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Richard Joseph Daley (May 15, 1902 – December 20, 1976) was the longest-serving mayor of Chicago. He served for 21 years as the undisputed Democratic boss of Chicago and is considered by historians to be the "last of the big city bosses." He played a major role in the history of the Democratic Party, especially with his support for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Hubert H. Humphrey in 1968. He was nationally-known as an important Irish Catholic leader.

Daley was Chicago's third mayor in a row from the heavily Irish Bridgeport working-class neighborhood on Chicago's near south side.

Daley served as Chairman of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee from 1953 and mayor of Chicago from 1955, retaining both positions until his death in 1976. Daley's well-organized Democratic political machine was often accused of corruption and though many of Daley's subordinates were jailed, Daley was never personally accused of corruption. Though Daley was often criticized as autocratic and insensitive to the needs of minorities, he is remembered for doing much to avoid the declines that some other "rust belt" cities experienced during the same period.

Early life

Born near Chicago's Near South Side stockyards in 1902, Daley was the only child of blue-collar, immigrant Irish Catholic parents. Daley attended Catholic elementary and high schools (where he learned clerical skills) and took night classes at DePaul University to earn a law degree in 1933. Daley, however, never practiced law and instead spent virtually his entire adult life in politics, starting as a budget specialist.

Political career

Although Daley was a lifelong Democrat, he was first elected to the Illinois legislature as a Republican. This was a matter of political opportunism. Chicago Republican legislator David Shanahan had just died and Daley switched parties just long enough to win election to Shanahan's empty seat; immediately after the election, Daley returned to the Democratic side of the aisle. Daley suffered his only political defeat in 1946 when he lost a bid to become Cook County sheriff.

First elected mayor in 1955, Daley elected to that office six times and had been mayor for 21 years at the time of his death. During his administration, Daley ruled the city with an iron hand and dominated the political arena and, to a lesser extent, statewide.

Daley married Eleanor "Sis" Guilfoyle on June 17, 1936, and they lived in a modest brick bungalow at 3536 South Lowe Avenue in the heavily Irish-American Bridgeport neighborhood, just blocks from his birthplace. They had three daughters and four sons, in that order. Their eldest son, Richard M. Daley, was elected mayor of Chicago in 1989, and has served in that position ever since. The youngest son, William M. Daley, served as US Secretary of Commerce from 1997-2000. Another son, John P. Daley, is a member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners.

Major construction during his terms in office resulted in O'Hare International Airport, the Sears Tower, McCormick Place, the University of Illinois at Chicago campus, numerous expressways and subway construction projects, and other major Chicago landmarks. O'Hare was a particular point of pride for Daley, with he and his staff regularly devising occasions to celebrate it.

The year 1968 was a hard one for Daley. Daley was castigated for his sharp rhetoric in the aftermath of rioting that took place after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination in April. Daley talked about, but did not actually order the police to "shoot to kill" arsonists and "shoot to maim" looters. In August, the 1968 Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago. Intended as a way of showcasing Daley's achievements to national Democrats and the news media, the proceedings during the convention instead garnered notoriety for the mayor and city.

With the nation divided by the Viet Nam War and with the assassinations of King and Robert Kennedy earlier that year serving as backdrop, the city became a battleground for massive anti-war protests. Some of the more radical activists in Chicago for the convention — Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and other members of the "Chicago Seven" were convicted of conspiracy to riot, though the convictions were overturned on appeal. Nevertheless, the confrontational stance of the Chicago Police Department was cited as fanning the flames of disorder rather than quelling them.

At the 1968 Democratic National Convention, during a speech nominating George McGovern, Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff went off-script, saying, "If George McGovern were president, we wouldn’t have these Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago." Many conventioneers, having been appalled by the response of the Chicago police to the simultaneously occurring anti-war demonstrations, promptly broke into ecstatic applause. As television cameras focused on an indignant Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, some have claimed to have observed Daley shouting, "F*** you, you Jew motherf***er." Defenders of the mayor would later claim that he was calling Senator Ribicoff a faker.

A federal commission investigating the events surrounding the convention later described them as a "police riot," implicitly blaming Daley for inciting the police to commit violence. Scenes of police beating up peaceful protestors and reporters received widespread coverage on television. Senator Abraham Ribicoff denounced the Chicago police from the podium of the convention, stating that they were employing "Gestapo tactics"; after the statement, Daley was seen shouting nasty words at Ribicoff. In 1972 George McGovern threw Daley out of the Democratic National Convention (replacing his delegation with that of Jesse Jackson). McGovern later made amends by putting Daley loyalist (and Kennedy in-law) Sergeant Shriver on his ticket.

