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William Hale Thompson

William Hale Thompson (May 14, 1869 – March 19, 1944) was an American politician who served as mayor of Chicago from 1915 to 1923 and again from 1927 to 1931. Known as "Big Bill", he is the most recent Republican to have served as mayor of Chicago. Historians rank him among the most unethical mayors in American history, mainly for his open alliance with Al Capone. However, others recognize the effectiveness of his political methods and publicity-oriented campaigning, acknowledging him as a "Political Chameleon" and an effective political machine.

Thompson was known for his over-the-top campaigning and uncensored language that, along with his towering height and weight, earned him the nickname "Big Bill". Upon his reelection in 1927, Thompson had the school board suspend the Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools, William McAndrew. He was also at the forefront of the movement for the Chicago Public Library system and education officials to censor and ban many texts and historical recollections coming from the United Kingdom.

Though Thompson was a popular figure during his career, his popularity collapsed after his death, when two safe-deposit boxes were found in his name containing over $1.8 million, which were taken as evidence of his corruption.

Early life
Thompson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to William Hale and Medora Gale Thompson, but his family moved to Chicago when he was nine days old. Despite having been born in Boston, Thompson had strong roots in Chicago. His father, Colonel William Hale Thompson Sr., was a popular businessman within Chicago and had served as colonel in the Second Illinois Guard who had come to Chicago after serving in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. His maternal grandfather, Stephen F. Gale, the first chief of the Chicago Fire Department, had played a large part in drawing up the city's corporation charter in 1837, earning him regard as a "Chicago pioneer" by some academic journalists.

Thompson attended Chicago Public Schools, and took supplementary courses at the Fessenden School and Metropolitan College.

Thompson was meant to attend Yale but instead moved to Wyoming at the age of 14, where he became a cowboy and cattle owner and traveled across Europe, taking up ranching in Texas and New Mexico later on in his life. The experiences influenced him to add Western touches into his campaign, including his sombrero, which became a symbol for his campaign. By the age of twenty-one, he had accumulated a stake of $30,000. He returned to Chicago in 1892 after his father's death to manage his estates. Shortly after returning to Chicago, Thompson joined the Illinois Athletic Club and the Sportsmen's Club of America and quickly was appointed director-general and captain of the water polo and football teams. His six-foot frame and athletic prowess earned him the nickname "Big Bill," which stuck with him throughout his career as a politician.

Early career

Thompson served on the Real Estate Board of Chicago.

In 1900, Thompson narrowly won election as an alderman on the Chicago City Council from the 2nd Ward, his home district. Two years later, he became a member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, serving from 1902 through 1904. During this period, Thompson formed a political alliance with Frederick Lundin, a Republican city clerk who worked under William Lorimer, a U.S. Representative from Illinois who was known for corrupt election methods. The political duo, according to most citizens, worked very well together earning them the title the "Gallagher and Shean of Chicago Politics". Thompson with his outgoing and charismatic personality paired with his towering stature and gentlemanly appearance gave him an undeniable public presence, which was completed by Lundin's cunning political ideas and projects.

First term
In 1915, Thompson was elected as the 41st Mayor of Chicago, beating County Clerk Robert M. Sweitzer, John H. Hill, Seymour Steadman, and Charles Thompson.

Thompson was sworn in on April 26, 1915. In his inaugural address, Thompson spoke of his ambitions for Chicago to become "the greatest in the world", but also that his acts as mayor should not be swayed by corruption. He also emphasized the importance of public safety (as enforced by the Chicago Police Department), the improvement of public transit, secure and permanently lowered gas prices, Chicago being allowed to have Home rule and more efforts being placed into Chicago's commercial interests in order to create jobs and improve the city's economy. His efforts to expand and publicly improve the streets of Chicago earned him another nickname of "Big Bill the Builder". In his time as mayor, he oversaw the completion of the Michigan Avenue link bridge, the Twelfth Street widening, and the extension and widening of Ogden Avenue. Along with his big dreams for Chicago's geographical expansion, he wished for Chicago to expand politically and economically. He believed that Chicago should be able to enforce laws on their own terms, particularly without what he claimed to be the interference of British government or totalitarian rule. He ended his inaugural address by declaring, "I am a firm believer in the separation of the three co-ordinate branches of government – Executive, Legislative and Judicial – peculiar to our American system, and that one should not intrude upon or violate, the prerogatives of the other. I do not intend to exceed the rights and privileges of the executive nor transgress upon the legislative or judicial functions. I shall impartially execute the laws made by the proper legislative authorities and interpreted by the judiciary."

As Thompson entered the first term of his mayorship, he appointed Fred Lundin as chairman on the committee of patronage. Early in his mayoral career, Thompson began to amass a war chest to support an eventual run for the presidency, by charging city drivers and inspectors $3 per month.

Early in his mayoralty Thompson had to cut short a July 1915 trip to San Francisco in order to deal with the aftermath of the Eastland disaster. While Thompson was out of town, acting-mayor Moorhouse had turned the Chicago City Hall into a makeshift hospital for first aid and a morgue for bodies recovered from the tragedy. Once Thompson returned to Chicago he organized and heavily promoted a relief fund and ordered an investigation into the casual negligence responsible for the tragedy.

In 1915, a delegation of civic-oriented women, headed by Mary McDowell, urged Thompson to appoint an well-qualified woman to the city's new office of "commissioner of public welfare". Thompson did appoint a woman. However, instead of a woman qualified by a public welfare background, he appointed Louise Osborn Rowe, a Republican Party worker and loyalist. Within a year of her appointment, Rowe was charged with operating a kickback scheme in the department, and was forced to resign in 1916. This post would remain vacant until the mayoralty of Thompson's successor.

Thompson gained national attention and condemnation for his neutral attitude toward the events of World War I. By declining the visit of the French Mission to Chicago and refusing to control or act against anti-war or anti-conscription meetings, Thompson is "credited with characterizing Chicago as the sixth German city of the world," also earning the nickname "Kaiser" Bill Thompson. Thompson sought to further endear himself to the city's German and Irish populations by positioning himself as anti-British. Thompson opposed sending troops into war after the United States' April 1917 declaration of war. These facts later went on to hurt his chances in his 1918 U.S. Senate campaign.

In 1916, he became a member of the Republican National Committee. He would continue to serve on the committee until 1920.

Second term
Thompson was reelected mayor in 1919, beating out Robert Sweitzer once again along with Adolph S. Carm, John Collins, John Fitzpatrick, and Maclay Hoyne. Thompson was said to have had control of the 75,000 black voters in his day. In his campaign he claimed to be an advocate for the people against public utility companies and the rich who avoided taxes. This inspired Thompson to enforce a five-cent streetcar fare to promote his campaign, which was also used to threaten the action of streetcar companies; he also sued the Chicago "L" when it tried to raise fares after the inflation caused by World War I. Eventually, however, despite his protests, the fare was raised to seven cents.

In his second inaugural address on April 28, 1919, Thompson looked towards drastically expanding Chicago, saying that "Chicago is greater than some nations". This expansion included the extension and widening of streets to cross over more of the city, new post offices, freight terminals, playgrounds, bridges, and more. Also, due to the rapidly changing city, Thompson proposed a zoning bill to regulate and create commercial, industrial, and residential areas. Among the other issues he claimed he would address were telephone prices and service quality, the expansion of the Chicago Police Department, jobs for returning soldiers, lowering the cost of living, and restoring the jobs of Public School representatives who were removed by the Supreme Court.

Early into his second term, the city dealt with the Chicago race riot of 1919.

At the 1920 Republican National Convention Thompson helped to block his one-time ally Frank Lowden from capturing the nomination.

Thompson declined to run for reelection in 1923 and he was succeeded by William Emmett Dever. Thompson left office as Mayor on April 16, 1923.

Chairman of the Illinois Waterways Commission
While out of office, Thompson was appointed chairman of the Illinois Waterways Commission. He used his position to remain relevant in the media, involving himself in civic suits and campaigning for the Lakes-to-Gulf waterway project: to build a waterway from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Promoting both the project and himself, Thompson set off on a "scientific" expedition (to be extensively covered by the media), which he set off to the South Seas in order to find a tree-climbing fish on July 5, 1924. Attracting more attention, Thompson placed a $25,000 bet on his success, but no one participated.

Second mayoralty (1927–1931)
Thompson ran again in 1927 during a citywide gang war, aiming to unseat his successor, William Dever. Always a flamboyant campaigner, Thompson held a primary-election debate between himself and two live rats which he used to portray his opponents. Pledging to clean up Chicago and remove the crooks, Thompson instead turned his attention to the reformers, whom he considered the real criminals. According to Thompson, the biggest enemy the United States had was King George V of the United Kingdom. Thompson promised his supporters, many of whom were Irish, that if they ever met, Thompson would punch the king in the nose, or at other times, that he would arrest His Majesty. Upon his victory over Dever, Thompson's floating speakeasy, outwardly known as the Fish Fans Club, docked at Belmont Harbor. It was flooded with his supporters, so many so that the boat itself sank beneath the weight.

