Of "Entertainment Proprietors" & the Political Circus of November 2, 1893
Down the Rabbit Hole of Dime Museums and What We Find There
Saturday, February 17, 2024. Good morning.
If it hadn’t been for one Louis I. Epstean, I might not have had to write this whole story. The election of a temporary mayor of Chicago would likely have been more tidily settled than it was. But Mr. Epstean had a hard time deciding whose side he was on. Or something.
I looked him up. Epstean wasn’t a “professional politician,” though his practice in upselling such attractions as a “long-haired lady” or “turtle boy” might have given him a natural advantage. He was the proprietor of a Dime Museum along Randolph Street in Chicago. See below an ad in the Chicago Tribune in November 1884 announcing its opening. (I include other ads just for fun.) I have no idea what “Amusement and profitable instruction combined” meant, though some portion of the audience was likely receiving its first lessons in anatomy.
Dime Museums, of course, don’t exist today. They were the housed versions of carnival acts. Here were the offerings featured under the ‘Museum’ section of the Sunday Inter-Ocean on January 11, 1885.
“At Stanhope & Epstean’s New Dime Museum in the curiosity hall may be seen this week a skeleton midget, an Albino seeress, the Cannibal Fanchild, and other oddities. On the stage there will be song and dance people, a juggler, a skipping-rope dance, and a liberal variety bill.”
I don’t think liberal meant then what it does now. Or maybe it did. I also made a futile effort to discover what “Fanchild” might have meant in the 1800s. It definitely didn’t mean then what it does now.
For that matter, museums didn’t always mean then what they mean now. Two other museums in the Inter-Ocean’s section promoted a “Smoking Monkey” and “Galetti … with his bird actors in a quaint performance which he more quaintly describes in process.” The Chicago Museum and Theatre was a bit more highbrow, including a performance of “Iolanthe” by the Bijou Opera Company, while a poultry show could be viewed downstairs.
Anyway. Mr. Epstean soon expanded his offerings. In 1891, he re-opened the Standard Theatre at the corner of Halsted and Jackson Streets. The boards of that stage had once been trod upon by the likes of the Fay Templeton Opera Company and W.J. Ferguson, an actor who, according to Wiki, had been performing in “Our American Cousin” when he witnessed President Lincoln’s assassination from the stage of the National Theater in Washington. Under Epstean’s management, the theater was to be a “first-class variety house.”
In March of 1893, Louis Epstean was nominated by First Ward Republicans to run for Alderman. A Democratic stronghold, The First Ward was home of the famous “Levee district” of gambling “resorts,” saloons, and the like. By Republican standards, Epstean was their best shot at the seat. Wrote an Inter-Ocean reporter:
“Mr. Epstean is the popular manager of the Randolph Street Museum. He is strong with all classes of people. He is above all an energetic worker, and will gather every Republican in the ward to his banner. His followers are certain that he will give Alderman Morris, who was put up by the Democrats, the hardest fight of his life, and will win out.”
His opponent, the incumbent, saloonkeeper John R. Morris, was running for a second term. He also was a wit. When he was gifted with his Aldermanic star upon being elected for the first time in 1891, he thanked those in attendance:
"Under existing conditions, the favors extended a Democratic alderman can be readily counted on the fingers of an armless man. But I'll get all the law allows me; of that you can rest assured. If your interests, gentlemen, are not looked after you will have to lay the blame on John Morris' head, his heart is all right. The love I bear the city of Chicago in general and the esteem I hold for you in particular, will last as long as the luster of the beautiful diamond you have just given me. Gentlemen - boys - I thank you."
Morris should have been a shoo-in for re-election, but weeks before the election, 37 men were arrested for playing poker in the rooms above his saloon at 170 Clark Street. The publicity was too blatant, given that “reform” was the byword for this particular election.
Epstean did win, on April 5. The Inter-Ocean declared that
"Surprises were many, and in some instances the defeat of an alderman cannot be explained even by his constituents. One surprise was the defeat of Alderman Morris, the disreputable groggery-keeper in the First Ward, by Louis Epstean. It was known that Epstean was making a strong fight, but the most sanguine Republican hardly dared to believe that he could overcome the big Democratic majority in the ward.”
Morris himself was evidently shocked into insensibility. Two days after losing the election, the lame-duck alderman introduced an amendment to strengthen gambling laws in the city. The Trib alleged that Morris did this as revenge on Epstean, who had been accused of running a lottery game out of the museum, though no charges were ever filed. The amendment went nowhere.
