USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical review of Chicago and Cook county and selected biography, Volume I > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
64
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
of a meeting at 7:30 in the evening, at Haymarket Square, was given. The notice of the meeting contained also the following: "Working- men : Arm yourselves and appear in full force." Tuesday, dynamite bombs were distributed to various conspirators. The police were aware of the preparations that had for some time been in progress to attack at the same hour a number of police stations by throwing a bomb therein and shooting the police as they came out. At the meet- ing on Tuesday evening, a number of violent speeches were made, one speaker, among other things, saying: "You have nothing to do with the law except to lay hands on it and throttle it until it makes its last kick. * Throttle it. Kill it. Stab it. Do everything you can to wound it-to impede its progress." He concluded his address by waving his hat and crying: "To arms, to arms, to arms !"
The speaking continued until after 10 o'clock, and was of a very inflammatory character. A large force of police had been as- sembled, and shortly after the conclusion of one of the most violent harangues, a platoon of police, occupying the entire' width of Des Plaines street, upon which the speaking was, advanced, Captains Ward and Bonfield marching in front. At the command of Captain Ward, the platoon halted; he then, stepping forward to within three feet of the truck wagon from which, as a speaker's stand, the speak- ing had been, said :
"I command you in the name of the people of the state immedi- ately and peaceably to disperse."
At once, from the midst of the crowd, in the vicinity of the southeast corner of the alley on the east side of DesPlaines and north of Randolph street, a burning fuse was seen; the bomb to which it was attached was thrown forward and fell, exploding in front of the police, seven of whom were killed, sixty being wounded. The re- mainder of the force were amazed and stunned for a moment only. Officer Fitzpatrick, in a loud, clear voice, called out, "Close up, form line and charge." The police immediately advanced, firing their re- volvers. The crowd fled in all directions. Upon the following day a number of persons charged with having been engaged in the manu- facture of bombs, the circulation of incendiary literature, advising as- saults upon and killing of the police, the destruction of private prop- erty, attacking stores and warehouses and armed resistance to the
65
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
enforcement of the law, were arrested, eight of whom were after- wards tried; seven of these the jury found guilty.
An attack upon the police, the destruction of authority and the breaking up of organized society by the use of dynamite had long been deliberately planned and preparations therefor had been made.
The actual assault by dynamite was the first ever made upon a regularly organized and disciplined force. Dynamite has since been extensively used in war. A review of the evidence presented and the proceedings had upon the trial is set forth in the first 266 pages of the 122nd volume of the reports of the proceedings of the supreme court of the state of Illinois. The trial was not only in many re- spects the most important ever had in Chicago, but it attracted throughout the civilized world the most attention ever given to a judicial proceeding in this country.
Men and peoples have ever been accustomed to take notice of and celebrate the anniversary of great events. We take note of our birthdays until we have arrived at the years at which we dislike to be reminded how old we are. Nations, in their own esteem, are never old; the active, pushing, ruling part of the people are the young ; therefore states always like to call attention to the small beginning of that which has come to be so great, or whose career has been so glorious.
Outside the domain of religion, in the history of mankind, the most important event is the work of Columbus in making the two halves of the earth known to each other. In the eastern world en- pires had risen, ruled and passed away. There were mighty men in the ancient days of the old world. Architects whose structures we strive in vain to equal; lawyers whose judgments live in every volume of the common law ; philosophers whose reasoning was as acute and whose reflections were as profound as any in the days since man learned to print and thus spread abroad his learning; prophets, the reverberation of whose voices past the centuries and o'er the seas admonish our souls and stir our hearts today.
We know less of the past of America, because, perhaps, it reached its apogee ere Caesar's conquering legions stood on Britain's shores. We do know that at the coming of the European there were here civilizations whose condition, government, art, knowledge and re-
Vol. I-5.
66
CHICAGO .AND COOK COUNTY
flection indicated an immeasurable past as well as a study of the universe, in its results, equal to anything known of it at the begin- ning of the Christian era.
The apostle to the Gentiles, standing upon Mars Hill, said: "Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too much given over to superstition. For as I passed by and beheld your devotions I found an altar with this inscription-'To the unknown God.' Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you."
