Customer Reviews

Legend: The Only Inside Story About Mayor Richard J. Daley

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This is a memoir about the late Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago written by his press secretary. It explains how Daley was able to win support from substantial majorities of that city's voters from all racial and ethnic groups in six consecutive elections. The author, a former newspaper reporter, tells the story fairly but with obvious admiration for his subject.

I've been wanting to learn more about Chicago history and so when I found Legend in the bargain bin a few months back I decided to pick it up. I'm not sure what I was expecting but I wasn't particularly impressed with it.

First of all, it was written by one of Richard J. Daley's Press Secretaries, whose background was in reporting. He clearly didn't know how to write a book-length story and so this book was cut up into tons of chapters, each only 2 or 3 pages long. There was absolutely no flow to it. It was not in chronological order and essentially repeated much of the information over and over again.

I guess I was hoping it would give me a good background of Richard J. Daley, and move into some of the high and lowlights of his political career. Instead, it basically only touched on isolated events and showed examples of his political savviness. However, I did not need 10 chapters to serve as examples of the same point.

Overall, I learned a few things but it really read like a series of newspaper clippings, most of which were covering the same few things. I would have liked a more cohesive, chronological narrative and more background on Mayor Richard J. Daley.

Friends of a rogue usually cannot be expected to write an objective biography..This is especially the case when the writer was part and parcel of the rogue behaviour..Upon his election as Mayor of the city of Chicago in 1955 Richard J.Daley was already practiced at turning a blind eye to all of the political corruption going on around him.Daley wanted power,and was quite willing to ignore corruption in order to aquire and maintain it.Now some may say,and without apology,that this is the way of things in politics,it nonetheless is instructive that one of Daley's first official acts once he assumed the office of mayor was to abolish all independent investigative bodies and have that power transferred to the mayor himself.To make matters even worse,and more hypocritical,Daley made sure that this action allowed the mayor,Daley himself,to pass judgement on any allegations made,investigated,or uncovered by agents beholden to the mayor alone.Thus in one move Daley abolished corruption in his city because only he would have the means to discover all of the facts and only he would have the power to use these facts,or ignore them.So the many books,written by friends ,co-workers,and relatives which tiptoe past the real Richard J.Daley in order to present a sanitised version,or those works,like this one,that excuses Daley on everything that was wrong with himself and his long,dictatorial administration have little merit,except perhaps as fiction.
Daley was a"Boss",with all of the ego that such a term implies...And while,under his long administration,certain changes and improved conditions did occur,they only did so as to Daley's whim,rather than as any true response to the will of the public at large..Further,Daley tolerated the corruption of many of those around him..He knew about it,accepted it,and did all in his power to avoid having to clean house in the way that any HONEST politician might do..While Daley himself may have been without stain those around him certainly were not,and it is beyond belief that Daley knew nothing whatever about this..To further complicate matters,Daley rewarded first his family and then his close pals often at the direct expense of the people..If that was not indirect corruption then nothing is...
None of this is dealt with in a volume like this one..Instead we have a portrait that is highly selective,one showing only the "good" that Richard Daley alledgedly accomplished while ignoring or excusing all of the rest.