BIG BILL BEATEN

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 83, 9 April 1931, Page 11

BIG BILL BEATEN

CHICAGO MAYORALTY

DEMOCRAT ELECTED

TO CLEAN OUT CITY HALL

United Press Association—B.v Electric Telegraph— Copyright. CHICAGO, 7lh April. Anlon J. ("Tone") Cermak, former, Bohemian coal mine mule-driv-er, has administered to Mr. W. H. "Big Bill" Thompson what apparently is die worst beating ever received by a Mayoralty candidate in Chicago. Mr. Cerinak won the election, in which a record number of ballots were cast, by approximately 200,000 votes. Mr. Thompson failed to do as well as was expected, even in sections in which he hoped to iiud most favour. The results also have considerably strengthened the State power of the Democratic Party. The election was quiet and devoid of all disorder except for a few minor fist fights. Mr. Cermak, whose candidacy was markedly dignified compared with Mr. Thompson's, takes office on Friday. He will "clean out the City Hall," and remove from there, as far as possible, all traces of "Tliompsonism." The new Mayor is 5S years of ago, and was born near Prague. He was brought to Chicago at the age of one year, and has earned his own living since he was eleven. CAREER OF A DEMAGOGUE "Big Bill" Thompson's crushing defeat at the poll defeats his crowning ambition, which was to hold office for the fourth term, during World Fair year. "Big Bill" Thompson will lay his record down with any candidate. "Go to it!" he said to the Republican petitioners who sought to nominate him for the primaries last February. His factional enemies, however, were not idle and • the Democrats quietly worked to install Anton J. Cermak, president of Cook County, as their unopposed candidate, for the Mayoralty, thus giving him: a start. Addressing his own loyal ward, "Big Bill," amid tho waving of his "tengallon" hat asked if anyone had built more bridges, widened more miles of street, or equalled him in doubling Chicago's water supply. He enumerated the pledges which he had given at his campaign of four years ago, which, he said, were fulfilled or nearly fulfilled. "I promised to stop them teaching in the public schools that George Washington was a rebel and a traitor," he said. "Well, we moved out Mr. M'Andrew (former Superintendent of Schools) and to prove that he was not an Englishman he went to London and had been there ever since. And George Washington is a hero again in the public schools. "I promised to straighten the river. Well, it is straightened. "I promised to do my best to start a subway. Well, if it was not for the State street stores and a handful of people may be they would be digging now.'' Though controlling City Hall during the Century of' Progress Exhibition in 1933 was the immediate issue, "Big Bill" Thompson was also looking toward the national elections of 1932. He told his followers that the Republican Party needed "a strong candidate liko Coolidge," if it expected to win. in the next Presidential election, and he pledged himsolf to "rebuilding" tho organisation in Chicago with that end in view. "We can and will rebuild the party," he said, "and if we have the right candidate we will elect the next President. "I voted for Calvin Coolidgc from the first to the last roll-call in the last Republican convention, and I hope I get a chance to vote for him in the next, for he is the one that brings us a full dinner pail,- a full treasury, and great prosperity. If you nominate .Calvin Coolidge you will sweep this nation again." William. Hale Thompson, the cowboy politician, Mayor of Chicago in two successive terms from 1915 to 1922," galloped into the political arena in 1927 and for the third time lassooed the Mayoralty of the second largest city in the United States. The unexpected and sensational triumph by which he defeated William .X Denver, up for reelection, by a plurality of 83,092 led political oracles to ponder toward what high office he might be twirling his ropes in the Republican Presidential campaign' next year. The pyrotechnics attendant upon a possible attempt of "Big Bill" to corral tho Presidency stimulated the imagination. Described as a showman who knows his stuff, Thompson in action typifies the modern demagogue. He set* his stage to get tho votes. He reached office in 1915 on the slogan "A prosperous Chicago." He was elected by the largest plurality ever at that time given a Mayoralty candidate in the country. The result was a national sensation. High-minded citizens of the country congratulated Chicago when it elected Denver Mayor in 1923 after eight years of Thompsonism, with disorder and crimo rampant. Thompson left the stage for the dressing-room to get his set and costumes in order for the next show. When he came out of the wings in 1927 he gathered for himself over 400,000 votes at the primaries and sat dowji in the Mayor's chair for another term following the election spectacle of "bombs, ballots, and bullets" which terminated one of the most colourful nnd vituperative- campaigns in history. BORN IN BOSTON. Thompson was born in Boston in ISBB. His timely removal to Chicago when ho was nine days old successfully obliterated any effect of Puritan environment. His mother's grandfather, Stephen F. Hale, was one of the pioneer settlers of tho western city. Ho was one of the men who drew up the corporate charter of tho city and was Chicago's first fire chief. His father, William Halo Thompson, was also active in city affairs and served as colonel of the second Illinois guard. It was intended that William Hale, junr., should go to Yale and follow in his father's footsteps. But instead he journeyed West at 15 and went to punching cattle, returning winters for schooling in the East. Before ho was 21 he had accumulated a "stake" of 30,000 dollars on his own. At the death of his father he returned to Chicago and assumed the management of the Thompson estate. His principal interest was sports. He boxed. He went in for yachting, and was a leading member of the Chicago and Columbia Yacht Clubs. He organised the championship football team of the Chicago Athletic Association, which he captained in 1896. He helped to form the Illinois Athletic Club and the Sportsman's Club of America. A BACK SLAPPBR. Ho still likes to ride police horses and wear :i cowboy hat. He is described us ii big, lumbering man with rather more than one chin. He has a hourly back-slapping manner popular with certain constituents. With children and foreigners he has a particularly friendly manner. He talks with a rough

