138 Years of Murder in Chicago

Unlike other posts on this site, this one focuses not on a single crime scene or an historical account of one or two individuals, but instead summarizes the facts on over a century of murder in Chicago. One of the main purposes of this blog is to understand Chicago's historic and modern reputation for crime, and comparisons over time can be illuminating.

The figure above shows the city's murder rate, expressed as murders per 100,000 residents, between 1870 and 2008. This gives a long-run summary view of homicide in Chicago over the last 138 years. I focus here on murder because, unlike rape, larceny, and other crimes, the likelihood of unreported victims is less severe with murder. The cops will eventually notice every corpse lying in the street, although it is true that some "accidental" deaths may actually have been murders, and some bodies are never found.

Data from 1931 to the present is drawn from the FBI's annual Crime in the United States, and is based on reports from local police agencies. Figures from 1870 - 1930 are based on Chicago police department data processed by Homicide in Chicago, a project hosted at Northwestern University School of Law. All figures include both murders and non-negligent manslaughter.

Between 1870 and 1920, Chicago's crime rate grew at an essentially steady pace, reaching a peak of 10 per 100,000 in 1919. During this period, Chicago was growing in population and density. High population density is typically associated with greater crime rates for several reasons. First, in small towns, every face is familiar, but in large cities, criminals are less likely to be recognized by witnesses. Realizing a lower likelihood of being caught, criminals commit more crimes. Second, crime pays better in cities, because there are more people to rob -- there's no point in becoming a robber in the first place if you can't hit lots of targets. Finally, and especially relevant to Chicago during this period, big cities attract large communities of poor immigrants with few prospects for legal employment. Criminal, on the other hand, is a profession open to all.

With the onset of national Prohibition in 1919, many of these immigrants gained lucrative employment in the bootlegging field, and for the first few years of the 1920s, at least, murder rates fell by nearly 50%. But as the various parts of Johnny Torrio's syndicate began falling apart in 1924, culminating in the murder of Torrio's north side associate Dion O'Banion, likely at the hand of his south side associates, the Genna brothers, Chicago's "Beer Wars" began, and the murder rate skyrocketed by 250% between 1923 and 1928. Also around the same time, the notoriously-violent Al Capone took over full control of Torrio's organization in 1925.

Even as Prohibition ended in 1931, murder rates remained high throughout the early 1930s, the worst years of the Great Depression, before falling below 5 per 100,000 in 1943. No doubt the massive mobilization of American men out of Chicago and into military companies in army barracks and overseas locations played no small role in the low murder rates of the early 1940s -- men have traditionally constituted the vast majority of both murderers and murder victims.

After WWII, Chicago's murder rate again began to climb as the city continued growing in size until around 1950. The city's demographics also changed during this period, as increasing automobile ownership and better highways allowed families seeking larger homes to commute from the suburbs, while younger cohorts without children remained in the city (most murderers are drawn from the ranks of 17-24 year olds).

Between 1943 and 1965, Chicago's murder rate rose at a roughly constant rate, increasing by 1 per 100,000 about every three years. However, between 1965 and 1970, the murder rate rose much more dramatically, increasing from 11 per 100,000 in 1965 to 24 per 100,000 in 1970.

Why did the murder rate rise so quickly in the late 1960s? Some point to stricter standards for policing and stronger rights for accused criminals during this period, symbolized by the Miranda case in 1966, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the police must inform arrested persons of their rights before interrogating them. Criminals facing a lower probability of punishment rationally commit more crimes.

There is also some evidence that the generation born after World War II had substantially poorer family formation rates, with an increasing share of children growing up in single-parent households. As I've written elsewhere, as these children reached their late teens and early adulthood -- when offense rates are highest -- in the late 1960s, the quantity of violent crime rose proportionately.

Another potential factor in the growth of crime during this era was the changing consumption patterns and legal status of drugs. The use of heroin and psychodelic drugs increased during the 1960s as production and transportation costs fell, and these drugs also become especially popular among enlisted men and counterculture communities. The pharmacological effects of increased drug consumption -- at least among the class of drugs popular during this period -- on violence are debatable. However, increased usage also led to substantially greater levels of enforcement. Federal prohibition on heroin stretches back to the 1910s, but LSD only became illegal in 1966. Arrests for drug crimes, which were exceptionally rare before 1965, skyrocketed afterwards. With prohibition comes incentives for violence between customers, dealers, and suppliers, who can no longer depend on the courts and police to enforce contracts and mitigate violence.

The war on drugs continued through the 1970s and 1980s. Especially prominent as a source of crime is the arrival of crack cocaine in the mid-1980s. Crack was an immediately and immensely popular drug, and its arrival in Chicago kicked off massive and bloody turf wars among rival drug-selling organizations (primarily street gangs) for control of retailing markets in the city.

While crack consumption has not waned much since the 1980s, boundaries between rival sellers have largely been settled. Thus, the end of the "crack epidemic" coincided with big declines in Chicago's murder rate. In the mid-1990s, the murder rate in Chicago (and nationwide) fell dramatically, declining below 50% of its 1992 peak by 2004. Besides the end of the crack epidemic, there are potentially several causes for this remarkable turnaround.

In other cities, such as New York, declines in crime have been attributed to substantial increases in the number of police on the street and to creative policing strategies. Chicago, however, saw little change in the size of its police force, and "broken windows" and other techniques were slow in gaining acceptance at the CPD, although greater efforts towards community engagement, such as the CAPS program, did begin in the early 1990s.

Imprisonment rates also increased during this period, with Illinois holding 27,516 prisoners in 1990 and 45,281 in 2000. With more criminals behind bars, there are fewer on the street committing crime. In addition, an increased likelihood of a lengthy prison sentence likely deters some would-be criminals.

Finally, and most controversially, some researchers have recently pointed to the role of legalized abortion in the evident decline in crime during the 1990s. While some states legalized abortion procedures before 1973, Illinois and most other states saw legalization after the Supreme Court's famous Roe v. Wade decision that year. A large share of women seeking abortions do so because they feel unprepared to raise a child -- and no doubt many of them in fact are poorly prepared for motherhood. After the legalization of abortion, this theory argues, many children, who would have been raised in high-risk environments, were never born. This "missing cohort" would have reached their late teens and early 20s during the early 1990s; thus, the decline in murder rates in the 1990s may be partially due to the fact that many would-be murderers were never born.

The statistical evidence regarding this theory is controversial and, in many places, contradictory. Nevertheless, it is difficult to doubt that at least some of the decline in Chicago's murder rate during the 1990s is due to legalized abortion.

By 2008, Chicago's murder rate was 18.03 per 100,000, roughly the same as it was in 1967. Nevertheless, the city's rate is substantially higher than some other large cities, including New York City (6.3 per 100,000) and Los Angeles (10.0 per 100,000). On the other hand, Chicago is relatively safe compared with Philadelphia (23.0 per 100,000), Detroit (33.8 per 100,000), and Gary, Indiana (73.2 per 100,000).

The Saga of Jesse Binga

The cinematic arc of Jesse Binga’s life story – his humble arrival in Chicago with $10 in his pocket, the genius and hard work that took him to the pinnacle of business and social success, and his courage in challenging and overcoming racially-motivated attacks, followed by a stunning bankruptcy, imprisonment, and a pitiful, penniless death – mirror in exaggerated terms the failed hopes of black Chicagoans in the first half of the 20th century. Most of the events in Binga’s life took place here at his home, 5922 South Parkway Blvd. (now 5922 S. Dr. Martin Luther King Dr.)

Jesse Binga was born at Detroit in 1865, one of ten children. His father was a barber, but his mother, Adelphia Powers Binga, was a serial entrepreneur, and became her son’s inspiration throughout his life. As a housing developer, she built “Binga row” houses in the city’s slums. She also operated a food shipment business – the first Great Lakes-caught whitefish ever tasted south of the Mason-Dixon line were transported there by the Bingas.

With ten children in the home, the family was never wealthy. Jesse Binga dropped out of high school and apprenticed to his father as a barber and also worked briefly for a Detroit attorney before setting out to seek his fortune. He worked off and on in barbershops throughout the Midwest, then headed to California, where he found employment as a Pullman porter. In 1893, Binga came to Chicago to attend the World’s Fair that took place that year, arriving with no more than $10 to his name. Remaining in the city after the Fair, Binga spent a few years working at odd jobs before starting a real estate business on south State St., near 33rd street in about 1896.

