IN MEMORIAM JOHN PETER ALTGELD

 

On March 12th, 2002, it is exactly one hundred years ago that John Peter Altgeld died, the most famous of all Governors of Illinois.

 

Werner H. Baur

March 11, 2002

 

 John Peter Altgeld, chronology

                                                                                                         

1847          Born on December 29, 1847, in Selters, Westerwald, Duchy of Nassau in Germany as Johann Peter Wilhelm Altgeld, son of the wainwright Johannes Peter Altgeld and his wife Maria Katharina.

 

1848          The family Altgeld sails on the “BURGUNDY” from Le Havre and arrives in New York on June 1, 1848. They continue  to Newville, close to Mansfield, Ohio.

 

ca. 1859     Altgeld learns to speak and read English in district school (3 terms).

 

1860/64     Farm hand on his father’s farm near Little Washington, not far from Mansfield, Ohio.

 

1864          He volunteers for the Ohio National Guard and gets a $100 bounty (all but $10 of that go to his father) and is in service in the Civil War, contracts Chickahominy fever [malaria?] in the campaign at James River, Virginia.  He served in the Union Army from May 12 to September 10, 1864.

 

1864          He enters the “Old First High School” in Mansfield, Ohio, for the fall term.

 

1865          Altgeld enters “select school” of Rev. Gailey in nearby Lexington, Ohio.

 

1866          Becomes teacher at a school in Woodville, near Mansfield, where he meets Emma Ford, another teacher. Altgeld’s salary of $35 per month  goes mostly toward paying off the debt on his father’s farm.

 

1869          After turning 21 Altgeld leaves his father’s farm and walks westward, with $10 in his pocket. In St. Louis his money runs out and he takes a job in a chemical plant.

 

1869          Works as summer laborer with a railway grading crew for the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad south of Fort Scott, Kansas. When he  falls ill again with the fever, farmers near Topeka, Kansas, take care of him.

 

1869          Not yet fully recovered Altgeld makes his way north to Andrew County, Missouri. He is taken in and cared for by farmer Cam Williams, near Savannah, Missouri. After regaining his health he works as a farm hand for Williams and his neighbors until he gets a teaching position in a school.

1869          Altgeld begins to study law on his own and under the tutelage of Judge David Rea of Savannah, while teaching school and working on farms.

 

1871          Altgeld is admitted to the Andrew county bar and joins the law firm of Rea and Heren as attorney.

 

1872          Altgeld is appointed city attorney of Savannah, Missouri.

         

1874          Although a Democrat, he is elected by popular vote to state’s (prosecuting) attorney for Andrew county on the People’s Party (Granger) ticket.

 

1875          He resigns his elected office in October and takes off for Chicago, this time with $100 in his pocket.

 

1875          Altgeld opens his own law office in the Reaper Block in Chicago. He sleeps                   in that office every night, as he cannot afford an apartment.

 

1877          John Peter Altgeld and Emma Ford are married in Mansfield, Ohio, and rent an apartment in the Town of Lake, now part of Chicago. His law practice does not prosper and he takes a desk in the office of lawyer Adolph Heile.

 

1879          Altgeld has saved $500 and invests the money in real estate. His investments grow phenomenally until a few years later he constructs buildings costing $500,000 in a single year.

 

1880's        Altgeld buys a two-story residence on Frederick Street.

         

1884          ‘Our Penal Machinery and Its Victims’ is published by Altgeld. He  argues that society should attack the causes of crime instead of just punishing lawbreakers.

 

1884          Altgeld  runs for Congress on the Democratic ticket and loses.

 

1886          A bomb is thrown on May 4 during a labor (anarchist) meeting at Haymarket Square, and seven policemen are killed. The bomb thrower is never identified. After a highly questionable trial four men are hanged the following year (Engel, Fischer, Parsons and Spies), one commits suicide (Lingg), the death sentences of Fielden and Schwab are commuted to life imprisonment, and Neebe is sentenced to a fifteen year prison term.

 

1886          Altgeld  runs on the Democratic and United Labor Party tickets for judge of the Superior Court of Cook County, Illinois, and is elected.

 

1890          He publishes, most likely at his own expense, the first edition of ‘Live Questions’, including his opinions on many social and legal issues.

 

1891          Altgeld  resigns his judgeship.

 

1892          The ‘Unity Block’, 127 N. Dearborn, Altgeld’s most ambitious project, is finished. He has to go deeply into debt to put up the building. [It is torn down in 1989 (despite landmark status), together with the whole city block, because of a new project which to this day has not been realized.]

 

1892          Altgeld is nominated on the first ballot by the Democrats of Cook County as a candidate for Governor of Illinois and then by the Democratic State Convention. For the campaign he prints 17,000 copies of ‘Live Questions’.

 

1892          In November Altgeld beats the previous incumbent Governor Joseph W.  Fifer by 425,558 to 402,672 votes [no recount needed]. He is the first Democrat to be elected to this office since 1856. He is also the first foreign-born citizen and the first Chicago resident.

 

1893          Altgeld speaks to the graduates of the University of Illinois on June 7: “If you agree to do something, do it; don’t come back with an explanation. Explanations as to how you came to fail are not worth two cents a ton. Nobody wants them or cares for them. The fact that you met with an accident and got your legs broken, your neck twisted and your head smashed is not equal to a delivery of the goods.”, and “The men who administer the laws are human, with all the failings of humanity. They take their biases, their prejudices with them on to the bench. Upon the whole, they try to do the best they can; but the wrongs done in the courts of justice themselves are so great that they cry to heaven.”

