Cult Of Personality; Issue Revisited

As you get on the highway to leave O'Hare Airport,
there's a large sign in the median that welcomes
you to Chicago, and has the current Mayor's name
in huge letters at the bottom. You're barely out
of the airport, and you've already come face to
face with one of the many manifestations of the
cult of personality that pervades that great
metropolis.

(When Gloria and I moved to Chicago in 1974 we
thought of it as a cow town, when compared to
the New Your metropolitan region.)

I saw the sign first when I arrived to Chicago
in 1974, and through all the mayors who ran the
city from then till 2003 when I moved to Iron
County permanently, the name always changed
within 24 hours after a new mayor took office.
Summer or winter, stormy weather or no, it,
and the City Hall stationery, were the first
things changed. The political culture in Chicago
thinks it that important.

This subject came up again as it relates to Iron
County because I had occasion to visit Marquette
Hospital's "Hospitality Suite" recently. I
noticed that the wall decor includes 14 road
maps of various counties and municipalities in
the region.

By far the largest map, possibly 6+ times as large
as the next largest, of course, is the one put
out by the Iron County Road Commission. The
Hospital thought enough of this decorative scheme
to frame the maps and put them behind a protective
layer of plastic.



As I looked at them all, the fact jumped out at me
that out of 14 maps on the walls, only six had the
names of the members of the political body in
charge of publication. Naturally Iron County was
one of those, the cult of personality is here and
doing well despite the continuing economic decline.



This, of course, is the poverty version of a cult of
personality because the name that appears at the top
of the list is John Archocosky who has not been on
the road commission for some time now. It is as
though the City of Chicago had decided to stop
putting new mayoral names on their O'Hare Airport
sign welcoming you to Chicago. I'm almost surprised
that a road commission worker wasn't dispatched to
Marquette General to replace the map once Archokosky
was no longer on the road commission. Perhaps they'll
do that now, since I have brought it to their attention.

Which brings up the next question, when will Iron
River place signs along US2 welcoming folks to Iron
River in the mayor's, or perhaps the city manager's,
name?

When any new areas are developed in the region, will
streets be named after the current crop of Iron County
politicos?

Bill Vajk