Grafters and Goo Goos: Corruption and Reform in Chicago

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments Authors writing acknowledgments must decide whether to try to thank everyone in sight or just to name the principal helpers. Either way, they risk leaving someone out. My task is complicated by the fact that many informants for this book overlapped those for my three other books about politics and history. Sorting out these sources is a project that defeats me. First, many thanks to three political experts who reviewed a draft of this manuscript for Southern Illinois University Press. They saved me from more than a few bonehead blunders and even tried to rescue me, to the extent anyone can, from my worst writing habit of breezy generalizing. Richard C. Lindberg, the foremost expert on the history of Chicago police and crime, read a later version of the manuscript, found some more mistakes, and offered valuable suggestions. My brother, Charles M. Merriner , brought a lawyer’s perspective to this work and corrected or clarified many legal points for me. If this book makes a contribution to history, these reviewers deserve much of the credit. Any remaining errors of fact or interpretation are mine alone. Professors Paul M. Green of Roosevelt University and Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago were not directly involved in this project. Even so, their expertise and cheery willingness to help have guided me along the road for many years. More directly, thanks go to public affairs consultants David Axelrod, Jay D. Doherty, Larry P. Horist, Norton Kay, Paul Lis,Tom Roeser, Don Rose, and Thom Serafin. Also, Dick Simpson, a political scientist and the personification of “lakefront reformer,” was a fund of knowledge. Furthermore , I thank officers and staffers of the Better Government Association, Chicago Crime Commission, City Club of Chicago, and the Union League Club; former U.S. attorney Scott Lassar and other U.S. attorneys in Chicago and Washington, D.C., who might prefer to be unnamed; xvii Illinois Issues editor Peggy Boyer Long; and present and former reporters and editors of the Chicago Sun-Times and ChicagoTribune. This last group includes especially Mark Brown, Mary Dedinsky, Bernard Judge, Ray Long, Nancy Moffett, Steve Neal, Chuck Neubauer, Charles Nicodemus, Suzy Schultz, Fran Spielman, Lynn Sweet, BasilTalbott Jr., and Charles N. Wheeler III; also, the late Harry Golden Jr., Hugh Hough, Charles “Chip” or “The Penguin” Magnus, M. W. Newman, Art Petacque, Mike Royko, and Jerome H. Watson. I have spent much of my career writing criticism of politicians but actually like most of them. They can charm you out of your lunch money: that is how they get elected. They have keen insights into human nature, often sharper than those of reformers or journalists. Of the hundreds of politicians I have known, I salute two deceased men, politicians in the best sense of the word: John J. Hoellen and James C. Kirie. Hoellen, a Republican reformer, died in  at eighty-four. When he first ran for alderman in , he was shot at, but the shotgun misfired and he survived. Kirie, the longtime LeydenTownship Democratic committeeman, died in  at eighty-nine. He testified before a U.S. Senate rackets committee in the s and for his trouble saw his home and a restaurant he owned bombed. Both men treated me with courtesy and candor. I miss our laughing talks about the old days when politics was fun, before it was totally taken over by media technicians. When Archie Motley retired as chief of the archives and manuscripts division of the Chicago Historical Society, I worried that nobody could write a worthwhile book about Chicago without his amazing expertise. Many times, opening dusty boxes of historical society collections, I wanted to seek him out. However, current staffers of the society were able, diligent , and helpful. In the same way, librarians—underpaid public servants —at the Harold Washington Central Public Library in Chicago, the Newberry Library, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at its Chicago, Champaign-Urbana, and Springfield branches, and the Oak Park, Illinois, public library were efficient and helpful. xviii Acknowledgments The director of Southern Illinois University Press, John F. Stetter, saw promise in this project from the start. Editors and other staffers of the press were consistently professional and cordial. Finally, a tip of the hat to friends and family members who provided moral support. I hope to repay the favors somehow, someday. Acknowledgments xix [18.191.189.85] Project MUSE (2024...