The first Mayor Daley contributed 23 of the 46 chromosomes in every cell of the current Mayor Daley’s body. This much we know scientifically. But Chicagoans aren’t satisfied with the limits of modern biological research, so finding more similarities between the two Daleys has become an indigenous sport. It’s a sport, however, that has yet to be organized, so in the spirit of public service we present the following convenient comparison chart. Having scoured the lives and idiosyncrasies of father and son, we’ve found many close parallels, some near parallels that worked once we forced them a little, and a few definite differences.
Like the father’s government, the son’s is run by “a tight little group of family Bridgeporters and a very tight inside group, and the only nonfamily or non-Bridgeporter in there is [chief policy adviser Frank] Kruesi,” says Rose. Most observers agree with Rose’s assessment, describing an inner circle composed of Daley’s three brothers, particularly William; chief financial officer Edward Bedore, budget director under the original Daley and Michael Bilandic; intergovernmental affairs chief Timothy Degnan, who took Daley’s vacated state senate seat in 1980; and lone non-Bridgeporter Kruesi, a University of Chicago graduate usually identified with the modifier “intellectual.”
We have tried to cover as many such political parallels as possible in the following chart, but we have also tried to look at Daley the man. Unfortunately, some of the more personal points we hoped to include are missing, due to reluctance at the mayor’s press office to tell us what tailor he prefers (his father patronized House of Duro), what his favorite song is (his father’s was the Irish folk song “Garryowen”), and what his kids got him for his first birthday in office (the elder Daley received some cuff links, a pink tie, and a brown and yellow tie). Deputy press secretary Carolyn Grisko declined comment on all points. Asked if the questions were too controversial, she replied somewhat disjointedly, “It’s just not something . . . We don’t have all the information on it, so we’re going to take a pass.”
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De La Salle Institute, class of 1919
DePaul University, BA 1965
Richard M. Daley: Universally remembered as a nice, quiet, hardworking kid. The only unsavory detail that history records from Daley’s youth is his 1962 ticket for running a stop sign at Huron and Rush at the tender age of 19. Even then, the Sun-Times headline was “Mayor’s Son Gets Ticket, Uses No Clout,” with a subhead reading “Quiet Boy.”
