Practical Politics in Chicago

...He is concerned with national and international issues...

...Senate seat at the top of the ballot in 1970...

...At the convention itself, Stevenson supported the peace plank and fought for the admission of Julian Bond and his Georgia delegation, positions not taken by the Illinois regulars...

...But one, black social worker Fred Hubbard, recently announced that he now considers himself a member of the organization, joining 38 of the city's 50 aldermen...

...The Senator easily won the March 17 primary, and the election campaign has been heating up since then...

...Though impressive in informal conversations, he is not much of a public speaker and is ill at ease in crowds...

...Nevertheless, Stevenson must tread a rather narrow path from now to November, a course between the reformers and the organization...

...This spring, all of the organization's candidates won, including a white in a black neighborhood...

...He has endorsed the right of 18-year-olds to vote, too, despite a record of opposition to such measures in the Legislature...

...They point out that Stevenson chose as his campaign chairman Daniel Walker, a Daley foe and author of the controversial 1968 report that labeled the Democratic convention disorders a "police riot...

...The 39-year-old state treasurer looked and spoke like his father, the man who had electrified liberals 18 years ago with his promise to "talk sense to the American people...

...Stevenson is known to agonize over decisions, weighing the alternatives at length...

...He may even talk in general terms about reforming the national Democratic party—but hi must not advocate Cook County electoral reform, changes in the patronage system, or democratization of the organization...

...But his disloyalty reached its peak after the convention, when he issued a statement deploring the street disorders and the stifling of dissent...

...The Republicans have been linking Stevenson to Mayor Daley (who is not popular downstate or in suburbia), and have demanded that Stevenson repudiate him...

...He soon reduced the size of the treasury staff and told the public where the state's money was being invested, thus ending the practice of depositing large sums with politically friendly bankers at low or no interest...

...Mayor Daley, who had begun protesting his willingness to open up the party organization, had been invited...

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...Fortunately for Stevenson, he is running for a national office...

...In appearance, Stevenson reminds one of an average English Lit professor: tweedy, balding, and rumpled...

...Dirksen's death meant there would be a contest for a U.S...

...The Senator is seeking to gain exposure by having the President come into Illinois to campaign for him, and Vice President Agnew is expected to make several visits...

...Stevenson sought to force the Mayor's hand by announcing his candidacy for the Senate October 29, 1969, and by stating his intention to run in a primary if he were denied the approval of the slate-making committee...

...Their contention is that the Mayor needs Adlai as much as he needs the Mayor...

...Basically, Stevenson will run against the Nixon ("Nixon-Agnew") Administration...

...Smith will defend the Administration, and run against Mayor Daley...

...Daley wanted a strong candidate up there, a man with coattails long enough to pull in all the Cook County Democrats whose offices provided both the patronage resources and the control of the election apparatus necessary to the machine's maintenance...

...Soon the Treasurer and the Mayor were eating hot dogs together, and the Mayor delivered a warm appeal for party unity...

...An effective orator with a deep voice, sleek gray hair and rugged good looks, he has been somewhat prone to iridescent suits and splashy ties...

...He worked hard during his one term in the Legislature, concentrating on measures to control crime and corruption, and won the "Best Legislator" award given by the Independent Voters of Illinois...

...To those familiar with the workings of the nation's last big political machine, however, the alliance is no surprise...

...Stevenson's first personal encounter with elective politics came in 1964...

...If Stevenson gestures to his Right, he will lose the reformers, but if he makes appeals to the Left, he need not lose the organization's support...

...He called the Chicago police "storm troopers in blue" and railed against the "feudal structure" of the Illinois Democratic party...

...If instructed to do so, they will sit on their hands on election day, and the liberals can deliver little to replace them...

...Cook County had to be safely held by organization hands in 1970 so that in 1971, when the Mayor or his anointed successor ran for office, the machine would be well lubricated...