More than a thousand years after Paul thus spoke to the Greeks, the unknown God was revealed to a great soul in the western world.
Before the discovery of America by Columbus there ruled over the empire of Mexico a monarch possessed of a religious soul and a philosophic mind. After a reign of half a century, in the closing years of his life he wrote :
"All things on earth have their term; in the most joyous career of their vanity and splendor their strength fails and they sink into the dust. All the world is but a sepulcher and there is nothing which lives on its surface that shall not be hidden and entombed beneath it. Rivers, torrents and streams move onward to their destination. Not one flows back to its pleasant source. They rush onward hastening to bury themselves in the deep bosom of the ocean. The things of yesterday are not today, and the things of today shall cease, perhaps, on the morrow. The cemetery is full of the dust of bodies once quickened by living souls, who occupied thrones, presided over as- semblies, marshaled armies, subdued provinces, were puffed with vain- glorious pomp, power and empire. But these have passed away like the smoke that goes out the throat of Popocatapetl, with no memorial of their existence save the record on the page of the chronicler. The great, the wise, the valiant, the beautiful-alas! where are they now ? All mingled with the clod; and that which hath befallen them shall come to us and to those that come after us.
"Yet let us take courage, illustrious nobles and chieftains, true friends and loyal subjects-let us aspire to that heaven where all is eternal and corruption cannot come.
"The horrors of the tomb are but the cradle of the sun and the dark shadows of death are brilliant lights for the stars."
In spite of the idolatrous worship of the Aztecs, there remained with them an inheritance from the ancient religion of the Toltecs, and
67
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
the hope expressed in the concluding sentences of the monarch's re- flections indicate a belief in a future existence. Having, after much reflection and prayer, come to believe in one all-powerful, unknown God, the creator of the universe, he built a temple to the deity he wor- shiped and dedicated it to "The unknown God, the cause of causes."
No image was allowed in the building, images being thought un- suited to a temple to the "Invisible God." The people were forbidden to profane the altars of the temple with blood or any sacrifice other than the perfume of flowers and sweet-scented gums.
Severed by waters that felt no keel, by waves that saw no sail, the eastern and the western continents remained divided from the beginning of measured time till the son of Genoa.
COLUMBUS crossing the mysterious and mighty deep, made the
AND FOUR world one. The tale Columbus and his compan- CENTURIES. ions told was denied, doubted, believed. And well might there be doubt, for the report he made shook the foundations of every school of learning in Europe. Yet, in time, only the geographical understanding of mankind was much changed by the finding of another world. Had there been in Europe the means of communication, the railroads, mills, steamships, telegraphs, education, enterprise, industrial activity and the press there is now, Europe would within the next century have been half depopulated. As it was, some towns in Spain lost most of their young men. All adventurous souls longed to see the strange country that held nobody knew what. There was an opportunity, an awakening, the charm of novelty and mystery such as mankind will never see again.
As the four hundredth anniversary of the landing of Columbus drew near, there was in the United States a feeling that appropriate notice should be taken of the event and the measureless consequences that followed therefrom. It was determined that an exhibition call- ing attention to the mighty changes wrought in the four centuries past should be held, and to this all the world should be invited. Chi- cago, that within sixty years had risen from an unorganized settle- ment of some three hundred souls to a city of over one million people was, as the most conspicuous example of rapid civic trans- formation and development, selected as the place to which all should be asked to come, consider and examine the wonders that had here been wrought in less than one lifetime.
68
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
Under the general superintendence of Mr. Daniel H. Burnham, a plan for the exhibition buildings and grounds was agreed upon and the work was begun of creating a fitting place for the meeting of the nations, a gathering of the tribes of men-the polished European, ac- customed to the courts of kings, the tent-dwelling Bedouin of the desert, the reflective-minded sons of eastern and southern Asia, upon whose soil civilization seems to have first appeared, those who dwell in the isles of the sea and all who live in America, whether descend- ants of Europeans, Esquimaux, children of the Incas, Aztecs, Toltecs, Cholutecs, or of the nomadic wanderers of the wild, whom the fol- lowers of Columbus, in their belief that there had been found, not a new continent, but only a before-unknown shore of the old, called "Indians."
