Chicago History | Winter 2002

THE MAGAZINE OF THE CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Winter 2002 VOLUME XXX, NUMBER 3

Contents

5 23 37 3

Making Votes Count F. Richard Ciccone

Jackson Versus the Cherokee Nation Robert V. Remini

CHS and the Presidency Russell L. Lewis

Departments From the President Lonnie G. Bunch

60

Making History

66

Index to Volume 30

Timothy J. Gilfoyle

C H I C AG O H I S T O RY Editor-in-Chief Rosemary K. Adams Associate Editors Emily M. Holmes Gwen Ihnat Designer Bill Van Nimwegen Photography John Alderson Jay Crawford

Copyright 2002 by the Chicago Historical Society Clark Street at North Avenue Chicago IL 60614-6071 312-642-4600 www.chicagohistory.org ISSN 0272-8540 Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life.

Footnoted manuscripts of the articles appearing in this issue are available from the Chicago Historical Society’s Publications Office.

Cover: Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy campaigns in Elgin, Illinois, on October 25, 1960. Photograph by Terry E. Schmidt. CHS.

C H I C AG O H I S T O R I C A L S O C I E T Y OFFICERS

TRUSTEES

M. Hill Hammock Chair Sharon Gist Gilliam Vice Chair John W. Rowe Vice Chair David P. Bolger Treasurer Potter Palmer Secretary R. Eden Martin Immediate Past Chair Lonnie G. Bunch President

Philip D. Block III David P. Bolger Laurence Booth Lonnie G. Bunch Michelle L. Collins Kevann M. Cooke John W. Croghan Mrs. Alison de Frise Paul H. Dykstra Michael H. Ebner Sharon Gist Gilliam M. Hill Hammock Susan Higinbotham David D. Hiller

LIFE TRUSTEES

Henry W. Howell Jr. Richard M. Jaffee Barbara Levy Kipper Fred A. Krehbiel Joseph Levy Jr. Mrs. John J. Louis Jr. R. Eden Martin Robert Meers Potter Palmer John W. Rowe Beth Schroeder Gordon I. Segal Larry Selander Paul L. Snyder

Lerone Bennett Jr. Bowen Blair Charles T. Brumback Stewart S. Dixon Philip W. Hummer Edgar D. Jannotta W. Paul Krauss John T. McCutcheon Mrs. Frank D. Mayer Mrs. Newton N. Minow Bryan S. Reid Jr. Dempsey J. Travis HONORARY TRUSTEE

Richard M. Daley Mayor, City of Chicago

The Chicago Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the Chicago Park District’s generous support of all of the Historical Society’s activities.

Chicago Historical Society

Chicago History is made possible through the support of the Dr. Scholl Foundation.

FROM THE PRESIDENTI

“A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable,” Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams in 1817. As former presidents, Jefferson and Adams held a unique perspective on history that few other Americans shared. We expect our presidents to be leaders of their times and to change history but also to stay in touch with everyday American life. This dynamic balance has made them fascinating historical figures but also keys to telling our nation’s history. On February 16, 2002, the Chicago Historical Society (CHS) proudly launches the traveling exhibition The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden. As co-curator of the permanent installation of this popular show at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (where I served as associate director for curatorial affairs before coming to CHS), I am particularly proud to share with Chicagoans the fascinating stories of the forty-two occupants of the Oval Office. The Chicago Historical Society is a natural home for this traveling exhibition. Since its founding in 1856, CHS has collected numerous presidential documents and objects. In 1861, CHS trustees elected Abraham Lincoln an honorary member. Although his acceptance letter burned in the Great Fire of 1871, as did a ceremonial copy of the Emancipation Proclamation written by the president, CHS still holds several thousand presidential items in its vast collection. I invite you to visit this special exhibition, which will be on display from February 16 through September 2, 2002.

In addition to viewing the show, you can learn more about the presidency in this special edition of Chicago History magazine. Historian Robert Remini’s article on President Andrew Jackson’s removal of the Cherokee Indians from the eastern United States offers insight into the young nation’s quest for land and its tragic impact on native people. Veteran political reporter Richard Ciccone explores the widely held belief that Mayor Richard J. Daley “won” the 1960 presidential election for John F. Kennedy and shows us that suspicious vote counts, like those that delayed the outcome of the 2000 race, are virtually an American tradition. In his photographic essay, Russell Lewis interprets CHS’s long history of collecting presidential materials, resulting in holdings that range from George Washington’s second inaugural suit to “Exorcise Nixon” buttons. Finally, historian Tim Gilfoyle offers another fascinating insight into two recent recipients of CHS’s prestigious Making History Award.

At this time in our nation’s history, The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden takes on special significance. Through the exhibition and this edition of Chicago History, CHS offers visitors and readers the opportunity to understand and take pride in our great American presidency and to reflect on how this office has shaped our nation and its history.

Lonnie G. Bunch President, Chicago Historical Society The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden was created by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, Behring Center and organized for travel by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

The national tour has been made possible by the United States Congress, Guenther and Siewchin Yong Sommer, Kenneth E. Behring, The Smithsonian National Board, and The History Channel.

Major local support has been provided by KPMG LLP and Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. Additional support has been provided by American Airlines, the Blum-Kovler Foundation, Crain’s Chicago Business, Dominick’s Finer Foods, Inc., and The Guild of the Chicago Historical Society.

3

Above: This political cartoon comments on the close race for president in 1960 by depicting the Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant as organ grinders squandering for votes. The faces of presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon in the television set organs mark the first-ever televised presidential debates in 1960. Opposite: Lyndon B. Johnson early in his political career. Johnson’s races for the Senate in the 1940s were two of the closest political races in American history. In the first, he lost against almost mathematically impossible odds, and after the second, Johnson, the sure loser, took his seat in the Senate.

4 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Making Votes Count F. R I C H A R D C I C C O N E

Legend says that Richard J. Daley “stole” the 1960 election for John F. Kennedy, but that race was neither the first nor the last characterized by suspicious tallies

T

he genius of American democracy was its framing document’s promise that every man had the right to vote. The Constitution might just as well have included the right to steal a vote.

Stealing votes has been the closest thing to the perfect crime since the Pilgrims landed. There is no record of whether Miles Standish asked for a show of hands to determine whether turkey should be served at the first Thanksgiving, but if he did, there were probably more hands than people.

The frenetic uproar over the election of 2000 and the subsequent charges that the United States Supreme Court had stolen the election for George W. Bush has died in the surge of national unity following the terrorism of September 11, but it was already forgotten in most minds save those of Al Gore, his closest friends, and the media consortiums determined to sort out what might have happened in Florida if the votes would have been recounted. When the media finally made its report, it turned out to be irrelevant, as in every suspicious election in American history, and in this highly charged, high-tech information age, much ado about nothing.

The media studies did show what every politician has known since the nation’s founding days: in every election, votes are wasted, ruined, destroyed, and stolen, and, as in the case of Bush vs. Gore, there is very little that ever changes the outcome.

In Florida, voters were disenfranchised or confused, and the officials who prepared some of the odd ballots seem to have been confused too. The same could be said in almost every state in almost every election.

The irony of the monthlong battle of the Bush team to uphold the official tally is that if they had allowed the four-county recount demanded by the Gore challengers, Bush would have won. Similarly, if Gore had given into the Bush counter-challenges to recount votes in all sixty-eight Florida counties, Gore could have won.

While voting officials all over the country were examining their systems during the Florida fracas, it became apparent that no system is perfect, but unless the final tally is extremely close, no one questions missing votes. In Chicago, election officials reported more than 100,000 invalid ballots cast in the 2000 presidential contest, but this only came to light as a result of the Florida fight.

Otherwise, no one would have bothered to look since Gore carried Chicago and Illinois by a huge margin.

Richard J. Daley, Lyndon B. Johnson, and the countless ghosts of Tammany Hall surely were laughing, not because they were masters of election day chicanery—which they were—but at the notion that what happened in Florida was a new and dangerous perversion of American elections. It may have been a perversion, but it was not new.

Lyndon B. Johnson learned about the inequities of voting in his first bid for the Senate in 1941.

He was beaten by an almost mathematically impossible vote cast for his opponent after having a seemingly Making Votes Count | 5

insurmountable lead. Johnson, who knew plenty about the “for sale” nature of ballots in rural Texas, had made the fatal mistake of believing his vote totals were unassailable and had allowed county chairmen and precinct bosses to announce their tallies as soon as the votes were counted. While Johnson’s men were finishing counting votes, his opponent Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel, governor of Texas, was just beginning. Johnson, the sure winner, became a certain loser.

In 1948, running against another Texas governor, Coke R. Stevenson, Johnson seemed the sure loser after the first official ballot count. But Johnson had a strong supporter in Duval County boss George Parr, who kept finding uncounted precinct boxes all over the Rio Grande Valley. In his own sparsely populated county, Parr kept updating his returns until it turned out that Johnson had won by a count of 4,622 to 40, an amazing plurality and even more amazing since there were only 4,679 registered voters in the county—of whom all but seventeen cast ballots.

Even those figures weren’t enough for Parr. By the sixth day of the recount, like a cowboy rounding up lonesome steers after a stampede, he revised the count from the Thirteenth Precinct in Jim Wells County. He had discovered the original report of 795 votes for Johnson was an error. It should have been 975—the additional 180 voters gave Johnson the election by 87 votes. The Stevenson campaign pursued legal remedies for five months, attempting in vain to be given the chance to actually count the votes in ballot box 13, which Parr claimed as lost. Johnson went to his seat in the Senate and eventually the presidency and ultimately the tragedy of Vietnam.

Johnson’s race for Senate may have been the most historically significant stolen election of the twentieth century, but the 1960 presidential election was the most celebrated. The news media and, strangely, all the key players agreed that the 1960 election had been stolen from Richard Nixon for John F. Kennedy and that the man who stole it was the then relatively unknown, inarticulate Richard J. Daley, mayor of Chicago.

The myth of the 1960 election can perhaps be best explained by a line from the John Ford western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. In the closing scene, a newspaper editor finally learns the truth about the death of the villain, tosses his notes away, and tells a young apprentice, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, Democratic vice presidential nominee, campaigns in Washington in August 1960. Ethel Kennedy (from left to right), sister-in-law of the presidential nominee; Lady Bird Johnson; and Eunice Shriver, Senator Kennedy’s sister, were also on hand.

6 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Making Votes Count | 7

8 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

It has become a political legend that Dick Daley stole the 1960 election for Jack Kennedy and a political myth that Kennedy, Nixon, and Daley all helped perpetuate.

In what had been—until 2000—the closest presidential race of the twentieth century, Kennedy defeated Nixon by 34,226,925 to 34,108,662 votes, a less than 1 percent margin. Kennedy’s edge in the electoral vote was 303 to 219, which did not reflect the closeness of the election.

In the twelve hours after the polls closed in 1960, the margins in many critical states were so close that it appeared first Nixon, then Kennedy, then Nixon again had won. States flip-flopped as political leaders juggled their totals and confused the television analysts who were wandering in uncharted waters and relying on computers that were far more unsophisticated than the ones that screwed up predictions based on exit polls of the 2000 Florida outcome.

As the polls closed, CBS predicted a landslide for Nixon. An hour later, NBC showed Kennedy was winning most of the eastern states. The Philadelphia vote was pushing Kennedy ahead in Pennsylvania, but a GOP surge showed him trailing in Ohio. Kentucky was seesawing, and the Great Plains states were going heavily for Nixon. Political bosses like Pennsylvania’s David Lawrence and Ohio’s Mike DiSalle sprinkled vote totals carefully. They wanted to give Kennedy enough votes to put him ahead while still holding some in reserve. At the network anchor desks, Walter Cronkite of CBS and the

NBC team of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley predicted that four states—Michigan, Texas, California, and Illinois—held the balance of the election.

In Chicago, in his Cook County Democratic headquarters at the Morrison Hotel, Daley was playing the same game as his eastern counterparts but with more at stake.

He was banking on carrying Illinois for Kennedy and, in turn, having Kennedy carry his Cook County ticket. Daley was in the second year of his second term and not yet known as the greatest of big city political bosses. His first major election as chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party in 1956 had been a disaster: his state ticket was swamped by Republicans. As a result, the GOP held the governor’s and the secretary of state’s offices, both powerful patronage posts that gave Republicans thousands of election-day workers in the suburbs and downstate Illinois.

Daley had other interests invested in John F. Kennedy’s candidacy. Although he had been taciturn about Kennedy’s early bid for the nomination, the devoutly Irish Catholic Daley wanted an Irish Catholic president. In addition, Daley wanted Kennedy at the top of the ticket because he believed it would help him turn out a huge Chicago vote. He was desperate for an overwhelming Kennedy victory in Chicago to help topple Republican Ben Adamowski, reclaim some of the county and state offices from the Republicans, and establish himself as a powerful and unbeatable kingmaker.

Opposite: In January 1960, Daley responds to reporters’ questions concerning the recently announced Democratic slate for the year’s election. Above: Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy campaigning in Yonkers, New York, in October 1960.

Making Votes Count | 9

Adamowski, a former Democrat and a Daley friend when both men served in the Illinois legislature, had been a thorn in Daley’s side as state’s attorney with his ability to investigate the various arms of government controlled by the mayor. Daley viewed Adamowski, with his strong bloc of Polish support, as a strong rival and was already aware that his own election victories in 1955 and 1959 would have been closer without the huge backing of the black community. Daley did not run well in the white ethnic communities.

As a result, Daley had uncharacteristically made wild pronouncements about how well he expected to do for Kennedy, predicting a 650,000–vote margin victory. On election night, he tried to deliver. Armed with forecasts and totals supplied by his board of elections chief Sidney T. Holzman, a cigar-chewing autocrat, Daley plotted his strategies and counted his votes.

The South Side black wards controlled by Representative William Dawson were routinely checking in with solid numbers, Kennedy by 3–1 and 4–1 margins. On the West Side, the so-called “river wards,” where Franklin D. Roosevelt had scored remarkable numbers in the 1930s and where Republicans and civic committees annually hunted for ghost voters and all sorts of other fraud, things were as Daley expected. The Twenty-fourth Ward belonged to Col. Jack Arvey, former county chairman and mentor to Daley, who had become a national figure in the 1948 election when his surprise choices of blue-ribbon candidates Paul Douglas and Adlai Stevenson had carried the ticket and Harry Truman to victory. Arvey’s ward was known nationally as “FDR’s favorite ward,” and even in the 1956 presidential election debacle had given Stevenson 21,019 votes to 3,951 for Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was no surprise to Daley when Arvey forecast a 20,000–vote win for Kennedy. The other river wards were sending in similar reports. Daley’s own Eleventh Ward would be no problem, eventually providing Kennedy with 20,105 votes to 6,052 for Nixon.

