Roger Charles Sullivan (February 3, 1861 – April 14, 1920), was a member of the Cook County Democratic Organization during the early twentieth century.
Biography
He was born in Belvidere, Illinois, in 1861 the child of Irish immigrants.
Sullivan came to Chicago about 1879 to work in the railroad yards on the city's west side. He served only a single term in elective office, as the clerk of the Cook County Probate Court, to which he was elected in 1890. Thereafter, he accumulated influence within the tumultuous Cook County Democratic Party. He supported Grover Cleveland and opposed William Jennings Bryan in 1896, earning the permanent enmity of the Great Commoner.
Sullivan dominated the Illinois Democratic Party for two decades and was a national figure during the age when urban Democratic organizations reached the height of their power and prestige. Sullivan became controversial when he became effectively the chief operating officer of the Ogden Gas Company and the Cosmopolitan Electric Company, about a year after the franchises of which were approved by the city council on 25 February 1895. There is no evidence that Sullivan in any way originated the idea for two companies, and he probably became first involved by convincing his political partner, Mayor John P. Hopkins not to veto the ordinances. The amount he made was reported by the New York Times to be $8,000,000, but the exact amount has been the subject of much speculation. His main political opponent within the local Democratic Party, five-time mayor Carter H. Harrison suggested in his autobiography that each of the original shareholders made about six hundred thousand dollars. However, this was based entirely on rumor and speculation. Shortly after the turn of the century, Sullivan, with the other owners leased much of the Ogden Gas Company's physical assets to People's Gas, the local gas monopoly, and in 1913, he and the others sold their shares outright. The total figures involved are unknown, but were doubtlessly substantial. Before this point, contrary to expectation, both companies began a profitable operation (quashing the belief that they were created to force the local gas monopoly to buy them out). However, by the standards of the time, there was nothing illegal about the franchise. Indeed, it involved many of the city's leading men, including the brother-in-law of Governor John P. Altgeld, who became a shareholder. Sullivan wealth was also derived from a number of independent business investments. The most notable of these was the Sawyer Biscuit Company, a corporation he organized with his brothers and others about 1900. This became one of the nation's leading manufacturers of cookies, crackers, and pastries. It eventually became part of Keebler. Roger C. Sullivan was never indicted for anything, nor even accused of any criminal activity even by his most vehement opponents. He counted among his personal friends such reformers as George Cole of the Municipal Voters League. The historian Forrest McDonald in his work on Samuel Insull has conceded that Sullivan introduced a new approach to municipal politics by forgoing raids on the public till, and confining himself and his associates profits from city contracts and jobs, all within the boundaries of the law. As Edward F. Dunne, progressive Democratic governor of Illinois (1913–1917) and Sullivan's political opponent, acknowledged in his History of Illinois, Sullivan's endorsement of women's suffrage, civil service, the direct primary, and the state regulation of utilities was an important factor in their realization in the state.
In 1902, Sullivan and his chief partner, John P. Hopkins, achieved control of the Illinois state committee. This formed a base for a long-running rivalry with Mayor Carter H. Harrison, (who was forced out of office in 1905, and returned in 1911) Sullivan was elected to the Democratic National Committee in 1906. This signaled his replacement of Hopkins (who retired from active politics) as leader of the faction. He engaged in a long-running feud with William Jennings Bryan that vaulted him to greater national prominence during the first decade of the twentieth century. The feud stemmed supposedly from Bryan's alleged belief that Sullivan's election to the national committee had been engineered through fraudulent means (which was not true), but in reality it was based in Bryan's long-term antipathy to Sullivan that originated in the Chicago Democratic being a leader of the Gold Democrats, who opposed the Great Commoner in 1896 with their own candidate, Illinois' John M. Palmer. Bryan's feud with Sullivan endured for decades, but he was never able to significantly undercut the Chicago's leaders power.