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Racing Dates. When Mrs. Everett was called in earlier this year by Government probers and asked to explain her dealings with politicians, she promptly blew the whistle on Kerner and Isaacs. Kerner appeared twice before a federal grand jury in Chicago to insist that when he was Governor he had not intervened in the allocation of racing dates, which might have benefited Mrs. Everett. Other state officials, though, reported that Kerner had conferred with them about racing seasons. However it came about, during the tenure of the Kerner administration Mrs. Everett was able to get additional racing dates and turn Washington Park into a track for harness racing, markedly increasing her income.
The investigation was not limited to the Kerner transactions. Tax investigators uncovered a seemingly endless string of politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, who held stock in one horse-racing association or another during the 1960s. Most embarrassing to the Daley administration, besides the allegations concerning Kerner, were revelations about other pals and close political associates of the mayor who had been trafficking in race-track stocks. Among them were two former law partners of the mayor, one a federal judge, the other an Illinois circuit-court judge; a Democratic congressman and leader of the Illinois Democratic house contingent; and a high-ranking Democratic county official. This disclosure prompted Daley himself to deny owning any racetrack stock. "I never have and I never will," he said.
Both Lose. The prospect of prosecuting high-level Democrats in a state that President Nixon lost in 1960 and carried only narrowly in 1968 must seem tempting to the Administration. But Attorney General Mitchell's office so far has proceeded with so much caution that exasperated Internal Revenue investigators have leaked details of the stock deals to Chicago newspapers, notably the Tribune, in order to bring pressure on the Justice Department to act.
While Justice Department officials admit that there has been unusually slow progress, they say approval of the proposed indictments has been held up because the department moves very cautiously in prosecuting a sitting federal appellate judge. Another reason for caution may well be that both Republicans and Democrats stand to lose.
In the meantime, Illinois politicians have been making at least perfunctory efforts to clean up their own house. Ethics legislation that would require public disclosure of income by officeholders, which failed to pass in the last General Assembly session, is expected to be re-introduced next month. And there is fresh pressure on racing associations to abide strictly by a regulation requiring them to list all stockholders, including their nominees. None of this would have pleased Paul ("Shoebox") Powell, who used to tell colleagues: "There's only one thing worse than a defeated politician, and that's a broke politician."