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Remembering Richard J. Daley

Interview transcript: Arthur Berman, October 8, 2003

Interview with Arthur Berman, October 8, 2003. RJDOH_01_berman_arthur_20031008. Richard J. Daley Oral History collection, University of Illinois Chicago.

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Loyalty in Politics As mayor of Chicago and chair of the Cook County Democratic Party, Richard J. Daley controlled the hiring and firing of thousands of city and county employees. For some of those positions, proven loyalty to the Democratic Party was necessary for getting and keeping a job. This system was not expressly illegal, and supporters argued that it fostered hard work and loyalty to the city.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter argues that political hiring helped the city be responsive to neighborhood needs:
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
Thomas Donovan explains the role of loyalty in politics under Mayor Daley:
Former corporation counsel, Ray Simon, argues that loyalty in politics often connected everyday citizens to the political process:
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: By the late 1970s, new federal and state laws and court decisions had curtailed the patronage system. Most notably, in 1969, Michael Shakman, a candidate to the Illinois Constitutional Convention, filled a lawsuit that successfully challenged politically influenced personnel decisions. In the ensuing years, that lawsuit resulted in what became known as the "Shakman Decrees." They limited the mayor's prerogative to hire and fire employees.
But one former colleague of Mayor Daley, looking back on the era, believed that such revisions worked best when balanced against the need for responsive government:

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Interview with Arthur Berman, October 8, 2003