THIS CRAZY DAY IN 1972: Hair, not the musical
THIS CRAZY DAY IN 1972: Hair, not the musical
November 8-14, 1971
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Why do we run this separate item peeking into newspapers from 1972? Because 1972 was part of the ancient times when everybody read a paper. Everybody, everybody, everybody—even kids. So Steve Bertolucci, the 10-year-old hero of the novel serialized at this Substack, read the paper too—sometimes just to have something to do. These are some of the stories he read. If you’d like, keep up with the 1972 papers every day on Twitter, @RoselandChi1972.
November 8, 1971
Chicago Daily News: Bears bulldozed by Brockington/Magic touch eludes the Bears
Chicago Daily News: Butkus nearly turned the tide
by Ray Sons
Last week Doug Buffone used the words “Super Bowl” after the Bears just barely beat Dallas.
Young QB Bobby Douglass was a hero. Hopes were high as the Bears looked toward the upcoming Packer game—Bears were in 2nd place in the NFC Central Division, Packers in the cellar.
The Daily News’ Ray Sons says Sunday’s Packers game was, instead, “like watching a fairy tale in reverse. The fairy godmother who had been tapping the Bears with her magic wand and transforming them from toads into handsome princes lost her touch. This time, they stayed toads.”
The Packers were 14-0 at halftime, and won 17-14. Packer fullback John Brockington took the laurels. He “punctured the Bear defense 30 times for 142 yards”.
At first the Bear defensive line held—then “Brockington ran through superstar Dick Butkus for a 16-yard gain.”
“Butkus got his arms on him, but he broke away for the first-down yardage.” The Bears committed only 3 penalties, but “Every time we made a mistake, it seemed to hurt us,” said coach Jim Dooley. Only 6:06 remained when the Bears finally got on the scoreboard.
Butkus is the Daily News’ “Bear of the week”—yet again—because he almost “turned defeat into victory”. Butkus recovered Dave Hampton’s fumble at the Green Bay 11, setting up the tying touchdown scored by Douglass with only 3:18 minutes left.
“‘I just got him at the same time he got the ball, and it was there,’ Butkus shrugged,” wrote Ray Sons.
But later, Hampton “had a chance to run with no Butkus to bar his path” and scored the winning touchdown.
“Butkus used to play on the special teams, and his absence was felt on this occasion,” writes Sons. So why isn’t Butkus on special teams anymore? As many readers will know, and as Abe Gibron now notes, it was to spare Butkus’ ravaged knees.
November 9, 1971: 1972 crowning event
Chicago Daily News, front page: Fortune smiles on Margie
The Daily News runs a 5-column wide picture on the front page of Chicago Fire Commissioner Robert Quinn crowning 17-year-old Margie Fleischman as queen of Chicago’s 12th annual Holiday Folk Fair.
The important ceremony took place in the real Mayor Daley’s City Hall office.
November 9, 1971
Chicago Daily News, Sydney J. Harris column: The all-American girlie show
“The children wanted to watch the ‘Miss America’ finals on TV this fall, because they find it funnier than ‘Laugh-In,’ which speaks well for their sense of values,” writes resident intellectual Sydney J. Harris today in his regular op-ed column, “Strictly personal.”
Harris quotes a then-famous magazine illustrator: “Obviously, truly beautiful girls would not enter such contests, for a truly beautiful woman could not be so unutterably vulgar.” Of course, a woman shouldn’t be called a “girl” interchangeably either, but we’ll put that aside.
“If Women’s Lib is looking for a legitimate issue, they should rally against the ‘beauty contest’ in all its ugly aspects,” Harris concludes.
Hmm, is he thinking the women's liberation movement is NOT aiming at legitimate issues right now? Because elsewhere in today's paper, a court just ruled for the first time that women must legally be given equal pension benefits as men.
Harris also says if men were "subjected to the same animal-trainer routine, they would be ridiculed out of existence." But as we know, men compete in reality TV shows today which are far, far worse than the old Miss America pageant. So everyone has been brought down to the same pathetic level now, really. Harris would be so surprised. Or would he?
November 9, 1971
Chicago Daily News: Landmark hearing for Reliance Bldg
By M.W. Newman
The Daily News’ master architectural and cultural writer, M.W. Newman, writes about the Reliance Building’s hearing tomorrow for possible designation as a historical landmark by the Chicago Landmarks Commission.
