Carter Harrison III


Carter Henry Harrison III was an American politician who served as mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1879 until 1887 and from 1893 until his assassination. He previously served two terms in the United States House of Representatives, and one term on the Cook County Board of Commissioners.
Harrison was a working-class aligned populist, and attained much political support among the labor unionists and Catholic white-ethnic immigrants of the city. While wealthy himself, Harrison fell into political disfavor among many of the city's business elites in his late political career. He was the father of Carter Harrison IV, who himself served five terms as the mayor of Chicago.
A 1994 survey of experts on Chicago politics assessed Harrison as one of the ten best mayors in the city's history.

Early life, education, and career

Carter Henry Harrison was born on a plantation on February 15, 1825, in rural Fayette County, Kentucky near Lexington, Kentucky to Carter Henry Harrison II and Caroline Russell. He was birthed in his family's home, a log cabin When Harrison was merely eight months old, his father died.
Harrison's family had a long Southern lineage, dating back to early colonial Virginia. He had ancestry in the Harrison family of Virginia, the Randolph family of Virginia, Carter family of Virginia, and Cabell family of Virginia. Harrison was a descendant of Richard A. Harrison,. His great-great-grandfather was Charles Harrison. Carter Harrison III was a cousin of U.S. Vice President John C. Breckinridge, and was a first cousin twice removed of U.S. President William Henry Harrison.
Harrison was educated by private tutors. At the age of fifteen, he began to be tutored by Louis Marshall. Harrison graduated from Yale College in 1845 as a member of Scroll and Key. He graduated from Yale in 1851. Following graduation, he traveled the world and studied in Europe from 1851 to 1853. His travels took him to England, Ireland, Scotland, and elsewhere. He also visited Egypt and accompanied Bayard Taylor to explore Syria and Asia Minor. After his world travels, he entered Transylvania College in Lexington in 1853, where he earned a law degree in 1855.

Move to Chicago, and early career in the city

In 1855, Harrison wed his first wife, Sophy Preston. While traveling North for their honeymoon, Harrison stopped in Chicago and decided to settle there. He had decided to settle in Chicago because he saw it as a land of opportunity. At the time, he inherited the Kentucky plantation and almost 100 slaves but sold it away in order to be done with slavery.
After settling in Chicago, Harrison invested in real estate in Chicago, and became a millionaire. Harrison was also admitted to the bar in 1855, and commenced practice once he settled in Chicago.
The first property that Harrison bought in Chicago was the Adams house located at the corners of Clark and Harrison Street

Cook County Board of Commissioners (1871–1875)

After the Great Chicago Fire, Harrison became involved in politics. In the coinciding county elections, Harrison himself was elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners. Harrison had run on a "union" ticket that featured members of the Democratic and Republican parties. Harrison had been the leading figure in the formation of the Union–Fireproof Ticket and served as the chair of its nominating convention. The ticket ran candidates in both the Cook County and Chicago municipal elections. The ticket's mayoral nominee, Joseph Medill, won election. Harrison had been key in convincing Medill to run for mayor. Later, during Harrison's own career in citywide politics, Medill, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, would come to be a political rival of Harrison's.
In addition to being included on Union–Fireproof ticket, Harrison was also included as a county board nominee on the joint slate nominated by both the Cook County Democratic Party and Cook County Republican Party in the 1871 county and Chicago municipal elections.
Harrison served a single term on the county board, for three years.

U.S. House of Representatives (1875–1879)

Harrison represented Illinois's 2nd congressional district for two terms. During the relevant period, with exception of the 6th ward, the district represented all of Chicago's "West Division" wards. During his time in congress, Harrison was noted for his flamboyant oration.

Unsuccessful 1872 campaign

Early into his tenure on the county board, Harrison ran an unsuccessful campaign in 1872 as the Democratic nominee in Illinois's 2nd congressional district for election to the 43rd United States Congress. Harrison faced Republican nominee Jasper D. Ward. The district had a strong Republican lean. Harrison, while unsuccessful, managed to greatly outperform previous Democratic nominees in the district. Harrison won 42.14% of the vote to Ward's 57.86%. Harrison led his opponent in the 8th and 9th wards, but trailed him in the other wards.
The congressional election coincided with the 1872 United States presidential election. Harrison was listed on a local ticket that also included Liberal Republican Party presidential nominee Horace Greeley.

