Rises From Newsboy to Gambling King and Becomes Millionaire.
Mike McDonald's career in Chicago has been spectacular and sensational to a degree.
The present-day generation in Chicago cannot appreciate what the name Michael C. McDonald meant twenty years ago in Chicago. There is not a single man today in Chicago, or in any city in America who occupies relatively the position that Mike McDonald did in the old days in Chicago.
He never held office, but he ruled the city with an iron hand. He named the men who were to be candidates for election; he elected them; and then, after they were in office, they were merely his puppets.
While in recent years Michael C. McDonald has shown little activity in Chicago political and sporting circles, living quietly at Drexel boulevard and Forty-fifth street, in a costly mansion, his name twenty years ago was a power in both.
Born in 1840 in Niagara county, New York, he came to Chicago in 1854 and was a newsboy with John R. Walsh and other pioneers, in the city's infancy. Before the war a business venture took him to New Orleans, and when the south began to become inflamed he returned to Chicago with enough money to purchase the sample room of the Richmond House, Michigan avenue and South Water street.
Here a spectacular career began. McDonald became the big gambler of all the host of gamblers that were then growing rich in Chicago. He also became one of the leaders in the democratic organization. He made money hand over fist.
Michael C. McDonald's wheel of fortune, showing his progress from bootblack to gambling king, and the woman's face that brought him to the tragic present, causing him to exclaim: "My riches have brought me only sorrow."