Jacob Weisberg’s piece for Slate on the death of patronage politics in Chicago is worth the read.
It recounts the following famous story:
One of the most memorable phrases from that era comes from a story often told by former White House Counsel Abner J. Mikva, who described attempting to volunteer on a local campaign in the late 1940s.
“Who sent you?” asked the cigar-chomping 8th Ward precinct captain.
“Nobody sent me,” replied Mikva.
“We don’t want nobody nobody sent.”
This reminds me of another story, this one about the idiocy of law review editing. Years ago I was working on an article about the Supreme Court and political patronage. I focused on Illinois, where much of the caselaw, obviously, stemmed from, and I came across the excellent work of Cynthia Grant Bowman. And one of Bowman’s best articles on the topic is called: “We Don’t Want Anybody Anybody Sent”: The Death of Patronage Hiring in Chicago,” 86 Nw. U.L. Rev. 57 (1991).
If I’m remembering the story correctly, an overzealous law review editor (without Bowman’s permission) “corrected” Mikva’s great quote into what the editor believed to be a grammatically correct form. Not only did it mangle Mikva’s quote; it made the title nonsensical.