With his mother’s experience in real estate as an inspiration, Binga threw himself into the business, saying:

Well, I'm going to give it a fair test, and if integrity counts for anything, I'll win. I felt that only prejudice could beat me and I determined that if it did beat me I would go to South America and start life in one of those republics where a man's color is not his crime.

Jesse Binga’s audacious success and rapid climb into the highest echelons of Chicago society meant that he never saw the Andes mountains.

(Pictured: Jesse Binga)

At the turn of the century, only around 20,000 African-Americans called Chicago home, less than 2% of the city’s population. Most of these were concentrated in the so-called “Black Belt” district, which stretched a few blocks on either side of State street south from 22nd street down to 35th street. Chicago was not unusual in its racial homogeneity at the time; most African-Americans in the U.S. lived in southern states, several of which in fact had majority or near-majority black populations. Starting in the 1880s, and especially in the first decades of the 20th century, Jim Crow segregation in much of the South, plus racial persecution by the Ku Klux Klan and other white groups and poor agricultural employment opportunities sent millions of southern Blacks into northern cities, including Chicago. The widespread circulation of the Chicago Defender, the city’s chief African-American newspaper, made Chicago a particular magnet for those seeking jobs and inexpensive housing.

It was these new migrants who made up the core of Jesse Binga’s clientele. When he opened his real estate business in 1896, he paid $10 per month in office rent and bought a battered old desk for $1.50. He ordered 1,000 cards from a printer, but finding himself unable to pay the bill, convinced the printer to let him have 25 proofs as “samples,” which he used until he was able to pay in full. His first profitable project was renting an apartment in the same building where he had his office, then fixing it up and subletting it at a premium.

As black migrants flooded into Chicago, the borders of the Black Belt expanded into historically-white neighborhoods. White residents in these districts were eager to leave as blacks moved in, and Jesse Binga was the city’s major broker between white sellers and black buyers. Binga would buy or rent property from departing white residents, then fix up or subdivide these buildings into smaller apartments demanded by poor southern blacks arriving in the city. In this way, he was able to demand upwards of 50% premia over the purchase price of many properties. Binga placed the advertisement below in the Tribune in 1905:

By the middle of the 1900s decade, Binga was the city’s top black real estate broker, a position he continued to hold for the next twenty years. Explaining his rapid success to a reporter in later years, he emphasized his expertise in construction, and underestimation of his intelligence by business partners, as the twin bases for his success in real estate:

I could do the repair work myself. I could do everything from digging a posthole to topping a chimney. I knew. Many a night I've worked all night on boilers and plumbing, and wiping joints, and mending stairs, and hanging paper. I knew materials and I knew when work was right…

My greatest asset in business -- I won't say that it was altogether my integrity. It was partly the disposition of the average white man to underestimate my knowledge of real estate values. They wouldn't believe that a colored man could take almost any old building and whip it into shape.

Due to discrimination, as well as other factors, many blacks in Chicago faced difficulties in gaining access to adequate credit to finance houses and other large purchases. As with real estate, Jesse Binga realized he could turn racism into profit. Opening his own bank, he would serve customers other banks would not – and this lack of competition meant big revenues. When the white-owned McCarthy Bank at 35th and State failed in 1907, Binga purchased the building and chartered his Binga Bank, a private credit institution.

The bank was an immediate success, and such was Binga’s growing stature in the community that he decided to dabble in politics, running for County Commissioner in 1910. That run failed, and Binga largely turned away from politics for the rest of his life, finding business a much more profitable pursuit. Later, he would explain his disdain for political life: "the double crossing, the knife in the back one day and the handshake the next -- I never took to that. I vote but I don't know today what ward I live in."

(Pictured: political advertisement which appeared in the Chicago Defender in 1910)

In 1911, the Defender, referring to Binga as “Our Only Banker,” sang his encomium:

He was the pioneer in securing good houses and flats for the race and the beginning of his remarkable business along that line has been one of the main factors in the wonderful growth of the citizens of color in Chicago.

The next year, Binga married into the city’s wealthiest and most prominent African-American family, the Johnsons. His bride, Eudora Johnson, was a daughter of famed gambling king John “Mushmouth” Johnson, owner of the massive Emporium Saloon on "Satan’s Mile" (S. State St.) and the upscale Frontenac Club on W. 22nd (some sources claim Eudora was a sister, not a daughter of Mushmouth; as I’ve noted before, the relationships between various Johnson family members were complicated). Supposedly, Eudora inherited over $200,000 from her father, which added to the Binga Bank’s capitalization, making it not only the biggest bank in the Black Belt, but a serious competitor for the business of white depositors as well.

Some have even suggested that Binga married Eudora Johnson exclusively for her money (she was apparently not exactly the picture of pulchritude); more than likely, though, such rumors originated out of jealousy from rival businessmen and renters who resented their landlord. In any case, the Binga-Johnson wedding was the city’s most lavish that year, and, befitting Binga’s growing national stature, even Booker T. Washington sent a letter of congratulations to the newlyweds.

During the next fifteen years, Chicago’s black population, which had already been growing by leaps and bounds, quadrupled in size. Jesse Binga was one of the chief beneficiaries; both his real estate and banking businesses prospered tremendously. Between 1921 and 1924 alone, the bank’s deposits grew from $300,000 to over $1,100,000, and then to nearly $1,500,000 by 1929, a period when real estate values were stagnant and bank failures were not uncommon (through suspensions and closures, the number of banks in Illinois fell from 1,969 in 1920 to 1,806 in 1929).

Binga was Chicago’s leading black citizen, and among its leading citizens of any color. During this period, he opened a “business school” of sorts, the Associated Business Club, wherein black entrepreneurs heard lectures from the city’s top business owners, black and white. He also purchased the home pictured above, at 5922 South Parkway Blvd., in 1917, for the sum of $30,000 (the equivalent of around $500,000 today). The home, located in what was a strictly white neighborhood, overlooks Washington Park, a beautiful and grand park covering more than 70 city blocks.

Jesse Binga’s prominence as a black Chicagoan of means, his activities in “block-busting” – drawing black residents into previously white neighborhoods, and his own purchase of a large home in a white district, made him a target for animosity among whites. Starting during the Chicago Race Riots of 1919, his home on South Park Blvd. was bombed seven times over the next two years. His businesses also suffered repeated bombings. Each time dynamite exploded on his front porch, there would be offers to buy his home, but Binga refused, rebuilt, and remained on South Park Blvd. He placed a private security officer on 24-hour guard for months at a time, and even publicly offered a $1,000 reward for the conviction of the bombers, but none were ever caught. He told the Defender (partially in response to criticism from blacks that he had moved out of the Black Belt),

I am an American citizen, a Christian and a property owner. No man can make of me a traitor or a coward. No power on earth can change my faith in God. I will defend my home and personal liberty to the extent of my life….I have just as much right to enjoy my home at Washington Park as any one else to go there and play tennis or baseball or enjoy other advantages of the district. It is a personal privilege. I went there to live because I liked the house and I had a chance to buy it....I do not want to get away from anybody, but absolutely refuse to live in a neighborhood inhabited by the lower class of white trash.

Despite his dislike of politics, Binga consistently went on the record in favor of greater state regulation of private, unincorporated banks like his own. At first blush, it may seem unusual for a businessman to favor greater regulation of his own industry, since the costs of complying with regulations can be high. However, regulatory costs are largely fixed costs – that is, independent of the size of the business – which means only the largest and best-capitalized firms will be able to remain in business. In banking, for instance, most regulations require higher levels of capitalization and more layers of accounting. By 1920, the chief threat to the Binga Bank’s profitability wasn’t greater regulation; it was competing black bankers. State regulation was a way to cripple the competition, and in that year, Binga, along with other major Chicago bankers, succeeded in eliminating private banks. After 1920, all banks had to have state or federal charters, and no less than $100,000 in capital. The Binga Bank – renamed Binga State Bank – was the only Black Belt bank able to meet such requirements.

Binga also associated his bank with the Chicago Clearing House, an association of local banks that could – but were not obligated to – supply cash on demand to a member bank if that bank suffered a run on its deposits. In those days before federal deposit insurance (FDIC), although banks were generally more conservative as investors, they were at greater risk of devastating bank runs (see the more extensive discussion of banking before FDIC in this post), so Clearing House membership added a degree of assurance to depositors. And because a potential run could become quite expensive, only the city’s top banks were allowed to become Clearing House members.

