AND SO THE ORDEAL of Chicago’s summer of crisis passed. Fall arrived—always welcome after the sweltering prairie August—and with it came the usual sense of renewed possibility, of getting back to normal life, of making changes and starting over again.

Carl Sandburg, for one, decided in September that it was time to upgrade his living situation. Safely reestablished now at the Daily News, he felt financially secure enough to move with his wife and daughters from the cramped Maywood cottage to a larger, more expensive house amid the pines and poplars of Elmhurst, Illinois, a few miles farther out of the city. “Why should I be the only poet of misery to be keeping out of debt?” he joked to a friend shortly after the move. Besides, he was making some money in publishing now. Alfred Harcourt had agreed to publish his race riot articles as a freestanding work, the first volume in Harcourt, Brace, and Howe’s new pamphlet series. And although work on that book and his reporting duties were interfering somewhat with his poetry production (Sandburg was covering both the riot trials and the continuing labor unrest for the Daily News), Harcourt told him not to worry. “We mustn’t let our anxiety to have a book of yours on our early list induce either of us to publish [prematurely],” he wrote. “You and Frost, anyway, are the longtime people, and a season more or less mustn’t count.”¹

Others were also moving on to new ventures. Ring Lardner, whose contract with the Tribune had ended in June, signed a deal with the Bell Syndicate lucrative enough to permit him to take his family east to live in Greenwich, Connecticut. Jane Addams embarked on a speaking tour to raise money for starving German children (much to the outrage of her jingoistic critics). And Clarence Darrow notched up yet another victory in yet another high-profile court case, successfully pleading insanity for an Emma Simpson, a jealous wife who had shot and killed her husband in court during their divorce proceedings. In his final statement to the all-male jury on September 25, Darrow argued that, in a case of this type, more consideration should be shown for a woman than for a man. Why? Because the female of the species doesn’t shrug off old loves as easily as her male counterpart does. “You’ve been asked to treat a man and a woman the same—but you can’t,” the lawyer maintained. “No manly man can.” In the end, the jury apparently agreed; they did the manly thing by saving Mrs. Simpson from the gallows.²

Emily Frankenstein, turning to romance again after the violent distractions of midsummer, was also showing some reluctance to shrug off old loves. Despite her stern conviction to part with her soldier-lover (and notwithstanding her parents’ explicit command that they stop seeing each other), she and Jerry Lapiner had resumed their secret trysts again amid the chaos of late July. It was the race riot, in fact, that had indirectly brought them back together again. On the third day of the violence, Emily had begun to worry about Jerry: “I heard a rumor of a lot of people being killed downtown,” she later wrote in her diary, “[so] I called Jerry up to see how he was.” He wasn’t at home, so she kept telephoning until she finally reached him after supper, at which time she made him promise to stay in for the rest of the evening. He agreed, and before long they found themselves talking as in the old days. “Well,” Emily wrote, “the result was, we didn’t part.” That Sunday, they met secretly in Jackson Park. Emily was afraid of being seen by someone they knew, so they retired to the bridle path. “We found a grassy place along the path in the bushes—hidden from even the horseback riders. I sat down prepared to talk and try to reach some decision, but Jerry had suddenly lost his desire to talk—and, well, he never kissed me like that before or since.”

By October, their broken engagement was back on—at least in Emily’s mind. “It’s dreadful and yet wonderful to be secretly engaged to be married and yet not to be able to tell a soul when you’re just bubbling over with happiness,” Emily wrote in her entry for October 18. “We know our love is not a fleeting fancy. We can’t do without each other.… It’s going to be a dreadful disappointment to the family. They’ve nothing against Jerry—his character, health, personality, all are O.K., but his lack of education isn’t. It doesn’t bother me. I love him.”

Even the religion issue was no longer a problem. To her delight, Jerry had more or less given up Christian Science, at least as a “medical aid,” though he still claimed an interest in the religion. For Emily, this was concession enough. “The Christian Science objection has been removed,” she concluded. “I’m sure the other things will turn out all right, too. Besides, I’m happy.”³

*   *   *

Chicago’s numerous conflicts, of course, did not simply disappear with the passing of the summer crisis. In fact, as autumn set in, the city’s labor unrest grew even worse, resulting in a series of railroad strikes and a nationwide steel strike that turned violent in the mills of Gary, Indiana, and South Chicago. The city crime rate also continued to climb, despite numerous “police shakeups” and “neighborhood crackdowns.” The passage in October of the Volstead Act, enabling the vigorous enforcement of the Prohibition amendment, did little to improve this situation, setting the stage for the great bootlegging wars that would plague Chicago in the coming 1920s.

