He’d go out to his ward meetings on Saturday mornings; he’d have two hundred precinct captains at 37th and Halsted at the 11th Ward. And we’d pull up on the corner there. And the precinct captains would come up and say “Mr. Mayor, can you help Joe? His son needs a job.” And the mayor would say, “Have him call so and so. We’d be glad to help him out.”
Vince Gavin, Security Chief for Richard J. Daley, interview excerpt, July 19, 2014
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter explains how loyalty in politics worked: He wanted to run the show. Of course, the organizations were strong then. We had a patronage system.
Burton Natarus, interview excerpt, June 16, 2010
Now keep in mind, at that time I hadn’t even started law school yet. I was walking out. And in great Chicago political style, as I was walking away ready to become a precinct captain, Mr. Huppert said, “And Art, do a good job. I’ll make you a judge.”
Arthur Berman, Illinois Legislator, interview excerpt, October 8, 2003
He knew that I wasn’t a registered Democrat. And this was probably a good year or so that I’d been working there. He’d approved my hiring and all that. It never got into anything political. It’s amazing.
Marshall Suloway, Chief Engineer City of Chicago, interview excerpt, August 11, 2003
I do remember specifically one case of a family over on 51st Street in the Back of the Yards, where the only breadwinner in the family was a worker in the stockyards, and he cut his hand off on a saw in a meatpacking plant. I called Tom Donovan and within a couple of days a brother in the family was working for the city and keeping that little family together. But there are thousands of those stories. It was just a different time and a different city. I know there’s a lot of criticism about the abuses of the political patronage system, but in truth there were a lot of families that benefited from the ability to access work of some kind.
Ed Burke, Alderman, interview excerpt, August 5, 2014
U.S. Senator Richard Durbin offers his thoughts on loyalty in politics: