CHICAGO PATRIOTISM.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 31 August 1928, Page 4

CHICAGO PATRIOTISM.

After the resounding defeat of his party at recent elections it must be consolation t'O the Mayor .of 'Chicago to <have won a definite victory on the school-hook issue. Mr Thompson declared that, he would teach King iGeorgo not to “push his snout” into Chicago, and he succeeded first, in dismissing the superintendent of schools, and now in removing from the schools nearly all the histories mentioned at the superintendent’s trial. He has not succeeded in doing everything he set out to do. He tried to purge the public library of all 'pernicious British .propaganda, but received a sharp setback when the public was reminded of the fact that the books included a special gift from Queen Victoria after the disastrous fire that wiped out the infant, city. His success, however, is large enough to be important. 'The man is at once a menace and a joke, but in judging him one must bear in mind )thc political conditions .of 'the city. There is a very large population in Chicago that is anti-British in feeling —at the last census a sixth of the inhabitants were foreign-born, and of the nativeborn half were of foreign parentage—and Mr Thompson is a self-seeking politician with his eye close to the ground. Fair-minded Americans laiugh at him and apologise .for him, and no doubt •ho -will be succeeded sooner or later 'by a mayor who will be worthier of this great city. It is important to note that in the meantime, in the face of his and other apposition in the United States, revision of the old native ideas of the American revolution proceeds, and the general tendency of this movement is to modify greatly the conception of the ■revolting Americans as a band of uniformly hiigh-saulcd patriots with right entirely on their side. In this battle of the hooks historical truth is set against all the forces of tradition and unthinking patriotism, and its advance will necessarily be slow.