Former Chicago Alderman Edward M. Burke

Ed Burke Knows How This Will End

By John Kass

November 8, 2023

As his federal corruption trial gets underway this week in downtown Chicago, consider the photograph of the Chicago Democrat who is the personification of The Chicago Way ™:

Ald. Edward M. Burke.

I was born in his neighborhood, in Visitation Parish on the South Side, near the Union Stockyards, the smell of tens of thousands livestock to be slaughtered hanging in the air. Those who remember the slaughterhouses remember the smell. We can’t forget it. It’s in our skin. I suppose the smell was of the unspoken fear of the livestock that hung all about us, the wet wool and hides that permeated everything, from the gray painted stoops in the backs of the two-flats, the way the smell of ash and molten steel hung in the air over South Chicago.

Out on 52nd and Peoria Streets, whether you had lace curtains on your windows in the two-flat, whether your grandma sipped her whiskey in the pantry, or drank her beer from a bottle on the front porch for all to see, we were all brutalized. We were brutal to each other. And so, you see him there in that photograph, Burke standing alone, standing out, Mr. City Hall gleaming in a blue pin-striped suit, sharp pocket square, like a Kelly-green Cadillac with a white vinyl top.

Burke came up in a Chicago that was politically corrupt and politically brutal, in the city of tribes, fighting it out with the other tribes, the Irish and the Italians, the blacks and the Poles, and the Appalachians, Lithuanians, Greeks and many other tribes and now Latinos.  As his story ends, as he leaves it, Chicago is still corrupt. It is still brutal. Although the Democratic Machine provided order and the line against street crime, there is no order now. Chaos rolls the streets of Chicago.

If there is one thing that you should know about Burke, it’s this:

He is a realist. There is no room in the world he hammered out for himself for fairy tales. He doesn’t believe in fairy tales. He believes in the law as a tool, the way a butcher believes in the boning knife, as the farmer believes in the plow, as the firefighter believes in the axe and the hose. Burke believed in the precision of words in the law and the exercise of governmental power as the political hammer that offered order. He believed in leverage. And so, he knows how this will end.

It will end badly.

In the fairy tale, a long one-way walk in the woods or in the park is offered. A last smoke. But Burke hates smoking. And all that is offered to Burke is a public flaying.

And he’s expected to stand witness to that flaying. Burke, 75, and another elderly Democratic Machine boss, former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan–who has been indicted in a different case–must have known this day would come. Their friends told them to retire, that they already had all the money they’d ever need, that they should step down and remove the target from their chests and save themselves.

But they loved the action and they loved the power. They just couldn’t let it go. If they’d stepped down what would they be? Just two old Irish guys with money. And they wanted the action.

And the phrase Burke is alleged to have spoken into the government weasel wire worn by sniveling, former Ald. Dan “Happy Endings” Solis (25th) will lead all of Burke’s obituaries:

“Did we, uh, land the tuna?”

Solis is not expected to appear in federal court as a witness. The federal prosecutor can’t afford that in court, because Danny Solis had an appetite sated by sex traffickers and Roberto Caldero, the former close political aide to another weasel, former Chicago U.S. Rep. Luis “the Heroic Taxpayer” Gutierrez. Federal authorities recorded this exchange between Solis and Caldero that should explain Solis’ absence from court:

“I want to get a good massage, with a nice ending,” says Solis on the federal wire. “Do you know any good places?”

Caldero said knew of such a place.  “What kind of women do they got there?” Solis asked.

“Asian,” Caldero says.

“Oh good. Good, good, good,” says Solis. “I like Asian.”

He likes Asian? That’s why federal prosecutors don’t want him in the courtroom. But Burke’s old friend Solis will be remembered, particularly by former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot who doesn’t like the fact that Solis gets to stay out of jail and keep his fat city pension.

“This is a man who exploited his position,… to enrich himself, attempting to enrich others,” Lightfoot was quoted as saying by the Chicago Sun Times.  “There’s got to be consequences and accountability for that. It’s not enough for him to simply walk away. Sail off into the sunset. That sends the wrong message.”

