VIOLENT ELECTION

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 162, 5 April 1927, Page 9

VIOLENT ELECTION

FOR CHICAGO MAYORALTY PREPARATIONS FOR RIOT Chicago, April 3. Following on violence in the primary contest, this city, after the most bitterly contested municipal campaign in its history, has appealed to Governor Small, of Illinois, to be prepared to call troops out on Tuesday for the Mayoralty election. Primary interest centres around the contest between William Thompson (Republican) and William Dever (Democrat), the present Mayor. Charges that 10,000 negroes will be used to foment riots during the elections have caused officials to take extraordinary precautions. A total of 105 police rifle squads in • automobiles will tour the streets,' while other police ears carrying thirty-five machine guns will protect the polling places. [The Chicago primary elections for Mayoralty candidates were heljl amid unprecedented rioting at the end of February. Seven men were seriously injured, three election officials were kidnapped, and twenty-six men and a quantity of revolvers and machine guns were captured in a raid on the aldermanic candidate headquarters. All the ballots from one precinct were stolen. In one ward ten fist brawls were reported during the first hour of voting. Police armed with machine guns, sixtv squads of detectives, thousands of watchers, and special guards were unable to cone with the situation. An election official was shot four times.]