Slicing Daley's Pie

CHICAGO

Officially, city hall was closed in mourning for Chicago's late mayor, Richard Daley. Yet even before "the Boss" was buried, aldermen darted from one smoke-filled room to another, trying to work out a deal that would placate the city's clamorous ethnic groups. Proceedings were briefly interrupted by a memorial service, then quickly resumed. Daley would have appreciated the rough-and-tumble-- and the fact that the Windy City's politicians were having such trouble slicing up the political pie left by the master chef.

The first to move was Wilson Frost, a black alderman who declared himself acting mayor on the grounds that he was president pro tem of the 50-member city council (one alderman from every Chicago ward). Frost soon found himself out in the cold. A group of council members chose Michael Bilandic, 53, to be acting mayor. A bland, methodical al derman, Bilandic was chairman of the finance committee and the late mayor's right-hand man. Commenting on his origins in a rare display of levity, Biland ic noted that the two-man Croatian delegation in the city council would now lose 50% of its voting strength.

Losing Clout. Blacks exploded at the choice. "We will no longer be taken for granted," stormed Democratic Congressman Ralph Metcalfe. Polish Americans also objected, thus raising the specter of a black-Polish alliance against the ruling Irish--who stand to lose considerable clout now that their most powerful patron is gone. The fact is that even though Daley always mounted impressive parades and dyed the usually opaque Chicago River a bright green for St. Patrick's Day, the Irish account for only 5% of Chicago's 3.1 million people. Fully 39% of Chicagoans are black, 12% Hispanic, 10% Polish; even Germans and Italians outnumber the Irish.

So it was back to the smoke-filled room for a new split of the pie. Bilandic remained the acting mayor with the understanding that he would not run for a full term in the special election that the city council must schedule within the next six months. A new post was created, vice mayor, which the twelve Polish aldermen were permitted to fill. To appease the 13 black aldermen, Frost was given the chairmanship of the finance committee.

The deal stuck. As a portrait of Daley beamed benevolently down on them, the aldermen decorously voted for the agreed-upon candidates. Alderman Edward Vrdolyak, who had yielded his finance committee post to Frost, hailed the selection process. "We all came to gether and put aside personal ambitions and ego," said Vrdolyak, who is the other Croatian on the city council. "I myself lost three jobs last week."

Eventually, the machine is expected to settle on a single candidate for mayor. Among the possible contenders is Cook County Board President George Dunne, who was elected last week as Cook County party leader. Dunne dropped a hint that he would not mind becoming mayor as well--which would give him control of the two posts that were the source of Daley's power. Dunne's suggestion came as a shock to many party regulars, who doubt that Daley's brand of one-man rule can be per-petuated--and who are, in fact, anxious to put the party and the mayoralty in separate hands. But the consolidation could happen, as anything can happen, in the brier patch of Chicago politics, where even in death the late mayor still casts a giant shadow.

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