Maybe, but Lightfoot would not have been mayor it it wasn’t for Burke. He’d held a fundraiser for her opponent Boss Toni Preckwinkle, president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners and chair of the Cook County Democrats. Lightfoot and the Chicago media that I was a part of then took the fact that Burke raised political cash for Boss Toni, and we tied Burke around Preckwinkle’s neck like an albatross.

It sank Boss Toni. Lightfoot won election and Boss Toni had to wait years for her revenge. She got some revenge when Lightfoot was forced to endorse Boss Toni’s protege, Kim Foxx for Cook County State’s Attorney. But that didn’t satisfy Boss Toni. She sent her Bolshevik meat puppet Brandon Johnson to take Lightfoot out as mayor. The vaunted Chicago press corps helped him.

I covered Burke for years as a political and City Hall writer. I was not a friend, but I did appreciate his wit and attention to detail. Burke would have smiled a withering smile at Lightfoot’s naivete. He would have known that Lightfoot’s endorsement of Kim Foxx was like a neon sign advertising her weakness. When Burke was young, his father died, and in a succession battle, Democrat precinct captains lined up against him to take him out. He fought them off. He could never afford to be naive.

Those who don’t know him will look at that photo and perhaps see him as arrogant. He is not a back slapper. But I know him. He came up through corruption,  and so I don’t see him as arrogant, even with all the howling jackals in the media who were afraid of him when he was in his full power. They snarl like tough guys but they’re not tough. He’s no longer in his full power. He is no longer the man who picks judges, a maestro who conducts government the way Sir Georg Solti conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Think of Georg Solti with a hammer.

A man precise in his use of the law and government to make and burnish his fortune. A man who looked at political hacks grabbing for envelopes of cash and wrinkling his nose in disdain. He didn’t have a magical last name that opened doors. His daddy wasn’t mayor. The law and government were the instruments he learned how to play. It was his meticulous attention to detail that helped him build his fortune, not his genes. And unlike the barbarians and the political baboons, he worked the law and government to leverage power.

Was the Chicago in Burke’s day corrupt? Of course it was. It still is. At least there was order under the old Richard J. Daley machine, and in the pursuit of votes, the machine was attentive to the needs of the people and the neighborhoods. It was attentive, of course to the Chicago Outfit, yes, but it was also attentive to order and to commerce so they could all make money. And forcing Democrat communities to accept tens of thousands of illegal migrants and house them in tents at taxpayer expense would have been unthinkable.

This new machine–the one that is stiffened by Chicago Teachers’ Union muscle on behalf of Democratic boss Toni Preckwinkle–enjoys the unthinkable. It excuses random street crime as a way of balancing racial equity. It congratulates itself on shrinking the size of the county jail, not because criminals are any less violent against taxpayers, but because of their skin color and the Democrat Socialists curry their favor.

When Burke was a boy, the alderman of the 14th ward was Clarence Wagner, chairman of the powerful Utilities Committee. The 14th Ward boss was Judge John McDermott.  Wagner was in line to become mayor of Chicago who handled the 50 year Commonwealth Edison franchise agreement and is said to have made a fortune on that deal, enough to fill untold dozens of safety deposit boxes. The Outfit and the machine were tired of so-called “reformer” Mayor Martin Kennelly. Mayor Kennelly made trouble for the Black Policy racket (illegal lottery) with police raids and public pressure, perhaps unaware that while blacks may have been policy front men, but the Chicago Outfit had overtaken the policy racket and ran it.

So Kennelly, who was either naive or stupid, had to go. The machine sent black political leader U.S. Rep. William Levi Dawson to send the message. Kennelly was out. Clarence Wagner was to be made mayor. And Judge McDermott would be made Democratic ward committeeman. That was 1953, before I was born.

Out on the corner of 55th and Halsted was a white tablecloth steakhouse called LeMec’s with one of those great and classic neon signs. It was my Uncle John Djikas’ place. It was a hangout for the 14th ward big shots. There was a big card game every Saturday night.

Uncle John Djikas was a Greek immigrant from Bulgaria who escaped the murdering Turks as a 15-year-old kid, and came to Chicago for work and to live the American dream. One thing Uncle John learned surviving the Turks: Keep your mouth shut, which was also the unofficial motto of Chicago.