As usual, the North Side committeemen were having difficulties. National contests evoked strong GOP support from the hard-to-convince lakefront independents and reformers and on the Northwest Side where the secondand third-generation Polish and Germans tended to lean Republican. Alderman Thomas Keane, Daley’s floor leader in the city council, promised a good vote for Kennedy in his Thirty-first Ward. But the Forty-fifth and Forty-seventh Wards would go to Nixon, and the Forty-first Ward alone would produce 38,000 votes for the GOP, the largest total in the city for either presidential candidate.

State party chairman Jimmy Ronan, a Daley appointee, reported the vote outside the city was also heavily Republican, particularly in counties surrounding Cook, and likely to produce lopsided margins for Nixon. In southern Illinois, some Democratic leaders, including Illinois Speaker of the House Paul Powell, who was often 10 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Above: In the fall of 1960, the Chicago Defender ran this advertisement comparing John F. Kennedy to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Below: Mayor and Mrs. Daley at their Bridgeport polling place at 3509 South Lowe on election day, Tuesday, November 8, 1960.

Above: Even in 1955, in his first term as mayor of Chicago, Daley began to build the reputation that would lead to his recognition as one of the nation’s most prominent political bosses. Below: The women of Daley’s “own” Eleventh Ward walk in March 1959, in support of re-electing Daley for a second term as mayor.

Making Votes Count | 11

On November 8 and 9, 1960, the Chicago Daily News reported several suspicious accounts of polling place irregularities, delays, and mix-ups.

12 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

at odds with Daley, were still afraid that the Catholic issue would cost Kennedy votes.

The question was whether Kennedy could cut into Nixon’s vote in Peoria, Champaign, Decatur, Springfield, Bloomington, and Rock Island. And, to Daley’s inner sanctum: how many votes could the Republicans in nearby DuPage, Kane, Lake, and Will Counties either produce or steal for Nixon? The turnout in DuPage, then the most Republican county in the nation, could be as high as 175,000 and a 3–l Nixon edge could give him a gain of 80,000 or 90,000 votes, wiping away the entire Kennedy lead from Dawson’s black wards and Arvey’s legendary Twenty-fourth.

Daley knew it would be late in the night before he could figure out the votes in DuPage County. The Democrats and Republicans played a cruel game on election nights, taking turns releasing and holding back votes when they felt they needed a psychological edge or when seeking information about their opponent’s totals. The strategy for the 101 county chairman and ten thousand precinct captains was eloquently and simply stated by a Democratic precinct captain who in 1979, on the night that Jane Byrne defeated incumbent Chicago mayor Michael Bilandic, said, “We won’t know how many [votes] we got until we find out how many we need.”

By the time the polls closed, the downstate Republicans had begun their usual gamesmanship by announcing that the ballot counting had been halted and that there would be no further reports until after midnight. Daley also stopped releasing his totals, hoping to keep an even larger batch of numbers hidden than the GOP, but in conversation with Kennedy aides, Daley revealed that the big Chicago lead was being whittled away downstate: “Every time we announce two hundred more votes for Kennedy in Chicago, they come up out of nowhere downstate with another three hundred votes for Nixon. One of their precincts, outside of Peoria, where there are only fifty voters, just announced five hundred votes for Nixon.”

By 9:00 P.M., things were looking good in Chicago.

Daley was caught between wanting to hold back votes until he could see what the Republicans were hiding and wanting to provide the networks with enough information for them to declare Kennedy the winner in Illinois.

Most important, he wanted his role to be regarded as vital and did not want an Illinois triumph to go unannounced until it no longer was crucial.

Right: Daley’s strategies of releasing and withholding vote totals seemed to have worked, because on the day after the election (top), the Chicago Tribune ran an article proclaiming Kennedy the winner in Illinois by 85,000 votes. The next day, however, the slant of the Tribune’s headline changed to “Illinois is Lost to Nixon by Only 5,468” (bottom).

Above: News reporters mob Mayor Daley after the Illinois caucus on July 10, 1960, during which Senator John F. Kennedy received fifty-nineand-a-half of Illinois’s sixty-nine votes. Below: A map detailing presidential voting trends across the nation from November 9, 1960.

14 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

By midnight, his strategy appeared to have worked.

Television networks put Illinois in the Kennedy column and the Chicago Tribune’s Wednesday edition called Kennedy an apparent winner by 85,000 votes, although the ultimate margin would be less than 8,000. Texas had earlier been declared for the Kennedy–Johnson ticket, and the win in Illinois meant that Nixon probably could not catch Kennedy even if he won in California, which would be undecided until the absentee ballots were counted a week later.

At 3:00 A.M., Daley called Hyannisport to talk to Kennedy. Somewhat prematurely he greeted his candidate: “Mr. President, with a little bit of luck and the help of a few close friends, you are going to carry Illinois.” The message was clear to Kennedy, who didn’t have any close friends in Illinois. He only had Dick Daley, and Daley made sure the president-elect knew whom he owed.

When it was all over, and Daley had firmly grasped the role of kingmaker, few reflected that Kennedy didn’t need Illinois. He could not have lost both Illinois and Texas, but he could have lost one of the two. Daley’s own sense of timing and some luck had propelled him to the national stage. He chose the right moment to release his vote totals and convinced the nation that Kennedy was the winner in Illinois long before it was certain. And, he did it unaware that swing states such as Michigan and Minnesota were in doubt, making Illinois seem far more crucial than it would be in the end.

On the night of his inauguration in January 1961, Kennedy left his box at the Washington Armory and walked over the table where Daley was sitting with his family. Kennedy invited the mayor of Chicago to visit him at the White House the next day. When the Daleys arrived, they met former President Harry Truman leaving the Oval Office. Truman was the only person invited before Daley to visit the new president and the nation’s news media took notice. Of all the nation’s Democratic leaders, only Daley had been invited to share Kennedy’s first day in office. There was no mistaking the message that Kennedy owed Daley, but it was mistaken.

For one thing, there were few Democratic leaders remaining in the country, and Kennedy knew he was going to need whoever was left to help him pass legislation and to stay loyal for his second-term bid.

Republican governors would soon rule New York, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. California’s Democratic Pat Brown was not a boss in the old sense and held little influence with his congressional delegation and his voters. New York City and Philadelphia had Republican mayors. Only Daley and the powerful Cook County machine could be counted on again in 1964, and no other political leader in the country had as much clout in Congress as Daley, who controlled thirteen of Illinois’s twenty-five members of the House of Representatives.

Above: A Chicago Tribune cartoon comments on the tight races for many of the local, state, and national offices during the 1960 elections.

Right: Illinois’s winners of 1960. Daley’s push for a Democratic vote to topple both Nixon and the Republicanheavy state offices seemed to have worked: the Democrats had recaptured all but one of the local and state offices.

16 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Left: The inauguration of President Kennedy at the U.S. capitol on Januar y 20, 1961. On the night of the inauguration, Kennedy greeted Daley and his family and invited them to visit him in the White House the following day. Former President Truman was the only person invited to see Kennedy in the Oval Office before the Daley family. Above: Daley’s national influence inspired this 1963 Time magazine cover story.

Kennedy’s embrace of Daley at his inauguration and his subsequent invitation for the Daleys to spend the night at the White House was in part gratitude for Kennedy’s triumph in Illinois—which he really didn’t need—but mostly in anticipation of what he would need in the future.

Ben Bradlee, editor of the Washington Post and a close personal friend of the Kennedy’s, added to the legend when he wrote a book of reminiscences after Kennedy’s death and included the 3:00 A.M. election night phone call from Daley. It was widely interpreted that Kennedy understood that Daley had stolen Illinois for him.

The hostage mentality of the news media also played into the legend. By the time Kennedy was elected, political reporters were long accustomed to looking around for the bosses who were responsible for election victories. In 1960, Daley was the only one left. The legendary big-city machines in New York, Newark, Memphis, and Kansas City had all but disappeared. Only in Chicago did the “machine” survive, and it survived with the aura of its ghost voters, stuffed ballot boxes, and the more-often-thanMaking Votes Count | 17

In March 1963, the Chicago Convention Bureau named Mayor Daley (left) “The World’s Greatest Mayor” and presented him with a key to the city of Chicago.

not truthful admonition: “Vote early, vote often.” So with a few gestures from Kennedy, it was no great leap for the national media to dub Daley a kingmaker and a vote thief.

Daley, of course, had wanted to be the kingmaker. If he had to live with the charges that he stole a presidential election on behalf on the man sitting in the White House, that wasn’t so bad either. Daley also should have given Nixon’s wife, Pat, some credit for his new and powerful stature: Mrs. Nixon told reporters a few days after the election, “If it weren’t for an evil, cigar-smoking man in Chicago (Sidney T. Holzman), my husband would have been President of the United States.”

Even more than in 2000, the presidential race had been razor-thin in several states, but they didn’t have the “machine” that Daley ruled. All the attention was focused on Illinois. Nixon loyalists complained for years that a switch of just 5,000 votes in Illinois would have swung the state to “their man,” but there were several other states where the same wistful thinking could have applied. In New Jersey, where Newark and Jersey City delivered huge majorities for Kennedy, the final victory margin was only 20,000 votes—a shift of a mere 11,000 could have won that state’s sixteen electoral votes. Montana, not nearly as significant, fell into the Nixon column by less than 5,000 votes. Hawaii was 18 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

one hundred votes apart until the recount. Kennedy survived Delaware by 2,500 votes, and California was thought to be Kennedy’s until all the absentee ballots gave it to Nixon two weeks after election day.

In looking back, Kennedy’s campaign chief Larry O’Brien thought if anyone might deserve credit for pilfering votes for Kennedy it might have been Paul Powell’s pals. “There was a degree of hanky-panky in Illinois, but I always felt that whatever it was—and I had no knowledge of it and if it indeed existed—it appeared to be in the southern part of the state, because they were very adept at that sort of thing.” He also noted that Illinois wasn’t as special as it seemed. “It was just a darn close race [nationally]. You could look across the results and Illinois didn’t stick out in any sense. You lost a couple here and there by small margins, you won a couple by small margins—more than a couple. It was a very, very close election.”

Of course, the Chicago machine did steal votes but like Florida the complicated business of a recount might not have changed the result. In 1960, a recount was almost impossible since many parts of the state still used paper ballots, and the voting machines in Chicago were primitive and easily rigged by savvy precinct captains.

The allegations that Joseph Kennedy had arranged through Frank Sinatra to get Chicago gangland boss Sam Giancana to deliver votes for JFK added to the confusion.

Since the elder Kennedy had a long history of dealing with the mob, it is not unlikely that he had the contacts to set up a meeting with Giancana. It is also not unlikely that Giancana would be agreeable to steal votes for Kennedy, since in his life he had stolen just about everything else. But the crime lord’s influence in Chicago politics was centered on the river wards that historically had given Democrats the largest victory margins in America.

The river wards were where committeemen such as Chicago sewer boss Ed Quigley once reportedly told a precinct captain who had reported 302 Democratic votes and two Republican, “Are you crazy? You’ll bring the feds down on us. Go back and give the Republican guy six votes.” The ward did it again in 1960, and if Giancana was instrumental in adding to Kennedy vote totals it was only by the smallest of fractions.

In Chicago, the real question was whether the huge margins in the organization wards were driven by Daley’s desire to elect John F. Kennedy or his obsession with defeating Ben Adamowski, although these goals were not mutually exclusive. Daley wanted every controllable vote turned out for the election. He wanted every possible Democrat at the polls on the assumption that even Daley’s rising political power earned him enemies. Left: Shortly after the 1960 election, Republicans began to vocalize complaints about Democratic voting methods and went so far as to establish a “Nixon Recount Committee.” Above: Ben Adamowski, a former Daley friend, became a significant rival during Daley’s time in office. Adamowski ran against Daley for mayor in the primary in 1955 and in the general elections in 1959 and 1963.

though all of them might not be blindly loyal to the straight ticket, a majority, a big majority, would be for Kennedy and more of them than not would be for his state’s attorney candidate, Daniel P. Ward.

In the hard-core Democratic wards, Kennedy outpolled Ward. In the five black wards, predictably, he gathered 15,000 more votes than Ward. But in the river wards, many of them approaching majority black populations, the two Democrats ran even. This suggests that if there was chicanery, it was primarily with straight ticket ballots. These were the wards where Republicans scoured for vote fraud and where the subsequent GOP vote challenge focused. These were the wards where “ghost” voters, persons registered but long since dead or moved away, still cast ballots; where ballot boxes were sometimes whisked out of the polling place to be counted away from the prying eyes of Republican judges; and where the Republican judges were often wolves in sheep’s clothing—republicans for only a day and Making Votes Count | 19

20 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

“Nixon Recount Committee,” which was really the Adamowski recount committee. Adamowski supposedly gained 1,614 votes from the canvass of the machine tallies indicating the most he could trim Ward’s lead would be by 10,000 votes, not enough to overturn his defeat.

In light of the Florida controversy, it is interesting to note that 54,599 of the ballots taken in Chicago were not marked for president. Kennedy and Nixon combined drew 1,664,993 votes but 1,719,592 ballots were taken. It seems remarkable that such adept vote thieves as the Chicago Democrats could have allowed so many ballots to slip through unmarked, since the vote total for the presidential contest has always drawn several hundred thousand more votes than other elections. Apparently, while many thousands of Chicago voters may have just voted for president and skipped other offices, at least 54,000 did not mark their ballot in the presidential contest.

Or maybe Daley still is holding them back.

F. Richard Ciccone is a former political writer and managing editor of the Chicago Tribune and the author of Royko: A Life in Print and Daley: Power and Presidential Politics.

After the 1960 presidential election, Daley’s political clout continued to grow. Above: Daley comments on housing legislation proposed by President Kennedy before a meeting of the Senate Housing subcommittee in April 1961. Opposite: President Kennedy places a wreath on the Butch O’Hare monument at the formal dedication of O’Hare Airport. Mayor Daley stands to Kennedy’s left.

Democratic payrollers the remainder of the year. There is no question that Kennedy and Ward benefited from the traditional abilities of the Democratic committeemen in these areas to alter the vote count.

The miraculous effort turned in by Daley was similar to the Truman vote the organization milked in 1948 and not as big a Democratic triumph as Daley would give Lyndon B. Johnson four years later. By then Johnson had passed the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, and Chicago’s black voters responded with a thunderous turnout. The Third Ward that Kennedy carried in 1960 by 20,000 to 5,000 went for Johnson over Barry Goldwater by 33,525 to 985. The Seventeenth Ward, now virtually all black, had gone for Kennedy 22,000 to 6,500 but gave Johnson a 26,450 to 1,078 margin. Kennedy’s miracle margin in Chicago was 436,000 votes ahead of Nixon, but Johnson left the city with a 670,000 lead over Goldwater.

Adamowski lost in 1960 by 25,000 votes and fought several days for a recount that cost $5 for each paper ballot precinct and $2 for each voting machine canvass.

