The law can be a ceiling, a floor, a wall, a door. It shouldn’t be a barricade where the soldiers are sleeping and snoring loudly!
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| Healey corruption case, crowded municipal court room, presided over by Judge Olson, judge is visible on right side of image. [Source: Library of Congress Chicago Daily News Collection 1902-1930] |
Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project operations director Myles Francis talks to a walking tour group about a ground marker with the name of Robert Williams etched in a glass brick, displayed at the intersection of South State and West Van Buren Streets, Nov. 8, 2025, in Chicago. Williams was one of 38 people killed during the violence of the riot.
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| Chicago race riot, five policemen and one soldier with rifle standing on street corner. [Source: Chicago Daily News, Inc. Created/Published ca. 1919 July-Aug. DN-0071298, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society Reproduction Number: DN-0071298 Digital ID: ichicdn n071298] |
Every day, I am struck by all the ways in which we are reliving the 1890s. In that era too, consumers organized, using their buying power to affect politics. As the first general secretary of the National Consumers League, Florence Kelley, put it: “To live means to buy, to buy means to have power, to have power means to have responsibility.” [excerpt from "Letters from an American" (Nov 25, 2025)]
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| Women and children. Photograph by Rubenstein [Source: Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Date: Circa 1885] |
In 1899, Lowell and Jane Addams founded the National Consumers League, with Florence Kelley at its head. The organization worked to combat child labor and poor working conditions and, in an era when milk was commonly adulterated with chalk and formaldehyde and candies were decorated with lead paint, lobbied for government regulation of food and drugs.
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| Florence Kelley (third from left) standing with factory inspectors. [Source: Photo courtesy of Hull House Museum] |
Leaders always mislead the people. They promise the war will be short. No one will suffer. Only the enemy will be destroyed. We will not be hurt. Years Later. Millions of deaths later. Destruction of buildings institutions families children. Everything. Every time. We were always against the war all the wars although we served. I always served my country.
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| The Center for Public Integrity stated that the Bush administration made a total of 935 false statements between 2001 and 2003 about Iraq's alleged threat to the United States. The Washington Post Fact Checker documented 30,573 false or misleading claims by Donald Trump during his 2016-2020 term. [source 1 | source 2] |
In Chicago as in the rest of the nation women watched their men leave for the battlefields of France in 1917 and each wondered: Will he come back again?
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| [Source: "Vintage: ‘The Great War’ through the lens of the Chicago Tribune" March 5, 2018]. [Photo: (1917) PUBLIC DOMAIN] |
When faced with so much evil meanness mindless endless cruelty—what to do? Certainly protest. Speak up! But that seems not enough. The killing, the torture, the corruption of government, the stealing just gets worse. Our democracy, our Constitution—Jane Addams knew this told us this—is designed to protect us from the demagogues, the rule by greedy fools, the madmen and the dictators. Jane...Jane tell us what to do now!
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| Jane Addams speaking to a crowd July 22, 1915 [source: Wikimedia Commons. American Memory Collections is available from the United States Library of Congress's National Digital Library Program under the digital ID ichicdn.n064814] |
War!! This is why foolish people, people who command armies, love war. War gives everyone something to do. War means that you follow ‘orders’. And always, the promise: QUICK VICTORY! The hated, hateful enemy (in comparison to our virtuous selves) will be destroyed!!!
And all that happens? People die. Soldiers die. Civilians die. Mothers die. Children die. If only it were short! Human arrogance coupled with real destructive power will kill many, leave no one better off. Survival is the goal.
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| Thousands marching, thousands watching Our National Army, Michigan Avenue,Chicago. August 4, 1917. [source]: Public domain |
Interest in these matters, such as women’s suffrage, exploitation of workers and women and suffrage, remains strong, perhaps in a resurgence.
For example, ‘Suffs,’—a musical which premiered in New York City in April 2024 at the Music Box Theater—is about the politics and the people, women and men who made women’s suffrage a reality in the US.
Its writer, composer and director, Shaina Taub, won Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score; she also starred during its run in New York City.
Once again we have art playing its critical role in preserving and commenting upon history, politics and most importantly the lives and circumstances of people whose dedication and purpose made a difference, and important contributions to history and the government of our country. The fight for women’s suffrage continues elsewhere.
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| Five thousand women marched in the rain to the Republican Party Convention hall in 1916 to demand a Woman Suffrage plank in the party platform. [Source: Public domain. "Illinois Women, 75 Year of the Right to Vote", Chicago Sun Times 1996, Photo: 1916] |
What do you do when evil people, mean people, ignorant people have taken over the reins of power? It doesn’t end well. They know no history, nothing of Stalin or Mussolini. We must learn from history. Help us, Jane! Help us find and remember what good government is—with service to the people—rather than stealing from them.
 Half-length portrait of the infamous con artist ‘Yellow Kid’ Weil sitting in a room in Chicago, Illinois. [Source: Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society. Reproduction Number: DN-0070628 Digital ID: ichicdn n070628] |
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| The Guardian US live news editor Chris Michael takes us through the six most controversial members, and what their appointments could mean for the country. [Source: The Guardian "Trump’s most controversial cabinet picks: what do they mean for the future of the US? – video". March 4, 2025] |