Under the inspiration of this thought there were made in Jack- son Park, beside the waters of the great lake, for the nations, peo- ples and tribes of earth who should hither come, houses, gardens, walks, built, in truth! with hands, yet verily! eternal in the heavenly memories of the myriad souls who, looking upon the stately temples of industry and art, the lofty minarets and towers, the long colon- nades arrayed in glistening white, the green grass and the beautiful flowers, enraptured turned to see the white-capped, emerald-hued waves of Lake Michigan hastening to kiss the shore upon which stood a realization of the inspired love which has made water every- where the parent of life.
The Fair opened May Ist and closed October 31st, 1893. The to- tal paid attendance was 21,480,141; the free and paid admissions 27,539,430.
Why the anniversary of the great fire of 1871 should have been selected as Chicago day, it is difficult to say. That a time in which many lost their lives, multitudes the hardly-saved earnings of many years, others were reduced from affluence to poverty, an innumerable number of tenderly-cherished records and mementoes were destroyed, and more than a hundred thousand people rendered homeless, should be set apart for remembrance and honor, is past explanation.
Somehow, years before the great exposition was talked of, the Monday of the calamitous fire had come to be known as Chicago day. Therefore, October 9th was published as the day upon which the people of Chicago were especially expected to be at the Fair. The
69
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
expectation was realized. October 9th the paid attendance was 716,- 881 ; free admissions, 45,061 ; total attendance, 761.942.
Estimates of the number of persons in a crowd, on the street or at a great meeting are continually made. Such estimates, when the number is thought to be over one hundred thousand, are a mere guess and entirely unreliable. That the recorded number of paid admis- sions October 9th is not excessive is very certain, as the entrance gates mechanically registered all who went in and the cashiers are not likely to have charged themselves and paid for more half dol- lars than came into their hands. There is thus a very high degree of certainty that 716,881 persons entered at the paying gates. Tho 45,061 free admissions are not extraordinary. So far as is with any considerable degree of certainty known, the multitude that was at the Fair October 9, 1893, was the largest voluntary assemblage with- in enclosed grounds, for pleasure, up to that time known in the his- tory of mankind. In so far as such a matter can be determined by expression and appearance, the exposition afforded great happiness to great numbers of people. The commendation of buildings, ground and exhibits was enthusiastic and universal. The influ- ence of the Fair was civilizing, instructive and promotive of peace. The ends of the earth were brought together. The dwellers upon the mountains and prairies of the west ate bread prepared by Moors and Berbers after the manner of the desert. Artists from Berlin, Paris and Boston listened to and enjoyed the simple plaintive har- monies of the Javanese. There were exhibitions of the toil, the dancing, the feasting, the household gods, belongings and daily liv- ing of people in all quarters of the globe. Every kind of instrument by which man yet cultivates the soil and every means of conveyance yet employed were illustrated by examples or models. A large build- ing was devoted to an illustration of methods of transportation. In this, seemingly, copies of all the rafts and boats, save the ark, by which man has sailed upon the water were shown; and likewise the kind of trappings, harness, bridles, yokes and saddles under which beasts of burden have staggered, groaned, run and danced since neo- lithic man made the horse his companion and Balaam's ass saved and reproved its rider. One looked at these, the drags, harrows, ploughs, sleds, sledges, wagons, carts, they have drawn; the iron bits forced into tender mouths; the wooden saddle trees bound to lacer-
70
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
ated backs; the heavy yoke carried upon weary necks; the hard har- ness chafing sore bodies; the sharp spur plunged into bleeding sides ; the heavy lash descending upon quivering flesh; the faithful dog, enduring all suffering, facing all danger, gladly dying to save or serve his master; the patient, uncomplaining ass, toiling through the day, thankful for a thistle at night; the ungainly camel, providing for man a highway in the desert; the huge elephant that searches the spot whereon he is to step, lest he crush something dear to man; the beautiful, buoyant, intelligent horse, and recalling how these, the uncomplaining dumb, have suffered at the hand of the human, one was almost compelled to say, if man was made but little lower than angels to what depths of hell must he not since have fallen.
