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3· EDWARD F. DUNNE: THE LIMITS OF MUNICIPAL REFORM John D. Buenker For two tumultuous years between Aprill905 and Aprill907, Chicago was widely regarded as "the most radical city in America," one presided over by a "socialist" mayor who loaded his administration with "long-haired friends and short-haired women." The chief executive who evoked such furor was a fiftytwo -year-old, former Cook County circuit court judge with no previous executive experience, a devout Catholic and devoted family man whose announced intention was to be remembered as the father of thirteen children and municipal ownership of the transit system. Although Edward F. Dunne's crusade for "immediate municipal ownership" failed for a complex of reasons, many of his own making, it did help force a resolution ofthe issue that had dominated Chicago politics for over a decade, leaving the city with a greatly improved transit system.1 In a broader view, the Dunne administration tried, with some success, to make government responsive to the concerns of several hitherto underrepresented constituencies, such as organized labor, consumer groups, social workers, teachers, and intellectuals, and to promote the welfare of the middle and working classes in the areas of utility regulation, tax equity, education, and environmental protection. By the same token, Dunne forged a political coalition that, for a time at least, combined elements of the "old politics"-parochial , partisan, nonideological, and ethnocultural-with those of the "new"issue -oriented, nonpartisan, candidate-centered, and reliant upon mass communications . Most importantly, his failure to achieve municipal ownership and to gain reelection clearly delineated the limits of reform politics in a city that was so fragmented, on the one hand, and so dominated by the business ethic, on the other. Charges of radicalism or socialism notwithstanding, Dunne was squarely in the mainstream of municipal reform, usually dubbed "social reform" or "ur33 JOHN D. BUENKER ban liberalism," that stressed sharing political power with the lower social orders, support for organized labor, toleration of ethnocultural differences and human weakness, and the expansion of urban services at costs affordable to all city dwellers. Although not as nationally renowned as Tom Johnson of Cleveland , Hazen Pingree of Detroit, Samuel "Golden Rule" Jones or Brand Whitlock of Toledo, or Mark Fagan of Jersey City, Dunne corresponded regularly with these luminaries, shared speech platforms with them, and contributed articles to the same "progressive" journals. He was a prominent member of several prestigious, municipal reform organizations and was a frequent speaker in major cities, especially on the topic of municipal ownership of utilities. From 1913 to 1917, he earned national recognition for his advocacy of numerous progressive measures as governor of Illinois, the only Chicago mayor to achieve that office. The sources of Dunne's urban liberalism are complex but relatively easy to identify. His Irish-American identity, continuously reinforced by his leadership role in Irish causes and organizations, gave Dunne a lifelong empathy with the disadvantaged and the oppressed. Equally important was his belief in "Catholic social liberalism," a world view founded on a corporatist conception of society that stressed the interdependence of social classes, the responsibility of the more fortunate for the less, moderation in the acquisition and use of all earthly goods, a fair price, a just wage, and prohibition against usury. His Irish Catholic identity not only informed Dunne's judicial decisions and political utterances but also constituted an emotional and rhetorical link to the ethnocultural groups who were his staunchest supporters. In a vital sense, Dunne was Chicago's first "co-ethnic" mayor, the first to be "of" one of the city's substantial minorities and to serve as a conduit between his compatriots and mainstream institutions. Dunne's ethnocultural orientation was reinforced and broadened by his legal education and by his fourteen years as a Chicago attorney and thirteen years on the circuit court bench. As a jurist he enjoyed a national reputation as a "people's judge," a defender ofthe underdog, and a foe of those who misused wealth and power. His outlook was further developed through his continuous association with almost every progressive cause of the day with a virtual "who's who" of Chicago social critics, independent radicals, activist intellectuals, settlement house workers, and labor leaders. Finally, it was given political structure by his leadership role in the most liberal wing of the Democratic party, that committed to William Jennings Bryan and Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld.2 The rise and fall of Dunne as mayor was inextricably intertwined with the fortunes...

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