JS implies Ardis, Brown supporters are racists
Racists? Running for city council? Sounds like a reach, but that’s the unavoidable impression I came away with when I read this morning’s editorial
Thirty-six years ago, a slate of candidates running under the banner “Citizens For Representative Government,” or CFRG, swept into control of Peoria City Hall on an “anti” platform. Specifically, they were anti-utility tax and anti-urban renewal, but it went well beyond that.
They opposed busing to integrate the schools, rental properties, taxes, the city bureaucracy, even a new state constitution. They were defined by a narrow view of the world – one that didn’t go far beyond their immediate neighborhoods and wards – and by a nostalgia for the way things used to be and the way they wanted them to be again. They were a back-to-basics crowd. They fought against “downtown interests” and for “the people.” Their council meetings were characterized by shouting matches, personal insults and councilmen storming out.
I was a child in from 1969-73. What I know about the CFRG is what I have been told by historians and political scientists who were around to witness the events. But I do recall that the the editorial page of the Journal Star was extremely right-wing and reactionary and probably expressed some of the same anti-busing, anti-integration views. Perhaps the JS editorial writer cares to go through the clips and provide readers some examples of the forward thinking this newspaper expressed in decades past. I recall reading some doozies about the “yellow tide” of Asian immigration.
The rest of this edit torturously tries to imply that some of the candidates running for city office in the Feb. 22 primary election are the modern equivalent of the racist and reactionary — by the JS’s thinking — CFRG. Many are stressing the need for basic services over economic development projects. Except that these guys aren’t a slate, like the CFRG was.
Also, they aren’t opposing integration or busing. These these aren’t even issues anymore. But what the heck, its always fun to imply modern candidates are racist by equating them with decades-old opposition to integration and busing.
Virtually every person I’ve spoken to who can be called a “back to basics” candidate also supports some form of proactive economic development. The recently passed “garbage tax” is sort of like the utility tax the CFRG opposed, except that there’s no organized effort to repeal the garbage taxes. So much for that analogy.
Urban renewal? Every serious “back-to-basics” candidate I’ve talked to would love nothing more to renew Peoria’s oldest neighborhoods. But few thought “urban renewal” includes kicking grandmothers out of their East Bluff homes, paying them pennies on the dollar, and forcing them into homes a quarter the size out in the hinterlands of North Peoria. All to make room for a millionaire’s strip mall. These candidates, however, do think it idiotic to help someone build one grocery story simply to force another our of business. But any candidate who expresses this view is a reactionary demagogue opposed to art and culture and quality of life. Remember, of course, that the JS editorialized in favor of increased spending on pretty plants and flowers while the city debated the closing of Fire Station 11.
Shouting matches and personal insults at council meetings? Seems we have that know, and it’s the basic-to-basics crowd who are in the minority.
This editorial names no names. It doesn’t have to. The Journal Star will endorse David Ransburg, Gale Thetford and Marcella Teplitz. These are the more pro-economic development candidates who run the risk of defeat by challengers who a more back-to-basics philosophy. Journal Star holds this concept in such contempt that it is willing to imply those who hold this view are racist, reactionary malcontents. Without naming names, the Journal Star is speaking about Jim Ardis, Bruce Brown, Robert Manning, Angela Anderson, Barbara Van Auken, Franklin Lewis and perhaps several others (my apologies to those challengers whose names I did not mention).
The editorial writer simply lacked the courage and integrity to name those names. Or perhaps he or she was acting under the instructions of publisher John McConnell (the newspaper’s representative in the Peoria Civic Federation, until after the public found out about it), or perhaps his bosses from Copley Press.
The fact is, I don’t know who wrote this editorial, because the Journal Star, like most daily newspapers, does not sign its editorials. This leaves the public to guess who pens unpopular editorials. As a result, when one or more of these challengers win election, they won’t know that when a high-ranking Journal Star editor calls them for an interview, it might be the exact same guy or gal who lumped them together with the reactionary racists who opposed to busing and integration back in 1969.
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
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