Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE CHICAGO MACHINE
While Chicago was becoming a center of industry, transportation, and finance, and
a beacon of labor reform, it was also becoming a powerhouse in national politics—
again by virtue of its location. Between 1860 and 1968, Chicago was the site of 14
Republican and 10 Democratic presidential nominating conventions. (Some even
point to the conventions as the source of Chicago's “Windy City” nickname, lay-
ing the blame on a politician who was full of hot air.) The first of the conventions
gave the country one of its most admired leaders, Abraham Lincoln, while the 1968
convention was witness to the so-called Days of Rage, a police riot against demon-
strators who had camped out in Grant Park to protest the Vietnam War. As TV
cameras rolled, the demonstrators chanted, “The whole world is watching.”
And it was; many politicos blame Mayor Richard J. Daley for Hubert
Humphrey's defeat in the general election. (Maybe it was a wash; some also say
that Daley stole the 1960 election for Kennedy.)
A few words about (the original) Mayor Daley: He did not invent the political
machine, but he certainly perfected it. As Theodore White writes in America in
Search of Itself, “Daley ran the machine with a tribal justice akin to the forest Gauls.”
Daley understood that as long as the leaders of every ethnic and special-interest
group had their share of the spoils—the African Americans controlled the South
Side, for example, and the Polish Americans kept their neighborhoods segregated—
he could retain ultimate power. His reach extended well beyond Chicago's borders;
he controlled members of Congress in Washington, and every 4 years he delivered
a solid Democratic vote in the November elections. Since his death in 1976, the
machine has never been the same. One election produced the city's first female
mayor, Jane Byrne; another resulted in the city's first African-American mayor,
Harold Washington. Neither was a novice at politics, but neither could hold the
delicate balance of (often conflicting) groups that kept Daley in power for 20 years.
Today, Daley's son, Richard M., may have inherited his father's former office,
but the estate did not include the Cook County machine. Mayor Richard M.
Daley has abandoned his late father's power base of solid white working-class
Bridgeport for the newly developed (some would say yuppie) Central Station
neighborhood just south of the Loop. The middle-aged baby boomer appears to
be finding himself, but many in the city still enjoy calling him—with more than
a hint of condescension—“Richie.”
The city has ongoing problems. With roughly 2.8 million people total, Chicago's
black and white populations are almost equal in size—a rarity among today's urban
areas—but the city's residential districts continue to be some of the most segregated
in the country. Families are also trying to cope with the school system, which has
been undergoing a major restructuring but whose outlook is still dismal. In 1995,
the federal government seized control of the city's public housing, pledging to
replace the dangerous high-rises with smaller complexes in mixed-income neigh-
borhoods. It is a long-term goal, but authorities have been gradually tearing down
the notorious apartment buildings of Cabrini Green, where then-Mayor Jane Byrne
moved briefly to show her support for the crime-victimized residents.
2 The Politics of Clout
by Chris Serb
To understand Chicago, you must first take into account its two greatest pas-
sions: politics and sports. In this town, the two are often indistinguishable from
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