The machine was greased by patronage jobs and “sweetheart” contracts and by elected officials (even judges) often slated more for their loyalties than their abilities. It was a feudal structure dominated by white ethnic ward bosses, and it left the burgeoning black and Hispanic communities on the outside looking in. Yet when JFK needed votes for the Civil Rights Act, he could count on Mayor Richard J. Daley to deliver them—and the mayor, in turn, could count on largesse from Washington with which to build his city.
