Cities: Clouter with Conscience

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Blues, booze, broads, beer, boodle and bums put heat into the city's blood, and a wave of Sicilian mobsters arrived to cool the blood with bullets. The theme of Chicago's World Fair in 1933 was "A Century of Progress"—but its symbol became Sally Rand, who played Lady Godiva while riding bareback (and front).

Kid with a Hanky. There can be no understanding of Dick Daley without the realization that he is a product of his city. He was born in 1902. His father Mike was a sheet-metal worker, the son of an Irish immigrant. His mother Lillian was a vigorous woman who divided her energies between raising her only child and working for her neighborhood Roman Catholic Church. The Daleys lived in the impoverished Bridgeport district near the stockyards. "His family was a little better off than the rest of us," recalls an old friend. "Dick was the only kid in the neighborhood who had a handkerchief."

Dick sold newspapers, worked for a vegetable peddler on Saturdays, quit high school to take his first fulltime job as a stockyards cowboy. Often on horseback, he yarded and penned cattle. Having studied shorthand, Daley finally began working regularly in the stockyards office, went nights to law school at De Paul University. Appointed a secretary to the city council at 25, he has been on the public payroll ever since. After graduation, he set up a law office with a partner—but devoted himself almost exclusively to politics. In 1936 Daley married an Irish girl, Eleanor Guilfoyle, settled down in a small house in his old neighborhood, where his seven children were born. The Daleys still live in Bridgeport.

The Rewards. Chicago's bosses in those days were Mayor Kelly and the 24th Ward's leader, Jake Arvey. In 1936, when a state legislator from Daley's district died, Democratic leaders put Daley's name on the ballot, and Daley won easily. Moving later to the state senate, Daley honed his inborn political instincts, became a valued legman for Kelly and Arvey.

The rewards for faithfulness followed rapidly. In 1949, after helping Arvey to boost Adlai Stevenson into the governorship, Daley was made state revenue director. Fourteen months later, he was appointed, and later elected, county clerk. This was a big job: in effect, Daley was the organization's secretary of state in charge of Cook County patronage and voting machinery. In that job, he could and did build his own political organization.

Dick Daley now made a significant decision. He determined to become mayor of Chicago. To Jake Arvey, this was unthinkable. A behind-the-scenes operator, Arvey devoutly believed that the mayor and the political boss should be two different people; the boss should rule from behind closed doors, and the mayor should stand out front cutting ceremonial ribbons. Arvey had picked Reformer Kennelley to follow Ed Kelly, helped Kennelley get reelected, and now he wanted a third term for Kennelley. Daley protested. "People told me," he says, "that if you're a leader you can't be mayor. That's when I decided to lead my party and be mayor."