throughout the country refused to handle Pullman cars, and since Pullman cars are almost invariably attached to mail trains the transportation of the United States mail was thus obstructed. Chicago, as the greatest railway centre of the country and the home of the strike, was naturally the seat of the most serious complications. There was much rioting and destruction of property, and the railway service was completely disorganized. President Cleveland, on the ground of preventing obstruction of the mail service, and of protecting other federal interests, ordered a small number of federal troops to Chicago. Those interests were, he contended, menaced by “domestic violence” evidently beyond the control of the state power. Governor Altgeld denied the inability of the state to deal with the difficulty, and entered a strong protest against Federal interference; but he himself did nothing to put down the disorder. Federal troops entered the state, and almost immediately the strike collapsed. The high officials of the Railway Union, for ignoring a court injunction restraining them from interfering with the movement of the mails, were imprisoned for long terms for contempt of court.
Out of a strike in the McCormick works in 1886 there sprang another famous incident in Chicago’s history. The “international” anarchists of Chicago had been organized in “groups” about two years earlier, and were very active. They were advocating a “general strike” for an eight-hour day, and the tense excitement among the labourers of the city, owing to the McCormick strike, induced unusually ultra utterances. There was a riot at the McCormick works on the 3rd of May, in which several men were killed by the police. An anarchist meeting was called for the next day at the Haymarket, a square in Randolph Street, and when the authorities judged that the speeches were too revolutionary to be allowed to continue, the police undertook to disperse the meeting. A bomb was thrown, and many policemen were injured, seven fatally. No person could be proved to have thrown the bomb, or to have been directly implicated in its throwing; but on the ground that they were morally conspirators and accomplices in the killing, because they had repeatedly and publicly advocated such acts against the servants of government, seven anarchists were condemned to death. An application to the United States Supreme Court for a writ of error was unanimously refused.[1]
The four-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America was commemorated by a World’s Columbian Exposition held at Chicago. The site was in Jackson Park and the adjoining Midway, and included 686 acres, of which 188 were covered by buildings. On the 21st of October 1892—corresponding to the 12th of October 1492, O.S.—the grounds were formally dedicated, and on the following 1st of May opened to the public, continuing open for six months. The number of paid admissions was 21,500,000; of total admissions 27,539,521. The buildings, planned by a commission of architects—among whom John W. Root and Daniel H. Burnham of Chicago were responsible for the general scheme—formed a collection of remarkable beauty, to which the grounds, planned by F. L. Olmsted, intersected by lagoons and bordered by the lake, lent an appropriate setting. The entire cost of the fair is variously estimated at from 33 to 43 million dollars, according to the inclusiveness of the estimate; the local cost may be put at $28,151,169. Of this Chicago gave about 1012 millions, in addition to a preparatory house-cleaning that cost 312 millions; and finally a very small dividend was paid to stockholders. The whole undertaking, carried through with remarkable enterprise, was an artistic and educational triumph of the first order.
Owing to its position Chicago has long been a favourite con- vention city. Lincoln (1860), Grant (1868), Garfield (1880), Cleveland (1884 and 1892), Harrison (1888), Roosevelt (1904), and Taft (1908) were all nominated here for president; and in addition not a few candidates who were unsuccessful. A national peace jubilee was held here in 1898.
Authorities.—See the annual reports of city officials, board of trade, park commissions, sanitary board, &c.; A. T. Andreas, History of Chicago (Chicago, 3 vols., 1884–1886); R. Blanchard, Discovery and Conquest of the North-West with the History of Chicago (Chicago, 2 vols., 1898–1903); J. Kirkland, Story of Chicago (Chicago, 1892); issues of the Fergus Historical Series (1876, ff.); T. J. Riley, A Study of the Higher Life of Chicago (Chicago University, doctoral dissertation, 1905); S. E. Sparling, Municipal History and Present Organization of the City of Chicago (University of Wisconsin, doctoral dissertation, Madison, 1898). Periodical literature contains a vast amount of information on Chicago’s progress and conditions that is elsewhere unobtainable; exact references may be obtained in Poole’s Index to Periodical Literature.
CHICAGO, UNIVERSITY OF, one of the great educational institutions of the United States, established under Baptist auspices in the city of Chicago, and opened in 1892.[2] Though the president and two-thirds of the trustees are always Baptists, the university is non-sectarian except as regards its divinity school. An immense ambition and the extraordinary organizing ability shown by its first president, William R. Harper, determined and characterized the remarkable growth of the university’s first decade of activity. The grounds include about 140 acres. Of these about 60 acres—given in part by Marshall Field and laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted—border the Midway Plaisance, connecting Washington and Jackson parks. On these grounds the main part of the university stands. The buildings are mostly of grey limestone, in Gothic style, and grouped in quadrangles. The Mitchell tower is a shortened reproduction of Magdalen tower, Oxford, and the University Commons, Hutchinson Hall, is a duplicate of Christ Church hall, Oxford. Dormitories accommodate about a fifth of the students. The quadrangles include clubs, dining halls, dormitories, gymnasiums, assembly halls, recitation halls, laboratories and libraries. In the first college year, 1892–1893, there were 698 students; in that of 1907–1908 there were 5038,[3] of whom 2186 were women. There are faculties of arts, literature, science, divinity,[4] medicine (organized in 1901), law (1902), education, and commerce and administration. The astronomical department, the Yerkes Observatory, is located on William’s Bay, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, about 65 m. from Chicago. It has the largest refracting telescope in the world (clear aperture 40 in., focal length about 61 ft.). The Chicago Institute, founded and endowed by Mrs Anita McCormick Blaine as an independent normal school, became a part of the university in 1901. The school of education, as a whole, brings under university influence hundreds of children from kindergarten age upwards to young manhood and womanhood, apart from the university classes proper. Chicago was the second university of the country to give its pedagogical department such scope in the union of theory and practice. The nucleus of the library (450,000 volumes in 1908) was purchased in Berlin soon after the university’s organization, in one great collection of 175,000 volumes. Scholarly research has been fostered in every possible way, and the university press has been active in the publication of various departmental series and the following periodicals:—Biblical World, American Journal of Theology, American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, American Journal of Sociology, Journal of Political Economy, Modern Philology, Classical Philology, Classical Journal, Journal of Geology, Astrophysical Journal, Botanical Gazette, Elementary School Teacher and School Review. The courses in the College of Commerce and
- ↑ Four were hanged, 1 committed suicide, 2 had their death sentence commuted to life-imprisonment, the eighth was sentenced to imprisonment for 15 years. 981 men were panelled in selecting the jury. Governor J. P. Altgeld in 1893 pardoned the three in prison on the ground that the jury was “packed” and consequently incompetent, that no evidence connected the prisoners with the crime, and that the presiding judge was prejudiced. See an article by Judge J. E. Gary, who presided at the trial, in the Century Magazine (April 1893).
- ↑ A small Baptist college of the same name—established in 1855 on land given by S. A. Douglas—went out of existence in 1886.
- ↑ If, however, the total is reckoned on the basis of nine months of residence the figure for 1907–1908 would be 3202.
- ↑ The Divinity School has a graduate department and three undergraduate departments, doing work in English, in Danish and Norwegian, and in Swedish. Allied with the Divinity School of the University is the “Disciples’ Divinity House” (1894), a theological school of the Disciples of Christ.