He wanted 5,200 machines in Chicago and 2,100 in the suburbs recounted. The Chicago Tribune ran small boxes on its front page urging people send $1 or more to the

I L L U S T R AT I O N S | 4, copyright © Edmund Valtman, Hartford Times, from the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division; 5–8, CHS; 9, AP/Wide World Photos; 10 top, Chicago Defender, October 29, 1960; 10 bottom, CHS; 11 top, CHS, ICHi-25706; 11 bottom, CHS; 12 top left, Chicago Daily News, Nov. 9, 1960; 12 top right, Chicago Daily News, Nov. 9, 1960; 12 bottom, Chicago Daily News, Nov. 8, 1960; 13 top, Chicago Daily Tribune, Nov. 9, 1960; 13 bottom, Chicago Daily Tribune, Nov. 10, 1960; 14 top, CHS; 14 bottom, Chicago Daily Tribune, Nov. 9, 1960; 15 top, Chicago Daily Tribune, Nov. 9, 1960; 15 bottom, Chicago Daily News, Nov. 9, 1960; 16–17, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division; 17, TimePix; 18, CHS; 19 top right, CHS; 19 bottom left, Chicago Tribune, Nov. 12, 1960; 20, CHS, ICHi-32484; 21, CHS.

F O R F U RT H E R R E A D I N G | For information on Richard J. Daley’s rise to power, his successes and failures in office, and his legacy, see F. Richard Ciccone’s Daley: Power and Presidential Politics (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1996) and Elizabeth Taylor’s and Adam Cohen’s American Pharaoh: Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation (Boston: Time Warner, 2000). For a survey of Chicago’s recent political history read William J. Grimshaw’s Bitter Fruit: Black Politics and the Chicago Machine, 1931–1991 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). For a chronicle of the Nixon–Kennedy campaigns and presidential election of 1960, see Theodore H. White’s Pulitzer Prize–winning The Making of the President 1960 (New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1961).

Making Votes Count | 21

22 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Jackson Versus the Cherokee Nation R O B E RT V. R E M I N I

President Andrew Jackson’s policies against Native Americans led to the removal of the Cherokee people from their home in the eastern United States Editor’s Note: Andrew Jackson’s presidency (1829–37) may seem remote to Americans today, but he was a controversial figure in his time. Political foes nicknamed him “King Andrew” and accused him of trampling the constitution in his desire to increase the power of the presidency. For Native Americans, the president’s relentless determination to relocate various tribes spelled the end of their homes in the southeastern United States. In this excerpt from his book Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars, historian Robert Remini explores Jackson’s resolve to remove the Cherokee Nation from its land, leading to the Trail of Tears.

T Opposite: President Andrew Jackson (depicted in this Jacques Amans painting, c. 1839) paved the way for the removal of the Cherokees. Inaccurately depicted as “savage” by the prejudices of the day, the Cherokee Nation boasted its own alphabet (created by Cherokee Sequoyah, above right) and an almanac (above).

he great Cherokee Nation that had fought the young Andrew Jackson on his arrival in Tennessee back in 1788 now faced an even more powerful and determined man who was intent on taking their land. But whereas in the past they had resorted to guns, tomahawks, and scalping knives, now they chose to challenge him in a court of law. They were not called a “civilized nation” for nothing. Many of their leaders were well educated; many more could read and write; they had their own written language, thanks to Sequoyah, a constitution, schools, and their own newspaper. And they had adopted many skills of the white man to improve their living conditions. Why should they be expelled from their lands when they no longer threatened white settlements and could compete with them on many levels? They intended to fight their ouster. . . . As a last resort they planned to bring suit before the Supreme Court. . . .

Jackson Versus the Cherokee Nation | 23

Above: In the Case of the Cherokee Nation against the State of Georgia, Chief Justice John Marshall determined that the Native Americans were “domestic dependent nations,” which the Cherokees mistakenly felt would protect them from the state’s actions. Below: In 1832, Marshall declared unconstitutional all Georgia laws dealing with Cherokees in Worcester v. the State of Georgia.

24 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

The Cherokees hired William Wirt to take their case to the Supreme Court. In the celebrated Cherokee Nation v.

Georgia he instituted suit for an injunction that would permit the Cherokees to remain in Georgia without interference by the state. He argued that they constituted an independent nation and had been so regarded by the United States in its many treaties with them.

Speaking for the majority of the Court, Chief Justice John Marshall handed down his decision on March 18, 1831. Not surprisingly, as a great American nationalist, he rejected Wirt’s argument that the Cherokees were sovereign nation, but he also rejected Jackson’s claim that they were subject to state law. The Indians were “domestic dependent nations,” he ruled, subject to the United States as a ward to a guardian. Indian territory was part of the United States but not subject to action by individual states.

When the Cherokees read Marshall’s decision they honestly believed that the Nation had won the case, that Georgia lacked authority to control their lives and property, and that the courts would protect them. The Supreme Court, the Principal Chief told his people, had decided “in our favor.” So they stayed right where they were, and missionaries encouraged them to stand fast.

But they figured without Sharp Knife [Jackson] and the authorities of Georgia. In late December 1830, the state passed another law prohibiting white men from entering Indian country after March 1, 1831, without license from the state. This move was obviously intended to keep interfering clergymen from inciting the Indians to disobey Georgia law. Eleven such missionaries were arrested for violating the recent statute, nine of whom accepted pardons from the governor in return for a promise that they would cease violating Georgia law. But Samuel A. Worcester and Dr. Elizur Butler refused the pardon, and Judge Augustin S. J. Clayton sentenced them to the state penitentiary, “there to endure hard labor for the term of four years.” They appealed the verdict and their case came before the Supreme Court.

On March 3, 1832, Marshall again ruled in Worcester v.

Georgia, declaring all the laws of Georgia dealing with the Cherokees unconstitutional, null, void, and of no effect. In addition he issued a formal mandate two days later ordering the state’s superior court to reverse its decision and free the two men.

Jackson is reported to have said on hearing the decision, “Well, John Marshall has made his decision: now let him enforce it!” Actually Jackson said no such thing. It certainly sounds like him, but he did not say it because there was nothing for him to enforce. The Court had rendered its judgement, directed an action by the state’s superior court, and then adjourned. It would not reconvene until January 1833. Neither Georgia nor the state’s superior court responded to the order. Not until a response was

Above: Map of the Eastern Cherokee Nation, 1835, before the removal of the Cherokees to Oklahoma. Below: Samuel Austin Worcester, author of Pages from Cherokee Indian History, refused a pardon after he violated Georgia law forbidding a white man to enter Indian territory. His appeal went all the way to the Supreme Court.

forthcoming could the Supreme Court issue an order of compliance or a writ of habeas corpus for the release of the two men. Thus Jackson was under no obligation at that time to take action. Why, then, would he refuse what no one asked him to do? Why would he make such a foolish remark? Rather, he said that “the decision of the supreme court has fell still born, and they find that it cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate.”

What he did do was maneuver behind the scenes. He was presently involved in a confrontation with South Carolina over the passage of the tariffs of 1828 and 1832. The state had nullified these acts and threatened to secede from the Union if force was used to make it comply with them. The last thing Jackson needed was a confrontation with another state, so he quietly nudged Georgia into obeying the court order and freeing Butler and Worcester. A number of well-placed officials in both the state and national governments lent a hand, and the governor, Wilson Lumpkin, was finally persuaded to accept an arrangement whereby he released the two men on January 14, 1833.

With the annoying problem of the two missionaries out of the way, both Georgia and Jackson continued to lean on the Cherokees to get them to remove. “Some of Jackson Versus the Cherokee Nation | 25

The January 1833 issue of The Missionary Herald (above) included a list of several people assigned to Cherokee missions. Principal Cherokee chief John Ross (below) fought hard in his negotiations with President Jackson to keep the Cherokee land and save the tribe from removal.

the most vicious and base characters that the adjoining states can produce” squatted on their land and stole “horses and other property” and formed a link with as many “bad citizens” of the Cherokee Nation “as they can associate into their club.” Missionaries decried what was happening to the Cherokees. If only “whites would not molest them,” wrote Dr. Elizur Butler in The Missionary Herald. They have made remarkable progress in the last dozen years and if left alone they can and will complete the process toward a “civilized life.”

But allowing eastern Indians full control of their eastern lands was virtually impossible in the 1830s. There was not army enough or will enough by the American people to bring it about. As Jackson constantly warned, squatters would continue to invade and occupy the land they wanted; then, if they were attacked, they would turn to the state government for protection, which usually ended in violence. All this under the guise of bringing “civilization” to the wilderness.

Even so, the Cherokees had a strong leader who had not yet given up the fight.

26 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

They were led by the wily, tough, and determined John Ross, a blue eyed, brown-haired mixed-blood who was only one-eighth Cherokee. Nonetheless he was the Principal Chief, and a most powerful force within the Nation. He was rich, lived in a fine house attended by black slaves, and virtually controlled the annuities paid by the United States to the tribal government for former land cessions. His appearance and lifestyle were distinctly white; in all other respects he was Indian.

From the beginning of Jackson’s administration, Ross urged his people to stand their ground and remain united. . . .

By the spring of 1832, removal applied to all the eastern tribes, not simply the southern tribes along the Gulf of Mexico.

Earlier treaties—especially the Treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1825—had pretty much cleared a large portion of the Old Northwest around Illinois, Wisconsin, and the Michigan Territory of such tribes as the Chippewas, Sacs and Foxes, Menominis, Iowas, Sioux, Potawatomis, and Winnebagos, who had already settled west of Mississippi. . . .

For most Indians a look of melancholy and dejection registered their growing awareness that they must leave the land of their birth and the sites of their ancestors’ graves and move west, that their Great Father [Jackson] was determined to expel them from their country and that nothing they could say or do would change his mind or prevent their expulsion—not fighting, and certainly not suing in the courts of the United States. The end was closing in on them.

Still the Cherokees held out, although even they had begun to feel the unrelenting pressure. A so-called Treaty Party of chiefs and headmen emerged within the Nation who understood Jackson’s inflexible will and had decided to bow to his wishes and try to get the best treaty possible. They were led by very capable, hardheaded, pragmatic men, including the Speaker of the Cherokee National Council, Major Ridge; his son, the educated and politically ambitious John Ridge; the editor of the Cherokee newspaper Phoenix, Elias Boudinot; and his brother Stand Watie, as well as John A. Bell, James Starr, and George W. Adair.

John Ridge took a leading role in the emergence of the Treaty Party, for when the Worcester decision was first handed down he instantly recognized that Chief Justice Marshall had rendered an opinion that abandoned the Cherokees to their inevitable fate.

So he went to Jackson and asked him pointblank whether the power of the United States would be exerted to force Georgia into respecting Indian rights and property. The President assured him that the government would do nothing. He then advised Ridge “most earnestly” to go home and urge his people to remove. Dejected, the chief left the President “with the melancholy conviction that he had been told the truth. From that moment he was convinced that the only alternative to save his people from moral and physical death, was to make the best terms they could with the government and remove out of the limits of the states.

This conviction he did not fail to make known to his friends, and hence rose the ‘Treaty Party.’”

The members of this Treaty Party certainly risked their lives in pressing for removal, and indeed all of them were subsequently marked for assassination. Not too many years later, Elias Boudinot and John Ridge were slain with knives and tomahawks in the midst of their families, while Major Ridge was ambushed and shot to death.

John Ross, on the other hand, would not yield. As head of the National Party, which opposed removal, he was shrewd enough to recognize immediately that the President would attempt to play one party off against the other. “The object of the President is unfolded & made too plain to be misunderstood,” he told the Nation. “It is The Cherokees formed a Treaty Party to help them negotiate the most advantageous agreement with Andrew Jackson. The party included Elias Boudinot (top); his brother General Stand Watie (above left), who was commissioned as a brigadier general (below left); John Ridge (below center); and Major Ridge (below right). The party was unable to come up with any sort of decent settlement from the stubborn Jackson; Boudinot, John Ridge, and Major Ridge were all slain within a few years after the negotiations.

Jackson Versus the Cherokee Nation | 27

to create divisions among ourselves, break down our government, our press & our treasury, that our cries may not be heard abroad; that we may be deprived of the means of sending delegations to Washington City to make known our grievances before Congress . . . and break down the government which you [Cherokees] have, by your own free will & choice, established for the security of your freedom & common welfare.” If we permit ourselves to be hauled off “to a barren and inhospitable region” we will face “no other prospect than the degradation, dispersion and ultimate extinction of our race.”

Under the circumstances, Ross decided to go to Washington and request a meeting with the President in order to try again to arrange some accommodation that would prevent the mass relocation of his people to what was now the new Indian Territory, which Congress had created in 1834 and which eventually became the state of Oklahoma. . . .

Since he had fought with Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend during the Creek War, he reckoned that his service during that battle would provide him with a degree of leverage in speaking with the President. And, as Principal Chief, he could speak with the duly constituted authority of the Cherokee Nation as established under the Cherokee Constitution of 1827.

He had another reason for requesting the interview. He had heard a rumor that Jackson had commissioned the Reverend John F. Schermerhorn, an ambitious cleric who had assisted in the removal of the Seminoles, to negotiate with Ridge and his associates and see if a deal could be worked out that would result in a treaty. Definitely alarmed, Ross asked to speak with the President, at which time he said he would submit his own proposal for a treaty. . . .

The President did not wish to meet Ross. He knew this interview would only be a repeat of earlier interviews.

Whenever he comes to Washington, Jackson declared, the chief “often proposed to make a treaty for money alone, & not Land.” Which showed that he was a greedy rascal, not a true leader. Then, Ross would insist on letting “the Cherokees seek their own country beyond the limits of the United States—to which I always replied we were bound by treaty to keep our Indians within our own limits.”

Despite his feelings about the chief, Jackson decided to grant Ross’s request for a meeting. Above all else he wanted Cherokee removal, and if that meant seeing this “great villain” and hearing about his proposal for relocating the tribe, then he would do it. As a consummate politician, as Ross realized quite well, Jackson understood the value of playing one party off against another, so when he granted the interview he directed that Schermerhorn suspend his negotiations with the Treaty Party and wait for the outcome of his interview with the Principal Chief.

28 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Actually Jackson and Ross were much alike. They were both wily, tough, determined, obsessed with protecting the interests of their respective peoples, and markedly dignified and polite when they came together in the White House on Wednesday, February 5, 1834. It was exactly noon when the Principal Chief arrived, and the Great Father greeted him with the respect due Ross’s position. The chief returned the compliment. For a few minutes their conversation touched on pleasantries, then they got down to the question at hand and began playing a political game that involved the lives of thousands, both Native Americans and white settlers.

Unfortunately, despite his many talents and keen intelligence, Ross was no match for the President. He simply lacked the resources of his adversary.

The Principal Chief opened with an impassioned plea.

“Your Cherokee children are in deep distress,” he said, “. . . because they are left at the mercy of the white robber and assassin” and receive no redress from the Georgia courts. That state, he declared, has not only “surveyed and loitered off” Cherokee land to its citizens but legislated as though Cherokees were intruders in their own country.

