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Chicago machine redirects here. For the Major League Lacrosse team, see Chicago Machine. Major League Lacrosse is a professional outdoor Lacrosse league that is made up of teams within the United States.

The Cook County Democratic Organization was and is one of the most powerful political machines in American history. A political machine is an unofficial system of a political organization based on Patronage, the Spoils system, "behind-the-scenes" control and longstanding Commonly called the "Chicago machine", the organization dominated Chicago politics from the 1930s through the 1970s. Chicago (ʃɪˈkɑːgoʊ is the largest City by population in the state of Illinois and the American Midwest of the United States. It relied on a tight organizational structure of ward bosses and precinct captains to maintain discipline, as well as patronage and graft to reward supporters. In Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, a ward is an Electoral district A precinct is a space enclosed by the walls or other boundaries of a particular place or building or by an arbitrary and imaginary line drawn around it Patronage is the support encouragement privilege and often financial aid given by a person or an organization

Before the 1930s, the Democratic Party in Chicago was divided along ethnic lines - the Irish, Polish, Italian, and other groups each controlled politics in their neighborhoods. The Democratic Party is one of two major Political parties in the United States, the other being the Republican Party. Irish Americans (Gael-Mheiriceánach are citizens of the United States who can claim ancestry originating in Ireland. A Polish American is an American citizen of Polish descent There are an estimated 10 million Americans of Polish descent An Italian American is an American of Italian descent and/or dual citizenship Under the leadership of Anton Cermak, the party consolidated its ethnic bases into one large organization. Anton (Tony Joseph Cermak, in Czech Antonín Josef Čermák, (ˈantɔɲiːn ˈjɔzɛf ˈtʃ͡ɛrmaːk ( May 9, 1873 &ndash March With the organization behind, Cermak was able to win election as mayor of Chicago in 1931, an office he held until his assassination in 1933. The Mayor of Chicago is the Chief executive of Chicago, Illinois, the third largest City in the United AssassiNation is the sixth album by Krisiun, released in 2006 on Century Media.

After Cermak's death, Patrick Nash and Edward J. Kelly took control of the machine. Edward Joseph Kelly ( May 1, 1876 &ndash October 20, 1950; buried in Calvary Cemetery) They were able to add African-Americans to the organization's fold, as they had been previously loyal to Republicans since the Civil War. African Americans or Black Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa Causes of the war See also Origins of the American Civil War, Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War The coexistence of a slave-owning South Due to scandals and liberal policies on housing, Kelly lost favor with the machine.

Jacob Arvey assumed the chair of the organization after Nash's death in 1943 and Kelly's ouster in 1947. Arvey wanted to clean up the image of the machine, so he put reformers on the slate, such as Martin H. Kennelly for mayor, Paul Douglas for United States Senate, and Adlai Stevenson for governor of Illinois. Martin H Kennelly (born August 11, 1887; died November 29, 1961; buried in Calvary Cemetery) served as mayor of Paul Howard Douglas (March 26 1892 &ndash September 24 1976 was an American politician and University of Chicago economist. The United States Senate is the Upper house of the bicameral United States Congress, the Lower house being the House of Representatives This is about the mid-20th-century politician and diplomat for other American politicians so named see Adlai Stevenson (disambiguation.

Worried about the power of the reform movement, the organization turned to Richard J. Daley, who brought the Cook County Democratic Organization to the height of its power and notoriety. Richard Joseph Daley ( May 15, 1902 – December 20, 1976) served for 21 years as the undisputed Democratic boss of Chicago Daley took the reins of the machine in 1955, and successfully put himself on the machine's slate for mayor. He won election fairly easily, and ruled the city and machine for the next twenty years.

The most famous example of the Chicago machine in action was in the 1960 presidential election. The United States presidential election of 1960 marked the end of Dwight D Daley believed John F. Kennedy would be a tremendous help to Democratic candidates on the ticket, and so he used all the machine's power to turn out the vote for Kennedy. John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29 1917&ndashNovember 22 1963 often referred to by his initials JFK, was the thirty-fifth President of Kennedy won Illinois by only 9,000 votes, yet won Cook County by 450,000 votes, with some Chicago precincts going to Kennedy by over 10 to 1 margins. Illinois' 27 electoral votes helped give Kennedy the majority he needed. The Electoral College consists of 538 popularly elected representatives who formally select the President and Vice President of the United States.

Under the regular machine was an African-American "sub-machine" led by William L. Dawson. William Levi Dawson ( April 26 1886 - November 9 1970) was an African American politician and lawyer who was involved in local politics In the predominantly African-American wards, Dawson was able to act as his own political boss, handing out patronage and punishing rivals just as Daley could in the larger machine. However, Dawson's machine had to continually support the regular machine in order to retain its own clout.

The power of the machine began to wane during the 1960s and 1970s. Racial tension over issues such as open housing and public school desegregation drove African-Americans from the machine, as the machine tended to side with its white ethnic base (who started to flee the city for the suburbs). Desegregation is the process of ending Racial segregation, most commonly used in reference to the United States. Though Daley himself never faced any criminal charges, a number of his associates did, including Thomas Keane and Arvey. After Daley's death in 1976, the machine lost even more of its influence. Michael Bilandic, Daley's successor, did not have nearly the power that Daley did, and indeed lost in a 1979 mayoral primary to Jane Byrne. Michael Anthony Bilandic ( February 13, 1923 – January 16, 2002) was an Illinois Politician who served as the Jane Margaret Byrne (born May 24, 1934) was the first and to date only female Mayor of Chicago. Reform movements also eliminated many of the patronage jobs that it previously could hand out, reducing the number of voters who owed their livelihoods to the Democratic party.

