{"id":144147,"date":"2020-04-07T11:07:20","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T15:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=144147"},"modified":"2020-04-07T11:07:20","modified_gmt":"2020-04-07T15:07:20","slug":"the-black-gambling-king-of-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/04\/07\/the-black-gambling-king-of-chicago\/","title":{"rendered":"The Black Gambling King of Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael LaPointe\u2019s monthly column, Dice Roll<\/a>, focuses on the art of the gamble, one famous gambler at a time.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Original illustration \u00a9 Ellis Rosen<\/p><\/div>\n

If you could trace the fate of just one dollar that passed through the hands of John \u201cMushmouth\u201d Johnson, where would it lead? It probably came to his hands off a craps table or from an office of his policy syndicate, and more likely than not, it would go on to be slipped into the pocket of some crooked cop or double-dealing politician. But if Johnson, whom local papers called \u201cthe Negro Gambling King of Chicago,\u201d managed to hold on to it, that dollar might end up supporting a hub of black music in the twenties, or the first black-owned bank in Chicago, or a poetic precursor of the Harlem Renaissance. It would grant Johnson, in death, a respectability he was denied in life.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s life was characterized by a constant tension between philanthropy and corruption. Born to the nurse of Mary Todd Lincoln in 1857, Johnson moved from his native Saint Louis to Chicago at an early age. Some said his nickname, Mushmouth, referred to how much he cursed. Others said it was because of a \u201cthick utterance he had in his speech when a boy.\u201d Either way, the name signals how Johnson\u2019s mode of expression, coupled with his lack of formal education, cut him off from genteel society. \u201cI didn\u2019t exactly do much book learning,\u201d he recalled, many years later. \u201cI went out to see where the money grew. Some of those who know me say that I found it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1882, Johnson got a job as a porter in a white-owned gambling house. He studied the business closely, and soon opened his own nickel-gambling joint on Clark Street. Johnson had a keen eye for real estate, and quickly managed to flip that location. In 1890, he took the proceeds and purchased a saloon at 464 South State Street. He called it the Emporium. It would be the seat of his gambling empire for nearly twenty years.<\/p>\n

Decked out in Gay Nineties style, with rococo chandeliers and a bar of Honduran mahogany, the Emporium offered three stories of action: billiards on the first floor, craps and roulette on the second, and poker on the third. In order of popularity, the bar served whiskey, gin, and beer. Scorning the day\u2019s more flamboyant scarves, Johnson presided over the Emporium in a neat black four-in-hand knot, with a pin set with a small stone. As for that stone, one gambler said, \u201cYou can bet it\u2019s the goods.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Emporium became a fixture on a block known as Whiskey Row, an area that was, to say the least, disreputable. It\u2019s where Mickey Finn famously served knockout drinks at the Lone Star Saloon and robbed his unconscious customers (giving his name to the phrase \u201cslipping someone a mickey\u201d). But Johnson\u2019s Emporium was held in relatively high esteem. Black or white, rich or poor, you had a place at his gambling tables. Historian Dempsey Travis quotes his father as saying, \u201cWhere else could a country boy go just ten days out of Georgia and feel like a big-time gambler for only a nickel?\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the Emporium, Johnson was heavily invested in the game of policy. Basically a lottery, policy required bettors to place money on one or more numbers between 1 and 78. Twelve numbers would be drawn from a tumbling drum, and the wins could be enormous. One common play was called a gig, the choice of three numbers that, if drawn, could pay off at a rate of 100 to 1.<\/p>\n

