Boss: The Life and Times of Richard J. Daley of Chicago - Part 1
American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley - His Battle for Chicago and the Nation. By Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor. 624 Pages.
Richard J. Daley was perhaps the most powerful local politician America has ever produced. The second most powerful politician in America after the president, he personally selected every Democratic candidate running in Illinois, from Governor to Alderman. In addition to the elected positions, Daley controlled forty thousand patronage jobs, from judgeships down to the ditch diggers; he personally selected who got those jobs. Beyond the borders of Chicago, Daley played kingmaker for the Democratic nomination for president; his ability to control the Illinois delegation made and broke presidential candidates.
What were Daley’s goals? First and foremost, to amass and maintain his personal political power. When it came to ideology, he had a sort of flinty conservatism: he liked authority and hated protestors. He was a devout Catholic, going to mass every day. He regarded the newspapers and reporters as the enemy, always criticizing, always asking questions. He believed in racial segregation and that people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But good politics came before ideology with Daley; his concern was always what would be best for him and the machine. Daley did not like John F. Kennedy’s liberalism, but he did like that an Irish Catholic presidential candidate would turn out the machine base on election day. And so he backed him for president.
Daley was not an articulate man, known for malapropisms such as “The policeman isn’t there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder.” and “Today the real problem is the future.”. When questioned by reporters or opponents he was known to fly into fits of rage, and rant at them:
