Cecil A. Partee Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Q: This was an annual fund-raising affair. Were there other smaller affairs
such as precinct fund-raising activities?
A: Not very much in a precinct, fund-raising activities, no. Just generally
for a ward activity of one sort or another.
Q: By 1957, Mr. Daley had become mayor. When did you first meet him?
A: He became mayor in 1955. I think I met him in 1955 when he first ran for
mayor. He came to our ward to speak and I met him.
Q: Did you have much to do with Mayor Daley and the higher level of the
organization as president?'
A: Not until 1971when I became a committeeman. Then I had more direct
contact.
Q: You had committee meetings periodically, then, with all the committeemen?
A: Yes, you would have a county--see, when you are a committeeman you became
an automatic member of the county central committee and the central city
committee--city committee and the county committee. And, of course, the
presiding officer in each of those was the mayor.
Q: So in 1971 on, then, you were involved in those type meetings?
A: Yes.
Q: How often did they meet?
A: Oh, two or three times a year.
Q: Only that often?
A: Yes. More often just prior to an election or something significant like
that.
Q: Yes, T was just going to ask, as the elections came up, on slate-making
and that sort of thing, there would be mare.
A: There were more frequent meetings, yes.
Q: In the slate-making procese, was this done primarily by the entire group?
A: By the county central committee, that's correct.
Q: Was there much controversy in committee action on that?
A: No, there was not. The mayor who was also chairman would put out feelers
in terms of picking candidates and he wou1.d normally have some recommendations
and most of those recommendations were pretty sound and there was not a great