USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical review of Chicago and Cook county and selected biography, Volume I > Part 10
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The widespread craze for land speculation in the west, which was in reality a reflection of the general speculative mania which possessed the capitalists of the east, was even stimulated (if that were possible ) by the vast system of internal improvements inaugurated by the state in 1837, and which embraced not only the expansion of the scope of the canal scheme but the construction of railroad lines throughout the state. Currency of uncertain value flooded the west, all values were inflated and everything was at high pressure prior to the inevitable reaction of panic, depression and gloom. As the metropolis of the new west, Chicago felt the effect of the re-action more severely than
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any other locality, and when Mr. Ogden went into office in the spring of 1837 it was like walking into a graveyard to attend his own funeral. The municipality itself seemed but a storehouse of buried hopes, and his own business as a land agent hopelessly crushed. In this crisis the man's gigantic nature came to the relief of the new-born city, and more than any other personal force sustained its drooping courage for the succeeding five or six years of critical struggles. He was not only untiring and courageous in his official position, endeavoring especially to place all public improvements on an enduring basis and make Chi- cago something more than a make-shift city, but proved his faith in the ultimate founding of a substantial municipality by paying for street improvements out of his own pocket, or from the purse of those associated with him in local real estate. In the midst of the deepest gloom of this period, a cry for relief, for repudiation of what seemed like unbearable financial burdens, went forth from the citizens of Chi- cago, and even from the city as a municipal body. In the city a meet- ing was held by frightened debtors to repudiate the municipal debt. Mr. Ogden arose in the midst of the despondent and inflammatory speakers, and with calm, manly eloquence, championed the city's honor. "Above all things," he proclaimed and advised, "do not tarnish the honor of our infant city." As the first mayor of Chicago, and its foremost citizen, he then and there saved the civic honor from debase- ment, and his spirit was reflected throughout the state to other com- munities whose temptations had also almost overpowered their virtues. More than this; the highest standard of civic honor in regard to finan- cial obligations was fixed by William B. Ogden for all time, and, within the intervening seventy years since he did this great work, in all financial crises when the cry of Repudiation has gone forth some strong, brave man has risen to still it with the inherited spirit of Chi- cago's first mayor.
With the coming of the city charter the common council was given the power to re-organize the educational, police and fire departments, which it proceeded to do. Heretofore the fire department had elected its own chief and the schools had been loosely connected with the county administration. The police department was the most back- ward in development of all the municipal divisions, and for nearly twenty years consisted only of a high constable and an assistant for each ward. Although Mr. Ogden was only mayor for one term, it
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was the Ogden spirit which dominated civic affairs and sustained the city during the trying period which culminated in the collapse of the State banking system in 1843. The canal improvement, with con- tinuous expenditures thereon and sales of land at the land-office, was about the only material force which sustained and encouraged the city. At a still later day, when the building of railroads had come to mono- polize the public and especially the Chicago mind, it was Mr. Ogden, then dominant as the Railway King of the West, who illustrated methods of straightforward "promotion" which earned him the friend- ship of farmers and citizens throughout the state and might well serve as an example for the masters of these days. He virtually founded the forerunner of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway, the father of Chicago's vast system. In 1868 he retired from the presidency of the road, having personally sustained it during the panic of 1857. He spent the later years of his life at his beautiful estate on the Harlem river, New York, from whose repose he was again called to be a pillar in upholding the civic spirit of the victim of October, 1871. The day after the Chicago fire he started to view the ruins of his lumber inter- ests in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and do his great part in the alleviation of the terrible suffering of that region. In August, 1877, he died at his country seat, Boscobel, on the Harlem. Guizot, the French historian, said of him, when looking upon his portrait, "This is the representa- tive American, especially of the mighty west ; he built Chicago." Many great men have been engaged in the building of Chicago and the west since Guizot spoke these words, but William B. Ogden will remain through all time as the man who gave Chicago its first broad outlook into the field of public improvements and established it on a high and enduring plane of civic honor.
