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 8  Our Carter IT WAS MCDONALD’S DESTINY TO BE DAMNED AS A STREET THUG and called a loathsome criminal—while at the same time he was warmly regarded by influential city attorneys, judges, and politicians as a master organizer who resurrected the moribund Cook County Democratic Party in the decades following the end of the Civil War. Standing before the First Ward electorate inside crowded public meeting halls to whip up sentiment for aspiring Democratic candidates who appealed to him for political muscle, Mike’s sense that he was an important “boss,” with the power to help unify splinter factions of the party and shape public policy by anointing the favored few, was reaffirmed. However, as much as he saw himself as kingmaker, he could never escape his past or strip away an unwanted reputation as the flashy, conniving “King of the Gamblers.” The bad behavior of the saloon habitués; the nightly shootings, and the criminal acts of the class of men lurking in the grog shops, hotel lobbies, and card rooms of Clark Street made it impossible to separate his name from the intrigues, the violence, and the chaos of the streets. After all, many of these men were his clients. When a dissolute, drunken bunko steerer and pimp named John Turner (a.k.a. Hank Davis) gunned down Charles D. Whyland, owner of St. Elmo’s Restaurant, inside Kuhn’s hotel, accusations were leveled at McDonald as the instigator of the unprovoked assault. Davis was connected with a pawn shop operating across the street from the Store, and by extension, was assumed to be one of Mike’s agents. Davis said he was liquored up but could not remember the reason why he produced a gun. While admitting he was probably guilty of the crime of murder, he denied being one of McDonald’s bunko men. The unprovoked, Thanksgiving Day shooting of a popular restaurant owner by a debased man at the bottom of the social order stirred deep public outrage. 99 100 Our Carter “I was in California in vigilante times, and San Francisco was never as bad as Chicago today!” complained one man. “There are more lampposts than there are bunko ropers,” offered another. “Wouldn’t it be a good thing to join the two things somehow?” A man who described himself as a “merchant” added that “The murderer was one of Mike McDonald’s men and there are a hundred others who, like him, are liable to kill any one who chances to come in their path. The first thing that ought to be done is to clean out the Store. When that is done, there can be some hope for the future—but not before.” And this: “Is the life of any citizen safe while such a scoundrel as Mike McDonald is recognized as a power by the City Government, tolerated by its officials and treated as an equal by the very men who should place him inside a prison? In order to restore some resemblance of law and decency in Chicago it will be necessary to drive this McDonald and his pack of cutthroats away from the city.”1 With the blood of a well-known citizen on his hands, and the matter not so easily disposed of as, say, a common charge of keeping a gambling house, McDonald issued a rare public statement—and he published it in the Chicago newspapers. “I have, Mr. Editor, for sometime past, sought obscurity rather than notoriety . That my place of business is as quiet as any in the City of Chicago, and is as free from any dangerous element as any in the city, for the truthfulness of which utterance I refer you to the Captain and Chief of Police or the merchants in my neighborhood. I would be silent as I have been in the past, were it not for the fact that my continued silence would be misconstrued. Every murder committed or burglary done is charged to the McDonald gang, whereas in fact I never knew the man charged therewith or interested myself in their [business]. A gambler I may be, more than that I am not.”2 In words intended to evoke a sense of victimization, McDonald attempted to firm up his reputation by demonstrating that he was a man of principle and honor. But neither was he entirely willing to disassociate from the gambling hoi polloi who depended on his name, his bail bonding racket when they got into...

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