American Pharaoh

by Adam Cohen

  After winning the nomination, Stevenson defied convention and put the selection of his vice president up to the delegates. Tradition held that the nominee chooses his own running mate, and Daley would have preferred it that way. He did not like alienating candidates for vice president by telling them he could not support them. In his eagerness to please all sides, Daley came up with an ingenious solution. Asked what he thought about Governor A. B. “Happy” Chandler of Kentucky as a candidate for vice president, Daley told reporters that in light of the many strong candidates it might be a good idea to elect more than one vice president. He did, in fact, have his eye on one particular candidate. The real race was between Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee and thirty-eight-year-old Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Daley was on good terms with Kennedy’s father, Joseph P. Kennedy, who owned Chicago’s enormous Merchandise Mart, reportedly the largest commercial establishment in the world. Perhaps more important, if the Irish-Catholic Kennedy were on the ticket, he could be expected to draw large numbers of votes to the machine slate. Not least, Daley and the machine had not forgotten the damage Kefauver’s crime investigation committee had done to them in 1950. Daley delivered most of the Illinois delegation to Kennedy, except for a few downstaters who broke ranks to back Kefauver. Kennedy came within ten votes on the first roll call, but Kefauver won in the end. 22

  The real intrigue at the convention concerned the Illinois state ticket. Reporters got wind of a suspicious “flower fund” in the office of county treasurer Paschen, the Democrats’ candidate for governor. Flower funds, also known as employee welfare funds, were used to pay for flowers for wakes and funerals, and similar expenses. But for some reason, banks holding county deposits had contributed more than $29,000 to Paschen’s fund, and Paschen had in turn used some of the money to advance his political career. Federal and county grand juries were now investigating the matter. Democrats, fearing he would drag down the whole ticket, urged him to withdraw, but Paschen refused. When news broke of another $4,000 contingency fund that Paschen had failed to account for, it was over. Daley had decided to dump Paschen, and word of the ouster quickly spread through the convention floor. When reporters asked Daley about the rumors, Daley confirmed them, although he had not bothered to tell Paschen, who was sitting just three seats away from him in the Illinois delegation. When the press moved on to Paschen, he insisted he was still on the ticket. Told by reporters about Daley’s comments, Paschen went over and confronted the mayor. “Dick, what the hell is there to this thing the reporters are saying?” he said incredulously. Daley, looking straight ahead and expressing little emotion, responded: “What did you expect?” Daley’s handling of Paschen was cold-blooded, and fully in character. “With Daley, you know, it was always Daley who came first,” said former Illinois secretary of state Michael Howlett. “The other guy always came in third with Daley, no matter who the other guy was.” 23

  When the convention ended, Daley met with the machine leadership to review a list of twenty possible candidates to replace Paschen at the top of the ticket. Daley chose Chicago Superior Court judge Richard Austin, once again employing the old machine tactic of selecting a good-government candidate to ward off a damaging corruption scandal. The selection of the relatively obscure Austin revived rumors that swirled when Paschen was selected — that Daley was quietly throwing the election to Stratton. Daley flew to Spring-field for a meeting of downstate Democratic leaders on October 9 and was confronted by published reports that Austin was “a candidate set up to be knocked down.” Banging on the table for emphasis as water glasses went flying, a red-faced Daley denied the charges and lashed out at those who had made them. “I defy anyone to point to any betrayal in the history of the Cook County Democratic Organization,” he shouted. If the machine was setting Austin up for a fall, he seemed oblivious. At appearances before machine audiences, he pledged his undying loyalty. “I want all of you to see me with your problems, patronage or otherwise, after the election,” Austin invited. “I will be an organization governor.” 24