The Fair was such a place for finding that the activity of the mind exceeds the endurance of the body. There was so much to see, to study, to come to know well; it was such a school and the time for attendance so brief. Six months-six years would have been too short. People looked, listened, studied, and in the midst of the beau- tiful and the interesting found themselves fagged out. The states each had houses of rest equipped with lounges and easy chairs- blessed havens they were for the visitor weary with delight. One met such interesting people. Dignified Parsees with their queer hats and their serious conversation. Small Japanese excelling in every- thing. Dark-skinned Hindoos, overrunning with metaphysical ideas and recondite philosophy. Brahmans who considered ten thousand years a small portion of the time since Brahm was made known to man. Egyptians as ready to bargain as were their ancestors when they bought Joseph from the Midianites and sold corn to his breth- ren. Hindoos exhibiting and selling all kinds of filigree work. Na- tives of Oceanica, termed by Europeans semi-civilized, whose man- ners and politeness were superior to ours, although their knowledge of machinery and books was less. Esquimaux, paddling their kayaks about the lagoons. Scandinavians who came every inch of the way from Europe to Chicago in a replica of a boat used by the Vikings. Icelanders, hoping to dispose of old Norse silver.
Our fierce democracy, for the nonce, let down its barriers and welcomed to its homes lords and princes, dukes and earls. No rude churls we in those hospitable days; but gentle folk, to the manner born, who bowed low to and made way for the stranger of exalted
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
rank and high degree as graciously and courteously as though we were merchants seeking trade or candidates for office looking for votes, and he a hind who homeward drove the loitering kine.
Mirabile dictu! Wonderful to see. "Prophets and kings desired it long, but died without the sight." We had a Parliament of Relig- ions, to which people of all religions were invited, came and WERE HEARD. Not since the untutored savage, dazzled by the lightning's flash, asked the God whose awful voice shook the earth, to spare him and his kin, nor since the primitive Iranian, shivering beside the dy- ing embers of his camp fire, turning uneasily upon the ground on which he lay, prayed for the coming of God-the Sun from whence proceeded warmth and light; to the opening of the Parliament of Religions in Chicago on the 11th day of September, A. D., 1893, had there been such a gathering, nor such a communion as when, in Chicago, at the request of a communicant of the Chicago Church of the New Jerusalem, the American cardinal of the Roman Catholic church, arose and before the vast audience, who stood with bowed heads, repeated the universal prayer. To Mr. Charles C. Bonney, a lawyer of Chicago, is due the fact that such a parliament was. With untiring zeal and discretion he labored to bring his conception into being. As president of the parliament, his conduct and his wis- dom were such that in reference to it he came to be called and cons sidered "the indispensable Mr. Bonney." In his opening address he said :
"Worshipers of God and Lovers of Man: Let us rejoice that we have lived to see this glorious day; let us give thanks to the Eternal God, whose mercy endureth forever, that we are permitted to take part in the solemn and majestic event of a world's congress of religions.
"If this congress shall faithfully execute the duties with which it has been charged, it will become a joy of the whole earth and stand in human history like a new Mount Zion, crowned with glory and marking the actual beginning of a new epoch of brotherhood and peace.
"For when the religious faiths of the world recognize each other as brothers, children of one Father, whom all profess to love and serve, then, and not till then, will the nations of the earth yield to the spirit of concord and learn war no more.
72
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
"In this congress the word 'religion' means the love and worship of God and the love and service of man. We believe the Scripture that 'of a truth God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him.'
"The program of this General Parliament of Religions directly represents England, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Ger- many, Russia, Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Syria, India, Japan, China, Ceylon, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada and the American states, and indirectly includes many other countries. This remarkable program presents, among other great themes to be considered in this congress, Theism, Judaism, Mohammedanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shintoism, Zoroastrianism, Catholicism, the Greek church, Protestantism in many forms, and also refers to the nature and influence of other religious systems.
