John Dill Robertson

Robertson (center left) rides with Mayor Thompson (center right) in an automobile during a 1915 parade

For seven years, under Mayor William Hale Thompson, Robertson served as City Health Commissioner.[3] He was appointed in 1915,[6] succeeding George B. Young,[7] and served through 1922.[6]

At the same time, Robertson also headed the Chicago Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium.[8] He hired architect Jarvis Hunt to design multiple additions to the complex.[8] Under his direction, in 1916, the sanitarium also added more beds for children.[8]

Robertson worked to cut down on public spitting.[9]

Robertson oversaw the city's health department during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.[10] Ultimately, 8,500 Chicago residents died during the pandemic.[11]

The first local diagnosed cases occurred at Great Lakes Naval Training Center in North Chicago, Illinois on September 8,[12] and, despite all leaves being canceled for enlisted men, the flu found its way to the City of Chicago two weeks later, likely as visitors had not been prohibited at the training base.[11] A week after cases were diagnosed at Great Lakes, cases were diagnosed among Northwestern University's SATC unit,[12] and days after that cases were diagnosed among the Lewis Institute SATC on South Honye Street in Chicago itself.[12]

Robertson's public proclamations greatly underestimated/undersold the severity of the pandemic.[10] On September 21, brushing off fears of the flu spreading from army camps into the city's general population, Robertson declared, “I see no cause for public alarm, but every one developing any symptoms should be careful.".[10] On September 23, due to the number of new cases decreasing at Great Lakes, but at only the beginning of Chicago's outbreak, Robertson insisted that, “We have the Spanish influenza situation well in hand now.”[10][12] On October 7, a full week before the peak of death rates, he was already declaring, “The backbone of the epidemic is broken.”[10]

The city initially only engaged in campaigns to ask Chicagoans to and cover their mouths when coughing and sneezing.[11]

September 16, Robertson made the flu a reportable disease.[12][13]

A public health notice that was displayed in a Chicago theater amid the flu pandemic

The city did not close schools during the pandemic.[11] He opposed dismissing schools, believing that the city's school hygiene program was capable of sufficiently identifying probable cases of infected students who should be sent home and taking care of the healthy pupils remaining in the classrooms.[14] Robertson ordered for any student who coughed or sneezed to be "sent home at once".[11] Robertson urged residents to wear protective masks.[13]

Robertson advised interim general superintendent of the Chicago Police Department John Alcock to have officers stop all "persistent sneezers and coughers" that failed to cover their faces with handkerchiefs. Violators that pledged to obey instructions in the future would be released, but individuals who gave officers trouble would be arrested, lectured on the hazards of the flu, and sent to a judge for arraignment.[12]

Robertson warned the managers and owners of theaters to make sure their consumers used handkerchiefs, threatening to otherwise close their businesses.[12]

Churches, schools, theaters, restaurants, streetcars, and other locations in which people gathered were ordered to maintain proper ventilation.[12]

Robertson suggested commuters walk whenever it was possible in order to avoid overcrowding in public transportation.[15] Laws were passed which banned public spitting and which outlawed smoking on L trains.[15]

On October 1, Robertson ordered a virtual quarantine for all those diagnosed, ordering that they remain at home and have no visitors.[16]

The city waited until cases spiked before closing most public gathering spaces.[11] An Emergency Commission formed to deal with the pandemic.[11] On October 12, the Emergency Commission ordered the cessation of public dancing, determining this necessary due to the "close contact between dancers, the exercise of the dance and the frequent chilling of the body that is to follow”.[11] On October 15, theaters, cinemas, skating rinks, night schools, and lodge halls were ordered closed.[11] On October 18, the commission finally ordered, "all public gatherings not essential to the war, such as banquets, conventions, lectures, social affairs, athletic contests, of a public nature stopped. Music, cabarets and other entertainments stopped in restaurants and cafes. Crowding prohibited in poolrooms, saloons, etc."[11] The 18th, incidentally, happened to be the peak of the pandemic in Chicago.[11]

