by Gary Krist
10. “The recent regrettable disorders in Chicago” is from the Republican of August 9.
11. For the Thompson administration’s outrage at the apparent quid pro quo of the transit compromise, and the conference with Ettelson, see the CEP and CDJ of August 2.
12. Lowden’s praise for Chicago’s “admirable patience” was quoted in the CEP of August 2. The details of his journey to Sinnissippi (“very tired, of course, but not as worn-out as I had feared”) are from Florence Lowden’s diary entry for August 2 (Pullman-Miller Family Papers).
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: TO THE LAST DITCH
1. Lowden’s return to the city as recorded in his wife’s diary for August 4. Cleveland’s official notice and other details about the Thompson administration’s response are from the CDJ and CEP of August 4, 5, and 6.
2. Thompson’s telegram as per the CDT of August 6. “Vicious public holdup,” “corporate cooties,” and “toadies” as quoted in Hutchinson, Lowden of Illinois, p. 402. “Solemn contracts with the people” is from the Republican of August 16. “The people of Chicago may rest assured” was quoted in the CDT of August 8.
3. For Lowden’s response to the attacks, and subsequent petitions and court reversals, see Hutchinson, Lowden of Illinois, pp. 402–3. Cleveland’s announcement as per the CDT of August 9. The threat to impound fares and seize control of the lines as per the CDJ of August 16.
4. “When you pay seven cents today” and all other quotations in this paragraph are from the CDJ of August 8.
5. “It is futile for the people to expect representative government” was quoted in the CDJ of August 9.
6. Lowden’s condemnation of the plan as “state socialism” as per Hutchinson, Lowden of Illinois, p. 403. “The present proposal is simply a bald-headed fraud” is quoted from a letter from Lawson to Charles H. Dennis dated September 20 (Victor F. Lawson Papers, series 1, box 89, folder 166).
7. For the sad history of Chicago’s quest to control its own transit system, see especially Young, Chicago Transit.
8. “All the shades of black” is from the CEP of August 8, as quoted in Waskow, From Race Riot to Sit-in, p. 45. For the jury “strike,” see Tuttle, Race Riot, p. 254 (“What the [hell] is the matter with the State’s Attorney?”) and the CDJ of August 16 (jury members’ threat to gather evidence on their own).
9. “The State’s Attorney will do his duty” was quoted in the CDJ of August 16. For the statements about the “large quantities of firearms, deadly weapons, and ammunition,” see the Literary Digest of August 9. For Hoyne’s raids in the Black Belt, see the CDN of August 23. “These raids are the beginning of revelations” was quoted in the CDJ of August 23.
10. “State’s Attorney Runs Amok” was in the CD of September 6. For Darrow and the NAACP, see Waskow, From Race Riot to Sit-in, pp. 48–50. The NAACP’s statement was quoted in the Cleveland Advocate of August 16. For the gathering at the Eighth Regiment Armory, see the CD of September 6. For Wells-Barnett’s response to the “storm-trooper” raids, see Crusade for Justice, p. 407, and Giddings, Ida, p. 602 (“[Hoyne] sends his hand-picked confederates”). For Hoffman’s and Peters’s objections, see the CDN of August 25. Brundage’s admission as per Hutchinson, Lowden of Illinois, p. 405.
11. “We cannot dodge the fact that whites and blacks will not mix” was quoted in the CEP of July 31. For the letter from the Hyde Park–Kenwood Property Owners’ Association, see the CDT of August 6. “The sooner the Negro realizes” was in the CDN of August 2.
12. For the special city council meeting, with quoted wording of the resolution, I have relied mostly on the report in the CDT of August 6.
13. For Cotter’s and Thompson’s accusations against the governor, see Hutchinson, Lowden of Illinois, p. 405. “Segregation measures are in the air” is from the November 15 issue of the Chicago Whip, quoted in Homel, Down from Equality, p. 21. Lowden’s approving mention of the “common understanding” idea is from the CDN of August 1.
14. For events at the stockyards and environs (“heavy guards about the L stations”), see the CDT of August 7. The job action by unionized white stockyards workers as per the CDT of August 8. For Thompson’s official letter and the end of the riot, see the CDJ of August 9 and Tuttle, Race Riot, p. 64.
15. Morton’s new commission and his quote (“I shudder to think”) are from his letter of August 11. The scene with Lowden and Dickson at city hall comes from the CDJ of August 9 and Tuttle, Race Riot, p. 64.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: “THROW AWAY YOUR HAMMER AND PICK UP A HORN!”