Bets could be as low as a penny, and so policy was wildly popular among the poor. Some saw the game as parasitic, draining what little wealth people possessed. But as Nathan Thompson, author of Kings: The True Story of Chicago\u2019s Policy Kings and Numbers Racketeers <\/em>(2003), told me, \u201cPolicy was the economic engine that facilitated the progress of the black community.\u201d Many jobs were required to keep the game afloat, and policy subsidized countless businesses and institutions in the community: \u201cBlack hospitals, black banks, black insurance companies, black mom-and-pop grocery stores, black political careers and law careers,\u201d Thompson said. For someone like Mushmouth Johnson, with virtually no education or access to capital, policy was a path to prosperity. As he asked the Chicago Tribune<\/em>, \u201cWhat else is there for a colored man to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Running a saloon and a policy syndicate wasn’t exactly honest work. One gambler said he\u2019d witnessed people pawning their shoes after a bad night at the Emporium, and men \u201cplaying in their underclothing on the proceeds of their outer garments.\u201d But with all the pockets Johnson had to grease, it wasn\u2019t exactly honest pay, either. To understand the fate of any given dollar from Johnson\u2019s enterprises, one must grasp the convoluted state of political corruption in turn-of-the-century Chicago.<\/p>\n

The Emporium was located in Chicago\u2019s First Ward, which at the time was controlled by the so-called Gray Wolves, a group of aldermen who hardly attempted to conceal the depths of their corruption. \u201cBathhouse\u201d John Coughlin and \u201cHinky Dink\u201d Mike Kenna operated gambling houses, brazenly purchased votes, and manipulated public service contracts for personal enrichment.<\/p>\n

If you wanted to move up in the First Ward, you had to get in bed with the Wolves, and that\u2019s what Johnson did. An early appearance in the local papers comes in 1894, during the First Ward elections. \u201cThe gamblers were out in force and were spending money for votes,\u201d said the Chicago Inter Ocean<\/em>. Johnson \u201cwas given to understand that he would have to poll 100 colored votes in his precinct or close up his crap joint.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bond between Johnson and the political machine only tightened with time. Soon, he was collecting $150 a week for police protection from gamblers in Chinatown, money that in turn went to the Wolves. Johnson was subject to the same extortion. With perhaps some exaggeration (he always claimed to be poorer than he was), Johnson said he had to pay four dollars in bribes for every one he took home.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in city hall, Mayor Carter Harrison Jr. was being pressured to reform the city\u2019s vice districts. Although he frequently congratulated himself on his record of reform, Harrison\u2019s efforts were, at best, half-hearted. Taking in a swath of high-profile gamblers in 1903, including Johnson, the Inter Ocean <\/em>noted that \u201cten years ago these men were poor. The bulk of their money has been accumulated during Mayor Harrison\u2019s \u2018reform\u2019 administration.\u201d Every now and then, the mayor would have saloons like the Emporium raided, but these initiatives were seen as mere publicity stunts. It wasn\u2019t until a citizens\u2019 association began pressuring city hall that things started to change, and that would have fateful consequences for the saloons of Whiskey Row.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

The year 1903 began auspiciously for Mushmouth Johnson. For $40,000, he purchased the building across the street from the Emporium. Ultimately, his enduring fortune would reside in real estate. (He claimed, \u201cI bought a lot on a prairie where a town afterwards was located.\u201d) But 1903 would prove the most unlucky year of what he called his \u201ctroubled and busy life.\u201d<\/p>\n

His problems began with a gambler named Thomas Hawkins. This wasn\u2019t the first time Johnson ran afoul of an unhappy Emporium patron. In 1896, he\u2019d been shot by someone who felt he\u2019d been suckered. But Hawkins proved an unusually persistent troublemaker. The two men fell out over an $18.75 bet that Hawkins claimed to have won and Johnson refused to pay. It\u2019s difficult to tell who was in the right, if anyone, but Johnson was often accused of being tightfisted. \u201cFor a man that has got all the coin that Johnson is said to have, he is the closest colored man in the world,\u201d said one gambler.<\/p>\n

The Hawkins quarrel quickly escalated. \u2018MUSHMOUTH\u2019 JOHNSON IN DANGER OF LOSING AN EYE<\/small>, read a headline in October 1903. Johnson had been struck in the face by Hawkins, a blow that shattered his glasses and sent shards into his eyes. (He recovered from the wound.)<\/p>\n

