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 11  Is He Not a Typical Democrat? AND, FOR A TIME, THE PEOPLE OF COOK COUNTY BENEFITED FROM a scandal-free board. The McDonald machine was driven into temporary retreat and forced to conduct its affairs with prudence, sagacity, and moderation—but only for a brief time. The Citizens’ Association said it “hoped that future generations will learn wisdom from the experience, especially as kindred frauds in other parts of the country are being unearthed and punished at the same time that our community has brought to light and castigated offenders against our welfare and integrity. An epidemic of fraud has been followed by the corrective antidote of punishment.”1 The reformers had at last scored a significant victory, albeit a momentary one. They failed to take into account that corruption in municipal and county government and corruption in big-city police departments are cyclical events. Typically, a highly publicized political scandal involving individuals or groups of office holders engaged in a conspiracy to commit fraud hastens the hue and cry from the media “to do something,” and a clamor for reform is echoed throughout the city. Cursory actions are taken; indictments returned; the malefactors dealt with; and in the aftermath, a period of time elapses during which no further news items about the scandal or its consequences are reported in the daily press. The matter is quietly forgotten. Then we learn painful lessons that the “system,” the culture of corruption as an accelerant of public malfeasance, is highly resilient and resistant to change. The optimistic hope for lasting reform faded not long after the close of the “Omnibus Boodler Trial.” Less than two years later, following another election and a partial restoration of machine-friendly commissioners, it was widely reported that the new “reform board” had illegally appropriated a vast sum 136 Is He Not a Typical Democrat? 137 for road repairs in the town of Cicero and Hyde Park (then a suburb before annexation in 1889) when it had no authorization to do so. “The worst steals of the McCarthy–Van Pelt gang were connected with the gravel road jobs. It is an insidious scheme in the direction of boodlerism!” shrieked the Tribune, and it called the new county hospital administration “loose, inefficient, and scandalous .” James G. Strain, McGarigle’s replacement as warden, was no improvement and was soon forced to resign.2 By the end ofthe 1890s, the so-called Gray Wolves of the Chicago City Council were firmly implanted and driving the vehicle of corruption. They had learned valuable lessons in the intervening years, and their doings were not nearly as flagrant or indiscreet as the profligacy of “Little” Van Pelt, “Mac” McGarigle, or Ed McDonald. The Tribune unhappily noted that “the fate of the County Commissioners did not deter them, for they knew they were not doing business after the clumsy fashion of their brethren on the county side of the square. They are boodling now without fear because in all human probability their deals cannot be exposed.” Resigned to it, Murry Nelson said that “the trouble with reform is that the reformers won’t stay mad more than six months.”3 What happened to the county boodlers in the aftermath is a parable of Chicago’s checkered political history. Ed McDonald spent the next seventeen months behind the grated doors of the North Side jail, living easier than his fellow prisoners, but nevertheless confined. Mike had spent $50,000 trying to save his brother. The best he could do was spare Ed the hardships and indignity of incarceration at Joliet and keep the heat on the appeals court. The persistence of the high-priced defense team finally paid off on November 17, 1888, when the Illinois Supreme Court freed Ed on technical errors and the theory that Nicholas Schneider had perjured himself as a prosecution witness. General Israel Newton Stiles, the lead prosecutor, indignantly accused Mike McDonald of “wicked influence on the administration of justice.” Brushing off the accusation, Mike raced about town spreading the glad tidings to his friends and associates. “When I heard the news I almost thought it was too good to be true,” he said. “Then I went into the parlor where Ed’s father was reading. The old man’s face fairly beamed with joy and rising from his chair, he exclaimed: ‘Thank God! Hereafter my sleep will be undisturbed.’” Mike was philosophical. “Great reform periods strike this city from time to time. Everybody is then suspected of wrong...

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