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Twenty‐First Century
Chicago
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1
Part I – Chicago in the
21st Century
3
Choosing Chicago’s Future
By Dick Simpson, Constance A. Mixon and Melissa Mouritsen
Chicago was born more than one hundred and fifty years ago. Some of our older suburbs are
over a century old. We are the third‐largest city in the United States with a population of 2.7
million people. Over 9.5 million people live in the metropolitan region. Metropolitan Chicago
is larger in population and has greater wealth than most nations in the world.
Chicago has been transformed into a “global city” as we enter the third decade of the twenty‐
first century. At the same time, population, jobs, and housing stock have been declining for
the first time in the history of the city, since the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and the Great
Depression of the 1930s. We are only now recovering from the “Great Recession” of 2008. The
“political machine,” which has governed the city since the Chicago Fire and, more firmly since
its reorganization under Mayor Cermak in 1931, was transformed under former Mayor
Richard M. Daley. Daley’s twenty‐two‐year reign brought Chicago into the global economy
and reoriented political power. It was changed again by Mayor Rahm Emanuel who governed
from 2011‐2019. With the election of Lori Lightfoot in April 2019 we have entered a new era of
reform and change.
In this book, we explore many of the fundamental dimensions and conditions of Chicago’s
metropolitan life. While some of the articles in the book will stress the region’s shortcomings,
we want to emphasize that Chicago has many possibilities for a positive future. We have some
of the best businesses on the planet. We have a population that represents nearly every
segment of the world and speaks nearly all of its languages. We have a positive history of
reform efforts (as well as a history of scandals and rogues). By our decisions and our actions,
we will collectively determine the future of Chicago in the twenty‐first century.
Economic Conditions
Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the city of Chicago lost manufacturing jobs at a rate of
25,000 a year, for a total loss of more than 250,000 jobs. This dramatic downturn in
manufacturing left Chicago with an uncertain future as the capital of the Rust Belt. Because of
deindustrialization, white flight, and decreasing federal aid, the city of Chicago also lost an
average of 12,500 units of housing and 60,000 residents a year during the 1970s. Our total city
population has dropped from 3.6 million in 1950 to just 2.7 million today. If this continues,
Chicago may drop from the third largest to the fourth largest U.S. city behind New York, Los
Angeles, and Houston by 2025.1 Over the last sixty years, the city itself has lost nearly a million
people—despite the pretty new buildings in the South and West Loop and the new
condominiums popping up in increasingly gentrified neighborhoods, and the new high rise
office buildings going up in the Loop business district. To put this population loss in context,
since the 1950s, Chicago “has lost more people than currently live in all of San Francisco,
Boston, or D.C.”2 Without our gains in Latino population, the total population loss in Chicago
5
6 | Twenty‐First Century Chicago
would have been much greater. As we await the results of the 2020 census, it is expected that
our Latino population gains have significantly slowed and Chicago’s overall population will
significantly decrease. Yet, there are major new housing projects proposed in Lincoln Yards –
the new Neighborhood 78, and near Soldier Field. These projects, if implemented, will add
tens of thousands of new homes to Chicago. It remains to be seen if and how soon they will
be built.
Today the older manufacturing base of Chicago’s regional economy has mostly been
replaced—first by the service economy, and now by the global economy. The new knowledge
and service economies of Chicago, created by global forces, employ fewer people than the
economies of yesteryear. Furthermore, most of the region’s high‐growth industries, like
financial services and high‐tech firms, are concentrated downtown. An economic
restructuring and reorganization of the Chicago labor market has resulted in significant social
and economic inequalities. While manufacturing jobs once paid the equivalent of at least
$50,000 a year, plus full health benefits and good pensions, today’s two‐tiered global economy
has produced a large segment of service jobs paying an average of only $15,000 a year, with
few or no benefits. These wage inequalities are integrally related to our city’s entrenched
patterns of poverty and segregation and became a major issue in all recent elections.
By the turn of the twenty‐first century, Chicago had shed its title of being the Rust Belt capital
and is now the Midwest capital of the global economy. This means Chicago’s fate is now
directly connected to the fate of the international economy of which it is a part. As part of the
global economy, international conditions and the role of transnational corporations directly
affect our region in ways we no longer control. Decisions like the merger of our banks, the
closure of manufacturing plants like Motorola, collapse of major service companies like Arthur
Andersen, and bankruptcies of major companies all occur without input from the city,
suburban, or state governments. Local corporations—and certainly local communities—have
little to no voice in determining what will be done. These decisions are made elsewhere. There
are few restraints on global businesses.
As a result of the 2008 global recession, the Chicago region lost more than 264,000 jobs from
2008–2010.3 Most recently, job growth has rebounded, with Chicago faring better than most of
our suburban neighbors. Since the 2008‐2010 recession, Chicago has had a 16.6 percent growth
in jobs, while suburbs in Cook County experienced growth of only 7.5 percent.4 In the wake
of the recession, the city of Chicago faced a 400‐million‐dollar deficit in 2010. The city partially
closed that deficit by selling off the city’s parking meters to a private firm. It faced an
additional $654.5 million deficit in the 2011 budget, which led to more employee furloughs
and to cutting more city jobs. In 2015, with a deficit of $297 million, the city, public schools,
and park district all had their bond ratings downgraded to “junk” status. Chicago Public
Schools (CPS) in 2015 failed to extend teacher contracts for another year, citing a looming 1.5‐
billion‐dollar deficit. The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) also found itself facing a 1‐billion‐
dollar deficit and significant reductions in state aid in 2015. Dismal city finances have
produced an economic environment where taxpayers are continually squeezed for more
revenue, while more and more services are cut and employees are laid off.
Choosing Chicago’s Future | 7
By 2016, the Chicago city government budget problem became so bad that Mayor Emanuel
and the city council had to levy an additional $755 million in taxes and borrow an additional
$1 billion to pay the city’s bills. Local governments are facing the need to raise taxes once
again. Pension deficits at state and local governments have now become unsustainable.
Chicago city government, the Chicago Public Schools, and the state faced the worst budget
crises in recent history. The state’s bond ratings are the lowest now of any state in the nation.
Only California has had a lower rating among the large states, and it has recovered since its
low point. While Illinois now has a new governor and Chicago a new mayor, they have a
gigantic task to cut back on expenditures and find new sources of revenue. Upon taking office,
Mayor Lightfoot faced a $252 million budget deficit, while also required to pay $276 million
in public pension payments, for a combined $528 million budget shortfall.
