George Ryan's death recalls the Willis family tragedy

But the former Illinois governor's malfeasance was just one of many factors that led to the deaths of six children in 1994

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Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.

Putting George Ryan’s role in the Willis family tragedy in perspective

Six children of Scott and Janet Willis of Chicago died in a fiery crash on Nov. 8, 1994 when a mudflap-taillight assembly fell off a truck and punctured the gas tank of the mini-van they were riding in on Interstate Highway 94 near Milwaukee.

The truck was being driven by Ricardo Guzman, who had paid a bribe two years earlier to an employee of the Illinois Secretary of State’s office so he could obtain a commercial driver’s license without taking and passing the required tests.

At that time, George Ryan, the former governor who died Friday at 91, was the Secretary of State. An investigation into the crash revealed that such bribery was common, and that those Secretary of State employees who took the bribes were known to funnel some of the money in Ryan’s campaign fund. The probe ultimately led to corruption charges against Ryan and a conviction that landed him in federal prison for nearly six years.

Virtually every story I read about Ryan’s death mentioned the Willis children, with the implication that Ryan was a significant player in the chain of events that killed them..

Today I want to put his role into context.

The Willis tragedy was not mentioned in the 92-page indictment against Ryan, and the major related allegation prosecutors made was that Ryan had tried to shut down the subsequent probe into licenses for bribes rather than facilitate it.

To review, let’s ask: What if Guzman, a native of Mexico with a poor command of English, according to many accounts, had instead been a good driver with a legitimate license? Someone would have been driving that truck to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin on the fateful morning, and by many accounts Guzman was headed straight down the road at or under the speed limit.

The idea that corruption at the highest levels caused the deaths of six children rests not on a simple fact but on a pair of assumptions:

1. That a properly licensed trucker would have seen the damage on the chassis during a pre-trip inspection and refused to leave before it was fixed.

2. That a properly licensed trucker would have heard, understood and heeded warnings from other motorists that something was about to fall off his truck.

The first assumption is fragile.

Willis family attorney Joseph Power allowed that the Ryan link was “a weaker part” of the multi-defendant civil suit that was settled in 1999 for $100 million. A metallurgist hired by Power reported that both rear mudflap-taillight assemblies on the chassis evidently had been damaged for “some period of time,” during which countless other truck drivers, many presumably with licenses obtained the proper way, had hauled that trailer.

The second assumption is stronger.

According to depositions taken in the case, several truckers tried that morning to tell Guzman over CB radio that a part was dangling from his truck, and at least one trucker drove next to him and honked and gestured.

Truckers are not required to listen to their CB radios, and Guzman testified that his was broken that day anyway. So whether or not he was able to “read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public,” as Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations require, may not be a relevant question to ask about the events on the day of the accident, Power said.

What Guzman apparently didn’t understand was the universal honk-and-point message from a fellow motorist that something was urgently wrong with his vehicle.

He was under no legal obligation to heed such a message, but his failure to do so–along with a driving record that secretary of state officials said included eight tickets and five accidents (the Willis crash not included) from 1986 to 1997 — suggested that Guzman was “a low-functioning individual,” as Power put it, who could not have passed a commercial driver’s-license exam administered in any language.

When Guzman didn’t pull over to check his rig, it was the last of a chain of failures and oversights — by the company that made the part that fell off, the company that leased the chassis, the company that maintained the chassis, the trucking company that supervised Guzman, the company that oversaw dispatching in the truck yard and the company that installed an insufficiently shielded gas tank on the mini-van the Willises were riding in that day. Each responsible party paid at least $1 million and as much as $50 million to settle with the Willis family.

The assumption that an ordinarily competent trucker would have discovered the problem before heading onto the road or would have heeded the warnings Guzman received makes the Secretary of State’s office under Ryan a key link in that chain.

Not to minimize or to magnify that link, just to put it in perspective: A little more oversight and a little less negligence anywhere along the line would have dramatically altered George Ryan’s history and saved the lives of those children.

