The American Scene; Primary Elections

Good morning, my name is Joel Zanger for the American Scene. I'll subject this morning, I'll be political primaries that are coming up, and the particular impact they're going to have on the lives of most Americans, in particular, particularly the Illinoisians, is that the word, in the very near future. Two guests to discuss the primary with us are both professors of political science. Our first guest, Dr. Gene Dysler, teaches at the Illinois Institute of Technology, our second guest, Dr. Milton Rackov, give me, is at the University of Illinois. I wonder if we could start, gentlemen, before we go to the particular problems of the immediate primary that's facing us. If the primary as a political device, in terms of its function and purpose, we'd clear this up first. In other words, the ground rules. What's the primary about, how does it work? Gene, would you? Well, the primary was a great national reform movement around the turn of the century, and was

instituted as a method of selecting candidates for the general elections as a reform against the selection of political candidates by either the machine bosses, who could dominate either a convention of the political party of caucus and Chicago or in Cook County or in the state of Illinois, and against the selection of candidates by a political committee. It was hoped that by throwing the selection of candidates open to the general public, there would be better candidates selected for the various political parties, and then in the general election, the voters of the various political parties would be able to make meaningful choices between alternatives. And so in turn, influence the party organization? That's right. This was to be a device to introduce democracy with a small d into the functioning of our political parties. How does it work on that level, on that small, I mean, one of the mechanics of it? Well, the primary has never been an

effective device for circumventing the kind of things it was intended to circumvent. In other words, it hasn't worked. Well, it has, on occasion, it has worked, it's offered a safety valve for reform movements, but by and large, the Democratic and the Republican machines are strong enough to have their candidates, which they slate in their own committees, nominated in the open primary or in the primary itself. In other words, they have the organization, they have the precinct captains, the independent candidates, the so -called reform candidates frequently, don't have such organization, consequently, they're swamped when the votes are counted in the primary. Dr., is that your point of view, Dr. Lager? I agree, essentially, that this is so. I think that the primary has done some good, in a sense, in that it has, in many cases, forced the organizations or the machines to slate a somewhat higher level candidate. I don't think that it's almost, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to beat the organization in a primary, and I would agree with Jean that it hasn't worked out so that the voters really do choose the candidates of the parties. They have the

opportunity, but they don't. I think it's quite clear that the organizations have been able to still dominate the primary. When you say they have the opportunity, how do you mean? Well, any qualified voter or elector has the opportunity to run for office. Oh, anyone who runs for office then in the primary? Well, any qualified, anyone who's qualified legally can run for office. There's a petition requirement, though, isn't there? Yes. From state to state, there are a number of signatures on a petition that's required. Now, if I would, for example, decide to run for office, and I think come up with a proper number of names on a petition, could I say I was a Democrat, in spite of the fact that the Democratic Party might slate another candidate? Could I run as a Democrat on that primary, in the Democratic primary? There is no such thing as an independent primary. There are only primaries for the two major political parties and for smaller parties under certain circumstances. All you need to do to run in the primary is to claim to be a member of that party. An evidence of this is registration as a Democrat

or as a Republican. Have the proper number of signatures on your petitions, and then these have to be properly signed. That names have to be on their exactly addresses have to be on their exactly in the city of residents, et cetera. And then finally, with the, I believe Secretary of State, in the case of state officers, the county clerk and the case of county officers and so forth, board of election commissioners for Chicago, any citizen can run on the primary of his choice if he has the, if he's a qualified voter, and if he can get the essential number of signatures. And they don't require a great, many signatures. Like what, could you guess? I'd say for governor, probably 10 ,000 signatures will be the direct. For the mayor, let's say. Some might less. I thought I'd say, I don't know, I think in Illinois it's 25 ,000. Oh, no, I'm sorry, it's, you're right, 10 ,000. You need 50, from 50 sanitorial districts, 200 voters needs district, you're right, at least 10 ,000. But you'd conclude that as a device for introducing smallity democracy, that it has failed because it has never been, no individual has been able, or rarely has an individual been able to, to buck the party structure. Well, I think

