American Pharaoh (97 page)

Over the years, as the political landscape changed, Daley’s blessing became less important to presidential candidates. Nevertheless,
in 1976, Daley sought to be the kingmaker as presidential contenders paraded through Illinois. Jimmy Carter, the obscure former
Georgia governor, had wooed Daley for years, beginning with personal expressions of concern through the summer of Daley’s
stroke. Carter even extended an invitation to visit Warm Springs, Georgia, to recuperate. Throughout the primary season, Carter
called Daley to give him status reports on the campaign. And when he traveled to Chicago, Carter made a point of visiting
Daley, not even minding that on one trip — after he had all but clinched the nomination — Daley was introducing him as “Jim
Carter.” This massaging aside, Daley was predisposed to Carter, since he remembered that Carter, as governor, had led his
Georgia delegation in voting to seat Daley at Miami Beach in 1972.
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But on the eve of the March Illinois primary, Daley was still uncommitted. The presidential portion of the Illinois primary
was composed of two unrelated parts, the election of delegates pledged to candidates and a nonbinding “beauty contest.” Daley
put together a slate of delegates pledged to Senator Adlai Stevenson, who had said that he would not run. By keeping these
delegates uncommitted, Daley was trying to assure himself a broker’s role at the convention. Jimmy Carter played along with
Daley, only running Carter-pledged slates in the congressional districts outside the city.
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Still, Daley refused to make it easy for Carter. When Kennedy in-law and presidential candidate Sargent Shriver came through
Chicago, Daley broke the rules and allowed only Shriver, and no other candidate, to address a meeting of the Cook County Democratic
Committee. In the end, Carter shored up his status as front-runner by winning the nonbinding preference primary in Illinois
with 48 percent of the vote. Alabama governor George Wallace was the next closest with 28 percent, followed by Shriver with
16 percent. Carter’s delegate slates led outside the city, but in Chicago, Daley’s Stevenson slates swept to victory.
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Daley played coy about his presidential preference for months, but he simply appeared old and out of touch. He did not take
to the campaign trail over the summer. Instead, he remained more deeply rooted in Bridgeport, where his influence still seemed
to matter. Daley was elected to his thirteenth full term as chairman of the Cook County and Chicago Democratic parties. He
turned seventy-four on May 15, and as he had the year before, remained at home. A contingent of parochial school children,
including some of his grandchildren, paraded along South Lowe Avenue in his honor.

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.
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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.”
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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 for 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.
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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.
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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.
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