USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical review of Chicago and Cook county and selected biography, Volume I > Part 11
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JOSEPH MEDILL. of the west, who, more than any other man, had brought forth Lincoln to his historic work, who had saved his party during the war by pushing forward that legis- lation which legalized the votes of soldiers in the field, and who, in the month following the fire, was elected mayor of the shattered city. Within two years he accomplished a large part in the work of re- organization, and lived to see the rebuilt city which he prophesied. The following from Munsell's "History of Chicago" is a résumé of the situation which confronted Mayor Medill and of what was accomplished during his administration: "The task set before the new executive was indeed beset with difficulties well nigh insuperable. A new city hall, school houses, engine houses and police stations were to be erected, burnt bridges and viaducts to be replaced, miles of sidewalk to be rebuilt, and fire apparatus, hydrants and pipes to be purchased. To meet these requirements, all of them essential to the city's rehabilitation, required the expenditure of large sums of money, and the mayor found himself confronted with a depleted treasury. The rescinding by the last council of $1.442.790 of the taxes of 1872 on account of the fire, and the provision by law for rebates on de
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stroyed property, involving large sums in the aggregate, deprived the new administration of half its resources. And to add still fur- ther complications to a situation already surcharged with difficulties, the newly organized supreme court of the state, overruling all for- mer precedents, had lately decided several cases, in which parties were resisting the payment of taxes on special assessments involving $790,000, adversely to the city. The assumption by the state of the city's canal debt, amounting to $2,955,340, however, a large portion
JOSEPH MEDILL.
of which was paid in December, enabling the mayor to provide for interest coming due and to meet other pressing obligations, afforded great relief. Retrenchment in the city's outlays and needed reforms in administration were insisted upon by the mayor, and measures to that end were adopted by the council with so little friction that the action was practically unanimous. By March, 1873, the work of rebuilding the bridges and viaducts destroyed by the fire was about completed at a cost of $526,921 for the former, and $189,573 for the latter. Commendable progress had also been made in street im- provements and in replacing other public losses by the fire." The direct effect of the fire upon Chicago as a city was to obliterate for
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all time wooden fire traps from its business district ; to replace make- shift buildings by substantial structures of steel, brick and stone; to increase the efficiency of the fire department ; to extend the congested business district much further to the south, and to make a recur- rence of a conflagration on a greatly extended scale a virtual im- possibility. The city thereafter was to develop along the lines of a great metropolis, and could no longer be designated "an overgrown village."
The clearing away of so much that was temporary, unsightly and disgraceful by the fire of 1871 seemed also to have a purifying and stimulating effect upon the civic spirit of the city. Without entering upon the merits of the ordinances relating to the closing of saloons on Sunday, it is material to a delineation of the civic de- velopment of Chicago to notice that it was during Mayor Medill's administration that the Law and Order and the People's parties were formed, and that upon the initiative of the former he attempted to enforce the law. He believed, with John Wentworth, that as long as statutes were alive they should be enforced. The attempt was a failure, and the situation was full of peril. Meanwhile Mayor Medill went to Europe, and Mr. T. L. Bond, an alderman, taking his place as acting mayor, continued the general policy of Mayor Medill, but, as to the Sunday closing law, not to the extent of precipitating a contest in which the entire police force, constabulary and militia of the state would probably have been involved with disasters to busi- ness and other crimes that it was impossible to tell. Thus matters continued until the approaching election. Under the circumstances, it being evident that the election would turn entirely upon the ques- tion of Sunday closing, neither of the political parties made any nominations for city officers other than aldermen. Those in favor of a determined effort to close the saloons on Sunday nominated T. L. Bond, the then acting mayor. Those opposed to such action nomi- nated H. D. Colvin, manager of the United States Express Company. The closed and open Sunday parties each made nominations for city attorney, city clerk and city treasurer. A very vigorous contest fol- lowed with the result that the open Sunday ticket was elected by a majority of ten thousand. The message of the incoming mayor was most conciliatory, and rather a departure from the policy inaugurated by Mayor Wentworth, continued by Mayor Medill and generally ac-
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cepted by present-day students of municipal government as the part of practical wisdom, viz. : to enforce strictly the laws upon the books, thereby proving either their wisdom or undesirability, or to repeal them in their entirety. He spoke of the ordinances as representing the opinion of "a comparatively small and homogeneous population at the time of their enactment," but as having ceased to be in con- sonance with public opinion since Chicago had, "by the harmonious co-operation of citizens belonging to the different nationalities, grown from a village to the rank of one of the greatest cities in the world. For a series of years," he continued, "it has been the prac- tice of our municipal administration to treat those ordinances as obsolete, and to refrain from enforcing them. It is not intended to denounce that practice, but merely to state that within the past year they have become distasteful to a large portion of the community. If the common council in its wisdom, and having un- doubted full power upon the subject, should determine either to re- peal or modify the Sunday prohibitions and Sunday clause in the license law,-or to fully secure the religious exercises of a portion of our citizens from all disturbance, without interfering with the harm- less enjoyments of other citizens, it will do no more than its duty toward the majority of the people of this city." The first part of Mayor Colvin's administration was signalized by the talk of repu- diating nearly a million dollars of city script which had been issued beyond the legal limit and based upon unlawful assessments; but the old Ogden spirit came to the rescue of the city's financial honor, a mass meeting of citizens pledged themselves to see that the script was paid dollar for dollar, and the legislature legalized the tax levy.