Jackson just listened. Then the Principal Chief acted imprudently and made impossible demands on the President. To start, he insisted that in any treaty the Cherokee Nation must retain some of its land along the borders of Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia, land that had already been occupied by white settlers. He even included a small tract in North Carolina. He then required assurances that the United States government would protect the Cherokees with federal troops in the new and old settlements for a period of five years.

Jackson could scarcely believe what was being demanded of him. Under other circumstances he would have acted up a storm in an attempt to frighten and cower the chief. But on this occasion he decided against it. Instead, in a calm and quiet but determined voice, he told Ross that nothing short of an entire removal of the Cherokee Nation from all its land east of Mississippi would be acceptable.

Having run into a stone wall, Ross headed in another direction. In view of the gold that had recently been discovered in Georgia and North Carolina, he wanted $20 million for the entire Cherokee domain, plus reimbursement for losses sustained by the Nation for violations of former treaties by the United States. He also asked for indemnities for claims under the 1817 and 1819 Cherokee treaties. The total amount almost equaled the national debt.

On hearing this, Jackson also changed direction. His voice hardened, his intense blue eyes flared, and the muscles in his face tightened and registered his growing displeasure. Obviously the Principal Chief had not caught the

This portrait of the “Great Father” and his “children” represents the attitudes and prejudices of U.S. citizens toward Native Americans.

Jackson Versus the Cherokee Nation | 29

This woodcut depicts “a missionary, preaching to Indians.” Missionaries assigned to the Cherokees encouraged the tribe to hold its ground against the government, to no avail.

President’s meaning when he rejected the first demand. He snapped at Ross, rejected the proposal as “preposterous,” and warned him that the Great Father was not to be trifled with. If these demands were the best the chief could offer, then there was no point in continuing the discussion.

That brought Ross up short. Completely surprised by Jackson’s reaction, he protested his sincerity, and to prove it he offered to accept any award the Senate of the United States might recommend. Apparently the chief was attempting to set up a bidding contest between the upper house and the chief executive. Surprisingly, Jackson accepted the offer and assured Ross that he would “go as far” as the Senate in any award that might be proposed.

And on that conciliatory note the interview ended.

In less than a week, Ross received his answer about what the Senate would offer. John P. King of Georgia chaired the Committee on Indian Affairs, which considered the question. That was bad enough. Then the committee came up with an offer of $5 million. The figure shocked the Principal Chief. Jackson probably knew beforehand what would happen and therefore agreed to Ross’s suggestion. Now the Indian was faced with rejecting the money outright or accepting this paltry sum and thereby losing credibility with his people. Naturally he chose the former course. He claimed he had been misunderstood, that he could not possibly agree to such an amount, and that his reputation among the Cherokees would be shattered if he consented to it. He left Washington an angry and bitter man. . . .

30 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Having disposed of Ross, Jackson turned back to Schermerhorn and instructed him to renew the negotiations with the Treaty Party. With little difficulty the cleric managed to arrange a draft removal treaty signed on March 14, 1835, by Schermerhorn, John Ridge, Elias Boudinot, and a small delegation of Cherokees. After due notice the treaty was submitted to the Cherokee National Council at New Echota, Georgia, for approval and sent to the President for submission to the Senate.

The draft stipulated that the Cherokees surrender to the United States all its land east of the Mississippi river for a sum of $5 million, an amount that one modern historian has called “unprecedented generosity.” This cession comprised nearly eight million acres of land in western North Carolina, northern Georgia, northeastern Alabama, and eastern Tennessee. A schedule of removal provided that the Cherokees would be resettled in the west and receive regular payments for subsistence, claims, and spoliations, and would be issued blankets, kettles, and rifles.

At approximately the same time this draft treaty was drawn up and considered at New Echota, a large delegation of Cherokee chiefs—in the desperate hope that their assembled presence would make a difference and prevent the treaty from going forward to the Senate—went to Washington and asked to speak to their Great Father.

In contrast to his grudging granting of Ross’s request, Jackson was anxious to meet the delegation and give the chiefs one of his celebrated “talks.”

The Indians arrived at the White House at the designated hour, and Jackson treated them with marked respect, as though they really were dignitaries of a foreign nation. Yet he did not remotely say or do anything that would indicate acceptance of their independence or sovereignty. Once the Indians had assembled, they faced the President as he began his talk.

“Brothers, I have long viewed your condition with great interest. For many years I have been acquainted with your people, and under all variety of circumstances, in peace and war. Your fathers are well known to me. . . . Listen to me, therefore, as your fathers have listened. . . .”

Jackson paused. He turned from side to side to look at and take in all the Cherokees standing around him. After a few moments he began again.

You are now placed in the midst of a white population. . . . You are now subject to the same laws which govern the citizens of Georgia and Alabama.

You are liable to prosecutions for offenses, and to civil actions for a beach of any of your contracts.

Most of your people are uneducated, and are liable to be brought into collision at all times with your white neighbors. Your young men are acquiring habits of intoxication. With strong passions . . . they are frequently driven to excesses which must eventually terminate in their ruin. The game has disappeared among you, and you must depend upon agriculture and the mechanic arts for support. And yet, a large portion of your people have acquired little or no property in the soil itself . . . How, under these circumstances, can you live in the country you now occupy? Your condition must become worse and worse, and you will ultimately disappear, as so many tribes have done before you.

These were his usual arguments, but he judged them essential for success.

You have not listened to me, he scolded. You went to the courts for relief. You turned away from your Great Father. And what happened? After years of litigation you received little satisfaction from the Supreme Court and succeeded in earning the enmity of many whites. “I have no motive, Brothers, to deceive you,” he said. “I am sincerely desirous to promote your welfare. Listen to me, therefore, while I tell you that you cannot remain where are you now. . . . It [is] impossible that you can flourish in the midst of a civilized community. You have but one remedy within your reach. And that is, to remove to the West and join your countrymen, who are already established there.” The choice is yours. “May the great spirit teach you how to choose.”

Jackson then concluded by reminding them of the fate of the Creeks, that once great and proud Nation. How broken and reduced in circumstances their lives had now

become because they resisted. It was a not-so-subtle threat that also struck home. Would the Cherokee be so foolish as to follow the path of the Creeks? “Think then of these things,” he concluded. “Shut your ears to bad counsel.

Look at your condition as it now is, and then consider what it will be if you follow the advice I give you.”

That ended the talk, and the Indians filed from the room more disappointed and depressed than ever.

Jackson would not budge, and they knew their kinsmen were dead set against removal. It was a stalemate that could only end in tragedy.

Meanwhile Schermerhorn called “a council of all the people” to meet him at a New Echota in Georgia during the third week of December 1835 to approve the draft treaty, making sure that a large contingent of Treaty Party members attended. Like Jackson, he had the temerity to warn other Cherokees that if they stayed away their absence, would be considered a vote of consent for the draft.

This 1832 broadside shows the popular anti-Indian sentiment of the day, warning of “women and children falling victims to the Indian’s tomahawk” in a “horrible and unprecedented massacre.”

Jackson Versus the Cherokee Nation | 31

Jackson’s tenacious implementation of his Indian removal policy typified his desire to force his own agenda with little regard for outside opinions. His political opponents called him “King Andrew,” as he is depicted in this political cartoon, trampling the Constitution.

32 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Despite the threat and the warning, practically the entire Nation stayed away. As a consequence the treaty was approved on December 28 by the unbelievable low number of 79 to 7. The numbers represented only the merest fraction of the Nation. A vast majority—perhaps fifteen-sixteenths of the entire population—presumably opposed it and showed their opposition by staying away.

The entire process was fraudulent, but that hardly mattered. Jackson had the treaty he wanted, and he did not hesitate to so inform the Senate.

The treaty of New Echota closely, but not completely, resembled the draft treaty in that the Cherokees surrendered all their eastern land and received $4.5 million in return. They would be paid for improvements, removed at government expense, and maintained for two years.

Removal was to take place within two years from the date of the treaty’s approval by the Senate and President.

A short while later some twelve thousand Cherokees signed a resolution denouncing the Treaty of New Echota and forwarded it to the Senate. Even the North Carolina Cherokees, in a separate action, added 3,250 signatures to a petition urging the Senate to reject it. But Jackson was assured by the Treaty Party that “a majority of the people” approved the document “and all are willing peaceable to yield to the treaty and abide by it.” Such information convinced the President that the Principal Chief and his “halfbreed” cohorts had coerced the Cherokees into staying away from New Echota under threat of physical violence.

At New Echota the Treaty Party selected a Committee of Thirteen to carry the treaty to Washington, and the committee was empowered to act on any alteration required by the President or the U.S. Senate. This committee invited Ross to join the group and either support the treaty or insist on such alterations as would make it acceptable. “But to their appeal [Ross] received no answer,” which further convinced the President that the treaty represented the genuine interests and the will of the majority of Cherokees.

Although Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, and other senators spoke fervently against the treaty in the Senate, a two-thirds majority of members voted for it, 31 to 15 against. It carried by a single vote on May 18.

Jackson added his signature on May 23, 1836, and proclaimed the Treaty of New Echota in force.

Remarkably, the debate in the Senate over this issue did not begin to compare with the verbal brawl unleashed by the removal bill in 1830. Even the American Board of Commissions for Foreign Missions, whose purpose was the “civilizing” and Christianizing of the Indians, failed to provide any meaningful effort to defeat the treaty. The Cherokees had been abandoned even by their friends.

And they had two years—that is until May 23, 1838— to cross over the Mississippi and take up their new residence in the Indian Territory. But every day of that two-year period, John Ross fought the inevitable. He

demanded to see the President and insisted that Jackson recognize the authority of the duly elected National Council, but Sharp Knife would have none of him and turned him away. Back home the Principal Chief advised his people to ignore the treaty and stay put. “We will not recognize the forgery palmed off upon the world as a treaty by a knot of unauthorized individuals,” he cried, “nor stir one step with reference to that false paper.”

Not everyone listened to him. They knew Andrew Jackson better. Some two thousand Cherokees resigned themselves to the inevitable, packed their belongings, and headed west. The rest, the vast majority of the tribe, could not bear to leave their homeland and chose to hope that their Principal Chief would somehow work the miracle that would preserve their country to them.

But their fate could not have been worse. When the two-year grace period expired and Jackson had left office, his handpicked successor, President Martin Van Buren, ordered the removal to begin. Militiamen charged into the Cherokee country and drove the Cherokees from their cabins and houses. With rifles and bayonets they rounded up the Indians and placed them in prison stockades that had been erected “for gathering in and holding the Indians preparatory to removal.” These poor, frightened, and benighted innocents, while having supper in their homes, “were startled by the sudden gleam of bayonets in the doorway and rose up to be driven with blows and oaths along the weary miles of trail which led to the stockade. Men were seized in the fields, women were taken from their wheels and children from their play.” As they turned for one last glimpse of their homes they frequently saw them in flames, set ablaze by the lawless rabble who followed the soldiers, scavenging what they could. These outlaws stole the cattle and other livestock and even desecrated graves in their search for silver pendants and other valuables. They looted and burned. Said one Georgia volunteer who later served in the Confederate army: “I fought through the Civil War and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest I ever saw.”

In a single week some seventeen thousand Cherokees were rounded up and herded into what was surely a concentration camp. Many sickened and died while they awaited transport to the west. In June the first contingent of about a thousand Indians boarded a steamboat and sailed down the Tennessee River on the first lap of their westward journey. Then they were boxed like animals into railroad cars drawn by two locomotives. Again there were many deaths on account of the oppressive heat and cramped conditions in the cars. For the last leg of the journey the Cherokees walked. Small wonder they came to call this eight-hundred-mile nightmare the Trail of Tears. Of the approximately eighteen thousand Cherokees who were removed, at least four thousand Jackson Versus the Cherokee Nation | 33

The Cherokee Phoenix, the first Native American newspaper, was edited by Elias Boudinot and contained news, poetry, Cherokee language grammar lessons, and many editorials protesting the government’s treatment of the Cherokee Nation.

died in the stockades or along the way, and some say the figure actually reached eight thousand. By the middle of June 1838, the general in charge of the Georgia militia proudly reported that not a single Cherokee remained on the state except as prisoners in the stockade.

At every step of their long journey to the Indian Territory, the Cherokees were robbed and cheated by contractors, lawyers, agents, speculators, and anyone wielding local police power. Food provided by the government disappeared or arrived in short supply. The commanding officer, General Winfield Scott, and a few other generals “were concerned about their reputation for humanness,” says one modern historian, “and probably even for the Cherokee. There just wasn’t much they could do about it.” As a result, many died needlessly.

“Oh! the misery and wretchedness that presents itself to our view in going among these people,” wrote one man.

“Sir, I have witnessed entire families prostrated with sickness—not one able to give help to the other; and these poor people were made the instruments of enriching a few unprincipled and wicked contractors.”

And this, too, is part of Andrew Jackson’s legacy.

Although it has been pointed out many times that he was no longer President of the United States when the Trail of Tears occurred and had never intended such a monstrous result of his policy, that hardly excuses him.

It was his insistence on the speedy removal of the Cherokees, even after he had left office, that brought this horror. From his home outside Nashville he regularly badgered Van Buren about enforcing the treaty. He had become obsessed about removal. He warned that Ross 34 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

would exert every effort and means available to him to get the treaty rescinded or delayed, and that, he said, must be blocked. But the new President assured him that nothing would interfere with the exodus of the Cherokees and that no extension of the two-year grace period would be tolerated under any circumstance.

Principal Chief John Ross also shares a portion of blame for this unspeakable tragedy. He continued his defiance even after the deadline for removal had passed. He encouraged his people to keep up their resistance, despite every sign that no appreciable help would be forthcoming from the American people or anyone else; and he watched as they suffered the awful consequences of his intransigence.

Some Cherokees escaped the horror. A tiny band of Indians in North Carolina hid away in the uppermost reaches of the mountains where it was difficult to reach them and drag them into a stockade. After years of negotiation by William Thomas, a white trader, with both the state and federal governments, this small group of Cherokees were permitted to remain undisturbed in their cloud-hidden heights, since there were so few of them and since the land they occupied was considered inaccessible and worthless.

Their descendants still live in those mountains today.

Despite the obscene treatment accorded the Cherokees by the government, the tribe not only survived but endured. As Jackson predicted, they escaped the fate of many extinct eastern tribes. Cherokees today have their tribal identify, a living language, and at least three governmental bodies to provide for their needs. Would that the Yamasees, Mohegans, Pequots, Delawares, Narragansetts, and other such tribes could say the same.

“Jackson Versus the Cherokee Nation” is reprinted with permission from Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars by Robert V. Remini (New York: Viking, 2001).

