Anton Cermak

Anton Joseph Cermak (Czech: Antonín Josef Čermák, pronounced [ˈantoɲiːn ˈjozɛf ˈtʃɛrmaːk]; May 9, 1873 – March 6, 1933) was an American politician who served as the 44th[2] mayor of Chicago, Illinois from April 7, 1931 until his death on March 6, 1933.

Anton Cermak
44th Mayor of Chicago
In office April 7, 1931 – March 6, 1933
Preceded by	William Hale Thompson
Succeeded by	Frank J. Corr
President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners
In office January, 1923 – March 23, 1931
Preceded by	Daniel Ryan, Sr.
Succeeded by	Emmett Whealan
Chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party
In office 1928–1931
Preceded by	George E. Brennan
Succeeded by	Patrick Nash
Personal details
Born	Antonín Josef Čermák May 9, 1873 Kladno, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary
Died	March 6, 1933 (aged 59) Miami, Florida, U.S.
Cause of death	gunshot wounds
Resting place	Bohemian National Cemetery (Chicago, Illinois)
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Mary Horejs (Marie Hořejšová) ​ ​ (m. 1894⁠–⁠1928)​ (her death)[1]
Children	3

Life

Cermak was born to a mining family in Kladno, Austria-Hungary (now in the Czech Republic), the son of Kateřina (Franková) and Antonín Čermák.[3][4]

He emigrated with his parents to the United States in 1874 and grew up in the town of Braidwood, Illinois, where he was educated before beginning to work full time while still a teenager.[5] He followed his father into coal mining, and labored at mines in Will and Grundy counties.[6] After moving to Chicago at age 16, Cermak worked as a tow boy for the horse-drawn streetcar line,[7][lower-alpha 1] and then tended horses in the stables of Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood.[6] During the early years of his working life, Cermak supplemented his education with evening high school and business college classes.[8]

After saving enough money to buy his own horse and cart, he went into business selling firewood, and he subsequently expanded his venture into a haulage business.[8] As he became more active politically, Cermak served in municipal government jobs including clerk in the city police court. As his political fortunes began to rise, Cermak was able to avail himself of other business opportunities, including interests in real estate, insurance, and banking.[8]

He began his political career as a Democratic Party precinct captain, and in 1902 he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives. Seven years later, he became alderman of the 12th Ward. Cermak was elected President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 1922, chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party in 1928, and mayor of Chicago in 1931.[9] Cermak had also, in the 1910s, been elected, and served, as bailiff for the Municipal Court of Chicago.[10][11]

In 1928, he ran for the United States Senate and was defeated by Republican Otis F. Glenn, receiving 46% of the vote.

Mayor of Chicago (1931–1933)

Cermak's mayoral victory came in the wake of the Great Depression and the deep resentment many Chicagoans had of Prohibition and the increasing violence resulting from organized crime's control of Chicago, typified by the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

The many ethnic groups such as Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, Italians, and African Americans that began to settle in Chicago in the early 1900s were mostly detached from the political system, due in part to lack of organization which led to underrepresentation in the City Council. As an immigrant himself, Cermak recognized Chicago's relatively new immigrants as a significant population of disenfranchised voters and a large power base for Cermak and his local Democratic organization.

Before Cermak, the Democratic party in Cook County was run by Irish Americans. The Irish first became successful in politics because they spoke English and because, coming from an island on the edge of Europe, they had few ancestral enemies. As the old saying went, “A Lithuanian won’t vote for a Pole, and a Pole won’t vote for a Lithuanian. A German won’t vote for either of them. But all three will vote for a turkey -- an Irishman."[12] As Cermak climbed the local political ladder, the resentment of the party leadership grew. When the bosses rejected his bid to become the mayoral candidate, Cermak swore revenge. He formed his political army from the non-Irish elements and even persuaded the black politician William L. Dawson to switch from the Republican to the Democratic Party.

Dawson later became U.S. Representative (from the 1st District) and soon the most powerful black politician in Illinois. Cermak's political and organizational skills helped create one of the most powerful political organizations of his day. With support from Franklin D. Roosevelt on the national level, Cermak gradually wooed members of Chicago's growing black community into the Democratic fold. Walter Wright, the superintendent of parks and aviation for the city of Chicago, aided Cermak in stepping into office.

When Cermak challenged the incumbent, "Big Bill" Thompson, in the 1931 mayor's race, Thompson, who represented Chicago's existing Irish-dominated power structure, responded with ethnic slurs:

I won't take a back seat to that Bohunk, Chairmock, Chermack or whatever his name is.

Tony, Tony, where's your pushcart at?

Can you picture a World's Fair mayor with a name like that?