First term (1875–1877)

Due to his strong performance in his 1872 congressional campaign, in 1874 Harrison was again nominated in the 2nd congressional district by the Democratic Party for congress, and in a re-match against Ward won election 44th United States Congress by a margin of only eight votes. The Chicago Tribune would blame local Republicans' alignment with the Citizens Union ticket in the 1873 local Chicago elections as detrimental to Ward's re-election, as in the eyes of many voters it had placed Republicans on the less popular side of the "beer question". Many voters who typically voted Republican had in 1873 voted for the People's Party instead of the Citizens Union ticket due to the "beer question" At the time he was elected, he had been out-of-country visiting Europe with his family. After learning of his election, he returned to the United States to take office.
In 1875, during his first term in Congress, Harrison and his family again traveled to Europe. After accompanying his family through Northern Europe, Harrison returned to the United States while the rest of his family continued their trip. However, Harrison traveled to Europe again after his first wife died there.

Second term (1877–1879)

While he was out-of-country due to the death of his wife, he was re-elected in 1876 to the 45th United States Congress. He won 50.89% of the vote against Republican opponent George R. Davis.
Scandal occurred in his second term in congress when, as chairman of the Committee on Reform of the Civil Service, Harrison had pushed through the payment of benefits to four self-proclaimed Union Army veterans purporting disabilities from wartime injuries despite the fact that their claims had previously been rejected. None of these individuals had actually seen active service, and none of them had suffered serious injuries.
in 1878, Harrison lost re-election to congress. He was defeated by Miles Kehoe for re-nomination at the district's Democratic nominating convention.

First mayoralty (1879–1887)

During his first mayoralty, Harrison was elected mayor of Chicago for four consecutive two-year terms.
After he campaigned in 1879 with a pet eagle, he became affectionately nicknamed "the Eagle".
He was sworn in for his first term on April 28, 1879.
During his first mayoralty, he surpassed his predecessor Monroe Heath's title as the longest serving mayor Chicago had had up to that time.

Leadership and popularity

Harrison has been described as a practitioner of charismatic authority. He governed the city in cooperation with a fractious Democratic Party organization.
While Harrison garnered both business and working class support, the evangelical middle class generally disapproved of Harrison.

Infrastructure and public safety

At the time he took office, Chicago had nearly a half-million residents. However, it was still a developing city. Harrison would later remark that, when he took office as mayor, "there were not ten miles of paved street in the whole city over which a light vehicle could move rapidly without injury to wheel or axle.” Long a booster of his adopted city, Harrison was known to refer to Chicago as his "bride". Harrison significantly increased the city's number of paved roads and sidewalks in its downtown and increased the size and improved the efficiency of its fire department. Harrison also forced utility companies operating in the central business district to bury their wires. Harrison fought the Illinois Central Railroad's right to the lakefront, a legal battle which was ultimately taken by the State of Illinois to Supreme Court of the United States in Illinois Central Railroad Co. v. Illinois. He also worked to persuade railroads to begin elevating their tracks to eliminate level crossings. He also attempted to push measures in the City Council that would have required locomotives, steamships and tugboats to burn anthracite, which burned cleaner. He also attempted to have the city build new and longer public water system intake pipes.

Haymarket affair

Harrison's first mayoral tenure was a period that saw many events which brought the city national and international attention. One such event was the Haymarket affair. Early on the evening of the Haymarket affair in 1886, Harrison had casually observed the then still peaceful demonstration of anarchists and trade unionists and advised the police to leave the demonstrators alone; he then left the scene before the riot and anarchist bomb-throwing occurred. A significant reason for his ability to attend the rally unbothered was that, while Harrison came from a Protestant background, he needed the votes of and thus made appeals to the city's large ethnic White Catholic population as well as its rapidly growing numbers of trade unionists. His administration gave the impression of being more favorable to trade unions and strikes than those of previous Chicago mayors as well as other mayors of the time, although his police force routinely put down striking workers and trade union activists when they interfered with the businesses hiring replacements.
In the aftermath, Harrison spoke against anti-socialist sentiments being published in the media. Harrison argued that socialists were not sympathetic with bomb throwers, and remarked that socialists were representatives of the country's "workers, thinkers, and writers."