Robert V. Remini is professor emeritus of history and the humanities at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

I L LU S T R AT I O N S | 22, CHS; 23 left, CHS, illlustration by F. W. Greenough Phil, 1836; 23 right, Cherokee Almanac 1836 from Cherokee Messenger by Althea Bass (copyright © 1938 by the University of Oklahoma Press, reprinted by permission); 24, courtesy of the Edward E. Ayer Collection, the Newberry Library, Chicago; 25 top, copyright © 1995–2001 Denver Public Library, Colorado Historical Society, and Denver Art Museum; 25 bottom, courtesy of the Edward E. Ayer Collection, the Newberry Library, Chicago; 26 top left and right, courtesy of the Edward E. Ayer Collection, the Newberry Library, Chicago; 26 bottom, from Indian Tribes of North America, 1836–44 by McKenney and Hall (California: Reprint Services Corp., 1999); 27 top, from Elias Boudinot, Cherokee by Ralph Henry Gabriel (copyright © 1941 by the University of Oklahoma Press, reprinted by permission); 27 center and bottom left, from Cherokee Cavaliers by Edward Everett Dale (copyright © 1939 by the University of Oklahoma Press, reprinted by permission); 27 bottom middle and bottom right, from Indian Tribes of North America, 1836–44 by McKenney and Hall (California: Reprint Services Corp., 1999); 29, courtesy of William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan; 30, from Cherokee Messenger by Althea Bass; 31–32, courtesy of the Library of Congress; 34, courtesy of the Edward E. Ayer Collection, the Newberry Library, Chicago.

F O R F U RT H E R R E A D I N G | Historian Robert V. Remini has written several volumes on Andrew Jackson, including The Life of Andrew Jackson (New York: Perennial Classics, 2001), The Legacy of Andrew Jackson: Essays on Democracy, Indian Removal, and Slavery (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), and Andrew Jackson and the Course of the American Empire (New York: History Book Club, 1998). Michael Paul Rogin also explores the relationship between Jackson and Native Americans in Fathers and Children: Andrew Jackson and the Subjugation of the American Indian (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1991). For more on the removal of the Cherokee nation, read The Cherokee People: The Story of the Cherokees from Earliest Origins to Contemporary Times by Thomas E. Mails (New York: Marlowe, 1996); After the Trail of Tears: The Cherokees’ Struggle for Sovereignty, 1839–1880 by William G. McLoughlin (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), and Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation by John Ehle (New York: Doubleday, 1989).

Jackson Versus the Cherokee Nation | 35

CHS and the Presidency RUSSELL L. LEWIS

I

t would be virtually impossible to write a history of America without its presidents. Although the “Great Man” approach to history has fallen from favor, the profound impact of the forty-two men who have held this office on the course of the nation and the world is undeniable. Their achievements, failures, triumphs, and scandals reflect the spirit of their times and Americans’ desire for presidents who embody the common ideal while possessing extraordinary powers of intellect, stamina, and virtue.

The history of the Chicago Historical Society (CHS), likewise, cannot be told apart from our presidents.

The fledgling Historical Society was shaped in part through a special relationship with President Abraham Lincoln that endured after his death, and throughout its 146-year history, it has made collecting and presenting the story of American presidents central to its efforts to promote history and to educate its visitors.

Soon after his election as president in 1860, the Society elected Lincoln as one of its honorary members. A founder of CHS and a personal friend of Lincoln, Isaac N. Arnold helped secure the president’s handwritten copy of the Emancipation Proclamation for CHS. Displayed in the newly built Historical Society building in 1868 along with other material that documented his life and his presidency, all perished in the Great Fire of 1871. Although numerous and important Lincoln items have been added to the collection over subsequent decades, the first collection of Franklin Pierce, c. 1851, fourteenth president of the United States. An avowed proslavery democrat, Pierce indirectly helped to shape the Chicago Historical Society. His support of Stephen A. Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act intensified the impeding national crisis and deepened the divisions within society, setting the stage for the rise of the Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln’s election. ICHi-12140.

36 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Lincoln material established two important precedents that remain hallmarks of CHS today: it gave value to documenting contemporary history, and it promoted collecting material that allowed interplay of local, regional, and national perspectives.Through Lincoln, CHS not only told the story of one of America’s greatest leaders, but it also placed local and state history within a broader national context.

Lincoln, the Civil War, and a smattering of Washington artifacts were prominently displayed when the Society opened its new building at Dearborn and Ontario Streets in 1896. In 1908, CHS elected President Theodore Roosevelt as an honorary member.

During the centennial of Lincoln’s birth in 1909, CHS organized a series of lectures and events as well as a special exhibition of its Lincoln collection.

Petersen House Room (where Lincoln died), and the Washington Room.

Later additions included the Lincoln Dioramas (1941), the Pach Collection of Presidential Portraits (1946), and the Lincoln Gallery (1972).

Over the past fifty years, the Historical Society has presented a number of special exhibitions that have given visitors new perspectives on the presidency and insights into particular presidents, including: The Death of Lincoln (1965), Scene Politic: 68: An Artist’s Report

by Franklin McMahon (1970), The First Two Years (1971, an exhibition on Richard M. Nixon’s first two years as president), We the People: Creating the New Nation (1987), A House Divided: America in the Age of

Lincoln (1990), The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America (1996), and Treasures from Mount Vernon: George Washington Revealed (2000).

The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden is a welcome addition to the Historical Society’s longstanding tradition of telling America’s story through its presidents.

This essay includes only a few of the thousands of presidential artifacts and documents in CHS’s collection.

Russell L. Lewis is Andrew W. Mellon Director for Collections and Research at the Chicago Historical Society

A seminal event in the history of the Historical Society was the purchase of Charles F. Gunther’s collection of Americana. A candy manufacturer, alderman, and trustee of the Society, Gunther built his own museum to house his vast collection. With its purchase, CHS acquired the bed on which Lincoln died, Washington’s compass and tea and camp dishes, and scores of other presidential objects and documents, transforming the institution from a library with a small collection of objects into a first-class museum and library.

The move to a new building in Lincoln Park in 1932 (its current location) afforded CHS a special opportunity to showcase some of its presidential material, especially the precious Gunther collection. Designed as a museum of American history that allowed visitors to experience local, regional, and national history through a series of period and themed rooms, the new building included: Lincoln Hall, the

Isaac N. Arnold, 1868. A founding member of the Chicago Historical Society, attorney, state legislator, U.S. Congressman, and biographer, Arnold ensured that his friend Lincoln occupied a prominent place in the life of the Society. Photograph by J. Carbutt, ICHi- 07421.

CHS and the Presidency | 37

Below: Although it had limited display space, the Society’s 1896 building featured cases of both Lincoln and Washington items. Eleanor Pue (left) and Patsy Pippen were especially attracted to Martha Washington’s personal items during their visit, c. 1930.

Above: The Lincoln piano was one of many Lincoln relics on display in Charles F. Gunther’s museum in 1916. Upon his death in 1920, the Society acquired this piano and hundreds of other documents and objects related to Lincoln and other presidents. Photograph by J. W. Taylor.

38 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Left: Young visitors have a rare opportunity to hold Washington’s sword and its leather baldric, 1930.

DN-90980.

Below: In conjunction with the centennial of Lincoln’s birth in 1909, the Society installed a special exhibition of its Lincoln material on the second floor of its building. More than one thousand schoolchildren, teachers, and other visitors, including Robert Todd Lincoln, viewed this rare display of Lincoln documents and artifacts. ICHi-18778.

CHS and the Presidency | 39

Right: The Washington Room, 1940.

When the Society erected its building in Lincoln Park in 1932, it devoted a special room to display its George Washington materials and to tell the story of the founding of the nation.

Below: Lincoln Hall, c. 1965. An original feature of the 1932 building, Lincoln Hall brought together a unique collection of Lincoln material that paid homage to his humanitarian qualities and his achievements as president, as well as his special relationship with the Chicago Historical Society. ICHi-25965.

40 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Left: Paul Angle, who served as the Society’s director from 1945–65, was a nationally recognized Lincoln scholar.

Standing in Lincoln Hall next to Gutzon Borglum’s bust of Lincoln, Angle prepares for a televised talk, c. 1965.

Below: Paul Angle (left) and Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg standing next to Leonard Volk’s plaster bust of Lincoln, c. 1960. Like CHS founder Isaac Arnold, Angle made Lincoln central to the Society’s activities.

CHS and the Presidency | 41

Above: The Pach Collection of Presidential Portraits opened around 1946 on the third floor of the Lincoln Park building adjacent to Lincoln Hall and closed four years later.

42 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Below: Between November 19 and 30, 1950, more than ten thousand visitors viewed the five existing copies of the Gettysburg Address written in Lincoln’s hand, which were brought together for the first time.

Above: America’s First Ladies, a traveling exhibition that opened at the Historical Society in 1972 and featured recreations of First Lady gowns, attracted many visitors.

Left: “The Great Autumnal Madness:” Campaigning for the Presidency was on view at the Society from August 1 through November 30, 1980. Photograph by Larry A. Viskochil.

CHS and the Presidency | 43

Below: Carved statue of George Washington by an unknown artist, c. 1830. A legend in his own time, Washington’s image was ubiquitous in America and was used to sell commercial products and to bless political causes. This statue may have stood outside a store to attract customers.

Above: A silver peace medal made in 1793 by Joseph Richardson Jr. Presidential peace medals were coveted by Native Americans as symbols of status.

44 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Below: This brass button from the late eighteenth century with the motto, “Long Live the President: GW” reflects the admiration Washington commanded and his king-like status.

Above: This engraving, by John McRae (c. 1860), depicting patriots pulling down the statue of King George III, symbolized the overthrown British leader and the shift to a new kind of leader, who embraced the virtues of Republican simplicity.

Right: Among the earliest treaties and diplomatic efforts of the first presidents were those made with the Native Americans.

This proclamation issued by George Washington on May 7, 1793, was crafted to protect Kaskaskia Indians in central Illinois from the intrusions of settlers.

CHS and the Presidency | 45

Right: Republican national convention presidential ballot tally May 16, 1860, Chicago, Illinois. Although Lincoln was not favored to win the nomination, his more moderate image and his ability to carry the lower northern states gave him an edge over rival William H. Seward, and Lincoln emerged the victor.

Below: A Richmond, Virginia cartoonist satirizes Lincoln’s attempt to restrain Virginia from seceding with other southern states in this March 1861 cartoon entitled, “Uncle Abe.” ICHi-22039.

Right: Denis Malone Carter’s 1866 painting, Lincoln’s Drive Through Richmond, which depicts Lincoln’s April 4, 1865 visit to the Confederate capital, shows the tendency to apotheosize the martyred president.

46 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Left: In this famous exchange that foretold the end of the Civil War, the paths of the current president and a future president cross yet again as President Lincoln instructs General Grant to press forward: “Gen. Sheridan says ‘If the thing be pressed I think that Lee will surrender.’

Let the thing be pressed.” April 7, 1865.

Below: Abraham Lincoln’s pocket knife.

On May 2, 1865, Lincoln’s funeral procession arrived in Chicago and marched to the Chicago court house, where Lincoln lay in state. During a twenty-four hour period, more than 125,000 people paid their respects to the president. ICHi-22122.

CHS and the Presidency | 47

Above: Consumed by throat cancer, former president Ulysses S. Grant penciled this note to his family during his final illness.

Despite his deteriorating condition, Grant used this pen (center) to write the Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (right), which were published in 1885–86 in two volumes, one of which is shown here.

48 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Below: President Ulysses S. Grant, c. 1870. Photograph by Matthew Brady.

Above: General Ulysses S. Grant’s black leather saddle from the Civil War. Grant’s success on the battlefield propelled him into politics. His two terms as president, however, were marred by scandal and corruption, and Grant is perceived as an indecisive and ineffectual commanderin-chief.

CHS and the Presidency | 49

50 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Opposite: Former president Theodore Roosevelt arrives at Chicago’s Union Station in 1913. Having failed to win the presidency again in 1912 as the Bull Moose Party candidate, Roosevelt eventually rejoined the Republican Party.

DN-60709.

Above: John McCutcheon’s cartoon, “Idle Thoughts of a Busy Fellow,” c. 1908, depicts the former president’s dynamism, still going strong after having left office.

Above: A presidential luggage tag.

After assuming the presidency after the assassination of William McKinley in 1901, Roosevelt won a decisive victory in the 1904 election.

CHS and the Presidency | 51

Right: The “I Like Ike” campaign of 1952 inspired hats, dresses, and this compact.

Below: GOP presidential nominee Dwight D. Eisenhower is surrounded by supporters who embellish the “I Like Ike” campaign.

52 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Above: Vice President Nixon meets with Chicago Mayor Martin Kennelly and John E. Stipp in 1955.

Above and right: These two lapel pins capture the growing dissatisfaction with President Nixon’s abuse of his powers and possible criminal actions by him and his staff. Nixon became the first president to resign from office in 1974.

CHS and the Presidency | 53

MAKING HISTORY I

The Space Age in Chicago: Interviews with James A. Lovell and John D. Nichols T I M O T H Y J . G I L F OY L E

A

stronaut Jim Lovell and corporate executive John Nichols never met until the evening of May 17, 2001, when each received a Making History award from the Chicago Historical Society. Yet their professional paths crossed many times. Each served in the armed services during the 1950s, Lovell in the navy and Nichols in the army.

When Lovell was training to be an astronaut in the Gemini and Apollo space programs in Houston, Texas, Nichols was involved in the construction and management of the Manned Space Center nearby. Each of them went on to become leaders in the aeronautics and communications industries, Lovell as president of Fisk Telephone Systems from 1977 to 1981 and Nichols at the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (ITT) from 1968 to 1969 and Aerojet-General Corporation from 1969 to 1979. In fact, they moved to Chicago’s North Shore within a year of each other. When Fisk became part of Centel Corporation in Chicago in 1980, Lovell moved to Lake Forest, Illinois, and served in a variety of executive positions. Nichols settled in Winnetka, Illinois, in 1980 when he assumed control of the firm he would dramatically transform, the Illinois Tool Works (ITW).

John D. Nichols was born in 1930 in Shanghai General Hospital in China to John D. Nichols Sr. and Frances Dunbar Nichols. At that time, the senior Nichols was the head of the Chinese office of sales and marketing for Standard Oil of New Jersey. The Nichols family, however, returned to the United States in 1931. “My father was convinced that there was going to be a war between China and Japan,” remembers Nichols. “He was just four years too early.”

The family settled in Montclair, New Jersey, “a great town,” according to Nichols. Historically, Montclair was one of the most racially integrated communities in the United States. “It was a destination point in the early days for southern African Americans because there were jobs.” Admittedly, “there was definite racism, but we all went to high school together, and we all played football together.” For Nichols, growing up in Montclair was “a fairly good, calm existence.”

54 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Above: Captain James A. Lovell, recipient of the 2001 Enrico Fermi History Maker Award for Distinction in Science, Medicine, and Technology. Below: John D. Nichols, winner of the 2001 Marshall Field History Maker Award for Distinction in Corporate Leadership.

Both Nichols and Lovell have worked in aeronautics, Lovell as an astronaut, and Nichols as a designer of the Manned Spacecraft Center (now called the Johnson Space Center) in Houston (left). Nichols adopted many new manufacturing strategies at the Illinois Tool Works (below), revolutionizing the company.

