Grafters and Goo Goos: Corruption and Reform in Chicago

10. “Harold!” and More Scandals and Stings: 1983–89

218 “Harold!” and More Scandals and Stings 218 10 “Harold!” and More Scandals and Stings 1983–89 My election was made possible by thousands and thousands of people who demanded that the burdens of mismanagement, unfairness and inequity be lifted so the city could be saved. One of the ideas that held us all together said that neighborhood involvement has to take the place of the ancient, decrepit and creaking machine. —Mayor Harold L. Washington, inaugural address,  The Niagara of African American enthusiasm for Harold Washington in the Chicago mayoral election of  is becoming lost to memory. In degree it exceeded even, by the author’s observations, black support for Maynard H. Jackson Jr. of Atlanta, the first African American mayor of a major southern city, in . By now the election of blacks or, more pointedly , their subsequent defeat by white challengers as mayors of big cities has become commonplace. In  black mayors were novelties, while it seemed everyone, black and white, was hurt by the social and political traumas of the s and s. Some thinkers opined during the recession of – that Rust Belt industrial cities were dying or dead. Vietnam , Chicago , Watergate, and the general crookedness of government at all levels were fresh in people’s minds. In this context, the optimism of Chicago blacks was superlative. Their high hopes, like those of white Progressives earlier, in time were disappointed . But after the indignities of the Daley, Bilandic, and Byrne administrations , blacks were as one in wearing blue Washington campaign buttons with a rays-of-the-rising-sun motif. One could see them on the “Harold!” and More Scandals and Stings 219 winter coats of every black passenger on Chicago Transit Authority trains to the South and West sides—grandmotherly maids, Loop attorneys, ward heelers, punch-press operators, McDonald’s burger flippers, the homeless, little kids, everybody. White media executives, going home to the North Side or to the suburbs, did not notice. They thought Mayor Byrne or State’s Attorney Richard M. Daley would win the Democratic primary. Harold Washington’s victory was a historic event but perhaps nobody’s finest hour. The campaign was racially charged on both sides. Some black clergy, reversing a time-honored courtesy extended to all mayors, refused to allow Byrne to make campaign appearances in their churches. During her four years, Byrne had gone through three police chiefs, three chiefs of staff, and three press secretaries. She displayed still more apparent inscrutability by replacing blacks with whites on school board and housing authority seats. These seemingly foolish acts were intended to entice a black challenger into the Democratic primary against her and Daley. By dividing the opposition, Byrne calculated, she would win by a plurality. Bilandic’s  percent of the vote in , heralded as the demise of the machine, actually approximated the machine’s historical showing in multicandidate mayoral primaries. Byrne had defeated Bilandic in a oneon -one race in  but was not about to subject herself to another. Be careful what you wish for. At the time, blacks and whites were roughly equal in voting-age population but whites had a substantial lead in the number of registered voters. Congressman Washington, who held William Dawson’s former seat in the Near South Side, the oldest locus of black political power in America, was reluctant to run for mayor. He required that activists first register at least fifty thousand new black voters. A campaign led, at least in publicity, by Jesse Jackson accomplished this and more—,. In the February primary, Byrne and Daley split the white vote, allowing Washington to win with a plurality of the citywide vote. Like previous and later reform mayors, Washington was an imperfect model. He had spent thirty-six days in jail in  under a two-year suspended sentence for failure to file income tax returns for four years in the s. Actually, the prosecution alleged, he had not filed a return since  (taxes were withheld from his paychecks; he just didn’t bother with 220 “Harold!” and More Scandals and Stings tax forms). From  until , Washington’s law license was suspended on five counts of taking legal fees without performing legal services for his clients and two counts of failing to appear at bar association hearings to answer the allegations. Washington’s fees hardly had been clout-heavy— four clients had sought divorces and the fifth wanted to void a traffic ticket. In...