Cermak replied, "He doesn't like my name... it's true I didn't come over on the Mayflower, but I came over as soon as I could." It was a sentiment to which ethnic Chicagoans could relate, and Thompson's slur largely backfired.[13][14]

Thompson's reputation as a buffoon, many voters' disgust with the corruption of his machine, and his inability or unwillingness to clean up organized crime in Chicago were cited as major factors in Cermak capturing 58% of the vote in the mayoral election on April 6, 1931. Cermak's victory finished Thompson as a political power and largely ended the Republican Party's power in Chicago; indeed, all the mayors of Chicago since 1931 have been members of the Democratic Party. For nearly his entire administration, Cermak had to deal with a major tax revolt. From 1931 to 1933, the Association of Real Estate Taxpayers mounted a "tax strike."

At its height, the association, which was headed by John M. Pratt and James E. Bistor, had over 30,000 members. Much to Cermak's dismay, it successfully slowed down the collection of real estate taxes through litigation and promoting refusal to pay. In the meantime, the city found it difficult to pay teachers and maintain services. Cermak had to meet President-elect Roosevelt to "mend fences" and to get money to fund essential city services.

Death

Anton Cermak's tomb at Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago

While shaking hands with President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt at Bayfront Park in Miami, Florida on February 15, 1933, Cermak was shot in the lung and mortally wounded by Giuseppe Zangara, who was attempting to assassinate Roosevelt. At the critical moment, Lillian Cross, a woman standing near Zangara, hit Zangara's arm with her purse and spoiled his aim.[15] In addition to Cermak, Zangara hit four other people: Margaret Kruis, 21, of Newark, N. J., shot through the hand; Russell Caldwell, 22, of Miami, hit squarely in the forehead by a spent bullet which embedded itself under the skin; Mabel Gill of Miami, shot in the abdomen; and William Sinnott, a New York police detective, who received a glancing blow to the forehead and scalp.[16] All four of those injuries were minor.

Once at the hospital, Cermak reportedly uttered the line that is engraved on his tomb, saying to Roosevelt "I'm glad it was me, not you." The Chicago Tribune reported the quote without attributing it to a witness, and most scholars doubt that it was ever said.[17]

Zangara told the police that he hated rich and powerful people but not Roosevelt personally.[18] Later, rumors circulated that Cermak, not Roosevelt, had been the intended target, as his promise to clean up Chicago's rampant lawlessness posed a threat to Al Capone and the Chicago organized crime syndicate.[19][20] One of the first people to suggest the organized crime theory was reporter Walter Winchell, who happened to be in Miami the evening of the shooting.[21][22] According to Roosevelt biographer Jean Edward Smith, there is no proof for this theory.[23]

Long-time Chicago newsman Len O'Connor offers a different view of the events surrounding the mayor's assassination. He has written that aldermen Paddy Bauler and Charlie Weber informed him that relations between Cermak and Roosevelt were strained because Cermak fought Roosevelt's nomination at the Democratic convention in Chicago.[24]

Author Ronald Humble offers another view as to why Cermak was killed. In his book Frank Nitti: The True Story of Chicago's Notorious Enforcer, Humble contends that Cermak was as corrupt as Thompson and that the Chicago Outfit hired Zangara to kill Cermak in retaliation for Cermak's attempt to murder Frank Nitti.

Monument to Anton Cermak in the town in which he was born.

Cermak died at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami[25] on March 6, partly because of his wounds. On March 30, however, his personal physician, Dr. Karl A. Meyer, said that the primary cause of Cermak's death was ulcerative colitis, commenting, "The mayor would have recovered from the bullet wound had it not been for the complication of colitis. The autopsy disclosed the wound had healed ... the other complications were not directly due to the bullet wound."[26]

Zangara was charged with murder after Cermak's death, and executed in Florida's electric chair on March 20, 1933.[27]

Cermak was interred in a mausoleum at Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago. The mayor's death was followed by a struggle for succession to his party chairmanship and to the mayor's office.[28]

A plaque honoring Cermak still lies at the site of the assassination in Miami's Bayfront Park. It is inscribed with Cermak's alleged words to Roosevelt after he was shot, "I'm glad it was me instead of you." Following Cermak's death, 22nd Street, a major east-west artery that traversed Chicago's West Side and the close-in suburbs of Cicero and Berwyn, areas with a significant Czech population, was renamed Cermak Road. In 1943, a Liberty ship, the SS A. J. Cermak was named in Cermak's honor. It was scrapped in 1964.

Descendants

Cermak's son-in-law, Otto Kerner Jr., served as the 33rd Governor of Illinois, and as a federal circuit judge.

His grandson, Frank J. Jirka, Jr., who was with him in Miami when he was assassinated, later became a highly decorated Underwater Demolition Team officer in the United States Navy. He was awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his actions during the Battle of Iwo Jima; the wounds he suffered led to the amputation of both legs below the knee. After World War II, he became a physician, and in 1983 was elected president of the American Medical Association. Cermak's great niece, Kajon Cermak, is a radio broadcaster.[29] His daughter, Lillian, was married to Richey V. Graham who served in the Illinois General Assembly.[30]