throaty voice that "curls, to a crest and breaks into waves of picturesque invective.'' He first entered politics in 1900 and was elected alderman from the second ward, then a fashionable district. During this term he inaugurated tho playground movement, Two years later ho was elected -county commissioner, serving two years. It is stated that he then retired" from public life—far enough, anyway, to listen to the counsel, oi Fred Lutidin, leading "boss" of Illinois politics. Lundin, jocularly known as tho "poor Swede," and Thompson became a well matched political team, with Lundin tho director and Thompson the actor. Lundin was still behind him at tho last election. The first act put Thompson in the Mayoralty chair. Succeeding scenes kept him there in tho 1919 election, despite tho cry of reformers. Before the United States entered the war, Thompson won nation-wide attention by his stand against America's participation. He asserted that British propagandists were seeking to force the entry of the United States. When Marshal Joffre and Kene Vivian made their tow of the country he was quoted a3 saying that Chicago was "the sixth German city of the world" ana that it would affront its citizens to invite the French Generals to speak there. He later got out of the- mess by asserting that He had ben misquoted and started libel suits against a number of newspapers. CHICAGO'S BOOSTER. Soon after his election in 1915 he perfected a political alliance ■ with Frank Lowden by which Lowden was to have his support in the race for Governor and Thompson was to be made Republican national committeeman. He later broke with Lowden, when the Jattcr as Governor _ sent militia to Chicago to stop a meeting of pacifists which Mayor Thompson had authorised. Though he went along with tho country after entrance into tho ■ war ho always .expressed regret that they were in it. In 1918 he entered the contest for United States Senator, opposing Senator Medill M'Cormick. Through Lunden's work he carried Chicago, but was defeated down-state. / After his second election ho stated Chicago's pageant of progress. It was a big success, a_s a gesture of a great city calling attention to industry us a help in getting the country back to normalcy. Then he organised the "Chicago Boosters Publicity Club," made up of the city's business men, who subscribed 1,000,000 dollars to tell the world to keep its eyes on Chicago. Billboards were set up all over the country bearing attractive slogans, each signed by "William Hale Thompson, Mayor. All this was in line with tho slogan he invented, "Drop your hammer and get a horn.'' Thompson's political machine began to slip in this term, and in the final smash William Denver had a chance of giving the city what was called four years of good service as its chief. But beneath the placid waters of his Democratic regime there was commotion brewing. William Hale Thompson was about to come on to the stage again for his third Mayoralty snaring act. "AMERICA FIRST." He made "America First" the big issue in a succession of rapid fire attacks against King George and • proBritish Americans. Crowded halls greeted him everywhere and cheered him to the echo. They applauded the settings as well as the actor. Perhaps his stage accessories would include cx-scrvice men on the platform. He would tell his hearers there would be no more cannon fodder sent over to Franco, not while ho was Mayor of Chicago. Remember the 'boys, and vote for Thompson. King George became tho issue of Chicago politics. "We'll make tho King of England keep his snout out of America," said Thompson. "IJhere never was an Englishman that was the equal of an American," said ho. "If there was he could make a million dollars in an hour and a half by beating that brave sailor boy, GeneTunney. But they can't. And John L. Sullivan didn't wait for tho Britishers to come over here. He went over there and beat all the best men they had." Notoriously wet, Thompson is quoted as saying, "I-will break any cop. I catch on the trail of a lonesome pint into a, man's house or car. I will put him on the street and make him catch hold-up men." Thompson also made school textbooks on history a point of attack, alleging that they contained too much pro-British propaganda. • Howover, it appeared in the trial of William M'Andrew, suspended superintendent of schools, accused of pro-British leanings that the administration's first effort to produce acceptable patriotic addenda for history text-books was a failure. Thompson knows how to conduct a campaign that will bring out the votes. Nearly 1,000,000 of Chicago's 1,146,000 voters turned out at the polls last election, and the majority voted for William Hale Thompson. Even while they voted the pyrotechnics continued. More than 100 special police squads were posted through the city. During the first four hours, two election judges wore kidnapped, two voters held up by gangsters with rifles, iive shots fired into a polling booth, and two Democratic precinct clubs bombed. When tho votes were counted, William Hale Thompson walked off the election stage, Mayor of Chicago. There are some disturbed Republicans in Illinois who have been so impressed by the effective use of Thompson's blatant demagogy that they see "the possibilities of another Jacksonian episode" in his bid for the Presidential nomination. But it is one thing to blackmail or stampede the party organisation of a single city or State, and a very different thing to capture the national convention of a. party, most of whose members throughout tho country are opposed to that which Thompson represents.