Making History | 55

James A. Lovell Jr. was born on March 25, 1928, in Cleveland, Ohio, to James Arthur Lovell Sr. and Blanch Masck Lovell. Lovell’s father was in the furnace business and moved frequently. After a brief stay in Ohio, the family lived in the Philadelphia and Hazelton areas of Pennsylvania, before settling in Terre Haute, Indiana. When Lovell’s father died unexpectedly in an automobile accident, his mother moved closer to her brother in Milwaukee and raised Lovell by herself.

“We didn’t have much money in those days,” remarks Lovell. “As a matter of fact, things were really, really tight. I lived in a little, one-room apartment.

The bathroom was down the hall. It was small, but we survived okay.” Lovell spent the remainder of his youth in Milwaukee, eventually graduating from Juneau High School.

Although he grew up in Milwaukee, Lovell spent considerable time in Chicago. “I’m not a stranger to Chicago,” Lovell insists. “My aunt and uncle lived in Oak Park, and my mother was born here.” Lovell fondly remembers his many visits to Chicago as a child. “Since the early days when I lived in Milwaukee, one of the things I looked forward to was going down to the Museum of Science and Industry.” Lovell’s grandparents and other relatives are buried in Bohemian Cemetery in Chicago.

Nichols eventually matriculated at Harvard University, which his family members had attended since 1802. While earning his bachelor of arts degree in 1953 and his masters of business administration in 1955, Nichols played tackle on the Harvard football team, serving as captain his senior year.

Harvard football, for Nichols, “was wonderful . . . because it was a two-way sport. If you went out, you couldn’t come back in the quarter.” In a typical game, Nichols played fifty to fifty-eight minutes out of the sixty. “It was great fun because you can get very competitive with the person opposite you. It wasn’t a bunch of specialists running in and out.”

Nichols did more than block and tackle while at Harvard. In addition to economics, he was interested in the behavioral sciences. “There were a lot of things going on in the study of small-group dynamics which really hadn’t been studied before.” Nichols not only “truly enjoyed” the behavioral sciences curriculum, but “I used it the rest of my life.”

By the time Lovell was ready for college, he had developed a fascination with rocketry. “At first, I wanted to become a rocket engineer—someone like Robert Goddard, who did the early American experiments with liquid fuel rockets, or Wernher von Braun, who developed Germany’s V-2 rocket. I wrote a term paper in school on rockets where I said that maybe someday man would go into space using rocket power.”

Lovell realized he could not afford to attend the leading engineering programs located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or the California Institute of Technology. “I was very fortunate [that] the navy came through with something like an ROTC program called the Holloway Plan,” stresses Lovell. After two years of college, candidates entered the navy for flight training before becoming naval officers and aviators. After a short tour, explains Lovell, “you went back to college for your last two years of education. That was a perfect entrée into what I wanted to do without costing me anything.” Lovell attended the University of Wisconsin from 1946 to 1948 on the Holloway Plan before gaining admittance to the United States Naval Academy where he received his bachelor of science degree in 1952.

Lovell proved to be a stellar aviator. In 1958, he graduated first in his class from the Naval Test Pilot School and then attended the Aviation Safety School at the University of Southern California in 1961. Most important, at the Naval Academy, Lovell continued pursuing his interest in rocketry, eventually writing 56 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Gemini astronauts James Lovell (left) and Buzz Aldrin study the flight plan for the final Gemini program mission in 1966.

Aldrin eventually took the legendary first moonwalk with Neil Armstrong in 1969, while Lovell became the first man to journey twice to the moon.

Left: Astronaut James Lovell at the controls of the visual docking simulator in the Gemini program, which he joined in 1962. Below: Liftoff of Apollo 13 on April 11, 1970.

his senior thesis on liquid-fuel rocketry. The final paragraph proved prophetic: “The big day for rockets is still coming, the day when science will have advanced to the stage when flight into space is reality and not a dream. That will be the day when the advantage of rocket power—simplicity, high thrust, and the ability to operate in a vacuum—will be used to best advantage.”

Upon graduation, Nichols similarly served in the military, working as an officer in the United States Army Finance Corps from 1955 to 1958. Nichols admits, “I had no accounting [experience] and I had no business experience,” but nevertheless “ended up writing the command management and accounting system for the army.” Eventually, he was transferred from his first assignment in Fort Dix, New Jersey, to the Presidio in San Francisco where he implemented the new accounting system in six western states.

Upon leaving military service in 1958, Nichols joined the Ford Motor Company. For a decade, he held several finance and management positions within Ford and its subsidiary Philco Ford. When Philco was awarded a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) contract to construct and operate the Manned Spacecraft Center, Nichols moved to Houston.

Once again, Nichols was at the forefront of developing new operating systems, this time as part of the national effort to land an American on the moon and safely return him to earth. Nichols describes the technical aspects as daunting. “We started out with the original concept that there was going to be twenty-six control consoles. It ended up around 170—all interactive, all having to have access to the same data,” recalls Nichols. “There were all kinds of fascinating technical problems with what we were doing.”

While Nichols was helping design the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Lovell entered the space program as an astronaut. Although he was initially rejected for the Mercury program because of a minor health issue, Lovell was selected as an astronaut in the Gemini program in 1962. On Gemini 7, flying with Frank Borman, Lovell broke a new record for time in space (more than fourteen days) and participated in the first rendezvous between two manned spacecrafts (with Gemini 6). On Gemini 12, Lovell took three spacewalks, as well as the first picture of a solar eclipse from space.

Making History | 57

58 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Lovell’s big moment, however, came with Apollo 8. “The most memorable experience and the one that was the peak of my space career was Apollo 8,” he explains. Serving as the command module pilot, Lovell joined Frank Borman and William Anders on the maiden voyage to the moon. “Apollo 8 was our very first flight to go to the moon, to escape the control and the influence of the earth, to be captured by a foreign body [the moon], to become a satellite of that body and to go around and to see the far side of the moon which had never been seen live before.”

Even today, Lovell speaks with philosophical awe of the experience. “To see the earth as it really is, to see how small and how insignificant this little blue body is out there, was spectacular.” Lovell reflects on the spiritual impact of the event, “the gauging of one’s insignificance,” while one sped through space: “How do we get here? Why do we get here? Are we alone? Where would you land if you were some foreign or alien coming down and seeing this body all of sudden? Would you land in the blue part? Would you land on the brown part?” Upon approaching the moon, Apollo 8 made ten revolutions and then returned safely to earth.

Apollo 8 made Lovell a national hero. The three astronauts were named Time magazine’s “Men of the Year,” addressed a joint session of Congress, rode in ticker-tape parades in both New York and Chicago, and were feted by presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. At one point, Nixon even tried to recruit Lovell to run for the Senate against Wisconsin incumbent William Proxmire. Lovell hesitated to jump into the race for a variety of reasons. “‘The most important thing is I don’t have the funds,’” Lovell told Nixon. “I’ll never forget what he said,” remembers Lovell: “‘Captain, money is no object.’”

While Lovell was cruising through space at speeds of up to twenty thousand miles per hour, Nichols worked at the Western Development Lab in Palo Alto, California; the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation in New York; and the Aerojet-General Corporation, a subsidiary of General Tire and Rubber Company, in Pasadena, California. In 1980, Nichols joined Illinois Tool Works as the executive vice president, responsible for ITW’s operating groups worldwide. Within a year, he was named president and chief operating officer (1981) and, later, chief executive officer (1982), director (1982), and chairman (1986).

When Nichols joined ITW in 1980, the company was under pressure from Detroit automakers to lower prices because of Japanese competition. Nichols concluded that some ITW factories, such as the one in Elgin, Illinois, were inefficient. By this time, Nichols’s many years as a corporate manager convinced him that management control systems too often “rigidified” the decision-making process. Beginning with his days in the military, Nichols explains, “I had always been impressed with how much knowledge there was deep into the organization—those who are dealing with the day-to-day, trying to solve the problems.” When he assumed the leadership of ITW, Nichols believed, “the gears were starting to slow down and get mucked up.”

Nichols adopted three innovative manufacturing strategies: in-lining, the 80/20 rule, and focused factories. In-lining was a variant of Ford’s assembly line with elements of what factory experts now identify as “cellular manufacturing.” Assembly-line responsibilities were redefined and streamlined; in some cases, workers became responsible for ordering supplies, packaging, and labeling. The 80/20 rule stated that 80 percent of the business in most plants originated from only 20 percent of the customers (companies that ordered a few items, but in large number). ITW redesigned factories to concentrate on the high-volume products and moved low-volume items to other

Opposite and above: These images from a 1920s Illinois Tool Works catalog show the company’s factory and products from decades past.

Making History | 59

parts of the shop floor. Focused factories were new facilities for new products, usually employing less than twenty-five workers, which eliminated operating layers and enabled managers to quickly identify problems. When AnheuserBusch, for example, needed plastic six-pack rings, ITW opened a production facility nearby.

Nichols derived this philosophy of decentralization from his own experience.

Ford and ITT, notes Nichols, were “authoritarian” in their operational structure.

More important, “I learned more what not to do than what to do. You would see the companies that were reasonably good, and they operated with a fair amount of freedom. Then they were forced into this vice of control. You had to report every week on Tuesday; you had to explain every variance.” Simply put, in Nichols’s words, “The world doesn’t live on one-week reports.”

Nichols questioned many of the assumptions of centralization. “Everyone says that if you centralize, you minimize. You’ll only have one controller, one HR [human resources] guy, and all the rest. We have proven time and time again that’s a myth because what you’re doing is adding complexity.” Nichols believed that as factories grew bigger and more bureaucratic, managers grew more detached and less knowledgeable about problems on the shop floor.

“When we keep them small, you can see everything. You talk to people everyday. You know what’s going on.” Over time, the company grew so decentralized that Nichols was often quoted as saying that at ITW, “there is no strategic plan.”

Like Nichols, Lovell is remembered for his problem solving, the best known of which was life threatening. Most Americans remember Lovell because of nearly fatal flight of Apollo 13 in 1970. Planning to land in the Fra Mauro range of the moon with its rugged, Appalachian-type mounds, Apollo 13’s mission was aborted when the service module’s oxygen system exploded. Essentially, Lovell and crew members Fred Haise and Jack Swigert converted their lunar module into a lifeboat in order to conserve electrical power and water while in space for eighty-six hours. After a single loop around the moon, they returned to re-enter earth’s atmosphere. At this point, Lovell had to guide the spacecraft into an approach at an inclination no shallower than 5.3 degrees and no steeper than 7.7. At 5.2 degrees, the spacecraft would skip off the atmosphere and head for a permanent orbit around the sun; at 7.8 degrees, the high gravitational force would crush the crew inside.

Even more alarming to ground control was the fear that Apollo 13’s heat shield had cracked during the explosion and that the spacecraft and crew would burn up upon trying to re-enter earth’s atmosphere. “We were not worried about that because we realized that the heat shield was something that you had no control over,” explains Lovell. “We got through a lot of crises by figuring out solutions to things that we never thought of before. But there was nothing we could do about the heat shield. The explosion had occurred. It was back there. We didn’t know whether it was cracked or not, so we just said, ‘Hey, forget it.’” Lovell and his crew returned safely to earth on April 17, 1970.

From the moment he reached the safety of the rescue ship, Lovell thought about writing a memoir about his Apollo 13 experience. But as the years passed, he never had the time. In 1991, Jeffrey Kluger, a writer for Discover magazine, contacted Lovell about a book project on Apollo 13. Lovell remembers, “I liked his writing, so we decided to coauthor the book.” Kluger and Lovell took an unusual approach. First, they agreed to be coauthors rather than Kluger serving as a “ghost writer” for Lovell. “The second thing was that we would not make it an ‘I’ book,” insisted Lovell. “There [are] lots of people who are involved with the story. We wrote it as a third-person book.”

60 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Thanks to a fast-thinking Mission Control and level-headed crisis management by Lovell and his crew, Apollo 13 safely returned to earth on April 17, 1970 (top).

Far left: Flight directors at Mission Control applaud the successful splashdown of the Odyssey, Apollo 13’s command module.

Left: Tom Hanks portrayed James Lovell in Apollo 13, which was based on Lovell’s 1994 book with co-author Jeffrey Kluger, Lost Moon.

Making History | 61

While Kluger and Lovell were writing what became Lost Moon (1994), Ron Howard purchased the rights to produce a movie about the failed space mission. Actor Tom Hanks, then a recent Academy Award–winner for his role in Philadelphia, was interested in playing Lovell on the screen. Lovell remembers: “We went out there to talk to Howard, and I thought he was going to be out there two hours. We spent a whole half day out there with him. That’s how the movie came to pass.”

By the debut of the movie Apollo 13, Nichols’s philosophy of decentralization had transformed ITW. The company’s ninety small divisions (most with no more than $30 million in annual revenues) were highly regarded for cost efficiency, competitiveness, and inventiveness. When engineers and marketers in a division developed and commercialized a new product, the division often hived off the product and the personnel into a new entity. By 1990, ITW held twenty-four hundred active U.S. patents and four thousand worldwide. The company was the world’s largest producer of plastic buckles, a leading supplier of fasteners to GM, the inventor of the plastic loops that held six-packs together, and the producer of Zip-Pak resealable food packages.

Under Nichols, ITW expanded into forty countries. Analysts described ITW as a “terrifically managed company,” “the prototype of what a company should be to compete successfully in the 1990s.” By 1995, a year before Nichols retired from ITW, annual revenue exceeded $4 billion. During Nichols’s tenure, ITW stock rose from five dollars in 1981 to more than sixty dollars by 1995. From 1986 to 1989, ITW ranked first in its industry in Fortune magazine’s list of most admired corporations.

During the 1980s, few people noticed that Nichols’s decentralization philosophy rejected many of the principles of scientific management, sometimes referred to as “Taylorism” after their author Frederick Winslow Taylor. Rather than trying to disempower workers on the shop floor, Nichols explicitly allocated more responsibility to them. When speaking of himself and ITW management, Nichols bluntly says, “We don’t make a single product; we can’t take credit for it because we don’t do that.

We drop in, pontificate, and then run away.”

For Nichols, management’s role was to offer broader perspectives on the global marketplace and find ways to market the product successfully. For his workers, declares Nichols, “What’s worse than having somebody push a time clock on you?”

Nichols followed two principles: simplicity and trust. “You cannot solve complex problems with complex solutions,” Nichols insists. “If you’re in an ordinary business and have a complex problem, you better simplify it so that the people who have to do it—not the people in management—understand what they’re dealing with and whether they have the available tools.”

62 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

About the same time that Nichols moved to the Chicago area, Lovell did the same. Lovell had retired from NASA and the navy in 1973 to join BayHouston Towing Company, a firm involved in harbor and coastwise towing, as well as mining and marketing of products for the ranching, lawn, and garden industries. Four years later, Lovell was named president of Fisk Telephone Systems, Inc., in Houston. In 1981, when Fisk was acquired by Chicago’s Centel Corporation, Lovell moved to Lake Forest and served as a vice president for business communications systems. He was later promoted to executive vice president before retiring in 1991.

