Chicago: The Reassessment

WHATEVER the rest of the country may think of Mayor Richard Daley and his Chicago police, he is clearly a hero on his own turf. That became evident last week when Chicagoans, responding to worldwide criticism of Daley and his cops' tough tactics, reacted as if they had been under personal attack. When Daley returned to his modest brick bungalow in the Bridgeport section of the South Side, 800 admirers greeted him with cheers and signs: HOORAY FOR DALEY and PRIDE OF THE U.S.--CHICAGO POLICE. In the drab Six Corners neighborhood on the Northwest Side, Construction Worker Arthur Faber, 45, expressed the sentiments of perhaps a majority of Chicagoans and millions of other Americans: "I say he did all right. How else is he going to stop all this stuff?"

Two Black Widows. King Richard and his men at city hall took comfort from the thought; yet they were badly stung by their critics. Always defensive where Chicago's good name is concerned, Daley and his orderlies last week were close to apoplexy. They labored around the clock on a 77-page report aimed at vindicating the behavior of the Chicago police in routing demonstrators during the convention.

Daley's defense was, perhaps understandably, a self-justifying recitation of the debacle as seen from police headquarters. It portrayed the protesters principally as "terrorists" and "revolutionaries," made no attempt to distinguish between radical leaders, yippies, McCarthy partisans and other disaffected youths. "The dual goals of immediate disruption and ultimate destruction were pursued in Chicago against the Government under the guise of a protest against the war in Viet Nam," said the report. The press and TV, it went on, "responded with surprising naivete and were incredibly misused."

At police headquarters, the city displayed what it called a "sophisticated" array of weapons used by the demonstrators. It included a pingpong ball studded with nails, a jar containing two black-widow spiders, bricks, broken bottles and a razor blade. About 100 such weapons were exhibited--hardly an overwhelming arsenal for 10,000 "terrorists." The principal flaw in the Daley report is that while concentrating on the admitted provocations to police by many of the youths, it virtually ignores the savagery of police in attacking demonstrators, newsmen and onlookers alike. The most that Daley would concede is that "some innocent bystanders may have been injured" in one police assault at the Conrad Hilton.

For an earlier report, the mayor's emergency truth squads confined themselves to interviewing police, National Guardsmen and hotel security officers--the very people they were intent upon exonerating. In probing the 5 a.m. police raid on the McCarthy headquarters in the Conrad Hilton, Daley's "investigators" failed to question any of the volunteers who were supposedly raining dangerous debris onto the heads of cops and passersby. Some objects obviously were thrown from hotel windows; just as obviously, neither the cops nor the National Guard could have known which windows they came from. Daley's supporters have also made a highly emotional point of the "hideously foul" language that the demonstrators used to provoke the police, but most Chicago cops do not need any lessons in foul mouth from protesters.

Free of Questions. The report was only one phase of the mayor's counterattack. He angrily challenged the three major television networks to grant him an hour's prime time to explain himself and his police. "Certainly," said Daley, "the grave implication of these events to the cities of America, which was not portrayed during the convention coverage, should be presented to the American public."

The mayor was in such a fury, however, that he turned down offers by NBC and ABC to be quizzed by panels of reporters. He wanted an hour to himself, free of embarrassing questions from the press. CBS, which had ceded Daley nearly half an hour with Walter Cronkite the night after the bloodiest confrontations, refused to grant him a further audience. But Metromedia TV, with an audience in five large cities, and the Chicago Tribune-owned Continental Television Network, with some 7,500,000 viewers, this week will run an hour of Daley's defense.

The Chicago Fraternal Order of Police demanded television time of its own to reply to the "biased" TV coverage. A protest leader, David Dellinger of the National Mobilization Commit tee, also insisted on network exposure to broadcast a denunciation of the cops. To much of the nation, it hardly seemed that Daley's probity needed defending. Radio and TV stations, newspapers and politicians' offices showed letters running as much as 20 to 1 in favor of Daley and the Chicago police. Daley's mail, by his aides' account, was a cascade of praise. TIME reporters found that his own constituents, particularly in Chicago's blue-collar wards, overwhelmingly supported the mayor and his police.

Economic Upset. Privately, many Chicago business and civic leaders were shocked by the violence of Daley's cops. As one of them said: "A lot of people are as horrified as I am, but they see no real benefit in saying so as long as Daley remains in power." Some were upset for economic reasons. At week's end four professional and religious groups, including the 25,800-member American Psychological Association and the 2,863,000-member United Church of Christ, canceled plans for conventions in Chicago. The withdrawals will cost the world's largest convention city some $7,000,000. A group of 50 painters and sculptors, among them Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Motherwell, will refuse to exhibit their works in Daley City for the next two years.

The polarizing effect of the Battle of Michigan Avenue spread everywhere. Speaking before the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany declared: "I know what you'd do with that dirty-necked, dirty-mouthed group." It troubles few workingmen nowadays that the American labor movement was founded upon protests, strikes and sometimes bloody battles with police.

Beatific Smiles. Voices in Congress grew shrill. Ohio's Senator Stephen Young thundered: "Chicago, under Mayor Daley, is a police state." Louisiana's Russell Long was as extravagant in the other direction, suggesting that the Democrats should have nominated Richard Daley instead of Hubert Humphrey. For the most part, Republicans smiled beatifically and watched the Democrats' dogfight in silence.

The battle of Chicago warrants a more honest and impartial investigation than Daley's apparat gave it or than it is likely to get from those who have already picked sides. In fact, there is some likelihood that less passionately involved authorities will eventually report what happened. The FBI, a Chicago grand jury and the President's commission on violence, formed after Robert Kennedy's assassination, are all investigating Chicago's bloody week.

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