On the morning of the 19th of April, 1887, the jury which had been sitting in the case of Alfred McKenna, a young man charged with the murder of John P. Quillinan, returned a verdict finding McKenna guilty of assault and recommending him to mercy. The murder had been a peculiarly atrocious one. Quillinan and McKenna had been rivals for some minor local office, and had quarrelled. McKenna had followed Quillinan to his home and shot him in the presence of his wife and daughter, seriously wounding the little girl, who endeavored to protect her father’s life. There was no denial of these facts by the defence. But McKenna was a man of some social position, of considerable wealth, of handsome person and winning address. Moreover, he and his friends wielded a powerful political influence. The case had required three trials. Twice the jury had disagreed. The third trial lasted nearly a month, and the jury took five days to agree upon their scandalous verdict. It was handed to the clerk of the court in writing during a temporary adjournment, and the jury separated, first allowing it to be known that they had originally stood seven for acquittal to five for murder in the first degree, and that the seven had refused to accept any compromise more severe upon the prisoner than the one finally adopted.
In less than an hour after the verdict had been announced, its character was known over the entire city. McKenna’s political friends rejoiced; but the vast majority of better citizens felt outraged beyond endurance. Angry knots of men gathered at every street corner. A fierce wave of indignation swept over the city. Into the midst of this public excitement came the news that McKenna had paid the fine of fifty dollars and costs which the court had imposed, and had left the court-house a free man, while Quillinan’s widow had been removed in a fainting-fit, her wounded daughter clinging to her dress, to the county poor-house. This news was like a shaft of lightning falling upon an oil-tank. In an instant the city blazed up with inextinguishable fury.
A crowd of maddened men, including in their number many of the best and most respected citizens of Chicago, hurried with frenzied yells to the court-house. They filled its lobbies and surged into the room in which the judge who had fined McKenna was presiding over another case. He saw mischief in the faces of the very first who burst unceremoniously upon the speech of the drawling advocate before him. He heard something worse than mere mischief in the roar of passion and vengeance which swelled in the courtyard and the street. Hastily adjourning the court, he fled, barely in time to save his own life.
Finding the jurymen who had returned the verdict in McKenna’s case already separated, the mob divided. A portion hurried in search of McKenna; others set out for the residences or places of business of the obnoxious jurymen; others remained to dismantle the court-room and hustle the officers who were unlucky enough to fall into their hands. McKenna heard of the mob and fled the city. Four of the seven jurymen who had voted “not guilty” also received warning, and escaped. Three were caught by the mob. Two were hanged to lamp-posts without a minute’s delay or the opportunity being given them to say a word. The third, who was reported to have said, before going on the jury, that “hanging was played out in Chicago as well as New York,” was compelled to watch the execution of the other two, and taunted with his remark. His terror and abject pleas for mercy finally prevailed with his captors, who spared his life and set him free, with a few sharp cuts from a heavy whip which a dealer in saddlery had seized as he ran out of his store to join the crowd. But a second party coming up, enraged because so many of the unjust jurors had escaped, seized him and hung him beside the bodies of the others.
A young man, afterwards found to be the brother of the widow Quillinan, sprang on a dry-goods box and made an impassioned harangue to the mob, telling of the misery of the bereaved family, then huddling together at the poor-house, while McKenna and his family were rolling in luxury. Instantly the cry arose, “Burn their houses!” With incredible speed the mob, already beginning to gather reinforcements from the vilest human scum of the vile city, rushed to the McKenna mansion. Its inmates fled from the rear as the mob poured in at the front. Petroleum was brought, and the house fired in twenty places.
The verdict of the jury had been announced at five minutes after ten o’clock in the morning. Before three o’clock the judge, the defendant, and nine of the jurors were fleeing from the city; three jurors had been hanged by the mob; a round dozen of the most palatial residences along Michigan Avenue, taking fire from the McKenna mansion, had burned to the ground. The police had made a feeble effort at the beginning of the riot to restore order; but the force was a partisan one, it was largely made up of the party to which Quillinan had belonged, and its sympathies were really with the mob. When the officers in command saw leading the rioters the very men to whose influence they largely owed their positions, they made but a show of resistance. The vengeance of the mob was allowed to burn itself out.
Suddenly, near the close of the afternoon, as if by magic, every dead wall and hoarding of the city took on a sinister aspect. From top to bottom, and from end to end, they glowed with huge red posters, bearing in white letters in the centre these words:—
NOW!
By Command of the Council of Seven.
It was the preconcerted signal for the socialist uprising, though of course nothing of the sort was suspected at the time. In the midst of the rioting of the day the work of a thousand hands, fastening these posters to the walls, had not been noticed. Nor was the effect of the proclamation immediately apparent. The mob slowly dissolved. Night came on. A few detached bands of marauders wandered about the streets. They were summarily dispersed by the police, who had recovered their activity and energy as the character of the rioters changed. The city newspaper offices were filled with busy scribes preparing sensational accounts of the outbreak for the morning issues. The proprietors congratulated themselves in advance upon the enormous editions which would be sold the next day. Long accounts were telegraphed to newspapers in other parts of the country. In scarcely one of these was the appearance of the mysterious placards mentioned. The riot was believed to be over. The very citizens who had taken part in the scenes of the morning could be relied upon for aid in suppressing any unpleasant attempts to renew them. And so the night wore on.