Ernest Hemingway was a Chicago guy, and one wonders what he would think of the Chicago of Barack Obama and The Reverend Wright. He would fully understand the Illinois of Governor Blagojevich, for corruption was not new to Chicago or Hemingway. But the Chicago of Obama and his cronies is something different from run-of-the-mill political corruption. It is a deep seated hatred of everything American, something Hemingway would never have understood. Let us remember the Chicago of Ernest Hemingway, where the dead voted early and often, where every politician was on the take, and everyone knew it and didn’t much care. Chicago was not part of Hemingway’s novels, but Hemingway’s novels were part of Chicago.  

 

 

Did Nick Adams say

In his curt South Side way

That Ernest did Chi-town a wrong?

I think that’s not right

The list is not slight

Just listen I’ll sing you a song

The first bars will bring

The Torrents Of Spring

A wonderful, melodic tune

Then in Chicago’s quaint way

Near the ending of day

Comes sweet Death In The Afternoon

The pols wheel and deal

They grin and they steal

By now we all know the whole plot

In Chicago it’s worse

It is all in the verse

The Garden Of Eden it’s not

Elections are rigged

Dead votes up are digged

They stuff ballot boxes in polls

But the winds they will bend

And they’ll find in the end

That it’s they now For Whom The Bell Tolls