Another Plan of Chicago?

Chicago, often casually termed the "worst governed city in the world,'' approached, last week, another major cure experiment. Coming to a head was a plan for a businessman's administration. The plan, as announced by Silas Hardy Strawn, onetime (1927-28) president of the U. S. Bar Association, calls for cooperation with the regularly constituted municipal authorities, rather than the creation of a new city government. Thus, for instance, a famed engineer would sit at the right hand of the city's Director of Public Works. A famed banker would lend talent to the City Treasurer. The leader of this business group would presumably have access to the Mayor's office. These businessmen would receive no salary from the city; their services would be donated by their companies as an act of public service.

Loosely described as setting up a "super government," the plan actually remains indefinite concerning the authority to be invested in the business group and the extent to which their advice would necessarily be followed. Mr. Strawn himself described the scheme as "embryonic." John W. O'Leary, suggested as head of the new regime, said that "the whole thing" was in a "formative state." and James Simpson, Marshall Field president, scolded Mr. Strawn for making a "premature" announcement. Yet, loose and shapeless as the plan at present appears, the business government movement, perhaps immediately inspired by the desirability of "cleaning" Chicago before the World's Fair of 1933, is undeniably under way.

After you have gotten over the initial shock, read the entire, "Plan for Chicago," from the January 21, 1929 issue of Time Magazine. That's James Simpson on the cover above, and the article is a veritable "who's who in Chicago." Fascinating...