  The 1956 election was Daley’s first presidential campaign as boss and mayor, and Daley pushed the ward organizations to come through as they never had before. At a September 20 strategy meeting at the Morrison Hotel, he directed the ward committeemen and precinct captains to conduct a house-to-house canvass to register voters, and he ordered that 750,000 registration folders be distributed across the city. Daley also organized a series of weekly luncheon rallies for precinct captains at the Morrison, so they could meet the machine candidates they would be promoting to their neighbors. On October 11, state’s attorney candidate Gutknecht was the featured candidate, with Austin following a week later. Daley also worked to draw organized labor even more closely into the machine’s operations. He held a secret meeting at Chicago’s Machinists Hall at which William Lee — his Civil-Service Commission chairman, who was also president of the Chicago Federation of Labor — urged the two hundred union leaders in attendance to “kick in” money to the machine. The highest priority, Lee said, was defeating reformer Adamowski in his campaign for state’s attorney. Daley had already advised the ward organizations that they could count on having a large number of rank-and-file union members available to help out on election day. Daley’s many favors for organized labor since he took office were paying off. But his most elaborate preparations were for a legendary event — the Chicago machine’s pre-election torch-light parade. Organizers were predicting a turnout of 500,000 people, and representatives of all fifty ward organizations, labor unions, and ethnic associations participated in the planning. This year’s march, Daley said, would be nothing less than “the greatest spectacle in the history of America.” Plans called for 1,000 men with torches and sparklers to march a two-mile stretch of Madison Street from Grant Park to Chicago Stadium. Lending an air of spectacle, there would be flatbed trucks with trapeze artists and circus performers driving by at eight-minute intervals. 25

  The 1956 general election was a disaster for Illinois Democrats. Eisenhower defeated native son Adlai Stevenson handily, in Illinois and nationwide. Stratton was reelected as governor, and Republican junior senator Everett Dirksen was returned to office. If Daley had in fact struck a deal to go easy on Stratton, it was not obvious from the results on election night. Stratton won by only about 50,000 votes, running well behind both Eisenhower and Dirksen. Worst of all, Adamowski won his race for state’s attorney. Daley was publicly upbeat, but some Democrats blamed him for the losses. They contended that his new policy of shifting patronage to City Hall had sapped the strength of the ward organizations, and they argued that Daley’s heavy-handed leadership of the party had hurt with voters. Steven Mitchell, a lawyer who had been passed over by the machine for the gubernatorial nomination, charged after the election that Daley’s “one-man rule” was to blame for the rout. “A small circle or group dominates the party, including the selection of candidates and the development of issues,” Mitchell charged. “This is not healthy in a democratic system.” Mitchell called on Daley to resign as chairman of the Cook County Democratic Organization, saying it was a “full time job” when done right. 26

  Daley had no intention of heeding calls that he step down as boss. “I offered my resignation when I was elected mayor last year and it was not accepted,” he said. “Since then I have led my party to what I think is a good program.” But Daley also knew that party leaders who lost elections did not stay in power long. He had seen Mayor Kelly relieved of his leadership of the machine after the disastrous 1946 election, and he had seen Arvey pushed out of power after the Democratic defeats of 1950. To avoid sharing their fate, Daley set to work building up the machine’s strength. One of his first priorities was increasing Democratic influence in the Chicago suburbs. In the November election, Chicago’s share of the Cook County vote had fallen significantly, and Eisenhower had run especially strongly in the suburbs. In January 1957, Daley appointed eight suburban Democrats to a new committee to consider ways for the party to compe
te for suburban voters. Daley also went to work purging his most entrenched machine foe. In a post-election gesture of reconciliation, city assessor Frank Keenan invited pro-Daley Democrats in the 49th Ward to his annual Christmas dinner. But Daley forbade his precinct captains from attending. Then, in one of his last official acts, outgoing state’s attorney John Gutknecht indicted Keenan for improperly exempting several properties from taxation. Since it was the kind of charge that could have been brought against almost any Chicago politician at the time, it seemed clear that the indictment was political, and it was widely rumored that Daley was behind it. Daley indignantly denounced these reports as “a falsehood, a fabrication, and a lie,” but he did admit that he would be happy if Keenan left the Democratic Party. In the end, the tax-evasion charges stuck, Keenan was forced to step down as county assessor, and he went to prison. Daley got the Cook County Board to name John F. McGuane, an old friend and fellow 11th Ward Irishman, to fill the position. Robert Merriam said later that even if the charges against Keenan had some merit, his downfall was largely due to his falling out with Daley. “There was no longer any desire to protect him on the part of the organization,” Merriam said. “They play a very hard game.” 27

