MIKE ROYKO 50 YEARS AGO TODAY: Paul Powell's $750,000 shoebox
MIKE ROYKO 50 YEARS AGO TODAY: Paul Powell's $750,000 shoebox
Weekly Compilation November 8-14, 1971
Why do we run this separate item, Mike Royko 50 Years Ago Today? Because Steve Bertolucci, the hero of the serialized novel central to this Substack, “Roseland, Chicago: 1972,” lived in a Daily News household. The Bertolucci’s subscribed to the Daily News, and back then everybody read the paper, even kids. And if you read the Daily News, you read Mike Royko. Read our Royko briefing Monday-Friday on Twitter, @RoselandChi1972.
November 8, 1971
2 free tickets to the lockup
Bears QB Bobby Douglass gives 2 free tickets to yesterday’s Packer game to an old college pal, Richard Thomas, who now teaches high school in Elgin. Thomas ends up at Soldier Field with a friend who has his own 2 season tickets, so they have two extra. No, this isn’t a word problem in your fifth grade math class.
As Thomas holds the two extra tickets, some guy walks up and says, “Got a couple of tickets? How ‘bout $15?” The guy looked like a typical Bear fan. But $15 for two Packers tickets—those were the days, right?
Thomas says sure and BAM. He gets arrested. The cops put him in a Soldier Field holding room, then a paddy wagon, and haul him over to 11th and State, the old HQ. Ironically, Mike recently mentioned that there are always scalpers outside Bear games yelling “Got two, got two.”
“At Wrigley Field, they used to form what amounted to a receiving line near the L station,” writes Mike. He says he never questioned it, because he believes in free enterprise. But he figures if a battalion of cops are assigned to a game, they have to “bring in somebody to justify their existence.”
Thomas says the cops also arrested two boys selling Bear pennants without a license. The cell was atrocious, but there was one interesting point: “I kept hearing cards being shuffled and coins being thrown together on a table, like a poker game.”
When Thomas finally posted $25 bond, he says, “I took a peek and there were a bunch of policemen, in uniform, playing cards. It looked like poker to me, and for money.” Thomas questions whether that means “there is something wrong with our priorities, or our values, or something”.
“Mr. Thomas is 24 years old and is from somewhere in Kansas,” writes Mike, “or one of those sparsely populated places. When he gets a little older, which he will do quickly if he stays around Chicago long enough, he won’t ask such foolish questions about priorities and values.”
November 9, 1971
Clyde: a hero who changed
Mike’s column today, subject and writing both, is as timeless and powerful as “Paradise Lost.” It should probably be read out loud to be truly appreciated, like most great poetry.
Background: As a young man, Clyde Choate fought in World War II and won the Medal of Honor for single-handedly defeating a German tank—using a bazooka to blow off its turret, shooting soldiers who jumped out, and dropping a grenade inside to finish the job.
“There is no other honor in America quite like it,” writes Mike. “Play in the World Series, become the heavyweight champ, or Miss America, or even win an Oscar. That medal is, or at one time was, the great distinction.”
“And that’s when things went wrong. How nice it would have been if he had kept selling cars. But with that medal, the big one, the Oscar, the Most Valuable Player Award, you don’t go through life selling cars. Within a year, he ran for public office. And the next thing you know, Clyde Choate, hero, became Clyde Choate, politician.”
“He joined the nondescript city hacks and Downstate yahoos that comprise the majority of the Legislature. They gather in Springfield to chomp steaks, swill booze, listen with slack-jawed greed to lobbyists and goof up this state worse than an invasion of crawling catfish.”
“Choate’s medal did it for him and to him.”
Because Clyde Choate became a protégé of Paul Powell. Older Readers hear a drum roll with that name.
For Younger Readers, Paul Powell is perhaps the most notorious of Illinois’ notoriously corrupt politicians. A Democrat, he was Speaker of the House of Illinois’ House of Representatives for decades before ascending in 1965 to Secretary of State until his death in 1970.
In just his hotel room closet, they found $750,000 in small denominations--enough of it stuffed into an old shoebox that this is Paul Powell’s enduring legacy. His estate was $3 million plus a shady 61,290 shares of stock in seven Illinois racetracks, though Powell never made more than $30,000/year.