Perhaps fearing retribution, Hawkins became an instrument of the police, and his tip led to a Saturday-night raid of the Emporium. Hawkins was right to have been afraid; less than twenty-four hours after the raid, he was shot through the left arm and breast by a man named Moses Love. From his hospital bed, Hawkins accused Johnson of arranging the attempted murder, though the charges never stuck.<\/p>\n

The whole thing might\u2019ve blown over\u2014just another scuffle on State Street. But the citizens\u2019 association, which was trying to hold the mayor to his reform platform, pressed him into establishing a graft committee to investigate corruption. After the shooting, Hawkins turned state against State Street, offering to testify before the committee that illegal gambling was active at the Emporium. His testimony would give the lie to the mayor\u2019s assertions that Chicago was gambling-free.<\/p>\n

Johnson appears to have felt the committee closing in. He gave an interview to the Tribune <\/em>in which he attempted to get ahead of the charges. \u201cWe used to have a little gambling here,\u201d he told the reporter, but nowadays \u201cthe dust is an inch thick upstairs.\u201d But Johnson hadn’t closed the saloon for the interview, and the Emporium was inconveniently packed. \u201cYou can\u2019t judge by this,\u201d he insisted. \u201cAll the rest of the week it will be like a graveyard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two days later, Johnson\u2019s saloon license was revoked. But this would be about the only thing the graft committee would accomplish. Behind the scenes, Mayor Harrison was expressing anger with the proceedings, and so, despite continued pressure from the citizens\u2019 association, the committee eased off.<\/p>\n

The Emporium had taken the heat for the whole corrupt system. Pointing out that Johnson, unlike the Gray Wolves, had never wavered in his loyalty to the mayor, the Inter Ocean <\/em>said he\u2019d nevertheless been \u201csacrificed on the altar of political expediency.\u201d The Tribune <\/em>printed an exultant limerick: \u201cMushmouth Johnson sat on a wall \/ Mushmouth Johnson had a great fall.\u201d Meanwhile, as one member of the committee said, \u201cThe big fellows have not been reached.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson might\u2019ve fallen, but he managed to stick the landing. A few months later, one of the attorneys of the graft committee encountered Johnson at a convention hall. After giving the attorney a warm handshake, Johnson introduced himself: \u201cYou and your graft committee had my license revoked. I didn\u2019t think you could get it, but you did. My name is Mushmouth Johnson, and I want to congratulate you. I like a man who\u2019s game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon enough, other issues consumed city hall\u2019s attention, most spectacularly the Iroquois Theatre fire, in which more than six hundred people died. (It remains the deadliest single-building fire in American history.) Corruption had touched even the fire inspectors of Chicago, who\u2019d overlooked building code violations at the Iroquois, and the mayor was embroiled in a scandal that went international. Everyone forgot about Johnson, and the roulette wheel started spinning at the Emporium once again.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

When Johnson gave an interview in 1907, it seemed like frivolous fun. He was announcing his retirement and bidding farewell to Chicago. Claiming he had only a fraction of his once-great fortune, Johnson said he\u2019d take a trip around the world with what remained. \u201cYou\u2019ll hear from me down in Africa shootin\u2019 craps,\u201d he said, unaware of what this interview would trigger.<\/p>\n

UNIVERSITY SOCIETY GIRL PROVES NEGRESS,<\/small> the papers said on July 26, 1907. At the time, Johnson\u2019s sister Cecilia was pursuing her masters in history at the University of Chicago. By all accounts, Cecilia was deeply intelligent and intensely charismatic. An eminent member of the Phi Delta Phi sorority, she cut a glamorous figure on campus. She bought the best editions of all her schoolbooks, and during the city\u2019s streetcar strike rode to campus in a carriage with a liveried coachman.<\/p>\n