As the articles in this book will detail, the major economic challenge in the Chicago
metropolitan region over the last four decades has been the loss of manufacturing jobs and
our switch first to the service and now to the global economy. With this new global economy,
we face the problem of making sure that the benefits of globalization do not create a new richer
class and leave a much poorer, more desperate class behind. We must also find ways to attract
and expand our shrinking middle class while finding ways to have a more equitable
distribution of the wealth generated by the new global economy.
Social Conditions
The principal social problem of metropolitan Chicago is not found in any one system that
doesn’t work, such as the public schools, the health care system, or the criminal justice system.
Rather, the major social problem in Chicago is the connection between race and poverty. This
structural problem of race and poverty underlies and penetrates each challenge we face, in
education, health care, criminal justice, and all the rest. The challenge of poverty and race in
Chicago has resulted in a permanent underclass.
While the Chicago metropolitan area is extremely diverse, we remain one of the most
segregated regions in North America. Most Chicagoans live in racially and economically
homogeneous neighborhoods, as reflected by our high segregation index of more than 72
percent. This means that for each Chicago neighborhood and suburb to have a racial mix equal
to the metropolitan region as a whole, 72 percent of the people would have to move. Most of
us currently live in segregated neighborhoods.7
8 | Twenty‐First Century Chicago
The city of Chicago is approximately 31 percent black, 33 percent white, 29 percent Latino,
and 6 percent Asian and other as of December 2018.8 Since 2000, there has been a noteworthy
decline in the African American population, while the Latino population has been growing.
From 2000 to 2010, 72 census tracts in the metropolitan region of 1,821 census tracts switched
from white to Hispanic and 22 from white to black. The clearest change is that whites are no
longer the majority in the city, where they had been dominant since 1833. While whites remain
the majority in the metropolitan region, population changes are occurring rapidly in every
part of the region. Latino immigrants, for example, are increasingly likely to skip the city and
move directly into suburbs, following jobs and affordable housing.
Unfortunately, there is a racial or “color gap” in metropolitan Chicago. Income inequality has
continued to rise since the 1960s, despite national policies such as civil rights laws and the
“war on poverty” that attempted to eliminate discrimination and poverty. The concentration
of misery and high crime in the racial ghettos of Chicago and Chicago’s segregated suburbs is
not just. The same division of poverty and wealth that occurs so obviously in the city occurs
in the entire metropolitan region. Suburbs like Harvey and Markham are black and poor;
communities like Oak Park and Evanston are managing to handle their racial and economic
disparities; while some communities on the North Shore and in the western suburbs remain
all white, segregated, very wealthy, and very smug.
The most telling study of segregation in Chicago was originally done in 1965 by demographer
Pierre deVise. He examined 250 Chicago community areas with more than 2,500 people in
them. He measured median family income, median value of homes, and assessed real estate
valuations per resident or median rent, and ranked each community from 1 to 250. The ten
richest communities were in the suburbs. They were nearly all white, mostly far north or west
of the city like Kennilworth, Winnetka, and Hinsdale. The ten poorest communities were
within the city limits, on the South and West Sides, and were nearly all black. Later studies up
to the present day have confirmed this basic pattern of geographical and racial segregation,
but have added the city neighborhoods of the Loop and Lincoln Park to the list of wealthiest
communities and expanded the list of poorest communities beyond the city to southern
suburbs like Harvey and Robbins.
In an attempt to solve the ghetto problem in Chicago, the city and federal government tore
down high‐rise Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) projects like Cabrini‐Green and the Robert
Taylor Homes, which were “synonymous with high crime rates and urban decay.”9 The
original plan for transformation was to scatter CHA residents into newly built mixed‐income
housing. But new public housing, for which existing CHA residents had to reapply and
qualify, was not built as quickly as the high‐rise buildings were coming down. Chicago’s
attempt at transforming public housing is still unfinished and has left tens of thousands of
Choosing Chicago’s Future | 9
families displaced. Throughout the metropolitan region, we have too little affordable housing
for poor and working‐class families, which perpetuates existing patterns of racial and
economic segregation.
One of the problems of residential segregation is that poor minority communities also have
the worst schools, the highest level of crime, the fewest jobs, and the fewest ways out of
poverty. It leads to a permanent underclass in which families are trapped in poverty for
generations.
Political Conditions
An elite class of businesspeople, politicians, and heads of major institutions have ruled the
city of Chicago for the last hundred and fifty years. An aristocracy of local businesspeople,
along with politicians have similarly run most suburbs.
Political machines first ruled the city after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The first political
boss was Michael Cassius McDonald, a gambler‐saloonkeeper who noticed the common
bonds between criminals and politicians and introduced them to each other. The first
machines served the rapidly growing ethnic communities in Chicago during the latter part of
the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth century.
The machines of Chicago have been both Republican and Democratic, suburban and inner‐
city. To understand them, we need to define our terms. As political scientists, we use the term
political machine to mean a permanent political organization or political party that is
characterized by patronage, favoritism, loyalty, and precinct work. They spawn patronage,
corruption, and inefficient costly governments. Machines provide certain payoffs for
supporters at all levels. They provide patronage jobs for their precinct workers, local
government services as favors to those voting for the party slate of candidates, and lucrative,
overpriced contracts for businesspeople who give large campaign contributions.
At the same time political change is occurring in the suburbs, the Chicago political system has
also been evolving. The Richard M. Daley regime, which combined remnants of the old
machine and elements of a new political machine, ended in 2011 with the election of Mayor
Rahm Emanuel. The first election of Rahm Emanuel in 2011 ushered in a new political era for
Chicago. During his terms as mayor from 2011‐2019, Mayor Emanuel successfully pushed a
neoliberal policy agenda through a very compliant rubber‐stamp city council. This policy
agenda earned him the label “Mayor 1%.” Emanuel’s critics argue that his policies
overwhelmingly benefited his friends in the business world while ignoring the needs of
average city residents. As detailed later in this book, public policies in Chicago have spawned
a long list of mutually beneficial relationships for the mayor and his top campaign
contributors.
As he “was forced to fight for his political life in the city’s first mayoral runoff” in 2015,
Emanuel did, however, shift “his policies slightly to the left on issues like a city minimum‐
wage increase and affordable housing requirements.”10 As he sought his second term as mayor
of Chicago, Emanuel argued he had made progress in “tackling underfunded worker
pensions, establishing a longer school day, cutting wasteful spending, slashing red tape and
finding the money to revitalize public transit.”11 His argument did not, however, persuade
most Chicagoans, who failed to give him a majority of their votes in the February 2015 election.
Forced into a humbling runoff election against Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy”
Garcia, Emanuel did eventually win the April 2015 runoff election, with 56 percent of the vote
to Garcia’s 44 percent.
Mayor Emanuel had only a few months to enjoy his second victory until protests broke out.