Dr. Levi D. Boone was elected mayor of the city March 8, 1855. the first few months of his administration being largely concerned
with determined enforcements of ordinances requir-
LEVI D. BOONE. ing saloons to close on Sunday and retail liquor dealers to pay a license advanced to $300. The op- position was composed almost entirely of the German element, and Mayor Boone's trouble with the saloon keepers commenced soon after his induction to office, when he issued a proclamation notifying them that he should strictly enforce the Sunday-closing provision. . The manifesto appeared on Saturday, March 17th, and many who were ar-
Vol. I-7.
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rested for its violation, on the following day, claimed insufficient no- tice. On the following Sunday the saloons were generally closed. Several of the saloon cases were tried, however, before Justice H. L. Rucker, of the police court, although the defendants denied his juris- diction. While these trials were progressing the city council fixed the liquor-selling license at $300 until July 1, 1856, when the prohibitory law was to go into effect if the voters so willed at the June election. Some dealers paid the fee and others carried their protest to the courts, while frequent meetings of saloon keepers, brewers and allied representatives, were held in opposition to the enforcement of both the Sunday-closing and license measures. A large number of the cases were to be tried before Justice Rucker on Friday, April 20th, and, by prearrangement, before the time for the assembling of the court on that day about one hundred malcontents marched to a position on Ran- dolph street, opposite the court house. Upon learning that Justice Rucker was out of town, however, they dispersed, but on the follow- ing day, as they rounded the corner of Clark and Randolph to as- sume their former position, they were met by the police, who ordered them to disperse. This they not only refused to do, but some of the more hot-headed of the rioters fired into the crowd before them. The policemen returned the fire. The result was the killing of a rioter, and the wounding of two policemen and peaceful citizens. Some seventy of the rioters were arrested, of whom fourteen were brought to trial between June 15-30, before the recorder's court. For several days after the riot the local militia and artillery, with a squad of special policemen, patrolled the streets, but there was no more bloodshed. The liquor dealers, as a body, denied that they had countenanced opposi- tion to the laws, except through the courts, which was doubtless true; but the trial of the actual rioters resulted in the acquittal of all but two of the fourteen, and they were Irishmen who had been imperfectly defended. Each was sentenced to a year in the penitentiary, but, although a new trial was granted them, they were never again brought into court for a rehearing. The "beer riots," as they are known in local history, marked the real commencement of the fight between the saloon and anti-saloon elements in Chicago, which also reappeared with marked intensity in the administrations of Mayors Medill and Colvin, and is not yet concluded.
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About a year after Mr. Ogden came to Chicago from New York, as a man of the early thirties who had already established a public
JOHN reputation in his native state, a dusty giant from
WENTWORTH.
