Saturday, April 21, 2012

On Richard J. Daley

Tough customer. Flawed human-being. Excellent mayor. American original.

10 comments:

dmarks said...

I destest his son, who during his campaign said that the city needed a "white mayor", and destroyed the city airport (illegally and under cover of the night) in order to reward his business cronies.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

The son absolutely paled in comparison, I agree.

dmarks said...

snicker.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Seriously, look at how much better Chicago did during the 60s and 70s compared to those other rust-belt cities like Cleveland and Detroit; economically, during the riots, etc.. The guy, warts and all, clearly knew how to mayor.

Dervish Sanders said...

Didn't you say I was going to accuse you of racism for praising this guy?

According to Wikipedia, "In 1966, Martin Luther King, Jr. confronted the Daley machine... Daley called for a 'summit conference' and signed an agreement with King... to foster open housing. The agreement was without legal standing and ignored. King's efforts in Chicago were largely unsuccessful, and his failure in Chicago was a serious setback for the Civil Rights Movement".

This must be what you were talking about. Yeah, I don't think I agree with referring to racism as a "flaw" and letting it go at that. Or maybe he did it for political reasons? I'm not familiar with the history.

But I do recall you took a different view when a certain Democrat failed to support an anti-lynching bill.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

No, I was referring to the fact that he was willing to "shoot to kill" in order to keep the peace during the riots.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

I wasn't a part of those negotiations, either, wd, and being that neither was Mr. King a "flawless" individual, I'm not entirely certain that I would put the entire blame on Mr. Daley.

Dervish Sanders said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dervish Sanders said...

So, sometimes you're willing to defend "flawed" individuals, and sometimes you totally eviscerate them for their flaws. I guess the latter is more likely if you disagree with their economic policies.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

I said that Daley was a great mayor (most historians rank among the best big city mayors), not that he was a stellar human being. The same could probably be said of JFK, too; great President, not so perfect in other regards.............I criticized FDR for things that he did as President, one of which was his lack of support for an anti-lynching bill (not exactly a close call on that one, I would think). I also gave him much credit for being a great war-time President. I call them the way that I see them, wd. You call them the way that you see them. I'm not exactly sure what your problem here is.