 

                                                                                               

1893          Altgeld  promotes the passage of a sweat shop law, which prohibits child labor and limits the working day of women to 8 hours. On June 17th he appoints Florence Kelley of Hull House as chief factory state inspector for enforcing the law.

 

1893          On June 26 Altgeld grants an absolute pardon to Fielden, Neebe and Schwab (see 1886, Haymarket). He shows in detail in the ‘Reasons for pardoning Fielden, Neebe and Schwab, the so-called anarchists’:

                   “First - That the jury which tried the case was a packed jury selected to

convict.                                                                                              

Second - .... the jurors, according to their own answers, were not competent jurors, and the trial was, therefore, not a legal trial.             

Third - That the defendants were not proven to bbe guilty of the crimes charged in the indictment.                                                                      

Fourth - That as to .... Neebe, the State’s Attorrney had declared at the close of the evidence that there was no case against him.

Fifth - That the trial judge .... did not grant a fair trial.”                    

Altgeld is fully aware that the pardon will  ruin his political ambitions, but he does what he considers to be right.

 

1893           Because of the pardon a flood of venom is unleashed against Altgeld  in the         popular press. Foremost in hurling invective against him are the Chicago Tribune and Harper’s Weekly. He is called an  “Anarchist”, “Demagogue”, “Foreigner”, “Un-American”, “Socialist”, “Communist”, “Apologist for Murder”, “Fomenter of Lawlessness” and portrayed as a devil in cartoons. Rarely was the American press as united as here in vilifying somebody.

 

1893           second volume of ‘Live Questions’ is published. It includes the pardon message and other material from his first years as governor.

 

1894          In the summer of that year the railroad unions strike against the Pullman Co.; the railroads manage to get an injunction and have Federal troops sent by President Cleveland to Chicago, although there are no riots or disturbances in the city; Altgeld protests against this unwarranted intrusion of the Federal government in State matters and a bitter controversy grows between the Governor and the President. The press again attacks Altgeld. [In 1932 the Norris-LaGuardia Act restricted the use of injunctions in labor disputes].

 

1894          Altgeld was always a champion of women’s rights, thus, on June 8, when he spoke for the second time to the Trustees of the Charitable Institutions of Illinois, he said: “Simple justice requires that wherever female attendants do the same kind of work that male attendants do, and do it under the same conditions, and are in other respects as serviceable around the institution as male attendants are, they should be paid exactly the same wages as male attendants are paid”. [Altgeld was very much ahead of his time].

 

1895          C. T. Yerkes tries to get ‘Eternal Monopoly’ bills passed in the Illinois legislature which would cement his hold on public transport in Chicago. He tries to bribe Altgeld with $ 500,000, but Altgeld refuses the bribe, vetoes the bills, and his veto is subsequently sustained.

 

1896          “I submit that Illinois should have one of the greatest educational institutions on earth” (about the University of Illinois in his message to legislature, January 9th, 1895); higher education was at the heart of Altgeld’s efforts as Governor. The budget of the university was increased substantially, new buildings were erected, and the University of Illinois was set on its way to becoming a great institution during his tenure.

 

1896          At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago Altgeld emerges as the most powerful figure and makes sure that President Cleveland is not  nominated for the presidency.

 

1896          Altgeld loses his bid for reelection as Governor of Illinois.

 

1897          Altgeld’s successor denies him the courtesy of giving the traditional farewell address as outgoing Governor (it already was distributed to the press).

 

1899          The final edition of ‘Live Questions’ is published. It includes everything from the first two volumes and also new material.

 

1899          Altgeld has to give up control of the Unity Block.

 

1900          ‘What Jefferson would do’, prophetic speech by Altgeld on April 16, in which he juxtaposes Jefferson’s principles with the “manipulators and corruptionists” in industry of Altgeld’s day, and espouses Jefferson’s view that “representative government is not government by the people”.

 

 

1901          ‘Oratory: Its Requirements and Its Rewards’ is published by Altgeld. He calls it his “child”. It contains his thoughts on public speaking.

 

1901          Altgeld works on ‘The Cost of Something for Nothing’, the sum of his thinking: the cost of something for nothing is usually too great a price to pay. The booklet is published posthumously in 1904.

 

1902          On Feb. 24, 1902, Altgeld writes to Altgelt of Buenos Aires: “I have no desire to ever hold another office. In fact I sometimes feel that I have spent too much of my life holding office”, and: “The men who really shape the destiny of a country are the men who formulate its ideals”.

 

1902           John Peter Altgeld dies on March 12 in Joliet the night after delivering a  talk denouncing the treatment of the Boers by Great Britain. At the end of the speech he suffers a cerebral hemorrhage.                                        

 

This chronology is based mostly on Barnard’s and Browne’s biographies of Altgeld and in part on research by W. H. Baur. Thanks also to Carlos Altgelt, Dearborn Heights, Michigan, for Altgeld’s letter to his grandfather, Gaby Schwabenland-Altgeld, Sohren, Hunsrück, Germany, for the hint regarding the ship Burgundy, and Wolfgang Baur for editorial help.