In his inaugural address on April 18, 1927, Thompson addressed the importance of remedying crime in Chicago, saying,

"Our new Superintendent of Police has my positive instructions to drive the crooks and thieves and lawbreakers out of Chicago in ninety days, so that the people, their homes and their property may again be secure."

Thompson expressed his desire to remove Superintendent William McAndrew from the public schooling system, and restore what he called the "true history of George Washington" while exposing "the treason and propaganda which insidiously have been injected into our schools and other educational institutions". He also went on to enforce other issues he had addressed in previous speeches, like the issue of public transit, playgrounds, and the general upkeep and expansion of Chicago in an effort to aid property owners and increase residential income and revenue for the city as a whole. In August 1927, the Chicago Board of Education, now under Thompson's influence after he appointed a number of new members, voted to charge McAndrew with insubordination and lack of patriotism, suspending him pending an administrative hearing held by the board. The administrative hearing would last months, and the Chicago Board of Education would find McAndrew guilty. The Cook County Superior Court would later void this decision.

Al Capone's support was pivotal to Thompson's return to the mayor's office. Capone raised over $200,000 for Thompsons's 1927 campaign. During Thompson's second term, the "Pineapple Primary" took place on April 10, 1928, so-called because of the hand grenades thrown at polling places to disrupt voting. The Pineapple Primary saw candidates backed by Thompson face Charles Deneen in the Republican primary election. Another infamous instance of gang activity that took place during Thompson's third term was St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Thompson blamed Ruth Hanna McCormick's lack of support for his loss at the 1928 Republican National Convention, and he returned the favor during her 1930 campaign for the United States Senate by endorsing against her in the general election. Thompson had had a longstanding rivalry with the McCormicks. He intensely disliked Robert R. McCormick who published the Chicago Tribune. U.S. Senator Medill McCormick was the publisher's brother, and Ruth Hanna McCormick was Medill McCormick's wife.

Amid growing discontent with Thompson's leadership, particularly in the area of cleaning up Chicago's reputation as the capital of organized crime, he was defeated in 1931 by Democrat Anton Cermak. Cermak was an immigrant from Bohemia, and Thompson used this fact to belittle him with ethnic slurs such as:

Cermak replied, "He doesn't like my name...It's true I didn't come over on the Mayflower, but I came over as soon as I could," which was a sentiment to which ethnic Chicagoans (especially its large Bohemian population) could relate, so Thompson's slurs largely backfired. Al Capone reportedly donated $260,000 to Thompson's failed 1931 election.

After Thompson's defeat, the Chicago Tribune wrote, "For Chicago Thompson has meant filth, corruption, obscenity, idiocy and bankruptcy.... He has given the city an international reputation for moronic buffoonery, barbaric crime, triumphant hoodlumism, unchecked graft, and a dejected citizenship. He nearly ruined the property and completely destroyed the pride of the city. He made Chicago a byword for the collapse of American civilization. In his attempt to continue this he excelled himself as a liar and defamer of character."

Thompson left office April 9, 1931.

Subsequent career
In 1936, Thompson ran for the office of Illinois governor on the "Union Progressive" ballot line against Democratic incumbent Henry Horner and Republican nominee C. Wayland Brooks. He received only three percent of the vote. In 1939, Thompson ran in the Republican primary for mayor of Chicago and was soundly defeated by a 77% to 23% margin against future Governor Dwight Green.

Personal life

In 1901, Thompson married Mary "Maysie" Walker Wyse, a secretary in his father's office. The two never had children. in 1930 his wife was robbed at gunpoint by George "Baby Face" Nelson, taking jewellery valued at $18,000. She described her attacker, saying "He had a baby face. He was good looking, hardly more than a boy, had dark hair and was wearing a gray topcoat and a brown felt hat, turned down brim." This description earned Nelson the baby face moniker.

Death
William Hale Thompson died on March 19, 1944, at the Blackstone Hotel at the age of 74. He was buried in Oak Woods Cemetery in a solid bronze casket.

Despite the fact that many had liked Thompson and enjoyed his various political antics, few people attended his funeral, and one reporter noted that there was not "a flower nor a fern to be seen".

Upon Thompson's death, two safe deposit boxes in his name were discovered to contain nearly $1.84 million ($ million today) in cash. Once the money was uncovered, the Internal Revenue Service took its share in taxes, and Maysie Thompson lived off of the rest until her death in 1958.

Historical assessments
Historians rank him among the most unethical mayors in American history, mainly for his open alliance with Al Capone. However, others recognize the effectiveness of his political methods and publicity-oriented campaigning, acknowledging him as a "Political Chameleon" and an effective political machine. Time magazine said in 1931, "chief credit for creating 20th Century Politics Chicago Style" should go to William Thompson.

A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked Thompson as the worst American big-city mayor to have served between 1820 and 1993.

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title: William Hale Thompson


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Anton Cermak

Anton Joseph Cermak (Antonín Josef Čermák, ; May 9, 1873 – March 6, 1933) was an American politician who served as the 44th mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from April 7, 1931, until his death in 1933. He was killed by an assassin, whose likely target was President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but Cermak was shot instead after a bystander hit the perpetrator with a purse.

Early life
Anton Joseph Cermak was born to a mining family in Kladno, Austria-Hungary (now in the Czech Republic), the son of Antonín Čermák and Kateřina née Frank(ová).

He immigrated with his parents to the United States in 1874, and grew up in the town of Braidwood, Illinois, where he was educated before beginning to work full time while still a teenager. He followed his father into coal mining, and labored at mines in Will and Grundy counties. After moving to Chicago at age 16, Cermak worked as a tow boy for the horse-drawn streetcar line, and then tended horses in the stables of Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. During the early years of his working life, Cermak supplemented his education with evening high school and business college classes.

Career
After saving enough money to buy his own horse and cart, he went into business selling firewood, and he subsequently expanded his venture into a haulage business. As he became more politically active, Cermak served in municipal government jobs, including as a clerk in the city police court, and as a bailiff for the Municipal Court of Chicago. As his political fortunes began to rise, Cermak was able to avail himself of other business opportunities, including interests in real estate, insurance, and banking.

He began his political career as a Democratic Party precinct captain, and in 1902, he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives. Seven years later, he became alderman of the 12th Ward (serving two terms: one from 1909 through 1912, and another from 1919 through 1922). Cermak was elected President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 1922, and chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party in 1928 In 1928, he was the Democratic nominee for a seat in the United States Senate, but was defeated by Republican Otis F. Glenn, 54.46% to	44.94%.

Mayor of Chicago (1931–1933)
Cermak won election as mayor of Chicago in 1931. His mayoral victory came in the wake of the Great Depression, the deep resentment many Chicagoans had of Prohibition, and the increasing violence resulting from organized crime's control of Chicago—typified by the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

The many ethnic groups, such as Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, Italians, and African Americans, who began to settle in Chicago in the early 1900s were mostly detached from the political system, due in part to a lack of organization, which led to underrepresentation in the City Council. As an immigrant himself, Cermak recognized Chicago's relatively new immigrants as a significant population of disenfranchised voters, which had the potential to be a large power base for Cermak and his local Democratic organization.

Before Cermak, the Democratic party in Cook County was run by Irish Americans. The Irish first became successful in politics since they spoke English, and because, coming from an island on the edge of Europe, they had few ancestral enemies. As the old saying went: "A Lithuanian won’t vote for a Pole, and a Pole won’t vote for a Lithuanian. A German won’t vote for either of them. But all three will vote for a turkey—an Irishman." As Cermak climbed the local political ladder, the resentment of the party leadership grew. When the bosses rejected his bid to become the mayoral candidate, Cermak swore revenge. He formed his political army from the non-Irish elements, and even persuaded the black politician, William L. Dawson, to switch from the Republican to the Democratic Party.

Dawson later became a U.S. Representative (from the 1st District), and soon the most powerful black politician in Illinois. Cermak's political and organizational skills helped create one of the most influential political organizations of his day. With support from Franklin D. Roosevelt on the national level, Cermak gradually wooed members of Chicago's growing black community into the Democratic fold. Walter Wright, the superintendent of parks and aviation for the city of Chicago, aided Cermak in stepping into office.

When Cermak challenged the incumbent, William Hale "Big Bill" Thompson, in the 1931 mayor's race, Thompson, who represented Chicago's existing Irish-dominated power structure, responded with an ethnic slur–filled ditty that ridiculed his teamster past (pushing a pushcart):

 * I won’t take a back seat to that Bohunk, Chairmock, Chermack, or whatever his name is.
 * Tony, Tony, where’s your pushcart at?
 * Can you picture a World’s Fair mayor with a name like that?