One Sunday morning Uncle John stayed at the restaurant after the card game and made coffee for customers going to and coming from mass at Visitation, which we called Viz. And there on Sunday morning, who does he see?

Judge McDermott.

“John, I’ve got some business at the bank,” my Uncle John recalled years ago. He did not say it was Sunday and the banks were supposed to be closed. He did not say, “Isn’t that Clarence Wagner’s bank?”

All he did was keep his mouth shut and serve McDermott some coffee. Soon the whole neighborhood learned the news. Wagner, who was set to be mayor of Chicago, had literally lost his head in a spectacular car crash that killed him while coming home from a fishing trip outside International Falls, MN.

In an amazing coincidence, who became mayor of Chicago ?

Richard J. Daley, who ruled for decades.

McDermott made Burke’s father, Joe Burke, the alderman of the 14th Ward. It was the Chicago Way. When Joe died the captains tried to take it and Ed fought them off.

And Ed Burke?

They made him a cop and he went to law school. The law was his hammer. And now the law wants to put him in prison, an old man alone. This is not an excuse. He signed up for this, not a contract, but an agreement written in blood all the same. And now, as he waits for it, sitting in that chair next to his lawyers in federal court, the only thing left to him really, is how he faces what’s coming.

Like I said, Ed Burke didn’t believe in fairy tales. He was a realist. And he knows how this will end.

(Copyright 2023 John Kass)

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(Copyright John Kass 2023)

Comments 45

  1. This reminds me of Samuel Johnson’s poem “London, an Imitation of Juvenal’s Third Satire. ”

    These lines are especially sharp – “They made him a cop and he went to law school. The law was his hammer. And now the law wants to put him in prison, an old man alone. This is not an excuse. He signed up for this, not a contract, but an agreement written in blood all the same. And now, as he waits for it, sitting in that chair next to his lawyers in federal court, the only thing left to him really, is how he faces what’s coming.”

    Wow!

      1. I’m not so sure of your description of Mayor Kennelly being a reformer. I read the book, Captive City, Chicago in Chains by Ovid Demaris. After Kennelly was elected he found that most of the African Americans voted Republican because of President Lincoln. The story goes on to say that Kennelly knew he was in for a tough re election campaign and came up with an idea of getting support from the black community. Kennelly went to the police commissioner at the time, and suggested that the police department crack down on the numbers racket in the black community, which they never did before because they felt it was small time. They would arrest the leaders of policy who were the unofficial, mayors, aldermen of the community which everyone looked up to because of their power and money. Story has it that the policy leaders went to the commissioner and asked him how to get the police department off their backs. The commissioner told the policy leaders to have your people vote democrat in the next elections. which they did, and have been doing ever since. The mob did take over the numbers racket when Sam Giancanna found out from a cell mate in prison who was a policy leader, how much money was made just by nickels and dimes.

        1. CAPTIVE CITY, yes! Everyone one should get that book and read it more than once. It’s excellent and much of what it says is still true. It tells of the foundation of the the system and how it’s still relevant today. Read it in college. I also had Milt Rakove as a teacher at Loyola U. Wow what an eye opener he was!
          I learned a lot sitting in my Grandfather’s tavern (he hated the words: saloon, bar, etc) during my first 6 years. Our hood was West Town: Chicago and Ashland, 846 N. Hermitage to be exact. Cops were actually the people’s friends, at least some of them. I remember breaking in to one of those ‘olive drab’ short term storage USPS mail boxes. Why? To steal the mail? Nope. I thought I’d help the mailman deliver the mail. So I was walking around delivering the letters. STUPID?! DUH! Got caught by cop. Brought me home to mom. No appearance at station, etc. Both I could see outta corner of my laffing at me. Simpler times, in some ways.
          Excellent column John, excellent

      2. I hear ya. These are sad times in our city, for many reasons. You’ve explained why so very well, time and again, and this piece in particular hits an important bullseye. Guys like Burke and Madigan and others had more than enough talent and political muscle to keep the city on sound fiscal footing while taking care that law enforcement was supported in doing its job and the schools did the job they were supposed to do—educate kids. They failed, and it’s a damn shame. It certainly didn’t have to play out that way.

