February 10, 2024. Good morning. And happy first anniversary to this Substack! I sent out my first post the second week of last February. Thanks to the hundreds of you who have stuck with it - and me - this past year. I have enjoyed the response and the fun of writing this and sharing it with you. I want to continue this for at least another year, if not longer. If I get an agent, I may have to post less as I work on the book.
Today, we’ll look at the first two adversaries in the initial tussle over the mayor’s chair in the fall of 1893, George Bell Swift and Martin Barnaby Madden. Each was a Republican who felt they deserved the nomination. I’ll briefly cover the events of November 1, as that was the day of Carter Harrison’s funeral.
Where were we?
Here is a link to the home page if you want to read past issues.
• Saturday night, October 28: Mayor of Chicago Carter Harrison is assassinated. Chicago has no laws to replace a mayor who dies in office. Politicians and the press angle for a succession process that will benefit them. (Harrison was a Democrat; the City Council was majority Republican.)
• During the judicial campaign, Illinois Governor Altgeld attacks incumbent Judge Gary. The Governor had pardoned the Haymarket prisoners whom the judge had sentenced. The election is the following week.
• Sunday morning: Newspapers start promoting their candidates for Mayor. This is also the day that the inquest is held at Harrison’s home, with the killer in attendance.
• Monday, October 30: The World’s Fair closes. The City Council meets to prepare the mayor’s funeral. The Harrisons receive visitors. The Chicago Tribune continues its vendetta against Governor Altgeld.
• Tuesday, October 31: The mayor lies in state, and the Harrisons steel themselves for a funeral. Newspapers and politicians plan for a fight over the mayor’s seat. Attorneys look for a succession plan.
Opposites Repel: The Deacon Vs. the Pragmatist.
It’s hard to think of two more contrasting types of Republicans in 1893 Chicago. Born in Ohio, George B. was the son of a sign painter who raised his family in Galena, Illinois. Galena turned out to be quite the incubator for Illinois luminaries. Ulysses S. Grant and his family lived there. The Kohlsaat brothers, Herman and Christian, would go on to run the Inter-Ocean and serve as a federal judge, respectively. “Jimmy” Scott was one of Swift’s best friends from Sunday School, who also mixed it up with older kids down by the Galena River. Scott would later run the Chicago Herald and Chicago Post, both papers attacking Swift viciously. (As I have written, the only letter from Swift that I can find complains to his old friend about his treatment in Scott’s newspapers.)
A bio of George B. in the December 2, 1893, Trib offered this reminiscence:
George Swift was spoken of by the good women of Galena as “that George Swift, who is too smart,” because their children would come home with an old broken knife or something else that was useless which “that Swift boy” had traded off for something better.
In the 1870s, George B. bought an interest in Frazer Axle Grease, which he would run for most of his life. Journalists loved to use the grease metaphor when describing Swift's facility with machine politics. His business partner, Col. George R. Davis, was a veteran of the Civil War and a future Congressman (and Director General of the 1893 World’s Fair). They would form the first Republican political machine in Chicago, to the ire of the Tribune’s Joseph Medill, who had not been consulted. In 1879, at 34, George B. became the youngest man ever elected to the Chicago City Council as an alderman to Ward Eleven. In 1887, the two Georges got John A. Roche elected mayor, which led to a plum position for George B. as Commissioner of the Department of Public Works.
Short of stature and a staunch Methodist, Swift was sometimes called “the little Deacon” by the less friendly newspapers. In mid-November of 1893, when the campaign for the special election was well underway, the Times would observe:
There are two Swifts - Swift the deacon and Swift the politician. Swift the deacon is good upon one day of the seven, that is upon the Sabbath day. Upon the six days of the seven he is Swift the politician. No man upon the Sabbath day must speak to him about the wickedness of republican politics. We may trust that in the fullness of time the distinction which the deacon draws between his true goodness upon the first day of the week and his unhappy bowing to Baal among the remaining days of the week shall be considered for what it is worth.
Irishman Martin Barnaby Madden emigrated to Chicago in 1869 as a teenager. He worked in the stone and quarry trades before getting involved in politics. (According to the Illinois Political Directory, he started that trade as a “water carrier in the Western Stone quarries.” He later ran that company.) In 1889, he was elected to the Chicago City Council as a Republican Alderman for the Fourth Ward. He had been listed as a Democrat in the Fourth Ward a year earlier.
In 1892, Madden was implicated, but never charged, in a bribery case against several aldermen who had taken money in exchange for their votes to pass franchise bills for private utility companies. In 1895, Madden would be similarly implicated but not charged in the infamous Ogden Gas Scandal.
