Will Daly

Will H. Daly (May 25, 1869 – March 23, 1924) was a Portland, Oregon, labor leader, progressive politician and businessman. He was the first person to head both the Oregon State Federation of Labor and the Central Labor Council of Portland. He was also the first labor leader to serve on the Portland City Council, but was unsuccessful in a mayoral bid, largely due to a vigorous campaign to discredit him by The Oregonian, the city's largest newspaper. He was active in the People's Power League. Daly was also a supporter of the single tax schemes advocated by followers of the popular political economist Henry George.

Daly was born on May 25, 1869, in Springfield, Illinois to Patrick and Lucy Daly, a working-class couple. His father died when he was only eight, and two years later he began his working career in the printing business, earning his journeyman's card by age 17, and by 31 had worked his way up to the plant foreman's position at the Springfield Leader-Democrat, one of the two major daily newspapers in the city at the time.

After the death of his mother in 1901, Daly and wife, the former Daisy Flannery, whom he had married in 1892, moved west to Oregon. They stayed briefly in Salem, then settled in Portland where he took a position with the Oregonian. In 1907, he left the paper to work for the Portland Linotype, where he remained until 1911.

Throughout his career, he had been active in progressive politics and organized labor, gaining election to both the Portland printer's local and the Oregon State Federation of Labor in 1908. His hard-line leftist views were evident in a speech he gave at a labor parade in 1909 introducing socialist "Big Bill" Haywood, denouncing a "great clamor from all quarters that the labor unions should be purged of the radical element." His strong stand for labor and political radicalism earned him growing support among the rank and file of Portland working people, and eventually some small business operators, but his socialist ties would yield adverse impact on his later political ambitions.

...
Wikipedia