In 1926, Binga purchased property at the center of the Black Belt, on the northwest corner of 35th and State, on which he built a new $120,000 structure to house the Binga State Bank. It was the most expensive single building in the district. Constructed of marble and bronze, the exterior reflected a rich Ionic architecture, and the interior featured walnut paneling and a massive steel vault. 50 bank employees, all African Americans, were skimmed from the top of the community’s talent pool, and featured college degrees from the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, and Oberlin College, among other institutions. Behind a massive glass and marble desk overlooking them all was Jesse Binga, the high-school drop-out and former barber and Pullman porter.

(Pictured: The Binga State Bank building at 35th and State streets)

In 1927, Binga purchased more property at 35th and State, and built an even grander structure, the Binga Arcade, a $500,000 5-story modern office building, which would house all of the Binga empire, as well as offices for other black-owned businesses. There was no building anything like it south of Van Buren St. in the Loop.

During this period, income among African Americans in Chicago was growing substantially, and Jesse Binga was a leading symbol of the community’s hopes. His success made him a celebrity. He wrote weekly columns on business and real estate for the Defender, and published a book entitled “Certain Saying of Jesse Binga,” which included such pearls of wisdom as

Nothing is so easy or so wasteful as the work of hating -- except hating work.

You can be a menial or a man of business. But to get out of the menial place requires the thrift that produces property. And property enlarges life. Work, then, not for gain alone but for the enlarged life that honest gains create.

Life is pretty much what you make it -- and making it big means using every day of it.

In 1929, at the height of his success, 64-year old Jesse Binga began soliciting funds for a second bank, this one with a federal, instead of a state, charter. It was to be his crowning achievement, his lasting legacy to Chicago before retirement. Binga purchased property on South Parkway Blvd., near 46th Pl., for the new bank building, and sold shares in the business to investors. He had little trouble finding eager subscribers to the new bank. What could go wrong, after all? There was no better bet in Chicago than Jesse Binga.

Unfortunately, no one, least of all Binga himself, foresaw the end of the prosperity of the 1920s. In late October, 1929, the great stock market crash eliminated millions of dollars of industrial value. At around the same time, Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley tariff act, which limited imports and exports, destroying well-established businesses and isolating the U.S. from the world economy. Failing businesses had difficulty servicing their loans, and so undercapitalized banks began to fail throughout the country. At the same time, many depositors, fearing the insolvency of banks and needing additional cash to cover income lost in the broadening downturn, removed money from banks. Banks were caught in a vice.

In 1928, 18 Illinois banks had their operations suspended by the state; 1929 saw that number rise to 30, but these were not especially high numbers relative to the previous years of the 1920s. The middle of 1930, however, saw Chicago’s banking industry begin to crater, and the Binga State Bank was the “canary in the coal mine.” By July, the bank was facing serious shortages of capital and had suspended lending. Binga lent much of his own personal fortune in an attempt to keep the bank afloat, but to no avail. On July 31, 1930, Illinois bank auditors closed the Binga State Bank, alleging insolvency and accounting improprieties. As the shock of the event rippled through the city, thousands of worried depositors congregated at 35th and State, and two policemen had to maintain 24-hour watch to protect the building. A pall hung over the crowd, many of whose members had entrusted their life’s savings in the bank. Worse still was the crushed pride of seeing the African-American community’s leading citizen forced out of his commanding business position.

(Pictured: depositors milling around outside Binga State Bank on July 31, 1930)

Behind the scenes, auditors were also preparing a criminal case against Jesse Binga. In their audit of Binga State Bank, the funds that had been subscribed for the new national bank, announced in 1929, were found missing. Authorities gave the bank’s board of directors a few days to raise $400,000 needed to make the bank solvent, and the directors were amenable to the request – but only if the tarnished president, Jesse Binga, stepped down. Binga refused to do so, clinging to the bank he had built up from a single $10 bill, the bank he had poured his entire life savings into in an attempt to forestall its failure.

Next, the Chicago Clearing House, of which Binga State Bank was a member, met to decide whether to supply it with sufficient funds to re-open. Likely other banks in the association were suffering under similar distress, and so the Clearing House members were not keen on taking the risk to prop up Binga State Bank, especially if the rumors of embezzlement by Binga were true. Perhaps, too, racism played a role. Later, one member would describe a conclave of Clearing House members in which the meeting chairman said that Binga State Bank was “a little n----- bank that does not mean anything.” It was the first closure of a Clearing House member bank in twenty years.

In any case, by October, 1930, Binga State Bank had failed, and thousands of depositors’ savings were completely gone. December saw Binga forced into personal bankruptcy and hounded by creditors. Even his wife, Eudora, turned against him, filing suit in court, charging him with incompetency in managing the family’s financial affairs and asking that the court appoint a conservator to handle what little money was left.

The failure of the Binga Bank kicked off a massive string of bank failures in Chicago. From 30 Illinois bank suspensions in 1929, 1930 saw an uptick to 125. Another 238 banks suspended operations in 1931, then 209 more in 1932 and an additional 245 in 1933. The number of banks in the state fell by more than half in four years. If the state regulations of 1920 that shut down the private banking business were intended to protect depositors, they failed miserably. If Chicago Clearing House members thought allowing Binga State Bank to fail would not lead to further runs on banks in the city, they were completely wrong.

In April, 1931, a court handed down an indictment against Jesse Binga for embezzling $39,000 in pledges for the proposed national bank on South Park and 46th, which had never opened. Over 80 witnesses testified at trial against Binga, but Binga’s attorneys argued that a state law precluded capital funds for a national bank from being held in a state bank – thus explaining why Binga had held these funds in his own personal account, but not explaining where the funds had gone. The jury was hung, and the judge decreed a mistrial.

The state’s attorney immediately began preparing a second trial, which, after a long series of continuances, began in May, 1933. Two months before, in March, Eudora Binga died, likely from stress due to the stress of financial dissolution and personal antagonism with her husband.

At the second trial, the state added to its list of witness the #2 officer at the Binga State Bank, Mrs. Inez Cantey. When asked about the events precipitating the closure of the bank and the misappropriation of funds, she repeatedly admitted wrongdoing – “with the permission of Mr. Binga”.

With his chief lieutenant turned against him, Jesse Binga likely knew he was headed for a conviction. He took the stand in his defense, breaking down in tears as he exclaimed,

They're persecuting me. They have killed my wife and now they're trying to kill me. I've lost all I owned; now they're persecuting me. Stop this thing or I'll go mad!"

A few days later, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all counts. In November, 1933, Binga was sentenced to serve 1 – 10 years in state prison. He managed to remain free while awaiting an appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court, but when that court denied the appeal, a 70-year old Jesse Binga entered Joliet prison in April, 1935. He was immediately transferred to the hospital ward for treatment of a heart condition, and most observers fully expected him to die in prison.

11 months later, at his first parole hearing, Chicago’s – and the nation’s – most famous attorney, Clarence Darrow, appeared on behalf of Jesse Binga. "I have known Binga for thirty years and he is a man of fine character. He lost a fortune trying to keep his bank open."

The appeal was denied, but his next parole hearing in February, 1938 was a success. At that hearing, prison officers were presented with a list of 10,000 signatures from Chicago residents, requesting the release of Binga. Many of the signatories were among those who lost money in the failed Binga State Bank.

After being released from prison, Binga moved back into his home on South Parkway Blvd. Completely broke and in poor health, he nevertheless managed to keep creditors from taking his home by working as a janitor at his church, St. Anselm’s on S. Michigan Ave., near 60th St.

In April, 1941, Jesse Binga received some belated relief in the form of a pardon from Illinois Governor Dwight Green. But it was too little to salvage much of his tarnished reputation. Soon after, Binga finally sold his home and moved in with a nephew, Albert Roberts (the Bingas had no children). Jesse Binga died in 1950.

The Binga State Bank, formerly the emerald of the Black Belt, remained closed until 1943, when it was reopened as the Phoenix National Bank under new ownership. Together with the Binga Arcade, the bank building was demolished in the 1970s, replaced by an Illinois Institute of Technology building.

Binga’s home on South Parkway Blvd., however, still stands (though apparently renovated extensively), though the street was renamed Martin Luther King Dr. in the late 1960s. In fact, it is even for sale. The formerly all-white neighborhood where Jesse Binga courageously stood against dynamite attacks in 1919-1921 is now almost entirely populated by black residents.

