introvert.net

(From the proceedings of the Chicago City Council, February 15, 1928, p. 2155)

Alderman Mose presented the following ordinance:

Be it ordained by the City Council of the City of Chicago:

Section 1: That Section 1017 of The Chicago Municipal Code of 1922 be and the same is hereby amended to read as follows:

“1017. The Chicago municipal flag. The Chicago municipal flag shall be white, with two blue bars, each taking up a sixth of its space, and set a little less than one-sixth of the way from the top and bottom of the flag, respectively. There shall be two bright red stars with sharp points, five in number, set side by side, close together, next the staff in the middle third of the surface of the flag.”

Section 2: This ordinance shall be in force and effect from and after its passage and approval.

Unanimous consent was given to permit action on said ordinance without reference thereof to a committee.

Alderman Mose moved to pass said ordinance.

The motion prevailed, by yeas and nays as follows:

Yeas– Coughlin, Anderson, Jackons, Cronson, Grossman, Meyering, Govier, Rowan, Wilson, Hartnett, McDonough, O’Toole, Moran, Coyle, Ryan, McKinlay, Prignano, D. A. Horan, Cepak, Toamn, Arvey, J. H. Bowler, Sloan, Maypole, A. J. Horan, Clark, Smith, Petlak, Kaindl, Nusser, Mills, Adamowski, Rings, Chapman, T. J. Bowler, Haffa, Loescher, Feigenbutz, Nelson, Hoellen, Massen, Frankhauser, Mose — 43.

Nays — None.

(from the Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb 3, 1928)

Word that Mayor Thompson has ordered preparation of an ordinance to change the stars in the municipal flag from six point to five point yesterday drew a protest from the flag’s designer, Wallace Rice. Mr. Rice designed the flag in 1917 at the request of the mayor, he said. It is now planned to change the stars so that they will conform to those in the national flag, it was stated.

“I purposely made the stars six pointed,” Mr. Rice said yesterday. “Five point stars are the symbols of states and could manifestly have no place in a municipal flag. Mayor Thompson is making not only himself but the flag ridiculous by ordering the change.”

There are two red stars in the municipal flag and two blue stripes on a white background. The stripes, the color, and the stars all have a detailed symbolism, each point of the stars representing a distinct characteristic of the city, Mr. Rice explained.

The proposed ordinance is to be presented to the city council on Feb. 15, it was reported.

From a 1928 letter by Wallace Rice to a Mr. Ettleson:

To return to the six-pointed stars in the Chicago municipal flag. By the terms of the competition under the rules laid down by the Chicago Flag Commission in 1917, the use of religious symbols, which included the cross, the star and crescent, and the two triangles, one reversed and superimposed, was barred, for obvious reasons. [1] The five-pointed star, symbol of a soverign State, was also considered out of place, for reasons which I hope have been made equally obvious here. Chicago is a city.

After more than four hundred designs had been made by me, I finally struck upon such a six-pointed star as had never appeared in any flag before, peculiarly and singularly a Chicago star, made by a Chicagoan for his greatly loved city, by an American in the tenth generation in this country, whose ancestors had fought against Great Britain, for the most American of American cities. It differs from all other stars in use in European heraldry and in State and National flags and coats-of-arms, and is specifically for and of Chicago and nowhere else on earth because its points are straight and not like the usual heraldric etioile curved like flames, and because these points subtend an angle of only thirty degrees, instead of the sixty degrees subtended in the star made by superimposing a triangle.

1. According my copy of the rules, on file at the Chicago Public Library’s municipal reference collection, no rule specifically bars religious imagery.

Suggestions Submitted for the Guidance and Information of Contestants in the Public Competitive Contest for a Suitable Design of a Municipal Flag for the City of Chicago — Wallace Rice, 1916.

Suggestion 7.

The visibility at distances of the several colors and of the different portions of the flag itself should be taken into account in determining its proportions, rather than divisions of mathematical exactitude. In other words, it is the effect of symmetry, not the mere physical fact, which should be taken into account. The French, for example, after extensive experimentation, divide their tricolor so that the blue next the staff has thirty parts in a hundred, the white in the middle thirty-three parts, and the red in the fly thirty-seven, and thus secure the appearance of an equal division.

I suppose this explains why all the descriptions of the flag have tortured syntax — the “slightly less than a sixth” language. Rice wanted the white and blue stripes to appear to have the same width, and so they must be slightly different.

[In the Chicago Daily Tribune, Apr 4, 1939. p. 12]

Good, Better, Best Streets

Consider Good street, Better street, and Best avenue. The first two ran east from Aberdeen street one and two blocks respectively south of Polk street. They were only a block long. The first was rechristened Hope street in 1935 and is now known as Cabrini street. Best avenue [named Wilton avenue in 1937] is two blocks long running south from Diversey next east of the elevated railroad.

Walter B. Smith

It looks like Better street is now known as Arthington street.