Just finished reading American Pharaoh, Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation, by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor.
This is not just a biography. Because of his position as boss and builder of Chicago for so long, Daley's story is a geopolitical history of that city and an examination of machine politics - not to mention a dramatic account of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. There are also all sorts of juicy stories about Daley's use and misuse of planning powers and federal War on Poverty and Model Cities program funds.
Daley had a knack for avoiding issues and events that didn't help him politically. In the heat of a segregation battle in which Martin Luther King had engaged, Daley effectively positioned the real estate brokers as the bad guys for not selling and leasing to blacks - side stepping the elephant in the room - his public housing policies and the policies of the school board he controlled.
In the final pages of the book the authors come to this somewhat remarkable conclusion - he did it all for power, not for money.
Daley may have presided over a system that was inherently corrupt. Jobs were given out on the basis of political work, not ability to perform, and workers were fired if they did not fulfill their political obligations. Work for the Democratic machine was routinely done on city time, and patronage employees were expected to kick back part of their salaries to their ward organizations. Votes were stolen, and decisions of government bodies on matters like zoning were for sale. But there is no evidence Daley ever gained financially from it.