[Update: See the interesting additional information below in the comments from a Binga nephew]

Alderman John Powers' Home Bombed by Political Rivals

In September of 1920, John Powers had been alderman from the 19th Ward for 32 years, but a month before, he had publicly embarrassed his political rival, underworld figure Tony D’Andrea. So everyone pointed to D’Andrea when a dynamite bomb rocked the front porch of Powers’ house, which was located here at 1284 Macalister (now 1284 W. Lexington; the home has since been replaced).

John Powers was born in County Kilkenny, Ireland in 1852, but moved to the United States at age 20, settling in Chicago. After serving an apprenticeship with a grocer, he started his own grocery store on S. Halsted. From a young age, he was interested in politics, and began working to elect Democrats in his home ward, the 19th. In those days, saloons were a major gathering point in Irish communities like the 19th, and owning a saloon was a common way to rise in the political order. Hence, Powers, who was a teetotaler, opened a saloon in the annex to his grocery.

The move worked, and Powers’ political star rose as he became a ward captain. In the 1880s, Powers’ saloon was a major center of support in Chicago for presidential candidate Grover Cleveland. In 1888, he ran for, and was elected, alderman from the 19th, a position he held almost continuously until 1927.

After his election, he closed the grocery store, but kept the saloon, though Powers’ success meant that he needed to expand. Together with a fellow alderman, William O’Brien, he opened a larger saloon downtown, on Madison St., near LaSalle. When allowed under various liberal mayoral administrations, gambling was also featured there, including the city’s largest pool room.

(Pictured: 19th Ward Alderman John Powers)

As an alderman, Powers’ capacity for graft and corruption was eclipsed only by the Kenna-Coughlin machine in the 1st ward. Called “Prince of Boodlers” by the newspapers, nearly a third of the eligible voters in the ward were on the public payroll, and so were dependent on Powers for their jobs. He was famous for buying votes by handing out over a thousand free turkeys each year at Christmas-time, and throwing out handfuls of coins to supporters at campaign events. A notorious gladhander, it is said that he appeared at every funeral and wake in his ward, earning him the nickname, “The Mourner”.

As one detractor said, "Johnnie Powers distributed turkeys on Christmas day, but he has robbed the people 364 days in the year and he can afford to give them a little back on the 365th". The Chicago Herald wrote, "Powers is as fit to be an Alderman as an elephant is to take part in a roller-skating match.”

Powers’ legendary corruption attracted the attention of Jane Addams and her troop of reformers at Hull House. In the 1890s, Addams sent investigators into the 19th, who reported on streets and alleys piled high with garbage and dirt, a complete lack of usable parks and bathhouses, and severely overcrowded schools, where they found 3,000 more students than seats. Addams attempted to chase Powers out of office, fielding reform-minded opponents and holding campaign rallies against him. But to no avail. As Addams herself admitted, "An Italian laborer wants a 'job' more than anything else, and quite simply votes for the man who promises him one." In the 19th, John Powers was that man.

The only lacuna in Powers’ stint on the city council was in 1903, when he decided to enter state-wide politics by running for state senator against the incumbent Peter F. Galligan. That campaign season saw the first (attempted) act of violence at Powers’ home. Powers was holding open office hours for his ward constituents one day when his opponent Galligan showed up.

Galligan forced his way past the servant at the door and declared that he had come to settle a score with his rival. In his hand was a handkerchief wrapped about a small parcel, and the excited inmates feared that a bomb or other weapon was concealed in its folds. Mrs. Powers fled screaming to an upper room, while the Alderman and several of his friends seized the excited man, who was making attempts to swing the weapon towards Powers. After a short struggle it was taken from him and found to be a brickbat with which Galligan is said to have declared he intended putting Powers out of the Senatorial race.

Powers defeated the mentally unstable Galligan, but found himself unsatisfied in Springfield, where he was a small fish in a big pond. The next year, he returned to Chicago to retake his seat as alderman.

That Powers enjoyed being a “big fish” was humorously illustrated after a fishing trip took him to Northern Wisconsin in June, 1900. Returning by train, he loaded his catch into a trunk with his name on it. A game warden inspector, traveling on the same train, found Powers’ box to be too heavy by state regulations.

Alderman Powers, who was also on the train, had wandered with a party of friends up to where the game warden was engaged with his inspection. On being informed that his box did not come within weight the Alderman smiled blandly, and, taking the warden aside, whispered in his ear, "I am Alderman John Powers of Chicago."

But that did not make any difference to the warden, and all the winking and whispering the Chicago man could do did not convince him....Alderman Powers' fish were sold at auction, and were the most palatable offering on the menu of a Milwaukee restaurant today.

At the time John Powers held its aldermanship, the 19th ward included the area between Van Buren and 12th (now Roosevelt Rd.), and between Loomis and the south branch of the Chicago River. Always a poor immigrant neighborhood, it was adjacent to “Bloody Maxwell,” the famously crime-ridden district just to the south. The Tribune described conditions in the 19th graphically in 1897:

Do the drivers on the wagons indulge less freely in profanity? Do the workmen in the street show love and peace? Halsted street betrays it not. Ewing [now 12th Pl.] and Forquer [now Arthington St.] streets look otherwise. Bunker [now Grenshaw St.] and De Koven streets hide it well. Soiled children play upon the walks. The tin can travels on its endless way. Girls bend low over their work in the sweatshops making shirts at eight cents apiece. Six hundred saloons, twenty for each church in the ward, cast their exhilirating influence over the scene. The only thing bearing indisputable marks of a celestial nature is a Chinese laundry.

When Powers was first elected in 1888, the ward was almost entirely Irish, but in the 1890s and 1900s, Italian immigrants flooded into the neighborhood, and by 1910 the voting population was over 80% Italian. The savvy Irishman Powers managed to hold onto his seat, however, by assiduously incorporating potential Italian rivals into the lower levels of his political organization, who then promoted him to their fellow countrymen, even giving him quasi-Italian names like “Johnny de Pow” and “Gianni Pauli”.

However, in off-the-cuff remarks, Powers often denigrated his constituents. "I can buy the Italian vote with a glass of beer and a compliment," he was overheard to say once, and condescending comments like these wore away at his popularity in the ward. Eventually, John Powers met an Italian rival who was too powerful to buy off: Anthony “Tony” D’Andrea.

D’Andrea was a long-time political player in Chicago. Born in Salerno, he had come to Chicago and worked as a Roman Catholic priest until he fell in love with a woman and left the ministry for her. Later he was prominent in the corrupt political process associated with the red-light Levee district; he helped gang leader “Big Jim” Colosimo and “Dago” Mike Carrozzo take over labor unions and raise the political profile of the city’s Italians.

In February, 1916, D’Andrea decided to challenge Powers’ fellow alderman in the 19th, James Bowler (each Chicago ward at that time had two aldermen). While D’Andrea had a natural constituency among Italians in the ward, city newspapers pilloried him for his underworld connections in the Levee and for being a “defrocked priest.” It also came out that D’Andrea was an ex-con, having served a sentence for counterfeiting in 1902 (D’Andrea admitted have been in prison, but insisted he was innocent of the crime).

Finally, just days before the election, a major supporter of Bowler, Frank Lombardi, was murdered in a saloon on Taylor St. Everyone immediately suspected D’Andrea supporters in the crime, although the police also considered the theory that Lombardi was involved in a feud with a Black Hand gang.

Nevertheless, D’Andrea’s name was tarnished throughout the campaign and Bowler prevailed on election day. Despite his loss, D’Andrea remained influential in the Italian community, and three years later, in 1919, he was elected president of the Chicago branch of the Unione Siciliana, the largest Italian political organization in the country. It was a position that gave him tremendous influence, as well as access to the resources of powerful elements of organized crime.

Recognizing that D’Andrea would likely prevail if he chose to run for alderman again, John Powers decided to endorse him for a different, but equally important political position in the 19th, ward committeeman, a position that Powers himself had previously filled. This was a major concession, since it was the committeeman who truly held control over which constituents received plum city jobs (similarly, Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna was the long-time committeeman in the 1st ward).

Given D’Andrea’s popularity and Powers’ endorsement, D’Andrea was elected ward committeeman in April, 1920. However, the election that year was marked by serious voting irregularities all across the city (but especially in the 19th). News of sluggings, kidnappings, shootings, ballot box stuffing, and selective culls of voter registration lists reached Springfield, where on June 6, 1920, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled all Chicago ward committeemen election outcomes null and void.