that's true, rarely has an individual been able to, have any cases where this is a current success? Well, back in 36, in this state, which goes back a long time, Henry Horner, the organization decided to dump Henry Horner after he'd served four years as a governor, the organization back, Herman Bundeson, was then the corner of Cook County, and Horner beat the organization, the primary, although people in the organization said that that's not quite accurate, in a sense of what happened in that primary, was possibly that there was a split in the organization, some of the organization back corner and some back Bundeson, and Horner didn't win along, there was a case just in the last Republican primary, where Warren Wright won the nomination for state treasure against the opposition of the state organization. It's easier to do this in a statewide election, because the machine, buck the machine in a statewide election, because the democratic machine tends to be centered here in Chicago, whereas the Republican machine tends to be centered in the suburbs and in the downstate area. Consequently, when you throw the votes, and you can get a lot of anti -Chicago machine votes down,

stated in the suburbs, so if you throw it all into the call, then you have a better chance of licking the Chicago machine, it won't be easy. In other words, if you're a Democrat, if you plan to buck the machine, it's better to do it on the government area level. If you're a Republican, if you want to buck the Republican machine, you do it on the mayorality level. That's right, that's right. For example, I think if you take the mayorality election 55, Mayor Cannelli had served eight years, and the organization decided not to back him on the primary, they backed the president and come mayor daily, and Cannelli ran against the organization and lost. It was a local city campaign. But a sign of the time to that election, I think, is the fact that even though it's a three -way race, daily Adamowski and Cannelli, and daily only received 49 % of the primary vote, it was a minority candidate for the I think Adamowski drew about 125, 120 ,000 votes in that race. So at even under certain circumstances, the Chicago machine is incapable of mustering a majority for its candidate, even in its own home area here, which leads a number of candidates I believe today to feel that on a statewide

basis, the Chicago Democratic machine could be beaten. Is that happening today? There are candidates who are contemplating something like this, aren't they? Well, of course, the great event coming up is the slating of candidates by... Could you explain that? The slating of candidates? Well, what the condition involves. The Democratic Central Committee of Chicago and Cook County, and the Democratic Central Committee of the state will convene in the next either going on right now or in the next few weeks, and will attempt to select the candidate to receive the Democratic machine support in the primary, which will be held next April. Now, two things, two questions occurred to me. First, this pattern is not exclusively democratic. The Republican Party is doing the same thing. The second question you spoke of, the Central Committee, what is the Central Committee of a major political party? Who makes it out? Well, they have on each level. Each party has on each level. There's an municipal central committee and there's a county central committee, congressional district committee, a state central committee, and

they're made up at the county level of the ward committeeman and the county. These are not office holders, these people. No. Sometimes. Well, they might hold the job. The Chicago Central Committee is the ward committeeman of every ward of the Democratic Committee of every ward. The county central committee is the committeeman of all the wards plus the county country townships. I believe they're about 33 of those. The state central committee is all of this plus the county chairman of the 101 counties outside of Cook County in the state. Is the slating done at every level, on every level, by the committee at that level? In other words, on the ward level, is it the ward central committee people who will determine what touches on the slate or has it come from up above? I would say, from what I know of the situation, that there's a great deal of autonomy at each level that the county central committee is pretty much left alone to slate county candidates, not in all cases, but as a general rule, I think the political organizations operate on a fairly

level of autonomy in this way. This isn't 100 % rule, I would say. In most cases, I would think yes. At the state central committee would not dictate that a county central committee should be nominated for county offices at that level. Well, could we go back, I interrupt you, Gene, earlier, and you're talking about slating. The slating is going to go on to determine who will be given the party machine support in the April primary. Well, what are the standards there for choosing a man? Is his vote getting ability in the past? Or what? Well, there are a variety of criteria used by the Democratic machine and Republican machine in selecting their candidates in the primary. Of course, they have to consider vote getting ability if they want to win the election. Let's stop a minute. If they want to win the election, can we assume automatically that they want to win every election they enter? Well, I think not in Illinois. It's possible. Of course, you can't prove this. I think it's possible in Illinois. It may be that the parties are not particularly

