Wednesday, March 9, 2011

There sits Buddha, face unfathomable, hooded eyes of blue ice, nose stubborn and strong. Lines like deep parentheses bracket his thin lips; beneath them is a small chin, and beneath that is a big chin. Five-and-a-half feet high, close to 200 lbs. wide, he is swathed in a cautious dark suit from which peeps an embroidered breast-pocket handkerchief with a monogram: R.J.D.

Buddha speaks--and his pronouncements are aphorisms. "Leadership," he says, "has to be formulated on the basis of what's good for Chicago. If something is in the public interest, then it is in the party's interest. Good government is good politics."

Buddha moves--but only to rub his fingers back and forth across the edge of his desk. That desk, clean of papers, may be the most important place in Chicago. For it is the desk of Mayor Richard Joseph Daley, 60. In Chicago, Daley is boss. Few others understand so well what the city is all about: its labyrinths of power, the pulsators of its machinery, the structure of its institutions, the yearnings of its people. Chicago's motto, I WILL, is Daley's personal and political charter. Buddha though he is, he gets things done. Says a leading businessman: "Nothing ever happens in Chicago without landing on Daley's desk for decision." Daley, with characteristic caution, agrees. "We participate in one way or another." he says, "in the important things that happen."

Labels: 1960s, 1963, politics, Richard J. Daley

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