Jacob M. Arvey was born on November 3, 1895 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Arvey was the son of Israel and Bertha (Eisenberg) Arvey, poor Jewish emigrants from Russia. His father, a milk dealer and peddler, moved the family soon after Jacob's birth to the growing Jewish neighborhood on the city's West Side. He died when Jacob was only thirteen years old.
Arvey attended Crane High School and later the John Marshall Law School.
Arvey joined the local Democratic political organization of Mike and Moe Rosenberg, emerging power brokers in West Side Jewish politics. He became a precinct captain for the Rosenbergs and soon after that was named assistant state's attorney for Cook County. In less than two years he left that position to join a law firm headed by a fellow West Sider and noted politician, Joseph Kostner. Kostner, a Czech, lived in the adjoining Bohemian neighborhood; Arvey saw the advantages of forging ethnic alliances.
In 1923, Arvey, under the protective wing of the Rosenbergs, was elected alderman of the predominantly Jewish Twenty-fourth Ward. He served in this post until 1941. In 1934 he succeeded the remaining Rosenberg brother to become Twenty-fourth Ward Democratic committeeman, thereby gaining direct access to the high tribunal of local Democratic politics, the county central committee.
Under Arvey's leadership the Twenty-fourth Ward became the most vote-potent and deliverable Democratic district in the country. Arvey maximized the ward's religious cohesiveness with his own aggressive brand of politics. He combined community and politics into an all-powerful social service machine. Nothing happened in the Twenty-fourth Ward without "Jake's OK. "
Though diminutive in size, Arvey became a giant on Chicago's West Side. An example of Arvey's power can best be seen in the 1936 Democratic gubernatorial primary. The Democratic governor, Henry Horner, had broken with the Democratic organization headed by Chicago's mayor, Ed Kelly, and Democratic county chairman Pat Nash. Horner, a well-known Jewish leader, expected heavy support from the Twenty-fourth Ward. In the name of party loyalty and unity, Arvey supported Horner's non-Jewish opponent, Herman Bundeson, who won an unlikely victory in this overwhelmingly Jewish ward.
Years later Arvey called his anti-Horner decision the most difficult of his political career but, according to Arvey, "I had given my word to the party and I had to keep it. " Throughout the 1930's, Arvey moved up the power ladder in Chicago politics. Journalists began referring to the local Democratic organization as the "Kelly-Nash-Arvey" machine.
In 1941, following the Pearl Harbor bombing, Arvey, age forty-six, resigned from the council to join the Illinois Thirty-third Infantry Division. He served four years as a judge advocate, including two years in the South Pacific, and when he came home in late 1945 he carried the rank of lieutenant colonel. Arvey quickly returned full time to Chicago's political wars. His old friend, Mayor Ed Kelly, appointed Arvey to the patronage-heavy Park District Board. The Democratic machine was sputtering, and several party leaders looking for harmony and leadership persuaded Arvey to become county chairman.
The 1946 general election proved disastrous for local Democrats and convinced Arvey that the party and its organization had to go in a different direction if it wanted to regain its former stature. In the next two years Arvey transformed the leadership and image of local Democratic politics. In late 1946 he convinced Ed Kelly not to seek reelection for a fifth term. Arvey then endorsed a local businessman, Martin Kennelly, for mayor. Kennelly ran as a reformer and with begrudging support from many astonished party leaders won the mayor's race as a "liberal Democrat" in the spring of 1947.
One year later Arvey was at it again. Conventional wisdom said the Illinois Democrats would not be competitive in the 1948 United States Senate and gubernatorial races. Arvey thought otherwise. He orchestrated the party nomination of Paul Douglas, University of Chicago economics professor and antimachine Chicago alderman, for the Senate, and the patrician lawyer Adlai Stevenson for governor. Douglas and Stevenson went on to win their respective statewide races with landslide majorities, putting Arvey at the height of his political power. He was called a "genius" and Democratic savior even though in the same year, 1948, he had unsuccessfully tried to dump the incumbent president, Harry Truman, in favor of war hero Dwight Eisenhower. Arvey's political glow would shine for only a short time.
In 1950 another off-year election disaster rocked the local Democratic party. Corruption charges against a local candidate for sheriff helped cost the seat of Senate Democratic leader Scott Lucas. Arvey accepted responsibility for the defeat and resigned as party chairman. The colonel remained national party committeeman, but a new leader was emerging to challenge his power within the local Democratic party.
By 1955, Richard J. Daley would consolidate party control and the mayoralty under his sole leadership, forcing old-timers like Arvey to the background. Though still considered a player in Chicago politics, Arvey spent the next quarter century enjoying himself as party statesman, civic leader, and fund-raiser for the State of Israel. It was his idea in 1951 that Israel start a bond-sale program in the United States.
Arvey joined various social clubs, including the German-Jewish Standard Club, which in a previous era would have rejected him for his eastern European background. He also prospered as the lead partner in the LaSalle Street law firm of Arvey, Hodes and Mantynbond, and reveled in being called "colonel" by almost everyone in Chicago. Arvey never enjoyed a close relationship with Daley. Both men, in old-school tradition, did not speak openly about the coolness between them, but legend has it that Daley never forgave Arvey for not slating him in 1950 for the office of Cook County board president.
As fate would have it, Arvey outlived Daley by only eight months; the passing of both men ended an era in Chicago politics.
Arvey was a devoted Democrat.
Member of the American Bar Association, member of the Federal Bar Association, member of B'nai B'rith, member of the Jewish War Veterans, member of the American Legion, member of the Navy League, member of the Elks, member of the Freemasons, member of the Odd Fellows, member of the Knights of Pythias, member of the German-Jewish Standard Club.
Arvey enforced his will through hard work, compassion, and, when necessary, a little muscle.
It was said that throughout his life Arvey lived his mother's admonition, "It is never necessary to be rude to anybody. "
In 1916 he married Edith Freeman. They had three children.