On deleting the first draft of history

Years ago, I was involved in a dispute between the subject of a news story and the Tribune in which the subject was threatening legal action if the newspaper did not go into its archives and remove his name and photo from a related column I had written.

I don’t want to go into too many details that might stir up the waters again, but the man was a victim of an attack,and had filed a civil suit against the alleged perpetrators. He had also granted me an on-the-record interview and even provided a photograph of the injuries he’d suffered that I posted to an online version of the column.

The man had a somewhat unusual last name, and years later he found that prospective employers would find my column when conducting an internet search and, he said, would hold it against him in the hiring process. So he wanted the Tribune to scrub his name and the photo from my column to lessen the chances he’d be associated with the story.

To its credit, the Tribune refused despite repeated, angry pleas from the man and his friends. The story and the photograph remain online, and the man seems now to be gainfully employed. The man also sued Google for having indexed the story, and in 2018 a judge ordered Google to “de-index” the photo so it doesn’t show up in image searches of the man’s name. Google seems to have complied.

We print the truth, and one of the credos of journalism is that the passage of time doesn’t erase the truth. But that position is less and less easy to defend as the searchable tail of online resources gets longer and longer.

Today, student newspapers are facing a compelling version of the so called “right to be forgotten.” Campus protesters who freely posed for photographs, wrote columns or gave quotes to reporters during demonstrations and occupations related to Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Gaza have a legitimate fear that the Trump regime will be able to single them out for deportation.

The Columbia Journalism Review:

On April 4, the Student Press Law Center, in conjunction with several other media rights groups, issued a new guidance that urged student newspapers to consider being more flexible about requests to remove content or identifying material from their stories. Previous guidelines from the organization had taken a much firmer stance against removing published materials. “The world is different now, and so I think our response has to be different,” said Michael Hiestand, a staff attorney with the center. … Chris Evans, the director of student media at Rice University in Houston and adviser to the Rice Thresher,* says he’s having to rethink journalistic principles he’s held to for more than two decades—sometimes making for awkward encounters with his student editors. “Those students who have been taught by their teachers, by people like me, that you don’t take down a story unless it is incorrect or libelous, are now holding to that and just saying my words back to me,” he said.

Nieman Reports:

The wave of student visa revocations under Trump — as many as 1300 so far, according to Inside Higher Ed — has prompted student newspapers to reconsider (their policy on takedowns), and in many cases modify, their practices in response to what some say is an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment. … “In our bylaws, it says anonymity and takedowns are really only supposed to be given when there’s a serious threat of harm or to the safety of the author,” said Zhane Yamin, co-editor-in-chief of The Michigan Daily at the University of Michigan. “If not now, then when would we realistically use this?” In recent weeks, Yamin said, the paper has retroactively anonymized two articles written by international students.

It remains tricky, as it can require editors to consider one-by-one requests from students who want their names removed from the record and to weigh the merits of each case, a time-consuming task with no fixed standards. And, of course, legally speaking, it’s easier for a paper’s editors to defend themselves in court by saying — as the Tribune did in the case I described — that they never grant retrospective anonymity as a matter of practice. Once a paper makes exceptions to the rule, they open themselves up to having to specifically defend each decision.

*Tip of the press fedora for the name Rice Thresher, a thresher being a farm implement that separates rice grains from the stalks and husks. Sorting things out — relevant from irrelevant, true from false — is what a responsible media outlet does.

Notes and comments from readers — lightly edited — along with my responses

Gov. JB Pritzker’s speech in New Hampshire and his presidential ambitions

David Leitschuh — In “Pritzker unleashes the weapon of words against the Trump regime,” you wrote glowingly about his attack against Trump and the Republicans during a recent speech in New Hampshire. But outside of the People's Republic of Illinois, he is not viewed as a serious presidential contender. He is viewed, accurately, as the born-wealthy leader of a failing state that is among the country's leaders in unsustainable, unfunded pension debt resulting in credit status slightly above junk bonds, some of the highest taxes in the country and an exodus of taxpaying citizens to other states.

The Illinois corporate income tax rate of 9.5% is among the highest in the country, the gas tax is the second highest in the country and will continue increasing every year due to Pritzker supported legislation that makes those increases automatic.

