Politics Ain't Beanbad

“In Chicago we respect the sanctity of the fix.  When a bribe is accepted, you can usually expect to get your money’s worth, which is not something that can be said about most goods and services. Chicago is a city where a man’s fix is his bond. With rare exceptions, when you buy somebody, they stay bought.” Mike Royko

The phrase “Politics ain’t beanbag” is from a section in “For the Love of Mike,” an anthology featuring Chicago columnist Mike Royko (1932-1997), who labored most of his career for the Sun-Times and the Daily News.  In Chi-town politics was definitely of the hardball variety.  Royko first came to my attention upon the publication of his devastating 1971 skewering of Mayor Richard J. Daley titled “Boss,” which remained on the New York Times best-seller list for 26 weeks. First elected in 1955, the six-term mayor ruled the “Windy City” using strong-arm tactics against critics and exacting total loyalty from precinct captains, department heads, judges, and most aldermen. Known in retrospect as the last of the big city bosses, Daley had seen his reputation plummet as a result of the so-called police riot during the1968 Democratic National Convention, when he was caught on camera reacting to Senator Abraham Ribicoff’s expressions of outrage over the use of “Gestapo tactics” in the streets of Chicago by mouthing the words, “Fuck you, you Jew son of a bitch, you motherfucker, go home.”  Even so, he remained a power broker widely feared, especially within his urban domain.

  Reviewing “Boss” for the New York Times, historian and radio personality Studs Terkel declared that Royko was Chicago’s “most incisive and independent journalist since Finlay Peter Dunne, who writes with a street wit, an elegant irony, and a cool, though far from detached, indignation.” His “stunning portrait,” Terkel concluded, “probes not only into the psyche of a neighborhood bully but into the city that has so honored him.”  My most vivid memory of reading “Boss” is the rampant cronyism that saturated City Hall, with loyalty valued over competence when it came to the qualifications of those in positions of authority As Royko wrote in one reprinted column: Hizzoner runs his city “like a small family business and keeps everybody on a short rein. They only do what they know is safe and that which he tells them to do.”  He added: “You can make money under the table and move ahead, but you are forbidden to make secretaries under the sheets.  He has dumped several party members for violating his moral code.”

One hilarious column dealt with over 200 Chicagoland National food stores banning “Boss” after Mrs. Richard J. Daley spotted copies on display while shopping at her neighborhood grocery.  Calling the book “trash” by an “underdeveloped underachiever,” Eleanor Daley first turned a promotional cardboard sign face down, then turned each book around so the title didn’t show, and finally informed the manager that she’d never shop at the store again unless he removed the offensive paperbacks.  Next day, National’s other outlets followed suit.  Royko joked, “National better damn well hope that Mrs. Daley doesn’t take a dislike to their milk or eggs.”

Because Daley was known for his malapropisms and frequent butchering of the king’s English, his press secretary Earl Bush once, according to Royko, told reporters, “Don’t print what the Mayor said, print what he meant.” Probably the most infamous verbal blunder was in defense of Chicago’s men in blue after they pummeled antiwar demonstrators during the Democratic convention: “The police are not here to create disorder; they’re here to preserve disorder.” Of his press adversaries, Daley complained, “They have vilified me; they have crucified me; they have even criticized me.”  Finally, this paean: “We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of achievement.”