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 15  Electing Altgeld THE STATE WAS NOT THROUGH WITH MCDONALD. ALTHOUGH HE had been acquitted by a partisan justice of the peace in a rigged trial, the Cook County grand jury voted a four-count indictment against the old gambling boss, charging him with an act of bribery. As his term of office wound down, Mayor Washburne was frustrated and angered by the outcome of the Woodman affair. His attempt to bring McDonald before the bar a second time was nothing less than political payback. “I’m not going to talk about it,” Mike snapped. “My attorney Mr. Trude will do all the talking, but I reckon they’ve accomplished what they wanted by having me indicted and I suppose the case will be nolle prossed.” State’s Attorney Joel Longnecker was in no particular hurry to go to trial and was going through the motions. Few people believed McDonald would be prosecuted a second time, and he wasn’t. A new Democratic governor would see to that. The national election was at hand, and McDonald was back at his old desk at Democratic headquarters at 137 West Monroe Street, holding hourly consultations with his henchmen, gamblers, saloon men, and grocery keepers in the interest of promoting John Peter Altgeld’s candidacy—and looking ahead to 1893, the mayoral contest. The Eagle was relentless in his editorial attacks against “Mike the Briber.” The rant was venomous, but stripping away the tumult and the shouting, Harrison’s burning ambition to become the “World’s Fair mayor” was exposed. It would be the perfect capstone to a long career in public life. Visiting Joseph Medill in Pasadena, California, weeks before the primary scuffles were set to begin, Harrison, who never pretended to be humble or modest, remarked, “You know Medill, that I am the best qualified man for that position in Chicago, and that I will fulfill its duties better than anyone else 175 176 Electing Altgeld that can be had out of either party and there isn’t anybody in the city that can beat me if I am nominated for the office.”1 But logic dictated that Harrison could not hope to accomplish such a thing without the backing of the “King Blackleg” who thrust himself offensively into political activities. Even as he blistered McDonald in print, Harrison could not shake off rumors and published reports of a budding political alliance that would return the mayoralty to him and the license to operate the Garfield racetrack to Mike. In the early going, McDonald favored Altgeld’s candidate, Washington Hesing, a cultivated and polished man who was a stakeholder in the Garfield track, a former Harrison supporter, and publisher of the StaatsZeitung newspaper (the most influential foreign-language newspaper west of New York) inherited from his father, Anton C. Hesing. The newspaper war between Carter Harrison’s Chicago Times and Mike McDonald’s Chicago Globe escalated. Bitter words were exchanged. Hesing chaffed when Harrison demanded that he withdraw from the race and give up the chance to become Chicago’s first German mayor, and he lashed out against the Times as a propaganda tool dispensing lies and half-truths—but with a hidden agenda. Hesing accused his rival Democrat of buying the paper from the Storey estate in order to promote his two sons (and Times editors), Carter and Preston, and provide them with a launching stage to further their own future political ambitions. “Harrison bought it so he could give his boys some personality, more than can gain be gained from a real estate sign.”2 Mike’s grasp on power was still strong, even in these changing times when increasingly his influence was significantly challenged by younger party men coming up through the ranks of the ward organizations. It seemed to follow that Harrison’s best interests would be served by reaching an accord with the old gambler ,becausewhenthe Globe“sneezed,”asthe Tribuneruefullyobserved,“certain Democratic organs in the interior followed suit. Their editorial action was based on the stuff printed in the Chicago organ of Mike and John [Altgeld].”3 The Eagle faced opposition in the volatile First Ward where “Bathhouse” Coughlin, a “Cregierite” loyal to McDonald, had seized control of the political apparatus following the barroom murder of Billy “Mockingbird” Whelan.4 The bellicose Alderman Coughlin did much of his talking to the Chicago Globe as he publicly sparred with the Harrison forces. The Globe was an important campaign tool—but never a serious news journal . The Chicago...

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