I have seen the 1960 election and my native state of Illinois referred
to in here and in media as a state that was somehow stolen. People
think it is ironic that Bill Daley, son of the late Mayor Richard J.
Daley, is involved in this election.
First, remove Illinois' 1960 electoral votes from JFK and give them to
Nixon and JFK still wins.
Second, vote stealing in Illinois was practiced by the Democratic
machine in Chicago and by the downstate Republican machine. The usual
tactic was to hold back the vote until the other side blinked and then
announce more votes that the other side had announced. Such tactics of
the machines of both parties gave us Democrats such as Governor Adlai
Stevenson, and Senator Paul Douglas, and Republicans such as Governor
Bill Stratton and Senator Everitt Dirksen.
In 1960 something different happened. Understand that the Kennedy
family owns Merchandise Mart (since the 1930s, I believe) and that in
the 1950s Sarge Shriver, husband of Eunice Kennedy, was head of the M.
Mart and president of the Chicago Board of Education. Chicago is the
most Roman Catholic city in the US, largest archdiocese and largest
school system, etc.
Currently one of RFK's sons operates the M. Mart and was considering a
run for Congress from the North Shore, so the Kennedy connection
continues.
Given those factors, how do you think a Kennedy did in Roman Catholic
Chicago?
Let me tell you as someone who lived in Chicago in 1960, in a Republican
household: JFK swept Chicago, period.
It was the one time that Daley didn't resort to the usual tactics. The
reality was that Daley released something like 95% of the Chicago vote
as quickly as possible. The downstate Republicans were stunned by the
size of the Chicago margin and spent all evening trying to steal enough
votes to top the Chicago results; they failed, and Illinois went for
JFK. The vote was held up from Illinois that night not because of Daley
but because of the downstate Republcans trying to steal the election.
As I said, in the electoral college, it didn't matter.
I fought the Daley machine many years before I moved to Michigan,
following Mayor Richard J. Daley's death. Having gone through the 1968
Democrtatic convention and the April 1968 "shoot to kill" order, the
1969 Weatherman Days of Rage, the 1969 shotting of Fred Hampton and Mark
Clark, the 1970 police riot at a Sly and the Family Stone concert (of
all things) and as someone who worked against Daley in every election
from 1964 through 1977 (and continued to financially contribute to the
anti-machine people when I moved to Michigan), I am no Daley apologist.
Daley did not steal the 1960 election, he didn't even steal Illinois.
Not that year, not that election, didn't have to. It angers me to hear
the same old thing said over and over and over. It is a nice story but
it ain't true.
The Bill Daley who heads the Gore campaign is the late Mayor's son and a
former Secretary of Commerce and brother of thew current mayor of
Chicago. They do their own things and should be judged on that.
And as far as current day Chicago goes... still Democratic. The last
three Republican candidates for mayor combined didn't hit 10% of the
vote - each got about 3% in each election (my favorite GOP candidate was
Ray Warddingly, who is a professional clown).
And for Illinois: Bush in 1992 and Dole in 1996 didn't even campaign in
Illinois after the Republican convention because the state was so strong
for Clinton. This year Bush campaigned some but still lost bigtime in
Illinois.
Say what you will about all this Florida thing, please put aside the
untrue story that Daley stole Illinois and elected JFK in 1960. Just
isn't true.
(the Rev) Vince
