Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak (left) attends a 1932 World Series game with N.Y Governor and presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt. On the right is FDR's son, James.
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When Richard M. Daley passes the baton to Rahm Emanuel in May, Mr. Emanuel, Chicago’s first Jewish mayor, and the 46th mayor of the nation’s third largest city, inherits a staggering budget deficit (estimated to be around $600 million) liability pensions that are unfunded, a city burdened with high unemployment (8.6 percent), along with much less tax revenue compared to a decade ago as the city’s population has dipped to 2.6 million, down from 2.8 million in 2000.
But digging the Windy City out of the rubble of the Great Recession is only part Mr. Emanuel’s challenge. His other herculean task will be governing in a city that has only known a Daley (whether it was Richard J. or Richard M.) in 42 of the last 55 years. Undoubtedly, Emanuel’s speeches, directives, prerogatives, the alliances he forms and the devices he uses to combat his enemies will be compared to the mighty Daley machine.
But though the contributions the Daley’s brought to Chicago was massive as measured by any standard, whether with anti-crime programs, school reforms, tourism, or reshaping the Chicago skyline through a rich assortment of construction projects, such as O'Hare International Airport, the Sears Tower, McCormick Place, Millennium Park, and the renovation of Navy Pier- there have been other influential Chicago mayors who often get overlooked, but have nonetheless made significant contributions to the city by the Lake.
Often ignored, for example, is the great lengths Joseph Medill went to in such a short period of time to bring the city back after the Great Fire of October 8, 1871 in which four-fifths of Chicago went up in flames with an estimated 13,200 homes destroyed, leaving 350,000 residents homeless. The fire that raged mercilessly for three days even burned City Hall to the ground, while the city Treasury went broke in providing relief to the homeless and cleaning up the debris of a smoldering city.
Medill, a co-owner and managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, roared into office shortly after the Great Fire on what was billed as a ``Citizens Fire Proof’’ ticket and went to work immediately repairing the city’s depleted finances by negotiating a new budget with City Hall, steered through an ordinance that prohibited the construction of wooden frame building inside the city limits, allocated over $45 million to the construction of new buildings, including the building of a new City Hall, and put into practice a decimal system for the numbering of city streets.
Rarely mentioned is that Medill introduced a badly needed merit appointment system within the Fire Department, which had previously operated under a spoils system. And the creation of a Chicago’s first public library was realized under Medill’s brief tenure. After over 8,000 books were donated to the city from England after the fire, the generous donation sparked discussion of establishing a free public library. Before this time, the only libraries in Chicago were private libraries, which required membership fees. On January 1, 1873, the Chicago Public Library opened its doors on the southeast corner of LaSalle and Adams streets.
William Hale (``Big Bill’’) Thompson, a Republican, twice elected Chicago Mayor (1915-23, 1927-31), first romped Robert Sweitzer convincingly in 1915, winning 25 of Chicago’s 35 wards despite being opposed by both the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Tribune. Thompson entered office brandishing his signature ten-gallon hat, promising good rule and good government, a precursor to the slogan Richard J. Daley would take possession of many years later in saying, `` good government makes good politics.’’ With 150,000 unemployed upon taking office, Thompson promised a string of public works programs through a waterfront development project, a union station for railroads, new buildings and parks, and street projects such as the 12th Street an Ogden Avenue and the extension of Michigan Boulevard.
Thompson also is hailed as being one of the first Chicago mayors’s to include blacks into city government positions. According to Douglas Bukowski in an essay he wrote in ``The Mayors: The Chicago Political Tradition’’ `By his last term’’, Bukowski wrote, ``14 percent of the city’s legal department, including six corporation counsels was black, while the number of black patrolman in the police department rose from 50 in 1914 under Carter Harrison II to 137 in 1930.’’
``Big Bill’’ might have had a greater impact on Chicago had it not been for a series of scandals , including the indictment on graft charges involving several friends of his that were connected with the school board, and for having five appraisers, all friends of his, being paid a total of $2,750,000 to estimate property of street improvements. His perceived association with Al Capone was yet another stain on his public profile.
In a city celebrated for its strong ethnic flavor, Anton Cermak (1931-33), a Czech, is long remembered as Chicago’s first ethnic politician. When local nativists grumbled during the mayoral campaign of the prospect of the city being infected with foreign influence, Cermak joked: ``It is true I didn’t come over on the Mayflower, but I came over as soon as I could.’’