      3. Read this, and as an old Chicagoan, I remember some of it, but what still surprises me, I suppose I’m being naive here, is how little of the Richard M. stuff has come out. It’s there, and I remember a lot of it, but it is still buried. For that matter Richard J. still has a lot of stuff buried. I’m curious about who wants it kept buried.

  2. Don’t be so sure that Ed Burke is finished. I’ve known him and his wife Anne for over 40 years and he’s no dope and she’s a saint. Yes Chicago politics is a dirty business, but Burke has survived because he has been around the block, several times. I’ve read the federal complaint, and they got nothin’ on him. Back in the day I was running Special Events for the State of Illinois Center and every St. Patrick’s Day Alderman Ed Burke would play the piano and Senate President Phil Rock would sing “Galway Bay” to entertain for St. Patrick’s Day, and the crowds would pack the SOIC and the media lap dogs would climb over each other to get the video. Burke and Rock were probably two of the finest gents in the history of Chicago politics, both total class. Senator Rock has gone to his reward and while these might be the twilight years for Alderman Ed Burke’s career, don’t count him out just yet, he didn’t get to where he is by being a pushover and all the good that he and Anne have done over the years, all the people they have helped, all that good karma, may yet conquer the feds and their fake bullshit. God bless the Burkes!

    1. love that image, Mike. Burke and Rock playing piano and singing the old songs and media lapdogs the society media slobbering over them the way they’d slobber for Brandon and Boss Toni today

        1. Pulleeze! Burke a hero. Ha! You Micks/Harps really stick together. And Ann Burke is dumb as a rock as a lawyer. I couldn’t believe her rise to the top, ie Illinois Supreme Court. She made not on talent and judicial smarts but on connections.
          Do ya think that home they are in was built on his city salary. Houli u r ‘Goin East on Ashland’ my friend.

  3. John it does not matter anymore. America Votes only on Abortion and how said that we are willing to kill babies and at the same time lose our Country and ourselves. Burke will get what is coming to him and it is about time. Abortion is what is important to the young and the women. Kill more babies for Votes. How sad is that. There is no more Honor, or Loyalty or doing the right thing. So sad.

    3. You are right Ms. Edwards. I do not understand how anyone, including some Catholics, can support abortion. Can’t they understand that it is a living human being with a soul in the womb. Abortion is murder, pure and simple.

      1. In a Civil Society, we sometimes make compromises to play and win the long game. Compromise would be 12 weeks. Instead, you lose elections and get abortion on demand.

        1. The handwriting is on the wall as the saying goes. The current young and middle age women are pro abortion. Get over it. It will never go back. They are in the majority. Watch: a few more elections like this and the GOP will flip and ‘guarantee a woman’s right of determining her reproduction”. Pols are whores. All pols! When the majority feels that way, ie pro abortion, money will flow towards them and the GOP whores will flip just like the Dem whores of yester year did.
          As a physician i believe the biggest, most significant, important event of 20th century was the birth control pill. Women became in charge of their bodies. That will never change. We have no definition/laws on books to protect the fetus. Why. Because pols are cowards!
          When life begins has different definitions for different faiths/religions, people, countries, etc. As a Roman Catholic, who was in the Seminary, even the Catholic Church had different definitions of when a fetus was a ‘person’. The church followed theologian Scotus’s teaching that the soul was not ‘infused’ into the fetus until the 6 month or so (I could be wrong on the month, it’s been long time since I read this). I believe the church now follows Aquinas teachings. Some of the Jewish faith state that the fetus is not a person UNTIL BIRTH.
          ALL POLITCS IS LOCAL AS MANY A POL HAS STATED. EVEN IF TRUMP RUNS AND WINS THE ABORTION ISSUE WILL BE DECIDED LOCALLY THROUGHOUT THIS COUNTRY.

    4. For the past few Fridays starting from Good Friday, I have been praying for the victims of abortion every month across from the Planned Parenthood, Aurora-one of the busiest abortion mills in the state. Usually the passing motorists slow down to open their car windows to say a few kind words like God Bless you. But then there are some women who give me thumbs down and say “it’s our rights”!
      And that’s how it goes with the women voters whether they are for or against abortion. They will always vote for their rights and the stupid, dumb republicans pushed the Dems under their skirts to please their evangelical party base which is not a majority voting bloc. They need women and minority votes to win the elections. So kiss the 2024 Whit House off unless by miracle and God willing, Nicki Haley gets nominated.

