Not Beer but a Book

Professor Charles E. Merriam, a political scientist who wanted to reform Chicago, ran for mayor in 1911 and lost. Years later, he was strolling with his wife Hilda in her home town, Constableville, N.Y., when they passed an old barn. She remarked casually: "My grandfather used to own a brewery in that building.'' The professor, who had been defeated by politicians weaned on beer, all but shouted: "A brewery! If I'd known that, I could have been mayor of Chicago!" This year the professor's son Robert could likewise have used a brewery. He, too, is a political scientist; he, too, wanted to reform Chicago; he, too, ran for mayor, and last week he, too, was defeated by Chicago's preference for its regular beery, cheery brand of politics. The winner, as usual: Chicago's Democratic machine.

Wrong Looks. Young Robert Merriam, 36, was handicapped by the fact that he looks like a South Side Chicago image of an Ivy Leaguer. He pleaded with reporters not to call him reformer, a prejudicial word in Chicago. "You know what the party workers say?" he complained. "They say to each other, 'Have you ever seen this Merriam take a drink? Does he ever drink? I mean, have you actually seen him take a drink?' " (Some people have.)

A Democrat until last year, Merriam ran this year as a Republican, and ran hard. He put on a daily five-minute TV show, raced around in a Chevrolet equipped with radio-telephone for campaign calls and an electric razor for touch-up shaves. At endless campaign gatherings he breakfasted on bagels and lox, dined on corned beef and cabbage, sipped coffee late into the night. Once he walked into a South Side revival meeting just as a writhing, frenzied woman was carried out. "Say what you got to say," the minister told him. "Do it in five minutes and git on outa here." Merriam did.

Right Levers. By contrast, Democrat Richard Daley, 52, talked like a stockyard lad who made good (which he is) and looked like a model for the modern machine politician (which he also is). He had the support of Adlai Stevenson, Senator Paul Douglas and Hearst's Chicago American. Every day, after breakfast with his wife and children, he went campaigning with a baby-blue Cadillac and great dignity ("as a good father, good neighbor and good citizen"). That was good enough. On election day Democrat Daley won by 126,667 votes (out of 1,342,993 cast), the machine's smallest victory margin since 1943.*

Leading the ticket was Morris B. Sachs, South Side garment merchant and local TV impresario (Sacks' Amateur Hour), who ran for city treasurer. In the Democratic primary, Morris Sachs went down to defeat with outgoing Mayor Martin Kennelly, wept in Kennelly's arms while cameras recorded his sorrow (TIME, March 7). Sad Sachs dried his tears when he was offered a place on the organization's ticket. In campaign speeches he recalled fondly: "I sold Dick Daley's mother the first pair of long pants for Dick. Without me, where would he be?" His reward: 737,169 votes and more pictures in the papers, this time grinning happily alongside Daley.

As usual, Chicago's 30,000 Democratic precinct workers got out the vote and helped pull the right levers on the voting machines. Some dollar bills and pizzas were passed out, but generally it was one of the cleanest elections in Chicago's history. Daley's organization worked so well that he needed no crooked means to win. Afterward Reformer Merriam announced a discovery: "You got to have precinct workers who know the people and can compete with the personalized politicking the Democrats do in this town." He decided next to go to Florida and write a book about why more people--good people, that is--should take an interest in politics.

* Professor Merriam lost in 1911 (by 18,000 votes) to Democrat Carter H. Harrison,

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