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166 BLACK POLITICAL POWER IN AMERICA

American democracy delimits them.
The requirement of maneuverability within the body politic circumscribes them.

A politician can do a number of things in his climb to power.
He can maneuver stealthily behind closed doors, playing off one faction against the other until he solidifies his own power base and then takes over a debilitated and divided group as its dearly awaited leader (as did Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley).
He can steal votes to win elections by buying votes or by using names of dead people on the voting rolls to control the outcome.
If he is a political boss he can blackmail his candidates to control their fidelity.
He can be a demagogue, mesmerizing the masses with his oratory, his charisma, thus retaining power solely through his authority, fulfilling either minimum needs or maximum dreams of the electorate, but nonetheless remaining in power primarily through his attractive personality.

He can ally himself with the crime syndicate, permitting it to legitimately manage a certain amount of organized vice (prostitution, book-making, loan-sharking, etc.), and become a respectable but unknown surrogate for the syndicate which controls him and determines his vote or policy for him.
He can be the statesman, rising above common machinations of ward-heelers and precinct leaders, and be elected as the prototype of the good leader, the incorruptible public official.
He can be a political flunky, ingratiating himself with the majestic powers in the Valhalla of decision-makers, even rising to a position of prominence and power by trading favors and making questionable alliances within the group to ensure his future.

To be elected, to control a political machine, or just to survive, the American politician incorporates one of the above methods into his political modus operandi.
He does this whether he's black or Irish or Italian or Jewish or Polish or Puerto Rican or Mexican-American.
If he is black, he can be characterized as an Uncle Tom if he is subservient and rarely speaks out on issues.
If he is white, he becomes known as a "brown-noser," or if he is a Mexican-American, a "Tio Tomas."
If he has the advantage of being simply a white WASP politician, he is known as a moderate or a conservative.
If he is black, he is a militant.
If he is white, he is a radical.
But the uncontrollable flamboyance and aggressiveness in action are the same for black or white.

Yet, some white political scientists have become authorities on the negro politician by analyzing him as a different species of homo sapiens, not endowed with the same drives, the same weaknesses, and the same strengths.
The only factor which differentiates the black politician from the white politician and precludes the former's exercise of unlimited power and his reverie in impossible dreams is his black skin.
Whites have had their Pendergasts and their Hagues.
Blacks have had their Bob Churches and Ray Joneses.
White have had their Jimmy Walkers and their Fiorella LaGuardias.

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Four Black Men in the White Power Structure 167

Blacks have had their Oscar DePriests and their Adam Clayton Powells.
Whites have had their William O'Dwyers.
Blacks have had their Hulan Jacks.

The stage has been smaller in each instance, but the roles and the styles have been identical.

In the last five years, 1962-1967, four black politicians have captured the national spotlight and remained the focus of continuing public attention: Illinois Representatives William L. Dawson, New York Representatives Adam Clayton Powell, Chairman of the New York County Committee (Tammany Hall) J. Raymond Jones and Massachusetts U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke.

Each of them attained the heights of political power at a given time, if not in the exercise of actual power, certainly in a position to which power is attached.

All four acceded to their positions of power through different techniques, different styles, and different political circumstances.
All four occasioned varying reactions in whites ranging from hysterical rage and race hatred for Powell and suspicion and respectful wariness for Jones to unthreatened acceptance of Dawson and paternalistic affection for Brooke.

Powell could never have been elected U.S. Senator in Massachusetts, and Brooke would have never survived in Harlem.
Yet, both, by altering their styles to meet the different requirements of the constituencies might have attained some other level of political success.

In terms of the American color line that ultimately decides the behavioral patterns of black politicians, these four political successes could be characterized as follows: Brooke, "Mr. Non-Negro Politics"; Dawson, "Mr. Establishment Negro Politics"; Jones, "Mr. Organizational Negro Politics"; and Powell, "Mr. National Black Politics."

Those designations are used only to capsulize political tendencies as they are affected and determined by the black community.
Obviously, Brooke would be considered by most whites as a national politician.
And Jones certainly has played ball with the establishment almost as frequently as Dawson, but Jones, a proud and brilliant man of independent thought, has occasionally fought the establishment.
Dawson never has.

If a spectrum of popular conceptualizations is drawn, Brooke and Dawson could be considered conservatives or Uncle Toms, Jones a moderate or negro leader in the traditional sense of the term, and Powell a radical or militant.

One could hastily draw the conclusion that political black militants are doomed to ultimate destruction, as Powell was.
But Hulan E. Jack, former Manhattan Borough President, a conservative and viewed by the black community as an "Uncle Tom" while in office, was chopped down by an investigation into alleged bribery of a public official and forced to resign.