Finding Good Leaders

I grew up in a suburb of St. Louis County Mo.  The county contained the City of St. Louis plus numerous other municipalities.  Our business leaders were not corrupt and were very effective at keeping corruption out of local government.  We had dozens of corporate headquarters in St. Louis and the Presidents of these corporations worked together to ensure that our politicians were honest and effective. St. Louis is a blue-collar town with manufacturing as their base. 

Many of our leaders were the great-grandsons of the founders of our St. Louis based companies.  Many others came up through the ranks. 

In the 1870s, St. Louis business leaders bought 1371 acres of land on the West end of the City of St. Louis. They opened Forest Park in 1876 and gave it to the City. This park hosted the World’s Fair in 1904.  The St. Louis Zoo and the St. Louis Art Museum were added in 1910 and the Municipal Opera was added in 1917. The park includes a golf course, tennis center, world’s fair pavilion, lakes, a boat dock and restaurant, ice skating rink, history museum, many other venues and lots of room for picnics.  It is a single, central venue for all metro area families and visitors.  Their objective was to build a good city for the employees.

Our St. Louis-based companies included: Anheuser Bush, McDonnell Aircraft, Emerson Electric, Ralston Purina, Monsanto, Peabody Coal, Mallinckrodt, Olin Mills Chemical, Graybar Electric and many others. There were about 20 business leaders who were involved in keeping St. Louis a great place to live.  They communicated regularly with each other and intervened when there was trouble. They all had a profound sense of responsibility.

From the 1970s to present, St. Louis developed a highway grid that allows commuting from one end of the county to the other quickly and easily. St. Louis County occupies 523 square miles.

We moved to Salina Kansas in 1975 and found a similar group of leaders who did a great job in this town of 40,000 people. They made sure that local government had good leaders and they had no tolerance for corruption or stupidity. 

The model for county and city government in rural areas of the US was that all the farmers knew each other and they knew who were the smartest.  These were the most successful farmers who would be asked by the others to take their turn on the county commission jobs.  They did this because they knew it was their responsibility.  That’s how the Salina Kansas leaders got each other to take these jobs. This kind of “revolving oligarchy” works for the citizens and they appreciate good leaders willing to serve.

We moved to Atlanta Georgia in 1983, but it didn’t have a central location for its venues.  The leaders in Atlanta in the 1870s didn’t establish a Forest Park and still hasn’t developed their highway system to allow for much growth.

My experience with good leaders has convinced me that a good oligarchy of visionary, smart and honest businessmen can make a real difference.  Our Founding Fathers were also a “good oligarchy”. Imagine what Atlanta could have been if we had 20 business leaders the caliber of Bernie Marcus in Atlanta in 1870.

It appears that Donald Trump is building a “good oligarchy” as well.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader