"My dad came out of the Roosevelt era and the Depression. One person and one party made a difference in his life. That's what everybody forgot when they called my father and other people political bosses"

Richard M. Daley evokes a profound sense of historical continuity and personal legacy when reflecting on his father's political identity. He situates his father's worldview within the context of the Roosevelt era and the Great Depression, two pivotal periods in American history that reshaped the nation's understanding of government responsibility and individual opportunity. The hardships of the Depression left lasting scars on millions; for many, Franklin D. Roosevelt and his Democratic Party offered hope and tangible aid through unprecedented social programs and reforms. Daley’s father, like countless Americans from working-class backgrounds, directly benefited from those interventions. The sense that governmental action could have an immediate, positive impact became more than an abstract political idea; it was intensely personal, intertwined with survival and dignity.

The passage acknowledges how these experiences forged a generation’s faith in both party and leadership, underlining that political loyalty was not mere tribalism but gratitude rooted in lived realities. For Daley’s father, and others shaped by deprivation and revival, his sustained loyalty to a specific party and its programs represented a rational, even moral, decision. Daley laments how such personal histories have been brushed aside or forgotten, glossed over by later critics who label political figures of his father’s generation merely as “bosses.” This pejorative misses the nuances and motivations that shaped their leadership.

Rather than power-hungry manipulators, many so-called “bosses” were custodians of a vision born from crisis and recovery; they remembered a system before help arrived and dedicated themselves to ensuring their communities never regressed. To dismiss their actions as self-serving overlooks the gratitude and obligation felt toward structures that had lifted them from despair. Daley insists on a more empathetic, historically-aware understanding of those figures, leaders born from adversity, whose loyalty to their party was, in many respects, an expression of hope repaid.