Glory, Darkness, Light: A History of the Union League Club of Chicago Review

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Glory, Darkness, Light: A History of the Union League Club of Chicago ReviewGlory, Darkness, Light:
A History of the Union League Club of Chicago
By James D. Nowlan
A review by Jack Winans
Jim Nowlan, after three years of intensive research, has finished his history of the Union League Club of Chicago. The League history is a fascinating insight into Chicago and Illinois state politics and progress - from Adler to Yerkes.
Jim worked on the book while concurrently maintaining a staggering workload, including the rebirth of "The Stark County News," teaching at the University of Illinois, serving on many state and local committees and constantly responding to reporters and politi-cians in need of his insightful comments on the current state of Illinois Republican Party debacles.
Jim was a member of the University Club but, after completing the book, resigned and joined the Union League Club. As Jim puts it, "I don't think I would have found the club attractive at all in the period of the 1930s into the 1970s. In fact, I joined the University Club in 1981 because it was the first club to admit women, as I recall, in the Chicago area region. And while that wasn't a litmus test, it seemed a little more progressive than the Union League Club, which would have probably been the primary competitor of those two clubs, which seemed to reach out to similar types of young, upwardly mobile professionals and middle-aged folks. But today, the Un-ion League Club seems to be quite progressive in its policies towards its mission; in fact, this is not a litmus test for me either. I think that they just admitted their first openly gay member, which would cause members from the 1940s to just twirl in their graves.
"The early club was an alternative to the very stuffy Chicago clubs, and there were other clubs like the Union League Club that were ports in the storm from the muck out in the street for people who needed to do business over lunch and simply wanted a refined setting in which to do it. I think the Union League Club is different in that it originally had a civic mission, which it has maintained.
"The Union League Club, probably through its Public Affairs [Committee] and Boys and Girls Clubs and maybe to some extent its Civics and Arts Foundation, does give the members who want to be active, opportunities to utilize, through the club, to be involved in good works, and a very high percentage contribute, and within that percentage quite a few actually participate directly. And I found that to be valuable, those activities to be valuable dimensions of the club, although many other non-profit groups do similar kinds of things. But it is nice to see a club with good purposes."
"I think the club, and I think I said so in the final chapter, probably needs to find a mission or an issue for this age and burnish or re-vise the tradition being a mover and shaker on something important and valuable to the city or to the state.
Jim was raised, as his dad was, a very conservative Republican, but says, "I'm kind of a mushy moderate as I age." Jennifer Davis of the Peoria Journal Star describes Jim as a jack-of-all-trades. She includes in his credentials: a term as an Illinois legislator; an "almost" lieutenant governor; a director of state agencies; an adviser to presidential, congressional and gubernatorial candidates; professor; au-thor; newspaperman; editor and publisher; community activist; and philosopher.
Jim says that during the recent senatorial race, he was contacted for his opinion seven or eight times a week by the media and political insiders. He also feels that although there is in the media abundant information on national and local politics, there is sparse coverage of Illinois state political affairs. He feels he can fill that niche with a syndicated column with his Midwest viewpoint. He currently offers his "op-ed" (opinion editorials) to Crain's and to a small newspaper group.
Currently he is wrestling to make his three newspapers work and will be giving much of his time for the next two years at the U of I at Urbana, where he is a senior fellow and will be directing a fellows program entitled "Civic Leadership," where he'll work with the best and the brightest. Jim's book, "Inside State Government," is practically required reading for new state executives.
Also, the Union League Public Affairs Committee and Ann Lucine, a member and professor of law at John Marshall, have created a committee that will anticipate a forthcoming state constitutional requirement to review the extant state constitution and see if it should be revisited with another constitutional convention. Jim has been identified as chair of the committee.
On top of all of these accomplishments, Jim's second novel, "The Editor's Wife," will be published soon. Once again, Jim takes a story from his own colorful and accomplished past. The book takes place in 1952 in a town modeled after Mount Pulaski, Illinois. The three main characters, as they were in "The Itinerant," are taken from Jim's memory. The "old man politician" is patterned after Jim's own grandfather with a touch of Paul Powell's persona thrown in. The son is perhaps a blend of Jim and his father, and the editor's wife is modeled after one of Jim's old girlfriends. Blended in is an interracial affair and two sets of mobsters, Chicago West Side poli-ticians and the Italians.
The multifaceted personality of Jim comes through preeminently in his editorials in the Stark County News, where his admiration for his hometown and the solid Midwest morality of his roots shines forth.
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