A compromise on the saloon question was effected by the passage of an ordinance providing for the closing on Sunday of all doors and windows of saloons which opened upon any street. Such legislation was interpreted as a virtual concession to criminal license, and the administration was what in later-day phrase was denominated "wide open." The spoils of office were generally conceded to the Demo- cratic party which had formed the basis of the People's organization. Through the quarrels of the leaders the latter party was disrupted, and the groundwork was laid for the installation of the strongest ma- chine which the local Democracy of Chicago, or perhaps any other city in the country, has ever founded. In 1875 the people of Chicago
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adopted* the general incorporation act of the state, and under the act of reorganization the old board of police and fire commissioners was abolished and the distinctive departments created as at present. In 1876 the health department of the city was reorganized, with a com- missioner at its head, and that loose division of the civic body, which had been constantly changing and, at times, non-existent, was found- ed upon its present basis. From this time on, the chief features of the municipality were fixed, and the development of the service was along the lines of efficiency and strength and in harmony with ex- panding ideas of educators and humanitarians. The Colvin admin- istration was succeeded by two Republican mayoralties, during which occurred the railroad riots and the first forcible exposition to the city of the danger to the public peace of the unchecked promulgation of foreign communism.
The four succeeding administrations of Carter H. Harrison were in many respects the most remarkable in the civic history of Chicago. The personality of the chief executive was unique, and a remarkable combination of practical, earnest, brilliant, humorous and imaginative powers which perhaps have never had another counterpart in the country except in the person of the late Robert G. Ingersoll. His speech, his acts, were all dramatic, and yet it often happened that, in view of the elements upon which he depended for the furtherance of his policies, his only hope of advancing the best interests of the city seemed to be to play the demagogue. He was a Kentuckian, polished, widely traveled, finely educated, a lawyer, and the inheritor of broad abilities and ambitions from such as William Henry Harri- son, Thomas Jefferson and John C. Breckenridge. With a broad. massive head, strong features, a fine eye, and a military bearing, al- though a man of only medium stature, Mr. Harrison was a man of striking appearance, and instinctively won favor before he put into action his eloquence and wonderful magnetism. He was a born leader and politician, and seemed instinctively to understand the winning of men in whatever ranks of life they walked. Inheriting money, he invested it in Chicago real estate in the fifties, and had
*The effect of accepting the general incorporation act was to extend for several months the term of mayor, treasurer, city clerk and city attorney elected by the open-Sunday party, and this had an influence in the discussion as to whether the city should accept the general incorporation act.
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amassed a fortune before he entered politics, which was about the time of the great fire, as a member of the first board of county com- missioners. His creditable service therein was followed by a term in Congress, during which his brilliant oratory in behalf of such measures as the six-year presidential term and the centennial gained him a wide distinction. As a humorist, also, he came from Congress with a reputation second to no public man. Other extended seasons of European travel preceded his first election to the mayoralty in 1879, and before the conclusion of his third term he was nominated by the Democracy as governor of Illinois. Although not elected, he succeeded in reducing the normal Republican majority about two- thirds.
When Mayor Harrison became head of the municipality, he was the chief representative of a great city of half a million people, a majority of whom were foreigners or of recent foreign descent, many of whom had not yet been educated to discriminate between freedom and license. For the first time in many years the Democracy had elected its entire ticket, and by the executive ability of the mayor was soon welded into one of the strongest political machines which ever dominated the municipal government. Through it he succeeded himself repeatedly, being in office longer than any other occupant of the chair, and Mayor Harrison's fine abilities were given an op- portunity to work out many beneficial results which materially redounded to the civic development of Chicago. He reduced salaries, wiped out a floating city debt of nearly $2,500,000 within three years ; saw to it that the inferior city script was paid off ; erected the city's half of the combined city and county building,* and introduced the telegraph, telephone and patrol to the administration of the police department. He also caused the removal of the unsightly and dan- gerous telegraph poles, and substituted the underground system; and improvements of the streets, sidewalks and the sewers were constant and generous. It was during the last term of his administration that the historic Haymarket riot occurred, and that public and civic sen- timent came so sternly to the support of law and order, teaching the
* By agreement the exterior design of the buildings was alike. The county was then under control of a board of county commissioners, a majority of whom were corrupt, and a number of these were sent to the penitentiary. The city building was honestly built, and cost considerably less than the east half of the building.
