Before Jordan and Ditka, another Mike was the biggest name in Chicago
Mike Royko, son of a tavern owner and champion of the underdog, reigned for 34 years as the best newspaper columnist in the world. He spent his entire career in Chicago, but America knew him because his column was syndicated in almost 600 newspapers.
Royko’s work ethic matched his excellence. He wrote five columns a week, a staggering load, because he wanted to be at the forefront of every story.
He even wrote a best-selling book while producing his daily column. That book, Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago, remains a classic. Muscular and funny, Boss revealed how a big-city mayor kept his political machine in high gear from the 1950s into the ’70s, surviving scandals, racial upheaval and the disastrous 1968 Democratic National Convention, which Chicago hosted and turned into a police riot.
Royko didn’t need big events to write remarkable columns. He found news in places where nobody else looked.
While working at his favorite newspaper, the Chicago Daily News, he wrote a column in 1973 about Leroy Bailey, a soldier whose face was torn off by a rocket in Vietnam. The Department of Veterans Affairs had refused to pay for surgery Bailey needed so he could eat solid food, saying it was a cosmetic procedure. Bailey used a syringe to feed himself.
“Until he was hit by a rocket, Bailey had teeth,” Royko wrote. “Now he has none. He had eyes. Now he has none. He had a nose. Now he has none. People could look at him. Now most of them turn away … . If we can afford $5 million to make Richard Nixon’s San Clemente property prettier, we can do whatever is humanly possible for this man’s face.”
Next day, the headline in the Daily News said: “Nixon reads Royko’s column; orders VA to aid faceless vet.”
At that stage, Nixon was engulfed in the Watergate scandal and his contempt for the press seemed limitless. Yet Nixon couldn’t deny Royko’s skill. Ken Clawson, who was a spokesman for Nixon, praised Royko’s column and said the president was angered by the VA’s mistreatment of Bailey.
Royko himself was a military veteran, having served in the war in Korea. He returned to Chicago and mastered the art of news writing at the old City News Bureau. It covered breaking news for the city’s dailies while serving as a training ground for reporters.
Royko spent years trying to land a job on a Chicago daily. He finally broke through in 1959, becoming a reporter at the Daily News. He wrote about government with style and wit. Royko’s good fortune was that Daily News editor Larry Fanning had an unusually sharp eye for talent.
It was Fanning who had hired an untested writer and turned her into the country’s most famous advice columnist. Her name was Eppie Lederer, but millions of readers knew her as Ann Landers.
Fanning gave 31-year-old Royko a column in 1963, sensing that nobody could make readers cry harder or laugh louder than Royko. Politicians became his most frequent target.
After Republican presidential nominee George H.W. Bush selected Sen. J. Danforth Quayle as his running mate in 1988, Royko skewered Quayle for his privileged upbringing and military record.
“Between 1969 and 1975, when the fighting in Vietnam was fierce and heavy, J. Danforth was a proud member of the Indiana National Guard. Now, I don’t want to hear any snickering from those farm boys and blue-collar types who were in Vietnam. Had the Viet Cong shown up on the outskirts of Indianapolis, I’m sure J. Danforth would have been there with guns blazing.”
Another time, Royko clashed with Chicago’s most powerful business leaders, who called Lake Michigan beachfront a wasteland because they wanted to diminish opposition to an expansion of the city’s convention center.
“The ‘lake-is-a-wasteland’ people have wonderful arguments,” Royko wrote. “Remember, they are doing something noble while pouring industrial wastes into the water and gobbling up the shoreline. They employ people. They put food in our mouths, clothes on our backs, roofs over our heads. So when you’re eatin’ regular, what’s a Great Lake or two?”
That column galvanized the public, blocking the lakefront takeover and inspiring new pollution controls.
After the Chicago Daily News folded in 1978, Royko and his column moved to the Chicago SunTimes, a serious tabloid that he had derided as “the little paper.”
Royko remained the toast of his town until the Sun-Times went up for sale. He bolted for the Chicago Tribune after Rupert Murdoch bought the Sun-Times in 1983.
“No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in Murdoch’s publications,” Royko said.
Not amused, Murdoch sued Royko for breach of contract. With rival dailies fighting over Royko, Murdoch printed old columns by Royko in the Sun-Times while Royko wrote fresh ones for the Tribune. Royko’s columns appeared simultaneously in both dailies until he won the court case, forcing Murdoch to retreat.
Royko also had pounded the Tribune over the years. After a special police unit killed two members of the Black Panther Party in a Chicago house, the cops said they had been fired on first. The Tribune backed up the police by reporting that the Black Panthers had left bullet holes inside the house. Royko and others pointed out those were nail holes, and he ripped the Tribune for lying.
Royko was so good that the Tribune hired him at first chance, no matter how often he had ridiculed the paper.
This month marks the 20th anniversary of Royko’s death. He was just 64, writing a column almost every day, when an aneurysm felled him.
Time has not diminished his influence or the high standard he set. I never met him, but I miss him. Milan Simonich writes Ringside Seat, a column about people, politics and news. Contact him at msimonich@sfnewmexican.com.