History of Chicago from Trading Post to Metropolis
External Studies Program | University College

Module 2 Chapter 1
Political Wars in Chicago, 1873 to 1886

 

Depiction of the Haymarket Riots Image © Chicago Historical Society

Ethnic Politics: An Introduction

What issues interested voters in the 1870's and 1880's? By studying some of those issues we can begin to understand the experience of living in a city changing rapidly from a trade center into a major industrial and manufacturing center. How people voted cannot explain why they voted as they did, but an analysis of the issues discussed and debated tells us a great deal about the kind of society voters wanted to live in.

In the 1870's and 1880's, the basic determinants of political behavior were religion and ethnicity, but Chicago's political wars were fought over the question of prohibition. This movement, to abolish the sale and consumption of all alcohol, symbolized the division in Chicago society between a white, Protestant, American culture, and an immigrant, Catholic, Irish, German counterpart. Prohibition for the first group was good, for the second it was evil. Both sides raised the problem in every mayoral election between 1873 and 1886, Republicans generally supporting a ban on saloons or alcohol, while the Democratic party steadfastly opposed it. More than anything else, prohibition symbolized the cultural and religious conflicts that divided Chicago voters.

The movement to abolish alcohol first came to Chicago in 1834 with the establishment of a Temperance Society. Over the next twenty-five years, thousands of Chicagoans took a voluntary pledge to abstain from the "demon rum," but thousands continued to drink and to upset the Temperance Society crusaders. Many viewed alcohol as the cause of almost every evil known to man. It destroyed families, led to the abuse of wives and children, and created serious health problems. Thus, people who would not stop drinking voluntarily had to be forced to give up their evil ways--for their own good. In 1855 prohibitionists persuaded the Illinois state legislature to pass a law that limited the sale of alcohol and closed saloons on Sundays, forcing drinkers to abstain at least on the Sabbath.

Attempts to enforce the Sunday-closing law that same year led to violence and death. Opponents, mainly German and Irish, began a march on city hall in 1855 but met a large force of police at the bridge over the Chicago River. Fifteen people were killed as they attempted to cross the bridge, and this tragedy showed the deep feeling that lay behind the issue of prohibition.

Ethnic voters--meaning recent immigrants--believed that prohibition laws and Sunday closing laws were only the beginning of an attack on their culture. If the state could close saloons on Sundays, next it might close them on other days of the week. In the future, fanatics might mandate that all persons had to speak English to be able to vote. Even worse, the state might interfere in local control of schools and prohibit the teaching of foreign languages. In any case, from the ethnic point of view saloons were not evil but places for sociability and neighborhood gossip where one could escape from the drudgery of job and home.

Chicago in the 1870's and 1880's appeared to be a poor place to crusade for prohibition because, as the figures below demonstrate, immigrants were in the majority in the population.

Ethnic groups tended to cluster in neighborhoods. The largest ethnic group in the city, the Germans, predominated on the north side. Wards 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 were heavily German in 1876. Irish voters clustered in wards 7 and 9 in 1869, and 6, 7, and 8 in 1876. Ward maps changed frequently but ethnic neighborhoods remained the same for long periods of time.

Ethnicity alone did not account totally for how a person voted. Religious differences split the largest ethnic group in the city, the Germans, and doctrinal disputes also split the non-ethnic population. German Catholics and German Lutherans brought with them from Germany a mutual hatred which showed up regularly in voting returns. With only a little exaggeration, it can be said that the two groups continued to fight battles of the Reformation in the voting booths of Chicago. Perhaps twenty-five percent of the German community belonged to the Lutheran Church, while fifty-five percent were Catholic and the rest non-church affiliated and this division played a major role in Chicago elections.

The split went deep, developing ever differing interpretations of Christian duty. For some Protestants, especially Methodists, Quakers, Presbyterians and Congregationalists, the essence of Christianity and salvation lay in perfecting the world before Christ's second coming. These denominations also stressed personal witness and a demonstration through action that one had truly become a believer. Other Protestants, mainly Episcopalians, Lutherans, and some Baptists stressed faith in the proper doctrines and creeds. A Christian did not earn his way to heaven by performing good works,--he merely believed and was baptized. These Protestants, much like the Catholic church, looked at reform such as prohibition as a futile attempt to improve a basically evil human nature.

