Campaign
The race was considered to have been one of the most rancorous in Chicago's history. [2] [7] Willis J. Abbot wrote that, "the bitterness and acrimony of the campaign exceeded anything ever known in Chicago politics." [7]
Harrison was regarded to be an underdog in the race. [9] The city elite largely considered Harrison to be too liberal and believed that he allowed himself to be surrounded by corrupt associates. [2] Thus, Allerton, a conservative Republican, received broad backing from the city elite and nearly all of the city's newspapers. [2] [9] The sole paper to back Harrison was the Chicago Times, which Harrison was the owner of. [6]
Michael C. McDonald attempted to reconcile with Harrison, offering Harrison his support. [4] Harrison rejected his offer. [4] Despite this, rumors persisted that Harrison had received McDonald's support in exchange for agreeing that, as mayor, he would provide McDonald a license to operate the Garfield Park racetrack. [4]
Harrison reportedly spent $500,000 in his campaign effort. [10] He benefited from a well-run campaign operation. [9]
Many voters believed that the charismatic Harrison was the best choice to be the "face" of the city during the World's Fair, thinking that he was the best option to serve as the city's ambassador to the world during the course of the exposition. [2] Others, however, believed that Harrison's leadership style was better adapted to the past, when Chicago was a burgeoning metropolis. They believed that hosting the World's Fair indicated that the city had reached a stage of maturity in its development and that Harrison was ill-suited to lead the city at such a stage. [2]
Allerton was seen as a reluctant candidate. [4] He was seen as lacking in moxie as a candidate. [11] He campaigned by portraying himself as a businessman rather than a politician, promising that he would run Chicago like a business. He pledged to bring clean government and clean streets. He also stated that only professional and business leaders of the "highest standing" would be appointed to office. Allerton argued that the administration of the upcoming World's Fair presented a model for the business-style governance Chicago should adopt. His platform advocated civil service reform, improved city services, and lower taxes. However, much of his platform was indistinguishable the urban reform which Harrison had backed during his mayoral tenure.Additionally, Allerton's campaign was more focused on attacking Harrison than it was on extolling the virtues of Allerton's own platform. [7]
Allerton received backing from the elites that were organizing the World's Fair. [7] He received the backing of the city's business elite, such as Philip Danforth Armour, Lyman J. Gage, Harry Gordon Selfridge, Charles L. Hutchison, Franklin MacVeigh, Harlow Higinbotham, and Turlington Harvey. [7] Deriding Harrison's backers as representing "all the immorality of the city", and contrasting it with his own backing by leading figures of the city, Allerton framed the race as a choice between "the slums" and the men who built modern Chicago. [7]
Harrison pledged that he would run an honest campaign against Allerton. [4] He faced slander against him throughout the campaign. [7] Republicans lodged blame for all of the city's ills on Harrison. [7] Some Christian evangelists even tied blame for the Haymarket affair bombing with Harrison's support for allowing saloons to remain open on Sundays. [7] Both Allerton and Cregier made attempts to paint Harrison as corrupt. [3]
Harrison effectively responded to criticisms of his record by stating that he had done the best he could when previously mayor to work around state-imposed limitations on the city's taxation powers. He campaigned on a platform which included plans to reform the city's tax assessment system. Meanwhile, Republicans advocated for an unrealistic combination of lower taxes and expanded municipal services, unconvincingly telling voters that needed money could be saved if the city decreased its number of civil servants by having professional appointees fill positions traditionally held by patronage appointees. In the city's ethnic newspapers, Republicans' contention that the city needed to lower, rather than equalize, the taxes, was criticized as being upper-class men looking out for their own economic interests. Harrison used this line of attack. Harrison also claimed that the Republicans' campaign of "moral uplift" and "good government" was a lightly disguised attempt to refuse the city's non-Protestant immigrant ethnic groups the right to govern until such a tie as they conformed with the Republicans' views of "proper values". [7]
While Chicago Protestant commercial establishment abhorred Harrison's willingness to work with even seedy elements of the city, his willingness to give a voice to "the great unwashed" in government earned him great admiration in the city's ethnic neighborhoods. [7]
During the campaign, Cregier's third-party candidacy received little regard. [4]
In the past fourteen years (dating back to Harrison's first mayoral victory in 1879), Republicans had only won two mayoral elections. However, in this era, mayoral races in Chicago were still typically closely contested, and Republicans usually carried the city in national elections. [7] The city's newspapers confidently predicted that the election would herald an Allerton victory. [6] The day of the election, each party felt assured of their chances. [7] On their part, Republicans hoped for an overwhelming victory. The Republican-aligned Chicago Tribune newspaper predicted that such a victory would be facilitated by a strong Republican vote in the city's German ward (where Hesing had been popular), expecting massive defections from the Democratic Party to Republican party by voters in those wards of voters (which typically leaned Democratic). [7] This was because the bitter Democratic nomination race Harrison had faced against Hesing had turned many German voters away from supporting Harrison in the general election. [4]
