4 CHICAGO READER | NOVEMBER 18, 2005 | SECTION ONE

Hot Type

By Michael Miner

The New York Times wasn’tfirst or even second, but itpublished the story that

mattered. The Tribune had car-ried a short piece in September,Time Out Chicago last May. Butwhen the same facts about ATaste of Heaven showed up inthe Times on November 9 theybecame a comment on the stateof the nation.

Over dinner a couple of monthsago a friend of the Times’s Chicagobureau chief, Jodi Wilgoren, men-tioned a cafe-bakery inAndersonville that had a contro-versial sign on its door telling kidsto watch it. Some mothers wereoffended and were boycotting.Wilgoren saw possibilities.

She and a research assistantcalled the National RestaurantAssociation and a woman whoruns etiquette workshops for kids.They turned up blogs debatingthe behavior of modern children.Most of this material never sawprint, but enough of it did to givethe article a ring of universality.For six weeks Wilgoren workedsporadically on the story, and shesays she kept changing her mindabout what she had. One day:“This is a wonderful story abouthow we live in America.” Thenext: “This is a nothing about onesmall baker and a couple of peo-ple who are upset.”

But she stuck with it, and herfirst instinct turned out to beright. Her article was the most e-mailed story in the paper the dayit ran, and the national mediadescended on A Taste of Heavenfor their own take on whatWilgoren had adroitly branded“another skirmish between thechildless and the child-centered.”Tribune columnists John Kassand Eric Zorn wrote columnstaking owner Dan McCauley’sside and giving their paper creditit didn’t deserve as the place

problems at the New York Times.”Actually, says Wilgoren, it illus-

trates a problem that happens atevery newspaper—a communica-tions breakdown. Wilgoren neverwrote that the “retail clerk”worked at Women & ChildrenFirst. She says that an uncertaincopy editor in New York inserted“at the bookstore?” as a questionto be answered, and another edi-tor assumed the answer was yesand changed the copy withoutchecking with Wilgoren. “Thatconversation didn’t happen, and itshould have,” she says. The articlehad been edited under deadlinepressure on an election night.

That wasn’t the only change.The published article has a sub-text that’s hard to miss, especial-ly if you know the neighborhood.For instance, one mother is quot-ed as telling Wilgoren, “I lovepeople who don’t have childrenwho tell you how to parent.” Thecopy Wilgoren sent to New York

had a line in it that cut to thechase: it said McCauley waschildless and had a boyfriend.“That whole thing was takenout,” she says, “and nobody askedme about it. Which I’m pissed offabout. It’s certainly a reasonablesubject for debate as to whethersomebody’s sexuality belongs inthe story. I’d have argued it does,because it’s the subject of thestory. I talked to him about it,and he was fine about it. Itwould have been OK to have theeditor ask me, but not to take itout without asking me.”

I called McCauley, who told mehe might have said he was OKwith it, but he didn’t really seewhat it had to do with the issue.“If you try to appeal to a strictlygay audience you will not suc-ceed in business,” he said. “Myclientele is probably 90 percentstraight and 10 percent gay. Westill have quite a few childrenwho come in here.” He excused

Down the street at Women &Children First no one basked in the sudden attention, whichwas the result of ahuge mistake by the Times.

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It’s Not the Story,It’s How You Tell ItThere were earlier stories about A Taste of Heaven’s kiddie policy, but it’s the New York Times version that has the nation’s undies in a bundle.

where the story originated. Down the street at Women &

Children First, briefly mentionedin Wilgoren’s story, the phonebegan to ring. Channel Two,Channel Five, and PublishersWeekly all got in touch. But noone at the bookstore basked inthis sudden attention, which wasthe result of a huge mistake bythe Times. The story said, “Manyof the Andersonville mothers whoare boycotting Mr. McCauley’sbakery also skip story time atWomen and Children First, afeminist bookstore, because of therules: children can be kicked outfor standing, talking or sippingdrinks. When a retail clerk at thebookstore asked a woman to stopbreast-feeding last spring, ‘theneighborhood set him straightreal fast,’ said Mary Ann Smith,the area’s alderwoman.”