The Republican party, which had been formed amidst a religious crusade against slavery, attracted reformers. The Democratic party, traditionally the party of compromise and the working man, led the battle against prohibition and other reforms. Republicans wanted to create a world perfect enough for the second coming of God. Democrats wanted to protect the cultural traditions that had protected them from the abuses of an evil world. On these terms the political battles in Chicago were fought.

The Crusade Against Liquor, 1871-1879

The Prohibition crusade had quieted down across the nation during the Civil War. Soon after slavery was abolished, however, the call for the abolition of the "demon rum" began anew. Illinois still had its Sunday-closing law but it had not been enforced in Chicago since the events of 1855. By 1871, though, a committee of reformers and ministers had organized in the city to pressure the mayor to enforce the law.

The Fire did not diminish the fervor of the Prohibitionist crusaders. In the mayoral election of 1871, which took place only a month after the Fire, reformers attached a plank to the Union-Fire Proof platform that pledged support of Sunday closing efforts. Because of the confusion and dislocations that resulted from the Fire, local political leaders decided to hold a non-partisan campaign to prevent political recriminations from adding to the trauma produced by the Fire. Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune, a Republican and former anti-slavery crusader, headed the Union-Fire Proof ticket. Medill promised to establish rigorous new fire codes in order to prevent future fires.

Chicago was flooded after the Fire with large numbers of single young men attracted by the high wages being offered by construction companies. To many residents these newcomers belonged to the "criminal class," as one newspaper put it. Saloons and gambling houses flourished in the areas where the construction workers lived. Many reformers after the election felt that these areas had to be cleaned out and demanded that Mayor Medill live up to his party's platform.

Medill at first refused to act. Pressure mounted after the Illinois legislature instituted a system of high license fees for the opening of a saloon. The new law gave mayors the authority to issue saloon licenses only to persons of good character, and required saloon owners to pay $3,000 for the purchase of a license. Late in 1872, Medill responded to the pressure and ordered his police chief to close saloons that had not paid the license fee, and to close all saloons on Sundays.

Medill's order led to the organization of a People's party dedicated to the overthrow of "Puritan rule." Heavily German and Irish, the People's party ran a single issue campaign, and chose as its candidate for mayor Harvey Colvin, the city treasurer. The party's platform held that temperance could be achieved but only after a long process of education.

Joseph Medill had left the city for reasons of health in the summer of 1873. In his absence, Lester Bond had served as mayor, and Bond became the candidate of a hastily organized "law and order" party that supported Sunday-closing laws. In the voters first chance to speak their will on the liquor question, they responded with an overwhelming show of support for the anti-prohibition campaign of the People's party. Colvin received over 60% of the vote.

Colvin had been mayor for less than a month when, late in December, a demonstration by more than 12,000 unemployed workers shook the city: they marched on city hall and demanded jobs or relief. A financial crisis, brought about by the failure of a large New York City bank, had led to a recession throughout the country, but it hit Chicago particularly hard because the building boom that had been underway was ground to a halt.

The mayor met the crowd at the door of city hall and promised to do all he could to alleviate suffering during the winter. After one alderman promised to supply the unemployed with all the bread they would need, subject to his reimbursal by the city, the demonstrators peacefully departed. There were no more demonstrations of unemployed during that winter.

The People's party kept its promise to repeal the Sunday-closing law. Early in 1874, the city council passed an ordinance that required all doors that face the street, in any building, to be closed on Sundays. The police would not interfere with what went on behind the closed doors.

The coalition that had formed to do battle with the Puritans in 1873 did not last long, however, German and Irish politicians fell to wrangling over patronage questions, and Colvin came under heated attack from the newspapers which accused him of turning over the city to thugs and gamblers. A scandal in the City Treasurer's office also hurt the People's party. In the summer of 1874, to add to Colvin's woes, another huge fire struck the city and destroyed over a thousand buildings on the near west side.

