Great Chicago Beer Riot, The: How Lager Struck a Blow for Liberty by Hogan John F. & Brady Judy E

Author:Hogan, John F. & Brady, Judy E. [Hogan, John F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2015-12-16T05:00:00+00:00

Newspaper editor William Bross used the pages of his Democratic Press to attack his arch-foe, Stephen Douglas, while boosting Chicago as a rising city of the future. Courtesy of Chicago Public Library, Special Collections and Preservation Division, CCW 12.2 .

Biographer Sheahan remembered the run-up quite differently. “A reckless, partisan press,” he claimed, appealed to the public to “thwart the little demagogue’s purpose.” One newspaper report accused Douglas of allegedly assembling a bodyguard of five hundred armed Irishmen to compel silence while he spoke. “The fact that violence was to take place at the gathering was daily impressed upon the public by the opposition press,” Sheahan contended. Such stories were planted “to inflame the Know-Nothing element,” while the senator’s friends sought only “fair play,” even if that required “muscular backing.”

September 1 arrived hot and muggy, so it was decided to move the meeting outdoors, in front of the Old Market Hall. During the afternoon, ship owners opposed to Douglas ordered the flags of their vessels moored in the harbor lowered to half-mast. At dusk, church bells throughout the city tolled, as if for a funeral. The senator and his supporters must have realized that they were in for a rough night.

A crowd estimated at ten thousand had assembled by eight o’clock. The entire area in front of the hall was packed, and the crowd spilled onto Michigan Street between Dearborn and Clark. Spectators filled the rooftops of buildings across the street. Others stood on balconies or leaned out of windows to hear a man known to make his voice heard at great distances. Mayor Milliken had agreed to chair the meeting. Editor Bross, on hand to cover the speech, said that he was invited to sit on the stage “perhaps by Mayor Milliken.” Bross added that he received a pleasant greeting from Douglas, but Sheahan wasn’t deceived. “[I]t was plain from the start that a wicked feeling was abroad.”

Bross claimed that the first words out of the senator’s mouth constituted an insult to the press and the people of Chicago. “He charged them with not understanding so plain a proposition as the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the press with persistently misrepresenting and maligning him.” This observation definitely was not the way to win over an already hostile audience. One is left to wonder why Douglas decided to wade into such a thicket in the first place and then throw down the gauntlet. The most likely answer was his belief in his oratorical powers, that he could convince the die-hards of the supposed wisdom of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He immediately learned otherwise. His opening comment was met with hisses, groans and “all manner of epithets and abuse,” according to Sheahan.

When the uproar died down, Douglas explained that he had come to address his constituents and had every intention of being heard. He spoke for a short while before laughing and hooting erupted. “[I]t became apparent that there was an element present,” Sheahan continued, “that was not disposed to hear him.”

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