Daley: One More Time

It has not been the best of Richard J. Daley's 19 years as mayor of Chicago. In May, Daley, 72, suffered a stroke that required an operation and more than three months' convalescence. Then three Pooh-Bahs of the Daley machine--including Hizzoner's right-hand man. Alderman Thomas Keane--were convicted in federal court of charges ranging from mail fraud to income tax evasion, bringing to a total of ten the number of powerful machine men who have been convicted. In a recent series of articles, the Chicago Tribune, in conjunction with the Better Government Association, documented shocking waste in the city government. With mayoralty elections due next spring, all this caused some Daley foes, and even a few admirers, to nurture the thought that Daley at last might be prepared to step down.

But the mayor put an end to such speculation last week when he announced that he would seek an un precedented sixth four-year term. Though his well-known, raspy voice was subdued and his bulky frame some 25 Ibs. lighter after his illness, his aides insist that Daley has regained a large measure of his old vigor, and relishes his job as much as ever. His peacemaking role at the Democrats' Kansas City convention two weeks ago reinforced that image.

To win this time, Daley may have to overcome as many as four opponents in the Democratic primary in February--the first major opposition he has faced from within his own party since his first run for mayor in 1955. The strongest challenge comes from Alderman William Singer, 33, who led the delegation that was seated instead of Daley's at the 1972 Democratic Convention. Singer, brash and scrappy, has charged Daley with wholesale neglect of the city's deteriorating school system, and plans to visit all of the city's 584 public schools personally before the primary.

But Richard Daley, virtues and flaws, is an institution: even Chicago voters who disagree with the man often take a perverse pride in their battle-scarred mayor. So it is widely assumed that Daley will triumph in the primary as well as in the general election in April, where, so far, no substantial Republican opposition has been found for him. Though no scandal has touched Daley personally, questions have been raised in the press about the propriety of his secret ownership with his wife of a real estate holding company that made purchases of vacant lots in a city auction. He has freely acknowledged influencing the placement of millions of dollars worth of city insurance with an agency that employed one of his sons. Neither issue is expected to have much impact on the voters. Daley's prospects seem excellent for remaining the longest-running big-city mayor in the U.S.

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