Saturday, February 3, 2024. Good morning.
Today, we take a look at events on October 31st, 1893, and which newspapers were taking sides, for (or against) whom. We’ll get into why that’s important in a bit.
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 current laws on replacing a mayor who has died in office. Politicians and the press advocate for a succession process that will benefit them. (Harrison was a Democrat, but the City Council was majority Republican.)
• The upcoming judicial election has received national attention because Illinois Governor Altgeld is attacking incumbent Judge Gary. The Governor had pardoned the Haymarket prisoners whom the judge had sentenced.
• Sunday morning: Newspapers start promoting candidates for temporary 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. Halloween.
Carter Harrison’s tragic demise did not prevent Chicago newspapers from advertising upcoming Halloween activities in the days following. Newspapers noted - perhaps apologetically? - that such rites had been part of tradition for hundreds of years. (I wondered how long Halloween really did go back but decided not to go down that rabbit hole! Maybe for an October edition.)
Some of these “amusements” have since gone out of favor; some have not.
In more familiar fare, the Midway Plaisance was still open for business on the Exposition grounds. Already known for its carnival atmosphere, especially at night, things took a darker turn on the night before Halloween (otherwise known as Mischief Night today.)
Over at the Harrisons’.
The newspaper continued to show an avid interest in how the Harrisons and fiancee Annie Howard were holding up. The Tribune seemed to have an inside reporter, given its level of detail.
Trib headlines on November 1st:
“Last Leave-Taking by Family.”
“Scenes at the Harrison Residence Preceding Removal of Body.”
“…Miss Howard, who had kept her bed until just before the hour for the removal of Mr. Harrison’s remains, insisted upon taking a parting look. In spite of the advice of her physician she was assisted by her brother and a professional nurse down the stairs and was the first to enter the drawing-room. She gave way to a hysterical fit of sobbing which frightened those about her…”
Lest you think only the women’s prostrations were described in detail, the physical grief of Harrison’s son Preston, who had been with his father as he died, was also given special attention.
“Preston Harrison was completely unnerved and as the body of his father was carried from his sight fell to the floor, striking his head with great violence against a table.”
The Trib also featured an illustration of the Harrison home covered with flowers, which apparently was in fashion at the time. (Where they got so many flowers in late October is another question.)
Political Planning and Scheming.
Outwardly, plans were being made for the Mayor’s funeral, while behind closed doors, machinations continued as to how to get their man in office. In the meantime, the issue of selecting a temporary mayor was still up in the air.
Well, according to some papers. According to others, it was a done deal. Which pretty much made it a done deal.
(Democratic) Chicago Herald:
“The ingenuity of all the lawyers has been unable to invent a method for providing the city with an ad interim mayor.”
The (Republican) Inter-Ocean (quoting an attorney):
“‘It is therefore my opinion that the Council has the power to elect a mayor pro tem, and when such mayor is elected he will possess all the powers and can exercise all the rights that the mayor could, even including the veto power.’”
The (Republican) Tribune:
“The question then is definitely settled as to the right of the Council to elect an Acting Mayor. It is also settled that the Acting Mayor will have to be chosen in the Council by ballot. This fact will probably put an end to some of the Aldermanic caucuses which have been indecently projected already.”
My take is that the Herald desperately hoped that some method might be found to appoint a temporary mayor rather than to elect one in the Council. With the Republicans in the majority, the Democrats had no chance.
This is where it gets more interesting - and confusing, I fear! But I focus on it because the newspapers were actively engaged in the ensuing drama in a way that news media isn’t today. Fox, of course, is an outlier in a media landscape that may lean one way or another but doesn’t advocate for particular candidates, except for endorsements on the op-ed pages. Politicians in Gilded Age Chicago instead relied on the partisanship of the newspapers, which functioned as both communications shops and opposition researchers for their candidates.
October 31st. The Newspapers Line Up For (And Against) Their Candidates.
