WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.720 --> 00:00:10.460 Just you. And he got the votes of guys who were known as anti-Semites most of their lives. 2 00:00:10.900 --> 00:00:17.140 It's a hierarchy of values. Oh, he got a big vote. 3 00:00:20.380 --> 00:00:25.420 Second time Ryan heroin better. I mean, it's not what you're looking for. 4 00:00:25.560 --> 00:00:28.700 Well, no, part of it is, and then part of it I'm going to ask you to be a little more 5 00:00:28.700 --> 00:00:35.320 specific about some of the see it strikes us that last year we came for the elections and 6 00:00:35.320 --> 00:00:40.300 we hung out with a lot of different aldermen, you know, Irish aldermen, black, Mexican Americans 7 00:00:40.300 --> 00:00:46.720 and Puerto Ricans and it just the whole city strikes us as being very tribal. 8 00:00:47.580 --> 00:00:51.560 Oh, and of course, but then isn't it so most industrial cities. 9 00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:56.240 Never seen anything quite like Chicago. Well, that's good. I think you're right. It is. 10 00:00:56.240 --> 00:01:02.860 Well, stick with those bungalows for a minute and what's happening to the tribal aspect of it also. 11 00:01:03.200 --> 00:01:09.580 You working now? See, when you speak of ethnicity and a moment ago you touched on something. 12 00:01:09.900 --> 00:01:16.500 Chicago having a tribal aspect. Moment ago we spoke of the Ukrainian neighborhood, the Lugan neighborhood, 13 00:01:16.560 --> 00:01:22.540 Lugan Lithuanian neighborhood, the Bohunk neighborhood, the Bohemian Czechs neighborhood. 14 00:01:22.540 --> 00:01:32.260 There was a tribal quality, but since World War II changes have occurred, and ironically it was the New Deal that did it. 15 00:01:32.440 --> 00:01:37.480 It was the GI Bill of Rights and so when the soldier came home from World War II, 16 00:01:38.820 --> 00:01:44.540 he could have a mortgage lifted or paid for and so in a new kind of suburb. 17 00:01:45.800 --> 00:01:49.940 You see, until World War II, suburbs were where the rich people lived. 18 00:01:49.940 --> 00:01:55.740 Most lived in cities, but now blue collar suburbs came into being, especially GI suburbs. 19 00:01:55.980 --> 00:02:01.380 Like Livertown out east and Park Forest here in Chicago, they're the most noted and celebrated. 20 00:02:01.660 --> 00:02:06.040 As a result of which something happened to tribalism to some extent. 21 00:02:06.720 --> 00:02:13.980 The young kids who would have lived on the second floor of that bungalow that their father-in-law owned, 22 00:02:13.980 --> 00:02:17.780 the city they were paying for, now lived in the suburbs. 23 00:02:18.860 --> 00:02:21.940 And once you live in the suburbs, something happens. 24 00:02:22.460 --> 00:02:27.260 In Chicago it's key, no question, that the suburb is anti-city. 25 00:02:27.740 --> 00:02:32.260 And the suburb very often takes advantage of the city without paying any taxes to the city. 26 00:02:32.840 --> 00:02:36.900 And votes in the county, that somehow affects the city life too. 27 00:02:36.900 --> 00:02:45.500 So the tribalism of the city has taken something of a beating in the movement away from parent and parent-in-law. 28 00:02:46.040 --> 00:02:53.120 However, with the new arrivals, with Hispanic people and with black people, and for that matter, 29 00:02:53.280 --> 00:03:00.900 Asiatic people, just the other day in Chicago a gang of Cambodian kids kicked to death, the Filipino kids. 30 00:03:00.900 --> 00:03:07.900 So we have, you see, there's sort of an egalitarianism among gangs in a sense of values. 31 00:03:09.520 --> 00:03:13.760 You've got to be better than, better than the one just above you. 32 00:03:13.860 --> 00:03:19.080 By the way, people hardly dream of being, of questioning those way, way up above. 33 00:03:19.480 --> 00:03:22.240 It's the one simply there or the one below you. 34 00:03:22.880 --> 00:03:27.420 Why does a poor white in the South so long been used against the black? 35 00:03:27.880 --> 00:03:34.660 Martin Luther King put it in a speech in Selma in Montgomery, at the end of the South Montgomery march. 36 00:03:35.460 --> 00:03:40.720 Poor white is fed Jim Crow instead of bread, and he accepts that, but it's not very nutritious, you see. 37 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:47.500 And so Lillian Smith, the southern writer, spoke of poor white and rich white talking. 38 00:03:47.980 --> 00:03:51.900 And the poor white is told by the rich white, I'll pay you half a buck an hour. 39 00:03:52.220 --> 00:03:56.100 He said, I can't live a night, I've got five kids, I'll get a nigga for two bits an hour. 40 00:03:56.100 --> 00:03:58.580 You're better than him. Oh yeah, I'm better than him. 41 00:03:58.920 --> 00:04:01.860 And so that's part of Chicago too, naturally. 42 00:04:05.780 --> 00:04:15.240 Did the old man understand tribalism and does the young, daily the elder understand? 43 00:04:15.240 --> 00:04:23.140 Well, the old mayor, Richard the First, mayor of the elder, understood tribalism very well indeed. 