On December 20, 1976, Daley suffered a massive heart attack and died at the age of 74. He is buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Worth Township, southwest of Chicago.

Daley is known by many Chicagoans as "Da Mare", "Hizzoner", and "The Man on Five" (his office was on the fifth floor of City Hall). Since Daley's death and the subsequent election of son Richard as mayor in 1989, the first Mayor Daley has become known as "Boss Daley," "Old Man Daley," or "Daley Senior" to residents of Chicago.

Speaking style

Daley was known for his tangled tongue. He often said he was exhilarating a program, rather than accelerating it, and called a bicycle built for two a tantrum bicycle. One of Daley's most memorable malapropisms was uttered in 1968 while defending what the news media reported as police misconduct during that year's violent and confrontational Democratic Convention. "Gentlemen, get the thing straight once and for all — the policeman isn't there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder." Another notable Daley malapropism was his statement that "We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of achievement."

Earl Bush, the mayor's press aide, once chastised reporters, saying "You should have printed what he meant, not what he said."

Democratic machine politics

Known for shrewd party politics, Daley was the prototypical "machine" politician, and his Chicago Democratic Machine, based on control of thousands of patronage positions, was instrumental in bringing a narrow 8000 vote victory in Illinois for John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Daley was usually open with the news media, meeting with them for frequent news conferences, and taking all questions — if not answering all of them. According to columnist and biographer Mike Royko, Daley got along better with editors and publishers than with reporters.

Daley had limited opposition among the 50 aldermen of the Chicago City Council. Except for a small number of Republicans from the German wards on the northwest side of the city and a small number of independents (a group that grew during Daley's mayoralty to represent supposedly disfranchised groups), the aldermen supported Daley and the official party position consistently.

Daley's chief means of attaining electoral success was his reliance on the local precinct captain, who marshaled and delivered votes on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. Many of these precinct captains held patronage jobs with the city, mostly minor posts at low pay. Each ward had a ward leader in charge of the precinct captains, some of whom were corrupt. The notorious First Ward was tied to the local mafia or crime syndicate, but Daley's own ward was clean and his personal honesty was never questioned successfully.

Legacy

At his death in 1976, the public's perception of Daley was the image painted by Mike Royko in his unauthorized 1971 biography, Boss—corrupt, racist, cruel, brutish. In light of the later events, such as New York City's fiscal crisis, Daley's reputation has been rehabilitated in the minds of several, as has the reputation of the political machine in general. Daley's ways may not have been democratic, but his defenders have argued that he got positive things done for Chicago which a non-boss would have been unable to do.

On the 50th aniversary of Daley's first 1955 swearing in several dozen Daley biographers and associates met at the Chicago Historical Society. Michael Beschloss called Daley "the pre-eminent mayor of the 20th century." Chicago journalist Elizabeth Taylor said, "Because of Mayor Daley, Chicago did not become a Detroit or a Cleveland." (By revitalizing the downtown area and firmly fixing the middle-class in place in the city limits, Daley probably did save Chicago from declining to the extent of the average Rust Belt city.) Robert Remini pointed out that while other cities were in fiscal crisis in the 1960s and 1970s, "Chicago always had a double-A bond rating."

According to Chicago folksinger Steve Goodman, no man "could inspire more love, more hate."

Aside from the obvious legacy of having an effect on the city of Chicago for twenty-one years as its mayor, Daley is memorialized specifically in the following:

• A week after his death, one of the City Colleges of Chicago was renamed as the Richard J. Daley College in his honor.
• The Richard J. Daley Civic Center is a 32-floor office building completed in 1965 and renamed for the mayor after his death.
• The Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago
• There is a theatre play about Daley: http://www.hizzonertheplay.com/

Biographies

• Cohen, Adam and Elizabeth Taylor, American Pharaoh, Little Brown & Company; 1st edition (2000) ISBN 0316834033
• Goodman, Barak. Daley: The Last Boss. Documentary shown on PBS' The American Experience series, 1995.
• Royko, Mike, Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago, Dutton; 1st edition (1971) ISBN 0525070001
• Biles, Roger Richard J. Daley: Politics, Race, and the Government of Chicago, Northern Illinois University Press (1995) ISBN 0875805663

External links

• Mayor Richard J. Daley
• Richard Joseph Daley at Chicago Public Library
• Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago
• Template:Nndb name

• 1902 births
• 1976 deaths
• Chicago culture
• Chicagoans
• Chicago politicians
• Irish-American politicians
• Mayors
• Mayors of Chicago
• American politicians
• Roman Catholic politicians
• Knights of Columbus