Still, D’Andrea assumed Powers would stand by his endorsement and allow D’Andrea to represent the ward as committeeman at the Democratic County Central Committee meetings in August. When the powerful party convention opened, the secretary called out each ward by name, and the party’s representative from that ward rose to announce his presence. When the secretary asked for the representative from the 19th, John Powers stood up and began to respond.

He was interrupted. A swarthy, spectacled youth with an Italian accent had also arisen. "I'm here to speak for the Nineteenth ward," he began.

Powers responded:

"For thirty-two years I have been alderman of the ward," he began. "I’ve been on the committee for thirty-five years. Last spring, Anthony D'Andrea wanted to be committeeman. For the sake of harmony I yielded. I withdrew after he promised to support Ald. Bowler, my colleague, for reelection. D'Andrea was elected. He hasn't kept his promises. I'm not willing to desert Bowler. The Supreme Court has declared that the newly elected committeemen have no authority and I'm still committeeman."

D’Andrea protested loudly, insisting that he, not Powers, had the support of the majority of the ward’s voters. “Why,” he argued, “Powers only keeps a home in the 19th so he can remain alderman, but he actually lives almost all of the time in the 3rd ward on Michigan Ave.!” But Powers prevailed and D’Andrea left the meeting embarrassed and infuriated.

Just over a month later, on September 28, 1920, John Powers arrived at his 19th ward home and headquarters late in the evening, just before midnight. A few minutes later, a tremendous explosion rocked the neighborhood.

The blast blew the alderman and five others out of bed, tore the front of the house apart, broke most of the windows in the neighborhood, shattered all the glass in the bookcases that line the dining room walls, and woke up all the sleepers for six blocks around, but no one was hurt.

Powers has lived there for four decades, but now mostly lives in another place 4500 S. Michigan, but that night he had just arrived at the home. The alderman has had a private watchman on guard over the house for some time. Why, he did not care to say.

(Pictured: Ald. Powers' home at 1284 Macalister after the bombing)

Perhaps what John Powers did not care to say was that he was familiar enough with D’Andrea and his underworld friends to know he was a target.

After D’Andrea announced he would run against Powers himself in the 1921 aldermanic elections, the feud only intensified. A second bomb exploded during a meeting of D’Andrea supporters on Blue Island Ave. in February, seriously injuring several, and another bomb was later detonated at the home of Joseph Spica, father-in-law of a major figure in the D’Andrea campaign.

The 1921 vote was extremely close, but Powers squeaked by with a tiny 435 vote margin. In the election, Powers had again highlighted D’Andrea’s unsavory history, contrasting it with a picture of himself as a devoted god-fearing, churchgoing family man.

The latter was only partially true. While Powers had been married for many years and was never known to indulge in liquor or gambling, there were none-too-private rumors of an affair. Back in 1910, word reached Chicago that Mayme McKenna, widow of a former alderman, had been charged in New York City with attempting to smuggle $1,000 worth of Parisian ball gowns into the United States without declaring them at customs (she claimed to have forgotten in her rush to return to Chicago). She was caught when a customs inspector found a gown with the label of a Chicago dressmaker sewn into it, but which was obviously brand new, arousing suspicions.

The attention of Deputy Surveyor John O'Connor, known as the custom house expert on styles, was called to the garment. O'Connor concluded it was too far ahead of American styles to be other than of Parisian make.

When she [McKenna] appeared at the custom house in the morning she was accompanied by an elderly man who declined to give his name, but said he was a friend of the family.

It turned out that the “elderly man” was none other than Alderman John Powers, and furthermore, the two had traveled to Europe together under the pretense that she was Mrs. John Powers. The newspapers noted that the register of the Waldorf Hotel in New York bore the names of Mr. and Mrs. John Powers, while the real Mrs. Powers was still in Chicago.

At the time, it seemed like possibly a misunderstanding – perhaps Powers had loaned his powerful name to McKenna in order to facilitate her trip as a favor to his deceased fellow alderman. However, the notion that Powers and McKenna were more than just friends is supported by the fact that, after John Powers’ first wife died in Feb. 1917, he married McKenna the following year.

(Pictured: Ald. Powers with Mayme McKenna on their wedding day)

After the election, D’Andrea swore off 19th ward politics, but it was too late: he was assassinated on the street in front of his home in May, 1921. His political organization, and even his headquarters on Taylor street, the Italian-American Educational Club, was inherited by the Genna brothers, which turned it into a giant dispersed network for the production of bootleg liquor during Prohibition.

Despite his victory over D’Andrea, Powers’ ability to control the burgeoning Italian vote was clearly eroding, and he likely would have lost in the next election to some other Neopolitan politician. However, just after the election, the number of wards was increased from 35 to 50, and the old 19th was carved up into the 20th, 25th, 26th and 27th wards. The Italian supermajority in the old ward turned into substantially smaller pluralities in the new wards. Thus, John Powers was able to remain an alderman in the 25th until his retirement in 1927, at which point he had been on the Chicago city council for 38 years. Powers died in 1930.

John Powers' two-story frame house on Lexington Ave. is gone now, replaced by a handsome three-story brick structure looking out over Arrigo Park.

Mont Tennes, King of Gamblers

"The complete life story of one man, were it known in every detail, would disclose practically all there is to know about syndicated gambling as a phase of organized crime in Chicago in the last quarter century. That man is Mont Tennes."

So declared the Illinois Crime Survey of 1929. The man who stood at the center of Chicago gambling during the first quarter of the 20th century, and who developed a sporting news service that eventually monopolized horse racing operations throughout North America, lived here, in the mansion at 632 W. Belden Ave. (or before the 1909 street renumbering, 404 Belden) during the height of his power.

Jacob Tennes was born in Chicago in 1873 to a large family with five brothers and two sisters. He was nicknamed "Mont" by his mother at a young age, and that became the only name by which the city's King of Gamblers was ever known to be called. Even as a boy, he was known to be an expert at dice and other games, and before his 20th birthday he began running his first handbook operation. His gambling expertise provided the start-up capital he used to open the Tennes Billiard Hall on Lincoln Ave., near Wrightwood Ave., which he operated along with his brothers. There he sponsored pool tournaments, in which he himself was frequently the victor.

Over the next few years, Tennes gained interest in a number of other handbooks operating on the Northside, and in 1900, he began opening saloons, including one inside the Billiard Hall on Lincoln.

By 1901, Tennes' name was already well known among anti-gambling advocates, and a crusade against saloons on N. Clark St. in River North focused primarily on Tennes-owned saloons. The Tribune reported that “residents of the neighborhood allege that the district fast is approaching the condition that existed in the levee” (probably a reference to Custom House Place, the city's biggest red light district at the time).

The newspaper described the operations at what was at the time Tennes' biggest gambling outfit at 143 Clark (now in the 600 block, where the "Rock & Roll" McDonalds sits today), where a ragtime piano player began vamping behind the bar every day after 2:00 p.m.:

On a cigar stand in front of the main room is posted a racing form, which is eagerly studied by those who enter. The ticker is behind a thin partition and the bookmaker gets information of track and odds over the telephone. The results are announced at the bar and down-stairs in the bowling alley, where many men gather....Everyone seems to have the utmost faith in the bookmaker, and gains and losses are taken from his report without a word. The book has been successful, it is believed, for ‘killings’ [large winnings by the house] are rare in Tennes’ place.

Remarkably, women were among the major clients of Tennes' gambling houses, though they rarely entered the saloons, cigar shops, and even cash register shops that fronted his operations, choosing instead to call in their bets or give them to one of a team of employees who traveled around the city, taking wagers in the morning at homes and stores on races taking place in the afternoon, and settling accounts from the previous day's races.

(Pictured: Mont Tennes)

The increased interest in horse racing during the early part of the century created a business opportunity for gambling entrepreneurs, who previously focused on cards or games like roulette and faro. At the same time, off-track betting presented a serious technological problem: how to acquire quick and accurate results from the races, as the house stands to lose substantial sums if gamblers learn the outcome first. Managing and monopolizing the supply of information on tack conditions, odds, scratches, and race results became Mont Tennes' life work.

Starting in 1904, Tennes began operating clearinghouses where national racing information was received by telegraph, then dispersed to handbooks throughout the city by telephone. The first of these, opened in league with other major gambling figures including Tom McGinnis and "Big Jim" O'Leary, was a little cottage in Dunning at Irving Park Rd. and Narragansett, just outside Chicago city limits, where suspicious neighbors noticed two telegraph lines leading in through a kitchen window.

The photo below shows a forest of telephones in one of Tennes' later clearing houses at 123 Clark St. (now 550 N. Clark).


