Former 5th Ward Chicago Alderman Leon Despres died at his Hyde Park home today. He was 101. Despres was long the sole nay vote in Mayor Richard J. Daley’s “rubber stamp” City Council, a lonely position that made Despres popular with his constituency but certainly didn’t win him fans among the wheelers and dealers in the city’s back rooms.

In February, I had the pleasure of speaking with Despres over the phone, while researching a story about Chicago’s history of political corruption. Who better to comment on corruption, I thought, than the man who spent his life resisting it? When I called Despres’s home at noon on a weekday, an assistant answered and told me the former-councilman was napping and to call back in a couple of hours. When I finally reached Despres, I found him, even at 101, as good-humored and eloquent as he must have been in his heyday, battling the Daley machine. Herein, our conversation, in which Despres, contemplating his legacy, says, “People are going to totally forget me.”

What do you think is essential in order to thrive in Chicago politics? Ambition. That’s so fundamental to thrive. And in Chicago, with enough ambition, a little corruption doesn’t stop someone from advancing in politics. I’ve seen wave after wave of office holders with corrupt ambitions who have not failed. It’s often true of politics in this city that [politicians] use their office for financial gain. I don’t want to name any, but a great many come to mind.

You legendarily battled Richard J. Daley. You once said Daley entered politics with the same mentality most men enter the lumber industry. That’s right. He had ambitions to achieve office and power. He didn’t choose to be a millionaire, he just chose to have the trappings of a millionaire.

Does it sadden you to see the City Council become a rubber stamp again under a Daley? Well, it saddens me that there are so few alderman who are actively interested in the welfare of the city. They have huge salaries, ninety-some-thousand a year. But there are some glimmers of hope.

Is there a Chicago politician today that you see as your analog? Alderman Joe Moore is the best of the bunch, I think. I see him as pretty good. He won by only a few hundred votes in the last election.

What advice would you give someone who’s considering entering politics in Chicago? It’s very important to help someone else out and to do it without expectation of winning. I was terribly interested in the parks, for example. But I was interested in them before I was alderman, while I was alderman and after I was alderman. It’s important to have enthusiasms about the city and have special interests in the city that you follow.

How did you not fall prey to self-interest like so many do? I would see a new bunch of aldermen come in and you could read their faces. They would say, “We won’t have anything happen to us like what happened to the ones who came before us. We won’t go to jail.” And then they’d go off to jail anyhow, because they’d say, “This is our chance to make money and make connections.” A lot of alderman have become very rich because of their position. [Money] wasn’t tempting to me. I was never temped to make money out of being alderman. It just wasn’t part of me, and that gave me some strength. That was quite important. I think a person that has a desire to make money has trouble resisting the temptations. You know, people come to you and talk to you about what they want done and they’d say, “Don’t worry alderman. We’ll take care of you.” I would always answer, “No, it’s not necessary to take care of me.” I don’t want to praise myself, I just didn’t have an interest in that. If I had an interest in making money, that would’ve been very tempting. People would say, “We’ll take care of you. Don’t you worry.” There was so much corruption around, but I just steered clear of it. My mentality was, “I’m my own island.” And that turned out to be the best policy.

Is there any cure for the corruption? You have to have a selfless administration that’s interested in the city. To some extent the present administration is interested in the city, because they can’t operate the old patronage system as openly as [Richard J. Daley] did. The feds and the press have caught on. Mayor Daley is not evil incarnate, but I don’t think corruption could be solved under him. To him, business and politics are so closely tied. The great corruption is in manipulation of land use, the zoning and building permits, and so on. You just have men and woman who are willing to enrich alderman if the alderman will enrich them. I think with that system it’s very difficult to have a city free of corruption.

One hundred years down the road, what do you think your legacy is going to be? People are going to totally forget me. You’ll have to dig into the history books and the records to find out [about me]. If I was to appraise my own efforts, what I’m especially pleased about is that I fought for years against racial discrimination, that I was allied with a very important movement that really transcends corruption. It’s more important than fiscal corruption. I’m very glad that I recognized the importance of the movement.

It’s been an honor. Well, we discussed my favorite subject.