Bye-Bye, Boss! And The Unsung Socialist Hero Of Cincinnati’s Charter Movement
Where are the parades? Where are the celebrations? Election Day this year marks exactly a century since Cincinnati voters rose up to finally end boss rule in the Queen City.
From the 1880s right up to 1924, Cincinnati had been run by what amounted to a criminal syndicate, with George Barnsdale Cox, known as “Boss Cox,” and his minions controlling every aspect of city politics and – most importantly – city finances through their stranglehold on the Hamilton County Republican Party. The Cox Gang siphoned millions of public dollars into their own pockets, let city schools and public services languish, allowed gambling and prostitution to flourish under police protection, and nationally besmirched the reputation of our city. Just how powerful was Boss Cox? Here is a major national magazine, Collier’s, from 24 September 1910:
“No public officeholder in Cincinnati is allowed to name his own deputies. Cox himself appoints these underlings. He has in each public office his representative, who is in real charge. In one case it was disclosed in a legislative investigation that the regularly elected official was not even allowed the combination of his office safe. That was the property of Cox’s agent.”
And here is The New Republic from 7 May 1924 describing a major source of the Boss’s ill-gotten gains:
“Cox was a grafter. It was definitely proved that he had pocketed many thousands of dollars, bribes paid to him by banks for illegally depositing with them Hamilton County funds.”
By 1924, Cox himself had been dead for eight years, but the ironclad Republican machine he had constructed still sputtered along, led by burlesque impresario Rudolph K. “Rud” Hynicka. It infuriated local progressives that Hynicka didn’t even live in Cincinnati but pulled all the strings – political and purse – in Cincinnati from his office in New York City.
The entire boss system came crashing down on 4 November 1924, when Cincinnati voters marked their ballots by a 2.5 to 1 margin to adopt a city manager form of government eliminating the ward-based city council.
In the years since, mythology has enshrined a conventional explanation of how this peaceful revolution prevailed. In this telling, independent Republicans like Murray Seasongood assumed the founding father roles. Here is a typical summary of the traditional narrative, from an article by William A. Baughin from the Winter 1988 issue of Queen City Heritage:
“Under the direction of Seasongood . . . the Charter Committee conducted a successful campaign to bring about these changes in the fall elections of 1924. After this victory, the Charter Committee remained in existence, completing its transition to a de facto political party when it endorsed and campaigned for a slate of councilmanic candidates in 1925.”
Though not exactly inaccurate, the standard version ignores decades of organized opposition to Boss Cox from Democrats and, notably, Socialists. It is not too strong a statement to assert that Cincinnati’s successful charter vote in 1924 would have been impossible without concerted action by the local Socialists and their allies.
Rarely mentioned these days is a radical reformer who devoted half a century to a campaign for social and economic reform. Herbert S. Bigelow was a provocative and controversial figure throughout a long and eventful life. He opposed United States involvement in the First World War and was kidnapped and horsewhipped because of that. He lobbied for old age pensions, for fair taxation, and for municipal control of utilities and transportation.
Bigelow set the stage for the political coup of 1924 as far back as 1912, when he helped organize a progressive, statewide constitutional convention. Bigelow headed a delegation to that convention from Hamilton County, was elected president of the convention; and guided the convention toward submitting to the voters an Initiative and Referendum amendment, and a Municipal Home Rule amendment as well.
As a young man, studying for the ministry at Cincinnati’s Lane Seminary, Bigelow’s social consciousness was awakened, and he dedicated his life “less for the gospel of heaven above and more for justice here on earth.” As pastor of the old Congregational Church on Vine Street, Bigelow’s social agenda so alienated the old-time congregants that he created a totally new “People’s Church” with no theological dogma, only a commitment to progressive causes. He preached, he said, the Social Gospel.
Bigelow’s church spawned what would today be called a political action committee, known as the People’s Power League, organizing liberals and radicals of every stripe from labor unions to Socialists to disenchanted refugees from the major parties. When the United States entered World War I, Bigelow loudly protested the forced enlistment of men through the draft, a position that almost got him killed. As Daniel R. Beaver relates in his 1957 biography of Bigelow, “A Buckeye Crusader”:
“The minister's outspoken attitude aroused the opposition of many patriotic organizations around Cincinnati and finally brought about a physical attack on him October 28, 1917. Bigelow was kidnapped as he was about to address a meeting of the Socialist Party in Newport, Kentucky, taken to a deserted field and horsewhipped, ‘In the name of the women and children of Belgium.’”
Bigelow that year backed the Socialist Party in Cincinnati’s municipal elections. He was convinced his attackers were egged on by the business and industrial interests of Cincinnati. Bigelow expressed a lifelong antipathy to any cause, no matter how popular, that had the support of Cincinnati’s established capitalists. This prejudice, according to biographer Beaver, affected his involvement in the Charter movement:
“His attitude was clearly shown in 1924 when a battle was begun by moderate Cincinnatians led by Murray Seasongood to introduce the city charter form of government into the political life of Cincinnati. [Bigelow] distrusted the motives of the reformers because of their business connections and remained aloof until it became obvious that he and his followers were needed to circulate petitions for a charter election. Though subsequent events are disputed, it seems that he and his associates exacted from the Charterites a promise to include a plan for proportional representation in their bill in return for the support of Bigelow's organization.”
Despite the essential contributions from the People’s Church, Charterites downplayed the pastor’s involvement because Bigelow, in addition to building grassroot support for municipal reform was also campaigning quite vocally in 1924 for Progressive presidential candidate Robert M. LaFollette, who had the backing of the Socialists. Still, Bigelow was able to influence the Charterites to adopt several reforms that originated in his progressive campaigns.
A much more nuanced version of the victory of 1924 would acknowledge the contributions of organized labor, women and Socialists in addition to the traditional political parties, and especially the role of Cincinnati’s lifelong firebrand, Herbert S. Bigelow.