With the release of the Laquan McDonald police shooting videotape in December 2015, “Black
Lives Matter” protests came to Chicago. Demonstrations have continued since over the high
crime and murder rates in African American communities of the city. Crime has also spilled
over into white and Latino communities and even onto the expressways. Police abuse and
corruption with proven cases of white police officers caught on social media killing unarmed
blacks have fueled the discontent in Chicago and throughout the nation. These crises have
caused the firing of the Chicago police superintendent and the head of Independent Police
Review Authority (the police investigative unit); a scathing city task force report; and a full
investigation by the United States Department of Justice which led to a court consent decree
to fix the policing problem. Thus far, the “reforms” that have been adopted have been
inadequate to solve our high crime rates, instances of police abuse, corruption, and brutality.
However, with a new Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a new city council, and an enforceable consent
decree, the city is beginning to deal with both the crime and the police abuse problems anew.
Mayor Emanuel continued to rely on some of the same components of the Daley machine
models, but he had even more campaign contributions than Mayor Richard M. Daley from the
global economy, including significant amounts from outside of Chicago. Due to his previous
positions in the White House, Congress, and Wall Street, he has a major national network of
campaign contributors, unmatched by any previous contenders for the office. In 2015, Mayor
Emanuel and his PAC (Chicago Forward), spent more than $30 million in the preliminary and
Choosing Chicago’s Future | 11
runoff elections. By contrast, his challenger in the runoff election, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, and
his union allies spent only $4.6 million, far behind Emanuel.12 In the 2019 contest for mayor
between Toni Preckwinkle and Lori Lightfoot, the two top candidates in the runoff election
spent a total of $7.5 and $6.9 million dollars respectively. So it would seem that the cost of
running for mayor has dropped back to between $5‐10 million, rather than the high set by
Rahm Emanuel.
While previous Chicago machines relied on ward organizations and patronage armies to help
win elections, Mayor Emanuel did not fully establish this basis of support. Although Toni
Preckwinkle is Chairman of the Democratic Party of Cook County, she was not able to get
unified support of the party ward committeemen and precinct captains in her 2019 run for
mayor. The Democratic Party is still a force to be reckoned with, but it is no longer in absolute
control. In the coming reform era, it is likely to weaken further without patronage jobs at city
hall to provide its fuel and clout.
While in office, Mayor Rahm Emanuel continued Mayor Richard M. Daley’s policies of
catering to the affluent winners in a globalized economy. Some of the most recent amenities
designed for Chicago’s wealthy residents living in gentrified neighborhoods include: a bike‐
share program; farmers’ markets; a river walk; and the 606 elevated trail. Urban amenities like
sushi restaurants and bike and hiking paths are also important to Chicago’s global businesses,
seeking to attract young, innovative, and talented employees, who increasingly want to live
and work in the city. There are bold new plans begun during the Emanuel administration to
refurbish O’Hare airport, build the Obama Presidential Library, and create three major new
neighborhoods in Chicago, with more than 20,000 residents each.
Although the transformation began before Emanuel became mayor, Chicago has become two
cities: one for wealthy residents and tourists, with a gleaming downtown; and one for the
poor, with neglected and isolated neighborhoods. Chicago’s 2015 mayoral election was an
election of these two Chicagos. Emanuel’s runoff challenger, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, repeatedly
accused the mayor of turning his back on the city’s neighborhoods and ignoring the working
class and the poor residents of the city. While Garcia “was constantly seeking ways to
introduce himself to the electorate, Emanuel was recreating himself as a gentler person that
was learning to listen to people’s concerns and defining Chuy through negative commercials
as not prepared for the job.”13 In the end, Emanuel—and money—won.
However, the 2019 election proved to be about who could best curb corruption and bring
about positive changes for people living in the Chicago neighborhoods. It remains to be seen
if Lori Lightfoot can enact her progressive agenda now that she has been elected.
Governmental Conditions
The major governmental problem in the Chicago metropolitan region is that our governments
are fragmented, inefficient, and inequitable in their delivery of services to citizens. They are a
nineteenth‐century set of governments trying to cope with twenty‐first century problems.
12 | Twenty‐First Century Chicago
In Cook County, there are 540 separate units of government with the power to tax. There are
1,200 separate units of government dispersed throughout the metropolitan region. Chicagoans
pay property taxes to 7 governments, while suburbanites pay property taxes to as many as 17
separate government agencies. Strong political machines and strong bosses like Richard J.
Daley were originally needed to make this cumbersome governmental machinery work at all.
Today’s plethora of governments continues to inhibit accountability, efficiency, effectiveness,
and coordination.
The legislative branch of Chicago city government, the Chicago City Council, has remained a
rubber stamp at least over the last four decades, although there have been sparks of
independence in different years. From 2015–2019, the progressive caucus in the council has
consisted of eleven members.14 However, from 2017‐2019 aldermen voted with Mayor
Emanuel an average of 90% of the time on even divided roll call votes.
On May 20, 2019 a new mayor and more reform‐oriented city council was sworn into office.
This new city council includes six newly elected Democratic Socialists. Whether the old rubber
stamp city council will continue, or a divided city council such as the ones under Mayors
Washington and Sawyer will take hold is a major factor in the city’s future and its governance.
In addition, it is one thing for Chicago to elect a mayor promising reform, but it is quite
different for those reforms to be carried into practice in the face of major financial gaps and
entrenched problems like crime and underperforming schools.
Suburbs also need to improve and reform their local town and village councils. Many
suburban town councils vote unanimously on all legislation without any meaningful debate
or dissent. Virtually none of the 540 governments within Cook County boasts a really strong
and vital legislative branch that functions well. This must change if local governments in the
metropolitan region are to work well and democratically in the twenty‐first century.
In addition to rampant political corruption, patronage, and waste, our crazy quilt of
governments with taxing authority creates duplication and inefficiency. This is a fractured,
multilayered government that has grown up haphazardly over the last one hundred fifty
years. The 540 governments within Cook County include: the county itself, which is the
nineteenth‐largest government in the United States; 129 municipalities; 30 townships; and 380
special districts, such as the school, park, and library districts. Other districts include large
regional sectors like the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago and the
Regional Transportation Authority.
Our multiple local governments don’t have the ability, scope, or political will necessary for
comprehensive planning in the metropolitan region, and these overlapping governments
create inefficiencies. Any proposal to reduce inequalities, disparities, and inefficiencies by
creating a metropolitan government fails because there are almost no “metropolitan citizens”
who identify with the metropolitan region. Proposals for metropolitan government are
blocked by powerful political interests, racial tensions, and the suburban fear of being
governed by the Chicago machine.
