American Pharaoh

by Adam Cohen

  Finally, on June 8, Daley told reporters at a morning news conference that if Carter won the Ohio primary that day he should get the nomination. Carter “has fought every primary, and if he wins Ohio, he’ll walk in under his own power,” the mayor declared. The following day, after Carter’s victory in the Buckeye State, Daley went further than his vague position of the day before. “Carter’s victory in Ohio is the ball game,” Daley said. “The man has such a strong amount of support throughout the country . . . there’s no use in hesitating now. I’ll cast my vote for him and there will be a Carter victory.” He declared that he was releasing his slate of eighty-five delegates, technically committed to Stevenson, to Carter. But Daley’s action was meaningless. Carter already had enough delegates. 49

  Daley attended the Democratic convention in New York City, where he was once again welcomed back into the party fold. A parade of well-wishers found him in the Illinois delegation, and many of them hastened to assure him that they had voted to seat him and his delegates in Miami four years earlier. “If all of these people had voted for me in Miami,” he said in a caustic aside to his aide Jane Byrne, “why wasn’t I seated?” Daley rebuffed the entreaties of the “Anybody But Carter” movement, which was casting about for some alternative to the frontrunner. Daley’s unwillingness to join the anti-Carter campaign was no doubt largely pragmatic: it was clear by the time of the convention that Carter would get the nomination, with or without the Illinois delegation. But Daley also professed admiration, sincere or not, for the former Georgia governor. “He’s got courage,” Daley said. “I admire a man who’s got courage. He started out months ago, entered into every contest in every state, and he won ’em and lost ’em, and by God, you have to admire a guy like that.” 50

  Daley was not looking to repeat the contentiousness of the 1968 and 1972 conventions. “It’s good to have one for a change that’s all cut and dried,” he said. When two twelve-year-old reporters for Children’s Express asked him to comment about the violence at the 1968 convention, Daley responded, “Don’t believe everything you hear, ha, ha, ha.” The young journalists continued to press Daley, but he would not reply. “We’ve got so many things to do today it’s more important than talking about ancient history,” he said. Daley was not the biggest dinosaur at the convention: that distinction went to George Wallace. His last-gasp presidential candidacy having fizzled, Wallace gave a limp and almost inaudible speech from the rostrum before being wheeled out to the strains of “Alabamy Bound.” But Time still referred to Daley as the “woolly mammoth of Democratic legend,” saying that “he and everybody else knew the actuarial tables were about to expire on him.” 51

  The convention had featured a whole new generation of new-style politicians, and the contrast with Daley was striking. It was made even more apparent that his generation was passing when, in August, his old friend and law partner Judge William Lynch died. The two men had grown apart in their later years. Two close Daley associates — Chicago Health Department head Dr. Eric Oldberg and former secretary of state and gubernatorial candidate Michael Howlett — said that Daley had dropped Lynch before he died. “I guess the Daleys just gave up on Lynch as a lost cause; they recognized now that he was an alcoholic,” said Oldberg. “I think you could say that the Daleys decided Lynch had just outlived his usefulness.” Howlett said that Daley was “a real cold potato” about Lynch’s illness. Although Lynch had moved to Lakeshore Drive, his funeral was held back in Bridgeport. Daley, standing in white gloves outside Nativity of Our Lord Church, blinked tears as the casket passed by. 52

  In November, Daley suffered perhaps his worst general election setback ever. On election night, Carter called Daley to see how things stood. Daley told Carter that he was holding back one thousand Chicago precincts until he heard how things looked downstate. In the end, Daley delivered Chicago by only 425,000 votes — 50,000 votes less than for John Kennedy in 1960. Daley was unable to deliver the state for Carter. Illinois, which had gone with the winner in every presidential election since 1920, went for Ford. The presidential race went down to the wire, but it was evident early in the day that Howlett was doomed. He barely won the city and ended up losing the state to Daley’s nemesis, U.S. attorney James Thompson, by over a million votes, the most lopsided gubernatorial victory in Illinois history. Thompson pronounced Mayor Daley a “wounded old lion”— bloodied but dangerous. 53

