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• 1 2021-02-01T13:46:12-06:00 Governing the City 60 plain 2021-05-18T15:55:02-05:00

  He saw government and public service as the way to accomplish something. It wasn’t a means to make wealth as the private sector is. It was the means to do something for somebody else. Sure, there’s an ego in it. Yes, there is success. You move up. You’re a county clerk, then you become the mayor. That’s fine. But he taught us by both example and in word that you can do things in government that you can’t do in the private sector, and people in the private sector don’t do. They don’t look out for the little guy. They don’t look out for the greater good.
  
  William Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, interview excerpt, December 5, 2008

  
  

  I think he brought, Mayor Daley, the original Mayor Daley, brought to the city a sense of pride and leadership when it came to the infrastructure and building the city, and the vision of the city that we’re still profiting from. This is a great American city. I happen to think it’s the greatest, and not just because I represent it. But managing to balance all of the different elements within the city—ethnic elements, religious elements and the like—I thought that really took a special skill.
  
  Richard J. Durbin, United States Senator, interview excerpt, September 8, 2014

  Andrew Young, a civil rights leader and former mayor of Atlanta, discusses what he calls Mayor Richard J. Daley's "political courage":
  Richard J. Daley's official photographer, Laszlo Kondor, explains in this audio clip that Daley sometimes varied his word choices depending on the audience:
  In this audio clip, Ken Sain, former Deputy Mayor and Chief Administrative Officer of Chicago, recalls the mayor's willingness to listen to and help those who came to his office:
  
  According to some interviewees, Daley worked more closely with city council than his predecessors had:

  The city council in Chicago was always a “strong city council, weak mayor.” It was not that Ed Kelly [Chicago mayor, 1933-1947] or Martin Kennelly [Chicago mayor, 1947-1955] were weak. But the city council had its say. And you didn’t get much done unless the city council said it should be done. [Daley] changed all of that by saying, “I say that it should be done. And this is what’s going to happen.”
  
  Richard Elrod, Chief Prosecutor for City of Chicago, interview excerpt, April 10, 2009

  In this audio clip, Alderman Ed Burke discusses Mayor Daley’s “strong presence” on the city council:
  Mayor Richard J. Daley calls for a vote in city council:
  
  
   
• 1 2021-02-01T14:24:40-06:00 Race, Housing, and Poverty 45 plain 2021-07-01T12:41:08-05:00 Chicago’s ethnic and racial diversity helped make it the international city Daley celebrated. From World War I (1914-1918) onward, this diversity grew richer and more complex as hundreds of thousands of black Americans from the South moved to Chicago in search of better economic opportunities and freedom from the Jim Crow restrictions against their civil rights. In Chicago they found jobs, access to schooling, and some political representation.
  
  But black Chicagoans also found widespread discrimination. “Redlining”  and other practices shunted blacks into small, overcrowded ghettos on the city’s south and west sides. Black residents believed they did not enjoy the services and opportunities available to white Chicagoans. This de facto segregation, along with the related issues of poverty, proved difficult to resolve.
  
  James Compton, former president of the Chicago Urban League, reflects on race relations during Richard J. Daley's years as mayor:
  In 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his colleagues came to Chicago. Their goal was to work with like-minded activists to improve the conditions of urban slums, end housing discrimination, and expand access to public schooling.
  
  

  I was at the mayor’s office when Dr. King came in. What surprised me the most was – first, the room was filled with ministers, elected officials, his aides, and department heads, and people were talking – but when Dr. King came in, the silence he brought into that room and the command. And he was not a tall man. I was shocked, but I remember the quietness. As soon as he entered the room, it became quiet. And then he sat right across from my dad. They discussed the problems in the city that he came to address. And he said, “Dr. King, we’re willing to work with you, we will work this out.” And they came up with a plan, my dad and him. They announced it.
  
  John Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, interview excerpt, May 9, 2007

  
  

  It was a tough period in the ‘60s with the open housing marches in the middle 1960s. You had Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. marching on the southwest side, and the mayor was largely responsible for helping to develop the agreement that provided for open housing.
  
