American Pharaoh (16 page)

With the site-selection process at a standstill, Mayor Kennelly called on the City Council to negotiate directly with the
CHA. Two leading aldermen, John Duffy and William Lancaster, seized on the opportunity to develop an alternative plan. Their
proposal, which came to be known as the Duffy-Lancaster Compromise, included a mix of sites. Eight sites, representing 10,500
units of housing, would be built in poor black areas. Another seven sites, with about 2,000 units of housing, would be on
vacant land outside the ghetto. To proponents of integration, the Duffy-Lancaster Compromise did not seem like much of a compromise
at all. The
Chicago Defender
declared that it was “calculated to continue the ghetto and strengthen the spirit of segregation.” Elizabeth Wood and the
CHA tried to block the Duffy-Lancaster Compromise, and Wood traveled to Washington to urge the Public Housing Administration
to rule that it violated federal nondiscrimination requirements. But the federal agency approved the plan with only minor
modifications. At the time, the Duffy-Lancaster Compromise was regarded as a substantial blow to the ideal of integrated public
housing. But the truth was, despite its heavy use of ghetto sites, it was a compromise: a significant number of public housing
units were actually built outside the black ghetto. In just a few years, the city’s anti-integration forces would not feel
they needed to compromise at all.
⁶⁹

State director of revenue Richard J. Daley, freshly installed in his downtown Chicago offices, was already casting around
for his next position. It would often be said of Daley, later in life, that he loved Chicago so much that the only job he
ever wanted was to be its mayor. It paints an admirable picture, but it is not true. Daley spent most of his career looking
for any job that would move him up another rung on the political ladder and give him more power. In May 1947, the newspapers
were reporting that the “political grapevine” favored Daley for U.S. attorney. In December, they were saying that Daley was
a likely candidate for Cook County state’s attorney if the incumbent’s health continued to fail him. And a year later, the
Chicago Tribune
was reporting that the “[s]oft-spoken but persistent Richard J. Daley” was angling to be slated for the powerful position
of Cook County Board president. Daley was not alone in wanting the machine’s backing for the board presidency, which was coming
open in 1950. Dan Ryan, a sitting member of the board, and Alderman John Duffy, of the Duffy-Lancaster Compromise, also wanted
to be considered.
⁷⁰

Daley tried to rig the nominating process in his own favor. The machine’s slate-making committees were traditionally limited
to sitting ward committeemen, but Daley argued that the rules should be changed to allow both Governor Stevenson and Mayor
Kennelly to participate. Daley’s strategy was not hard to discern. He must have known that Stevenson, his employer, would
support him. But the machine would not go along with this change in the procedures. “I know that the mayor and the governor
don’t want to be pictured as political bosses,” Arvey said, speaking out against Daley’s proposal. Other machine leaders were
more blunt in their insistence that high-minded reformers like Stevenson and Kennelly had no business helping to choose the
machine’s candidates. “What the hell does Stevenson know about ward committeemen?” state senator William “Botchy” Connors
asked. “You’re likely to get three or four members of the Chicago Crime Commission on the ticket if you let these guys name
the candidates.” Daley also proposed that candidates should be allowed to serve on the slate-making committee, which would
have allowed him to be present as a representative of the powerful 11th Ward. In the end, Daley was foiled in his attempts
to stack the slate-making committee, and he lost the nomination to Duffy. He was “bitterly disappointed,” the
Chicago Tribune
reported, at being passed over.
⁷¹

Daley’s disappointment did not last long. Just two weeks later, the machine slate-makers had the chance to choose a candidate
for another powerful Cook County post. The county clerk died on January 3, 1950, and a successor had to be named. Once again,
Daley campaigned energetically for the job. He managed to get Mayor Kennelly to call Jake Arvey in Miami Beach to urge the
machine to slate him. Daley also got Governor Stevenson to announce his support. Daley made his pitch to the slate-making
committee in machine headquarters at the Morrison Hotel, recounting his years of service as deputy comptroller, Senate minority
leader, and state director of revenue — as well as his years of loyal service to the machine as precinct captain and ward
committeeman. On January 9, 1950, Daley was slated for the job, filling the interim position until an election could be held.
⁷²

The duties of the county clerk were mundane. Daley’s main responsibilities were issuing marriage licenses, recording deaths
and births, and maintaining vital statistics. But it was a good political stepping-stone for someone of Daley’s ambitions.
As a candidate for county clerk, Daley would have to run countywide — a chance to redeem himself with the countywide electorate
that had rejected him for sheriff. The county clerk also controlled hundreds of patronage positions. That gave Daley, as they
said in the Chicago machine, clout. As county clerk, Daley immediately went to work mastering the minutiae of his office.
Because he was serving as county clerk on an interim appointment, he would have to stand for election in a matter of months
in order to hold on to the position. Daley implemented an array of improvements designed to curry favor with the voters. Some
of his changes were low profile: he published the first calendar of law cases for the county court. Others were more visible.
One of Daley’s most ingratiating innovations was his overhaul of the way in which his office dispensed marriage licenses.
He installed microfilm machines for birth and marriage certificates, cutting the wait time for these documents from days to
a matter of minutes. He also increased the number of staff devoted to processing marriage licenses, which both helped speed
up the process and created new patronage positions for him to fill. And he ordered his marriage-license clerks to wear uniform
beige jackets. “The new jackets should start altar-bound couples on their trip a little more cheerful,” Daley declared. Daley
included a message from the county clerk with every new license: “May I very warmly and sincerely congratulate you on your
marriage, and may it be a long and happy one.”
⁷³

