that influential organization. He served as a Chicago City Council Alderman for the old 7th Ward from 1909 to 1911, winning office (in part) due to the success of his 1903 textbook. He served on two key committees (Crime and Finance), and also served on three important city commissions (City Expenditures, Harbor, and Waste). While serving on the Harbor Commission, he became acquainted with Frederic Delano, uncle of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He left office in 1911 to run (unsuccessfully) as a Republican for Mayor of Chicago. His campaign manager was Harold Ickes. Although he won the Republican primary by a very wide margin, he narrowly lost the general election to Carter Harrison Jr. Merriam and Ickes helped co-found the Illinois Progressive Party, and they supported Robert M. La Follette for president until Theodore Roosevelt defeated him for the Progressive Party nomination. He campaigned for former President Theodore Roosevelt under the "Bull Moose" ticket in 1912. He again served as an Alderman from 1913 to 1917, albeit as an Independent rather than a Republican. In 1916, he established the Bureau of Public Efficiency, a private organization which helped establish many quasi-public corporations and organized the Chicago Park District. Merriam lost his bid for re-election as alderman after being defeated in the Republican primary by just five votes in 1917. He unsuccessfully ran again for mayor in 1919, losing the Republican primary to incumbent William Hale Thompson. Federal service Charles E. Merriam was an advisor to several presidents, and had a lengthy career in federal service. In 1911, President William Howard Taft offered him a seat on the Commission on Economy and Efficiency, a body established under the authority of the Civil Appropriations Act of 1910 to study the administration of the executive branch, but Merriam declined. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asked him to serve on the newly formed Tariff Commission (now the United States International Trade Commission), but again he declined federal service. During World War I, the 43-year-old Merriam joined the US Army Signal Corps, was commissioned a captain, and served on the federal government's Aviation Examining Board for the Chicago region. He was also on the federal government's Committee on Public Information, an independent government agency created to influence US public opinion and encourage American participation in World War I. From April to September 1918, he was American High Commissioner for Public Information in Rome, Italy, where he