Martin H. Kennelly papers

Biography/Profile

Martin H. Kennelly (1887-1961) served as the mayor of Chicago from 1947 until 1955. Before embarking on his political career, Kennelly was a successful Chicago businessman, serving as the first president of Allied Van Lines starting in 1928. During World War II, Kennelly came to local prominence after he served as the head of Chicago's Red Cross. A combination of his skill at business and his positive public image garnered through his public service led the Chicago Democratic Party to put Kennelly up for the mayoralty in 1947.

The previous administration under Mayor Ed Kelly was rocked by a combination of corruption scandals and decreasing popularity as a result of the mayor's progressive stance on racial issues. The leadership of the Democratic Party convinced Kelly to not run again for office in 1947, and instead selected Kennelly to be his successor. Kennelly defeated the Republican, Russell W. Root, in the general election to become the 38th mayor Chicago.

While mayor, Kennelly led a relatively clean and businesslike administration. His major accomplishments include beginning many of the public works projects which would be completed under the first Daley administration. These projects include Chicago's expressways, the Chicago Skyway, and the beginnings of O'Hare International Airport. He also instituted a number of business-style practices into the city's governance, particularly in matters of purchasing.

Kennelly is best known, however, as a rather ineffectual mayor. He was never comfortable with the style of Chicago politics, and generally refrained from intra-party politics and controversy. Instead, he preferred to photo opportunities and ribbon cutting to actual governance. This succeeded in insulating him from the corruption which continued to pervade local Chicago politics during his administration, but it also left him saddled with a reputation for political naivete.

Kennelly also managed to antagonize many elements within the Chicago Democratic Machine, particularly powerful South Side politician William Dawson. Motivated both by his "squeaky-clean" image and an insensitivity to the situation in Chicago's African-American community, Kennelly began to enforce a number of laws which had previously been ignored by other administrations. Kennelly began to crack down on both the illegal "jitney cabs" which were very common on the South Side and the practice of the "numbers," an illegal, private lottery which served as an important source of income for both Chicago's organized crime community and for many of the South Side's political figures.

It was a combination of Dawson's opposition to Kennelly and the political ambition of Richard J. Daley which led to Kennelly's defeat in 1955. Dawson refused to allow the local Democratic Party to endorse Kennelly, and the committee which determined which candidates the Machine would support ended up choosing its own chairman, Richard J. Daley, over Kennelly as the party's standard bearer.

Nevertheless, many rated Kennelly's mayoralty as one of the most successful in Chicago history, though ironically this position was most prevalent among Republicans. This ended up causing Kennelly a great deal of consternation in 1955, when many of his strongest supporters were unable to vote for him in the primary election because they were registered as Republicans rather than as Democrats.

Kennelly's greatest legacy, despite his squeaky-clean image and corruption free administration, was that his was the savior of Chicago's Democratic Machine. While hardly an ideal Machine politician, Kennelly's mayoralty managed to erase the stain of the Kelly-Nash years, and gave the corruption plagued Machine the breathing room it needed to put its affairs in order. So, ironically, the least Machine-like of Chicago's Machine mayors ended up preserving it long enough for its last and greatest champion, Richard J. Daley, to emerge onto the scene.