American Pharaoh (8 page)

The Chicago machine that Daley signed on with was a remarkable political organization. It was formally the Cook County Democratic
Organization, reflecting its true sphere of influence — beyond the Chicago city limits and into the surrounding suburban ring,
which made up the rest of Cook County. At the top of the machine was the county chairman, or party boss, who was elected by
ward committeemen from the city’s fifty wards, along with a smaller number of committeemen from the suburban townships. The
machine was as rigidly hierarchical as the Catholic Church that most of its members belonged to. The county chairman presided
like a secular cardinal, and beneath him were ward committeemen — the political equivalent of parish priests — who controlled
their own geographical realms. Each of the fifty wards had its own Democratic ward organization, with its own headquarters,
budget, slate of candidates, and army of workers. Daley was one of more than three thousand precinct captains, spread out
across the fifty city wards, who were responsible for the machine’s performance at the block level. Like the Catholic Church,
the machine offered its members not just a structure, but a worldview and a moral code. One academic who studied the Chicago
machine concluded that it was guided by what he called the “regular ethic.” Among the tenets of the regular Democrat’s creed:
(1) Be faithful to those above you in the hierarchy, and repay those who are faithful to you; (2) Back the whole machine slate,
not individual candidates or programs; (3) Be respectful of elected officials and party leaders; (4) Never be ashamed of the
party, and defend it proudly; (5) Don’t ask questions; (6) Stay on your own turf, and keep out of conflicts that don’t concern
you; (7) Never be first, since innovation brings with it risk; and (8) Don’t get caught. Another scholar of Chicago politics
summed up the machine ethic more concisely in a book title:
Don’t Make No Waves, Don’t Back No Losers.
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The chairman of the Cook County Central Committee held the ultimate power, but it was ward committeemen like McDonough who
did most of the machine’s day-to-day work. Ward committeemen slated, or picked, candidates for ward offices from alderman
down — and like McDonough, they not infrequently ended up as both ward committeeman and alderman. They were also in charge
of distributing patronage to precinct captains and other ward workers, a difficult, sensitive, and time-consuming task. “A
committeeman gets a phone call and is told, ‘I’ve got three crossing guards, one sanitation worker,’” said a committeeman
with the Cook County Democratic Organization. “‘Do you want them?’ ‘How soon do you have to know?’ he asks. ‘I’ll call you
tomorrow.’ You call back and say, ‘I want two crossing guards. I can’t use three. The sanitation worker — yes, I want that.
Here are the names.’ The girl says, ‘Send them in to get their yellow slips,’ and they go in to get their yellow slips.” Being
ward committeeman could be lucrative work, particularly for those who had law firms or insurance agencies on the side. Benjamin
Lewis, a 24th Ward committeeman who was shot to death in the early 1960s under mysterious circumstances, once boasted that
the post was worth $50,000 a year in insurance work alone. In exchange for his power and opportunity for enrichment, a committeeman
was responsible for ensuring that his ward met the vote totals that the machine boss expected. Ward committeemen who failed
to deliver on election day risked being “vised,” as the machine lingo put it, or fired, and replaced by someone who would
do better.
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Daley’s new position of precinct captain made him a soldier in Mc-Donough’s 11th Ward army, and put him in charge of a unit
of about four hundred to five hundred voters. Precinct captains were the prime practitioners of the retail politics that was
the stock in trade of the old urban machines. A precinct captain was expected to form a close personal relationship with every
voter in his territory; the machine relied on these personal contacts — rather than the strength of its candidates in a given
year — to win. “I never take leaflets or mention issues or conduct rallies in my precinct,” a Chicago precinct captain once
explained. “After all, this is a question of personal friendship between me and my neighbors.” To forge these connections,
precinct captains were expected to be out in their neighborhoods virtually every night, attending community meetings, putting
in hours in the ward office, or visiting voters in their homes. “I found that those who related to people and were sincere
in trying to help their neighbors in the community turned out to be the best captains,” one ward committeeman once said. Jake
Arvey, committeeman from the heavily Jewish 24th Ward, required his precinct captains to belong to a synagogue or church,
and to fraternal organizations like the Knights of Columbus or B’Nai Brith. “Sure, I was looking for votes,” Arvey says. “But,
in the process, I made them charity-minded, civic-minded, culture-minded, and sensitive to the needs of other people.” In
his last mayoral campaign in 1975, Daley delivered a tribute to the underappreciated precinct captain. He “is as honest as
the rest of us and he’s a better neighbor than most of us, for partisan reasons,” Daley said. “He has solicitude for the welfare
of the family on his block, especially if they are a large family with dependable political loyalties. He gets your broken-down
uncle into the county hospital. . . . He’s always available when you’re in trouble.”
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As a young precinct captain, Daley spent countless hours each week in one of Bridgeport’s great institutions: the 11th Ward
headquarters. Daley’s new world had the feel of a Hibernian social club. One non-Irish Bridgeport native recalled how he felt
when he stopped by for a political event. “In a short time the office was packed with precinct captains and workers — all
Irish,” he says. “Outside of one Italian and myself, I saw nothing but red hair, freckles, and green eyes. I met an old high
school chum who is now a helper in a precinct and who works at City Hall. I asked him how one can get into the organization.
He smiled and said, ‘The first thing you have to do is be Irish!’” During election season, the 11th Ward was a campaign war
room, where strategy was mapped out, precinct canvasses were analyzed, and campaign literature was handed out for distribution
throughout the ward. The rest of the year, it functioned as a combination of constituent-service office and community center.