1. For the Sandburgs’ new house in Elmhurst, see Sandburg, Great and Glorious Romance, p. 276, and Niven, Carl Sandburg, pp. 342–45. “Why should I be the only poet of misery to be keeping out of debt?” is from a September 26 letter to Alice Corbin Henderson (Sandburg Papers). “We mustn’t let our anxiety” is quoted in Niven, Carl Sandburg, p. 345.
2. Details about the Lardners’ moving on come from Yardley, Ring, pp. 209, 221. Jane Addams’s speaking tour as per Davis, American Heroine, p. 260. For the Emma Simpson crime and trial, I have relied on various articles in the CDT dating from April 27 to October 3. Darrow’s quotation (“You’ve been asked to treat a man and a woman the same—but you can’t”) was cited in the CDT of September 26.
3. The story of Emily’s romance as per her diary (Emily Frankenstein Papers). (NB: Her diary says that she and Jerry reestablished contact on the second day of the riot; however, since she mentions that the streetcar strike was on that day, it was apparently the third day of the riot.)
4. For the subsequent bombings in 1919 and 1920, see Tuttle, Race Riot, p. 250. Thompson’s (temporary) revocation of the athletic club charters is discussed in Lindberg, Chicago by Gaslight, p. 209. Tuttle, Race Riot, p. 255, discusses the rumors of more riots.
5. For the Olivet Protective Association incident (“I rose and laid my membership card on the table”), see Wells-Barnett, Crusade for Justice, p. 407. Indictments and convictions in the riot cases as per TNIC, p. 48; see also Giddings, Ida, p. 622.
6. For background on the Red Scare and the Palmer raids, see especially Kornweibel, Seeing Red, as well as Murray, Red Scare.
7. The most popular work on the Black Sox scandal is Asinof, Eight Men Out. For Lardner’s role in the episode, I have relied mostly on Yardley, Ring, pp. 211–18.
8. Fitzgerald’s journey through the criminal justice system as per articles in the CDT, CDN, and CDJ of August 4, August 18, and September 23 (“as in a daze” and “If you have any idea the court will not inflict the death penalty”). The courtroom filled with “morbidly curious men and women,” and the sentencing scene that follows, with quotations, are from the CDT of September 24.
9. For the episodes leading up to Fitzgerald’s execution, I have relied on reports in the CDT of October 5, 14, 17, and 18.
10. For Thompson’s peaking popularity, see Stuart, 20 Incredible Years, pp. 88–91. For the Boom Chicago campaign, see Bukowski, Big Bill Thompson, pp. 108–10, and Wendt and Kogan, Big Bill of Chicago, pp. 176–77.
11. For one of the special newspaper supplements, see the CEP of August 30; see also Stuart, 20 Incredible Years, pp. 85–88. The Burnham remark (“Beauty has always paid better than any other commodity and always will”) was quoted in Bachin, Building the South Side, p. 171. For the passing of the bond issues, see Smith, Plan of Chicago, p. 124, and Stuart, 20 Incredible Years, p. 88. The Bukowski quotation about concrete is from his essay in Green and Holli, Mayors, p. 80.
12. For the school board controversy and other distracting issues, see Wendt and Kogan, Big Bill of Chicago, p. 175ff, and Bukowski, Big Bill Thompson, p. 105ff. Bukowski, ibid., p. 185, is especially good on the real meaning behind Thompson’s tirades against King George and the war profiteers.
13. For Thompson’s success at getting money for his municipal ownership study, see the Twenty-fifth Annual Preliminary Report (1920) of the Municipal Voters’ League (Chicago History Museum). The Defender’s praise of the elevation of Ed Wright app
eared in the CD of December 27.
14. For the extent of Thompson’s predominance in the fall of 1919, see the CDT of September 30. The quotation about Lundin’s push for a “vise-like” grip on the county and state is from Bright, Hizzoner Big Bill Thompson, p. 166. For the targeting of Lowden, see Stuart, 20 Incredible Years, p. 92.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: THE SMOKE-FILLED ROOM
1. Much has been written about the 1920 Republican National Convention. In addition to works already cited (especially Hutchinson, Lowden of Illinois; Stuart, 20 Incredible Years; and Wendt and Kogan, Big Bill of Chicago), I have relied most heavily on Pietrusza, 1920, and Sullivan’s Our Times, along with Dean’s respectful Warren G. Harding and Anthony’s gossipy Florence Harding. See Pietrusza, 1920, pp. 219–21, for the shifting delegate votes. Both the Ferber and the Mencken quotations are from ibid., pp. 205 and 206, respectively.
2. For the Lowden “steamroller,” see the NYT of June 11, 1920. For General Wood’s lack of second-choice support, see Hutchinson, Lowden of Illinois, p. 458.