Cermak replied, "He doesn’t like my name… it’s true I didn’t come over on the Mayflower, but I came over as soon as I could." It was a sentiment to which ethnic Chicagoans could relate, and Thompson's prejudicial insults largely backfired.

Thompson's reputation as a buffoon, many voters’ disgust with the corruption of his political machine, and his inability or unwillingness to clean up organized crime in Chicago were cited as major factors in Cermak capturing 58% of the vote in the mayoral election on April 6, 1931. Cermak's victory finished Thompson as a political power, and largely ended the Republican Party's influence in Chicago; indeed, all the mayors of Chicago since 1931 have been members of the Democratic Party. For nearly his entire administration, Cermak had to deal with a major tax revolt. From 1931 to 1933, the Association of Real Estate Taxpayers mounted a "tax strike."

At its height, the association, which was headed by John M. Pratt and James E. Bistor, had over 30,000 members. Much to Cermak's dismay, it successfully slowed down the collection of real estate taxes through litigation and the promotion of the refusal to pay. In the meantime, the city found it difficult to pay teachers and maintain services. Cermak had to meet President-elect Roosevelt to "mend fences," and to request money to fund essential city services.

A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked Cermak as the twenty-fifth-best American big-city mayor to have served between the years 1820 and 1993.

Death

On February 15, 1933, while shaking hands with President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt at Bayfront Park in Miami, Florida, Cermak was shot in the lung and mortally wounded by Giuseppe Zangara, who was attempting to assassinate Roosevelt. At the critical moment, Lillian Cross, a woman standing near Zangara, hit Zangara's arm with her purse, and spoiled his aim. In addition to Cermak, Zangara hit four other people: Margaret Kruis, 21, of Newark, NJ, shot through the hand; Russell Caldwell, 22, of Miami, hit squarely in the forehead by a spent bullet, which embedded itself under the skin; Mabel Gill of Miami, shot in the abdomen; and William Sinnott, a New York police detective, who received a glancing blow to the forehead and scalp. All four of those injuries were minor.

Once at the hospital, Cermak reportedly uttered the line that was engraved on his tomb, saying to Roosevelt, "I’m glad it was me, not you." The Chicago Tribune reported the quote without attributing it to a witness, and most scholars doubt that it was ever said.

Zangara told the police that he hated rich and powerful people, but not Roosevelt personally. Later, rumors circulated that Cermak, not Roosevelt, had been the intended target, as his promise to clean up Chicago's rampant lawlessness posed a threat to Al Capone and the Chicago organized crime syndicate. One of the first people to suggest the organized crime theory was reporter Walter Winchell, who happened to be in Miami the evening of the shooting. According to Roosevelt biographer Jean Edward Smith, there is no proof for this theory.

Long-time Chicago newsman Len O’Connor offers a different view of the events surrounding the mayor's assassination. He has written that aldermen Paddy Bauler and Charlie Weber informed him that relations between Cermak and Roosevelt were strained, because Cermak fought Roosevelt's nomination at the Democratic convention in Chicago.

Author Ronald Humble provides yet another perspective as to why Cermak was killed. In his book Frank Nitti: The True Story of Chicago’s Notorious Enforcer, Humble contends that Cermak was as corrupt as Thompson, and that the Chicago Outfit hired Zangara to kill Cermak in retaliation for Cermak's attempt to murder Frank Nitti. Cermak died at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami on March 6, partly due to his wounds. On March 30, however, his personal physician, Dr. Karl A. Meyer, revealed that the primary cause of Cermak's death was ulcerative colitis, commenting, "The mayor would have recovered from the bullet wound had it not been for the complication of colitis. The autopsy disclosed the wound had healed ... the other complications were not directly due to the bullet wound." Doubts were raised at the time and later concerning whether the bullet wound directly contributed to his death. A theory raised decades later contended that the bullet had actually caused damage to his colon which led to perforation which was undiagnosed by his doctors. It alleged that "but for [the] physicians' blunders" Cermak might have survived. This theory was refuted by a later medical analysis of the event.

Zangara was convicted of murder after Cermak's death under the law of transferred intent, and was executed in Florida's electric chair on March 20, 1933.

Cermak was interred in a mausoleum at the Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago. The mayor's death was followed by a struggle for succession both to his party chairmanship, and for the mayor's office.

A plaque honoring Cermak still lies at the site of the assassination in Miami's Bayfront Park. It is inscribed with Cermak's alleged words to Roosevelt after he was shot, "I’m glad it was me instead of you." Following Cermak's death, 22nd Street—a major east–west artery that traversed Chicago's West Side, and the close-in suburbs of Cicero and Berwyn, areas with significant Czech populations—was renamed Cermak Road. In 1943, a Liberty ship, the SS A. J. Cermak was named in Cermak's honor. It was scrapped in 1964.

Descendants
Cermak's son-in-law, Otto Kerner Jr., served as the 33rd Governor of Illinois, and as a federal circuit judge.

His grandson, Frank J. Jirka, Jr., who was with him in Miami when he was assassinated, later became an Underwater Demolition Team officer in the United States Navy. Jirka was awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart for his actions during the Battle of Iwo Jima; the wounds he suffered led to the amputation of both legs below the knee. After World War II, he became a physician, and in 1983, was elected president of the American Medical Association. Cermak's great niece, Kajon Cermak, is a radio broadcaster. His daughter, Lillian, was married to Richey V. Graham, who served in the Illinois General Assembly.

In popular culture

 * A hastily produced movie about Cermak, The Man Who Dared, was released within months of his death.
 * There was a made-for-TV movie, The Gun of Zangara, about Cermak's assassination. It was originally a two-part episode of The Untouchables, where it had the title "The Unhired Assassin." Cermak had a major role in the story as an honest man, and was played by Robert Middleton.
 * Cermak is mentioned in Stephen Sondheim’s play Assassins during the song "How I Saved Roosevelt."
 * Cermak and his rise to the mayoralty has also been mentioned in Jeffrey Archer’s novel Kane and Abel.
 * Part of the episode "Objects in Motion" of the television series Babylon 5 is based on the circumstances of Cermak’s death.
 * Cermak is referenced by Kelsey Grammer’s fictional Chicago mayor, Tom Kane, in several episodes of the Starz TV series Boss.
 * In "Red Team III," the seventh episode in the second season of HBO's The Newsroom, Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) references Anton Cermak.
 * The history-based crime novel True Detective, the first in Max Allan Collins' Nathan Heller series, includes a fictionalized account of the Cermak slaying.
 * In the first episode of the second season of F Is for Family, an adult animated sitcom produced for Netflix, the fictional school of Anton Cermak Tech is mentioned during a broadcast.
 * In The Untouchables TV series (1993–1994), Cermak is assassinated by Zangara—a crazy lone gunman targeting FDR—after Ness prevents the assassin they believe was sent by Capone. After the Untouchables return to Chicago, their further investigation reveals a probable third gunman, whose shot actually is responsible for Cermak's death, and was a Capone hitman. The first half of the next episode partly involves Ness' Untouchables identifying the actual gunman (a Capone hitman named Charlie Ross), who goes into hiding after a raid by the Untouchables. As the Untouchables arrange to bring him in for testimony, he is gunned down, thereby forever silencing the truth about the mob killing the mayor.

General sources

 * Beito, David T. Taxpayers in Revolt: Tax Resistance During the Great Depression. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0807818367.

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Jane Byrne

Jane Margaret Byrne (née Burke; May 24, 1933 –November 14, 2014) was an American politician who served as the 50th mayor of Chicago from April 16, 1979, until April 29, 1983. Prior to her tenure as mayor, Byrne served as Chicago's commissioner of consumer sales from 1969 until 1977, the only female in the mayoral cabinet.

Byrne won the 1979 Chicago mayoral election on April 3, 1979, becoming the first female mayor of the city, and causing an upheaval in beating the city's political machine. She was the first woman to be elected mayor of a major city in the United States, as Chicago was the second largest city in the United States at the time. She lost her bid for reelection in the Democratic primary of the 1983 Chicago mayoral election.

Early life and career
Byrne was born Jane Margaret Burke on May 24, 1933, at John B. Murphy Hospital in the Lake View neighborhood on the north side of Chicago, Illinois, to Katherine Marie Burke (née Nolan), a housewife, and William Patrick Burke, vice president of Inland Steel. Raised on the city's north side, Byrne graduated from Saint Scholastica High School and attended St. Mary of the Woods for her first year of college. Byrne later transferred to Barat College, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in chemistry and biology in 1955. Byrne entered politics to volunteer in John F. Kennedy's campaign for president in 1960. During that campaign she first met then Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley. After Daley met Byrne, he appointed her to several positions, beginning in 1964 with a job in a city anti-poverty program In June 1965, she was promoted and worked with the Chicago Committee of Urban Opportunity.