“Now Powell is gone, and his epitaph is a hodge-podge of jokes about shoeboxes,” writes Mike. "The words of [Choate's] army citation aren’t nearly as well known as ...his preposterous amendments to ethics bills...aimed solely at killing any and all ethics legislation."
And now it turns out Illinois state Representative Clyde Choate somehow owns thousands of shares of the shady racetrack stock.
“That racetrack stock,” writes Mike. “Powell owned some. The mayor’s old law partners owned some. The ex-governor [Otto Kerner] owned some…It is the mark of being an influence peddler.”
“Maybe we ought to give our heroes big pensions that entitle them to a life of ease. It’s embarrassing to see one of them turn out to be just another hustler.”
November 10, 1971
Support your local alderman
A 12th ward businessman tells Mike that his alderman sent him a letter asking for money which would be used to “improve” the ward.
The businessman asked other businessmen if they knew what the money was for.
“They didn’t know,” writes Mike, “but they suggested that he should have faith in the alderman. People who lack faith often attract city inspectors who are effective missionary workers.”
The letter says “Ald. Donald Swinarski’s Committee for a Greater 12th Ward” has already built a boys’ club, a parking lot, a new library and a new high school. Mike is impressed, and goes to see Ald. Swinarski.
“Ald. Swinarski…is a very busy young man. He has a real estate and insurance business right in his ward aldermanic office. He’s almost as busy as his father, State Sen. Ted Swinarski, who is the Democratic boss in the ward.”
Under Mike’s questioning, Swinarski admits that the boys’ club and the parking lot and the public library and the new high school were all paid for entirely by taxes. Except the boys’ club and the parking lot, which had never been built at all.
Eventually Mike learns the money went to a few bowling and softball teams, but mostly for uniforms and a bass drum for the 12th Ward Marching Band—though Mike never did find out exactly how much money was raised and spent.
Mike concludes: “But Ald. Swinarski did proclaim: ‘I have no secrets.’ And if you can’t trust an alderman, who can you trust?”
Addendum: Swinarski's last appearance in the Tribune archives is as part of a recurring "Hall of Shame" whenever an alderman gets convicted of something. Swinarski pled guilty in '75 to accepting $7,800 in three bribes for zoning changes as alderman.
Swinarski had moved on to the state senate in '72. For a lighter sentence in ‘75, he told prosecutors about legislative pay-offs and a scheme to take over the agency regulating state savings & loans.
He got off with a year and a day, though he spent several months in hiding with his family after threats, because he squealed on some West Side legislators "who reportedly have ties to the crime syndicate.”
Here's Swinarski leaving court after pleading guilty.
November 11, 1971
Seymour tells less
There’s been a lot going on at Cook County Hospital in the papers and I couldn’t figure it out. For sure there's a group of doctors threatening to quit at the same time. Now Mike explains the confusion:
The reason it’s so confusing “is that it is no longer possible to get both sides of the story. The rebelling staff members are talkative, but the hospital administration seems intent on keeping anyone from knowing anything.”
“That was inevitable because the County Hospital now has one of the biggest, most expensive public relations staff of any hospital in the country,” writes Mike. Through 1970, the PR department was “a couple of nice ladies” who together earned just $20,000/yr. Now it’s nine people earning $119,000.
Before, says Mike, things ran well because nobody talked to the nice ladies in PR—they talked to the people who could answer their questions. Now, new hospital head Dr. James Haughton from New York has brought his NYC PR guy, Seymour (Sy) Spector, and it’s all different.
According to Mike, as a rule, "the bigger the public relations staff, the more goofed up the public relations becomes." The hospital PR staff is supposed to expand still more, to 23. When it does, writes Mike, "it will be impossible to find out where a bathroom is in the hospital."
Doctors say they were told to “clear” everything through Seymour. Spector “ordered all administrative people to keep silent about anything, and to refer all questions to him.” Reporters who enter Cook County hospitals are now accosted by security guards.
“It’s a strange sensation to have to justify your presence to a New York publicity man,” writes Mike. He’s heard Spector has bragged that he has the Chicago press in his hip pocket. Mike doesn’t think so:
“Come now, Mr. Spector. You are a large, round, chubby fellow, with big pants. But you can’t possibly get all of us in your hip pocket. Somebody would bite you.”
