Remember when last week, I mentioned a book I bought. Reminisces and Comments by Adolf Kraus, Czech-Jewish immigrant, Chicago lawyer, Board of Education member and B’nai Brith president. It was published in 1925 and discusses each aspect of his fascinating life, including his early life in the town of Blowitz (now Blovice), his first struggling years in the U.S. and his early days practicing law.

Among other things, Kraus got involved in Chicago politics, especially through his relationship with Carter Harrison, who was mayor of Chicago during the late 19th century. To show you where ex-President Trump may have received his ideas, let me quote from page 59 of the book, referencing the year 1981:

“In one of the precincts of the eleventh ward, the ward in which Harrison lived, the judges sat behind closed doors, with challengers and watchers on the outside. A small hole was cut in the door about six feet above the floor, through which the voter was required to reach up and deposit the ballot. What was done with the ballot on the inside nobody on the outside could tell, but in this precinct the Cregier [Harrison’s opponent] delegates were certified to by an overwhelming majority…….

“In the precinct on West Monroe Street, in the block east of Ogden Avenue, the votes were cast in the ratio of approximately two votes for Harrison to one for Cregier. Notwithstanding this, two of the judges signed a certificate showing the election of the Creiger delegates, and handed it to the third judge for signature. Now it turned out that the ward boss had made a mistake in the selection of the third judge, who was an ex-prize-fighter, and favored Harrison. He said to the other two, “I will not sign this, but you either sign a correct return or fight , and I am ready to whip both of you.” They reluctantly signed a correct return…..”

“As town of Lake was democratic, it appeared that Harrison would surely be elected, since he always carried the town of Lake by a large majority, but until after midnight, not a single return came in from the town of Lake. It was learned afterwards that the returns from the town of Lake had been held back in order to ascertain how many votes Cregier might need to be elected. It seems that the person in the City Hall whose business it was to tabulate the returns and determine the number of votes needed by Cregier made a mistake of two thousands in the addition, the result being that more votes were actually needed for Cregier than he reported as necessary. The returns, when they were finally received, showed a remarkable increase in the normal vote of that territory. Precincts which had ever before polled more than three hundred votes, came in with more than five hundred votes, nearly all of which were for Cregier.”

A couple more things from the book:

For a while, Kraus was Chicago Corporation Counsel (in effect, the attorney general of the city), when Harrison was mayor. He received several messages from a man he did not know. The messages were, generally speaking, demands that he, the writer of the messages, be allowed to take Kraus’ place as Corporation Counsel, and that if Kraus refused, he would kill him. Kraus called him in for a meeting, and told him that he agreed with him, that they could switch places that day. Clearly, this is not the message that his visitor expected to hear, and he excused himself to think it over. Kraus told the police to follow and arrest him, but they lost him. The message writer, that evening, went to the house of Mayor Harrison and assassinated him. He then turned himself in to the police.

Rather shocking, no?

Kraus met President Grover Cleveland twice. First in Chicago at the time of the 1893 Pan-American Exposition, and several years later at the White House. When they met in Chicago, Cleveland said to Kraus “I know we met before.” Kraus says he didn’t want to argue with the President of the United States and commended his memory, although they had never met. Later, in Washington, the President told an aide that he wanted to speak with Kraus and they arranged a White House meeting. It turned out that the President wanted an update on various political goings on in Chicago, which Kraus reported to him on, feeling good that he made a good impression on Cleveland and that Cleveland respected his opinions. But then the President said something like “Mr. Kraus, I really appreciate your coming to see me today. It is really surprising, isn’t it, that we have never met before?” Again, Kraus responded simply that it was because they lived in different cities and that they were both so busy.

Finally, for 20 years, Kraus was the President of B’nai Brith, the largest Jewish social service organization in the country. The last part of the book talks about what was going on with the Jews of the world during the first quarter of the twentieth century. Pogrom and riot, riot and pogrom. By looking at the correspondence to and from Kraus as B’nai Brith president, and reading excerpts from newspaper articles of the day, you see how much anti-Jewish activity was occurring. In Russia, and in other parts of eastern Europe, especially. Hitler clearly didn’t arise from nowhere. He had very fertile ground to plow.

What an interesting book.