Mike Royko, the Voice of the Working Class, Dies at 64 (original) (raw)

U.S.|Mike Royko, the Voice of the Working Class, Dies at 64

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/30/us/mike-royko-the-voice-of-the-working-class-dies-at-64.html

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April 30, 1997

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April 30, 1997

Section B, Page

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Mike Royko, the increasingly cantankerous voice for this city's little guys and working stiffs, whose newspaper column seemed as much a part of Chicago as the wind, died today at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He was 64.

Mr. Royko had collapsed in his home in suburban Winnetka on April 22 and underwent surgery last week for an aneurysm.

For nearly 30 years, every young journalist who ever set foot in a Chicago newsroom wanted to be like Mr. Royko. He had a tough skin and a generous heart, and his column won almost as many awards -- including a Pulitzer Prize in 1972 -- as a Windy City election has dead voters.

One morning, he might be blasting a bumbling politician, the next, ''the rich, smoke-belching industrial fat cats'' who he said were threatening to turn Chicago's magnificent lake front into a wasteland with pollution, overdevelopment and greed.

In his column of Sept. 23, 1981, Mr. Royko sought to explain President Ronald Reagan's policies of ''hacking away'' at Federal programs for the poor ''while spending more and more on the military.''

''Contrary to popular belief,'' Mr. Royko wrote, ''it's much wiser to take money from the poor than the rich.''

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