The 1950 election, in which Daley had to run for his own full term as county clerk, was a grim one for Chicago Democrats.
A few months before the voting, U.S. Senator Estes Kefauver’s Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce
arrived in town. The committee’s star witness was Captain Daniel “Tubbo” Gilbert, the Democratic nominee for Cook County sheriff
— or, as he was dubbed by the newspapers, “The World’s Richest Cop.” Gilbert tried to explain how he managed to accumulate
$360,000 in negotiable securities, among other holdings, on a modest police salary. He claimed to have been a successful gambler,
wagering on everything from stocks and bonds to baseball games and elections. Asked by the committee’s counsel whether his
gambling was legal, the police captain conceded that, “Well, no. No, it is not legal.” The Kefauver committee met in secret,
but the
Chicago Sun-Times
got hold of a transcript and splashed Gilbert’s words across the front page. Predictably, Gilbert ended up losing to his
little-known Republican opponent by 370,000 votes, and dragging down most of the Democratic ticket with him, including U.S.
Senator Scott Lucas, the majority leader and a key congressional ally of President Truman.
⁷⁴

Daley’s race for his own term as county clerk was hard fought. His Republican opponent, 7th Ward alderman Nicholas Bohling,
ran a spirited anti-machine campaign. Daley had served as the “errand boy, the mouthpiece of the Kelly-Nash-Arvey machine
in the legislature at Springfield,” Bohling charged, and the machine now “owned” him. The centerpieces of Daley’s defense
were endorsements from Stevenson and Douglas, two machine-made politicians who were nevertheless able to confer a mantle of
reform. Despite the Democratic rout, Daley ended up defeating Bohling by 147,000 votes. There was no obvious explanation for
why Daley had run so strongly, and rumors circulated after the election that he had won as a result of a carefully crafted
sellout. Republicans allegedly agreed to “trim” — or hold back support for — Bohling in exchange for the machine’s trimming
John Duffy, the Democratic candidate for Cook County Board president. The scenario had a certain plausibility. Machine boss
Arvey wanted to see Daley elected, and he and Daley both had good reason to want to see Duffy defeated. A bitter battle was
looming for control of the machine. Arvey’s tenuous hold on power was being challenged by a group that included Duffy; 14th
Ward alderman Clarence Wagner; Judge James McDermott, a former 14th Ward alderman and county treasurer; and 19th Ward committeeman
Tom Nash, a cousin of former boss Pat Nash who had gone over to the other side. If Duffy were elected to the patronage-rich
position of president of the county board, it would have given a considerable boost to the Wagner-McDermott-Duffy faction
in the battle for control of the machine. From Daley’s perspective, a victory for himself and a defeat for his rival Duffy
was the best possible outcome.
⁷⁵

After the machine’s poor showing in the 1950 elections, the antiArvey forces were ready to make their move. Arvey had survived
as boss for three years through a series of shrewd slating decisions — primarily, running Kennelly for mayor in 1947 and Stevenson
and Douglas statewide in 1948 — but when he slated “Tubbo” Gilbert, his luck finally ran out. The powerful ward committeemen
who controlled the machine decided that Arvey’s interim chairmanship should come to a close. It was easy enough for the machine’s
warring factions to decide that Arvey was out. The more difficult question was who would take his place. The Wagner-McDermott-Duffy-Nash
faction would clearly be fielding a candidate, and Daley wanted to run against them as the choice of the Arvey wing. Daley
approached Arvey to ask for his support. “But Dick, I thought you wanted to run for mayor,” Arvey responded. Daley said that
he did. “Well, then, you shouldn’t be county chairman,” Arvey said. “People will say you’re a boss.” Daley promised Arvey
that he would step down as party leader if he ever became mayor, and Arvey agreed to support him.
⁷⁶

The battle to succeed Arvey would be waged in the Democratic Cook County Central Committee — the Chicago machine’s version
of the Politburo. The Central Committee was made up of committeemen from all fifty of Chicago’s wards, along with another
thirty township committeemen representing suburban parts of Cook County. It was not a committee of equals: each committeeman’s
vote was weighted according to how large a Democratic vote he had produced in the previous election. The ward committeeman
from a strong machine ward like the 24th might cast fifteen thousand votes in the Central Committee, while a township committeeman
might cast only a few thousand. As a practical matter, power was concentrated in a few ward committeemen from wards where
the machine ran strongly, and elected officials whose offices gave them large numbers of patronage positions.
⁷⁷

The two factions battling for control of the machine looked a lot alike: both were comprised primarily of South Side, Irish-Catholic
machine loyalists. Beneath the similarities, however, lay a deep antipathy. The Arvey-Daley camp, heir to the old Kelly-Nash
organization, was more politically liberal. Arvey, a child of impoverished Jewish immigrants, was a New Dealer at heart. He
had used his office to move the machine in a more progressive direction: his greatest legacy would be the political careers
of Stevenson and Douglas. The Wagner-McDermott-Duffy-Nash group, for its part, would have been happy to dump Senator Douglas
before the next election, and might well have tried to force Governor Stevenson out when he ran for reelection. But the real
fault lines between the two groups were cultural and personal. The Wagner-McDermott-Duffy-Nash faction was an alliance of
two powerful groups of South Side Irish — the 19th Ward and the 14th. The 19th Ward was an enclave of upwardly mobile Irish-Americans
who had left working-class areas like Bridgeport for middle-class enclaves like Morgan Park and Beverly. To Daley and his
neighbors, they were the “lace-curtain Irish,” bitterly resented for looking down on their less successful brethren. These
were the sort of Irish people, it was said in Bridgeport, who had fruit in the house when no one was sick. The 14th Ward,
centered on the Back of the Yards area adjoining the 11th Ward, was culturally closer to working-class areas like Bridgeport.
But 14th Ward politicians had a long-standing rivalry with the nearby 11th Ward, which made them natural allies of the 19th
Ward faction.
⁷⁸