ILLINOIS: Tweak

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Into the office of Chicago's Mayor Edward Joseph Kelly last week shuffled newshawks from the rabidly pro-Kelly Tribune, the rabidly anti-Kelly News. Their bosses wanted to know what the mayor intended to do about an astounding ordinance just passed by the City Council, 43 votes to four.

The curly-headed mayor grinned: "I'll sign it if I receive an opinion from the corporation counsel that it's legal."

At his side, youthful Corporation Counsel Barnet Hodes grinned back: "It is."

The ordinance in question authorized the city to issue licenses, at fees ranging from $1,000 to $5,000, to Chicago's horde of racing handbook operators. Since their profession is outlawed by an 1887 statute and has been judged illegal in at least one court even after pari-mutuel betting at Illinois race tracks was legalized in 1927, no one was more surprised than the bookies themselves. Corporation Counsel Hodes, however, opined that if bets could legally be made at the track (as they can at pari-mutuel windows) there should be no harm in licensing agents to place them. Mayor Kelly added that he hoped to raise $2,000,000 to cancel the budget deficit caused by restoration of city salaries. Mayor Kelly did not explain—and did not have to for those present—that his great satisfaction with the ordinance was that it tweaked the nose of Democratic Governor Henry Homer. Two years ago Governor Horner split with the Kelly machine over a bill legalizing handbooks and has since been the mayor's most potent political foe.

In Springfield, Governor Horner gasped at the news: ''The ordinance means nothing. It is anarchy. It is nullity!"

The effectiveness of Ed Kelly's tweak depended on a court test, which prudent bookmakers were disposed to await before putting their license money on the line. While the News scoffed at the mayor's promise that only "reputable persons" would be licensed, the Tribune loyally philosophized: "If it does not change the character of the men who are now running the business it can't possibly make them any worse."