Altgeld, John Peter b. December 30, 1847; Nieder Selter (Taunus mountain range) d. March 8, 1902; Chicago, Illinois
Governor of Illinois from 1892 to 1896, John Peter Altgeld may well be the German American politician who gained the largest amount of national notoriety and fame in the smallest amount of time, addressing the most controversial of issues.
Altgeld’s father was a wagon maker by trade, and when his parents decided to emigrate only three months after his birth, they followed Mrs. Altgeld’s brother and took up farming in north-central Ohio, in a township largely settled by Germans and similar in landscape and farming methods to what they had known in their previous home. For the next twenty years John Peter Altgeld was trapped in endless, hard farm labor and a narrow-minded, unsupportive family environment. His desire to receive an education had to be realized against his father’s wishes and without any financial support except John’s ability to sell his labor. In 1864 he briefly escaped home by enlisting in the army, though his experiences on the battlefield remained limited due to illness and the disbanding of his regiment in the same year. In 1868, on the day of his twenty-first birthday, he left his family, embarked on a journey through the Midwest, and finally arrived in Andrew County, Missouri. Here, with the charitable support of influential people, he was able to work and to study law and was admitted to the Andrew County Bar in 1871. He practiced law until 1874, became involved in activities of the farmers’ movement, the Grange, and moved on to Chicago in 1875.
Altgeld established a law practice, worked hard and lived frugally, and in 1877 married Emma Ford, a woman he had known since childhood. He began to successfully invest in real estate, gained a reputation by publishing in law journals, networked with supportive people in his profession and in politics, and was nominated for the state legislature on the Democratic ticket in 1884.
In 1886 he became a judge for the Cook County Supreme Court, from which he retired in 1890, having found the complacency and routine of the court not challenging enough. His professional life in Chicago was marked by a moderately successful practice as a lawyer and by great esteem for his performance as a judge. He had also been able to accumulate great wealth in real estate deals, which he later lost on an ill-conceived financial scheme related to the “United Building,” a project in which he had great financial and emotional interest. When he embarked on his political career in 1892, he was reputed to be an earnest, hardworking, intelligent, socially responsible man, this being noteworthy in a political climate marked by financial depression, industrial disputes, and growing public annoyance over corruption. That he was also able to address issues of concern to the German American citizens of Chicago and Illinois (i.e., the right to be taught in German in school) certainly helped. In 1880 one-third of Chicago’s population was of German descent. When Altgeld won the gubernatorial race, Illinois, for the first time in forty years, had a Democratic governor.Altgeld’s term as governor, though brief and turbulent, was nonetheless effective. Besides the highly controversial pardoning of the Haymarket riot martyrs and the equally publicized conflict over the Pullman strike, he was able to pursue a number of reform projects related to the penal system, charitable institutions, industrial relations, and education. His most notable accomplishments were the factory reform legislation that brought Florence Kelley, whom he appointed as the first factory inspector, into the national limelight, and the support he was able to muster for the University of Illinois. This support not only helped to turn the university into a first-rate educational institution but also changed the way the legislature and politicians dealt with higher education in Illinois.
Upon taking up office, Altgeld was immediately approached by representatives from the amnesty movement asking clemency for Samuel Fielden, Michael Schwab, and Oscar Neebe, who were still serving life sentences in prison, allegedly for being involved in the Haymarket square riot of 1886. Today, it is widely understood that had Altgeld issued the pardons on grounds of executive clemency, the move would have found widespread public support.
However, after close investigation of the documents, Altgeld came to the conclusion that the prisoners had received gross injustice and that the preceding trail, by all legal standards, had been a scam. So the decision to pardon was not an act of mercy; since the three men had been unjustly convicted, nothing but a full pardon was in order. This critical assessment of the legal procedures of that trial was Altgeld’s downfall. The press accused him of being a foreign agitator, if not an anarchist himself. It is said that he was aware of the political consequences when he delivered the Pardoning Message in June 1893.The controversy over the use of federal troops during the 1894 railroad strike again found Altgeld on the other side of the
political-capitalist power structure. President Grover Cleveland had readily aligned himself with the railroad magnates when he, upon their request, sent federal troops to Chicago and allowed for local gunmen to be invested with federal authority. This transaction not only disturbed the local peace but effectively broke the strike, rendered the American Railway Union powerless, and completely alienated the working people. Altgeld had refrained from sending in the Illinois National Guard because the strikers, for the most part, had maintained civil order. He had not wanted to forgo the union’s chances to achieve an agreement with the railroad. But President Cleveland had other ideas. He set a precedent by using the Sherman Anti-Trust Act as an effective tool against workers’ organizations, which would become a legal device of great consequence in the years to come, putting workers at a great disadvantage in any disputes between capital and labor. When Altgeld protested Cleveland’s actions and demanded a withdrawal of troops, the press once again denounced him as a foreign agitator not in tune with the principles of the U.S. Constitution.
It was obvious that Altgeld would have no chance of reelection after these two controversial political affairs.
He thus retired from public view in 1896, only to become active in Democratic circles, promoting the “silver issue”; that is demanding the free coinage of silver, and shaping the “Chicago Platform” that became the Democratic credo in the 1896 election. He was arguably the brain behind William Jennings Bryan’s presidential campaign, and had he not been disqualified due to his German birth, he may well have been the presidential candidate himself.. The “Silver Plan” did not materialize, and Altgeld continued to defend workers’ rights as a lawyer in Chicago.Altgeld’s personality defies easy categorization. His political credo, nevertheless, was in accordance with the great reformers of his time: Jane Addams, Henry D. Lloyd, and Clarence Darrow all respected him. He was among the earliest of a generation of reformers whose political influence would shape American urbanism a decade later.
Christiane Harzig
See also Addams, (Laura) Jane; Anarchists; Chicago; Haymarket; Illinois; Politics and German Americans
References and Further Reading
Barnard, Harry. Eagle Forgotten: The Life of John P Altgeld. New York: Bobbs Merill, 1938.
Browne, Waldo R. Altgeld of Illinois: A Record of His Life and Work. New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1924.
Ginger, Ray. Altgeld’s America: The Lincoln Ideal versus Changing Realities. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1958.