“Few people among the Loop’s hurrying, shadowed throngs ever glance twice at the 15-story building at 32 N. State—or if they do, they probably wonder why such a grimy old thing has to occupy such a prominent corner,” he writes.
But that’s because the owners don’t give their poor building a bath, he notes. The Reliance facade is really “enameled terra cotta (like the Wrigley Building’s) and a beautiful one; what’s more, it was the first time such a façade was used.”
“The Reliance is a world-acknowledged grandfather of all the steel-and-glass buildings of the present day. Its designer, Charles B. Atwood of D.H. Burnham &. Co., was half a century ahead of Mies van der Rohe in the way he expressed the nature of the steel-cage building with big panes of glass, slender verticals and a light ‘curtain wall.’”
And Atwood is “still ahead of today’s bare-bone designers in the character and ornamental distinction he gave to” the Reliance, writes Newman, “in the opinion of many architectural authorities.”
Built the same year as Louis Sullivan’s Old Stock Exchange Building, currently being demolished three blocks west, the Reliance Building’s “turn has come in Chicago’s ghoulish landmarks derby,” Newman concludes. “Quite literally, the architectural world will be watching what happens to the Reliance.”
November 10, 1971
Chicago Daily News: Wins hair suit
UPI
“Lawrence Krause, 17, won a court order for his readmission to Jennings (Mo.) High School, which expelled him after he refused to cut his hair.”
The judge told Krause he had “no respect” for him. Pretty sure Krause did not care one whit.
November 10, 1971
Chicago Daily News: Save Reliance Building, Field asks at hearing
By Betty Washington
That’s Marshall Field in the headline, publisher of the Daily News and the Sun-Times. Field told the Chicago Landmarks Commission that the Reliance Building was “probably the greatest monument of the 19th Century that we have.”
Leonard Currie, dean of the College of Architecture and Art at UIC-Circle Campus, “said people all over the world come to look at the Reliance and other Chicago School buildings because ‘they are afraid they may soon be lost to Chicago and to the world.’”
“The hearings were called after two owners refused to agree to have the building designated a landmark.”
The Reliance has a long road ahead of it—but luckily we know it survives.
November 11, 1971
Chicago Daily Defender: Nixes bill to ease welfare dilemma
By Simeon B. Osby
The crisis over state welfare funding continues. It’s still not entirely clear to me whether Gov. Ogilvie is completely to blame, or if the Cook County Department of Public Aid gets some too. Either way, funds to Cook County recipients of general welfare has been cut 60%, so it’s a real crisis.
Ogilvie wanted CCDPA to transfer general assistance recipients to specialized welfare categories, because state and local taxes alone fund GA payments while federal dollars fund at least half of the specialized payments. Cook County didn’t make those transfers, and Ogilvie cut the funding on November 1—though it’s been temporarily stayed by a judge.
Twelve black Democrat representatives in the Illinois House say they’ve found $45 million in special funds that could be used to restore the Cook County GA welfare payments. Backed by Democratic leadership, they sponsored a proposal to transfer the money. Republicans voted it down.
Interestingly, two representatives come up in this account who will run against each other for mayor of Chicago in 1983.
“Only six Republicans…voted to bring the emergency legislation to a vote on the House floor,” writes Osby. One is Rep. Bernard Epton (24th). Epton accepted the Republican nomination for mayor in '83, fulfilling the ceremonial obligation of giving the Democratic Machine candidate someone to beat.
But incumbent Mayor Jane Byrne managed to make such a hash of her spectacularly unlikely term in office that she lost the Democratic nomination to then U.S. Rep. Harold Washington.
Epton was vilified for his campaign slogan, “Before It’s Too Late,” which sounded like a dog whistle to persuade white Democratic voters to switch parties and elect Epton to keep out Chicago’s first black mayor. Most people certainly heard it that way. But Epton previously had a rather progressive record, as we see here.
In today’s article, future Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, who is still an Illinois representative, is the chief sponsor of the proposal to transfer funds to help the welfare crisis. Even as he proposed it, however, Washington said, “This is only a stop-gap program for providing food, clothing, shelter and medical care for hungry and sick people while more permanent solutions are sought.”