In popular culture

• A hastily produced movie about Cermak, The Man Who Dared, was released within months of his death.
• There was a made-for-TV movie, The Gun of Zangara, about Cermak's assassination. It was originally a two-part episode of The Untouchables, where it had the title "The Unhired Assassin." Cermak has a major role in the story as an honest man and was played by Robert Middleton.
• Cermak is mentioned in Stephen Sondheim's play Assassins during the song "How I Saved Roosevelt."
• Cermak and his rise to the mayoralty has also been mentioned in Jeffrey Archer's novel Kane and Abel.
• Part of the episode "Objects in Motion" of the television series Babylon 5 is based on the circumstances of Cermak's death.[31]
• Cermak is referenced by Kelsey Grammer's Chicago mayor Tom Kane in several episodes of the Starz TV series Boss.
• In "Red Team III", the seventh episode in the second season of HBO's The Newsroom, Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) references Anton Cermak.
• The history-based crime novel True Detective, the first in Max Allan Collins' Nathan Heller series, includes a fictionalized account of the Cermak slaying.
• In the first episode of the second season of the Netflix cartoon sitcom F is for Family, the fictional school of Anton Cermak Tech is mentioned during a broadcast.

See also

• List of assassinated American politicians

Notes

1. A tow boy was positioned with a horse at the bottom of a hill on a streetcar route. When a car began to ascend, the tow boy would hitch his horse to it and provide extra pulling power to the top, then return to the bottom to await the next car.

Citations

1. NNDB - Anton Cermak
2. "Chicago Mayors". Chicago Public Library. Retrieved 24 March 2019.
3. Johnston, Rosie (June 18, 2008). "Antonín Čermák: from Czech miner to Chicago mayor". Radio Praha. Retrieved December 17, 2016.
4. Jr, Miloslav Rechcigl (2 May 2018). Czechs Won't Get Lost in the World, Let Alone in America: Portraits and Vignettes from the Life of Czech Immigrants in America. ISBN 9781546238904.
5. Sawyers, June Skinner (2012). Chicago Portraits: New Edition. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-8101-2649-7.
6. Chicago Portraits: New Edition, p. 65.
7. Wisconsin State Assembly (1933). Journal of Proceedings of the Sixty-First Session of the Wisconsin Legislature. Madison, WI: Democrat Printing Company, State Printer. p. 533.
8. Journal of Proceedings, p. 533.
9. Hirsch, Arnold R. "Democratic Party." Encyclopedia of Chicago.
10. Kendall, Peter (19 December 2007). "The shooting of Anton Cermak". chicagotribune.com. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
11. The Daily News Almanac and Political Register for ... Chicago Daily News Company. 1916. p. 624. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
12. McClelland, Edward (January 19, 2011). "Why the Irish are More Powerful Than Ever in Chicago". NBC Chicago.
13. Wendt, Lloyd (1979). Chicago Tribune. Chicago: Rand McNally. ISBN 0-528-81826-0.
14. Gottfried, Alex. Boss Cermak of Chicago: A Study of Political Leadership. Seattle: University of Chicago Press, 1962.
15. Smith, pg. 297.
16. https://miami-history.com/attempted-assassination-of-fdr-in-bayfront-park/
17. Benzkofer, Stephen (February 10, 2013). "'Tell Chicago I'll pull through': In 1933, a bullet meant for FDR hit Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak instead". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved December 22, 2016.
18. Smith, pp. 297–98.
19. "Freedom of Information Act: Franklin D. Roosevelt (assassination attempt)". Retrieved 2008-08-04.
20. Gumbel, Andrew: Steal This Vote. Nation Books, 2005; ISBN 1-56025-676-1, page 157.
21. Ridings, J. (2010). Chicago to Springfield: Crime and Politics in the 1920s. Arcadia. p. 19. ISBN 9780738583730. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
22. Alter, Jonathan (2007). The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope. Simon and Schuster. p. 367. ISBN 9780743246019. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
23. Smith, Jean Edward, FDR (2007), Random House; ISBN 978-1-4000-6121-1, pg. 715n.
24. O'Connor, Len: Clout: Mayor Daley and His City McGraw-Hill/Contemporary, 1984; ISBN 0-8092-5424-7
25. "Kerner-Cermak family of Illinois". The Political Graveyard. Retrieved 2013-05-22.
26. Reveals Colitis Fatal to Cermak", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 31, 1933, pg. 1
27. Dwyer, Jim, ed. (1989). "An Assassin's Bullets for FDR". Strange Stories, Amazing Facts of America's Past. Pleasantville, New York/Montreal: The Reader's Digest Association. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-89577-307-4.
28. Chicago Tribune - Assassination of Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak - March 1933, galleries.apps.chicagotribune.com; accessed April 17, 2018.
29. Levy, Rachel; Kendall, Peter & Benzkofer, Stephan. "School in Prague to be named after Mayor Cermak". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved November 24, 2014.
30. 'Illinois Blue Book 1929-1930,' Biographical Sketch of Richey V. Graham, pg. 224
31. Babylon 5 Magazine #4

General sources

• Beito, David T. Taxpayers in Revolt: Tax Resistance During the Great Depression. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. ISBN 9780807818367.

External links

• Cermak's tomb at Bohemian National Cemetery
• Anton J. Cermak at IMDb