CHAPTER 1

DICK DALEY

Lillian Dunne Daley gave birth to Dick Daley, an Irish-Catholic kidfrom Bridgeport, on May 15, 1902, during the third term of MayorCarter H. Harrison II. During Chicago's "age of Harrison," the Irishquietly ascended to the top of the political ladder. For most of DickDaley's life, the Irish would rise and rise and rise and then, finally, controlChicago politics. It was as if all of the ethnic groups in the city decidedto play a real life, twentieth-century game of king of the hill. Likekids scrambling up a snowy, icy pile on the grade school playground—pushing,kicking, punching, crawling over the backs of each other tomake it to the top—the Irish, German, Polish, and Italians, as well asa few tough blacks, struggled and struggled to overtake one another.The game would end with Dick Daley on top of the heap, surroundedby his Irish buddies. He was, at his death in 1976, king of the hill.

But that glory was far off in the future.

Turn-of-the-century Bridgeport was a gloomy, ethnic, working-classneighborhood. Industry had created its most prominent physicalfeatures: railroad tracks to the east, the Union Stock Yards to the south,and Bubbly Creek to the west. Each day, the neighborhood inhaledthe nasty smell of the stockyards. The tangy odor of blood and manureoverpowered newcomers, but many long-time residents ceased tosense it or told their children the smell was healthy. Bubbly Creek, agaseous, waste-filled section of the south branch of the Chicago River,was equally repellent. In 1906, four years after the birth of Dick Daley,Upton Sinclair's famous expose of the stockyards, called The Jungle,described the creek as "a great open sewer."

Despite this tough environment, Dick Daley experienced manypositive influences in his childhood, including good parents. His mom,Lillian Daley, was thirty years old when she gave birth to her first andonly child. She always dressed her son in fancy clothes, an unusual luxuryin working-class Bridgeport. Like many only children, throughouthis life Dick Daley retained an inner sense of his own specialness, animmutable feeling that he probably intuited from his mother's great joyat his very existence. Even as a mature adult, he delighted in celebratinghis own birthday, along with family, friends, and his city hall employees.Like many firstborn children, young Dick Daley was a "striver."He showed up on time, worked hard, respected authority. Accordingto his grade school teacher, the nun Sister Gabriel, "[Dick Daley] wasa very serious boy. A very studious boy. He played when he played. Heworked when he worked. And he prayed when he prayed."

Daley's mom was the dominant personality in their household.She was a high-energy woman, possessed a good sense of humor, anddisplayed more charisma and aggressiveness than most women in theearly twentieth century. On St. Patrick's Day, Daley's mom joked withher young son that she needed to go down to city hall to have her "behindpainted green." Lillian Daley also regularly marched in paradesfor women's right to vote, sometimes bringing her son with her. TheNineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution granted this right towomen in 1920, when Dick Daley was eighteen years old. His momalso was tough on him, letting her son know that she had high expectationsfor his career.

Daley's dad, Mike Daley, was a quiet and...