For several months in 1876, Chicago actually had two mayors at the same time, a situation that resulted from a change in Illinois election laws which moved mayoral elections from fall to spring. Because of the new law the next mayoral election in Chicago would not be held until April, 1877. Colvin maintained he should be mayor until that time. Opposition to Colvin mounted, however, and a citizen's meeting was held that officially proclaimed Thomas Hoyne, a businessman, mayor of Chicago. Colvin refused to leave city hall when Hoyne showed up. In the meantime, a state judge ordered a special election for the city to solve the problem. Three candidates ran in the special election: Monroe Heath, Republican candidate and former alderman; Mark Kimball, candidate of the remnant of the People's party; and James McGrath, representative of the Democratic party. Heath won the special election with over 64% of the vote. He ran well throughout the city on a campaign against the corrupt gang that had taken over Chicago and also ran as a moderate on the saloon issue, promising to close only the most nefarious and dirty saloons.

Nine months later, Heath ran a similar campaign in which he promised economy, retrenchment, and reform. For the first time the Republican party also ran a German-American for city treasurer. The Democrats attacked Heath for being a prohibitionist, though he had done nothing during his interim term to substantiate that charge, but they carried only two wards in the city, both heavily Irish. The Republican party swept the heavily German wards.

Heath had little time to begin his reform administration before a major railroad strike hit the city and led to violence and bloodshed. The strike had begun in the east after the Pennsylvania Railroad, with profits reduced by the continuing recession, had cut wages ten percent; this caused a violent confrontation between labor and police in Pittsburgh during which 26 strikers were killed. Many Chicagoans feared that same sort of violence would break out in their city, and their fear was justified.

At a mass meeting on the night of July 24, union organizers stressed the need for non-violence and announced the formation of a new political party in Chicago, The Workingman's party. The platform of that party called for an immediate 20 percent increase in the wages of all railroad workers and demanded an eight-hour day. The meeting was peaceful. In the minds of many people, however, labor unions suffered from a connection with violence and revolution. Many Chicagoans remembered the bloodshed associated with the Paris Commune of 1871, when the working-class actually took over Paris, and remembered the revolutionary stance taken by many European labor unions. The recent killings in Pittsburgh added further confirmation to the widely held belief that unionization meant class struggle and bloodshed.

Early in the morning of July 24th, the class struggle made its first appearance in Chicago. A crowd of four or five hundred demonstrators, many of them boys between the ages of 14 and 20 according to an eyewitness, gathered at the entrance of the city's main railroad yard. After some militant speeches, they raced into the yard and called for all work to stop immediately. The crowd, growing in numbers, eventually swept through every railroad yard in the city. By nightfall all train yards in the city had closed down. Chicagoans depended on the railroads for many things and all business in the city would stop within a few days if the strike continued.

On July 25, the demonstrators expanded their activities as they went from factory to factory calling for all workers to join in the strike. These forays into non-railroad territory met with varying success. At the huge McCormick Reaper Works at 26th and Western, the largest factory in the city, police scattered a crowd of railway men who had gathered at the front gate. As the strikers shouted at the workers entering the Reaper Works, calling on them to refuse to work, a clash with the police broke out that resulted in the death of a railway man. At other factories in the city similar conflicts with police led to the deaths of two other strikers. Many police and railway men were also injured.

Late in the day, Mayor Heath issued a call for 5,000 volunteers to patrol the streets. He had little trouble filling that quota. Plans were also made to call in the army if the violence did not subside.

The next day the violence hit its peak. When the strikers learned that Heath had called for federal troops, they occupied the area around 16th and Halsted where it was rumored that the troops were going to establish their headquarters. The troops had not yet arrived when Chicago police received orders to break up the crowd of 5,000 that had gathered at the bivouac site. The police charged, the strikers responded with rocks. When several policemen fired into the air the crowd scattered and many people ran down Halsted Street towards Twelfth Street. On the corner of Twelfth and Halsted, a group of union men had gathered in the German Turner Hall to discuss the issue of the eight-hour day. Several frightened members of the crowd outside ran into the hall, and the police followed. Upon entering the hall, several policemen fired wildly into the crowd. The shots killed one of the men who had gathered to listen to the eight-hour discussion. Out in the street, the regular army troops had arrived and, with fixed bayonets, had chased the remainder of the crowd out of the area. By midnight, 18 civilians lay dead and several hundred had been injured. The railroad strike in Chicago had been brought to an end.