  The outcomes of the local races confirmed Daley’s waning influence. Metcalfe, of course, retained his seat in Congress. Daley also failed to oust state’s attorney Bernard Carey. And voters rejected Daley’s friend Judge Joseph Power in his bid to be retained on the Circuit Court bench. Power had been criticized during the campaign for his alleged attempts, during the special grand jury investigation, to prevent the indictment of Ed Hanrahan. Power was asked if his relationship with Daley hurt him in his election bid. “It is certainly no insult to be described as a friend of the Mayor,” Power replied. “He’s a good Mayor and a good man, and I’m proud to be his friend.” For the first time in memory, Daley did not appear in City Hall after an election: he went fishing in Florida instead. In the days after the machine’s crushing defeat, there was open speculation that his days as a kingmaker had come to an end. The Chicago Sun-Times, in an editorial entitled “For Daley: The End Begins,” captured the new mood in Chicago’s political circles. “This is not a political obituary for Richard J. Daley or his machine,” the paper declared. “You can wonder, however, if the organ notes are starting to be heard in the back of the chapel.” 54

  On December 19, the Daley children and grandchildren converged at the house on Lowe Street for a Christmas celebration. This occasion was always held early so each family could be in its own home on Christmas Day itself. Father Gilbert Graham offered a home Mass and the mayor read one of the scripture selections. At the end of the ritual, Daley kissed each of his children and grandchildren. The next day, a Monday morning, Daley and Sis rose as usual, and were driven off in his official black Cadillac. In the Medill Room of the Bismarck, an old, storied hotel where machine politicians met and waited for votes to come in, the city’s department heads gathered for the annual Christmas breakfast. Carols and Irish tunes played by a harpist from the Chicago Symphony wafted through the room as they waited for Daley to arrive at 8:30 and then, when he did, broke into “Danny Boy.” After the eggnog and pleasantries, the group presented Daley with a gift, cleared with him in advance, of course — round-trip tickets to Ireland for Daley and Sis. He stood and offered an Irish wish: “From our home to your home we wish you one thing — good health, happiness, and a very Merry Christmas.” It would later be revealed that the breakfast — what would be Daley’s final meal — had been organized in the great Democratic machine tradition. It had been paid for by the Chicago taxpayers even though the city department heads who attended had been charged from $25 to $100 each to attend. It was never revealed where the extra money went. 55

  At the end of the breakfast, Daley walked through the biting wind to City Hall, where he tended briefly to paperwork at his desk. He was scheduled to see his physician, Dr. Thomas Coogan Jr., but wanted to make an appearance in Alderman Ed Vrdolyak’s 10th Ward first. He set off in his limousine, heading for Mann Park, in Hegewisch, on the city’s Southwest Side, where he would attend the opening of a new gym with Vrdolyak and Ed Kelly, 47th Ward committeeman and head of the Chicago Park District. Daley offered his standard fare: “This building is dedicated to the people of this great community. They’re making Chicago a better city, because when you have a good neighborhood, you have a good city, and this is a good neighborhood.” As the ceremonies drew to a close, Daley was given a basketball. He hunched down, and with an easy push with his right hand, the ball sailed through the basket. Vrdolyak and Kelly followed the mayor, but their shots missed. As the crowd started eating the hot dogs supplied by their alderman, Vrdolyak tried to persuade Daley to go to Phil Smidt’s, a local restaurant famous for its perch. Daley declined, since he was due f
or his appointment in Coogan’s office. He was escorted into the examination room for his scheduled electrocardiogram. Coogan did not like what he saw and started making arrangements for the mayor to be admitted to Northwestern University Hospital, a few blocks away. 56

  In the exam room, Daley called his son Michael, informed him that he was heading to the hospital, and asked Michael to call his mother. The staff in the hallway outside the room heard a crash. Coogan dashed over to Daley and then barked: “Call the emergency squad.” Coogan began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and the para-medics began heart massage and administered drugs to start Daley’s heartbeat. Physicians rushed into the crowded room. In the confusion of events, Sis Daley and several of the children waited for the mayor at Northwestern, but then rushed to Coogan’s office. For an hour and a half, valiant efforts were made, but they all failed. The last rites were administered. Doctor Robert Vanecko, one of Daley’s sons-in-law, agreed that the mayor was dead and nothing could be done. In fact, he had been dead since he hung up the phone with his son Michael. Dr. Coogan pronounced the time of death as 3:40 P.M. 57 Sis Daley looked at her children, and said calmly: “Now we all have to kneel down and thank God for having this great man for forty years.” She took out her rosary and led the family in prayer. Throngs of reporters were assembled outside the building, clamoring for information. By the time Frank Sullivan made the announcement that the mayor was dead, everyone already knew it. 58