In 1999, Lovell opened a full-service restaurant, Lovells of Lake Forest, operated as a family business with his son Jay as the chef. In 2000, Lovell was named to the board of directors of Space Media, Inc. (SMI), a media corporation and subsidiary of SPACEHAB, Inc., to create proprietary space and technology-themed content for broadcast and Internet distribution.

Lovell acts as general spokesperson and promoter for special projects and events related to SMI, which owns all multimedia rights for the first commercial broadcasting studio and production facility in space, the Enterprise.

The module is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station in 2003.

Above: John D. Nichols at the Junior Achievement National Business Hall of Fame induction in April 1999.

Far left: During Christmas 1992, ITW chairman and chief executive officer John D. Nichols offered best wishes to company employees and their families.

Left: Nichols combined business and philanthropy as ITW employees participated in Junior Achievement, a business-training program for schoolchildren. Nichols eventually served as Junior Achievement’s director and chairman.

Making History | 63

Above left: CHS president Lonnie Bunch presented Captain James A. Lovell with his award at the 2001 Making History Awards ceremony. Below left: John D. Nichols poses with Linda Johnson Rice, president and chief operating officer, Johnson Publishing Company, Inc.

64 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Both Lovell and Nichols are longtime players in civic affairs. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Lovell as a consultant on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports in 1967, and Lovell served as chairman from 1970 to 1978. Since then he has served as president of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, on the board of the Naval Academy Foundation, on the executive committee of the Boy Scouts, and on the President’s Council of Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.

Nichols is a life trustee and past chairman of the Art Institute of Chicago, a life trustee of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a life member of the Museum of Science and Industry, a former director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and a vice chairman of the Chicago Community Trust. He was director and past chairman of Junior Achievement of Chicago, a trustee of the University of Chicago and the Argonne National Laboratory, and served on the Board of Overseers of Harvard University.

Nichols boasts that Chicago has an unusual civic and philanthropic community. “There is no city where you get the integration of interests between the city and the suburbs,” he insists. In contrast to New York, where he observed sharp divisions between city and suburban residents, civic organizations are more evenly balanced between city and suburban residents. In Chicago, proclaims Nichols, “everybody is involved and there’s no city like it.”

Timothy J. Gilfoyle teaches American history at Loyola University Chicago and is the author of City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790–1920.

I L LU S T R AT I O N S | 54, CHS; 55 top, courtesy of NASA; 55 bottom, CHS, Illinois Tool Works Catalog, 1929; 56–57, courtesy of NASA; 58–59, CHS, Illinois Tool Works Catalog, 1929; 61 above and bottom left, courtesy of NASA; 61 bottom right, from the Nostalgia Factory; 62, CHS, ITW Update, November/December 1992; 63 left, CHS, ITW Update, March/April 1991; 63 right, courtesy of Junior Achievement; 64, CHS; 65, courtesy of The Elizabeth Morse Charitable Trust.

F O R F U RT H E R R E A D I N G | The best work on James Lovell is the autobiographical account of his last space mission: James Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger, Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994). The book was adapted into the motion picture Apollo 13 (1995), and Lost Moon was reissued as Apollo 13 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000) to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the flight. Also see Henry S. F. Cooper, Thirteen: The Apollo Flight that Failed (New York: Dial Press, 1973). Articles on John Nichols include Ronald Henkoff, “The Ultimate Nuts & Bolts Company,” Fortune, 16 July 1990; Dorian Friedman and Paul Glastris, “Tougher than Nails: Illinois Tool Works is a Profit Machine,” U.S. News and World Report, 10 June 1991; Harlan S. Byrne, “Illinois Tool Works: A Patent Success,” Barron’s, 23 May 1994; and “Illinois Tool Works: A New Chapter,” Barron’s, 11 Dec. 1995.

T H E 2 0 0 1 M A K I N G H I S T O R Y AWA R D S were underwritten through a generous grant from The Elizabeth Morse Charitable Trust. The Trust honors the memory of Elizabeth Morse (right), daughter of Charles Hosmer Morse, a nineteenthcentury Chicago industrialist and land developer. The Trust supports programs that encourage self-reliance, foster self-esteem, and promote the arts, with an emphasis on helping children, youth, and the elderly of Chicago’s disadvantaged communities.

Making History | 65

Index to Volume 30 This index includes authors, titles, and subject entries. Illustrations are indicated in italics. If a subject is illustrated and discussed on the same page, the illustration is not separately indicated.

A Acorn Fund, 2:64 Adair, George W., 3:27 Adamowski, Ben, 3:9–10, 19, 21 Addams, Jane, 1:15, 22–24, 26–27, 31, 35, 59, 61, 63 Ade, George, 1:6, 7–21 Captain Fry’s Birthday Party (play), 1:15, 17 Aerojet-General Corporation, 3:54, 59 Aldrin, Buzz, 3:56 Allerton Hotel, 2:15 Ambassador East Hotel, 2:15 Ambassador Hotel, 2:5 Ambassador West Hotel, 2:15 American Board of Commissions for Foreign Missions, 3:33 Ancient Order of Hibernians, 1:60 Anders, William, 3:59 Anheuser-Busch, 3:60 Annexation, 2:22–35 “Annexation and Chicago’s Northern Border Communities,” Yesterday’s City article

by Neal Samors, 2:22–35 Apollo 8 (spacecraft), 3:59 Apollo 13 (spacecraft), 3:60, 61, 62 Apollo space program, 3:54 Argonne National Laboratory, 3:65 Art Institute of Chicago, 3:65 Pritzker wing of, 2:70 Arvey, Jack, 3:10 Ashland Avenue, 2:30 Autry, Gene, 2:40 Aviation Safety School at University of Southern California, 3:56–57

B Babel, 1:13 Balaban, Abe, 2:54 Balaban & Katz Corporation, 2:38 Barnett, Samuel A., 1:22, 26 Beeby, Thomas, 2:65, 68 Beecher, Lyman, 1:47 66 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Beethoven Project, 2:66 Bell, John A., 3:27 Bennett, Edward H., 2:13 Benny, Jack, 2:40 Bergson, Henri, 1:67 Berle, Milton, 2:40 Berrigan, Daniel, 1:70 Bilandic, Michael, 3:13 “Black Sox” trial of 1921, 2:61 Bohemian Cemetery, 3:56 Bonwit Teller, 2:17 Borman, Frank, 3:57, 59 Boudinot, Elias, 3:27, 30, 34 A Boy in Summer Time (series of drawings), 1:10 Bradlee, Ben, 3:17 Braniff Airlines, 2:63 Breaking Home Ties (painting), 1:4 Brinkley, David, 3:9 Brothers’ School, 1:52 Brown, Pat, 3:15 Buckley, William F., 1:66, 71 Buena Vista Social Club, 2:43 Burland, Abel, 2:10, 13 Burnham, Daniel, 2:13, 15 Burnham Plan, 2:13, 17 Buscher, Anthony, 1:45, 47 Bush, George W., 3:5 Butler, Elizur, 3:24, 25–26 Butler Art Gallery, 1:31 Byrne, Barry, 1:52 Byrne, Jane, 3:13

C Calloway, Cab, 2:40 Calvary Cemetery, 2:31 Captain Fry’s Birthday Party (play), 1:15, 17, 18 Carse, Robert, 1:44 Carson Pirie Scott and Company, 2:11 Cavallo, Natalie, 1:67 Centel Corporation, 3:54, 63 Center for Human Potential and Public Policy at the Irving B. Harris School, 2:72

Chase Avenue, 2:30 Cherokee Constitution (1827), 3:28 Cherokee Nation, Andrew Jackson and, 3:23–35 Cherokee National Council, 3:27, 30 Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 3:24 Chesterton, G. K., 1:66 Chicago Great Fire in, 1:56–58; 2:27 zoning and building codes in, 2:13 Chicago, Evanston, and Southern Elevated Railway Company, 2:33 Chicago, University of, 2:60, 70, 71 Laboratory School of, 2:61 Pritzker School of Medicine at, 2:60 Chicago and Evanston Electric Railway Company, 2:33 Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, 2:11, 30, 31 Chicago Association for the Performing Arts, 2:43 Chicago Community Trust, 3:65 Chicago Daily Journal, 1:40 Chicago Daily News (newspaper), 1:8 “Chicago Intellect: An Interview with Garry Wills,” Making History article by Timothy J. Gilfoyle, 1:64–72 Chicago Public Library, 2:60. See also Washington, Harold, Public Library board of, 2:65 foundation of, 2:65 Chicago Reach Out and Read, 2:67 Chicago River, 2:13 Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 3:65 Chicago Theatre, 2:36–59 “Chicago’s Theatre,” article by Ralph Pugh, 2:36–59 Chicago Theatre Preservation Group (CTPG), 2:43, 59 Chicago Tribune (newspaper), 1:8, 40; 3:15 Chicago White Sox, 2:61 Chippewa (Native American tribe), 3:26 “CHS and the Presidency,” article by Russell L. Lewis, 3:36–53 Ciccone, F. Richard, “Making Votes Count,” article, 3:5–21 Cicero, Illinois, 2:23 Citicorp Savings, 2:65 Citizens Association of the City of Evanston, 2:29 Citizens League of Rogers Park, 2:31, 33 Civic Center, 2:9 Civil Rights Act (1964), 3:21 Clarke, Mary Frances, 1:51 Clark Street, 2:30, 34 Clayton, Judge Augustin S. J., 3:24 Come on Home Society of Indianapolis, 1:4 Comiskey, “Honest John,” 1:45 Committee for Public Policy, 2:71 Continental Hotel, 2:18 Creek War, 3:28 Cronkite, Walter, 3:9

D Daley, Richard J., 3:5–21 Damen, Rev. Arnold, S. J., 1:40, 44, 47, 57 Dawson, William, 3:10 Day, Dorothy, 1:71 Debs, Eugene, 1:70 Decentralization, 3:60 DeKoven Street, 1:57 Depression of 1857, 1:40 DiSalle, Mike, 3:9 Dorsey, Tommy, 2:40 Douglas, Paul, 3:10 Doula Project, 2:66–67 Drake Hotel, 2:6 Dram Shop Act, 2:33 Dreiser, Theodore, 1:4, 10, 20 Sister Carrie (novel), 1:20 Dresser, Paul, “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away” (song), 1:4, 5 Dunne, Finley Peter, 1:61 Dykstra, Paul H., 2:69

E Eagle River, Wisconsin, 2:62 Ebert, Roger, 2:58 Edison Electric Company, 2:33 80/20 rule (manufacturing strategy), 3:59–60 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 3:10 Elections of 1956, 3:9–10 of 1960, 3:4–21 of 2000, 3:5, 9 Emerald Cadets, 1:60 Englewood, 2:33 Erie Street, 2:18 Erikson Institute, 2:66 Estes, George, 2:30 Evans, John B., 2:26 Evanston, Illinois, 2:25–29 Citizens Association of, 2:29 post office in, 2:28 Evergreen Plaza, 2:11 “Exiles in Suckerland,” article by Timothy B. Spears, 1:4–21

F Family Focus, 2:66 Farwell, John V., 2:30 Father Mathew Temperance Society, 1:60 Fatted Calf Society, 1:4 Index | 67

Feehan, Patrick A., 1:59–60 Feldstein, James, 2:68 Field Museum, 2:65 First National Bank, 2:18 Fisk Telephone Systems, Inc., 3:54, 63 Fitzgerald, Thomas S., 1:59 Focused factories, 3:59, 60 Ford Motor Company, 3:57, 60 Fort Dix, New Jersey, 3:57 Foster, John H., 2:26 Foxes (Native American tribe), 3:26 Franklin, Aretha, 2:43 Frey, Joseph, 2:18 Friedman, Milton, 1:70 Friend, Judge Hugo, 2:60–61 Friend, Robert, 2:61 Friend, Sadie Cohen, 2:60 Friend, Suzanne, 2:61 Fuller, Henry Blake, 1:10, 15

G Galwey, Margaret, 1:49 Garland, Judy, 2:40 Geddes, John J., 2:18 Gehry, Frank O., 2:68, 70 Gemini space program, 3:54, 57 Gemini 6 (spacecraft), 3:57 Gemini 7 (spacecraft), 3:57 Gemini 12 (spacecraft), 3:57 General Tire and Rubber Company, 3:59 German Bauhaus, 2:9 Giancana, Sam, 3:19 Gilder, George, 2:18 Gilfoyle, Timothy J. “Chicago Intellect: An Interview with Garry Wills,” Making History article, 1:64–72 “Philanthropists as Civic Activists: Interviews with Cindy Pritzker and Irving Harris,” Making History article, 2:60–72 “The Space Age in Chicago: Interviews with James A. Lovell and John D. Nichols,” Making History article, 3:54–65 Gillette Safety Razor Company, 2:64 Goddard, Robert, 3:56 Goldberger, Paul, 2:68 Goldwater, Barry, 3:21 Goodman, Benny, 2:40 Goodrich, Grant, 2:26 Gore, Al, 3:5 Grand Avenue, 2:18 Gray, Hanna, 2:71 Great Chicago Fire (1871), 1:56–58; 2:27 68 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Greater North Michigan Avenue Association (GNMAA), 2:18 Greenleaf, Luther L., 2:30 Greenleaf Avenue, 2:31, 33 Greyhound Bus, 2:11 Grinnell College, 2:62 Grosse Pointe, Illinois, 2:25–26, 29 Guardian Angel School, 1:58 Gustafson, Kathryn, 2:68

H Haise, Fred, 3:60 Halsted Street, 1:52 Hanks, Tom, 3:61, 62 Harris, Irving, Making History interview with, 2:60–72 Harris, Irving B., School for Public Policy Studies, 2:60, 72 Center for Human Potential and Public Policy at, 2:72 Harris, Mildred Brooks, 2:61 Harris, Neison, 2:63 Harris, Neison and Irving, Building at the Child Study Center at the Yale University School of Medicine, 2:66 Harris, William, 2:61, 63 Harris, William, Investors, 2:64 Harriscope Broadcasting Corporation, 2:64 Harvard University, 3:56 Heymann, Walter M., 2:18 Hibernian Society, 1:42 Hilbersheimer, Ludwig, 2:9 Hinterland migrants, 1:7 Holabird and Root (architectural firm), 2:9, 15, 17 Holleb, Marshall, 2:43 Holloway Plan, 3:56 Holy Family Church, 1:31 cadets at, 1:60 parish of, 1:22–63 Holy Guardian Angel Church, 1:31 Holzman, Sidney T., 3:10, 18 Honeywell, 2:64 The Hoosier in Exile (poem), 1:4,5, 7 Hope, Bob, 2:40 Horseshoe Bend, Battle of, 3:28 Houston Towing Company, 3:63 Hovenden, Thomas, Breaking Home Ties (painting), 1:4 Howard, Ron, 3:62 Howells, William Dean, 1:10 Hull-House, 1:26, 31, 59, 61 Irish in neighborhood of, 1:22–63 Huntley, Chet, 3:9 Hurley, Mary Agatha, 1:51 Huron Street, 2:18