  4. What a powerful review of Chicago’s power politics in this column! Momentarily made me want to see Scorsese make a movie out of it. (Hasn’t he drawn enough great drama out of NYC and Las Vegas sets?)

    Then a more serious idea occurred: Maybe Chicago voters could track JK’s history here through to present-day Chicago. The decades of deals and tribal corruption have finally turned the city over to excused crime and chaos. With the power brokers now facing their unhappy endings and a joke mayor who still operates like a union shill, isn’t it time to elect a city government that isn’t always on the take?

  5. Kelly green Cadillac with a white vinyl top, perfect!
    They called it the city that works. Yes it was corrupt and had mob influence but the streets were much safer and the media wasn’t one-sided. I’ll take that any day over the communists in control now who are destroying this once great city. Now the people who voted for this regime are getting bit in the ass with the illegal immigrant issue. Too late, so sad.

    1. Funny you say that. Wasn’t alive during Capone but was for the latter half of Boss Daley. As bad as Daley was behind the curtain (I learned a lot more about him after reading “Boss” by Mike Royko), he and Capone kept things running for the people. THIS today is like the old wild west but with deadlier weapons and NO concern for the people. I can’t help thinking of the line in Casino Royale after Bond blows up the embassy when Dame Judi Dench as “M” says, “Christ, I miss the cold war!”

      1. Great quote there, Scott (and a great Royko book recalled). I recalled another quote with Chicago relevance last spring when Chicago’s voting majority somehow managed to elect a mayor with even worse motives and less intelligence than the incumbent. This one was by Mark Twain: “No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.”

  6. THIS is the type of article John writes that made me a subscriber of “ The Paper” over 30 years ago, and a former subscriber after his departure. I would love to sit down at an old school steakhouse ( maybe Tom’s), with John someday, have a great meal, a few cocktails, keep my mouth shut, and just listen to John’s stories about the old school Chicago Way and all of its players and characters. Growing up as a Chicago kid, having parents and grandparents that grew up in various neighborhoods throughout the city, working my entire career in the city and all its neighborhoods, these articles always resonate with me. Great work John and company.

  7. I enjoyed the article immensley. Having said that, we have different perspectives on Burke. The Burke I knew briefly was, and I’m certain still is, supremely arrogant. An egomaniac and self important buffoon whom I found humorous in his demeanor. When an uneducated, unsophisticated, and unconnected street kid like me ends up at the same golf club as Burke (through an entirely different route) and laughed at him from behind a “polite country club facade” (that made me just as phony as him), you can be sure everyone else around him saw through that arrogance as well. He always made my skin crawl. And the picture you included made that happen again after all these years. The pompous guy in that picture is certainly arrogant. But Burke and I have something in common, we both regard each other’s tribe the same way, with utter contempt. He wouldn’t remember me if you gave him a million dollars but I never forget a clown in the Chicago circus. That’s my south side perspective. I’m sure others who crossed paths with him, no matter how briefly, may differ. Great article John.

  8. Fantastic column. This should be considered a primer, a masterclass in Chicago politics. It doesn’t get more succinct than how it is laid out here.
    I no longer live in Chicago. After spending so many decades immersed in the bare-knuckles politics, every other city just seems to be playing a children’s version of the political game.

  9. ‘It was his meticulous attention to detail that helped him build his fortune’ very true. I recall him getting a street lamp pointed away from a Church I was volunteering at, as it was shining trough a blank piece of glass on a stained glass window under repair. Not his Ward. Not his Parish. Just an attention to detail and constituent services that builds friendships for years.

