Fallen pols

To say the stories of Kerner and Rostenkowski are tragedies is a literal interpretation of the term. These two men, adapting to and eventually expecting the fruits of power, fell because of hubris. Even after they were publicly humiliated, they continued to indignantly maintain their innocence, claiming that conspiracy rather than corruption caused their downfalls. Like the classic tragic figures, they were men who became great but fell because of personal flaws.

Of the three books, the Kerner opus is the most sweeping in scope. Chicago Tribune financial columnist Bill Barnhart and his co-author, former Republican state legislator Gene Schlickman, use the thread of the Kerner story to weave the tapestry of the entire Illinois political system. Indeed, Kerner's father was a Chicago alderman and Illinois attorney general. His father-in-law was Anton (Pushcart Tony) Cermak,

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In an assessment cited more than once in the Kerner book, the aristocratic man whose lasting legacy includes the 1968 The Kerner Commission Report on Civil Disorder in America, was described by the late columnist Mike Royko as being "born with a golden ballot in his mouth."

Kerner's rise in political stature, as a Cook County judge, U. S. attorney, Illinois governor and federal appellate judge, was an anointment rather than an effort, according to Barnhart and Schlickman. Because of his record as an Ivy League and Cambridge University intellectual, Northwestern University Law School graduate and society luminary, he was chosen by the baser Chicago political elements to balance their tickets with a touch of class and respectability. Rostenkowski, on the other hand, was the son of a tavern-owner. His father's aldermanic career was pedestrian, and his early years were shaped by St. John's Military Academy in Delafield, Wis. (not far from the Oxford correctional center), where he was sent by his parents to get him away from troublemaking kids like himself.

Kerner was a leader of the Illinois National Guard and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U. S. Army, where he was decorated for bravery and served as a top aide to Gen. William Westmoreland, who later was a character witness in Kerner's federal trial. Rostenkowski, on the other hand, joined the army after graduating from St. John's, served quietly in pre-hostility Korea and returned home to learn street level politics while attending night school classes at Chicago colleges.

The Kerner book reads almost like a Forrest Gump of politics, with the cold, aloof Kerner rubbing shoulders on nearly every page with the likes of Democratic powerhouse Jake Arvey, President Harry Truman, failed automaker Preston Tucker, Death Row luminary Paul Crump, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Mayor Richard J. Daley and, inevitably, James R. Thompson, the ambitious U. S. attorney who sent Kerner to jail and eventually became Illinois governor himself, an accomplishment many believe was founded on his prosecution of Kerner.

Like Kerner, the book is studied, mannered and, because it has to be, a bit cold. Theodore Isaacs, the Iago-type character who both served and disserved Kerner, his longtime friend, eventually engineering the racetrack stock maneuvering that brought Kerner down, is never fully dealt with. Toward the end, the authors get caught up in the legalities of the Kerner prosecution, whether the government has the right to charge politicians with crimes if it is determined they have deprived the citizens of the "intangible rights of good government." They seem to think it doesn't, and some subsequent court rulings seem to agree. But the real story and the most interesting one is how an above-the-fray Brahmin like Kerner can eventually come to believe that perquisites such as bargain rate racetrack stock and immunity from prosecution come with the job. For Rostenkowski, the answer to that question is more obvious.

In Rostenkowski's world, the world he grew up in, politicians do things for people. That is how they get elected and re-elected. If the things they do sometimes involve the infamous "wink and a nod," then so be it. "Good politics is good government," Richard J. Daley often said. And he meant it. I help you and you help me. It's that simple, or, at least, so it was when young Danny Rostenkowski watched his alderman father move through the ward handing out turkeys and hams and, of course, jobs.

So when Chicagoan Danny Rostenkowski went to Washington in the mid-1950s, he brought Chicago street politics with him. He rose through the ranks of the tradition-bound House of Representatives, seeing his opportunities and taking them, and, when he finally became chairman of the most powerful committee in

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And in return, Rostenkowski got the votes at home and the campaign contributions and golf outings and speaking fees from the big business interests who had a friend in Danny Rostenkowski. A booth was named after him in Morton's Washington, D.C., restaurant, and he occupied it like a feudal prince, rarely picking up a check but always paying with a great inside anecdote about the Oval Office.

Back home, his appearances were greeted by a polka with the lyrics, "Danny Boy, Danny Boy, Danny Rostenkowski, he's our ways, he's our means, Danny Rostenkowski." He got busted for drunk driving up at his summer home in Lake Geneva -- again, not far from the Oxford correctional center -- but, so what? That was Danny. Once in awhile, in an unguarded moment, he might make an anti-Semitic remark or say something a mile away from political correctness, but, what the hell, who doesn't once in awhile? That's how his constituents, and a good number of the media covering him, felt.

As the three recent books show, Rosty was one of the guys, and Kerner wasn't. When Kerner was released from prison in 1975, more than 1,000 people turned out to welcome him home in Springfield. Still, his aloofness helped in his undoing, not just in the court of public opinion, but in the trial court, as well. The 12 jurors, admittedly hopelessly confused about the intricacies of the federal charges of mail fraud, perjury and income tax evasion, finally just threw up their hands and convicted Kerner of everything. Some said later that Kerner's testimony, in which he stared defiantly at them with his cold blue eyes and haughtily engaged in legal debate with Jim Thompson, convinced them of his guilt. Rostenkowski eschewed a trial, copping a plea bargain and taking his punishment, although maintaining vigorously that he was innocent to the end.

In both cases, public opinion was swayed not by the crimes, but by their pettiness. Kerner, while governing a state, while issuing a report scolding America for its racial bias, took some cheap stock in exchange for granting lucrative horse racing dates, and then lied about it. Rostenkowski, while juggling literally billions of dollars in federal taxes and legislation, cashed in a few thousand stamps and outfitted his offices in Washington and Chicago with taxpayer-financed furniture and doodads. It wasn't the crimes as much as the cheapness of them that eventually did the two politicians in.

Kerner died before he could clear his name, and while his 1968 warning that "our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white -- separate and unequal" is still sometimes cited as prophetic and noble, his personal reputation remains that of a man who rose to lofty heights and then fell because of his own weaknesses and flaws.

Rostenkowski's reputation is still on the mend. He is an unapologetic commentator on Chicago television news stations; he has a lucrative consulting firm and is welcome in the gatherings of power. His conviction and imprisonment, while ending his political career, does not seem to have hampered his public career, just as the late Mayor Harold Washington managed to overcome his federal tax conviction and brief imprisonment. It's as if Kerner shunned the system that spawned him, and, when the hard times came, it shunned him in return. Rostenkowski, on the other hand, was so much a part of the system that, even after it turned on him, it now welcomes him back.

Just as dozens of politicians came to pay their respects at the wake of Fred Roti, some sending huge bouquets of flowers to the South Side funeral home as a defiant sign of loyalty to one of their own, so do they welcome back Rostenkowski, who went away from home, rose to power and was kicked out of Washington, D. C. And then came home.

On a recent television game show, one of the questions was, "What macho congressman turned out to be a mail fraud?" The contestant easily answered, "Dan Rostenkowski." Nationally, maybe that is the right answer. But back home in Chicago, Danny Rostenkowski is nearing the redemption that Otto Kerner never found.

Robert Davis, former assistant metropolitan editor at the Chicago Tribune, covered Chicago city government and politics for more than 32 years before his retirement in June. He is now a lecturer in journalism at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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