The course of least resistance, usually the wisest in public affairs, is the one being followed in this pragmatic city in the matter of its benighted, if candid, police superintendent. In this case, even in this pragmatic city, it is not the wisest course at all.
So commonly do public officials express stupid and objectionable ideas that getting into a tizzy over each occurrence would leave little time for more important matters, such as lunch or baseball. Far better, in most cases, to make light of the latest foolishness, confident that in a few days the ensuing flap will run its course.
This no doubt explains the reaction of our pragmatic, well-meaning, if fumble-mouthed, mayor, who was smart enough to say that he disagreed with his top cop and clever enough to say that, nonetheless, the superintendent had a right to his own opinions.
Too clever. Everyone has the right to his own opinions but no one has the right to be the police superintendent of a great city, and last week LeRoy Martin proclaimed himself unqualified for the job. Unless he recants his profoundly subversive statements-and soon-he ought to be fired, regardless of the short-term political difficulties this would pose for Mayor Richard Daley. Nor should the rest of us, in this case, follow the usual course. This is not a usual case. The city`s chief law enforcement official has pronounced himself an enemy of law. He should either reverse that pronunciation or go find other work. If the guy next to you in a saloon suggests repealing part of the Bill of Rights and emulating Chinese penology, that`s unfortunate. When the superintendent of police suggests it, it`s unacceptable. At $104,400 a year, Martin should not need elementary civics lessons.
As often happens in such matters, the essence of the problem has been misstated and misunderstood. This is not a matter of a ”conservative” law-and-order hard-liner disagreeing with ”liberals” who care about civil liberties. A hard line is what we should expect from police officials, and crime being as common it is, a hard line is sensible. People who commit violent crimes ought to go to prison and stay there awhile.
But what Martin said was not conservative. It was un-American, and not primarily because he proposed copying the policies of a Marxist totalitarian dictatorship that sentences dissenters to slave labor. Nor is it even because, after expressing his admiration for Maoism, he noted that the Third Reich had ”very low crime rate.” In the superintendent`s mind, it seems, crimes committed by the government itself don`t count.
But Martin`s strange choice of role models pales in comparison with his proposal to eviscerate the United States Constitution. He was right to say that those who wrote the Constitution ”did not put it in granite that it can never be changed again.” But, perhaps naively, the Founders may not have figured that anyone would propose doing away with half of the Bill of Rights. ”We should do something about curtailing some rights,” said Martin. The protections granted each citizen by the Constitution should be ”somewhat modified,” he added, effectively proposing repeal or weakening of the 2nd, 4th and 8th Amendments and raising questions about his commitment to the provisions of the 5th and 6th. This is not just dangerous; it`s downright unpatriotic.
Patriotism has been much in the air since the gulf war, with lots of prattle about being ”proud to be an American.” But except for recent immigrants who chose citizenship, being an American is just luck. It`s not an accomplishment. Having been born in the right place at the right time is hardly cause for pride. Neither is being rich or being able to beat up on Iraq, pleasant though both may be.
But this is. For more than 200 years, we have maintained, however imperfectly, the system of constitutional democracy that our forebears created and gave to the world. That`s only one accomplishment. But it`s a big one.
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Now one of the country`s great cities has a chief law enforcement officer who would destroy that accomplishment and a mayor who is trying to finesse the proposed destruction. ”We have an open administration,” Daley said, noting that, along with many others, Martin is ”frustrated” about crime.
If Daley was delaying to give the superintendent time to repent, that`s fine. The mayor`s heart and instincts seem well-placed, and one needs no advanced degrees in political science to see how helpful it is to him for his police department to be headed by a tough, black cop first appointed by Harold Washington.
But time is running out, and even in Chicago there ought to be limits on how far a local official can debase local government. If by now LeRoy Martin has not figured out how irresponsible and muddleheaded he was last week, somebody should tell him so, and tell him goodbye.