Grafters and Goo Goos: Corruption and Reform in Chicago

Conclusion

262 Conclusion 262 CONCLUSION Corruption! Good Lord! Was it invented here? . . . In some ways the city is so much better and in some ways it has only changed a little bit. —Thomas J. Kneir, FBI special agent in charge, Chicago bureau, remarks to local public-agency inspectors general, March  If somebody’s not from Chicago, he can never understand Chicago. Chicago’s a very complex place, and the politics are almost medieval. . . . I know Chicago politics and I feel it, it’s a part of me, in a way that other people can’t. —developer Tom Rosenberg, Chicago magazine, April  Acigar-chomping city fire inspector silently and critically appraised the interior of Catherine O’Leary’s barn behind her house at  DeKoven Street on  October . Nervously, timorously, Mrs. O’Leary paused from milking her cow to ask whether a mutual understanding could be reached. The officious inspector puffed his cigar and allowed that it just might be possible. She slipped him an envelope containing cash, whereupon he marked his form Approved and left. A relieved Mrs. O’Leary sat on a stool to resume her milking. Then the cow kicked over a kerosene lantern on the floor and ignited the Chicago Fire. On election day of , with the presidential candidacy of John F. Kennedy and the office of state’s attorney at stake, a Northwest Side precinct captain patriotically roused his troops thus: Conclusion 263 Don’t let the federal marshals and FBI agents stop us from doing what has to be done. Getting out the vote. Like Mrs. Smoliniski, the old lady who ran the grocery on Ashland [Avenue] and died last weekend . She always voted straight Democrat, and you know she would have today. So somebody please tell me why, just because she’s six feet under up in Rosehill [Cemetery], her vote has to die with her? Both of these incidents are fictional. The first was a skit by Chicago’s Second City comedy troupe in  after the Sun-Times Mirage series.The role of inspector, by the way, was played by the actor James Belushi. The second is part of the dialogue of a play, Early and Often, entitled after the Chicago vernacular slogan, “vote early and often.” It was written by Barbara Wallace andThomas R. Wolfe and played at Chicago’s Famous Door Theatre in –. These tales are repeated here not just for amusement but to underline the folkloric and even comedic aspects of Chicago’s history of corruption . Psychologists tell us that behind every joke is an unspoken truth or at least what the joke teller regards as true. Mrs. O’Leary and Mrs. Smoliniski are civic archetypes of ethnicity and the political matrix of coercions and favors. Chicago’s comedic folklore recognizes the ubiquity and persistence of corruption in a room in which reform is always entering and exiting. The parades in and out of this room have been persistent ever since Protestant evangelists tried to cauterize vice  years ago; since good citizens nominated People’s Tickets in the s; since the Citizens’ Association strived to put local government on a sound business footing in the s; since the Civic Federation labored for general social uplift in the s; since the Municipal Voters’ League kicked crooked aldermen out of office at the turn of the century; since settlement-house reformers, Progressives, and muckrakers marched toward their vision of a New Jerusalem ; since wealthy businessmen employed extralegal means to ease the scourge of s gangsterism; since abolitionists, socialists, anarchists, and Saul Alinsky launched the traditions of radical dissent; since sober civic groups and fiery neighborhood activists advanced their concepts of the 264 Conclusion common weal; since Richard J. Daley stifled dissent from  to ; throughout the population explosion of special prosecutors, inspectors general, review boards, ethics codes, disclosure laws, and watchdog groups; and since Richard M. Daley has consolidated his power even in the face of the media ethos of permanent scandal. Surely corruption would not have endured through so many whirlwinds of change unless it served some societal functions and values. In fact, there is something of a case for public corruption. The liabilities of corruption seem obvious—“Systematic corruption generates economic costs by distorting incentives, political costs by undermining institutions , and social costs by redistributing power toward the undeserving,” as one study noted.1 Even so, some studies of corruption have argued that it supports the values of stability and of...