Evening Post. SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1028. "PINEAPPLE POLITICS"

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 129, 2 June 1928, Page 8

Evening Post. SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1028. "PINEAPPLE POLITICS"

"Chicago may now write 'Paid in Full' across her Big Bill" -was the happy comment-of the "New York Evening Post" on the extraordinary i upheaval of public opinion which i made the result of the Republican | primaries in Illinois on the 10th April one of the. great events of recent American politics. Unfortunately Chicago has not yet got quite as far as that, for the Mayoralty of "Big Bill" Thompson was not in issue, and his term has still three years to run. But though his office was not in issue, his personality and his politics were, and so was that tremendous machine of his in which politics, corruption, crime, and every kind of vice that can be profitably farmed are inextricably mixed. A machine when "Big Bill's" resources were pooled with those of two other politicians of the criminal type —State's Attorney Crowe and Governor "Len" Small— was considered to be strong enough to dominate not merely the city but the whole State received a smashing blow. The mere size of the vote was startling to the Americans. These primary elections are usually a rather tame business. They are not directly concerned with election to offices but merely with the selection of candidates to be nominated for the offices. It is difficult for anybody outside of the United States to realise that what brought Chicago to the verge of civil war in March and April was not the strife of Republicans with Democrats but of bne Republican faction with another. During last year's mayoral campaign Republican bombs were reserved by Thompson's supporters for Democratic clubs, and the shooting and the kidnapping was also directed at the other party. But in this last contest it was a rival Republican candidate whom they killed by machine-gun fire and the houses of two other Republican candidates that they wrecked with bombs. The logic of this terrible warfare was well put by the "Chicago Tribune": "They are thieves, liars, murderers, fiends r devils!"—either faction of the Republican Party in Illinois regarding the other faction. Chorus of Democrats: "They're both right." When the city was being "shot up" in this lively fashion the electors had certainly no excuse for the* apathy with which they usually regard a primary election, but the kind of interest aroused'did not seem likely to induce them to vote. Yet1 they turned out in numbers which established a "record" not only for a primary election but for any other. In 1924 President Coolidge beat Mr. Davis, the Democratic candidate in Illinois, by nearly three to one with 1,453,000 votes. This record-breaking total was beaten by more than '200,000 in April, when 1,667,000 Republicans voted at the State primaries. Governor Small, one of "Big Bill's" allies, who had been , the party's choice on two previous occasions, was defeated by more than 400,000 votes. State's Attorney Crowe, the other member of the triumvirate, whose return was regarded by "Big Bill" as so vital that he had said he would resign if it did not come off, was 200,000 votes to the bad. Another important associate, Frank L. Smith, who had been refused admission to the Senate owing to the huge .amount expended to secure his election, suffered defeat by a similar majority. Both in the State and in Chicago itself the whole of "Big Bill's" ticket, which, it is interesting to know, had "America first," and "draft Coolidge" for its leading items, with "King George's snoot" ■on this occasion apparently a poor third, was wrecked as hopelessly as its principal candidates. What is the. explanation of this crushing defeat of a machine which in the preceding April had made Thompson Mayor of Chicago with a majority of 83,000 votes, and seemed to have become more unscrupulous and more violent in the meantime, and also more powerful? It is gratifying to learn that in the opinion of apparently all the authorities the main cause was that the wickedness of the Thompson-Crowe-Small machine had overreached itself, exhausted the almost inexhaustible patience of the American elector, and fired him with the conviction that something must be done. It seems also to be highly probable that the actual turning-point came about a fortnight before polling day: Long practice has made the. citizen of Chicago so familiar with the use of the bomb and the machine-gun as political arguments that he is even supposed to like them. A bomb a day Keeps Chicago gay — is the kind of quip in which this theory finds expression. As a matter of fact even Chicago's murder rale is at present just under one a day, and the bombing rate is lower. The sixtyseven bombs thrown in the city during the five months preceding the 10th April represent a little less than one in two days, but something may be pardoned to poetic license. On the 26th March, however, the explosion of two bombs almost simultaneously reverberated far and wide. One of these "pineapples" had blown away the front porch of the house of Senator Deneen, the antiThompson Republican leader, and smashed all the windows. The second made a hole in the roof of another house and missed the owner by three seconds as he drove his

car into his garage. The peculiar interest of, ihe second explosion was that its victim was Judge John A. Swanson, who was running against Mr. Crowe, ihe present State's Attorney, for the nomination for the office. These bombings naturally made a g?eat slir, but the climax did not come till Mr. Crowe, whose duty it was to prosecute,- made light of the matter. His competitor, Judge Swanson, and Senator Deneen had really arranged these bombings in order to excite public sympathy! This, according to a special correspondent! of the "New York Times,' was the finishing touch. The indignation of "a myriad of Chicagoans" hitherto indifferent was aroused, and the Deneen machine which had previously languished took on new life. Another capital blunder is attributed to "Big Bill" himself. During the Mayoral election he had it all his own way on the platform with his (lowing billingsgate and the caged white rats that he carried about with him to reyjresent the rival candidates, j But in this campaign he had the I stupidity and the brutality to insult the dead mother of "Ed." Lilsinger, one of the Deneen candidates. "Ed.'s" sister at once retorted that "Big Bill" was a liar, and "Ed." himself afterwards took him on with devastating effect. After describing "Big Bill" as "Wilhelm der Grosse" and Governor Len Smith as "King Len," Mr. Litsinger said: j' Thompson does, not need to go to England to kick a king on tho snoot. Why dopsn't ho take a. crack at the snoot of King Len? "America first," says he, is against entangling alliances; yet look how "America firsts" politics is all bound up with crime, bootlegging, gambling, moonshining, and pineapple ! planting. And in language quite worthy of "Big Bill" himself "Ed." Litsinger referred to him as this man with the carcass of a,rhinoceros and the brain of a baboon. ■ In an article on "Pineapple Politics," contributed to the "Nation" (N.Y.), Mr. Frederic Babcock, a writer« on the editorial staff of the "Chicago Tribune," represents Mr. Thompson as "dumbfounded, confounded, frightened for once in his life" by this treatment. The laugh which had been with him on the platform before was against him now, and he lost his nerve and his hold on his audiences. Of "the vice-king of Cicero" (a suburb of Chicago), who has been an even greater power in Chicago than "Big Bill," Mr. Babcock gives a striking sketch:— ' Al Capone, called "Scarface." Ruler of the realm of racketeering. Overlord of tho underworld.' The man to whom 3,000,000 people pay tribute. Seventyfive million dollars annually. The man lin charge of the procurers and the killers who manage 'the elections. . . . Tho votes [at the Mayoral election] had hardly been counted before Al set out to join the city's gambling, prostitution, brewing, moonshining, and bootlogging into one 'vast ring of vice. He succeeded in such spectacular fashion as to arouse the envy of many in tho competition of moro legitimate industry. Len Smith is pleasantly described by the same writer as tho Governor who says he did not steal two-thirds of a million dollars from the State, but put it back anyway. It is a hideous'tyranny that the electors of Illinois have scotched, but they have not killed it yet. i