In order to operate such a large and complex operation, Tennes required implicit protection from police raids, which he obtained throughout his career with payoffs from beat cops all the way up to the chief of police. As early as 1902, he was a notorious source of graft:

Frequenters of the place say Tennes has a pull which is strong enough to keep his handbook running in spite of the strong opposition of many people in the vicinity. The East Chicago Avenue Police Station is four blocks away, but Captain Revere’s policemen pay no attention to the poolroom. While strangers have some difficulty in placing money with the bookmaker, there is no great attempt at secrecy, and the betting goes on while chance customers come and go at the bar.

Politicians, however, must satisfy their constituents if they want to keep their jobs, and so in 1903, Mayor Carter Harrison, Jr., declared open "war" on Chicago's handbooks, forcing the hand of the police. He revoked the saloon licenses of all the city's top gamblers, including Bob Motts, Andy Craig, Mushmouth Johnson, Alderman Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna, and above all, Mont Tennes.

Thus began a complex and protracted political battle between Tennes, the police force which wanted his graft, the Mayor, and citizens. In league with the police, Tennes publicly declared that, due to Mayor Harrison's order, he was finished with the gambling business, and he sold his saloon license to a "M. A. Jockum," who was actually an associate, allowing Tennes to remain in control of his bars and handbooks. At the same time, he paid the police to focus on raiding the books of his business rivals. This latter practice was one Tennes continued to employ throughout his career as he attempted to monopolize gambling in the city. At the December First Ward Ball, an annual saturnalian party and underworld soiree thrown by Aldermen Kenna and John J. Coughlin, Tennes' men handed out over $2,500 to the various politicans to help turn down the heat on his operations.

Besides the police and city politicians, Tennes also faced continuous trouble from rival gamblers. While his original 1904 clearinghouse in Dunning was a partnership with Jim O'Leary, the two fell out in 1906 over the latter's success in operating the City of Traverse, a gambling boat that operated outside police jurisdiction, four miles offshore on Lake Michigan.

In retaliation, Tennes threatened to start his own gambling cruise operation, the City of Midland, unless his rivals cut him in on the deal. When they refused, he sent a tug boat out to shadow the Traverse, and when it turned on its wireless service to begin receiving racing news for the sports aboard, Tennes' tugboat blasted hits fog horn, thinking this could disrupt the transmissions. Instead, the trick only caused those on shore to believe the City of Traverse was on fire, sending panic throughout the city.

Some reports claim that O'Leary and his associates finally did cut Tennes in as an investor in the City of Traverse later in 1906, ending the feud. But this theory is belied by the fact that the following three years witnessed constant dynamite bombings of rival gamblers' homes and businesses in what the media dubbed the "Gamblers' War".

The Gamblers' War started in June of 1907 when Mont Tennes was physically attacked on the street near his home by a man whom police initially believed to be a disgruntled loser at one of Tennes' resorts. Tennes, however, was convinced O'Leary was behind the attack in retaliation for Tennes' efforts to have O'Leary's Northwest Indiana gambling houses raided by police.

In any case, the home of "Blind John" Condon, who had previously worked with Tennes, but was also an associate of O'Leary's, was bombed on July 9, 1907. Two weeks later on July 25, Tennes' home on Belden Ave. (pictured above) was bombed, creating a gaping hole in the alley behind the house. A month later, O'Leary's resort on S. Halsted was bombed, and on August 19, the Tennes home was again victimized. This time, the bomb landed in the front yard, blowing out all the windows of the house, plus those of his neighbors, several of whom announced plans to move away. Tennes himself sent his wife and children to live out in the country for the next few months.

In all, over 30 bombs exploded at the homes and businesses of the city's major gambling kings over the next three years. The police claimed the bombings were the result of a blackmailing scheme run by a mysterious gang known as "Smith & Jones":

The Chicago dynamiters who blew up gambling places for blackmail did business under the name “Smith & Jones”. That is, when they wanted a gambler to put them in the payroll the gambler would receive a mysterious telephone call telling him to see Smith & Jones. The gamblers all knew what that meant and that they would be dynamited if they did not see Smith & Jones.

The police never offered any evidence of such a scheme, and were never able to arrest Smith or Jones. A more likely cause for the bombings was Mont Tennes' attempts to monopolize the flow of race information into the city.

At the beginning of 1907, Tennes was paying $300 each day to the Payne News Service of Cincinnati, which telegraphed race information from throughout the U.S. and Canada to Tennes' Chicago clearinghouse, which was then in suburban Forest Park, which then conveyed the information to subscribers in the city by secret telephone lines known only to the Chicago Telephone Company. The Payne service had taken control over the race wires after the Western Union company had ceased the business in 1904 under pressure from an anti-gambling shareholder.

Tennes disliked paying such high prices to Payne, and the final straw took place in 1907 when an error in odds reporting by the service on a horse named Grenesque at Fort Erie ended up costing him thousands of dollars. He decided to start his own rival wire service and to drive Payne out of business nationwide.

Tennes hired agents to attend races throughout the country, who would report back to an operator nearby with a telegraph key. Often race track operators wanted nothing to do with Tennes' agents, and removed them from the premises. In such cases, Tennes' men found their way onto the tops of nearby buildings and used telescopes to observe action on the turf. In one interesting case where the racing action couldn't be seen from any nearby building, a woman was sent into the track to observe; she would periodically excuse herself from the action to a spot where she could be seen applying makeup, touching her nose, eyes, and ears in a specified order that indicated the winners of the race to a telegraph operator observing her nearby.

Tennes insisted that all Chicago handbooks use his new General News Bureau service and discontinue any subscription to Payne. Those that refused were either bombed or raided by police friendly to Tennes. Tennes also took the fight against Payne beyond Chicago. He sold his sporting news services in cities across the country, including San Francisco, San Antonio, Cleveland, Oklahoma City, Detroit, and New Orleans. Finally, the Kentucky home of John A. Payne, proprietor of the Payne News Service, was bombed, and the latter gave in, selling out his interest to the Tennes' General News Bureau in 1909, when the flow of bombs in the Gamblers' War finally slowed.

In 1911, Mont Tennes again came to public notice when he was sued by a former gambler-turned-reformer named Harry Brolaski, and a disgruntled General News Bureau business partner, Tim Murphy. Allegations that Tennes was at the head of a national gambling syndicate with 800 clients nationwide and $500,000 per day in revenue inflamed public opinion, and in September of that year, the Tribune published a scathing editorial accusing the chief of police, John McWeeny, of accepting graft. When the paper's reporters confronted McWeeny the next day, the Chief was nonchalant. After reading a copy of the editorial given him by the reporters, he was dismissive.

“That’s just a rehash,” was his comment. “It has been said before.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Let them fight it out among themselves,” the chief said calmly.

“Then you are not interested in what Tim Murphy and Mont Tennes are doing?”

“I don’t know Tim Murphy. He may be a myth for all I know.”

“Mont Tennes is not a myth.”

“No,” the chief admitted. “I have met people who knew Mont Tennes.”

“Are you going to question Tim Murphy or Mont Tennes?”

“Who is the complainant against them?” the chief said bluntly.

“Call the Tribune complainant. It has printed columns about the methods of Murphy and Tennes and the gamblers’ war.”

The chief sighed.

McWeeny insisted, disingenously, "There is no gambling in Chicago and the police do not 'tip off' raids," despite the obvious fact that handbooks were rampant in the city, and the police did tip off their raids in return for Tennes' payoffs. The matter finally ended when Tennes paid off Tim Murphy as well, and the latter wrote letters to the court and the attorneys general of three states swearing off his earlier charges.

Mont Tennes continued to monopolize racing information in Chicago and throughout the country for the next decade. Though the handbooks he operated were constantly raided and he served as a political punching-bag for every mayor and congressman seeking the law-and-order vote, he never served a day in prison, always hiding behind a defense that he was simply a newspaper man, conveying sports information around the country.

In 1916, Federal appeals court judge and future baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis even launched a personal investigation of Tennes' operations, in which it was revealed that his operations netted $75,000 each year, of which 90% went to Mont Tennes personally. Tennes hired superstar attorney Clarence Darrow (of "Scopes Monkey Trial" fame), and eventually Landis' inquiry ended with the conclusion that interstate transmission of gambling information wasn't illegal under federal statues, and actual gambling was a local phenomenon and so not under a federal court's jurisdiction.

