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The Mayor Who Cleaned Up Chicago: A Political Biography of William E. Dever
This is the story of Chicago mayor William E. Dever and the emergence of the Chicago Democratic Machine during the Prohibition years. Although his place in Chicago history has been obscured by more recent, powerful politicians, Dever was known throughout the country in his own time as "the mayor who cleaned up Chicago." Many admirers even spoke of this reformer as the next president of the United States.
Dever's rise in the political arena in 1923 was the climax of the movement to build a consolidated, comprehensive political organization from the city's diverse ethnic factions and the remnants of the old Progressive reform bloc. This unlikely coalition adopted as its goals a government free from corruption and chose Dever to represent its interests. The political structure that later resulted from this movement became known as the machine.
His accomplishments during his one term as mayor are many. He built great public works, took the public schools out of politics, cut waste, and revitalized city government, all without a trace of scandal. He also gained nationwide fame for strictly enforcing Prohibition laws - even while he himself opposed them - and running the gangsters out of town.
Ironically, Dever's firm adherence to the law in his successful fight against corruption in Chicago also led to his downfall. Even though his integrity continued to appeal to a wide range of groups, his unpopular stand cost him the reelection. After his defeat, Dever was for the most part forgotten, but the machine he helped to form continued to fain power and influence.
Written for the general reader as well as for the scholar, "The Mayor Who Cleaned Up Chicago" offers a vivid portrayal of a notable man and politician and at the same time details the development and early years of Machine politics during Prohibition-era Chicago.
Dever's rise in the political arena in 1923 was the climax of the movement to build a consolidated, comprehensive political organization from the city's diverse ethnic factions and the remnants of the old Progressive reform bloc. This unlikely coalition adopted as its goals a government free from corruption and chose Dever to represent its interests. The political structure that later resulted from this movement became known as the machine.
His accomplishments during his one term as mayor are many. He built great public works, took the public schools out of politics, cut waste, and revitalized city government, all without a trace of scandal. He also gained nationwide fame for strictly enforcing Prohibition laws - even while he himself opposed them - and running the gangsters out of town.
Ironically, Dever's firm adherence to the law in his successful fight against corruption in Chicago also led to his downfall. Even though his integrity continued to appeal to a wide range of groups, his unpopular stand cost him the reelection. After his defeat, Dever was for the most part forgotten, but the machine he helped to form continued to fain power and influence.
Written for the general reader as well as for the scholar, "The Mayor Who Cleaned Up Chicago" offers a vivid portrayal of a notable man and politician and at the same time details the development and early years of Machine politics during Prohibition-era Chicago.
255 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1989
4 people want to read
About the author
John R. Schmidt
11 books5 followersJohn R. Schmidt is the author of The Unraveling. He teaches at the Elliott School for International Affairs at George Washington University. He served in the State Department during a thirty-year service career, including as Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad in the years leading up to 9/11.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/johnrs...
http://us.macmillan.com/author/johnrs...
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November 29, 2016
If you think about it, there are only six or seven Chicago mayors who left real footprints over the last 125 years. There are the Carter Harrisons (two counting as one) who, as blue bloods governing the wild young city, got it all started. There’s the buffoonish Big Bill Thompson, Chicago’s Trump. There’s Cermak who started the machine and overshadowed the next couple decades of bosses even after his assassination. There are the two Daleys, and there’s Harold Washington. The rest, as they say, are commentary.
William Dever is commentary. John R. Schmidt admits as much throughout, even titling his last chapter, “The Least Known Chicago Mayor.” With his one term sandwiched between Thompson’s second and third, Dever had the misfortune to be in power right as the gangster world exploded. He was, according to Schmidt and everything else I’m familiar with, a principled, competent man in a job that called either for a corporate tool like Harrison or a buffoon like Thompson.
Schmidt’s central, sort-of question here is a good one: why did the most qualified mayor of his era leave so small a mark on this city? His answer, while fairly well researched, is somewhat less nuanced than I’d like.