  11. Great column. The best judge Burke ever picked was his wife for the Illinois Supreme Court! The days of the Irish political bosses are over. These ain’t your Kennedy Democrats. They ran that family out of the mainstream years ago. They openly sneer at RFK’s presidential campaign. They’ve been replaced by the wailing Bolsheviks who now run city hall. The Bolsheviks preach unity while they laugh at the chumbalones who elected them. People who are too stupid to realize its about the Bolsheviks movement not about the needs of its constituents. Chumbalones who can’t understand why their outrage over illegal border crossers being placed in their neighborhoods is ignored. Maybe they should figure out where the highest concentration of CTU employees reside and demand the city put the Illegals there. Maybe they can ship some to Indiana where Stacy Gates apparently lives and put some there too. Preckwinkle rides high right now but we all know a monster created soon turns on its master. Her beast will turn on her during a moment of weakness. It’s not a matter of if but when. Burke, if convicted will do a few months at a minimum Fed prison, move to Florida with his entourage and spend the rest of his life trying to figure out why no one returns his calls. A happy expat retired millionaire. Just like Solis, he gets a happy ending.

  13. Am I the only one who finds no poetry in these scum bags and how they came to be power brokers? Since I was 18 living in Billy Banks 36th Ward at 2726 North Nordica, I couldn’t wait to vote against them! My first vote was motivated by my antipathy towards my congressman, Dan (Rosty) Rostenkowski. (As if their cute nicknames made them more palatable) I don’t even remember who the GOP sacrificial lamb was in 1978, the first time I voted in a seamstress shop next to a tavern on Diversey at Sayre. It makes me ill to try and romanticize the graft and corruption that has existed in Chicago for almost two centuries. Sorry, John. You know I love you but this one leaves me cold, like a rotting fish from the head down!

  15. Greed and power – that is all they want and can never stop at just enough and they don’t care who they step on to attain it. I hope Eddie and Mike get their just dues. Taken down like they should have many years ago.

    Great Column.

  17. THIS IS THE KIND OF YOUR COLUMN I CRAVE. A question I’ve never seen addressed is about his wife’s career, including election to the State Supreme Court after a relatively short legal career. I cannot fathom she didn’t know about his approach, if not the sordid details. Perhaps she didn’t want to. She’s done some wonderful work on her own but I’ve long been curious how she maneuvered that long marriage with her reputation intact.

    1. Yeah, she did ‘wonderful work’. You mean like the wonderful ‘work’ Capone or other mobsters did ‘for the children’ of immigrants? She did it to cover/shield up her husband’s illegal squeezing of hard working people out of their money thru payoffs to keep their businesses open or homes from being ‘in violation’ of city code. Ann Burke is as guilty as her husband. Gimme a break. She needs to be next to him in the Fed Pen. Both can regal the prison population of all those great Mick songs that Hooli likes.

  19. I was going to attempt to post something eloquent in response to your legendary prose, Kass, but I’m lost for words.

    You, sir, are not.

    Thank you for the excellent column.

  21. The is only one thing that matters to the people who vote Democratic. Not the economy, not the crime and corruption in the streets, not the illegals overrunning the country, not caring about who educates their children, but the right to kill your own child. That reflects more on their values than anything else. They vote not in their best economic and social interests, but the for the right to kill the unborn. What a sad value system. What does the common good matter when it is all about me?

  22. Pulleeze! Burke a hero. Ha! You Micks/Harps really stick together. And Ann Burke is dumb as a rock as a lawyer. I couldn’t believe her rise to the top, ie Illinois Supreme Court. She made not on talent and judicial smarts but on connections.
    Do ya think that home they are in was built on his city salary. Houli u r ‘Goin East on Ashland’ my friend.

  23. Yeah, she did ‘wonderful work’. You mean like the wonderful ‘work’ Capone or other mobsters did ‘for the children’ of immigrants? She did it to cover/shield up her husband’s illegal squeezing of hard working people out of their money thru payoffs to keep their businesses open or homes from being ‘in violation’ of city code. Ann Burke is as guilty as her husband. Gimme a break. She needs to be next to him in the Fed Pen. Both can regal the prison population of all those great Mick songs that Hooli likes.

  25. Excellent column John. I too have personal interactions with the former Alderman and all were good. The neighborhood was safe and if there was a problem that needed to be addressed, it was taken care of.
    The unfortunate thing was the problem with anyone in a position of power too long always seems to be taken down on. Greed.
    If he had stepped down years ago, this would have never come to light. But alas, the Tuna was landed but by the wrong fishermen.

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