Mike Royko's article on Mayor Daley from 1972
Mike Royko: Over his 42-year career, he wrote more than 7,500 daily columns for the Chicago Daily News, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Chicago Tribune.
http://archive.today/2026.07.12-213017/https://roselandchicago1972.substack.com/p/mike-royko-50-years-ago-today-58a
June 26, 1972
“Like any public official, Mayor Daley has been accused from time to time of not spending the taxpayers’ money as wisely as he might,” “But the mayor seems to be considering a dramatic economy move in the future,” “He would save us money this way: “All over the city are signs that bear his name, such as ‘Welcome to Chicago, Richard J. Daley, Mayor.’
“Some day, maybe in 1975 and surely in this century, Daley will step aside.
“When that happens, all those signs will be obsolete and would have to be replaced.
“That will be a sad day for the wunnerful people of this wunnerful city, and the thought of it probably bothers the mayor as much as anyone.
“But he apparently has found a way to avoid wasting all those fine signs.
“Instead of replacing them, they could be salvaged by merely changing one letter—the middle initial.
“Then they would read: ‘Welcome to Chicago, Richard M. Daley, mayor.’”
Older Readers may pause and remember— “Oh right, there did used to be a time when it was not inevitable that the real Mayor Daley’s son would be mayor even longer than his father.”
For Youngish Readers, Mayor Daley’s son, Richard M. Daley, probably feels like the real Mayor Daley—and they perhaps didn’t know much about the guy with the same name who came earlier, until they read up on the ‘60s for a college class.
Or—just going by how my brain worked as a kid—I could see some Younger Readers hearing about “Mayor Daley” in various time periods and assuming it was all the same guy. Kind of a political Highlander, but Irish. Who pays attention to middle initials?