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advocates of anarchy, disorder and bloodshed the first real chapter in the lesson which they are yet to learn in its entirety.
But, although local conditions and abuses were always to be the direct forces operating upon the civic development of Chicago, the reform and growth of the municipal body were really an accompani- ment of the national movement tending to improve the civil service of the general government. In the first formal discussion at Wash- ington calling the country's attention to the necessity of keeping the public service from the clutches of politics, Webster, Clay and Cal- houn, in the midst of their acrimonies of 1835, agreed that "some- thing must be done." When assuming his tumultuous office in 1860, Lincoln found what it was to be a martyr to the spoils system. The great southern question pressed upon his heart for solution, but the office-seekers would not let him alone, and he cried out : "I am like a man so busy letting rooms in one end of his house that he cannot stop to put out the fire in the other." In the late seventies came the threatened disruption of the Republican party, because of a pro- test against the spoils system by such men as Sumner, Greeley and Schurz, and in 1881 Garfield was assassinated by Guiteau, an office- seeker. The latter tragedy was also a keen thrust at the vitals of the system, and fully aroused the sentiment of the country in support of civil service reform within the national government. President Ar- thur, the successor of Garfield, signed the act which established the merit system in the civil service of the United States, in direct oppo- sition to the spoils system, and Grover Cleveland unqualifiedly en- dorsed it, and even improved upon it. Thus Republican and Demo- cratic administrations formally endorsed the principle, and to a large extent the influence of politics upon the civil service has been elimi- nated. In 1884 laws founded upon the federal statutes were extended to New York, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Illinois-the state laws of Illinois under which the civil service of Cook county and the city of Chicago was organized were passed in 1895.
The intervening period had embraced three of the eight years of the notoriously political Harrison administration ; the administration of John A. Roche, during which a vigorous attempt was made to enforce the ordinances against gambling and midnight closing of the saloons; the Cregier regime, also partisan, during which 128 square miles of the city's present area of 190 square miles, were added, and
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considerable advances made in the movement toward municipal own- ership of the gas and transportation systems of the city; the Wash- burne term, during which was inaugurated the work of elevating the railroad tracks within the municipal limits, and the final administra- tion of the elder Harrison, culminating in the assassination of the mayor by one who imagined that he had been unjustly treated.
In the early nineties the public sentiment of the country in favor of civil service reform in the general government had become strongly reflected upon the county and city administrations,
CIVIL SERVICE. and the present statutes providing for the merit rule
were passed by the legislature in 1895, going into force on July Ist of that year. As to the county, the law places under the merit rule all employes, except appointive heads of departments, that come under the jurisdiction of the board of commissioners. The amendment of 1905 simplifies the removal of employes whose service is unsatisfactory. The attending staff of physicians and surgeons and the internes of the Cook County Hospital are also placed under the merit rule, and by the amendment of 1905 the probation officers of the juvenile court are also placed under the civil service act.
Public sentiment strongly supported civil service reform both in the administration of county and city governments, and, perhaps as much as any one man, Merritt Starr, the widely-known legal au- thor and lawyer, was concerned with the crystallization of the move- ment into definite legislation and organization. A liberally educated man, both in literature and the law, he had been engaged in the com- pilation and annotation of the state statutes for many years, as well as enjoyed a professional association with such leaders of the bar as George R. Peck and John S. Miller. He was president of the Chi- cago Law Institute for two terms. He fathered the general state law providing for the introduction of the merit system, and assisted in its passage, as well as in the enactments bringing Cook county and the city of Chicago within its provisions. He personally drafted the city civil service law, followed it faithfully through the state legisla- ture, was afterward a leader in the charter for a so-called Greater Chicago, and has unquestionably been one of the strongest and most consistent agents in the formation and development of a high civic spirit, and the promulgation of practical reforms of the many earnest and able citizens who have participated in such municipal movements.