November 11, 1971
Chicago Daily Defender: Do-it-yourself $10 homemade money
Detroiter Odis Allen got strange change at a gas station. He expected $2 and got $11—a single and a $10. When he looked closer at the $10, he noticed a picture of George Washington.
“U.S. Treasury officials say the bills are turning up in Indianapolis and Detroit and are actually $1 bills with photographic reproductions of the corners of $10 bills pasted on. A treasury agent said the phony tens are not a major problem because the low quality of the counterfeit effort makes them hard to pass.”
November 11, 1971
Chicago Daily News: “What’s-His-Name is pretty good”
If you’re also reading Mike Royko 50 YEARS AGO TODAY, you know Ch. 2 debuted a new anchorman on October 25 after an elaborate advertising campaign of full-page ads in all the papers. The ads featured a giant picture of anchorman Bob McBride and the headline, “If you watch Fahey or Floyd, you’ll miss one of the most important events on WBBM-TV’s history. The Chicago television premiere of Bob McBride.”
Unfortunately, I found Bob McBride so annoying I didn’t copy any of those pre-debut ads. But here is Channel 2’s first follow-up ad, which will give you a good sense:
Mike Royko made merciless fun of Ch. 2 and Bob McBride on October 26, after watching the most important event in WBBM-TV history. He insisted that if Ch. 2 wanted an anchorman viewers would really remember, they’d do better to get somebody really ugly, such as the Wolfman or the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Read Mike’s original column here in the Oct. 26 post, and Tribune TV critic Clarence Peterson’s review here in the Oct. 29 post.
Today, Ch. 2 runs a response to Mike—below.
I’ll give it to Ch. 2, the ad is hilarious. The problem is, as you’ll see, Ch. 2 doesn’t get Mike’s message. They will continue running Bob McBride ads that make you just absolutely sick of his completely inoffensive face.
November 12, 1971
Chicago Sun-Times: Sears to get Supreme Court hearing in Panther case
By Ray Brennan
Chicago Daily News: Hanrahan attacks indictments again
The Illinois Supreme Court agrees to rule on whether to throw out the indictment of Cook County State’s Attorney Edward V. Hanrahan and 13 codefendants.
Hanrahan et al want to throw out their indictment for criminal conspiracy and obstruction of justice in the investigation of the pre-dawn raid in which Hanrahan’s state’s attorney police shot to death Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. They are accused of manufacturing evidence and committing perjury.
They claim Special Prosecutor Barnaby Sears “improperly influenced a county grand jury” to issue the indictment. Sears has “asked the justices to study 25 hours of secret grand jury testimony by Hanrahan”. Sears says Hanrahan’s testimony itself shows the grand jury wasn’t pressured.
Elsewhere, Hanrahan asked Circuit Court Judge Philip Romiti to toss out the indictments because they “failed to state an offense.” Romiti delayed a hearing until after next Monday “after pointing out that the Illinois Supreme Court is once again considering the case.”
November 12, 1971
Chicago Sun-Times: Hanrahan asks place on 1972 ticket
By John Dreiske
100 Chicago groups including the Chicago Bar Association, the Better Government Association, and all the newspapers asked Cook County State’s Attorney Ed Hanrahan to take a leave of absence after his indictment for criminal conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Hanrahan did not do that, and now he wants to run for another term.
The indictment is for the investigation of the 1969 pre-dawn raid when Hanrahan’s police shot to death Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. Most days, the papers run stories about the complicated ongoing Hanrahan legal proceedings led by Special Prosecutor Barnaby Sears.
The Sun-Times notes that being under indictment “could be an obstacle to renomination, but the indictment could conceivably be quashed.” The upshot: “It appeared from comments by the committeemen that he probably will be slated” to run again.
The real Mayor Daley held a closed slatemaking session to consider Hanrahan in the Gold Room of Sherman House. Afterward reporters asked Daley if he’ll slate Hanrahan to run again.
Mayor Daley’s comments, though cryptic, always tell where the political winds blow, like a portly little Irish weathervane. Today: “Well, he’s made a good record,” says Daley. He's already defended Hanrahan against calls to step down. Now a classic real Mayor Daley quote:
“If you disagree with me, then you disagree with the fundamental American system of law—that a man is presumed innocent until proven guilty.”
