The Book of Bastards by Brian Thornton

Author:Brian Thornton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: epub, ebook
Publisher: F+W Media, Inc.
Published: 2010-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

50

WILLIAM LORIMER

The “Blond Boss of Chicago” Bribing His Way into the U.S. Senate (1861–1934)

“When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘Present,’ or ‘Not guilty.’”

— Theodore Roosevelt

William Lorimer was born in England and emigrated to Chicago as a boy. He had little formal education, but he could have earned a PhD in the workings of inner-city politics. He lost just two elections during his long career; it's said that he never won any one of them fairly. Lorimer was nothing if not a typical boss of the times: a machine politician and ward heeler in the tradition of New York's Tammany Hall who helped pave the way for Chicago's formidable twentieth century Daly Machine.

After moving to Chicago with his family in 1870 young Lorimer jumped into union organizing, real estate, and eventually, politics. He built both his career and his machine on his ability to deliver votes to politicians and his knack for landing public jobs for the illiterate urban poor in return for those votes. Lorimer's loyal constituents elected him to Congress as a Republican for four terms between 1894 and 1902, even though he had few qualifications for governing. The Chicago Tribune's editorial board pointed this out in an Op-Ed piece it ran on Lorimer: “He knows considerable about carrying primaries, but he knows no more about political, industrial, or social subjects than does a hole in the ground which doesn't care what goes down it.”

If any of this fazed Lorimer he didn't show it. Instead he ran in 1909 for what would one day become Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat. Since U.S. Senators were still elected by state legislatures at this point, Lorimer only needed to influence about a hundred people to vote for him. So he did what came naturally.

He bribed them.

When word of Lorimer's payoffs for the Senate seat broke out in the press, the Senate focused an intense investigation on the contentious election results. The inquiry's resolution and subsequent debate did nothing to hide the ugly truth: “Corrupt methods and practices were employed in his election, and that the election, therefore, was invalid.” The Senate then put teeth to its resolution (a rarity if ever there was one) by reversing the election results. Lorimer plagued every Republican Party member he could think of for assistance, protested in the Senate, and pleaded with President William Howard Taft. But it was all for naught. The Senate officially removed him on July 13, 1912.

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