Members of the union that had been meeting peaceably in Turner Hall brought suit against the city for the death of their colleague. A judge found that the meeting had indeed been orderly and the police had no business firing wildly into the crowd. He sentenced the officers responsible for the shooting to pay a fine that amounted to 6 cents each.

Later in 1877, some of the organizers of the strike founded Chicago's first socialist newspaper the German language Arbeiter Zeitung (Worker's Newspaper). Within a period of a few years, it had reached a circulation of 20,000. An English language socialist paper, The Alarm, came into existence in 1884. The socialist movement in Chicago had mainly German roots, however.

In 1878, the Socialist Labor party entered a full slate of candidates in the aldermanic elections but was successful in only one ward, the heavily German 14th. In 1879, Dr. Ernest Schmidt, a former Republican and antislavery advocate, headed the party's ticket in the mayoral race. He ran on a platform which called for the initiation of the eight-hour day in all industries, and for the municipal ownership of public utilities.

The Democratic party had not won a mayoral election since before the Fire. Desperately the party turned to Carter Henry Harrison, a former U.S. Congressman from Chicago, a former alderman, and a Yale Law School graduate. Harrison had come to Chicago from Kentucky in 1855 and had made a small fortune in real estate. Before the end of his political career Harrison would serve five times as mayor of Chicago. He had a flamboyant personality and always appeared in public wearing a huge black hat and flowing black cape, and he always galloped around town on a huge white horse.

In his first mayoral campaign, though, he made quiet speeches which stressed honesty in government. He promised voters that if elected he would clean-up the fire and police departments.

Republicans charged that Harrison had supported Jeff Davis during the war and stressed his close associations with Chicago gamblers. As a warning to readers who might think about voting for the Socialist Labor party, the Tribune reminded its readers that none of the party's candidates had been born in America, and that its philosophy of socialism was distinctly foreign. As for the Republicans, Monroe Heath announced he would not run again. So, the party selected Abner Wright, another businessman, to head its ticket. Wright told voters he would do all he could to enforce the Sunday-closing laws and to run the gambling business out of town.

The campaign focused on the "law and order" issue. The Socialist Labor vote, however, was the decisive factor in the Democratic victory. Dr. Schmidt did extremely well in German sections of the city and carried four heavily German wards. Thus, most of the Socialist Labor votes came from traditionally Republican areas of the city. Harrison received 44% of the votes in the city, only a slightly higher percentage than the Democratic candidate in 1877.

During his first term as mayor, Harrison appointed several of the leaders of the Socialist Labor party to city offices. Dr. Schmidt refused an appointment to a high ranking position in city hall but accepted an appointment to the Library Board in 1881. The Socialist Labor party slowly dwindled out of existence.

Before going on, read Chapter 3 in Mayer and Wade. This chapter discusses the physical changes that occurred in the city in the 1870's and 1880's.

ANSWER QUESTION 1 IN THE REPLY BOOKLET. (Provided after registering for courses through the External Studies Program.)

Harrison as Mayor

Harrison soon became known as "Our Carter" to his constituents. His live and let live philosophy appealed especially to ethnic voters. Harrison actively courted the German and Irish vote by speaking at ethnic picnics and rallies. Early in his first term he took up the cause for Irish freedom from British rule and spoke at an Irish independence rally. Harrison delivered on his promise of a wide-open town and gambling and prostitution flourished everywhere. Mike McDonald, the richest gambler in the city, became a personal advisor to the mayor.

The reformers and prohibitionists attacked the Harrison administration with a vengeance. In their eyes, "Our Carter" had opened the city to the filthiest kinds of vice, and the city treasury to all kinds of "bummers and boodlers." The Tribune accused Harrison of running the most corrupt government in the city's history.

Harrison simply turned such attacks to his own advantage by blasting the newspapers as tools of the blue-stockings and the idle rich.

Chicago, as was true of most other cities in the 1880's contained much filth and dirt. Carter Harrison, however, could not be blamed for the entire mess. Instead, the 3,000 horses that fell dead in the streets every year, and the thousands of tons of human waste and garbage that people threw into the gutters caused most of the stench. The stock-yards, steel mills, tanneries, and rendering plants also added their aromas to the city air.