interested in winning all elections at all levels. You mean, are not interested in beating each other at all levels? It may well be that there's a good deal of collusion in Illinois. Again, you can't prove this. Is there evidence for it? Well, if you look back at the candidates that each of the party slates, I would say, at the state level and at the Maritalty level in Chicago, the Democrats don't normally run their strongest candidates, always against Republican candidates for the governorship. In most cases, the Republicans don't normally run a really strong candidate against the Democratic candidate for the Maritalty in Chicago, and it makes some sense if you're involved in politics as a life. If you make a living doing this, you divide the state up. Cook County's half the state, half the patronage is here. I'm not saying that this is so, but there's certainly a good deal of smoke there that may well be so here in Illinois. In other words, the party has a one -party state. I heard a reporter who covers Springfield for a long time say that he had been taught in American government courses that we had a two -party

system in his country, and he said, that's not true in Springfield. We got one big happy party down there on many things. That is what you're suggesting is that there is at least a possibility that there's been a kind of, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. We give the Republicans, give the Democrats, Cook County, the Democrats in turn, give the Republicans the state. Yes, for example, it's the strongest candidate I can think of. The Republicans have slated many years for the Maryland. He was a Marium in 55, and there's a great deal of talk that there was very little work done by the Republican Organization in Chicago to get the vote out for Marium, and he came close. He could have won in 55. And note where they also was the election in 1956 when the Democratic candidate who was nominated by the primary was compelled to leave the Democratic ticket before the election because of certain scandals in the County Treasurer's office. He was replaced by another candidate who lost the election in spite of the great scandals in the Republican administration. This is the Hodge of Fair. The Hodge of Fair. The Republican

candidate still won. Yes, I think the Republican is won by 36 ,000 votes in 56 ,000. The government should, and how they run a really strong candidate, I think, with the concentrated campaign. I don't see how they could have lost that election. In 1948, for example, when an analogous situation existed, Dwight Green had been the subject of a great number of scandals in his administration. The Democratic Party, I believe, anticipating a loss before the scandals broke, nominated two very good candidates. Surely they were going to lose. That's so well. They really thought they'd look pretty good before the scandals in the administration broke, nominated Adley Stephenson for governor and Paul Douglas for United States Senator. Both of these men, of course, were outstanding candidates, outstanding campaigners, and both of them are still on the scene. Senator Douglas won that race, and Adley Stephenson received the largest majority that any candidate has ever received in Illinois. Under circumstances when these scandals were

nowhere nearly as great as they were in 1946. Scandals in the Republican Party. And yet the candidate lost in 1956. Against the present scandal. Against the face of the president, face of the 56 scandals. It may be more by 60, I don't know. For example, even to go a little further, there's a kind of understanding about patronage. Neither party takes all the patronage, like take the Sanitary District. When the Republicans had six commissioners, they had two -thirds of the patronage. The Democrats had one -third. The Democrats won three more of the offices. They were three -thirds Republicans took one -third. It's kind of, well, everybody is taking care of in a sense. Now, there's an attempt being made by some candidates to circumvent this system at the present time. Stephen A. Mitchell has declared that he's going to run in the Democratic primary in April, regardless of whether or not he's slated by the Democratic organization, so that, at least for the first time in a good long time, the Democratic voters in the coming primary are going to have an opportunity to select between a candidate

supported by the Democratic organization and one who is running independently of it. That's assuming that the Democrats don't slate Mitchell. That was, I was wondering. Can a candidate who can make a fairly popular showing prior to the slating in effect bow his party into slating him? Well, possibly, I'd say it's possible, but quite unlikely. I would say as the general rule of thumb, the organizations are not always interested in winning every election at every level. For example, Driske and sometimes had a column during the last campaign about the situation with regard to the campaign for state treasurer, which he was saying was a peculiar kind of campaign in which the Democratic organization was not so particularly interested in getting Roman elected. The Republican organization was not particularly interested in getting more and right elected, they're candidates, because both of them had bucked the organization to get the nomination. Now, sometimes, for example, in a primary, people like Roman can make it, and there's no strong organization feeling

about the office possibly. Maybe this is what's happened. Certainly, if you are running a political organization for whatever purposes they run political organizations, you would want your friends elected to the important offices of the state, and I would say it would be highly unlikely for the either party organization to support a candidate who would be apt to oppose the organization in its aims and frequently these aims are the extraction of patronage from the state. And they would just assume maybe lose that office, have a maverick in there who might cause trouble for the organization. If I confess, this may be extremely naive, but I'm shocked. Let's go back here as a case of Mr. Mitchell. As Mr. Mitchell, the only one spitting off, I was only virtually a number of other people. As at the time this tape is being taken, there are a number of candidates who are seeking to be slated by the Democratic

