Picking Up the Pieces

(3 of 5)

Epton continued his attacks on Washington's dubious financial past, charging that his conviction in 1972 for failure to file tax returns and the suspension of his law license for professional malfeasance represented "documented evidence of a long and disturbing pattern of behavior." Despite Epton's distinguished record of opposing racial prejudice, he continued to strike chords designed to appeal to fearful white voters. "Nothing will be done in this city without the consent of the neighborhoods involved!" he shouted in one ethnic area.

But at the end of the campaign, Epton seemed beaten down by the pressure. "He conked out at the end," said Political Analyst Milton Rakove of the University of Illinois. Epton testily withdrew from one national television interview on Sunday, claiming that one of the panelists was biased against him, and insisted on being in a separate studio from Washington during another broadcast. "He thinks he's in South Africa," chided Washington. On election night Epton raged to a television interviewer that some Chicago reporters were "slime, beneath contempt." He was particularly bitter that blacks, who always backed him for the state legislature, had turned against him in the mayor's race. "I will certainly save a lot of money in the future on charitable causes," he said. When he stalked from his suite without delivering a concession speech to supporters gathered in the ballroom below, one woman was prompted to proclaim, "Now I know why I don't like Republicans."

The Democratic machine was wobbly after the traumatic campaign. "It's been declining for ten years," said Chicago Political Consultant Don Rose, "but this is the most devastating blow." Eight of its 50 ward leaders actually endorsed Republican Epton. Many others who remained officially neutral ended up working against the party nominee, including Alderman Edward Burke, a ward leader on the Southwest Side. He spoke of the feelings of his white ethnic constituents: "They're afraid of what might happen, and that fear is not unrealistic."

On election day, one of Burke's precinct captains greeted voters in Polish, but the final word of his lecture was clear in any language: "Epton." Urging people to vote Republican "is a big nut to swallow," the precinct worker explained, "but I've lived in this neighborhood 76 years, and we don't want it to change." Race was clearly the overriding concern. "The whites should be with the whites and the blacks with the blacks," said another precinct captain.

In addition to the mayoral debacle, the machine lost control of seven seats on the 50-member city council. Washington predicted that the organization would now "drift off into the woods and die." Yet the machine has shown remarkable resilience in the past, rising from defeat to wheel and deal again. Washington has only 20 sure supporters on the powerful city council, six short of a working majority. "He will probably have to cut a deal with at least part of the organization," says Rakove.