In 1968, Byrne was appointed head of the City of Chicago's consumer affairs department. She served as a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention (DNC) and chairperson of the DNC resolutions committee in 1973. Byrne was appointed co-chairperson of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee by Daley, over the objection of a majority of Democratic leaders, in 1975. The committee ousted Byrne shortly after Daley's death in late 1976. Shortly thereafter, Byrne accused the newly appointed mayor Michael Bilandic of being unfair to citizens of the city by approving an increase in regulated taxi fares, which Byrne charged was the result of a "backroom deal". Byrne was then dismissed from her post of head of consumer affairs by Bilandic.

1979 election
Months after her firing as head of the consumer affairs department, Byrne challenged Bilandic in the 1979 Democratic mayoral primary, the real contest in the heavily Democratic Chicago. Officially announcing her mayoral campaign in August 1977, Byrne partnered with Chicago journalist and political consultant Don Rose, who served as her campaign manager. At first, political observers believed her to have little chance of winning. A memorandum inside the Bilandic campaign said it should portray her as "a shrill, charging, vindictive person—and nothing makes a woman look worse". However, the Chicago Blizzard of 1979 in January paralyzed the city and caused Bilandic to be seen as an ineffective leader. Jesse Jackson endorsed Byrne. Many Republican voters voted in the Democratic primary to beat Bilandic. Infuriated voters in the North Side and Northwest Side retaliated against Bilandic for the Democratic Party's slating of only South Side candidates for the mayor, clerk, and treasurer (the outgoing city clerk, John C. Marcin, was from the Northwest Side). These four factors combined to give Byrne a 51% to 49% victory over Bilandic in the primary. Positioning herself as a reformer, Byrne then won the main election with 82.1% of the vote, still the largest margin in a Chicago mayoral election.

Leadership and general politics

Byrne made inclusive moves as mayor, such as shepherding the hiring of the city's first African-American and female school superintendent Ruth B. Love, and she was the first mayor to recognize the gay community. Byrne helped to make Chicago more welcoming to the gay community. She ended the police department's practice of raiding gay bars, and declared the city's first official "Gay Pride Parade Day" in 1981. However, during her tenure, Byrne drifted away from many of the progressive tenets she had campaigned on. Byrne began to collaborate with aldermen such as Edward M. Burke and Edward Vrdolyak, whom, during her 1979 campaign, she had denounced as an "evil cabal".

In 1982, she supported the Cook County Democratic Party's replacement of its chairman, County Board President George Dunne, with her city council ally, Alderman Edward Vrdolyak.

Byrne and the Cook County Democratic Party endorsed Senator Ted Kennedy for president in 1980, but incumbent President Jimmy Carter won the Illinois Democratic Primary and even carried Cook County and the city of Chicago. Byrne's endorsement was later considered detrimental because of her controversial tenure, and Kennedy's loss in the city was a key moment in the 1980 Democratic Party presidential primaries because of Chicago's role in delivering his brother John F. Kennedy the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination. When Byrne and Kennedy walked in the annual Saint Patrick's Day parade they were sometimes booed by hecklers.

Simultaneously, Byrne and the Cook County Democratic Party's candidate in the 1980 election for Cook County State's Attorney (chief local prosecutor), 14th Ward Alderman Edward M. Burke, lost in the Democratic primary to Richard M. Daley, and Daley then unseated GOP incumbent Bernard Carey in the general election.

The Chicago Sun Times reported that Byrne's enemies publicly mocked her as "that crazy broad" and "that skinny bitch" and worse.

Appointments and personnel
In her first year in office, significant instances of turnover in prominent city positions led critics to accuse Byrne of running a "revolving door administration".

While Byrne initially made inclusive moves in regards to appointments as mayor, such as shepherding the hiring of the city's first African-American and female school superintendent Ruth B. Love, she later pivoted away from this. Among the later steps that Byrne took that upset many of the progressives and Blacks that had supported her in her 1979 mayoral campaign was replacing Black members of the Chicago Board of Education and Chicago Housing Authority board with White members, some of whom even held stances that critics viewed as racist.

During the 1979 mayoral election, Byrne pledged to fire Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department James E. O'Grady, accusing him of having "politicized" the department. Days after her inauguration as mayor, O'Grady resigned. Later that year, she relieved interim superintendent Joseph DiLeonardi of command. She appointed Samuel Nolan interim superintendent in his place, Nolan was the first African American to serve as head of the Chicago Police Department. In January 1980, Richard J. Brzeczek took office as permanent superintendent, having been appointed by Byrne. On her last day in office, after the resignation of Brzeczek as superintdendent, Byrne appointed James E. O'Grady as interim superintendent. By this time, Byrne had rescinded her past criticisms of O'Grady.

In 1980, Byrne appointed William R. Blair as Chicago fire commissioner.

Arts
During her campaign for mayor, Byrne promised to provide strong support to the performing arts. Chicago Tribune art critic Richard Christiansen hailed Byrne for having made, "the arts and amusements of the city a most significant part of her" mayoral administration.

As mayor, she provided $200,000 to the Lyric Opera of Chicago for the express purposes of providing family-friendly entertainment. She provided a similar amount to the Auditorium Theatre for them to acquire a new lighting board.

As mayor, Byrne funded the construction of the Miró's Chicago sculpture by artist Joan Miró.

Byrne allowed Chicago to be used as a filming location, leading such movies as The Blues Brothers to be shot in Chicago.

Cabrini–Green
On March 26, 1981, Byrne decided to move into the crime-ridden Cabrini–Green Homes housing project on the near-north side of Chicago after 37 shootings resulting in 11 murders occurred during a three-month period from January to March 1981. In her 2004 memoir, Byrne reflected about her decision to move into Cabrini–Green: "How could I put Cabrini on a bigger map? ... Suddenly I knew—I could move in there." Prior to her move to Cabrini, Byrne closed down several liquor stores in the area, citing the stores as hangout for gangs and murderers. Byrne also ordered the Chicago Housing Authority to evict tenants who were suspected of harboring gang members in their apartments, which totaled approximately 800 tenants. Byrne moved into a 4th floor apartment in a Cabrini extension building on North Sedgwick Avenue with her husband on March 31 at around 8:30 p.m. after attending a dinner at the Conrad Hilton hotel. Hours after Byrne moved into the housing project, police raided the building and arrested eleven street gang members who they learned through informants were planning to have a shootout in the mayor's building later that evening. Byrne described her first night there as "lovely" and "very quiet". She stayed at Cabrini-Green for three weeks to bring attention to the housing project's crime and infrastructure problems. Her stay there ended on April 18, 1981, following an Easter celebration at the project which drew protests and demonstrators who claimed Byrne's move to the project was just a publicity stunt.

Finances
One of the crises that Byrne faced in her first year as mayor was a major shortage of funds in both the municipal government and by the Chicago Board of Education (the city's school board). This arose due to questionable past borrowing practices, and necessitated both budget cuts and further borrowing to resolve.

Handgun ordinance
In January 1982, Byrne proposed an ordinance effectively banning new handgun registration, which was considered controversial. The ordinance was created to put a freeze on the number of legally owned handguns in Chicago and to require owners of handguns to reregister them annually. The ordinance was approved by a 6–1 vote in February 1982. The ordinance was struck down by the Supreme Court in the 2010 case McDonald v. City of Chicago.

Hosting of special events
Byrne used special events, such as ChicagoFest, to revitalize Navy Pier and the downtown Chicago Theatre. ChicagoFest had first been held the year previous to her election. One of Byrne's first efforts as mayor had instead been an attempt to cancel future editions of the event. But, after facing complaints from citizens and unions, Byrne allowed the festival to continue as an annual event, and formally renamed it "Mayor Jane M. Byrne's ChicagoFest". Festivals inaugurated during her tenure included Taste of Chicago. Byrne held a number of smaller-scale events in neighborhoods across the city, titling them with the prefix "Mayor Byrne's". As mayor, Byrne was a strong supporter of the planned Chicago 1992 World's Fair. In 1980, Byrne announced that the city would host a Championship Auto Racing Teams "Indy Car" automobile race at Grant Park on the 4th of July weekend of the following year. However, after this faced criticism, Byrne quickly canceled these plans.

Labor
In her first year in office, she faced strikes by labor unions as the city's transit workers, public school teachers and firefighters all went on strike.

Transportation
There had been plans under Daley and Bilandic to demolish the Loop elevated rail and replace it with a subway. Byrne appointed a commission that ultimately recommended that the Loop should be retained, with modernization.

In 1981, Byrne disbanded the Chicago Transit Authority's dedicated security force, transferring its duties instead to the Chicago Police Department.

Other matters
In November 1981, the Chicago City Council approved a new redistricting map for the city's aldermanic wards which was drawn by Byrne's administration. The U.S. Court of Appeals would find, in 1984, that the map was in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.