organization. So far none have declared that they're going to run whether or not they obtain the support of the Democratic organization. This is in the Democratic primary. Now it's presumably Governor Stratton will run and the Republican primary will be unimposed. But at this point, this is a way it appears that we have no way of knowing that this will actually be the case by next April. Is there a possibility of a revolt in terms of merely a possibility? Is there anyone on whom a revolt might? Well you always have one right who loves it if you're fighting for it. I think what right could get the treasures in the organization? It's quite unlikely that he can get the governor, the gubernatorial nomination away from Governor Stratton. Let's say we have here two men, Warren Wright, perhaps the Republican Party, Stephen Mitchell, the Democratic Party, who want to be elected. And perhaps in at least in Mitchell's case, wanted badly enough to be elected either with or without the support of the party. What happens if they don't get the support of the party? Let's say with Mr. Mitchell because he's the one who's at least declared at this point. Mr. Mitchell does not get the support of the party, but does manage to get those petitions filled

out. What faces us on the ballot come April? Well you would have, first of all, the Democratic ballot in the paper ballot areas and you would have the Democratic row in the case of the voting machines. The Mr. Mitchell is a Democrat too. That's right. They would both appear on the Democratic ticket. Well, right. Well, right would not, of course. But Mitchell and whom ever the organization slates, whether it's Loman or Sergeant Schreiber or Otto Kerner or Judge Merovitz or Eddie Barrett, or any one of a half dozen other candidates who might receive the machine support. These would appear on the Democratic ballot under the Office of Governor and the voter would have a chance of selecting between one of these two candidates in the Democratic primary. There's been some criticism of the fact that a voter in order to vote in a primary has to declare his party. There was a great movement of foot in the last legislature to revive or to reform this system and have it what we call open or a secret primary, which would permit a voter to go into the polling place and

not declare his party but still have the opportunity of voting in a primary. Many voters are reluctant to go into the polling place with precinct captains of both parties standing beside the machine and the various party members standing there in front of the officials desk and declare that they're a Democrat or a Republican. These are their neighbors. And so many people don't vote in a primary who otherwise would. But in any case, you have to declare your party at the present time and you do have a choice between, you will have a choice between various candidates at least for governor. You see, we have a what's called a closed primary gene spelled it out. You have to declare your party affiliation and you can't change in a primary for 23 months after that in Illinois. Of course, the reason the major reason for this is that the argument was that people in a party should have to write to choose their candidates. The party is not the election and for example, it's possible for members of one party to cross into the primary of another party in an open primary and put the worst candidate, nominate the worst candidate. So, let's go back to the

mayor of the election just before. Supposing, let's say, that Lard daily had run in the was running in the Republican primary and we had an open primary. Every Democratic voter could then cross into the Republican primary and vote for daily. So, he got the nomination. Lard daily, not maybe. And then in the election, go back and swap him, put the worst candidate. But he loses vote. But then he loses whatever element of choice he had in his own party ticket. Yes, he was. Well, there's no contest. See, then he could be. It was claimed in the old days that this was done fairly often in some cities. But this requires a kind of political organization which is extremely effective and extremely efficient and that kind of organization just doesn't exist today. Neither of the Democratic, neither Democratic, nor other Republican organization are that efficient or that effective. They're happy to get out, they're straight party voters and tell them to pull the straight party ticket. It's dangerous to be able to teach a voter. That's not a lot of money. How to split a ticket? They split it once. When you want them to, but then they may split it again

when you don't want them to. And with Chicago politics being as diverse as they are and as complex as they are, you never know when a voter might be tempted to split a ticket. For example, the polls, splitting tickets in the Democratic primary for Adamowski in 55. And then in the 56 elections, splitting the Democratic tickets to vote for Adamowski is Republican. Following them because he was Polish rather than because he also has other qualifications than being a poll. But it's tremendously important. If your name is Adamowski and your name is Rostyn Kowski and you go to the ballot box, you go to the polls to vote, it's two to one that if you don't know the names of anybody on the ticket, you vote for Adamowski rather than Kelly. If your name is Corrigan and Kelly's name is up there, it's two to one that you vote for Kelly rather than Adamowski. All other things being even are equal. And so frequently that's the case where you're sort of totally ignorant about all things are equal. But this doesn't always follow because Jean and I were discussing this before. If you look at the 36 primary campaign here in Illinois, the Governor Henry Horner campaigned against the organization in the 24th Ward, which was a solid Jewish ward at that time. The

