June 19, 2013
POLISH-AMERICAN POLITICIANS: A HISTORY OF FAILURE

ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART

In Poland, the international airline is named LOT. In Chicago and Cook County, among Polish-American politicians, the operative word is "not."

As in, not have any real political clout -- in the past, present or future. In fact, Chicago's history is a litany of failure for Polish-American politicians: misplaced trust, ethnic jealousy and rivalries, factions, geography, unrealistic expectations, procrastination, timidity. Those factors allowed Chicago's Irish-American pols, especially Mayor Richard J. Daley, to play the Poles like a fiddle. Divide and conquer was his strategy, and it never failed.

It was said that at one time Chicago had more Poles than Warsaw. In the 1970s, almost a quarter of Chicago's population was of Polish ancestry. Yet Chicago has never had a Polish-American mayor or Cook County Board president. Instead, Polish politicians were content with a few crumbs from the table, such as the city clerk or county clerk office.

Fifty years ago, Cook County had four Polish-American congressmen, Democrats Dan Rostenkowski, Roman Pucinski and John Klucynski and Republican Ed Derwinski. Pucinski was the "Polish Prince," and Rostenkowski was the "Golden Boy." Both were ostensibly on track to be mayor, they detested each other, and both readily allied with the Irish to block their rival's advancement. Polish-American John Marcin was the city clerk, and Stanley Kusper was the county clerk.

Eight of Chicago's 50 aldermen were of Polish ancestry, including, on the Northwest Side, in the 26th (Stanley Zydlo), 32nd (Terry Gabinski), 35th (Casey Laskowski) and 45th (Ed Fifielski) wards, and in the Southwest Side 12th, 13th, 22nd and 23rd wards. Aldermen Joe Potempa (23rd) and Casimir Staszcuk (13th) were Republicans. The 30th and 41st wards had Polish-American Democratic committeeman in Ted Lechowicz and Pucinski, respectively.

There were a handful of Polish-Americans in the Illinois General Assembly: Lechowicz, Roman Kosinski, Peter Piotrowicz Peters, Norbert Kosinski, Don Swinarski, John Fary, Henry Klosak, Ed Kucharski and Bob Terzich. Matt Bieszczat (the boss of the 26th Ward), Charlie Bonk and Lillian Piotrowski were on the county board, and Valentine Janicki was a commissioner for the old Metropolitan Sanitary District.

Today that Polish beachhead has totally eroded. Klucynski died in 1975 and was succeeded by Fary, who was replaced by 23rd Ward Alderman Bill Lipinski in 1982, who palmed off his seat, now mostly southwest suburban, to his son Dan Lipinski in 2004. Pucinski forfeited his seat in a losing 1972 U.S. Senate bid, but he became the 41st Ward alderman in 1973, serving until 1991. He had hoped that running with Democrat Ed Muskie as the "Polish Twosome" would propel him to victory, but Muskie never got nominated for president. Rostenkowski, who was the powerful Ways and Means Committee chairman, was hit with a 17-count indictment in 1994 that charged him with embezzlement, fraud, witness tampering and misusing his office stamp allowance; he lost a re-election try in 1994, and he was later convicted and jailed. Derwinski was defeated in a 1982 primary. Only the younger Lipinski remains in the 18-member Illinois delegation.

There are no Polish-American countywide officials, only one county commissioner (suburbanite Jeff Tobolski), and a handful of the 177 state legislators: Dan Kotowski, Steve Landek, Mike Zalewski Jr. and Joe Sosnowski. There is only one Polish-American Chicago alderman -- Mike Zalewski Sr. (23rd), where the elder Lipinski remains committeeman.

Polish migration to Chicago began in the 1890s, and by the 1930s the area around Milwaukee-Division-Ashland was known as "Little Poland," with a Polish-language newspaper (the Daily Zgoda), and Polish masses said daily at churches such as Saint Helen, Saint Stanislaus, Saint Boniface and Saint Mary of the Angels. The rising Polish political star was Ben Adamowski, who was elected to the Illinois House in 1932 at the age of 24, but the political boss of the 32nd Ward, including Bucktown, West Town and Wicker Park, was Joe Rostenkowski, the ward's alderman from 1933 until 1955, and the committeeman until 1964. The elder Rostenkowski made his son a state representative in 1952 at age 24, a state senator in 1954 at age 26, and a U.S. congressman in 1958 at age 30. By 1980 Rostenkowski had, by dint of seniority, risen to become Ways and Means chairman.

The continuing waves of Polish immigrants moved up the Milwaukee Avenue corridor, lined with Polish delis and restaurants, resulting in a huge Polish presence around Central Park and Milwaukee, in the neighborhood called Jackowo, or Polish Village, in the 35th Ward, where City Clerk John Marcin was the political boss. Saint Hyacinth was the principal parish, and Kosciuszko Park was the main social venue. The area's longtime alderman (from 1955 to 1979) was Casey Laskowski, a funeral director. The area remained heavily Polish well into the late 1980s, and Lechowicz became the political boss after Marcin was ousted as alderman in 1983.

