Editing Lager Beer Riot (section)

==Background==
Chicago's rapid growth in the 1840s and 1850s was largely because of German and Irish Catholic immigrants. Chicago was developing into an attractive opportunity for many immigrants.<ref>Mitrani, Sam. "The Rise of the Chicago Police Department: Class and Conflict, 1850 - 1894." The Rise of the Chicago Police Department: Class and Conflict, 1850 - 1894, University of Illinois Press, 2013, p. 14.</ref> Although the jobs that awaited the immigrant were often poor-paying wage based positions, opportunities were often more promising than that of their home country. The immigrants settled in their own neighborhoods, German immigrants congregating mainly on the North Side, across the Chicago River from City Hall and the older Protestant part of the city. The German settlers worked a six-day week, leaving Sunday as their primary day to socialize; much socialization took place in the small taverns that dotted the North Side of Chicago.<ref name="GregSmith"/> German-language newspapers, such as the [[Illinois Staats-Zeitung]] and social movements like the [[Turners]] and German craft unions gave the German population of Chicago a high degree of social and political cohesiveness.<ref>The German-American radical press: the shaping of a left political culture.... By Elliott Shore, Ken Fones-Wolf, James Philip Danky</ref> Additionally, the [[Forty-Eighters]] among them had previously used demonstrations as a political tool during the European revolutions of 1848.

As in much of the rest of the country, nativist distrust of Catholic influence produced a backlash in the form of the "Know-Nothing" movement. In the election of 1854, the [[Temperance Party]] candidate, Amos Throop, lost by a margin of nearly 20% to [[Isaac Lawrence Milliken]].<ref>{{cite web | last = Walker | first = Thomas | title = Chicago Mayor 1854 | work = Our Campaigns | date = 2008-11-04 | url = http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=486033 | access-date = 2012-06-06}}</ref> Nevertheless, after winning the election, Milliken declared himself in favor of temperance as well.<ref>{{cite book | last = Miller | first = Richard Lawrence | title = Lincoln and His World: The Path to the Presidency, 1854-1860 | publisher = McFarland Press | year = 2012 | location = Jefferson, NC | pages = 64 | ISBN = 0786459298}}</ref> Milliken lost the following year to Levi Boone, the [[Know Nothing|American Party]] candidate. Levi Boone ran on an anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic platform of the Know-Nothing Party, which garnered him enough support to win the election. The Know-Nothing Party nationally had been feeding off the swell of nationalist sentiments brewing in the nation in the 1840s and 1850s.<ref>Levine, Bruce. (2001). Conservatism, Nativism, and Slavery: Thomas R. Whitney and the Origins of the Know-Nothing Party. The Journal of American History. Vol 88, no 2, 455-488.
</ref> In his inauguration speech, Mayor Boone stated, "I cannot be blind to the existence in our midst of a powerful politico-religious organization, all its members owing, and its chief officers bound under an oath of allegiance to the temporal, as well as the spiritual supremacy of a foreign despot."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/history/ct-know-nothing-party-lager-beer-riot-per-flashback-jm-20150925-story.html|title=Chicago's Lager Beer Riot proved immigrants' power|first=Ron|last=Grossman|website=chicagotribune.com}}</ref> Associated with his fear of foreigners, Boone, a [[Baptists|Baptist]] and [[temperance movement in Illinois|temperance]] advocate, believed that the Sabbath was profaned by having drinking establishments open on Sunday.<ref name="BooneSpeech">[https://www.chipublib.org/mayor-levi-day-boone-inaugural-address-1855/ Inauguration Speech of Levi D. Boone]</ref> However, the temperance movement was seen in the eyes of immigrants as a means of control used by the elites to further control the working class. Although Boone's actions were in anticipation of Illinois enacting a [[Maine law]] by referendum that would prohibit the sale of alcohol for recreational purposes, the referendum failed in June 1855, by a statewide vote of 54% to 46%. The following year, after Boone was turned out of office, the prohibition was repealed.

Before 1853, Chicago had only "a small force of armed municipal officers." The Cook County sheriff's office was largely responsible for policing the city, whose constable system "was modeled on the colonial and English systems."<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=The Rise of the Chicago Police Department: Class and Conflict, 1850-1894|last=Mitrani|first=Sam|publisher=University of Illinois Press|year=2013|page=16}}</ref>  Lacking any distinction of their own, elected town constables and night watchmen contributed to the protection of the city.<ref name=":1" /> In response to the inadequacy of the constable system, a police department separate and distinct from municipal courts was established in 1853.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Rise of the Chicago Police Department: Class and Conflict, 1850-1894|last=Mitrani|first=Sam|publisher=University of Illinois Press|year=2013|isbn=9780252038068|pages=19}}</ref> All eighty men who comprised the newly formed Chicago Police department were native born.<ref>{{Cite book|title=History of the Chicago Police Department|last=Flinn|first=John J.|publisher=AMS Press|year=1973|location=New York, NY|pages=70–71}}</ref>{{Clarify|date=June 2019}}