On November 11, 1981, Dan Goodwin, who had successfully climbed the Sears Tower the previous spring, battled for his life on the side of the John Hancock Center. William Blair, Chicago's fire commissioner, had ordered the Chicago Fire Department to stop Goodwin by directing a full-power fire hose at him and by using fire axes to break window glass in Goodwin's path. Mayor Byrne rushed to the scene and ordered the fire department to stand down. Then, through a smashed out 38th floor window, she told Goodwin, who was hanging from the building's side a floor below, that though she did not agree with his climbing of the John Hancock Center, she certainly opposed the fire department knocking him to the ground below. Byrne then allowed Goodwin to continue to the top.

Byrne initiated the idea for creating a unified lakefront museum campus, which was implemented subsequent to her tenure as Museum Campus, as well as the idea of renovating Navy Pier, also implemented subsequent to her tenure.

Byrne expanded O'Hare International Airport.

Bid for reelection
In August 1982, Byrne decided that she would seek a second term as mayor. At the beginning of her re-election campaign, she was trailing behind Richard M. Daley, then Cook County State's Attorney, by 3% in a poll done by the Chicago Tribune in July 1982. Compared to the 1979 mayoral election in which Byrne received 59.3% of the African-American vote, Byrne had lost half of that vote. Byrne was defeated in the 1983 Democratic primary for mayor by Harold Washington, also an anti-machine politician and African-American congressman; the younger Daley ran a close third. Washington won the Democratic primary with just 36% of the vote; Byrne had 33%. Washington went on to win the general election.

Assessments
A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago saw Byrne ranked as the tenth-worst American big-city mayor to serve between the years 1820 and 1993. When the survey was limited only to mayors that were in office post-1960, the results saw Byrne ranked the fourth-worst.

Later career
Byrne ran against Washington again in the 1987 Democratic primary, but was narrowly defeated. She endorsed Washington for the general election, in which he defeated two Democrats running under other parties' banners (Edward Vrdolyak and Thomas Hynes) and a Republican.

Early into her 1987 campaign, in October 1985, Byrne called for a feasibility study of the potential to construct a third major airport for the city on the site of the South Works. Soon after, Governor James R. Thompson endorsed the idea of immediately planning for a third major airport to serve Chicago. This would be one of the impetuses of decades-long discussions and studies for a third major airport for the city, including the proposed Chicago south suburban airport.

Byrne next ran in the 1988 Democratic primary for Cook County Circuit Court Clerk. She faced the Democratic Party's slated candidate, Aurelia Pucinski (who was endorsed by Mayor Washington and is the daughter of then-Alderman Roman Pucinski). Pucinski defeated Byrne in the primary and Vrdolyak, by then a Republican, in the general election. Byrne's fourth run for mayor became a rematch with Daley in the 1991 primary. She received only 5.9 percent of the vote, a distant third behind Daley and Alderman Danny K. Davis.

Personal life
In 1956, she married William P. Byrne, a Marine. The couple had a daughter, Katherine C. Byrne (born 1957). On May 31, 1959, while flying from Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point to Naval Air Station Glenview in a Skyraider, Lt. Byrne attempted to land in a dense fog. After being waved off for landing twice, his plane's wing struck the porch of a nearby house and the plane crashed into Sunset Memorial Park, killing him. Byrne married journalist Jay McMullen in 1978, and they remained married until his death from lung cancer in 1992. Byrne lived in the same apartment building from the 1970s until her death in 2014. She has one grandchild, Willie. Her daughter, Kathy, is a lawyer with a Chicago firm. Mayor Byrne's book, My Chicago (1992) covers her life through her political career. In 2011, Byrne attended the inauguration of the city's new mayor, Rahm Emanuel.

Death and legacy
Byrne had entered hospice care and died on November 14, 2014, in Chicago, aged 81, from complications of a stroke she suffered in January 2013. She was survived by her daughter Katherine and her grandson Willie. Her funeral Mass was held at St. Vincent de Paul Church on Monday, November 17, 2014. She was buried at Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Evanston, Illinois.

In a dedication ceremony held on August 29, 2014, Governor Pat Quinn renamed the Circle Interchange in Chicago the Jane Byrne Interchange. In July 2014, the Chicago City Council voted to rename the plaza surrounding the historic Chicago Water Tower on North Michigan Avenue the Jane M. Byrne Plaza in her honor.

She was also known for coining the term "fruitworthy".

Mayoral

 * 1979

! colspan="5" rowspan="1" align="center" |1979 Chicago mayoral Democratic primary ! colspan="2" rowspan="1" align="left" | Candidate ! width="75" | Votes ! width="30" | %
 * style="color:inherit;background:#3333FF" |
 * align="left" | Jane Byrne
 * 412,909
 * 51.04
 * style="color:inherit;background:#3333FF" |
 * align="left" | Michael A. Bilandic (incumbent)
 * 396,194
 * 48.96
 * colspan="2" align="left" | Turnout
 * 809,043 ||
 * }
 * colspan="2" align="left" | Turnout
 * 809,043 ||
 * }
 * }

 * 1983

! colspan="5" rowspan="1" align="center" |1983 Chicago mayoral Democratic primary ! colspan="2" rowspan="1" align="left" | Candidate ! width="75" | Votes ! width="30" | %
 * style="color:inherit;background:#3333FF" |
 * align="left" | Harold Washington
 * 424,324
 * 36.28
 * style="color:inherit;background:#3333FF" |
 * align="left" | Jane Byrne (incumbent)
 * 393,500
 * 33.64
 * style="color:inherit;background:#3333FF" |
 * align="left" | Richard M. Daley
 * 346,835
 * 29.65
 * style="color:inherit;background:#3333FF" |
 * align="left" | Frank R. Ranallo
 * 2,367
 * 0.2
 * style="color:inherit;background:#3333FF" |
 * align="left" | William Markowski
 * 1,412
 * 0.12
 * style="color:inherit;background:#3333FF" |
 * align="left" | Sheila Jones
 * 1,285
 * 0.11
 * colspan="2" align="left" | Turnout
 * 1,169,723 ||
 * }
 * align="left" | Sheila Jones
 * 1,285
 * 0.11
 * colspan="2" align="left" | Turnout
 * 1,169,723 ||
 * }
 * }
 * }

 * 1987

! colspan="5" rowspan="1" align="center" |1987 Chicago mayoral Democratic primary ! colspan="2" rowspan="1" align="left" | Candidate ! width="75" | Votes ! width="30" | %
 * style="color:inherit;background:#3333FF" |
 * align="left" | Harold Washington (incumbent)
 * 586,841
 * 53.5
 * style="color:inherit;background:#3333FF" |
 * align="left" | Jane Byrne
 * 507,603
 * 46.27
 * style="color:inherit;background:#3333FF" |
 * align="left" | Sheila Jones
 * 2,549
 * 0.23
 * colspan="2" align="left" | Turnout
 * 1,096,993 ||
 * }
 * colspan="2" align="left" | Turnout
 * 1,096,993 ||
 * }
 * }
 * }

 * 1991

title: Jane Byrne


text:
Harold Washington

Harold Lee Washington (April 15, 1922 – November 25, 1987) was an American lawyer and politician who was the 51st Mayor of Chicago. Washington became the first African American to be elected as the city's mayor in April 1983. He served as mayor from April 29, 1983, until his death on November 25, 1987. Born in Chicago and raised in the Bronzeville neighborhood, Washington became involved in local 3rd Ward politics under Chicago Alderman and future Congressman Ralph Metcalfe after graduating from Roosevelt University and Northwestern University School of Law. Washington was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981 to 1983, representing Illinois's first district. Washington had previously served in the Illinois State Senate and the Illinois House of Representatives from 1965 until 1976.

Ancestry
The earliest known ancestor of Harold Lee Washington, Isam/Isham Washington, was born a slave in 1832 in North Carolina. In 1864, he enlisted in the 8th United States Colored Heavy Artillery, Company L, in Paducah, Kentucky. Following his discharge in 1866, he began farming with his wife, Rebecca Neal, in Ballard County, Kentucky. Among their six children was Isam/Isom McDaniel (Mack) Washington, who was born in 1875. In 1896, Mack Washington married Arbella Weeks of Massac County, who had been born in Mississippi in 1878. In 1897, their first son, Roy L. Washington, father of Mayor Washington, was born in Ballard County, Kentucky. In 1903, shortly after both families moved to Massac County, Illinois, the elder Washington died. After farming for a time, Mack Washington became a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church, serving numerous churches in Illinois until the death of his wife in 1952. Reverend I.M.D. Washington died in 1953.

