About Last Night ...

---

---

Are you a supporter of freedom of speech?

Are you a supporter of what happened in Chicago last night?

It is not possible to be both. The two are not compatible.

If you support freedom of speech, you cannot support any efforts to prevent others from exercising their rights to free speech — which is what the protesters in Chicago did last night. They created an unsafe environment and forced controversial Republican front–runner Donald Trump to cancel a planned rally.

If you support what happened in Chicago, you cannot be a supporter of freedom of speech — even if you claim otherwise.

No matter what anyone says on any subject, someone will be offended by it, especially in these polarized times. If I didn't know it before, I certainly learned it when I worked for newspapers in less polarized times.

Freedom of speech exists to protect unpopular speech. It doesn't have to be universally unpopular, either. Clearly, Trump's opinions appeal to some voters and not to others.

But that isn't really so unusual in American politics, is it? I can think of no issue in my lifetime — not a single one — on which there has been universal agreement among the voters. I have often told my journalism students that you won't get unanimous agreement on any proposal in a public opinion poll, even something that you would think would be a slam dunk, like the sky is blue and the grass is green.

Thus, the need for freedom of speech, which protects everyone's right to speak.

That includes the freedom to worship — or not — as you see fit. Both freedom of religion and freedom of speech are protected by the First Amendment.

(The First Amendment also guarantees the people the right to peaceably assemble — I'll get back to that shortly — and freedom of the press.)

Many of the protesters in Chicago were there acting on behalf of others. I have heard today that left–wing activists at Moveon.org were behind it, along with supporters of socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders — but last night I heard nothing about who might have been behind it.

I just know that I saw several people who declined to give any reason at all why they were so intent upon preventing a presidential candidate from speaking, and that struck me as highly implausible. I mean, if you're going to go to the trouble of participating in a protest rally, you must have some pretty strong feelings about the subject, right? Why would you decline to give your reasons when you had a somewhat captive audience?

For example, I saw one Hispanic female being interviewed briefly on TV. When she was part of the crowd, she was shouting obscenities. When asked by a reporter what her reasons for participating were, she said she didn't want to give her reasons. Why not?

Do you suppose the reason might have been that they were paid to undermine free speech?

Because that is what they did. They undermined free speech — whether they were paid to do so or not.

Americans are free to agree or disagree with political candidates. They are also free to attend rallies and debates and listen to what the candidates have to say. It's part of the decision–making process.

---

---

Americans are also allowed to peaceably protest, as I mentioned before. The Bill of Rights is rooted in the experiences the Founding Fathers had had as subjects of a foreign power, and they sought to guarantee the freedoms for which many fought and died.

But when protests turn violent, they will soon become riots if not held in check somehow. In Chicago, the candidate reached the conclusion that best way to do that would be to cancel the rally rather than put people in harm's way.

The Americans who came to the rally to listen to what was said, not to shut it down, were denied their rights by what appeared to be mostly 20–somethings who, like many of their generation, have pretty skewed ideas about what freedom of speech means — and whose concept of free speech involves as many loud obscenities as can be wedged into a sentence, not the use of logic.

As I listened to some of the protesters being interviewed, I heard one recurring theme from those who chose to say something other than that they didn't want to talk about their reasons.

That theme was that they were entitled to the benefits of freedom of speech — but not anyone who disagrees with them.

Sorry, folks, that isn't the way it works.

Freedom belongs to all, not a few.

Evolution of a Massacre

---

---

While you're munching on your Valentine's Day candy, it's worth remembering a Valentine's Day that wasn't so sweet — at least for some folks.

It was 85 years ago this morning in a garage in Chicago. Here's how John O'Brien of the Chicago Tribune sets the scene:

---

"On this frigid morning, in an unheated brick garage ... seven men were lined up against a whitewashed wall and pumped with 90 bullets from submachine guns, shotguns and a revolver."