44 00:04:23.140 --> 00:04:31.720 He also had a great memory in Reiko's excellent book Boss, which is the best study of city power, I think, ever. 45 00:04:32.720 --> 00:04:36.720 How the old man was not that brilliant at all. He wasn't at all that brilliant. 46 00:04:36.960 --> 00:04:40.660 If he were, the 1968 convention would never have taken that turn. 47 00:04:41.020 --> 00:04:44.540 If he were more intelligent than he was, we have to emphasize this, 48 00:04:44.900 --> 00:04:49.020 of course he'd have fed those kids in Lincoln Park coffee and donuts, but he'd have broken it like that. 49 00:04:49.020 --> 00:04:51.560 But he didn't. He played right into their hands. 50 00:04:52.640 --> 00:04:57.580 I mean, they didn't have a good cause. The young people did have a good cause who were protesting. 51 00:04:58.060 --> 00:05:00.440 But nonetheless, he could have swung that easily. 52 00:05:00.900 --> 00:05:08.080 But in his own feeling of his own sense of power and isolation from the realities of the day, 53 00:05:08.440 --> 00:05:13.300 he did stupid things that resulted in what was called police riots. 54 00:05:13.300 --> 00:05:17.340 But he knew tribalism very well indeed. 55 00:05:18.360 --> 00:05:23.360 And he just kept track, kept accounts, and he had the favors he knew. 56 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:25.580 There was a payback to him. 57 00:05:25.700 --> 00:05:26.420 How did it work? 58 00:05:27.400 --> 00:05:33.900 Oh, when a job, for example, being appointed, the old precinct captain would come out and he'd haul out that vote. 59 00:05:34.540 --> 00:05:37.920 And it was automatic, his vote. But something was happening. 60 00:05:37.920 --> 00:05:44.720 Again, in his removal from reality, when he offended a black congressman who was a supporter for years, 61 00:05:44.800 --> 00:05:50.720 Ralph Metcalf, the congressman who was a former Olympic star, an honored guy. 62 00:05:51.100 --> 00:05:56.360 And when Metcalf became anti-Daily, he spoke out for the first time, it was stunning. 63 00:05:56.780 --> 00:06:03.240 And that, of course, sowed the seeds for the discovery of Harold Washington and his subsequent election. 64 00:06:03.240 --> 00:06:07.700 And he had the slightest idea about Harold. 65 00:06:08.100 --> 00:06:10.600 Daily died before that, of course. 66 00:06:12.100 --> 00:06:19.160 But when he offended, he said, you must remember that there was a phrase here called plantation politics. 67 00:06:20.320 --> 00:06:25.240 And so the blacks of the city, the great in number, always voted Democratic Party 68 00:06:25.240 --> 00:06:29.260 because they had an overseer named Bill Dawson, Congressman Dawson, 69 00:06:29.520 --> 00:06:32.540 considered the most powerful black politician in America at the time. 70 00:06:32.540 --> 00:06:39.360 And he was, more than Adam Clayton Powell, I'd say, because the control he had over the black vote, 71 00:06:39.740 --> 00:06:42.760 he would, of course, follow through on the whole Chicago tradition, 72 00:06:43.300 --> 00:06:48.820 or the hack political tradition of any large city, handing out favors and baskets, etc. 73 00:06:49.340 --> 00:06:52.360 But he was the overseer for the machine. 74 00:06:52.820 --> 00:06:56.380 But the machine today will never be what it was. 75 00:06:56.380 --> 00:07:05.920 The opposition, the coalition, anti-machine, led by Harold Washington and others among Hispanic people, too, 76 00:07:06.160 --> 00:07:09.020 is now in disarray completely. 77 00:07:09.480 --> 00:07:11.640 But that doesn't mean the machine has come back. 78 00:07:12.200 --> 00:07:17.140 It's there now, and Daily can win hands down next election. 79 00:07:17.540 --> 00:07:20.440 But it's never the same. It won't be. 80 00:07:20.780 --> 00:07:25.400 A new coalition can be formed that will challenge it if the situation presents itself. 81 00:07:25.400 --> 00:07:29.280 It calls upon other matters, national as well as local, for that. 82 00:07:30.160 --> 00:07:34.200 So Chicago right now, I don't think is that much different than any large American city. 83 00:07:34.380 --> 00:07:37.680 As you said, to be a mayor of any large city is a hopeless task. 84 00:07:38.320 --> 00:07:45.540 But you can't discuss a city unless you discuss a country, unless you discuss the world itself. 85 00:07:46.020 --> 00:07:51.620 You can't discuss Chicago unless you discuss NAFTA or JAT and jobs taken away from the country. 86 00:07:52.160 --> 00:07:53.700 You can't discuss that at all. 87 00:07:53.700 --> 00:08:00.380 You can't discuss a city if you discuss the derogation of the labor movement. 88 00:08:00.860 --> 00:08:04.780 It's coming back in some quarters, we know, but no question it's taking a terrible beating. 89 00:08:05.220 --> 00:08:09.320 You can't discuss a city unless you discuss history and know a past. 90 00:08:09.880 --> 00:08:12.320 And more than you can discuss race unless you know a past. 91 00:08:13.240 --> 00:08:19.440 And so as you do the series on American cities, that past is always there. 92 00:08:19.440 --> 00:08:25.280 You have to consider how the changes occurred and what it is that's made the changes occur. 