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53 6 The First Mayor Daley Murder always is big news in Chicago, and when it involves children, it’s bigger still. But, what matters most in Chicago (next to the Cubs, of course) is city hall—not governance, but politics; not the hands of public service, but the muscle of money and votes. That’s how it’s been for as long as the Cubs haven’t won a World Series (103 years). And that’s why it became my goal at Channel 2 to be assigned to watch city hall, and to report what I saw. In 1965, I had been at WBBM-TV just two years and already was drenched in city hall fact and fiction: Fact: In the history of Chicago, Mayor Richard J. Daley is the boss of all bosses. Fiction: He may be clever, but he’s not smart; this is a fiction that’s been written and broadcast since the day he was sworn in, that his malapropisms expose a less-than-towering intelligence. For example: Singing the praises of his city, he said, “We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of success.” In response to the words of a critic, he said, “I resemble that remark,” meaning he resents it. During the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, he told reporters, “The police are not here to create disorder, they’re here to preserve disorder.” Mayor Daley talked the language of the “preecints,” meaning precincts, which meant he was smart enough to get himself elected and reelected, and to govern Chicago, four times. He bossed us for twenty years, a reign eclipsed only by that of his son, Richard M., who also bobbled the language but was smart enough to get himself elected and reelected five times. When WBBM decided I could handle city hall, I set out to challenge some things Daley did, and things he said (there it is again, as with my mother, that disdain for authority). Richard J. was a four-star general in civvies when he paraded into a news conference two steps ahead of a phalanx of aides and department heads, and approached a wooden lectern low enough to make him high enough to boom 54 T H E F I R S T M AY O R D A L E Y his authority to a dozen reporters and half a dozen cameras squeezed into a pressroom on the fifth floor of city hall. A scenario: It’s 1965. President Lyndon Johnson has just signed the Voting Rights Act. Local reporters need to localize the story, so we ask Mayor Daley about voting rights in Chicago—does he think there are problems? “We don’t have problems voting in Chicago,” he puffs into a bank of microphones. “But, Mr. Mayor,” a Tribune reporter objects. “Chicago is famous for problems in voting . . . vote fraud . . . vote early, vote often . . . vote ghost. Everybody knows about Chic—” “Who’s everybody? They haven’t been here, have they?” Mr. Mayor starts with a lilt, then picks up steam, and ends with a stare and a snarl. “They haven’t been to a polling place in Chicago, have they? They ever been to a polling place? What do they know?” When it’s my turn: “I know voters who’ve been paid by precinct captains to—” “Who’s been paid?” His blue eyes are as light, bright, and cold as any I’ve ever seen. Like one of those cool mountain labels on bottled water. “What’s his name, what ward? We’ll investigate.” “Well, I’ll ask. I’ll see if—” A surge of voices from the few rows of chairs, “Mr. Mayor . . . Mr. Mayor . . . Mr. . . .” All the reporters, all at once, clamoring for his attention, which is just what he wants, so he can turn away from me toward one of the others, so I can’t finish what I’m saying, which is that I’ll see if I can get permission to bring in names of people who’ve been paid to vote, or not vote. I’m cut short, but I’ve recorded two minutes of contentious Q-and-A to bring back to the newsroom for our six o’clock broadcast. The mayor is riled, and the broadcast producers love him when he is. And the redder his cheeks, the more wobbly his waddle, the better. It makes for good pictures, easy to promote on the air during the afternoon—“Mayor Daley Explodes at...

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