On the other hand, there were financial vices. And if somebody in City Hall saw a chance to make a fast bundle or two, Daley wasn't given to preaching. His advice amounted to: Don't get caught.
But that's Chicago, too. The question has never been how you made it, but if you made it. This town was built by great men who demanded that drunkards and harlots be arrested, while charging them rent until the cops arrived.
If Daley sometimes abused his power, it didn't offend most Chicagoans. The people who came here in Daley's lifetime were accustomed to someone wielding power like a club, be it a czar, emperor, king, or rural sheriff. The niceties of the democratic process weren't part of the immigrant experience. So if the machine muscle offended some, it seemed like old times to many more.
Mike Royko
December 21, 1976
excerpts from The Chicago Daily News published this column on Dec. 21, 1976, shortly after Mayor Richard J. Daley's death. |
