The chili queens would sometimes mix other things with chili, I'm sure beans would have been the number one thing. Only actual mention I've found left it open to interpretation as to whether the beans were actually IN the chili or on the side, but I wouldn't see why it wouldn't sometimes be added to the pot to stretch the pot at the end of the night. Have definitely seen it documented the use of peas to stretch it out. But, as we've stated many times on this chili WITHOUT beans thread, those were/are "in addition" to the original chili. It's then chili with beans, or chili with peas. Chili with peas and beans. Chili on top of avocado toast. You don't throw your pantry in the pot and still call it chili. I mean, for all the shit we give Cincy for the Skyline Chili, at least they have the decency to specify by name that it is not actual chili.
I've eaten beans in chili, and it's good. I'm sure I'll do it again. As the chili queens would tell you, and my grandparents etc..., it's a good, inexpensive way to spread out a meal when you're feeding a lot of people. For the chili queens, that meant a little more money. For regular folk, it meant feeding more mouths in the family. But there's no doubt that it takes a chili, or chili con carne, the original, and turns it into something else. From the texture of the beans themselves, to the texture of the gravy. It's just a completely different thing, which is okay, but here on this thread, as the title suggests, we're not talking about that.
As for the tomato part previously mentioned, sure, originally they weren't a part of these recipes. But whenever whatever group it is that decides these things met somewhere around the mid-ish 1900s, and the white smoke emerged from the Alamo, variants with tomatoes/tomato sauce made the cut. Is what it be.