The bookstore’s anguishedowners protested, calling thearticle’s errors “egregious” and“extremely damaging” in an e-mail to the Times. For one thing,“Children are never ‘kicked out’of our Storytime.” It is simply“suggested” that parents or nan-nies of fussy children “take themaway from the Storytime areauntil the child has calmed down.”For another thing, “We are aspro-breast-feeding as a businesscan get.” Moreover, there was noman on staff at the time.

Alderman Smith also wrote thepaper. “I specifically declined toprovide identification of a certainbusiness,” she said. “Your reporterguessed but got it wrong in herstory. Furthermore, she attributesher erroneous guess to me! Herattribution is wrong. I demand acorrection. Her basic story aboutthe neighborhood is wrong. Idemand a correction.” ThenSmith twisted the dagger: “Thisseemingly small controversy is alikely illustration of the bigger

hottype@chicagoreader.comwww.chicagoreader.com/hottype

Dan McCauley and letters of support at his cafe, A Taste of Heaven; Women & Children First owners Ann Christophersen and Linda Bubon

CHICAGO READER | NOVEMBER 18, 2005 | SECTION ONE 5

The Straight Dope®by Cecil Adams

A fascist plot to take over theWhite House? Oh, wait, youmean the one that allegedlyhappened in 1934.

Smedley Butler’s story was nutty—hey,even the guy’s name was nutty—which isone reason you don’t hear much about ittoday. Apart from that congressional com-mittee you mentioned, most people at thetime didn’t take the plot seriously, andeven now we don’t know whether it was ascam, a pipe dream promoted by a fewwealthy yo-yos, or an honest-to-Jesus con-spiracy to overthrow the government. Butsomething was definitely up.

Butler was a much-decorated generalin the U.S. Marines. Outspoken, hard-working, and unpretentious, he wasbeloved by his men and influential withveterans. After retiring from the militaryin 1931, he urged Congress to acceleratepayment of a bonus for World War I vets,many of whom were then out of work dueto the Depression.

In 1933 Butler was visited by two offi-cials in the American Legion, the veterans’organization, who tried to recruit him togive a speech at an upcoming Legion con-vention calling for the U.S. to return to thegold standard. (FDR had recently decou-pled the country’s money supply from goldto boost the economy.) Butler demurred,but one of the men, Gerald MacGuire, keptpestering him, flashing an impressivebankbook at one meeting, offering thegeneral 18 thousand-dollar bills at another,and arranging a visit from Singer sewingmachine heir Robert Clark, who encour-aged Butler to give the speech. Againrebuffed, MacGuire went off to Europe ona fact-finding trip but approached Butlerwith a new scheme in 1934, saying he andhis wealthy backers would organize anarmy of 500,000 veterans to make a showof force and persuade the overworkedRoosevelt to accept the “assistance” of a“secretary of general affairs,” who wouldrun the government while the presidentstayed on as figurehead. The proposedSecGenAff? Smedley Butler.

Appalled at the ideaof becoming the firstU.S. dictator, Butlerconfided in jour-nalist PaulFrench, who metwith MacGuireand confirmedthe outlines ofthe plan. AHouse com-mittee gotwind of theplot and heldhearings.After takingtestimonyfrom Butlerand French, thecommittee sum-moned MacGuire, whoanswered evasively. Robert Clark wasnever called; testimony by his attorneywas limited to financial dealings withMacGuire. The big names who’d beenimplicated (for example, the J.P. Morganand du Pont interests) denied everythingor kept mum. Press coverage was dismis-sive—Time ran a story headlined “PlotWithout Plotters.” The committee issueda report saying Butler’s story checkedout, but few paid much attention. Withthat the matter died.

