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Bathhouse Coughlin
John Joseph Coughlin (August 15, 1860 – November 11, 1938), known as "Bathhouse John" or "the Bath", was an American politician who served as alderman of Chicago's 1st ward from 1892 until his death. Representing the Chicago Loop and in later years its environs, he represented what was often called the "world's richest ward". Alongside his partner, fellow 1st ward alderman Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna, he controlled the ward for most of the first half of the 20th century. A part of 1st ward politics for about 50 years, he was a charismatic and eccentric figure who was well-known across the city and adored by his constituents; he and Kenna constructed a machine that would last the better part of the 20th century. He was the longest serving alderman in Chicago history until November 2014 when his record was surpassed by Edward M. Burke of the 14th ward. Notoriously corrupt, he and Kenna led the " Gray Wolves", a group that attracted much scorn from reformers; he and Kenna in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago City Council
The Chicago City Council is the legislative branch of the government of the City of Chicago in Illinois. It consists of 50 alderpersons elected from 50 wards to serve four-year terms. The council is gaveled into session regularly, usually monthly, to consider ordinances, orders, and resolutions whose subject matter includes code changes, utilities, taxes, and many other issues. The Chicago City Council Chambers are located in Chicago City Hall, as are the downtown offices of the individual alderpersons and staff. The presiding officer of the council is the Mayor of Chicago. The secretary is the City Clerk of Chicago. Both positions are city-wide elected offices. In the absence of the mayor, an alderperson elected to the position of President Pro Tempore serves as the presiding officer. Originally established as the Common Council in 1837, it was renamed City Council in 1876. The Council assumed its modern form of 50 wards electing one alderperson each in 1923. Composition T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Corruption
Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials or their network contacts for illegitimate private gain. Forms of corruption vary, but can include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, and embezzlement. Corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking, though it is not restricted to these activities. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is also considered political corruption. Over time, corruption has been defined differently. For example, in a simple context, while performing work for a government or as a representative, it is unethical to accept a gift. Any free gift could be construed as a scheme to lure the recipient towards some biases. In most cases, the gift is seen as an intention to seek certain favors such as work promotion, tipping in or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al Smith
Alfred Emanuel Smith (December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944) was an American politician who served four terms as Governor of New York and was the Democratic Party's candidate for president in 1928. The son of an Irish-American mother and a Civil War–veteran Italian-American father, Smith was raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan near the Brooklyn Bridge. He resided in that neighborhood for his entire life. Although Smith remained personally untarnished by corruption, he—like many other New York politicians—was linked to the notorious Tammany Hall political machine that controlled New York City politics during his era. Smith served in the New York State Assembly from 1904 to 1915 and held the position of Speaker of the Assembly in 1913. Smith also served as sheriff of New York County from 1916 to 1917. He was first elected governor of New York in 1918, lost his 1920 bid for re-election, and was elected governor again in 1922, 1924, and 1926. Smith was the foremost ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago Coliseum
Chicago Coliseum was the name applied to three large indoor arenas in Chicago, Illinois, which stood successively from the 1860s to 1982; they served as venues for sports events, large (national-class) conventions and as exhibition halls. The first Coliseum stood at State and Washington streets in Chicago's downtown in the late 1860s. The second, at 63rd Street near Stony Island Avenue in the south side's Woodlawn community (near the site of the 1893 World's Fair), hosted the 1896 Democratic National Convention. The third Chicago Coliseum was located at 1513 South Wabash Avenue on the near south side; it hosted five consecutive Republican National Conventions, ( 1904, 1908, 1912, 1916, 1920) and the Progressive Party National Convention in 1912 and 1916. It also hosted the Lincoln Jubilee in 1915. In the 1960s and early 1970s it served as a general admission venue for rock concerts, roller derbys and professional wrestling matches; it closed in 1971 and was sold for redeve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fred Busse
Fred A. Busse (March 3, 1866 – July 9, 1914) was the mayor of Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois, from 1907 to 1911. Biography Busse became a local Republican leader, first elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1894 and again in 1896. In 1898, Busse was elected to the Illinois State Senate. He then served as Illinois state treasurer beginning in 1902. In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him Postmaster of Chicago, a political position at that time (see USPS History). He won the 1907 election for mayor against Democratic incumbent Edward F. Dunne. In business, Busse had been Secretary and Treasurer of the Northwestern Coal Company until 1905. Mayor of Chicago Busse was elected mayor of Chicago in 1907. Busse was sworn-in as mayor on April 15, 1907. Busse's mayoral tenure is noted for its extensive corruption and presence of organized crime in the city. Busse had connections and was a political ally with a number of organized crime figures. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Ward Ball
The First Ward Ball was an annual political fundraiser with 10,000–15,000 attendees held in Chicago from 1896 until 1908, until the city revoked the liquor license in 1909. It was notorious for the riot-like behavior of the illustrious guests. According to the ''Chicago Tribune'', the first ball in 1896 had "''attracted a wild mix of society thrill seekers, police captains, politicians, prostitutes and gamblers''" and "''the 1908 ball made that affair look tame''". Initially held at the 7th Regiment Armory, by the time it was banned the ball was so large that it took place in the Chicago Coliseum, the city's major convention center. The event raised more than $50,000 a year for the two aldermen of Chicago's First Ward "Bathhouse" John Coughlin and Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna – Coughlin and Kenna were known as the "Lords of the Levee", a red-light district of Chicago. The Ball was finally closed down in 1909 by Mayor Fred Busse Fred A. Busse (March 3, 1866 – July 9, 1914 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illinois General Assembly