Economic stagnation in Poland precipitated a new wave of Polish emigration in the 1980s, with the more ambitious and entrepreneurial -- and least communistic -- Poles encouraged to depart. More than a hundred thousand settled in Chicago, most around Belmont-Central and near Midway Airport. Many engaged in the home construction industry and routinely bought and sold properties for profit. The collapse of the housing market, and the revival of capitalism in Poland, sent many Poles back to the homeland.

"Little Poland" is now upscale and yuppified, Jackowo and Belmont-Central are now Hispanic, and most Polish Americans have moved to the 41st Ward or to nearby suburbs like River Grove, Niles and Harwood Heights.

The point is, if African Americans, who make up 30 to 35 percent of Chicago's electorate, could elect a black mayor in 1983 and 1987, why couldn't Polish Americans, who made up 30 to 35 percent of the white voters, elect a mayor? To understand, look at some critical elections:

1931: Republican William Hale Thompson had been the city's mayor for 12 of the previous 16 years, but the Great Depression doomed him. The Democrat who trounced him was West Side county board president Anton Cermak, then characterized as a Bohemian, meaning of Slavic heritage. However, Cermak was killed in an assassination attempt on Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, and Ed Kelly, an Irish American from Bridgeport, the local sanitary district commissioner, took his place. He fashioned the Kelly-Nash machine, and the Irish were in power. Eastern European ethnics were out the door.

1955: This was the watershed. Daley, who had been elected county clerk in 1950, allied with county Democratic Chairman Jacob Arvey to get slated for mayor, and incumbent Martin Kennelly, who replaced Kelly in 1947, was dumped. Adamowski entered the race. It was a titanic Irish-versus-Polish war. The winner would rule for decades. But it was no contest, because the Polish bosses, Rostenkowski and Marcin, sided with Daley. Chicago could have had a Polish mayor, but Adamowski was not their puppet, so they allied with Daley, who won a three-way primary over Kennelly and Adamowski and went on to win election to his first term.

1956: Enraged, Adamowski became a Republican, ran for state's attorney, beat machine incumbent John Gutknecht, and spent the next 4 years unearthing city scandals.

1960: Daley knew that Adamowski had to go. If he had been re-elected, Adamowski would have been in a powerful position to run for mayor in 1963. Daley recruited law professor Daniel Patrick Ward to run for state's attorney and put the full might of his machine behind John Kennedy and Ward. Kennedy won Cook County by 318,736 votes and Illinois by 8,858 votes, amid charges of voter fraud. Adamowski lost by 26,000 votes, getting 292,000 more votes than Nixon.

1963: This was the biggie. Adamowski challenged Daley as a Republican and blasted the mayor for his alleged "liberalism," for supporting open housing, school busing, desegregation and public aid. Daley, ever the master, tacked left. He allied himself with African-American boss Bill Dawson, won the predominantly black wards with 90 percent-plus of the vote, got his machine to eke out 30 to 35 percent of the vote in the outlying predominantly white wards, and beat Adamowski by 138,792 votes.

After that election, Daley would never again be seriously challenged by a Republican. He would never again let himself be labeled a liberal, and he would make no Polish-American mayor. City Hall would be run by Bridgeport and the Daley family, with his son Rich the heir apparent.

1977: Daley died in 1976, and, predictably, the City Council chose 11th Ward (Bridgeport) alderman Mike Bilandic as his successor. Bilandic was a place holder for the younger Daley. Pucinski announced for mayor, fomenting a classic ethnic and geographic brawl between the Bridgeport insiders and the Northwest Side outsiders. Bilandic prevailed: 340,363-276,858, getting 51.0 percent of the vote to 32.4 percent for Pucinski, with Harold Washington getting 73,215 votes. Pucinski won seven of the Northwest Side wards, but Bilandic won all but four of the black wards, the Lakefront, and the Southwest Side 11th (20,475-2,216), 13th (15,124-7,430), 14th (9,691-4,864), 19th (11,567-4,467) and 23rd (11,685-8,246) wards. Bilandic won Rostenkowski's 32nd Ward 6,083-5,141. So much for Polish "solidarity."

1990: That was the last chance. Daley and Washington were dead, and Rich Daley of Bridgeport was the mayor. George Dunne finally retired as the county board president after serving from 1969 to 1990. So what happened? Two Polish Americans, Lechowicz and Kusper, ran in the primary. Combined, they got 17 percent of the vote, with Gene Pincham getting 32 percent and big-spending "reformer" Dick Phelan getting 39 percent.

It's koniec -- finished. There are no looming Polish princes or princesses. There will never be a Polish-American mayor of Chicago. And the blame lies with perfidious, gullible and timid Polish-American politicians.