September
7, 1968 – Mayor Richard J. Daley releases “The Strategy of
Confrontation,” a 77-page report that chronicles the disturbances that took
place in the city during the Democratic convention two weeks earlier. The report claims “to point out the nature
and strategy of confrontation as it was employed in Chicago,” [Chicago Tribune, September 8, 1968] It
pinpoints the origin of the disturbances as November 16, 1967 when Jerry Rubin,
the leader of the Youth International Party, issues a call to demonstrators to
come to Chicago and “Bring pot, fake delegates’ cards, smoke bombs, costumes,
blood to throw and all kinds of interesting props. Also football helmets.” Others blamed for the violence were Rennie
Davis, Chicago coordinator for the National Mobilization Committee to end the
War in Vietnam; David Dellinger, national chairman for that committee; Tom
Hayden, one of the founders of the Students for a Democratic Society; and Abbie
Hoffman, an associate of Rubin’s. The
report also indicts the news media for aiming “malice to the authorities while
presuming good will and sincerity on the part of the protestors,” leading to “ugly
and distasteful scenes … reported all over the nation and the world without sufficient
explanation to allow the reports to be placed in perspective.” The city’s Corporation Counsel, Raymond F.
Simon, with the help of the police, the United States attorney’s office, and
the city law department, is responsible for the report that concludes that the
ultimate goal of the protestors “was to topple what they consider to be the
corrupt institutions of our society, education, governmental, etc., by impeding
and if possible halting their normal functions while exposing the authorities
to ridicule and embarrassment."
September 7, 1934 – At a time when the city and its occupants swelter in the summer heat with little they can do about it, the Chicago Daily Tribune prints a glowing article that touts its super-swell air conditioning system, installed during the cold weather months, a system that has already provided 1,358 “air cooled hours” for employees and tenants of Tribune Tower. Holmes Onderdonk, the manager of the building, says, “The whole idea was to make working conditions better for employees and tenants . . . When the air cooling system was first contemplated there was an opinion that a building already erected couldn’t be air conditioned. The working of this system shows it can be done. The refrigeration machinery will be built into new buildings in the future, but it was an accomplishment to install the system here.”
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