Chapter II Summary and Analysis

Daley grows up as a "small town boy" in a time when it was still possible to do so in Chicago. It was before the shifting society and suburban sprawl came to pass. The north and west neighborhoods of Chicago are heavy in German, Polish, Irish, Italian and Jewish populations. Southwest Chicago is home to eastern Europeans. In every neighborhood there are ingredients of a small town—the baseball field, the bakery, the neighborhood drunk, main street, the barber shop. There is enough industry within the neighborhoods to support jobs for most of the population. Most people stay within their borders and marry within their ethnicity. One ethnic group has nothing but fear, suspicion and hatred for another. One is safe only in his own neighborhood and with his own kind.

Richard J. Daley was born in 1902 into...