THE CITY: BLACK POWER IN OFFICE

BOTH men won election by paperthin majorities. As the first Negro mayors of large U.S. cities, both realized that their opposition would be deepseated, however well or badly they might perform.

In Gary, Ind., Richard Hatcher literally had to break in on the job; his predecessor had not left the office key with him. Cleveland's Carl Stokes, after quelling a summer riot that took ten lives, had to face near rebellion in his own police department.

The first 14 months in office have not been easy on either man. Yet each in his own fashion mounted bold attacks on the enormous problems in his city. In the process, they have worked no miracles of unity. But they have succeeded in allaying the baser suspicions that clouded their campaigns. If blue-collar workers and diverse ethnic groups remain vaguely hostile to both mayors, Stokes and Hatcher have won impressive financial and moral support from the business community.

Stokes, 41, who had been boosted by Cleveland's press and industry, last May persuaded the private sector to ante up $10 million, primarily for housing and unemployment programs. That seed money for a much-touted "Cleveland: NOW!" effort has already sprouted more than $100 million in massive aid from federal matching fund programs. It has found jobs for 5,900 hardcore unemployed--more than a fourth of the city's total--and disbursed $500,000 to help black businessmen get started. It will create 4,600 new housing units by the end of next year.

Relatively Closed Town. Hatcher, 35, the mayor of a smaller, seedier and far less diversified city (65% of the work force is employed by U.S. Steel), was able to tap foundations as weU as the Federal Government. When he threatened to re-evaluate U.S. Steel property, the results were immediate. The company started building middle-income houses, recently gave the city land for a park and donated some funds. Altogether, Gary has received more than $30 million in federal and private grants--more than in its entire 62-year history.

Hatcher also directed the full weight of the police department against organized gambling and prostitution, which have been Gary's second-biggest industry for years. In the first half of 1968, police made 157 gambling arrests --more than five times the total for all of 1967. In one year, says Hatcher, the wide-open "sin town" of Gary has become "relatively closed."

Badly as they were needed, however, dollars were easier to win than the trust of white constituents, who comprise half of Gary and 66% of Cleveland. Stokes, an attractive extrovert, encouraged any citizen to bring his gripes to the mayor's office--so much so, he jokes, that the practice has "become like a parody on the old Negro spiritual Take Your Troubles to the Lord. Everyone brings his troubles to city hall."

Hate on the Crawl. Stokes's honeymoon was ended by last summer's riot in heavily Negro Glenville, which the mavor stifled by removing from the area all authorities except for black city cops. The trouble--and his strategy --cost him the trust of many white officers and, as Stokes says, "gave the haters a chance to crawl out from under the wall." But even that, his supporters believe, did not hurt Carl Stokes in the long run. The whites were finally convinced that he had no ties with extremists, and the blacks approved of his black-only police methods. "The brothers have put him to the test," says bearded Negro Militant Leader Franklin R. Anderson. "And he has come out O.K."

Hatcher, a quiet lawyer who neither drinks nor smokes, has faced no such trial by fire. Yet Gary remains, by almost any standard, a more divided city than Cleveland. Part of the reason is political, since Hatcher gained office only after stomping on the corrupt political machine of his own Democratic party. He then added insult to injury by opposing ingrown patronage practices. Now he is even losing the loyalty of some blacks on the City Council.

Many whites clearly resent Hatcher, more for racial than partisan reasons. Normally a Democratic stronghold, Gary voted heavily for Nixon last November, giving Humphrey only a handful more votes than George Wallace. In addition, the city's biggest white neighborhood, Glen Park, is trying to cut itself adrift of the city by planning a series of maneuvers in the state legislature. Hatcher, however, feels that progress has been made. "In the past I've visited white areas where people almost spat at me," he says. "Today I hear some mothers say to their children: There's the mayor--get his autograph.""

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