But according to the reports that splashed across front pages all over the country, no one at the university had known she was black. While there was never any effort to conceal the truth, she passed for white. \u201cFeminine jealousy began to arise in the sorority,\u201d the papers reported, both because of Cecilia\u2019s wealth, and because \u201cshe made the biggest \u2018hit\u2019 of the society at the dances.\u201d Her Phi Delta Phi sisters convened their own sort of committee and began investigating her background. When one of them read Johnson\u2019s interview, which was conducted at his home on Wabash Avenue, they recognized the address as Cecilia\u2019s. Not only was she black, she was the sister of a Whiskey Row saloon-keeper, kept in the latest fashions with \u201ctainted money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now relieved of their jealousy, the sorority girls were outraged. \u201cWe never for a brief moment suspected she had colored blood in her veins,\u201d said one, while another added that it was just a tragic situation: \u201cIf it were not for her color, I would willingly have her in my sorority.\u201d Johnson, meanwhile, was disgusted. He\u2019d witnessed every sort of mendacity and hypocrisy in his career, and said Cecilia’s \u201cexposure\u201d only served to expose \u201cChicago\u2019s habits.\u201d He was, he said, \u201cglad that Chicago feels humiliated.\u201d<\/p>\n

But privately, Johnson was crushed by the racist abuse heaped upon Cecilia, who was forced to retreat from the academic world she\u2019d conquered, and whom he regarded as \u201cthe brightest and most lovely thing\u201d in his life. In September of that year, he was traveling to Kentucky from Atlantic City when he took ill with pneumonia, and died on the train. Despite his self-professed poverty, it was said that the Gambling King of Chicago\u2019s fortune amounted to $250,000 (about $6.8 million today).<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

In Negroland<\/em>, Margo Jefferson writes about the black elite of Chicago, which perceived itself as \u201cthe Third Race, poised between the masses of Negroes and all class of Caucasians.\u201d The lower classes of Black people, Jefferson writes, had \u201cloud voices \u2026 brash and garish ways.\u201d Contrasting oneself with them reinforced one\u2019s affiliation with \u201cthe colored elite \u2026 the big families, the old families \u2026 the pioneers.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Mushmouth Johnson wanted to do something positive for the community, he always had to do it indirectly. Whether it was contributing to the Baptist Church or helping to establish an old people\u2019s home, the donation came through his mother or other relatives. His brash and garish ways, or what others called his \u201cunsavory reputation and uncouth demeanor,\u201d offended the black elite and prevented his open participation in civic life.<\/p>\n

But in death, he gradually drifted over the divide. By 1933, his relatives were said to have come from \u201ca pioneer Chicago family.\u201d<\/p>\n

The posthumous esteem is due, in large part, to the illustrious fate of that $250,000 fortune. When Johnson\u2019s sister Dora married Jesse Binga, Chicago\u2019s leading black businessman, local papers called it \u201cthe most elaborate and the most fashionable wedding ever held in the history of the Afro-American race in this city.\u201d Binga received $200,000 of Johnson\u2019s estate, which helped capitalize the Binga State Bank, the first black-owned and operated bank in Chicago.<\/p>\n

In the arts, Johnson\u2019s influence could be felt at the Pekin Theater, which Dempsey Travis called \u201cthe formal cradle of Negro drama in the United States.\u201d The owner, Robert T. Motts, had worked under Johnson, and used that experience to start his own gambling business, which in turn funded the Pekin. And Johnson\u2019s brother Elijah broke off a piece of the family fortune to build the Dreamland Caf\u00e9 right across from Binga\u2019s bank. Musicians like Louis Armstrong, Lil Hardin, King Oliver, and Alberta Hunter helped transform Dreamland into a major showcase of emerging black musical forms during the teens and twenties.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s fortune even helped support the poetry of his nephew, Fenton Johnson, a key forerunner of the Harlem Renaissance. One of Fenton\u2019s most famous poems, \u201cTired,\u201d seems to look back to State Street: \u201cI will go down to the Last Chance Saloon, drink a gallon or two of gin, shoot a game or two of dice.\u201d One can almost hear Mushmouth Johnson\u2019s lament after bribing yet another white Irish politician: \u201cI am tired of work,\u201d Fenton writes, \u201cI am tired of building up somebody else\u2019s civilization.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read more installments of Dice Roll here.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Michael LaPointe is a writer in Toronto. His debut novel,\u00a0<\/em>The Creep, will be published by Random House Canada in 2021.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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