Politics & Power Quote by Charles Edward Merriam

Chicago gets tagged as “unique” here the way a suspect gets called “special” in an interrogation: it’s a setup, not a compliment. Merriam’s line is engineered as a civic slap, using the language of boosterism (“unique”) to deliver an indictment (“only completely corrupt”). The punch is in the absolutism. “Only” and “completely” aren’t empirically defensible; they’re rhetorically surgical. He’s not trying to win a data argument. He’s trying to make denial socially embarrassing.

As an educator and civic-minded reformer, Merriam is speaking from the Progressive Era impulse to treat government like a system that can be diagnosed and fixed. The subtext is that corruption isn’t merely a few bad officials but an ecosystem: patronage networks, machine politics, police graft, business collusion, and a public trained to see it as the price of doing business. Calling it “completely corrupt” reframes corruption from scandal to infrastructure.

The line also trades on Chicago’s national mythology. Even before Prohibition cemented the city’s gangster brand, Chicago symbolized the raw energies of modern America: immigration, industry, labor conflict, rapid growth. Merriam weaponizes that notoriety to argue that the city isn’t an exception to American governance; it’s a stress test revealing what happens when scale, money, and weak accountability collide.

The deeper intent isn’t to declare Chicago hopeless. It’s to justify urgency: if the rot is “complete,” then reform can’t be cosmetic. It has to be structural, professionalized, and relentless.