---

Chicagoland was gangland in those days, and Al Capone's henchmen, disguised as policemen, were on a mission to eliminate Bugs Moran, Capone's last competition for the designation of top gang boss in Chicago.

Ironically, none of the men who died 85 years ago today was Moran. He wasn't there. Nor was Capone among the gunmen who participated in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

My understanding is that the reason Moran wasn't in the garage was because he slept late that day. When he arrived, there was a lot of activity outside the garage, so he left the scene.

Capone had an airtight alibi for his whereabouts during the killings — he was more than 1,000 miles away in south Florida. He insisted that he wasn't involved. I don't think that many people believed him.

The fellow who assembled the hit team, Jack McGurn, had an alibi as well. He was with his mistress (later wife), having devised a plan and turned it over to his hit team.

The hit team lured the victims to the warehouse with the promise of very good whiskey at a low price. Prohibition was still in effect, and Moran's people couldn't resist.

Capone figured to gain from Moran's death, and, even though Moran was not among those who died 85 years ago, he was finished. Capone and his organization ruled the roost for years to come.

As a student of history, I think that garage should have been preserved as an historic site, but it was leveled nearly 50 years ago. Now its memory inspires marketing themes.

The Quest for a 'New Day for America'

---

---

"[M]ay we ... just quietly and silently — each in our own way — pray for our country? And may we just share for a moment a few of those immortal words of the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi — words which I think may help heal the wounds and lift our hearts? Listen to this immortal saint: 'Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light.' Those are the words of a saint. And may those of us of less purity listen to them well. And may America tonight resolve that never, never again shall we see what we have seen."

Vice President Hubert Humphrey
Chicago, Aug. 29, 1968

---

Hubert Humphrey faced a difficult task 45 years ago tonight. In hindsight, it was probably an impossible one.

By nature a man of peace, the vice president had to deliver his speech accepting the Democratic Party's presidential nomination against the backdrop of chaos in the streets of the host city, Chicago, and the broader backdrops of a war in Vietnam that was growing increasingly unpopular and a crime–plagued nation.

"After its days of turbulence and excitement," wrote historian Theodore H. White, "no speech could have pulled the Democratic convention together except a masterpiece ..."

Humphrey, White observed, tried to do the impossible — rewrite his speech (which had been crafted in the weeks and months leading up to the convention) in the days and hours before he was scheduled to deliver it. The "Happy Warrior" wanted to offer a message of healing and unity, not merely rehashes of old talking points.

But even before the turbulence of Chicago, that was something that was easier said than done, given the fact that, as the vice president, Humphrey was expected to be supportive of the administration — even though he disagreed with the administration on several aspects of the conduct of the war. So, too, did many of the delegates — and millions of Americans watching on TV.

After the clashes between demonstrators and the Chicago police earlier that week, the task became even more daunting, but Humphrey knew that both the delegates in the convention hall and Americans watching on TV would expect to hear him speak about peace in a context that encompassed not only the war but deteriorating relations between and respect for fellow Americans.

"A man of more native eloquence than any of his advisers," White wrote, "Humphrey might, had he had time, have created the required masterpiece. But he had no time."

Ah, yes, time. It was running out on the Democrats. And Humphrey did not produce the necessary masterpiece.

In August 1968, Gallup reported for the first — but not the last — time that the share of Americans who responded "no" when asked if the United States had made a mistake sending troops to Vietnam was less than 40%.

Three years earlier, the share of Americans who said "no" to that question was 61%. The pro–war administration of which Humphrey had been a part for more than 3½ years was losing ground on war and peace — and that issue, more than anything else, would decide who won the election.

It was the growing opposition to the war that had sparked the riots in the first place. One can only wonder how much worse they would have been if Lyndon Johnson had been in town to accept the nomination. But he had withdrawn from the campaign in March, making it necessary to nominate someone else, and the logical someone else was Johnson's second in command.

But Humphrey's convention was being tarnished by violence in the streets. Was there anything he could say to erase that image from the voters' memories?