Churches were permitted, amid the pandemic, to continue holding services, as they were viewed as essential to morale.[11] Robertson, however, requested that church services be short, that windows be kept open throughout the services, and that congregations quickly leave for home as soon as services ended.[17]

On October 12 the Emergency Commission recommended that the Chicago Surface Lines leave streetcar front doors open in order to allow a constant stream of fresh air to enter the cabins.[12] They did not stop a Liberty bond parade from being held the same day, believing it had been too late to cancel it.[12]

The pandemic's worst impact in Chicago was roughly a month long. By October 21, Chicago had received 100,000 doses of influenza vaccine.[17][15]

In November, by which time the Spanish Flu had already greatly infected much of the population and had begun to recede, restrictions were loosened.[11] One ban implemented during the pandemic which remained following it was a prohibition of smoking on public transportation.[11]

Robertson has been accused of scapegoating African Americans coming to the city amid the Great Migration for the city's pandemic.[18]

By January 1919, with the pandemic largely over, Robertson began moving to fix some of the problems revealed by the pandemic. Highest on his priorities was addressing the nursing shortage it had experienced.[12] In February 1919, the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill which would make it easier to become a registered nurse in Illinois.[12]

Litigation occurred in 1921, which greatly weakened the authority of the Health Commissioner of Chicago.[19] The litigation ultimately saw a writ of habeas corpus declared by the Supreme Court of Illinois, which declared that Robertson and epidemiologist Herman Bundesen had been unlawfully restraining a woman, Jennie Barmore, of her liberty by preventing her from leaving her home amid suspicions that she was a carrier of typhoid.[20] Clarence Darrow had been the lawyer representing Barmore.[19] The court found that the health commissioner lacked much authority, since the city had no board of health (as authorized by the state), but instead had itself established a Department of Health. The court decided that the Chicago City Council had no authority to delegate to the Department of Health authority equivalent to what the state would allow them to grant a board of health.[19] Consequently top health official of Chicago would have weakened authority until a board of health was created in Chicago in 1932.[19]

Robertson resigned as Chicago Health Commissioner on February 1, 1922, and Herman Bundesen was appointed his successor.[6][21]

Robertson served President of the Chicago Board of Education.[3] He was appointed by Mayor Thompson to the Board of Education in 1922, and immediately after elected by the body to serve as its president.[22]

In 1923, at a Republican Party banquet held in Sacramento, California, Robertson, leading the Chicago delegation on behalf of the governor and mayor, made it known that he wanted to see the Republican party platform at the 1924 Republican National Convention include a plank relating to public health.[23]

In 1923, his presidency of the Board of Education ended.[4][24][25] He remained on the board, however.[26]

Robertson was appointed President of the West Park Board by Governor Len Small in May of 1924, resigning his seat on the Board of Education in order to take this office.[3][26]

In 1927, as Thompson was staging a political comeback to retake the mayoralty, Robertson split with him and challenged him.[3] He ran first as an opponent in the Republican primary, but withdrew to support Edward R. Litsinger's campaign (at the request of Frederick Lundin).[27] After Thompson won the Republican primary Robertson reentered the race as a third-party candidate, running on a "smash crime rings" platform.[3] he promised to enforce Prohibition while it was still on the books and to smash organized crime in thirty days if elected, comparing gunmen gangs to boils and the bootleg industry to an appendix, and promising to "find another Theodore Roosevelt" as police chief .[28][29] Robertson was still President of the West Parks Board at the time of his mayoral campaign.[30]

In 1930, he resigned as President of the West Parks Board to become the safety and medical director of the Motorists' Association of Chicago.[3][4][31] At notable incident that occurred while he was safety and medical director for this organization was a fist fight he got into with Sidney Gorgham, director of the Chicago Motor Club, at a heated committee hearing of the Illinois General Assembly where Robertson was lobbying on behalf of a law relating to driver's licenses.[4]

In April 1930, he campaigned heavily on behalf of Republican John H. Lyle's campaign for Judge of the Municipal Court of Chicago.[3]