New Hampshire tramped along the streets of Chi-
cago, with his name and his fortune yet to make. John Wentworth had passed his majority some months before, was a Dartmouth College graduate, and had probably attained his physical growth-something like six feet, four inches. In these particulars he was complete; otherwise quite raw and unformed. Some talent as a politician had already been discovered in him, according to the letter which he bore in his pocket from the governor of New Hampshire, and he had always evinced both literary and oratorical abilities. But he had walked from Michigan City during two dry October days, and. although he was a giant in physical and mental mold, his talents did not shine outwardly. But he soon met friends from the east and made new ones in Chicago, commenced to study law and was promptly side- tracked by his stanch admirers into the editorial office of the Chicago Democrat. His pungent, yet sturdy editorials, met the approval of the home people, and he was induced to remain with the paper and furnished the means to purchase it outright. Under him Chicago's first newspaper became a power in sustaining honorable currency and honest civic measures. One of his first public appearances was at a citizens' meeting called to consider whether application should be made to the legislature, then sitting at Vandalia, for a municipal charter. His voice rang loud and true for municipal honor, and in the spring election of the following year he was one of William B. Ogden's strongest supporters, both personally and through the columns of the Democrat. Within the succeeding three years Mr. Wentworth made his paper widely known for its denunciation of "Wildcat Currency," and its earnest advocacy of more systematized educational measures. He founded a daily edition, completed his law studies, and was admit- ted to the bar in the fall of 1841. In August, 1843, he was elected to Congress from the fourth Illinois district, being the youngest member in that body, and was re-elected to succeed himself, as well as for the session commencing 1848, which was the year of the admission of Wisconsin into the Union as a state. Before his election to Congress, Illinois had had no representative of the lake district, and until the admission of Wisconsin he continued to be the only member of Con
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gress who resided on the shores of Lake Michigan. As the generous grant of lands to Illinois for the encouragement of the Illinois and Michigan canal was the first formal admission on the part of the gen- eral government of the importance of the northwest, so Mr. Went- worth's election to Congress for three successive terms was a formal acknowledgment on the part of the state of the civic and political im- portance of Chicago; and notwithstanding that he was quite untried in the halls of Congress he proved a masterly representative in advocating the city's best interests and maintaining her reputation for enterprise and public spirit: What Mr. Ogden had done on home ground ten years before, Mr. Wentworth continued in the legislative arena at Washing- ton; and no public man who ever lived in Chicago more thoroughly enjoyed a vigorous fight as a champion of his city, or of what he be- lieved to be a righteous cause. During his earlier political career some- of his acts were perhaps open to criticism, and his great ambition may have overstepped delicate scruples, but when it came to a question of upholding Chicago as a municipality, and of attempting to improve her organizations and public polity, John Wentworth could always be depended upon, whether in Congress or in municipal office. In 1847 he served as chairman of the committee which called the National River and Harbor Convention, and, with such men as William B. Ogden, Isaac N. Arnold, Grant Goodrich, J. Young Scammon and George Manierre, of this city, was the means of practically starting the movement for the improvement of the Chicago harbor and river, which was to supplement the work of the canal in establishing the city as the grand emporium of the great lakes and valleys of the United States. Mr. Wentworth served one more term in Congress prior to his election as mayor in 1857, and in his official capacity was present at the inaugurations of Presidents Polk, Tyler, Fillmore and Pierce. He was also present when John Quincy Adams fell in his last illness on the floor of the house of representatives, and was one of the com- mittee appointed by the speaker to escort the remains of the venerable statesman to his home in Massachusetts. Mr. Wentworth was elected mayor on a fusion ticket, and previous to the casting of the ballots publicly announced that if elected he wished it distinctly understood that he should enforce all the laws of the city. He stated that he did not desire the salary; that he could not attend to the duties without encroaching upon his private business, and that the main consideration
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which induced him to accept the nomination was that he believed the great mass of citizens who ought to take it were deterred from doing so from the certainty that they would thereby greatly increase their enemies. But, of all considerations, this would have the least weight with him. Those who knew the man best were inclined to believe that this consideration, if anything, would lead him the more enthusi- astically to accept.