---

---

Humphrey had chosen as his second in command Ed Muskie, senator from Maine, and Muskie did his best to energize the delegates.

But Humphrey, who called for a "new day for America" in his speech, awoke the next day to more of the same.

"Whatever hope there was ... rested on the belief that words can soothe, that words can heal, that words carry a message," White wrote.

Actions speak louder than words, my mother told me when I was small, and the actions in Chicago spoke louder than any words Humphrey could speak.

At some point in the predawn hours of the final night of the convention, something apparently was thrown from one of the floors of the hotel where Eugene McCarthy's campaign operation was based — which led to an inevitable clash between the students who made up most of McCarthy's staff and the Chicago police, who were understandably weary from a week of confrontations and, apparently, acted independently of any chain of command.

What America saw on its TV screens was more of the same — young people being beaten by police — and America's voters would decide that they wanted a change.

"[W]hen Humphrey's campaign began with a sickening lurch," wrote historian William Manchester, "his admirers despaired."

Perhaps they knew what was coming.

The Chaos in Chicago

---

---

"The confrontation was not created by the police; the confrontation was created by the people who charged the police.

"Gentlemen, let's get the thing straight, once and for all. The policeman isn't there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder."

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley
August 1968

---

I think it is fair to say that America in 1968 was a nation mired in a malaise.

It had not been an uplifting year. It began with the Tet offensive in Vietnam that showed everyone how easily the Viet Cong could penetrate the grounds of an American military post.

In the months ahead, first Martin Luther King and then Bobby Kennedy were assassinated and then, a week before the Democrats were scheduled to hold their convention and nominate their presidential candidate, Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia.

And through it all were the demonstrations. They never seemed to end. Most of the demonstrations were against the war in Vietnam, but others were focused on other things — racial injustice, sexual injustice, the "gap" between the generations.

If there was one thing on which the average American could depend, it was that each night's news report would have something about a demonstration for or against something somewhere.

There would be some uplifting moments later in the year, but 45 years ago today, there wasn't much for anyone to be happy about.

The Democrats were holding their 1968 national convention in Chicago. There was important business on the agenda — the nominations for president and vice president took center stage, but there was unrest in the land as well. A sizable portion of the population had soured on American involvement in Vietnam, crime seemed to be out of control, and racial discord could be seen in every major American city.

Perhaps no one summed up the scene better than historian Theodore H. White in his book, "The Making of the President 1968."

"A contagion of madness, a sense of helplessness, a sickening loss of control denying order and identity to all, had been spreading" prior to the start of the convention, he wrote.

By the second day of the convention — 45 years ago today — nearly all of Chicago "slept peacefully and went to work tranquilly," White observed, "[b]ut, politically, the contagion had begun to flush and agitate downtown Chicago with high fever."

---

---

Chicago, in August 1968, was about to put on display, for the whole world to see, a microcosm of the division that gripped America.

It was probably inevitable that there would be a clash between the dissatisfied (i.e., radical) elements of American society and the Chicago police, who represented (in the public's eyes) the establishment. Both were moving into place like planets forming a celestial line, the immoveable object and the irresistible force.

Something had to give.

I watched it unfold on TV, I heard Abraham Ribicoff accuse the Chicago police of "Gestapo tactics," and I asked my parents what was happening, but they never found the words to explain it all. I guess it was too complicated for a child to comprehend.

Actually, it was pretty hard for adults to comprehend, too. My parents had trouble explaining it to me, and I always figured that meant they didn't understand everything, either.

I remember that my father got frustrated and stopped trying to explain. In hindsight, it seems like that scene was replayed in many households around that time. And that was the thing that stood out about the Vietnam era, I suppose — very little seemed to make sense, and, consequently, very little could be adequately explained.

To be sure, it was a surreal scene. There was chaos outside the convention hall, but there was chaos within as well. CBS newsmen Mike Wallace and Dan Rather were roughed up by security guards on live television. CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite observed, "I think we've got a bunch of thugs here."

