Chicago
By DAN LOGAN

Retiring Alderman Despres always able to put political problems in larger perspective

WHILE vacationing in Greece, Aid. Leon Despres sent a friend a postcard of the Parthenon. The message on the back read, "Who says you can't fight City Hall?"

"Len" Despres, who retires from the Chicago City Council in April, has always been able to put today's political problems in a larger perspective. He has quoted the Bible, Shakespeare, John Donne, St. Thomas Aquinas, Milton, and Emerson in Council debate. His "quotability" is one reason why his Olympian arguments with Richard J. Daley have made great newspaper copy for 20 years.

It's not surprising that Despres has been the Council's most literary member. He has lived in Hyde Park, the neighborhood where James T. Farrell, Sherwood Anderson, Sinclair Lewis, and Saul Bellow worked, since he was three years old. He studied at European boarding schools for two years, where he developed a life-long affection for European culture.

Despres' father, a Bryan Democrat with populist leanings who served on the Chicago Public Library Board, was his earliest political influence. As a student at the University of Chicago (U. of C.), Despres studied economics under Paul Douglas and was active in the tiny Liberal Club on campus.

Replaced Merriam as alderman
After graduating from U.of C. Law School, Despres accumulated some impressive liberal credentials. He represented labor unions, taught college courses in labor law, and handled civil liberties cases, becoming counsel for the Illinois Division of the American Civil Liberties Union. He helped form the Americans for Democratic Action and was elected chairman of its Illinois affiliate, the Independent Voters of Illinois (IVI).

When Hyde Park's alderman, Robert Merriam, ran for mayor in 1955, Despres served as chairman of the committee to find an independent replacement. When nobody else would accept the committee's endorsement, Despres ran himself, drawing support from unions, the IVI, Merriam, and Hyde Park's small Republican Party. The Hyde Park Herald called his campaign "a real scrambled egg-head affair." He beat the machine candidate by 3,700 votes, a comfortable margin.

That was the year (1955) Daley was first elected mayor and Aid. Paddy Bauler argued that "Chicago ain't ready for reform." But, in his first year as alderman, Despres worked hard for reform as a member of the Council's "economy bloc." He introduced a measure to take away aldermen's power to issue driveway permits, a perennial source of corruption. It passed with the help of Tom Keane, the mayor's floor leader. Keane was quick to defend his temporary alliance with Despres: "This isn't reform,"he said, "it's progress."

By Despres' second term, Daley had tightened his grip on the party and the Council. There were only three non-machine aldermen and Despres was the only liberal. From then on, Daley had no intention of giving any more aldermen credit for "progress." That applied especially to Despres.

But Despres had an advantage over machine aldermen. "An administration alderman doesn't have the power to introduce anything," he points out. "His superiors will tell him to shut up." The power to introduce ordinances belongs to the mayor and to what Despres calls "the creative opposition."

Despres himself has introduced hundreds of ordinances, most of which are hopelessly buried in committee. His proposals to create police bicycle patrols, to erect an electric sign at State and Madison that would show noise and
pollution levels, and to require public disclosure of city employees' outside income probably will never emerge.

But others for which Despres fought long and hard have been reintroduced with minor changes by the administration and adopted. Despres has been indirectly responsible for an ordinance " that gave Chicago meter maids, a ban on discrimination in Chicago hospitals, creation of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks, and Chicago's fair housing ordinance.

Despres considers the work of his ward office his most important accomplishment. That's where he listened to constituents and used his power to be heard. Nobody can ignore an alderman — even an independent one — when he speaks for his constituents. Despres complained regularly to city departments about city services and to the University of Chicago — his ward's largest employer and landowner — about its use of power.

Ward office a necessity
The ward office was also a political necessity. Despres' political strength stemmed from his knowing his constituents and serving their needs. His machine counterparts maintain offices in party headquarters. Many of them refer constituents to precinct captains. When one of them is denied slating by his committeeman, he has no political, base on which to mount even a primary challenge.

After 20 years, Despres' ward office has generated so much activity that he has been forced to work Saturdays and Sundays for five years. He had to choose between being an alderman and being a lawyer, and he can't afford to give up his law practice.

Would he do it again? Len Despres answer is a quote from Frederick Douglass: "If there is no struggle, there is no progress."

94/Illinois Issues/March 1975