Early life and education
Harold Lee Washington was born on April 15, 1922, at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, to Roy and Bertha Washington. While still in high school in Lawrenceville, Illinois, Roy met Bertha from nearby Carrier Mills and the two married in 1916 in Harrisburg, Illinois. Their first son, Roy Jr., was born in Carrier Mills before the family moved to Chicago, where Roy enrolled in Kent College of Law. A lawyer, he became one of the first black precinct captains in the city and a Methodist minister. In 1918, daughter Geneva was born, and second son Edward was born in 1920. Bertha left the family, possibly to seek her fortune as a singer, and the couple divorced in 1928. Bertha remarried and had seven more children, including Ramon Price, who was an artist and eventually became chief curator of The DuSable Museum of African American History. Harold Washington grew up in Bronzeville, a Chicago neighborhood that was the center of black culture for the entire Midwest in the early and middle 20th century. Edward and Harold stayed with their father, while Roy Jr. and Geneva were cared for by their grandparents. After attending St. Benedict the Moor Boarding School in Milwaukee from 1928 to 1932, Washington attended DuSable High School, then a newly established, racially segregated public high school, and was a member of its first graduating class. In a 1939 citywide track meet, Washington placed first in the 110-meter high hurdles event, and second in the 220-meter low hurdles event. Between his junior and senior years of high school, Washington dropped out, claiming that he no longer felt challenged by the coursework. He worked at a meatpacking plant for a time before his father helped him get a job at the U.S. Treasury branch in the city. There he met Nancy Dorothy Finch, whom he married soon after; Washington was 19 years old and Dorothy was 17 years old. Seven months later, the U.S. was drawn into World War II with the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on Sunday, December 7, 1941.

Military service
In 1942, Washington was drafted into the United States Army for the war effort and, after basic training, sent overseas as part of a racially segregated unit of the U.S. Army Air Corps unit of Engineers. After the American invasion of the Philippines in 1944, on Leyte Island and later the main Luzon island, Washington was part of a unit building runways for bombers, protective fighter aircraft, refueling planes, and returning damaged aircraft. Eventually, Washington rose to the rank of First Sergeant in the Army Air Forces.

Roosevelt College
In the summer of 1946, Washington, aged 24 and a war veteran, enrolled at Roosevelt College (now Roosevelt University). Washington joined other groups of students not permitted to enroll in other local colleges. Local estimates place the student population of Roosevelt College at about 1/8 black and 1/2 Jewish. A full 75% of the students had enrolled because of the "nondiscriminatory progressive principles." He chaired a fund-raising drive by students, and then was named to a committee that supported citywide efforts to outlaw "restrictive covenants" in housing, the legal means by which ethnic minorities (especially blacks and, to a lesser extent, Jews) were prohibited from purchasing real estate in predominantly white neighborhoods of the city.

In 1946, after the college had moved to the Auditorium Building, Washington was elected the third president of Roosevelt's student council. Under his leadership, the student council successfully petitioned the college to have student representation on Roosevelt's faculty committees. At the first regional meeting of the newly founded National Student Association in the spring of 1948, Washington and nine other delegates proposed student representation on college faculties, and a "Bill of Rights" for students; both measures were roundly defeated. The next year, Washington went to the state capital at Springfield to protest Illinois legislators' coming probe of "subversives.". The probe of investigation would outlaw the Communist Party and require "loyalty oaths" for teachers. He led students' opposition to the bills, although they would pass later in 1949.

During his Roosevelt College years, Washington came to be known for his stability. His friends said that he had a "remarkable ability to keep cool", reason carefully and walk a middle line. Washington intentionally avoided extremist activities, including street actions and sit-ins against racially segregated restaurants and businesses. Overall, Washington and other radical activists ended up sharing a mutual respect for each other, acknowledging both Washington's pragmatism and the activists' idealism. With the opportunities found only at Roosevelt College in the late 1940s, Washington's time at the Roosevelt College proved to be pivotal. Washington graduated in August 1949, with a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree. In addition to his activities at Roosevelt, he was a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity.

Northwestern University School of Law
Washington then applied for and was admitted to study law at the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago. During this time, Washington was divorced from Dorothy Finch. By some accounts, Harold and Dorothy had simply grown apart after Washington was sent overseas during the war during the first year of his marriage. Others saw both as young and headstrong, the relationship doomed from the beginning. Another friend of Washington's deemed Harold "not the marrying kind." He would not marry again, but continued to have relationships with other women; his longtime secretary is said to have said, "If every woman Harold slept with stood at one end of City Hall, the building would sink five inches into LaSalle Street!".

At Northwestern Law School, Washington was the only black student in his class (there were six women in the class, one of them being Dawn Clark Netsch). As at Roosevelt, he entered school politics. In 1951, his last year, he was elected treasurer of the Junior Bar Association (JBA). The election was largely symbolic, however, and Washington's attempts to give the JBA more authority at Northwestern were largely unsuccessful. On campus, Washington joined the Nu Beta Epsilon fraternity, largely because he and the other people who were members of ethnic minority groups which constituted the fraternity were blatantly excluded from the other fraternities on campus. Overall, Washington stayed away from the activism that defined his years at Roosevelt. During the evenings and weekends, he worked to supplement his GI Bill income. He received his JD in 1952.

Early political career
From 1951 until he was first slated for election in 1965, Washington worked in the offices of the 3rd Ward Alderman, former Olympic athlete Ralph Metcalfe. Richard J. Daley was elected party chairman in 1952. Daley replaced C.C. Wimbush, an ally of William Dawson, on the party committee with Metcalfe. Under Metcalfe, the 3rd Ward was a critical factor in Mayor Daley's 1955 mayoral election victory and ranked first in the city in the size of its Democratic plurality in 1961. While working under Metcalfe, Washington began to organize the 3rd Ward's Young Democrats (YD) organization. At YD conventions, the 3rd Ward would push for numerous resolutions in the interest of blacks. Eventually, other black YD organizations would come to the 3rd Ward headquarters for advice on how to run their own organizations. Like he had at Roosevelt College, Washington avoided radicalism and preferred to work through the party to engender change.

While working with the Young Democrats, Washington met Mary Ella Smith. They dated for the next 20 years, and in 1983 Washington proposed to Smith. In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Smith said that she never pressed Washington for marriage because she knew Washington's first love was politics, saying, "He was a political animal. He thrived on it, and I knew any thoughts of marriage would have to wait. I wasn't concerned about that. I just knew the day would come."

In 1959 Al Janney, Gus Savage, Lemuel Bentley, Bennett Johnson, Luster Jackson and others founded the Chicago League of Negro Voters, one of the first African-American political organizations in the city. In its first election, Bentley drew 60,000 votes for city clerk. The endorsement of the League was deciding factor in the re-election of Leon DesPres who was an independent voice in the City Council. Washington was a close friend of the founders of the League and worked with them from time to time. The League was key in electing Anna Langford, William Cousins and A. A. "Sammy" Rayner who were not part of the Daley machine. In 1963 the group moved to racially integrate and formed Protest at the Polls at a citywide conference which Washington independent candidates had gained traction within the black community, winning several aldermanic seats. In 1983, Protest at the Polls was instrumental in Washington's run for mayor. By then, the YDs were losing to independent candidates.

Illinois House (1965–1976)
After the state legislature failed to reapportion districts every ten years as required by the census, the 1964 Illinois House of Representatives election was held at-large to elect all 177 members of the Illinois House of Representatives. With the Republicans and Democrats each only running 118 candidates, independent voting groups attempted to slate candidates. The League of Negro Voters created a "Third Slate" of 59 candidates, announcing the creation of the slate on June 27, 1964. Shortly afterwards, Daley created a slate which included Adlai Stevenson III and Washington. The Third Slate was then thrown out by the Illinois Election Board because of "insufficient signatures" on the nominating petitions. In the election, Washington was elected as part of the winning Democratic slate of candidates. Washington's years in the Illinois House were marked by tension with Democratic Party leadership. In 1967, he was ranked by the Independent Voters of Illinois (IVI) as the fourth-most independent legislator in the Illinois House and named Best Legislator of the Year. His defiance of the "idiot card", a sheet of paper that directed legislators' votes on every issue, attracted the attention of party leaders, who moved to remove Washington from his legislative position. Daley often told Metcalfe to dump Washington as a candidate, but Metcalfe did not want to risk losing the 3rd Ward's Young Democrats, who were mostly aligned with Washington.

Washington backed Renault Robinson, a black police officer and one of the founders of the Afro-American Patrolmen's League (AAPL). The aim of the AAPL was to fight against the racism which was directed against minority officers by the rest of the predominantly white department. Soon after the creation of the group, Robinson was written up for minor infractions, suspended, reinstated, and then placed on the graveyard shift on a single block behind central police headquarters. Robinson approached Washington and asked him to fashion a bill which would authorize the creation of a civilian review board, consisting of both patrolmen and officers, to monitor police brutality. Both black independent and white liberal legislators refused to back the bill, afraid to challenge Daley's grip on the police force.