Viewers clearly got the sense they were watching actual muggings — in living color, to use the popular broadcasters' phrase of the time.

Outside the hall, police were beating demonstrators in the streets. There was a lot of what appeared to be smoke, but it was probably tear gas. There was commotion in Grant Park, where Barack Obama would celebrate his first election as president 40 years later.

While the nation and the world watched on TV, demonstrators retreated to Grant Park and re–formed, chanting "Sieg heil" or "Stop the war!" over and over as they protested under the watchful eyes of the broadcast media.

As Tuesday became Wednesday, other groups joined with the original group — and the folks watching at home saw total mayhem in the streets and at the convention hall, which journalist Terry Southern described as "a military installation; barbed wire, checkpoints, the whole bit."

The Walker Report described what took place in Chicago as a "police riot."

And the sight of the chaos in the streets of Chicago — compared to the relative calm of the Republicans' convention in Miami a few weeks earlier — may well have played an important role in Richard Nixon's eventual victory in November.

America's First Serial Killer

Monday was the sesquicentennial of the birth of the man known to history as America's first documented serial killer — H.H. Holmes.

Serial killing was not a new thing when Holmes (whose real name was Herman Webster Mudgett) started killing people in the second half of the 19th century so I must conclude that he was not this country's first serial killer — and I'm reasonably sure he wasn't the first to confess to killing someone.

But he did confess to more than two dozen murders — and the authorities of the day, using the forensic technology they possessed, confirmed nine of them. Thus, by the most common legal definition of serial killing, Holmes was a serial killer.

By some estimates, he may have been far more prolific than the legal community could have imagined. His actual body count may well have been more than 200.

He began his life of crime as a swindler, but he soon moved on to more sinister things.

For the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, Holmes opened a three–story "World's Fair" hotel. It was a block long, and it was located a short distance from the fair, an attractive option for out–of–towners.

It was a real house of horrors, though, a maze with dead ends, rooms with no windows, stairs that went nowhere, doors that could be opened only from the outside. Holmes' victims — and, of the ones who have been confirmed, many were women who worked for him in his hotel or the other commercial ventures in the building, but there may also have been several who were in town strictly to visit the fair — never had a chance.

Holmes wanted it that way. He was the only one who fully understood how his hotel was designed because he kept changing builders. It kept suspicion down and tongues from wagging.

Holmes, too, had been a medical student. He apparently dissected many of the bodies and sold parts to medical schools through the connections he had established when he was younger. Thus, getting rid of the evidence was ridiculously easy.

After the fair concluded, Holmes left Chicago. He resurfaced for a time in this part of the country and tried to build a hotel in Fort Worth that was similar to the one he had in Chicago, but he gave up on that and wandered around North America for awhile.

Holmes might have gone undetected if not for the fact that he was arrested in St. Louis for a horse swindle. He was bailed out, but, while behind bars, he became friendly with Marion Hedgepeth, a train robber in whom he confided a scheme for faking his own death and having his wife collect on the insurance.

Hedgepeth was promised payment for providing the name of an attorney who would participate in the scheme, but Hedgepeth wasn't paid so he blew the whistle.

And the whole thing unraveled.

The legal system didn't dawdle over things like appeals in those days. Less than two years after his arrest in St. Louis, on May 7, 1896, Holmes was hanged.

He was a little more than a week away from his 35th birthday.

Patriotism

I must possess an odd brand of patriotism. I never thought I did when I was growing up, but now, in the early years of the 21st century, it has become increasingly clear to me.

Maybe my mind processes things in ways that others do not.

A few years ago, I heard arguments from Republicans that suggested I wasn't supporting the troops if I wasn't supporting the war in Iraq — and, therefore, I wasn't patriotic.

George W. Bush and the Republicans set themselves up for criticism when they smugly and self–assuredly told Americans that there were stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and they were aimed at America. It was easy to frighten Americans in those days. The September 11 attacks were still a fresh memory.