Chicago's population doubled between 1880 and 1890, from 503,185 to 1,099,850, and sanitation and transportation facilities simply did not keep up with population growth. Water supply also became a major problem. New demands for regulation of gas and electric utilities hit the city during Harrison's years as mayor.

Calls for regulation led to the granting of franchises by the city to the utilities. Franchises were meant to regulate the profits of utilities and to protect the consumer. But they also opened the door to bribes and corruption in the city council which granted the franchises, and among the inspectors chosen to regulate the utilities.

Specific questions regarding franchises received little attention during elections, however. The Republican party attacked corruption, of course, but by corruption it referred to the alliance alleged to exist between Harrison and the gamblers. In 1881, the Republican mayoral candidate renewed the party's pledge to close saloons and chase out the gamblers. Harrison defended his administration and insisted that anti-gambling and anti-liquor laws were unenforceable. Private morality could not be legislated.

Harrison received almost 60% of the votes in 1881, while the Socialist Labor candidate received only 240 votes. Patronage and the wide-open city philosophy had proven very successful for the Democratic party.

Two years later Harrison repeated his performance. The Republican party campaigned against "vice, crime, debauchery, prostitution, and dishonest government," while Harrison ran on his record and made few speeches. Harrison again received 60% of the vote.

The years 1879 to 1884 had been years of prosperity for the American economy. By the winter of 1884, however, railroad expansion went into decline again, and a recession had begun. Steel and iron mills began laying off workers in September and by October over 25,000 people in Chicago were out of work. By the mayoral election of 1885 the number of unemployed had become a serious issue in the campaign.

The conviction of a Democratic precinct captain for vote fraud, however, hurt Harrison more than any other factor. The trial stemmed from a bitterly fought senatorial contest in Illinois in 1884. The state legislature, which elected United States senators in those days, was equally divided between Republicans and Democrats after the state election. Republicans challenged the returns in a south side Chicago district and a federal grand jury decided that enough fraudulent votes had been counted to steal the election from the Republican candidate. The importance of the election, with a seat in the U.S. Senate at stake, and the audacity of the precinct captain who was an associate of the mayor, turned many voters against the Democrats. The Republican mayoral candidate raised the vote fraud issue throughout his campaign. Nevertheless, Harrison managed a victory, but only by 400 votes out of 85,000 cast. The major defections from Harrison's previous majorities came from the German wards in the city.

The Republicans charged the election had been stolen from them and went to court. A local judge ruled, however, that the party would have to have a separate trial for each vote it charged had been stolen. The enormity of that project led the Republicans to drop their charges.

The recession that had begun in 1884 led to new attempts to organize unions in Chicago and throughout the United States. Soon, a major split in the forces of labor became apparent. Moderates, associated with the rapidly growing Knights of Labor, advocated arbitration and peaceful arbitration. Radicals in the labor movement demanded class war. In Chicago, the radicals published a newspaper called The Alarm. The philosophy of The Alarm is illustrated by the following selection from an editorial:

"One pound of dynamite is better than a bushel of bullets. Make your demand for eight hours with weapons in your hands, to meet the capitalistic blood-hounds, police and militia in a proper manner."

The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, founded in Philadelphia in 1869, had opened an office in Chicago in 1877. By 1884 it had a little less than 2,000 members. A successful strike against the Union Pacific railroad in the summer of 1884 led to a rapid growth in membership so that by 1885, the Chicago affiliate had over 21,000 members.

Central to the Knight's program was the eight-hour day which, according to the Knight's, would allow workers time to go to evening school to improve their minds. Opponents of the eight-hour day, mainly businessmen and ministers, argued that additional time off from work would only allow workers to spend more time in saloons.

To show the strength of support for the eight-hour movement, some groups in the labor movement called for a nationwide strike on May 1, 1886. The Knights of Labor did not officially back the strike though many local affiliates of the union did. On May 1, over 180,000 men throughout the country walked out on strike.