After Washington announced that he would support the AAPL, Metcalfe refused to protect him from Daley. Washington believed that he had the support of Ralph Tyler Smith, Speaker of the House. Instead, Smith criticized Washington and then allayed Daley's anger. In exchange for the party's backing, Washington would serve on the Chicago Crime Commission, the group Daley tasked with investigating the AAPL's charges. The commission promptly found the AAPL's charges "unwarranted". An angry and humiliated Washington admitted that on the commission, he felt like Daley's "showcase ni***r". In 1969, Daley removed Washington's name from the slate; only by the intervention of Cecil Partee, a party loyalist, was Washington reinstated. The Democratic Party supported Jim Taylor, a former professional boxer, Streets and Sanitation worker, over Washington. With Partee and his own ward's support, Washington defeated Taylor. His years in the House of Representatives were focused on becoming an advocate for black rights. He continued work on the Fair Housing Act, and worked to strengthen the state's Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC). In addition, he worked on a state Civil Rights Act, which would strengthen employment and housing provisions in the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. In his first session, all of his bills were sent to committee or tabled. Like his time in Roosevelt College, Washington relied on parliamentary tactics (e.g., writing amendments guaranteed to fail in a vote) to enable him to bargain for more concessions.

Washington was accused of failing to file a tax return, even though the tax was paid. He was found guilty and sentenced to 36 days in jail. (1971)

Washington also passed bills in honor of civil rights figures. He passed a resolution in honor of Metcalfe, his mentor. He also passed a resolution in honor of James J. Reeb, a Unitarian minister who was beaten to death by a segregationist mob in Selma, Alabama. After the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., he introduced a series of bills which were aimed at making King's birthday a state holiday. The first was tabled and later vetoed. The third bill he introduced, which was passed and signed by Gov. Richard Ogilvie, made Dr. King's birthday a commemorative day observed by Illinois public schools. It was not until 1973 that Washington was able, with Partee's help in the Senate, to have the bill enacted and signed by the governor.

1975 speakership campaign
Washington ran a largely symbolic campaign for Speaker. He only received votes from himself and from Lewis A. H. Caldwell. However, with a divided Democratic caucus, this was enough to help deny Daley-backed Clyde Choate the nomination, helping to throw it to William A. Redmond after 92 rounds of voting.

Redmond had Washington appointed as chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Legal issues
In addition to Daley's strong-arm tactics, Washington's time in the Illinois House was also marred by problems with tax returns and allegations of not performing services owed to his clients. In her biography, Levinsohn questions whether the timing of Washington's legal troubles was politically motivated. In November 1966, Washington was re-elected to the House over Daley's strong objections; the first complaint was filed in 1964; the second was filed by January 1967. A letter asking Washington to explain the matter was sent on January 5, 1967. After failing to respond to numerous summons and subpoenas, the commission recommend a five-year suspension on March 18, 1968. A formal response to the charges did not occur until July 10, 1969. In his reply, Washington said that "sometimes personal problems are enlarged out of proportion to the entire life picture at the time and the more important things are abandoned." In 1970, the Board of Managers of the Chicago Bar Association ruled that Washington's license be suspended for only one year, not the five recommended; the total amount in question between all six clients was $205.

In 1971, Washington was charged with failure to file tax returns for four years, although the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) claimed to have evidence for nineteen years. Judge Sam Perry noted that he was "disturbed that this case ever made it to my courtroom"—while Washington had paid his taxes, he ended up owing the government a total of $508 as a result of not filing his returns. Typically, the IRS handled such cases in civil court, or within its bureaucracy. Washington pleaded "no contest" and was sentenced to forty days in Cook County Jail, a $1,000 fine, and three years of probation.

Campaign for a seat on the Illinois Senate
In 1975, Partee, now President of the Senate and eligible for his pension, decided to retire from the Senate. Although Daley and Taylor declined at first, at Partee's insistence, Washington was ultimately slated for the seat and he received the party's support. Daley had been displeased with Washington for having run a symbolic challenge in 1975 to Daley-backed Clyde Choate for Illinois Speaker of the House (Washington had only received two votes). Additionally, he had ultimately helped push the vote towards Redmond as a compromise candidate. The United Automobile Workers union, whose backing Washington obtained, were critical in persuading Daley to relent to back his candidacy.

Washington defeated Anna Langford by nearly 2,000 votes in the Democratic primary. He went on to win the general election.

Human Rights Act of 1980
In the Illinois Senate, Washington's main focus worked to pass 1980's Illinois Human Rights Act. Legislators rewrote all of the human rights laws in the state, restricting discrimination based on "race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, physical or mental disability, military status, sexual orientation, or unfavorable discharge from military service in connection with employment, real estate transactions, access to financial credit, and the availability of public accommodations." The bill's origins began in 1970 with the rewriting of the Illinois Constitution. The new constitution required all governmental agencies and departments to be reorganized for efficiency. Republican governor James R. Thompson reorganized low-profile departments before his re-election in 1978. In 1979, during the early stages of his second term and immediately in the aftermath of the largest vote for a gubernatorial candidate in the state's history, Thompson called for human rights reorganization. The bill would consolidate and remove some agencies, eliminating a number of political jobs. Some Democratic legislators would oppose any measure backed by Washington, Thompson and Republican legislators.

For many years, human rights had been a campaign issue brought up and backed by Democrats. Thompson's staffers brought the bill to Washington and other black legislators before it was presented to the legislature. Washington made adjustments in anticipation of some legislators' concerns regarding the bill, before speaking for it in April 1979. On May 24, 1979, the bill passed the Senate by a vote of 59 to 1, with two voting present and six absent. The victory in the Senate was attributed by a Thompson staffer to Washington's "calm noncombative presentation". However, the bill stalled in the House. State Representative Susan Catania insisted on attaching an amendment to allow women guarantees in the use of credit cards. This effort was assisted by Carol Moseley Braun, a representative from Hyde Park who would later go on to serve as a U.S. Senator. State Representatives Jim Taylor and Larry Bullock introduced over one hundred amendments, including the text of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, to try to stall the bill. With Catania's amendment, the bill passed the House, but the Senate refused to accept the amendment. On June 30, 1979, the legislature adjourned.

U.S. House (1981–1983)
In 1980, Washington was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in Illinois's 1st congressional district. He defeated incumbent Representative Bennett Stewart in the Democratic primary. Anticipating that the Democratic Party would challenge him in his bid for re-nomination in 1982, Washington spent much of his first term campaigning for re-election, often travelling back to Chicago to campaign. Washington missed many House votes, an issue that would come up in his campaign for mayor in 1983. Washington's major congressional accomplishment involved legislation to extend the Voting Rights Act, legislation that opponents had argued was only necessary in an emergency. Others, including Congressman Henry Hyde, had submitted amendments designed to seriously weaken the power of the Voting Rights Act.

Although he had been called "crazy" for railing in the House of Representatives against deep cuts to social programs, Associated Press political reporter Mike Robinson noted that Washington worked "quietly and thoughtfully" as the time came to pass the act. During hearings in the South regarding the Voting Rights Act, Washington asked questions that shed light on tactics used to prevent African Americans from voting (among them, closing registration early, literacy tests, and gerrymandering). After the amendments were submitted on the floor, Washington spoke from prepared speeches that avoided rhetoric and addressed the issues. As a result, the amendments were defeated, and Congress passed the Voting Rights Act Extension. By the time Washington faced re-election in 1982, he had cemented his popularity in the 1st Congressional District. Jane Byrne could not find one serious candidate to run against Washington for his re-election campaign. He had collected 250,000 signatures to get on the ballot, although only 610 signatures (0.5% of the voters in the previous election) were required. With his re-election to Congress locked up, Washington turned his attention to the next Chicago mayoral election.

1983 Chicago mayoral election
In the February 22, 1983, Democratic mayoral primary, more than 100,000 new voters registered to vote led by a coalition that included the Latino reformed gang Young Lords led by Jose Cha Cha Jimenez. On the North and Northwest Sides, the incumbent mayor Jane Byrne led and future mayor Richard M. Daley, son of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, finished a close second. Harold Washington had massive majorities on the South and West Sides. Southwest Side voters overwhelmingly supported Daley. Washington won with 37% of the vote, versus 33% for Byrne and 30% for Daley. Although winning the Democratic primary was normally considered tantamount to election in heavily Democratic Chicago, after his primary victory Washington found that his Republican opponent, former state legislator Bernard Epton (earlier considered a nominal stand-in), was supported by many high-ranking Democrats and their ward organizations, including the chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party, Alderman Edward Vrdolyak.

