Plea from Gary

Under normal circumstances, a Negro mayor would be a certainty in Gary, Ind., this year, and Richard Hatcher, 34, the Negro councilman who won the Democratic primary last May, should, by this time, be choosing his office curtains. Voter registration is approximately 4 to 1 Democratic, and the Lake County machine is one of the smoothest in the country; as a consequence, no Republican has been elected mayor in the last quarter century. But circumstances are not exactly normal in Gary this year.

Hatcher has been cut off without a penny by the local machine, which is standing absolutely idle. The city's Democratic bosses clearly hope that the mayoralty will go the Republican candidate, Joseph Radigan, 46, a prosperous furniture dealer with no previous experience in politics, who, like Hatcher, promises to clean up the corruption and vice that have made the gritty steel town (pop. 178,000) a byword for vice in the Midwest. In desperation, Hatcher has sent urgent appeals to the Administration in Washington and printed a full-page plea for campaign funds in the New York Times (cost: $6,960).

Red, White & Blue. Gary's Democratic party boss, John Krupa, bases his opposition on a wild claim that Hatcher, a lawyer and the great-grandson of a Georgia slave, is linked to Communists and advocates of Black Power. "I'm not against Dick Hatcher because of his color, unless it's because he's Red," Krupa says. "I'd like to see a Democratic mayor, but he has to be a red, white and blue one." Krupa's real motives--aside from Hatcher's color--seem more basic. Not only has Hatcher pledged to end corruption, he has also rejected outright the machine's usual demands for patronage--which, he says, include selection of the city controller and the police and fire chiefs. Says Hatcher: "I've come too far to make deals."

Whatever the machine's motives, the issue for most of Gary's voters is likely to be black v. white. Negroes constitute a 55% majority of the population, but whites and Negroes are about equal in registration--and Krupa, who happens also to be county clerk, is not about to open the rolls for a new registration drive. While Republican Radigan has so far avoided the racial issue, his color says enough for many Garyites, and the city's white Democrats, who voted overwhelmingly for George Wallace in the 1964 presidential primary, may well decide to switch party affiliation.

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