Choosing Chicago’s Future | 13
One small improvement has been made in regional governance. NIPC (the Northeast Illinois
Planning Commission) and CATS (the Chicago Area Transportation System) were merged
into a single regional agency with a single staff, authority, and a larger budget. This agency is
called CMAP, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. However, CMAP has too few
powers to compel compliance with its plans by all the separate governments. Without real
money or power, it is not very effective in constructing a system of governance in the
metropolitan region.
The Chicagoland Mayor’s Caucus, while allowing for some coordination and cooperation
between Chicago and suburban towns, is forced to avoid contentious issues like expansion of
O’Hare Field or a new third regional airport. Like CMAP, the Mayor’s Caucus depends on
voluntary cooperation between multiple separate units of government that jealously guard
their powers.
Looming over all other governmental crises has been the budget and pension impasse in state
government. By June 2016, the state of Illinois had gone a year without a budget and has at
least a $10 billion dollar structural deficit. Eventually, the budget crisis was resolved and the
state got back to more normal budgets. But the state continues to have a pension deficit of
more than $100 billion dollars. All local governments have had similar budget and debt
problems, causing them to cut services, raise taxes, and confront pension debts they don’t have
the ability to pay.
2018 brought the election of a new Democratic governor and an overwhelming super‐majority
Democratic state legislature, so the tension between a Republican governor and a Democratic
state legislature has been resolved. The unified state government has at least been able to act.
However, it will take years to rebuild state government and to begin to implement a plan for
a more positive future.
We still face the worst financial crisis in Illinois since the Great Depression. This limits the
potential and future of Chicago and the state of Illinois.
Conclusion
In the new global economy and changing society, we face many challenges. While newly
elected Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Governor J. B. Pritzker have promised changes, significant
challenges remain. Certainly, the budget and financial crises are critical. In addition, there are
perennial problems—like racial segregation and income inequality—to be confronted.
However, the Chicago metropolitan region also has great strengths as the eighth most
important global city in the world and as one of the wealthiest economic regions. For us to
have a more positive future, we must begin by understanding our past and collectively
adopting a plan to implement our vision for the future. We, as citizens, can choose a more
positive future for our metropolitan region.
14 | Twenty‐First Century Chicago
2016, p. 18; and Brandon Campbell, “Decades After Civil Rights Act Study Shows Chicago Making Progress
But Still Segregated,” Inside‐Booster, March 16–22, 2016, pp. 1 and 6.
8 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/chicagocityillinois
9Anderson, Bendix. 2013. “Transforming Chicago’s Public Housing.” Urban Land Magazine, September 23.
10 Dardick, Hal, and John Byrne. 2015. “New Chicago City Council still driven by Emanuel agenda.” Chicago
Tribune, May 17.
11 Hinz, Greg, and Thomas A. Corfman. 2014. “Here’s What the Numbers Say About Rahm Emanuel.” Crain’s
…All of you here tonight stood with us when so many others said this day could never
happen. The field was too crowded, that there was no path for a new reformer without huge
donors amidst a pack of establishment figures. That I had some good ideas, but just couldn’t
win. And it’s true that it’s not every day that a little black girl in a low‐income family in an old
steel town grows up to make the runoff for mayor of the third‐largest city in the country…
…In my early days as a lawyer, on my way to being an assistant U.S. attorney, I was asked to
sign a loyalty oath to the government because my brother was a fugitive. As a black woman
leading the Police Board and paving the path forward through the Police Accountability Task
Force, I knew full‐well the devastating impacts of the criminal justice system on black and
brown families and communities. As a LGBTQ+ person, I thought about running for mayor
when no LGBTQ+ person had ever made the ballot. As a mayoral candidate, I traveled across
the city and saw people who look like me and families who struggle like mine in neighborhood
after neighborhood—struggling with repossessed cars and rising rent, with underfunded
neighborhood schools and gun violence on their block.
The way I see it, I’m not here despite … hardships, despite the odds: I’m here because my
personal and professional experiences have prepared me to lead this city with compassion,
integrity, and persistence. I’m here because I know how it feels to work multiple jobs but still
struggle to support a family. I know how it feels to have a brother incarcerated for most of his
adult life—I know the ripple effects on our entire family. I’m here because I know, on a deeply
personal level, that we need change.
April 2, 2019
Thank you, Chicago. From the bottom of my heart, thank you…. Today, you did more than
make history. You created a movement for change.
You know, when we started this journey eleven months ago, nobody gave us much of a
chance. We were up against powerful interests, a powerful machine and a powerful Mayor.
But I remembered something Martin Luther King said when I was very young. “Faith”, he
said, “is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”
Well, we couldn’t see the whole staircase when we started this journey, but we had faith. An
abiding faith in this city, in its people, and in its future. So, we took that first step. And as
Father Mike says, we let our faith overcome our fears. And look at where we are today. Just
15
16 | Twenty‐First Century Chicago
look at us. We still have faith. We still are determined and with this mandate for change, now
we’re going to take the next steps, together.
Together we can and will finally put the interests of our people, all of our people, ahead of the
interests of a powerful few. Together, we can and will make Chicago a place where your zip
code doesn’t determine your destiny. That means, we can and we will make our streets—all
of our streets—safe again.
We can and we will give every single one of our children—all of our children—access to the
high‐quality education they deserve. We can and we will give our neighborhoods—all of our
neighborhoods—the same time and attention that we give to the downtown.
And we won’t just invest in our neighborhoods. We can and will make sure our
neighborhoods, and our neighbors—all of our neighbors—are invested in each other. This is
not us versus them, or neighborhoods versus downtown. We are in this together and we will
grow together.
We can and we will build trust between our people and our brave police officers, so that
communities and police trust each other, not fear each other. We can and we will break this
city’s endless cycle of corruption, and never again, never, ever, allow politicians to profit from
their elected positions. Together, we can and will remake Chicago: thriving, prosperous,
better, stronger, fairer, for everyone.
Over the last eleven months, every single day I’ve been reminded, sometimes painfully, that
our campaign, our work, matters. I’ve seen the tears of mothers who’ve lost their children to
our city’s plague of senseless gun violence…. These mothers cried and then, with courage and
determination, turned their tears into a demand for change, setting up organizations like
Moms Demand Action.
Our duty as a city, as leaders, as neighbors, as people, is to stand with these mothers and
children and put an end to this gun violence once and for all. We must say: Enough is enough.
I’ve met small business owners who want to start or grow their businesses, but say it takes
two years just to get a permit, a license or a sign. These business owners are part of the
economic engine of our city. They serve their neighborhoods and create jobs, and they just
want a city government that’s a help, not a hindrance. It’s not too much to ask. So, we’re going
to help our small businesses and not stand in their way.
