The day the Front Page wept (poem) by Steve Joos on AuthorsDen

The day the Front Page wept
by Steve Joos → (All Poetry by Steve Joos)
Rated "PG" by the Author.

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One of the darkest days in the history of Chicago fell on Dec. 1, 1958, when a fire killed 90 students at the Our Lady of Angels Catholic grade school. Given the city's reputation and the equally raucous nature of its newspapers, partly made famous by the likes of Mike Royko and Ben Hecht (who co-wrote the play "The Front Page") among others, the depth of this tragedy and its effect on otherwise jaded, brittle newsmen and photographers is especially striking. This piece contains paraphrased parts of a Museum of Science and Industry exhibit sponsored by the Chicago Tribune from the 1960s and 1970s, which used coverage of the fire to explain the genesis of a daily newspaper's edition.
The Windy City's scribes are a hardened lot, Its men with cameras calloused souls. Their world's a toddling town, full of corruption and ccrime, where the mobsters hit better than the sports teans. They can't flinch, they know what it's like when a political hack playing death investigator puffs on a stogie while wiggling his finger through a dead mobster's hat. A world of Great Dumplings and Scarfaces, Covering cruelty, covering violence, just another day at the office. Then one bitter December day close to deadline... Late in the afternoon- A fire, at a school... Fire, that fearful word, in the worst place of all. Smoke, so often the most lethal moved from room to room, leaving its prey sleeping. Callow youths killed by smoke, fire, and an ancient building garndfathered into a coffin by ancient procedure. Their school a ruin, The newly-minted Angels smiled back on the Front Page as the Toddling Town wept. Even the cyncial ink-stained wretcches and photogs jaded by years of doing whatever necessary. 5 p.m. The paper hits the streets. Checking will go on through the night.