  James O’Connor, Executive at Commonwealth Edison, interview excerpt, July 22, 2014

  Some commentators believed that the city did not honor the promises made in that agreement. And as historian Arnold R. Hirsch has noted, critics also believed it was short on details. But the agreement did recognize a commitment to the principle of open housing for all Chicagoans.
  
  Andrew Young, former mayor of Atlanta who had worked with Dr. King,remembers that Mayor Daley helped sponsor a fundraising event for civil rights activists:
  Some steps the mayor took to address poverty and housing shortages were controversial, particularly the decision to use federal money to build high-rise public housing.
  

  And so I think his inspiration initially on public housing might have been right, to get people into new, in those days, new dwellings, even high-rise public housing. But also it was to make sure that the black and white problem was going to be contained within certain areas. As that public housing disintegrated, you could tell this was not the answer.
  
  Richard J. Durbin, United States Senator, interview excerpt, September 8, 2014

  Mayor Daley's son, Michael, explains one reason Chicago adopted high-rise public housing:

  I think that he was against high-rise housing all of the time. He didn’t think that the high-rise housing was a good idea.
  
  Newton Minow, Chair of Federal Communications Commission 1961-1963, interview excerpt, October 2, 2003

  The ones that bothered him were the high-rise public housing. He said, “Father, we had this problem and we went to the experts to ask what to do. And they told us to build these high-rise things. It was the biggest mistake I ever made. We would just pile a slum on a slum. And they were just terrible.” But that bothered him tremendously. But he said, “We didn’t know any better.” And most of them are gone now.
  
  Father Gilbert Graham, Daley Family Friend, interview excerpt, November 17, 2003

  Mayor Daley speaks at the groundbreaking for Lake Grove Village apartments, a site for affordable housing:
• 1 2021-02-01T14:05:32-06:00 Ward Politics 18 plain 2021-05-18T16:28:52-05:00 Chicago was divided into wards. The wards were represented by aldermen. Each ward was divided into smaller voting precincts. The Democratic Party in Chicago was organized parallel to this ward system. It had its own ward committeemen and precinct captains. The committeemen and precinct captains brought in the vote for Democratic candidates. To appeal to voters, they provided access to city services and offered their assistance in other ways.
  Critics argued that not all persons or neighborhoods benefited equally under this system. But supporters argued that the system enabled communication between wards and city hall and that Mayor Daley was particularly scrupulous and fair in how he allocated services.

  But there was no doubt that the mayor knew what was going on in every part of Chicago. He knew when people died. He went to their funeral. When they had a baby he would write a note to the parents. He was a hands-on politician who loved politics and who loved his city. And in my opinion he was an honest man. He never did profit financially from his enormous responsibility and influence and power.
  
  Jimmy Carter, President of the United States 1977-1981, interview excerpt, October 17, 2014

  He was a great wake-goer, and the families appreciated that. My own father died. I thought that it was wonderful he came. He paid his respects to the people. But that’s the type of man that he was.
  
  Gene Nolan, Security Detail for Richard J. Daley, interview excerpt, September 3, 2004

  
  

  His precinct captains meant a lot to him. And in fact in our file in the back we had a three by five card of all the precinct captains, by ward, and every year he would send them a Christmas card, which was nice. People enjoyed it, you know, liked having that. In fact I’m sure they still have them.
  
  Kay Quinlan, Richard J. Daley’s Personal Secretary, interview excerpt, August 7, 2014

  Mayor Richard J. Daley, with Democratic [Day] at the Illinois State Fair, which was always a big event. And he, in those days, would literally bring down trainloads of people. They would have a train coming down from Chicago that would leave at 8:00 in the morning and would be taken directly into the fairgrounds. It didn’t stop at some train station and transport people. They would go directly into the fairgrounds. And they would stop the train, and all of these folks from all the ward organizations, the township organizations, would pile out of the train and they would then march around the infield of the state fairgrounds carrying signs, “The 42nd Ward Regular Democratic Organization Proudly Supports Mayor Richard J. Daley,” you know, and they would march around.
  
  Richard J. Durbin, United States Senator, interview excerpt, September 8, 2014

  City programs and politics were not always separate. This shed and garage removal program was sponsored by both the city and the Forty-Seventh Ward Democratic Organization.