3. For Lowden’s early hopes for Thompson’s support, see Hutchinson, Lowden of Illinois, p. 411.
4. For early hints that Thompson would work against Lowden’s nomination, see an interview with the mayor in the NYT of December 13. Hutchinson, Lowden of Illinois, p. 442, talks about the issues Thompson raised against Lowden, and the latter’s liability in being married to the daughter of a great capitalist.
5. For primary results and Thompson’s control of seventeen Illinois delegates, see especially Wendt and Kogan, Big Bill of Chicago, pp. 179–80.
6. The Lowden finance scandal is most completely discussed in Hutchinson, Lowden of Illinois, p. 453ff. The quotation is from ibid., p. 455.
7. Big Bill’s bad-mouthing of Lowden (“His word’s no good”) is from Wendt and Kogan, Big Bill of Chicago, pp. 182–83.
8. Thompson’s dramatic public scene as per ibid., p. 183. “It is my opinion that if the delegates to the Republican State Convention had known” is quoted in the NYT of June 11, 1920.
9. The CA story—under the blaring headline “Mayor Bolts Republican Party: Refuses to Aid in Sale of Presidency”—appeared in a June 12, 1920, special extra edition. For the ordering of a “wagonload” of newspapers, the instructions to the woman in the pink dress (“Don’t let anyone stop you”), and the “dazzling smile” quotation, see Stuart, 20 Incredible Years, pp. 100–104.
10. The timing of Henry Cabot Lodge’s receipt of the newspaper as per Stuart, 20 Incredible Years, p. 103.
11. “In a smoke-filled room at the Blackstone Hotel” is from Ferber’s memoir, Peculiar Treasure, p. 251. Dean, Warren G. Harding, and especially Pietrusza, 1920, p. 226, express doubts about the traditional explanation of the choice of Harding as the result of a conspiracy among a few powerful men. For Lowden’s release of his delegates, see the NYT of June 13, 1920. Dean, Warren G. Harding, p. 67, quotes the same paper’s characterization of Harding as “a very respectable Ohio politician of the second class.” Mencken’s more biting description (“of the intellectual grade of an aging cockroach”) is cited in Pietrusza, 1920, p. 235.
12. Florence Lowden and her daughter Florence Lowden Miller were inveterate diarists. Their many volumes of journals are all in the Pullman-Miller Family Papers at the Chicago History Museum. Quotations here are from the entries of June 12 and 13, 1920.
13. “With bowed head [and] cries of ‘bought delegates’ and ‘steamroller’ in his ears” is a quotation from Bright, Hizzoner Big Bill Thompson, p. 165. “Of course, while the contest was on, I wanted to win” is from a letter from Lowden to Lucius Teter dated June 24, 1920 (Julius Rosenwald Papers, series 1, box 24, folder 13). “We are very tired” is from Florence Lowden’s diary entries for June 13 and 14, 1920.
14. “Bill Thompson exulted” is from Bright, Hizzoner Big Bill Thompson, p. 165. For the Edward Dunne quotation, see Stuart, 20 Incredible Years, p. 107. (NB: It should be mentioned, however, that Mark Sullivan, who was an eyewitness to the convention, does not even name Thompson in his account of the event.) “What a great President he would have been!” is from Morton, “Illinois Reserve During World War I and After,” p. 5.
15. Lowden’s retirement announcement as per the CDT of June 30, 1920. For Lowden’s later career and his subsequent failure to hold any other elective office, see Hutchinson, Lowden of Illinois, pp. 570–601.
16. For Thompson and Lundin’s ambitious agenda in the November 1920 elections, see Wendt and Kogan, Big Bill of Chicago, p. 184. Lowden’s quotation (“Thompson has developed a machine”) was cited in the NYT of July 18, 1920.
17. “I never did understand the politics of that town” is quoted in Stuart, 20 Incredible Years, p. 118. “A ferret-faced Kankakee banker” is from Smith, Colonel, p. 241. For Lundin’s control of thirty-eight thousand offices and a $78 million payroll, see a memoir by Robert R. McCormick about Lundin (Robert R. McCormick Papers, I-63, box 20) and Bright, Hizzoner Big Bill Thompson.
18. For the victory celebrations on election night, with quotations, see Bright, Hizzoner Big Bill Thompson, p. 166, and Wendt and Kogan, Big Bill of Chicago, pp. 188–90.
EPILOGUE: THE TWO CHICAGOS
1. The opening of the Michigan Avenue Bridge was covered by all of the newspapers, but my account relies most heavily on an eyewitness account in Williamson, I Met an American. “The greatest event since the World’s Fair in 1893” is from Bright, Hizzoner Big Bill Thompson, pp. 167–68. Thompson’s expression of “gravity and pleased emotion” as per Williamson, I Met an American, p. 50. Quote from Thompson’s speech as per Bukowski, Big Bill Thompson, p. 110.
