By PAUL M. GREEN

IN George Orwell's 1984 the party had three slogans: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. These phrases were part of the party's official language called Newspeak. Today's Chicago is far from Orwell's 1984 as it nears the first anniversary of Harold Washington's spectacular 1983 mayoral victory. However, the topsy-turvy turmoil inside the once omnipotent Chicago Democrat party has so altered and shifted traditional political patterns and roles that the city has developed its own version of Newspeak — Chicago style.

Nothing is predictable. Everyone is a reformer. Everyone wants to open up the process. Old political horse trading is out and study commissions led by college professors are in. Onetime dieted party patronage workers now embrace Shakman, aldermen who seldom said more than aye or nay now hold press conferences on controversial urban issues, and the once vocal lakefront independents have been rendered mute as they march lockstep or "hackstep" behind the administration's policies.

The mayor and his council foes agree on very little, but in the spirit of Newspeak they both praise the return of a genuine, working democracy in Chicago. Like modern day Madisons and Hamiltons they puff about the separation of powers and the theoretical relationships between the executive and legislative branches of government. Incredibly, the media has generally bought this view without analyzing the historic interaction between Chicago's chief executive and the City Council.

Democracy has never worked smoothly in Chicago. The city has a weak mayor-strong council form of government. Until the coming to power of the Democratic machine in the 1930s, there was constant warfare between both branches of government. Former Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison II called this period the Stormy Years. Republican mayors fought with Democratic controlled councils and vice versa; party factionalism prevented orderly government even when one party controlled both the hall and the council; and the power of the council's finance committee and its chairman made this committee a potential countervailing force to any city administration. To illustrate the last point, the finance committee formerly had the power to prepare the city budget, and its members had a major voice on political patronage.

The rigid executive control implemented under Richard J. Daley and his council leader Thomas Keane was new to Chicago politics. Daley's political power made the City Council a ratifying body that affirmed party-made decisions. Thus, he did not destroy the legislative function — he simply ignored it.

To be sure, the Daley days are gone. However, it is sheer hypocrisy for some current city leaders to bellow how they are returning Chicago to some bygone golden age of true executive-legislative interaction. It is even more fanciful for others to label this return "reform." To Chicagoans no other word in the English language has more definitions or interpretations. For some, reform is an entire city made up of plant shops, wicker furniture and cute restaurants; others see it as a philosophical paradise where an egalitarian spirit catapults the city into one huge inter-cultural graduate seminar; while others see it as a way to get a job that somebody else has. A few people actually see reform as an unbiased method of running the city honestly with truly professional administrators.

However, all true junkies of Chicago politics should not despair — despite the flood of Newspeak reform rhetoric, the same game goes on. The mayor after flaunting the death of the machine now wants to give it his own brand of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and Democratic County Chairman Edward R. Vrdolyak has set his own version of the Maginot Line around every government or political entity not loyal to his leadership. On the night of the upcoming March 20 primary these new reform advocates and their followers will skip over the presidential and senatorial returns and go right to the vote totals that count the most — Democratic ward committeemen.

The machine lives! Ah, reform where is thy sting? □

Paul M. Green is director of the Institute for Public Policy and Administration, Governors State University, Park Forest South, and will become a regular contributor to Illinois Issues covering politics and government in Chicago. Paul wishes to add that he is honored to have been asked to take over Milton Rakove's column, and that no one can ever capture the special magic he brought to his writings about Chicago politics and its politicians.

March 1984/Illinois Issues/43