"This day the sun of a new era of religious peace and progress rises over the world, dispelling the dark clouds of sectarian strife. This day a new flower blooms in the gardens of religious thought, filling the air with its exquisite perfume. This day a new fraternity is born into the world of human progress, to aid in the upbuilding of the kingdom of God in the hearts of men. Era and flower and fraternity bear one name. It is a name which will gladden the hearts of those who worship God and love man in every clime. Those who hear its music, joyfully echo it back to the sun and flower.
"It is the Brotherhood of Religions.
"In this name I welcome the first Parliament of the Religions of the World."
There were also conventions of teachers, philosophers, musicians and kindred arts, mathematicians, metallurgists, engineers, philolo- gists, etc.
In 1894 manufacturing, mercantile and transportation interests throughout the country were greatly depressed. The business of all these fell off to an extent that imperiled the solvency of many. As a consequence large numbers of salaried workingmen lost their places. The price of manufactured articles declined so that as to many they could not be sold at what it cost to manufacture them, and wages were lowered.
Eugene V. Debs and others had for years been endeavoring to
TS
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
form so large an organization of railway employees as to render the railroads completely dependable upon the services of its members and thus put the Railway Union in a position to dictate to the transporta- tion interests, wages, hours of labor, rules of service, etc.
In 1894 the organization included 150,000 railway employees. In the summer of 1894 a large number of the employees of the Pullman Company struck because of dissatisfaction by them with the wages offered by the Company. The Pullman Company was not engaged in the business of transporting freight or passengers. It merely manu- factured cars and sold or leased them to railroads. Nevertheless 4.000 of its employees were admitted into the American Railway Employees Union. In the summer of 1894 a convention of this Union was held in Chicago, which convention on the 22nd of June ordered that unless the Pullman Company should before noon of June 26th adjust the grievances of its employees, the members of the Union should after that date refuse to handle Pullman cars and equipment.
Eugene V. Debs, president of the Railway Employees Union, in an affidavit by him made subsequent to his arrest, said :
"The railway employees, members of the Union, in obedience to the order of the convention of the Union, on the 26th of June refused to haul Pullman cars. The switchmen in the first place refused to attach a Pullman car to a train, and that is where the trouble began ; and then when a switchman would be discharged for that, the switch- men would all quit, as they had agreed to do. One department of the railroads after another was involved until the Illinois Central was practically paralyzed, and the Rock Island and other roads in their turn. After the strike had been in progress five days, the railway managers, as we believe, were completely defeated. Their immediate resources were exhausted, their properties were paralyzed and they were unable to move their trains. That was the condition on the 30th day of June and the Ist day of July."
The strike resulted not only in stopping to a great extent the trans- portation of passengers, mails and freight in Chicago, but throughout the country. Business was very seriously interrupted from Chicago to San Francisco; indeed ! the strike extended over the greatest extent of territory, involved the largest number of employees and caused the most serious interruption to business of any strike, before or since. Passengers were in some instances, through the abandonment of trains
74
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
by the railway employees in charge, at small stations in the mountains and on semi-desert plains, put for days to most serious inconvenience and annoyance, as they could neither go forward to their destination nor return to the homes from which they had come.
Grover Cleveland, president of the United States in 1894, concern- ing the railroad riots and the action of the government, wrote :
"As early as the 28th of June, information was received at Wash- ington by the postoffice department that on the Southern Pacific Railway system between Portland and San Francisco and between Ogden and San Francisco, the carriage of the mails was completely obstructed.
"July 6th six hundred freight cars with their contents were burned in railway yards at Chicago. July 3rd a mob of two to three thousand rioters held possession of a crossing of the Rock Island Railroad in Chicago and prevented passenger and other trains from passing. July 5th a mob of two thousand persons gathered at the Union Stock Yards, obstructed the movement of trains and overturned twenty-eight cars, which obstructed the passage of all trains, freight, passenger and mail, in the vicinity of the stock yards. July 6th, of the twenty-three railroads centering in Chicago, only six were unobstructed. Thirteen were entirely obstructed, and ten were running only passenger and mail trains. A party of rioters went from 14th to 44th street and Stewart avenue, throwing gasoline on all freight cars in that section of the city."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.