"Call Me Jack"

In the pink and green Embassy Room of Chicago's Morrison Hotel one morning last week the members of the Cook County Democratic Committee were in their seats by 10 o'clock. They were there to witness the beginning of the end of a political dynasty. As they waited, the room grew rank and grey with smoke and politicians' talk. Three quarters of an hour late, the Boss--Mayor Edward J. Kelly-- strode in. The committeemen put down their racing forms and clapped.

For 13 years Ed Kelly and Pat Nash, the sewer contractor, had run Chicago. That was a long time. Now Pat was dead, and the Boss was 70. The committeemen watched as Corporation Counsel Barnet Hodes whispered in the Boss's ear and led him out.

A little owl-eyed man with a sunburned bald spot walked in, and this was the signal for everyone to sit up. Everyone said, "Hi yuh, Jack?" Jack said he was all right except for the burned bald spot and everyone howled and said that was rich. Everyone remembered to call him "Jack." He used to be "Jake" but he had sent word around: "Call me Jack." Jack sat down grinning. Now everything was all set.

The Wheels Turn. The Boss and Corporation Counsel Hodes came back, and sweating Ed Kelly, chronic assassin of the King's English, began to speak. No one, he said, had ever before voluntarily resigned as chairman of the Cook County Democratic Committee, They either died, or got tossed out on their ear, he said. He wound up: "I hereby render--uh--tender my resignation." The boys clapped, there were murmurs of "Aw, Boss."

He had a statement written by some word fellow, which he tried to get somebody else to read. No one else moved, so the mayor read it himself in a grating voice. He had not wanted to take over the chairmanship in the first place. He had only taken it over after Pat Nash died in 1943 because of the great emergency. Now he had decided he didn't have time to be mayor and chairman both.

In his audience the man in the green suit borrowed a pencil to mark a good thing in the sixth at Arlington. Corporation Counsel Hodes, who had helped write the statement, said that it was wonderful, and several committeemen made speeches about how they felt.

Growled the Boss: "I put the name of Colonel Arvey in nomination." Grinning from ear to ear, the little owl-eyed man with the sunburned bald spot stood up. Nominations were quickly closed. Jake ("Call me Jack") Arvey was the new chairman of Cook County. The meeting adjourned in time for the first race.

The Brain. Jake Arvey was born 50 years ago near the Loop. He worked his way through school into law and Chicago politics. He became Pat Nash's golden-haired boy when, at Nash's bidding, he led Jewish voters to the polls to vote against Jewish Governor Horner. In the Kelly-Nash machine, where Nash was the muscle and Ed Kelly the front, Jake Arvey became the brain ("the only man in the organization who ever read a book"). As a National Guard officer in the Judge Advocate General's office, he went to the Philippines with the 33rd Division. He came back from the war with a Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit and hustled back into politics.

Aging Ed Kelly still clung to Chicago's top political spot. The deal left him the city patronage. But shrewd, suave Jake Arvey will run everything else. A new era had quietly begun in Chicago's tough, corrupt politics. Not necessarily a better era.

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