But it never was that simple for me.

My counter–argument was that I was supporting the troops, that it was possible to support the troops and oppose the policy they were required to carry out.

It is the same — in my mind — as a law that is passed by the state legislature. I may not agree with that law. In fact, there may be some in law enforcement who do not agree with the law. But it is their job to enforce the law.

Policy makers and policy enforcers are rarely, if ever, the same people.

For a long time, that attitude seemed rare, almost nonexistent, but in the last couple of years, I have seen more and more people who feel that way.

Barack Obama's trip to Copenhagen last week to lobby — unsuccessfully — for the 2016 Olympics to come to Chicago has produced the flip side to the patriotism argument.

"Whenever President Obama has traveled overseas and offered pointed and direct assessments of the United States, some of them critical, Republicans have ripped him for criticizing America, saying a president should always defend the United States," writes Roland Martin for CNN.com.

"So I want to hear the explanation by these so–called patriots of their giddy behavior over the United States losing the 2016 Olympic Games."

It is a valid complaint, and it is one to which I tend to feel vulnerable — to a degree.

But the facts are more complicated.

For starters, I am not a Republican, but one does not have to be a Republican to disagree with a Democratic president. I know independents and Democrats who did not think Obama should make the trip to Copenhagen, and I am one of them.

Yes, I have criticized Obama when I felt he made mistakes. But I have never joined in the chorus that has accused him of being anti–America. And I don't believe anyone who wants to bring the Olympics to America can be anti–America.

I've never really understood the anti–America argument. I am not so cynical that I believe someone who hates this country could run for its highest office, fool a majority of its adults and be elected to lead it when his real objective was to destroy it.

Americans on both sides of the political spectrum can be quite superficial, but most aren't that gullible that they would willingly hand over power to a smooth–talking shyster or truly believe others had done so. Are they?

Having said that, yes, I was critical of the decision to go to Copenhagen. But I didn't mind if Chicago was awarded the Olympics for 2016, and I was not glad Chicago lost its bid to host the Olympics. I simply felt Obama had more important things to do right here.

The decision to go to Copenhagen has set off a firestorm of sorts. In Commentary, Jennifer Rubin wrote that Obama received a lesson in the "limits of egomania." Clarence Page observed, in the Chicago Tribune, that Obama's "magic" has its restrictions. For others, like Edward Luce of Financial Times, the fruitless trip breathed new life into questions about Chicago cronyism.

Clearly, there are many ways to look at this. And I am inclined to think Martin is right when he urges those who have celebrated the loss as Obama's loss to "turn in your flag lapel pins and stop boasting of being so patriotic." It was a loss for America.

But Obama set himself up for all this — in the exasperatingly casual way that he so often does. And that may be the thing about him that many Americans find refreshing. He doesn't do things in the typically presidential way.

But not everyone finds that reassuring. In fact, some were alarmed that Obama wasn't content to delegate the authority for that task to his wife and remain in Washington while the unemployment rate went up and his health care plan became watered down faster than the Titanic.

Obama became president during the greatest economic crisis this country has faced in three–quarters of a century. A president can't choose the conditions that exist when he takes office, but he can choose how he will respond to them.

Filling out his NCAA brackets or making the rounds of the late night talk shows or presiding over a couple of beers and a "teachable moment" or traveling to Copenhagen may seem worthwhile, but they lack the urgency of rising unemployment. At some point, a president must decide what his priority will be.

After that, worthwhile (but lesser) goals must be turned over to others.

I believed last week — and I believe today — that Obama needed to make joblessness his priority.

Presidential Priorities

Everyone has an agenda, even if everyone doesn't acknowledge it.

Everyone thinks his/her issue should be the priority.

And, when Barack Obama took office in January, there were a lot of things that needed to be addressed. I understand the pressure he was under.

So I tried to be patient — even though I have been unemployed since last year and I have grown increasingly alarmed each month as job losses have mounted.

