DICK MELL USED OUR MONEY TO PAY PEOPLE TO SLEEP: “THEY’RE GONNA SAY…WHAT A GUY!”

7/7/13

As the reporters who normally would despise someone like retiring Alderman Dick Mell were heaping praise upon the guy as he was heading out the door (See yesterday’s already seminal post FAREWELL, DICK MELL…SORT OF.), Mr. Mell let go with this whopper when asked about the “thousand” patronage jobs he had at his disposal at the height of his power as boss of the 33^rd Ward:

“The jobs that I really thought were great ones were the bridge tender jobs.  At one time we had three people on every bridge.  I put four kids through college as bridge tenders.  I would get them on the second shift from 3 to 11, where they could do their homework.  Or 11 to 7, where they’d sleep, and they were getting electrician’s pay, and it was great.”

Could Mr. Mell, in his efforts to sound like the paterfamilias of his ward, kindly dispensing favors to the hardworking residents who only had to show their gratitude by serving the “community,” in the person of Dick Mell, be so tone deaf?   Doesn’t he realize what he was saying?

I have news for Mr. Mell.  HE did not put any kids, other than his own, through college.  The TAXPAYERS put kids through college by paying them electricians’ wages for doing the work of a bridge tender, which was, most of the time, no work at all.   Further, all those people who put in the hard work necessary to become union electricians so that they could earn the wages that go with acquiring and applying such a skill were made to feel like chumps.  If they had only sucked up to Dick Mell, or one of his colleagues among the Organization’s ward bosses, they could have made those wages for doing nothing. 

Thanks, Dick Mell, for taking our money and handing it out to those who have somehow garnered your favor.  Isn’t it good to know that our tax dollars went toward paying hangers-on and toadies skilled labor wages for doing nothing so that Dick Mell could tell everyone that HE put them through college?

Mr. Mell is only being singled out for criticism here because he happens to be retiring and putting his foot in his mouth in the process.   He is no different from any of the old time ward bosses, whose modus operandi was to condition their constituents to behave like sycophants, to bow and scrape before these estimables, in order to get the services that we paid for...at a substantial premium as consideration to the pols for all that they added to the process of delivering these services.

But we kept electing these guys.   And now we wonder why the city and the state are in such bad financial shape.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.