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Why is Chicago so corrupt? - A historical perspective
BLUF: [Da Tech Guy Blog] Chicago, like other Midwestern cities, was settled first by New Englanders and upstate New Yorkers, white Anglo-Saxon protestants mainly. But Irish people fleeing the Potato Famine and seeking work on such projects as the Illinois & Michigan Canal, along with Germans, were the first wave of immigrants to Chicago. My great-great grandfather, another John Ruberry, was part of this wave. But the Irish already knew English and the arguably more numerous Germans initially did not. Which meant that the Irish were able to qualify for government jobs. Then some of them made the logical next step‐run for political office.The eighteenth-century Irish were unwilling subjects of the British Empire‐they viewed government as an alien force and many didn’t see anything wrong with stealing from that government. Old habits are hard to break‐and many Irish-Americans saw public service as an opportunity to stuff their pockets with bribes and kickbacks‐and to place their friends and relatives in other government positions. Or to offer other friends and relatives government contracts, who might reward their patrons with "gifts." So Chicago’s culture of corruption was born. Posted by: Besoeker 2017-01-24 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=479430 |