I heard all the big talk in February when the stimulus package was passed. I thought job creation was the priority, especially when I heard Sen. Ben Nelson say, "Call us the jobs squad."

Of course, I thought job creation was a priority a few months earlier, when candidate Obama promised tax credits for businesses that hired Americans in 2009 and 2010. Turned out that was just another politician's pledge to win votes.

It was hard for me to stay silent when Obama famously filled out his NCAA tournament bracket in March, but I tried to be patient when Obama went on TV later in the month and compared his bowling skills to the Special Olympics. His remark opened up a discussion about the use of the word "retard," but it didn't alleviate the unemployment problem.

As the spring went on and administration critics held their famous "tea parties", I continued to try to be patient — as I did when an opening popped up in the Supreme Court. As president, Obama had to nominate a replacement.

By then, the battle lines seemed to have been drawn.

We got into the summer months, and, in July, the president urged the unemployed to be patient so I tried to be patient, but I knew then, as I know now, that time is not an infinite commodity for me. I was assured, by many sources, that job creation was not on the back burner. I wasn't convinced of that, but I put my trust in them.

Anyway, during the summer, the administration turned most of its attention to health care reform. And I tried to remain patient — but then Democrats helped to derail the public option that Obama wanted. Meaningful reform no longer seems like a possibility, even a remote one.

This week may have exhausted what was left of my patience.

While Obama was jetting to Copenhagen to press for Chicago to be the host of the 2016 Olympics, word came out that unemployment had gone up in September, that more than 250,000 jobs had been lost.

Phil Izzo of the Wall Street Journal reported on economists' assessment of the weak labor picture. National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers insisted that the worst of the recession is over. That's a hard sell for the unemployed, especially since one–third of jobless Americans have been out of work for more than six months.

Meanwhile, Obama seems to have been under the impression that his charisma would carry the day with the International Olympic Committee. It did not.

The Wall Street Journal, which hasn't exactly been Obama's ally, insisted that it would not "join those who pounded President Obama for taking a day to travel to Copenhagen."

But Mike Lupica, in the New York Daily News, came closer to expressing my feelings when he wrote that "[t]his wasn't the President's fight. For a smart guy, he does some dumb things sometimes."

Or, as the New York Times asked, "What was President Obama thinking?"

An Historic Election

There have been many occurrences in today's election that are historic, so many that historians and political scientists will be evaluating the numbers for a long time.

It's not yet 11 o'clock Central time, but we can say, at this point, that

• with about two-thirds of the precincts reporting, Barack Obama has received about 51% of the popular vote. It looks as if he will be the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976 to win a majority of the popular vote;


• the South remained solidly Republican, but Obama snapped a 44-year GOP victory streak in Virginia, recaptured Florida and may yet become the first Democrat since Carter to win North Carolina, and


• Democrats have gained five seats in the Senate and the current breakdown has the Democrats holding a 56-40 advantage (including independent Joe Lieberman and socialist Bernie Sanders, who caucus with the Democrats).
  
  The last four, as-yet unresolved Senate races — in Alaska, Georgia, Minnesota and Oregon — are all currently held by Republicans and may yield two or even three more takeovers for the Democrats.
  
  But the odds don't seem to favor a sweep — which appears to be necessary for Democrats to claim a filibuster-proof three-fifths majority.

All year, I've observed the 40th anniversary of events from the landmark year of 1968.

It's truly ironic that Obama's victory rally took place in Chicago's Grant Park. Forty years ago, that was the scene of horrific clashes between the Chicago police and the young demonstrators who came to the city during the Democratic national convention to protest the party's role in the escalation of the Vietnam War.

If Obama's victory is symbolic, to a certain extent, of the racial healing that has been occurring in America, perhaps the location of the victory rally is likewise symbolic — of a party that has exorcised its lingering demons from the past.

And that is what the Democrats must do to govern effectively in the future.