Pritzker's scheme to lower his property taxes by removing toilets from a mansion he’d purchased revealed a lot about his character. There are indeed already serious 2028 likely Democratic presidential candidates, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is working furiously to reinvent himself as a centrist; popular Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and charismatic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Others who are not presently on the political radar may well also arise in the next year or two. But please. JB Pritzker is not in any way a serious presidential candidate.

Marc Martinez — Under Pritzker, Illinois has been 47th in annual economic growth rate — 5.8% vs. a median of 12.8%, — well behind all of our neighboring states and at less than a quarter of the top states.

This is also reflected in job creation. Under Pritzker, the state has added a net of only 32,000 non-farm jobs, and 73% of those are government jobs.

TedB. — The pension problem was handed to Pritzker after decades of underfunding, and he has recently pushed for reform, such as making it easier to consolidate excess units of government. The total tax burden here is high, but not significantly higher than neighboring states: IL 10.2 %, IN 9.1%, IA 9.2%, MN 9.7%, OH 9.4%. When you add in everything (insurance, medical, utilities, education, etc.) Illinois does fairly well. A significant portion of population loss is due to simple demographics: boomers retiring en masse and seeking warmer weather.

I'm critical of how taxes are spent, but OK with the amount paid. In many ways, you get what you pay for when it comes to education, healthcare, culture, etc. We have no state on retirement income, but I'd like to see more competitive corporate rates.

The Visual Capitalist is a great website for looking at the big pictures . Here's a chart showing how far a million dollars plus Social Security will get you in every state. Illinois fares better than states gaining population, such as Florida and Texas:

Jeff Biss — Bully for Pritzker! As an independent progressive I want the Democrats to punch the Republicans in their fascist, lying divisive mouths. I view the GOP as the enemy, traitors in their full support of the MAGA conservative/libertarian agenda to destroy our progressive liberal government as they try to recreate the Gilded Age under a new Tech Bros oligarchy. To hell with the snowflake GOP whining about divisiveness when they started it with their Willie Horton ad to their Obama isn't native born to today's anti-woke, anti-DEI rhetoric.

Zorn — Let me briefly address the toilet “scandal.” It’s true that contractors working for Pritzker disconnected the toilets and removed other fixtures from an unoccupied house owned by Pritzker. And it’s true that this was one of the reasons the office of Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios reduced the assessed value of the house in 2016 to about $1.1 million from $6.25 million. And it’s true that this reduction reduced his tax bills by approximately $230,000.

It’s not true that disconnecting the toilets was either necessary or sufficient to obtain an assessment reduction. Berrios’ spokesman Tom Shaer told me at the time that “a home can have working plumbing but still be uninhabitable,” and if unconnected toilets “had been the only situation in the (second) home, the assessor’s office would have taken a much, much less favorable view of vacancy claim.”

Pritzker said that the removal was part of an overall renovation project, and photographs on file at the assessor’s office showed evidence of significant construction in the vacant home, including ripped-up walls and floors along with missing kitchen appliances. Shaer described the project as “a major gut rehab,” and added “the characterization of the renovation of this Pritzker property as being only or primarily ‘disconnecting toilets’ is grossly inaccurate.”

Such reductions are common, and they’re meant to incentivize owners to upgrade or fix structures.

Heck no to profanity

Joyce Haeckel — I agree with the Tribune editorial condemning the Democrats for using so many swear words. Democrats need to use strong words to challenge policies advocated by Trump and the Republican party, but surely they can do this without abandoning words that convey more than sloppy speech. Swearing usually turns out to be a short cut because the speaker is unable to explain his/her ideas better.

Many voters whom the Democrats want to attract will be offended by this kind of speech. Some of them may use this language informally, but they know it is not always appropriate in some situations.

There are other words that be used to motivate people.