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The first Civil Service Commission of Chicago was appointed by Mayor George B. Swift, and consisted of the following members : John M. Clark, president ; Rollin A. Keyes, secretary, and W. K. Ackerman, chairman of the general board of examiners. In the classification of offices and the formulation of the rules, the commis- sion was greatly assisted by John T. Doyle, secretary of the Na- tional Civil Service Commission, who visite 1 Chicago for about five weeks for that purpose. On August 26, 1895, the law, classification and rules went into effect. During the first day 2,000 blank applica- tions for positions were filed, and up to December 31st 20.500 formal applications had been made, of which 14,000 were for official serv- ice and the balance for labor service. At this formative period of the commission, it was necessary to put in force some effective system for physically examining applicants for the fire and police depart- ment, and after a thorough investigation of the matter the method adopted was that devised by Dr. A. H. Brown of New York City, who came from the eastern metropolis himself to supervise the first examinations. This, of itself, was a large task, as just prior to the taking effect of the law 700 patrolmen had been discharged from the city service on purely political grounds. Although the police and fire departments were in most pressing need of the application of a law which applied the tests of special fitness, moral character and general intelligence to the civil service of the municipal departments, all were honeycombed and weakened by politics and "pull." When the com- mission first entered upon its duties it found 40,000 applications for office on file in the different city departments. Of course, under the old regime, this horde of office-seekers swarmed around the harassed mayor of the city; under the civil service rules the slate was wiped clean, and as stated by the commission : "The effect of the adoption of the Civil Service law and rules has been to relieve the mayor and heads of departments from the pressure of applicants for office, thus leaving them to attend to their more important duties." The origi- nal rules made forty-five years the age test for entrance to the civil service of the city, but this proviso was soon abolished. The com- mission also eliminated from the examinations purely educational tests, as the end was obviously to ascertain the applicant's practical ability to fill the position for which he is a candidate rather than his scholastic accomplishments. The prime object in an examination Vol. I-8.
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for the civil service is to bring out the individual qualifications, expe- rience and resources of the applicant, and for this reason, in those employments which do not require special technical education the items of examination known variously as "knowledge of duties," "knowledge for position," etc., have gradually been raised in im- portance. The service both of the city and county is divided into three classes-official, skilled labor and labor (common). In order to be eligible to the examination, the applicant must have resided in city or county for a year, and be twenty-one years of age, if a man, and eighteen years old, if a woman. Good moral character, tem- perance and sound health are also given as requisites.
Reverting to the main features of the examinations for the civil service, it may be remarked that they are based on the method long prevalent in the colleges and universities of the country. The exami- nation for each office is divided into several heads, which total from ten to fifteen points, or "weights." For instance, out of a total of ten weights given to the examination for the medical service, technical knowledge. counts four and experience two, for the reason that the education of a physician, or other employe of that department who would be valuable, would necessarily be largely technical, while one of broad and long experience would not be likely to apply for such a position. Seven out of the ten points for a civil engineering ex- amination are covered by technical knowledge and mathematics, and the same items embrace six points in the examination for electrical engineering. On the other hand, the applicant for a position on the fire or police department is required to have a practical knowledge of the duties which he seeks, and in his position six of the ten points are covered by this heading. The educational test is light, and could be passed by the average graduate of the public school. In the ex- amination of engineers, pilots and stokers, who desire to be admitted to the city service, six points are given to "knowledge of duties" and five to physical qualifications (out of a total of fifteen points), the latter also being an important consideration in the case of the would- be fireman or policeman. In the examinations for positions under the classification, skilled labor, practical tests as to qualifications count three out of the five points and technical knowledge two; when the applicant takes the examination for a foremanship, which position calls for the making out of various reports, spelling and arithmetic
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count one point each, technical knowledge five and experience two, out of a total of nine points. In considering the necessary qualifica- tions for clerks, stenographers and employes of the public library, on the other hand, penmanship, spelling and letter-writing are natur- ally raised in "weight."
Although the above gives but a general idea of the development and present status of the civil service of Chicago, it is sufficient to counteract the scoffing attitude of many well-meaning but imperfectly informed citizens, who are disposed to deride civil service examina- tions as the invention of impractical enthusiasts. The system still has its defects, but it is a vast improvement over the old spoils sys- tem of political influence and personal "pull" as the chief motive powers for advancement in the civil service. The public, in fact, is being educated to the idea that these forces are fast vanishing. All employes of the city and county, under the law, are now protected from political persecution, or from discharge on political grounds. Political assessments are no longer a part of the system. A perma- nent tenure of office or position is ensured during good behavior, and promotion is based on merit after examination. This certainly indicates a very encouraging development of the civic service and the idea of civil service reform. At the present time the most 110- ticeable defect appears to be the grading of positions based on com- pensation. The great inequality of salaries, even paid to those in the same department whose duties differ little in responsibility or quali- fications, is the constant cause of much dissatisfaction and friction, and as stated by the commission, "it is here that favoritism does its most harmful work." But the defect is so plainly evident that the civil service commission is taking up the matter in a practical way with the common council, so that this bald defect in the civil service will be soon remedied.
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