Some argue that the machine ended when Bilandic lost the mayoral Democratic primary to Jane Byrne, and that the last remnants of the machine finally collapsed during the racially charged three-way mayoral primary in 1983. Jane Margaret Byrne (born May 24, 1934) was the first and to date only female Mayor of Chicago. This is an oversimplification of a complex network of relationships and political structures; the reality is that the machine was never monolithic and that damage to some of the machine's branches never destroyed its roots. It is true that after Byrne's victory, the machine had no one central leader, and it became unusually divided as its chieftains vied for power. Byrne's base of support, both politically and popularly, was on the Northwest side of Chicago, and to a lesser extent the Southeast, and she also benefitted from the first flexing of independent African-American electoral power. However, while originally a Daley appointee, Byrne did not have the backing of the powerful Southwest Side political clans (Daley, Madigan, Hynes, etc. ), and while she enjoyed for a while the support of George Dunne, her election occurred without her ever taking simultaneous control of the city or county Democratic Party; thus she could not wield the power of a boss.

The split between Party and City Hall did lead to a period of demise of the Machine, and when Richard J. Daley's son Richard M. Daley challenged Byrne for mayor in 1983, it enabled an historic coalition of African-American, Hispanic, and "good government" or "lakefront" liberals to coalesce. Richard Michael Daley (born April 24 1942 is a United States Politician, member of the national and local Democratic Party and current mayor Good government is a normative description of how government is supposed to be constituted Liberalism is a broad array of related ideas and theories of Government that consider individual Liberty to be the most important political goal Harold Washington emerged as the victor in the three-way primary election and the machine, for the next five years, was weaker and more divided than ever before. Harold Washington ( April 15 1922 – November 25 1987) was an American Lawyer and Politician who became the The split in the Chicago City Council and Chicago Democratic politics, largely along racial lines, led to several prominent machine Democrats, notably Cook County Democratic Party chairman Edward Vrdolyak, defecting to the Republicans. Edward Robert Vrdolyak (ˈɛdwɚd vɚˈdoʊliæk born 1937 is a noted Chicago lawyer and politician Washington's supporters and allies waged unprecedented battle not only for positions such as alderman and state representative, but for the relatively obscure (to the public) party positions of ward and state central committeeman, as well as some countywide positions, and achieved numerous successes, primarily on the largely African-American South and West Side, in the Hispanic communities, on the north lakefront, and in the liberal communities clustered around the University of Chicago. Committeemen and Committeewomen are functionaries within the apparatus of Political parties in the United States. The University of Chicago is a Private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. However, the dominance of machine politics on the northwest and southwest sides, and in some of the western and southern suburbs of Cook County, was never seriously challenged.

Similar to the weakening of the machine after Richard J. Daley's death, the Washington coalition wobbled and then collapsed after Washington's death in the fall of 1987, only a half-year into his second term. No subsequent African-American candidate was able to unify the West and South Side African-American communities as Washington had, nor mobilize the same degree of support among white liberals. The machine was able in the 1988 primary election to woo several prominent formerly independent, anti-machine leaders, such as Carol Moseley Braun and Luis Gutiérrez, to back the county organization's slate, further splintering the loose independent coalition. Carol Elizabeth Moseley Braun (born August 16, 1947) is an American Politician and Lawyer who represented Illinois in the Luís Vicente Gutiérrez (born December 10 1953) American politician has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives

Richard J. Daley's son Richard M. Daley was elected mayor in 1989, and rebuilt a powerful political organization that has reelected him four times. Richard Michael Daley (born April 24 1942 is a United States Politician, member of the national and local Democratic Party and current mayor This bloc has involved Daley reaching out to the growing Hispanic community, as well as retaining old machinist wards, and raising unprecedented campaign funds. Unlike his father, the younger Daley also reached out to those who initially opposed him, and primarily through negotiated apportionment of city funds for aldermen's local projects, was able to gain the support of the City Council to a degree that even the elder Daley never enjoyed. Most of the former "independents," granted a share of the budget and thus the ability to fund their support base, became, themselves, permanent incumbents; in return they supported Daley and gave up on efforts to challenge City Hall's control over the largest contracts and projects, and the machine's control over slating.

In recent years, investigations, indictments, and criminal convictions for hiring fraud and graft, including the federal conviction of the current Mayor Daley's patronage chief, have left little doubt that the machine, if it ever died, was reincarnated since its apparent collapse in the early 1980s. In July, 2005, a federal court-appointed monitor reported widespread abuses of a previous court decree against patronage hiring, and the President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners alone still controls 500 political jobs. The Cook County Board of Commissioners is a legislative body made up of 17 commissioners who are elected by district for four year terms The U. S. Attorney's office contended in 2006 that the machine had been rebuilt [1]. Although jobs-for-political-work still is a significant component of the machine, the exchange of lucrative contracts for political contributions, such as documented in the investigation of the Hired Truck Program scandal, probably has eclipsed classical patronage as a tool of machine politics in Cook County. The Hired Truck Program was a scandal-plagued program in the city of Chicago that involved hiring private trucks to do city work

The election of former Cook County Board president John Stroger's son Todd Stroger in 2006 was viewed by most not so much a sign that the machine has been reborn, as that it never went away. John H Stroger Jr ( May 19 1929 &ndash January 18 2008) was an American politician who served from 1994 until 2006 as the Todd Stroger (born January 14, 1963) is the current Cook County Illinois, Board president and former Alderman for the 8th Ward in However, as has been the case for over half a century [2], no one individual or even small group holds central power [3], schism such as that between South and West Side persist [4], and the likelihood of the various machine politicians continuing to act as free agents, rather than automatic team players, creates the potential for further change.

On February 1, 2007, Joseph Berrios was unanimously elected Chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party.

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