City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago
Read City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago Online
Authors: Gary Krist
ALSO BY GARY KRIST
The White Cascade
Extravagance
Chaos Theory
Bad Chemistry
Bone by Bone
The Garden State
Copyright © 2012 by Gary Krist
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Krist, Gary.
City of scoundrels: the twelve days of disaster that gave birth to modern Chicago/Gary Krist.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Chicago (Ill.)—History—20th century. 2. Disasters—Illinois—Chicago—History—20th century. 3. Chicago (Ill.)—Civilization. I. Title.
F548.5.K75 2012
977.3’11042—dc22 2011010906
eISBN: 978-0-307-45431-7
Map designed by Jeffrey L. Ward
Jacket design by Laura Duffy
Jacket illustration: Rob Wood/Wood Ronsaville Harlin, Inc
.
v3.1
For Anna
,
my favorite Chicagoan
AUTHOR’S NOTE
City of Scoundrels
is a work of nonfiction, adhering strictly to the historical record and incorporating no invented dialogue or other undocumented re-creations. Unless otherwise attributed, anything between quotation marks is either actual dialogue (as reported by a witness or in a newspaper) or else a citation from a diary, memoir, book, letter, telegram, court transcript, or other document, as cited in the notes. In some quotations I have, for clarity’s sake, silently corrected the original spelling, syntax, or punctuation. Since reporters of the day lacked modern recording technology, different newspaper or other reports about the same event occasionally have slightly differing versions of what was said or done; in these cases, I have sometimes combined elements from several different accounts of an event, speech, or conversation to create what I hope is a more complete picture of what actually occurred.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE:
The Burning Hive
J
ULY
21, 1919
PART ONE:
Collision Course
J
ANUARY
1
TO
J
ULY
21, 1919
Chapter One - The New Year 1919
Chapter Two - The Mayor Announces
Chapter Three - Enemies
Chapter Four - The Fourth Estate
Chapter Five - A Bomb in the Night
Chapter Six - Election
Chapter Seven - On the Warpath
Chapter Eight - Going Dry
PART TWO:
Crisis
J
ULY
22
TO
J
ULY
31, 1919
Chapter Nine - Tuesday, July 22
Chapter Ten - Wednesday, July 23
Chapter Eleven - Thursday, July 24
Chapter Twelve - Friday, July 25
Chapter Thirteen - Saturday, July 26
Photo Insert
Chapter Fourteen - Sunday Morning, July 27
Chapter Fifteen - Sunday Afternoon, July 27
Chapter Sixteen - Monday, July 28
Chapter Seventeen - Tuesday, July 29
Chapter Eighteen - Wednesday, July 30
Chapter Nineteen - Thursday, July 31
PART THREE:
From the Ashes
A
UGUST
1, 1919,
TO LATE
1920
Chapter Twenty - The Morning After
Chapter Twenty-One - To the Last Ditch
Chapter Twenty-Two - “Throw Away Your Hammer and Pick Up a Horn!”
Chapter Twenty-Three - The Smoke-Filled Room
EPILOGUE:
The Two Chicagos
M
AY
14, 1920
Great wars have been followed by an unusually large number of killings between private citizens and individuals.
—CLARENCE DARROW
It came to me then that I had been fighting the wrong war. The Germans weren’t the enemy. The enemy was right here at home.
—HARRY HAYWOOD
Chicago ain’t no Sunday School.
—“BATHHOUSE JOHN” COUGHLIN
T
HE
S
PANISH INFLUENZA
had nearly killed Carl Otto that summer, but now the young bank telegrapher, clearly on the mend, was eager to return to work. On the warm, sunny morning of Monday, July 21, therefore, he rose early to prepare for his commute. His wife, Elsie, was concerned about his health and tried to discourage him. Carl was still not well, she insisted, and his extended sick leave didn’t officially end until tomorrow. Couldn’t he put off work for just one more day?
But Carl was adamant. He truly enjoyed his job at the bank and valued his reputation as a conscientious worker. And although he knew better than to make light of his illness (the recent flu epidemic had already killed more people than the Great War had), he felt he should delay his return no longer. He was, after all, an employee of one of Chicago’s premier financial institutions: the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank, located right in the heart of the downtown Loop district. Standing at the foot of the Chicago Board of Trade Building on the corner of LaSalle Street and Jackson Boulevard, the bank was an important conduit for the countless transactions generated each day by the largest and most significant commodities exchange in the world. New York’s Wall Street may have been the center for the trading of company shares, but it was in the pits of the Chicago Board of Trade that the fate of real things—of wheat, corn, hogs, lumber, cattle, and oats—was determined. Populations worldwide were dependent on it for the raw fuel of civilization itself.