  In the end, Daley returned to Bridgeport — to McKeon’s funeral home, across from Nativity of Our Lord Church. The neighborhood was cordoned off by Chicago police immediately after Daley’s death. In keeping with the season, brightly lit Christmas trees filled the front windows of the little bungalows, but Bridgeport was in a somber mood. The Nativity of Our Lord Christmas party was canceled and, instead, about 300 parishioners gathered to say the Rosary and attend a special prayer service. The 11th Ward Democratic Organization headquarters were locked up, in honor of the greatest politician ever to emerge from them, and office hours were canceled. Only a handful of people sat drinking in Schaller’s Pump, the neighborhood tavern. 59

  Daley’s body lay in state at Nativity, and thousands of ordinary Chicagoans whose lives he had touched waited in the bitter cold — some for more than two hours — to gain entrance. Inside, the mayor’s body reposed in an open mahogany coffin. He was dressed in a blue suit, and a black rosary lay in his folded hands. The Shannon Rovers, dressed in their signature tartan kilts and toting bagpipes, arrived to join the mourners. At the coffin, their leader, Tommy Ryan, stopped to speak to Sis Daley. “Men may come and men may go, but the name of Richard J. Daley will go on forever,” he said. Mrs. Daley replied, “Tommy, he loved you.” Sis Daley asked them to play one last air, and they obliged by offering up the mayor’s favorite, “Garry Owen,” the rousing old Irish battle hymn. Each of the mourners was personally greeted by one of Daley’s four sons and three daughters, and handed a small memorial card with a black-and-white photo of the mayor and the caption, “Mayor Richard J. Daley, 1902–1976.” The mourners, ushered down the center aisle to the coffin, passed by a floral wreath in the shape of a five-pointed star with a banner, “We Love You” signed “The Chicago Police Department.” About 25,000 citizens walked past Daley’s coffin during the nineteen-hour wake. 60

  The guests who arrived for the funeral the next day were a different crowd. As bells from Catholic churches across the Chicago Archdiocese rang out, limousines rolled through Bridgeport’s narrow streets. Invited guests and dignitaries filled the church to overflowing for the funeral Mass, many of them crammed in the aisles. Nativity of Our Lord Church, which had gotten its start in a livery stable, was now host to President-elect Carter, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, Senator Edward Kennedy, Mayor Kevin White of Boston, and Eppie Lederer, better known as Ann Landers. Daley’s old foes also turned out in force to bid a final farewell, including Governor-elect James Thompson, Senator George McGovern, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and Congressman Ralph Metcalfe. The entire Chicago City Council was present, along with just about every other political and judicial figure in the city. Many of Daley’s neighbors huddled outside the church behind police barriers, listening in on loudspeakers. 61

  In the service itself, Daley’s enormous impact on the world he was leaving behind was barely mentioned. At the request of the Daley family, there was no formal eulogy. “The quality of his life and his actions were his eulogy,” said Father Gilbert Graham, the mayor’s former pastor and longtime family friend. While the local and national media had been filled for days with memorable images from Daley’s long career — the night of the 1960 presidential election, the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Daley’s encounters with Martin Luther King, and his shoot-to-kill order—he was remembered inside Nativity of Our Lord as a man of simple faith. Daley had gone to church almost every day of his life, Graham noted, including the day he died. Graham also recalled that the mayor had often told him that he never needed sleeping medications because “he always had his rosary, which calmed him and prepared him for rest, no matter what the problems of the day.” When Daley died, Graham said, his wallet contained pictures of his family and “a dozen well-worn prayer cards which he used every day.” During the hour long service, John Cardinal Cody of Chicago read a message from Pope Paul VI, with whom Daley had had several audiences.