  By the start of 1957, Daley was well at work on his plans for promoting urban renewal and downtown development. Effective January 1, Ira Bach became the city’s new commissioner of housing. The next day, Daley announced that he had retained a prominent New York marine engineering firm to study Chicago’s port facilities and recommend improvements. At a 120th birthday luncheon for the city in early March, Daley said he expected Chicago would see more than $1 billion in public and private investment over the next five years, and that the influx of funds would make Chicago a “new city.” Later the same month, fate intervened to create one more redevelopment project for the city. On March 21, a fire in City Hall in the early evening destroyed the City Council’s ornate chambers. Daley borrowed a pair of boots from a telephone company employee at the scene and waded through the water-filled hallways himself to survey the damage. He announced that no important documents had been destroyed, and that the building would reopen for business the following morning. Daley was hailed as a hero for leading four scrub-women to safety, but he modestly insisted that the real heroes were four women telephone operators who continued to work on the tenth floor throughout the blaze. 28

  Daley was always on the lookout for more money to develop the city. He quickly emerged as a leading advocate for the nation’s cities, primarily because he was constantly asking Congress and the president to increase appropriations for programs that benefited Chicago. In April 1957, Daley traveled to Washington to testify before a Senate committee in favor of one such program, a federal slum clearance and community redevelopment initiative that faced funding cut-million bond initiative on the June ballot. The bond measure was the occasion for Daley’s first public screaming tirade of his mayoralty. When Republican City Council members criticized the proposal as wasteful, a red-faced Daley banged the rostrum repeatedly and exploded at his critics. In the weeks leading up to the election, critics continued to charge that the bonds were not needed and would lead to large tax increases, but they passed. 29

  The most important changes on the development front were occurring at the Chicago Housing Authority. Daley was in the process of pushing out the current leadership and installing his own team. In July 1957, the CHA announced that William Kean was resigning as executive director for “personal reasons.” But the truth was, Kean’s departure came after bitter feuding with the CHA board, particularly with an outspoken young board member named Charles Swibel. Swibel got his start sweeping floors for Isaac Marks, one of Chicago’s biggest slumlords, and in 1954, Daley appointed the twenty-nine-year-old Swibel to the CHA board. Swibel’s background was an odd one for someone who would be responsible for guiding Chicago’s public housing policies. As president of Marks & Co., he had operated two hotels on skid row, both of which refused to rent rooms to blacks, in violation of Illinois state law, into the 1960s. Swibel owed his seat on the board to Flat Janitors Union president William McFetridge, who felt he could count on Swibel to promote labor’s interests. Swibel was well known as an operator — one critic described him as “a do-fer. As in ‘What can I do fer you?’” The newspapers just called him “Flophouse Charlie.” Kean’s run-ins with Swibel and a few other members of the CHA board stemmed in large part from the fact that, like Elizabeth Wood before him, he backs. Daley also tried to raise more money locally, putting a $113 wanted to run a “clean” agency — one that refused to take on patronage workers, and that held its employees to high standards of performance. The final showdown between Kean and the board came over whether Kean would be allowed to hire and fire CHA employees without the board’s approval. In public, Daley assumed the role of peacemaker, even taking credit at one point for talking the embattled Kean out of resigning. But Daley never used his influence with his appointees to the CHA board to stop them from pushing Kean out. 30

  The fact was, the CHA was a bastion of patronage and featherbedding — and neither Kean nor Elizabeth Wood had been able to stop it. The following March, the Public Housing Administration issued a scathing report detailing waste and corruption in the CHA. PHA investigators found that overstaffing, make-work assignments for unionized workers, and inefficient administration at the CHA wasted $1 million a year. The agency’s overstaffed and “sluggish” force of glaziers, the report found, installed only 6.5 panes of glass per day per glazier, compared to 18 panes a day by glaziers in Detroit. 31 When new refrigerators were installed in public housing, CHA work rules required an electrician to be present “because of the need for plugging in the cord and starting the motor.” Wood had wanted to reform the agency’s operations, but she quickly realized the unions and their allies in the machine would not allow it. “That was something Elizabeth just couldn’t touch,” says former Wood aide James Fuerst. “She just said, ‘Look, it’s bigger than us.’” When the PHA’s report came out, Daley expressed concern. “These are serious charges and I want to know what the facts are,” Daley declared at his morning press conference. “I plan to meet with everyone to see if we can’t work out solutions for correcting these alleged abuses.” Of course, if Daley really wanted to learn more, he would have had little trouble: it was his own appointees to the CHA board that were responsible for much of the corruption. 32