93 00:08:26.120 --> 00:08:26.940 Do you have a question? 94 00:08:27.260 --> 00:08:28.500 No, I just wanted to ask. 95 00:08:30.860 --> 00:08:32.620 I know you got what you wanted. 96 00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:34.640 Let me just take a couple more things. 97 00:08:34.940 --> 00:08:44.140 One of the things that struck us about Chicago politics, it's both sledgehammer sometimes in style. 98 00:08:44.280 --> 00:08:47.600 We went out with some crews where they were tearing each other's signs out in the middle of the night. 99 00:08:47.600 --> 00:08:51.620 At the same time, it can be scalpel precise. 100 00:08:52.440 --> 00:08:55.600 And somebody saying a word and the supporters pick things up. 101 00:08:55.780 --> 00:09:02.780 And it seems somewhat Machiavellian and maybe Byzantine or Renaissance, whatever sort of analogy you want to make. 102 00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:11.480 Well, Chicago, I suppose you could say Chicago is a muscular, again to use cliches, Sandburgian, 103 00:09:11.560 --> 00:09:13.700 the broad shoulders, big shoulders. 104 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:16.240 That it certainly is and has been. 105 00:09:16.240 --> 00:09:21.380 At the same time, the politics were just a stage of development in a hack way, 106 00:09:22.020 --> 00:09:24.720 but sophisticatedly hack if there is such a phrase. 107 00:09:25.900 --> 00:09:27.240 The nuances are involved. 108 00:09:28.360 --> 00:09:35.480 Again, when I call on Royco, he would tell a certain restaurant in town where judges would gather and hack politicians. 109 00:09:36.080 --> 00:09:38.780 And quasi-legal people would gather, some behooves. 110 00:09:38.800 --> 00:09:40.240 There was no line of demarcation. 111 00:09:41.340 --> 00:09:42.400 They all knew one another. 112 00:09:42.400 --> 00:09:47.700 And Mike would describe the subtle way in which envelopes are passed back and forth. 113 00:09:47.940 --> 00:09:49.520 No word need be said. 114 00:09:49.860 --> 00:09:51.420 No word need be used. 115 00:09:51.700 --> 00:09:55.860 Like I'm sitting there, a college boy, right near the radio station where we were. 116 00:09:55.980 --> 00:09:59.940 It's a very celebrated place known for its corned beef sandwich. 117 00:10:01.800 --> 00:10:02.920 And I'd sit there. 118 00:10:02.920 --> 00:10:04.800 And there is Moshe Baer. 119 00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:07.740 He's part of one of the Jewish boys of the syndicate. 120 00:10:08.420 --> 00:10:10.240 And he's behind the counter. 121 00:10:10.240 --> 00:10:14.980 Well, as far as I know, he's in Joliet in prison, see. 122 00:10:15.380 --> 00:10:16.000 Because he was sentenced. 123 00:10:16.160 --> 00:10:17.500 Now what's he doing behind the counter? 124 00:10:17.620 --> 00:10:20.200 I say, hey, Moshe, my God. 125 00:10:20.640 --> 00:10:21.640 He doesn't see me. 126 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:22.980 So I sit down. 127 00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:26.840 I have the salmon salad sandwich on right. 128 00:10:27.500 --> 00:10:29.140 And Dorothy is the waitress. 129 00:10:29.560 --> 00:10:30.280 She's a veteran. 130 00:10:30.840 --> 00:10:32.900 Hey, Dorothy, has Moshe Baer there? 131 00:10:33.160 --> 00:10:34.920 She says, do you want a cup of coffee? 132 00:10:35.700 --> 00:10:38.140 Yeah, I said, what do you think about that? 133 00:10:38.140 --> 00:10:40.580 I'm so bright, a college boy. 134 00:10:42.040 --> 00:10:44.760 You want some dessert with that, too? 135 00:10:45.100 --> 00:10:46.920 I said, oh, yeah, but I can't get over Moshe. 136 00:10:47.380 --> 00:10:50.520 As I'm going outside, hey, Moshe, it's great seeing you. 137 00:10:50.640 --> 00:10:52.000 I'm not there, you see. 138 00:10:52.380 --> 00:10:54.540 So that's also the subtly. 139 00:10:54.720 --> 00:10:58.480 The fact is he did wind up in the trunk of a car eventually. 140 00:10:58.820 --> 00:11:00.000 But that isn't the point. 141 00:11:00.200 --> 00:11:01.800 The point is things are done. 142 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:03.500 You don't say. 143 00:11:04.840 --> 00:11:07.060 Of course he got a clout. 144 00:11:07.060 --> 00:11:08.480 Of course he was out. 145 00:11:08.660 --> 00:11:10.360 Of course he should be in Joliet. 146 00:11:10.700 --> 00:11:11.740 And he wasn't. 147 00:11:12.300 --> 00:11:14.520 And so this is more or less accepted. 148 00:11:15.560 --> 00:11:16.640 And I think it works out. 149 00:11:16.640 --> 00:11:18.540 It would work today, too, to a great extent. 150 00:11:19.020 --> 00:11:23.440 It might be the clout of the actual mob, although I'm sure it still has, 151 00:11:23.880 --> 00:11:27.300 but other kinds of clout, the clout of a big realty guy, 152 00:11:27.560 --> 00:11:29.400 the clout of big money, we know that. 153 00:11:29.740 --> 00:11:31.340 We see the contributions made. 154 00:11:31.720 --> 00:11:32.520 We see PAC. 155 00:11:32.980 --> 00:11:34.620 We see what's happening to candidates. 