I write all this not only because it’s fun to write about - and hopefully to read - but to give you some sense of the man whose action on November 2 foreshadowed trouble in the effort to select a temporary mayor for Chicago.
November 2, 1893. The Caucus Vote, and a Surprise Call for a Special Meeting of the City Council to Vote for a Temporary Mayor.
The headlines of the Democratic papers’ coverage of the events of November 2, made clear that the day did not go according to plan. At least the plan of Democrats. The Republican papers painted quite a different picture.
(Democratic) Herald:
(Democratic) Post:
(Republican) Chicago Tribune:
Why Was the Vote for Mayor Moved Up to Saturday?
Let’s take a look at this “special meeting’ that was suddenly called, a few hours after the vote that resulted in Swift being chosen by the caucus. (We’ll get back to that vote in a bit.)
Remember that the plan initially had been for the aldermen to vote for a mayor pro tem at their regular City Council meeting on Monday night after each party had had a chance to vote for their candidate. The Republicans were caucusing on Thursday, the Democrats on Saturday. Thursday night, a few hours after Swift was elected the Republican candidate, a small group of Republicans called for a special meeting of the City Council to vote for the Mayor Pro Tem on Saturday, November 4, at 11 am. That was 3 hours before the Democrats were scheduled to caucus.
Many city attorneys were consulted as to whether this call had been legal. The Inter-Ocean interviewed one who had served in Chicago’s law department for a couple of years.
Clarence S. Darrow was next asked to find the statute that was supposed to fit the case. This astute lawyer and Democratic politician hunted through charters and municipal codes and statute books big and little, and finally said:
“I cannot find a law that says the action of the Republican aldermen was illegal. I may find one by morning, but my opinion is that they are right.”
“They may not be legally wrong, but they are morally wrong,” said one of the Democrats, in despair.
The reaction to the news of the special meeting was, er, swift. Swift said he’d had no warning of the call and would “have advised against it if he had been consulted.” (Sounds familiar.) Democrats hurriedly planned a caucus for Friday. How did Madden react? Judge for yourself. The Post, who had claimed that “Maddenites would bolt” if the meeting was held on Saturday, quoted Madden thusly.
“I will not vote for Swift tomorrow!” said Alderman Madden. “The men who issued the call for a special meeting of the council do not represent their party in the council, and I regard their actions as an insult to the Republicans who attended the caucus yesterday and a breach of confidence that relieves us of the obligations imposed by the decision of that meeting…”
The Inter-Ocean reported the following:
”You are reported as having said that you would not vote for Swift at this special meeting. Did you say that?”
“No,” replied Madden.
“Will you attend the meeting?”
“I will.”
“And vote for Swift?”
“I am a Republican and shall support the caucus nominee if a vote is taken.”
The supporters of Swift - or anyone not in the Madden wing of the party - were concerned that Madden folks would turn against Swift over the weekend and work with Democrats to elect Madden on Monday. It wasn’t an unreasonable concern; the Democrats had virtually no chance of electing a Democrat for mayor, so backing “friend of City Hall” Madden was their only realistic option. There were rumors that the Democrats would nominate Madden at their caucus. The less time the Democrats and Madden folks had to plot, the more likely Swift would prevail.
Back to that Caucus vote.
Rumors had spread that Madden’s supporters planned to avoid the caucus. Madden and the Trib had already publicly protested the use of caucusing to select a Republican nominee, though they had not proposed an alternative.
The Swift men were prepared for the threatened “bolt.” Thursday morning, members of the Republican Central Committee “button-holed” aldermen about the importance of attending the caucus and voting for Swift. According to the Herald, they also “threatened the aldermen on the fence with political extinction if they dared to stand by Madden’s interests as against the party’s interests.”
Only 3 Republicans stayed away from the Caucus.
At noon on November 2, Republican aldermen gathered at the Great Northern Hotel on Dearborn Street to vote on a nominee for mayor pro tem.
The Republicans assembled, and Swift then asked for an open vote. As the Post reported, “…if he was not nominated, he wanted to know who had gone back on their pledges.” But the Madden folks eked out this one concession. At the request of another alderman, the room was “purged,” that is, of reporters. On a secret ballot, the vote was 20 to 14, Swift over Madden. But there was another ballot cast, a blank vote.
Dime Museum proprietor Louis Epstean cast that ballot. One paper opined that Epstean “was afraid to vote with the loser.” Indeed, he had been known to switch his votes on the Council depending on shifting political winds. Whichever winds were buffeting him in November 1893, they would add considerable uncertainty to the proceedings over the next four days.
To be continued next week.