One of the few times Mont Tennes lost a substantial bet was during the famous 1919 "Black Sox" scandal, in which Chicago White Sox players allegedly threw the World Series in league with a group of New York gamblers. Tennes later claimed he knew the fix was in, but put up $80,000 on his home team anyway. As a Northsider, Tennes really should have only bet on the Cubs.

When reformer "Decent" William Dever was elected Mayor of Chicago in 1924, a 51 year-old Tennes decided to get out of the business of operating handbooks and focus exclusively on his news service. A few years later, noting the violent tendencies of Al Capone and other Chicago gangsters, who increasingly were expressing interest in the sporting news business, Tennes sold the General News Bureau in 1927, with a 50% interest going to media mogul Moe Annenberg, founder of the Daily Racing Form.

In retirement, Mont Tennes devoted himself to his progeny, his golf, and his charity work. When he died on August 6, 1941, his heirs received a $5 million estate which provided for a $2,000 monthly lifetime income for his wife, Ida, $700 monthly to each of his four children, and $200 monthly for each grandchild. One of the Tennes boys, Ray, ran a Ford dealership, while another, Horace, became a champion motorboat racer.

He also established a $1,000,000 trust fund, which donated to Roman Catholic, Jewish, and Masonic charities, and ordered $10,000 annually to support a new "character home" for wayward boys, Camp Honor.

The General News Bureau was run by Moe Annenberg together with a Capone associate, James Ragen, until the latter went to prison in 1939 (Ragen was murdered by Capone hitmen in 1946). Afterwards, the Bureau was reorganized and rechristened as the Continental Press Service, and eventually passed into the control of Moe's son Walter Annenberg, who used the money from his news empire, which included Continental Press, to fund journalism schools at the University of Southern California and the University of Pennsylvania.

Tennes' mansion at 632 W. Belden, which was built in 1885, still stands today.

Harry Cullett Bribes Morals Squad Inspector Dannenberg

In early 1914, Second Deputy Superintendent Funkhouser and his Morals Inspection Bureau squad leader, William Dannenberg, were finally cleaning up Chicago's famed segregated vice district, the Levee. Between December of 1913 and February, 1914, Dannenberg's squad had made over 1,000 arrests and shut down scores of brothels, saloons, and call flats in the area surrounding 22nd and Dearborn. The leaders of the vice gangs who ran the Levee knew something had to be done. Their first approach was to bribe Dannenberg into keeping the heat off, and on February 26, 1914, their man, "Chicken" Harry Cullett, met Dannenberg in front of MacLean's Central Drug Store at 1000 W. Wilson (site pictured above), to hand over the money.

The Morals squad was created in 1913 during a reorganization of the Chicago Police Department ordered by Mayor Carter Harrison, on the recommendation of the Civil Service Commission, which had led a major investigation of vice conditions in 1911 and 1912. The Commission's report detailed what almost everyone knew -- that the 22nd street police station, which held jurisdiction over the Levee district, was completely corrupt. The captain and all of the officers of the station were under direct orders from First Ward aldermen Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna and "Bathhouse" John Coughlin to turn a blind eye to disorderly conditions in the district, in return for political patronage. So long as the 22nd street cops were in charge, the Levee would never close.

In order to break the hold of Kenna and Coughlin, Mayor Harrison created the special position of Second Deputy Superintendent, and appointed the thoroughly uncorruptible Maj. Metellium Funkhouser to the post. Funkhouser, in turn, created a citywide agency, the Morals Inspection Bureau, which would have authority to raid vice resorts when the 22nd street station police would not. Funkhouser appointed Inspector William Dannenberg to lead the Morals squad; Dannenberg was a vice veteran, having played a prominent role in the Maurice van Bever white slavery case in which van Bever was sent to prison, opening up a role in the Colosimo organization for Johnny Torrio.


(pictured: Inspector William C. Dannenberg)

Despite antagonism from the 22nd street station police, Dannenberg's men began closing the Levee district, ending the era of tolerated segregated vice in Chicago. Their raids put hundreds of prostitutes and their handlers in jail, and profits for the major vice rings plummeted. On January 8, 1914, the Morals squad shut down the Rhinegold Cafe, a saloon and house of ill-repute operated by the King of vice, "Big Jim" Colosimo.

Soon after, Colosimo called a meeting of major underworld figures at his Cafe to discuss strategy. Besides Colosimo, those present included Johnny Torrio, "Polak Ben" Zellen, owner of the Vestibule, an infamous resort that later was the site of an organized labor hit by "Mossy" Enright, "Beck" Moriarty, who owned a saloon at Harrison and State Streets, and the Marshall Brothers -- Joe and Bill -- who ran a call hotel at 21st and State. It was decided that a bribery attempt would be the first option, and if that failed, then violence. Even the possibility of murdering Inspector Dannenberg came up.

The man selected to approach Dannenberg with the money was a crooked cop from the 22nd street station named Harry Cullett. Cullett had been on the force for over a decade and had consistently been involved in high-profile cases, including a white slavery/murder case in 1910 and another case involving an international ring of thieves operating through the U.S. Navy. It was his fellow officers who gave him the playful nickname "Chicken Harry". In September 1913, Cullett left the police force after accusations of corruption surfaced, but he was still well-known and liked in the Department.

After leaving the police force, Cullett joined a private detective agency, the American Secret Service Bureau. From his days in the 22nd street station, he would have been familiar with the major characters of the Levee, and he apparently was willing to help them in their time of need.

(pictured: "Chicken" Harry Cullett)

On January 31, 1914, Cullett left a telephone message at the home of Dannenberg's second-in-command, Assistant Inspector for Moral Conditions Edward Altz, asking to meet that evening. At 7:00, Cullett and Altz met face-to-face at Perkins' Saloon at Monroe and Clark Streets. Cullett informed Altz that 11 Levee saloon-keepers were willing to put up $200 each in order to stop the raids on their establishments. As Dannenberg later described the deal,

To lull the public mind I was to raid a list of "fall houses," with which they provided me. Each night the divekeepers agreed to give me the name of a house to raid. From it I was to take two girls. The other places were to be immune.

Cullett asked Altz to liaise with Dannenberg to find out his attitude toward the possible deal.

The following Monday, February 2, Altz informed Dannenberg about the meeting, and Dannenberg immediately contacted his superior, Maj. Funkhouser. Dannenberg asked Funkhouser for permission to play along with the bribery scheme in order to find out who was behind it, and Maj. Funkhouser assented.

It is impressive that Dannenberg was able to so quickly pass up Cullett's offer. $2,200 in 1914 would be roughly the equivalent of $48,900 worth of purchasing power in 2008. Essentially, Dannenberg gave up a $586,000 per year salary in order to enforce the law. The bribe was probably five or ten times Dannenberg's official salary at the time.

On Tuesday, Feb. 17, 1914, Cullett and Dannenberg met face-to-face for the first time, in the corridor outside the Morals squad leader's office at City Hall. The two ducked into a quiet room nearby, where Cullett laid out his plan directly to Inspector Dannenberg. The $2,200 was only a start: brothel owners who opened resorts in the future would also add to the payoffs. The revenue potential was endless. Dannenberg agreed to the plan, and Cullett said he would get in touch when the financial arrangements were in order.

It seems the vice kings of the Levee might have gotten cold feet, for during several subsequent meetings in the mezzanine of the Hotel Sherman, Cullett had to admit he had been unable to procure the agreed-upon sums. However, finally, on February 26, everyone was convinced that Dannenberg was ready to go on the take, and a meeting at Sheridan and Wilson was planned where Cullett would hand over a $500 down payment on the first month's payoff.

Before the designated meeting time, Inspector Dannenberg was thoroughly searched by four of his men to insure he had no money on his person before leaving, and two Chicago Tribune reporters were tipped off to the story. At 8:40 p.m. on Feb. 26, Dannenberg arrived at MacLean's Central Drug Store at 1000 W. Wilson Ave. to await the arrival of Cullett. His fellow officers and the reporters hid nearby in doors and entryways.

Five minutes later, a taxicab dropped off Harry Cullett on the opposite corner. Cullett told the driver to run the meter and wait for him, while he walked briskly across the street to where Dannenberg was standing in front of the drug store window. He touched the Inspector on the shoulder, and the two began walking north on Sheridan Rd. up to Leland Ave. Then they walked back towards Wilson. Four times, Cullett led Dannenberg back and forth on the block, checking to be sure no one was following or watching. Finally, Cullett and Dannenberg darted across Sheridan to an alley behind the Grasmere hotel across the street from the drug store.

