I‘m about to do something that my eminently sensible father would have disapproved of: write a check to a politician. True, it is to be a small check, one for only $200, but its recipient, the alderwoman of the first ward in Evanston, Illinois, my ward, seems to me an exceptional person. Still, however small the domain of her activity, a politician she (Judy Fiske is her name) remains, and I was brought up to believe that you do not give money to politicians, unless, that is, you wish to own them.
In Chicago, where I grew up, all politicians were considered guilty until proven innocent, which, as it turned out, few were. Aldermen in the Chicago City Council in those days earned a salary of $20,000. “These guys are ready to spend a quarter of a million dollars or more for a job that pays $20,000,” my father once said, a twinkle in his eye. “Something here doesn’t quite add up, wouldn’t you say?”