organization carried the ward against Horner, the only Jewish governor in the state ever had. And Jacob Henry was the ward committee at the time, but the organization was able to overcome this kind of, which I think goes to demonstrate a fact that in most primaries, the reason why the organization almost always went into primary, they get the organization to vote out. But perhaps as a sign of the times, in the 55 primary, the organization could not carry the Polish wards against Adamowski. When they could carry the Jewish ward against Horner in 36, but they couldn't carry the Polish wards against Adamowski in 55, and then of course these wards also went Republican in the general election with both her eyes and her and for Adamowski. But the important point to be made is that there is going to be a primary fight this year. And this is the kind of thing which was anticipated by the reformers who instituted the primary system to start with. You talked about a, there'll be a primary fight. Let's say in terms of something you've already said, I wonder if we might extend

this further. Mr. Mitchell, if someone else a non -party candidate may win the primary, let's say. This makes them the nominal candidate for the machine as well. Well, they may be very unhappy about it. But as you pointed out, Dr. Reikov, that when Miriam won his party nomination and the fact the organization laid back and dragged its heels, this could very easily happen or Mitchell to get the democratic nomination. I'm not saying what happened. Mitchell may be popular enough and strong enough. And the organization may decide to close ranks behind them as they did behind Harnor in 36 after he won the primary. And as they did behind and sent him behind Loman just a few months ago, the organization didn't work against Loman. But then how much support have the, if what you said earlier is true, Mill, how much support would the democratic organization give a democratic gubernatorial candidate anyway? That's, yes. That's the couple that won't have any democracy. What will the Cook County organization do? If they're interested in the and the package of Cook County, would they give the democratic candidate for governor a great deal of support? I think that Mitchell, for example, who has had

tremendous experience in the democratic party as national chairman, for example, when Stevenson ran for a president. And he built the party's organization tremendously in the period immediately after Stevenson's 50 to 50 feet. He's a great organizer. He's had a great deal of experience here in Illinois organizing an election. And this kind of thing may very well be the breakthrough in this. May provide great breakthrough in the re -duplicate the events of 1936. Well, one question, as I said earlier, I am a little bit shocked, I think you've said. And I think most to most people certainly what you suggest at least as possibilities. We're all being very careful. What you suggest as possibilities aren't are shocking and quite disturbing. Well, what does the voter who is seriously interested in good government and a little bit of pull by this obvious spoil splitting? I would say the

proper remedy for this for the average voter is to get into one of the two parties and work in the party, get into the party organization and try to either not capture it but drive it in a particular direction because the first thing an organization has to do is get elected. This is their business men. This is their business. They have to be elected. And if enough people get into the organization and the organization will take in, for example, the democratic party has back people like Stevenson, Douglas, Lohman, all sorts of people is kind. And I think it's a mistake in many cases to stay outside the organization. Maybe independent voter isn't the best thing in the world in the standpoint of getting reformed. In this case, that means participating in the primary, going out and voting in the primary, declaring your party and casting a vote in the primary for the man you think is best. And otherwise, the next governor will be selected probably this month when the Democrats select their candidate and the Republicans select their candidate. Our steps will be the election is next November and the primary is in April, but unless an awful lot of people go

out and vote in that primary, the choices for the governor has already been made. That's being made right now in December and in November. Excuse me, November and December and January. And this rule is true and all at every level practically when we run for the legislature, for the mail, they log down the line. In many cases, by the time the election comes around, there's nothing to vote about anymore. It's all decided in the primary, in Illinois, particularly. I like to explore the business of Illinois, particularly, but I'm afraid that we'll have to leave that for some other time. I'd like to thank you both. This has been enlightening and thoroughly interesting. Dr. Jean Dysler, Dr. Milton Raykov. The lessons I suppose this morning's discussion will be best spelled out by our guests. If the situation that's was described as at least a real possibility, a pollo, the answers are two certainly. One, I suppose this is Mr. Raykov's suggestion, join your party and

work in it. The other get out and vote certainly in that primary. Good morning, Joel Zhang of the American scene.