156 00:11:34.620 --> 00:11:36.440 So why not Chicago? 157 00:11:37.060 --> 00:11:40.680 Why should we be deprived of that particular privilege and uniqueness? 158 00:11:41.320 --> 00:11:45.480 It just seems to be a place full of political intrigue, where everybody plays it. 159 00:11:45.500 --> 00:11:50.380 Everybody knows that some alderman is maybe going to side with somebody else to elect a congressman. 160 00:11:50.740 --> 00:11:51.440 There's just this enormous... 161 00:11:51.440 --> 00:11:56.200 Oh, that's then, for example, when McGovern was the Democratic candidate for president, 162 00:11:56.260 --> 00:12:01.820 of course he was shafted by the Chicago machine, as much as he was in other cities, too. 163 00:12:01.820 --> 00:12:03.980 And often the precinct captain would say, 164 00:12:04.280 --> 00:12:07.820 now look, you want to vote for this particular alderman, 165 00:12:08.820 --> 00:12:11.420 vote for this guy's state representative, never mind the president. 166 00:12:11.900 --> 00:12:13.380 We're not saying vote for McGovern. 167 00:12:13.860 --> 00:12:16.420 Don't. In fact, they were discouraging you from doing that. 168 00:12:16.800 --> 00:12:23.140 No, no, just vote for the guy close to that ward, the guy close to that precinct. 169 00:12:23.280 --> 00:12:28.440 The precinct can protect its own captain to protect its own job, too, of course. 170 00:12:28.440 --> 00:12:30.840 Oh, that was often the case. 171 00:12:31.940 --> 00:12:36.460 Certainly the case of George McGovern, there was a definite shafting. 172 00:12:36.740 --> 00:12:37.620 One more question. 173 00:12:38.440 --> 00:12:43.400 Chicago alderman, sort of a figure of legend, what is a Chicago alderman? 174 00:12:43.780 --> 00:12:45.300 What is a Chicago alderman? 175 00:12:45.900 --> 00:12:48.820 Well, the old-time alderman would say Patty Bowler. 176 00:12:49.520 --> 00:12:52.240 Patty Bowler of the 43rd ward. 177 00:12:52.700 --> 00:12:55.320 Patty was a bartender, so this is pretty daily. 178 00:12:55.320 --> 00:12:59.840 He was there during Daily of the Elder, but he was there, of course, during Daily of the Elder, 179 00:13:00.300 --> 00:13:02.500 served for terms and terms and terms. 180 00:13:03.220 --> 00:13:05.820 Patty, they want to get Patty. 181 00:13:07.580 --> 00:13:09.400 And they had him on something. 182 00:13:11.100 --> 00:13:15.620 And someone raised the point in the city committee, says, what are we hollering about? 183 00:13:16.780 --> 00:13:20.240 He said, Chicago ain't ready for reform. 184 00:13:21.060 --> 00:13:23.560 Let's all go to my bar and have a drink. 185 00:13:23.560 --> 00:13:24.900 That was Patty. 186 00:13:26.120 --> 00:13:28.700 They can't be that obvious now. 187 00:13:28.860 --> 00:13:36.460 You see, what's happened is the big roundhouse puncher has been replaced by a deft, 188 00:13:36.600 --> 00:13:39.800 well, not too deft, but by a boxer who's deft. 189 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:42.340 But they're not that brilliant boxers either. 190 00:13:42.340 --> 00:13:43.340 They just run around. 191 00:13:43.840 --> 00:13:46.000 You know, the guys who backtrack a lot do that. 192 00:13:46.220 --> 00:13:48.500 But the old roundhouse puncher is gone. 193 00:13:49.100 --> 00:13:50.240 That time is over. 194 00:13:50.740 --> 00:13:52.000 Now you have something else. 195 00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:53.980 I suggest something less. 196 00:13:54.460 --> 00:13:56.860 If something better, I'd love to see it. 197 00:13:56.980 --> 00:14:05.400 There was a moment in Chicago when that coalition out of the 60s came into being later on in the next decade 198 00:14:05.400 --> 00:14:06.740 with Harold Washington. 199 00:14:07.260 --> 00:14:08.940 That was an astonishing moment. 200 00:14:10.040 --> 00:14:13.420 And if Harold Washington, he was re-elected the second term. 201 00:14:13.860 --> 00:14:17.240 And by the way, the re-election was much easier than the first 202 00:14:17.240 --> 00:14:23.700 because some of the old boys, the old guard, were seeing the garbage just picked up on time. 203 00:14:24.180 --> 00:14:26.620 You can only play that old game, City Falling Apart. 204 00:14:26.960 --> 00:14:29.760 Now there's a cartoon, if you can get that cartoon there. 205 00:14:30.200 --> 00:14:31.100 See the one up there? 206 00:14:31.980 --> 00:14:32.680 Can you get that? 207 00:14:33.720 --> 00:14:34.840 By Oliphant. 208 00:14:35.200 --> 00:14:37.700 And it's when Day Daily died. 209 00:14:38.360 --> 00:14:41.600 The cartoon is the trains will no longer run on time. 210 00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:43.680 A takeoff on Mussolini, of course. 211 00:14:43.680 --> 00:14:49.420 And I'll never forget that there were people who were scared that he wouldn't let his daughter go out at night. 212 00:14:49.800 --> 00:14:53.640 He was a corporation counselor, a corporation businessman. 213 00:14:54.280 --> 00:14:56.720 He wouldn't let his daughter go out at night because he was going to fall apart. 