John Wentworth assumed the mayoralty at as critical a period in the history of the municipality as did William B. Ogden twenty years before. It is a coincidence that the year of his induction into office was also clouded by deep depression and financial panic. His watch- words therefore became Liberty and Economy ; and yet, although he was obliged to cut expenditures to the quick, in many departments, he inaugurated numerous improvements of radical importance. While he cut down the police force to such a measure that he was severely criticised, despite the hard times, one of his first acts was to call a board of engineers together and establish the present street grade. He introduced the first steam fire engine into the city in 1858, and replaced the old-time, loose-jointed volunteer department with the paid system ; and this in spite of mobs and persistent opposition from the ancient regime. It was during his second term in 1859 that the first street railway was laid along State street. Mr. Wentworth's election was bitterly contested; there were riots and bloodshed at the polls ; and, from his inauguration in the spring of 1857 until the close of his second term four years later, he was the storm center of the munici- pality. He stood by his promise to enforce the laws, establishing a civic bureau to hear complaints regarding their violations and to devise prompt action against wrong-doers. He did not rest with the starting of the machinery, but delighted to personally direct the onslaught. With the hard times and the throwing upon the streets of idlers and tramps, crime was on the increase, and it was still further encouraged by the reduction of the police force. But the month following his elec- tion Mayor Wentworth put himself at the head of a body of policemen. and during the following two days a disreputable district on the north side, near the lake, was literally depopulated-the shanties and houses which harbored the most degraded characters being either torn down or burned. Raids on gambling houses were of almost daily occurrence, and probably no occupant of the mayor's chair has been more feared
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and hated than John Wentworth. He even raided the merchants who persisted in obstructing the sidewalks, or placing their signs be- yond the legal line, and although this respectable element complained at his severity the nuisance was abated.
Mr. Wentworth left the mayor's chair with a reduction of current expenses and the municipal debt to his credit, and with the honor of having instilled a wholesome respect for the law. He taught the municipality a lesson which it has yet to thoroughly learn, but which is being assumed as a subject by civic organizations outside the munici- pality, viz .- that it is the duty of every good citizen to either enforce living statutes or kill them legally. With the coming of better times, however, the citizens petitioned the state legislature for better police protection through an expansion of their existing system. This was obtained in February, 1861, by the passage of a legislative law creating three commissioners of police, to be first appointed by the governor and afterward elected by the people. In 1861 Mr. Wentworth refused a re-nomination, withdrew from the newspaper field, acted as a dele- gate to revise the state constitution, was chosen a member of the city board of education, and after serving in that capacity for three years was appointed a police commissioner. As police commissioner he was one of the dominant forces which destroyed the conspiracy for the liberation of Confederate prisoners at Camp Douglas, afterward served another term in Congress and four more years on the board of educa- tion, and throughout his entire career, until his death in 1888, was one of the most picturesque figures of physical and mental energy and massiveness which Chicago and the west have ever seen. He accom- plished all his work either for himself or the city by downright power. He had few of the genial and lovable traits which gave Mr. Ogden his greatest influence, and although John Wentworth had many friends, in their attachment to him there always seemed to lurk a certain sub- stratum of fear; and his enmities were so bitter-often life-long-that this feeling was justifiable. Judged as a contributor to the civic devel- opment of Chicago, the public owes him much; but no greater grati- tude than because of his dramatic, and perhaps often selfish demon- stration, that just laws may always be enforced if citizens in authority will evince the same bravery in civic matters that they would on the field of battle, were their country endangered. By precept and ex-
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ample, he preached that they had no excuse to be cowards at home. when their city was endangered by violators of the law in any form.
The period of the Civil war witnessed a grand outflow of patriot- ism from Chicago, which both expanded and elevated its civic spirit. In 1860 the national Republican convention had been held which had nominated Lincoln, the typical man of the west, in opposition to Sew- ard, the favorite of New York and the east. It had been the first time in the history of American politics that a great party had conceded the importance of the territory tributary to the Mississippi valley, and the selection of Chicago was an acknowledgement that she was the natural metropolis of that vast region. It was the beginning of her career as a convention city, in which she has never been found wanting as a gracious, generous and enthusiastic hostess. Selected by the Re- publicans in 1860, 1868, 1880, 1884, 1888, 1904, and 1908; by the Democrats in 1864, 1884, 1892 and 1896, and by the Greenback, Anti- Monopoly, Socialistic-Democratic, Prohibition and other minor parties in other years, the city of Chicago has fairly earned its title. These gatherings of public men from all over the country have served to stimulate civic pride and spirit, by placing the city and its institutions under general and close inspection. During the Civil war, however, her development in this direction was comparatively slow, and it was not until the latter part of 1865 that the paid fire department and the commencement of the present system of water works had fairly ma- terialized. Something was done in the building of new bridges, but little in the improvement of the streets. As Chicago merchants and manufacturers participated in the vast work of maintaining the Union armies in the field, commerce and trade were stimulated to the fever pitch.