Hutchinson, Charles L., 1:26 Hyannisport, 3:15 Hyatt Hotels Corporation, 2:63 Hyde Park, 2:23, 61

I Illinois, University of, at Chicago, 2:9 Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, 2:67 Illinois Institute of Technology, 2:70 Illinois Tool Works (ITW), 3:54–55, 59–60, 62 Immaculata High School, 1:52 Indiana Society of Chicago, 1:4, 7, 20, 21 Indian Boundary Park, 2:29 Indian Territory, 3:28 Industrialism, 2:9 Inland Steel Building, 2:9 In-lining (manufacturing strategy), 3:59 International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), 3:54, 59–60 Iowas (Native American tribe), 3:26 Irish Fellowship Club, 1:35 “The Irish of Chicago’s Hull-House Neighborhood,” article by Ellen Skerrett, 1:22–63 Irish people in Hull-House neighborhood, 1:22–63 Irish Sisters of Mercy, 1:49

J Jackson, Andrew, 3:22–35 Jackson, Andrew B., 2:35 Jackson Park, 2:33 “Jackson Versus the Cherokee Nation,” article by Robert V. Remini, 3:23–35 Jefferson, Illinois, 2:23 John Hancock Building, 2:21 Johns Hopkins University, 1:67 Johnson, Lady Bird, 3:6 Johnson, Lyndon B., 3:5–6, 15, 21, 59, 65 Johnson Space Center, 3:55. See also Manned Space Center Junior Achievement of Chicago, 3:65

K Kane, Isabella, 1:52 Kane, Mary, 1:52 Kapoor, Anish, 2:68 Kaye, Danny, 2:40, 54–55 Keane, Thomas, 3:10 Kehilath Anshe Ma’ariv (KAM) Temple, 2:62 Kennedy, Ethel, 3:6

Kennedy, John F., 3:6, 9, 13–19, 21 Kennedy, Joseph, 3:19 Kennelly, Martin, 2:5 King, John P., 3:30 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1:69, 70, 72 Kluger, Jeffrey, 3:60–61

L Lake, Illinois, 2:23 Lake Shore National Bank, 2:18 Lake View, Illinois, 2:23 Lang, Gordon, 2:18 Lawrence, David, 3:9 Levitz Furniture, 2:63 Lewis, Russell L., “CHS and the Presidency” article, 3: 36–53 Lincoln Park Zoo, 2:70 Little Room drama, 1:18 Little Room (social club), 1:15, 17 Little Sisters of the Poor, 1:58–59 Lloyd, L. Duncan, 2:18 Lord’s Dry Goods, 2:29 Lost Moon (book), 3:61, 62 Lovell, Blanch Masck, 3:56 Lovell, James A., 2:60 Making History interview with, 3:54–65 Lovell, James A., Sr., 3:56 Lovell, Jay, 3:63 Loyola University, 1:53 Lumpkin, Wilson, 3:25 Lunt Avenue, 2:29 Lunt, Orrington, 2:26 Lunt, Stephen P., 2:30 Lyric Opera, 2:65

M Magnificent Mile, 2:5–21 Making History Award winners Harris, Irving, 2:60–72 Lovell, James A., 3:54–65 Nichols, John D., 3:54–65 Pritzker, Cindy, 2:60–72 Warfield, William, 2:60 Wills, Garry, 1:64–72 “Making the Mile Magnificent,” article by John W. Stamper, 2:5–21 “Making Votes Count,” article by F. Richard Ciccone, 3:5–21 Manned Space Center, 3:54, 55, 57. See also Johnson Space Center Marmon Holdings Corporation, 2:63 Index | 69

Married Men’s Sodality, 1:60 Marshall, John (Chief Justice), 3:24, 27 Marshall Field and Company, 2:10, 38, 63 McCall’s (magazine), 2:63 McCutcheon, John, 1:7–21 “A Boy in Summer Time,” drawings by, 1:10 “15th Annual Hoosier Salon,” drawing by, 1:20 drawing by, 1:6 McGraw-Hill Building, 2:15 McLaughlin, Mary Scholastica, 1:51 Medinah Club, 2:15 Menominis (Native American tribe), 3:26 Merchandise Mart, 2:10 Mercury space program, 3:57 Michigan Avenue, 2:5–21, 68 Michigan Avenue Bridge, 2:6, 13 Michigan Square Building, 2:18 Millennium Park, 2:68, 70 Minimalism, 2:9 The Missionary Herald (newspaper), 3:26 Mitchel, Louis, 1:56 Monroe, Harriet, 1:15 Monroe Street, 2:68 Moody, Walter D., 2:13, 17 Morris, William, 1:24 Morrison Hotel, 3:9 Morse, Charles H., 2:30 Mundelein College, 1:52 Municipal Voters’ League, 1:61 Museum of Science and Industry, 2:64–65; 3:56, 65 Music Corporation of America, 2:11

N National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 3:57, 63 National Party, 3:27 Naval Test Pilot School, 3:56 Neurasthenia, 1:7 New Echota, Georgia, 3:31, 33 Treaty of, 3:33 Nichols, Frances Dunbar, 3:54, 56 Nichols, John D., 2:60 Making History interview with, 3:54–65 Nichols, John D., Sr., 3:54 Nixon, Pat, 3:18 Nixon, Richard, 3:6, 9, 10, 13, 15, 59 Nixon loyalists, 3:18 North Central Business District Association (NCBDA), 2:13, 15, 18 North Evanston, Illinois, 2:27 North Michigan Avenue, 2:5–21 Northwestern Terra Cotta Company, 2:38 70 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

Northwestern University, 1:68; 2:25–26 Pritzker Legal Research Center at the School of Law, 2:70 Northwestern University Hall, 2:28 Nostalgia, 1:7 Notre Dame Parish, 1:31

O Oak Street, 2:6 O’Brien, Larry, 3:18 O’Connor, Patrick, 1:44 O’Daniel, Lee “Pappy,” 3:6 Ohio Street, 2:18 Oklahoma, 3:28 O’Leary, Catherine, 1:57 O’Leary, John, 2:31 O’Leary, Patrick, 1:57 O’Neill, Andrew, 1:52–53 O’Neill, Thomas, 1:52 One Magnificent Mile, 2:21 “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away” (song), 1:4, 5, 7 O’Regan, Anthony, 1:42 Oudolf, Piet, 2:68 Ounce of Prevention Fund, 2:66–67 Our Lady of Perpetual Help, 1:57 Our Lady of Pompeii, 1:31 Our Lady of the Lamp, 1:57 “Outward bound/Quay of Dublin” (lithograph), 1:34

P Paden, Joseph E., 2:29 Page Brothers Building, 2:43 Palmolive Building, 2:15 Parr, George, 3:6 Pearlman, Victor S., Company, 2:38 Pennsylvania Railroad, 2:11 “Philanthropists as Civic Activists: Interviews with Cindy Pritzker and Irving Harris,” Making History article by Timothy J. Gilfoyle, 2:60–72 Philco Ford, 3:57 Pilgrims, 3:5 Pine Street, 2:12 Pittway Company, 2:64, 67 Plensa, Jaume, 2:68 Plitt Theaters, 2:40, 43 Potawatomis (Native American tribe), 3:26 Powell, Paul, 3:10–11 Powers, “Johnny,” 1:60–61 Prairie du Chien, Treaty of (1825), 3:26 Pratt, George, 2:30

Pratt, Paul, 2:30 Pratt Avenue, 2:30 President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, 3:65 Presidio (San Francisco), 3:57 Pritzker, A. N., 2:62 Youth Foundation, 2:70 Pritzker, Cindy, Making History interview with, 2:60–72 Pritzker, Jay Arthur, 2:62–63, 69 Pritzker, Nancy (Cindy Pritzker’s daughter), 2:62, 70 Pritzker, Nancy (Cindy Pritzker’s granddaughter), 2:71 Pritzker, Nancy Friend, Laboratory at Stanford University, 2:70 Pritzker, Robert, 2:63, 70 Pritzker Architecture Prize, 2:68 Pritzker Legal Research Center at the Northwestern School of Law, 2:70 Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago, 2:60 Pritzker wing of the Art Institute, 2:70 Proxmire, William, 3:59 Pugh, Ralph, “Chicago’s Theatre” article, 2:36–59 Purdue University, 1:8–10

Q Quigley, Ed, 3:19

R Rafferty, Patrick, 1:45 Randolph, Warren, 1:51 Randolph Street, 2:68 Ran Toni Home Permanent Company, 2:63 Rapp & Rapp, 2:38 Ravenswood Avenue, 2:31 Raye, Martha, 2:40 Religious of the Sacred Heart, 1:35, 49, 52 Remini, Robert V., “Jackson Versus the Cherokee Nation” article, 3:22–35 Ridge Avenue, 2:30 Ridge, John, 3:27 Ridge, Major, 3:27 Riley, James Whitcomb, The Hoosier in Exile (poem), 1:45 Rogers, Phillip McGregor, 2:29, 30 Rogers Park, 2:25, 27, 29–35 Rogers Park Land Company, 2:30 Ronan, Jimmy, 3:10 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 2:61; 3:10 Root, John W., 2:5 Ross, John, 3:26–28, 30, 33, 35 Rubloff, Arthur, 2:4–21 Rubloff, Arthur and Company, 2:10

Rush Street, 2:6, 13 Rush Street Bridge, 1:49 Ruskin, John, 1:24

S Sacs (Native American tribe), 3:26 Sacred Heart Convent, 1:60 Sacred Heart Convent Academy, 1:59 Sacred Heart Convent Chapel, 1:50 St. Agnes School, 1:58 St. Aloysius, convent of, 1:51 St. Aloysius School, 1:51, 58 St. Clair Street, 2:6 St. Francis of Assisi Parish, 1:31 St. Henry Church, 2:31 St. Ignatius College, 1:31, 45, 53, 57, 60 St. James Episcopal Church, 1:44 St. Joseph’s Home for Working Girls, 1:60 St. Joseph’s School, 1:58 St. Mary’s Cathedral, 1:40 St. Mary’s Parish, 1:40 St. Patrick’s Day celebration, 1:53 St. Paul Academy, 2:61 St. Wenceslaus Parish, 1:31 Samors, Neal, “Annexation and Chicago’s Northern Border Communities,” Yesterday’s City article, 2:22–35 Santillana, Dorothy de, 1:67 Scanlan, John F., 1:60 Schermerhorn, John F., 3:28, 30, 31 Schubert Brothers Grocery Store, 2:33 Scott, General Winfield, 3:35 Seminoles (Native American tribe), 3:28 Sentimentalism, 1:7 Sequoyah (Cherokee alphabet), 3:23 Sharp Knife (Andrew Jackson), 3:24, 33 Shaw, Naess and Murphy (architectural firm), 2:17 Shedd Aquarium, 2:65 Sheridan, Elizabeth Mary, 1:23, 59 Sherman Hotel, 2:15 Shriver, Eunice, 3:6 Simpson, James, 2:10 Simpson, Reverend Matthew, 2:26 Sinatra, Frank, 2:40, 43; 3:19 Sioux (Native American tribe), 3:26 Siskel, Gene, 2:58 Sister Carrie (novel), 1:20 Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1:35, 51 Skerrett, Ellen, “The Irish of Chicago’s Hull-House Neighborhood” article, 1:22–63 Smith, Carleton, 2:68 Smith, Perry H., House, 2:12 Index | 71

Sodality Hall, 1:60 Soerns, Julius, 2:33 Southern California, University of, Aviation Safety School at, 3:56–57 South Evanston, Illinois, 2:25, 27 “The Space Age in Chicago: Interviews with James A. Lovell and John D. Nichols” Making History article

by Timothy J. Gilfoyle, 3:54–65 Space Media, Inc. (SMI), 3:63 SPACEHAB, Inc., 3:63 Spalding and Company, 2:18 Spears, Timothy B., “Exiles in Suckerland” article, 1:4–21 Spellman, Francis Cardinal, 1:70 Stamper, John W., “Making the Mile Magnificent” article, 2:5–21 Standish, Miles, 3:5 Starr, Eliza Allen, 1:26 Starr, Ellen Gates, 1:22, 24, 26, 63 Starr, James, 3:27 State Street, 2:37–38, 65 Stevenson, Coke R., 3:6 Sting, 2:43 Stone, Melville, 1:15 “Stories of the Streets and of the Town” (newspaper column), 1:10–15 Streeterville, 2:13 Swigert, Jack, 3:60

T Tammany Hall, 3:5 Taylor, Frederick Winslow, 3:62 Thomas, William, 3:35 Those Who Stayed at Home (society), 1:4 Ticketmaster, 2:63 Time (magazine), 2:11 “Men of the Year,” 3:59 Toledo Flats, 2:61 Total Abstinence bands, 1:60 Touhy, Catherine Rogers, 2:30 Touhy, Patrick Leonard, 2:30 Touhy Avenue, 2:30 Trail of Tears, 3:33 Treaty Party, 3:27, 33 Tribune Tower, 2:14, 15 Truman, Harry, 3:15, 17

U United States Army Finance Corps, 3:57 Urban migrants, 1:7 72 | Chicago History | Winter 2002

V Vallee, Rudy, 2:40 Van Buren, Martin, 3:33 Van der Rohe, Mies, 2:9 Van Osdel, John, 1:44, 49 Von Braun, Wernher, 3:56 Von Dehn, Hyatt, 2:63

W Walgreen Drugstores, 2:17 Ward, Daniel P., 3:19 Warfield, William, 2:60 Washington, Harold, 2:65 Washington, Harold, Public Library, 2:64, 65. See also Chicago Public Library Washington National Life Insurance Company, 2:11, 17 Waters, Ethel, 2:40 Water Tower Place, 2:21 Watie, Stand, 3:27 Webb and Knapp (management firm), 2:15, 17 Weissbourd, Bernard, 2:66 Weissbourd, Bernice, 2:66 Western Development Lab, 3:59 West Ridge, 2:25, 27, 29–35 Wills, Garry, Making History interview with, 1:64–72 Wilmette, Illinois, 2:25 Winnebagos (Native American tribe), 3:26 Wirt, William, 3:24 Wisconsin, University of, 3:56 Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 2:33 Worcester, Samuel A., 3:24–25 Worcester v. State of Georgia, 3:24 World’s Columbian Exposition, 1:4; 2:33, 38 Wrigley Building, 2:14, 15 Wurlitzer organ at the Chicago Theatre, 2:40 Wyatt, Edith, 1:15

Y Yale University, 2:61, 70 Child Study Center at School of Medicine of, 2:66 Yesterday’s City, “Annexation and Chicago’s Northern Border Communities,” 2:22–35

Z Zeckendorf, William, 2:15–18 Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families, 2:66