I’ve met families from our immigrant communities, people from Mexico, people from Central
and South America, people from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, people from all over the
world. And these people are scared. They’re scared of the climate of hate and fear, fanned and
promoted by a culture in Washington, D.C., and from the White House, in the capital of our
own country. They’re our neighbors, and they’re scared of a knock on their door in the middle
of the night, followed by agents coming in to haul them away.
Election Victory Speeches | 17
For one hundred fifty years, Chicago has welcomed generations of immigrants, from all over
the world and from all over America. They built this city and made it what it is today. Now,
it is our solemn duty as a city, as people, as neighbors, to stand up for our immigrant families,
to protect them, to stand against the hate, and to make sure Chicago is a place that will
welcome immigrants for the next hundred fifty years.
Recently, a student heading off to college asked me an important question. When I graduate,
he asked, “Why should I come back here to Chicago? What will you do in four years to
convince me to come back?” Questions like this are on a lot of people’s minds. Should I move
here? Should I stay? Our duty is to make sure the answer is a resounding YES. Everything,
literally everything, depends on it. A shrinking city, which is where we are right now, just will
not do. To thrive, Chicago must grow. It simply must.
And if we make our streets safer, our schools better, our neighborhoods stronger, our
businesses, large and small, more prosperous, then people will want to stay here, and they
will want move here. If we work together to solve our toughest challenges, Chicago will grow
again. We cannot afford to fail….
…In the Chicago we will build together we will celebrate our differences. We will embrace
our uniqueness. And we will make certain that we all have every opportunity to succeed Every
child out there should know this: Each of you, one day, can be the Mayor of Chicago.
One day, you will stand on my shoulders as I stand on the shoulders of so many others. The
shoulders of strong black women like Ida B. Wells, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Annie Ruth
Lowery. The shoulders of LGBTQ+ trailblazers like Dr. Ron Sable, Vernita Gray, and Art
Johnston. The shoulders of political giants like the late great Mayor Harold Washington.
And you will stand on the shoulders of your families, just as I have…
…My friends grab the hand of the person next to you. You may be strangers, but in this room,
in this city, we are all neighbors. I want you to feel the power of unity, neighbor to neighbor,
that comes when we unite, and join together as one Chicago, indivisible, and united for all.
When I was a little girl, I remember singing the song...”This little light of mine …I’m gonna
let it shine.” We’ve said it’s time to bring in the light. And it’s sure shining on all of us tonight.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. Thank you very much. God bless you all.
19
Race and Class
Introduction
Class and racial discrimination and stratification are found in most of our nation’s
metropolitan areas. Chicago is no exception. As discussed in this section’s articles, race and
class are intertwined. Although no longer the most segregated city in the United States, ten of
Chicago’s poorest fifteen neighborhoods are at least 94% African American.1
Residential segregation, all too common throughout the Chicagoland area, leaves citizens,
mostly minorities, confined to ghettos with underperforming schools and few job
opportunities. Throughout our metropolitan region we find vast “racial inequalities in
housing, employment, resources, economic development, health, poverty, violence, and
education.”2 As early as the 1960s, demographer Pierre de Vise and sociologist William Julius
Wilson studied the connection between the race and poverty. De Vise found that the ten
poorest communities in the 1960s were all in the inner city and all black. The ten richest were
all suburban, mostly north suburban, and all white communities. Two decades later, in 1980,
sociologist William Julius Wilson found patterns of poverty and segregation in Chicago had
remained unchanged since the 1960s. Updating Wilson’s work to the 2010 censuses finds
poverty is moving further south and west from the original ghettos, and becoming slightly
less concentrated. Still today, the basic patterns of segregation, poverty, and wealth in
metropolitan Chicago remain essentially the same as when de Vise and Wilson first studied
them.
The problem of spatial racism in Chicago was addressed by Chicago’s Archbishop Cardinal
Francis George in 2001, who argued that,
The face of racism looks different today than it did thirty years ago. Overt racism is
easily condemned, but the sin is often with us in more subtle forms...Spatial racism
refers to patterns of metropolitan development in which some affluent whites create
racially and economically segregated suburbs or gentrified areas of cities, leaving the
poor—mainly African Americans, Hispanics and some newly arrived immigrants—
isolated in deteriorating areas of the cities and older suburbs.3
In 2013, reporter Steve Bogira examined “some of the quality‐of‐life indicators” we would
have “hoped would improve for black Americans” in Chicago since the 1960s.4 Detailed
below, Bogira found in Chicago there was little progress and little improvement.
Neighborhood segregation, poverty, and inequality, commonplace in the civil rights era, has
persisted from generation to generation in Chicago.
21
22 | Twenty‐First Century Chicago
Chicago’s racial and economic disparities limit access to opportunity. This was compounded
by the 2008 recession, which hit the poor, the young, the uneducated and minorities the
hardest. In 2000, 19.6% of Chicagoans had incomes below the federal poverty level.5 By 2013,
poverty had increased to 23% in the city, with 10% of our residents living in extreme poverty.
Since then economic recovery in the Chicago metropolitan region has been uneven. In some
cases the disparities noted by Bogira have gotten even worse. By 2017, the median income was
up to $70,960 for whites, but only $30,303 for African Americans.6 African American median
income was 62% that of whites in 1960, 50% in 2010 and less than 43% in 2017. The losses
realized by African‐Americans in many cases were not only not regained, but put them in a
worse position than before the recession.
In some neighborhoods on Chicago’s south and west sides, over half of residents live in
poverty. Zip codes affect access to things that affect quality of life. A recent study found that
life expectancy in Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods is as much as 30 years shorter than that in
its richest—the largest gap in the United States.7 Poorer neighborhoods do not have the same
access to healthcare: less than a quarter of all hospitals in Chicago are located on the south
side. There was not even an adult trauma center until 2018, when community activism led the
University of Chicago Hospital to re‐open after being closed for decades.8
Introduction | 23
SOURCE: Singleton, Judith and Euan Hague. 2016 Inequality In Life Expectancy in Chicago
Neighborhoods: Can Active Transportation Make a Difference? DePaul University.
Chicago’s Riverdale community, located on the far south side of the city, has a life expectancy
between 60 and 68 years, one of the lowest in the city. It also has an African‐American
population of 94%, one of the highest, and a median income of $14,287, the lowest. The poverty
rate is over 60% and many of those in poverty are children.9 Unemployment, at 36%, is more
than seven times the rest of Chicago.10 In our world class global city, another Chicago lies in
the shadows. By contrast, many white north side neighborhoods with greater wealth and
income have life expectancies between 83 and 90 years of age.