Epton's campaign referred to, among other things, Washington's conviction for failure to file income tax returns (he had paid the taxes, but had not filed a return). Washington, on the other hand, stressed reforming the Chicago patronage system and the need for a jobs program in a tight economy. In the April 12, 1983, mayoral general election, Washington defeated Epton by 3.7%, 51.7% to 48.0%, to become mayor of Chicago. Washington was sworn in as mayor on April 29, 1983, and resigned his Congressional seat the following day.

First term and Council Wars
During his tenure as mayor, Washington lived at the Hampton House apartments in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. He created the city's first environmental-affairs department under the management of longtime Great Lakes environmentalist Lee Botts. Washington's first term in office was characterized by conflict with the city council dubbed "Council Wars", referring to the then-recent Star Wars films and caused Chicago to be nicknamed "Beirut on the Lake". A 29-alderman City Council majority refused to enact Washington's legislation and prevented him from appointing nominees to boards and commissions. First-term challenges included city population loss and a massive decrease in ridership on the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). Assertions that the overall crime rate increased were incorrect.

The 29, also known as the "Vrdolyak 29", were led by Vrdolyak (who was an Alderman in addition to Cook County Democratic Party chairman) and Finance Chair, Alderman Edward Burke. Parks superintendent Edmund Kelly also opposed the mayor. The three were known as "the Eddies" and were supported by the younger Daley (now State's Attorney), U.S. Congressmen Dan Rostenkowski and William Lipinski, and much of the Democratic Party. During his first city council meeting, Washington and the 21 supportive aldermen walked out of the meeting after a quorum had been established. Vrdolyak and the other 28 then chose committee chairmen and assigned aldermen to the various committees. Later lawsuits submitted by Washington and others were dismissed by Supreme Court Justice James C. Murray because it was determined that the appointments were legally made. Washington ruled by veto. The 29 lacked the 30th vote they needed to override Washington's veto; female and African American aldermen supported Washington despite pressure from the Eddies. Meanwhile, in the courts, Washington kept the pressure on to reverse the redistricting of city council wards that the city council had created during the Byrne years. During special elections in 1986, victorious Washington-backed candidates in the first round ensured at least 24 supporters in the city council. Six weeks later, when Marlene Carter and Luís Gutiérrez won run-off elections, Washington had the 25 aldermen he needed. His vote as president of the City Council enabled him to break 25–25 tie-votes and enact his programs.

1987 election
Washington defeated former mayor Jane Byrne in the February 24, 1987, Democratic mayoral primary by 7.2%, 53.5% to 46.3%, and in the April 7, 1987, mayoral general election defeated Vrdolyak (Illinois Solidarity Party) by 11.8%, 53.8% to 42.8%, with Northwestern University business professor Donald Haider (Republican) getting 4.3%, to win reelection to a second term as mayor. Cook County Assessor Thomas Hynes (Chicago First Party), a Daley ally, dropped out of the race 36 hours before the mayoral general election. During Washington's short second term, the Eddies lost much of their power: Vrdolyak became a Republican, Kelly was removed from his powerful parks post, and Burke lost his Finance Committee chairmanship.

Political Education Project (PEP)
From March 1984 to 1987, the Political Education Project (PEP) served as Washington's political arm, organizing both Washington's campaigns and the campaigns of his political allies. Harold Washington established the Political Education Project in 1984. This organization supported Washington's interests in electoral politics beyond the Office of the Mayor. PEP helped organize political candidates for statewide elections in 1984 and managed Washington's participation in the 1984 Democratic National Convention as a "favorite son" presidential candidate. PEP used its political connections to support candidates such as Luis Gutiérrez and Jesús "Chuy" García through field operations, voter registration and Election Day poll monitoring. Once elected, these aldermen helped break the stalemate between Washington and his opponents in the city council. Due to PEP's efforts, Washington's City Council legislation gained ground and his popularity grew as the 1987 mayoral election approached. In preparation for the 1987 mayoral election, PEP formed the Committee to Re-Elect Mayor Washington. This organization carried out fundraising for the campaign, conducted campaign events, and coordinated volunteers. PEP staff members, such as Joseph Gardner and Helen Shiller, went on to play leading roles in Chicago politics.

The organization disbanded upon Harold Washington's death. Harold Washington's Political Education Project Records is an archival collection detailing the organization's work. It is located in the Chicago Public Library Special Collections, Harold Washington Library Center, Chicago, Illinois.

DuSable Park
Washington, during his mayorship, announced a plan to redevelop a commercial site into a DuSable Park, named in honor of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, the honorary founder of the city. The project has yet to be completed, has experienced a number of bureaucratic reconceptions and roadblocks, and is currently spearheaded by the DuSable Heritage Association.

Approval ratings
Despite tumult between Washington and the City Council, Washington enjoyed positive approval among the city's residents.

An April 1987 Chicago Tribune poll of voters indicated that there was a significant age and gender gap in Washington's approval, with Washington being more popularly approved of by voters under the age of 55 and by male voters.

Historical assessments
A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked Washington as the nineteenth-best American big-city mayor to have served between the years 1820 and 1993.

Death and funeral

On November 25, 1987, at 11:00 am, Chicago Fire Department paramedics were called to City Hall. Washington's press secretary, Alton Miller, had been discussing school board issues with the mayor when Washington suddenly slumped over on his desk, falling unconscious. After failing to revive Washington in his office, paramedics rushed him to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Further attempts to revive him failed, and Washington was pronounced dead at 1:36 p.m.

At Daley Plaza, Patrick Keen, project director for the Westside Habitat for Humanity, announced Washington's official time of death to a separate gathering of Chicagoans. Initial reactions to the pronouncement of his death were of shock and sadness, as many black people believed that Washington was the only top Chicago official who would address their concerns. Following his death, President Ronald Reagan issued a statement calling Washington a "dedicated and outspoken leader who guided one of our nation's largest cities through the 1980's".

Thousands of Chicagoans attended his wake in the lobby of City Hall between November 27 and 29, 1987. On November 30, 1987, Reverend B. Herbert Martin officiated Washington's funeral service in Christ Universal Temple at 119th Street and Ashland Avenue in Chicago. After the service, Washington was buried in Oak Woods Cemetery on the South Side of Chicago.

Rumors
Immediately after Washington's death, rumors about how Washington died began to surface. On January 6, 1988, Dr. Antonio Senat, Washington's personal physician, denied "unfounded speculations" that Washington had cocaine in his system at the time of his death, or that foul play was involved. Cook County Medical Examiner Robert J. Stein performed an autopsy on Washington and concluded that Washington had died of a heart attack. Washington had weighed 284 lb, and suffered from hypertension, high cholesterol levels, and an enlarged heart. On June 20, 1988, Alton Miller again indicated that drug reports on Washington had come back negative, and that Washington had not been poisoned prior to his death. Dr. Stein stated that the only drug in Washington's system had been lidocaine, which is used to stabilize the heart after a heart attack takes place. The drug was given to Washington either by paramedics or by doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Bernard Epton, Washington's opponent in the 1983 general election, died 18 days later, on December 13, 1987.

Legacy
At a party held shortly after his re-election on April 7, 1987, Washington said to a group of supporters, "In the old days, when you told people in other countries that you were from Chicago, they would say, 'Boom-boom! Rat-a-tat-tat!' Nowadays, they say [crowd joins with him], 'How's Harold?'!"

In later years, various city facilities and institutions were named or renamed after the late mayor to commemorate his legacy. The new building housing the main branch of the Chicago Public Library, located at 400 South State Street, was named the Harold Washington Library Center. The Chicago Public Library Special Collections, located on the building's 9th floor, house the Harold Washington Archives and Collections. These archives hold numerous collections related to Washington's life and political career.

Five months after Washington's sudden death in office, a ceremony was held on April 19, 1988, changing the name of Loop College, one of the City Colleges of Chicago, to Harold Washington College. Harold Washington Elementary School in Chicago's Chatham neighborhood is also named after the former mayor. In August 2004, the 40000 sqft Harold Washington Cultural Center opened to the public in the Bronzeville neighborhood. Across from the Hampton House apartments where Washington lived, a city park was renamed Harold Washington Park, which was known for "Harold's Parakeets", a colony of feral monk parakeets that inhabited Ash Trees in the park. A building on the campus of Chicago State University is named Harold Washington Hall.

Six months after Washington's death, School of the Art Institute of Chicago student David Nelson painted Mirth & Girth, a full-length portrait depicting Washington wearing women's lingerie. The work was unveiled on May 11, 1988, opening day of SAIC's annual student exhibition. Within hours, City aldermen and members of the Chicago Police Department seized the painting. It was later returned, but with a five-inch (13 cm) gash in the canvas. Nelson, assisted by the ACLU, filed a federal lawsuit against the city, claiming that the painting's confiscation and subsequent damaging violated his First Amendment rights. The complainants eventually split a US$95,000 (1994, US$138,000 in 2008) settlement from the city.

title: Harold Washington