In Chicago, the number of strikers reached over 60,000. Many newspapers predicted revolution and disaster, but the strikers in Chicago conducted themselves peacefully and no violence was reported. Two days later violence broke out during a strike at the McCormick plant, totally unrelated to the eight-hour movement, when strikers and scabs became involved in a shoving match at the main gate. The police were called and after being greeted by a storm of rocks fired several shots at the strikers. One of the strikers was killed and five policemen were injured.

That night radicals at The Alarm and the Arbeiter-Zeitung published leaflets blaming the police for murder and calling for a mass protest meeting in Haymarket Square. The German handbill called for "annihilation for the beasts in human form who call themselves rulers. Uncompromising annihilation to them!" The meeting was to take place on May 4.

Carter Harrison issued a permit for the meeting and perhaps a thousand people, including Harrison, turned out to listen to the protest speeches. The crowd, according to the mayor, showed no signs of revolutionary fervor. By ten o'clock, when the last of the speakers was about to begin, only 300 people remained in the Square and Harrison left. The mayor reported to the local station that they should expect no trouble, and then he went home. The officer in charge of the police detail, Captain Bonfield who had lost his arm during the Beer Riot of 1855, ignored the mayor's report and ordered his men to march to Haymarket Square. There, perhaps in order to instill a respect for law and order, Bonfield commanded the crowd to disperse and the 186 policemen advanced. Someone threw a bomb that landed at the head of the police column. One officer was killed instantly, six others were left dying and seventy more were wounded, with twelve civilians. The bomber escaped.

A wave of anti-union, anti-socialist, anti-German feeling swept the city. Within a few days eight men were arrested, six of them Germans, and all admitted to being anarchists. Demands for quick trial and quick justice filled the newspapers.

Though only two of the men arrested had been in Haymarket Square when the bomb had been thrown, all of the anarchists were charged with "general conspiracy to murder." The state's attorney declared that "anarchy" was on trial. Anarchy was convicted. Seven of the eight defendants received the death penalty for their actions which consisted of little more than expressing their convictions in print. The other defendant received a fifteen year prison term. The bomber was never found.

Dr. Ernest Schmidt led a movement in the German community to have the death penalties reduced. Two of the anarchists had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment. One of the five men still under the death penalty committed suicide, and the remaining four were executed in November 1887. (Six years later, amid great controversy, John Peter Altgeld, the newly elected governor, freed the three remaining Haymarket prisoners.)

The Haymarket Tragedy had its political repercussions for Carter Harrison. Newspapers criticized him for issuing the permit that allowed the meeting. Harrison, realizing he would have a difficult time winning re-election because of the tense atmosphere in the city, announced early in 1877 that he would not seek re-election, even though the Democratic caucus had chosen him to run.

Supporters of the eight-hour movement organized a Union-Labor party for the 1877 election, and nominated Roger Nelson, a working-man without political experience or connections, as its candidate for mayor. The Democrats could find no one to take Harrison's place so they threw their support behind Nelson. Carter Harrison announced that he would support the Union Labor party. In Harrison's view, as he explained privately, a Nelson victory would be much better for the Democrats than a Republican victory. Nelson, Harrison explained, would leave the city in far worse shape than would the Republican candidate at the end of two years. Therefore, it would be much easier for Democrats to return to power.

The Republican candidate, John Roche, a wholesale machinery dealer, pledged to save the city from anarchy and from saloon keepers and gamblers. Nelson ran a lackluster campaign and impressed few people with his qualifications for mayor. Roche made the most of the anti-union feeling in the city and capitalized on the fears of further violence by socialists and anarchists. The voters responded by giving Roche almost 70% of the vote, a huge landslide. Nelson carried only two wards in the city, both heavily Irish.

The Haymarket tragedy was a severe blow to the labor movement in Chicago. It killed enthusiasm and support for the eight-hour movement. The Knights of Labor suffered too because most newspapers blamed that union for the bomb throwing. The Knights had nothing to do with the events in the Haymarket, of course, but simply because it was the largest union around newspapers blamed it for the troubles. Within a year after the tragedy, the Knights of Labor in Chicago had practically ceased to exist.

ANSWER QUESTION 2 IN THE REPLY BOOKLET. (Provided after registering for courses through the External Studies Program.)