214 00:14:57.020 --> 00:14:58.100 Because Day Daily died. 215 00:14:58.680 --> 00:15:04.560 Now when Harold Washington died, that same man encountered me, I encountered him somewhere at lunch. 216 00:15:05.420 --> 00:15:08.780 And he said, I wonder who's going to be the mayor. 217 00:15:09.240 --> 00:15:11.980 Not Harold Washington's dead was going to happen to the city. 218 00:15:11.980 --> 00:15:13.600 I wonder who's going to be mayor. 219 00:15:13.740 --> 00:15:16.200 So they gave you an idea as to what he felt. 220 00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:20.280 Not simply about race, but about Daily and myth and legend. 221 00:15:22.640 --> 00:15:25.880 Mr. Turkle, in the old days of Daily the First, 222 00:15:25.920 --> 00:15:27.060 Do you want to trade places with me? 223 00:15:27.080 --> 00:15:27.680 No, no, that's all right. 224 00:15:27.720 --> 00:15:28.940 It's in Daily the First. 225 00:15:29.220 --> 00:15:33.240 They said that politics, good politics was good government, good government was good politics. 226 00:15:34.240 --> 00:15:35.880 Okay, this city, things ran. 227 00:15:36.300 --> 00:15:38.180 People thought they ran because of the politics. 228 00:15:38.260 --> 00:15:40.320 Can you explain that to somebody who doesn't know anything about politics? 229 00:15:40.320 --> 00:15:41.700 Look at me too. 230 00:15:41.920 --> 00:15:45.560 I don't think people ever thought they ran the city. 231 00:15:46.100 --> 00:15:50.140 There was the cliché, there was that phrase, good politics is good government. 232 00:15:50.900 --> 00:15:52.620 What do you mean by good politics? 233 00:15:53.280 --> 00:15:56.240 What those who said it meant was, listen to us. 234 00:15:56.560 --> 00:15:58.060 Don't question us. 235 00:15:58.640 --> 00:16:01.060 We'll see the garbage is picked up on time. 236 00:16:01.700 --> 00:16:03.960 We'll see that the trains run on time. 237 00:16:04.480 --> 00:16:07.920 Any efficient administrator could do that. 238 00:16:07.920 --> 00:16:09.240 Those are essentials. 239 00:16:09.240 --> 00:16:11.360 Those are the sine qua nones of a government. 240 00:16:11.680 --> 00:16:13.560 But people, hey, these guys are good. 241 00:16:14.080 --> 00:16:15.580 Don't question me. 242 00:16:16.200 --> 00:16:17.640 And of course, bring us the vote. 243 00:16:18.120 --> 00:16:22.240 And of course, a lot of stuff took place while people don't question. 244 00:16:22.880 --> 00:16:26.420 They were questioning, well, a very good way. 245 00:16:27.700 --> 00:16:34.340 There are seeds, seeds of dissent that led to good things for a moment in the 60s. 246 00:16:34.340 --> 00:16:41.140 There was a neighborhood, a blue collar neighborhood, a white, we call, ethnic neighborhood, old neighborhood, 247 00:16:41.600 --> 00:16:51.000 that was about to be destroyed because the city plus the cement lobby plus the South Street brokers were planning an expressway to go through it, 248 00:16:51.120 --> 00:16:57.360 to speed the traffic as though we need speedier traffic, expressway to go through that would destroy this neighborhood. 249 00:16:57.740 --> 00:17:03.380 And as they got up in that meeting, they were worried stiff and crying, whose house is going to go first? 250 00:17:03.380 --> 00:17:05.220 Whose block is going to go first? 251 00:17:05.440 --> 00:17:13.540 Someone got up, Mary Lou Wolf, a woman of nine kids who never quite got up and said, why should anybody's home go first? 252 00:17:14.100 --> 00:17:16.600 Do we need this expressway to begin with? 253 00:17:16.620 --> 00:17:17.520 Let's fight it. 254 00:17:17.520 --> 00:17:18.220 And they did. 255 00:17:18.660 --> 00:17:22.400 It was called Citizens Action Program, CAP. 256 00:17:23.100 --> 00:17:23.700 And guess what? 257 00:17:23.700 --> 00:17:25.420 They stopped the expressway. 258 00:17:26.020 --> 00:17:32.660 Thoughts of that's a little Hispanic woman, china doll, and a young mother of about six kids stopped waste management 259 00:17:32.660 --> 00:17:41.480 and coming down and depositing stuff in her community by using Solinsky techniques, techniques of a government, 260 00:17:41.540 --> 00:17:46.920 of a community organization in which you think of stuff that hadn't been thought of before. 261 00:17:47.460 --> 00:17:50.600 So they couldn't get to see the governor at the time. 262 00:17:50.800 --> 00:17:53.800 He just had new furniture put in his office and they kept waiting. 263 00:17:54.220 --> 00:17:57.300 So then they came with the little kids who had taffy apples. 264 00:17:58.140 --> 00:18:01.500 And the kids' taffy apples were practically making a mess out of the new furniture. 265 00:18:01.500 --> 00:18:03.300 It was just a cliche. 266 00:18:04.260 --> 00:18:08.360 And once people see that when you say good politics, you mean good for you. 267 00:18:08.920 --> 00:18:11.140 It began as good for whom is the point. 268 00:18:12.720 --> 00:18:15.160 And that led to some pretty good movements. 269 00:18:15.280 --> 00:18:20.380 And now there seems to be a sense of despair and a disarray aspect. 270 00:18:21.880 --> 00:18:23.360 Can I ask one more question over here? 271 00:18:23.800 --> 00:18:25.680 And you should answer to Louie. 