  The judgment of history still awaited. Daley had accomplished a great deal since the day in 1902 when he was dipped into a baptismal font in this very church. To millions of Chicagoans saddened by his passing, he embodied the spirit of their city as no man ever had — optimistic, determined, hardworking, God-fearing, and rooted in family and neighborhood. He gave them jobs, stood up for their way of life against threats from all sides, and made their city work. He had built up Chicago, leaving skyscrapers, schools, highways, and a thriving downtown to proclaim his greatness for generations. But Daley would also be remembered by millions of others, who saw in his career the dark side of modern America. They viewed him as the master of a corrupt political system, backward-looking, power-hungry, and bigoted, who ruled in the name of some groups and at the expense of others. They saw him as someone who had built a city founded on unfairness, and who was deaf to calls for change. Chicago and the world had an eternity to battle over the meaning of Daley’s life and legacy, but his friends and neighbors in Bridgeport had already decided. Father Graham spoke for them when he welcomed Daley home: “May God rest this man’s beautiful soul.” 62

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  We owe a large debt to those who have written about Chicago before we did. In every generation, fine writers have emerged who have explained Chicago to the rest of the world. Theodore Dreiser, James T. Farrell, Richard Wright, Nelson Algren, Mike Royko, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lois Wille, Milton Rakove, and Dempsey Travis have all written eloquently about the city and its folkways. Roger Biles, Arnold Hirsh, Paul Green, James Ralph, and Richard Wade have all produced first-rate scholarship on the city and welcomed us to the effort.

  For a book of this kind, much of the work occurs in libraries and archives. Many librarians and archivists deserve our gratitude. We were fortunate to have the help of Archie Motley at the Chicago Historical Society and Mary Ann Bamberger at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Mary Dempsey paved our way into the Chicago public libraries. The Photo Department of the Chicago Tribune also provided crucial assistance.

  Countless people patiently shared their recollections and theories about Daley, sometimes on repeated occasions. From the Daley family to precinct captains, from the Gold Coast to the housing projects on the South Side, from Chicago to Washington, Texas, and Georgia, people were extraordinarily generous in giving us their time and their stories. Over the years, some of these have included Joanne and James Alter, William Barnett, Harold Baron, Miles Berger, Jason Berry, Robert Buono, Edward Burke, Earl Bush, F. Richard Ciccone, Tom Cokins, William Daley, Charles U. Daly, Ron and Giulianna Davidoff, Ira Dawson, Michael Dawson, Leon Despres, Anthony
Downs, John Duba, Msgr. John Egan, Edwin Eisendrath, Don Haider, Julie Fernandes, Martha Fitzsimmons, Andre Foster, Richard Friedman, Gerald Frug, James Fuerst, Todd Gitlin, Bertrand Goldberg, Paul Green, Bruce Graham, Fr. Gilbert Graham, John J. Gunther, William Hartmann, David Hartigan, Arnold Hirsch, Ed Holmgren, Vernon Jarrett, Blair Kamin, Eugene Kennedy, Rick Kogan, Julian Levi, Lance Liebman, Norman Mailer, Ed Marciniak, Abraham Lincoln Marovitz, Lawrence McCaffrey, John McDermott, Paul McGrath, John McGreevy, John McKnight, Ralph Metcalfe Jr., Abner Mikva, Zoe Mikva, Kenneth Mines, James Murray, M. W. Newman, John Powell, Ed Proctor, Abe Peck, John Perkins, Alexander Polikoff, Aurelia Pucinski, Don Rose, Marvin and June Rosner, Fr. Michael Quirk, Bill Recktenwald, Dan Rostenkowski, Mary Schmich, John Schultz, Bob Secter, Charles Shaw, Barry Sheck, Seymour Simon, William Singer, Adrian Smith, John Stacks, William Stratton, Adlai Stevenson III, David Tatel, Studs Terkel, Jerome Torshen, Dempsey Travis, Nicholas von Hoffman, Rob Warden, Meyer Weinberg, Ralph Whitehead, Hubert Will, Kale Williams, Harris Wofford, and Ray Wolfinger.

  When Elizabeth moved to Chicago, she was fortunate to have able guides to this complex and storied city, including Studs Terkel and Eppie Lederer (Ann Landers), who never tire of talking about the city they love.

  We are extremely grateful to our colleagues at Time and the Chicago Tribune who indulge our dual lives as journalists and historians. At Time, Walter Isaacson, Jim Kelly, and, of course, Priscilla Painton were a constant source of intellectual stimulation and moral support. At the Chicago Tribune, Howard Tyner, Ann Marie Lipinski, and Gerould Kern embody the highest standards of journalistic excellence and collegiality. We have also been privileged to work alongside talented and thoughtful colleagues at both Time and the Tribune who patiently listened to more stories about 11th Ward politics and Daley’s efforts to develop downtown Chicago than we had any right to expect. A special word of thanks to John Stacks at Time, who roped us both into the business and has been there every step of the way.