Nor was the city’s racial strife over, despite the end of the major violence. Bombs continued to go off in buildings occupied by blacks or by realtors who rented to blacks—six more in 1919 and over a dozen in 1920. As for the white athletic clubs, Mayor Thompson eventually revoked their charters, at least temporarily, but incidents of racial antagonism continued in the parks and on the beaches. There would even be rumors of more riots—on Labor Day, on Halloween—but fortunately none of them ever came to pass.⁴

Selective prosecution of the riot cases continued to infuriate the black community, though State’s Attorney Hoyne did eventually bring some white perpetrators before the grand jury. Calls from the African American community for the removal of Hoyne came to nothing, and only ended up causing strife among the community’s leaders. When the Olivet Protective Association came out in support of Attorney General Brundage as a possible replacement for Hoyne as prosecutor of the riot cases, the organization’s cofounder, Ida Wells-Barnett, promptly resigned. Wells-Barnett had never forgiven Brundage for jailing innocent black men during the East St. Louis riot in 1917, and although she had little confidence in Hoyne, she feared that Brundage would be far worse. The association, however, wouldn’t listen to her, and so the activist found herself once again rejected by the leadership of her own race. “I rose and laid my membership card on the table and told the men that I would not be guilty of belonging to an organization that would do such a treacherous thing,” she later wrote of the episode. “As I passed out of the room, Rev. Williams said, ‘Good-bye,’ and Rev. Branham said, ‘Good riddance.’ I walked down South Parkway with tears streaming down my face … [and] never went back to a meeting of the so-called Protective Association.”

Hoyne proved to be largely ineffectual in any case. Because of a pervasive lack of evidence, the thirty-eight riot deaths ultimately generated just nine formal indictments (six of black rioters and three of whites), resulting in only five successful convictions (of three blacks and two whites). The number of indictments for nonfatal crimes was greater, but even so, the vast majority of rioters ultimately escaped prosecution entirely. Hoyne’s attempts to implicate corrupt officials in city hall, moreover, proved just as inconsequential, and so very little justice of any kind was ever meted out.⁵

Besides, there were now other villains for authorities to obsess over. Bolshevism seemed to grow ever more frightening and pervasive, as local and federal officials persisted in seeing Reds wherever they looked. Pacifists like Jane Addams, race activists like Ida Wells-Barnett, labor sympathizers like Carl Sandburg—all were investigated in the era of paranoia that followed the unrest of the summer of 1919. What could the violence of the summer be, after all, if not the product of radical agitation? It was this kind of thinking that would set off, early in 1920, the notorious Palmer raids that resulted in hundreds of specious arrests in Chicago alone.⁶

And even the national pastime would not be immune to the contagion of distrust. At October’s World Series, pitting Chicago’s own White Sox against the Cincinnati Reds, Ring Lardner would sense something amiss in the dismal performance of the hometown heroes. By the end of the first game, which the heavily favored Sox lost 9 to 1, Ring already had his suspicions; when they lost the second 4 to 2, he was certain. That night, he and three other journalists got together at a roadhouse and composed new lyrics for the popular song “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles”:

I’m forever blowing ball games,

Pretty ball games in the air.

I come from Chi.,

I hardly try,

Just go to bat and fade and die.…

It would take months for the story to emerge publicly, but when it did the news was stunning: Seven White Sox players—including Shoeless Joe Jackson, Lefty Williams, and Lardner’s good friend Eddie Cicotte—had conspired with a New York gambling syndicate to lose the Series for the sum of $100,000; an eighth player—Buck Weaver—had refused the money, played remarkably well, but failed to reveal his teammates’ crime to the authorities. As a result, all eight, though acquitted by a jury, were eventually banned from professional ball by the newly appointed commissioner of baseball, Chicago federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. This so-called Black Sox scandal would cast a pall over the game for many years to come, and it eventually became just another stick with which the city’s detractors could bludgeon Chicago’s reputation whenever the need arose.⁷

It was not, in sum, a good autumn for Chicago. But with the coming of the colder weather, the city was at least able to step back from the brink of total civic collapse. And the speedy resolution of the Janet Wilkinson case did much to help the city achieve a sense of closure. After pleading not guilty at a preliminary hearing in mid-August, Thomas Fitzgerald came before Judge Robert Crowe on September 22 for trial. Sitting “as in a daze” through the proceedings, he refused to look at any of the witnesses called by prosecutor O’Brien (still conspicuously wearing his red hanging tie). When the defendant changed his plea to guilty, Judge Crowe exclaimed, “If you have any idea the court will not inflict the death penalty, get rid of that notion.… If the evidence shows that hanging is proper, there will be no turning aside.”

The next day—in a courtroom filled beyond capacity with “morbidly curious men and women”—Fitzgerald quietly repeated the story of the slaying. After the closing pleas were made, Judge Crowe asked the prisoner to stand. Fitzgerald smiled faintly as a bailiff helped him to his feet.

“Have you anything to say before I pronounce sentence upon you for the murder of Janet Wilkinson?” the judge asked.