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In the 11th Ward offices, and every other ward office across the city, the machine dispensed favors systematically in exchange
for political support. Priority treatment went to political and financial backers of the machine, and to those who came with
a referral from their precinct captain — the kind of solid citizen that ward workers referred to as “one of our people.” But
since the granting of favors was a form of outreach to the community, any ward resident not known to be actively hostile to
the machine was eligible for help. Complaints about city services, like missing stop signs or irregular garbage pickups, were
easily handled. If a constituent had his water cut off, a single phone call from the ward office to the water department could
get it restored. The ward organization had volunteer lawyers available in the evenings to provide free legal advice on everything
from immigration paperwork to criminal law problems. Precinct captains like Daley could find summer jobs for neighborhood
youth, arrange scholarships to the University of Illinois, and even get constituents hospital care or glass eyes. “Everybody
needs a favor sometimes, but some people are too dumb to ask for it,” a saloonkeeper-alderman from the 43rd Ward once reflected.
“So I say to my captains, ‘If you notice a hole on the sidewalk in front of a fellow’s house, call him a week before election
and ask him if he would like it fixed. It could never do any harm to find out.’”
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Machine politicians were adept at taking credit for every favor they dispensed — so voters would remember on election day.
When machine aldermen contacted city agencies for their constituents, they requested written responses. Letters agreeing to
take the requested action were sent to the alderman, so he could in turn pass the good news on to the voter. Letters of refusal
went directly from the agency to the constituent. Machine officials often took more than their share of credit. When one alderman
got a stop sign installed at a dangerous intersection, he sent a letter to every registered voter in his ward claiming that
it was the machine’s doing — even though it began with local block associations, who had conducted a petition drive for the
sign. Sometimes the machine took credit less formally. If the organization succeeded in intervening with the water department
and getting a voter’s water restored, one machine operative says, “on election day the precinct captain would ask you about
your water.”
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Working as a precinct captain in the 11th Ward organization, Daley got an ideal introduction to the craft of machine politics.
In the weeks before an election, the precinct captains were expected to canvass each home in their precinct at least twice
to find out which way every voter was leaning — an early forerunner of the opinion poll. A captain was expected to be able
to predict his vote almost exactly; missing by more than ten or so votes could result in a reprimand. A few days before the
election, the precinct captain reported the results of the canvass to his ward committeeman. The committeeman, in turn, delivered
the aggregated numbers for his ward to the machine boss. In addition to giving the machine a preview of how things looked
for the election, the precinct-by-precinct canvass allowed captains to familiarize themselves with the individual circumstances
of every voter. A captain could find out which of his voters were wavering and needed further persuasion, which needed transportation
to the polls, and which would need to be reminded to vote. He could also learn which voters were determined to vote Republican,
and therefore should not be encouraged to vote. A captain’s machinations to maximize the Democratic vote in his precinct could
be quite elaborate. Just before the 1939 mayoral election, an Italian family with six voting-age members moved into Arvey’s
24th Ward. The precinct captain paid them regular visits, discussing over red wine how they planned to vote. “Six votes is
an awful lot,” noted Arvey. But the captain soon realized that the head of the household was related to a leading Chicago
Republican. When the captain asked him to vote in the Democratic primary, he refused. “I can’t do that!” he said. “My cousin
is a Republican committeeman. How would it be if I voted in the Democratic primary?” After the captain pursued the family
for a month, a compromise was arrived at. The man and his wife, who shared a last name with the cousin, could vote Republican.
The man’s two daughters and sons-in-law, who had different names, would vote the straight Democratic ticket.
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On election day, precinct workers often turned to more blatant forms of persuasion. Precinct captains handed out turkeys,
nylons, and cash in exchange for votes. A captain from the poor West Side 27th Ward was once convicted of buying votes for
one dollar a head. In the South Side 4th Ward, a newspaper reporter observing the voting caught a precinct worker handing
out bags of groceries. “We gotta get these voters out any way we can,” the worker explained. On skid row, precinct captains
often lured winos with free liquor. The fact that bars were legally closed on election day worked in the machine’s favor:
many alcoholics considered the few minutes it took to vote a small price to pay to make the shakes go away. Clory Bryant,
who ran for alderman in the early 1960s against the machine’s candidate, saw the effect of the machine’s generosity toward
voters first-hand. “I had asked a neighbor of mine was she going to vote for me,” Bryant says. “As a matter of fact, I says,
‘I know you’ll vote for me.’ And she said, ‘No, I’m afraid I can’t, because my alderman always gives me a Christmas tree for
my vote. And I know you can’t afford to go around buying these many trees.’” Bryant did not get her neighbor’s vote. The machine
also did favors for neighborhood organizations that could help it win votes. The West Side 25th Ward Organization used to
give regular donations to the thirty-five churches in the ward. One election day, the ward boss arrived at a polling place
located in the basement of St. Roman’s Church. The priest was handing out coffee and doughnuts. Asked what he was doing, the
priest responded, “What the hell do you think I’m doing? I’m trying to get some Democratic votes.” Ward organizations also
wielded the stick in order to round up votes. Captains in black precincts frequently told voters they would lose their government
benefits if they failed to vote a straight Democratic ticket. “Every welfare recipient is afraid to oppose the wishes of the
precinct captain,” the pastor of a Mennonite church once complained. “Everyone living in public housing is afraid. They have
been told that the machine alderman is the one who ensures them living quarters.” It was not an idle threat. Welfare programs
were so rule-bound at the time, and enforcement was so arbitrary, that a determined precinct captain often could get a voter’s
benefits cut off if he really wanted to. Saying hello to the precinct captain at the polls every year also came in handy when
a public-housing recipient’s refrigerator or stove broke down.
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