Introduction

Dear Friends:

As Mayor and on behalf of the City of Chicago, I invite you to participate in the eighth One Book, One Chicago presented by the Chicago Public Library. One Book, One Chicago encourages all Chicagoans to read the same book at the same time and then discuss it with their friends and neighbors.

This spring, we have selected The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. Set in the American West in 1885, Clark’s powerful novel grapples with universal questions of justice and morality. One Book, One Chicago will culminate during National Library Week, April 10-16, 2005, with free programs at the Library and book discussions throughout the city.

You can find a copy of The Ox-Bow Incident at your neighborhood Chicago Public Library or local bookstore. Please join one of the many book discussions planned for libraries, bookstores, museums and coffeeshops in April. Whether you read and discuss this book with family or friends or attend one of the special events, I am sure you will find the experience enriching and thought-provoking.

Thank you for participating in One Book, One Chicago.

Sincerely,

Richard M. Daley, Mayor
City of Chicago

“Law is more than the words that put it on the books; law is more than any decisions that may be made from it; law is more than the particular code of it stated at any one time or in any one place or nation; more than any one man, lawyer or judge, sheriff or jailer, who may represent it. True law, the code of justice, the essence of our sensations of right or wrong, is the conscience of society. It has taken thousands of years to develop, and it is the greatest, the most distinguishing quality which has evolved with mankind.”
—Davies in The Ox-Bow Incident