November 12, 1971
Chicago Daily News: Today’s Chuckle
Another installment in the always awful, often sexist joke the Daily News frequently uses as filler on the front page.
November 13, 1971
Chicago Daily News, Lu Palmer column: School crises alarm blacks
In his regular weekend op-ed column, Lu Palmer notes that black Chicagoans are alarmed over school funding crises going on in cities across the country.
In Chicago, the Board of Education recently announced schools would close 12 days early for Christmas because they didn’t have money to pay teachers. “It is significant that the Chicago school crisis comes at the same time as a frightening welfare dilemma which threatens the very survival of thousands of recipients,” writes Palmer.
Palmer refers to Governor Ogilvie’s 60% cut to general assistance welfare payments, currently stayed by a judge. Ogilvie wants GA recipients transferred to specialized categories that are funded by federal dollars, because GA is funded by state and local taxes only. That didn’t happen, and Ogilvie cut funding in response.
A few days ago the 12 black Democrats in the Illinois House of Representatives, backed by the Democratic leadership, tried to transfer $45 million from unused reserves to help the short in GA welfare. Republicans voted it down. Now, Palmer tells a little more about that.
Palmer says some of the Republicans were annoyed by the attempt to shift funds because “the efforts to find money for welfare recipients was delaying their departure to a $500-a-plate political dinner in Chicago” with President Nixon.
The rest of the column is a plea to improve the education system and put control back in “the hands of the many.” With high unemployment, writes Palmer, “Masses of blacks must conduct almost superhuman efforts to combat threats to life-support systems,” and at the same time, try to pursue education “to reverse the historic conditions which have placed them in continuous conflict and crisis.”
November 13, 1971
Chicago Daily News: Ax-swinger KOs hijacker on plane
UPI
Another great entry in the almost daily plane hijackings in the early ‘70s. C’mon, an ax—you wanna hear the rest, right?
You have to understand that B.D. Cooper was only unusual in that he was never caught. Planes are getting hijacked all over the place in the early ‘70s.
Anyway, this hijacker takes over an Air Canada DC-8 flying from Vancouver to Montreal, using a sawed-off shotgun and what looked like dynamite. That’s right, you heard me, this guy got on board with a sawed-off shotgun. And dynamite.
The hijacker made the pilot fly back and forth between the US and Canada several times, landing twice in Great Falls, Montana. The second landing, he collected $50,000 ransom for releasing the passengers and most of the crew. Then he started putting on his parachute.
And that’s when a remaining crew member knocked him out with the plane’s fire ax.
November 14, 1971
Sun-Times: Ax used to fell ‘IRA’ skyjacker; identified as Candian
UPI
The Sun-Times updates the axed skyjacker story with some new details:
The skyjacker was an “unshaven, stocky, dark-haired man” who entered the first-class cabin with two paper bags—one bag holding a sawed-off shotgun, the other holding 60 sticks of dynamite.
If that doesn’t show you how common skyjacking was at the time—that this crazy-looking guy could get on the plane with a sawed-off shotgun and a bag of dynamite—then the response of this passenger might persuade you:
“He was pretty nervous,” said passenger Richard Scallins of Toronto. “That was what we were afraid of because he was supposed to have this dynamite with these two wires.”
So, not afraid because the plane was being skyjacked. Not afraid of the sawed-off shotgun. Just afraid because the sawed-off shotgun toting skyjacker was nervous and handling dynamite.
Recall that after making the pilot fly back and forth between the US and Canada and landing twice in Montana to pick up $50,000 ransom and let off the passengers and most crew, the skyjacker went to put on a parachute and a remaining crew member whacked him on the head with an ax.
A Royal Canadian Mounted Police inspector IDs the skyjacker as 27-year-old. Paul J. Cini of Calgary. Cini initially claimed to belong to the IRA and demanded to be flown Ireland “via the polar route,” then asked to go to Arizona, and finally settled on Calgary before deciding to parachute. The IRA disavowed any relationship with Cini, understandably, who turned out to not even be of Irish descent.
And Cini had not brought his own parachute. An airline spokesperson said there was no parachute on board—he was probably trying to put on a lifejacket, thinking it was a parachute.
Do you dig spending some time in 1972? If you came to THIS CRAZY DAY IN 1972 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.