St. Louis' Shadow Government

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Civic Progress was created by Mayor Joseph Darst in 1952. Its membership is made of a consortium of chief executives from the biggest and most powerful public utilities and private sector Corporations in the St. Louis metro area. Their stated mission is to "aspire to participate constructively in improving the quality of community and business life with the goal of helping St. Louis to be a world class region".

Historically, Civic Progress has taken behind-the-scenes action on a number of local initiatives, ranging from expansion at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport to funding the Minority Business Council. Civic Progress has also underwritten a substantial portion of the budget for the St. Louis Sports Commission, and their membership is involved in many Business Associations and "community projects" in St. Louis since Civic Progress was formed.

The advantage of being a member of Civic Progress is the privilege and access to power without accountability to the citizens of the St. Louis metro area. It operates as an Old Boys’ Club for the wealthiest citizens and families that control our local economy. However, the similarity of Civic Progress to powerful shadow organizations like Skull and Bones does not stop there. Civic Progress member companies were also involved in two failed campaigns to push the various municipalities to consolidate in the 80’s. When those failed, the RCGA set up what’s known as the Greater St. Louis Economic Development Council. The President of Civic Progress in the 90’s, former Monsanto CEO Earl Harbison, re-engineered the Regional Commerce and Growth Association (RCGA) which had only previously done promotional campaigns for St. Louis, to be the economic development agency of St. Louis.

"Since [Civic Progress’ campaign for] municipal consolidation failed at the ballot box and the legislature in the 80’s, Civic Progress decided that if they wanted to do this, they would have to do it themselves." Peter Downs said. "To do that, you had to get the various municipal governments in the St. Louis metro area had to agree to cede their economic planning power to this agency."

Darst’s original list included the St. Louis Union Trust, Union Electric (Ameren UE), the defunct General American Life Insurance, Washington University, Stix Baer & Fuller, and the Bank of St. Louis. In later years, Mayor Raymond Tucker expanded the membership by adding ten more corporate representatives the following year. These companies, which still hold power within the organization in one form or another, are Anheuser-Busch, Southwestern Bell, Ralston-Purina (now owned by Nestle), May Company, Monsanto (which recently spun off into Solutia), McDonnell Aircraft (acquired by Boeing), Mercantile Trust and Boatmen's Bank (both acquired by NationsBank, then Bank of America) along with Edgar Rand and real estate developer Clarence Turley. Civic Progress has consisted of such people like:

• Steve Maritz, chairman of Maritz Inc.

• Andrew Craig III, retired chairman of NationsBank Corp (now Bank of America) and a Cardinals co-owner

• Charles Knight, chairman and chief executive of Emerson Electric Co.

• Douglas Yeager, Chairman of Laclede Gas

• Andrew Taylor, president of Enterprise Rent-A-Car and a co-owner of the Cardinals

• John Roberts, former managing partner of Arthur Andersen's St. Louis office

• Barry Beracha, CEO at Earthgrains Co.

• David Steward, founder and chief executive of World Wide Technology

• Craig Schnuck, chairman and chief executive officer of Schnuck Markets

• St. Louis Rams Minority owner and CEO of THF Realty (and married to the daughter Wal Mart founder Sam Walton), Stan Kronke.

• Bob Baer of UniGroup Inc., the parent company of Mayflower shipping (Mr. Baer also serves on the Metropolitan Sewer District’s board of trustees)

• Charles Mueller, chairman and CEO of Ameren Corp.

• Sam Fox, Chairman and CEO of the Harbour Group, Inc.

• David Kemper, president and CEO of Commerce Bancshares, Inc.

• Irl F. Engelhardt, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Peabody Energy (Irl is also a director of U.S. Bank N.A. in St. Louis, formerly Firstar Bank)

• Gerald Daniels, president of The Boeing Co.'s Military Aircraft and Missile Systems

• John Bachmann, CEO at Edward Jones Co.

• Robert L. Bagby, chairman and chief executive officer of A.G. Edwards

The Civic Progress of today is no longer identified as a board controlled by the Mayor’s office, but the Mayor still sits on the board. The only other elected official on Civic Progress is the St. Louis County Executive. The University of Missouri-St. Louis Chancellor, the Washington University Chancellor, the Saint Louis University President, and the chairman of the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council also hold positions within the organization.

These are people who want to hide their influence and actions from public scrutiny, and their meeting schedule reflects this as well. It has been reported that the entire Civic Progress membership meets on the fourth Monday of each month for one hour. Meetings are held at County Clubs around the metro area like the Bogey Club in Ladue, and St. Louis Hills Country Club. Civic Progress only allows members and "invited guests" to these meetings.

Rarely is it mentioned how these executives interact outside of the meeting schedule and how their roles in these other organizations have been interconnected so the elites of St. Louis can maintain their iron grip on St. Louis.