2. Accounts of gangland Chicago in the 1920s—particularly anything having to do with Al Capone—must be regarded with extreme skepticism. A lot of colorful apocrypha has accumulated around those storied years, and much of it gets repeated from book to book as if it were gospel truth. The detail about the three photos on Capone’s wall, for instance, was attested to by a single, not-particularly-disinterested witness, but has been uncritically repeated by historians for the better part of a century (which is why I phrase my sentence about that detail with caution). Bergreen, Capone, is probably the most reliable account of those years.
3. Information on the later lives of Lardner, Addams, and Sandburg is from Yardley, Ring; Davis, American Heroine; and Niven, Carl Sandburg, respectively. Edmund Wilson’s characterization of Sandburg’s Lincoln biography (“the cruelest thing that has happened to Lincoln since he was shot by Booth”) was cited in Niven, Carl Sandburg, p. 635.
4. Wells-Barnett’s own account of the closing of the Negro Fellowship League is in her Crusade for Justice, p. 414. Drake and Cayton, Black Metropolis, p. 69, and Kellogg, NAACP, p. 238, both discuss the new awareness of the “Negro problem” among whites. For the settlement house progressives’ reaction to the riot, see Philpott, Slum and the Ghetto, pp. 273–75. “Conditions in the states had not changed” is from Haywood, Black Bolshevik, p. 2. See Philpott, Slum and the Ghetto, p. 130, for the city’s increasing level of segregation. Other late-life details for Wells-Barnett are from Giddings, Ida, pp. 603, 646–47, and 652.
5. Jack Boettner’s later career, including the Graf Zeppelin episode, comes from Glassman, Jump!, pp. 45–46. Goodyear’s decision to use helium rather than hydrogen as per Young, Chicago Aviation, p. 20. Information about Sterling Morton’s later life comes principally from the CDT of May 5, 1921 (Caroline’s death) and Morton’s obituary in the NYT of February 25, 1961. “I am indeed proud” is from “Illinois Reserve During World War I and After,” p. 3.
6. Details of the denouement of Emily Frankenstein’s romance with Jerry Lapiner are from her diary entries for late 1919 and 1920. Her letter to the Tribune about the Apollo moon mission appeared in the CDT of December 15, 1969.
7. For Hoyne’s misadventures in private life, see the CDT of January 21, 1925, and February 19, 1939. Merriam quit trying for elective office, but did later serve as an adviser to Presidents Hoover and Ro
osevelt. Crowe’s threat to buy Lawson “a railroad ticket to the penitentiary at Joliet” is from Wendt and Kogan, Big Bill of Chicago, p. 188. Dennis, Victor Lawson, pp. 449–50, outlines Lawson’s contribution to modern newspaper journalism.
8. For McCormick’s quest to tie Big Bill to the German secret service, see his letters to Arthur Henning and to Parke Browne, both dated May 10, 1920 (Robert R. McCormick Papers). The Ahab quote is from Smith, Colonel, p. 240. For Thompson’s assassination accusation, see O’Reilly, “Colonel Robert Rutherford McCormick, His Tribune, and Mayor William Hale Thompson,” p. 89. “The people of Illinois have no enthusiasm for Thompsonism, and less for the Tribune” is from O’Brien, “Illinois,” p. 118.
9. For the end of Lundin’s invincibility, see Bright, Hizzoner Big Bill Thompson, p. 179–98, and Wendt and Kogan, Big Bill of Chicago, pp. 196–98. “My friends have crucified me!” is quoted in ibid., p. 208. “What a change in two years” is from Stuart, 20 Incredible Years, p. 177.
10. For Lowden as a refuser of nominations and appointments, see Hutchinson, Lowden of Illinois, p. 536ff. The quotation about the “worst elements of the party” is cited in a footnote in ibid., p. 470. Stuart, 20 Incredible Years, p. 108, believes that Lowden’s cooperation would have led to the achievement of Lundin’s goals.
11. See the previously cited Thompson biographies for his later career. (NB: Bukowski, Big Bill Thompson, p. 149, regards Dever’s well-meaning mayoralty as “a disaster.”) “I’m as wet as the Atlantic Ocean” is ubiquitously cited. For Big Bill’s nervous breakdown, see Wendt and Kogan, Big Bill of Chicago, pp. 312–13. I am somewhat skeptical of Thompson’s cash-stuffed safe-deposit boxes as definitive proof of his venality. Some writers make much of his more than $2 million estate but seem to forget that he inherited a large fortune upon his father’s death. And even some of Thompson’s enemies claimed that Big Bill often steered ill-gotten money to his friends but rarely to himself.
