City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago (50 page)

  
1.
 The opening of the Michigan Avenue Bridge was covered by all of the newspapers, but my account relies most heavily on an eyewitness account in Williamson,
I Met an American
. “The greatest event since the World’s Fair in 1893” is from Bright,
Hizzoner Big Bill Thompson
, pp. 167–68. Thompson’s expression of “gravity and pleased emotion” as per Williamson,
I Met an American
, p. 50. Quote from Thompson’s speech as per Bukowski,
Big Bill Thompson
, p. 110.

  
2.
 Accounts of gangland Chicago in the 1920s—particularly anything having to do with Al Capone—must be regarded with extreme skepticism. A lot of colorful apocrypha has accumulated around those storied years, and much of it gets repeated from book to book as if it were gospel truth. The detail about the three photos on Capone’s wall, for instance, was attested to by a single, not-particularly-disinterested witness, but has been uncritically repeated by historians for the better part of a century (which is why I phrase my sentence about that detail with caution). Bergreen,
Capone
, is probably the most reliable account of those years.

  
3.
 Information on the later lives of Lardner, Addams, and Sandburg is from Yardley,
Ring;
Davis,
American Heroine;
and Niven,
Carl Sandburg
, respectively. Edmund Wilson’s characterization of Sandburg’s Lincoln biography (“the cruelest thing that has happened to Lincoln since he was shot by Booth”) was cited in Niven,
Carl Sandburg
, p. 635.

  
4.
 Wells-Barnett’s own account of the closing of the Negro Fellowship League is in her
Crusade for Justice
, p. 414. Drake and Cayton,
Black Metropolis
, p. 69, and Kellogg,
NAACP
, p. 238, both discuss the new awareness of the “Negro problem” among whites. For the settlement house progressives’ reaction to the riot, see Philpott,
Slum and the Ghetto
, pp. 273–75. “Conditions in the states had not changed” is from Haywood,
Black Bolshevik
, p. 2. See Philpott,
Slum and the Ghetto
, p. 130, for the city’s increasing level of segregation. Other late-life details for Wells-Barnett are from Giddings,
Ida
, pp. 603, 646–47, and 652.

  
5.
 Jack Boettner’s later career, including the
Graf Zeppelin
episode, comes from Glassman,
Jump!
, pp. 45–46. Goodyear’s decision to use helium rather than hydrogen as per Young,
Chicago Aviation
, p. 20. Information about Sterling Morton’s later life comes principally from the
CDT
of May 5, 1921 (Caroline’s
death) and Morton’s obituary in the
NYT
of February 25, 1961. “I am indeed proud” is from “Illinois Reserve During World War I and After,” p. 3.

  
6.
 Details of the denouement of Emily Frankenstein’s romance with Jerry Lapiner are from her diary entries for late 1919 and 1920. Her letter to the
Tribune
about the Apollo moon mission appeared in the
CDT
of December 15, 1969.

  
7.
 For Hoyne’s misadventures in private life, see the
CDT
of January 21, 1925, and February 19, 1939. Merriam quit trying for elective office, but did later serve as an adviser to Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt. Crowe’s threat to buy Lawson “a railroad ticket to the penitentiary at Joliet” is from Wendt and Kogan,
Big Bill of Chicago
, p. 188. Dennis,
Victor Lawson
, pp. 449–50, outlines Lawson’s contribution to modern newspaper journalism.

  
8.
 For McCormick’s quest to tie Big Bill to the German secret service, see his letters to Arthur Henning and to Parke Browne, both dated May 10, 1920 (Robert R. McCormick Papers). The Ahab quote is from Smith,
Colonel
, p. 240. For Thompson’s assassination accusation, see O’Reilly, “Colonel Robert Rutherford McCormick, His Tribune, and Mayor William Hale Thompson,” p. 89. “The people of Illinois have no enthusiasm for Thompsonism, and less for the
Tribune
” is from O’Brien, “Illinois,” p. 118.

  
9.
 For the end of Lundin’s invincibility, see Bright,
Hizzoner Big Bill Thompson
, p. 179–98, and Wendt and Kogan,
Big Bill of Chicago
, pp. 196–98. “My friends have crucified me!” is quoted in ibid., p. 208. “What a change in two years” is from Stuart,
20 Incredible Years
, p. 177.

10.
 For Lowden as a refuser of nominations and appointments, see Hutchinson,
Lowden of Illinois
, p. 536ff. The quotation about the “worst elements of the party” is cited in a footnote in ibid., p. 470. Stuart,
20 Incredible Years
, p. 108, believes that Lowden’s cooperation would have led to the achievement of Lundin’s goals.

11.
 See the previously cited Thompson biographies for his later career. (NB: Bukowski,
Big Bill Thompson
, p. 149, regards Dever’s well-meaning mayoralty as “a disaster.”) “I’m as wet as the Atlantic Ocean” is ubiquitously cited. For Big Bill’s nervous breakdown, see Wendt and Kogan,
Big Bill of Chicago
, pp. 312–13. I am somewhat skeptical of Thompson’s cash-stuffed safe-deposit boxes as definitive proof of his venality. Some writers make much of his more than $2 million estate but seem to forget that he inherited a large fortune upon his father’s death. And even some of Thompson’s enemies claimed that Big Bill often steered ill-gotten money to his friends but rarely to himself.

12.
 It is, of course, debatable how much credit Thompson can legitimately be given for the many public works completed during his administrations. In my experience, however, too many historians seem to have no trouble giving credit to leaders they admire, while at the same time being reluctant to give any credit at all to leaders they don’t.

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