The Humor of George Ade

Which, in a foreign language, would mean: A complaint was made by a do-gooder that I solicited a bribe from him, but just when it appeared that I would be fired, my sponsor intervened in my behalf, and the complaint was suppressed in City Hall.

Ade wrote several columns depicting everyday life in the city and environs, the first called "Stories of the Street and of the Town." In them he depicted the people in there own language, and was an early practitioner of realistic fiction that was also often parady and satire. Since Chicago is a political town par excellence, his satire often involves the people's-eye view of city politics. The following is an excerpt from his series of columns entitled "Fables in Slang." They date from the mid 1890's through about 1908, the date of the last First Ward Ball that I mentioned at the top of this paper. It was a time of political heyday, in which sides changed frequently and patronage battles were waged over control of large municipal franchises, especially that of the cable car franchise leased by entrepreneur Charles Yerkes. Yerkes owned the city council and was cheaply leased the rights to build a large transit empire. A reform movement finally captured City Hall, reform meaning that the new aldermen had different thoughts about how the graft pie should be distributed. At a crucial council vote on extending Yerkes' franchise, his opponents lined the balcony of City Hall and swung nooses ominously over the heads of aldermen who had been bought by Yerkes. One alderman, knowing the value of his vote, held out for the highest bidder, and just as his name was coming up on the roll one of Yerkes' opponents placed an envelope with ten crisp bills inside on his desk. On the outside of the envelope was written, $1,000. The alderman voted against the franchise. When he looked in the envelope, he found that the bills were tens, not hundreds. No doubt there was many a good laugh in the back rooms of City Hall over that little joke.

Having set the mood of the period, let me read Ade's Fable, entitled "The Fable of What Our Public Schools and the Primary System Did for a Poor but Ambitious Youth." (unfortunately, the story is too long to be included here. It is collected in Ade's "Fables in Slang")

'Nah, I don't need a building permit - I got clout in City Hall.'

The tension between admiration and detestation is obvious here, as is the tone of irony and cynicism. These are two modes that are indispensible to the satirist. Royko created a character, Slats Grobnick, whose opinions he lampooned as those of the average Chicawgoan. Inventing characters to speak for the author, and especially to represent real political figures, is the satirists stock-in-trade.

What satirist could capture the scene in which Hizzonner was accused, at a city council meeting, by an alderman who also taught at a local college, of engaging in nepotism for giving city insurance business to his sons. The Mayor's face turned purple. He cried, "Professor, you wouldn't use language like that if you had children of your own." Mayor Daley in many ways epitomizes what was and is best and worst in Chicago politics. He was loyal to his friends, his neighbors, his neighborhood, and his family. In the traditional style of machine politics, you give jobs to those who need it, and you take care of your own. Of course, he was also bigoted, vindictive, narrow-visioned, and subjugated all other civic interests to the interests of the party organization, his organization. He came to symbolize Chicago politics in his person. And he leads me, by this circuitous route, to my purportive topic today.

Some topics in this essay:
Kenneth Burke, City Hall, Mayor Daley's, City Hall', Fables Slang, James Thompson, Republican Actually, Mayor Daley, Ward Ball, Ira Crouch, chicago political, city hall, ward ball, object satire, chicago politics, chicago political humor, bathhouse john, changed ade's, lincoln park, iron fence, seeks preserve,