through governmental agencies. As for schools,"It is difficult to name any university where a communist cell does not exist nor in which there is not one or more communist professors."[3] Commenting on the article, Dean Simeon Leland wrote, "I hope Kenneth is not ready to name any of his colleagues as 'soft liberals alias communists.'"[4] 

Irving Pflaum, "McCarthyism 'The Only Way,'" Chicago Sun-Times 19 June 1950. Clipping in University Archives, Records of the Department of Political Science, 1940-84. Box 3, folder 7.

Kenneth W. Colegrove, "Senator McCarthy," (Los Angeles, California: Freedom Clubs, undated but probably early 1951). Colegrove admits that Senator McCarthy's 1950 address that the State Department was harboring communists was "crude and rude . . . . But his sledgehammer blows were a natural reacion to the hostility of a corrupt administration toward any adequate investigation of Communistm in the executive branch of government." University Archives, Records of Kenneth Colegrove, Box 81, Folder 1.

"4 Threats to U.S. Told Service Clubs," Gary Post-Tribune, 4 January 1952.

Letter of February 6, 1952 to Rollin Posey, department chair. University Archives, Records of the Department of Political Science, 1940-84. Box 3, folder 7. After leaving Northwestern, Colegrove wrote a high school text, Democracy v. Communism (1957), whose chapters were distributed in booklet form to U.S. milibtary forces by the Department of Defense. An expanded version appeared as The Menace of Communism (1962).