Pineapple Primary - Response To The Violence

Response To The Violence

As the violence heightened, the focus of the voters turned to crime and Prohibition. Chicago's violent campaign drew attention and scorn from out-of-town newspapers. In the days before the election, a Federal grand jury was sworn in with instructions that it would be called upon to protect the voters of Chicago under the federal statutes about intimidation or conspiracy to prevent a citizen from exercising his right to vote. Special federal Prohibition officers swarmed into the city after the Deneen and Swanson bombings, and a city court bailiff who was a Thompson supporter was shot and wounded by a federal agent during a raid on a saloon.

Under a finding by the Illinois Supreme Court, election judges were ruled as officers of the county court, and that any election judge who tampered with votes or intimidated voters could be jailed for contempt. Under the same court decision, some 3,000 persons drawn from the ranks of the local bar association and other civic organizations were deputized as pollwatchers, and were empowered to compel a policeman to arrest anyone involved in vote fraud. The same ruling deprived Governor Small from the power to pardon politicians arrested under this contempt ruling. This unprecedented ruling was estimated to have the potential to cut the stolen votes from about 75,000 to 25,000 within Cook County.