Zorn — I used colorful language to disagree with that editorial, and I was pleased to see the Voice of the People section in the paper add many other dissents. Including:

Critiquing new candidates such as Kat Abughazaleh for their tone, while ignoring the substance of their platforms, doesn’t elevate the conversation — it sidesteps it. Reducing these candidates to their occasional vulgarity is an ad hominem fallacy. It avoids engaging with their actual policy ideas — on climate, health care, labor and campaign finance — and instead critiques how they speak rather than what they stand for. … the editorial isn’t really about helping Democrats win. It’s about policing the boundaries of what’s considered acceptable within the party, even as those boundaries are being questioned by voters who want more than recycled talking points. —Brett Barnes, Chicago

If the best line of attack defenders of the old, corrupt establishment can muster is on puritanical semantic grounds, then it seems it’s only a matter of time before those of us who are ready for change have our way. —John Scuderi, Chicago

To call out one party, particularly in the current political climate where needless vulgarities are being flung from all sides, is not helpful in the least.— Mary Friedlieb, Chicago

I will say again that, while sometimes it’s true that vulgar language reveals a paucity of imagination and vocabulary, other times it is totally spot on. And that there is clearly no correlation between intelligence and clean language.

Blago’s finger of blame

Jo A. — You misinterpreted what former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich meant when he said that the feds “criminalized conversations Obama started” and that he went “to prison for political things Obama started.” I believe he was claiming that Obama had kicked off the chain of events by offering something to Blago in exchange for Blago appointing Obama’s choice to replace him in the U.S. Senate, but that Blago didn't want to go along with the deal. He wasn’t trying to say Obama started the prosecution against him, as you suggest he was.

Zorn— You might be right, but Blago is still wrong.

Reuters:

Soon after Obama was elected President, he sent a message through his soon-to-be chief of staff Rahm Emanuel that he would be "thankful and appreciative" if Blagojevich appointed Obama friend Valerie Jarrett to the Senate, according to testimony and FBI recordings of conversations. … Blagojevich… erupted angrily when his chief of staff, John Harris, delivered the message in a phone call on November 11 2008.

"They're not willing to give me anything but appreciation? F*** em," Blagojevich says in a telephone call recorded by the FBI. …Before that call, Blagojevich had sent his own message to the Obama camp. He wanted a cabinet post in exchange for the Jarrett appointment, according to testimony.

NPR:

Excerpts of conversations secretly taped by federal investigators captured the governor repeatedly and profanely denouncing Obama, and bitterly complaining that the president-elect or members of his team were offering only "appreciation" for consideration of their preferred Senate candidate.

High Heaven

Mark K. — You asked for the Biblical source of the lyrics to “You Must Come in at the Door,” the Tune of the Week, particularly the passage saying heaven is “So low, you can't get under it/ So high, you can't climb over it/ So wide, you'll never get around it,/ You must come in at the door.” AI tells me, “In John 10:9, Jesus says, ‘I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.’ This verse emphasizes the idea of entering through Jesus as the way to salvation. It's a powerful metaphor for faith and guidance."

William A. Cirignani — I’m fairly confident the Bible verse alluded to is: Ephesians 3:18-19: “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge.”

Zorn — Together these make sense. Exegesis saves!

From the suggestion box

I’m responding for the next few weeks to some of the hundreds of anonymous suggestions/comments that readers posted to my recent reader survey:

• Add occasional uplifting “good news” stories from the every corner of the U.S.

• One “happier but real” news item each week. Not just crisis, tragedy, injustice, outrage pieces.

• A feel good feature of the week.

• Because of the latest election, anything upbeat enough to help balance this horrible presidential situation.

• I might be a Pollyanna, but I would like to see some good news.

I was surprised by the number of suggestions that I include happier things. I shouldn’t have been, since the World Association of News Publishers last month published “How newsrooms are countering news avoidance by offering uplifting content to break negative news cycles.”

The Eeyore in me doesn’t look for uplift in general. Consternation and fulmination are my respective bread and butters. But I’m glad to take nominations. There’s also this:

Fix The News is an independent, subscriber-supported publication, read by 60,000 people from 195 countries. Each week, we find 30-40 stories of progress from around the world, and summarize and share them in our email newsletter. We have a podcast too, called Hope Is A Verb, where we interview people doing extraordinary things to make the world a better place. First time hearing about us? Sign up for free here.