Dumbfounded later commentators havetended to ask the same question you did:How could America ignore a potentialcoup? (One plausible answer: fat cats controlled the press.) A more pertinentline of inquiry is: What went on here?The possibilities:a Butler was lying, deluded, etc.Nah. Browse through the testimony and you find that the committee did, as claimed, corroborate the essentials of the general’s story.a A number of U.S. plutocrats really didconspire to depose the president. It’s notout of the question. Though the idea of apopular revolt financed by zillionairesseems harebrained now, it was less so in

the 1930s. In Europe jobless veteranswere a potent political force, and enlistingrespected military leaders in right-wingschemes was a common ploy—witnessHindenburg in Germany and, a little later,Marshall Petain in France. The New Dealpolarized the nation; many in the mon-eyed crowd really did fear FDR was open-ing the door to bolshevism.a MacGuire was a con artist. Butler him-self wondered whether MacGuire wasusing Clark’s paranoia about losing hisfortune to wheedle cash out of him.a The plot never got further than a smallcadre of screwballs. The simplest explana-tion in my book. Though MacGuiredropped lots of big names, Butler hadcontact with only three conspirators—MacGuire, Clark, and the other AmericanLegion official who’d tagged along on thefirst couple visits. Clark had a reputationas an eccentric. MacGuire was well wired,predicting political developments withuncanny accuracy, but that proves little initself. Maybe the plotters figured if theygot Butler on board everybody else wouldfall into line. Who’s to say they wouldn’thave? Look at the bridge club’s worth ofgeniuses who got us into Iraq.

I was reading a Wikipedia article about two-time Medal of Honorwinners the other day, one of whom was General Smedley Butler.He claimed to have unmasked the “business plot,” also known as the“White House putsch,” a scheme to install a fascist dictatorship inthe U.S. Supposedly some congressional committee confirmedButler’s claims. Did the “business plot” really exist? If so, how comeno one’s ever heard of it? —Brent, Urbana

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OComments, questions? Take it up with Cecil on the Straight Dope Message Board, www.straightdope.com, or write him at the Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago 60611. Cecil’s most recent compendium of knowledge, Triumph of the Straight Dope, is available at bookstores everywhere.

himself to answer another call.When he came back heannounced, “This woman on thephone now said she’d love tocome with her children to thebakery. She said, ‘I don’t care forthose parents who don’t seem towant to parent their children.’”

Wilgoren had turnedMcCauley into a global man ofthe hour. “There were calls fromBritish Columbia and NewZealand and Australia—many,many from Toronto andMontreal,” he told me. “I’ve got-ten over 2,500 phone calls, andI’ll tell you, I don’t know 2,500people. I think a lot of peopleare—I don’t want to say fed up,but something has to be done.”

The cheery-looking signMcCauley posted on his frontdoor months ago is still there. Itsays, “Children of all ages have tobehave and use their indoor voic-es when they come to A Taste ofHeaven.” The language is a littleblunter than it needs to be, andthe placement’s so low on thedoor it’s at the eye level of kids tooyoung to read it. He’s unsparingin his analysis of the problem:“It’s these younger, wealthy momswho don’t think they should beheld accountable, especially bysomeone they consider the help,”he told me. He described them toWilgoren as “former cheerleadersand beauty queens.” It’s languagethat doesn’t advance the peaceprocess, which Zorn observed in asecond column reappraising theconflict. “The real issue,” he wroteNovember 15, “seems to be onemore of style than substance.”

Kim Cavitt appeared inWilgoren’s story as a neighbor-hood mother who “recalled hav-ing coffee and a cookie one after-noon with her boisterous 2-year-old when ‘someone came overand said you just need to keepher quiet or you need to leave.’”McCauley read that as Cavitt

claiming she’d been kicked out—which he was sure hadn’t hap-pened, his sign being no morethan a “very gentle reminder”that no one who worked for himwould ever enforce so brutally.Cavitt and McCauley wound upon Fox News together. “I said,‘Ma’am, I don’t think that hap-pened,’” McCauley told me. “Andshe was very dogmatic and shesaid, ‘Are you calling me a liar?’on national TV.” Later that dayCavitt showed up at A Taste ofHeaven, which she was other-wise boycotting, to pursue thediscussion. “That was very awk-ward,” said McCauley.