272 00:18:25.800 --> 00:18:26.280 Yeah. 273 00:18:27.140 --> 00:18:29.500 You know, I was reading your book Chicago, 274 00:18:29.820 --> 00:18:33.020 and you were talking about going to rallies when you were a kid with your brother. 275 00:18:33.740 --> 00:18:40.780 And Chicago, at least as I remember it, Chicago was also known for local political campaign songs. 276 00:18:41.380 --> 00:18:42.540 Do you remember any of them? 277 00:18:42.660 --> 00:18:47.120 Well, I'm thinking now about moments my brother and I went to the Ashland Auditorium, 278 00:18:47.180 --> 00:18:50.160 which is a famous union hall on Ashland and Van. 279 00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:51.860 Now it's part of an expressway. 280 00:18:52.120 --> 00:18:53.360 That's part of the course. 281 00:18:53.360 --> 00:18:58.900 But then, before going for a chocolate malter, that legate drugstore across the street, 282 00:18:59.460 --> 00:19:00.600 we'd go to this place. 283 00:19:00.740 --> 00:19:01.640 Everything was for free. 284 00:19:02.020 --> 00:19:06.740 He was a guy running against the old crooked Republican mayor, Big Bill Thompson. 285 00:19:07.120 --> 00:19:10.600 The man who threatened to punch King George the Fifth in the nose. 286 00:19:11.680 --> 00:19:15.840 And there was Deaver, a rather respected Democrat, who ran against him. 287 00:19:16.020 --> 00:19:17.740 It was a Deaver gathering. 288 00:19:18.440 --> 00:19:19.840 And everything was there. 289 00:19:19.840 --> 00:19:24.840 The idea, I don't remember the exact songs, I'm sure there was a song about Deaver. 290 00:19:27.060 --> 00:19:30.840 And there were wrestling matches, and there were little Egypt dancers. 291 00:19:31.860 --> 00:19:35.860 There was everything taken, of course, free popcorn and Cracker Jacks and hot dogs. 292 00:19:36.520 --> 00:19:38.760 And those were rallies in the old time tradition. 293 00:19:39.220 --> 00:19:41.000 They may still be going on, I imagine. 294 00:19:41.140 --> 00:19:43.840 But that, as I remember, was a neighborhood rally. 295 00:19:43.920 --> 00:19:45.660 By the way, that was in the neighborhood. 296 00:19:46.200 --> 00:19:47.740 Not only was it for Judge Deaver, 297 00:19:47.740 --> 00:19:50.740 it also probably was for the alderman as well. 298 00:19:52.100 --> 00:19:54.740 Although, oh, that matter of, well, the I Know Songs today, 299 00:19:54.780 --> 00:19:57.860 this goes way back, the whole matter of songs during elections, 300 00:19:58.460 --> 00:20:01.280 during the Roosevelt campaign, Franklin D. 301 00:20:02.140 --> 00:20:05.280 There were dozens of songs, as I can happy days again, 302 00:20:05.720 --> 00:20:08.860 Row, Row, Row with Roosevelt, there were Teddy Roosevelt songs. 303 00:20:09.400 --> 00:20:12.560 Always were songs, less of that today, I think. 304 00:20:12.620 --> 00:20:15.520 Less participation today, far less. 305 00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:21.860 But the idea of campaign songs were always part of a pattern. 306 00:20:22.660 --> 00:20:26.160 So there's a certain, now, you see, there's a danger in nostalgia here. 307 00:20:26.540 --> 00:20:28.800 There's a danger of speaking of the good old days. 308 00:20:28.800 --> 00:20:29.740 They weren't. 309 00:20:29.900 --> 00:20:34.440 But I think there was more of the, you must admit, there was more of the human touch. 310 00:20:35.300 --> 00:20:41.400 Now, imagine today, without television, without television, people would meet. 311 00:20:41.620 --> 00:20:42.540 Now they're home. 312 00:20:42.540 --> 00:20:46.360 There is no tavern gathering, for better or for worse. 313 00:20:46.740 --> 00:20:51.740 There is no church gathering, political, I mean, for better or for worse. 314 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:57.140 It's at home, and you also, whoever has the most dough wins it. 315 00:20:57.420 --> 00:21:01.280 Now, there's always been the case, but not as blatant as it is now. 316 00:21:01.280 --> 00:21:04.180 It's bragged about. It was never talked about before. 317 00:21:04.640 --> 00:21:06.640 The guy's better candid, he's got more money. 318 00:21:08.480 --> 00:21:14.640 And no one discusses the immorality of it, the non-democracy of it. 319 00:21:15.660 --> 00:21:18.220 And then it was always the case, but it was hidden. 320 00:21:18.760 --> 00:21:20.160 It's like scabs today. 321 00:21:20.480 --> 00:21:22.600 When scabs go by, they pose for the camera. 322 00:21:22.980 --> 00:21:24.120 Never was that the case. 323 00:21:24.160 --> 00:21:26.940 It was through the back door, always. 324 00:21:27.320 --> 00:21:29.060 Even Ford scabs, you see. 325 00:21:29.260 --> 00:21:30.320 Always the back door. 326 00:21:30.600 --> 00:21:32.500 So in a sense, we have something shameless. 327 00:21:32.500 --> 00:21:39.200 And that the dough itself becomes a factor that is an advertised factor. 328 00:21:40.360 --> 00:21:46.940 And so the events I'm talking about were better, because there was a human touch to it. 329 00:21:47.160 --> 00:21:48.700 There was a sound of a shout. 