Schmidt’s approach here is to spend time on personalities – on Dever’s and on such rivals and allies as Thompson, George Brennan, Edward Dunne, Charles Merriam and many others who walk into the story for a few pages before leaving again. I’d prefer to see more social analysis. Her talks about the temperaments and quirks of the men who came to lead the city, but he talks less about the different forces each represented. I know Cermak from a lot of other places; I know he was a notorious tough guy, a rough-hewn tavern owner who polished himself just enough to pull together the modern machine. But more interesting than his manner is that he rose because the city’s ethnics were maturing politically. No longer willing to throw their weight behind one or another elite façade, they wanted one of their own. That’s a quick version of social history, something Schmidt largely ignores.
Schmidt does, however, provide an answer to his core question: Dever failed as mayor because, whatever else he wanted to do, he found himself caught on the horns of the dilemma of Prohibition. He needed to enforce the law to please his better-government backers (people as diverse as Julius Rosenwald, Harold Ickes, and Graham Taylor) but he needed to denounce it to have a chance at broad ethnic support. He couldn’t mock the law like Thompson did and would, nor did he see his way toward a principled resistance to it as Fiorello LaGuardia would do a few years later. Instead, he acted almost as an honorable hypocrite, squashing booze merchants while trying not to offend their most fervent customers.
That’s an interesting story, but it’s also a pretty thin one. Schmidt comes to admire his subject here, holding him up as a decent, likeable guy, but there seems good reason he’s so little remembered in the city’s history. He tried to bring a reasonable compromise in the face of the extreme corruption of Thompson, but the city wasn’t ready for it. He may have been honorable, but Prohibition Chicago had little use for honor.
William Dever is commentary. John R. Schmidt admits as much throughout, even titling his last chapter, “The Least Known Chicago Mayor.” With his one term sandwiched between Thompson’s second and third, Dever had the misfortune to be in power right as the gangster world exploded. He was, according to Schmidt and everything else I’m familiar with, a principled, competent man in a job that called either for a corporate tool like Harrison or a buffoon like Thompson.
Schmidt’s central, sort-of question here is a good one: why did the most qualified mayor of his era leave so small a mark on this city? His answer, while fairly well researched, is somewhat less nuanced than I’d like.
Schmidt’s approach here is to spend time on personalities – on Dever’s and on such rivals and allies as Thompson, George Brennan, Edward Dunne, Charles Merriam and many others who walk into the story for a few pages before leaving again. I’d prefer to see more social analysis. Her talks about the temperaments and quirks of the men who came to lead the city, but he talks less about the different forces each represented. I know Cermak from a lot of other places; I know he was a notorious tough guy, a rough-hewn tavern owner who polished himself just enough to pull together the modern machine. But more interesting than his manner is that he rose because the city’s ethnics were maturing politically. No longer willing to throw their weight behind one or another elite façade, they wanted one of their own. That’s a quick version of social history, something Schmidt largely ignores.
Schmidt does, however, provide an answer to his core question: Dever failed as mayor because, whatever else he wanted to do, he found himself caught on the horns of the dilemma of Prohibition. He needed to enforce the law to please his better-government backers (people as diverse as Julius Rosenwald, Harold Ickes, and Graham Taylor) but he needed to denounce it to have a chance at broad ethnic support. He couldn’t mock the law like Thompson did and would, nor did he see his way toward a principled resistance to it as Fiorello LaGuardia would do a few years later. Instead, he acted almost as an honorable hypocrite, squashing booze merchants while trying not to offend their most fervent customers.
That’s an interesting story, but it’s also a pretty thin one. Schmidt comes to admire his subject here, holding him up as a decent, likeable guy, but there seems good reason he’s so little remembered in the city’s history. He tried to bring a reasonable compromise in the face of the extreme corruption of Thompson, but the city wasn’t ready for it. He may have been honorable, but Prohibition Chicago had little use for honor.
Displaying 1 of 1 review