I reached Cavitt at home. Itwas hard to hear her over thetwo-year-old screaming in thebackground, but she set therecord straight. “Nobody kickedme out—I just left,” she said.“Why would I lie about some-thing like that? I’ve tried reallyhard not to say anything person-al about him, but I don’t appreci-ate it when I’m called a beautyqueen with a sense of entitle-ment. That’s so far fromme. . . . My child wasn’t running.She wasn’t screaming. She wasn’tdoing anything. My child alsodoes not know a stranger. Shewas talking to the other patronsshowing them her cookie.”

The New York Times promptlycorrected Wilgoren’s story onlineand on November 11 published apage-two correction saying theretail clerk didn’t work at thebookstore. For good measure, italso said the story had misstatedthe Women & Children First pol-icy governing story time. Thiswas OK with Wilgoren, thoughshe didn’t think it was necessary.She told me, “I’m not sure whatthe exact difference is betweenasking people to leave and kick-ing them out.”

Story time is Wednesday at 10continued on page 6

worlds apart. “If,” she said, “I wasa restaurateur trying to balancethe needs of customers who wanta quiet, peaceful atmosphere withthe needs of customers who wantto get out of the house with theirchildren—” She hesitated. “I don’tknow how I’d strike that balance.”

McCauley had told me about aphone call from a woman inAlabama. “She said, ‘May I sendyou a letter? I’ll need youraddress.’ And she said, ‘Will youput it up in your bakery? I wantyou to put it in a pretty frame.’She said, ‘I’m a single mom, andI have four children, and we’revictims of Katrina. And I wantyou to know that even in thisshelter I expect them to behave.Even in this shelter I expectthem to use their indoor voices.

6 CHICAGO READER | NOVEMBER 18, 2005 | SECTION ONE

Hot Type

Even in this shelter I expectmore from my children than theyexpect from theirs.”

Time Out Chicago and theTribune did a story on a neigh-borhood squabble. Despite itsbungling, the Times uncovered afault line in American society.

News Bite a Two and a half years agoRobert Ariail, editorial cartoon-ist of the State in Columbia,South Carolina, thought he wasabout to be hired by the Tribuneto fill a position vacant since JeffMacNelly died in 2000. Ichecked in with Ariail the otherday, and as far as he knows he’s

still in line for the job. But theline’s not moving, and he’s notholding his breath. “Your guess isas good as mine,” said Ariail, whohasn’t heard from editorial pageeditor Bruce Dold in a year or soand doesn’t know why.

The unfilled position is a stickin the eye of Ariail’s profession,and last week the TribuneCompany came at it with an even sharper stick. A new pub-lisher sent from Chicago firedthe Los Angeles Times’s conser-vative, Pulitzer-winning cartoon-ist, Michael Ramirez. For balance and greater savings, healso fired a liberal columnist,Robert Scheer.

I first heard about this frommy sister in Pasadena, whothought she got her money’s

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AM, before the doors open toadult customers. “We’re a chil-dren’s bookstore,” says co-ownerAnn Christophersen. “We wantchildren here.” She and the otherowner, Linda Bubon, sent theTimes a letter complaining thatWilgoren’s story “trivialized animportant issue” and put theirstore on the wrong side of it.“Mothers of young children don’tneed to be told by the media howhostile most of the world is to thework they do. They feel it everyday, in the stores and restaurantswhere they’re not welcomed, inworkplaces that penalize themfor maternity leaves or wantingto work part-time.”

Bubon told me A Taste ofHeaven and her bookstore are

worth from both of them. Shesaid the firings made her under-stand for the first time that herhometown paper had beenbought. The Tribune Companytook over the Times in 2000.Surely the last thing its publisherwants is for his world-class paperin his world-class city to be perceived by the public as colonized. The Times can eitherreport to Los Angeles or it canreport to Rome. a Former Tribune reporter and Jerry Springer producerBrenda You died last weekend,apparently by her own hand, inLos Angeles, where until lastyear she'd been the west-coastbureau chief for Star magazine.She was 38 and leaves a 12-year-old daughter. v

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