The racial divide in Chicago and its suburbs is paralleled by an income and wealth divide. The
Voorhees Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago has documented there are now three
Chicago’s. High‐income Chicago is concentrated on the north side of the city and just west
and south of the loop. Poor Chicago is concentrated on the south and west sides of the city,
where the housing projects and Black ghettoes existed; and finally, a shrinking middle‐income
Chicago is sandwiched on the far northwest and southwest sides. Today, middle‐income
Chicago only includes 16% of the city’s census tracks. This becomes ever more stark as income
24 | Twenty‐First Century Chicago
inequality between the rich and the poor in the Chicago metropolitan region has doubled
between 1970 and 2017. In Chicago, the top 1% earn over $600,000 per year, while 21% of
Chicagoans live in poverty.11 The rich are very rich, and the poor very poor.
In the three Chicago’s documented by the Voorhees Center in this section, affordable housing
is quickly disappearing for both the squeezed out and shrinking middle class, and those living
in and at the margins of poverty. In Chicago, the “median rent for a one‐bedroom apartment
in the city tops $1,600.”12 The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) provides apartments in
public housing and housing vouchers to eligible low‐income families. While demand has
always exceeded supply at CHA, the gap has become more pronounced during former Mayor
Rahm Emanuel’s tenure, who was criticized for the underutilization of CHA resources and
sitting on a surplus of $440 million dollars.13
In 2014, the CHA opened its public housing wait list for the first time since 2010; and its
voucher wait list for the first time since 2008.14 More than 280,000 households applied for
these coveted spots on the CHA wait list. Yet, many who did get spots on the 2014 CHA wait
list are still waiting. In Chicago, the average wait time for CHA rent subsidies is ten years, in
contrast to the national wait time average of 12‐24 months.15 According to the CHA, “ninety‐
seven percent of the people receiving housing assistance are black or Latino, and 85 percent
are women… Some 15,000 families on the list are homeless.”16
In recent years, Chicago has experienced a reverse migration, with blacks leaving the city in
significant numbers. Chicago’s black population decreased by 24 percent from 2000 to 2017,
“going from more than one million in 2000 to just under 800,000 in 2017.”17 No longer simply
a white and black city, one of the biggest changes in recent decades has been the increasing
Latino population in Chicago. In 2017, Latinos officially became the largest minority in the
city, accounting for about 803,000 of the city’s 2.7 million.18 About three quarters are Mexican
or of Mexican decent. Metropolitan Chicago also hosts the eighth largest Asian American
population in the United States, as they now number 450,000 or 5.4% of the total population.
Latinos now comprise about 31% of the city’s population and an ever‐increasing proportion
in our suburbs. While the increasing presence of Latino and Asian American populations has
transformed the Chicago metropolitan region into a more multi‐cultural, multi‐racial, and
multi‐ethnic city, it has not been an easy transformation. Rather, as discussed in the articles
that follow, it has been hampered by polarized political debates centered on immigration
status.
Shortly after winning the runoff election in 2019, Mayor Lightfoot announced she was
establishing a new Office of Racial Equity and Racial Justice which is “tasked with creating
and advancing new policies and practices through the lens of equity.”19 While it will take more
than one office to reverse Chicago’s long legacy of persistent racism, it is hoped Chicago’s
second female, second African‐American, and first lesbian mayor will make addressing the
city’s structural inequalities a priority.
Introduction | 25
1 Segregation in Chicago 2006, Center for Urban Research and Learning at Loyola University Chicago Loyola
University. Chicago, IL http://www.luc.edu/curl/cfm40/data/minisynthesis.pdf
2 Moore, Natalie. 2019. “What Can Chicago Do About The Racist Effects Of Segregation? Look To Other
4 Bogira, Steve. 2013. “A Dream Unrealized for African‐Americans in Chicago.” Chicago Reader. August
21. http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/african‐american‐percentage‐poverty‐unemployment‐schools‐
segregation/Content?oid=10703562
5 Social IMPACT Research Centerʹs analysis of the U.S. Census Bureauʹs 2000 Decennial Census and 2007‐2011
7 Schenker, Lisa. “Chicago Life Spans Very By 30 Years: New Analysis of Neighborhoods Shows Largest Gap
1, 2018.
9 CMAP. “Community Data Snapshot.” 2017. Retrieved on June 7, 2019 from
https://www.cmap.illinois.gov/documents/10180/126764/Riverdale.pdf.
10 Semuels, Alana. “Chicago’s Awful Divide.” The Atlantic. March 28, 2018.
11 “Chicago’s Wealth Divide.” Crain’s Chicago Business. 2017. Retrieved June 7, 2019 from
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/static/section/chicagos‐wealth‐divide.html
12 KaiElz. 2015. “Garcia: Misuse of CHA funds shows Emanuel’s wrong priorities for affordable housing.”
Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars With Massive Waitlist.” Huffington Post. March 18.
17 Saunders, Pete. 2019. “Is Chicago’s legacy of segregation causing a reverse Great Migration?” Chicago Reader.
19 Moore, Natalie. 2019. “What Can Chicago Do About The Racist Effects Of Segregation? Look To Other
The saga of the Halsted Street neighborhood was started a hundred years ago
with Jane Addams’ Hull House trying to offer an alternative to the cycles of
immigrant poverty. It continues with the story of how the present day
university has now gobbled up the old neighborhood. In between, Florence
Scala tells us how it happened that a neighborhood, rich in tradition and
heritage, was replaced by a university with an urban mission.
Halsted street has grown so familiar during 20 years of residence that it is difficult to recall its
gradual changes ‐ the withdrawal of the more prosperous Irish and Germans, and the slow
substitution of Russian Jews, Italians and Greeks.
Halsted street is 32 miles long, and one of the great thoroughfares of Chicago; Polk Street
crosses it midway between the stockyards to the south and the shipbuilding yards on the north
branch of the Chicago River. For the six miles between these two industries the street is lined
with shops of butchers and grocers, with dingy and gorgeous saloons, and pretentious
establishments for the sale of ready‐made clothing....