330 00:21:48.880 --> 00:21:54.780 There was a voice you actually heard, rather than see or imagine hearing on television. 331 00:21:56.120 --> 00:21:56.960 That's part of it. 332 00:21:56.960 --> 00:22:03.460 Can you tell us the Latin inscription story again? 333 00:22:03.940 --> 00:22:08.920 The Chicago slogan, the original slogan of Chicago, the official slogan, 334 00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:17.620 Orbs in Horto, Latin, orbs, city, Horto, Horto, cultural, city in the garden. 335 00:22:18.540 --> 00:22:24.400 But later on, as years passed, and you go through Daly and Cermak and Johnny DePauw 336 00:22:24.400 --> 00:22:29.100 and the old man and the patty, bowler, down through the years, it was very simple. 337 00:22:29.900 --> 00:22:32.560 Mike Royko or Nelson Aldrin said, 338 00:22:33.040 --> 00:22:41.680 The slogan should be changed from Orbs in Horto to Ubii, U-B-I, Est-Mea, M-E-A. 339 00:22:41.940 --> 00:22:44.820 Ubii Est-Mea meaning, where's mine? 340 00:22:46.400 --> 00:22:50.640 And that is what they say should be the Chicago slogan. 341 00:22:50.640 --> 00:22:54.320 And I say it should be the slogan for every large city in this country. 342 00:22:55.880 --> 00:22:58.640 Do you believe that you can understand America by looking at its politics? 343 00:22:59.520 --> 00:23:02.080 You should look at Louis on this, but that's the core of our thing. 344 00:23:02.520 --> 00:23:05.460 Can you understand this country by looking at the way our politics is practiced? 345 00:23:05.500 --> 00:23:08.420 Well, you understand that we're looking not at national politics. 346 00:23:08.500 --> 00:23:11.420 It has to be at local politics, at neighborhood politics. 347 00:23:11.900 --> 00:23:13.140 It has to be that specific. 348 00:23:13.340 --> 00:23:19.000 You see the guy, and he says, I'll get your kid out of that jam he's in. 349 00:23:19.720 --> 00:23:22.900 I'll get that window that your kid broke paid for. 350 00:23:23.060 --> 00:23:24.500 Don't worry about that. 351 00:23:24.860 --> 00:23:29.100 You may not get this job, but I'll say a word or two about you here. 352 00:23:29.420 --> 00:23:32.300 In that sense, favor for favor. 353 00:23:33.300 --> 00:23:34.300 On one condition. 354 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:39.460 This was Curley in Massachusetts, Curley in Boston. 355 00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:42.660 This was, I'm sure, Hague, probably in New Jersey. 356 00:23:43.160 --> 00:23:45.840 Every crook, for that matter, was able to do it 357 00:23:45.840 --> 00:23:51.400 because he was able to have a little certain kind of local clout to get it. 358 00:23:51.520 --> 00:23:54.140 So in that sense, you understand it. 359 00:23:54.820 --> 00:23:58.140 What can you do for me? Where is mine? 360 00:23:58.760 --> 00:24:02.700 So if you follow what can you do for me as part of the political, 361 00:24:02.820 --> 00:24:06.780 now we'll take a sophisticated voter or an idealistic voter, 362 00:24:07.120 --> 00:24:09.920 someone beyond that to say, that's not it. 363 00:24:10.320 --> 00:24:11.740 What's happened to our community? 364 00:24:12.320 --> 00:24:15.380 And that's what we've been lacking for a long, long time. 365 00:24:15.380 --> 00:24:20.200 Now that was beginning to be the case in the decade that has put down 366 00:24:20.200 --> 00:24:22.480 by every hack in town the 60s. 367 00:24:22.620 --> 00:24:25.540 You know it's fashionable to put down the 60s today. 368 00:24:25.940 --> 00:24:30.800 They say, dope began, the family values, just whatever that means, 369 00:24:31.980 --> 00:24:34.200 extremism, sexual promiscuity. 370 00:24:34.600 --> 00:24:39.540 No one speaks of the 60s and the young with causes outside themselves. 371 00:24:39.840 --> 00:24:42.880 Freedom of summer, civil rights, anti-war. 372 00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:47.660 So the 60s was a moment that also had a sense of community to it as well. 373 00:24:48.040 --> 00:24:51.780 In that sense, that precinct captain was no longer, 374 00:24:52.020 --> 00:24:57.420 at least in many quarters, the all-important figure he is today. 375 00:24:57.740 --> 00:25:03.560 Not the precinct captain, but politics in its traditional, low-level sense. 376 00:25:04.900 --> 00:25:08.880 You know, in reading your books, through my adult life, 377 00:25:08.880 --> 00:25:12.520 the thing that I love the most about them is hearing the voices of people. 378 00:25:12.900 --> 00:25:15.720 Letting people talk for themselves so I can hear what they sound like, 379 00:25:15.860 --> 00:25:17.160 what they think like, what they feel. 380 00:25:18.920 --> 00:25:21.140 You've done this at some, as we've been sitting talking, 381 00:25:21.520 --> 00:25:24.720 but what would the voice of people in Chicago politics sound like? 382 00:25:25.760 --> 00:25:30.220 Well, first, as a Chicago dialect, by the way. 383 00:25:30.340 --> 00:25:31.940 There is a Chicago dialect. 384 00:25:33.420 --> 00:25:35.560 For Daly is Irish American. 385 00:25:35.560 --> 00:25:39.700 He's Irish ancestor, and yet his dialect is Slavic. 