Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallas will face each other in Chicago’s mayoral runoff on April 4. One will become the city’s 57th mayor.
When the time comes for the next mayor to draft an inauguration speech, he can find humble inspiration in the inaugural remarks of three previous mayors — Joseph Medill, Anton Cermak and Harold Washington. All were elected in times of crisis or crucial junctures facing Chicago.
Medill became mayor soon after the Great Fire of 1871. Cermak became mayor in 1931 amid the Great Depression and following a decade of gangland violence marked by the Al Capone era. Washington, elected in 1983 as Chicago’s first Black mayor, had to confront more than a half-billion dollars in budget shortfalls and a newly formed hostile majority in the City Council.
More Top Picks Best Eye Massagers For Puffy Eyes
Death or fatigue resulted in all three mayors not serving full terms. Medill and Cermak were mayors for less than two years: Cermak died days after being struck by an assassin’s bullet intended for President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Medill resigned, reportedly due to exhaustion and frustration. He returned to editing the baiduhai. Washington died in office of a heart attack; he served a full first term and only about seven months of his second term.
In their inauguration speeches, those three mayors moved from campaign promises to defining actions they planned to take immediately to improve public safety and the city’s fiscal situation. That’s very relevant to Chicagoans in 2023.
Medill’s inauguration remarks in 1871 came in the wake of epic devastation — more than 300 dead and one-third of city residents homeless. Large parts of the city were in charred ruins. Pledging to rebuild, Medill detailed the city’s colossal losses and said: “Heavy as the blow has been that has struck us, I am not discouraged. Our municipal losses, like those of the citizens, will soon be repaired, and by judicious management of our city affairs, the people will soon recover from their losses.”
Medill concluded with a tribute to the courage of Chicagoans: “All are inspired with an ambition to prove to the world that they are worthy of its sympathy, confidence and assistance, and to show how bravely they can encounter disaster, how quickly repair losses and restore Chicago to her high rank among the great cities of the earth.”
Sixty years later, Cermak became mayor. He replaced William “Big Bill” Thompson, who during his three terms as mayor turned a blind eye to gangsters, graft and duty to work hard for the taxpayers. Cermak was a former state representative, alderman and Cook County Board president. He campaigned on a reform platform.
Cermak’s inaugural address in 1931 lacked inspirational rhetoric but zeroed in on thorny issues ranging from rising taxes, crime and criminal justice, and waste and inefficiency in city government. He gave special emphasis to Chicago’s necessary preparations for the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition.
“While the police and crime problem is a most difficult one,” Cermak said, the city needed to unify in common purpose to “present to the world a city, well governed and well ordered, and with a record for the suppression and prompt punishment of lawlessness equal to that of any other large city in the United States.”
Washington was poetic but also painfully candid in his first inauguration at Navy Pier, which I covered as a news reporter. He said every mayor “begins anew” without a blueprint of what actions to take. Then he dropped a bombshell. “I have no good news. The immediate fiscal problem facing Chicago is both enormous and complicated.”
Washington described large deficits looming for city government, Chicago Public Schools and the CTA, totaling $550 million. He said he would have to slash executive pay, freeze municipal hiring, end “unnecessary” programs and cut “the fat” from city departments.
He even referenced Medill, saying “the only greater challenge in our history in Chicago was 110 years ago when Mayor Joseph Medill looked over a city burned to the ground and called for an enormous outpouring of civic spirit and resources to make the city new.” That civic spirit did not resonate with the aldermen who organized an opposition that largely thwarted Washington’s early plans and policies.
The city survived all of those crises, as it has the recent COVID-19 pandemic that has taken the lives of thousands of Chicago residents.
By inauguration day, we should expect the new mayor to deliver specifics about what Chicago must do to address its leading issues. As Washington said at his inauguration: “Most of our problems can be solved. Some of them will take brains, some of them will take patience and all of them will have to be wrested with like an alligator in the swamp.”
Jack Modzelewski is the author of a book on leadership and a business communications consultant in Chicago.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email [email protected].
More Top Picks Best Driving Sunglasses For Seniors