The Honest Quote

Columnist Jack Mabley of Chicago's American is an old hand at journalistic coups. He was the first reporter to turn over the John Birch Society rock; more recently he exposed a sales-tax swindle that was costing the state of Illinois $100 million annually. Mabley, 48, also devised the 1951 "plumber's poll" that documented the fact that Chicago's water pressure fell substantially during television commercials and proved that many Chicagoans deserted their sets at such opportune moments.

Mabley's latest coup concerned the courts. In one day's column he reported in detail remarks made by Judge Joseph Wosik to defendants in the city's traffic court. To one defendant, wrote Mabley, the judge stormed: "If I could, I'd waive all these fines for three minutes in a room with you and your wife. When I got done with you, she'd wish for the fines. I'd punch your head in." To a Negro from the South, he shouted: "If you have another accident, I'll make you wish you were back in Mississippi." The judge threatened an Italian immigrant with "another crucifixion" if the defendant failed to stop driving.

Collecting those quotes may not have been Mabley's most important accomplishment, but it brought the swiftest results of his career. The newspaper that carried the judge's remarks hit the newsstands by 9 a.m. By 1 p.m., Judge Wosik had been transferred to the much less busy civil court. The transfer was, in fact, so quick that late editions of the paper that same day carried a frontpage bulletin on the judge's shift as well as Mabley's column. "The poor choice of language upset us," admitted Francis Poynton, executive assistant to the chief judge of Chicago's municipal court. Said Mabley: "We ran nothing but quotes. This is the most basic tool of journalism--the honest quote. There was not a word of criticism."

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