The friends Madden made along the way included several powerful Democrats. Madden presided over City Council meetings until Swift was re-elected in 1893. The Republican caucus then elected Swift for that honor. That may have been the cause of, but more likely was evidence of, a rift in the Republican party that would soon split wide open.
The (very short) history between Swift and Madden
They only started to serve in government together when George B. was re-elected to the City Council in April 1893. Madden had been first elected to the City Council four years earlier, just after Swift left municipal employ.
According to the Inter Ocean, Swift gave Madden an assist after the Republicans regained the majority on the City Council in April, and talk began about who would chair the powerful Finance Committee. I only have the word of the Inter Ocean (i.e., George B.’s ‘organ’) for how this played out, so we may have to take it with a grain of salt. But if the substance of it is true, it would explain the animosity between the two. Remember that George had just been elected Chair of the Council by the Republican caucus, a position Madden had held. Here is the newspaper’s account:
Madden claimed the (chairmanship of the Finance Committee) by seniority, but Kent had a strong backing. He was young, active, and popular, had made a good record, and stood an excellent show of defeating Madden. And had it not been for Kent’s own colleague, Swift, Madden would have been defeated.
To prevent any fight and to harmonize matters Swift went to Kent and induced him to withdraw from the race and let Madden get the chairmanship he so much coveted. At Swift’s request Kent did withdraw, and in the make-up of the committees Madden was given the finance.
Even then there was some hostility to Madden, and Swift was asked to become a candidate himself. The very day before the list of committees was presented to the Council for adoption Swift was asked by the independent members of the Council to allow them to vote for him for chairman of the Finance Committee. He had assurances that by so doing he could get the place himself and could break the whole slate already agreed upon. But he had already given his word, and he would not go back on it.
Hearing of the opposition to himself, Madden sought Swift out the night before the Council met for purposes of reorganization and asked him if he would be a candidate. Swift replied:
“No, I will not. I have given you my word that I will support you, and I never go back on my word.”
This answer greatly relieved Madden, who thanked Swift and left him.
While, of course, the Inter-Ocean favored Swift in this power struggle, the Tribune, for whatever reason, favored Madden. Here were the dueling headlines about the committee leadership changes the following day:
Then, a few months later, Carter Harrison was murdered. Madden put his hat in the ring for mayor pro-tem. Here is the Inter-Ocean’s (very entertaining) report on Swift’s reaction:
Madden’s Great Selfishness.
Great was the surprise…when it was learned that Madden would oppose Swift for mayor pro tem. No one’s surprise was greater than Alderman Swift’s. He met Madden in the City Hall Monday and said to him.
“I hear you are a candidate for mayor pro tem; how is that, Madden?”
“Bet your life I am,” was Madden’s reply.
“Oh, I guess you are joking, Swift laughed and said.
“No, I’m not,” Madden added.
“Do you mean to tell me,” asked Swift in unfeigned astonishment - “do you mean to tell me that you are a candidate for mayor pro tem after what I have done for you and in view of the fact that at the caucus last spring I was selected president of the Council?”
“I am a candidate and will get the place if I can,” replied Madden.
“Good day,” said Swift, and the conversation ended.
I can’t read that last line without thinking of Gene Wilder in “Willy Wonka.” "‘Good day, sir!” indeed.
So the religious, rock-ribbed Republican was facing off against a former Democrat with sketchy City Council votes and a lot of friends in that former camp. And that was just for the Republican nomination. We will cover the fight in the November 2 caucus next week.
Events of November 1.
Most local coverage in the Chicago papers concerned Carter Harrison’s funeral. The Inter-Ocean was the only morning paper to cover the mayoral tussle on Page One. Their headline proclaimed SWIFT THEIR CHOICE. The Trib was certainly not ready to make that call; in fact, was sending a note over the wall that perhaps the caucus results would not be the final word.
Meanwhile, the afternoon papers were already writing about the Republican caucus on November 2. To be continued…
Afterthought
The recent stories of layoffs in newsrooms nationwide and news sites like The Messenger shutting down are troubling for our democracy. The sheer number of newspaper outlets in Chicago in 1893 helped ensure that all sides were heard - and scrutinized. 1890, according to Richard Junger, Chicago supported 12 English-language dailies and an equal number of dailies in other languages.
If a city council meeting is held, and there is no reporter there to cover it, did it ever really happen as far as the public was concerned?
Resources
Becoming the Second City: Chicago’s Mass Media 1833 - 1898 by Richard Junger