Among his many attributes, Cermak stands out as the first Chicago mayor to build a strong Democratic machine, using an ethnic coalition of Irish, Poles, Jews and Germans. Cermak won the hearts of Chicagoans by cutting taxes and reducing expenses during the Great Depression; but his real stamp on Chicago politics, much like the powerful Daley machine that would take root later in the century, was his mastery of building a powerful machine by rewarding friends and punishing enemies. Small wonder then that Chicago’s 36th h mayor would earn the monicker, ``Cermak the Dictator.’’
Cermak was assassinated in Miami, Florida on February 15, 1933 after absorbing a bullet fired from the gun of a young Italian immigrant, Giuseppe Zangara, that many believe was intended for President-elect Franklin Roosevelt.
After the tragic death of Cermak, the torch was passed to another Democratic mayor; Edward J. Kelly who continued his predecessor’s skill in building a powerful political machine under the aegis of Franklin Roosevelt. Kelly’s Irish Democratic machine was so robust and unified; it would help Richard J. Daley 20 years later in absorbing the third largest U.S. city into his personal empire.
Kelly, a product of the South Side of Chicago, would go on to serve three consecutive terms as mayor. His power ballooned after hundreds of thousands of jobs in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) or other FDR New Deal agencies were bestowed on him and Pat Nash, chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party. Kelly in turn was FDR’s chief liaison in Illinois, helping ensure many of FDR’s programs passed in the state legislature. Kelly additionally won favor with the White House during the 1940 Democratic National Convention held in Chicago by stuffing the galleries with a thunderous assembly of Roosevelt supporters.
Jane Byrne (1979-83) the first female mayor of Chicago who rode into office boasting of having beaten the Chicago Machine ``singlehanded’’; left office after a brief reign not with a bang but a whimper, being labeled ``Calamity Jane’’ for butting heads with the municipal unions, gaining enemies for her heavy-handed management style, alienating machine regulars, and her clumsy unorthodox exchanges with members of press,
Still, if one is to looks back at Byrne’s accomplishments however brief they may have been, they were noteworthy. Byrne, for example, started a $1 billion expansion project at O’Hare Airport, a rapid transit system was completed under her tenure, she reorganized the Chicago Housing Authority, increased minority representation in government, raised $400 million in new taxes and revenue, and made good on her campaign pledge of fiscal responsibility by balancing the budget every year except for her last year in office.
When Harold Washington became Chicago’s first black mayor in 1983, after pledging to dump the ``ancient decrepit and creaking machine’’, he said the city would never be the same. He was right. Much like when President Obama threw his hat in the ring in his quest for the presidency, Washington’s campaign sparked a new wave of voters, mostly blacks and Latinos, who up to this time had stayed away from the polls, having felt excluded from the machine politics practiced by previous administrations. 100,000 new voters registered for the Chicago’s mayoral race in 1983.
Right out of the gate, Washington laid the groundwork for a new brand of community development for the neglected, disenfranchised, and the city’s low-income residents through partnerships and businesses placing a greater priority on local development. Washington was additionally instrumental in stressing job training, education and removing racial barriers through a ``Chicago First’’ program which the mayor hoped would help foster upward mobility.
And as a way of breaking down the walls of secrecy practiced by the Daley machine politics, Washington championed more openness, and giving minorities and other Chicagoans greater access to the political process. Though the first Washington administration found itself bogged down in the quagmire of the ``Council Wars’’ that divided the mayor’s office and City Council-Washington still was able to execute a comprehensive reform of the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Public Housing Authority.
After a stormy first term, Washington began his second term on a more conciliatory note-reaching out to his enemies on the need for different factions to work together. But his grip on the city came to a sudden and tragic end on November 25, 1987, when he suffered a fatal heart attack while sitting at his desk at City Hall.
When a panel of Chicago experts in history and politics were asked to rank Chicago mayor’s from 1837 through 2002, Harold Washington was ranked third after Richard J. Daley and Richard M. Daley.
So while the legacy of the Daley father and son team was extraordinary and immense and will be discussed and dissected for generations to come-we also shouldn’t lose sight of the significant contributions from some other titans that served as mayor of a city that has often been called ``the most American of the big cities’’
-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
March 7, 2011
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