Hull House once stood in the suburbs, but the city has steadily grown up around it and its site
now has corners on three or four foreign colonies. Between Halsted street and the [Chicago
River] live about ten thousand Italians ‐ Neapolitans, Sicilians, and Calabrians, with an
occasional Lombard or Venetion. To the south on Twelfth Street are many Germans, and side
streets are given over almost entirely to Polish and Russian Jews. Still farther south, these
Jewish colonies merge into a huge Bohemian colony, so vast that Chicago ranks as the third
Bohemian city in the world. To the northwest are many Canadian‐French, clannish in spite of
their long residence in America, and to the north are Irish and first‐generation Americans. On
the streets directly west and farther north are well‐to‐do English‐speaking families, many of
27
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
— C’est exaspérant, Janet, purement exaspérant. Tout le monde
le sait, j’ai eu le bon droit pour moi d’un bout à l’autre, mais… mais je
ne peux pas leur pardonner. Oui, le bon droit que donne la sagesse ;
et tout autre que moi aurait porté les devis à huit cents. Notre
capitaine était Hay… vous avez dû le rencontrer. Ils le firent passer
sur le Torgau, et m’ordonnèrent de m’occuper du Breslau sous les
ordres du jeune Bannister. Notez qu’il y avait eu de nouvelles
élections au Conseil. Les parts s’étaient vendues de côté et d’autre,
et la majeure partie de la direction était inconnue de moi. L’ancien
conseil ne m’aurait jamais fait cela. Il avait confiance en moi. Mais le
nouveau voulait tout réorganiser, et le jeune Steiner (le fils de
Steiner), le Juif, en était l’âme. Ils ne crurent pas utile de m’avertir.
La première chose que j’en sus (et j’étais mécanicien principal !) fut
le programme des voyages d’hiver de la compagnie, et que la
marche du Breslau était réglée à seize jours d’un port à l’autre.
Seize jours, mon cher ! C’est un bon bateau, mais dix-huit jours c’est
sa marche d’été, voyez-vous. C’était de l’absurdité pure et simple, et
je le déclarai au jeune Bannister.
— Il nous faut y arriver, me dit-il. Vous n’auriez pas dû donner un
devis de trois cents livres.
— Prétendent-ils que leurs bateaux vont marcher avec l’air du
temps ? dis-je. Ils sont fous, à la direction.
— Dites-leur ça vous-même, qu’il dit. Moi, j’ai une femme, et mon
quatrième gosse est en train à l’heure qu’il est, d’après elle.
— Un garçon… à cheveux roux, interrompit Janet.
Elle-même a les cheveux de ce superbe roux doré qui s’accorde
avec un teint de nacre.
— Ma parole, j’étais en colère, ce jour-là ! Outre que j’aimais ce
vieux Breslau, je m’attendais à un peu de considération de la part du
comité, après vingt ans de service. Il y avait réunion des directeurs
le mercredi, et je passai la nuit précédente dans la salle de la
machine, à prendre des croquis pour appuyer mes dires. Eh bien, je
leur exposai la chose à eux tous, clair et net. « Messieurs, leur dis-je,
j’ai fait marcher le Breslau pendant dix-huit saisons, et je ne crois
pas qu’on ait une faute à me reprocher dans mon service. Mais si
vous vous en tenez à ce programme (j’agitai l’avis devant eux), ce
programme dont je n’ai jamais entendu parler avant de le lire à mon
petit déjeuner, je vous le garantis sur mon honneur professionnel, le
bateau ne le remplira pas. Ou plutôt si, il y réussirait pour un temps,
mais à un risque tel qu’aucun homme dans son bon sens ne voudrait
le courir. »
« — Pourquoi diable croyez-vous que nous avons accepté vos
devis ? demanda le vieux Holdock. Mon brave, vous dépensez
l’argent comme de l’eau.
« — Je m’en remets au comité, dis-je, de savoir si deux cent
quatre-vingt-sept livres pour huit mois dépassent en rien la raison et
l’équité.
« J’aurais pu épargner mon souffle, car depuis la dernière
élection le comité avait été renouvelé, et ils restaient là, ces sacrés
chasseurs de dividende d’armateurs, sourds comme les vipères de
l’Écriture.
« — Il nous faut tenir nos engagements vis-à-vis du public, me
dit le jeune Steiner.
« — Tenez plutôt vos engagements vis-à-vis du Breslau, lui dis-
je. Il vous a servi loyalement, vous et votre père avant vous. Il aurait
besoin, pour commencer, d’un carénage et de nouvelles tôles de
fondation, et qu’on remplace ses chaudières avant, et qu’on réalèse
les trois cylindres, et qu’on refasse tous les guides. C’est l’affaire de
trois mois.
« — Parce qu’un de nos employés a peur ? dit le jeune Steiner. Il
faudrait peut-être aussi un piano dans la cabine du mécanicien
principal ?
« Je pétris ma casquette entre mes doigts, et rendis grâces à
Dieu d’être sans enfants et avec quelques économies. Je repris :
« — Messieurs, vous m’entendez. Si l’on fait du Breslau un
bateau à seize jours, vous pouvez chercher un autre mécanicien.
« — Bannister ne nous a pas fait d’objections, dit Holdock.
« — Je parle pour moi seul, dis-je. Bannister a des enfants.
Et alors je perdis patience :
« — Libre à vous d’envoyer le bateau en enfer aller et retour, si
vous payez le pilotage, dis-je, mais il ira sans moi.
« — Voilà de l’insolence, dit le jeune Steiner.
« — Vous pouvez vous considérer comme renvoyé. Il nous faut
maintenir la discipline chez nos employés, dit le vieux Holdock.
« Et il regarda les autres directeurs pour voir s’ils étaient de son
avis. Ils ne se rendirent pas compte (Dieu leur pardonne !) et d’un
signe de tête ils m’expulsèrent de la compagnie… après vingt ans…
oui, après vingt ans !
« Je sortis et m’assis auprès du concierge du vestibule, pour
rassembler mes esprits. Je pense bien que j’injuriai le comité. Alors
le vieux MacRimmon (de la MacRimmon et MacNaughton) sortit de
son bureau, qui est sur le même palier, et me considéra, en
soulevant une de ses paupières avec son index. Vous savez qu’on
l’appelle le Diable aveugle, mais il n’est rien moins qu’aveugle, et ne
se montra aucunement diable dans ses procédés avec moi…
MacRimmon de la ligne Black Bird.
« — Qu’est-ce que c’est, maître MacPhee ? me dit-il.
« J’étais alors incapable d’argumenter.
« — C’est un mécanicien principal sacqué après vingt ans de
service, parce qu’il ne veut pas risquer le Breslau à suivre le nouvel
horaire, et allez au diable, MacRimmon, lui dis-je.
« Le vieux fronça ses lèvres en sifflotant.
« — Ah oui, fit-il, le nouvel horaire. Je comprends !
« Il entra, clopinant, dans la salle du conseil que je venais de
quitter, et son chien Dandie, qui est le digne conducteur de cet
aveugle, resta avec moi. C’était là une circonstance providentielle.
Au bout d’une minute il fut de retour.
« — Vous avez jeté votre pain à l’eau, MacPhee, et allez au
diable, me dit-il. Où est mon chien ? Il est sur vos genoux ? Ma
parole, il a plus de discernement qu’un Juif. Qu’est-ce qui vous a
pris, d’injurier votre conseil d’administration, MacPhee ? Cela coûte
cher.
