Unknown Armies: The King is Dead
"I have struck a city-a real city-and they call it Chicago… Having seen it, I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages."
Rudyard Kipling, From Sea to Sea - Letters of Travel
It's not so long, you know, since this was one of the smaller places in the state. Dearborn, they called it, Fort Dearborn, and there were scarce a thousand when the nineteenth century came in. By the end, there were over a million. The farmers, the cowboys, the slaughterers, and the men on the make.
“It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with Chicago - she outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make them. She is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you saw when you passed through the last time.”
Mark Twain
Industry came to Illinois, and the men who make their money from industry are shadows. They do not expose themselves to the world's gaze, their money hires men to keep them hidden, to protect their secrets, to keep them apart from you. You know them only as a distant connection. The word for it, in our culture, is boss. An older culture called them kings.
“Chicago was a town where nobody could forget how the money was made. It was picked up from floors still slippery with blood.”
Norman Mailer
In New York, they called it Tammany Hall. It brought hatred, bitter resentment, and rage. In Chicago, it was simply the way things were. Rich fathers passed on rich pickings to sons who grew richer, hired men to make them still richer. Money begat power begat money begat power begat... the Machine.
Even the Lord had skeptical members of his party. One betrayed him, one denied him and one doubted him.
Mayor Richard J. Daley
The Democratic party made Chicago its spiritual home. In a later time, about a fictional place, a man would say that he who controlled the City controlled the Country, and for the Machine, that was true. Democrats were bought and sold on the floor at the Chicago Convention.
They have vilified me, they have crucified me; yes, they have even criticized me.
Mayor Richard J. Daley
These dynasties, these bloodlines, have held Chicago in their thrall for over a century, coming slowly out of the woodwork - but yet, not too far. Under Daley, no film could be made in Chicago. Under Daley, other cities had to pass for Chicago. Even in the 1990s, Vancouver passed for Chicago - but in order to do so, Vancouver had to be coated with rubbish, with graffiti. Crews would return after lunch to find the illusion scrubbed away, a city's will, and a city's fear of what it might become.
The confrontation was not created by the police; the confrontation was created by the people who charged the police. Gentlemen, let's get the thing straight, once and for all. The policeman isn't there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder.
Mayor Richard J. Daley
Eight years ago, the Machine was hurt, and Chicago's natives saw a chance to get away. Mayor Daley responded in force. Four years ago, the Machine slipped a gear, and Chicago, for the first time since the Machine's birth, did not buy itself a Presidential candidate. It chose instead to bury its knife in the winner. By then, the city had already begun to bleed. By then, the housing projects were rising up for something better. By then, there were snipers in Cabrini Green.
I have conferred with the superintendent of police this morning and I gave him instructions that an order be issued by him immediately and under his signature to shoot to kill any arsonist or anyone with a Molotov cocktail in his hand.
Mayor Richard J. Daley
In an occult sense, as much as a political one, the Machine ruled Chicago. Nothing happened that the Machine did not permit. And at the head of that Machine, the wheel that kept momentum, sat Mayor Richard J. Daley.
No, sir. Mayor Daley doesn't eat here anymore... He's dead, sir.
Alan 'Mr Fabulous' Rubin
Last night, Richard J. Daley was pronounced dead. Whatever the reasons... 1976 ends with a chance to turn the damnation decade around midway. It ends with a chance to change Chicago. For the better.
The King is Dead.