...Withdrawing state funds from banks practicing racial or religious discrimination in hiring or lending, he shifted them to banks using their money to support student loans, ghetto businesses and other community projects...

...And, like many of them, he will have received a great deal of help from Mayor Daley...

...If Stevenson handles his campaign right, he will probably go to Washington next January, following such Illinois liberals as Paul Douglas, Abner Mikva and Sidney Yates...

...Stevenson seemed to fill all Daley's requirements...

...Indeed, whenever a popular liberal reformer arises in Chicago, Richard J. Daley is the first in line to buy him a ticket to Washington...

...National Reports PRACTICAL POLITICS IN CHICAGO BY HARVEY D. SHAPIRO Chicago Illinois voters must have had had a sense of dejd vu when Adlai E. Stevenson III announced his candidacy for the United States Senate...

...Like his father, he seems reflective to some and indecisive to many others...

...The war in Asia and the state of the economy will probably provide the main issues in the race...

...In 1966, Stevenson ran for treasurer and not only led the Democratic ticket, but was the sole member of his party to win state office in a year that saw Senator Paul Douglas lose to Charles Percy...

...The Republicans taunt Stevenson about cashing in on his famous name, but in private they worry about his being much better known than their candidate...

...In the spring of 1969, Stevenson actively supported two independent aldermanic candidates in their successful battles against the Daley organization...

...Governor Richard Ogilvie, who had appointed Smith, put his powerful Republican organization behind him...

...Smith appeared to be in over his head when he first reached Washington...

...The situation changed abruptly on September 7, 1969, when Stevenson held a fund-raising picnic for the Democratic party's Mc-Govern Commission at his family farm in Libertyville...

...Where Stevenson is a moderate to liberal Democrat, Smith is a moderate to conservative Republican who generally follows the Nixon line...

...The Daley forces are not really concerned with issues...

...So, in 1968, he asked the slatemaking committee of the Illinois Democratic party to ticket him for either governor or Harvey D. Shapiro is a freelance journalist based in Chicago...

...Should he veer off course, he'll lose the support of one group or the other and be swamped by the down-state and suburban Republicans...

...Thus, contrary to reformist fears, Stevenson can be as big a dove, as ardent a liberal as he wishes —so long as he does not take on the organization...

...Things were going well for Treasurer Stevenson but, as a politician, he found himself in a job with a one-term limit...

...it had become clear to Daley he was going to need Adlai Stevenson...

...Stevenson chose to endorse long-time family friend Hubert Humphrey well before the 1968 Democratic Convention, while Daley had not yet publicly committed the state's delegation...

...Everyone who was anyone among Illinois liberals was there, joined by Senators George McGovern of South Dakota, Harold Hughes of Iowa, and Fred Harris of Oklahoma...

...now he is Daley's candidate for senator...

...He has the same raw voice as his father, the same quiet wit in private —but he lacks his father's eloquence, he cannot excite a crowd...

...Told to go to work, the organization's minions will, even if lukewarm to Stevenson, turn out voters as if their jobs rested on it...

...Late in the afternoon, Daley and his entourage did indeed arrive at the picnic...

...Without being well primed, he is apt to waffle under public questioning, pointing out the pitfalls of various proposals rather than standing foursquare behind one of them...

...Thereafter, young Adali's relations with Mayor Daley seemed to decline rapidly...

...He may have changed his mind in response to some pledge of electoral support, either from the White House or from within Illinois, but to many voters he seemed to have been out of step twice in the same waltz...

...This was a cardinal sin in Illinois, where party loyalty is believed to have been inscribed on tablets brought down from Mount Sinai, and the slatemakers rejected him...

...A few polling places may practice a peculiar form of Burkean democracy in which the Democratic majority includes not only the votes of the living, but also those of generations long dead or as yet unborn...

...He announced his intention to vote against the confirmation of Judge Clement Haynsworth for the Supreme Court shortly after the nomination was made, when most senators were still undecided...