Fitzgerald’s fingers twitched uncontrollably as he muttered, “I’m sorry. I—I ask forgiveness.”

“Is that all?”

“I ask God to forgive me.”

Judge Crowe did not hesitate: “Thomas R. Fitzgerald,” he announced, “I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you are dead on Monday, October 27, at the Cook County Jail.”

Seated at a table opposite the defendant, Mrs. Wilkinson put her face in her hands and wept.⁸

Over the next few weeks, hundreds of requests for tickets to the hanging were received by Chief Deputy Harry Laubenheimer. The date of the execution was moved up to October 17 for technical reasons, but even Fitzgerald himself apparently did not object to this. On October 14, Governor Lowden refused a request by Mrs. Fitzgerald to reprieve her husband. Two days later, the ubiquitous Kenesaw Mountain Landis denied her petition for a stay of execution. And on the morning of October 17—after thanking his jailers and exclaiming, “I have sinned against God and man and I desire to be punished”—Fitzgerald was taken to the platform in the death chamber of the Cook County Jail.

“Fitzgerald,” Sheriff Peters asked, “have you anything to say?”

“No, thank you,” the prisoner replied.

A shroud was tied over his head. And at 9:24 a.m., Thomas Fitzgerald was hanged before the largest crowd that had ever witnessed an execution in Chicago history.⁹

*   *   *

Emerging from the aftermath of his summer struggles—incredibly—more popular than at any time since his first year as mayor, William Hale Thompson spent the waning weeks of 1919 working hard to burnish his reputation as “Big Bill the Builder.” Exhorting the city’s detractors again to “Throw Away Your Hammer and Pick Up a Horn” (that is, stop knocking Chicago and start celebrating it), he launched a broad-based public relations campaign to publicize the Chicago Plan, boom the city as a tourist destination, and promote his vision of the “City of the Future.”¹⁰

To a great extent, the campaign worked. Helped enormously by several newspaper supplements extolling the virtues of the plan’s goal of a more beautiful and thus more prosperous Chicago (“Beauty has always paid better than any other commodity and always will,” Daniel Burnham once said), Thompson lobbied energetically for the plan. He urged voters in the November elections to support the all-important bond issues needed to fund his enormous public works projects. And by impressive 2-to-1 margins—despite the fact that the city was virtually bankrupt—they did, opening the door to an unprecedented wave of city improvements (not to mention kickback and graft opportunities). For Big Bill, the result was a political triumph, and just the vote of confidence his administration needed to go forward. As Thompson biographer Douglas Bukowski would later write, “Concrete, poured in great quantities and with equal fanfare, went a long way in silencing [the mayor’s] critics.”¹¹

Thompson also found other ways of turning attention away from his summertime failures. He precipitated another school board controversy and made a great show of tackling national issues such as the punishment of war profiteers, the imposition of an embargo on food exports, and the rejection of the League of Nations. Why such issues should concern a city mayor was not entirely clear. But Thompson still had aspirations to national office, and in any case the issues served him well enough among his local constituents. When Big Bill railed against the king of England or war profiteers, he was by proxy railing against bosses, traction barons, and all other representatives of power and privilege who opposed the common man—a message that was appreciated by everyone from the city’s Irish and blacks to its working-class Poles and its disconsolate middle-class commuters.¹²

The transit issue, too, continued to serve as a convenient vehicle for the mayor’s rehabilitation. When Thompson went to the city council in October to ask for money to fund a commission to study his municipal ownership plan, the aldermen voted unanimously to grant it—a legislative victory in and of itself. But then Thompson went on to turn it into a Black Belt coup by naming his assistant corporation counsel, Edward Wright, to the new commission. The move was hailed by the Defender, which noted that the appointment elevated Wright to “the highest position … ever held in local government by any member of our Race.” If any blacks still held the race riot against the mayor, gestures like the elevation of Ed Wright were proof that Big Bill hadn’t abandoned them after all.¹³

By the end of December, then, Thompson had once again taken command, all but eliminating the taint of those twelve days when the city he was elected to lead nearly broke down completely. True, the establishment national press still treated him with contempt, and his local enemies certainly had not given up the fight against him. But one thing was definitely clear: Big Bill was back in the saddle, with the Poor Swede sitting right behind him. Having regained his bearings as a political operator, the mayor’s Mephistopheles was once again ready to engage the machinery of his far-reaching organization. And his plans were nothing if not ambitious. As one historian put it, Lundin “was going to try to obtain as vise-like a grip on the county and state as he had on the city.”

But first, of course, he and the mayor had one piece of unfinished business to attend to. The traitor who had once been their ally would have to be disposed of before they could realize their aspirations to greater power. In other words, Governor Lowden—now training his eye on the White House—would have to be eliminated from the political equation once and for all. It was a fight that Thompson and Lundin both seemed to be relishing.¹⁴