Alliances weren’t as simple - or enduring - as Republican papers for Republicans, etc. The Republican Trib hated Swift because he’d iced them out of power back in the 1880s. Thus, they backed Martin Madden, even though he often worked with Democrats. The Democratic Times assumed a Republican would win if the vote went to the Council, so they preferred Swift over Madden, who they didn’t trust.
In the November 1 newspapers, each partisan newspaper had picked a man to either oppose or support, while the (independent) Record gossiped about each side.
For Martin B. Madden:
—(Republican) Chicago Tribune. “There seems to be little doubt that Ald. Madden will be selected as the acting mayor, though some opposition to him has developed.”
I still don’t know why the Trib backed Madden. Yes, he was a Republican, but he was known to be a friend of City Hall. He aligned with several Democrats and had been implicated in several bribery schemes. Nonetheless, they did back him. They similarly opposed a caucus because they knew the caucus would elect George B. Swift, who had few alliances with Democrats.
For George B. Swift:
—(Republican) Inter-Ocean: (headline): “Looks Like Swift.”
The Inter-Ocean was Swift’s “organ.” The paper was as unabashedly supportive of Swift as the Times had been of Harrison. For a Democrat To Be Named Later:
—(Democratic) Herald:
…the question has arisen in the minds of the more shrewd one among the democrats as to whether they ought not to be prepared with a candidate taken from their own ranks. Alderman Sexton and Alderman McGillen are the only two who are being considered in this respect. They both stand well with their own colleagues and have each a following among the republicans. “
To help out the Dems, the Herald floated two names. Sexton, previously a State Rep, was also running for a judgeship and, if he won, would be out of the running for Mayor. John McGillen was Chair of the Cook County Executive Committee.
For “A Sterling Businessman”:
—(Democratic) Chicago Times.
“Ald. Madden has lost strength by the circulation of the report that he has formed a combination with certain democratic aldermen to secure the place…It is almost absolutely certain therefore that the temporary mayor will be either Austin O. Sexton or George B. Swift. There is a universal feeling that the affairs of the city during the present trying period would be safe in the hands of either of these two sterling business men and patriotic citizens. “
The Times had previously sided with Madden, but as they saw his support evaporating, it decided to hedge its bets.
Gossip from the (independent) Record:
“On Monday the democratic-republican ring which controls municipal contracts and arranges for the passage of franchises believed that it could name Mayor Harrison’s successor.
Daniel Corkery, the city coal contractor, interested himself in Ald. Madden and had reached the conclusion that he was the proper man for acting mayor. Roger Sullivan, the Probate court clerk, who is looking for a renomination next year, thought that it would be a safe nomination from a democratic point of view.”
The Record goes on at some length and gives a good amount of detail as to why Democrats would support Madden (As I learned later, it also turned out that Madden had been a Democrat in the early 1880s). Madden had sided with Democrats on many of the utility franchises that had proved so lucrative to the aldermen. In the parlance of the time, these were called “boodle franchises” because of the promise of boodle (aka money obtained from bribery). Naturally, the aldermen associated with these enterprises were known as “boodle aldermen.”
The above is from an article on the front page of the March 19, 1892, Tribune covering the trial of several aldermen accused of getting bribed to vote through certain utility franchises. While Madden’s name arises frequently in relation to the accusations, he was nevertheless not charged.
We will go into Madden’s curious background next week.
I’m running low on time and space, so I will leave it here. I hope I properly convey the sense that the newspapers not only had dogs in the fight but were actively engaged in conducting those fights. I would argue that this was not necessarily un-democratic. If the Fourth Estate is essential to a thriving democracy, this type of journalism ensured that all tactics and shenanigans were out in the open for all to see or read about. And you could only write about such tactics if you were in the room where they were being discussed. Or if you were devising the tactics yourself.
I don’t necessarily argue for that approach today, but it worked for Chicago back then. I certainly would argue for more vigor and transparency on the side of all of today’s news outlets.
Next Week: The History Between Madden and Swift.
Resources:
Roger C. Sullivan and the Making of the Chicago Democratic Machine 1881 - 1908 by Richard Allen Morton
Preparing the Victorian Home for a Funeral - BillionGraves.com (blog)