The death of Daley, the birth of Byrne

AS THE NEW administration of Jane M. Byrne begins to settle into place and develop its own raison d'etre, Chicago's political and governmental institutions are slowly beginning to respond to the new situation created by Byrne's ascension to the mayoralty of Chicago.

One of the more significant realities of the current political milieu in Chicago finally recognized by many, if not all, of the actors on the contemporary political and governmental stages is that Mayor Richard J. Daley is really dead and has passed from the scene.

That fact had never sunk into the psyches of many Chicago politicians during the short, aborted term of Mayor Michael A. Bilandic, since Bilandic's tenure in office was marked by a dedication to the Daley ideals and a perpetuation of Daley's policies.

The three institutions most directly affected by the breakdown of the old order and the arrival of the new one are the political machine, the city bureaucracy and the city council.

Of the three, the city council has, to date, shown the least ability to react to the realities of the post-Daley era evolving in Chicago.

But the contemporary council, in the evolving Byrne mayoralty, bears little resemblance to that body. There are blocs and individual aldermen vying for power now. There is a sizable independent bloc, not in opposition to the mayor, but in close alliance; a black bloc, more cognizant of race interests than party loyalty; a bloc of old machine types who generally follow Mayor Byrne's guidelines as long as she pacifies them with patronage and perquisites; a coterie of Young Turks aspiring for recognition and power, who are willing to do Byrne's bidding to achieve that goal; and a new minority of former Young Turks, Aldermen Edward Vrdolyak and Edward Burke, who are now "older Turks" who lead the opposition. The old ethnic blocs are fragmented --the Poles pursuing private interests rather than cultural solidarity; some Italians refusing to follow the leadership of their dean, Vito Marzullo; the Jews dividing between reformers who support Byrne and traditionalists who resist authority on intellectual or political grounds; and the few Irish, who, except for Burke, are generally irrelevant to the council's proceedings.

If Mayor Daley is looking down from his assured seat in heaven at the council's proceedings, he must be shaking his head in disbelief at the scene. At Mayor Byrne's right hand sits Daley's old antagonist, former Alderman Leon Despres, who is Byrne's parliamentarian, guiding her in the intricacies of legislative procedure. The floor leader is Wilson Frost, an able, intelligent politician and public servant. He must balance his responsibilities as floor leader with his role as leader of the black bloc, and try to deal with the realities of a council no longer under the system of authority and discipline that marked the relationship among Daley, Keane and the council membership.

How will it all turn out?