386 00:25:40.980 --> 00:25:46.220 When you hear Daly's voice, it's not Irish rogue, as it might be for a Bostonian. 387 00:25:46.860 --> 00:25:48.980 It isn't at all. It's Slavic. 388 00:25:49.420 --> 00:25:55.140 You'll hear down by the, you see, and you have sometimes the article is not used. 389 00:25:55.280 --> 00:26:01.820 Down by house, they don't say that, but often it's said by the steel worker who came from Poland, let's say. 390 00:26:01.820 --> 00:26:06.080 And because Chicago is a tremendous Slavic Eastern European, 391 00:26:06.100 --> 00:26:12.120 the biggest Polish city in the world outside of Warsaw, the biggest Catholic city. 392 00:26:12.540 --> 00:26:19.960 But it's interesting that Chicago's dominant dialect would be Slavic. 393 00:26:20.460 --> 00:26:25.920 Today, of course, it's changed considerably with the big migration, 394 00:26:25.920 --> 00:26:31.580 in migration of Hispanic and Southern Black and Asiatic. 395 00:26:31.940 --> 00:26:35.800 So it is taking a change, as it is in many cities of the country. 396 00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:43.400 I think we see I'm repeating my, I'm not giving you what you want, but you can pick up stuff here and there. 397 00:26:43.440 --> 00:26:51.220 Sure, sure, sure. But politics, I mean, is there a Chicago voice in terms of how they think about politics, 398 00:26:51.280 --> 00:26:54.080 how people on the street talk about politics, care about politics? 399 00:26:54.080 --> 00:26:57.320 I guess what we're saying is that when we went and recovered the stuff last year, 400 00:26:57.780 --> 00:27:02.140 you know, we went with Black Alder, we went with Mexican Alder and Puerto Rican Alder and Irish Alder. 401 00:27:02.280 --> 00:27:07.160 And if I closed my eyes and I heard what they were saying to people, the way they were addressing the troops, 402 00:27:07.400 --> 00:27:13.720 I didn't, you know, they were all, they sounded the same because there was this street level precinct captain organization stuff 403 00:27:13.720 --> 00:27:15.500 that I just haven't heard in other places. 404 00:27:15.560 --> 00:27:16.900 Don't you find that in other cities? 405 00:27:16.940 --> 00:27:18.700 No, no. That's why we're here. 406 00:27:18.700 --> 00:27:25.020 Well, I accept that as a matter of course for other cities because I've lived in Chicago almost all my life. 407 00:27:25.360 --> 00:27:33.920 So therefore I accept that tribal aspect you talk about, although some cities are more homogenous than Chicago. 408 00:27:34.360 --> 00:27:38.900 But I mean large American cities, I could be similar to Chicago, but apparently it isn't. 409 00:27:39.040 --> 00:27:45.020 It does have a certain kind of robust, for want of a better phrase, tradition. 410 00:27:45.020 --> 00:27:47.240 For better or for worse. 411 00:27:48.420 --> 00:27:54.900 Chicago after all has had a Zipna 68 convention, the 1919 race riot of course. 412 00:27:55.620 --> 00:27:59.480 Not that other cities haven't had, God knows they have since then. 413 00:27:59.960 --> 00:28:03.460 But Chicago is one, I suppose you call it a city of extremes as well. 414 00:28:03.820 --> 00:28:11.880 Not accidental, and this is the part that we can close with, the respectables of Chicago, especially upper class respectables. 415 00:28:11.880 --> 00:28:18.940 Do not mind Chicago's reputation through the 30s and 40s as the home of Al Capone. 416 00:28:20.160 --> 00:28:25.880 Oh God, they don't mind it because someone gives them the air of ravenousness. 417 00:28:26.680 --> 00:28:31.020 Gives them the air of having lived a life they never dreamed of because their lives are so dull and drab. 418 00:28:31.360 --> 00:28:33.780 And they deep, deep down know it, you see. 419 00:28:34.120 --> 00:28:37.840 And so when they travel to Europe and these posh resorts where they may be, 420 00:28:37.840 --> 00:28:41.580 Chicago, oh boom boom, that's the usual reaction. 421 00:28:42.320 --> 00:28:46.180 Oh not really, says the star watcher, but she loves it. 422 00:28:46.780 --> 00:28:52.600 She loves it because it gives her a feeling, hey maybe she is like Betty Davis or Clare Trevor. 423 00:28:53.820 --> 00:28:59.340 Oh boy, she loves it because her own life is not there. 424 00:29:00.200 --> 00:29:03.760 And so that aspect of Chicago is still carried on. 425 00:29:03.760 --> 00:29:10.320 So I always like to speak of Chicago as not, you know, people have the most, what a corrupt city, not more corrupt. 426 00:29:10.500 --> 00:29:17.920 Certainly Jersey City under Hague, or Newark, which was Jersey City under Hague, is corrupt or more so. 427 00:29:18.080 --> 00:29:26.920 We know the corruption of the Southwest, but Chicago's corruption had always an aspect of color to it, a monogamous to it. 428 00:29:27.140 --> 00:29:29.760 So I call it the Big Daddy of corrupt cities. 429 00:29:32.220 --> 00:29:33.360 I think we got it. 430 00:29:33.500 --> 00:29:34.280 I think we got it. 431 00:29:34.320 --> 00:29:35.360 Maybe you got one of two things. 432 00:29:35.760 --> 00:29:36.580 No, no, that's great.