Cullett handed the money over to Dannenberg, and the two reappeared and walked back toward the corner of Sheridan and Wilson. When they reached the corner, Dannenberg removed his hat, a predetermined signal, which brought the four Morals squad officers out into the street, surrounding the pair.

"What the hell?" gasped Cullett. "I don't know what this means."

What it meant was that Cullett was under arrest for bribery. A phone call was immediately put in to Maj. Funkhouser, informing him of the successful operation, and a press conference revealed the details of the scheme to the public.

Cullett posted $2,000 bail, and a trial date was set, but never came. With the support of his detective agency, as well as Aldermen Kenna and Coughlin, Cullett's attorneys successfully made the argument that since the ordinance that created Dannenberg's office did not fully specify the duties of the Morals Inspection Bureau, he was not amenable to bribery under the statute.

Cullett never served a jail term for his role in the scheme, nor were his financial backers prosecuted. Nevertheless, Dannenberg kept up the heat on the Levee, and kept it closed tight throughout 1914.

It appears that Harry Cullett continued in private detective work, and in that, he was joined in 1915 by Inspector Dannenberg himself. The latter became one of the nation's most famous "private dicks", making his name in divorce and election fraud cases until his death in 1955.

The Central Drug store at Sheridan and Wilson changed hands several times, becoming a Liggett's, then a Ford Hopkins, then a Rex-All Drug, until it was demolished in the 1960s. The location is now a McDonald's restaurant.

Striking Waitresses at Henrici's

Philip Henrici opened his first lunchroom counter in 1868 on a corner in the block where the Macy's/Marshall Field's is now. In 1893, he opened a new restaurant at this location, 67-71 W. Randolph, which stayed open until 1962, when the city condemned the property to build the Civic Center building (later renamed the Daley Center, pictured above). During the Spring of 1914, however, Henrici's was at the center of a labor maelstrom in one of the city's first female-organized strikes.

Philip Henrici was Austrian by birth, but ran away as a boy to New York in 1845, finding work as a baker's apprentice. In 1868, he arrived in Chicago and opened his own lunch counter. His Viennese-style pastries were an immediate hit, and he made good use of his European baking skill when he opened his first Henrici's restaurant on Randolph street during the city's international-themed Columbian Exposition in 1893. The restaurant, decorated in the style of a Viennese coffee house, had stained glass windows and a pastry counter in the window to attract passers-by. Over time, despite (or possibly because of) its proletarian atmosphere, it became a hot spot for the city's political and celebrity class. Mayor Richard J. Daley met with the power elite over breakfast there practically every day of his long administration. As Tribune society columnist Will Leonard wrote, Henrici's "was a resting place for the elbows of celebrities when the No. 1 booth at the Pump Room wasn't even a twinkle in an architect's eye."

The advertisement below, from 1922, promotes an unusual feature of the restaurant much ignored among today's culinary critics: clean air (click to enlarge).

Henrici's was famously cheap. The restaurant's original slogan was "All you can eat for a quarter." The original bill of fare (the word "menu" not then being in use in the U.S.) in 1868 offered sirloin steak (15c), veal cutlets (10c), three fried eggs (15c), hot cakes (5c), and apple pie (5c).

Later, the restaurant became famous for the words scribbled at the bottom of the advertisement above: "No orchestral din" -- an indication that, unlike other restaurants that offered music to diners, Henrici's kept costs (and prices) at a bare minimum.

Philip Henrici died in 1904, bequething a $250,000 estate to his heirs, including his namesake, Philip Henrici, Jr. The latter, however, lost his rights to the estate when he eloped, shortly before his father's death, with a woman disliked by the family. The marriage ended in divorce (followed by quick remarriage on Henrici's part) within a year. Apparently, alcohol and religion were inciting factors:

It was a compromise divorce, [Henrici] said last night. At the time of the divorce he had charged her with drinking thirty-one highballs at a sitting. Mrs. Henrici the first said that would have been a physical impossibility, and that, anyway, whenever she drank, it was in company of her husband. She claimed that her desire to take up Hindoo philosophy was the real cause of the disagreement.

Four days after the divorce, young Henrici remarried a Miss Frances Kavanagh. Under Illinois law, however, a man could be arrested for remarrying within a year of a divorce, and so the newlyweds hid out for a year before having a second formal ceremony to legitimize themselves before the state's archaic marital statues.

Because of Henrici, Jr.'s flightiness, he never got far in his father's business, and control of the Henrici's on Randolph passed to a son of one of Philip Henrici, Sr.'s daughters, William M. Collins. It was Collins who owned the shop during the waitress strike of 1914.

During the 1910s, women were exercising increasing political power in America, with most of their attention focused on suffrage issues, schooling reforms, and dry laws. But labor market regulations for female workers were not far down the list. In 1910, agitation to reduce the working hours of women began in earnest in Chicago, with attempts to regulate a maximum 10-hour day, and 6-day week. One strike in favor of lower hours at a diner in the financial district is described below; note the union president's silence -- verbally calling a walk-off could put one at risk of court suppression and injunction.

A silence fell o'er that hungry group - broken only by the sound of someone eating soup. For through the doorway there had walked two women, who uttered not a sound. The first one raised her finger and calmly glanced around. Each diner paused with knife and fork poised, wondering and waiting. Who could the women be? What meant that index finger shaking? Each waitress promptly dropped her plates on tables or on the floor, and doffed her apron, donned her hat, and started for the door. The owner of that finger was their union president, its shaking was a signal, and "on strike" each waitress went.

In 1911, the Illinois legislature passed a law limiting women's hours worked. One wonders, however, whether the real beneficiaries of the legislation weren't male workers, who were able to limit their labor market competition by force of government.

Regardless, emboldened by the victory, advocates pushed for further concessions, higher wages, and fewer hours. February, 1914, saw a general strike against 35 major restaurants in the Loop district, demanding recognition of the waitresses' union, and closed-shop conditions. Henrici's was selected as the first and primary target. The sidewalk outside the restaurant was continuously picketed by women carrying signs and calling out to patrons not to enter.

What followed over the next few months was a flurry of allegations from both sides of unfair and violent tactics. Restaurant manager Collins claimed that, after the union came to him and made its demands, he asked for two weeks to decide his response. The waitresses refused, saying "you either unionize or we'll ruin you." Collins further complained that the picketers were intimidating his patrons, threatening them and disrupting the peace on the busy street outside. He told a reporter:

"I asked my employees if they wanted to join the union, but they are unwilling. Then the representatives of the unions asked me to sign an agreement which virtually would compel me to force by employees into the union or discharge them. The employees here are satisfied, and I don't want to do anything that would cause them to become dissatisfied."

For their part, the waitresses claimed physical violence from Henrici's from the start, hiring Pinkertons to intimidate the strikers, and suffering injuries from police aggression. One striker said:

We were met by gunmen the first day the strike was started. They told us they would make footballs of us before we got through with the strike.

The waitresses complained that the police cursed them and attempted to interfere with their picket line in front of Henrici's. They claimed police had dragged some women so violently that their shoulders were torn and bruised. In one case, the union president, a Miss Carrie Alexander, was arrested for disturbing the peace in front of Henrici's. When the police arrested her, they asked her to walk with them to jail. She refused, sitting down in the February sidewalk slush, to the cheers of a growing crowd. The police attempted to pick her up and carry her, at which point she began to kick and scream, and a crowd of 5,000 supporters began jeering for a riot. To avoid violence, Miss Alexander proceeded to jail, but after posting bond, returned to Henrici's, where she was arrested again twice that day.

When they found out about the purported violence, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr, founders of the famous Hull House, lent their support to the women, with Starr leading many of the protests, and union meetings taking place at Hull House.

Finally, on April 7, after weeks of conflict, an court injunction limited striking on public streets. Handbills could be passed out, but no words could be spoken. Below is what the waitresses began handing out to Henrici's customers the next day:


Eventually, however, legal appeals were exhausted, and the strikers ended their protests in June of 1914 with little to show for it.

With the strikes over, Henrici's on Randolph continued developing into a Chicago institution, with several other locations opening in other parts of the city, as well as in St. Louis and other towns. In 1962, the Randolph St. location closed and was torn down to make way for the Civic Center, later named the Daley Center. Henrici's was later owned by the Pillsbury Corporation, which maintained the other retaurant locations until the early 1980s. The restaurant in the Ramada on Manheim in Rosemont was one of the last Henrici's to go.