Word: daley
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Even considering Chicago's weak-mayor, strong-council municipal system, it hardly needs to be said that Daley ran the City Council, and when a few aldermen refused to be run, well, their microphones sometimes got turned off and their "legislation" always lost...
...Daley's running of the Police Department proved one of the more visible examples of his power. Everyone watched in April of 1968 when he issued his famous "shoot-to-kill" arsonists order after the riots following the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In August of that year the nation watched again as policemen's billy-clubs did their work in Lincoln Park, clubbing Democratic presidential chances along with the demonstrators...
...Daley's Chicago worked for the rich land-owing friend of the mayor whose downtown property was assessed at a fraction of its real worth, but it didn't work so well for the small homeowner trying to get a mortgage from a nearby savings and loan which refuses to lend money in its own neighborhood. The LaSalle St. banker, profiting from the city, probably lives in the suburbs; the neighborhood resident may well be on the verge of joining the white flight to less affluent communities, in part, because of something that doesn't work at all in Chicago...
...Daley's Chicago worked downtown and along the lakefront where the beautiful buildings he gave the city serve as a testament to his ability to improve Chicago. But the skyscrapers and architectural wonders--for all their importance--distract visitors from seeing the decaying inner city, which doesn't work so well. No public housing has been built recently. Daley refused to put the projects in white areas and lost federal funds as a result. Chicago remains statistically the most segregated major city in the nation. And the Machine can't and won't do much for ghetto dwellers. The infant...
...Daley's Chicago worked for the party faithful, for the guy who could call his "clout" to get his alley fixed or his brother a job with the Park District. But it didn't work so well for the guy who voted against the Machine and couldn't get his alley fixed, or the voter who didn't want to support feather-bedding in city government, or the store owner who receives a surprise visit from the building inspector after an anti-administration poster appeared in his window, or the tavern owners forced to pay extortion fees to corrupt policemen...