  Kean’s departure allowed Daley to select his own CHA executive director. He appointed city welfare commissioner Alvin Rose, who promised from the start to be more accommodating to political pressure than Kean had been. To some observers, it appeared that Swibel was now in charge of the CHA — and that the weak-willed Rose was only there to do the slumlord’s bidding. Rose was a “tired, frightened bureaucrat who was terrorized by Swibel,” says a Chicago Daily News reporter. “He would take you aside and say, ‘That man [Swibel] is a devil.’” One of the first areas in which the CHA changed direction was race. Kean had never been an integrationist. He had been brought in to end the Elizabeth Wood era at the CHA, and he had done so. But he was also not an arch-segregationist and under him the CHA continued to investigate potential public housing sites throughout the city, and to recommend some sites “even though they felt the City Council would not approve them.” 33

  With Daley’s team in charge, a new segregationist era dawned at the CHA. At a January 17, 1958, meeting at the City Club of Chicago, a man from a white neighborhood on the North Side asked why his neighborhood was not getting any housing projects. Rose explained that if a housing project were built in his area, there would be no way of guaranteeing that blacks would not move into it. A former director of the CHA who was in the audience recalled Rose’s response as “startling.” It “was like saying to the gentleman from Uptown, ‘Do you really want a project out here, because if we put a project out here some Negroes are going to move into Up-town?’” The difference between the Kean era and the Rose era was subtle but unmistakable: under Kean, politi
cal pressure was allowed to block the agency’s attempts at integration; under Rose, there would no longer be any attempts to integrate. The new CHA regime made it even easier for white aldermen to block housing projects that were being considered for their wards. Rose personally contacted every alderman in the city to ask about locating 3,000 units of housing that had come available. If any alderman objected to a proposed project in his ward, Rose said, “it ha[d] no chance of getting through.” 34

  During the summer of 1957, Daley faced the most serious patronage scandal of his mayoralty. It was an open secret that since he took over City Hall Daley had been aggressively increasing the number of patronage workers, and pushing out employees who lacked the correct political sponsorship. Robert J. Nolan, who had served the city as an assistant corporation counsel for sixteen years, was fired from his job handling condemnation work for the city. Nolan’s offense was to have come to the city’s law department from the 19th Ward organization, which had backed Kennelly in the mayoral primary. Nolan went without a fight. “I was going to leave, but this is hurrying it up a bit,” he said on his way out. The Civil Service Commission’s annual report revealed that the city now employed 6,175 temporary workers, the category most often filled by patronage hires — an increase of 47 percent in the past year. Daley attributed the increase to a “step-up” in city services. 35

  In June, a whistleblower came forward to tell a different story. Dr. Seymour Scher, the Civil Service Commission’s personnel examiner, wrote an open letter to Daley declaring that the commission under its new leadership had become a “farce.” Scher, who had accepted an out-of-state teaching position and had nothing to lose, disclosed that there had been a sharp decline in the number of civil-service exams given since Daley became mayor. Civil-service procedures called for the commission to post lists of employees who had passed their exams, and these lists had also fallen dramatically — from 216 in 1954, Kennelly’s last year in office, to 90 in 1956. When the lists were posted now, they often went up late, after many eligible employees had already given up and taken other jobs. Scher also revealed that the city had been rapidly creating new job titles — 300 in 1957 alone, for a total of 1,700, when he estimated that 400 titles would have been sufficient. New job titles were an effective way around civil service: when a new title was created, there were by definition no applicants available who had passed a civil-service exam for it. The machine was therefore free to fill these slots with anyone it wanted. “It seems the organization asked, ‘How many jobs are we going to give our boys this year?’” Scher said. Patronage positions had increased almost 75 percent, he estimated, during Daley’s first two years in office. Scher’s charges received wide press attention. Republicans in the City Council tried to launch committee investigations, but both times the Democrats defeated their motions. Civic groups called on Daley to appoint a blue-ribbon panel to consider the charges. But Daley curtly dismissed Scher’s diagnosis. “Dr. Scher’s statement indicates lack of ability to know what is going on,” Daley said. “I should appreciate his recommendations and his assistance in making Chicago’s civil service the best in the country.” Fred Hoehler, Daley’s civil service adviser, was more blunt. Scher, he said, was a “cynic” who “does not believe there is any honesty in government.” Neither Daley nor Hoehler provided any evidence to refute Scher’s charges. 36