November 11, 1971
Bonus: This is Channel 2’s response to Mike’s Oct 26 column roasting their ballyhooed new anchorman, Bob McBride.
Poor Bob McBride came over from Detroit and was probably a perfectly fine TV news guy, but Channel 2 cooked up an ad campaign touting McBride’s good looks, and bragging that his premiere on October. 25 would be “one of the most important events in WBBM-TV’s history.” How could Mike resist?
See HERE for the post on Mike’s original October 26 McBride column in that week’s compilation—of course well worth it.
But basically, Mike ran a picture of the Wolfman, a picture of Charles Laughton as Quasimodo, and a picture of McBride in between. Mike said he knew readers didn’t look at McBride first, they’d look at the Wolfman or Quasimodo instead. So Channel 2, he advised, should get themselves the ugliest anchor they could, if they wanted attention.
Channel 2 screwed up on their initial McBride ad campaign, but I gotta admit, this was a good idea. They started running these, full page, in all the papers, today.
November 12, 1971
Lights, camera, Chicago action!
Mike says TV and movie producers are complaining that they can’t film crime stories in Chicago—Mayor Daley’s City Hall won’t let them, “because it doesn’t want Chicago portrayed as a place where crimes occur.”
Daley’s PR staff suggests making shows that aren’t about crime. Now Mike imagines several well known stories with a new Chicago twist. In “Young Abe Lincoln,” the hero wins a big trial and gets elected to the Illinois Legislature, “where he winds up owning some racetrack stock, and is run out of public life in disgrace.”
If you don’t get the reference, see the November 9 column above on State Rep. Clyde Choate.
WEEKEND EDITION - November 13-14, 1971
As we here all know, weekends could be sad for a Daily News family because Mike Royko wasn’t in the Daily News’ single weekend edition. So we look for Mike elsewhere on the weekends.
Today we look again at Mike’s second book of columns, “I May Be Wrong, BUT I DOUBT IT!” from 1968.
The column compilation starts with “San-Fran-York on the Lake.” Mike mourns the passing of the old Chicago—“The city of the three-flat with flowered wallpaper and linoleum in the parlor, the lunch pail, the shot-and-beer and count-your-change” city, which has now “become something else: San-Fran-York on the Lake.”
Chicago Man is now a “dandy” with a well-trimmed beard. “Everybody looks like George Hamilton or Norman Ross.” “Chicago Woman defies description, with her thighs stylishly bared to 30 mph arctic winds while her torso is wrapped in an artificial Abominable Snowman fur coat.”
“Tomorrow Is Carl Sandburg’s birthday. You remember him. He was named after a high-rise development,” writes Mike. “He’s dead but he got out of town long before it went to hell in a martini mixer.”
In observance, Mike updates “City of Big Shoulders.”
The first stanza:
Hi-Rise for the World
Partygoer, Stacker of Stereo Tapes,
Player with Home Pool Table and the Nation’s Jets;
Dapper, slender, filter-tipped,
City of the Big Credit Card.
By the way, this feature is no substitute for reading Mike’s full columns. He’s best appreciated in the clear, concise, unbroken original version. Mike already trimmed the verbal fat, so he doesn’t need to be summarized Reader’s Digest-style, either. Our purpose here is to give you some good quotes from the original columns, but especially to give the historic and pop culture context that Mike’s original readers brought to his work. You can’t get the inside jokes if you don’t know the references. Plus, many columns didn’t make it into the collections, so unless you dive into microfilm, there are some columns covered here you will never read elsewhere. If you don’t own any of Mike’s books, maybe start with “One More Time,” a selection covering Mike’s entire career and including a foreword by Studs Terkel and commentaries by Lois Wille.
Do you dig spending some time in 1972? If you came to MIKE ROYKO 50 YEARS AGO TODAY from social media, you may not know it’s part of the book being serialized here, one chapter per month: “Roseland, Chicago: 1972.” It’s the story of Steve Bertolucci, 10-year-old Roselander in 1972, and what becomes of him. Check it out here.
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