...About half the state's voters and the bulk of the Democrats live within the bounds of the Cook County Democratic Organization...

...Though sophisticated Republican campaign advisers have been toning him down, he remains the consummate Midwestern small-town politician...

...In the course of a meeting with the committee, Stevenson indicated that he would not support President Johnson's Vietnam policy...

...That does not happen to be the case...

...Smith and Stevenson differ in their personal styles no less than in their politics...

...After watching him give an entire campaign speech with his right hand awkwardly jammed into his coat pocket, several spectators asked if he was partially paralyzed...

...Adlai Stevenson III was fast becoming anathema to His Honor the Mayor...

...Everyone wondered whether he would show up...

...Smith's tendency toward vacillation is welcomed in the Stevenson camp, where the Treasurer's image-makers fret about their man's Hamlet qualities...

...While Stevenson began putting together his campaign staff, incumbent Senator Ralph Tyler Smith, filling out the term of the late Senator Dirksen, was occupied with a primary fight against William Rentschler, a wealthy suburban Republican who served as Richard Nixon's Illinois campaign chairman in 1968...

...MILITATING AGAINST Such tactics is the vast army of Daley precinct workers...

...Though a resident of Chicago, he had family ties to downstate Bloom-ington and had avoided looking like a city slicker or a Daley lackey...

...That is what he wants to talk about, and he can say what he pleases about Asia and pollution and inflation and the abm without commenting on the methods of the Cook County Assessor...

...Only after a futile effort to get Ted Kennedy into the race did Daley—some say relucantly—back Humphrey...

...At the same time, the narrowness of this path has resulted in its frequently being misunderstood...

...Someone is always saying the machine is a paper tiger...

...Stevenson faces much the same charge from his most liberal supporters...

...He was the party's top vote-getter, and he was very popular in the increasingly important suburbs...

...their primary interest is in sustaining the machine that feeds their families and their egos...

...Neither our individual ideals nor our nation's destiny will be fulfilled by the elevation to high office of men whose principal allegiance—no matter how much they may protest it—is to a political machine," Smith warns...

...With Stevenson's threat in mind, and with prodding from the Mayor, the downstate forces capitulated and the slatemaking committee endorsed Stevenson in November...

...In the chaotic statewide race that followed, the familiarity of his name enabled him to poll more votes than any other candidate...

...he spends a great deal of time writing and rewriting his speeches and statements...

...In addition, Stevenson began a computerized system of investment analysis that significantly increased the state's income, and he turned the investment process into a social tool...

...Centered around the University of Chicago and the affluent North Shore suburbs, these people —often old McCarthy hands—say that he should use his campaign to challenge the power of the machine...

...To ease the 1969 credit squeeze, he funneled millions of dollars into banks agreeing to help finance low- and middle-income housing...

...True, two independent aldermen were elected last year...

...The 54-year-old Smith, from downstate Alton, was a long-time leader in the State Legislature...

...a gop poll taken about six months ago found nearly half of the state's voters had never heard of Smith...

...Moreover, the senate race would take him out of contention for the mayoralty in 1971—by then he'd either be a senator or a has-been...

...Reformers talk of a sellout, but the Stevenson camp denies it...

...That was the same day ailing Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen died...

...Partner in a prestigious Chicago law firm, he was asked to run for an at-large seat in the Illinois House of Representatives...

...In the face of these realities, the Stevenson camp has made its peace with the Mayor...

...Once it appeared that the nomination was destined for defeat, Smith reversed h'mself and came out strongly for Haynsworth...

...Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley may also have had an old familiar feeling, for once again he was successfully converting an opponent of his political organization into one of its assets: Last year Chicago reformers were talking about running Stevenson as an antimachine candidate for mayor in 1971...

...It is still alleged that some of the organization's precinct workers dispense a few dollars among bowery derelicts to heighten their sense of civic involvement come November...