The Bootback Stand
"The Bootback Stand" The Bootblack Stand Dr. George Washington Plunkitt, our prize-winning political analyst, has just completed a penetrating study of the last Congolese election....
...Eric Sevaried confesses that he had "shied away" from Hoffer's books for years "because Eisenhower had publicly praised one of them...
...I shall work as a Democrat without abandoning my personal independence...
...Our hospitals are a disgrace, why, there are Americans dying in them every day...
...For the most part, what Royko says about Daley is probably true...
...Address all correspondence to The Bootblack Stand, The Establishment, R.R...
...Few of us labor under the illusion that our politicians are saints or angels...
...It is titled Escape: A New Demand Response System...
...Say it ain't so, Sevaried...
...The Daley years were underway with the values that would never change: things, concrete, glass, steel, downtown, business profit...
...But while a liberal will look at the picture Royko paints and say, "What a horrible mayor...
...H.L...
...Royko accepts nothing from politicians on face value and has an unerring instinct for the jugular...
...Regardless of what he may do in the afternoon, and to whom, he will always pray in the morning...
...In a sense, this step recognizes the failure of twenty active years in progressive Republican politics...
...Also after reading mountains of your elegant public utterances I suggest you capitalize on your repute as an intellectual...
...Make frequent trips to Algeria...
...Any book aimed at yanking lefty politicians off their pedestals cannot be anything but beneficial as long as it serves to remind us that our liberty hangs by a tenuous thread even when good rulers are in power...
...When liberals read Boss, they alternaLely rub their hands in glee as Royko skewers the old-fashioned, right-wing mayor and shriek in horror as Daley is shown stomping all over their pet liberal projects...
...In still another sense it represents my consuming desire to live in the inner city -mainly the inner city of Washington, D.C...
...Plunkitt has agreed to, through this column, advise American statesmen in this" time o f troubles...
...Both of these are attributes of a good reporter...
...Now, the distinguished Dr...
...His book, therefore, is not an inside behind-the-scenes story, but a biography written by a pretty narrow-minded liberal who happens to be a superb writer...
...Royko has tried to interview Daley but was rebuffed, to no one's surprise...
...Gad, your campaign whets my appetite for a good laugh...
...For example: "His urban renewal program amounted to a stack full of charts and blueprints...
...I shall direct the whole gorgeous venture...
...it can be purchased in all bookstores...
...Give me an office in Gracie Mansion and stay off the hard stuff...
...While campaigning in northern California wear your wife's clothes...
...The Alternative October, 1971 The Bootblack Stand Dr...
...Dutton & Co., $5.95 For if experience teaches us any6nng at all it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burgla~r...
...Also I can see from your letter and from the import of your August announcement that you have grasped the real issue at stake in the coming election - - hospitals...
...Never be seen without a copy of the New York Review of Books, pronounce either as though it were spelled eye-ther and grow bushy nose hair...
...Although it contains inaccuracies, distortions and some uncalled for blows below the belt, it is a fascinating story of a lower-class politician who has become one of the most powerful men in America...
...Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago, is based on fact and inference...
...GWP Dear Mr...
...If Royko's liberal bias is kept in mind, Boss can be read to shed light on Daley as mayor and boss of the last big city political machine...
...Look how he has been building the city at the expense of the poor," the conservative will see a man who has run the city with an iron hand, but run it well...
...Obvious distortion, but the point is not without its kernel of truth...
...he seldom uses his scalpel against the left...
...John Avey ~s a mortician and soldier of fortune working in Washington, D. C. He has served several Presidents and his ]avorite hobby is skindiving . John Avey A Hair in My Caviar Boss: Richard J. 19a~y o f Chicago By Mike Royko E.P...
...it is a natural...
...Mencken Prejudices, 1919 Royko is irreverent, perhaps as irreverent as Mencken, and that's what makes him fun to read...
...Yes, indeed you made the right decision...
...Cordially, Harold E. Hughes, Senator Dear Senator Hughes: Between you, Senator Gravel, Senator McGovern and Senator Socrates from Arkansas there is never a dull moment under the big dome, is there...
...11, Box 360, Bloomington, Indiana 47401, Continental U.S.A...
...Intellectuality, yes that is the style for you...
...They cried that they were betrayed because they had been promised they would stay...
...Plunkitt: After a newspaper story disclosed my belief that I had communicated with my dead brother I felt it best that I withdraw as a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination...
...Then if there's anything left, maybe something for the human being...
...Do you think this was a prudent course...
...I feel that the Nixon administration has shown indifference to the plight of the poor, and failed to respond to the problems of unemployment, housing, hospitals, crime, poverty and race polarization...
...I have quit the Republican party and become a Democrat to fight for new national leadership -mine...
...Dear Mr...
...Unfortunately, Royko's liberal bias shows...
...We have not had a man of your wisdom and erudition in the White House since President Grant...
...One final note: In Calvin Tomkins' useful little books, Eric Holler...
...Also someone is listening to my phone...
...Rats gnawed on black infant's feet, while money was used to build new police stations around the corner...
...Now can we get your brother to run...
...Involve yourself in some humane endeavor -- perhaps a national movement to free Richard Speck...
...GWP counter thinker (continued from page 18) to listen to the "ticky-tacky" songs of the in:ellectuals...
...In another sense it represents a new decision for new national leadership - - by me...
...Run for the Presidency of the United States of America...
...Frank W. B l a t c h f o r d I I I...
...Very Wuly yours, John V. Lindsay Dear Mr...
...Plunkitt: I am a tall, handsome mayor who will be fifty in November...
...My problem is what shall I do...
...the progress you have brought to New York convinces me that the White House is the only place for you (you see, I too live in New York...
...What those who value their liberty can share with the liberal Royko is the presumption that all politicians are scoundrels...
...Hit hard on the hospital issue...
...But he built it...
...Such light is valuable...
...Although his accomplishments -- Chicago's strong financial base, its soaring building rate, and its revival of the central business district -- are not praised in Royko's book, most of them are given at least backhanded recognition: "It (the city campus of the University of Illinois) wasn't easy to build because thousands of families in the city's oldest Italian neighborhood had to be uprooted and their homes and churches torn down...
...His book must be read with this in mind...
...But Royko, who grew up in Chicago's streets, is not above hitting below the belt: "Since childhood he has attended daily mass, as his mother did before him...
...Published in August, it focuses on the unique position of minority groups in the Congolese electoral process...
...Lindsay: My, what a springhtly letter you pen...
...he continues to sing his own song and for that we owe him thanks and praise...
Vol. 5 • October 1971 • No. 1