« — Le Breslau leur coûtera encore plus cher, dis-je… (Et au
chien :) Va-t’en de mes genoux, flagorneuse bête.
« — Les coussinets chauffent, hein ? me dit MacRimmon. Il y a
trente ans que quelqu’un n’a osé m’injurier en face. Il fut un temps
où je vous aurais jeté à bas des escaliers pour cette insolence.
« — Pardonnez-la-moi ! dis-je. (Il allait sur ses quatre-vingts ans,
à ma connaissance.) J’ai eu tort, MacRimmon. Mais quand on se
voit mettre à la porte pour avoir fait son devoir évident, on n’est pas
toujours poli.
« — Je comprends ça, dit MacRimmon. Un cargo affréteur vous
répugnerait-il ? Vous n’aurez que quinze livres par mois, mais on dit
que le Diable aveugle nourrit ses gens mieux que d’autres. Il s’agit
de mon Kite. Va bien. Remerciez plutôt Dandie que voici. Je ne tiens
pas aux remerciements… Mais enfin, ajouta-t-il, qu’est-ce qui vous a
pris de donner votre démission chez Holdock ?
« — Le nouvel horaire, dis-je. Le Breslau n’y résistera pas.
« — Ta, ta, ta. Vous n’aviez qu’à le forcer un peu… assez pour
montrer que vous le poussiez… et l’amener au port avec deux jours
de retard. Quoi de plus simple que de dire que vous aviez ralenti à
cause des coussinets, hein ? Tous mes gens le font… et je les crois.
« — MacRimmon, dis-je, quel prix une jeune fille attache-t-elle à
sa virginité ?
« Sa figure parcheminée se contracta et il se tortilla dans son
fauteuil.
« — C’est tout au monde pour elle, dit-il. Mon Dieu, oui, tout au
monde. Mais qu’avons-nous à faire, vous ou moi, avec la virginité, à
notre âge ?
« — Ceci, dis-je. Chacun de nous a toujours une chose, dans
son métier ou sa profession, qu’il refusera de faire sous n’importe
quel prétexte. Si je marche à l’horaire, je marche à l’horaire, sauf
toutefois les risques de mer. Moins que cela, devant Dieu, je ne l’ai
pas fait. Plus que cela, par Dieu, je ne veux pas le faire. Il n’est pas
un tour du métier que je ne connaisse…
« — Je l’ai ouï dire, fit MacRimmon, sec comme un biscuit.
« — Mais quant à ce qui est de courir loyalement, c’est sacré
pour moi, vous entendez. Je ne truque pas avec ça. Pousser des
machines faibles, n’est qu’une ruse loyale ; mais ce que la direction
me demande, c’est de tricher, avec en outre le risque d’entraîner
mort d’homme. Vous remarquerez que je connais mon affaire.
« Nous causâmes encore un peu, et huit jours après je m’en
allais à bord du Kite, cargo de la Black Bird, deux mille cinq cents
tonnes, compound normal. Plus chargé il voguait, mieux il faisait
route. Je lui ai fait rendre jusqu’à neuf nœuds, mais sa juste
moyenne était de huit nœuds trois. Bonne nourriture à l’avant et
meilleure à l’arrière, toutes les demandes de matériel admises sans
notes marginales, le meilleur charbon, des servo-moteurs neufs, et
de bons matelots. Le vieux accordait tout ce qu’on voulait, excepté
de la peinture. C’était par là qu’il péchait. On lui aurait plutôt tiré sa
dernière dent que de la peinture. Quand il s’en venait au bassin, où
ses bateaux faisaient scandale tout le long du quai, il geignait et
pleurait en disant qu’ils avaient aussi bon air qu’il pouvait le désirer.
Chaque armateur, je l’ai observé, a son nec plus ultra. La peinture
était celui de MacRimmon. Mais on pouvait se tenir autour de ses
machines sans risquer sa vie, et tout aveugle qu’il fût, je l’ai vu sur
un signe de moi refuser coup sur coup cinq « intermédiaires » fêlés,
et ses aménagements à bestiaux pouvaient affronter le Nord-
Atlantique en saison d’hiver. Vous savez ce que cela veut dire ?
MacRimmon et la ligne Black Bird, que Dieu les bénisse !
« Ah ! j’oubliais de vous dire que le Kite avait beau se coucher
jusqu’à enfoncer sous l’eau son pont avant, il fonçait dans une
bourrasque de vingt nœuds quarante-cinq à la minute, à trois nœuds
et demi à l’heure, et ses machines tournaient avec la régularité d’une
respiration d’enfant endormi. Le capitaine était Bell, et bien qu’il n’y
ait pas grande sympathie entre équipages et armateurs, nous
raffolions du vieux Diable aveugle et de son chien, et je pense que
lui-même nous aimait. Il valait au delà de deux millions de livres, et
n’avait ni parents ni amis. Et pour un homme seul, l’argent est une
chose terrible… quand on en a trop.
« J’avais fait faire deux voyages aller et retour au Kite, quand on
apprit l’accident du Breslau, tout comme je l’avais prophétisé. Son
mécanicien était Calder (il n’est pas capable de mener un
remorqueur sur le Solent), et Calder fit tant et si bien que la machine
s’enleva de ses fondations et retomba en vrac, à ce que j’appris. Le
bâtiment s’emplit donc, du presse-étoupe arrière à la cloison arrière,
et resta à contempler les étoiles, avec ses soixante-dix-neuf
passagers qui braillaient dans le salon. A la fin le Camaralzaman, de
la ligne Carthagène de Ramsey et Gold, lui donna la remorque au
prix de cinq mille sept cent quarante livres plus les frais devant le
tribunal de l’Amirauté. Il était désemparé, vous comprenez, et hors
d’état d’affronter le moindre coup de temps. Cinq mille sept cent
quarante livres, plus les frais, et sans compter une nouvelle
machine ! Ils auraient mieux fait de me garder… avec l’ancien
horaire.
« Mais malgré cela, les nouveaux directeurs continuaient à faire
des économies. Le jeune Steiner, le Juif, était le plus acharné. Ils
sacquaient à tort et à travers les hommes qui ne voulaient pas
manger la saleté que leur donnait la compagnie. Ils réduisaient les
réparations ; ils nourrissaient les équipages de restes et de fonds de
magasins ; et prenant le contre-pied de la méthode de MacRimmon,
ils cachaient les défectuosités de leurs bateaux sous de la peinture
et de l’or adhésif. Quem Deus vult perdere dementat [24] , vous
connaissez.
[24] Dieu rend fous ceux qu’il veut perdre.