Arthur Miller wrote a play called “The Crucible” about the Salem witch trials. He used the witch trials as a comparison to Senator Joe McCarthy’s 1950s hunt for communists. Admittedly, such literary analogies are often lost on me, but I have recently seen enough political witch hunts here in St. Charles County to get the idea.
Americans love a good witch hunt. Somehow it appeals to our inherent desire to be one of the “us” against the “them.” I learned the secret in middle school: if you’re one of the kids picking on the kid everybody picks on, then you’re not the kid getting picked on. It’s basic pack mentality 101.
Last week, our little St. Charles school yard saw two such witch hunts—one in O’Fallon and one in St. Peters. Both were orchestrated by our new school yard bully, Adolphus Busch IV.
Adolphus inherited part of the Anheuser-Busch brewery fortune. Like most rich kids, Adolphus bullies others with his money. But in Adolphus’ case, he also bullies with his name.
Adolphus’ half-brother, August Busch III, runs the brewery that employs a lot of St. Louisians. Consequently, August Busch earns a great deal of respect in St. Louis. And the Busch clan is St. Louis’ closest thing to a reigning royal family.
Now reportedly, August Busch won’t let his half-brother so much as run a fork lift at a company warehouse. Adolphus is a family “black sheep.” But that doesn’t stop Adolphus from using his family’s clout to bully little local politicians here in St. Charles County. He is half-brother to a king. He expects the local pols to kiss his ring.
O’Fallon Mayor Paul Renaud didn’t kiss Adolphus’ ring. So Adolphus spent a fortune to manipulate public sentiment against the Old Town Redevelopment Project into a sweep by his hand-picked candidates of the Mayor’s office and a majority of the Board of Aldermen. The public was so upset about Old Town that no one stopped to ask who the new people were challenging the old. The public just wanted to “throw the bums out.” Now that was an impressive piece of bullying.
Adolphus’ mayor, Donna Morrow (a.k.a. the Pipeline Lady), didn’t like old Mayor Renaud’s police chief, Steve Talbott, still being in office. So she had him investigated to find some excuse to fire him. Interestingly, she has a majority of Aldermen who came to power with her on a wave of beer money from Adolphus. As long as Adolphus’ brewery boys stick with her, she doesn’t need a reason to fire Chief Talbott.
And she doesn’t appear to have one. Not a real one anyway. You can tell because the only two Aldermen not affiliated with Adolphus, Hennessy and Cantwell, are publicly saying that Talbott’s firing is a witch hunt. As Aldermen, they have seen the “evidence.” If Mayor Morrow had Chief Talbott on anything real, these two would not be defending him.
But like I said, it doesn’t matter. She has the votes.
Now contrast O’Fallon with St. Peters. Just like in O’Fallon, old St. Peters Mayor Tom Brown wouldn’t kiss Adolphus’ ring. Adolphus responded by virtually single-handily financing Shawn Brown’s campaign to defeat Tom Brown. And Tom Brown gave Adolphus’ machine the perfect campaign issue by trying to sneak through a gargantuan pay increase for himself. Again, the voters wanted to “throw the bum out” without questioning whether the new “bum” might actually be worse.
But unlike O’Fallon, the St. Peters’ voters re-elected the old Board of Aldermen. So Mayor Shawn (as he likes to be called) doesn’t have the votes. And without the votes, it’s hard to conduct an O’Fallon-style witch hunt.
Last week on the same night O’Fallon replaced Chief Talbott, Mayor Shawn tried to throw out the St. Peters city prosecutor, Jeff Morrison. Just like in the case against Chief Talbott, Mayor Shawn never really said why he wanted to remove Morrison. But as a County Councilman, Morrison has tangled with Adolphus (again, failure to kiss the ring). And Morrison was a friend of the old mayor, Tom Brown. Unfortunately for Shawn, the St. Peters Board refused to put Shawn’s request on the agenda.
Now just because Mayor Shawn couldn’t follow through against Morrison, he isn’t giving up on the whole witch hunt concept. He sent the Aldermen a request to remove David Hayes’ wife, Randa, from the city’s Historical Commission.
Now Randa Hayes has the perfect makings for a target of a good witch hunt. She has long black hair and an air of mystery. She has all sorts of undefined political connections and unquantifiable “pull” with high ranking Republican political insiders. And Governor Matt Blunt recently asked for her resignation from a high level post in Jeff City when the Democrats attacked her because she had a misdemeanor conviction from college. You want to publicly try someone for being a witch, she’s your gal.
In his memo to the Board, Mayor Shawn alleged that he wanted to remove Randa because of her lack of attendance to Commission meetings. Then he told the papers it was also because of her questionable “background.”
But a few days later, Mayor Shawn sent another memo to the Aldermen saying that he did not realize that he is also a member of the city’s Historical Commission and that he would start attending meetings. Apparently, since he took office, he has only been to one meeting.
Whoops! Talk about the facts getting in the way of a good old fashioned political witch hunt.
Mayor Shawn should take his cue from Mayor Morrow: if you want to hunt “witches,” better ask Adolphus to buy you some more Aldermen.
ttt
