I don’t think I’m buying into this. I have not heard local commentators like the late Mike Royko link either Daley I or Daley II to the mob. The fact that Daley I got a huge vote in the mobbed-up 1st Ward is no big deal; he got numbers like that in most wards.
Daley didn’t bust the mob, but he wasn’t part of it.
For those of you who think papa Daley, John F. Kennedy or Harry Truman didn’t have mob connections, please read an outstanding book titled, “The Outfit: The Role of Chicago’s Underworld” by Gus Russo. Anyone who does not believe the mob was entangled with Chicago politics is either naive, dumb or totally unaware of what the city is all about. Perhaps Mike Royko didn’t write about it because he wanted to stay alive and it’s better to have friends in the mob than enemies.