Day after St. Pat's, it's time to ponder luck of the Irish

Web-posted: Tuesday, March 18, 1997

liked St. Patrick's Day much better before scholars and pundits took to pondering its significance and analyzing the role of the Irish in American life. When the whole idea of the celebration was to give City Hall a day off so politicians could strut on State Street and their admirers could get drunk.

Now panels of experts gather on TV to talk about why the Irish have had such remarkable political success in big multi-ethnic cities such as Chicago and New York.

This question has been kicked around for years and the answers aren't at all complicated until academic types try to complicate them.

First, there is language. When the great waves of immigrants came here in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, the Irish had the advantage of being able to speak English. Not only speak it, but with a charming and musical brogue.

This meant they could get jobs that required their talking to people and understanding what was being said to them.

That was no small leg up in the unskilled job market. My favorite example of what it could lead to was a young man who got off the boat in New York and immediately boarded a train to Chicago. He was met at the station by relatives who took him -- not home -- but directly to the Maxwell Street police station, where he was given a uniform, a badge and a gun, and put on the Police Department payroll.

Then he was taken to a nearby intersection, where he went to work directing traffic only hours after arriving here.

Eventually, he rose to captain and district commander, with all the clout that went with those ranks.

There was another young man who landed a job as a conductor on the streetcars, a prized job for many Irish immigrants.

He later laughed about how he palmed nickels and dimes until he had stashed away enough to pay a politician to get him on the Police Department.

In time, he became a renowned robbery detective, a sergeant, a lieutenant and a captain, and when he retired he was the superintendent of police.

That was not an uncommon story in the Police and Fire Departments, the many jobs in City Hall, county government and anywhere else political clout could get someone on a payroll or in one of the building trades unions.

Of course, to have political clout, they had to win elections and hold the political offices. And that is where loathing and distrust became great assets for the Irish.

Of all the immigrant groups that came to Chicago, they were the only one that didn't bring with them the baggage of Old Country wars and hatreds.

Just about all the other groups had, at one time or another, marched across their neighbors' borders, shot at, oppressed, looted and pillaged each other.

So when they looked at names on ballots, they could recognize the ethnicity of candidates and were likely to say: "Why should I vote for that bum. His people rode in and burned down my village and stole my grandfather's best ox."

But Ireland was so busy being oppressed by the English, it didn't have the time or inclination to get involved in Europe's many crazy conflicts.

So with all the ethnic and racial distrust and loathing in Chicago, the Irish politicians became the compromise of choice. Sure, the English hated them, and the Irish reciprocated, but so what? The English in Chicago found politics too grubby and moved to the suburbs as soon as they stole enough to afford it.

To this day, an Irish name is an asset on the ballot. Candidates for judge have been known to change their names to something Irish sounding in order to get elected. I know one judge who was elected despite being found less than qualified by the various bar rating groups and having virtually no organizational support. But he has a fine Irish name, although he is black. I'm not sure, though, if he marched in this year's parade.

Part of that mystique flows from the kindly way the Irish have been treated by Hollywood.

Take John Wayne. He liked having Irish names in the heroic roles he played, as did other Hollywood stars.

When John Wayne played the lead character in a movie called "McClintock," it probably never crossed his mind to call the movie and hero "Ginzberg," "Svenson," "Papadopoulis" or "Brzezinski."

During prohibition days, the Irish bootleg gangs in Chicago were just as murderous and corrupt as any others. They tried hard and would have become the city's dominant gangsters had not Al Capone's lads been more efficient shooters.

But who do we see in the gray fedoras in all the gangster movies, from the old-time "Scarface" to the modern "Godfather" and "Wise Guys" films? It's one snarling Italian mobster after another. Unless, for a change of pace, the producers decide to give us Hispanic or black drug dealers.

The best thing about St. Patrick's Day is that it gives us an extra New Year's Eve in the early spring. In fact, it is better than New Year's Eve because the restaurants can't jack up the prices for a plate of corned beef and cabbage and beer dyed green.

The worst part is the rather boastful and patronizing statement: "There are only two kinds of people--those who are Irish and those who wish they were Irish."

To which Slats Grobnik always responds, "Not me. I never wanted to grow up to be an alderman, even if I didn't get caught."

© 1997 Chicago Tribune