There’s also Positive News, Upworthy, the Good News Network, Goodable, Squirrel News and other sites.

---

• More Mary Schmich

• Can you ask Mary to write more often?

Mary gives me permission to reprint her column-like Facebook posts, and I know that some readers who aren’t on Facebook subscribe to the Picayune Sentinel just to read Mary’s latest. I can’t ask her to write more often — I feel like I’m already pushing my luck repurposing her social media posts — but I’ll pass along these and other kudos in hopes she’ll be extra inspired.

Unpopular opinions?

Mario Grego writes:

I've always been annoyed at people sharing streaming service passwords — probably because a relative who works for a hedge fund still uses his fixed-income mom's Netflix, Max and Hulu accounts. The monthly fee is a nominal cost for endless amounts of content and paying it helps creators get (and stay) paid.

Survey results I found online suggest that the majority of Americans either use someone else’s password to log in to streaming services or let others use their accounts. And I’m sure the same is true for subscriptions to online publications. This accounts for the recent crackdown on password sharing.

Some say it’s always wrong; a form of stealing. Others say it’s generally OK; that without sharing, many people wouldn’t be able to afford access to the pricey services.

I’m going to add a few options to my survey because I see some distinctions between sharing outside and inside a family circle and sharing for very occasional access for a particular movie or show as opposed to frequent access. But let’s see what you think:

Last week’s result

462 votes

K Mason — When you are standing at a counter for eight hours, smiling and being polite no matter what the customer says or does, then maybe you would need a 20% tip just to show up tomorrow.

Steve T. — For those who are upset with all the iPad-turn tip requests, are you OK with the “tip amount” line on the pen and paper restaurant check?

Steven K — The plumping for a tip prompt is the main reason (among others) that I detest the cashless payment systems that are now the standard at ballgames, theme parks, museums and the like. If I find the quality of service to be exemplary then I’ll throw a couple bucks in the jar, and the server will (or might) actually get it. But don’t shake me down with the implied “don’t be such a cheapskate” extortion trick before the service is even complete. A couple of years ago at a Sox game I reluctantly paid the 20% tip for the bratwurst and Coke that I ordered, and was then treated quite rudely when the mope behind the counter screwed up my simple request and then tried to argue with me about it. Oh, and they’re big on not even telling you the total amount charged and then acting like it’s a big hassle to print up a receipt. Now that I think of it, maybe making this practice a felony wouldn’t be too extreme.

Monica Metzler — The restaurant experience requires more work from the server, which is why tipping there evolved that way and has come to be accepted. (Which is not saying everyone wouldn't be better off if workers were paid a decent wage and tipping disappeared as in other countries.) The new iPad-tipping expectation is jarring because nothing changed at all about the service. Essentially the experience of ordering your same beverage or lunch at the same place you've frequented for years, somehow overnight changed to a 20% price increase with an expected tip when nothing about the process or service changed.

This occasional Tuesday feature is intended to highlight opinions that are defensible but may well be unpopular. If you have one to add, leave it in comments or send me an email, but be sure to offer at least a paragraph in defense of your view.

NewsWheel

Inspired by the WordWheel puzzle in the Monday-Friday Chicago Tribune and other papers, this puzzle asks you to identify the missing letter that will make a word or words — possibly proper nouns; reading either clockwise or counterclockwise — related to a story in the news or other current event. The answer is at the bottom of the newsletter.

The week’s best visual jokes

Here are some funny visual images I've come across recently on social media. Enjoy, then evaluate:

The one about school lunches is definitely a repeat from 2023; I found it while creating a long overdue written archive of all the entries in this feature over the last three and half years — we’re closing in on 1,000 — and thought it was delightfully timely. I try to avoid duplicates, but until the archive list is completed I may not be totally successful.

There’s still time to vote in the conventional Quip of the Week poll!

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Info

Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.

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Answer to the NewsWheel puzzle

CONCLAVE