The Illinois General Assembly is the legislature of the U.S. state of Illinois. It has two chambers, the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. The General Assembly was created by the first state constitution adopted in 1818. , the current General Assembly is the 102nd. Under the Illinois Constitution, since 1983 the Senate has had 59 members and the House has had 118 members. In both chambers, all members are elected from single-member districts. Each Senate district is divided into two adjacent House districts. The General Assembly meets in the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois. Its session laws are generally adopted by majority vote in both houses, and upon gaining the assent of the Governor of Illinois. They are published in the official ''Laws of Illinois''. Two future presidents of the United States, Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama, began their political careers in the Illinois General Assembly–– in the Illinois House of Represe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Bell Swift
George Bell Swift (December 14, 1845July 2, 1912; buried in Rosehill Cemetery) served as mayor of Chicago, Illinois (1893; 1895–1897) for the Republican Party. He was selected to replace the assassinated Carter Harrison, Sr. as Mayor pro tem in 1893 and lost a bid for election as mayor that year. He was elected mayor when he ran in 1895. Early life and career Swift was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to Samuel W. Swift and Elizabeth Swift (born Bell). His family moved to Galena, Illinois when he was young. By his teenage years, the family was living in Chicago. Prior to serving as mayor of Chicago, Swift served two terms as an alderman from the 11th Ward (one term from 1879 to 1881 and one term from 1892 until 1894 (the latter of which he was serving during his acting mayoralty in 1893). From 1887 to 1889, he was the city's Commissioner of Public Works. Swift was a proponent of the City Beautiful movement. Acting mayoralty After the assassination of Carter Harrison Sr., the Chic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Silver
Free silver was a major economic policy issue in the United States in the late 19th-century. Its advocates were in favor of an expansionary monetary policy featuring the unlimited coinage of silver into money on-demand, as opposed to strict adherence to the more carefully fixed money supply implicit in the gold standard. Free silver became increasingly associated with populism, unions, and the fight of ordinary Americans against the bankers and monopolists, and the robber baron (industrialist), robber barons of the Gilded Age capitalism era and was referred to as the "People's Money". Supporters of an important place for silver in a bimetallism, bimetallic money system making use of both silver and gold, called "Silverites", sought coinage of silver dollars at a fixed weight ratio of 16-to-1 against dollar coins made of gold. Because the actual price ratio of the two metals was substantially higher in favor of gold at the time, most economists warned that the less valuable silver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cook County Democratic Party
The Cook County Democratic Party is a political party which represents voters in 50 wards in the city of Chicago and 30 suburban townships of Cook County. The organization has dominated Chicago politics (and consequently, Illinois politics) since the 1930s. It relies on a tight organizational structure of ward and township committeeperson (until 2018 legal name change, "committeeman") to elect candidates. At the height of its influence under Richard J. Daley in the 1960s, it was one of the most powerful political machines in American history. Party members have been convicted of public corruption. By the beginning of the 21st century the party had largely ceased to function as a machine due to the decline of political patronage following the issuing of the Shakman Decrees. The current Chair is Toni Preckwinkle. Organization and leadership Article I of the by-laws of the Cook County Democratic Party states that the party exists to "attract, endorse, and support qualified Democra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Tyson Yerkes
Charles Tyson Yerkes Jr. ( ; June 25, 1837 – December 29, 1905) was an American financier. He played a part in developing mass-transit systems in Chicago and London. Philadelphia Yerkes was born into a Quaker family in the Northern Liberties, a district adjacent to Philadelphia, on June 25, 1837. His mother Elizabeth Link Yerkes died of puerperal fever when he was five years old and shortly thereafter his father Charles Tyson Yerkes Sr. was expelled from the Society of Friends for marrying a non-Quaker. After finishing a two-year course at Philadelphia's Central High School (Philadelphia), Central High School, Yerkes began his business career at the age of 17 as a clerk in a local grain brokerage. In 1859, aged 22, he opened his own brokerage firm and joined the Philadelphia stock exchange. By 1865 he had moved into banking and specialized in selling municipal, state, and government bonds. Relying on his bank president father's connections, his political contacts, and his ow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Patrick Hopkins
John Patrick Hopkins (October 29, 1858October 13, 1918) served as mayor of Chicago, Illinois (1893–1895) for the Democratic Party. John Patrick Hopkins was the first of nine Irish American Catholic mayors of Chicago. Hopkins was a close friend and a political ally of Roger Charles Sullivan. Early life Hopkins was born October 29, 1858, in Buffalo, New York. Career Because his brothers and fathers died when Hopkins was still young, he became a provider for his family. His first job at a foundry as a boy. He later worked in Buffalo's grain elevators. In 1879, he moved to Chicago with his mothers and sisters. He worked for some times at the Pullman works. From 1883 to 1885 he served as a paymaster for Pullman interests. In 1888, he founded the Started the Arcade Trading Co. in 1888, which later became the Secord and Hopkins Co. Hopkins forged a career in Democratic politics. Mayoralty Hopkins was elected the 1893 Chicago mayoral special election, held after the assassina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