The most beneficial effect of the Civil war upon the civic develop- ment of Chicago, was an elevation and expansion of sentiment, which found expression in some of the noblest of works and the most benefi- cent of institutions for the relief of the soldiers at the front. It is difficult to specify when so many were unsparing of their strength
T. B. and means, and when Chicago was fairly alive with BRYAN. able and patriotic citizens, but it certainly could give no offense to mention with affectionate reverence the names of the late Thomas B. Bryan and Mark Skinner, and of Mrs. Mary A. Livermore and Mrs. A. H. Hoge.
Mr. Bryan, that stanch little Virginian gentleman, whose cheery
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presence was but lately removed by death, was the author of Bryan Hall, erected by him the year preceding the war. There were held those great popular meetings, which stirred the blood of patriots, not alone in Chicago, and which first gave assurance to the country that while her lusty children might fight among themselves the civic spirit would always sustain the constituted powers which stood for a united country and equal rights. Early in her career she had refused to besmirch her honor by the repudiation of her just debts; that was * local patriotism : now, as a city, she upheld the honor of the country and stood as the champion of a broader patriotism. She poured her wealth and the strength of her people into the work of the great sani- tary commissions, of which Mark Skinner and Thomas B. Bryan, Mrs. Hoge and Mrs. Livermore, were leading figures. Fairly worn out by his tremendous labors as president of the commission from 1861 to 1864, Judge Skinner was obliged to retire in 1864, Mr. Bryan con- tinuing in the harness. He was president of the great Northwestern Sanitary Fair of 1865, and founded the Chicago Soldiers' Home large- ly out of his private means. The untiring heroines of this era also endured until the last gun was fired, relinquishing their connection with the work in July, 1865.
At the close of the war, which was a period of such local, as well as national disorganization, the public works and public departments of Chicago assumed signs of distinctive development. The first lake tunnel of the water works was pushed to completion, and by March, 1867, water was flowing through the pipes and hydrants to the grate- ful citizens; the long-neglected streets and sidewalks were repaired, and the first tunnel (Washington street) was thrown under the river to relieve the congested condition of the bridges; harbor improve- ments were resumed; more commodious and beautiful houses of amusement were erected, and the general character of all new build- ings was more substantial and metropolitan. At a later period prior to the Great Fire, the city hall was enlarged, the park system much extended, many new school houses erected, and determined prepara- tions made to place Chicago on a metropolitan basis. But the retard- ing and disorganizing effects of the Civil war were only partially re- paired when the city was called upon to meet the greatest crisis through which a municipality has ever passed.
The world knows the history of the Chicago fire of 1871, but it
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is doubtful whether the people of the city fully appreciate how much it has contributed to their high civic reputation for unconquerable spirit. It showed to the world that Chicago was not an accident. but that her geographic location in relation to the producing sections and the great channels of transportation predestined her to assume vast power; it also demonstrated to Chicago that, despite the jeers and rudeness of other municipalities, deep in their hearts they kept a warm place for their young brother. Never before has there been such an outpouring into the lap of a stricken city ; and from that time the rancor against Chicago's pretensions commenced to abate. Her newspapers, especially, voiced her spirit, as illustrated by these words which came from the ruins of the Chicago Tribune: "In the midst of a calamity without parallel in the world's history, looking upon the ashes of thirty years' accumulations, the people of this once beautiful city have resolved that Chicago shall be rebuilt. Chicago must rise again. The worst is already over. In a few days more all the dan- gers will be past, and we can resume the battle of life with Christian faith and western grit. Let us all cheer up." This trumpet blast to action came from Joseph Medill, one of the giants
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